Herbs and Apples. Whitney Helen Hay

      The Indian Summer and Love have fled,

      Oh, red, red lips like a crimson rose,

      Oh, slender hands with the tips of red,

      You are lost in the land of Nobody-knows.

      The sweet breeze blows but it comes not back,

      The water flows in a silver stream,

      But never returns on its moon-white track,

      They are gone, past recall, like a lovely dream.

      Ah, crimson lips like a tilted flower,

      Where sweetest honey awaits the bee;

      Come back, come back for a single hour,

      Dear Love, my Summer, come back to me.

      The little one who loved the sun

      Who only lived for play,

      Ah, why was she the one condemned

      To dark and dreams for aye!

      The perfect perfume of her life

      Was as a rose's breath,

      And now she treads eternally

      The gusty walks of Death.

      From what far spicery derives your hair

      The sweet faint fragrance that enslaves my sense?

      What subtle love trick taught you to be fair

      With overt lure and covert reticence?

      Madonna Eve, you bear upon your breast

      A hungry emerald like the desiring sea,

      But warm upon your heart lie pearls of rest

      What man could exorcise such witchery?

      "Laddy, leave your pedant's task,

      Rove the world with me.

      Fields and towns and pretty lands

      Together we would see.

      There be workers everywhere,

      You would not be missed.

      Come, ah come, and take for yours

      The mouth you never kissed!"

      "Lady, I am fain for play,

      So I may not go.

      Only those who hate to toil

      The true enjoyment know;

      But could you love a larrikin

      Whose task he'd so resign?"

      "Yes!—I'd love a larrikin

      If only he were mine."

      Be brave about yourselves, you little ones,

      If in the crazy warp and woof you gleam

      With the insistence of determined suns,

      Shine, being true and modest in your dream.

      If to the peace of nature you respond

      Draw from her breast your milk, nor weep the high

      Duties for lack of which you now despond,

      Made for historic planets thro' the sky.

      Knowing yourself a gay and careless weed,

      Be you courageous in your light despair;

      Sure that you fill a space of unknown need,

      Idle and green in the bright coat you wear.

      Strive to the uttermost to find your worth,

      Jester or Gypsy, Body, Brain or Soul,

      Filling with perfect cheer your place on earth,

      So shall the tapestry of Time be whole.

      So I have lost you. When the utter ache

      Shall fade at length to mere despondency

      What will the answer to this problem be?

      They say that nothing dies, that all we stake

      Brings some unknown return; what then shall make

      An adequate exchange for love, to see

      Your hand held out in friendship?—as for me

      The episode is ended, for life's sake.

      You want me still for that small joy I gave,

      But now it ends for you. I am not brave

      To love you seared; I have no happy days

      To brood upon at dusk, and so I claim,

      As all the wager that good fortune pays,

      Complete obliteration of your name.

      I tire of the struggle, the search for the ultimate I,

      There hangs the chalice of sapphire, the infinite sky,

      Why thro' the space of despair should my spirit be hurled

      Seeking for truth, when beneath lies this pearl of a world?

      Seers may direct us thro' pain to discover the soul,

      Comforting joy may not give us the absolute whole,

      But if the seers should be wrong, may the truth not be ours

      Thanking dear Life for its light and its beautiful hours?