Part 7

Sun-flowers, stop growing! If you touch the sky where those clouds are passing Like tufts of dandelion gone to seed, The sky will put you out! You know it is blue like the sea . . . Maybe it is wet, too! Your gold faces will be gone forever If you brush against that blue Ever so softly!

HOLLAND SONG

For a Dutch picture

When light comes creeping through the That shine with mist, When winds blow soft, Windmills wake and whirl. In Holland, in Holland, Everything is cheerful Across the sea: White nets are beside the water Where ships sail by. The mountains begin to get blue, The Dutch girls begin to sing, The windmills begin to whirl. Then night comes The mountains turn dark gray And faint away into night. Not a bird chirps his song. All is drowsy, All is strange, With the moon and stars shining round the world: The wind stops, The windmills stop In Holland . . .

FOUNTAIN-TALK

Said the fountain to its clear bed, "You might flow faster! I am sprinkling my best, every day, But ice is holding you fast. Can't you get out? Can't you lift yourself with sun? I am tired waiting for slow cold water To fling about the air: Can't you wake yourself up?" But the fountain-basin murmured softly "Sleep . . . sleep . . . Sleep . . . sleep . . . You with your talking and talking! Hush . . . hush . . . I hear the bird-sandman!"

POPLARS

The poplars bow forward and back; They are like a fan waving very softly. They tremble, For they love the wind in their feathery branches. They love to look down at the shallows, At the mermaids On the sandy shore; They love to look into morning's face Cool in the water.

THE TOWER AND THE FALCON

There was a tower, once, In a London street. It was the highest, widest, thickest tower, The proudest, roundest, finest tower Of all towers. English men passed it by: They could not see it all Because it went above tree-tops and clouds.

It was lonely up there where the trees stopped Until one day A blue falcon came flying. He cried: "Tower! Do you know you are the highest, finest, roundest, The tallest, proudest, greatest, Of all the towers In all the world?"

He went away. That night the tower made a new song About himself.

THOUGHTS

My thoughts keep going far away Into another country under a different sky: My thoughts are sea-foam and sand; They are apple-petals fluttering.

POEM-SKETCH IN THREE PARTS

(Made for the picture on the jacket of the Norwegian book, The Great Hunger, by Johan Bojer)

THE ROLLING IN OF THE WAVE

It was night when the sky was dark blue And the water came in with a wavy look Like a spider's web. The point of the slope came down to the water's edge; It was green with a fairy ring of forget-me-not and fern. The white foam licked the side of the slope As it came up and bent backward; It curled up like a beautiful cinder-tree Bending in the wind.

THE COMING OF THE GREAT BIRD

A boy was watching the water As it came lapping the edge of fern. Little ships passed him As the moon came leaning across dark blue rays of light. The spruce trees saw the white ships sailing away, And the moon bending up the blue sky Where stars were twinkling like fairy lamps; The boy was looking toward foreign lands As the ships passed, Their white sails glittering in the moonlight. He was thinking how he wished to see Foreign lands, strange people, When suddenly a bird came flying! It swooped down upon the slope And spoke to him: "Do you want to go across the deep blue sea? Get on my back; I will take you." "Oh," cried the little boy, "who sent you? Who knew my thoughts of foreign lands?"

III

THE ISLAND

They flew as the night-wind flowed, very softly, They heard sweet singing that the water sang, They came to a place where the sea was shallow And saw treasure hidden there. There was one poplar tree On the lonely island, Swaying for sadness. The clouds went over their heads Like a fleet of drifting ships. And there they sank down out of the air Into the dream.

THE DEW-LIGHT

The Dew-man comes over the mountains wide, Over the deserts of sand, With his bag of clear drops And his brush of feathers. He scatters brightness. The white bunnies beg him for dew. He sprinkles their fur, They shake themselves. All the time he is singing The unknown world is beautiful!

He polishes flowers, Humming "Oh, beautiful!" He sings in the soft light That grows out of the dew, Out of the misty dew-light that leans over him He makes his song . . . It is beautiful, the unknown world!

YELLOW SUMMER-THROAT

Yellow summer-throat sat singing In a bending spray of willow tree. Thin fine green-y lines on his throat, The ruffled outside of his throat, Trembled when he sang. He kept saying the same thing; The willow did not mind.