The singing leaves

SONGS AND SPELLS.

Reading edition

THE HOUSE AND THE ROAD.

The little Road says Go,

The little House says Stay:

And O, it’s bonny here at home,

But I must go away.

The little Road, like me,

Would seek and turn and know;

And forth I must, to learn the things

The little Road would show!

And go I must, my dears,

And journey while I may,

Though heart be sore for the little House

That had no word but Stay.

Maybe, no other way

Your child could ever know

Why a little House would have you stay,

When a little Road says, Go.

CHARM: TO BE SAID IN 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!

5O steep the silence till it sing!

O glories from the height,

Come down, where I am garlanding

With light, a child of light!

BEFORE MEAT.

Hunger of the world,

When we ask a grace,

Be remembered here with us,

By the vacant place.

Thirst, with nought to drink,

Sorrow more than mine,

May God someday make you laugh,

With water turned to wine.

SAD TRUTH.

Truth I tell with heavy heart,

To another one,

Give me sweetness for your smart,

When sad time is done.

Then may I be clear again,

Love without disguise;

Since I have to bear, till then,

Dark of hostile eyes.

Bitter shall be sweet some day.

Ah, but that is far away!

I must bind my heart and say:

Bitter now, but sweet some day.

GLAD TRUTH.

Beautiful, that did come true,

Beautiful, so it was you!

If forgiveness be for us

That we ever doubted thus,

Then forgive us radiantly,

All our doubts that are to be.

Now that we lay hold of you,

Nearer than we hoped or knew,

Dearer than we looked to find,

Beautiful, forgive the blind.

THE BIRD IN THE HAND.

Yesterday has flown away

Far beyond the sun.

And of morrows, who can say,

Till another one?

Only Now is all my own,

And my heart knows how:

O wild wings for a sky unknown,

Mine, mine—now!

WAKING.

Early in the morning,

Early in the dew,

Singing from the mountains

Where the dreams withdrew,

Lingered one I knew.

‘Soul, art thou so shining?

What is there to tell?

Whither hast thou journeyed?’

And the answer fell,

‘Early to the well.

‘Early, early, early,

To the farthest light;

Drinking, singing, bathing

In the cool, the might,

Whence I have my sight.

11‘There I found my sandals

Gladdened with a wing;

And my fair apparel

Woven out of Spring.

Therefore do I sing.’

And the golden voices

Warming with the sun,

Dimmed the silver voices,

Fading, one by one.

And the dream was done.

THE MAGIC.

You who saw through my disguise

Though I came so poor,

Let me bless your true two eyes

And your open door.

Yes, I am a wonder-child;

Hark and tell it not.—

With the journey and the cold

I had half forgot.

Take the charmèd seeds I lay

In your open hand:

Some would cast them all away,

You will understand.

Trust the bud to come to flower,

Trust the flower for fruit.

Listen in the winter-time

For a cricket lute.

13Here are blessings all from me

—Though they look like tears—

For your blessed eyes that see

And your heart that hears.

I am higher than I seem,

Fair as I would be:

O, I bless your heart that hears,

And your eyes that see!

They were ragged gifts I showed,

But you took the sense

Of the bird-nest from the road,

And the lucky pence.

And for all the charms I leave

Every time I pass,

Simple folk will only see

Cobwebs on the grass!

ROAD-SONG.

At home the waters in the grass

Went singing happy words;

But here, they flicker through my hands

As silent as the birds.

I see a Rose. But once they grew

All thronging, thronging,—wild,

And white, and red, before I came

To be a human child.

15II.

While I am resting by the road

So dully here apart,

Far-off my Angel laughs, maybe,

Where God shines round her heart.

O, she is laughing, as I think,

Because they cannot know

The parching wonder of the noon

With all our ways below.

They cannot know. But now and then.

They may let fall a song

Blown like a feather down to me,

Because the road is long.

THE CEDARS.

All down the years the fragrance came,

The mingled fragrance, with a flame,

Of Cedars breathing in the sun,

The Cedar-trees of Lebanon.

O thirst of song in bitter air,

And hope, wing-hurt from iron care,

What balm of myrrh and honey, won

From far-off trees of Lebanon!

Not from these eyelids yet, have I

Ever beheld that early sky.

Why do they call me through the sun?—

Even the trees of Lebanon?

ALMS.

I met Poor Sorrow on the way

As I came down the years;

I gave him everything I had

And looked at him through tears.

‘But Sorrow, give me here again

Some little sign to show;

For I have given all I own;

Yet have I far to go.’

Then Sorrow charmed my eyes for me

And hallowed them thus far:

‘Look deep enough in every dark,

And you shall see the star.’

THE INN.

When I come back to sorrow,

The place seems very old.

Full well I know the lodging,

The meagreness, the cold;

And everything is told.

The common daily portion,

No ampler and no less;

And sorry worn the cup is

And full of humbleness:

A soul can say but, ‘Yes.’

The earthen wares are many,

But never are they new.

The one-time guest departed

The same gray service knew,

There is no change for you.

SINS.

A lie, it may be black or white;

I care not for the lie:

My grief is for the tortured breath

Of Truth that cannot die.

And cruelty, what that may be,

What creature understands?

But O, the glazing eyes of Love,

Stabbed through the open hands!

THE WATCHER.

My neighbor’s grief is dark to me.

I gaze and dread, without;

And marvel how he lives to bear

The blackness, and the doubt.

And yet, by all lost ways of grief

That I have had to plod,

I know how small a rift lets through

A little gleam of God.

TO SAD-HEART.

I have a word for you,

For you, Sad-Heart,

And pray you keep it till the dawn come true,

And sorrow part.

I never bid you doff

A single care:

But ever till to-morrow, O, put off—

Put off Despair!

SONG AND NEED.

Heart said, ‘If I had wings,

Such wings as hath the lark,

Even as that freedom sings

Beyond the dark,

I too, if I could fly

From chains that weigh and cling

Ah, but then I could sing,—

Could I!

‘O dayspring of desire!

Mid-ocean of delight

Before the dawn of fire

On dawn of sight!

My joy, could it undo

All that despair has done,

I could find out the Sun,

—I too.’

23But ah, how vain to long

For glory of the lark,

Who hast more need of song

Down in thy dark;

Where chains may always irk,

And every day’s rebuff

Leave thee scarce breath enough,

To work!

Nay, never to assuage

Our need, is joy begun,

But follows some poor wage

Full hardly won.

Never vain wish shall bring

The music from the dumb.

Needs must—ere song will come—

We sing!

24To him who hath, late, soon,

To him shall it be given.

Make to thyself some boon,

Some little heaven:

Some feigning, through that mirk,

The blue of upper skies;

And sing—with blindfold eyes—

At work!

HERE’S APRIL.

Wearied one,

Rest a little in the sun.

Here is April come behind you

With a blessing on your head:

Rains unshed,

And her loving hands that blind you

While she queries, ‘Who am I?’

Of the darkened eye.

O, I heard the winter pass!

Came a sigh from waking grass

That should wake a daffodilly.

April, and up-rising now,—and every kind of lily!

THE COMING.

Low in the west, the early star

Is hazed with fires of Spring.

Low in the east, the golden moon

Comes slowly westering.

The last-year leaves, they breathe and stir

With hope beyond their ken.

O golden fear!—that men must hear

All hearts wake up again.

MUSIC.

‘O Heart of all things, Heart’s Desire come true,

That nothing may undo!

How long have I been stricken dim with fear,

Hungry and cold and lost, till I should hear

You,—you.

‘Now fold me in, O Beautiful, most dear!

And now that you are here,

Where were you, Dearness,—lost and far apart?

So far!’—‘Nay, all the time, O little heart,

So near.’

EVER THE SAME.

King Solomon walked a thousand times

Forth of his garden-close;

And saw there spring no goodlier thing,

Be sure, than the same little rose.

Under the sun was nothing new,

Or now, I well suppose.

But what new thing could you find to sing

More rare than the same little rose?

Nothing is new; save I, save you,

And every new heart that grows,

On the same Earth met, that nurtures yet

Breath of the same little rose.

MAYBE.

Heigh-ho! The same old road it is,

And weary dull am I,

With the same old road and the same old song

I hum and know not why.

But over yon, the city smoke

Goes after one gray dove,

With a flock of gold and silver wings

Along the sun, above.

And of the miry pools below,

The sparrows make the best;

And windows all, with dazzled eyes,

They stare into the west.

And I, I hum the same old song

Though no one could say why.

Maybe so, my singing knows

Even more than I.

THE SONG OUTSIDE.

When will you come, you maiden by the window,

Come out and leave your little window, there?

Why will you bind your heart up every morning,

As every morning you bind your hair?

Your vine astir would wake a cloud of swallows;

The sower’s forth and every worker follows;

The world goes forth, to earn, to seek, to share!

Why is it, little face behind a window,

You do not dare,

You do not dare?

31Then will you come, you maiden by the window,

To hear the heart of twilight in the air?

And will you heed the breathing of the wayside,

And all the wise, wide singing everywhere?—

And you and more than you, and more than neighbor,

—With care and bloom, despair and wrinkled labor,

It folds, it holds them all, till they are fair;

—Fairer than you, my maiden by the window,

And unaware,

—All unaware!

THE PASSERS-BY.

Though the dawn bring grayest thread

That my Fates have spun;

Though I lift not up my head,

Sorrow may not shun

The glory of the Sun.

Yea, and though the gold sands run

Fleet through afternoon,

Shadow, that will speed the Sun,

Brings me yet as soon

The glory of the Moon.

Blessèd Ones, and shining boon

Over all our wars!

Blessed we, by night or noon,

That no anguish mars

The glory of the Stars.