Little Flowers From a Milliner’s Box

I have been making a little hat; A hat for a little lady. Red and brown leaves edge it, And the crown is like brown moss. If I might, I would say to her: “Pay me nothing, pay me nothing— I have been paid in full, lady— I have been paid in memories. Ah, the sweep of the sun-burned meadow Rising above the woodland! Ah, the drift of golden beech-leaves, Fluttering the still hour through! I can hear them falling, softly, Softly, falling on the tawny ground. The nuts, too, are falling, pad-pad, Mischievously on the earth. Never was sky so blue, so deep, So unbearably perfect! I throw up my hands to it, I fling kisses heavenward, To Something, to Somebody, Who made beauty—who made Youth! Take your hat, little lady, Wear it smilingly; It is all sewn with dreams, And looped with memories. Little dead joys, like mists, Float about it invisibly, Making it miraculous. You lack the money to pay for these things. It is I who owe you for the little hat You commissioned, made of red and of brown leaves, With a crown like sun-dried moss In the woods where I once wandered.” But I cannot afford to be kind, Or strange, or mad, or merry. She will give me purse-worn bills For the little dream hat, the fairy-sewn hat, And I shall say with formality: “Thank you, madam; I am glad You are pleased with the little hat.” Stale, stale, flat, flat! Will there never again come a day When I shall be throwing kisses to the sky, Hoping they will reach up to Him Who made beauty, and little golden leaves, And brown nuts falling in the Autumn woods?

I have been looking at the sun-ball, Red as a Japanese lantern Swinging low in the West On a bed of saffron sky. And now I have come into my room With grey and lonely walls all about me, And everywhere I look, behold, Little wonderful bright balls are swinging! My room is gay with them, My wall is dancing. Who could guess this little grey room could be so gay?

I awake in the night to the sound of voices— Voices of strangers passing in the street. I cannot hear what they are saying, But it is easy to see that they are happy. Perhaps they have been to a party, Dancing to music—or remembering the birthday Of some one whom they love. I am glad to have heard them, Glad they were laughing. It fretted the silence As the bright balls of a rocket Fret the black sky of night. As for me, I am shut up in silence, Like a fly in odorous amber. No one hails me, no one calls me; No one tells me the day is fair Or wishes me happy dreams. Sometimes I fall to wondering, What if I should run out onto the street, Crying to some passerby: “I would make a good friend to you! I am one who understands friendship; Try me and see!” Oh, what would happen? Should I be scorned? Oh, silence, silence, You are but a grey bubble, and I could break you With one breath of impatience. Yet I dare not. Something witholds me. Still must I waken In the lonely night-time, Taking joy from the voices of strangers Passing in the street, talking, laughing. Joy? It mocks me like the sound of falling water That tricks the ear of the thirst-mad wretch Dying in the desert. My desert is Silence! It covers the bleak rotundity of the earth.

Did you ever see my garden? See my mallow? See my larkspur? My petunias like censers, snowy white and full of honey? And my phlox, a summer snow-bank, and my haughty purple asters? Did you ever see my flocks and herds, all my little golden creatures? Dusky honey-bees in plenty, golden bumble-bees a few? Have you never seen them feeding on my larkspur and my mallow? Some day I shall have a fountain, or a tiny pool for lilies. And I’ll sit there, hidden safely, all alone and full of fancies, Playing I’m a lovely princess, resting by her carven fountain. I shall like to be a princess, to have friends and lovers by me! I can praise them, I can chide them, tell them secrets if I like, Flinging back their happy laughter like a handful of clear water. Oh, my little treasured garden, ten square feet of haunting perfume, Ten square feet of tossing blossoms, all my feoff and own dominion, How I love you, with your old-gold, noisy, honey-bearing herds!