Rivers to the Sea Part 3

TO ONE AWAY

I HEARD a cry in the night, A thousand miles it came, Sharp as a flash of light, My name, my name!

It was your voice I heard, You waked and loved me so-- I send you back this word, I know, I know!

SONG

Love me with your whole heart Or give no love to me,

Half-love is a poor thing, Neither bond nor free.

You must love me gladly Soul and body too, Or else find a new love, And good-by to you.

DEEP IN THE NIGHT

DEEP in the night the cry of a swallow, Under the stars he flew, Keen as pain was his call to follow Over the world to you.

Love in my heart is a cry forever Lost as the swallow's flight, Seeking for you and never, never Stilled by the stars at night.

THE INDIA WHARF

HERE in the velvet stillness The wide sown fields fall to the faint horizon, Sleeping in starlight. . . .

A year ago we walked in the jangling city Together . . . . forgetful.

One by one we crossed the avenues, Rivers of light, roaring in tumult, And came to the narrow, knotted streets.

Thru the tense crowd We went aloof, ecstatic, walking in wonder, Unconscious of our motion.

Forever the foreign people with dark, deep-seeing eyes Pa.s.sed us and pa.s.sed.

Lights and foreign words and foreign faces, I forgot them all; I only felt alive, defiant of all death and sorrow, Sure and elated.

That was the gift you gave me. . . .

The streets grew still more tangled, And led at last to water black and glossy, Flecked here and there with lights, faint and far off.

There on a shabby building was a sign "The India Wharf " . . . and we turned back.

I always felt we could have taken s.h.i.+p And crossed the bright green seas To dreaming cities set on sacred streams And palaces Of ivory and scarlet.

I SHALL NOT CARE

WHEN I am dead and over me bright April Shakes out her rain-drenched hair, Tho' you should lean above me broken-hearted, I shall not care.

I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful When rain bends down the bough, And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted Than you are now.

DESERT POOLS

I LOVE too much; I am a river Surging with spring that seeks the sea, I am too generous a giver,

Love will not stoop to drink of me.

His feet will turn to desert places Shadowless, reft of rain and dew, Where stars stare down with sharpened faces From heavens pitilessly blue.

And there at midnight sick with faring, He will stoop down in his desire To slake the thirst grown past all bearing In stagnant water keen as fire.

LONGING

I AM not sorry for my soul That it must go unsatisfied, For it can live a thousand times, Eternity is deep and wide.

I am not sorry for my soul, But oh, my body that must go Back to a little drift of dust Without the joy it longed to know.

PITY

THEY never saw my lover's face, They only know our love was brief, Wearing awhile a windy grace And pa.s.sing like an autumn leaf.

They wonder why I do not weep, They think it strange that I can sing, They say, "Her love was scarcely deep Since it has left so slight a sting."

They never saw my love, nor knew That in my heart's most secret place I pity them as angels do

Men who have never seen G.o.d's face.

AFTER PARTING

OH I have sown my love so wide That he will find it everywhere; It will awake him in the night, It will enfold him in the air.

I set my shadow in his sight And I have winged it with desire, That it may be a cloud by day And in the night a shaft of fire.