I am weary. I would sleep
In some quiet perfumed deep
Where no human touch could bring
Tears to me or anything.
There I would forget to weep
And my silent cloister keep,—
There I would the earth embrace
Meeting Beauty face to face.
I am weary. I would go
Where the fields are white with snow,
Where the violets are lain
Far from human strife and pain—
Far from longing and delight,
Thro' the endless starry night,
There I would forget to weep,
And my silent cloister keep.
Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff
COBWEBS
Who would not praise thee, miracle of Frost?
Some gesture overnight, some breath benign,
And lo! the tree's a fountain all a-shine,
The hedge a throne of unimagined cost;
In wheel and fan along a wall embossed,
The spider's humble handiwork shows fine
With jewels girdling every airy line;
Though the small mason in the cold be lost.
Web after web, a morning snare of bliss
Starring with beauty the whole neighbourhood,
May well beget an envy clean and good.
When man goes too into the earth-abyss,
And God in His altered garden walks, I would
My secret woof might gleam so fair as this.
Louise Imogen Guiney
BLIND
The Spring blew trumpets of color;
Her Green sang in my brain—
I heard a blind man groping
"Tap—tap" with his cane;
I pitied him his blindness;
But can I boast, "I see?"
Perhaps there walks a spirit
Close by, who pities me,—