Song-Surf Part 7

Turn me away from the ashen west, Where love's sad planet unveils to the dusk.

Something is stealing like light from my breast-- Soul from its husk ...

Soft!... Where the dead feel the buried dead, Where the high hermit-bell hourly tolls, Bury me, near to the haunting tread Of life that o'errolls.

THE OUTCAST

I did not fear, But crept close up to Christ and said, "Is he not here?"

They drew me back-- The seraphs who had never bled Of weary lack--

But still I cried, With torn robe, clutching at His feet, "Dear Christ! He died

"So long ago!

Is he not here? Three days, unfleet As mortal flow

"Of time I've sought-- Till Heaven's amaranthine ways Seem as sere nought!"

A grieving stole Up from His heart and waned the gaze Of His clear soul

Into my eyes.

"He is not here," troubled He sighed.

"For none who dies

"Beliefless may Bend lips to this sin-healing Tide, And live alway."

Then darkness rose Within me, and drear bitterness.

Out of its throes

I moaned, at last, "Let me go hence! Take off the dress, The charms Thou hast

"Around me strown!

Beliefless too am I without His love--and lone!"

Unto the Gate They led me, tho' with pitying doubt.

I did not wait

But stepped across Its portal, turned not once to heed Or know my loss.

Then my dream broke, And with it every loveless creed-- Beneath love's stroke.

APRIL

A laughter of wind and a leaping of cloud, And April, oh, out under the blue!

The brook is awake and the blackbird loud In the dew!

But how does the robin high in the beech, Beside the wood with its shake and toss, Know it--the frenzy of bluets to reach Thro' the moss!

And where did the lark ever learn his speech?

Up, wildly sweet, he's over the mead!

Is more than the rapture of earth can teach In its creed?

I never shall know--I never shall care!

'Tis, oh, enough to live and to love!

To laugh and warble and dream and dare Are to prove!

AUGUST GUESTS

The wind slipt over the hill And down the valley.

He dimpled the cheek of the rill With a cooling kiss.

Then hid on the bank a-glee And began to rally The rushes--Oh, I love the wind for this!

A cloud blew out of the west And spilt his shower Upon the lily-bud crest And the clematis.

Then over the virgin corn Besprinkled a dower Of dew-gems--And, I love the cloud for this!

TO A DOVE

1

Thy mellow pa.s.sioning amid the leaves, That tremble dimly in the summer dusk, Falls sad along the oatland's sallow sheaves And haunts above the runnel's voice a-husk With plashy willow and bold-wading reed.

The solitude's dim spell it breaketh not, But softer mourns unto me from the mead Than airs that in the wood intoning start, Or breath of silences in dells begot To soothe some grief-wan soul with sin a-smart.

2

A votaress art thou of Simplicity, Who hath one fane--the heaven above thy nest; One incense--love; one stealing litany Of peace from rivered vale and upland crest.

Yea, thou art Hers, who makes prayer of the breeze, Hope of the cool upwelling from sweet soils, Faith of the darkening distance, charities Of vesper scents, and of the glow-worm's throb Joy whose first leaping rends the care-wound coils That would earth of its heavenliness rob.

3

But few, how few her worshippers! For we Cast at a myriad shrines our souls, to rise Beliefless, unanointed, bound not free, To sacrificing a vain sacrifice!

Let thy lone innocence then quickly null Within our veins doubt-led and wrong desire-- Or drugging knowledge that but fills o'erfull Of feverous mystery the days we drain!

Be thy warm notes like an Orphean lyre To lead us to life's Arcady again!