lives its life with laughter
   Or love that lives its life with tears
  Can die—but love that is never spoken
   Goes like a ghost through the winding years. . . .

  I went back to the clanging city,
   I went back where my old loves stayed,
  My heart was full of my new love's glory,—
   But my eyes were suddenly afraid.

Summer Night, Riverside

  In the wild, soft summer darkness
  How many and many a night we two together
  Sat in the park and watched the Hudson
  Wearing her lights like golden spangles
  Glinting on black satin.
  The rail along the curving pathway
  Was low in a happy place to let us cross,
  And down the hill a tree that dripped with bloom
  Sheltered us,
  While your kisses and the flowers,
  Falling, falling,
  Tangled my hair. . . .

The frail white stars moved slowly over the sky.

  And now, far off
  In the fragrant darkness
  The tree is tremulous again with bloom,
  For June comes back.

  To-night what girl
  Dreamily before her mirror shakes from her hair
  This year's blossoms, clinging in its coils?

Jewels

  If I should see your eyes again,
   I know how far their look would go—
  Back to a morning in the park
   With sapphire shadows on the snow.

  Or back to oak trees in the spring
   When you unloosed my hair and kissed
  The head that lay against your knees
   In the leaf shadow's amethyst.

  And still another shining place
   We would remember—how the dun
  Wild mountain held us on its crest
   One diamond morning white with sun.

  But I will turn my eyes from you
   As women turn to put away
  The jewels they have worn at night
   And cannot wear in sober day.

II

Interlude: Songs out of Sorrow

I. Spirit's House

  From naked stones of agony
  I will build a house for me;
  As a mason all alone
  I will raise it, stone by stone,
  And every stone where I have bled
  Will show a sign of dusky red.
  I have not gone the way in vain,
  For I have good of all my pain;
  My spirit's quiet house will be
  Built of naked stones I trod
  On roads where I lost sight of God.

II. Mastery

  I would not have a god come in
  To shield me suddenly from sin,
  And set my house of life to rights;
  Nor angels with bright burning wings
  Ordering my earthly thoughts and things;
  Rather my own frail guttering lights
  Wind blown and nearly beaten out;
  Rather the terror of the nights
  And long, sick groping after doubt;
  Rather be lost than let my soul
  Slip vaguely from my own control—
  Of my own spirit let me be
  In sole though feeble mastery.

III. Lessons

  Unless I learn to ask no help
   From any other soul but mine,
  To seek no strength in waving reeds
   Nor shade beneath a straggling pine;
  Unless I learn to look at Grief
   Unshrinking from her tear-blind eyes,
  And take from Pleasure fearlessly
   Whatever gifts will make me wise—
  Unless I learn these things on earth,
  Why was I ever given birth?

IV. Wisdom

  When I have ceased to break my wings
  Against the faultiness of things,
  And learned that compromises wait
  Behind each hardly opened gate,
  When I can look Life in the eyes,
  Grown calm and very coldly wise,
  Life will have given me the Truth,
  And taken in exchange—my youth.

V. In a Burying Ground

  This is the spot where I will lie
   When life has had enough of me,
  These are the grasses that will blow
   Above me like a living sea.

  These gay old lilies will not shrink
   To draw their life from death of mine,
  And I will give my body's fire
   To make blue flowers on this vine.

  "O Soul," I said, "have you no tears?
   Was not the body dear to you?"
  I heard my soul say carelessly,
   "The myrtle flowers will grow more blue."

VI. Wood Song

  I heard a wood thrush in the dusk
   Twirl three notes and make a star—
  My heart that walked with bitterness
   Came back from very far.

  Three shining notes were all he had,
   And yet they made a starry call—
  I caught life back against my breast
   And kissed it, scars and all.

VII. Refuge

  From my spirit's gray defeat,
  From my pulse's flagging beat,
  From my hopes that turned to sand
  Sifting through my close-clenched hand,
  From my own fault's slavery,
  If I can sing, I still am free.

  For with my singing I can make
  A refuge for my spirit's sake,
  A house of shining words, to be
  My fragile immortality.

III

The Flight

  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 blowing 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?

Dew

  As dew leaves the cobweb lightly
   Threaded with stars,
  Scattering jewels on the fence
   And the pasture bars;
  As dawn leaves the dry grass bright
   And the tangled weeds
  Bearing a rainbow gem
   On each of their seeds;
  So has your love, my lover,
   Fresh as the dawn,
  Made me a shining road
   To travel on,
  Set every common sight
   Of tree or stone
  Delicately alight
   For me alone.

To-night

  The moon is a curving flower of gold,
   The sky is still and blue;
  The moon was made for the sky to hold,
   And I for you.

  The moon is a flower without a stem,
   The sky is luminous;
  Eternity was made