Retinue and other poems / by Katharine Lee Bates [electronic text]

From Spring to Spring

NOT YET

NOT yet hath Nature, lovely colorist, Bestirred her from creative dream to fling Soft flame upon the woods, —nay, not to dip One pleading maple-tip In carmine; all the waiting world is whist, Alert to hear the first faint flutes of spring.

Not yet the tingling flood of blue and gold Is poured through heaven, but o'er the misty pond, Quiet as patterned silk, flushed saplings lean; And the auspicious green Through the deep woods and on the unpathed wold Brightens in patient moss and wistful frond.

Not yet cascades of melody invokeThe holy dawn, but all the air perceives,

By some fine thrill, the rushing northward flight Of myriad wings, despite The nonchalances of this crookback oak, Still clinging to its russet shreds of leaves.

Not yet the laughing hid-folk of the earth Thrust Up white helm and golden coronet, Sweet elfin host armored in gossamer, But gentle tremors stir The conscious mold; new beauty comes to birth Under the snow's fast-melting coverlet.

Not yet, not yet the yearly miracle Is wrought, but ecstasy is on the wing, And her divine, irrevocable flight Is swift as all delight. The heart is hushed as for the sacring-bell, Awe-smitten by expectancy of spring.

THE FIRST BLUEBIRDS

THE poor earth was so winter-marred, Harried by storm so long, It seemed no spring could mend her, No tardy sunshine render Atonement for such wrong. Snow after snow, and gale and hail, Gaunt trees encased in icy mail, The glittering drifts so hard They took no trace Of scared, wild feet, No print of fox and hare Driven by dearth To forage for their meat Even in dooryard bare And frosty lawn Under the peril of the human race; And then one primrose dawn, Sweet, sweet, O sweet, And tender, tender, The bluebirds woke the happy earth With song.

IN THE OAK

THE leaves and tassels of the oak Were golden-green with May, Pavilion whence forever broke Some angel roundelay.

A carol like a glory came From topmost twig astir, Enkindled by a flying flame, The scarlet tanager.

The tree was glad as Paradise When, eager soul on soul, The saints flock home. There glistened twice A wild-throat oriole;

And once the grosbeak's rosy breast Poured its enchanted hymn; While sunny wing and jewel crest Lit many a blissful limb.

The whole wide world was in my oak Whose catkins danced for mirth, — Plumes gray as curling city smoke, Plumes brown as fresh-plowed earth;

Even heaven had graced our festival,For oft the loving eye Would find, coaxed by a wistful call, The bluebird's fleck of sky.

THE END OF MAY

THE fragrant air is full of down, Of floating, fleecy things From some forgotten fairy town Where all the folk wear wings.

Or else the snowflakes, soft arrayed In dainty suits of lace, Have ventured back in masquerade, Spring's festival to grace.

Or these, perchance, are fleets of fluff, Laden with rainbow seeds,

That count their cargo rich enough Though all its wealth be weeds.

Or come they from the golden trees, Where dancing blossoms were, That now are drifting on the breeze, Sweet ghosts of gossamer?

EAVESDROPPING

THOUGH the winds but stir on their hoary thrones Of hemlock and pungent pine, All the whispering woodland tones Gossip of things divine, —

Why God is gray in the granite rock, And green in the lichen flake, And swift in the darting swallow-flock, And slow in the lapping lake;

Why God is sweet in the hermit-thrush, And hoarse in the frog; and why

His touch on the bee is golden plush, And gauze on the stinging fly;

Why God is life in the mushroom there, And death in the toadstool here; Mirth in the dancing maidenhair; In its hidden adder, fear.

Oh, if this berry that stains my lip Could teach me the woodland chat, Science would bow to my scholarship, And Theology doff the hat.

WAYWISE

THE darkest wood that the north-wind stings Hath its balsamum and its silverlings, Its violet interspace.

The bitterest sea that the wan moon knows Hath its hushful archipelagoes, Its coral populace.

And the wearlweariestest burden mortal bears Hath, woven in with its somber cares, Some broidery of grace.

IN A NORTHERN WOOD

FRAGRANT are the cedar-boughs stretching green and level, Feasting-halls where waxwings flit at their spicy revel, But O the pine, the questing pine, that flings its arms on high To search the secret of the sun and escalade the sky!

Rueful hemlocks, gaunt and old, with boughs a-droop, despairing, Clutch for touch of mother-earth; the while the pine is daring To rock the stars amid its cones and lull them with its croon, And snare the silver eagle that is nested in the moon.

THE CREED OF THE WOOD

A WHIFF of forest scent, Balsam and fern, Won from dreary mood My heart's return, From its discontent, Joy's run-away, To the sweet, wise wood And the laughing day.

Simple as dew and gleam Is the creed of the wood! The Beautiful gave us life, And life is good. Be the world but a dream, Let the world go shod With peace, not strife, For the Dreamer is God.

OUR FIRST FAMILIES

SWEET are the manners of the wood, Our only old society, Where all the folk are glad and good In unrebuked variety.

Within this gentle commonweal No envy falls with fairy gold On jewel-weed and Solomon's seal, Moth mullein and marsh marigold.

No rubied vines despise the lot Of ragged neighbors; whether moss Be flat or tufted matters not, Pale peat or glittering feather-moss.

The common milkwort holds estates And wears his purple royalty; The bluets keep their ancient traits With quiet Quaker loyalty.

These families of long descent, Our tutors in amenities, Have pedigrees of such extent They well may share serenities.

Ere first the hollow Catacombs Thrilled to a Christian litany There bloomed beside the redmen's homes Spicebush and fragrant dittany.

This rock's huge shadow rested on Gentian and nodding trillium Before the rise of Babylon, Before the fall of Ilium.

THE PERFECT DAY

GOD made a day of blue and gold, Sweet as a violet, As merry as a marigold; It may be shining yet In some blest vale, some dreamy dell Among the heavenly hills,

Where here and there the asphodelIs flecked by daffodils And gentians, flowers that twinkled on The fields our childhood knew, Too lovely for oblivion, Fed with immortal dew.

That summer day, all murmurous With laughters of old mirth, How tenderly 'twould comfort us, Still homesick for the earth; With what dear touch 'twould fold us in, As to a mother's knee, From those strange spaces crystalline Of vast eternity, — A day God saw with smiling eyes, The summer's coronet! In His far cycles of surprise It may be shining yet.

IN AUGUST

BESIDE the country road with truant grace Wild carrot lifts its circles of white lace. From vines whose interwoven branches drape The old stone walls, come pungent scents of grape. The sumach torches burn; the hardhack glows; From off the pines a healing fragrance blows; The pallid Indian pipe of ghostly kin Listens in vain for stealthy moccasin. In pensive mood a faded robin sings; A butterfly with dusky, gold-flecked wings Holds court for plumy dandelion seed And thistledown, on throne of fireweed.

The road goes loitering on, till it hath missed Its way in goldenrod, to keep a tryst, Beyond the mosses and the ferns that veil The last faint lines of its forgotten trail, With Lonely Lake, so crystal clear that one May see its bottom sparkling in the sun

With many-colored stones. The only stir On its green banks is of the kingfisher Dipping for prey, but oft, these haunted nights, That mirror shivers into dazzling lights, Cleft by a falling star, a messengerFrom some bright battle lost, Excalibur.

PLAYMATES

SUMMER fervors slacken; Sumac torches dim; There's bronze upon the bracken; September has a whim For carmine, pearl and amber Touches on her green; Busy squirrels clamber; Restless birds convene.

Where Indian pipe still blanches, Where hoary lichen flakes Forest trunks and branches, The golden foxglove makes

A mimic wood that tosses Warning to the trees, Then droops upon the mosses, Heavy with bloom and bees.

What rumbelow of revel Deep in those honey-jars! A saffron moth, with level And languid motion, stars The air until he settles At the last pink-clover inn, Ignoring prouder petals That would his favor win.

Among those wildwood vagrants I strolled, alone no more. Was it the sweet-fern fragrance That stirred a long-sealed door Of Time's enchanted tower? A little maid ran free And for one sunny hour My childhood played with me.

APRIL IN SEPTEMBER

WHAT song is in the sap of this brave oak-tree That to the north-star faces, Ravened each June by caterpillar masses Till all its leaves are laces, Poor shreds whose very shadow grieves the grasses?

I leave it then, but roses and the smoke-tree Look from the lawn below it And watch for that gold witch, Midsummer Weather, With magic breath to blow it Free of its foes, whose wings make mirth together.

Vital as Igdrasil, immortal folk-tree, When I return, its losses Are all restored, its fresh, soft foliage gleaming With peach and citron glosses, A Druid that is never done with dreaming.

A MOUNTAIN STORM

OUR blue sierras shone serene, sublime, When ghostly shapes came crowding up the air, Shadowing the landscape with some vast despair;

And all was changed as in weird pantomime, Transfigured into vague, fantastic form By that tremendous carnival of storm.

Pilgrim processions of bowed trees that climb To sacred summits, in the clashing hail Shuddered like flagellants beneath the flail.

Most gracious hills, in that tempestuous time, Went wild as angered bulls, with bellowing cry And goring horns that strove to charge the sky.

Masses of rock, long gnawed by stealthy rime, With sudden roar that made our bravest blanch, Came volleying down in fatal avalanche.

All nature seemed convulsed in some fierce crime, And then a rainbow, and behold! the sun Went comforting the harebells one by one;

And all was still save for the vesper chime From far, faint belfry bathed in creamy light, And the soft footfalls of the coming night.

NIGHT AND MORNING

THE night was loud with tumult; trees were torn Sheer from their roots by the delirious wind; In some waste dreamland wandered all forlorn A smitten soul, bewildered, broken, blind.

The mists had lifted; evanescent gleams Of tender emerald lighted every leaf, While from a casement smiled, escaped from dreams, A quiet face made exquisite by grief.

THE SUNSET, WOVEN OF SOFT LIGHTS

THE sunset, woven of soft lights And tender colors, lingers late, As looking back on all day's dreary plights, Compassionate;

— The foolish day of hopes so high, Who counts her hours by blunders now, Yet wears at last this jewel-crown of sky Upon her brow.

Out to eternity she goes, Not for her failure scorned, but see! Our poor day flushed with beauty, one more rose On God's rose-tree.

WHITE MOMENTS

THE best of life, what is it but white moments? Those swift illuminations when we see The flying shadows on the fragrant meadows As God beholds them from eternity.

White moments, when the bliss of being worships, And fear and shame are heretics that burn In holy fire of exquisite desire For love's surrender and for love's return.

White moments, when a Power above the artist Catches his plodding chisel, sets it free, And from each urgent stroke there springs emergent The wayward grace that laughs at industry.

White moments, when the drowsing soul, sense-muffled, Is stung awake by some keen arrow-flight

And rends the bestial, claiming its celestial Succession in the lineage of light.

White moments, when the spirit, long confronted By all the bitter formulæ of fate, Inveterate romancer, finds its answer In some mysterious faith inviolate.

White moments, when the silence steals on sorrow, And in that hush the heart becomes aware Of wings that brood it, visions that seclude it Forevermore from folly, fear and care.

The best of life, what is it but white moments? Freedoms that break the chain and fling the load, Irradiations, ardors, consecrations, — The starry shrines along our pilgrim road.

AROUND THE SUN

THE weazen planet Mercury, Whose song is done, — Rash heart that drew too near His dazzling lord the Sun!—Forgets that life was dear, So shriveled now and sere The goblin planet Mercury.

But Venus, thou mysterious, Enveilèd one, Fairest of lights that fleet Around the radiant Sun,Do not thy pulses beat To music blithe and sweet, O Venus, veiled, mysterious?

And Earth, our shadow-haunted Earth, Hast thou, too, won The graces of a star From the glory of the Sun?

Do poets dream afar That here all lusters are, Upon our blind, bewildered Earth?

We dream that mighty forms on Mars, With wisdom spun From subtler brain than man's, Are hoarding snow and sun, Wringing a few more spans Of life, fierce artisans, From their deep-grooved, worn planet Mars.

But thou, colossal Jupiter, World just begun, Wild globe of golden steam, Chief nursling of the Sun, Transcendest human dream, That faints before the gleam Of thy vast splendor, Jupiter.

And for what rare delight, Or woes to shun,

Of races increate, New lovers of the Sun, Was Saturn ringed with great Rivers illuminate, Ethereal jewel of delight?

Far from his fellows, Uranus Doth lonely run In his appointed ways Around the sovereign Sun, — Wide journeys that amaze Our weak and toiling gaze, Searching the path of Uranus.

But on the awful vergeOf voids that stun The spirit, Neptune keeps The frontier of the Sun. Over the deeps on deeps He glows, a torch that sweeps The circle of that shuddering verge.

On each bright planet waits Oblivion, Who casts beneath her feet Ashes of star and sun, But when all ruby heat. Is frost, a Heart shall beat, Where God, within the darkness, waits.

BEYOND

COLOSSAL orb of space, Sparkling with diamond Of countless star on star, All whirling with wild grace In their enwoven dance Illimitably far, What lies beyond Your vasty hollow girdled by that bright River of stellar spray We call the Milky Way? Immeasurable ball, Cornpassed and clasped in light,

Can you be all, A flock of fireflies circling in the night, A maze of jewels that the toss of Chance Let fall, Sun, planet, asteroid, One globe of glories in the utter void?

What lies beyond? Does the sheer Dark immerse Infinity, drowning the last faint gold Of fleeting comets, lost and vagabond? Or is this astral universe, All that our utmost vision may behold, But one amidst a host of star-strewn spheres, Each zoned with its own stream Of softer gleam, Perchance each dowered with wonder, love and tears?

What lies beyond? The puny human heart still stirs Against those flaming barriers, That proud, impenetrable dome

Of fire and ether, seeking for a home, A Soul that shall respond To all its questions, longings and despairs. Is space but raiment that the Spirit wears, A gem-embroidered mantle to conceal And yet reveal In splendors of surprise Beauty ineffable, Immanuel? Or shall we rise, Higher than dream of Dante ever trod, From star to star, from empyrean on To empyrean, till the sun that shone Over our vexed mortality be wan, Through life on life, eternal range From form to form, from change to change, To find the Unknown God?

NEW YEAR

WHITE year, white year,Muffled soft in snow, A diamond spray whose gems are gone

Before their grace we know, A crystal-coated spray whose hours Melt when looked upon, Hoarfrost stars and hoarfrost flowers, White year!

Green year, green year, Sweet with sun and showers, A windblown spray whose blossoms bright Are the seven-colored hours, A dancing spray whose leaves are days, A spray whose leaves delight In azure gleam and silver haze, Green year!

New Year, new year From rosy leaf to gold, A shining spray on the Tree of Time Where myriad sprays unfold, A spray so fair that God may see And gather it, bloom and rime, To deck the doors of Eternity, New Year!

YELLOW WARBLERS

THE first faint dawn was flushing up the skies When, dreamland still bewildering mine eyes, I looked out to the oak that, winter-long, — A winter wild with war and woe and wrong — Beyond my casement had been void of song.

And lo! with golden buds the twigs were set, Live buds that warbled like a rivulet Beneath a veil of willows. Then I knew Those tiny voices, clear as drops of dew, Those flying daffodils that fleck the blue,

Those sparkling visitants from myrtle isles, Wee pilgrims of the sun, that measure miles Innumerable over land and sea With wings of shining inches. Flakes of glee, They filled that dark old oak with jubilee,

Foretelling in delicious roundelays Their dainty courtships on the dipping sprays,

How they should fashion nests, mate helping mate, Of milkweed flax and fern-down delicate To keep sky-tinted eggs inviolate.

Listening to those blithe notes, I slipped once more From lyric dawn through dreamland's open door, And there was God, Eternal Life that sings. Eternal joy, brooding all mortal things, A nest of stars, beneath untroubled wings.