Colors of Life Part 2

You make no answer. You have stolen away Deliberately in that twilight sorrow Where the dark flame that is your being shines So well. Mysterious and deeply tender In your motion you have softly left me, And the little path along the house is still.

And I, a child forsaken of its mother, I, a pilgrim leaning for a friend, Grow faint, and tell myself in terror that My love reborn and burning shall yet bring you-- More than friend and slender-bodied mother-- O sweet-pa.s.sioned spirit, shining home!

OUT OF A DARK NIGHT

Death is more tranquil than the life of love, More calm, more sure, and more unanguished.

O the path among the trees is far more tranquil to the dead Than to these anxious hearts, uptroubled from their beds, Who pace in pallid darkness on the leaves, For no good reason--for no reason But because their limbs will not lie still upon the sheet.

Their limbs will not lie still. O how I pity them.

Sad hearts--their marrow is a-quiver, And they can not lie them down in tranquil sadness like the dead.

A MORNING

Again this morning the bold autumn, Spreading through the woods her sacred fire, Brings the rich color of your presence Warmly luminous to my desire--

Brings to my heart the dear wild worship, High and wayward as the windy air, And to my pulse the hot sweet pa.s.sion Burning crimson like a poison there.

ANNIVERSARY

The flowers we planted in the tender spring, And through the summer watched their blossoming, Died with our love in autumn's thoughtful weather, Died and dropped downward altogether.

Today in April in the vivid gra.s.s They flash again their laughter, pink and yellow, They wake before the frosty sunbeams pa.s.s, Gay bold to leave their chilly pillow.

But love sleeps longer in his wintry bed, He sleeps as though the lifting light were dead, And spring poured not her colors on the meadow, He sleeps in his cold sober shadow.

AUTUMN LIGHT

So bright and soft is the sweet air of morning, And so tenderly the light descends, And blesses with its gentle-falling fingers All the leaves unto the valley's ends--

It brings them all to being when it touches With its paleness every glowing vein; The wild and flaming hollows of the forest Kindle all their crimson in its rain;

And every curve receives its share of morning, Every little shadow softly grows, And motion finds a melody more tender That like a phantom through the branches goes--

So bright and soft and tranquil-rendering, And quiet in its giving, as though love, The morning dream of life, were born of longing, And really poured its being from above.

A MODERN MESSIAH

Scarred with sensuality and pain And weary labor in a mind not hard Enough to think, a heart too always tender, Sits the Christ of failure with his lovers.

They are wiser than his parables, But he more potent, for he has the gift Of hopelessness, and want of faith, and love.

IN A RED CROSS HOSPITAL

Today I saw a face--it was a beak, That peered, with pale round yellow vapid eyes, Above the b.l.o.o.d.y muck that had been lips And teeth and chin. A plodding doctor poured Some water through a rubber down a hole He made in that black bag of h.o.r.n.y blood.

The beak revived, it smiled--as chickens smile.

The doctor hopes he'll find the man a tongue To tell with, what he used to be.

A VISIT

You came with your small tapering flame of pa.s.sion Thinly burning like a nun's desire, Your eyes in slim and half-expectant fashion Faintly painting what your veins require With little pallid pyramids of fire.

So very small and unfulfilled you sat, Building a little talk to keep you there, Your face and body pointed like a cat, Your legs not reaching down from any chair, Your thoughts not really reaching anywhere;

So dumb and tiny--yet Love guessed your mood, And pressed his phial in its fervent bed, And poured his thrilling philtre in my blood, And all his l.u.s.tre on your body shed, And hot enamel on the words you said;

Your littleness became a monstrous thing, A rank retort, a hot and waiting vat, Your eyes green-copper like a snake in spring, And l.u.s.ty-bold your laying off your hat, And fell your purpose like a hungry cat;

The dark fell on us through our narrowed eyes, The heat lashed up around us from the floor, Encrimsoning the lips of our surprise To sway like music, and like burning pour Across the truth that parted us before.

TO LOVE

Love, often your delicate fingers beckon, And always I follow.

Oh, if I could stay, and possess your beauty Beckoning always!

CAR-WINDOW