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Poems _by_ Edna St. Vincent Millay
Poems _by_
Edna St. Vincent Millay
❦
London
Martin Secker
1923
_Printed in Great Britain_
_London: Martin Secker (Ltd.) 1923_
CONTENTS
_Section One_
Renascence, 13
God’s World, 22
Afternoon on a Hill, 23
Journey, 24
Sorrow, 26
Tavern, 27
Ashes of Life, 28
The Little Ghost, 29
Kin to Sorrow, 31
Three Songs of Shattering, 32
The Shroud, 34
The Dream, 35
Indifference, 36
Witch-wife, 37
Blight, 38
When the Year Grows Old, 40
Unnamed Sonnets, i-v, 42
Sonnet vi (Bluebeard), 47
_Section Two_
I, 51
II, 51
Recuerdo, 52
Thursday, 53
To the Not Impossible Him, 54
The Singing-Woman from the Wood’s Edge, 55
Humoresque, 58
She is Overheard Singing, 59
The Unexplorer, 61
Grown-up, 62
The Penitent, 63
Daphne, 64
Portrait by a Neighbour, 65
The Merry Maid, 66
To S. M., 67
The Philosopher, 68
Sonnet--Love, Though for This, 69
Sonnet--I Think I Should Have Loved You, 70
Sonnet--Oh, Think Not I am Faithful, 71
Sonnet--I Shall Forget You Presently, 72
_Section Three_
Spring, 75
City Trees, 76
The Blue-Flag in the Bog, 77
Eel-Grass, 86
Elegy before Death, 87
The Bean-Stalk, 88
Weeds, 90
Passer Mortuus Est, 91
Pastoral, 92
Assault, 93
Travel, 94
Low-Tide, 95
Song of a Second April, 96
The Poet and his Book, 97
Alms, 102
Inland, 104
To a Poet that Died Young, 105
Wraith, 107
Ebb, 109
Elaine, 110
Burial, 111
Mariposa, 112
Doubt no more that Oberon, 113
Lament, 114
Exiled, 115
The Death of Autumn, 117
Ode to Silence, 118
Memorial to D. C., 127
Unnamed Sonnets, i-xii, 134
Wild Swans, 146
SECTION ONE
_Renascence_
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 for evermore.
The Universe, cleft to the core,
Lay open to my probing sense
That, sick’ning, 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 under ground;
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-coloured, multiform,
Beloved 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 cannot keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat--the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.
_God’s World_
O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists, that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!
Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this;
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart,--Lord, I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year;
My soul is all but out of me,--let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.
_Afternoon on a Hill_
I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.
I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.
And when lights begin to show
Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down.
_Journey_
Ah, could I lay me down in this long grass
And close my eyes, and let the quiet wind
Blow over me,--I am so tired, so tired
Of passing pleasant places! All my life,
Following Care along the dusty road,
Have I looked back at loveliness and sighed;
Yet at my hand an unrelenting hand
Tugged ever, and I passed. All my life long
Over my shoulder have I looked at peace
And now I fain would lie in this long grass
And close my eyes.
Yet onward!
Cat-birds call
Through the long afternoon, and creeks at dusk
Are guttural. Whip-poor-wills wake and cry,
Drawing the twilight close about their throats.
Only my heart makes answer. Eager vines
Go up the rocks and wait; flushed apple-trees
Pause in their dance and break the ring for me;
Dim, shady wood-roads, redolent of fern
And bayberry, that through sweet bevies thread
Of round-faced roses, pink and petulant,
Look back and beckon ere they disappear.
Only my heart, only my heart responds.
Yet, ah, my path is sweet on either side
All through the dragging day,--sharp underfoot,
And hot, and like dead mist the dry dust hangs--
But far, oh, far as passionate eye can reach,
And long, ah, long as rapturous eye can cling,
The world is mine: blue hill, still silver lake,
Broad field, bright flower, and the long white road
A gateless garden, and an open path:
My feet to follow, and my heart to hold.
_Sorrow_
Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
Beats upon my heart.
People twist and scream in pain,--
Dawn will find them still again;
This has neither wax nor wane,
Neither stop nor start.
People dress and go to town;
I sit in my chair.
All my thoughts are slow and brown:
Standing up or sitting down
Little matters, or what gown
Or what shoes I wear.
_Tavern_
I’ll keep a little tavern
Below the high hill’s crest,
Wherein all grey-eyed people
May sit them down and rest.
There shall be plates a-plenty,
And mugs to melt the chill
Of all the grey-eyed people
Who happen up the hill.
There sound will sleep the traveller,
And dream his journey’s end,
But I will rouse at midnight
The falling fire to tend.
Aye, ’tis a curious fancy--
But all the good I know
Was taught me out of two grey eyes
A long time ago.
_Ashes of Life_
Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
Eat I must, and sleep I will,--and would that night were here!
But ah!--to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
Would that it were day again!--with twilight near!
Love has gone and left me and I don’t know what to do;
This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
But all the things that I begin I leave before I’m through,--
There’s little use in anything as far as I can see.
Love has gone and left me,--and the neighbours knock and borrow,
And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse,--
And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
There’s this little street and this little house.
_The Little Ghost_
I knew her for a little ghost
That in my garden walked;
The wall is high--higher than most--
And the green gate was locked.
And yet I did not think of that
Till after she was gone--
I knew her by the broad white hat,
All ruffled, she had on.
By the dear ruffles round her feet,
By her small hands that hung
In their lace mitts, austere and sweet,
Her gown’s white folds among.
I watched to see if she would stay,
What she would do--and oh!
She looked as if she liked the way
I let my garden grow!
She bent above my favourite mint
With conscious garden grace,
She smiled and smiled--there was no hint
Of sadness in her face.
She held her gown on either side
To let her slippers show,
And up the walk she went with pride,
The way great ladies go.
And where the wall is built in new
And is of ivy bare
She paused--then opened and passed through
A gate that once was there.
_Kin to Sorrow_
Am I kin to Sorrow,
That so oft
Falls the knocker of my door--
Neither loud nor soft,
But as long accustomed,
Under Sorrow’s hand?
Marigolds around the step
And rosemary stand,
And then comes Sorrow--
And what does Sorrow care
For the rosemary
Or the marigolds there?
Am I kin to Sorrow?
Are we kin?
That so oft upon my door--
_Oh, come in!_
_Three Songs of Shattering_
I
The first rose on my rose-tree
Budded, bloomed, and shattered,
During sad days when to me
Nothing mattered.
Grief of grief has drained me clean;
Still it seems a pity
No one saw,--it must have been
Very pretty.
II
Let the little birds sing;
Let the little lambs play;
Spring is here; and so ’tis spring;--
But not in the old way!
I recall a place
Where a plum-tree grew;
There you lifted up your face,
And blossoms covered you.
If the little birds sing,
And the little lambs play,
Spring is here; and so ’tis spring--
But not in the old way!
III
All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree!
Ere spring was going--ah! spring is gone!
And there comes no summer to the like of you and me,--
Blossom time is early, but no fruit sets on.
All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree,
Browned at the edges, turned in a day;
And I would with all my heart they trimmed a mound for me,
And weeds were tall on all the paths that led that way!
_The Shroud_
Death, I say, my heart is bowed
Unto thine,--O mother!
This red gown will make a shroud
Good as any other!
(I, that would not wait to wear
My own bridal things,
In a dress dark as my hair
Made my answerings.
I, to-night, that till he came
Could not, could not wait,
In a gown as bright as flame
Held for them the gate.)
Death, I say, my heart is bowed
Unto thine,--O mother!
This red gown will make a shroud
Good as any other!
_The Dream_
Love, if I weep it will not matter,
And if you laugh I shall not care;
Foolish am I to think about it,
But it is good to feel you there.
Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking,--
White and awful the moonlight reached
Over the floor, and somewhere, somewhere,
There was a shutter loose,--it screeched!
Swung in the wind,--and no wind blowing!--
I was afraid, and turned to you,
Put out my hand to you for comfort,--
And you were gone! Cold, cold as dew,
Under my hand the moonlight lay!
Love, if you laugh I shall not care,
But if I weep it will not matter,--
Ah, it is good to feel you there!
_Indifference_
I said,--for Love was laggard, O, Love was slow to come,--
“I’ll hear his step and know his step when I am warm in bed;
But I’ll never leave my pillow, though there be some
As would let him in--and take him in with tears!” I said.
I lay,--for Love was laggard, O, he came not until dawn,--
I lay and listened for his step and could not get to sleep;
And he found me at my window with my big cloak on,
All sorry with the tears some folks might weep!
_Witch-Wife_
She is neither pink nor pale,
And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine.
She has more hair than she needs;
In the sun ’tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of coloured beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.
She loves me all that she can,
And her ways to my ways resign;
But she was not made for any man,
And she never will be all mine.
_Blight_
Hard seeds of hate I planted
That should by now be grown,--
Rough stalks, and from thick stamens
A poisonous pollen blown,
And odours rank, unbreathable,
From dark corollas thrown!
At dawn from my damp garden
I shook the chilly dew;
The thin boughs locked behind me
That sprang to let me through;
The blossoms slept,--I sought a place
Where nothing lovely grew.
And there, when day was breaking,
I knelt and looked around:
The light was near, the silence
Was palpitant with sound;
I drew my hate from out my breast
And thrust it in the ground.
Oh, ye so fiercely tended,
Ye little seeds of hate!
I bent above your growing
Early and noon and late,
Yet are ye drooped and pitiful,--
I cannot rear ye straight!
The sun seeks out my garden,
No nook is left in shade,
No mist nor mould nor mildew
Endures on any blade,
Sweet rain slants under every bough:
Ye falter, and ye fade.
_When the Year Grows Old_
I cannot but remember
When the year grows old--
October--November--
How she disliked the cold!
She used to watch the swallows
Go down across the sky,
And turn from the window
With a little sharp sigh.
And often when the brown leaves
Were brittle on the ground,
And the wind in the chimney
Made a melancholy sound,
She had a look about her
That I wish I could forget--
The look of a scared thing
Sitting in a net!
Oh, beautiful at nightfall
The soft spitting snow!
And beautiful the bare boughs
Rubbing to and fro!
But the roaring of the fire,
And the warmth of fur,
And the boiling of the kettle
Were beautiful to her!
I cannot but remember
When the year grows old--
October--November--
How she disliked the cold!
_Sonnets_
I
Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,--no,
Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair
Than small white single poppies,--I can bear
Thy beauty; though I bend before thee, though
From left to right, not knowing where to go,
I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor there
Find any refuge from thee, yet I swear
So has it been with mist,--with moonlight so.
Like him who day by day unto his draught
Of delicate poison adds him one drop more
Till he may drink unharmed the death of ten,
Even so, inured to beauty, who have quaffed
Each hour more deeply than the hour before,
I drink--and live--what has destroyed some men.
II
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,--so with his memory they brim!
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him!
III
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.
IV
Not in this chamber only at my birth--
When the long hours of that mysterious night
Were over, and the morning was in sight--
I cried, but in strange places, steppe and firth
I have not seen, through alien grief and mirth;
And never shall one room contain me quite
Who in so many rooms first saw the light,
Child of all mothers, native of the earth.
So is no warmth for me at any fire
To-day, when the world’s fire has burned so low;
I kneel, spending my breath in vain desire,
At that cold hearth which one time roared so strong,
And straighten back in weariness, and long
To gather up my little gods and go.
V
If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
That you were gone, not to return again--
Read from the back-page of a paper, say,
Held by a neighbour in a subway train,
How at the corner of this avenue
And such a street (so are the papers filled)
A hurrying man--who happened to be you--
At noon to-day had happened to be killed,
I should not cry aloud--I could not cry
Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place--
I should but watch the station lights rush by
With a more careful interest on my face,
Or raise my eyes and read with greater care
Where to store furs and how to treat the hair.
VI
_Bluebeard_
This door you might not open, and you did;
So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed.... Here is no treasure hid,
No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain
For greed like yours, no writhings of distress,
But only what you see.... Look yet again--
An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless.
Yet this alone out of my life I kept
Unto myself, lest any know me quite;
And you did so profane me when you crept
Unto the threshold of this room to-night
That I must never more behold your face.
This now is yours. I seek another place.
SECTION TWO
I
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends--
It gives a lovely light!
II
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!
_Recuerdo_
We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable--
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.
We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.
We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.
_Thursday_
And if I loved you Wednesday,
Well, what is that to you?
I do not love you Thursday--
So much is true.
And why you come complaining
Is more than I can see.
I loved you Wednesday,--yes--but what
Is that to me?
_To the Not Impossible Him_
How shall I know, unless I go
To Cairo and Cathay,
Whether or not this blessed spot
Is blest in every way?
Now it may be, the flower for me
Is this beneath my nose;
How shall I tell, unless I smell
The Carthaginian rose?
The fabric of my faithful love
No power shall dim or ravel
Whilst I stay here,--but oh, my dear,
If I should ever travel!
_The Singing-Woman from the Wood’s Edge_
What should I be but a prophet and a liar,
Whose mother was a leprechaun, whose father was a friar?
Teethed on a crucifix and cradled under water,
What should I be but the fiend’s god-daughter?
And who should be my playmates but the adder and the frog,
That was got beneath a furze-bush and born in a bog?
And what should be my singing, that was christened at an altar,
But Aves and Credos and Psalms out of the Psalter?
You will see such webs on the wet grass, maybe,
As a pixie-mother weaves for her baby,
You will find such flame at the wave’s weedy ebb
As flashes in the meshes of a mer-mother’s web,
But there comes to birth no common spawn
From the love of a priest for a leprechaun,
And you never have seen and you never will see
Such things as the things that swaddled me!
After all’s said and after all’s done,
What should I be but a harlot and a nun?
In through the bushes, on any foggy day,
My dad would come a-swishing of the drops away,
With a prayer for my death and a groan for my birth,
A-mumbling of his beads for all that he was worth.
And there’d sit my ma, with her knees beneath her chin,
A-looking in his face and a-drinking of it in,
And a-marking in the moss some funny little saying
That would mean just the opposite of all that he was praying!
He taught me the holy-talk of Vesper and of Matin,
He heard me my Greek and he heard me my Latin,
He blessed me and crossed me to keep my soul from evil,
And we watched him out of sight, and we conjured up the devil!
Oh, the things I haven’t seen and the things I haven’t known,
What with hedges and ditches till after I was grown,
And yanked both ways by my mother and my father,
With a “Which would you better?” and a “Which would you rather?”
With him for a sire and her for a dam,
What should I be but just what I am?
_Humoresque_
“Heaven bless the babe!” they said;
“What queer books she must have read!”
(Love, by whom I was beguiled,
Grant I may not bear a child.)
“Little does she guess to-day
What the world may be,” they say.
(Snow, drift deep and cover
Till the spring my murdered lover.)
_She is Overheard Singing_
Oh, Prue she has a patient man,
And Joan a gentle lover,
And Agatha’s Arth’ is a hug-the-hearth,--
But my true love’s a rover!
Mig, her man’s as good as cheese
And honest as a briar,
Sue tells her love what he’s thinking of,--
But my dear lad’s a liar!
Oh, Sue and Prue and Agatha
Are thick with Mig and Joan!
They bite their threads and shake their heads
And gnaw my name like a bone;
And Prue says, “Mine’s a patient man,
As never snaps me up,”
And Agatha, “Arth’ is a hug-the-hearth,
Could live content in a cup;”
Sue’s man’s mind is like good jell--
All one colour, and clear--
And Mig’s no call to think at all
What’s to come next year,
While Joan makes boast of a gentle lad,
That’s troubled with that and this;--
But they all would give the life they live
For a look from the man I kiss!
Cold he slants his eyes about,
And few enough’s his choice,--
Though he’d slip me clean for a nun, or a queen,
Or a beggar with knots in her voice,--
And Agatha will turn awake
When her good man sleeps sound,
And Mig and Sue and Joan and Prue
Will hear the clock strike round;
For Prue she has a patient man,
As asks not when or why,
And Mig and Sue have naught to do
But peep who’s passing by,
Joan is paired with a putterer
That bastes and tastes and salts,
And Agatha’s Arth’ is a hug-the-hearth,--
But my true love is false!
_The Unexplorer_
There was a road ran past our house
Too lovely to explore.
I asked my mother once--she said
That if you followed where it led
It brought you to the milk-man’s door.
(That’s why I have not travelled more.)
_Grown-Up_
Was it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
That now, domestic as a plate,
I should retire at half-past eight?
_The Penitent_
I had a little Sorrow,
Born of a little Sin,
I found a room all damp with gloom
And shut us all within;
And, “Little Sorrow, weep,” said I,
“And, Little Sin, pray God to die,
And I upon the floor will lie
And think how bad I’ve been!”
Alas for pious planning--
It mattered not a whit!
As far as gloom went in that room,
The lamp might have been lit!
My Little Sorrow would not weep,
My Little Sin would go to sleep--
To save my soul I could not keep
My graceless mind on it!
So up I got in anger,
And took a book I had,
And put a ribbon on my hair
To please a passing lad.
And, “One thing there’s no getting by--
I’ve been a wicked girl,” said I;
“But if I can’t be sorry, why,
I might as well be glad!”
_Daphne_
Why do you follow me?--
Any moment I can be
Nothing but a laurel-tree.
Any moment of the chase
I can leave you in my place
A pink bough for your embrace.
Yet if over hill and hollow,
Still it is your will to follow,
I am off;--to heel, Apollo!
_Portrait by a Neighbour_
Before she has her floor swept
Or her dishes done,
Any day you’ll find her
A-sunning in the sun!
It’s long after midnight
Her key’s in the lock,
And you never see her chimney smoke
Till past ten o’clock!
She digs in her garden
With a shovel and a spoon,
She weeds her lazy lettuce
By the light of the moon.
She walks up the walk
Like a woman in a dream,
She forgets she borrowed butter
And pays you back cream!
Her lawn looks like a meadow,
And if she mows the place
She leaves the clover standing
And the Queen Anne’s lace!
_The Merry Maid_
Oh, I am grown so free from care
Since my heart broke!
I set my throat against the air,
I laugh at simple folk!
There’s little kind and little fair
Is worth its weight in smoke
To me, that’s grown so free from care
Since my heart broke!
Lass, if to sleep you would repair
As peaceful as you woke,
Best not besiege your lover there
For just the words he spoke
To me, that’s grown so free from care
Since my heart broke!
_To S. M._
_If he should lie a-dying_
I am not willing you should go
Into the earth, where Helen went;
She is awake by now, I know.
Where Cleopatra’s anklets rust
You will not lie with my consent;
And Sappho is a roving dust;
Cressid could love again; Dido,
Rotted in state, is restless still;
You leave me much against my will.
_The Philosopher_
And what are you that, wanting you,
I should be kept awake
As many nights as there are days
With weeping for your sake?
And what are you that, missing you,
As many days as crawl
I should be listening to the wind
And looking at the wall?
I know a man that’s a braver man
And twenty men as kind,
And what are you, that you should be
The one man in my mind?
Yet women’s ways are witless ways,
As any sage will tell,--
And what am I, that I should love
So wisely and so well?
_Four Sonnets_
I
Love, though for this you riddle me with darts,
And drag me at your chariot till I die,--
Oh, heavy prince! Oh, panderer of hearts!--
Yet hear me tell how in their throats they lie
Who shout you mighty: thick about my hair,
Day in, day out, your ominous arrows purr,
Who still am free, unto no querulous care
A fool, and in no temple worshipper!
I, that have bared me to your quiver’s fire,
Lifted my face into its puny rain,
Do wreathe you Impotent to Evoke Desire
As you are Powerless to Elicit Pain!
(Now will the god, for blasphemy so brave,
Punish me, surely, with the shaft I crave!)
II
I think I should have loved you presently,
And given in earnest words I flung in jest;
And lifted honest eyes for you to see,
And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;
And all my pretty follies flung aside
That won you to me, and beneath your gaze,
Naked of reticence and shorn of pride,
Spread like a chart my little wicked ways.
I, that had been to you, had you remained,
But one more waking from a recurrent dream,
Cherish no less the certain stakes I gained,
And walk your memory’s halls, austere, supreme,
A ghost in marble of a girl you knew
Who would have loved you in a day or two.
III
Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow!
Faithless am I save to love’s self alone.
Were you not lovely I would leave you now:
After the feet of beauty fly my own.
Were you not still my hunger’s rarest food,
And water ever to my wildest thirst,
I would desert you--think not but I would!--
And seek another as I sought you first.
But you are mobile as the veering air,
And all your charms more changeful than the tide,
Wherefore to be inconstant is no care:
I have but to continue at your side.
So wanton, light and false, my love, are you,
I am most faithless when I most am true.
IV
I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year,
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favourite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And oaths were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far,--
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.
SECTION THREE
_Spring_
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
_City Trees_
The trees along this city street,
Save for the traffic and the trains,
Would make a sound as thin and sweet
As trees in country lanes.
And people standing in their shade
Out of a shower, undoubtedly
Would hear such music as is made
Upon a country tree.
Oh, little leaves that are so dumb
Against the shrieking city air,
I watch you when the wind has come--
I know what sound is there.
_The Blue-Flag in the Bog_
God had called us, and we came;
Our loved Earth to ashes left;
Heaven was a neighbour’s house,
Open flung to us, bereft.
Gay the lights of Heaven showed,
And ’twas God Who walked ahead;
Yet I wept along the road,
Wanting my own house instead.
Wept unseen, unheeded cried,
“All you things my eyes have kissed,
Fare you well! We meet no more,
Lovely, lovely tattered mist!
Weary wings that rise and fall
All day long above the fire!”--
Red with heat was every wall,
Rough with heat was every wire--
“Fare you well, you little winds
That the flying embers chase!
Fare you well, you shuddering day,
With your hands before your face!
And, ah, blackened by strange blight,
Or to a false sun unfurled,
Now for evermore good-bye,
All the gardens in the world!
On the windless hills of Heaven,
That I have no wish to see,
White, eternal lilies stand,
By a lake of ebony.
But the Earth forevermore
Is a place where nothing grows,--
Dawn will come, and no bud break;
Evening, and no blossom close.
Spring will come, and wander slow
Over an indifferent land,
Stand beside an empty creek,
Hold a dead seed in her hand.”
God had called us, and we came,
But the blessed road I trod
Was a bitter road to me,
And at heart I questioned God.
“Though in Heaven,” I said, “be all
That the heart would most desire,
Held Earth naught save souls of sinners
Worth the saving from a fire?
Withered grass,--the wasted growing!
Aimless ache of laden boughs!”
Little things God had forgotten
Called me, from my burning house.
“Though in Heaven,” I said, “be all
That the eye could ask to see,
All the things I ever knew
Are this blaze in back of me.”
“Though in Heaven,” I said, “be all
That the ear could think to lack,
All the things I ever knew
Are this roaring at my back.”
It was God Who walked ahead,
Like a shepherd to the fold;
In His footsteps fared the weak,
And the weary and the old,
Glad enough of gladness over,
Ready for the peace to be,--
But a thing God had forgotten
Was the growing bones of me.
And I drew a bit apart,
And I lagged a bit behind,
And I thought on Peace Eternal,
Lest He look into my mind;
And I gazed upon the sky,
And I thought of Heavenly Rest,--
And I slipped away like water
Through the fingers of the blest!
All their eyes were fixed on Glory,
Not a glance brushed over me;
“Alleluia! Alleluia!”
Up the road,--and I was free.
And my heart rose like a freshet,
And it swept me on before,
Giddy as a whirling stick,
Till I felt the earth once more.
All the Earth was charred and black,
had swept from pole to pole;
And the bottom of the sea
Was as brittle as a bowl;
And the timbered mountain-top
Was as naked as a skull,--
Nothing left, nothing left,
Of the Earth so beautiful!
“Earth,” I said, “how can I leave you?
“You are all I have,” I said;
“What is left to take my mind up,
Living always, and you dead?
“Speak!” I said, “Oh, tell me something!
Make a sign that I can see!
For a keepsake! To keep always!
Quick!--before God misses me!”
And I listened for a voice;--
But my heart was all I heard;
Not a screech-owl, not a loon,
Not a tree-toad said a word.
And I waited for a sign;--
Coals and cinders, nothing more;
And a little cloud of smoke
Floating on a valley floor.
And I peered into the smoke
Till it rotted, like a fog:--
There, encompassed round by fire,
Stood a blue-flag in a bog!
Little flames came wading out,
Straining, draining towards its stem,
But it was so blue and tall
That it scorned to think of them!
Red and thirsty were their tongues,
As the tongues of wolves must be,
But it was so blue and tall--
Oh, I laughed, I cried, to see!
All my heart became a tear,
All my soul became a tower,
Never loved I anything
As I loved that tall blue flower!
It was all the little boats
That had ever sailed the sea,
It was all the little books
That had gone to school with me;
On its roots like iron claws
Rearing up so blue and tall,--
It was all the gallant Earth
With its back against a wall!
In a breath, ere I had breathed,--
Oh, I laughed, I cried, to see!--
I was kneeling at its side,
And it leaned its head on me!
Crumbling stones and sliding sand
Is the road to Heaven now;
Icy at my straining knees
Drags the awful under-tow;
Soon but stepping-stones of dust
Will the road to Heaven be,--
Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
Reach a hand and rescue me!
“There--there, my blue-flag flower;
Hush--hush--go to sleep;
That is only God you hear,
Counting up His folded sheep!
Lullabye--lullabye--
That is only God that calls,
Missing me, seeking me,
Ere the road to nothing falls!
He will set His mighty feet
Firmly on the sliding sand;
Like a little frightened bird
I will creep into His hand;
I will tell Him all my grief,
I will tell Him all my sin;
He will give me half His robe
For a cloak to wrap you in.
Lullabye--lullabye--”
Rocks the burnt-out planet free!--
Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
Reach a hand and rescue me!
Ah, the voice of love at last!
Lo, at last the face of light!
And the whole of His white robe
For a cloak against the night!
And upon my heart asleep
All the things I ever knew!--
“Holds Heaven not some cranny, Lord,
For a flower so tall and blue?”
All’s well and all’s well!
Gay the lights of Heaven show!
In some moist and Heavenly place
We will set it out to grow.
_Eel-Grass_
No matter what I say,
All that I really love
Is the rain that flattens on the bay,
And the eel-grass in the cove;
The jingle-shells that lie and bleach
At the tide-line, and the trace
Of higher tides along the beach:
Nothing in this place.
_Elegy before Death_
There will be rose and rhododendron
When you are dead and under ground;
Still will be heard from white syringas
Heavy with bees, a sunny sound;
Still will the tamaracks be raining
After the rain has ceased, and still
Will there be robins in the stubble,
Brown sheep upon the warm green hill.
Spring will not ail nor autumn falter;
Nothing will know that you are gone,
Saving alone some sullen plough-land
None but yourself sets foot upon;
Saving the may-weed and the pig-weed
Nothing will know that you are dead,--
These, and perhaps a useless wagon
Standing beside some tumbled shed.
Oh, there will pass with your great passing
Little of beauty not your own,--
Only the light from common water,
Only the grace from simple stone!
_The Bean-Stalk_
Ho, Giant! This is I!
I have built me a bean-stalk into your sky!
La,--but it’s lovely, up so high!
This is how I came,--I put
There my knee, here my foot,
Up and up, from shoot to shoot--
And the blessed bean-stalk thinning
Like the mischief all the time,
Till it took me rocking, spinning,
In a dizzy, sunny circle,
Making angles with the root,
Far and out above the cackle
Of the city I was born in,
Till the little dirty city
In the light so sheer and sunny
Shone as dazzling bright and pretty
As the money that you find
In a dream of finding money--
What a wind! What a morning!--
Till the tiny, shiny city,
When I shot a glance below,
Shaken with a giddy laughter,
Sick and blissfully afraid,
Was a dew-drop on a blade,
And a pair of moments after
Was the whirling guess I made,--
And the wind was like a whip
Cracking past my icy ears,
And my hair stood out behind,
And my eyes were full of tears,
Wide-open and cold,
More tears than they could hold,
The wind was blowing so,
And my teeth were in a row,
Dry and grinning,
And I felt my foot slip,
And I scratched the wind and whined,
And I clutched the stalk and jabbered,
With my eyes shut blind,--
What a wind! What a wind!
Your broad sky, Giant,
Is the shelf of a cupboard;
I make bean-stalks, I’m
A builder, like yourself,
But bean-stalks is my trade,
I couldn’t make a shelf,
Don’t know how they’re made,
Now, a bean-stalk is more pliant--
La, what a climb!
_Weeds_
White with daisies and red with sorrel
And empty, empty under the sky!--
Life is a quest and love a quarrel--
Here is a place for me to lie.
Daisies spring from damnèd seeds,
And this red fire that here I see
Is a worthless crop of crimson weeds,
Cursed by farmers thriftily.
But here, unhated for an hour,
The sorrel runs in ragged flame,
The daisy stands, a bastard flower,
Like flowers that bear an honest name.
And here a while, where no wind brings
The baying of a pack athirst,
May sleep the sleep of blessed things
The blood too bright, the brow accurst.
_Passer Mortuus Est_
Death devours all lovely things;
Lesbia with her sparrow
Shares the darkness,--presently
Every bed is narrow.
Unremembered as old rain
Dries the sheer libation,
And the little petulant hand
Is an annotation.
After all, my erstwhile dear,
My no longer cherished,
Need we say it was not love,
Now that love is perished?
_Pastoral_
If it were only still!--
With far away the shrill
Crying of a cock;
Or the shaken bell
From a cow’s throat
Moving through the bushes;
Or the soft shock
Of wizened apples falling
From an old tree
In a forgotten orchard
Upon the hilly rock!
Oh, grey hill,
Where the grazing herd
Licks the purple blossom,
Crops the spiky weed!
Oh, stony pasture,
Where the tall mullein
Stands up so sturdy
On its little seed!
_Assault_
I
I had forgotten how the frogs must sound
After a year of silence, else I think
I should not so have ventured forth alone
At dusk upon this unfrequented road.
II
I am waylaid by Beauty. Who will walk
Between me and the crying of the frogs?
Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass,
That am a timid woman, on her way
From one house to another!
_Travel_
The railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn’t a train goes by all day
But I hear its whistle shrieking.
All night there isn’t a train goes by,
Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,
But I see its cinders red on the sky,
And hear its engine steaming.
My heart is warm with the friends I make,
And better friends I’ll not be knowing,
Yet there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take,
No matter where it’s going.
_Low-Tide_
These wet rocks where the tide has been,
Barnacled white and weeded brown
And slimed beneath to a beautiful green,
These wet rocks where the tide went down
Will show again when the tide is high
Faint and perilous, far from shore,
No place to dream, but a place to die,--
The bottom of the sea once more.
_There was a child that wandered through
A giant’s empty house all day,--
House full of wonderful things and new,
But no fit place for a child to play._
_Song of a Second April_
April this year, not otherwise
Than April of a year ago,
Is full of whispers, full of sighs,
Of dazzling mud and dingy snow;
Hepaticas that pleased you so
Are here again, and butterflies.
There rings a hammering all day,
And shingles lie about the doors;
In orchards near and far away
The grey woodpecker taps and bores;
And men are merry at their chores,
And children earnest at their play.
The larger streams run still and deep,
Noisy and swift the small brooks run
Among the mullein stalks the sheep
Go up the hillside in the sun,
Pensively,--only you are gone,
You that alone I cared to keep.
_The Poet and his Book_
_Down, you mongrel, Death!
Back into your kennel!
I have stolen breath
In a stalk of fennel!
You shall scratch and you shall whine
Many a night, and you shall worry
Many a bone, before you bury
One sweet bone of mine!_
When shall I be dead?
When my flesh is withered,
And above my head
Yellow pollen gathered
All the empty afternoon?
When sweet lovers pause and wonder
Who am I that lie thereunder,
Hidden from the moon?
This my personal death?--
That my lungs be failing
To inhale the breath
Others are exhaling?
This my subtle spirit’s end?--
Ah, when the thawed winter splashes
Over these chance dust and ashes,
Weep not me, my friend!
Me, by no means dead
In that hour, but surely
When this book, unread,
Rots to earth obscurely,
And no more to any breast,
Close against the clamorous swelling
Of the thing there is no telling,
Are these pages pressed!
When this book is mould,
And a book of many
Waiting to be sold
For a casual penny,
In a little open case,
In a street unclean and cluttered,
Where a heavy mud is spattered
From the passing drays,
Stranger, pause and look;
From the dust of ages
Lift this little book,
Turn the tattered pages,
Read me, do not let me die!
Search the fading letters, finding
Steadfast in the broken binding
All that once was I!
When these veins are weeds,
When these hollowed sockets
Watch the rooty seeds
Bursting down like rockets,
And surmise the spring again,
Or, remote in that black cupboard,
Watch the pink worms writhing upward
At the smell of rain,
Boys and girls that lie
Whispering in the hedges,
Do not let me die,
Mix me with your pledges;
Boys and girls that slowly walk
In the woods, and weep, and quarrel,
Staring past the pink wild laurel,
Mix me with your talk,
Do not let me die!
Farmers at your raking,
When the sun is high,
While the hay is making,
When, along the stubble strewn,
Withering on their stalks uneaten,
Strawberries turn dark and sweeten
In the lapse of noon;
Shepherds on the hills,
In the pastures, drowsing
To the tinkling bells
Of the brown sheep browsing;
Sailors crying through the storm;
Scholars at your study; hunters
Lost amid the whirling winter’s
Whiteness uniform;
Men that long for sleep;
Men that wake and revel;--
If an old song leap
To your senses’ level
At such moments, may it be
Sometimes, though a moment only,
Some forgotten, quaint and homely
Vehicle of me!
Women at your toil,
Women at your leisure
Till the kettle boil,
Snatch of me your pleasure,
Where the broom-straw marks the leaf;
Women quiet with your weeping
Lest you wake a workman sleeping,
Mix me with your grief!
Boys and girls that steal
From the shocking laughter
Of the old, to kneel
By a dripping rafter
Under the discoloured eaves,
Out of trunks with hingeless covers
Lifting tales of saints and lovers,
Travellers, goblins, thieves,
Suns that shine by night,
Mountains made from valleys,--
Bear me to the light,
Flat upon your bellies
By the webby window lie,
Where the little flies are crawling,--
Read me, margin me with scrawling,
Do not let me die!
_Sexton, ply your trade!
In a shower of gravel
Stamp upon your spade!
Many a rose shall ravel,
Many a metal wreath shall rust
In the rain, and I go singing
Through the lots where you are flinging
Yellow clay on dust!_
_Alms_
My heart is what it was before,
A house where people come and go;
But it is winter with your love,
The sashes are beset with snow.
I light the lamp and lay the cloth,
I blow the coals to blaze again;
But it is winter with your love,
The frost is thick upon the pane.
I know a winter when it comes:
The leaves are listless on the boughs;
I watched your love a little while,
And brought my plants into the house.
I water them and turn them south,
I snap the dead brown from the stem;
But it is winter with your love,--
I only tend and water them.
There was a time I stood and watched
The small, ill-natured sparrows’ fray;
I loved the beggar that I fed,
I cared for what he had to say,
I stood and watched him out of sight;
To-day I reach around the door
And set a bowl upon the step;
My heart is what it was before,
But it is winter with your love;
I scatter crumbs upon the sill,
And close the window,--and the birds
May take or leave them, as they will.
_Inland_
People that build their houses inland,
People that buy a plot of ground
Shaped like a house, and build a house there,
Far from the sea-board, far from the sound
Of water sucking the hollow ledges,
Tons of water striking the shore,--
What do they long for, as I long for
One salt smell of the sea once more?