(A lover muses)
Flame-flower, Day-torch, Mauna Loa,
I saw a daring bee, today, pause, and soar,
Into your flaming heart;
Then did I hear crisp, crinkled laughter
As the furies after tore him apart?
A bird, next, small and humming,
Looked into your startled depths and fled....
Surely, some dread sight, and dafter
Than human eyes as mine can see,
Set the stricken air waves drumming
In his flight.
Day-torch, Flame-flower, cool-hot Beauty,
I cannot see, I cannot hear your flutey
Voice lure your loving swain,
But I know one other to whom you are in beauty
Rest, little Guest,
Beneath my breast.
Feed, sweet Seed,
At your need.
I took Love for my lord
And this is my reward,
My body is good earth.
That you, dear Plant, have birth.
I LOVE you so entirely
I cannot think to please you,
My art is wasted.
You are burnt with madness.
My being burns to ease you.
In dreams of utter service,
Is all sweetness tasted.
I love you so entirely,
I want you not to praise me!
I would be low in all esteem!
I would be outcast with one thing to raise me,
The hope of service I have gathered in a dream.
Let us go to the mountains, O my Lover!
And make our habitation near the sky;
In clear, cool air we can discover
A plan of perfect living, you and I.
Two gifts I gave you, Love and Sorrow,
Of which the last is best,
But O, my Dear! 'Twas bitter giving,
Come here to me and rest.
What victory shall your world deny you,
Now you have wept?
All peace of love I will restore you
When you have slept.
My Dear was a mason
And I was his stone.
And quick did he fashion
A house of his own.
As fish in the waters,
As birds in a tree,
So natural and blithe lives
His spirit in me.
When first I saw him I was chaste and good,
And he, how ruthless, pardoned not the mood.
From one quick look I knew him dear,
And gave the highest tribute of my fear.
So I played woman to his male:
How better could his power prevail!
But his hot sense showed quick surprise
At the slow challenge of my shaded eyes.
In a closed room what fires may burn!
O my cold lover will you not return?
To the high night I fling my prayer:
Master of chariots, drive me in the air!
I AM my Love's laboratory.
For truly he shall find
The proof of his high quality
Within my heart and mind.
Look down, my Love, my Dear,
At the sure change wrought here!
'Tis you who hold
My heat, my cold,
My rigour and my ecstasy.
Control my days.
Compel my ways
To action or to lethargy.
You fill my nights
With keen delights
Of a stupendous dreaming.
O! Little Seed,
Who at my need
Flowers to such splendid seeming!
I LOVE the stone of your threshold,
I love the path without it,
I love the briar in its borders,
With the brave young plants about it.
There is pleasure in sight of your windows.
And passing, in decorous night,
I smile my love to your window
And bow my love to your light.
With green-stained bark,
Rising like a tower of the sea,
From the smooth park.
He is a giant among trees,
And he has watched this house for centuries.
His bark is hard as rock,
Time and Sun and the Wind's shock
Have twisted his boughs till they are like the arms of a great carven figure of Care,
Flung in passionate appeal to the changing humour of the Air.
Now on high branches sticky buds appear.
Promise of growth and beauty for the year. —
It seems my life is an old tree.
And the young buds are your sweet love for me.
Why is there healing in her love?
Her mind is clear as streams that flow
Down rock-steps to a vale below,
Bearing on spray the Sun's bright bow.
And singing as they move.
I HID beneath the covers of the bed,
And dreamed my eyes were lovers,
On a hill that was my head.
They looked upon the loveliest country I have seen,
Great fields of red-brown earth hedged round with green.
In these enclosures I could see
The high perfection of fertility,
I knew there were sweet waters near to feed the land,
I heard the churning of a mill on my right hand,
I woke to breathlessness with a quick start,
And found my mill the beating of your heart.