You street of sorrows bending
Over your golden lamps in the evening;
Dark street that is very silent,
And everywhere the same:
Elsewhere there is song and riot,
Like golden fireflies flickering,
Elsewhere the crane's gaunt muscles
Tug the city up to the stars.
But who in the dawn should come near you?
There are dry leaves rattling behind him.
And who should come in the noonday?
There are shadows that squat on the pave.
And who should come in the evening?
There is one: a ship in dark waters.
And who should come at nightfall,
To feel cold hands at his heart?
Why, mourner, do you mourn, nor see
The heavenly Earth's felicity?
I mourn for him, my Dearest, lost,
Who lived a frail life at my cost.
A grief like yours how many have known!
Were that a balm to ease my own!
Or rather might I not accuse
The Hand that does not even choose,
But, taking blindly, took my best,
And as indifferently takes the rest ...
Like mine? Is there denied to me
Even Sorrow's singularity?
My heart that was so passionless
Leapt high last night when I saw you!
Within me surged the grief of years
And whelmed me with its endless rue.
My heart that slept so still, so spent,
Awoke last night,--to break anew!
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.
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 !
She rose to greet her guests with smiling eyes,
A wealth of rich experience in her face,
Her movements full of that unconscious grace
In which a woman's highest power lies;
One felt the heart beat true and tenderwise
Beneath the velvet folds and filmy lace,
Grim sorrow there had seemed to find no place,
But only peace and love in loveliest guise.
And as with ready wit and kindly mirth
She led the throng in repartee and jest,
To us she seemed as one from common earth,
With all its blighting pain, set far apart
And rounded in with peace — who could have guessed
A two-edged sword lay buried in her heart !
I am sewing out my sorrow,
Like a thread, wearing it thin;
It will be old and frayed to-morrow.
Needle, turn out; needle, turn in.
Sorrow's thread is a long thread.
Needle, one stitch; needle, two.
And sorrow's thread is a strong thread,
But I will wear it through.
Then not only will sorrow
Be old and thin and frayed;
But I shall have to-morrow
Something sorrow has made.
Smiles do not always echo cheer,
Nor tear-drops measure grief,
For sorrow seeks a gilded mask,
And joy in tears, relief.
Her life was dwarfed, and wed to blight,
Her very days were shades of night,
Her every dream was born entombed.
Her soul, a bud, — that never bloomed.
There's nothing in the world that clings
As does a memory that stings;
While happy hours fade and pass,
Like shadows in a looking-glass.
Hear their viol-voices ringing
Down the corridor of years,
As they lift their twilight faces
Through a mist of falling tears !
The very acme of my woe,
The pivot of my pride,
My consolation, and my hope
Deferred, but not denied.
The substance of my every dream,
The riddle of my plight,
The very world epitomized
In turmoil and delight.