Flame and Shadow [9]
girls
Pluck flowers after rain.
And when they are ours in the end
Perhaps after all
The skies will not open for us
Nor heaven be there at our call.
"It Will Not Change"
It will not change now
After so many years;
Life has not broken it
With parting or tears;
Death will not alter it,
It will live on
In all my songs for you
When I am gone.
Change
Remember me as I was then;
Turn from me now, but always see
The laughing shadowy girl who stood
At midnight by the flowering tree,
With eyes that love had made as bright
As the trembling stars of the summer night.
Turn from me now, but always hear
The muted laughter in the dew
Of that one year of youth we had,
The only youth we ever knew --
Turn from me now, or you will see
What other years have done to me.
Water Lilies
If you have forgotten water lilies floating
On a dark lake among mountains in the afternoon shade,
If you have forgotten their wet, sleepy fragrance,
Then you can return and not be afraid.
But if you remember, then turn away forever
To the plains and the prairies where pools are far apart,
There you will not come at dusk on closing water lilies,
And the shadow of mountains will not fall on your heart.
"Did You Never Know?"
Did you never know, long ago, how much you loved me --
That your love would never lessen and never go?
You were young then, proud and fresh-hearted,
You were too young to know.
Fate is a wind, and red leaves fly before it
Far apart, far away in the gusty time of year --
Seldom we meet now, but when I hear you speaking,
I know your secret, my dear, my dear.
The Treasure
When they see my songs
They will sigh and say,
"Poor soul, wistful soul,
Lonely night and day."
They will never know
All your love for me
Surer than the spring,
Stronger than the sea;
Hidden out of sight
Like a miser's gold
In forsaken fields
Where the wind is cold.
The Storm
I thought of you when I was wakened
By a wind that made me glad and afraid
Of the rushing, pouring sound of the sea
That the great trees made.
One thought in my mind went over and over
While the darkness shook and the leaves were thinned --
I thought it was you who had come to find me,
You were the wind.
Songs For Myself
XII
The Tree
Oh to be free of myself,
With nothing left to remember,
To have my heart as bare
As a tree in December;
Resting, as a tree rests
After its leaves are gone,
Waiting no more for a rain at night
Nor for the red at dawn;
But still, oh so still
While the winds come and go,
With no more fear of the hard frost
Or the bright burden of snow;
And heedless, heedless
If anyone pass and see
On the white page of the sky
Its thin black tracery.
At Midnight
Now at last I have come to see what life is,
Nothing is ever ended, everything only begun,
And the brave victories that seem so splendid
Are never really won.
Even love that I built my spirit's house for,
Comes like a brooding and a baffled guest,
And music and men's praise and even laughter
Are not so good as rest.
Song Making
My heart cried like a beaten child
Ceaselessly all night long;
I had to take my own cries
And thread them into a song.
One was a cry at black midnight
And one when the first cock crew --
My heart was like a beaten child,
But no one ever knew.
Life, you have put me in your debt
And I must serve you long --
But oh, the debt is terrible
That must be paid in song.
Alone
I am alone, in spite of love,
In spite of all I take and give --
In spite of all your tenderness,
Sometimes I am not glad to live.
I am alone, as though I stood
On the highest peak of the tired gray world,
About me only swirling snow,
Above me, endless space unfurled;
With earth hidden and heaven hidden,
And only my own spirit's pride
To keep me from the peace of those
Who are not lonely, having died.
Pluck flowers after rain.
And when they are ours in the end
Perhaps after all
The skies will not open for us
Nor heaven be there at our call.
"It Will Not Change"
It will not change now
After so many years;
Life has not broken it
With parting or tears;
Death will not alter it,
It will live on
In all my songs for you
When I am gone.
Change
Remember me as I was then;
Turn from me now, but always see
The laughing shadowy girl who stood
At midnight by the flowering tree,
With eyes that love had made as bright
As the trembling stars of the summer night.
Turn from me now, but always hear
The muted laughter in the dew
Of that one year of youth we had,
The only youth we ever knew --
Turn from me now, or you will see
What other years have done to me.
Water Lilies
If you have forgotten water lilies floating
On a dark lake among mountains in the afternoon shade,
If you have forgotten their wet, sleepy fragrance,
Then you can return and not be afraid.
But if you remember, then turn away forever
To the plains and the prairies where pools are far apart,
There you will not come at dusk on closing water lilies,
And the shadow of mountains will not fall on your heart.
"Did You Never Know?"
Did you never know, long ago, how much you loved me --
That your love would never lessen and never go?
You were young then, proud and fresh-hearted,
You were too young to know.
Fate is a wind, and red leaves fly before it
Far apart, far away in the gusty time of year --
Seldom we meet now, but when I hear you speaking,
I know your secret, my dear, my dear.
The Treasure
When they see my songs
They will sigh and say,
"Poor soul, wistful soul,
Lonely night and day."
They will never know
All your love for me
Surer than the spring,
Stronger than the sea;
Hidden out of sight
Like a miser's gold
In forsaken fields
Where the wind is cold.
The Storm
I thought of you when I was wakened
By a wind that made me glad and afraid
Of the rushing, pouring sound of the sea
That the great trees made.
One thought in my mind went over and over
While the darkness shook and the leaves were thinned --
I thought it was you who had come to find me,
You were the wind.
Songs For Myself
XII
The Tree
Oh to be free of myself,
With nothing left to remember,
To have my heart as bare
As a tree in December;
Resting, as a tree rests
After its leaves are gone,
Waiting no more for a rain at night
Nor for the red at dawn;
But still, oh so still
While the winds come and go,
With no more fear of the hard frost
Or the bright burden of snow;
And heedless, heedless
If anyone pass and see
On the white page of the sky
Its thin black tracery.
At Midnight
Now at last I have come to see what life is,
Nothing is ever ended, everything only begun,
And the brave victories that seem so splendid
Are never really won.
Even love that I built my spirit's house for,
Comes like a brooding and a baffled guest,
And music and men's praise and even laughter
Are not so good as rest.
Song Making
My heart cried like a beaten child
Ceaselessly all night long;
I had to take my own cries
And thread them into a song.
One was a cry at black midnight
And one when the first cock crew --
My heart was like a beaten child,
But no one ever knew.
Life, you have put me in your debt
And I must serve you long --
But oh, the debt is terrible
That must be paid in song.
Alone
I am alone, in spite of love,
In spite of all I take and give --
In spite of all your tenderness,
Sometimes I am not glad to live.
I am alone, as though I stood
On the highest peak of the tired gray world,
About me only swirling snow,
Above me, endless space unfurled;
With earth hidden and heaven hidden,
And only my own spirit's pride
To keep me from the peace of those
Who are not lonely, having died.