Selected Poetry

New Zealand Tablet, 8 December 1921, Page 24

Selected Poetry

The Solitary Let them think I love them more than I do, Let them think I care, though I go alone, If it lifts their pride, what is it to me Who am self-complete as a flower or a stone? It is one to me that they come or go If I have myself and the drive of my will, And strength to climb on a summer night And watch the stars swarm over the hill. My heart has grown rich with the passing of years I have less need now than when I was young To share myself with every comer, Or shape my thoughts into words with my tongue. —Sarah Teasdale, in the Yale Review. V Sea-Daring I sometimes see myself as divers do A drowned man dimly lying under swift Shoal-hurried waters where the rollers lift Their league-borne burthens of the marbled blue. Shy rievers mark his doom-bed for the clue Of laggard flotsam, in their heartless thrift Untroubled by the roaring tempest-drift That to his sail the daft sea-darer drew. Yet out I steer' where the green eddy writhes About the bell-buoy and the sea-gulls hoarse Cut the ribbed cloud with their two-bladed scythes, And still must on (so hard my passion whips) - Till sudden shipwreck stay my headlong course And I am wolfish, and too lean for praise. —Wilfrid Thorlby, in the English Review. V Summer Rain I —who have tried to learn How I could find Everywhere marks of her Spirit and mind; ... How she is mingled with Earth, to the water kith, How the bright sparks of her Fly on the wind Saw her, where wet leaves sway Under the breeze, Pall with the faltering Light through the trees; Fall where wild grasses lift Flowers like skies adrift— Touching and altering.. All the eye sees. Through the drenched undergrowth Solitude brings Silence’s lyrical Quivering strings. Here where no footsteps stir Solitude sings of her; Silence —a miracle ! Sings of her, sings. Thrilled in the distance The note of a bird Faintly— lonely sound ! , Was it her word Cried in.the rain-washed wood? Deep in the grass I stood, Hoarding the only sound That my heart heard. - Theodore Maynard, in the New Witness.

Lucrezia Borgia’s Last Letter Before me shine the words of her last letter — Lucrezia Borgia to the Pope of Rome Wherein she begs, as life’s remaining fetter Slips from her, that his prayers will guide her home. The favor God has shown to me confessing, As swift my end approaches, Father, I, A Christian tho a sinner, ask your blessing And kiss your feet in all humility. The thought of death brings no regret, but pleasure; And after the last Sacrament great peace Will be mine own — overflowing measure, If but your mercy marks my soul’s release. And here the letter finds a sudden ending, As tho the dying hand had lost its power: My children to Rome’s love and care commending — Ferrara Friday— the fourteenth hour. —Antoinette DeCoursey Patterson, in the Literary Digest. ¥ Instruction My hands that guide a needle In their turn are led Relentlessly and deftly, As a needle leads a thread. Other hands are teaching My needle; when I sew I feel the cool, thin fingers Of hands I do not know. They urge my needle onward, They smooth my seams, until The worry of my stitches Smothers in their skill. All the tired women, Who sewed their lives away, Speak in my deft fingers As I sew to-day. ‘ Hazel Hall, in Current Opinion. *? The Home-Keepers A little dream keeps house with me— Outside, the surge and flow Of city throngs, of wind, of sea— The world the great ones know. But we —we wash the cups and spoons And make the copper shine. And knit, on sunny afternoons, Beside the trumpet-vine. We smile at many a secret joke; We, weed the lettuce-bed; We sweep the hearth, and pause to stroke The snow-white kitten’s head. The neighbors-hear our songs, and say, “How queer some folks can be!” They wonder what can keep us gay, My little dream and me. But I am wise, and therefore know, For sewing up a seam Or keeping cupboard shelves just so, There’s'nothing like a dream . Helen Cowles Le Cron, in Contemporary Verse. -