Part 21

Keep me fully glad with nothing. Only take my hand in your hand. In the gloom of the deepening night take up my heart and play with it as you list. Bind me close to you with nothing. I will spread myself out at your feet and lie still. Under this clouded sky I will meet silence with silence. I will become one with the night clasping the earth in my breast. Make my life glad with nothing. The rains sweep the sky from end to end. Jasmines in the wet untamable wind revel in their own perfume. The cloud-hidden stars thrill in secret. Let me fill to the full of my heart with nothing but my own depth of joy.

III

My soul is alight with your infinitude of stars. Your world has broken upon me like a flood. The flowers of your garden blossom in my body. The joy of life that is everywhere burns like an incense in my heart. And the breath of all things plays on my life as on a pipe of reeds.

IV

Leave off your works, bride. Listen, the guest has come. Do you hear, he is gently shaking the fastening chain of the door? Let not your anklets be loud, and your steps be too hurried to meet him. Leave off your works, bride; the guest has come, in the evening.

No, it is not the wind, bride. Do not be frightened. It is the full-moon night of April, shadows are pale in the courtyard, the sky overhead is bright. Draw your veil over your face if you must, take the lamp from your room if you fear. No, it is not the wind, bride; do not be frightened.

Have no word with him if you are shy, stand aside by the door when you meet him. If he asks you questions, lower your eyes in silence, if you wish. Do not let your bracelets jingle, when, lamp in hand, you lead him in. Have no word with him if you are shy.

Have you not finished your works yet, bride? Listen, the guest has come. Have you not lit the lamp in the cowshed? Have you not got ready the offering basket for the evening service? Have you not put the auspicious red mark at the parting of your hair, and done your toilet for the night? O bride, do you hear, the guest has come? Have you not finished your works yet?

V

Come as you are, tarry not over your toilet. If your braiding has come loose, if the parting of your hair be not straight, if the ribbons of your bodice be not fastened, do not mind. Come as you are, tarry not over your toilet.

Come with quick steps over the grass. If your feet are pale with the dew, if your anklets slacken, if pearls drop out of your chain, do not mind. Come with quick steps over the grass.

Do you see the clouds wrapping the sky? Flocks of cranes fly up from the further riverbank and fitful gusts of wind rush over the heath. The anxious cattle run to their stalls in the village. Do you see the clouds wrapping the sky?

In vain you light your toilet lamp; it flickers and goes out in the wind. Surely, who would know that with lamp-black your eyelids are not touched? For your eyes are darker than rain clouds. In vain you light your toilet lamp; it goes out.

Come as you are, tarry not over your toilet. If the wreath is not woven, who cares? If the wrist-chain has not been tied, leave it by. The sky is overcast with clouds; it is late. Come as you are, tarry not over your toilet.

VI

Lest I should know you too easily, you play with me. You blind me with flashes of laughter to hide your tears. I know, I know your art; You never say the word you would.

Lest I should prize you not, you elude me in a thousand ways. Lest I should mix you with the crowd, you stand aside. I know, I know your art; You never walk the path you would.

Your claim is more than others; that is why you are silent. With a playful carelessness you avoid my gifts. I know, I know your art; You never accept what you would.

VII

Amidst the rush and roar of life, O beauty, carved in stone, you stand mute and still, alone and aloof. Great Time sits enamoured at your feet and repeats to you: “Speak, speak to me, my love; speak, my mute bride!” But your speech is shut up in stone, O you immovably fair!

VIII

Tell me if this is all true, my lover? tell me if it is true. When the eyes of me flash their lightning on you, dark clouds in your breast make stormy answer; Is it then true that the dew drops fall from the night when I am seen, and the morning light is glad when it wraps my body?

Is it true, is it true, that your love travelled alone through ages and worlds in search of me? that when you found me at last, your age-long desire found utter peace in my gentle speech, and my eyes and lips and flowing hair?

Is it then true that the mystery of the Infinite is written on this little brow of mine? Tell me, my lover, if all this is true!

IX

With a glance of your eyes you could plunder all the wealth of songs struck from poets’ harps, fair woman! But for their praises you have no ear; therefore do I come to praise you. You could humble at your feet the proudest heads of all the world; But it is your loved ones, unknown to fame, whom you choose to worship; therefore I worship you.

Your perfect arms would add glory to kingly splendor with their touch; But you use them to sweep away the dust, and to make clean your humble home; therefore I am filled with awe.

Sara Teasdale

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.

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.

THE FLIGHT

Look back with longing eyes and know that I will follow, Lift me up in your love as a light wing 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?_

OVER THE ROOFS

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.”

DEBT

What do I owe to you Who loved me deep and long? You never gave my spirits wings Nor gave my heart a song.

But oh, to him I loved, Who loved me not at all, I owe the little gate That led through heaven’s wall.

SONGS IN A HOSPITAL

THE BROKEN FIELD

My soul is a dark ploughed field In the cold rain; My soul is a broken field Ploughed by pain.

Where windy grass and flowers Were growing, The field lies broken now For another sowing.

Great Sower, when you tread My field again, Scatter the furrows there With better grain.

OPEN WINDOWS

Out of the window a sea of green trees Lift their soft boughs like arms of a dancer; They beckon and call me, “Come out in the sun!” But I cannot answer.

I am alone with Weakness and Pain, Sick abed and June is going, I cannot keep her, she hurries by With the silver-green of her garments blowing.

Men and women pass in the street Glad of the shining sapphire weather; But we know more of it than they, Pain and I together.

They are the runners in the sun, Breathless and blinded by the race, But we are watchers in the shade Who speak with Wonder face to face.

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.

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?

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.

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.”

Eunice Tietjens

THE BACCHANTE TO HER BABE

_Scherzo_

Come, sprite, and dance! The sun is up, The wind runs laughing down the sky That brims with morning like a cup. Sprite, we must race him, We must chase him— You and I! And skim across the fuzzy heather— You and joy and I together Whirling by!

You merry little roll of fat!— Made warm to kiss, and smooth to pat, And round to toy with, like a cub; To put one’s nozzle in and rub And breathe you in like breath of kine, Like juice of vine, That sets my morning heart a-tingling, Dancing, jingling, All the glad abandon mingling Of wind and wine!

Sprite, you are love, and you are joy, A happiness, a dream, a toy, A god to laugh with, Love to chaff with, The sun come down in tangled gold, The moon to kiss, and spring to hold.

There was a time once, long ago, Long—oh, long since ... I scarcely know. Almost I had forgot ... There was a time when you were not, You merry sprite, save as a strain, The strange dull pain Of green buds swelling In warm, straight dwelling That must burst to the April rain. A little heavy I was then, And dull—and glad to rest. And when The travail came In searing flame ... But, sprite, that was so long ago!— A century!—I scarcely know. Almost I had forgot When you were not.

So, little sprite, come dance with me! The sun is up, the wind is free! Come now and trip it, Romp and skip it, Earth is young and so are we. Sprite, you and I will dance together On the heather, Glad with all the procreant earth, With all the fruitage of the trees, And golden pollen on the breeze, With plants that bring the grain to birth, With beast and bird, Feathered and furred, With youth and hope and life and love, And joy thereof— While we are part of all, we two— For my glad burgeoning in you!

So, merry little roll of fat, Made warm to kiss and smooth to pat And round to toy with, like a cub, To put one’s nozzle in and rub, My god to laugh with, Love to chaff with, Come and dance beneath the sky, You and I! Look out with those round wondering eyes, And squirm, and gurgle—and grow wise!

THE STEAM SHOVEL

Beneath my window in a city street A monster lairs, a creature huge and grim And only half believed: the strength of him— Steel-strung and fit to meet The strength of earth— Is mighty as men’s dreams that conquer force. Steam belches from him. He is the new birth Of old Behemoth, late-sprung from the source Whence Grendel sprang, and all the monster clan Dead for an age, now born again of man.

The iron head, Set on a monstrous, jointed neck, Glides here and there, lifts, settles on the red Moist floor, with nose dropped in the dirt, at beck Of some incredible control. He snorts, and pauses couchant for a space, Then slowly lifts, and tears the gaping hole Yet deeper in earth’s flank. A sudden race Of loosened earth and pebbles trickles there Like blood-drops in a wound. But he, the monster, swings his load around— Weightless it seems as air. His mammoth jaw Drops widely open with a rasping sound, And all the red earth vomits from his maw.

O thwarted monster, born at man’s decree, A lap-dog dragon, eating from his hand And doomed to fetch and carry at command, Have you no longing ever to be free? In warm, electric days to run a-muck, Ranging like some mad dinosaur, Your fiery heart at war With this strange world, the city’s restless ruck, Where all drab things that toil, save you alone, Have life; And you the semblance only, and the strife? Do you not yearn to rip the roots of stone Of these great piles men build, And hurl them down with shriek of shattered steel, Scorning your own sure doom, so you may feel, You too, the lust with which your fathers killed? Or is your soul in very deed so tame, The blood of Grendel watered to a gruel, That you are well content With heart of flame Thus placidly to chew your cud of fuel And toil in peace for man’s aggrandizement?

Poor helpless creature of a half-grown god, Blind of yourself and impotent! At night, When your forerunners, sprung from quicker sod, Would range through primal woods, hot on the scent, Or wake the stars with amorous delight, You stand, a soiled, unwieldy mass of steel, Black in the arc-light, modern as your name, Dead and unsouled and trite; Till I must feel

A quick creator’s pity for your shame: That man, who made you and who gave so much, Yet cannot give the last transforming touch; That with the work he cannot give the wage— For day, no joy of night, For toil, no ecstasy of primal rage.

THE GREAT MAN

I cannot always feel his greatness. Sometimes he walks beside me, step by step, And paces slowly in the ways— The simple, wingless ways That my thoughts tread. He gossips with me then, And finds it good; Not as an eagle might, his great wings folded, be content To walk a little, knowing it his choice, But as a simple man, My friend. And I forget.

Then suddenly a call floats down From the clear airy spaces, The great keen, lonely heights of being. And he who was my comrade hears the call And rises from my side, and soars, Deep-chanting, to the heights. Then I remember. And my upward gaze goes with him, and I see Far off against the sky The glint of golden sunlight on his wings.

Ridgely Torrence

THE BIRD AND THE TREE

Blackbird, blackbird in the cage, There’s something wrong tonight. Far off the sheriff’s footfall dies, The minutes crawl like last year’s flies Between the bars, and like an age The hours are long tonight.

The sky is like a heavy lid Out here beyond the door tonight. What’s that? A mutter down the street. What’s that? The sound of yells and feet. For what you didn’t do or did You’ll pay the score tonight.

No use to reek with reddened sweat, No use to whimper and to sweat. They’ve got the rope; they’ve got the guns, They’ve got the courage and the guns; And that’s the reason why tonight No use to ask them any more. They’ll fire the answer through the door— You’re out to die tonight.

There where the lonely cross-road lies, There is no place to make replies; But silence, inch by inch, is there, And the right limb for a lynch is there; And a lean daw waits for both your eyes, Blackbird.

Perhaps you’ll meet again some place. Look for the mask upon the face: That’s the way you’ll know them there—

A white mask to hide the face. And you can halt and show them there The things that they are deaf to now, And they can tell you what they meant— To wash the blood with blood. But how If you are innocent?

Blackbird singer, blackbird mute, They choked the seed you might have found. Out of a thorny field you go— For you it may be better so— And leave the sowers of the ground To eat the harvest of the fruit, Blackbird.

THE SON

_Southern Ohio Market Town_

I heard an old farm-wife, Selling some barley, Mingle her life with life And the name “Charley.”

Saying: “The crop’s all in, We’re about through now; Long nights will soon begin, We’re just us two now.

“Twelve bushel at sixty cents, It’s all I carried— He sickened making fence; He was to be married—

“It feels like frost was near— His hair was curly. The spring was late that year, But the harvest early.”

Charles Hanson Towne

BEYOND THE STARS

Three days I heard them grieve when I lay dead, (It was so strange to me that they should weep!) Tall candles burned about me in the dark, And a great crucifix was on my breast, And a great silence filled the lonesome room.

I heard one whisper, “Lo! the dawn is breaking, And he has lost the wonder of the day.” Another came whom I had loved on earth, And kissed my brow and brushed my dampened hair. Softly she spoke: “Oh, that he should not see The April that his spirit bathed in! Birds Are singing in the orchard, and the grass That soon will cover him is growing green. The daisies whiten on the emerald hills, And the immortal magic that he loved Wakens again—and he has fallen asleep.” Another said: “Last night I saw the moon Like a tremendous lantern shine in heaven, And I could only think of him—and sob. For I remembered evenings wonderful When he was faint with Life’s sad loveliness, And watched the silver ribbons wandering far Along the shore, and out upon the sea. Oh, I remembered how he loved the world, The sighing ocean and the flaming stars, The everlasting glamour God has given— His tapestries that wrap the earth’s wide room. I minded me of mornings filled with rain When he would sit and listen to the sound As if it were lost music from the spheres. He loved the crocus and the hawthorn-hedge, He loved the shining gold of buttercups, And the low droning of the drowsy bees That boomed across the meadows. He was glad At dawn or sundown; glad when Autumn came With her worn livery and scarlet crown, And glad when Winter rocked the earth to rest. Strange that he sleeps today when Life is young, And the wild banners of the Spring are blowing With green inscriptions of the old delight.”