TO A BIRD AT DAWN

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  In some sky sanctuary withdrawn;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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ALMA VENUS

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Ah!  Did you ever hear the spring”

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

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

APRIL

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

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

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

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

MAY IS BUILDING HER HOUSE

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

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

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

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

SHADOW

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

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

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

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

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

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

JUNE

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

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

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

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

GREEN SILENCE

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

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

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

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

SUMMER SONGS

I

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

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

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

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

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

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

II

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

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

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

III

Summer came,
Rose on rose;
Leaf on leaf,
Summer goes.

Summer came,
Song on song;
O summer had
A golden tongue.

Summer goes,
Sigh on sigh;
Not a rose
Sees him die.

TO A WILD BIRD

Wild bird, I stole you from your nest,
  And cannot find your nest again;
To hear you chirp a little while
  I wrung your mother’s heart with pain.

And here you sit and droop and die,
  Nor any love that I can bring
Wins me forgiveness for the wrong,
  Nor any kindness makes you sing.

“I crossed the orchard walking home”

I crossed the orchard, walking home,
  The rising moon was at my back,
The apples and the moonlight fell
  Together on the railroad track.

Then, speeding through the evening dews,
  A dozen lighted windows glide-
The East-bound flyer for New York,
  Soft as a magic-lantern slide.

New York! on through the sleeping flowers,
  Through echoing midnight on to noon;
How strange that yonder is New York,
  And here such silence and the moon.

“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?

“How fast the year is going by”

How fast the year is going by! 
  Love, it will be September soon;
  O let us make the best of June. 
Already, love, it is July;
  The rose and honeysuckle go,
  And all too soon will come the snow.

Dark berries take the place of flowers,
  Of summer August still remains,
  Then sad September with her rains. 
O love, how short a year is ours-
  So swiftly does the summer fly,
  Scarce time is left to say goodbye.

AUGUST MOONLIGHT

The solemn light behind the barns,
  The rising moon, the cricket’s call,
The August night, and you and I-
  What is the meaning of it all!

Has it a meaning, after all? 
  Or is it one of Nature’s lies,
That net of beauty that she casts
  Over Life’s unsuspecting eyes?

That web of beauty that she weaves
  For one strange purpose of her own,-
For this the painted butterfly,
  For this the rose-for this alone!

Strange repetition of the rose,
  And strange reiterated call
Of bird and insect, man and maid,-
  Is that the meaning of it all?

If it means nothing, after all! 
  And nothing lives, except to die-
It is enough-that solemn light
  Behind the barns, and you and I.

TO A ROSE

O rose! forbear to flaunt yourself,
  All bloom and dew-
I once, sad-hearted as I am,
  Was young as you.

But, one by one, the petals fell
  Earthward to rot;
Only a berry testifies
  A rose forgot.

INVITATION

Unless you come while still the world is green,
  A place of birds and the blue dreaming sea,
In vain has all the singing summer been,
  Unless you come, and share it all with me.

Ah! come, ere August flames its heart away,
  Ere, like a golden widow, autumn goes
Across the woodlands, sad with thoughts of May,
  An aster in her bosom for a rose.

SUMMER GOING

Crickets calling,
Apples falling.

Summer dying,
Life is flying.

So soon over-
Love and lover.

AUTUMN TREASURE

Who will gather with me the fallen year,
This drift of forgotten forsaken leaves,
Ah! who give ear
To the sigh October heaves
At summer’s passing by! 
Who will come walk with me
On this Persian carpet of purple and gold
The weary autumn weaves,
And be as sad as I? 
Gather the wealth of the fallen rose,
And watch how the memoried south wind blows
Old dreams and old faces upon the air,
And all things fair.

WINTER

Winter, some call thee fair,
Yea! flatter thy cold face
With vain compare
Of all thy glittering ways
And magic snows
With summer and the rose;
Thy phantom flowers
And fretted traceries
Of crystal breath,
Thy frozen and fantastic art of death,
With April as she showers
The violet on the leas,
And bares her bosom
In the blossoming trees,
And dances on her way
To laugh with May-
Winter that hath no bird
To sing thee, and no bloom
To deck thy brow: 
To me thou art an empty haunted room,
Where once the music
Of the summer stirred,
And all the dancers
Fallen on silence now.

THE MYSTIC FRIENDS

I nothing did all yesterday
But listen to the singing rain
On roof and weeping window-pane,
And, ’whiles I’d watch the flying spray
And smoking breakers in the bay: 
Nothing but this did I all day-

Save turn anon to trim the fire
With a new log, and mark it roar
And flame with yellow tongues for more
To feed its mystical desire. 
No other comrades save these three,
The fire, the rain, and the wild sea,

All day from morn till night had I-
Yea! and the wind, with fitful cry,
Like a hound whining at the door.

Yet seemed it, as to sleep I turned,
Pausing a little while to pray,
That not mis-spent had been the day;
That I had somehow wisdom learned
From those wild waters in the bay,
And from the fire as it burned;
And that the rain, in some strange way,
Had words of high import to say;
And that the wind, with fitful cry,
Did some immortal message try,
Striving to make some meaning clear
Important for my soul to hear.

But what the meaning of the rain,
And what the wisdom of the fire,
And what the warning of the wind,
And what the sea would tell, in vain
My soul doth of itself enquire,-
And yet a meaning too doth find: 

For what am I that hears and sees
But a strange brother of all these
That blindly move, and wordless cry,
And I, mysteriously I,
Answer in blood and bone and breath
To what my gnomic kindred saith;
And, as in me they all have part,
Translate their message to my heart-

And know, yet know not, what they say: 
Know not, yet know, the fire’s tongue
And the rain’s elegiac song,
And the white language of the spray,
And all the wind meant yesterday-
Yea! wiser he, when the day ends,
Who shared it with those four strange friends.

THE COUNTRY GODS

I dwell, with all things great and fair: 
The green earth and the lustral air,
The sacred spaces of the sea,
Day in, day out, companion me. 
Pure-faced, pure-thoughted, folk are mine
With whom to sit and laugh and dine;
In every sunlit room is heard
Love singing, like an April bird,
And everywhere the moonlit eyes
Of beauty guard our paradise;
While, at the ending of the day,
To the kind country gods we pray,
And dues of our fair living pay.

Thus, when, reluctant, to the town
I go, with country sunshine brown,
So small and strange all seems to me-
the boonfellow of the sea-
That these town-people say and be: 
Their insect lives, their insect talk,
Their busy little insect walk,
Their busy little insect stings-
And all the while the sea-weed swings
Against the rock, and the wide roar
Rises foam-lipped along the shore. 
Ah! then how good my life I know,
How good it is each day to go
Where the great voices call, and where
The eternal rhythms flow and flow. 
In that august companionship,
The subtle poisoned words that drip,
With guileless guile, from friendly lip,
The lie that flits from ear to ear,
Ye shall not speak, ye shall not hear;
Nor shall you fear your heart to say,
Lest he who listens shall betray.

The man who hearkens all day long
To the sea’s cosmic-thoughted song
Comes with purged ears to lesser speech,
And something of the skyey reach
Greatens the gaze that feeds on space;
The starlight writes upon his face
That bathes in starlight, and the morn
Chrisms with dew, when day is born,
The eyes that drink the holy light
Welling from the deep springs of night.

And so-how good to catch the train
Back to the country gods again.