Ina Coolbrith Poems

THE Daffodil sang: '' Darling of the sun
Am I, am I, that wear
His colors everywhere.'

The Violet pleaded soft, in undertone:
'' Am I less perfect made,
Or hidden in the shade
So close and deep, that heaven may not see
Its own fair hue in me?'

The Rose stood up, full-blown,
Right royal as a Queen upon her throne:
'Nay, but I reign alone,'
She said, 'with all hearts for my very own.'

One whispered, with faint flush, not far away:
'I am the eye of day,
And all men love me;' and, with drowsy sighs,
A Lotus, from the still pond where she lay,
Breathed, 'I am precious balm for weary eyes.'

Only the fair field Lily, slim and tall,
Spake not, for all;
Spake not and did not stir,
Lapsed in some far and tender memory.
Softly I questioned her,
'And what of thee?'
And winds were lulled about the bended head,
And the warm sunlight swathed her as in a flame,
While the awed answer came,
'Hath HE not said?'
...

If I have never loved before
Yet love I now, indeed!
My lover's will is as the wind
Wherein I am reed.

Yet know I well how firm and fair
The wind's soft wooings are-
True as unto the day the sun,
Unto the night the star.
...

AFTER the winter rain,
Sing, robin ! — sing, swallow!
Grasses are in the lane,
Buds and flowers will follow.

Woods shall ring, blithe and gay,
With bird-trill and twitter,
Though the skies weep to-day,
And the winds are bitter.

Though deep call unto deep
As calls the thunder,
And white the billows leap
The tempest under;

Softly the waves shall come
Up the long, bright beaches,
With dainty flowers of foam
And tenderest speeches. . . .

After the wintry pain,
And the long, long sorrow,
Sing, heart!— for thee again
Joy comes with the morrow.
...

Tent me within your cool, leaf-latticed house.
Pomegranate bough!
A carpet, sown with blossom-rubies, spread,
A queen might tread.
Toss your pink-petal banners to the breeze,
Bloom of the almond trees;
Tide to and fro
In seas of fragrances,
Peach blow and apple-snow-
Of every blossoming thing I am a part
Since love is at my heart.

They are talking very busily, the birds,
With such soft words
And sudden just-can't-help-it bursts of song,
The nesting leaves among!
Listen, that trill and tone!
Was ever such ecstatic rapture known?
Ah, sweethearts! Yet a moment pause, I pray-
I know what you say,
Since love is mine today.
...

BEYOND the flight of hours,
Beneath the rooted flowers,
Where winter rain, nor showers
Of April, fall;
Where days that say 'Alas!'
Forget to come, to pass;
And joy or grief that was,
Is ended all.

There never sunlight gleams;
There sleep begets not dreams;
Therein no voice of streams,
Nor voice of trees.
From shadow into sun,
From light to shadow won,
No shining rivers run
To shining seas.

No birds of morning throat
Their joy from skies remote;
From the still leaves no note
On either hand;
No love-lorn nightingale,
That sings while stars wax pale,
And moonlight, as a veil,
Is on the land.

Many the dwellers are
Within that valley far,
Lit by nor sun nor star,
Where no dawn is;
Where sleep broods as a dove;
And love forgot of love,
The dead delights thereof
Can never miss.

Wherein is spoken word,
Nor any laughter heard;
The eyelids are not stirred
By touch of tears;
Wherein the poet's brain
The rapture and the pain
Of song knows not again,
Through all the years.

Pale leaves of poppies shed
About the brows and head,
From whence the laurel, dead,
Is dropped to dust.
Strength laid in armor down
To mold, and on the gown
The mold, and on the crown
The mold and rust.

So evermore they lie:
The ages pass them by,
Them doth the Earth deny,
And Time forget;
Void in the years, the ways,
As a star loosed from space,
Upon whose vacant place
The sun is set.
...

O strange new world that was the old!
O strange old world that was the young!
That greeted from strange altar fires,
From strange new gods, with strange new tongue!
Nor yet quite wholly understood-
Mysterious, magic, mystic land-
Yet answering still to lure, and thrill,
I reach my heart, I lift my hand.

Old with old story, thou, before
Cortez had given to thee the cross;
Queen Tula sang her people free;
Sad Montezuma wept their loss.
And greater far thy tale to be
As the close pages are unfurled-
Thy golden scroll of destiny,
O wonder of the old new world!

Fair in all beauty-mountain-peak
And forest-breadth and stream and sea,
And marvel of the flowering field
And of the desert mystery,
And proud-aye, proud and strong thy sons;
But ah! how fair the womanhood
Within whose gentle grasp there lie
Such wondrous potencies for good.

Thou leadest. Lead! In freedom strong,
Soldier of purity and peace,
Till war and strife are things that were,
And all of ill forever cease.
For still the peerless treasure shines-
The flowerful faces as of yore,
The pearls and gold that lured the old
Conquistadores to thy shore.

And kindred under the same skies,
Thy land, my land, aye, Sisters we!
The One who fashioned made us one,
Forever bound, forever free;
And love is wide as is the earth-
A rainbow love, from strand to strand-
O Sisters, Daughters of the sun,
I reach my heart! I lift my hand!
...

'WHAT gift hast thou for Me,
The Crucified for thee?'
No worthy thing:
Nor song, nor praise, nor tears,
From all these many years,
Jesus, my King.

'In ways thy feet have sought,
In that thy hands have wrought,
Whatso for Me?'
Ah, in those dreary walks,
Behold the flowerless stalks,
The fruitless tree!

'Thy heart hath love, at least—
I crave thy love.' O Priest,
It were not meet From bitter wells to slake
Thy thirst. Touch thou, and make
Its waters sweet.

'Thy soul — that it may live!'
Is it then mine to give?
O Saviour, cease!
Like to a troubled sea,
My spirit is in me:
Lord, speak it peace.

"Unto thy Friend, thy King,
Hast then no offering,
No gift to give?'
For all Thy love, Thy care,
Only one little prayer:
Saviour, forgive!
...

Aye, but my feet are light upon the hills!
Light as the leaping deer, light as the wind,
Light as the soaring bird-for winged with joy!
And my heart sings (hearken the voice of it!)
With all my forests in the song-the streams-
And the great Sea that rims my golden shores.
Nay, from the deeps of far Creation's morn
The slumbering echoes that are never mute-
The primal throes of all the things that are-
God busy with His world in fashioning;
Through the long aeon days of change on change,
God busy with His world in fashioning still.

Aye, am I glad! For is not this fair land-
Fairest of all lands, wreathed and crowned to-day
As never in the ages gone before?
Past now the days of desert solitudes,
The summits lifted lonely to the stars,
First that but knew the padded moccasin,
And then the Hero-Saint who bore the Cross
To it, with Him, the Life, the Nazarene!
And then the livid lure and dross of gold;
Then-(from a weed so ill a bloom so fair!)
Vast fields of fruit and harvest; thronging homes;
Science with searching gaze demanding truth-
And Art to add new perfectness to Art-
And greater, sweeter, dearer far then all,
Across the mighty vastness of sea
The living voice of human Brotherhood,
And peal of the great bell of London town,
That rang from sacred walls to speak to mankind,
One heart, one home, one people and one God!

O, land of mine-my land that is so loved-
‘Lift up thine eyes unto the hills'-nay, lift
Thine eyes unto the stars-make thou thy goal
As fair and great as thou art sweet and fair;
Make all of ill to die from out thy bounds
As dies the ill weed from the tended soil,
And thy fair bosom bloom as blooms the rose.
Peace brood with thee- a Dove with folded wings-
And Love thy Law as it was Christ's one Law-
Wherewith no thing of wrong can ever dwell.
So shalt thou be, white as thy Shasta's snows,
In thy divinest grace and purity
Evangel of the nations, speaking Man
God busy with His world of fashioning still.
...

WEAVE me a rhyme to-day:
No pleasant roundelay,
But some vague, restless yearning' of the heart
Shaped with but little art
To broken numbers, that shall flow
Most dreamily and slow.
I think no merry fancy should belong
To this day's song.

Look how the maple stands,
Waving its bleeding hands
With such weird gestures; and the petals fall
From the dry roses—pale, nor longer sweet:
And by the garden - wall
The unclasped vines, and all
These sad dead leaves, a-rustle at our feet.

Dear bodies of the flowers,
From which the little fragrant souls are fled,
Beside you, lying dead,
We say, 'Another summer shall be ours
When all these naked boughs shall flush and flame
With fresh, young blossoms.' Aye, but not the same!
And that is saddest. By the living bloom,
Who cares for last year's beauty — in the tomb?

Spring, blossom, and decay.
Ah, poet, sing thy day —
So brief a day, alas! . . . .
Beloved, and shall we pass
Beneath the living grass,
Out from the glad, warm splendor of the sun?
A little dust about some old tree's root,
With all our voices mute,
And all our singing done?
...

Blue waves that wash a curved beach
Of sand, like drifted snow;
Song-waves, that sing in silvery speech,
A music soft and low.

A cloudless sun in heaven's blue sweep;
Great stars, how near that seem!
The night an hour of sea-lulled sleep,
The day a rosy dream.
...