Rivers to the Sea

Excerpt

SPRING NIGHT

  THE park is filled with night and fog,
     The veils are drawn about the world,
  The drowsy lights along the paths
     Are dim and pearled.

  Gold and gleaming the empty streets,
     Gold and gleaming the misty lake,
  The mirrored lights like sunken swords,
     Glimmer and shake.

  Oh, is it not enough to be
  Here with this beauty over me?
  My throat should ache with praise, and I
  Should kneel in joy beneath the sky.
  Oh, beauty are you not enough?

  Why am I crying after love
  With youth, a singing voice and eyes
  To take earth's wonder with surprise?
  Why have I put off my pride,
  Why am I unsatisfied,
  I for whom the pensive night
  Binds her cloudy hair with light,
  I for whom all beauty burns
  Like incense in a million urns?
  Oh, beauty, are you not enough?
  Why am I crying after love?

  LOOK back with longing eyes and know that I will follow,
  Lift me up in your love as a light wind lifts a swallow,
  Let our flight be far in sun or windy rain—
  BUT WHAT IF I HEARD MY FIRST LOVE CALLING ME AGAIN?

  Hold me on your heart as the brave sea holds the foam,
  Take me far away to the hills that hide your home;
  Peace shall thatch the roof and love shall latch the door—

BUT WHAT IF I HEARD MY FIRST LOVE CALLING ME ONCE MORE?

NEW LOVE AND OLD

  IN my heart the old love
     Struggled with the new;
  It was ghostly waking
     All night thru.

  Dear things, kind things,
     That my old love said,
  Ranged themselves reproachfully
     Round my bed.

  But I could not heed them,
     For I seemed to see
  The eyes of my new love
     Fixed on me.

  Old love, old love,
     How can I be true?
  Shall I be faithless to myself
     Or to you?

THE LOOK

  STREPHON kissed me in the spring,
     Robin in the fall,
  But Colin only looked at me
     And never kissed at all.

  Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,
     Robin's lost in play,
  But the kiss in Colin's eyes
     Haunts me night and day.

  IN Central Park the lovers sit,
     On every hilly path they stroll,
  Each thinks his love is infinite,
     And crowns his soul.

  But we are cynical and wise,
     We walk a careful foot apart,
  You make a little joke that tries
     To hide your heart.

  Give over, we have laughed enough;
     Oh dearest and most foolish friend,
  Why do you wage a war with love
     To lose your battle in the end?

THE LIGHTED WINDOW

  HE SAID:
  "In the winter dusk
  When the pavements were gleaming with rain,
  I walked thru a dingy street
  Hurried, harassed,
  Thinking of all my problems that never are
        solved.
  Suddenly out of the mist, a flaring gas-jet
  Shone from a huddled shop.
  I saw thru the bleary window
  A mass of playthings:
  False-faces hung on strings,
  Valentines, paper and tinsel,
  Tops of scarlet and green,
  Candy, marbles, jacks—
  A confusion of color
  Pathetically gaudy and cheap....