Great Throughts Treasury

"I heard a cry in the night, a thousand miles it came, sharp as a flash of light, my name, my name! It was your voice I heard, you waked and loved me so --I send you back this word,I know, I know!"

"I heard the water-fall rejoice singing like a choir, I saw the sun flash out of it azure and amber fire. The earth was like an open flower enameled and arrayed, the path I took to find its heart fluttered with sun and shade. And while earth lured me, gently, gently, happy and all alone, suddenly a heavy snake reared black upon a stone."

"I hope that when he smiles at me he does not guess my joy and pain, for if he did, he is too kind to ever look my way again."

"I love too much; I am a river surging with spring that seeks the sea, I am too generous a giver, love will not stoop to drink of me. His feet will turn to desert places shadowless, reft of rain and dew, where stars stare down with sharpened faces from heavens pitilessly blue. And there at midnight sick with faring, he will stoop down in his desire to slake the thirst grown past all bearing in stagnant water keen as fire."

"I made you many and many a song, yet never one told all you are--it was as though a net of words were flung to catch a star; it was as though I curved my hand and dipped sea-water eagerly,only to find it lost the blue dark splendor of the sea."

"I have grown weary of the winds of heaven. I will not be a reed to hold the sound of whatsoever breath the gods may blow, turning my torment into music for them. They gave me life; the gift was bountiful, I lived with the swift singing strength of fire, seeking for beauty as a flame for fuel -"

"I have loved hours at sea, gray cities, the fragile secret of a flower, music, the making of a poem that gave me heaven for an hour; first stars above a snowy hill, voices of people kindly and wise, and the great look of love, long hidden, found at last in meeting eyes. I have loved much and been loved deeply?oh when my spirit's fire burns low, leave me the darkness and the stillness, I shall be tired and glad to go."

"I may not speak till Eros' torch is dim, the god is bitter and will have it so."

"I shall make the most of all that comes: and the least of all that goes."

"I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes."

"I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful when rain bends down the bough; and I shall be more silent and cold-hearted than you are now."

"I saw him sitting in his door, trembling as old men do; his house was old; his barn was old, and yet his eyes seemed new. His eyes had seen three times my years and kept a twinkle still, though they had looked at birth and death and three graves on a hill. "I will sit down with you," I said, "And you will make me wise; Tell me how you have kept the joy Still burning in your eyes." Then like an old-time orator impressively he rose; "I make the most of all that comes, The least of all that goes." The jingling rhythm of his words Echoes as old songs do, yet this had kept his eyes alight till he was ninety-two."

"I should be glad of loneliness and hours that go on broken wings, a thirsty body, a tired heart and the unchanging ache of things, if I could make a single song as lovely and as full of light, as hushed and brief as a falling star on a winter night."

"I thought I had forgotten, but it all came back again to-night with the first spring thunder in a rush of rain. I remembered a darkened doorway where we stood while the storm swept by, thunder gripping the earth and lightning scrawled on the sky. The passing motor busses swayed, for the street was a river of rain, lashed into little golden waves in the lamp light's stain. With the wild spring rain and thunder my heart was wild and gay; your eyes said more to me that night than your lips would ever say. . . . I thought I had forgotten, but it all came back again to-night with the first spring thunder in a rush of rain."

"I try to catch at many a tune like petals of light fallen from the moon, broken and bright on a dark lagoon, but they float away ? for who can hold youth, or perfume or the moon's gold?"

"I thought of you when I was wakened by a wind that made me glad and afraid of the rushing, pouring sound of the sea that the great trees made. One thought in my mind went over and over while the darkness shook and the leaves were thinned?I thought it was you who had come to find me, you were the wind."

"I went out at night alone; the young blood flowing beyond the sea seemed to have drenched my spirit's wings?I bore my sorrow heavily. But when I lifted up my head from shadows shaken on the snow, I saw Orion in the east burn steadily as long ago. From windows in my father's house, dreaming my dreams on winter nights, I watched Orion as a girl above another city's lights. Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too, the world's heart breaks beneath its wars, all things are changed, save in the east the faithful beauty of the stars."

"I would live in your love as the sea-grasses live in the sea, borne up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each wave that recedes."

"If I am peaceful, I shall see beauty's face continually; feeding on her wine and bread I shall be wholly comforted, for she can make one day for me rich as my lost eternity."

"If I can find out God, then I shall find Him, if none can find Him, then I shall sleep soundly, knowing how well on earth your love sufficed me, a lamp in darkness."

"In my heart's most secret place, I pity them as angels do."

"If I must go to heaven's end climbing the ages like a stair, be near me and forever bend with the same eyes above me there; time will fly past us like leaves flying, we shall not heed, for we shall be beyond living, beyond dying, knowing and known unchangeably."

"Into my heart's treasury I slipped a coin That Time cannot take Nor a thief purloin- o better than the minting of a gold-crowned king Is the safe-kept memory Of a lovely thing."

"It grows too late for frolicking when all the world is old. Then little hiding Love, come forth, come forth before the autumn goes, and let us seek thro' ruined paths the garden's last red rose."

"Life is a frail moth flying caught in the web of the years that pass."

"Life is but thought."

"It is strange how often a heart must be broken before the years can make it wise."

"It was a night of early spring, the winter-sleep was scarcely broken; around us shadows and the wind; listened for what was never spoken. Though half a score of years are gone, spring comes as sharply now as then?but if we had it all to do it would be done the same again. It was a spring that never came; but we have lived enough to know that what we never have, remains; it is the things we have that go."

"Joy was a flame in me Too steady to destroy. Lithe as a bending reed, Loving the storm that sways her - I found more joy in sorrow Than you could find in joy."

"It will not hurt me when I am old, a running tide where moonlight burned will not sting me like silver snakes; the years will make me sad and cold, it is the happy heart that breaks."

"Let me remember you, soon will the winter be on us, snow-hushed and heartless."

"Let this single hour atone for the theft of all of me."

"Look back with longing eyes and know that I will follow, lift me up in your love as a light wind lifts a swallow, let our flight be far in sun or blowing rain--but what if I heard my first love calling me again? Hold me on your heart as the brave sea holds the foam, take me far away to the hills that hide your home; peace shall thatch the roof and love shall latch the door--but what if I heard my first love calling me once more?"

"Look for a lovely thing and you will find it, it is not far, it never will be far."

"Lost as a snowflake in the sea. You love me, and I find you still A spirit beautiful and bright, Yet I am I, who long to be Lost as a light is lost in light."

"Lost as a candle lit at noon,"

"Moon, worn thin to the width of a quill, in the dawn clouds flying, how good to go, light into light, and still giving light, dying."

"Make songs for Death as you would sing to Love ? but you will not assuage him. He alone of all the gods will take no gifts from men."

"Love said, "Wake still and think of me," Sleep, "Close your eyes till break of day," but Dreams came by and smilingly gave both to Love and Sleep their way."

"My dreams are over, I have ceased to cry against the fate that made men love my mouth and left their spirits all too deaf to hear the little songs that echoed through my soul. I have no anger now. The dreams are done; yet since the Greeks and Trojans would not see aught but my body's fairness, till the end, in all the islands set in all the seas, and all the lands that lie beneath the sun, till light turn darkness, and till time shall sleep, men's lives shall waste with longing after me, for I shall be the sum of their desire, the whole of beauty, never seen again."

"My heart is a garden tired with autumn."

"My soul lives in my body's house, and you have both the house and her?but sometimes she is less your own than a wild, gay adventurer; a restless and an eager wraith, how can I tell what she will do?Oh, I am sure of my body's faith, but what if my soul broke faith with you?"

"My soul is a broken field ploughed by pain."

"My heart is heavy with many a song Like ripe fruit bearing down the tree, but I can never give you one -- My songs do not belong to me. Yet in the evening, in the dusk when moths go to and fro, in the gray hour if the fruit has fallen, take it, no one will know."

"No one worth possessing can be quite possessed; lay that on your heart, my young angry dear; this truth, this hard and precious stone, lay it on your hot cheek, let it hide your tear. Hold it like a crystal when you are alone and gaze in the depths of the icy stone. Long, look long and you will be blessed: no one worth possessing can be quite possessed."

"Not lost, although I long to be."

"O lovely chance, what can I do to give my gratefulness to you? You rise between myself and me with a wise persistency; I would have broken body and soul, but by your grace, still I am whole."

"Never fear the thing you feel--only by love is life made real."

"Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree if mankind perished utterly; and Spring herself, when she woke at dawn, would scarcely know that we were gone."

"Now at last I have come to see what life is, nothing is ever ended, everything only begun, and the brave victories that seem so splendid are never really won. Even love that I built my spirit's house for, comes like a brooding and a baffled guest, and music and men's praise and even laughter are not so good as rest."