Your voice is the color of a robin's breast, And there's a sweet sob in it like rain--still rain in the night. Among the leaves of the trumpet-tree, close to his nest, The pea-dove sings, and each note thrills me with strange delight Like the words, wet with music, that well from your trembling throat. I'm afraid of your eyes, they're so bold, Searching me through, reading my thoughts, shining like gold. But sometimes they are gentle and soft like the dew on the lips of the eucharis Before the sun comes warm with his lover's kiss, You are sea-foam, pure with the star's loveliness, Not mortal, a flower, a fairy, too fair for the beauty-shorn earth, All wonderful things, all beautiful things, gave of their wealth to your birth: O I love you so much, not recking of passion, that I feel it is wrong, But men will love you, flower, fairy, non-mortal spirit burdened with flesh, Forever, life-long. FLAME-HEART So much have I forgotten in ten years, So much in ten brief years; I have forgot What time the purple apples come to juice And what month brings the shy forget-me-not; Forgotten is the special, startling season Of some beloved tree's flowering and fruiting, What time of year the ground doves brown the fields And fill the noonday with their curious fluting: I have forgotten much, but still remember The poinsettia's red, blood-red in warm December. I still recall the honey-fever grass, But I cannot bring back to mind just when We rooted them out of the ping-wing path To stop the mad bees in the rabbit pen. I often try to think in what sweet month The languid painted ladies used to dapple The yellow bye road mazing from the main, Sweet with the golden threads of the rose-apple: I have forgotten, strange, but quite remember The poinsettia's red, blood-red in warm December. What weeks, what months, what time o' the mild year We cheated school to have our fling at tops? What days our wine-thrilled bodies pulsed with joy Feasting upon blackberries in the copse? Oh, some I know! I have embalmed the days, Even the sacred moments, when we played, All innocent of passion uncorrupt, At noon and evening in the flame-heart's shade: We were so happy, happy,--I remember Beneath the poinsettia's red in warm December. TWO-AN'-SIX Merry voices chatterin', Nimble feet dem patterin', Big an' little, faces gay, Happy day dis market day. Sateday, de marnin' break, Soon, soon market-people wake; An' de light shine from de moon While dem boy, wid pantaloon Roll up ober dem knee-pan, 'Tep across de buccra lan' To de pastur whe' de harse Feed along wid de jackass, An' de mule cant' in de track Wid him tail up in him back, All de ketchin' to defy, No ca' how dem boy might try.