63

If pain for peace prepares
Lo, what "Augustan" years
Our feet await!

If springs from winter rise,
Can the Anemones
Be reckoned up?

If night stands fast—then noon
To gird us for the sun,
What gaze!

When from a thousand skies
On our developed eyes
Noons blaze!

If Mary had known
When she held her Babe's hands in her own­
Little hands that were tender and white as a rose,
All dented with dimples from finger to wrist,
Such as mothers have kissed­
That one day they must feel the fierce blows
Of a hatred insane,
Must redden with holiest stain,
And grasp as their guerdon the boon of the bitterest pain,
Oh, I think that her sweet, brooding face
Must have blanched with its anguish of knowledge above her embrace.

But­ if Mary had known,
As she held her Babe's hands in her own,

If I could but forget
The fullness of those first sweet days,
When you burst sun-like thro' the haze
Of unacquaintance, on my sight,
And made the wet, gray day seem bright
While clouds themselves grew fair to see.
And since, no day is gray or wet
But all the scene comes back to me,
If I could but forget.

If I could but forget
How your dusk eyes look into mine,
And how I thrilled as with strong wine
Beneath your touch; while sped amain
The quickened stream thro' ev'ry vein;
How near my breath fell to a gasp,

Art come, dear youth? two days and nights away!
(Who burn with love, grow aged in a day.)
As much as apples sweet the damson crude
Excel; the blooming spring the winter rude;
In fleece the sheep her lamb; the maiden in sweetness
The thrice-wed dame; the fawn the calf in fleetness;
The nightingale in song all feathered kind-
So much thy longed-for presence cheers my mind.
To thee I hasten, as to shady beech,
The traveller, when from the heaven's reach
The sun fierce blazes. May our love be strong,

I sit in the twilight dim
At the close of an idle day,
And I list to the soft sweet hymn,
That rises far away,
And dies on the evening air.
Oh, all day long,
They sing their song,
Who toil in the valley there.

But never a song sing I,
Sitting with folded hands,
The hours pass me by -
Dropping their golden sands -
And I list, from day to day,
To the 'tick, tick, tock'
Of the old brown clock,
Ticking my life away.

And I see the twilight fade,
And I see the night come on,

Lo from our loitering ship a new land at last to be seen;
Toothed rocks down the side of the firth on the east guard a weary wide lea,
And black slope the hillsides above, striped adown with their desolate green:
And a peak rises up on the west from the meeting of cloud and of sea,
Foursquare from base unto point like the building of Gods that have been,
The last of that waste of the mountains all cloud-wreathed and snow-flecked and grey,
And bright with the dawn that began just now at the ending of day.

Ianthe! you are call'd to cross the sea!
A path forbidden me!
Remember, while the Sun his blessing sheds
Upon the mountain-heads,
How often we have watcht him laying down
His brow, and dropt our own
Against each other's, and how faint and short
And sliding the support!
What will succeed it now? Mine is unblest,
Ianthe! nor will rest
But on the very thought that swells with pain.
O bid me hope again!
O give me back what Earth, what (without you)
Not Heaven itself can do--
One of the golden days that we have past,

I wrung my hands under my dark veil. . .
"Why are you pale, what makes you reckless?"
-- Because I have made my loved one drunk
with an astringent sadness.

I'll never forget. He went out, reeling;
his mouth was twisted, desolate. . .
I ran downstairs, not touching the banisters,
and followed him as far as the gate.

And shouted, choking: "I meant it all
in fun. Don't leave me, or I'll die of pain."
He smiled at me -- oh so calmly, terribly --
and said: "Why don't you get out of the rain?"

Before having known
The black mexican dogs
Who sleep without dreaming
The butt-naked monkeys
Gobbling up tropics
The silver spiders in
Webs riddled with bubbles
I wouldn't want to die
Not knowing if the moon
Behind its fake nickel look
Has a sharper side
If the sun is cold
If the four seasons
Are really only four
Not having tried
To wear a dress
On the boulevards
Not having peeped
Through a sewer peephole
Not having put my dick
Inside weirdo corners
I wouldn't want to end

I would not tarry if I could be gone
Adown the path where calls my eager mind.
That fate which knows naught but to grip and bind
Holds me within its grasp, a helpless pawn,
And checks my steps when I would travel on.
Forever shall my body lag behind,
And in this Valley with the Moaning Wind
Must I abide with never a glimpse of dawn?

Though bends my body toward the yawning sod,
I can endure the pain, the sorrows rife,
That hold me fast beneath their chastening rod,
If from this turmoil and this endless strife,