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Unity The primrose has her gentle root A hundred miles beyond the sod, Deep buried in the Absolute, Safe in the inmost will of God. The One Thing that is everything, Is very close to grass and trees; Hers is the song the satyrs sing, Th wild fern clings about her knees. And Psyche’s lamp, and Buddha’s dream, Those words that shall not fade or pass, Are but the lilt of a lost stream That flows under the world’s grass. Eva Selina Gore-Booth 1870-1926

I do not dread and alter’d heart, Or that long line of land or sea Should separate my love from me, I dread that drifting slow apart- All unresisted, unrestrain’d- Which comes to some when they have gain’d The dear endeavour of their soul.   As two skiffs that sail’d together, Through days and nights of tranquil weather, Adown some inland stream, might be Drifted asunder, each from each; When, floating with the tide, they reach The hoped for end, the promised goal, The sudden glory of the sea.

My Grandmother’s Love Letters By Hart Crane There are no stars tonight But those of memory. Yet how much room for memory there is In the loose girdle of soft rain. There is even room enough For the letters of my mother’s mother, Elizabeth, That have been pressed so long Into a corner of the roof That they are brown and soft, And liable to melt as snow. Over the greatness of such space Steps must be gentle. It is all hung by an invisible white hair. It trembles as birch limbs webbing the air. And I ask myself: “Are your fingers long enough to play Old keys that are but echoes: Is the silence strong enough To carry back the music to its source And back to you again As though to her?” Yet I would lead my grandmother by the hand Through much of what she would not understand; And so I stumble. And the rain continues on the roof With such a sound of gently pitying laughter.

I They say there is no hope- sand-drift-rocks-rubble of the sea- the broken hulk of a ship, hung with shreds of rope, pallid under the cracked pitch. they say there is no hope to conjure you- no whip of the toungue to anger you- no hate of words you must rise to refute. They say you are twisted by the sea, you are cut apart, by wave-break upon wave-break, that you are misshapen by the sharp rocks, broken by the rasp and after-rasp. That you are cut, torn, mangled, torn by the stress and beat, no stronger than the strips of sand along your ragged beach. II But we bring violets, great masses-single, sweet, wood-violets, stream-violets, violets from a wet marsh. Violets in clumps from hills, tufts with earth at the roots violets tugged from rocks, blue violets, moss, cliff, river-violets. Yellow violets’ gold, burnt with a rare tint- violets like red ash among tufts of grass. We bring deep-purple bird-foot violets. We bring the hyacinth-violet, sweet, bare, chill to the touch- and violets whiter than the in-rush of your own white surf. III For you will come, you will yet haunt men in ships, you will trail across the fringe of strait and circle the jagged rocks. You will trail across the rocks and wash them with your salt, you will curl between sand-hills- you will thunder along the cliff- break-retreat-get fresh strength- gather and pour weight along the beach. You will draw back, and the ripple on the sand-shelf will be witness of your track. O privet-white, you will paint the lintel of wet sand with froth. You will bring myrrh-bark and drift laurel-wood from hot coasts! when you hurl high-high- we will answer with a shout. For you will come, you will come, you will answer our taut hearts, you will break the lie of men’s thoughts, and cherish and shelter us.

Poems 59 and 67 from the Gitanjali by Rabindrinath Tagore 67 THOU art the sky and thou art the nest as well. O thou beautiful, there in the nest it is thy love that encloses the soul with colours and sounds and odours. There comes the morning with the golden basket in her right hand bearing the wreath of beauty, silently to crown the earth. And there comes the evening over the lonely meadows deserted by herds, through trackless paths, carrying cool draughts of peace in her golden pitcher from the western ocean of rest. But there, where spreads the infinite sky for the soul to take her flight in, reigns the stainless white radiance. There is no day nor night, nor form nor colour, and never, never a word.   59 YES, I know, this is nothing but thy love, O beloved of my heart ⎯ this golden light that dances upon the leaves, these idle clouds sailing across the sky, this passing breeze leaving its coolness upon my forehead.

I, being born a woman and distressed By all the needs and notions of my kind, Am urged by your propinquity to find Your person fair, and feel a certain zest To bear your body’s weight upon my breast: So subtly is the fume of life designed, To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind, And leave me once again undone, possessed. Think not for this, however, the poor treason Of my stout blood against my staggering brain, I shall remember you with love, or season My scorn with pity, —let me make it plain: I find this frenzy insufficient reason For conversation when we meet again. Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1892 – 1950

Summer Night, Riverside by Sara Teasdale In the wild soft summer darkness How many and many a night we two together Sat in the park and watched the Hudson Wearing her lights like golden spangles Glinting on black satin. The rail along the curving pathway Was low in a happy place to let us cross, And down the hill a tree that dripped with bloom Sheltered us, While your kisses and the flowers, Falling, falling, Tangled in my hair…. The frail white stars moved slowly over the sky. And now, far off In the fragrant darkness The tree is tremulous again with bloom For June comes back. To-night what girl Dreamily before her mirror shakes from her hair This year’s blossoms, clinging to its coils?

Dream-Pedlary If there were dreams to sell, What would you buy? Some cost a passing bell; Some a light sigh, That shakes from Life’s fresh crown Only a rose-leaf down. If there were dreams to sell, Merry and sad to tell, And the crier rang the bell, What would you buy? A cottage lone and still, With bowers nigh, Shadowy, my woes to still, Until I die. Such pearls from Life’s fresh crown Fain would I shake me down. Were dreams to have at will, This would best heal my ill, This would I buy. But there were dreams to sell Ill didst thou buy; Life is a dream, they tell, Waking, to die. Dreaming a dream to prize, Is wishing ghosts to rise; And if I had the spell To call the buried well, Which one should I? If there are ghosts to raise, What shall I call, Out of hell’s murky haze, Heaven’s blue pall? Raise my loved long-lost boy, To lead me to his joy.– There are no ghosts to raise; Out of death lead no ways; Vain is the call. Know’st thou not ghosts to sue, No love thou hast. Else lie, as I will do, And breathe thy last. So out of Life’s fresh crown Fall like a rose-leaf down. Thus are the ghosts to woo; Thus are all dreams made true, Ever to last!

The Captured Goddess Over the housetops, Above the rotating chimney-pots, I have seen a shiver of amethyst, And blue and cinnamon have flickered A moment, At the far end of a dusty street. Through sheeted rain Has come a lustre of crimson, And I have watched moonbeams Hushed by a film of palest green. It was her wings, Goddess! Who stepped over the clouds, And laid her rainbow feathers Aslant on the currents of the air. I followed her for long, With gazing eyes and stumbling feet. I cared not where she led me, My eyes were full of colours: Saffrons, rubies, the yellows of beryls, And the indigo-blue of quartz; Flights of rose, layers of chrysoprase, Points of orange, spirals of vermilion, The spotted gold of tiger-lily petals, The loud pink of bursting hydrangeas. I followed, And watched for the flashing of her wings. In the city I found her, The narrow-streeted city. In the market-place I came upon her, Bound and trembling. Her fluted wings were fastened to her sides with cords, She was naked and cold, For that day the wind blew Without sunshine. Men chaffered for her, They bargained in silver and gold, In copper, in wheat, And called their bids across the market-place. The Goddess wept. Hiding my face I fled, And the grey wind hissed behind me, Along the narrow streets.

FROM the Desert I come to thee On a stallion shod with fire; And the winds are left behind In the speed of my desire. Under thy window I stand, And the midnight hears my cry: I love thee, I love but thee, With a love that shall not die Till the sun grows cold, And the stars are old, And the leaves of the Judgement Book unfold! Look from thy window and see My passion and my pain; I lie on the sands below, And I faint in thy disdain. Let the night-winds touch thy brow With the heat of my burning sigh, And melt thee to hear the vow Of a love that shall not die Till the sun grows cold, And the stars are old, And the leaves of the Judgement Book unfold! My steps are nightly driven, By the fever in my breast, To hear from thy lattice breathed The word that shall give me rest. Open the door of thy heart, And open thy chamber door, And my kisses shall teach thy lips The love that shall fade no more Till the sun grows cold, And the stars are old, And the leaves of the Judgement Book unfold!

The Flower Seller The sun is sinking in the sky, It scarcely reaches a flagstaff high; And now the pretty flower-girl dares Come out to sell her fragile wares. Her voice rings out a message sweet, As on she trips with lightsome feet, To buy her musk and jessamine, Her violets and white eglantine. And the fresh perfumes of her flowers, After last night’s refreshing showers, Borne on the gentle breeze soon find An entrance through my lattice blind. The windows of the rich and great Are opened wide, and heads, ornate With glossy hair and jewels bright, Are thrust forth in the evening light Of the setting sun, whose shadow falls On the straight lines of brick-built walls, By which men marked the time of day Ere clocks and watches came their way. And many flowers of beauteous hue, Still sparkling with the morning dew, Are bought by ladies rich and fair, To deck their deep black lustrous hair. Translated by Charles Budd in 1912

Betrothed You have put your two hands upon me, and your mouth, You have said my name as a prayer. Here where trees are planted by the water I have watched your eyes, cleansed from regret, And your lips, closed over all that love cannot say, My mother remembers the agony of her womb And long years that seemed to promise more than this. She says, “You do not love me, You do not want me, You will go away.”            In the country whereto I go            I shall not see the face of my friend            Nor her hair the color of sunburnt grasses;            Together we shall not find            The land on whose hills bends the new moon            In air traversed of birds. What have I thought of love? I have said, “It is beauty and sorrow.” I have thought that it would bring me lost delights, and splendor As a wind out of old time . . . But there is only the evening here, And the sound of willows Now and again dipping their long oval leaves in the water. from Body of This Death: Poems (1923)