The House of the Trees & Other Poems

Ethelwyn Wetherald

The House of the Trees & Other Poems

The House of the Trees

OPE your doors and take me in,Spirit of the wood;Wash me clean of dust and din,Clothe me in your mood.Take me from the noisy lightTo the sunless peace,Where at midday standeth Night,Signing Toil’s release.All your dusky twilight storesTo my senses give;Take me in and lock the doors,Show me how to live.Lift your leafy roof for me,Part your yielding walls,Let me wander lingeringlyThrough your scented halls.Ope your doors and take me in,Spirit of the wood;Take me—make me next of kinTo your leafy brood.

The Sun on the Trees

THE sun within the leafy woodsIs like a midday moon,So soft upon these solitudesIs bent the face of noon.Loosed from the outside summer blazeA few gold arrows stray;A vagrant brilliance droops or playsThrough all the dusky day.The gray trunk feels a touch of light,While, where dead leaves are deep,A gleam of sunshine golden whiteLies like a soul asleep.And just beyond dank-rooted ferns,Where darkening hemlocks sighAnd leaves are dim, the bare road burnsBeneath a dazzling sky.

Moonlight

WHEN I see the ghost of nightStealing through my window-pane,Silken sleep and silver lightStruggle for my soul in vain;Silken sleep all balmilyBreathes upon my lids oppressed,Till I sudden start to seeGhostly fingers on my breast.White and skyey visitant,Bringing beauty such as stingsAll my inner soul to pantAfter undiscovered things,Spare me this consummate pain!Silken weavings intercreepRound my senses once again,I am mortal—let me sleep.

Pine Needles

HERE where the pine tree to the groundLets slip its fragrant load,My footsteps fall without a soundUpon a velvet road.O poet pine, that turns thy gazeAlone unto the sky,How softly on earth’s common waysThy sweet thoughts fall and lie!So sweet, so deep, seared by the sun,And smitten by the rain,They pierce the heart of every oneWith fragrance keen as pain.Or if some pass nor heed their sweet,Nor feel their subtle dart,Their softness stills the noisy feet,And stills the noisy heart.O poet pine, thy needles highIn starry light abode,And now for footsore passers-byThey make a velvet road.

The Sound of the Axe

WITH the sound of an axe on the light wind’s tracksFor my only company,And a speck of sky like a human eyeBlue, bending over me,I lie at rest on the low moss pressed,Whose loose leaves downward drip;As light they move as a word of loveOr a finger to the lip.’Neath the canopies of the sunbright treesPierced by an Autumn ray,To rich red flakes the old log breaksIn exquisite decay.While in the pines where no sun shinesPerpetual morning lies.What bed more sweet could stay her feet,Or hold her dreaming eyes?No sound is there in the middle airBut sudden wings that soar,As a strange bird’s cry goes drifting by—And then I hear once moreThat sound of an axe till the great tree cracks,Then a crash comes as if allThe winds that through its bright leaves blewWere sorrowing in its fall.

The Prayer of the Year

LEAVE me Hope when I am old,Strip my joys from me,Let November to the coldBare each leafy tree;Chill my lover, dull my friend,Only, while I gropeTo the dark the silent end,Leave me Hope!Blight my bloom when I am old,Bid my sunlight cease;If it need be from my holdTake the hand of Peace.Leave no springtime memory,But upon the slopeOf the days that are to be,Leave me Hope!

The Hay Field

WITH slender arms outstretching in the sunThe grass lies dead;The wind walks tenderly, and stirs not oneFrail, fallen head.Of baby creepings through the April dayWhere streamlets wend,Of childlike dancing on the breeze of May,This is the end.No more these tiny forms are bathed in dew,No more they reach,To hold with leaves that shade them from the blueA whispered speech.No more they part their arms, and wreathe them closeAgain to shieldSome love-full little nest—a dainty houseHid in a field.For them no more the splendor of the storm,The fair delightsOf moon and star-shine, glimmering faint and warmOn summer nights.Their little lives they yield in summer death,And frequentlyAcross the field bereaved their dying breathIs brought to me.

Twilight

I SAW her walking in the rain,And sweetly drew she nigh;And then she crossed the hills againTo bid the day good-by.“Good-by! good-by!The world is dim as sorrow;But close beside the morning skyI’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 skyO say a glad Good-morrow!

The Sky Path

I HEAR the far moon’s silver callHigh in the upper wold;And shepherd-like it gathers allMy thoughts into its fold.Oh happy thoughts, that wheresoe’erThey wander through the day,Come home at eve to upper airAlong a shining way.Though some are weary, some are torn,And some are fain to grieve,And some the freshness of the mornHave kept until the eve,And some perversely seek to roamE’en from their shepherd bright,Yet all are gathered safely home,And folded for the night.Oh happy thoughts, that with the streamsThe trees and meadows shareThe sky path to the gate of dreams,In their white shepherd’s care.

Fall and Spring

FROM the time the wind wakesTo the time of snowflakes,That’s the time the heart achesEvery cloudy day;That’s the time the heart takesThought of all its heart-breaks,That’s the time the heart makesLife a cloudy way.From the time the grass creepsTo the time the wind sleeps,That’s the time the heart leapsTo the golden ray;That’s the time that joy sweepsThrough the depths of heart-deeps,That’s the time the heart keepsHappy holiday.

The Woodside Way

I WANDERED down the woodside way,Where branching doors ope with the breeze,And saw a little child at playAmong 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 overheadAre 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 peaceOn daily fetters seems to layThe finger of release,So, needless as to tree and flowerSeem 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 flightWhere the warmest breezes waft her,By the meadow brook to lean,Or where winter rye is growing,Showing in a lovelier greenWhere 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 floodingLight she flits—and round her headSee the orchard branches budding!

The Visitors

IN the room where I was sleepingThe sun came to the floor;Its silent thought went leapingTo where in woods of yoreIt felt the sun before.At noon the rain was slantingIn gray lines from the west;A hurried child all pantingIt pattered to my nest,And smiled when sun-caressed.At eve the wind was flyingBird-like from bed to chair,Of brown leaves sere and dyingIt brought enough to spare,And dropped them here and there.At night-time without warning,I felt almost to painThe soul of the sun in the morning,And the soul of the wind and rainIn my sleeping-room remain.

Autumn Days

AUTUMN days are sun crowned,Full of laughing breath;Light their leafy feet are dancingDown the way to death.Scarlet-shrouded to the graveI watch them gayly go;So may I as blithely dieBefore November snow.

Woodland Worship

HERE ’mid these leafy wallsAre sylvan halls,And all the Sabbaths of the yearAre gathered here.Upon their raptured moodMy steps intrude,Then wait—as some freed soul might waitAt heaven’s gate.Nowhere on earth—nowhereOn sea or air,Do I as easily escapeThis earthly shape,As here upon the whiteAnd dizzy heightOf utmost worship, where it seemsToo still for dreams.

When Days Are Long

WHEN twilight late delayeth,And morning wakes in song,And fields are full of daisies,I know the days are long;When Toil is stretched at nooning,Where leafy pleasures throng,When nights o’errun in music,I know the days are long.When suns afoot are marching,And rains are quick and strong,And streams speak in a whisper,I know the days are long.When hills are clad in velvet,And winds can do no wrong,And woods are deep and dusky,I know the days are long.

Out of Doors

IN the urgent solitudesLies the spur to larger moods;In the friendship of the treesDwell all sweet serenities.

Make Room

ROOM for the children out of doors,For heads of gold or gloom;For raspberry lips and rose-leaf cheeks and palms,Make room—make room!Room for the springtime out of doors,For buds in green or bloom;For every brown bare-handed country weedMake room—make room!Room for earth’s sweetest out of doors,And for its worst a tomb;For housed-up griefs and fears, and scorns, and sighs,No room—no room!

The Humming Bird

AGAINST my window-paneHe plunges at a massOf buds—and strikes in vainThe intervening glass.O sprite of wings and fireOutstretching eagerly,My soul with like desireTo probe thy mystery,Comes close as breast to bloom,As bud to hot heart-beat,And gains no inner room,And drains no hidden sweet.

September

BUT yesterday all faint for breath,The Summer laid her down to die;And now her frail ghost wanderethIn every breeze that loiters by.Her wilted prisoners look up,As wondering who hath broke their chain,Too deep they drank of summer’s cup,They have no strength to rise again.How swift the trees, their mistress gone,Enrobe themselves for revelry!Ungovernable winds uponThe wold are dancing merrily.With crimson fruits and bursting nuts,And whirling leaves and flushing streams,The spirit of September cutsAdrift from August’s languid dreams.A little while the revellersShall flame and flaunt and have their day,And then will come the messengersWho travel on a cloudy way.And after them a form of light,A sense of iron in the air,Upon the pulse a touch of mightAnd winter’s legions everywhere.

The March Orchard

UNLEAVED, undrooping, still, they stand,This stanch and patient pilgrim band;October robbed them of their fruit,November stripped them to the root,The winter smote their helplessnessWith furious ire and stormy stress,And now they seem almost to standIn sight of Summer’s Promised Land.Yet seen through frosty window-panes,When bared and bound in wintry chains,Their lightsome spirits seemed to playWith February as with May.

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