Coral-music, the sunset writes on the scroll of the sea;
Gold strings are strung in the harp of the sky;
Cloud-fingers, playing on them,
Make noiseless gossamer-melody;
As the amber-draped moon-maid
Trips from the sea to the Heavens
Dancing the measure of evening worship.
Am I the river your white birds fly over?
Are you the green valley my silver channels roam?
The two of us a bowl of blue sky day time
and a bowl of red stars night time?
Who picked you
out of the first great whirl of nothings
and threw you here?
Riding against the east,
A veering, steady shadow-
Purrs the motor-call
Of the man-bird
Ready with the death-laughter
In his throat
And in his heart always
The love of the big blue beyond.
Only a man,
A far fleck of shadow on the east
Sitting at ease
With his hands on a wheel
And around him the large gray wings.
Hold him, great soft wings,
Keep and deal kindly, O wings,
With the cool, calm shadow at the wheel.
A canyon of granite and steel,
A river of grim unrest,
And over the fever and street-dust
Arches the azure of dream.
And fretting along the tumult,
Threading the iron curbs,
Tawdry in tinsel and feather
Drift the daughters of pleasure,
The sad-eyed traders in song,
The makers of joy,
The Columbines of the city
Seeking their ends!
But under the beaded eye-lash,
Under the lip with its rouge,
Under the mask of white
Splashed with geranium-red,
Give me an hour
Of perfect freedom and of power! —
When I see done
All things I longed for 'neath the Sun —
Then let me die
A flame-burst to the Sky!
Walk out, my Love, from little houses,
From these dim walls of old restraints.
Heavy with odorous griefs and melancholy plaints.
Cob webbed with sighs.
Let us find a field where a quiet cow browses,
A field wind-swept to clean content,
And we will love there as God meant,
Under free skies.
When I come to the end of the land,
I find the sea,
With edges of cliff and breadths of sand
To pleasure me.
When I raise my town-tired eyes
There is blue and white,
Or kings and castles of stormy skies.
Or joy of night.
When I weary of all I see
And tire even of space,
I hold your love in memory.
And your dear face.
The sky was blue, so blue that day
And each daisy white, so white,
O, I knew that no more could rains fall grey
And night again be night.
I knew, I knew. Well, if night is night,
And the grey skies greyly cry,
I have in a book for the candle light,
A daisy dead and dry.
Be patient with you?
When the stooping sky
Leans down upon the hills
And tenderly, as one who soothing stills
An anguish, gathers earth to lie
Embraced and girdled. Do the sun-filled men
Feel patience then?
Be patient with you?
When the snow-girt earth
Cracks to let through a spurt
Of sudden green, and from the muddy dirt
A snowdrop leaps, how mark its worth
To eyes frost-hardened, and do weary men
Feel patience then?
Be patient with you?
When pain's iron bars
The rain is dark against the white sky.
Or white against the foliage of eucalyptus-trees.
But, in the cistern, it is a sheet of mauve and amber.
Because of the chrysanthemums
Heaped about its edge.
When you go up to die
Some not far distant day,
I wonder will you try
To tear your mask away,
And look life in the eyes
For once without disguise?
Behind your mask may hide
What treacherous, covered fires !
What hidden, torturing pride!
What sorrows, what desires!
Whatever there may be
There will be none to see.
Yet I think when you meet
Death coming through the skies,
Calmly his face you'll greet.
Coldly, without surprise ;
A broken ploughed field
In the driving rain,
Rain driven slant-wise
Over the plain.
I long for the rain.
The dull long rain.
For farmlands and ploughlands
And cornlands again.
O grey broken skies.
You were part of my pain !