Chapter I: Part ONE: My Heart, Being Hungry

My heart, being hungry, feeds on food The fat of heart despise. Beauty where beauty never stood, And sweet where no sweet lies I gather to my querulous need, Having a growing heart to feed.

It may be, when my heart is dull, Having attained its girth, I shall not find so beautiful The meagre shapes of earth, Nor linger in the rain to mark The smell of tansy through the dark.

AUTUMN CHANT

Now the autumn shudders
In the rose’s root.
Far and wide the ladders
Lean among the fruit.

Now the autumn clambers
Up the trellised frame,
And the rose remembers
The dust from which it came.

Brighter than the blossom
On the rose’s bough
Sits the wizened, orange,
Bitter berry now;

Beauty never slumbers; All is in her name; But the rose remembers

NUIT BLANCHE

I am a shepherd of those sheep
That climb a wall by night,
One after one, until I sleep,
Or the black pane goes white.
Because of which I cannot see
A flock upon a hill,
But doubts come tittering up to me
That should by day be still.
And childish griefs I have outgrown
Into my eyes are thrust,
Till my dull tears go dropping down
Like lead into the dust.

THREE SONGS FROM THE LAMP AND THE BELL

I

Oh, little rose tree, bloom! Summer is nearly over. The dahlias bleed, and the phlox is seed. Nothing’s left of the clover. And the path of the poppy no one knows. I would blossom if I were a rose.

Summer, for all your guile, Will brown in a week to Autumn, And launched leaves throw a shadow below Over the brook’s clear bottom,-- And the chariest bud the year can boast Be brought to bloom by the chastening frost.

II

Beat me a crown of bluer metal;
Fret it with stones of a foreign style:
The heart grows weary after a little
Of what it loved for a little while.

Weave me a robe of richer fibre;
Pattern its web with a rare device.
Give away to the child of a neighbor
This gold gown I was glad in twice.

But buy me a singer to sing one song-- Song about nothing--song about sheep-- Over and over, all day long;

III

Rain comes down And hushes the town. And where is the voice that I heard crying?

Snow settles Over the nettles. Where is the voice that I heard crying?

Sand at last On the drifting mast. And where is the voice that I heard crying?

Earth now On the busy brow. And where is the voice that I heard crying?

THE WOOD ROAD

If I were to walk this way
Hand in hand with Grief,
I should mark that maple-spray
Coming into leaf.
I should note how the old burrs
Rot upon the ground.
Yes, though Grief should know me hers
While the world goes round,
It could not in truth be said
This was lost on me;
A rock-maple showing red,
Burrs beneath a tree.

FEAST

I drank at every vine.
The last was like the first.
I came upon no wine
So wonderful as thirst.

I gnawed at every root.
I ate of every plant.
I came upon no fruit
So wonderful as want.

Feed the grape and bean
To the vintner and monger;
I will lie down lean
With my thirst and my hunger.

SOUVENIR

Just a rainy day or two In a windy tower, That was all I had of you-- Saving half an hour.

Marred by greeting passing groups In a cinder walk, Near some naked blackberry hoops Dim with purple chalk.

I remember three or four Things you said in spite, And an ugly coat you wore, Plaided black and white.

Just a rainy day or two And a bitter word. Why do I remember you As a singing bird?

SCRUB

If I grow bitterly, Like a gnarled and stunted tree, Bearing harshly of my youth Puckered fruit that sears the mouth; If I make of my drawn boughs An inhospitable house, Out of which I never pry Towards the water and the sky, Under which I stand and hide And hear the day go by outside; It is that a wind too strong Bent my back when I was young, It is that I fear the rain Lest it blister me again.

THE GOOSE-GIRL

Spring rides no horses down the hill, But comes on foot, a goose-girl still. And all the loveliest things there be Come simply, so, it seems to me. If ever I said, in grief or pride, I tired of honest things, I lied; And should be cursed forevermore With Love in laces, like a whore, And neighbors cold, and friends unsteady, And Spring on horseback, like a lady!

THE DRAGONFLY

I wound myself in a white cocoon of singing,
All day long in the brook’s uneven bed,
Measuring out my soul in a mucous thread;
Dimly now to the brook’s green bottom clinging,
Men behold me, a worm spun-out and dead,
Walled in an iron house of silky singing.

Nevertheless at length, O reedy shallows,
Not as a plodding nose to the slimy stem,
But as a brazen wing with a spangled hem,
Over the jewel-weed and the pink marshmallows,
Free of these and making a song of them,
I shall arise, and a song of the reedy shallows!