Nets to Catch the Wind | Page 4

scarlet skin
On an ivory fruit;
And
a filigree frost
Of frail notes lost
From a fairy lute.
Here's a turquoise chain
Of sun-shower rain
To wear if you wish;

And glimmering green
With aquamarine,
A silvery fish.
Here are pearls all strung
On a thread among
Pretty pink shells;

And bubbles blown
From the opal stone
Which ring like bells.
Touch them and take them,
But do not break them!
Beneath your
hand
They will wither like foam
If you carry them home
Out of
fairy-land.
O, they never can last
Though you hide them fast
From moth and
from rust;

In your monstrous day
They will crumble away
Into
quicksilver dust.
"FIRE AND SLEET AND CANDLELIGHT"
For this you've striven
Daring, to fail:
Your sky is riven
Like a
tearing veil.
For this, you've wasted
Wings of your youth;
Divined, and tasted

Bitter springs of truth.

From sand unslaked
Twisted strong cords,
And wandered naked

Among trysted swords.
There's a word unspoken,
A knot untied.
Whatever is broken
The
earth may hide.
The road was jagged
Over sharp stones:
Your body's too ragged

To cover your bones.
The wind scatters
Tears upon dust;
Your soul's in tatters
Where
the spears thrust.
Your race is ended--
See, it is run:
Nothing is mended
Under the
sun.
Straight as an arrow
You fall to a sleep
Not too narrow
And not
too deep.
BLOOD FEUD
Once, when my husband was a child, there came
To his father's table,
one who called him kin,
In sunbleached corduroys paler than his skin.

His look was grave and kind; he bore the name
Of the dead singer
of Senlac, and his smile.
Shyly and courteously he smiled and spoke;

"I've been in the laurel since the winter broke;
Four months, I
reckon; yes, sir, quite a while."
He'd killed a score of foemen in the past,
In some blood-feud, a dark
and monstrous thing;
To him it seemed his duty. At the last
His
enemies found him by a forest spring,
Which, as he died, lay bright
beneath his head,
A silver shield that slowly turned to red.
SEA LULLABY
The old moon is tarnished
With smoke of the flood,
The dead
leaves are varnished
With color like blood,

A treacherous smiler
With teeth white as milk,
A savage beguiler

In sheathings of silk,
The sea creeps to pillage,
She leaps on her prey;
A child of the
village
Was murdered to-day.
She came up to meet him
In a smooth golden cloak,
She choked
him and beat him
To death, for a joke.
Her bright locks were tangled,
She shouted for joy,
With one hand
she strangled
A strong little boy.
Now in silence she lingers
Beside him all night
To wash her long
fingers
In silvery light.
NANCY
You are a rose, but set with sharpest spine;
You are a pretty bird that
pecks at me;
You are a little squirrel on a tree,
Pelting me with the
prickly fruit of the pine;
A diamond, torn from a crystal mine,
Not
like that milky treasure of the sea
A smooth, translucent pearl, but
skilfully
Carven to cut, and faceted to shine.
If you are flame, it dances and burns blue;
If you are light, it pierces
like a star
Intenser than a needlepoint of ice.
The dexterous touch
that shaped the soul of you,
Mingled, to mix, and make you what you
are,
Magic between the sugar and the spice.
A PROUD LADY
Hate in the world's hand
Can carve and set its seal
Like the strong
blast of sand
Which cuts into steel.
I have seen how the finger of hate
Can mar and mold
Faces burned
passionate
And frozen cold.

Sorrowful faces worn
As stone with rain,
Faces writhing with scorn

And sullen with pain.
But you have a proud face
Which the world cannot harm,
You have
turned the pain to a grace
And the scorn to a charm.
You have taken the arrows and slings
Which prick and bruise
And
fashioned them into wings
For the heels of your shoes.
From the world's hand which tries
To tear you apart
You have
stolen the falcon's eyes
And the lion's heart.
What has it done, this world,
With hard finger tips,
But sweetly
chiseled and curled
Your inscrutable lips?
THE TORTOISE IN ETERNITY
Within my house of patterned horn
I sleep in such a bed
As men
may keep before they're born
And after they are dead.
Sticks and stones may break their bones,
And words may make them
bleed;
There is not one of them who owns
An armor to his need.
Tougher than hide or lozenged bark,
Snow-storm and thunder proof,

And quick with sun, and thick with dark,
Is this my darling roof.
Men's troubled dreams of death and birth
Pulse mother-o'-pearl to
black;
I bear the rainbow bubble Earth
Square on my scornful back.
INCANTATION
A white well
In a black cave;
A bright shell
In a dark wave.
A white rose
Black brambles hood;
Smooth bright snows
In a
dark wood.

A flung white glove
In a dark fight;
A white dove
On a wild black
night.
A white door
In a dark lane;
A bright core
To bitter black pain.
A white hand
Waved from dark walls;
In a burnt black land

Bright waterfalls.
A bright spark
Where black ashes are;
In the smothering dark
One
white star.
SILVER FILIGREE
The icicles wreathing
On trees in festoon
Swing, swayed to our
breathing:
They're made of the moon.
She's a pale, waxen taper;
And these seem to drip
Transparent as
paper
From the flame of her tip.
Molten, smoking a little,
Into crystal they pass;
Falling,