One cricket left, of summer's choir.
One glow-worm, flashing life's last fire.
One frog with leathern croak
Beneath the oak, —
And the pool stands leaden
Where November twilights deaden
Day's unspent desire.

One star in heaven – East or West.
One wind – a gypsy seeking rest.
One prayer within my heart —
For all who part
Upon Death's dark portal,
With no hope of an immortal
Morrow for life's quest.

THE SONG OF A NATURE WORSHIPER

Live! Live! Live!
O send no day unto death,
Undrained of the light, of the song, of the dew,
Distilling within its breath.
Drink deep of the sun, drink deep of the night,
Drink deep of the tempest's brew,
Of summer, of winter, of autumn, of spring —
Whose flight can give what men never give! —
Live!

Live! Live! Live!
And love life's every throb:
The twinkling of shadows enmeshed in the trees,
The passionate sunset's sob;
The hurtling of wind, the heaving of hill,
The moon-dizzy cloud, the seas
That sweep with infinite sweeping all shores,
And thrill with a joy unfugitive! —
Live!

Live! Live! Live!
Unloose from custom and care,
From duty and sorrow and clinging design
Thy soul, through the silent Air.
Go into the fields where Nature's alone
And drink from her mystic wine
Divinity – till thou art even as She,
Great all ills of the world to forgive!
Live!

THE INFINITE'S QUEST

All night the rain
And the wind that beat
Dull wings of pain
On the seas without.
All night a Voice
That broke in my brain
And blew blind thoughts about.

All night they whirled
As a haunted throng
From some dim world
Where there is no rest.
All night the rain.
And the wind that swirled,
And the Infinite's lone quest.

LAD AND LASS

I heard the buds open their lips and whisper,
Whisper,
"Spring is here!"
The robins listened
And sang it loud.
The blue-birds came
In a fluttering crowd.
The cardinal preached
It high and proud,
Spring!

And thro the warm earth their song went trilling,
Trilling,
"Wake! Arise!"
The kingcups quickly
Assembled, strong.
The bluets stept
From the moss in throng.
Like fairies too
Came the cress along.
Spring!

And love in your breast, my lass, awaking —
Waking.
Love was born!
Your eyes were kindled,
Your lips were warm.
Wild beauties broke
From your face and form.
And all my heart
Was a heaven-storm,
Was Spring!

THE STRONG MAN TO HIS SIRES

Tonight as I was riding on a wave
Of triumph and of glory,
A Question suddenly, as from the grave,
Rose in me, culpatory.

"Whence come to you this joyance and this strength"
It said, "this might of vision?
This will that measures all things to its length,
That cuts with calm decision?

"This blood within your veins, that is as wine
Which Destiny's self blesses.
Whence flows it, from what grape that is divine,
Or trodden from what presses?

"Do you so proud forget what hands have borne
You to the heights and crowned you?
Would you behold what sackcloth has been worn
That laurels may surround you?"…

"I would – O lips invisible! whose breath" —
I answered – "so arraigns me;
Whose voice is as a sound sent forth of Death,
And like to Death entrains me.

"I would! For if the flesh of me and soul
Are fibred with the ages,
My triumph is of them and manifold
Of all life's mystic stages."

So, forth they came – a vast ancestral line,
Upon my vision teeming,
All shapes whose natal semblance could affine
Them to me, faintly gleaming.

I knew them as I knew myself, and felt
The Day of each within me;
And so began to speak, the while they dwelt
About – they who had been me.

"My Sires," I said, "think you I have forgot
The fervor of your living?
How into me is moulded all you thought.
Of getting or of giving?

"Think you I do not feel my every drop
Of blood is as an ocean
In which are surging and will never stop
All things your hope gave motion?

"My senses, that are swift to take delight
And shrine it in their being,
Are they not born of all your faith, and bright
With all your bliss of seeing?

"And my full heart within whose fount I hear
Your voices that are vanished,
Can it forget its gratitude or fear
Foes that you braved and banished?

"No. But the blindly striving years that led
You to the Rose's beauty,
Or taught you out of Ill to disembed
The golden veins of Duty;

"The wasting and incalculable wants
That in you quailed or quivered;
The longing that lit stars no dark now daunts —
I know, who stand delivered!

"To you then from whose throng the centuries
Long dead slip now their shrouding,
Who from oblivion's profundities
Rise up, and round are crowding,

"I say, Immortal do I hold your will!
Its gathered might ascending
Is sacred with the unconquerable might
Of God – who sees its ending;

"Of God – on whose strong Vine, Heredity,
Rooted in Voids primeval,
The world climbs ever to some great To-Be
Of passion or reprieval."

I said – and on night's infinite beheld
Silence alone beside me;
And majesty of greater meanings welled
Into my soul, to guide me.

AT STRATFORD

I could not sleep. The wind poured in my ear
Immortal names – Lear, Hamlet, Hal, Macbeth,
And thro the night I heard the rushing breath
Of ghost and witch and fool go whirling by.
I followed them, under the phantom sphere
Of the pale moon, along the Avon's near
And nimbused flowing, followed to his bier —
Who had evoked them first with mighty eye.
And as I gazed upon the peaceful spire
That points above earth's most immortal dust,
I could have asked God for His starry Lyre
Out of the skies to play my praise upon.
I could have shouted, as, O Wind, thou must,
"Here lies Humanity: kneel, and pass on."

THE IMAGE PAINTER

Up under the roof, in cold or heat,
Far up, aloof from the city street,
She sat all day
And painted gray
Cold idols, scarcely human.
And if she thought of ease and rest,
Of love that spells God's name the best,
Her few friends heard but one request —
"Pray for a tired little woman."

She sat from dawn till weary dusk.
Her hands plied on – with but a husk
Of bread to break
And for Christ's sake
To bless: was He not human?
Then when the light would leave her brush
She'd sit there still, in the dim hush,
And say aloud, lest tears should rush —
"Pray for a tired little woman."

They found her so – one morning when
A knock brought no sweet welcome ken
Of her still face
And cloistral grace
And brow so bravely human.
They found her by the window bar,
Her eyes fixed where had been some star.
O you that rest, where'er you are,
Pray for the tired little woman.

WANDA

"She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs;"

I'm Wanda born
Of the mirthful morn
So I heard the red-buds whisper
To the forest beech,
Tho I know that each
Is but a gossipy lisper.

I taunt the brook
With his hair outshook
O'er the weir so cool and mossy,
And mock the crow
As he peers below
With a caw that's vain and saucy.

Where the wahoo reds
And the sumac spreads
Tall plumes o'er the purple privet,
I beg a kiss
Of the wind, tho I wis
Right well he never will give it.

I hide in the nook
And sunbeams look
For me everywhere, like fairies.
Then out I glide
By the gray deer's side —
Ha, ha, but he never tarries!

Then I fright the hare
From his turfy lair
And after him send a volley
Of song that stops
Him under the copse
In wonderment at my folly.

And Autumn cries
"Be sad!" or sighs
Thro her nun lips palely pouting.
But then I leap
To the woods and keep
It wild with gleeing and shouting.

And when the sun
Has almost spun
A path to his far Golconda,
I climb the hill
And listen, still,
While he calls me – "Wanda! Wanda!"

And then I go
To the valley – Oh,
My dreams are sweeter than dreaming!
All night I play
Over lands of Fay,
In delight that seems not seeming.

IN A STORM

(To a Petrel)

All day long in the spindrift swinging,
Bird of the sea! bird of the sea!
How I would that I had thy winging —
How I envy thee!

How I would that I had thy spirit,
So to careen, joyous to cry,
Over the storm and never fear it!
Into the night that hovers near it!
Calm on a reeling sky!

All day long, and the night, unresting!
Ah! I believe thy every breath
Means that Life's Best comes ever breasting
Peril and pain and death!

ANTAGONISTS

I

Life flung to Art this voice, of mercy bare.
"Fool, to my human earth come you, so free,
To wreathe with phantom immortality
Whoever climbs with passionate lone care
That shifting, feverous and shadow stair
To Beauty – which is vainer than the sea
On furious thirst, or than a mote to Me
Who fill yon infinite great Everywhere?
Let them alone – my children! they are born
To mart and soil and saving commerce o'er
Wind, wave and many-fruited continents.
And you can feed them but of crumbs and scorn,
And futile glory when they are no more.
Within my hand alone is recompense!"

II

But Art made fierce reply, "Anathema,
On you who fill flesh but the spirit scorn.
Who give it to the unrequiting law
Of your brute soullessness and heart unborn
To aught than barter in your low bazaar —
Though Beauty die for it from star to star.
You are the god of Judas and those who
Betrayed Him unto nail and thorn and sword!
Of that relentless worm-bit Florence horde
Who drove lone Dante from them till he grew
So great in death they begged his bones to strew
Their pride and wealth and useless praise upon.
Anathema! I cry; and will, till none
Of all earth's children still shall worship you."