And again the flowers are come
And the light shakes,
And no tiny voice is dumb,
And a bud breaks
On the humble bush and the proud restless tree.
Come with me!
Look, this little flower is pink,
And this one white.
Here’s a pearl cup for your drink,
Here’s for your delight
A yellow one, sweet with honey,
Here’s fairy money
Silver bright
Scattered over the grass
As we pass.
Here’s moss. How the smell of it lingers
Now folds the Tree of Day its perfect flowers,
And every bloom becomes a bud again,
Shut and sealed up against the golden showers
Of bees that hover in the velvet hours....
Now a strain
Wild and mournful blown from shadow towers,
Echoed from shadow ships upon the foam,
Proclaims the Queen of Night.
From their bowers
The dark Princesses fluttering, wing their flight
To their old Mother, in her huge old home.
Stony fields and lonely roads,
Meagre hamlets, very lean,
And most prosperous graveyards
Lying all between.
Each few miles a graveyard,
With its crouching column
And its urns and headstones,
Very dark and solemn.
But with what an accent!
Yellow, purple, red,
Lie the votive offerings
To this public dead.
Close beside the railway,
Where the smoke drifts high,
These are decked in garlands
For the passerby.
I will ask primrose and violet to spend for you
Their smell and hue,
And the bold, trembling anemone awhile to spare
Her flowers starry fair;
Or the flushed wild apple and yet sweeter thorn
Their sweetness to keep
Longer than any fire-bosomed flower born
Between midnight and midnight deep.
And I will take celandine, nettle and parsley, white
In its own green light,
Or milkwort and sorrel, thyme, harebell and meadowsweet
Lifting at your feet,
And ivy blossom beloved of soft bees; I will take
The loveliest--
The seeding grasses that bend with the winds, and shake
Though the winds are at rest.
When we go wandering the wide air’s blue spaces,
Bare, unhappy, exiled souls of men;
How will our thoughts over and over again
Return to Earth’s familiar lovely places,
Where light with shadow ever interlaces--
No blanks of blue, nor ways beyond man’s ken--
Where birds are, and flowers, as violet, and wren,
Blackbird, bluebell, hedge-sparrow, tiny daisies.
O tiny things, but very stuff of soul
To us ... so frail.... Remember what we are;
Set us not on some strange outlandish star,
But one caring for Love. Give us a Home.
There we may wait while the long ages roll
Content, unfrightened by vast Time-to-come.
The roses blushed a deeper red,
The lilies looked more saintly,
The sweet-alyssum hung its head,
And smiled and frowned most quaintly;
The daisies even, at my feet,
Were strangely knowing, strangely sweet;
The hollyhocks against the wall,
So serious and old-fashioned,
Were all astir, the larkspur tall
Seemed really quite impassioned.
I pondered, but I could not guess
What made their sudden consciousness.
Where'er I looked, their little eyes
Were eager, wise and tender,
As if they had some new surprise
Or sympathy to render —
She is so wee,
So wise and dear
Her eyes can see,
Her ears can hear,
The flowers that grow
Below the snow,
The birds that peep
In their eggs asleep,
The songs we sing her
No other has heard,
The love we bring her
With never a word.
Some things are very dear to me--
Such things as flowers bathed by rain
Or patterns traced upon the sea
Or crocuses where snow has lain ...
The iridescence of a gem,
The moon’s cool opalescent light,
Azaleas and the scent of them,
And honeysuckles in the night.
And many sounds are also dear--
Like winds that sing among the trees
Or crickets calling from the weir
Or Negroes humming melodies.
But dearer far than all surmise
Are sudden tear-drops in your eyes.
Of what avail the tardy showers,
To the famished summer flowers ?
All in vain the rain-drops cry,
Dead things never make reply.
Life's belated cup of bliss,
Woo the weary lips to kiss,
When the singing is a sigh.
Pulses quivering, to die.
Creatures of gauze and velvet wings,
With life for one brief day,
Dancing and flitting where the breezes fling
The sweets of blooming May;
Skimming the stream where the wild thyme grows,
You dart with keen delight.
Only to die when the sweet wild rose
Gives perfume to the night.
Weary at last, when the day is done,
Of the breeze and clover's breath.
Folding your delicate wings with the sun,
You gently drop to death;
Glimmering wings and a few short hours
Were yours in sweet delight.
Living for a day in the world of flowers.
And then — everlasting night.
Oh ! for the welcome breath of country air,
With Summer skies and flowers,
To shout and feel once more the halcyon
Of gayer boyhood hours.
I think the sight of fields and shady lanes
Would ease my heart of pains.
To cool once more my thirst, where bubbled up
The waters of a spring,
Where I have seen the golden daffodils
And lillies flourishing.
My fevered heart would more than half forget
Its sighs, and vain regret.
Far, far away, from early scenes am I ;
And, too, my youth has fled;
For me a stranger's land, a stranger's sky.
That arches overhead.
When I leave down this pipe my friend
And sleep with flowers I loved, apart,
My songs shall rise in wilding things
Whose roots are in my heart.
And here where that sweet poet sleeps
I hear the songs he left unsung,
When winds are fluttering the flowers
And summer-bells are rung.