Part 11

If life was small, if it has made me scornful, Forgive me; I shall straighten like a flame In the great calm of death, and if you want me Stand on the sea-ward dunes and call my name.

Spray

I knew you thought of me all night, I knew, though you were far away; I felt your love blow over me As if a dark wind-riven sea Drenched me with quivering spray.

There are so many ways to love And each way has its own delight-- Then be content to come to me Only as spray the beating sea Drives inland through the night.

If Death Is Kind

Perhaps if Death is kind, and there can be returning, We will come back to earth some fragrant night, And take these lanes to find the sea, and bending Breathe the same honeysuckle, low and white.

We will come down at night to these resounding beaches And the long gentle thunder of the sea, Here for a single hour in the wide starlight We shall be happy, for the dead are free.

Thoughts

When I am all alone Envy me most, Then my thoughts flutter round me In a glimmering host;

Some dressed in silver, Some dressed in white, Each like a taper Blossoming light;

Most of them merry, Some of them grave, Each of them lithe As willows that wave;

Some bearing violets, Some bearing bay, One with a burning rose Hidden away--

When I am all alone Envy me then, For I have better friends Than women and men.

Faces

People that I meet and pass In the city's broken roar, Faces that I lose so soon And have never found before,

Do you know how much you tell In the meeting of our eyes, How ashamed I am, and sad To have pierced your poor disguise?

Secrets rushing without sound Crying from your hiding places-- Let me go, I cannot bear The sorrow of the passing faces.

--People in the restless street, Can it be, oh can it be In the meeting of our eyes That you know as much of me?

Evening: New York

Blue dust of evening over my city, Over the ocean of roofs and the tall towers Where the window-lights, myriads and myriads, Bloom from the walls like climbing flowers.

Snowfall

"She can't be unhappy," you said, "The smiles are like stars in her eyes, And her laugh is thistledown Around her low replies." "Is she unhappy?" you said-- But who has ever known Another's heartbreak-- All he can know is his own; And she seems hushed to me, As hushed as though Her heart were a hunter's fire Smothered in snow.

The Silent Battle

(In Memory of J. W. T. Jr.)

He was a soldier in that fight Where there is neither flag nor drum, And without sound of musketry The stealthy foemen come.

Year in, year out, by day and night They forced him to a slow retreat, And for his gallant fight alone No fife was blown, and no drum beat.

In winter fog, in gathering mist The gray grim battle had its end-- And at the very last we knew His enemy had turned his friend.

The Sanctuary