II
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!
Recuerdo
We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.
We were very tired, we were very merry—
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.
We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.
Thursday
And if I loved you Wednesday,
Well, what is that to you?
I do not love you Thursday—
So much is true.
And why you come complaining
Is more than I can see.
I loved you Wednesday,—yes—but what
Is that to me?
To the Not Impossible Him
How shall I know, unless I go
To Cairo and Cathay,
Whether or not this blessed spot
Is blest in every way?
Now it may be, the flower for me
Is this beneath my nose;
How shall I tell, unless I smell
The Carthaginian rose?
The fabric of my faithful love
No power shall dim or ravel
Whilst I stay here,—but oh, my dear,
If I should ever travel!
The Singing-Woman from the Wood’s Edge
What should I be but a prophet and a liar,
Whose mother was a leprechaun, whose father was a friar?
Teethed on a crucifix and cradled under water,
What should I be but the fiend’s god-daughter?
And who should be my playmates but the adder and the frog,
That was got beneath a furze-bush and born in a bog?
And what should be my singing, that was christened at an altar,
But Aves and Credos and Psalms out of the Psalter?
You will see such webs on the wet grass, maybe,
As a pixie-mother weaves for her baby,
You will find such flame at the wave’s weedy ebb
As flashes in the meshes of a mer-mother’s web,
But there comes to birth no common spawn
From the love of a priest for a leprechaun,
And you never have seen and you never will see
Such things as the things that swaddled me!
After all’s said and after all’s done,
What should I be but a harlot and a nun?
In through the bushes, on any foggy day,
My dad would come a-swishing of the drops away,
With a prayer for my death and a groan for my birth,
A-mumbling of his beads for all that he was worth.
And there’d sit my ma, with her knees beneath her chin,
A-looking in his face and a-drinking of it in,
And a-marking in the moss some funny little saying
That would mean just the opposite of all that he was praying!
He taught me the holy-talk of Vesper and of Matin,
He heard me my Greek and he heard me my Latin,
He blessed me and crossed me to keep my soul from evil,
And we watched him out of sight, and we conjured up the devil!
Oh, the things I haven’t seen and the things I haven’t known,
What with hedges and ditches till after I was grown,
And yanked both ways by my mother and my father,
With a “Which would you better?” and a “Which would you rather?”
With him for a sire and her for a dam,
What should I be but just what I am?
Humoresque
“Heaven bless the babe!” they said;
“What queer books she must have read!”
(Love, by whom I was beguiled,
Grant I may not bear a child.)
“Little does she guess to-day
What the world may be,” they say.
(Snow, drift deep and cover
Till the spring my murdered lover.)
She is Overheard Singing
Oh, Prue she has a patient man,
And Joan a gentle lover,
And Agatha’s Arth’ is a hug-the-hearth,—
But my true love’s a rover!
Mig, her man’s as good as cheese
And honest as a briar,
Sue tells her love what he’s thinking of,—
But my dear lad’s a liar!
Oh, Sue and Prue and Agatha
Are thick with Mig and Joan!
They bite their threads and shake their heads
And gnaw my name like a bone;
And Prue says, “Mine’s a patient man,
As never snaps me up,”
And Agatha, “Arth’ is a hug-the-hearth,
Could live content in a cup;”
Sue’s man’s mind is like good jell—
All one colour, and clear—
And Mig’s no call to think at all
What’s to come next year,
While Joan makes boast of a gentle lad,
That’s troubled with that and this;—
But they all would give the life they live
For a look from the man I kiss!
Cold he slants his eyes about,
And few enough’s his choice,—
Though he’d slip me clean for a nun, or a queen,
Or a beggar with knots in her voice,—
And Agatha will turn awake
When her good man sleeps sound,
And Mig and Sue and Joan and Prue
Will hear the clock strike round;
For Prue she has a patient man,
As asks not when or why,
And Mig and Sue have naught to do
But peep who’s passing by,
Joan is paired with a putterer
That bastes and tastes and salts,
And Agatha’s Arth’ is a hug-the-hearth,—
But my true love is false!
The Unexplorer
There was a road ran past our house
Too lovely to explore.
I asked my mother once—she said
That if you followed where it led
It brought you to the milk-man’s door.
(That’s why I have not travelled more.)
Grown-Up
Was it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
That now, domestic as a plate,
I should retire at half-past eight?
The Penitent
I had a little Sorrow,
Born of a little Sin,
I found a room all damp with gloom
And shut us all within;
And, “Little Sorrow, weep,” said I,
“And, Little Sin, pray God to die,
And I upon the floor will lie
And think how bad I’ve been!”
Alas for pious planning—
It mattered not a whit!
As far as gloom went in that room,
The lamp might have been lit!
My Little Sorrow would not weep,
My Little Sin would go to sleep—
To save my soul I could not keep
My graceless mind on it!
So up I got in anger,
And took a book I had,
And put a ribbon on my hair
To please a passing lad.
And, “One thing there’s no getting by—
I’ve been a wicked girl,” said I;
“But if I can’t be sorry, why,
I might as well be glad!”
Daphne
Why do you follow me?—
Any moment I can be
Nothing but a laurel-tree.
Any moment of the chase
I can leave you in my place
A pink bough for your embrace.
Yet if over hill and hollow,
Still it is your will to follow,
I am off;—to heel, Apollo!
Portrait by a Neighbour
Before she has her floor swept
Or her dishes done,
Any day you’ll find her
A-sunning in the sun!
It’s long after midnight
Her key’s in the lock,
And you never see her chimney smoke
Till past ten o’clock!
She digs in her garden
With a shovel and a spoon,
She weeds her lazy lettuce
By the light of the moon.
She walks up the walk
Like a woman in a dream,
She forgets she borrowed butter
And pays you back cream!
Her lawn looks like a meadow,
And if she mows the place
She leaves the clover standing
And the Queen Anne’s lace!
The Merry Maid
Oh, I am grown so free from care
Since my heart broke!
I set my throat against the air,
I laugh at simple folk!
There’s little kind and little fair
Is worth its weight in smoke
To me, that’s grown so free from care
Since my heart broke!
Lass, if to sleep you would repair
As peaceful as you woke,
Best not besiege your lover there
For just the words he spoke
To me, that’s grown so free from care
Since my heart broke!
To S. M.
If he should lie a-dying
I am not willing you should go
Into the earth, where Helen went;
She is awake by now, I know.
Where Cleopatra’s anklets rust
You will not lie with my consent;
And Sappho is a roving dust;
Cressid could love again; Dido,
Rotted in state, is restless still;
You leave me much against my will.
The Philosopher
And what are you that, wanting you,
I should be kept awake
As many nights as there are days
With weeping for your sake?
And what are you that, missing you,
As many days as crawl
I should be listening to the wind
And looking at the wall?
I know a man that’s a braver man
And twenty men as kind,
And what are you, that you should be
The one man in my mind?
Yet women’s ways are witless ways,
As any sage will tell,—
And what am I, that I should love
So wisely and so well?