I hear the stars still singing To the beautiful, silent night, As they speed with noiseless winging Their ever westward flight. I hear the waves still falling On the stretch of lonely shore, But the sound of a sweet voice calling I shall hear, alas! no more. GIRL OF FIFTEEN Girl of fifteen, I see you each morning from my window As you pass on your way to school. I do more than see, I watch you. I furtively draw the curtain aside. And my heart leaps through my eyes And follows you down the street; Leaving me behind, half-hid And wholly ashamed. What holds me back, Half-hid behind the curtains and wholly ashamed, But my forty years beyond your fifteen? Girl of fifteen, as you pass There passes, too, a lightning flash of time In which you lift those forty summers off my head, And take those forty winters out of my heart. THE SUICIDE For fifty years, Cruel, insatiable Old World, You have punched me over the heart Till you made me cough blood. The few paltry things I gathered You snatched out of my hands. You have knocked the cup from my thirsty lips. You have laughed at my hunger of body and soul. You look at me now and think, "He is still strong, There ought to be twenty more years of good punching there. At the end of that time he will be old and broken, Not able to strike back, But cringing and crying for leave To live a little longer." Those twenty, pitiful, extra years Would please you more than the fifty past, Would they not, Old World? Well, I hold them up before your greedy eyes, And snatch them away as I laugh in your face, Ha! Ha! Bang--! DOWN BY THE CARIB SEA I _Sunrise in the Tropics_ Sol, Sol, mighty lord of the tropic zone, Here I wait with the trembling stars To see thee once more take thy throne. There the patient palm tree watching Waits to say, "Good morn" to thee, And a throb of expectation Pulses through the earth and me. Now, o'er nature falls a hush, Look! the East is all a-blush; And a growing crimson crest Dims the late stars in the west; Now, a flood of golden light Sweeps across the silver night, Swift the pale moon fades away Before the light-girt King of Day, See! the miracle is done! Once more behold! The Sun! II _Los Cigarillos_ This is the land of the dark-eyed _gente_, Of the _dolce far niente_, Where we dream away Both the night and day, At night-time in sleep our dreams we invoke, Our dreams come by day through the redolent smoke, As it lazily curls, And slowly unfurls From our lips, And the tips Of our fragrant _cigarillos_. For life in the tropics is only a joke, So we pass it in dreams, and we pass it in smoke, Smoke--smoke--smoke.