There was a bush with scarlet berries,And there were hemlocks heaped with snow,With a sound like surf on long sea-beachesThey took the wind and let it go. The hills were shining in their samite,Fold after fold they flowed away;“Let come what may,” your eyes were saying,“At least we two have had to-day.”

It was a night of early spring,The winter-sleep was scarcely broken;Around us shadows and the windListened for what was never spoken. Though half a score of years are gone,Spring comes as sharply now as then–But if we had it all to doIt would be done the same again. It was a spring that never came;But […]

I ~The Crystal Gazer~ I shall gather myself into myself again,I shall take my scattered selves and make them one,I shall fuse them into a polished crystal ballWhere I can see the moon and the flashing sun. I shall sit like a sibyl, hour after hour intent,Watching the future come and the present go–And the […]

Those who love the mostDo not talk of their love;Francesca, Guenevere,Dierdre, Iseult, HeloiseIn the fragrant gardens of heavenAre silent, or speak, if at all,Of fragile, inconsequent things. And a woman I used to knowWho loved one man from her youth,Against the strength of the fatesFighting in lonely pride,Never spoke of this thing,But hearing his name […]

Your heart is bound tightly, letBeauty beware;It is not hers to setFree from the snare. Tell her a bleeding handBound it and tied it;Tell her the knot will standThough she deride it. One who withheld so longAll that you yearned to take,Has made a snare too strongFor Beauty’s self to break.

Aloof as aged kings,Wearing like them the purple,The mountains ring the mesaCrowned with a dusky light;Many a time I watchedThat coming-on of darknessTill stars burned through the heavensIntolerably bright. It was not long I lived there,But I became a womanUnder those vehement stars,For it was there I heardFor the first time my spiritForging an iron […]

I listened, there was not a sound to hearIn the great rain of moonlight pouring down,The eucalyptus trees were carved in silver,And a light mist of silver lulled the town. I saw far off the gray Pacific bearingA broad white disk of flame,And on the garden-walk a snail beside meTracing in crystal the slow way […]