A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass. Lowell Amy. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Lowell Amy
Издательство: Bookwire
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Жанр произведения: Языкознание
Год издания: 0
isbn: 4057664654359
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Bid Fancy slumber, and steal away its potency,

       Or Nature wakes and strives to live again.

       Let each day pass, well ordered in its usefulness,

       Unlit by sunshine, unscarred by storm;

       Dower me with strength and curb all foolish eagerness—

       The law exacts obedience. Instruct, I will conform.

       Table of Contents

      High up above the open, welcoming door

       It hangs, a piece of wood with colours dim.

       Once, long ago, it was a waving tree

       And knew the sun and shadow through the leaves

       Of forest trees, in a thick eastern wood.

       The winter snows had bent its branches down,

       The spring had swelled its buds with coming flowers,

       Summer had run like fire through its veins,

       While autumn pelted it with chestnut burrs,

       And strewed the leafy ground with acorn cups.

       Dark midnight storms had roared and crashed among

       Its branches, breaking here and there a limb;

       But every now and then broad sunlit days

       Lovingly lingered, caught among the leaves.

       Yes, it had known all this, and yet to us

       It does not speak of mossy forest ways,

       Of whispering pine trees or the shimmering birch;

       But of quick winds, and the salt, stinging sea!

       An artist once, with patient, careful knife,

       Had fashioned it like to the untamed sea.

       Here waves uprear themselves, their tops blown back

       By the gay, sunny wind, which whips the blue

       And breaks it into gleams and sparks of light.

       Among the flashing waves are two white birds

       Which swoop, and soar, and scream for very joy

       At the wild sport. Now diving quickly in,

       Questing some glistening fish. Now flying up,

       Their dripping feathers shining in the sun,

       While the wet drops like little glints of light,

       Fall pattering backward to the parent sea.

       Gliding along the green and foam-flecked hollows,

       Or skimming some white crest about to break,

       The spirits of the sky deigning to stoop

       And play with ocean in a summer mood.

       Hanging above the high, wide open door,

       It brings to us in quiet, firelit room,

       The freedom of the earth's vast solitudes,

       Where heaping, sunny waves tumble and roll,

       And seabirds scream in wanton happiness.

       Table of Contents

      When you, my Dear, are away, away,

       How wearily goes the creeping day.

       A year drags after morning, and night

       Starts another year of candle light.

       O Pausing Sun and Lingering Moon!

       Grant me, I beg of you, this boon.

       Whirl round the earth as never sun

       Has his diurnal journey run.

       And, Moon, slip past the ladders of air

       In a single flash, while your streaming hair

       Catches the stars and pulls them down

       To shine on some slumbering Chinese town.

       O Kindly Sun! Understanding Moon!

       Bring evening to crowd the footsteps of noon.

       But when that long awaited day

       Hangs ripe in the heavens, your voyaging stay.

       Be morning, O Sun! with the lark in song,

       Be afternoon for ages long.

       And, Moon, let you and your lesser lights

       Watch over a century of nights.

       Table of Contents

      I own a solace shut within my heart,

       A garden full of many a quaint delight

       And warm with drowsy, poppied sunshine; bright,

       Flaming with lilies out of whose cups dart

       Shining things

       With powdered wings.

       Here terrace sinks to terrace, arbors close

       The ends of dreaming paths; a wanton wind

       Jostles the half-ripe pears, and then, unkind,

       Tumbles a-slumber in a pillar rose,

       With content

       Grown indolent.

       By night my garden is o'erhung with gems

       Fixed in an onyx setting. Fireflies

       Flicker their lanterns in my dazzled eyes.

       In serried rows I guess the straight, stiff stems

       Of hollyhocks

       Against the rocks.

       So far and still it is that, listening,

       I hear the flowers talking in the dawn;

       And where a sunken basin cuts the lawn,

       Cinctured with iris, pale and glistening,

       The sudden swish

       Of a waking fish.

       Table of Contents

      Who shall declare the joy of the running!

       Who shall tell of the pleasures of flight!

       Springing and spurning the tufts of wild heather,

       Sweeping, wide-winged, through the blue dome of light.

       Everything mortal has moments immortal,

       Swift and God-gifted, immeasurably bright.

       So with the stretch of the white road before me,

       Shining snowcrystals rainbowed by the sun,

       Fields that are white, stained with long, cool, blue shadows,

       Strong with the strength of my horse as we run.

       Joy in the touch of the wind and the sunlight!

       Joy! With the vigorous earth I am one.