Part 5

Indifference

I said,--for Love was laggard, O, Love was slow to come,-- "I'll hear his step and know his step when I am warm in bed; But I'll never leave my pillow, though there be some As would let him in--and take him in with tears!" I said. I lay,--for Love was laggard, O, he came not until dawn,-- I lay and listened for his step and could not get to sleep; And he found me at my window with my big cloak on, All sorry with the tears some folks might weep!

Witch-Wife

She is neither pink nor pale, And she never will be all mine; She learned her hands in a fairy-tale, And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs; In the sun 'tis a woe to me! And her voice is a string of colored beads, Or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can, And her ways to my ways resign; But she was not made for any man, And she never will be all mine.

Blight

Hard seeds of hate I planted That should by now be grown,-- Rough stalks, and from thick stamens A poisonous pollen blown, And odors rank, unbreathable, From dark corollas thrown!

At dawn from my damp garden I shook the chilly dew; The thin boughs locked behind me That sprang to let me through; The blossoms slept,--I sought a place Where nothing lovely grew.

And there, when day was breaking, I knelt and looked around: The light was near, the silence Was palpitant with sound; I drew my hate from out my breast And thrust it in the ground.

Oh, ye so fiercely tended, Ye little seeds of hate! I bent above your growing Early and noon and late, Yet are ye drooped and pitiful,-- I cannot rear ye straight!

The sun seeks out my garden, No nook is left in shade, No mist nor mold nor mildew Endures on any blade, Sweet rain slants under every bough: Ye falter, and ye fade.

When the Year Grows Old

I cannot but remember When the year grows old-- October--November-- How she disliked the cold!

She used to watch the swallows Go down across the sky, And turn from the window With a little sharp sigh.

And often when the brown leaves Were brittle on the ground, And the wind in the chimney Made a melancholy sound,

She had a look about her That I wish I could forget-- The look of a scared thing Sitting in a net!

Oh, beautiful at nightfall The soft spitting snow! And beautiful the bare boughs Rubbing to and fro!

But the roaring of the fire, And the warmth of fur, And the boiling of the kettle Were beautiful to her!

I cannot but remember When the year grows old-- October--November-- How she disliked the cold!

Sonnets

Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,--no, Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair Than small white single poppies,--I can bear Thy beauty; though I bend before thee, though From left to right, not knowing where to go, I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor there Find any refuge from thee, yet I swear So has it been with mist,--with moonlight so.

Like him who day by day unto his draught Of delicate poison adds him one drop more Till he may drink unharmed the death of ten, Even so, inured to beauty, who have quaffed Each hour more deeply than the hour before, I drink--and live--what has destroyed some men.

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want him at the shrinking of the tide; The old snows melt from every mountain-side, And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane; But last year's bitter loving must remain Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!

There are a hundred places where I fear To go,--so with his memory they brim! And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say, "There is no memory of him here!" And so stand stricken, so remembering him!

III

Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring, And all the flowers that in the springtime grow, And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow Rising of the round moon, all throats that sing The summer through, and each departing wing, And all the nests that the bared branches show, And all winds that in any weather blow, And all the storms that the four seasons bring.

You go no more on your exultant feet Up paths that only mist and morning knew, Or watch the wind, or listen to the beat Of a bird's wings too high in air to view,-- But you were something more than young and sweet And fair,--and the long year remembers you.