Rivers to the Sea Read Online

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.

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.

II

INDIAN SUMMER

LYRIC night of the lingering Indian Summer, Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing, Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,

Ceaseless, insistent.

The grasshopper’s horn, and far off, high in the maples The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence, Under a moon waning and worn and broken,

Tired with summer.

Let me remember you, voices of little insects, Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters, Let me remember you, soon will the winter be on us,

Snow-hushed and heartless.

Over my soul murmur your mute benediction While I gaze, oh fields that rest after harvest, As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,

Lest they forget them.

THE SEA WIND

I AM a pool in a peaceful place, I greet the great sky face to face, I know the stars and the stately moon And the wind that runs with rippling shoon— But why does it always bring to me The far-off, beautiful sound of the sea?

The marsh-grass weaves me a wall of green, But the wind comes whispering in between, In the dead of night when the sky is deep The wind comes waking me out of sleep— Why does it always bring to me The far-off, terrible call of the sea?

THE CLOUD

I AM a cloud in the heaven’s height, The stars are lit for my delight, Tireless and changeful, swift and free, I cast my shadow on hill and sea— But why do the pines on the mountain’s crest Call to me always, “Rest, rest”?

I throw my mantle over the moon And I blind the sun on his throne at noon, Nothing can tame me, nothing can bind, I am a child of the heartless wind— But oh the pines on the mountain’s crest Whispering always, “Rest, rest.”

THE POOR HOUSE

HOPE went by and Peace went by

And would not enter in; Youth went by and Health went by

And Love that is their kin.

Those within the house shed tears

On their bitter bread; Some were old and some were mad,

And some were sick a-bed.

Gray Death saw the wretched house

And even he passed by— “They have never lived,” he said,

“They can wait to die.”

NEW YEAR’S DAWN—BROADWAY

WHEN the horns wear thin And the noise, like a garment outworn, Falls from the night, The tattered and shivering night, That thinks she is gay; When the patient silence comes back, And retires, And returns, Rebuffed by a ribald song, Wounded by vehement cries, Fleeing again to the stars— Ashamed of her sister the night; Oh, then they steal home, The blinded, the pitiful ones With their gew-gaws still in their hands, Reeling with odorous breath And thick, coarse words on their tongues. They get them to bed, somehow, And sleep the forgiving, Comes thru the scattering tumult And closes their eyes. The stars sink down ashamed And the dawn awakes, Like a youth who steals from a brothel, Dizzy and sick.

THE STAR

A WHITE star born in the evening glow Looked to the round green world below, And saw a pool in a wooded place That held like a jewel her mirrored face. She said to the pool: “Oh, wondrous deep, I love you, I give you my light to keep. Oh, more profound than the moving sea That never has shown myself to me! Oh, fathomless as the sky is far, Hold forever your tremulous star!”

But out of the woods as night grew cool A brown pig came to the little pool; It grunted and splashed and waded in And the deepest place but reached its chin. The water gurgled with tender glee And the mud churned up in it turbidly.

The star grew pale and hid her face In a bit of floating cloud like lace.

DOCTORS

EVERY night I lie awake

And every day I lie abed And hear the doctors, Pain and Death,

Conferring at my head.

They speak in scientific tones,

Professional and low— One argues for a speedy cure,

The other, sure and slow.

To one so humble as myself

It should be matter for some pride To have such noted fellows here,

Conferring at my side.

.

THE INN OF EARTH

I CAME to the crowded Inn of Earth,

And called for a cup of wine, But the Host went by with averted eye

From a thirst as keen as mine.

Then I sat down with weariness

And asked a bit of bread, But the Host went by with averted eye

And never a word he said.

While always from the outer night

The waiting souls came in With stifled cries of sharp surprise

At all the light and din.

“Then give me a bed to sleep,” I said,

“For midnight comes apace”— But the Host went by with averted eye And I never saw his face.

“Since there is neither food nor rest,

I go where I fared before”— But the Host went by with averted eye

And barred the outer door.

IN THE CARPENTER’S SHOP

MARY sat in the corner dreaming,

Dim was the room and low, While in the dusk, the saw went screaming

To and fro.

Jesus and Joseph toiled together,

Mary was watching them, Thinking of kings in the wintry weather

At Bethlehem.

Mary sat in the corner thinking,

Jesus had grown a man; One by one her hopes were sinking

As the years ran.

Jesus and Joseph toiled together,

Mary’s thoughts were far— Angels sang in the wintry weather

Under a star.

Mary sat in the corner weeping,

Bitter and hot her tears— Little faith were the angels keeping

All the years.

THE CARPENTER’S SON

THE summer dawn came over-soon, The earth was like hot iron at noon

In Nazareth; There fell no rain to ease the heat, And dusk drew on with tired feet

And stifled breath.

The shop was low and hot and square, And fresh-cut wood made sharp the air,

While all day long The saw went tearing thru the oak That moaned as tho’ the tree’s heart broke

Beneath its wrong.

The narrow street was full of cries, Of bickering and snarling lies

In many keys— The tongues of Egypt and of Rome And lands beyond the shifting foam

Of windy seas.

Sometimes a ruler riding fast Scattered the dark crowds as he passed,

And drove them close In doorways, drawing broken breath Lest they be trampled to their death

Where the dust rose.

There in the gathering night and noise A group of Galilean boys

Crowding to see Gray Joseph toiling with his son, Saw Jesus, when the task was done,

Turn wearily.

He passed them by with hurried tread Silently, nor raised his head,

He who looked up Drinking all beauty from his birth Out of the heaven and the earth

As from a cup.

And Mary, who was growing old, Knew that the pottage would be cold

When he returned; He hungered only for the night, And westward, bending sharp and bright,

The thin moon burned.

He reached the open western gate Where whining halt and leper wait,

And came at last To the blue desert, where the deep Great seas of twilight lay asleep,

Windless and vast.

With shining eyes the stars awoke, The dew lay heavy on his cloak,

The world was dim; And in the stillness he could hear His secret thoughts draw very near

And call to him.

Faint voices lifted shrill with pain And multitudinous as rain;

From all the lands And all the villages thereof Men crying for the gift of love

With outstretched hands.

Voices that called with ceaseless crying, The broken and the blind, the dying,

And those grown dumb Beneath oppression, and he heard Upon their lips a single word,

“Come!”

Their cries engulfed him like the night, The moon put out her placid light

And black and low Nearer the heavy thunder drew, Hushing the voices … yet he knew

That he would go.

A quick-spun thread of lightning burns, And for a flash the day returns—

He only hears Joseph, an old man bent and white Toiling alone from morn till night

Thru all the years.

Swift clouds make all the heavens blind, A storm is running on the wind—

He only sees How Mary will stretch out her hands Sobbing, who never understands

Voices like these.

THE MOTHER OF A POET

SHE is too kind, I think, for mortal things, Too gentle for the gusty ways of earth; God gave to her a shy and silver mirth, And made her soul as clear And softly singing as an orchard spring’s In sheltered hollows all the sunny year— A spring that thru the leaning grass looks up And holds all heaven in its clarid cup, Mirror to holy meadows high and blue With stars like drops of dew.

I love to think that never tears at night Have made her eyes less bright; That all her girlhood thru Never a cry of love made over-tense Her voice’s innocence; That in her hands have lain, Flowers beaten by the rain, And little birds before they learned to sing Drowned in the sudden ecstasy of spring.

I love to think that with a wistful wonder She held her baby warm against her breast; That never any fear awoke whereunder She shuddered at her gift, or trembled lest Thru the great doors of birth Here to a windy earth She lured from heaven a half-unwilling guest.

She caught and kept his first vague flickering smile, The faint upleaping of his spirit’s fire; And for a long sweet while In her was all he asked of earth or heaven— But in the end how far, Past every shaken star, Should leap at last that arrow-like desire, His full-grown manhood’s keen Ardor toward the unseen Dark mystery beyond the Pleiads seven. And in her heart she heard His first dim-spoken word— She only of them all could understand, Flushing to feel at last The silence over-past, Thrilling as tho’ her hand had touched God’s hand.