In Shadow

I GATHER my poems out of the heart of the clover,
Out of the wayside weeds, out of the meadows about me;
In gleams from the dewdrop’s soul — from wings of birds shaken downward.
Poems the night-rain brings shot thro’ the beeches incessant;
Poems the grasshopper sings, beating his noonday tabor.
The gossamer web is a rhyme blown from deep valleys of quiet—
A rondeau that turns on itself, folded in shimmering garments;
And, when the whirling flakes are tangled at dusk in the thickets,
The voice of song outcries in the bleat of lambs on the hillside.

All things sing to me — cry; laughter or tears or music.
The storm hath its rhythmical beat, the day its musical cadence;
Ever an ebb or a flow; a flame or a mournful nightfall.
A rivulet bearded with moss to me is Theocritus singing;
A violet bursting in spring fills me with exquisite music;
A child’s voice heard in the dusk shakes me with infinite pathos.
The flash of the daybreak’s sword, the march of the midnight planets,
The sweep of the mighty winds, the shout of the prophet-voiced thunder,
Throb in my soul like a rain, and shape themselves into measure.

Why? Ask of God; He knows. Profit to me there is little—
Scorn sometimes and hunger. These are the wages of singing;
Surely I know who have sat with poverty in her night robe.
The songs of the poet avail when the multitude pauses to listen,
But sparrow calls dropt on the wind are they to an age that hears not;
Yet like a rain, a flame, a gush of music curved downward,
They leap from out fountains of joy and flow into rhythmical being— ;
Passionate blossoms of hope that glow within gardens ideal;
And I, who sing, in my soul am lulled into infinite quiet.

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Originally Published in Fetter’s Southern Magazine, Vol 2 Iss 11