ENCHANTMENT

I never see a blue jay
But I think of her;
Never hear that hoarse "dear—dear"
From a tree-top stir,
And the answering call
Far, far away,
And the flash of azure—
Oh, she would stay
Listening in the forest,
Loitering through the silence,
Hearing calls and singing
All the livelong day!

SHE WHO PADDLES

She who paddles swiftly,
Lithe and brown in the sun,
And dances, lithe as an Indian princess
In the barbaric days of splendour
Might have done—
She can laugh and jest too,
Play and wine and dine;
But none of these things have wooed me,
Bound me close by a mystery,
Made her eternally mine.
For we have found still places
Deep in the wood;
Climbed a ledge of grey rock
Where a pink-legged heron stood;
Heard the distant loon's cry;
Watched a lonely bird fly—
And she does not stir then,
Does not turn to me then,
But softly walks in the forest
In no great need of men.

DOWN NEAR THE GLEN

(In fear of fairies Irish women sometimes disguise
their boys as girls)

"I dress him sweet," the woman told me,
"All in white with a frill of lace.
See his hair
An' the curls that's on it!
Do ye know a girl with a safter face?

"If so I keep him till five or over,
There's not a one will steal him then!
With a saft wee girl
They'd never bother,
The thievin' fairies down in the glen.

"Never take chances!" the woman warned me,
"For a boy is the thing that sticks to your heart!"
But I was mad!
I had decked mine bravely;
He was moulded a man from the very start.

THE BOLSHEVIK

I met a woman of the Ward;
She was in gay attire;
Her blouse was blue, her toes were through,
Her ear-rings flashed like fire.

A little boy with lustrous eyes
Tugged at her coloured skirt;
His skin was warm as the southern born,
And he was caked in dirt.

Two women on the sunny street—
We fell to friendly talk
Of grocers' ways, and how it pays
To purchase as you walk.

I asked her, as a neighbour might,
If she had news to tell.
She answered me, "Oh, quiet-lee,
I think we soon raise hell!

"Too much we give to grocer-men;
Too much the rich have place;
More war to-day is the only way
To put rich in hees place!

"We speak a leetle, you and I,
Some papers scatter round,
Soon rich will be, quite quiet-lee,
All trampled on the ground.

"My man, he has a job all right,
But he might have much more.
Make leetle war, and there we are:
No rich man at our door."

The dusky boy with lustrous eyes
Listened to his mamma,
And then said he, quite quiet-lee,
"Most dear, to-day I saw

"One motor car that I will own
When I am grown a man!"
His beauty spoke, in eyes, in throat,
As just sheer beauty can.

And she forgot the little war,
The beckoning blood and dirt;
She smoothed his curls, so like a girl's,
And smoothed his gay striped shirt.

"Grow up, be good, my little boy;
One motor you may run!"
Her eyes burned deep, war fell asleep
As she looked on her son.

* * * * *

I met a woman of the Ward;
She was in gay attire;
Her blouse was blue, her toes were through,
Her ear-rings flashed like fire.

PAVLOWA DANCING

Footsteps of youth through the springtime playing,
Footfalls of snow in a blue mist straying,
The rose of Russia in a bright wind swaying—
A rose of fire and snow.

Voices chanting everywhere, but no word said,
Fairy bells from ancient towers signalling the dead,
Light love tuning viols while the dance runs red—
A flaming dance of death.

White barbaric winters and a sky star-strung,
All the hidden pathways, all the songs unsung,
Caught in flying footsteps over wild music hung—
She dances, and the Czar lies dead.

Oh, the cries, and martyrdoms, and fatal morns,
Scarlet nights and fiery wine and bitter scorns,
Dancing in a rose of joy from a field of thorns—
Rapture from a land of thorns!

CALVÉ IN BLUE

Here is blue fire
That burns mere youth away
And leaves sheer passion.
Out of the coloured flame
What pageantries arise,
As that caressing tone,
Through shimmering veils of harp and flute,
Seems to peer ghost-like down
Into a million hearts in nights long gone—
Into a million eyes!

There is a black mantilla
Of ancient Spanish lace
Over the deep blue gown.
The voice of Carmen sings again,
The mocking voice of Carmen, scarlet still
With love and certain doom.
In it there swings a sword,
And through it blows a laughing word—
That strange, and quite inevitable word
That time can never kill.

SIGN TO TRESPASSERS

Was ever a woman
Quite alone for a day?
Other women will come
Who should stay away.

Because my casement's open,
As I wait here for you,
Comes the faint Persephone
Trailing through the dew.

She has lived a thousand years,
Clasped her cosmic rose;
Why she comes to trouble me
Only heaven knows!

And there's another woman
Keeps whispering in my ear,
Till she has the whole house
Pierced through with fear.

Some wandering nun it is,
Whose lips can only pray,
Has made my house a cloister
In this dreary way.

And even now your taxi
Must be racing through the town.
(Will you love me, O my lover,
In this pale yellow gown?)

I have written out a sign
That I hope they will obey—
"For all Peering Women
There is no Right of Way."

SILVER SLIPPERS

I never wore slippers
On sweet April evenings,
But boots made for roads that we travelled in woe,
For morning and evening
Meant rough wayside places
And feet that were slow.

But now silver slippers,
Light-mannered, bright slippers,
Great mirror-like floors and a green velvet lawn,
Where we beckon with laughter,
With music, with dancing,
Sad youth—that is gone.

A FABULOUS DAY

Oh, the days of the week they are constantly seven!
And as certain to stay as the fixed stars in heaven.
But my heart that denies them will wander away
To find a more likeable, well furnished day
That I know exists somewhere, invisible, real,
And shining with moments the seven days steal.

The stocking I've wanted to darn since the spring,
The folk-song, forgotten, that calls me to sing,
The little old lady I hurry to see,
The cumbersome caller, long promised to tea,
Or the half-hidden passion pushed by through the week:
These surely may people the day that I seek.

Sometimes I shall play with a soul never born:
A companion I met on the far side of morn.
I shall nod at the losses I wept for last night,
And find my to-morrows expectant and bright.
But mostly I think the whole twenty-four hours
Will be spent in designing a new bed of flowers;
For everyone's heart, when it wanders away,
Has its own things to do on a fabulous day.

CHRISTMAS EVE

My house is arrayed
In its garlands of Christmas delight;
A red rose is this house
In its holly and soft candle light.

But my heart is as cold
As the heart of a colourless rose,
And I feel the dead weight
Of your holiday blanket of snows.

TO MARJORIE PICKTHALL

The day you died, that April yesterday,
I was alone in sunny meadow places,
When, turning a dark clump of wintry leaves,
I caught a glimpse of exquisite fresh faces,
Renewing earth.

Then, thinking of another April day
When you and I found bloom beneath the snow,
I sent you happy thoughts across the world,
Not dreaming it the day you were to go—
But yesterday.

Yet, oh, not lost! how many a year shall turn,
And youth and age, lonely for some bright way,
Shall sudden feel you on the face of earth
And push back death, and pluck you like the may—
Immortal Song!

I WHO CUT PATTERNS

I who cut patterns,
As every soul must do,
Fret myself with longing
For themes that are new.

All these fashions
Were moulded years gone by,
And, like the mask of politics,
Are coloured with a lie.

Even the treasured love motif,
This thing of you and me,
It must so carefully be cut
To keep us bound, yet free.

And death, the sombre casket
Of centuries of song,
And war, and rivalries and creeds,
These we have used too long.

To-day I found a charming thing
Of silk and golden lace,
And yet, beneath the filigree,
What an old, wrinkled face!

Still, I believe in legends
Of laughter and delight,
And words all coloured with the sun
And perfumed by the night.

And I've a mind to leave the shops
And fashions old and new,
And cut my pattern from a wind,
And baste it up with dew.

I who cut patterns,
As every soul must do,
Fret myself with longing
For themes that are new.

POETESSES

You who loved all lovely things
And wrought in jewelled lines;
You have gone your gracious ways
That are patterned in dim stones
Of perfumed, faint-hued words;
You were a thing so feminine
That even of war you sang in tender notes,
But now another one has come,
Who is herself at war.
Her songs are keen and glittering,
For she has felt the magic fire
That you did long ago;
But now the fire has burned clean through
And forged a sword of steel.
Swinging swords are women's songs
That gleam as hard as diamonds do,
And mean to cut tradition.

And yet those jewelled lines!
Strangely the ancient magic works,
Strangely the same fire lurks
And burns imprisoned there
In your dim, opaled words,
That run like paths in heaven
Paved in mosaic of sweet stones,
And make a scented highway for our feet,
Who wield these swinging swords.