WITHIN GARDEN WALLS

Grasshopper, your fairy song And my poem alike belong To the deep and silent earth From which all poetry has birth; All we say and all we sing Is but as the murmuring Of that drowsy heart of hers When from her deep dream she stirs: If we sorrow, or rejoice, You and I are but her voice.

Deftly does the dust express In mind her hidden loveliness, And from her cool silence stream The cricket's cry and Dante's dream: For the earth that breeds the trees Breeds cities too, and symphonies, Equally her beauty flows Into a savior or a rose.

Even as the growing grass Up from the soil religions pass, And the field that bears the rye Bears parables and prophecy. Out of the earth the poem grows Like the lily, or the rose; And all that man is or yet may be, Is but herself in agony Toiling up the steep ascent Towards the complete accomplishment When all dust shall be, the whole Universe, one conscious soul.

Yea, and this my poem, too, Is part of her as dust and dew, Wherein herself she doth declare Through my lips, and say her prayer.

Stride the hill, sower, Up to the sky-ridge, Flinging the seed, Scattering, exultant! Mouthing great rhythms To the long sea beats On the wide shore, behind The ridge of the hillside.

Below in the darkness— The slumber of mothers— The cradles at rest— The fire-seed sleeping Deep in white ashes!

Give to darkness and sleep: O sower, O seer! Give me to the Earth. With the seed I would enter. O! the growth thro' the silence From strength to new strength; Then the strong bursting forth Against primal forces, To laugh in the sunshine, To gladden the world!

There is strength in the soil; In the earth there is laughter and youth. There is solace and hope in the upturned loam. And lo, I shall plant my soul in it here like a seed! And forth it shall come to me as a flower of song; For I know it is good to get back to the earth That is orderly, placid, all-patient! It is good to know how quiet And noncommittal it breathes, This ample and opulent bosom That must some day nurse us all!

Still rests the heavy share on the dark soil: Upon the black mould thick the dew-damp lies: The horse waits patient: from his lowly toil The ploughboy to the morning lifts his eyes.

The unbudding hedgerows dark against day's fires Glitter with gold-lit crystals: on the rim Over the unregarding city's spires The lonely beauty shines alone for him.

And day by day the dawn or dark unfolds And feeds with beauty eyes that cannot see How in her womb the mighty mother moulds The infant spirit for eternity.

You come to fetch me from my work to-night When supper's on the table, and we'll see If I can leave off burying the white Soft petals fallen from the apple tree.

(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite, Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;) And go along with you ere you lose sight Of what you came for and become like me,

Slave to a springtime passion for the earth. How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed On through the watching for that early birth When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,

The sturdy seedling with arched body comes Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

In the misty hollow, shyly greening branches Soften to the south wind, bending to the rain. From the moistened earthland flutter little whispers, Breathing hidden beauty, innocent of stain.

Little plucking fingers tremble through the grasses, Little silent voices sigh the dawn of spring, Little burning earth-flames break the awful stillness, Little crying wind-sounds come before the King.

Powers, dominations urge the budding of the crocus, Cherubim are singing in the moist cool stone, Seraphim are calling through the channels of the lily, God has heard the earth-cry and journeys to His throne.

Within the garden there is healthfulness.

Lavishly it gives it us In light that cleaves To every movement of its thousand hands Of palms and leaves.

And the good shade where it accepts, After long journeyings, Our steps, Pours on the weary limb A force of life and sweetness like Its mosses dim.

When the lake is playing with the wind and sun. It seems a crimson heart Within, all ardent, has begun To throb with the moving wave; The gladiolus and the fervent rose, Which in their splendor move unshadowèd, Upon their vital stems expose Their cups of gold and red.

Within the garden there is healthfulness.

I stood within a Garden during rain Uncovering to the drops my lifted brow: O joyous fancy, to imagine now I slip, with trees and clouds, the social chain, Alone with nature, naught to lose or gain Nor even to become; no, just to be A moment's personal essence, wholly free From needs that mold the heart to forms of pain. Arise, I cried, and celebrate the hour! Acclaim serener gladness; if it fail, New courage, nobler vision, will survive That I have known my kinship to the flower, My brotherhood with rain, and in this vale Have been a moment's friend to all alive.

You may have seen, when winds were high, That hesitant buds would not unfold In garden-borders chill and dry, Bright with the Easter-lilies' gold.

Then, suddenly, would come a shower— The big breeze veering to the west— And happier music filled the bower Above the thrush's hidden nest:

The elm-tree's inconspicuous bloom Vanished amidst her little leaves; In box and bay a fragrant gloom Inspired the wren's recitatives:

The woods assumed their delicate green And spoke in songs that brought you bliss: Ay, and your withered heart has been Quickened on such a day as this!

I hear leaves drinking Rain; I hear rich leaves on top Giving the poor beneath Drop after drop; 'Tis a sweet noise to hear These green leaves drinking near.

And when the Sun comes out, After this Rain shall stop, A wondrous Light will fill Each dark, round drop; I hope the Sun shines bright; 'Twill be a lovely sight.

We come and go, as the breezes blow, But whence or where Hath ne'er been told in the legends old By the dreaming seer. The welcome rain to the parching plain And the languid leaves, The rattling hail on the burnished mail Of the serried sheaves, The silent snow on the wintry brow Of the aged year, Wends each his way in the track of day From a clouded sphere: But still as the fog in the dismal bog Where the shifting sheen Of the spectral lamp lights the marshes damp, With a flash unseen We drip through the night from the starlids bright, On the sleeping flowers, And deep in their breast is our perfumed rest Through the darkened hours: But again with the day we are up and away With our stolen dyes, To paint all the shrouds of the drifting clouds In the eastern skies.

It may be so; but let the unknown be. We, on this earth, are servants of the sun. Out of the sun comes all the quick in me, His golden touch is life to everyone.

His power it is that makes us spin through space, His youth is April and his manhood bread, Beauty is but a looking on his face, He clears the mind, he makes the roses red.

What he may be, who knows? But we are his, We roll through nothing round him, year by year, The withering leaves upon a tree which is Each with his greed, his little power, his fear.

What we may be, who knows? But everyone Is dust on dust a servant of the sun.

I reach my arms up, to the sky, And golden vine on vine Of sunlight showered wild and high, Around my brows I twine.

I wreathe, I wind it everywhere, The burning radiancy Of brightness that no eye may dare, To be the strength of me.

Come, redness of the crystalline, Come green, come hither blue And violet—all alive within, For I have need of you.

Come honey-hue and flush of gold, And through the pallor run, With pulse on pulse of manifold New largess of the Sun!

O steep the silence till it sing! O glories from the height, Come down, where I am garlanding With light, a child of light!

With fingers softer than the touch of death The sundial writes the passing of the day, The hours unfolding slow to twilight gray, The gleaming moments vanish in a breath.

But sunny hours alone the sundial names; All unrecorded are the midnight spans And vain within the dusk the watcher scans The marble face; thereon no record flames.

So on eternal dials that God may hold, And those more humble in the human heart, No bitter deeds their passing hours impart; Kind deeds alone are marked in fadeless gold!

Oh, Sundial, you should not be young, Or fresh and fair, or spick and span! None should remember when began Your tenure here, nor whence you sprung!

Like ancient cromlech notch'd and scarr'd, I would have had you sadly tow'r Above this world of leaf and flower All ivy-tress'd and lichen-starr'd;

Ambassador of Time and Fate, In contrast stern to bud and bloom, Seeming half temple and half tomb, And wholly solemn and sedate;

Till, one with God's own works on earth, The lake, the vale, the mountain-brow, We might have come to count you now Whose home was here before our birth.

But lo! a priggish, upstart thing— Set here to tell so old a truth— How fleeting are our days of youth— You, that were only made last spring!

Go to!... What sermon can you preach, Oh, mushroom—mentor pert and new? We are too old to learn of you What you are all too young to teach!

Yet, Sundial, you and I may swear Eternal friendship, none the less, For I'll respect your youthfulness If you'll forgive my silver hair!

I thought my garden finished. I beheld Each bush bee-visited; a green charm quelled The louder winds to music; soft boughs made Patches of silver dusk and purple shade— And yet I felt a lack of something still.

There was a little, sleepy-footed rill That lapsed among sun-burnished stones, where slept Fish, rainbow-scaled, while dragon-flies, adept, Balanced on bending grass.

All perfect? No. My garden lacked a fountain's upward flow. I coaxed the brook's young Naiad to resign Her meadow wildness, building her a shrine Of worship, where each ravished waif of air Might wanton in the brightness of her hair.

So here my fountain flows, loved of the wind, To every vagrant, aimless gust inclined, Yet constant ever to its source. It greets The face of morning, wavering windy sheets Of woven silver; sheer it climbs the noon, A shaft of bronze; and underneath the moon It sleeps in pearl and opal. In the storm It streams far out, a wild, gray, blowing form; While on calm days it heaps above the lake,— Pelting the dreaming lilies half awake, And pattering jewels on each wide, green frond,— Recurrent pyramids of diamond!