RUS IN URBE POETS are singing the whole world over And filling their hearts with the blackbird's tune. The "brown bright nightingale" strikes with pity The sensitive heart of a count or clown; But where is the song for our leafy city, "O for the Thames, and its rippling reaches, "Come for a blow," savs a reckless fellow, Come for a row on the silent river; Come to the meadows and learn to love!" Yes, I will come when this wealth is over I'll come when blossoming May has flown. Have dragged the yellow laburnum down, Margaret! am I so wrong to love it, This misty town that your face shines through? A crown of blossom is waved above it; But heart and life of the whirl-'tis you! A White Rose Margaret! pearl! I have sought and found you; MY ROAD 657 Clement Scol! [1841-1904 THERE'S a road to heaven, a road to hell, There's a road for the false and a road for the true, There's a road through prairie and forest and glen, There's a road over earth and a road over sea, But the road to you is the road for me. There's a road for animal, bird, and beast, A road for the greatest, a road for the least; There's a road for the heart and a road for the soul, Oliver Opdyke [1878 A WHITE ROSE THE red rose whispers of passion, And the white rose breathes of love; Oh, the red rose is a falcon, And the white rose is a dove. But I send you a cream white rosebud For the love that is purest and sweetest Has a kiss of desire on the lips. John Boyle O'Reilly [1844-1890] "SOME DAY OF DAYS" SOME day, some day of days, threading the street Unlooking for such grace I shall behold your face! Some day, some day of days, thus may we meet. Perchance the sun may shine from skies of May, Touch whitely vale and hill. What matter? I shall thrill Through every vein with summer on that day. Once more life's perfect youth will all come back, I shall stand fresh and fair, And drop the garment care; Once more my perfect youth will nothing lack. I shut my eyes now, thinking how 'twill be- Will slip its long control, Of dreary Fate's dark, separating sea; And glance to glance, and hand to hand in greeting, The past with all its fears, Its silences and tears, Its lonely, yearning years, Shall vanish in the moment of that meeting. Nora Perry [1832-1896] THE TELEPHONE "WHEN I was just as far as I could walk From here to-day, There was an hour All still When leaning with my head against a flower Where Love Is 659 I heard you Don't say I didn't, for I heard you say— You spoke from that flower on the window sill— "First tell me what it was you thought you heard." "Having found the flower and driven a bee away, And holding by the stalk, I listened and I thought I caught the word- Someone said 'Come'-I heard it as I bowed." "I may have thought as much, but not aloud." "Well, so I came." Robert Frost [1875 WHERE WHERE LOVE IS By the rosy cliffs of Devon, on a green hill's crest, I would build me a house as a swallow builds its nest; I would curtain it with roses, and the wind should breathe to me The sweetness of the roses and the saltness of the sea. Where the Tuscan olives whiten in the hot blue day, I would hide me from the heat in a little hut of gray, While the singing of the husbandmen should scale my lattice green From the golden rows of barley that the poppies blaze between. Narrow is the street, Dear, and dingy are the walls All day with dreams I gild the grime till at your step I start- heart! Amelia Josephine Burr [1878 THAT DAY YOU CAME SUCH Special sweetness was about Their common way the great winds blew, As after song some snatch of tune The young year sets the buds astir, But ever in my lavender I hear the brawling bees. Lizette Woodworth Reese [1856 AMANTIUM IRE WHEN this, our rose, is faded, Or in our place of shadows Shall still we stretch an hand Of that old pleasant land? |