Part 32 (1/2)
The Joy of the Hills. [Edwin Markham]
I ride on the mountain tops, I ride; I have found my life and am satisfied.
Onward I ride in the blowing oats, Checking the field-lark's rippling notes -- Lightly I sweep From steep to steep: Over my head through the branches high Come glimpses of a rus.h.i.+ng sky; The tall oats brush my horse's flanks; Wild poppies crowd on the sunny banks; A bee booms out of the scented gra.s.s; A jay laughs with me as I pa.s.s.
I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forget Life's h.o.a.rd of regret -- All the terror and pain Of the chafing chain.
Grind on, O cities, grind: I leave you a blur behind.
I am lifted elate -- the skies expand: Here the world's heaped gold is a pile of sand.
Let them weary and work in their narrow walls: I ride with the voices of waterfalls!
I swing on as one in a dream -- I swing Down the airy hollows, I shout, I sing!
The world is gone like an empty word: My body's a bough in the wind, my heart a bird!
The Lesser Children. [Ridgely Torrence]
A Threnody at the Hunting Season
In the middle of August when the southwest wind Blows after sunset through the leisuring air, And on the sky nightly the mythic hind Leads down the sullen dog star to his lair, After the feverous vigil of July, When the loud pageant of the year's high noon Pa.s.sed up the ways of time to sing and part, Grief also wandered by From out the lovers and the leaves of June, And by the wizard spices of his hair I knew his heart was very Love's own heart.
Deep within dreams he led me out of doors As from the upper vault the night outpours, And when I saw that to him all the skies Yearned as a sea asleep yearns to its sh.o.r.es, He took a little clay and touched my eyes.
What saw I then, what heard?
Mult.i.tudes, mult.i.tudes, under the moon they stirred!
The weaker brothers of our earthly breed; Watchmen of whom our safety takes no heed; Swift helpers of the wind that sowed the seed Before the first field was or any fruit; Warriors against the bivouac of the weed; Earth's earliest ploughmen for the tender root, All came about my head and at my feet A thousand, thousand sweet, With starry eyes not even raised to plead; Bewildered, driven, hiding, fluttering, mute!
And I beheld and saw them one by one Pa.s.s and become as nothing in the night.
Clothed on with red they were who once were white; Drooping, who once led armies to the sun, Of whom the lowly gra.s.s now topped the flight: In scarlet faint, who once were brave in brown; Climbers and builders of the silent town, Creepers and burrowers all in crimson dye, Winged mysteries of song that from the sky Once dashed long music down.
O who would take away music from the earth?
Have we so much? Or love upon the hearth?
No more -- they faded; The great trees bending between birth and birth Sighed for them, and the night wind's hoa.r.s.e rebuff Shouted the shame of which I was persuaded.
Shall Nature's only pausing be by men invaded?
Or shall we lay grief's f.a.gots on her shoulders bare?
Has she not borne enough?
Soon will the mirroring woodland pools begin to con her, And her sad immemorial pa.s.sion come upon her; Lo, would you add despair unto despair?
Shall not the Spring be answer to her prayer?
Must her uncomforted heavens overhead, Weeping, look down on tears and still behold Only wings broken or a fledgling dead, Or underfoot the meadows that wore gold Die, and the leaves go mourning to the mould Beneath poor dead and desperate feet Of folk who in next summer's meadows shall not meet?
Who has not seen in the high gulf of light What, lower, was a bird, but now Is moored and altered quite Into an island of unshaded joy?
To whom the mate below upon the bough Shouts once and brings him from his high employ.
Yet speeding he forgot not of the cloud Where he from glory sprang and burned aloud, But took a little of the day, A little of the colored sky, And of the joy that would not stay He wove a song that cannot die.
Then, then -- the unfathomable shame; The one last wrong arose from out the flame, The ravening hate that hated not was hurled Bidding the radiant love once more beware, Bringing one more loneliness on the world, And one more blindness in the unseen air.
Nor may the smooth regret, the pitying oath Shed on such utter bitter any leaven.
Only the pleading flowers that knew them both Hold all their b.l.o.o.d.y petals up to heaven.
Winds of the fall that all year to and fro Somewhere upon the earth go wandering, You saw, you moaned, you know: Withhold not then unto all time to tell Lest unborn others of us see this thing.
Bring our sleek, comfortable reason low: Recount how souls grown tremulous as a bell Came forth each other and the day to greet In morning air all Indian-Summer sweet, And crept upstream, through wood or field or brake, Most tremblingly to take What crumbs that from the Master's table fell.
Cry with what thronging thunders they were met, And hide not how the least leaf was made wet.
Cry till no watcher says that all is well With raucous discord through the leaning spheres.