His books are all jammed in the closet.
With clasping arms and cautioning lips
the Crier's voice would tell me --
O love is the crooked thing.
What weight o' woe.
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
What did I know, what did I know?
But opportunity is real, and life is free.
Love strikes away the chains of fear.
It's the fire in my eyes.
That's what good for the soul,
and life is too much like a pathless wood.
Whose woods these are I think I know.
Through living roots awaken in my head.
(But near his ears, above his brains)
I don't want to go on being a root in the dark.
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
making the pathways neat.
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
that passes for thought.
And he likes having thought of it so well.
I am heir, and this my kingdom. Shall the royal voice be mute?
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled.
Slowly the sounds came back again.
A fearful trill of things unknown
occasionally breaks the silence,
which is the bliss of solitude.
I want it to confirm,
but the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
to shut the other's gaze down.
If unto me all tongues were granted
to never say nay,
for still I hoped to see the stranger's face.
Oh whence do you come, my dear friend, to me?
What makes thee startle
if you have seen all this and more.
White woman with numberless dreams,
dreaming of heroes.
Ever serene and fair,
seeker of truth,
your heart is luminous.
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths-for you the shores a-crowding.
You are violets with wind above them.
Red roses at her feet,
her voice was like the voice the stars
had when they sang together.
So shake the very Heaven on high,
lady at whose imperishable smile,
on whose forbidden ear,
with love in the loving cup.
Does it come as a surprise?
Come! vouchsafe to me what has yet been vouchsafed to noneβTell me the whole story,
"To save my lady!"
Ye bid me tell a story too,
and you may see me cry.
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
And mix her woe and tears with mine.
But that too, I am afraid,
is faulty: oh, what shall I say, how is the truth to be said?
For if it were where it is not,
to weep would do thy glory wrong.
And I watered it in fears,
and it gives me a scare,
like a heavy load.
All the world wondered:
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Here is the deepest secret nobody knows.
I speak the truth in soberness, and say,
βI want you to know
one thing.
In all the creeds there is hope and doubt, but of this there is no doubt:
I would dare to say,
you made me want to be a saint,
and that has made all the difference.β.
I wonder do you feel to-day,
somebody loves us all.
And one man in his time plays many parts,
and, in parting from you now,
I walk away into the night.
He shall write no more.
First attempt at a Cento.
