When the sky darkens with alabaster and mahogany——

Storm     and     woodsmoke,    and    the    swirling     gyres    of
unpredictability reign;

When the granite laws are brutally enacted;

When the judges  receive  the  verdict  from on high,  and,   as 
of old, close their ears to the truth;

When   the   soup   is meagre,  the  fruit of the vine  bitter   and
premature;

And  the  burden  of the cardinal  virtues  weighs heavily  upon
your shoulders—

When  the  balm   of   distance   recedes  before  your  steps   at
nightfall;

When  injurious  deeds  do  not  trouble the holders  of the iron
keys;

When the sunset blinds  the  eyes  with  blood  and  vengeance;

And   the   will    of   the    tyrant    is unrelenting—your     trials
descending upon your shoulders with the force of a storm that
rides upon the barbed, jagged hills:

In  those  hours,  my  brothers,  my sisters,   I  know  you  have
grown weary—

I know that even ancient words do not provide  solace for your
rocky path,

But  take  heart  in  the pale  light  that  flashes  over  the  dark
mountains,

Steady your hearing to an inner music: wait with impatience——
wait with mercy.

^{A penny for the Old Guy}

                              I

We are the hollow men 
We are the stuffed men 
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when 
We whisper together 
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass 
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour. 
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost 
Violent souls, but only 
As the hollow men 

                              II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams 
In death’s dream kingdom 
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are 
Sunlight on a broken column 
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are 
In the wind’s singing 
More distant and more solemn 
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer 
In death’s dream kingdom 
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves 
No nearer—

Not that final meeting 
In the twilight kingdom

                              III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are 
Trembling with tenderness 
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

                              IV

The eyes are not here 
There are no eyes here 
In this valley of dying stars 
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places 
We grope together 
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless 
The eyes reappear 
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose 
Of death’s twilight kingdom 
The hope only 
Of empty men.

                              V

Here we go round the prickly pear 
Prickly pear prickly pear 
Here we go round the prickly pear 
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea 
And the reality 
Between the motion 
And the act 
Falls the Shadow

                                  For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception 
And the creation
Between the emotion 
And the response 
Falls the Shadow

                                  Life is very long

Between the desire 
And the spasm 
Between the potency 
And the existence 
Between the essence 
And the descent 
Falls the Shadow

                                  For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is 
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends 
This is the way the world ends 
This is the way the world ends 
Not with a bang but a whimper.

^{(November, 1918)}

                                             1

Peace now for every fury has had her day,
Their natural make is moribund, they cease,
They carry the inward seeds of quick decay,
Build breakwaters for storm but build on peace. 
The mountains’ peace answers the peace of the stars, 
Our petulances are cracked against their term. 
God built our peace and plastered it with wars, 
Those frescoes fade, flake off, peace remains firm. 
In the beginning before light began
We lay or fluttered blind in burdened wombs, 
And like that first so is the last of man,
When under death for husband the amorous tombs 
Are covered and conceive; nine months go by
No midwife called, nine years no baby’s cry.

                                             2

Peace now, though purgatory fires were hot 
They always had a heart something like ice 
That coldly peered and wondered, suffering not 
Nor pleased in any park, nor paradise 
Of slightly swelling breasts and beautiful arms 
And throat engorged with very carnal blood. 
It coldly peered and wondered, “Strong God your charms 
Are glorious, I remember solitude. 
Before youth towered we knew a time of truth 
To have eyes was nearly rapture.” Peace now, for war 
Will find the cave that childhood found and youth.
Ten million lives are stolen and not one star 
Dulled; wars die out, life will die out, death cease, 
Beauty lives always and the beauty of peace.

                                             3

Peace to the world in time or in a year,
In the inner world I have touched the instant peace. 
Man’s soul’s a flawless crystal coldly clear,
A cool white mansion that he yields in lease
To tenant dreams and tyrants from the brain 
And riotous burnings of the lovelier flesh.
We pour strange wines and purples all in vain. 
The crystal remains pure, the mansion flesh.
All the Asian bacchanals and those from Thrace 
Lived there and left no wine-mark on the walls. 
What were they doing in that more sacred place 
All the Asian and the Thracian bacchanals? 
Peace to the world to-morrow or in a year, 
Peace in that mansion white, that crystal clear.

                                             4

Peace now poor earth. They fought for freedom’s sake, 
She was starving in a corner while they fought. 
They knew not whom they stabbed by Onega Lake, 
Whom lashed from Archangel, whom loved, whom sought. 
How can she die, she is the blood unborn, 
The energy in earth’s arteries beating red, 
The world will flame with her in some great morn, 
The whole great world flame with her, and we be dead. 
Here in the west it grows by dim degrees, 
In the east flashed and will flame terror and light. 
Peace now poor earth, peace to that holier peace 
Deep in the soul held secret from all sight. 
That crystal, the pure home, the holier peace, 
Fires flaw not, scars the cruelest cannot crease.

                                             5

South of the Big Sur River up the hill
Three graves are marked thick weeds and grasses heap, 
Under the forest there I have stood still
Hours, thinking it the sweetest place to sleep … 
Strewing all-sufficient death with compliments
Sincere and unrequired, coveting peace.
Boards at the head not stones, the text’s rude paints 
Mossed, rain-rubbed … wasting hours of scanty lease 
To admire their peace made perfect. From that height 
But for the trees the whole valley might be seen,
But for the heavy dirt, the eye-pits no light
Enters, the heavy dirt, the grass growing green
Over the dirt, the molelike secretness,
The immense withdrawal, the dirt, the quiet, the peace.

                                             6

Women cried that morning, bells rocked with mirth,
We all were glad a long while afterward,
But still in dreary places of the earth
A hundred hardly fed shall labor hard
To clothe one belly and stuff it with soft meat,
Blood paid for peace but still those poor shall buy it, 
This sweat of slaves is no good wine but yet 
Sometimes it climbs to the brain. Be happy and quiet, 
Be happy and live, be quiet or God might wake.
He sleeps in the mountain that is heart of man’s heart, 
He also in promontory fists, and make
Of stubborn-muscled limbs, he will not start
For a little thing … his great hands grope, unclose, 
Feel out for the main pillars … pull down the house …

                                             7

After all, after all we endured, who has grown wise? 
We take our mortal momentary hour
With too much gesture, the derisive skies
Twinkle against our wrongs, our rights, our power.
Look up the night, starlight’s a steadying draught
For nerves at angry tension. They have all meant well,
Our enemies and the knaves at whom we’ve laughed,
The liars, the clowns in office, the kings in hell,
They have all meant well in the main… some of them tried
The mountain road of tolerance … They have made war,
Conspired, oppressed, robbed, murdered, lied and lied,
Meant well, played the loud fool … and star by star
Winter Orion pursues the Pleiades
In pale and huge parade, silence and peace.

                                             8

That ice within the soul, the admonisher
Of madness when we’re wildest, the unwinking eye 
That measures all things with indifferent stare, 
Choosing far stars to check near objects by, 
That quiet lake inside and underneath,
Strong, undisturbed by any angel of strife,
Being so tranquil seems the presence of death, 
Being so central seems the essence of life.
Is it perhaps that death and life make truce
In neutral zone while their old feud beyond
Fires the towered cities? Surely for a strange use 
He sphered that eye of flawless diamond.
It does not serve him but with line and rod 
Measures him, how indeed should God serve God?

                                             9

It does not worship him, it will not serve.
And death and life within that Eye combine,
Within that only untorturable nerve
Of those that make a man, within that shrine
Which there is nothing ever can profane,
Where life and death are sister and brother and lovers,
The golden voice of Christ were heard in vain,
The holy spirit of God visibly hovers.
Small-breasted girls, lithe women heavy-haired,
Loves that once grew into our nerves and veins,
Yours Freedom was desire that deeper dared
To the citadel where mastery remains, 
Yours to the spirit … discount the penny that is 
Ungivable, this Eye, this God, this Peace.

                                             10

All in a simple innocence I strove
To give myself away to any power,
Wasting on women’s bodies wealth of love, 
Worshiping every sunrise mountain tower;
Some failure mocked me still denying perfection,
Parts of me might be spended not the whole,
I sought of wine surrender and self-correction,
I failed, I could not give away my soul.
Again seeking to give myself I sought
Outward in vain through all things, out through God, 
And tried all heights, all gulfs, all dreams, all thought. 
I found this wisdom on the wonderful road,
The essential Me cannot be given away,
The single Eye, God cased in blood-shot clay.

                                             11

Peace to the world in time or in a year, 
But always all our lives this peace was ours. 
Peace is not hard to have, it lies more near 
Than breathing to the breast. When brigand powers 
Of anger or pain or the sick dream of sin 
Break our soul’s house outside the ruins we weep.
We look through the breached wall, why there within
All the red while our peace was lying asleep.
Smiling in dreams while the broad knives drank blood,
The robbers triumphed, the roof burned overhead,
The eternal living and untroubled God
Lying asleep upon a lily bed.
Men screamed, the bugles screamed, walls broke in the air, 
We never knew till then that He was there.

There were the black pine trees, 
        And the sullen hills 
        Frowning; there were trills 
        Of birds, and the sweet hot sun, 
        And little rills 
        Of water, everyone 
Singing and prattling; there were bees

Honey-laden, tuneful, a song
        Far-off, and a timid air 
        That sighed and kissed my hair, 
        My hair that the hot sun loves. 
        The day was very fair, 
        There was wooing of doves, 
And the shadows were not yet long. 

And I lay on the soft green grass, 
        And the smell of the earth was sweet,
        And I dipped my feet 
        In the little stream;
        And was cool as a flower is cool in the heat, 
        And the day lay still in a dream, 
And the hours forgot to pass. 

And you came, my love, so stealthily 
        That I saw you not 
        Till I felt that your arms were hot 
        Round my neck, and my lips were wet
        With your lips, I had forgot  
        How sweet you were. And lo! the sun has set, 
And the pale moon came up silently. 


                                                    ^{Thuringewald, 1892}

There is an evening twilight of the heart, 
    When its wild passion-waves are lulled to rest, 
And the eye sees life’s fairy scenes depart, 
    As fades the day-beam in the rosy west. 
’Tis with a nameless feeling of regret
    We gaze upon them as they melt away, 
And fondly would we bid them linger yet, 
    But Hope is round us with her angel lay, 
Hailing afar some happier moonlight hour;
Dear are her whispers still, though lost their early power. 

In youth the cheek was crimsoned with her glow;
    Her smile was loveliest then; her matin song
Was heaven’s own music, and the note of woe
    Was all unheard her sunny bowers among. 
Life’s little word of bliss was newly born;
    We knew not, cared not, it was born to die,
Flushed with the cool breeze and the dews of morn,
    With dancing heart we gazed on the pure sky, 
And mocked the passing clouds that dimmed its blue,
Like our own sorrows then—as fleeting and as few. 

And manhood felt her sway too—on the eye, 
    Half realized, her early dreams burst bright, 
Her promised bower of happiness seemed nigh, 
    Its days of joy, its vigils of delight;
And though at times might lower the thunder-storm,
    And the red lightnings threaten, still the air
Was balmy with her breath, and her loved form,
    The rainbow of the heart was hovering there. 
’Tis in life’s noontide she is nearest seen,
Her wreath the summer flower, her robe of summer green. 

But though less dazzling in her twilight dress, 
    There’s more of heaven’s pure beam about her now;
That angel-smile of tranquil loveliness, 
    Which the heart worships, glowing on her brow;
That smile shall brighten the dim evening star 
    That points our destined tomb, nor e’er depart
Till the faint light of life is fled afar, 
    And hushed the last deep beating of the heart;
The meteor-bearer of our parting breath, 
A moonbeam in the midnight cloud of death. 

O but my delicate lover, 
Is she not fair as the moonlight? 
Is she not supple and strong
          For hurried passion? 

Has not the god of the green world, 
In his large tolerant wisdom, 
Filled with the ardours of earth 
          Her twenty summers? 

Well did he make her for loving;
Well did he mould her for beauty;
Gave her the wish that is brave 
          With understanding. 

“O Pan, avert from his maiden
Sorrow, misfortune, bereavement, 
Harm, and unhappy regret,”
          Prays one fond mortal.

A month or twain to live on honeycomb 
Is pleasant; but one tires of scented time, 
Cold sweet recurrence of acceptance rhyme,
And that strong purple under juice and foam 
Where the wine’s heart has burst;
Nor feel the latter kisses like the first. 

Once yet, this poor one time; I will not pray 
Even to change the bitterness of it, 
The bitter taste ensuing on the sweet, 
To make your tears fall where your soft hair lay 
All blurred and heavy in some perfumed wise 
Over my face and eyes. 

And yet who knows what end the scythed wheat 
Makes of its foolish poppies’ mouths of red? 
These were not sown, these are not harvested,
They grow a month and are cast under feet 
And none has care thereof, 
As none has care of a divided love. 

I know each shadow of your lips by rote, 
Each change of love in eyelids and eyebrows;
The fashion of fair temples tremulous 
With tender blood, and colour of your throat;
I know not how love is gone out of this, 
Seeing that all was his. 

Love’s likeness there endures upon all these:
But out of these one shall not gather love. 
Day hath not strength nor the night shade enough 
To make love whole and fill his lips with ease,
As some bee-builded cell 
Feels at filled lips the heavy honey swell. 

I know not how this last month leaves your hair 
Less full of purple colour and hid spice, 
And that luxurious trouble of closed eyes
Is mixed with meaner shadow and waste care;
And love, kissed out by pleasure, seems not yet 
Worth patience to regret. 

I built an unnamed altar in my heart, 
And sculptured sacred garlands for a frieze 
From delicately petalled memories,— 
The fragrance of a word, the fragile art 
Of ash-gold hair, dim visioned things that start 
With radiant wings from mist of reveries, 
And vanish at the telling as a breeze
Blurs mirrored stars in dark pools set apart.

But, as I worshiped reverently there 
The symbols of the beautiful, there came 
A light aslant the shadows of my prayer 
That silenced mine uplifted lips with shame. 
The garlands coldly carven in that fair 
Unmeaning tracery enscrolled—thy name.

Once in a dream (for once I dreamed of you)
    We stood together in an open field;
    Above our heads two swift-winged pigeons wheeled, 
Sporting at east and courting full in view:—
When loftier still a broadening darkness flew, 
    Down-swooping, and a ravenous hawk revealed;
    Too weak to fight, too fond to fly, they yield;
So farewell life and love and pleasures new. 
Then as their plumes fell fluttering to the ground, 
    Their snow-white plumage flecked with crimson drops, 
        I wept, and thought I turned towards you to weep:
    But you were gone; while rustling hedgerow tops 
Bent in a wind which bore to me a sound
        Of far-off piteous bleat of lambs and sheep. 

Between Babylon 
and the sea, I’ve built a home 
with the sea’s whispers. 

There is no silence lovelier than the one 
That flowers upon a flowering tree at night. 
There is no silence known beneath the sun 
That is so strange to bear, nor half so white. 
If I had all that silence in my heart, 
What yet unfinished heavens I could sing! 
My words lift up and tremble to depart, 
Then die in air, from too much uttering.
It must have been beneath a tree like this 
An angel sought a girl in Galilee, 
While she looked up and pondered how the kiss 
Of God had come with wings and mystery. 
It may be that a single petal fell. 
Heavy with sorrow that it could not tell.

Happy bridegroom, Hesper brings
All desired and timely things.
All whom morning sends to roam,
Hesper loves to lead them home.
Home return who him behold,
Child to mother, sheep to fold,
Bird to nest from wandering wide:
Happy bridegroom, seek your bride.

Out of the night that covers me,   
  Black as the Pit from pole to pole,   
I thank whatever gods may be   
  For my unconquerable soul.   

In the fell clutch of circumstance 
  I have not winced nor cried aloud.   
Under the bludgeonings of chance   
  My head is bloody, but unbowed.   

Beyond this place of wrath and tears   
  Looms but the Horror of the shade, 
And yet the menace of the years   
  Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.   

It matters not how strait the gate,   
  How charged with punishments the scroll,   
I am the master of my fate:
  I am the captain of my soul.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
    So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
    So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

I.

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

II.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

III.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
 
Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen;
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.
 
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
 
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
 
And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
 
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.

What dost thou here, thou shining, sinless thing,
With many colored hues and shapely wing?
Why quit the open field and summer air
To flutter here? Thou hast no need of prayer.

’Tis meet that we, who this great structure built,
Should come to be redeemed and washed from guilt
For we this gilded edifice within
Are come, with erring hearts and stains of sin.

But thou art free from guilt as God on high;
Go, seek the blooming waste and open sky,
And leave us here our secret woes to bear
Confessionals and agonies of prayer.

Christ washed the feet of Judas!
The dark and evil passions of his soul,
His secret plot, and sordidness complete,
His hate, his purposing, Christ knew the whole.
And still in love he stooped and washed his feet.

Christ washed the feet of Judas!
Yet all his lurking sin was bare to him,
His bargain with the priest, and more than this,
In Olivet, beneath the moonlight dim,
Aforehand knew and felt his treacherous kiss.

Christ washed the feet of Judas!
And so ineffable his love ’twas meet,
That pity fill his great forgiving heart,
And tenderly to wash the traitor’s feet,
Who in his Lord had basely sold his part.

Christ washed the feet of Judas!
And thus a girded servant, self-abased,
Taught that no wrong this side the gate of heaven
Was ever too great to wholly be effaced,
And though unasked, in spirit be forgiven.

And so if we have ever felt the wrong
Of Trampled rights, of caste, it matters not,
What e’er the soul has felt or suffered long,
Oh, heart! this one thing should not be forgot:
Christ washed the feet of Judas.

And if my heart be scarred and burned, 
The safer, I, for all I learned; 
The calmer, I, to see it true 
That ways of love are never new— 
The love that sets you daft and dazed 
Is every love that ever blazed; 
The happier, I, to fathom this: 
A kiss is every other kiss. 
The reckless vow, the lovely name, 
When Helen walked, were spoke the same; 
The weighted breast, the grinding woe, 
When Phaon fled, were ever so. 
Oh, it is sure as it is sad 
That any lad is every lad, 
And what’s a girl, to dare implore 
Her dear be hers forevermore? 
Though he be tried and he be bold, 
And swearing death should he be cold, 
He’ll run the path the others went.…
But you, my sweet, are different.

So, we'll go no more a roving
    So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
    And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
    And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
    And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
    And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
    By the light of the moon.

^{translated from the Spanish by the Benedictines of Stanbrook}

         Vivo sin vivir en mi.

I live, but yet I live not in myself, 
For since aspiring to a life more high
I ever die because I do not die.

This mystic union of Love divine,
The bond whereby alone my soul doth live, 
Hath made of God my Captive—but to me 
True liberty of heart the while doth give.
And yet my spirit is so sorely pained 
At gazing on my Lord by me enchained, 
That still I die because I do not die.

Alas, how wearisome a waste is life!
How hard a fate to bear! In exile here
Fast locked in iron fetters lies my soul,
A prisoner in earth’s mournful dungeon drear. 
But yet the very hope of some relief
Doth wound my soul with such tormenting grief, 
That still I die because I do not die.

No life so bitter, none so sad as mine
While exiled from my Lord my days are spent, 
For though to love be sweet, yet hope deferred 
Is wearisome: from life’s long banishment,
O God, relieve me! from this mournful freight 
Which crushes with a more than leaden weight,
So that I die because I do not die.

I live, since death must surely come at last;— 
Upon that hope alone my trust I build,
For when this mortal life shall die, at length 
My longings then will wholly be fulfilled.
Come, Death, come, bring life’s certainty to me, 
O tarry thou no more !—I wait for thee,
And ever die because I do not die.

From “Glosa”

Vivo sin vivir en mi,
Y tan alta vida espero,
Que muero porque no muero.

Aquesta divina unión 
Del amor con que yo vivo,
Hace á Dios ser mi cautivo,
Y libre mi corazón:
Mas causa en mí tal pasión 
Ver á Dios mi prisionero,
Que muero porque no muero.

       ¡Ay! ¡ qué larga es esta vida! 
¡Qué duros estos destierros, 
Esta cárcel y estos hierros 
En que el alma está metida! 
Solo esperar la salida 
Me causa un dolor tan fiero,
Que muero porque no muero.

       ¡Ay! ¡ qué vida tan amarga 
Do no se goza el Señor!
Y si es dulce el amor,
No lo es la esperanza larga: 
Quíteme Dios esta carga,
Mas pesada que de acero,
Que muero porque no muero.

Solo con la confianza 
Vivo de que he de morir,
Porque muriendo el vivir 
Me asegura mi esperanza:
Muerte do el vivir se alcanza,
No te tardes, que te espero,
Que muero porque no muero.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

^{translated from the Spanish by Alice Stone Blackwell}

With graceful waves, ye waters, frolic free;
   Uplift your liquid songs, ye eddies bright,
   And you, loquacious bubblings, day and night,
Hold converse with the wind and leaves in glee!
O’er the deep cut, ye jets, gush sportively.
   And rend yourselves to foamy tatters white,
   And dash on boulders curved and rocks upright,
Golconda’s pearls and diamonds rich to see!
I am your sire, the River. Lo, my hair
   Is moonbeams pale: of yon cerulean sky
      Mine eyes are mirrors, as I sweep along.
Of molten spray is my forehead fair;
   Transparent mosses for my beard have I;
The laughter of the Naiads’ is my song.

El río

^Soneto

Triscad, oh linfas, con la grácil onda,
gorgoritas, alzad vuestras canciones.
y vosotros, parleros borbollones,
dialogad con el viento y con la fronda.
 
Chorro garrulador, sobre la honda
cóncava quiebra, rómpete en jirones
y estrella contra riscos y peñones
tus diamantes y perlas de Golconda.
 
Soy vuestro padre el río. Mis cabellos
son de la luna pálidos destellos,
cristal mis ojos del cerúleo manto.
 
Es de musgo mi barba transparente,
ópalos desleídos son mi frente
y risa de las náyades mi canto.

School is over. It is too hot
to walk at ease. At ease
in light frocks they walk the streets
to while the time away.
They have grown tall. They hold
pink flames in their right hands.
In white from head to foot,
with sidelong, idle look—
in yellow, floating stuff,
black sash and stockings—
touching their avid mouths
with pink sugar on a stick—
like a carnation each holds in her hand—
they mount the lonely street.

Sorrow is my own yard
where the new grass
flames as it has flamed
often before but not
with the cold fire
that closes round me this year.
Thirtyfive years
I lived with my husband.
The plumtree is white today
with masses of flowers.
Masses of flowers
load the cherry branches
and color some bushes
yellow and some red
but the grief in my heart
is stronger than they
for though they were my joy
formerly, today I notice them
and turn away forgetting.
Today my son told me
that in the meadows,
at the edge of the heavy woods
in the distance, he saw
trees of white flowers.
I feel that I would like
to go there
and fall into those flowers
and sink into the marsh near them.