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All ghosts of little children dead
That wander wistful, uncaressed,
Their seeking lips by love unfed,
She fain would cradle on her breast
For his sweet sake whose lonely head
Has never known that tender rest.
And thus she sits, and thus she broods,
Where drifted blossoms freak the grass;
The winds that move across her moods
Pulse with low whispers as they pass,
And in their eerier interludes
She hears a voice that never was.
ACROSS THE NIGHT
MUCH listening through the silences,
Much staring through the night,
And lo! the dumb blind distances
Are bridged with speech and sight!
Magician Thought, informed of Love,
Hath fixed her on the air--
Oh, Love and I laughed down the fates
And clasped her, here as there!
Across the eerie silences
She came in headlong flight,
She stormed the serried distances,
She trampled space and night!
Oh, foolish scientists might give
This miracle a name--
But Love and I care but to know
That when we called she came.
And since I find the distances
Subservient to my thought,
And of the sentient silences
More vital speech have wrought,
Then she and I will mock Death's self,
For all his vaunted might--
There are no gulfs we dare not leap,
As she leapt through the night!
SEA CHANGES
I
MORNING
WE stood among the boats and nets;
We saw the swift clouds fall,
We watched the schooners scamper in
Before the sudden squall;--
The jolly squall strove lustily
To whelm the sheltered street--
The merry squall that piled the seas
About the patient headland's knees
And chased the fishing fleet.
She laughed; as if with wings her mirth
Arose and left the wingless earth
And all tame things behind;
Rose like a bird, wild with delight
Whose briny pinions flash in flight
Through storm and sun and wind.
Her laughter sought those skies because
Their mood and hers were one,
For she and I were drunk with love
And life and storm and sun!
And while she laughed, the Sun himself
Leapt laughing through the rain
And struck his harper hand along
The ringing coast; and that wind-song
Whose joy is mixed with pain
Forgot the undertone of grief
And joined the jocund strain,
And over every hidden reef
Whereon the waves broke merrily
Rose jets and sprays of melody
And leapt and laughed again.
II
MOONLIGHT
We stood among the boats and nets . . .
We marked the risen moon
Walk swaying o'er the trembling seas
As one sways in a swoon;
The little stars, the lonely stars,
Stole through the hollow sky,
And every sucking eddy where
The waves lapped wharf or rotten stair
Moaned like some stricken thing hid there
And strangled with its own despair
As the shuddering tide crept by.
I loved her, and I hated her--
Or did I hate myself because,
Bound by obscure, strong, silken laws,
I felt myself the worshiper
Of beauty never wholly mine?
With lures most apt to snare, entwine,
With bonds too subtle to define,
Her lighter nature mastered mine;
Herself half given, half withheld,
Her lesser spirit still compelled
Its tribute from my franker soul:
So--rebel, slave, and worshiper!--
I loved her and I hated her.
I gazed upon her, I, her thrall,
And musing, murmured, What if death
Were just the answer to it all?--
Suppose some dainty dagger quaffed
Her life in one deep eager draught?--
Suppose some amorous knife caressed
The lovely hollow of her breast?"--
She turned a mocking look to mine:
She read the thought within my eyne,
She held me with her look--and laughed!
Now who may tell what stirs, controls,
And shapes mad fancies into facts?
What trivial things may quicken souls
To irrevocable, swift acts?
Now who has known, who understood,
Wherefore some idle thing
May stab with deadlier sting
Than well-considered insult could?--
May spur the languor of a mood
And rouse a tiger in the blood?--
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