Rivers to the Sea | Page 9

less bright;?That all her girlhood thru?Never a cry of love made over-tense?Her voice's innocence;?That in her hands have lain,?Flowers beaten by the rain,?And little birds before they learned to sing?Drowned in the sudden ecstasy of spring.
I love to think that with a wistful wonder?She held her baby warm against her breast;?That never any fear awoke whereunder?She shuddered at her gift, or trembled lest?Thru the great doors of birth?Here to a windy earth?She lured from heaven a half-unwilling guest.
She caught and kept his first vague flickering smile,?The faint upleaping of his spirit's fire;?And for a long sweet while?In her was all he asked of earth or heaven--?But in the end how far,?Past every shaken star,?Should leap at last that arrow-like desire,?His full-grown manhood's keen?Ardor toward the unseen?Dark mystery beyond the Pleiads seven.?And in her heart she heard?His first dim-spoken word--?She only of them all could understand,?Flushing to feel at last?The silence over-past,?Thrilling as tho' her hand had touched God's hand.?But in the end how many words?Winged on a flight she could not follow,?Farther than skyward lark or swallow,?His lips should free to lands she never knew;?Braver than white sea-faring birds?With a fearless melody,?Flying over a shining sea,?A star-white song between the blue and blue.
Oh I have seen a lake as clear and fair?As it were molten air,?Lifting a lily upward to the sun.?How should the water know the glowing heart?That ever to the heaven lifts its fire,?A golden and unchangeable desire??The water only knows?The faint and rosy glows?Of under-petals, opening apart.?Yet in the soul of earth,?Deep in the primal ground,?Its searching roots are wound,?And centuries have struggled toward its birth.?So, in the man who sings,?All of the voiceless horde?From the cold dawn of things?Have their reward;?All in whose pulses ran?Blood that is his at last,?From the first stooping man?Far in the winnowed past.?Out of the tumult of their love and mating?Each one created, seeing life was good--?Dumb, till at last the song that they were waiting?Breaks like brave April thru a wintry wood.
RIVERS TO TOE SEA
But what of her whose heart is troubled by it,?The mother who would soothe and set him free,?Fearing the song's storm-shaken ecstasy--?Oh, as the moon that has no power to quiet?The strong wind-driven sea.
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IN MEMORIAM F. O. S.
You go a long and lovely journey,
For all the stars, like burning dew,?Are luminous and luring footprints
Of souls adventurous as you.
Oh, if you lived on earth elated,
How is it now that you can run?Free of the weight of flesh and faring
Far past the birthplace of the sun?
TWILIGHT
THE stately tragedy of dusk
Drew to its perfect close,?The virginal white evening star
Sank, and the red moon rose.
SWALLOW FLIGHT
I LOVE my hour of wind and light,
I love men's faces and their eyes,?I love my spirit's veering flight
Like swallows under evening skies,
THOUGHTS
WHEN I can make my thoughts come forth
To walk like ladies up and down,?Each one puts on before the glass
Her most becoming hat and gown.
But oh, the shy and eager thoughts
That hide and will not get them dressed,?Why is it that they always seem
So much more lovely than the rest?
TO DICK, ON HIS SIXTH BIRTHDAY
Tho' I am very old and wise,
And you are neither wise nor old,?When I look far into your eyes,
I know things I was never told:?I know how flame must strain and fret?Prisoned in a mortal net;?How joy with over-eager wings,?Bruises the small heart where he sings;?How too much life, like too much gold,?Is sometimes very hard to hold. . . .?All that is talking--I know?This much is true, six years ago?An angel living near the moon?Walked thru the sky and sang a tune?Plucking stars to make his crown--?And suddenly two stars fell down,?Two falling arrows made of light.?Six years ago this very night?I saw them fall and wondered why?The angel dropped them from the sky--?But when I saw your eyes I knew?The angel sent the stars to you.
TO ROSE
ROSE, when I remember you,?Little lady, scarcely two,?I am suddenly aware?Of the angels in the air.?All your softly gracious ways?Make an island in my days?Where my thoughts fly back to be?Sheltered from too strong a sea.?All your luminous delight?Shines before me in the night?When I grope for sleep and find?Only shadows in my mind.
Rose, when I remember you,?White and glowing, pink and new,?With so swift a sense of fun?Altho' life has just begun;?With so sure a pride of place?In your very infant face,?I should like to make a prayer?To the angels in the air:?"If an angel ever brings?Me a baby in her wings,?Please be certain that it grows?Very, very much like Rose."
THE FOUNTAIN
On in the deep blue night
The fountain sang alone;?It sang to the drowsy heart
Of the satyr carved in stone.
The fountain sang and sang
But the satyr never stirred--?Only the great white moon
In the empty heaven heard.
The fountain sang and sang
And on the marble rim?The milk-white peacocks slept,
Their dreams were strange