A wan-cheeked girl with faded eyes
Came stumbling down the crowded car,
Clutching her burden to her breast
As though she held a star.

Roses, I swear it! Red and sweet
And struggling from her pinched white hands,
Roses … like captured hostages
From far and fairy lands!

The thunder of the rushing train
Was like a hush. . . . The flower scent
Breathed faintly on the stale, whirled air
Like some dim sacrament—

I saw a garden stretching out
And morning on it like a crown—
And o'er a bed of crimson bloom
My mother … stooping down.

The Sisters of the Cross of Shame,
They smile along the night;
Their houses stand with shuttered souls
And painted eyes of light.

Their houses look with scarlet eyes
Upon a world of sin;
And every man cries, “Woe, alas!”
And every man goes in.

The sober Senate meets at noon,
To pass the Woman's Law,
The portly Churchmen vote to stem
The torrent with a straw.

The Sister of the Cross of Shame,
She smiles beneath her cloud—
(She does not laugh till ten o'clock,
And then she laughs too loud.)

Nothing have I achieved, Thus all is wasted, only regrets remain.
I offered not my head, nor drank the drops of love.
Alas, what have I done?
Not with His colour dyed, nor drunken with love's nectar, no song upon my lips.

I found not my love, fulfilled my own desires, and nothing was accomplished.
I, I, am sore dismayed; my hope is all in Thee. Cries Dadu Das.

I asked the roses as they grew
Richer and lovelier in hue,
What made their tints so rich and bright?
They answered, “Looking toward the light.”
Ah, secret dear, said heart of mine,
God meant my life to be like thine,
Radiant with heavenly beauty bright,
By simply looking toward the light.

Thus on a bank, upon a summer's day,
Of some fair stream of East or Western Ind,
When puppies join in wanton play,
Free from the slightest fear of being skinned;
If from that stream, which all so placid flows,
A sly old alligator pokes his nose;
P'rhaps with a wish to taste a slice of cur;
At once the dogs are off upon the spur;
Nor once behind them cast a courtly look,
To compliment the monarch of the brook.

Cool, in the long barn
the wind blows through and the blue-
enamelled and saffron swallow—
barb out of a bow-in-the-clouds—
whips to his clay vase
full of fierce little faces …

I pretend he is not there—or
that I am not here—an effacement,
considering here's naught else then
but dung, perhaps too profound
by a fork's length. But if
I look straight at him, he'll fly.

I wish him no harm. I'd be happy
if once he'd alight on my hand
and I held it all here an instant—
that wind-world he can turn,
with a tilt of a feather, softer

And here's this shell of a crab,
this implosive symmetry worn
by a long storm of cis-marine light
to a thing white as sea-salt and weightless
as a wasp nest. Two lobes
only—the claws gone
out of their portholes—two
matching lobes left, (and right)
like a brain's … It's amazing

at what minute tolerances something,
though crushed under the sea's grey
palisades of shuddering iron,
details this ineffable cortex—not
to mention others, ashore—
by the billions, and in utter indifference,
or as if dissatisfied, casts
every last one away.

TO GOD , ye choir above, begin
A hymn so loud and strong
That all the universe may hear
And join the grateful song.

Praise Him, thou sun, Who dwells unseen
Amidst transcendent light,
Where thy refulgent orb would seem
A spot, as dark as night.

Thou silver moon, ye host of stars,
The universal song
Through the serene and silent night
To listening worlds prolong.

Sing Him, ye distant worlds and suns,
From whence no travelling ray
Hath yet to us, through ages past,
Had time to make its way.

This little worlds two little starres are eyes;
And he that all eyes framed, fram'd all others
Downward to fall, but these to climbe the skies,
There to acquaint them with their starrie brothers;
Planets fixt in the head (their spheare of sense)
Yet wandring still through heav'ns circumference,
The Intellect being their Intelligence.

Dull then that heavie soul, which ever bent
On earth and earthly toyes, his heav'n neglects;
Content with that which cannot give content:
What thy foot scorning kicks, thy soul respects.

Take my heart, Lady, take my heart—
Take it, for it is yours, my sweet,
So yours it is, that 'twere not meet
Another shared its slightest part.

So, yours, if yours it pine and die,
Then yours, all yours, shall be the blame,
And there below, your soul in shame
Shall rue such bitter cruelty.

Were you a savage Scythian's child,
Yet love, that turns the tigers mild,
Would melt you at my sighing.

But you, more cruel-fierce than they,
Have set your will my heart to slay,
And live but through my dying.