rest
But under the still sod!"

It came--with groping lips
And little fingers stealing aimlessly
About my heart.
I was like one who slips
A-sudden into Ecstasy
And thinks ne'er to depart.

"Soon he will smile," I said,
"And babble baby love into my ears--
How it will thrill!"
I waited--Oh, the dread,
The clutching agony, the fears!--
He was so strange and still.

Did I curse God and rave
When they came shrinkingly to tell me 'twas
A witless child?
No ... I ... I only gave
One cry ... just one ... I think ... because ...
You know ... he never smiled.

THE WINDS

The East Wind is a Bedouin,
And Nimbus is his steed;
Out of the dusk with the lightning's thin
Blue scimitar he flies afar,
Whither his rovings lead.
The Dead Sea waves
And Egypt caves
Of mummied silence laugh
When he mounts to quench the Siroc's stench
And to wrench
From his clutch the tyrant's staff.

The West Wind is an Indian brave
Who scours the Autumn's crest.
Dashing the forest down as a slave,
He tears the leaves from its limbs and weaves
A maelstrom for his breast.
Out of the night
Crying to fright
The earth he swoops to spoil--
There is furious scathe in the whirl of his wrath,
In his path
There is misery and moil.

The North Wind is a Viking--cold
And cruel, armed with death!
Born in the doomful deep of the old
Ice Sea that froze ere Ymir rose
From Niflheim's ebon breath.
And with him sail
Snow, Frost, and Hail,
Thanes mighty as their lord,
To plunder the shores of Summer's stores--
And his roar's
Like the sound of Chaos' horde.

The South Wind is a Troubadour;
The Spring 's his serenade.
Over the mountain, over the moor,
He blows to bloom from the winter's tomb
Blossom and leaf and blade.
He ripples the throat
Of the lark with a note
Of lilting love and bliss,
And the sun and the moon, the night and the noon,
Are a-swoon--
When he woos them with his kiss.

TRANSCENDED

I who was learned in death's lore
Oft held her to my heart
And spoke of days when we should love no more--