A noose for my heart and a ring for my finger:—
Here in my study you sing me a measure.
Whimsy and song in my little gray study!
Words out of wonderland, praising her fineness,
Touched with her pulsating, delicate laughter,
Saying, “The girl is all daring and kindness!”
Saying, “Her soul is all feminine gameness,
Trusting her insights, ardent for living;
She would be weeping with me and be laughing,
A thoroughbred, joyous receiving and giving!”
Tho’ in a house we sleep;Tho’ by a hearth of coalsVigil to-night we keep.Chant we the story now,Of the vague love we knewWhen I from out the seaRose to the feet of you.Bird from the cliffs you came,Flew thro’ the snow to me,Facing the icy blastThere by the icy sea.How did I reach your feet?Why…
Give the engines room.’Louder, fasterThe little band-masterWhips up the fluting,Hurries up the tooting.He thinks that he stands,[*] The reins in his hands,In the fire-chief’s placeIn the night alarm chase.The cymbals whang,The kettledrums bang: —‘Clear the street,Clear the street,Clear the street — Boom, boom.In the evening gloom,In the evening gloom,Give the engines room,Give the engines room.Lest…
Like a white statue dropped into the deep,Covered with sand, covered with chests of gold,And slave-bones, tossed from many a pirate hold.But for this prayer thou wilt not bind in HellMy soul, that shook with love for Fame and Truth—In Such unquenched desires consumed his youth—Let me turn dust, like dead leaves in the Fall,Or…
Just eight years oldWith marvellous dark hair.Younger than Dante found youWhen you turnedHis heart into the wayThat found the heavenly stair.Perhaps we must be strangers.I confessMy soul this hour is Dante’s,And your careShould be for dollsWhose painted hands caressYour marvellous dark hair.Romance, with moonflower faceAnd morning eyes,And lips whose thread of scarlet prophesiesThe canticles of…
He lived in a box.He swam in a puddle.He climbed on the rocks.He snapped at a mosquito.He snapped at a flea.He snapped at a minnow.And he snapped at me.He caught the mosquito.He caught the flea.He caught the minnow.But he didn’t catch me.
Though you be sealed in lead to-dayAmid the country’s tears.When this idyllic churchyardBecomes the heart of town,The place to build garage or inn,They’ll throw your tombstone down.Your name so dim, so long outworn,Your bones so near to earth,Your sturdy kindred dead and gone,How should men know your worth?So read upon the runic moonMan’s epitaph, deep-writ.It…
