herwritingpage2

"Buttercups"

Like showers of gold dust on the marsh,
Or an inverted sky,
The buttercups are dancing now
Where silver brooks run by.
Bright, bright,
As fallen flakes of light,
They nod
In time to every breeze
That chases shadows swiftly lost
Amid those grassy seas.
See, what a golden frenzy flies
Through the light-hearted flowers!
In mimic fear they flutter now;
Each fairy blossom cowers.
Then up, then up,
Each shakes its yellow cup
And nods
In careless grace once more-
A very flood of sunshine seems
Across the marsh to pour.

"The Piper"

One day the piper came down the Glen...
Sweet and long and low played he!
The children followed from door to door,
No matter how those who loved might implore.
So willing the song of his melody
As the song of a woodland rill.

Some day the Piper will come again
To pipe the songs of the maple tree!
You and I will follow from door to door,
Many of us will come back no more...
What matter that if Freedom still
Be the crown of each native hill?

"Harbor Moonrise"

There is never a wind to sing o'er the sea
On its dimpled bosom that holdeth in fee
Wealth of silver and magicry;
And the harbor is like to an ebon cup
With mother-o'-pearl to the lips lined up,
And brimmed with the wine of entranced delight,
Purple and rare, from the flagon of night.

Lo, in the east is a glamor and gleam,
Like waves that lap on the shores of dream,
Or voice their lure in a poet's theme!
And behind the curtseying fisher boats
The barge of the rising moon upfloats,
The pilot ship over unknown seas
Of treasure-laden cloud argosies.

Ere ever she drifts from the ocean's rim,
Out from the background of shadows dim,
Stealeth a boat o'er her golden rim;
Noiselessly, swiftly, it swayeth by
Into the bourne of enchanted sky,
Like a fairy shallop that seeks the strand
Of a far and uncharted fairyland.

Now, ere the sleeping winds may stir.
Send, O, my heart, a wish with her,
Like to a ventrous mariner;
For who knoweth but that on an elfin sea
She may meet the bark that is sailing to thee,
And, winging thy message across the foam,
May hasten the hour when thy ship comes home?

"Night"

A pale enchanted moon is sinking low
Behind the dunes that fringe the shadowy lea
And there is haunted starlight on the flow
Of immemorial sea.

I am alone and need no more pretend
Laughter or smile to hide a hungry heart;
I walk with solitude as with a friend
Enfolded and apart.

We tread and eerie road across the moor
Where shadows weave upon their ghostly looms,
And winds sing an old lyric that might lure
Sad queens from ancient tombs.

I am a sister to the loveliness
Of cool far hill and long-remembered shore,
Finding in it a sweet forgetfulness
Of all that hurt before.

The world of day, its bitterness and cark,
No longer have the power to make me weep;
I welcome this communion of the dark
As toilers welcome sleep.

"Twilight and I Went Hand in Hand"

Twilight and I went hand in hand,
As lovers walk in shiming Mays,
O'er musky, memory-haunted ways,
Across a lonely harvest-land,
Where west winds chanted in the wheat
An old, old vesper wondrous sweet.

Oh, Twilight was a comrade rare
For gypsy health or templed grove,
In her gray vesture, shadow-wove;
I saw the darkness of her hair
Faint-mirrored in a field-pool dim,
As we stood tip-toe on its rim.

We went as lightly as on wings
Through many a scented chamber fair,
Among the pines and balsams, where
I could have dreamed of darling things,
And ever as we went I knew
The peeping fairy folk went too.

I could have lingered now and then
By gates of moonrise that might lead
To some forgotten, spiceried mead,
Or in some mossy, cloistered glen,
Where silence, very still and deep,
Seemed fallen in enchanted sleep.

But Twilight ever led me on,
As lovers walk, until we came
To hills where sunset's shaken flame
Had paled to ashes dead and wan;
And there, with footsteps stolen-light
She left me to the lure of night.