Rivers to the Sea | Page 7

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?When she goes home,?Dreamily before her mirror shakes from her hair?This year's blossoms, clinging in its coils ?
IN A SUBWAY STATION
AFTER a year I came again to the place;?The tireless lights and the reverberation,?The angry thunder of trains that burrow the ground,?The hunted, hurrying people were still the same--?But oh, another man beside me and not you!?Another voice and other eyes in mine!?And suddenly I turned and saw again?The gleaming curve of tracks, the bridge above--?They were burned deep into my heart before,?The night I watched them to avoid your eyes,?When you were saying, "Oh, look up at me!"?When you were saying, "Will you never love me?"?And when I answered with a lie. Oh then?You dropped your eyes. I felt your utter pain.?I would have died to say the truth to you.?After a year I came again to the place--?The hunted hurrying people were still the same....
AFTER LOVE
THERE is no magic when we meet,
We speak as other people do,?You work no miracle for me
Nor I for you.
You were the wind and I the sea--
There is no splendor any more,?I have grown listless as the pool
Beside the shore.
But tho' the pool is safe from storm
And from the tide has found surcease,?It grows more bitter than the sea,
For all its peace.
DOORYARD ROSES
I HAVE come the selfsame path
To the selfsame door,?Years have left the roses there
Burning as before.
While I watch them in the wind
Quick the hot tears start--?Strange so frail a flame outlasts
Fire in the heart.
A PRAYER
UNTIL I lose my soul and lie
Blind to the beauty of the earth,?Deaf tho' a lyric wind goes by,
Dumb in a storm of mirth;
Until my heart is quenched at length
And I have left the land of men,?Oh let me love with all my strength
Careless if I am loved again.
II
INDIAN SUMMER
LYRIC night of the lingering Indian Summer,?Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,?Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
Ceaseless, insistent.
The grasshopper's horn, and far off, high in the maples?The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence,?Under a moon waning and worn and broken,
Tired with summer.
Let me remember you, voices of little insects,?Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters, Let me remember you, soon will the winter be on us,
Snow-hushed and heartless.
Over my soul murmur your mute benediction?While I gaze, oh fields that rest after harvest,?As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,
Lest they forget them.
THE SEA WIND
I AM a pool in a peaceful place,?I greet the great sky face to face,?I know the stars and the stately moon?And the wind that runs with rippling shoon--?But why does it always bring to me?The far-off, beautiful sound of the sea?
The marsh-grass weaves me a wall of green,?But the wind comes whispering in between,?In the dead of night when the sky is deep?The wind comes waking me out of sleep--?Why does it always bring to me?The far-off, terrible call of the sea?
THE CLOUD
I AM a cloud in the heaven's height,?The stars are lit for my delight,?Tireless and changeful, swift and free,?I cast my shadow on hill and sea--?But why do the pines on the mountain's crest?Call to me always, "Rest, rest"?
I throw my mantle over the moon?And I blind the sun on his throne at noon,?Nothing can tame me, nothing can bind,?I am a child of the heartless wind--?But oh the pines on the mountain's crest?Whispering always, "Rest, rest."
THE POOR HOUSE
HOPE went by and Peace went by
And would not enter in;?Youth went by and Health went by
And Love that is their kin.
Those within the house shed tears
On their bitter bread;?Some were old and some were mad,
And some were sick a-bed.
Gray Death saw the wretched house
And even he passed by--?"They have never lived," he said,
"They can wait to die."
NEW YEAR'S DAWN--BROADWAY
WHEN the horns wear thin?And the noise, like a garment outworn,?Falls from the night,?The tattered and shivering night,?That thinks she is gay;?When the patient silence comes back,?And retires,?And returns,?Rebuffed by a ribald song,?Wounded by vehement cries,?Fleeing again to the stars--?Ashamed of her sister the night;?Oh, then they steal home,?The blinded, the pitiful ones?With their gew-gaws still in their hands,?Reeling with odorous breath?And thick, coarse words on their tongues.?They get them to bed, somehow,?And sleep the forgiving,?Comes thru the scattering tumult?And closes their eyes.?The stars sink down ashamed?And the dawn awakes,?Like a youth who steals from a brothel,?Dizzy and sick.
THE STAR
A WHITE star born in the evening glow?Looked to the round green world below,?And saw a pool in a wooded place?That held