THE FIVE SONGS
- I
-
The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hill-side’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in his Heaven -
All’s right with the world! |
- II
-
Overhead the tree-tops meet,
Flowers and grass spring ’neath one’s feet;
There was nought above me, nought below,
My childhood had not learned to know:
For, what are the voices of birds
—Ay, and of beasts,—but words, our words,
Only so much more sweet?
The knowledge of that with my life begun.
But I had so near made out the sun,
And counted your stars, the seven and one,
Like the fingers of my hand:
Nay, I could all but understand
Wherefore through heaven the white moon ranges;
And just when out of her soft fifty changes
No unfamiliar face might overlook me—
Suddenly God took me. |
- III -
The bee with his comb,
The mouse at her dray,
The grub in his tomb,
Wile winter away;
But the fire-fly and hedge-shrew and lob-worm, I pray,
How fare they? .....
The summer of life so easy to spend,
And care for to-morrow so soon put away!
But winter hastens at summer’s end,
And fire-fly, hedge-shrew, lob-worm, pray,
How fare they? .....
And now what am I?—tired of fooling.
Day for folly, night for schooling!
New year’s day is over and spent,
Ill or well, I must be content. |
- IV
-
Oh what a drear dark close to my poor day!
How could that red sun drop in that black cloud?
Ah Pippa, morning’s rule is moved away,
Dispensed with, never more to be allowed!
Day’s turn is over, now arrives the night’s.
Oh lark, be day’s apostle
To mavis, merle and throstle,
Bid them their betters jostle
From day and its delights!
But at night, brother howlet, over the woods,
Toll the world to thy chantry;
Sing to the bats’ sleek sisterhoods
Full complines with gallantry:
Then, owls and bats,
Cowls and hats,
Monks and nuns, in a cloister’s moods,
Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry! |
-
V -
Now, one thing I should like to really know:
How near I ever might approach all these
I only fancied being, this long day:
—Approach, I mean, so as to touch them, so
As to. . . in some way. . . move them—if you please,
Do good or evil to them some slight way.
....
Ah me, and my important part with them,
This morning’s hymn half promised when I rose!
True in some sense or other, I suppose.
God bless me! I can pray no more to-night.
No doubt, some way or other, hymns say right.
‘All service ranks the same with God—
With God, whose puppets, best and worst,
Are we: there is no last nor first.’ |
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