That is the earliest thing that I remember--
The narrow house in the long narrow street,
Dark rooms within and darkness out of doors
Where grasses in the garden lift in the wind,
Long grasses clinging round unsteady feet.
The sunlight through one narrow passage pours,
As through the keyhole into a dusty room,
Striking with a golden rod the greening gloom.
The tall, tall timber-stacks have yet been kind,
Letting the sun fling his rod clear between,
Lest there should be no gold upon the green,
And no light then for a child to dream upon,
And day be of day's brightness all forlorn.
I saw those timber piles first dark and tall,
And then men clambered up, and stumbled down,
Hair--
silver-gray,
like streams of stars,
Brows--
recurved canoes
quivered by the ripples blown by pain,
Her eyes--mist
of tears
condensing on the flesh below
And her channeled muscles
are cluster grapes of sorrow
purple in the evening sun
nearly ripe for worms.
And then she saw me creeping,
Saw and stood
Transfixed upon the fringes of the wood,
And straight went leaping.
Headlong down the pitch
Of the curved hill,
Over the ditch
And through the skirt of bushes by the rill
She pelted screaming,
Swerved from the water sideways with a twist
Just as I clutched and missed.
Flashed white beneath my hand and doubled back,
Swift as a twisting hare upon her track,
Hot for the hill again,
But all in vain.
Her hair swung far behind,
You are as gold
as the half-ripe grain
that merges to gold again,
as white as the white rain
that beats through
the half-opened flowers
of the great flower tufts
thick on the black limbs
of an Illyrian apple bough.
Can honey distill such fragrance
as your bright hair--
for your face is as fair as rain,
yet as rain that lies clear
on white honey-comb,
lends radiance to the white wax,
so your hair on your brow
I shall make a song like your hair ...
Gold-woven with shadows green-tinged,
And I shall play with my song
As my fingers might play with your hair.
Deep in my heart
I shall play with my song of you,
Gently....
I shall laugh
At its sensitive lustre ...
I shall wrap my song in a blanket,
Blue like your eyes are blue
With tiny shots of silver.
I shall wrap it caressingly,
Tenderly....
I shall sing a lullaby
To the song I have made
O GIRL with honey-coloured hair,
And will you come and dance with me ?
The night is dark but you can spare
Light from your eyes for both to see,
And in the shade of trees divine
Like a whirled torch your hair will shine.
So dance apart and dance away ;
The rest about the lanterns gather,
But there is light for two to play
In any place where we're together,
And there is soft long grass and shadow
Beneath the rick across the meadow.
For love in darkness is at ease
And likes no candle save the light
Of kindled eyes and glowing tress
And bodies luminous with delight.
Why does the thin grey strand
Floating up from the forgotten
Cigarette between my fingers,
Why does it trouble me?
Ah, you will understand;
When I carried my mother downstairs,
A few times only, at the beginning
Of her soft-foot malady,
I should find, for a reprimand
To my gaiety, a few long grey hairs
On the breast of my coat; and one by one
I let them float up the dark chimney.
“I’ll tell him, when he comes,” she said,
“Body and baggage, to go,
Though the night be darker than my hair,
And the ground be hard with snow.”
But when he came with his gay black head
Thrown back, and his lips apart,
She flipped a light hair from his coat,
And sobbed against his heart.
They have painted and sung
the women washing their hair,
and the plaits and strands in the sun,
and the golden combs
and the combs of elephant tusks
and the combs of buffalo horn and hoof.
The sun has been good to women,
drying their heads of hair
as they stooped and shook their shoulders
and framed their faces with copper
and framed their eyes with dusk or chestnut.
The rain has been good to women.
If the rain should forget,
if the rain left off for a year —
the heads of women would wither,
the copper, the dusk and chestnuts, go.
TO-NIGHT
For the last time,
I loose my hair to make a tent about you.
Come, lay your head on my knees.
Your eyes are the lights of a town.
And my body is a sheltering hill.
Now my hair is a cloud.
To hide you from the inquisitive stars.
I SAID, " I will not go to her to-night,"
When I had courage from the prudent light.
My resolution vanished with the day,
When the dark came I could not live away.
O! My dear Love, let down your hair.
Make me a tent, and let me shelter there;
That in the darkness of a screened night
I live more prudent than in loveless light.
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.