Now the lilac tree's in bud,And the morning birds are loud.Now a stirring in the bloodMoves the heart of every crowd.
Word has gone abroad somewhereOf a great impending change.There's a message in the airOf an import glad and strange.
Not an idler in the street,But is better off to-day.Not a traveller you meet,But has something wise to say.
Now there's not a road too long,Not a day that is not good,Not a mile but hears a songLifted from the misty wood.
Down along the SilvermineThat's the blackbird's cheerful note!You can see him flash and shineWith the scarlet on his coat.
Now the winds are soft with rain,And the twilight has a spell,Who from gladness could refrainOr with olden sorrows dwell?
White Iris was a princessIn a kingdom long ago,Mysterious as moonlightAnd silent as the snow.
She drew the world in wonderAnd swayed it with desire,Ere Babylon was buildedOr a stone laid in Tyre.
Yet here within my gardenHer loveliness appears,Undimmed by any sorrowOf all the tragic years.
How kind that earth should treasureSo beautiful a thing—All mystical enchantment,To stir our hearts in spring!
Young foreign-born Ailanthus,Because he grew so fast,We scorned his easy daringAnd doubted it would last.
But lo, when autumn gathersAnd all the woods are old,He stands in green and salmon,A glory to behold!
Among the ancient monarchsHis airy tent is spread.His robe of coronationIs tasseled rosy red.
With something strange and Eastern,His height and grace proclaimHis lineage and titleIs that celestial name.
This is the Tree of Heaven,Which seems to say to us,"Behold how rife is beauty,And how victorious!"
"Pionia virtutem habet occultam."Arnoldus Villanova—1235-1313.
Arnoldus VillanovaSix hundred years agoSaid Peonies have magic,And I believe it so.There stands his learned dictumWhich any boy may read,But he who learns the secretWill be made wise indeed.
Astrologer and doctorIn the science of his day,Have we so far outstripped him?What more is there to say?His medieval LatinRecords the truth for us,Which I translate—virtutemHabet occultam—thus:
She hath a deep-hid virtueNo other flower hath.When summer comes rejoicingA-down my garden path,In opulence of color,In robe of satin sheen,She casts o'er all the hoursHer sorcery serene.
A subtile, heartening fragranceComes piercing the warm hush,And from the greening woodlandI hear the first wild thrush.They move my heart to pityFor all the vanished years,With ecstasy of longingAnd tenderness of tears.
By many names we call her,—Pale exquisite Aurore,Luxuriant GismondaOr sunny Couronne D'Or.What matter,—Grandiflora,A queen in some proud book,Or sweet familiar PinyWith her old-fashioned look?
The crowding Apple blossomsAbove the orchard wall;The Moonflower in AugustWhen eerie nights befall;Chrysanthemum in autumn,Whose pageantries appearWith mystery and silenceTo deck the dying year;
And many a mystic flowerOf the wildwood I have known,But Pionia ArnoldiHath a transport all her own.For Peony, my Peony,Hath strength to make me whole,—She gives her heart of beautyFor the healing of my soul.
Arnoldus Villanova,Though earth is growing old,As long as life has longingYour guess at truth will hold.Still works the hidden powerAfter a thousand springs,—The medicine for heartacheThat lurks in lovely things.
Once more the magic days are comeWith stronger sun and milder air;The shops are full of daffodils;There's golden leisure everywhere.I heard my Lou this morning shout:"Here comes the hurdy-gurdy man!"And through the open window caughtThe piping of the urban Pan.
I laid my wintry task aside,And took a day to follow joy:The trail of beauty and the callThat lured me when I was a boy.I looked, and there looked up at meA smiling, swarthy, hairy manWith kindling eye—and well I knewThe piping of the urban Pan.
He caught my mood; his hat was off;I tossed the ungrudged silver down.The cunning vagrant, every yearHe casts his spell upon the town!And we must fling him, old and young,Our dimes or coppers, as we can;And every heart must leap to hearThe piping of the urban Pan.
The music swells and fades again,And I in dreams am far away,Where a bright river sparkles downTo meet a blue Aegean bay.There, in the springtime of the world,Are dancing fauns, and in their van,Is one who pipes a deathless tune—The earth-born and the urban Pan.
And so he follows down the block,A troop of children in his train,The light-foot dancers of the streetEnamored of the reedy strain.I hear their laughter rise and ringAbove the noise of truck and van,As down the mellow wind fades outThe piping of the urban Pan.
Now the spring is in the town,Now the wind is in the tree,And the wintered keels go downTo the calling of the sea.
Out from mooring, dock, and slip,Through the harbor buoys they glide,Drawing seaward till they dipTo the swirling of the tide.
One by one and two by two,Down the channel turns they go,Steering for the open blueWhere the salty great airs blow;
Craft of many a build and trim,Every stitch of sail unfurled,Till they hang upon the rimOf the azure ocean world.
Who has ever, man or boy,Seen the sea all flecked with gold,And not longed to go with joyForth upon adventures bold?
Who could bear to stay indoor,Now the wind is in the street,For the creaking of the oarAnd the tugging of the sheet!
Now the spring is in the town,Who would not a rover be,When the wintered keels go downTo the calling of the sea?
'Tis May now in New EnglandAnd through the open doorI see the creamy breakers,I hear the hollow roar.
Back to the golden marshesComes summer at full tide,But not the golden comradeWho was the summer's pride.
O my dear, the world to-dayIs more lovely than a dream!Magic hints from far awayHaunt the woodland, and the streamMurmurs in his rocky bedThings that never can be said.
Starry dogwood is in flower,Gleaming through the mystic woods.It is beauty's perfect hourIn the wild spring solitudes.Now the orchards in full blowShed their petals white as snow.
All the air is honey-sweetWith the lilacs white and red,Where the blossoming branches meetIn an arbor overhead.And the laden cherry treesMurmur with the hum of bees.
All the earth is fairy green,And the sunlight filmy gold,Full of ecstasies unseen,Full of mysteries untold.Who would not be out-of-door,Now the spring is here once more!
The fireflies across the duskAre flashing signals through the gloom—Courageous messengers of lightThat dare immensities of doom.
About the seeding meadow-grass,Like busy watchmen in the street,They come and go, they turn and pass,Lighting the way for Beauty's feet.
Or up they float on viewless wingsTo twinkle high among the trees,And rival with soft glimmeringsThe shining of the Pleiades.
The stars that wheel above the hillAre not more wonderful to see,Nor the great tasks that they fulfillMore needed in eternity.
It winds along the headlandsAbove the open sea—The lonely moorland footpathThat leads to Sankoty.
The crooning sea spreads saillessAnd gray to the world's rim,Where hang the reeking fog-banksPrimordial and dim.
There fret the ceaseless currents,And the eternal tideChafes over hidden shallowsWhere the white horses ride.
The wistful fragrant moorlandsWhose smile bids panic cease,Lie treeless and cloud-shadowedIn grave and lonely peace.
Across their flowering bosom,From the far end of dayBlow clean the great soft moor-windsAll sweet with rose and bay.
A world as large and simpleAs first emerged for man,Cleared for the human drama,Before the play began.
O well the soul must treasureThe calm that sets it free—The vast and tender skyline,The sea-turn's wizardry,
Solace of swaying grasses,The friendship of sweet-fern—And in the world's confusionRemembering, must yearn
To tread the moorland footpathThat leads to Sankoty,Hearing the field-larks shrillingBeside the sailless sea.
Have you sailed Nantucket SoundBy lightship, buoy, and bell,And lain becalmed at noonOn an oily summer swell?
Lazily drooped the sail,Moveless the pennant hung,Sagging over the railIdle the main boom swung;
The sea, one mirror of shineA single breath would destroy,Save for the far low lineOf treacherous Monomoy.
Yet eastward there toward Spain,What castled cities riseFrom the Atlantic plain,To our enchanted eyes!
Turret and spire and roofLooming out of the sea,Where the prosy chart gives proofNo cape nor isle can be!
Can a vision shine so clearWherein no substance dwells?One almost harks to hearThe sound of the city's bells.
And yet no pealing notesWithin those belfries be,Save echoes from the throatsOf ship-bells lost at sea.
For none shall anchor thereSave those who long of yore,When tide and wind were fair,Sailed and came back no more.
And none shall climb the stairsWithin those ghostly towers,Save those for whom sad prayersWent up through fateful hours.
O image of the world,O mirage of the sea,Cloud-built and foam-impearled.What sorcery fashioned thee?
What architect of dream,What painter of desire,Conceived that fairy schemeTouched with fantastic fire?
Even so our city of hopeWe mortal dreamers rearUpon the perilous slopeAbove the deep of fear;
Leaving half-known the goodOur kindly earth bestows,For the feigned beatitudeOf a future no man knows.
Lord of the summer sea,Whose tides are in thy hand,Into immensityThe vision at thy command
Fades now, and leaves no sign,—No light nor bell nor buoy,—Only the faint low lineOf dangerous Monomoy.
Through the street of St. GermainMarch the tattered hosts of rain,
While the wind with vagrant fifeWhips their chilly ranks to life.
From the window I can seeTheir ghostly banners blowing free,
As they pass to where the shipsCrowd about the wharves and slips.
There at day's end they embarkTo invade the realms of dark,
And the sun comes out againIn the street of St. Germain.
They say that he is dead, and now no moreThe reedy syrinx sounds among the hills,When the long summer heat is on the land.But I have heard the Catskill thrushes sing,And therefore am incredulous of death,Of pain and sorrow and mortality.
In these blue cañons, deep with hemlock shade,In solitudes of twilight or of dawn,I have been rapt away from time and careBy the enchantment of a golden strainAs pure as ever pierced the Thracian wild,Filling the listener with a mute surmise.
At evening and at morning I have goneDown the cool trail between the beech-tree boles,And heard the haunting music of the woodRing through the silence of the dark ravine,Flooding the earth with beauty and with joyAnd all the ardors of creation old.
And then within my pagan heart awokeRemembrance of far-off and fabled yearsIn the untarnished sunrise of the world,When clear-eyed Hellas in her rapture heardA slow mysterious piping wild and keenThrill through her vales, and whispered, "It is Pan!"
These things I rememberOf New England June,Like a vivid day-dreamIn the azure noon,While one haunting figureStrays through every scene,Like the soul of beautyThrough her lost demesne.
Gardens full of rosesAnd peonies a-blowIn the dewy morning,Row on stately row,Spreading their gay patterns,Crimson, pied and cream,Like some gorgeous frescoOr an Eastern dream.
Nets of waving sunlightFalling through the trees;Fields of gold-white daisiesRippling in the breeze;Lazy lifting groundswells,Breaking green as jadeOn the lilac beaches,Where the shore-birds wade.
Orchards full of blossom,Where the bob-white callsAnd the honeysuckleClimbs the old gray walls;Groves of silver birches,Beds of roadside fern,In the stone-fenced pastureAt the river's turn.
Out of every pictureStill she comes to meWith the morning freshnessOf the summer sea,—A glory in her bearing,A sea-light in her eyes,As if she could not forgetThe spell of Paradise.
Thrushes in the deep woods,With their golden themes,Fluting like the choirsAt the birth of dreams.Fireflies in the meadowsAt the gate of Night,With their fairy lanternsTwinkling soft and bright.
Ah, not in the roses,Nor the azure noon,Nor the thrushes' music,Lies the soul of June.It is something finer,More unfading far,Than the primrose eveningAnd the silver star;
Something of the raptureMy beloved had,When she made the morningRadiant and glad,—Something of her graciousEcstasy of mien,That still haunts the twilight,Loving though unseen.
When the ghostly moonlightWalks my garden ground,Like a leisurely patrolOn his nightly round,These things I rememberOf the long ago,While the slumbrous rosesNeither care nor know.
Behold, now, where the pageant of high JuneHalts in the glowing noon!The trailing shadows rest on plain and hill;The bannered hosts are still,While over forest crown and mountain headThe azure tent is spread.
The song is hushed in every woodland throat;Moveless the lilies float;Even the ancient ever-murmuring seaSighs only fitfully;The cattle drowse in the field-corner's shade;Peace on the world is laid.
It is the hour when Nature's caravan,That bears the pilgrim ManAcross the desert of uncharted timeTo his far hope sublime,Rests in the green oasis of the year,As if the end drew near.
Ah, traveller, hast thou naught of thanks or praiseFor these fleet halcyon days?—No courage to uplift thee from despairBorn with the breath of prayer?Then turn thee to the lilied field once more!God stands in his tent door.
The black ash grows in the swampy ground,The white ash in the dry;The thrush he holds to the woodland bound,The hawk to the open sky.
The trout he runs to the mountain brook,The swordfish keeps the sea;The brown bear knows where the blueberry grows.The clover calls the bee.
The locust sings in the August noon,The frog in the April night;The iris loves the meadow-land,The laurel loves the height.
And each will hold his tenure oldOf earth and sun and stream,For all are creatures of desireAnd children of a dream.
We are the roadside flowers,Straying from garden grounds,—Lovers of idle hours,Breakers of ordered bounds.
If only the earth will feed us,If only the wind be kind,We blossom for those who need us,The stragglers left behind.
And lo, the Lord of the Garden,He makes his sun to rise,And his rain to fall with pardonOn our dusty paradise.
On us he has laid the duty,—The task of the wandering breed,—To better the world with beauty,Wherever the way may lead.
Who shall inquire of the season,Or question the wind where it blows?We blossom and ask no reason.The Lord of the Garden knows.
This is a holy refuge,The garden of Saint Rose,A fragrant altar to that peaceThe world no longer knows.
Below a solemn hillside,Within the folding shadeOf overhanging beech and pineIts walls and walks are laid.
Cool through the heat of summer,Still as a sacred grove,It has the rapt unworldly airOf mystery and love.
All day before its outlookThe mist-blue mountains loom,And in its trees at tranquil duskThe early stars will bloom.
Down its enchanted bordersGlad ranks of color stand,Like hosts of silent seraphimAwaiting love's command.
Lovely in adorationThey wait in patient line,Snow-white and purple and deep goldAbout the rose-gold shrine.
And there they guard the silence,While still from her recessThrough sun and shade Saint Rose looks downIn mellow loveliness.
She seems to say, "O stranger,Behold how loving careThat gives its life for beauty's sake,Makes everything more fair!
"Then praise the Lord of gardensFor tree and flower and vine,And bless all gardeners who have wroughtA resting place like mine!"
I heard the summer seaMurmuring to the shoreSome endless story of a wrongThe whole world must deplore.
I heard the mountain windConversing with the treesOf an old sorrow of the hills,Mysterious as the sea's.
And all that haunted dayIt seemed that I could hearThe echo of an ancient speechRing in my listening ear.
And then it came to me,That all that I had heardWas my own heart in the sea's voiceAnd the wind's lonely word.
Here all night on the dunesIn the rocking wind we sleep,Watched by sentry stars,Lulled by the drone of the deep.
Till hark, in the chill of the dawnA field lark wakes and cries,And over the floor of the seaWe watch the round sun rise.
The world is washed once moreIn a tide of purple and gold,And the heart of the land is filledWith desires and dreams untold.
Lord of morning, light of day,Sacred color-kindling sun,We salute thee in the way,—Pilgrims robed in rose and dun.
For thou art a pilgrim too,Overlord of all our band.In thy fervor we renewQuests we do not understand.
At thy summons we arise,At thy touch put glory on.And with glad unanxious eyesTake the journey thou hast gone.
Before the night-blue fadesAnd the stars are quite gone,I lift my headAt the noiseless treadOf the angel of dawn.
I hear no word, yet my heartIs beating apace;Then in glory all stillOn the eastern hillI behold his face.
All day through the world he goes,Making glad, setting free;Then his day's work done,On the galleon sunHe sinks in the sea.
When earth was finished and fashioned well,There was never a musical note to tellHow glad God was, save the voice of the rainAnd the sea and the wind on the lonely plainAnd the rivers among the hills.And so God made the marvellous birdsFor a choir of joy transcending words,That the world might hear and comprehendHow rhythm and harmony can mendThe spirits' hurts and ills.
He filled their tiny bodies with fire,He taught them love for their chief desire,And gave them the magic of wings to beHis celebrants over land and sea,Wherever man might dwell.And to each he apportioned a fragment of song—Those broken melodies that belongTo the seraphs' chorus, that we might learnThe healing of gladness and discernIn beauty how all is well.
So music dwells in the glorious throatsForever, and the enchanted notesFall with rapture upon our ears,Moving our hearts to joy and tearsFor things we cannot say.In the wilds the whitethroat sings in the rainHis pure, serene, half-wistful strain;And when twilight falls the sleeping hillsRing with the cry of the whippoorwillsIn the blue dusk far away.
In the great white heart of the winter stormThe chickadee sings, for his heart is warm,And his note is brave to rally the soulFrom doubt and panic to self-controlAnd elation that knows no fear.The bluebird comes with the winds of March,Like a shred of sky on the naked larch;The redwing follows the April rainTo whistle contentment back againWith his sturdy call of cheer.
The orioles revel through orchard boughsIn their coats of gold for spring's carouse;In shadowy pastures the bobwhites call,And the flute of the thrush has a melting fallUnder the evening star.On the verge of June when peonies blowAnd joy comes back to the world we know,The bobolinks fill the fields of lightWith a tangle of music silver-brightTo tell how glad they are.
The tiny warblers fill summer treesWith their exquisite lesser litanies;The tanager in his scarlet coatIn the hemlock pours from a vibrant throatHis canticle of the sun.The loon on the lake, the hawk in the sky,And the sea-gull—each has a piercing cry,Like outposts set in the lonely vastTo cry "all's well" as Time goes pastAnd another hour is gone.
But of all the music in God's planOf a mystical symphony for man,I shall remember best of all—Whatever hereafter may befallOr pass and cease to be—The hermit's hymn in the solitudesOf twilight through the mountain woods,And the field-larks crying about our doorsOn the soft sweet wind across the moorsAt morning by the sea.
Said a traveller by the wayPausing, "What hast thou to say,Flower by the dusty road,That would ease a mortal's load?"
Traveller, hearken unto me!I will tell thee how to seeBeauties in the earth and skyHidden from the careless eye.I will tell thee how to hearNature's music wild and clear,—Songs of midday and of darkSuch as many never mark,Lyrics of creation sungEver since the world was young.
And thereafter thou shalt knowNeither weariness nor woe.
Thou shalt see the dawn unfoldArtistries of rose and gold,And the sunbeams on the seaDancing with the wind for glee.The red lilies of the moorsShall be torches on the floors,Where the field-lark lifts his cryTo rejoice the passer-by,In a wide world rimmed with blueLovely as when time was new.
And thereafter thou shalt fareLight of foot and free from care.
I will teach thee how to findLost enchantments of the mindAll about thee, never guessedBy indifferent unrest.Thy distracted thought shall learnPatience from the roadside fern,And a sweet philosophyFrom the flowering locust tree,—While thy heart shall not disdainThe consolation of the rain.
Not an acre but shall giveOf its strength to help thee live.
With the many-wintered sunShall thy hardy course be run.And the bright new moon shall beA lamp to thy felicity.When green-mantled spring shall comePast thy door with flute and drum,And when over wood and swampAutumn trails her scarlet pomp,No misgiving shalt thou know,Passing glad to rise and go.
So thy days shall be unrolledLike a wondrous cloth of gold.
When gray twilight with her starMakes a heaven that is not far,Touched with shadows and with dreams,Thou shalt hear the woodland streamsSinging through the starry nightHoly anthems of delight.So the ecstasy of earthShall refresh thee as at birth,And thou shalt arise each mornRadiant with a soul reborn.
And this wisdom of a dayNone shall ever take away.
What the secret, what the clewThe wayfarer must pursue?Only one thing he must haveWho would share these transports brave.Love within his heart must dwellLike a bubbling roadside well,For a spring to quicken thought,Else my counsel comes to naught.For without that quickening trustWe are less than roadside dust.
This, O traveller, is my creed,—All the wisdom of the weed!
Then the traveller set his packOnce more on his dusty back,And trudged on for many a mileFronting fortune with a smile.
I see the great blue heronRising among the reedsAnd floating down the wind,Like a gliding sailWith the set of the stream.
I hear the two-horse mowerClacking among the hay,In the heat of a July noon,And the driver's voiceAs he turns his team.
I see the meadow liliesFlecked with their darker tan,The elms, and the great white clouds;And all the worldIs a passing dream.
Shining, shining childrenOf the summer rain,Racing down the valley,Sweeping o'er the plain!
Rushing through the forest,Pelting on the leaves,Drenching down the meadowWith its standing sheaves;
Robed in royal silver,Girt with jewels gay,With a gust of gladnessYou pass upon your way.
Fresh, ah, fresh behind you,Sunlit and impearled,As it was in Eden,Lies the lovely world!
The hilltop trees are bowingUnder the coming of storm.The low, gray clouds are trailingLike squadrons that sweep and form,With their ammunition of rain.
Then the trumpeter wind gives signalTo unlimber the viewless guns;The cattle huddle together;Indoors the farmer runs;And the first shot lashes the pane.
They charge through the quiet orchard;One pear tree is snapped like a wand;As they sweep from the shattered hillside,Ruffling the blackened pond,Ere the sun takes the field again.
When morning is high o'er the hilltops,On river and stream and lake,Wherever a young breeze whispers,The sun-clad dancers wake.
One after one up-springing,They flash from their dim retreat.Merry as running laughterIs the news of their twinkling feet.
Over the floors of azureWherever the wind-flaws run,Sparkling, leaping, and racing,Their antics scatter the sun.
As long as water ripplesAnd weather is clear and glad,Day after day they are dancing,Never a moment sad.
But when through the field of heavenThe wings of storm take flight,At a touch of the flying shadowsThey falter and slip from sight.
Until at the gray day's ending,As the squadrons of cloud retire,They pass in the triumph of sunsetWith banners of crimson fire.