Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WEEK-END SONNETS, by JOHN FRENCH WILSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WEEK-END SONNETS, by                    
First Line: Come out to our house any week-end in june
Last Line: To dance among the red chrysanthemums.
Subject(s): Nature - Religious Aspects


I

Come out to our house any week-end in June,
When dandelions riot in the grass:
And drink the yellow floods of afternoon,
Poured from a sky of blue and quivering glass.
Go through the arbor where the ramblers mass
In crimson flame against white lattices:
Open the easy swinging gate, and pass
Beneath the birch, between the maple trees
With tops a-tremble in the southwest breeze:
Follow along the curving gravel walk
Up to the terrace top, where, as you please,
Tobacco, high adventure, casual talk,
And journey's end await, if you are one
Who would live much and quietly in the sun.

II

The easy swinging gate you entered through
Has worn and rusty hinges; but they creak
A little song of welcoming to you,
Sung in the only language they can speak.
They know the gladdest day of all the week,
And count upon it, even as you and I.
Their Monday morning voice is but a squeak;
Somehow they can not learn to sing "Goodbye."
You may not think such knowingness can lie
In rusted hinges of an arbor gate;
But everywhere in earth and air and sky
Alluring undiscovered wonders wait,
And high adventure lurks; and splendor clings
In trivial and unsought-after things.

III

On Sunday morning you may go to church
In any way you please, or not at all.
There is a stately one beneath our birch,
A lowlier one out by the garden wall:
Methodist, Catholic, Episcopal,
Are all within an easy morning's stroll;
But if these venerable creeds appal,
A garden spade may benefit your soul;
Or some eternal verity unroll
As you spread paint upon the kitchen screens,
Or fix fresh cut nasturtiums in a bowl,
Or hold communion with the lima beans.
Or you may put your clean white flannels on
And meet it as you ramble through the lawn.

IV

But do not make a desperate search for God
Lest you offend his quiet dignity.
The week-end is no time to pant or plod
The rock-strewn roads of any Calvary.
It is a time to live in the sun, and see
Your favorite god by glimpses, everywhere.
I find him lurking quite persistently
In our young daughter's laugh, and in her hair;
And if the baby smiles, he lingers there:
But when the baby cries, he understands
And straightway slips without offense or care
Into my wife's brown eyes and her white hands;
And many a moonlit night in fall he comes
To dance among the red chrysanthemums.





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