pall,
Till with buoyant madness
She must swoon and fall...

CHOPIN

Faint preludings on a flute
And she swims before us;
Shadows follow in pursuit,
Like a phantom chorus.
Sense and sound are intertwined
Through her necromancy,
Till our dreaming souls are blind
To all things but fancy.

Haunted woods and perfumed nights,
Swift and soft desires,
Roses, violet-colored lights,
And the sound of lyres,
Vague chromatics on a flute--
All are subtly blended,
Till the instrument grows mute
And the dance is ended.

SONGS AND THE POET

(_For Sara Teasdale_)

Sing of the rose or of the mire; sing strife
Or rising moons; the silence or the throng...
Poet, it matters not, if Life
Is in the song.

If Life rekindles it, and if the rhymes
Bear Beauty as their eloquent refrain,
Though it were sung a thousand times,
Sing it again!

Thrill us with song--let others preach or rage;
Make us so thirst for Beauty that we cease
These struggles, and this strident age
Grows sweet with peace.

THE HERETIC

I.

BLASPHEMY

I do not envy God--
There is no thing in all the skies or under
To startle and awaken Him to wonder;
No marvel can appear
To stir His placid soul with terrible thunder--
He was not born with awe nor blessed with fear.

I do not envy God--
He is not burned with Spring and April madness;
The rush of Life--its rash, impetuous gladness
He cannot hope to know.
He cannot feel the fever and the sadness
The leaping fire, the insupportable glow.

I do not envy God--
Forever He must watch the planets crawling
To flaming goals where sun and star are falling;
He cannot wander free.
For He must face, through centuries appalling,
A vast and infinite monotony.

I do not envy God--
He cannot die, He dare not even slumber.
Though He be God and free from care and cumber,
I would not share His place;
For He must live when years have lost their number
And Time sinks crumbling into shattered Space.

I do not envy God--
Nay more, I pity Him His lonely heaven;
I pity Him each lonely morn and even,
His splendid lonely throne:
For He must sit and wait till all is riven
Alone--through all eternity--alone.

II.

IRONY

Why are