Poem by Clinton Scollard

A Day for Wandering

I set apart a day for wandering; 
I heard the woodlands ring, 
The hidden white-throat sing, 
And the harmonic West, 
Beyond a far hill-crest,         
Touch its Aeolian string. 
Remote from all the brawl and bruit of men, 
The iron tongue of Trade, 
I followed the clear calling of a wren 
Deep to the bosom of a sheltered glade,   
Where interwoven branches spread a shade 
Of soft cool beryl like the evening seas 
Unruffled by the breeze. 
And there—and there— 
I watched the maiden-hair,   
The pale blue iris-grass, 
The water-spider in its pause and pass 
Upon a pool that like a mirror was. 
 
I took for confidant 
The diligent ant   
Threading the clover and the sorrel aisles; 
For me were all the smiles 
Of the sequestered blossoms there abloom— 
Chalice and crown and plume; 
I drank the ripe rich attars blurred and blent,   
And won—Content!

1. The Cripple
2. The Tides
3. Dirge for a Sailor
4. Ballad of Protestant's Leap
5. A Sea Change

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