Or kill the spring’s first violets that lie
In purple sheath—
“If you must call, call low! My heart grows still,
Still as my breath,
Still as your smile, O Ancient One! A chill
Strikes through the sun upon the window-sill—
I know you now—I follow where you will,
O tyrant Death!”
The Gifts
I GIVE you Life, O child, a garden fair;
I give you Love, a rose that blossoms there—
I give a day to pluck it and to wear!
I give you Death, O child—a boon more great—
That, when your Rose has withered and ’tis late,
You may pass out and, smiling, close the gate!
The Town Between
A WALL impregnable surrounds
The Town wherein I dwell;
No man may scale it and it has
Two gates that guard it well.
One opened long ago, and I
A vagrant soul, slipped through,
Bewildered and forgetting all
The wider world I knew.
I love the Town, the narrow ways,
The common, yellow sun,
The handclasp and the jesting and
The work that must be done!
I shun the other gate that stands
Beyond the crowded mart—
I need but glance that way to feel
Cold fingers on my heart!