The Melody of Earth Part 40

From silvering mid-sea to the Syrian sand, It was the time of blossom in the land.

On field and hill and down the steep ravine, Ran foam and fire of bloom and ripple of green.

The Sepulchre was open wide, and thrown Among the crushed, hurt lilies lay the Stone.

A light wind stirred the Garden: everywhere The smell of myrrh was out upon the air.

For three days He had traveled with the dead, And now was risen to go with stiller tread The old earth ways again, To stay the heart and build the hope of men.

He made a l.u.s.ter in that leafy place, His form serene, majestical; His face Touched with a cryptic beauty like the sea Lit by the moon when night begins to be.

The cold gray east was warming into rose Beyond the steep ravine where Kedron goes.

Now suddenly on the morning faint with flame Jerusalem with all her clamors came-- A snarl of noises from the far-off street, Dispute and barter and the clack of feet.

A moment it brawled upward and was gone-- Faded, forgotten in the deep still dawn.

He pa.s.sed across the morning: felt the cool, Keen, kindling air blown upward from the pool.

A busy wind brought little tender smells From barley fields and weeds by April wells.

Up in the tree-tops where the breezes ran The old sweet noises in the nests began; And once He paused to listen while a bird Shouted the joy till all the Garden heard.

There in the morning, on the old worn ways-- New-risen from the sacrament of death-- He looked toward Olivet with tender gaze: Old things of the heart came back from other days-- The happy, homely shop in Nazareth; The noonday shadow of a wayside tree That had befriended Him in Galilee; Sweet talks in Bethany by the chimney stone, And night-long lingering talks with John alone.

And then He thought of all the weary men He would have gathered as a mother hen Gathers her brood under her wings at night.

And then He saw the ages in one flight, And heard as a great sea All of the griefs that had been and must be....

As He stood looking on the endless sky, Over the Garden went a sobbing cry.

He turned, and saw where the tall almonds are His Mary of Magdala, wildly pale, Fast-fleeting down the trail, And suddenly His face was like a star!

He spoke; she knew--a blaze of happy tears; Then "Master!" ... and the word rings down the years!

EDWIN MARKHAM

CONSCIENCE

Wisdom am I When thou art but a fool; My part the man, When thou hast played the clod; Hast lost thy garden?

When the eve is cool, Harken!--'tis I who walk There with thy G.o.d!

MARGARET STEELE ANDERSON

ROSA MYSTICA

This rose so exquisite, So perfect, so complete, Beauty beyond all price,-- With the hour it dies.

G.o.d makes Him roses fast, With such magnificent haste, Mult.i.tudes, mult.i.tudes, In gardens, fields and woods.

The roses tell His praise Their little length of days; Testify to His name, Gold on gold, flame on flame.

They are scarce here, scarce blown, But they are gone, are flown; The gardener's broom must sweep them And in the darkness heap them.

Drift of rose-leaves upon The garden-bed, the lawn: The exquisite thought of G.o.d Is scattered, wasted abroad.

What of the soul of the rose?

It shall not die with those; It shall wake, shall live again In G.o.d's rose-garden.

It shall climb rose-trellises Before G.o.d's palaces; The Eternal Rose shall cover The House of G.o.d all over.

She shall breathe out her soul And yet living, made whole, Shall offer her oblation Out of her purest pa.s.sion.

She shall know all bliss Where G.o.d's garden is: The rose drinking her fill is Of joy with her sister lilies.

Where the Water of Life sweet Bathes her from head to feet, The River of Life flows-- There is the Rose.

KATHARINE TYNAN

THE MYSTERY

He came and took me by the hand Up to a red rose tree, He kept His meaning to Himself But gave a rose to me.

I did not pray Him to lay bare The mystery to me, Enough the rose was Heaven to smell And His own face to see.

RALPH HODGSON

THE ROSE

And so must life be many-veined; The loves that hurt, the fate that blent My life with myriad lives and ways, The processes that probed and pained, The pencillings of nights and days-- Cross currents, tangling as they went, With oh, such conflict in my soul!-- How should I know that they were meant Just to make living sweet and whole, Just to unclose G.o.d's perfect rose?

ANGELA MORGAN

FOR THESE

An acre of land between the sh.o.r.e and the hills, Upon a ledge that shows my Kingdoms three, The lovely visible earth and sky and sea, Where what the curlew needs not, the farmer tills:

A house that shall love me as I love it, Well-hedged, and honoured by a few ash trees That linnets, greenfinches, and goldfinches Shall often visit and make love in and flit;

A garden I need never go beyond, Broken but neat, whose sunflowers every one Are fit to be the sign of the Rising Sun: A spring, a brook's bend, or at least a pond!

For these I ask not, but neither too late Nor yet too early, for what men call content,-- And also that something may be sent To be contented with, I ask of fate.

EDWARD THOMAS (EDWARD EASTAWAY)

SAMUEL GARDNER

I who kept the greenhouse, Lover of trees and flowers, Oft in life saw this umbrageous elm, Measuring its generous branches with my eye, And listened to its rejoicing leaves Lovingly patting each other With sweet aeolian whispers.

And well they might: For the roots had grown so wide and deep That the soil of the hill could not withhold Aught of its virtue, enriched by rain, And warmed by the sun; But yielded it all to the thrifty roots, Through which it was drawn and whirled to the trunk, And thence to the branches, and into the leaves, Wherefrom the breeze took life and sang.

Now I, an under-tenant of the earth, can see That the branches of a tree Spread no wider than its roots.

And how shall the soul of a man Be larger than the life he has lived?

EDGAR LEE MASTERS

SEEDS