Volume Iii Part 34 (1/2)

GREEN THINGS GROWING

O the green things growing, the green things growing, The faint sweet smell of the green things growing!

I should like to live, whether I smile or grieve, Just to watch the happy life of my green things growing.

O the fluttering and the pattering of those green things growing!

How they talk each to each, when none of us are knowing; In the wonderful white of the weird moonlight Or the dim dreamy dawn when the c.o.c.ks are crowing.

I love, I love them so--my green things growing!

And I think that they love me, without false showing; For by many a tender touch, they comfort me so much, With the soft mute comfort of green things growing.

And in the rich store of their blossoms glowing Ten for one I take they're on me bestowing: Oh, I should like to see, if G.o.d's will it may be, Many, many a summer of my green things growing!

But if I must be gathered for the angel's sowing, Sleep out of sight awhile, like the green things growing, Though dust to dust return, I think I'll scarcely mourn, If I may change into green things growing.

Dinah Maria Mulock Craik [1826-1887]

A CHANTED CALENDAR From ”Balder”

First came the primrose, On the bank high, Like a maiden looking forth From the window of a tower When the battle rolls below, So looked she, And saw the storms go by.

Then came the wind-flower In the valley left behind, As a wounded maiden, pale With purple streaks of woe, When the battle has rolled by Wanders to and fro, So tottered she, Dishevelled in the wind.

Then came the daisies, On the first of May, Like a bannered show's advance While the crowd runs by the way, With ten thousand flowers about them they came trooping through the fields.

As a happy people come, So came they, As a happy people come When the war has rolled away, With dance and tabor, pipe and drum, And all make holiday.

Then came the cowslip, Like a dancer in the fair, She spread her little mat of green, And on it danced she.

With a fillet bound about her brow, A fillet round her happy brow, A golden fillet round her brow, And rubies in her hair.

Sydney Dobell [1824-1874]

FLOWERS

Spare full well, in language quaint and olden One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, When he called the flowers, so blue and golden, Stars, that in earth's firmament do s.h.i.+ne.

Stars they are, wherein we read our history, As astrologers and seers of eld; Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery, Like the burning stars, which they beheld.

Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous, G.o.d hath written in those stars above; But not less in the bright flowerets under us Stands the revelation of his love.

Bright and glorious is that revelation, Writ all over this great world of ours; Making evident our own creation, In these stars of earth, these golden flowers.

And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing, See, alike in stars and flowers, a part Of the self-same, universal being, Which is throbbing in his brain and heart.