The Little Book of Modern Verse Part 6

I love, and thoughts that sometime grieved, Still well remembered, grieve not me; From all that darkened and deceived Upsoars my spirit free.

For soft the hours repeat one story, Sings the sea one strain divine; My clouds arise all flushed with glory -- I love, and the world is mine!

Mother. [Theresa Helburn]

I have praised many loved ones in my song, And yet I stand Before her shrine, to whom all things belong, With empty hand.

Perhaps the ripening future holds a time For things unsaid; Not now; men do not celebrate in rhyme Their daily bread.

Songs for my Mother. [Anna Hempstead Branch]

I

Her Hands

My mother's hands are cool and fair, They can do anything.

Delicate mercies hide them there Like flowers in the spring.

When I was small and could not sleep, She used to come to me, And with my cheek upon her hand How sure my rest would be.

For everything she ever touched Of beautiful or fine, Their memories living in her hands Would warm that sleep of mine.

Her hands remember how they played One time in meadow streams, -- And all the flickering song and shade Of water took my dreams.

Swift through her haunted fingers pa.s.s Memories of garden things; -- I dipped my face in flowers and gra.s.s And sounds of hidden wings.

One time she touched the cloud that kissed Brown pastures bleak and far; -- I leaned my cheek into a mist And thought I was a star.

All this was very long ago And I am grown; but yet The hand that lured my slumber so I never can forget.

For still when drowsiness comes on It seems so soft and cool, Shaped happily beneath my cheek, Hollow and beautiful.

II

Her Words

My mother has the prettiest tricks Of words and words and words.

Her talk comes out as smooth and sleek As b.r.e.a.s.t.s of singing birds.

She shapes her speech all silver fine Because she loves it so.

And her own eyes begin to s.h.i.+ne To hear her stories grow.

And if she goes to make a call Or out to take a walk We leave our work when she returns And run to hear her talk.

We had not dreamed these things were so Of sorrow and of mirth.

Her speech is as a thousand eyes Through which we see the earth.

G.o.d wove a web of loveliness, Of clouds and stars and birds, But made not any thing at all So beautiful as words.

They s.h.i.+ne around our simple earth With golden shadowings, And every common thing they touch Is exquisite with wings.

There's nothing poor and nothing small But is made fair with them.

They are the hands of living faith That touch the garment's hem.

They are as fair as bloom or air, They s.h.i.+ne like any star, And I am rich who learned from her How beautiful they are.

The Daguerreotype. [William Vaughn Moody]

This, then, is she, My mother as she looked at seventeen, When she first met my father. Young incredibly, Younger than spring, without the faintest trace Of disappointment, weariness, or tean Upon the childlike earnestness and grace Of the waiting face.

Those close-wound ropes of pearl (Or common beads made precious by their use) Seem heavy for so slight a throat to wear; But the low bodice leaves the shoulders bare And half the glad swell of the breast, for news That now the woman stirs within the girl.

And yet, Even so, the loops and globes Of beaten gold And jet Hung, in the stately way of old, From the ears' drooping lobes On festivals and Lord's-day of the week, Show all too matron-sober for the cheek, -- Which, now I look again, is perfect child, Or no -- or no -- 't is girlhood's very self, Moulded by some deep, mischief-ridden elf So meek, so maiden mild, But startling the close gazer with the sense Of pa.s.sions forest-shy and forest-wild, And delicate delirious merriments.

As a moth beats sidewise And up and over, and tries To skirt the irresistible lure Of the flame that has him sure, My spirit, that is none too strong to-day, Flutters and makes delay, -- Pausing to wonder on the perfect lips, Lifting to muse upon the low-drawn hair And each hid radiance there, But powerless to stem the tide-race bright, The vehement peace which drifts it toward the light Where soon -- ah, now, with cries Of grief and giving-up unto its gain It shrinks no longer nor denies, But dips Hurriedly home to the exquisite heart of pain, -- And all is well, for I have seen them plain, The unforgettable, the unforgotten eyes!

Across the blinding gush of these good tears They s.h.i.+ne as in the sweet and heavy years When by her bed and chair We children gathered jealously to share The sunlit aura breathing myrrh and thyme, Where the sore-stricken body made a clime Gentler than May and pleasanter than rhyme, Holier and more mystical than prayer.

G.o.d, how thy ways are strange!

That this should be, even this, The patient head Which suffered years ago the dreary change!

That these so dewy lips should be the same As those I stooped to kiss And heard my harrowing half-spoken name, A little ere the one who bowed above her, Our father and her very constant lover, Rose stoical, and we knew that she was dead.

Then I, who could not understand or share His antique n.o.bleness, Being unapt to bear The insults which time flings us for our proof, Fled from the horrible roof Into the alien suns.h.i.+ne merciless, The shrill satiric fields ghastly with day, Raging to front G.o.d in his pride of sway And hurl across the lifted swords of fate That ringed Him where He sat My puny gage of scorn and desolate hate Which somehow should undo Him, after all!

That this girl face, expectant, virginal, Which gazes out at me Boon as a sweetheart, as if nothing loth (Save for the eyes, with other presage stored) To pledge me troth, And in the kingdom where the heart is lord Take sail on the terrible gladness of the deep Whose winds the gray Norns keep, -- That this should be indeed The flesh which caught my soul, a flying seed, Out of the to and fro Of scattering hands where the seedsman Mage, Stooping from star to star and age to age Sings as he sows!

That underneath this breast Nine moons I fed Deep of divine unrest, While over and over in the dark she said, "Blessed! but not as happier children blessed" -- That this should be Even she . . .

G.o.d, how with time and change Thou makest thy footsteps strange!

Ah, now I know They play upon me, and it is not so.

Why, 't is a girl I never saw before, A little thing to flatter and make weep, To tease until her heart is sore, Then kiss and clear the score; A gypsy run-the-fields, A little liberal daughter of the earth, Good for what hour of truancy and mirth The careless season yields. .h.i.ther-side the flood of the year and yonder of the neap; Then thank you, thanks again, and twenty light good-byes. -- O shrined above the skies, Frown not, clear brow, Darken not, holy eyes!

Thou knowest well I know that it is thou Only to save me from such memories As would unman me quite, Here in this web of strangeness caught And prey to troubled thought Do I devise These foolish s.h.i.+fts and slight; Only to s.h.i.+eld me from the afflicting sense Of some waste influence Which from this morning face and l.u.s.trous hair Breathes on me sudden ruin and despair.

In any other guise, With any but this girlish depth of gaze, Your coming had not so unsealed and poured The dusty amphoras where I had stored The drippings of the winepress of my days.

I think these eyes foresee, Now in their unawakened virgin time, Their mother's pride in me, And dream even now, unconsciously, Upon each soaring peak and sky-hung lea You pictured I should climb.

Broken premonitions come, Shapes, gestures visionary, Not as once to maiden Mary The manifest angel with fresh lilies came Intelligibly calling her by name; But vanis.h.i.+ngly, dumb, Thwarted and bright and wild, As heralding a sin-defiled, Earth-enc.u.mbered, blood-begotten, pa.s.sionate man-child, Who yet should be a trump of mighty call Blown in the gates of evil kings To make them fall; Who yet should be a sword of flame before The soul's inviolate door To beat away the clang of h.e.l.lish wings; Who yet should be a lyre Of high unquenchable desire In the day of little things. -- Look, where the amphoras, The yield of many days, Trod by my hot soul from the pulp of self, And set upon the shelf In sullen pride The Vineyard-master's tasting to abide -- O mother mine!

Are these the bringings-in, the doings fine, Of him you used to praise?

Emptied and overthrown The jars lie strown.

These, for their flavor duly nursed, Drip from the stopples vinegar accursed; These, I thought honied to the very seal, Dry, dry, -- a little acid meal, A pinch of mouldy dust, Sole leavings of the amber-mantling must; These, rude to look upon, But flasking up the liquor dearest won, Through sacred hours and hard, With watching and with wrestlings and with grief, Even of these, of these in chief, The stale breath sickens reeking from the shard.