Embers Part 16

A moment's riot laughter-filled, Then fear, white-visaged, follows; And through the silence there is trilled The shrill note of the swallows.

And now a fierce form fronts them all, Two fierce eyes search their faces, Then flash their fire on Rafe Ridall, Whose mirth no peril chases.

"You did it, sir!" "Not I!" "You did!"

"No!" "You've one chance for showing Who in my coat the kitten hid, Or be well thrashed for knowing."

The master paused, the birch he grasped Against his trousers flicking; Rafe said, with hands behind him clasped, "I'd rather take the licking."

Full many a year has pa.s.sed since then, The lilacs still are blooming, Awaiting childish hands again, But they are long in coming.

Now wandering swallows build their nests Where doors and roofs decaying, No more shut in the master's zest, Nor out the children's playing.

All, all are gone who gathered there; Some toil among the ma.s.ses, Some, overworn with pain and care, Wait Death's "Prepare for cla.s.ses."

And some--the sighing pines sway on Above them, dreamless lying; And 'mong them sleeps the master, gone His anger and their crying.

And Rafe Ridall, brave then, brave now, Amid the jarring courses Of man's misrule, still takes the blow For those of weaker forces.

IN CAMP AT JUNIPER COVE

A little brown sparrow came tripping Across the green gra.s.s at my feet; A kingfisher poised, and was peering Where current and calm water meet;

The clouds hung in pa.s.sionless cl.u.s.ters Above the green hills of the south; A bobolink fluttered to leeward With a twinkle of bells in its mouth.

Ah, the morning was silver with glory As I lay by my tent on the sh.o.r.e; And the soft air was drunken with odours, And my soul lifted up to adore.

Is there wonder I took me to dreaming Of the gardens of Greece and old Rome, Of the fair watered meadows of Ida, And the hills where the G.o.ds made their home?

Of the Argonauts sung to by Sirens, Of Andromache, Helen of Troy, Of Proserpine, Iphigenia, And the Fates that build up and destroy?

Of the phantom isle, green Theresea, And the Naiads and Dryads that give To the soul of the poet, the dreamer, The visions of fancy that live

In the lives and the language of mortals Unconscious, but sure as the sea, And that make for great losses repayment To wandering singers like me?

But a little brown sparrow came tripping Across the green gra.s.s at my feet; And a kingfisher poised, and was peering Where current and calm water meet;

And Alice, sweet Alice, my neighbour, Stands musing beneath the pine tree; And her look says--"I have a lover Who sails on the turbulent sea:

Does he dream as I dream night and daytime Of a face that is tender and true; Will he come to me e'en as he left me?"

Yes, Alice, sweet Alice, for you,

Is the sunlight, and not the drear shadow, The gentle and fortunate peace: But he who thus revels in rhyming Has shadows that never shall cease.

JUNIPER COVE TWENTY YEARS AFTER

The bay gleams softly in the sun, The morning widens o'er the world: The bluebird's song is just begun, And down the skies white clouds are furled.

The boat lies idly by the sh.o.r.e, The shed I built with happy care Is fallen; and I see no more The white tents in the eager air.

The goldenrod holds up its plumes In the long stretch of meadow gra.s.s, The briarrose shakes its sweet perfumes, In coverts where the sparrows pa.s.s.

Far off, above, the sapphire gleams, Far off, below, the sapphire flows, And this, my place of morning dreams, The bank where my vain visions rose!

Sweet Alice, he came back again, Across the waste of summer sea, What time the fields were full of grain, But not to thee; but not to thee.

She comes no more when evening falls, To watch the stars wheel up the sky; Then love and light were over all; Alas! that light and love should die.

I feel her hand upon my arm, I see her eyes shine through the mist; Her life was pa.s.sionate and warm As the red jewels at her wrist.

Hearts do not break, the world has said, Though love lie stark and light be flown; But still it counts its lost and dead, And in the solitudes makes moan.

We school our lips to make our hearts Seem other than in truth they are; Before the lights we play our part, And paint the flesh to hide the scar.

Masquers and mummers all, and yet The slaves of some dead pa.s.sion's fires, Of hopes the soul can ne'er forget Still sobbing in life's trembling wires.

Fate puts our dear desires in p.a.w.n, Youth pa.s.ses, unredeemed they lie; The leaves drop from our rose of dawn, And storms fall from the mocking sky.

I shall come back no more; my ship Waits for me by the sundering sea; A prayer for her is on my lip-- And the old life is dead to me.

LISTENING

I have lain beneath the pine trees just to hear the thrush's calling, I have waited for the throstle where the harvest fields were brown, I have caught the lark's sweet trilling from the depths of cloud-land falling And the piping of the linnet through the willow branches blown.

But you have some singing graces, you who sing because you love it, That are higher than the throstle, or the linnet, or the lark; And, however far my soul may reach, your song is far above it; And I falter while I follow as a child does in the dark.

In elder days, when all the world was silent save the beating Of the tempest-gathered ocean 'gainst the grey volcanic walls, When the light had met the darkness and the mountains sent their greeting To each other in sharp flashes as the vivid lightning falls,

Then the high G.o.ds said, "In token that we love the earth we fashioned, We will set the white stars singing, and teach man the art of song": And there rose up from the valleys sounds of love and life impa.s.sioned, Till men cried, with arms uplifted, "Now from henceforth we are strong!"

Adown the ages there have come the sounds of that first singing, Lifting up the weary-hearted in the fever of the time; And I, who wait and wander far, felt all my soul upspringing, To but touch those ancient forces and the energies sublime,