Not through this Door
Not through this door of elemental calm,
Patient, wet woodland, resting after rain,
Brooding brown fields that wait the sleeping grain—
Not through this door may the wrecked spirit’s balm—
Come in and take possession. There’s a psalm
Nature has crooned to weariness and pain,
Easing the tumult of the world-worn brain,
Sweet, wholesome mother of the open palm.
But the disastrous heart cries out for men,
Strife where the fight is reddest. Verily
Peace comes with fighting with the strength of ten,
Here where the world is young, with naught to see.
But day blow out across the long, low sky—
Peace means an emptiness, which rests to die.
XX
Pot-Pourri
All my dead roses! Now I lay them here,
Shrined in a beryl cup. The mysteries
Of their sweet hauntings and their witcheries
Are not more subtle than this jewel clear,
Are not more cold and dead. The winter’s spear
Has fallen on their heart, a heart so wise
With lore of love. Dead roses. Beauty lies
Hid in a perfume still supremely dear.
Roses of love, time killed you one by one,
Laughed at my pains as sad I gathered up
All the fair petals banished from the sun.
Witness my triumph—how the dead loves bless
Life—from my heart, which is their beryl cup,
Crowning the winter of my loneliness.