OKA GREEN SLOPE 
 
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 -^5 MMY ROBBRTINE STOKE S 
 
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Class 'PS %5$ 
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 Copyright N° _/L^/^_ 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
ON A GREEN SLOPE 
 
 Poems by 
 
 MARY ROBERTINE STOKES 
 
 RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 THE GORHAM PRESS 
 BOSTON 
 
Copyright, 1913, by Mary Robertine Stokes 
 All rights reserved 
 
 753^37 
 
 "On a Green Slope" and "Arbutus" 
 are used through the kind permission 
 of the editor of "Book News." 
 
 The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 
 
 /<$~o 
 
 ©CLA351924 
 
 14 A * 
 
TO MY MOTHER 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 On a Green Slope 9 
 
 Maurice Thompson 10 
 
 Daphnis and Menalcas 11 
 
 An Orchard Slope 12 
 
 When Wood and Field 13 
 
 Joy of the Open 14 
 
 The Sunny Pasture 15 
 
 A Summer Day 16 
 
 The Brook 17 
 
 To a Robin Singing at Noon 18 
 
 The First of April 19 
 
 Song 20 
 
 Mid-November Day 21 
 
 Song Sparrow 23 
 
 Along the Road 24 
 
 Over Kent's Fallow Fields 26 
 
 Song 27 
 
 Summer Evening 28 
 
 When Skies are Full of Opaline Haze 19 
 
 These Dear Old Fields of Kent 30 
 
 The Billow 31 
 
 To Life 32 
 
 A Song of the Wind 33 
 
 Earth-Bound 34 
 
 Guardian Angels 36 
 
 Arbutus 37 
 
 The Bluebird's Song 38 
 
 Pain 39 
 
 Yule Thought 40 
 
 A Winter View 41 
 
Echo 42 
 
 Summer Noon 43 
 
 The Wide Fields Thrill 44 
 
 Ah! Christ, Could Life but See 45 
 
 On Finding a Moccasin Flower in the Pine- 
 wood 46 
 
 Villanelle of 'Spring 47 
 
 Convolvulus 48 
 
 Heart's Field 49 
 
 Wells 50 
 
 Violets 51 
 
 Dreams 52 
 
 Solitude 53 
 
 The Lapidary 54 
 
To seek a little and enjoy it much, 
 
 Ah! this were wealth beyond a Midas Touch, 
 
 The bee within the blossom of a weed 
 
 Can sip the very cup of Gannymede." 
 
ON A GREEN SLOPE 
 
 It is as if I trod sweet Sicily 
 This emerald slope beside the sapphire bay, 
 Where brown herds browse and white sheep nib- 
 bling stray; 
 Where clover blooms arrest the wandering bees, 
 And piped song comes out from tilting trees 
 When, Daphnis-like, the wind a lyric frees. 
 
MAURICE THOMPSON 
 
 (In Memoriam) 
 
 Nature in requiem winds and pine-harp's woe 
 Laments the lover of her hermit mood; 
 She pledged him with the gift of freedomhood 
 And led him where her harbored sweets o'erflow. 
 With bow half-drawn and pulsing heart aglow, 
 He paced the mazes of the untrod wood, 
 Harked the wild notes of buried solitude 
 And knew the art of centuries ago. 
 
 He leaned o'er pools where misty dreamlights 
 
 hung, 
 And fingered all the wandering, tenuous strings 
 Of green earth's shy and subtle palpitings; 
 Re-sung the lays that thicket lyrists sung, 
 Found the white way to paradised delight, 
 Marking the path with feathered arrow flight. 
 
 10 
 
DAPHNIS AND MENALCAS 
 
 Met on a range of fruited trees 
 
 Two rival pipers stand, 
 
 The Mocker gray, a champion bold, 
 
 A Thrush clear-eyed and tanned, 
 
 Their match of song doth leap and thrill 
 
 With ardor, challenged-fanned. 
 
 11 
 
AN ORCHARD SLOPE 
 
 An orchard slope, verdured in April green, 
 Where gnarled old apple trees flower-laden lean; 
 A slender peach tree with pink bloom ablaze, 
 And suntouched barns breaking through sapphire 
 
 haze 
 That blurs the harshness of yon furrowed hill, 
 (The blue haze hath a way of softening ill.) 
 High in the tree a robin's Marsian flute 
 And old dreams stirring at the heart's deep root. 
 
 Old dreams, old dreams, blue haze and opal bloom, 
 These charm today and mist the human doom: 
 Far down the slope I see the flowers go free, 
 The mold's strong locks yield to the West wind's 
 
 key; 
 Across the field again light lyrics ring — 
 My heart gives thanks for April green and Spring. 
 
 u 
 
WHEN WOOD AND FIELD— 
 
 When wood and field are filled with fragrant herbs, 
 And yellow bees above white clover croon; 
 When slender stems sway in the hazy noon 
 And on the land is all the charm of June — 
 Then on the hills, tending a flock of dreams, 
 I know all sweets that olden shepherds knew 
 In pastures deep beneath the curving blue; 
 Go anise-crowned with gray care out of view, 
 Loiter in paths that scent and song pursue. 
 
 13 
 
JOY OF THE OPEN 
 
 O that idle hour with the world debarred, 
 On the open way with butterflies starred! 
 In the rifts of red top bees were rife, 
 We tasted too o' the sweets o' life; 
 Drank from a sparrow's spring of song 
 That bubbled where bent grass was long; 
 Of precious blooms we clasped full hands, 
 Sundrops, wild rose, hedge bindweed strands. 
 The silver swallows circled fleet, 
 Fresh winds, Etesian winds did sweep 
 Over the timothy, up the wheat — 
 We plunged in emerald waves heart-deep, 
 And down day's slope there flowed for us 
 The honey of Mt. Hymettus. 
 
 14 
 
THE SUNNY PASTURE 
 
 When morning-glory blooms are folded tight, 
 Round chicory stalks is furled each azure flag, 
 High with song's zest, here merry thousands lag 
 To chant and chime the alchemic power of light; 
 Butterfly wings like golden batons beat, 
 Timing the score for minstrel myriads hid, 
 Beetle's oboe, cymbals of katydid 
 Sound through the breeze's leafy laughter sweet. 
 A lark drops in and fills a moment's hush 
 With one clear note. Wild into deeper grass 
 With trembling trample and with rasping rush 
 Go frighted grasshoppers fleeing as I pass, 
 Out above all the cicada's violin — 
 Loitering, I love it in the idle din ! 
 
 15 
 
A SUMMER DAY 
 
 Light haze on creek and river, golden noon on the 
 bar, 
 
 Sun on warm waters sparkling, star after star; 
 
 Into the ears a crooning, a low silvery sound 
 
 Where winged waves come playing along the 
 sandy ground; 
 
 I've a sense of delight about me, a joy in line and 
 hue — 
 
 The curve of yellow shore and rhythmic sweep of 
 blue. 
 
 Out of the sands the wild bean, with seed pods 
 summer-ripe, 
 
 Along the edge of a tide-pool there runs a slender 
 snipe; 
 
 About the snagged driftwood the hum of a fellow- 
 like bee, 
 
 And just overhead the calling, the calling of fleet 
 kildee: 
 
 No vain and eager reaching, no wonder of any- 
 thing, 
 
 Only idle alertness to what blue ripples sing. 
 
 16 
 
THE BROOK 
 
 (In April) 
 
 Between these banks of sloping green 
 
 Where are waters bright with pebbles met, 
 
 Sweet, gleeful music's heard harp-set 
 
 To unisons unguessed; 
 
 So like some rippling melody, 
 
 Of lip and flute confessed, 
 
 When Life and Laughter meet amain 
 
 The pathway of old dream again. 
 
 17 
 
TO A ROBIN SINGING AT NOON 
 
 High in the emerald garden of a tree 
 Enchanting notes the summer silence break, 
 Wild haunting strains sung for thy loved mate's 
 
 sake; 
 Wild strains and exquisite, from memory 
 Of shared delights that are of field and lea, 
 Spun gold that sunshine through the mist will 
 
 make, 
 The sparkling hues dew on the rose will take, 
 The low, rich lyric of a passing bee. 
 
 So I do think when ecstasies divine, 
 Flower wefts that wakefulness or sleep doth spin 
 Bitter and sweet that quivering sense entwine; 
 Moods to set tinkling mirth's gay mandolin, 
 Thrilled wistful man, listening, intense, apart, 
 'Twas you, you woke the first song in his heart ! 
 
 18 
 
THE FIRST OF APRIL 
 
 Outside my window, deep and low, 
 The flurried rain silverly gleams, 
 And violets blue already blow 
 Around the purlieus of my dreams. 
 
 A gust of song about the eaves, 
 O'er treetops gray a flare of leaves, 
 And soon bewintered sense will be 
 Flower-charmed in Spring's periphery. 
 
 19 
 
SONG 
 
 My heart is for Kent's long hill slopes 
 When the clover's coming down, 
 
 For her roads full of wild roses 
 That lead far out from town. 
 
 Out on the long green leagues 
 
 Where the clover blooms have scope, 
 
 A light mist flying over 
 
 And its Hey ! for heart and hope. 
 
 When the pulse of exulting June 
 
 Beats fast in the ether blue, 
 A dull gray world's made over 
 
 And your own pulse beating too! 
 
 For miles and miles to be wending, 
 Then the halting beneath the trees, 
 
 Where the dancing leaves are piping 
 Their gleeful melodies. 
 
 There's a brown bird on the fireweed 
 And its light song sprays the air, 
 
 O dream in the heart is a song-bird 
 That eases life of care. 
 
 Then it's haste to be up and over 
 
 Green hills that are sloping down, 
 On white roads that run through sweet 
 clover 
 To wend far out from town. 
 20 
 
MID-NOVEMBER DAY 
 
 The summer's embers still unquenched, 
 Were stirred by morning's hand 
 
 In woodland brasiers wide and deep, 
 And warmed the open land. 
 
 We cast in heart-free haste away 
 
 The clasping cares that press, 
 The autumn air was breath of balm, 
 
 The creek was silentness. 
 
 Down from the haze encircled dome 
 Light streamed with opaline glow, 
 
 Laving the idle boats, the fykes, 
 The cabins gray and low. 
 
 Beyond the bar a soft sail hung 
 
 White in the wind's release, 
 Was it a sign, a truce to moil, 
 
 The oriflamme of peace? 
 
 For through the fallow field of day 
 
 No furrowing noise did gride, 
 And Bedioun birds stayed southward flight 
 
 On ether uplands wide. 
 
 Moveless we watched in wood and air 
 
 The beauty born for blight, 
 Till sense grew in the stillness, sad, 
 
 And wide-eyed in the light. 
 
 21 
 
Across the light a long, black scar, 
 And o'er the pale chrome bar 
 
 Dark flocks flown in came crowding fast 
 Where low green cedars are. 
 
 Upon no sound some rent gold leaves 
 
 A gust of grief did fling, 
 A line of wild geese, far in the sky, 
 
 Seemed winter heralding. 
 
SONG SPARROW 
 
 The late song sparrow's a toiler brown 
 
 Who blithely plods along, 
 Sprinkling the pastures Autumn dried 
 
 With freshening showers of song. 
 
ALONG THE ROAD 
 
 I journey with the morning, hand in hand, 
 The charm of mist makes lovlier the land; 
 
 The white road runs wild garden banks between 
 Far, far across the acres rich and green. 
 
 With bended head I bathe wide eyes in dew, 
 This tincture makes the worn old world seem new. 
 
 I hold the grass and strengthen in its glee 
 And join it in its saltant ecstasy, 
 
 And praise it for the power its cheer doth hold, 
 Like love in life to hide the must and mold. 
 
 The roses wild are here in vagrant ease, 
 
 All dawn-suffused and flushed with imageries; 
 
 Right rudely seems the milkweed's stalk upthrust, 
 Like hand that pushes bold through custom's 
 crust. 
 
 Just by the fence and there beyond the trees, 
 The daisies go in genial companies. 
 
 I mark the roadside's fragile denizen — 
 The ruby-hearted flower of moth mullein. 
 
 24 
 
Brave in the dust whose home should be the lea. 
 Smiles the fair face of sapphire chicory. 
 
 The morn is sweet, and discontent and ill 
 Are dark shapes fading on the emerald hill. 
 
 25 
 
OVER KENT'S FALLOW FIELDS. 
 
 Over Kent's fallow fields 
 Wandering the clover goes, 
 
 And the perfume borne on the breeze 
 Is sweeter than scent of the rose. 
 
 O, sweeter than scent of the rose 
 Who would not tarry and dream? 
 
 Marsh blackbirds down in the grass 
 Sing of the meadow stream. 
 
 Red-berried vines dew-wet, 
 The grace of blue in the sky, 
 
 Sun where the sheaves are set, 
 Shade where the white flocks lie, 
 
 Mirth and delight that flee, 
 Here is an end to the quest, 
 
 Brown lark, and robin, and bee, 
 Light song, and laughter, and rest. 
 
SONG 
 
 Song is a crystal mint 
 
 For the coinage of golden mirth, 
 Where nuggets of laughter arc brought 
 
 From all the veins of birth. 
 
 27 
 
SUMMER EVENING 
 
 Pale purple light of dying day 
 
 Flushes the open lane, 
 As up the narrow ivory way 
 
 The herd goes home again. 
 
 The honey sweet of new cut hay 
 
 Upon the air is cast, 
 The cattle's perfumed breath out-blows 
 
 As home they hurry past. 
 
 28 
 
WHEN SKIES ARE FULL OF OPALINE 
 HAZE 
 
 When skies are full of opaline haze 
 
 And breezes blow the blue-green oats, 
 When laborers singing till the maize 
 
 From morn to eve, and all bird throats 
 
 Are slender Panic pipes become; 
 
 When cows bite lawns where sun is laid, 
 And fleecy flocks lie down where some 
 
 Old tree doth pitch a tent of shade, 
 
 An idle sense, far straying, bids 
 
 A glimpse of those sweet times sylvan 
 
 W T hen shepherd life looked out 'neath lids 
 Of peace on slopes Sicilian. 
 
 In mellow June beneath the trees, 
 When song of leaf and wind are blent, 
 
 Deep in the grass, at shaded ease, 
 I'm charmed from all lament. 
 
 29 
 
THESE DEAR OLD FIELDS OF KENT 
 
 These dear old fields of Kent, how sweet they 
 
 seem 
 In the long rose days when the real is dream; 
 
 The tillage sloping east, the pasture reaching 
 
 north, 
 The open lanes between, green lanes that bid you 
 
 forth. 
 
 The silver on the leaves, the clover in the mist, 
 The light Acadian troll of winging lutanist; 
 
 Along an orchard's path the fireweed's orange 
 
 flare, 
 Upon a mood's gloom the illume of turquoise air. 
 
 What reverie of blossoms mid the grass and grain, 
 Yarrow, daisies, primrose and blue and white 
 vervain; 
 
 And oh ! the nameless flowers that bloom and blow 
 
 away, 
 The new stubble's gold, attar of heaped hay. 
 
 These dear old fields of Kent, how sweet they 
 
 seem 
 In the long rose days when the real is dream ; 
 
 Far wafted scent and sound, pure essences and 
 
 free, 
 Distilled in the heart make song's nectary. 
 
 30 
 
THE BILLOW 
 
 Far out at sea, far from the golden sand, 
 Thou risest lightly from the emerald tide 
 With haste of royal wave; doth song abide 
 In thy breast too, that thou woulds't reach the 
 
 land? 
 Behold ! thou art gone ere half the space is spanned : 
 What was thy urge across the mad profound? 
 Woulds't plumb the poignant potency of sound, 
 Woulds't leave thy life's song spoil upon the 
 
 strand? 
 
 31 
 
TO LIFE— 
 
 From every mystic pathway 
 The gifted and the great, 
 Pressed o'er the bars of Silence, 
 Have loosed their tongues for Death; 
 But thy gold and purple glamour, 
 In the dreaming Heart's estate, 
 Through weeping and through laughter 
 I have seen with bated breath. 
 
 32 
 
A SONG OF THE WIND 
 
 When robins wing o'er the leagues of spring, 
 
 And daffodils arise, 
 W T hen the golden light breaks the winter's night, 
 
 Shall we hearken the wind that sighs? 
 The far sky is blue the whole day through, 
 
 No cloud o'er the hilltop lies, 
 New green has sway o'er the cold brown clay, 
 
 But the warm wind sighs and sighs. 
 
 When wheat is astir and brown larks whirr 
 
 From fields to left and right. 
 When light song flows in the apple close, 
 
 Shall we hear swift wings in flight? 
 The violets rise but the warm wind sighs, 
 
 The wind that is a wing for song, 
 It comes and goes and a yearning knows 
 
 The wind that sighs day long. 
 
 33 
 
EARTH-BOUND 
 
 Today is beauty's own, 
 Her breath is on the grass, 
 
 Here have her flower wings flown, 
 Unresting wings that pass. 
 
 Softly the light winds blow 
 Over the wheat and grass, 
 
 Along the melic way 
 
 White daisies lift and mass. 
 
 The gold wheat glides away 
 To meet the silver grass, 
 
 They greet as lovers may, 
 Gold wheat and silver grass. 
 
 The day is a golden close 
 Bound by a drowsy mist, 
 
 And I see not beyond the rose 
 For this veiling amethyst. 
 
 Man asks e'en bent in prayer 
 If after life's as bright, 
 
 Breathes rapture and despair 
 Longing for clearer light. 
 
 This golden mist would seem 
 What beauty in her might 
 
 Has gathered of human dream 
 For crying heart's delight. 
 
 34 
 
Softly the light winds blow 
 
 Over my soul that saith, 
 'Thank God for gold life bound 
 
 By this sweet blue air of breath." 
 
 35 
 
GUARDIAN ANGELS 
 
 He hath given His angels charge over thee, 
 
 Life, that thy path be fair, 
 'Pray, who may the guardian angels be?" 
 
 Faith names them Work and Prayer. 
 
ARBUTUS 
 
 How like some precious little rhyme 
 
 Upturned where men gray tomes revise, 
 
 O'er winter-withered paths of time 
 Its breath of fragrance flies. 
 
 37 
 
THE BLUEBIRD'S SONG 
 
 Hark! upon the air 
 
 And drifting down to me, 
 A trill divine, the violin's note 
 
 In the song of eternity. 
 
 And down the apple lanes 
 That blossom bridges span, 
 This clear note rings to stir 
 The flagging hope of man. 
 
PAIN 
 
 When Life would hold her henchmen safe, 
 Gold-barred with fete and jest, 
 
 Time opes the door with his skeleton key 
 And steals their treasure, zest. 
 
YULE THOUGHT 
 
 Peace is the glowing candle 
 
 Christ sets on Life's white board tonight, 
 All men He hath invited 
 
 To feast beneath its light. 
 
 40 
 
A WINTER VIEW 
 
 Thin as a web a silken mist doth poise 
 On silvern air not warm nor overcold, 
 
 And golden frost stars sparkle like true joys 
 Far o'er the rime's encompassing freehold. 
 
 Phantasmally at portal of a cloud 
 
 The silence stirs at each footfall of sound — 
 
 An axstroke in the deep wood singing loud, 
 Snapped icicles falling on the frozen ground. 
 
 Pensive against the low horizon line 
 
 Stand the fair cedars veiled in mystic gray, 
 
 Silent as nuns with thought of things divine, 
 Before the vast white altar of the day. 
 
 41 
 
ECHO 
 
 As daily from some mount of mind 
 Forbidden knowledge man would find, 
 Though clear words quickly reach his ears 
 His uttered speech alone he hears: 
 
 It is as on this wooded height 
 When sound of silence seeks new light 
 On mysteries dark, though answers ring, 
 How futile all the parleying. 
 
 42 
 
SUMMER NOON 
 
 The white sun waits midway the sky 
 
 Over the land of noon, 
 From the tall tree no murmuring sigh 
 Falls, or light wind tune, 
 The wide fields pale and swoon 
 
 With heat of noon; 
 The long, cool shadows shrink 
 
 Beneath the light of noon, 
 Now, to the pond's bright brink 
 The tired team hastes, to drink 
 
 The rest of summer noon. 
 
 43 
 
THE WIDE FIELDS THRILL— 
 
 The wide fields thrill with light and scented haze, 
 Sweet gum and shrub spice all the woodland ways ; 
 How fair again the world around us seems, 
 How fair the world, my heart throbs thick with 
 
 dreams, 
 Dreams that would voice what no tongue ever 
 
 said 
 Of loved earth's trance — the roses rambling red, 
 The warm gold trembling on the path I tread — 
 White locust bloom's a cloud within my reach, 
 White locust bloom doth silence me of speech. 
 
 44 
 
AH! CHRIST, COULD LIFE BUT SEE— 
 
 Ah! Christ, could Life but see 
 The broad way built by Thee, 
 All hand in hand might pass 
 To the Far Land's softer grass 
 By Thy span of charity. 
 
 45 
 
ON FINDING A MOCCASIN FLOWER 
 IN THE PINEWOOD 
 
 Far in a Pineland close, 
 Deep in the quiet dim, 
 Frailer than fair wood-rose 
 
 What is thy whim? 
 What calleth thee 
 Out of the laughing light 
 Into the Pineland's night? 
 
 O! dream heart, 
 In a world apart, 
 Frailer than fair wood-rose 
 Flower of the soul's close 
 Blown in the spirit's dim, 
 What is thy whim? 
 
VILLANELLE OF SPRING 
 
 Come, Heart, the carols ring 
 Where apple boughs are white, 
 This way is merry Spring! 
 
 We'll greet the blossoming, 
 The new green and the light, 
 Come, Heart, the carols ring! 
 
 The open lanes we sing 
 Dogwood and violets dight, 
 This way is merry Spring! 
 
 Give dull complaint swift wing 
 Into the lull of light, 
 Come, Heart, go wandering! 
 
 A lilac hour we cling 
 
 To white boughs of delight, 
 
 This way is merry Spring! 
 
 Time glooms with opened wing 
 All but Hope's blossoms bright, 
 This way is merry Spring! 
 
 47 
 
CONVOLVULUS 
 
 Its fair pink blooms and tender bines 
 
 The gray fence posts enshroud, 
 
 Its purple mass upon the grass 
 
 Is rich as lustered cloud; 
 
 Some subtle pleasure, deep and sweet, 
 
 Falls on me in this place, 
 
 E'en as a wearied throng 
 
 Hath thought of song, 
 
 Glimpsing a maiden's idle grace. 
 
 48 
 
HEARTS FIELD 
 
 White flowers of thought here droop with sor- 
 row's dew, 
 A little stream of laughter twinkles through, 
 Dreams overhead pass in immortal flight — 
 Gray doves winging in the quiet light. 
 
 49 
 
WELLS 
 
 When crystal springs on land run dry, 
 Clouds pass with no showers fraught, 
 
 Bright water from earth's mystic deeps 
 To parching lips is brought. 
 
 That sparkling song may ever leap 
 When springs of dream are naught, 
 
 Into the well of silence deep 
 
 Speech sinks a shaft of thought. 
 
 50 
 
VIOLETS 
 
 Beneath the sod a potter lone 
 Did toil the winter through, 
 
 That man in May might quaff delight 
 From little cups of blue. 
 
 51 
 
DREAMS 
 
 Dreams are petals of a rose 
 
 Grown afar, 
 Mood and Thought in Mystery's close 
 
 Its gardeners are. 
 
 5i 
 
SOLITUDE 
 
 For Thought and Silence wed 
 'Tis Eden's garden old, 
 
 As doves Speech here is fed 
 With Fancy's crumbs of gold. 
 
 53 
 
THE LAPIDARY 
 
 Earth s generations come and go 
 
 With sighs and tears and laughters light, 
 
 Passing down the streets of Time, 
 
 These opals, pearls and diamonds bright 
 
 They bring unto the Singer's door, 
 
 Who there, intent, above the strife, 
 
 Resets these heirlooms in our House of Life. 
 
 54 
 
" To barter a song for gold is loss, 
 
 For the song is gold and the gold is dross. 
 
 Who hath the gold, let him bear his cross. 
 
 To sound the harp for a lasting name 
 Is to sell one's love to a life of shame, 
 Art is eternal, but what is fame?" 
 
'' 
 
JEP 29 1913 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 linn 
 
 018 360 383 8