Flame and Shadow | Page 9

wind

Ceaselessly;

Like barley bending
And rising again,
So would I, unbroken,
Rise
from pain;
So would I softly,
Day long, night long,
Change my sorrow
Into
song.
"Oh Day of Fire and Sun"
Oh day of fire and sun,
Pure as a naked flame,
Blue sea, blue sky
and dun
Sands where he spoke my name;
Laughter and hearts so high
That the spirit flew off free,
Lifting
into the sky
Diving into the sea;
Oh day of fire and sun
Like a crystal burning,
Slow days go one by
one,
But you have no returning.
"I Thought of You"
I thought of you and how you love this beauty,
And walking up the
long beach all alone
I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder

As you and I once heard their monotone.
Around me were the echoing dunes, beyond me
The cold and
sparkling silver of the sea --
We two will pass through death and ages
lengthen
Before you hear that sound again with me.
On the Dunes
If there is any life when death is over,
These tawny beaches will
know much of me,
I shall come back, as constant and as changeful

As the unchanging, many-colored sea.
If life was small, if it has made me scornful,
Forgive me; I shall
straighten like a flame
In the great calm of death, and if you want me

Stand on the sea-ward dunes and call my name.

Spray
I knew you thought of me all night,
I knew, though you were far
away;
I felt your love blow over me
As if a dark wind-riven sea

Drenched me with quivering spray.
There are so many ways to love
And each way has its own delight --

Then be content to come to me
Only as spray the beating sea

Drives inland through the night.
If Death Is Kind
Perhaps if Death is kind, and there can be returning,
We will come
back to earth some fragrant night,
And take these lanes to find the sea,
and bending
Breathe the same honeysuckle, low and white.
We will come down at night to these resounding beaches
And the
long gentle thunder of the sea,
Here for a single hour in the wide
starlight
We shall be happy, for the dead are free.
X
Thoughts
When I am all alone
Envy me most,
Then my thoughts flutter round
me
In a glimmering host;
Some dressed in silver,
Some dressed in white,
Each like a taper

Blossoming light;
Most of them merry,
Some of them grave,
Each of them lithe
As
willows that wave;
Some bearing violets,
Some bearing bay,
One with a burning rose

Hidden away --

When I am all alone
Envy me then,
For I have better friends
Than
women and men.
Faces
People that I meet and pass
In the city's broken roar,
Faces that I
lose so soon
And have never found before,
Do you know how much you tell
In the meeting of our eyes,
How
ashamed I am, and sad
To have pierced your poor disguise?
Secrets rushing without sound
Crying from your hiding places --

Let me go, I cannot bear
The sorrow of the passing faces.
0. People in the restless street, Can it be, oh can it be In the meeting of
our eyes That you know as much of me?
Evening: New York
Blue dust of evening over my city,
Over the ocean of roofs and the
tall towers
Where the window-lights, myriads and myriads,
Bloom
from the walls like climbing flowers.
Snowfall
"She can't be unhappy," you said,
"The smiles are like stars in her
eyes,
And her laugh is thistledown
Around her low replies."
"Is
she unhappy?" you said --
But who has ever known
Another's
heartbreak --
All he can know is his own;
And she seems hushed to
me,
As hushed as though
Her heart were a hunter's fire
Smothered
in snow.
The Silent Battle
(In Memory of J. W. T. Jr.)
He was a soldier in that fight
Where there is neither flag nor drum,


And without sound of musketry
The stealthy foemen come.
Year in, year out, by day and night
They forced him to a slow retreat,

And for his gallant fight alone
No fife was blown, and no drum
beat.
In winter fog, in gathering mist
The gray grim battle had its end --

And at the very last we knew
His enemy had turned his friend.
The Sanctuary
If I could keep my innermost Me
Fearless, aloof and free
Of the
least breath of love or hate,
And not disconsolate
At the sick load of
sorrow laid on men;
If I could keep a sanctuary there
Free even of
prayer,
If I could do this, then,
With quiet candor as I grew more
wise
I could look even at God with grave forgiving eyes.
At Sea
In the pull of the wind I stand, lonely,
On the deck of a ship, rising,
falling,
Wild night around me, wild water under me,
Whipped by
the storm, screaming and calling.
Earth is hostile and the sea hostile,
Why do I look for a place to rest?

I must fight always and die fighting
With fear an unhealing wound
in my breast.
Dust
When I went to look at what had long been hidden,
A jewel laid long
ago in a secret place,
I trembled, for I thought to see its dark