Aline Murray Kilmer

IF I had loved you, soon, ah, soon I had lost you.
Had I been kind you had kissed me and gone your faithless way.
...

SOMETIMES when I am at tea with you
I catch my breath
At a thought that is old as the world is old
And more bitter than death.
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The thing that I am seeking
I know I shall not find;
A wistful voice is crying
This sorrow in my mind.
...

MY garden walks were smooth and green
And edged with box trees left and right,
An old grey sun-dial stood between
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IF I had loved you more God would have had pity;
He would never have left me here in this desolate place,
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I'M glad I have but a little heart–
For my heart is very small–
It makes it free to come and go
And no one cares at all.
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I know you are too dear to stay;
You are so exquisitely sweet:
My lonely house will thrill some day
To echoes of your eager feet.
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WHEN a storm comes up at night and the wind is crying,
When the trees are moaning like masts on laboring ships,
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HE has taken away the things that I loved best
Love and youth and the harp that knew my hand.
Laughter alone is left of all the rest.
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THE heart knoweth? If this be true indeed
Then the thing that I bear in my bosom is not a heart;
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A wind rose in the night,
(She had always feared it so!)
Sorrow plucked at my heart
And I could not help but go.
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Kenton and Deborah, Michael and Rose,
These are fine children as all the world knows,
But into my arms in my dreams every night
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SOME learn it in their youth,
Some after bitter years:
There is no escape from the truth
Though we drown in our tears.
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AND now it is all to be done over again,
And what will come of it only God can know.
What has become of the furrows ploughed by pain,
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I CAN never remake the thing I have destroyed;
I brushed the golden dust from the moth's bright wing,
...

THERE is no Rachel any more
And so it does not really matter.
Leah alone is left, and she
Goes her own way inscrutably.
...

ALL my life I have loved where I was not loved,
And always those whom I did not love loved me;
Only the God who made my wild heart knows
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SMILINGLY, out of my pain,
I have woven a little song;
You may take it away with you.
I shall not sing it again,
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DEBORAH and Christopher brought me dandelions,
Kenton brought me buttercups with summer on their breath,
...

WHEN I was young my heart was old,
My heart was rich and very wise:
Now all its wisdom has been told
And all its wealth is fairy gold
...