sayed,
And the three thousand gowns that she had worn.
Into the ragbag each frock found its flight,
Crumpled and ravished of a film-proud shade,
And every script is wandering forlorn,
Gnawed by the mirage of an opening night.

PORTRAIT: IN MEMORIAM

_To
Hugh Campbell_

FAILURE AT FORTY

He saw there was no choice to left or right--
Time that had marked him for the least of sages
Pointed the hour, and several blotted pages
Stood witness to the struggle in the night.
Behind him lay a happiness that might
Have made him shine a figure through the ages;
Before him loomed a toiling at mean wages,
Alternative to sinking out of sight.

This much was sure--he never need retrace;
The leagues that he had travelled were an ending.
There wound no footpath to a sunlit place,
Where he might nurse his dreams, with peace attending.
No promised joy would quicken the day's pace,
Nor write the past a blunder still worth mending.

PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN AND
A LADY

_To
Enid Welsh_

ASPENS AT CRESHEIM

She had become a stranger suddenly,
Just as all men were strangers; then he knew
Why she must be an alien--even she!
Since there was nought her human love could do
To give him the last access to her soul.
Returning came his years as wholly vain--
Repeated payment of inutile toll
To reach a shrine he would not seek again.

It scarcely left him sad to find how wrong
Had been his vision of won womanhood--
This yearning ache that he had held so long
For a full mingling of their separate blood.
Freed, solitary now, with unscared eyes
He gazed anew at life safe from surprise!

PORTRAIT OF MICHAEL PETER

_To
Fania Marinoff_

BIRTHDAY PIECE NO. 2

There is what is and what there is is fair,
But most is yet to come to what is here;
Here is the most to come from out a year,
For from the year there comes all there is there.
Song for the minnow and a crystal pool,
And all is said of all there was to say,
Yet all must say the all, since every day
A nuptial kiss the wise man gives a fool.

An ear of corn from the blind red sunburnt earth
Blandly lies in the sun divinely green,
Disowning what the earth and sun have done.
Kisses and corn and a pool to crown the birth,
With once to come what nev