Oh, let me run and hide,
Let me run straight to God;
The weather is so mad with white
From sky down to the clod !
If but one thing were so.
Lilac, or thorn out there,
It would not be, indeed.
So hard to bear.
The weather has gone mad with white;
The cloud, the highway touch;
White lilac is enough;
White thorn too much !
Who buys land buys many stones,
Who buys flesh buys many bones;
Who buys eggs buys many shells,
Who buys love buys nothing else.
Love is a burr upon the floor,
Love is a thief behind the door;
Who loves leman for her breath
May quench his fire and cry for death!
Love is a bridle, love is a load,
Love is a thorn upon the road;
Love is the fly that flits its hour,
Love is the shining venom-flower.
Love is a net, love is a snare,
Love is a bubble blown with air;
Love starts hot, and waning cold,
Is withered in the grave's mould!
Some day
I shall be glad that it was mine to be
A dark fore-runner of a race burgeoning;
I then shall know
The secret of life's Calvary,
And bless the thorns
That wound me!
This I saw with my own eyes: A cliff—swallow
Made her nest in a hole of the high clay-bank
There near Miller’s Ford.
But no sooner were the young hatched
Than a snake crawled up to the nest
To devour the brood.
Then the mother swallow with swift flutterings
And shrill cries
Fought at the snake,
Blinding him with the beat of her wings,
Until he, wriggling and rearing his head,
Fell backward down the bank
Into Spoon River and was drowned.
Scarcely an hour passed
Until a shrike
Impaled the mother swallow on a thorn.
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 rain gullies the garden paths
And tinkles on the broad sides of grass blades.
A tree, at the end of my arm, is hazy with mist.
Even so, I can see that it has red berries,
A scarlet fruit,
Filmed over with moisture.
It seems as though the rain,
Dripping from it,
Should be tinged with colour.
I desire the berries,
But, in the mist, I only scratch my hand on the thorns.
Probably, too, they are bitter.
There is tropical warmth and languorous life
Where the roses lie
In a tempting drift
Of pink and red and golden light
Untouched as yet by the pruning knife.
And the still, warm life of the roses fair
That whisper "Come,"
With promises
Of sweet caresses, close and pure
Has a thorny whiff in the perfumed air.
There are thorns and love in the roses' bed,
And Satan too
Must linger there;
So Satan's wiles and the conscience stings,
Must now abide--the roses are dead.