Short Poems

Wit hath wonder and kind ne can.
How maiden is mother and God is man.
Leave thy asking and believe that wonder,
For might hath mastery and skill goeth under.

The Beasts that be
In wood and waste,
Now sit and see,
Nor ride nor haste.

I must think now
Thou didst most falsely vow
O Maid! too much delayed!
It is the " long-moon Night, "
Yet see! how pale and white
Against the blue of morning she doth fade!
Thou comest not; — 'tis plain;
Alas! I love in vain.

And if your own and time alike betray you,
If all you hoped and wrought for does not come,
Why should that dismay you?
Why should creeping doubt benumb
The leaping pulses of your will?
Have patience and be strong.
Seems your waiting long?
One has waited longer, who is waiting still.

Rain brings release. You breathe tranquillity
With the damp odors of a peaceful earth.
The strain of crazed and crowded clouds is over,
The tense air sighs among the falling showers,
Sighs and relaxes, and the meadowlands
Are gentle with acceptance. There is time
For quiet occupations, quiet thoughts,
For books and sewing and old memories.

My soul has nought but fire and ice,
And my body earth and wood:
Pray we all the Most High King
Who is the Lord of our last doom,
That He should give us just one thing —
That we may do His will.

Written in prison

They placed him in a prison cell and put on him a prison suit.
God gave him Dreams, so it befell he rose from mire that clogs the brute.
They pigeon-holed and numbered him, but he kept faith and held a goal,
And stars and flowers in evening's dim conversed with his unfettered soul.

Many years ago she descended from the quiet shades of Paradise into our world, in a garland of fragrant roses, with a youthful smile, charming, naked, and proud of her innocent beauty. She brought with her unknown feelings, the harmony of heaven, and loyalty to dreams, — and her law was art for art's sake, and her command was to serve beauty.

The baffled dreamer, the defeated Christ
That for your love upon the cross-tree hung —
O take Him to your bosom, give Him rest
Close at the wanton wonder of your breast,
O carnal World, forever well and young!

Sweet songs, half whispering to me in the solitude
Of sweeter melody they might have sung,
And phantom flowers that scent for me the leafy wood
With wraiths of the perfume they might have flung.
Sweet faces smiling dimly through the shadowy light,
Ghosts of the full perfection that had shown,
Had not the sun gone down ere it was night,
Leaving but shadows of the unfulfilled, alone.