Part 22

Poor little pilgrim so bereft, So weary at his journey’s end! What joy must then have filled his soul To reach at last such happy goal— To find—oh, such a friend!…

And then night came, and from his bed He saw the sea, moonlit and bright, And dreamed there came, to bless her son, His mother, with her little one, Adown that path of light.

Ah, greater blessing I’d not crave, When my life’s pilgrimage is o’er, Than such repose, content, and love; Some shining path that leads above To dear ones gone before!

LOUELLA C. POOLE

WITH WAVES AND WINGS

Waves and Wings and Growing Things! As through the gladden sight ye flow And flit and glow, Ye win me so In soul to go, I too am waves, I too am wings, And kindred motion in me springs.

With thee I pass, glad growing grass!— I climb the air with lissome mien; Unsheathing keen The vivid sheen Of springing green, I thrill the crude, exalt the crass Fine-flex’d and fluent from Earth’s mass.

And impulse craves with thee, Sea Waves!— To make all mutable the floor Of Earth’s firm shore, With flashing pour Whose brimming o’er Impassion’d motion loves and laves And livens sombre slumbering caves.

Then soaring where the wild birds fare, My song would sweep the windy lyre Of Heaven’s choir, Pulsing desire For starry fire, Abashing chilling vagues of air With throbbing of warm breasts that dare!

CHARLOTTE PORTER

BLUEBERRIES

Upon the hills of Garlingtown Beneath the summer sky, In many pleasant pastures On sunny slopes and high, Their skins abloom with dusty blue, Asleep, the berries lie.

And all the lads of Garlingtown, And all the lasses too, Still climb the tranquil hillsides, A merry, barefoot crew; Still homeward plod with unfilled pails And mouths of berry blue.

And all the birds of Garlingtown, When flocking back to nest, Remember well the patches Where berries are the best; They pick the ripest ones at dawn And leave the lads the rest.

Upon the hills of Garlingtown When berry-time was o’er, I looked into the sunset, And saw an open door, And from the hills of Garlingtown I went, and came no more.

FRANK PRENTICE RAND

NOCTURNE

Night of infinite power and infinite silence and space, From you may mortals infer, if ever, the scope divine! The jealous sun conceals all but his arrogant face, You bid the Milky Way and a million suns to shine.

Each star to numberless planets gives light and motion and heat, But you enmantle them all, the nearest and most remote; And the lustres of all the suns are but spangles under your feet,— Mere bubbles and beads of noon, they circle and shine and float.

WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER

ENVOI

I walked with poets in my youth, Because the world they drew Was beautiful and glorious Beyond the world I knew.

The poets are my comrades still, But dearer than in youth, For now I know that they alone Picture the world of truth.

WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER

THERE WHERE THE SEA

There where the sea enwrapt A strip of land and wind-swept dune, Where nature was quiescent in the glimmering Noonday sun of early June,— The Placid sea lay shimmering In a mist of blue, From which the sky now drew Its wealth of hue and colour; One heard but the deep breathing of the ocean, As it breathed along the shore in even motion. Among the pines and listless of the scene, Atthis and Alcæus lay, Within the heart of each a hunger For the unknown gift of life. Here from day to day They met and dreamed away The soft unfloding days of spring,— Now turning to the summer.

Alcæus: I am faint with all the fire In my blood, And I would plunge into the quiet blue And lose all sense of time and you.

Atthis: I, too, would plunge And swim with you!