THE MELODY OFEARTH
AN ANTHOLOGY
OF GARDEN AND NATURE POEMS
FROM PRESENT-DAY POETS
SELECTED
AND ARRANGED BY
MRS. WALDO RICHARDS
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
1918
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published March 1918
MY DEAR SISTER
A LOVER OF GARDENS
FOREWORD
How many of us are conscious of the subtle melodies, "through which themyriad lispings of the earth find perfect speech"?
Our poets are listeners; their ears are tuned to the magic call ofsecret voices that we who are not singers may never hear. They capturethe "Melody" in chalices of song, and their message is: that whosoeverwill bend his ear to earth, may hear from field and furrow, from themany-bladed grass and the soft-petalled flowers—in the soughing of thepine tree or the rustle of leaves—an immortal music that revivifies thesoul.
In the quiet tilled spots of earth, from time immemorial, men have sownrare seeds of poetic thought that have flowered into song. Amiel wrotein his Journal: "All seed-sowing is a mysterious thing whether theseed fall into earth or into souls; man is a husbandman, and his workrightly understood is to develop life, to sow it everywhere." The poetsare our seed-sowers, and their work is to develop life and to enrichit. They are never happier than when writing about gardens and thegrowing things of earth—at once their symbol and their solace. In turngardens have in the poets their happiest interpreters.
Here I have culled and gathered together songs and poems that reflectthe melody and harmony of Nature's forces. In these days of the world'stravail, let us seek inspiration and content within the delightfulconfines of these Gardens of Poetry.
March, 1918
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Mrs. Richards tenders her sincere thanks to the publishers and poets whohave so generously accorded their permission to use copyrighted poems:
To the American Tract Society for "Seeds" and "The Philosopher'sGarden," John Oxenham, from Bees in Amber.
To Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. for "The Mocking-Bird," Frank L. Stanton,from Songs of the Soil.
To the Baker & Taylor Co. for "June Rapture" and "The Rose," AngelaMorgan, from The Hour has Struck, and Other Poems and Utterance, andOther Poems.
To The Biddle Press for "The Old-fashioned Garden" and "Poppies," JohnRussell Hayes, from Collected Poems.
To the Bobbs-Merrill Company for "Thoughts fer the Discuraged Farmer,"James Whitcomb Riley, from Complete Works.
To Edmund A. Brooks, Minneapolis, for "Daffodils" and "From aCar-Window," Ruth Guthrie Harding, from The Lark went Singing, andOther Poems.
To Messrs. Burns & Oates and to Alice Meynell (Mrs. Wilfrid Meynell) for"To a Daisy" and "The Garden" from Collected Poems; for "RosaMystica," Katharine Tynan (Mrs. Henry Albert Hinkson), from The Flowerof Peace.
To The Century Co. for "Larkspur," James Oppenheim, from War andLaughter; for "The Tillin