Poems

Between Two Rains

It is a silver space between two rains; The lulling storm has given to the day An hour of windless air and riven grey; The world is drained of color; light remains. Beyond the curving shore a gull complains; Unceasing, on the bastions of the bay, With gleam of shields and veer of vaporing spray The long seas fall, the grey tide wars and wanes.

It is a silver space between two rains: A mood too sweet for tears, for joy too pale-- What stress has swept or nears us, thou and I? This hour a mist of light is on the plains, And seaward fares again with litten sail Our laden ship of dreams adown the sky.

The Message[3]

So might it brush my cheek with errant wings, So might it speak with thrilling touch and light Of answering eyes, of dim, unuttered things-- A moth from hidden gardens of the night.

So, in a land of hills, where twilight lay, Might come a sudden bird-call to the ear, Across the canyons, faint and far away.... O Heart, how sweet ... half heard and wholly dear.

With sudden tears his eyes shall fill, With quick-drawn breath he sees them plain-- Those bodies that must lie so still, So tired--in the House of Pain.

“OH, DRYAD THOUGHTS”

Oh, Dryad thoughts of lovely yesterday!-- You melted through a sunny wood like mist, With here a wind of laughter, there a stray Pleased flower, tipped and kissed.

To-day among the noises of the street, The press of faces, sullen, gay, and wise, I hear you calling, calling me; I meet Your clear, untroubled eyes.

Music in the Pavilion

Faces that throng and stare and come and go-- The air a-quiver as the voices meet; And loud Humanity in mingled flow Passes with jarring tread of many feet.

But over all the chatter of the crowd (The background for its delicate relief) Now trembling in a thread, now wild and loud, The violin laughs and sings, and cries its grief.

Then, through it all, and round it all, the sea; A solemn heart with never-ceasing beat, Bearing an undertone of mystery The harsh and lovely notes, the shrill and sweet.

Surely it is my life--of plodding days, With one Ideal holding clear and good; And sounding over, under, through my ways, Something apart--and never understood.

Rebuke

The tortured river-banks, the toiling piers-- I walked thereby as older grew the day, And sick with sorry clamor in mine ears, Heart-weary turned my steps and went my way.

“O place full-voiced of wretchedness!” I cried. (The sun had set, the dusk was closing in) “O place where laboring Life goes heavy-eyed, Compound of grime and discord, strife and sin!”

I turned me back, and lo, a miracle! For misty violet lay along the land. The shining river in mysterious spell (Divinely touched by some transmuting hand).

A path of wonder was, and on it stirred, (Black-shaped, and jeweled with a crimson spark) A ship that slowly moved; and, faintly heard, A cheery song rose blithely to the dark.

I

As down I bent with eager lips Above the stones and cresses cool-- The yellow tent, the little moon, I found within my twilight pool.

The fringing trees, the floating moon, The bubble tent--I passed them by, And sipped a tiny, shattered star, Deep drinking from that mirrored sky.

And black and slender, quickly sped, I watch the little feet at dawn-- A sudden oriole overhead, A darting linnet come and gone.

The Nymph

From forest paths we turned us, nymphs, new-made, And, lifting eyes abashed with great desire Before high Jove, the gift of souls we prayed.

Whereat he said: “O perfect as new leaves New glossed and veined with blood of perfect days And stirred to murmured speech in fragrant eves,

“Still ask ye souls? Behold, I give instead Into each breast a bird with fettered wings, A bird fast holden with a silken thread:

“To fall from trial of flight with strength swift spent, To sing of mating and the brooding grass, To turn thy being earthward to content.”

Within me sudden wrath and terror strove, And, casting forth his gift I cried aloud: “I pray thee for a soul in truth, great Jove!”

Then smiled he slowly, lifting to my look A fabric where the rippled lustre played And shifted like the humor of a brook--

All prism-hued, as upward eyes may see The sun through dazzled lashes. Straight I cried: “I know not this!” “Thy soul,” he answered me.

But when my joy had seized it, “Nay,” he said, And cast it gleaming to the scattering wind-- Hues green and golden, blue and fervent red.

Within his hand the brightest shred of all-- The very heart and secret of the web-- That held he fast and loosed he not at all;

But to me said: “O thou who scorned the dole That gave thee peace of days and long content, Do now my will. Go forth and find thy soul.”

To earth we went, nor knew I from that hour My sister’s joy or pain; but on great morns When low light slept above a world in flower,

Through drowsing noons where heat and color lie In ever wavering tides of airy seas, Winged by the darting ships of dragon-flies--

Through these and twilight peace I went, and rid My steps of comrades. Lonely must I find The silent places where my soul was hid.

In sheltered ways with summer showers sweet I wandered on a day, and singing found The very green I sought beneath my feet.

In leafing forests when the year was new, And heaven ribboned in the crossing boughs, I gathered marvelous strip on strip of blue.

When on a lonely stream the moon was bright, A Naiad from her treasure plucked me forth Such gold as bound my web with threads of light.

And red. Ah, love! thou knowest how I came Unto thy fluting in the breathless eve, And burned my heart’s pale flower to scarlet flame!...

One morn I found within a drop of dew My very soul: a crystal world it was Wherein the varied earth and heaven’s blue

And myself gazing glassed in perfect sphere-- But long above it was my wonder bent, And lo! it dried more swiftly than a tear.