Читать книгу Later Poems - Bliss Carman - Страница 3
ОглавлениеVestigia.
I took a day to search for God, And found Him not. But as I trod By rocky ledge, through woods untamed, Just where one scarlet lily flamed, I saw His footprint in the sod.
Then suddenly, all unaware, Far off in the deep shadows, where A solitary hermit thrush Sang through the holy twilight hush— I heard His voice upon the air.
And even as I marvelled how God gives us Heaven here and now, In a stir of wind that hardly shook The poplar leaves beside the brook— His hand was light upon my brow.
At last with evening as I turned Homeward, and thought what I had learned And all that there was still to probe— I caught the glory of His robe Where the last fires of sunset burned.
Back to the world with quickening start I looked and longed for any part In making saving Beauty be. … And from that kindling ecstasy I knew God dwelt within my heart.
A Remembrance.
Here in lovely New England
When summer is come, a sea-turn
Flutters a page of remembrance
In the volume of long ago.
Soft is the wind over Grand Pré,
Stirring the heads of the grasses,
Sweet is the breath of the orchards
White with their apple-blow.
There at their infinite business
Of measuring time forever,
Murmuring songs of the sea,
The great tides come and go.
Over the dikes and the uplands
Wander the great cloud shadows,
Strange as the passing of sorrow,
Beautiful, solemn, and slow.
For, spreading her old enchantment
Of tender ineffable wonder,
Summer is there in the Northland!
How should my heart not know?
The Ships of Yule
When I was just a little boy,
Before I went to school,
I had a fleet of forty sail
I called the Ships of Yule;
Of every rig, from rakish brig
And gallant barkentine,
To little Fundy fishing boats
With gunwales painted green.
They used to go on trading trips
Around the world for me,
For though I had to stay on shore
My heart was on the sea.
They stopped at every port to call
From Babylon to Rome,
To load with all the lovely things
We never had at home;
With elephants and ivory
Bought from the King of Tyre,
And shells and silk and sandal-wood
That sailor men admire;
With figs and dates from Samarcand,
And squatty ginger-jars,
And scented silver amulets
From Indian bazaars;
With sugar-cane from Port of Spain,
And monkeys from Ceylon,
And paper lanterns from Pekin
With painted dragons on;
With cocoanuts from Zanzibar,
And pines from Singapore;
And when they had unloaded these
They could go back for more.
And even after I was big
And had to go to school,
My mind was often far away
Aboard the Ships of Yule.
The Ships of Saint John
Where are the ships I used to know,
That came to port on the Fundy tide
Half a century ago,
In beauty and stately pride?
In they would come past the beacon light,
With the sun on gleaming sail and spar,
Folding their wings like birds in flight
From countries strange and far.
Schooner and brig and barkentine,
I watched them slow as the sails were furled,
And wondered what cities they must have seen
On the other side of the world.
Frenchman and Britisher and Dane,
Yankee, Spaniard and Portugee,
And many a home ship back again
With her stories of the sea.
Calm and victorious, at rest
From the relentless, rough sea-play,
The wild duck on the river's breast
Was not more sure than they.
The creatures of a passing race,
The dark spruce forests made them strong,
The sea's lore gave them magic grace,
The great winds taught them song.
And God endowed them each with life—
His blessing on the craftsman's skill—
To meet the blind unreasoned strife
And dare the risk of ill.
Not mere insensate wood and paint
Obedient to the helm's command,
But often restive as a saint
Beneath the Heavenly hand.
All the beauty and mystery
Of life were there, adventure bold,
Youth, and the glamour of the sea
And all its sorrows old.
And many a time I saw them go
Out on the flood at morning brave,
As the little tugs had them in tow,
And the sunlight danced on the wave.
There all day long you could hear the sound
Of the caulking iron, the ship's bronze bell,
And the clank of the capstan going round
As the great tides rose and fell.
The sailors' songs, the Captain's shout,
The boatswain's whistle piping shrill,
And the roar as the anchor chain runs out—
I often hear them still.
I can see them still, the sun on their gear,
The shining streak as the hulls careen,
And the flag at the peak unfurling—clear
As a picture on a screen.
The fog still hangs on the long tide-rips,
The gulls go wavering to and fro,
But where are all the beautiful ships
I knew so long ago?
The Garden of Dreams
My heart is a garden of dreams
Where you walk when day is done,
Fair as the royal flowers,
Calm as the lingering sun.
Never a drouth comes there,
Nor any frost that mars,
Only the wind of love
Under the early stars—
The living breath that moves
Whispering to and fro,
Like the voice of God in the dusk
Of the garden long ago.
Garden Magic
Within my stone-walled garden
(I see her standing now,
Uplifted in the twilight,
With glory on her brow!)
I love to walk at evening
And watch, when winds are low,
The new moon in the tree-tops,
Because she loved it so!
And there entranced I listen,
While flowers and winds confer,
And all their conversation
Is redolent of her.
I love the trees that guard it,
Upstanding and serene,
So noble, so undaunted,
Because that was her mien.
I love the brook that bounds it,
Because its silver voice
Is like her bubbling laughter
That made the world rejoice.
I love the golden jonquils,
Because she used to say,
If soul could choose a color
It would be clothed as they.
I love the blue-gray iris,
Because her eyes were blue,
Sea-deep and heaven-tender
In meaning and in hue.
I love the small wild roses,
Because she used to stand
Adoringly above them
And bless them with her hand.
These were her boon companions.
But more than all the rest
I love the April lilac,
Because she loved it best.
Soul of undying rapture!
How love's enchantment clings,
With sorcery and fragrance,
About familiar things!
In Gold Lacquer
Gold are the great trees overhead,
And gold the leaf-strewn grass,
As though a cloth of gold were spread
To let a seraph pass.
And where the pageant should go by,
Meadow and wood and stream,
The world is all of lacquered gold,
Expectant as a dream.
Against the sunset's burning gold,
Etched in dark monotone
Behind its alley of grey trees
And gateposts of grey stone,
Stands the Old Manse, about whose eaves
An air of mystery clings,
Abandoned to the lonely peace
Of bygone ghostly things.
In molten gold the river winds
With languid sweep and turn,
Beside the red-gold wooded hill
Yellowed with ash and fern.
The streets are tiled with gold-green shade
And arched with fretted gold,
Ecstatic aisles that richly thread
This minster grim and old.
The air is flecked with filtered gold—
The shimmer of romance
Whose ageless glamour still must hold
The world as in a trance,
Pouring o'er every time and place
Light of an amber sea,
The spell of all the gladsome things
That have been or shall be.
Aprilian
When April came with sunshine
And showers and lilac bloom,
My heart with sudden gladness
Was like a fragrant room.
Her eyes were heaven's own azure,
As deep as God's own truth.
Her soul was made of rapture
And mystery and youth.
She knew the sorry burden
Of all the ancient years,
Yet could not dwell with sadness
And memory and tears.
With her there was no shadow
Of failure nor despair,
But only loving joyance.
O Heart, how glad we were!
Garden Shadows
When the dawn winds whisper
To the standing corn,
And the rose of morning
From the dark is born,
All my shadowy garden
Seems to grow aware
Of a fragrant presence,
Half expected there.
In the golden shimmer
Of the burning noon,
When the birds are silent
And the poppies swoon,
Once more I behold her
Smile and turn her face,
With its infinite regard,
Its immortal grace.
When the twilight silvers
Every nodding flower,
And the new moon hallows
The first evening hour,
Is it not her footfall
Down the garden walks,
Where the drowsy blossoms
Slumber on their stalks?
In the starry quiet,
When the soul is free,
And a vernal message
Stirs the lilac tree,
Surely I have felt her
Pass and brush my cheek,
With the eloquence of love
That does not need to speak!
In The Day of Battle
In the day of battle,
In the night of dread,
Let one hymn be lifted,
Let one prayer be said.
Not for pride of conquest,
Not for vengeance wrought,
Nor for peace and safety
With dishonour bought!
Praise for faith in freedom,
Our fighting fathers' stay,
Born of dreams and daring,
Bred above dismay.
Prayer for cloudless vision,
And the valiant hand,
That the right may triumph
To the last demand.
Trees
In the Garden of Eden, planted by God,
There were goodly trees in the springing sod—
Trees of beauty and height and grace,
To stand in splendor before His face.
Apple and hickory, ash and pear,
Oak and beech and the tulip rare,
The trembling aspen, the noble pine,
The sweeping elm by the river line;
Trees for the birds to build and sing,
And the lilac tree for a joy in spring;
Trees to turn at the frosty call
And carpet the ground for their Lord's footfall;
Trees for fruitage and fire and shade,
Trees for the cunning builder's trade;
Wood for the bow, the spear, and the flail,
The keel and the mast of the daring sail;
He made them of every grain and girth
For the use of man in the Garden of Earth.
Then lest the soul should not lift her eyes
From the gift to the Giver of Paradise,
On the crown of a hill, for all to see,
God planted a scarlet maple tree.
