The Wood Trail

  Down between the branches drops a low, soft wind. 
    Where the narrow trail begins there start I.
  Yellow sun and shadow are spinning gold behind,
    Long brakes are clutching as my knees brush by.

  Hidden glades are pink with the twin linnaea,
    Sweet with scented fronds and the warm, wet fern;
  Flute the far-off rain-birds sad and clear,
    Flash the pigeon blossoms at each sharp turn.

  Pungent breathe the balsams by the stream’s low banks;
    Rotting wood and violets lie side by side;
  Glows the scarlet fungus through the alder ranks,
    Burning like a light on a still, green tide.

  Hilltops bid me linger where the winds run cool;
    Hollows hold my feet in the deep, black loam,
  But marking purple shadows in the purring pool,
    I lift my silent feet on the long trail home.

The Fruit-Rancher

  He sees the rosy apples cling like flowers to the bough;
    He plucks the purple plums and spills the cherries on the grass;
  He wanted peace and silence,—­God gives him plenty now,—­
    His feet upon the mountain and his shadow on the pass.

  He built himself a cabin from red cedars of his own;
    He blasted out the stumps and twitched the boulders from the soil;
  And with an axe and chisel he fashioned out a throne
    Where he might dine in grandeur off the first-fruits of his toil.

  His orchard is a treasure-house alive with song and sun,
    Where currants ripe as rubies gleam and golden pippins glow;
  His servants are the wind and rain whose work is never done,
    Till winter rends the scarlet roof and banks the halls with snow.

  He shouts across the valley, and the ranges answer back;
    His brushwood smoke at evening lifts a column to the moon;
  And dim beyond the distance, where the Kootenai winds black,
    He hears the silence shattered by the laughter of the loon.

From Exile

  Call to me, call to me, fields of poppied wheat! 
    Purple thistles by the road call me to return! 
  Now a thousand shriller throats echo down the street,
    And I cannot hear the wind camping in the fern.

  Little leaves beside the trail dance your way to town,
    Till you find your brother here who remembers yet;
  For though a river runs between and the bridge is down,
    I’ve a heart that’s roaming and a soul that won’t forget.

  A sun squats on the house-tops, but his face is hard and dry;
    A rain walks up and down the streets, but her voice is harsh—­
  Sunlight is a different thing where the swallows fly,
    And rain-tongues sing with sweeter voice when they’re on the marsh.

  Once a thousand bending blades stoop to let me pass,
    When I sped barefooted through your crowding lines—­
  Whisper to me gently in the language of the grass,
    How I watched the crows of night nest among the pines.