Classic Poem

1. Recapitulation

There's something silent here and solitary
That sets frail man to brooding once again
Over all the things that Nature finds contrary —
One is mostly a man among his fellow men.
Here one can view the broad and ghostly portal,
Review the whole of life, the regiment
Of little deeds one did to be immortal:
The dead and dying strew the continent.
But just as the dark reclaims the darkening west,
A gentle glow revives the gloomy east:
One star rises; a small light leads the rest
And shows the man the hand that saves the beast:
Life still remains on earth when that life lives
Through the enduring love that gives and takes and gives.

2. It Must Be That

It isn't that I love this old place more
Than others I have seen in summer seasons.
Many a place I've visited before
I've loved as well and loved for equal reasons.
The Mediterranean's bluer than this sea;
The California climate never chills;
And once in a while some city offers me
Many a thing that Nature never fills.
It must be that I've seen them all with her.
It must be that — this seeing things together.
For among the things I've said I most prefer
I even praised the worst of wintry weather.
But I've never said, in prizing them of yore,
It must be that I love her more and more.

3. Not Too Reticent Now!

There are things in her I found but yesterday.
The things were there — it took me long to find them.
There were moods of love I couldn't sing or say —
I left them where my reticence could mind them.
Few are the clouds I feel when I am near her;
The darkest things in me are growing clearer;
But somehow though I say I've found them now,
How shall I breathe them, bare them, swear them — how?

It's taken ten long years for me to find
I never loved the earth until she came.
It's taken eight full years for my slow mind
To learn my birth began with her new name.
But damned if I'll need many minutes more
To shout what I have always felt before!

4. Liebeslied

I'm glad her eyes are dark and rather shy:
She rarely lifts her lashes very high.
I'm glad her mouth, though red, is rather small:
The words she might have said are quite as tall.
I'm glad her ears are delicate and quick:
She can hear my quiet heart beat every tick.
But most of all I'm glad she's rather shy:
I feel our whole life move behind her eye.

I'm not so glad my sight is rather blind.
Nor is my ear as true as it might be.
My tongue is slow, it lags whole miles behind
Whatever my heart cries out inside of me.
And yet within this old nearsighted eye
I see we'll love each other till we die.