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_

_Tell All The World_

Tell all the world that summer’s here again

With song and joy; tell them, that they may know

How, on the hillside, in the shining fields

New clumps of violets and daisies grow.

Tell all the world that summer’s here again,

That white clouds voyage through a sky so still

With blue tranquillity, it seems to hang

One windless tapestry, from hill to hill.

Tell all the world that summer’s here again:

Folk go about so solemnly and slow,

Walking each one his grooved and ordered way--

I fear that, otherwise they will not know!

_Harry Kemp_

_Sorrow in a Garden_

Here to this ancient garden

When wintry days had flown

I came, with Comrade Sorrow

To dwell with her alone.

Within this sweet seclusion

Far from the world’s rude stare

What exquisite communings

Sorrow and I would share!

What banquets of remembrance,

What luxury of tears

With Sorrow in a garden

Through the rose scented years!

But one day when she called me

I did not hear her voice;

I only heard the lilies

Which sang, Rejoice! Rejoice!

For _June_ was in the garden

And June was in my heart,--

I had forgot pale Sorrow

And now we dwell apart.

But often in the twilight

When birds and gardens sleep

I feel her presence with me

Her arms about me creep.

And when the ghost of Summer

With the dead roses talks

I hear her softly sobbing

Along the moon-lit walks.

I never can forget her

So intimate were we

But when I walk my garden

She comes no more to me.

_May Riley Smith_

_The Naturalist On A June Sunday_

My old gardener leans on his hoe,

Tells me the way that green things grow;

“Goin’ to church? Why no.

All nature’s church enough for me!”

Says he.

“Preachin’ o’ flower and choir o’ bird,

An’ the wind passin’ the plate--

Sweetest service that ever I heard,

That’s straight!

_Eternal Rest?_

What for, friend?

Gimme a swarm o’ bees to tend,

A honey-makin’, world without end,

That’s what I’d like the best!

(Scoop ’em right up an’ find the queen,

They’d not sting me--the bees ain’ mean!)

“Heaven’s all right!

But still I guess I’ll kinder miss

The Lady Lunar moth at night

And the White Wanderer butterfly

Crawlin’ out of its chrysalis!

I want my heaven human too,

’Twixt me an’ you--

Why I’d jus’ love to see

A chipmunk hop up to the Lord

An’ eat right out o’ His dread Hand

Same as it does to me!

Eternity--eternity--

Don’t it sound grand?

But say

_What’s the matter with today?_

Just step into the wood an’ take a look!

Ain’t that a page o’ teachin’ from the Holy Book?

‘He that hath eyes to see

An’ ears to hear’--

That’s good enough for me!

I guess God’s pretty near,

He’ll understand, I know,

Why I ain’t in no hurry to let June go!”

My old gardener turns to his hoe,

Helping the green things how to grow,

“The Missis can go to church for me!

Amen!” says he.

_Leonora Speyer_

_Summer_[4]

By sea and by land,

In the water-wooed marshes or meadows wide-reaching and bland,

The summer is regal and rich, the summer on every hand

Spills largesses splendid to mortals, to women and men.

For when

Is the breeze sweeter fraught with the breath of the hay,

Is the thrush-note more calm or the robin’s loud lay

More blithe, or the rose more the queen of the day?

Now say,

What month is more bounteous in beauties, in balms,

In lyrics, in psalms,

In gold-heart fair fancies of sunset, and calms

Of twilight, or after-glows wondrously clear?

One may hear

The booming of bees and the brook’s lulled refrain,

The stream’s liquid epic, the grasshopper’s plain,

The frog’s bass reiterant languor at night,

The day-long and dark-long sound-woof, interplight

With dreamings and memories somber or bright.

A very miracle,

I saw a moment gone:

A honeysuckle, vine and bloom,

Lustrous green and coral red,

I glimpsed above my head

Shedding a rapt perfume.

And then this marvel fell

That I would dwell upon:

A bird--nay, rather say an airy sprite

Compact of color, light,

And a most ravishing power of flight,

Darted from nowhere, somewhere,

And alighted there,

And sat at gaze a moment or twain,

And then was off again.

Not Wordsworth’s cuckoo were a dearer guest

Unto my quest,

So insubstantial, spirit small

And fleetsome in his call;

Ah, ye know well

It was the humming-bird whereof I tell.

This mother-month of Summer holds her place

Not only by the grace

Attending on her many winsome ways,--

Her flower-gifts, her bird-lays,

Her bridal form and face,--But

by what went before and cometh after;

April tears, May blooms and laughter,

September’s blazonry, and then October

Fruit-ripe and hushed and most imperially sober

With sense of harvest dignity and worth.

Thus, memory and expectation,

Spring-gleams, fruitions of the fall,

Encircle June and give unto her station

A reverend look, a light historical;

Child, maiden, matron, she is each and all.

_Richard Burton_

[4] From “Dumb in June”

_Autumn_

The morns are meeker than they were,

The nuts are getting brown;

The berry’s cheek is plumper,

The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,

The field a scarlet gown.

Lest I should be old-fashioned,

I’ll put a trinket on.

_Emily Dickinson_

_Overtones_

I heard a bird at break of day

Sing from the autumn trees

A song so mystical and calm,

So full of certainties,

No man, I think, could listen long

Except upon his knees.

Yet this was but a simple bird,

Alone, among dead trees.

_William Alexander Percy_

_Carouse_

Autumn, in her scarlet cloak,

Comes tumbling down the hills.

Oh, she is tipsy with her dreams

That the blue day distils;

An amber cup is in her hands

From which the wonder spills.

Now leaf and vine turn golden brown,

And purple asters shine

Along the roads where Autumn runs,

Drunken with mystic wine.

The world is one vast tapestry

Of intricate design.

Where Autumn lurches through the dusk

In raiment wildly red,

A crowd of urchins follow her,

With many a tousled head--

Chrysanthemums, like naughty boys,

Driving the crone to bed!

_Charles Hanson Towne_

_A Song in Autumn_

Autumn, Autumn, give me of your crimson,

Give it me for courage, for the year has left me meek,

And your crimson banners flying, as the sign of your defying,

Shall dare my heart’s denying the patience of the weak.

Autumn, Autumn, give me of your yellow,

Give it unto me for hope--the hope I could not hold;

For where your gold is burning I feel the dream returning,

The darling pain of yearning whose passing left me old.

Autumn, Autumn, take me to your heart so,

The bold heart, the singing heart whose strength shall make me strong;

Send my healed life faring in colors of your wearing,

Your gold and crimson bearing, against a grief too long.

_Theodosia Garrison_

_An Autumn Garden_

My tent stands in a garden

Of aster and golden-rod,

Tilled by the rain and the sunshine,

And sown by the hand of God,--

An old New England pasture

Abandoned to peace and time,

And by the magic of beauty

Reclaimed to the sublime.

About it are golden woodlands

Of tulip and hickory;

On the open ridge behind it

You may mount to a glimpse of sea,--

The far-off, blue, Homeric

Rim of the world’s great shield,

A border of boundless glamour

For the soul’s familiar field.

In purple and gray-wrought lichen

The boulders lie in the sun;

Along its grassy footpath

The white-tailed rabbits run.

The crickets work and chirrup

Through the still afternoon;

And the owl calls at twilight

Under the frosty moon.

The odorous wild grape clambers

Over the tumbling wall,

And through the autumnal quiet

The chestnuts open and fall.

Sharing Time’s freshness and fragrance,

Part of the earth’s great soul,

Here man’s spirit may ripen

To wisdom serene and whole.

Shall we not grow with the asters?--

Never reluctant nor sad,

Not counting the cost of being,

Living to dare and be glad.

Shall we not lift with the crickets

A chorus of ready cheer,

Braving the frost of oblivion,

Quick to be happy here?

The deep red cones of the sumach

And the woodbine’s crimson sprays

Have bannered the common roadside

For the pageant of passing days.

These are the oracles Nature

Fills with her holy breath,

Giving them glory of color,

Transcending the shadow of death.

Here in the sifted sunlight

A spirit seems to brood

On the beauty and worth of being,

In tranquil, instinctive mood;

And the heart, athrob with gladness

Such as the wise earth knows,

Wells with a full thanksgiving

For the gifts that life bestows:

For the ancient and virile nurture

Of the teeming primordial ground,

For the splendid gospel of color,

The rapt revelations of sound;

For the morning-blue above us

And the rusted gold of the fern,

For the chickadee’s call to valor

Bidding the faint-heart turn;

For fire and running water,

Snowfall and summer rain;

For sunsets and quiet meadows,

The fruit and the standing grain;

For the solemn hour of moonrise

Over the crest of trees,

When the mellow lights are kindled

In the lamps of the centuries.

For those who wrought aforetime,

Led by the mystic strain

To strive for the larger freedom,

And live for the greater gain;

For plenty and peace and playtime,

The homely goods of earth,

And for rare immaterial treasures

Accounted of little worth;

For art and learning and friendship,

Where beneficent truth is supreme,

Those everlasting cities

Built on the hills of dream;

For all things growing and goodly

That foster this life, and breed

The immortal flower of wisdom

Out of the mortal seed.

But most of all for the spirit

That cannot rest nor bide

In stale and sterile convenience,

Nor safety proven and tried,

But still inspired and driven,

Must seek what better may be,

And up from the loveliest garden

Must climb for a glimpse of sea.

_Bliss Carman_

_September_

The wind comes up across the hill, the wind goes laughing by.

It’s time to put your bonnet on, and let your stitching lie;

It’s time to take your basket up, and follow on with me,

Along the road and up the hill, strange countries for to see.

For oh, the fields are golden now, the sun is sweet as wine,

The lake lies blue beneath us, and the leaves are thick and fine;

The fluffy clouds are drifting by, the winds are all a-blow;

The geese are flying south before the vanguards of the snow.

Come out, come out across the hills! The golden blossoms call,

September lifts her trumpet to her lips, and comrades all,

But hearken to the ringing cry she sends from hill to hill--

The scarlet leaves come fluttering down, the asters all are still.

Come out, come out, and leave your seam, and put your spinning by!

The sweet September calls us before the flowers die.

The shimmering hills are free to us, the hours are golden sweet.

Come out, dear love, and find my heart the pathway for your feet!

_Sara Hamilton Birchall_

_Days Like These_

I like the tangled brakes and briers,

The hazy smoke of forest fires;

The misty hills’ soft robe of brown,

The ravished fields’ regretful frown:

The wrinkled road’s unconscious snare,

The free, unbreathed and fragrant air.

I like the wide, unworried sky,

The resting wind’s contented sigh;

The rustle of the vagrant leaves,

The whisper in the standing sheaves;

The birds’ lament for summer lost,

The stinging challenge of the frost.

The sturdy life of stalwart trees

Thrills in my veins on days like these!

_Ella Elizabeth Egbert_

_Indian Summer_

These are the days when birds come back,

A very few, a bird or two,

To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies put on

The old, old sophistries of June--

A blue and gold mistake.

Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,

Almost thy plausibility

Induces my belief,

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,

And softly through the altered air

Hurries a timid leaf!

Oh, sacrament of summer days,

Oh, last communion in the haze,

Permit a child to join,

Thy sacred emblems to partake,

Thy consecrated bread to break,

Taste thine immortal wine!

_Emily Dickinson_

_The Deserted Pasture_

I love the stony pasture

That no one else will have.

The old gray rocks so friendly seen,

So durable and brave.

In tranquil contemplation

It watches through the year,

Seeing the frosty stars arise,

The slender moons appear.

Its music is the rain-wind,

Its choristers the birds,

And there are secrets in its heart

Too wonderful for words.

It keeps the bright-eyed creatures

That play about its walls,

Though long ago its milking herds

Were banished from their stalls.

Only the children come there,

For buttercups in May,

Or nuts in autumn, where it lies

Dreaming the hours away.

Long since its strength was given

To making good increase,

And now its soul is turned again

To beauty and to peace.

There in the early springtime

The violets are blue,

And adder-tongues in coats of gold

Are garmented anew.

There bayberry and aster

Are crowded on its floors,

When marching summer halts to praise

The Lord of Out-of-doors.

And there October passes

In gorgeous livery,--

In purple ash, and crimson oak,

And golden tulip tree.

And when the winds of winter

Their bugle blasts begin,

The snowy hosts of heaven arrive

And pitch their tents therein.

_Bliss Carman_

_The Coming of Dawn_

Midnight--the black, dead vast of night,

Rain dripping slow on the sod,

Fear of the future, darkness-born,

Doubt of myself and God.

A sudden flush on the face of night,

A veil from my soul withdrawn,

A bird-note thrilling the silence through.

And after that--the dawn.

_Grace Atherton Dennen_

_Alms in Autumn_

Spindle-wood, spindle-wood, will you lend me, pray,

A little flaming lantern to light me on my way?

The fairy folk have vanished from the meadow and the glen,

And I would fain go seeking till I find them once again;

Lend me now a lantern that I may bear a light

To show the hidden pathway in the darkness of the night.

Ash tree, ash tree, throw me, if you please,

Throw me down a slender bunch of russet-gold keys;

I fear the gates of fairyland may all be shut fast;

Give me of your magic keys that I may get past;

I’ll tie them to my girdle, that as I go along

My heart may find a comfort in their tiny tinkling song.

Holly bush, holly bush, help me in my task,

A pocketful of berries is all the alms I ask;

A pocketful of berries to thread on glowing strands

(I would not go a-visiting with nothing in my hands);

So fine will be the rosy chains, so gay, so glossy bright,

They’ll set the realms of fairyland a-dancing with delight.

_Rose Fyleman_

_November in England_

No sun--no moon!

No morn--no noon!

No dawn--no dusk--no proper time of day--

No sky--no earthly view--

No distance looking blue--

No road--no street--no “t’other side the way”--No

end to any “Row”--

No indications where the Crescents go--

No top to any steeple--

No recognitions of familiar people--

No courtesies for showing ’em--

No knowing ’em!

No travelling at all--no locomotion,

No inkling of the way--no notion--

“No go”--by land or ocean--

No mail--no post--

No news from any foreign coast--

No park--no ring--no afternoon gentility--

No company--no nobility--

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,

No comfortable feel in any member--

No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,

No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,

November!

_Thomas Hood_

_The Hound_

Some are sick for Spring and warm winds blowing

Over close-sheathed buds and a patch of old snow,

With the early arc-lamps delicately bowing

Across thin sunshine that hesitates to go.

But it’s not for any April promises I sicken,

Though their stammering sweetness be a plucked string;

My mind is bent toward Autumn, I am shaken

More by her denials than by all the hopes of Spring.

The curt cold days, the blue and windy weather,

The smoke of burning brushwood keener than a frost,

An orchard full of odors night is wise to gather,

The fur-collared stubble where the flower is lost.

A clear green sunset and a pale moon showing,

A sense of dawning ends, like the light in the sky.

Autumn is a hound that shrills, my heart is for her gnawing,

The quarry goes to Autumn, let Spring die.

_Babette Deutsch_

_Sky-Born Music_

_Earth’s crammed with heaven

And every common bush afire with God;

But only he who sees takes off his shoes...._

_Elizabeth Barrett Browning_

_Let Me Go Where’er I Will_

Let me go where’er I will,

I hear a sky-born music still;

It sounds from all things old,

It sounds from all things young,

From all that’s fair, from all that’s foul,

Peals out a cheerful song.

It is not only in the rose,

It is not only in the bird,

Not only where the rainbow glows,

Nor in the song of woman heard,

But in the darkest, meanest things

There alway, alway something sings.

’Tis not in the high stars alone,

Nor in the cups of budding flowers,

Nor in the red-breast’s mellow tone,

Nor in the bow that smiles in showers,

But in the mud and scum of things

There alway, alway something sings.

_Ralph Waldo Emerson_

_Pippa’s Song_

The year’s at the spring,

And day’s at the morn;

Morning’s at seven;

The hill-side’s dew-pearled.

The lark’s on the wing;

The snail’s on the thorn;

God’s in his heaven--

All’s right with the world!

_Robert Browning_

_The Whisper Of Earth_

In the misty hollow, shyly greening branches

Soften to the South wind, bending to the rain.

From the moistened earthland flutter little whispers,

Breathing hidden beauty, innocent of stain.

Little plucking fingers tremble through the grasses,

Little silent voices sigh the dawn of spring,

Little burning earth-flames break the awful stillness,

Little crying wind-sounds come before the King.

Powers, dominations urge the budding of the crocus,

Cherubim are singing in the moist cool stone,

Seraphim are calling through the channels of the lily,

God has heard the earth-cry and journeys to His throne.

_Edward J. O’Brien_

_Sunrise_

Today I saw the sun come up, like Neptune from the sea.

I saw him light a cliff with gold and wake a distant tree,

I saw him shake his shaggy head and laugh the night away

And toss unto a sleeping world another golden day.

The waves, which had been black and cold, came in with silver crests.

I saw the sunbeams gently wake the songbirds in their nests,

The slow-retreating night slipped back, and strewn on field and lawn,

On every blade of grass I saw the jewels of the dawn.

Never was monarch ushered in with such a cavalcade;

No hero bringing victory home has seen such wealth displayed.

In honor of the coming day, the humblest plant and tree

Stood on the curbstone of the world in radiant livery.

Pageants of splendor man may plan with robes of burnished gold,

On horses from Arabia may prance the knights of old;

Heralds on silver horns may blow, and kings come riding in,

But I have seen God’s pageantry--I’ve watched a day begin!

_Edgar A. Guest_

_Prayer Before Poems_

Great Author of a world, of sky, of sea;

Whose lyrics are translated by the birds,

Come close and in the stillness I may learn

To worship Thee with words.

Thou, who dost guide all groping, gifted hands

’Till they can finger every helpless string

And find the souls of violins and harps,

Aid me to sing.

Artist, who did the great originals,

And carved the tender features of a saint,

Who chose the colors for a universe,

Teach me to paint.

_Anne Blackwell Payne_

_How Miracles Abound_

How miracles abound

In each small plot of ground--

Aye, in the sky above it!

(Do you not love it,

The vast of sky a-thrill with lyric sound?)

Now comes, now goes,

The wonder of the rose;

Color or flower, and both a boon

Renewed with dawn or June.

Each day the hyacinthine twilight fills

The chalice of the hills.

Ever there’s some fresh nectary

For the knight-errant bee.

And song--ah, the blithe bounty that sheds beauty

On the stern ways of duty!

Forsooth the doctrine’s sound

That miracles abound!

E’en the green sod,

Yea, or the umbered clod,

Revealeth God!

_Clinton Scollard_

_Little Things_

There’s nothing very beautiful and nothing very gay

About the rush of faces in the town by day,

But a light tan cow in a pale green mead,

That is very beautiful, beautiful indeed.

And the soft March wind and the low March mist

Are better than kisses in a dark street kissed....

The fragrance of the forest when it wakes at dawn,

The fragrance of a trim green village lawn,

The hearing of the murmur of the rain at play--

These things are beautiful, beautiful as day!

And I shan’t stand waiting for love or scorn

When the feast is laid for a day new-born....

Oh, better let the little things I loved when little

Return when the heart finds the great things brittle;

And better is a temple made of bark and thong

Than a tall stone temple that may stand too long.

_Orrick Johns_

_Clouds and Sky_

One time when I was sick,

And could but see

The sky above the top

Of a tall tree,

It first was coldly blue

Far past the tree.

Without a cloud, it seemed

Eternity.

But when clouds came, the sky,

(I know not how),

Was caught among the leaves--

And it was Now.

_Lancaster Pollard_

_My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold_

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man:

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man--

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

_William Wordsworth_

_The Marshes_[5]

Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free

Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea!

Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun,

Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily won

God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain

And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.

As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod,

Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God:

I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies

In the freedom that fills all the space ’twixt the marsh and the skies:

By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod

I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God:

Oh, like to the greatness of God is the greatness within

The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.

_Sidney Lanier_

[5] Extract from “The Marshes of Glynn.”

_Song_

The birds of the air, they sing it,

Round the rim of the world they ring it;

The bees in the blossom-bell,

They tell, they tell.

No; birds in the air, none sing it,

For the rift of the dawn none ring it;

Noon bees in the blossom-bell,

None tell, none tell.

I say it over and over,--

There is none can speak for a lover;

But oh, ere the roses go,

Her heart will know!

_John Vance Cheney_

_Out-of-Doors_

What came ye out for to seek, O Maker of Words?

The color of grass in the sunshine, the music of birds;

And what shall ye do when ye find them, O Singer of Songs?

Weave a bright fabric of beauty, and give it to whom it belongs;

Weave a gay fabric of music, to lay at the feet of mankind,

All purple and gold for the sense, all golden and gray for the mind?

This came I out for to seek--the daffodil’s gold,

The magic of buds all unfolding, the treasure untold

That lies in the heart of the forest, the moss and the leaves,

The jewel of flowers in the thicket, that no eye perceives;

And these will I weave into music, these will I fashion to words,

The wind in the grass and the rushes, the dawn-song of birds.

_Ethel E. Mannin_

_The Whole Duty of Berkshire Brooks_

To build the trout a crystal stair;

To comb the hillside’s thick green hair;

To water jewel-weed and rushes;

To teach first notes to baby thrushes;

To flavor raspberry and apple

And make a whirling pool to dapple

With scattered gold of late October;

To urge wise laughter on the sober

And lend a dream to those who laugh;

To chant the beetle’s epitaph;

To mirror the blue dragonfly,

Frail air-plane of a slender sky;

Over the stones to lull and leap

Herding the bubbles like white sheep;

The claims of worry to deny,

And whisper sorrow into sleep!

_Grace Hazard Conkling_

_A Word With a Skylark_

If this be all, for which I’ve listened long,

Oh, spirit of the dew!

You did not sing to Shelley such a song

As Shelley sang to you.

Yet, with this ruined Old World for a nest,

Worm-eaten through and through,--

This waste of grave-dust stamped with crown and crest,--

What better could you do?

Ah me! but when the world and I were young,

There was an apple-tree,

There was a voice in the dawn that sung

The buds awake--ah me!

Oh, Lark of Europe, downward fluttering near,

Like some spent leaf at best,

You’d never sing again if you could hear

My Bluebird of the West!

_Sarah Piatt_

_The Perilous Light_

The Eternal Beauty smiled on me

From the long lily’s curved form,

She laughed in a wave of the sea,

She flashed on white wings through the storm.

In the bulb of a daffodil

She made a little joyful stir,

And the white cabin on the hill

Was my heart’s home because of Her.

Her laughter fled the eyes of pride,

Barefoot She went o’er stony land,

And ragged children, hungry-eyed,

Clung to Her skirts and held Her hand.

When storm winds shook the cabin door

And red the Atlantic sunset blazed,

The fisher folk of Mullaghmore

Into Her eyes indifferent gazed.

By lonely waves She dwells apart,

And sea gulls circling on white wings,

Crowd round the windows of Her heart,

Most dear to Her of starving things.

The ploughman, down by Knocknarea,

Was free of Her twilight abode,

In shining sea-winds, salt with spray,

She haunted every gray cross road.

Some peasants with a creel of turf

Along the wind-swept boreen came,

Her feet went flashing through the surf,

Her wings were in the sunset’s flame.

Beyond the rocks of Classiebawn,

The mackerel fishers sailing far,

Out in the vast Atlantic dawn

Found, tangled in their nets, a star.

In every spent and broken wave

The Eternal Beauty takes Her rest,

She is the Lover of the Brave,

The comrade of the perilous quest.

The Eternal Beauty wrung my heart,

Faithful is She, and true to shed

The austere glory of Art

On the scarceness of daily bread.

Men follow Her with toil and thought,

Over the heaven’s starry pride,--

The Eternal Beauty comes unsought

To the child by the roadside.

_Eva Gore-Booth_

_Folly_

The moon has made me weary

With its silver and its song.

Such ardor in so old a thing

Is wrong, all wrong.

It should be limping silently

Across the leaden sky

Or grumbling at the cloud-hills

The wind piles high.

It should be teaching little moons

The proper way to shine,

Instead of singing sonnets

To each adoring pine.

_Vivian Yeiser Laramore_

_One Blackbird_

The stars must make an awful noise

In whirling round the sky;

Yet somehow I can’t even hear

Their loudest song or sigh.

So it is wonderful to think

One blackbird can outsing

The voice of all the swarming stars

On any day in spring.

_Harold Monro_

_A Rune of Riches_

I have a golden ball,

A big, bright, shining one,

Pure gold; and it is all

Mine.--It is the sun.

I have a silver ball,

A white and glistering stone

That other people call

The moon;--my very own!

The jewel things that prick

My cushion’s soft blue cover

Are mine,--my stars, thick, thick,

Scattered the sky all over.

And everything that’s mine

Is yours, and yours, and yours,--

The shimmer and the shine!--

Let’s lock our wealth out-doors!

_Florence Converse_

_The Picture_

“There’s a pool in the ancient forest,”

The painter-poet said,

“That is violet-blue and emerald

From the face of the sky o’erhead.”

So, far in the ancient forest,

To the heart of the wood went I,

But found no pool of emerald,

No violet-blue for sky.

“There’s a pool in the ancient forest,”

Said the painter-poet still.

“That is violet-blue and emerald,

Near the breast of a rose-green hill.”

And the heart of the ancient forest

The painter-poet drew,

And painted a pool of emerald

That thrilled me through and through.

Then back to the ancient forest

I went with a strange, wild thrill,

And I found the pool of emerald,

Near the breast of a rose-green hill.

_Frederick O. Sylvester_

“_Sic Vita_”

Heart free, hand free,

Blue above, brown under,

All the world to me

Is a place of wonder.

Sun shine, moon shine,

Stars, and winds a-blowing,

All into this heart of mine

Flowing, flowing, flowing!

Mind free, step free,

Days to follow after,

Joys of life sold to me

For the price of laughter.

Girl’s love, man’s love

Love of work and duty,

Just a will of God’s to prove

Beauty, beauty, beauty!

_William Stanley Braithwaite_

_A Blackbird Suddenly_

Heaven is in my hand, and I

Touch a heart-beat of the sky,

Hearing a blackbird’s cry.

Strange, beautiful, unquiet thing,

Lone flute of God, how can you sing

Winter to spring?

You have outdistanced every voice and word,

And given my spirit wings until it stirred

Like you--a bird!

_Joseph Auslander_

_Credo_

I believe

In the whispering of the peacock-plumaged sea,

In the moonshine and the little shining star,

I believe that in all color harmony

His angels are.

I believe

In the sunshine and the message of the flowers,

In the wind-song and the sea-song and the rain--

I believe that in summer’s greening hours

God comes again.

_Vera Wheatly_

_Gospel of the Fields_

Have you ever thought, my friend,

As daily you toil and plod

In the noisy paths of man,

How still are the ways of God?

Have you ever paused in the din

Of traffic’s insistent cry

To think of the calm in the cloud,

Of the peace in your glimpse of sky?

Go out in the growing fields

That quietly yield you meat,

And let them rebuke your noise

Whose patience is still and sweet.

They toil their æons--and we

Who flutter back to their breast,

A handful of clamorous clay,

Forget their silence is best!

_Arthur Upson_

_The Welcome_

God spreads a carpet soft and green

O’er which we pass;

A thick-piled mat of jeweled sheen--

And that is Grass.

Delightful music woos the ear;

The grass is stirred

Down to the heart of every spear--

Ah, that’s a Bird.

Clouds roll before a blue immense

That stretches high

And lends the soul exalted sense--

That scroll’s a Sky.

Green rollers flaunt their sparkling crests;

Their jubilee

Extols brave Captains and their quests--

And that is Sea.

New-leaping grass, the feathery flute,

The sapphire ring,

The sea’s full-voiced, profound salute,--

Ah, this is Spring!

_Arthur Powell_

_Angels of the Spring_

We see them not--we cannot hear

The music of their wing--

Yet know we that they sojourn near,

The angels of the spring!

They glide along this lovely ground

When the first violet grows;

Their graceful hands have just unbound

The zone of yonder rose.

I gather it for thy dear breast,

From stain and shadow free:

That which an Angel’s love hath blest

Is meet, my love, for thee!

_Robert Stephen Hawkes_

_God’s World_

O World, I cannot hold thee close enough!

Thy winds, thy wide gray skies!

Thy mists that roll and rise!

Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag

And all but cry with color! That gaunt crag

To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!

World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,

But never knew I this;

Here such a passion is

As stretcheth me apart. Lord, I do fear

Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year.

My soul is all but out of me,--let fall

No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

_Edna St. Vincent Millay_

_Rain_

I never knew how words were vain

Until I strove to say

The thoughts that fell like the gray rain

Upon my heart today.

The April rain falls on the earth,

That waits a while for words,

And then becomes articulate

In buds and bees and birds.

The thoughts that rain upon my heart

Bring nothing fair to birth;

O God, I kneel before the art,

Of this great lyrist, earth.

_Kenneth Slade Alling_

_The Lark_

(_Salisbury, England_)

A close gray sky,

And poplars gray and high,

The country-side along;

The steeple bold

Across the acres old--

And then a song!

Oh, far, far, far,

As any spire or star,

Beyond the cloistered wall!

Oh, high, high, high,

A heart-throb in the sky--

Then not at all!

_Lizette Woodworth Reese_

_Farewell_

Tell them, O Sky-born, when I die

With high romance to wife,

That I went out as I had lived,

Drunk with the joy of life.

Yea, say that I went down to death

Serene and unafraid,

Still loving Song, but loving more

Life, of which Song is made!

_Harry Kemp_

_The Comfort of the Stars_

When I am overmatched by petty cares

And things of earth loom large, and look to be

Of moment, how it soothes and comforts me

To step into the night and feel the airs

Of heaven fan my cheek; and, best of all,

Gaze up into those all-uncharted seas

Where swim the stately planets: such as these

Make mortal fret seem light and temporal.

I muse on what of Life may stir among

Those spaces knowing naught of metes nor bars;

Undreamed-of dramas played in outmost stars,

And lyrics by archangels grandly sung.

I grow familiar with the solar runes

And comprehend of worlds the mystic birth;

Ringed Saturn, Mars, whose fashion apes the earth,

And Jupiter, the giant, with his moons.

Then, dizzy with the unspeakable sights above,

Rebuked by Vast on Vast, my puny heart

Is greatened for its transitory part,

My trouble merged in wonder and in love.

_Richard Burton_

_The Last Hour_

O joys of love and joys of fame,

It is not you I shall regret:

I sadden lest I should forget

The beauty woven in earth’s name.

The shout and battle of the gale,

The stillness of the sun-rising,

The sound of some deep hidden spring,

The glad sob of the filling sail,

The first green ripple of the wheat,

The rain-song of the lifted leaves,

The waking birds beneath the eaves,

The voices of the summer heat.

_Ethel Clifford_

_Wasted Hours_

There was a day I wasted long ago,

Lying upon a hillside in the sun--

An April day of wind and drifting clouds,

An idle day and all my work undone.

The little peach trees with their coral skirts

Were dancing up the hillside in the breeze;

The gray walled meadows gleamed like bits of jade

Against the crimson bloom of maple trees.

And I could smell the warmth of trodden grass,

The coolness of a freshly harrowed field;

And I could hear a bluebird’s wistful song

Of love and beauty only half revealed.

I have forgotten many April days

But one there is that comes to haunt me still--

A day of feathered trees and windy skies

And wasted hours on a sunlit hill.

_Medora Addison_

_God is at the Anvil_

God is at the anvil, beating out the sun;

Where the molten metal spills,

At His forge among the hills

He has hammered out the glory of a day that’s done.

God is at the anvil, welding golden bars;

In the scarlet-streaming flame

He is fashioning a frame

For the shimmering silver beauty of the evening stars.

_Lew Sarett_

_The End of the Trail_

_Have little care that life is brief, and less that Art is long,

Success is in the silences, though fame is in the song._