Collected Poems by William Alexander Percy Read Free Book Online Page A

still.
                                            Good-bye, good-bye!
    Remember to give thanks each day to Him
    Who made your feathers clean and fair and warm,
    Who set within your hearts clear springs of happiness,
    Who shares with you His home, the sacred sky.
    And I beseech you, little brothers, think
    On us, who, soaring, never leave the earth.
    O swallows, should you see, when evening comes,
    One leaning from his darkened window, dark,
    His eyes unlighted, bitter with the day’s defeat,
    Toss where your vagrant flight may catch his gaze;
    For, as you scatter up the golden sky,
    Haply he may remember Jacob’s dream,
    The ladder and the wings, and, holpen, send his heart
    In God’s light careless way to climb with you.
                   And you, sweet singers of the dark,
    That tune your serenades but by the stars,
                                            Love gardens most;
    For garden casements do unlock themselves
    With magic silentness unto your spell,
    And music unto sleepless eyes doth bring
    The lonely solace of unloosened tears.
    But most, you morning choristers, that haunt the eaves,
    Whose little voices like a hundred stars
    Shine just before the sun, tapping with dreams
    The lazy sleep that lingers on our lids,
    Fail not to keep your matins clear for us;
    And should you know, by some bird craft of yours,
    The room wherein an almost mother lies,
    Choir your sweetest there, as tho’ the babe to come
    Were son of God — for so he is!
    Again, farewell!
                             I cannot leave ye thus!
                   O Father, I have failed!
                   What truth can they recall
                   That I have given them?
        None, none! And now the hour is past!
    Birds, birds, stay yet and harken this last word,
    Too simple to be long remembered; but, forgot,
    Taking the shining and the wings
    And all seraphic meaning from the life we know —
    And you that glisten through the lovely blue,
    Not singly, but in shoals and multitudes,
    Bear witness to the truth that I would tell:
    That child of God, man-child or bird-child
    Or silver-wingèd star-child of the night,
    That lives apart, unto himself,
    Unsharing, unsolicitous, and free,
    Hath vainly lived; for life, this present life,
    Is but the throe to brotherhood!
    Behold our hearts, which we forget to hide,
    Are fashioned so in likeness to His own,
    That only joy of all can bring them bliss,
    And every special woe must bring them pain.
    So long as one,
    But one of all His children knoweth grief,
    So long we sorrow too. Nor can there be a heaven
    Till hell be tenantless.…
    The love we bear hath neither gates nor walls
    To keep men out, but tendereth itself
    A refuge city to the shelterless,
    Calling across the tempest-shadowed plain
    Unceasingly, “Come in, come in!”
    And, for they will not come, but scatter far,
    Grieving and hurt and blind into the storm,
    There is no peace for us, and all our days
    Are hungered for the sight of them that stray,
    Are empty to the cry that sounds in vain,
    “Come in, come in!” …
                                                      So must it be — now.
    But I perceive another day not too far off;
    And in that day there shall not one remain
    Uncleansed of tears and sin and every stain;
    And in that day, behold, the golden droves
    Of His light creatures shall invade the dawn,
    Shall stream across the hush beyond all stars,
    And people those celestial places He hath planned.
                             Some day.… But now …
    I go to them that have the greater need.
    God’s blessing steep your hearts in peace,
    And all your deeds in patient tenderness.
    My name! … They call me through the woods!
    Quick, quick! away! … Here, Egidio! I come!
    Up, up into the leaves lest seeing