Complete Works of Adelaide Crapsey Read online

  Look, little son, look;

  The grapes are translucent and ripe,

  They are heavy and fragrant with juice,

  They wait for the hands of the vintagers;

  For a long time the grapes were not,

  And were in the womb of the earth,

  Then out of the heavens came the rain,

  The sun sent down his warmth from the sky,

  At the touch of life, life stirred,

  And the earth brought forth her fruits in due season.

  I was a maid and alone,

  When, behold, there came to me a vision;

  My heart cried out within me,

  And the voice was the voice of God.

  Yea, a virgin I dreamed of love,

  And I was troubled and sore afraid,

  I wept and was glad,

  For the word of my heart named me blessèd,

  My soul exalted the might of creation.

  I was a maid and alone,

  When, behold, my lover came to me,

  My belovèd held me in his arms.

  Joy! Joy! Joy!

  Now is the vision fulfilled;

  I have conceived,

  I have carried in my womb,

  I have brought forth

  The life of the world;

  Out of my joy and my pain,

  Out of the fulness of my living

  Hath my son gained his life.

  Look, little son, look:

  The grapes are ripe for the gathering;

  The fresh, deep earth is in them,

  And clean water from the clouds.

  And golden, golden sun is in the heart of the grapes.

  Look, little son, look:

  The earth, your mother,

  And the touch of life who is your father,

  They have provided food for you

  That you also may live.

  The vineyards are planted on the hillside,

  They are the vineyards of my beloved,

  He chose a favorable spot,

  His hands prepared the soil for the planting;

  He set out the young vines

  And cared for them till the time of their bearing.

  Now is his labour fulfilled who worked with God.

  The fruit of the vineyard is ripe,

  The vintagers laugh in the sun,

  They sing while they gather the grapes,

  For the vintage is a good one,

  The wine vats are pressed down and running over.

  Joy! Joy! Joy!

  Now is the wonder accomplished;

  Out of the heart of the living grape

  Hath the hand of my beloved

  Wrung the wine of the dream of life.

  Belovèd,

  My little son’s father,

  Together we have given life,

  And the vision of life;

  Shall we not rejoice

  Who have made eternal

  The days of our living.

  Look, little son, look:

  The grapes glow with rich juice;

  The juice of the grape hath in it

  The substance of the earth,

  And the air’s breath;

  It hath in it the soul of the vintage.

  Put forth your hand, little son,

  And take for yourself the life

  That your father and your mother

  Have provided for you.

  Joy! Joy! Joy!

  The hills are glad,

  The valleys re-echo with merriment,

  In my heart is the sound of laughter,

  And my feet dance to the time of it;

  Oh, little son, carried light on my shoulder,

  Let us go laughing and dancing through the live days,

  For this is the hour of the vintage,

  When man gathereth for himself the fruits of the vineyard.

  1905.

  John Keats —

  (February 1820-February 1821)

  Meet thou the event

  And terrible happening of

  Thine end: for thou art come

  Upon the remote, cold place

  Of ultimate dissolution and

  With dumb, wide look

  Thou, impotent, dost feel

  Impotence creeping on

  Thy potent soul. Yea, now, caught in

  The aghast and voiceless pain

  Of death, thyself doth watch

  Thyself becoming naught.

  Peace. Peace. for at

  The last is comfort. Lo, now

  Thou hast no pain. Lo, now

  The waited presence is

  Within the room; the voice

  Speaks final-gentle: “Child,

  Even thy careful nurse,

  I lift thee in my arms

  For greater ease and while

  Thy heart still beats, place my

  Cool fingers of oblivion on

  Thine eyes and close them for

  Eternity. Thou shalt

  Pass sleeping, nor know

  When sleeping ceases. Yet still

  A little while thy breathing lasts,

  Gradual is faint and fainter; I

  Must listen close — the end.”

  Rest. And you others.. All.

  Grave-fellows in

  Green place. Here grows

  Memorial every spring’s

  Fresh grass and here

  Your marking monument

  Was built for you long, long

  Ago when Caius Cestius died.

  Rome 1909.

  Cinquains

  1911-1913

  November Night

  Listen..

  With faint dry sound,

  Like steps of passing ghosts,

  The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees

  And fall.

  Release

  With swift

  Great sweep of her

  Magnificent arm my pain

  Clanged back the doors that shut my soul

  From life.

  Triad

  These be

  Three silent things:

  The falling snow. the hour

  Before the dawn.. the mouth of one

  Just dead.

  Snow

  Look up...

  From Weakening hills

  Blows down the light, first breath

  Of wintry wind...look up, and scent

  The snow!

  Anguish

  Keep thou

  Thy tearless watch

  All night but when blue dawn

  Breathes on the silver moon, then weep!

  Then weep!

  Trapped

  Well and

  If day on day

  Follows, and weary year

  On year.. and ever days and years..

  Well?

  Moon-shadows

  Still as

  On windless nights

  The moon-cast shadows are,

  So still will be my heart when I

  Am dead.

  Susanna And The Elders

  “Why do

  You thus devise

  Evil against her?”

  “For that

  She is beautiful, delicate:

  Therefore.”

  Youth

  But me

  They cannot touch,

  Old age and death.. the strange

  And ignominious end of old

  Dead folk!

  Languor After Pain

  Pain ebbs,

  And like cool balm,

  An opiate weariness

  Settles on eye-lids, on relaxed

  Pale wrists.

  The Guarded Wound

  If it

  Were lighter touch

  Than petal of flower resting

  On grass oh still too heavy it were,

  Too heavy!

  Winter

  The cold

  With steely clutch

  Grips all the land.. alack,

  The little people in th
e hills

  Will die!

  Night Winds

  The old

  Old winds that blew

  When chaos was, what do

  They tell the clattered trees that I

  Should weep?

  Arbutus

  Not spring’s

  Thou art, but hers,

  Most cool, most virginal,

  Winter’s, with thy faint breath, thy snows

  Rose-tinged.

  Roma Aeterna

  The sun

  Is warm to-day,

  O Romulus, and on

  Thine olden Palatine the birds

  Still sing.

  He’s killed the may and he’s laid her by / To bear the red rose company.

  Not thou,

  White rose, but thy

  Ensanguined sister is

  The dear companion of my heart’s

  Shed blood.

  Amaze

  I know

  Not these my hands

  And yet I think there was

  A woman like me once had hands

  Like these.

  Shadow

  A-sway,

  On red rose,

  A golden butterfly..

  And on my heart a butterfly

  Night-wing’d.

  Fate Defied

  As it

  Were tissue of silver

  I’ll wear, O Fate, thy grey,

  And go mistily radiant, clad

  Like the moon.

  Madness

  Burdock,

  Blue aconite,

  And thistle and thorn.. of these,

  Singing I wreathe my pretty wreath

  O’death.

  The Warning —

  Just now,

  Out of the strange

  Still dusk.. as strange, as still.

  A white moth flew. Why am I grown

  So cold?

  Saying of II Haboul

  Guardian Of The Treasure Of Solomon

  And Keeper Of The Prophet’s Armour

  My tent

  A vapour that

  The wind dispels and but

  As dust before the wind am I

  Myself.

  The Death Of Holofernes

  Israel!

  Wake! Be gay!

  Thine enemy is brought low

  Thy foe slain-by the hand, by the hand

  Of a woman!

  Laurel In The Berkshires

  Sea-foam

  And coral! Oh, I’ll

  Climb the great pasture rocks

  And dream me mermaid in the sun’s

  Gold flood.

  Niagara

  Seen on a night in November

  How frail

  Above the bulk

  Of crashing water hangs,

  Autumnal, evanescent, wan,

  The moon.

  The Grand Canyon

  By Zeus!

  Shout word of this

  To the eldest dead! Titans,

  Gods, Heroes, come who have once more

  A home!

  Now Barabbas Was A Robber

  No guile?

  Nay, but so strangely

  He moves among us. Not this

  Man but Barabbas! Release to us

  Barabbas!

  Refuge In Darkness

  With night’s

  Dim veil and blue

  I will cover my eyes,

  I will bind close my eyes that are

  So weary.

  PART II

  To Walter Savage Landor

  Ah, Walter, where you lived I rue

  These days come all too late for me;

  What matter if her eyes are blue

  Whose rival is Persephone?

  Fiesole, 1909.

  The Pledge

  White doves of Cytherea, by your quest

  Across the blue Heaven’s bluest highest air,

  And by your certain homing to Love’s breast,

  Still to be true and ever true — I swear.

  Hypnos, God of Sleep

  The shadowy boy of night

  Crosses the dusking land;

  He sows his poppy-seeds

  With steady, gentle hand.

  The shadowy boy of night

  Young husbandman of dreams,

  Garners his gracious blooms

  By far and moonlit streams.

  Expenses

  Little my lacking fortunes show

  For this to eat and that to wear;

  Yet laughing, Soul, and gaily go!

  An obol pays the Stygian fare.

  London, 1910

  Adventure

  Sun and wind and beat of sea,

  Great lands stretching endlessly...

  Where be bonds to bind the free?

  All the world was made for me!

  On Seeing Weather-Beaten Trees

  Is it as plainly in our living shown,

  By slant and twist, which way the wind hath blown?

  Warning To The Mighty

  Ere the horned owl hoot

  Once and twice and thrice there shall

  Go among the blind brown worms

  News of thy great burial;

  When the pomp is passed away,

  “Here’s a King,” the worms shall say.

  Oh, Lady, Let The Sad Tears Fall

  Oh, Lady, let the sad tears fall

  To speak thy pain,

  Gently as through the silver dusk

  The silver rain.

  Oh, let thy bosom breathe its grief

  In such soft sigh

  As hath the wind in gardens where

  Pale roses die.

  Dirge

  Never the nightingale,

  Oh, my dear,

  Never again the lark

  Thou wilt hear;

  Though dusk and the morning still

  Tap at thy window-sill,

  Though ever love call and call

  Thou wilt not hear at all,

  My dear, my dear.

  The Sun-Dial

  Every day,

  Every day,

  Tell the hours

  By their shadows,

  By their shadows.

  The Entombment

  In a cave born,

  (Mary said)

  In a cave is

  My Son buried.

  Autumn

  Fugitive, wistful,

  Pausing at edge of her going,

  Autumn, the maiden, turns,

  Leans to the earth with ineffable

  Gesture. Ah, more than

  Spring’s skies her skies shine

  Tender and frailer

  Bloom than plum-bloom or almond

  Lies on her hillsides, her fields,

  Misted, faint-flushing. Ah, lovelier

  Is her refusal than

  Yielding who pauses with grave

  Backward smiling, with light

  Unforgettable touch of

  Fingers withdrawn... Pauses, lo

  Vanishes. fugitive, wistful...

  Ah me.. Alas..

  (He)

  Ah me, my love’s heart,

  Like some frail flower, apart,

  High, on the cliff’s edge growing,

  Touched by unhindered sun to sweeter showing,

  Swung by each faint wind’s faintest blowing,

  But so, on the cliff’s edge growing,

  From man’s reach aloof, apart:

  Ah me, my love’s heart!

  (She)

  Alack, alas, my lover,

  As one who would discover

  At world’s end his path,

  Nor knows at all what faëry way he hath

  Who turneth dreaming into faith

  And followeth that near path

  His own heart dareth to discover:

  Alack, alas, my lover!

  Perfume of Youth

  (Girl’s Song)

  In Babylon, in Nineveh,

  And long ago, and far away,

  The lilies and the lotus
blew

  That are my sweet of youth to-day.

  From those high gardens of the Gods

  That eyes of men may never see,

  The amaranth and asphodel

  Immortal odours shed on me.

  In vial of my early years,

  As in a crystal vial held,

  What precious fragrance treasured up

  Of age and agelessness distill’d.

  Thine but to give. Give straightway all.

  Yea, straight, mine hands, the ointment rare

  In great libation joyous pour!

  Oh, look of youth... Oh, golden hair...

  Rapunzel

  All day, all day I brush

  My golden strands of hair;

  All day I wait and wait..

  Ah, who is there?

  Who calls? Who calls?

  The gold

  Ladder of my long hair

  I loose and wait.. and wait..

  Ah, who is there?

  She left at dawn.. I am blind

  In the tangle of my long hair..

  Is it she? the witch? the witch?

  Ah, who is there?

  Narcissus

  “Boy, lying

  Where the long grass

  Edges the pool’s brim,

  What do you watch

  There in the water? the blue

  Colour of Heaven

  Mirrored, repeated? the brown

  Tree-trunks and branches

  Waveringly imaged? These,

  Boy, do you watch?”

  “Nay but mine eyes;

  Nay but the trouble

  Deep in mine eyes.”

  Vendor’s Song

  My songs to sell, good sir!