Second April | Page 7

a time I stood and watched?The small, ill-natured sparrows' fray;?I loved the beggar that I fed,?I cared for what he had to say,
I stood and watched him out of sight;?Today I reach around the door?And set a bowl upon the step;?My heart is what it was before,
But it is winter with your love;?I scatter crumbs upon the sill,?And close the window,--and the birds?May take or leave them, as they will.
INLAND
People that build their houses inland,?People that buy a plot of ground?Shaped like a house, and build a house there,?Far from the sea-board, far from the sound
Of water sucking the hollow ledges,?Tons of water striking the shore,--?What do they long for, as I long for?One salt smell of the sea once more?
People the waves have not awakened,?Spanking the boats at the harbor's head,?What do they long for, as I long for,--?Starting up in my inland bed,
Beating the narrow walls, and finding?Neither a window nor a door,?Screaming to God for death by drowning,--?One salt taste of the sea once more?
TO A POET THAT DIED YOUNG
Minstrel, what have you to do?With this man that, after you,?Sharing not your happy fate,?Sat as England's Laureate??Vainly, in these iron days,?Strives the poet in your praise,?Minstrel, by whose singing side?Beauty walked, until you died.
Still, though none should hark again,?Drones the blue-fly in the pane,?Thickly crusts the blackest moss,?Blows the rose its musk across,?Floats the boat that is forgot?None the less to Camelot.
Many a bard's untimely death?Lends unto his verses breath;?Here's a song was never sung:?Growing old is dying young.?Minstrel, what is this to you:?That a man you never knew,?When your grave was far and green,?Sat and gossipped with a queen?
Thalia knows how rare a thing?Is it, to grow old and sing;?When a brown and tepid tide?Closes in on every side.?Who shall say if Shelley's gold?Had withstood it to grow old?
WRAITH
"Thin Rain, whom are you haunting,?That you haunt my door?"?--Surely it is not I she's wanting;?Someone living here before--?"Nobody's in the house but me:?You may come in if you like and see."
Thin as thread, with exquisite fingers,--?Have you seen her, any of you?--?Grey shawl, and leaning on the wind,?And the garden showing through?
Glimmering eyes,--and silent, mostly,?Sort of a whisper, sort of a purr,?Asking something, asking it over,?If you get a sound from her.--
Ever see her, any of you?--?Strangest thing I've ever known,--?Every night since I moved in,?And I came to be alone.
"Thin Rain, hush with your knocking!?You may not come in!?This is I that you hear rocking;?Nobody's with me, nor has been!"
Curious, how she tried the window,--?Odd, the way she tries the door,--?Wonder just what sort of people?Could have had this house before . . .
EBB
I know what my heart is like?Since your love died:?It is like a hollow ledge?Holding a little pool?Left there by the tide,?A little tepid pool,?Drying inward from the edge.
ELAINE
OH, come again to Astolat!?I will not ask you to be kind.?And you may go when you will go,?And I will stay behind.
I will not say how dear you are,?Or ask you if you hold me dear,?Or trouble you with things for you?The way I did last year.
So still the orchard, Lancelot,?So very still the lake shall be,?You could not guess--though you should guess--?What is become of me.
So wide shall be the garden-walk,?The garden-seat so very wide,?You needs must think--if you should think--?The lily maid had died.
Save that, a little way away,?I'd watch you for a little while,?To see you speak, the way you speak,?And smile,--if you should smile.
BURIAL
Mine is a body that should die at sea!?And have for a grave, instead of a grave?Six feet deep and the length of me,?All the water that is under the wave!
And terrible fishes to seize my flesh,?Such as a living man might fear,?And eat me while I am firm and fresh,--?Not wait till I've been dead for a year!
MARIPOSA
Butterflies are white and blue?In this field we wander through.?Suffer me to take your hand.?Death comes in a day or two.
All the things we ever knew?Will be ashes in that hour,?Mark the transient butterfly,?How he hangs upon the flower.
Suffer me to take your hand.?Suffer me to cherish you?Till the dawn is in the sky.?Whether I be false or true,?Death comes in a day or two.
THE LITTLE HILL
OH, here the air is sweet and still,?And soft's the grass to lie on;?And far away's the little hill?They took for Christ to die on.
And there's a hill across the brook,?And down the brook's another;?But, oh, the little hill they took,--?I think I am its mother!
The moon that saw Gethsemane,?I watch it rise and set:?It has so many things to see,?They help it to forget.
But little hills that sit at home?So many hundred years,?Remember Greece, remember Rome,?Remember Mary's tears.
And far away in Palestine,?Sadder than any other,?Grieves still the hill that I call mine,--?I think I am its mother!
DOUBT NO MORE THAT OBERON
Doubt no