h man, and when I can
Reclaim with interest all I lend.
Who but a witless gambler plays
For farthing stakes these golden days?
No, woman--woman--woman--
Must only play the game that pays.

SECOND WOMAN

Oh woman--woman--woman,--
To-morrow woman shall awake.
She shall arise, and realise
The goodly value of her stake.
And she shall lend her loan, and claim
Her rightful interest on the same.
So woman--woman--woman--
Shall learn at last the paying game.

THE WOMAN ALONE

My eyes are girt with outer mists;
My ears sing shrill, and this I bless;
My finger-nails do bite my fists
In ecstasy of loneliness.
This I intend, and this I want,
That--passing--you may only mark
A dumb soul with its confidant
Entombed together in the dark.

The hoarse church-bells of London ring;
The hoarser horns of London croak;
The poor brown lives of London cling
About the poor brown streets like smoke;
The deep air stands above my roof
Like water, to the floating stars.
My Friend and I--we sit aloof,--
We sit and smile, and bind our scars.

For you may wound and you may kill--
It's such a little thing to die--
Your cruel God may work his will,
We do not care, my Friend and I.
Though, at the gate of Paradise,
Peter the Saint withhold his keys,
My Friend and I--we have no eyes
For Heav'n or Hell--or dreams like these....

THE INEVITABLE

_There is a sword, a fatal blade,
Unthwarted, subtle as the air,
And I could meet it unafraid
If I might only meet it fair.
Yet how I wonder why the Smith
Who wrought that steel of subtle grain
Should also be contented with
So blunt and mean a thing as pain_.

The stars and fire-flies dance in rings.
The fire-flies set my heart alight,
Like fingers, writing magic things
In flame, upon the wall of night.
There is high meaning in the skies--
(The stars and fire-flies--high and low--)
And all the spangled world is wise
With knowledge that I almost know.

To-morrow I will don my cloak
Of opal-grey, and I will stand
Where the palm-shadows stride like smoke
Across the dazzle of the sand.
To-morrow I will throw this blind
Blind whiteness from my soul away,
And pluck this blackness from my mind,
And only leave the medium--grey.

To-morrow I will cry for gains
Upon the blue and brazen sky.
The precious venom in my veins
To-morrow