AFTER the wind in the wood, <br />Peace, and the night. <br />After the bond and the brood, <br />Flight. <br />After the height and the hush <br />Where the wild hawk swings, <br />Heart of the earth-loving thrush <br />Shaken with wings. <br /> <br />After the bloom and the leaf <br />Rain on the nest. <br />After the splendour and grief, <br />Rest. <br />After the hills and the far <br />Glories and gleams, <br />Cloud, and the dawn of a star, <br />And dreams. <br /> <br /> <br />-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <br /> <br />O, THE gray rocks of the islands and the hemlock green above them, <br />The foam beneath the wild rose bloom, the star above the shoal. <br />When I am old and weary I'll wake my heart to love them, <br />For the blue ways of the islands are wound about my soul. <br />[Page 66] <br /> <br />Here in the early even when the young gray dew is falling, <br />And the king-heron seeks his mate beyond the loneliest wild, <br />Still your heart in the twilight, and you'll hear the river calling <br />Through all her outmost islands to seek her lastborn child. <br /> <br /> <br />-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <br /> <br />I SAT among the green leaves, and heard the nuts falling, <br />The broad red butterflies were gold against the sun, <br />But in between the silence and the sweet birds calling <br />The nuts fell one by one. <br /> <br />Why should they fall and the year but half over ? <br />Why should sorrow seek me and I so young and kind ? <br />The leaf is on the bough and the dew is on the clover, <br />But the green nuts are falling in the wind. <br /> <br />O, I gave my lips away and all my soul behind them. <br />Why should trouble follow and the quick tears start ? <br />The little birds may love and fly with only God to mind them, <br />But the green nuts are falling on my heart.<br /><br />Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/three-island-songs/
