Songs, Merry and Sad Part 9

Over the dusk hill woke a new moon's light, Shadowed the woods and made the waters white, And watched above the quiet tents of night.

Alas, that the old Mother should not know How ached his heart to be entreated so, Who heard her calling and who could not go!

Sonnet

To-day was but a dead day in my hands.

Hour by hour did nothing more than pa.s.s, Mere idle winds above the faded gra.s.s.

And I, as though a captive held in bands, Who, seeing a pageant, wonders much, but stands Apart, saw the sun blaze his course with bra.s.s And sink into his fabled sea of gla.s.s With glory of farewell to many lands.

Thou knowest, thou who talliest life by days, That I have suffered more than pain of toil, Ah, more than they whose wounds are soothed with oil, And they who see new light on beaten ways!

The prisoner I, who grasps his iron bars And stares out into depth on depth of stars!

Folk Song

When merry milkmaids to their cattle call At evenfall And voices range Loud through the gloam from grange to quiet grange,

Wild waif-songs from long distant lands and loves, Like migrant doves, Wake and give wing To pa.s.sion dust-dumb lips were wont to sing.

The new still holds the old moon in her arms; The ancient charms Of dew and dusk Still lure her nomad odors from the musk,

And, at each day's millennial eclipse, On new men's lips, Some old song starts, Made of the music of millennial hearts,

Whereto one listens as from long ago And learns to know That one day's tears And love and life are as a thousand years',

And that some simple shepherd, singing of His pain and love, May haply find His heart-song speaks the heart of all his kind.

"97": The Fast Mail

Where the rails converge to the station yard She stands one moment, breathing hard,

And then, with a snort and a clang of steel, She settles her strength to the stubborn wheel,

And out, through the tracks that lead astray, Cautiously, slowly she picks her way,

And gathers her muscle and guards her nerve, When she swings her nose to the westward curve,

And takes the grade, which slopes to the sky, With a bound of speed and a conquering cry.

The hazy horizon is all she sees, Nor cares for the meadows, stirred with bees,

Nor the long, straight stretches of silent land, Nor the ploughman, that shades his eye with his hand,

Nor the cots and hamlets that know no more Than a shriek and a flash and a flying roar;

But, bearing her tidings, she trembles and throbs, And laughs in her throat, and quivers and sobs;

And the fire in her heart is a red core of heat, That drives like a pa.s.sion through forest and street,

Till she sees the ships in their harbor at rest, And sniffs at the trail to the end of her quest.

If I were the driver who handles her reins, Up hill and down hill and over the plains,

To watch the slow mountains give back in the west, To know the new reaches that wait every crest,

To hold, when she swerves, with a confident clutch, And feel how she shivers and springs to the touch,

With the snow on her back and the sun in her face, And nothing but time as a quarry to chase,

I should grip hard my teeth, and look where she led, And brace myself stooping, and give her her head,

And urge her, and soothe her, and serve all her need, And exult in the thunder and thrill of her speed.

Sundown

Hills, wrapped in gray, standing along the west; Clouds, dimly lighted, gathering slowly; The star of peace at watch above the crest-- Oh, holy, holy, holy!

We know, O Lord, so little what is best; Wingless, we move so lowly; But in thy calm all-knowledge let us rest-- Oh, holy, holy, holy!

At Sea

When the dim, tall sails of the ships were in motion, Ghostly, and slow, and silent-shod, We gazed where the dusk fled over the ocean, A great gray hush, like the shadow of G.o.d.

The sky dome cut with its compa.s.s in sunder A circle of sea from the darkened land,-- A circle of tremulous waste and wonder, O'er which one groped with a childish hand.