Many Voices

Make gold and silver and diamonds every day;
You see the angels, sliding down the moonbeams,
Bring white dreams like sheaves of lilies fair;
You see the imps, scarce seen against the moonbeams,
Rise from the bonfire’s blue and liquid air.

All the enchantment, all the magic there is
Hid in trees and blossoms, to you is plain and true.
Dewdrops in lupin leaves are jewels for the fairies;
Every flower that blows is a miracle for you.
Air, earth, water, fire, spread their splendid wares for you.
Millions of magics beseech your little looks;
Every soul your winged soul meets, loves you and cares for you.
Ah! why must we clip those wings and dim those eyes with books?

Soon, soon enough the magic lights grow dimmer,
Marsh mists arise to cloud the radiant sky,
Dust of hard highways will veil the starry glimmer,
Tired hands will lay the folded magic by.
Storm winds will blow through those enchanted closes,
Fairies be crushed where weed and briar grow strong . . .
Leave her her crown of magic stars and roses,
Leave her her kingdom—she will not keep it long!

QUESTIONS

What do the roses do, mother,
Now that the summer’s done?
They lie in the bed that is hung with red
And dream about the sun.

What do the lilies do, mother,
Now that there’s no more June?
Each one lies down in her white nightgown
And dreams about the moon.

What can I dream of, mother,
With the moon and the sun away?
Of a rose unborn, of an untried thorn,
And a lily that lives a day!

THE DAISIES

In the great green park with the wooden palings—
The wooden palings so hard to climb,
There are fern and foxglove, primrose and violet,
And green things growing all the time;
And out in the open the daisies grow,
Pretty and proud in their proper places,
Millions of white-frilled daisy faces,
Millions and millions—not one or two.
And they call to the bluebells down in the wood:
“Are you out—are you in?  We have been so good
All the school-time winter through,
But now it’s playtime,
The gay time, the May time;
We are out and at play.  Where are you?”

In the gritty garden inside the railings,
The spiky railings all painted green,
There are neat little beds of geraniums and fuchsia
With never a happy weed between.
There’s a neat little grass plot, bald in places,
And very dusty to touch;
A respectable man comes once a week
To keep the garden weeded and swept,
To keep it as we don’t want it kept.
He cuts the grass with his mowing-machine,
And we think he cuts it too much.
But even on the lawn, all dry and gritty,
The daisies play about.
They are so brave as well as so pretty,
You cannot keep them out.
I love them, I want to let them grow,
But that respectable man says no.
He cuts off their heads with his mowing-machine
Like the French Revolution guillotine.
He sweeps up the poor little pretty faces,
The dear little white-frilled daisy faces;
Says things must be kept in their proper places
He has no frill round his ugly face—
I wish I could find his proper place!

THE TOUCHSTONE

There was a garden, very strange and fair
With all the roses summer never brings.
The snowy blossom of immortal Springs
Lighted its boughs, and I, even I, was there.
There were new heavens, and the earth was new,
And still I told my heart the dream was true.

But when the sun stood still, and Time went out
Like a blown candle—when she came to me
Under the bride-veil of the blossomed tree,
Chill through the garden blew the winds of doubt,
And when, with starry eyes, and lips too near,
She leaned to me, my heart knew what to fear.

“It is no dream,” she said.  “What dream had stayed