The Little Book of Modern Verse Part 29

A Rhyme of Death's Inn. [Lizette Woodworth Reese]

A rhyme of good Death's inn!

My love came to that door; And she had need of many things, The way had been so sore.

My love she lifted up her head, "And is there room?" said she; "There was no room in Bethlehem's inn For Christ who died for me."

But said the keeper of the inn, "His name is on the door."

My love then straightway entered there: She hath come back no more.

The Outer Gate. [Nora May French]

Life said: "My house is thine with all its store: Behold I open s.h.i.+ning ways to thee -- Of every inner portal make thee free: O child, I may not bar the outer door.

Go from me if thou wilt, to come no more; But all thy pain is mine, thy flesh of me; And must I hear thee, faint and woefully, Call on me from the darkness and implore?"

Nay, mother, for I follow at thy will.

But oftentimes thy voice is sharp to hear, Thy trailing fragrance heavy on the breath; Always the outer hall is very still, And on my face a pleasant wind and clear Blows straitly from the narrow gate of Death.

The Ashes in the Sea. [George Sterling]

N. M. F.

Whither, with blue and pleading eyes, -- Whither, with cheeks that held the light Of winter's dawn in cloudless skies, Evadne, was thy flight?

Such as a sister's was thy brow; Thy hair seemed fallen from the moon -- Part of its radiance, as now, Of s.h.i.+fting tide and dune.

Did Autumn's grieving lure thee hence, Or silence ultimate beguile?

Ever our things of consequence Awakened but thy smile.

Is it with thee that ocean takes A stranger sorrow to its tone?

With thee the star of evening wakes More beautiful, more lone?

For wave and hill and sky betray A subtle tinge and touch of thee; Thy shadow lingers in the day, Thy voice in winds to be.

Beauty -- hast thou discovered her By deeper seas no moons control?

What stars have magic now to stir Thy swift and wilful soul?

Or may thy heart no more forget The grievous world that once was home, That here, where love awaits thee yet, Thou seemest yet to roam?

For most, far-wandering, I guess Thy witchery on the haunted mind, In valleys of thy loneliness, Made clean with ocean's wind.

And most thy presence here seems told, A waif of elemental deeps, When, at its vigils unconsoled, Some night of winter weeps.

We needs must be divided in the Tomb. [George Santayana]

We needs must be divided in the tomb, For I would die among the hills of Spain, And o'er the treeless, melancholy plain Await the coming of the final gloom.

But thou -- O pitiful! -- wilt find scant room Among thy kindred by the northern main, And fade into the drifting mist again, The hemlocks' shadow, or the pines' perfume.

Let gallants lie beside their ladies' dust In one cold grave, with mortal love inurned; Let the sea part our ashes, if it must, The souls fled thence which love immortal burned, For they were wedded without bond of l.u.s.t, And nothing of our heart to earth returned.

Departure. [Hermann Hagedorn]

My true love from her pillow rose And wandered down the summer lane.

She left her house to the wind's carouse, And her chamber wide to the rain.

She did not stop to don her coat, She did not stop to smooth her bed -- But out she went in glad content There where the bright path led.

She did not feel the beating storm, But fled like a sunbeam, white and frail, To the sea, to the air, somewhere, somewhere -- I have not found her trail.

Song. [Richard Le Gallienne]

She's somewhere in the sunlight strong, Her tears are in the falling rain, She calls me in the wind's soft song, And with the flowers she comes again.

Yon bird is but her messenger, The moon is but her silver car; Yea! Sun and moon are sent by her, And every wistful, waiting star.

The Invisible Bride. [Edwin Markham]