WHAT do we plant when we plant the tree?
We plant the ship which will cross the sea;
We plant the mast to carry the sails;
We plant the plank to withstand the gales;
The keel, the keelson, the beam, the knee;
We plant the ship when we plant the tree.
What do we plant when we plant the tree?
We plant the houses for you and me ;
We plant the rafters, the shingles, the floors;
We plant the studding, lath, the doors,
The beams, the siding, all parts that be;
We plant the house when we plant the tree.
What do we plant when we plant the tree?
A thousand things that we daily see;
We plant the spire that out-towers the crag;
We plant the staff for our country's flag;
We plant the shade from the hot sun free
We plant all these when we plant the tree.
WHO drives the horses of the sun
Shall lord it but a day;
Better the lowly deed were done,
And kept the humble way.
The rust will find the sword of fame,
The dust will hide the crown;
Ay, none shall hang so high his name
Time will not tear it down.
The happiest heart that ever beat
Was in some quiet breast
That found the common daylight sweet,
And left to heaven the rest.
THE FOOL'S PRAYER
THE royal feast was done; the king
Sought some new sport to banish care,
And to his jester cried, "Sir Fool,
Kneel now and make for us a prayer!"
The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the painted grin he wore.
He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the monarch's silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: "O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!
"No pity, Lord, could change the heart
From red with wrong to white as wool;
The rod must heal the sin; but, Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!
""T is not by guilt the onward sweep
Of truth and light, O Lord, we stay ;
"T is by our follies that so long
We hold the earth from heaven away.
"These clumsy feet, still in the mire,
Go crushing blossoms without end;
These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust
Among the heart-strings of a friend.
"The ill-time truth we might have kept
We know how sharp it pierced and stung!
The word we had not sense to say
Who knows how grandly it had rung?
"Our faults no tenderness should ask,
The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;
But for our blunders — oh, in shame
Before the eyes of Heaven we fall.
"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;
Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
That did his will; but thou, O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!"
The room was hushed; in silence rose
The king, and sought his garden cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low,
"Be merciful to me, a fool!"
"A SAIL! a sail! Oh, whence away,
And whither, o'er the foam?
Good brother mariners, we pray,
God speed you safely home!"
"Now wish us not so foul a wind,
Until the fair be spent ;
For hearth and home we leave behind :
We sail for Heart's Content."
"For Heart's Content! And sail ye so,
With canvas flowing free?
ye know,
Where may that harbor be?
For we that greet you, worn of time,
Wave-racked, and tempest-rent,
By sun and star, in every clime,
Have searched for Heart's Content
"In every clime the world around,
The waste of waters o'er;
And El Dorado have we found,
That ne'er was found before.
The isles of spice, the lands of dawn,
Where East and West are blent -
All these our eyes have looked upon,
But where is Heart's Content?
"Oh, turn again, while yet ye may,
And ere the hearths are cold,
And all the embers ashen-gray,
By which ye sat of old,
And dumb in death the loving lips
That mourned as forth ye went
To join the fleet of missing ships,
In quest of Heart's Content;
"And seek again the harbor-lights,
Which faithful fingers trim,
Ere yet alike the days and nights
Unto your eyes are dim!
For woe, alas! to those that roam
Till time and tide are spent,
And win no more the port of home
The only Heart's Content!"
REVELRY IN INDIA
WE meet 'neath the sounding rafter,
And the walls around are bare;
As they shout back our peals of laughter,
It seems that the dead are there.
Then stand to your glasses, steady!
We drink to our comrades' eyes:
One cup to the dead already -
Hurrah for the next that dies!
Not here are the goblets glowing-
Not here is the vintage sweet;
'T is cold as our hearts are growing,
And dark as the doom we meet.
But stand to your glasses, steady!
And soon shall our pulses rise:
A cup to the dead already,—
Hurrah for the next that dies!
Not a sigh for the lot that darkles,
Not a tear for the friends that sink;
We'll fall midst the wine-cup's sparkles
As mute as the wine we drink.
So, stand to your glasses, steady!
'T is this that the respite buys :
One cup to the dead already,-
Hurrah for the next that dies!
Time was when we laughed at others
We thought we were wiser then ;
Ha, ha! let them think of their mothers,
Who hope to see them again.
No, stand to your glasses, steady!
The thoughtless is here the wise;
One cup to the dead already,-
Hurrah for the next that dies!
There's many a hand that 's shaking,
And many a cheek that 's sunk ;
But soon, though our hearts are breaking,
They'll burn with the wine we 've drunk.
Then, stand to your glasses, steady!
'T is here the revival lies:
Quaff a cup to the dead already,—
Hurrah for the next that dies!
There's a mist on the glass congealing-
'T is the hurricane's sultry breath;
And thus doth the warmth of feeling
Turn ice in the grasp of death.
But stand to your glasses, steady!
For a moment the vapor flies;
A cup to the dead already,—
Hurrah for the next that dies!
Who dreads to the dust returning,
Who shrinks from the sable shore
Where the high and haughty yearning
Of the soul shall sing no more?
No, stand to your glasses, steady!
The world is a world of lies:
A cup to the dead already,-
And hurrah for the next that dies!
Cut off from the land that bore us,
Betrayed by the land we find,
When the brightest have gone before us,
And the dullest remain behind,-
Stand, stand to your glasses, steady!
'T is all we have left to prize;
One cup to the dead already,
And hurrah for the next that dies!
THE MAN WITH THE HOE
BOWED by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain ?
Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity?
Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And pillared the blue firmament with light?
Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this
More tongued with censure of the world's blind greed More filled with signs and portents for the soul
More fraught with menace to the universe
What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades ?
|