Say not I write to a metre's measure
Who gather my words in flood.
Say not I write for the lilting's pleasure,
For lo! my ink is blood.
O, if these lines could show my passion:
Look is the blood not rich and red!
I will pour it out till my soul is ashen
And my grief lies dead.
I am a fragment of restless wind
Against the peak of a mountain broken.
My heart is oft with the snow entwined
And wears as a sweet token,
Wherever I move, or ever I run,
The sting of the frost and the kiss of the sun
To show that I favor no pilgrim more
Than the next who knocks at my cheerful door.
As a woman, athirst for an infant's cry,
Rocks her thin arms to the cooing air
And croons a Lydian lullaby
To soothe the child of her own despair,
So I go out on the hills at night
And rock my arms with a sad delight;
Rock them long
For the children of song
Which my barren page is athirst to bear.
The souls of these unborn crowd me round
And call to be clad
In the mystical, glad
Body of sound.
I am coming, I cry, to release you all.
The roses are red
On the sea-brown wall;
But the roses come and the roses fall;
And the children call,
And the children call;
But I am asearch for bread.
A wisp is here and a wisp is there;
A long day's march in the blinding dust,
And I gain the form of a fleeting crust
To lessen an hour's despair.
And I cry to God:
Shall my blood be shed
And my years be trampled away in the sod
For bread, for bread!
O, softly I cry, nor chide my fate.
But the rose hangs red
Far over the beautiful garden gate,
And the children wait.
I am Caneo;
And my skin is brown from the comrade sun.
And my heart is a cluster of grapes; each one
Ripe and ready to flow together,
In the channel sweet of a purple song.
And the unborn children around me throng.
I will fill the air
With their floating hair,
I said.
And I rose when the morn was a film of grey
And moiled in a garden where love lay dead.
And the children called and I answered “Yea,
I come;” but the beckoning wisp of bread
Called me away, away.
And the children mourned as I lay in sleep;
When the night was deep
I could hear them weep.
This is the poet's Hell; to know
How rich a thing is his song's treasure;
To stand at night in the wind flow,
In a pure hour of leisure;
To call to his children and find
His voice is a broken chord
That is weary from calling all day in the wind;
“This hour's bread, O Lord.”
Come little flaxen-haired,
Throat-bared,
Sun-brown-imp who hath called me long,
Here is your life in a song.
Dance here on this page, and never
To the last forever
Need you to call again.
I stole this hour to give you birth; the rain
Let down your hair.
The sky's
Deepest dyes
Tinctured your eyes.
Dear little flaxen-haired,
Throat-bared, wild,
Sun-browned child
Here is your life in a song undefiled.
The morn is a film of lovely gray;
And the rose is blown from a crimson thread;
But I am over the hills, and away
Who gather my words in flood.
Say not I write for the lilting's pleasure,
For lo! my ink is blood.
O, if these lines could show my passion:
Look is the blood not rich and red!
I will pour it out till my soul is ashen
And my grief lies dead.
I am a fragment of restless wind
Against the peak of a mountain broken.
My heart is oft with the snow entwined
And wears as a sweet token,
Wherever I move, or ever I run,
The sting of the frost and the kiss of the sun
To show that I favor no pilgrim more
Than the next who knocks at my cheerful door.
As a woman, athirst for an infant's cry,
Rocks her thin arms to the cooing air
And croons a Lydian lullaby
To soothe the child of her own despair,
So I go out on the hills at night
And rock my arms with a sad delight;
Rock them long
For the children of song
Which my barren page is athirst to bear.
The souls of these unborn crowd me round
And call to be clad
In the mystical, glad
Body of sound.
I am coming, I cry, to release you all.
The roses are red
On the sea-brown wall;
But the roses come and the roses fall;
And the children call,
And the children call;
But I am asearch for bread.
A wisp is here and a wisp is there;
A long day's march in the blinding dust,
And I gain the form of a fleeting crust
To lessen an hour's despair.
And I cry to God:
Shall my blood be shed
And my years be trampled away in the sod
For bread, for bread!
O, softly I cry, nor chide my fate.
But the rose hangs red
Far over the beautiful garden gate,
And the children wait.
I am Caneo;
And my skin is brown from the comrade sun.
And my heart is a cluster of grapes; each one
Ripe and ready to flow together,
In the channel sweet of a purple song.
And the unborn children around me throng.
I will fill the air
With their floating hair,
I said.
And I rose when the morn was a film of grey
And moiled in a garden where love lay dead.
And the children called and I answered “Yea,
I come;” but the beckoning wisp of bread
Called me away, away.
And the children mourned as I lay in sleep;
When the night was deep
I could hear them weep.
This is the poet's Hell; to know
How rich a thing is his song's treasure;
To stand at night in the wind flow,
In a pure hour of leisure;
To call to his children and find
His voice is a broken chord
That is weary from calling all day in the wind;
“This hour's bread, O Lord.”
Come little flaxen-haired,
Throat-bared,
Sun-brown-imp who hath called me long,
Here is your life in a song.
Dance here on this page, and never
To the last forever
Need you to call again.
I stole this hour to give you birth; the rain
Let down your hair.
The sky's
Deepest dyes
Tinctured your eyes.
Dear little flaxen-haired,
Throat-bared, wild,
Sun-browned child
Here is your life in a song undefiled.
The morn is a film of lovely gray;
And the rose is blown from a crimson thread;
But I am over the hills, and away