_WINTER DAWN_
GREEN star Sirius
Dribbling over the lake;
The stars have gone so far on their road,
Yet we're awake!
Without a sound
The new young year comes in
And is half-way over the lake.
We must begin
Again. This love so full
Of hate has hurt us so,
We lie side by side
Moored--but no,
Let me get up
And wash quite clean
Of this hate.--
So green
The great star goes!
I am washed quite clean,
Quite clean of it all.
But e'en
So cold, so cold and clean
Now the hate is gone!
It is all no good,
I am chilled to the bone
Now the hate is gone;
There is nothing left;
I am pure like bone,
Of all feeling bereft.
_A BAD BEGINNING_
THE yellow sun steps over the mountain-top
And falters a few short steps across the lake--
Are you awake?
See, glittering on the milk-blue, morning lake
They are laying the golden racing-track of the
sun;
The day has begun.
The sun is in my eyes, I must get up.
I want to go, there's a gold road blazes before
My breast--which is so sore.
What?--your throat is bruised, bruised with my
kisses?
Ah, but if I am cruel what then are you?
I am bruised right through.
What if I love you!--This misery
Of your dissatisfaction and misprision
Stupefies me.
Ah yes, your open arms! Ah yes, ah yes,
You would take me to your breast!--But no,
You should come to mine,
It were better so.
Here I am--get up and come to me!
Not as a visitor either, nor a sweet
And winsome child of innocence; nor
As an insolent mistress telling my pulse's beat.
Come to me like a woman coming home
To the man who is her husband, all the rest
Subordinate to this, that he and she
Are joined together for ever, as is best.
Behind me on the lake I hear the steamer drum-
ming
From Austria. There lies the world, and here
Am I. Which way are you coming?
_WHY DOES SHE WEEP?_
HUSH then
why do you cry?
It's you and me
the same as before.
If you hear a rustle
it's only a rabbit
gone back to his hole
in a bustle.
If something stirs in the branches
overhead, it will be a squirrel moving
uneasily, disturbed by the stress
of our loving.
Why should you cry then?
Are you afraid of God
in the dark?
I'm not afraid of God.
Let him come forth.
If he is hiding in the cover
let him come forth.
Now in the cool of the day
it is we who walk in the trees
and call to God "Where art thou?"
And it is he who hides.
Why do you cry?
My heart is bitter.
Let God come forth to justify
himself now.
Why do you cry?
Is it Wehmut, ist dir weh?
Weep then, yea
for the abomination of our old righteousness,
We have done wrong
many times;
but this time we begin to do right.
Weep then, weep
for the abomination of our past righteousness.
God will keep
hidden, he won't come forth.
_GIORNO DEI MORTI_
ALONG the avenue of cypresses
All in their scarlet cloaks, and surplices
Of linen go the chanting choristers,
The priests in gold and black, the villagers. . . .
And all along the path to the cemetery
The round dark heads of men crowd silently,
And black-scarved faces of women-folk, wistfully
Watch at the banner of death, and the mystery.
And at the foot of a grave a father stands
With sunken head, and forgotten, folded hands;
And at the foot of a grave a mother kneels
With pale shut face, nor either hears nor feels
The coming of the chanting choristers
Between the avenue of cypresses,
The silence of the many villagers,
The candle-flames beside the surplices.
_ALL SOULS_
THEY are chanting now the service of All the Dead
And the village folk outside in the burying ground
Listen--except those who strive with their dead,
Reaching out in anguish, yet unable quite to
touch them:
Those villagers isolated at the grave
Where the candles burn in the daylight, and the
painted wreaths
Are propped on end, there, where the mystery
starts.
The naked candles burn on every grave.
On your grave, in England, the weeds grow.
But I am your naked candle burning,
And that is not your grave, in England,
The world is your grave.
And my naked body standing on your grave
Upright towards heaven is burning off to you
Its flame of life, now and always, till the end.
It is my offering to you; every day is All Souls'
Day.
I forget you, have forgotten you.
I am busy only at my burning,
I am busy only at my life.
But my feet are on your grave, planted.
And when I lift my face, it is a flame that goes up
To the other world, where you are now.
But I am not concerned with you.
I have forgotten you.