Chapter M: G. Brereton

STAIRWAYS AND GARDENS

Gardens and Stairways; those are words that thrill me
Always with vague suggestions of delight.
Stairways and Gardens. Mystery and grace
Seem part of their environment; they fill all space
With memories of things veiled from my sight
In some far place.

Gardens. The word is overcharged with meaning;
It speaks of moonlight, and a closing door;
Of birds at dawn--of sultry afternoons.
Gardens. I seem to see low branches screening
A vine-roofed arbor with a leaf-tiled floor
Where sunlight swoons.

Stairways. The word winds upward to a landing,
Then curves and vanishes in space above.
Lights fall, lights rise; soft lights that meet and blend.
Stairways; and some one at the bottom standing
Expectantly with lifted looks of love.
Then steps descend.

Gardens and Stairways. They belong with song--
With subtle scents of perfume, myrrh and musk--
With dawn and dusk--with youth, romance, and mystery,
And times that were and times that are to be.
Stairways and Gardens.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

OLD MOTHERS

I love old mothers--mothers with white hair,
And kindly eyes, and lips grown softly sweet
With murmured blessings over sleeping babes.
There is a something in their quiet grace
That speaks the calm of Sabbath afternoons;
A knowledge in their deep, unfaltering eyes
That far outreaches all philosophy.
Time, with caressing touch, about them weaves
The silver-threaded fairy-shawl of age,
While all the echoes of forgotten songs
Seem joined to lend a sweetness to their speech.
Old mothers!--as they pace with slow-timed step,
Their trembling hands cling gently to youth's strength;
Sweet mothers!--as they pass, one sees again
Old garden-walks, old roses, and old loves.

CHARLES ROSS

PASTURES AND HILLSIDES

SONG FROM "APRIL"

_I know
Where the wind flowers blow!
I know,
I have been
Where the wild honey bees
Gather honey for their queen!_

_I would be
A wild flower,
Blue sky over me,
For an hour ... an hour!
So the wild bees
Should seek and discover me,
And kiss me ... kiss me ... kiss me!
Not one of the dusky dears should miss me!_

_I know
Where the wind flowers blow!
I know,
I have been
Where the little rabbits run
In the warm, yellow sun!_

_Oh, to be a wild flower
For an hour ... an hour ...
In the heather!
A bright flower, a wild flower,
Blown by the weather!_

_I know,
I have been
Where the wild honey bees
Gather Honey for their queen!_

IRENE RUTHERFORD MCLEOD

THE ROAD TO THE POOL

I know a road that leads from town,
A pale road in a Watteau gown
Of wild-rose sprays, that runs away
All fragrant-sandaled, slim and gray.

It slips along the laurel grove
And down the hill, intent to rove,
And crooks an arm of shadow cool
Around a willow-silvered pool.

I never travel very far
Beyond the pool where willows are:
There is a shy and native grace
That hovers all about the place,

And resting there I hardly know
Just where it was I meant to go,
Contented like the road that dozes
In panniered gown of briar roses.

GRACE HAZARD CONKLING

THE WILD ROSE

Summer has crossed the fields, and where she trod
Violets bloom; the dancing wind-flowers nod,
And daisies blossom all across the sod.

She passed the brook, and in their glad surprise
The first forget-me-nots smiled at the skies
And caught the very color of her eyes.

But, sleeping in the meadow-land, she pressed
The dear wild rose so closely to her breast
It stole her heart--and so she loves it best.

CHARLES BUXTON GOING

UP A HILL AND A HILL

Up a hill and a hill there's a sudden orchard-slope,
And a little tawny field in the sun;
There's a gray wall that coils like a twist of frayed-out rope,
And grasses nodding news one to one.

Up a hill and a hill there's a windy place to stand,
And between the apple-boughs to find the blue
Of the sleepy summer sea, past the cliffs of orange sand,
With the white charmed ships sliding through.

Up a hill and a hill there's a little house as gray
As a stone that the glaciers scored and stained;
With a red rose by the door, and a tangled garden-way,
And a face at the window, checker-paned.

I could climb, I could climb, till the shoes fell off my feet,
Just to find that tawny field above the sea!
Up a hill and a hill,--oh, the honeysuckle's sweet!
And the eyes at the window watch for me!

FANNIE STEARNS DAVIS

THE JOYS OF A SUMMER MORNING

The smell of the morning that lurks in the hay,
The swish of the scythe
And the roundelay
Of the meadow-lark as he wings away,
Are the joys of a summer morning.

The daisy's bloom on the meadow's breast,
The wandering bee
And his ceaseless quest
Of the tempting sweets in the clover's crest,
Are the joys of a summer morning.

The lowing kine on a distant hill,
The rollicking fall
Of the near-by rill
And the lazy drone of the ancient mill,
Are the joys of a summer morning.

The feathery clouds in a faultless sky,
The new-risen sun
With its kindly eye
And the woodland breezes floating by,
Are the joys of a summer morning.

HENRY A. WISE WOOD

SOUTH WIND

Where have you been, South Wind, this May-day morning,
With larks aloft, or skimming with the swallow,
Or with blackbirds in a green, sun-glinted thicket?

Oh, I heard you like a tyrant in the valley;
Your ruffian hosts shook the young, blossoming orchards;
You clapped rude hands, hallooing round the chimney,
And white your pennons streamed along the river.

You have robbed the bee, South Wind, in your adventure,
Blustering with gentle flowers; but I forgave you
When you stole to me shyly with scent of hawthorn.

SIEGFRIED SASSOON

TO A WEED

You bold thing! thrusting 'neath the very nose
Of her fastidious majesty, the rose,
Even in the best ordained garden bed,
Unauthorized, your smiling little head!

The gardener, mind! will come in his big boots,
And drag you up by your rebellious roots,
And cast you forth to shrivel in the sun,
Your daring quelled, your little weed's life done.

And when the noon cools, and the sun drops low,
He'll come again with his big wheelbarrow,
And trundle you--I don't know clearly where,
But off, outside the dew, the light, the air.

Meantime--ah, yes! the air is very blue,
And gold the light, and diamond the dew,--
You laugh and courtesy in your worthless way,
And you are gay, ah, so exceeding gay!

You argue in your manner of a weed,
You did not make yourself grow from a seed,
You fancy you've a claim to standing-room,
You dream yourself a right to breathe and bloom.

The sun loves you, you think, just as the rose,
He never scorned you for a weed,--he knows!
The green-gold flies rest on you and are glad,
It's only cross old gardeners find you bad.

You know, you weed, I quite agree with you,
I am a weed myself, and I laugh too,--
Both, just as long as we can shun his eye,
Let's sniff at the old gardener trudging by!

GERTRUDE HALL

THE PASTURE

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha'n't be gone long.--You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf
That's standing by the mother. It's so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha'n't be gone long.--You come too.

ROBERT FROST

THE THISTLE

Ha, prickle-armed knight,
How oft the world hath cursed thee,
Thou pestilence of Earth,
The beldame who hath nursed thee!

Hath hellish Proserpine
Her needs lent to arm thee
That mischief-loving gods,
Pricked sorely, may not harm thee?

Or hath the mirthful Love
Presented thee his pinions
To dress thy tiny seeds,
The curse of man's dominions!

Thou like a maiden art
Who best can find protection
Employed at needlework
From idleness' infection.

And like a prude thou art
When he who loves embraces;
Thou dost repel with thorns
And she with sharper phrases.

And like the wraith thou art
Wherewith my heart is haunted;
Ye both take most delight
Where ye the least are wanted.

MILES M. DAWSON

CLOVER

Little masters, hat in hand,
Let me in your presence stand,
Till your silence solve for me
This your threefold mystery.

Tell me--for I long to know--
How, in darkness there below,
Was your fairy fabric spun,
Spread and fashioned, three in one.

Did your gossips gold and blue,
Sky and Sunshine, choose for you,
Ere your triple forms were seen,
Suited liveries of green?

Can ye--if ye dwelt indeed
Captives of a prison seed--
Like the Genie, once again
Get you back into the grain?

Little masters, may I stand
In your presence, hat in hand,
Waiting till you solve for me
This your threefold mystery?

JOHN B. TABB

WILD GARDENS

On the ripened grass is a bloomy mist
Of silver and rose and amethyst
Where the long June wave has run.

There are glints of copper and tarnished brass,
And hyacinthine flames that pass
From the green fires of the sun.

This web of a thousand gleams and glows
Was woven silently out of the snows
And the patient shine and rain.

It was fashioned cunningly day by day
From the silken spear to the pollened spray
With its folded sheaths of grain.

Oh, garden of grasses deep and wild,
So dear to the vagrant and the child
And the singer of an hour.

To the wayworn soul you give your balm,
Your cup of peace, your stringed psalm,
Your grace of bud and flower.

ADA FOSTER MURRAY

THE DANDELION

O dandelion, rich and haughty,
King of village flowers!
Each day is coronation time,
You have no humble hours.
I like to see you bring a troop
To beat the blue-grass spears,
To scorn the lawn-mower that would be
Like fate's triumphant shears.
Your yellow heads are cut away,
It seems your reign is o'er.
By noon you raise a sea of stars
More golden than before.

VACHEL LINDSAY

JOE-PYEWEED

And the name brings back those kindly hills
And the drowsing life so new to me;
And the welcome that those purple blossoms
With their tiny trumpets blew to me.

Stout and tall, they raised their clustered heads,
Leaping, as a lusty fellow would,
Through the lowlands, down the twisting cow-paths;
Running past the green and yellow wood.

How they come again--those rambling roads;
And the weeds' wild jewels glowing there.
Richer than a Paradise of flowers
Was that bit of pasture growing there.

Weeds--the very names call up those faint
Half-forgotten smells and cries again ...
Weeds--like some old charm, I say them over,
And the rolling Berkshires rise again:

_Basil, Boneset, Toadflax, Tansy,
Weeds of every form and fancy;
Milk-weed, Mullein, Loose-strife, Jewel-weed,
Mustard, Thimble-weed, Tear-thumb (a cruel weed).
Clovers in all sorts--Nonesuch, Melilot;
Staring Buttercups, a bold and yellow lot.
Daisies rioting about the place
With Black-eyed Susan and Queen Anne's Lace...._

Names--they blossom into colored hills;
Hills whose rousing beauty flows to me ...
And with all its soundless, purple trumpets,
Lo, the Joe-Pyeweed still blows to me!

LOUIS UNTERMEYER

TO A DAISY

Slight as thou art, thou art enough to hide
Like all created things, secrets from me,
And stand a barrier to eternity.
And I, how can I praise thee well and wide

From where I dwell--upon the hither side?
Thou little veil for so great mystery,
When shall I penetrate all things and thee,
And then look back? For this I must abide,

Till thou shalt grow and fold and be unfurled
Literally between me and the world.
Then I shall drink from in beneath a spring,

And from a poet's side shall read his book.
O daisy mine, what will it be to look
From God's side even of such a simple thing?

ALICE MEYNELL

A SOFT DAY

A soft day, thank God!
A wind from the south
With a honeyed mouth;
A scent of drenching leaves,
Briar and beech and lime,
White elder-flower and thyme
And the soaking grass smells sweet,
Crushed by my two bare feet,
While the rain drips,
Drips, drips, drips from the eaves.

A soft day, thank God!
The hills wear a shroud
Of silver cloud;
The web the spider weaves
Is a glittering net;
The woodland path is wet,
And the soaking earth smells sweet
Under my two bare feet,
And the rain drips,
Drips, drips, drips from the eaves.

W. M. LETTS

ARBUTUS

Not Spring's
Thou art, but hers,
Most cool, most virginal,
Winter's, with thy faint breath, thy snows
Rose-tinged.

ADELAIDE CRAPSEY

JEWEL-WEED

Thou lonely, dew-wet mountain road,
Traversed by toiling feet each day,
What rare enchantment maketh thee
Appear so gay?

Thy sentinels, on either hand
Rise tamarack, birch, and balsam-fir,
O'er the familiar shrubs that greet
The wayfarer;

But here's a magic cometh new--
A joy to gladden thee, indeed:
This passionate out-flowering of
The jewel-weed,

That now, when days are growing drear,
As Summer dreams that she is old,
Hangs out a myriad pleasure-bells
Of mottled gold!

Thine only, these, thou lonely road!
Though hands that take, and naught restore,
Rob thee of other treasured things,
Thine these are, for

A fairy, cradled in each bloom,
To all who pass the charmed spot
Whispers in warning: "Friend, admire,--
But touch me not!

"Leave me to blossom where I sprung,
A joy untarnished shall I seem;
Pluck me, and you dispel the charm
And blur the dream!"

FLORENCE EARLE COATES

THE WALL

"_Something there is that doesn't like a wall._" (ROBERT FROST)

"Not like a wall?"
I sit above the meadow in the glowing fall
Tracing the grey redoubt from square to square
Which bound the acres harvest-ripe and fair,--
And wonder if it's true?
Nay, ask the sumac and the teeming vine,
That lean upon the boulders,
The crimsoning ivy and the wild woodbine
Whose eager fingers clutch the stony shoulders,
The golden rod, the aster and the rue.
Ask the red squirrel with the chubby cheek
Skipping from stone to stone
By a quick route, his hidden hoard to seek,
Making the little viaduct his own.
Look where the woodchuck lifts a cautious head
Between the rocks close by the cabbage bed;
The honey-bees have built a secret hive
In a forgotten chink;
And there a grey cocoon is tucked away
Shrouding a miracle in mauve and pink
To wait its Easter day.
The wall with pageantry is all alive!

And I who gaze
On the dark border here,
Drawn like a ribbon round the pasture-ways,
Embroidered with the glory of the year,--
Do I not like the wall?
Lo, I remember how in days of old
My grandsire toiled with weariness and pain
To dig the cumbering boulders from the mould;
Piled them in ordered rows again,
Fitting them firm and fast,
A monument to last
Long after his own harried day was past.
He cleared the rocky soil for corn and grain
By which his children throve
To carry on the race.
We live by his life-giving.
I see each stone, rough like his granite face,--
Uncompromising, stern, no slave to love,
Dowered with little grace,
Grim with the hard, unjoyful task of living,
But strong to stand the wrath of storm and time,
And bolts that heaven let fall.
Built of a patriot's prime,--
I love the wall!

ABBIE FARWELL BROWN

BOULDERS

There is a look of wisdom in yon stones,
Great boulders basking in the noonday heat,
Their grimness lightened by a fringe of sweet
Fresh fern or moss or green-gray lichen tones.
While through the glade an insect army drones
And birds from neighboring boughs their notes repeat,
These patriarchs, drowsing as in bliss complete,
Rest on the flowery sward their tranquil bones.

A thousand or ten thousand years ago,
Shattered by frost, or by the torrent's might,
These boulders hurtled from some toppling height
And crashed through forests to the plain below.
Now, reconciled to Nature's gentler mood,
They lie on lowly earth and find it good.

CHARLES WHARTON STORK

AFTERNOON ON A HILL

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun;
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one;

I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes;
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise;

And when lights begin to show
Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down.

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

THE GOLDEN-ROD

O Rod of gold!
O swaying sceptre of the year--
Now frost and cold
Show Winter near,
And shivering leaves grow brown and sere.
The bleak hillside,
And marshy waste of yellow reeds,
And meadows wide
Where frosted weeds
Shake on the damp wind light-winged seeds,
Are decked with thee,--
The lingering Summer's latest grace,
And sovereignty.
Each wind-swept space
Waves thy red gold in Winter's face--
He strives each star,
In stormy pride to lay full low;
But when thy bar
Resists his blow,
Will crown thee with a puff of snow!

MARGARET DELAND

THE PATH THAT LEADS TO NOWHERE

There's a path that leads to nowhere
In a meadow that I know,
Where an inland island rises
And the stream is still and slow;
There it wanders under willows
And beneath the silver green
Of the birches' silent shadows
Where the early violets lean.

Other pathways lead to Somewhere,
But the one I love so well
Had no end and no beginning--
Just the beauty of the dell,
Just the windflowers and the lilies,
Yellow striped as adder's tongue
Seem to satisfy my pathway
As it winds their sweets among.

There I go to meet the Spring-time,
When the meadow is aglow,
Marigolds amid the marshes,--
And the stream is still and slow.--
There I find my fair oasis,
And with care-free feet I tread
For the pathway leads to nowhere,
And the blue is overhead!

All the ways that lead to Somewhere
Echo with the hurrying feet
Of the Struggling and the Striving,
But the way I find so sweet
Bids me dream and bids me linger,
Joy and Beauty are its goal,--
On the path that leads to nowhere
I have sometimes found my soul!

CORINNE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON

LOVERS AND ROSES

THE MESSAGE

_So fair the world about me lies,
So pure is heaven above,
Ere so much beauty dies
I would give a gift to my love;
Now, ere the long day close,
That has been so full of bliss,
I will send to my love the rose,
In its leaves I will shut a kiss;
A rose in the night to perish,
A kiss through life to cherish;
Now, ere the night-wind blows,
I will send unto her the rose._

GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY

"WHERE LOVE IS LIFE"

Where love is life
The roses blow,
Though winds be rude
And cold the snow,
The roses climb
Serenely slow,
They nod in rhyme
We know--we know
Where love is life
The roses blow.

Where life is love
The roses blow,
Though care be quick
And sorrows grow,
Their roots are twined
With rose-roots so
That rosebuds find
A way to show
Where life is love
The roses blow.

DUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT

THE TIME OF ROSES

Love, it is the time of roses!
In bright fields and garden-closes
How they burgeon and unfold!
How they sweep o'er tombs and towers
In voluptuous crimson showers
And untrammelled tides of gold!

How they lure wild bees to capture
All the rich mellifluous rapture
Of their magical perfume,
And to passing winds surrender
And their frail and dazzling splendor
Rivalling your turban-plume!

How they cleave the air adorning
The high rivers of the morning
In a blithe, bejewelled fleet!
How they deck the moonlit grasses
In thick rainbow tinted masses
Like a fair queen's bridal sheet!

Hide me in a shrine of roses,
Drown me in a wine of roses
Drawn from every fragrant grove!
Bind me on a pyre of roses,
Burn me in a fire of roses,
Crown me with the rose of Love!

SAROJINI NAIDU

LOVE PLANTED A ROSE

Love planted a rose,
And the world turned sweet.
Where the wheat-field blows
Love planted a rose.
Up the mill-wheel's prose
Ran a music-beat.
Love planted a rose,
And the world turned sweet.

KATHARINE LEE BATES

THE GARDEN

My heart shall be thy garden. Come, my own,
Into thy garden; thine be happy hours
Among my fairest thoughts, my tallest flowers,
From root to crowning petal thine alone.

Thine is the place from where the seeds are sown
Up to the sky enclosed, with all its showers.
But ah, the birds, the birds! Who shall build bowers
To keep these thine? O friend, the birds have flown.

For as these come and go, and quit our pine
To follow the sweet season, or, new-comers,
Sing one song only from our alder-trees,

My heart has thoughts, which, though thine eyes hold mine,
Fit to the silent world and other summers,
With wings that dip beyond the silver seas.

ALICE MEYNELL

CLOUD AND FLOWER

I saw the giant stalking to the sky,
The giant cloud above the wilderness,
Bearing a mystery too far, too high,
For my poor guess.
Away I turned me, sighing: "I must seek
In lowlier places for the wonder-word.
Something more little, intimate, shall speak."
A bright rose stirred.
And long I looked into its face, to see
At last some hidden import of the hour.

And I had thought to turn from mystery--
But O, flower! flower!

AGNES LEE

PROGRESS

There seems no difference between
To-day and yesterday--
The forest glimmers just as green,
The garden's just as gay.

Yet, something came and something went
Within the night's chill gloom:
An old rose fell, her fragrance spent,
A new rose burst in bloom.

CHARLOTTE BECKER

"BUT WE DID WALK IN EDEN"

But we did walk in Eden,
Eden, the garden of God;--
There, where no beckoning wonder
Of all the paths we trod,
No choiring sun-filled vineyard,
No voice of stream or bird,
But was some radiant oracle
And flaming with the Word!

Mine ears are dim with voices;
Mine eyes yet strive to see
The black things here to wonder at,
The mirth,--the misery.
Beloved, who wert with me there,
How came these shames to be?--
On what lost star are we?

Men say: The paths of gladness
By men were never trod!--
But we have walked in Eden,
Eden, the garden of God.

JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY

A GARDEN-PIECE

Among the flowers of summer-time she stood,
And underneath the films and blossoms shone
Her face, like some pomegranate strangely grown
To ripe magnificence in solitude;
The wanton winds, deft whisperers, had strewed
Her shoulders with her shining hair out blown,
And dyed her breast with many a changing tone
Of silvery green, and all the hues that brood
Among the flowers;
She raised her arm up for her dove to know
That he might preen him on her lovely head;
Then I, unseen, and rising on tiptoe,
Bowed over the rose-barriers, and lo!
Touched not her arm, but kissed her lips instead,
Among the flowers!

EDMUND GOSSE

"HOW MANY FLOWERS ARE GENTLY MET"

How many flowers are gently met
Within my garden fair!
The daffodil, the violet,
And lilies dear are there.

They fade and pass, the fleeting flowers,
And brief their little light;
They hold not Love's diviner hours,
Nor Sower's human night.

Tho' one by one their bloom depart,
No change thy lover knows,
For mine the fragrance of thy heart,
O thou my perfect rose!

GEORGE STERLING

WITH A ROSE, TO BRUNHILDE

Brunhilde, with the young Norn soul
That has no peace, and grim as those
That spun the thread of life, give heed:
Peace is concealed in every rose.
And in these petals peace I bring:
A jewel clearer than the dew:
A perfume subtler than the breath
Of Spring with which it circles you.

Peace I have found, asleep, awake,
By many paths, on many a strand.
Peace overspreads the sky with stars.
Peace is concealed within your hand.
And when at night I clasp it there
I wonder how you never know
The strength you shed from finger-tips:
The treasure that consoles me so.

Begin the art of finding peace,
Beloved:--it is art, no less.
Sometimes we find it hid beneath
The orchards in their springtime dress:
Sometimes one finds it in oak woods,
Sometimes in dazzling mountain-snows;
In books, sometimes. But pray begin
By finding it within a rose.

VACHEL LINDSAY

"MY SOUL IS LIKE A GARDEN-CLOSE"

My soul is like a garden-close
Where marjoram and lilac grow,
Where soft the scent of long ago
Over the border lightly blows.

Where sometimes homing winds at play
Bear the faint fragrance of a rose--
My soul is like a garden-close
Because you chanced to pass my way.

THOMAS S. JONES, JR.

A DREAM

I dreamed a dream of roses somewhere breathing
Their sweet souls out upon the summer night:
The flowers I saw not, but their fragrance wreathing
Like clouds of incense filled me with delight.
And then as if for my still further pleasure
There came a flood of sweetest melody,--
But whence I knew not flowed the wondrous measure,
For neither flute nor viol could I see.
Then in the vision love sublime, immortal,
Encircled all my soul with its pure stream;
And though I saw thee not through dreamland's portal,
I knew thou only hadst inspired the dream.
'Tis thus thine influence itself discloses,
In dreams of love, of music, and of roses!

ANTOINETTE DE COURSEY PATTERSON

THE ROSE

The rose-tree wears a diadem,
Both bud and bloom of gold and fire,
Too high upon the slender stem
For baby hands that reach for them:

And _Roses!_ my brown Elsa cries:
Her chubby arms in vain aspire.
But rose-leaf Hilda smiles and sighs
And worships them with patient eyes.

I gathered them a rose or two,
But not the shy one hanging higher
That brushed my lips with honey-dew!
_That_ is the rose I send to you.

GRACE HAZARD CONKLING

PRAYER

Would that I might become you,
Losing myself, my sweet!--
So longs the dust that lies
About the rose's feet.

So longs the last, dim star
Hung on the verge of night;--
She moves--she melts--she slips--
She trembles into the light.

JOHN HALL WHEELOCK

IN A GARDEN

I sat one day within a garden fair
Pining for thee and sad because alone,
Wishing some fate could send thee to me there.

All things appeared to share my saddened mood,
Each flower drooped, the sun was hid from view,
The very birds in silence seemed to brood.

Then, as I day-dreamed with my eyes half closed,
Sudden the birds began to sing again,
The flow'rs, uplifting heads, no longer dozed.

Thinking the sun had come once more for me
And for all nature, to effect such change,
I turned and lo! saw not the sun but thee.

LIVINGSTON L. BIDDLE

A SONG OF FAIRIES

Oh, the beauty of the world is in this garden,
I hear it stir on every hand.
See how the flowers keep still because of it!
hear how it trembles in the blackbird's song!
There is a secret in it, a blessed mystery.
I fain would weep to feel it near me, my eyes
grow dim before these unseen wings.
And the secret is in other places, it is in songs
and music and all lovers' hearts.
Hush now, and walk on tiptoe, for these are fairy things.

ELIZABETH KIRBY

A SONG TO BELINDA

Belinda in her dimity,
Whereon are wrought pink roses,
Trips through the boxwood paths to me,
A-down the garden-closes,
As though a hundred roses came,
('Twas so I thought) to meet me,
As though one rosebud said my name
And bent its head to greet me.

Belinda, in your rose-wrought dress
You seemed the garden's growing;
The tilt and toss o' you, no less
Than wind-swayed posy blowing.
'Twas so I watched in sweet dismay,
Lest in that happy hour,
Sudden you'd stop and thrill and sway
And turn into a flower.

THEODOSIA GARRISON

SWEETHEART-LADY

De roses lean ter love her an' des won't leave de place;
De climbin' mawnin'-glories sweet-smilin' in her face;
De twinklin' pathway know her an' seem ter pass de word,
An' de South Win' singin' ter her ter match de mockin'-bird.

She sweetheart ter de Springtime,
W'en de dreamy roses stir,
An' Winter shine lak' Summer
An' wear a rose fer her.

"Sweetheart!" sing de Medder, w'en lak' de light she pass;
De River take de tune up: "Make me yo' lookin'-glass!"
But des who her true lover she never let 'em know;
De Win' is sich a tell-tale, an' de River run on so!

But Springtime come a-courtin'
An' let de blossoms fall,
An' Summer say: "I loves you!"
She sweetheart ter 'em ALL!

FRANK L. STANTON

HEART'S GARDEN

I have a garden filled with many flowers:
The mignonette, the sweet-pea, and the rose,
Daisies, and daffodils, whose color glows
The fairer for the verdure which embowers
Their beauty, and sets forth their hidden powers
To charm my heart, whenever at the close
Of day's dull hurry I would seek repose
In my still garden through the darkening hours.

Thus, Lady, do I keep a place apart,
Wherein my love for you cloistered shall be,
Far from the rattle of the city cart,
Even as my garden, where daily I may see
The flowers of your love, and none from me
May win the hidden secret of my heart.

NORREYS JEPHSON O'CONOR

A ROSE LOVER

Do thou, my rose, incline
Thy heart to mine.
If love be real
Ah, whisper, whisper low
That I at last may know.
Quick! breathe it now!
A sigh,--a tear,--a vow:
Oh, any lightest thing
Its cadences to sing
That loved am I, and not,
Ah, not forgot!

FREDERIC A. WHITING

SONNET

The sweet caresses that I gave to you
Are but the perfume of the Rose of Love,
The color and the witchery thereof,
And not the Rose itself. Each is a clue
Merely, whereby to seek the hidden, true,
Substantial blossom. Like the Jordan dove
A kiss is but a symbol from above--
An emblem the Reality shines through.

The Rose of Love is ever unrevealed
In all its beauty, for the sight of it
Were perilous with purpose of the world.
The hand of Life has cautiously concealed
The pollen-chamber of the infinite
Flower, and its petals only half uncurled.

ELSA BARKER

A SONG IN A GARDEN

Will the garden never forget
That it whispers over and over,
"Where is your lover, Nanette?
Where is your lover--your lover?"
Oh, roses I helped to grow,
Oh, lily and mignonette,
Must you always question me so,
"Where is your lover, Nanette?"
Since you looked on my joy one day,
Is my grief then a lesser thing?
Have you only this to say
When I pray you for comforting?

Now that I walk alone
Here where our hands were met,
Must you whisper me everyone,
"Where is your lover, Nanette?"

I have mourned with you year and year,
When the Autumn has left you bare,
And now that my heart is sere
Does not one of your roses care?
Oh, help me forget--forget,
Nor question over and over,
"Where is your lover, Nanette?
Where is your lover--your lover?"

THEODOSIA GARRISON

"IT WAS JUNE IN THE GARDEN"

It was June in the garden,
It was our time, our day;
And our gaze with love on everything
Did fall;
They seemed then softly opening,
And they saw and loved us both,
The roses all.

The sky was purer than all limpid thought;
Insect and bird
Swept through the golden texture of the air,
Unheard;
Our kisses were so fair they brought
Exaltation to both light and bird.
It seemed as though a happiness at once
Had skied itself and wished the heavens entire
For its resplendent fire;
And life, all pulsing life, had entered in,
Into the fissures of our beings to the core,
To fling them higher.

And there was nothing but invocatory cries,
Mad impulses, prayers and vows that cleave
The arched skies,
And sudden yearning to create new gods,
In order to believe.

EMILE VERHAEREN

TWO ROSES

A fair white rose sedately grows
Within the garden wall. There blows
No wind to ruff her petals white,
No stain of earth, no touch of blight
The pure face of my ladye shows.
The queen of all the walls enclose
Might be mine own, an' if I chose;
But yet, but yet I cannot slight
My wild red rose.

Outside the garden wall she throws
Her clinging tendrils, and she knows
How strong the winds of passion smite;
She's fragrant, though not faultless quite;
Just as she is, none shall depose
My wild red rose.

WILLIAM LINDSEY

ROSES

Red roses floating in a crystal bowl
You bring, O love; and in your eyes I see,
Blossom on blossom, your warm love of me
Burning within the crystal of your soul--
Red roses floating in a crystal bowl.

WILFRID WILSON GIBSON

HER GARDEN

This friendly garden, with its fragrant roses,--
It was not ours, when she was here below;
And so, in that low bed where she reposes,
The beauty of it all she cannot know.

But in the evening when the birds are calling
The fragrance rises like a breath of myrrh,
And in my empty heart, benignly falling,
Becomes a little prayer to send to her.

So, in that silent, lonely bed that holds her,
Where nevermore the shadows rise or flee,
I think a dream of radiant spring enfolds her--
Of bloom and bird and bending bough ... and me.

LOUIS DODGE

AERE PERENNIUS

As long as the stars of God
Hang steadfast in the sky,
And the blossoms 'neath the sod
Awake when Spring is nigh;
As long as the nightingale
Sings love-songs to the rose,
And the Winter wind in the vale
Makes moan o'er the virgin snows--
As long as these things be
I would tell my love for thee!

As long as the rose of June
Bursts forth in crimson fire,
And the mellow harvest-moon
Shines over hill and spire;
As long as heaven's dew
At morning kisses the sod;
As long as you are you,
And I know that God is God--
As long as these things be
I would tell my love for thee!

CHARLES HANSON TOWNE

EVER THE SAME

King Solomon walked a thousand times
Forth of his garden-close;
And saw there spring no goodlier thing,
Be sure, than the same little rose.

Under the sun was nothing new,
Or now, I well suppose.
But what new thing could you find to sing
More rare than the same little rose?

Nothing is new; save I, save you,
And every new heart that grows,
On the same Earth met, that nurtures yet
Breath of the same little rose.

JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY

THE MESSAGE

When one has heard the message of the Rose,
For what faint other calling shall he care?
Dark broodings turn to find their lonely lair;
The vain world keeps her posturing and pose.
He, with his crimson secret, which bestows
Heaven in his heart, to Heaven lifts his prayer,
And knows all glory trembling through the air
As on triumphal journeying he goes.

So through green woodlands in the twilight dim,
Led by the faint, pale argent of a star,
What though to others it is weary night,
Nature holds out her wide, sweet heart to him;
And, leaning o'er the world's mysterious bar,
His soul is great with everlasting light.

HELEN HAY WHITNEY

TELL-TALE

The Lily whispered to the Rose:
"The Tulip's fearfully stuck up.
You'd think to see the creature's pose,
She was a golden altar-cup.
There's method in her boldness, too;
She catches twice her share of Dew."

The Rose into the Tulip's ear
Murmured: "The Lily is a sight;
Don't you believe she _powders_, dear,
To make herself so saintly white?
She takes some trouble, it is plain,
Her reputation to sustain."

Said Tulip to the Lily white:
"About the Rose--what do you think?--
Her color? Should you say it's quite--
Well, quite a natural shade of pink?"
"Natural!" the Lily cried. "Good Saints!
Why, _everybody_ knows she paints!"

OLIVER HERFORD

DA THIEF

Eef poor man goes
An' steals a rose
Een Juna-time--
Wan leetla rose--
You gon' su'pose
Dat dat's a crime?

Eh! w'at? Den taka look at me,
For here bayfore your eyes you see
Wan thief dat ees so glad an' proud
He gona brag of eet out loud!
So moocha good I do, an' feel
From dat wan leetla rose I steal,
Dat eef I gon' to jail to-day
Dey could no tak' my joy away.
So, lees'en! here ees how eet com':
Las' night w'en I am walkin' home
From work een hotta ceety street,
Ees sudden com' a smal so sweet
Eet maka heaven een my nose--
I look an' dere I see da rose!
Not wan, but manny, fine an' tall,
Dat peep at me above da wall.
So, too, I close my eyes an' find
Anudder peecture een my mind;
I see a house dat's small an' hot
Where manny pretta theengs is not,
Where leetla woman, good an' true,
Ees work so hard da whole day through,
She's too wore out, w'en com's da night,
For smile an' mak' da housa bright.

But, presto! now I'm home an' she
Ees settin' on da step weeth me.
Bambino, sleepin' on her breast,
Ees nevva know more sweeta rest,
An' nevva was sooch glad su'prise
Like now ees shina from her eyes;
An' all baycause to-night she wear
Wan leetla rose stuck een her hair.
She ees so please'! Eet mak' me feel
I shoulda sooner learned to steal.

Eef "thief's" my name
I feel no shame;
Eet ees no crime--
Dat rose I got.
Eh! w'at? O! not
Een Juna-time!

T. A. DALY

RESULTS AND ROSES

The man who wants a garden fair,
Or small or very big,
With flowers growing here and there,
Must bend his back and dig.

The things are mighty few on earth
That wishes can attain.
Whate'er we want of any worth
We've got to work to gain.

It matters not what goal you seek,
Its secret here reposes:
You've got to dig from week to week
To get Results or Roses.

EDGAR A. GUEST

UNDERNEATH THE BOUGH

MIRACLE

_Yesterday the twig was brown and bare;
To-day the glint of green is there
To-morrow will be leaflets spare;
I know no thing so wondrous fair
No miracle so strangely rare._

_I wonder what will next be there!_