Poems by William Dean Howells Part 10

V.

Somewhere in the graveyard that I know, Where the strawberries under the chestnuts grow,

They have laid him; and his sisters set On his grave the flowers their tears have wet;

And above his grave, while I write, the song Of the matin robin leaps sweet and strong

From the leafy dark of the chestnut-tree; And many a murmuring honey-bee

On the strawberry blossoms in the gra.s.s Stoops by his grave and will not pa.s.s;

And in the little hollow beneath The slope of the silent field of death,

The cow-bells tinkle soft and sweet, And the cattle go by with homeward feet,

And the squirrel barks from the sheltering limb, At the harmless noises not meant for him;

And Nature, unto her loving heart Has taken our darling's mortal part,

Tenderly, that he may be, Like the song of the robin in the tree,

The blossoms, the gra.s.s, the reeds by the sh.o.r.e, A part of Summer evermore.

VI.

I write, and the words with my tears are wet,-- But I forget, O, I forget!

Teach me, Thou that sendest this pain, To know and feel my loss and gain!

Let me not falter in belief On his death, for that is sorest grief:

O, lift me above this wearing strife, Till I discern his deathless life,

s.h.i.+ning beyond this misty sh.o.r.e, A part of Heaven evermore.

Venice, Wednesday Morning, at Dawn, May 16, 1864.

THANKSGIVING.

I.

Lord, for the erring thought Not into evil wrought: Lord, for the wicked will Betrayed and baffled still: For the heart from itself kept, Our thanksgiving accept.

II.

For ignorant hopes that were Broken to our blind prayer: For pain, death, sorrow, sent Unto our chastis.e.m.e.nt: For all loss of seeming good, Quicken our grat.i.tude.

A SPRINGTIME.

One knows the spring is coming: There are birds; the fields are green; There is balm in the sunlight and moonlight, And dew in the twilights between.

But over there is a silence, A rapture great and dumb, That day when the doubt is ended, And at last the spring is come.

Behold the wonder, O silence!

Strange as if wrought in a night,-- The waited and lingering glory, The world-old, fresh delight!

O blossoms that hang like winter, Drifted upon the trees, O birds that sing in the blossoms, O blossom-haunting bees,--

O green, green leaves on the branches, O shadowy dark below, O cool of the aisles of orchards, Woods that the wild flowers know,--

O air of gold and perfume, Wind, breathing sweet and sun, O sky of perfect azure-- Day, Heaven and Earth in one!--

Let me draw near thy secret, And in thy deep heart see How fared, in doubt and dreaming, The spring that is come in me.

For my soul is held in silence, A rapture, great and dumb,-- For the mystery that lingered, The glory that is come!

1861.

IN EARLIEST SPRING.

Tossing his mane of snows in wildest eddies and tangles, Lion-like, March cometh in, hoa.r.s.e, with tempestuous breath, Through all the moaning chimneys, and thwart all the hollows and angles Round the shuddering house, threating of winter and death.

But in my heart I feel the life of the wood and the meadow Thrilling the pulses that own kindred with fibres that lift Bud and blade to the sunward, within the inscrutable shadow, Deep in the oak's chill core, under the gathering drift.

Nay, to earth's life in mine some prescience, or dream, or desire (How shall I name it aright?) comes for a moment and goes,-- Rapture of life ineffable, perfect,--as if in the brier, Leafless there by my door, trembled a sense of the rose.

THE BOBOLINKS ARE SINGING.

Out of its fragrant heart of bloom,-- The bobolinks are singing!

Out of its fragrant heart of bloom The apple-tree whispers to the room, "Why art thou but a nest of gloom, While the bobolinks are singing?"

The two wan ghosts of the chamber there,-- The bobolinks are singing!