Hold your apron wide
That I may pour my gifts into it,
So that scarcely shall your two arms hinder them
From falling to the ground.
I would pour them upon you
And cover you,
For greatly do I feel this need
Of giving you something,
Even these poor things.
Dearest of my Heart!
I have been temperate always,
But I am like to be very drunk
With your coming.
There have been times
I feared to walk down the street
Lest I should reel with the wine of you,
And jerk against my neighbours
As they go by.
I am parched now, and my tongue is horrible in my mouth,
But my brain is noisy
With the clash and gurgle of filling wine-cups.
My cup is empty to-night,
Cold and dry are its sides,
Chilled by the wind from the open window.
Empty and void, it sparkles white in the moonlight.
The room is filled with the strange scent
Of wistaria blossoms.
They sway in the moon's radiance
And tap against the wall.
But the cup of my heart is still,
And cold, and empty.
When you come, it brims
Red and trembling with blood,
Heart's blood for your drinking;
To fill your mouth with love
And the bitter-sweet taste of a soul.
I pray to be the tool which to your hand
Long use has shaped and moulded till it be
Apt for your need, and, unconsideringly,
You take it for its service. I demand
To be forgotten in the woven strand
Which grows the multi-coloured tapestry
Of your bright life, and through its tissues lie
A hidden, strong, sustaining, grey-toned band.
I wish to dwell around your daylight dreams,
The railing to the stairway of the clouds,
To guard your steps securely up, where streams
A faery moonshine washing pale the crowds
Of pointed stars. Remember not whereby
You mount, protected, to the far-flung sky.
Be patient with you?
When the stooping sky
Leans down upon the hills
And tenderly, as one who soothing stills
An anguish, gathers earth to lie
Embraced and girdled. Do the sun-filled men
Feel patience then?
Be patient with you?
When the snow-girt earth
Cracks to let through a spurt
Of sudden green, and from the muddy dirt
A snowdrop leaps, how mark its worth
To eyes frost-hardened, and do weary men
Feel patience then?
Be patient with you?
When pain's iron bars
I LAY them before you,
One, two, three silver pieces.
And a copper piece
Dulled with handling.
The first will buy you a cake.
The second a flower.
The third a coloured bead.
The fourth will buy you nothing at all.
Since it has a hole in it.
I beg you, therefore.
String it about your neck.
At least it will remind you of my poverty.
That sputter of rain, flipping the hedge-rows
And making the highways hiss.
How I love it !
And the touch of you upon my arm
As you press against me that my umbrella
May cover you.
Tinkle of drops on stretched silk.
Wet murmur through green branches.
My thoughts
Chink against my ribs
And roll about like silver hail-stones.
I should like to spill them out.
And pour them, all shining,
Over you.
But my heart is shut upon them
And holds them straitly.
Come, You ! and open my heart ;
That my thoughts torment me no longer.
But glitter in your hair.
You stand between the cedars and the green spruces.
Brilliantly naked.
And I think :
What are you,
A gem under sunlight ?
A poised spear ?
A jade cup ?
You flash in front of the cedars and the tall spruces.
And I see that you are fire —
Sacrificial fire on a jade altar.
Spear-tongue of white, ceremonial fire.
My eyes burn.
My hands are flames seeking you.
But you are as remote from me as a bright pointed planet
Set in the distance of an evening sky.
Fireflies flicker in the tops of trees.
Flicker in the lower branches.
Skim along the ground.
Over the moon-white lilies
Is a flashing and ceasing of small, lemon-green stars.
As you lean against me,
Moon-white,
The air all about you
Is slit, and pricked, and pointed with sparkles of lemon-green flame
Starting out of a background of vague, blue trees.
When I think of you. Beloved,
I see a smooth and stately garden
With parterres of gold and crimson tulips
And bursting lilac leaves.
There is a low-lipped basin in the midst.
Where a statue of veined cream marble
Perpetually pours water over her shoulder
From a rounded urn.
When the wind blows.
The water-stream blows before it
And spatters into the basin with a light tinkling.
And your shawl — the colour of red violets —
Flares out behind you in great curves
Like the swirling draperies of a painted Madonna.
Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper
Like draggled fly's legs,
What can you tell of the flaring moon
Through the oak leaves ?
Or of my uncurtained window and the bare floor
Spattered with moonlight ?
Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them
Of blossoming hawthorns.
And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of loveliness
Beneath my hand.
I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against
The want of you ;
Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,
And posting it.
And I scald alone, here, under the fire
Of the great moon.