Verse

3505
C853A17

1915

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

It- Ao t 0 k

VERSE

ADELAIDE CRAPSEY

1915
THE MANAS PRESS

ROCHESTER, N. Y.

Copyright 1915
THE MANAS PRESS

CONTENTS C3 5 5A 1 7

PART I

Birth-Moment IS

The Mother Exultant 19

John Keats 24

ClNQUAINS* 27

November Night 28

Release 29

Triad 30

Snow 31

Anguish 32

Trapped 33

Moon-Shadows 34

Susanna and the Elders 35

Youth 36

The Guarded Wound 37

Winter 38

NightWinds 39

Arbutus • 40

Roma Aeterna 41

He's Killed the May 42

Amaze 43

Shadow 44

* An original verse-form

5

1661513

Madness 45

The Warning 46

Saying of II Haboul 47

Fate Defied 48

Laurel in the Berkshires 49

Niagara 50

The Grand Canyon 51

Now Barabbas was a Robber 52

PART II

To Walter Savage Landor 55

The Pledge 56

Hypnos, God of Sleep 57

Expenses 58

On Seeing Weather-Beaten Trees ......... 59

Adventure 60

Oh, Lady, Let the Sad Tears Fall 61

Dirge 62

The Sun-Dial 63

Old Love 64

Ah Me . . Alas 65

Perfume of Youth 66

Rapunzel 67

Vendor's Song 68

Avis 69

Doomsday 70

Grain Field 71

Song 72

Pierrot 73

6

The Monk in the Garden 74

To the Dead in the Graveyard underneath my Window . . 75

The Mourner 78

Night 79

Rose-Mary of the Angels 80

AngC-lique 81

Chimes 82

Mad-Song 84

My Birds that Fly no Longer 86

The Witch 87

Cry of the Nymph to Eros 88

Cradle-Song 90

To Man Who Goes Seeking Immortality 92

The Lonely Death 93

Lo, all the Way 94

The Immortal Residue ,95

FOREWORD

A DELAIDE CRAPSEY, daughter of Algernon
•**' Sidney and Adelaide Trowbridge Crapsey, was
born on the ninth of September, 1878. She died in her
thirty-sixth year, on October the eighth, 1914. Her
young girlhood was spent in Rochester, New York,
where her eminent father was rector of St. Andrew's
Parish. At fourteen she entered the preparatory school
of Kemper Hall, Kenosha, Wisconsin, from which school
she graduated at the head of her class, in 1897. She
entered Vassar College the same year, graduating
with the class of 1901.

Two years after her graduation she began her work
as a teacher of History and Literature, in Kemper
Hall. In 1905 she went abroad and became a student
in the School of Archaeology in Rome. The following
year she assumed the position of instructor in Literature
and History in Miss Lowe's Preparatory School in
Stamford, Conn., but in 1908 on account of failing
health she was compelled to abandon teaching for a
time. The two succeeding years she spent in Italy and
England, working on her Analysis of English Metrics —

9

an exhaustive scientific thesis relating to accent —
which years before she had planned to accomplish as
her serious life work.

In 1911 she returned to America and became in-
structor in Poetics at Smith College. The double
burden of teaching and writing proved too much for
her frail constitution, and in 1913, gravely ill, she
was obliged to abandon definitely and finally both
activities. The rest is a silence broken only by the
remarkable verses of her last poetic phase.

These are the bare biographical facts in the life of
Adelaide Crapsey, but it would be an injustice to the
reader not to attempt to render some sense of her
personality, all compounded of beauty, mystery and
charm. I remember her as fair and fragile, in action
swift, in repose still; so quick and silent in her move-
ments that she seemed never to enter a room but to
appear there, and on the stroke of some invisible clock
to vanish as she had come.

Although in Meredith's phrase "a man and a woman
both for brains," she was an intensely feminine pres-
ence. Perfection was the passion of her life, and as
one discerns it in her verse, one marked it also in her
raiment. In the line

"And know my tear-drenched veil along the grass"

10

I see again her drooping figure with some trail of
gossamer bewitchment clinging about or drifting after
her. Although her body spoke of a fastidious and
sedulous care in keeping with her essentially aristo-
cratic nature, she was merciless in the demands she
made upon it, and this was the direct cause of her loss
of health. The keen and shining blade of her spirit too
greatly scorned its scabbard the body, and for this
she paid the uttermost penalty.

Her death was tragic. Full of the desire of life she
yet was forced to go, leaving her work all unfinished.
Her last year was spent in exile at Saranac Lake.
From her window she looked down on the graveyard —
"Trudeau's Garden," she called it, with grim-gay
irony. Here, forbidden the work her metrical study
entailed, these poems grew — flowers of a battlefield of
the spirit. But of her passionate revolt against the
mandate of her destiny she spared her family and
friends even a sign. When they came to cheer and
comfort her it was she who brought them cheer and
comfort. With magnificent and appalling courage
she gave forth to them the humor and gaiety of her
unclouded years, saving them even beyond the end
from knowledge of this beautiful and terrible testa-

11

ment of a spirit all unreconciled, flashing "unquenched
defiance to the stars."

This collection of her verse is of her own choosing,
arranged and prepared by her own hand. She wrote
gay verse in the earlier days before the shadow fell
upon her, but her rigorous regard for unity banished
it from this record of the fearful questioning of her
spirit.

This "immortal residue" is full of poignancy and
power. The heart is stricken with her own terror at
the approach of

"The despot of our days the lord of dust."

The book which is her funeral urn will be found to
hold more than the ashes of a personal passion, it
contains

" Infinite passion, and the pain of finite hearts that yearn."

C. B.

Rochester, N. Y., October 1915.

12

PART I

BIRTH-MOMENT

Behold her,

Running through the waves,

Eager to reach the land:

The water laps her,

Sun and wind are on her,

Healthy, brine-drenched and young,

Behold Desire new-born; —

Desire on first fulfilment's radiant edge,

Love at miraculous moment of emergence,

This is she,

Who running,

Hastens, hastens to the land.

Look. . Look. .

Her blown gold hair and lucent eyes of youth,

Her body rose and ivory in the sun. .

Look,

How she hastens,

Running, running to the land.

Her hands are yearning and her feet are swift
To reach and hold

IS

She knows not what,

Yet knows that it is life;

Need urges her,

Self, uncomprehended but most deep divined,

Unwilled but all-compelling, drives her on.

Life runs to life.

She who longs,

But hath not yet accepted or bestowed,

All virginal dear and bright,

Runs, runs to reach the land.

And she who runs shall be

Married to blue of summer skies at noon,

Companion to green fields,

Held bride of subtle fragrance and of all sweet

sound,

Beloved of the stars,
And wanton mistress to the veering winds.

Oh, breathless space between:

Womb-time just passed,

Dark-hidden, chaotic-formative, unpersonal,

And individual life of fresh-created force

Not yet begun:

One moment more

16

Before desire shall meet desire
And new creation start:
Oh breathless space,
While she,

Just risen from the waves,
Runs, runs to reach the land.

(Ah, keenest personal moment

When mouth unkissed turns eager-slow and

tremulous

Towards lover's mouth,
That tremulous and eager-slow
Droops down to it:
But breathless space of breath or two
Lies in between
Before the mouth upturned and mouth

down-drooped
Shall meet and make the kiss.)

Look. . Look. .
She runs. .
Love fresh-emerged,
Desire new-born. .
Blown on by wind,
And shone on by the sun,
17

She rises from the waves

And running,

Hastens, hastens to the land.

Beloved and Beloved and Beloved,

Even so right

And beautiful and undenied

Is my desire;

Even so longing-swift

I run to your receiving arms.

O Aphrodite!

0 Aphrodite, hear!

Hear my wrung cry flame upward poignant-
glad. . .
This is my time for me.

1 too am young;

I too am all of love !

1905.

18

THE MOTHER EXULTANT

Joy I Joy! Joy!

The hills are glad,

The valleys re-echo with merriment,

In my heart is the sound of laughter,

And my feet dance to the time of it;

Oh, little son, carried light on my shoulder,

Let us go laughing and dancing through the

live days,

For this is the hour of the vintage,
When man gathereth for himself the fruits of

the vineyard.

Look, little son, look;
The grapes are translucent and ripe,
They are heavy and fragrant with juice,
They wait for the hands of the vintagers;
For a long time the grapes were not,
And were in the womb of the earth,
Then out of the heavens came the rain,
The sun sent down his warmth from the sky,
At the touch of life, life stirred,
19

And the earth brought forth her fruits in due
season.

I was a maid and alone,
When, behold, there came to me a vision;
My heart cried out within me,
And the voice was the voice of God.
Yea, a virgin I dreamed of love,
And I was troubled and sore afraid,
I wept and was glad,

For the word of my heart named me blessed,
My soul exalted the might of creation.
I was a maid and alone,
When, behold, my lover came to me,
My beloved held me in his arms.

Joy! Joy! Joy!

Now is the vision fulfilled:

I have conceived,

I have carried in my womb,

I have brought forth

The life of the world ;

Out of my joy and my pain,

Out of the fulness of my living

Hath my son gained his life.

20

Look, little son, look:

The grapes are ripe for the gathering,

The fresh, deep earth is in them,

And clean water from the clouds.

And golden, golden sun is in the heart of the grapes.

Look, little son, look;

The earth, your mother,

And the touch of life who is your father,

They have provided food for you

That you also may live.

The vineyards are planted on the hillside,

They are the vineyards of my beloved,

He chose a favorable spot,

His hands prepared the soil for the planting:

He set out the young vines

And cared for them till the time of their

bearing.
Now is his labour fulfilled who worked with

God.

The fruit of the vineyard is ripe,
The vintagers laugh in the sun,
They sing while they gather the grapes,
For the vintage is a good one,
The wine vats are pressed down and running

over.

21

Joy! Joy! Joy!

Now is the wonder accomplished;
Out of the heart of the living grape
Hath the hand of my beloved
Wrung the wine of the dream of life.

Beloved,

My little son's father,
Together we have given life,
And the vision of life;
Shall we not rejoice
Who have made eternal
The days of our living?

Look, little son, look:

The grapes glow with rich juice,

The juice of the grape hath in it

The substance of the earth,

And the air's breath;

It hath in it the soul of the vintage.

Put forth your hand, little son,

And take for yourself the life

That your father and your mother

Have provided for you.

22

Joy! Joy! Joy!
The hills are glad,

The valleys re-echo with merriment,
In my heart is the sound of laughter,
And my feet dance to the time of it;
Oh, little son, carried light on my shoulder,
Let us go laughing and dancing through the
live days,

For this is the hour of the vintage,

When man gathereth for himself the fruits of the

vineyard.
1905.

23

JOHN KEATS

Meet thou the event

And terrible happening of

Thine end : for thou art come

Upon the remote, cold place

Of ultimate dissolution and

With dumb, wide look

Thou, impotent, dost feel

Impotence creeping on

Thy potent soul. Yea, now, caught in

The aghast and voiceless pain

Of death, thyself doth watch

Thyself becoming naught.

Peace. . Peace. . for at
The last is comfort. Lo, now
Thou hast no pain. Lo, now
The waited presence is
Within the room; the voice
Speaks final-gentle: "Child,
Ever thy careful nurse,
I lift thee in my arms
24

For greater ease and while
Thy heart still beats, place my
Cool fingers of oblivion on
Thine eyes and close them for
Eternity. Thou shalt
Pass sleeping, nor know
When sleeping ceases. Yet still
A little while thy breathing lasts,
Gradual is faint and fainter; I
Must listen close — the end."

Rest. And you others. . All.
Grave-fellows in
Green place. Here grows
Memorial every spring's
Fresh grass and here
Your marking monument
Was built for you long, long
Ago when Caius Cestius died.

Rome, 1909.

25

CINQUAINS

1911-1913

NOVEMBER NIGHT

Listen. .

With faint dry sound,

Like steps of passing ghosts,

The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees

And fall.

28

RELEASE

With swift

Great sweep of her

Magnificent arm my pain

Clanged back the doors that shut my soul

From life.

29

TRIAD

These be

Three silent things:

The falling snow. . the hour

Before the dawn. . the mouth of one

Just dead.

30

SNOW

Look up. .

From bleakening hills

Blows down the light, first breath

Of wintry wind. . . look up, and scent

The snow!

31

ANGUISH

Keep thou

Thy tearless watch

All night but when blue-dawn

Breathes on the silver moon, then weep !

Then weep !

32

TRAPPED

Well and

If day on day

Follows, and weary year

On year. . and ever days and years.

Well?

33

MOON-SHADOWS

Still as

On windless nights

The moon-cast shadows are,

So still will be my heart when I

Am dead.

34

SUSANNA AND THE ELDERS

"Why do

You thus devise

Evil against her?" "For that

She is beautiful, delicate;

Therefore."

35

YOUTH

But me

They cannot touch,

Old age and death. . the strange

And ignominious end of old

Dead folk!

36

THE GUARDED WOUND

If it

Were lighter touch

Than petal of flower resting

On grass, oh still too heavy it were,

Too heavy!

37

WINTER

The cold

With steely clutch

Grips all the land. . alack,

The little people in the hills

Will die!

38

NIGHT WINDS

The old

Old winds that blew
When chaos was, what do
They tell the clattered trees that I
Should weep?

39

ARBUTUS

Not Spring's

Thou art, but her's,

Most cool, most virginal,

Winter's, with thy faint breath, thy snows

Rose-tinged.

40

ROMA AETERNA

The sun

Is warm to-day,

O Romulus, and on

Thine olden Palatine the birds

Still sing.

41

" HE'S KILLED THE MAY . . .

"He's killed the May and he's laid her by
To bear the red rose company."

Not thou,

White rose, but thy

Ensanguined sister is

The dear companion of my heart's

Shed blood.

42

AMAZE

I know

Not these my hands

And yet I think there was

A woman like me once had hands

Like these.

43

SHADOW

A-sway,

On red rose,

A golden butterfly. .

And on my heart a butterfly

Night-wing'd.

44

MADNESS

Burdock,

Blue aconite,

And thistle and thorn. . of these,

Singing, I wreath my pretty wreath

O'death.

45

THE WARNING

Just now,

Out of the strange

Still dusk. . as strange, as still. .

A white moth flew. Why am I grown

So cold ?

46

SAYING OF IL HABOUL

Guardian of the Treasure of Solomon
And Keeper of the Prophet's Armour

My tent

A vapour that

The wind dispels and but

As dust before the wind am I

Myself.

47

FATE DEFIED

As it

Were tissue of silver

I'll wear, O fate, thy grey,

And go mistily radiant, clad

Like the moon.

48

LAUREL IN THE BERKSHIRES

Sea-foam

And coral! Oh, I'll

Climb the great pasture rocks

And dream me mermaid in the sun's

Gold flood.

49

NIAGARA

Seen on a Night in November

How frail

Above the bulk

Of crashing water hangs,

Autumnal, evanescent, wan,

The moon.

50

THE GRAND CANYON

By Zeus!

Shout word of this

To the eldest dead! Titans,

Gods, Heroes, come who have once more

A home!

51

NOW BARABBAS WAS A ROBBER

No guile?

Nay, but so strangely

He moves among us. . Not this

Man but Barabbas! Release to us

Barabbas!

52

PART II

TO WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Ah, Walter, where you lived I rue
These days come all too late for me;

What matter if her eyes are blue
Whose rival is Persephone?

Fiesole, 1909.

55

THE PLEDGE

White doves of Cytherea, by your quest
Across the blue Heaven's bluest highest air,

And by your certain homing to Love's breast,
Still to be true and ever true — I swear.

56

HYPNOS, GOD OF SLEEP

The shadowy boy of night
Crosses the dusking land;

He sows his poppy-seeds
With steady gentle hand.

The shadowy boy of night,

Young husbandman of dreams,

Garners his gracious blooms
By far and moonlit streams.

57

EXPENSES

Little my lacking fortunes show
For this to eat and that to wear;

Yet laughing, Soul, and gaily go!
An obol pays the Stygian fare.

London, 1910.

58

ON SEEING WEATHER-BEATEN TREES

Is it as plainly in our living shown,
By slant and twist, which way the wind
hath blown?

59

ADVENTURE

Sun and wind and beat of sea,
Great lands stretching endlessly. .
Where be bonds to bind the free?
All the world was made for me!

60

OH, LADY, LET THE SAD TEARS FALL

Oh, Lady, let the sad tears fall

To speak thy pain,
Gently as through the silver dusk

The silver rain.

Oh, let thy bosom breathe its grief

In such soft sigh
As hath the wind in gardens where

Pale roses die.

61

DIRGE

Never the nightingale,

Oh, my dear,
Never again the lark
Thou wilt hear;

Though dusk and the morning still
Tap at thy window-sill,
Though ever love call and call
Thou wilt not hear at all,
My dear, my dear.

62

THE SUN-DIAL

Every day,
Every day,
Tell the hours
By their shadows,
By their shadows.

63

OLD LOVE

More dim than waning moon

Thy face, more faint

Than is the falling wind

Thy voice, yet do

Thine eyes most strangly glow,

Thou ghost . . thou ghost.

64

AH ME. . ALAS. .

(He)

Ah me, my love's heart,

Like some frail flower, apart,

High, on the cliff's edge growing,

Touched by unhindered sun to sweeter showing,

Swung by each faint wind's faintest blowing,

But so, on the cliff's edge growing,

From man's reach aloof, apart:

Ah me, my love's heart!

(She)

Alack, alas, my lover,

As one who would discover

At world's end his path,

Nor knows at all what faery way he hath

Who turneth dreaming into faith

And followeth that near path

His own heart dareth to discover:

Alack, alas, my lover!

65

PERFUME OF YOUTH

(Girts Song)

In Babylon, in Nineveh,

And long ago, and far away,
The lilies and the lotus blew

That are my sweet of youth to-day.

From those high gardens of the Gods

That eyes of men may never see,
The amaranth and asphodel

Immortal odours shed on me.

In vial of my early years,

As in a crystal vial held,
What precious fragrance treasured up

Of age and agelessness distill'd.

Thine but to give. Give straightway all.

Yea, straight, mine hands, the ointment rare
In great libation joyous pour!

Oh, look of youth. . . Oh, golden hair. . .

66

RAPUNZEL

All day, all day I brush
My golden strands of hair;

All day I wait and wait. .
Ah, who is there?

Who calls? Who calls? The gold

Ladder of my long hair
I loose and wait. . and wait. .

Ah, who is there?

She left at dawn. . I am blind
In the tangle of my long hair. .

Is it she? the witch? the witch?
Ah, who is there ?

67

VENDOR'S SONG

My songs to sell, good sir!

I pray you buy.
Here's one will win a lady's tears,

Here's one will make her gay,
Here's one will charm your true love true

Forever and a day;
Good sir, I pray you buy!

Oh, no, he will not buy.

My songs to sell, sweet maid !

I pray you buy.
This one will teach you Lilith's lore,

And this what Helen knew,
And this will keep your gold hair gold,

And this your blue eyes blue;
Sweet maid, I pray you buy!

Oh, no, she will not buy.

If I'd as much money as I could tell,
I never would cry my songs to sell,
I never would cry my songs to sell.

68

AVIS

Avis, the fair, at dawn
Rose lightly from her bed,
Herself arrayed.
Avis, the fair, the maid,
In vestiment of lawn;
Across the fields she sped,
Five flowerets there she found,
In fragrant garland wound,
Avis, the fair, at dawn,
Five roses red.

Go thou from thence of thy pity I
Thou loves't not me.

69

DOOMSDAY

Peter stands by the gate,

And Michael by the throne.

"Peter, I would pass the gate

And come before the throne."

"Whose spirit prayed never at the gate,

In life nor at the throne,

In death he may not pass the gate

To come before the throne:"

Peter said from the gate;

Said Michael from the throne

70

GRAIN FIELD

Scarlet the poppies
Blue the corn-flowers,
Golden the wheat.
Gold for The Eternal:
Blue for Our Lady:
Red for the five
Wounds of her Son.

71

SONG

I make my shroud but no one knows,
So shimmering fine it is and fair,
With stitches set in even rows.
I make my shroud but no one knows.

In door-way where the lilac blows,
Humming a little wandering air,
I make my shroud and no one knows,
So shimmering fine it is and fair.

72

PIERROT

For Aubrey Beardsley's picture "Pierrot is dying."

Pierrot is dying;

Tiptoe in,
Finger touched to lip,

Harlequin,
Columbine and Clown.

Hush ! how still he lies

In his bed,
White slipped hand and white

Sunken head.
Oh, poor Pierrot.

There's his dressing-gown

Across the chair,
Slippers on the floor. . .

Can he hear
Us who tiptoe in ?

Pillowed high he lies

In his bed;
Listen, Columbine.

"He is dead."
Oh, poor Pierrot.

73

THE MONK IN THE GARDEN

He comes from Mass early in the morning

The sky's the very blue Madonna wears;

The air's alive with gold! Mark you the way
The birds sing and the dusted shimmer of dew

On leaf and fruit? . . Per Bacco, what a day!

74

TO THE DEAD IN THE GRAVEYARD
UNDERNEATH MY WINDOW

Written in a Moment of Exasperation

How can you lie so still? All day I watch
And never a blade of all the green sod moves
To show where restlessly you turn and toss,
Or fling a desperate arm or draw up knees
Stiffened and aching from their long disuse;
I watch all night and not one ghost comes forth
To take its freedom of the midnight hour.
Oh, have you no rebellion in your bones?
The very worms must scorn you where you lie,
A pallid, mouldering, acquiescent folk,
Meek habitants of unresented graves.
Why are you there in your straight row on row
Where I must ever see you from my bed
That in your mere dumb presence iterate
The text so weary in my ears: "Lie still
And rest; be patient and lie still and rest."
I'll not be patient! I will not lie still!
There is a brown road runs between the pines,
And further on the purple woodlands lie,
75

And still beyond blue mountains lift and loom;

And I would walk the road and I would be

Deep in the wooded shade and I would reach

The windy mountain tops that touch the clouds.

My eyes may follow but my feet are held.

Recumbent as you others must I too

Submit? Be mimic of your movelessness

With pillow and counterpane for stone and sod ?

And if the many sayings of the wise

Teach of submission I will not submit

But with a spirit all unreconciled

Flash an unquenched defiance to the stars.

Better it is to walk, to run, to dance,

Better it is to laugh and leap and sing,

To know the open skies of dawn and night,

To move untrammeled down the flaming noon,

And I will clamour it through weary days

Keeping the edge of deprivation sharp,

Nor with the pliant speaking on my lips

Of resignation, sister to defeat.

I'll not be patient. I will not lie still.

And in ironic quietude who is

The despot of our days and lord of dust

Needs but, scarce heeding, wait to drop

76

Grim casual comment on rebellion's end;

"Yes, yes . . Pailful and petulant but now

As dead and quiet as the others are."

And this each body and ghost of you hath heard

That in your graves do therefore lie so still.

Saranac Lake, N. Y. 1914.

THE MOURNER

I have no heart for noon-tide and the sun,
But I will take me where more tender night
Shakes, fold on fold, her dewy darkness down,
And shelters me that I may weep in peace,
And feel no pitying eyes, and hear no voice
Attempt my grief in comfort's alien tongue.

Where cypresses, more black than night is black,
Border straight paths, or where, on hillside slopes,
The dim grey glimmer of the olive trees
Lies like a breath, a ghost, upon the dark,
There will I wander when the nightingale
Ceases, and even the veiled stars withdraw
Their tremulous light, there find myself at rest,
A silence and a shadow in the gloom.

But all the dead of all the world shall know
The pacing of my sable-sandal'd feet,
And know my tear-drenched veil along the grass,
And think them less forsaken in their graves,
Saying: There's one remembers, one still mourns;
For the forgotten dead are dead indeed.

78

NIGHT

I have minded me
Of the noon-day brightness,
And the crickets' drowsy
Singing in the sunshine. .

I have minded me
Of the slim marsh-grasses
That the winds at twilight,
Dying, scarcely ripple. .

And I cannot sleep.

I have minded me

Of a lily-pond,

Where the waters sway

All the moonlit leaves

And the curled long stems. .

And I cannot sleep.

79

ROSE-MARY OF THE ANGELS

Little Sister Rose-Marie,
Will thy feet as willing-light
Run through Paradise, I wonder,
As they run the blue skies under,
Willing feet, so airy-light ?

Little Sister Rose-Marie,

Will thy voice as bird-note clear

Lift and ripple over Heaven

As its mortal sound is given,

Swift bird-voice, so young and clear?

How God will be glad of thee,
Little Sister Rose-Marie!

ANGfiLIQUE

Have you seen Angelique,
What way she went?
A white robe she wore,
A flickering light near spent
Her pale hand bore.

Have you seen Ange*lique?
Will she know the place
Dead feet must find,
The grave-cloth on her face
To make her blind?

Have you seen Ange*lique. ..
At night I hear her moan,
And I shiver in my bed;
She wanders all alone,
She cannot find the dead.

81

CHIMES

The rose new-opening saith,
And the dew of the morning saith,
(Fallen leaves and vanished dew)
Remember death.

Ding dong bell
Ding dong bell

ii

May-moon thin and young

In the sky,
Ere you wax and wane

I shall die:

So my faltering breath,
So my tired heart saith,
That foretell me death.
Ding-dong

Ding-dong
Ding-dong ding-dong bell

82

Ill

"Thy gold hair likes me well

And thy blue eyes," he saith,
Who chooses where he will

And none may hinder — Death.

At head and feet for candles
Roses burning red,

The valley lilies tolling
For the early dead:

Ding-dong ding-dong

Ding-dong ding-dong

Ding-dong ding-dong bell
Ding dong bell

83

MAD SONG

Grey gailers are my griefs
That will not let me free;

The bitterness of tears
Is warder unto me.

I may not leap or run;

I may nor laugh nor sing.
"Thy cell is small," they say,

"Be still thou captived thing."

But in the dusk of the night,
Too sudden-swift to see,

Closing and ivory gates
Are refuge unto me.

My griefs, my tears must watch,
And cold the watch they keep;

They whisper, whisper there —
I hear them in my sleep.

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They know that I must come,
And patient watch they keep,

Whispering, shivering there,
Till I come back from sleep.

But in the dark of a night,
Too dark for them to see,

The refuge of black gates
Will open unto me.

Whisper up there in the dark. .

Shiver by bleak winds stung. .
My dead lips laugh to hear

How long you wait. . . how long!

Grey gailers are my griefs
That will not let me free;

The bitterness of tears
Is warder unto me.

85

MY BIRDS THAT FLY NO LONGER

Have ye forgot, sweet birds,
How near the heavens lie?

Drooping, sick-pinion'd, oh
Have ye forgot the sky?

The air that once I knew
Whispered celestial things;

I weep who hear no more
Upward and rushing wings.

86

THE WITCH

When I was girl by Nilus stream

I watched the desert stars arise;
My lover, he who dreamed the Sphinx,

Learned all his dreaming from my eyes.

I bore in Greece a burning name,

And I have been in Italy
Madonna to a painter-lad,

And mistress to a Medici.

And have you heard (and I have heard)
Of puzzled men with decorous mien,

Who judged — The wench knows far too much-
And burnt her on the Salem green?

87

CRY OF THE NYMPH TO EROS

Hear thou my lamentation,

Eros, Aphrodite's son!

My heart is broken and my days are done.

Where the woods are dark and the stream runs clear

in the dark,

Eros!
I prayed to thy mother and planted the seeds

of her flowers,
And smiled at the planting and wept at the planting.

Oh, violets
Ye are dead and your whiteness, your sweetness,

availed not. Thy mother
Is cruel. Her flowers lie dead at the steps

of her altar,
Eros! Eros!

With a shining like silver they cut through the blue
of the sky
Eros!

88

The dove's wings, the white doves I brought to thy

mother in worship;
And I said, she will laugh for joy of my doves.

Oh, stillness
Of dead wings. She laughed not nor looked.

My doves are dead,

Are dead at the steps of her altar. Thy mothei
is cruel,

Eros! Eros!

Hear thou my lamentation,

Eros, Aphrodite's son!

My heart is broken and my days are done.

89

CRADLE-SONG

Madonna, Madonnina
Sat by the grey road-side,
Saint Joseph her beside,
And Our Lord at her breast;
Oh they were fain to rest,
Mary and Joseph and Jesus,
All by the grey road-side.

She said, Madonna Mary,

"I am hungry, Joseph, and weary,

All in the desert wide."

Then bent a tall palm-tree

Its branches low to her knee;

" Behold," the palm-tree said,

"My fruit that shall be your bread."

So were they satisfied,

Mary and Joseph and Jesus,

AH by the grey road-side.

From Herod they were fled
Over the desert wide,
Mary and Joseph and Jesus,
In Egypt to abide:

90

Mary and Joseph and Jesus,
In Egypt to abide.

The blessed Queen of Heaven
Her own dear Son hath given
For my son's sake; his sleep
Is safe and sweet and deep.

Lully. . Lulley. .
So may you sleep alway,
My baby, my dear son:
Amen, Amen, Amen.

My baby, my dear son.

91

TO MAN WHO GOES SEEKING IMMORTALITY
BIDDING HIM LOOK NEARER HOME

Too far afield thy search. Nay, turn. Nay, turn.

At thine own elbow potent Memory stands,
Thy double, and eternity is cupped

In the pale hollow of those ghostly hands.

92

THE LONELY DEATH

In the cold I will rise, I will bathe

In waters of ice; myself

Will shiver, and shrive myself,

Alone in the dawn, and anoint

Forehead and feet and hands;

I will shutter the windows from light,

I will place in their sockets the four

Tall candles and set them a-flame

In the grey of the dawn; and myself

Will lay myself straight in my bed,

And draw the sheet under my chin.

93

LO, ALL THE WAY

Lo, all the way,
Look you, I said, the clouds will break, the sky

Grow clear, the road
Be easier for my travelling, the fields,

So sodden and dead,
Will shimmer with new green and starry bloom,

And there will be,
There will be then, with all serene and fair,

Some little while
For some light laughter in the sun; and lo,

The journey's end, —
Grey road, grey fields, wind and a bitter rain.

94

THE IMMORTAL RESIDUE

Wouldst thou find my ashes? Look
In the pages of my book;
And, as these thy hand doth turn,
Know here is my funeral urn.

95

VOsIL

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
Los Angeles

This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.

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