Remember me as I was then;
Turn from me now, but always see
The laughing shadowy girl who stood
At midnight by the flowering tree,
With eyes that love had made as bright
As the trembling stars of the summer night.
Turn from me now, but always hear
The muted laughter in the dew
Of that one year of youth we had,
The only youth we ever knew--
Turn from me now, or you will see
What other years have done to me.
The small chameleon has the knack
Of turning blue or green or black,
And yet, whatever hue he don,
He stays a small cham-e-le-on.
I came upon a maiden
Blowing rose petals in the air
And catching them, as they fell,
Upon quick fingertips
Her laugh fell lighter than the petals
And dropped little gestures upon my forehead.
I gave her sadness and she blew it up
As she had blown the rose petals:
And it almost seemed joy as her fingers caught it.
But I was only a wanderer plaited with dust,
Who gave her new petals to play with.
As one, who comes back to a house of yore,
Some high old house in legendary trees.
And misses blue flower here; there, at the door.
Notes thinning bush, a difference in the bees;
Then enters, halts, and of a sudden knows
A face gone out, a step lost on the stair.
So I, in England. Every buffet shows
Upon her cheek; her every bone lies bare.
Yet comes not still the bloom to urban bough?
Yet pluck not girls the country thorn and sigh?
Folks buy, and sow, and neighbors go about?
Oh, different! Oh, more worth loving now.
Spent loveliness, that hurts me like a cry; —
The step lost on the stair, the face gone out!
The day has brought me sun-loaned cheer,
And to unchangeable ways, change . . .
But dusk is here to make them strange,
Making them clear.
I found a torrent falling in a glen
Where the sun's light shone silvered and leaf-split;
The boom, the foam, and the mad flash of it
All made a magic symphony; but when
I thought upon the coming of hard men
To cut those patriarchal trees away,
And turn to gold the silver of that spray,
I shuddered. Yet a gladness now and then
Did wake me to myself till I was glad
In earnest, and was welcoming the time
For screaming saws to sound above the chime
Of idle waters, and for me to know
The jealous visionings that I had had
Were steps to the great place where trees and torrents go.
Gold of a ripe oat straw, gold of a southwest moon,
Canada thistle blue and flimmering larkspur blue,
Tomatoes shining in the October sun with red hearts,
Shining five and six in a row on a wooden fence.
Why do you keep wishes on your faces all day long,
Wishes like women with half-forgotten lovers going to
new cities?
What is there for you in the birds, the birds, the birds,
crying down on the north wind in September, acres
of birds spotting the air going south?
Is there something finished? And some new beginning
on the way?
Into the blue river hills
The red sun runners go
And the long sand changes
And to-day is a goner
And to-day is not worth haggling over.
Here in Omaha
The gloaming is bitter
As in Chicago
Or Kenosha.
The long sand changes.
To-day is a goner.
Time knocks in another brass nail.
Another yellow plunger shoots the dark.
Constellations
Wheeling over Omaha
As in Chicago
Brother, I am fire
Surging under the ocean floor.
I shall never meet you, brother —
Not for years, anyhow;
Maybe thousands of years, brother.
Then I will warm you,
Hold you close, wrap you in circles,
Use you and change you —
Maybe thousands of years, brother.
The pines shake and the winds wake,
And the dark waves crowd the sky-line!
The birds wheel out on a troubled sky;
The widening road runs white and long,
And the page is turned,
And the world is tired!
So I want no more of twilight sloth,
And I want no more of resting,
And of all the earth I ask no more
Than the green sea, the great sea,
The long road, the white road,
And a change of life to-day!
Time was, when I recalled your words, your looks, your deeds.
As a rapt nun counts over her blest beads;
Then was my mind so filled with memory
Love had no room to work his change in me,
And I was faithless from my faith's continuance,
Since being changeless I gave no obedience.
I have forgotten you, for these long days,
All unsustained by you I went my ways,
Now at the end I take you back to thought
To find my action was the thing you taught.
And so in faithlessness is faith's continuance.
Since in a change I do you all obedience.
Deborah danced, when she was two,
As buttercups and daffodils do ;
Spirited, frail, naively bold,
Her hair a ruffled crest of gold.
And whenever she spoke her voice went singing
Like water up from a fountain springing.
But now her step is quiet and slow;
She walks the way primroses go;
Her hair is yellow instead of gilt.
Her voice is losing its lovely lilt,
And in place of her wild, delightful ways
A quaint precision rules her days.
For Deborah now is three, and oh.
She knows so much that she did not know.