Works

On the road to nowhere
What wild oats did you sow
When you left your father's house
With your cheeks aglow?
Eyes so strained and eager
To see what you might see?
Were you thief or were you fool...

Where a river roars in rapids
And doves in maples fret,
Where peace has decked the pastures
Our guardian angels met.

Long they had sought each other
In God's mysterious name,...

(Note: - Pocahontas is buried at Gravesend, England.)

"Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in November or a pawpaw in May - did she wonder? does she remember - in the dust - in the cool tombs?"...

Where does Cinderella sleep?
By far-off day-dream river.
A secret place her burning Prince
Decks, while his heart-strings quiver.

Homesick for our cinder world,
Her low-born shoulders shiver;...

I. The Lion


The Lion is a kingly beast.
He likes a Hindu for a feast.
And if no Hindu he can get,
The lion-family is upset.

He cuffs his wife and bites her ears...

(Moon Poems for the Children/Fairy-tales for the Children)

No man should stand before the moon
To make sweet song thereon,
With dandified importance,
His sense of humor gone.
...

Once I loved a fairy,
Queen Mab it was. Her voice
Was like a little Fountain
That bids the birds rejoice.
Her face was wise and solemn,
Her hair was brown and fine.
Her dress was pansy velvet,...

Your pen needs but a ruffle
To be Pavlova whirling.
It surely is a scalawag
A-scamping down the page.
A pretty little May-wind
The morning buds uncurling.
And then the white sweet Russian,...

Oh, saucy gold circle of fairyland silk -
Impudent, intimate, delicate treasure:
A noose for my heart and a ring for my finger: -
Here in my study you sing me a measure.
...

This doll upon the topmost bough,
This playmate-gift, in Christmas dress,
Was taken down and brought to me
One sleety night most comfortless.

Her hair was gold, her dolly-sash...

The gleaming head of one fine friend
Is bent above my little song,
So through the treasure-pits of Heaven
In fancy's shoes, I march along.

I wander, seek and peer and ponder...

Would that in body and spirit Shakespeare came
Visible emperor of the deeds of Time,
With Justice still the genius of his rhyme,
Giving each man his due, each passion grace,...

In this, the City of my Discontent,
Sometimes there comes a whisper from the grass,
"Romance, Romance - is here. No Hindu town
Is quite so strange. No Citadel of Brass...

Star of my heart, I follow from afar.
Sweet Love on high, lead on where shepherds are,
Where Time is not, and only dreamers are.
Star from of old, the Magi-Kings are dead...

Would I might wake St. Francis in you all,
Brother of birds and trees, God's Troubadour,
Blinded with weeping for the sad and poor;
Our wealth undone, all strict Franciscan men,...

For a Very Little Girl, Not a Year Old. Catharine Frazee Wakefield.



The sun gives not directly
The coal, the diamond crown;
Not in a special basket
Are these from Heaven let down.
...

We are happy all the time
Even when we fight:
Sweet briars of the stairways,
Gay fairies of the grime;
WE, WHO ARE PLAYING TO-NIGHT.

"Our feet are in the gutters,
Our eyes are sore with dust,...

Sweetheart Spring

Our Sweetheart, Spring, came softly,
Her gliding hands were fire,
Her lilac breath upon our cheeks
Consumed us with desire.

By her our God began to build,...

Thou wilt not sentence to eternal life
My soul that prays that it may sleep and sleep
Like a white statue dropped into the deep,
Covered with sand, covered with chests of gold,...

Ah, in the night, all music haunts me here....
Is it for naught high Heaven cracks and yawns
And the tremendous Amaranth descends
Sweet with the glory of ten thousand dawns?
...