If for a day joy masters me,
Think not my wounds are healed;
Far deeper than the scars you see,
I keep the roots concealed.

They shall bear blossoms with the fall;
I have their word for this,
Who tend my roots with rains of gall,
And suns of prejudice.

At least she’s pretending to be,

in sisterly solidarity.

It’s not a joke, but the whole

world’s taking it badly. Meanwhile

I sit here pretending to be a flame 

in a thrown bottle. I pretend

that curved horns grow out of my ears 

when I hear of injustices. And 

meanwhile like the faint cigar 

lights of the darkened 

lounges where world leaders 

fraternize, the moon’s light glows

then fades. Her labor proves to be, 

well, laborious. Mine was too,

although this poem burst forth 

from my brain like a boot

or a god: furious.

THEY say of me, and so they should,
It’s doubtful if I come to good.
I see acquaintances and friends
Accumulating dividends,
And making enviable names
In science, art, and parlor games.
But I, despite expert advice,
Keep doing things I think are nice,
And though to good I never come––
Inseparable my nose and thumb!

Light silken curtain, colorless and soft, 
Dreamlike before me floating! what abides 
                Behind thy pearly veil’s
                Opaque, mysterious woof?

Where sleek red kine, and dappled, crunch daylong 
Thick, luscious blades and purple clover-heads, 
                Nigh me I still can mark 
                Cool fields of beaded grass.

No more; for on the rim of the globed world 
I seem to stand and stare at nothingness. 
                But songs of unseen birds 
                And tranquil roll of waves

Bring sweet assurance of continuous life 
Beyond this silvery cloud. Fantastic dreams, 
                Of tissue subtler still 
                Than the wreathed fog, arise,

And cheat my brain with airy vanishings 
And mystic glories of the world beyond. 
                A whole enchanted town 
                Thy baffling folds conceal—

An orient town, with slender-steepled mosques, 
Turret from turret springing, dome from dome, 
                Fretted with burning stones, 
                And trellised with red gold.

Through spacious streets, where running waters flow, 
Sun-screened by fruit-trees and the broad-leaved palm, 
                Past the gay-decked bazaars, 
                Walk turbaned, dark-eyed men.

Hark! you can hear the many murmuring tongues, 
While loud the merchants vaunt their gorgeous wares. 
                The sultry air is spiced
                With fragrance of rich gums,

And through the lattice high in yon dead wall, 
See where, unveiled, an arch, young, dimpled face, 
                Flushed like a musky peach, 
                Peers down upon the mart!

From her dark, ringleted and bird-poised head 
She hath cast back the milk-white silken veil:
                ’Midst the blank blackness there 
                She blossoms like a rose.

Beckons she not with those bright, full-orbed eyes, 
And open arms that like twin moonbeams gleam? 
                Behold her smile on me 
                With honeyed, scarlet lips!

Divine Scheherazade! I am thine. 
I come! I come!—Hark! from some far-off mosque
                The shrill muezzin calls 
                The hour of silent prayer,

And from the lattice he hath scared by love. 
The lattice vanisheth itself—the street,
                The mart, the Orient town;
                Only through still, soft air

That cry is yet prolonged. I wake to hear
The distant fog-horn peal: before mine eyes 
                Stands the white wall of mist, 
                Blending with vaporous skies.

Elusive gossamer, impervious 
Even to the mighty sun-god’s keen red shafts! 
                With what a jealous art 
                Thy secret thou dost guard!

Well do I know deep in thine inmost folds, 
Within an opal hollow, there abides 
                The lady of the mist, 
                The Undine of the air—

A slender, winged, ethereal, lily form, 
Dove-eyed, with fair, free-floating, pearl-wreathed hair, 
                In waving raiment swathed
                Of changing, irised hues.

Where her feet, rosy as a shell, have grazed 
The freshened grass, a richer emerald glows:
                Into each flower-cup 
                Her cool dews she distills.

She knows the tops of jagged mountain-peaks,
She knows the green soft hollows of their sides, 
                And unafraid she floats 
                O’er the vast-circled seas.

She loves to bask within the moon’s wan beams, 
Lying, night-long, upon the moist, dark earth, 
                And leave her seeded pearls 
                With morning on the grass.

Ah! that athwart these dim, gray outer courts
Of her fantastic palace I might pass, 
                And reach the inmost shrine 
                Of her chaste solitude,

And feel her cool and dewy fingers press 
My mortal-fevered brow, while in my heart
                She poured with tender love 
                Her healing Lethe-balm!

See! the close curtain moves, the spell dissolves! 
Slowly it lifts: the dazzling sunshine streams 
                Upon a newborn world and laughing summer seas. 
                And laughing summer seas.

Swift, snowy-breasted sandbirds twittering glance 
Through crystal air. On the horizon’s marge, 
                Like a huge purple wraith, 
                The dusky fog retreats.

I want to slay all the things just things

That they tell me I must do.

I would drown them all in the tears I weep

When each breathless day is through.

I want to flee to a cool sand dune

On a wind-swept beach where the humming tune

Of the wind, and the waves, and the heart of me

Drams in my ears, and my lips are wet with the tang of the sea.

I want to feel the rain on my cheek,

The thrill that comes from a lark’s long note,

I want to see the sky at dawn thru the lacy green of a willow tree.

I want to look deep in a pool at night, and see the stars

Flash flame like the fire in black opals.

I used to sit on a high green hill
And long for you to be like the clouds,
Soft and white……..
And your eyes be like heaven’s blue
And your hair like the tree sifted sun……..
But then I was young, and my eyes yet
Round with wonder.
Now I sit by an endless road and watch
As you come……..swiftly like dusk
Your hair like a starless night
Your eyes like deep violet shadows,
And soft arms cradle me on your sweet
Brown breast……..for I have grown old
And my eyes hold unshed tears,
And my face is lean and hard in daylight’s 
Mocking glare.
But with the night
Dusk fingers and lips like dew
Erase each wound of time
And my eyes grow round with wonder
At your beauty.

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.

A rose has thorns as well as honey,
I’ll not have her for love or money;
An iris grows so straight and fine,
That she shall be no friend of mine;
Snowdrops like the snow would chill me;
Nightshade would caress and kill me;
Crocus like a spear would fright me;
Dragon’s-mouth might bark or bite me;
Convolvulus but blooms to die;
A wind-flower suggests a sigh;
Love-lies-bleeding makes me sad;
And poppy-juice would drive me mad:—
But give me holly, bold and jolly,
Honest, prickly, shining holly;
Pluck me holly leaf and berry
For the day when I make merry.

^{Δέδυκε μὲν ἀ σελάννα
καὶ Πληΐαδες
          —Sappho}

When the moon was high I waited,
   Pale with evening’s tints it shone;
When its gold came slow, belated,
   Still I kept my watch alone

When it sank, a golden wonder,
   From my window still I bent,
Though the clouds hung thick with thunder
   Where our hilltop roadway went.

By the cypress tops I’ve counted
   Every golden star that passed;
Weary hours they’ve shone and mounted,
   Each more tender than the last.

All my pillows hot with turning,
   All my weary maids asleep;
Every star in heaven was burning
   For the tryst you did not keep.

Now the clouds have hushed their warning,
   Paleness creeps upon the sea;
One star more, and then the morning—
   Share, oh, share that star with me!

Never fear that I shall chide thee
   For the wasted stars of night,
So thine arms will come and hide me
   From the dawn’s unwelcome light.

Though the moon a heav’n had given us,
   Every star a crown and throne,
Till the morn apart had driven us—
   Let the last star be our own.

Ah! the cypress tops are sighing
   With the wind that brings the day;
There my last pale treasure dying
   Ebbs in jeweled light away;

Ebbs like water bright, untasted;
   Black the cypress, bright the sea;
Heav’n’s whole treasury lies wasted
   And the dawn burns over me.

When I talk to my friends I pretend I am standing on the wings 

of a flying plane. I cannot be trusted to tell them how I am. 
Or if I am falling to earth weighing less 

than a dozen roses. Sometimes I dream they have broken up 

with their lovers and are carrying food to my house. 
When I open the mailbox I hear their voices 

like the long upward-winding curve of a train whistle 

passing through the tall grasses and ferns 
after the train has passed. I never get ahead of their shadows. 

I embrace them in front of moving cars. I keep them away 

from my miseries because to say I am miserable is to say I am like them. 

Odd how you entered my house quietly,
Quietly left again.
While you stayed you ate at my table,
Slept in my bed.
There was much sweetness,
Yet little was done, little said.
After you left there was pain,
Now there is no more pain.

But the door of a certain room in my house
Will be always shut.
Your fork, your plate, the glass you drank from,
The music you played,
Are in that room
With the pillow where last your head was laid.
And there is one place in my garden
Where it’s best that I set no foot.

^{for Maria}

Sitting across the table from you

I think back to when our friendship

came down from the mountains.

It was a cold day and the miners

had not left for work.

You break a cookie in half like bread

and this sharing is what we both now need.

That which breaks into crumbs are memories.

Your gray hair cut short and you ask if I notice.

How can I tell you that Bolivia will always be

beautiful and everything I notice is you

and yes is you. Our napkins folded in our hands.

Folded as if our meeting now is prayer.

Did I ever tell you that your eyes are a map

and I would lose myself if you ever turned away

When your joys are of the sweetest
    And your heart is light and free; 
When your griefs are skimming fleetest, 
    Love, one moment think of me. 

I’d not ask you to remember 
    Me when life is dull and drear;
When your hopes are but an ember
    From a cold and vanished year; 

Sorrow’s far too bleak a burden
    To retain in mem’ry’s hall. 
Friendship has no greater guerdon
    Than to happiness recall. 

So, when roses scent the twilight
    Air with ling’ring dew damp breath, 
Please remember me as eye-bright
    Faith remembers until death.

I saw you as I passed last night,
    Framed in a sky of gold;
And through the sun’s fast paling light
    You seemed a queen of old,
Whose smile was light to all the world
    Against the crowding dark.
And in my soul a song there purled—
    Re-echoed by the lark.

I saw you as I passed last night,
    Your tresses burnished gold,
While in your eyes a happy bright
    Gleam of your friendship told.
And I went singing on my way;
    On, on into the dark.
But in my heart still shone the day,
    And still—still sang the lark.

Your head is wild with books, Sybil,

     But your heart is good and kind—

I feel a new contentment near you,

     A pleasure of the mind.

Glad should I be to sit beside you,

     And let long hours glide by,

Reading, through all your sweet narrations,

     The language of your eye.

Since the maternal saint I worshipped

     Did look and love her last,

No woman o’er my wayward spirit

     Such gentle spell has cast.

Oh! tell me of your varied fortunes,

     For you know not, from your face

Looks out strange sadness, lit with rapture,

     And melancholy grace.

You are a gem, whose native brilliance

     Could never wholly reign,

An opal, whose prismatic fire

     A white cloud doth restrain.

And thus, the mood to which you move me

     Is never perfect, quite,

‘Tis pity, wonderment, and pleasure,

     Opacity and light.

Bear me then in your presence, Sybil,

     And leave your hand in mine,

For, though human be my nature,

     You’ve made it half divine. 

It’s funny how things come in
circles.
You, sitting on a step,
smoking a cigarette,
watching leaves fall off a
slowly stripping tree.
Me, hanging photos on a wall,
including one of you
receiving, like a priestess,
your lover’s confession.
Me telling stories of
your conversations.
You, weeping
when your dad asked you
how you were.
Me writing poems about life
while I was slowly plunging into
death.
You breathing in those
same lines,
sitting on a step,
smoking a cigarette.

Great wonder that my blood spurts ruby red
And not a green and slimy stream instead—
That all my tears are salt, not bitter gall,
That I still live, and love and laugh at all!
And that my teeth are lustrous, pearly white,
Instead of blue cold blades that clash at night.
Why do you stand aloof and bid me pray,
You who sow strife and pain upon my way?
How does my soul live on mauled by hate’s rod?
You cannot know ’twas made by One called God.

If I had a million dollars I don’t know what I’d do, 
But I sometimes think I’d stroll around and squander a few;
Or, maybe I’d steel away to the country’s quietude
And spend the rest of life among the simple and the rude.

I hardly think with the fashionable I’d be imbued, 
And the society woman I swear I would elude;
Nor should the bosoms of my Sunday shirts be immaculate––
Even a million, I don’t think, my cranium would inflate.

Because I’d like to slip a cog and go it with a bit, 
With my soul aglow of passion for my brother in the pit;
Proud to be with the commoners, I’d rusticate awhile,
Nor would I care a cursed thing about the latest style.

“Brogan shoes and homespun socks?” The very things I need,
For too much dress and fashion would my lithe step impede;
A single gallus, friend, would hold my breeches on to me, 
And I’d not care a snap about their bagging at the knee.

The doctrine of the broad-brimmed hat I’m sure I would not heed. 
I believe in reducing things to what we really need;
Besides I’ve always been content under a brimless cap, 
To go it with the urchins a-frolicking, jolly chap.

With them I’d like to take just now a little bit of ease, 
A lounging where I used to, out under the apple trees, 
A whittling and swapping jokes with Bill and Tom and Ned. 
And let our mem’ries flit around the lore of the trundle-bed.

Aye, over and above it all, this is the simple truth: 
If I’d it, and could, I would spend a million for my youth! 
Then with my true love I would go a sparking it again,
And look the love upon her my tongue could never explain.

To lead her once again, my friend, through the old Virginia reel:
To salute her, to balance all; again, to fondly feel 
The same old bliss I used to while swinging corners all 
And stepping to the. Music of the jocund country ball.

Were worth millions of yellow pelf to a maimed old chap like me, 
And I’d give it, if I could, with a zest of childish glee. 
Oh! If I could but put away my gout and rhumatis’, 
And take an old-time outing from the pressure of my “biz,”

With a bonny girl and youth I’d go to the fair old sunny clime, 
Down the sylvan haunts of Dixie, where the jessamines ever twine;
Where the lilies faint of sweetness, and ever blows the thyme;
Where the seasons all are summer and the climate is sublime!

Where the rose aflame of beauty, drops its petals on the sward, 
Geraniums blush to scarlet; the passion flowers nod 
And the breezy sweep of zephyrs brings on the metric chime 
Of the winged minstrelsy in in the glory of their prime...

If you could take the silver from this old pate of mine, 
Call back my youth a-gambling down yon vista way sublime, 
And bring me back my true love, my long-lost love again, 
Up from among the daisies where she so long hath lain, 
The million dollars you might have and millions o’er and o’er 
Again I’d take my love and youth and ask for nothing more.

Slanting, driving, Summer rain
How you wash my heart of pain!
How you make me think of trees,
Ships and gulls and flashing seas!
In your furious, tearing wind,
Swells a chant that heals my mind;
And your passion high and proud,
Makes me shout and laugh aloud!

Autumn rains that start at dawn,
“Dropping veils of thinnest lawn,”
Soaking sod between dank grasses,
Sweeping golden leaves in masses,—
Blotting, blurring out the Past,
In a dream you hold me fast;
Calling, coaxing to forget
Things that are, for things not yet.

Winter tempest, winter rain,
Hurtling down with might and main,
You but make me hug my hearth,
Laughing, sheltered from your wrath.
Now I woo my dancing fire,
Piling, piling drift-wood higher.
Books and friends and pictures old,
Hearten while you pound and scold!

Pattering, wistful showers of Spring
Set me to remembering
Far-off times and lovers too,
Gentle joys and heart-break rue,—
Memories I’d as lief forget,
Were not oblivion sadder yet.
Ah! you twist my mind with pain,
Wistful, whispering April rain!

Summer, Autumn, Winter rain,
How you ease my heart of pain!
Whispering, wistful showers of Spring,
How I love the hurt you bring!

^{From the French of Massillon Coicou (Haiti)}

I hope when I am dead that I shall lie 

   In some deserted grave—I cannot tell you why, 

But I should like to sleep in some neglected spot

   Unknown to every one, by every one forgot. 

There lying I should taste with my dead breath

    The utter lack of life, the fullest sense of death; 

And I should never hear the note of jealousy or hate, 

   The tribute paid by passersby to tombs of state. 



To me would never penetrate the prayers and tears

    That futilely bring torture to daed and dying ears; 

There I should annihilate and my dead heart would bless

    Oblivion—the shroud and envelope of happiness. 

What though the rain be falling chill and gray,
A ceaseless dripping from the sad, brown caves?
A tiny bird is singing cross the way.
        Beneath the friendly shelter of the leaves.

The mountain top is sheathed in vapors white,
And o’er the valley hands a chilly path.
But through the mists are riding into night.
The robin sounds his loving, little call.

I hear the foaming torrent in its rush.
        And o’er the rocks “It rests in full-grown pride”;
Through gray and green of earth, there is one flush.
        A tiger-lily on the grim rock’s side,
Life may be drear, and hope seem far away.
But ever through the mist some bird will sing;
And through the dullest, rainy world of gray,
Some bright-hued flower, its flash of promising bring.

A swift, successive chain of things,

That flash, kaleidoscope-like, now in, now out,

Now straight, now eddying in wild rings,

No order, neither law, compels their moves,

But endless, constant, always swiftly roves.

Wild seas of tossing, writhing waves,
A wreck half-sinking in the tortuous gloom;
One man clings desperately, while Boreas raves,
     And helps to blot the rays of moon and star,
     Then comes a sudden flash of light, which gleams on shores afar.

     If I had known
Two years ago how drear this life should be,
And crowd upon itself all-strangely sad,
Mayhap another song would burst from out my lips,
Overflowing with the happiness of future hopes;
Mayhap another throb than that of joy.
Have stirred my soul into its inmost depths,
                                    If I had known.

     If I had known,
Two years ago the impotence of love,
The vainness of a kiss, how barren a caress,
Mayhap my soul to higher things have soarn,
Nor clung to earthly loves and tender dreams,
But ever up aloft into the blue empyrean,
And there to master all the world of mind,
                                    If I had known.

O white little lights at Carney’s Point,
      You shine so clear o’er the Delaware;
When the moon rides high in the silver sky,
      Then you gleam, white gems on the Delaware.
Diamond circlet on a full white throat,
      You laugh your rays on a questioning boat;
Is it peace you dream in your flashing gleam,
      O’er the quiet flow of the Delaware?

And the lights grew dim at the water’s brim,
      For the smoke of the mills shredded slow between;
And the smoke was red, as is new bloodshed,
      And the lights went lurid ’neath the livid screen.

O red little lights at Carney’s Point,
      You glower so grim o’er the Delaware;
When the moon hides low sombrous clouds below,
      Then you glow like coals o’er the Delaware.
Blood red rubies on a throat of fire,
      You flash through the dusk of a funeral pyre;
Are there hearth fires red whom you fear and dread
      O’er the turgid flow of the Delaware?

And the lights gleamed gold o’er the river cold,
      For the murk of the furnace shed a copper veil;
And the veil was grim at the great cloud’s brim,
      And the lights went molten, now hot, now pale.

O gold little lights at Carney’s Point,
     You gleam so proud o’er the Delaware;
When the moon grows wan in the eastering dawn,
      Then you sparkle gold points o’er the Delaware.
Aureate filagree on a Croesus’ brow,
      You hasten the dawn on a gray ship’s prow.
Light you streams of gold in the grim ship’s hold
      O’er the sullen flow of the Delaware?

And the lights went gray in the ash of day,
      For a quiet Aurora brought a halcyon balm;
And the sun laughed high in the infinite sky,
      And the lights were forgot in the sweet, sane calm.
 

Today I go back to the sea
And the wind-beaten rise of the foam.
Today I go back to the sea—
And it’s just as though I were home. 
It’s just as though I were home again
On this ship of iron and steam,
And it’s just as though I have found again
The broken edge of a dream.

I look at the world

From awakening eyes in a black face —

And this is what I see:

This fenced-off narrow space

Assigned to me.



I look then at the silly walls

Through dark eyes in a dark face —

And this is what I know:

That all these walls oppression builds

Will have to go!



I look at my own body

With eyes no longer blind —

And I see that my own hands can make

The world that’s in my mind.

Then let us hurry, comrades,

The road to find.

We cry among the skyscrapers

As our ancestors

Cried among the palms in Africa

Because we are alone,

It is night,

And we’re afraid. 

We buried him high on a windy hill,
But his soul went out to sea.
I know, for I heard, when all was still,
His sea-soul say to me:

Put no tombstone at my head,
For here I do not make my bed.
Strew no flowers on my grave,
I’ve gone back to the wind and wave.
Do not, do not weep for me,
For I am happy with my sea.

The moon is naked.
The wind has undressed the moon.
The wind has blown all the cloud-garments
Off the body of the moon
And now she’s naked,
Stark naked.

But why don’t you blush,
O shameless moon?
Don’t you know
It isn’t nice to be naked?

How thin and sharp is the moon tonight!
How thin and sharp and ghostly white
Is the slim curved crook of the moon tonight!

I’m Nobody! Who are you?

Are you – Nobody – too?

Then there’s a pair of us!

Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!

How public – like a Frog –

To tell one’s name – the livelong June –

To an admiring Bog!

A few days after solstice, I follow bobcat tracks to the lake.
The moss is glowing, the water all thawed, the cold
a kind of wholly coat. A willow, bald without its leaves,

towers over its frail reflection. I sit on a bench, begin to read
old journals. Then I close my eyes and cringe before that girl,

the younger me, makes another bad decision. I want to tell
that girl to stop running, trespassing, stop showing off wounds
to strangers like some perverse shadow puppet flailing inside

the theater of her brooding, restless heart. I tell her to stop and tie
her shoes, to check for ticks. I urge her to banish her urge to tear

the peonies up from the soil just to see the roots naked, render
them wild, but she’s wistful and shifty and cannot hear me—she skips
up the mountain or down the stairs onto the train platform, no coat,

dives dumpsters for breakfast, dances all night. Hitches rides
from boys on motorbikes. Meets lovers: someone who dressed hair,

who threw their ID cards in a fire; someone who could write a line
in an extinct script, someone who studied ocean waves. She’s fallen
for the stories—I know how that story ends. On the floor,

too anguished to write, she curls her spine and holds her breath.
Stop crying, for god’s sake! I can’t look—so I face the willow.

But it also weeps, and now I’m weeping. I’m not on the other
side. Ink leaks from the pen, catching up to the speed of rue
and awe. On this day, I’ve found that girl at this lake, alive

and well after all these thrumming years. I admit I’ve missed her.
What selves have we buried alive, what selves have we survived?

All she wanted—to live and die at once. On a field of ghostly
wildflowers, the willow dreams of catkins—every season,

the bud and the husk, the cathedrals we’ve built out of sorrow.

This is mint and here are three pinks 
I have brought you, Mother. 
They are wet with rain 
And shining with it. 
The pinks smell like more of them 
In a blue vase: 
The mint smells like summer 
In many gardens.

’T is time this heart indifferent
     To love so long,
Should rise from slumber impotent,
     And stroll among
The gardens that are heaven sent.

The butterflies’ unholy quest
     From vase to pot
For wine within the petal’s nest,
     Will guide me not
As it profanely guides the rest.

But it is time this heart so long
     Indifferent
For years and years, should stroll along
     Where Cupid went
One day, and listened to his song.

The garden is very quiet to-night,
The dusk has gone with the Evening Star,
And out on the bay a lone ship light
Makes a silver pathway over the bar
Where the sea sings low.

I follow the light with an earnest eye,
Creeping along to the thick far-away,
Until it fell in the depths of the deep, dark sky
With the haunting dream of the dusk of day
And its lovely glow.

Long nights, long nights and the whisperings of new ones,
Flame the line of the pathway down to the sea
With the halo of new dreams and the hallow of old ones,
And they bring magic light to my love reverie
And a lover’s regret.

Tender sorrow for loss of a soft murmured word,
Tender measure of doubt in a faint, aching heart,
Tender listening for wind-songs in the tree heights heard
When you and I were of the dusks a part,
Are with me yet.

I pray for faith to the noble spirit of Space,
I sound the cosmic depths for the measure of glory
Which will bring to this earth the imperishable race
Of whom Beauty dreamed in the soul-toned story
The Prophets told.

Silence and love and deep wonder of stars
Dust-silver the heavens from west to east,
From south to north, and in a maze of bars
Invisible I wander far from the feast,
As night grows old.

Half blind is my vision I know to the truth,
My ears are half deaf to the voice of the tear
That touches the silences as Autumn’s ruth
Steals through the dusks of each returning year,
A goodly friend.

The Autumn, then Winter and wintertime’s grief!
But the weight of the snow is the glistening gift
Which loving brings to the rose and its leaf,
For the days of the roses glow in the drift
And never end.

The moon has come.   Wan and pallid is she.
The spell of half memories, the touch of half tears,
And the wounds of worn passions she brings to me
With all the tremor of the far-off years
And their mad wrong.

Yet the garden is very quiet to-night,
The dusk has long gone with the Evening Star,
And out on the bay the moon’s wan light
Lays a silver pathway beyond the bar,
Dear heart, pale and long.

As from the house your mother sees

You playing round the garden trees,

So you may see, if you will look

Through the windows of this book,

Another child, far, far away,

And in another garden, play.

But do not think you can at all,

By knocking on the window, call

That child to hear you. He intent

Is all on his play-business bent.

He does not hear; he will not look,

Nor yet be lured out of this book.

For, long ago, the truth to say,

He has grown up and gone away,

And it is but a child of air

That lingers in the garden there.

An old man planted and dug and tended,
    Toiling in joy from dew to dew;
The sun was kind, and the rain befriended;
    Fine grew his orchard and fair to view.
Then he said: 'I will quiet my thrifty fears,
For here is fruit for my failing years.'

But even then the storm-clouds gathered,
    Swallowing up the azure sky;
The sweeping winds into white foam lathered
    The placid breast of the bay, hard by;
Then the spirits that raged in the darkened air
Swept o'er his orchard and left it bare.

The old man stood in the rain, uncaring,
    Viewing the place the storm had swept;
And then with a cry from his soul despairing,
    He bowed him down to the earth and wept.
But a voice cried aloud from the driving rain;
"Arise, old man, and plant again!"

I grew a rose once more to please mine eyes.
All things to aid it—dew, sun, wind, fair skies—
Were kindly; and to shield it from despoil,
I fenced it safely in with grateful toil.
No other hand than mine shall pluck this flower, said I,
And I was jealous of the bee that hovered nigh.
It grew for days; I stood hour after hour
To watch the slow unfolding of the flower,
And then I did not leave its side at all,
Lest some mischance my flower should befall.
At last, oh joy! the central petals burst apart.
It blossomed—but, alas! a worm was at its heart!