Why should one live when living is a pain ?
I have not seen a flower had any scent,
Nor heard a bird sing once. The very rain
Seems dirty, and the clouds, all soiled and rent,
Toil sulkily across the black, old sky,
And all the weary stars go moping by,
They care not whither, sea, or mount, or plain,
All's one — and what one gets is never gain.
The sun scowled yesterday a weary while.
It used to beam. The moon last night was grim
With cynic gaze and frosty, sullen smile.
And once I loved to gaze while from the rim
Of some great mountain she would look and gild
The rustling cornfield. Now she is filled
With bitterness and rancour sour as bile,
And blasts the world's surface every mile.
Upon a Western prairie once I met
A flock of pelicans — a glorious sight!
Now in the sun they gleamed a dazzling white,
Now, circling, darkened to a silhouette;
Great-breasted things, with sweeping pinions set
To rhythmic curves of slow, majestic flight,
They rose into the measureless blue height,
Undaunted, radiant — I see them yet.
I see them yet ! for when I turn my eyes
Beyond these city walls of my despite,
Behold their buoyant forms still sweep the skies
Like spirits of the air, incarnate, bright,
And something untamed in me seems to rise
And with them breast those boundless seas of light!
We grow more reconciled to Nature's ways,
And more responsive, with the passing years,
Finding in them a solace for the fears
Engendered by the thought of lessening days;
There comes a sense of comradeship that stays
The lonely questioning heart, and more endears
The deep and changeful beauty that appears
More deep and beautiful with every phase.
The brooding tenderness of earth and sky
Becomes more palpable and to our need,
As if some friendly consciousness were nigh —
Some mother element but dimly guessed,
That, gathering nearer, gently sought to lead
Weary and wandering children back to rest.
Brown window-sill, you hold my all of skies,
And all I know of springing year and fall,
And everything of earth that greets my eyes —
Brown window-sill, how can you hold it all?
Grey walls, my days are bound within your hold.
Cast there and lost like pebbles in a sea;
And all my thought is squared to fit your mould —
Grey wall, how mighty is your masonry!
What I saw was just one eye
In the dawn as I was going :
A bird can carry all the sky
In that little button glowing.
Never in my life I went
So deep into the firmament.
He was standing on a tree,
All in blossom overflowing ;
And he purposely looked hard at me,
At first, as if to question merrily :
" Where are you going ? "
But next some far more serious thing to say
I could not answer, could not look away.
Oh, that hard, round, and so distracting eye
Little mirror of all sky !-
And then the after-song another tree
There are highways in the soul,
Heights like pyramids that rise
Far beyond earth-veiled eyes,
Sweeping through the barless skies
O'er the line where daylight dies —
There are highways in the soul!
God grant you wider vision, clearer skies, my son,
With morning's rosy kisses on your brow;
May your wild yearnings know repose,
And storm-clouds break to smiles
As you sweep on with spreading wings
Unto a waiting sunset !
One day I saw the bluebird's wing
Agleam upon a waving sea
Of emerald-coloured timothy.
We walked together--you and I--
We saw the bluebird gliding by;
He came so near--the mad, wild thing--
We almost touched his sapphire wing,
But ere across our path he flew
He rose and vanished in the blue.
To-day I saw the bluebird's wing;
I heard wood-thrushes round me sing;
Wind-blown across the April sky,
Great swelling cloud-sails drifted by;
And on the sky-line's silver sheen
White birches danced in frills of green,
And all the world was mad with spring.
I saw a shadow on the ground
And heard a bluejay going by;
A shadow went across the ground,
And I looked up and saw the sky.
It hung up on the poplar tree,
But while I looked it did not stay;
It gave a tiny sort of jerk
And moved a little bit away.
And farther on and farther on
It moved and never seemed to stop.
I think it must be tied with chains
And something pulls it from the top.
It never has come down again,
And every time I look to see,
The sky is always slipping back
And getting far away from me.
All that I dream
By day or night
Lives in that stream
Of lovely light.
Here is the earth,
And there is the spire;
This is my hearth,
And that is my fire.
From the sun's dome
I am shouted proof
That this is my home,
And that is my roof.
Here is my food,
And here is my drink,
And I am wooed
From the moon's brink.
Laughter and song for my cheer,
Life is so fair.
None so happy as I
Anywhere ;
Birds in the woods carol clear,
White clouds in the sky.
Song silent and brow with a frown,
Why is this so ?
Guiltless am I
Would you know,
The lark from the heavens drops down ;
Grey clouds in the sky.
Sighing and tears for my sorrow,
Life is so drear,
None so weary as I,
'Tis a mere
Steps of rose
On rosier steps;
Thus, evening
Builds her staircase
Between sunset
And the infinite roof of space.
So our fancies
May fold their wings,
And walk on gleams
Of unending purple and pink,
Up to the blue pool . . .
And drink from its starry rim.