r- ' -n. ^i„ ^r.'^v Vie kept out PUBLISHER'S NOTE. The Yale Series of Younger Poets is designed to afford a publishing medium for the work of young men and women who have not yet secured a wide public recognition: -It will include only such verse as seems to give the fairest promise for the future of American poetry — to the development of which it is hoped that the Series, may prove a stimulus. Communications concernin^,7rianuscripts should be addressed to the Editor of the Yale Series of Ydunger Poets, in care of the Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut. VOLUMES ALREADY ISSU|:D I. The Tempering. By Howard'Buck. % ' II. Forgotten Shrines. By Jok%:Chipmajfi Farrar. III. Four Gardens. By David Os^hrne Haj^ilton. IV. Spires and Poplars. By Alfr0Raymo7id, Bellinger. V. The White God and Othe;r. Foems. -B^y Thomas Caldecot Chubb. .\'\ VI. Where Lilith Dances. Byt ^arl Macleod Boyle. VII. Wild Geese. By Theodore- WlBanks, Jr. VIII. Horizons. By Viola C. WMe.\ IX. Wampum and Old Gold. By Hervey Allen. X. The Golden Darkness. By Oscar Williams. XI. White April. By Harold Final. XII. Dreams and a Sword. By Medora C. Addison. XIII. Hidden Waters. By Bernard Raymund. XIV. Attitudes. By Paul Tanaquil. XV. The Last Lutanist. By Dean B. Lyman, Jr. XVI. Battle-Retrospect. By Amos Niven Wilder. XVII. Silver Wands. By Marion M. Boyd. XVIII. Mosaics. By Beatrice E. Harmon. XIX. Up and Down. By Elizabeth Jessup Blake. LIBRARY Connecticut Agricultural College Vol. 5 i7:> /^ Class No. BII.SB5Q Cost fvLU- (^. R. SouuJ Dati t)U^ .?/ 193d ■ 1 hbl brti III III III LS3 DDM storage III ill TE3E2 122 }wn 5 \Up and Down / ELIZABETH JESSUP BLAKE P^^^^ NEW HAVEN • YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON . HUMPHREY MILFORD • OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS MDCCCCXXIV gJL5 .3 5T COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ACKNOWLEDGMENT The author wishes to express her thanks to the Smith College Monthly for permission to reprint several of the poems in this book. TO J. T. A. and R. L. A. CONTENTS. "Within and Without" Soulless Baydreeah In a Bedouin's Garden To a Weeping Birch One of Lalage's Lovers The Wilful Sprite To Dogwood Blossoms Snow Trees . Shepherd's Night Song Starlight in Syria . X Y Z The Shepherd's Flute Zahleh Libnan Glaucon to Thesbia On the Heights. 1915 Sea Fog Noli Tangere To a Wild Rose . Ode to Loneliness . Zest . Happiness King David Spring in New York City Wind Drift . Bedouin Lullaby . A Hill Arab Syria . Memories October Wind Flowers The Answer . For a Fair Lady's Burial Scotch Broom Thanksgiving Day There is no Time . My Thoughts The Beech Tree Valley "WITHIN AND WITHOUT" IT took Without to make Within a heaven, For though Within held all men's treasures safe, Without, at first, was tantalizing, mild ; All blue, with clear far reaches spaced with clouds Or interrupted by a mountain screen That tempted — "Up and climb and look beyond !" With such a rival four straight walls seemed gloom And it was then Within was but a room. And then Without grew restless, sighing, wild; Dark banks of grey shut in from mountain's crown To low surrounding hills a strange new world ; The air was filled with war songs ; rain like whips Wielded by fury winds, relentlessly Lashed down on trees and fields and homes of men Who hurried in, made fast against the storm. Then looked about them slowly, till they saw Their lamplight shining on the driven rain — And heaven was bounded by a window pane. SOULLESS BAYDREEAH SOULLESS Baydreeah am I, In the khan on the lonely hills I live with the sheikh and my son And a faith that kills. Mohammedan fellahin, We live by the fruit of our toil And I am yoked with an ass To plough the soil. Mohammed says men have souls But women, Ajellak Allah! What ! souls for beasts, for the wife Of a poor fellah'? Yet I long for a soul ! for a soul Like the calm of a Lebanon night When the hills sleep in mighty content In the pale starlight, — No, the hills are a rolling waste. The mountains are naked despair. Up, reaching up for their souls In age-long prayer. And soulless Baydreeah am I, Glad to live for the sake of my men. Plodding from morning till night. Then plodding again. 10 IN A BEDOUIN'S GARDEN OLD Age in her faded garments, With her back to the glinting sea, Sat among flaming poppies, Under a leafless tree ; Budding Spring sang round her, Round her and you and me. O Spring, and you, Old Old Woman, You are ancient, silent, and wise. And you work with a wordless patience And smile far back in your eyes ; But, Spring, you are young as the poppies ! And red as their petals that fall In the wind from the orange garden With its watch-tower on the wall. 11 TO A WEEPING BIRCH NEVER as a trusted mast for a straining sail Shall you hear the seaman's song, shouting on the gale ; Never stretch from wall to wall, as oaken rooftrees go, Guarding seamen's homes from harm while the tempests blow. Never have you seen the sea, nor watched the skimming sails — Lone you stand all silver white, shining through your veils. Woodland Vestal, raising high suppliant arms to heaven, Do you sigh, "Be merciful — naught to me is given" ? Naught but dreams and fancies fleet tangle in your drooping veils. Stars and dewdrops glisten there when the daylight fails. Woodland Vestal, sigh and sigh — raise your arms to heaven — Sigh for purest happiness all to you is given ; Souls despondent, looking up, glory in your loveliness — Beauty leads to heaven. 12 ONE OF LALAGE'S LOVERS MY lyre sings high, High sings my lyre, My heart would fly, My thoughts go higher. My heart is bound, My thoughts are free, I gave all but my thoughts To Lalage. 13 THE WILFUL SPRITE I PIPED to you on the pipes of Pan At the edge of the woods at the edge of day, You came, you danced, a touch — , you ran — Or changed to a quivering balsam spray. I piped to you on the pipes of Pan At the edge of the woods, at the edge of night, You came, you danced, a touch — , you ran — Or changed to a shimmer of pale starlight — . I piped to you on the pipes of Pan When over the trees came the dawn's faint glow,- Were you in the breezes that whispered and ran ? Must you ever come dancing, only to go ? H TO DOGWOOD BLOSSOMS LIFTED on wandering, sweet-scented airs, ^ Pale clouds adream in your woodlands awaking Aloof from the world and its manifold cares, Your beauty is innocent witchery, making A song writ in petals, a page of delight. Bird-songs in flower notes wistful and white ! 15 SNOW TREES THE frosty wraiths of fairy-fingered trees Stoop down to touch the hurried passer-by With heaven's whiteness. And the awe-stilled breeze On soundless wing so softly passes by It is as though an angel breathed a sigh, And earth-bent man lifts up his head unknowing Why suddenly new thoughts are in him growing. 16 SHEPHERD'S NIGHT SONG IN the fold that I built with my hands Safeguarded by bowlder and thorn Huddle my sheep with their lambs asleep, From sunset till early morn. On a mountain-top lone is the fold, Its doorway faces the sea; There do I sit while the black bats flit And the winds and the stars rove free. There do I sit with my dog and fire, My fire, my dog, and the sky. While mystery fills the valleys and hills And sighs through the pines near by. 17 STARLIGHT IN SYRIA WARM is the breath of night with heat of day ; Horizon line alone 'cuts the still blue Of sea's dark shadow from its canopy Embroidered all with stars as thick as bees That overswarm a clover field in June. And almost like the very voice of dark Rise mingled sounds of nature, ringing sweet: Full-throated choruses of froggy choirs And for an undertone the song of sea Languishing, rippling, murmuring, musical, — For the lone sea is hushing off to sleep Its little waves, and sweetly near at hand, The garden's width away, a cadenced drop Into the brimming Oriental pool Makes for the sleeping roses, lullaby. And while the breath of night is hot with day And while Orion seeks to bow him low To lose himself beneath the western rim Of the sea's shadow, still thine heart and hear. List how the concerts of a thousand frogs Choiring in unison antiphonal Do bid us note, as suddenly they end, How night is still, yet rich as memory With beauty set in silence, sung in sound. And hushed to quietness through harmony. 18 XYZ WHEN grapes and figs are honey-ripe And cactus fringed with spiny pears, When golden melons tempt the knife Then eat and drink, forget your cares. Cares are the kin of hungry hours When wine is bitter and the dry bread sours. 19 THE SHEPHERD'S FLUTE THERE drifts the dust-white flock across the hill, The sun-baked hill whence heat waves tremble high From cracked, red earth to blur the glaring sky ; In listless sleep the parched world gasps, but still My heart rests cool, as by some shaded rill ; For, 'spite of hot Sirocco's gusty sigh. Tasting a plaintive happiness am I : Sweet sympathy with hearts that love the trill And inquiry of soft, high notes let slip To fall and ripple out in minor key, A reverie that makes all hearers mute. That music is the golden wine I sip. And for each drop of purest melody I thank thee, Shepherd, and thine humble flute. 20 ZAHLEH OH, land of dreams, whose upward winding paths Lead out a wilding through the hedgerows old, Past bending reapers and the broadening swaths Of Autumn's harvest ranked in lanes of gold, Past tented vineyards redolent of wine Where raisin makers, chanting endless runes. Spread luscious banquets for the glowing sun. Who, month by month, smiles gloriously benign, While softly to herself all nature croons, While gnat and bird and bee enrich her tunes And God and man and nature are at one. 21 LIBNAN (Lebanon) You who have lands you love know well the pang That calls you homeward from your wanderings To seek a well-loved path, to see one tree, To look down well-remembered, hallowed lanes. And if you may not heed the call, then God Has given to exiled man that treasure ship For homeward seeking souls, dear Memory. So in your love of homeland hear my song And peace of Lebanon shall rest you long. Libnan — ! You hold your children wheresoe'er they go. Though worn and broken in the smoke and mire. Where clustering city stacks make country winds Sick with the reek of fevered industry. Though aliens hemmed about with poverty, — Still in their eyes there burns a kindly fire — Their hearts are held in spell where'er they go. Your strangers, too, you hold in that same chain That binds and links the sturdy Libanese, That draws them back to rocky paths again From North from South, from mighty lands of Wealth In every stage of dearth, success, and health ; Though they go far, back to your mother-knees They come or long to come. You hold them so. Since brown Phoenicians tracked the "sail-winged sea" With silver wakes all interlaced with foam When Empires through kaleidoscopic maze Sought to enthrall you with their laws and ways. Your charm bewitched them till they called you — Home, And when they left you 'twas reluctantly. 22 O Lebanon ! Great David's Greater Soul Cried out in love to your eternal calm That, resting like God's Sabbath on Sunnin, Unburdens souls of care and hearts of fear, And as the Soul goes where the eyes have seen And God to mountain lovers seems more near So, heirs of Lebanon's unmeasured balm. Keep sweet that quiet strength and keep it whole ! Where'er you live — for you are spread so wide There is no nationality nor trade. No ocean, lake, or sea or countryside That knows you not — for wanderers were you made ! — Where'er you live, O high-born Libanese, Think well. — Have you not heard — have you not seen: The sighing of wild olive in the wind. The Januaries when the hills are green ^ The stony river beds that pave the rough Deep sweep of valleys where the jackals hide, The dust that sheep with busy little feet Raise thickly on the road and down the street That leads through some mud village where the doors Stand hospitably open, and the sweet Hot fragrance and the oven's pattering din Make passers-by long for the loaves within *? And think again. — Think how the shepherd calls And graceful answers come from all the walls — No stranger he, nor anyone at all. For man is man as such to stand or fall You know, in Lebanon in field or mart Men trust the intuition of the heart. Think — no, not think, but breathe it once again — Breathe the pure air alive with daily news Of Zihri's dinner, Hadda's parching corn, Zareefy's winter store of sun-curled figs 23 Or drying okra; taste the pungent sweet Of bran-filled air that blows in from the wheat Khalil is tossing with his trident prongs, — And oh, give ear and heart and hear the songs — ! The songs of Lebanon are whispering still Eternal unfulfilment, inquiry, Sung by each shepherd to the listening hill And sung by lonely hills to such as thee : Songs every loyal heart remembers still. So sweetly plaintive, souls in quest, they sing In starlight with the crickets in the dark, A living lulling rhythmic music, — Hark ! Fresh from the lips that last drank from the spring Which cold as high Kunaiseh's snowy crown Foams from its rocky cavern and then flows Carrying rugged life and gracious green Along its narrow banks till lost in sand — Fresh from your kinsman's lips may fall that boon Greater in worth than all of Ophir's gold. Ask for a song, a song of old Libnan, And press the reeds into his willing hands And bid him play and hush the room to hear. And in the night however far away You shall grow solemn with your memory. For o'er the wall the mountain boys shall peep. Then bolder grown, shall mock the shepherds' call Soon smothered by the dust-cloud of the sheep ; As by long habit, over the mud wall Will show a wistful face, half veiled in white That gazes steadfastly along the road To where the valley takes it. And you know She faces toward the sunset with the hope That that great hungry West that took her dreams Along with you, may send her back a Man. 24 A man to make the hills at one again, A man too big for prejudice of race, A man to give Libnan her rightful place Among the other mother-lands of men. O Lebanon, Great David's Greater Soul Drew strength to think of God from mountain height, Keep all your children toiling for that goal Exalted through the ages, till the might Of lofty consecration to the God Worshiped e'en blindly where your cedars spread Shall bring your sons back from the foreign soil To grow with you and spend their ardent toil Not only in the fair exchange for gold, But building finer laws and making true The prophecy that Loyalty shall bless. The wilderness shall blossom as the rose, And Lebanon be ruled in nobleness. 25 GLAUCON TO THESBIA POPPIES are red, Skies overhead Blue as a turquoise Sungilded. Fled Are clouds of despair. Smile to me, There! See how that poppy- Shines in your hair Smile, there. Once more! Why do you pore Solemn and sad*? The world lies before! 26 ON THE HEIGHTS. 1915 ROSE and grey and billowing white, , Mists roll in from the sea, Drifting in under sunset light. Shutting the world from our mountain height, And while the hills are lost in shroud We are the kings in a world of cloud. Silently watch while the vanishing sun Withdraws his glory and gold Leaving the cloud heads one by one Till it sinks to rest, and the day is done And, through the fog sea, soft and slow, Rings a sunset bell from the world below. 27 SEA FOG SOUNDLESS surf on a homesick shore, Billows that gather your forces and rise To break without foamy crest or roar Under the moonlit skies, Tenuous inlets and still, white bays That engulf and enshroud the hamlets and trees, Is there a longing that guides your ways. You ghosts of inland seas*? Haunting the hills with your soft embrace Do you, wraith of a sea, make the mountain's dream That the floods of old have returned to their place Once more to plash and gleam ? Silvery mists on abandoned shores Nature, adream at her artistry, Has left the mountains sad no more, With pictured memory. 28 NOLI TANGERE FOLLOW the fleeting vassals of the morn, The rose-winged motes that cluster but to fly- Even as they flame with Sun's resplendent dye — And, gilded, melt to azure airs, whence born Are the sweet winged moments of the thorn : Those woodland prayers no ear nor human eye Could understand. Theirs is such privacy As only rudest, blindest heart would scorn : One dewy hour with petals open thrown To woo the passing breeze and bumbling hum Of furry banded bees that love to own The honey of the thorn-rose ; till they come He treads on sacred ground who early wakes All breathless lest he lose the transient charm And seeks the brier rose amid the brakes Before the weaving gnat with drowsy swarm Rises in answer to the blue fly's horn That starts the day and ends the early morn. 29 TO A WILD ROSE All the blush of the dawn and the sunset's last touch of ,/\. farewell, All the hope of the Spring and a hint of the Summer's bright gold Folded away in your petals of exquisite flame With the spiciest fragrance a flower was given to hold. 30 ODE TO LONELINESS THEY have not known you who berate you so, They have not chosen you as friend to know, Sweet winsome maid that haunts the hilltop crags And gives the distant view a keener thrill, Companion spirit on the wild-rose hill, Why do men paint you as the queen of hags. Fit only to invest yourself in rags. Gifted the soul with fear and dread to fill. Potent to drive to madness and to kill — ^ Such know you not. I seek you where the flags Sway in the cool rush of a mountain spring. I find you smiling ere the sunrise stains The soft grey wings of dawn. Your silence reigns At even when the mists rise from the plains. Vainly men crowd to touch dear Beauty's dress ; Would you know beauty, then know loneliness. 31 ZEST LIFE, thou art for the living ; / Not for scorn God made the bulbul And the whistling thorn ; Not for such dark repining All the play Of light and shadow On a cloudy day. He made the hills for laughter, Not for gloom, — And valleys That the rivers might have room To dance and run And wander into bays. And trees for happy shelter On the ways That lead from home to labor, Then to rest. Life, in thy fullest living Thou art best. 32 HAPPINESS SOME say 'tis common, found where homes are true ; Some call it Youth, and others, silver grey, Call it — "the sunset glow at end of day," — And others look as if they wish they knew. As though in walking through their fields of dew Someone had gone before and dashed away The pearly grapes from every elfin spray ! Tell me, are they who know of her so few ? 33 KING DAVID HIS childhood knew the loneliness of hills, Grey hills that flushed to fire-opal glow, Or softened under vines, grew white with snow, Or laughed in rippled gold of windswept grain, Or roared with avalanche beneath the rain. He knew the valleys where the wild folk go ; He knew the sweet mad loneliness of hills. And mornings with the earliest birdling's strain His heart sought mountain ridges whence the plain Seemed but a patched cloak sewn with silver thread And swiftly, now, his pathway upwards led — Till all about him stalked the giants grey, The guardian rocks that on the hilltops stay. And there he rested him aloof and still And God sent loneliness his heart to fill. 34 SPRING IN NEW YORK CITY FOR sheer sweet beauty Give me trees in Spring ! Then prayer is instinct in the human breast When every twig a dreamer lies at rest Among its infant leaflets that so cling In waxen newness, as the moist new wing Of any butterfly. You guessed that green On yonder boxhedge row, That flush of maple boughs is but a glow — Nay, Spring has worked her miracle again. Made sacred every street or park or lane That has a budding tree, or growing thing ; For sheer sweet beauty, give me trees in Spring. 35 WIND DRIFT AND all about me in the street, a crowd L Of faces hovered, wondering, longingly ; — How like fair, lilting butterflies in cloud Driven by land winds out upon the sea, Seeking to reach the fast receding lee Of some high vessel merchantman, as proud As any galleon with its gleaming shroud Flung to the winds ; those winds that cruelly Toss the sweet golden motes of living light Now up, now down, in headlong ecstasy Till, tired of wing, they long to cease their flight. Shores, masts, are far away, — below, the sea. The wind fails, down they droop. Sweet living light! Lost in the sated ocean's depth of night. 36 BEDOUIN LULLABY THE clouds sleep on the high grey hill, And the sea in silver sleeps ; An eagle soaring high and still Watch in the noon-tide keeps ; The sun forgets that in the West In the West is his journey done. He sleeps aloft in the white hot sky, Sleep too, my restless one. Soon the winds of the afternoon Will sing to the high grey hill. Soon the sea will dance for thee. Then thou shalt run at will ; But all the world must dream and rest While the sun hangs asleep on high, — Wait for the waking wind of the West Then, my little bird, fly. 37 A HILL ARAB MY feet have loved the rough rock road, My hands, my knife so keen ; My heart has loved the far and near And the valleys in between. My brow has loved the fresh wet wind. My lips the kiss of rain ; My eyes have followed the vulture's flight Across and back again. The spices that Sirocco blows From dust and shrub and pine, And the drenching dream of sunlight, fill My brain like thrilling wine ; My black goats dance and I skirl a song On this double reed of mine. 38 SYRIA FLEE from memory. Canst thou*? Leave thy children dreamless. So shall they reap rich fruits — The fruits of gold in foreign soil. Ghost of beauty — haunting us ! Hand stronger than a mother's calling voice, Leave thy children dreamless — Haunt them not with beauty fairer than reality. Mirage ! yet warmer than a beating heart, Dull the sunny haze that hangs over the market place — Still the drowsy chime of camel bells keeping time to the shuffle of camel's feet — Thy children dream : . . . Thy mountains lift winsome pines, each with its treasured dot of shade, And through the olive groves sheep feed slowly, led by a song. It is the song that haunts us. A song keeps thy children dreaming. Above the stranger-city a vision is carried in a song — Syria ! 39 MEMORIES A Hilltop. WIND and sweet-scented sun and golden bushes, Wind that made symphonies in sweeping rushes Through sighing pine and tattling sassafras O'er floes of rock adrift in seas of grass. Dawn. A SPIDER thread held both my hands I was a prisoner, I knew. Yet I was stung to nimbleness By ice-cold pricks of trodden dew. The breeze pulled slyly at my hair, A sunbeam flashed across my eyes — And all at once I was aware That Fairyland around us lies. Beirut — 1917. THE plain is still — Down curve the slumbrous hills ; The fountain brim With langorous music fills The clear soft dark ; The crescent moon distills Her magic light. And it is night. 40 OCTOBER SING not in plaint the changing hour From bud to blossom and to fading flower As though there were no beauties left to sing After the moment of the Spring! The rich dark line of moist boughs gracefully Lifts through the garlands of that loveliness That we call Autumn ; for each Summer tree Before she tosses off the leafy dress That would be cumbrous in her winter sleep, When snows must wrap her in their clinging white While she prepares the ever new delight Of next year's Spring; — each leafy Summer tree, Not thinking Spring were all, but Life is all. Makes merry her farewell to laughing play And will not toss her fol-de-rols away Without this last display — Even the most gaunt casts clouds of opal glow About her, and the age-old dignity Of change lends quiet to the waiting air. Oh, winds be still, lest one flake of the fair Rose-petaled, prodigal gold and opal dream Fall from that Maple bending to the stream, Anew the heart is caught in sweet dismay Lest such exquisiteness be swept away. 41 WIND FLOWERS WE are old as the mountains, Our race is undying, By road or field furrow our colors are set — But, young as the sunset glow Fleeting and flying Our petals ephemeral none may forget. When the snowdrop hangs sweetly Contented and lone And the hyacinth blue gives her fragrance for naught, Anemones people the hills as their own And flaunt with narcissus a beauty unsought. Men take us and break us ; One moment they cherish Our fragile wild beauty of fragrance and form; But rather than uselessly sicken and perish. Plucked up — to be tossed away — Give us the Storm. The Storm is our brother The breath of the spaces The soul of all motion unfettered and lone, And we are incarnate of colors and graces, The essence of dreamings of wind-weathered stone. See, all through the time of our budding and blowing The wind murmurs softly and musingly low, He speeds with his zephyrs the bees in their going And reverent breathes o'er our fragrance, till Lo: — He sees we are fainting, we are not immortal And rather than witness us sicken and fall. Wide open he flings every azure-bound portal And turbulent thunder-clouds answer his call. 42 They trample us down and they bury us under With march of the heavy rain, steady and grey, They strive to make Earth, with their drumming and thunder, Forget that she once lived so laughing and gay. But we die for the space of a moment of sleeping. Quiescent we thrive on the storm-driven rain. We gather our strength till its bounds are past keeping And soon all the Earth is a-flower again. We are old as the mountains. Our race is undying, By road or field furrow our colors are set — But, young as the sunset glow Fleeting and flying. Our petals ephemeral none may forget. 43 THE ANSWER SEEK not for Poetry ! 'Tis but a flash of light Through petals shining, 'Tis but a thing of spirit Past divining. Seek not to find her soul. Be great. Since first man thrilled To all the God in Nature, God has willed That only with much labor shall men see The Vision that He guardeth jealously, Hiding His treasures with the surest hand Where men look daily. Yet may never understand. 44 FOR A FAIR LADY'S BURIAL SHROUDED in pearly beauty, Flushed as a rose, new blown, Keep her, forever perfect. Locked in the living stone. So, with the eyes of my spirit. Till earth draws its last long breath, As I saw her lovely in sleeping May I think of her, lovely in death. 45 SCOTCH BROOM As though burnt out and faded, the hot sky ^ Curves high and ever whiter, whiter hot To where the sun, at his most cruel noon. One glowing heart of fire, blazing burns. And all the world that has no tree or rock To shade it o'er is still and parched and dry ; But near me bends an oak to frame the sky With dark and prickly shade, and near its root Spread up and out long fingers green and cool All gemmed with gold. Sweet, fragrant yellow flowers Your brightness has no heat, no blighting powers. But purest color mixed with fragrance rare Lends balm to hills more feverish than fair. 46 THANKSGIVING DAY OUR lips give thanks for senses gratified, For all our wants that labor hath supplied Aided by Thine increasing bounteousness, Yet in our hearts there moves a vague distress ; Distress of soul that cries out to believe, That yearns for faith and finding none, doth grieve ; That finding none will not believe naught found, So, like a caged bird pursues its round. God, in our unbelief for Thee we seek, And in unworthy hearts we pray Thee speak. 47 THERE IS NO TIME GIVE to the winds your sighing, They will take it and whirl it away ; Give to the gulls your crying As afar they go flying, flying — , On pinions of silver grey. Give to the foam your drifting. The drifting of aimless despair ; Hark to the song uplifting, As down from the sky come sifting The snow-flakes on Christmas air. Work, till your hearts firm founded, Wakened from blinding sleep, Trust in a Love unbounded. Peace that has all surrounded, There is no time to weep. 48 MY THOUGHTS WESTWARD they fly, Soft breezes blow the birds across the sky And fleets and archipelagoes of cloud Drift on the outspread wings of soaring wind ; Trees stretching tingling fingers wide and high Make clear-cut shapes of lacelike tracery, Each one a masterpiece worked by the blind But deftly moving fingers of the Spring, That magically weaves old Winter's shroud Into a robe of loveliness, to cling About the hills and down the vales to lie. Westward they fly. Following fast the golden shreds that sun Has painted with the purest tints of fire. 'Tis Easter evening, calm the rivers run Down the broad valley. From a pointed spire Rings a slow bell. From every marsh and pool Sing scores of tiny voices, eager, high ; The springtime chorus; frogland's singing school Is with whole-hearted joy taking the cool And sedgy shallow for its evening choir. And darkly rise the pines, and blue the hills ; The West grows greyer, edged with points of light, One tiny bird its evening songlet trills. The grass is dainty with its "bluets" white. The sun's bright fire is lost in vaporous grey. The islands of the sky like dreamlands lie, — My thoughts go with the sun where it is day. Westward, to where the West is East, they fly. 49 THE BEECH TREE VALLEY THERE is a valley, very calm and still, And, when you listen, musically low. The rippling chuckling laughter of the rill Lost down there, makes the breezes lighter as they blow. All through the valley breathes a wild woods spell Wafted and woven in among the trees, Who stand like children with a dream to tell — Tip-toe and eager — catching for the breeze That lightly through the valley sighs and plays And moves the mist of twigs and branches so That to the eyes it seems to weave a maze Of wintry loveliness and sunset glow. Grey beeches in the Valley of the Dreams, A little mountain brooklet lost to sight And singing to itself, almost it seems God took the simplest things of earth to-night And made Himself the purest song of praise That ever can be sung through all this old world's ways. 50