Читать книгу: «Songs Ysame», страница 3

Echoes From Erin

 
ACROSS old Purple Mountain I hear a bugle call,
And down the rocks, like water, the echoes leap and fall.
One note alone can startle the voices of the peaks,
And waken songs of Erin, whene'er the bugle speaks.
They call and call and call,
Until the voices all
Ring down the dusky hollows and in the distance fall.
 
 
Methinks, like Purple Mountain, the past will sometimes rise,
And memory's call awaken its echoing replies.
Within the tower of Shandon again the bells will sway,
And follow, with their ringing, the Lee upon its way,
And chime and chime and chime,
Where ivy tendrils climb,
Till bells and river mingle to sound the silvery rhyme.
 
 
Again the daisied grasses beside the castle walls
Will stir with softest sighing, to hear the wind's footfalls;
And through the moss-grown abbey, along Killarney's shore,
The melodies of Erin will echo evermore,
And roll and roll and roll,
Till spirit hands shall toll
The music of the uplands unto the listening soul.
 

Killarney, Ireland.

An Alpine Valley

 
OH, happy valley at the mountain's feet,
If half your happiness you could but know!
Though over you a shadow always falls,
And far above you rise those heights of snow,
So far, your yearning love you may not speak
With rosy flush like some high sister peak,
Yet you may clasp its feet in fond embrace,
And gaze up in its face.
 
 
And sometimes down its slopes a wind will come
And bring a sudden, noiseless sweep of snow,
Like a soft greeting from those summits sent
To comfort you below.
 
 
What more? Love may not ask too great a boon.
Enough to be so near, though cast so low.
Think that a sea had rolled between you twain
If careless fortune had decreed it so,
And you could only lie and look across
To distant cloudy heights and know your loss,
And see some favored valley, fair and sweet,
Heap flowers at its feet.
 

Cham, Switzerland.

Through an Amber Pane

 
BY some strange alchemy that turns to gold
The light that drops from gray and leaden skies,
Though heavy mists the outer world enfold,
'Tis always sunshine where Napoleon lies.
No more an exile by an alien sea,
Forgetful of the banishment and bane;
Now lies he there, in kingly dignity,
His tomb a Mecca shrine beside the Seine.
And there the pilgrim hears the story told,
How Paris placed above her hero, dead,
A window that should turn to yellow gold
The light that on his resting place is shed.
So on him falls, though summers wane,
The sunshine of that amber pane.
 
 
By some strange miracle, maybe divine,
The sunlight falls upon the buried past
And turns its water into sparkling wine,
And gilds the coin its coffers have amassed.
Could it have been those long-lost halcyon days
Trailed not a cloud across our April sky?
Faltered we not along those untried ways?
Grew we not weary as the days went by?
Ah, yes! But unreturning feet forget
Rough places trodden in the long ago,
Rememb'ring only paths with flowers beset,
While pressing onward, wearily and slow.
For Memory's windows but retain
The sunshine of an amber pane.
 
 
The little white, wind-blown anemone
By one round dewdrop may be fully filled,
And by some light-winged, passing honey-bee
Its cup of crystal water may be spilled.
So does the child heart hold its happiness:
A drop will fill it to its rosy rim.
It is not that these later days bring less,
That joy so rarely rises to the brim;
It is because the heart has deeper grown.
A fuller knowledge must its thirst assuage.
Perhaps we would not deem those pleasures flown
As bright as those which star the present age,
Had not upon them long years lain
The sunshine of an amber pane.
 
 
The dust of dim forgetfulness piles fast
Upon the chains that thralled us yesterday.
So will it be when this day, too, is past,
And in its arms we've seen it bear away
The cares that brooded in the tired brain;
The work that weighted down the weary hand;
The high hopes that we struggled to attain;
The problems that we could not understand.
Washed of its stain, bereft of any sting,
Seen through the window of the Memory,
Perchance, a gentler grace to it may cling
Than we may now think possible to see.
For skies will gleam, though gray with rain,
Like sunshine through that amber pane.
 
 
We may not stand on Patmos, and look through
The star-hinged portals where the great pearls gleam.
No brush that unveiled beauty ever drew,
Save one, that caught its shadow in a dream.
So lest we falter, faithless and afraid,
The Merciful, remembering we are dust,
Reveals not heaven for which our hearts have prayed,
But by a token teaches us to trust;
And day by day allows us to look through
The window of the Memory, broad and vast,
(Till jasper minarets rise into view)
Upon the happy heaven of the past;
And gives, till purer light we gain,
The sunshine of that amber pane.
 

At a Tenement Window

 
SOMETIMES my needle stops with half-drawn thread
(Not often though, each moment's waste means bread,
And missing stitches leave the little mouths unfed).
I look down on the dingy court below:
A tuft of grass is all it has to show, —
A broken pump, where thirsty children go.
Above, there shines a bit of sky, so small
That it might be a passing blue-bird's wing.
One tree leans up against the high brick wall,
And there the sparrows twitter of the spring,
Until they waken in my heart a cry
Of hunger, that no bread can satisfy.
 
 
Always before, when Maytime took her way
Across the fields, I followed close. To-day
I can but dream of all her bright array.
My work drops down. Across the sill I lean,
And long with bitter longing, for unseen
Rain-freshened paths, where budding woods grow green.
The water trickles from the pump below
Upon the stones. With eyes half shut, I hear
It falling in a pool where rushes grow,
And feel a cooling presence drawing near.
And now the sparrows chirp again. No, hark! —
A singing as of some far meadow lark.
 
 
It is the same old miracle applied
Unto myself, that on the mountain-side
The few small loaves and fishes multiplied.
Behold, how strange and sweet the mystery!
The birds, the broken pump, the gnarled tree,
Have brought the fullness of the spring to me.
For in the leaves that rustle by the wall
All forests find a tongue. And so that grass
Can, with its struggling tuft of green, recall
Wide, bloom-filled meadows where the cattle pass.
How it can be, but dimly I divine.
These crumbs, God given, make the whole loaf mine.
 

A Song

"Home-keeping hearts are happiest." – Longfellow.

 
THERE will be distant journeyings enough
To reach that Land beyond the ether's sea,
To satisfy the veriest roaming heart, —
Let me stay home with thee!
 
 
There will be new companionships enough
In that bright spirit-life. Why should we flee
So soon to alien hearts and stranger scenes?
I would stay home with thee.
 
 
The heart grows homesick, thinking of the change
When these familiar things no more shall be;
When e'en the thought of them, perchance, shall fade, —
Let me stay home with thee.
 
 
I would imprint upon my mind each scene,
Each meadow path, and stream, and orchard-tree,
Beloved since childhood, holy with our hopes,
Sweet with the thoughts of thee.
 
 
And each dear household place, let me learn all
By heart, where I am wont thy form to see.
Who knows what things shall pass? If I may share
A hearth in heaven with thee?