WRAITHS
Who hears the answer when I cry?
O quiet hours and empty blue——
You?
But the echoful air beats back no sigh.
Who is glad of the love that I give the green?
O haunted hollow in tide of leaves,
Who weaves
Delight of mine on the flowery screen?
Who harbours that little straying ghost
Of our thought for each other before we knew
Love true?
Warm, warm in my heart and never lost.
HALF THOUGHT
Believe not Sorrow, her who brings
Confession of the folded wings,
But seek you, burning, some frail birth
That sings.
It is her spirit beating through.
Handful of earth,
It may be breath to you!
WIND SONG
Horn of the morning!
And the little night pipings fail.
The day is launched like a hollow ship
With the sun for a sail.
The way is wide and blue and lone
With all the miles inviolate,
Save for the swinging stars they’ve sown
And a thistle of cloud remote and blown.
O I passion for something nearer than these!
How shall I know that this live thing is I
With only the morning for proof and the sky?
I long for a music more dear to its keys,
For a touch that shall teach me the new sureties,
Give me some griefs and some loyalties
And a child’s mouth on my own....
Lullaby,
Babe of the world, swing high,
Swing low.
I am a mother you never may know,
But oh,
And oh, how long the wind will know you,
With lullaby for the dead night through.
Babe of the earth, as I blow....
Swing high,
To touch at the sky,
And at last lie low.
Lullaby....