Flame and Shadow | Page 8

at sea,
Bells in the valley heavy and slow --

There is no place over the crowded world
Where I can forget that the
days go.
Lovely Chance
O lovely chance, what can I do
To give my gratefulness to you?

You rise between myself and me
With a wise persistency;
I would
have broken body and soul,
But by your grace, still I am whole.

Many a thing you did to save me,
Many a holy gift you gave me,

Music and friends and happy love
More than my dearest dreaming of;

And now in this wide twilight hour
With earth and heaven a dark,
blue flower,
In a humble mood I bless
Your wisdom -- and your
waywardness.
You brought me even here, where I
Live on a hill
against the sky
And look on mountains and the sea
And a thin white
moon in the pepper tree.
VIII
"There Will Come Soft Rains"
(War Time)
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows
circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in
tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low
fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is
done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished

utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know
that we were gone.
In a Garden
The world is resting without sound or motion,
Behind the apple tree
the sun goes down
Painting with fire the spires and the windows
In
the elm-shaded town.
Beyond the calm Connecticut the hills lie
Silvered with haze as fruits
still fresh with bloom,
The swallows weave in flight across the zenith

On an aerial loom.
Into the garden peace comes back with twilight,
Peace that since noon
had left the purple phlox,
The heavy-headed asters, the late roses

And swaying hollyhocks.
For at high-noon I heard from this same garden
The far-off murmur
as when many come;
Up from the village surged the blind and
beating
Red music of a drum;
And the hysterical sharp fife that shattered
The brittle autumn air,

While they came, the young men marching
Past the village
square. . . .
Across the calm Connecticut the hills change
To violet, the veils of
dusk are deep --
Earth takes her children's many sorrows calmly

And stills herself to sleep.
Nahant
Bowed as an elm under the weight of its beauty,
So earth is bowed,
under her weight of splendor,
Molten sea, richness of leaves and the
burnished
Bronze of sea-grasses.

Clefts in the cliff shelter the purple sand-peas
And chicory flowers
bluer than the ocean
Flinging its foam high, white fire in sunshine,

Jewels of water.
Joyous thunder of blown waves on the ledges,
Make me forget war
and the dark war-sorrow --
Against the sky a sentry paces the sea-cliff

Slim in his khaki.
Winter Stars
I went out at night alone;
The young blood flowing beyond the sea

Seemed to have drenched my spirit's wings --
I bore my sorrow
heavily.
But when I lifted up my head
From shadows shaken on the snow,
I
saw Orion in the east
Burn steadily as long ago.
From windows in my father's house,
Dreaming my dreams on winter
nights,
I watched Orion as a girl
Above another city's lights.
Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too,
The world's heart breaks
beneath its wars,
All things are changed, save in the east
The
faithful beauty of the stars.
A Boy
Out of the noise of tired people working,
Harried with thoughts of
war and lists of dead,
His beauty met me like a fresh wind blowing,

Clean boyish beauty and high-held head.
Eyes that told secrets, lips that would not tell them,
Fearless and shy
the young unwearied eyes --
Men die by millions now, because God
blunders,
Yet to have made this boy he must be wise.
Winter Dusk

I watch the great clear twilight
Veiling the ice-bowed trees;
Their
branches tinkle faintly
With crystal melodies.
The larches bend their silver
Over the hush of snow;
One star is
lighted in the west,
Two in the zenith glow.
For a moment I have forgotten
Wars and women who mourn --
I
think of the mother who bore me
And thank her that I was born.
By the Sea
IX
The Unchanging
Sun-swept beaches with a light wind blowing
From the immense blue
circle of the sea,
And the soft thunder where long waves whiten --

These were the same for Sappho as for me.
Two thousand years -- much has gone by forever,
Change takes the
gods and ships and speech of men --
But here on the beaches that
time passes over
The heart aches now as then.
June Night
Oh Earth, you are too dear to-night,
How can I sleep while all around

Floats rainy fragrance and the far
Deep voice of the ocean that
talks to the ground?
Oh Earth, you gave me all I have,
I love you, I love you, -- oh what
have I
That I can give you in return --
Except my body after I die?
"Like Barley Bending"
Like barley bending
In low fields by the sea,
Singing in hard