Crowds are passing on the street,
Tuck on tuck and pleat on pleat
Of people hurrying along,
Homeward bound, throng on throng.
Their work is finished, mine undone;
Still my stitches run.
I cannot watch the people go,
Fold on fold and row on row;
But I know each pulsing tread
Is spinning out a life's fine thread;
I know the stars, like needle-gleams,
Are pricking through the sky's wide seams ;
And soon the moon must show its face,
Like a pearl button stitched in place.
All the long hours of the day
Are finished now and folded away;
The light passes
from ridge to ridge,
from flower to flower--
the hypaticas, wide-spread
under the light
grow faint--
the petals reach inward,
the blue tips bend
toward the bluer heart
and the flowers are lost.
The cornel-buds are still white,
but shadows dart
from the cornel-roots--
black creeps from root to root,
each leaf
cuts another leaf on the grass,
The curtains of twilight are drawn in the west
And vespers are sweet on the air,
While I, through my leafless, ungarlanded way
But pause at the gates of despair.
Good-bye to the hopes that were never fulfilled,
Good-bye to the fond dreams that failed.
Good-bye to my dead that has never been born.
Good-bye to love's ship that ne'er sailed.
When lone and solitaire within your chamber,
With lamp unlit, as evening shades unroll.
If you reveal the trail your thoughts are taking,
I then may read the riddle of your soul.
For it is then, the tired mind unveiling,
Drifts stark into the holy after-glow.
Within the hour of quiet meditation.
The tidal thoughts, like limpid waters, flow.
From its blue vase the rose of evening drops.
Upon the streams its petals float away.
The hills all blue with distance hide their tops
In the dim silence falling on the grey.
A little wind said "Hush!" and shook a spray
Heavy with May's white crop of opening bloom,
A silent bat went dipping up the gloom.
Night tells her rosary of stars full soon,
They drop from out her dark hand to her knees.
Upon a silhouette of woods the moon
Leans on one horn as if beseeching ease
From all her changes which have stirred the seas.
Across the ears of Toil Rest throws her veil,
I and a marsh bird only make a wail.
A bruised heart,
A wounded soul,
A broken lute,
That is all!
A sad evening,
And a lone star,
Then song reddens--
Sets life's forest afire!
Steps of rose
On rosier steps;
Thus, evening
Builds her staircase
Between sunset
And the infinite roof of space.
So our fancies
May fold their wings,
And walk on gleams
Of unending purple and pink,
Up to the blue pool . . .
And drink from its starry rim.
As I went through the marshes
a doe sprang out of the corn
and flashed up the hill-side
leaving her fawn.
On the sky-line
she moved round to watch,
she pricked a fine black blotch
on the sky.
I looked at her
and felt her watching;
I became a strange being.
Still, I had my right to be there with her,
Her nimble shadow trotting
along the sky-line, she
put back her fine, level-balanced head.
And I knew her.
She loves blood-red poppies for a garden to walk in.
In a loose white gown she walks and a new child tugs at cords in her body.
Her head to the west at evening when the dew is creeping,
A shudder of gladness runs in her bones and torsal fiber:
She loves blood-red poppies for a garden to walk in.
It is not the bright light in your window
Which dazzles my eyes ;
It is the dim outline of your shadow
Moving upon the shoji.