Beside the shore.

But though the pool is safe from storm
And from the tide has found surcease,

It grows more bitter than the sea,
For all its peace.

New Love and Old
In my heart the old love

Struggled with the new;
It was ghostly waking

All night through.
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 Kiss

I hoped that he would love me,
And he has kissed my mouth,

But I am like a stricken bird
That cannot reach the south.

For though I know he loves me,
To-night my heart is sad;

His kiss was not so wonderful
As all the dreams I had.

Swans
Night is over the park, and a few brave stars

Look on the lights that link it with chains of gold,
The lake bears up their reflection in broken bars

That seem too heavy for tremulous water to hold.
We watch the swans that sleep in a shadowy place,

And now and again one wakes and uplifts its head;
How still you are -- your gaze is on my face --

We watch the swans and never a word is said.
The River

I came from the sunny valleys
And sought for the open sea,

For I thought in its gray expanses
My peace would come to me.

I came at last to the ocean
And found it wild and black,

And I cried to the windless valleys,
"Be kind and take me back!"

But the thirsty tide ran inland,
And the salt waves drank of me,

And I who was fresh as the rainfall
Am bitter as the sea.

November
The world is tired, the year is old,

The fading leaves are glad to die,
The wind goes shivering with cold

Where the brown reeds are dry.
Our love is dying like the grass,

And we who kissed grow coldly kind,
Half glad to see our old love pass

Like leaves along the wind.
Spring Rain

I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again

To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.

I remembered a darkened doorway
Where we stood while the storm swept by,

Thunder gripping the earth
And lightning scrawled on the sky.

The passing motor busses swayed,
For the street was a river of rain,

Lashed into little golden waves
In the lamp light's stain.

With the wild spring rain and thunder
My heart was wild and gay;

Your eyes said more to me that night
Than your lips would ever say. . . .

I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again

To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.

The Ghost
I went back to the clanging city,

I went back where my old loves stayed,
But my heart was full of my new love's glory,

My eyes were laughing and unafraid.
I met one who had loved me madly

And told his love for all to hear --
But we talked of a thousand things together,

The past was buried too deep to fear.
I met the other, whose love was given

With never a kiss and scarcely a word --
Oh, it was then the terror took me

Of words unuttered that breathed and stirred.
Oh, love that 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?"

• reflection [ri´flekʃən] n.反射；映象；想法 (初中英语单词)
• coldly [´kəuldli] ad.冷淡地 (初中英语单词)
• lightning [´laitniŋ] n.闪电 a.突然的 (初中英语单词)
• terror [´terə] n.恐怖；惊骇 (初中英语单词)
• shield [ʃi:ld] n.盾牌；防御 v.保护 (初中英语单词)
• beaten [´bi:tn] beat 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
• feeble [´fi:bəl] a.虚弱的，无力的 (初中英语单词)
• stricken [´strikən] strike的过去分词 (高中英语单词)
• shadowy [´ʃædəui] a.有阴影的；模糊的 (高中英语单词)
• fragrant [´freigrənt] a.芳香的，芬芳的 (高中英语单词)
• earthly [´ə:θli] a.地球的；世俗的 (高中英语单词)
• learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
• sapphire [´sæfaiə] n.蓝宝石 a.深蓝色的 (英语四级单词)
• vaguely [´veigli] ad.含糊地，暖昧地 (英语四级单词)
• ghostly [´gəustli] a.鬼的；朦胧的 (英语六级单词)
• faithless [´feiθləs] a.不忠的；虚假的 (英语六级单词)
• tremulous [´tremjuləs] a.发抖的；震颤的 (英语六级单词)