Margaret Widdemer Poems

ONCE when all the Spring was wild,
All the leaves dew-pearled,
Once I met Happiness,
Singing down the world.
...

DONE with the Spring's unrest and gleam,
The summer's toil and rich unrest,
With nothing left to seek or keep
...

Under dusky laurel leaf,
Scarlet leaf of rose,
I lie prone, who have known
All a woman knows.
...

St. Jeanne she sat with Michaël,
With Marguerite and Raphaël,
And all the saints who sent her forth a many years ago,
...

MY feet have touched the Dancing Water,
My lips have kissed the Singing Rose
And I was born a swan-girl's daughter . . .
...

THEY'VE flowers and cakes and candle-light,
And chair by crowded chair,
And I am very sweet and kind,
Because I do not care . . .
...

He saw it last of all before they herded in the steerage,
Dark against the sunset where he lingered by the hold,
...

The little pitiful, worn, laughing faces,
Begging of Life for Joy!
I saw the little daughters of the poor,
...

Ours was a quiet town, a still town, a sober town,
Softly curled the yellow roads that slept in the sun,
...

WHEN I come back in the gloom
To my lighted house once more
My heart says, 'Haste tonight!
There is something you do not know,
...