To hold with leaves that shade them from the blue
A whispered speech.
No more they part their arms, and wreathe them close
Again to shield
Some love-full little nest—a dainty house
Hid in a field.
For them no more the splendor of the storm,
The fair delights
Of moon and star-shine, glimmering faint and warm
On summer nights.
Their little lives they yield in summer death,
And frequently
Across the field bereaved their dying breath
Is brought to me.
Twilight
I SAW her walking in the rain,
And sweetly drew she nigh;
And then she crossed the hills again
To bid the day good-by.
“Good-by! good-by!
The world is dim as sorrow;
But close beside the morning sky
I’ll say a glad Good-morrow!”
O dweller in the darling wood,
When near to death I lie,
Come from your leafy solitude,
And bid my soul good-by.
Good-by! good-by!
The world is dim as sorrow;
But close beside the morning sky
O say a glad Good-morrow!
The Sky Path
I HEAR the far moon’s silver call
High in the upper wold;
And shepherd-like it gathers all
My thoughts into its fold.
Oh happy thoughts, that wheresoe’er
They wander through the day,
Come home at eve to upper air
Along a shining way.
Though some are weary, some are torn,
And some are fain to grieve,
And some the freshness of the morn
Have kept until the eve,
And some perversely seek to roam
E’en from their shepherd bright,
Yet all are gathered safely home,
And folded for the night.
Oh happy thoughts, that with the streams
The trees and meadows share
The sky path to the gate of dreams,
In their white shepherd’s care.
Fall and Spring
FROM the time the wind wakes
To the time of snowflakes,
That’s the time the heart aches
Every cloudy day;
That’s the time the heart takes
Thought of all its heart-breaks,
That’s the time the heart makes
Life a cloudy way.
From the time the grass creeps
To the time the wind sleeps,
That’s the time the heart leaps
To the golden ray;
That’s the time that joy sweeps
Through the depths of heart-deeps,
That’s the time the heart keeps
Happy holiday.
The Woodside Way
I WANDERED down the woodside way,
Where branching doors ope with the breeze,
And saw a little child at play
Among the strong and lovely trees;
The dead leaves rustled to her knees;
Her hair and eyes were brown as they.
“Oh, little child,” I softly said,
“You come a long, long way to me;
The trees that tower overhead
Are here in sweet reality,
But you’re the child I used to be,
And all the leaves of May you tread.”
A Rainy Day
IT has been twilight all the day,
And as the twilight peace
On daily fetters seems to lay
The finger of release,
So, needless as to tree and flower
Seem care and fear and pain;
Our hearts grow fresher every hour,
And brighten in the rain.
When Twilight Comes
ALL out of doors for all life’s way,
The fields and the woods and the good sunlight;
And then in the chill of the evening gray,
A sheltered nook and the hearth-fire bright.
No hearth, no shelter attend my way!
Not late, dear life, linger not too late;
But before the chill and before the gray,
Let the sunset gild the grave-stone date.
Leafless April
LEAFLESS April chased by light,
Chased by dark and full of laughter,
Stays a moment in her flight
Where the warmest breezes waft her,
By the meadow brook to lean,
Or where winter rye is growing,
Showing in a lovelier green
Where her wayward steps are going.
Blithesome April brown and warm,
Showing slimness through her tatters,
Chased by sun or chased by storm—
Not a whit to her it matters.
Swiftly through the violet bed,
Down to where the stream is flooding
Light she flits—and round her head
See the orchard branches budding!
The Visitors
IN the room where I was sleeping
The sun came to the floor;
Its silent thought went leaping
To where in woods of yore
It felt the sun before.
At noon the rain was slanting
In gray lines from the west;
A