All the bright flowers that fill the land, Ripple of waves on rock or sand, The snow on Fusiyama's cone, The midnight heaven so thickly sown With constellations of bright stars, The leaves that rustle, the reeds that make A whisper by each stream and lake, The saffron dawn, the sunset red, Are painted on these lovely jars;Again the skylark sings, again The stork, the heron, and the crane Float through the azure overhead, The counterfeit and counterpart Of Nature reproduced in Art.
Art is the child of Nature; yes, Her darling child, in whom we trace The features of the mother's face, Her aspect and her attitude, All her majestic loveliness Chastened and softened and subdued Into a more attractive grace, And with a human sense imbued.
He is the greatest artist, then, Whether of pencil or of pen, Who follows Nature.Never man, As artist or as artisan, Pursuing his own fantasies, Can touch the human heart, or please, Or satisfy our nobler needs, As he who sets his willing feet In Nature's footprints, light and fleet, And follows fearless where she leads.
Thus mused I on that morn in May, Wrapped in my visions like the Seer, Whose eyes behold not what is near, But only what is far away, When, suddenly sounding peal on peal, The church-bell from the neighboring town Proclaimed the welcome hour of noon.
The Potter heard, and stopped his wheel, His apron on the grass threw down, Whistled his quiet little tune, Not overloud nor overlong, And ended thus his simple song:
Stop, stop, my wheel! Too soon, too soon The noon will be the afternoon, Too soon to-day be yesterday;Behind us in our path we cast The broken potsherds of the past, And all are ground to dust a last, And trodden into clay!
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BIRDS OF PASSAGE
FLIGHT THE FIFTH
THE HERONS OF ELMWOOD
Warm and still is the summer night, As here by the river's brink I wander;White overhead are the stars, and white The glimmering lamps on the hillside yonder.
Silent are all the sounds of day;
Nothing I hear but the chirp of crickets, And the cry of the herons winging their way O'er the poet's house in the Elmwood thickets.
Call to him, herons, as slowly you pass To your roosts in the haunts of the exiled thrushes, Sing him the song of the green morass;And the tides that water the reeds and rushes.
Sing him the mystical Song of the Hern, And the secret that baffles our utmost seeking;For only a sound of lament we discern, And cannot interpret the words you are speaking.
Sing of the air, and the wild delight Of wings that uplift and winds that uphold you, The joy of freedom, the rapture of flight Through the drift of the floating mists that infold you.
Of the landscape lying so far below, With its towns and rivers and desert places;And the splendor of light above, and the glow Of the limitless, blue, ethereal spaces.
Ask him if songs of the Troubadours, Or of Minnesingers in old black-letter, Sound in his ears more sweet than yours, And if yours are not sweeter and wilder and better.
Sing to him, say to him, here at his gate, Where the boughs of the stately elms are meeting, Some one hath lingered to meditate, And send him unseen this friendly greeting;That many another hath done the same, Though not by a sound was the silence broken;The surest pledge of a deathless name Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.
A DUTCH PICTURE
Simon Danz has come home again, From cruising about with his buccaneers;He has singed the beard of the King of Spain, And carried away the Dean of Jaen And sold him in Algiers.
In his house by the Maese, with its roof of tiles, And weathercocks flying aloft in air, There are silver tankards of antique styles, Plunder of convent and castle, and piles Of carpets rich and rare.
In his tulip-garden there by the town, Overlooking the sluggish stream, With his Moorish cap and dressing-gown, The old sea-captain, hale and brown, Walks in a waking dream.
A smile in his gray mustachio lurks Whenever he thinks of the King of Spain, And the listed tulips look like Turks, And the silent gardener as he works Is changed to the Dean of Jaen.
The windmills on the outermost Verge of the landscape in the haze, To him are towers on the Spanish coast, With whiskered sentinels at their post, Though this is the river Maese.
But when the winter rains begin, He sits and smokes by the blazing brands, And old seafaring men come in, Goat-bearded, gray, and with double chin, And rings upon their hands.
They sit there in the shadow and shine Of the flickering fire of the winter night;Figures in color and design Like those by Rembrandt of the Rhine, Half darkness and half light.
And they talk of ventures lost or won, And their talk is ever and ever the same, While they drink the red wine of Tarragon, From the cellars of some Spanish Don, Or convent set on flame.
Restless at times with heavy strides He paces his parlor to and fro;He is like a ship that at anchor rides, And swings with the rising and falling tides, And tugs at her anchor-tow.
Voices mysterious far and near, Sound of the wind and sound of the sea, Are calling and whispering in his ear, Simon Danz! Why stayest thou here?
Come forth and follow me!"
So he thinks he shall take to the sea again For one more cruise with his buccaneers, To singe the beard of the King of Spain, And capture another Dean of Jaen And sell him in Algiers.
CASTLES IN SPAIN
How much of my young heart, O Spain, Went out to thee in days of yore!
What dreams romantic filled my brain, And summoned back to life again The Paladins of Charlemagne The Cid Campeador!
And shapes more shadowy than these, In the dim twilight half revealed;Phoenician galleys on the seas, The Roman camps like hives of bees, The Goth uplifting from his knees Pelayo on his shield.
It was these memories perchance, From annals of remotest eld, That lent the colors of romance To every trivial circumstance, And changed the form and countenance Of all that I beheld.
