Part 2

To Melvin Gardner: Suicide

A flight of doves, with wanton wings, Flash white against the sky. In the leafy copse an oriole sings, And a robin sings hard by. Sun and shadow are out on the hills; The swallow has followed the daffodils; In leaf and blade, life throbs and thrills Through the wild, warm heart of May.

To have seen the sun come back, to have seen Children again at play, To have heard the thrush where the woods are green Welcome the new-born day, To have felt the soft grass cool to the feet, To have smelt earth's incense, heavenly sweet, To have shared the laughter along the street, And, then, to have died in May!

A thousand roses will blossom red, A thousand hearts be gay, For the summer lingers just ahead And June is on her way; The bee must bestir him to fill his cells, The moon and the stars will weave new spells Of love and the music of marriage bells-- And, oh, to be dead in May!

Away Down Home

'T will not be long before they hear The bullbat on the hill, And in the valley through the dusk The pastoral whippoorwill. A few more friendly suns will call The bluets through the loam And star the lanes with buttercups Away down home.

"Knee-deep!" from reedy places Will sing the river frogs. The terrapins will sun themselves On all the jutting logs. The angler's cautious oar will leave A trail of drifting foam Along the shady currents Away down home.

The mocking-bird will feel again The glory of his wings, And wanton through the balmy air And sunshine while he sings, With a new cadence in his call, The glint-wing'd crow will roam From field to newly-furrowed field Away down home.

When dogwood blossoms mingle With the maple's modest red, And sweet arbutus wakes at last From out her winter's bed, 'T would not seem strange at all to meet A dryad or a gnome, Or Pan or Psyche in the woods Away down home.

Then come with me, thou weary heart! Forget thy brooding ills, Since God has come to walk among His valleys and his hills! The mart will never miss thee, Nor the scholar's dusty tome, And the Mother waits to bless thee, Away down home.

For Jane's Birthday

If fate had held a careless knife And clipped one line that drew, Of all the myriad lines of life, From Eden up to you; If, in the wars and wastes of time, One sire had met the sword, One mother died before her prime Or wed some other lord;

Or had some other age been blest, Long past or yet to be, And you had been the world's sweet guest Before or after me: I wonder how this rose would seem, Or yonder hillside cot; For, dear, I cannot even dream A world where you are not!

Thus heaven forfends that I shall drink The gall that might have been, If aught had broken a single link Along the lists of men; And heaven forgives me, whom it loves, For feigning such distress: My heart is happiest when it proves Its depth of happiness.

Enough to see you where you are, Radiant with maiden mirth! To bless whatever blessed star Presided o'er your birth, That, on this immemorial morn, When heaven was bending low, The gods were kind and you were born Twenty sweet years ago!

A Secret

A little baby went to sleep One night in his white bed, And the moon came by to take a peep At the little baby head.

A wind, as wandering winds will do, Brought to the baby there Sweet smells from some quaint flower that grew Out on some hill somewhere.

And wind and flower and pale moonbeam About the baby's bed Stirred and woke the funniest dream In the little sleepy head.

He thought he was all sorts of things From a lion to a cat; Sometimes he thought he flew on wings, Or fell and fell, so that

When morning broke he was right glad But much surprised to see Himself a soft, pink little lad Just like he used to be.

I would not give this story fame If there were room to doubt it, But when he learned to talk, he came And told me all about it.

The Old Bad Woman

The Old Bad Woman was coming along, Busily humming a sort of song.

You could barely see, below her bonnet, Her chin where her long nose rested on it.

One tooth thrust out on her lower lip, And she held one hand upon her hip.

Then we went to thinking mighty fast, For we knew our time had come at last.

For what we had done and didn't do The Old Bad Woman would put us through.