HOURS
| Hours when I love you, are like tranquil pools, The liquid jewels of the forest, where The hunted runner dips his hand, and cools His fevered ankles, and the ferny air Comes blowing softly on his heaving breast, Hinting the sacred mystery of rest. |
FIRE AND WATER
| Flame-Heart, take back your love. Swift, sure And poignant as the dagger to the mark, Your will is burning ever; it is pure. Mine is vague water welling through the dark, Holding all substances—except the spark. Picture the pleasure of the meadow stream When some clear striding naked-footed girl Cuts swift and straightly as a gleam Across its bosom ambling and aswirl With mooning eddies and soft lips acurl; Such was our meeting—fatefully so brief. I have no purpose and no power to clutch. Gleam onward, maiden, to your goal of grief; And I more sadly flow, remembering much, Yet doomed to take the form of all I touch. |
YOU MAKE NO ANSWER
| You make no answer. You have stolen away Deliberately in that twilight sorrow Where the dark flame that is your being shines So well. Mysterious and deeply tender In your motion you have softly left me, And the little path along the house is still. And I, a child forsaken of its mother, I, a pilgrim leaning for a friend, Grow faint, and tell myself in terror that My love reborn and burning shall yet bring you— More than friend and slender-bodied mother— O sweet-passioned spirit, shining home! |