The Complete Poems and Collected Letters of Adelaide Crapsey

Behold her,
Running through the waves,
Eager to reach the land;
The water laps her,
Sun and wind are on her,
Healthy, brine-drenched and young,
Behold Desire new-born;—
Desire on first fulfillment's radiant edge,
Love at miraculous moment of emergence,
This is she,
Who running,
Hastens, hastens to the land.

Look.. Look..
Her blown gold hair and lucent eyes of youth,
Her body rose and ivory in the sun..
Look,
How she hastens,
Running, running to the land.

Her hands are yearning and her feet are swift
To reach and hold
She knows not what
Yet knows that it is life;
Need urges her,
Self, uncomprehended but most deep divined,
Unwilled but all-compelling, drives her on.
Life runs to life.
She who longs,
But hath not yet accepted or bestowed,
All virginal dear and bright,
Runs, runs to reach the land.

And she who runs shall be
Married to blue of summer skies at noon,
Companion to green fields,
Held bride of subtle fragrance and of all sweet sound,
Belovèd of the stars,
And wanton mistress to the veering winds.

Oh breathless space between:
Womb-time just passed,
Dark-hidden, chaotic-formative, unpersonal,
And individual life of fresh-created force
Not yet begun:
One moment more
Before desire shall meet desire
And new creation start.
Oh breathless space,
While she,
Just risen from the waves,
Runs, runs to reach the land.

(Ah, keenest personal moment
When mouth unkissed turns eager-slow and tremulous
Towards lover's mouth,
That tremulous and eager-slow
Droops down to it:
But breathless space of breath or two
Lies in between
Before the mouth upturned and mouth down-drooped
Shall meet and make the kiss.)

Look.. Look..
She runs..
Love fresh-emerged,
Desire new-born..
Blown on by wind,
And shone on by the sun,
She rises from the waves
And running,
Hastens, hastens to the land.

Belovèd and Belovèd and Belovèd,
Even so right
And beautiful and undenied
Is my desire;
Even so longing-swift
I run to your receiving arms.

O Aphrodite!
O Aphrodite, hear!
Hear my wrung cry flame upward poignant-glad...
This is my time for me.
I too am young;
I too am all of love!

1905.

The Mother Exultant

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.

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 belovèd,

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 belovèd
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 bleakening 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 the 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.

[Not thou]

“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 Il 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.

University of Virginia Library

1. Part I

Birth-Moment