How far removed from Youth’s command
The trembling sceptre in my hand,
As miserly within the glass
I mark Love’s fleeting hours pass.
Oh! for the veils of my far-away youth,
Shielding my heart from the blaze of the truth;
Why did I stray from their foldings and grow
Into the sadness that follows—to know.
Impotent atom with desolate gaze
Treading Life’s treacherous, intricate maze—
Oh for the veils, for the veils of my youth
Shielding my heart from the blaze of the truth!
You came,
The tapestries of love
Were shining in the sun,
My wishes settled down content
About you as you stood.
I looked into your cryptic eyes
And thought I understood;
But no—
The splendor of your gaudy robe
Grew dimmer day by day,
I wondered,
Searched within my soul to seize the mystery.
The answer staggered me,
Aghast,
Like one at bay,
I gazed with open eyes of thought upon you,
God! ’twas true—
A mockery, a parody,
Had come to me—in you!
You gave me your hand,
I held it to be
The last word, the dear word,
The soul’s entity;
I cherished it, treasured it,
Only to find
I held but a gauntlet—
That I had been blind!
And now—
As one who closes up the house and goes uncaring where
He may forget the scenes of home ’mid foreign climes and air,
I bar the chamber of my heart and seal the past within
To wander down the city’s road amid the whirr and din.
The long years seem impassable, the morning has no smile,
With naught behind these barring doors and nothing else worth while,
Like some lone pilgrim without hope, I stumble on my way,
Who lifts no futile plea for sun, but asks for clouds less grey.
I looked death calmly in the face
And placed my hand within his hand
And said:
“Come, come, let us away
For I have lost the magic key
Opening the portals of desire—
My wishes cumber in the dust,
And life is stagnant
in
my
heart!
I am a woman
Which means
I am insufficient
I need—
Something to hold me
Or perhaps uphold.
I am a woman.
There’s nothing certain, nothing sure
Save sorrow. Fragile happiness
Was never fashioned to endure;
For joy repels the perfect claim
And answers to no certain name;
How furtively we scan the mist
Perchance amid the gloom to find
Some moments rare and rapture-kist.
Good-bye dear day of sunshine, rain
In flooding torrents pours
Its liquid footsteps on my roof,
Its fingers on my doors.
While I sit tranquilly within
And tell my beads of joy,
Holding a peace within my heart
Which nothing can destroy.
Fire—tears—
And the torture-chamber,
With the last maddening turn of the screw—
Only thus
Is one precious drop distilled
Of the attar of rose
Of the heart.
Oh the sad little dreams of the dim yesteryear
Lying cold, still and stark in the dust of their bier,
How the heart hurries back, all the long weary way,
Just to bid them good-night at the close of the day.
I wonder—
as I see them pass unheeded down the way,
(The women who were once beloved, imperious and gay)
Holding with frail, pale hands the cup
Of Life’s discarded wine
If memories
Are bliss enough
To make the dregs—divine!
All the pretty baubles spread
Are not the answer to my need,
These tinseled trappings but beguile
This journeying, while deep within
A want unspeakable resides,
That throbs and throbs unceasingly—
So hungering—no banquet spread
Can tempt it, and no golden wine
Make it forget: I balance it—
The world flies upward in the scale!
Always, unsoothed, unquieted,
It aches and aches across the days
And sears the nights that sum my life.
In the silence and the dark
I fought with dragons;
I was battered, beaten sore
But rose again;
On my knees I fought still rising
In my pain:
In the dark I fought with dragons.
Weary tears
Cease your flowing,
Even now the dawn appears!
Mute-lipped—
unquestioning grim-visaged Fate,
I cleave the shadows toward the Western Gate;
And yet—
my lagging heart still holds
Mute-arms outstretched
Unto earth’s gleaming folds.
Who knows?
perhaps Hope’s blossoms spray
In lush profusion
O’er the edge of day!
What matters though love’s dream shall pass,
Since from the throbbing hour-glass
One golden-throated moment prest
Its attared incense to my breast.
Since I have known the purple gleam
That lifts above me—can I deem
The way unlighted—when I go
Encircled by love’s afterglow?
After all—
mine is the joy
Which naught can lessen or destroy.
For love has led my flying feet
Where immortelles are springing sweet,
And everlasting skies of gold
Are memories, when earth is cold
And though our future paths should lie
Estranged, as star-ways, through the sky,
I shall not look reproof, nor find
Within this pass a charge unkind,
And lightly sorrow shall be met
For I can never know regret.
Again it is the vibrant May,
The bursting buds, the leafing trees,
The fragrant, undulating breeze,
Call to my heart in subtlest way:
Come! Come! it is a holiday.
The streamlet with unending song,
Beneath its silver veil of mist
Seems flowing, flowing, to some tryst,
While I—with inner surges strong,
Find incomplete the day, and long.
I know my love is seeing me
As restless rivers seek the sea,
Across the night, across the days
That snare the intervening ways.
I know my love is seeking me
As Time must seek Eternity,
When nights are very still I hear
His footsteps, coming, coming near!
Love calls me tonight
In the beat of the rain
Through the cold little drops
On my bare window-pane;
Calls and calls through the dark
Like a whispered refrain
Tapping soft on my heart
Through the bare window pane.
I want to die while you love me,
While yet you hold me fair,
While laughter lies upon my lips
And lights are in my hair.
I want to die while you love me
And bear to that still bed
Your kisses—turbulent, unspent,
To warm me when I’m dead.
I want to die while you love me
Oh, who would care to live,
’Til
