ps, I ride;
I have found my life and am satisfied.
Onward I ride in the blowing oats,
Checking the field lark's rippling notes--
Lightly I sweep from steep to steep;
O'er my head through branches high
Come glimpses of deep blue sky;
The tall oats brush my horse's flanks:
Wild poppies crowd on the sunny banks;
A bee booms out of the scented grass;
A jay laughs with me as I pass.

I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forget
Life's hoard of regret--
All the terror and pain of a chafing chain.
Grind on, O cities, grind! I leave you a blur behind.
I am lifted elate--the skies expand;
Here the world's heaped gold is a pile of sand.
Let them weary and work in their narrow walls;
I ride with the voices of waterfalls.
I swing on as one in a dream--I swing.
Down the very hollows, I shout, I sing.
The world is gone like an empty word;
My body's a bough in the wind,--my heart a bird.

--_Edwin Markham._

[15] By permission from Edwin Markham's "Joy of the Hills
and Other Poems," copyright by Doubleday & McClure, New
York.

IN BLOSSOM TIME.

Its O my heart, my heart,
To be out in the sun and sing,
To sing and shout in the fields about,
In the balm and blossoming.

Sing loud, O bird in the tree;
O bird, sing loud in the sky,
And honey-bees, blacken the clover-beds;
There are none of you as glad as I.

The leaves laugh low in the wind,
Laugh low with the wind at play;
And the odorous call of the flowers all
Entices my soul away.

For oh, but the world is fair, is fair,
And oh, but the world is sweet;
I will out in the old of the blossoming mould,
And sit at the Master's feet.

And the love my heart would speak,
I will fold in the lily's rim,
That the lips of the blossom more pure and meek
May offer it up to Him.

Then sing in the hedgerow green, O thrush,
O skylark, sing in the blue;
Sing loud, sing clear, that the King may hear,
And my soul shall sing with you.

--_Ina Coolbrith._

THE STARS AND THE FLOWERS.[16]

Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers so blue and golden
Stars that in earth's firmament do shine.

Stars they are wherein we read our history,
As astrologers and see