The Willow Sings

The willow sings as the night moths dance--
A soothing song on its rhythmic strings.
While flickering moonlit shadows prance
        The willow sings.

The night wind, whispering gently, brings
The song of the willow--an old romance.
To my tethered heart each memory clings.

I thrill to an old caress, a glance;
My love returns on a night bird's wings.
While firefly-torches, glowing, enhance,
        The willow sings!

In Memoriam

(To Clarence Sharp)

He sang
Like a glad thrush
Sending its wild, sweet notes
Upward when there was none but God
To hear.

Song for an Infant Son

O little son, asleep within my arms,
I think I hear the carillons of peace
Re-echoing to still the war-alarms
And bring, at last, the chrism of release.
O darling boy, this prodigal, the earth,
Long in travail, will joy in giving birth
To peaceful giants who on living sod
Will build a New Acropolis to God.
O little man-child, see the rifted night!
Come, chosen builder, firmly grasp the rod.
Awake, my son, behold the growing light!

New Song

When the last torches
Of the avatars have ceased to flame,
And the wings of seraphim
No longer shadow the earth;
When the last thinning wine
Of liberty is drunken;
When even the ghost of Lincoln,
Hearing the drums of death
In the distance,
Stalks bonily through the night,
Then will the I-didn't-believe-it people
Shriek to the poet-prophets,
"Burn your incense upon the altars
And sing your new song before the Throne!"

Different

Song for Fledgling Eagles

(To Our Missionary Youth)

O youth, you stand star-tall upon your dreams,
The destiny of nations in your hands.
Go, plant your lilies in cool crystal streams;
Erase the crimson stains from ravished lands.
Be now the weavers of the tapestry
Of freedom, making warp and woof skeins strong,
Its pattern flawless with democracy--
The strength of fledgling eagles is your song!
Your wings untried, speak from your hearts, though young,
Your voices tuned to live and love and laughter
Ring with a clearer and a truer tongue
A freedom lyric touching Heaven's rafter.

Chaste-strong, O youth, clasp hands with every race--
The vineyard also lies across the sea--
No matter what their creed or tint of face,
For God, through you, will build an empery
Of peace. His ensign to a troubled world,
Seek out the hungering ... the old ... the child ...
Till all humanity will see uncurled
His Royal Banner, and the atom mild
And gentle with its Atlas-strength, will bless
All men and earth will feel a miracle
Swelling its barren womb with tenderness
And one again become peace-beautiful.

O reverent youth, yours is the task to still
The tempest and awake the Lazarus-heart.
Before the high, white thunders of your will
The death-cowled years forever shall depart.
Clasp hands with God and every race and see
A peaceful world emerge from agony.

Song of Hannah

Down through the corridors of centuries
Echoes the song of Hannah to impart
Its litany of universal pleas
That man again reflect the Master's art.
We, through our sons, could bring an end to war
If every mother followed Hannah's way.
Would that her cry might echo planet-far,
"For him, my child, I prayed, and from today                                                  
I lend him to the Lord!" The joy of this:
A race of fair young gods who would annul
The thrall of might, the saber's piercing kiss,
Rebuilding Eden through love's miracle!
Our sons lent to the Lord! O mothers, we
May all be Hannahs shaping destiny.

Song for a Man-Child

Little man-child in repose,
I would golden-thread your woes,
Give to you a thornless rose;                                                      
Spare you from each harmful thing,
From the bee would take its sting;                                                  
Beg time's hand with gentle touch
Hold your dreams from shattering,
Keep for you a brimming hutch ...
Yet I dare not ask too much

Tragic would it be to shield
From the world that calls to wield
Strength to bid the battlefield
Bloom with lilies ... Grow! Rescind
War, my son, love-disciplined.
Eaglet, try your wings! Be free!
Loose the Master's winnowing wind!
Lest the earth should, dying, see
Even babes in agony.

I Love a Lark-Song Too

He was my problem boy: I had been told
To use severity against his vice.
Yet that first week of teaching, once or twice
A wonder filled his eyes. Before the old
Defiance gleamed, I saw beneath his bold
Contempt-defense, a thrush-flute melt the ice
About his heart; a timid colt entice
His tenderness ... The day I saw him hold
A wounded lark that could not soar the skies
And bind its broken wing and soothe its fear
Then softly say, "Sing, little lark!" I knew
And loved my problem lad. Then as his eyes
Pleaded his hungering, I drew him near
And gently said, "I love a lark-song too."

Flute-Song

I heard a flute
Call from the hawthorne tree.
In crystal ripples its salute
Curved on the breeze, a star-splashed rhapsody.

It seemed I heard
In lilting tenderness
A voice long stilled. Sheer magic stirred
The splashing stars into my love's caress.

His voice came through
The flute-song with a strain
Of sadness. He was lonely too...
Then hark! There came again, and yet again,

Triumphant bars...
My love at Heaven's gate
Was calling through a trillion stars:
"Love is eternal!" and "I wait! I wait!"

Chromatones
First in Lyrelle Contest

Song of Pinioned Courage

(In Memoriam to Dr. Grant S. Housh)

The blindness of his eyes but made his soul
Aware of beauty eyes may never see--
The heights and depths of truth's white mystery--
And gave the power to play a greater role.
Through deepest dark ascending to his goal,
His starward faith became a litany.
Hearing the call of immortality,
He stepped from earth to Heaven to be made whole.

A master lyrist, he lives on to sing
His song of pinioned courage, and the world
Kneeling before his altar of high love
Will know the beauty of his offering.
The gentle essence of his spirit curled
About men's hearts reflects the peace above.

Song of Praise

O Master Poet, for Thy immortal poems
That freely lilt from springtime's fluent tongue,
       I sing my praise to Thee.

I hear Thy footsteps in the April grasses;
Thy lyric voice when larks in the bronze hour
Release a crystal fountain for my thirst.
Thy fingers touch my face in April rain.
Serenity is in Thy symphonies
Strummed on night's harpsichord by silver birches.

O Master Poet, for Thy poetry
I see and hear in every living thing,
       My song ascends to Thee.

Song of the Lark

Song that echoes and calls and rings,
Of what brave hope do you chant today?
The lilting melody trills and swings.
Lark, how modest your brown and gray?

Of what brave hope do you chant today?
What is the message your glad heart sings?
Is it of nesting in meadow-hay,
Or baby larks with their untried wings?

The lilting melody trills and swings,
Happily-joyous and full of play.
Ripplingly-clear on the breeze it flings
Courage and hope in a roundelay.

Lark, how modest your brown and gray!
Love and hope that your message brings,
The joy of life that your songs portray,
How they echo on taut heart-strings.
        Song of the lark!

Notebook

Song of Fulfillment

Morning Wonder

"Your call is clear."--It was my teacher's voice--
"In marriage you will never be fulfilled.
Your star is rising" ... Pondering my choice,
The song of motherhood would not be stilled.
Could echoes, not the singing, bring content?
Acclaim? And never know the miracle
Of life beneath my heart; the wonderment
Of the shadowed valley, God there merciful?
A babe's first cry, my triumph! In my ear
Child voices whispered; I saw reaching hands ...
How could I let another bring them here,
My heritage be stone and barren strands?
My soul held morning-wonder as I dreamed
While far away a Temple spire gleamed.

High Noon Ecstasy

So morning passed, and at high noon I knelt
Before the altar with my love and spoke
Forever-vows. The seal of Heaven felt,
The "first command" renewed to us awoke
The lyrics of creation's primal song
Safe-locked within the chalice of my heart.
And in the heart of my young god, chaste-strong,
They rang--my song to his a counterpart.
We knew a prayer-sweet, mounting ecstasy
As birth ... and death ... bequeathed our home a soul.
Dreams were as shadows to reality;
Time spun for us fulfillment's aureole.
Life's fount was deep and clear with crystal bars;
The cup held to my lips, a cup of stars.

Silver Twilight

My sun, still high, was darkened. Spent with tears,
I knew the blighting kiss of early frost.
Along a pathway shadowed by my fears,
My children gently led me till I crossed
The bridge of hope to peace, and lifted up
My eyes to see the sun--And now they bring
Their babes ... I drink from my own star-filled cup
While beauty rims the shadows lingering.
Above the bronzing hills of truth where still
I garner dreams, I see my rising star ...
Forever vows! Beyond the last high hill,
The ultimate fulfillment ... My eyes afar,
I glimpse the grandeur of the choice I made,
And walk the silver twilight unafraid.

Song of Willow Trees

You never knew I kept the balm to ease
My city-loneliness? For country-bred
I need to hear the song of willow trees,
The cry of gulls and killdeer overhead.
I know a sunlit clearing where I rest,
Fresh-carpeted with clover, honey-sweet;                                      
A rolling lilied hillside where I quest;                                      
A country lane, dust-cushioned for my feet;                                  
I listen to the bullfrog's night quartette
When arms of dusk enfold a quiet town;                                        
A little church I enter nor forget
To wear your rose upon my simple gown--
You never knew I still keep all of these,
That I still hear the song of willow trees?

Song of a Young Wife

My days are made
Of song--
Of wind and sun and rain--
That wings along.

My nights are made
Of stars
That sing of blue lagoons
With coral bars.

My life is made
Of joy:
A man and home and love
And a baby boy.

Scimitar and Song