Rivers to the Sea | Page 4

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 of spring,?Come with arms outstretched to take me,
Come with lips pursed up to cling.
Come, for life is a frail moth flying
Caught in the web of the years that pass,?And soon we two, so warm and eager
Will be as the gray stones in the grass.
MOODS
I AM the still rain falling,
Too tired for singing mirth--?Oh, be the green fields calling,
Oh, be for me the earth!?I am the brown bird pining
To leave the nest and fly--?Oh, be the fresh cloud shining,
Oh, be for me the sky!
APRIL SONG
WILLOW in your April gown
Delicate and gleaming,?Do you mind in years gone by
All my dreaming?
Spring was like a call to me
That I could not answer,?I was chained to loneliness,
I, the dancer.
Willow, twinkling in the sun,
Still your leaves and hear me,?I can answer spring at last,
Love is near me!
MAY DAY
THE shining line of motors,
The swaying motor-bus,?The prancing dancing horses
Are passing by for us.
The sunlight on the steeple,
The toys we stop to see,?The smiling passing people
Are all for you and me.
"I love you and I love