ACROSS THE YEARS

I shall leap into the shadows that are falling from the house,

From the old house standing on the cedar-wood hill, I shall frighten off the dusty-feathered, slumbering grouse,

And hurry to the tale forgot behind the window-sill.

'Ah, no!' sighs the house,
'My heart is still.

Oh let the wild birds nest

On the cedar-wood hill.'

I shall peer into the corners where the spiders weave
And listen to my heart and to footsteps dead,

I shall read the mute walls, I shall warily thieve
From the store of old words that were all but unsaid.

'Ah, no!' sighs the house,

'My heart is dead.

Oh let the ghost words rest

In their cedar-wood bed.'

I shall leap up to the door and I shall rattle at the knob
In an ecstasy of passion, in an ecstasy of fear,
And beating heart will tell the ear an old old sob
And feel across the dead years a day come near.

'Ah, no!' sighs the house,

'My heart is cold.

In a cedar-wood grave nest
Days long told.'

May 11, 1919.

TO JOSEPH CONRAD

(The Heart of Darkness')

A little tremulous, I follow you,

I will have joy of fear in jungle deeps.
Our torch is he that copper-sullen sweeps
Above the infinite-netted boughs that blue
Enmesh in tiny bits. A lone canoe

Dips by in omened flash. My still heart leaps
Like startled antelope from tropic sleeps,

And eyes are hounds. Was that a phantom flew,

Dead silent, through the trees?-And then you turn
And smile me into somnolence, and soul

Goes out sleep-walking by your side. Now swift
And swift our stride, we have a secret goal!
Now deep and deep in shadows' gloomy drift
Until I reach myself with eyes that burn.

October 19, 1919.

THE HOUSE OF MY BELOVED

In the house of my beloved
Is no dust or sordidness,
By the radiance of her body
Naught is shining lustreless.

My own eyes saw her put a hand
A moment sweetly on the wall,
I saw the flower-paper blaze
Into a glowing, magic hall.

I have not seen a stain or crease
Upon the smoothness of her room,
Her feet are carpeting a moss
And tiny flowers of fire-bloom.

This is a strange and lovely house,
This is a strange and eerie place,-
I've seen the very Devil's breath
Congeal to finest fairy lace.

February 8, 1920..

THE HALT OF SUMMER

When the early summer shadows skirt the hill
And darken out soft velvet carpetings,

Leaving the sun his field of gold that sings
The tunes of the rabble birds and endless, shrill
Palaver, when the lily stalk is still
Unflowered in the pool, but the lilac brings
The bees to drone about its clusterlings
Of heady purple, then I say, 'This will
Be ever so, there is no summer change!'
For I am all unmindful of the strange
And headlong overreaching of the day
To day, and cannot find the heart to say,
"There is a canker in this opulence,
An enemy to ripe magnificence.'

May 31, 1920.