Poems

THE WIND OF SPRING

  The wind that breathes of columbines  And celandines that crowd the rocks;  That shakes the balsam of the pines  With laughter from his airy locks,  Stops at my city door and knocks.  He calls me far a-forest, where  The twin-leaf and the blood-root bloom;  And, circled by the amber air,  Life sits with beauty and perfume  Weaving the new web of her loom.  He calls me where the waters run  Through fronding ferns where wades the hern;  And, sparkling in the equal sun,  Song leans above her brimming urn,  And dreams the dreams that love shall learn.  The wind has summoned, and I go:  To read God's meaning in each line  The wildflowers write; and, walking slow,  God's purpose, of which song is sign,—  The wind's great, gusty hand in mine.

THE CATBIRD

I  The tufted gold of the sassafras,    And the gold of the spicewood-bush,  Bewilder the ways of the forest pass,    And brighten the underbrush:  The white-starred drifts of the wild-plum tree,    And the haw with its pearly plumes,  And the redbud, misted rosily,    Dazzle the woodland glooms.II  And I hear the song of the catbird wake    I' the boughs o' the gnarled wild-crab,  Or there where the snows of the dogwood shake,    That the silvery sunbeams stab:  And it seems to me that a magic lies    In the crystal sweet of its notes,  That a myriad blossoms open their eyes    As its strain above them floats.III  I see the bluebell's blue unclose,    And the trillium's stainless white;  The birdfoot-violet's purple and rose,    And the poppy, golden-bright!  And I see the eyes of the bluet wink,    And the heads of the white-hearts nod;  And the baby mouths of the woodland-pink    And sorrel salute the sod.IV  And this, meseems, does the catbird say,    As the blossoms crowd i' the sun:—  "Up, up! and out! oh, out and away!    Up, up! and out, each one!  Sweethearts! sweethearts! oh, sweet, sweet, sweet!    Come listen and hark to me!  The Spring, the Spring, with her fragrant feet,    Is passing this way!—Oh, hark to the beat  Of her beelike heart!—Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet!    Come! open your eyes and see!      See, see, see!"

A WOODLAND GRAVE

  White moons may come, white moons may go—  She sleeps where early blossoms blow;  Knows nothing of the leafy June,  That leans above her night and noon,  Crowned now with sunbeam, now with moon,    Watching her roses grow.  The downy moth at twilight comes  And flutters round their honeyed blooms:  Long, lazy clouds, like ivory,  That isle the blue lagoons of sky,  Redden to molten gold and dye    With flame the pine-deep glooms.  Dew, dripping from wet fern and leaf;  The wind, that shakes the violet's sheaf;  The slender sound of water lone,  That makes a harp-string of some stone,  And now a wood bird's glimmering moan,    Seem whisperings there of grief.  Her garden, where the lilacs grew,

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