beautiful

I

The girl in the room beneath
Before going to bed
Strums on a mandolin
The three simple tunes she knows.
How inadequate they are to tell how her heart feels!
When she has finished them several times
She thrums the strings aimlessly with her finger-nails
And smiles, and thinks happily of many things.

II

I stood for a long while before the shop window
Looking at the blue butterflies embroidered on tawny silk.
The building was a tower before me,
Time was loud behind me,

Far from me and like the stars, the sea and all the trappings of poetic myth,
Far from me but here all the same without your knowing,
Far from me and even more silent because I imagine you endlessly.
Far from me, my lovely mirage and eternal dream, you cannot know.
If you only knew.
Far from me and even farther yet from being unaware of me and still unaware.
Far from me because you undoubtedly do not love me or, what amounts to the
same thing, that I doubt you do.
Far from me because you consciously ignore my passionate desires.

593

I think I was enchanted
When first a sombre Girl—
I read that Foreign Lady—
The Dark—felt beautiful—

And whether it was noon at night—
Or only Heaven—at Noon—
For very Lunacy of Light
I had not power to tell—

The Bees—became as Butterflies—
The Butterflies—as Swans—
Approached—and spurned the narrow Grass—
And just the meanest Tunes

That Nature murmured to herself
To keep herself in Cheer—
I took for Giants—practising
Titanic Opera—

I am fighting furiously with animals and bottles
In a short time perhaps ten hours have passed one
after another
The beautiful swimmer who was afraid of coral wakes
this morning
Coral crowned with holly knocks on her door
Ah! coal again always coal
I conjure you coal tutelary genius of dreams and my
solitude let me let me speak again of the beautiful
swimmer who was afraid of coral
No longer tyrannize this seductive subject of my
dreams
The beautiful swimmer was reposing in a bed of lace
and birds

Today, I sat me down to ponder
Why I write like this:
Four metric feet, first line of text,
And three feet in the next.
This sing-song meter ambles on
From line to line, and then,
A rhyme is put, delightfully,
To have the stanza end.

From where the rhythm and the style?
From where I caught the rhyme?
I thought back to my schooling days,
And poem-reading time.

Ancient Mariner is one
That I remember well:
Its rhyme and rhythm still come through,
As clearly as a bell:

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

I was again beside thee in a dream:
Earth was so beautiful, the moon was shining;
The muffled voice of many a cataract stream
Came like a love-song, as, with arms entwining,
Our hearts were mixed in unison supreme.

The wind lay spell-bound in each pillared pine,
The tasselled larches had no sound or motion,
As my whole life was sinking into thine--
Sinking into a deep, unfathomed ocean
Of infinite love--uncircumscribed, divine.

Night held her breath, it seemed, with all her stars:

I saw, or dreamed I saw, her sitting lone,
Her neck bent like a swan's, her brown eyes thrown
On some sweet poem -- his, I think, who sings
|Oenone, or the hapless Maud: no rings
Flashed from the dainty fingers, which held back
Her beautiful blonde hair. Ah! would these black
Locks of mine own were mingling with it now,
And these warm lips were pressed against her brow!
And, as she turned a page, methought I heard --
Hush! could it be? -- a faintly murmured word,
It was so softly dwelt on -- such a smile

569

I reckon—when I count it all—
First—Poets—Then the Sun—
Then Summer—Then the Heaven of God—
And then—the List is done—

But, looking back—the First so seems
To Comprehend the Whole—
The Others look a needless Show—
So I write—Poets—All—

Their Summer—lasts a Solid Year—
They can afford a Sun
The East—would deem extravagant—
And if the Further Heaven—

Be Beautiful as they prepare
For Those who worship Them—
It is too difficult a Grace—
To justify the Dream—

801

I play at Riches—to appease
The Clamoring for Gold—
It kept me from a Thief, I think,
For often, overbold

With Want, and Opportunity—
I could have done a Sin
And been Myself that easy Thing
An independent Man—

But often as my lot displays
Too hungry to be borne
I deem Myself what I would be—
And novel Comforting

My Poverty and I derive—
We question if the Man—
Who own—Esteem the Opulence—
As We—Who never Can—

Should ever these exploring Hands