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

I
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.
II
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.
IV
Not in this chamber only at my birth--
   When the long hours of that mysterious night
   Were over, and the morning was in sight--
I cried, but in strange places, steppe and firth
I have not seen, through alien grief and mirth;
   And never shall one room contain me quite
   Who in so many rooms first saw the light,
Child of all mothers, native of the earth.
So is no warmth for me at any fire
   To-day, when the world's fire has burned so low;
I kneel, spending my breath in vain desire,
At that cold hearth which one time roared so strong,
And straighten back in weariness, and long
   To gather up my little gods and go.
V
If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
   That you were gone, not to return again--
Read from the back-page of a paper, say,
   Held by a neighbor in a subway train,
How at the corner of this avenue
   And such a street (so are the papers filled)
A hurrying man--who happened to be you--
   At noon to-day had happened to be killed,
I should not cry aloud--I could not cry
   Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place--
I should but watch the station lights rush by
   With a more careful interest on my face,
Or raise my eyes and read with greater care
Where to store furs and how to treat the hair.

Bluebeard

IV
THIS door you might not open, and you did;
   So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed.... Here is no treasure hid,
   No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain
   For greed like yours, no writhings of distress,
But only what you see.... Look yet again--
   An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless.
Yet this alone out of my life I kept
   Unto myself, lest any know me quite;
And you did so profane me when you crept
   Unto the threshold of this room to-night
That I must never more behold your face.
   This now is yours. I seek another place.

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