Love Songs | Page 6

full of my new love's glory, --
But my eyes
were suddenly afraid.
Summer Night, Riverside
In the wild, soft summer darkness
How many and many a night we
two together
Sat in the park and watched the Hudson
Wearing her
lights like golden spangles
Glinting on black satin.
The rail along

the curving pathway
Was low in a happy place to let us cross,
And
down the hill a tree that dripped with bloom
Sheltered us,
While
your kisses and the flowers,
Falling, falling,
Tangled my hair. . . .
The frail white stars moved slowly over the sky.
And now, far off
In the fragrant darkness
The tree is tremulous
again with bloom,
For June comes back.
To-night what girl
Dreamily before her mirror shakes from her hair

This year's blossoms, clinging in its coils?
Jewels
If I should see your eyes again,
I know how far their look would go --

Back to a morning in the park
With sapphire shadows on the snow.
Or back to oak trees in the spring
When you unloosed my hair and
kissed
The head that lay against your knees
In the leaf shadow's
amethyst.
And still another shining place
We would remember -- how the dun

Wild mountain held us on its crest
One diamond morning white
with sun.
But I will turn my eyes from you
As women turn to put away
The
jewels they have worn at night
And cannot wear in sober day.
II
Interlude: Songs out of Sorrow
I. Spirit's House
From naked stones of agony
I will build a house for me;
As a
mason all alone
I will raise it, stone by stone,
And every stone

where I have bled
Will show a sign of dusky red.
I have not gone
the way in vain,
For I have good of all my pain;
My spirit's quiet
house will be
Built of naked stones I trod
On roads where I lost
sight of God.
II. Mastery
I would not have a god come in
To shield me suddenly from sin,

And set my house of life to rights;
Nor angels with bright burning
wings
Ordering my earthly thoughts and things;
Rather my own
frail guttering lights
Wind blown and nearly beaten out;
Rather the
terror of the nights
And long, sick groping after doubt;
Rather be
lost than let my soul
Slip vaguely from my own control --
Of my
own spirit let me be
In sole though feeble mastery.
III. Lessons
Unless I learn to ask no help
From any other soul but mine,
To seek
no strength in waving reeds
Nor shade beneath a straggling pine;

Unless I learn to look at Grief
Unshrinking from her tear-blind eyes,

And take from Pleasure fearlessly
Whatever gifts will make me
wise --
Unless I learn these things on earth,
Why was I ever given
birth?
IV. Wisdom
When I have ceased to break my wings
Against the faultiness of
things,
And learned that compromises wait
Behind each hardly
opened gate,
When I can look Life in the eyes,
Grown calm and
very coldly wise,
Life will have given me the Truth,
And taken in
exchange -- my youth.
V. In a Burying Ground
This is the spot where I will lie
When life has had enough of me,


These are the grasses that will blow
Above me like a living sea.
These gay old lilies will not shrink
To draw their life from death of
mine,
And I will give my body's fire
To make blue flowers on this
vine.
"O Soul," I said, "have you no tears?
Was not the body dear to you?"

I heard my soul say carelessly,
"The myrtle flowers will grow more
blue."
VI. Wood Song
I heard a wood thrush in the dusk
Twirl three notes and make a star --

My heart that walked with bitterness
Came back from very far.
Three shining notes were all he had,
And yet they made a starry call
--
I caught life back against my breast
And kissed it, scars and all.
VII. Refuge
From my spirit's gray defeat,
From my pulse's flagging beat,
From
my hopes that turned to sand
Sifting through my close-clenched hand,

From my own fault's slavery,
If I can sing, I still am free.
For with my singing I can make
A refuge for my spirit's sake,
A
house of shining words, to be
My fragile immortality.
III
The Flight
Look back with longing eyes and know that I will follow,
Lift me up
in your love as a light wind lifts a swallow,
Let our flight be far in
sun or blowing rain --
*But what if I heard my first love calling me
again?*

Hold me on your heart as the brave sea holds the foam,
Take me far
away to the hills that hide your home;
Peace shall thatch the roof and
love shall latch the door -- *But what if I heard my first love calling me
once more?*
Dew
As dew leaves the cobweb lightly
Threaded with stars,
Scattering
jewels on the fence
And the pasture bars;
As dawn leaves the dry
grass bright
And the tangled weeds
Bearing a rainbow gem
On
each of their seeds;
So has your love, my lover,
Fresh as the dawn,

Made me a shining road
To travel on,
Set every common sight

Of tree or stone
Delicately alight
For me alone.
To-night
The moon is a curving