Works

The trees along this city street,
Save for the traffic and the trains,
Would make a sound as thin and sweet
As trees in country lanes.

And people standing in their shade...

Doubt no more that Oberon--
Never doubt that Pan
Lived, and played a reed, and ran
After nymphs in a dark forest,
In the merry, credulous days,--
Lived, and led a fairy band...

Am I kin to Sorrow,
That so oft
Falls the knocker of my door--
Neither loud nor soft,
But as long accustomed,
Under Sorrow's hand?
Marigolds around the step
And rosemary stand,...

These wet rocks where the tide has been,
Barnacled white and weeded brown
And slimed beneath to a beautiful green,
These wet rocks where the tide went down
Will show again when the tide is high...

[VASSAR COLLEGE, 1918]


Oh, loveliest throat of all sweet throats,
Where now no more the music is,
With hands that wrote you little notes
I write you little elegies!

Aye, but she?
Your other sister and my other soul
Grave Silence, lovelier
Than the three loveliest maidens, what of her?
Clio, not you,
Not you, Calliope,
Nor all your wanton line,...

Be to her, Persephone,
All the things I might not be;
Take her head upon your knee.
She that was so proud and wild,
Flippant, arrogant and free,
She that had no need of me,
Is a little lonely child...

I'll keep a little tavern
Below the high hill's crest,
Wherein all grey-eyed people
May set them down and rest.

There shall be plates a-plenty,
And mugs to melt the chill...

Ho, Giant! This is I!
I have built me a bean-stalk into your sky!
La,--but it's lovely, up so high!

This is how I came,--I put
Here my knee, there my foot,
Up and up, from shoot to shoot--...

God had called us, and we came;
Our loved Earth to ashes left;
Heaven was a neighbor's house,
Open to us, bereft.

Gay the lights of Heaven showed,
And 'twas God who walked ahead;...

When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes,
And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind
Like aged warriors westward, tragic, thinned
Of half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes,...

Love, if I weep it will not matter,
And if you laugh I shall not care;
Foolish am I to think about it,
But it is good to feel you there.

Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking,--...

I knew her for a little ghost
That in my garden walked;
The wall is high--higher than most--
And the green gate was locked.

And yet I did not think of that
Till after she was gone--...

OH, here the air is sweet and still,
And soft's the grass to lie on;
And far away's the little hill
They took for Christ to die on.

And there's a hill across the brook,...

Oh, I am grown so free from care
Since my heart broke!
I set my throat against the air,
I laugh at simple folk!

There's little kind and little fair
Is worth its weight in smoke...

I had a little Sorrow,
Born of a little Sin,
I found a room all damp with gloom
And shut us all within;
And, "Little Sorrow, weep," said I,
"And, Little Sin, pray God to die,...

And what are you that, wanting you
I should be kept awake
As many nights as there are days
With weeping for your sake?

And what are you that, missing you,
As many days as crawl...

Down, you mongrel, Death!
Back into your kennel!
I have stolen breath
In a stalk of fennel!
You shall scratch and you shall whine
Many a night, and you shall worry
Many a bone, before you bury...

All right,
Go ahead!
What's in a name?
I guess I'll be locked into
As much as I'm locked out of!

Death, I say, my heart is bowed
Unto thine,--O mother!
This red gown will make a shroud
Good as any other!

(I, that would not wait to wear
My own bridal things,
In a dress dark as my hair...