Contents

I

• Blue Squills
• Stars
• What Do I Care?
• Meadowlarks
• Driftwood
• I Have Loved Hours at Sea
• August Moonrise

II - Memories

• Places
• Old Tunes
• Only in Sleep
• Redbirds
• Sunset: St. Louis
• The Coin
• The Voice

III

• Day and Night
• Compensation
• I Remembered
• Oh You Are Coming
• The Return
• Gray Eyes
• The Net
• The Mystery

IV - In a Hospital

• Open Windows
• The New Moon
• Eight O'Clock
• Lost Things
• Pain
• The Broken Field
• The Unseen
• A Prayer

V

• Spring Torrents
• I Know the Stars
• Understanding
• Nightfall
• It Is Not a Word
• My Heart Is Heavy
• The Nights Remember
• Let It Be Forgotten

VI - The Dark Cup

• May Day
• Since There Is No Escape
• The Dreams of My Heart
• A Little While
• The Garden
• The Wine
• In a Cuban Garden
• If I Must Go

VII

• In Spring, Santa Barbara
• White Fog
• Arcturus
• Moonlight
• Morning Song
• Gray Fog
• Bells
• Lovely Chance

VIII

• There Will Come Soft Rains
• In a Garden
• Nahant
• Winter Stars
• A Boy
• Winter Dusk

IX - By the Sea

• The Unchanging
• June Night
• Like Barley Bending
• Oh Day of Fire and Sun
• I Thought of You
• On the Dunes
• Spray
• If Death Is Kind

X

• Thoughts
• Faces
• Evening: New York
• Snowfall
• The Silent Battle
• The Sanctuary
• At Sea
• Dust
• The Long Hill

XI

• Summer Storm
• In the End
• It Will Not Change
• Change
• Water Lilies
• Did You Never Know?
• The Treasure
• The Storm

XII

• The Tree
• At Midnight
• Song Making
• Alone
• Red Maples
• Debtor
• The Wind in the Hemlock

Blue Squills

How many million Aprils came

Before I ever knew

How white a cherry bough could be,

A bed of squills, how blue!

And many a dancing April

When life is done with me,

Will lift the blue flame of the flower

And the white flame of the tree.

Oh burn me with your beauty, then,

Oh hurt me, tree and flower,

Lest in the end death try to take

Even this glistening hour.

O shaken flowers, O shimmering trees,

O sunlit white and blue,

Wound me, that I, through endless sleep,

May bear the scar of you.

Stars

Alone in the night

On a dark hill

With pines around me

Spicy and still,

And a heaven full of stars

Over my head,

White and topaz

And misty red;

Myriads with beating

Hearts of fire

That aeons

Cannot vex or tire;

Up the dome of heaven

Like a great hill,

I watch them marching

Stately and still,

And I know that I

Am honored to be

Witness

Of so much majesty.

What Do I Care?"

What do I care, in the dreams and the languor of spring,

That my songs do not show me at all?

For they are a fragrance, and I am a flint and a fire,

I am an answer, they are only a call.

But what do I care, for love will be over so soon,

Let my heart have its say and my mind stand idly by,

For my mind is proud and strong enough to be silent,

It is my heart that makes my songs, not I.

Meadowlarks

In the silver light after a storm,

Under dripping boughs of bright new green,

I take the low path to hear the meadowlarks

Alone and high-hearted as if I were a queen.

What have I to fear in life or death

Who have known three things: the kiss in the night,

The white flying joy when a song is born,

And meadowlarks whistling in silver light.

Driftwood

My forefathers gave me

My spirit's shaken flame,

The shape of hands, the beat of heart,

The letters of my name.

But it was my lovers,

And not my sleeping sires,

Who gave the flame its changeful

And iridescent fires;

As the driftwood burning

Learned its jewelled blaze

From the sea's blue splendor

Of colored nights and days.

I Have Loved Hours at Sea"

I have loved hours at sea, gray cities,

The fragile secret of a flower,

Music, the making of a poem

That gave me heaven for an hour;

First stars above a snowy hill,

Voices of people kindly and wise,

And the great look of love, long hidden,

Found at last in meeting eyes.

I have loved much and been loved deeply --

Oh when my spirit's fire burns low,

Leave me the darkness and the stillness,

I shall be tired and glad to go.

August Moonrise

The sun was gone, and the moon was coming

Over the blue Connecticut hills;

The west was rosy, the east was flushed,

And over my head the swallows rushed

This way and that, with changeful wills.

I heard them twitter and watched them dart

Now together and now apart

Like dark petals blown from a tree;

The maples stamped against the west

Were black and stately and full of rest,

And the hazy orange moon grew up

And slowly changed to yellow gold

While the hills were darkened, fold on fold

To a deeper blue than a flower could hold.

Down the hill I went, and then

I forgot the ways of men,

For night-scents, heady, and damp and cool

Wakened ecstasy in me

On the brink of a shining pool.

O Beauty, out of many a cup

You have made me drunk and wild

Ever since I was a child,

But when have I been sure as now

That no bitterness can bend

And no sorrow wholly bow

One who loves you to the end?

And though I must give my breath

And my laughter all to death,

And my eyes through which joy came,

And my heart, a wavering flame;

If all must leave me and go back

Along a blind and fearful track

So that you can make anew,

Fusing with intenser fire,

Something nearer your desire;

If my soul must go alone

Through a cold infinity,

Or even if it vanish, too,

Beauty, I have worshipped you.

Let this single hour atone

For the theft of all of me.

Places

Places I love come back to me like music,

Hush me and heal me when I am very tired;

I see the oak woods at Saxton's flaming

In a flare of crimson by the frost newly fired;

And I am thirsty for the spring in the valley

As for a kiss ungiven and long desired.

I know a bright world of snowy hills at Boonton,

A blue and white dazzling light on everything one sees,

The ice-covered branches of the hemlocks sparkle

Bending low and tinkling in the sharp thin breeze,

And iridescent crystals fall and crackle on the snow-crust

With the winter sun drawing cold blue shadows from the trees.

Violet now, in veil on veil of evening

The hills across from Cromwell grow dreamy and far;

A wood-thrush is singing soft as a viol

In the heart of the hollow where the dark pools are;

The primrose has opened her pale yellow flowers

And heaven is lighting star after star.

Places I love come back to me like music --

Mid-ocean, midnight, the waves buzz drowsily;

In the ship's deep churning the eerie phosphorescence

Is like the souls of people who were drowned at sea,

And I can hear a man's voice, speaking, hushed, insistent,

At midnight, in mid-ocean, hour on hour to me.

Old Tunes

As the waves of perfume, heliotrope, rose,

Float in the garden when no wind blows,

Come to us, go from us, whence no one knows;

So the old tunes float in my mind,

And go from me leaving no trace behind,

Like fragrance borne on the hush of the wind.

But in the instant the airs remain

I know the laughter and the pain

Of times that will not come again.

I try to catch at many a tune

Like petals of light fallen from the moon,

Broken and bright on a dark lagoon,

But they float away -- for who can hold

Youth, or perfume or the moon's gold?

Only in Sleep"

Only in sleep I see their faces,

Children I played with when I was a child,

Louise comes back with her brown hair braided,

Annie with ringlets warm and wild.

Only in sleep Time is forgotten --

What may have come to them, who can know?

Yet we played last night as long ago,

And the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair.

The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces,

I met their eyes and found them mild --

Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder,

And for them am I too a child?

Redbirds

Redbirds, redbirds,

Long and long ago,

What a honey-call you had

In hills I used to know;

Redbud, buckberry,

Wild plum-tree

And proud river sweeping

Southward to the sea,

Brown and gold in the sun

Sparkling far below,

Trailing stately round her bluffs

Where the poplars grow --

Redbirds, redbirds,

Are you singing still

As you sang one May day

On Saxton's Hill?

Sunset: St. Louis

Hushed in the smoky haze of summer sunset,

When I came home again from far-off places,

How many times I saw my western city

Dream by her river.

Then for an hour the water wore a mantle

Of tawny gold and mauve and misted turquoise

Under the tall and darkened arches bearing

Gray, high-flung bridges.

Against the sunset, water-towers and steeples

Flickered with fire up the slope to westward,

And old warehouses poured their purple shadows

Across the levee.

High over them the black train swept with thunder,

Cleaving the city, leaving far beneath it

Wharf-boats moored beside the old side-wheelers

Resting in twilight.

The Coin

Into my heart's treasury

I slipped a coin

That time cannot take

Nor a thief purloin, --

Oh better than the minting

Of a gold-crowned king

Is the safe-kept memory

Of a lovely thing.

The Voice

Atoms as old as stars,

Mutation on mutation,

Millions and millions of cells

Dividing yet still the same,

From air and changing earth,

From ancient Eastern rivers,

From turquoise tropic seas,

Unto myself I came.

My spirit like my flesh

Sprang from a thousand sources,

From cave-man, hunter and shepherd,

From Karnak, Cyprus, Rome;

The living thoughts in me

Spring from dead men and women,

Forgotten time out of mind

And many as bubbles of foam.

Here for a moment's space

Into the light out of darkness,

I come and they come with me

Finding words with my breath;

From the wisdom of many life-times

I hear them cry: "Forever

Seek for Beauty, she only

Fights with man against Death!"

Day and Night

In Warsaw in Poland

Half the world away,

The one I love best of all

Thought of me to-day;

I know, for I went

Winged as a bird,

In the wide flowing wind

His own voice I heard;

His arms were round me

In a ferny place,

I looked in the pool

And there was his face --

But now it is night

And the cold stars say:

"Warsaw in Poland

Is half the world away."

Compensation

I should be glad of loneliness

And hours that go on broken wings,

A thirsty body, a tired heart

And the unchanging ache of things,

If I could make a single song

As lovely and as full of light,

As hushed and brief as a falling star

On a winter night.

I Remembered

There never was a mood of mine,

Gay or heart-broken, luminous or dull,

But you could ease me of its fever

And give it back to me more beautiful.

In many another soul I broke the bread,

And drank the wine and played the happy guest,

But I was lonely, I remembered you;

The heart belongs to him who knew it best.

Oh You Are Coming"

Oh you are coming, coming, coming,

How will hungry Time put by the hours till then? --

But why does it anger my heart to long so

For one man out of the world of men?

Oh I would live in myself only

And build my life lightly and still as a dream --

Are not my thoughts clearer than your thoughts

And colored like stones in a running stream?

Now the slow moon brightens in heaven,

The stars are ready, the night is here --

Oh why must I lose myself to love you,

My dear?

The Return

He has come, he is here,

My love has come home,

The minutes are lighter

Than flying foam,

The hours are like dancers

On gold-slippered feet,

The days are young runners

Naked and fleet --

For my love has returned,

He is home, he is here,

In the whole world no other

Is dear as my dear!

Gray Eyes

It was April when you came

The first time to me,

And my first look in your eyes

Was like my first look at the sea.

We have been together

Four Aprils now

Watching for the green

On the swaying willow bough;

Yet whenever I turn

To your gray eyes over me,

It is as though I looked

For the first time at the sea.

The Net

I made you many and many a song,

Yet never one told all you are --

It was as though a net of words

Were flung to catch a star;

It was as though I curved my hand

And dipped sea-water eagerly,

Only to find it lost the blue

Dark splendor of the sea.

The Mystery

Your eyes drink of me,

Love makes them shine,

Your eyes that lean

So close to mine.

We have long been lovers,

We know the range

Of each other's moods

And how they change;

But when we look

At each other so

Then we feel

How little we know;

The spirit eludes us,

Timid and free --

Can I ever know you

Or you know me?

Open Windows

Out of the window a sea of green trees

Lift their soft boughs like the arms of a dancer,

They beckon and call me, "Come out in the sun!"

But I cannot answer.

I am alone with Weakness and Pain,

Sick abed and June is going,

I cannot keep her, she hurries by

With the silver-green of her garments blowing.

Men and women pass in the street

Glad of the shining sapphire weather,

But we know more of it than they,

Pain and I together.

They are the runners in the sun,

Breathless and blinded by the race,

But we are watchers in the shade

Who speak with Wonder face to face.

The New Moon

Day, you have bruised and beaten me,

As rain beats down the bright, proud sea,

Beaten my body, bruised my soul,

Left me nothing lovely or whole --

Yet I have wrested a gift from you,

Day that dies in dusky blue:

For suddenly over the factories

I saw a moon in the cloudy seas --

A wisp of beauty all alone

In a world as hard and gray as stone --

Oh who could be bitter and want to die

When a maiden moon wakes up in the sky?

Eight O'Clock

Supper comes at five o'clock,

At six, the evening star,

My lover comes at eight o'clock --

But eight o'clock is far.

How could I bear my pain all day

Unless I watched to see

The clock-hands laboring to bring

Eight o'clock to me.

Lost Things

Oh, I could let the world go by,

Its loud new wonders and its wars,

But how will I give up the sky

When winter dusk is set with stars?

And I could let the cities go,

Their changing customs and their creeds, --

But oh, the summer rains that blow

In silver on the jewel-weeds!

Pain

Waves are the sea's white daughters,

And raindrops the children of rain,

But why for my shimmering body

Have I a mother like Pain?

Night is the mother of stars,

And wind the mother of foam --

The world is brimming with beauty,

But I must stay at home.

The Broken Field

My soul is a dark ploughed field

In the cold rain;

My soul is a broken field

Ploughed by pain.

Where grass and bending flowers

Were growing,

The field lies broken now

For another sowing.

Great Sower when you tread

My field again,

Scatter the furrows there

With better grain.

The Unseen

Death went up the hall

Unseen by every one,

Trailing twilight robes

Past the nurse and the nun.

He paused at every door

And listened to the breath

Of those who did not know

How near they were to Death.

Death went up the hall

Unseen by nurse and nun;

He passed by many a door --

But he entered one.

A Prayer

When I am dying, let me know

That I loved the blowing snow

Although it stung like whips;

That I loved all lovely things

And I tried to take their stings

With gay unembittered lips;

That I loved with all my strength,

To my soul's full depth and length,

Careless if my heart must break,

That I sang as children sing

Fitting tunes to everything,

Loving life for its own sake.

Spring Torrents

Will it always be like this until I am dead,

Every spring must I bear it all again

With the first red haze of the budding maple boughs,

And the first sweet-smelling rain?

Oh I am like a rock in the rising river

Where the flooded water breaks with a low call --

Like a rock that knows the cry of the waters

And cannot answer at all.

I Know the Stars

I know the stars by their names,

Aldebaran, Altair,

And I know the path they take

Up heaven's broad blue stair.

I know the secrets of men

By the look of their eyes,

Their gray thoughts, their strange thoughts

Have made me sad and wise.

But your eyes are dark to me

Though they seem to call and call --

I cannot tell if you love me

Or do not love me at all.

I know many things,

But the years come and go,

I shall die not knowing

The thing I long to know.

Understanding

I understood the rest too well,

And all their thoughts have come to be

Clear as grey sea-weed in the swell

Of a sunny shallow sea.

But you I never understood,

Your spirit's secret hides like gold

Sunk in a Spanish galleon

Ages ago in waters cold.

Nightfall

We will never walk again

As we used to walk at night,

Watching our shadows lengthen

Under the gold street-light

When the snow was new and white.

We will never walk again

Slowly, we two,

In spring when the park is sweet

With midnight and with dew,

And the passers-by are few.

I sit and think of it all,

And the blue June twilight dies, --

Down in the clanging square

A street-piano cries

And stars come out in the skies.

It Is Not a Word

It is not a word spoken,

Few words are said;

Nor even a look of the eyes

Nor a bend of the head,

But only a hush of the heart

That has too much to keep,

Only memories waking

That sleep so light a sleep.

My Heart Is Heavy

My heart is heavy with many a song

Like ripe fruit bearing down the tree,

But I can never give you one --

My songs do not belong to me.

Yet in the evening, in the dusk

When moths go to and fro,

In the gray hour if the fruit has fallen,

Take it, no one will know.

The Nights Remember

The days remember and the nights remember

The kingly hours that once you made so great,

Deep in my heart they lie, hidden in their splendor,

Buried like sovereigns in their robes of state.

Let them not wake again, better to lie there,

Wrapped in memories, jewelled and arrayed --

Many a ghostly king has waked from death-sleep

And found his crown stolen and his throne decayed.

Let It Be Forgotten

Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,

Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold,

Let it be forgotten for ever and ever,

Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.

If anyone asks, say it was forgotten

Long and long ago,

As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall

In a long forgotten snow.

May Day

A delicate fabric of bird song

Floats in the air,

The smell of wet wild earth

Is everywhere.

Red small leaves of the maple

Are clenched like a hand,

Like girls at their first communion

The pear trees stand.

Oh I must pass nothing by

Without loving it much,

The raindrop try with my lips,

The grass with my touch;

For how can I be sure

I shall see again

The world on the first of May

Shining after the rain?

Since There Is No Escape

Since there is no escape, since at the end

My body will be utterly destroyed,

This hand I love as I have loved a friend,

This body I tended, wept with and enjoyed;

Since there is no escape even for me

Who love life with a love too sharp to bear:

The scent of orchards in the rain, the sea

And hours alone too still and sure for prayer --

Since darkness waits for me, then all the more

Let me go down as waves sweep to the shore

In pride; and let me sing with my last breath;

In these few hours of light I lift my head;

Life is my lover -- I shall leave the dead

If there is any way to baffle death.

The Dreams of My Heart

The dreams of my heart and my mind pass,

Nothing stays with me long,

But I have had from a child

The deep solace of song;

If that should ever leave me,

Let me find death and stay

With things whose tunes are played out and forgotten

Like the rain of yesterday.

A Little While

A little while when I am gone

My life will live in music after me,

As spun foam lifted and borne on

After the wave is lost in the full sea.

A while these nights and days will burn

In song with the bright frailty of foam,

Living in light before they turn

Back to the nothingness that is their home.

The Garden

My heart is a garden tired with autumn,

Heaped with bending asters and dahlias heavy and dark,

In the hazy sunshine, the garden remembers April,

The drench of rains and a snow-drop quick and clear as a spark;

Daffodils blowing in the cold wind of morning,

And golden tulips, goblets holding the rain --

The garden will be hushed with snow, forgotten soon, forgotten --

After the stillness, will spring come again?

The Wine

I cannot die, who drank delight

From the cup of the crescent moon,

And hungrily as men eat bread,

Loved the scented nights of June.

The rest may die -- but is there not

Some shining strange escape for me

Who sought in Beauty the bright wine

Of immortality?

In a Cuban Garden

Hibiscus flowers are cups of fire,

(Love me, my lover, life will not stay)

The bright poinsettia shakes in the wind,

A scarlet leaf is blowing away.

A lizard lifts his head and listens --

Kiss me before the noon goes by,

Here in the shade of the ceiba hide me

From the great black vulture circling the sky.

If I Must Go

If I must go to heaven's end

Climbing the ages like a stair,

Be near me and forever bend

With the same eyes above me there;

Time will fly past us like leaves flying,

We shall not heed, for we shall be

Beyond living, beyond dying,

Knowing and known unchangeably.