Chapter IV

Then Earth to them made answer,
As with a slow refrain
Born of the blended voices
Of wind and sun and rain,

"This is the law of being
That links the threefold chain:
The life we give to beauty
Returns to us again."

Resurgam

Lo, now comes the April pageant
And the Easter of the year.
Now the tulip lifts her chalice,
And the hyacinth his spear;
All the daffodils and jonquils
With their hearts of gold are here.
Child of the immortal vision,
What hast thou to do with fear?

When the summons wakes the impulse,
And the blood beats in the vein,
Let no grief thy dream encumber,
No regret thy thought detain.
Through the scented bloom-hung valleys,
Over tillage, wood and plain,
Comes the soothing south wind laden
With the sweet impartial rain.

All along the roofs and pavements
Pass the volleying silver showers,
To unfold the hearts of humans
And the frail unanxious flowers.
Breeding fast in sunlit places,
Teeming life puts forth her powers,
And the migrant wings come northward
On the trail of golden hours.

Over intervale and upland
Sounds the robin's interlude
From his tree-top spire at evening
Where no unbeliefs intrude.
Every follower of beauty
Finds in the spring solitude
Sanctuary and persuasion
Where the mysteries still brood.

Now the bluebird in the orchard,
A warm sighing at the door,
And the soft haze on the hillside,
Lure the houseling to explore
The perennial enchanted
Lovely world and all its lore;
While the early tender twilight
Breathes of those who come no more.

By full brimming river margins
Where the scents of brush fires blow,
Through the faint green mist of springtime,
Dreaming glad-eyed lovers go,
Touched with such immortal madness
Not a thing they care to know
More than those who caught life's secret
Countless centuries ago.

In old Egypt for Osiris,
Putting on the green attire,
With soft hymns and choric dancing
They went forth to greet the fire
Of the vernal sun, whose ardor
His earth children could inspire;
And the ivory flutes would lead them
To the slake of their desire.

In remembrance of Adonis
Did the Dorian maidens sing
Linus songs of joy and sorrow
For the coming back of spring,--
Sorrow for the wintry death
Of each irrevocable thing,
Joy for all the pangs of beauty
The returning year could bring.

Now the priests and holy women
With sweet incense, chant and prayer,
Keep His death and resurrection
Whose new love bade all men share
Immortality of kindness,
Living to make life more fair.
Wakened to such wealth of being,
Who would not arise and dare?

Seeing how each new fulfilment
Issues at the call of need
From infinitudes of purpose
In the core of soul and seed,
Who shall set the bounds of puissance
Or the formulas of creed?
Truth awaits the test of beauty,
Good is proven in the deed.

Therefore, give thy spring renascence,--
Freshened ardor, dreams and mirth,--
To make perfect and replenish
All the sorry fault and dearth
Of the life from whose enrichment
Thine aspiring will had birth;
Take thy part in the redemption
Of thy kind from bonds of earth.

So shalt thou, absorbed in beauty,
Even in this mortal clime
Share the life that is eternal,
Brother to the lords of time,--
Virgil, Raphael, Gautama,--
Builders of the world sublime.
Yesterday was not earth's evening
Every morning is our prime.

All that can be worth the rescue
From oblivion and decay,--
Joy and loveliness and wisdom,--
In thyself, without dismay
Thou shalt save and make enduring
Through each word and act, to sway
The hereafter to a likeness
Of thyself in other clay.

Still remains the peradventure,
Soul pursues an orbit here
Like those unreturning comets,
Sweeping on a vast career,
By an infinite directrix,
Focussed to a finite sphere,--
Nurtured in an earthly April,
In what realm to reappear?

Easter Eve

If I should tell you I saw Pan lately down by the shallows
of Silvermine,
Blowing an air on his pipe of willow, just as the moon began
to shine;
Or say that, coming from town on Wednesday, I met Christ walking
in Ponus Street;
You might remark, "Our friend is flighty! Visions, for want of
enough red meat!"

Then let me ask you. Last December, when there was skating
on Wampanaw,
Among the weeds and sticks and grasses under the hard black
ice I saw
An old mud-turtle poking about, as if he were putting his house
to rights,
Stiff with the cold perhaps, yet knowing enough to prepare
for the winter nights.

And here he is on a log this morning, sunning himself as calm
as you please.
But I want to know, when the lock of winter was sprung of a sudden,
who kept the keys?
Who told old nibbler to go to sleep safe and sound with the
lily roots,
And then in the first warm days of April--out to the sun
with the greening shoots?

By night a flock of geese went over, honking north on the trails
of air,
The spring express--but who despatched it, equipped with speed
and cunning care?
Hark to our bluebird down in the orchard trolling his chant
of the happy heart,
As full of light as a theme of Mozart's--but where did he learn
that more than art?

Where the river winds through grassy meadows, as sure as the
south wind brings the rain,
Sounding his reedy note in the alders, the redwing comes back
to his nest again.
Are these not miracles? Prompt you answer: "Merely the prose
of natural fact;
Nothing but instinct plain and patent, born in the creatures,
that bids them act."

Well, I have an instinct as fine and valid, surely, as that
of the beasts and birds,
Concerning death and the life immortal, too deep for logic,
too vague for words.
No trace of beauty can pass or perish, but other beauty
is somewhere born;
No seed of truth or good be planted, but the yield must grow
as the growing corn.

Therefore this ardent mind and spirit I give to the glowing days
of earth.
To be wrought by the Lord of life to something of lasting import
and lovely worth.
If the toil I give be without self-seeking, bestowed to the limit
of will and power,
To fashion after some form ideal the instant task and the
waiting hour,

It matters not though defeat undo me, though faults betray me
and sorrows scar,
Already I share the life eternal with the April buds and the
evening star.
The slim new moon is my sister now; the rain, my brother; the
wind, my friend.
Is it not well with these forever? Can the soul of man fare
ill in the end?

Now is the Time of Year

Now is the time of year
When all the flutes begin,--
The redwing bold and clear,
The rainbird far and thin.

In all the waking lands
There's not a wilding thing
But knows and understands
The burden of the spring.

Now every voice alive
By rocky wood and stream
Is lifted to revive
The ecstasy, the dream.

For Nature, never old,
But busy as of yore,
From sun and rain and mould
Is making spring once more.

She sounds her magic note
By river-marge and hill,
And every woodland throat
Re-echoes with a thrill.

O mother of our days,
Hearing thy music call.
Teach us to know thy ways
And fear no more at all!

The Redwing

I hear you, Brother, I hear you,
Down in the alder swamp,
Springing your woodland whistle
To herald the April pomp!

First of the moving vanguard,
In front of the spring you come,
Where flooded waters sparkle
And streams in the twilight hum.

You sound the note of the chorus
By meadow and woodland pond,
Till, one after one up-piping,
A myriad throats respond.

I see you, Brother, I see you,
With scarlet under your wing,
Flash through the ruddy maples,
Leading the pageant of spring.

Earth has put off her raiment
Wintry and worn and old,
For the robe of a fair young sibyl.
Dancing in green and gold.

I heed you, Brother. To-morrow
I, too, in the great employ,
Will shed my old coat of sorrow
For a brand-new garment of joy.

The Rainbird

I hear a rainbird singing
Far off. How fine and clear
His plaintive voice comes ringing
With rapture to the ear!

Over the misty wood-lots,
Across the first spring heat,
Comes the enchanted cadence,
So clear, so solemn-sweet.

How often I have hearkened
To that high pealing strain
Across wild cedar barrens,
Under the soft gray rain!

How often I have wondered,
And longed in vain to know
The source of that enchantment,
That touch of human woe!

O brother, who first taught thee
To haunt the teeming spring
With that sad mortal wisdom
Which only age can bring?

Lament

When you hear the white-throat pealing
From a tree-top far away,
And the hills are touched with purple
At the borders of the day;

When the redwing sounds his whistle
At the coming on of spring,
And the joyous April pipers
Make the alder marshes ring;

When the wild new breath of being
Whispers to the world once more,
And before the shrine of beauty
Every spirit must adore;

When long thoughts come back with twilight,
And a tender deepened mood
Shows the eyes of the beloved
Like the hepaticas in the wood;

Ah, remember, when to nothing
Save to love your heart gives heed,
And spring takes you to her bosom,--
So it was with Golden Weed!

Under the April Moon

Oh, well the world is dreaming
Under the April moon,
Her soul in love with beauty,
Her senses all a-swoon!

Pure hangs the silver crescent
Above the twilight wood,
And pure the silver music
Wakes from the marshy flood.

O Earth, with all thy transport,
How comes it life should seem
A shadow in the moonlight,
A murmur in a dream?

The Flute of Spring

I know a shining meadow stream
That winds beneath an Eastern hill,
And all year long in sun or gloom
Its murmuring voice is never still.

The summer dies more gently there,
The April flowers are earlier,--
The first warm rain-wind from the Sound
Sets all their eager hearts astir.

And there when lengthening twilights fall
As softly as a wild bird's wing,
Across the valley in the dusk
I hear the silver flute of spring.

Spring Night

In the wondrous star-sown night,
In the first sweet warmth of spring,
I lie awake and listen
To hear the glad earth sing.

I hear the brook in the wood
Murmuring, as it goes,
The song of the happy journey
Only the wise heart knows.

I hear the trilling note
Of the tree-frog under the hill,
And the clear and watery treble
Of his brother, silvery shrill.

And then I wander away
Through the mighty forest of Sleep,
To follow the fairy music
To the shore of an endless deep.

Bloodroot

When April winds arrive
And the soft rains are here,
Some morning by the roadside
These Fairy folk appear.

We never see their coming,
However sharp our eyes;
Each year as if by magic
They take us by surprise.

Along the ragged woodside
And by the green spring-run,
Their small white heads are nodding
And twinkling in the sun.

They crowd across the meadow
In innocence and mirth,
As if there were no sorrow
In all this wondrous earth.

So frail, so unregarded,
And yet about them clings
A sorcery of welcome,--
The joy of common things.

Perhaps their trail of beauty
Across the pasture sod
In jubilant procession
Is where an angel trod.

Daffodil's Return

What matter if the sun be lost?
What matter though the sky be gray?
There's joy enough about the house,
For Daffodil comes home to-day.

There's news of swallows on the air,
There's word of April on the way,
They're calling flowers within the street,
And Daffodil comes home to-day.

O who would care what fate may bring,
Or what the years may take away!
There's life enough within the hour,
For Daffodil comes home to-day.

Now the Lilac Tree's in Bud

Now the lilac tree's in bud,
And the morning birds are loud.
Now a stirring in the blood
Moves the heart of every crowd.

Word has gone abroad somewhere
Of a great impending change.
There's a message in the air
Of an import glad and strange.

Not an idler in the street,
But is better off to-day.
Not a traveller you meet,
But has something wise to say.

Now there's not a road too long,
Not a day that is not good,
Not a mile but hears a song
Lifted from the misty wood.

Down along the Silvermine
That's the blackbird's cheerful note!
You can see him flash and shine
With the scarlet on his coat.

Now the winds are soft with rain,
And the twilight has a spell,
Who from gladness could refrain
Or with olden sorrows dwell?

White Iris

White Iris was a princess
In a kingdom long ago,
Mysterious as moonlight
And silent as the snow.

She drew the world in wonder
And swayed it with desire,
Ere Babylon was builded
Or a stone laid in Tyre.

Yet here within my garden
Her loveliness appears,
Undimmed by any sorrow
Of all the tragic years.

How kind that earth should treasure
So beautiful a thing--
All mystical enchantment,
To stir our hearts in spring!

The Tree of Heaven

Young foreign-born Ailanthus,
Because he grew so fast,
We scorned his easy daring
And doubted it would last.

But lo, when autumn gathers
And all the woods are old,
He stands in green and salmon,
A glory to behold!

Among the ancient monarchs
His airy tent is spread.
His robe of coronation
Is tasseled rosy red.

With something strange and Eastern,
His height and grace proclaim
His lineage and title
Is that celestial name.

This is the Tree of Heaven,
Which seems to say to us,
"Behold how rife is beauty,
And how victorious!"

Peony

"_Pionia virtutem habet occultam._"
Arnoldus Villanova--1235-1313.

_Arnoldus Villanova
Six hundred years ago
Said Peonies have magic,
And I believe it so.
There stands his learned dictum
Which any boy may read,
But he who learns the secret
Will be made wise indeed._

_Astrologer and doctor
In the science of his day,
Have we so far outstripped him?
What more is there to say?
His medieval Latin
Records the truth for us,
Which I translate--virtutem
Habet occultam--thus:_

She hath a deep-hid virtue
No other flower hath.
When summer comes rejoicing
A-down my garden path,
In opulence of color,
In robe of satin sheen,
She casts o'er all the hours
Her sorcery serene.

A subtile, heartening fragrance
Comes piercing the warm hush,
And from the greening woodland
I hear the first wild thrush.
They move my heart to pity
For all the vanished years,
With ecstasy of longing
And tenderness of tears.

By many names we call her,--
Pale exquisite Aurore,
Luxuriant Gismonda
Or sunny Couronne D'Or.
What matter,--Grandiflora,
A queen in some proud book,
Or sweet familiar Piny
With her old-fashioned look?

The crowding Apple blossoms
Above the orchard wall;
The Moonflower in August
When eerie nights befall;
Chrysanthemum in autumn,
Whose pageantries appear
With mystery and silence
To deck the dying year;

And many a mystic flower
Of the wildwood I have known,
But Pionia Arnoldi
Hath a transport all her own.
For Peony, my Peony,
Hath strength to make me whole,--
She gives her heart of beauty
For the healing of my soul.

_Arnoldus Villanova,
Though earth is growing old,
As long as life has longing
Your guess at truth will hold.
Still works the hidden power
After a thousand springs,--
The medicine for heartache
That lurks in lovely things._

The Urban Pan

Once more the magic days are come
With stronger sun and milder air;
The shops are full of daffodils;
There's golden leisure everywhere.
I heard my Lou this morning shout:
"Here comes the hurdy-gurdy man!"
And through the open window caught
The piping of the urban Pan.

I laid my wintry task aside,
And took a day to follow joy:
The trail of beauty and the call
That lured me when I was a boy.
I looked, and there looked up at me
A smiling, swarthy, hairy man
With kindling eye--and well I knew
The piping of the urban Pan.

He caught my mood; his hat was off;
I tossed the ungrudged silver down.
The cunning vagrant, every year
He casts his spell upon the town!
And we must fling him, old and young,
Our dimes or coppers, as we can;
And every heart must leap to hear
The piping of the urban Pan.

The music swells and fades again,
And I in dreams am far away,
Where a bright river sparkles down
To meet a blue Aegean bay.
There, in the springtime of the world,
Are dancing fauns, and in their van,
Is one who pipes a deathless tune--
The earth-born and the urban Pan.

And so he follows down the block,
A troop of children in his train,
The light-foot dancers of the street
Enamored of the reedy strain.
I hear their laughter rise and ring
Above the noise of truck and van,
As down the mellow wind fades out
The piping of the urban Pan.

The Sailing of the Fleets

Now the spring is in the town,
Now the wind is in the tree,
And the wintered keels go down
To the calling of the sea.

Out from mooring, dock, and slip,
Through the harbor buoys they glide,
Drawing seaward till they dip
To the swirling of the tide.

One by one and two by two,
Down the channel turns they go,
Steering for the open blue
Where the salty great airs blow;

Craft of many a build and trim,
Every stitch of sail unfurled,
Till they hang upon the rim
Of the azure ocean world.

Who has ever, man or boy,
Seen the sea all flecked with gold,
And not longed to go with joy
Forth upon adventures bold?

Who could bear to stay indoor,
Now the wind is in the street,
For the creaking of the oar
And the tugging of the sheet!

Now the spring is in the town,
Who would not a rover be,
When the wintered keels go down
To the calling of the sea?

'Tis May now in New England

'Tis May now in New England
And through the open door
I see the creamy breakers,
I hear the hollow roar.

Back to the golden marshes
Comes summer at full tide,
But not the golden comrade
Who was the summer's pride.

In Early May

O my dear, the world to-day
Is more lovely than a dream!
Magic hints from far away
Haunt the woodland, and the stream
Murmurs in his rocky bed
Things that never can be said.

Starry dogwood is in flower,
Gleaming through the mystic woods.
It is beauty's perfect hour
In the wild spring solitudes.
Now the orchards in full blow
Shed their petals white as snow.

All the air is honey-sweet
With the lilacs white and red,
Where the blossoming branches meet
In an arbor overhead.
And the laden cherry trees
Murmur with the hum of bees.

All the earth is fairy green,
And the sunlight filmy gold,
Full of ecstasies unseen,
Full of mysteries untold.
Who would not be out-of-door,
Now the spring is here once more!

Fireflies

The fireflies across the dusk
Are flashing signals through the gloom--
Courageous messengers of light
That dare immensities of doom.

About the seeding meadow-grass,
Like busy watchmen in the street,
They come and go, they turn and pass,
Lighting the way for Beauty's feet.

Or up they float on viewless wings
To twinkle high among the trees,
And rival with soft glimmerings
The shining of the Pleiades.

The stars that wheel above the hill
Are not more wonderful to see,
Nor the great tasks that they fulfill
More needed in eternity.

The Path to Sankoty

It winds along the headlands
Above the open sea--
The lonely moorland footpath
That leads to Sankoty.

The crooning sea spreads sailless
And gray to the world's rim,
Where hang the reeking fog-banks
Primordial and dim.

There fret the ceaseless currents,
And the eternal tide
Chafes over hidden shallows
Where the white horses ride.

The wistful fragrant moorlands
Whose smile bids panic cease,
Lie treeless and cloud-shadowed
In grave and lonely peace.

Across their flowering bosom,
From the far end of day
Blow clean the great soft moor-winds
All sweet with rose and bay.

A world as large and simple
As first emerged for man,
Cleared for the human drama,
Before the play began.

O well the soul must treasure
The calm that sets it free--
The vast and tender skyline,
The sea-turn's wizardry,

Solace of swaying grasses,
The friendship of sweet-fern--
And in the world's confusion
Remembering, must yearn

To tread the moorland footpath
That leads to Sankoty,
Hearing the field-larks shrilling
Beside the sailless sea.

Off Monomoy

Have you sailed Nantucket Sound
By lightship, buoy, and bell,
And lain becalmed at noon
On an oily summer swell?

Lazily drooped the sail,
Moveless the pennant hung,
Sagging over the rail
Idle the main boom swung;

The sea, one mirror of shine
A single breath would destroy,
Save for the far low line
Of treacherous Monomoy.

Yet eastward there toward Spain,
What castled cities rise
From the Atlantic plain,
To our enchanted eyes!

Turret and spire and roof
Looming out of the sea,
Where the prosy chart gives proof
No cape nor isle can be!

Can a vision shine so clear
Wherein no substance dwells?
One almost harks to hear
The sound of the city's bells.

And yet no pealing notes
Within those belfries be,
Save echoes from the throats
Of ship-bells lost at sea.

For none shall anchor there
Save those who long of yore,
When tide and wind were fair,
Sailed and came back no more.

And none shall climb the stairs
Within those ghostly towers,
Save those for whom sad prayers
Went up through fateful hours.

O image of the world,
O mirage of the sea,
Cloud-built and foam-impearled.
What sorcery fashioned thee?

What architect of dream,
What painter of desire,
Conceived that fairy scheme
Touched with fantastic fire?

Even so our city of hope
We mortal dreamers rear
Upon the perilous slope
Above the deep of fear;

Leaving half-known the good
Our kindly earth bestows,
For the feigned beatitude
Of a future no man knows.

Lord of the summer sea,
Whose tides are in thy hand,
Into immensity
The vision at thy command

Fades now, and leaves no sign,--
No light nor bell nor buoy,--
Only the faint low line
Of dangerous Monomoy.

In St. Germain Street

Through the street of St. Germain
March the tattered hosts of rain,

While the wind with vagrant fife
Whips their chilly ranks to life.

From the window I can see
Their ghostly banners blowing free,

As they pass to where the ships
Crowd about the wharves and slips.

There at day's end they embark
To invade the realms of dark,

And the sun comes out again
In the street of St. Germain.

Pan in the Catskills

They say that he is dead, and now no more
The reedy syrinx sounds among the hills,
When the long summer heat is on the land.
But I have heard the Catskill thrushes sing,
And therefore am incredulous of death,
Of pain and sorrow and mortality.

In these blue canyons, deep with hemlock shade,
In solitudes of twilight or of dawn,
I have been rapt away from time and care
By the enchantment of a golden strain
As pure as ever pierced the Thracian wild,
Filling the listener with a mute surmise.

At evening and at morning I have gone
Down the cool trail between the beech-tree boles,
And heard the haunting music of the wood
Ring through the silence of the dark ravine,
Flooding the earth with beauty and with joy
And all the ardors of creation old.

And then within my pagan heart awoke
Remembrance of far-off and fabled years
In the untarnished sunrise of the world,
When clear-eyed Hellas in her rapture heard
A slow mysterious piping wild and keen
Thrill through her vales, and whispered, "It is Pan!"

A New England June

_These things I remember
Of New England June,
Like a vivid day-dream
In the azure noon,
While one haunting figure
Strays through every scene,
Like the soul of beauty
Through her lost demesne._

Gardens full of roses
And peonies a-blow
In the dewy morning,
Row on stately row,
Spreading their gay patterns,
Crimson, pied and cream,
Like some gorgeous fresco
Or an Eastern dream.

Nets of waving sunlight
Falling through the trees;
Fields of gold-white daisies
Rippling in the breeze;
Lazy lifting groundswells,
Breaking green as jade
On the lilac beaches,
Where the shore-birds wade.

Orchards full of blossom,
Where the bob-white calls
And the honeysuckle
Climbs the old gray walls;
Groves of silver birches,
Beds of roadside fern,
In the stone-fenced pasture
At the river's turn.

_Out of every picture
Still she comes to me
With the morning freshness
Of the summer sea,--
A glory in her bearing,
A sea-light in her eyes,
As if she could not forget
The spell of Paradise._

Thrushes in the deep woods,
With their golden themes,
Fluting like the choirs
At the birth of dreams.
Fireflies in the meadows
At the gate of Night,
With their fairy lanterns
Twinkling soft and bright.

Ah, not in the roses,
Nor the azure noon,
Nor the thrushes' music,
Lies the soul of June.
It is something finer,
More unfading far,
Than the primrose evening
And the silver star;

Something of the rapture
My beloved had,
When she made the morning
Radiant and glad,--
Something of her gracious
Ecstasy of mien,
That still haunts the twilight,
Loving though unseen.

_When the ghostly moonlight
Walks my garden ground,
Like a leisurely patrol
On his nightly round,
These things I remember
Of the long ago,
While the slumbrous roses
Neither care nor know._

The Tent of Noon

Behold, now, where the pageant of high June
Halts in the glowing noon!
The trailing shadows rest on plain and hill;
The bannered hosts are still,
While over forest crown and mountain head
The azure tent is spread.

The song is hushed in every woodland throat;
Moveless the lilies float;
Even the ancient ever-murmuring sea
Sighs only fitfully;
The cattle drowse in the field-corner's shade;
Peace on the world is laid.

It is the hour when Nature's caravan,
That bears the pilgrim Man
Across the desert of uncharted time
To his far hope sublime,
Rests in the green oasis of the year,
As if the end drew near.

Ah, traveller, hast thou naught of thanks or praise
For these fleet halcyon days?--
No courage to uplift thee from despair
Born with the breath of prayer?
Then turn thee to the lilied field once more!
God stands in his tent door.

Children of Dream

The black ash grows in the swampy ground,
The white ash in the dry;
The thrush he holds to the woodland bound,
The hawk to the open sky.

The trout he runs to the mountain brook,
The swordfish keeps the sea;
The brown bear knows where the blueberry grows.
The clover calls the bee.

The locust sings in the August noon,
The frog in the April night;
The iris loves the meadow-land,
The laurel loves the height.

And each will hold his tenure old
Of earth and sun and stream,
For all are creatures of desire
And children of a dream.

Roadside Flowers

We are the roadside flowers,
Straying from garden grounds,--
Lovers of idle hours,
Breakers of ordered bounds.

If only the earth will feed us,
If only the wind be kind,
We blossom for those who need us,
The stragglers left behind.

And lo, the Lord of the Garden,
He makes his sun to rise,
And his rain to fall with pardon
On our dusty paradise.

On us he has laid the duty,--
The task of the wandering breed,--
To better the world with beauty,
Wherever the way may lead.

Who shall inquire of the season,
Or question the wind where it blows?
We blossom and ask no reason.
The Lord of the Garden knows.

The Garden of Saint Rose

This is a holy refuge,
The garden of Saint Rose,
A fragrant altar to that peace
The world no longer knows.

Below a solemn hillside,
Within the folding shade
Of overhanging beech and pine
Its walls and walks are laid.

Cool through the heat of summer,
Still as a sacred grove,
It has the rapt unworldly air
Of mystery and love.

All day before its outlook
The mist-blue mountains loom,
And in its trees at tranquil dusk
The early stars will bloom.

Down its enchanted borders
Glad ranks of color stand,
Like hosts of silent seraphim
Awaiting love's command.

Lovely in adoration
They wait in patient line,
Snow-white and purple and deep gold
About the rose-gold shrine.

And there they guard the silence,
While still from her recess
Through sun and shade Saint Rose looks down
In mellow loveliness.

She seems to say, "O stranger,
Behold how loving care
That gives its life for beauty's sake,
Makes everything more fair!

"Then praise the Lord of gardens
For tree and flower and vine,
And bless all gardeners who have wrought
A resting place like mine!"

The World Voice

I heard the summer sea
Murmuring to the shore
Some endless story of a wrong
The whole world must deplore.

I heard the mountain wind
Conversing with the trees
Of an old sorrow of the hills,
Mysterious as the sea's.

And all that haunted day
It seemed that I could hear
The echo of an ancient speech
Ring in my listening ear.

And then it came to me,
That all that I had heard
Was my own heart in the sea's voice
And the wind's lonely word.

Songs of the Grass