Read Ebook: Path Flower and Other Verses by Dargan Olive Tilford

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 258 lines and 26760 words, and 6 pages

PAGE PATH FLOWER 1 THE PIPER 6 TO A HERMIT THRUSH 8 THANKSGIVING 14 THE ROAD 16 LA DAME REVOLUTION 23 THE REBEL 24 THESE LATTER DAYS 25 ABNEGATION 26 THE LITTLE TREE 27 THE GAME 28 BALLAD 31 A DIRGE 37 HIS ARGUMENT 39 THE CONQUEROR 40 TO MOINA 41 "THERE'S ROSEMARY" 42 AT THE GRAVE OF HEINE 43 TO A LOST COMRADE 45 FOR M. L. P. 46 TO SLEEP 47 "LE PENSEUR" 48 VISION 49 SAFE 50 ON BOSWORTH FIELD 52 OLD FAIRINGDOWN 53 THE KISS 58 YOUTH 60 TO MIRIMOND 62 SOROLLA 63 IN THE BLUE RIDGE 66 YE WHO ARE TO SING 70 "AND THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST" 73 MAGDALEN TO HER POET 76 FRIENDS 85 TRYST 89 IN THE STUDIO 90 LOVERS' LEAP 91 HAVENED 94 MID-MAY 102 THE LOSS 104 CALLED 105 SONG OF TO-MORROW 108 LITTLE DAUGHTERS 110

PATH FLOWER

A red-cap sang in Bishop's wood, A lark o'er Golder's lane, As I the April pathway trod Bound west for Willesden.

At foot each tiny blade grew big And taller stood to hear, And every leaf on every twig Was like a little ear.

As I too paused, and both ways tried To catch the rippling rain,-- So still, a hare kept at my side His tussock of disdain,--

Behind me close I heard a step, A soft pit-pat surprise, And looking round my eyes fell deep Into sweet other eyes;

The eyes like wells, where sun lies too, So clear and trustful brown, Without a bubble warning you That here's a place to drown.

"How many miles?" Her broken shoes Had told of more than one. She answered like a dreaming Muse, "I came from Islington."

"So long a tramp?" Two gentle nods, Then seemed to lift a wing, And words fell soft as willow-buds, "I came to find the Spring."

A timid voice, yet not afraid In ways so sweet to roam, As it with honey bees had played And could no more go home.

Her home! I saw the human lair, I heard the hucksters bawl, I stifled with the thickened air Of bickering mart and stall.

Without a tuppence for a ride, Her feet had set her free. Her rags, that decency defied, Seemed new with liberty.

But she was frail. Who would might note The trail of hungering That for an hour she had forgot In wonder of the Spring.

So shriven by her joy she glowed It seemed a sin to chat.

Oh, frail, so frail! I could have wept,-- But she was passing on, And I but muddled "You'll accept A penny for a bun?"

Then up her little throat a spray Of rose climbed for it must; A wilding lost till safe it lay Hid by her curls of rust;

And I saw modesties at fence With pride that bore no name; So old it was she knew not whence It sudden woke and came;

But that which shone of all most clear Was startled, sadder thought That I should give her back the fear Of life she had forgot.

And I blushed for the world we'd made, Putting God's hand aside, Till for the want of sun and shade His little children died;

And blushed that I who every year With Spring went up and down, Must greet a soul that ached for her With "penny for a bun!"

Struck as a thief in holy place Whose sin upon him cries, I watched the flowers leave her face, The song go from her eyes.

Then she, sweet heart, she saw my rout, And of her charity A hand of grace put softly out And took the coin from me.

A red-cap sang in Bishop's wood, A lark o'er Golder's lane; But I, alone, still glooming stood, And April plucked in vain;

Afar she turned her head and smiled As might have smiled the Spring, And humble as a wondering child I watched her vanishing.

THE PIPER

I met a crone 'twixt wood and wood, Who pointed down the piper's road With shaken staff and fearsome glance,-- "Ware, ware the dance!"

But when the piper me did greet, The wind, the wind was in my feet, The rose and leaf on eager boughs Unvestalled them of dew-writ vows, And I as light as leaf and rose Danced to the summer's close.

Now every tree is weary grown, Of singing birds there is not one; All, all the world droops into grey,-- O piper Love, must thou yet play? The wildest note of all he blew, And fast my worn feet flew.

Old is the year, the leaf and rose Are long, long gone; So chill, so chill the grey wind blows Through heart and bone; No grasses warm the winter ways That wound my feet; But with unwearied fingers yet, Bold, undelayed on stop and fret, Unmercifully sweet, The piper plays....

TO A HERMIT THRUSH

Dweller among leaves, and shining twilight boughs That fold cool arms about thine altar place, What joyous race Of gods dost serve with such unfaltering vows?

Weave me a time-fringed tale Of slumbering, haunted trees, And star-sweet fragrances No day defiled; Of bowering nights innumerable, And nestling hours breath-nigh a dryad's heart That sleeping yet was wild With dream-beat that thou mad'st a part Of thy dawn-fluting; ay, and keep'st it still, Striving so late these godless woods to fill With undefeated strain, And in one hour build the old world again. Wast thou found singing when Diana drew Her skirts from the first night? Didst feel the sun-breath when the valleys grew Warm with the love of light, Till blades of flower-lit green gave to the wind The mystery that made sweet The earth forever,--strange and undefined As life, as God, as this thy song complete That holds with me twin memories Of time ere men, And ere our ways Lay sundered with the abyss of air between?

Soft as a shadow slips Before the moon, I creep beneath the trees, Even to the boughs whose lowest circling tips Whisper with the anemones Thick-strewn as though a cloud had made Its drifting way through spray and leafy braid And sunk with unremembering ease To humbler heaven upon the mossy heaps. And here a warmer flow Urges thy melody, yet keeps The cool of bowers; as might a rose blush through Its unrelinquished dew; Or bounteous heart that knows not woe, Put on the robe of sighs, and fain Would hold in love's surmise a neighbour's pain.

Ah, I have wronged thee, sprite! So tender now thy song in flight, So sweet its lingerings are, It seems the liquid memory Of time when thou didst try Thy gleaning wing through human years, And met, ay, knew the sigh Of men who pray, the tears That hide the woman's star, The brave ascending fire That is youth's beacon and too soon his pyre,-- Yea, all our striving, bateless and unseeing, That builds each day our Heaven new. More deep in time's unnearing blue, Farther and ever fleeing The dream that ever must pursue.

O little pagan with the heart of Christ, I go bewildered from thine altar place, These brooding boughs and grey-lit forest wings, Nor know if thou deniest My destiny and race, Man's goalward falterings, To sing the perfect joy that lay Along the path we missed somewhere, That led thee to thy home in air, While we, soil-creepers, bruise our way Toward heights and sunrise bounds That wings may know nor feet may win For all their scars, for all their wounds; Or have I heard within thy strain Not sorrow's self, but sorrowing That thou did'st seek the way more free, Nor took with us the trail of pain That endeth not, e'er widening To life that knows what Life may be; And ere thou fall'st to silence long Would golden parting fling:

THANKSGIVING

Not for the thought whose glowing power Glides far, eternal, free, And surging back in thy full hour Bears the wide world to me; Not for the friends whose presence is The warm, sweet heart of things Where leans the body for the kiss That gives the soul its wings;

Not for the little hands that cling, The little feet that run, And make the earth a fitter thing For thee to look upon; Not for mine ease within my door, My roof when rains beat strong, My bed, my fire, my food in store, My book when nights are long;

But, Lord, I know where on lone sands A leper rots and cries; Find thou my offering in his hands, My worship in his eyes. As thou dost give to him, thy least, Thou givest unto me; As he is fed I make my feast, And lift my thanks to thee.

THE ROAD

A thrush! What unbuilt temples rear Their domes where thrushes sing! My heart glides in, a worshipper At shrines that ne'er knew offering, Nor eye hath seen, and yet What soul hath not been there, Deep in song's fane where we forget To pray, for we are prayer.

And now the shadows start and glide; I hear soft, woodland feet; And who are they that deeper bide Where beechen twilights meet? What tranc?d beings smile On things I may not see? As with a dream they would beguile Their own eternity?

I too shall find my own as they; Here in this world where mortals play As gods with no god's leave or let. My hope in high purlieus Desire erst lockt and kept, On wing unbarred shall seek and choose,-- Ay, choose, when I have slept.

For happy roads may yet be long, And bliss must sometime bed. Fern-deep I fall, lose sight and song, The slim palms close above my head, And Life, the Shadow, weaves The charm on sleepers laid Till Time's spent ghost comes not nor grieves An hourless Gilead.

Ay me, I dream my eyes are wet; I sigh, I turn, I weep. Alack, that waking we forget But to remember when we sleep! O vision of closed eyes, That burns the heart awake! O the forgotten truth's reprise For the forsaken's sake!

Far land, blood-red, I feel again Thy hot, unsilenced breath; Meet thy unburied eyes of pain That, dying ever, find no death; See childhood's one gold hour Bartered for crust and bed, And man's o'erdriven noon devour His evening peace and bread.

I hear men sob,--ay, men,--and shout To souls on Gilead road: "Tell us the way--we sent ye out-- We bought ye free--we paid our blood!" Gaunt arms make signal mad; O, feel the woe-waves break! Does no one hear in Gilead? Will one, not one turn back?

Rolls higher from the land blood-red That sea-surge of despair! A flame creeps over Gilead, Unseen, unfelt by any there. They look not back, the while Doom shadows round them dance, And smile meets slow, unstartled smile As in it sleep's mid-chance.

"We give our days, we give our blood, We send ye far to see! We break beneath the double load That ye may walk unbowed and free! 'Tis ours, the healing shade; 'Tis ours, the singing stream; 'Tis ours, the charm on sleepers laid; 'Tis ours, the toil-won dream!"

Dim grown is Gilead, ashen, lost To me who hear that cry. "Our every star is hid with dust; The way, the way! Let us not die!" Up from the trampled ferns, I stricken start, as one who turns From plague's unholy lands.

Pale is the dream we dream alone, An unresolving fire, Till beacon hearts make it their own And men are lit with man's desire. I mourn no Gilead fair, Back to my own I speed, And all my tears are falling where They sell the sun for bread.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet