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Title: A Woman of Thirty

Author: Marjorie Allen Seiffert

Release date: October 1, 2003 [eBook #4556]

Most recently updated: December 28, 2020

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Catherine Daly

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A WOMAN OF THIRTY ***

Produced by Catherine Daly

A WOMAN OF THIRTY

Marjorie Allen Seiffert

New York

1919

To O.H.S.

CONTENTS

I. The Old Woman

A Morality Play

II. Love Poems in Summer

Singalese Love Songs I-V

The Silent Pool

Nocturne

Theme Arranged for Organ I-III

The Moonlight Sonata

Possession

Evening: the Taj Mahal

The Gift

The Bridge

A Temple I-VII

Candles

Winter Night

Last Days I-V

Sorrow

Prison

The Dream House

III. Studies and Designs

Design for a Japanese Vase

The Bow Moon (A Print by Hirosage)

An Italian Chest

The Pedlar

Portrait of a Lady in Bed I-V

Portrait of a Gentleman

From the Madison Street Police Station

La Felice

The Journey

The Last Illusion

The Desert

The Picnic

IV. Interlude

Mountain Trails I-VII

October Morning

October Afternoon

Maternity

The Father Speaks

To Allen

To Helen

The Immortal

To an Absent Child I-IV

Summer Night

Maura I-VI

November Dusk

Winter Valley I-IV

V. Love Poems in Autumn

Ballad

The Pathway of Black Leaves I-IV

Elegy

Sequence I-X

Disillusion

November Afternoon

Yareth at Solomon's Tomb

Argolis

St. Faith's Eve

Poems of Elijah Hay

The Golden Stag

To Anne Knish

Lolita

Spectrum of Mrs. Q

Epitaph

A Sixpence

Three Spectra

Two Commentaries

A Womanly Woman

Lolita Now is Old

The Shining Bird

The King Sends Three Cats to Guinevere

Ode in the New Mode

Night

I. The Old Woman

(A Morality Play)

The Old Woman

(A Morality Play)

Characters:

The Woman

The House

The Doctor

The Deacon

The Landlady

Doctor:

There is an old woman

Who ought to die—

Deacon:

And nobody knows

But what she's dead—

Doctor:

The air will be cleaner

When she's gone—

Deacon:

But we dare not bury her

Till she's dead—

Landlady:

Come, young doctor

From the first floor front,

Come, dusty deacon,

From the fourth floor back,

You take her heels

And I'll take her head—

Doctor and Deacon:

We'll carry her

And bury her

If she's dead!

House:

They roll her up

In her old, red quilt,

They carry her down

At a horizontal tilt,

She doesn't say "Yes"

And she doesn't say "No,"

She doesn't say, "Gentlemen,

Where do we go?"

Doctor:

Out in the lot

Where ash-cans die,

There, old woman,

There shall you lie!

Deacon:

Let's hurry away

And never look behind

To see if her eyes

Are dead and blind,

To see if the quilt

Lies over her face—

Perhaps she'll groan

Or move in her place!

House:

The room is empty

Where the old woman lay,

And I no longer

Smell like a tomb—

Landlady:

Doctor, deacon,

Can you say

Who'll pay rent

For the old woman's room?

* * * * * * *

House:

The room is empty

Down the hall,

There are mice in the closet,

Ghosts in the wall—

A pretty little lady

Comes to see—

Woman:

Oh, what a dark room,

Not for me!

Landlady:

The room is large

And the rent is low,

There's a deacon above

And a doctor below—

Deacon:

When the little mice squeak

I shall pray—

Doctor:

I'll psycho-analyse

The ghosts away—

Landlady:

The bed is large

And the mattress deep,

Wrapped in a feather-bed

You shall sleep—

Woman:

But here's the door

Without a key!

An unlocked room

Won't do for me!

Doctor:

Here's a bolt—

Deacon:

And here's a bar—

Landlady:

You'll sleep soundly

Where you are!

Woman:

Good night, gentlemen,

It's growing late,

Good night, landlady,

Pray don't wait!

I'm going to bed,

I'll bolt the door

And sleep more soundly

Than ever before!

Deacon:

Good night, madam,

I'll steal away—

Doctor:

Glad a pretty lady

Has come to stay!

House:

She lights a candle—

What do I see!

That cloak looks like

A quilt to me!

She climbs into bed

Where long she's lain,

She's come back home,

She won't leave again.

She's found once more

Her rightful place,

Same old lady

With a pretty new face.

Let the deacon pray

And the doctor talk,

The mice will squeak

And the ghosts will walk.

There's a crafty smile

On the landlady's face,

The old woman's gone,

But she's filled her place!

Landlady:

It's nothing to me

If the old woman's dead,

There's somebody sleeping

In every bed!

II. Love Poems in Summer

Singalese Love Songs

I

Your eyes are beautiful beggars,

Careless singing minstrels,

Who will not starve

Nor sleep cold under the sky

If they receive no largess

Of mine.

Once lived a woman

Of great charity—

At last

Her own children

Begged for bread.

II

I would make you love me

That you might possess

Desire—

For to your heart

Beauty is a burned-out torch,

And Faith, a blind pigeon,

Friendship, a curious Persian myth,

And Love, blank emptiness,

Bearing no significance

Nor any reality.

Only Weariness is yours:

I would make you love me

That you might possess

Desire.

III

Is my love

Of flesh or spirit?

I only know to me

Your eyes are wholly you.

Our glances dart

Like the flash of a bird

Gone, before the colour of his wing

Is seen.

I have not bathed my soul

In your eyes,

My soul would drown.

IV

I have starved to know your lips

Yet my soul

Does not die of want.

For only dreams are real,

And fulfilment is an illusion,

There is but one fulfilment,

Blind Nature's way—

My arms reach toward illusion,

And I would carry mist against my heart,

Not the warm, heavy head

Of a sleeping child.

Starving, I hold my dream.

V

What do you seek,

Beloved?

When you have had

All of me

There will remain for you

One beautiful desire the less.

You think you seek my love

But you seek

My denial.

Hunger, Want,

Is the only pain

I would not spare you—

Alas, that too

Will die!

The Silent Pool

Your smile is a heron, flying

Over waters cool,

My thoughts of you are blue Iris!

Today is the silent pool

Which shining heron and Iris blue

Are mirrored on.

Tomorrow

Will still reflect the Iris—

My thoughts of you;

But the heron will be gone.

Nocturne

It is enough

To feel your beauty

With the lingers

Of my heart,

Your beauty, like the starlight,

Filling night so gently, that it dreams

Unwakened.

I should feel your beauty against my face

Though I were blind.

Theme Arranged for Organ

I. PRELUDE

What would you have of me, my friend, in truth,

A breath of understanding, or a glance

Into your soul's dark places? Can a word

Aid in your brave attempt to smother youth?

Of what avail that trifling circumstance,

In such a tumult could my voice be heard?

Before your bitter need my lips are dumb

So little can I give you. Should I come

To feed a starving Titan with a crumb?

II. INTERLUDE

Alas, I am too foolish or too wise,

Too soon am blinded or I see too far!

How can I follow with expectant feet,

What is the beacon light that holds your eyes,

Can this blind alley lead to any star

And through this dark confusion, what retreat?

For heaven is awed when comets crash to earth,

But we, who grope and question our soul's worth,

Stumbling, awaken only bitter mirth.

III. POSTLUDE

A breath, a glance, a word,—no more, my friend,

This is the sum of what I have to give

Leaving the tale for ever incomplete.

No perfect moment, and no tragic end,

Within your heart those images shall live

And die like footsteps down an empty street.

Yet all the while a stifled instinct saith:

"Spend your souls vigour to the utmost breath

And let the hounds come baying at the death!"

The Moonlight Sonata

My soul storm-beaten as an ancient pier

Stands forth into the sea; wave on slow wave

Of shining music, luminous and grave,

Lifting against me, pouring through me, here

Find wafts of unforgotten chords, which rise

And droop like clinging sea-weed. You, so white,

So still, so helpless on this fathomless night

Float like a corpse with living, tortured eyes.

Deep waves wash you against me; you impart

No comfort to my spirit, give no sign

Your inarticulate lips can taste the brine

Drowning the secret timbers of my heart.

Possession

I hold you fast, your hurrying breath,

Your wandering feet, your restless heart,

Are mine alone, for only death

You vowed today, can make us part.

Your eager lips, athirst to drain

Life's goblet of its golden wine

Shall drink tonight or thirst in vain—

I hold you fast for you are mine.

And when I search your soul until

I see too deeply and divine

That you can never love me—Still

I hold you fast for you are mine!

Evening: the Taj Mahal

(A Lover Speaks)

Beloved!…

India and you

Breathe through my soul tonight,

You in your gown, impossibly white—

I marvel greatly that it fail

To glow and pale

With iridescent light—

How can it hang in silent nun-like folds?

Think of the flaming mystery it holds,

You… You…

We stand in that wide place

Where love is frozen in marble, spire on spire,

A snow-white nightingale with a heart of fire

Soaring in space.

We gaze, together, into the shining pool

To catch the soul of beauty unaware

Finding only the peaceful body there

Of beauty drowned and still in waters cool.

Burning so luminously in these pure white things

Somehow akin, are palpitating fires,

Intangible, yet visible as spires

Or wings.

And close at hand, an unseen Moslem sings

Blind, haunting chants, which speak

Of mystery, forevermore unguessed.

O shining ones, I seek

No farther, for my soul, content,

Divines the secret of the Taj Mahal and you—

Beauty and desire, possessed

In white tranquillity, in flaming peace,

Find rest.

The Gift

What is this wine you have poured for me?

You have offered up

Your face in its pure transparency

Like a crystal cup

Which trembling fingers slowly lift—

It is faintly masked

With a tremulous smile. You have brought me a gift,

Your love, unasked.

Could you trust my reckless hands so much?

With no vow spoken,

You gave me a goblet, which at a touch

Were utterly broken!

Your smile replied: "Since the glass was filled

It little mattered

Whether the wine were drunk or spilled

Or the goblet shattered."

The Bridge

I walk the bridge of hours from dawn till night

My heart beating so loud in joyous wonder

To know your love, that I can scarcely breathe;

But in the lonely darkness, with affright

I faintly hear, like ominous, distant thunder

The unseen ocean surging close beneath.

Our bridge so frail, eternity so vast!

When we must sink into the deep at last

Heart of my heart, will you still hold me fast?

A Temple

I. DOORWAY

Carven angels

On the portals,

Angels with crowns, and eagles

And golden lions

On the door.

This is why

The alien worshippers went their way,

Why you alone discovered

The gates were open.

You touched the velvet curtains behind them,

They parted to let you pass.

II. WINDOW

I make a window

Of you, beloved,

Through which the sun colours

The silence.

Even your absences

Are spaces I have filled

With sapphire;

Your denials

Are burning gold,

I have painted your reluctance

Emerald green:

Your silences

Are crimson

On which your words make delicate

Black tracery.

As for me,

My will is the grey lead

Which I have bent to hold the coloured

Panes of you.

III. SPIRE

My wish goes singing upward

Holding a chime of bells

In its heart:

Pigeons know my silent bells,

Winds touch them and wonder.

That they might reach

That high blue—

Till star fingers touch them

Ever so gently—

And drifting clouds

Lay cool cheeks against them—

My wish goes singing upward

Reaching into silence.

IV. PRIEDIEU

Beauty passes

But dust is eternal.

Outside the temple

Beauty dies in the wind.

So when my temple is fallen

And lies in dust,

Where then will be the memory

Of your beauty?

I pray my dust

That it may hold your image

Tomorrow and for ever.

V. FESTIVAL

The beloved is returning,

Let the bells ring!

I too am a tower

Hung with bronze bells,

I too am a bell

Chiming to the winds,

I too am the wind

Ringing to the hills,

I too am the hills

Singing to the sky.

I too am the sky!

The beloved is returning,

Let the bells ring!

VI. DUSK

There is no soul too poor to build a temple

Where it may go apart

And worship darkness.

For out of darkness

Images shine… and fade…

Since now there is no worship nor any music,

Let incense be a curved smile

On lips that remember,

And candles, notes of laughter

In empty dusk.

Above,

A coloured window slowly turns

Black to the night.

VII. RUINS

Temples have fallen

Before today,

Stones are ever loosening their hold

One on another…

You blocks of marble, sleeping in the sun,

Can you remember chiming bells

And incense?

Now there is only silence,

Even the winged stones of archways

Sleep in peace.

Candles

Silence is but the golden frame

That holds your face,

My thoughts, like unblown candle-flame

In a holy place

Surround you. From this secret shrine

Somewhere apart

Do you not feel my candles shine

Upon your heart?

Winter Night

The I that does not love you

I have kept hidden away

In the dark.

(I never dreamed

There was a You

That does not love me!)

Tonight they met.

I hear their words

Falling like icicles

Upon me…

I am frozen in terror…

Have they killed the You

That Loves me?

Beloved, can you hear me

Through the bitter sound

Of icicles falling?

Can you see me from behind

Your frozen eyes?

Last Days

I

Shall I pretend

These days are just like other days?

One cannot spend

Every day for seven weeks

Saying good-bye.

So when I must

I speak of your departure casually

As though it were a hundred years away;

As Youth is wont to say:

"Sometime we all must die!"

II

We talk of all the happy things we have done,

We pass them in review,

"Do you remember?" is often on our lips.

One by one

We touch our memories and put them all away—

How shall I dare to look at them

When you are gone!

III

There is no beginning to my love

Nor any end—

It is about your head

Like the deep air,

More than your breath can spend.

Oft is about your heart

Like arms of faith—

Where you go, it is there.

IV

There are no last things to say,

What promise can I make?

You know my love so well.

All that I have is yours to take.

(How will it be, with part of me away,

Must not my soul be changed?)

Shall I stay young for memory's sake?

Shall I be old and grave and grey?

If I might choose, how could I tell!

V

The You I know

I shall not see again,

A stranger will return.

How shall I win the love

Which he has kept apart

With a blurred image which once was I?

I shall not know his heart,

How can I learn?

Sorrow

Sorrow stands in a wide place,

Blind—blind—

Beauty and joy are petals blown

Across her granite face,

They cannot find

Sight or sentience in stone.

Yesterday's beauty and joy lie deep

In sorrow's heart, asleep.

Prison

I close the book—the story has grown dim,

The plot confused; the hero fades

Behind unmeaning words, and over him

The covers close like window shades

On empty windows. The watchful room

Is weary. Dully the green lamp stares

Into the shadows. The coals are dumb,

The clock ticks heavily. The chairs

Wait sullenly for guests who never come.

Suppose I leave this house, suppose my feet

Plodding into the night

Carry me down the empty street

Made hideous with arcs of purple light…

Inevitably I must return to bed.

The house is waiting, chairs, and books, and clocks.

I am their prisoner. I have no more chance

Of escape, when all is said,

Than a dying beetle in a box—

And life, and love,—and death—have gone to France.

The Dream House

I steal across the sodden floor

And dead leaves blow about,

Where once we planned an iron door

To shut the whole world out;

I find the hearth, its fires unlit,

Its ashes cold—Tonight

Only the stars give warmth to it,

Only the moon gives light.

And yonder on our spacious bed

Fashioned for love and sleep

The Autumn goldenrod lies dead,

The maple-leaves lie deep.

III. Studies and Designs

A Japanese Vase

(A Design to be Wrought in Metals)

Five harsh, black birds in shining bronze come crying

Into a silver sky,

Piercing and jubilant is the shape of their flying,

Their beaks are pointed with delight,

Curved sharply with desire,

The passionate direction of their flight,

Clear and high,

Stretches their bodies taut like humming wire.

The cold wind blows into angry patterns the jet-bright

Feathers of their wings,

Their claws curl loosely, safely, about nothingness,

They clasp no things.

Direction and desire they possess

By which in sharp, unswerving flight they hold

Across an iron sea to the golden beach

Whereon lies carrion, their feast. A shore of gold

That birds wrought on a vase can never reach.

The Bow Moon

(A print by Hiroshige)

From the dawn, Take San,

Ungathered star,

Follow me back through night

Till I recapture

Evening.

(The bending hours of darkness

Sway apart like lilies

Before the backward-blowing wind.)

At last,

Bearing in her mysterious bosom

Unravished beauty,

Dark Yesterday rises to view against her silent sky

Irrevocable… secret…

Confronting the fantastic dream

Of an impossible Tomorrow.

And that frail bridge,

Delicate, immutable,

Which rises higher than the moon,

More everlasting than the fading sky,

Joining What-was-not with What-might-have-been,

That bridge were named "Today"

If I had loved you, Take San,

If you had loved me.

An Italian Chest

(Lorenzo Designs a Bas-Relief)

Lust is the oldest lion of them all

And he shall have first place,

With a malignant growl, satirical,

To curve in foliations prodigal

Round and around his face,

Extending till the echoes interlace

With Pride and Prudence, two cranes, gaunt and tall.

Four lesser lions crouch and malign the cranes,

Cursing and gossiping they shake their manes

While from their long tongues leak

Drops of thin venom as they speak.

The cranes, unmoved, peck grapes and grains

From a huge cornucopia, which rains

A plenteous meal from its antique

Interior (a note quite curiously Greek).

And nine long serpents twist

And twine, twist and twine,

A riotously beautiful design

Whose elements consist

Of eloquent spirals, fair and fine,

Embracing cranes and lions, who exist

Seemingly free, yet tangled in that living vine.

And in this chest shall be

Two cubic meters of space

Enough to hold all memory

Of you and me—

And this shall be the place

Where silence shall embrace

Our bodies, and obliterate the trace

Our souls made on the purity

Of night…

Now lock the chest, for we

Are dead, and lose the key!

The Pedlar

Hark, people, to the cry

Of this curious young magician-pedlar

Seeking a golden bowl!

He wanders through the city

Offering useful tin-ware

For all the ancient metal

You have left to rust

In the dim, dusty attic

Or mouldy cellar

Of your soul.

He refuses nothing—

Rusty nails

Which may have played their part

In a crucifixion—

For ten of these he will give

A new tin spoon.

The andirons

Once guarding hearth-fires of content,

Now dusty and forgotten

In an obscure corner,

He will give for these

A new tin tea-kettle

With a wooden handle.

And for this antique bowl

Fashioned to hold

Roses or wine?

The eyes of the pedlar glisten!

O woman, if acid reveal

Gold beneath the tarnished surface

He will gladly give you

His hands, his eyes, his soul,

His young, white body—

If not,

A mocking laugh

And a bright tin sieve

To hold your wine

And roses.

Portrait of a Lady in Bed

I. THE COVERLET

My cowardice

Covers me safely

From everything…

From cold, which makes me yield

And quietly die

Beneath the snow;

From heat, which makes me faint

Until cool nothingness receives me;

From hurt, (Seize me, O Lion,

And I shall die of fright

Before I feel your teeth!)

From love,

Yes, most of all from love.

How can love touch me?

Is it not heat,

Or cold,

Or a lion?

My cowardice covers me

Safely

From everything!

II. THE PILLOW

To know you think of me

Sustains my Spirit

Through the long night.

(My thought of you

Is wine, banishing sleep!)

Your thoughts of me are feathers,

Light nothings,

Drifting, dancing,

Floating,

Blown by a breath of fancy

Away from your sight.

They would choke me,

They would blind me

With the Nothing I am to you

If I dared see them;

But I bind them into a pillow,

And to know that you think of me

Sustains my spirit

Through the night.

III. SOUVENIR

Harlequin, seeing me gay

You loved me,

For fools need mirth,

O solemn Harlequin!

Tall tragedians make me laugh

Joyously, riotously,

Tall, dark villains, and heroes with blonde hair

Make me laugh uproariously…

(I could elope with a tragedian!)

But you with your clowning, Harlequin,

Brought bony truth too near—

Harlequin, I might have loved you

But I could not make you gay!

IV. THE CURTAIN

I do not fear

You, or me, or death,

There now is nothing left to fear

But this,

This curtain of blackness.

Once I feared you,

And all you thought and felt

And all you said and did:

I feared myself,

And all you made me think and feel

And say and do—

Now I no longer fear

Thinking, feeling, saying, doing,

Nor blankness, silence, apathy, torpor—

I do not fear

You, or me, or death—

I only fear

This curtain of blackness

Which is your absence.

V. THE DREAM

Harlequin comes to me, smiling,

Through the white-shining birch trees

Of the twilight wood.

He has forgiven

My cowardice and hesitations,

Soon I shall sink into his arms

With all the imagined fervour…

Of a thousand dreams.

Why does he come so slowly?

There is no longer anything

To mar our meeting…

This must be real

For Harlequin is still clowning,

He waves his arms grotesquely

To make me smile….

Quick, into his arms

With unspent fervour.

Why are the trees all sighing?

Look, whispering birches, if you will,

I and my love embrace!

They do not look,

They do not seem to care…

Embrace me, my beloved!

(Can these by passionate kisses?

They feel so thin and cool

Like mist.)

The birches shiver

As though the night-wind stirred them.

Can we be dead?

Portrait of a Gentleman

Tower of stone

Rugged and lonely,

My thoughts like ivy

Embrace my memory of you,

Climbing riotously, wantonly,

Till the harsh walls

Are clothed in tender green.

Tower of stone,

Stark walls and a narrow door

Which speak:

"You who are not for me

Are against me,—

If you are mine,

Enter!"

But who would be prisoned

In unknown darkness?

Tower of stone

Rugged and lonely,

I dared not enter and I would not go

Till clasping you

My arms were bruised and torn.

From the Madison Street Police Station

I, John Shepherd, vagrant,

Petition the park commissioners

For wider benches.

My soul has long been reconciled

To the prick of gunny-sack,

(O well-remembered woollen fleeces!)

And rustling vests of newspaper,

And the chill of rubbers on unshod feet,

But to the wasteful burning of dry leaves,

God's shepherd's mattress,

Never!

Descendant of ancient ones

Who tended flocks and watched the midnight sky,

My forebears saw the Eastern star appear

Over Judean hills.

Where do your flocks graze, gentlemen?

Are there no sheep or shepherds any more?

All day long I sought the flocks

And came by night to a wide, grassy place,

Where I could sit and watch the stars wheel by—

And in the morning some one brought me here.

La Felice

La Felice, by the forest pond looks through leaves to the Western screen of Chinese gold that lies beyond black trees and boughs of golden-green.

The little body of La Felice

weary of everything on earth

has passed from love to love, till peace

and beauty alone have any worth.

So still and deep the water lies,

so fiery-cool, so yellow-clear;

Here beauty sleeps! La Felice cries,

I will give myself to beauty here!"

The mud is smooth and deep, the weeds

beneath her feet are soft and cool,

ripples widen and glistening beads

of bubble rise on the forest pool.

The water reaches to her knee,

now to her thigh, now to her breast,

till like a child all peacefully

does La Felice lie down to rest.

She struggles like a fearful bride

with ecstasy—then La Felice

turns quietly upon her side

and over the sunset pool is peace.

The Journey

Three women walked through the snow

Beneath an empty sky,

And one was blind, and one was old,

And one was I.

Bravely the Blind One led,

I questioned from behind

"Tell me, where do we go?" She said

"Have courage… I am blind!"

We came at last to a cliff,

The Blind One plunged, and was gone—

I looked behind me, stark and stiff

The Old One stood in the dawn.

The deep crevasse was black

Beneath the dawning day,

I could not turn and travel back,

The Old One barred the way.

I could not turn aside,

(To lead, one dare not see)

I think that day I must have died

Such silence is in me.

The Last Illusion

Along the twilight road I met three women,

And they were neither old nor very young;

In her hands each bore what she most cherished,

For they were neither rich, nor very poor.

In the hands of the first woman

I saw white ashes in an urn,

In the hands of the next woman

I saw a tarnished mirror gleam,

In the hands of the last woman

I saw a heavy, jagged stone—

Along the twilight road I met three women,

And they were neither fools nor very wise,

For each was troubled lest another covet

Her precious burden—so they walked alone.

The Desert

Through dusty years, and drearily,

Two lovers rode across a desert hill

While patient love followed them wearily

Through the long, sultry day…

But when night came, the desert had its way,

Turning, they found love cold and still.

It lay so pitiful a thing,

Threadbare, and soiled, and worn—

"Why have we kept such starveling love?" she cried,

"Was it worth treasuring?"

And he replied:

"Bury it then! I shall not mourn!"

The wind came from the West,

It seemed to blow

Across a million graves to the sordid bier

Where lay their love. She said: "We will bury it here!"

They laid it low,

They rode on, dispossessed.

And all around

Rose silent hills against the darkening sky,

Wave upon motionless wave.

The night wind made a mournful sound.

The woman turned: "It is lonely here!

I am afraid!" she said.

He made reply:

"What is there left to lose or save?

What is there left to fear?

Our hearts are empty. Have we not buried our dead?"

She said, "I fear the empty dark, be kind!"

He said, "I am still here, be comforted!"

Then from its shallow grave

Their love rose up and followed close behind.

The Picnic

Here they come, in pairs, carrying baskets,

Pale clerks with brilliant neckties, and cheap serge suits,

Steering girls by the arm, clerks, too,

Pretty and slim and smart,

Even to yellow kid boots, laced up behind.

They take the electric cars far into the country,

They descend, gaily chattering, at the Amusement Park.

Under the trees they eat the lunch they have carried—

Salad, sausages, sandwiches, candy, warm beer.

They ride in the roller-coaster, two in a seat,

(Glorious danger! Warm, delicious proximity!)

The unaccustomed beer floods their veins like heady wine,

And smothered youth awakens with shrill screams of joy.

The sun sets, and evening is drowned in electric lights;

Arm-in-arm, they wander under the trees

Everywhere meeting others, wandering arm-in-arm

In the same wistful wonder, seeking they know not what.

Two leave the park and the crowds—The stars shine out,

A river runs at their feet, behind them, a leafy copse,

Away on the other shore, the fields of grain

Lie sleeping peacefully in the starlight.

Tonight the world is theirs, a legacy

From those who lived familiar friends with river, field and forest—

Their forebears.

Through the night, the same earth-magic moves them

Which swayed those ancient ones, long-dead—

And these, too, lean and drink,

Drink deeply from the river, the flowing river of life.

Slowly they return to the crowds and the brilliant lights,

Dazzled, they look aside, silently climb on the cars.

They cling to the swaying straps, weary, inert, confused.

The lurching ear makes halt—they are thrown in each others' arms—

Alien and unmoved, they sway apart again—

The car moves through the fields and suburbs back to the town.

They leave the car in pairs, the picnic basket's

Rattling dismally, plate and spoon and jar.

The boy takes his girl to her lodgings in awkward silence.

They look askance—"Good-night!"—the front door closes,

Indeed their eyes have not met, since by the river

Those wondrous moments

Linked them to earth and night, not to each other.

IV. INTERLUDE

Mountain Trails

(GLACIER PARK, SEPT. '17)

I

Night stands in the valley

Her head

Is bound with stars,

While Dawn, a grey-eyed nun

Steals through the silent trees.

Behind the mountains

Morning shouts and sings

And dances upward.

II

The peaks even today show finger prints

Where God last touched the earth

Before he set it joyously in space

Finding it good.

III

You, slender shining—

You, downward leaping—

Born from silent snow

To drown at last in the blue silent

Mountain lake—

You are not snow or water,

You are only a silver spirit

Singing!

IV

Sharp crags of granite,

Pointing, threatening,

Thrust fiercely up at me;

And near the edge, their menace

Would whirl me down.

V

Climbing desperately toward the heights

I glance in terror behind me

To be deafened—to be shattered—

By a thunderbolt of beauty.

VI

The mountains hold communion;

They are priests, silent and austere,

They have come together

In a secret place

With unbowed heads.

VII

This hidden lake

Is a sapphire cup—

An offering clearer than wine,

Colder than tears.

The mountains hold it toward the sky

In silence.

October Morning

October is brown

In field and row—

Yet goldenrod

And goldenglow,

Purple asters

And ruddy oaks,

Sumach spreading

Crimson cloaks,

Apples red

And pumpkins gold—?

Perhaps it's gayer

To be old!

October Afternoon

The air is warm and winey-sweet,

Over my head the oak-leaves shine

Like rich Madeira, glossy brown,

Or garnet red, like old Port wine.

Wild grapes are ripening on the hill,

Dead leaves curl thickly at my feet,

Yet not one falls, it is so still.

Crickets are singing in the sun,

And aimlessly grasshoppers leap

From discontent to discontent,

Their days of leaping nearly done.

There's a rich quietness of earth

That holds no promise any more,

And like a cup, Today is filled

With the last wine the year shall pour.

Maternity

Sturdy is earth,

Dull and mighty,

Unresentful—

Of her own fertility

Covering scars

With healing green.

You cannot anger earth,

You cannot cause her pain

Nor make her remember

Your hungry, querulous love.

At last your unwilling body

She tranquilly receives

And turns it to her uses.

The Father Speaks

My little son, when you were born

There died a being, sweet and wild,

A lovely, careless, radiant child,

A passionate woman—her I mourn.

And in her place has come another,

With troubled smile and brooding eyes,

Insatiate of sacrifice

And wholly, utterly your mother.

To Allen

Beauty, the dream that I have dreamed so much

Comes true in your quick smile,

And on your cheek I see her touch

And sometimes in your eyes a while

Immortal beauty's fleeting image lies.

Dear child, in whose veins beat

The marching centuries of lovers' feet,

All those brave, ardent ghosts in you arise—

The souls who, loving beauty, gave you birth,

With a chain of passion binding beauty to earth,

A captured dream—these souls breathe with your breath

Living again in beauty that knows no death.

To Helen

Lie still in my arms, little four-years-old,

Little bud that glows

With more beauty and passion than it can hold,

Little flaming rose,

The spring's red blossoms, when winter lies deep

On a wind-swept world

Of tossing branches, lie safely asleep

In brown buds curled.

They wake—and the wind strips their petals away

And spills them afar—

Can I keep you from blooming, whatever I say,

Wild bud that you are!

The Immortal

Child of a love denied, a dream unborn,

Spirit more brave

Than passion's unfulfilment, wiser than fate—

Nor breast nor grave

As cradle you have known,—

I mourn

That my soul knows its own

Too late!

A soul's half-breath,

Passion's unremembered dream,

Perfume without a vase,

Intangible you seem

To life or death.

And when the coloured mantle of the days

Slips from my shoulders, and I lie

Forgetful, dumb,

Mingled with earth in passionless embrace,

Will you, forgotten as a bird,

Singing unheard

In space,

Will you not come

When every other dream is gone,

Bringing to that silent place

The shadow of a gesture flung

By motionless hands, a floating echo hung

From an unspoken word,

And to the empty sky

The sunset of a day which did not dawn

And cannot die!

To an Absent Child

I

At first in dreams

I pressed you so close

That you melted away on my breast,

But now I wait, breathless and motionless,

Till I feel your slender arms caress me

Like swallows blown against me

And quickly flown.

II

Small flower,

My body is the earth from which you sprang,

But we are more to each other than earth and flower,

Closer, even, than earth and flower,

For the sky in me is one with the sky in you…

My love for you

Is like sunlight shining in a quiet place,

You shall feel my love like soft light

Pouring about you.

III

I will not kiss you,

For my kisses are a chain without an end;

Nor take you in my arms,

My arms would smother you against my breast;

I will not even touch your shining head—

But lift your eyes up, flower-face,

And I will fill them as full of love

As they can hold!

IV

Ah no! If you were here

I would sweep you into my arms and hold you close!

Though my love is of the spirit

I must feel your little restless body

Pressed for a moment against my heart.

Summer Night

Rain, rain murmuring endless complaints

In mournful whisperings that never cease,

You bring my tired brain a certain peace

Like Latin prayers to absent-minded saints.

And whether silently to earth you fall,

Or dashed and driven in tempestuous flight

Like souls before God's wrath, the thirsty night,

The soft and fecund earth shall drink you all.

Maura

I

Maura dreams unwakened—

The warm winds touch the bands

That hold her hair.

The call of a silver horn floats by,

A lover tosses flowers into her hands.

Maura dreams unwakened—

She joins the maidens in their dance,

Her limbs follow slow rhythms,

A lover leads her into the shade,

She moves as in a trance.

II

What dim confusion

Troubles her dream,

What passionate caress

Disturbs her spirit's rapt seclusion?

Earth draws her close. How warm

Is lover-earth! Like a sleeping bird

She gives herself, then suddenly

She is a leaf whirled in the storm.

Somewhere in a quiet room, her soul unstirred,

Dead… or sleeping,

Through the blind tumult hears afar

The note of a horn, like a silver thread.

She has given her soul to an echo's keeping.

III

Who knows the mountain where the hunter rides

Winding his horn?

Maura who heard it in her dream

Wakens forlorn,

Too late to catch the tenuous thread

Of silver sound

Which in the troubled, intricate fugue of earth

Is drowned.

IV

Maura cannot follow over the hill,

Her youth is landlocked as a hidden pool

Where thirsty love drinks deep,

A shining pool, where lingers

The colour of an unseen golden sky,

A pool where echoes fall asleep.

But restless fingers

Trouble the waters cool,

Snatch at reflected beauty, and destroy

The mirrored dream. The pool is never still,

And broken echoes die.

V

The silver call has gone, but there is left to her

The gentleness of earth,

The simple mysteries of sleep and death,

Of love and birth.

There are faces hungry for smiles, and starving fingers

Reaching for dreams.

And like a memory are the wind-swept chords of night,

And the wide melody of evening sky

Where gleams

A colour like the echo of a horn.

There is a far hill where winds die,

And over the hill lies music yet unborn.

VI

Maura lies dead at last,

The body she gave to child and lover

Now feeds flower and tree.

Earth's arms are wide to her. What breast

Offers such gentle sleeping?

Her limbs lie peacefully.

From the dark West

There comes a note like the echoing cry

Of one who rides through the dusk alone

After the hunt sweeps by.

It fades—the night wind is forlorn—

Music is still,

But Maura has followed the silver horn

Over the distant hill,

Over the hill where all winds die.

November Dusk

Where like ghosts of verdant days

Whispering down,

Leaves in the November dusk

Drift and drown,

Stand two lovers, motionless

And apart

In their sturdy nakedness

Of the heart,

Two dark figures, side by side

Through the mist

Standing as though time had died

Since they kissed,

Whose deep roots, alive and sound

Blindly reach

Mingling in the fertile ground

Each with each—

Pray that we, when gaunt and old

Like bare trees

Through our common earth may hold

Close, like these!

Winter Valley

I

Grey grasses drown

in thin brown water

Wound like a chain on the valley's

Sunken breast.

Fallen leaves on the stream

Float motionless—rest—

So secretly the pale

Water winds around

Toward hidden pools,

Or sinking in the earth

Is drowned.

II

Curved crimson stems,

Thorny fingers of vine,

Reach toward the wind.

Sunlight, thin and cold,

Touches them—they shine.

Nothing passes for thorns to hold—

Red thorns,

Catching at shadows of the wind.

III

Silence in the valley,

Silence without wings—

Like the caught breath

Of an unspoken word

When no words come.

Withered reeds, and thin brown water

Above the reeds

Are dumb.

IV

For what are you waiting, winter valley,

Withered valley, brown with reeds?

You are hushed with waiting.

You are old with secrets,

You are tranquil with forgetting.

You are harsh with thorns

Of fruits long vanished.

V. Love Poems in Autumn

Ballad

Follow, follow me into the South,

And if you are brave and wise

I'll buy you laughter for your mouth,

Sorrow for your eyes.

I'll buy you laughter, wild and sweet,

And sorrow, grey and still,

But you must follow with willing feet

Over the farthest hill.

Follow, follow me into the South,

You may return tomorrow

Wearing my kisses on your mouth,

In your eyes my sorrow.

The Pathway of Black Leaves

I. THE TURNING

The pathway opened before her eyes

Between black leaves—

She laughed, and shivered, and turned aside

From the dusty road.

Her feet moved on like heart-beats,

She could not stop them;

Relentlessly each step fulfilled itself

And the steps behind it—

A hidden chain, drawing her onward

Captive.

And yet she said: "Now I walk free

At last!"

II. TOLL-GATE

The sign read:

"Paupers may pass untaxed,

The Rich shall pay a penny,

The Poor

Must give all they possess."

She emptied her pockets bravely and passed through…

They gave her a golden coin in return for her silver,

Bearing on one side the head of a king,

And on the other a worn inscription

Curved like a wreath

And written in a tongue she did not know.

III. THE INN

There was the inn, beside the path,

Standing like the words of an ancient prophet

Forgotten long, now suddenly come true.

"They who break bread here

Shall not eat for hunger;

They who lie here

Shall not sleep."

All night long the black leaves, one by one,

Laughed, and shivered, and fell into darkness.

IV. RETURN

She has come home

To the house she knew:

But she has forgotten

The square oaken smile of the door.

The room is a stranger,

The fire is sullen;

On her hair a black leaf shines

And clings where it fell.

Against her heart

She has hidden away

The bitter golden profile of a king.

Elegy

I would be autumn earth, and hold

Your beautiful body, slain,

Where, lying still and cold,

Only the winter rain

Shall touch your limbs and face;

Where the white frost shall wed.

Your body to black mould

In the close, passionless embrace

Of that dark marriage bed:

I would be autumn earth, and hold

Your beautiful body, dead.

Sequence

I. ARRIVAL

Shining highways

Sing to your step,

Windows beckon,

Doorways open a square embrace.

Doors laugh gently

Swinging together

Behind you.

II. THE TOWER

There's a flag on my tower,

And my windows

Are orange to the night.

They are set in grey stone that frowns

At the black wind.

Inside, there's a guest at my hearth,

And a fire

Painting the grey stone gold.

My windows are black

With the hungry night peering through them.

Blackness lurks in corners,

Wind snatches the sparks,

Tongs and poker jangle together

Like the iron bones

Of a man that was hanged.

III. THEY WHO DANCE

The feet of dancers

Shine with mirth,

Their hearts are vibrant as bells:

The air flows by them

Divided like water

Cut by a gleaming ship.

Triumphantly their bodies sing,

Their eyes are blind

With music.

They move through threatening ghosts

Feeling them cool as mist

On their brows.

They who dance

Find infinite golden floors

Beneath their feet.

IV. PIANISSIMO

I took Night

Into my arms,

Night lay upon my breast.

If night had wings

She would have brought me

Stars for my hair.

The stars laughed

Lightly

From far away.

About my shoulders

White mist curled.

V. PORTRAIT BY ZULOAGA

Death lies in wait

For those who do not know

What they desire,

And Hell for those

Who fear what they have taken.

These hands are wrinkled

From stretching forth,

Brown

From the winds blowing upon them.

They are strong with seizing,

They do not tremble.

VI. GESTURES

Let there be dancing figures

On our wine-flask,

Swastikas on our rug,

Inscriptions in our rings

And on our dwelling.

Let us build ritual

For our worship,

Pledge our love

With vows and holy promises.

If oaths are broken,

Let it be darkly

With threatening gestures.

Thus we ignore

That we love and die

Like insects.

VII. VEILS

I shall punish your blindness

With a veil.

I shall choose words that join

Gaily word to word,

I shall weave them flauntingly

Into veil upon veil,

I shall wind them defiantly

Over my lips, over my eyes.

You shall not see your name

On my lips,

You shall not see your image

In my eyes!

And through my veils I shall not see

That you are blind.

VIII. FREEDOM

I would be free

From two old superstitions,

Thanks and Forgiveness.

So I would think of you

As Flame,

As Wind,

As Night,

To whom I have been

Wind,

And Flame

And Night,

Together burned and swept,

Now smothered

In separate darkness.

IX. MUD

I am dazed and weary

From the shapelessness

Of what I am—

I am poured

Among haphazard stones

In meaningless patterns.

Yesterday's sun dried me

Between rounded cobbles,

Today's deluge sweeps me

Toward alien pavements,

Tomorrow's sun shall dry me

In a new design.

Better the turbid gutter

Toward the open sea!

X. FOOLS SAY—

November's breath

Is black in the branches of trees

And under the bushes,

Harsh rain

Whips down the rustling dance

Of leaves.

There is smoke

In the throat of the wind,

Its teeth

Bite away beauty.

Let fools say:

"Spring

Will come again!"

Disillusion

I touch joy and it crumbles under my fingers—

The dust from it rises and fills the world,

It blinds my eyes—I cannot see the sun.

A choking fog of dust shuts me apart.

I remember the sparkling wind on a bright autumn morning,

I let down my hair and danced in the golden gale,

Then chased the wind as the wind chased fallen leaves—

Wind cannot be caught and tamed like a bird.

I touch joy and it crumbles to dust in my fingers.

November Afternoon

Upon our heads

The oak leaves fall

Like silent benedictions

Closing Autumn's gorgeous ritual,

And we, upborne by worship,

Lift our eyes to the altar of distant hills.

Beloved

How can I know

What gods are yours,

How can I guess the visions of your spirit,

Or hear

The silent prayers your heart has said?

Only by this I feel

Your gods akin to mine,

That when our lips have met

On this last golden Autumn afternoon

They have confessed in silence

Our kisses were less precious than our dreams.

Today, our passion drowned in beauty,

We turn away our faces toward the hills

Where purple haze, old incense,

Spreads its veil.

Yareth at Solomon's Tomb

At last

Your search is at an end,

King Solomon,

You, restless dreamer,

For whom each face held promise

Unfulfilled,

Whose hungry arms held many women,

(Though none could fill your need)

Who seized, but never loved,

This is your sepulchre…

I who till today

Questioned my heart

Now find it buried with you

In this tomb;

So now I can forgive you

That you never believed

My love!

Argolis

Like sun on grasses

Warming to life

Quaint beetles, curious weeds,

Till earth awakens, pregnant beneath its rays—

So came the shepherds down to Argolis.

As nameless trees

Cast cloud-grey shadows there

On moon-pale, tarnished snow,

Till snow and shadow are lost,

Alike confused and forgotten

Among the withered reeds—

So lies their memory across its heart.

St. Faith's Eve

We stood together on a balcony

An hour when the night

Died into blankness,

And light mist

Curling beneath us, hid the earth,

And the cold, unburied stars

Drew further into space…

I turned to meet your eyes

And saw

Like a light, rosy veil

Your flesh sink gently down

Leaving only the simple skeleton

And a white voice which said:

"This still is I,

Do you love me

Now?"

Quietly, and without sadness

I looked upon you,

For comfort blindly reached my soul

And primitive beauty.

Without passion, without fervour,

I spoke at last:

"Somehow Faith

Shines from your empty eye-holes,

And Truth

Speaks mutely from your fleshless jaws.

I choose your skeleton to lie with

In the peaceful bed of earth

Through all the dreamless, mornless, utter night!"

Poems of Elijah Hay

The Golden Stag

O hungry hearted ones, sharp-limbed, keen-eyed,

Let me have place!

I too would ride

On your fantastic chase.

Your hunger is a silver hunting horn,

I heard it sweep

The frozen, peaceful morn:

Its note bit me from sleep.

I will ride with you, hunters, even I,

Toward a far hill

To see the golden stag against the sky

Uncaptured still.

To Anne Knish

Madam, you intrigue me!

I have come this far

Cautiously sneezing

Along the dusty highroad of convention,

But now it leads no farther toward you.

Today

I have reached the cross roads—

A weather-beaten sign-board

Blazons undecipherable wisdom

Of which the arrow-heads, even,

Have been effaced.

Eastward, it leads through cultivated fields

Of intellectual fodder,

Where well-fed cattle, herding together,

Browse content:

Are you of these?

Westward, is a lane, hedge-bordered,

Shady, and of gentle indirection,

In May, a bower of sentimental bloom,

But this November weather

Betrays its destiny, the poultry yard

Where geese foregather.

And there ahead, the ancient, swampy way

Modernized by a feeble plank or two:

But the morass of passion lures me not!

I see a vision of two plunging feet,

Discreetly shod, yet struggling in vain—

Slime

Creeps ankle-high, knee-high, thigh-high,

Till all is swallowed save a brave silk hat

Floating alone, a symbol of the creed

I perished shedding.

Yet somewhere you

Intelligent of my distress

Smile, undisturbed—

I have no pedlar's license to submit,

No wares to cry, nor any gift to bring—

I do not know

Anything new—

In truth, then, what have I to do with you?

Yet, madam, you intrigue me!

Lolita

How curious to find in you, Lolita,

The geisha

Who sits and strums in the immortal

Attitude of submission.

There is a ledger in place of her soul!

Your shoulders sang

For admiration,

Your hair wept for kisses,

Your voice curved softly, a caress—

You came among us as a suppliant,

What had we you desired?

Bringing to market stolen goods,

Holding to view used charms,

Behold a hawker's spirit!

Eagles perch proudly

In isolation,

They swoop to seize a living prey—

Crows hover to feed,

Waiting with patience till the soul is fled

Leaving a helpless body—carrion—

(Vile thoughts obsess me!)

What did you want, Lolita?

Spectrum of Mrs. Q.

Fear not, beautiful lady,

That I shall ravish you!

Your arms are languorous lilies—

There is not a thorn

In all your slender greenness,

And you are sweet to madden buzzing bees!

Fear not, beautiful lady,

A hard, black cricket

Inspects you.

Epitaph

Courage is a sword,

Honour, but a shield…

Here lies a turtle.

A Sixpence

OBVERSE

If I loved you,

You would rear

Eight healthy children

To our love,

(Forgetting me)

And be happy.

REVERSE

But I do not love you,

So you will write

Eight hundred poems

To our love,

(Forgetting me)

And be happy!

Three Spectra

Of Mrs. X.

You—

Too well fed for rebellion,

Too lazy for self-respect, too timid for murder,

Disgracefully steal the trade-mark of the fairy-tale—

"And they lived together happily

Ever after!"

Of Mrs. Z.

Madam, you are ever retreating,

But are never

Gone—

Some day I shall pursue you

Hoping to see you

Vanish.

Of Mrs. Andsoforth.

Old ladies, bless their hearts,

Are contented as house-flies

Dozing against the wall.

But you,

Imprisoned in the forties,

Delirious, frenzied, helpless,

Are a fly, drowning in a cocktail!

Two Commentaries

I. TO AN ACTOR

You are a gilded card-case

Which I took for a purse.

Your spirit's coin was squandered long ago,

And in its place

Are white cards, all alike,

Bearing a word,

A name,

Connoting nothing.

2. PHILOSOPHER TO ARTIST

You are a raisin, but I am a nut!

What meat there is to you

Can be seen at a glance—

(Seeds, when they exist, are bitter)

My calm, round glossiness,

(For I am sound and free

From wormy restlessness of spirit)

Defies your casual inspection.

It takes sharp teeth

And some determination

To taste my kernel!

A Womanly Woman

You sit, a snug, warm kitten

Blinking through the window

At a storm-haunted world—

Sleet wind caterwauls

Through icy trees,

Which clack their hands at you

Tauntingly.

Why should you leave

Radiator and rubber-plant?

Do people stand at attention to mourn a hero

When they behold

A frozen kitten

In a gutter?

Lolita Now Is Old

Lolita now is old,

She sits in the park, watching the young men pass

And huddles her shawl against the cold.

One night last summer when the moon was red,

Lolita, hearing an old song sung

And amorous laughter down the street

Left her bed—

Lolita thought she was young.

With ancient finery on her back,

A lace mantilla hiding her grey head,

She crept into the warm and alien night.

Her trembling knees remembered the languid pace

Of beauty on adventure bent—her fan

Waved challenges with unforgotten grace.

Cunningly she played her part

For to her peering age

Love was a well-remembered art.

Footsteps followed her—footsteps drew near!

She dropped a rose—hush, he is here!

There came hard arms and a panting kiss—

He felt the fraud of those withered lips,

He cursed and spat—"Was it for this,

You came, old woman, to the park?"

Lolita gathered skirts and fled

Through the dim dark.

Lolita huddles her shawl against the cold,

She sits and mumbles by the fire. In truth

Lolita knows she is old.

The Shining Bird

A bird is three things:

Feathers, flight and song,

And feathers are the least of these.

At last I hold her in my hands

The shining bird whose flight along

The perilous rim of trees

Has made my days adventurous, my spirit strong.

And now her wings

Are still—her vivid song

But ceaseless twitterings.

Her words are feathers, falling

Lightly, relentlessly, and without rest,

Revealing to my face

Her pinched and starveling breast

Like poultry, dead and unashamed

And naked in the market place.

A shattered flash of wings,

A broken song,

Echo and shine along the rim of trees.

The King Sends Three Cats to Guinevere

Queen Guinevere,

Three sleek and silent cats

Bring you gifts from me.

The first is a grey one,

(I wanted a white one,

I could not find one snowy white enough,

Queen Guinevere,)

He brings you purple grapes.

The second is a grey one,

(I wanted a sleek one,

Where could I find one sleek enough,

Queen Guinevere?)

He brings you a red apple.

The third one, too, is grey.

(I wanted a black one,

Not Hate itself could find one black enough,

Queen Guinevere,)

He brings you poison toadstools.

I send you three grey cats with gifts—

(For uniformity of metaphor,

Since Bacchus, Satan, and the Hangman

Are not contemporaneous in my mythology)

I send you three grey cats with gifts,

Queen Guinevere,

To warn you, sleekly, silently

To pay the forfeit.

Ode in the New Mode

Your face

Was a temple

From which your soul

Came to me beneath arched brows:

And my soul knelt at your feet.

Then

Inadvertently

I saw your leg

Curved and turned like a bird-song

Dying into ecstatic silence at the garter…

Wretched

Women!

When you are wholly lovely

Man cannot forget either of his two afflictions,

Soul, or body!

Night

I opened the door

And night stared at me like a fool,

Heavy dull night, clouded and safe—

I turned again toward the uncertainties

Of life within doors.

Once night was a lion,

No, years ago, night was a python

Weaving designs against space

With undulations of his being—

Night was a siren once.

O sodden, middle-aged night!

End of Project Gutenberg's A Woman of Thirty, by Marjorie Allen Seiffert

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Table of Contents

A WOMAN OF THIRTY

CONTENTS

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE