bring
Into the sanctuary.
Trust not the fairest word
Your soul to wrong:
Even the Rose's bird
Hath not a song
Sweet as the silence
Round about the Rose.
Ah, something goes,
Fails, and is lost in speech
That silence knows.
How should I speak
The hush about my heart
That holds your name
Shrined in a burning core
Of central flame,
Like names of seraphim
Mystically writ on cloud?
To speak your name aloud
Were to unhallow
Such a holy thing;
Therefore I bring
To your white feet
And your immortal eyes
Silence forever,
But in such a wise
Am silent as the quiet waters are,
Hiding some holy star
Amid hushed lilies
In a secret lake.
Ah, if a ripple break
The stillness halcyon—
The star is gone!

"AT LAST I GOT A LETTER FROM THE DEAD"

At last I got a letter from the dead,
And out of it there fell a little flower,—
The violet of an unforgotten hour.

IV

SONGS FOR FRAGOLETTA

I

Fragoletta, blessed one,
What think you of the light of the sun?
Do you think the dark was best,
Lying snug in mother's breast?
Ah! I knew that sweetness, too,
Fragoletta, before you!
But, Fragoletta, now you're born,
You must learn to love the morn,
Love the lovely working light,
Love the miracle of sight,
Love the thousand things to do—
Little girl, I envy you!—
Love the thousand things to see,
Love your mother, and—love me!
And some night, Fragoletta, soon,
I'll take you out to see the moon;
And for the first time, child of ours,
You shall—think of it!—look on flowers,
And smell them, too, if you are good,
And hear the green leaves in the wood
Talking, talking, all together
In the happy windy weather;
And if the journey's not too far
For little limbs so lately made,
Limb upon limb like petals laid,
We'll go and picnic in a star.

II

Blue eyes looking up at me,
I wonder what you really see,
Lying in your cradle there,
Fragrant as a branch of myrrh.
Helpless little hands and feet,
O so helpless! O so sweet!
Tiny tongue that cannot talk,
Tiny feet that cannot walk,
Nothing of you that can do
Aught, except those eyes of blue.
How they open, how they close!
Eyelids of the baby-rose,
Open and shut, so blue, so wise,
Baby-eyelids, baby-eyes.

III

That, Fragoletta, is the rain
Beating upon the window-pane;
But lo! the golden sun appears,
To kiss away the window's tears.
That, Fragoletta, is the wind
That rattles so the window-blind;
And yonder shining thing's a star,
Blue eyes,—you seem ten times as far.
That, Fragoletta, is a bird
That speaks, yet never says a word;
Upon a cherry-tree it sings,
Simple as all mysterious things;
Its little life to peck and pipe
As long as cherries ripe and ripe,
And minister unto the need
Of baby-birds that feed and feed.
This, Fragoletta, is a flower,
Open and fragrant for an hour,
A flower, a transitory thing,
Each petal fleeting as a wing,
All a May morning blows and blows,
And then for everlasting goes.

IV

Blue eyes, against the whiteness pressed
Of little mother's hallowed breast,
The while your trembling lips are fed,
Look up at mother's bended head,
All benediction over you—
blue eyes looking into blue!
Fragoletta is so small,
We wonder that she lives at all—
Tiny alabaster girl,
Hardly bigger than a pearl;
That is why we take such care,
Lest someone runs away with her.

V

A BALLAD OF WOMAN (Gratefully Dedicated to Mrs. Pankhurst)

She bore us in her dreaming womb,
  And laughed into the face of Death;
She laughed, in her strange agony,—
  To give her little baby breath.

Then, by some holy mystery,
  She fed us from her sacred breast,
Soothed us with little birdlike words—
To rest—to rest—to rest—to rest;

Yea, softly fed us with her life—
  Her bosom like the world in May:
Can it be true that men, thus fed,
  Feed women—as I hear them say?

Long ere we grew to girl and boy,
  She sewed the little things we wore,
And smiled unto herself for joy—
  Mysterious Portress of the Door.

Shall she who bore the son of God,
  And made the rose of Sappho's song,
She who saved France, and beat the drum
  Of freedom, brook this vulgar wrong?

I wonder if such men as these
  Had once a sister with blue eyes,
Kind as the soothing hand of God,
  And as the quiet heaven wise.

I wonder if they ever saw
  A soldier lying on a bed
On some lone battle-field, and watched
  Some holy woman bind his head.

I wonder if they ever walked,
  Lost in a black and weary land,
And suddenly a flower came
  And took them softly by the hand.

I wonder if they ever heard
  The silver scream, in some grey morn,
High in a lit and listening tower,
  Because a man-child then was born.

I wonder if they ever saw
  A woman's hair, or in her eye
Read the eternal mystery—
  Or ever saw a woman die.

I wonder, when all friends had gone,—
  The gay companions, the brave men—
If in some fragile girl they found
  Their only stay and comrade then.

She who thus went through flaming hell
  To make us, put into our clay
All that there is of heaven, shall she—
  Mother and sister, wife and fay,—

Have no part in the world she made—
  Serf of the rainbow, vassal flower—
Save knitting in the afternoon,
  And rocking cradles, hour by hour!

AN EASTER HYMN

Spake the Lord Christ—"I will arise."
  It seemed a saying void and vain—
  How shall a dead man rise again!—
Vain as our tears, vain as our cries.
  Not one of all the little band
  That loved Him this might understand.

"I will arise"—Lord Jesus said.
  Hearken, amid the morning dew,
  Mary, a voice that calleth you,—
Then Mary turned her golden head,
  And lo! all shining at her side
  Her Master they had crucified.

At dawn to his dim sepulchre,
  Mary, remembering that far day,
  When at his feet the spikenard lay,
Came, bringing balm and spice and myrrh;
  To her the grave had made reply:
  "He is not here—He cannot die."

Praetor and priest in vain conspire,
  Jerusalem and Rome in vain
  Torture the god with mortal pain,
To quench that seed of living fire;
  But light that had in heaven its birth
  Can never be put out oh earth.

"I will arise"—across the years,
  Even as