Chapter VI (2)

To tread the path of glory needs a braver soul than I,
A man who will not stop to watch the white clouds drifting by,
A man who will not pause to throw a pebble in a stream
Or stretch full length upon its bank, the captive of a dream.

A braver soul than I must tread the rugged way and long,
A man who will not stop to catch the wild canary’s song,
A man who’ll pass a thousand charms and never turn to see
The beauty of the petaled dress upon an apple tree.

To tread the path of glory needs a stronger soul than mine,
A man that isn’t tempted when the air is sharp as wine,
A man that has no vision save the golden goal he seeks,
And doesn’t hear the language which the voice of nature speaks.

But I am prey to woods and fields, to sunny hills and streams,
And I’ve a soul which likes to drift and tease itself with dreams,
And weak am I that should be strong--a sunbeam on a pond
Has but to wink an eye at me, and I’m a vagabond.

_Edgar A. Guest_

_Gipsy Song_

Gipsy, gipsy, gipsy girl!
April’s at the door,
April’s whistling through the wood--
Must I call once more?

Gipsy, gipsy, gipsy girl!
Keen across the night
Hylas flutes among the pools
And the road’s moon-white.

Gipsy, gipsy, gipsy girl!
Must I whistle still,
Waiting at your silent door
On the ferny hill?

Moonlit road and breaking sea,
Wet wind from the south!
Gipsy, all your lover lacks
Is your scarlet mouth!

_Sara Hamilton Birchall_

_The Road To Vagabondia_

He was sitting on a doorstep as I went strolling by;
A lonely little beggar with a wistful, homesick eye--
And he wasn’t what you’d borrow
And he wasn’t what you’d steal--
But I guessed his heart was breaking,
So I whistled him to heel.

They had stoned him through the city streets and naught the city cared,
But I was heading outward and the roads are sweeter shared,
So I took him for a comrade and I whistled him away--
On the road to Vagabondia that lies across the day.

Yellow dog he was; but bless you--he was just the chap for me!
For I’d rather have an inch of dog than miles of pedigree.
So we stole away together on the road that has no end
With a new-coined day to fling away and all the stars to spend!

Oh, to walk the road at morning, when the wind is blowing clean,
And the yellow daisies fling their gold across a world of green--
For the wind it heals the heart-aches and the sun it dries the scars,
On the road to Vagabondia that lies beneath the stars.

’Twas the wonder of the going cast a spell about our feet--
We walked because the world was young, because the way was sweet;
And we slept in wild-rose meadows by the little wayside farms,
’Til the Dawn came up the highroad with the dead moon in her arms.

Oh, the Dawn it went before us through a shining lane of skies,
And the Dream was at our heartstrings and the light was in our eyes,
And we made no boast of glory and we made no boast of birth,
On the road to Vagabondia that lies across the earth.

_Dana Burnet_

_Gipsy Feet_

Oh, gipsy hearts are many enough, but gipsy feet are few!
Many’s the one that loves to dream night-long of stars and dew:
Many’s the one that loves the scent of wood-smoke by the way,
And turns a leaping longing heart to every dawn of day.

Gipsy hearts are many enough, but gipsy feet are few.--
Ah, how ill it is to bide unloosed the long year through!
Up and down the loud gray streets, stared at, staring back,
Through tarnished trails of the staggering sun and soot-fog ochre-black;--

Dressed in heavy and sober togs, eating of heavy fare,
Hailed by only the screaming street, “Mind! step lively there!”
Crook-backed over a dusty desk,--bothering to and fro
There in the dull and airless house,--ah, to cut and go!--

Up the hill-roads into the day! Over the sea-ward fells,
Watch the thistle-down dip, and hear the thin sheep’s huddling bells;
Run like fire along the field, worship the heart of the wood,
Kneel by the spring that splits the rock, and find the white rain good.

--Oh, gipsy hearts are many enough, but gipsy feet are few;
And secret gods must we worship still, if we worship fire and dew.
For we must bend at the dusty desk, and over the counter lean,--
Toil and moil in the sun-starved house, though leaves blow red or green.

God, great God of the wind’s caress, God of the sea’s salute,
Why are we chained and muzzled and meshed more than our brother the brute?
Shall there be never a day that all of the gipsy hearts may greet,
Laughing out at the lure of the sun for the lift of the gipsy feet?

But oh, though that day is far to come, and the feet forget to go free,
Pray God that the hearts may not forget the hurt and the ecstasy!
Pray God that never the fret may fail when the Spring comes over the year,
That never the thin gay autumn dawns may seem less wild and dear.

For shall it not be the height of Heaven, wonderful, swift, and sweet,
If into the paths of perilous death may wander the gipsy feet?
May wander free, with the risk of the road, the road that
the glad Dead know,
Out where the fires of God flame high, and the winds of God lean low!

_Fannie Stearns Davis_

_A Strip of Blue_

I do not own an inch of land,
But all I see is mine,--
The orchard and the mowing-fields,
The lawns and gardens fine.
The winds my tax-collectors are,
They bring me tithes divine,--
Wild scents and subtle essences,
A tribute rare and free;
And, more magnificent than all,
My window keeps for me
A glimpse of blue immensity,--
A little strip of sea.

Richer am I than he who owns
Great fleets and argosies;
I have a share in every ship
Won by the inland breeze
To loiter on yon airy road,
Above the apple-trees.
I freight them with my untold dreams;
Each bears my own picked crew;
And nobler cargoes wait for them
Than ever India knew,--
My ships that sail into the East
Across that outlet blue.

_Lucy Larcom_

_Black Ashes_

Sometime we shall remember them, the little camping places,
A day long, an hour long, a halt beside the way,
Shall see again before us the mountains’ kindly faces
With the white roads pleading, leading through the
hill-mists wreathing gray.

Lichened spur and creeping trail, sun-gold in the west,
Purple moorland, misty lure-land spreading far beneath;
Red-gold flamelight lifting, drifting, round the pine-dark crest
To dim the little village lights asleep upon the heath.

Sometime we shall remember them, from out the days that bind us,
A year long, a life long, that link and hold us fast,
Will come a breath of twilight blent with woodsmoke to remind us
Of the little camping places in the springtimes that are past.

White-spread dunes and opal sea, gray gulls slant the spray,
Spiced sweetfern by sandy turn where the sun strikes gold,
Scent of woodsmoke, vagrant, fragrant, ah, it haunts the air today
From the little camping places in the Story That Is Told.

_Martha Haskell Clark_

_The Wander Lure_

The robin’s on the wing again; I hear the call o’ spring again,
And fain am I to follow, lass; it calls me not in vain!
Yea, I would join the chorus. Lo! the highway is before us,--
_But what if she, my first beloved, should call to me again?_

The wander lure is part o’ me, and love is in the heart o’ me,
And I would tread the road with you that leads beyond the door.
I hear the cry o’ laughter, and my feet would follow after,--
_But what if she, my first beloved, should call to me once more?_

Yea, I will follow you, my lass, around the world and through, my lass,
To seek the peace o’ summer moons that waits beside the sea.
We’ll leave the past behind us; come, the joy o’ life will find us,--
_But what if she, my first beloved, should call again to me?_

_Kendall Banning_

_Comrades of the Trail_

Until the day the world shall die
We shall be comrades, you and I.

For we have seen the morning break
In golden beauty on that lake
That rests in intimate grace before
Our cedar cabin’s unlatched door;
And we have heard the rain at night
And blessed our driftwood hearthfire light;
Wakened by thunder, we have crept
Closer and turned again and slept
While the trees crashed, weakening,
And blocked our trail up to the spring.

Dangers of cities never draw
Two close as does the forest’s awe;
Beauties of cities never bind
Memory and heart and soul and mind
As does the dawn in forest places,
Or tree-rent moonlight on our faces.

Husband and wife! If that were all!
Not vows alone have made us thrall,
But none can evermore walk free
Bound to each other as are we,
By sky and water, fern and tree.

_Mary Carolyn Davies_

_The Vagrant_

I will leave the dust of the city street and the noise of the busy town
For the windy moor and the high hill and the peat-stream flowing brown;
I will keep my watch by the camp-fires where the white
cliffs lean to the sea,
And dawn shall wake me with golden hands and the rain shall walk with me.

I will seek the place where gypsies roam and strange, wild
songs are sung;
I will find once more the magic paths I knew when earth was young,
And the stars will give me comradeship and the wind will be my friend,
And I will send you the fairy gold that lies at the rainbow’s end.

Stretch not your hands nor bid me stay, I hear the white road’s call,
The sun hath kissed the buds from sleep, and I am one with them all;
But I will send you a golden cloak and a pair of silver shoon,
And a dream that the fairies spin from stars on the other
side of the moon.

_Pauline Slender_

_The Gipsy Wedding_

Once more the gipsy aster
Her flaunting kerchief waves,
Once more along the wood-ways
His nuts the squirrel saves;
Once more the vagrant passion
Stirs heart of man and maid,
Once more it is October,
Once more the spell is laid.

And to Saint Bartel’s altar
Two come where was but one,
With goldenrod and beechleaf
Beneath the amber sun;
Two come, Saint Bartelmeo,
With sunbrowned hand in hand,
To pray your blessing, Father,
Upon the golden band.

There in the tall cathedral
Of tamarack and pine,
The old saint gives the blessing,
The sunbrowned fingers twine.
And down the dusky wood-ways
The gipsy lad and maid
Go hand in hand together
Forever unafraid.

_Sara Hamilton Birchall_

_The Vagabond At Home_

Oh, it’s spring once more in France, and it’s spring in gay Algiers,
And it’s spring along the happy Appian Way;
There are cherries in Japan, and the thrushes’ joy and tears
Pipe for England, “There is nowhere such a day!”

How the call rings clear, commanding: “Hurry over, sail afar
To the date-tree and the banyan’s dim domain;
To the Yangtze and the Yalu, where the bell-topped temples are;
And remember there are castles left in Spain!”

But I hear a whisper steady, blowing down my own home-stream
Full of all the glad romance I used to know:
“Leave the lands beyond to others;
Our wee woodfolk are your brothers;
And the earth is bursting treasure!” So I go.

When the wander urge is on me, there are never bonds that hold;
When the summons comes, it never comes in vain;
But the foreign trails are either far too new or far too old--
Give me April in my native woods again!

_Ruth Wright Kauffman_

_The Gipsy Trail_

The white moth to the closing vine,
The bee to the open clover,
And the gipsy blood to the gipsy blood
Ever the wide world over.

Ever the wide world over, lass,
Ever the trail held true,
Over the world and under the world,
And back at the last to you.

Out of the dark of the gorgio camp,
Out of the grime and the gray
(Morning waits at the end of the world),
Gipsy, come away!

The wild boar to the sun-dried swamp,
The red crane to her reed,
And the Romany lass to the Romany lad
By the tie of a roving breed.

Morning waits at the end of the world
Where winds unhaltered play,
Nipping the flanks of their plunging ranks,
Till the white sea-horses neigh.

The pied snake to the rifted rock,
The buck to the stony plain,
And the Romany lass to the Romany lad,
And both to the road again.

Both to the road again, again!
Out on a clean sea-track--
Follow the cross of the gipsy trail
Over the world and back!

Follow the Romany patteran
North where the blue bergs sail,
And the bows are gray with the frozen spray,
And the masts are shod with mail.

Follow the Romany patteran
Sheer to the Austral Light,
Where the besom of God is the wild south wind,
Sweeping the sea-floors white.

Follow the Romany patteran
West to the sinking sun,
Till the junk-sails lift through the houseless drift,
And the east and the west are one.

Follow the Romany patteran
East where the silence broods
By a purple wave on an opal beach
In the hush of the Mahim Woods.

The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky,
The deer to the wholesome wold,
And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid,
As it was in the days of old.

The heart of a man to the heart of a maid--
Light of my tents, be fleet!
Morning waits at the end of the world,
And the world is all at our feet!

_Rudyard Kipling_

_St. Bartholomew’s On The Hill_

Bartholomew, my brother,
I like your roomy church;
I like your way of leaving
No sinners in the lurch.

I wish the world were wealthy
In ministers like you,
When at the lovely August
You give the blessed dew.

I love your rambling Abbey,
So long ago begun,
Whose choirs are in the tree-tops,
Whose censor is the sun.

Its windows are the morning;
Its rafters are the stars;
The fog-banks float like incense
Up from its purple floors.

And where the ruddy apples
Make lamps in the green gloom,
The flowers in congregation
Are never pressed for room;

But in your hillside chapel,
Gay with its gorgeous paints,
They bow before the Presence,--
Sweet, merry little saints.

_Bliss Carman_

_Fishing_

“Men will grow weary,” said the Lord,
“Of working for their bed and board.
They’ll weary of the money chase
And want to find a resting place
Where hum of wheel is never heard
And no one speaks an angry word.
And selfishness and greed and pride
And petty motives don’t abide.
They’ll need a place where they can go
To wash their souls as white as snow.
They will be better men and true
If they can play a day or two.”

The Lord then made the brooks to flow
And fashioned rivers here below,
And many lakes; for water seems
Best suited for a mortal’s dreams.
He placed about them willow trees
To catch the murmur of the breeze.
And the birds that sing the best
Among the foliage to nest.
He filled each pond and stream and lake
With fish for man to come and take.
Then stretched a velvet carpet deep
On which a weary soul could sleep.

It seemed to me the Good Lord knew
That man would want something to do
When, worn and wearied with the stress
Of battling hard for world success,
When sick at heart of all the strife
And pettiness of daily life.
He knew he’d need, from time to time
To cleanse himself of city grime,
And he would want some place to be
Where hate and greed he’d never see,
And so on lakes and streams and brooks
The Good Lord fashioned fishing nooks.

_Edgar A. Guest_

_A Vagabond Song_

There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood--
Touch of manner, hint of mood;
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.

The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.
And my lonely spirit thrills
To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.

There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir;
We must rise and follow her,
When from every hill of flame
She calls and calls each vagabond by name.

_Bliss Carman_

_Have You?_

Have you ever built a camp-fire at the closing of the day?
Have you sat and watched the embers glowing red?
With your scanty supper finished and the things all cleared away,
Have you sat and smoked and thought about your bed?
Of the bed you left behind you in the dwelling-place of man,
In the much o’er-furnished room you knew of yore;
Ere you sought the silent places where a fellow learns he can
Do a lot of things he never did before?

Have you ever spread a blanket down beneath the star-strewn skies?
Rolled yourself within its cozy folds to sleep,
At the base of mighty mountains, with their peaks that rise and rise?
Have you known the age-old silence that they keep?
Have you seen the red sun climbing up the eastern slope? Then know
You will ne’er forget those rugged, happy days.
What! You’ve never known the glory of the new-born day? Then go--
It’s a road that’s hard to travel--but it pays.

_Harry M. Dean_

_Gypsy-Heart_

The April world is misted with emerald and gold;
The meadow-larks are calling sweet and keen;
Gypsy-heart is up and off for woodland and for wold,
Roaming, roaming, roaming through the green.
Gypsy-heart, away!
Oh, the wind--the wind and the sun!
Take the blithe adventure of the fugitive to-day;
Youth will soon be done.

From buds that May is kissing there trembles forth a soul;
The rosy boughs are whispering the white;
Gypsy-heart is heedless now of thrush and oriole,
Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming of delight.
Gypsy-heart, beware!
Oh, the song--the song in the blood!
Magic walks the forest; there’s bewitchment on the air.
Spring is at the flood.

The wings of June are woven of fragrance and of fire;
Heap roses, crimson roses, for her throne.
Gypsy-heart is anguished with tumultuous desire,
Seeking, seeking, seeking for its own.
Gypsy-heart, abide!
Oh, the far--the far is the near!
’Tis a foolish fable that the universe is wide.
All the world is here.

_Katharine Lee Bates_

_A More Ancient Mariner_

The swarthy bee is a buccaneer,
A burly velveted rover,
Who loves the booming wind in his ear
As he sails the seas of clover.

A waif of the goblin pirate crew,
With not a soul to deplore him,
He steers for the open verge of blue
With the filmy world before him.

* * * * *

He harries the ports of the Hollyhocks,
And levies on poor Sweetbrier;
He drinks the whitest wine of Phlox,
And the Rose is his desire.

He hangs in the Willows a night and a day;
He rifles the Buckwheat patches;
Then battens his store of pelf galore
Under the tautest hatches.

He woos the Poppy and weds the Peach,
Inveigles Daffodilly,
And then like a tramp abandons each
For the gorgeous Canada Lily.

* * * * *

He dares to boast, along the coast,
The beauty of Highland Heather,--
How he and she, with night on the sea,
Lay out on the hills together.

He pilfers from every port of the wind,
From April to golden autumn;
But the thieving ways of his mortal days
Are those his mother taught him.

* * * * *

He never could box the compass round;
He doesn’t know port from starboard;
But he knows the gates of the Sundown Straits,
Where the choicest goods are harbored.

He never could see the Rule of Three,
But he knows a rule of thumb
Better than Euclid’s, better than yours,
Or the teachers’ yet to come.

* * * * *

He drones along with his rough sea-song
And the throat of a salty tar,
This devil-may-care, till he makes his lair
By the light of a yellow star.

He looks like a gentleman, lives like a lord,
And works like a Trojan hero;
Then loafs all winter upon his hoard,
With the mercury at zero.

_Bliss Carman_

_Vagabonds_

Upon us vagabonds who take
Our packs and paddles Sunday
The good folk look austerely down,
Though they may smile on Monday.

Some call us pagans, others tramps;
The truth they never knew--
We faithfully attend the Church
Of Saint Bartholomew.

Among the birches on the hill
His holydays are kept
Where thrushes flute the anthems, and
Crumb-charity accept.

The sermon never wearies us;
We hold the Amen pew,
And pay our pew-rent to the Church
Of Saint Bartholomew.

_Sara Hamilton Birchall_

_The Gypsying_

I wish we might go gypsying one day while we’re young--
On a blue October morning
Beneath a cloudless sky,
When all the world’s a vibrant harp
The winds o’ God have strung,
And gay as tossing torches the maples light us by;
The rising sun before us--a golden bubble swung--
I wish we might go gypsying one day while we’re young.

I wish we might go gypsying one day before we’re old--
To step it with the wild west wind
And sing the while we go,
Through far forgotten orchards
Hung with jewels red and gold;
Through cool and fragrant forests where never sun may show,
To stand upon a high hill and watch the mist unfold--
I wish we might go gypsying one day before we’re old.

I wish we might go gypsying, dear lad, the while we care.
The while we’ve heart for hazarding,
The while we’ve will to sing,
The while we’ve wit to hear the call
And youth and mirth to spare,
Before a day may find us too sad for gypsying,
Before a day may find us too dull to dream and dare--
I wish we might go gypsying, dear lad, the while we care.

_Theodosia Garrison_

_The Mendicants_

We are as mendicants who wait
Along the roadside in the sun.
Tatters of yesterday and shreds
Of morrow clothe us every one.

And some are dotards, who believe
And glory in the days of old;
While some are dreamers, harping still
Upon an unknown age of gold.

Hopeless or witless! Not one heeds,
As lavish Time comes down the way
And tosses in the suppliant hat
One great new-minted gold To-day.

* * * * *

O foolish ones, put by your care!
Where wants are many, joys are few;
And at the wilding springs of peace,
God keeps an open house for you.

* * * * *

But there be others, happier few,
The vagabondish sons of God,
Who know the by-ways and the flowers,
And care not how the world may plod.

They idle down the traffic lands,
And loiter through the woods with spring;
To them the glory of the earth
Is but to hear a bluebird sing.

* * * * *

One I remember kept his coin,
And laughing flipped it in the air;
But when two strolling pipe-players
Came by, he tossed it to the pair.

Spendthrift of joy, his childish heart
Danced to their wild outlandish bars;
Then supperless he laid him down
That night, and slept beneath the stars.

_Bliss Carman_

_The Beloved Vagabond_

You who were once so careless, I can recall you now,
Your blue-gray visionary eyes, your great and open brow,
With naught to bind your heart-strings, and all the world in fee,
You went where all the roads lead, beyond the farthest sea.

Lover of space and skyline, what vision seared your eyes?
What gypsy word was winged to you that bade you gird and rise?
What thread of smoke sent onward your restless, eager feet?
What vagrant heart was waiting your wayward heart to greet?

We, who are kin to the city, across the candles praise
Your tales of camps in twilight, your great and gallant ways,
Your knowledge of the mysteries deep-hidden by the wood,
The pagan trust you placed in man, the world you found so good.

Then leave a _patrin_ for mine eyes that I may follow too,
Some day when all the world grows dim, and I shall beckon you;
Across the distant moorland, from beacon furze piled high,
May I, the newest rover, see your fire against the sky!

_W. G. Tinckom-Fernandez_

_The Secret Voices_

Have you heard the secret voices go whispering in your blood,
Of burning wood and falling leaf and swelling Springtime flood?
Have you felt the tang of lusty wind, the stinging lash of rain,
As tides of Spring march down the days with summer in their train?

Have you known the zest and sparkle, felt the magic in the air,
And set your feet upon the road that leads to Anywhere?
And seen the skirts of storm-clouds trailing over budding trees,
And drunk the wine of virile life down to the very lees?

Have you heard and have you known the voices of the wind,
That bid a man rise up and go and follow till he find
The pot of gold at the rainbow’s base,
Or a secret dream in a hidden place....
Have you heard the secret voices whispering that Spring has come,
Calling you to rise and follow till you walk into the sun?

_Ethel Mannin_

_The Changing Year_

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

BLISS CARMAN

_Turn O’ The Year_

This is the time when bit by bit
The days begin to lengthen sweet
And every minute gained is joy--
And love stirs in the heart of a boy.

This is the time the sun, of late
Content to lie abed till eight,
Lifts up betimes his sleepy head--
And love stirs in the heart of a maid.

This is the time we dock the night
Of a whole hour of candlelight;
When song of linnet and thrush is heard--
And love stirs in the heart of a bird.

This is the time when sword-blades green,
With gold and purple damascene,
Pierce the brown crocus-bed a-row--
And love stirs in a heart I know.

_Katharine Tynan_

_April Music_

The lyric sound of laughter
Fills all the April hills,
The joy-song of the crocus,
The mirth of daffodils.

They ring their golden changes
Through all the azure vales;
The sunny cowslips answer,
Athwart the reedy swales.

Far down the woodland aisleways
The trillium’s voice is heard;
The little wavering wind-flowers
Join in with jocund word.

The white cry of the dogwood
Mounts up against the sky;
The breath of violet music
Upon the breeze goes by.

Give me to hear, O April,
These choristers of thine
Calling across the distance
Serene and hyaline;

To clear my clouded vision
Bedimmed and dulled so long,
And heal my aching spirit
With fragrance that is song!

_Clinton Scollard_

_The Year’s Awakening_

How do you know that the pilgrim track
Along the belting zodiac
Swept by the sun in his seeming rounds
Is traced by now to the Fishes’ bounds
And into the Ram, when weeks of cloud
Have wrapt the sky in a clammy shroud,
And never as yet a tinct of spring
Has shown in the Earth’s apparelling;
Oh, vespering bird, how do you know,
How do you know?

How do you know, deep underground,
Hid in your bed from sight and sound,
Without a turn in temperature,
With weather life can scarce endure,
That light has won a fraction’s strength,
And day put on some moments’ length,
Whereof in merest rote will come,
Weeks hence, mild airs that do not numb;
Oh, crocus root, how do you know,
How do you know?

_Thomas Hardy_

_Spring’s Answer_

I heard God calling
And I came,
His Sun signalled me
With its flame.
His Wind called me
With its song.
His Birds said they had been waiting
Over long.
His little Brooks ran tumbling
Down the hills,
Luring me with laughter
Of rocky rills.
His Grasses, yellow-green,
Standing in the sun,
Held up their fingers
For me to come.
Heart of Oak and heart of Pine
Beat a faint tattoo--
Flowing sap in bole and bud
Climbing up anew.
Till at last the summons
Set my heart aflame--
I heard God calling,
And I came!

_Edwin Osgood Grover_

_Morning Song_

The grass is taller, greener,
And the birds more loud;
The flowers open freshly
To a sky of cloud.

And man awakens gladly
In a world that’s good,
And thrills to some new beauty
Not quite understood.

Though all the world is clouded
It’s a gray delight--
For spring is swelling, swelling,
And it rained last night.

_Lancaster Pollard_

_April Weather_

Soon, ah, soon the April weather
With the sunshine at the door,
And the mellow melting rain-wind
Sweeping from the South once more.

Soon the rosy maples budding,
And the willows putting forth,
Misty crimson and soft yellow
In the valleys of the North.

Soon the hazy purple distance,
Where the cabined heart takes wing,
Eager for the old migration
In the magic of the spring.

Soon, ah, soon the budding windflowers
Through the forest white and frail,
And the odorous wild cherry
Gleaming in her ghostly veil.

Soon, about the waking uplands
The hepaticas in blue,--
Children of the first warm sunlight
In their sober Quaker hue,--

All our shining little sisters
Of the forest and the field,
Lifting up their quiet faces
With the secret half revealed.

Soon across the folding twilight
Of the round earth hushed to hear,
The first robin at his vespers
Calling far, serene and clear.

Soon the waking and the summons,
Starting sap in bole and blade,
And the bubbling marshy whisper
Seeping up through bog and glade.

Soon the frogs in silver chorus
Through the night, from marsh and swale,
Blowing in their tiny oboes
All the joy that shall not fail,--

Passing up the old earth rapture
By a thousand streams and rills,
From the red Virginian valleys
To the blue Canadian hills.

Soon, ah, soon the splendid impulse,
Nomad longing, vagrant whim,
When a man’s false angels vanish
And the truth comes back to him.

Soon the majesty, the vision,
And the old unfaltering dream,
Faith to follow, strength to stablish,
Will to venture and to seem;

All the radiance, the glamour,
The expectancy and poise,
Of this ancient life renewing
Its temerities and joys.

Soon the immemorial magic
Of the young Aprilian moon,
And the wonder of thy friendship
In the twilight--soon, ah, soon!

_Bliss Carman_

_The Runaway_

What are you doing, little day-moon,
Over the April hill?
What are you doing, up so soon,
Climbing the sky with silver shoon?
What are you doing at half-past noon,
Slipping along so still?

Are you so eager, the heights unwon,
That you cannot wait,
But, unheeding of wind and sun,
Out of your nest of night must run,
Up where the day is far from done,
Shy little shadow-mate?

Up and away then--with young mists
Tripping, along the blue!
Dance and dally and promise trysts
Unto each that around you lists;
For, little moon, not a one but wists
April’s the time to woo!

_Cale Young Rice_

_Spring Market_

It’s foolish to bring money
To any spring wood,
Jewels won’t help you,
Gold’s no good.

Silver won’t buy you
One small leaf.
You may bring joy here,
You may bring grief.

You should look for
Tufted moss,
Marked where a light foot
Ran across.

Where the old rose hips
Shrivel brown
And dried clematis
Bloom hangs down.

There you’ll find what
Everyman needs,
Wild religion
Without any creeds,

Green that lifts its
Blossoming head,
New life springing
Among the dead.

You needn’t bring money
To this market place,
Or think you can bargain for
Wild flower grace.

_Louise Driscoll_

_Song in March_

I sing the first green leaf upon the bough,
The tiny kindling flame of emerald fire,
The stir amid the roots of reeds, and how
The sap will flush the briar.

I sing the sweeping beryl on the slopes,
Ephemeræ that come before the bees,
The ferns renascent, and the virgin hopes
Of pale anemones.

I sing the dream’s unfolding, and I sing
The chrysalis broken by the ice-freed shore,
The clear air winnowed by the bluebird’s wing,
And April at the door!

_Clinton Scollard_

_Flower Chorus_

O such a commotion under the ground,
When March called “Ho, there! ho!”
Such spreading of rootlets far and wide,
Such whisperings to and fro!
“Are you ready?” the Snowdrop asked,
“’Tis time to start, you know.”
“Almost, my dear!” the Scilla replied,
“I’ll follow as soon as you go.”
Then “Ha! ha! ha!” a chorus came
Of laughter sweet and low,
From millions of flowers under the ground,
Yes, millions beginning to grow.

“I’ll promise my blossoms,” the Crocus said,
“When I hear the blackbird sing.”
And straight thereafter Narcissus cried,
“My silver and gold I’ll bring.”
“And ere they are dulled,” another spoke,
“The hyacinth bells shall ring.”
But the Violet only murmured “I’m here,”
And sweet grew the air of spring.
Then “Ha! ha! ha!” a chorus came
Of laughter sweet and low,
From millions of flowers under the ground,
Yes, millions beginning to grow.

Oh, the pretty brave things, thro’ the coldest days
Imprisoned in walls of brown,
They never lost heart tho’ the blast shrieked loud,
And the sleet and the hail came down;
But patiently each wrought her wonderful dress,
Or fashioned her beautiful crown,
And now they are coming to lighten the world
Still shadowed by winter’s frown.
And well may they cheerily laugh “Ha! ha!”
In laughter sweet and low,
The millions of flowers under the ground,
Yes, millions beginning to grow.

_Ralph Waldo Emerson_

_April’s Coming_

April comes with sudden showers,
Chilling winds and sunny hours.
April comes with growing green
On the trees still winter-lean.
April brings the singing bird
And a joy that is absurd.
April comes and April goes,
But the flowers April sows--
Earth’s obituary tears--
Wake the immemorial years.
So with Spring’s passing comes
Summer with her borrowed drums;
Fall and winter in a ring
Till April comes again with spring.

_Lancaster Pollard_

_The Secret_

On that first day so singular
Under the ground,
It was too dark for crescent or for star,
Too deep for sound.

And lying there one thought alone
I could not still:
How soon would snow-white cherry buds be blown
Across the hill.

And then a voice within the tomb
Said very low:
“When April lights her first sharp flame of bloom
You’ll know!”

_John Richard Moreland_

_Spring_

All the lanes are lyric,
All the bushes sing;
You are at your kissing,
Spring!

Romping with your children
Do not fail to bring
Mary to the haystack,
Spring!

Froth upon the fingers,
Bosom for a king,
Speed her from the milking,
Spring!

_Norman Gale_

_April Weather_

Oh, hush, my heart, and take thine ease,
For here is April weather!
The daffodils beneath the trees
Are all a-row together.

The thrush is back with his old note;
The scarlet tulip blowing;
And white, aye, white as my love’s throat--
The dogwood boughs are growing.

The lilac bush is sweet again;
Down every wind that passes,
Fly flakes from hedgerow and from lane;
The bees are in the grasses.

And Grief goes out, and Joy comes in,
And care is but a feather;
And every lad his love can win,
For here is April weather.

_Lizette Woodworth Reese_

_Renewal_

April, when I heard
Your lyrical low word,
And when upon the hawthorn hedge your first white blossom stirred,

Something strangely came--
Something I cannot name--
And touched my heart, and cleansed my soul with a reviving flame.

When the yellow gleam
Of your hosts that stream--
Jonquil, buttercup, and crocus--made the world a golden dream,

Something, April, said
To my heart that bled--
Bled with old remembrance--“Lo, the grief-strewn days are fled!”

_Sursum corda!_ Now,
When blooms the apple-bough,
April, of your pity, let your light rain kiss my brow;

Heal me, if you will;
Bathe my heart until
I am one with your first primrose or the shining daffodil!

_Charles Hanson Towne_

_April_

Something tapped at my window pane,
Someone called me without my door.
Someone laughed like the tinkle o’ rain,
The robin echoed it o’er and o’er.

I threw the door and the window wide;
Sun and the touch of the breeze and then--
“Ah, were you expecting me, dear?” she cried,
And here was April come back again.

_Theodosia Garrison_

_The Immortal_

Spring has come up from the South again,
With soft mists in her hair,
And a warm wind in her mouth again,
And budding everywhere.
Spring has come up from the South again,
And her skies are azure fire,
And around her is the awakening
Of all the world’s desire.

Spring has come up from the South again,
And dreams are in her eyes,
And music is in her mouth again
Of love, the never-wise.
Spring has come up from the South again,
And bird and flower and bee
Know that she is their life and joy--
And immortality!

_Cale Young Rice_

_Spring_

I said in my heart, “I am sick of four walls and a ceiling.
I have need of the sky.
I have business with the grass.
I will up and get me away where the hawk is wheeling,
Lone and high,
And the slow clouds go by.
I will get me away to the waters that glass
The clouds as they pass,
To the waters that lie
Like the heart of a maiden aware of a doom drawing nigh
And dumb for sorcery of impending joy.
I will get me away to the woods.
Spring, like a huntsman’s boy,
Halloos along the hillsides and unhoods
The falcon in my will.
The dogwood calls me, and the sudden thrill
That breaks in apple blooms down country roads
Plucks me by the sleeve and nudges me away.
The sap is in the boles today,
And in my veins a pulse that yearns and goads.”

When I got to the woods, I found out
What the Spring was about,
With her gypsy ways,
And her heart ablaze,
Coming up from the South
With the wander-lure of witch songs in her mouth.
For the sky
Stirred and grew soft and swimming as a lover’s eye
As she went by;
The air
Made love to all it touched, as if its care
Were all to spare;
The earth
Prickled with lust of birth;
The woodland streams
Babbled the incoherence of the thousand dreams
Wherewith the warm sun teems.
And out of the frieze
Of the chestnut trees
I heard
The sky and the fields and the thickets find voice in a bird.
The goldenwing--hark!
How he drives his song
Like a golden nail
Through the hush of the air!
I thrill to his cry in the leafage there;
I respond to the new life mounting under the bark.
I shall not be long
To follow
With eft and bulrush, bee and bud and swallow,
On the old trail.

* * * * *

Spring in the world!
And all things are made new!
There was never a mote that whirled
In the nebular morn,
There was never a brook that purled
Where the hills were born,
There was never a leaf uncurled--
Not the first that grew--
Nor a bee-flight hurled,
Nor a bird-note skirled,
Nor a cloud-wisp swirled
In the depth of the blue,
More alive and afresh and impromptu, more thoughtless and certain and free,
More a-shout with the glee
Of the Unknown new-burst on the wonder, than here, than here,
In the re-wrought sphere
Of the new-born year--
Now, now,
When the greenlet sings on the red-bud bough
Where the blossoms are whispering “I and thou”--“I and thou,”
And a lass at the turn looks after a lad with a dawn on her brow,
And the world is just made--now!

Spring in the heart!
With her pinks and pearls and yellows!
Spring, fellows,
And we too feel the little green leaves a-start
Across the bare-twigged winter of the mart.
The campus is reborn in us today;
The old grip stirs our hearts with new-old joy;
Again bursts bonds for madcap holiday
The eternal boy.

_Richard Hovey_

_Blind_

The Spring blew trumpets of color;
Her Green sang in my brain--
I heard a blind man groping
“Tap--tap” with his cane;

I pitied him in his blindness;
But can I boast, “I see”?
Perhaps there walks a spirit
Close by, who pities me,--

A spirit who hears me tapping
The five-sensed cane of mind
Amid such unguessed glories--
That I am worse than blind.

_Harry Kemp_

_Spring Song_

Make me over, mother April,
When the sap begins to stir!
When thy flowery hand delivers
All the mountain-prisoned rivers,
And thy great heart beats and quivers
To revive the days that were,
Make me over, mother April,
When the sap begins to stir!

Take my dust and all my dreaming,
Count my heart-beats one by one,
Send them where the winters perish;
Then some golden noon re-cherish
And restore them in the sun,
Flower and scent and dust and dreaming,
With their heart-beats every one.

Set me in the urge and tide-drift
Of the streaming hosts a-wing!
Breast of scarlet, throat of yellow,
Raucous challenge, wooings mellow--
Every migrant is my fellow,
Making northward with the spring.
Loose me in the urge and tide-drift
Of the streaming hosts a-wing!

Shrilling pipe or fluting whistle,
In the valleys come again;
Fife of frog and call of tree-toad,
All my brothers, five or three-toed,
With their revel no more vetoed,
Making music in the rain,
Shrilling pipe or fluting whistle,
In the valleys come again.

Make me of thy seed to-morrow,
When the sap begins to stir!
Tawny light-foot, sleepy bruin,
Bright-eyes in the orchard ruin,
Gnarl the good life goes askew in,
Whisky-jack or tanager,--
Make me anything to-morrow,
When the sap begins to stir!

Make me even (How do I know?)
Like my friend the gargoyle there;
It may be the heart within him
Swells that doltish hands should pin him
Fixed forever in mid-air.
Make me even sport for swallows,
Like the soaring gargoyle there!

Give me the old clue to follow,
Through the labyrinth of night!
Clod of clay with heart of fire,
Things that burrow and aspire,
With the vanishing desire,
For the perishing delight,--
Only the old clue to follow,
Through the labyrinth of night!

Make me over, mother April,
When the sap begins to stir!
Fashion me from swamp or meadow,
Garden plot or ferny shadow,
Hyacinth or humble burr!
Make me over, mother April,
When the sap begins to stir!

Let me hear the far, low summons,
When the silver winds return;
Rills that run and streams that stammer,
Goldenwing with his loud hammer,
Icy brooks that brawl and clamor,
Where the Indian willows burn;
Let me hearken to the calling,
When the silver winds return,

Till recurring and recurring,
Long since wandered and come back,
Like a whim of Grieg’s or Gounod’s,
This same self, bird, bud, or Bluenose,
Some day I may capture (Who knows?)
Just the one last joy I lack,
Waking to the far new summons,
When the old spring winds come back.

For I have no choice of being,
When the sap begins to climb,--
Strong insistence, sweet intrusion,
Vasts and verges of illusion,--
So I win, to time’s confusion,
The one perfect pearl of time,
Joy and joy and joy forever,
Till the sap forgets to climb!

Make me over in the morning
From the rag-bag of the world!
Scraps of dream and duds of daring,
Home-brought stuff from far sea-faring,
Faded colors once so flaring,
Shreds of banners long since furled!
Hues of ash and glints of glory,
In the rag-bag of the world!

Let me taste the old immortal
Indolence of life once more;
Not recalling or foreseeing,
Let the great slow joys of being
Well my heart through as of yore!
Let me taste the old immortal
Indolence of life once more!

Give me the old drink for rapture,
The delirium to drain!
All my fellows drank in plenty
At the Three-Score Inns and Twenty
From the mountains to the main!
Give me the old drink for rapture,
The delirium to drain!

Only make me over, April
When the sap begins to stir!
Make me man or make me woman,
Make me oaf or ape or human,
Cup of flower or cone of fir;
Make me anything but neuter
When the sap begins to stir!

_Bliss Carman_

_The Sweet, Low Speech Of The Rain_

It is pleasant to lie in the gloaming
When the autumn is on the wane,
And the careful, rejoicing reaper
Has gathered and stored his grain,
And hear at the doors and the windows
The sweet, low speech of the rain.

To put by the thought of the sailor
Far out on the storm-rocked main,
Where the fierce waves leap and struggle.
Like beasts in passionate pain,
And lie by the hearth and listen
To the sweet, low speech of the rain.

Ah, May has the burst of the blossom,
And the red of the willow vein,
And the glad uplift of the flowers
That lead in the fragrant train;
But nothing so dear as the sweet, low
Speech of the autumn rain.

July has the rose and the purple,
And the sunset’s golden stain
On the river that draws thro’ the valley
A glittering, wave-linked chain;
But never this lyrical, tremulous,
Sweet, low speech of the rain.

Each heart knows the joy of the winter,
The drift of the snow on the plain,
The book and the charm of the fireside,
The icicles fringing the pane;
But ah, for the faltering, pausing,
Sweet, low speech of the rain.

Old friends of my heart come to-morrow,
Remembrance, Regret, and Pain,
But to-night I will lie in the gloaming
And be lulled by the lure of the rain--And
the rhythmical, lyrical, rhyming,
Sweet, low speech of the rain.

_Ella Higginson_

_Early Spring_

Once more the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,
And domes the red-plowed hills
With loving blue;
The blackbirds have their wills,
The throstles too.

Opens a door in Heaven;
From skies of glass
A Jacob’s ladder falls
On greening grass,
And o’er the mountain-walls
Young angels pass.

Before them fleets the shower,
And burst the buds,
And shine the level lands,
And flash the floods;
The stars are from their hands
Flung through the woods,

The woods with living airs
How softly fanned,
Light airs from where the deep,
All down the sand,
Is breathing in his sleep,
Heard by the land.

O, follow, leaping blood,
The season’s lure!
O heart, look down and up,
Serene, secure,
Warm as the crocus cup,
Like snow-drops pure!

Past, Future glimpse and fade
Through some slight spell,
A gleam from yonder vale,
Some far blue fell,
And sympathies, how frail,
In sound and smell!

Till at thy chuckled note,
Thou twinkling bird,
The fairy fancies range,
And, lightly stirred,
Ring little bells of change
From word to word.

For now the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,
And thaws the cold, and fills
The flower with dew;
The blackbirds have their wills,
The poets too.

_Alfred Tennyson_

_Spring_

Spring, with that nameless pathos in the air
Which dwells with all things fair,
Spring, with her golden suns and silver rain,
Is with us once again.

Out in the lonely woods the jasmine burns
Its fragrant lamps, and turns
Into a royal court with green festoons
The banks of dark lagoons.

In the deep heart of every forest tree
The blood is all aglee,
And there’s a look about the leafless bowers
As if they dreamed of flowers.

Yet still on every side we trace the hand
Of Winter in the land,
Save where the maple reddens on the lawn,
Flushed by the season’s dawn;

Or where, like those strange semblances we find
That age to childhood bind,
The elms put on, as if in Nature’s scorn,
The brown of Autumn corn.

As yet the turf is dark, although you know
That, not a span below,
A thousand germs are groping through the gloom,
And soon will burst their tomb.

Already, here and there, on frailest stems
Appear some azure gems,
Small as might deck, upon a gala day
The forehead of a fay.

In gardens you may note amid the dearth,
The crocus breaking earth;
And near the snowdrop’s tender white and green,
The violet in its screen.

But many gleams and shadows needs must pass
Along the budding grass,
And weeks go by, before the enamored South
Shall kiss the rose’s mouth.

Still there’s a sense of blossoms yet unborn
In the sweet airs of morn;
One almost looks to see the very street
Grow purple at his feet.

At times a fragrant breeze comes floating by,
And brings, you know not why,
A feeling as when eager crowds await
Before a palace gate

Some wondrous pageant; and you scarce would start,
If from a beech’s heart
A blue-eyed Dryad, stepping forth, should say,
“Behold me! I am May!”

_Henry Timrod_

_April, April_

April, April,
Laugh thy girlish laughter;
Then, the moment after,
Weep thy girlish tears,
April, that mine ears
Like a lover greetest,
If I tell thee, sweetest,
All my hopes and fears.
April, April,
Laugh thy golden laughter,
But, the moment after,
Weep thy golden tears!

_William Watson_

_April Rain_

It is not raining rain for me,
It’s raining daffodils;
In every dimpled drop I see
Wild flowers on the hills.

The clouds of gray engulf the day
And overwhelm the town;
It is not raining rain to me,
It’s raining roses down.

It is not raining rain to me,
But fields of clover bloom,
Where any buccaneering bee
Can find a bed and room.

A health unto the happy,
A fig for him who frets!
It is not raining rain to me,
It’s raining violets.

_Robert Loveman_

April

An altered look about the hills;
A Tyrian light the village fills;
A wider sunrise in the dawn;
A deeper twilight on the lawn;
A print of a vermilion foot;
A purple finger on the slope;
A flippant fly upon the pane;
A spider at his trade again;
An added strut in chanticleer;
A flower expected everywhere;
An axe shrill singing in the woods;
Fern-odors on untravelled roads,--
All this, and more I cannot tell,
A furtive look you know as well,
And Nicodemus’ mystery
Receives its annual reply.

_Emily Dickinson_

_April Morning_

I would spend a morning
With an April apple tree,
Speaking to it softly
And laughing out in glee.

All the summer sunshine
And all the winter moon
Are shining in the blossoms
That will be gone so soon.

I will spend a morning
With a friendly apple tree,
Hearing many secrets
That it will tell to me.

I will take a morning
To drink the beauty in;
I will take a morning--
But how shall I begin?

_George Elliston_

_May-Lure_

How the heart pulls at its tether
In the magic warm spring weather!
How the blood leaps in its courses
When the deep ebullient forces
Break the bosom brown of earth!

It is worth
All a man can scrape or squander
Just to idle, just to wander
Forth from trade, away from duty,
Revelling in all the beauty
And the glamour of the May.

Who to-day
Cares a fig for any other
Thought save this: The earth, great mother,
Has turned kind, has banished gloom and dole;
Music, that audient outlet for the soul,
Comes in, and grief goes out, and life is whole.

_Richard Burton_

_Sunrise_

Day!
Faster and more fast,
O’er night’s brim, day boils at last:
Boils, pure gold, o’er the cloud-cup’s brim
Where spurting and suppressed it lay,
For not a froth-flake touched the rim
Of yonder gap in the solid gray
Of the eastern cloud, an hour away;
But forth one wavelet, then another, curled,
Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed,
Rose, reddened, and its seething breast
Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.

_Robert Browning_

_The Throstle_

“Summer is coming, summer is coming,
I know it, I know it, I know it.
Light again, leaf again, life again, love again,”
Yes, my wild little Poet.

Sing the new year in under the blue.
Last year you sang it as gladly.
“New, new, new, new!” Is it then so new
That you should carol so madly?

“Love again, song again, nest again, young again,”
Never a prophet so crazy!
And hardly a daisy as yet, little friend,
See, there is hardly a daisy.

“Here again, here, here, here, happy year!”
Oh, warble unchidden, unbidden!
Summer is coming, is coming, my dear,
And all the winters are hidden.

_Alfred Tennyson_