Songs from Vagabondia Part 2

Till recurring and recurring, Long since wandered and come back, Like a whim of Grieg's or Gounod's, This same self, bird, bud, or Bluenose, Some day I may capture (Who knows?) Just the one last joy I lack, Waking to the far new summons, When the old spring winds come back.

For I have no choice of being, When the sap begins to climb,-- Strong insistence, sweet intrusion, Vasts and verges of illusion,-- So I win, to time's confusion, The one perfect pearl of time, Joy and joy and joy forever, Till the sap forgets to climb!

Make me over in the morning From the rag-bag of the world!

Sc.r.a.ps of dream and duds of daring, Home-brought stuff from far sea-faring, Faded colors once so flaring, Shreds of banners long since furled!

Hues of ash and glints of glory, In the rag-bag of the world!

Let me taste the old immortal Indolence of life once more; Not recalling nor foreseeing, Let the great slow joys of being Well my heart through as of yore!

Let me taste the old immortal Indolence of life once more!

Give me the old drink for rapture, The delirium to drain, All my fellows drank in plenty At the Three Score Inns and Twenty From the mountains to the main!

Give me the old drink for rapture, The delirium to drain!

Only make me over, April, When the sap begins to stir!

Make me man or make me woman, Make me oaf or ape or human, Cup of flower or cone of fir; Make me anything but neuter When the sap begins to stir!

THE FAUN. A FRAGMENT.

I will go out to gra.s.s with that old King, For I am weary of clothes and cooks.

I long to lie along the banks of brooks, And watch the boughs above me sway and swing.

Come, I will pluck off custom's livery, Nor longer be a lackey to old Time.

Time shall serve me, and at my feet shall fling The spoil of listless minutes. I shall climb The wild trees for my food, and run Through dale and upland as a fox runs free, Laugh for cool joy and sleep i' the warm sun, And men will call me mad, like that old King.

For I am woodland-natured, and have made Dryads my bedfellows, And I have played With the sleek Naiads in the splash of pools And made a mock of gowned and trousered fools.

Helen, none knows Better than thou how like a Faun I strayed.

And I am half Faun now, and my heart goes Out to the forest and the crack of twigs, The drip of wet leaves and the low soft laughter Of brooks that chuckle o'er old mossy jests And say them over to themselves, the nests Of squirrels and the holes the chipmunk digs, Where through the branches the slant rays Dapple with sunlight the leaf-matted ground, And the wind comes with blown vesture rustling after, And through the woven lattice of crisp sound A bird's song lightens like a maiden's face.

O wildwood Helen, let them strive and fret, Those goggled men with their dissecting-knives!

Let them in charnel-houses pa.s.s their lives And seek in death life's secret! And let Those hard-faced worldlings prematurely old Gnaw their thin lips with vain desire to get Portia's fair fame or Lesbia's carcanet, Or crown of Caesar or Catullus, Apicius' lampreys or Cra.s.sus' gold!

For these consider many things--but yet By land nor sea They shall not find the way to Arcady, The old home of the awful heart-dear Mother, Whereto child-dreams and long rememberings lull us, Far from the cares that overlay and smother The memories of old woodland out-door mirth In the dim first life-burst centuries ago, The sense of the freedom and nearness of Earth-- Nay, this they shall not know; For who goes thither, Leaves all the cark and clutch of his soul behind, The doves defiled and the serpents shrined, The hates that wax and the hopes that wither; Nor does he journey, seeking where it be, But wakes and finds himself in Arcady.

Hist! there's a stir in the brush.

Was it a face through the leaves?

Back of the laurels a skurry and rush Hillward, then silence except for the thrush That throws one song from the dark of the bush And is gone; and I plunge in the wood, and the swift soul cleaves Through the swirl and the flow of the leaves, As a swimmer stands with his white limbs bare to the sun For the s.p.a.ce that a breath is held, and drops in the sea; And the undulant woodland folds round me, intimate, fluctuant, free, Like the clasp and the cling of waters, and the reach and the effort is done,-- There is only the glory of living, exultant to be.

O goodly damp smell of the ground!

O rough sweet bark of the trees!

O clear sharp cracklings of sound!

O life that's a-thrill and a-bound With the vigor of boyhood and morning, and the noontide's rapture of ease!

Was there ever a weary heart in the world?

A lag in the body's urge or a flag of the spirit's wings?

Did a man's heart ever break For a lost hope's sake?

For here there is lilt in the quiet and calm in the quiver of things.

Ay, this old oak, gray-grown and knurled, Solemn and st.u.r.dy and big, Is as young of heart, as alert and elate in his rest, As the nuthatch there that clings to the tip of the twig And scolds at the wind that it buffets too rudely its nest.

Oh, what is it breathes in the air?

Oh, what is it touches my cheek?

There's a sense of a presence that lurks in the branches.

But where?

Is it far, is it far to seek?

A ROVER'S SONG.

Snowdrift of the mountains, Spindrift of the sea, We who down the border Rove from gloom to glee,--

Snowdrift of the mountains, Spindrift of the sea, There be no such gypsies Over earth as we.

Snowdrift of the mountains, Spindrift of the sea, Let us part the treasure Of the world in three.

Snowdrift of the mountains, Spindrift of the sea, You shall keep your kingdoms; Joscelyn for me!

DOWN THE SONGO.

I.

Floating!

Floating--and all the stillness waits And listens at the ivory gates, Full of a dim uncertain presage Of some strange, undelivered message.

There is no sound save from the bush The alto of the shy wood-thrush, And ever and anon the dip Of a lazy oar.

The rhythmic drowsiness keeps time To hazy subtleties of rhyme That seem to slip Through the lulled soul to seek the sleepy sh.o.r.e.

The idle clouds go floating by; Above us sky, beneath us sky; The sun s.h.i.+nes on us as we lie Floating.

It is a dream.

It is a dream, my love; see how The ripples quiver at the prow, And all the long reflections shake Unsteadily beneath the lake.

The mists about the uplands show Dim violet towers that come and go.

Phantasmagoric palaces Rise trembling there, As though one breath of waking weather Would crash their airy walls together With sudden stress, While silent detonations shook the air-- Vast fabrics toppling to the ground And vanis.h.i.+ng without a sound.

Ah, love, these are not what we deem; It is a dream.

II.

Let us dream on, then,----dream and die Ere the dream pa.s.s.

Let us for once, like idle flowers, Let slip the unregarded hours, Like the wise flowers that lie Unfretted by a feeble thought, Future and past alike forgot, Drinking the dew contentedly In the cool gra.s.s.