Rivers to the Sea | Page 4

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 OLD MAID
I SAW her in a Broadway car,

The woman I might grow to be;
I felt my lover look at her
And then turn suddenly to me.
Her hair was dull and drew no light
And yet its color was as mine;
Her eyes were strangely like my eyes
Tho' love had never made them shine.
Her body was a thing grown thin,
Hungry for love that never came;
Her soul was frozen in the dark
Unwarmed forever by love's flame.
I felt my lover look at her
And then turn suddenly to me,--
His eyes were magic to defy
The woman I shall never be.
FROM THE WOOLWORTH TOWER
VIVID with love, eager for greater beauty
Out of the night we come

Into the corridor, brilliant and warm.
A metal door slides open,

And the lift receives us.
Swiftly, with sharp unswerving flight
The
car shoots upward,
And the air, swirling and angry,
Howls like a
hundred devils.
Past the maze of trim bronze doors,
Steadily we
ascend.
I cling to you
Conscious of the chasm under us,
And a
terrible whirring deafens my ears.
The flight is ended.
We pass thru a door leading onto the ledge--
Wind, night and space

Oh terrible height
Why have we sought you?
Oh bitter wind with
icy invisible wings
Why do you beat us?
Why would you bear us

away?
We look thru the miles of air,
The cold blue miles between
us and the city,
Over the edge of eternity we look
On all the lights,

A thousand times more numerous than the stars;
Oh lines and loops
of light in unwound chains
That mark for miles and miles
The vast
black mazy cobweb of the streets;
Near us clusters and splashes of
living gold
That change far off to bluish steel
Where the fragile
lights on the Jersey shore
Tremble like drops of wind-stirred dew.

The strident noises of the city
Floating up to us
Are hallowed into
whispers.
Ferries cross thru the darkness
Weaving a golden thread
into the night,
Their whistles weird shadows of sound.
We feel the millions of humanity beneath us,--
The warm millions,
moving under the roofs,
Consumed by their own desires;
Preparing
food,
Sobbing alone in a garret,
With burning eyes bending over a
needle,
Aimlessly reading the evening paper,
Dancing in the naked
light of the café,
Laying out the dead,
Bringing a child to
birth--
The sorrow, the torpor, the bitterness, the frail joy
Come up
to us
Like a cold fog wrapping us round.
Oh in a hundred years

Not one of these blood-warm bodies
But will be worthless as clay.

The anguish, the torpor, the toil
Will have passed to other millions

Consumed by the same desires.
Ages will come and go,
Darkness
will blot the lights
And the tower will be laid on the earth.
The sea
will remain
Black and unchanging,
The stars will look down


Brilliant and unconcerned.
Beloved,
Tho' sorrow, futility, defeat
Surround us,
They cannot
bear us down.
Here on the abyss of eternity
Love has crowned us

For a moment
Victors.
AT NIGHT
WE are apart; the city grows quiet between us,
She hushes herself, for midnight makes heavy her eyes,
The tangle of

traffic is ended, the cars are empty,
Five streets divide us, and on them the moonlight lies.
Oh are you asleep, or Iying awake, my lover?
Open your dreams to my love and your heart to my words,
I send you
my thoughts-the air between us is laden,
My thoughts fly in at your window, a flock of wild birds.
THE YEARS
TO-NIGHT I close my eyes and see
A strange procession passing
me--
The years before I saw your face
Go by me with a wistful
grace;
They pass, the sensitive shy years,
As one who strives to
dance, half blind with tears.
The years went by and never knew
That each one brought me nearer
you;
Their path was narrow and apart
And yet it led me to your
heart--
Oh sensitive shy years, oh lonely years,
That strove to sing
with voices drowned in tears.
PEACE
PEACE flows into me
AS the tide to the pool by the shore;
It is mine forevermore,
It ebbs
not back like the sea.
I am the pool of blue
That worships the vivid sky;
My hopes were heaven-high,
They are
all fulfilled in you.
I am the pool of gold
When sunset burns and dies,--
You are my deepening skies,
Give

me your stars to hold.
APRIL
THE roofs are shining from the rain,
The sparrows twitter as they fly,
And with a windy April grace
The little clouds go by.
Yet the back-yards are bare and brown
With only one unchanging tree--
I could not be so sure of Spring
Save that it sings in me.
COME
COME, when the pale moon like a petal
Floats in the pearly dusk