Deeper and gentler I hold you; all that has been
Seems like a spark that is lost in a forest of fire.
Minor my song is, for still the old memories burn—
Only in you and your thought do I find my release...
I have done with the blustering airs, and I turn
From the clamorous strife to the greater heroics of peace.

Take me again
Out of the cries and alarms
All of the tumult is vain...
Here in your arms.

Hold me again—
Oft have we wandered apart;
Now it is all made plain...
Here in your heart.

Heal me again—
Cleanse me with tears that remove
Pain and the ruins of pain...
Here in your love.

Minor my song was—abashed I must lower my voice;
Something has touched me with nobler and holier fire;
Something that thrills, as when trumpets and children rejoice;
Something I knew not, something beyond my desire...
Minor no longer—the sighing and droning depart;
In a chorus of triumph the jubilant spirits increase—
Shelter and spur me forever in the merciful strength of your heart,
You who have soothed me with passion and roused me with
passionate peace.

LEAVING THE HARBOR

At last the great, red sun sank low,
An evil, blood-shot eye,
And cooling airs sprang up to blow
The sea that challenged, glow for glow,
The angry face of the sky.

Still burned the streets we had left behind,
Where, tortured and broken down,
The millions scarcely hoped to find
A moment's escape from the maddening grind
In the terrible furnace of town.

And, blotting out cities, the twilight fell
With a single star at seven...
The sea grew wider beneath the spell
And the moon, like a broken silver shell,
Lay on the shore of heaven.

THE SHELL TO THE PEARL

Grow not so fast, glow not so warm;
Thy hidden fires burn too wild—
Too perfect is thy rounded form;
Cling close, my child.

Be yet my babe, rest quiet when
The great sea-urges beat and call;
Too soon wilt thou be ripe for men,
The world and all.

Thy shining skin, thy silken sheath,
These will undo thee all too soon;
And men will fight for thee beneath
Some paler moon...

Aye, thou my own, my undefiled,
Shalt make the lewd world dream and start,
When they have seized and torn thee, child,
Out of my heart.

With velvets shall thy bed be laid;
A royal captive thou shalt be—
And oh, what prices will be paid
To ransom thee.

Thy path shall be a track of gold,
Of lust, of death and countless crimes;
Bought by a sensual world—and sold
A thousand times...

And each shall lose thee at the last,
Hating, yet still desiring thee...
While I lie, where I have been cast,
Back in the sea.

So wait—and, lest the world transform
Thy soul and make thee wanton-wild,
Grow not so fast, glow not so warm,
Cling close, my child.

THE YOUNG MYSTIC

We sat together close and warm,
My little tired boy and I—
Watching across the evening sky
The coming of the storm.

No rumblings rose, no thunders crashed,
The west-wind scarcely sang aloud;
But from a huge and solid cloud
The summer lightnings flashed.

And then he whispered "Father, watch;
I think God's going to light His moon—"
"And when, my boy" ... "Oh, very soon—
I saw Him strike a match!"

HEALED

The winds like a pack of hounds
Snap at my dragging heels
With sudden leapings and playful bounds
They urge me out to the greener grounds
Where the butterfly sinks and the swallow reels
Giddy with Spring, with its smells and sounds—
And I go...

For of late I have fretted and sulked, and clung to my books
and the house;
Lethargic with winter fancies and dulled with a torpid mood—
But now I am called by the grasses; the rumor of blossoming boughs;
The hints of a thousand singers and the ancient thrill of the wood.

For the streets run over with sunlight and spill
A glory on bricks and the dustiest sill;
And Life, like a great drum, pulses and pounds—
I follow the world and I follow my will,
And I go to see what the park reveals
When the winds, like a pack of buoyant hounds,
Snap at my dragging heels...

Once with the green again
How I am changed—
Lo, I have seen again
Friends long estranged.
Once more the lyrical
Rose-bush and river;
Once more the miracle,
Greater than ever!

Where is there dulness now—
Rich with new urges
Life in its fullness now
Surges and purges
All that is brash in me—
Sunlight and Song
These things will fashion me
Splendid and strong.

Splendid and strong I shall grow once again;
Joyful and clean as the mind of a child,
As tears after pain,
Or hearts reconciled,
As woods washed with rain,
As love in the wild,
Or that bird to whom all things but singing is vain.

"Bird, there were songs in your heart just as rapturous
As these that you bring—
Why when we longed for your magic to capture us
Did you not sing?
Now with the world making music we heed you not.
Coward, for all