Flame and Shadow | Page 6

with beauty,
But I must stay at home.
The Broken Field
My soul is a dark ploughed field
In the cold rain;
My soul is a
broken field
Ploughed by pain.
Where grass and bending flowers
Were growing,
The field lies
broken now
For another sowing.
Great Sower when you tread
My field again,
Scatter the furrows
there
With better grain.
The Unseen
Death went up the hall
Unseen by every one,
Trailing twilight robes

Past the nurse and the nun.
He paused at every door
And listened to the breath
Of those who
did not know
How near they were to Death.
Death went up the hall
Unseen by nurse and nun;
He passed by

many a door --
But he entered one.
A Prayer
When I am dying, let me know
That I loved the blowing snow

Although it stung like whips;
That I loved all lovely things
And I
tried to take their stings
With gay unembittered lips;
That I loved
with all my strength,
To my soul's full depth and length,
Careless if
my heart must break,
That I sang as children sing
Fitting tunes to
everything,
Loving life for its own sake.
V
Spring Torrents
Will it always be like this until I am dead,
Every spring must I bear it
all again
With the first red haze of the budding maple boughs,
And
the first sweet-smelling rain?
Oh I am like a rock in the rising river
Where the flooded water breaks
with a low call --
Like a rock that knows the cry of the waters
And
cannot answer at all.
"I Know the Stars"
I know the stars by their names,
Aldebaran, Altair,
And I know the
path they take
Up heaven's broad blue stair.
I know the secrets of men
By the look of their eyes,
Their gray
thoughts, their strange thoughts
Have made me sad and wise.
But your eyes are dark to me
Though they seem to call and call --
I
cannot tell if you love me
Or do not love me at all.
I know many things,
But the years come and go,
I shall die not
knowing
The thing I long to know.

Understanding
I understood the rest too well,
And all their thoughts have come to be

Clear as grey sea-weed in the swell
Of a sunny shallow sea.
But you I never understood,
Your spirit's secret hides like gold

Sunk in a Spanish galleon
Ages ago in waters cold.
Nightfall
We will never walk again
As we used to walk at night,
Watching
our shadows lengthen
Under the gold street-light
When the snow
was new and white.
We will never walk again
Slowly, we two,
In spring when the park
is sweet
With midnight and with dew,
And the passers-by are few.
I sit and think of it all,
And the blue June twilight dies, --
Down in
the clanging square
A street-piano cries
And stars come out in the
skies.
"It Is Not a Word"
It is not a word spoken,
Few words are said;
Nor even a look of the
eyes
Nor a bend of the head,
But only a hush of the heart
That has
too much to keep,
Only memories waking
That sleep so light a
sleep.
"My Heart Is Heavy"
My heart is heavy with many a song
Like ripe fruit bearing down the
tree,
But I can never give you one --
My songs do not belong to me.
Yet in the evening, in the dusk
When moths go to and fro,
In the
gray hour if the fruit has fallen,
Take it, no one will know.

The Nights Remember
The days remember and the nights remember
The kingly hours that
once you made so great,
Deep in my heart they lie, hidden in their
splendor,
Buried like sovereigns in their robes of state.
Let them not wake again, better to lie there,
Wrapped in memories,
jewelled and arrayed --
Many a ghostly king has waked from
death-sleep
And found his crown stolen and his throne decayed.
"Let It Be Forgotten"
Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,
Forgotten as a fire that
once was singing gold,
Let it be forgotten for ever and ever,
Time is
a kind friend, he will make us old.
If anyone asks, say it was forgotten
Long and long ago,
As a flower,
as a fire, as a hushed footfall
In a long forgotten snow.
The Dark Cup
VI
May Day
A delicate fabric of bird song
Floats in the air,
The smell of wet
wild earth
Is everywhere.
Red small leaves of the maple
Are clenched like a hand,
Like girls
at their first communion
The pear trees stand.
Oh I must pass nothing by
Without loving it much,
The raindrop try
with my lips,
The grass with my touch;
For how can I be sure
I shall see again
The world on the first of
May
Shining after the rain?

"Since There Is No Escape"
Since there is no escape, since at the end
My body will be utterly
destroyed,
This hand I love as I have loved a friend,
This body I
tended, wept with and enjoyed;
Since there is no escape even for me

Who love life with a love too sharp to bear:
The scent of orchards
in the rain, the sea
And hours alone too still and sure for prayer --

Since darkness waits for me, then all the