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Read Ebook: The Melody of Earth An Anthology of Garden and Nature Poems From Present-Day Poets by Richards Waldo Mrs Compiler
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Ebook has 253 lines and 79652 words, and 6 pages
SONNET
It may be so; but let the unknown be. We, on this earth, are servants of the sun. Out of the sun comes all the quick in me, His golden touch is life to everyone.
His power it is that makes us spin through space, His youth is April and his manhood bread, Beauty is but a looking on his face, He clears the mind, he makes the roses red.
What he may be, who knows? But we are his, We roll through nothing round him, year by year, The withering leaves upon a tree which is Each with his greed, his little power, his fear.
What we may be, who knows? But everyone Is dust on dust a servant of the sun.
JOHN MASEFIELD
CHARM: TO BE SAID IN THE SUN
I reach my arms up, to the sky, And golden vine on vine Of sunlight showered wild and high, Around my brows I twine.
I wreathe, I wind it everywhere, The burning radiancy Of brightness that no eye may dare, To be the strength of me.
Come, redness of the crystalline, Come green, come hither blue And violet--all alive within, For I have need of you.
Come honey-hue and flush of gold, And through the pallor run, With pulse on pulse of manifold New largess of the Sun!
O steep the silence till it sing! O glories from the height, Come down, where I am garlanding With light, a child of light!
JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY
THE DIALS
With fingers softer than the touch of death The sundial writes the passing of the day, The hours unfolding slow to twilight gray, The gleaming moments vanish in a breath.
But sunny hours alone the sundial names; All unrecorded are the midnight spans And vain within the dusk the watcher scans The marble face; thereon no record flames.
So on eternal dials that God may hold, And those more humble in the human heart, No bitter deeds their passing hours impart; Kind deeds alone are marked in fadeless gold!
ARTHUR WALLACE PEACH
TO A NEW SUNDIAL
Oh, Sundial, you should not be young, Or fresh and fair, or spick and span! None should remember when began Your tenure here, nor whence you sprung!
Like ancient cromlech notch'd and scarr'd, I would have had you sadly tow'r Above this world of leaf and flower All ivy-tress'd and lichen-starr'd;
Ambassador of Time and Fate, In contrast stern to bud and bloom, Seeming half temple and half tomb, And wholly solemn and sedate;
Till, one with God's own works on earth, The lake, the vale, the mountain-brow, We might have come to count you now Whose home was here before our birth.
Go to!... What sermon can you preach, Oh, mushroom--mentor pert and new? We are too old to learn of you What you are all too young to teach!
Yet, Sundial, you and I may swear Eternal friendship, none the less, For I'll respect your youthfulness If you'll forgive my silver hair!
VIOLET FANE
THE FOUNTAIN
I thought my garden finished. I beheld Each bush bee-visited; a green charm quelled The louder winds to music; soft boughs made Patches of silver dusk and purple shade-- And yet I felt a lack of something still.
There was a little, sleepy-footed rill That lapsed among sun-burnished stones, where slept Fish, rainbow-scaled, while dragon-flies, adept, Balanced on bending grass.
All perfect? No. My garden lacked a fountain's upward flow. I coaxed the brook's young Naiad to resign Her meadow wildness, building her a shrine Of worship, where each ravished waif of air Might wanton in the brightness of her hair.
So here my fountain flows, loved of the wind, To every vagrant, aimless gust inclined, Yet constant ever to its source. It greets The face of morning, wavering windy sheets Of woven silver; sheer it climbs the noon, A shaft of bronze; and underneath the moon It sleeps in pearl and opal. In the storm It streams far out, a wild, gray, blowing form; While on calm days it heaps above the lake,-- Pelting the dreaming lilies half awake, And pattering jewels on each wide, green frond,-- Recurrent pyramids of diamond!
HARRY KEMP
THE PAGEANTRY OF GARDENS
THE BIRTH OF THE FLOWERS
MARY MCNEIL FENOLLOSA
THE WELCOME
God spreads a carpet soft and green O'er which we pass; A thick-piled mat of jeweled sheen-- And that is Grass.
Delightful music woos the ear; The grass is stirred Down to the heart of every spear-- Ah, that's a Bird.
Clouds roll before a blue immense That stretches high And lends the soul exalted sense-- That scroll's a Sky.
Green rollers flaunt their sparkling crests; Their jubilee Extols brave Captains and their quests-- And that is Sea.
New-leaping grass, the feathery flute, The sapphire ring, The sea's full-voiced, profound salute,-- Ah, this is Spring!
ARTHUR POWELL
THE JOY OF THE SPRINGTIME
Springtime, O Springtime, what is your essence, The lilt of a bulbul, the laugh of a rose, The dance of the dew on the wings of a moonbeam, The voice of the zephyr that sings as he goes, The hope of a bride or the dream of a maiden Watching the petals of gladness unclose?
Springtime, O Springtime, what is your secret, The bliss at the core of your magical mirth, That quickens the pulse of the morning to wonder And hastens the seeds of all beauty to birth, That captures the heavens and conquers to blossom The roots of delight in the heart of the earth?
SAROJINI NAIDU
SPRING
At the first hour, it was as if one said, "Arise." At the second hour, it was as if one said, "Go forth." And the winter constellations that are like patient ox-eyes Sank below the white horizon at the north.
At the third hour, it was as if one said, "I thirst;" At the fourth hour, all the earth was still: Then the clouds suddenly swung over, stooped, and burst; And the rain flooded valley, plain and hill.
At the fifth hour, darkness took the throne; At the sixth hour, the earth shook and the wind cried; At the seventh hour, the hidden seed was sown, At the eighth hour, it gave up the ghost and died.
At the ninth hour, they sealed up the tomb; And the earth was then silent for the space of three hours. But at the twelfth hour, a single lily from the gloom Shot forth, and was followed by a whole host of flowers.
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