The House of the Trees & Other Poems

The House of the Trees

 
OPE your doors and take me in,
Spirit of the wood;
Wash me clean of dust and din,
Clothe me in your mood.
 
 
Take me from the noisy light
To the sunless peace,
Where at midday standeth Night,
Signing Toil’s release.
 
 
All your dusky twilight stores
To my senses give;
Take me in and lock the doors,
Show me how to live.
 
 
Lift your leafy roof for me,
Part your yielding walls,
Let me wander lingeringly
Through your scented halls.
 
 
Ope your doors and take me in,
Spirit of the wood;
Take me—make me next of kin
To your leafy brood.
 

The Sun on the Trees

 
THE sun within the leafy woods
Is like a midday moon,
So soft upon these solitudes
Is bent the face of noon.
 
 
Loosed from the outside summer blaze
A few gold arrows stray;
A vagrant brilliance droops or plays
Through all the dusky day.
 
 
The gray trunk feels a touch of light,
While, where dead leaves are deep,
A gleam of sunshine golden white
Lies like a soul asleep.
 
 
And just beyond dank-rooted ferns,
Where darkening hemlocks sigh
And leaves are dim, the bare road burns
Beneath a dazzling sky.
 

Moonlight

 
WHEN I see the ghost of night
Stealing through my window-pane,
Silken sleep and silver light
Struggle for my soul in vain;
Silken sleep all balmily
Breathes upon my lids oppressed,
Till I sudden start to see
Ghostly fingers on my breast.
 
 
White and skyey visitant,
Bringing beauty such as stings
All my inner soul to pant
After undiscovered things,
Spare me this consummate pain!
Silken weavings intercreep
Round my senses once again,
I am mortal—let me sleep.
 

Pine Needles

 
HERE where the pine tree to the ground
Lets slip its fragrant load,
My footsteps fall without a sound
Upon a velvet road.
 
 
O poet pine, that turns thy gaze
Alone unto the sky,
How softly on earth’s common ways
Thy sweet thoughts fall and lie!
 
 
So sweet, so deep, seared by the sun,
And smitten by the rain,
They pierce the heart of every one
With fragrance keen as pain.
 
 
Or if some pass nor heed their sweet,
Nor feel their subtle dart,
Their softness stills the noisy feet,
And stills the noisy heart.
 
 
O poet pine, thy needles high
In starry light abode,
And now for footsore passers-by
They make a velvet road.
 

The Sound of the Axe

 
WITH the sound of an axe on the light wind’s tracks
For my only company,
And a speck of sky like a human eye
Blue, bending over me,
 
 
I lie at rest on the low moss pressed,
Whose loose leaves downward drip;
As light they move as a word of love
Or a finger to the lip.
 
 
’Neath the canopies of the sunbright trees
Pierced by an Autumn ray,
To rich red flakes the old log breaks
In exquisite decay.
 
 
While in the pines where no sun shines
Perpetual morning lies.
What bed more sweet could stay her feet,
Or hold her dreaming eyes?
 
 
No sound is there in the middle air
But sudden wings that soar,
As a strange bird’s cry goes drifting by—
And then I hear once more
 
 
That sound of an axe till the great tree cracks,
Then a crash comes as if all
The winds that through its bright leaves blew
Were sorrowing in its fall.
 

The Prayer of the Year

 
LEAVE me Hope when I am old,
Strip my joys from me,
Let November to the cold
Bare each leafy tree;
Chill my lover, dull my friend,
Only, while I grope
To the dark the silent end,
Leave me Hope!
 
 
Blight my bloom when I am old,
Bid my sunlight cease;
If it need be from my hold
Take the hand of Peace.
Leave no springtime memory,
But upon the slope
Of the days that are to be,
Leave me Hope!
 

The Hay Field

 
WITH slender arms outstretching in the sun
The grass lies dead;
The wind walks tenderly, and stirs not one
Frail, fallen head.
 
 
Of baby creepings through the April day
Where streamlets wend,
Of childlike dancing on the breeze of May,
This is the end.
 
 
No more these tiny forms are bathed in dew,
No more they reach,
To hold with leaves that shade them from the blue
A whispered speech.
 
 
No more they part their arms, and wreathe them close
Again to shield
Some love-full little nest—a dainty house
Hid in a field.
 
 
For them no more the splendor of the storm,
The fair delights
Of moon and star-shine, glimmering faint and warm
On summer nights.
 
 
Their little lives they yield in summer death,
And frequently
Across the field bereaved their dying breath
Is brought to me.
 

Twilight

 
I SAW her walking in the rain,
And sweetly drew she nigh;
And then she crossed the hills again
To bid the day good-by.
“Good-by! good-by!
The world is dim as sorrow;
But close beside the morning sky
I’ll say a glad Good-morrow!”
 
 
O dweller in the darling wood,
When near to death I lie,
Come from your leafy solitude,
And bid my soul good-by.
Good-by! good-by!
The world is dim as sorrow;
But close beside the morning sky
O say a glad Good-morrow!
 

The Sky Path

 
I HEAR the far moon’s silver call
High in the upper wold;
And shepherd-like it gathers all
My thoughts into its fold.
 
 
Oh happy thoughts, that wheresoe’er
They wander through the day,
Come home at eve to upper air
Along a shining way.
 
 
Though some are weary, some are torn,
And some are fain to grieve,
And some the freshness of the morn
Have kept until the eve,
 
 
And some perversely seek to roam
E’en from their shepherd bright,
Yet all are gathered safely home,
And folded for the night.
 
 
Oh happy thoughts, that with the streams
The trees and meadows share
The sky path to the gate of dreams,
In their white shepherd’s care.
 

Fall and Spring

 
FROM the time the wind wakes
To the time of snowflakes,
That’s the time the heart aches
Every cloudy day;
That’s the time the heart takes
Thought of all its heart-breaks,
That’s the time the heart makes
Life a cloudy way.
 
 
From the time the grass creeps
To the time the wind sleeps,
That’s the time the heart leaps
To the golden ray;
That’s the time that joy sweeps
Through the depths of heart-deeps,
That’s the time the heart keeps
Happy holiday.