Lundy's Lane and Other Poems Part 11

_The Child:_

If 'tis a wolf, dear father, That lies with his paw on the floor, Let us heat the spade in the embers And drive him away from the door.

_Angels:_

G.o.d is the power of growth, In the snail and the tree, G.o.d is the power of growth In the heart of the man.

_The Child:_

Did you not hear the singing, Voices overhead?

Mother's voice and Ruth's voice, Voices of the dead.

_The Father, musing:_

Our Ruth died in the springtime, With the spade I turned the sod, We buried her by the brier rose, Her life is hid with G.o.d.

_The Child:_

All summer long in the garden No roses came to the tree.

Father, was it for sorrow, Sorrow for thee and me?

_The Father:_

Roses grew in the garden, I saw them at morning and even, Shadows of earthly roses They bloomed for fingers in heaven.

_The air is very clear and still, The moonlight falls from half the sphere; The shadow from the silver hill Fills half the vale, and half is clear As the moon's self with cloudless snow; By the dead stream the alders throw Their shadows, shot with tingling spars; On the sheer height the elm trees glow: Their tops are tangled with the stars._

_The Child:_

Father, the coals are dying, See! I have heated the spade, Let me throw the door wide open, I will not be afraid.

_The Father:_

Let me kiss you once on the forehead, And once on your darling eyes; We may see them both at the dawning, In the dales of Paradise.

_The Child:_

And if I only see them, I will tell them how you smiled; For the wolf, you know, is angry, And I am a little child.

_Death:_

Undaunted spirits, I give thee peace, For a world of dread-- Calm.

For desperate toil-- Rest.

Thou who didst say, When the waters of poverty Waxed deep, deep, What we bear is best; Just ones, I give thee sleep.

_First Traveller:_

Keep up your spirits, I know There's a cabin under the hill, The fellow will make a roaring fire; We'll heat our hands and drink our fill And go warm to our heart's desire!

_Second Traveller:_

The door is open,--Heigho!

This pair will claim neither crown nor groat, The man has gripped his garden spade As if he would dig his grave in the snow; The boy has the face of a saint, I trow; His brow says, "I was not afraid!"

_First Traveller:_

Ah well, these things must be, you know!

Gather your sables around your throat; Give us that story about the monk, His niece, and the wandering conjurer, Just to keep our blood astir.

_The Angels:_

The heart of G.o.d, The worlds and man, Are fas.h.i.+oned and moulded, In a subtle plan; Pa.s.sion outsurges, Sweeps far but converges: Nothing is lost, Sod or stone, But comes to its own; Bear well thy joy, 'Tis mixed with alloy, Bear well thy grief, 'Tis a rich full sheaf: Gather the souls that have pa.s.sed in the night, Theirs is the peace and the light.

_The moon is gone, the dawning brings A deeper dark with silver blent, Above the wells where, myriad, springs Light from the crimson orient; The elms are born, the shadows creep, Tremble and melt away--one sweep The great soft color floods and flows, Where under snow the roses sleep; The morn has turned the snow to rose._

LINES IN MEMORY OF EDMUND MORRIS

Dear Morris--here is your letter-- Can my answer reach you now?

Fate has left me your debtor, You will remember how; For I went away to Nantucket, And you to the Isle of Orleans, And when I was dawdling and dreaming Over the ways and means Of answering, the power was denied me, Fate frowned and took her stand; I have your unanswered letter Here in my hand.

This--in your famous scribble, It was ever a cryptic fist, Cuneiform or Chaldaic Meanings held in a mist.

Dear Morris, (now I'm inditing And poring over your script) I gather from the writing, The coin that you had flipt, Turned tails; and so you compel me To meet you at Touchwood Hills: Or, mayhap, you are trying to tell me The sum of a painter's ills: Is that Phimister Proctor Or something about a doctor?

Well, n.o.body knows, but Eddie, Whatever it is I'm ready.

For our friends.h.i.+p was always fortunate In its greetings and adieux, Nothing flat or importunate, Nothing of the misuse That comes of the constant grinding Of one mind on another.

So memory has nothing to smother, But only a few things captured On the wing, as it were, and enraptured.

Yes, Morris, I am inditing-- Answering at last it seems, How can you read the writing In the vacancy of dreams?