Helen Hay Whitney

“ Will the bud blossom where the frost has sped.
Timid, you dared not hark when angels sang.
All, all is lost, without one saving pang.
[Pg 8]
VI The Supreme Sacrifice
Better than life, better than sea and morn,
And all the sun-stained fragments of the day—
Ah! more than breeze, than purple clouds that stray
Across dim twilights—I, the tempest-torn,
Fighting the stars for glory, who must scorn
Heart-drops bespread along love’s cruel way
Like scattered petals on the breast of May—
Better than life I love you, I forlorn. ”

“ The flower-sweet maidens, dancing in the breeze—
Holds Love a blossom with such fruits as these?
I gave up Love, I gave up lovely Love,
And sought the island of enchanted skies,
With little rainbow rifts of seraphs’ eyes,
Round which the flaming sword forever plies
Against the darkened world of rue and sighs.
Alas for Love! alas for lovely Love!
In dreams I heard the beating of his wing;
His soft voice, beautiful as sea in spring,
Mourned through the empty songs the seraphs sing;
Life seemed in sleep more dear than everything.
[Pg 51] Take me back, Love; take me back, lovely Love. ”

“ As on triumphal journeying he goes.
So through green woodlands in the twilight dim,
Led by the faint, pale argent of a star,
What though to others it is weary night,
Nature holds out her wide, sweet heart to him;
And, leaning o’er the world’s mysterious bar,
His soul is great with everlasting light.
[Pg 19]
XVII Tempest and Calm
First came the tempest, and the world was torn
Upon its mighty passion—all the deep
Trembled before it. From the haggard steep
To the sweet valley with its brooding corn,
Its foaming lips in expletives of scorn
Lashed into life the world’s eternal sleep ”

“ Why labor at a work the ages plan?—
Life has been lived so oft—an outworn thing!
Then hark! the time-sweet carol of a bird,
New as a flower; and see—ah, shame to man!
The endless aspiration of the Spring.
[Pg 26]
XXIV Aspiration II
The full throat of the world is charged with song,
Morning and twilight melt with ecstasy
In the high heat of noon. Simply to be,
Palpitant where the green spring forces throng,
Eager for life, life unashamed and strong—
This is desire fulfilled. Exalted, free,
The spirit gains her ether, scornfully
Denies existence that is dark or wrong. ”

“ The body lives when stricken spirit dies?
The blow has fallen, yet I can recall
The first of days when this dead heart drew breath—
A wondrous moon-flower waking of a heart.
Strange—then as now the moment seemed to part
Body from soul, so like are birth and death;
So did I gain, and so I lost my all.
[Pg 16]
XIV Flowers of Ice
The lights within the ice-floes are our flowers,
Lily and daffodil and violet.
Beneath these monstrous suns that never set
Tremble soft rainbows, young as Earth’s first hours,
Ancient as Time. No balm of gentle showers
Make for their growth ”

“ The windy rain beats, beats about my door—
Alas for love when love goes wandering!
The dawn mist rises on the forest floor—
Alas for life when love goes wandering!
With wet, green leaves the palm-trees lash the night,
The pitiless trades drive wild gods in their flight.
And, ah, my lover! Moons have come and gone,
The fighting ended, still he lingers on.
Sleepless I hear the demon wind above—
Alas for love when love goes wandering!
And I must wed with one I do not love—
Alas for life when love goes wandering!
[Pg 76]
XXXVI This was the Song
We have forgotten. ”

“ And midway the graveyard lies, with its leaves a-croon,
The only sound of the world, like a dream in sleep.
There’s a white, white grave lies under the graveyard trees,
Hung on the road as a single pearl on a thread,
And silence waits, beast crouched, on the rim of the breeze,
That moans where the only man in the world lies dead. ”

“ Simple as earth, forgetting song and bird.
No more of singing; mating-time has sped,
In the broad fields the poppy-lips are red.
Crush them, Beloved, drink the lethe deep;
Song being dead, what else is left but sleep?
[Pg 59]
XXIII Truth
Up from the soul, as a blade of grass from the sod,
Springs the intent of the prayer as a cry to God.
Blossoms may veil it or visions with ways uncouth,
He sees the ultimate grass-blade, the heart of Truth. ”

“ Life—from my heart, which is their beryl cup,
Crowning the winter of my loneliness.
[Pg 23]
XXI Eadem Semper
How shall I hold you? By a scimitar
Of flashing wit suspended o’er your head,
Oh, my Beloved? Or with lips rose-red
Lure you to Lethe? Shall I stand afar,
Pale and remote and distant as a star,
Challenging love? Or by a scarlet thread
Jealousy’s wiles, beguile by scorn and dread?
Wounding the heart I love with hateful scar. ”

“ Here where the world is young, with naught to see.
But day blow out across the long, low sky—
Peace means an emptiness, which rests to die.
[Pg 22]
XX Pot-Pourri
All my dead roses! Now I lay them here,
Shrined in a beryl cup. The mysteries
Of their sweet hauntings and their witcheries
Are not more subtle than this jewel clear,
Are not more cold and dead. The winter’s spear
Has fallen on their heart, a heart so wise
With lore of love. Dead roses. Beauty lies
Hid in a perfume still supremely dear. ”