Full filled with April forecast, hath no light. The salt wave on the sedge-flat pulses slow. Through the hid furrows lisp in murmurous flow The thaw's shy ministers; and hark! The height Of heaven grows weird and loud with unseen flight Of strong hosts prophesying as they go! High through the drenched and hollow night their wings Beat northward hard on winter's trail. The sound Of their confused and solemn voices, borne Athwart the dark to their long arctic morn, Comes with a sanction and an awe profound, A boding of unknown, foreshadowed things. Into the happy harbor hastening, gay With press of snowy canvas, tall ships throng. The peopled streets to blithe-eyed Peace belong, Glad housed beneath these crowding roofs of gray. 'T was long ago this city prospered so, For yesterday a woman died therein. Since when the wharves are idle fallen, I know, And in the streets is hushed the pleasant din; The thronging ships have been, the songs have been ; Since yesterday it is so long ago. AUTOCHTHON I AM the spirit astir I am the life that thrills In branch and bloom; I am the patience of abiding hills, The promise masked in doom. When the sombre lands are wrung, And when the earth would sleep, I am the infinite gleam of eyes that keep I am the hush of calm, I am the speed, The flood-tide's triumphing psalm, I work in the rocking roar Where cataracts fall; I flash in the prismy fire that dances o'er The dew's ephemeral ball. I am the voice of wind And wave and tree, Of stern desires and blind, Of strength to be; I am the cry by night At point of dawn, The summoning bugle from the unseen height, In cloud and doubt withdrawn. |