Hello!
Thanks for coming by..... I feel like I should explain my homepage a little before you start in. First of all, Edna St. Vincent Millay, for those of you who don't know, is my favorite poet. But she's more than that--she's my one and only poet, a borderline obsession, and one reason I made it this far without going crazy. She means so much to me...... So this is place I've decided to honor her work. If you want to skip the bit about why I love her poetry so much, I'll understand. The only reason I'm including it is because once I was surfing the web, and I found a page in which a man talked about how deeply he had been affected by Edna St. Vincent Millay (he was actually alive when she was, and also was introduced to her work around middle school). It meant a lot to me, because it validated my own feelings regarding her poetry. It was just really nice to have in some sense a shared experience, even though there was no way to actually get in touch with him.
So, if you're interested in why I'm so crazy about her poetry, read
on! Otherwise skip to the actual shrine--it's filled with poems. Just
pick one--there's all sorts: rhymed and metered, rhymed and unmetered,
unrhymed and unmetered. But you really should read them out loud, I'm
serious, because if you don't, you really do miss a lot. If you've heard
any stereotypes about Edna St. Vincent Millay's work, I really recommend
reading the last one on this page. It's one of
my very favorites, and it really does explode any kind of stereotype you
could make about her poetry. I hope you find something you like! I'm
always adding to this page, so you should come back!!! Meanwhile, here's
an index of what I have so far. It's organized by alphabetical order, if
you're looking for something specific. If you're not familiar with her
poetry, I've ordered them in a flow that makes a lot of sense to me,
although it generally does not respect previous collections. I hope you
like them!
Theme and Variations
To Elinor Wylie
Memorial to D. C.
Three Songs of Shattering
Three Songs from "The Lamp and the Bell"
Sonnets from an Ungrafted Tree
Other Sonnets
That I shall love you always.
No matter what party is in power;
No matter what temporarily
expedient combination of allied interests wins
the war;
Shall love
you always.
From the wound of my enemy that thrust me through in the
dark wood
I arose; with sweat on my lip and the wild woodgrasses in
my spur
I arose and stood.
But never did I arise from loving
her.
I only fear lest, being by nature sunny,
By and
by you will weep no more at all,
And fall asleep in the sun, having
lost with the tears
The colour in the lashes that comes as the tears
fall.
I would not have you darken your lids with weeping,
Beautiful eyes, but I would have you weep enough
To wet the fingers
of the hand held over the eye-lids,
And stain a little the light
frock's delicate stuff.
For there came into my mind, as I watched
you winking the tears down,
Laughing faces, blown from the west and
the east,
Faces lovely and proud that I have prized and cherished;
Nor were the loveliest among them those that had wept the least.
Painfully, under the pressure that obtains
At the sea's bottom, crushing my lungs and my brains
(For the
body makes shift to breathe and after a fashion flourish
Ten fathoms
deep in care,
Ten fathoms deep in an element denser than air
Wherein the soul must perish)
I trap and harvest, stilling my
stomach's needs;
I crawl forever, hoping never to see
Above my
head the limbs of my spirit no longer free
Kicking in frenzy, a
swimmer enmeshed in weeds.
I. Valentine
Woke you in Heaven, Death's kinder name,
And downward in
sweet gesture came
From your cold breast your rigid hand,
Then
Heaven would be my native land.
But you are nowhere: you are gone
All roads into Oblivion.
Whither I would disperse, till then
From home a banished citizen.
Here beggar-ticks, 'tis true;
Here the rank-smelling
Thorn-apple,--and who
Would plant
this by his dwelling?
Here every manner of weed
To mock the
faithful harrow:
Thistles, that feed
None but the finches;
yarrow,
Blue vervain, yellow charlock; here
Bindweed, that
chokes the struggling year;
Broad plantain and narrow.
But there no flower.
The rye is vexed and thinned,
The wheat comes limping
home,
By vetch and whiteweed harried, and the sandy bloom
Of
sour-grass; here
Dandelions,--and the wind
will blow them
everywhere.
Nobody that matters, that is. Distant relatives of course
Die, whom
one never has seen, or has seen for an hour,
And they gave one candy
in a pink-and-green striped bag, or a jack-knife,
And went away, and
cannot really be said to have lived at all.
And cats die. They
lie on the floor and lash their tails,
And their reticent fur is
suddenly all in motion
With fleas that one never knew were there,
Polished and brown, knowing all there is to know,
Trekking off
into the living world.
You fetch a shoe-box, but it's much too small,
because she won't curl up
now:
So you find a bigger box, and bury her
in the yard, and weep.
But you do not wake up a month from then, two
months,
A year from then, two years, in the middle of the night
And weep, with your knuckles in your mouth, and say Oh God! Oh God!
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies that matters,--mothers
and
fathers
don't die.
And if you have ever said, "For heaven's sake,
must you always be kissing
a
person?"
Or, "I do wish to gracious
you'd stop tapping on the window with your
thimble!"
Tomorrow, or
even the day after tomorrow if you're busy having fun,
Is plenty of
time to say, "I'm sorry, mother."
To be grown up is to sit at the
table with people who have died, who
neither
listen nor speak;
Who do
not drink their tea, though they always said
Tea was such a comfort.
Run down into the cellar and bring up the last jar of raspberries;
they
are not
tempted.
Flatter them, ask them what was it they said
exactly
That time, to the bishop, or to the overseer, or to Mrs.
Mason;
They are not taken in.
Shout at them, get red in the
face, rise,
Drag them up out of their chairs by their stiff shoulders
and shake them
and
yell at them;
They are not startled, they are not
even embarrassed; they slide back into
their
chairs.
Your tea is cold
now.
You drink it standing up,
And leave the house.
He knows that man is born to care,
And ten and threescore's
all his span;
And this is comfort and to spare
For such a level man.
He is not made like crooked me,
Who cannot rise nor lift
my head,
And all because what had to be
Has been, what lived is
dead;
Who lie among my tears and rust,
And all because a mortal
brain
That loved to think is clogged with dust,
And will not think again.
A good friend to the monkshood in a time of need
You were, and
the lupine's friend as well;
But I see the lupine lift the ground
like a tough weed
And the earth over the monkshood swell,
And I
fear that not a root in all this heaving sea
Of land, has nudged you
where you lie, has found
Patience and time to direct you, numb and
stupid as you still must be
From your first winter underground.
I
know I am but summer to your heart,
And not the full four seasons of
the year;
And you must welcome from another part
Such noble
moods as are not mine, my dear.
No gracious weight of golden fruit
to sell
Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing;
And I have loved
you all too long and well
To carry still the high sweet breast of
Spring.
Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes,
I must be gone,
steal forth with silent drums,
That you may hail again the bird and
rose
When I come back to you, as summer comes.
Else you will
seek, at some not distant time,
Even your summer in another clime.
Say what you will, and scratch my heart to find
The roots of last
year's roses in my breast;
I am surely riper in my mind
As if
the fruit stood in the stalls confessed.
Laugh at the unshed leaf,
say what you will,
Call me in all things what I was before,
A
flutterer in the wind, a woman still;
I tell you I am what I was and
more.
My branches weigh me down, frost cleans the air,
My sky is
black with small birds bearing south;
Say what you will, confuse me
with fine care,
Put by my word as but an April truth--
Autumn
is no less on me, that a rose
Hugs the brown bough and sighs before
it goes.
When you, that at this moment are to me
Dearer than words on
paper, shall depart,
And be no more the warder of my heart,
Whereof again myself shall hold the key;
And be no more--what
you now seem to be--
The sun, from which all excellences start
In a round nimbus, nor a broken dart
Of moonlight, even,
splintered on the sea;
I shall remember only of this hour--
And
weep somewhat, as you now see me weep--
The pathos of your love,
that, like a flower,
Fearful of death yet amorous of sleep,
Droops for a moment and beholds, dismayed,
The wind whereon its
petals shall be laid.
When did I ever deny, though this was fleeting,
That this was love? When did I ever, I say,
With iron thumb put out
the eyes of day
In this cold world where charity lies bleating
Under a thorn, and none to give him greeting,
And all that lights
endeavour on its way
Is the teased lamp of loving, the torn ray
Of the least kind, the most clandestine meeting?
As God's my judge, I
do cry holy, holy,
Upon the name of love however brief,
For
want of whose ill-trimmed, aspiring wick
More days than one I have
gone forward slowly,
In utter dark, scuffling the drifted leaf,
Tapping the road before me with a stick.
Enormous moon, that rise
behind these hills
Heavy and yellow in a sky unstarred
And
pale, your girth by purple fillets barred
Of drifting cloud, that as
the cool sky fills
With planets and the brighter stars, distills
To thinnest vapour and floats valley-ward,
You flood with
radiance this cluttered yard,
The sagging fence, the chipping window
sills.
Grateful at heart as if for my delight
You rose, I watch
you through a mist of tears,
Thinking how man, who gags upon despair,
Salting his hunger with the sweat of fright
Has fed on cold
indifference all these years,
Calling it kindness, calling it God's
care.
Those hours when happy hours were my estate,--
Entailed, as
proper, for the next in line,
Yet mine the harvest, and the title
mine--
Those acres, fertile, and the furrow straight,
From which
the lark would rise--all of my late
Enchantments, still, in brilliant
colours, shine,
But striped with black, the tulip, lawn and vine,
Like gardens looked at through an iron gate.
Yet not as one who
never sojourned there
I view the lovely segments of a past
I
lived with all my senses, well aware
That this was perfect, and it
would not last:
I smell the flower, though vacuum-still the air;
I feel its texture, though the gate is fast.
I see so clearly now my
similar years
Repeat each other, shod in rusty black,
Like one
hack following another hack
In meaningless procession, dry of tears,
Driven empty, lest the noses sharp as shears
Of gutter-urchins
at a hearse's back
Should sniff a man died friendless, and attack
With silly scorn his deaf triumphant ears;
I see so clearly how
my life must run
One year behind another year until
At length
these bones that leap into the sun
Are lowered into the gravel, and
lie still,
I would at times the funeral were done
And I
abandoned on the ultimate hill.
Shelter this
candle from the wind,
Hold it steady. In its light
The cave
wherein we wander lost
Glitters with frosty stalactite,
Blossoms with mineral rose and lotus,
Sparkles with crystal moon and
star,
Till a man would rather be lost than found:
We have
forgotten where we are.
Shelter this candle. Shrewdly blowing
Down the cave from a secret door
Enters our only foe, the wind.
Hold it steady. Lest we stand,
Each in a sudden, separate dark,
The hot wax spattered upon your hand,
The smoking wick in my
nostrils strong,
The inner eyelid red and green
For a moment yet
with moons and roses,--
Then the unmitigated dark.
Alone, alone,
in a terrible place,
In utter dark without a face,
With only the
dripping of the water on the stone,
And the sound of your tears, and
the taste of my own.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall; I hear the
clatter on the
barn-floor.
He is in haste; he has business in Cuba,
business in the Balkans, many
calls to
make this morning.
But I will
not hold the bridle while he cinches the girth.
And he may mount by
himself: I will not give him a leg up.
Though he flick my shoulders
with his whip, I will not tell him which way
the fox
ran.
With his
hoof at my breast, I will not tell him where the black boy hides
in the
swamp.
I shall die, but that is all I shall do for Death; I am not on
his
pay-roll.
I will not tell him the whereabouts of my friends nor of
my enemies
either.
Though he promise me much, I will not map him the
route to any man's door.
Am I a spy in the land of the living, that I
should deliver men to Death?
Brother, the password and the plans of
our city are safe with me; never
through me
Shall you be overcome.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be
one with the dull, the indiscriminant dust.
A fragment of what you
felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,--but the best is
lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the
love,--
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and
curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do
not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the
roses in the world.
Down, down, down in to the darkness of the grave
Seeing how I love you utterly,
Strange in my hand appears
Yet here was one who had no need to die
You left me in time, too soon; to leave too soon
Someone within these walls has been in love with
Death longer than I care
to say;
Gone under cover of darkness, leaving a running track,
No, no.
But I thought of the small
brown bird among the rhododendrons at the
garden's end,
Thinking of him, I thought of you . . .
And if indeed, as I dare think,
Some love, and some simplicity,
Or have
I done you wrong
You do not know for whom
These eyes, that let him in,
Heart, do
not stain my skin
Sweet blindness, now begin.
I feel such pity for
the poor,
We meet and part; Can even love be treated so?
I know,
but I do not insist,
Yet if you drop
the picked-up book
Even the bored, insulted heart,
I have loved badly, loved the great
You only, being unworthy quite
Why, here's a house, why, here's a bed
I know--and having seen, shall not deny--
The death of those delights I drew
You are not, you have
never been
Yet more than half of all I am
I do not say my love will last;
That which quelled me, lives with me,
Through foul timidity, through a gross
indisposition to excite the
ill-will of even
the most negligible,
Lest if he confront me I be forced to say what
is in no wise true:
Some trace of kindliness in this, no doubt,
There is a flaw amounting to
a fissure
And I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
When the red
oak is bare
Girl, gathering acorns
"To tame or to destroy?"
"To destroy."
"Huntsman, hard by
The horse that he rode on
Always the angry nettle in the skirt of his sister
The plum-trees are barren now and the black knot is upon them
White jade and an orange pitcher,
And all this time
For the duration, if the
mind require it,
Thus between day and evening in the autumn,
They have not met in love's despite . . .
To treeless grove,
to grey retreat
"Little does she know to-day
Sense with
delight but not with ease
Ah, be content!--the scorpion's tail
Even in this island richly blest,
And
why you come complaining
It's little I know what's in my
heart,
I
wish I could walk for a day and a night,
I wish I could walk till my
blood should spout,
But dump or dock, where the path I take
"Is something the
matter, dear," she said,
And he will say, seeing me,
Oh, lay my ashes
on the wind
And he will say, seeing me,
And I shall blow to your house
And you
will say, seeing me,
And none at all will know me
And fishermen and farmers
Summer, for all your guile,
Weave me a robe of richer fibre;
But buy me a singer to sing one song--
Snow settles
Sand at
last
Earth now
Blessed be Death, that took my love
This I have to hold to my heart,
Mild we were for a summer month
Who builds her a house with love for timber
Oh, bring me gifts, or beg me gifts,
And why I be
cold, my lad,
I might as well be easing you
You might as well be calling yours
Mig, her man's as good as cheese
Oh, Sue and Prue and Agatha
And Prue says, "Mine's a patient man,
Sue's man's mind is like good jell--
While Joan makes boast of a gentle lad,
Cold he slants his eyes about,
And Agatha will turn awake
For Prue she has a patient man,
Joan is paired with a putterer
I knew a
ferryman before.
This was a
man of meagre fame;
I hope
that he will never die,
Twice have I
entered the room, not knowing she was here.
Whereby I know my loss.
"Fountain," I have cried to
that unbubbling well, "I will not drink of thy
water!"
Yet I thirst
Of water sucking the hollow ledges,
People the waves have not awakened,
Beating the narrow walls, and finding
Wanting the sticky, salty sweetness
Always before about my dooryard,
Always I climbed the wave at morning,
If I could hear the green piles groaning
If I could see the weedy mussels
Feel once again the shanty straining
I should be happy!--that was happy
I should be happy . . . that am happy
And built me a house on upland acres,
These hills, beneath the October moon,
Jut out from shore into
the mist,
(Just in that way
Stricken too sore for tears,
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly
they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do
not approve. And I am not resigned.
I. Song for Lute (1927)
Seeing how I
love you utterly,
And your disdain is my despair,
Alter this
dulcet eye, forbear
To wear those looks that latterly
You wore,
and won me wholly, wear
A brow more dark, and bitterly
Berate
my dulness and my care,
Seeing how your smile is my despair,
Seeing how I love you utterly.
And your distress is my despair,
Alter this brimming eye, nor wear
The trembling lip that latterly
Under a more auspicious air
You wore, and thrust me through, forbear
To drop your head so
bitterly
Into your hands, seeing how I dare
No tender touch upon
your hair,
Knowing how I do how fitterly
You do reproach me than
forbear,
Seeing how your tears are my despair,
Seeing how I love
you utterly.
II. (1928)
For you there is no song . . .
Only the shaking
Of
the voice that meant to sing; the sound of the strong
Voice breaking.
The pen, and yours
broken.
There are ink and tears on the page; only the tears
Have spoken.
III. Sonnet in Answer
to a Question (1938)
Oh, she was beautiful in every
part!--
The auburn hair that bound the subtle brain;
The lovely
mouth cut clear by wit and pain,
Uttering oaths and nonsense,
uttering art
In casual speech and curving at the smart
On
startled ears of excellence too plain
For early morning!--Obit.
Death from strain;
The soaring mind outstripped the tethered
heart.
To be remembered.
Every word she said
The lively malice of the hazel eye
Scanning
the thumb-nail close--oh, dazzling dead,
How like a comet through the
darkening sky
You raced! . . . would your return were heralded.
IV.
Nobody now throughout the pleasant day,
The flowers well tended
and the friends not few,
Teases my mind as only you could do
To
mortal combat erudite and gay . . .
"So Mr. S. was kind to Mr. K.!
Whilst Mr. K.--wait, I've a word or two!"
(I think that Keats
and Shelley died with you--
They live on paper now, another way.)
Was tragic and
in order--had the great
Not taught us how to die?--My simple blood,
Loving you early, lives to mourn you late . . .
As Mr. K., it
may be, would have done;
As Mr. S. (oh, answer!) never would.
V.
Gone over to the enemy and marshalled against me
Is my best
friend.
What hope have I to hold with my narrow back
This town,
whence all surrender?
It was not you! . . . but he gets in
that way.
And the mark of a dusty paw on all our splendour,
Are they that smote
the table with the loudest blow,
Saying, "I will not have it so!"
This is the end.
What hope have I?
You, too,
led captive and without a cry!
VI. Over the Hollow Land
Over the
hollow land the nightingale
Sang out in the full moonlight.
"Immortal bird,"
We said, who heard;
"What rapture, what serene
despair";
And paused between a question and reply
To hear his
varied song across the tulip-scented air.
Crouching,
close to the bough,
Pale cheek wherefrom the black magnificent eye
obliquely stared,
The great song boiling in the narrow throat
And the beak near splitting,
A small bird hunched and frail,
Whom the divine uncompromising note that brought the world to its window
Shook from head to tail.
Close to the branch, I thought, he
cowers now,
Lest his own passion shake him from the bough.
Shaken from the bough, and
the pure song half-way through.
I.
Not even my pride will suffer
much;
Not even my pride at all, maybe,
If this ill-timed,
intemperate clutch
Be loosed by you and not by me,
Will suffer;
I have been so true
A vestal to that only pride
Wet wood cannot
extinguish, nor
Sand, nor its embers scattered, for,
See all
these years, it has not died.
You cannot push this patient flame,
By any breath your lungs could
store,
Even for a moment to the floor
To crawl there, even for a
moment crawl,
What can you mix for me to drink
That shall
deflect me? What you do
Is either malice, crude defense
Of ego,
or indifference:
I know these things as well as you;
You do not
dazzle me at all.
Might well
have been the death of me.
II.
Heart, do not bruise the breast
That sheltered you so long;
Beat quietly, strange guest.
To feed you life so fast?
Why, no; digest this
food
And thrive. You could outlast
Discomfort if you would.
These tears drip through my hands.
You thud in the bright room
Darkly. This pain demands
No action
on your part, who never saw his face.
(Not you, my guiltless heart)
These eyes, let them erase
His image, blot him out
With weeping, and go blind.
With bruises; go about
You simple function.
Mind,
Sleep now; do not intrude;
And do not spy; be kind.
III.
Rolled in the trough of thick desire,
No oars, and no sea-anchor out
To bring my bow into the pyre
Of sunset, suddenly chilling out
To shadow over sky and sea,
And the boat helpless in the trough;
No oil to pour; no power in
me
To breast these waves, to shake them off:
Who take the fracas on the beam--
Being ill-equipped,
being insecure--
Daily; and caulk the opening seam
With strips
of shirt and scribbled rhyme;
Who bail disaster from the boat
With a pint can; and have no time,
Being so engrossed to keep afloat,
Even for quarrelling (that chagrined
And lavish comfort of the
heart),
Who never came into the wind,
Who took life beam-on from
the start.
IV.
And do you think that love itself,
Living in such
an ugly house,
Can prosper long?
Our talk is all of heres and nows,
Our conduct likewise; in no act
Is any future, and past;
Under our sly, unspoken pact,
I
know with whom I saw you last,
But I say nothing; and you know
At six-fifteen to whom I go.
Having stealth and tact, though not enough,
What hour your eye is on your wrist.
No wild appeal, no mild
rebuff
Deflates the hour, leaves the wine flat.
To intercept my clockward look--
Tell me, can
love go on like that?
That signed
so long and tight a lease,
Can break its contract, slump in peace.
V.
I had not thought so tame a thing
Could deal me this bold
suffering.
Too soon,
withdrawn my words too late;
And eaten in an echoing hall
Alone
and from a chipped plate
The words that I withdrew too late.
Yet even so, when I recall
How ardently, ah! and to whom
Such
praise was given, I am not sad:
The very rafters of this room
Are honoured by the guests it had.
And specious,--never, as I think,
Having noticed how the gentry
drink
Their poison, how administer
Silence to those they would
inter--
Have brought me to dementia's brink.
Not that this blow
be dealt to me:
But by thick hands, and clumsily.
VI.
Leap
now into this quiet grave.
How cool it is. Can you endure
Packed men and their hot rivalries--
The plodding rich, the shiftless
poor,
The bold inept, the weak secure--
Having smelt this grave,
how cool it is?
For every
lust that drops its head
In sleep, for vengeance gone to seed,
For the slashed vein that will not bleed,
The jibe unheard, the whip
unfelt,
The mind confused, the smooth pelt
Of the breast,
compassionate and brave.
Pour them into this quiet grave.
VII.
Now
from a stout and more imperious day
Let dead impatience arm me for
the act.
We bear too much. Let the proud past gainsay
This
tolerance. Now, upon the sleepy pact
That bound us two as lovers,
now in the night
And ebb of love, let me with stealth proceed,
Catch the vow nodding, harden, feel no fright,
Bring forth the weapon
sleekly, do the deed.
This flag inverted keeps its colour still;
This moon in wane and
scooped against the sky
Blazes in stern reproach. Stare back, my
Will--
We can out-gaze it; can do better yet:
We can expunge it.
I will not watch it set.
VIII.
The time of year ennobles you.
The death of autumn draws you in.
From such a cramped and troubled source
Ennobles all, including
you,
Involves you as a matter of course.
(Nor ever did I hold you such),
Between your banks,
that all but touch,
Fit subject for heroic song. . . .
The busy
stream not over-strong,
The flood that any leaf could dam. . . .
Lies drowned in shallow water here:
And you assume the time of year.
Yet Time's perverse, eccentric power
Has bound the hound and
stag so fast
That strange companions mount the tower
Where
Lockhart's fate with Keats is cast,
And Booth with Lincoln shares the
hour.
Accomplice in
catastrophe.
Cave Canem
Importuned through the mails, accosted over the
telephone, overtaken by
running
footsteps, caught by the sleeve, the
servant of strangers,
While amidst the haste and confusion lover and
friend quietly step into
the
unreachable past,
I throw bright time to
chickens in an untidy yard.
Disliking voices raised in anger, faces with no love in them,
I avoid
the looming visitor,
Flee him adroitly around corners,
Hating
him, wishing him well;
That he is welcome; that I am unoccupied;
And forced to sit while the potted roses wilt in the crate or the
sonnet
cools
Bending a respectful nose above such dried philosophies
As have hung in wreaths from the rafters of my house since I was a
child.
There may be.
But not enough to keep a bird alive.
In such behaviour.
An Ancient Gesture
I thought, as I wiped my
eyes on the corner of my apron:
Penelope did this too.
And more
than once: you can't keep weaving all day
And undoing it all through
the night;
Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;
And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,
And your husband has been gone, and you don't know where, for years,
Suddenly you burst into tears;
There is simply nothing else to
do.
This is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique,
In the very best
tradition, classic, Greek;
Ulysses did this too.
But only as a
gesture,--a gesture which implied
To the assembled throng that he was
much too moved to speak.
He learned it from Penelope . . .
Penelope, who really cried.
Huntsman, What Quarry?
"Huntsman, what
quarry
On the dry hill
Do your hounds harry?
And the white oak still
Rattles its leaves
In the cold air:
What fox runs there?"
In the cold autumn,
I hunt the hot pads
That run ever
before,
I hunt the pointed mask
That makes no reply,
I hunt
the red brush
Of remembered joy."
In a wood of grey beeches
Whose leaves are on the ground,
Is a house with a fire;
You can see the smoke from here.
There's supper and a soft bed,
And not a soul around.
Come with me there;
Bide there with me;
And let the fox run free."
Reached down its neck,
Blew on the acorns,
Nuzzled them aside;
The sun was near setting;
He thought, "Shall I heed her?"
He thought, "Shall I take her
For a one-night's bride?"
He
smelled the sweet smoke,
He looked the lady over;
Her hand was
on his knee;
But like a flame from cover
The red fox broke--
And "Hoick! Hoick!" cried he.
The Plum Gatherer
The angry nettle and
the mild
Grew
together under the blue plum-trees.
I could not tell as a child
Which was my friend of
these.
Caught my wrist that
reached over the ground,
Where alike I gathered,--for the one was
sweet, and the other wore a
frosty dust--
The broken plum and the
sound.
That stood so white
in the spring.
I would give, to recall the sweetness and the frost of
the lost blue
plums,
Anything, anything.
I thrust my arm among the grey ambiguous nettles, and wait.
But they do not sting.
Siege
This I do, being mad:
Gather baubles about me,
Sit
in a circle of toys, and all the time
Death beating the door
in.
Hindu idol, Chinese
god,--
Maybe next year, when I'm richer--
Carved beads and a
lotus pod. . . .
Death beating the door
in.
Truce for
a Moment
Truce for a moment between Earth and Ether
Slackens the mind's allegiance to despair:
Shyly confer earth, water,
fire and air
With the fifth essence.
Trigged is the wheel of Time against the slope;
Infinite Space lies curved within the scope
Of the hand's
cradle.
High in the
west alone and burning bright,
Venus has hung, the earliest
riding-light
In the calm harbour.
Song for Young Lovers in a City
Though less for love than for the deep
Though transient death that
follows it
These childish mouths grown soft in sleep
Here in a
rented bed have met,
Such tiny loves will leap and flare
Lurid as coke-fires in the
night,
Against a background of despair.
Descend in flocks from corniced eaves
The
pigeons now on sooty feet,
To cover them with linden leaves.
First Fig
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the
night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light!
Second Fig
Safe upon the solid
rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon
the sand!
Midnight Oil
Cut if you will, with Sleep's dull knife,
Each day to half
it's length, my friend,--
The years that Time takes off my
life,
He'll take
from the other end!
Humoresque
"Heaven bless the babe!" they said.
"What queer books she must have read!"
(Love, by whom I was beguiled,
Grant I may not bear a child.)
What the world may be!" they say.
(Snow, drift deep and cover
Till the spring my murdered lover.)
To a Calvinist in Bali
You that are born of
northern stock,
And nothing lavish,--born and bred
With tablets
at your foot and head,
And CULPA carven in the rock,
The fragrance of the quinine trees,
The kembang-spatu's lolling flame
With solemn envy kin to
shame.
Atones for much;
without avail
Under the sizzling solar pan
Our sleeping servant
pulls the fan.
Where Beauty
walks with naked breast,
Earth is too harsh for heaven to be
One little hour in jeopardy.
Thursday
And if I loved you Wednesday,
Well, what is that
to you?
I do not love you Thursday--
So much is true.
Is more than I can see.
I loved you Wednesday,--yes--but what
Is that to me?
Departure
It's little I care what path I take,
And where it leads it's
little I care;
But out of this house, lest my heart should break,
I must go, and off somewhere.
What's in my mind it's little I know,
But there's that in
me must up and start,
And it's little I care where my feet go.
And find me at dawn in a
desolate place
With never the rut of a road in sight,
Nor the
roof of a house, nor the eyes of a face.
And leave me, never to stir again,
On a
shore that is wide, for the tide is out,
And the weedy rocks are bare
to the rain.
Brings up,
it's little enough I care;
For it's little I'll mind the fuss they'll
make,
Huddled dead in a ditch somewhere.
"That you sit at your work so silently?"
"No, mother, no, 'twas a knot in my thread.
There goes the
kettle, I'll make the tea."
The Curse
Oh, lay my ashes on the wind
That blows across the sea.
And I shall meet a fisherman
Out of Capri,
"What a strange thing!
Like a fish's scale or a
Butterfly's wing."
That blows away the fog.
And I shall meet a farmer
boy
Leaping through the bog,
"What a strange thing!
Like a peat-ash or a
Butterfly's wing."
And, sucked against the pane,
See you taking your sewing up
And lay it down again.
"What a strange thing!
Like a plum petal or
a
Butterfly's wing."
That knew
me well before.
But I will settle at the root
That climbs about
your door,
May see me and forget,
But I'll be the bitter berry
In your brewing yet.
I.
Oh,
little rose tree, bloom!
Summer is nearly over.
The dahlias
bleed, the phlox is seed.
Nothing's left of the clover.
And the
path of the poppy no one knows.
I would blossom if I were a
rose.
Will brown in a week to Autumn,
And launched leaves throw a shadow below
Over the brook's clear
bottom,--
And the chariest bud the year can boast
Be brought to
bloom by the chastening frost.
II.
Beat me a crown of bluer metal;
Fret it with stones
of a foreign style:
The heart grows weary after a little
Of what it loved for
a little while.
Pattern its web with
a rare device:
Give it away to the child of a neighbour
This gold gown I was
glad in twice.
Song about
nothing--song about sheep--
Over and over, all day long;
Patch me again my
thread-bare sleep.
III.
Rain comes down
And hushes the town.
And where is the voice thatI heard crying?
Over
the nettles.
And where is the voice that I heard crying?
On the drifting mast.
And where is the voice that I heard
crying?
On the busy brow.
And where is the voice
that I heard crying?
Keen
Weep him dead and mourn as you may,
Me, I sing as I must:
Blessed be Death, that cuts in marble
What would sunk to dust!
And buried him in the
sea,
Where never a lie nor a bitter word
Will out of his mouth at
me.
This is take by the hand;
Sweet we were for a summer month
As sun on the dry white
sand;
As the wind from over the
weirs.
And blessed be Death, that hushed with salt
The harsh and slovenly
years!
Builds her a house of
foam.
And I'd liefer be bride to a lad gone down
Than widow to one safe at
home.
The Betrothal
Oh, come, my lad, or go, my lad,
And love me if you
like.
I shall not hear the door shut
Nor the knocker strike.
And wed me if you will.
I'd make a man a good wife,
Sensible and still.
And why should you repine,
Because I love a dark
head
That never will be mine?
As lie alone in bed
And waste the night in wanting
A cruel dark
head.
What never will be his,
And one of us be happy.
There's few enough as is.
She Is Overheard
Singing
Oh, Prue she has a patient man,
And Joan a gentle lover,
And Agatha's Arth' is a hug-the-hearth,--
But my true love's a
rover!
And honest as a briar,
Sue tells her love what he's thinking of,--
But my dear lad's a
liar!
Are thick with Mig and
Joan!
They bite their threads and shake their heads
And gnaw my name like a
bone;
As never snaps me up,"
And Agatha, "Arth' is a hug-the-hearth,
Could live content in a
cup;"
All one colour, and
clear--
And Mig's no call to think at all
What's to come next
year,
That's troubled with that
and this;--
But they all would give the life they live
For a look from the man I
kiss!
And few enough's his
choice,--
Though he'd slip me clean for a nun, or a queen,
Or a beggar with knots in
her voice,--
While her good man sleeps
sound,
And Mig and Sue and Joan and Prue
Will hear the clock
strike round,
As asks not when or why,
And Mig and Sue have naught to do
But peep who's passing
by,
That bastes and tastes
and salts,
And Agatha's Arth' is a hug-the-hearth,--
But my true love is
false!
Sappho
Crosses the Dark River into Hades
Charon, indeed, your
dreaded oar,
With what a peaceful sound it dips
Into the stream;
how gently, too,
From the wet blade the water drips.
But he was not so old as you.
He spoke from
unembittered lips,
With careless eyes on the bright sea
One day,
such bitter words to me
As age and wisdom never knew.
He ferried merchants from the shore
To
Mitylene (whence I came)
On Lesbos; Phaon is his name.
As I have done, and come to dwell
In
this pale city we approach.
Not that, indeed, I wish him well,
(Though never have I wished him harm)
But rather that I hope to find
In some unechoing corner of Hell
The peace I long have had in
mind:
A peace whereon may not encroach
That supple back, the
strong brown arm,
That curving mouth, the sunburned curls;
But
rather that I would rely,
Having come so far, at such expense,
Upon some quiet lodging whence
I need not hear his voice go by
In scraps of talk with boys and girls.
Evening on Lesbos
Twice having
seen your shingled heads adorable
Side by side, the onyx and the
gold,
I know that I have had what I could not hold.
Two agate eyes, two eyes
of malachite,
Twice have been turned upon me, hard and bright.
Oh, not restorable
Sweet incense, mounting in the windless night!
"Fontaine, Je Ne Boirai Pas De Ton Eau!"
I know that I might have lived in such a way
As to
have suffered only pain:
Loving not man nor dog;
Not money,
even; feeling
Toothache perhaps, but never more than an hour away
From skill and novacaine;
Making no contacts, dealing with life
through agents, drinking one
cocktail,
betting two dollars, wearing
raincoats in the rain;
Betrayed at length by no one but the fog
Whispering to the wing of the plane.
For a mouthful of--not to swallow, only to rinse my mouth in--peace.
And
while
the eyes of the past condemn,
The eyes of the future narrow
into assignation. And . . . worst . . .
The young are so old, they
are born with their fingers crossed; I will get
no help
from them.
Inland
People that buy their houses inland,
People that buy a plot of
ground
Shaped like a house, and built a house there,
Far from the sea-board,
far from the sound
Tons of water sucking the
shore,--
What do they long for, as I long for
One salt smell of the sea
once more?
Spanking the boats at the
harbour's head,
What do they long for, as I long for,--
Starting up in my inland
bed,
Neither a window, nor a
door,
Screaming to God for death by drowning,--
One salt taste of the sea
once more?
Exiled
Searching my heart for its true sorrow,
This is the thing I find
to be:
That I am weary of words and people,
Sick of the city, wanting
the sea;
Of the strong wind and
the shattered spray;
Wanting the loud sound and the soft sound
Of the big surf that
breaks all day.
Marking the reach of the
winter sea,
Rooted in sand and dragging drift-wood,
Straggled the purple wild
sweet-pea;
Shook the sand from my
shoes at night,
That now am caught beneath great buildings,
Stricken with noise,
confused with light.
Under the windy wooden
piers,
See once again the bobbing barrels,
And the black sticks that
fence the weirs,
Crusting the wrecked and
rotting hulls,
Hear once again the hungry crying
Overhead, of the wheeling
gulls,
Under the turning of the
tide,
Fear once again the rising freshet,
Dread the bell in the fog
outside,
All day long on the coast
of Maine;
I have a need to hold and handle
Shells and ships and
anchors again!
Never at all since I came
here.
I am too long away from water.
I have need of water
near.
Mist in the
Valley
These hills, to hurt me more,
That am hurt
already enough,--
Having left the sea behind,
Having turned
suddenly and left the shore
That I loved beyond all words, even a
song's words, to convey,
Sweet with pinxter, bright and rough
With the rusty blackbird long
before the winter's done,
But smelling never of bayberry hot in the
sun,
Nor ever loud with the pounding of the long white breakers,--
Sit in the valley white
with mist
Like islands in a quiet bay,
Wooded with poplar dark as pine,
Like points of land
into a quiet bay.
The harbour met the bay)
I stand, remembering the islands and
the sea's lost sound. . . .
Life at its best no longer than the
sand-peep's cry,
And I two years, two years,
Tilling an upland
ground!
Eel-Grass
No matter what I say,
All that I really love
Is the rain that flattens on the bay,
And the eel-grass in the
cove;
The jingle-shells that lie and bleach
At the tide-line, and the
trace
Of higher tides along the beach:
Nothing in this place.
Low-Tide
These wet rocks where the tide has been,
Barnacled white and
weeded brown
And slimed beneath to a beautiful green,
These wet rocks where the
tide went down
Will show again when the tide is high
Faint and perilous, far
from shore,
No place to dream, but a place to die:
The bottom of the sea
once more.
There was a child that wandered through
A giant's empty house all
day,--
House full of wonderful things and new,
But no fit place for a
child to play!
Ebb
I know what my heart is like
Since your love died:
It is like a hollow ledge
Holding a little pool
Left there by the tide,
A little tepid pool,
Drying inward from the edge.
Dig, dig; and if I come to ledges, blast.
Marred by greeting passing
groups
On a cinder walk,
Near some naked blackberry hoops
Dim with purple chalk.
I remember three or four
Things you said
in spite,
And an ugly coat you wore,
Plaided black and white.
Just a rainy day or two,
And a bitter word.
Why do I
remember you
As a singing bird?
Looking askance you said:
Love is dead.
Under our eyes without warning softly the summer
afternoon let fall
The rose upon the wall,
And it lay there
splintered.
Terribly then into my heart the forgotten anguish
entered.
I saw the dark stone on the smallest finger of your hand,
And the clean cuff above.
No more, no more the dark stone on the
smallest finger
Of your brown and naked arm,
Lifting my body in
love!
Worse than dead is he of the wounded wing,
Who walks
between us, weeping upon the cold flags,
Bleeding and weeping,
dragging his broken wing.
He has gathered the rose into his hand and
chafed her with his breath.
But the rose is quiet and pale. She has
forgotten us all.
Even spring.
Even death.
As for me, I
have forgotten nothing,--not shall I ever forget--
But this one
thing:
I have forgotten which of us it was
That hurt his wing.
I only know that his limping flight above us in the blue air
Toward the sunset cloud
Is more than I can bear.
You, you
there,
Stiff-neacked and angry, holding up your head so proud,
Have you not seen how pitiful lame he flies, and none to befriend
him?
Speak! Are you blind? Are you dead?
Shall we call him
back? Shall we mend him?
Well I remember the pigeons in the
sunny arbour
Beyond your door;
How they conversed throughout the
afternoon in their monotonous voices
never for a
moment still;
Always of yesterday they spoke, and of the days before,
Rustling the
vine leaves, twitching in the dark shadows of the leaves on
the
bright
sill.
You said, the soft curring and droning of the pigeons in
the vine
Was a pretty thing enough to the passer-by,
But a
maddening thing to a man with his head in his hands,--"Like mine!
Like
mine!"
You said, and ran to the door and waved them off into the
sky.
They did not come back. The arbour was empty of their
cooing.
The shadows in the leaves were still. "Whither have they
flown, then?"
I said, and waited for their wings, but they did not
come back. If I had
known
then
What I know now, I never would have
left your door.
Tall in your faded smock, with steady hand
Mingling the brilliant pigments, painting your intersecting planes
you
stand,
In a quiet room, empty of the past, of its droning and
cooing,
Thinking I know not what, but thinking of me no more,
That left you with a light word, that loving and rueing
Walk in the
streets of a city you have never seen,
Walk in a noise of yesterday
and of the days before,
Walk in a cloud of wings intolerable,
shutting out the sun as if it had
never
been.
Yet here I
am, having told you of my quarrel with the taxi-driver over a
line of
Milton, and you laugh; and you are you, none other.
Your laughter
pelts my skin with small delicious blows.
But I am perverse: I wish
you had not scrubbed--with pumice, I suppose--
The tobacco stains
from your beautiful fingers. And I wish I did not feel
like
your mother.
There, today,
as in the days when I knew you well,
The willow sheds upon the stream
its narrow leaves,
And the quiet flowing of the water and its faint
smell
Are a balm to the heart that grieves.
Together with the
sharp discomfort of loving you,
Ineffable you, so lovely and so
aloof,
There is laid upon the spirit the calmness of the river view:
Together they fall, the pain and its reproof.
Who, now, under the
yellow willows at the water's edge
Closes defeated lips upon the
trivial word unspoken,
And lifts her soft eyes freighted with a heavy
pledge
To your eyes empty of pledges, even of pledges broken?
I am
at home--oh, I am safe in bed and well tucked in--Despair
But you, you do not like the frosty
air.
Cold of the sun's eclipse,
All the things we ever knew
Suffer me to take your hand.
I
will look at cliffs and clouds
And when lights begin to show
There shall be plates a-plenty,
There sound will sleep the trveller,
Aye, 'tis a curious fancy--
I lay,--for Love was laggard,
oh, he came not until dawn,--
She is neither pink
nor pale,
She has more hair than she needs;
She loves me all that she can,
Grief of grief has drained me clean;
I recall a place
If the little birds sing,
All the dog-wood blossoms
are underneath the tree,
Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking,--
Swung in the wind!--and no wind blowing!--
Under my hand the moonlight lay!
No
Earthly Enterprise
No earthly enterprise
Will cloud
this vision; so beware,
You whom I love, when you are weak, of
seeking comfort stair by stair
Up here: which leads nowhere.
Put out the
light beside my bed.
I smiled, and closed my eyes.
"Goodnight--goodnight," she said.
When cocks crow for the first
time hopeless, and dogs in kennels howl,
Abandoning the
richly-stinking bone,
And the star at the edge of the shamed and
altered sun shivers alone,
And over the pond the bat but not the
swallow dips,
And out comes the owl.
Who hurt you so,
My dear?
Who, long ago
When you were very young,
Did, said, became, was .
. . something that you did not know
Beauty could ever do, say, be,
become?--
So that your brown eyes filled
With tears they never,
not to this day, have shed . . .
Not because one more boy stood hurt
by life,
No: because something deathless has dropped dead--
An
ugly, an indecent thing to do--
So that you stood and stared, with
open mouth in which the tongue
Froze slowly backward toward its root,
As if it would not speak again, too badly stung
By memories
thick as wasps about a nest invaded
To know if or if not you suffered
pain.
Mariposa
Butterflies are white and blue
In this field we wander
through.
Suffer me to take your hand.
Death comes in a day or
two.
Will be ashes in that hour:
Mark the transient butterfly,
How he hangs upon the flower.
Suffer me to cherish you
Till
the dawn is in the sky.
Whether I be false or true,
Death comes
in a day or two.
Love, though for this you riddle me with darts,
And
drag me at your chariot till I die,--
Oh, heavy prince! Oh, panderer
of hearts!--
Yet hear me tell how in their throats they lie
Who
shout you mighty: thick about my hair,
Day in, day out, your ominous
arrows purr,
Who still am free, unto no querulous care
A fool,
and in no temple worshiper!
I, that have bared me to your quiver's
fire,
Lifted my face into its puny rain,
Do wreathe you Impotent
to Evoke Desire
As you Powerless to Elicit Pain!
(Now will the
god, for blasphemy so brave,
Punish me, surely, with the shaft I
crave!)
Renascence
All I could see from where I stood
Was
three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked the other way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the
line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was
come
Back to where I started from;
And all I saw from where I
stood
Was three long mountains and a wood.
Over these things I could not see:
These were the things that bounded
me.
And I could touch them with my hand,
Almost, I thought, from
where I stand!
And all at once things seemed so small
My breath
came short, and scarce at all.
But, sure, the sky is big, I said:
Miles and miles above my head.
So here upon my back I'll lie
And look my fill into the sky.
And so I looked, and after all,
The sky is not so very tall.
The sky, I said, must somewhere
stop . . .
And--sure enough!--I see the top!
The sky, I
thought, is not so grand;
I 'most could touch it with my hand!
And reaching up my hand to try,
I screamed, to feel it touch the sky.
I screamed, and--lo!--Infinity
Came down and
settled over me;
Forced back my scream into my chest;
Bent back
my arm upon my breast;
And, pressing of the Undefined
The
definition on my mind,
Held up before my eyes a glass
Through
which my shrinking sight did pass
Until it seemed I must behold
Immensity made manifold;
Whispered to me a word whose sound
Deafened the air for worlds around,
And brought unmuffled to my ears
The gossiping of friendly spheres,
The creaking of the tented
sky,
The ticking of Eternity.
I saw and heard,
and knew at last
The How and Why of all things, past,
And
present, and forevermore.
The Universe, cleft to the core,
Lay
open to my probing sense,
That, sickening, I would fain pluck thence
But could not,--nay! but needs must suck
At the great wound, and
could not pluck
My lips away till I had drawn
All venom
out.--Ah, fearful pawn:
For my omniscience paid I a toll
Of
infinite remorse of soul.
All sin was of my
sinning, all
Atoning mine, and mine the gall
Of all regret.
Mine was the weight
Of every brooded wrong, the hate
That stood
behind each envious thrust,
Mine every greed, mine every lust.
And all the while, for every grief,
Each
suffering, I craved relief
With individual desire;
Craved all in
vain! And felt fierce fire
About a thousand people crawl;
Perished with each,--then mourned for all!
A man was
starving in Capri;
He moved his eyes and looked at me;
I felt
his gaze, I heard his moan,
And knew his hunger as my own.
I saw
at sea a great fog bank
Between two ships that struck and sank;
A thousand screams the heavens smote;
And every scream tore through
my throat.
No hurt I did not feel, no death
That was not mine; mine each last breath
That, crying, met an
answering cry
From the compassion that was I.
All suffering
mine, and mine its rod;
Mine, pity like the pity of God.
Ah, awful weight! Infinity
Pressed down upon the finite
Me!
My anguished spirit, like a bird,
Beating against my lips I
heard;
Yet lay the weight so close about
There was no room for
it without.
And so beneath the weight lay I
And suffered death,
but could not die.
Long had I lain thus, craving
death,
When quietly the earth beneath
Gave way, and inch by
inch, so great
At last had grown the crushing weight,
Into the
earth sank I
Full six feet under ground did lie,
And sank no
more,--there is no weight
Can follow here, however great.
From
off my breast I felt it roll,
And as it went my tortured soul
Burst forth and fled in such a gust
That all about me swirled the
dust.
Deep in the earth I rested now.
Cool is
its hand upon the brow
And soft its breast beneath the head
Of
one who is so gladly dead.
And all at once, and over all
The
pitying rain began to fall;
I lay and heard each pattering hoof
Upon my lowly, thatched roof,
And seemed to love the sound far more
Than ever had I done before.
For rain it hath a friendly sound
To one who's six feet under ground;
And scarce the friendly
voice or face,
A grave is such a quiet place.
The rain, I said, is kind to come
And speak to me in my new home.
I would I were alive again
To kiss the fingers of the rain,
To drink into my eyes the shine
Of every slanting silver line,
To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze
From drenched and
dripping apple-trees.
For soon the shower will be done,
And then
the broad face of the sun
Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth
Until the world with answering mirth
Shakes joyously, and each
round drop
Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top.
How can I bear it, buried here,
While overhead the sky
grows clear
And blue again after the storm?
O, multi-coloured,
multi-form,
Beloved beauty over me,
That I shall never, never
see
Again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold,
That I shall never more
behold!--
Sleeping your myriad magics through,
Close-sepulchred
away from you!
O God, I cried, give me new birth,
And put me
back upon the earth!
Upset each cloud's gigantic gourd
And let
the heavy rain, down-poured
In one big torrent, set me free,
Washing my grave away from me!
I ceased; and through
the breathless hush
That answered me, the far-off rush
Of herald
wings came whispering
Like music down the vibrant string
Of my
ascending prayer, and--crash!
Before the wild wind's whistling lash
The startled storm-clouds reared on high
And plunged in terror
down the sky!
And the big rain in one black wave
Fell from the
sky and struck my grave.
I know not how such things
can be;
I only know there came to me
A fragrance such as never
clings
To aught save happy living things;
A sound as of some
joyous elf
Singing sweet songs to please himself,
And, through
and over everything,
A sense of glad awakening.
The grass,
a-tiptoe at my ear,
Whispering to me I could hear;
I felt the
rain's cool finger-tips
Brushed tenderly across my lips,
Laid
gently on my sealed sight,
And all that once the heavy night
Fell from my eyes and I could see!--
A drenched and dripping
apple-tree,
A last long line of silver rain,
A sky grown clear
and blue again.
And as I looked a quickening gust
Of wind blew
up to me and thrust
Into my face a miracle
Of orchard-breath,
and with the smell,--
I know not how such things can be!--
I
breathed my soul back into me.
Ah! Up then from the
ground sprang I
And hailed the earth with such a cry
As is not
heard save from a man
Who has been dead, and lives again.
About
the trees my arms I wound;
Like one gone mad i hugged the ground;
I raised my quivering arms on high;
I laughed and laughed into
the sky;
Till at my throat a strangling sob
Caught fiercely, and
a great heart-throb
Sent instant tears into my eyes:
O God, I
cried, no dark disguise
Can e'er hereafter hide from me
Thy
radiant identity!
Thou canst not move across the grass
But my
quick eyes will see Thee pass,
Nor speak, however silently,
But
my hushed voice will answer Thee.
I know the path that tells Thy way
Through the cool eve of every day;
God, I can push the grass
apart
And lay my finger on Thy heart!
The world
stand out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above
the world is stretched the sky,--
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two
And let the face of God shine
through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not
keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat--the sky
Will
cave in on him by and by.
Afternoon on a Hill
I will be the
gladdest thing
Under
the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.
Up from the town,
I
will mark which must be mine,
And start down!
Tavern
I'll keep a little tavern
Below the high
hill's crest,
Wherein all grey-eyed people
May sit them down
and rest.
And mugs to melt the
chill
Of all the grey-eyed people
Who happen up the
hill.
And dream his
journey's end,
But I will rouse at midnight
The falling fire to
tend.
But all the good I
know
Was taught to me out two grey eyes
A long time ago.
Indifference
I said,--for Love was laggard, oh, Love
was slow to come,--
"I'll hear his step and know his step when I am warm in bed;
But I'll
never leave my pillow, though there be some
As would let him
in--and take him in with tears!" I said.
I lay and listened
for his step and could not get to sleep;
And he found me at my window
with my big cloak on,
All sorry with the
tears some folks might weep!
Witch-Wife
And she
will never be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a
valentine.
In the sun 'tis a
woe to me!
And her voice is a string of coloured beads,
Or steps leading
into the sea.
And her ways to my
ways resign;
But she was not made for any man,
And she will never
be all mine.
I.
The first rose on my rose-tree
Budded, bloomed, and
shattered,
During sad days when to me
Nothing
mattered.
Still it seems a
pity
No one saw,--it must have been
Very pretty.
II.
Let the little birds sing;
Let the little lambs
play;
Spring is here; and so 'tis spring;--
But not in the old
way!
Where a plum-tree
grew;
There you lifted up your face,
And blossoms covered
you.
And the little lambs
play,
Spring is here; and so 'tis spring--
But not in the old
way!
III.
All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree!
Ere spring was
going--ah, spring is gone!
And there comes no summer to the like of
you and me,--
Blossom time is early, but no fruit sets on.
Browned at the
edges, turned in a day;
And I would with all my heart they trimmed a
mound for me,
And
weeds were tall on all the paths that led that way!
The Dream
Love, if I weep it will not matter,
And if you laugh I
shall not care;
Foolish am I to think about it,
But it is good to
feel you there.
White and awful the
moonlight reached
Over the floor, and somewhere, somewhere
There was a shutter
loose,--it screeched!--
I was afraid, and
turned to you,
Put out my hand to you for comfort,--
And you were gone!
Cold, cold as dew,
Love, if you laugh I
shall not care,
But if I weep it shall not matter,--
Ah, it is good to
feel you there!
The Wood Road
If I were to walk this way
Hand in hand with Grief,
I should mark that maple-spray
Coming into leaf.
I
should note now the old burrs
Rot upon the ground.
Yes, though Grief should know me hers
While the world goes
round,
It could not in truth be said
That this was lost on me:
A rock-maple showing red,
Burrs beneath a tree.
Kin to Sorrow
Am I kin to Sorrow,
That so oft
Falls
the knockers of my door--
Neither loud nor soft,
But as long accustomed--
Under Sorrow's hand?
Marigolds around the step
And rosemary stand,
And then comes Sorrow--
And what does Sorrow care
For the rosemary
Or the marigolds there?
Amd I kin to Sorrow?
Are we kin?
That so
oft upon my door--
Oh, come in!
Thin as thread, with exquisite fingers,--
Ever see her, and of
you?--
Grey shawl, and leaning on the wind,
And the garden showing
through?
Glimmering eyes,--and silent, mostly,
Sort of a whisper, sort
of a purr,
Asking something, asking it over,
If you get a sound from
her.--
Ever see her, and of you?--
Strangest thing I've ever
known,--
Every night since I moved in,
And I came to be alone.
"Thin Rain, hush with your knocking!
You may not come in!
This is I that you hear rocking;
Nobody's with me, nor has
been!"
Curious, how she tried the window,--
Odd, the way she tries
the door,--
Wonder just what sort of people
Could have had this house
before . . .
And yet I did not think of that
Till after she was gone--
I knew her by the broad white hat,
All ruffled, she had on,
By the dear ruffles round her feet,
By her small hands that
hung
In their lace mitts, austere and sweet.
In her gown's white folds
among.
I watched to see if she would stay,
What she would do--and
oh!
She looked as if she liked the way
I let my garden grow!
She bent about my favourite mint
With conscious garden
grace,
She smiled and smiled--there was no hint
Of sadness in her face.
She held her gown on either side
To let her slippers show,
And up the walk she went with pride,
The way great ladies go.
And where the wall is built in new,
And is of ivy bare,
She paused--then opened and passed through
A gate that once was
there.
Parrots, tortoises and
redwoods
Live a longer life than men do,
Men a longer life than
dogs do,
Dogs a longer life than love does.
What a fool I was to
take you,
Unremembered as old rain
After all, my erstwhile dear,
Pretty Love, into my household,
Shape my days and
nights to charm you,
Center all my hopes about you,
Knowing well
I must outlive you,
If no trap or shot-gun gets me.
Passer Mortuus Est
Death devours all lovely things:
Lesbia with her sparrow
Shares the darkness,--presently
Every bed is narrow.
Dries the sheer libation;
And the petulant little hand
Is an annotation.
My no longer cherished,
Need we say it was not love,
Just because it perished?
To S. M.
(If He Should Lie A-dying)
I am not willing you
should go
Into the earth, where Helen went;
She is awake by now,
I know.
Where Cleopatra's anklets rust
You will not lie with my
consent;
And Sappho is a roving dust;
Cressid could love again;
Dido,
Rotted in state, is restless still:
You leave me much
against my will.
As it is, should
she entreat you how it goes with me,
You must reply: as well as with
most, you fancy;
That I love easily, and pass the time.
And she
will not know how all day long between
My life and me her shadow
intervenes,
A young thin girl,
Wearing a white skirt and a
purple sweater
And a narrow pale blue ribbon about her hair.
I
used to say to her, "I love you
Because your face is such a pretty
colour,
No other reason."
But it was not true.
Oh, had I only
known that you were going,
I could have given you messages for her!
Heap not on this mound
I. Epitaph
Roses that she loved so
well;
Why bewilder her with roses
That she cannot see nor
smell?
She is happy where she lies
With the dust upon
her eyes.
II.
Prayer to Persephone
Be to her, Persephone,
All the
things I might not be;
Take her head upon your knee.
She that
was so proud and wild,
Flippant, arrogant and free,
She that
had no need of me,
Is a little lonely child
Lost in
Hell,--Persephone,
Take her head upon your knee;
Say to her, "My
dear, my dear,
It is not so dreadful here."
III. Chorus
Give
away her gowns,
Give away her shoes;
She has no more use
For her fragrant gowns;
Take them all down,
Blue, green, blue,
Lilac, pink, blue,
From their padded hangers;
She will
dance no more
In her narrow shoes;
Sweep her narrow shoes
From her closet floor.
IV. Dirge
Boys and girls that held her dear,
Do your weeping now;
All you loved of her lies here.
Brought to earth the
arrogant brow,
And
the withering tongue
Chastened; do your weeping now.
Sing whatever songs are sung,
Wind whatever wreath,
For a playmate perished young,
For a spirit spent in
death.
Boys and girls that held her dear,
All you loved
of her lies here.
V. Elegy
Let them bury your big eyes
In the
secret earth securely,
Your thin fingers, and your fair,
Indefinite-coloured hair,--
All of these in some way, surely,
From the secret earth shall rise;