“There--there, my blue-flag flower;
Hush--hush--go to sleep;
That is only God you hear,
Counting up His folded sheep!
Lullabye--lullabye--
That is only God that calls,
Missing me, seeking me,
Ere the road to nothing falls!
He will set His mighty feet
Firmly on the sliding sand;
Like a little frightened bird
I will creep into His hand;
I will tell Him all my grief,
I will tell Him all my sin;
He will give me half His robe
For a cloak to wrap you in.
Lullabye--lullabye--”
Rocks the burnt-out planet free!--
Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
Reach a hand and rescue me!
Ah, the voice of love at last!
Lo, at last the face of light!
And the whole of His white robe
For a cloak against the night!
And upon my heart asleep
All the things I ever knew!--
“Holds Heaven not some cranny, Lord,
For a flower so tall and blue?”
All’s well and all’s well!
Gay the lights of Heaven show!
In some moist and Heavenly place
We will set it out to grow.
_Eel-Grass_
No matter what I say,
All that I really love
Is the rain that flattens on the bay,
And the eel-grass in the cove;
The jingle-shells that lie and bleach
At the tide-line, and the trace
Of higher tides along the beach:
Nothing in this place.
_Elegy before Death_
There will be rose and rhododendron
When you are dead and under ground;
Still will be heard from white syringas
Heavy with bees, a sunny sound;
Still will the tamaracks be raining
After the rain has ceased, and still
Will there be robins in the stubble,
Brown sheep upon the warm green hill.
Spring will not ail nor autumn falter;
Nothing will know that you are gone,
Saving alone some sullen plough-land
None but yourself sets foot upon;
Saving the may-weed and the pig-weed
Nothing will know that you are dead,--
These, and perhaps a useless wagon
Standing beside some tumbled shed.
Oh, there will pass with your great passing
Little of beauty not your own,--
Only the light from common water,
Only the grace from simple stone!
_The Bean-Stalk_
Ho, Giant! This is I!
I have built me a bean-stalk into your sky!
La,--but it’s lovely, up so high!
This is how I came,--I put
There my knee, here my foot,
Up and up, from shoot to shoot--
And the blessed bean-stalk thinning
Like the mischief all the time,
Till it took me rocking, spinning,
In a dizzy, sunny circle,
Making angles with the root,
Far and out above the cackle
Of the city I was born in,
Till the little dirty city
In the light so sheer and sunny
Shone as dazzling bright and pretty
As the money that you find
In a dream of finding money--
What a wind! What a morning!--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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