Page 1: The Voice
3.46 (a) Atoms
Atoms as old as stars, Mutation on mutation, Millions and millions of cells Dividing yet still the same, From air and changing earth From ancient Eastern rivers From turquoise tropic seas, Hide myself I came.
3.47 (b)
My spirit like my flesh Sprang from a thousand sources, From cave-man, hunter and shepherd, From Karnak, Cyprus, Rome; The living thoughts in me Spring from dead men and women, Forgotten time out of mind And many as bubbles of foam.
3.48 (c)
Here for a moment is space Into the light out of darkness I come and they come with me Finding words with my breath; From the wisdom of many lifetimes I hear them cry: "Forever Seek for beauty, she only Fights with man against Death!"
Page 2: Day and Night & Remembered
3.50 (a) Day and Night
In Warsaw in Poland Half the world away, The one I love best of all Thought of me today;
3.51 (b)
I know, for I went Winged as a bird In the wide flowing wind His own voice I heard.
3.52 (c)
His arms were round me In a far-off place, I looked in the pool And there was his face— But now it is night And the cold stars say: "Warsaw in Poland Is half the world away."
3.53 Compensation
(a) I should be glad of loneliness And have that go on, broken wings, A thirsty body, a tired heart And the unchanging ache of things,
(b) If I could make a single song As lovely and as full of light, As hushed and brief as a falling star On a winter night.
3.54 (a) Remembered
There never was a mood of mine, Gay or heart broken, luminous or dull, But you could ease me of its fever And give it back to me, more beautiful.
(b) In many another soul I broke the bread, And drank the wine, and played the happy guest, But I was lonely, I remembered you; The heart belongs to him who knew its best.
Page 3: Open Windows & The New Moon
3.61 (a) Open Windows
Out of the window a sea of green trees Lift their soft laughter like the arms of a dancer, They beckon and call me, "Come out in the sun!" But I cannot answer.
(b) I am alone with weakness and pain, Sick a-bed and June is passing, I cannot keep her, she hurries by With the silver-green of her garments flowing.
(c) Men and women pass in the street Glad of the shining sapphire weather, But we know more of it than they— Pain and I together.
3.63 (d)
They are runners in the sun, Breathless and blinded by the race, But we are watchers in the shade Who speak with wonder face to face.
3.64 (a) The New Moon
Day, you have bruised and beaten me, As rain beats down the bright, proud sea, Beaten my body, bruised my soul, Left me nothing lovely or whole— Yet I have wrested a gift from you, Day that dies in dusky blue:
(b) For suddenly over the cloudy seas— I saw a moon in the cloudy seas— A web of beauty all alone In a world as hard and gray as stone— Oh who could be bitter and want to die When a maiden moon wakes up in the sky?
Page 4: Gray Eyes & Lost Things
3.65 (a) Gray Eyes
It was April when you came The first time to me, And my first look in your eyes Was like my first look at the sea.
(b) We have been together Four Aprils now Watching for the green On the swaying willow bough;
(c) Yet whenever I turn To your gray eyes over me, It is as though I looked For the first time at the sea.
3.67 (a) The Net
I made you many and many a song Yet never one told all you are— It was as though a net of words Were flung to catch a star;
(b) It was as though I cupped my hand And dipped sea-water eagerly, Only to find it lost the blue Dark splendor of the sea.
Page 5: The Mystery & Pain
3.68 (a) The Mystery
Your eyes drink of me, Love makes them shine, Your eyes that lean So close to mine.
(b) We have long been lovers, We know the range Of each other's moods And how they change;
(c) But when we look At each other so Then we feel How little we know;
(d) The spirit eludes us, Timid and free— Can I ever know you Or you know me?
3.69 (a) Pain
Waves are the sea's white daughters, And raindrops the children of rain, But why for my shimmering body Have I a mother like Pain?
(b) Night is the mother of stars, And wind the mother of foam— The world is brimming with beauty, But I must stay at home.
Page 6: The Broken Field & The Unseen
3.70 (a) The Broken Field
My soul is a dark ploughed field In the cold rain; My soul is a broken field Ploughed by pain.
(b) Where grass and bending flowers Were growing, The field lies broken now For another sowing.
(c) Great Sower when you tread My field again, Scatter the furrows there With better grain.
3.71 (a) The Unseen
Death went up the hall Unseen by every one, Trailing twilight robes Past the nurse and the nun.
(b) He paused at every door And listened to the breath Of those who did not know How near they were to Death.
(c) Death went up the hall Unseen by nurse and nun; He passed by many a door— But he entered one.
Page 7: A Prayer & Spring Torrents
3.72 (a) A Prayer
When I am dying, let me know That I loved the blowing snow Although it stung like whips; That I loved all lovely things And I longed to take their stings With gay unchanged lips;
(b) That I loved with all my strength To my soul's full depth and length, And if my heart must break, That I sang as children sing Fitting tunes to everything, Loving life for its own sake.
3.74 (a) Spring Torrents
Will it always be like this until I am dead, Every spring must I bear it all again With the first red haze of the budding maple boughs, And the first sweet-smelling rain?
(b) Oh I am like a rock in the rising river Where the flooded water breaks with a call— Like a rock that hears the cry of the waters And cannot answer at all.
Page 8: I Know the Stars & Understanding
3.75 (a) I Know the Stars
I know the stars by their names, Aldebaran, Altair, And I know the paths they take Up heaven's broad blue stair.
(b) I know the secrets of men By the look of their eyes, Their gray thoughts, their strange thoughts Have made me sad and wise.
(c) But your eyes are dark to me Though they seem to call and call— I cannot tell if you love me Or do not love me at all.
(d) I know many things, But the years come and go, I shall die not knowing The thing I long to know.
3.76 (a) Understanding
I understood the rest too well, And all their thoughts have come to be As grey sea-weed in the swell Of a sunny shallow sea.
(b) But you I never understood, Your spirit's secret hides like gold Sunk in a Spanish galleon Ages ago in waters cold.
Page 9: Nightfall & It is Not a Word
3.77 (a) Nightfall
We will never walk again As we used to walk at night, Watching our shadows lengthen Under the gold street-light When the snow was new and white.
(b) We will never walk again Slowly, we too, In spring, when the park is sweet With midnight and with dew, And the passers-by are few.
(c) I sit and think of it all, How the fine June twilight dies,— Down in the clanging square A street-piano cries And stars come out in the skies.
3.78 (a) It is Not a Word
It is not a word spoken, Few words are said; Not even a look of the eyes Nor a bend of the head. But only a hush of the heart That has too much to keep, Only memories waking That sleep so light a sleep.
Page 10: My Heart is Heavy & The Nights Remember
3.79 (a) My Heart is Heavy
My heart is heavy with many a song Like ripe fruit bearing down the tree, But I can never give you one— My songs do not belong to me.
(b) Yet in the evening, in the dusk When moths go to and fro, In the gray hour if the fruit has fallen, Take it, no one will know.
3.80 (a) The Nights Remember
The days remember and the nights remember The kingly hours that once you made so great, Deep in my heart they lie, hidden in their splendor, Buried like sovereigns in treasures of state.
(b) Let them not wake again, better to lie there, Wrapped in memories, jewelled and arrayed— Many a ghostly king has waked from battle-sleep And found his crown stolen and his throne decayed.
Page 11: Let It Be Forgotten & May Day
3.81 (a) Let It Be Forgotten
Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten, Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold, Let it be forgotten forever and ever, Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.
(b) If anyone asks, say it was forgotten Long and long ago, As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall In a long forgotten snow.
3.82 (a) May Day
A delicate fabric of bird song Floats in the air, The smell of wet wild earth Is everywhere.
(b) Red small leaves of the maple Are clenched like a hand, Like girls at their first communion The pear trees stand.
(c) Oh I must pass nothing by Without loving it much, The raindrop try with my lips, The grass with my touch;
(d) For how can I be sure I shall see again The world on the first of May Shining after the rain?
Page 12: A Little While & The Garden
3.83 (a) A Little While
A little while when I am gone My life will live in music after me, As spun foam lifted and borne on After the wave is lost in the full sea.
(b) A while these nights and days will burn In song with the bright frailty of foam, Living in light before they turn Back to the nothingness that is their home.
3.84 (a) The Garden
My heart is a garden tired with autumn, Heaped with bending asters and dahlias heavy and dark, In the hazy sunshine, the garden remembers April, The drench of rains and a snow-drop quick and clear as a spark.
(b) Daffodils blowing in the cold wind of morning, And golden tulips, goblets holding the rain— The garden will be hushed with snow, forgotten, soon, forgotten— After the stillness, will spring come again?
Page 13: The Wine & In a Cuban Garden
3.85 (a) The Wine
I cannot die who drank delight From the cup of the crescent moon, And hungrily as men eat bread, Loved the scented nights of June.
(b) The rest may die—but is there not Some shining strange escape for me, Who sought in Beauty the bright lure Of immortality?
3.86 (a) In a Cuban Garden
Hibiscus flowers are cups of fire, (Love me, my lover, life will not stay) The bright poinsettia shakes in the wind, A scarlet leaf is flowing away.
(b) A lizard lifts his head and listens— Kiss me before the noon goes by, Here in the shade of the Ceiba hide me From the great black vulture circling the sky.
3.87 (a) If I Must Go
If I must go to heaven's end Climbing the ages like a stair, Be near me and forever bend With the same eyes above me there; Time will fly past us like leaves flying, We shall not heed, for we shall be Beyond living, beyond dying, Knowing and known unchangeably.
3.88 (a) In Spring, Santa Barbara
I have been happy two weeks together, My love is coming home to me, Gold and silver is the weather And smooth as lapis is the sea.
(b) The earth has turned its brown to green After three nights of humming rain, And in the valley's peek and preen Linnet with a scarlet stain.
(c) High in the mountains all alone The wild swans whistle on the lake, But I have been as still as stone, My heart sings only when it breaks.
3.89 (a) White Fog
Heaven-invading hills are drowned In wide moving waves of mist, Phlox before my door are wound In dripping wreaths of amethyst.
(b) Ten feet away the solid earth Changes into melting cloud, There is a hush of pain and mirth, No bird has heart to speak aloud.
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