Love-dazed, on rosy paths I sought thee far;
That was the spring, my gay and stormy prime.
Then I encountered thee with smiles and war;
Those were the manhood years of summer-time.
I thank thee for the joy thy presence gave;
'T is autumn, when our bed must be—the grave.

Oh, dark is the spirit that loves not the land
Whose breezes his brow have in infancy fann'd,
That feels not his bosom responsively thrill
To the voice of her forest, the gush of her rill.

Who hails not the flowers that bloom on his way,
As blessings there scattered his love to repay;
Who loves not to wander o'er mountain and vale,
Where echoes the voice of the loud rushing gale.

Who treads not with awe where his ancestors lie,
As their spirits around him are hovering nigh,
Who seeks not to cherish the flowers that bloom,

My mind is like an electric bulb
With a broken filament.
The tremulous fine threads of thought
Waver and waver and waver
And when they meet
There is a little fizzing flash,
And my soul is filled
With a sudden delicate green-blue light.

A MID a waste and solitary field,
Upon the twilight boundary of the day,
Upspake the timeless flintstone huge and gray:
“Why should my counsel be forever sealed?
To thee an ancient truth shall be revealed—
To thee, a wavering mortal, brief of stay:—
Something of kin,—thou piece of passioned clay,
Art thou and I, whom passion ne'er did wield;

For, lo! did not Deucalion at the flood
Behind him fling us stones—and men we grew?
With limbs we moved abroad, with lips we spake!
And hast not thou, with grief, seen flesh-and-blood

Wearily with tears of anguish
Prisoners aloud were crying,
In a dark and dismal prison
Suffering and sighing for their fate;
With words sorrowful their fetters
Now to loosen they are vying:
“Where art thou, O Virgin Mother,
For whom still in hope we wait?
The Lord of all the world awaken
To redeem our piteous state.”
As the Virgin knelt in prayer
The angel now came flying:
“Ave rosa gratiâ plena”
Greeting her predestinate.
“Release the hapless prisoners
Who for thee are ever sighing,
For thy Son's death to His Father

This was the work
of St. Sebolt, one
of his miracles:
he lit a fire with
icicles. He struck
them like a steel
to flint, did St.
Sebolt. It
makes sense
only at a certain
body heat. How
cold he had
to get to learn
that ice would
burn. How cold
he had to stay.
When he could
feel his feet
he had to
back away.











From Poetry Magazine, Vol. 185, no. 5, Feb. 2005. Used with permission.

When we had reached the gate I raised my eyes
And, kissing you good night, I laughed and said
I feared the stars might strike you from the skies,
Like crystal stones on your too happy head.

Spend yourself now!
Spring winds blowing
before cherries bloom.

What if some lover in a far-off Spring,
Down the long passage of a hundred years,
Should breathe his longing through the words I sing—
And close the book, dazed by a woman's tears?
Does it mean aught to you that such might be? …
Ah! we far-seekers! … Solely thus were proved
From dream to deed the souls of you and me:—
Thus only were it real that we had loved.
Grey ghosts blown down the desolate moors of time!
Poor wanderers, lost to any hope of rest!
Joined by the measure of a faltering rhyme!
Sundered by deep division of the breast!—

That was the proud woman, Naaman's wife,
Basking at noon under the Syrian fans,
While Naaman, the leprous mighty captain,
Proud glowing flesh now silver-skinned and tainted,
Walked in contagion here and there, apart.
His wife, the unblemished Naaman in her mind,
The man who, coming with the spoils and shouts,
Had made a hundred triumphs hers, when all
The Syrian women courted her for that,
Now saw in the pestilent limbs shame and reproach,
Some treachery that made her, who was mate
Of Syria's pride, bondwoman of a leper.