woman

--New Orleans, November 1910

Four weeks have passed since I left, and still
I must write to you of no work. I've worn down
the soles and walked through the tightness
of my new shoes calling upon the merchants,
their offices bustling. All the while I kept thinking
my plain English and good writing would secure
for me some modest position Though I dress each day
in my best, hands covered with the lace gloves
you crocheted--no one needs a girl. How flat
the word sounds, and heavy. My purse thins.

Through the noiseless doors of Death
Three passed out, as with one breath.

Two had faces stern as Fate,
Stamped with unrelenting hate.

One upon her lips of guile
Wore a cold, mysterious smile.

Each of each unseen, the pale
Shades went down the hollow vale

Till they came unto the deep
River of Eternal Sleep.

Breath of wind, or wing of bird,
Never that dark stream hath stirred;

Still it seems as is the shore,
But it flows for evermore

either peace or happiness,
let it enfold you

when I was a young man
I felt these things were
dumb, unsophisticated.
I had bad blood, a twisted
mind, a precarious
upbringing.

I was hard as granite, I
leered at the
sun.
I trusted no man and
especially no
woman.

I was living a hell in
small rooms, I broke
things, smashed things,
walked through glass,
cursed.
I challenged everything,
was continually being

See where the allied armies camped,
Where plumed and painted dancers tramped--
'Tis still the same, the same wild scene,
As though the ploughshare ne'er had been.
Grey Tomboritha still the skies
With bold and massy front defies;
And gorge, and chasm, and long-ledged rocks
Echo the ever-thundering shocks
Of waters dashed with headlong force,
Wild cataracts leaping on their course.
In dark Maroka's vale the stream
Reflects the slanting solar beam;
There the proud lyre-bird* spreads his tail,

I.

PLACE. -- A small alcove with dark curtains.
The class consists of one member.
SUBJECT. -- Thomson’s Mirror Galvanometer.


The lamp-light falls on blackened walls,
And streams through narrow perforations,
The long beam trails o’er pasteboard scales,
With slow-decaying oscillations.
Flow, current, flow, set the quick light-spot flying,
Flow current, answer light-spot, flashing, quivering, dying,

O look! how queer! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, sharper growing

I wrote a poem on the mist
And a woman asked me what I meant by it.
I had thought till then only of the beauty of the mist,
how pearl and gray of it mix and reel,
And change the drab shanties with lighted lamps at evening
into points of mystery quivering with color.

I answered:
The whole world was mist once long ago and some day
it will all go back to mist,
Our skulls and lungs are more water than bone and tissue
And all poets love dust and mist because all the last answers

Now Nature hangs her mantle green
On every blooming tree,
And spreads her sheets o' daises white
Out o'er the grassy lea
Now Pheebus cheers the crystal streams,
And glads the azure skies;
But nought can glad the weary wight
That fast in durance lies.

Now laverocks wake the merry morn
Aloft on dewy wing;
The merle, in his noontide bow'r,
Makes woodland echoes ring;
The mavis wild ai' mony a note,
Sings drowsy day to reast
In love and freedom they rejoice,

THE lovely lass o' Inverness,
   Nae joy nor pleasure can she see;
For e'en and morn she cries, 'Alas!'
   And aye the saut tear blin's her e'e:
'Drumossie moor, Drumossie day,
   A waefu' day it was to me!
For there I lost my father dear,
   My father dear and brethren three.

'Their winding-sheet the bluidy clay,
   Their graves are growing green to see;
And by them lies the dearest lad
   That ever blest a woman's e'e!
Now wae to thee, thou cruel lord,
   A bluidy man I trow thou be;

Late came the God, having sent his forerunners who were
not regarded--
Late, but in wrath;
Saying: "The wrong shall be paid, the contempt be rewarded
On all that she hath."
He poisoned the blade and struck home, the full bosom receiving
The wound and the venom in one, past cure or relieving.
He made treaty with Time to stand still that the grief might
be fresh--
Daily renewed and nightly pursued through her soul to her
flesh--
Mornings of memory, noontides of agony, midnights unslaked
for her,

. "With sacrifice before the rising morn
Vows have I made by fruitless hope inspired;
And from the infernal Gods, 'mid shades forlorn
Of night, my slaughtered Lord have I required:
Celestial pity I again implore;--
Restore him to my sight--great Jove, restore!"
So speaking, and by fervent love endowed
With faith, the Suppliant heavenward lifts her hands;
While, like the sun emerging from a cloud,
Her countenance brightens--and her eye expands;
Her bosom heaves and spreads, her stature grows;