God made my mother on an April day,
From sorrow and the mist along the sea,
Lost birds' and wanderers' songs and ocean spray
And the moon loved her wandering jealously.
Beside the ocean's din she combed her hair,
Singing the nocturne of the passing ships,
Before her earthly lover found her there
And kissed away the music from her lips.
She came unto the hills and saw the change
That brings the swallow and the geese in turns.
But there was not a grief she deeméd strange,
For there is that in her which always mourns.
Kind heart she has for all on hill or wave
Whose hopes grew wings like ants to fly away.
I bless the God Who such a mother gave
This poor bird-hearted singer of a day.
From its blue vase the rose of evening drops.
Upon the streams its petals float away.
The hills all blue with distance hide their tops
In the dim silence falling on the grey.
A little wind said "Hush!" and shook a spray
Heavy with May's white crop of opening bloom,
A silent bat went dipping up the gloom.
Night tells her rosary of stars full soon,
They drop from out her dark hand to her knees.
Upon a silhouette of woods the moon
Leans on one horn as if beseeching ease
From all her changes which have stirred the seas.
Across the ears of Toil Rest throws her veil,
I and a marsh bird only make a wail.
You looked as sad as an eclipséd moon
Above the sheaves of harvest, and there lay
A light lisp on your tongue, and very soon
The petals of your deep blush fell away;
White smiles that come with an uneasy grace
From inner sorrow crossed your forehead fair,
When the wind passing took your scattered hair
And flung it like a brown shower in my face.
Tear-fringéd winds that fill the heart's low sighs
And never break upon the bosom's pain,
But blow unto the windows of the eyes
Their misty promises of silver rain,
Around your loud heart ever rose and fell.
I thought 'twere better that the tears should come
And strike your every feeling wholly numb,
So thrust my hand in yours and shook fare-well.
We never knew the sorrow or the pain
Within him, for he seemed as one asleep--
Until he faced us with a dying leap,
And with a blast of paramount, profane,
And vehement valediction did explain
To each of us, in words that we shall keep,
Why we were not to wonder or to weep,
Or ever dare to wish him back again.
He may be now an amiable shade,
With merry fellow-phantoms unafraid
Around him--but we do not ask. We know
That he would rise and haunt us horribly,
And be with us o’ nights of a certainty.
Did we not hear him when he told us so?
Sorrow like a ceaseless rain
Beats upon my heart.
People twist and scream in pain,--
Dawn will find them still again;
This has neither wax nor wane,
Neither stop nor start.
People dress and go to town;
I sit in my chair.
All my thoughts are slow and brown:
Standing up or sitting down
Little matters, or what gown
Or what shoes I wear.
I had a little Sorrow,
Born of a little Sin,
I found a room all damp with gloom
And shut us all within;
And, "Little Sorrow, weep," said I,
"And, Little Sin, pray God to die,
And I upon the floor will lie
And think how bad I've been!"
Alas for pious planning--
It mattered not a whit!
As far as gloom went in that room,
The lamp might have been lit!
My little Sorrow would not weep,
My little Sin would go to sleep--
To save my soul I could not keep
My graceless mind on it!
All your sorrow, Louise, and hatred of me
Sprang from your delusion that it was wantonness
Of spirit and contempt of your soul’s rights
Which made me turn to Annabelle and forsake you.
You really grew to hate me for love of me,
Because I was your soul’s happiness,
Formed and tempered
To solve your life for you, and would not.
But you were my misery.
If you had been
My happiness would I not have clung to you?
This is life’s sorrow:
That one can be happy only where two are;
And that our hearts are drawn to stars
Which want us not.
My mind was a mirror:
It saw what it saw, it knew what it knew.
In youth my mind was just a mirror
In a rapidly flying car,
Which catches and loses bits of the landscape.
Then in time
Great scratches were made on the mirror,
Letting the outside world come in,
And letting my inner self look out.
For this is the birth of the soul in sorrow,
A birth with gains and losses.
The mind sees the world as a thing apart,
And the soul makes the world at one with itself.
A mirror scratched reflects no image—
And this is the silence of wisdom.
Laughter and song for my cheer,
Life is so fair.
None so happy as I
Anywhere ;
Birds in the woods carol clear,
White clouds in the sky.
Song silent and brow with a frown,
Why is this so ?
Guiltless am I
Would you know,
The lark from the heavens drops down ;
Grey clouds in the sky.
Sighing and tears for my sorrow,
Life is so drear,
None so weary as I,
'Tis a mere
Now God between us and all harm,
For I to-night have seen
A banshee in the shadow pass
Along the dark boreen.
And as she went she keened and cried
And combed her long white hair,
She stopped at Molly Reilly's door,
And sobbed till midnight there.
And is it for himself she moans,
Who is so far away ?
Or is it Molly Reilly's death
She cries until the day ?
Now Molly thinks her man is gone
A sailor lad to be ;
She puts a candle at her door
Each night for him to see.
Ah! to be able to sing,
To sorrow in melody;
To string with silver
Sorrow's dark harp!
Or, mount every thorn
Crowning life's brow
With lustrous stars--
Those tears of the sky.
Rolling down its face
When night's hand puts
Darkness's crown on its head
As twilight dies.
None of these, for my soul;
Only to weep is given to me,
To nourish my heart's crop
For the scythe of barrenness to reap.
The plane leaves
fall black and wet
on the lawn;
The cloud sheaves
in heaven's fields set
droop and are drawn
in falling seeds of rain;
the seed of heaven
on my face
falling--I hear again
like echoes even
that softly pace
Heaven's muffled floor,
the winds that tread
out all the grain
of tears, the store