HOLIDAY
To be out and away on an April day
When a fresh breeze buffets strong:
To race the white gulls in their flight
And startle the larks into song:
To dance like the grass on the ridge as you pass
Where the curling breakers run
And the pebbled bay with its jewels gay
Is sheen 'neath the April sun:
To leave behind the crisp salt wind
That dimples the merry sea
And dips the floats of the fishing-boats
Before its breath that flee:
Or when for you the boundless blue
Broadens into a smile,
To be out and away on an April day
Many and many a mile --
To be out and away such an April day
Is more than worth the while!
VALE AND AVE
Yesterday my trembling trees
Were waving wild goodbye,
Their torn surrendered panoplies
Fluttering low and high
Tossed up toward the sky
Today down hurled the gallant hosts
Late glowingly arrayed,
Tomorrow's pale, thin, wizened ghosts
Defeated, dead, decayed
Such armies shall parade anon
Fresh-liveried in green;
I, soon to go where they are gone
Here never more be seen.
So go I glorious, as they went,
Showering the trail with gold --
Love's largesse, thanks, praise, fierce intent
Death's secret to be told,
Life supreme to behold
GREETING FROM AN ANCESTOR
I write these lines that you may know
One thought of you, long years ago,
When you were yet a thing unborn
That had not seen the fated corn
Hang each ripe ear and seem to mourn
The coming of the reapers' tread;
Admired the robin pipe, with red
And swelling breast, dauntless in dread;
Or watched the azure butterfly
Flit here and there, new low, new high,
A whirling speck of summer sky;
That had not seen the poppies brave
Their nobly-scarlet standards wave;
Nor gazed upon a nameless grave.
O lovely lives that last a day
To make at once both sad and gay
The soul that sees them and the way,
The bitter way each sweet one goes!
Even as the poppy frail o'erblows
So falls the winged flower: the snows
Make softest grave, whose fingers hard
The song benumbed, and froze the bard.
The corn, cut down, is crushed. A shard
This worthless, wondrous body too
When life goes from me; yet I knew
Thunder and rain, sun wind and dew
As now you know; and more than these
Sweet song, and birds; clear skies, the trees,
Books, fires; and pain, and joy, and ease,
Hate, love, the bond of friends, and strife --
All these were mine; and death. This life
Concludes not living, yet would we
On earth not quite forgotten be.
Therefore, O dear unknown, to thee
I trace a greeting, thus, and slip
In an old book, twixt lip and lip.
Years hence 'twill speak, and straightway clip
My memory close about the heart:
So shall I live and have a part
Again in human joy and smart.
TAKEN UP
(Psalm 23; St.John 10)
At Watendlath I watched the sheep,
A twisting drift of snow,
Rush down the barren rock-strewn steep
To field and stream below.
I saw them, scared and hurtling down,
Urged on by savage bark,
Of dogs, from serried storm-cloud's frown
To reach their low fold-ark.
Child and up-grown, dreading each storm
That looms on Earth's strange face,
I did, with all my kind, perform
Ill deeds of an ill race.
But saved - though late, O not too late ! --
From strayings here on Earth,
I set my gaze toward that far gate
Wherethrough I passed at birth.
From Gate and Door, whence first I came,
Thence, where I mean to go,
The Shepherd's voice calls out by name
Out from the fields below,
Follow Him, follow! -- for He shields
From storm and stumbling-stone;
And still the waters, green the fields,
High where He leads His own!
I saw the sheep at Watendlath,
A spate of swirling snow,
Surge head-long down the dangerous path,
Safety to seek below.
But I, as when I watched the sheep
Long since, - hounded by Love,
Press up the storm-swept bouldered steep,
My fold to find above.
BETROTHAL
Yesterday, you asked me truly
As we walked to yonder hill,
Could I love you without ceasing,
And be yours through good and ill.
Now I answer truly, deeply,
All my love is yours until,
Crystal brook now gently flowing
O'er takes and drowns the mighty hill.
Gold and silver lack I never
If you alone are by my side,
Gold the sun through trees descending
Silver now their bark espied.
Diamonds for the world are round us,
Sunlight sparkling on the dew,
Twinkling, gleaming, glittering diamonds --
Nature's jewels forever true.
Every year when we shall wander
Down the lane and to the hill
Nature's wealth enfolded round us
Leads us on through good and ill.