UNKNOWN IDEAL
Whose is the voice that will not let me rest?
I hear it speak.
Where is the shore will gratify my quest,
Show what I seek?
Not yours, weak Muse, to mimic that far voice,
With halting tongue;
No peace, sweet land, to bid my heart rejoice
Your groves among.
Whose is the loveliness I know is by,
Yet cannot place?
Is it perfection of the sea or sky,
Or human face?
Not yours, my pencil, to delineate
The splendid smile!
Blind in the sun, we struggle on with Fate
That glows the while.
Whose are the feet that pass me, echoing
On unknown ways?
Whose are the lips that only part to sing
Through all my days?
Not yours, fond youth, to fill mine eager eyes
Or find that shore
That will not let me rest, nor satisfies
For evermore.
BEWARE
I closed my hands upon a moth
And when I drew my palms apart,
Instead of dusty, broken wings
I found a bleeding human heart.
I crushed my foot upon a worm
That had my garden for its goal,
But when I drew my foot aside
I found a dying human soul.
THE OLD MAID
She walks in a lonely garden
On the path her feet have made,
With high-heeled shoes, gold-buckled,
And gown of a flowered brocade;