O Summer days, when Love hath grown apace,
And feareth not to look upon Love's face,
And lightnings burn where earth and sky embrace!
O Autumn, when the winds are dank and dread,
How brave above the dying and the dead
The conqueror, Love, uplifts his banner red!
O Winter, when the earth lies white and chill!
Now only hath strong Love his perfect will,
Whom heat, nor cold, nor death can bind nor kill.
IX-"SUMMER'S RAIN AND WINTER'S
SUMMER'S rain and winter's snow
With the seasons come and go;
Shine and shower;
Tender bud and perfect flower;
Silver blossom, golden fruit;
Song and lute,
With their inward sound of pain;
Winter's snow and summer's rain;
Frost and fire;
Joy beyond the heart's desire
And our June comes round again.
BEFORE the listening world behold him stand;
The warm air trembles with his passionate play;
Their cheers shower round him like the ocean spray
Round one who waits upon the stormy strand.
Their smiles, sighs, tears all are at his command;
And now they hear the trump of judgment-day, And now one silver note to heaven doth stray And fluttering fall upon the golden sand. But like the murmur of the distant sea
Their loud applause, and far off, faint, and weak Sounds his own music to him, wild and free – Far from the soul of music that doth speak In wordless wail and lyric ecstasy
From that good viol prest against his cheek.
"O MIGHTY RIVER, TRIUMPHING TO THE SEA"
O MIGHTY river, triumphing to the sea,
Strong, calm, and solemn as thy mountains be!
Poets have sung thy ever-living power,
Thy wintry day, and summer sunset hour;
Have told how rich thou art, how broad, how deep;
What commerce thine, how many myriads reap
The harvest of thy waters. They have sung
Thy moony nights, when every shadow flung
From cliff or pine is peopled with dim ghosts
Of settlers, old-world fairies, or the hosts
Of savage warriors that once plowed thy waves —
Now hurrying to the dance from hidden graves;
The waving outline of thy wooded mountains,
Thy populous towns that stretch from forest fountains
On either side, far to the salty main,
Like golden coins alternate on a chain.
Thou pathway of the empire of the North, Thy praises through the earth have traveled forth! I hear thee praised as one who hears the shout That follows when a hero from the rout Of battle issues: "Lo, how brave is he,
How noble, proud, and beautiful!" But she
Who knows him best: "How tender!" So thou art
The river of love to me!
Dear love and bride is it not so indeed?
Among your treasures keep this new-pluckt reed.
"MY SONGS ARE ALL OF THEE”
My songs are all of thee, what tho' I sing
Of morning when the stars are yet in sight,
Of evening, or the melancholy night,
Of birds that o'er the reddening waters wing;
Of song, of fire, of winds, or mists that cling
To mountain-tops, of winter all in white,
Of rivers that toward ocean take their flight,
Of summer when the rose is blossoming.
I think no thought that is not thine, no breath
Of life I breathe beyond thy sanctity;
Thou art the voice that silence uttereth,
And of all sound thou art the sense. From thee
The music of my song, and what it saith
Is but the beat of thy heart, throbbed through me.
DEAR heart, I would that after many days,
When we are gone, true lovers in a book
Might find these faithful songs of ours. "O look!"
I hear him murmur while he straightway lays
His finger on the page, and she doth raise
Her eyes to his. Then, like the winter brook
From whose young limbs a sudden summer shook
The fetters, love flows on in sunny ways.
I would that when we are no more, dear heart,
The world might hold thy unforgotten name
Inviolate in these eternal rhymes.
I would have poets say: "Let not the art
Wherewith they loved be lost! To us the blame
Should love grow less in these our modern times."
O HIGHEST, strongest, sweetest woman-soul!
Thou holdest in the compass of thy grace
All the strange fate and passion of thy race;
Of the old, primal curse thou knowest the whole.
Thine eyes, too wise, are heavy with the dole,
The doubt, the dread of all this human maze;
Thou in the virgin morning of thy days
Hast felt the bitter waters o'er thee roll.
Yet thou knowest, too, the terrible delight,
The still content, and solemn ecstasy;
Whatever sharp, sweet bliss thy kind may know.
Thy spirit is deep for pleasure as for woe-
Deep as the rich, dark-caverned, awful sea
That the keen-winded, glimmering dawn makes white.
XV-"O, LOVE IS NOT A SUMMER MOOD"
O, LOVE is not a summer mood,
Nor flying phantom of the brain,
Nor youthful fever of the blood,
Nor dream, nor fate, nor circumstance.
Love is not born of blinded chance,
Nor bred in simple ignorance.
HE KNOWS NOT THE PATH OF DUTY 37
Love is the flower of maidenhood;
Love is the fruit of mortal pain;
And she hath winter in her blood.
True love is stedfast as the skies,
And once alight she never flies;
And love is strong, and love is wise.
-"LOVE IS NOT BOND TO ANY MAN"
LOVE is not bond to any man,
Nor slave of woman, howso fair.
Love knows no architect nor plan,
She is a lawless wanderer,
She hath no master over her,
And loveth not her worshiper.
But tho' she knoweth law nor plan, —
Tho' she is free as light and air,
Love was a slave since time began.
Lo, now, behold a wondrous thing:
Tho' from stone walls she taketh wing,
Love may be led by a silken string.
He knows not the path of duty
Who says that the way is sweet;
But he who is blind to the beauty,
And finds but thorns for his feet.
He alone is the perfect giver
Who swears that his gift is naught;
And he is the sure receiver
Who gains what he never sought.
|