Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Massachusetts Poets. 1922.

Magic

I RAN into the sunset light

As hard as I could run:

The treetops bowed in sheer delight

As if they loved the sun:

And all the songs of little birds

Who laughed and cried in silver words

Were joined as they were one.

And down the streaming golden sky

A lark came circling with a cry

Of wonder-weaving joy:

And all the arch of heaven rang

Where meadowlands of dreaming hang

As when I was a boy.

And through the ringing solitude

In pulsing lovely amplitude

A mist hung in a shroud,

As though the light of loneliness

Turned pure delight to holiness,

And bathed it in a cloud.

I stripped my laughing body bare

And plunged into that holy air

That washed me like a sea,

And raced against its silver tide

That stroked my eager glancing side

And made my spirit free.

Across the limits of the land

The wind and I swept hand and hand

Beyond the golden glow.

We danced across the ocean plain

Like thrushes singing in the rain

A song of long ago.

And on into the silver night

We strove to win the race with light

And bring the vision home,

And bring the wonder home again

Unto the sleeping eyes of men

Across the singing foam.

And down the river of the world

Our glowing, limbs in glory swirled

As spring within a flower,

And stars in music of delight

Streamed gayly down our shoulders white

Like petals in a shower.

And tears of awful wonder ran

Adown my cheeks to hear the clan

Of beauty chaunting white

The prayer too deep for living word,

Or sight of man or winging bird,

Or music over forest heard

At falling of the night.

And dropping slowly as the dew

On grasses that the winds renew

In urge of flooding fire,

And softly as the hushing boughs

The gentle airs of dawn arouse

To cradle morning’s quire.

The murmur of the singing leaves

Around the secret Flame,

Like mating swallows ’neath the eaves

In rustling silence came,

And flowing through the silent air

Creation fluttered in a prayer

Descending on a spiral stair,

And calling me by name.

It nestled in my dreaming eyes

Like heaven in a lake,

And softened hope into surprise

For very beauty’s sake,

And silence blossomed into morn,

Whose fragrant rosy-breasted dawn

Could scarcely bear to break.

I sang into the morning light

As loud as I could sing,

The treetops bowed in sheer delight

Before the slanting wing.

And all the songs of little birds

Who laughed and cried in silver words

Adored the Risen Spring.