All I could see from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood;
I turned and looked another way,
And saw three islands in a bay.
So with my eyes I traced the line
Of the horizon, thin and fine,
Straight around till I was come
Back to where I'd started from;
And all I saw from where I stood
Was three long mountains and a wood.

Over these things I could not see:
These were the things that bounded me.
And I could touch them with my hand,
Almost, I thought, from where I stand!
And all at once things seemed so small
My breath came short, and scarce at all.
But, sure, the sky is big, I said;
Miles and miles above my head.
So here upon my back I'll lie
And look my fill into the sky.
And so I looked, and after all,
The sky was not so very tall.
The sky, I said, must somewhere stop…
And—sure enough!—I see the top!
The sky, I thought, is not so grand;
I ’most could touch it with my hand!
And reaching up my hand to try,
I screamed, to feel it touch the sky.

I screamed, and—lo!—Infinity
Came down and settled over me;
Forced back my scream into my chest;
Bent back my arm upon my breast;
And, pressing of the Undefined
The definition on my mind,
Held up before my eyes a glass
Through which my shrinking sight did pass
Until it seemed I must behold
Immensity made manifold;
Whispered to me a word whose sound
Deafened the air for worlds around,
And brought unmuffled to my ears
The gossiping of friendly spheres,
The creaking of the tented sky,
The ticking of Eternity.

I saw and heard, and knew at last
The How and Why of all things, past,
And present, and forevermore.
The Universe, cleft to the core,
Lay open to my probing sense,
That, sickening, I would fain pluck thence
But could not,—nay! but needs must suck
At the great wound, and could not pluck
My lips away till I had drawn
All venom out.—Ah, fearful pawn:
For my omniscience paid I toll
In infinite remorse of soul.

All sin was of my sinning, all
Atoning mine, and mine the gall
Of all regret. Mine was the weight
Of every brooded wrong, the hate
That stood behind each envious thrust,
Mine every greed, mine every lust.

And all the while, for every grief,
Each suffering, I craved relief
With individual desire;
Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire
About a thousand people crawl;
Perished with each,—then mourned for all!

A man was starving in Capri;
He moved his eyes and looked at me;
I felt his gaze, I heard his moan,
And knew his hunger as my own.
I saw at sea a great fog bank
Between two ships that struck and sank;
A thousand screams the heavens smote;
And every scream tore through my throat.

No hurt I did not feel, no death
That was not mine; mine each last breath
That, crying, met an answering cry
From the compassion that was I.
All suffering mine, and mine its rod;
Mine, pity like the pity of God.

Ah, awful weight! Infinity
Pressed down upon the finite Me!
My anguished spirit, like a bird,
Beating against my lips I heard;
Yet lay the weight so close about
There was no room for it without.
And so beneath the weight lay I
And suffered death, but could not die.
Long had I lain thus, craving death,
When quietly the earth beneath
Gave way, and inch by inch, so great
At last had grown the crushing weight,
Into the earth I sank till I
Full six feet under ground did lie,
And sank no more,—there is no weight
Can follow here, however great.
From off my breast I felt it roll,
And as it went my tortured soul
Burst forth and fled in such a gust
That all about me swirled the dust.

Deep in the earth I rested now.
Cool is its hand upon the brow
And soft its breast beneath the head
Of one who is so gladly dead.
And all at once, and over all
The pitying rain began to fall;
I lay and heard each pattering hoof
Upon my lowly, thatchèd roof,
And seemed to love the sound far more
Than ever I had done before.
For rain it hath a friendly sound
To one who’s six feet underground;
And scarce the friendly voice or face,
A grave is such a quiet place.

The rain, I said, is kind to come
And speak to me in my new home.
I would I were alive again
To kiss the fingers of the rain,
To drink into my eyes the shine
Of every slanting silver line,
To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze
From drenched and dripping apple-trees.
For soon the shower will be done,
And then the broad face of the sun
Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth
Until the world with answering mirth
Shakes joyously, and each round drop
Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top.

How can I bear it, buried here,
While overhead the sky grows clear
And blue again after the storm?
O, multi-colored, multiform,
Belovèd beauty over me,
That I shall never, never see
Again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold,
That I shall never more behold!—
Sleeping your myriad magics through,
Close-sepulchred away from you!
O God, I cried, give me new birth,
And put me back upon the earth!
Upset each cloud’s gigantic gourd
And let the heavy rain, down-poured
In one big torrent, set me free,
Washing my grave away from me!

I ceased; and through the breathless hush
That answered me, the far-off rush
Of herald wings came whispering
Like music down the vibrant string
Of my ascending prayer, and—crash!
Before the wild wind’s whistling lash
The startled storm-clouds reared on high
And plunged in terror down the sky!
And the big rain in one black wave
Fell from the sky and struck my grave.

I know not how such things can be;
I only know there came to me
A fragrance such as never clings
To aught save happy living things;
A sound as of some joyous elf
Singing sweet songs to please himself,
And, through and over everything,
A sense of glad awakening.
The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear,
Whispering to me I could hear;
I felt the rain’s cool finger-tips
Brushed tenderly across my lips,
Laid gently on my sealèd sight,
And all at once the heavy night
Fell from my eyes and I could see,—
A drenched and dripping apple-tree,
A last long line of silver rain,
A sky grown clear and blue again.
And as I looked a quickening gust
Of wind blew up to me and thrust
Into my face a miracle
Of orchard-breath, and with the smell,—
I know not how such things can be!—
I breathed my soul back into me.

Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I
And hailed the earth with such a cry
As is not heard save from a man
Who has been dead, and lives again.
About the trees my arms I wound;
Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;
I raised my quivering arms on high;
I laughed and laughed into the sky,
Till at my throat a strangling sob
Caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb
Sent instant tears into my eyes;
O God, I cried, no dark disguise
Can e’er hereafter hide from me
Thy radiant identity!
Thou canst not move across the grass
But my quick eyes will see Thee pass,
Nor speak, however silently,
But my hushed voice will answer Thee.
I know the path that tells Thy way
Through the cool eve of every day;
God, I can push the grass apart
And lay my finger on Thy heart!

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,—
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.

Say what you will, and scratch my heart to find 
The roots of last year’s roses in my breast; 
I am as surely riper in my mind 
As if the fruit stood in the stalls confessed. 
Laugh at the unshed leaf, say what you will, 
Call me in all things what I was before, 
A flutterer in the wind, a woman still; 
I tell you I am what I was and more.

My branches weigh me down, frost cleans the air. 
My sky is black with small birds bearing south; 
Say what you will, confuse me with fine care, 
Put by my word as but an April truth,— 
Autumn is no less on me that a rose 
Hugs the brown bough and sighs before it goes.

Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring,

    And all the flowers that in the springtime grow,

    And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow

Rising of the round moon, all throats that sing

The summer through, and each departing wing,

    And all the nests that the bared branches show,

    And all winds that in any weather blow,

And all the storms that the four seasons bring.

You go no more on your exultant feet

    Up paths that only mist and morning knew,

Or watch the wind, or listen to the beat

    Of a bird’s wings too high in air to view,—

But you were something more than young and sweet

    And fair,—and the long year remembers you.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

As one who, leaning on the wall, once drew 
Thick blossoms down, and hearkened to the hum 
Of heavy bees slow rounding the wet plum, 
And heard across the fields the patient coo
Of restless birds bewildered with the dew.

As one whose thoughts were mad in painful May,
With melancholy eyes turned toward her love,
And toward the troubled earth whereunder throve
The chilly rye and coming hawthorn spray—
With one lean, pacing hound, for company.

My branch of thoughts is frail tonight
As one lone-wind-whipped weed.
Little I care if a rain drop laughs
Or cries; I cannot heed

Such trifles now as a twinkling star, 
Or catch a night-bird’s tune. 
My whole life is you, to-night,
And you, a cool distant moon.

With a few soft words to nurture my heart
And brighter beams following love’s cool shower
Who knows but this frail wind-whipped weed
Might bear you a gorgeous flower!

For every bird a nest,

Wherefore in timid quest

Some little wren goes seeking round.

Wherefore where boughs are free,

Households in every tree,

Pilgrim be found ?

Perhaps a home too high —

Ah, aristocracy ! —

The little wren desires.

The lark is not ashamed

To build upon the ground

Her modest house.

Yet who of all the throng

Dancing around the sun

Does so rejoice?

All the letters I can write

Are not fair as this,

Syllables of velvet,

Sentences of plush,

Depths of ruby, undrained,

Hid, lip, for thee —

Play it were a hummingbird

And just sipped me !

Lady mine, so passing fair, 
Would’st thou roses for thy hair? 
Would’st thou lilies for thy hand?
Bid me pluck them where they stand. 
Those are warm and red to see, 
These are cold. Are both like thee? 
Brow of lily, lip of rose, 
Heart that no man living knows!
If one knelt beside thy feet, 
Would’st thou spurn, or love him, Sweet?

Many have loved you with lips and fingers
And lain with you till the moon went out;
Many have brought you lover’s gifts;
And some have left their dreams on your doorstep.

But I who am youth among your lovers
Come like an acolyte to worship,
My thirsting blood restrained by reverence,
My heart a wordless prayer.

The candles of desire are lighted,
I bow my head, afraid before you,
A mendicant who craves your bounty
Ashamed of what small gifts he brings.

O form! O face!
Elfin face in the crowd!
Form, face, white throat,
Pale throat wound with a scarf
Poppy red,
Blood-like, red,
Pale throat wound with a poppy scarf
Gleaming out of the crowd.

             Background of grey,
             A rain-wet street;
             Shuffling; shambling
             Beating feet,
             Past the corner where four ways meet.

O face, O throat!
Crimson and white
Splashed on grey:
I have thought of nothing else all day.

             Misted streets,
             A scarf-wound throat,
             Fay-like face
             That seemed to float
             Through the crowd
             Like a wisp of song:
             I have thought of them all day long.

Heaped sweets and a treasure
For a new sin to play with,
To pass a night and day with––
Heaped sweets for a pleasure.

Who and who will win them?
Who will carry virtue’s pall?
Of what use are sins at all
If someone does not sin them?

Who will take the treasure?
Run and run on light-winged feet;
Who will buy my sweetest sweet
With a new found pleasure?

The shadow of thy curls I see
      Upon thy lovely face;
And just a little wish is mine—
      The shadow to embrace.

On thy black and silken tresses,
      Ah, one longs to feast the sight;
But the shadows of their beauty,
      Hanging on thy cheeks of light,

From my lips, exact a tribute,
      Which I pay here in this meadow:
Blush not, my most winsome maiden;
      I have only kissed the shadow.

If you could sit with me beside the sea to-day,
And whisper with me sweetest dreamings o’er and o’er;
I think I should not find the clouds so dim and gray,
And not so loud the waves complaining at the shore.

If you could sit with me upon the shore to-day,
And hold my hand in yours as in the days of old,
I think I should not mind the chill baptismal spray,
Nor find my hand and heart and all the world so cold.

If you could walk with me upon the strand to-day,
And tell me that my longing love had won your own,
I think all my sad thoughts would then be put away,
And I could give back laughter for the Ocean’s moan!

We lay in shade diaphanous
And spoke the light that burns in us

As in the glooming’s net I caught her,
She shimmered like reflected water!

Romantic and emphatic moods
Are not for her whom life eludes...

Its vulgar tinsel round her fold?
She'd rather shudder with the cold,

Attend just this elusive hour,
A shadow in a shadow bower,

A moving imagery so fine,
It must have been her soul near mine

And so we blended and possessed
Each in each the phantom guest,

Inseparate, we scarcely met;
Yet other love-nights we forget!

^{translated from the ancient Greek by Bliss Carman}

It was summer when I found you 
In the meadow long ago, 
And the golden vetch was growing
By the shore.

Did we falter when love took us 
With a gust of great desire? 
Does the barley bid the wind wait
In his course?

Lend me, a little while, the key
   That locks your heavy heart, and I’ll give you back—
Rarer than books and ribbons and beds bright to see,
   This little Key of Dreams out of my pack.

The road, the road, beyond men’s bolted doors,
   There shall I walk are you go free of me,
For yours lies North across the moors,
   And mine South.     To what sea ?

How if we stopped and let our solemn selves go by,
   While my gay ghost caught and kissed yours, as ghosts don’t do,
And by the wayside this forgotten you and I
   Sat, and were twenty-two ?

Give me the key that locks your tired eyes,
   And I will lend you this one from my pack,
Brighter than coloured beads and painted books that make men wise : 
   Take it.     No, give it back !

^{translated from the ancient Greek by Bliss Carman}

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.

^{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.

                                  I

Sing to us, cedars; the twilight is creeping
    With shadowy garments, the wilderness through;
All day we have carolled, and now would be sleeping,
    So echo the anthems we warbled to you;
               While we swing, swing,
               And your branches sing,
        And we drowse to your dreamy whispering.

                                  II

Sing to us, cedars; the night-wind is sighing,
    Is wooing, is pleading, to hear you reply;
And here in your arms we are restfully lying,
    And longing to dream to your soft lullaby;
               While we swing, swing,
               And your branches sing.
        And we drowse to your dreamy whispering.

                                  III

Sing to us, cedars; your voice is so lowly,
    Your breathing so fragrant, your branches so strong;
Our little nest-cradles are swaying so slowly,
    While zephyrs are breathing their slumberous song.
               And we swing, swing,
               While your branches sing,
        And we drowse to your dreamy whispering.

Must I convey at last the news to thee?
Must I now mourn the love that lived in me?
   Gone with the autumn, with the dying year.
   Gone with the kisses that are yet so near!
Gone with the swallows somewhere o’er the sea!
But with the Spring will he again
Return, will he with me remain?
       Must I till then, remembering naught,
       Forgetting all that love had brought,
   Grope in the shadows of the slain?
           Must I forget the day
           That took my love away,
               And all the happy hours
               That reared for him their towers
               And crowned him with the flowers
           Of all the queens of May?
           Must I alone
           My once my own,
              In my retreat
              The new year greet,
              And winter meet,
           And winds hear moan?
                Not yet
                   Can I
                Forget;
                   But why
                       One clings
                       And sings
                       To things
                   That die?

The lark is silent in his nest,
    The breeze is sighing in its flight,
Sleep, Love, and peaceful be thy rest.
    Good-night, my love, good-night, good-night.

Sweet dreams attend thee in thy sleep,
    To soothe thy rest till morning's light,
And angels round thee vigil keep.
    Good-night, my love, good-night, good-night.

Sleep well, my love, on night's dark breast,
    And ease thy soul with slumber bright;
Be joy but thine and I am blest.
    Good-night, my love, good-night, good-night.

^{translated from the French by Rose DeMaris}

Sweet dews
in these tender stems
flood my eyes.
 
           The breeze holds her breath—
           then ripples 
           through heaven’s hidden depths;
 
           a curved branch, 
           stirred by her sigh, 
           plaits grass at my feet;
 
           a leaf trembles;
           a bird sings, waits, sings
           in rhythm with her wishes. 
 
Something slides, 
drops 
into the thick green braid.
 
Once, I sang for love.
Now my voice grows weak,
having hurt too much.
 
           The far-off edge of the sea,
           tentative, smiles
           through her vapors of brine,
 
but my soul, 
 
           unwoven,

is trapped in a chasm,
 
and only cries escape

this heart.  
 
 
 
 

En Foret  
 
La douce rosée
En molle fusée
Inonde mes yeux ; 
La brise module
Et sa plainte ondule
Dans le fond des cieux.
 
Son frisson caresse
La branche qui tresse
A mes pieds ses noeuds ;
La feuille frissone
Et l’oiseau chantonne 
En rhythmant ses voeux.
 
Qulque chose glisse
Sous l’herbe que plisse
Un grand galon vert.
Des voix amoureuses
Pleurent, langoureuses,
D’avoir trop souffert …
 
La plage lointaine
Sourit, incertaine,
Parmi ses vapeurs ;
Et mon âme souffre,
Comme dans un gouffre,
Et pleure des coeurs !