Love will not stoop to drink of me.
His feet will turn to desert places

Shadowless, reft of rain and dew,
Where stars stare down with sharpened faces

From heavens pitilessly blue.
And there at midnight sick with faring,

He will stoop down in his desire
To slake the thirst grown past all bearing

In stagnant water keen as fire.
LONGING

I AM not sorry for my soul
That it must go unsatisfied,

For it can live a thousand times,
Eternity is deep and wide.

I am not sorry for my soul,
But oh, my body that must go

Back to a little drift of dust
Without the joy it longed to know.

PITY
THEY never saw my lover's face,

They only know our love was brief,
Wearing awhile a windy grace

And passing like an autumn leaf.
They wonder why I do not weep,

They think it strange that I can sing,
They say, "Her love was scarcely deep

Since it has left so slight a sting."
They never saw my love, nor knew

That in my heart's most secret place
I pity them as angels do

Men who have never seen God's face.
AFTER PARTING

OH I have sown my love so wide
That he will find it everywhere;

It will awake him in the night,
It will enfold him in the air.

I set my shadow in his sight
And I have winged it with desire,

That it may be a cloud by day
And in the night a shaft of fire.

ENOUGH
IT is enough for me by day

To walk the same bright earth with him;
Enough that over us by night

The same great roof of stars is dim.
I have no care to bind the wind

Or set a fetter on the sea--
It is enough to feel his love

Blow by like music over me.
ALCHEMY

I LIFT my heart as spring lifts up
A yellow daisy to the rain;

My heart will be a lovely cup
Altho' it holds but pain.

For I shall learn from flower and leaf
That color every drop they hold,

To change the lifeless wine of grief
To living gold.

FEBRUARY
THEY spoke of him I love

With cruel words and gay;
My lips kept silent guard

On all I could not say.
I heard, and down the street

The lonely trees in the square
Stood in the winter wind

Patient and bare.
I heard . . . oh voiceless trees

Under the wind, I knew
The eager terrible spring

Hidden in you.
MORNING

I WENT out on an April morning
All alone, for my heart was high,

I was a child of the shining meadow,
I was a sister of the sky.

There in the windy flood of morning
Longing lifted its weight from me,

Lost as a sob in the midst of cheering,
Swept as a sea-bird out to sea.

MAY NIGHT
THE spring is fresh and fearless

And every leaf is new,
The world is brimmed with moonlight,

The lilac brimmed with dew.
Here in the moving shadows

I catch my breath and sing--
My heart is fresh and fearless

And over-brimmed with spring.
DUSK IN JUNE

EVENING, and all the birds
In a chorus of shimmering sound

Are easing their hearts of joy
For miles around.

The air is blue and sweet,
The few first stars are white,--

Oh let me like the birds
Sing before night.

LOVE-FREE
I AM free of love as a bird flying south in the autumn,

Swift and intent, asking no joy from another,
Glad to forget all of the passion of April

Ere it was love-free.
I am free of love, and I listen to music lightly,

But if he returned, if he should look at me deeply,
I should awake, I should awake and remember

I am my lover's.
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.
RIVERS TO THE SEA

To-night what girl
When she goes home,

Dreamily before her mirror shakes from her hair
This year's blossoms, clinging in its coils ?

IN A SUBWAY STATION
AFTER a year I came again to the place;

The tireless lights and the reverberation,
The angry thunder of trains that burrow the ground,

The hunted, hurrying people were still the same--
But oh, another man beside me and not you!

Another voice and other eyes in mine!
And suddenly I turned and saw again

The gleaming curve of tracks, the bridge above--
They were burned deep into my heart before,

The night I watched them to avoid your eyes,
When you were saying, "Oh, look up at me!"

When you were saying, "Will you never love me?"
And when I answered with a lie. Oh then

You dropped your eyes. I felt your utter pain.
I would have died to say the truth to you.

* * * * * *
After a year I came again to the place--

The hunted hurrying people were still the same....
AFTER LOVE

THERE is no magic when we meet,
We speak as other people do,

You work no miracle for me
Nor I for you.

You were the wind and I the sea--
There is no splendor any more,

I have grown listless as the pool
Beside the shore.

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

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

DOORYARD ROSES
I HAVE come the selfsame path

To the selfsame door,
Years have left the roses there

Burning as before.
While I watch them in the wind

Quick the hot tears start--
Strange so frail a flame outlasts

Fire in the heart.
A PRAYER

UNTIL I lose my soul and lie
Blind to the beauty of the earth,

Deaf tho' a lyric wind goes by,
Dumb in a storm of mirth;

Until my heart is quenched at length
And I have left the land of men,

Oh let me love with all my strength
Careless if I am loved again.

II
INDIAN SUMMER

LYRIC night of the lingering Indian Summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,

Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
Ceaseless, insistent.

The grasshopper's horn, and far off, high in the maples
The wheel of a locustleisurely grinding the silence,

Under a moon waning and worn and broken,
Tired with summer.

Let me remember you, voices of little insects,
Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,

Let me remember you, soon will the winter be on us,
Snow-hushed and heartless.

RIVERS TO THE SEA
Over my soul murmur your mute benediction

While I gaze, oh fields that rest after harvest,
As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,

Lest they forget them.
THE SEA WIND

I AM a pool in a peaceful place,

• midnight [´midnait] n.午夜；漆黑 (初中英语单词)
• thirst [θə:st] n.渴，口渴；渴望 (初中英语单词)
• awhile [ə´wail] ad.少顷；片刻 (初中英语单词)
• winged [´wiŋd] a.有翼的 (初中英语单词)
• lonely [´ləunli] a.孤独的；无人烟的 (初中英语单词)
• breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
• chorus [´kɔ:rəs] n.合唱；齐声 v.合唱 (初中英语单词)
• intent [in´tent] a.专心致志的 n.意图 (初中英语单词)
• passion [´pæʃən] n.激情；激怒；恋爱 (初中英语单词)
• thunder [´θʌndə] n.雷 vi.打雷 vt.吼出 (初中英语单词)
• miracle [´mirəkl] n.奇迹；令人惊奇的 (初中英语单词)
• splendor [´splendə] n.壮丽 =splendour (初中英语单词)
• indian [´indiən] a.印度的 n.印度人 (初中英语单词)
• moonlight [´mu:nlait] n.&a.月光(的) (初中英语单词)
• peaceful [´pi:sfəl] a.和平的；平静的 (初中英语单词)
• fragrant [´freigrənt] a.芳香的，芬芳的 (高中英语单词)
• burrow [´bʌrəu] n.洞穴 v.(打)洞；查阅 (高中英语单词)
• saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
• fetter [´fetə] n.脚镣；束缚 (英语四级单词)
• lifeless [´laifləs] a.无生命的，无生气的 (英语四级单词)
• subway [´sʌbwei] n.地铁；地道 (英语四级单词)
• bridge [bridʒ] n.桥(梁)；鼻梁；桥牌 (英语四级单词)
• locust [´ləukəst] n.蝗虫 (英语四级单词)
• leisurely [´leʒəli] a.从容地，慢慢地 (英语四级单词)
• stagnant [´stægnənt] a.停滞的；萧条的 (英语六级单词)
• tremulous [´tremjuləs] a.发抖的；震颤的 (英语六级单词)
• tireless [´taiələs] a.不疲倦的；无轮胎的 (英语六级单词)
• selfsame [´selfseim] a.完全一样的，同一的 (英语六级单词)