Chapter II: Foreword (2)

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.

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE

THE MAGNOLIA

Deep in the wood, of scent and song the daughter,
Perfect and bright is the magnolia born;
White as a flake of foam upon still water,
White as soft fleece upon rough brambles torn.

Hers is a cup a workman might have fashioned
Of Grecian marble in an age remote.
Hers is a beauty perfect and impassioned,
As when a woman bares her rounded throat.

There is a tale of how the moon, her lover,
Holds her enchanted by some magic spell;
Something about a dove that broods above her,
Or dies within her breast--I cannot tell.

I cannot say where I have heard the story,
Upon what poet's lips; but this I know:
Her heart is like a pearl's, or like the glory
Of moonbeams frozen on the spotless snow.

JOSE SANTOS CHOCANO
(_Translated by John Pierrepont Rice_)

"GO DOWN TO KEW IN LILAC-TIME"

Go down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time;
Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)
And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland;
Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!).

The cherry-trees are seas of bloom and soft perfume and sweet perfume,
The cherry-trees are seas of bloom (and oh, so near to London!)
And there they say, when dawn is high and all the world's a blaze of
sky
The cuckoo, though he's very shy, will sing a song for London.

The Dorian nightingale is rare, and yet they say you'll hear him there
At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!)
The linnet and the throstle, too, and after dark the long halloo
And golden-eyed _tu-whit_, _tu-whoo_ of owls that ogle London.

For Noah hardly knew a bird of any kind that isn't heard
At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!)
And when the rose begins to pout and all the chestnut spires are out
You'll hear the rest without a doubt, all chorussing for London:--

_Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time;
Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)
And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland;
Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)._

ALFRED NOYES

BEYOND

I wonder if the tides of Spring
Will always bring me back again
Mute rapture at the simple thing
Of lilacs blowing in the rain.

If so, my heart will ever be
Above all fear, for I shall know
There is a greater mystery
Beyond the time when lilacs blow.

THOMAS S. JONES, JR.

JUNE

I knew that you were coming, June, I knew that you were coming!
Among the alders by the stream I heard a partridge drumming;
I heard a partridge drumming, June, a welcome with his wings,
And felt a softness in the air half Summer's and half Spring's.

I knew that you were nearing, June, I knew that you were nearing--
I saw it in the bursting buds of roses in the clearing;
The roses in the clearing, June, were blushing pink and red,
For they had heard upon the hills the echo of your tread.

I knew that you were coming, June, I knew that you were coming,
For ev'ry warbler in the wood a song of joy was humming.
I know that you are here, June, I know that you are here--
The fairy month, the merry month, the laughter of the year!

DOUGLAS MALLOCH

JUNE RAPTURE

Green! What a world of green! My startled soul
Panting for beauty long denied,
Leaps in a passion of high gratitude
To meet the wild embraces of the wood;
Rushes and flings itself upon the whole
Mad miracle of green, with senses wide,
Clings to the glory, hugs and holds it fast,
As one who finds a long-lost love at last.
Billows of green that break upon the sight
In bounteous crescendos of delight,
Wind-hurried verdure hastening up the hills
To where the sun its highest rapture spills;
Cascades of color tumbling down the height
In golden gushes of delicious light--
God! Can I bear the beauty of this day,
Or shall I be swept utterly away?

Hush--here are deeps of green, where rapture stills,
Sheathing itself in veils of amber dusk;
Breathing a silence suffocating, sweet,
Wherein a million hidden pulses beat.
Look! How the very air takes fire and thrills
With hint of heaven pushing through her husk.
Ah, joy's not stopped! 'Tis only more intense,
Here where Creation's ardors all condense;
Here where I crush me to the radiant sod,
Close-folded to the very nerves of God.
See now--I hold my heart against this tree.
The life that thrills its trembling leaves thrills me.
There's not a pleasure pulsing through its veins
That does not sting me with ecstatic pains.
No twig or tracery, however fine,
Can bear a tale of joy exceeding mine.

Praised be the gods that made my spirit mad;
Kept me aflame and raw to beauty's touch.
Lashed me and scourged me with the whip of fate;
Gave me so often agony for mate;
Tore from my heart the things that make men glad--
Praised be the gods! If I at last, by such
Relentless means may know the sacred bliss,
The anguished rapture of an hour like this.
Smite me, O Life, and bruise me if thou must;
Mock me and starve me with thy bitter crust,
But keep me thus aquiver and awake,
Enamoured of my life for living's sake!
_This were the tragedy_--that I should pass,
Dull and indifferent through the glowing grass.
And this the reason I was born, I say--
That I might know the passion of this day!

ANGELA MORGAN

COLUMBINES

Late were we sleeping
Deep in the mold,
Clasping and keeping
Yesterday's gold--
Hoardings of sunshine,
Crimson and gold;
Dreaming of light till our dream became
Aureate bells and beakers of flame,--
Splashed with the splendor of wine of flame.
Raindrop awoke us;
Zephyr bespoke us;
Chick-a-dee called us,
Bobolink called us,--
Then we came.

ARTHUR GUITERMAN

THE MORNING-GLORY

Was it worth while to paint so fair
Thy every leaf--to vein with faultless art
Each petal, taking the boon light and air
Of summer so to heart?

To bring thy beauty unto perfect flower,
Then, like a passing fragrance or a smile,
Vanish away, beyond recovery's power--
Was it, frail bloom, worth while?

Thy silence answers: "Life was mine!
And I, who pass without regret or grief,
Have cared the more to make my moment fine,
Because it was so brief.

"In its first radiance I have seen
The sun!--why tarry then till comes the night?
I go my way, content that I have been
Part of the morning light!"

FLORENCE EARLE COATES

THE BLOSSOMY BARROW

Antonio Sarto ees buildin' a wall,
But maybe he nevva gon' feenish at all.
Eet sure wonta be
Teell flower an' tree
An' all kinda growin' theengs sleep een da Fall.

You see, deesa 'Tonio always ees want'
To leeve on a farm, so he buy wan las' mont'.
I s'posa som' day eet be verra nice place,
But shape dat he find eet een sure ees "deesgrace";
Eet's busta so bad he must feexin' eet all,
An' firs' theeng he starta for build ees da wall.
Mysal' I go outa for see heem wan day,
An' dere I am catcha heem sweatin' away;
He's liftin' beeg stones from all parts of hees land
An' takin' dem up to da wall een hees hand!
I say to heem: "Tony, why don'ta you gat
Som' leetla wheel-barrow for halp you weeth dat?"
"O! com' an' I show you w'at's matter," he said,
An' so we go look at hees tools een da shed.
Dere's fina beeg wheel-barrow dere on da floor,
But w'at do you s'pose? From een under da door,
Som' mornin'-glor' vines have creep eento da shed,
An' beautiful flower, all purpla an' red,
Smile out from da vina so pretty an' green
Dat tweest round da wheel an' da sides da machine.
I look at dees Tony an' say to heem: "Wal?"
An' Tony he look back at me an' say: "Hal!
I no can bust up soocha beautiful theeng;
I work weeth my han's eef eet tak' me teell spreeng!"

Antonio Sarto ees buildin' a wall,
But maybe he nevva gon' feenish at all.
Eet sure wonta be
Teell flower an' tree
An' all kinda growin' theengs sleep een da Fall.

T. A. DALY

LARKSPUR

Blue morning and the beloved,
The hill-garden and I ...

Blue morning and the beloved,
Leaning, laughing and plucking,
Plucking wet roses ...

(She among the roses,
I among the larkspur,
Bob-white, warbler, meadowlark, bobolink,
Song, sun,
And still morning air.)

I snipped off a larkspur blossom of china-blue
And held it,
A blossom against the sky ...

And heaven opened out
In one small flower-face ...

And the beloved,
Plucking roses, plucking roses, old-fashioned roses,
Lifted her face
With eyes of china-blue.

(She among the roses,
I among the larkspur,
Bee-hum, brown-mole, downy chick, humming-bird:
Light, dew,
And laughter of my love.)

JAMES OPPENHEIM

THE JULY GARDEN

It's July in my garden; and steel-blue are the globe thistles
And French grey the willows that bow to every breeze;
And deep in every currant bush a robber blackbird whistles
"I'm picking, I'm picking, I'm picking these!"

So off I go to rout them, and find instead I'm gazing
At clusters of delphiniums--the seed was small and brown,
But these are spurs that fell from heaven and caught the most amazing
Colours of the welkin's own as they came hustling down.

And then some roses catch my eye, or may be some Sweet Williams
Or pink and white and purple peals of Canterbury bells
Or pencilled Violas that peep between the three-leaved trilliums
Or red-hot pokers all aglow or poppies that cast spells--

And while I stare at each in turn I quite forget or pardon
The blackbirds--and the blackguards--that keep robbing me of pie;
For what do such things matter when I have so fair a garden
And what is half so lovely as my garden in July?

ROBERT ERNEST VERNEDE

"MID-SUMMER BLOOMS WITHIN OUR QUIET GARDEN-WAYS"

Mid-summer blooms within our quiet garden-ways;
A golden peacock down the dusky alley strays;
Gay flower petals strew
--Pearl, emerald and blue--
The curving slopes of fragrant summer grass;
The pools are clear as glass
Between the white cups of the lily-flowers;
The currants are like jewelled fairy-bowers;
A dazzling insect worries the heart of a rose,
Where a delicate fern a filmy shadow throws,
And airy as bubbles the thousands of bees
Over the young grape-clusters swarm as they please.

The air is pearly, iridescent, pure;
These profound and radiant noons mature,
Unfolding even as odorous roses of clear light;
Familiar roads to distances invite
Like slow and graceful gestures, one by one
Bound for the pearly-hued horizon and the sun.

Surely the summer clothes, with all her arts,
No other garden with such grace and power;
And 'tis the poignant joy close-folded in our hearts
That cries its life aloud from every flaming flower.

EMILE VERHAEREN

POPPIES

O perfect flowers of sweet midsummer days,
The season's emblems ye,
As nodding lazily
Ye kiss to sleep each breeze that near you strays,
And soothe the tired gazer's sense
With lulling surges of your softest somnolence.

Like fairy lamps ye light the garden bed
With tender ruby glow.
Not any flowers that blow
Can match the glory of your gleaming red;
Such sunny-warm and dreamy hue
Before ye lit your fires no garden ever knew.

Bright are the blossoms of the scarlet sage,
And bright the velvet vest
On the nasturtium's breast;
Bright are the tulips when they reddest rage,
And bright the coreopsis' eye;--
But none of all can with your brilliant beauty vie.

O soft and slumberous flowers, we love you well;
Your glorious crimson tide
The mossy walk beside
Holds all the garden in its drowsy spell;
And walking there we gladly bless
Your queenly grace and all your languorous loveliness.

JOHN RUSSELL HAYES

THE GARDEN IN AUGUST

From corn-crib by the level pasture-lands
To knoll where spruce and boulders hide the road
I know it like a book, and when my heart
Is waste and dry and hard and choked with weeds,
I come here till it gently blooms again.
For gardens yield rich fruits that will outlast
The autumn and the winter of the soul,
Richest to him who toils with loving hands.
'Tis delving thus we learn life's secrets told
But to those favored few who dig for them.
The Garden is an intimate and keeps
In touch with us, yet hath its own high moods,
And doth impose them on the mind of man
To shame his pettiness. So do I love
Its shimmering August mood keyed to the sun,
A harlequin of color, birds and bloom.
Nasturtiums, zinnias, balsams, salvias blaze
By vivid dahlias; tiger-lilies burn
In scarlet shadow of Jerusalem-cross;
Beyond the queen-hydrangeas splendid rule
Barbaric marigolds; chrysanthemums
Outshine gladioli, and sunflowers flaunt
Their crests of gold beneath the giant gourds.
Within the arbor, script forgot, I muse,
While gorgeous hollyhocks sway to and fro
To mark the silences, and butterflies
Flit in and out like some bright memory,
And blinding poppies kindle slow watch-fires
Before the golden altar of the sun.

A spell lies on the Garden. Summer sits
With finger on her lips as if she heard
The steps of Autumn echo on the hill.
A hush lies on the Garden. Summer dreams
Of timid crocus thrust through drifted snow.

GERTRUDE HUNTINGTON MCGIFFERT

SUN, CARDINAL, AND CORN FLOWERS

Whence gets Earth her gold for thee,
O Sunflower?
Her woven, yellow locks so fine
Must go to make that gold of thine.

And whence thy red beside the stream,
O Cardinal-flower?
She pricks some vein lies near her heart
That thy rich, ruddy hue may start.

And whence thy blue amid the corn,
O Corn-flower?
Her deep-blue eyes gleam out in glee,
The glories of her work to see.

HANNAH PARKER KIMBALL

SUNFLOWERS

My tall sunflowers love the sun,
Love the burning August noons
When the locust tunes its viol,
And the cricket croons.

When the purple night draws on,
With its planets hung on high,
And the attared winds of slumber
Wander down the sky,

Still my sunflowers love the sun,
Keep their ward and watch and wait
Till the rosy key of morning
Opes the eastern gate.

Then, when they have deeply quaffed
From the brimming cups of dew,
You can hear their golden laughter
All the garden through.

CLINTON SCOLLARD

THE END OF SUMMER

When poppies in the garden bleed,
And coreopsis goes to seed,
And pansies, blossoming past their prime,
Grow small and smaller all the time,
When on the mown field, shrunk and dry,
Brown dock and purple thistle lie,
And smoke from forest fires at noon
Can make the sun appear the moon,
When apple seeds, all white before,
Begin to darken in the core,
I know that summer, scarcely here,
Is gone until another year.

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

A LATE WALK

When I go up through the mowing field,
The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
Half closes the garden path.

And when I come to the garden ground,
The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of the withered weeds
Is sadder than any words.

A tree beside the wall stands bare,
But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
Comes softly rustling down.

I end not far from my going forth
By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
To carry again to you.

ROBERT FROST

COLOR NOTES

The brown of fallen leaves,
The duller brown
Of withered moss
Stubble and bared sheaves,
And pale light filtering down
The fields across.

The gray of slender trees,
The softer gray
Of melting skies.
What sobering ecstasies
One drinks on such a day
With chastened eyes!

CHARLES WHARTON STORK

THE GOLDEN BOWL

I stand upon the broad and rounded summit
Of a high hill
In the full golden flood of an October day
Nearing to twilight.
Below lie bouquets of woods, flat fields,
White strings of roads winding like fairy tales into the distance,
All steeped in sapphire mist like the blue bloom of grapes.
Nearby a scarlet creeper trails a fence,
Nearer a hawthorn tree
Drops its wee crimson apples into the lush green grass.
I stand with head thrown back,
Seeing and breathing deep,
My arms stretched out, in my two hands
I hold a golden bowl.
Luscious fruits fulfil the yellow lustre of its hollow sphere,
Fruits like great gems,
A pear of russet topaz, a ruby peach,
A cluster of grapes--
Amethysts from the dewy cave of night--
A sapphire plum, a garnet apple, emerald nectarine,
And on them lies a rose.

Oh, empty golden bowl I call my soul,
Filled now with the precious fruits of life and time,
Topped with the rosy spray of grace,
A rose,
As though dropped to me from the sky above,
A crowning thing,
Love,
I lift and hold you out,
An offering,
And close my eyes.

MARY MCMILLAN

THE AUTUMN ROSE

A Ghostly visitant, pale Autumn Rose,
Haunting my garden that you once loved well:
Ah, how you queened it ere the sweet June's close,
And blushed anew to hear the zephyrs tell
Your loveliness was fairer than a dream!
But now your pride of beauty is all gone,
And like some poor sad penitent you seem,
Whose drooping head but hides a visage wan
And wasted by the coldness of the world.
Upon your faint sweet breath is borne a sigh,
Within your petals lies a tear impearled;
I hear you to my garden say good-bye.

A sudden wind--the pale rose-petals blow
Hither and yon--or are they flakes of snow?

ANTOINETTE DE COURSEY PATTERSON

INDIAN SUMMER

Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
Ceaseless, insistent.

The grasshopper's horn, and far off, high in the maples
The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence,
Under the moon waning and worn and broken,
Tired with summer.

Let me remember you, voices of little insects,
Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,
Let me remember you, soon will the winter be on us,
Snow-hushed and heartless.

Over my soul murmur your mute benediction,
While I gaze, oh fields that rest after harvest,
As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,
Lest they forget them.

SARA TEASDALE

"FROST TO-NIGHT"

Apple-green west and an orange bar,
And the crystal eye of a lone, one star ...
And, "Child, take the shears and cut what you will.
Frost to-night--so clear and dead-still."

Then, I sally forth, half sad, half proud,
And I come to the velvet, imperial crowd,
The wine-red, the gold, the crimson, the pied,--
The dahlias that reign by the garden-side.

The dahlias I might not touch till to-night!
A gleam of the shears in the fading light,
And I gathered them all,--the splendid throng,
And in one great sheaf I bore them along.

In my garden of Life with its all-late flowers
I heed a Voice in the shrinking hours:
"Frost to-night--so clear and dead-still ..."
Half sad, half proud, my arms I fill.

EDITH M. THOMAS

NOVEMBER NIGHT

Listen ...
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees
And fall.

ADELAIDE CRAPSEY

THE SNOW-GARDENS

Like an empty stage
The gardens are empty and cold;
The marble terraces rise
Like vases that hold no flowers;
The lake is frozen, the fountain still;
The marble walls and the seats
Are useless and beautiful.
Ah, here
Where the wind and the dusk and the snow are
All is silent and white and sad!
Why do I think of you?
Why does your name remorselessly
Strike through my heart?
Why does my soul awaken and shudder?
Why do I seem to hear
Cries as lovely as music?
Surely you never came
Into these pale snow-gardens;
Surely you never stood
Here in the twilight with me;
Yet here I have lingered and dreamed
Of a face as subtle as music,
Of golden hair, and of eyes
Like a child's ...
I have felt on my brow
Your finger-tips, plaintive as music ...
O Wonder of all wonders, O Love--
Wrought of sweet sounds and of dreaming!--
Why do you not emerge
From the lilac pale petals of dusk,
And come to me here in the gardens
Where the wind and the snow are?

Beauty and Peace are here--
And unceasing music--
And a loneliness chill and wistful,
Like the feeling of death.

Like a crystal lily a star
Leans from its leaves of silver
And gleams in the sky;
And golden and faint in the shadows
You wait indistinctly,--
Like a phantom lamp that appears
In the mirror of distance that hovers
By the window at twilight--
You have come--and we stand together,
With questioning eyes--
Dreaming and cold and ghostly
In an empty garden that seems
Like an empty stage.

ZOE AKINS

A SONG FOR WINTER

Speak not of snow and cold and rime
Now they prevail.
Would you have joy in winter-time,
Think of the pale
New green that comes, of blossoming lilacs think,
Larkspur, and borders of the fringed pink.
And sing, if winter grants you heart to sing,
Of summer and of spring.

Would you secure some happiness
In frosty hours,
Trust to the eye external less
Than to the powers
Of inward sight that even now may show
Opaline seas, blue hilltops, and the glow
Of daybreak on the glades where thrushes sing
In summer and in spring.

Gaze not on fettered lake and brook
And sullen skies,
But in your happy memory look
Where beauty lies
As once it was, as it shall be again
When sunshine floods the fields of blowing grain,
And sing, as must who would in winter sing,
Of summer and of spring.

MRS. SCHUYLER VAN RENSSELAER

WINGS AND SONG

"I MEANT TO DO MY WORK TO-DAY"

_I meant to do my work to-day--
But a brown bird sang in the apple-tree
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves were calling me._

_And the wind went sighing over the land,
Tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand--
So what could I do but laugh and go?_

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE

THE HUMMINGBIRD

Through tree-top and clover a-whirr and away!
Hi! little rover, stop and stay.

Merry, absurd, excited wag--
Lilliput-bird in Brobdingnag!

Wild and free as the wild thrush, and warier--
Was ever a bee merrier, airier?

Wings folded so, a second or two--
Was ever a crow more solemn than you?

A-whirr again over the garden, away!
Who calls, little rover, Bird or fay?

Agleam and aglow, incarnate bliss!
What do you know that we humans miss?

In the lily's chalice, what rune, what spell,
In the rose's palace, what do they tell

(When the door you bob in, airily)
That they hush from the robin, hide from the bee?--

Fearing the crew of chatter and song,
And tell to you of the chantless tongue?

Chantless! Ah, yes. Is that the sting
Masked in gay dress and whirring wing?

Faith! But a wing of such airy stuff!
What need to sing? Here's music enough.

A-whirr, and over tree-top, and through!
Hi! little rover, fair travel to you.

Sweet, absurd, excited wag--
Lilliput-bird in Brobdingnag!

HERMANN HAGEDORN

SPRING SONG

Softly at dawn a whisper stole
Down from the Green House on the Hill,
Enchanting many a ghostly bole
And wood song with the ancient thrill.

Gossiping on the countryside,
Spring and the wandering breezes say
God has thrown heaven open wide
And let the thrushes out to-day.

WILLIAM GRIFFITH

NIGHTINGALES

At sunset my brown nightingales
Hidden and hushed all day,
Ring vespers, while the color pales
And fades to twilight gray:
The little mellow bells they ring,
The little flutes they play,
Are soft as though for practising
The things they want to say.
It's when the dark has floated down
To hide and guard and fold,
I know their throats that look so brown,
Are really made of gold.
No music I have ever heard
Can call as sweet as they!
I wonder if it _is_ a bird
That sings within the hidden tree,
Or some shy angel calling me
To follow far away?

GRACE HAZARD CONKLING

THE GOLDFINCH

Down from the sky on a sudden he drops
Into the mullein and juniper tops,
Flushed from his bath in the midsummer shine
Flooding the meadowland, drunk with the wine
Spilled from the urns of the blue, like a bold
Sky-buccaneer in his sable and gold.

Lightly he sways on the pendulous stem,
Vividly restless, a fluttering gem,
Then with a flash of bewildering wings
Dazzles away up and down, and he sings
Clear as a bell at each dip as he flies
Bounding along on the wave of the skies.

Sunlight and laughter, a winged desire,
Motion and melody married to fire,
Lighter than thistle-tuft borne on the wind,
Frailer than violets, how shall we find
Words that will match him, discover a name
Meet for this marvel, this lyrical flame?

How shall we fashion a rhythm to wing with him,
Find us a wonderful music to sing with him
Fine as his rapture is, free as the rollicking
Song that the harlequin drops in his frolicking
Dance through the summer sky, singing so merrily
High in the burning blue, winging so airily?

ODELL SHEPARD

KINFOLK

O, we are Kinfolk, she and I,--
The little mother-bird all brown,
Who broods above her nest on high,
And with her soft, bright eyes looks down
To read the secret of my heart,--
We two from all the world apart!

She dreams there in her swaying nest;
I dream here 'neath my sheltering vine.
The same love stirs her feathered breast
That makes my heart-throb seem divine.
We both dream 'neath the same kind sky,--
The small brown mother-bird, and I.

KATE WHITING PATCH

A MOCKING-BIRD

An arrow, feathery, alive,
He darts and sings,--
Then with a sudden skimming dive
Of striped wings
He finds a pine and, debonair,
Makes with his mate
All birds that ever rested there
Articulate.

The whisper of a multitude
Of happy wings
Is round him, a returning brood,
Each time he sings.
Though heaven be not for them or him
Yet he is wise,
And daily tiptoes on the rim
Of paradise.

WITTER BYNNER

THE CARDINAL-BIRD

Where snow-drifts are deepest he frolics along,
A flicker of crimson, a chirrup of song,
My Cardinal-Bird of the frost-powdered wing,
Composing new lyrics to whistle in Spring.

A plump little prelate, the park is his church;
The pulpit he loves is a cliff-sheltered birch;
And there, in his rubicund livery dressed,
Arranging his feathers and ruffling his crest,

He preaches, with most unconventional glee,
A sermon addressed to the squirrels and me,
Commending the wisdom of those that display
The brightest of colors when heavens are gray.

ARTHUR GUITERMAN

YELLOW WARBLERS

The first faint dawn was flushing up the skies,
When, dreamland still bewildering mine eyes,
I looked out to the oak that, winter-long,--
A winter wild with war and woe and wrong,--
Beyond my casement had been void of song.

And lo! with golden buds the twigs were set,
Live buds that warbled like a rivulet
Beneath a veil of willows. Then I knew
Those tiny voices, clear as drops of dew,
Those flying daffodils that fleck the blue,

Those sparkling visitants from myrtle isles--
Wee pilgrims of the sun, that measured miles
Innumerable over land and sea
With wings of shining inches. Flakes of glee,
They filled that dark old oak with jubilee,

Foretelling in delicious roundelays
Their dainty courtships on the dipping sprays,
How they should fashion nests, mate helping mate,
Of milkweed flax and fern-down delicate,
To keep sky-tinted eggs inviolate.

Listening to those blithe notes, I slipped once more
From lyric dawn through dreamland's open door,
And there was God, Eternal Life that sings
Eternal joy, brooding all mortal things,
A nest of stars, beneath untroubled wings.

KATHARINE LEE BATES

WITCHERY

Out of the purple drifts,
From the shadow sea of night,
On tides of musk a moth uplifts
Its weary wings of white.

Is it a dream or ghost
Of a dream that comes to me,
Here in the twilight on the coast,
Blue cinctured by the sea?

Fashioned of foam and froth--
And the dream is ended soon,
And, lo, whence came the moon-white moth
Comes now the moth-white moon!

FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN

THE SPRING BEAUTIES

The Puritan Spring Beauties stood freshly clad for church;
A Thrush, white-breasted, o'er them sat singing on his perch.
"Happy be! for fair are ye!" the gentle singer told them,
But presently a buff-coat Bee came booming up to scold them.
"Vanity, oh, vanity!
Young maids, beware of vanity!"
Grumbled out the buff-coat Bee,
Half parson-like, half soldierly.

The sweet-faced maidens trembled, with pretty, pinky blushes,
Convinced that it was wicked to listen to the Thrushes;
And when, that shady afternoon, I chanced that way to pass,
They hung their little bonnets down and looked into the grass.
All because the buff-coat Bee
Lectured them so solemnly:--
"Vanity, oh, vanity!
Young maids, beware of vanity!"

HELEN GRAY CONE

THE MOCKING-BIRD

He didn't know much music
When first he come along;
An' all the birds went wonderin'
Why he didn't sing a song.

They primped their feathers in the sun,
An' sung their sweetest notes;
An' music jest come on the run
From all their purty throats!

But still that bird was silent
In summer time an' fall;
He jest set still and listened,
An' he wouldn't sing at all!

But one night when them songsters
Was tired out an' still,
An' the wind sighed down the valley
An' went creepin' up the hill;

When the stars was all a-tremble
In the dreamin' fields o' blue,
An' the daisy in the darkness--
Felt the fallin' o' the dew,--

There come a sound o' melody
No mortal ever heard,
An' all the birds seemed singin'
From the throat o' one sweet bird!

Then the other birds went Mayin'
In a land too fur to call;
For there warn't no use in stayin'
When one bird could sing for all!

FRANK L. STANTON

THE MESSENGER

Bee! tell me whence do you come?
Ten fields away, twenty perhaps,
Have heard your hum.

If you are from the north, you may
Have passed my mother's roof of straw
Upon your way.

If you came from the south you should
Have seen another cottage just
Inside the wood.

And should you go back that way, please
Carry a message to the house
Among the trees.

Say--I will wait her at the rock
Beside the stream, this very night
At eight o'clock.

And ask your queen when you get home
To send my queen the present of
A honey-comb.

JAMES STEPHENS

FIREFLIES

Fireflies, Fireflies, little glinting creatures,
Making night lovely with a rain of gold,
Born of the moonbeams, children all unearthly,
Ah how you vanish from a look too bold!

Fireflies, Fireflies, lovely as our dreams are,
Sewn with such fancies from the years gone by,
Wayward, elusive, as the playful zephyrs,
Hiding mid grasses, gleaming in the sky.

Fireflies, Fireflies, like unto the silent
Brown nuns who gather for the dead to pray,
As theirs your mission; holy, too, your tapers,
Souls of dead flowers lighting on their way.

ANTOINETTE DE COURSEY PATTERSON

JULY MIDNIGHT

Fireflies flicker in the tops of trees,
Flicker in the lower branches,
Skim along the ground.
Over the moon-white lilies
Is a flashing and ceasing of small, lemon-green stars.
As you lean against me,
Moon-white,
The air all about you
Is slit, and pricked, and pointed with sparkles of lemon-green flame
Starting out of a background of great vague trees.

AMY LOWELL

THE CRICKET IN THE PATH

She passed through the shadowy garden, so tall and so white,
Her eyes on the stars and her face like an angel's upturned,
And it seemed to my thought that the dusk round her head with the
light
Of an aureole burned.

But where she had trodden unseeing, I found on the path
A cricket, so frail that her light foot had maimed it, yet strong
To valiantly pipe, tiny hero, a faint aftermath
Of its yesterday song.

And I whispered, "Alas, Little Brother, why must it befall
That the passing of angels but cripples and leaves us to die?
Poor imp of the greensward, God trumpets me clear in thy call;
Thou art braver than I.

"The Bright Ones of Heaven have trodden me down as they passed;
I crawl in their footsteps a trampled and impotent thing.
I know not the reason, nor question henceforth. To the last,
While I live, I will sing."

AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR

REST AT NOON

Now with a re-created mind
Back to the world my way I find;

Fed by the hills one little hour,
By meadow-slope and beechen-bower,

Cedar serene, benignant larch,
Hoar mountains and the azure arch

Where dazzling vapors make vast sport
In God's profound and spacious court.

The universe played with me. Earth
Harped to high heaven her sweetest mirth;

The clouds built castles for my pleasure,
And airy legions without measure

Flung, spindrift-wise, across the sky
To thrill my heart once and to die.

I have held converse with large things;
For cherubim with cooling wings

Brushed me, and gay stars, hid from view,
Called through the arras of the blue

And clapped their hands: "These veils uproll!
And see the comrades of your soul!"

The very flowers that ringed my bed
Their little "God-be-with-you" said,

And every insect, bird and bee
Brought cool cups from eternity.

HERMANN HAGEDORN

ORDER

It is half-past eight on the blossomy bush:
The petals are spread for a sunning;
The little gold fly is scrubbing his face;
The spider is nervously running
To fasten a thread; the night-going moth
Is folding his velvet perfection;
And presently over the clover will come
The bee on a tour of inspection.

PAUL SCOTT MOWRER

THE NIGHT-MOTH

My night-moth, my white moth, out of the fragrant dark
Blowing in and growing like a dim star-spark,
So swift in the shifting of your elfin wings,
So slight in your lighting, as a flower that clings,
As a boat to ride the dew, with sheer up-bearing sails,
Pulsing and breathing, rocked with delicate gales,--
You gleam as a dream, by my window's light,
My white moth, my bright moth, my wandering wraith of night.

From the velvet screening of a great gray cloud
The moon floats swiftly, white and open-browed,
Flooding cloud and water with her shining trail,
Till the night shrinks, sighing, behind the radiant veil;
The night, with her shy soul, to the deep wood slips--
Her shy soul, her high soul, shrine of all the stars;
And you fly, like the sigh from her tender lips,
Athwart the wavering shadows, beating the silver bars;
You fleet in the meeting of the dark and bright,
My light moth, my white moth, spark from the soul of night.

MARION COUTHOUY SMITH

THE BUTTERFLY

O winged brother on the harebell, stay--
Was God's hand very pitiful, the hand
That wrought thy beauty at a dream's demand?
_Yes, knowing I love so well the flowery way,
He did not fling me to the world astray--
He did not drop me to the weary sand,
But bore me gently to a leafy land:
Tinting my wings, He gave me to the day._

Oh, chide no more my doubting, my despair!
I will go back now to the world of men.
Farewell, I leave thee to the world of air,
Yet thou hast girded up my heart again;
For He that framed the impenetrable plan,
And keeps His word with thee, will keep with man.

EDWIN MARKHAM

THE SECRET

O, little bird, you sing
As if all months were June;
Pray tell me ere you go
The secret of your tune?

"I have no hidden word
To tell, nor mystic art;
I only know I sing
The song within my heart!"

ARTHUR WALLACE PEACH

THE GARDENS OF YESTERDAY

THE GARDEN

_Old gardens have a language of their own,
And mine sweet speech to linger in the heart.
A goodly place it is and primly spaced,
With straight box-bordered paths and squares of bloom.
Bay-trees by rows of antique urns tell tales
Of one who loved the gardens Dante loved.
Magnolias edge the placid lily-pool
And flank the sagging seat, whence vista leads
To blaze of rhododendrons banked in green.
Azaleas by the scarlet quince flame up
Against the lustrous grape-vines trellised high
To pigeon-cote and old brick wall where hide
First snowdrops and the bravest violets.
A place of solitudes whose silences
Enfold the heart as an unquiet bird._

GERTRUDE HUNTINGTON MCGIFFERT

OLD HOMES

Old homes among the hills! I love their gardens;
Their old rock fences, that our day inherits;
Their doors, round which the great trees stand like wardens;
Their paths, down which the shadows march like spirits;
Broad doors and paths that reach bird-haunted gardens.

I see them gray among their ancient acres,
Severe of front, their gables lichen-sprinkled,--
Like gentle-hearted, solitary Quakers,
Grave and religious, with kind faces wrinkled,--
Serene among their memory-hallowed acres.

Their gardens, banked with roses and with lilies--
Those sweet aristocrats of all the flowers--
Where Springtime mints her gold in daffodillies,
And Autumn coins her marigolds in showers,
And all the hours are toilless as the lilies.

I love their orchards where the gay woodpecker
Flits, flashing o'er you, like a winged jewel;
Their woods, whose floors of moss the squirrels checker
With half-hulled nuts; and where, in cool renewal,
The wild brooks laugh, and raps the red woodpecker.

Old homes! Old hearts! Upon my soul forever
Their peace and gladness lie like tears and laughter;
Like love they touch me, through the years that sever,
With simple faith; like friendship, draw me after
The dreamy patience that is theirs forever.

MADISON CAWEIN

A PURITAN LADY'S GARDEN

This fairy pleasance in the brake--
This maze run wild of flower and vine--
Our fathers planted for the sake
Of eyes that longed for English gardens
Amid the virgin wastes of pine.

Here, by the broken, moldering wall,
Where still the tiger-lilies ride,
Once grew the crown imperial,
The tall blue larkspur, white Queen Margaret,
Prince's-feather, and mourning bride.

Beyond their pale, a humbler throng,
Grew Bouncing Bet and columbine;
The mountain fringe ran all along
The thick-set hedge of cinnamon roses,
And overhung the eglantine.

And Sunday flowers were here as well--
Adam-and-Eve within their hood,
The stately Canterbury bell,
And, oft in churches breathing fragrance,
The sweet and pungent southernwood.

When ships for England cleared the bay,
If long beside these reefs of foam
She stood, and watched them sail away,
It was her garden first enticed her
To turn, and call this country "home."

SARAH N. CLEGHORN

THE OLD-FASHIONED GARDEN

Among the meadows of the countryside,
From city noise and tumult far away,
Where clover-blossoms spread their fragrance wide
And birds are warbling all the sunny day,
There is a spot which lovingly I prize,
For there a fair and sweet old-fashioned country garden lies.

The gray old mansion down beside the lane
Stands knee-deep in the fields that lie around
And scent the air with hay and ripening grain.
Behind the manse box-hedges mark the bound
And close the garden in, or nearly close,
For on beyond the hollyhocks an olden orchard grows.

So bright and lovely is the dear old place,
It seems as though the country's very heart
Were centered here, and that its antique grace
Must ever hold it from the world apart.
Immured it lies among the meadows deep,
Its flowery stillness beautiful and calm as softest sleep.

The morning-glories ripple o'er the hedge
And fleck its greenness with their tinted foam;
Sweet wilding things, up to the garden's edge
They love to wander from their meadow home,
To take what little pleasure here they may
Ere all their silken trumpets close before the warm midday.

The larkspur lifts on high its azure spires,
And up the arbor's lattices are rolled
The quaint nasturtium's many-colored fires;
The tall carnation's breast of faded gold
Is striped with many a faintly-flushing streak,
Pale as the tender tints that blush upon a baby's cheek.

The old sweet-rocket sheds its fine perfumes,
With golden stars the coreopsis flames,
And here are scores of sweet old-fashioned blooms,
Dear for the very fragrance of their names,--
Poppies and gilly flowers and four-o'clocks,
Cowslips and candytuft and heliotrope and hollyhocks,

Harebells and peonies and dragon-head,
Petunias, scarlet sage and bergamot,
Verbenas, ragged-robins, soft gold-thread,
The bright primrose and pale forget-me-not,
Wall-flowers and crocuses and columbines,
Narcissus, asters, hyacinths, and honeysuckle vines.

* * * * *

A sweet seclusion this of sun and shade,
A calm asylum from the busy world,
Where greed and restless care do ne'er invade,
Nor news of 'change and mart each morning hurled
Round half the globe; no noise of party feud
Disturbs this peaceful spot nor mars its perfect quietude.

But summer after summer comes and goes
And leaves the garden ever fresh and fair;
May brings the tulip, golden June the rose,
And August winds shake down the mellow pear.
Man blooms and blossoms, fades and disappears,--
But scarce a tribute pays the garden to the passing years.

* * * * *

Sweet is the odor of the warm, soft rain
In violet-days when spring opes her green heart;
And sweet the apple trees along the lane
Whose lovely blossoms all too soon depart;
And sweet the brimming dew that overfills
The golden chalices of all the trembling daffodils.

But sweeter far, in this old garden-close
To loiter 'mid the lovely old-time flowers,
To breathe the scent of lavender and rose,
And with old poets pass the peaceful hours.
Old gardens and old poets,--happy he
Whose quiet summer days are spent in such sweet company!

JOHN RUSSELL HAYES

A COLONIAL GARDEN

Down this pathway, through the shade,
Lightly tripped the dainty maid,
In her eyes the smile of June,
On her lips some old sweet tune.
Through yon ragged rows of box,
By that awkward clump of phlox,
To her favorite pansy bed
Like a ray of light, she sped.
Satin slippers trim and neat
Gleamed upon her slender feet;
Round her ankles, deftly tied,
Ribbons crossed from side to side,
Here her pinks, old fashioned, fair,
Breathed their fragrance on the air;
There her fluttering azure gown
Shook the poppy's petals down.
Here a rose, with fond caress,
Stooped to touch a truant tress
From her fillet struggling free,
Scorning its captivity.
There a bed of rue was set
With an edge of mignonette,
And the spicy bergamot
Meshed the frail forget-me-not.
Honeysuckles, hollyhocks,
Bachelor's buttons, four-o'clocks,
Marigolds and blue-eyed grass
Curtsied when the maid did pass.
Now the braggart weeds have spread
Through the paths she loved to tread,
And the creeping moss has grown
O'er yon shattered dial-stone.
Still beside the ruined walks
Some old flowers, on sturdy stalks,
Dream of her whose happy eyes
Roam the fields of paradise.

JAMES B. KENYON

IN MY MOTHER'S GARDEN

There were many flowers in my mother's garden,
Sword-leaved gladiolas, taller far than I,
Sticky-leaved petunias, pink and purple flaring,
Velvet-painted pansies smiling at the sky;

Scentless portulacas crowded down the borders,
White and scarlet-petalled, rose and satin-gold,
Clustered sweet alyssum, lacy-white and scented,
Sprays of gray-green lavender to keep 'til you were old.

In my mother's garden were green-leaved hiding-places,
Nooks between the lilacs--oh, a pleasant place to play!
Still my heart can hide there, still my eyes can dream it,
Though the long years lie between and I am far away;

When the world is hard now, when the city's clanging
Tires my eyes and tires my heart and dust lies everywhere,
I can dream the peace still of the soft wind's blowing,
I can be a child still and hide my heart from care.

Lord, if still that garden blossoms in the sunlight,
Grant that children laugh there now among its green and gold--
Grant that little hearts still hide its memoried sweetness,
Locking one bright dream away for light when they are old!

MARGARET WIDDEMER

TO THE SWEETWILLIAM

I search the poet's honied lines,
And not in vain, for columbines;
And not in vain for other flowers
That sanctify the many bowers
Unsanctified by human souls.
See where the larkspur lifts among
The thousand blossoms finely sung,
Still blossoming in the fragrant scrolls!
Charity, eglantine, and rue
And love-in-a-mist are all in view,
With coloured cousins; but where are you,
Sweetwilliam?

The lily and the rose have books
Devoted to their lovely looks,
And wit has fallen in vital showers
Through England's most miraculous hours
To keep them fresh a thousand years.
The immortal library can show
The violet's well-thumbed folio
Stained tenderly by girls in tears.
The shelf where Genius stands in view
Has brier and daffodil and rue
And love-lies-bleeding; but not you,
Sweetwilliam.

Thus, if I seek the classic line
For marybuds, 'tis, Shakespeare, thine!
And ever is the primrose born
'Neath Goldsmith's overhanging thorn.
In Herrick's breastknot I can see
The apple-blossom, fresh and fair
As when he plucked and put it there,
Heedless of Time's anthology.
So flower by flower comes into view
Kept fadeless by the Olympian dew
For startled eyes; and yet not you,
Sweetwilliam.

* * * * *

Though gods of song have let you be,
Bloom in my little book for me.
Unwont to stoop or lean, you show
An undefeated heart, and grow
As pluckily as cedars. Heat
And cold, and winds that make
Tumbledown sallies, cannot shake
Your resolution to be sweet.
Then take this song, be it born to die
Ere yet the unwedded butterfly
Has glimpsed a darling in the sky,
Sweetwilliam!

NORMAN GALE

ROSE-GERANIUM

A pungent spray of rose-geranium--
A breath of the old life.

It brings up the little five-room cottage where I was born,
And where I grew through a smiling childhood.
The white-bearded grandfather sits in his mended rocking-chair,
His eyes far off, crooning "The Sweet By and By,"
Marked with the tapping of his toe upon the weathered porch-floor,
While the sunshine drizzles through the great oaks.

And there is my grandmother's kneeling figure,
Turning over the rich black earth with her trowel;
And the kind wrinkles on her face, as she says:
"Didn't the pansies do finely this year, Clem?
And the scarlet verbenas, and the larkspurs,
And the row of flaming salvia....
Those roses ... they're Marechal Niels ... my favorites.
And little grandson, smell this spray of rose-geranium--
Just think, when grandmother was a little tiny girl
Her grandmother grew them in her yard!"

CLEMENT WOOD

FOUR O'CLOCKS

It is mid-afternoon. Long, long ago
Each morning-glory sheathed the slender horn
It blew so gayly on the hills of morn,
And fainted in the noontide's fervid glow.

Gone are the dew-drops from the rose's heart--
Gone with the freshness of the early hours,
The songs that filled the air with silver showers,
The lovely dreams that were of morn a part.

Yet still in tender light the garden lies;
The warm, sweet winds are whispering soft and low;
Brown bees and butterflies flit to and fro;
The peace of heaven is in the o'erarching skies.

And here be four-o'clocks, just opening wide
Their many colored petals to the sun,
As glad to live as if the evening dun
Were far away, and morning had not died!

JULIA C. R. DORR

ASKING FOR ROSES

A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master,
With doors that none but the wind ever closes,
Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster;
It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses.

I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary;
"I wonder," I say, "who the owner of those is."
"Oh, no one you know," she answers me airy,
"But one we must ask if we want any roses."

So we must join hands in the dew coming coldly
There in the hush of the wood that reposes,
And turn and go up to the open door boldly,
And knock to the echoes as beggars for roses.

"Pray, are you within there, Mistress Who-were-you?"
'Tis Mary that speaks and our errand discloses.
"Pray are you within there? Bestir you, bestir you!
'Tis summer again; there's two come for roses.

"A word with you, that of the singer recalling--
Old Herrick: a saying that every man knows is
A flower unplucked is but left to the falling,
And nothing is gained by not gathering roses."

We do not loosen our hands' intertwining
(Not caring so very much what she supposes),
There when she comes on us mistily shining
And grants us by silence the boon of her roses.

ROBERT FROST

THE OLD BROCADE

In a black oak chest all carven,
We found it laid,
Still faintly sweet of Lavender,
An old brocade.
With that perfume came a vision,
A garden fair,
Enclosed by great yew hedges;
A Lady there,
Is culling fresh blown lavender,
And singing goes
Up and down the alleys green--
A human rose.
The sun glints on her auburn hair
And brightens, too,
The silver buckles that adorn
Each little shoe.
Her 'kerchief and her elbow sleeves
Are cobweb lace;
Her gown, it is our old brocade,
Worn with a grace.
Methinks I hear its soft frou-frou,
And see the sheen
Of its dainty pink moss-rose buds,
Their leaves soft green,
On a ground of palest shell pink,
In garlands laid;
But long dead the Rose who wore it--
The old brocade.