Poems of Philip Henry Savage / Philip Henry Savage [electronic text]

SHORTER POEMS

I-XXVIII

I

'T IS grace to sing to nature, and to pray The God of nature, out of His large heart, To grant us knowledge of His human way; This is the whole of nature and of art.

II

EVEN in the city, I Am ever conscious of the sky; A portion of its frame no less Than in the open wilderness. The stars are in my heart by night; I sing beneath the opening light, As envious of the bird; I live Upon the pavement, yet I give My soul to every growing tree That in the narrow ways I see. My heart is in the blade of grass Within the courtyard where I pass; And the small, half-discovered cloud Compels me till I cry aloud. I am the wind that beats the walls And wanders trembling till it falls; The snow, the summer rain am I, In close communion with the sky.

III

WHEN I look on Ossipee Not the hill alone I see; Not the hill I see to-day Fair and large and distant gray, But a mountain richly bright, Shining with eternal light. Fashioned in a fearful past, Born to be while life shall last, Yet I fear thee not, but know Thou shalt ever with me go. I shall see thee, I shall find The vision ever in the mind, Given to me one happy hour And received by me in power; I shall never know the day When thy touch has passed away; For thy spirit, Ossipee, Has become a part of me.

IV

UPON a pasture hill a pine-tree stands And in the air holds up its slender hands; A double sheep-track turns beneath the tree, Dips to the firs, and seeks the meadow lands.

The sun is setting; slowly, one by one, Faint breaths of wind along the branches run; The quiet of the hills is on the air And on the earth beneath a quiet sun.

In contrast with the sky a gray stone wall Is black beneath the orange light; and all The earth is black; never so black the earth As underneath a sunset sky in fall.

The pine-tree's plumy branches make a net And hold the light of heaven; and nearer yet, Cold in the unfeatured blackness of the ground, Up-springs a ray from some hid rivulet,

Deep in the pasture hummocks at my feet; I hear its icy ripple, low and sweet; No other sound; but in the air, unheard, I hear the pulse of winter coldly beat.

V

WHAT know I of the fields of fall, The autumn days beyond the town? I do not hear the harvest-call, I do not see the pastures brown;

The upland sloping to the down, With corn-shocks leaning on the wall; And golden ground-fruit shining through it all.

They tell me of the violet Upon the hill, bare at the crest; Of the autumnal primrose set Deep where the banks protect it best; Of summer fallow fields now drest In green; of meadows deep and wet; Ah! I have seen and I shall not forget!

Where stubble-fields give way to fern In meadows where the water lies, I 've seen the sharp-flamed sumac burn And flash its fires before my eyes. Faint pictures of the river rise With blowing mist beyond the turn; Of lean November forests bare and stern.

I once have seen; and all the kind Stood round me in that happy year; In one bright impulse of the mind I was the centre of the sphere; The spring and summer centred here On autumn; winter stood behind And beckoned, whispering in the smoky wind.

VI

THE sea is silent round this rocky shore; The forest wind From the loud level beach behind Brings rolling up the distant water's roar.

Silent the wheeling sea-gull in the air, Without a cry; Far off beneath the bending sky A silent ship goes down the ocean stair.

The sea is blue, the sky is white with cloud, The land is white; The seaward rocks are shining bright, Enwrapped in a white, salt, and icy shroud.

The weeds and bushes bare above the snow, Against the sun Hold up brave stems, and many a one Has February bits of bud to show.

Where roses grew in one wild garden-close I pulled away A pair of rose-hips for to-day; Memorial to the mistress of the rose.

VII

WHEN February sun shines cold There comes a day when in the air The wings of winter slow unfold And show the golden summer there.

Dead ivy on the winter wall Is glowing with an April light; And all the wreckage of the fall Above the snow comes into sight.

By a green rock beneath the pines Are shadows blue along the snow. Above the silent sun the lines Of cloud in white procession go.

A bloom is on the forest tops Of red light bursting through the brown. The ice awakes, and silver drops Come through the meadow stealing down.

The sky is hushed; beneath the trees Where silentness and night have birth, I heard the sunset whisper, Peace! Peace, Peace! the gods are on the earth.

VIII

STILL, in the meadow by the brook I lay And felt the April creep along my streams, Subdue my currents to herself and play At hide-and-seek with winter in my dreams.

Rich in the summer day the time is rife With all an eager fancy will contrive; But April welcomes each new shock of life The sluggard winter from the heart to drive.

Thus did I tremble at the passing bird, Leaped in the sun and with the breezes ran, My heart a brook, and all my life a word To tell how near to nature is a man.

IX

IN the first pale flush of even When the sun is hardly down, Ere the stars are in the heaven, Ere the shadows turn to brown;

When the eastern sky is darkened And the zenith still is blue,

I have stood and dimly hearkened To the falling of the dew.

I have stood within the hollow By low, rolling hummocks made, Close beside a sloping fallow In the bottom of a glade,

While the west was slowly dying; And the dark east followed fast, Swarming over, swiftly flying Till the world was overcast,

Downward, past the dim horizon Till the valley filled with night, And the cool earth-whisper rising, Filled me with a wild delight!

Let the day go by to even. Hark! the distant vespers' toll. When the sun is set in heaven It is sunrise in the soul.

X

WHEN evening comes and shadows gray Steal out across the glimmering bay And tremble in the air between;

When evening comes and shadows green Are shaken down across the moor From willow-trees along the shore;

When evening stoops across the hill Towards the sunset glowing still And fills the hollow glens with shade;

When evening gathers in the glade; And all the little beasts now run That erst were hidden from the sun;

Then do I hear the footsteps fall That bitter day hears not at all; Then is the sunset like a door That leads me on to more and more, Till in the quietness of night I find a freedom and a light Eternal such as nowhere glows From any sun that ever rose.

XI

WITH all the soul within me and suppressed Before the sunset, heard I, and confessed, A breath of God from out the whispered hand Held o'er the lips of the great speaking west.

Heard it, and all the soul within me burned! Heard it, and wondered at the secret learned; And all the busy accidents of life O'erwhelmed it then; it never has returned.

Thus once the doors of heaven wide open stand; The voice is heard, of promise or command; Is seen the gleam; and then the portals close And nature grows again upon the land.

XII

I LOVE to walk against the yellow light, The lemon-yellow of the first daylight, When cold and clear above the frozen earth The white sun rises far down to the right.

And then to think of life is very sweet; The shackles fall and drop about one's feet; Till in the clear forgetfulness of morn It seems the world and life are all complete.

'T is good to be forgotten and forget; To look upon the sun and so beget A golden present, and a past that's free, A little time, of memory and regret.

And when one strikes and stumbles on a stone, And turns to find the wingèd fancies flown — Yet through the passages of life that day Will run a radiance other than its own.

XIII

THE flash of sunlight from a bit of glass Has often power to stop me as I pass; And when I turn into the burning west I fling me down upon the sunny grass,

Silent. I tell not all the little things That fly to me and give my spirit wings; The black-eyed bird, the cloud, the silver leaf, The valley wind that passes as it sings.

And when the sun descending from the height, Seeks in the sunken west the bath of night, Wrapped in the darkling mantle of the sky I wander forth and seek a new delight.

XIV

THE influences of air and sky Are side lights from the eternal throne That fall upon the watchful eye Of him who silent waits, alone, And crown him master of his own. He knows the beauty of the rose; The central sun, the farthest star he knows.

The balance of a blade of grass, The winds that in the meadows run, Gathering incense as they pass To offer to the thronèd sun; The trembling secret to be won From every running stream; all these Are his, yet force him, silent, to his knees.

The watcher shall possess the earth In silence, leaping to control In moments mighty with the birth Of passion, when the eternal soul Shall wholly bind him to the whole. The air, the sky, the winds, the rose, Are his; the earth, and God Himself he knows.

To H.F.L.

XV

A LARK flew by upon the air And struck a red leaf from the tree, There where he lighted; and a pair Of robins bore him company. And I, I looked across the lea, Across the autumn uplands bare, Then turned again and saw him sitting there.

Thy life is mine, thou meadow-lark; Within thy golden breast I feel My own heart beating, and I hark And hear thy voice upon me steal, Winning my own; and past repeal I give myself to thee and mark These few words here upon this maple's bark;

That "I am Thou and Thou art I;" Cutting it deep that it may show To future years; and, by and by, When, as the tree shalt lofty grow, The woodman comes to lay it low, This word shall stand before his eye, That "I am Thou," writ clear, "and Thou art I."

XVI

THIS is thy brother, this poor silver fish, Close to the surface, dying in his dish; Thy flesh, thy beating heart, thy very life; All this, I say, art thou, against thy wish.

Thou mayst not turn away, thou shalt allow The truth, nor shall thou dare to question how: There is but one great heart in nature beating, And this is thy heart, this, I say, art thou.

In all thy power and all thy pettiness, With this and that poor selfish purpose, this And that high-climbing fancy, and a heart Caught into heaven or cast in the abyss,

Thou art the same with all the little earth, A little part; and sympathy of birth Shall tell thee, and thine openness of soul, What fear is death and what a life is worth.

XVII

FAR in the south the redwings hear and speed To answer nature's far-heard northern cry; Swift from the fields they gather and take on The burden of a journey; young and old Swing upward to the sun as if the need Of earth and of her comfort were gone by. And guided by the star of memory run Upon the trembling air; if, losing hold, With weary wing one settle to the land; If, sideways glancing from the flight, one see A fairer light than hope, or faltering Another answer to the white command Hurled upward from the gun: yet joyfully The happy flight speeds onward with the spring.

XVIII

THOU little god within the brook That dwellest, friend of man, I oft have heard the simple prayer Thou tellest unto Pan:

That he who comes with rod and line And robs thy life to-day, May yet by the great god be taught To come some other way.

XIX

Where man has conquered nature dies; We shift some slender-growing pine From out her own familiar skies

Where-under forests fall and rise, To pots and gardens, then repine That where man conquers nature dies.

The atmosphere that round her lies Bears not the light that used to shine From out her own familiar skies,

She is a stranger. So our eyes Run o'er the world and seek a sign! If where man conquers nature dies

What is our earthly paradise? Will nature there withhold the wine That from her own familiar skies

She used to pour? Do we devise A garden earth and say, in fine, Where man has conquered nature dies From out her own familiar skies?

XX

THE breath of slowly-moving spring Stirs the light leaf, the doubtful wing, And tempers each created thing.

The tumult of the summer's life Surrounds the earth and, rich and rife, Finds outlet in a world of strife.

The autumn season stills the plain, Quiets the river, sifts the grain, And looks to rest and sleep again.

In winter does great nature rest Or die, dismissing every guest And closing up the broad earth's breast.

XXI

"SOMETHING in the sense of morning Lifts the heart up to the sun." In our youth we may be pagan, God is many, and the One Great Supreme will wait till evening When our little day is done: Something in the sense of morning Lifts the heart up to the sun!

XXII

THE road ran sloping through the trees Below the dusty hill; The sun, swept inward by the breeze, Lightened the running rill.

Maples and chestnuts stood along And autumn, at the prime, Strewed nuts and leafage that belong To this September time.

One tree was green beside the way, A small white pine, I thought; And there a broken branch and gray Within a fork had caught.

It showed unlovely on the tree As dark and dead it lay; "And in my spleen I smiled" to see That symbol of decay.

But my companion did not show Such sympathy as mine! He mounted up the tree, to throw Its burden from the pine.

I cried, "Why will you not believe That nature's ways suffice To nature's purposes and leave Her to her own device?

"She knows her purpose for the pineAnd does not need the aidOf wisdom such as yours and mineIn plans which she has made."

He cast it down and answered, "Why, Ev'n as I am a man, In doing this, believe me, I Am part of nature's plan!"

I smiled again but not in joy, In fear; for where it lay, The branches covered, to destroy, A purple aster spray!

My friend was pleased; not he divined That though he was a man, To be content we must be blind; For such is nature's plan.

XXIII

I STOOD at the hedge as a hearse went by And passed me along the way; The sun broke in through a silver sky And scattered a golden ray.

Should I offer a prayer for the passing dead, For the hearts going burdened by; With a human pity, a catholic dread Of the tear, the sorrow, and sigh?

I too knew grief and the burdened heart, Some knowledge of pain was mine; Should I bow my head for another's smart, Should I make this simple sign?

So I wondered and thought as the hearse went by With its poor dead corpse within; But I turned aside to the opening sky — "Such a feeling may once have been,

"But now" — for the impulse was gone, you see, And death was no longer new; "Like a fallen leaf from an autumn tree He is dead; what is else to do?"

And there on the path as I turned around, By the side of a thorn-tree root An earthworm lay, crushed into the ground By the heel of a passing boot.

Well, death and death; 't is an equal term For the worm and the man to-day; But I turned and buried the angle-worm In a neighboring lump of clay.

XXIV

THE scream of the tern in the roar of the waters Will sound when the tumult of nature is o'er; When the garden of earth is a home for the daughters Of Eve, and when Pan is remembered no more.

White-winged, he appears! Dark, erratic, uneven, A figure on earth of the stars in the sky; Of high disarray and disorder in heaven, Where the Galaxy strikes with dismay on the eye!

Where freak and caprice build a wild conflagration, Where Chaos is king over torrents of stars; Who scatters the earth in a blind indignation, And systems are sped in interminate wars.

Then the children of Pan in that day will come singing, In fierceness, of him who has set in the spheres Dismay; and along the salt sea-limits ringing, The scream of the tern striking wild on their ears.

XXV

LIKE a dead leaf that rolls along the ground, Driven by a wind that wanders round and round, I see my heart, with edges cut and curled, Like a dead leaf that 's driven without a sound.

Green faded into red, and red to brown; Life to decay, and death the latest crown! So is my life, and lacks the heart of power Here to lift up the god that 's fallen down.

Alas! why, in the days of mighty Jah, Did I pull down thy pillars, Asherah? Baäl, where art thou? Egypt, even thou Hadst faith for me beneath the wings of Ptah!

XXVI

ADAM arose at the word of God, Up-borne on the bosom of all the earth; Brother of trees and the black, prone sod; The same in death and the same in birth.

Is it divine, the mystery? Is the whisper true of the hidden word That sounds for some in hill and sea, In the lapse of life when the deeps are heard?

The sunlight lifts in the soul of man The white-light torch of another dawn; And love will finger a mystic span, When the chords are drawn.

XXVII

IN long, slow silences of soul Beneath the sunset on the sea I think I hear the numbers roll That tell my conquest over thee;

When thou art gentle and serene, Thyself, forgotten all thy pride;

And I, myself as I have been, A hero with his sword untried,

Able for mastery; and the game Is offered and the action up; And to my purpose true I claim A hot draught from the stirrup-cup,

Then entertain thee. All my soul Awakes upon the sunset sea When high and clear the numbers roll That tell my conquest over thee.

XXVIII

IF ever I have thought or said In all the seasons of the past One word at which thy heart has bled Believe me, it will be the last.

The tides of life are deep and wide, The currents swift to bear apart E'en kindred ships; but from thy side I pray my sail may never start.

If, in the turning day and night Of this our earth, our little year,

Thou shalt have lost me from thy sight Across the checkered spaces drear,

Thy words are uttered; and the mind Accustomed, cannot all forget; While written in my heart I find An impulse that is deeper yet.

We love but never know the things, To value them, that nearest stand. The heart that travels seaward brings The dearest treasure home to land.

To M.J.S.