Chapter I: Know

Oh! I know why the alder trees
Lean over the reflecting stream;
And I know what the wandering bees
Heard in the woods of dream.

I know how the uneasy tide
Answers the signal of the moon,
And why the morning-glories hide
Their eyes in the forenoon.

And I know all the wild delight
That quivers in the sea-bird’s wings,
For in one little hour last night
Love told me all these things.

_Elsa Barker_

REST

As a little child I come
To be gathered to your breast
So tired that my lips are dumb,
So sad that my warm heart is numb:
Belovèd, let me rest.

Oh, how all the noises die,
All the cruel voices cease,
I can sleep when you are by,
And I am too faint to cry:
Here at last is peace.

Hold me, nurse me, love me ... so ...
Almost I could learn to weep!
Hush, I feel my spirit grow ...
When you tire ... let me go ...
I shall be ... asleep.

_Irene Rutherford McLeod_

“IF THOU MUST LOVE ME, LET IT BE FOR NOUGHT”

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say,
“I love her for her smile, her look, her way
Of speaking gently, for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day”;
For these things in themselves, belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee: and love so wrought
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry:
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby.
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on through love’s eternity.

_Elizabeth Barrett Browning_

THE TIRED WOMAN

O my Lover, blind me,
Take your cords and bind me,
Then drive me through a silent land,
With the compelling of your open hand!

There is too much of sound, too much for sight,
In thunderous lightnings of this night,
There is too much of freedom for my feet,
Bruised by the stones of this disordered street.

I know that there is sweetest rest for me,
In silent fields, and in captivity.
O Lover! drive me through a stilly land,
With the compelling of your open hand.

_Anna Wickham_

“HOW DO I LOVE THEE?”

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

_Elizabeth Barrett Browning_

THE TAXI

When I go away from you
The world beats dead
Like a slackened drum.
I call out for you against the jutted stars
And shout into the ridges of the wind.
Streets coming fast,
One after the other,
Wedge you away from me,
And the lamps of the city prick my eyes
So that I can no longer see your face.
Why should I leave you,
To wound myself upon the sharp edges of the night?

_Amy Lowell_

“YOU SAY THERE IS NO LOVE”

You say there is no love, my love,
Unless it lasts for aye!
Oh, folly, there are interludes
Better than the play.

You say lest it endure, sweet love,
It is not love for aye?
Oh, blind! Eternity can be
All in one little day.

_Grace Fallow Norton_

DEBTS

My debt to you, Belovèd,
Is one I cannot pay
In any coin of any realm
On any reckoning day;

For where is he shall figure
The debt, when all is said,
To one who makes you dream again
When all the dreams were dead?

Or where is the appraiser
Who shall the claim compute
Of one who makes you sing again
When all the songs were mute?

_Jessie B. Rittenhouse_

A WOMAN’S QUESTION

Before I trust my fate to thee,
Or place my hand in thine,
Before I let thy future give
Color and form to mine,--
Before I peril all for thee, question thy soul to-night, for me.

I break all slighter bonds, nor feel
One shadow of regret:
Is there one link within the past
That holds thy spirit yet?
Or is thy faith as clear and free as that which I can pledge
to thee?...

Is there within thy heart a need
That mine cannot fulfill?
One chord that any other hand
Could better wake or still?
Speak now, lest at some future day, my whole life wither and decay....

Couldst thou withdraw thy hand one day,
And answer to my claim
That fate, and that to-day’s mistake,
Not thou, had been to blame?
Some soothe their conscience thus; but thou--oh, surely thou wilt
warn me now!

_Adelaide Anne Procter_

COMRADES

You need not say one word to me, as up the hill we go
(Night-time, white-time, all in the whispering snow);
You need not say one word to me, although the whispering trees
Seem strange and old as pagan priests in swaying mysteries.

You need not think one thought of me, as up the trail we go
(Hill-trail, still-trail, all in the hiding snow);
You need not think one thought of me, although a hare runs by,
And off behind the tumbled cairn we hear a red fox cry.

Oh, good and rare it is to feel, as through the night we go
(Wild-wise, child-wise, all in the secret snow),
That we are free of heart and foot as hare and fox are free,
And yet that I am glad of you, and you are glad of me!

_Fannie Stearns Davis_

IN DEEP PLACES

I love thee, dear, and knowing mine own heart
With every beat I give God thanks for this;
I love thee only for the self thou art;
No wild embrace, no wisdom-shaking kiss,
No passionate pleading of a heart laid bare,
No urgent cry of love’s extremity--
Strong traps to take the spirit unaware--
Not one of these I ever had of thee.
Neither of passion nor of pity wrought
Is this, the love to which at last I yield,
But shapen in the stillness of my thought
And by a birth of agony revealed.
Here is a thing to live while we do live
Which honors thee to take and me to give.

_Amelia Josephine Burr_

THAT DAY YOU CAME

Such special sweetness was about
That day God sent you here,
I knew the lavender was out,
And it was mid of year.

Their common way the great winds blew,
The ships sailed out to sea;
Yet ere that day was spent I knew
Mine own had come to me.

As after song some snatch of tune
Lurks still in grass or bough,
So, somewhat of the end o’ June
Lurks in each weather now.

The young year sets the buds astir,
The old year strips the trees;
But ever in my lavender
I hear the brawling bees.

_Lizette Woodworth Reese_

PARTING

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me.

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell;
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

_Emily Dickinson_

AN OLD SONG

And if I came not again
After certain days;
If no morning sun or rain
Met me on their ways;

If the meadows knew no more
How my feet go free,
And the folded hills forbore
Any speech of me;

If you did not find me here,
At the door at night,
And the cold hearth kept no cheer,
And the panes no light;--

Oh, if I came not again,
Would you miss me much?
Would your fingers once be fain
Of my wandering touch?

Would you dream me at your side
In the waking wood,
Where the old spring hungers hide
In blue solitude?

Would you wonder where I passed,
Into joy or pain?
Oh, to know you cared, at last,
Came I not again!

_Fannie Stearns Davis_

“I WILL NOT GIVE THEE ALL MY HEART”

I will not give thee all my heart
For that I need a place apart
To dream my dreams in, and I know
Few sheltered ways for dreams to go:
But when I shut the door upon
Some secret wonder--still, withdrawn--
Why dost thou love me even more,
And hold me closer than before?

When I of Love demand the least,
Thou biddest him to fire and feast:
When I am hungry and would eat,
There is no bread, though crusts were sweet.
If I with manna may be fed,
Shall I go all uncomforted?
Nay! Howsoever dear thou art,
I will not give thee all my heart.

_Grace Hazard Conkling_

GIFTS

You ask me what--since we must part--
You shall bring back to me.
Bring back a pure and faithful heart
As true as mine to thee.

You talk of gems from foreign lands,
Of treasure, spoil, and prize.
Ah love! I shall not search your hands
But look into your eyes.

_Juliana Horatia Ewing_

MENACE

I came into your room and spoke.
Sudden I knew you were not there.
The easy, common sentence broke
Against the unanswering air.

My heart shook like a frightened bird,
And to my ear the terror said,
Where nothing spoke and nothing stirred,--
_Dear God, if he were dead!_

I heard your footstep in the house,
Your voice brought comfort to my fear.
But, fluttering like a frightened mouse,
My heart beat at my ear.

The room wore its familiar face;
On the warm hearth spirted the flame.
Yet--menace of an empty place--
_Lord, if he never came!_

_Katharine Tynan_

LOVE SONG

I love my life, but not too well
To give it to thee like a flower,
So it may pleasure thee to dwell
Deep in its perfume but an hour.
I love my life, but not too well.

I love my life, but not too well
To sing it note by note away,
So to thy soul the song may tell
The beauty of the desolate day.
I love my life, but not too well.

I love my life, but not too well
To cast it like a cloak on thine,
Against the storms that sound and swell
Between thy lonely heart and mine.
I love my life, but not too well.

_Harriet Monroe_

POSSESSION

Walk into the world,
Go into the places of trade;
Go into the smiling country--
But go, clad, wrapped closely always,
Shielded and sustained,
In the visible flame of my love.

Let it blaze about you--
A glowing armor for all to see;
Flashing around your head--
A tender and valiant halo.

I think there will be many to wonder
And many to stand in awe and envy--
But surely no one will come too close to you.
No one will dare to claim you,--
Hand or heart,--
As you pass in your shining and terrible garment.

_Jean Starr Untermeyer_

“YET FOR ONE ROUNDED MOMENT”

Yet for one rounded moment I will be
No more to you than what my lips may give,
And in the circle of your kisses live
As in some island of a storm-blown sea,
Where the cold surges of infinity
Upon the outward reefs unheeded grieve,
And the loud murmur of our blood shall weave
Primeval silences round you and me.

If in that moment we are all we are,
We live enough. Let this for all requite.
Do I not know, some wingèd things from far
Are borne along illimitable night
To dance their lives out in a single flight
Between the moonrise and the setting star?

_Edith Wharton_

INSUFFICIENCY

I

There is no one beside thee, and no one above thee;
Thou standest alone, as the nightingale sings!
And my words that would praise thee are impotent things,
For none can express thee, though all should approve thee.
I love thee so, dear, that I only can love thee.

II

Say, what can I do for thee? Weary thee, grieve thee?
Lean on thy shoulder, new burdens to add?
Weep my tears over thee, making thee sad?
Oh, hold me not, love me not! let me retrieve thee.
I love thee so, dear, that I only can leave thee.

_Elizabeth Barrett Browning_

“I MUST NOT YIELD”

I must not yield ... but if he would not sing!
My stilling hands upon my breast can feel
Its answer tremble like a muted string.
Below the vaulted window where I kneel

He sings, he sings, to stars and listening skies.
A white and haunted place my garden seems.--
I see the pleading beauty of his eyes
As faces glimmer in a pool of dreams.

So wooing wind might sweep a harp awake.
(Oh, muting fingers on each quivering string!)
I must not yield ... I think my heart will break.
Mother of Heaven, if he would not sing!

_Nora May French_

“GO FROM ME”

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forbore,--
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom takes to part us leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes. And, when I sue
God for myself, he hears that name of thine,
And sees within my eyes the tears of two.

_Elizabeth Barrett Browning_

RENOUNCEMENT

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
I shun the thought that lurks in all delight--
The thought of thee--and in the blue Heaven’s height,
And in the sweetest passage of a song.

Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng
This breast, the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright;
But it must never, never come in sight;
I must stop short of thee the whole day long.

But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,

Must doff my will as raiment laid away,--
With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.

_Alice Meynell_

A FAREWELL

Good-bye!--no, do not grieve that it is over,
The perfect hour;
That the winged joy, sweet honey-loving rover,
Flits from the flower.

Grieve not--it is the law. Love will be flying--
Yes, love and all.
Glad was the living--blessed be the dying.
Let the leaves fall.

_Harriet Monroe_

LOVE’S CHANGE

I went to dig a grave for Love,
But the earth was so stiff and cold
That, though I strove through the bitter night,
I could not break the mould.

And I said: “Must he lie in my house in state,
And stay in his wonted place?
Must I have him with me another day,
With that awful change in his face?”

_Anne Reeve Aldrich_

WHEN PLAINTIVELY AND NEAR THE CRICKET SINGS

Now evening comes. Now stirs my discontent....
Oh, ache of smallest, unforgotten things!
How sharp you are when day and dark are blent,
When beetles hurry by with vibrant wings,
And plaintively and near the cricket sings.

The sighing garden calls me from the door;
Above the hills a little crescent swings--
Above the path where you will come no more
When beetles hurry by on vibrant wings,
And plaintively and near the cricket sings.

_Nora May French_

“COME BACK TO ME”

Come back to me, who wait and watch for you:--
Or come not yet, for it is over then,
And long it is before you come again,
So far between my pleasures are and few.
While, when you come not, what I do I do
Thinking, “Now when he comes,” my sweetest “when”:
For one man is my world of all the men
This wide world holds; O love, my world is you.
Howbeit, to meet you grows almost a pang
Because the pang of parting comes so soon;
My hope hangs waning, waxing, like a moon
Between the heavenly days on which we meet:
Ah me, but where are now the songs I sang
When life was sweet because you called them sweet?

_Christina Rossetti_

ASHES OF LIFE

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
Eat I must, and sleep I will,--and would that night were here!
But ah!--to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
Would that it were day again!--with twilight near!

Love has gone and left me and I don’t know what to do;
This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
But all the things that I begin I leave before I’m through,--
There’s little use in anything as far as I can see.

Love has gone and left me, and the neighbors knock and borrow,
And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse,--
And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
There’s this little street and this little house.

_Edna St. Vincent Millay_

THE CYNIC

I say it to comfort me over and over,
Having a querulous heart to beguile,
Never had woman a tenderer lover--
For a little while.

Oh, there never were eyes more eager to read her
In her saddest mood or her moments gay,
Oh, there never were hands more strong to lead her--
For a little way.

There never were loftier promises given
Of love that should guard her the ages through,
As great, enduring and steadfast as Heaven--
For a week or two.

Well, end as it does, I have had it, known it,
For this shall I turn me to weep or pray?
Nay, rather I laugh that I thought to own it
For more than a day.

_Theodosia Garrison_

SEA SONG

Against the planks of the cabin side
(So slight a thing between them and me),
The great waves thundered and throbbed and sighed,
The great green waves of the Indian Sea!

Your face was white as the foam is white,
Your hair was curled as the waves are curled,
I would we had steamed and reached that night
The sea’s last edge, the end of the world.

The wind blew in through the open port,
So freshly joyous and salt and free,
Your hair it lifted, your lips it sought,
And then swept back to the open sea.

The engines throbbed with their constant beat;
Your heart was nearer, and all I heard;
Your lips were salt, but I found them sweet,
While, acquiescent, you spoke no word.

So straight you lay in your narrow berth,
Rocked by the waves; and you seemed to be
Essence of all that is sweet on earth,
Of all that is sad and strange at sea.

And you were white as the foam is white,
Your hair was curled as the waves are curled.
Ah! had we but sailed and reached that night,
The sea’s last edge, the end of the world!

_Laurence Hope_

RISPETTO

I

What good is there, ah me, what good in Love?
Since, even if you love me, we must part;
And since for either, an’ you cared enough,
There’s but division and a broken heart?

And yet, God knows, to hear you say: My Dear!
I would lie down and stretch me on the bier.
And yet would I, to hear you say: My Own!
With mine own hands drag down the burial stone.

_A. Mary F. Robinson_

RISPETTO

II

Let us forget we loved each other much,
Let us forget we ever have to part,
Let us forget that any look or touch
Once let in either to the other’s heart.

Only we’ll sit upon the daisied grass
And hear the larks and see the swallows pass;
Only we’ll live awhile, as children play,
Without to-morrow, without yesterday.

_A. Mary F. Robinson_

RISPETTO

III

Ah, Love, I cannot die, I cannot go
Down in the dark and leave you all alone,
Ah, hold me fast, safe in the warmth I know,
And never shut me underneath a stone.

Dead in the grave! And I can never hear
If you are ill, or if you miss me, dear,
Dead, oh, my God! and you may need me yet,
While I shall sleep, while I--while I--forget!

_A. Mary F. Robinson_

“MANY IN AFTERTIMES WILL SAY”

Many in aftertimes will say of you,
“He loved her”--while of me what will they say?
Not that I loved you more than just in play,
For fashion’s sake as idle women do.
Even let them prate; who know not what we knew
Of love and parting in exceeding pain,
Of parting hopeless here to meet again,
Hopeless on earth, and heaven is out of view.
But by my heart of love laid bare to you,
My love that you can make not void nor vain,
Love that foregoes you but to claim anew
Beyond this passage of the gate of death,
I charge you at the Judgment make it plain
My love of you was life and not a breath.

_Christina Rossetti_

“WHEN WE SHALL BE DUST”

When we shall be dust in the churchyard--
In twenty years--in fifty years--
Who will remember you kissed me once,
Who will be grieved for our tears?

The locust tree will have grown taller,
The old walks will be covered with grass,
And past our quiet graves go straying
A youth with his arm round his lass.

And the bee that shall suck your grave flowers--
Anemone, stock, columbine,
May pause in his swift homing journey
To taste of the honey from mine.

_Muna Lee_