Stella Benson: If You Were Careless

“If you were careless ever, if ever a thing you missed
In the forest—a serpent twist
Of shadow, ensnaring the star-lit way of a tree;
If at your wrist
The pulse rang never, never, to the slow bells of the sea;
If a star, quick-carven in frost and in amethyst,
Shone on the thin, thin finger of dawn, you turning away your face:

You shall be sorry, sorry, for when you die,
Those three
Shall follow and follow and find you
As you go through the Difficult Place.
The strong snake-shadows shall bind you,
The swords of the stars shall blind you,
And the terrible bells of the sea shall crash and cry;
The bells of the sea shall ring you out from under the sky,
In a lost grave to lie
Under the ashes of space.
Ah, never look back, run fast, you impotent passer-by!—
Those three
Run behind you.”

Charlotte Becker: Echo

“Love said farewell, yet not with moan or tears
Did he recall the gladness of the years
We walked together. With a little laugh—
Ah, but no weeping ever could be half
So sad!—out from my open door he went,
His bowed wings torn, his breathing slow and spent.
And, though I know not whither he is gone,
I hear his laughter from the dusk till dawn!”

Iris Barry: Impression

“ The orchards are white again …
There was one I knew
Whose body was white as they: fairer.

Alas! that we drifted apart
Faster than pear-petals fall to the ground! ”

Elfrida de Renne Barrow: Impressions

“I feel the sands of time
Crunch beneath my feet—
Out on the open road
Or in the narrow street.

And when my heart is glad
My foot-prints are light,
Tracing faintly the sands
That glitter cool and white.

But when my soul is sad
Heavy sinks my tread—
Deep furrows in the dank
Dark sands where lie the dead. ”

Pauline Barrington: Sunrise at Santa Barbara

“The sea hides its curious heart
Under a bridal robe of mother-o’-pearl,
Mother-o’-pearl flushed with rose,
Waiting.

Against a turquoise sky
The mountains kneel, mauve-gray
In the gray-pink sand
Of the curving shore,
Waiting.

The moon, pale and wan,
Hangs a flat design in silver
On the expectant sky,
Waiting.

The palm trees, in parallel rows
Along the Plaza, clasp
Nervous, wavering fingers,
Waiting.

Riding on a many-fluted shell
Held on the backs of jade tritons,
Comes Venus Anadyomene, straight and slim,
Combing the night curls
From her ruddy hair,
Blown by the four winds
To the meeting with her lover.

Then, he comes—the young Sun,
Glorious in amazing strength and splendor,
Striding across the mountains
To pave a path of brazen metal
For the whiteness of her feet,
The two little feet of his bride.
He surrounds, covers, hides her
In golden madness.

The sea roughens,
Sending her waves with the morning breeze
Against the shore.
It is day!”

Janet Norris Bangs: The Sand-Dunes

“There I know blue, blue water,
And a waving line of land,
With pines that grow in a wind-swept row
As set by a dreamer’s hand;
And where the winds will, in hollow or hill,
Sand and sand and sand.

Sand as soft as a snowfall—
Drifting, eddying, whirled—
Sweeping into the valleys,
Over the grasses swirled,
And billowing up to the tree-tops
That look out on the world.

Sand of romantic patterns
New for each passer fleet.
Here a flower has lain, there the leaf-like chain
That was marked by a sea-gull’s feet;
And the pebbled trace as of scalloped lace
Where the waves and the shore-line meet.

Gleaming sands in the morning
When the little waves run white, 20
While gay wings fan the shining span
And float a song in flight;
And the lupine blue spreads a heaven new
Where the stars might rest till night.

But gray, gray sands at evening,
When haunting voices blow
Over twilight-faded water
From trees of long ago,
Hushed by the drifting silence
As by eternal snow.

O grass, flowers, trees unfruitful,
Caught while your sun was high,
Buried deep in the sand-dune’s keep,
Is all of life gone by?
Can a springing bough lift your glory now
And give it back to the sky?”

Leone Baker: Spectre-Theme

“My little new love
Is like a wistfully singing violin on a moon-drenched hill.
So I wrapped her carefully in my thoughts,
And carried her to a room
Where she might surrender her eyelids to my lips
And dry my tears in her hair.
But suddenly you were there,
Beloved ghost,
With your eyes like two open doors to sorrow’s chamber.
You were so nearly afraid to speak
Your words were blown toward me
Like fragments of mist
Distorted and scattered by wind.
But my little new love—
She who is more shy than drops of rain—
Trembled and fled from me;
And then there were only we two
Poor ghosts,
Shrinking against opposite walls of the room,
Staring.”

Mary Austin: The Grass on the Mountain

From: High Places

“Oh, a long time
The snow has possessed the mountains.

The deer have come down, and the big horn,
They have followed the sun to the south
To feed on the mesquite pods and the bunch grass.
Loud are the thunder drums
In the tents of the mountains.

Oh, a long time now
Have we eaten chia seeds
And dried deer’s flesh of the summer killing.
We are wearied of our huts,
And the smoky smell of our garments.

We are sick with desire of the sun
And the grass on the mountain.”

Margaret Steele Anderson: Purple

“A pigeon walking dainty in the street;
The morning mist where backyard fences meet;
An old Victoria—and in it, proud,
An old, old woman, ready for her shroud:
These are the purple sights for me,
Not palaces nor pageantry.”

Pearl Anderson: A Trivial Day in Early Autumn

“A China lily cup
Upon a pool
Lifts up
Its bowl.

Over the pale sky
Frail clouds;
A butterfly
About the garden flowers.

Subtle
The wind
Among
The falling leaves.

The grass
Is wanly brittle
Beneath the feet
Of those who pass. ”

Mary Aldis: Thrones

“Golden and green and blue
Is the screen of the Empress’ throne;
Golden and green and blue
And the black of ebony.

Green and blue are the peacocks’ plumes
Standing to right and left;
Golden and blue and green the silk
Of the high-swung canopy.
Wide and deep is the Empress’ throne
Of carven, ebony,
With its straight footstool
And its peacocks’ fans
And its shadowing mystery.
. . . . . . . . .
Brown is the slope of the dust-blown hill
And brown the dust-blown plain;
Grey are the guarding dogs of stone
And grey the sentinels.

Grey are the carven shapes that lead
To a carven sepulchre,
Grey is the broken balustrade
And grey the heavy walls.

Wide and deep is the Empress’ throne
On that hillside far away,
With its carven dogs
And its sentinels
And its mighty door of grey.”

Zoë Akins: Driftwood Burning

“You who behold me,
You—the strangers,
The dwellers in the low lands
Here by the river—
Can you indeed
Behold me, burning,
Without wonder, without dreaming?

The great flames
Are taking me;
They are consuming me;
Even as you—
Dwellers in the low lands—
Are to return unto dust
In the end,
I, the driftwood burning,
Am going my way
To the nothingness
Of ashes in the wind.
Yet I go
Not slowly—not a slow fog
Creeping from one valley
To another—
But flamingly,
Flamingly—
A light, a warmth, a signal,
Leaping out of the darkness!

Time found me
Before I was I—
Long ago, far away
In a deep forest;
And Time took me,
Rooting me up
From the ground that bore me—
Away from the circling arms
Of my brothers and sisters about me—
Time took me
And gave me,
Frightened and broken,
To the Great River.

My brothers and sisters
Of the forest
Where Time found me
Lamented perhaps
That I was broken
And sent to drift
On the unreturning waves
Of the unreturning river.
They have gone perhaps—
My brothers and sisters—
Into the building of ships
Ot the building of homes….
But it was my destiny
To drift, to burn….
Bronze are my flames,
And opal,
Like the breasts
Of the wild geese
In the bronze mirror;
And green are my flames
Like the young willow trees
That lean to the river
From thousands of islands
And from long low shores….

I burn
With all the beauty
That I have known
And have dreamed of
Under the quivering fountains
Of light flowing
From the radiant sun,
Or in the pale
Amethystine twilights
Of gathering snows….

And my flames
Ride upward into smoke
Exulting
That they are akin
To the proudest elements
That gave the light to the stars,
The heat to the sun—
Akin, but more beautiful
With secrets and colors
That the stars and the sun
Have yet to learn.
And there is a gladness in me
That is like the gladness
Of dancers and birds,
For Eternity vexes me not
With the glories and duties
Perpetual
She has given
To the stars and the sun,
The lightning, the wind….

It was my destiny
To burn,
To be a light, a warmth, a signal
Here on your shore
By the Great River
That brought me down
And nursed me on her breast,
And whispered her secrets to me,
And gave me her colors,
And flung me to my fate….

Can you behold me
Burning—
O strangers,
Without wonder, without dreaming?”

Loureine Aber: Farewell (From 'Laurel Wreaths')

“WILL you latch up the doors,
And hush the lyre that wakes its soul in the corner?
Latch up the doors, and open the windows,
That the wind may come in;
For I go earthward, and shall nevermore return—
Nevermore.
When the Autumn rises like a burnished god,
When the Spring steps over the writhing hills,
When Winter sweeps her robe across the roofs,
And Summer wheels her droning, sleepy bees—
Nevermore.
Will you latch up the doors?—
But hang no yew on the lintel,
And weep no tear in the doorway.
I go skyward, and shall nevermore return:
Though the earth-soul cry at me, whining like a lone lover in the dark;
Though the soil lean her bare, brown bosom toward my cheek.
Latch up the doors!
Still the wailing lyre in the corner!
I go deathward, and shall nevermore return.”

Mildred McNeal Sweeney: The Poet

“Himself is least afraid
When the singing lips in the dust
With all mute lips are laid.
For thither all men must.
Nor is the end long stayed.

But he, having cast his song
Upon the faithful air
And given it speed—is strong
That last strange hour to dare,
Nor wills to tarry long.

Adown immortal time
That greater self shall pass,
And wear its eager prime
And lend the youth it has
Like one far blowing chime.

He has made sure the quest
And now—his word gone forth—
May have his perfect rest
Low in the tender earth,
The wind across his breast.”

Florence Earle Coates: The Unconquered Air

“I
Others endure Man’s rule: he therefore deems
I shall endure it—I, the unconquered Air!
Imagines this triumphant strength may bear
His paltry sway! yea, ignorantly dreams,
Because proud Rhea now his vassal seems,
And Neptune him obeys in billowy lair,
That he a more sublime assault may dare,
Where blown by tempest wild the vulture screams.

Presumptuous, he mounts: I toss his bones
Back from the height supernal he has braved:
Ay, as his vessel nears my perilous zones,
I blow the cockle-shell away like chaff
And give him to the Sea he has enslaved.
He founders in its depths; and then I laugh!

II
Impregnable I held myself, secure
Against intrusion. Who can measure Man?
How should I guess his mortal will outran
Defeat so far that danger could allure
For its own sake?—that he would all endure,
All sacrifice, all suffer, rather than
Forego the daring dreams Olympian
That prophesy to him of victory sure?

Ah, tameless courage!—dominating power
That, all attempting, in a deathless hour
Made earth-born Titans godlike, in revolt!—
Fear is the fire that melts Icarian wings:
Who fears nor Fate, nor Time, nor what Time brings,
May drive Apollo’s steeds, or wield the thunderbolt!”

Helen Gray Cone: To-Day

“Voice, with what emulous fire thou singest free hearts of old fashion,
English scorners of Spain, sweeping the blue sea-way,
Sing me the daring of life for life, the magnanimous passion
Of man for man in the mean populous streets of To-day!

Hand, with what color and power thou couldst show, in the ring hot-sanded,
Brown Bestiarius holding the lean tawn tiger at bay,
Paint me the wrestle of Toil with the wild-beast Want, bare-handed;
Shadow me forth a soul steadily facing To-day!”

Anna Hempstead Branch: To a New York Shop-Girl Dressed For Sunday

“Today I saw the shop-girl go
Down gay Broadway to meet her beau.

Conspicuous, splendid, conscious, sweet,
She spread abroad and took the street.

And all that niceness would forbid,
Superb, she smiled upon and did.

Let other girls, whose happier days
Preserve the perfume of their ways,

Go modestly. The passing hour
Adds splendor to their opening flower.

But from this child too swift a doom
Must steal her prettiness and bloom,

Toil and weariness hide the grace
That pleads a moment from her face.

So blame her not if for a day
She flaunts her glories while she may.

She half perceives, half understands,
Snatching her gifts with both her hands.

The little strut beneath the skirt
That lags neglected in the dirt,

The indolent swagger down the street—
Who can condemn such happy feet!

Innocent! vulgar—that’s the truth!
Yet with the darling wiles of youth!

The bright, self-conscious eyes that stare
With such hauteur, beneath such hair!
Perhaps the men will find me fair!

Charming and charmed, flippant, arrayed,
Fluttered and foolish, proud, displayed,
Infinite pathos of parade!

The bangles and the narrowed waist—
The tinsled boa—forgive the taste!
Oh, the starved nights she gave for that,
And bartered bread to buy her hat!

She flows before the reproachful sage
And begs her woman’s heritage.

Dear child, with the defiant eyes,
Insolent with the half surmise
We do not quite admire, I know
How foresight frowns on this vain show!

And judgment, wearily sad, may see
No grace in such frivolity.

Yet which of us was ever bold
To worship Beauty, hungry and cold!

Scorn famine down, proudly expressed
Apostle to what things are best.

Let him who starves to buy the food
For his soul’s comfort find her good,

Nor chide the frills and furbelows
That are the prettiest things she knows.

Poet and prophet in God’s eyes
Make no more perfect sacrifice.

Who knows before what inner shrine
She eats with them the bread and wine?

Poor waif! One of the sacred few
That madly sought the best they knew!

Dear—let me lean my cheek to-night
Close, close to yours. Ah, that is right.

How warm and near! At last I see
One beauty shines for thee and me.

So let us love and understand—
Whose hearts are hidden in God’s hand.

And we will cherish your brief Spring
And all its fragile flowering.

God loves all prettiness, and on this
Surely his angels lay their kiss.”

Florence Wilkinson: The Fugitives

“We are they that go, that go,
Plunging before the hidden blow.
We run the byways of the earth,
For we are fugitive from birth,
Blindfolded, with wide hands abroad
That sow, that sow the sullen sod.

We cannot wait, we cannot stop
For flushing field or quickened crop;
The orange bow of dusky dawn
Glimmers our smoking swath upon;
Blindfolded still we hurry on.

How we do know the ways we run
That are blindfolded from the sun?
We stagger swiftly to the call,
Our wide hands feeling for the wall.

Oh, ye who climb to some clear heaven,
By grace of day and leisure given,
Pity us, fugitive and driven—
The lithe whip curling on our track,
The headlong haste that looks not back!”

Josephine Preston Peabody: The House and the Road

“The little Road says, Go,
The little House says, Stay:
And O, it’s bonny here at home,
But I must go away.

The little Road, like me,
Would seek and turn and know;
And forth I must, to learn the things
The little Road would show!

And go I must, my dears,
And journey while I may,
Though heart be sore for the little House
That had no word but Stay.

Maybe, no other way
Your child could ever know
Why a little House would have you stay,
When a little Road says, Go.”

Alice Brown: A West-Country Lover

“Then, lady, at last thou art sick of my sighing.
Good-bye!
So long as I sue, thou wilt still be denying?
Good-bye!
Ah, well! shall I vow then to serve thee forever,
And swear no unkindness our kinship can sever?
Nay, nay, dear my lass! here’s an end of endeavor.
Good-bye!

Yet let no sweet ruth for my misery grieve thee.
Good-bye!
The man who has loved knows as well how to leave thee.
Good-bye!
The gorse is enkindled, there’s bloom on the heather,
And love is my joy, but so too is fair weather;
I still ride abroad though we ride not together.
Good-bye!

My horse is my mate; let the wind be my master.
Good-bye!
Though Care may pursue, yet my hound follows faster.
Good-bye!
The red deer’s a-tremble in coverts unbroken.
He hears the hoof-thunder; he scents the death-token.
Shall I mope at home, under vows never spoken?
Good-bye!

The brown earth’s my book, and I ride forth to read it.
Good-bye!
The stream runneth fast, but my will shall outspeed it.
Good-bye!
I love thee, dear lass, but I hate the hag Sorrow.
As sun follows rain, and to-night has its morrow,
So I’ll taste of joy, though I steal, beg, or borrow!
Good-bye!”