The lips so often frame a smile
While the eyes in salt tears swim
And heart, repellent cup of bile,
Is filled to kiss the brim.
Oft firm and stern we find a face,
Devoid of outward sign,
A mask before the dwelling place
Of happiness divine.
Though many are the dreams I dream,
They're born within a single theme.
The same kind voice I ever hear,
Instilling faith, upbraiding fear:
The same consoling smile appears
To snuff my sighs and dry my tears :
And fondest heart, of purest gold,
Is hers whose name I here withold,
And pray naught ever change my theme,
Or wake me from my dream.
You seemed a caryatid melting
Into the wind-blown, dark blue temple of the sky.
But you bent down as I came closer, breaking the image.
When I passed, you raised your head
And blew the little feather of a smile upon me.
I caught it on open lips and blew it back.
And in that moment we loved,
Although you stood still waiting for your lover,
And I walked on to my love.
With crafty brooding life turned to Jack Rose
And made him heroin-peddler, and his pose
Was sullenly reflective since he feared
That life, regarding him, had merely jeered.
His vanity was small and could not call
His egoism to the dubious hall
Of fame, where average artists spend their hour.
Doubting his powers he was forced to cower
Within the shrill, damp alleys of his time,
Immersed in that brisk midnight known as crime.
He shunned the fiercely shrewd stuff that he sold
To other people, and derived a cold
Enjoyment from the writhing of their hearts.
A speechless artist, he admired the arts
Of blundering destruction, like a monk
Viewing a play that made him mildly drunk.
Smiles are the words beyond the words
That thoughts abandon helplessly.
Upon this nervous shop-girl’s face,
Where clusters of tiny limpness meet,
A frightened spark leaps high and drops
Into the hot pause of a banished love.
A lustrelessly plump
Girl beside her does not know
That her face for moments glows
Into a helpless solitude.
Upon an old man’s face
Are gleams of meek embarrassment--
The faded presence of some old debt?
This woman’s face is scorched
By a torch that falls from weary hands
And makes her laugh an unheard lie.
The waters seem to rise
To meet that little sprawl,
That splash of resolution,
Of joyous legs and arms:
The waters catch and play with her.
From out the foam a face blooms,
Pink and wet —
Bud of my heart! —
And there floats to me.
Widening,
The ripples of her smile!
The breath of life imbued those few dim days!
Yet all we had was this,--
A flashing smile, a touch of hands, and once
A fleeting kiss.
Blank futile death inheres these years between!
Still naught have you and I
But frozen tears, and stifled words, and once
A sharp caught cry.
Smiles do not always echo cheer,
Nor tear-drops measure grief,
For sorrow seeks a gilded mask,
And joy in tears, relief.
"I have no name;
I am but two days old."
What shall I call thee?
"I happy am,
Joy is my name."
Sweet joy befall thee!
Pretty joy!
Sweet joy, but two days old.
Sweet Joy I call thee:
Thou dost smile,
I sing the while;
Sweet joy befall thee!
Is this a time to be cloudy and sad,
When our mother Nature laughs around;
When even the deep blue heavens look glad,
And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground?
There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren,
And the gossip of swallows through all the sky;
The ground-squirrel gaily chirps by his den,
And the wilding bee hums merrily by.
The clouds are at play in the azure space,
And their shadows at play on the bright green vale,
And here they stretch to the frolic chase,
And there they roll on the easy gale.
There's a dance of leaves in that aspen bower,
There's a titter of winds in that beechen tree,
There's a smile on the fruit, and a smile on the flower,
It is not death
Without hereafter
To one in dearth
Of life and its laughter,
Nor the sweet murder
Dealt slow and even
Unto the martyr
Smiling at heaven:
It is the smile
Faint as a (waning) myth,
Faint, and exceeding small
On a boy's murdered mouth.
I'd mourn the hopes that leave me,
If thy smiles had left me too;
I'd weep when friends deceive me,
If thou wert, like them, untrue.
But while I've thee before me,
With heart so warm and eyes so bright,
No clouds can linger o'er me,
That smile turns them all to light.
'Tis not in fate to harm me,
While fate leaves thy love to me:
'Tis not in joy to charm me,
Unless joy be shared with thee.
One minute's dream about thee
Were worth a long, an endless year
Of waking bliss without thee,
My own love, my only dear!