Part 19 (2/2)

Madonna of the Evening Flowers. [Amy Lowell]

All day long I have been working, Now I am tired.

I call: ”Where are you?”

But there is only the oak tree rustling in the wind.

The house is very quiet, The sun s.h.i.+nes in on your books, On your scissors and thimble just put down, But you are not there.

Suddenly I am lonely: Where are you?

I go about searching.

Then I see you, Standing under a spire of pale blue larkspur, With a basket of roses on your arm.

You are cool, like silver, And you smile.

I think the Canterbury bells are playing little tunes.

You tell me that the peonies need spraying, That the columbines have overrun all bounds, That the pyrus j.a.ponica should be cut back and rounded.

You tell me these things.

But I look at you, heart of silver, White heart-flame of polished silver, Burning beneath the blue steeples of the larkspur.

And I long to kneel instantly at your feet, While all about us peal the loud, sweet 'Te Deums' of the Canterbury bells.

The New G.o.d. [James Oppenheim]

Ye morning-glories, ring in the gale your bells, And with dew water the walk's dust for the burden-bearing ants: Ye swinging spears of the larkspur, open your wells of gold And pay your honey-tax to the hummingbird . . .

O now I see by the opening of blossoms, And of bills of the hungry fledglings, And the bright travel of sun-drunk insects, Morning's business is afoot: Earth is busied with a million mouths!

Where goes eaten gra.s.s and thrush-snapped dragonfly?

Creation eats itself, to sp.a.w.n in swarming sun-rays . . .

Bull and cricket go to it: life lives on life . . .

But O, ye flame-daubed irises, and ye hosts of gnats, Like a well of light moving in morning's light, What is this garmented animal that comes eating and drinking among you?

What is this upright one, with spade and with shears?

He is the visible and the invisible, Behind his mouth and his eyes are other mouth and eyes . . .

Thirster after visions He sees the flowers to their roots and the Earth back through its silent ages: He parts the sky with his gaze: He flings a magic on the hills, clothing them with Upanishad music, Peopling the valley with dreamed images that vanished in Greece millenniums back; And in the actual morning, out of longing, shapes on the hills To-morrow's golden grandeur . . .

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