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A SPRING SONG AND A LATER

She sang a song of May for me,
  Wherein once more I heard
The mirth of my glad infancy—­
  The orchard’s earliest bird—­
The joyous breeze among the trees
  New-clad in leaf and bloom,
And there the happy honey-bees
  In dewy gleam and gloom.

So purely, sweetly on the sense
  Of heart and spirit fell
Her song of Spring, its influence—­
  Still irresistible,—­
Commands me here—­with eyes ablur—­
  To mate her bright refrain. 
Though I but shed a rhyme for her
  As dim as Autumn rain.

KNEELING WITH HERRICK

Dear Lord, to Thee my knee is bent—­
    Give me content—­
Full-pleasured with what comes to me,
    Whate’er it be: 
An humble roof—­a frugal board,
    And simple hoard;
The wintry fagot piled beside
    The chimney wide,
While the enwreathing flames up-sprout
    And twine about
The brazen dogs that guard my hearth
    And household worth: 
Tinge with the ember’s ruddy glow
    The rafters low;
And let the sparks snap with delight,
    As fingers might
That mark deft measures of some tune
    The children croon: 
Then, with good friends, the rarest few
    Thou boldest true,
Ranged round about the blaze, to share
    My comfort there,—­
Give me to claim the service meet
    That makes each seat
A place of honor, and each guest
    Loved as the rest.

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[Illustration]

THE RAINY MORNING

The dawn of the day was dreary,
  And the lowering clouds o’erhead
Wept in a silent sorrow
  Where the sweet sunshine lay dead;
And a wind came out of the eastward
  Like an endless sigh of pain,
And the leaves fell down in the pathway
  And writhed in the falling rain.

I had tried in a brave endeavor
  To chord my harp with the sun,
But the strings would slacken ever,
  And the task was a weary one: 
And so, like a child impatient
  And sick of a discontent,
I bowed in a shower of teardrops
  And mourned with the instrument.

And lo! as I bowed, the splendor
  Of the sun bent over me,
With a touch as warm and tender
  As a father’s hand might be: 
And even as I felt its presence,
  My clouded soul grew bright,
And the tears, like the rain of morning,
  Melted in mists of light.

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[Illustration]

REACH YOUR HAND TO ME

Reach your hand to me, my friend,
  With its heartiest caress—­
Sometime there will come an end
  To its present faithfulness—­
    Sometime I may ask in vain
    For the touch of it again,
    When between us land or sea
    Holds it ever back from me.