Like poisoned loaf of elfin bread

Where the aster grew

With the social goldenrod

In a chapel which the dew

Made beautiful for God

The maple street

In the houseless wood

O what would nature say

She spared no speech today

The fungus & the bulrush spoke

Answered the pinetree & the oak

The wizard South blew down the glen

Filled the straits & filled the wide,

Each maple leaf turned up its silver side.

All things shine in his damp ray

And all we see are pictures high

Many a high hill side

Which oaks of pride

Climb to their tops

And boys run out upon their leafy ropes

In the houseless wood

Voices followed after

Every shrub & grapeleaf

Rang with fairy laughter

I have heard them fall

Like the strain of all

King Oberon’s minstrelsy

Would hear the everlasting

And know the only strong

You must worship fasting

You must listen long

Words of the air

Which birds of the air

Carry aloft below around

To the isles of the deep

To the snow-capped steep

To the thundercloud

To the loud bazaar

To the haram of Caliph & Kremlin of Czar

Is the verse original

Let its numbers rise & fall

As the winds do when they call

One to another

Come search the wood for flowers

Wild tea & wild pea

Grape vine & succory

Coreopsis

And liatris

Flaunting in their bowers

Grass with greenflag halfmast high

Succory to match the sky

Columbine with horn of honey

Scented fern & agrimony

Forest full of essences

Fit for fairy presences,

Peppermint & sassafras

Sweet fern, mint, & vernal grass,

Panax, black birch, sugar maple,

Sweet & scent for Dian’s table,

Elder-blow, sarsaparilla,

Wild-rose, lily, dry vanilla.

* * *

From the stores of eldest Matter

The deep-eyed flame obedient water

Transparent air all-feeding earth

He took the flower of all their worth

And best with best in sweet consent

Combined a new temperament.

* * *

And the best gift of God

Is the love of superior souls

* * *

Stout Sparta shrined the god of Laughter

In a niche below the rafter,

Visible from every seat

Where the young men carve their meat.

* * *

Brother, no decrepitude

Cramps the limbs of Time;

As fleet his feet, his hands as good,

His vision as sublime.

As when at first Jehovah hurled

The Sun & each revolving world.

* * *

Who knows this or that

Hark in the wall to the rat

Since the world was, he has gnawed;

Of his wisdom of his fraud

What dost thou know

In the wretched little beast

Is life & heart

Child & parent

Not without relation

To fruitful field & sun & moon

What art thou? his wicked eye

Is cruel to thy cruelty.

* * *

Saadi loved the new & old

The near & far the town & wold –

Him when Genius urged to roam

Stronger Custom brot him home

* * *