Flowers through the window
lavender and yellow
changed by white curtains –
Smell of cleanliness –
Sunshine of late afternoon –
On the glass tray
a glass pitcher, the tumbler
turned down, by which
a key is lying – And the
immaculate white bed
Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But today,
Today we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens likecoral in all the neighboring gardens,
And today we have naming of parts.
This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
The evening is festooned with golden clouds
the fairies dance in the meadow
and the leaf-crowned Nacken
plays his fiddle in the silvery brook.
Little boy in the brush on the bank
resting in the violet vapor
hears the noise from the chilly water
calls out in the still night.
"Poor old fellow, why do you play?
will it take the pain away?
you bring the woods and the fields to life
but you'll never be a child of God.
Paradise's moonlit nights
eden's flower-crowned plains
The autumn-time has come;
On woods that dream of bloom,
And over purpling vines,
The low sun fainter shines.
The aster-flower is failing,
The hazel's gold is paling;
Yet overhead more near
The eternal stars appear!
And present gratitude
Insures the future's good,
And for the things I see
I trust the things to be;
That in the paths untrod,
And the long days of God,
My feet shall still be led,
My heart be comforted.
O living friends who love me!
574
My first well Day—since many ill—
I asked to go abroad,
And take the Sunshine in my hands,
And see the things in Pod—
A 'blossom just when I went in
To take my Chance with pain—
Uncertain if myself, or He,
Should prove the strongest One.
The Summer deepened, while we strove—
She put some flowers away—
And Redder cheeked Ones—in their stead—
A fond—illusive way—
To cheat Herself, it seemed she tried—
As if before a child
To fade—Tomorrow—Rainbows held
766
My Faith is larger than the Hills—
So when the Hills decay—
My Faith must take the Purple Wheel
To show the Sun the way—
'Tis first He steps upon the Vane—
And then—upon the Hill—
And then abroad the World He go
To do His Golden Will—
And if His Yellow feet should miss—
The Bird would not arise—
The Flowers would slumber on their Stems—
No Bells have Paradise—
How dare I, therefore, stint a faith
On which so vast depends—
Lest Firmament should fail for me—
My gentle Harp, once more I waken
The sweetness of thy slumbering strain;
In tears our last farewell was taken,
And now in tears we meet again.
No light of joy hath o'er thee broken,
But, like those harps whose heavenly skill
Of slavery, dark as thine, hath spoken,
Thou hang'st upon the willows still.
And yet, since last thy chord resounded,
An hour of peace and triumph came,
And many an ardent bosom bounded
With hopes -- that now are turn'd to shame.
Yet even then, while Peace was singing
I, WITH whose colours Myra dress'd her head,
I, that ware posies of her own hand-making,
I, that mine own name in the chimneys read
By Myra finely wrought ere I was waking:
Must I look on, in hope time coming may
With change bring back my turn again to play?
I, that on Sunday at the church-stile found
A garland sweet with true-love-knots in flowers,
Which I to wear about mine arms was bound
That each of us might know that all was ours:
Must I lead now an idle life in wishes,
The wind comes whispering to me of the country green and cool--
Of redwing blackbirds chattering beside a reedy pool;
It brings me soothing fancies of the homestead on the hill,
And I hear the thrush's evening song and the robin's morning trill;
So I fall to thinking tenderly of those I used to know
Where the sassafras and snakeroot and checkerberries grow.
What has become of Ezra Marsh, who lived on Baker's hill?
And what's become of Noble Pratt, whose father kept the mill?
And what's become of Lizzie Crum and Anastasia Snell,
My mother would be a falconress,
And I, her gay falcon treading her wrist,
would fly to bring back
from the blue of the sky to her, bleeding, a prize,
where I dream in my little hood with many bells
jangling when I'd turn my head.
My mother would be a falconress,
and she sends me as far as her will goes.
She lets me ride to the end of her curb
where I fall back in anguish.
I dread that she will cast me away,
for I fall, I mis-take, I fail in her mission.
She would bring down the little birds.
