Collected Poems Read online

  Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top.

  How can I bear it, buried here,

  While overhead the sky grows clear

  And blue again after the storm?

  O, multi-coloured, multi-form,

  Belovéd beauty over me,

  That I shall never, never see

  Again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold,

  That I shall never more behold!—

  Sleeping your myriad magics through,

  Close-sepulchred away from you!

  O God, I cried, give me new birth,

  And put me back upon the earth!

  Upset each cloud’s gigantic gourd

  And let the heavy rain, down-poured

  In one big torrent, set me free,

  Washing my grave away from me!

  I ceased; and through the breathless hush

  That answered me, the far-off rush

  Of herald wings came whispering

  Like music down the vibrant string

  Of my ascending prayer, and—crash!

  Before the wild wind’s whistling lash

  The startled storm-clouds reared on high

  And plunged in terror down the sky!

  And the big rain in one black wave

  Fell from the sky and struck my grave.

  I know not how such things can be;

  I only know there came to me

  A fragrance such as never clings

  To aught save happy living things;

  A sound as of some joyous elf

  Singing sweet songs to please himself,

  And, through and over everything,

  A sense of glad awakening.

  The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear,

  Whispering to me I could hear;

  I felt the rain’s cool finger-tips

  Brushed tenderly across my lips,

  Laid gently on my sealed sight,

  And all at once the heavy night

  Fell from my eyes and I could see!—

  A drenched and dripping apple-tree,

  A last long line of silver rain,

  A sky grown clear and blue again.

  And as I looked a quickening gust

  Of wind blew up to me and thrust

  Into my face a miracle

  Of orchard-breath, and with the smell,—

  I know not how such things can be!—

  I breathed my soul back into me.

  Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I

  And hailed the earth with such a cry

  As is not heard save from a man

  Who has been dead, and lives again.

  About the trees my arms I wound;

  Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;

  I raised my quivering arms on high;

  I laughed and laughed into the sky;

  Till at my throat a strangling sob

  Caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb

  Sent instant tears into my eyes:

  O God, I cried, no dark disguise

  Can e’er hereafter hide from me

  Thy radiant identity!

  Thou canst not move across the grass

  But my quick eyes will see Thee pass,

  Nor speak, however silently,

  But my hushed voice will answer Thee.

  I know the path that tells Thy way

  Through the cool eve of every day;

  God, I can push the grass apart

  And lay my finger on Thy heart!

  The world stands out on either side

  No wider than the heart is wide;

  Above the world is stretched the sky,—

  No higher than the soul is high.

  The heart can push the sea and land

  Farther away on either hand;

  The soul can split the sky in two,

  And let the face of God shine through.

  But East and West will pinch the heart

  That can not keep them pushed apart;

  And he whose soul is flat—the sky

  Will cave in on him by and by.

  Interim

  The room is full of you!—As I came in

  And closed the door behind me, all at once

  A something in the air, intangible,

  Yet stiff with meaning, struck my senses sick!—

  Sharp, unfamiliar odours have destroyed

  Each other room’s dear personality.

  The heavy scent of damp, funeral flowers,—

  The very essence, hush-distilled, of Death—

  Has strangled that habitual breath of home

  Whose expiration leaves all houses dead;

  And wheresoe’er I look is hideous change.

  Save here. Here ’twas as if a weed-choked gate

  Had opened at my touch, and I had stepped

  Into some long-forgot, enchanted, strange,

  Sweet garden of a thousand years ago

  And suddenly thought, “I have been here before!”

  You are not here. I know that you are gone,

  And will not ever enter here again.

  And yet it seems to me, if I should speak,

  Your silent step must wake across the hall;

  If I should turn my head, that your sweet eyes

  Would kiss me from the door.—So short a time

  To teach my life its transposition to

  This difficult and unaccustomed key!—

  The room is as you left it; your last touch—

  A thoughtless pressure, knowing not itself

  As saintly—hallows now each simple thing;

  Hallows and glorifies, and glows between

  The dust’s grey fingers like a shielded light.

  There is your book, just as you laid it down,

  Face to the table,—I cannot believe

  That you are gone!—Just then it seemed to me

  You must be here. I almost laughed to think

  How like reality the dream had been;

  Yet knew before I laughed, and so was Still.

  That book, outspread, just as you laid it down!

  Perhaps you thought, “I wonder what comes next,

  And whether this or this will be the end”;

  So rose, and left it, thinking to return.

  Perhaps that chair, when you arose and passed

  Out of the room, rocked silently a while

  Ere it again was still. When you were gone

  Forever from the room, perhaps that chair,

  Stirred by your movement, rocked a little while,

  Silently, to and fro . . .

  And here are the last words your fingers wrote,

  Scrawled in broad characters across a page

  In this brown book I gave you. Here your hand,

  Guiding your rapid pen, moved up and down.

  Here with a looping knot you crossed a “t,”

  And here another like it, just beyond

  These two eccencric “e’s.” You were so small,

  And wrote so brave a hand!

  How strange it seems

  That of all words these are the words you chose!

  And yet a simple choice; you did not know

  You would not write again. If you had known—

  But then, it does not matter,—and indeed

  If you had known there was so little time

  You would have dropped your pen and come to me

  And this page would be empty, and some phrase

  Other than this would hold my wonder now.

  Yet, since you could not know, and it befell

  That these are the last words your fingers wrote,

  There is a dignity some might not see

  In this, “I picked the first sweet-pea today.”

  Today! Was there an opening bud beside it

  You left until tomorrow?—O my love,

  The things that withered,—and you came not back!

  That day you filled this circle of my arms

  That now is empty. ( O my empty life!)


  That day—that day you picked the first sweet-pea,—

  And brought it in to show me! I recall

  With terrible distinctness how the smell

  Of your cool gardens drifted in with you.

  I know, you held it up for me to see

  And flushed because I looked not at the flower,

  But at your face; and when behind my look

  You saw such unmistakable intent

  You laughed and brushed your flower against my lips.

  (You were the fairest thing God ever made,

  I think.) And then your hands above my heart

  Drew down its stem into a fastening,

  And while your head was bent I kissed your hair.

  I wonder if you knew. (Beloved hands!

  Somehow I cannot seem to see them still.

  Somehow I cannot seem to see the dust

  In your bright hair.) What is the need of Heaven

  When earth can be so sweet?—If only God

  Had let us love,—and show the world the way!

  Strange cancellings must ink the eternal books

  When love-crossed-out will bring the answer right!

  That first sweet-pea! I wonder where it is.

  It seems to me I laid it down somewhere,

  And yet,—I am not sure. I am not sure,

  Even, if it was white or pink; for then

  ’Twas much like any other flower to me,

  Save that it was the first. I did not know,

  Then, that it was the last. If I had known—

  But then, it does not matter. Strange how few,

  After all’s said and done, the things that are

  Of moment.

  Few indeed! When I can make

  Of ten small words a rope to hang the world!

  “I had you and I have you now no more. ”

  There, there it dangles,—where’s the little truth

  That can for long keep footing under that

  When its slack syllables tighten to a thought?

  Here, let me write it down! I wish to see

  Just how a thing like that will look on paper!

  “I bad you and I have you now no more.”

  O little words, how can you run so straight

  Across the page, beneath the weight you bear?

  How can you fall apart, whom such a theme

  Has bound together, and hereafter aid

  In trivial expression, that have been

  So hideously dignified?

  Would God

  That tearing you apart would tear the thread

  I strung you on! Would God— O God, my mind

  Stretches asunder on this merciless rack

  Of imagery! Oh, let me sleep a while!

  Would I could sleep, and wake to find me back

  In that sweet summer afternoon with you.

  Summer? ’Tis summer still by the calendar!

  How easily could God, if He so willed,

  Set back the world a little turn or two!—

  Correct its griefs, and brings its joys again!

  We were so wholly one I had not thought

  That we could die apart. I had not thought

  That I could move,—and you be stiff and still!

  That I could speak,—and you perforce be dumb!

  I think our heart-strings were, like warp and woof

  In some firm fabric, woven in and out;

  Your golden filaments in fair design

  Across my duller fibre. And today

  The shining strip is rent; the exquisite

  Fine pattern is destroyed; part of your heart

  Aches in my breast; part of my heart lies chilled

  In the damp earth with you. I have been torn

  In two, and suffer for the rest of me.

  What is my life to me? And what am I

  To life,—a ship whose star has guttered out?

  A Fear that in the deep night starts awake

  Perpetually, to find its senses strained

  Against the taut strings of the quivering air,

  Awaiting the return of some dread chord?

  Dark, Dark, is all I find for metaphor;

  All else were contrast;—save that contrast’s wall

  Is down, and all opposed things flow together

  Into a vast monotony, where night

  And day, and frost and thaw, and death and life,

  Are synonyms. What now—what now to me

  Are all the jabbering birds and foolish flowers

  That clutter up the world? You were my song!

  Now, now, let discord scream! You were my flower!

  Now let the world grow weeds! For I shall not

  Plant things above your grave—(the common balm

  Of the conventional woe for its own wound!)

  Amid sensations rendered negative

  By your elimination stands today,

  Certain, unmixed, the element of grief;

  I sorrow; and I shall not mock my truth

  With travesties of suffering, nor seek

  To effigy its incorporeal bulk

  In little wry-faced images of woe.

  I cannot call you back; and I desire

  No utterance of my immaterial voice.

  I cannot even turn my face this way

  Or that, and say, “My face is turned to you”;

  I know not where you are, I do not know

  If heaven hold you or if earth transmute,

  Body and soul, you into earth again;

  But this I know:—not for one second’s space

  Shall I insult my sight with visionings

  Such as the credulous crowd so eager-eyed

  Beholds, self-conjured in the empty air.

  Let the world wail Let drip its easy tears!

  My sorrow shall be dumb!

  —What do I say?

  God! God!—God pity me! Am I gone mad

  That I should spit upon a rosary?

  Am I become so shrunken? Would to God

  I too might feel that frenzied faith whose touch

  Makes temporal the most enduring grief;

  Though it must walk a while, as is its wont,

  With wild lamenting! Would I too might weep

  Where weeps the world and hangs its piteous wreaths

  For its new dead! Not Truth, but Faith, it is

  That keeps the world alive. If all at once

  Faith were to slacken,—that unconscious faith

  Which must, I know, yet be the corner-stone

  Of all believing,—birds now flying fearless

  Across, would drop in terror to the earth;

  Fishes would drown; and the all-governing reins

  Would tangle in the frantic hands of God

  And the worlds gallop headlong to destruction!

  O God, I see it now, and my sick brain

  Staggers and swoons! How often over me

  Flashes this breathlessness of sudden sight

  In which I see the universe unrolled

  Before me like a scroll and read thereon

  Chaos and Doom, where helpless planets whirl

  Dizzily round and round and round and round,

  Like tops across a table, gathering speed

  With every spin, to waver on the edge

  One instant—looking over—and the next

  To shudder and lurch forward out of sight!

  Ah, I am worn out—I am wearied out—

  It is too much—I am but flesh and blood,

  And I must sleep. Though you were dead again,

  I am but flesh and blood and I must sleep.

  The Suicide

  “Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more!

  Thou hast mocked me, starved me, beat my body

  And all for a pledge that was not pledged by me,

  I have kissed thy crust and eaten sparingly

  That I might eat again, and met thy sneers

  With deprecations, and thy blows with
tears,—

  Aye, from thy glutted lash, glad, crawled away,

  As if spent passion were a holiday!

  And now I go. Nor threat, nor easy vow

  Of tardy kindness can avail thee now

  With me, whence fear and faith alike are flown;

  Lonely I came, and I depart alone,

  And know not where nor unto whom I go;

  But that thou canst not follow me I know.”

  Thus I to Life, and ceased; but through my brain

  My thought ran still, until I spake again:

  “Ah, but I go not as I came,—no trace

  Is mine to bear away of that old grace

  I brought! I have been heated in thy fires,

  Bent by thy hands, fashioned to thy desires,

  Thy mark is on me! I am not the same

  Nor ever more shall be, as when I came.

  Ashes am I of all that once I seemed.

  In me all’s sunk that leapt, and all that dreamed

  Is wakeful for alarm,—oh, shame to thee,

  For the ill change that thou hast wrought in me

  Who laugh no more nor lift my throat to sing!

  Ah, Life, I would have been a pleasant thing

  To have about the house when I was grown

  If thou hadst left my little joys alone!

  I asked of thee no favour save this one:

  That thou wouldst leave me playing in the sun!

  And this thou didst deny, calling my name

  Insistently, until I rose and came.

  I saw the sun no more.—It were not well

  So long on these unpleasant thoughts to dwell,

  Need I arise tomorrow and renew

  Again my hated tasks, but I am through

  With all things save my thoughts and this one night;

  So that in truth I seem already quite

  Free and remote from thee,—I feel no haste

  And no reluctance to depart; I taste

  Merely, with thoughtful mien, an unknown draught,

  That in a little while I shall have quaffed.”

  Thus I to Life, and ceased, and slightly smiled,

  Looking at nothing; and my thin dreams filed

  Before me one by one till once again

  I set new words unto an old refrain:

  “Treasures thou hast that never have been mine!

  Warm lights in many a secret chamber shine

  Of thy gaunt house, and gusts of song have blown

  Like blossoms out to me that sat alone!

  And I have waited well for thee to show

  If any share were mine,—and now I go!

  Nothing I leave, and if I naught attain

  I shall but come into mine own again!”

  Thus I to Life, and ceased, and spake no more,

  But turning, straightway sought a certain door

  In the rear wall. Heavy it was, and low

  And dark,—a way by which none e’er would go