(O little white feet of mine)
Out in the storm and the rain you fly;
(Red, red shoes the colour of wine)
Can the children hear my cry?
(O little white feet of mine)
Never a child in the whole great town;
(Red, red shoes the colour of wine)
Lights out and the blinds pulled down.
(O little white feet of mine)
Never a light on a window pane,
(Red, red shoes the colour of wine)
And the wild wet cry of the rain.
(O little white feet of mine)
Shall I never again be still?
(Red, red shoes the colour of wine)
And away over valley and hill.
Now it is Loneliness who comes at night
Instead of Sleep, to sit beside my bed.
Like a tired child I lie and wait her tread,
I watch her softly blowing out the light.
Motionless sitting, neither left nor right
She turns, and weary, weary droops her head.
She, too, is old; she, too, has fought the fight.
So, with the laurel she is garlanded.
Through the sad dark the slowly ebbing tide
Breaks on a barren shore, unsatisfied.
A strange wind flows ... then silence. I am fain
To turn to Loneliness, to take her hand,
Cling to her, waiting, till the barren land
Fills with the dreadful monotone of rain.
My house is arrayed
In its garlands of Christmas delight;
A red rose is this house
In its holly and soft candle light.
But my heart is as cold
As the heart of a colourless rose,
And I feel the dead weight
Of your holiday blanket of snows.
Its huge red prow
Uplifted in a tragic attitude,
It waits out there; the seas around
Bubble and hiss with moaning sound:
In sight of port at the gates of the sea,
It waits upreared expectantly.
It has known the joy of battle,
It has known the shock of wreck:
The spray coated its planking,
The sands swallow its deck:
Monument of the sea,
That knows and that forgets eternally.
It heaves its scarred brow towards the city:
The city pays it little heed:
Indifferent, brutal, without pity,
Stern cargo-steamers trudge and speed;
In the tired face of the mirror
There is a blue curtain reflected.
If I could lift the reflection,
Peer a little beyond, I would see
A boy crying
Because his sister is ill in another room
And he has no one to play with:
A boy listlessly scattering building blocks,
And crying,
Because no one will build for him the palace of Fairy Morgana.
I cannot lift the curtain:
It is stiff and frozen.
Because the night is so still,
Because there is no one about,
Not the tiny squeak of a mouse over the carpet,
Nor the slow beat of a clock at the top of the stairway,
I am afraid of the night that is coming to me.
I know out there
Some one is thinking of me, some one is wondering about me,
Some one is needing me, some one is dying for my sake,
Yet I remain alone.
I know that life is calling: I cannot resist it:
Too much of myself I have given ever to turn away,
I know that shame, sickness, death itself shall befall me,
And I am afraid.
O night, hide me in your long cold arms:
Let me sleep, but let me not live this life!
There are too many people with haggard eyes standing before me
When the moonlight strikes the tree-tops,
The trees are not the same.
I know they are not the same,
Because there is one tree that is missing,
And it stood so long by another,
That the other, feeling lonely,
Now is slowly dying too.
When the moonlight strikes the tree-tops
That dead tree comes back;
Like a great blue sphere of smoke
Half buoyed, half ravelling on the grass,
Rustling through frayed branches,
Something eerily cheeping through it,
Something creeping through its shade.
A gray day and quiet,
With slow clouds of gray,
And in dull air a cloud that falls, falls
All day.
The naked and stiff branches
Of oak, elm, thorn,
In the cold light are like men aged and
Forlorn.
Only a gray sky,
Grass, trees, grass again,
And all the air a cloud that drips, drips,
All day.
Lovely the lonely
Bare trees and green grass--
Lovelier now the last hours of slow winter
Slowly pass.
How green and strange the light is,
Creeping through the window.
Lying alone in bed,
How strange the night is!
How still and chill the air is.
It seems no sound could live
Here in my room
That now so bare is.
All bright and still the room is,
But easeless here am I.
Deep in my heart
Cold lonely gloom is!
The noisy fire,
The drumming wind,
The creaking trees,
And all that hum
Of summer air
And all the long inquietude
Of breaking seas----
Sweet and delightful are
In loneliness.
But more than these
The quiet light
From the morn's sun
And night's astonished moon,
Falling gently upon breaking seas.
Such quietness
Another beauty is--
Far off a lonely hound
Telling his loneliness all round
To the dark woods, dark hills, and darker sea;
And, answering, the sound
Of that yet lonelier sea-hound
Telling his loneliness to the solitary stars.
Hearing, the kennelled hound
Some neighbourhood and comfort found,
And slept beneath the comfortless high stars.
But that wild sea-hound
Unkennelled, called all night all round--
The unneighboured and uncomforted cold sea.
I KNOW the man without a soul :
He is happy as the day,
He is happy, people say.
He is happy — so they say :
But they do not see him roll
On the ground in very dole.
All along the ground in dole,
When no one is watching, he
Bites the ground in agony.
He bites the ground in agony :
But with people he is whole :
I know the man without a soul !