Spring Song

Give me the old clue to follow,
Through the labyrinth of night!
Clod of clay with heart of fire,
Things that burrow and aspire,
With the vanishing desire,
For the perishing delight,-
Only the old clue to follow,
Through the labyrinth of night!

Make me over, Mother April,
When the sap begins to stir!
Fashion me from swamp or meadow,
Garden plot or ferny shadow,
Hyacinth or humble burr!

Make me over, Mother April,
When the sap begins to stir!

Let me hear the far, low summons,
When the silver winds return;

Rills that run and streams that stammer,
Goldenwing with his loud hammer,
Icy brooks that brawl and clamor,
Where the Indian willows burn;
Let me hearken to the calling,
When the silver winds return,

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,

1643

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!
Scraps 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!

Bliss Carman [1861

THE MENDICANTS

WE are as mendicants who wait
Along the roadside in the sun.
Tatters of yesterday and shreds
Of morrow clothe us every one.

The Mendicants

And some are dotards, who believe
And glory in the days of old;
While some are dreamers, harping still
Upon an unknown age of gold.

Hopeless or witless! Not one heeds,
As lavish Time comes down the way
And tosses in the suppliant hat

One great new-minted gold To-day.

Ungrateful heart and grudging thanks,
His beggar's wisdom only sees
Housing and bread and beer enough;
He knows no other things than these.

O foolish ones, put by your care!

Where wants are many, joys are few; And at the wilding springs of peace, God keeps an open house for you.

But that some Fortunatus' gift

Is lying there within his hand, More costly than a pot of pearls,

His dullness does not understand.

And so his creature heart is filled;

His shrunken self goes starved away. Let him wear brand-new garments still, Who has a threadbare soul, I say.

But there be others, happier few,
The vagabondish sons of God,

Who know the by-ways and the flowers,
And care not how the world may plod.

They idle down the traffic lands,

And loiter through the woods with spring;

To them the glory of the earth

Is but to hear a bluebird sing.

1645

They too receive each one his Day;

But their wise heart knows many things Beyond the sating of desire,

Above the dignity of kings.

One I remember kept his coin,
And laughing flipped it in the air;
But when two strolling pipe-players
Came by, he tossed it to the pair.

Spendthrift of joy, his childish heart
Danced to their wild outlandish bars;
Then supperless he laid him down

That night, and slept beneath the stars.
Bliss Carman [1861-

THE JOYS OF THE ROAD

Now the joys of the road are chiefly these: A crimson touch on the hard-wood trees;

A vagrant's morning wide and blue,
In early fall, when the wind walks, too;

A shadowy highway cool and brown
Alluring up and enticing down

From rippled water to dappled swamp,
From purple glory to scarlet pomp;

The outward eye, the quiet will,
And the striding heart from hill to hill;

The tempter apple over the fence;

The cobweb bloom on the yellow quince;

The palish asters along the wood,—

A lyric touch of the solitude;

An open hand, an easy shoe,

And a hope to make the day go through,—

The Joys of the Road

Another to sleep with, and a third

To wake me up at the voice of a bird;

The resonant far-listening morn,
And the hoarse whisper of the corn;

The crickets mourning their comrades lost,
In the night's retreat from the gathering frost;

(Or is it their slogan, plaintive and shrill,
As they beat on their corselets, valiant still?)

A hunger fit for the kings of the sea,
And a loaf of bread for Dickon and me;

A thirst like that of the Thirsty Sword,
And a jug of cider on the board;

An idle noon, a bubbling spring,
The sea in the pine-tops murmuring;

A scrap of gossip at the ferry;

A comrade neither glum nor merry,

Asking nothing, revealing naught,

But minting his words from a fund of thought,

A keeper of silence eloquent,

Needy, yet royally well content,

Of the mettled breed, yet abhorring strife,
And full of the mellow juice of life,

A taster of wine, with an eye for a maid,
Never too bold, and never afraid,

Never heart-whole, never heart-sick,
(These are the things I worship in Dick)

No fidget and no reformer, just
A calm observer of ought and must,

1647