How fair a bride-groom Death must be. He took her in his arms, Her answering kiss now Spring is here The valley leafage warms. ALIAS Between the dawn and the first breath Of dusk there slips away Something that partly is like death And partly is like day. IN ARVIA’S ROOM _For Her Cradle_ I cannot tell you what you ask. But of my life to be You who are wise and know your speech, Tell me. _For Her Mirror_ Look in the deep of me: What are we going to do? If I am I, as I am, Who in the world are you? _For a Comb of Ivory_ Use me and think of soul and mind and wonder yet to be. This is the jest: Could soul touch soul if it were not for me? _For Her Doll’s House_ Girl doll would be a silken flower and look as real flowers do; Boy doll would be a telephone and have the world speak through. The poet doll would like to be the doorbell with a tongue For other little dolls like bells most sensitively rung. The paper doll would be a queen, the Dinah doll a star, And all--how ignominious!--are only what they are. _For Her Candle-stick_ Taper, winnow the world of its angles and where Were sharp things lay softness, Night-god of the air! _For the Chimney-place_ I am the causeway to the upper places That the fire understands. I am the link with everything unspoken. How well I warm your hands. _For a Flower Pot_ Call sweetness into being. Let it live in me. The seed, the soil, the sun and I Work with authority. _For the Telephone_ I the absurdity Proving what cannot be. Come, when you talk with me Does it become you well To doubt a miracle? _Along Her Book-shelf_ Lay one hand on us; but keep the other free to touch far things which are not far--tenderly. _Where Boughs Touch the Glass_ They lap on the indoor shore, The waves of the leaf mere. They say: We tell you as well as we can, We wonder what you hear. _For Her Window_ I see the stones, I see the stars, I know not what I see. Things always say words to themselves And now and then to me. But sometimes when I look between Large stones and little stars I almost know--but what I know Flies through the window bars. NON NOBIS _Find me little doors of air, Let me in and in. I will come and go all day.... None will miss me from my place In the room, the porch, the lawn_; And yet I shall have a way To enter and find quiet. _Knit me in a garment. Weave me in a spell. I shall look the same to them. They will see me in the street In the shop, the car, the hall_, And yet all the time I shall be my own, In a place where they do not come.