A VIRGINAL No, no! Go from me. I have left her lately. I will not spoil my sheath with lesser brightness, For my surrounding air has a new lightness; Slight are her arms, yet they have bound me straitly And left me cloaked as with a gauze of aether; As with sweet leaves; as with a subtle clearness. Oh, I have picked up magic in her nearness To sheathe me half in half the things that sheathe her. No, no! Go from me. I have still the flavour, Soft as spring wind that’s come from birchen bowers. Green come the shoots, aye April in the branches, As winter’s wound with her sleight hand she staunches, Hath of the trees a likeness of the savour: As white their bark, so white this lady’s hours. BALLAD FOR GLOOM For God, our God is a gallant foe That playeth behind the veil. I have loved my God as a child at heart That seeketh deep bosoms for rest, I have loved my God as a maid to man— But lo, this thing is best: To love your God as a gallant foe that plays behind the veil; To meet your God as the night winds meet beyond Arcturus’ pale. I have played with God for a woman, I have staked with my God for truth, I have lost to my God as a man, clear-eyed— His dice be not of ruth. For I am made as a naked blade, But hear ye this thing in sooth: Who loseth to God as man to man Shall win at the turn of the game. I have drawn my blade where the lightnings meet But the ending is the same: Who loseth to God as the sword blades lose Shall win at the end of the game. For God, our God is a gallant foe that playeth behind the veil. When God deigns not to overthrow hath need of triple mail. Δωρια Be in me as the eternal moods of the bleak wind, and not As transient things are— gaiety of flowers. Have me in the strong loneliness of sunless cliffs And of gray waters. Let the gods speak softly of us In days hereafter, the shadowy flowers of Orcus Remember thee. IN A STATION OF THE METRO The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough. _Louis Untermeyer_