Songs, Merry and Sad Part 5

When I Go Home

When I go home, green, green will glow the gra.s.s, Whereon the flight of sun and cloud will pa.s.s; Long lines of wood-ducks through the deepening gloam Will hold above the west, as wrought on bra.s.s, And fragrant furrows will have delved the loam, When I go home.

When I go home, the dogwood stars will dash The solemn woods above the bearded ash, The yellow-jasmine, whence its vine hath clomb, Will blaze the valleys with its golden flash, And every orchard flaunt its polychrome, When I go home.

When I go home and stroll about the farm, The thicket and the barnyard will be warm.

Jess will be there, and n.i.g.g.e.r Bill, and Tom-- On whom time's chisel works no hint of harm-- And, oh, 'twill be a day to rest and roam, When I go home!

Odessa

A horror of great darkness over them, No cloud of fire to guide and cover them, Beasts for the shambles, tremulous with dread, They crouch on alien soil among their dead.

"Thy shield and thy exceeding great reward,"

This was thine ancient covenant, O Lord, Which, sealed with mirth, these many thousand years Is black with blood and blotted out with tears.

Have these not toiled through Egypt's burning sun, And wept beside the streams of Babylon, Led from thy wilderness of hill and glen Into a wider wilderness of men?

Life bore them ever less of gain than loss, Before and since Golgotha's piteous Cross, And surely, now, their sorrow hath sufficed For all the hate that grew from love of Christ!

Thou great G.o.d-heart, heed thou thy people's cry, Bare-browed and empty-handed where they die, Sea-sundered from wall-girt Jerusalem, There being no sword that wills to succor them,--

And Miriam's song, long hushed, will rise to thee, And all thy people lift their eyes to thee, When, for the darkness' horror over them, Thou comest, a cloud of light to cover them.

Trifles

What shall I bring you, sweet?

A posy prankt with every April hue: The cloud-white daisy, violet sky-blue, Shot with the primrose sunshine through and through?

Or shall I bring you, sweet, Some ancient rhyme of lovers sore beset, Whose joy is dead, whose sadness lingers yet, That you may read, and sigh, and soon forget?

What shall I bring you, sweet?

Was ever trifle yet so held amiss As not to fill love's waiting heart with bliss, And merit dalliance at a long, long kiss?

Sunburnt Boys

Down on the Lumbee river Where the eddies ripple cool Your boat, I know, glides stealthily About some shady pool.

The summer's heats have lulled asleep The fish-hawk's chattering noise, And all the swamp lies hushed about You sunburnt boys.

You see the minnow's waves that rock The cradled lily leaves.

From a far field some farmer's song, Singing among his sheaves, Comes mellow to you where you sit, Each man with boatman's poise, There, in the shimmering water lights, You sunburnt boys.

I know your haunts: each gnarly bole That guards the waterside, Each tuft of flags and rushes where The river reptiles hide, Each dimpling nook wherein the ba.s.s His eager life employs Until he dies--the captive of You sunburnt boys.

You will not--will you?--soon forget When I was one of you, Nor love me less that time has borne My craft to currents new; Nor shall I ever cease to share Your hardships and your joys, Robust, rough-spoken, gentle-hearted Sunburnt boys!

Gray Days

A soaking sedge, A faded field, a leafless hill and hedge,

Low clouds and rain, And loneliness and languor worse than pain.

Mottled with moss, Each gravestone holds to heaven a patient Cross.

Shrill streaks of light Two sycamores' clean-limbed, funereal white,

And low between, The sombre cedar and the ivy green.

Upon the stone Of each in turn who called this land his own

The gray rain beats And wraps the wet world in its flying sheets,

And at my eaves A slow wind, ghostlike, comes and grieves and grieves.

An Invalid

I care not what his name for G.o.d may be, Nor what his wisdom holds of heaven and h.e.l.l, The alphabet whereby he strives to spell His lines of life, nor where he bends his knee, Since, with his grave before him, he can see White Peace above it, while the churchyard bell Poised in its tower, poised now, to boom his knell, Seems but the waiting tongue of liberty.

For names and knowledge, idle breed of breath, And cant and creed, the progeny of strife, Thronging the safe, companioned streets of life, Shrink trembling from the cold, clear eye of death, And learn too late why dying lips can smile: That goodness is the only creed worth while.