Poems in Shorthand 9780231888202

Table of contents :
Even There
Butterfly Background
Warehouses
New England Way
Straw Hat Day
The Flower Cart
Going into the Mountains of Virginia in May
Anciently in Central Park
The Ferry
The Sky Comes Down the Subway Stairs
Dante on the Elevated
Meditation in City Hall Park
Steamfitter
Green Lights
Rainy Night, Fifth Avenue
Attending a Girl Show
Opera Matinée
Hour Unredeemed
Halo For a Star
Queen’s Gambit
Easter Carols in the Observation Car
Skytop Brook
The Longest Day in the Year
Bedford Hills
Roadside, June
“Saint Francis” in His Garden
College Reunion
Red-Winged Blackbird
The Ride to Salt Water
Focus Notched
A Fragrance Gone
Salt Marshes, Barnstable
Viola Music
Wood Fire
October
Football Game
Skyscraper
The Tallest Tower on Christmas Eve
Christmas Pageant
The Thrush Recorded
Their Language
Art
High Court
Empire
Gibraltar
Amalfi
Ravello
Gizeh
Moonrise in the Grand Canyon
In America No Aroma of History?
Going South
Forlorn Remainder
Mystery
Cape Cod Canal
Schooner Head
New York Boat
Golden Stairs
Public Garden
Cracking the Atom
Size
Library Globe
Chimpanzee
I Had Forgotten the Sea
Relativity and Toy Boats
In the Fourth Dimension
Spiced Wine
Etching
Perhaps
Dream Diffusing
Of What Avail the Woods?
From the Legend on a Broken Sword

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By

BENJAMIN R. C. LOW

N E W YORK: M O R N I N G S I D E H E I G H T S C O L U M B I A U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS

*934

COPYRIGHT 1 9 3 4 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY P R E S S

To C. E. M .

JR.

One sometimes wonders if the truest poetry may not be that which is made in the hearts of those who do not communicate it, but who, at the same time, need to have it touched off in them. If this be so, perhaps one or more of these poems in shorthand— I have no other name for them—may hope to serve that end; gathered, as most of them were, out of the commonplace, and whittled, with plain words, into a rather blunt point of suggestion. Nevertheless, because they are written in a quiet key and, unlike the traditional lyric, contain only a low electrical charge, they must be read with deliberation and carried out in tranquility, if they are not to be found altogether trifling. A handful of them have already appeared, in SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE and T H E C O M MONWEAL, and their permitted use here is gratefully acknowledged. One and all I commend them (well knowing its kindness) to your discriminating soul.

EVEN THERE For you At day's end The long light goes To the hills, from the M y twilight fall Is on the hard curve Of a water-tank Outside my window. But even there It has a wistful Tarrying.

BUTTERFLY BACKGROUND In a garden looking on the East River A butterfly is at work. It does not appear to be aware Of the huge brutality of tall towers, Or of the magnificence of the red sun Flung back from many windows. It does not seem to be interested in anything But the making of a pretty pattern Of gay diagonals Among the flowers.

2

WAREHOUSES Along the waterfront, On the far side of the river, There are warehouses with iron shutters and old brick walls, And at just the right hour, When the late sun is sleeping on them, And there is sufficient air from the south To soften their harsh outlines, They touch, strangely, a memory of being, long ago, Near something like them: Some other port;— Was it London, or Amsterdam, or old Marseilles?— In such a light, and meaning, Somehow, A question unarrived-at in a dream I have no right to.

3

N E W ENGLAND W A Y A raw wind is ruffing the river To-day, And the boats on it Have a bitter sky above them. I think of you, In winter quarters with your command, Far away among the hills, And I remember, Gratefully, The yellow violets Which we once came upon together, And which would not let us be tongue-tied Any longer.

4

S T R A W H A T DAY The girls, at the luncheon hour, Are going arm-in-arm in gay, light dresses, And the awnings are up over the shop windows. There are pleasant, distant cries of venders, And the sound of the traffic has a happy quality Which accords with the weather. I walk quite leisurely, enjoying the bright air. It is straw hat day.

5

T H E FLOWER C A R T Geraniums and tulips, In pots filled with fresh, country earth, Appearing, from nowhere, In a one-horse cart. A hurdy-gurdy, bubbling music From just around the corner. The sun Come north sufficiently far To look down the street for the first time And flare on the window-panes. What is this great joy?— Flowers and cart and windows and music, And I?

6

GOING INTO THE M O U N T A I N S OF VIRGINIA IN M A Y All afternoon the train has been among high meadows, And now, instead of a road of red clay, There is a rushing brook beside the track, And the lighter air of the hills is in at the window. I think of you, From whom I parted at Washington, And I tell myself that I would gladly give all this To be nearing home, in the thick air of the sea, By tainted marshes and over oily estuaries, With you.

7

ANCIENTLY IN CENTRAL PARK The sheep are out, and into Arcady. The groves of Dionysus are on fire. Those fisher-lads, down there among the rocks, Rucked-up to top of sleeve and thigh, Might make procession on the Parthenon; And yonder girl, Self-conscious, like her kind, Rolling her stockings down, to take the sun Bare on her wintered limbs, Forgets herself into that wounding line Odysseus ached for, Beached and far from home.

8

T H E FERRY On the ferry You may pretend that you are taking a sea voyage. You may tell yourself that you will not notice The disreputable flotsam in the harbor. You may move as far as may be From the jingling music in the cabin, And resolve that you will listen only T o the throb of the engines, and the sound of the waves Alongside: But all the while you will know, perfectly well, That the water under you is shallow and degenerate And without joy. Moreover, on the ferry, You will not wear in your going The mystery of arrival.

9

THE SKY COMES D O W N THE SUBWAY STAIRS Rarely, As is the way of beauty, Here There yet may be,— Even down here In all this troubled flow,— As in a wood will lie A flower, among dark leaves, One rescuing, proud face.

10

DANTE ON THE ELEVATED The elevated railway Is intimately acquainted with untidy bedrooms And the haunted windows of sweatshops. There is a brief interval of light When the train crosses a side street; But the stations can be very dark. Nevertheless, it was quite possible to read, And to separate from the shadows Paolo and Francesca. The cry of the guard at the terminal Recalled me But I was not entirely sure, Even after I had lifted my eyes from the book, That I was not, still, Among the damned.

ii

MEDITATION IN CITY HALL PARK Behind the City Hall The pigeons Paddle about on the grass Or roost in the mysterious eaves Of the old court house. All at once they take to the air And dip and wheel In a delirium o£ agitation. Can it be that the City Fathers Entertain, Suddenly, The sacred bird of Athene?

12

STEAMFITTER The blown cloud in which he stands Half hides him. He does not wear, at all, The winter afternoon, waning, And the thin-lipped street At full moment round him. Is he of another age? Odysseus he might be, Among the Cimmerians, Luring the dead With life blood of a sheep; Or Dante, In still pity looking down Some exquisite long anguish.

GREEN LIGHTS Why are these horns heard here? Are they for the green glades, Joyfully? Or do they cry for echoes, Before action, Under tall mountains? These Are horns blown urgently. Alas!—without lips or breath, And only—turn away— For traffic.

x

4

RAINY N I G H T , FIFTH A V E N U E The effect is to be a little far away And not to be misled, By blur of rain Or blown discrepancies, From that long lead and cobweb dew Of lights. Where do they end? Is there a borderland? It might be into worlds there almost is A memory of.

5

I

A T T E N D I N G A GIRL S H O W These lovely lines Echoing one another Over and over;— Curves modulating Into planes, And tension holds Turning articulate, And so Interpreting To round, once more;— Become at last Too soft a music: A repeated chord That cries aloud For its harsh complement Of hairy hide And knotted muscle bloom. It is quite evident that if, Another time, Eve should come first, Adam would, most certainly, Create himself. 16

OPERA M A T I N É E Painted horizon; artificial tree; Poor Tristan;— Unheroic in his dressing gown, His girth not belted, Beard and hair gone wild;— Now, nevertheless, As if in sunset gold, They are what the music speaks of: And all we city-dried, Pale lookers-on Are given life, once more, To dream that dangerous dream The sea line doubts and holds And is in sorrow for,— And always will be.

l7

HOUR UNREDEEMED In February The dead lie in iron; And if there be a thaw, The snow is wreathed in charnel. I look into a court-yard, where Wet clothes upon a line Hang lifeless, And uncouth fire-escapes Disfigure duty windows Leering at a leaden sky. Life is a bitter stone To whet a dream upon.

18

HALO FOR A STAR A benediction may come blindingly, Like a thunderbolt; Or mysteriously, Like the flickering northern lights Before a spell of cool weather in autumn; Or, as do you, Serenely, Like a star, risen in winter Above the city smoke; Unleaguring All the downtrodden.

l

9

QUEEN'S GAMBIT To see your facc for the first time, In wind and sorrow, Was to lift eyes from a corrupt street To the new moon. On it there was more,— Far more, Than the reining in of running tides Around dark headlands, Going seaward ; Or The woman at the doorway Calling to the lost light To come to her. There was April, dying, on it.

20

EASTER CAROLS IN THE OBSERVATION CAR The city seems to follow, and then fades. The dreary meadows of dead grass Merge into timber cut away for towns. In the car Two readers are intent on Sunday papers, While a brakeman, chin-in-hand, Stares moodily out of the window. Queer, that all these things of every day Should be uncomfortable And seem to fidget a little At the resurrection music Coming in on the radio.

21

SKYTOP BROOK It docs not need the flush of sap in the maples, Nor the nibbled edges of the ice above the dam, In order to know That March is nearly ready to have done With the shepherding of unshorn clouds. The color of the sky and the particular note Of sharp exhiliration in the brook Speak it unmistakably. I look at you, unconsciously eyeing Our two, liberated children;— The one, on a perilous log, Feigning for trout with a pole and a bent pin; The other, in rubber boots, Ankle-deep in the shallows, and thinking— Whatever girls think about at nine years old; And I cannot resist the delinquency Of setting the frying-pan down in the smoke, At fierce hazard to the sweet-smelling bacon, And blowing a flourish of barbaric joy On my boy's bugle.

22

THE LONGEST DAY IN THE YEAR There is something unreal about that trip; But clearly recollected, Like the close-up of a dandelion on green sward In earliest childhood. It may be because I never went that way Before or since; Or because it was the longest day in the year. I do not know. I remember hours and hours of afternoon When the train slumbered between meadows Cut with clean brooks, Where cows looked up from juicy grass And horses leaned their necks on gates, Until, at last, The sun went low behind the hills, And there was a change of cars And a long wait at a junction Where children played in the street, Under sharp gables and windows full of sky; And then more hours,— Softly obliterating hours of interminable twilight. When, at last, I arrived, 23

The smoke of the locomotive Smudged only a few faint stars. The train went on without me. And yet, somehow, Not altogether. . . .

24

BEDFORD HILLS These are only the ripples, Far inshore, Of the full surge, Rolling its ranges down From some remote green citadel The morning star Might come in April to And find it hoary. Yet, on the horizon, When the sun breaks through On a gray day, I fancy I have seen Loneliness clear given, And lost it, As at sea.

2

5

ROADSIDE, JUNE. The year at tip-toe, And the wind, Without effort o£ art, Making to draw, Down a field of timothy and tall daisies, One wing edge,— One bruising wing edge Of time.

26

"SAINT FRANCIS" IN HIS GARDEN If it be true, as they tell us, That time does not really die, But only moves away to another place, Then it should be quite possible to find you As you were that day, in your garden; Holding in your hand A sprig of love-lies-bleeding, And in your eyes, That hymn to the sun Which is written on your heart.

27

COLLEGE REUNION "What were you?"—they called. "World; 19—," said I. The handshakes and back-slappings died In one long rumor of old, precious things. * * • * * • It would have come lightly, here;— Down academic aisles, With June on the grass and in the trees, And every now and then a drift of song Echoing from under arches;— To drowse and dream it. N o doubt I did.

28

RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD The heat, up here in the hills, Withers the brain, And all the bridle ways Are deep in dust; But when you sing, As you did just now, I hear the tinkle of clean pebbles As a wave trips on a beach, And taste, oh, heart!— Over warm bayberry, Again, The cool, ancestral sweetness of the sea.

29

THE RIDE TO SALT W A T E R It was so very hot in the city, That I endured the stifling air of the railroad station, And the crowd jostling at the gates: I even joined in the stampede,— Down the stairs; in at the doors; along the aisles;— For a seat by a window. Now, at last, There is an end of dreary rows of colorless houses, And villages that long ago lost their virginity to the city. The train has stopped for a moment at an inlet, By harsh meadows, Where boats are moored on mud flats And the sea breeze buffets at a tin fish turning on a pole. It is salt water.

3°

FOCUS NOTCHED What should the two old men, Talking fish in front of the boat-house; Or the gentle postmistress, Sorting letters in her tiny room, Like something seen at the wrong end of a spy-glass; Or even the hollyhocks, beckoning to the sea breeze From just outside the window;— What should any of them have to do With the poems you read aloud to me In the little parlor with the low ceiling?

31

A FRAGRANCE GONE To be driving with you again;— In the late August gold, All in among cornfields mellowing to be cut, And gardens with a few bright flowers in them, Come upon by chance Against gray shingles or the far-off shine of water; With, every now and then, At a turn in the road, Like the earliest memory Of the first thought Of home, The smell of almost ripe apples.

32

SALT MARSHES, BARNSTABLE Let them go, These marshes full of faded winds And sorrowful light; That reach far out under the sky To the yellow dunes. Let them go, now; Even when they take your heart With them. Whatever it was, It is all done with. Do not ask any more of their old evading.

33

VIOLA M U S I C The break in the west has widened. The color of it is in the pools by the roadside, And a crisp wind is hurrying it Over the salt inlets. But it is late. Dusk is already down, And the turning woods are a little melancholy. In this light and air The thought of you is like the music of a viola Being played, all alone, in a tall room.

34

WOOD FIRE This quick crackle and outbreak of sharp gold: This muscular knot-bind of glorious boughs Burst and become rich music, Might be out under the open sky, And fill the air with gleanings Like a string of bright bubbles in still water; But if it were, There would be no hearth for us to dream by;— No pleasant ripples of warm shade Upon the rafters To drop a book for, and embroider on, Interminably.

35

OCTOBER I have in mind a pool, Printed me and unforgotten, Where yellow leaves Lie, And the brown wood-water curls Languidly, And there is nothing more to say In that year, But melancholy; Unless a young girl say it, Without words, Touching with her toes To enter. . . . I saw the advertisement Of your debutante daughter In the picture section of the paper, To-day.

36

FOOTBALL GAME I lift my eyes From the brim of the seething bowl, In which has been drowned, For a forgetful time, All the ordinary world; And even now, Although the game is over, The fumes are so hot in my brain, That as I look at the fading light, In clear tranquility with a few clouds, Behind the exhausted banners, It is like falling out of a dream To take again, Suddenly, That quiet.

37

SKYSCRAPER A legendary spear flung at the stars, and flying, Eagerly, so high, the dawn is pierced and sprinkles Rich red drops upon its point, of proof steel, inlaid, Cunningly, in gold, with sun-drinking dragons.

38

THE TALLEST TOWER ON CHRISTMAS EVE That lantern lift of seasonable rose, And relic of pale light from the clear west On silver chord and curving coronal, Loom very far. Trains in the twilight, threading signal gleams Over the Hackensack meadows, Note them: And pompous funnels, newly in from sea, Blur them with mist, off Sandy Hook, And sails, Beyond Hell Gate and through the Stepping Stones Into the early precincts of the moon, Look back to leave them.

39

CHRISTMAS PAGEANT The early twilight drains From the unreal windows; The candles burn to a still point, And the air is at the right breathe Of young evergreens. I look at all these fathers and mothers With their children, And it is only a little while ago That they themselves were the children. The wind blew and the stars burned, And they are the tall ones, now. The others went out, one by one, In the singing.

4°

T H E T H R U S H RECORDED It was the dying of the year, And by a dying fire The tea leaves in the cups Were ready to be read. You rose, As if to take the auguries, But changed your mind And played that thrush's song Instead. It did foretell the future: Spring did come again. But just there and then It was dangerous to do what you did. That green world, Breaking out for miles and miles Into flower and leaf;— Persephone, Still dazed with death And reeving off her wrinkled violets Among the birches;— While in reality, The early dark shut down

41

On falling flakes That were like sickly parachutes From some obscure disaster in the skies. You should have known better.

42

THEIR LANGUAGE When the Siamese Prince visited the museum, The Cardinal, In full regalia, Went to meet him;— In a great, high-raftered hall Filled with medieval fadings:— Images; candelabra; altar-pieces:— Not one of which Took the least notice of the Siamese Prince, But all of which, Glowing, With one accord Came alive To the Cardinal

43

ART Around the curving balustrade, Into the shadows, there were corridors Appropriate to northern twilights, Filled with tapestries the color of dead leaves, And portraits rich with penetrable glooms. But mosdy a Madonna, with her smile Of all the disappointments in the world Made sweetness of, Drew out an old devotion there, T h e very armor burned with. Outside, in the wind, The motor cars, in all their hurrying hues, Were vacant with cold speed.

44

HIGH COURT "Hear ye! Hear ye!"—cries the clerk. Lawyers and litigants are on their feet. The judges enter with a whir of gowns. * * * * * * That whir of gowns. . . . When I was a boy in Brooklyn, Long ago, I could still be Only-the-tip-of-my-nose awake, And by the shriek of wagon wheels Outside, Foretell an Alpine morning of bright cold.

45

EMPIRE Up in the North The wolves howl at night, Even in summer, And the lakes are lonelier. W e came upon two fire-rangers there, In a canoe, reflected deep, At sundown. At sight of us they let their paddles drip, And hailed us: "What news?"—they cried. "How is the King?"

46

GIBRALTAR The morning mist Clears like a photographic plate. First the outline of the rock, Reflected, With soft patches of blue sky, In the milky water; Then the pointings, in bright color, Like a newly-peeled decalcomania;— All are there. At the foot of the cliff A steamer lets go her anchor. She is out of the East, From Suez, from India, from the Celebes;— Possibly even from China. . . .

47

AMALFI It would have to be like this: In the small hours, Just leaning out of sleep Down sheers of shadow, Upon the faint of unreal orange bloom,— Right in a round moon's path; And hearing oars and seeing fishermen, Out of Arabian Nights, Adventure, dark on silver, for the dawn. To touch, once only, fingertips W i t h that diminished music, That breath of cradle song, That cobweb catch Of moth dust from a star;— It would have to be like this.

48

RAVELLO There arc places so deliberately old, That in their age, As in this garden citadel, Time sleeps. Look, how the water in that stone, Under the stir of that old Merlin tree, (Each drip a sorcery of dancing rings) Gives up dark, bearded Corsairs Out of Crete, and Saracens Jewelled and damascened, From Africa, While—just one turn of head; Two paces of green sward; A precipice— The blue gulf dyes each minute of the day A different gold.

49

GIZEH Kings of the dead took fear of these Unfluctuating stars. They were as futile, with their pyramids, As in this silence, Deafened, stamped out, I am.

5°

MOONRISE IN THE GRAND C A N Y O N As if the moon turned antiquarian, And dug in her own death for far-off things: Old fatal stairways are, Downward, And gorgeous towers The twilight took, and stupified with doom;— Here where the stars go over depth in time.

51

IN AMERICA NO A R O M A OF HISTORY? Take, for instance, that church in Alexandria, With the shy constraint in it of tall parishioners Who knelt and rode away: Its only bit of pride two names in marble, With the rood between. In spring, when blossoms blow, and the rain Comes lightly, Do not pass it by. George Washington and Robert Edward Lee,— They worshipped here.

52

GOING SOUTH Beyond the Chesapeake, forsythia Frothed yellow at the roadsides; But March still aimed the wind. Across the Potomac, Just in Virginia, When the train stopped in the fields, There were peepers by the track, And, right ahead, Orion Hung like a gate the moon Might step through. All night long we ran With sleepy whistles, Down long corridors of spring.

53

FORLORN REMAINDER When I was a boy, Steamboats and locomotives Were alive. They breathed and shuddered, And when they stood away, In the blue distance that they left behind It was as if a lost song followed them, Without a friend.

54

MYSTERY Steam locomotives, With their beautiful articulations Of bright steel; And the engine rooms Of tug boats and river steamers, Perfectly appointed In crank-shafts and connecting-rods, Never cease to be mysterious. I have watched walking-beams at work Till my neck ached. But electric locomotives Are very dull, And the engine rooms of turbine steamers, Altogether tiresome. It is as though all the young girls of to-day Were to be put into hoop skirts.

55

CAPE COD C A N A L As if the Pleiades were passed And open sky Headed for, The lighted buoys are put behind, And the living hull Heartens to deep water. And now a point is cleared, Where summer cottages, Looking all out of due time In the sharp cold, Blacken; And the winter moon, Unscabbarded and blade-wide, Leaps Right to the horizon.

56

SCHOONER HEAD Here the whole sea, Lightening and at large, Abrupts On bare rock, And shadowed blue, Hard by, Ribbed hills, With the ache of aeons in their bones, Rear their bleak chines, Like elephants, Noble in their bonds To the obtrusive stare Of inconsiderable, Ephemeral, Picnicking People.

57

N E W YORK BOAT There was actual delight in watching the boat Bear alongside, With much contradiction of engines, And make fast. But as I went on board, I thought of the voices of the city And the flat, breathed-out air That would be in at the window in the morning, And I did not need to see the goldervrod, Wrapped in newspapers, In order to know that I was sad.

58

GOLDEN STAIRS In the companionway of the night boat There were stars beaten into the brass That covered the stairs. Looked at from near by, they were clear gold, And the heart leaped up them Faster than the dark men in blue uniforms With silver buttons and white cotton gloves, Who carried the bags And the big keys to the staterooms. That was foolishly long ago. It wouldn't be possible now. The gold would be all gone, And the stars,— Much too far away.

59

PUBLIC GARDEN George Washington, Sword on pummel, Does not condescend to the pigeons That puff out their chests like major generals; Nor to the sparrows, In continental congress beneath him. But it may be that he does notice, Without appearing to do so, The swan-boats on the tiny lake, And the children That swarm all over them And halloo for echoes under the arches:— Other people's children.

60

CRACKING THE ATOM You said: "There is enough power In that glass of water To drive the Mauretania To Europe and back." Think of spending the world Like a twenty-dollar gold piece. What would it buy? A trip to the moon, Perhaps? Or a new Parthenon? Or even— Another Helen?

61

SIZE It was like reading a working model Of the Panama Canal, To coast the Peloponnesus, A t dawn, And out of a flat sea Lift the Acropolis,— Unmistakable, Immortal, W i t h all that it once dreamed, Like light, Availing it,— Before the sun turned; And to be told: "Over there is Salamis." ( A s near as Coney Island.)

62

LIBRARY GLOBE If I were on Mars and had a telescope, The world would not be quilted, Like that globe, In patchwork colors. It wouldn't care one blink of the sun,— Being perfectly well laid out, Already, In rocks, grass, trees, water and arctic cold,— As to what kingdom met what empire Where; Or whose bright islands Matched what tinted mainland. It would look so lovely in its loneliness, Out there; Like ripe round fruit from the Hesperides; One would never be able to suppose That it was entirely overrun W i t h ants.

63

CHIMPANZEE As if his gods had led him a long way And then forsaken him, He is bewildered, wandering Among lost landmarks and old, cloud-estranged Acclivities; His plotted world become moon variable And winced awry. See how he peers into his own brain, With eyes that burn the shadows in them. Could he but have one breath of his divinities To clear his heart with.. . .

Look at the big monkey,

Popper!

Where's my bag of peanuts?

64

I HAD FORGOTTEN THE SEA To come upon you in the city, Unawares, Is like emerging from an amusement park And finding the sea. I can still hear the merry-go-rounds, And the shrieks of the girls On the roller coaster; But the pupils of my eyes Begin to widen, pleasantly, to the stars, And the sea—the unfathomable sea— Owns me.

65

RELATIVITY A N D T O Y BOATS The water beneath the stone balustrade Is terribly agitated. The little waves have a frequent beat, And when they float back from the brim, They are in one another's way, And dispute about it in sharp, excited trebles. If you will accept the rhythm of the pond, You may put to sea on it.

66

IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION I waited for you, Without knowing it, Aboard the little tender, Which was so absurdly like a toy-store boat, That when it stopped, One instinctively looked behind the smoke-stack For a key to wind, In order to set the gay paddle-wheels Furiously revolving again. When the lights of your ship, On which I was already standing, Came out from among the stars on the horizon, How was I to know, Weary from the long journey, That it was here You and I Met in infinity?

6?

SPICED WINE A clock's hands are too thin and practical For this. It needs the whole ripe curve of the sky To mark the minutes, Now. The white blaze overhead Disentangles Into stars. All around the horizon there are others,— Equally cut brilliant but twinkling more,— Caught in the branches of dark trees That do not stir. I can hear the ice on the lake Boom, And my own heart, Beat wildly, Out of all wont.

68

ETCHING The window is full of cool sky. You that are far away, Will you not let me sleep? That river of white stars has moved. It would be terrible if the dawn Were to flow in among them, now. Will you not let me go;— You that are so distant Out there, over the apple boughs?

69

PERHAPS No Grecian urn could give you to me Half so well. W a s it the forgoing? If I had taken it, would you have been Soon forgotten? The light in your hair is still occasional, And the leaf-shadows make your lips Less doubtful. I can hear that meadow lark's call And the hesitation of the wind, Dying. Is it perhaps, regret, That has kept you, all these years, Momentary?

70

DREAM DIFFUSING Last night I dreamed of mountains With a winter mist upon them. Now I am watching the sunset And again thinking of you. I do not know why the land Should grow less desirable in the dusk; Nor why the darkening sea And the solitary lighthouse on the point Should make me so unhappy For your sake.

71

OF W H A T AVAIL THE WOODS? I had forgotten you my pain, And in that little light Which begins to absorb the stars But does not yet Blow shadows on queer canvas walls, I heard a loon speak As it went away across the lake; And with it, without words, There sharpened into joy, And died,— Even its echoes died,— The dark, sweet freedom That there is in sleep, And the sun slays.

72

FROM T H E LEGEND O N A BROKEN SWORD

Slrmamtiit and if for beaotg that I be . . ftnspmt mag Christ His blade not quicken me Your rock, Which was long ago cleft to the heart, Is breaking out into wild roses

73