Dreams and Days: Poems Part 12

BLUEBIRD'S GREETING

Over the mossy walls, Above the slumbering fields Where yet the ground no fruitage yields, Save as the sunlight falls In dreams of harvest-yellow, What voice remembered calls,-- So bubbling fresh, so soft and mellow?

A darting, azure-feathered arrow From some lithe sapling's bow-curve, fleet The bluebird, springing light and narrow, Sings in flight, with gurglings sweet:

"Out of the South I wing, Blown on the breath of Spring: The little faltering song That in my beak I bring Some maiden shall catch and sing, Filling it with the longing And the blithe, unfettered thronging Of her spirit's blossoming.

"Warbling along In the sunny weather, Float, my notes, Through the sunny motes, Falling light as a feather!

Flit, flit, o'er the fertile land 'Mid hovering insects' hums; Fall into the sower's hand: Then, when his harvest comes, The seed and the song shall have flowered together.

"From the Coosa and Altamaha, With a thought of the dim blue Gulf; From the Roanoke and Kanawha; From the musical Southern rivers, O'er the land where the fierce war-wolf Lies slain and buried in flowers; I come to your chill, sad hours And the woods where the sunlight shivers.

I come like an echo: 'Awake!'

I answer the sky and the lake And the clear, cool color that quivers In all your azure rills.

I come to your wan, bleak hills For a greeting that rises dearer, To homely hearts draws me nearer Than the warmth of the rice-fields or wealth of the ranches.

"I will charm away your sorrow, For I sing of the dewy morrow: My melody sways like the branches My light feet set astir: I bring to the old, as I hover, The days and the joys that were, And hope to the waiting lover!

Then, take my note and sing, Filling it with the longing And the blithe, unfettered thronging Of your spirit's blossoming!"

Not long that music lingers: Like the breath of forgotten singers It flies,--or like the March-cloud's shadow That sweeps with its wing the faded meadow Not long! And yet thy fleeting, Thy tender, flute-toned greeting, O bluebird, wakes an answer that remains The purest chord in all the year's refrains.

THE VOICE OF THE VOID

I warn, like the one drop of rain On your face, ere the storm; Or tremble in whispered refrain With your blood, beating warm.

I am the presence that ever Baffles your touch's endeavor,-- Gone like the glimmer of dust Dispersed by a gust.

I am the absence that taunts you, The fancy that haunts you; The ever unsatisfied guess That, questioning emptiness, Wins a sigh for reply.

Nay; nothing am I, But the flight of a breath-- For I am Death!

"O WHOLESOME DEATH"

O wholesome Death, thy sombre funeral-car Looms ever dimly on the lengthening way Of life; while, lengthening still, in sad array, My deeds in long procession go, that are As mourners of the man they helped to mar.

I see it all in dreams, such as waylay The wandering fancy when the solid day Has fallen in smoldering ruins, and night's star, Aloft there, with its steady point of light Mastering the eye, has wrapped the brain in sleep.

Ah, when I die, and planets hold their flight Above my grave, still let my spirit keep Sometimes its vigil of divine remorse, 'Midst pity, praise, or blame heaped o'er my corse!

INCANTATION

When the leaves, by thousands thinned, A thousand times have whirled in the wind, And the moon, with hollow cheek, Staring from her hollow height, Consolation seems to seek From the dim, reechoing night; And the fog-streaks dead and white Lie like ghosts of lost delight O'er highest earth and lowest sky; Then, Autumn, work thy witchery!

Strew the ground with poppy-seeds, And let my bed be hung with weeds, Growing gaunt and rank and tall, Drooping o'er me like a pall.

Send thy stealthy, white-eyed mist Across my brow to turn and twist Fold on fold, and leave me blind To all save visions in the mind.

Then, in the depth of rain-fed streams I shall slumber, and in dreams Slide through some long glen that burns With a crust of blood-red ferns And brown-withered wings of brake Like a burning lava-lake;-- So, urged to fearful, faster flow By the awful gasp, "Hahk! hahk!" of the crow, Shall pa.s.s by many a haunted rood Of the nutty, odorous wood; Or, where the hemlocks lean and loom, Shall fill my heart with bitter gloom; Till, lured by light, reflected cloud, I burst aloft my watery shroud, And upward through the ether sail Far above the shrill wind's wail;-- But, falling thence, my soul involve With the dust dead flowers dissolve; And, gliding out at last to sea, Lulled to a long tranquillity, The perfect poise of seasons keep With the tides that rest at neap.

So must be fulfilled the rite That giveth me the dead year's might; And at dawn I shall arise A spirit, though with human eyes, A human form and human face; And where'er I go or stay, There the summer's perished grace Shall be with me, night and day.

FAMINE AND HARVEST

[PLYMOUTH PLANTATION: 1622]

The strong and the tender, The young and the old, Unto Death we must render;-- Our silver, our gold.

To break their long sleeping No voice may avail: They hear not our weeping-- Our famished love's wail.

Yea, those whom we cherish Depart, day by day.

Soon we, too, shall perish And crumble to clay.

And the vine and the berry Above us will bloom; The wind shall make merry While we lie in gloom.

Fear not! Though thou starvest, Provision is made: G.o.d gathers His harvest When our hopes fade!

THE CHILD'S WISH GRANTED

Do you remember, my sweet, absent son, How in the soft June days forever done You loved the heavens so warm and clear and high; And when I lifted you, soft came your cry,-- "Put me 'way up--'way, 'way up in blue sky"?

I laughed and said I could not;--set you down, Your gray eyes wonder-filled beneath that crown Of bright hair gladdening me as you raced by.

Another Father now, more strong than I, Has borne you voiceless to your dear blue sky.