The House of the Trees & Other Poems 2

The House of the Trees & Other Poems 2

And just beyond dank-rooted ferns,

Where darkening hemlocks sigh

And leaves are dim, the bare road burns

Beneath a dazzling sky.

 

 

 

 

Moonlight

 

 

When I see the ghost of night

Stealing through my window-pane,

Silken sleep and silver light

Struggle for my soul in vain;

Silken sleep all balmily

Breathes upon my lids oppressed,

Till I sudden start to see

Ghostly fingers on my breast.

 

White and skyey visitant,

Bringing beauty such as stings

All my inner soul to pant

After undiscovered things,

Spare me this consummate pain!

Silken weavings intercreep

Round my senses once again,

I am mortal--let me sleep.

 

 

 

 

Pine Needles

 

 

Here where the pine tree to the ground

Lets slip its fragrant load,

My footsteps fall without a sound

Upon a velvet road.

 

O poet pine, that turns thy gaze

Alone unto the sky,

How softly on earth’s common ways

Thy sweet thoughts fall and lie!

 

So sweet, so deep, seared by the sun,

And smitten by the rain,

They pierce the heart of every one

With fragrance keen as pain.

 

Or if some pass nor heed their sweet,

Nor feel their subtle dart,

Their softness stills the noisy feet,

And stills the noisy heart.

 

O poet pine, thy needles high

In starry light abode,

And now for footsore passers-by

They make a velvet road.

 

 

 

 

The Sound of the Axe

 

 

With the sound of an axe on the light wind’s tracks

For my only company,

And a speck of sky like a human eye

Blue, bending over me,

 

I lie at rest on the low moss pressed,

Whose loose leaves downward drip;

As light they move as a word of love

Or a finger to the lip.

 

’Neath the canopies of the sunbright trees

Pierced by an Autumn ray,

To rich red flakes the old log breaks

In exquisite decay.

 

While in the pines where no sun shines

Perpetual morning lies.

What bed more sweet could stay her feet,

Or hold her dreaming eyes?

 

No sound is there in the middle air

But sudden wings that soar,

As a strange bird’s cry goes drifting by--

And then I hear once more

 

That sound of an axe till the great tree cracks,

Then a crash comes as if all

The winds that through its bright leaves blew

Were sorrowing in its fall.

 

 

 

 

The Prayer of the Year

 

 

Leave me Hope when I am old,

Strip my joys from me,

Let November to the cold

Bare each leafy tree;

Chill my lover, dull my friend,

Only, while I grope

To the dark the silent end,

Leave me Hope!

 

Blight my bloom when I am old,

Bid my sunlight cease;

If it need be from my hold

Take the hand of Peace.

Leave no springtime memory,

But upon the slope

Of the days that are to be,

Leave me Hope!

 

 

 

 

The Hay Field

 

 

With slender arms outstretching in the sun

The grass lies dead;

The wind walks tenderly, and stirs not one

Frail, fallen head.

 

Of baby creepings through the April day

Where streamlets wend,

Of childlike dancing on the breeze of May,

This is the end.

 

No more these tiny forms are bathed in dew,

No more they reach,

To hold with leaves that shade them from the blue

A whispered speech.

 

No more they part their arms, and wreathe them close

Again to shield

Some love-full little nest--a dainty house

Hid in a field.

For them no more the splendor of the storm,

The fair delights

Of moon and star-shine, glimmering faint and warm

On summer nights.

 

Their little lives they yield in summer death,

And frequently

Across the field bereaved their dying breath

Is brought to me.

 

 

 

 

Twilight

 

 

I saw her walking in the rain,

And sweetly drew she nigh;

And then she crossed the hills again

To bid the day good-by.

“Good-by! good-by!

The world is dim as sorrow;

But close beside the morning sky

I’ll say a glad Good-morrow!”

 

O dweller in the darling wood,

When near to death I lie,

Come from your leafy solitude,

And bid my soul good-by.

Good-by! good-by!

The world is dim as sorrow;

But close beside the morning sky

O say a glad Good-morrow!