Part 17 (2/2)

Listen again!... It says: ”I have worked, I am tired, The pencil dulls in my hand: I see through the window Walls upon walls of windows with faces behind them, Smoke floating up to the sky, an ascension of seagulls.

I am tired. I have struggled in vain, my decision was fruitless, Why then do I wait? with darkness, so easy, at hand!...

But to-morrow, perhaps.... I will wait and endure till to-morrow!...”

Or again: ”It is dark. The decision is made. I am vanquished By terror of life. The walls mount slowly about me In coldness. I had not the courage. I was forsaken.

I cried out, was answered by silence.... Tetelestai!...”

V

Hear how it babbles!--Blow the dust out of your hand, With its voices and visions, tread on it, forget it, turn homeward With dreams in your brain.... This, then, is the humble, the nameless,-- The lover, the husband and father, the struggler with shadows, The one who went down under shoutings of chaos! The weakling Who cried his ”forsaken!” like Christ on the darkening hilltop!...

This, then, is the one who implores, as he dwindles to silence, A fanfare of glory.... And which of us dares to deny him!

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

EIGHT SONNETS

I

When you, that at this moment are to me Dearer than words on paper, shall depart, And be no more the warder of my heart, Whereof again myself shall hold the key; And be no more, what now you seem to be, The sun, from which all excellencies start In a round nimbus, nor a broken dart Of moonlight, even, splintered on the sea;

I shall remember only of this hour-- And weep somewhat, as now you see me weep-- The pathos of your love, that, like a flower, Fearful of death yet amorous of sleep, Droops for a moment and beholds, dismayed, The wind whereon its petals shall be laid.

II

What's this of death, from you who never will die?

Think you the wrist that fas.h.i.+oned you in clay, The thumb that set the hollow just that way In your full throat and lidded the long eye So roundly from the forehead, will let lie Broken, forgotten, under foot some day Your unimpeachable body, and so slay The work he most had been remembered by?

I tell you this: whatever of dust to dust Goes down, whatever of ashes may return To its essential self in its own season, Loveliness such as yours will not be lost, But, cast in bronze upon his very urn, Make known him Master, and for what good reason.

III

I know I am but summer to your heart, And not the full four seasons of the year; And you must welcome from another part Such n.o.ble moods as are not mine, my dear.

No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing; And I have loved you all too long and well To carry still the high sweet breast of spring.

Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes, I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums, That you may hail anew the bird and rose When I come back to you, as summer comes.

Else will you seek, at some not distant time, Even your summer in another clime.

IV

Here is a wound that never will heal, I know, Being wrought not of a dearness and a death But of a love turned ashes and the breath Gone out of beauty; never again will grow The gra.s.s on that scarred acre, though I sow Young seed there yearly and the sky bequeath Its friendly weathers down, far underneath Shall be such bitterness of an old woe.

That April should be shattered by a gust, That August should be leveled by a rain, I can endure, and that the lifted dust Of man should settle to the earth again; But that a dream can die, will be a thrust Between my ribs forever of hot pain.

V

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning; but the rain Is full of ghosts to-night, that tap and sigh Upon the gla.s.s and listen for reply; And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain, For unremembered lads that not again Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

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