1. Ambition
2. The Mother's Helper
3. A Didactic Poem to Deborah
4. An Autumn Walk with Deborah
5. Experience
6. Candles That Burn
7. Prevision
8. Dorothy's Garden
9. Justice
10. For Two Birthdays
11. To Rose Away
12. For a Proud Baby
13. "You Are More Blessed"
14. To a Sick Child
15. "A Wind in the Night"
16. "When You Have Been Dead"
17. To Rose
18. Olim Meminisse Juvabit
19. Haunted
20. The Windy Night
21. I Shall Not Be Afraid
22. In Spring
23. High Heart
24. Christmas
25. The Garden Child
26. The Lost Forest
27. Cow Song
28. Remembrance
29. Flower Dancers
30. Morning-Glories
31. Hill-Country
32. Compensation
33. In a Hall Bedroom
34. To a Young Aviator
35. The Masquerader
36. The Morning Shadow
37. After Grieving
38. Spring Sorrow
39. Age Invading
40. Portrait of an Old Lady
41. To Two Little Sisters of the Poor
42. Mountains
43. To a Lady Complimenting
44. Green Gravel
45. The White Moth
46. Honey-Witch
47. To a Silly Poor Soul
48. Moonlight
49. My Mirror

Candles That Burn Aline Kilmer (1919) To Joyce Edited for the Web by Steve Spanoudis

Ambition

KENTON and Deborah, Michael and Rose,

These are fine children as all the world knows;

But into my arms in my dreams every night

Come Peter and Christopher, Faith and Delight.



Kenton is tropical, Rose is pure white,

Deborah shines like a star in the night;

Michael's round eyes are as blue as the sea,

And nothing on earth could be dearer to me.



But where is the baby with Faith can compare?

What is the colour of Peterkin's hair?

Who can make Christopher clear to my sight,

Or show me the eyes of my daughter Delight?



When people inquire I always just state:

"I have four nice children and hope to have eight.

Though the first four are pretty and certain to please,

Who knows but the rest may be nicer than these?"

Aline Kilmer

The Mother's Helper

I LOVE all my children far more than I thought to;

They do everything just the way that they ought to,

And the ones that can talk say their prayers as they're taught to;

But still every night as I sit at my sewing,

My mind turned adrift on its own pleasures going,

Underneath my wild thoughts is a steady prayer flowing:

St. Brigid, please keep

My babies asleep!



St. Rita assists me when things are past bearing,

St. Christopher helps me when forth I am faring,

But the care of my children St. Brigid is sharing.

They are wilful and happy and dear beyond measure,

No riches could equal the worth of my treasure;

But in spite of my love and my pride and my pleasure,

St. Brigid, please keep

My babies asleep!

Aline Kilmer

A Didactic Poem to Deborah

DEBORAH dear, when you are old,

   Tired and grey, with pallid brow,

Where will you put the blue and gold

   And radiant rose that tint you now?



You are so fair, so gay, so sweet!

   How can I bear to watch you grow,

Knowing that soon those twinkling feet

   Must go the ways all children go?



Deborah, put the blue and gold

   And rosy beauty that is you,

Into your heart that it may hold

   Beauty to last your whole life through.



Then, though the world be tossed and torn,

   Greyer than ashes and as sad,

Though fate may make your way forlorn,

   Deborah dear, you shall be glad.

Aline Kilmer

An Autumn Walk with Deborah

OVER the limp and sallow grasses,

   Deborah, will you walk with me?

You may gather gentians in purple masses

   And honeypods from the locust tree.



Brown leaves cover the partridge berry,

   Holding it safe for your eager hand.

Barberry bright and cornelian cherry

   Offering scarlet jewels stand.



I shall dress you up as an elf-queen, twining

   Bittersweet wreaths for your golden head;

Your leaf-brown cloak with its orange lining

   I shall hang with garlands yellow and red.



Let us leave this place while the sunlight lingers

   Lest the elves should covet your beauty bright.

The gentians fall from your tired fingers

   As I carry you home through the fading light.

Aline Kilmer

Experience

DEBORAH danced, when she was two,

As buttercups and daffodils do;

Spirited, frail, naïvely bold,

Her hair a ruffled crest of gold,

And whenever she spoke her voice went singing

Like water up from a fountain springing.



But now her step is quiet and slow;

She walks the way primroses go;

Her hair is yellow instead of gilt,

Her voice is losing its lovely lilt,

And in place of her wild, delightful ways

A quaint precision rules her days.



For Deborah now is three, and oh,

She knows so much that she did not know.

Aline Kilmer

Candles That Burn

CANDLES that burn for a November birthday,

   Wreathed round with asters and with goldenrod,

As you go upward in your radiant dying

   Carry my prayer to God.



Tell Him she is so small and so rebellious,

   Tell Him her words are music on her lips,

Tell Him I love her in her wayward beauty

   Down to her fingertips.



Ask Him to keep her brave and true and lovely,

   Vivid and happy, gay as she is now,

Ask Him to let no shadow touch her beauty,

   No sorrow mar her brow.



All the sweet saints that came for her baptising,

   Tell them I pray them to be always near.

Ask them to keep her little feet from stumbling,

   Her gallant heart from fear.



Candles that burn for a November birthday,

   Wreathed round with asters and with goldenrod,

As you go upward in your radiant dying,

   Carry my prayer to God.

Aline Kilmer

Prevision

I KNOW you are too dear to stay;

   You are so exquisitely sweet:

My lonely house will thrill some day

   To echoes of your eager feet.



I hold your words within my heart,

   So few, so infinitely dear;

Watching your fluttering hands I start

   At the corroding touch of fear.



A faint, unearthly music rings

   From you to Heaven--it is not far!

A mist about your beauty clings

   Like a thin cloud before a star.



My heart shall keep the child I knew,

   When you are really gone from me,

And spend its life remembering you

   As shells remember the lost sea.

Aline Kilmer

Dorothy's Garden

DEAR, in all your garden I have planted yellow lilies,

   Dainty yellow lilies everywhere you go:

They are nodding slim and stately down the paths along the hedges,

   Delicately stepping they curtsey in a row.



So when you walk among them like a lily in your slim-ness,

   With your shining head just bending graciously,

All the little angels that look down upon your garden

   Will wonder which is lily and which is Dorothy.

Aline Kilmer

Justice

MICHAEL, come in! Stop crying at the door.

Come in and see the evil you have done.

Here is your sister's doll with one leg gone,

Naked and helpless on the playroom floor.

"Poor child! poor child! now he can never stand.

With one leg less he could not even sit!"

She mourned, but first, with swift avenging hand,

She smote, and I am proud of her for it.



Michael, my sympathies are all for you.

Your cherub mouth, your miserable eyes,

Your grey-blue smock tear-spattered and your cries

Shatter my heart, but what am I to do?

He was her baby and the fear of bears

Lay heavy on him so he could not sleep

But in the crook of her dear arm, she swears.

So, Michael, she was right and you must weep.

Aline Kilmer

For Two Birthdays

WHENEVER I light the candles for your birthday

   My memory lights two more,

Two ghostly candles burning with your candles

   Where hers burned once before.



Whenever I see you at your birthday table,

   Across from you I see

A gentle ghost that sits among us laughing,

   Laughing adorably.



She would have been the gayest at the party,

   She always was the gladdest thing on earth:

Now she is gayer still, for she is taken

   Into celestial mirth.



With God and all the saints and all the angels

   She shares her birthday cake.

So let us keep your birthday candles burning

   Joyously, for her sake.

Aline Kilmer

To Rose Away

LITTLE white moon of my heart

   Since you have gone away

I miss your cry when you wake by night,

   Your smile when you wake by day.

I am glad when the daylight fades

   For my dreams are lovely things;

Then in the dark you come to me

   On softly fluttering wings.



When in the afternoon,

   Sailing the cloudless sky,

Over the shimmering summer earth

   The pale little moon slips by,

In the curve of her frail white bow

   Your shadowy face I see,

And I like to think that she has you there

   Bringing you back to me.

Aline Kilmer

For a Proud Baby

FLOWER of children, if you knew

   All the things you might be proud of!

Curls and dimples are a few

   Charms you have a gracious crowd of.



With your dark, delightful eyes

   You can break a heart or mend it.

I know you are not really wise,

   But how well you can pretend it!



Though your wickedness and wit

   Very clever in your sight be,

Yet you are not, I admit,

   As conceited as you might be.

Aline Kilmer

"You Are More Blessed"

YOU are more blessed than other babies are:

   Your shining eyes grow brighter every day

With radiance that reminds me of the star

   That showed where Jesus lay.



I like to think that you are set apart,

   A flower that never sprang from earthly loam,

A rose of Heaven that nestles in my heart

   And dreams about its home.

Aline Kilmer

To a Sick Child

I WOULD make you cookies

   But you could not eat them;

I would bring you roses

   But you would not care.

In your scornful beauty,

   Arrogant and patient,

Though I'd die to please you

   You lie silent there.



Your once wanton sister

   Creeps about on tiptoe,

And your brother hurries

   At your slightest nod:

Watching at your bedside

   When you sleep I tremble

Lest before you waken

   You go back to God.

Aline Kilmer

A Wind in the Night

A WIND rose in the night,

   (She had always feared it so!)

Sorrow plucked at my heart

   And I could not help but go.



Softly I went and stood

   By her door at the end of the hall.

Dazed with grief I watched

   The candles flaring and tall.



The wind was wailing aloud:

   I thought how she would have cried

For my warm familiar arms

   And the sense of me by her side.



The candles flickered and leapt,

   The shadows jumped on the wall.

She lay before me small and still

   And did not care at all.

Aline Kilmer

When You Had Been Dead

WHEN you had been dead a week

I entered a shining shop,

And there in a neat pink row

Lay little dolls made of soap.

And I thought, "I will take one home.

How she will laugh to see it!

How it will bob in her bath

And slip through her dripping fingers!"

Only a moment I smiled.

Only a moment I dreamed it.

Then my heart stood still with pain

And I went out into the darkness.

Aline Kilmer

To Rose

THEY told me the one who died would be always near me,

That I had one child who could never grow old and sad;

I should always have your beautiful face to cheer me,

Your voice to make me glad.



Oh, I have prayed till my heart was weary with praying,

Hoping, if only in dreams, to feel you near,

To find the truth in what they were always saying--

That you would be with me, dear.



Were they only trying to help me face the morrow?

Or did they really believe the things they said?

The only dream 1 have had of you brought but sorrow:

I dreamed that you were not dead.

Aline Kilmer

Olim Meminisse Juvabit

[from 'Forsan Et Haec Olim Meminisse Juvabit' - "Perhaps it will be a joy later to remember these things." --Steve]

SOMETIME it may be pleasing to remember

   The curls about your brow,

To talk about your eyes, your smile, your clearness,

   But it is anguish now.



Often I feel that I must speak and tell them

   Of all your golden ways,

How all the words you ever spoke were happy.

   Joy-filled your laughing days.



But though I miss you every empty moment

   Of all my longing years,

How can I speak about your thrilling beauty

   When all my thoughts are tears?



Sometime it may be pleasing to remember

   The curls about your brow,

The way you turned your head, your hands, your laughter,

   But oh, not now, not now!

Aline Kilmer

Haunted

YOUR dying lips were proud and sweet

And when you turned your head away

Against the pillow where you lay

My heart was broken at your feet.

quivering lips that would be gay,

What was it that you tried to say?

There was a thing you would have said,

There was a word you never spoke;

It rose between us by your bed.

There came a look of hurt surprise

In your unfathomable eyes,

And then it was that my heart broke.



So now wherever I may turn

1 see your wistful, following eyes;

I see that anguished question burn

On lips that laugh in Paradise.

If I had been in your dear place

You never would have failed me so!

You always read upon my face

Thoughts that myself could scarcely know.

Oh, how I scorned my fettered soul

Because it could not leap the space

That held me from your lovely goal!



How many a trivial little word

And things you said to me apart,

Strange sayings no one else has heard,

I keep safe buried in my heart.

But the last thing you would have said,

I shall not know it: you are dead.

Aline Kilmer

The Windy Night

YOU say you love to hear the wind

   Like brazen trumpets in the night;

That all its martial panoply

   Wakes in your soul a wild delight.



You like to hear upon the roof

   The silver lances of the rain,

And see the birches' cavalry

   Go sweeping past the window-pane:



To see tall chestnuts fall like towers,

   While all our happy house is still,

And like a charge with bayonets

   The cedar trees rush up the hill.



But I lie trembling in the night,

   As dark and wild as night can be,

Remembering songs that you have made

   Till through the night you come to me.

Aline Kilmer

I Shall Not Be Afraid

I SHALL not be afraid any more,

   Either by night or day;

What would it profit me to be afraid

   With you away?



Now I am brave. In the dark night alone

   All through the house I go,

Locking the doors and making windows fast

   When sharp winds blow.



For there is only sorrow in my heart;

There is no room for fear.

But how I wish I were afraid again,

My dear, my dear!

Aline Kilmer

In Spring

I DO not know which is worse when you are away:

Long grey days with the lisping sound of the rain

And then when the lilac dusk is beginning to fall

The thought that perhaps you may never come back again;



Or days when the world is a shimmer of blue and gold,

Sparkling newly all in the dear spring weather,

When with a heart that is torn apart by pain

I walk alone in ways that we went together.

Aline Kilmer

High Heart

THE sea that I watch from my window

   Is grey and white;

I see it toss in the darkness

   All the night.

My soul swoops down to sorrow

   As the sea-gulls dip,

And all my love flies after

   Your lonely ship.



Yet I am not despairing

   Though we must part,

Nothing can be too bitter

   For my high heart.

All in the dreary midnight,

   Watching the flying foam,

I wait for the golden morning

   When you come home.

Aline Kilmer

Christmas

"AND shall you have a Tree," they say,

"Now one is dead and one away?"



Oh, I shall have a Christmas Tree!

Brighter than ever it shall be;

Dressed out with coloured lights to make

The room all glorious for your sake.

And under the Tree a Child shall sleep

Near shepherds watching their wooden sheep.

Threads of silver and nets of gold,

Scarlet bubbles the Tree shall hold,

And little glass bells that tinkle clear.

I shall trim it alone but feel you near.



And when Christmas Day is almost done,

When they all grow sleepy one by one,

When Kenton's books have all been read,

When Deborah's climbing the stairs to bed,



I shall sit alone by the fire and see

Ghosts of you both come close to me.

For the dead and the absent always stay

With the one they love on Christmas Day.

Aline Kilmer

The Garden Child

ONCE in my childhood I knew an old garden,

   Shut in by grey pickets and crowded with grass;

Old flowers grew in it, clove pinks and white lilies,

   And moss roses choked up the path with their mass.



It lay all alone in the curve of a river

   Where little grey boats floated by on the tide;

No dwelling was near it, no pathway led to it,

   And harsh river-grasses crept up on each side.



Speedwell and lavender, small brown chrysanthemums,

   Mixed in great tangles where myrtle ran wild,

And sweetly mysterious, safe though unguarded,

   Lay hid in a corner the grave of a child.



Often I wondered if that child had played there,

   Played there as I, twining wreaths for my hair,

When the pickets were white and the flowers were tended

   And no little grave held its mystery there.



Who were the people who once had lived near there

   Making the wilderness bloom like a rose,

Then left like a dream leaving nothing behind them

   But the grave of a child in a small garden-close?

Aline Kilmer

The Lost Forest

I WALKED with my mother

   Where the tall trees grow,

And she showed me tiny tables

   Where the elves sit in a row,

And the bells that ring to call them

   When the night winds blow.



There were small frosted toadstools,

   And little cups of wine,

And velvet banks to rest on

   Where moss grew thick and fine,

And a smooth brown ring for dancing

   Underneath a pine.



But now when I go walking

   All the way is clear;

The little bells are silent

   And the moss grown sere,

And I know that in the moonlight

   Not an elf comes near.

Aline Kilmer

Cow Song

KLANG! Kling! the cow-bells ring

As the cows come home at night.

Slowly they pass over the grass,

Black and brown and white.



Sleepy and slow each one will go

With daisies and clover in her;

At the milking stall she'll give them all

As milk for Kenton's dinner.

Aline Kilmer

Remembrance

I WENT back to a place I knew

   When I was very, very small;

The same old yellow roses grew

   Against the same old wall.



Each thing I knew was in its place;

   The well, the white stones by the road,

The box-hedge with its cobweb lace,

   And a small spotted toad.



And yet the place seemed changed and still;

   The house itself had shrunk, I know.

And then my eyes began to fill

   For I had always loved it so!

Aline Kilmer

Flower Dancers

TO-DAY I played with flowers,

The yellow, yellow daisies,

The rainbow morning-glories

And lilies pale and grand.

They held their dainty skirts out,

They bowed among the grasses,

And danced a tilting minuet

Shadowy hand in hand.

Aline Kilmer

Morning-Glories

WHEN I was small I used to play

   In an old garden bright with flowers.

I often used to run away

   From home, and play in there for hours.



There were two ladies who lived there,

   Dressed all in black with creamy laces.

They had soft snowy puffs of hair

   And wrinkled, pleasant, dim old faces.



They had such kind and pretty ways!

   They used to tell me lovely stories,

And let me on warm sunny days

   Blow bubbles with great morning-glories.



I wonder if they know how much

   I think of them now I am older.

I often seem to feel the touch

   Of soft old hands upon my shoulder.

Aline Kilmer

Hill-Country

BROWN hill I have left behind,

   Why do you haunt me so?

You never were warm and kind

   And I was glad to go.



Is it because there lies,

   Up in your cold brown breast,

One who brought joy to my eyes

   And to my heart brought rest?



Never again shall I see

   The flash in her answering eye.

Never again shall the heart in me

   Stir as she passes by.



Hill, you are proud and cold,

   Haughty and high your face;

Is it, O hill, because you hold

   Her in your grim embrace?

Aline Kilmer

Compensation

I HAVE two children: one who came

   When on my head

Life shed its joys without a thought

   Of pain or dread;

And one when ashes of despair

   Blackened my bread.



My child of joy has sombre eyes

   Like Mimer's well;

Surely the secrets of the world

   Those lips could tell;

And wisdom on his infant soul

   Untimely fell.



My child of woe has laughing eyes

   Like dancing light;

A leaping flame of innocence

   Has burned her white;

And in her face I dare not look,

   It is so bright.



My little pagan's life should hold

   Joy without taint;

Under the gleaming sword of pain

   His soul might faint:

Not all the powers of Hell could daunt

   My happy saint!

Aline Kilmer

In a Hall bedroom

"IN THE long border on the right

   I shall plant larkspur first," she thinks.

"Peonies and chrysanthemums

   And then sweet-scented maiden pinks.



"The border on the left shall hold

   Nothing but masses of white phlox.

Forget-me-nots shall edge this one,

The one across be edged with box.



"The sun-dial in the centre stands.

   There morning-glories bright shall twine.

And in the strip at either end

   Shall grow great clumps of columbine.



"There is no garden in the world

   So beautiful as mine," she dreams.

Rising, she walks the little space

   To where her narrow window gleams.



She gazes through the dingy pane

   To where the street is noisy still,

And tends with pitiable care

   A tulip on the window-sill.

Aline Kilmer

To a Young Aviator

WHEN you go up to die

   Some not far distant day,

I wonder will you try

   To tear your mask away,

      And look life in the eyes

      For once without disguise?



Behind your mask may hide

   What treacherous, covered fires!

What hidden, torturing pride!

   What sorrows, what desires!

      Whatever there may be

      There will be none to see.



Yet I think when you meet

   Death coming through the skies,

Calmly his face you'll greet,

   Coldly, without surprise;

      Then die without a moan,

      Still masked although alone.

Aline Kilmer

The Masquerader

YOU were no more to me than many others,

   I never thought you beautiful or bright,

And yet I find your memory returning

   Many a night.



Again I hear your strange, heart-broken laughter,

   Laughter more pitiful than any tears;

Again I see your gallant head uplifted

   Through heavy years.



You held so tight the fragile toy you wanted,

   And when it broke you would not let it go;

You would not let us guess your heart broke with it--

   You played you did not know.



Now you are gone we see how well you suffered,

   We see the valiant way you struggled on.

Can you forgive our foolish condescension,

   Now you are gone?

Aline Kilmer

The Morning Shadow

I WHO have never known sorrow

Wait for it morning and evening;

For the footstep of grief on my threshold,

The drip of tears on my hearthstone,

The pitiless hours of lonely, uncomforted woe.



Never a life without sorrow!

But, oh, when will mine be upon me?

When will the years seem long

That now slip happily by me?

The light of the skies be dimmed

To eyes that are weary with weeping?

Aline Kilmer

After Grieving

WHEN I was young I was so sad!

   I was so sad! I did not know

Why any living thing was glad

   Vhen one must some day sorrow so.

      But now that grief has come to me

      My heart is like a bird set free.



I always knew that it would come;

   I always felt it waiting there:

Its shadow kept my glad voice dumb

   And crushed my gay soul with despair.

      But now that I have lived with grief

      I feel an exquisite relief.



Athletes who know their proven strength,

   Ships that have shamed the hurricane:

These are my brothers, and at length

   I shall come back to joy again.

      However hard my life may be

      I know it shall not conquer me.

Aline Kilmer

Spring Sorrow

SORROW to see the spring!

Why do we smile when she wakes the rose?

For sleep is sweeter as every one knows,

And cruel the wakening.



Hark to a weary sound!

It is the sap that swells like tears

In the heart of trees that are grey with years,

And falls like tears to the ground.



Futile the brave display,

The pitiful challenge of bud and leaf,

The proud pretence that is yet so brief

And dies, like spring, in a day.



Sorrow to see the spring!

Why are we glad at the birth of the rose?

For death is better as every one knows,

And life is a bitter thing.

Aline Kilmer

Age Invading

I SHALL not run upstairs again,

   And oh, the foolish grief I feel!

I must go carefully or pain

   Will thrust me through with its bright steel.



I never thought that I should care

   When the first shadow fell on me.

I planned lace caps for my white hair

   And hoped to grow old gracefully.



I thought that when Age came I'd stand

   (If Age should really come at all!)

And greet him with extended hand

   As my last partner at a ball.



But now when you with easy grace

   Run up ahead or wait for me,

Such bitterness is in my face

   I turn my head lest you should see.

Aline Kilmer

Portrait of an Old Lady

EARLY one morning as I went a-walking

   I met an old lady so stately and tall,

The red of her cheeks gave a quiver of pleasure

   Like the sight of red hollyhocks by a grey wall.



Fragrance of lavender clung to her, telling

   Of linen piled high on immaculate shelves;

You could fancy her tending her garden or strolling

   Among the proud roses that grow by themselves.



When I am sorrowful, dreading the future,

   Dreaming of days when my hair shall be grey,

It cheers me to think of that lovely old lady,

   Lavender-haunted and hollyhock-gay.

Aline Kilmer

Two Little Sisters of the Poor

SWEET and humble and gladly poor,

The Grace of God came in at my door.



Sorrow and death were mine that day,

But the Grace of God came in to stay;



The Grace of God that spread its wings

Over all sad and pitiful things.



Sorrow turned to the touch of God,

Death became but His welcoming nod.



Grey-eyed, comforting, strong and brave,

You came to ask but instead you



Quickly you came and went, you two,

But the Grace of God stayed after you.

Aline Kilmer

Mountains

OVER the green and level land

   My sad eyes wander without hope;

Here no rejoicing mountains stand,

   No strong and friendly slope.



But ever when I close my eyes

   Tall mountains rear their stately forms.

Against the sky I watch them rise,

   Serene in calm or storms.



One in the distance rises blue,

   Haloed by morning's earliest beams.

This was the peak my childhood knew,

   About her clung my dreams.



Over her pallor fell the snow,

   The hot sun scorched her fertile breast,

But in the summer lightning's glow

   I always loved her best.



She bowed her purple head in pain

   As clouds rolled up from threatening space,

And let a veil of silver rain

   Slip down across her weeping face.

Aline Kilmer

To a Lady Complementing

WHEN I met you an hour ago

   My heart was heavy and chill;

Now, from your word of praise,

   It is glowing still.



Ah, vanitas vanitatum!

   What the Preacher said was true!

I always thought my eyes were grey

   But now I know they are blue.

Aline Kilmer

Green Gravel

FIELIA goes sadly and sits in the door;

She spins or she stares at the white sanded floor.

She has never a visitor all the day long,

And she sings very softly this foolish old song:



"Green Gravel, Green Gravel, your grass is so green!

The sweetest, the sweetest that ever was seen!

Fidelia, Fidelia, your sweetheart is dead;

He sent you this letter to turn back your head."



But when it is evening she wanders away

And watches the children who come out to play.

The children are happy, they dance in a ring,

And over and over they merrily sing:



"Green Gravel, Green Gravel, your grass is so green!

The sweetest, the sweetest that ever was seen!"

She wants to sing with them and join in their fun

But when she comes near them away they all run.



So late in the evening she dances alone

And sings rather drearily round a white stone:

"Fidelia, Fidelia, your sweetheart is dead;

He sent you this letter to turn back your head."

Aline Kilmer

The White Moth

WHERE are you flying, White Moth, to-night,

   Bearing a pale little soul away,

A sad little soul that quivers with fright

   As the moonbeams over your frail wings play?



Peace! I conjure you, fly no more,

   Come no nearer the beckoning flame.

Wan little soul from an unknown shore,

   Not by chance to my light you came.



Somewhere I have known your silver wings,

   Somewhere I have thrilled to your lonely flight.

I am sad with the ache of forgotten things;

   Leave me alone in peace to-night.

Aline Kilmer

Honey-Witch

GAY Peter rode by the grey tower

   And a face leaned laughing down,

With hair that gleamed from a gold net

   And eyes of angel-brown.

"She is fair," he said as he saw her,

   "Tender and good and gay.

So pure that I am all unworthy,"

   And sighing he rode away.



Gay Peter married a good maid

   Because of her bold blue eyes,

But ever he dreamed of the lady

   Pure as the frosty skies.

Everywhere he wandered

   He thought of a heart-shaped face

Set like a star in a dark sky

   As his soul s abiding place.



But up in her tower the lady

   Bit her honey-coloured hands and cried:

"Shall I never get out of the grey tower?

   Shall I never get out?" she sighed.



But no one guessed who passed there

   That her goodness all was lies,

That she had the heart of a honey-witch

   Behind her angel eyes.

Aline Kilmer

To a Silly Pour Soul

   "IF EVER thou gavest meat or drink,

      Every nighte and alle;

   The fire shall never make thee shrink,

      And Christe receive thy saule."



For meat and drink that you have given

God will find you a place in Heaven.



For the kind words that you have spoken

God will not let your soul be broken.



Bread on the waters you have cast

And God will save your soul at last.



Wherever you go--and the world is wide--

My prayers shall be ever at your side.



For I, perverse and foolish, too,

Know the dark ways your soul went through.



You who were given the greatest grace

Cast it away with a tortured face.



But if I see the good in you

Will God in His mercy not see it, too?



Will God not make you clean and whole

And Christ receive your silly poor soul?

Aline Kilmer

Moonlight

THE moon reached in cold hands across the sill

   And touched me as I lay sleeping;

And in my sleep I thought of sorrowful things:

   I wakened, and I lay weeping.



I could hear on the beach below the small waves break

   And fall on the silver shingle,

And the sound of a footstep passing in the street

   Where lamplight and moonlight mingle.



And I said: "All day I can turn my face to the sun

   And lead my thoughts to laughter;

But I hope in my heart that I never shall sleep again

   Because of the pain thereafter."



The moon's pale fingers wandered across my face

   And the arm where my hot cheek rested,

And because of the tears in my eyes I could not see

   Where the black waves rocked moon-crested.

Aline Kilmer

My Mirror

THERE is a mirror in my room

Less like a mirror than a tomb,

There are so many ghosts that pass

Across the surface of the glass.



When in the morning I arise

With circles round my tired eyes,

Seeking the glass to brush my hair

My mother's mother meets me there.



If in the middle of the day

I happen to go by that way,

I see a smile I used to know--

My mother, twenty years ago.



But when I rise by candlelight

To feed my baby in the night,

Then whitely in the glass I see

My dead child's face look out at me.

Aline Kilmer