By the woods and waters of Carmel the lark is glad in the sun. Harrow! Harrow! Music of God! Near to your nest her feet have trod Whose journeyings are done. Sing, O lover! I cannot sing. Wild and sad are the thoughts you bring. Well for you are the skies of spring, And to me all skies are one. In the beautiful woods of Carmel an iris bends to the wind. O thou far-off and sorrowful flower! Rose that I found in a tragic hour! Rose that I shall not find! Petals that fell so soft and slowly, Fragrant snows on the grasses lowly, Gathered now would I call you holy Ever to eyes once blind. In the pine-sweet valley of Carmel the cream-cups scatter in foam. Azures of early lupin there! Now the wild lilac floods the air Like a broken honey-comb. So could the flowers of Paradise Pour their souls to the morning skies; So like a ghost your fragrance lies On the path that once led home. On the emerald hills of Carmel the spring and winter have met. Here I find in a gentled spot The frost of the wild forget-me-not, And -- I cannot forget. Heart once light as the floating feather Borne aloft in the sunny weather, Spring and winter have come together -- Shall you and she meet yet? On the rocks and beaches of Carmel the surf is mighty to-day. Breaker and lifting billow call To the high, blue Silence over all With the word no heart can say. Time-to-be, shall I hear it ever? Time-that-is, with the hands that sever, Cry all words but the dreadful "Never"! And name of her far away. Music I heard. [Conrad Aiken] Music I heard with you was more than music, And bread I broke with you was more than bread; Now that I am without you, all is desolate; All that was once so beautiful is dead. Your hands once touched this table and this silver, And I have seen your fingers hold this glass. These things do not remember you, beloved, -- And yet your touch upon them will not pass. For it was in my heart you moved among them, And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes; And in my heart they will remember always, -- They knew you once, O beautiful and wise. Dusk at Sea. [Thomas S. Jones, Jr.] To-night eternity alone is near: The sea, the sunset, and the darkening blue; Within their shelter is no space for fear, Only the wonder that such things are true. The thought of you is like the dusk at sea -- Space and wide freedom and old shores left far, The shelter of a lone immensity Sealed by the sunset and the evening star. Old Ships. [David Morton] There is a memory stays upon old ships, A weightless cargo in the musty hold, -- Of bright lagoons and prow-caressing lips, Of stormy midnights, -- and a tale untold. They have remembered islands in the dawn, And windy capes that tried their slender spars, And tortuous channels where their keels have gone, And calm blue nights of stillness and the stars.