My arms were always quiet,
Close, and never freed.
I was furled like a banner,
Enfolded like a seed.
I thought, when Love shall strike me,
Each arm will start and spring,
Unloosen like a petal,
And open like a wing.
Oh Love — my arms are lifted,
But not to sway and toss;
They strain out wide and wounded.
Like arms upon a cross.
I have been happy two weeks together,
My love is coming home to me,
Gold and silver is the weather
And smooth as lapis is the sea.
The earth has turned its brown to green
After three nights of humming rain,
And in the valleys peck and preen
Linnets with a scarlet stain.
High in the mountains all alone
The wild swans whistle on the lakes,
But I have been as still as stone,
My heart sings only when it breaks.
Your heart is bound tightly, let
Beauty beware,
It is not hers to set
Free from the snare.
Tell her a bleeding hand
Bound it and tied it,
Tell her the knot will stand
Though she deride it;
One who withheld so long
All that you yearned to take,
Has made a snare too strong
For Beauty’s self to break.
The woman who has grown old
And knows desire must die,
Yet turns to love again,
Hears the crows' cry.
She is a stem long hardened,
A weed that no scythe mows.
The heart's laughter will be to her
The crying of the crows.
Who slide in the air with the same voice
Over what yields not, and what yields,
Alike in spring, and when there is only bitter
Winter-burning in the fields.
Way down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
They hung my black young lover
To a cross roads tree.
Way down South in Dixie
(Bruised body high in air)
I asked the white Lord Jesus
What was the use of prayer.
Way down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
Love is a naked shadow
On a gnarled and naked tree.
My heart stood empty and bare,
So I hung it with thoughts of a woman.
The remembered ways of this woman
Hung sweet in my heart.
So I followed where thought should lead,
And it led to her feet.
But the mouth of this woman was pain,
And the love of this woman, regret;
And now only the thought
Of all those remembered thoughts
Of remembered ways,
Is shut in my heart!
I AM SO tired I cannot move,
I would sit still and love.
I carried souls so long in pain,
I too would be a child again.
Man who is not child to woman
Is either rogue or more than human. —
I rested once upon my father's strength:
O to find peace in love at length!
Man, are you strong to take my proffered hand,
And to be kind when you command?
There was a saint who carried children up a steep,
Make me your child, and let me sleep.
The rose that drinks the fountain dew
In the pleasant air of noon,
Grows pale and blue with altered hue--
In the gaze of the nightly moon;
For the planet of frost, so cold and bright,
Makes it wan with her borrowed light.
Such is my heart--roses are fair,
And that at best a withered blossom;
But thy false care did idly wear
Its withered leaves in a faithless bosom;
And fed with love, like air and dew,
Its growth--
One night a tiny dewdrop fell
Into the bosom of a rose,--
"Dear little one, I love thee well,
Be ever here thy sweet repose!"
Seeing the rose with love bedight,
The envious sky frowned dark, and then
Sent forth a messenger of light
And caught the dewdrop up again.
"Oh, give me back my heavenly child,--
My love!" the rose in anguish cried;
Alas! the sky triumphant smiled,
And so the flower, heart-broken, died.
Oh, they have robbed me of the hope
My spirit held so dear;
They will not let me hear that voice
My soul delights to hear.
They will not let me see that face
I so delight to see;
And they have taken all thy smiles,
And all thy love from me.
Well, let them seize on all they can: --
One treasure still is mine, --
A heart that loves to think on thee,
And feels the worth of thine.