A Lonely Flute Part 3

MORNING ROAD SONG

Let me have my fill of the wide blue air And the emerald cup of the sea And a wandering road blown bright and bare And it is enough for me.

The love of a man is a goodly thing And the love of a woman is true, But give me a rollicking song to sing And a love that is always new.

For I am a rover and cannot stay And blithe at heart am I When free and afoot on a winding way Beneath the great blue sky.

EVENING ROAD SONG

It's a long road and a steep road And a weary road to climb.

The air bites chill on the windy hill.

At home it is firelight time.

The sunset pales ... along the vales The cottage candles shine And twinkle through the early dew.

Thank G.o.d that one is mine!

And dark and late she'll watch and wait Beyond the last long mile For the weary beat of homing feet With her wise and patient smile.

WINDY MORNING

Dawn with a jubilant shout Leaps on the shivering sea And puffs the last pale planet out And scatters the flame-bright clouds about Like the leaves of a frost-bitten tree.

Does a gold seed split the rosy husk?

Nay, a sword ... a shield ... a spear!

The kindler of all fires that burn Deep in the day's cerulean urn Rides up across the clear And tramples down the cowering dusk Like a strong-browed charioteer.

Blow out and far away The dim, the dull, the dun; Prosper the crimson, blight the gray, And blow us clean of yesterday, Stern morning fair begun, Till the earth is an opal bathed in dew, Flashing with emerald, gold, and blue, Held where the skies wash through and through High up against the sun.

(_Catalina Island_, 1913)

THE GRAVE OF Th.o.r.eAU

Brown earth, blue sky, and solitude,-- Three things he loved, three things he wooed Lifelong; and now no rhyme can tell How ultimately all is well With his wild heart that worshipped G.o.d's Epiphany in crumbling sods And like an oak brought all its worth Back to the kindly mother earth.

But something starry, something bold, Eludes the clutch of dark and mould,-- Something that will not wholly die Out of the old familiar sky.

No spell in all the lore of graves Can still the plash of Walden waves Or wash away the azure stain Of Concord skies from heart and brain.

Clear psalteries and faint citoles Only recall the orioles Fluting reveille to the morn Across the acres of the corn He wanders somewhere lonely still Along a solitary hill And sits by ever lonelier fires Remote from heaven's bright rampires, A hermit in the blue Beyond Beside some dim celestial pond With beans to hoe and wood to hew And halcyon days to loiter through And angel visitors, no doubt, Who shut the air and sunlight out.

But he who scoffed at human ways And, finding us unworthy of praise, Sang misanthropic paeans to The muskrat and the feverfew, Will droop those archangelic wings With praise of how we manage things, Prefer his Walden tupelo To even the Tree of Life, and grow A little wistful looking down Across the fields of Concord town.

EARTH-BORN

No lapidary's heaven, no brazier's h.e.l.l for me, For I am made of dust and dew and stream and plant and tree; I'm close akin to boulders, I am cousin to the mud, And all the winds of all the skies make music in my blood.

I want a brook and pine trees, I want a storm to blow Loud-lunged across the looming hills with rain and sleet and snow; Don't put me off with diadems and thrones of chrysoprase,-- I want the winds of northern nights and wild March days.

My blood runs red with sunset, my body is white with rain, And on my heart auroral skies have set their scarlet stain, My thoughts are green with spring time, among the meadow rue I think my very soul is growing green and gold and blue.

What will be left, I wonder, when Death has washed me clean Of dust and dew and sundown and April's virgin green?

If there's enough to make a ghost, I'll bring it back again To the little lovely earth that bore me, body, soul, and brain.

"WHENCE COMETH MY HELP"

Let me sleep among the shadows of the mountains when I die, In the murmur of the pines and sliding streams, Where the long day loiters by Like a cloud across the sky And the moon-drenched night is musical with dreams.

Lay me down within a canyon of the mountains, far away, In a valley filled with dim and rosy light, Where the flashing rivers play Out across the golden day And a noise of many waters brims the night.

Let me lie where glinting rivers ramble down the slanted glade Under bending alders garrulous and cool, Where they gather in the shade To the dazzling, sheer cascade, Where they plunge and sleep within the pebbled pool.

All the wisdom, all the beauty, I have lived for unaware Came upon me by the rote of highland rills; I have seen G.o.d walking there In the solemn soundless air When the morning wakened wonder in the hills.

I am what the mountains made me of their green and gold and gray, Of the dawnlight and the moonlight and the foam.

Mighty mothers far away, Ye who washed my soul in spray, I am coming, mother mountains, coming home.

When I draw my dreams about me, when I leave the darkling plain Where my soul forgets to soar and learns to plod, I shall go back home again To the kingdoms of the rain, To the blue purlieus of heaven, nearer G.o.d.

Where the rose of dawn blooms earlier across the miles of mist, Between the tides of sundown and moonrise, I shall keep a lover's tryst With the gold and amethyst, With the stars for my companions in the skies.

UNITY

Where the long valley slopes away Five miles across the dreaming day A maple sends a scarlet prayer Into the still autumnal air, Three golden-smouldering hickories Are fanned to flame beneath the breeze And one great crimson oak tree fires The sky-line over the Concord spires.

In worship mystically sweet The rimy asters at my feet And spiring gentian bells that burn Blue incense in an azure urn Breathe softly from the aspiring sod: "This is our utmost. Take it, G.o.d,-- This chant of green, this prayer of blue.

This is the best thy clay can do."

O lonely heart and widowed brain Sick with philosophies that strain Body from spirit, flesh from soul,-- Worship with asters and be whole; Live simply as still water flows Till soul shall border brain so close No blade of wit can thrust between And hearts are pure as gra.s.s is green; Pray with the maple tree and trust The ancient ritual of the dust.