lily heaves,
For all her speech the whisper of the showers.

Made of all things that in the water sway,
The quiet reed kissing the arrowhead,
The willows murmuring, all a summer day,
"Silence"--sweet word, and ne'er so softly said

As here along this path of brooding peace,
Where all things dream, and nothing else is done
But all such gentle businesses as these
Of leaves and rippling wind, and setting sun

Turning the stream to a long lane of gold,
Where the young moon shall walk with feet of pearl,
And, framed in sleeping lilies, fold on fold,
Gaze at herself, like any mortal girl.

SUMMER SONGS

I

How thick the grass,
How green the shade--
All for love
And lovers made.

Wood-lilies white
As hidden lace--
Open your bodice,
That's their place.

See how the sun-god
Overpowers
The summer lying
Deep in flowers;

With burning kisses
Of bright gold
Fills her young womb
With joy untold;

And all the world
Is lad and lass,
A blue sky
And a couch of grass.

Summer is here--
let us drain
It all! it may
Not come again.

II

How the leaves thicken
On the boughs,
And the birds make
Their lyric vows.

O the beating, breaking
Heart of things,
The pulse and passion--
How it sings.

How it burns and flames
And showers,
Lusts and laughs, flowers
And deflowers.

III

Summer came,
Rose on rose;
Leaf on leaf,
Summer goes.

Summer came,
Song on song;
O summer had
A golden tongue.

Summer goes,
Sigh on sigh;
Not a rose
Sees him die.

TO A WILD BIRD

Wild bird, I stole you from your nest,
And cannot find your nest again;
To hear you chirp a little while
I wrung your mother's heart with pain.

And here you sit and droop and die,
Nor any love that I can bring
Wins me forgiveness for the wrong,
Nor any kindness makes you sing.

"I CROSSED THE ORCHARD WALKING HOME"

I crossed the orchard, walking home,
The rising moon was at my back,
The apples and the moonlight fell
Together on the railroad track.

Then, speeding through the evening dews,
A dozen lighted windows glide--
The East-bound flyer for New York,
Soft as a magic-lantern slide.

New York! on through the sleeping flowers,
Through echoing midnight on to noon;
How strange that yonder is New York,
And here such silence and the moon.

"I MEANT TO DO MY WORK TO-DAY"

I meant to do my work to-day--
But a brown bird sang in the apple-