A sound, scarce heard through sleep,
Murmurous as the August bees
That fill the forest hollows deep
About the roots of trees.
O is it life or death,
O is it hope or memory,
That quiets all things with this breath
Of the eternal sea?
MASKS AND FACES.
PASTEL.
THE light of our cigarettes
Went and came in the gloom:
It was dark in the little room.
Dark, and then, in the dark,
Sudden, a flash, a glow,
And a hand and a ring I know.
And then, through the dark, a flush
Ruddy and vague, the grace—
A rose—of her lyric face.
HER EYES.
BENEATH the heaven of her brows’
Unclouded noon of peace, there lies
A leafy heaven of hazel boughs
In the seclusion of her eyes;
Her troubling eyes that cannot rest;
And there’s a little flame that dances
(A firefly in a grassy nest)
In the green circle of her glances;