Les plus lus ▸
Edgar Lee Masters
Their spirits beat upon mine
Like the wings of a thousand butterflies.
I closed my eyes and felt their spirits vibrating.
I closed my eyes, yet I knew when their lashes
Fringed their cheeks from downcast eyes,
And when they turned their heads;
And when their garments clung to them,
Or fell from them, in exquisite draperies.
Their spirits watched my ecstasy
With wide looks of starry unconcern.
Their spirits looked upon my torture;
They drank it as it were the water of life;
With reddened cheeks, brightened eyes,
The rising flame of my soul made their spirits gilt,
Like the wings of a butterfly drifting suddenly into sunlight.
And they cried to me for life, life, life.
I begin to digest my book
for clearer understanding—
a letter for light
a word for spirit
for being other and not
me at all.
I took the skin of corpses
And dyed them blue for dreams
Oh I can wear these everywhere
(I sat home in my jeans).
I cut the hair of corpses
And wove myself a sheath
Finer than silk or wool I thought
And shivered underneath
I cut the ears of corpses
To make myself a hood --
Warmer than forget-me-nots
I paid for that in blood.
I robbed the eyes of corpses
So I could face the sun
But all the days had cloudy skies
And I had lost my own.
The spirit survives
its changing form, like seeds sown in autumn
anticipating
the promise of flowers blooming in spring.
Or a chance wind
sweeping starlings to flight, to grasp at life
to flake the air like soot
the ambiguity of then and now confused.
The present etches
the surface like riddles scribbled in sand,
the past burnished
with pain illuminates the future.
Seeking solitude
spirit transcends time and space, embracing
life in all its forms
the earth, the waves, the flames of the universe.
From my spirit's gray defeat,
From my pulse's flagging beat,
From my hopes that turned to sand
Sifting through my close-clenched hand,
From my own fault's slavery,
If I can sing, I still am free.
For with my singing I can make
A refuge for my spirit's sake,
A house of shining words, to be
My fragile immortality.
Your eyes drink of me,
Love makes them shine,
Your eyes that lean
So close to mine.
We have long been lovers,
We know the range
Of each other's moods
And how they change;
But when we look
At each other so
Then we feel
How little we know;
The spirit eludes us,
Timid and free--
Can I ever know you
Or you know me?
Do you hear the witches wailing?
Witches wailing, wailing, wailing,
Do you see the ghost robes trailing?
Ghost robes trailing, trailing, trailing
It is but a nighttime whisper,
But a whisper of the zephyr?
Or my soul in secret meeting
That dim soul whose fate is loving?
Tell me, tell me, tell me,
Voices of the Dusk.
Do you see those spirits lonely?
Spirits lonely, lonely, lonely.
Can they be for lost souls only?
Lost souls only, only, only.
Are they but the fearful phantoms,
Fearful phantoms from my fancy?
Boys and girls that held her dear,
Do your weeping now;
All you loved of her lies here.
Brought to earth the arrogant brow,
And the withering tongue
Chastened; do your weeping now.
Sing whatever songs are sung,
Wind whatever wreath,
For a playmate perished young,
For a spirit spent in death.
Boys and girls that held her dear,
All you loved of her lies here.
At four o’clock in late October
I sat alone in the country school-house
Back from the road, mid stricken fields,
And an eddy of wind blew leaves on the pane,
And crooned in the flue of the cannon-stove,
With its open door blurring the shadows
With the spectral glow of a dying fire.
In an idle mood I was running the planchette—
All at once my wrist grew limp,
And my hand moved rapidly over the board,
’Till the name of “Charles Guiteau” was spelled,
Who threatened to materialize before me.
I rose and fled from the room bare-headed
Into the dusk, afraid of my gift.
And after that the spirits swarmed—
Chaucer, Caesar, Poe and Marlowe,
It isn't the Sea that I love,
But the ships
That must dare and endure and defy and survive it!
It isn't the flesh that I love,
But the spirit
That guides and derides and controls and outlives it!
It isn't this earth that I love,
But the mortals
Who give to it meaning and colour and passion and life!
For what is the Sea without ships?
And what is the flesh without soul?
And what is a world without love?
" Love has no shame." —
Twas this you said to me.
Shall Love reveal
Hid beauties that are real
And still disguise the soul's infirmity
In fear of blame?
" Love has no cruelty." —
See first the wounds that are within
Hid by this quite sufficient skin.
Loving your spirit, I may not deceive it.
Then of my body, Lover — take or leave it.
The chatter of little people
Breaks on my purpose
Like the water-drops which slowly wear the rocks to powder.
And while I laugh
My spirit crumbles at their teasing touch.