Poems of Cheer Part 9

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear, And that's the burden of the year.

THE UNATTAINED

A vision beauteous as the morn, With heavenly eyes and tresses streaming, Slow glided o'er a field late shorn Where walked a poet idly dreaming.

He saw her, and joy lit his face, "Oh, vanish not at human speaking,"

He cried, "thou form of magic grace, Thou art the poem I am seeking.

"I've sought thee long! I claim thee now - My thought embodied, living, real."

She shook the tresses from her brow.

"Nay, nay!" she said, "I am ideal.

I am the phantom of desire - The spirit of all great endeavour, I am the voice that says, 'Come higher,'

That calls men up and up for ever.

"'Tis not alone thy thought supreme That here upon thy path has risen; I am the artist's highest dream, The ray of light he cannot prison.

I am the sweet ecstatic note Than all glad music gladder, clearer, That trembles in the singer's throat, And dies without a human hearer.

"I am the greater, better yield, That leads and cheers thy farmer neighbour, For me he bravely tills the field And whistles gaily at his labour.

Not thou alone, O poet soul, Dost seek me through an endless morrow, But to the toiling, hoping whole I am at once the hope and sorrow.

"The spirit of the unattained, I am to those who seek to name me, A good desired but never gained: All shall pursue, but none shall claim me."

IN THE CROWD

How happy they are, in all seeming, How gay, or how smilingly proud, How brightly their faces are beaming, These people who make up the crowd!

How they bow, how they bend, how they flutter, How they look at each other and smile, How they glow, and what bon mots they utter!

But a strange thought has found me the while!

It is odd, but I stand here and fancy These people who now play a part, All forced by some strange necromancy To speak, and to act, from the heart.

What a hush would come over the laughter!

What a silence would fall on the mirth!

And then what a wail would sweep after, As the night-wind sweeps over the earth!

If the secrets held under and hidden In the intricate hearts of the crowd Were suddenly called to, and bidden To rise up and cry out aloud, How strange one would look to another!

Old friends of long standing and years - Own brothers would not know each other, Robed new in their sorrows and fears.

From broadcloth, and velvet, and laces, Would echo the groans of despair, And there would be blanching of faces And wringing of hands and of hair.

That man with his record of honour, That lady down there with the rose, That girl with Spring's freshness upon her, Who knoweth the secrets of those?

Smile on, O ye maskers, smile sweetly!

Step lightly, bow low and laugh loud!

Though the world is deceived and completely, I know ye, O sad-hearted crowd!

I watch you with infinite pity: But play on, play ever your part, Be gleeful, be joyful, be witty!

'Tis better than showing the heart.

LIFE AND I

Life and I are lovers, straying Arm in arm along: Often like two children Maying, Full of mirth and song,

Life plucks all the blooming hours Growing by the way; Binds them on my brow like flowers, Calls me Queen of May.

Then again, in rainy weather, We sit vis-a-vis, Planning work we'll do together In the years to be.

Sometimes Life denies me blisses, And I frown or pout; But we make it up with kisses Ere the day is out.

Woman-like, I sometimes grieve him, Try his trust and faith, Saying I shall one day leave him For his rival, Death.

Then he always grows more zealous, Tender, and more true; Loves the more for being jealous, As all lovers do.

Though I swear by stars above him, And by worlds beyond, That I love him--love him--love him; Though my heart is fond;

Though he gives me, doth my lover, Kisses with each breath - I shall one day throw him over, And plight troth with Death.

GUERDON

Upon the white cheek of the Cherub Year I saw a tear.

Alas! I murmured, that the Year should borrow So soon a sorrow.

Just then the sunlight fell with sudden flame: The tear became A wondrous diamond sparkling in the light - A beauteous sight.

Upon my soul there fell such woeful loss, I said, "The Cross Is grievous for a life as young as mine."

Just then, like wine, G.o.d's sunlight shone from His high Heavens down; And lo! a crown Gleamed in the place of what I thought a burden - My sorrow's guerdon.

SNOWED UNDER

Of a thousand things that the Year snowed under - The busy Old Year who has gone away - How many will rise in the Spring, I wonder, Brought to life by the sun of May?

Will the rose-tree branches, so wholly hidden That never a rose-tree seems to be, At the sweet Spring's call come forth unbidden, And bud in beauty, and bloom for me?

Will the fair green Earth, whose throbbing bosom Is hid like a maid's in her gown at night, Wake out of her sleep, and with blade and blossom Gem her garments to please my sight?

Over the knoll in the valley yonder The loveliest b.u.t.tercups bloomed and grew; When the snow has gone that drifted them under, Will they shoot up sunward, and bloom anew?