Part 6

_I know Where the wind flowers blow! I know, I have been Where the little rabbits run In the warm, yellow sun!_

_Oh, to be a wild flower For an hour ... an hour ... In the heather! A bright flower, a wild flower, Blown by the weather!_

_I know, I have been Where the wild honey bees Gather Honey for their queen!_

IRENE RUTHERFORD MCLEOD

THE ROAD TO THE POOL

I know a road that leads from town, A pale road in a Watteau gown Of wild-rose sprays, that runs away All fragrant-sandaled, slim and gray.

It slips along the laurel grove And down the hill, intent to rove, And crooks an arm of shadow cool Around a willow-silvered pool.

I never travel very far Beyond the pool where willows are: There is a shy and native grace That hovers all about the place,

And resting there I hardly know Just where it was I meant to go, Contented like the road that dozes In panniered gown of briar roses.

GRACE HAZARD CONKLING

THE WILD ROSE

Summer has crossed the fields, and where she trod Violets bloom; the dancing wind-flowers nod, And daisies blossom all across the sod.

She passed the brook, and in their glad surprise The first forget-me-nots smiled at the skies And caught the very color of her eyes.

But, sleeping in the meadow-land, she pressed The dear wild rose so closely to her breast It stole her heart--and so she loves it best.

CHARLES BUXTON GOING

UP A HILL AND A HILL

Up a hill and a hill there's a sudden orchard-slope, And a little tawny field in the sun; There's a gray wall that coils like a twist of frayed-out rope, And grasses nodding news one to one.

Up a hill and a hill there's a windy place to stand, And between the apple-boughs to find the blue Of the sleepy summer sea, past the cliffs of orange sand, With the white charmèd ships sliding through.

Up a hill and a hill there's a little house as gray As a stone that the glaciers scored and stained; With a red rose by the door, and a tangled garden-way, And a face at the window, checker-paned.

I could climb, I could climb, till the shoes fell off my feet, Just to find that tawny field above the sea! Up a hill and a hill,--oh, the honeysuckle's sweet! And the eyes at the window watch for me!

FANNIE STEARNS DAVIS

THE JOYS OF A SUMMER MORNING

The smell of the morning that lurks in the hay, The swish of the scythe And the roundelay Of the meadow-lark as he wings away, Are the joys of a summer morning.

The daisy's bloom on the meadow's breast, The wandering bee And his ceaseless quest Of the tempting sweets in the clover's crest, Are the joys of a summer morning.

The lowing kine on a distant hill, The rollicking fall Of the near-by rill And the lazy drone of the ancient mill, Are the joys of a summer morning.

The feathery clouds in a faultless sky, The new-risen sun With its kindly eye And the woodland breezes floating by, Are the joys of a summer morning.

HENRY A. WISE WOOD

SOUTH WIND

Where have you been, South Wind, this May-day morning, With larks aloft, or skimming with the swallow, Or with blackbirds in a green, sun-glinted thicket?

Oh, I heard you like a tyrant in the valley; Your ruffian hosts shook the young, blossoming orchards; You clapped rude hands, hallooing round the chimney, And white your pennons streamed along the river.

You have robbed the bee, South Wind, in your adventure, Blustering with gentle flowers; but I forgave you When you stole to me shyly with scent of hawthorn.

SIEGFRIED SASSOON

TO A WEED

You bold thing! thrusting 'neath the very nose Of her fastidious majesty, the rose, Even in the best ordainèd garden bed, Unauthorized, your smiling little head!

The gardener, mind! will come in his big boots, And drag you up by your rebellious roots, And cast you forth to shrivel in the sun, Your daring quelled, your little weed's life done.

And when the noon cools, and the sun drops low, He'll come again with his big wheelbarrow, And trundle you--I don't know clearly where, But off, outside the dew, the light, the air.

Meantime--ah, yes! the air is very blue, And gold the light, and diamond the dew,-- You laugh and courtesy in your worthless way, And you are gay, ah, so exceeding gay!

You argue in your manner of a weed, You did not make yourself grow from a seed, You fancy you've a claim to standing-room, You dream yourself a right to breathe and bloom.

The sun loves you, you think, just as the rose, He never scorned you for a weed,--he knows! The green-gold flies rest on you and are glad, It's only cross old gardeners find you bad.

You know, you weed, I quite agree with you, I am a weed myself, and I laugh too,-- Both, just as long as we can shun his eye, Let's sniff at the old gardener trudging by!

GERTRUDE HALL

THE PASTURE

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring; I'll only stop to rake the leaves away (And wait to watch the water clear, I may): I sha'n't be gone long.--You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf That's standing by the mother. It's so young, It totters when she licks it with her tongue. I sha'n't be gone long.--You come too.

ROBERT FROST

THE THISTLE

Ha, prickle-armèd knight, How oft the world hath cursed thee, Thou pestilence of Earth, The beldame who hath nursed thee!

Hath hellish Proserpine Her needs lent to arm thee That mischief-loving gods, Pricked sorely, may not harm thee?

Or hath the mirthful Love Presented thee his pinions To dress thy tiny seeds, The curse of man's dominions!

Thou like a maiden art Who best can find protection Employed at needlework From idleness' infection.

And like a prude thou art When he who loves embraces; Thou dost repel with thorns And she with sharper phrases.

And like the wraith thou art Wherewith my heart is haunted; Ye both take most delight Where ye the least are wanted.

MILES M. DAWSON

CLOVER

Little masters, hat in hand, Let me in your presence stand, Till your silence solve for me This your threefold mystery.

Tell me--for I long to know-- How, in darkness there below, Was your fairy fabric spun, Spread and fashioned, three in one.

Did your gossips gold and blue, Sky and Sunshine, choose for you, Ere your triple forms were seen, Suited liveries of green?

Can ye--if ye dwelt indeed Captives of a prison seed-- Like the Genie, once again Get you back into the grain?

Little masters, may I stand In your presence, hat in hand, Waiting till you solve for me This your threefold mystery?

JOHN B. TABB

WILD GARDENS

On the ripened grass is a bloomy mist Of silver and rose and amethyst Where the long June wave has run.

There are glints of copper and tarnished brass, And hyacinthine flames that pass From the green fires of the sun.

This web of a thousand gleams and glows Was woven silently out of the snows And the patient shine and rain.

It was fashioned cunningly day by day From the silken spear to the pollened spray With its folded sheaths of grain.

Oh, garden of grasses deep and wild, So dear to the vagrant and the child And the singer of an hour.

To the wayworn soul you give your balm, Your cup of peace, your stringèd psalm, Your grace of bud and flower.

ADA FOSTER MURRAY

THE DANDELION

O dandelion, rich and haughty, King of village flowers! Each day is coronation time, You have no humble hours. I like to see you bring a troop To beat the blue-grass spears, To scorn the lawn-mower that would be Like fate's triumphant shears. Your yellow heads are cut away, It seems your reign is o'er. By noon you raise a sea of stars More golden than before.

VACHEL LINDSAY

JOE-PYEWEED

And the name brings back those kindly hills And the drowsing life so new to me; And the welcome that those purple blossoms With their tiny trumpets blew to me.

Stout and tall, they raised their clustered heads, Leaping, as a lusty fellow would, Through the lowlands, down the twisting cow-paths; Running past the green and yellow wood.

How they come again--those rambling roads; And the weeds' wild jewels glowing there. Richer than a Paradise of flowers Was that bit of pasture growing there.

Weeds--the very names call up those faint Half-forgotten smells and cries again ... Weeds--like some old charm, I say them over, And the rolling Berkshires rise again:

_Basil, Boneset, Toadflax, Tansy, Weeds of every form and fancy; Milk-weed, Mullein, Loose-strife, Jewel-weed, Mustard, Thimble-weed, Tear-thumb (a cruel weed). Clovers in all sorts--Nonesuch, Melilot; Staring Buttercups, a bold and yellow lot. Daisies rioting about the place With Black-eyed Susan and Queen Anne's Lace...._

Names--they blossom into colored hills; Hills whose rousing beauty flows to me ... And with all its soundless, purple trumpets, Lo, the Joe-Pyeweed still blows to me!

LOUIS UNTERMEYER

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?

ALICE MEYNELL

A SOFT DAY

A soft day, thank God! A wind from the south With a honeyed mouth; A scent of drenching leaves, Briar and beech and lime, White elder-flower and thyme And the soaking grass smells sweet, Crushed by my two bare feet, While the rain drips, Drips, drips, drips from the eaves.

A soft day, thank God! The hills wear a shroud Of silver cloud; The web the spider weaves Is a glittering net; The woodland path is wet, And the soaking earth smells sweet Under my two bare feet, And the rain drips, Drips, drips, drips from the eaves.

W. M. LETTS

ARBUTUS

Not Spring's Thou art, but hers, Most cool, most virginal, Winter's, with thy faint breath, thy snows Rose-tinged.

ADELAIDE CRAPSEY

JEWEL-WEED

Thou lonely, dew-wet mountain road, Traversed by toiling feet each day, What rare enchantment maketh thee Appear so gay?

Thy sentinels, on either hand Rise tamarack, birch, and balsam-fir, O'er the familiar shrubs that greet The wayfarer;

But here's a magic cometh new-- A joy to gladden thee, indeed: This passionate out-flowering of The jewel-weed,

That now, when days are growing drear, As Summer dreams that she is old, Hangs out a myriad pleasure-bells Of mottled gold!

Thine only, these, thou lonely road! Though hands that take, and naught restore, Rob thee of other treasured things, Thine these are, for

A fairy, cradled in each bloom, To all who pass the charmèd spot Whispers in warning: "Friend, admire,-- But touch me not!

"Leave me to blossom where I sprung, A joy untarnished shall I seem; Pluck me, and you dispel the charm And blur the dream!"

FLORENCE EARLE COATES

THE WALL

"_Something there is that doesn't like a wall._" (ROBERT FROST)

"Not like a wall?" I sit above the meadow in the glowing fall Tracing the grey redoubt from square to square Which bound the acres harvest-ripe and fair,-- And wonder if it's true? Nay, ask the sumac and the teeming vine, That lean upon the boulders, The crimsoning ivy and the wild woodbine Whose eager fingers clutch the stony shoulders, The golden rod, the aster and the rue. Ask the red squirrel with the chubby cheek Skipping from stone to stone By a quick route, his hidden hoard to seek, Making the little viaduct his own. Look where the woodchuck lifts a cautious head Between the rocks close by the cabbage bed; The honey-bees have built a secret hive In a forgotten chink; And there a grey cocoon is tucked away Shrouding a miracle in mauve and pink To wait its Easter day. The wall with pageantry is all alive!

And I who gaze On the dark border here, Drawn like a ribbon round the pasture-ways, Embroidered with the glory of the year,-- Do I not like the wall? Lo, I remember how in days of old My grandsire toiled with weariness and pain To dig the cumbering boulders from the mould; Piled them in ordered rows again, Fitting them firm and fast, A monument to last Long after his own harried day was past. He cleared the rocky soil for corn and grain By which his children throve To carry on the race. We live by his life-giving. I see each stone, rough like his granite face,-- Uncompromising, stern, no slave to love, Dowered with little grace, Grim with the hard, unjoyful task of living, But strong to stand the wrath of storm and time, And bolts that heaven let fall. Built of a patriot's prime,-- I love the wall!

ABBIE FARWELL BROWN

BOULDERS

There is a look of wisdom in yon stones, Great boulders basking in the noonday heat, Their grimness lightened by a fringe of sweet Fresh fern or moss or green-gray lichen tones. While through the glade an insect army drones And birds from neighboring boughs their notes repeat, These patriarchs, drowsing as in bliss complete, Rest on the flowery sward their tranquil bones.

A thousand or ten thousand years ago, Shattered by frost, or by the torrent's might, These boulders hurtled from some toppling height And crashed through forests to the plain below. Now, reconciled to Nature's gentler mood, They lie on lowly earth and find it good.

CHARLES WHARTON STORK

AFTERNOON ON A HILL

I will be the gladdest thing Under the sun; I will touch a hundred flowers And not pick one;

I will look at cliffs and clouds With quiet eyes; Watch the wind bow down the grass, And the grass rise;

And when lights begin to show Up from the town, I will mark which must be mine, And then start down.

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

THE GOLDEN-ROD

O Rod of gold! O swaying sceptre of the year-- Now frost and cold Show Winter near, And shivering leaves grow brown and sere. The bleak hillside, And marshy waste of yellow reeds, And meadows wide Where frosted weeds Shake on the damp wind light-winged seeds, Are decked with thee,-- The lingering Summer's latest grace, And sovereignty. Each wind-swept space Waves thy red gold in Winter's face-- He strives each star, In stormy pride to lay full low; But when thy bar Resists his blow, Will crown thee with a puff of snow!

MARGARET DELAND

THE PATH THAT LEADS TO NOWHERE

There's a path that leads to nowhere In a meadow that I know, Where an inland island rises And the stream is still and slow; There it wanders under willows And beneath the silver green Of the birches' silent shadows Where the early violets lean.

Other pathways lead to Somewhere, But the one I love so well Had no end and no beginning-- Just the beauty of the dell, Just the windflowers and the lilies, Yellow striped as adder's tongue Seem to satisfy my pathway As it winds their sweets among.

There I go to meet the Spring-time, When the meadow is aglow, Marigolds amid the marshes,-- And the stream is still and slow.-- There I find my fair oasis, And with care-free feet I tread For the pathway leads to nowhere, And the blue is overhead!

All the ways that lead to Somewhere Echo with the hurrying feet Of the Struggling and the Striving, But the way I find so sweet Bids me dream and bids me linger, Joy and Beauty are its goal,-- On the path that leads to nowhere I have sometimes found my soul!

CORINNE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON

LOVERS AND ROSES

THE MESSAGE

_So fair the world about me lies, So pure is heaven above, Ere so much beauty dies I would give a gift to my love; Now, ere the long day close, That has been so full of bliss, I will send to my love the rose, In its leaves I will shut a kiss; A rose in the night to perish, A kiss through life to cherish; Now, ere the night-wind blows, I will send unto her the rose._

GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY

"WHERE LOVE IS LIFE"

Where love is life The roses blow, Though winds be rude And cold the snow, The roses climb Serenely slow, They nod in rhyme We know--we know Where love is life The roses blow.

Where life is love The roses blow, Though care be quick And sorrows grow, Their roots are twined With rose-roots so That rosebuds find A way to show Where life is love The roses blow.

DUNCAN CAMPBELL SCOTT

THE TIME OF ROSES

Love, it is the time of roses! In bright fields and garden-closes How they burgeon and unfold! How they sweep o'er tombs and towers In voluptuous crimson showers And untrammelled tides of gold!

How they lure wild bees to capture All the rich mellifluous rapture Of their magical perfume, And to passing winds surrender And their frail and dazzling splendor Rivalling your turban-plume!

How they cleave the air adorning The high rivers of the morning In a blithe, bejewelled fleet! How they deck the moonlit grasses In thick rainbow tinted masses Like a fair queen's bridal sheet!

Hide me in a shrine of roses, Drown me in a wine of roses Drawn from every fragrant grove! Bind me on a pyre of roses, Burn me in a fire of roses, Crown me with the rose of Love!

SAROJINI NAIDU

LOVE PLANTED A ROSE

Love planted a rose, And the world turned sweet. Where the wheat-field blows Love planted a rose. Up the mill-wheel's prose Ran a music-beat. Love planted a rose, And the world turned sweet.

KATHARINE LEE BATES

THE GARDEN

My heart shall be thy garden. Come, my own, Into thy garden; thine be happy hours Among my fairest thoughts, my tallest flowers, From root to crowning petal thine alone.

Thine is the place from where the seeds are sown Up to the sky enclosed, with all its showers. But ah, the birds, the birds! Who shall build bowers To keep these thine? O friend, the birds have flown.

For as these come and go, and quit our pine To follow the sweet season, or, new-comers, Sing one song only from our alder-trees,

My heart has thoughts, which, though thine eyes hold mine, Fit to the silent world and other summers, With wings that dip beyond the silver seas.

ALICE MEYNELL

CLOUD AND FLOWER

I saw the giant stalking to the sky, The giant cloud above the wilderness, Bearing a mystery too far, too high, For my poor guess. Away I turned me, sighing: "I must seek In lowlier places for the wonder-word. Something more little, intimate, shall speak." A bright rose stirred. And long I looked into its face, to see At last some hidden import of the hour.

And I had thought to turn from mystery-- But O, flower! flower!

AGNES LEE

PROGRESS

There seems no difference between To-day and yesterday-- The forest glimmers just as green, The garden's just as gay.

Yet, something came and something went Within the night's chill gloom: An old rose fell, her fragrance spent, A new rose burst in bloom.

CHARLOTTE BECKER

"BUT WE DID WALK IN EDEN"

But we did walk in Eden, Eden, the garden of God;-- There, where no beckoning wonder Of all the paths we trod, No choiring sun-filled vineyard, No voice of stream or bird, But was some radiant oracle And flaming with the Word!

Mine ears are dim with voices; Mine eyes yet strive to see The black things here to wonder at, The mirth,--the misery. Beloved, who wert with me there, How came these shames to be?-- On what lost star are we?

Men say: The paths of gladness By men were never trod!-- But we have walked in Eden, Eden, the garden of God.

JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY

A GARDEN-PIECE

Among the flowers of summer-time she stood, And underneath the films and blossoms shone Her face, like some pomegranate strangely grown To ripe magnificence in solitude; The wanton winds, deft whisperers, had strewed Her shoulders with her shining hair out blown, And dyed her breast with many a changing tone Of silvery green, and all the hues that brood Among the flowers; She raised her arm up for her dove to know That he might preen him on her lovely head; Then I, unseen, and rising on tiptoe, Bowed over the rose-barriers, and lo! Touched not her arm, but kissed her lips instead, Among the flowers!

EDMUND GOSSE

"HOW MANY FLOWERS ARE GENTLY MET"

How many flowers are gently met Within my garden fair! The daffodil, the violet, And lilies dear are there.

They fade and pass, the fleeting flowers, And brief their little light; They hold not Love's diviner hours, Nor Sower's human night.

Tho' one by one their bloom depart, No change thy lover knows, For mine the fragrance of thy heart, O thou my perfect rose!

GEORGE STERLING

WITH A ROSE, TO BRUNHILDE

Brunhilde, with the young Norn soul That has no peace, and grim as those That spun the thread of life, give heed: Peace is concealed in every rose. And in these petals peace I bring: A jewel clearer than the dew: A perfume subtler than the breath Of Spring with which it circles you.

Peace I have found, asleep, awake, By many paths, on many a strand. Peace overspreads the sky with stars. Peace is concealed within your hand. And when at night I clasp it there I wonder how you never know The strength you shed from finger-tips: The treasure that consoles me so.

Begin the art of finding peace, Beloved:--it is art, no less. Sometimes we find it hid beneath The orchards in their springtime dress: Sometimes one finds it in oak woods, Sometimes in dazzling mountain-snows; In books, sometimes. But pray begin By finding it within a rose.

VACHEL LINDSAY

"MY SOUL IS LIKE A GARDEN-CLOSE"

My soul is like a garden-close Where marjoram and lilac grow, Where soft the scent of long ago Over the border lightly blows.

Where sometimes homing winds at play Bear the faint fragrance of a rose-- My soul is like a garden-close Because you chanced to pass my way.

THOMAS S. JONES, JR.

A DREAM