Alice Corbin
Reading edition
O WORLD
O world that changes under my hand,
O brown world, bitter and bright,
And full of hidden recesses
Of love and light—
O world, what use would there be to me
Of power beyond power
To change, or establish new balance,
To build, or deflower?
54O world, what use would there be?
Had I the Creator’s fire,
I could not build you nearer
To my heart’s desire!
TWO VOICES
There is a country full of wine
And liquor of the sun,
Where sap is running all the year,
And spring is never done,
Where all is good as it is fair,
And love and will are one.
Old age may never come there,
But ever in to-day
The people talk as in a dream
And laugh slow time away.
But would you stay as now you are,
Or as a year ago?
Oh, not as then, for then how small
The wisdom we did owe!
Or if forever as to-day,
How little we could know!
Then welcome age, and fear not sorrow;
To-day’s no better than to-morrow,
Or yesterday that flies.
By the low light in your eyes,
By the love that in me lies,
I know we grow more lovely
Growing wise.
55
LOVE ME AT LAST
Love me at last, or if you will not,
Leave me;
Hard words could never, as these half-words,
Grieve me:
Love me at last—or leave me.
Love me at last, or let the last word uttered
Be but your own;
Love me, or leave me—as a cloud, a vapor,
Or a bird flown.
Love me at last—I am but sliding water
Over a stone.
HUMORESQUE
To some the fat gods
Give money,
To some love;
But the gods have given me
Money and love:
Not too much money,
Nor quite enough love!
To some the fat gods
Give money,
To some love.
ONE CITY ONLY
One city only, of all I have lived in,
And one house of that city, belong to me ...
I remember the mellow light of afternoon
56Slanting across brick buildings on the waterfront,
And small boats at rest on the floating tide,
And larger boats at rest in the near-by harbor;
And I know the tidal smell, and the smell of mud,
Uncovering oyster flats, and the brown bare toes of small negroes
With the mud oozing between them;
And the little figures leaping from log to log,
And the white children playing among them—
I remember how I played among them.
And I remember the recessed windows of the gloomy halls
In the darkness of decaying grandeur,
The feel of cool linen in the cavernous bed,
And the window curtain swaying gently
In the night air;
All the half-hushed noises of the street
In the southern town,
And the thrill of life—
Like a hand in the dark
With its felt, indeterminate meaning:
I remember that I knew there the stirring of passion,
Fear, and the knowledge of sin,
Tragedy, laughter, death....
And I remember, too, on a dead Sunday afternoon
In the twilight,
When there was no one else in the house,
My self suddenly separated itself
And left me alone,
So that the world lay about me, lifeless.
I could not touch it, or feel it, or see it;
Yet I was there.
The sensation lingers:
Only the most vital threads
Hold me at all to living ...
Yet I only live truly when I think of that house;
Only enter then into being.
57One city only of all I have lived in,
And one house of that city, belong to me.
APPARITIONS
I
A thin gray shadow on the edge of thought
Hiding its wounds:
These are the wounds of sorrow—
It was my hand that made them;
And this gray shadow that resembles you
Is my own heart, weeping ...
You sleep quietly beneath the shade
Of willows in the south.
II
When the cold dawn stood above the house-tops,
Too late I remembered the cry
In the night of a wild bird flying
Through the rain-filled sky.
THE POOL
Do you remember the dark pool at Nîmes,
The pool that had no bottom?
Shadowed by Druids ere the Romans came—
Dark, still, with little bubbles rising
So quietly level with its rim of stone
That one stood shuddering with the breathless fear
Of one short step?
My little sister stood beside the pool
As dark as that of Nîmes.
I saw her white face as she took the plunge;
I could not follow her, although I tried.
58The silver bubbles circled to the brink,
And then the water parted:
With dream-white face my little sister rose
Dripping from that dark pool, and took the hands
Outstretched to meet her.
I may not speak to her of all she’s seen;
She may not speak to me of all she knows,
Because her words mean nothing:
She chooses them
As one to whom our language is quite strange,
As children make queer words with lettered blocks
Before they know the way....
My little sister stood beside the pool—
I could not plunge in with her, though I tried.
MUSIC
The ancient songs
Pass deathward mournfully.
R. A.
The old songs
Die.
Yes, the old songs die.
Cold lips that sang them,
Cold lips that sang them—
The old songs die,
And the lips that sang them
Are only a pinch of dust.
I saw in Pamplona
In a musty museum—
I saw in Pamplona
In a buff-colored museum—
I saw in Pamplona
59A memorial
Of the dead violinist;
I saw in Pamplona
A memorial
Of Pablo Sarasate.
Dust was inch-deep on the cases,
Dust on the stick-pins and satins,
Dust on the badges and orders,
On the wreath from the oak of Guernica!
The old songs
Die—
And the lips that sang them.
Wreaths, withered and dusty,
Cuff-buttons with royal insignia,
These, in a musty museum,
Are all that is left of Sarasate.
WHAT DIM ARCADIAN PASTURES
What dim Arcadian pastures
Have I known
That suddenly, out of nothing,
A wind is blown,
Lifting a veil and a darkness,
Showing a purple sea—
And under your hair the faun’s eyes
Look out on me?
NODES
The endless, foolish merriment of stars
Beside the pale cold sorrow of the moon,
Is like the wayward noises of the world
Beside my heart’s uplifted silent tune.
60The little broken glitter of the waves
Beside the golden sun’s intense white blaze,
Is like the idle chatter of the crowd
Beside my heart’s unwearied song of praise.
The sun and all the planets in the sky
Beside the sacred wonder of dim space,
Are notes upon a broken, tarnished lute
That God will someday mend and put in place.
And space, beside the little secret joy
Of God that sings forever in the clay,
Is smaller than the dust we can not see,
That yet dies not, till time and space decay.
And as the foolish merriment of stars
Beside the cold pale sorrow of the moon,
My little song, my little joy, my praise,
Beside God’s ancient, everlasting rune.