POEMS OF ACTION

Open Country

THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE

I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey

bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

DICKENS IN CAMP

ABOVE the pines the moon was slowly drifting,
The river sang below;

The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting
Their minarets of snow.

The roaring camp-fire, with rude humor, painted
The ruddy tints of health

On haggard face and form that drooped and fainted
In the fierce race for wealth.

Till one arose and from his pack's scant treasure
A hoarded volume drew,

And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure
To hear the tale anew.

And then, while round them shadows gathered faster,
And as the firelight fell,

He read aloud the book wherein the Master
Had writ of 'Little Nell.'

Perhaps 'twas boyish fancy-for the reader
Was youngest of them all-

But, as he read, from clustering pine and cedar
A silence seemed to fall;

The fir-trees, gathering closer in the shadows,
Listened in every spray,

While the whole camp with 'Nell' on English meadows
Wandered, and lost their way.

And so in mountain solitudes-o'ertaken

As by some spell divine—

Their cares drop from them like the needles shaken From out the gusty pine.

Lost is that camp, and wasted all its fire;
And he who wrought that spell?—
Ah, towering pine and stately Kentish spire,
Ye have one tale to tell!

Lost is that camp! but let its fragrant story
Blend with the breath that thrills
With hop-vines' incense all the pensive glory
That fills the Kentish hills.

And on that grave where English oak and holly
And laurel wreaths entwine,

Deem it not all a too presumptuous folly—

This spray of Western pine!

BRET HARTE

THE SONG OF THE CAMP

'GIVE us a song!' the soldiers cried,
The outer trenches guarding,
When the heated guns of the camps allied
Grew weary of bombarding.