When from the brooding home,The silent, immemorial love-house,The belovèd body of the mother in her travail,Naked, the little one comes and wails at the world’s bleak weather,We say that on earth and to us a child has been born.But now we move with unhalting pace toward the dark evening,And toward the cold, lengthening shadow,And quick we avert our fearful eyes from the strange event,The burial and the bourne,That leaving home, the end—death.Are these, then, birth and death?Does the cut of a cord bring life, and dust to dust expunge it?If so, what are we, then, we dead?For, in the cities,And dark on the lonely farms, and waifs on the ocean,As a harrying of wind, as an eddying of dust,We dead, in our soft, shining bodies that are combed and are kissed,Are ghosts fleeing from the inescapable hell of ourselves.We are even as beetles skating over the waters of our own darkness;Even as beetles, darting and restless,But the depths dark and void—We have found no peace, no peace, though our engines are crafty.What avail wings to the flier in the skiesWhile his dead soul, like an anchor, drags on the earth?And what avails lightning darting a man’s voice, linking the cities,While in the booth he is the same varnished clod,And his soul flies not after?And what avails it that the body of man has waxed mammoth,Limbed with the lightning and the stream,While his spirit remains a torment and a trifle,And, gaining the world, profits nothing?Self-murdered, self-slain, the dead cumber the earth;And how did they die?A boy was born in the pouring radiance of creative magic;And with pulses of music he was born.Of himself he might have been shaping a song-wingèd poet;But he was afraid.He feared the gaunt garret of starvation and the lonely years in his soul’s desert,And he feared to be a jest and a fool before his friends.Now he clerks, the slave,And the magic is slimed with disastrous opiates of the night.A girl was bathed with the lissome beauty of the seeker of love,The call of the animals one to another in the spring,The desire of the captive woman in her heart, as she ran and leaped on the hills;But the imprisoned beast’s cry terrified her as she looked out over the love-quiet of the modern world.Yet she desired to take this man-lure and release it into loveliness,Become a dancer, lulling with witchcraft of her young body the fevered world.But, no, her mother spied here a wickedness,Shamefully she submitted, making a smoldering inferno of the hidden nymph in her soul,And so died.A woman was made body and heart for the beautiful love-life;But of the mother-miracle,How the cry of a troubled child whitens the red passions,She did not know.Fear of poverty corrupted her: she chose a fool that her heart hated,And now through him no release for her native passions,But only a spending of her loathsome fury on adornment and luxury.Ah, dead glory! and the heart sick with betrayal!There is no grace for the dead save to be born again:Engines shall not drag us from the grave,Nor wine nor meat revive us.For our thirst is a thirst no liquor can reach nor slake,And our hunger a hunger by no bread filled.The waters we crave bubble up from the springs of life,And the bread we would break comes down from invisible hands.We dead, awake!Kiss the beloved past good-by,Go leave the love-house of the betrayèd self,And through the dark of birth go and enter the soul the soul’s bleak weather.And I—I will not stay dead, though the dead cling to me;I will put away the kisses and the soft embraces and the walls that encompass me,And out of this womb I will surely move to the world of my spirit.I will lose my life to find it, as of old;Yea, I will turn from the life-lie I lived to the truth I was wrought for,And I will take the creator within, sower of the seed of the race,And make him a god, a shaper of civilization.Now on my soul’s imperious surge,Taking the risk, as of death, and in deepening twilight,I ride on the darkening flood and go out on the watersTill over the tide comes music, till over the tide the breathOf the song of my far-off soul is wafted and blown,Murmuring commandments.Storm and darkness! I am drowned in the torrent!I am moving forth irrevocably from the sheltering womb!I am naked and little!Oh, cold of the world, and light blinding, and space terrifyingNow my cry goes up and the wailing of my helpless soul:Mother! my mother!Lo, then, the mother eternal!In my opening soul the footfall of her fleeting tread,And the song of her voice piercing and sweet with love of me,And the enwinding of her arms and adoring of her breath,And the milk of her plenty!Oh, Life, of which I am part—Life, from the depths of the heavens,That ascended like a water-spring into David of Asia on the eastern hills in the night,That came like a noose of golden shadow on Joan in the orchard,That gathers all life—the binding of brothers into sheaves,That of old, kneelers in the dustNamed, glorying, Allah, Jehovah, God.
When from the brooding home,The silent, immemorial love-house,The belovèd body of the mother in her travail,Naked, the little one comes and wails at the world’s bleak weather,We say that on earth and to us a child has been born.But now we move with unhalting pace toward the dark evening,And toward the cold, lengthening shadow,And quick we avert our fearful eyes from the strange event,The burial and the bourne,That leaving home, the end—death.Are these, then, birth and death?Does the cut of a cord bring life, and dust to dust expunge it?If so, what are we, then, we dead?For, in the cities,And dark on the lonely farms, and waifs on the ocean,As a harrying of wind, as an eddying of dust,We dead, in our soft, shining bodies that are combed and are kissed,Are ghosts fleeing from the inescapable hell of ourselves.We are even as beetles skating over the waters of our own darkness;Even as beetles, darting and restless,But the depths dark and void—We have found no peace, no peace, though our engines are crafty.What avail wings to the flier in the skiesWhile his dead soul, like an anchor, drags on the earth?And what avails lightning darting a man’s voice, linking the cities,While in the booth he is the same varnished clod,And his soul flies not after?And what avails it that the body of man has waxed mammoth,Limbed with the lightning and the stream,While his spirit remains a torment and a trifle,And, gaining the world, profits nothing?Self-murdered, self-slain, the dead cumber the earth;And how did they die?A boy was born in the pouring radiance of creative magic;And with pulses of music he was born.Of himself he might have been shaping a song-wingèd poet;But he was afraid.He feared the gaunt garret of starvation and the lonely years in his soul’s desert,And he feared to be a jest and a fool before his friends.Now he clerks, the slave,And the magic is slimed with disastrous opiates of the night.A girl was bathed with the lissome beauty of the seeker of love,The call of the animals one to another in the spring,The desire of the captive woman in her heart, as she ran and leaped on the hills;But the imprisoned beast’s cry terrified her as she looked out over the love-quiet of the modern world.Yet she desired to take this man-lure and release it into loveliness,Become a dancer, lulling with witchcraft of her young body the fevered world.But, no, her mother spied here a wickedness,Shamefully she submitted, making a smoldering inferno of the hidden nymph in her soul,And so died.A woman was made body and heart for the beautiful love-life;But of the mother-miracle,How the cry of a troubled child whitens the red passions,She did not know.Fear of poverty corrupted her: she chose a fool that her heart hated,And now through him no release for her native passions,But only a spending of her loathsome fury on adornment and luxury.Ah, dead glory! and the heart sick with betrayal!There is no grace for the dead save to be born again:Engines shall not drag us from the grave,Nor wine nor meat revive us.For our thirst is a thirst no liquor can reach nor slake,And our hunger a hunger by no bread filled.The waters we crave bubble up from the springs of life,And the bread we would break comes down from invisible hands.We dead, awake!Kiss the beloved past good-by,Go leave the love-house of the betrayèd self,And through the dark of birth go and enter the soul the soul’s bleak weather.And I—I will not stay dead, though the dead cling to me;I will put away the kisses and the soft embraces and the walls that encompass me,And out of this womb I will surely move to the world of my spirit.I will lose my life to find it, as of old;Yea, I will turn from the life-lie I lived to the truth I was wrought for,And I will take the creator within, sower of the seed of the race,And make him a god, a shaper of civilization.Now on my soul’s imperious surge,Taking the risk, as of death, and in deepening twilight,I ride on the darkening flood and go out on the watersTill over the tide comes music, till over the tide the breathOf the song of my far-off soul is wafted and blown,Murmuring commandments.Storm and darkness! I am drowned in the torrent!I am moving forth irrevocably from the sheltering womb!I am naked and little!Oh, cold of the world, and light blinding, and space terrifyingNow my cry goes up and the wailing of my helpless soul:Mother! my mother!Lo, then, the mother eternal!In my opening soul the footfall of her fleeting tread,And the song of her voice piercing and sweet with love of me,And the enwinding of her arms and adoring of her breath,And the milk of her plenty!Oh, Life, of which I am part—Life, from the depths of the heavens,That ascended like a water-spring into David of Asia on the eastern hills in the night,That came like a noose of golden shadow on Joan in the orchard,That gathers all life—the binding of brothers into sheaves,That of old, kneelers in the dustNamed, glorying, Allah, Jehovah, God.
When from the brooding home,The silent, immemorial love-house,The belovèd body of the mother in her travail,Naked, the little one comes and wails at the world’s bleak weather,We say that on earth and to us a child has been born.But now we move with unhalting pace toward the dark evening,And toward the cold, lengthening shadow,And quick we avert our fearful eyes from the strange event,The burial and the bourne,That leaving home, the end—death.
Are these, then, birth and death?Does the cut of a cord bring life, and dust to dust expunge it?If so, what are we, then, we dead?
For, in the cities,And dark on the lonely farms, and waifs on the ocean,As a harrying of wind, as an eddying of dust,We dead, in our soft, shining bodies that are combed and are kissed,Are ghosts fleeing from the inescapable hell of ourselves.
We are even as beetles skating over the waters of our own darkness;Even as beetles, darting and restless,But the depths dark and void—
We have found no peace, no peace, though our engines are crafty.What avail wings to the flier in the skiesWhile his dead soul, like an anchor, drags on the earth?And what avails lightning darting a man’s voice, linking the cities,While in the booth he is the same varnished clod,And his soul flies not after?And what avails it that the body of man has waxed mammoth,Limbed with the lightning and the stream,While his spirit remains a torment and a trifle,And, gaining the world, profits nothing?
Self-murdered, self-slain, the dead cumber the earth;And how did they die?A boy was born in the pouring radiance of creative magic;And with pulses of music he was born.Of himself he might have been shaping a song-wingèd poet;But he was afraid.He feared the gaunt garret of starvation and the lonely years in his soul’s desert,And he feared to be a jest and a fool before his friends.Now he clerks, the slave,And the magic is slimed with disastrous opiates of the night.
A girl was bathed with the lissome beauty of the seeker of love,The call of the animals one to another in the spring,The desire of the captive woman in her heart, as she ran and leaped on the hills;But the imprisoned beast’s cry terrified her as she looked out over the love-quiet of the modern world.Yet she desired to take this man-lure and release it into loveliness,Become a dancer, lulling with witchcraft of her young body the fevered world.But, no, her mother spied here a wickedness,Shamefully she submitted, making a smoldering inferno of the hidden nymph in her soul,And so died.
A woman was made body and heart for the beautiful love-life;But of the mother-miracle,How the cry of a troubled child whitens the red passions,She did not know.Fear of poverty corrupted her: she chose a fool that her heart hated,And now through him no release for her native passions,But only a spending of her loathsome fury on adornment and luxury.Ah, dead glory! and the heart sick with betrayal!There is no grace for the dead save to be born again:Engines shall not drag us from the grave,Nor wine nor meat revive us.
For our thirst is a thirst no liquor can reach nor slake,And our hunger a hunger by no bread filled.The waters we crave bubble up from the springs of life,And the bread we would break comes down from invisible hands.
We dead, awake!Kiss the beloved past good-by,Go leave the love-house of the betrayèd self,And through the dark of birth go and enter the soul the soul’s bleak weather.And I—I will not stay dead, though the dead cling to me;I will put away the kisses and the soft embraces and the walls that encompass me,And out of this womb I will surely move to the world of my spirit.I will lose my life to find it, as of old;Yea, I will turn from the life-lie I lived to the truth I was wrought for,And I will take the creator within, sower of the seed of the race,And make him a god, a shaper of civilization.
Now on my soul’s imperious surge,Taking the risk, as of death, and in deepening twilight,I ride on the darkening flood and go out on the watersTill over the tide comes music, till over the tide the breathOf the song of my far-off soul is wafted and blown,Murmuring commandments.
Storm and darkness! I am drowned in the torrent!I am moving forth irrevocably from the sheltering womb!I am naked and little!Oh, cold of the world, and light blinding, and space terrifyingNow my cry goes up and the wailing of my helpless soul:Mother! my mother!
Lo, then, the mother eternal!In my opening soul the footfall of her fleeting tread,And the song of her voice piercing and sweet with love of me,And the enwinding of her arms and adoring of her breath,And the milk of her plenty!Oh, Life, of which I am part—Life, from the depths of the heavens,That ascended like a water-spring into David of Asia on the eastern hills in the night,That came like a noose of golden shadow on Joan in the orchard,That gathers all life—the binding of brothers into sheaves,That of old, kneelers in the dustNamed, glorying, Allah, Jehovah, God.
CenturyJames Oppenheim
God sat down with the farmerWhen the noontide heat grew harsh.The One had builded a world that day,And the other had drained a marsh.They sat in the cooling shadowAt the porch of the templed wood;And each looked forth on his handiwork,And saw that the work was good.On God’s right hand two cherubsBent waiting, winged with fire;On the farmer’s left his oxen bowedDeep bosoms marked with mire.Still clung around the plowshareThe dark, mysterious mold,Where the furrow it turned had heaved the newO’er the chill and churlish old.Jehovah’s face was seen notBy ox or grazing kine;But the farmer’s eyes, were they dazed with sun,Or saw he that look divine?Was it the wind in passingThat stroked that farmer’s hair?Or had God’s own hand of wind and flameLaid benediction there?Through muffling miles he fanciedFar calls of greeting blew,Where on sounding plains the lords of warHurled down to rear anew.Glad hail from nation-buildersCrossed faint those dreamland bounds,Like a brother’s cry from a distant hill.And God spake as the pine-tree sounds.“There are seven downy meadowsThat never before were mown;There were seven fields of brush and rockWhere now is nor bush nor stone.There are seven heifers grazingWhere but one could graze before.O lords of marts—and of broken hearts—What have you given me more?”God rose up from the farmerWhen the cool of the evening neared;And the One went forth through the worlds He built,And the one through the fields he cleared.The stars outlasting laborLeaned down o’er the flowering soil;And all night long o’er His child there leanedA Toiler more old than toil.
God sat down with the farmerWhen the noontide heat grew harsh.The One had builded a world that day,And the other had drained a marsh.They sat in the cooling shadowAt the porch of the templed wood;And each looked forth on his handiwork,And saw that the work was good.On God’s right hand two cherubsBent waiting, winged with fire;On the farmer’s left his oxen bowedDeep bosoms marked with mire.Still clung around the plowshareThe dark, mysterious mold,Where the furrow it turned had heaved the newO’er the chill and churlish old.Jehovah’s face was seen notBy ox or grazing kine;But the farmer’s eyes, were they dazed with sun,Or saw he that look divine?Was it the wind in passingThat stroked that farmer’s hair?Or had God’s own hand of wind and flameLaid benediction there?Through muffling miles he fanciedFar calls of greeting blew,Where on sounding plains the lords of warHurled down to rear anew.Glad hail from nation-buildersCrossed faint those dreamland bounds,Like a brother’s cry from a distant hill.And God spake as the pine-tree sounds.“There are seven downy meadowsThat never before were mown;There were seven fields of brush and rockWhere now is nor bush nor stone.There are seven heifers grazingWhere but one could graze before.O lords of marts—and of broken hearts—What have you given me more?”God rose up from the farmerWhen the cool of the evening neared;And the One went forth through the worlds He built,And the one through the fields he cleared.The stars outlasting laborLeaned down o’er the flowering soil;And all night long o’er His child there leanedA Toiler more old than toil.
God sat down with the farmerWhen the noontide heat grew harsh.The One had builded a world that day,And the other had drained a marsh.They sat in the cooling shadowAt the porch of the templed wood;And each looked forth on his handiwork,And saw that the work was good.
On God’s right hand two cherubsBent waiting, winged with fire;On the farmer’s left his oxen bowedDeep bosoms marked with mire.Still clung around the plowshareThe dark, mysterious mold,Where the furrow it turned had heaved the newO’er the chill and churlish old.
Jehovah’s face was seen notBy ox or grazing kine;But the farmer’s eyes, were they dazed with sun,Or saw he that look divine?Was it the wind in passingThat stroked that farmer’s hair?Or had God’s own hand of wind and flameLaid benediction there?
Through muffling miles he fanciedFar calls of greeting blew,Where on sounding plains the lords of warHurled down to rear anew.Glad hail from nation-buildersCrossed faint those dreamland bounds,Like a brother’s cry from a distant hill.And God spake as the pine-tree sounds.
“There are seven downy meadowsThat never before were mown;There were seven fields of brush and rockWhere now is nor bush nor stone.There are seven heifers grazingWhere but one could graze before.O lords of marts—and of broken hearts—What have you given me more?”
God rose up from the farmerWhen the cool of the evening neared;And the One went forth through the worlds He built,And the one through the fields he cleared.The stars outlasting laborLeaned down o’er the flowering soil;And all night long o’er His child there leanedA Toiler more old than toil.
Yale ReviewFrederick Erastus Pierce
O shadows past the candle-gleam, so brief to pause in flight,Are shadows that can come no moreStill moving unseen on the doorOf Yesternight?O roses on the crumbling wall, so soon to droop and die,Are any roses that are deadStill fragrant where their petals bledIn Junes gone by?O heart of mine, there is a face nor grief nor prayer can bring....Think you in some far Shadow-landOne keeps my roses in his hand,Remembering?
O shadows past the candle-gleam, so brief to pause in flight,Are shadows that can come no moreStill moving unseen on the doorOf Yesternight?O roses on the crumbling wall, so soon to droop and die,Are any roses that are deadStill fragrant where their petals bledIn Junes gone by?O heart of mine, there is a face nor grief nor prayer can bring....Think you in some far Shadow-landOne keeps my roses in his hand,Remembering?
O shadows past the candle-gleam, so brief to pause in flight,Are shadows that can come no moreStill moving unseen on the doorOf Yesternight?
O roses on the crumbling wall, so soon to droop and die,Are any roses that are deadStill fragrant where their petals bledIn Junes gone by?
O heart of mine, there is a face nor grief nor prayer can bring....Think you in some far Shadow-landOne keeps my roses in his hand,Remembering?
Boston TranscriptRuth Guthrie Harding
We have each other’s deathless love,A love that flies on wings of lightFrom star to star and sings aboveThe night:We bid each other’s eyes revealThe face whose images we are;We find each other’s hand upon the wheelPiloting every star.Shall we then watch with a less lonely breathGradual, sudden, everlasting death?Oh, lest a separating wind assailThe jocund stars and all their ways be dearth,And love, undone of its immense avail,Go homeless even on earth,Let us be constant, though we travel far,With every mortal token of our trust,And not forget, piloting any star,How dear a thing is dust!
We have each other’s deathless love,A love that flies on wings of lightFrom star to star and sings aboveThe night:We bid each other’s eyes revealThe face whose images we are;We find each other’s hand upon the wheelPiloting every star.Shall we then watch with a less lonely breathGradual, sudden, everlasting death?Oh, lest a separating wind assailThe jocund stars and all their ways be dearth,And love, undone of its immense avail,Go homeless even on earth,Let us be constant, though we travel far,With every mortal token of our trust,And not forget, piloting any star,How dear a thing is dust!
We have each other’s deathless love,A love that flies on wings of lightFrom star to star and sings aboveThe night:We bid each other’s eyes revealThe face whose images we are;We find each other’s hand upon the wheelPiloting every star.
Shall we then watch with a less lonely breathGradual, sudden, everlasting death?
Oh, lest a separating wind assailThe jocund stars and all their ways be dearth,And love, undone of its immense avail,Go homeless even on earth,Let us be constant, though we travel far,With every mortal token of our trust,And not forget, piloting any star,How dear a thing is dust!
Yale ReviewWitter Bynner
Not unto the forest—not unto the forest, O my lover!Why do you lead me to the forest?Joy is where the temples are, lines of dancers swinging far,Drums and lyres and viols in the town(It is dark in the forest)And the flapping leaves will blind me and the clinging vines will bind meAnd the thorny rose-boughs tear my saffron gown—And I fear the forest.Not unto the forest—not unto the forest, O my lover!There was one once who led me to the forest:Hand in hand we wandered mute, where was neither lyre nor flute,Little stars were bright against the dusk(There was wind in the forest)And the thicket of wild rose breathed across our lips locked closeDizzy perfumings of spikenard and musk....I am tired of the forest.Not unto the forest—not unto the forest, O my lover!Take me from the silence of the forest!I will love you by the light and the beat of drums at nightAnd echoing of laughter in my ears,But here in the forestI am still, remembering a forgotten, useless thing,And my eyelids are locked down for fear of tears—There is memory in the forest.
Not unto the forest—not unto the forest, O my lover!Why do you lead me to the forest?Joy is where the temples are, lines of dancers swinging far,Drums and lyres and viols in the town(It is dark in the forest)And the flapping leaves will blind me and the clinging vines will bind meAnd the thorny rose-boughs tear my saffron gown—And I fear the forest.Not unto the forest—not unto the forest, O my lover!There was one once who led me to the forest:Hand in hand we wandered mute, where was neither lyre nor flute,Little stars were bright against the dusk(There was wind in the forest)And the thicket of wild rose breathed across our lips locked closeDizzy perfumings of spikenard and musk....I am tired of the forest.Not unto the forest—not unto the forest, O my lover!Take me from the silence of the forest!I will love you by the light and the beat of drums at nightAnd echoing of laughter in my ears,But here in the forestI am still, remembering a forgotten, useless thing,And my eyelids are locked down for fear of tears—There is memory in the forest.
Not unto the forest—not unto the forest, O my lover!Why do you lead me to the forest?Joy is where the temples are, lines of dancers swinging far,Drums and lyres and viols in the town(It is dark in the forest)And the flapping leaves will blind me and the clinging vines will bind meAnd the thorny rose-boughs tear my saffron gown—And I fear the forest.
Not unto the forest—not unto the forest, O my lover!There was one once who led me to the forest:Hand in hand we wandered mute, where was neither lyre nor flute,Little stars were bright against the dusk(There was wind in the forest)And the thicket of wild rose breathed across our lips locked closeDizzy perfumings of spikenard and musk....I am tired of the forest.
Not unto the forest—not unto the forest, O my lover!Take me from the silence of the forest!I will love you by the light and the beat of drums at nightAnd echoing of laughter in my ears,But here in the forestI am still, remembering a forgotten, useless thing,And my eyelids are locked down for fear of tears—There is memory in the forest.
The CraftsmanMargaret Widdemer
Behind my mask of life there lies a shrineWherein two flames are burning. Day and nightI tend these leaping treasures that are mine,These lambent loves, the red one and the white,While, priestess-like, I hang at either glow,For each is perfect. And to each I bringThe oil of pure emotion, hottest so,And draw new strength from my own offering.The first of these my loves burns as a starThat lifts its keen, white glory into spaceWith virgin fervor, lavishing afarIts vivid purity: and in the faceOf changeful worlds it glows unaltered still.So burns my flame of friendship. In its sightAll things are silvered with a new delightAnd beauty’s self strikes deeper, till the thrillOf mere existence vibrates like a string.Then life is grown so taut that it must sing,And all the little hills must clap their hands.The soul is free as never bird on wingTo bathe in friendship like a sea of light:And ever as it mounts the sea expandsIn new infinities, and each new heightGrows keener than the last, until the mindFor very dizziness sweeps downward thenTo simpler things, the cadence of a voice,Or sweet, low laughter, idle as the wind,Or fleeting touch of hands that quick rejoiceBut ask no more and do not touch again.With this white flame there comes a strange new peace,A deep tranquillity unknown beside,Where all my life’s cross-currents shift and ceaseLike runways in the sand before the tide.And all that I have longed to be, the braveHigh dreams of youth that languished nigh forgotSeem half accomplished. Easy now to slaveAt tasks colossal, so my friend fail not.And I am filled with gentle wondermentThat life can be so good and breath so sweet:While all my world grows suddenly complete.That I must love it with a new content.So speech grows overfull, and we are fainTo drink of silence like a golden cupWith wine of sweet companionship filled upThat has no end, nor any thirst can drain.And so at last no wish is left to meSave thus to dream into eternity.This is my first white love.The second flameBurns red and fierce as noon-time on the earth,A wild, full-blooded love that sprang to birthNaked and unafraid, yet scorning shameAnd clean as winds that sweep the desert’s breast.My flame of passion this, born of the sunAnd warm red earth, so æon-long ago,In languid, throbbing noons, when dust was pressedTo amorous dust, and longing made it one.This is a good love too, and must be so,Though bloodless fathers crushed it and denied,And on a cross of virtue crucifiedThis firm sweet flesh that colors with our soul.Aye! it is good, and beautiful, and clean,To feel within my veins the surge and flowOf young desire waking, that the wholeWarm universe has felt: to call, and preen,And dance before my mate that he may knowAn answering surge, and leap, and make me hisAnd glad with every fecund thing that is.God! It is good to feel the primal cry,The deep, mad longing for another life,—My life and his, that shall be born of me,—A little child of flame, that when we dieWe may cheat time, nor perish in the strife:But in this hour of vital ecstasyWhen life is molten, we may stamp thereonOur own glad image, and conceive, and live.And sweet it is, and languid, when the tideHas ebbed, for lack of more than I can give,To take his hand who breathes so close besideAnd lay it on my breast, and humble meTo say: “Thou art my lord. Thy will my own.”So at the last this wish is mine, to beStruck at the high-tide into nothingness,To die, ere he can learn to love me less.So these my loves are perfect, each aloneSufficient in itself and all complete,Yet one of two, like rival beacons shown,That call and call me, but that never meet.For yet they have not met, nor ever burnedThe white flame in the red, the red in whiteTill both were wed together there, and turnedTo some half-dreamed intensity of light.For I have dreamed,—yes, in my priestess soulThe longing grows for one great altar fireThat shall leap up to heaven, a winged desire,Not two but one, a perfect, living whole.Is this a dream? Are all great lovers dreams?Can red and white be fused, or two be one?Yseult and Eloise, are they but themesWhereon men hang the yearnings they have spun?And must I cherish so till the end’s endMy sweet loves sundered, lover here, or friend?Nay, I know not! I guard by day and nightMy leaping flames, the red one and the white.
Behind my mask of life there lies a shrineWherein two flames are burning. Day and nightI tend these leaping treasures that are mine,These lambent loves, the red one and the white,While, priestess-like, I hang at either glow,For each is perfect. And to each I bringThe oil of pure emotion, hottest so,And draw new strength from my own offering.The first of these my loves burns as a starThat lifts its keen, white glory into spaceWith virgin fervor, lavishing afarIts vivid purity: and in the faceOf changeful worlds it glows unaltered still.So burns my flame of friendship. In its sightAll things are silvered with a new delightAnd beauty’s self strikes deeper, till the thrillOf mere existence vibrates like a string.Then life is grown so taut that it must sing,And all the little hills must clap their hands.The soul is free as never bird on wingTo bathe in friendship like a sea of light:And ever as it mounts the sea expandsIn new infinities, and each new heightGrows keener than the last, until the mindFor very dizziness sweeps downward thenTo simpler things, the cadence of a voice,Or sweet, low laughter, idle as the wind,Or fleeting touch of hands that quick rejoiceBut ask no more and do not touch again.With this white flame there comes a strange new peace,A deep tranquillity unknown beside,Where all my life’s cross-currents shift and ceaseLike runways in the sand before the tide.And all that I have longed to be, the braveHigh dreams of youth that languished nigh forgotSeem half accomplished. Easy now to slaveAt tasks colossal, so my friend fail not.And I am filled with gentle wondermentThat life can be so good and breath so sweet:While all my world grows suddenly complete.That I must love it with a new content.So speech grows overfull, and we are fainTo drink of silence like a golden cupWith wine of sweet companionship filled upThat has no end, nor any thirst can drain.And so at last no wish is left to meSave thus to dream into eternity.This is my first white love.The second flameBurns red and fierce as noon-time on the earth,A wild, full-blooded love that sprang to birthNaked and unafraid, yet scorning shameAnd clean as winds that sweep the desert’s breast.My flame of passion this, born of the sunAnd warm red earth, so æon-long ago,In languid, throbbing noons, when dust was pressedTo amorous dust, and longing made it one.This is a good love too, and must be so,Though bloodless fathers crushed it and denied,And on a cross of virtue crucifiedThis firm sweet flesh that colors with our soul.Aye! it is good, and beautiful, and clean,To feel within my veins the surge and flowOf young desire waking, that the wholeWarm universe has felt: to call, and preen,And dance before my mate that he may knowAn answering surge, and leap, and make me hisAnd glad with every fecund thing that is.God! It is good to feel the primal cry,The deep, mad longing for another life,—My life and his, that shall be born of me,—A little child of flame, that when we dieWe may cheat time, nor perish in the strife:But in this hour of vital ecstasyWhen life is molten, we may stamp thereonOur own glad image, and conceive, and live.And sweet it is, and languid, when the tideHas ebbed, for lack of more than I can give,To take his hand who breathes so close besideAnd lay it on my breast, and humble meTo say: “Thou art my lord. Thy will my own.”So at the last this wish is mine, to beStruck at the high-tide into nothingness,To die, ere he can learn to love me less.So these my loves are perfect, each aloneSufficient in itself and all complete,Yet one of two, like rival beacons shown,That call and call me, but that never meet.For yet they have not met, nor ever burnedThe white flame in the red, the red in whiteTill both were wed together there, and turnedTo some half-dreamed intensity of light.For I have dreamed,—yes, in my priestess soulThe longing grows for one great altar fireThat shall leap up to heaven, a winged desire,Not two but one, a perfect, living whole.Is this a dream? Are all great lovers dreams?Can red and white be fused, or two be one?Yseult and Eloise, are they but themesWhereon men hang the yearnings they have spun?And must I cherish so till the end’s endMy sweet loves sundered, lover here, or friend?Nay, I know not! I guard by day and nightMy leaping flames, the red one and the white.
Behind my mask of life there lies a shrineWherein two flames are burning. Day and nightI tend these leaping treasures that are mine,These lambent loves, the red one and the white,While, priestess-like, I hang at either glow,For each is perfect. And to each I bringThe oil of pure emotion, hottest so,And draw new strength from my own offering.
The first of these my loves burns as a starThat lifts its keen, white glory into spaceWith virgin fervor, lavishing afarIts vivid purity: and in the faceOf changeful worlds it glows unaltered still.So burns my flame of friendship. In its sightAll things are silvered with a new delightAnd beauty’s self strikes deeper, till the thrillOf mere existence vibrates like a string.Then life is grown so taut that it must sing,And all the little hills must clap their hands.The soul is free as never bird on wingTo bathe in friendship like a sea of light:And ever as it mounts the sea expandsIn new infinities, and each new heightGrows keener than the last, until the mindFor very dizziness sweeps downward thenTo simpler things, the cadence of a voice,Or sweet, low laughter, idle as the wind,Or fleeting touch of hands that quick rejoiceBut ask no more and do not touch again.With this white flame there comes a strange new peace,A deep tranquillity unknown beside,Where all my life’s cross-currents shift and ceaseLike runways in the sand before the tide.And all that I have longed to be, the braveHigh dreams of youth that languished nigh forgotSeem half accomplished. Easy now to slaveAt tasks colossal, so my friend fail not.And I am filled with gentle wondermentThat life can be so good and breath so sweet:While all my world grows suddenly complete.That I must love it with a new content.So speech grows overfull, and we are fainTo drink of silence like a golden cupWith wine of sweet companionship filled upThat has no end, nor any thirst can drain.And so at last no wish is left to meSave thus to dream into eternity.This is my first white love.
The second flameBurns red and fierce as noon-time on the earth,A wild, full-blooded love that sprang to birthNaked and unafraid, yet scorning shameAnd clean as winds that sweep the desert’s breast.My flame of passion this, born of the sunAnd warm red earth, so æon-long ago,In languid, throbbing noons, when dust was pressedTo amorous dust, and longing made it one.This is a good love too, and must be so,Though bloodless fathers crushed it and denied,And on a cross of virtue crucifiedThis firm sweet flesh that colors with our soul.Aye! it is good, and beautiful, and clean,To feel within my veins the surge and flowOf young desire waking, that the wholeWarm universe has felt: to call, and preen,And dance before my mate that he may knowAn answering surge, and leap, and make me hisAnd glad with every fecund thing that is.God! It is good to feel the primal cry,The deep, mad longing for another life,—My life and his, that shall be born of me,—A little child of flame, that when we dieWe may cheat time, nor perish in the strife:But in this hour of vital ecstasyWhen life is molten, we may stamp thereonOur own glad image, and conceive, and live.And sweet it is, and languid, when the tideHas ebbed, for lack of more than I can give,To take his hand who breathes so close besideAnd lay it on my breast, and humble meTo say: “Thou art my lord. Thy will my own.”So at the last this wish is mine, to beStruck at the high-tide into nothingness,To die, ere he can learn to love me less.
So these my loves are perfect, each aloneSufficient in itself and all complete,Yet one of two, like rival beacons shown,That call and call me, but that never meet.For yet they have not met, nor ever burnedThe white flame in the red, the red in whiteTill both were wed together there, and turnedTo some half-dreamed intensity of light.
For I have dreamed,—yes, in my priestess soulThe longing grows for one great altar fireThat shall leap up to heaven, a winged desire,Not two but one, a perfect, living whole.Is this a dream? Are all great lovers dreams?Can red and white be fused, or two be one?Yseult and Eloise, are they but themesWhereon men hang the yearnings they have spun?And must I cherish so till the end’s endMy sweet loves sundered, lover here, or friend?Nay, I know not! I guard by day and nightMy leaping flames, the red one and the white.
The ForumEloise Briton
Strephon kissed me in the spring,Robin in the fall,But Colin only looked at meAnd never kissed at all.Strephon’s kiss was lost in jest,Robin’s lost in play,But the kiss in Colin’s eyesHaunts me night and day.
Strephon kissed me in the spring,Robin in the fall,But Colin only looked at meAnd never kissed at all.Strephon’s kiss was lost in jest,Robin’s lost in play,But the kiss in Colin’s eyesHaunts me night and day.
Strephon kissed me in the spring,Robin in the fall,But Colin only looked at meAnd never kissed at all.
Strephon’s kiss was lost in jest,Robin’s lost in play,But the kiss in Colin’s eyesHaunts me night and day.
Harper’s MagazineSara Teasdale
Beautiful boy, lend me your youth to play with;My heart is old.Lend me your fire to make my twilight gay with,To warm my cold;Prove that the power my look has not forsaken,That at my willMy touch can quicken pulses and awakenMan’s passion still.The moment that I ask do not begrudge me.I shall not stay.I shall have gone, ere you have time to judge me,My empty way.I am not worth remembrance, little brother,Even to damn.One kiss—O God! if I were only otherThan what I am!
Beautiful boy, lend me your youth to play with;My heart is old.Lend me your fire to make my twilight gay with,To warm my cold;Prove that the power my look has not forsaken,That at my willMy touch can quicken pulses and awakenMan’s passion still.The moment that I ask do not begrudge me.I shall not stay.I shall have gone, ere you have time to judge me,My empty way.I am not worth remembrance, little brother,Even to damn.One kiss—O God! if I were only otherThan what I am!
Beautiful boy, lend me your youth to play with;My heart is old.Lend me your fire to make my twilight gay with,To warm my cold;Prove that the power my look has not forsaken,That at my willMy touch can quicken pulses and awakenMan’s passion still.The moment that I ask do not begrudge me.I shall not stay.I shall have gone, ere you have time to judge me,My empty way.I am not worth remembrance, little brother,Even to damn.
One kiss—O God! if I were only otherThan what I am!
CenturyAmelia Josephine Burr
Flushed from a fairy flagonMy country love and I,Sat by a bush forgetting,Old conscience and his fretting,Just dreaming there and lettingTrouble trundle by—Like a dragonDead on a wagonDrawn against the sky.Fol de rol de raly O—Trouble in the sky!She knew it was only a cloud I sawWhen I pointed out a dangling claw,But she let me say my say;For the day, red-ripe, was a pretty dayAnd she thought my way was a city way.And O I liked her thinking—while each unhindered curlGlinted in the sunlight, hinted of its yellow—That I who spoke to such a girlWas something of a fellow.Fol de rol de raly O!Was she really thinking so?There’s the tree, I gaily told her,Apples, apples, at our feet!Come, before we’re one day older,We shall gather, we shall eat!Now’s the time for apple hunger!Not if we were one day younger,Younger, older, shyer, bolder,Would an apple taste so sweet!Fol de rol de raly O!Apples at our feet!Bewildered, she was with me on the runToward the tree that held its treasure to the sun;This, of all the trees of treasure, was the oneCondemning leisureAnd inviting lovely pleasure—She was with me, she was by me on the run,With a cheek that turned its treasure to the sun.Fol de rol de raly O!Raly O, we gaily go,Fol—Why should she stop and never speak?Why should the color in her cheekChange, not glowing gay and meek?Deeper, redder than I knewShe was mistress of, a hue,Though demurely,Richly, surelyRising in her cheek!Fol de rol de raly O!The change in her cheek!There was before us on the ground,Eyes upon us, not a sound,Sat a neighbor’s truant child of seven years;Her lap was full of sunny gold,But her eyes in the sun, her eyes were old,Were sober, seeming laden—And such a little maiden—Unawares but ladenWith some dead woman’s tears.Fol de rol de raly O!A child of seven years!Some woman who had watched and weptBut had not any speechWatched and wept now within that little breast,Caught and caressedThose little hands and would have keptBeyond their reachThe anguish in that orchard,The apple-bough unblessed,The brightness that had torturedThe heart within the breast....And we beheld, and see it even now,A bent and withered apple-bough,Of beauty dispossessed,Which bore its poison long ago.Oh, why we pluck it still we may not know,But only that it leaves no restTo the heart within the breast.Fol de rol de raly O!This heart within the breast!Abashed and parting on our ways,We saw that woman’s poor dead hand,Ghostly making, its demand,Fall pitiful and sad, ...We saw the child, forgetful of our gaze,Laughing like any child that plays,And laughs in any land,Lean and touch a toy she hadHalf hidden in her hand,We saw her pat and poise and raise—An apple in her hand!Fol de rol de raly O!The apple in her hand!
Flushed from a fairy flagonMy country love and I,Sat by a bush forgetting,Old conscience and his fretting,Just dreaming there and lettingTrouble trundle by—Like a dragonDead on a wagonDrawn against the sky.Fol de rol de raly O—Trouble in the sky!She knew it was only a cloud I sawWhen I pointed out a dangling claw,But she let me say my say;For the day, red-ripe, was a pretty dayAnd she thought my way was a city way.And O I liked her thinking—while each unhindered curlGlinted in the sunlight, hinted of its yellow—That I who spoke to such a girlWas something of a fellow.Fol de rol de raly O!Was she really thinking so?There’s the tree, I gaily told her,Apples, apples, at our feet!Come, before we’re one day older,We shall gather, we shall eat!Now’s the time for apple hunger!Not if we were one day younger,Younger, older, shyer, bolder,Would an apple taste so sweet!Fol de rol de raly O!Apples at our feet!Bewildered, she was with me on the runToward the tree that held its treasure to the sun;This, of all the trees of treasure, was the oneCondemning leisureAnd inviting lovely pleasure—She was with me, she was by me on the run,With a cheek that turned its treasure to the sun.Fol de rol de raly O!Raly O, we gaily go,Fol—Why should she stop and never speak?Why should the color in her cheekChange, not glowing gay and meek?Deeper, redder than I knewShe was mistress of, a hue,Though demurely,Richly, surelyRising in her cheek!Fol de rol de raly O!The change in her cheek!There was before us on the ground,Eyes upon us, not a sound,Sat a neighbor’s truant child of seven years;Her lap was full of sunny gold,But her eyes in the sun, her eyes were old,Were sober, seeming laden—And such a little maiden—Unawares but ladenWith some dead woman’s tears.Fol de rol de raly O!A child of seven years!Some woman who had watched and weptBut had not any speechWatched and wept now within that little breast,Caught and caressedThose little hands and would have keptBeyond their reachThe anguish in that orchard,The apple-bough unblessed,The brightness that had torturedThe heart within the breast....And we beheld, and see it even now,A bent and withered apple-bough,Of beauty dispossessed,Which bore its poison long ago.Oh, why we pluck it still we may not know,But only that it leaves no restTo the heart within the breast.Fol de rol de raly O!This heart within the breast!Abashed and parting on our ways,We saw that woman’s poor dead hand,Ghostly making, its demand,Fall pitiful and sad, ...We saw the child, forgetful of our gaze,Laughing like any child that plays,And laughs in any land,Lean and touch a toy she hadHalf hidden in her hand,We saw her pat and poise and raise—An apple in her hand!Fol de rol de raly O!The apple in her hand!
Flushed from a fairy flagonMy country love and I,Sat by a bush forgetting,Old conscience and his fretting,Just dreaming there and lettingTrouble trundle by—Like a dragonDead on a wagonDrawn against the sky.Fol de rol de raly O—Trouble in the sky!
She knew it was only a cloud I sawWhen I pointed out a dangling claw,But she let me say my say;For the day, red-ripe, was a pretty dayAnd she thought my way was a city way.And O I liked her thinking—while each unhindered curlGlinted in the sunlight, hinted of its yellow—That I who spoke to such a girlWas something of a fellow.Fol de rol de raly O!Was she really thinking so?
There’s the tree, I gaily told her,Apples, apples, at our feet!Come, before we’re one day older,We shall gather, we shall eat!Now’s the time for apple hunger!Not if we were one day younger,Younger, older, shyer, bolder,Would an apple taste so sweet!Fol de rol de raly O!Apples at our feet!
Bewildered, she was with me on the runToward the tree that held its treasure to the sun;This, of all the trees of treasure, was the oneCondemning leisureAnd inviting lovely pleasure—She was with me, she was by me on the run,With a cheek that turned its treasure to the sun.Fol de rol de raly O!Raly O, we gaily go,Fol—
Why should she stop and never speak?Why should the color in her cheekChange, not glowing gay and meek?Deeper, redder than I knewShe was mistress of, a hue,Though demurely,Richly, surelyRising in her cheek!Fol de rol de raly O!The change in her cheek!
There was before us on the ground,Eyes upon us, not a sound,Sat a neighbor’s truant child of seven years;Her lap was full of sunny gold,But her eyes in the sun, her eyes were old,Were sober, seeming laden—And such a little maiden—Unawares but ladenWith some dead woman’s tears.Fol de rol de raly O!A child of seven years!
Some woman who had watched and weptBut had not any speechWatched and wept now within that little breast,Caught and caressedThose little hands and would have keptBeyond their reachThe anguish in that orchard,The apple-bough unblessed,The brightness that had torturedThe heart within the breast....And we beheld, and see it even now,A bent and withered apple-bough,Of beauty dispossessed,Which bore its poison long ago.Oh, why we pluck it still we may not know,But only that it leaves no restTo the heart within the breast.Fol de rol de raly O!This heart within the breast!
Abashed and parting on our ways,We saw that woman’s poor dead hand,Ghostly making, its demand,Fall pitiful and sad, ...We saw the child, forgetful of our gaze,Laughing like any child that plays,And laughs in any land,Lean and touch a toy she hadHalf hidden in her hand,We saw her pat and poise and raise—An apple in her hand!Fol de rol de raly O!The apple in her hand!
Yale ReviewWitter Bynner
Thus drowsy Atthis, laughing at my door:“Sappho, I vow that I will kiss no moreThy lips, and every loveliness, if thouShouldst still refuse to bare thy beauty now!“O from thy bed unloosen every charmOf all thy strength beloved in limb and arm;And doff thy robe and bathe thee as the whiteLily that leaves the river for the light;“And Cleis on thee, at thy glowing call,A shimmering robe of saffron shall let fall;And we, thy girl friends, in a vestal throng,Shall wreathe thy hair while thirsting for thy song.”
Thus drowsy Atthis, laughing at my door:“Sappho, I vow that I will kiss no moreThy lips, and every loveliness, if thouShouldst still refuse to bare thy beauty now!“O from thy bed unloosen every charmOf all thy strength beloved in limb and arm;And doff thy robe and bathe thee as the whiteLily that leaves the river for the light;“And Cleis on thee, at thy glowing call,A shimmering robe of saffron shall let fall;And we, thy girl friends, in a vestal throng,Shall wreathe thy hair while thirsting for thy song.”
Thus drowsy Atthis, laughing at my door:“Sappho, I vow that I will kiss no moreThy lips, and every loveliness, if thouShouldst still refuse to bare thy beauty now!
“O from thy bed unloosen every charmOf all thy strength beloved in limb and arm;And doff thy robe and bathe thee as the whiteLily that leaves the river for the light;
“And Cleis on thee, at thy glowing call,A shimmering robe of saffron shall let fall;And we, thy girl friends, in a vestal throng,Shall wreathe thy hair while thirsting for thy song.”
Smart SetJohn Myers O’Hara
I will tread on the golden grass of my bright field,When the passion-star has paled, when the night has fled;I will tread on the golden grass of my bright field,In the glow of the early day when the east is red.In my bright field a broken beech-tree leans;And a giant boulder stands by a black-burned wood;And a rough-built, falling wall and a rotting doorSear, like a scar, the spot where a house once stood.My eyes are mute on the white edge of the dawn,My feet fall swift and bare upon the way....The long soft hills grow black against the sky,The great wood moves, unfolds; the high trees sway.The worn road stretches thin, and the low hedge stirs,And a strong old bridge looms frail o’er a ghostly stream;And a white flower turns and breathes, and turns again....Does it live, as I live? Does it wake, as I waked, from a dream?(How merciless is the dawn! how poignant the hush in my soul!How changeless the changing sky! how fearful that wild bird’s call!I hear the quick suck of his wing, the push of his breast—he is gone!How swift is an æon of time! how endless, beginningless, all!)I tread on the golden grass of my bright field;The sun’s on a hundred hills; the night has fled;I tread on the golden grass of my bright fieldIn the glow of the early day; and the east is red.
I will tread on the golden grass of my bright field,When the passion-star has paled, when the night has fled;I will tread on the golden grass of my bright field,In the glow of the early day when the east is red.In my bright field a broken beech-tree leans;And a giant boulder stands by a black-burned wood;And a rough-built, falling wall and a rotting doorSear, like a scar, the spot where a house once stood.My eyes are mute on the white edge of the dawn,My feet fall swift and bare upon the way....The long soft hills grow black against the sky,The great wood moves, unfolds; the high trees sway.The worn road stretches thin, and the low hedge stirs,And a strong old bridge looms frail o’er a ghostly stream;And a white flower turns and breathes, and turns again....Does it live, as I live? Does it wake, as I waked, from a dream?(How merciless is the dawn! how poignant the hush in my soul!How changeless the changing sky! how fearful that wild bird’s call!I hear the quick suck of his wing, the push of his breast—he is gone!How swift is an æon of time! how endless, beginningless, all!)I tread on the golden grass of my bright field;The sun’s on a hundred hills; the night has fled;I tread on the golden grass of my bright fieldIn the glow of the early day; and the east is red.
I will tread on the golden grass of my bright field,When the passion-star has paled, when the night has fled;I will tread on the golden grass of my bright field,In the glow of the early day when the east is red.
In my bright field a broken beech-tree leans;And a giant boulder stands by a black-burned wood;And a rough-built, falling wall and a rotting doorSear, like a scar, the spot where a house once stood.
My eyes are mute on the white edge of the dawn,My feet fall swift and bare upon the way....The long soft hills grow black against the sky,The great wood moves, unfolds; the high trees sway.
The worn road stretches thin, and the low hedge stirs,And a strong old bridge looms frail o’er a ghostly stream;And a white flower turns and breathes, and turns again....Does it live, as I live? Does it wake, as I waked, from a dream?
(How merciless is the dawn! how poignant the hush in my soul!How changeless the changing sky! how fearful that wild bird’s call!I hear the quick suck of his wing, the push of his breast—he is gone!How swift is an æon of time! how endless, beginningless, all!)
I tread on the golden grass of my bright field;The sun’s on a hundred hills; the night has fled;I tread on the golden grass of my bright fieldIn the glow of the early day; and the east is red.
The ForumLaura Campbell
“Wherefore, thy woe these many years,O hermit by the sea?What is the grief the winds awake,And the waters cry to thee?”“It was in piracy we sailed,Great galleons to strip.On a far day, on a far sea,We took her father’s ship.“Red-sided rocked the Rey del SurWhenas its deck we won.I slew before her eyes divineHer father and his son.“There was no sin I had not sinned,On deep sea and ashore;But when I looked in those great eyesVillain was I no more.“I, captain, claimed her as my prize,Though maids in common were.Alone ’mid that fell companyI cast my lot with her.“They put us in an open boatWith four days’ food and drink;Then slipped those traitor topsails downBeyond the ocean’s brink.“Night came, and morn, but rose no sailOn that horizon verge;I took the oars and set our prowAgainst the lessening surge.“It was scant provender we had,Though she was unaware;Right soon I feared, and by deceitI gave her all my share.“She would not speak; she scarce would look;Her pain was past my cure.Red-scuppered in our hells of dreamWallowed the Rey del Sur.“On a far day, on a far sea,Our shallop southward crept;With weary arms and splitten lipsI labored—and she wept.“Dawn upon dawn, dark upon dark,Nor ever land nor wind!The nights were chill, the stars were keen,The sun swung hot and blind.“Our drink and food were long since gone....We laid us down to die....Then came a booming of the surf,And palm trees met mine eye.“I steered us through the broken reef;Fainting, I won to shore;I gazed upon her changèd face,But she on mine no more.“Below the palms I buried herWhose bale star I had been.And since, by this bleak coast of snows,I sorrow for my sin.“There was no other of our kindThat had her heavenly face.On a far Day, by a far Sea,I trust to know her grace.”
“Wherefore, thy woe these many years,O hermit by the sea?What is the grief the winds awake,And the waters cry to thee?”“It was in piracy we sailed,Great galleons to strip.On a far day, on a far sea,We took her father’s ship.“Red-sided rocked the Rey del SurWhenas its deck we won.I slew before her eyes divineHer father and his son.“There was no sin I had not sinned,On deep sea and ashore;But when I looked in those great eyesVillain was I no more.“I, captain, claimed her as my prize,Though maids in common were.Alone ’mid that fell companyI cast my lot with her.“They put us in an open boatWith four days’ food and drink;Then slipped those traitor topsails downBeyond the ocean’s brink.“Night came, and morn, but rose no sailOn that horizon verge;I took the oars and set our prowAgainst the lessening surge.“It was scant provender we had,Though she was unaware;Right soon I feared, and by deceitI gave her all my share.“She would not speak; she scarce would look;Her pain was past my cure.Red-scuppered in our hells of dreamWallowed the Rey del Sur.“On a far day, on a far sea,Our shallop southward crept;With weary arms and splitten lipsI labored—and she wept.“Dawn upon dawn, dark upon dark,Nor ever land nor wind!The nights were chill, the stars were keen,The sun swung hot and blind.“Our drink and food were long since gone....We laid us down to die....Then came a booming of the surf,And palm trees met mine eye.“I steered us through the broken reef;Fainting, I won to shore;I gazed upon her changèd face,But she on mine no more.“Below the palms I buried herWhose bale star I had been.And since, by this bleak coast of snows,I sorrow for my sin.“There was no other of our kindThat had her heavenly face.On a far Day, by a far Sea,I trust to know her grace.”
“Wherefore, thy woe these many years,O hermit by the sea?What is the grief the winds awake,And the waters cry to thee?”
“It was in piracy we sailed,Great galleons to strip.On a far day, on a far sea,We took her father’s ship.
“Red-sided rocked the Rey del SurWhenas its deck we won.I slew before her eyes divineHer father and his son.
“There was no sin I had not sinned,On deep sea and ashore;But when I looked in those great eyesVillain was I no more.
“I, captain, claimed her as my prize,Though maids in common were.Alone ’mid that fell companyI cast my lot with her.
“They put us in an open boatWith four days’ food and drink;Then slipped those traitor topsails downBeyond the ocean’s brink.
“Night came, and morn, but rose no sailOn that horizon verge;I took the oars and set our prowAgainst the lessening surge.
“It was scant provender we had,Though she was unaware;Right soon I feared, and by deceitI gave her all my share.
“She would not speak; she scarce would look;Her pain was past my cure.Red-scuppered in our hells of dreamWallowed the Rey del Sur.
“On a far day, on a far sea,Our shallop southward crept;With weary arms and splitten lipsI labored—and she wept.
“Dawn upon dawn, dark upon dark,Nor ever land nor wind!The nights were chill, the stars were keen,The sun swung hot and blind.
“Our drink and food were long since gone....We laid us down to die....Then came a booming of the surf,And palm trees met mine eye.
“I steered us through the broken reef;Fainting, I won to shore;I gazed upon her changèd face,But she on mine no more.
“Below the palms I buried herWhose bale star I had been.And since, by this bleak coast of snows,I sorrow for my sin.
“There was no other of our kindThat had her heavenly face.On a far Day, by a far Sea,I trust to know her grace.”
Smart SetGeorge Sterling
She fears him, and will always askWhat fated her to choose him;She meets in his engaging maskAll reasons to refuse him;But what she meets and what she fearsAre less than are the downward years,Drawn slowly to the foamless weirsOf age, were she to lose him.Between a blurred sagacityThat once had power to sound him,And Love, that will not let him beThe seeker that she found him,Her pride assuages her, almost,As if it were alone the cost.He sees that he will not be lost,And waits, and looks around him.A sense of ocean and old treesEnvelops and allures him;Tradition, touching all he seesBeguiles and reassures him;And all her doubts of what he saysAre dimmed with what she knows of days,Till even prejudice delays,And fades—and she secures him.The falling leaf inauguratesThe reign of her confusion;The pounding wave reverberatesThe crash of her illusion;And home, where passion lived and diedBecomes a place where she can hide,—While all the town and harbor sideVibrate with her seclusion.We tell you, tapping on our brows,The story as it should be,—As if the story of a houseWere told, or ever could be;We’ll have no kindly veil betweenHer visions and those we have seen,—As if we guessed what hers have beenOr what they are, or would be.Meanwhile, we do no harm; for theyThat with a god have striven,Not hearing much of what we say,Take what the god has given;Though like waves breaking it may be,Or like a changed familiar tree,Or like a stairway to the sea,Where down the blind are driven.
She fears him, and will always askWhat fated her to choose him;She meets in his engaging maskAll reasons to refuse him;But what she meets and what she fearsAre less than are the downward years,Drawn slowly to the foamless weirsOf age, were she to lose him.Between a blurred sagacityThat once had power to sound him,And Love, that will not let him beThe seeker that she found him,Her pride assuages her, almost,As if it were alone the cost.He sees that he will not be lost,And waits, and looks around him.A sense of ocean and old treesEnvelops and allures him;Tradition, touching all he seesBeguiles and reassures him;And all her doubts of what he saysAre dimmed with what she knows of days,Till even prejudice delays,And fades—and she secures him.The falling leaf inauguratesThe reign of her confusion;The pounding wave reverberatesThe crash of her illusion;And home, where passion lived and diedBecomes a place where she can hide,—While all the town and harbor sideVibrate with her seclusion.We tell you, tapping on our brows,The story as it should be,—As if the story of a houseWere told, or ever could be;We’ll have no kindly veil betweenHer visions and those we have seen,—As if we guessed what hers have beenOr what they are, or would be.Meanwhile, we do no harm; for theyThat with a god have striven,Not hearing much of what we say,Take what the god has given;Though like waves breaking it may be,Or like a changed familiar tree,Or like a stairway to the sea,Where down the blind are driven.
She fears him, and will always askWhat fated her to choose him;She meets in his engaging maskAll reasons to refuse him;But what she meets and what she fearsAre less than are the downward years,Drawn slowly to the foamless weirsOf age, were she to lose him.
Between a blurred sagacityThat once had power to sound him,And Love, that will not let him beThe seeker that she found him,Her pride assuages her, almost,As if it were alone the cost.He sees that he will not be lost,And waits, and looks around him.
A sense of ocean and old treesEnvelops and allures him;Tradition, touching all he seesBeguiles and reassures him;And all her doubts of what he saysAre dimmed with what she knows of days,Till even prejudice delays,And fades—and she secures him.
The falling leaf inauguratesThe reign of her confusion;The pounding wave reverberatesThe crash of her illusion;And home, where passion lived and diedBecomes a place where she can hide,—While all the town and harbor sideVibrate with her seclusion.
We tell you, tapping on our brows,The story as it should be,—As if the story of a houseWere told, or ever could be;We’ll have no kindly veil betweenHer visions and those we have seen,—As if we guessed what hers have beenOr what they are, or would be.
Meanwhile, we do no harm; for theyThat with a god have striven,Not hearing much of what we say,Take what the god has given;Though like waves breaking it may be,Or like a changed familiar tree,Or like a stairway to the sea,Where down the blind are driven.
Poetry: A Magazine of VerseEdwin Arlington Robinson
Death, I say, my heart is bowedUnto thine,—O mother!This red gown will make a shroudGood as any other!(I, that would not wait to wearMy own bridal things,In a dress dark as my hairMade my answerings.I, to-night, that till he cameCould not, could not wait,In a gown as bright as flameHeld for them the gate.)Death, I say, my heart is bowedUnto thine,—O mother!This red gown will make a shroudGood as any other!
Death, I say, my heart is bowedUnto thine,—O mother!This red gown will make a shroudGood as any other!(I, that would not wait to wearMy own bridal things,In a dress dark as my hairMade my answerings.I, to-night, that till he cameCould not, could not wait,In a gown as bright as flameHeld for them the gate.)Death, I say, my heart is bowedUnto thine,—O mother!This red gown will make a shroudGood as any other!
Death, I say, my heart is bowedUnto thine,—O mother!This red gown will make a shroudGood as any other!
(I, that would not wait to wearMy own bridal things,In a dress dark as my hairMade my answerings.
I, to-night, that till he cameCould not, could not wait,In a gown as bright as flameHeld for them the gate.)
Death, I say, my heart is bowedUnto thine,—O mother!This red gown will make a shroudGood as any other!
The ForumEdna St. Vincent Millay
Never again to feel that little kiss—That hungry kiss—that heavy little head,Pressing and groping, eager to be fed.My breast is burning with the weight of this—My arms are empty and my heart is dead.Through the long nights never to hear the cry—The little cry that called me from my sleep;Always from now a vigil black to keep;Always awake and listening to lie,While over my seared heart the ashes heap.Ah, God!—there is no God. There is no rest,No rest. No pity. No release from pain.How could God give those little hands again?How could God cool the throbbing of my breast?Oh—little hands ... that in the dust have lain!
Never again to feel that little kiss—That hungry kiss—that heavy little head,Pressing and groping, eager to be fed.My breast is burning with the weight of this—My arms are empty and my heart is dead.Through the long nights never to hear the cry—The little cry that called me from my sleep;Always from now a vigil black to keep;Always awake and listening to lie,While over my seared heart the ashes heap.Ah, God!—there is no God. There is no rest,No rest. No pity. No release from pain.How could God give those little hands again?How could God cool the throbbing of my breast?Oh—little hands ... that in the dust have lain!
Never again to feel that little kiss—That hungry kiss—that heavy little head,Pressing and groping, eager to be fed.My breast is burning with the weight of this—My arms are empty and my heart is dead.
Through the long nights never to hear the cry—The little cry that called me from my sleep;Always from now a vigil black to keep;Always awake and listening to lie,While over my seared heart the ashes heap.
Ah, God!—there is no God. There is no rest,No rest. No pity. No release from pain.How could God give those little hands again?How could God cool the throbbing of my breast?Oh—little hands ... that in the dust have lain!
The MassesLydia Gibson
I stooped to the silent earth and lifted a handful of her dust.Was it a handful of humanity I held?Was it the crumbled and blown beauty of a woman or a babe?For over the hills of earth blows the dust of the withered generations;And not a water-drop in the sea but was once a blood-drop or a tear,And not an atom of sap in leaf or bud but was once the love-sap in a human being;And not a lump of soil but was once the rosy curve of lip or breast or cheek.Handful of dust, you stagger me;I did not dream the world was so full of the dead,And the air I breathe so rich with the bewildering past.Kiss of what girls is on the wind?Whisper of what lips is in the cup of my hand?Cry of what deaths is in the break of the wave tossed by the sea?I am enfolded in an air of rushing wings;I am engulfed in clouds of love-lives gone.Who leans yonder? Helen of Greece?Who walks with me? Isolde?The trees are shaking down the blossoms from Juliet’s breast,And the bee drinks honey from the lips of David.Come, girl, my comrade;Stand close, sun-tanned one, with your bright eyes lifted.Behold this dust!This is you: this of the earth under our feet is you.Raised by what miracle? Shaped by what magic?Breathed into by what god?And a hundred years hence one like myself may come,And stoop, and take a handful of the yielding earth,And never dream that in his palmLies she that laughed and ran and lived beside this seaOn an afternoon a hundred years before.Listen to the dust in this hand.Who is trying to speak to us?
I stooped to the silent earth and lifted a handful of her dust.Was it a handful of humanity I held?Was it the crumbled and blown beauty of a woman or a babe?For over the hills of earth blows the dust of the withered generations;And not a water-drop in the sea but was once a blood-drop or a tear,And not an atom of sap in leaf or bud but was once the love-sap in a human being;And not a lump of soil but was once the rosy curve of lip or breast or cheek.Handful of dust, you stagger me;I did not dream the world was so full of the dead,And the air I breathe so rich with the bewildering past.Kiss of what girls is on the wind?Whisper of what lips is in the cup of my hand?Cry of what deaths is in the break of the wave tossed by the sea?I am enfolded in an air of rushing wings;I am engulfed in clouds of love-lives gone.Who leans yonder? Helen of Greece?Who walks with me? Isolde?The trees are shaking down the blossoms from Juliet’s breast,And the bee drinks honey from the lips of David.Come, girl, my comrade;Stand close, sun-tanned one, with your bright eyes lifted.Behold this dust!This is you: this of the earth under our feet is you.Raised by what miracle? Shaped by what magic?Breathed into by what god?And a hundred years hence one like myself may come,And stoop, and take a handful of the yielding earth,And never dream that in his palmLies she that laughed and ran and lived beside this seaOn an afternoon a hundred years before.Listen to the dust in this hand.Who is trying to speak to us?
I stooped to the silent earth and lifted a handful of her dust.Was it a handful of humanity I held?Was it the crumbled and blown beauty of a woman or a babe?For over the hills of earth blows the dust of the withered generations;And not a water-drop in the sea but was once a blood-drop or a tear,And not an atom of sap in leaf or bud but was once the love-sap in a human being;And not a lump of soil but was once the rosy curve of lip or breast or cheek.Handful of dust, you stagger me;I did not dream the world was so full of the dead,And the air I breathe so rich with the bewildering past.Kiss of what girls is on the wind?Whisper of what lips is in the cup of my hand?Cry of what deaths is in the break of the wave tossed by the sea?I am enfolded in an air of rushing wings;I am engulfed in clouds of love-lives gone.Who leans yonder? Helen of Greece?Who walks with me? Isolde?The trees are shaking down the blossoms from Juliet’s breast,And the bee drinks honey from the lips of David.
Come, girl, my comrade;Stand close, sun-tanned one, with your bright eyes lifted.Behold this dust!This is you: this of the earth under our feet is you.Raised by what miracle? Shaped by what magic?Breathed into by what god?
And a hundred years hence one like myself may come,And stoop, and take a handful of the yielding earth,And never dream that in his palmLies she that laughed and ran and lived beside this seaOn an afternoon a hundred years before.
Listen to the dust in this hand.Who is trying to speak to us?
CenturyJames Oppenheim