Poems

IV

 
BEYOND this purple shadow glows
My golden garden loud with bees,
And windy grey and silver flows
Along the slopes of olive trees.
 
 
Before a sleeping flower uncurled,
Before the early winds were born,
I woke for joy in such a world,
And with the linnets shared the morn.
 
 
Remembering love, I woke and smiled,
And heard the morning linnets sing,
And sang for love, and they for wild
Delight of song and sun and spring.
 

V

 
SURELY a brightness moves with me,
For José gazes long and sighs,
Above the pages dim to see
For ghosts of youth that brush his eyes.
 
 
And gazing long, old Marta said:
“Some new device has made thee fair,
Yet have I often seen these red
Pomegranate flowers against thy hair.”
 
 
I would not have them understand
The hidden thoughts that give me grace,
Nor guess the lights that dreams have fanned,
And read their shining in my face.
 
 
But all my heart the Virgin knows.
Before her eyes, so wise they were,
I laid my secret like a rose:
“Mother, I love!” I cried to her.
 

VI

 
I HAD no more imagined love
Than dreams the moonflower of its blue.
What sun that warmed its shielding glove, —
What long blind eve that gave it dew,
 
 
Could tell that hueless folded thing
Of shining texture silken-loomed,
Or say what marveling birds would sing
The morning that it thrilled and bloomed?
 
 
Always it knew in groping thought
Some end would come, some bloom must be,
The blind fulfilment that it wrought
Was strained from darkness restlessly;
 
 
Till exquisite completion willed
The answered bud, the dream put by,
And left the flower all sunned, and stilled
With sudden wonder of the sky.
 

VII

 
MY eyes are level with the grass,
And up and down each slender steep
I watch its tiny people pass.
The sun has lulled me half asleep.
 
 
And all beneath my breath I sing …
This joy of mine is sweet to hold!
Such treasure had the miser king
Who brushed the very dew to gold.
 
 
Deep in the sunny grass I lie
And breathe the garden scents wind-driven,
So happy that if I should die
They could not comfort me with Heaven.
 

PART III

I

 
ONE time I felt the sun in all my veins,
And bloomed on crystal mornings, flower-wise,
And mourned as roses sadden in long rains.
What pain is this the summer noon denies?
 
 
One time the hands of wind upon my hair
Could heal me like a mother’s touch and kiss.
When I could give my airy griefs to air
I never knew so sharp a thorn as this.
 
 
The joy of flower and wind and sighing bough —
It comes not back again for tears and rue.
A year agone I had not sought as now,
And found the sky a vault of empty blue.
 

II

 
HE loves no more. Upon the failing streams
The summer burns – so burns another flame:
I see his eyes alight with alien dreams …
That long-forgotten country whence he came.
 
 
Calls to him past my words; beyond my eyes
Lost waters shine, remembered sunsets die.
Ay, in my kiss another mouth replies,
And speaks of kisses past, of lips put by.
 
 
Now this my heart divines, for words of love
He gives me still (O woeful heart and bruised
To still complain!)… But surely, when I move
His eyes will never follow as they used.
 

III

 
THE soul that made love exquisite is gone,
It is not that the word, the kiss, is changed.
I cannot say, “Here was his thought withdrawn;
So once was love, so now is love estranged.”
 
 
But all of love that I could touch and know
I held as one a lamp that makes his day,
And touch it still, and see its flame burn low,
Its shining figures fade to painted clay.
 
 
Ah, I would hold the semblance, keep the kiss;
But watching in its heart the paling spark,
I cry out when the shadows menace this,
As children weep for terror of the dark.
 

IV

 
THAT all tomorrows have no wound in store
For shrinking Joy, nor any prick of dread,
I know, who closed its eyes forevermore,
And keep this night a vigil with my dead.
 
 
This little space my out-thrown hands have stirred
Is happy earth, for once it knew love’s feet;
Here once love stood and called the heart that heard,
And all the garden, all the world, grew sweet.
 
 
I lay my joy within this hollowed space
(I had not thought so blithe a thing could die!)
And heap the happy earth upon the face
That has no will to smile nor breath to sigh.
 
 
With dew beneath and hushing night above
I cannot tell how long my grief has lain —
Virgin, I will not plead you for my love,
Only the pain, – if you would ease the pain.
 

V

 
THE world below was deep in stormy cloud;
But high in sun we flew along the ledge,
And to the strength I rode I cried aloud
And spurred it near against the trembling edge.
 
 
(I rode Ramon along the mountain wall.
Today he had no wilder mood than I —
No wilder will for lawless wind to call
Upon the narrow trail that meets the sky.)
 
 
The sharp air flowed like water through my hands.
Heart, how I skirted death and laughed at pain!
Forgotten pain in half-remembered lands
Below me in the valleys with the rain.
 

VI

 
WHAT alters with my changing? Not José,
Content in little duties that he loves.
Not Marta’s dimming eyes that stare away
Beyond the tranquil court, the circling doves.
 
 
I, too, I float on peace, forget almost,
And then as drowning sight may pierce the sea
To find the sun a green and wavering ghost,
And shapes of earth distorted monstrously, —
 
 
I see a mocking earth, a sun distraught,
I lose the buoying instant of relief
And sink again as wearying soul and thought
Drown in the sick amazement of my grief.
 

VII

 
I TILT my hollowed life and look within:
The wine it held has left a purple trace —
Behold, a stain where happiness had been.
If I should shatter down this empty vase,
 
 
Through what abysses would my soul be tossed
To meet its judge in undiscovered lands?
What sentence meted me, alone and lost,
Before him with the fragments in my hands?
 
 
Better the patient earth that loves me still
Should drip her clearness on this purple stain;
Better my life upheld to her should fill
With limpid dew, and gradual gift of rain.
 

VIII

 
SOME whim of Marta’s shields me from the night,
And fretted that my curtain should be kept
Close drawn, and wakeful candles over bright,
I welcomed in the quiet moon and slept;
 
 
Then woke again in fear – the night was old,
The witching tide of silver shut away,
And Marta’s shaking hand on mine was cold,
Her bending face above me strange and grey.
 
 
“Who sleeps beneath the moon,” she whispered low,
“Must pale with her, nor wind nor noon-day sky
Be his again whose pulses beat more slow,
More faint, till with the waning moon … they die.”
 

THE END