Poems

Excerpt

SONNET—MY HEART SHALL BE THY 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,
   Flit to the silent world and other summers,
      With wings that dip beyond the silver seas.

We never meet; yet we meet day by day
   Upon those hills of life, dim and immense:
   The good we love, and sleep—our innocence.
O hills of life, high hills!  And higher than they,

Our guardian spirits meet at prayer and play.
   Beyond pain, joy, and hope, and long suspense,
   Above the summits of our souls, far hence,
An angel meets an angel on the way.

Beyond all good I ever believed of thee
   Or thou of me, these always love and live.
And though I fail of thy ideal of me,

My angel falls not short.  They greet each other.
   Who knows, they may exchange the kiss we give,
Thou to thy crucifix, I to my mother.

TO A POET

Thou who singest through the earth,
   All the earth’s wild creatures fly thee,
Everywhere thou marrest mirth.
   Dumbly they defy thee.
There is something they deny thee.

Pines thy fallen nature ever
For the unfallen Nature sweet.
But she shuns thy long endeavour,
   Though her flowers and wheat
Throng and press thy pausing feet.

Though thou tame a bird to love thee,
Press thy face to grass and flowers,
All these things reserve above thee
   Secrets in the bowers,
Secrets in the sun and showers.

Sing thy sorrow, sing thy gladness.
In thy songs must wind and tree
Bear the fictions of thy sadness,
   Thy humanity.
For their truth is not for thee.

Wait, and many a secret nest,
Many a hoarded winter-store
Will be hidden on thy breast.
   Things thou longest for
Will not fear or shun thee more.

Thou shalt intimately lie
In the roots of flowers that thrust
Upwards from thee to the sky,
   With no more distrust,
When they blossom from thy dust.

Silent labours of the rain
Shall be near thee, reconciled;
Little lives of leaves and grain,
    All things shy and wild
Tell thee secrets, quiet child.

Earth, set free from thy fair fancies
And the art thou shalt resign,
Will bring forth her rue and pansies
   Unto more divine
Thoughts than any thoughts of thine.

Nought will fear thee, humbled creature.
There will lie thy mortal burden
Pressed unto the heart of Nature,
   Songless in a garden,
With a long embrace of pardon.

Then the truth all creatures tell,
And His will whom thou entreatest,
Shall absorb thee; there shall dwell
    Silence, the completest
Of thy poems, last, and sweetest....