Laughter! O thou reviver of sick Earth!
Good for the spirit, good
For body, thou! to both art wine and bread!
EARTH AND A WEDDED WOMAN
I
The
shepherd, with his eye on hazy South,
Has told of rain upon the fall of day.
But promise is there none for Susan's drouth,
That he will come, who keeps in dry delay.
The freshest of the village three years gone,
She hangs as the white field-rose hangs short-lived;
And she and Earth are one
In withering unrevived.
Rain! O the glad refresher of the grain!
And
welcome waterspouts, had we sweet rain!
II
Ah, what is Marriage, says each pouting maid,
When she who
wedded with the soldier hides
At home as good as widowed in the shade,
A
lighthouse to the girls that would be brides:
Nor dares to give a lad an ogle, nor
To dream of dancing, but must hang and moan,
Her husband in the war,
And she to lie alone.
Rain! O the glad refresher of the grain!
And
welcome waterspouts, had we sweet rain!
III
They have not known; they are not in the stream;
Light as the flying seed-ball is their play,
The silly maids! and happy souls they seem;
Yet Grief would not change fates with such as they.
They have not struck the roots which meet the fires
Beneath, and bind us fast with Earth, to know
The strength of her desires,
The sternness of her woe.
Rain! O the glad refresher of the grain!
And
welcome waterspouts, had we sweet rain!
IV
Now,
shepherd, see thy word, where without shower
A borderless low blotting Westward spreads.
The hall-clock holds the
valley on the hour;
Across an inner
chamberthunder treads:
The dead leaf trips, the tree-top swings, the floor
Of dust whirls, dropping lumped: near
thunder speaks,
And drives the dames to door,
Their kerchiefs flapped at cheeks.
Rain! O the glad refresher of the grain!
And
welcome waterspouts of
blessed rain!
V
Through night, with bedroom window wide for air,
Lay Susan tranced to hear all heaven
descend:
And gurgling voices came of Earth, and rare,
Past flowerful, breathings, deeper than life's end,
From her heaved breast of
sacred common mould;
Whereby this lone-laid wife was moved to feel
Unworded things and old
To her pained heart appeal.
Rain! O the glad refresher of the grain!
And down in deluges of
blessed rain!
VI
At morn she stood to live for ear and sight,
Love sky or cloud, or rose or grasses drenched.
A lureful devil, that in glow-worm light
Set languor writhing all its folds, she quenched.
But she would muse when neighbours praised her face,
Her services, and staunchness to her mate:
Knowing by some dim trace,
The change might bear a date.
Rain! O the glad refresher of the grain!
Thrice
beauteous is our
sunshine after rain!
MOTHER TO BABE
I
Fleck of sky you are,
Dropped through branches dark,
O my little one, mine!
Promise of the star,
Outpour of the lark;
Beam and song divine.
II
See this precious gift,
Steeping in new birth
All my being, for sign
Earth to heaven can lift,
Heaven
descend on earth,
Both in one be mine!
III
Life in light you glass
When you peep and coo,
You, my little one, mine!
Brooklet chirps to grass,
Daisy looks in dew
Up to dear
sunshine.
WOODLAND PEACE
Sweet as Eden is the air,
And Eden-sweet the ray.
No Paradise is lost for them
Who foot by branching root and stem,
And
lightly with the
woodland share
The change of night and day.
Here all say,
We serve her, even as I:
We brood, we
strive to sky,
We gaze upon decay,
We wot of life through death,
How each feeds each we spy;
And is a
tangle round,
Are patient; what is dumb
We question not, nor ask
The silent to give sound,
The
hidden to unmask,
The distant to draw near.
And this the
woodland saith:
I know not hope or fear;
I take whate'er may come;
I raise my head to aspects fair,
From foul I turn away.
Sweet as Eden is the air,
And Eden-sweet the ray.
THE QUESTION WHITHER
I
When we have thrown off this old suit,
So much in need of mending,
To sink among the naked mute,
Is that, think you, our ending?
We follow many, more we lead,
And you who sadly turf us,
Believe not that all living seed
Must flower above the surface.
II
Sensation is a
gracious gift,
But were it cramped to station,
The prayer to have it cast adrift
Would spout from all sensation.
Enough if we have winked to sun,
Have sped the
plough a season;
There is a soul for labour done,
Endureth fixed as reason.
III
Then let our trust be firm in Good,
Though we be of the fasting;
Our questions are a
mortal brood,
Our work is everlasting.
We children of Beneficence
Are in its being sharers;
And Whither vainer sounds than Whence,
For word with such wayfarers.
OUTER AND INNER
I
From twig to twig the
spider weaves
At noon his webbing fine.
So near to mute the zephyrs flute
That only leaflets dance.
The sun draws out of hazel leaves
A smell of
woodland wine.
I wake a swarm to sudden storm
At any step's advance.
II
Along my path is bugloss blue,
The star with fruit in moss;
The foxgloves drop from
throat to top
A daily
lesser bell.
The blackest shadow, nurse of dew,
Has orange skeins across;
And
keenly red is one thin thread
That flashing seems to swell.
III
My world I note ere fancy comes,
Minutest hushed observe:
What busy bits of motioned wits
Through antlered mosswork
strive.
But now so low the
stillness hums,
My springs of
seeing swerve,
For half a wink to
thrill and think
The woods with nymphs alive.
IV
I neighbour the invisible
So close that my consent
Is only asked for spirits masked
To leap from trees and flowers.
And this because with them I dwell
In thought, while
calmly bent
To read the lines dear Earth designs
Shall speak her life on ours.
V
Accept, she says; it is not hard
In woods; but she in towns
Repeats, accept; and have we wept,
And have we quailed with fears,
Or shrunk with horrors, sure reward
We have whom knowledge crowns;
Who see in mould the rose unfold,
The soul through blood and tears.
NATURE AND LIFE
I
Leave the
uproar: at a leap
Thou shalt strike a
woodland path,
Enter silence, not of sleep,
Under shadows, not of wrath;
Breath which is the spirit's bath
In the old Beginnings find,
And endow them with a mind,