Luminous new leaf
May the sun rise gently
on your unfurling
in the courtyard always linger
the smell of earth after rain

the stone of these steps
stay cool and old

gods in the niches
old brass on the wall

never the shrill cry of kites











“For Rita's Daughter, Just Born” by Eunice de Souza, Copyright © by Eunice de Souza. Reproduced by permission of the author.

They are not dead! They are not dead!
Those soldiers true and brave;
The heroes who suffered, fought and bled,
Our country dear to save.

Their names are in the Book of Life
Their battles all are o'er;
All their heart-burnings, pains and strifes
Have ceased forevermore.

They all are living now above,
Tho' their ashes here may be;
And inspire us still with fervent love
For home and liberty.

They all are living, and they see,
(Tho' invisible are they)
Our country prosperous and free,
On this Memorial Day.

The crookëd tree creaked as its loaded bough dipped
And suddenly jerked up. The rope had slipped,
And hideously Judas fell, and all the grass
Was soused and reddened where he was,
And the tree creaked its mirth. . . .
Mid the hot sky
Appeared immediate dots tiny and high,
Till downward wound in batlike herds
Black, monstrous, gawky birds,
And, narrowing their rustling rings,
Alit, talons foremost. And with flat wings
Flapped in the branches, and glared, and croaked and croaked,
While no compassionate human came and cloaked

On a day in Maytime mild
Mary sat on a hill-top with her child.
(Overhead in the calm sky's arching
The curled white clouds went slowly marching. . . .
But underneath the blue abyss
All was stiller than water is
Leagues under the surface of the sea.)
And all about her thick and free
Blossomed the dear familiar flowers,
There, while her boy played through the hours,
And the high sun shook gold upon her,
Mary plaited a garland in his honour
Who should be the King of Kings;
And when 'tis done this song she sings,
As Jesus, tired and happy, rests

Three little children sitting on the sand,
All, all a-lonely,
Three little children sitting on the sand,
All, all a-lonely,
Down in the green wood shady--
There came an old woman, said, Come on with me,
All, all a-lonely.
There came an old woman, said, Come on with me,
All, all a-lonely,
Down in the green wood shady--
She stuck her pen-knife through their heart,
All, all a-lonely,
She stuck her pen-knife through their heart,
All, all a-lonely,
Down in the green wood shady.

I went up one pair of stairs
Just like me.
I went up two pairs of stairs
Just like me.
I went into a room
Just like me,
I looked out of a window
Just like me,
And there I saw a monkey

Not to the silent bitterness of tears
Do I commit, oh, false one! thy requiting;
My measured moments shall be paid by years
Of long avenging on thy faithless slighting.

I call upon the boon that Nature gave,
Ere my young spirit knew its own possessing;
And, from the fire that has consumed me, crave
The cold stern power that knows its own redressing.

Love was my element! e'en as the bird
Knows the soft air that swells around its pinion,
Sweet thoughts and eager ones my spirit stirred,
Whose only influence was the heart's dominion.

“I have a notion that the inmates of a house should never be changed. When the first occupants go out it should be burned, and a stone set up with ‘Sacred to the Memory of a Home’ on it. Suppose the body were eternal, and that when one spirit went out another took the lease. How frightful the strange expression of the eyes would be! I fancy sometimes that the look in the eyes of a familiar house changes when aliens have come into it. For certainly a dwelling adapts itself to its occupants. The front door of a hospitable man opens easily and looks broad, and you can read Welcome!

How little jades from earth when sink to rest
The hours and cares that moved a great man's breast!
Though naught of all we saw the grave may spare,
His life pervades the world's impregnate air;
Though Shakspere's dust beneath our footsteps lies,
His spirit breathes amid his native skies;
With meaning won from him for ever glows
Each air that England feels, and star it knows;
His whispered words from many a mother's voice
Can make her sleeping child in dreams rejoice,
And gleams from spheres he first conjoined to earth

The storms, which round Mount Mimuro
Are wont to howl and scream,
Have thickly scattered maple leaves
Upon Tatsuta's stream;
Like red brocade they seem.