Poems. French Nora May

      WE saw unpitying skill

      In curious hands put living flesh apart,

      Till, bare and terrible, the tiny heart

      Pulsed, and was still.

      We saw Grief’s sudden knife

      Strip through the pleasant flesh of soul-disguise —

      Lay for a second’s space before our eyes

      A naked life.

      SHE sat so quiet day by day,

      The sweet withdrawal of a nun,

      With busy hands and downward eyes —

      The shyest thing beneath the sun.

      Nor knew we, tossing each to each

      Our rapid speech, our careless words,

      That through them, always, half-afraid,

      Her thoughts had gone like seeking birds,

      Plucking a twig, a shining straw,

      A happy thread with silken gleams,

      To carry homeward to her heart,

      And weave a hidden nest of dreams.

      THE tossing trees had every flag unfurled

      To hail their chief, but now the sun is set,

      And in the sweet new quiet on the world

      The king is dead, the fickle leaves forget.

      A placid earth, an air serene and still;

      In misty blue the gradual smoke is thinned —

      Only the grasses, leaning to his will,

      The grasses hold a memory of wind.

      TO Reason with the praise of one I go

      To fall back, silent, at her whispered “No.”

      And always of the other says she, “Trust —

      He doeth thus and thus, O thou unjust!”

      Yet meet one eye to eye and queries end —

      An eager hand goes out to greet a friend,

      And let the other please me, soon or late

      Wakes with a hiss the little snake of hate.

      SAID the Old Year to the New: “They will never welcome you

      As they sang me in and rang me in upon my birthday night —

      All above the surging crowd, bells and voices calling loud —

      A throng attuned to laughter and a city all alight.

      “Kind had been the years of old, drowsy-lidded, zoned with gold;

      They swept their purples down the bay and sped the homeward keel;

      The years of fruits and peace, smiling days and rich increase —

      Too indolent with wine and sun to grasp the slaying steel.

      “As my brothers so I came, panther-treading, silken, tame;

      The sword was light within my hand, I kept it sheathed and still —

      The jeweled city prayed me and the laughing voices stayed me —

      A little while I pleased them well and gave them all their will.

      “As a panther strikes to slay, so I wrenched my shuddering prey.

      I lit above the panic throng my torches’ crimson flare;

      For they made my coming bright and I gave them light for light —

      I filled the night with flaming wings and Terror’s streaming hair.

      “They were stately walls and high – as I felled them so they lie —

      Lie like bodies torn and broken, lie like faces seamed with scars;

      Here where Beauty dwelt and Pride, ere my torches flamed and died,

      The empty arches break the night to frame the tranquil stars.

      “Though of all my brothers scorned, I, betrayer, go unmourned,

      It is I who tower shoulder-high above the level years;

      You who come to build anew, joy will live again with you,

      But mightiest I who walked with Death and taught the sting of tears!”

      BEYOND the tangled poppies lies a lake;

      And ever sings to him who muses here