A Poem

I WOULD have written, if I might,
A poem like the summer day;
I would have mated sound and sight
With words as fair as they;

But when the day was past its prime,
When shadows grew and sunshine paled,
I tried to find, within my rhyme,
The morning’s charms, — and failed;

Then counted mine as fruitless care,
And, straying forth, where chance might lead,
Saw poems written everywhere
In signs I could not read.

“ Ah, Mother Nature ” (said my sigh),
“ There is a key to sky and flower.
Give me a finer ear and eye
For one swift, little hour!

“ I am a nameless, dowerless youth,
And poor in fancy as in purse :
Teach me to cull a single truth
From out the universe.

“Tell me a secret, of your own,
That men have sought in vain to learn,
That neither thought nor dream have known,
And let me tell, in turn.

“Translate the speech those robins use,—
The separate voice of wind and tree ;
Bid me interpret, if I choose,
Yon brook’s garrulity.

“ Or tell me what the distant seas
Have murmured since the world begun,
Show me the grand benignities
Of kindly breeze and sun :

“ Hint what it is this sky and earth —
This outer, sensuous beauty — screens ;
What makes this tiny floweret’s worth,
And what that sunset means.

“Speak with my lips, — who would not hear?
What wealth, what honor should I lack?”
Then Nature, smiling far and near,
Gave me no answer back.

I only saw the fair repose,
The mute perfection of her face.
She was as one who feels and knows,
But cannot speak, some grace.

There came a swift, unbidden thought:
“ Search thou and find a like content.
This Nature, in herself, is naught;
She is God’s instrument.

“He speaks in her, and speaks in you,
Gather those fancies, cast away
An hour ago, and write anew
The poem like the day.

“ Go, ponder well and patiently,
Not knowing what your thought may yield,
But waiting for the mystery
Of what shall be revealed.”