Tears

WHEN I consider Life and its few years--

A wisp of fog betwixt us and the sun;

A call to battle, and the battle done

Ere the last echo dies within our ears;

A rose choked in the grass; an hour of fears;

The gusts that past a darkening shore do beat;

The burst of music down an unlistening street,--

I wonder at the idleness of tears.

Ye old, old dead, and ye of yesternight,

Chieftains, and bards, and keepers of the sheep,

By every cup of sorrow that you had,

Loose me from tears, and make me see aright

How each hath back what once he stayed to weep:

Homer his sight, David his little lad!

Lizette Woodworth Reese

Spicewood

THE spicewood burns along the gray, spent sky,

In moist unchimneyed places, in a wind,

That whips it all before, and all behind,

Into one thick, rude flame, now low, now high,

It is the first, the homeliest thing of all--

At sight of it, that lad that by it fares,

Whistles afresh his foolish, town-caught airs--

A thing so honey-colored, and so tall!

It is as though the young Year, ere he pass,

To the white riot of the cherry tree,

Would fain accustom us, or here, or there,

To his new sudden ways with bough and grass,

So starts with what is humble, plain to see,

And all familiar as a cup, a chair.

Lizette Woodworth Reese

A Flower of Mullein

I AM too near, too clear a thing for you,

A flower of mullein in a crack of wall,

The villagers half see, or not at all;

Part of the weather, like the wind or dew.

You love to pluck the different, and find

Stuff for your joy in cloudy loveliness;

You love to fumble at a door, and guess

At some strange happening that may wait behind.

Yet life is full of tricks, and it is plain,

That men drift back to some worn field or roof,

To grip at comfort in a room, a stair;

To warm themselves at some flower down a lane:

You, too, may long, grown tired of the aloof,

For the sweet surety of the common air.

Lizette Woodworth Reese

Herbs

A SERVICEABLE thing

Is fennel, mint, or balm,

Kept in the thrifty calm

Of hollows, in the spring;

Or by old houses pent.

Dear is its ancient scent

To folk that love the days forgot,

Nor think that God is not.

Sage, lavender, and rue,

For body's hurt and ill,

For fever and for chill;

Rosemary, strange with dew,

For sorrow and its smart,

For breaking of the heart.

Yet pain, dearth, tears, all come to dust,

As even the herbs must.

Life-everlasting, too,

Windless, poignant, and sere,

That blows in the old year,

Townsmen, for me and you.

Why fret for wafting airs?

Why haste to sell our wares?

Captains and clerks, this shall befall;

This is the end of all.

Oh, this the end indeed!

Oh, unforgotten things,

Gone out of all the springs;

The quest, the dream, the creed!

Gone out of all the lands,

And yet safe in God's hands; --

For shall the dull herbs live again,

And not the sons of men?

Lizette Woodworth Reese

Lydia is gone this many a year

LYDIA is gone this many a year,

Yet when the lilacs stir,

In the old gardens far or near,

The house is full of her.

They climb the twisted chamber stair;

Her picture haunts the room;

On the carved shelf beneath it there,

They heap the purple bloom.

A ghost so long has Lydia been,

Her cloak upon the wall,

Broidered, and gilt, and faded green,

Seems not her cloak at all.

The book, the box on mantel laid,

The shells in a pale row,

Are those of some dim little maid,

A thousand years ago.

And yet the house is full of her;

She goes and comes again;

And longings thrill, and memories stir,

Like lilacs in the rain.

Out in their yards the neighbors walk,

Among the blossoms tall;

Of Anne, of Phyllis, do they talk,

Of Lydia not at all.

Lizette Woodworth Reese

Writ in a Book of Welsh Verse

THIS is the house where I was bred:

The wind blows through it without stint,

The wind bitten by the roadside mint;

Here brake I loaf, here climbed to bed.

The fuchsia on the window sill;

Even the candlesticks a-row,

Wrought by grave men so long ago --

I loved them once, I love them still.

Southward and westward a great sky! --

The throb of sea within mine ear --

Then something different, more near,

As though a wistful foot went by.

Ghost of a ghost down all the years! --

In low-roofed room, at turn of stair,

At table-setting, and at prayer,

Old wars, old hungers, and old tears!

Lizette Woodworth Reese

Oh, gray and tender is the rain

OH, gray and tender is the rain,

That drips, drips on the pane!

A hundred things come in the door,

The scent of herbs, the thought of yore.

I see the pool out in the grass,

A bit of broken glass;

The red flags running wet and straight,

Down to the little flapping gate.

Lombardy poplars tall and three,

Across the road I see;

There is no loveliness so plain

As a tall poplar in the rain.

But oh, the hundred things and more,

That come in at the door! --

The smack of mint, old joy, old pain,

Caught in the gray and tender rain.

Lizette Woodworth Reese

After

OH, the littles that remain!

Scent of mint out in the lane;

Flare of window; sound of bees; --

These, but these.

Three times sitting down to bread;

One time climbing up to bed;

Table-setting o'er and o'er;

Drying herbs for winter's store;

This thing; that thing; -- nothing more.

But just now out in the lane,

Oh, the scent of mint was plain!

Lizette Woodworth Reese

A Little Song of Life

GLAD that I live am I;

That the sky is blue;

Glad for the country lanes,

And the fall of dew.

After the sun the rain;

After the rain the sun;

This is the way of life,

Till the work be done.

All that we need to do,

Be we low or high,

Is to see that we grow

Nearer the sky.

Lizette Woodworth Reese

The Deserted House

To the sweet memory of Sidney Lanier

THE old house stands deserted, gray,

With sharpened gables high in air,

And deep-set lattices, all gay

With massive arch and framework rare;

And o'er it is a silence laid,

That feeling, one grows sore afraid.

The eaves are dark with heavy vines;

The steep roof wears a coat of moss;

The walls are touched with dim designs

Of shadows moving slow across;

The balconies are damp with weeds,

Lifting as close as streamside reeds.

The garden is a loved retreat

Of melancholy flowers, of lone

And wild-mouthed herbs, in companies sweet,

'Mid desolate green grasses thrown;

And in its gaps the hoar stone wall

Lets sprays of tangled ivy fall.

The pebbled paths drag, here and there,

Old lichened faces, overspun

With silver spider-threads --they wear

A silence sad to look upon:

It is so long since happy feet

Made them to thrill with pressure sweet.

'Mid drear but fragrant shrubs there stands

A saint of old made mute in stone,

With tender eyes and yearning hands,

And mouth formed in a sorrow lone;

'Tis thick with dust, as long ago

'Twas thick with fairest blooms that grow.

Swallows are whirring here and there;

And oft a little soft wind blows

A hundred odors down the air;

The bees hum 'round the red, last rose;

And ceaselessly the crickets shrill

Their tunes, and yet, it seems so still.

Or else, from out the distance steals,

Half heard, the tramp of horses, or

The bleak and harsh stir of slow wheels

Bound cityward; but more and more,

As these are hushed, or yet increase,

About the old house clings its peace.

Lizette Woodworth Reese

A Song for Candlemas

THERE'S never a rose upon the bush,

And never a bud on any tree;

In wood and field nor hint nor sign

Of one green thing for you or me.

Come in, come in, sweet love of mine,

And let the bitter weather be!

Coated with ice the garden wall;

The river reeds are stark and still;

The wind goes plunging to the sea,

And last week's flakes the hollows fill.

Come in, come in, sweet love, to me,

And let the year blow as it will!

Lizette Woodworth Reese

A Haunting Memory

WILD rockets blew along the lane;

The tall white gentians too were there;

The mullein stalks were brave again;

Of blossoms was the bramble bare;

And toward the pasture bars below

The cows went by me, tinkling slow.

Straight through the sunset flew a thrush,

And sang the only song he knew,

Perched on a ripening elder bush;

(Oh, but to give his song its due!)

Sang it, and ceased, and left it there

To haunt bush, blade, and golden air.

Oh, but to make it plain to you!

My words were wrought for grosser stuff;

To give that lonely tune its due,

Never a word is sweet enough;

A thing to think on when 'twas past,

As is the first rose or the last.

The lad, driving his cows along,

Strode whistling through the windy grass;

The little pool the shrubs among

Lay like a bit of yellow glass;

A window in the farmhouse old,

Turned westward, was of glaring gold.

I have forgotten days and days,

And much well worth the holding fast;

Yet not the look of those green ways,

The bramble with its bloom long past,

The tinkling cows, the scent, the hush--

Still on the eider sings that thrush.

Lizette Woodworth Reese