Oh Companion That Abode Is Unmatched,
Where My Complete Beloved Is.

In that Place There Is No Happiness or Unhappiness,
No Truth or Untruth
Neither Sin Nor Virtue.
There Is No Day or Night, No Moon or Sun,
There Is Radiance Without Light.

There Is No Knowledge or Meditation
No Repetition of Mantra or Austerities,
Neither Speech Coming From Vedas or Books.
Doing, Not-Doing, Holding, Leaving
All These Are All Lost Too In This Place.

No Home, No Homeless, Neither Outside or Inside,

The tall camels of the spirit
Steer for their deserts, passing the last groves loud
With the sawmill shrill of the locust, to the whole honey of the
arid
Sun. They are slow, proud,

And move with a stilted stride
To the land of sheer horizon, hunting Traherne's
Sensible emptiness, there where the brain's lantern-slide
Revels in vast returns.

O connoisseurs of thirst,
Beasts of my soul who long to learn to drink
Of pure mirage, those prosperous islands are accurst
That shimmer on the brink

The bonsai tree
in the attractive pot
could have grown eighty feet tall
on the side of a mountain
till split by lightning.
But a gardener
carefully pruned it.
It is nine inches high.
Every day as he
whittles back the branches
the gardener croons,
It is your nature
to be small and cozy,
domestic and weak;
how lucky, little tree,
to have a pot to grow in.
With living creatures
one must begin very early
to dwarf their growth:
the bound feet,
the crippled brain,
the hair in curlers,
the hands you

I THINK to-night I could bear it all,
Even the arrow that cleft the core,—
Could I wait again for your swift footfall,
And your sunny face coming in at the door.
With the old frank look and the gay young smile,
And the ring of the words you used to say;
I could almost deem the pain worth while,
To greet you again in the olden way!
But you stand without in the dark and cold,
And I may not open the long closed door,
Nor call thro’ the night, with the love of old,—
“Come into the warmth, as in nights of yore!”

I think to-night I could bear it all,
   Even the arrow that cleft the core, --
Could I wait again for your swift footfall,
   And your sunny face coming in at the door.
With the old frank look and the gay young smile,
   And the ring of the words you used to say;
I could almost deem the pain worth while,
   To greet you again in the olden way!

But you stand without in the dark and cold,
   And I may not open the long closed door,

I.

Let's contend no more, Love,
Strive nor weep:
All be as before, Love,
---Only sleep!

II.

What so wild as words are?
I and thou
In debate, as birds are,
Hawk on bough!

III.

See the creature stalking
While we speak!
Hush and hide the talking,
Cheek on cheek!

IV.

What so false as truth is,
False to thee?
Where the serpent's tooth is
Shun the tree---

V.

Where the apple reddens
Never pry---
Lest we lose our Edens,
Eve and I.

She wakens early remembering
her father rising in the dark
lighting the stove with a match
scraped on the floor. Then measuring
water for coffee, and later the smell
coming through. She would hear
him drying spoons, dropping
them one by one in the drawer.
Then he was on the stairs
going for the milk. So soon
he would be at her door
to wake her gently, he thought,
with a hand at her nape, shaking
to and fro, smelling of gasoline
and whispering. Then he left.
Now she shakes her head, shakes

All night, all day, in dizzy, downward flight,
Fell the wild-whirling, vague, chaotic snow,
Till every landmark of the earth below,
Trees, moorlands, roads, and each familiar sight
Were blotted out by the bewildering white.
And winds, now shrieking loud, now whimpering low,
Seemed lamentations for the world-old woe
That death must swallow life, and darkness light.

But all at once the rack was blown away,
The snowstorm hushing ended in a sigh;
Then like a flame the crescent moon on high

This is the tale of Norton
Who vowed a vow, by zounds,
To catch the varlet Gardiner
And win a thousand pounds.

"Come thither, come thither, my little page,
Whom man call Black Billee,
And saddle me up my jolly brown steed
And bring my pistols three.

"A plan I have within my head,
By which I will surround
The rascal Gardiner and his gang,
And win the thousand pounds!"

Then up he rose, that little black boy,
And grinned he broad grins three:
"You bin catch that fella Gardiner,
You budgeree Peeler be."

"There is my little trembling star," she said.
   I looked; once more
The tender sea had put the sun to bed,
   And heaven's floor
   Was grey.

And nowhere yet in all that young night sky
   Was any star,
But one that hung above the sea. Not high,
   Nor very far
   Away.

"I watch it every night," she said, and crept
   Within my arm.
"Soft little star, I wish the angels kept