Love Songs | Page 5

ache with praise, and I
Should kneel in joy beneath the sky.

O, beauty, are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love,
With
youth, a singing voice, and eyes
To take earth's wonder with surprise?
Why have I put off my pride,
Why am I unsatisfied, --
I, for whom
the pensive night
Binds her cloudy hair with light, --
I, for whom all
beauty burns
Like incense in a million urns?
O beauty, are you not
enough?
Why am I crying after love?
May Wind
I said, "I have shut my heart
As one shuts an open door,
That Love
may starve therein
And trouble me no more."
But over the roofs there came
The wet new wind of May,
And a
tune blew up from the curb
Where the street-pianos play.
My room was white with the sun
And Love cried out in me,
"I am
strong, I will break your heart
Unless you set me free."
Tides
Love in my heart was a fresh tide flowing
Where the starlike sea gulls
soar;
The sun was keen and the foam was blowing
High on the
rocky shore.
But now in the dusk the tide is turning,
Lower the sea gulls soar,

And the waves that rose in resistless yearning
Are broken
forevermore.

After Love
There is no magic any more,
We meet as other people do,
You
work no miracle for me
Nor I for you.
You were the wind and I the sea --
There is no splendor any more,
I
have grown listless as the pool
Beside the shore.
But though the pool is safe from storm
And from the tide has found
surcease,
It grows more bitter than the sea,
For all its peace.
New Love and Old
In my heart the old love
Struggled with the new;
It was ghostly
waking
All night through.
Dear things, kind things,
That my old love said,
Ranged themselves
reproachfully
Round my bed.
But I could not heed them,
For I seemed to see
The eyes of my new
love
Fixed on me.
Old love, old love,
How can I be true?
Shall I be faithless to myself

Or to you?
The Kiss
I hoped that he would love me,
And he has kissed my mouth,
But I
am like a stricken bird
That cannot reach the south.
For though I know he loves me,
To-night my heart is sad;
His kiss
was not so wonderful
As all the dreams I had.
Swans
Night is over the park, and a few brave stars
Look on the lights that

link it with chains of gold,
The lake bears up their reflection in
broken bars
That seem too heavy for tremulous water to hold.
We watch the swans that sleep in a shadowy place,
And now and
again one wakes and uplifts its head;
How still you are -- your gaze is
on my face --
We watch the swans and never a word is said.
The River
I came from the sunny valleys
And sought for the open sea,
For I
thought in its gray expanses
My peace would come to me.
I came at last to the ocean
And found it wild and black,
And I cried
to the windless valleys,
"Be kind and take me back!"
But the thirsty tide ran inland,
And the salt waves drank of me,
And
I who was fresh as the rainfall
Am bitter as the sea.
November
The world is tired, the year is old,
The fading leaves are glad to die,

The wind goes shivering with cold
Where the brown reeds are dry.
Our love is dying like the grass,
And we who kissed grow coldly kind,

Half glad to see our old love pass
Like leaves along the wind.
Spring Rain
I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with
the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.
I remembered a darkened doorway
Where we stood while the storm
swept by,
Thunder gripping the earth
And lightning scrawled on the
sky.
The passing motor busses swayed,
For the street was a river of rain,


Lashed into little golden waves
In the lamp light's stain.
With the wild spring rain and thunder
My heart was wild and gay;

Your eyes said more to me that night
Than your lips would ever
say. . . .
I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with
the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.
The Ghost
I went back to the clanging city,
I went back where my old loves
stayed,
But my heart was full of my new love's glory,
My eyes were
laughing and unafraid.
I met one who had loved me madly
And told his love for all to hear --

But we talked of a thousand things together,
The past was buried
too deep to fear.
I met the other, whose love was given
With never a kiss and scarcely
a word --
Oh, it was then the terror took me
Of words unuttered that
breathed and stirred.
Oh, love that lives its life with laughter
Or love that lives its life with
tears
Can die -- but love that is never spoken
Goes like a ghost
through the winding years. . . .
I went back to the clanging city,
I went back where my old loves
stayed,
My heart was