Twilight in the Garden
The scent of the earth is moist and good
In the dewy shade
Of the tall, dark poplars whose slender tops
Against the sunset bloom are laid,
And a robin is whistling in the copse
By the dim spruce wood.
The west wind blowing o'er branch and flower
Out of the wold,
Steals through the honeysuckle bower
And bears away on its airy wings
Odors that breath of paradise;
Dim are the poppies' splendid dyes,
But many a pallid primrose swings
Its lamp of gold.
A white moth flits from tree to tree
Like a wandering soul;
Deep in the lily a muffled boom
Tells of a honey-drunken bee
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poem by Lucy Maud Montgomery
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In an Old Town Garden
Shut from the clamor of the street
By an old wall with lichen grown,
It holds apart from jar and fret
A peace and beauty all its own.
The freshness of the springtime rains
And dews of morning linger here;
It holds the glow of summer noons
And ripest twilights of the year.
Above its bloom the evening stars
Look down at closing of the day,
And in its sweet and shady walks
Winds spent with roaming love to stray,
Upgathering to themselves the breath
Of wide-blown roses white and red,
The spice of musk and lavender
Along its winding alleys shed.
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poem by Lucy Maud Montgomery
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The Hill Maples
Here on a hill of the occident stand we shoulder to shoulder,
Comrades tried and true through a mighty swath of the years!
Spring harps glad laughter through us, and ministrant rains of the autumn
Sing us again the songs of ancient dolor and tears.
The glory of sunrise smites on our fair, free brows uplifted
When the silver-kirtled day steps over the twilight's bars;
At evening we look adown into valleys hearted with sunset,
And we whisper old lore together under the smouldering stars.
Crescent moons of the summer gleam through our swaying branches,
Knee-deep in fern we stand while the days of the sun-time go;
And the winds of winter love usthe keen, gay winds of the winter,
Coming to our gray arms from over the plains of snow.
Down in the valleys beneath us is wooing and winning and wedding,
Down in the long, dim valleys earth-children wail and weep;
But here on these free hills we grow and are strong and flourish,
Comrades shoulder to shoulder our watch of the years to keep.
poem by Lucy Maud Montgomery
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In Lovers' Lane
I know a place for loitering feet
Deep in the valley where the breeze
Makes melody in lichened boughs,
And murmurs low love-litanies.
There slender harebells nod and dream,
And pale wild roses offer up
The fragrance of their golden hearts,
As from some incense-brimméd cup.
It holds the sunshine sifted down
Softly through many a beechen screen,
Save where, by deeper woods embraced,
Cool shadows linger, dim and green.
And there my love and I may walk
And harken to the lapsing fall
Of unseen brooks and tender winds,
And wooing birds that sweetly call.
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poem by Lucy Maud Montgomery
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Before Storm
There's a grayness over the harbor like fear on the face of a woman,
The sob of the waves has a sound akin to a woman's cry,
And the deeps beyond the bar are moaning with evil presage
Of a storm that will leap from its lair in that dour north-eastern sky.
Slowly the pale mists rise, like ghosts of the sea, in the offing,
Creeping all wan and chilly by headland and sunken reef,
And a wind is wailing and keening like a lost thing 'mid the islands,
Boding of wreck and tempest, plaining of dolor and grief.
Swiftly the boats come homeward, over the grim bar crowding,
Like birds that flee to their shelter in hurry and affright,
Only the wild grey gulls that love the cloud and the clamor
Will dare to tempt the ways of the ravining sea to-night.
But the ship that sailed at the dawning, manned by the lads who love us
God help and pity her when the storm is loosed on her track!
O women, we pray to-night and keep a vigil of sorrow
For those we speed at the dawning and may never welcome back!
poem by Lucy Maud Montgomery
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The Sea Spirit
I smile o'er the wrinkled blue
Lo! the sea is fair,
Smooth as the flow of a maiden's hair;
And the welkin's light shines through
Into mid-sea caverns of beryl hue,
And the little waves laugh and the mermaids sing,
And the sea is a beautiful, sinuous thing!
I scowl in sullen guise
The sea grows dark and dun,
The swift clouds hide the sun
But not the bale-light in my eyes,
And the frightened wind as it flies
Ruffles the billows with stormy wing,
And the sea is a terrible, treacherous thing!
When moonlight glimmers dim
I pass in the path of the mist,
Like a pale spirit by spirits kissed.
At dawn I chant my own weird hymn,
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poem by Lucy Maud Montgomery
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Down Stream
Comrades, up! Let us row down stream in this first rare dawnlight,
While far in the clear north-west the late moon whitens and wanes;
Before us the sun will rise, deep-purpling headland and islet,
It is well to meet him thus, with the life astir in our veins!
The wakening birds will sing for us in the woods wind-shaken,
And the solitude of the hills will be broken by hymns to the light,
As we sweep past drowsing hamlets, still feathered by dreams of slumber,
And leave behind us the shadows that fell with the falling of night.
The young day's strength is ours in sinew and thew and muscle,
We are filled and thrilled with the spirit that dwells in the waste and wold,
Glamor of wind and water, charm of the wildernesses
Oh, the dear joy of it, greater than human hearts can hold!
While the world's tired children sleep we bend to our oars with faces
Set in our eager gladness towards the morning's gate;
Lo, 'tis the sweet of the day! On, comrades mine, for beyond us
All its dower of beauty, its glory and wonder wait.
poem by Lucy Maud Montgomery
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Which Has More Patience -- Man or Woman?
As my letter must be brief,
I'll at once state my belief,
And this it is -- that, since the world began,
And Adam first did say,
"'Twas Eve led me astray,"
A woman hath more patience than a man.
If a man's obliged to wait
For some one who's rather late,
No mortal ever got in such a stew,
And if something can't be found
That he's sure should be around,
The listening air sometimes grows fairly blue.
Just watch a man who tries
To soothe a baby's cries;
Or put a stove pipe up in weather cold,
Into what a state he'll get;
How he'll fuss and fume and fret
And stamp and bluster round and storm and scold!
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poem by Lucy Maud Montgomery
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When the Dark Comes Down
When the dark comes down, oh, the wind is on the sea
With lisping laugh and whimper to the red reef's threnody,
The boats are sailing homeward now across the harbor bar
With many a jest and many a shout from fishing grounds afar.
So furl your sails and take your rest, ye fisher folk so brown,
For task and quest are ended when the dark comes down.
When the dark comes down, oh, the landward valleys fill
Like brimming cups of purple, and on every landward hill
There shines a star of twilight that is watching evermore
The low, dim lighted meadows by the long, dim-lighted shore,
For there, where vagrant daisies weave the grass a silver crown,
The lads and lassies wander when the dark comes down.
When the dark comes down, oh, the children fall asleep,
And mothers in the fisher huts their happy vigils keep;
There's music in the song they sing and music on the sea,
The loving, lingering echoes of the twilight's litany,
For toil has folded hands to dream, and care has ceased to frown,
And every wave's a lyric when the dark comes down.
poem by Lucy Maud Montgomery
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Twilight and I Went Hand in Hand
Twilight and I went hand in hand,
As lovers walk in shining Mays,
O'er musky, memory-haunted ways,
Across a lonely harvest-land,
Where west winds chanted in the wheat
An old, old vesper wondrous sweet.
Oh, Twilight was a comrade rare
For gypsy heath or templed grove,
In her gray vesture, shadow-wove;
I saw the darkness of her hair
Faint-mirrored in a field-pool dim,
As we stood tip-toe on its rim.
We went as lightly as on wings
Through many a scented chamber fair,
Among the pines and balsams, where
I could have dreamed of darling things,
And ever as we went I knew
The peeping fairy folk went too.
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poem by Lucy Maud Montgomery
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