Sonnets and Songs

Helen Whitney

Helen Hay Whitney

Sonnets and Songs

SONNETS

I

Ave atque Vale

As a blown leaf across the face of Time

Your name falls emptily upon my heart.

In this new symmetry you have no part,

No lot in my fair life. The stars still chime

Autumn and Spring in ceaseless pantomime.

I play with Beauty, which is kin to Art,

Forgetting Nature. Nor do pulses start

To hear your soul remembered in a rhyme.

You may not vex me any more. The stark

Terror of life has passed, and all the stress.

Winds had their will of me, and now caress,

Blown from bland groves I know. Time dreams, and I,

As on a mirror, see the days go by

In nonchalant procession to the dark.

II

“Chaque baiser vaut un roman.”

I, living love and laughter, have forgot

The way the heart has uttered melody.

As sobbing, plaintive cadence of the sea

A poet’s soul should rest, remembering not

The inland paths of green, the flowers, the spot

Where fairies ring. In hermit ecstasy

Music is born, and gay or wofully

Lovers of Poesy share her lonely lot.

For you and me, Beloved, crowned with Spring,

Catching Love’s flowers from off the lap of Time,

What are the songs my voice has scorned to sing?

Ghostly they hover round my heart-wise lips;

Into a kiss I fold my rose of Rhyme,

Laid like a martyr on your finger-tips.

III

As a Pale Child

As a pale child, hemmed in by windy rain,

Patiently turns to touch his well-known toys,

Playing as children play who make no noise,

Yet happy in a way; then sighs again,

To watch the world across the storm-dim pane,

And sees with wistful eyes glad girls and boys

Who romp beneath the rain’s unlicensed joys,

And feels wild longings sweep his gentle brain.

So I, contented with my flowers for stars,

Stroll in my fair, walled garden happily,

Knowing no gladder game till, shrill and sweet,

I hear life’s cry ring down the silent street,

And press my face against the sunlit bars

To watch the joyous spirits who are free.

IV

Flower of the Clove

Ah, Love, have pity!—I am but a child;

I ask but light and laughter, and the tears

Darken the sunlight of my fairest years.

By love made desolate, by love beguiled,

I waste the Spring. Love’s harvest wains are piled

With poppies and gold grain—I glean but fears

Of empty hands, grim hunger, and the jeers

Of happy wives whose loves are reconciled.

But mine! Ah, mine is like a tattered leaf

Upon a turbid stream. I have no pride,

No life, but love, which is a bitter grief.

As a lost star I wander down your sky.

Give me your heart. Open it wide—so wide!

I must have love and laughter, or I die.

V

Too Late

Upon your stone the wine of my desire

Is spilled. Your poppy lips have grown too pale

From fasting. Your white hands will not avail

The cold eyes of your heart to light the fire.

I did not think my prayers could ever tire.

Now, like doomed ships, they flutter without sail.

Lost in a calm which held no rock, no gale—

Now, when your chilly smile bids me aspire!

So, without history, my soul is slain—

Woman of barren love; the wine was red—

Beautiful for your spending. Not again

Will the bud blossom where the frost has sped.

Timid, you dared not hark when angels sang.

All, all is lost, without one saving pang.

VI

The Supreme Sacrifice

Better than life, better than sea and morn,

And all the sun-stained fragments of the day—

Ah! more than breeze, than purple clouds that stray

Across dim twilights—I, the tempest-torn,

Fighting the stars for glory, who must scorn

Heart-drops bespread along love’s cruel way

Like scattered petals on the breast of May—

Better than life I love you, I forlorn.

Better than death—the sleeping and the peace

When warm within the breast of brooding Earth

My weary heart should give its woes release,

The pitiful dark remembering not my loss,

The calm, wise years restoring joy for dearth—

Better than death, my lov