TWO SONGS FOR SOLITUDE I ~The Crystal Gazer~ I shall gather myself into myself again, I shall take my scattered selves and make them one, I shall fuse them into a polished crystal ball Where I can see the moon and the flashing sun. I shall sit like a sibyl, hour after hour intent, Watching the future come and the present go-- And the little shifting pictures of people rushing In tiny self-importance to and fro. II ~The Solitary~ My heart has grown rich with the passing of years, I have less need now than when I was young To share myself with every comer, Or shape my thoughts into words with my tongue. It is one to me that they come or go If I have myself and the drive of my will, And strength to climb on a summer night And watch the stars swarm over the hill. Let them think I love them more than I do, Let them think I care, though I go alone, If it lifts their pride, what is it to me Who am self-complete as a flower or a stone? LOUIS UNTERMEYER MONOLOG FROM A MATTRESS _Heinrich Heine aetat 56, loquitur:_ Can that be you, _la mouche?_ Wait till I lift This palsied eye-lid and make sure.... Ah, true. Come in, dear fly, and pardon my delay In thus existing; I can promise you Next time you come you'll find no dying poet-- Without sufficient spleen to see me through, The joke becomes too tedious a jest. I am afraid my mind is dull to-day; I have that--something--heavier on my chest And then, you see, I've been exchanging thoughts With Doctor Franz. He talked of Kant and Hegel As though he'd nursed them both through whooping cough And, as he left, he let his finger shake Too playfully, as though to say, "Now off With that long face--you've years and years to live." I think he thinks so. But, for Heaven's sake, Don't credit it--and never tell Mathilde. Poor dear, she has enough to bear already.... This _was_ a month! During my lonely weeks One person actually climbed the stairs To seek a cripple. It was Berlioz-- But Berlioz always was original. Meissner was also here; he caught me unawares, Scribbling to my old mother. "What!" he cried, "Is the old lady of the _Dammthor_ still alive? And do you write her still?" "Each month or so." "And is she not unhappy then, to find How wretched you must be?" "How can she know? You see," I laughed, "she thinks I am as well As when she saw me last. She is too blind To read the papers--some one else must tell What's in my letters, merely signed by me. Thus she is happy. For the rest-- That any son should be as sick as I, No mother could believe." _Ja_, so it goes.