Fill my days with work,a thousand calm necessities Leaving no moment to consecrate to hope,Girdle my thoughts within the dull circumferences Of facts which form the actual in one short hour's scope.
Give me dreamless sleep,and loose night's power over me,Shut my ears to sounds only tumultuous then,Bid Fancy slumber,and steal away its potency,Or Nature wakes and strives to live again.
Let each day pass,well ordered in its usefulness,Unlit by sunshine,unscarred by storm;Dower me with strength and curb all foolish eagerness --The law exacts obedience.Instruct,I will conform.
A Japanese Wood-Carving High up above the open,welcoming door It hangs,a piece of wood with colours dim.
Once,long ago,it was a waving tree And knew the sun and shadow through the leaves Of forest trees,in a thick eastern wood.
The winter snows had bent its branches down,The spring had swelled its buds with coming flowers,Summer had run like fire through its veins,While autumn pelted it with chestnut burrs,And strewed the leafy ground with acorn cups.
Dark midnight storms had roared and crashed among Its branches,breaking here and there a limb;But every now and then broad sunlit days Lovingly lingered,caught among the leaves.
Yes,it had known all this,and yet to us It does not speak of mossy forest ways,Of whispering pine trees or the shimmering birch;But of quick winds,and the salt,stinging sea!
An artist once,with patient,careful knife,Had fashioned it like to the untamed sea.
Here waves uprear themselves,their tops blown back By the gay,sunny wind,which whips the blue And breaks it into gleams and sparks of light.
Among the flashing waves are two white birds Which swoop,and soar,and scream for very joy At the wild sport.Now diving quickly in,Questing some glistening fish.Now flying up,Their dripping feathers shining in the sun,While the wet drops like little glints of light,Fall pattering backward to the parent sea.
Gliding along the green and foam-flecked hollows,Or skimming some white crest about to break,The spirits of the sky deigning to stoop And play with ocean in a summer mood.
Hanging above the high,wide open door,It brings to us in quiet,firelit room,The freedom of the earth's vast solitudes,Where heaping,sunny waves tumble and roll,And seabirds scream in wanton happiness.
A Little Song When you,my Dear,are away,away,How wearily goes the creeping day.
A year drags after morning,and night Starts another year of candle light.
O Pausing Sun and Lingering Moon!
Grant me,I beg of you,this boon.
Whirl round the earth as never sun Has his diurnal journey run.
And,Moon,slip past the ladders of air In a single flash,while your streaming hair Catches the stars and pulls them down To shine on some slumbering Chinese town.
O Kindly Sun!Understanding Moon!
Bring evening to crowd the footsteps of noon.
But when that long awaited day Hangs ripe in the heavens,your voyaging stay.
Be morning,O Sun!with the lark in song,Be afternoon for ages long.
And,Moon,let you and your lesser lights Watch over a century of nights.
Behind a Wall I own a solace shut within my heart,A garden full of many a quaint delight And warm with drowsy,poppied sunshine;bright,Flaming with lilies out of whose cups dart Shining things With powdered wings.
Here terrace sinks to terrace,arbors close The ends of dreaming paths;a wanton wind Jostles the half-ripe pears,and then,unkind,Tumbles a-slumber in a pillar rose,With content Grown indolent.
By night my garden is o'erhung with gems Fixed in an onyx setting.Fireflies Flicker their lanterns in my dazzled eyes.
In serried rows I guess the straight,stiff stems Of hollyhocks Against the rocks.
So far and still it is that,listening,I hear the flowers talking in the dawn;And where a sunken basin cuts the lawn,Cinctured with iris,pale and glistening,The sudden swish Of a waking fish.
A Winter Ride Who shall declare the joy of the running!
Who shall tell of the pleasures of flight!
Springing and spurning the tufts of wild heather,Sweeping,wide-winged,through the blue dome of light.
Everything mortal has moments immortal,Swift and God-gifted,immeasurably bright.
So with the stretch of the white road before me,Shining snowcrystals rainbowed by the sun,Fields that are white,stained with long,cool,blue shadows,Strong with the strength of my horse as we run.
Joy in the touch of the wind and the sunlight!
Joy!With the vigorous earth I am one.
A Coloured Print by Shokei It winds along the face of a cliff This path which I long to explore,And over it dashes a waterfall,And the air is full of the roar And the thunderous voice of waters which sweep In a silver torrent over some steep.
It clears the path with a mighty bound And tumbles below and away,And the trees and the bushes which grow in the rocks Are wet with its jewelled spray;The air is misty and heavy with sound,And small,wet wildflowers star the ground.
Oh!The dampness is very good to smell,And the path is soft to tread,And beyond the fall it winds up and on,While little streamlets thread Their own meandering way down the hill Each singing its own little song,until I forget that 't is only a pictured path,And I hear the water and wind,And look through the mist,and strain my eyes To see what there is behind;For it must lead to a happy land,This little path by a waterfall spanned.
Song Oh!To be a flower Nodding in the sun,Bending,then upspringing As the breezes run;Holding up A scent-brimmed cup,Full of summer's fragrance to the summer sun.
Oh!To be a butterfly Still,upon a flower,Winking with its painted wings,Happy in the hour.
Blossoms hold Mines of gold Deep within the farthest heart of each chaliced flower.
Oh!To be a cloud Blowing through the blue,Shadowing the mountains,Rushing loudly through Valleys deep Where torrents keep Always their plunging thunder and their misty arch of blue.
Oh!To be a wave Splintering on the sand,Drawing back,but leaving Lingeringly the land.
