Blind buds that snows have shaken, Wild leaves that winds have taken, Red strays of ruined springs. We are not sure of sorrow, And joy was never sure; To-day will die to-morrow Time stoops to no man's lure; And love, grown faint and fretful With lips but half regretful Sighs, and with eyes forgetful Weeps that no loves endure. From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, Then star nor sun shall waken, Nor any sound or sight: Nor wintry leaves nor vernal, Nor days nor things diurnal; In an eternal night. LOVE AT SEA WE are in love's land to-day; Love, shall we start or stay, There's many a wind and way, Our landwind is the breath And joys that were: Our ballast is a rose; Our way lies where God knows And love knows where. 1866. We are in love's hand to-day Our seamen are fledged Loves, Our ropes are dead maids' hair, We are in love's land to-day Where shall we land you, sweet? The night shakes them round me in legions, Dawn drives them before her like dreams; Time sheds them like snows on strange regions, Swept shoreward on infinite streams; Leaves pallid and sombre and ruddy, Dead fruits of the fugitive years; Some stained as with wine and made bloody, And some as with tears. Some scattered in seven years' traces, As they fell from the boy that was then; Long left among idle green places, Or gathered but now among men ; On seas full of wonder and peril, Blown white round the capes of the north; Or in islands where myrtles are sterile O daughters of dreams and of stories Félise and Yolande and Juliette, Shall I find you not still, shall I miss you, When sleep, that is true or that seems, Comes back to me hopeless to kiss you, O daughters of dreams? They are past as a slumber that passes, When their hollows are full of the So the birds that flew singing to meward Recede out of sight. The songs of dead seasons, that wander Light flocks of untameable birds; The eldest are young. Is there shelter while life in them lingers, Is there hearing for songs that recede, Tunes touched from a harp with men's fingers, Or blown with boy's mouth in a reed? Is there place in the land of your labor, Is there room in your world of delight, Where change has not sorrow for neighbor And day has not night? In their wings though the sea-wind yet quivers, Will you spare not a space for them there Made green with the running of rivers In a land of clear colors and stories, HERTHA I AM that which began; I am equal and Whole; God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily; I am the soul. Before ever land was, Or soft hair of the grass, Or fair limbs of the tree, Or the flesh-colored fruit of my branches, I was, and thy soul was in me. First life on my sources First drifted and swam ; That save it or damn; Out of me man and woman, and wildbeast and bird; before God was, I am. Beside or above me Nought is there to go; Love or unlove me, Unknow me or know, I am that which unloves me and loves; I am stricken, and I am the blow. I the mark that is missed I the mouth that is kissed And the breath in the kiss, The search, and the sought, and the seeker, the soul and the body that is. I am that thing which blesses That which caresses With hands uncreate My limbs unbegotten that measure the length of the measure of fate. But what thing dost thou now, I am low, thou art high? I am thou, whom thou seekest to find him; find thou but thyself, thou art I. I the grain and the furrow, The germ and the sod, The deed and the doer, the seed and the sower, the dust which is God. Hast thou known how I fashioned thee, Child, underground? Fire that impassioned thee, Iron that bound, Dim changes of water, what thing of all these hast thou known of or found? Canst thou say in thine heart Thou wast wrought in what By what force of what stuff thou wast shapen, and shown on my breast to the skies? Who hath given, who hath sold it thee, Knowledge of me? Hath the wilderness told it thee? Hast thou learnt of the sea? Hast thou communed in spirit with night? have the winds taken counsel with thee? Have I set such a star To show light on thy brow That thou sawest from afar What I show to thee now? Have ye spoken as brethren together, the sun and the mountains and thou? What is here, dost thou know it? Nor tripod nor throne Nor spirit nor flesh can make answer, but only thy mother alone. Mother not maker, Born, and not made; Though her children forsake her, Praying prayers to the God of their fashion, she stirs not for all that have prayed. A creed is a rod, And a crown is of night; But this thing is God, To be man with thy might, To grow straight in the strength of thy spirit, and live out thy life as the light. I am in thee to save thee, As my soul in thee saith, Give thou as I gave thee, Thy life-blood and breath, |