BIRCHES by WILSON PUGSLEY MACDONALD

THE tidal darkness floods the lonely land,
Leaving its stain on sky and field and wood,
Save where the silver birches palely stand --
A cold and phosphorescent brotherhood
That age-long have the dark and gloom withstood.
I find my pathway by their gentle glow;
Their laughter drowns the hemlock's woful whine.
They are a valiant company to go
So boldly mid a nubian group of pine.

Brave is the laughter of their limpid leaves
In presence of that primal oligarch;
And strange the daring spirit that conceives
Their moony misalliance with the dark.
Are these the offspring of some ancient arc
That stumbled through the clouds, some giant moon
Whose beams were frozen and must aye remain
To gaze as violets on the blue of noon,
Nor evermore their former state regain?

Like slim and naked damsels of the wood,
Where all are proudly gowned in tan and gray,
Their tresses gathered in a silver snood,
The birches, nude and chaste, salute the day,
And rouse the prudes to spurious dismay.
O for a power to set their clean limbs free
To rhyme, in teasing flesh, their sealed desire,
Or dance their prisoned feet in ecstasy
On that fell form of puritanic ire!

I raise my goblet, with this winking wine,
Not to the toasts that often meet the ear,
Not to the burning maple nor the pine
That keeps her august vesture through the year
Lest any woodland doubter should have fear;
But to the silver birches in a row
I lift my cool and amber chalice high,
And drink the columned beauty of their snow
That in the rains of April does not die.

Fine rebels of the shadowland are they.
Make me their comrade rebel! May I hold
Their stainless beauty in the dark, and may
I meet the massive blackness of the wold,
Sandalled as they with shade and helmed with gold.
What axe shall dare assail their gallant band,
Or dim their silver torches, shining clear
To make the cooling lilies understand
Some spirit, kindred to their own, is near!

Once more the tidal wave of black withdraws
And hides within the ever-shadowed wood;
And the avenging morning overawes
With light a cold and traitorous multitude
That still with thoughts of midnight are imbued,
But hails a group of birches that alone
Of all the earth rebelled the imperious Night,
And mocked the Ethiopian on her throne
With brave, unarmored companies of white.

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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