bring Brimming with freshness. How their dippers ring And flash and rumble ! lavishing dark dew On corn and forestland, that, streaming wet, Their hilly backs against the downpour set, Like giants vague in view. The butterfly, safe under leaf and flower, Has found a roof, knowing how true thou art; The bumble-bee, within the last half-hour, Has ceased to hug the honey to its heart; While in the barnyard, under shed and cart, Brood-hens have housed. - But I, who scorned thy power, Barometer of the birds, - like August there, Beneath a beech, dripping from foot to hair, Like some drenched truant, cower. TO A WIND-FLOWER TEACH me the secret of thy loveliness, That, being made wise, I may aspire to be As beautiful in thought, and so express Than 't is to thee, O sweet anemone. Teach me the secret of thy innocence, eyes; So may I rise to some fair eminence, Though less than thine, O cousin of the skies. Teach me these things, through whose high knowledge, I, When Death hath poured oblivion through my veins, And brought me home, as all are brought, to lie In that vast house, common to serfs and I shall not die, I shall not utterly die, DEATH THROUGH Some strange sense of sight or touch I find what all have found before, I seek not and it comes to me; Drops from my brows that made me blind. Point forward now or backward, light! But on the future, dim and vast, lies. THE SOUL AN heritage of hopes and fears A house of clay, the home of Fate, Where Death stands knocking at the gate THE CREEK-ROAD CALLING, the heron flies athwart the blue A laboratory where the wood-winds teach, Where we may read, as in a catalogue, When passed a thresher; when a load of hay; Or when a rabbit; or a bird that lit; KU KLUX WE have sent him seeds of the melon's core, And nailed a warning upon his door; Down in the hollow, mid crib and stack, The roof of his low-porched house looms black, Not a line of light at the doorsill's crack. Yet arm and mount! and mask and ride! The hounds can sense though the fox may hide! And for a word too much men oft have died. The clouds blow heavy towards the moon. The edge of the storm will reach it soon. The killdee cries and the lonesome loon. Ring, ting! it is the merry springtime, How full of heart a body feels! Sing hey, trolly lolly, oh, to live is to be jolly, When spring-time cometh with the summer at her heels! THE SONG OF THE HUNT (OLD WARWICKSHIRE) THE hunt is up, the hunt is up; The forest aisles with music ring! Then ride along, ride along, Farewell to grief and care; And a life in the open air! GOD BLESS YOU, DEAR, TODAY! If there be graveyards in the heart From which no roses spring, A place of wrecks and old gray tombs From which no birds take wing, Where linger buried hopes and dreams Like ghosts among the graves, Why, buried hopes are dismal things, And lonely ghosts are knaves! If there come dreary winter days, When summer roses fall And lie, forgot, in withered drifts Who makes not merry now! For if we cannot keep the past, Why care for what's to come? The instant's prick is all that stings, And then the place is numb. If Life's a lie and Love's a cheat, As I have heard men say, Then here's a health to fond deceit God bless you, dear, to-day! HER ANSWER TO-DAY, dear heart, but just to-day, And oh, there is no glory, dear, So little while, so little while This world doth last for us, But his who turns the whole glass down Edward Lucas White THE LAST BOWSTRINGS THEY had brought in such sheafs of hair, And flung them all about us there In the loud noonday's heat and glare: |