A Dark Month | Page 4

in laughter

These rhymes of you end.
XIV
Spring, and fall, and summer, and winter,
Which may Earth love least
of them all,
Whose arms embrace as their signs imprint her,

Summer, or winter, or spring, or fall?
The clear-eyed spring with the wood-birds mating,
The rose-red
summer with eyes aglow,
The yellow fall with serene eyes waiting,

The wild-eyed winter with hair all snow?
Spring's eyes are soft, but if frosts benumb her
As winter's own will
her shrewd breath sting:
Storms may rend the raiment of summer,

And fall grow bitter as harsh-lipped spring.
One sign for summer and winter guides me,
One for spring, and the
like for fall:
Whichever from sight of my friend divides me,
That is
the worst ill season of all.

XV
Worse than winter is spring
If I come not to sight of my king:
But
then what a spring will it be
When my king takes homage of me!
I send his grace from afar
Homage, as though to a star;
As a
shepherd whose flock takes flight
May worship a star by night.
As a flock that a wolf is upon
My songs take flight and are gone:

No heart is in any to sing
Aught but the praise of my king.
Fain would I once and again
Sing deeds and passions of men:
But
ever a child's head gleams
Between my work and my dreams.
Between my hand and my eyes
The lines of a small face rise,
And
the lines I trace and retrace
Are none but those of the face.
XVI
Till the tale of all this flock of days alike
All be done,
Weary days of waiting till the month's hand strike
Thirty-one,
Till the clock's hand of the month break off, and end
With the clock,
Till the last and whitest sheep at last be penned
Of the flock,
I their shepherd keep the count of night and day
With my song,
Though my song be, like this month which once was
May,
All too long.
XVII
The incarnate sun, a tall strong youth,
On old Greek eyes in sculpture

smiled:
But trulier had it given the truth
To shape him like a child.
No face full-grown of all our dearest
So lightens all our darkness,
none
Most loved of all our hearts hold nearest
To far outshines the
sun,
As when with sly shy smiles that feign
Doubt if the hour be clear, the
time
Fit to break off my work again
Or sport of prose or rhyme,
My friend peers in on me with merry
Wise face, and though the sky
stay dim
The very light of day, the very
Sun's self comes in with
him.
XVIII
Out of sight,
Out of mind!
Could the light
Prove unkind?
Can the sun
Quite forget
What was done
Ere he set?
Does the moon
When she wanes
Leave no tune
That remains
In the void
Shell of night
Overcloyed
With her light?
Must the shore
At low tide
Feel no more
Hope or pride,
No intense
Joy to be,
In the sense
Of the sea--
In the pulses
Of her shocks
It repulses,
When its rocks
Thrill and ring
As with glee?
Has my king
Cast off me,
Whom no bird
Flying south
Brings one word
From his mouth?
Not the ghost
Of a word.
Riding post

Have I heard,
Since the day
When my king
Took away
With him spring,

And the cup
Of each flower
Shrivelled up
That same hour,
With no light
Left behind.
Out of sight,
Out of mind!
XIX
Because I adore you
And fall
On the knees of my spirit before you--

After all,
You need not insult,
My king,
With neglect, though your spirit
exult
In the spring,
Even me, though not worth,
God knows,
One word of you sent me
in mirth,
Or one rose
Out of all in your garden
That grow
Where the frost and the wind
never harden
Flakes of snow,
Nor ever is rain
At all,
But the roses rejoice to remain
Fair and
tall--
The roses of love,
More sweet
Than blossoms that rain from above

Round our feet,
When under high bowers
We pass,
Where the west wind freckles
with flowers
All the grass.
But a child's thoughts bear
More bright
Sweet visions by day, and
more fair
Dreams by night,
Than summer's whole treasure
Can be:
What am I that his thought
should take pleasure,
Then, in me?
I am only my love's
True lover,
With a nestful of songs, like doves

Under cover,

That I bring in my cap
Fresh caught,
To be laid on my small king's
lap--
Worth just nought.
Yet it haply may hap
That he,
When the mirth in his veins is as sap

In a tree,
Will remember me too
Some day
Ere the transit be thoroughly
through
Of this May--
Or perchance, if such grace
May be,
Some night when I dream of
his face.
Dream of me.
Or if this be too high
A hope
For me to prefigure in my

Horoscope,
He may dream of the place
Where we
Basked once in the light of
his face,
Who now see
Nought brighter, not one
Thing bright,
Than the stars and the moon
and the sun,
Day nor night.
XX
Day by darkling day,
Overpassing, bears away
Somewhat of the
burden of this weary May.
Night by numbered night,
Waning, brings more near in sight
Hope
that grows to vision of my heart's delight.
Nearer seems to burn
In the dawn's rekindling urn
Flame of fragrant
incense, hailing his return.
Louder seems each bird
In the brightening branches