Clara Shanafelt
Reading edition
TO THEE
White foam flower, red flame flower
On my tree of delight.
Lean from the shadow
Like singing in sorrow—
Pale flower of thy smile, flame flower of thy touch,
In my night.
CAPRICE
Who will be naming the wind
That lifts me and leaves me;
Swelleth my budding flame,
Foully bereaves me?
From the land whose forgotten name
Man shall not find,
Blowest thou, wind?
A VIVID GIRL
Her face is fair and smooth and fine,
Childlike, with secret laughter lit,
Drooping in pity, bright with wit,
A flower, a flame—God fashioned it.
Who sees her tastes the sacred wine.
302
INVOCATION
O glass-blower of time,
Hast blown all shapes at thy fire?
Canst thou no lovelier bell,
No clearer bubble, clear as delight, inflate me—
Worthy to hold such wine
As was never yet trod from the grape,
Since the stars shed their light, since the moon
Troubled the night with her beauty?
PASTEL
She has a clear, wind-sheltered loveliness,
Like pale streams winding far and hills withdrawn
From the bright reaches of the noon. Dawn
Is her lifting fancy, but her heart
Is orchard boughs and dusk and quietness.
A GALLANT WOMAN
She burst fierce wine
From the tough skin of pain,
Like wind that wrings from rigid skies
A scant and bitter gleam,
Long after the autumnal dusk
Has folded all the valleys in.
303
SCHERZO
The elder’s bridal in July,
Bright as a cloud!
A ripe blonde girl,
Billowing to the ground in foamy petticoats,
With breasts full-blown
Swelling her bodice.
But later
When the small black-ruddy berries
Tempt the birds to strip the stems,
And the leaves begin to yellow and fall off
While late summer’s still in its green,
Then you look lank and used up,
Elder;
Your big bones stick out,
You’re the kind of woman
Wears bleak at forty.
I’ll take my constant pleasure
In a willow-tree that ripples silver
All the summer.
And when the winter comes in greasy rags
Like a half-naked beggar,
Lets out the plaited splendor
Of her bright and glancing hair.
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