Part 4 (2/2)

Oh, Sundial, you should not be young, Or fresh and fair, or spick and span!

None should remember when began Your tenure here, nor whence you sprung!

Like ancient cromlech notch'd and scarr'd, I would have had you sadly tow'r Above this world of leaf and flower All ivy-tress'd and lichen-starr'd;

Amba.s.sador of Time and Fate, In contrast stern to bud and bloom, Seeming half temple and half tomb, And wholly solemn and sedate;

Till, one with G.o.d's own works on earth, The lake, the vale, the mountain-brow, We might have come to count you now Whose home was here before our birth.

But lo! a priggish, upstart thing-- Set here to tell so old a truth-- How fleeting are our days of youth-- _You_, that were only made last spring!

Go to!... What sermon can you preach, Oh, mushroom--mentor pert and new?

We are too old to learn of you What you are all too young to teach!

Yet, Sundial, you and I may swear Eternal friends.h.i.+p, none the less, For I'll respect your youthfulness If you'll forgive my silver hair!

VIOLET FANE

THE FOUNTAIN

I thought my garden finished. I beheld Each bush bee-visited; a green charm quelled The louder winds to music; soft boughs made Patches of silver dusk and purple shade-- And yet I felt a lack of something still.

There was a little, sleepy-footed rill That lapsed among sun-burnished stones, where slept Fish, rainbow-scaled, while dragon-flies, adept, Balanced on bending gra.s.s.

All perfect? No.

My garden lacked a fountain's upward flow.

I coaxed the brook's young Naiad to resign Her meadow wildness, building her a shrine Of wors.h.i.+p, where each ravished waif of air Might wanton in the brightness of her hair.

So here my fountain flows, loved of the wind, To every vagrant, aimless gust inclined, Yet constant ever to its source. It greets The face of morning, wavering windy sheets Of woven silver; sheer it climbs the noon, A shaft of bronze; and underneath the moon It sleeps in pearl and opal. In the storm It streams far out, a wild, gray, blowing form; While on calm days it heaps above the lake,-- Pelting the dreaming lilies half awake, And pattering jewels on each wide, green frond,-- Recurrent pyramids of diamond!

HARRY KEMP

THE PAGEANTRY OF GARDENS

THE BIRTH OF THE FLOWERS

_G.o.d spoke! and from the arid scene Sprang rich and verdant bowers, Till all the earth was soft with green,-- He smiled; and there were flowers._

MARY MCNEIL FENOLLOSA

THE WELCOME

G.o.d spreads a carpet soft and green O'er which we pa.s.s; A thick-piled mat of jeweled sheen-- And that is Gra.s.s.

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