Love Songs | Page 8

in our own love and the gentle gloom,?Glad of familiar wall and chair and floor,
Glad to leave far below the clanging city;?Looking far downward to the glaring street?Gaudy with light, yet tired with many feet,?In both of us wells up a wordless pity;
Men have tried hard to put away the dark;?A million lighted windows brilliantly
Inlay with squares of gold the winter night,?But to us standing here there comes the stark
Sense of the lives behind each yellow light,?And not one wholly joyous, proud, or free.
"I Am Not Yours"
I am not yours, not lost in you,?Not lost, although I long to be?Lost as a candle lit at noon,?Lost as a snowflake in the sea.
You love me, and I find you still?A spirit beautiful and bright,?Yet I am I, who long to be?Lost as a light is lost in light.
Oh plunge me deep in love -- put out?My senses, leave me deaf and blind,?Swept by the tempest of your love,?A taper in a rushing wind.
Doubt
My soul lives in my body's house,?And you have both the house and her --?But sometimes she is less your own?Than a wild, gay adventurer;?A restless and an eager wraith,?How can I tell what she will do --?Oh, I am sure of my body's faith,?But what if my soul broke faith with you?
The Wind
A wind is blowing over my soul,?I hear it cry the whole night through --?Is there no peace for me on earth?Except with you?
Alas, the wind has made me wise,?Over my naked soul it blew, --?There is no peace for me on earth?Even with you.
Morning
I went out on an April morning?All alone, for my heart was high,?I was a child of the shining meadow,?I was a sister of the sky.
There in the windy flood of morning?Longing lifted its weight from me,?Lost as a sob in the midst of cheering,?Swept as a sea-bird out to sea.
Other Men
When I talk with other men?I always think of you --?Your words are keener than their words,?And they are gentler, too.
When I look at other men,?I wish your face were there,?With its gray eyes and dark skin?And tossed black hair.
When I think of other men,?Dreaming alone by day,?The thought of you like a strong wind?Blows the dreams away.
Embers
I said, "My youth is gone?Like a fire beaten out by the rain,?That will never sway and sing?Or play with the wind again."
I said, "It is no great sorrow?That quenched my youth in me,?But only little sorrows?Beating ceaselessly."
I thought my youth was gone,?But you returned --?Like a flame at the call of the wind?It leaped and burned;
Threw off its ashen cloak,?And gowned anew?Gave itself like a bride?Once more to you.
Message
I heard a cry in the night,?A thousand miles it came,?Sharp as a flash of light,?My name, my name!
It was your voice I heard,?You waked and loved me so --?I send you back this word,?I know, I know!
The Lamp
If I can bear your love like a lamp before me,?When I go down the long steep Road of Darkness,?I shall not fear the everlasting shadows,
Nor cry in terror.
If I can find out God, then I shall find Him,?If none can find Him, then I shall sleep soundly,?Knowing how well on earth your love sufficed me,
A lamp in darkness.
IV
A November Night
There! See the line of lights,?A chain of stars down either side the street --?Why can't you lift the chain and give it to me,?A necklace for my throat? I'd twist it round?And you could play with it. You smile at me?As though I were a little dreamy child?Behind whose eyes the fairies live. . . . And see,?The people on the street look up at us?All envious. We are a king and queen,?Our royal carriage is a motor bus,?We watch our subjects with a haughty joy. . . .?How still you are! Have you been hard at work?And are you tired to-night? It is so long?Since I have seen you -- four whole days, I think.?My heart is crowded full of foolish thoughts?Like early flowers in an April meadow,?And I must give them to you, all of them,?Before they fade. The people I have met,?The play I saw, the trivial, shifting things?That loom too big or shrink too little, shadows?That hurry, gesturing along a wall,?Haunting or gay -- and yet they all grow real?And take their proper size here in my heart?When you have seen them. . . . There's the Plaza now, A lake of light! To-night it almost seems?That all the lights are gathered in your eyes,?Drawn somehow toward you. See the open park?Lying below us with a million lamps?Scattered in wise disorder like the stars.?We look down on them as God must look down?On constellations floating under Him?Tangled in clouds. . . . Come, then, and let us walk?Since we have reached the park. It is our garden,?All black and blossomless this winter