ON
THE CREEK
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Dear
Heart, the noisy strife
And bitter carpings cease.
Here is the lap of life,
Here are the lips of peace.
Afar from stir of streets,
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5 |
The
city’s dust and din,
What healing silence meets
And greets us gliding in!
Our light birch silent floats;
Soundless the paddle drips.
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10 |
Yon
sunbeam thick with motes
Athro’ the leafage slips,
To light the iris wings
Of dragon-flies alit
On lily-leaves, and things
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15 |
| Of
gauze that float and flit.
Above the water’s brink
Hush’d winds make summer riot;
Our thirsty spirits drink
Deep, deep, the summer quiet.
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20 |
We slip the world’s gray husk,
Emerge, and spread new plumes;
In sunbeam-fretted dusk,
Thro’ populous golden glooms,
Like thistledown we slide,
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25 |
Two
disembodied dreams,—
With spirits alert, wide-eyed,
Explore the perfume-streams.
For scents of various grass
Stream down the veering breeze;
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30 |
Warm
puffs of honey pass
From flowering linden-trees;
And fragrant gusts of gum,
From clammy balm-tree buds,
With fern-brake odors, come
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35 |
| From
intricate solitudes.
The elm-tops are astir
With flirt of idle wings.
Hark to the grackles’ chirr
When’er an elm-bough swings!
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40 |
From off yon ash-limb sere
Out-thrust amid green branches,
Keen like an azure spear
A kingfisher down launches.
Far up the creek his calls
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45 |
And
lessening laugh retreat.
Again the silence falls,
And soft the green hours fleet.
They fleet with drowsy hum
Of insects on the wing;—
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50 |
We sigh—the
end must come!
We taste our pleasure’s sting.
No more, then, need we try
The rapture to regain.
We feel our day slip by,
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55 |
| And
cling to it in vain.
But, Dear, keep thou in mind
These moments swift and sweet!
Their memory thou shalt find
Illume the common street;
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60 |
And thro’ the dust and din,
Smiling, thy heart shall hear
Quiet waters lapsing thin,
And locusts shrilling clear.
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