I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
THE SONG OF THE OLD MOTHER
I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow
Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow.
And then I must scrub, and bake, and sweep,
Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;
But the young lie long and dream in their bed
Of the matching of ribbons, the blue and the red,
And their day goes over in idleness,
And they sigh if the wind but lift up a tress.
While I must work, because I am old
And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.
THE CAP AND BELLS
A Queen was beloved by a jester,
And once when the owls grew still
He made his soul go upward
And stand on her window sill.
In a long and straight blue garment,
It talked before morn was white,
And it had grown wise by thinking
Of a footfall hushed and light.
But the young queen would not listen;
She rose in her pale nightgown,
She drew in the brightening casement
And pushed the brass bolt down.
He bade his heart go to her,
When the bats cried out no more,
In a red and quivering garment
It sang to her through the door.
The tongue of it sweet with dreaming
Of a flutter of flower-like hair,
But she took up her fan from the table
And waved it off on the air.
'I've cap and bells,' he pondered,
'I will send them to her and die.'
And as soon as the morn had whitened
He left them where she went by.