Classic and Contemporary Poetry
WEEK-END SONNETS, by JOHN FRENCH WILSON 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. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LANDSCAPES (FOR CLEMENT R. WOOD) by LOUIS UNTERMEYER THE STORM by ANNA A. ARMBRUSTER IN THE HIGH HILLS by MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT THE HILL-BORN by MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT THE DESERTED PASTURE by BLISS CARMAN PRESIDIO HILL by JOHN VANCE CHENEY AT GRANDFATHER'S by JOHN FRENCH WILSON THE SAND-MAN by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR A SECOND REVIEW OF THE GRAND ARMY [MAY 24, 1865] by FRANCIS BRET HARTE |
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