Ina Coolbrith

IN winter-time one steadfast hope I had:
When rains should cease to fall,
And earth re-summon all
Her blossom-guests, I should again be glad.

And then, my heart unlifted still, I said,
Too pallid and too chill
These skies, wait yet until
The summer's serene blue smiles overhead.

Its red the rose surrenders to the leaves;
The orchard branches yield
Their fruit, and far afield
The reapers sing amid their gathered sheaves.

The circle of the year is all complete;
And in its wintry hour,
In fruitage or in flower,
I know the world is very fair and sweet.

I know that not from land, or sky, or sea,
The restless spirit takes
Its sombre hues, and makes
A discord of God's golden harmony.

Within, some false note jars the perfect strain
The great Musician meant. . . .
O bird of lost content,
Come back, and build, and brood, and sing again!
...

It's O my heart, my heart!
To be out in the sun and sing;
To sing and shout in the fields about,
In the balm and the blossoming.

Sing loud, O bird in the tree,
O bird, sing loud in the sky,
And honey-bees, blacken the clover-beds—
There are none of you glad as I.

The leaves laugh low in the wind,
Laugh low with the wind at play;
And the odorous call of the flowers all
Entices my soul away.

For O but the world is fair, is fair,
And O but the world is sweet!
I will out in the gold of the blossoming mold
And sit at the Master's feet.

And the love my heart would speak
I will fold in the lily's rim,
That the lips of the blossom, more pure and meek.
May offer it up to Him.

Then sing in the hedgerow green, O Thrush,
O Skylark, sing in the blue;
Sing loud, sing clear, that the King may hear,
And my soul shall sing with you.
...

NOT to the brave upon the battle-field
Alone, the palms of victory belong,
Nor only to the great of earth the song
Of praise and paean should the singer yield.
Greater the souls, who, single-handed, wield
The battle-axe against the hosts of wrong,
Unknown, unnoted, in life's reckless throng,
And only in God's day to stand revealed.
Ah, by our side in patient, humble guise,
How many walk the silent conqueror's way !
As fixed stars in fame's eternal skies
Their stainless lustre worthiest to shine.
Unlaureled heroes! reverently I lay
Low at your feet this tribute leaf of mine.
...

THE summer-rose is dead;
The sad leaves, withered,
Strew ankle-deep the pathways to our tread.
Dry grasses mat the plain,
And drifts of blossom slain;
And day and night the wind is like a pain.

No nightingale to sing
In green boughs, listening,
Through balmy twilight hushes of the spring.
No thrush, no oriole
In music to out-roll
The little golden raptures of his soul.

O royal summer-reign!
When will you come again,
Bringing the happy birds across the main?
O blossoms ! when renew
Your pretty garbs, and woo
Your waiting, wild-bee lovers back to you?

For lo, my heart is numb;
For lo, my heart is dumb—
Is silent till the birds and blossoms come!
A flower, that lieth cold
Under the wintry mold,
Waiting the warm spring-breathing to unfold.

O swallow! all too slow
Over the waves you go,
Dipping your light wings in their sparkling flow.
Over the golden sea,
O swallow! flying free,
Fly swiftly with the summer back to me.
...

HERE, vast and awful, the Sierras rear
Their everlasting summits to the sky;
The mighty waters of the sunset lie
In all their changing opalescence; here
The brooding melancholy of the sere,
Dun autumn woods; the laughing leafery
Of budding boughs, blending each tender dye
With the lush green of the awakening year.
This is not painted canvas, — this is life,
Creation, earth, in all her varying moods!
These fields a-thrill with motion and with light,
These forest-ways, with dream and mystery rife!
Here nature's heart throbs through the solitudes!
Here nature's soul looks from the mystic height.
...

If I lie at ease in the cradling trees,
Till the day drops down in the golden seas,
Till the light shall die from the warm, wide sky,
And the cool night cover me—what care I?

All as one when the day is done,
The woven woof or the web unspun:
In my leafy nest I will lie at rest,
A careless dreamer, and that is best.

Does a brown eye wake for a trouble's sake,
Ye little tenants of wood and brake?
What deeper woe does a wild-bee know
Than to vex the heart of a honey-blow?

Bonny birds, sing to me; butterflies wing to me;
Slender convolvulus, flutter and cling tome;
Dim spice-odors and meadow-musk,
Blow about me from dawn to dusk!

Though the city frown from her hill-tops brown,
And the weary toilers go up and down,
I will lie at rest in my leafy nest,
A careless dreamer, and that is best.
...

Under whatever sky
Thy pathway be,
Near or afar,
Clear be its light of sun, its light of star:
Bright as the memory
We hold of thee,
Good-by!

Good-by!
Let not our parting sigh
Be wholly lost in the new words that greet.
New loves may be as sweet,
New friends may serve as surely,
Hold as dearly, love as purely,
But never hearts may be
Truer than these whose thoughts go, after thee,
Good-by!
Good-by!
...

IT befell me on a day —
Long ago; ah, long ago!
When my life was in its May,
In the May - month of the year.
All the orchards were like snow
With pink - flushes there and here;
And a bird sang, building near,
And a bird sang far away,
Where the early twilight lay.

Long ago! ah, long ago!
Youth's sweet May passed quite away
May that never more is May!
Yet I hear the nightingale
Singing far adown the vale
Where the early twilight lies,
Singing sad, and sweet, and strong
And I wonder if the song
May be heard in Paradise!
...

IN MEMORY OF CELIA THAXTER.


There is shadow on the sea!
And a murmur, and a moan,
In its muffled monotone,
Like a solemn threnody;
And the sea-gulls, on their white
Pinions, moving to and fro,
Are like phantoms, in their flight;
As they sweep from off the gray,
Misty headlands, far away,
And about the Beacon Light,
Wheel in circles, low and slow,
Wheel and circle, peer and cry,
As though seeking, restlessly,
Something vanished from their sight.
As though listening for the clear
Tones they never more may hear,—
Music, missing from the day,
Music, missing from the night,—
Through the years, that wax and wane,
That may never sound again.
She, who ever loved the sea,
Loved and voiced its minstrelsy—
Sang its white-caps, tossing free,
Sang the ceaseless breaker-shocks,
Dashing, crashing, on the rocks,
Sang its moon-drawn tides, its speech,
Silver-soft, upon the beach,
Walks the margin's golden floor,—
Floats upon its breast no more.

Nay! how know we this to be?
That the forms that we may not see,
Passed from mortal touch and ken,
Never come to earth again?
When this brittle houce of clay
From the spirit breaks away,
Does the mind forego its will?
Is the voice's music still?
Do the hands forget their skill?
From the harp—great Homer's heart,—
Do no mighty numbers come?
Lost, divinest Raphael's art,
And the lips of Shakespeare dumb?
All the years of joy and pain
That are lived, but lived in vain;
Memory's graven page a blot,
Unrecorded and forgot!
Oh, believe, believe it not!
Man is God's incarnate thought:
Life, with all the gifts He gave,
All the wondrous powers He wrought,
Finds not ending at the grave.
Part, himself, of Deity,
Man, the spirit, cannot die.
'In my Father's house there are
Many mansions.' Did Christ say
Whether near, or whether far?
It may be beside us still
Bide these forms invisible;
Or, if passed to realms away,
Beyond sight's remotest star,
Does that bind the soul to stay,—
Never, never, to retrace
The golden passage-ways of space?—
As a parted child might yearn
For the mother arms, and turn,
Fain to look on Earth's dear face.
'Twixt the heart that loves and her
Space could place no barrier:
Thought, that swifter is than light,
Leaps a universe in flight.

So I love to think, indeed,
That this singing spirit, freed
From her lesser, lower height—
Soaring to the Infinite,—
Turns with loving eyes, and smile,
Still unto her garden-isle;
Sees the tower's beacon-light,
Shining safely through the night;
Sees the white surf as it rolls
Round her treasured Isles of Shoals,—
Looking from that vaster sea,
Which we name Eternity.
...

IF only in my dreams I once might see
Thy face! though thou shouldst stand
With cold, unreaching hand,
Nor vex thy lips to break
The silence, with a word for my love's sake;
Nor turn to mine thine eyes,
Serene with the long peace of Paradise,
Yet, henceforth, life would be
Made sweet, not wholly bitter unto me.

If only I might know for verity,
That when the light is done
Of this world's sun,
And that unknown, long-sealed
To sound and sight, is suddenly revealed,
That thine should be the first dear voice thereof,
And thy dear face the first—O love, my love!
Then coming death would be
Sweet, ah, most sweet, not bitter unto me!
...

(B. G.: BORN JANUARY 28, 1895.)


ROBED as with petals of the red rose-queen,
Unfolding in the dawn's awakening rays,
She stood, a child, before the boy's rapt gaze;
And then, a milk-white lily maid, between
Her noble ladies, smiled, with gracious mien;
And then an Angel in the heavenly ways,
She leaned and drew his soul from death's dark maze,
The lode-star of the mighty Florentine.
And thou, our Beatrice! with thy perfect name,
O daughter of the New World's Italy,
Be potent still the spell which in it lies:
A light to shine with clear, unwavering flame,
And draw the world — thy Dante — after thee,
Along the paths which lead to Paradise.
...

BECAUSE the rose the bloom of blossoms is,
And queenliest in beauty and in grace,
The violet's tender blue we love no less,
Or daisy, glancing up with shy, sweet face.

For all the music which the forest has,
The ocean waves, that crash upon the beach,
Still would we miss the whisper of the grass;
The hum of bees; the brooklet's silver speech.

We would not have the timid wood-thrush mute
Because the bul-bul more divinely sings,
Nor lose the scarlet of dear robin's throat,
For all the tropics' flash of golden wings.

So do I think, though weak we be, and small,
Yet is there One whose care is none the less:
Who finds, perchance, some grain of worth in all,
Or loves us for our very humbleness!
...

UNTO the earth the Summer comes again:
She has, to quench her thirst, the dews and rain;
She has glad light about her all life's hour,
And love for gracious dower.

She makes the valleys pleasant for the herds;
Her seeds and berries ripen for the birds,
And cool about their nests she deftly weaves
A screen of tender leaves.

Her soft, delicious breath revives the land;
Her many flowers she feeds with lavish hand,
Clothes the bare hill, and to the rugged place
Gives comeliness and grace.

To all things else she cometh, once a year,
With strong, new life, with beauty and glad cheer;
To all things else: ah! sometime, it must be
That she will come to me!
...

I CAN not count my life a loss,
With all its length of evil days.
I hold them only as the dross
About its gold, whose worth outweighs;
For each and all I give Him praise.

For, drawing nearer to the brink
That leadeth down to final rest,
I see with clearer eyes, I think;
And much that vexed me and oppressed,
Have learned was right, and just, and best.

So, though I may but dimly guess
Its far intent, this gift of His
I honor; nor would know the less
One sorrow, or in pain or bliss
Have other than it was and is.
...

THE green leaves grow and grow,
And the birds build in the trees;
Ah, sweethearts, could I linger, linger,
With soul at ease!

O long, cool vineyard rows,
The path is blind with heat;
With you rest is, and sound of waters,
And shadow sweet.

The dry leaves fall and fall;
The days grow less in the sun:
I falter, fail, and my soul is weary —
The quest unwon.

It may come with the morn!
It may come with the night!
O near, far Hope, I follow, follow,
From dark to light?
...

HARK, from the budding boughs that burst of song!
And where the leagues of emerald stretch away,
How rings the meadow-lark's ecstatic lay
And all the hills the liquid notes prolong.
The stately callas shine, a saintly throng,
From their broad leaves; and in her queenly sway,
The royal rose unfolds unto the day.
O gentle March! O turbulent and strong!
The dove, the tiger, in thy changeful mood:
For while the larks sing, and the linnets brood,
Lo, sullen storm-clouds sweep the smiling dome.
And roar of winds, and the mad tempest-wrath
Beat on the blossomed plain, the forest-path,
And the vast ocean smite to seething foam!
...

ON HEARING KELLEY'S MUSIC OF 'MACBETH.'


MELODY, what children strange are these
From thy most vast, illimitable realm?
These sounds that seize upon and overwhelm
The soul with shuddering ecstasy! Lo! here
The night is, and the deeds that make night fear;
Wild winds and waters, and the sough of trees
Tossed in the tempest; wail of spirits banned,
Wandering, unhoused of clay, in the dim land;
The incantation of the Sisters Three,
Nameless of deed and name, — the mystic chords
Weird repetitions of the mystic words;
The mad, remorseful terrors of the Thane,
And bloody hands — which bloody must remain.
Last, the wild march; the battle hand to hand
Of clashing arms, in awful harmony,
Sublimely grand, and terrible as grand!
The clan-cries; the barbaric trumpetry;
And the one fateful note, that, throughout all,
Leads, follows, calls, compels, and holds in thrall.
...

THROUGH rifts of cloud the moon's soft silver slips;
A little rain has fallen with the night,
Which from the emerald under-sky still drips
Where the magnolias open, broad and white.

So near my window I might reach my hand
And touch these milky stars, that to and fro
Wave, odorous. . . . Yet 't was in another land —
How long ago, my love, how long ago!
...

No flower in all the land —
No leaf upon the tree,
Blossom, or bud, or fruit,
But an icy fringe instead;
And the birds are flown, or dead,
And the world is mute.
The white, cold moonbeams shiver
On the dark face of the river,
While still and slow the waters flow
Out to the open sea;
The moveless pine-trees stand,
Black fortressed on the hill;
And white, and cold, and still,
Wherever the eye may go,
The ghostly snow:
The vast, unbroken silences of snow.

I look out upon the night,
And the darkly flowing river,
And the near stars, with no quiver
In their calm and steady light,
And listen for the voice of the great sea,
And the silence answers me.
O Sea of the West, that comes
With a sound as of rolling drums,
With a muffled beat
As of marching feet,
Up the long lifts of sand,
The golden drifts of sand,
On the long, long shining strand.
An opal, rimmed with blue,
An emerald, shining through
The pearl's and ruby's dyes,
And crests that catch the blaze
Of the diamond's rays,
Under thy perfect skies!

O Land of the West, I know
How the field flowers bud and blow,
And the grass springs and the grain,
To the first soft touch and summons of the rain.
O, the music of the rain!
O, the music of the streams!
Dream music, heard in dreams,
As I listen through the night,
While the snow falls, still and white.
I hear the branches sway In the breeze's play,
And the forests' solemn hymns:
Almost I hear the stir
Of the sap in their mighty limbs
Like blood in living veins!
The rose is in the lanes,
And the insects buzz and whir;
And where the purple fills
The spaces of the hills,
In one swift month the poppy will lift up
Its golden cup.
And O, and O, in the sunshine and the rain,
Rings out that perfect strain, —
The earth's divinest song!
My bird, with the plain, brown breast,
My lark of the golden west,
Up, up, thy joy notes soar,
And sorrow is no more,
And pain has passed away
In the rapture of thy lay!
Up, up, the glad notes throng,
And the soul is borne along
On the pinions of thy song,
Up from the meadow's sod,
Up from the world's unrest,
To peace, to heaven, to God!

And I listen through the silence of the night,
While the snow falls, still and white.
...

I had been dead so many years-
And I had missed you so.
I thought in heaven there were no tears,
But ah, their weary flow!
And when at last the joy-word came,
An hour to wander back,
My spirit flashed, a living flame,
Along that mystic track.

I sped the pathway of the stars
And the abyss of night;
Past all space-barriers and bars
I winged my eager flight;
I found you, Love! O bitter day!
You had remembered not!
Farther than life itself away-
My very name forgot.
...