[TO GERALD SHOVE]
I like to let my fancy rove
O'er all the charms of Mister Shoave.
But oh! how very much above
Such obvious charms are those of Shuv.
Oh Shuv most intimate! Oh Shoave
More pompous-fine! Yet interwove,
How complex-sweet and meet for love
The compound name of Gerald Shuv.
Oh Gerald dear! Oh Shuv! Oh Shoave!
My late-found bliss, my treasure-trove;
My poor heart yearns to counter-prove
Those double facets that me move
So strangely; therefore, deign t'approve
This syncretism—Gerald Shoove.
1912.
[MARCH]
If I could catch all the stars in a net
And make them tell me their Christian names,
Or snare the dream of a violet,
Or persuade the squirrels to teach me their games,
Or quite surprise, on a warm June night,
The lilac bushes that laugh for delight
And tremble for fear lest we should hear them,—
If I could tiptoe breathlessly near them
And overhear them
And master so
Secrets that only the lilacs know:
If I could feel what a young bird feels
When first it flutters across the road,
Or learn at last from the creaking wheels
Of a wagon that story they tell their load—
The hillside legend that never grows old:
If I could be told
All the subtle, impalpable, exquisite things
That we just surmise when the country sings,
That week before they begin the hay:
If I could contrive to sing, or to say,
Or to be, what the poets have never invented,
Should I be contented?
Was I to-day?
1915.
[APRIL]
After so many days...
The moon lies right across the sea,
The tide's up to the brink,
A door keeps flapping in the wind,
I cannot sleep a wink,
Although I'm sleepy as can be.
But lie in bed and think
Of you and all your proud, gay ways.