Part 8 (2/2)

If your bosom were something richer, Or your hands more fragile and thin, You would call what the world calls evil, Or sin and be glad of the sin.

If your soul were aflame with love, Or your head were devoted to truth, You never would toss on your pillow Bewildered 'twixt rapture and ruth.

If you were the you of my dreams, And the you of my dreams were mine, These days, half sweet and half bitter, Would taste like Olympian wine.

Oh, subtle and mystic Egyptians!

Who chiseled the Sphinx in the East, With head and the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of a woman, And body and claws of a beast.

And gave her a marvellous riddle That the eyeless should read as he ran: What crawls and runs and is baffled By woman, the sphinx--but a man?

Many look in her face and are conquered, Where one all her heart has explored; A thousand have made her their sovereign, But one is her sovereign and lord.

For him she leaps from her standard And fawns at his feet in the sand, Who sees that himself is her riddle, And she but the work of his hand.

PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN

The pathos in your face is like a peace, It is like resignation or a grace Which smiles at the surcease Of hope. But there is in your face The shadow of pain, and there is a trace Of memory of pain.

I look at you again and again, And hide my looks lest your quick eye perceives My search for your despair.

I look at your pale hands--I look at your hair; And I watch you use your hands, I watch the flare Of thought in your eyes like light that interweaves A flutter of color running under leaves-- Such anguished dreams in your eyes!

And I listen to you speak Words like crystals breaking with a tinkle, Or a star's twinkle.

Sometimes as we talk you rise And leave the room, and then I rub a streak Of a tear from my cheek.

You tell me such magical things Of pictures, books, romance And of your life in France In the varied music of exquisite words, And in a voice that sings.

All things are memory now with you, For poverty girds Your hopes, and only your dreams remain.

And sometimes here and there I see as you turn your head a whitened hair, Even when you are smiling most.

And a light comes in your eyes like a pa.s.sing ghost, And a color runs through your cheeks as fresh As burns in a girl's flesh.

Then I can shut my eyes and feel the pain That has become a part of you, though I feign Laughter myself. One sees another's bruise And shakes his thought out of it shuddering.

So I turn and clamp my will lest I bring Your sorrow into my flesh, who cannot choose But hear your words and laughter, And watch your hands and eyes.

Then as I think you over after I have gone from you, and your face Comes to me with its grace Of memory of unfound love: You seem to me the image of all women Who dream and keep under smiles the grief thereof, Or sew, or sit by windows, or read books To hide their Secret's looks.

And after a time go out of life and leave No uttered words but in their silence grieve For Life and for the things no tongue can tell: Why Life hurts so, and why Love haunts and hurts Poor men and women in this demi-h.e.l.l.

Perhaps your pathos means that it is well Death in his time the aspiring torch inverts, And all tired flesh and haunted eyes and hands Moving in pained whiteness are put under The soothing earth to brighten April's wonder.

IN THE CAGE

The sounds of mid-night trickle into the roar Of morning over the water growing blue.

At ten o'clock the August sunbeams pour A blinding flood on Michigan Avenue.

But yet the half-drawn shades of bottle green Leave the recesses of the room With misty auras drawn around their gloom Where things lie undistinguished, scarcely seen.

<script>