Poem Hunter: Poems - Poets - Poetry

No! 'twas the questing dream that first achieved her--
More sensed for knowing no material part,
More real that no false outward eye perceived her,
Too gross, but that pure eye within my heart.
Nor feigned I, as my spirit so embraced her,
These arms encumbered might; ah! could they too,
Would she not fade as vision e'er effaced her,
As loves in this weak flesh so often do?
In flesh she might escape me, might expire
In the vicissitudes through flesh that range;
But, being the shadow of my heart's desire,
She could not pass beyond me, could not change.
O paradox! Want food--you are richer fed!
Lack the coarse crumbs--you find diviner bread!
...

She plucked a blossom fair to see;
Upon my coat I let her pin it;
And thus we stood beneath the tree
A minute.

She turned her smiling face to me;
I saw a roguish sweetness in it;
I kissed her once;—it took, maybe,
A minute.


...

Upon a mount where wolves do mourn and cry
A tree stands high beneath heaven's sky
Its bulk hugs scars from Tide's unyielding pry
Each recites a tale of moon and stars gone dry

Below the men of thought, suppose, do think
For truth their quests on truth's wobbling ink
And saintly men in shapes of faith, do sink
In sea where holy beads of fat deems link


...

Since we through war awhile must part
Sweetheart, and learn to lose
Daily use
Of all that satisfied our heart:
Lay up those secrets and those powers
Wherewith you pleased and cherished me these two years:

Now we must draw, as plants would,
On tubers stored in a better season,
Our honey and heaven;
Only our love can store such food.
Is this to make a god of absence?
A new-born monster to steal our sustenance?

We cannot quite cast out lack and pain.
Let him remain-what he may devour
We can well spare:
He never can tap this, the true vein.
I have no words to tell you what you were,
But when you are sad, think, Heaven could give no more.
...

The winds that on the uplands softly lie,
Grow keener where the ice is lingering still
Where the first robin on the sheltered hill
Pipes blithely to the tune, "When Spring goes by!"
Hear him again, "Spring! Spring!" He seems to cry,
Haunting the fall of the flute-throated rill,
That keeps a gentle, constant, silver thrill,
While he is restless in his ecstasy.

Ah! the soft budding of the virginal woods,

...

I searched for hope in life's embrace,
But life gave struggles in its place.
As years pass by, my burdens grow,
With every step, the weight does show.

I try to smile, to chase the light,
Yet darkness lingers in my sight.
Yes, I'm twenty-one, still finding ground,
Lost in silence, yet dreams abound.


...

The Mother's heart, the hero's will,
The softest flowers' sweetest feel;

The charm and force that ever sway
The altar-fire's flaming play;

The strength that leads, in love obeys;
Far-reaching dreams, and patient ways,

Eternal faith in Self, in all,
The light Divine in great, in small;

All these and more than I could see,
Today may 'Mother' grant to thee!
...

It was not dying: everybody died.
It was not dying: we had died before
In the routine crashes-- and our fields
Called up the papers, wrote home to our folks,
And the rates rose, all because of us.
We died on the wrong page of the almanac,
Scattered on mountains fifty miles away;
Diving on haystacks, fighting with a friend,
We blazed up on the lines we never saw.
We died like aunts or pets or foreigners.

...

Upon the moor where shadows creep,
Beneath the moon's lamenting weep,
A voice drifts softly, lost in sighs,
A ghostly whisper, full of lies.

The trees bend low with sorrowed weight,
Their withered limbs resigned to fate,
While winds that echo sorrow's tune
Cry out beneath the haunted moon.


...