Poems, 1914-1919

Your beauty wanders like a whispering stream,
And brushes past me like an angel’s wing.

II

To-night the thoughts of you drift round my bed
Like thistledown; I weave them into rhymes;
And as I fall to sleep I hear their chimes
Building sweet music high above my head,
And prayers and poems all in praise of you;
And, happy in my fading dream, I say:
“There will be something ready with the day
To send to her, to speak for me, to sue.”

But when the morning comes, the nimble words
Have fled into the air like frightened birds,
That answer my soft whistle with a scream;
And only the recalcitrant thoughts remain;
The baffled blind desire to find again
The accents that were docile in my dream.

III

I think God made your soul for better things
Than idly laughing with the noisy crew.
I think He meant the spirit that is you
To soar above the world with silver wings;
To hear the music of celestial strings;
To keep the flame within you always true
Unto your own high pole; and pure as dew
The fountain that within you sometimes sings.

I think you are an exile in the noise
Of busy markets; alien to the toys
That dazzle others, firing them with greed;
And, like a seagull, lost upon the land,
You long for the large breakers and the sand,
The strong salt air, the surf, the drifting weed.

IV

The world was waiting for the thunder’s birth,
To-day, and cloud was piled on sullen cloud:
Then strong, and straight, and clean, and cool, and loud
The rain came down, and drenched the stifling earth.
The heavy clouds have lifted and rolled by;
The riotous wet leaves with music ring,
And now the nightingale begins to sing,
And tender as a rose-leaf is the sky.

I wonder if some day this stifling care
That weighs upon my heart will fall in showers?
I wonder if the hot and heavy hours
Will roll away and leave such limpid air,
And if my soul will riot in the rain,
And sing as gladly as that bird again?

V

I picked this cornflower in the rustling rye,
These briar roses from a luscious hedge,
This purple iris in the woodland sedge.
It was the quaver of the dragon-fly,
Dropped like a piece of azure from the sky,
That led me to that pool amongst the trees —
And there I lay and listened to the bees,
And murmured sadly to myself: “Good-bye.”

Good-bye! these perished petals that I send
Will tell you that this truly is the end;
Good-bye to you and to the golden hours.
These briar roses grew beside the stream —
No, no! I shall not send you faded flowers —
I need them for the grave of my lost dream.

Sosnofka, June 1914

1914-1915

ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF

JULIET’S OWL

Juliet has lost her little downy owl,
The bird she loved more than all other birds
He was a darling bird, so white, so wise,
Like a monk hooded in a snowy cowl,
With sun-shy scholar’s eyes,
He hooted softly in diminished thirds;
And when he asked for mice,
He took refusal with a silent pride —
And never pleaded twice.
He was a wondrous bird, as dignified
As any Diplomat
That ever sat
By the round table of a Conference.

He was delicious, lovable and soft.
He understood the meaning of the night,
And read the riddle of the smiling stars.