And here is the spot I tumbled, an' give the Lord his due, When the doctor said the fever 'd turned, an' he could fetch you through. Yes, a deal has happened to make this old house dear: Christenin's, funerals, weddin's — what have n't we had here? Not a log in this buildin' but its memories has got, And not a nail in this old floor but touches a tender spot. Out of the old house, Nancy, - moved up into the new; All the hurry and worry is just as good as through; But I tell you a thing right here, that I ain't ashamed to say, There's precious things in this old house we never can take away. Ina Coolbrith WHEN THE GRASS SHALL COVER ME WHEN the grass shall cover me, Head to foot where I am lying; When not any wind that blows, Summer blooms nor winter snows, Shall awake me to your sighing: Close above me as you pass, You will say, "How kind she was," You will say, "How true she was," When the grass grows over me. When the grass shall cover me, Holden close to earth's warm bosom, While I laugh, or weep, or sing Nevermore, for anything, You will find in blade and blossom, Sweet small voices, odorous, Tender pleaders in my cause, That shall speak me as I was When the grass grows over me. When the grass shall cover me! Ah, beloved, in my sorrow INSECT or blossom? Fragile, fairy thing, Wafting sweet odor, faint and exquisite. Thou winged bloom! thou blossom-butterfly! WHAT Songs found voice upon those lips, What magic dwelt within the pen, For her the clamorous to-day Clear ring the silvery Mission bells O'er vineyard slopes, through fruited dells, The pale Franciscan lifts in air The Cross above the kneeling throng; Their simple world how sweet with prayer, With chant and matin-song! There, with her dimpled, lifted hands, Parting the mustard's golden plumes, The dusky maid, Ramona, stands Amid the sea of blooms. And Alessandro, type of all His broken tribe, for evermore An exile, hears the stranger call Within his father's door. The visions vanish and are not, Still are the sounds of peace and strife, Passed with the earnest heart and thought Which lured them back to life. O sunset land! O land of vine, And rose, and bay! in silence here Let fall one little leaf of thine, With love, upon her bier. His feet were shod with music and had wings Like Hermes: far upon the peaks of song Where'er he trod; and Heliconian springs Gushed from the rocks he touched; round him a throng Of fair invisibles, seraphic, strong, But he, spreading keen pinions for a white The blind Bard's book was open in my hand, There where the Cyclops makes the Odyssey's Calm pages tremble as Odysseus flees. seas; Straight on that city's bastions did she run Whose toppling turrets on their donjons hold Bells that to mortal ears have never tolled Then drifted down the gateways of the sun With fading pennon and with gonfalon, And cast her anchors in the pools of gold. TO AN OLD VENETIAN WINE-GLASS DAUGHTER of Venice, fairer than the moon! From thy dark casement leaning, half divine, And to the lutes of love that low repine Across the midnight of the hushed lagoon Listening with languor in a dreamful malign The satin softness of thy plumed seed, Wild Weeds of Song- not all ungracious things! TO A MAPLE SEED ART thou some winged Sprite, that, flutter ing round, Exhausted on the grass at last doth lie, Or wayward Fay? Ah, weakling, by and by Thyself shalt grow a giant, strong and sound, When, like Antaeus, thou dost touch the ground. O happy Seed! it is not thine to die; I hear the ecstatic song the wild bird flings, In future summers, from thy leafy head! What hopes! what fears! what rapturous sufferings ! What burning words of love will there be said! What sobs - what tears! what passionate whisperings! Under thy boughs, when I, alas ! am dead. V SESOSTRIS SOLE Lord of Lords and very King of Kings, He sits within the desert, carved in stone; Disdain sits on his lips; and in a frown Anear this Presence. The long caravan's Dazed camels stop, and mute the Bedouins stare. This symbol of past power more than man's Presages doom. Kings look — and Kings despair: Their sceptres tremble in their jewelled hands, And dark thrones totter in the baleful air! |