Chapter IV

There is no thing to wake unrest;
No sight or sound to jangle
The peace that evening in the breast
Brings, smoothing out the tangle
Of gnarls and knots of care and strife
That snarl the colored cord of life.

TABERNACLES

The little tents the wildflowers raise
Are tabernacles where Love prays
And Beauty preaches all the days.

I walk the woodland through and through,
And everywhere I see their blue
And gold where I may worship too.

All hearts unto their inmost shrine
Of fragrance they invite; and mine
Enters and sees the All Divine.

I hark; and with some inward ear
Soft words of praise and prayer I hear,
And bow my head and have no fear.

For God is present as I see
In them; and gazes out at me
Kneeling to His divinity.

Oh, holiness that Nature knows,
That dwells within each thing that grows,
Vestured with dreams, as is the rose

With perfume! whereof all things preach--
The birds, the brooks, the leaves that reach
Our hearts and souls with loving speech;

That makes a tabernacle of
The flow’rs; whose priests are Truth and Love,
Who help our souls to rise above

The Earth and that which we name sin,
Unto the knowledge, that is kin
To Heaven, to which at last we win.

THE CAT-BIRD

I

The tufted gold of the sassafras,
And the gold of the spicewood-bush,
Bewilder the ways of the forest pass,
And brighten the underbrush:
The white-starred drifts of the wild-plum tree,
And the haw with its pearly plumes,
And the redbud, misted rosily,
Dazzle the woodland glooms.

II

And I hear the song of the cat-bird wake
I’ the boughs o’ the gnarled wild-crab,
Or there where the snows of the dogwood shake,
That the silvery sunbeams stab:
And it seems to me that a magic lies
In the crystal sweet of its notes,
That a myriad blossoms open their eyes
As its strain above them floats.

III

I see the bluebell’s blue unclose,
And the trillium’s stainless white;
The bird-foot violet’s purple and rose,
And the poppy, golden-bright!
And I see the eyes of the bluet wink,
And the heads of the white-hearts nod;
And the baby mouths of the woodland pink
And the sorrel salute the sod.