Chapter II: To a Bird at Dawn

O bird that somewhere yonder sings, In the dim hour 'twixt dreams and dawn, Lone in the hush of sleeping things, In some sky sanctuary withdrawn; Your perfect song is too like pain, And will not let me sleep again.

I think you must be more than bird,
A little creature of soft wings,
Not yours this deep and thrilling word--
Some morning planet 'tis that sings;
Surely from no small feathered throat
Wells that august, eternal note.

As some old language of the dead, In one resounding syllable, Says Rome and Greece and all is said-- A simple word a child may spell; So in your liquid note impearled Sings the long epic of the world.

Unfathomed sweetness of your song, With ancient anguish at its core, What womb of elemental wrong, With shudder unimagined, bore Peace so divine--what hell hath trod This voice that softly talks with God!

All silence in one silver flower Of speech that speaks not, save as speaks The moon in heaven, yet hath power To tell the soul the thing it seeks. And pack, as by some wizard's art, The whole within the finite part.

To you, sweet bird, one well might feign-- With such authority you sing So clear, yet so profound, a strain Into the simple ear of spring-- Some secret understanding given Of the hid purposes of Heaven.

And all my life until this day, And all my life until I die, All joy and sorrow of the way, Seem calling yonder in the sky; And there is something the song saith That makes me unafraid of death.

Now the slow light fills all the trees, The world, before so still and strange, With day's familiar presences, Back to its common self must change, And little gossip shapes of song The porches of the morning throng.

Not yours with such as these to vie That of the day's small business sing, Voice of man's heart and of God's sky-- But O you make so deep a thing Of joy, I dare not think of pain Until I hear you sing again.

ALMA VENUS

Only a breath--hardly a breath! The shore Is still a huddled alabaster floor Of shelving ice and shattered slabs of cold, Stern wreckage of the fiercely frozen wave, Gleaming in mailed wastes of white and gold; As though the sea, in an enchanted grave, Of fearful crystal locked, no more shall stir Softly, all lover, to the April moon: Hardly a breath! yet was I now aware Of a most delicate balm upon the air, Almost a voice that almost whispered "soon"!

Not of the earth it was--no living thing Moves in the iron landscape far or near, Saving, in raucous flight, the winter crow, Staining the whiteness with its ebon wing, Or silver-sailing gull, or 'mid the drear Rock cedars, like a summer soul astray, A lone red squirrel makes believe to play, Nibbling the frozen snow.

Not of the earth, that hath not scent nor song, Nor hope of aught, nor memory, nor dream, Nor any speech upon its sullen tongue, Nor any liberty of running stream; Not of the earth, that hath forgot to smile; But, strangely wafted o'er the frozen sea, As from some hidden Cytherean isle, Veil within veil, the sweetness came to me.

Beyond the heaving glitter of the floe, The free blue water sparkles to the sky, Losing itself in brightness; to and fro Long bands of mists trail luminously by, And, as behind a screen, on the sea's rim Hid softnesses of sunshine come and go, And shadowy coasts in sudden glory swim-- O land made out of distance and desire!-- With ports of mystic pearl and crests of fire.

Thence, somewhere in the spaces of the sea, Travelled this halcyon breath presaging Spring; Over the water even now secretly She maketh ready in her hands to bring Blossom and blade and wing; And soon the wave shall ripple with her feet, And her wild hair be blown about the skies,

And with her bosom all the world grow sweet, And blue with the sea-blue of her deep eyes The meadow, like another sea, shall flower, And all the earth be song and singing shower; While watching, in some hollow of the grass By the sea's edge, I may behold her stand, With rosy feet, upon the yellow sand, Pause in a dream, and to the woodland pass.

"AH! DID YOU EVER HEAR THE SPRING"

Ah! did you ever hear the Spring
Calling you through the snow,
Or hear the little blackbird sing
Inside its egg--or go
To that green land where grass begins,
Each tiny seed, to grow?

O have you heard what none has heard,
Or seen what none has seen;
O have you been to that strange land
Where no one else has been!

APRIL

April, half-clad in flowers and showers,
Walks, like a blossom, o'er the land;
She smiles at May, and laughing takes
The rain and sunshine hand in hand.

So gay the dancing of her feet,
So like a garden her soft breath,
So sweet the smile upon her face,
She charms the very heart of death.

The young moon in a trance she holds
Captive in clouds of orchard bloom,
She snaps her fingers at the grave,
And laughs into the face of doom.

Yet in her gladness lurks a fear,
In all her mirth there breathes a sigh,
So soon her pretty flowers are gone--
And ah! she is too young to die!

MAY IS BUILDING HER HOUSE

May is building her house. With apple blooms She is roofing over the glimmering rooms; Of the oak and the beech hath she builded its beams, And, spinning all day at her secret looms, With arras of leaves each wind-swayed wall She pictureth over, and peopleth it all With echoes and dreams, And singing of streams.

May is building her house of petal and blade; Of the roots of the oak is the flooring made, With a carpet of mosses and lichen and clover, Each small miracle over and over, And tender, travelling green things strayed.

Her windows the morning and evening star, And her rustling doorways, ever ajar With the coming and going Of fair things blowing, The thresholds of the four winds are.

May is building her house. From the dust of things
She is making the songs and the flowers and the wings;
From October's tossed and trodden gold
She is making the young year out of the old;
Yea! out of winter's flying sleet
She is making all the summer sweet,
And the brown leaves spurned of November's feet
She is changing back again to spring's.

SHADOW

When leaf and flower are newly made, And bird and butterfly and bee Are at their summer posts again; When all is ready, lo! 'tis she, Suddenly there after soft rain-- The deep-lashed dryad of the shade.

Shadow! the fairest gift of June, Gone like the rose the winter through, Save in the ribbed anatomy Of ebon line the moonlight drew, Stark on the snow, of tower or tree, Like letters of a dead man's rune.

Dew-breathing shade! all summer lies In the cool hollow of thy breast, Thou moth-winged creature darkly fair; The very sun steals down to rest Within thy swaying tendrilled hair, And forest-flicker of thine eyes.

Made of all shapes that flit and sway, And mass, and scatter in the breeze, And meet and part, open and close; Thou sister of the clouds and trees, Thou daintier phantom of the rose, Thou nun of the hot and honeyed day.

Misdeemed art thou of those who hold Darkness thy soul, thy dwelling place Night and its stars; nay! all of light Wert though begot, all flowers thy face, And, hushed in thee, all colours bright Hide from the noon their blue and gold.

Thy voice the song of hidden rills, The sigh deep-bosomed silence heaves From the full heart of happy things,-- The lap of water-lily leaves, The noiseless language of the wings Of evening making strange the hills.

JUNE

We thought that winter, love, would never end,
That the dark year had slain the innocent May,
Nor hoped that your soft hand, this summer day,
Would lie, as now, in mine, beloved friend;
And, like some magic spring, your dream-deep eyes
Hold all the summer skies.

But lo! the world again is mad with flowers, The long white silence spake, small bird by bird, Blade after blade, amid the song of showers, The grass stole back once more, and there was heard The ancient music of the vernal spheres, Half laughter and half tears.

Ah! love, and now too swiftly, like some groom,
Raining hot kisses on his bride's young mouth,
The mad young year, delirious with the South,
Squanders his fairy treasure, bloom on bloom;
Too soon the wild rose hastens to be sweet,
Too swift, O June, thy feet.

Tarry a little, summer, crowd not so All glory and gladness in so brief a day, Teach all thy dancing flowers a step more slow, And bid thy wild musicians softlier play, O hast thou thought, that like a madman spends, The longest summer ends.

GREEN SILENCE

Silence, whose drowsy eyelids are soft leaves,
And whose half-sleeping eyes are the blue flowers,
On whose still breast the water-lily heaves,
For all her speech the whisper of the showers.

Made of all things that in the water sway,
The quiet reed kissing the arrowhead,
The willows murmuring, all a summer day,
"Silence"--sweet word, and ne'er so softly said

As here along this path of brooding peace,
Where all things dream, and nothing else is done
But all such gentle businesses as these
Of leaves and rippling wind, and setting sun

Turning the stream to a long lane of gold,
Where the young moon shall walk with feet of pearl,
And, framed in sleeping lilies, fold on fold,
Gaze at herself, like any mortal girl.

SUMMER SONGS

I

How thick the grass,
How green the shade--
All for love
And lovers made.

Wood-lilies white
As hidden lace--
Open your bodice,
That's their place.

See how the sun-god
Overpowers
The summer lying
Deep in flowers;

With burning kisses
Of bright gold
Fills her young womb
With joy untold;

And all the world
Is lad and lass,
A blue sky
And a couch of grass.

Summer is here--
let us drain
It all! it may
Not come again.

II

How the leaves thicken On the boughs, And the birds make Their lyric vows.

O the beating, breaking
Heart of things,
The pulse and passion--
How it sings.

How it burns and flames
And showers,
Lusts and laughs, flowers
And deflowers.