Works

"Le notte e madre dipensien."

I tumble and toss on my pillow,
As a ship without rudder or spars
Is tumbled and tossed on the billow,
'Neath the glint and the glory of stars....

Oh, unhappy stars! your fate I mourn,

Ye by whom the sea-toss'd sailor's lighted,
Who with radiant beams the heav'ns adorn,

But by gods and men are unrequited:...

Will night already spread her wings and weave
Her dusky robe about the day's bright form,
Boldly the sun's fair countenance displacing,
And swathe it with her shadow in broad day?...

Father, father, who is that a-whispering?
Who is it who whispers in the wood?
You say it is the breeze
As it sighs among the trees,
But there's some one who whispers in the wood.
...

They hear the bell of midnight toll,
And shiver in their flesh and soul;
They lie on hard, cold wood or stone,
Iron, and ache in every bone;
They hate the night: they see no eyes...

Darkness like midnight from the sobbing woods
Clamours with dismal tidings of the rain,
Roaring as rivers breaking loose in floods
To spread and foam and deluge all the plain....

They made us sit alphabetically in rows.
Green oranges are sprayed systematically
in volcanic soil near pummelled surf.

One stood to answer questions,
was called after the surname,...

(see Note)

Now little Nils Finn had away to go;
The skis were too loose at both heel and toe.
- "That's too bad!" rumbled yonder.

Then little Nils Finn in the snow set his feet:...

A rose of perfect red, embossed
With silver sheens of crystal frost,
Yet warm, nor life nor fragrance lost.

High passion throbbing in a sphere
That Art hath wrought of diamond clear,...

Olde CHAVCER doth of Topas tell,
Mad RABLAIS of Pantagruell,
A latter third of Dowsabell,
With such poore trifles playing:
Others the like haue laboured at
Some of this thing, and some of that,...

I was drivin' my two-mule waggin,
With a lot o' truck for sale,
Towards Macon, to git some baggin'
(Which my cotton was ready to bale),
And I come to a place on the side o' the pike...

I.

Nine of the clock, oh!
Wake my lazy head!
Your shoes of red morocco,
Your silk bed-gown:
Rouse, rouse, speck-eyed Mary
In your high bed!
A yawn, a smile, sleepy-starey,...

Why do we lie

'Why do we lie,' she questioned, her warm eyes
on the grey Autumn wind and its coursing,
'all afternoon wasted in bed like this?'
'Because we cannot lie all night together.'...

Many ingenious lovely things are gone
That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude,
protected from the circle of the moon
That pitches common things about. There stood
Amid the ornamental bronze and stone...

There's a light out there in the nearer east
In the dawn of Nineteen Nine;
There's the old ghost light in the salty yeast
Where the black rocks meet the brine.
Here's the same old strife and toil in vain,...

I.
Lord of light, whose shine no hands destroy,
God of song, whose hymn no tongue refuses,
Now, though spring far hence be cold and coy,
Bid the golden mouths of all the Muses...

Ninny nanny netticoat,
In a white petticoat,
With a red nose,--
The longer she stands,
The shorter she grows.

Last night, I dreamed of Nippon....
I saw a cloud of white
Drifting before the sunset
On seas of opal light.

Beyond the wide Pacific
I saw its mounded snow
Miraculously changing...

Poised as a god whose lone, detach'd post,
An eyrie, pends between the boundary-marks
Of finite years, and those unvaried darks
That veil Eternity, I saw the host...

A drop of water risen from the ocean
Forgot its cause, and spake with deep emotion
Unto a passing breeze. 'How desolate
And all forlorn is my unhappy fate.
I know not whence I came, or where I go....