Short Poems

— — To forme a Plott,
The blustring Bard whose rough unruly Rhyme
Gives Plutarch's lives the lye in ev'ry Lyne
Who rapture before nature does preferr
And now himself turn'd his own Imager
Defaceth god's in ev'ry Character

Thine is the solitude that rare flowers know,
Whose beauty holds the charm of secrecy.
Of all the flowers that in the garden grow,
None other has thy sweet supremacy.
For thine's the oldest secret in the world:
How to be loved, and still to keep apart —
Flower full blown, and bud not yet unfurled —
Gold-fortuned I, whose very breath thou art!

I wonder —
as I see them pass unheeded down the way,
(The women who were once beloved, imperious and gay)
Holding with frail, pale hands the cup
Of Life's discarded wine
If memories
Are bliss enough
To make the dregs — divine!

Give me those people who will shout,
Sometimes, and wave their arms about;
Folk who will swear, and laugh, and cry,
Nor shape their conduct to another's eye:
How I've grown sick of the Polite
Whose only care is how to do things right!

I am a woman
Which means
I am insufficient
I need —
Something to hold me
Or perhaps uphold.

Forever and forevermore,
Across the heights, the deeps,
Spurred by an ever-flaming zeal
That slumbers not, nor sleeps —
We chase the furtive form of fame
Beyond the edge of dusk,
To bear within our arms at length,
An empty mocking, husk!

The woes of flesh are naught
To one who knows
The agony of soul!
'Twere but the thud of wind and rain
Upon the roof.
The woes of flesh are naught
To one who knows!

The infant eyes look out amazed upon the frowning earth,
A stranger, in a land now strange, child of the mantled-birth;

Waxing, he wonders more and more; the scowling grows apace;
A world, behind its barring doors, reviles his ebon face:

Yet from this maelstrom issues forth a God-like entity,
That loves a world all loveless, and smiles on Calvary!

Into the garden of sorrow,
Some day we all must roam,
If not to-day, then to-morrow,
Bow 'neath its purple dome,
Out from the musk-laden banqueting halls,
Doffing our mirth-spangled vestments like thralls,
Softly we wend to Gethsemane,
In the hour that sorrow calls!

I HAVE no fear. What is in store for me
Shall find me ready for it, undismayed.
God grant my only cowardice may be
Afraid — to be afraid!