You shall be music in the young birds' throats,
You shall be breaking, soon, in silver notes;
A virgin laughter in the young earth's bosom.
Oh, that I could with you reenter earth,
Pass through her heart and come again to sun,
Out of her fertile dark to sing and run
In loveliness and fragrance of new mirth!
Fall, rain! Into the dust I go with you,
Pierce the remaining snows with subtle fire,
Warming the frozen roots with soft desire,
Dreams of ascending leaves and flowers new.
I am no longer body,--I am blood
Seeking for some new loveliness of shape;
Dark loveliness that dreams of new escape,
The sun-surrender of unclosing bud.
Take me, O Earth! and make me what you will;
I feel my heart with mingled music fill.
CONRAD AIKEN
WHILE APRIL RAIN WENT BY
Under a budding hedge I hid
While April rain went by,
But little drops came slipping through,
Fresh from a laughing sky:
A-many little scurrying drops,
Laughing the song they sing,
Soon found me where I sought to hide,
And pelted me with Spring.
And I lay back and let them pelt,
And dreamt deliciously
Of lusty leaves and lady-blossoms
And baby-buds I'd see
When April rain had laughed the land
Out of its wintry way,
And coaxed all growing things to greet
With gracious garb the May.
SHAEMAS O SHEEL
SPRING
The dews drip roses on the meadows
Where the meek daisies dot the sward.
And AEolus whispers through the shadows,
"Behold the handmaid of the Lord!"
The golden news the skylark waketh
And 'thwart the heavens his flight is curled;
Attend ye as the first note breaketh
And chrism droppeth on the world.
The velvet dusk still haunts the stream
Where Pan makes music light and gay.
The mountain mist hath caught a beam
And slowly weeps itself away.
The young leaf bursts its chrysalis
And gem-like hangs upon the bough,
Where the mad throstle sings in bliss
O'er earth's rejuvenated brow.
ENVOI
Slowly fall, O golden sands,
Slowly fall and let me sing,
Wrapt in the ecstasy of youth,
The wild delights of Spring.
FRANCIS LEDWIDGE
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--ay, white as my love's throat--
The dogwood boughs are glowing.
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
DAFFODILS
There flames the first gay daffodil
Where winter-long the snows have lain:
Who buried Love, all spent and still?
There flames the first gay daffodil.
Go, Love's alive on yonder hill,
And yours for asking, joy and pain,
There flames the first gay daffodil
Where winter-long the snows have lain!
RUTH GUTHRIE HARDING
THE CROCUS FLAME
The Easter sunrise flung a bar of gold
O'er the awakening wold.
What was thine answer, O thou brooding earth,
What token of re-birth,
Of tender vernal mirth,
Thou the long-prisoned in the bonds of cold?
Under the kindling panoply which God
Spreads over tree and clod,
I looked far abroad.
Umber the sodden reaches seemed and seer
As when the dying year,
With rime-white sandals shod,
Faltered and fell upon its frozen bier.
Of some rathe quickening, some divine
Renascence not a sign!
And yet, and yet,
With touch of viol-chord, with mellow fret,
The lyric South amid the bough-tops stirred,
And one lone bird
An unexpected jet
Of song projected through the morning blue,
As though some wondrous hidden thing it knew.
And so I gathered heart, and cried again:
"O earth, make plain,
At this matutinal hour,
The triumph and the power
Of life eternal over death and pain,
Although it be but by some simple flower!"
And then, with sudden light,
Was dowered my veiled sight,
And I beheld in a sequestered place
A slender crocus show its sun-bright face.
O miracle of Grace,
Earth's Easter answer came,
The revelation of transfiguring Might,
In that small crocus flame!
CLINTON SCOLLARD
THE EARLY GODS
It is the time of violets.
It is the very day
When in the shadow of the wood
Spring shall have her say,
Remembering how the early gods
Came up the violet way.
Are there not violets
And gods--
To-day?
WITTER BYNNER
A TULIP GARDEN
Guarded within the old red wall's embrace,
Marshalled like soldiers in gay company,
The tulips stand arrayed. Here infantry
Wheels out into the sunlight. What bold grace
Sets off their tunics, white with crimson lace!
Here are platoons of gold-frocked cavalry,
With scarlet sabres tossing in the eye
Of purple batteries, every gun in place.
Forward they come, with flaunting colors spread,
With torches burning, stepping out in time
To some quick, unheard march. Our ears are dead,
We cannot catch the tune. In pantomime
Parades the army. With our utmost powers
We hear the wind stream through a bed of flowers.
AMY LOWELL
TULIPS
Brave little fellows in crimsons and yellows,
Coming while breezes of April are cold,
Winter can't freeze you, he flies when he sees you
Thrusting your spears through the redolent mold.
Jolly Dutch flowers, rejoicing in showers,
Drink! ere the pageant of Spring passes by!
Hold your carousals to Robin's espousals,
Lifting rich cups for the wine of the sky!
Dignified urbans in glossy silk turbans,
Burgherlike blossoms of gardens and squares,
Nodding so solemn by fountain and column,
What is the talk of your weighty affairs?
Pollen and honey (for such is your money),--
Gossip and freight of the chaffering bee,--
Prospects of growing,--what colors are showing,--
News of rare tulips from over the sea?
Loitering near you, how often I hear you,
Just ere your petals at twilight are furled,
Laugh through the grasses while Evelyn passes,
"There goes the loveliest flower in the world!"
ARTHUR GUITERMAN
A WHITE IRIS
Tall and clothed in samite,
Chaste and pure,
In smooth armor,--
Your head held high
In its helmet
Of silver:
Jean D'Arc riding
Among the sword blades!
Has Spring for you
Wrought visions,
As it did for her
In a garden?
PAULINE B. BARRINGTON
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.
RICHARD LE GALLIENNE
THE MAGNOLIA
Deep in the wood, of scent and song the daughter,
Perfect and bright is the magnolia born;
White as a flake of foam upon still water,
White as soft fleece upon rough brambles torn.
Hers is a cup a workman might have fashioned
Of Grecian marble in an age remote.
Hers is a beauty perfect and impassioned,
As when a woman bares her rounded throat.
There is a tale of how the moon, her lover,
Holds her enchanted by some magic spell;
Something about a dove that broods above her,
Or dies within her breast--I cannot tell.
I cannot say where I have heard the story,
Upon what poet's lips; but this I know:
Her heart is like a pearl's, or like the glory
Of moonbeams frozen on the spotless snow.
JOSE SANTOS CHOCANO
(_Translated by John Pierrepont Rice_)
"GO DOWN TO KEW IN LILAC-TIME"
Go down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time;
Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)
And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland;
Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!).
The cherry-trees are seas of bloom and soft perfume and sweet perfume,
The cherry-trees are seas of bloom (and oh, so near to London!)
And there they say, when dawn is high and all the world's a blaze of
sky
The cuckoo, though he's very shy, will sing a song for London.
The Dorian nightingale is rare, and yet they say you'll hear him there
At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!)
The linnet and the throstle, too, and after dark the long halloo
And golden-eyed _tu-whit_, _tu-whoo_ of owls that ogle London.
For Noah hardly knew a bird of any kind that isn't heard
At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!)
And when the rose begins to pout and all the chestnut spires are out
You'll hear the rest without a doubt, all chorussing for London:--
_Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time;
Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)
And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland;
Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)._
ALFRED NOYES
BEYOND
I wonder if the tides of Spring
Will always bring me back again
Mute rapture at the simple thing
Of lilacs blowing in the rain.
If so, my heart will ever be
Above all fear, for I shall know
There is a greater mystery
Beyond the time when lilacs blow.
THOMAS S. JONES, JR.
JUNE
I knew that you were coming, June, I knew that you were coming!
Among the alders by the stream I heard a partridge drumming;
I heard a partridge drumming, June, a welcome with his wings,
And felt a softness in the air half Summer's and half Spring's.
I knew that you were nearing, June, I knew that you were nearing--
I saw it in the bursting buds of roses in the clearing;
The roses in the clearing, June, were blushing pink and red,
For they had heard upon the hills the echo of your tread.
I knew that you were coming, June, I knew that you were coming,
For ev'ry warbler in the wood a song of joy was humming.
I know that you are here, June, I know that you are here--
The fairy month, the merry month, the laughter of the year!
DOUGLAS MALLOCH
JUNE RAPTURE
Green! What a world of green! My startled soul
Panting for beauty long denied,
Leaps in a passion of high gratitude
To meet the wild embraces of the wood;
Rushes and flings itself upon the whole
Mad miracle of green, with senses wide,
Clings to the glory, hugs and holds it fast,
As one who finds a long-lost love at last.
Billows of green that break upon the sight
In bounteous crescendos of delight,
Wind-hurried verdure hastening up the hills
To where the sun its highest rapture spills;
Cascades of color tumbling down the height
In golden gushes of delicious light--
God! Can I bear the beauty of this day,
Or shall I be swept utterly away?
Hush--here are deeps of green, where rapture stills,
Sheathing itself in veils of amber dusk;
Breathing a silence suffocating, sweet,
Wherein a million hidden pulses beat.
Look! How the very air takes fire and thrills
With hint of heaven pushing through her husk.
Ah, joy's not stopped! 'Tis only more intense,
Here where Creation's ardors all condense;
Here where I crush me to the radiant sod,
Close-folded to the very nerves of God.
See now--I hold my heart against this tree.
The life that thrills its trembling leaves thrills me.
There's not a pleasure pulsing through its veins
That does not sting me with ecstatic pains.
No twig or tracery, however fine,
Can bear a tale of joy exceeding mine.
Praised be the gods that made my spirit mad;
Kept me aflame and raw to beauty's touch.
Lashed me and scourged me with the whip of fate;
Gave me so often agony for mate;
Tore from my heart the things that make men glad--
Praised be the gods! If I at last, by such
Relentless means may know the sacred bliss,
The anguished rapture of an hour like this.
Smite me, O Life, and bruise me if thou must;
Mock me and starve me with thy bitter crust,
But keep me thus aquiver and awake,
Enamoured of my life for living's sake!
_This were the tragedy_--that I should pass,
Dull and indifferent through the glowing grass.
And this the reason I was born, I say--
That I might know the passion of this day!
ANGELA MORGAN
COLUMBINES
Late were we sleeping
Deep in the mold,
Clasping and keeping
Yesterday's gold--
Hoardings of sunshine,
Crimson and gold;
Dreaming of light till our dream became
Aureate bells and beakers of flame,--
Splashed with the splendor of wine of flame.
Raindrop awoke us;
Zephyr bespoke us;
Chick-a-dee called us,
Bobolink called us,--
Then we came.
ARTHUR GUITERMAN
THE MORNING-GLORY
Was it worth while to paint so fair
Thy every leaf--to vein with faultless art
Each petal, taking the boon light and air
Of summer so to heart?
To bring thy beauty unto perfect flower,
Then, like a passing fragrance or a smile,
Vanish away, beyond recovery's power--
Was it, frail bloom, worth while?
Thy silence answers: "Life was mine!
And I, who pass without regret or grief,
Have cared the more to make my moment fine,
Because it was so brief.
"In its first radiance I have seen
The sun!--why tarry then till comes the night?
I go my way, content that I have been
Part of the morning light!"
FLORENCE EARLE COATES
THE BLOSSOMY BARROW
Antonio Sarto ees buildin' a wall,
But maybe he nevva gon' feenish at all.
Eet sure wonta be
Teell flower an' tree
An' all kinda growin' theengs sleep een da Fall.
You see, deesa 'Tonio always ees want'
To leeve on a farm, so he buy wan las' mont'.
I s'posa som' day eet be verra nice place,
But shape dat he find eet een sure ees "deesgrace";
Eet's busta so bad he must feexin' eet all,
An' firs' theeng he starta for build ees da wall.
Mysal' I go outa for see heem wan day,
An' dere I am catcha heem sweatin' away;
He's liftin' beeg stones from all parts of hees land
An' takin' dem up to da wall een hees hand!
I say to heem: "Tony, why don'ta you gat
Som' leetla wheel-barrow for halp you weeth dat?"
"O! com' an' I show you w'at's matter," he said,
An' so we go look at hees tools een da shed.
Dere's fina beeg wheel-barrow dere on da floor,
But w'at do you s'pose? From een under da door,
Som' mornin'-glor' vines have creep eento da shed,
An' beautiful flower, all purpla an' red,
Smile out from da vina so pretty an' green
Dat tweest round da wheel an' da sides da machine.
I look at dees Tony an' say to heem: "Wal?"
An' Tony he look back at me an' say: "Hal!
I no can bust up soocha beautiful theeng;
I work weeth my han's eef eet tak' me teell spreeng!"
Antonio Sarto ees buildin' a wall,
But maybe he nevva gon' feenish at all.
Eet sure wonta be
Teell flower an' tree
An' all kinda growin' theengs sleep een da Fall.
T. A. DALY
LARKSPUR
Blue morning and the beloved,
The hill-garden and I ...
Blue morning and the beloved,
Leaning, laughing and plucking,
Plucking wet roses ...
(She among the roses,
I among the larkspur,
Bob-white, warbler, meadowlark, bobolink,
Song, sun,
And still morning air.)
I snipped off a larkspur blossom of china-blue
And held it,
A blossom against the sky ...
And heaven opened out
In one small flower-face ...
And the beloved,
Plucking roses, plucking roses, old-fashioned roses,
Lifted her face
With eyes of china-blue.
(She among the roses,
I among the larkspur,
Bee-hum, brown-mole, downy chick, humming-bird:
Light, dew,
And laughter of my love.)
JAMES OPPENHEIM
THE JULY GARDEN
It's July in my garden; and steel-blue are the globe thistles
And French grey the willows that bow to every breeze;
And deep in every currant bush a robber blackbird whistles
"I'm picking, I'm picking, I'm picking these!"
So off I go to rout them, and find instead I'm gazing
At clusters of delphiniums--the seed was small and brown,
But these are spurs that fell from heaven and caught the most amazing
Colours of the welkin's own as they came hustling down.
And then some roses catch my eye, or may be some Sweet Williams
Or pink and white and purple peals of Canterbury bells
Or pencilled Violas that peep between the three-leaved trilliums
Or red-hot pokers all aglow or poppies that cast spells--
And while I stare at each in turn I quite forget or pardon
The blackbirds--and the blackguards--that keep robbing me of pie;
For what do such things matter when I have so fair a garden
And what is half so lovely as my garden in July?
ROBERT ERNEST VERNEDE
"MID-SUMMER BLOOMS WITHIN OUR QUIET GARDEN-WAYS"
Mid-summer blooms within our quiet garden-ways;
A golden peacock down the dusky alley strays;
Gay flower petals strew
--Pearl, emerald and blue--
The curving slopes of fragrant summer grass;
The pools are clear as glass
Between the white cups of the lily-flowers;
The currants are like jewelled fairy-bowers;
A dazzling insect worries the heart of a rose,
Where a delicate fern a filmy shadow throws,
And airy as bubbles the thousands of bees
Over the young grape-clusters swarm as they please.
The air is pearly, iridescent, pure;
These profound and radiant noons mature,
Unfolding even as odorous roses of clear light;
Familiar roads to distances invite
Like slow and graceful gestures, one by one
Bound for the pearly-hued horizon and the sun.
Surely the summer clothes, with all her arts,
No other garden with such grace and power;
And 'tis the poignant joy close-folded in our hearts
That cries its life aloud from every flaming flower.
EMILE VERHAEREN
POPPIES
O perfect flowers of sweet midsummer days,
The season's emblems ye,
As nodding lazily
Ye kiss to sleep each breeze that near you strays,
And soothe the tired gazer's sense
With lulling surges of your softest somnolence.
Like fairy lamps ye light the garden bed
With tender ruby glow.
Not any flowers that blow
Can match the glory of your gleaming red;
Such sunny-warm and dreamy hue
Before ye lit your fires no garden ever knew.
Bright are the blossoms of the scarlet sage,
And bright the velvet vest
On the nasturtium's breast;
Bright are the tulips when they reddest rage,
And bright the coreopsis' eye;--
But none of all can with your brilliant beauty vie.
O soft and slumberous flowers, we love you well;
Your glorious crimson tide
The mossy walk beside
Holds all the garden in its drowsy spell;
And walking there we gladly bless
Your queenly grace and all your languorous loveliness.
JOHN RUSSELL HAYES
THE GARDEN IN AUGUST
From corn-crib by the level pasture-lands
To knoll where spruce and boulders hide the road
I know it like a book, and when my heart
Is waste and dry and hard and choked with weeds,
I come here till it gently blooms again.
For gardens yield rich fruits that will outlast
The autumn and the winter of the soul,
Richest to him who toils with loving hands.
'Tis delving thus we learn life's secrets told
But to those favored few who dig for them.
The Garden is an intimate and keeps
In touch with us, yet hath its own high moods,
And doth impose them on the mind of man
To shame his pettiness. So do I love
Its shimmering August mood keyed to the sun,
A harlequin of color, birds and bloom.
Nasturtiums, zinnias, balsams, salvias blaze
By vivid dahlias; tiger-lilies burn
In scarlet shadow of Jerusalem-cross;
Beyond the queen-hydrangeas splendid rule
Barbaric marigolds; chrysanthemums
Outshine gladioli, and sunflowers flaunt
Their crests of gold beneath the giant gourds.
Within the arbor, script forgot, I muse,
While gorgeous hollyhocks sway to and fro
To mark the silences, and butterflies
Flit in and out like some bright memory,
And blinding poppies kindle slow watch-fires
Before the golden altar of the sun.
A spell lies on the Garden. Summer sits
With finger on her lips as if she heard
The steps of Autumn echo on the hill.
A hush lies on the Garden. Summer dreams
Of timid crocus thrust through drifted snow.
GERTRUDE HUNTINGTON MCGIFFERT
SUN, CARDINAL, AND CORN FLOWERS
Whence gets Earth her gold for thee,
O Sunflower?
Her woven, yellow locks so fine
Must go to make that gold of thine.
And whence thy red beside the stream,
O Cardinal-flower?
She pricks some vein lies near her heart
That thy rich, ruddy hue may start.
And whence thy blue amid the corn,
O Corn-flower?
Her deep-blue eyes gleam out in glee,
The glories of her work to see.
HANNAH PARKER KIMBALL
SUNFLOWERS
My tall sunflowers love the sun,
Love the burning August noons
When the locust tunes its viol,
And the cricket croons.
When the purple night draws on,
With its planets hung on high,
And the attared winds of slumber
Wander down the sky,
Still my sunflowers love the sun,
Keep their ward and watch and wait
Till the rosy key of morning
Opes the eastern gate.
Then, when they have deeply quaffed
From the brimming cups of dew,
You can hear their golden laughter
All the garden through.
CLINTON SCOLLARD
THE END OF SUMMER
When poppies in the garden bleed,
And coreopsis goes to seed,
And pansies, blossoming past their prime,
Grow small and smaller all the time,
When on the mown field, shrunk and dry,
Brown dock and purple thistle lie,
And smoke from forest fires at noon
Can make the sun appear the moon,
When apple seeds, all white before,
Begin to darken in the core,
I know that summer, scarcely here,
Is gone until another year.
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
A LATE WALK
When I go up through the mowing field,
The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
Half closes the garden path.
And when I come to the garden ground,
The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of the withered weeds
Is sadder than any words.
A tree beside the wall stands bare,
But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
Comes softly rustling down.
I end not far from my going forth
By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
To carry again to you.
ROBERT FROST
COLOR NOTES
The brown of fallen leaves,
The duller brown
Of withered moss
Stubble and bared sheaves,
And pale light filtering down
The fields across.
The gray of slender trees,
The softer gray
Of melting skies.
What sobering ecstasies
One drinks on such a day
With chastened eyes!
CHARLES WHARTON STORK
THE GOLDEN BOWL
I stand upon the broad and rounded summit
Of a high hill
In the full golden flood of an October day
Nearing to twilight.
Below lie bouquets of woods, flat fields,
White strings of roads winding like fairy tales into the distance,
All steeped in sapphire mist like the blue bloom of grapes.
Nearby a scarlet creeper trails a fence,
Nearer a hawthorn tree
Drops its wee crimson apples into the lush green grass.
I stand with head thrown back,
Seeing and breathing deep,
My arms stretched out, in my two hands
I hold a golden bowl.
Luscious fruits fulfil the yellow lustre of its hollow sphere,
Fruits like great gems,
A pear of russet topaz, a ruby peach,
A cluster of grapes--
Amethysts from the dewy cave of night--
A sapphire plum, a garnet apple, emerald nectarine,
And on them lies a rose.
Oh, empty golden bowl I call my soul,
Filled now with the precious fruits of life and time,
Topped with the rosy spray of grace,
A rose,
As though dropped to me from the sky above,
A crowning thing,
Love,
I lift and hold you out,
An offering,
And close my eyes.
MARY MCMILLAN
THE AUTUMN ROSE
A Ghostly visitant, pale Autumn Rose,
Haunting my garden that you once loved well:
Ah, how you queened it ere the sweet June's close,
And blushed anew to hear the zephyrs tell
Your loveliness was fairer than a dream!
But now your pride of beauty is all gone,
And like some poor sad penitent you seem,
Whose drooping head but hides a visage wan
And wasted by the coldness of the world.
Upon your faint sweet breath is borne a sigh,
Within your petals lies a tear impearled;
I hear you to my garden say good-bye.
A sudden wind--the pale rose-petals blow
Hither and yon--or are they flakes of snow?
ANTOINETTE DE COURSEY PATTERSON
INDIAN SUMMER
Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
Ceaseless, insistent.
The grasshopper's horn, and far off, high in the maples
The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence,
Under the moon waning and worn and broken,
Tired with summer.
Let me remember you, voices of little insects,
Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,
Let me remember you, soon will the winter be on us,
Snow-hushed and heartless.
Over my soul murmur your mute benediction,
While I gaze, oh fields that rest after harvest,
As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,
Lest they forget them.
SARA TEASDALE
"FROST TO-NIGHT"