Margaret Widdemer

“ There's nothing on earth that we cannot say and nothing we cannot do–
The flames lift up from our blowing hair, the leaves flash under our feet
When once in a year or a score of years our hands and our laughters meet!
For east and west through a sorry world we pass with our joy to sell,
And they that buy of our song and jest they praise us that we do well,
But few can sell us the mirth they buy, and few be that know a song,
And for all of the praise of the kindly folk, their speeches are over-long! ”

“ My heart could fill with love:
But ah, my heart
Too still and heavy stays
Too brimming with old days.
I TOOK HIS DREAMS
I TOOK his dreams from him,
Boy-dreams of gold and red,
I gave him sorrows dim,
White grief, instead, . . .
And for a little space
Joy in my careless face.
I took his hope away,
Light hope, a foolish thing,
I gave him silence gray,
Death's comforting . . .
Was it my soul that sighed,
Dead on the day he died?
CERTAINTIES
WHETHER you live by hut or throne
Whether your feet tread stone or grass
Comes the one lad you shall never own
Or the one lass ”

“ Why do you have the love in your eyes
Again, again?
SONG: KIND ADIEU
GOOD-BY, my dear, good-by–
You woke my heart to break it,
So if another take it
Why need you turn or sigh?
New roads are soon to find
And Heaven may well be sending
At every highway's ending
A lass that will be kind:
Good luck, my lad– good day! ”

“ Whether you tell or still deny,
Comes the one scar that your heart shall hide
Till the day you die!
WISE PEOPLE
I THINK that we are very strong and wise,
Mocking at love and at the grief thereafter, . . . ”