Ina Coolbrith Poems

WE watched in the dear Home garden
Our tenderest flower that grew:
Never a budling rarer
The sun of the ages knew!

And we said, 'When our leaves shall wither,
Our petals shall drop away,
The grace of this perfect blossom
Shall brighten our own decay.' …

Never the dews shall nourish,
Never the tender rain;
Never the sun's warm kisses
Shall crimson thy lips again!

O heart of our hearts, May-blossom,
Hope of our lessening day,
The bloom and the grace and the fragrance,
Are passed with thy breath away!
...

Bay and cypress bring we here
For a poet on his bier.

Laurel for the songs he sung,
Cypress for the harp unstrung'
Ere life's deepest deep was stirred,
And the fullest chord was heard.

All to soon the music dumb,
All to soon the Silence come.

Yet among the crowned throng
In the realms of deathless song,
Through her late born minstrelsies,
Rings no truer tone than his.

In the land he loved so well
Green his memory will dwell
As the spring-sown leafage spread
O'er the hills he used to tread,
Watching, through the Golden Gate,
Golden sunsets lingering late.

Leave the world his name and fame, -
Ours is yet a dearer claim.

Leave the world the Poet's art, -
Ours the soul's diviner part:
All its treasures manifold,
All the Man's unsullied gold,
We who knew him first and best,
Last will hold, and tenderest.

Bay and cypress leave we here,
Poet, -friend, -upon thy bier.
...

WHEREFORE is it, as I pass
Through the fragrant meadow-grass,
That the daisies, nestling shyly in sweet places,
Lifting crispy, curly heads
From their wee, warni clover-beds,
Seem to my imagining, little elfin faces.

Can it be the daisies speak?
Leaning rosy cheek to cheek,
In a merry gossiping, lightly nodding after?
Or a fancy, that I heard
Just the faintest whispered word,
And a silver-echoing ripple of soft laughter?
...

From the shadowy shores of Dreamland,
In a far and ethereal zone,
I have come unto earth; and I know not
Where the beautiful Day has flown!

For gazing, at early dawning,
Where bright in the radiant East
The glittering sun swam, golden,
Through billows of crimson mist-

My soul floated out on the ether,
Swift-winged and free as the Light-
Nor ever, till dawn grew to darkness,
Returned from its airy flight.

I never shall know of its journey:
I have questioned, all in vain,
The source of the wonderful visions
That are thronging my puzzled brain.

Strange voices; strange, beautiful faces;
Strange fashions of mien and dress,
And words whose mystical meaning
I have striven in vain to guess;

Strange cities, that mirror the sunlight
From minaret, mosque, and dome;
And tropical islands, up-springing
From couches of feathery foam-

All glimmer, and gleam, and glisten,
Floating on in a magical stream,
Yet shadowed, and vague, and misty
As the memory of a dream.

And I stand, as at early dawning;
But where, in the radiant East,
The glittering sun swam, golden,
Through billows of crimson mist,

There is only this soft, white crescent,
And the daisy-faced stars, full-blown
In the garden of Night; and I know not
Where the beautiful Day has flown.
...

LARK'S song dropped from heaven,
A rose's breath at noon;
A still, sweet stream that flows and flows
Beneath a still, sweet moon:

A little way - side flower
Plucked from the grasses, thus!
A sound, a breath, a glance—and yet
What is't they bring to us?

For the world grows far too wise,
And wisdom is but grief:
Much thought makes but a weary way,
And question, unbelief.

Thank God for the bird's song,
And for the flower's breath!
Thank God for any voice to wake
The old sweet hymn of faith!

For a world grown all too wise,
(Or is't not wise enough)?
Thank God for anything that makes
The path less dark and rough!
...

An hour to live-to be!
To laugh, to weep, to sigh!
An hour to love, alas! -
And then to die.

Why take one thought of care
For aught ‘twixt birth and death,
When all is compassed in
So brief a breath?
...

commencement poem, written for the university of california, june, 1876.

"into the balm of the clover,
into the dawn and the dew,
come, o my poet, my lover,
single of spirit and true!

'sweeter the song of the throstle
shall ring from its nest in the vine,
and the lark, my beloved apostle,
shall chant thee a gospel divine.

'ah! not to the dullard, the schemer,
i of my fullness may give,
but thou, whom the world calleth dreamer,
drink of my fountains and live!'

o, and golden in the sun did the river waters run,
o, and golden in its shining all the mellow landscape lay;
and the poet's simple rhyme blended softly with the chime
of the bells that rang the noontide, in the city, far away.

and the gold and amethyst of the thin, transparent mist,
lifted, drifted from the ocean to the far horizon's rim,
where the white, transfigured ghost of some vessel, long since lost,
half in cloud and half in billow, trembled on its utmost brim.

and i said, 'most beautiful, in thy noontide dream and lull,
art thou, nature, sweetest mother, in thy summer raiment drest;
aye, in all thy moods and phases, lovingly i name thy praises,
yet through all my love and longing chafeth still the old unrest.'

'art thou a'worn and a-weary,
sick with the doubts that perplex,
came from thy ivisdom moat dreary,
leas fair than the faith which it wrecks?

'' not in the tomes of the sages
lieth the word to thy need;
truer my blossomy pages,
sweeter their lessons to read.'

'aye,' i said, 'but con it duly, who may read the lesson truly;
who may grasp the mighty meaning, hidden past our finding out?
from the weary search unsleeping, what is yielded to our keeping?
all our knowledge, peradventure; all our wisdom merely doubt!

'o my earth, to know thee fully! i that love thee, singly, wholly!
in thy beauty thou art' veiled; in thy melody art dumb.
once, unto my perfect seeing give this mystery of being;
once, thy silence breaking, tell me, whither go we? whence we come?'

and i heard the rustling leaves, and the sheaves against the sheaves
clashing lightly, clashing brightly, as they ripened in the sun;
and the gracious air astir with the insect hum and whirr,
and the merry plash and ripple where the river waters run:

heard the anthem of the sea—that most mighty melody —
only these; yet something deeper than to own my spirit willed.
like a holy calm descending, with my inmost being blending —
like the 'peace' to troubled waters, that are pacified and stilled.

and i said: 'ah, what are we? children at the master's knee—
little higher than these grasses glancing upward from the sods!
just the few first pages turning in his mighty book of learning—
we, mere atoms of beginning, that would wrestle with the gods!'

'in the least one of my daisies
deeper a meaning is set,
than the seers ye crown with your praises,
have wrung from the centuries yet.

'leave them their doubt and derision;
lo, to the knowledge i bring,
clingeth no dimness of vision!
come, o my chosen, my king!

'out from the clouds that cover,
the night that would blind and betray,
come, o my poet, my lover,
into the golden day!'

o, and deeper through the calm rolled the ceaseless ocean psalm;
o, and brighter in the sunshine all the meadows stretched away;
and a little lark sang clear from the willow branches near,
and the glory and the gladness closed about me where i lay.

and i said: 'aye, verily, waiteth yet the master key,
all these mysteries that shall open, though to surer hand than mine;
all these doubts of our discerning, to the peace of knowledge turning,
all our darkness, which is human, to the light, which is divine!'
...

Within that nameless realm where Dead meet Dead
I met that one through whom my life was banned,
Who gave for love fierce hate.
So wan the eyes, reflecting eyes as wan,
I reached my hand to clasp the outstretched hand
And touched-but icy air!
‘Alas! ' I said: ‘Alas! Alas! poor shade! '
And he: ‘Alas! Alas! poor shade! ' he said.
...

Friends whom I feasted in my luxury,
In sorrow turned from me.

A hundred servitors, that once did wait
Upon my high estate,

Me — desolate, forsaken, old, and poor—
Thrust from my own house-door.

Only that One whom I in joy forgot,
My fault remembered not,

And in my tears of late-born penitence
Drove me not, scorning, hence.

His strong arm raised me where I prostrate fell;
He made my bruised heart well;

My thirst He quenched; my hunger gave He bread;
And my weak steps He led

Through the blind dark of desert sands, to where
His fresh, green pastures were.

O, calm and fair the days, and all delights
Make beautiful the nights!

O, fair the nights, and beautiful the days,
Within these quiet ways!

What need is there which He may not supply?
Familiar steps go by,

And well-known voices die upon my ear —
But He is ever near!

The vision of all beauty and all grace
Is in His perfect face.

Sweeter His voice is than the melodies
Wherewith I lulled my ease.

Wisdom and truth, and measures of sweet song,
Unto His words belong;

And to my lowly roof His presence brings
Splendor exceeding kings'!
...

What were this human
World without woman?
Think -just a minute! -
Without one in it -
A Man-Eden only,
Wretched and lonely.
True, there's a story
Scarce to her glory
Therewith connected,
But ‘tis suspected
Man, after all,
Was quite ready to fall!
If fault, he condoned it—
And through the years since,
Eva has atoned it.

Woman! Be honor
Ever upon her,
Whether as maiden,
Shy, beauty-laden -
Daughter, wife, sister,
Who can resist her?
Or as that other
And greater, the Mother,
Her babe - blossoms moulding
To perfect unfolding -
The home-temple guarding
To riches rewarding.

Though none be purer,
Sweeter and surer,
Avenues wider
Now open beside her.
Each day some new way!
God send the true way
She may seek ever
With earnest endeavor.
Here to the dark, a light!
Here to the wrong, a right!
There the truth sifting!
A soul, here, uplifting!
Patient, prevailing.
With purpose unfailing,
Till at life's portal
Through Love immortal,
Supremely she stands,
The World in her hands.


Woman! All honor
And blessing upon her!
Knowing her truly,
Knowing her fully,
All her completeness,
Tenderness, sweetness -
Though there be times, too,
Sweet hardly rhymes to,
All of the changes
Through which she ranges,
Moods, tenses, phases,
I sing her praises.
...