Short Poems

You leaned against me,
Humming a slow song
Of purple shadows ...
Showers and javelins and shooting-stars
Fell through me where you leaned ...

Whose ghost was I?

Where you go I follow you,
Rather I run before,
And here I am when you return,
Waiting by your door ...
I am the dust upon your face,
The wind that worries you,
I am your beggar and your hound,
Your leaf of grass, your shoe.

I should not find the pain so hard to bear,
Of lying bound upon the world,
If only daily there were birds, like yours, Prometheus,
To tear from me
This unquenched heart.

I stood between you and the hills ...

Sorrowful hunter that I was,
The wings of your mouth ceased flying
Because I killed them with a kiss.

And the rest of your wings flew away
Into the sunset.

The look in your eyes
Was as soft as the underside of soap in a soap-dish ...

And I left before you could love me.

I must throw out my net for the silver sides
Of fish like the brows of Chinese brides
Or the round and red-eyed fish of woe
Slipped from the waves of the after-glow
Or for one small airy, watery flier
With a fin of cloud and a wing of fire! —
I must throw out my net — though I only bring in
Weeds and weazened terrapin ...

Dusk came over the hill to me,
Holding a red moon,
And I danced with her,
Feeling and following her starry steps,
Till she turned and gave the moon
To the swarthy night —
And slipped away without explaining.

Wouldst thou the kingliest head of old renown?
The desert cubs toy with his tumbled crown.

Wouldst thou the proudest fane of Greece or Rome?
Sand and the wild-beast foot are on its dome.

The sum and top of grandeur and of grace,
Mark them, — yon blots upon the great gray face.

Santa Catalina! to-morrow is thy day.
Thou wilt go up to heaven with a holy glee,
And old San Pedro, spying thee, will say:
" What woman is this who is calling me? "
" Catalina I, who by the martyrs' path have fared. "
" Little Dove, come in, come in! Thy dove-cot is prepared. "

God looked out through the casement of the dawn,
And all the earth was gladdened by His face,
The far wild hills, the smooth seigniorial lawn,
The prison-yard's enwalled, stone-paven space.