A. Ethelwyn Wetherald - The House of the Trees & Other Poems

I WANDEREDdown the woodside way,
Where branching doors ope with the breeze,
And saw a little child at play
Among the strong and lovely trees;
The dead leaves rustled to her knees;
Her hair and eyes were brown as they.

“Oh, little child,” I softly said,
“You come a long, long way to me;
The trees that tower overhead
Are here in sweet reality,
But you’re the child I used to be,
And all the leaves of May you tread.”

IThas been twilight all the day,
And as the twilight peace
On daily fetters seems to lay
The finger of release,

So, needless as to tree and flower
Seem care and fear and pain;
Our hearts grow fresher every hour,
And brighten in the rain.

ALLout of doors for all life’s way,
The fields and the woods and the good sunlight;
And then in the chill of the evening gray,
A sheltered nook and the hearth-fire bright.

No hearth, no shelter attend my way!
Not late, dear life, linger not too late;
But before the chill and before the gray,
Let the sunset gild the grave-stone date.

LEAFLESSApril chased by light,
Chased by dark and full of laughter,
Stays a moment in her flight
Where the warmest breezes waft her,
By the meadow brook to lean,
Or where winter rye is growing,
Showing in a lovelier green
Where her wayward steps are going.

Blithesome April brown and warm,
Showing slimness through her tatters,
Chased by sun or chased by storm—
Not a whit to her it matters.
Swiftly through the violet bed,
Down to where the stream is flooding
Light she flits—and round her head
See the orchard branches budding!

INthe room where I was sleeping
The sun came to the floor;
Its silent thought went leaping
To where in woods of yore
It felt the sun before.

At noon the rain was slanting
In gray lines from the west;
A hurried child all panting
It pattered to my nest,
And smiled when sun-caressed.

At eve the wind was flying
Bird-like from bed to chair,
Of brown leaves sere and dying
It brought enough to spare,
And dropped them here and there.

At night-time without warning,
I felt almost to pain
The soul of the sun in the morning,
And the soul of the wind and rain
In my sleeping-room remain.

AUTUMNdays are sun crowned,
Full of laughing breath;
Light their leafy feet are dancing
Down the way to death.

Scarlet-shrouded to the grave
I watch them gayly go;
So may I as blithely die
Before November snow.

HERE’mid these leafy walls
Are sylvan halls,
And all the Sabbaths of the year
Are gathered here.

Upon their raptured mood
My steps intrude,
Then wait—as some freed soul might wait
At heaven’s gate.

Nowhere on earth—nowhere
On sea or air,
Do I as easily escape
This earthly shape,

As here upon the white
And dizzy height
Of utmost worship, where it seems
Too still for dreams.

WHENtwilight late delayeth,
And morning wakes in song,
And fields are full of daisies,
I know the days are long;
When Toil is stretched at nooning,
Where leafy pleasures throng,
When nights o’errun in music,
I know the days are long.

When suns afoot are marching,
And rains are quick and strong,
And streams speak in a whisper,
I know the days are long.
When hills are clad in velvet,
And winds can do no wrong,
And woods are deep and dusky,
I know the days are long.

INthe urgent solitudes
Lies the spur to larger moods;
In the friendship of the trees
Dwell all sweet serenities.

ROOMfor the children out of doors,
For heads of gold or gloom;
For raspberry lips and rose-leaf cheeks and palms,
Make room—make room!

Room for the springtime out of doors,
For buds in green or bloom;
For every brown bare-handed country weed
Make room—make room!

Room for earth’s sweetest out of doors,
And for its worst a tomb;
For housed-up griefs and fears, and scorns, and sighs,
No room—no room!

AGAINSTmy window-pane
He plunges at a mass
Of buds—and strikes in vain
The intervening glass.

O sprite of wings and fire
Outstretching eagerly,
My soul with like desire
To probe thy mystery,

Comes close as breast to bloom,
As bud to hot heart-beat,
And gains no inner room,
And drains no hidden sweet.

BUTyesterday all faint for breath,
The Summer laid her down to die;
And now her frail ghost wandereth
In every breeze that loiters by.
Her wilted prisoners look up,
As wondering who hath broke their chain,
Too deep they drank of summer’s cup,
They have no strength to rise again.

How swift the trees, their mistress gone,
Enrobe themselves for revelry!
Ungovernable winds upon
The wold are dancing merrily.
With crimson fruits and bursting nuts,
And whirling leaves and flushing streams,
The spirit of September cuts
Adrift from August’s languid dreams.

A little while the revellers
Shall flame and flaunt and have their day,
And then will come the messengers
Who travel on a cloudy way.

And after them a form of light,
A sense of iron in the air,
Upon the pulse a touch of might
And winter’s legions everywhere.

UNLEAVED, undrooping, still, they stand,
This stanch and patient pilgrim band;
October robbed them of their fruit,
November stripped them to the root,
The winter smote their helplessness
With furious ire and stormy stress,
And now they seem almost to stand
In sight of Summer’s Promised Land.

Yet seen through frosty window-panes,
When bared and bound in wintry chains,
Their lightsome spirits seemed to play
With February as with May.