And the pools where winter rains.
Image all their roofs of leaves;
Where the pine its garland weaves
Of sapless green and ivy dun
Round stems that never kiss the sun;
Where the lawns and pastures be,
And the sandhills of the sea;
When the melting hoar-frost wets
The daisy-star that never sets,
And wind-flowers, and violets
Which yet join not scent to hue,
Crown the pale year weak and new;
When the night is left behind
In the deep east, dun and blind,
And the blue noon is over us,
And the multitudinous
Billows murmur at our feet
Where the earth and ocean meet,
And all things seem only one
In the universal sun.
BY CHESTER FIRKINS
I, who have lost the stars, the sod,
For chilling pave and cheerless light,
Have made my meeting-place with God
A new and nether Night—
Have found a fane where thunder fills
Loud caverns, tremulous; and these Atone me for my reverend hills
And moonlit silences.
A figment in the crowded dark,
Where men sit muted by the roar,
I ride upon the whirring Spark
Beneath the city's floor.
In this dim firmament, the stars
Whirl by in blazing files and tiers;
Kin meteors graze our flying bars,
Amid the spinning spheres.
Speed! speed! until the quivering rails
Flash silver where the head-light gleams,
As when on lakes the Moon impales
The waves upon its beams.
Life throbs about me, yet I stand
Outgazing on majestic Power;
Death rides with me, on either hand,
In my communion hour.
You that 'neath country skies can pray,
Scoff not at me-the city clod;-
My only respite of the Day
Is this wild ride-with God.
When lights are low, and the day has died,
I sit and dream of the countryside.
Where sky meets earth at the meadow's end,
I dream of a clean and wind-swept space
Where each tall tree is a stanch old friend,
And each frail bud turns a trusting face.
A purling brook, with each purl a pray'r,
To the bending grass its secret tells;
While, softly borne on the scented air,
Comes the far-off chime of chapel bells.
A tiny cottage I seem to see,
In its quaint old garden set apart;
And a Sabbath calm steals over me,
While peace dwells deep in my brooding heart.
And I thank whatever gods look down
That I am living right here in town.
Out of the Eden of my love,
The little house so lean and spent,
The little room where, like a dove,
Under the rafters lives my love,
Back to the bustling world I went.
I wandered down the dusty street,
Men jostled there and wept and swore,
But in the throbbing and the beat,
The Babel of the feverish street,
Was something that was not before.
Deep into each pale, passing face
I gazed in wonder. What strange gleam
Had in this gray and sordid place
Clothed as with glory each pale face,
And lit dim eyes with dream?
Like an explorer, midst those eyes,
By unimagined deeps I trod;
And, lo! where yesterday were lies
And lusts in those world-hardened eyes,
I saw the stars of God.
Ask me why I peer
Through such a narrow cranny—
I say that sky from here
Is better than not any.
The walls that shut me in
No mind can make immortal;
My harder will shall win
The yet unthought-of portal.
Ask why I take root
Where nothing green is growing—
I say that seed and shoot
Follow the mad wind's sowing;
But where these live roots turn
And thrust, no wall may block:
Tendril of frailest fern
Can split a rock.
Solitude is very sad,
Too much company twice as bad.
Out from the whirl of factional unrest,
Out from the city clamor and spent steam
Of speculative scheme and counter-scheme,
Out from the curdling spume, the very crest
Of time's froth-feathered wave, I spring-and seem
At once in a far land my heart loves best:
A land of sheltered valleys, a green nest
For the wise leisure of luxurious dream.
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