Flame and Shadow | Page 6

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 more?Let me go down as waves sweep to the shore?In pride; and let me sing with my last breath;?In these few hours of light I lift my head;?Life is my lover -- I shall leave the dead?If there is any way to baffle death.
"The Dreams of My Heart"
The dreams of my heart and my mind pass,?Nothing stays with me long,?But I have had from a child?The deep solace of song;
If that should ever leave me,?Let me find death and stay?With things whose tunes are played out and forgotten?Like the rain of yesterday.
"A Little While"
A little while when I am gone?My life will live in music after me,?As spun foam lifted and borne on?After the wave is lost in the full sea.
A while these nights and days will burn?In song with the bright frailty of foam,?Living in light before they turn?Back to the nothingness that is their home.
The Garden
My heart is a garden tired with autumn,?Heaped with bending asters and dahlias heavy and dark,?In the hazy sunshine, the garden remembers April,?The drench of rains and a snow-drop quick and clear as a spark;
Daffodils blowing in the cold wind of morning,?And golden tulips, goblets holding the rain --?The garden will be hushed with snow, forgotten soon, forgotten -- After the stillness, will spring come again?
The Wine
I cannot die, who drank delight?From the cup of the