Ina Coolbrith Poems

HON. B. P. AVERY DIED IN PEKING, CHINA, NOV. 8, 1875.


GOD rest thy soul!
O, kind and pure,
Tender of heart, yet strong to wield control,
And to endure!

Close the clear eyes!
No greater woe
Earth's patient heart, than when a good man dies,
Can ever know.

With us is night,
Toil without rest;
But where thy gentle spirit walks in light.
The ways are blest.

God's peace be thine!
God's perfect peace.
Thy meed of faithful service, until time
And death shall cease.
...

There are no comrade roses at my window,
No green things in the lane;
Upon the roof no sibilant soft patter-
The lullaby of rain;
Without is silence, and within is silence,
Till silence grows a pain.

Within is silence, and without is silence,
The snow is on the sill,
In snow the window wreath'd instead of roses,
And snow is very still....
I wonder is it singing in the grasses,
The rain, on Russian Hill?
...

THE waning moon was up; the
Were faint, and very few;
The vines about the window-sill
Were wet with falling dew;

A little, cloud before the wind
Was drifting down the west;
I heard the moaning of the sea
In its unquiet rest:

Until, I know not from what grief,
Or thought of other years,
The hand I leaned upon was cold,
And wet with falling tears.
...

Youth that is sweetest lies chill, lies still in death:
Close and clear eyelids upon the tender eyes;
And hush the pleadings on murmur answereth,
And still the kisses that wake no warm replies.

White-limbed he lieth, dead youth-so strong, so fair:
And O, for the slumber that woke to happy days!
And O, the moonlights-O, golden dreams that were!
And O, the glory of live's long, pleasant ways!

Fair were the faces his eyes have looked upon;
But these are haggard, and wan, and very sad,
Sweet the love-laughters, and red lips he won;
But here is silence of lips no longer glad.

So, part the branches, where light falls long between,
And plait the grasses about his feet and head;
Here his loved summer shall wear her softest green,
And winds just ruffle the fringes of his bed.

His were the roses washed sweeter in the dew,
And his the rapture life knoweth not again;
But ours the tempest, the skies no longer blue,
For tender sunlight, and tender, falling rain.
...

IT must be sweet, O thou, my dead, to lie
With hands that folded are from every task
Sealed with the seal of the great mystery —
The lips that nothing answer, nothing ask.
The life - long struggle ended; ended quite
The weariness of patience, and of pain;
And the eyes closed to open not again
On desolate dawn or dreariness of night.
It must be sweet to slumber and forget;
To have the poor tired heart so still at last:
Done with all yearning, done with all regret,
Doubt, fear, hope, sorrow, all forever past:
Past all the hours, or slow of wing or fleet—
It must be sweet, it must be very sweet!
...

The great world has not known me,
Nor I the world have known;
The great world will not own me
Altho' I am her own.

I walk with her a stranger
Who am of her a child-
A vagrant, and a ranger
Of ways forlorn and wild.

Clear unto other vision,
Blind ever unto me,
My soul is a prison
Whereof none holds the key.

My Mother-World, I wonder
When no more of life a part-
A clod your bosom under-
Will you take me to your heart?
...

A MEADOW greenly carpeted;
A strip of woodland, brown and cool,
Through which the wandering pathway led
Unto the village school:

The little pathway he and I,
Across the happy summer-land,
In happy summer times gone by,
Trod, daily, hand in hand.

The mountain stream, far off, that drew
Its glittering length across the farm,
Reached softly down the vale, and threw
The path one cool, white arm;

And careless as the truant tide
That flashed its crystal in the sun,
Or slipped along the woodland side,
Our wayward feet would run.

Through tangled ferns, up furzy slopes,
Where the broad forest shadows fell,
Through golden seas of buttercups,
Wind-rippled, down the dell;

We plashed the foamy water-brink,
We followed on the rabbit's track,
And rang the merry bobolink
His saucy challenge back.

How tenderly, from stone to stone,
Where the deep stream ran swift and clear,
He led my timid footsteps on —
My gay, young cavalier!

He knew each haunt of bird and bee;
The secret of each nestling brood;
He mimicked every melody
That thrilled the listening wood;

With many a carved and quaint design,
Would fashion acorns into beads,
Chains of the needles of the pine,
And whistles out of reeds.

Ah! many a time the brave voice spake,
An earnest pleader in my cause;
The tanned, round hand went out to take
Dire strokes for broken laws;

And many a prompting, timely said,
The master's dreaded anger turned
From the small, idle, flaxen head
Whose tasks were yet unlearned!

What quaint, sweet summer gifts he brought!
A white pond-lily, filled to th' brim
With scarlet berries; buds, half shut;
Gold fruits on leaf and limb;

Some wide - blown flower with tawny dyes;
A butterfly with jeweled wing,
Or captive bird, with frighted eyes
And wee heart, fluttering.

Dear playmate! in those golden ways
Your heart found rest; my heart endures:
But, through the weary days and days,
Life gives no love like yours!

Life gives no faith! Ah, child - mate, dear,
When the appointed years shall fall
From off me, as a cloud, and near
And clear I hear the call —

And the new way is strange to me,
Reach thou, and lead me, hand-in-hand,
As down the path of old, till we
Before the Master stand!

There yet once more thy brave voice raise,
O playmate! in thy truant's cause,
For tasks unlearned, for wasted days,
For all His broken laws!
...

The night comes on with a hint of tears,
The in-borne fog with the in-born tide;
And the last faint crimson disappears
Where the sunset glory died.

And the wet blue hills in the mist are lost,
The skies grow gray in the daylight-wane,
And the waning moon, like a wan, white ghost,
Looks in at the window-pane;

A phantom light in the shifting wind,
A wandering specter of the sky-
As one, of all the stars un-kinned,
Apart and alone as I.
...

WHO knoweth the hope that was born to me,
When the spring - time came with its greenery!
With orchard blossoming, fair to see,
With drone of beetle, and buzz of bee,
And robin a trill on his apple-tree,
Cheerily, cheerily!

Who knoweth the hope that was dead—ah me!
That was dead — and never again to be,
When the winter came, all dismally,
With desolate rain on desolate sea;
With cold snow - blossoms for wood and lea,
And the wind a-moan in the apple-tree,
Drearily, drearily!
...

Her Raiment was of soft white thistledown,
And two great glowing topazes her eyes,
With depths of dusk, rare as the wondrous dyes
Of Tyre, of Persia-ancient of renown.
Perfect in beauty exquisite, from crown
Of the small head to feet, that, dainty-wise,
Trod, silken-fringed and sandaled; sorceries
Of sweetness hers, that knew nor fret nor frown.
Dear mystic ‘Egypt'! Of how tender wile!
My little comrade of the many years,
Who filled so small a space, and left so wide!
Who won from Sorrow's self a tender smile-
Who paid back love with love that brought no tears,
And never caused a pang-until she died!
...