Upon an arched sarcophagus of pain
Are figures painted in arrested embraces
With outlines so light that we must bend close to see:
Old loves almost merging to one tone
Of pale regret that holds
An inner glow of dead weeping.
Our lips cling and our breath winds to a hand
With touch like summer rain
Blending the arrested figures upon the arched sarcophagus of pain.
The gown you wear is curiously like sound--
Tangles of dahlia-murmurs taking shape
In shrinking, mellow sprays.
The everlasting journey of your heart
Gliding over a sleepy litany
That winds through scattered star-flowers of regrets:
The everlasting journey of your heart
Is like a fragile traveler of sound--
A murmur seeking the love that gave it birth.
Afternoon sunlight limps tenuously away,
Leaving a snarled retrospect of golden foot-marks.
The sea is pregnant with gracious discords
That falteringly shroud the sleep-rhythmed breasts of winds.
The sky is a genially vacant stare.
Remaining touches of starlight
Tremble the leaves when air is still....
And so my love for you strolls through this day,
Picking up forgotten hints of its heart.
Two walls, dizzy with rain-touch
And suffused with gauzily amorous sunlight,
Creep over a hill and meet.
And so our foreheads touch.
Silence between our hands grows into clasped music
Sprinkling our finger-tips with attenuated chords of touch.
Our hearts weave low songs to this accompaniment:
So low that even silence cannot hear.
Sometimes jaded, sometimes tranquil,
Your eyes invade the tumult of your face.
Your lips are the remnants of a love
That made a sunset-cup of your face.
The movements of your body
Caress the couch you sit on into sound
That seems to answer your words.
You are restless because upon this couch
The cold touch of your lover lies
And seeps into you, reaching your heart.
When autumn winds are on the hill
And darkly rides the wasting moon,
I creep within your arms, and still
Am safe in the golden heart of June.
Dawn glimmers white beyond the burning hill
Where sunbeams light a fire in every tree.
The morning bird is singing clear and shrill;
And oh, my love! when will you come to me?
The daisies whitely sleep beneath the dew;
On the wet road the stones are fair to see;
Cloudy, the blackthorn floats upon the blue;
And oh, my love! when will you come to me?
The wind came walking in the shaken wood;
He shouted from the mountains and the sea.
By the pale thorn he paused, in lover’s mood -
And oh, my love! when will you come to me?
My heart has blossomed meekly as the thorn;
It has its dews, and daisies two or three.
The heavens quicken, green as April corn —
And oh, my love! when will you come to me?
An old, old couple in a blossoming garden. . . .
Love, inarticulate, nestles close between them.
And the old woman and the old man.
And Love,
Sit watching fireflies. . . .
Tiny torches flashing with pale, green light
In the heavy white dew.
Oh roses. . .roses. . .roses. . .cease your blossoming!
Kind crystal dew
Put out the firefly torches
Before they light the little paths to sorrow. . . .
Earth is too beautiful. . . .
And the man and the woman are old, so old,
And tired.
Now they sit quietly with calm, closed eyes. . . .
Only Love, nestled close between them,
Oh such a windy windy day
So glad and wild and sweet!
A day all made for strong white wings,
And song and dancing feet.
Everything's white and blue and gold —
The sea and sand and sky —
And oh the wind, the gay, salt wind,
That frolics blithely by.
Oh windy, lovely day so bright,
Oh, frolic wind so glad !
Stay in my soul, a memory
For still days grey and sad.
Your blue and white and gold, your song,
Your white wings soaring free —
Oh ardent Lover Wind that brought
My soul's own wings to me!
The Wind is a black-winged beast tonight.
I toss and shudder and long for light.
Oh cruel talons that grasp with might
My casement window — how frail it seems —
How it opened once to the moonlight gleams,
Rustle of leaves and the tiptoe dreams —
But now it is shutting a wild Thing out —
A winged beast in a mad death rout —
(Oh the great, black wings on-rushing!)
Was it the Wind that yesterday
Crooned so soft in the bent sea-pine?
Touching my lips like a pungent wine,
On the cliff top there, with the lichened turf
(Marriage of sea and of rich, brown earth).
Bayberry bushes of frosted green
Guarded that tryst of a king and queen.
Old Jock and Marie Anne could never find
Raspberries of the glowing amber kind
To fill the “ancient porcelain bowl.” (’Twas lined
With amber glaze; outside a gold vine wound
In such a graceful pattern round and round.)
But if my Mother looked she always found
Enough to fill the bowl. That day we’d three
Distinguished guests. I loved to have them see
My lovely Mother as she looked at tea....
Her gown of creamy lace--her shining hair,
Her beads of old carved amber ... all her rare
Fragile soft richness, like the berries there
With their pale amber bloom. I loved her so....
I wished that every body there could know....
“Why don’t you eat your berries, Child?” ... then low
When Loneliness stalked ...
Black panther through gold wheat-fields ...
You used Love’s arrows.