Excerpt
FOREWORD. In the first rare spring of song,In my heart's young hours,In my youth 't was thus I sang,Choosing 'mid the flowers:— "Fair the Dandelion is,But for me too lowly;And the winsome VioletIs, forsooth, too holy.'But the Touchmenot?' Go to!What! a face that's speckledLike a common milking-maid's,Whom the sun hath freckled.Then the Wild-Rose is a flirt;And the trillium Lily,In her spotless gown, 's a prude,Sanctified and silly.By her cap the Columbine,To my mind, 's too merry;Gossips, I would sooner wedSome plebeian Berry.And the shy Anemone—Well, her face shows sorrow;Pale, goodsooth! alive to-day,Dead and gone to-morrow.Then that bold-eyed, buxom wench,Big and blond and lazy,—She's been chosen overmuch!—Sirs, I mean the Daisy.Pleasant persons are they all,And their virtues many;Faith I know but good of each,And naught ill of any.But I choose a May-apple;She shall be my Lady;Blooming, hidden and refined,Sweet in places shady." In my youth 'twas thus I sang,In my heart's young hours,In the first rare spring of song,Choosing 'mid the flowers.So I hesitated whenTime alone was reckonedBy the hours that Fancy smiled,Love and Beauty beckoned.Hard it was for me to chooseFrom the flowers that flattered;And the blossom that I choseSoon lay dead and scattered.Hard I found it then, ah, me!Hard I found the choosing;Harder, harder since I've found,Ah, too hard the losing.Haply had I chosen thenFrom the weeds that tangleWayside, woodland and the wallOf my garden's angle,I had chosen better, yea,For these later hours—Longer last the weeds, and oftSweeter are than flowers.
Weeds by the Wall. A WILD IRIS. That day we wandered 'mid the hills,—so loneClouds are not lonelier,—the forest layIn emerald darkness 'round us. Many a stoneAnd gnarly root, gray-mossed, made wild our way;And many a bird the glimmering light alongShowered the golden bubbles of its song. Then in the valley, where the brook went by,Silvering the ledges that it rippled from,—An isolated slip of fallen sky,Epitomizing heaven in its sum,—An iris bloomed—blue, as if, flower-disguised,The gaze of Spring had there materialized. I have forgotten many things since then—Much beauty and much happiness and grief;And toiled and dreamed among my fellow-men,Rejoicing in the knowledge life is brief."'T is winter now," so says each barren bough;And face and hair proclaim 't is winter now. I would forget the gladness of that spring!I would forget that day when she and I,Between the bird-song and the blossoming,Went hand in hand beneath the soft spring sky!—Much is forgotten, yea—and yet, and yet,The things we would we never can forget.— Nor I how May then minted treasuriesOf crowfoot gold; and molded out of lightThe sorrel's cups, whose elfin chalicesOf limpid spar were streaked with rosy white.Nor all the stars of twinkling spiderwort,And mandrake moons with which her brows were girt....