Why?

BY MARY WEBB

Why did you come, with your enkindled eyes
And mountain-look, across my lower way,
And take the vague dishonour from my day
By luring me from paltry things, to rise
And stand beside you, waiting wistfully
The looming of a larger destiny?

Why did you with strong fingers fling aside
The gates of possibility, and say
With vital voice the words I dream to-day?
Before, I was not much unsatisfied:
But since a god has touched me and departed,
I run through every temple, broken-hearted.

Farewell

BY MARY WEBB

Beloved, once more I take the winter way
Through solitude's dark mountains, purple and cold
As frozen pansies, toward my house of clay
Where winds shall drink my tears, and shadows fold.
I dare not dwell so near to ecstasy
Lest I grow reckless, seeing the dear, the good,
And so, beseeching for it childishly,
Should spoil its beauty and my womanhood.
Yet will the breathless moments when you smiled,
Looking upon me, haunt me. It is not well
Remembering, when winter floods are wild,
Becalmed lilies and the summer's spell.
Farewell, beloved! Since you have grown too dear,
I must be gone. I take my pilgrimage
In haste--so much I love you, so much fear.
Wisdom may grow from tears, peace fall with age.

Touch Wood

BY HELEN FOLEY

Touch wood, be humble, never dare to say
That this is joy lest satisfaction throw
A shade on love which now (while roots still grow)
Stands like the proudest chestnut tree in May
With all its candles burning. Passions sway:
This has no tide nor any ebb and flow;
It has no evening, no red afterglow,
And needs no moon to keep the night at bay.

But since most lovers falter or contend,
And all their promises and all their powers
Drift towards a common grave, what chance have we?
Poets keep the past and priests eternity;
Only the day, the flying day is ours,
But while we hold it fast it cannot end.

Sonnet

BY MAIMIE A. RICHARDSON

I still shall smile and go my careless way;
Dawn shall not see my tears,---nor shall night hear
Through broken murmurings thy name sound clear,
Nor catch old dreams of love that drift and sway---
The wistful ghosts of a forgotten day.
Nor shall the lilt of Spring, nor Autumns sere,
Awake my heart to pain, to pulsing fear,
Nor lure me from my days serene and grey.
Only one place my steps may never go,
One moorland path my feet may never climb.
O heart of mine!---the heather springy---sweet,
The loch a silver shimmer far below---
Forget that day, the haunting scent of thyme;
Forget the love all shattered at my feet.

Silent Noon

BY DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass,--
...The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:
...Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms
'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.
All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,
...Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge
...Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.
'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.
Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly;
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky:--
...So this wing'd hour is dropt to us from above.
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,
This close-companioned inarticulate hour
...When twofold silence was the song of love.