Bliss William Carman: Verses about Nature

The lover of child Marjory
Had one white hour of life brim full;
Now the old nurse, the rocking sea,
Hath him to lull.
The daughter of child Marjory
Hath in her veins, to beat and run,
The glad indomitable sea,
The strong white sun.

LO, now, the journeying sun,
Another day's march done,
Kindles his campfire at the edge of night!
And in the twilight pale
Above his crimson trail,
The stars move out their cordons still and bright.
Now in the darkening hush
A solitary thrush
Sings on in silvery rapture to the deep;
While brooding on her best,
The wandering soul has rest,
And earth receives her sacred gift of sleep.

NOW the fire is lighted
On the chimney stone,
Day goes down the valley,
I am left alone.
Now the misty purple
Floods the darkened vale,
And the stars come out
On the twilight trail.
The mountain river murmurs
In his rocky bed,
And the stealthy shadows
Fill the house with dread.
Then I hear your laughter
At the open door, —
Brightly burns the fire,
I need fear no more.

SHINING, shining children
Of the summer rain,
Racing down the valley,
Sweeping o'er the plain!
Rushing through the forest,
Pelting on the leaves,
Drenching down the meadow
With its standing sheaves;
Robed in royal silver,
Girt with jewels gay,
With a gust of gladness
You pass upon your way.
Fresh, ah, fresh behind you,
Sunlit and impearled,
As it was in Eden,
Lies the lovely world!

NOW soon, ah, very soon, I know
The trumpets of the north will blow,
And the great winds will come to bring
The pale wild riders of the snow.
Darkening the sun with level flight,
At arrowy speed, they will alight,
Unnumbered as the desert sands,
To bivouac on the edge of night.
Then I, within their somber ring,
Shall hear a voice that seems to sing,
Deep, deep within my tranquil heart,
The valiant prophecy of spring.

I HEARD the summer sea
Murmuring to the shore
Some endless story of a wrong
The whole world must deplore.
I heard the mountain wind
Conversing with the trees
Of an old sorrow of the hills,
Mysterious as the sea's.
And all that haunted day
It seemed that I could hear
The echo of an ancient speech
Ring in my listening ear.
And then it came to me,
That all that I had heard
Was my own heart in the sea's voice
And the wind's lonely word.

IN the wondrous star-sown night,
In the first sweet warmth of spring,
I lie awake and listen
To hear the glad earth sing.
I hear the brook in the wood
Murmuring, as it goes,
The song of the happy journey
Only the wise heart knows.
I hear the trilling note
Of the tree-frog under the hill,
And the clear and watery treble
Of his brother, silvery shrill.
And then I wander away
Through the mighty forest of Sleep,
To follow the fairy music
To the shore of an endless deep.

NOW the little rivers go
Muffled safely under snow,
And the winding meadow streams
Murmur in their wintry dreams,
While a tinkling music wells
Faintly from their icy bells,
Telling how their hearts are bold
Though the very sun be cold.
Ah, but wait until the rain
Comes a-sighing once again,
Sweeping softly from the Sound
Over ridge and meadow ground!
Then the little streams will hear
April calling far and near,—
Slip their snowy bands and run
Sparkling in the welcome sun.

NOW the stars have faded
In the purple chill,
Lo, the sun is kindling
On the eastern hill.
Tree by tree the forest
Takes the golden tinge,
As the shafts of glory
Pierce the summit's fringe.
Rock by rock the ledges
Take the rosy sheen,
As the tide of splendor
Floods the dark ravine.
Like a shining angel
At my cabin door,
Shod with hope and silence,
Day is come once more.
Then, as if in sorrow
That you are not here,
All his magic beauties
Gray and disappear.

THE hilltop trees are bowing
Under the coming of storm.
The low gray clouds are trailing
Like squadrons that sweep and form,
With their ammunition of rain.
Then the trumpeter wind gives signal
To unlimber the viewless guns;
The cattle huddle together;
Indoors the farmer runs;
And the first shot lashes the pane.
They charge through the quiet orchard;
One pear tree is snapped like a wand;
As they sweep from the shattered hillside,
Ruffling the blackened pond,
Ere the sun takes the field again.

FOR a name unknown,
Whose fame unblown
Sleeps in the hills
For ever and aye;

For her who hears
The stir of the years
Go by on the wind
By night and day;

And heeds no thing
Of the needs of spring,
Of autumn's wonder
Or winter's chill;

For one who sees
The great sun freeze,
As he wanders a-cold
From hill to hill;

And all her heart
Is a woven part
Of the flurry and drift
Of whirling snow;

For the sake of two
Sad eyes and true,
And the old, old love
So long ago.

ONCE more in misted April
The world is growing green.
Along the winding river
The plumey willows lean.
Beyond the sweeping meadows
The looming mountains rise,
Like battlements of dreamland
Against the brooding skies.
In every wooded valley
The buds are breaking through,
As though the heart of all things
No languor ever knew.
The golden-wings and bluebirds
Call to their heavenly choirs.
The pines are blued and drifted
With smoke of brushwood fires.
And in my sister's garden
Where little breezes run,
The golden daffodillies
Are blowing in the sun.

WE are the roadside flowers,
Straying from garden grounds, —
Lovers of idle hours,
Breakers of ordered bounds.
If only the earth will feed us,
If only the wind be kind,
We blossom for those who need us,
The stragglers left behind.
And lo, the Lord of the Garden,
He makes his sun to rise,
And his rain to fall like pardon
On our dusty paradise.
On us he has laid the duty, —
The task of the wandering breed,—
To better the world with beauty,
Wherever the way may lead.
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.

NOW is the time of year
When all the flutes begin, —
The redwing bold and clear,
The rainbird far and thin.
In all the waking lands
There's not a wilding thing
But knows and understands
The burden of the spring.
Now every voice alive
By rocky wood and stream
Is lifted to revive
The ecstasy, the dream.
For Nature, never old,
But busy as of yore,
From sun and rain and mould
Is making spring once more.
She sounds her magic note
By river-marge and hill,
And every woodland throat
Re-echoes with a thrill.
O mother of our days,
Hearing thy music call,
Teach us to know thy ways
And fear no more at all!

Lord of my heart's elation,
Spirit of things unseen,
Be thou my aspiration
Consuming and serene!
Bear up, bear out, bear onward
This mortal soul alone,
To selfhood or oblivion,
Incredibly thine own,—
As the foamheads are loosened
And blown along the sea,
Or sink and merge forever
In that which bids them be.

I, too, must climb in wonder,
Uplift at thy command,—
Be one with my frail fellows
Beneath the wind's strong hand,

A fleet and shadowy column
Of dust or mountain rain,
To walk the earth a moment
And be dissolved again.

Be thou my exaltation
Or fortitude of mien,
Lord of the world's elation,
Thou breath of things unseen!

HERE all the forces of the wood
As one converge,
To make the soul of solitude
Where all things merge.
The sun, the rain-wind, and the rain,
The visiting moon,
The hurrying cloud by peak and plain,
Each with its boon.
Here power attains perfection still
In mighty ease,
That the great earth may have her will
Of joy and peace.
And so through me, the mortal born
Of plasmic clay,
Immortal powers, kind, fierce, forlorn,
And glad, have sway.
Eternal passions, ardors fine,
And monstrous fears,
Rule and rebel, serene, malign,
Or loosed in tears;
Until at last they shall evolve
From griefs and joys
Some steady light, some firm resolve,
Some Godlike poise.

O MY dear, the world to-day
Is more lovely than a dream!
Magic hints from far away
Haunt the woodland, and the stream
Murmurs in his rocky bed
Things that never can be said.
Starry dogwood is in flower,
Gleaming through the mystic woods.
It is beauty's perfect hour
In the wild spring solitudes.
Now the orchards in full blow
Shed their petals white as snow.
All the air is honey-sweet
With the lilacs white and red,
Where the blossoming branches meet
In an arbor overhead.
And the laden cherry trees
Murmur with the hum of bees.
All the earth is fairy green,
And the sunlight filmy gold,
Full of ecstasies unseen,
Full of mysteries untold.
Who would not be out-of-door,
Now the spring is here once more!

(Sappho XXIII)
I loved thee, Atthis, in the long ago,
When the great oleanders were in flower
In the broad herded meadows full of sun.
And we would often at the fall of dusk
Wander together by the silver stream,
When the soft grass-heads were all wet with dew
And purple-miste d in the fading light.
And joy I knew and sorrow at thy voice,
And the superb magnificence of love,—
The loneliness that saddens solitude,
And the sweet speech that makes it durable,—
The bitter longing and the keen desire,
The sweet companionshi p through quiet days
In the slow ample beauty of the world,
And the unutterable glad release
Within the temple of the holy night.
O Atthis, how I loved thee long ago
In that fair perished summer by the sea!

MORTAL, mortal, have you seen
In the scented summer night,
Great Astarte, clad in green
With a veil of mystic light,
Passing on her silent way,
Pale and lovelier than day?
Mortal, mortal, have you heard,
On an odorous summer eve,
Rumors of an unknown word
Bidding sorrow not to grieve,—
Echoes of a silver voice
Bidding every heart rejoice?
Mortal, when the slim new moon
Hangs above the western hill,
When the year comes round to June
And the leafy world is still,
Then, enraptured, you shall hear
Secrets for a poet's ear.
Mortal, mortal, come with me,
When the moon is rising large,
Through the wood or from the sea,
Or by some lone river marge.
There, entranced, you shall behold
Beauty's self, that grows not old.

NOW the lilac tree's in bud,
And the morning birds are loud.
Now a stirring in the blood
Moves the heart of every crowd.
Word has gone abroad somewhere
Of a great impending change.
There's a message in the air
Of an import glad and strange.
Not an idler in the street,
But is better off to-day.
Not a traveller you meet,
But has something wise to say.
Now there's not a road too long,
Not a day that is not good,
Not a mile but hears a song
Lifted from the misty wood.
Down along the Silvermine
That's the blackbird's cheerful note!
You can see him flash and shine
With the scarlet on his coat.
Now the winds are soft with rain,
And the twilight has a spell,
Who from gladness could refrain
Or with olden sorrows dwell?

WHEN morning is high o'er the hilltops
On river and stream and lake,
Wherever a young breeze whispers,
The sun-clad dancers wake.
One after one up-springing,
They flash from their dim retreat.
Merry as running laughter
Is the news of their twinkling feet.
Over the floors of azure
Wherever the wind-flaws run,
Sparkling, leaping, and racing,
Their antics scatter the sun.
As long as water ripples
And weather is clear and glad,
Day after day they are dancing,
Never a moment sad.
But when through the field of heaven
The wings of storm take flight,
At a touch of the flying shadows
They falter and slip from sight.
Until at the gray day's ending,
As the squadrons of cloud retire,
They pass in the triumph of sunset
With banners of crimson fire.

Not in the ancient abbey,
Nor in the city ground,
Not in the lonely mountains,
Nor in the blue profound,
Lay him to rest when his time is come
And the smiling mortal lips are dumb;

But here in the decent quiet
Under the whispering pines,
Where the dogwood breaks in blossom
And the peaceful sunlight shines,
Where wild birds sing and ferns unfold,
When spring comes back in her green and gold.

And when that mortal likeness
Has been dissolved by fire,
Say not above the ashes,
'Here ends a man's desire.'
For every year when the bluebirds sing,
He shall be part of the lyric spring.

Then dreamful-hearted lovers
Shall hear in wind and rain
The cadence of his music,
The rhythm of his refrain,
For he was a blade of the April sod
That bowed and blew with the whisper of God.

When the dawn winds whisper
To the standing corn,
And the rose of morning
From the dark is born,
All my shadowy garden
Seems to grow aware
Of a fragrant presence,
Half expected there.

In the golden shimmer
Of the burning noon,
When the birds are silent
And the poppies swoon,
Once more I behold her
Smile and turn her face,
With its infinite regard,
Its immortal grace.
When the twilight silvers
Every nodding flower,
When the new moon hallows
The first evening hour,
Is it not her footfall
Down the garden walks,
Where the drowsy blossoms
Slumber on their stalks?

In the starry quiet,
When the soul is free,
And a vernal message
Stirs the lilac tree,
Surely I have felt her
Pass and brush my cheek,
With the eloquence of love
That does not need to speak!

IN the Garden of Eden, planted by God,
There were goodly trees in the springing sod,—
Trees of beauty and height and grace,
To stand in splendor before His face.
Apple and hickory, ash and pear,
Oak and beech and the tulip rare,
The trembling aspen, the noble pine,
The sweeping elm by the river line;
Trees for the birds to build and sing,
And the lilac tree for a joy in spring;
Trees to turn at the frosty call
And carpet the ground for their Lord's footfall;
Trees for fruitage and fire and shade,
Trees for the cunning builder's trade;
Wood for the bow, the spear, and the flail,
The keel and the mast of the daring sail;
He made them of every grain and girth
For the use of man in the Garden of Earth.
Then lest the soul should not lift her eyes
From the gift to the Giver of Paradise,
On the crown of a hill, for all to see,
God planted a scarlet maple tree.

THERE is a world of being
We range from pole to pole,
Through seasons of the spirit
And weather of the soul.
It has its new-born Aprils,
With gladness in the air,
Its golden Junes of rapture,
Its winters of despair.
And in its tranquil autumns
We halt to re-enforce
Our tattered scarlet pennons
With valor and resource.
From undiscovered regions
Only the angels know,
Great winds of aspiration
Perpetually blow,
To free the sap of impulse
From torpor of distrust,
And into flowers of joyance
Quicken the sentient dust.
From nowhere of a sudden
Loom sudden clouds of fault,
With thunders of oppression
And lightnings of revolt.
With hush of apprehension
And quaking of the heart,
There breed the storms of anger,
And floods of sorrow start.
And there shall fall,—how gently!—
To make them fertile yet,
The rain of absolution
On acres of regret.
Till snows of mercy cover
The dream that shall come true,
When time makes all things wondrous,
And life makes all things new.

THIS is a holy refuge,
The garden of Saint Rose,
A fragrant altar to that peace
The world no longer knows.
Below a solemn hillside,
Within the folding shade
Of overhanging beech and pine
Its walls and walks are laid.
Cool through the heat of summer,
Still as a sacred grove,
It has the rapt unworldly air
Of mystery and love.
All day before its outlook
The mist-blue mountains loom,
And in its trees at tranquil dusk
The early stars will bloom.
Down its enchanted borders
Glad ranks of color stand,
Like hosts of silent seraphim
Awaiting love's command.
Lovely in adoration
They wait in patient line,
Snow-white and purple and deep gold
About the rose-gold shrine.
And there they guard the silence,
While still from her recess
Through sun and shade Saint Rose looks down
In mellow loveliness.
She seems to say, 'O stranger,
Behold how loving care
That gives its life for beauty's sake,
Makes everything more fair!
'Then praise the Lord of gardens
For tree and flower and vine,
And bless all gardeners who have wrought
A resting place like mine!'

WITHIN my stone-walled garden
(I see her standing now,
Uplifted in the twilight,
With glory on her brow!)
I love to walk at evening
And watch, when winds are low,
The new moon in the tree-tops,
Because she loved it so!
And there entranced I listen,
While flowers and winds confer,
And all their conversation
Is redolent of her.
I love the trees that guard it,
Upstanding and serene,
So noble, so undaunted,
Because that was her mien.
I love the brook that bounds it,
Because its silver voice
Is like her bubbling laughter
That made the world rejoice.
I love the golden jonquils,
Because she used to say,
If Soul could choose a color
It would be clothed as they.
I love the blue-gray iris,
Because her eyes were blue,
Sea-deep and heaven-tender
In meaning and in hue.
I love the small wild roses,
Because she used to stand
Adoringly above them
And bless them with her hand.
These were her boon companions,
But more than all the rest
I love the April lilac,
Because she loved it best.
Soul of undying rapture!
How love's enchantment clings,
With sorcery and fragrance,
About familiar things!

ALONG the wintry skyline,
Crowning the rocky crest,
Stands the bare screen of hardwood trees
Against the saffron west,—
Its gray and purple network
Of branching tracery
Outspread upon the lucent air,
Like weed within the sea.
The scarlet robe of autumn
Renounced and put away,
The mystic Earth is fairer still, —
A Puritan in gray.
The spirit of the winter,
How tender, how austere!
Yet all the ardor of the spring
And summer's dream are here.
Fear not, O timid lover,
The touch of frost and rime!
This is the virtue that sustained
The roses in their prime.
The anthem of the northwind
Shall hallow thy despair,
The benediction of the snow
Be answer to thy prayer.
And now the star of evening
That is the pilgrim's sign,
Is lighted in the primrose dusk, —
A lamp before a shrine.
Peace fills the mighty minster,
Tranquil and gray and old,
And all the chancel of the west
Is bright with paling gold.
A little wind goes sifting
Along the meadow floor,—
Like steps of lovely penitents
Who sighingly adore.
Then falls the twilight curtain,
And fades the eerie light,
And frost and silence turn the keys
In the great doors of night.

I
On The Dunes
HERE all night on the dunes
In the rocking wind we sleep;
Watched by the sentry stars,
Lulled by the drone of the deep.
Till hark, in the chill of the dawn
A field lark wakes and cries,
And over the floor of the sea
We watch the round sun rise.
The world is washed once more
In a tide of purple and gold,
And the heart of the land is filled
With desires and dreams untold.
II
Lord Of Morning
Lord of morning, light of day,
Sacred color-kindling sun,
We salute thee in the way, —
Pilgrims robed in rose and dun.
For thou art a pilgrim too,
Overlord of all our band.
In thy fervor we renew
Quests we do not understand.
At thy summons we arise,
At thy touch put glory on,
And with glad unanxious eyes
Take the journey thou hast gone.
III
The Traveller
Before the night-blue fades
And the stars are quite gone,
I lift my head
At the noiseless tread
Of the angel of dawn.
I hear no word, yet my heart
Is beating apace;
Then in glory all still
On the eastern hill
I behold his face.
All day through the world he goes,
Making glad, setting free;
Then his day's work done,
On the galleon sun
He sinks in the sea.

I love the stony pasture
That no one else will have.
The old gray rocks so friendly seem,
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
To pitch their tents therein.

In a still room at hush of dawn,
My Love and I lay side by side
And heard the roaming forest wind
Stir in the paling autumn-tide.

I watched her earth-brown eyes grow glad
Because the round day was so fair;
While memories of reluctant night
Lurked in the blue dusk of her hair.
Outside, a yellow maple tree,
Shifting upon the silvery blue
With tiny multitudinou
s sound,
Rustled to let the sunlight through.

The livelong day the elvish leaves
Danced with their shadows on the floor;
And the lost children of the wind
Went straying homeward by our door.

And all the swarthy afternoon
We watched the great deliberate sun
Walk through the crimsoned hazy world,
Counting his hilltops one by one.

Then as the purple twilight came
And touched the vines along our eaves,
Another Shadow stood without
And gloomed the dancing of the leaves.

The silence fell on my Love's lips;
Her great brown eyes were veiled and sad
With pondering some maze of dream,
Through all the splendid year was glad.

Restless and vague as a gray wind
Her heart had grown, she knew not why.
But hurrying to the open door,
Against the verge of western sky

I saw retreating on the hills,
Looming and sinister and black,
The stealthy figure swift and huge
Of One who strode and looked not back.

AH, Pierrot,
Where is thy Columbine?
What vandal could untwine
That gay rose-rope of thine,
And spill thy joy like wine,
Poor Pierrot?

Ah, Pierrot,
The moon is rising red
Above thy grief-bowed head;
Thy roses are all shed.
And Columbine is dead!
Poor Pierrot!

Ah, Pierrot,
Kneel down beside her tomb.
The gray wind of the gloom,
In the world's empty room,
Has shut the door of doom.
Poor Pierrot!

Ah, Pierrot,
Is there not one sweet word
Of brook or breeze or bird
A mortal ever heard,
Could cheer thee—not one word,
Poor Pierrot?

Ah, Pierrot,
A thousand times the spring
Will come to dance and sing
Up the green earth, and bring
Joy to each living thing,
Poor Pierrot!

But, Pierrot,
When all that pomp shall pass
Her lowly house in the grass,
Will any say, 'Alas,
Poor Columbine; alas,
Poor Pierrot'?

Ah, Pierrot,
Thy loving tears in vain
Shall fall like quiet rain
For her; till the stars wane,
She will not come again,
Poor Pierrot.

Yet, Pierrot,
The mighty Mother now
Hath her in care somehow.
Listen, and clear that brow:
'O earthling, grieve not thou,
Poor Pierrot!

'Ah, Pierrot,
Here on my cool green floor
I do transmute, restore,
All things once fair before
To beauty more and more.
Poor Pierrot!'

Hack ad Hew were the sons of God
In the earlier earth than now:
One at his right hand, one at his left,
To obey as he taught them how.

And Hack was blind, and Hew was dumb,
Buth both had the wild, wild heart;
And God's calm will was their burning will,
And the gist of their toil was art.

They made the moon and the belted stars,
They set the sun to ride;
They loosed the girdle and veil of the sea,
The wind and the purple tide.

Both flower and beast beneath their hands
To beauty and speed outgrew,--
The furious, fumbling hand of Hack,
And the glorying hand of Hew.

Then, fire and clay, they fashioned a man,
And painted him rosy brown;
And God himself blew hard in his eyes:
'Let them burn till they smoulder down!'

And 'There!' said Hack, and 'There' thought Hew,
'We'll rest, for our toil is done.'
But 'Nay,' the Master Workman said,
'For your toil is just begun.

'And ye who served me of old as God
Shall serve me anew as man,
Till I compass the dream that is in my heart,
And perfect the vaster plan.'

And still the craftsman over his craft,
In the vague white ligh of dawn,
With God's calm will for his burning will,
While the mounting day comes on,

Yearning, wind-swift, indolent, wild,
Toils with those shadowy two,--
The faltering, restless hand of Hack,
And the tireless hand of Hew.

Over the hills of April
With soft winds hand in hand,
Impassionate and dreamy-eyed,
Spring leads her saraband.
Her garments float and gather
And swirl along the plain,
Her headgear is the golden sun,
Her cloak the silver rain.

With colour and with music,
With perfumes and with pomp,
By meadowland and upland,
Through pasture, wood, and swamp,
With promise and enchantment
Leading her mystic mime,
She comes to lure the world anew
With joy as old as time.

Quick lifts the marshy chorus
To transport, trill on trill;
There's not a rod of stony ground
Unanswering on the hill.
The brooks and little rivers
Dance down their wild ravines,
And children in the city squares
Keep time, to tambourines.

The blue bird in the orchard
Is lyrical for her,
The starling with his meadow pipe
Sets all the wood astir,
The hooded white spring-beauties
Are curtsying in the breeze,
The blue hepaticas are out
Under the chestnut trees.
The maple buds make glamour
Vibernum waves its bloom,
The daffodils and tulips
Are risen from the tomb.
The lances of narcissus
Have pierced the wintry mold;
The commonplace seems paradise
To veils of greening gold.

O hark, hear thou the summons,
Put every grief away,
When all the motley masques of earth
Are glad upon a day.
Alack, that any mortal
Should less than gladness bring
Into the choral joy that sounds
The saraband of spring!

NOW the joys of the road are chiefly these:
A crimson touch on the hard-wood trees;

A vagrant's morning wide and blue,
In early fall, when the wind walks too;

A shadowy highway cool and brown,
Alluring up and enticing down

From rippled water to dappled swamp,
From purple glory to scarlet pomp;

The outward eye, the quiet will,
And the striding heart from hill to hill;

The tempter apple over the fence;
The cobweb bloom on the yellow quince;

The palish asters along the wood,-
A lyric touch of solitude;

An open hand, an easy shoe,
And a hope to make the day go through,-

Another to sleep with, and a third
To wake me up at the voice of a bird;

A scrap of gossip at the ferry;
A comrade neither glum nor merry,

Who never defers and never demands,
But, smiling, takes the world in his hands,-

Seeing it good as when God first saw
And gave it the weight of his will for law.

And oh, the joy that is never won,
But follows and follows the journeying sun,

By marsh and tide, by meadow and stream,
A will-o'-the-wind, a light-o'-dream,

The racy smell of the forest loam,
When the stealthy sad-heart leaves go home;

The broad gold wake of the afternoon;
The silent fleck of the cold new moon;

The sound of the hollow sea's release
From stormy tumult to starry peace;

With only another league to wend;
And two brown arms at the journey's end!

These are the joys of the open road-
For him who travels without a load.

HAVE you sailed Nantucket Sound
By lightship, buoy, and bell,
And lain becalmed at noon
On an oily summer swell?
Lazily drooped the sail,
Moveless the pennant hung,
Sagging over the rail
Idle the main boom swung;
The sea, one mirror of shine
A single breath would destroy,
Save for the far low line
Of treacherous Monomoy.
Yet eastward there toward Spain,
What castled cities rise
From the Atlantic plain,
To our enchanted eyes!
Turret and spire and roof
Looming out of the sea,
Where the prosy chart gives proof
No cape nor isle can be!
Can a vision shine so clear
Wherein no substance dwells?
One almost harks to hear
The sound of the city's bells.
And yet no pealing notes
Within those belfries be,
Save echoes from the throats
Of ship-bells lost at sea.
For none shall anchor there
Save those who long of yore,
When tide and wind were fair,
Sailed and came back no more.
And none shall climb the stairs
Within those ghostly towers,
Save those for whom sad prayers
Went up through fateful hours.
O image of the world,
O mirage of the sea,
Cloud-built and foam-impearled,
What sorcery fashioned thee?
What architect of dream,
What painter of desire,
Conceived that fairy scheme
Touched with fantastic fire?
Even so our city of hope
We mortal dreamers rear
Upon the perilous slope
Above the deep of fear;
Leaving half-known the good
Our kindly earth bestows,
For the feigned beatitude
Of a future no man knows.
Lord of the summer sea,
Whose tides are in thy hand,
Into immensity
The vision at thy command
Fades now, and leaves no sign, —
No light nor bell nor buoy, —
Only the faint low line
Of dangerous Monomoy.

The sun goes down, and over all
These barren reaches by the tide
Such unelusive glories fall,
I almost dream they yet will bide
Until the coming of the tide.
And yet I know that not for us,
By any ecstasy of dream,
He lingers to keep luminous
A little while the grievous stream,
Which frets, uncomforted of dream-

A grievous stream, that to and fro
Athrough the fields of Acadie
Goes wandering, as if to know
Why one beloved face should be
So long from home and Acadie.

Was it a year or lives ago
We took the grasses in our hands,
And caught the summer flying low
Over the waving meadow lands,
And held it there between our hands?

The while the river at our feet-
A drowsy inland meadow stream-
At set of sun the after-heat
Made running gold, and in the gleam
We freed our birch upon the stream.

There down along the elms at dusk
We lifted dripping blade to drift,
Through twilight scented fine like musk,
Where night and gloom awhile uplift,
Nor sunder soul and soul adrift.

And that we took into our hands
Spirit of life or subtler thing-
Breathed on us there, and loosed the bands
Of death, and taught us, whispering,
The secret of some wonder-thing .

Then all your face grew light, and seemed
To hold the shadow of the sun;
The evening faltered, and I deemed
That time was ripe, and years had done
Their wheeling underneath the sun.

So all desire and all regret,
And fear and memory, were naught;
One to remember or forget
The keen delight our hands had caught;
Morrow and yesterday were naught.

The night has fallen, and the tide . . .
Now and again comes drifting home,
Across these aching barrens wide,
A sigh like driven wind or foam:
In grief the flood is bursting home.

For The Brthday Of James Whitcomb Riley, October 7, 1914
LOCKERBIE STREET is a little street,
Just one block long;
But the days go there with a magical air,
The whole year long.
The sun in his journey across the sky
Slows his car as he passes by;
The sighing wind and the grieving rain
Change their tune and cease to complain;
And the birds have a wonderful call that seems
Like a street-cry out of the land of dreams;
For there the real and the make-believe meet.
Time does not hurry in Lockerbie Street.
Lockerbie Street is a little street,
Only one block long;
But the moonlight there is strange and fair
All the year long,
As ever it was in old romance,
When fairies would sing and fauns would dance,
Proving this earth is subject still
To a blithesome wonder-working Will,
Spreading beauty over the land,
That every beholder may understand
How glory shines round the Mercy-seat.
That is the gospel of Lockerbie Street.
Lockerbie Street is a little street,
Only one block long,
A little apart, yet near the heart
Of the city's throng.
If you are a stranger looking to find
Respite and cheer for soul and mind,
And have lost your way, and would inquire
For a street that will lead to Heart's Desire,—
To a place where the spirit is never old,
And gladness and love are worth more than gold, —
Ask the first boy or girl you meet!
Everyone knows where is Lockerbie Street.
Lockerbie Street is a little street,
Only one block long;
But never a street in all the world,
In story or song,
Is better beloved by old and young;
For there a poet has lived and sung,
Wise as an angel, glad as a bird,
Fearless and fond in every word,
Many a year. And if you would know
The secret of joy and the cure of woe,—
How to be gentle and brave and sweet,—
Ask your way to Lockerbie Street.

I

LORD of the grass and hill,
Lord of the rain,
White Overlord of will,
Master of pain,

I who am dust and air
Blown through the halls of death,
Like a pale ghost of prayer,—
I am thy breath.

Lord of the blade and leaf,
Lord of the bloom,
Sheer Overlord of grief,
Master of doom,

Lonely as wind or snow,
Through the vague world and dim,
Vagrant and glad I go;
I am thy whim.

Lord of the storm and lull,
Lord of the sea,
I am thy broken gull,
Blown far alee.

Lord of the harvest dew,
Lord of the dawn,
Star of the paling blue
Darkling and gone,

Lost on the mountain height
Where the first winds are stirred,
Out of the wells of night
I am thy word.

Lord of the haunted hush,
Where raptures throng,
I am thy hermit thrush,
Ending no song.

Lord of the frost and cold,
Lord of the North,
When the red sun grows old
And day goes forth,

I shall put off this girth,—
Go glad and free,
Earth to my mother earth,
Spirit to thee.

II

Lord of my heart’s elation,
Spirit of things unseen,
Be thou my aspiration
Consuming and serene!

Bear up, bear out, bear onward
This mortal soul alone,
To selfhood or oblivion,
Incredibly thine own,—

As the foamheads are loosened
And blown along the sea,
Or sink and merge forever
In that which bids them be.

I, too, must climb in wonder,
Uplift at thy command,—
Be one with my frail fellows
Beneath the wind’s strong hand,

A fleet and shadowy column
Of dust or mountain rain,
To walk the earth a moment
And be dissolved again.

Be thou my exaltation
Or fortitude of mien,
Lord of the world’s elation
Thou breath of things unseen!

O all the little rivers that run to Hudson's Bay,
They call me and call me to follow them away.
Missinaibi, Abitibi, Little Current-whe re they run
Dancing and sparkling I see them in the sun.
I hear the brawling rapid, the thunder of the fall,
And when I think upon them I cannot stay at all.
At the far end of the carry, where the wilderness begins,
Set me down with my canoe-load- and forgiveness of my sins.
O all the mighty rivers beneath the Polar Star,
They call me and call me to follow them afar.

Peace and Athabasca and Coppermine and Slave,
And Yukon and Mackenzie-t he highroads of the brave.

Saskatchewan , Assiniboine, the Bow and the Qu'Appelle,
And many a prairie river whose name is like a spell.

They rumor through the twilight at the edge of the unknown,
'There's a message waiting for you, and a kingdom all your own.

'The wilderness shall feed you, her gleam shall be your guide.
Come out from desolations, our path of hope is wide.'

O all the headlong rivers that hurry to the West,
They call me and lure me with the joy of their unrest.

Columbia and Fraser and Bear and Kootenay,
I love their fearless reaches where winds untarnished play-

The rush of glacial water across the pebbly bar
To polished pools of azure where the hidden boulders are.

Just there, with heaven smiling, any morning I would be,
Where all the silver rivers go racing to the sea.

O well remembered rivers that sing of long ago,
Ajourneying through summer or dreaming under snow.

Among their meadow islands through placid days they glide,
And where the peaceful orchards are diked against the tide.

Tobique and Madawaska and shining Gaspereaux,
St. Croix and Nashwaak and St. John whose haunts I used to know.

And all the pleasant rivers that seek the Fundy foam,
They call me and call me to follow them home.