Part 8

Who knows what days I answer for to-day: Giving the bud I give the flower. I bow This yet unfaded and a faded brow; Bending these knees and feeble knees, I pray.

Thoughts yet unripe in me I bend one way, Give one repose to pain I know not now, One leaven to joy that comes, I guess not how. I dedicate my fields when Spring is grey.

Oh, rash! (I smile) to pledge my hidden wheat. I fold to-day at altars far apart Hands trembling with what toils? In their retreat I seal my love to-be, my folded art. I light the tapers at my head and feet, And lay the crucifix on this silent heart.

SONNET--SPRING ON THE ALBAN HILLS

O'er the Campagna it is dim warm weather; The Spring comes with a full heart silently, And many thoughts; a faint flash of the sea Divides two mists; straight falls the falling feather.

With wild Spring meanings hill and plain together Grow pale, or just flush with a dust of flowers. Rome in the ages, dimmed with all her towers, Floats in the midst, a little cloud at tether.

I fain would put my hands about thy face, Thou with thy thoughts, who art another Spring, And draw thee to me like a mournful child.

Thou lookest on me from another place; I touch not this day's secret, nor the thing That in the silence makes thy sweet eyes wild.

SONG OF THE NIGHT AT DAYBREAK

All my stars forsake me, And the dawn-winds shake me. Where shall I betake me?

Whither shall I run Till the set of sun, Till the day be done?

To the mountain-mine, To the boughs o' the pine, To the blind man's eyne,

To a brow that is Bowed upon the knees, Sick with memories.

SONNET--TO A DAISY

Slight as thou art, thou art enough to hide, Like all created things, secrets from me, And stand a barrier to eternity. And I, how can I praise thee well and wide?

From where I dwell--upon the hither side? Thou little veil for so great mystery, When shall I penetrate all things and thee, And then look back? For this I must abide,

Till thou shalt grow and fold and be unfurled Literally between me and the world. Then I shall drink from in beneath a spring,

And from a poet's side shall read his book. O daisy mine, what will it be to look From God's side even of such a simple thing?

SONNET--TO ONE POEM IN A SILENT TIME

Who looked for thee, thou little song of mine? This winter of a silent poet's heart Is suddenly sweet with thee, but what thou art, Mid-winter flower, I would I could divine.

Art thou a last one, orphan of thy line? Did the dead summer's last warmth foster thee? Or is Spring folded up unguessed in me, And stirring out of sight,--and thou the sign?

Where shall I look--backwards or to the morrow For others of thy fragrance, secret child? Who knows if last things or if first things claim thee?

--Whether thou be the last smile of my sorrow, Or else a joy too sweet, a joy too wild? How, my December violet, shall I name thee?

FUTURE POETRY

No new delights to our desire The singers of the past can yield. I lift mine eyes to hill and field, And see in them your yet dumb lyre, Poets unborn and unrevealed.

Singers to come, what thoughts will start To song? what words of yours be sent Through man's soul, and with earth be blent? These worlds of nature and the heart Await you like an instrument.

Who knows what musical flocks of words Upon these pine-tree tops will light, And crown these towers in circling flight And cross these seas like summer birds, And give a voice to the day and night?

Something of you already is ours; Some mystic part of you belongs To us whose dreams your future throngs, Who look on hills, and trees, and flowers, Which will mean so much in your songs.