A Woman of Thirty Part 7

III

I will not kiss you, For my kisses are a chain without an end; Nor take you in my arms, My arms would smother you against my breast; I will not even touch your shining head-- But lift your eyes up, flower-face, And I will fill them as full of love As they can hold!

IV

Ah no! If you were here I would sweep you into my arms and hold you close!

Though my love is of the spirit I must feel your little restless body Pressed for a moment against my heart.

Summer Night

Rain, rain murmuring endless complaints In mournful whisperings that never cease, You bring my tired brain a certain peace Like Latin prayers to absent-minded saints.

And whether silently to earth you fall, Or dashed and driven in tempestuous flight Like souls before G.o.d's wrath, the thirsty night, The soft and fecund earth shall drink you all.

Maura

I

Maura dreams unwakened-- The warm winds touch the bands That hold her hair.

The call of a silver horn floats by, A lover tosses flowers into her hands.

Maura dreams unwakened-- She joins the maidens in their dance, Her limbs follow slow rhythms, A lover leads her into the shade, She moves as in a trance.

II

What dim confusion Troubles her dream, What pa.s.sionate caress Disturbs her spirit's rapt seclusion?

Earth draws her close. How warm Is lover-earth! Like a sleeping bird She gives herself, then suddenly She is a leaf whirled in the storm.

Somewhere in a quiet room, her soul unstirred, Dead... or sleeping, Through the blind tumult hears afar The note of a horn, like a silver thread.

She has given her soul to an echo's keeping.

III

Who knows the mountain where the hunter rides Winding his horn?

Maura who heard it in her dream Wakens forlorn, Too late to catch the tenuous thread Of silver sound Which in the troubled, intricate fugue of earth Is drowned.

IV

Maura cannot follow over the hill, Her youth is landlocked as a hidden pool Where thirsty love drinks deep, A shining pool, where lingers The colour of an unseen golden sky, A pool where echoes fall asleep.

But restless fingers Trouble the waters cool, s.n.a.t.c.h at reflected beauty, and destroy The mirrored dream. The pool is never still, And broken echoes die.

V

The silver call has gone, but there is left to her The gentleness of earth, The simple mysteries of sleep and death, Of love and birth.

There are faces hungry for smiles, and starving fingers Reaching for dreams.

And like a memory are the wind-swept chords of night, And the wide melody of evening sky Where gleams A colour like the echo of a horn.

There is a far hill where winds die, And over the hill lies music yet unborn.

VI

Maura lies dead at last, The body she gave to child and lover Now feeds flower and tree.

Earth's arms are wide to her. What breast Offers such gentle sleeping?

Her limbs lie peacefully.

From the dark West There comes a note like the echoing cry Of one who rides through the dusk alone After the hunt sweeps by.

It fades--the night wind is forlorn-- Music is still, But Maura has followed the silver horn Over the distant hill, Over the hill where all winds die.

November Dusk

Where like ghosts of verdant days Whispering down, Leaves in the November dusk Drift and drown,

Stand two lovers, motionless And apart In their st.u.r.dy nakedness Of the heart,

Two dark figures, side by side Through the mist Standing as though time had died Since they kissed,

Whose deep roots, alive and sound Blindly reach Mingling in the fertile ground Each with each--

Pray that we, when gaunt and old Like bare trees Through our common earth may hold Close, like these!

Winter Valley

I

Grey gra.s.ses drown in thin brown water Wound like a chain on the valley's Sunken breast.

Fallen leaves on the stream Float motionless--rest-- So secretly the pale Water winds around Toward hidden pools,

Or sinking in the earth Is drowned.

II

Curved crimson stems, Th.o.r.n.y fingers of vine, Reach toward the wind.

Sunlight, thin and cold, Touches them--they shine.

Nothing pa.s.ses for thorns to hold-- Red thorns, Catching at shadows of the wind.

III

Silence in the valley, Silence without wings--

Like the caught breath Of an unspoken word When no words come.