Spring Night

THE park is filled with night and fog,

The veils are drawn about the world,

The drowsy lights along the paths

Are dim and pearled.

Gold and gleaming the empty streets,

Gold and gleaming the misty lake,

The mirrored lights like sunken swords,

Glimmer and shake.

Oh, is it not enough to be

Here with this beauty over me?

My throat should ache with praise, and I

Should kneel in joy beneath the sky.

Oh, beauty are you not enough?

Why am I crying after love

With youth, a singing voice and eyes

To take earth's wonder with surprise?

Why have I put off my pride,

Why am I unsatisfied,

I for whom the pensive night

Binds her cloudy hair with light,

I for whom all beauty burns

Like incense in a million urns?

Oh, beauty, are you not enough?

Why am I crying after love?

The Flight

LOOK back with longing eyes and know that I will follow,

Lift me up in your love as a light wind lifts a swallow,

Let our flight be far in sun or windy rain--

But what if I heard my first love calling me again?

Hold me on your heart as the brave sea holds the foam,

Take me far away to the hills that hide your home;

Peace shall thatch the roof and love shall latch the door--

But what if I heard my first love calling me once more?

New Love and Old

IN my heart the old love

Struggled with the new;

It was ghostly waking

All night thru.

Dear things, kind things,

That my old love said,

Ranged themselves reproachfully

Round my bed.

But I could not heed them,

For I seemed to see

The eyes of my new love

Fixed on me.

Old love, old love,

How can I be true?

Shall I be faithless to myself

Or to you?

The Look

STREPHON kissed me in the spring,

Robin in the fall,

But Colin only looked at me

And never kissed at all.

Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,

Robin's lost in play,

But the kiss in Colin's eyes

Haunts me night and day.

Spring

IN Central Park the lovers sit,

On every hilly path they stroll,

Each thinks his love is infinite,

And crowns his soul.

But we are cynical and wise,

We walk a careful foot apart,

You make a little joke that tries

To hide your heart.

Give over, we have laughed enough;

Oh dearest and most foolish friend,

Why do you wage a war with love

To lose your battle in the end?

The Lighted Window

HE said:

"In the winter dusk

When the pavements were gleaming with rain,

I walked thru a dingy street

Hurried, harassed,

Thinking of all my problems that never are solved.

Suddenly out of the mist, a flaring gas-jet

Shone from a huddled shop.

I saw thru the bleary window

A mass of playthings:

False-faces hung on strings,

Valentines, paper and tinsel,

Tops of scarlet and green,

Candy, marbles, jacks--

A confusion of color

Pathetically gaudy and cheap.

All of my boyhood

Rushed back.

Once more these things were treasures

Wildly desired.

With covetous eyes I looked again at the marbles,

The precious agates, the pee-wees, the chinies--

Then I passed on.

In the winter dusk,

The pavements were gleaming with rain;

There in the lighted window

I left my boyhood."

The Kiss

BEFORE you kissed me only winds of heaven

Had kissed me, and the tenderness of rain--

Now you have come, how can I care for kisses

    Like theirs again?

I sought the sea, she sent her winds to meet me,

They surged about me singing of the south--

I turned my head away to keep still holy

    Your kiss upon my mouth.

And swift sweet rains of shining April weather

Found not my lips where living kisses are;

I bowed my head lest they put out my glory

    As rain puts out a star.

I am my love's and he is mine forever,

Sealed with a seal and safe forevermore--

Think you that I could let a beggar enter

    Where a king stood before?

Swans

NIGHT is over the park, and a few brave stars

Look on the lights that link it with chains of gold,

The lake bears up their reflection in broken bars

That seem too heavy for tremulous water to hold.

We watch the swans that sleep in a shadowy place,

And now and again one wakes and uplifts its head;

How still you are--your gaze is on my face--

We watch the swans and never a word is said.

The Old Maid

I SAW her in a Broadway car,

The woman I might grow to be;

I felt my lover look at her

And then turn suddenly to me.

Her hair was dull and drew no light

And yet its color was as mine;

Her eyes were strangely like my eyes

Tho' love had never made them shine.

Her body was a thing grown thin,

Hungry for love that never came;

Her soul was frozen in the dark

Unwarmed forever by love's flame.

I felt my lover look at her

And then turn suddenly to me,--

His eyes were magic to defy

The woman I shall never be.

From the Woolworth Tower

VIVID with love, eager for greater beauty

Out of the night we come

Into the corridor, brilliant and warm.

A metal door slides open,

And the lift receives us.

Swiftly, with sharp unswerving flight

The car shoots upward,

And the air, swirling and angry,

Howls like a hundred devils.

Past the maze of trim bronze doors,

Steadily we ascend.

I cling to you

Conscious of the chasm under us,

And a terrible whirring deafens my ears.

The flight is ended.

We pass thru a door leading onto the ledge--

Wind, night and space

Oh terrible height

Why have we sought you?

Oh bitter wind with icy invisible wings

Why do you beat us?

Why would you bear us away?

We look thru the miles of air,

The cold blue miles between us and the city,

Over the edge of eternity we look

On all the lights,

A thousand times more numerous than the stars;

Oh lines and loops of light in unwound chains

That mark for miles and miles

The vast black mazy cobweb of the streets;

Near us clusters and splashes of living gold

That change far off to bluish steel

Where the fragile lights on the Jersey shore

Tremble like drops of wind-stirred dew.

The strident noises of the city

Floating up to us

Are hallowed into whispers.

Ferries cross thru the darkness

Weaving a golden thread into the night,

Their whistles weird shadows of sound.

We feel the millions of humanity beneath us,--

The warm millions, moving under the roofs,

Consumed by their own desires;

Preparing food,

Sobbing alone in a garret,

With burning eyes bending over a needle,

Aimlessly reading the evening paper,

Dancing in the naked light of the café,

Laying out the dead,

Bringing a child to birth--

The sorrow, the torpor, the bitterness, the frail joy

Come up to us

Like a cold fog wrapping us round.

Oh in a hundred years

Not one of these blood-warm bodies

But will be worthless as clay.

The anguish, the torpor, the toil

Will have passed to other millions

Consumed by the same desires.

Ages will come and go,

Darkness will blot the lights

And the tower will be laid on the earth.

The sea will remain

Black and unchanging,

The stars will look down

Brilliant and unconcerned.

Beloved,

Tho' sorrow, futility, defeat

Surround us,

They cannot bear us down.

Here on the abyss of eternity

Love has crowned us

For a moment

Victors.

At Night

WE are apart; the city grows quiet between us,

She hushes herself, for midnight makes heavy her eyes,

The tangle of traffic is ended, the cars are empty,

Five streets divide us, and on them the moonlight lies.

Oh are you asleep, or Iying awake, my lover?

Open your dreams to my love and your heart to my words,

I send you my thoughts-the air between us is laden,

My thoughts fly in at your window, a flock of wild birds.

To the Years

TO-NIGHT I close my eyes and see

A strange procession passing me--

The years before I saw your face

Go by me with a wistful grace;

They pass, the sensitive shy years,

As one who strives to dance, half blind with tears.

The years went by and never knew

That each one brought me nearer you;

Their path was narrow and apart

And yet it led me to your heart--

Oh sensitive shy years, oh lonely years,

That strove to sing with voices drowned in tears.

Peace

PEACE flows into me

   AS the tide to the pool by the shore;

   It is mine forevermore,

It ebbs not back like the sea.

I am the pool of blue

   That worships the vivid sky;

   My hopes were heaven-high,

They are all fulfilled in you.

I am the pool of gold

   When sunset burns and dies,--

   You are my deepening skies,

Give me your stars to hold.

April

THE roofs are shining from the rain,

The sparrows twitter as they fly,

And with a windy April grace

The little clouds go by.

Yet the back-yards are bare and brown

With only one unchanging tree--

I could not be so sure of Spring

Save that it sings in me.

Come

COME, when the pale moon like a petal

Floats in the pearly dusk of spring,

Come with arms outstretched to take me,

Come with lips pursed up to cling.

Come, for life is a frail moth flying

Caught in the web of the years that pass,

And soon we two, so warm and eager

Will be as the gray stones in the grass.

Moods

I AM the still rain falling,

Too tired for singing mirth--

Oh, be the green fields calling,

Oh, be for me the earth!

I am the brown bird pining

To leave the nest and fly--

Oh, be the fresh cloud shining,

Oh, be for me the sky!

April Song

WILLOW in your April gown

Delicate and gleaming,

Do you mind in years gone by

All my dreaming?

Spring was like a call to me

That I could not answer,

I was chained to loneliness,

I, the dancer.

Willow, twinkling in the sun,

Still your leaves and hear me,

I can answer spring at last,

Love is near me!

May Day

THE shining line of motors,

The swaying motor-bus,

The prancing dancing horses

Are passing by for us.

The sunlight on the steeple,

The toys we stop to see,

The smiling passing people

Are all for you and me.

"I love you and I love you!"--

"And oh, I love you, too!"--

"All of the flower girl's lilies

Were only grown for you!"

Fifth Avenue and April

And love and lack of care--

The world is mad with music

Too beautiful to bear.

Crowned

I WEAR a crown invisible and clear,

And go my lifted royal way apart

Since you have crowned me softly in your heart

With love that is half ardent, half austere;

And as a queen disguised might pass anear

The bitter crowd that barters in a mart,

Veiling her pride while tears of pity start,

I hide my glory thru a jealous fear.

My crown shall stay a sweet and secret thing

Kept pure with prayer at evensong and morn,

And when you come to take it from my head,

I shall not weep, nor will a word be said,

But I shall kneel before you, oh my king,

And bind my brow forever with a thorn.

To a Castilian Song

WE held the book together timidly,

Whose antique music in an alien tongue

Once rose among the dew-drenched vines that hung

Beneath a high Castilian balcony.

I felt the lute strings' ancient ecstasy,

And while he read, my love-filled heart was stung,

And throbbed, as where an ardent bird has clung

The branches tremble on a blossomed tree.

Oh lady for whose sake the song was made,

Laid long ago in some still cypress shade,

Divided from the man who longed for thee,

Here in a land whose name he never heard,

His song brought love as April brings the bird,

And not a breath divides my love from me!

Broadway

THIS is the quiet hour; the theaters

Have gathered in their crowds, and steadily

The million lights blaze on for few to see,

Robbing the sky of stars that should be hers.

A woman waits with bag and shabby furs,

A somber man drifts by, and only we

Pass up the street unwearied, warm and free,

For over us the olden magic stirs.

Beneath the liquid splendor of the lights

We live a little ere the charm is spent;

This night is ours, of all the golden nights,

The pavement an enchanted palace floor,

And Youth the player on the viol, who sent

A strain of music thru an open door.

A Winter Bluejay

CRISPLY the bright snow whispered,

Crunching beneath our feet;

Behind us as we walked along the parkway,

Our shadows danced,

Fantastic shapes in vivid blue.

Across the lake the skaters

Flew to and fro,

With sharp turns weaving

A frail invisible net.

In ecstasy the earth

Drank the silver sunlight;

In ecstasy the skaters

Drank the wine of speed;

In ecstasy we laughed

Drinking the wine of love.

Had not the music of our joy

Sounded its highest note?

But no,

For suddenly, with lifted eyes you said,

"Oh look!"

There, on the black bough of a snow flecked maple,

Fearless and gay as our love,

A bluejay cocked his crest!

Oh who can tell the range of joy

Or set the bounds of beauty?

In a Restaurant

THE darkened street was muffled with the snow,

The falling flakes had made your shoulders white,

And when we found a shelter from the night

Its glamor fell upon us like a blow.

The clash of dishes and the viol and bow

Mingled beneath the fever of the light.

The heat was full of savors, and the bright

Laughter of women lured the wine to flow.

A little child ate nothing while she sat

Watching a woman at a table there

Lean to a kiss beneath a drooping hat.

The hour went by, we rose and turned to go,

The somber street received us from the glare,

And once more on your shoulders fell the snow.

Joy

I AM wild, I will sing to the trees,

I will sing to the stars in the sky,

I love, I am loved, he is mine,

Now at last I can die!

I am sandaled with wind and with flame,

I have heart-fire and singing to give,

I can tread on the grass or the stars,

Now at last I can live!

In a Railroad Station

WE stood in the shrill electric light,

Dumb and sick in the whirling din

We who had all of love to say

And a single second to say it in.

"Good-by!" "Good-by!"--you turned to go,

I felt the train's slow heavy start,

You thought to see me cry, but oh

My tears were hidden in my heart.

In the Train

FIELDS beneath a quilt of snow

From which the rocks and stubble peep,

And in the west a shy white star

That shivers as it wakes from sleep.

The restless rumble of the train,

The drowsy people in the car,

Steel blue twilight in the world,

And in my heart a timid star.

To One Away

I HEARD a cry in the night,

A thousand miles it came,

Sharp as a flash of light,

My name, my name!

It was your voice I heard,

You waked and loved me so--

I send you back this word,

I know, I know!

Song

Love me with your whole heart

Or give no love to me,

Half-love is a poor thing,

Neither bond nor free.

You must love me gladly

Soul and body too,

Or else find a new love,

And good-by to you.

Deep in the Night

DEEP in the night the cry of a swallow,

Under the stars he flew,

Keen as pain was his call to follow

Over the world to you.

Love in my heart is a cry forever

Lost as the swallow's flight,

Seeking for you and never, never

Stilled by the stars at night.

The India Wharf

HERE in the velvet stillness

The wide sown fields fall to the faint horizon,

Sleeping in starlight. . . .

A year ago we walked in the jangling city

Together . . . . forgetful.

One by one we crossed the avenues,

Rivers of light, roaring in tumult,

And came to the narrow, knotted streets.

Thru the tense crowd

We went aloof, ecstatic, walking in wonder,

Unconscious of our motion.

Forever the foreign people with dark, deep-seeing eyes

Passed us and passed.

Lights and foreign words and foreign faces,

I forgot them all;

I only felt alive, defiant of all death and sorrow,

Sure and elated.

That was the gift you gave me. . . .

The streets grew still more tangled,

And led at last to water black and glossy,

Flecked here and there with lights, faint and far off.

There on a shabby building was a sign

"The India Wharf " . . . and we turned back.

I always felt we could have taken ship

And crossed the bright green seas

To dreaming cities set on sacred streams

And palaces

Of ivory and scarlet.

I Shall Not Care

WHEN I am dead and over me bright April

Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,

Tho' you should lean above me broken-hearted,

I shall not care.

I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful

When rain bends down the bough,

And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted

Than you are now.

Desert Pools

I LOVE too much; I am a river

Surging with spring that seeks the sea,

I am too generous a giver,

Love will not stoop to drink of me.

His feet will turn to desert places

Shadowless, reft of rain and dew,

Where stars stare down with sharpened faces

From heavens pitilessly blue.

And there at midnight sick with faring,

He will stoop down in his desire

To slake the thirst grown past all bearing

In stagnant water keen as fire.

Longing

I AM not sorry for my soul

That it must go unsatisfied,

For it can live a thousand times,

Eternity is deep and wide.

I am not sorry for my soul,

But oh, my body that must go

Back to a little drift of dust

Without the joy it longed to know.

Pity

THEY never saw my lover's face,

They only know our love was brief,

Wearing awhile a windy grace

And passing like an autumn leaf.

They wonder why I do not weep,

They think it strange that I can sing,

They say, "Her love was scarcely deep

Since it has left so slight a sting."

They never saw my love, nor knew

That in my heart's most secret place

I pity them as angels do

Men who have never seen God's face.

After Parting

OH I have sown my love so wide

That he will find it everywhere;

It will awake him in the night,

It will enfold him in the air.

I set my shadow in his sight

And I have winged it with desire,

That it may be a cloud by day

And in the night a shaft of fire.

Enough

IT is enough for me by day

To walk the same bright earth with him;

Enough that over us by night

The same great roof of stars is dim.

I have no care to bind the wind

Or set a fetter on the sea--

It is enough to feel his love

Blow by like music over me.

Alchemy

I LIFT my heart as spring lifts up

A yellow daisy to the rain;

My heart will be a lovely cup

Altho' it holds but pain.

For I shall learn from flower and leaf

That color every drop they hold,

To change the lifeless wine of grief

To living gold.

February

THEY spoke of him I love

With cruel words and gay;

My lips kept silent guard

On all I could not say.

I heard, and down the street

The lonely trees in the square

Stood in the winter wind

Patient and bare.

I heard . . . oh voiceless trees

Under the wind, I knew

The eager terrible spring

Hidden in you.

Morning

I WENT out on an April morning

All alone, for my heart was high,

I was a child of the shining meadow,

I was a sister of the sky.

There in the windy flood of morning

Longing lifted its weight from me,

Lost as a sob in the midst of cheering,

Swept as a sea-bird out to sea.

May Night

THE spring is fresh and fearless

And every leaf is new,

The world is brimmed with moonlight,

The lilac brimmed with dew.

Here in the moving shadows

I catch my breath and sing--

My heart is fresh and fearless

And over-brimmed with spring.

Dusk in June

EVENING, and all the birds

In a chorus of shimmering sound

Are easing their hearts of joy

For miles around.

The air is blue and sweet,

The few first stars are white,--

Oh let me like the birds

Sing before night.

Love-Free

I AM free of love as a bird flying south in the autumn,

Swift and intent, asking no joy from another,

Glad to forget all of the passion of April

Ere it was love-free.

I am free of love, and I listen to music lightly,

But if he returned, if he should look at me deeply,

I should awake, I should awake and remember

I am my lover's.

Summer Night, Riverside

IN the wild soft summer darkness

How many and many a night we two together

Sat in the park and watched the Hudson

Wearing her lights like golden spangles

Glinting on black satin.

The rail along the curving pathway

Was low in a happy place to let us cross,

And down the hill a tree that dripped with bloom

Sheltered us

While your kisses and the flowers,

Falling, falling,

Tangled my hair. . . .

The frail white stars moved slowly over the sky.

And now, far off

In the fragrant darkness

The tree is tremulous again with bloom

For June comes back.

To-night what girl

When she goes home,

Dreamily before her mirror shakes from her hair

This year's blossoms, clinging in its coils ?

In a Subway Station

AFTER a year I came again to the place;

The tireless lights and the reverberation,

The angry thunder of trains that burrow the ground,

The hunted, hurrying people were still the same--

But oh, another man beside me and not you!

Another voice and other eyes in mine!

And suddenly I turned and saw again

The gleaming curve of tracks, the bridge above--

They were burned deep into my heart before,

The night I watched them to avoid your eyes,

When you were saying, "Oh, look up at me!"

When you were saying, "Will you never love me?"

And when I answered with a lie. Oh then

You dropped your eyes. I felt your utter pain.

I would have died to say the truth to you.

After a year I came again to the place--

The hunted hurrying people were still the same....

After Love

THERE is no magic when we meet,

We speak as other people do,

You work no miracle for me

Nor I for you.

You were the wind and I the sea--

There is no splendor any more,

I have grown listless as the pool

Beside the shore.

But tho' the pool is safe from storm

And from the tide has found surcease,

It grows more bitter than the sea,

For all its peace.

Dooryard Roses

I HAVE come the selfsame path

To the selfsame door,

Years have left the roses there

Burning as before.

While I watch them in the wind

Quick the hot tears start--

Strange so frail a flame outlasts

Fire in the heart.

A Prayer

UNTIL I lose my soul and lie

Blind to the beauty of the earth,

Deaf tho' a lyric wind goes by,

Dumb in a storm of mirth;

Until my heart is quenched at length

And I have left the land of men,

Oh let me love with all my strength

Careless if I am loved again.