Rivers to the Sea Read Online

But in the end how many words Winged on a flight she could not follow, Farther than skyward lark or swallow, His lips should free to lands she never knew; Braver than white sea-faring birds With a fearless melody, Flying over a shining sea, A star-white song between the blue and blue.

Oh I have seen a lake as clear and fair As it were molten air, Lifting a lily upward to the sun. How should the water know the glowing heart That ever to the heaven lifts its fire, A golden and unchangeable desire? The water only knows The faint and rosy glows Of under-petals, opening apart. Yet in the soul of earth, Deep in the primal ground, Its searching roots are wound, And centuries have struggled toward its birth. So, in the man who sings, All of the voiceless horde From the cold dawn of things Have their reward; All in whose pulses ran Blood that is his at last, From the first stooping man Far in the winnowed past. Out of the tumult of their love and mating Each one created, seeing life was good— Dumb, till at last the song that they were waiting Breaks like brave April thru a wintry wood.

RIVERS TO TOE SEA

But what of her whose heart is troubled by it, The mother who would soothe and set him free, Fearing the song’s storm-shaken ecstasy— Oh, as the moon that has no power to quiet The strong wind-driven sea.

.

IN MEMORIAM F. O. S.

You go a long and lovely journey,

For all the stars, like burning dew, Are luminous and luring footprints

Of souls adventurous as you.

Oh, if you lived on earth elated,

How is it now that you can run Free of the weight of flesh and faring

Far past the birthplace of the sun?

TWILIGHT

THE stately tragedy of dusk

Drew to its perfect close, The virginal white evening star

Sank, and the red moon rose.

SWALLOW FLIGHT

I LOVE my hour of wind and light,

I love men’s faces and their eyes, I love my spirit’s veering flight

Like swallows under evening skies,

THOUGHTS

WHEN I can make my thoughts come forth

To walk like ladies up and down, Each one puts on before the glass

Her most becoming hat and gown.

But oh, the shy and eager thoughts

That hide and will not get them dressed, Why is it that they always seem

So much more lovely than the rest?

TO DICK, ON HIS SIXTH BIRTHDAY

Tho’ I am very old and wise,

And you are neither wise nor old, When I look far into your eyes,

I know things I was never told: I know how flame must strain and fret Prisoned in a mortal net; How joy with over-eager wings, Bruises the small heart where he sings; How too much life, like too much gold, Is sometimes very hard to hold… . All that is talking—I know This much is true, six years ago An angel living near the moon Walked thru the sky and sang a tune Plucking stars to make his crown— And suddenly two stars fell down, Two falling arrows made of light. Six years ago this very night I saw them fall and wondered why The angel dropped them from the sky— But when I saw your eyes I knew The angel sent the stars to you.

TO ROSE

ROSE, when I remember you, Little lady, scarcely two, I am suddenly aware Of the angels in the air. All your softly gracious ways Make an island in my days Where my thoughts fly back to be Sheltered from too strong a sea. All your luminous delight Shines before me in the night When I grope for sleep and find Only shadows in my mind.

Rose, when I remember you, White and glowing, pink and new, With so swift a sense of fun Altho’ life has just begun; With so sure a pride of place In your very infant face, I should like to make a prayer To the angels in the air: “If an angel ever brings Me a baby in her wings, Please be certain that it grows Very, very much like Rose.”

THE FOUNTAIN

On in the deep blue night

The fountain sang alone; It sang to the drowsy heart

Of the satyr carved in stone.

The fountain sang and sang

But the satyr never stirred— Only the great white moon

In the empty heaven heard.

The fountain sang and sang

And on the marble rim The milk-white peacocks slept,

Their dreams were strange and dim.

Bright dew was on the grass,

And on the ilex dew, The dreamy milk-white birds

Were all a-glisten too.

The fountain sang and sang

The things one cannot tell, The dreaming peacocks stirred

And the gleaming dew-drops fell.

THE ROSE

BENEATH my chamber window Pierrot was singing, singing;

I heard his lute the whole night thru

Until the east was red. Alas, alas, Pierrot, I had no rose for flinging

Save one that drank my tears for dew

Before its leaves were dead.

I found it in the darkness, I kissed it once and threw it,

The petals scattered over him,

His song was turned to joy; And he will never know— Alas, the one who knew it!—

The rose was plucked when dusk was dim

Beside a laughing boy.

DREAMS

I GAVE my life to another lover,

I gave my love, and all, and all— But over a dream the past will hover,

Out of a dream the past will call.

I tear myself from sleep with a shiver

But on my breast a kiss is hot, And by my bed the ghostly giver

Is waiting tho’ I see him not.

“I AM NOT YOURS “

I AM not yours, not lost in you,

Not lost, altho’ I long to be Lost as a candle lit at noon,

Lost as a snow-flake in the sea.

You love me, and I find you still

A spirit beautiful and bright, Yet I am I, who long to be

Lost as a light is lost in light.

Oh plunge me deep in love—put out

My senses, leave me deaf and blind, Swept by the tempest of your love,

A taper in a rushing wind.

PIERROT’S SONG

(For a picture by Dugald Walker)

LADY, light in the east hangs low,

Draw your veils of dream apart, Under the casement stands Pierrot

Making a song to ease his heart. (Yet do not break the song too soon—

I love to sing in the paling moon.)

The petals are falling, heavy with dew,

The stars have fainted out of the sky, Come to me, come, or else I too,

Faint with the weight of love will die. (She comes—alas, I hoped to make

Another stanza for her sake!)

NIGHT IN ARIZONA

THE moon is a charring ember

Dying into the dark;

Off in the crouching mountains

Coyotes bark.

The stars are heavy in heaven,

Too great for the sky to hold— What if they fell and shattered

The earth with gold?

No lights are over the mesa,

The wind is hard and wild, I stand at the darkened window

And cry like a child.

DUSK IN WAR TIME

A HALF-HOUR more and you will lean

To gather me close in the old sweet way— But oh, to the woman over the sea

Who will come at the close of day?

A half-hour more and I will hear

The key in the latch and the strong quick tread— But oh, the woman over the sea

Waiting at dusk for one who is dead!

SPRING IN WAR TIME

I FEEL the Spring far off, far off,

The faint far scent of bud and leaf— Oh how can Spring take heart to come

To a world in grief,

Deep grief?

The sun turns north, the days grow long,

Later the evening star grows bright— How can the daylight linger on

For men to fight,

Still fight?

The grass is waking in the ground,

Soon it will rise and blow in waves— How can it have the heart to sway

Over the graves,

New graves?

Under the boughs where lovers walked

The apple-blooms will shed their breath— But what of all the lovers now

Parted by death,

Gray Death?

WHILE I MAY

WIND and hail and veering rain,

Driven mist that veils the day, Soul’s distress and body’s pain,

I would bear you while I may.

I would love you if I might,

For so soon my life will be Buried in a lasting night,

Even pain denied to me.

DEBT

WHAT do I owe to you

Who loved me deep and long? You never gave my spirit wings

Or gave my heart a song.

But oh, to him I loved

Who loved me not at all, I owe the little open gate

That led thru heaven’s wall.

FROM THE NORTH

THE northern woods are delicately sweet,

The lake is folded softly by the shore,

But I am restless for the subway’s roar, The thunder and the hurrying of feet. I try to sleep, but still my eyelids beat

Against the image of the tower that bore

Me high aloft, as if thru heaven’s door I watched the world from God’s unshaken seat. I would go back and breathe with quickened sense

The tunnel’s strong hot breath of powdered steel; But at the ferries I should leave the tense

Dark air behind, and I should mount and be

One among many who are thrilled to feel

The first keen sea-breath from the open sea.

THE LIGHTS OF NEW YORK

THE lightning spun your garment for the night

Of silver filaments with fire shot thru,

A broidery of lamps that lit for you The steadfast splendor of enduring light. The moon drifts dimly in the heaven’s height,

Watching with wonder how the earth she knew

That lay so long wrapped deep in dark and dew, Should wear upon her breast a star so white. The festivals of Babylon were dark

With flaring flambeaux that the wind blew down; The Saturnalia were a wild boy’s lark

With rain-quenched torches dripping thru the town— But you have found a god and filched from him A fire that neither wind nor rain can dim.

SEA LONGING

A THOUSAND miles beyond this sun-steeped wall

Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand,

The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land With the old murmur, long and musical; The windy waves mount up and curve and fall,

And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow,—

Tho’ I am inland far, I hear and know, For I was born the sea’s eternal thrall. I would that I were there and over me

The cold insistence of the tide would roll,

Quenching this burning thing men call the soul,— Then with the ebbing I should drift and be

Less than the smallest shell along the shoal, Less than the sea-gulls calling to the sea.

THE RIVER

I CAME from the sunny valleys

And sought for the open sea, For I thought in its gray expanses

My peace would come to me.

I came at last to the ocean

And found it wild and black, And I cried to the windless valleys,

“Be kind and take me back!”

But the thirsty tide ran inland,

And the salt waves drank of me, And I who was fresh as the rainfall

Am bitter as the sea.

LEAVES

ONE by one, like leaves from a tree, All my faiths have forsaken me; But the stars above my head Burn in white and delicate red, And beneath my feet the earth Brings the sturdy grass to birth. I who was content to be But a silken-singing tree, But a rustle of delight In the wistful heart of night— I have lost the leaves that knew Touch of rain and weight of dew. Blinded by a leafy crown I looked neither up nor down— But the little leaves that die Have left me room to see the sky; Now for the first time I know Stars above and earth below.

THE ANSWER

WHEN I go back to earth And all my joyous body Puts off the red and white That once had been so proud, If men should pass above With false and feeble pity, My dust will find a voice To answer them aloud:

“Be still, I am content, Take back your poor compassion, Joy was a flame in me Too steady to destroy; Lithe as a bending reed Loving the storm that sways her— I found more joy in sorrow Than you could find in joy.”

III

OVER THE ROOFS

I

OH chimes set high on the sunny tower

Ring on, ring on unendingly, Make all the hours a single hour, For when the dusk begins to flower,

The man I love will come to me! …

But no, go slowly as you will,

I should not bid you hasten so, For while I wait for love to come, Some other girl is standing dumb,

Fearing her love will go.

II

Oh white steam over the roofs, blow high!

Oh chimes in the tower ring clear and free ! Oh sun awake in the covered sky,

For the man I love, loves me I …

Oh drifting steam disperse and die,

Oh tower stand shrouded toward the south,— Fate heard afar my happy cry,

And laid her finger on my mouth.

III

The dusk was blue with blowing mist,

The lights were spangles in a veil, And from the clamor far below

Floated faint music like a wail.

It voiced what I shall never speak,

My heart was breaking all night long, But when the dawn was hard and gray,

My tears distilled into a song.

IV

I said, “I have shut my heart

As one shuts an open door, That Love may starve therein

And trouble me no more.”

But over the roofs there came

The wet new wind of May, And a tune blew up from the curb

Where the street-pianos play.

My room was white with the sun

And Love cried out in me, “I am strong, I will break your heart

Unless you set me free.”

A CRY

OH, there are eyes that he can see,

And hands to make his hands rejoice, But to my lover I must be

Only a voice.

Oh, there are breasts to bear his head,

And lips whereon his lips can lie, But I must be till I am dead

Only a cry.

CHANCE

How many times we must have met

Here on the street as strangers do, Children of chance we were, who passed

The door of heaven and never knew.

IMMORTAL

So soon my body will have gone

Beyond the sound and sight of men, And tho’ it wakes and suffers now,

Its sleep will be unbroken then; But oh, my frail immortal soul

That will not sleep forevermore, A leaf borne onward by the blast,

A wave that never finds the shore.

AFTER DEATH

Now while my lips are living

Their words must stay unsaid, And will my soul remember

To speak when I am dead?

Yet if my soul remembered

You would not heed it, dear, For now you must not listen,

And then you could not hear.

TESTAMENT

I SAID, “I will take my life

And throw it away; I who was fire and song

Will turn to clay.”

“I will lie no more in the night

With shaken breath, I will toss my heart in the air

To be caught by Death.”

But out of the night I heard,

Like the inland sound of the sea, The hushed and terrible sob

Of all humanity.

Then I said, “Oh who am I

To scorn God to his face? I will bow my head and stay

And suffer with my race.”

GIFTS

I GAVE my first love laughter,

I gave my second tears, I gave my third love silence

Thru all the years.

My first love gave me singing,

My second eyes to see, But oh, it was my third love

Who gave my soul to me.

IV

FROM THE SEA

ALL beauty calls you to me, and you seem, Past twice a thousand miles of shifting sea, To reach me. You are as the wind I breathe Here on the ship’s sun-smitten topmost deck, With only light between the heavens and me. I feel your spirit and I close my eyes, Knowing the bright hair blowing in the sun, The eager whisper and the searching eyes.

Listen, I love you. Do not turn your face Nor touch me. Only stand and watch awhile The blue unbroken circle of the sea. Look far away and let me ease my heart Of words that beat in it with broken wing. Look far away, and if I say too much, Forget that I am speaking. Only watch, How like a gull that sparkling sinks to rest, The foam-crest drifts along a happy wave Toward the bright verge, the boundary of the world.

I am so weak a thing, praise me for this, That in some strange way I was strong enough To keep my love unuttered and to stand Altho’ I longed to kneel to you that night You looked at me with ever-calling eyes. Was I not calm? And if you guessed my love You thought it something delicate and free, Soft as the sound of fir-trees in the wind, Fleeting as phosphorescent stars in foam. Yet in my heart there was a beating storm Bending my thoughts before it, and I strove To say too little lest I say too much, And from my eyes to drive love’s happy shame.