Kitabı oku: «Herbs and Apples», sayfa 6

RELEASE

 
How may we be released from memories?
One dreads each green renewal of the grain,
Reviving ancient life. If but the brain
Might be made clean of last year's withered lies,
Blown like brown leaves across the April skies
In hateful resurrection, and retain
Only the springs of promise, fine and sane,
And a kind, leading hand to make us wise.
 
 
If with the running sap a royal birth
Each year might be accomplished, strong and free
With the sweet prescience of virginity,
Then were we true inheritors of earth,
And the large lonely stars no more should see
The age worn phoenix-lives that make our dearth.
 

THE THIEF

 
Did you see the rascal with the rain-grey eyes?
He robbed me of my happiness before I knew its worth.
He stole into my garden and took it by surprise,
When midnight hid his wicked ways upon the sleeping earth.
 
 
How shall I arrest him, for he took away my Spring,
Took away my April 'neath his cloak of steaming rain.
Tho' he left his Summer and a choir of birds that sing,
Nothing will content me for I want my Spring again.
 

I WILL WRITE LETTERS TO THE GRASS

 
I will write letters to my friend the grass,
I will sing all my songs to lilac flowers
Gather the spices in the airs that pass,
And wrap my heart close shrouded in the hours.
 
 
I dread man's huge impertinence; he creeps
Thro' the inviolate silences of Spring
Like a marauder, waking that which sleeps
To gather strength for lyric blossoming.
 
 
I will write all my letters to the grass.
The world shall be resolved into a cry
Faint as a little voice that cries Alas!
And I will laugh alone beneath the sky.
 

ONLY THIS

 
We need demand no further gift from Heaven,
We might dispense with documents and creeds,
If but this one great grace to us were given—
The strength to follow where our reason leads.
 

THE SURVIVOR

 
Beauty will crumble with tasking,
Love rarely lasts for a year,
Virtue is sold for the asking,
Bravery fades before fear.
 
 
Youth never lives till the morrow,
One thing of all is alive,
Joy cannot quench it, or sorrow,
Folly alone shall survive.
 
 
Folly, from cradle to burning,
Toys for the great and the small,
None shall escape her by learning—
Folly has rattles for all!
 

MEGAERA

 
Always to suffer so, to want and weep
With woe that groweth every day more deep;
To don the green robe of tormented scorn,
And ever curse the hour that love was born!
Furies, my Sisters! have you no surcease
For me to whom no death shall bring release?
 
 
They name me Jealous One. They hate my name,
The ages hold me high to endless shame;
How, if I suffer so, does no one care
And pity, for the wrath that I must bear?
Gods! let me go, your service wrecks and sears,
The vase must break that holds so many tears.
 

THE SONG OF MOKAI

 
He's dead, I watched him die.
He cast a spell on my mate,
They loved, and the moon whirled 'round the sky,
They mocked at my rage and hate.
 
 
Blood red from the burning sea
The sun rose, and I knew!
My soul whined wild little songs to me,
I did what I had to do.
 
 
I have taken the bone of his thigh,
I have fashioned it into a horn;
And I sing my soul's song, shrill and high,
And curse the day he was born.
 

TO THE GYPSY MAN

 
Is there no room in your gypsy heart
Where a woman's love might lie
Warm and sheltered, your prize and song,
As you wander beneath the sky?
 
 
No, for you say, "I'll carry no weight,
I must be free, be free;
I'll carry no love in my gypsy heart
To make a drag for me."
 
 
Little you know, then, love is the cloak
That shelters you from the storm;
Love makes the shoes for your gypsy feet,
Love is your coat so warm.
 
 
Though you take no purse and you take no staff
You cannot escape the load
Of a woman's longing and woman's love
That follows you down the road.
 

THERE IS NO DANGER IN DISDAIN

 
There is no danger in disdain,
No grief in perfidy;
The meek they are who taste of pain
And matchless misery.
 
 
The hearts who give, and giving, die,
Could they but learn the way
To take, and laugh and then deny,
They still might live their day.