Part 8

At dawn beside my drowsy flock What winged music I have heard! But now the clouds with singing rock As if the sky were turning bird.

O blinding Light, O blinding Light! Burn through my heart with sweetest pain. O flaming Song, most loudly bright, Consume away my deadly stain!

The stable glows against the sky, And who are these that throng the way? My three old comrades hasten by And shining angels kneel and pray.

The door swings wide -- I cannot go -- I must and yet I dare not see. Lord, who am I that I should know -- Lord, God, be merciful to me!

O Whiteness, whiter than the fleece Of new-washed sheep on April sod! O Breath of Life, O Prince of Peace, O Lamb of God, O Lamb of God!

Easter

The air is like a butterfly With frail blue wings. The happy earth looks at the sky And sings.

Mount Houvenkopf

Serene he stands, with mist serenely crowned, And draws a cloak of trees about his breast. The thunder roars but cannot break his rest And from his rugged face the tempests bound. He does not heed the angry lightning's wound, The raging blizzard is his harmless guest, And human life is but a passing jest To him who sees Time spin the years around.

But fragile souls, in skyey reaches find High vantage-points and view him from afar. How low he seems to the ascended mind, How brief he seems where all things endless are; This little playmate of the mighty wind This young companion of an ancient star.

The House with Nobody in It

Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black. I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.

I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things; That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings. I know this house isn't haunted, and I wish it were, I do; For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.

This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass, And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass. It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied; But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.

If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade. I'd buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.

Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door, Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store. But there's nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone For the lack of something within it that it has never known.

But a house that has done what a house should do, a house that has sheltered life, That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife, A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and held up his stumbling feet, Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.

So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back, Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart, For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.

Dave Lilly

There's a brook on the side of Greylock that used to be full of trout, But there's nothing there now but minnows; they say it is all fished out. I fished there many a Summer day some twenty years ago, And I never quit without getting a mess of a dozen or so.

There was a man, Dave Lilly, who lived on the North Adams road, And he spent all his time fishing, while his neighbors reaped and sowed. He was the luckiest fisherman in the Berkshire hills, I think. And when he didn't go fishing he'd sit in the tavern and drink.

Well, Dave is dead and buried and nobody cares very much; They have no use in Greylock for drunkards and loafers and such. But I always liked Dave Lilly, he was pleasant as you could wish; He was shiftless and good-for-nothing, but he certainly could fish.

The other night I was walking up the hill from Williamstown And I came to the brook I mentioned, and I stopped on the bridge and sat down. I looked at the blackened water with its little flecks of white And I heard it ripple and whisper in the still of the Summer night.

And after I'd been there a minute it seemed to me I could feel The presence of someone near me, and I heard the hum of a reel. And the water was churned and broken, and something was brought to land By a twist and flirt of a shadowy rod in a deft and shadowy hand.

I scrambled down to the brookside and hunted all about; There wasn't a sign of a fisherman; there wasn't a sign of a trout. But I heard somebody chuckle behind the hollow oak And I got a whiff of tobacco like Lilly used to smoke.

It's fifteen years, they tell me, since anyone fished that brook; And there's nothing in it but minnows that nibble the bait off your hook. But before the sun has risen and after the moon has set I know that it's full of ghostly trout for Lilly's ghost to get.

I guess I'll go to the tavern and get a bottle of rye And leave it down by the hollow oak, where Lilly's ghost went by. I meant to go up on the hillside and try to find his grave And put some flowers on it -- but this will be better for Dave.

Alarm Clocks