POETRY.
THOUGHTS IN A MEADOW.
O WHY in this breathing field, this meadow of Maytime, . A-flurry with silverous gusts ; Why, 0 my soul, must thou still with a sadness behold it : Strangely dilturbed from far And why is thy bliss never simple and never entire ?
What hinders thee so to.be gay?
O soul, hadst thou waked on a world but newly created ; , If thou wert the first that had breathed ; Then this brooding arch of the blue were beautiful merely, Perfect the greenness of grass.
But ah, through thine eyes unnumbered dead ones are peering; To the windows the phantoms throng ; Those millions of perished women, and poets, and loVers, ' Gaze where thou gazest and breathe ; And by ghosts is the blowing meadow-land unforgotten ; Memories deepen the blue.
So through tears not our own is the sunset strangely pathetic ; And splendid with thoughts not ours.
So feel we from far-off hills a soft-invitation, A divine beckon and call.
At the sudden mysterious touch of a stranger we tremble ; At lightning from eyes in a crowd ; And a child will sorrow at evening bells over meadows, And grieve by the breaking sea.
0 never alone can we gaze on the blue and the greenness ; Others are gazing and sigh ; And never alone can we listen to twilight music ; Others listen and weep.
And the woman that sings in the dimness to millions is singing ; Not to thee, 0 my soul, alone.
STEPHEN PZILLIPS.
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