Willa Cather

“ Not what he said to me!
{18} THE POOR MINSTREL
Does the darkness cradle thee
Than mine arms more tenderly?
Do the angels God hath put
There to guard thy lonely sleep—
One at head and one at foot—
Watch more fond and constant keep? ”

“ Of the red waste,—for hers, and theirs, forever.
A wagon-top, rocking in seas of grasses,
A camp-fire on a prairie chartless, trackless,
A red spark under the dark tent of heaven.
Surely, they said, by day she saw a vision,
Though her exhausted strength could not impart it,—
Her breathing hoarser than the tired cattle.{59}
When cold, bright stars the sunburnt days succeeded,
She took me in her bed to sleep beside her,—
A sturdy bunch of life, born on the ocean.
Always she had the wagon cover lifted
Before her face. The sleepless hours till daybreak
She read the stars. ”

“ Nor bud nor bloom was there.
The birches, white and slender,
In deathless marble stood,
The brook, a white immortal,
Slept silent in the wood.
“How sure a thing is Beauty,”
I cried. “No bolt can slay,
No wave nor shock despoil her,
No ravishers dismay.
Her warriors are the angels
That cherish from afar,
Her warders people Heaven
And watch from every star.
The granite hills are slighter,
The sea more like to fail;
Behind the rose the planet,
The Law behind the veil.”
{30} “SLEEP, MINSTREL, SLEEP”
Sleep, minstrel, sleep ”

“ For mine do beat the dark all night and never find me rest;
They grope among the shadows an’ they beat the cold black air,
They go seekin’ in the darkness, an’ they never find him there,
An’ they never find him there.{14}
Grandmither, gie me your sightless eyes, that I may never see
His own a-burnin’ full o’ love that must not shine for me.
Grandmither, gie me your peaceful lips, white as the kirkyard snow,
For mine be red wi’ burnin’ thirst, an’ he must never know.
Grandmither, gie me your clay-stopped ears, that I may never hear
My lad a-singin’ in the night when I am sick wi’ fear ”

“ Or go a-Maying in a winter wood,
Or paint with youth thy wasted cheek, or mine?
What bloom, then, shall abide, since ours hath sped?
Thou art more lost to me than they who dwell
In Egypt’s sepulchres, long ages fled ”

“ The names, another smith can soon efface them,—
But leave, so beautifully cut, the legend.
Not from a poet’s book, but from the living
Sad mouth of a young peasant boy, I took it;
Four words, which mean that life is sweet together.{64}
In some dark junk-shop window I shall leave you,
Some place of poor effects from broken houses,
Where desperate women go to sell a saucepan
And frightened men to buy a baby’s cradle. ”

“ Is full for his day of returning.
His watchers are fallen asleep,
They wait but his call to follow,
Ay, to the ends of the earth—
But Apollo, the god, Apollo?
Sick is the heart in my breast,
Mine eyes are blinded with weeping;
The god who never comes back,
The watch that forever is keeping.
Service of gods is hard ”

“ As song hath ached in men, or passion vain?
Or lay it like some heavy robe on thee?
Was thy sick soul drawn from thee like the rain,
Or drunk up as the dead are drunk each hour
To feed the colour of some tulip flower?
{21} LONDON ROSES
“Rowses, Rowses! Penny a bunch!” they tell you—
Slattern girls in Trafalgar, eager to sell you. ”