A Woman of Thirty | Page 9

again--
The car moves through the fields and suburbs back to the
town.
They leave the car in pairs, the picnic basket's
Rattling dismally, plate
and spoon and jar.
The boy takes his girl to her lodgings in awkward
silence.
They look askance--"Good-night!"--the front door closes,
Indeed
their eyes have not met, since by the river
Those wondrous moments

Linked them to earth and night, not to each other.
IV. INTERLUDE
Mountain Trails
(GLACIER PARK, SEPT. '17)
I
Night stands in the valley
Her head
Is bound with stars,
While
Dawn, a grey-eyed nun
Steals through the silent trees.
Behind the
mountains
Morning shouts and sings
And dances upward.
II
The peaks even today show finger prints
Where God last touched the
earth
Before he set it joyously in space
Finding it good.

III
You, slender shining--
You, downward leaping--
Born from silent
snow
To drown at last in the blue silent
Mountain lake--
You are
not snow or water,
You are only a silver spirit
Singing!
IV
Sharp crags of granite,
Pointing, threatening,
Thrust fiercely up at
me;
And near the edge, their menace
Would whirl me down.
V
Climbing desperately toward the heights
I glance in terror behind me

To be deafened--to be shattered--
By a thunderbolt of beauty.
VI
The mountains hold communion;
They are priests, silent and austere,

They have come together
In a secret place
With unbowed heads.
VII
This hidden lake
Is a sapphire cup--
An offering clearer than wine,

Colder than tears.
The mountains hold it toward the sky
In
silence.
October Morning
October is brown
In field and row--
Yet goldenrod
And goldenglow,
Purple asters
And ruddy oaks,

Sumach spreading
Crimson cloaks,
Apples red
And pumpkins
gold--?
Perhaps it's gayer
To be old!

October Afternoon
The air is warm and winey-sweet,
Over my head the oak-leaves shine

Like rich Madeira, glossy brown,
Or garnet red, like old Port wine.

Wild grapes are ripening on the hill,
Dead leaves curl thickly at my
feet,
Yet not one falls, it is so still.
Crickets are singing in the sun,

And aimlessly grasshoppers leap
From discontent to discontent,

Their days of leaping nearly done.
There's a rich quietness of earth

That holds no promise any more,
And like a cup, Today is filled

With the last wine the year shall pour.
Maternity
Sturdy is earth,
Dull and mighty,
Unresentful--
Of her own
fertility
Covering scars
With healing green.
You cannot anger earth,
You cannot cause her pain
Nor make her
remember
Your hungry, querulous love.
At last your unwilling body
She tranquilly receives
And turns it to
her uses.
The Father Speaks
My little son, when you were born
There died a being, sweet and wild,
A lovely, careless, radiant child,

A passionate woman--her I mourn.
And in her place has come another,
With troubled smile and brooding eyes,
Insatiate of sacrifice
And
wholly, utterly your mother.
To Allen
Beauty, the dream that I have dreamed so much
Comes true in your

quick smile,
And on your cheek I see her touch
And sometimes in
your eyes a while
Immortal beauty's fleeting image lies.
Dear child,
in whose veins beat
The marching centuries of lovers' feet,
All
those brave, ardent ghosts in you arise--
The souls who, loving beauty,
gave you birth,
With a chain of passion binding beauty to earth,
A
captured dream--these souls breathe with your breath
Living again in
beauty that knows no death.
To Helen
Lie still in my arms, little four-years-old,
Little bud that glows
With more beauty and passion than it can hold,
Little flaming rose,
The spring's red blossoms, when winter lies deep
On a wind-swept world
Of tossing branches, lie safely asleep
In brown buds curled.
They wake--and the wind strips their petals away
And spills them afar--
Can I keep you from blooming, whatever I say,
Wild bud that you are!
The Immortal
Child of a love denied, a dream unborn,
Spirit more brave
Than
passion's unfulfilment, wiser than fate--
Nor breast nor grave
As
cradle you have known,--
I mourn
That my soul knows its own

Too late!
A soul's half-breath,
Passion's unremembered dream,
Perfume
without a vase,
Intangible you seem
To life or death.

And when the coloured mantle of the days
Slips from my shoulders,
and I lie
Forgetful, dumb,
Mingled with earth in passionless
embrace,
Will you, forgotten as a bird,
Singing unheard
In space,

Will you not come
When every other dream is gone,
Bringing to
that silent place
The shadow of a gesture flung
By motionless hands,
a floating echo hung
From an unspoken word,
And to the empty
sky
The sunset of a day which did not dawn
And cannot die !
To an Absent Child
I
At first in dreams
I pressed you so close
That you melted away on
my breast,
But now I wait, breathless and motionless,
Till I feel
your slender arms caress me
Like swallows blown against me
And
quickly flown.
II
Small flower,
My body is the earth from which you sprang,
But we
are more to each other than earth and flower,
Closer, even, than earth
and flower,
For the sky in me is one with the sky in you...
My love for you
Is like sunlight shining in a quiet place,
You shall
feel my love like soft light
Pouring about you.
III
I will not kiss you,
For my kisses are a chain without an end;
Nor
take you in my arms,
My arms would smother you against my breast;

I will not even touch your shining head--
But lift your eyes up,
flower-face,
And I will fill them as