_I heard
The poet pass with a sound
Like the breaking of ground,
Like a storm, like a violent bird;
His head was a king’s,
And I noted the gay common things
Of his strange diadem;
I was blinded by them._
_Crown of weeds!
For his brow debonair,
For his vagabond needs,
Crown of weeds,
Bud, berry, thistle and tare:
Yes! but who flung the far seeds?_
October Trees
It seemed a cup that brimmed hot leaves,
That held all fires, all fruits;
I put the red tree to my lips
And drained it to the roots.
* * *
Beneath the smouldering trees I walk at night.
I know they burn! although they give no light.
* * *
I plucked a flame from off a tree,
Not thinking it would injure me;
It scorched my hand, it caught my hair,
It burned my heart to ashes there;
I played with fire in the wood--
No woman should, no woman should!
* * *
All day it rains--but on the hill
The dripping embers warm me still!
* * *
Hush--
Is this the burning bush
That Moses heard?
And was the voice a bird?
New England Cottage
The house is all in wooden rags,
The chimney tilts, the gable sags,
And where I pass
Are weedy flags
That my feet guess.
A horse-shoe rusts above the door,
Young roses prowl the porch’s floor,
Up in the dark
Wide sycamore
Is thrushes’ talk.
And here, a well not yet gone dry!
Lean in and meet its mellow eye,
Look deep, to where
A round of sky
Lurks with its star.
Happy old house of moldy beams,
Of cobweb rooms and loosening seams,
Besieged old walls
That guard their dreams
Like sentinels.
Old ark--slow-withering stick and stone,
Oak flesh that fades on iron bone;
And not deserted,
Just alone
And drowsy-hearted.
Migration
The dawn is dizzy with birds:
Summer’s last handful scattered wide,
Summer’s last pennies sung aside!
Jingle of birds in the dawn:
Hedges and bushes in beggared need,
Lifting brown hands with a desolate greed!
Spendthrift content in the dawn:
Squandered uncounted across the sky,
But into no purse will these winged coins fly!
The dawn is a resolute path
Of irresolute flight and dim half-tunes--
But I am a miser of hoarded Junes!
The dawn is dizzy with birds.
Sand-pipings
_GULLS_
Strong wings in the stormy weather--
Gray stitches that hold
The raveling fabrics of sea and sky
Forever together!
_STORM’S END_
As if engraved upon the dawn,
The sleek gulls stand
Along the rim of an exhausted sea
That rumbles up the sand.
Amazing birds, untired and trim of wing,
Whose round unflinching eyes
Meet like a challenge the leaden-lidded sun
About to rise.
_FOR A SPRING DAY_
Here is no bud, no blade,
No young green thing;
This stark earth knows a meager spring.
Gulls are the only birds,
And thin their cries,
Bleak winter in their frosty eyes.
Somewhere, are fields and boughs,
A hill, a brook;
I would not lift my head to look
From this wind-shapen dune,
This stern still place,
This sea that stares me in the face,
This unimpeded sun!--
And for my hand,
The fine unfecund yellow sand!
King’s Garden
Who was the royal Ming
That bade his tinkling musicians play
All through a wide and windy day
Of spring
To the royal flowers?
--Bliss
Of tall iris,
Discreet applause
Of cherry and almond boughs
Along the ledges
Of sun-lacquered hours;
Pursed lily-pods
Out-lipping one by one,
And sudden hush
Amid the lush
Green sedges!--
There walked the king
Beneath the quivering
Leaves,
The weary players bidden
Play on and on,
With slight, imperial nods;
And in his satin sleeves
His hands, omniscient, hidden,
As are the hands of gods.
Abrigada
I had been told
A foolish tale:
Of stone, dank, cold.
But you,
Erect to winter storm,
To clutch of frosty-fingered gale,
Are warm.
I thought that stone was silent too,
Unmoved by beauty,
Unaware of season or of mirth,
(Stern sister of quiet earth),
But I hear laughter, singing, as I lay
My face against your gray
Surely I hear a rhythm of near waves
And sense the leaping spray,
Mixed with wild-rose and honeysuckle,
Budding sassafras,
And the cool breath of pungent leafy bay?
I knew that walls were sheltering
And strong,
But you have sheltered love so long
That love is part
Of your straight towering,
Lifting you straighter still,
As heart lifts heart--
Hush--
How the Whip-poor-will
Wails from his bush,
The thrush
Is garrulous with delight,
There is a rapture in that liquid monotone:
“Bob-White! Bob-_White_!”
(Dear living stone!)
* * *
In the great room below,
Where arches hold the listening spaces,
Flames crackle, toss and gleam
In the red fire-places;
Memories dream--
Of other memories, perhaps,
Of other lives;
Of births
And of re-births that men deem death;
Of voices, foot-steps tapping the stone floor,
And faces--faces--
Beyond, the open door,
The meadow drowsy with the moon,
The mild outline of dune,
The lake, the silver magic in the trees:
Walls, you are one with these.
* * *
Up on the loggia-roof,
Under stars pale as they,
Two silent ones have crept away,
Seeking the deeper silence lovers know;
Into the drifting shadows of the night,
Into the aching beauty of the night
They dare to go.
The moon
Is a vast cocoon,
Spinning her wild white thread
Across the sky;
A thousand crickets croon
Their sharp-edged lullaby;
I hear a murmuring of lips on lips:
“All that I am, beloved--
All--”
(Lovers’ eternal cry!)
Hold them still closer, wall!
* * *
You stand serene.
The salt winds linger, lean
Upon your breast;
The mist
Lifts up a gray face to be kissed;
The east and west
Hang you with banners,
Flaunt their brief victories of dusk and dawn;
Seasons salute you as they pass,
Call to you and are gone.
Amid your meadow-grass,
Lush, green,
You stand serene.
* * *
Houses are like the hearts of men,
I think;
They must have life within,
(This is their meat and drink),
They must have fires and friends and kin,
Love for the day and night,
Children in strong young laps:
Then they live--then!
Houses and hearts of men,
Joyful and woeful,
Haunted perhaps;
Loving, forgetting,
Loved and forgot,
Fading at last, to die,
Crumble and rot:
But they who know you, Abrigada,
They and I
Forget you not.
* * *
Nor they who stand
On Abrigada’s roof,
(Red-tiled, aloof),
Who climb as I climb now,
Withdrawn from reach of hand,
From call of crowd,
Looking down on distance, dune and bough,
And looking up on distance, cloud and cloud.
Only not looking back!
For it is well finally to forget
The thirst, the much-lipped cup,
The plethora, the piteous lack,
The broken things, the stains, the scars--
Well to look up and up:
To dream undaunted dreams aloud
And stumble toward the stars!
* * *
_This be in praise
Of Abrigada,
In all the ways
That come to me
Through the mild midsummer days._
_In speech;
In rhyme and rhythm of written word--
Name it a poem, maybe!_
_In song:
Tuck the brown shining wood under my chin--
My bird,
My heart,
My violin!_
_In dream;
In prayer;
In silence, best of all,
Leaning there
On the beloved wall._
_In silence like a cry,
Ardent and high;
A note of Abrigada’s silence
Sung to a quiet sky._