These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods--
Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday.
Again we missed
bloom on the cherry.
What season
for us now
is not swift?
Dust,
Through which
Proud blood
Once flowed.
Dust,
Where a civilization
Flourished.
Dust,
The Valley of the Nile,
Dust,
You proud ones, proud of the skill
With which you play this game--Civilization;
Do not forget that it is a very old game.
Men used to play it on the banks
Of the Tigris and the Euphrates
When the world was a wilderness.
Sudden pain of earth
I hear in the fallen leaf.
"Life's autumn," I cry.
The silence-leaves fallen from Life,
Older than dream or pain, —
Are they my passing ghost?
Stars reflected in the water
Are jewels enough for Pharaoh's daughter;
But Pharaoh's daughter's dead and gone
While living girls are getting on.
Blue moth!...
Tiny, pulsating thing ...
You and I met upon a rocky hill.
I paused ...
You paused, and poised
Blue,
Blue on a dark stone:
And all the vibrant sunshine in the world
Was caught for the sparkle
On your tiny wings ...
Blue moth!
In an opal dream cave I found a fairy:
Her wings were frailer than flower petals,
Frailer far than snowflakes.
She was not frightened, but poised on my finger,
Then delicately walked into my hand.
I shut the two palms of my hands together
And held her prisoner.
I carried her out of the opal cave,
Then opened my hands.
First she became thistledown,
Then a mote in a sunbeam,
Then--nothing at all.
Empty now is my opal dream cave.
I lit my tallow
An hour ago,
And now it is burning
Dark and low.
The glimmer lengthens
And turns about,
Sinks in the sconce--
Then flickers out!
The dawn whiteness.
A bank of slate-grey cloud lying heavily over it.
The moon, like a hunted thing, dropping into the cloud.
Darkness.
I stop to watch a star shine in the boghole----
A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light.
I look at it, and pass on.
I spin my golden web in the sun:
The cherries tremble, the light is done.
A sudden wind sweeps over the bay,
And carries my golden web away!