Part 7 (1/2)

Loitering near you, how often I hear you, Just ere your petals at twilight are furled, Laugh through the gra.s.ses while Evelyn pa.s.ses, ”There goes the loveliest flower in the world!”

ARTHUR GUITERMAN

A WHITE IRIS

Tall and clothed in samite, Chaste and pure, In smooth armor,-- Your head held high In its helmet Of silver: Jean D'Arc riding Among the sword blades!

Has Spring for you Wrought visions, As it did for her In a garden?

PAULINE B. BARRINGTON

MAY IS BUILDING HER HOUSE

May is building her house. With apple blooms She is roofing over the glimmering rooms; Of the oak and the beech hath she builded its beams, And, spinning all day at her secret looms, With arras of leaves each wind-swayed wall She pictureth over, and peopleth it all With echoes and dreams, And singing of streams.

May is building her house of petal and blade; Of the roots of the oak is the flooring made, With a carpet of mosses and lichen and clover, Each small miracle over and over, And tender, travelling green things strayed.

Her windows the morning and evening star, And her rustling doorways, ever ajar With the coming and going Of fair things blowing, The thresholds of the four winds are.

May is building her house. From the dust of things She is making the songs and the flowers and the wings; From October's tossed and trodden gold She is making the young year out of the old; Yea! out of winter's flying sleet She is making all the summer sweet, And the brown leaves spurned of November's feet She is changing back again to spring's.

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE

THE MAGNOLIA

Deep in the wood, of scent and song the daughter, Perfect and bright is the magnolia born; White as a flake of foam upon still water, White as soft fleece upon rough brambles torn.

Hers is a cup a workman might have fas.h.i.+oned Of Grecian marble in an age remote.

Hers is a beauty perfect and impa.s.sioned, As when a woman bares her rounded throat.

There is a tale of how the moon, her lover, Holds her enchanted by some magic spell; Something about a dove that broods above her, Or dies within her breast--I cannot tell.

I cannot say where I have heard the story, Upon what poet's lips; but this I know: Her heart is like a pearl's, or like the glory Of moonbeams frozen on the spotless snow.

JOSe SANTOS CHOCANO (_Translated by John Pierrepont Rice_)

”GO DOWN TO KEW IN LILAC-TIME”

Go down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time; Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!) And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland; Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!).

The cherry-trees are seas of bloom and soft perfume and sweet perfume, The cherry-trees are seas of bloom (and oh, so near to London!) And there they say, when dawn is high and all the world's a blaze of sky The cuckoo, though he's very shy, will sing a song for London.

The Dorian nightingale is rare, and yet they say you'll hear him there At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!) The linnet and the throstle, too, and after dark the long halloo And golden-eyed _tu-whit_, _tu-whoo_ of owls that ogle London.

For Noah hardly knew a bird of any kind that isn't heard At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!) And when the rose begins to pout and all the chestnut spires are out You'll hear the rest without a doubt, all chorussing for London:--

_Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time; Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!) And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland; Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)._

ALFRED NOYES

BEYOND