Courageous messengers of light
That dare immensities of doom.
About the seeding meadow-grass,
Like busy watchmen in the street,
They come and go, they turn and pass,
Lighting the way for Beauty’s feet.
Or up they float on viewless wings
To twinkle high among the trees,
And rival with soft glimmerings
The shining of the Pleiades.
The stars that wheel above the hill
Are not more wonderful to see,
Nor the great tasks that they fulfill
More needed in eternity.
So frail, yet so enduring,To triumph o’er dismay?Ah, quick her tears are springing,And quickly they are dried,For sorrow walks before her,But gladness walks beside.She comes with gusts of laughter,—The music as of rills;With tenderness-and sweetness, —The wisdom of the hills.Her hands are strong to comfort,Her heart is quick to heed.She knows the signs of sadness,She…
We act before an audienceOf actors dead and gone.There is a figure in the wingsThat never goes away,And though I cannot see his face,I shudder while I play.His shadow looms behind me here,Or capers at my side;And when I mouth my lines in dread,Those scornful lips deride.Sometimes a hooting laugh breaks out,And startles me alone;While…
Missinaibi, Abitibi, Little Current-whe re they runDancing and sparkling I see them in the sun.I hear the brawling rapid, the thunder of the fall,And when I think upon them I cannot stay at all.At the far end of the carry, where the wilderness begins,Set me down with my canoe-load- and forgiveness of my sins.O all…
Such unelusive glories fall,I almost dream they yet will bideUntil the coming of the tide.And yet I know that not for us,By any ecstasy of dream,He lingers to keep luminousA little while the grievous stream,Which frets, uncomforted of dream-A grievous stream, that to and froAthrough the fields of AcadieGoes wandering, as if to knowWhy one…
From the Battery to Harlem there’s seven miles of slush,Through looming granite canyons of glitter, noise, and rush.Are you sick of phones and tickers and crazing cable gongs,Of the theatres, the hansoms, and the breathless Broadway throngs,Of Flouret’s and the Waldorf and the chilly, drizzly Park,When there’s hardly any morning and five o’clock is dark?I…
Springing your woodland whistleTo herald the April pomp!First of the moving vanguard,In front of the spring you come,Where flooded waters sparkleAnd streams in the twilight hum.You sound the note of the chorusBy meadow and woodland pond,Till, one after one up-piping,A myriad throats respond.I see you, Brother, I see you,With scarlet under your wing,Flash through the…
