In English gardens, green and bright and full of fruity treasure,
  I heard the blackbird with delight repeat his merry measure: 
  The ballad was a pleasant one, the tune was loud and cheery,
  And yet, with every setting sun, I listened for the veery.

  But far away, and far away, the tawny thrush is singing;
  New England woods, at close of day, with that clear chant are ringing: 
  And when my light of life is low, and heart and flesh are weary,
  I fain would hear, before I go, the wood notes of the veery.

H. VAN DYKE.

[17] From “The Builders, and Other Poems,” copyright, 1897, by Charles Scribner’s Sons.

The Eavesdropper.

  In a still room at hush of dawn,
    My Love and I lay side by side
  And heard the roaming forest wind
    Stir in the paling autumn-tide.

  I watched her earth-brown eyes grow glad
    Because the round day was so fair;
  While memories of reluctant night
    Lurked in the blue dusk of her hair.

  Outside, a yellow maple-tree,
    Shifting upon the silvery blue
  With small innumerable sound,
    Rustled to let the sunlight through.

  The livelong day the elvish leaves
    Danced with their shadows on the floor;
  And the lost children of the wind
    Went straying homeward by our door.

  And all the swarthy afternoon
    We watched the great deliberate sun
  Walk through the crimsoned hazy world,
    Counting his hilltops one by one.

  Then as the purple twilight came
    And touched the vines along our eaves,
  Another Shadow stood without
    And gloomed the dancing of the leaves.

  The silence fell on my Love’s lips;
    Her great brown eyes were veiled and sad
  With pondering some maze of dream,
    Though all the splendid year was glad.

  Restless and vague as a gray wind
    Her heart had grown, she knew not why. 
  But hurrying to the open door,
    Against the verge of western sky

  I saw retreating on the hills,
    Looming and sinister and black,
  The stealthy figure swift and huge
    Of One who strode and looked not back.

B. CARMAN.

Sesostris.

  Sole Lord of Lords and very King of Kings,
    He sits within the desert, carved in stone;
    Inscrutable, colossal, and alone,
  And ancienter than memory of things. 
  Graved on his front the sacred beetle clings;
    Disdain sits on his lips; and in a frown
    Scorn lives upon his forehead for a crown. 
  The affrighted ostrich dare not dust her wings
  Anear this Presence.  The long caravan’s
    Dazed camels stop, and mute the Bedouins stare. 
    This symbol of past power more than man’s
  Presages doom.  Kings look—­and Kings despair: 
  Their sceptres tremble in their jewelled hands
    And dark thrones totter in the baleful air!