life

Full well I trow that when I die
Down drops the curtain;
Another show is all my eye
And Betty Martin.
I know the score, and with a smile
Of rueful rating,
I reckon I am not worth while
Perpetuating.
II
I hope that God,--if God there be
Of love and glory,
Will let me off Eternity,
And end my story.
Will count me just a worn-out bit
Of human matter,
Who's done his job or bungled it,
--More like the latter.

199

I'm "wife"—I've finished that—
That other state—
I'm Czar—I'm "Woman" now—
It's safer so—

How odd the Girl's life looks
Behind this soft Eclipse—
I think that Earth feels so
To folks in Heaven—now—

This being comfort—then
That other kind—was pain—
But why compare?
I'm "Wife"! Stop there!

199

I'm "wife"—I've finished that—
That other state—
I'm Czar—I'm "Woman" now—
It's safer so—

How odd the Girl's life looks
Behind this soft Eclipse—
I think that Earth feels so
To folks in Heaven—now—

This being comfort—then
That other kind—was pain—
But why compare?
I'm "Wife"! Stop there!

44

If she had been the Mistletoe
And I had been the Rose—
How gay upon your table
My velvet life to close—
Since I am of the Druid,
And she is of the dew—
I'll deck Tradition's buttonhole—
And send the Rose to you.

The sky is cloudy, yellowed by the smoke.
For view there are the houses opposite
Cutting the sky with one long line of wall
Like solid fog: far as the eye can stretch
Monotony of surface & of form
Without a break to hang a guess upon.
No bird can make a shadow as it flies,
For all is shadow, as in ways o'erhung
By thickest canvass, where the golden rays
Are clothed in hemp. No figure lingering
Pauses to feed the hunger of the eye
Or rest a little on the lap of life.

From your life's blood to coin a trenchant word--
The past, the present and the future's ken
To hold--and weave it to a ringing chord
That sounds within the changing hearts of men.

At twenty-five I cast my horoscope,
   And saw a future with all good things rife --
   A firm assurance of eternal life
In worlds beyond, and in this world the hope
Of deathless fame. But now my sun doth slope
   To setting, and the toil of sordid strife,
   The care of food and raiment, child and wife,
Have dimmed and narrowed all my spirit's scope.

Eternal life -- a river gulphed in sands!
   Undying fame -- a rainbow lost in clouds!
   What hope of immortality remains

In Sleeping Beauty's castle
the clock strikes one hundred years
and the girl in the tower returns to the world.
So do the servants in the kitchen,
who don't even rub their eyes.
The cook's right hand, lifted
an exact century ago,
completes its downward arc
to the kitchen boy's left ear;
the boy's tensed vocal cords
finally let go
the trapped, enduring whimper,
and the fly, arrested mid-plunge
above the strawberry pie
fulfills its abiding mission
and dives into the sweet, red glaze.

I saw the Death, and she was seating
By quiet entrance at my own home,
I saw the doors were opened in my tomb,
And there, and there my hope was a-flitting
I'll die, and traces of my past
In days of future will be never sighted,
Look of my eyes will never be delighted
By dear look, in my existence last.

Farewell the somber world, where, precipice above,
My gloomy road was a-streaming,
Where life for me was never cheering,
Where I was loving, having not to love!
The dazzling heavens' azure curtain,

When first I doffed my olive drab,
I thought, delightfully though mutely,
"Henceforth I shall have pleasure ab-
Solutely."

Dull with the drudgery of war,
Sick of the name of fighting,
I yearned, I thought, for something more
Exciting.

The rainbow be my guide, quoth I;
My suit shall be a brave and proud one
Gay-hued my socks; and oh, my tie
A loud one.

For me the theater and the dance;
Primrose the path I would be wending;
For me the roses of romance
Unending.