Fingers denied the plucking,
Patient till paradise.

To such, if they should whisper
Of morning and the moor,
They bear no other errand,
And I, no other prayer.

THE CREED OF THE WOOD

BY KATHARINE LEE BATES

A whiff of forest scent,
Balsam and fern,

Won from dreary mood

My heart's return,

From its discontent,

Joy's run-away,

To the sweet, wise wood
And the laughing day.

Simple as dew and gleam
Is the creed of the wood!
The Beautiful gave us life,
And life is good.

Be the world but a dream,
Let the world go shod
With peace, not strife,
For the Dreamer is God.

"WITH PIPE AND FLUTE"

(To Edmund Gosse)

BY AUSTIN DOBSON

With pipe and flute the rustic Pan
Of old made music sweet for man;
And wonder hushed the warbling bird,
And closer drew the calm-eyed herd,-
The rolling river slowlier ran.

Ah! would,-ah! would, a little span,
Some air of Arcady could fan
This age of ours, too seldom stirred
With pipe and flute!

But now for gold we plot and plan;
And from Beersheba unto Dan,
Apollo's self might pass unheard,
Or find the night-jar's note preferred;-
Not so it fared, when time began,
With pipe and flute!

HOMESICK IN ENGLAND

BY ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER

I love the glamour of English towns,
The abbeys and castles and blossoming downs,

Shakespeare's cottage, Westminster, vast
With organ notes from the dominant past,

And English people and English beer;-
But still it is Maine I'm missing here.

I long for the sparkle and foam and dash.
Of the rollicking, headlong Allagash

Where the silk fawn feeds and the eagle flies
Twenty leagues from the rails and ties.

Crushed balsam bark with the spicy smell
When the mad stream juggles the wood pellmell,

And the feel of your canthook, strangely alive, As you shepherd the rear of the great log drive.

The lonely shores of Sourdnahunk

Where the young mink wrestle like kittens, drunk

With the heady sun and the sparkling air,
And the shy bear lurks in his shadowy lair.

Where the fierce two-pounder lustily tackles
The little green fly with the little brown hackles.

I miss the pull of my three stone pack,
And the uncut forests without a track

Where compass and map and Katahdin's peak
Are all the guides that I care to seek,

And all the companions I care to choose

Are the fox and the deer and the haughty moose;

Till I stumble on some crude trapper's den
And he shows me the kindness of primitive men,

And, after a feast of Adam's ale,

Trout and partridge and beaver tail,

The birch fire gleams on the forest walls

While my Homeric host recalls

How he swamped in white water near Roarin' Rocks And lost that wonderful silver fox. . . .

Yes, I love the glamour of English towns,

The abbeys and castles and blossoming downs

And the scent of an English country lane,—
But none of these can make up for Maine!

THE HILL-BORN

BY MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT

You who are born of the hills,

Hill-bred, lover of hills,

Though the world may not treat you aright,
Though your soul be aweary with ills:
This will you know above other men,

In the hills you will find your peace again.

You who were nursed on the heights,

Hill-bred, lover of skies,

Though your love and your hope and your heart, Though your trust be hurt till it dies:

This will you know above other men,

In the hills you will find your faith again.

You who are brave from the winds,
Hill-bred, lover of winds,

Though the God whom you know seems dim,
Seems lost in a mist that blinds:

This will you know above other men,
In the hills you will find your God again.

THE BROOK

BY ALFRED TENNYSON

I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges;
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,