These are the joys of the open road— For him who travels without a load. 

EVENING ON THE POTOMAC.

 The fervid breath of our flushed Southern May Is sweet upon the city's throat and lips, As a lover's whose tired arm slips Listlessly over the shoulder of a queen. Far away The river melts in the unseen. Oh, beautiful Girl-City, how she dips Her feet in the stream With a touch that is half a kiss and half a dream! Her face is very fair, With flowers for smiles and sunlight in her hair. My westland flower-town, how serene she is! Here on this hill from which I look at her, All is still as if a worshipper Left at some shrine his offering. Soft winds kiss My cheek with a slow lingering. A luring whisper where the laurels stir Wiles my heart back to woodland-ward again. But lo, Across the sky the sunset couriers run, And I remain To watch the imperial pageant of the Sun Mock me, an impotent Cortez here below, With splendors of its vaster Mexico. O Eldorado of the templed clouds! O golden city of the western sky! Not like the Spaniard would I storm thy gates; Not like the babe stretch chubby hands and cry To have thee for a toy; but far from crowds, Like my Faun brother in the ferny glen, Peer from the wood's edge while thy glory waits, And in the darkening thickets plunge again. 

SPRING SONG.

 Make me over, mother April, When the sap begins to stir! When thy flowery hand delivers All the mountain-prisoned rivers, And thy great heart beats and quivers, To revive the days that were, Make me over, mother April, When the sap begins to stir! Take my dust and all my dreaming, Count my heart-beats one by one, Send them where the winters perish; Then some golden noon recherish And restore them in the sun, Flower and scent and dust and dreaming, With their heart-beats every one! Set me in the urge and tide-drift Of the streaming hosts a-wing! Breast of scarlet, throat of yellow, Raucous challenge, wooings mellow— Every migrant is my fellow, Making northward with the spring. Loose me in the urge and tide-drift Of the streaming hosts a-wing! Shrilling pipe or fluting whistle, In the valleys come again; Fife of frog and call of tree-toad, All my brothers, five or three-toed, With their revel no more vetoed, Making music in the rain; Shrilling pipe or fluting whistle, In the valleys come again. Make me of thy seed to-morrow, When the sap begins to stir! Tawny light-foot, sleepy bruin, Bright-eyes in the orchard ruin, Gnarl the good life goes askew in, Whiskey-jack, or tanager,— Make me anything to-morrow, When the sap begins to stir! Make me even (How do I know?) Like my friend the gargoyle there; It may be the 

 Prev. P 5/21 next