I think that as there clings Colour to blossoms shed, So love and all that sings, So hearts that beat and bled Were with old fragrance wed. Now when the garden flings On many a secret thread Sweets to the wanderer, Some buried witch-bell rings The old odours that were Nard and mint and myrrh. _Envoy_ Spring, let me lay my head Where the wild season sings Some dead girl’s heart from her. O young heart, ages dead, Old odours thrill mute strings. The old odours that were Nard and mint and myrrh. HOKKU The way that shadow fell along the floor! I too have waited for a shadow. HOKKU Two butterflies. Two birds. O the wide night of space. Sweet, hold me close. HOKKU Yellow I see is my close friend. She can create a sun. HOKKU I would have stayed the dawn down the dark sky. But there were many dawns. HOKKU A child’s faint cry. But you and I have had A birth since birth. Only there was no cry. HOKKU A candle flame. My love has put it out. It did not know its bliss. Shall I, in death? HOKKU Cloths, fans, stones slumberous, colour and fancy and lilt. No hard straight place to be. O quiet sky. HOKKU I made a garden. Afterward it died. It never even knew it was a garden. SONNETS AND VARIATIONS WHEN DID SPRING DIE? When did Spring die? I did not see her go Down the bright lane she painted. All flower-still She moved among her emblems on the hill Touching away their burden of old snow. Was it on some great down where long winds flow That the wild spirit of Spring went out to fill The eyes of Summer? Did a daffodil Lift the pale urn remote where she lies low? O not as other moments did she die, That woman-season outlined like a rose. Before the banner of Autumn’s scarlet bough The Summer fell; and Winter with a cry Wed with March wind. Spring did not die like those But vaguely, as if Love had prompted: Now. ONE DAWN SHE WOKE ME---- One dawn she woke me when the darkness lay Faint on the Summer fields. The air Was like a question. Green was grey With dew distilled in delitesence where Covert, the night-folk wrought. She said: “Dear one, It is our holiday.” Forth we went Finding new kindred, new bequest of sun, Inheriting again the firmament. Long ago ... The old years lie upon her grave like flowers. The alchemy of hours Has made me someone whom she would not know. How strangely that frail morning lives and towers When I am other and when she lies low. THERE ARE WITHIN US LIVES WE NEVER LIVE