THE MELODY OF EARTH

AN ANTHOLOGY
OF GARDEN AND NATURE POEMS
FROM PRESENT-DAY POETS

SELECTED
AND ARRANGED BY
MRS. WALDO RICHARDS

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
1918

COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY GERTRUDE MOORE RICHARDS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

TO
MY DEAR SISTER
A LOVER OF GARDENS

FOREWORD

How many of us are conscious of the subtle melodies, "through which the myriad lispings of the earth find perfect speech"?

Our poets are listeners; their ears are tuned to the magic call of secret voices that we who are not singers may never hear. They capture the "Melody" in chalices of song, and their message is: that whosoever will bend his ear to earth, may hear from field and furrow, from the many-bladed grass and the soft-petalled flowers—in the soughing of the pine tree or the rustle of leaves—an immortal music that revivifies the soul.

In the quiet tilled spots of earth, from time immemorial, men have sown rare seeds of poetic thought that have flowered into song. Amiel wrote in his Journal: "All seed-sowing is a mysterious thing whether the seed fall into earth or into souls; man is a husbandman, and his work rightly understood is to develop life, to sow it everywhere." The poets are our seed-sowers, and their work is to develop life and to enrich it. They are never happier than when writing about gardens and the growing things of earth—at once their symbol and their solace. In turn gardens have in the poets their happiest interpreters.

Here I have culled and gathered together songs and poems that reflect the melody and harmony of Nature's forces. In these days of the world's travail, let us seek inspiration and content within the delightful confines of these Gardens of Poetry.

Gertrude Moore Richards

March, 1918

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Mrs. Richards tenders her sincere thanks to the publishers and poets who have so generously accorded their permission to use copyrighted poems:

To the American Tract Society for "Seeds" and "The Philosopher's Garden," John Oxenham, from Bees in Amber.

To Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. for "The Mocking-Bird," Frank L. Stanton, from Songs of the Soil.

To the Baker & Taylor Co. for "June Rapture" and "The Rose," Angela Morgan, from The Hour has Struck, and Other Poems and Utterance, and Other Poems.

To The Biddle Press for "The Old-fashioned Garden" and "Poppies," John Russell Hayes, from Collected Poems.

To the Bobbs-Merrill Company for "Thoughts fer the Discuraged Farmer," James Whitcomb Riley, from Complete Works.

To Edmund A. Brooks, Minneapolis, for "Daffodils" and "From a Car-Window," Ruth Guthrie Harding, from The Lark went Singing, and Other Poems.

To Messrs. Burns & Oates and to Alice Meynell (Mrs. Wilfrid Meynell) for "To a Daisy" and "The Garden" from Collected Poems; for "Rosa Mystica," Katharine Tynan (Mrs. Henry Albert Hinkson), from The Flower of Peace.

To The Century Co. for "Larkspur," James Oppenheim, from War and Laughter; for "The Tilling," Cale Young Rice, from Trails Sunward; for "The Haunted Garden," Louis Untermeyer, from Challenge.

To Messrs. Constable & Co. for "For These," Edward Thomas (Edward Eastaway), from An Annual of New Poetry.

To Country Life (London) and to Mrs. Gurney personally for "The Lord God planted a Garden" and "A Garden in Venice," by Dorothy Frances Gurney, from Poems.

To Messrs. Thomas Y. Crowell Company for "Love planted a Rose," Katharine Lee Bates, from America, and Other Poems; for "An Exile's Garden," Sophie Jewett, from Collected Poems.

To Messrs. J. M. Dent & Sons for "The Spring Beauties," Helen Gray Cone, from The Chant of Love, and Other Poems.

To Messrs. Dodd, Mead & Co. for "In a Garden," Livingston L. Biddle, from The Understanding Hills.

To Messrs. George H. Doran Company for "The Cricket in the Path," "Herb of Grace," and "Rain in the Night," Amelia Josephine Burr, from In Deep Places and Life and Living; for "A Song in a Garden," "Shade," and "The Poplars," Theodosia Garrison, from The Dreamers, and Other Poems; for "Trees," Joyce Kilmer, from Trees, and Other Poems; for "June," Douglas Malloch, from The Woods; for "Where Love is Life," Duncan Campbell Scott, from "The Three Songs" in Lundy's Lane, and Other Poems.

To Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co. for "A Prayer," "The Butterfly," and "Before Mary of Magdala came," Edwin Markham, from The Man with the Hoe, and Other Poems and The Shoes of Happiness, and Other Poems.

To Messrs. Duffield & Co. for "The sweet caresses that I gave to you," Elsa Barker, from The Book of Love; for "What heart but fears a fragrance?" ("Zauber Duft"), Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi, from Gabrielle, and Other Poems; for "Spring," Francis Ledwidge, from Songs of the Fields; for "The White Peacock," William Sharp, from Songs and Poems.

To Messrs. E. P. Dutton & Co. for "The South Wind," Siegfried Sassoon, from The Old Huntsman, and Other Poems; for "The Tree," Evelyn Underhill, from Theophanies.

To Messrs. H. W. Fisher & Co. for "A Dream," "The Autumn Rose," "Fireflies," and "An Evening in Old Japan," Antoinette De Coursey Patterson, from Sonnets and Quatrains and The Son of Merope, and Other Poems.

To Messrs. Harper & Brothers for "Roses in the Subway," Dana Burnet, from Poems; for "The Wild Rose," and "If I were a Fairy," Charles Buxton Going, from Star-Glow and Song; for "The Cardinal-Bird," Arthur Guiterman, from The Laughing Muse; for "Wild Gardens," Ada Foster Murray, from Flowers of the Grass; for "The Message," Helen Hay Whitney, from Sonnets and Songs.

To Hearst's International Library Company for "Stairways and Gardens" and "My Flower-Room," Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from World Voices.

To Mr. William Heinemann for "The Cactus," Laurence Hope, from Stars of the Desert; for "The July Garden," R. E. Vernède, from War Poems, and Other Verses; for "A Garden-Piece," Edmund Gosse, from Collected Poems.

To Messrs. Henry Holt & Co. for "The Cloister Garden at Certosa," Richard Burton, from Poems of Earth's Meaning; for "The Furrow," Padraic Colum, from Wild Earth, and Other Poems; for "The Three Cherry Trees," Walter de la Mare, from The Listeners, and Other Poems; for "A Late Walk," "Asking for Roses," "The Pasture," and "Putting in the Seed," Robert Frost, from A Boy's Will, North of Boston, and A Mountain Interval; for "Joe-Pyeweed," Louis Untermeyer, from These Times.

To Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company for "The Blooming of the Rose" and the selection from "Under the Trees," Anna Hempstead Branch, from The Heart of the Road and The Shoes that Danced, and Other Poems; for "Spring Patchwork" and "The Flowerphone," Abbie Farwell Brown, from A Pocketful of Posies and Songs of Sixpence; for "The Morning-Glory" and "Jewel-Weed," Florence Earle Coates, from Collected Poems; for "Nightingales" and "A Breath of Mint," Grace Hazard Conkling, from Afternoons of April; for "The Golden-Rod," Margaret Deland, from The Old Garden, and Other Verses; for "A Roman Garden," Florence Wilkinson Evans, from The Ride Home; for "Cobwebs," Louise Imogen Guiney, from Happy Ending; for "Planting," Robert Livingston, from Murrer and Me; for "Primavera," George Cabot Lodge, from Poems and Dramas; for "Ever the Same," "Charm: To be said in the Sun," and "But we did walk in Eden," Josephine Preston Peabody, from The Singing Leaves and The Singing Man; for "At Isola Bella" ("A White Peacock"), Jessie B. Rittenhouse, from The Door of Dreams; for "The Goldfinch," Odell Shepard, from A Lonely Flute; for "Daisies" and "Witchery," Frank Dempster Sherman, from Poems; for "Grandmother's Gathering Boneset," Edith M. Thomas, from In Sunshine Land.

To Mr. B. W. Huebsch for "Song from 'April,'" Irene Rutherford McLeod, from Songs to Save a Soul.

To Messrs. George W. Jacobs & Co. for "Vestured and veiled with twilight," Rosamund Marriott Watson, from The Heart of a Garden.

To Mr. R. U. Johnson (publisher) for "Como in April," Robert Underwood Johnson, from Collected Poems.

To Mr. Mitchell Kennerley for "A Song to Belinda," Theodosia Garrison, from Earth Cry; for "In a Garden," Horace Holley, from Divinations and Creations; for "Afternoon on a Hill," "The End of Summer," and "A Little Ghost," Edna St. Vincent Millay, from Renascence, and Other Poems; for "Welcome," John Curtis Underwood, from Processionals; for "Ære Perennius," Charles Hanson Towne, from A Quiet Singer.

To Mr. Alfred A. Knopf for "The Rain" and "The Ways of Time," William H. Davies, from Collected Poems.

To The John Lane Company (New York) for "Loveliest of Trees," A. E. Housman, from A Shropshire Lad; for "May is building her House," and "I meant to do my work to-day," Richard Le Gallienne, from The Lonely Dancer; for "The Joy of the Springtime," and "The Time of Roses," Sarojini Naidu, from The Bird of Time and The Broken Wing; for "Heart's Garden," Norreys Jephson O'Conor, from Celtic Memories; for "Serenade," Marjorie L. C. Pickthall, from The Lamp of Poor Souls; for "There is Strength in the Soil," Arthur Stringer, from Open Water; for "Midsummer blooms within our quiet garden ways," "It was June in the garden," and "Within the garden there is healthfulness," Emile Verhaeren, from The Sunlit Hours and Afternoon; for "In a Garden of Granada," Thomas Walsh, from Gardens Overseas; for "The Garden of Mnemosyne," Rosamund Marriott Watson, from Collected Poems; for "Eden-Hunger," William Watson, from Retrogression, and Other Poems; for "Spring Planting," Helen Hay Whitney, from Herbs and Apples.

To Messrs. Little, Brown & Co. for "To a Weed," Gertrude Hall, from The Age of Fairy Gold; for "The Green o' the Spring," Denis A. McCarthy, from Voices from Erin; for "The Baby's Valentine," Laura E. Richards, from In my Nursery.

To Messrs. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company for "God's Garden," Richard Burton, from Dumb in June.

To Mr. David McKay for "The Blossomy Barrow" and "Da Thief," Thomas Augustine Daly, from Madrigali; for "A Soft Day," W. M. Letts, from Songs from Leinster.

To The Macmillan Company for "Old Homes," Madison Cawein, from Poems; for "Up a Hill and a Hill," Fannie Stearns Davis, from Myself and I; for "In the Womb," A. E. (George William Russell), from Collected Poems; for "To the Sweetwilliam," Norman Gale, from Collected Poems; for "Roses," Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, from Battle, and Other Poems; for "Rest at Noon" and "The Hummingbird," Hermann Hagedorn, from Poems and Ballads; for "The Mystery," Ralph Hodgson, from Poems; for "The Dandelion" and "With a Rose, to Brunhilde," Vachel Lindsay, from General William Booth enters into Heaven, and Other Poems and A Handy Guide for Beggars; for "A Tulip Garden," "Fringed Gentians," and "The Fruit Garden Path," Amy Lowell, from Sword Blades and Poppy Seed and The Dome of Many-coloured Glass; for "It may be so: but let the unknown be" and "Drop me the Seed," John Masefield, from Lollingdon Downs, and Other Poems; for "Samuel Gardner," Edgar Lee Masters, from The Spoon River Anthology; for "Go down to Kew in lilac-time" (selection from "The Barrel-Organ"), Alfred Noyes, from Poems; for "The Messenger," James Stephens, from Songs from the Clay; for "The Champa Flower" and "The Flower-School," Rabindranath Tagore, from The Crescent Moon; for "Indian Summer," "Alchemy," "The Fountain," "Barter," and "Wood Song," Sara Teasdale, from Rivers to the Sea and Love Songs; for "The Message," George Edward Woodberry, from Poems; for "The Song of Wandering Aengus," W. B. Yeats, from Poems.

To Mr. Elkin Mathews and to Mr. Rowland Thirlmere personally for "A Shower," from Polyclitus, and Other Poems.

To the Manas Press, Rochester, N.Y., for "November Night" and "Arbutus," Adelaide Crapsey, from Verses.

To Messrs. John P. Morton & Co., Louisville, Ky., for "Conscience," Margaret Steele Anderson, from The Flame in the Wind.

To Mr. Thomas Bird Mosher for "Beyond," "As in a Rose-Jar," and "My soul is like a garden-close," Thomas S. Jones, Jr., from The Voice in the Silence and The Rose-Jar; for "A Seller of Herbs," "The Garden at Bemerton," and "April Weather," Lizette Woodworth Reese, from A Handful of Lavender; for "Frost To-night," Edith M. Thomas, from The Flower from the Ashes; for "In an Oxford Garden" and "Old Gardens," Arthur Upson, from Octaves in an Oxford Garden and Collected Poems.

To Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons for "In an Old Garden," Madison Cawein, from Moods and Melodies; for "If I could dig like a Rabbit," Rose Strong Hubbell, from If I could Fly; for "The Anxious Farmer," Burges Johnson, from Rhymes of Home; for "In an August Garden," "Amiel's Garden," and "The Garden," Gertrude Huntington McGiffert, from A Florentine Cycle.

To The Reilly & Britton Co. for "Results and Roses," Edgar A. Guest, from Heap o' Livin'.

To Mr. Grant Richards for "Loveliest of Trees," A. E. Housman, from A Shropshire Lad.

To Mr. A. M. Robertson (San Francisco) for "How many flowers are gently met," George Sterling, from The Testimony of the Sun, and Other Poems.

To Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons for "Miracle," L. H. Bailey, from Wind and Weather; for "Four O'Clocks" and "Homesick," Julia C. R. Dorr, from Poems and Last Poems; for "Tell-Tale," Oliver Herford, from Overheard in a Garden; for "In the Garden" and "The Deserted Garden," Pai Ta-Shun (Frederick Peterson), from Chinese Lyrics (Kelly & Walsh, Hongkong); for "The Child in the Garden," Henry van Dyke, from Collected Poems.

To Messrs. Sherman, French & Co. for "The Trees," Samuel Valentine Cole, from The Great Gray King, and Other Poems; for "Her Garden," Eldredge Denison, from Ballads and Lyrics; for "Moth-Flowers," Jeanne Robert Foster, from Wild Apples; for "The Little God," Katharine Howard, from The Little God, and Other Poems; for "Cloud and Flower," Agnes Lee, from The Sharing, and Other Poems; for "The Dials" and "The Secret," Arthur Wallace Peach, from The Hill Trails; for "A Garden Prayer" and "In Memory's Garden," Thomas Walsh, from The Prison Ships, and Other Poems; for "Prayer" and "With memories and odors," John Hall Wheelock, from Love and Liberation.

To Messrs. Sidgwick & Jackson for "A Song of Fairies," by Elizabeth Kirby, from The Bridegroom.

To Messrs. Small, Maynard & Co. for "Trees," "The Garden of Dreams," and "An April Morning," Bliss Carman, from April Airs; for "The Whisper of Earth," Edward J. O'Brien, from White Fountains; for "The Dews" and "Clover," John Banister Tabb, from Lyrics.

To Messrs. Stewart & Kidd Company, Cincinnati, for "The Golden Bowl," Mary McMillan, from The Little Golden Fountain, and Other Poems.

To Messrs. Frederick A. Stokes Company for "A Mocking-Bird" and "The Early Gods," Witter Bynner, from Grenstone Poems; for "The Proud Vegetables" and "Iris Flowers," Mary McNeil Fenollosa, from Blossoms from a Japanese Garden.

To Mr. T. Fisher Unwin for "Autumnal," Richard Middleton, from Poems and Songs.

To Messrs. James T. White & Co. for "Flowers of June," James Terry White, from A Garden of Remembrance; for "Song of the Weary Traveller," Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff, from Narcissus, and Other Poems.

To the Atlantic Monthly for "April Rain," Conrad Aiken; for "Yellow Warblers," Katharine Lee Bates; for "Safe," Robert Haven Schauffler; for "The Lilies," George Edward Woodberry.

To the Century Magazine for "Order," Paul Scott Mowrer.

To the Christian Science Monitor for "Family Trees," Douglas Malloch.

To the Churchman for "The Faithless Flowers," Margaret Widdemer.

To Contemporary Verse for "The Road to the Pool," Grace Hazard Conkling; for "The Night-Moth," Marion Couthouy Smith.

To the Craftsman for "The Scissors-Man," Grace Hazard Conkling.

To the Delineator for "In my Mother's Garden," Margaret Widdemer.

To Everybody's Magazine for "Years Afterward," Nancy Byrd Turner.

To Harper's Monthly Magazine for "Progress," Charlotte Becker; for "Oh, tell me how my garden grows," Mildred Howells; for "A Song for Winter," Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer.

To the Independent for "Blind," Harry Kemp; for "The Dusty Hour-Glass," Amy Lowell; for "A Midsummer Garden," Clinton Scollard.

To the Los Angeles Graphic for "A White Iris," Pauline B. Barrington.

To Lyric for "July Midnight," Amy Lowell.

To Munsey's Magazine for "A Puritan Lady's Garden," Sarah N. Cleghorn; for "Spring Song," William Griffith; for "The Fountain," Harry Kemp.

To Mushrooms, published by The John Marshall Company, for "Idealists," Alfred Kreymborg.

To Others: A Magazine of New Verse for "Reflections" ("Chinoiseries"), Amy Lowell; for "Lord, I ask a Garden," R. Arevalo Martinez.

To the New York Sun for "A Colonial Garden," James B. Kenyon.

To the New York Times for "Grace for Gardens," Louise Driscoll; for "The Welcome," Arthur Powell.

To Poetry: A Magazine of Verse for "Spring Song," Hilda Conkling; for "A Lady of the Snows," Harriet Monroe; for "The Magnolia," José Santos Chocano, translated by John Pierrepont Rice.

To Punch for "Lavender," W. W. Blair Fish.

To St. Nicholas for "Velvets," Hilda Conkling; for "When Swallows Build," Catherine Parmenter.

To Scribner's Magazine for "Her Garden," Louis Dodge; for "The Path that leads to Nowhere," Corinne Roosevelt Robinson.

To the Touchstone for "Dawn in my Garden," Marguerite Wilkinson.

To the Yale Review and to Mr. Brian Hooker personally for "Ballade of the Dreamland Rose" from Poems; also to the Yale Review for the selection from "Earth," John Hall Wheelock.

Personal acknowledgment is also made to the following poets and individual owners of copyrights:—

To Miss Zoë Akins for "The Snow-Gardens."

To Mr. William Stanley Braithwaite and to Mr. Fletcher personally for "Spring," John Gould Fletcher, printed in the Poetry Review.

To M. G. Brereton for "The Old Brocade" from A Celtic Christmas.

To Miss Abbie Farwell Brown for "The Wall" in manuscript.

To Mrs. Grace Hazard Conkling for "The Rose" in manuscript.

To Mr. Miles M. Dawson for "The Thistle" from Songs of the New Time.

To Violet Fane (Lady Curie) for "To a New Sun-Dial" from Collected Poems.

To Mrs. Mary McNeil Fenollosa for "Birth of the Flowers."

To Mr. Arthur Guiterman for "Tulips" and "Columbines" in manuscript.

To Miss Mary R. Jewett for "Flowers in the Dark," Sarah Orne Jewett, from Verses (privately printed).

To Rev. Arthur Ketchum for "The Spirit of the Birch" in manuscript.

To Miss Hannah Parker Kimball for "Sun, Cardinal, and Corn Flowers" from Soul and Sense.

To Mr. William Lindsey for "Two Roses" from Apples of Istakhar.

To Catherine Markham (Mrs. Edwin Markham) for "A Garden Friend."

To Mr. Lloyd Mifflin for "Draw closer, O ye Trees" from The Flying Nymph, and Other Verse.

To Miss Angela Morgan for "The Awakening" in manuscript.

To E. Nesbit (Mrs. Hubert Bland) for "Baby Seed Song."

To Mr. Shaemas O Sheel for "While April Rain went by" from The Light Feet of Goats (The Franklin Press).

To Mr. Clinton Scollard for "The Crocus Flame," and "Sunflowers," from Ballads Patriotic and Romantic; for "In the Garden-Close at Mezra" and "In an Egyptian Garden" from The Lutes of Morn.

To Mrs. Emily Selinger for "Over the Garden Wall."

To Mrs. May Riley Smith for "Sorrow in a Garden" in manuscript.

To the estate of Frank L. Stanton for "Sweetheart-Lady."

To Mr. Charles Wharton Stork for "Boulders" in manuscript, and for "Color Notes," printed in Lippincott's Magazine.

To Mr. Charles Hanson Towne for "A White Rose."

To Katharine Tynan (Mrs. Henry Albert Hinkson) for "The Choice," published by Messrs. Sidgwick & Jackson in The Poems of To-day, an anthology.

To Mr. Frederic A. Whiting for his own poems "A Rose Lover" and "A Wonder Garden" in manuscript and for "Kinfolk" by Kate Whiting Patch.

To Mr. Clement Wood for "Rose-Geranium" from Glad of Earth.

To Mr. Henry A. Wise Wood for "The Joy of a Summer Day."

NOTE

With very few exceptions only the poets who are writing to-day, or who have written within a period of ten years, are represented in this collection; and certain favorite poems peculiarly suited to the spirit of this book which chanced to be included in High Tide may be missed here. G. M. R.

CONTENTS

WITHIN GARDEN WALLS

THE PAGEANTRY OF GARDENS

WINGS AND SONG

THE GARDENS OF YESTERDAY

PASTURES AND HILLSIDES

LOVERS AND ROSES

UNDERNEATH THE BOUGH

THE LOST GARDENS OF THE HEART

THE GARDEN OVER-SEAS

THE HOMELY GARDEN

SILVER BELLS AND COCKLE SHELLS

THE GARDEN OF LIFE

WITHIN GARDEN WALLS

EARTH

Grasshopper, your fairy song
And my poem alike belong
To the deep and silent earth
From which all poetry has birth;
All we say and all we sing
Is but as the murmuring
Of that drowsy heart of hers
When from her deep dream she stirs:
If we sorrow, or rejoice,
You and I are but her voice.

Deftly does the dust express
In mind her hidden loveliness,
And from her cool silence stream
The cricket's cry and Dante's dream:
For the earth that breeds the trees
Breeds cities too, and symphonies,
Equally her beauty flows
Into a savior or a rose.

Even as the growing grass
Up from the soil religions pass,
And the field that bears the rye
Bears parables and prophecy.
Out of the earth the poem grows
Like the lily, or the rose;
And all that man is or yet may be,
Is but herself in agony
Toiling up the steep ascent
Towards the complete accomplishment
When all dust shall be, the whole
Universe, one conscious soul.

Yea, and this my poem, too,
Is part of her as dust and dew,
Wherein herself she doth declare
Through my lips, and say her prayer.

John Hall Wheelock

THE FURROW

Stride the hill, sower,
Up to the sky-ridge,
Flinging the seed,
Scattering, exultant!
Mouthing great rhythms
To the long sea beats
On the wide shore, behind
The ridge of the hillside.

Below in the darkness—
The slumber of mothers—
The cradles at rest—
The fire-seed sleeping
Deep in white ashes!

Give to darkness and sleep:
O sower, O seer!
Give me to the Earth.
With the seed I would enter.
O! the growth thro' the silence
From strength to new strength;
Then the strong bursting forth
Against primal forces,
To laugh in the sunshine,
To gladden the world!

Padraic Colum

"THERE IS STRENGTH IN THE SOIL"

There is strength in the soil;
In the earth there is laughter and youth.
There is solace and hope in the upturned loam.
And lo, I shall plant my soul in it here like a seed!
And forth it shall come to me as a flower of song;
For I know it is good to get back to the earth
That is orderly, placid, all-patient!
It is good to know how quiet
And noncommittal it breathes,
This ample and opulent bosom
That must some day nurse us all!

Arthur Stringer

IN THE WOMB

Still rests the heavy share on the dark soil:
Upon the black mould thick the dew-damp lies:
The horse waits patient: from his lowly toil
The ploughboy to the morning lifts his eyes.

The unbudding hedgerows dark against day's fires
Glitter with gold-lit crystals: on the rim
Over the unregarding city's spires
The lonely beauty shines alone for him.

And day by day the dawn or dark unfolds
And feeds with beauty eyes that cannot see
How in her womb the mighty mother moulds
The infant spirit for eternity.

"A. E."
(George William Russell)

PUTTING IN THE SEED

You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper's on the table, and we'll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree.

(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,

Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,

The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

Robert Frost

THE WHISPER OF EARTH

In the misty hollow, shyly greening branches
Soften to the south wind, bending to the rain.
From the moistened earthland flutter little whispers,
Breathing hidden beauty, innocent of stain.

Little plucking fingers tremble through the grasses,
Little silent voices sigh the dawn of spring,
Little burning earth-flames break the awful stillness,
Little crying wind-sounds come before the King.

Powers, dominations urge the budding of the crocus,
Cherubim are singing in the moist cool stone,
Seraphim are calling through the channels of the lily,
God has heard the earth-cry and journeys to His throne.

Edward J. O'Brien

"WITHIN THE GARDEN THERE IS HEALTHFULNESS"

Within the garden there is healthfulness.

Lavishly it gives it us
In light that cleaves
To every movement of its thousand hands
Of palms and leaves.

And the good shade where it accepts,
After long journeyings,
Our steps,
Pours on the weary limb
A force of life and sweetness like
Its mosses dim.

When the lake is playing with the wind and sun.
It seems a crimson heart
Within, all ardent, has begun
To throb with the moving wave;
The gladiolus and the fervent rose,
Which in their splendor move unshadowèd,
Upon their vital stems expose
Their cups of gold and red.

Within the garden there is healthfulness.

Emile Verhaeren

IN A GARDEN

I stood within a Garden during rain
Uncovering to the drops my lifted brow:
O joyous fancy, to imagine now
I slip, with trees and clouds, the social chain,
Alone with nature, naught to lose or gain
Nor even to become; no, just to be
A moment's personal essence, wholly free
From needs that mold the heart to forms of pain.
Arise, I cried, and celebrate the hour!
Acclaim serener gladness; if it fail,
New courage, nobler vision, will survive
That I have known my kinship to the flower,
My brotherhood with rain, and in this vale
Have been a moment's friend to all alive.

Horace Holley

A SHOWER

You may have seen, when winds were high,
That hesitant buds would not unfold
In garden-borders chill and dry,
Bright with the Easter-lilies' gold.

Then, suddenly, would come a shower—
The big breeze veering to the west—
And happier music filled the bower
Above the thrush's hidden nest:

The elm-tree's inconspicuous bloom
Vanished amidst her little leaves;
In box and bay a fragrant gloom
Inspired the wren's recitatives:

The woods assumed their delicate green
And spoke in songs that brought you bliss:
Ay, and your withered heart has been
Quickened on such a day as this!

Rowland Thirlmere

THE RAIN

I hear leaves drinking Rain;
I hear rich leaves on top
Giving the poor beneath
Drop after drop;
'Tis a sweet noise to hear
These green leaves drinking near.

And when the Sun comes out,
After this Rain shall stop,
A wondrous Light will fill
Each dark, round drop;
I hope the Sun shines bright;
'Twill be a lovely sight.

William H. Davies

THE DEWS

We come and go, as the breezes blow,
But whence or where
Hath ne'er been told in the legends old
By the dreaming seer.
The welcome rain to the parching plain
And the languid leaves,
The rattling hail on the burnished mail
Of the serried sheaves,
The silent snow on the wintry brow
Of the aged year,
Wends each his way in the track of day
From a clouded sphere:
But still as the fog in the dismal bog
Where the shifting sheen
Of the spectral lamp lights the marshes damp,
With a flash unseen
We drip through the night from the starlids bright,
On the sleeping flowers,
And deep in their breast is our perfumed rest
Through the darkened hours:
But again with the day we are up and away
With our stolen dyes,
To paint all the shrouds of the drifting clouds
In the eastern skies.

John B. Tabb

SONNET

It may be so; but let the unknown be.
We, on this earth, are servants of the sun.
Out of the sun comes all the quick in me,
His golden touch is life to everyone.

His power it is that makes us spin through space,
His youth is April and his manhood bread,
Beauty is but a looking on his face,
He clears the mind, he makes the roses red.

What he may be, who knows? But we are his,
We roll through nothing round him, year by year,
The withering leaves upon a tree which is
Each with his greed, his little power, his fear.

What we may be, who knows? But everyone
Is dust on dust a servant of the sun.

John Masefield

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!

O steep the silence till it sing!
O glories from the height,
Come down, where I am garlanding
With light, a child of light!

Josephine Preston Peabody

THE DIALS

With fingers softer than the touch of death
The sundial writes the passing of the day,
The hours unfolding slow to twilight gray,
The gleaming moments vanish in a breath.

But sunny hours alone the sundial names;
All unrecorded are the midnight spans
And vain within the dusk the watcher scans
The marble face; thereon no record flames.

So on eternal dials that God may hold,
And those more humble in the human heart,
No bitter deeds their passing hours impart;
Kind deeds alone are marked in fadeless gold!

Arthur Wallace Peach

TO A NEW SUNDIAL

Oh, Sundial, you should not be young,
Or fresh and fair, or spick and span!
None should remember when began
Your tenure here, nor whence you sprung!

Like ancient cromlech notch'd and scarr'd,
I would have had you sadly tow'r
Above this world of leaf and flower
All ivy-tress'd and lichen-starr'd;

Ambassador of Time and Fate,
In contrast stern to bud and bloom,
Seeming half temple and half tomb,
And wholly solemn and sedate;

Till, one with God's own works on earth,
The lake, the vale, the mountain-brow,
We might have come to count you now
Whose home was here before our birth.

But lo! a priggish, upstart thing—
Set here to tell so old a truth—
How fleeting are our days of youth—
You, that were only made last spring!

Go to!... What sermon can you preach,
Oh, mushroom—mentor pert and new?
We are too old to learn of you
What you are all too young to teach!

Yet, Sundial, you and I may swear
Eternal friendship, none the less,
For I'll respect your youthfulness
If you'll forgive my silver hair!

Violet Fane

THE FOUNTAIN

I thought my garden finished. I beheld
Each bush bee-visited; a green charm quelled
The louder winds to music; soft boughs made
Patches of silver dusk and purple shade—
And yet I felt a lack of something still.

There was a little, sleepy-footed rill
That lapsed among sun-burnished stones, where slept
Fish, rainbow-scaled, while dragon-flies, adept,
Balanced on bending grass.

All perfect? No.
My garden lacked a fountain's upward flow.
I coaxed the brook's young Naiad to resign
Her meadow wildness, building her a shrine
Of worship, where each ravished waif of air
Might wanton in the brightness of her hair.

So here my fountain flows, loved of the wind,
To every vagrant, aimless gust inclined,
Yet constant ever to its source. It greets
The face of morning, wavering windy sheets
Of woven silver; sheer it climbs the noon,
A shaft of bronze; and underneath the moon
It sleeps in pearl and opal. In the storm
It streams far out, a wild, gray, blowing form;
While on calm days it heaps above the lake,—
Pelting the dreaming lilies half awake,
And pattering jewels on each wide, green frond,—
Recurrent pyramids of diamond!

Harry Kemp

THE PAGEANTRY OF GARDENS

THE BIRTH OF THE FLOWERS

God spoke! and from the arid scene
Sprang rich and verdant bowers,
Till all the earth was soft with green,—
He smiled; and there were flowers.

Mary McNeil Fenollosa

THE WELCOME

God spreads a carpet soft and green
O'er which we pass;
A thick-piled mat of jeweled sheen—
And that is Grass.

Delightful music woos the ear;
The grass is stirred
Down to the heart of every spear—
Ah, that's a Bird.

Clouds roll before a blue immense
That stretches high
And lends the soul exalted sense—
That scroll's a Sky.

Green rollers flaunt their sparkling crests;
Their jubilee
Extols brave Captains and their quests—
And that is Sea.

New-leaping grass, the feathery flute,
The sapphire ring,
The sea's full-voiced, profound salute,—
Ah, this is Spring!

Arthur Powell

THE JOY OF THE SPRINGTIME

Springtime, O Springtime, what is your essence,
The lilt of a bulbul, the laugh of a rose,
The dance of the dew on the wings of a moonbeam,
The voice of the zephyr that sings as he goes,
The hope of a bride or the dream of a maiden
Watching the petals of gladness unclose?

Springtime, O Springtime, what is your secret,
The bliss at the core of your magical mirth,
That quickens the pulse of the morning to wonder
And hastens the seeds of all beauty to birth,
That captures the heavens and conquers to blossom
The roots of delight in the heart of the earth?

Sarojini Naidu

SPRING

At the first hour, it was as if one said, "Arise."
At the second hour, it was as if one said, "Go forth."
And the winter constellations that are like patient ox-eyes
Sank below the white horizon at the north.

At the third hour, it was as if one said, "I thirst;"
At the fourth hour, all the earth was still:
Then the clouds suddenly swung over, stooped, and burst;
And the rain flooded valley, plain and hill.

At the fifth hour, darkness took the throne;
At the sixth hour, the earth shook and the wind cried;
At the seventh hour, the hidden seed was sown,
At the eighth hour, it gave up the ghost and died.

At the ninth hour, they sealed up the tomb;
And the earth was then silent for the space of three hours.
But at the twelfth hour, a single lily from the gloom
Shot forth, and was followed by a whole host of flowers.

John Gould Fletcher

PRIMAVERA

Spirit immortal of mortality,
Imperishable faith, calm miracle
Of resurrection, truth no tongue can tell,
No brain conceive,—now witnessed utterly
In this new testament of earth and sea,—
To us thy gospel! Where the acorn fell
The oak-tree springs: no seed is infidel!
Once more, O Wonder, flower and field and tree
Reveal thy secret and significance!
And we, who share unutterable things
And feel the foretaste of eternity,
Haply shall learn thy meaning and perchance
Set free the soul to lift immortal wings
And cross the frontiers of infinity.

George Cabot Lodge

THE GREEN O' THE SPRING

Sure, afther all the winther,
An' afther all the snow,
'Tis fine to see the sunshine,
'Tis fine to feel its glow;
'Tis fine to see the buds break
On boughs that bare have been—
But best of all to Irish eyes
'Tis grand to see the green!

Sure, afther all the winther,
An' afther all the snow,
'Tis fine to hear the brooks sing
As on their way they go;
'Tis fine to hear at mornin'
The voice of robineen,
But best of all to Irish eyes
'Tis grand to see the green!

Sure, here in grim New England
The spring is always slow,
An' every bit o' green grass
Is kilt wid frost and snow;
Ah, many a heart is weary
The winther days, I ween
But oh, the joy when springtime comes
An' brings the blessed green!

Denis A. McCarthy

AN APRIL MORNING

Once more in misted April
The world is growing green.
Along the winding river
The plumey willows lean.

Beyond the sweeping meadows
The looming mountains rise,
Like battlements of dreamland
Against the brooding skies.

In every wooded valley
The buds are breaking through,
As though the heart of all things
No languor ever knew.

The golden-wings and bluebirds
Call to their heavenly choirs.
The pines are blued and drifted
With smoke of brushwood fires.

And in my sister's garden
Where little breezes run,
The golden daffodillies
Are blowing in the sun.

Bliss Carman

"WITH MEMORIES AND ODORS"

With memories and odors
The wind is warm and mild;
The earth is like a mother
Where leaps the unborn child.

The grackles flock returning
Like rain-clouds from the south.
And all the world lies yearning
Toward summer, mouth to mouth.

How soft the hills and hazy
Seen through the open door!—
The crocus shines, a virgin,
White from the grassy floor.

The children whirl around in a ring,
And laugh and sing, and dance and sing:
But the blackbird whistles clear,
O clear,
"The Spring, the Spring!"

John Hall Wheelock