Rivers to the Sea Part 8

LADY, light in the east hangs low, Draw your veils of dream apart, Under the cas.e.m.e.nt stands Pierrot Making a song to ease his heart.

(Yet do not break the song too soon-- I love to sing in the paling moon.)

The petals are falling, heavy with dew, The stars have fainted out of the sky, Come to me, come, or else I too, Faint with the weight of love will die.

(She comes--alas, I hoped to make Another stanza for her sake!)

NIGHT IN ARIZONA

THE moon is a charring ember Dying into the dark;

Off in the crouching mountains Coyotes bark.

The stars are heavy in heaven, Too great for the sky to hold-- What if they fell and shattered The earth with gold?

No lights are over the mesa, The wind is hard and wild, I stand at the darkened window And cry like a child.

DUSK IN WAR TIME

A HALF-HOUR more and you will lean To gather me close in the old sweet way-- But oh, to the woman over the sea Who will come at the close of day?

A half-hour more and I will hear The key in the latch and the strong quick tread-- But oh, the woman over the sea Waiting at dusk for one who is dead!

SPRING IN WAR TIME

I FEEL the Spring far off, far off, The faint far scent of bud and leaf-- Oh how can Spring take heart to come To a world in grief, Deep grief?

The sun turns north, the days grow long, Later the evening star grows bright-- How can the daylight linger on For men to fight, Still fight?

The gra.s.s is waking in the ground, Soon it will rise and blow in waves-- How can it have the heart to sway Over the graves, New graves?

Under the boughs where lovers walked The apple-blooms will shed their breath-- But what of all the lovers now Parted by death, Gray Death?

WHILE I MAY

WIND and hail and veering rain, Driven mist that veils the day, Soul's distress and body's pain, I would bear you while I may.

I would love you if I might, For so soon my life will be Buried in a lasting night, Even pain denied to me.

DEBT

WHAT do I owe to you Who loved me deep and long?

You never gave my spirit wings Or gave my heart a song.

But oh, to him I loved Who loved me not at all, I owe the little open gate

That led thru heaven's wall.

FROM THE NORTH

THE northern woods are delicately sweet, The lake is folded softly by the sh.o.r.e, But I am restless for the subway's roar, The thunder and the hurrying of feet.

I try to sleep, but still my eyelids beat Against the image of the tower that bore Me high aloft, as if thru heaven's door I watched the world from G.o.d's unshaken seat.

I would go back and breathe with quickened sense The tunnel's strong hot breath of powdered steel; But at the ferries I should leave the tense Dark air behind, and I should mount and be One among many who are thrilled to feel The first keen sea-breath from the open sea.

THE LIGHTS OF NEW YORK

THE lightning spun your garment for the night Of silver filaments with fire shot thru, A broidery of lamps that lit for you The steadfast splendor of enduring light.

The moon drifts dimly in the heaven's height, Watching with wonder how the earth she knew That lay so long wrapped deep in dark and dew, Should wear upon her breast a star so white.

The festivals of Babylon were dark With flaring flambeaux that the wind blew down; The Saturnalia were a wild boy's lark With rain-quenched torches dripping thru the town-- But you have found a G.o.d and filched from him A fire that neither wind nor rain can dim.

SEA LONGING

A THOUSAND miles beyond this sun-steeped wall Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand, The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land With the old murmur, long and musical; The windy waves mount up and curve and fall, And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow,-- Tho' I am inland far, I hear and know, For I was born the sea's eternal thrall.

I would that I were there and over me The cold insistence of the tide would roll, Quenching this burning thing men call the soul,-- Then with the ebbing I should drift and be Less than the smallest sh.e.l.l along the shoal, Less than the sea-gulls calling to the sea.

THE RIVER

I CAME from the sunny valleys And sought for the open sea, For I thought in its gray expanses My peace would come to me.

I came at last to the ocean And found it wild and black, And I cried to the windless valleys, "Be kind and take me back!"

But the thirsty tide ran inland, And the salt waves drank of me, And I who was fresh as the rainfall Am bitter as the sea.