Whenever the trees are crying aloud,
And ships are tossed at sea,
By, on the highway, low and loud,
By at the gallop goes he.
By at the gallop he goes, and then
By he comes back at the gallop again.

The old man chatters on. His sentences
Warm the old blood like whiskey. All the tired
Hours forgotten, all the lean slow days.
“When I was young!” Drunk with a clause. Inspired.

Under the boasts he feels our pity. So
It was when he was young. He knows we know.

Think not because I do not appear at the first glance—because the centuries have gone by and there is no assured tidings of me—that therefore I am not there.
Think not because all goes its own way that therefore I do not go my own way through all.
The fixed bent of hurrying faces in the street—each turned towards its own light, seeing no other—yet I am the light towards which they all look.
The toil of so many hands to such multifarious ends, yet my hand knows the touch and twining of them all.

All come to me at last.
There is no love like mine;
For all other love takes one and not another;
And other love is pain, but this is joy eternal.

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Wherein we did another’s burden seek,
The tired feet we helped upon the road,
The hand we gave the weary and the weak,
The miles we lightened one another’s load,
When, faint to falling, onward yet we strode:
This too was Life.

Till, at the upland, as we turned to go
Amid fair meadows, dusky in the night,
The mists fell back upon the road below;
Broke on our tired eyes the western light;
The very graves were for a moment bright:
And this was Death.

I am but a wild animal
Cut from its kind

Though bullets should pierce my skin
I shall still strike and march forth

Wounds and poison shall I take aflee. Aflee
’Til the pain and pang should disappear

And I should care even less

I want to live
for another thousand years

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Through the milky haze of the smoke,
The fiddler, undersized, blond,
Leans to his violin
As to the breast of a woman.
Red hair kindles to fire
On the black of his coat-sleeve,
Where his white, thin hand
Trembles and dives,
Like a sliver of moonlight,
When wind has broken the water.

Thou art joyously winging
Thy first ardent flight,
Where the gay lark is singing
Her notes of delight.

Where the sunbeams are throwing
Their glories on thine,
Till thy colours are glowing
With tints more divine.

Then tasting new pleasure
In summer’s green bowers,
Reposing at leisure
On fresh-open’d flowers;

Or, delighted to hover
Around them to see
Whose charms, airy rover,
Bloom sweetest for thee;

And fondly exhaling
Their fragrance till day
From thy bright eye is failing
And fading away;

Then seeking some blossom
Which looks to the west,
Thou dost find in its bosom
Sweet shelter and rest;

And there dost betake thee
Till darkness is o’er,
And the sunbeams awake thee
To pleasure once more.

On stone of pollen
At the bend of sight
Stiff rocks
Cast violet eyes

Like rays of shadow,
Roam
Impenetrable
In a cold of glass—

The sun, a lichen
Spreading on the sky
For days
Behind the cold;

The burros,
Like iron-filings
Gathered to
The adamant.

The harvest falls
Throughout the valleys
With a sound of
Fire in leaves—

The harsh trees
Heavy with light
Beneath the flame, and aging,
Have risen high and higher—

Apricots,
The clustered
Fur of bees
Above the gray rocks of the uplands;

The hunter deep in summer;
Grass laid low by what comes,
Feet or air—
But motion, aging.

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What it is,
Perhaps the closed eyes know.
What it is,
Maybe the folded wings know.

And yet—and yet—why should it be that now,
When all my heart has longed for is at last
Within my grasp, and I should be at rest,
A ghostly Something rising in the glow
Of Love’s own fire, an uninvited guest,
Taunts me with just one memory of the past!

What do you weigh, O ye vendors?
Saffron, lentil, and rice.
What do you grind, O ye maidens?
Sandalwood, henna, and spice.
What do you call, O ye pedlars?
Chessmen and ivory dice.

What do you make, O ye goldsmiths?
Wristlet and anklet and ring,
Bells for the feet of blue pigeons,
Frail as a dragonfly’s wing,
Girdles of gold for the dancers,
Scabbards of gold for the kings.

What do you cry, O ye Fruit merchants?
Citron, pomegranate and plum.
What do you play, O ye musicians?
Sitar, Sarangi and drum.
What do you chant, O ye magicians?
Spells for the aeons to come.

What do you weave, O ye flower-girls?
With tassels of azure and red?
Crowns for the brow of a bridegroom,
Chaplets to garland his bed,
Sheets of white blossoms new-garnered
To perfume the sleep of the dead.