VII. THE DARK CUP

 


(1) MAY DAY

(a) 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 much,

The raindrops or 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?

(2) "LET IT BE FORGOTTEN"

(a) Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,

Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold,

Let it be forgotten for ever 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, a hushed footfall

In a long forgotten snow.

(3) THE NIGHTS REMEMBER

(a) 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 their robes of state.

(b) Let them not wake again, better to lie there,

Wrapped in memories, jeweled and arrayed —

Many a ghostly king has waked from battle-sleep

And found his crown stolen and his throne decayed.

VIII. IN SPRING, SANTA BARBARA

(a) I have too 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

Linnetts 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.

(2) WHITE FOG

(a) 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.

(3) IN A CUBAN GARDEN

(a) 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 blowing away.

(b) A lizard lifts his head and listens —

Kiss me before the rain goes by,

Here in the shade of the Ceiba hide me

From the great black vulture circling the sky.

VI.

(1) SPRING TORRENTS

(a) 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 loud call —

Like a rock that knows the cry of the waters

And cannot answer at all.

(2) "I KNOW THE STARS"

(a) I know the stars by their names,

Aldebaran, Altair,

And I know the path 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.

(3) UNDERSTANDING

(a) I understood the rest too well,

And all their thoughts have come to be

Clear as gray sea-weed in the swell

Of a sunny shallow sea.

IV. IN A HOSPITAL

(1) OPEN WINDOWS

(a) 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 at heart and June in my arms,

I cannot keep her, she hurries by

With the silver-green of her garments flowing.

(3) LOST THINGS

(a) Oh, I could let the world go by,

Its loud new wonders and its wars,

But how will I give up the sky

When winter dusk is set with stars?

III. DAY AND NIGHT

(1) DAY AND NIGHT

(a) In Warsaw in Poland

Half the world away,

The one I love best of all

Thought of me today;

(b) I know, for I went

Winged as a bird

In the wide flowing wind

His own voice I heard.

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