hair

Last night at black midnight I woke with a cry,
The windows were shaking, there was thunder on high,
The floor was a-tremble, the door was a-jar,
White fires, crimson fires, shone from afar.
I rushed to the door yard. The city was gone.
My home was a hut without orchard or lawn.
It was mud-smear and logs near a whispering stream,
Nothing else built by man could I see in my dream...
Then...
Ghost-kings came headlong, row upon row,
Gods of the Indians, torches aglow.

They mounted the bear and the elk and the deer,

I AM always inclined to suspect
The best story under the sun
As soon as by chance I detect
That teller and hero are one.

We're all of us prone to conceit,
And like to proclaim our own glory,
But our purpose we're apt to defeat
As actors in chief of our story.

To prove the truth of what I state
Let me an anecdote relate:
A Gascon with his comrade sat
At tavern drinking. This and that
He vaunted with assertion pat.
From gasconade to gasconade
Passed to the conquests he had made

Your questioning eyes are sad. They
seek to know my meaning as the moon
would fathom the sea.
I have bared my life before your
eyes from end to end, with nothing
hidden or held back. That is why you
know me not.
If it were only a gem, I could break
it into a hundred pieces and string
them into a chain to put on your neck.
If it were only a flower, round and
small and sweet, I could pluck it from
its stem to set it in your hair.
But it is a heart, my beloved.

Day after day he comes and goes
away.
Go, and give him a flower from my
hair, my friend.
If he asks who was it that sent it, I
entreat you do not tell him my name--
for he only comes and goes away.
He sits on the dust under the tree.
Spread there a seat with flowers and
leaves, my friend.
His eyes are sad, and they bring
sadness to my heart.
He does not speak what he has in
mind; he only comes and goes away.

O mad, superbly drunk;
If you kick open your doors and
play the fool in public;
If you empty your bag in a night,
and snap your fingers at prudence;
If you walk in curious paths and
play with useless things;
Reck not rhyme or reason;
If unfurling your sails before the
storm you snap the rudder in two,
Then I will follow you, comrade,
and be drunken and go to the dogs.
I have wasted my days and nights
in the company of steady wise neighbours.

Come as you are; do not loiter over
your toilet.
If your braided hair has loosened if
the parting of your hair be not straight,
if the ribbons of your bodice be not
fastened, do not mind.
Come as you are; do not loiter over
your toilet.
Come, with quick steps over the
grass.
If the raddle come from your feet
because of the dew, of the rings of bells
upon your feet slacken, if pearls drop
out of your chain, do not mind.
Come, with quick steps over the
grass.

Let your work be, bride. Listen, the
guest has come.
Do you hear, he is gently shaking
the chain which fastens the door?
See that your anklets make no loud
noise, and that your step is not over-
hurried at meeting him.
Let your work be, bride, the guest
had come in the evening.
No, it is not the ghostly wind, bride,
do not be frightened.
It is the full moon on a night of
April; shadows are pale in the court-
yard; the sky overhead is bright.
Draw your veil over your face if

It was mid-day when you went
away .
The sun was strong in the sky.
I had done my work and sat alone
on my balcony when you went away.
Fitful gusts came winnowing
through the smells of may distant
fields.
The doves cooed tireless in the shade,
and a bee strayed in my room hum-
ming the news of many distant fields.
The village slept in the noonday
heat. The road lay deserted.
In sudden fits the rustling of the
leaves rose and died.
I gazed at the sky and wove in the

The Day that Youth had died,
There came to his grave-side,
In decent mourning, from the country’s ends,
Those scatter’d friends
Who had lived the boon companions of his prime,
And laughed with him and sung with him and wasted,
In feast and wine and many-crown’d carouse,
The days and nights and dawnings of the time
When Youth kept open house,
Nor left untasted
Aught of his high emprise and ventures dear,
No quest of his unshar’d—
All these, with loitering feet and sad head bar’d,

Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below!
Now my brothers call from the bay,
Now the great winds shoreward blow,
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away!
This way, this way!

Call her once before you go--
Call once yet!
In a voice that she will know:
'Margaret! Margaret!'
Children's voices should be dear
(Call once more) to a mother's ear;

Children's voices, wild with pain--