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.

Adelaide Crapsey

The Lonely Death

IN the cold I will rise, I will bathe

In waters of ice; myself

Will shiver, and shrive myself,

Alone in the dawn, and anoint

Forehead and feet and hands;

I will shutter the windows from light,

I will place in their sockets the four

Tall candles and set them aflame

In the grey of the dawn; and myself

Will lay myself straight in my bed,

And draw the sheet under my chin.

Adelaide Crapsey

November Night

LISTEN . . .

With faint dry sound,

Like steps of passing ghosts,

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

And fall.

Adelaide Crapsey

Moon Shadows

STILL as

On windless nights

The moon-cast shadows are,

So still will be my heart when I

Am dead.

Adelaide Crapsey

The Guarded Wound

IF it

Were lighter touch

Than petal of flower resting

On grass, oh still too heavy it were,

Too heavy!

Adelaide Crapsey

Amaze

I KNOW

Not these my hands

And yet I think there was

A woman like me once had hands

Like these.

Adelaide Crapsey

The Warning

JUST now,

Out of the strange

Still dust . . . as strange, as still . . .

A white moth flew . . . Why am I grown

So cold?

Adelaide Crapsey

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!

Adelaide Crapsey

To the Dead in the Grave-Yard Under My Window

Written in a Moment of Exasperation

HOW can you lie so still? All day I watch

And never a blade of all the green sod moves

To show where restlessly you toss and turn,

And fling a desperate arm or draw up knees

Stiffened and aching from their long disuse;

I watch all night and not one ghost comes forth

To take its freedom of the midnight hour.

Oh, have you no rebellion in your bones?

The very worms must scorn you where you lie,

A pallid mouldering acquiescent folk,

Meek habitants of unresented graves.

Why are you there in your straight row on row

Where I must ever see you from my bed

That in your mere dumb presence iterate

The text so weary in my ears: "Lie still

And rest; be patient and lie still and rest."

I'll not be patient! I will not lie still!

There is a brown road runs between the pines,

And further on the purple woodlands lie,

And still beyond blue mountains lift and loom;

And I would walk the road and I would be

Deep in the wooded shade and I would reach

The windy mountain tops that touch the clouds.

My eyes may follow but my feet are held.

Recumbent as you others must I too

Submit? Be mimic of your movelessness

With pillow and counterpane for stone and sod?

And if the many sayings of the wise

Teach of submission I will not submit

But with a spirit all unreconciled

Flash an unquenched defiance to the stars.

Better it is to walk, to run, to dance,

Better it is to laugh and leap and sing,

To know the open skies of dawn and night,

To move untrammel'd down the flaming noon,

And I will clamour it through weary days

Keeping the edge of deprivation sharp,

Nor with the pliant speaking on my lips

Of resignation, sister to defeat.

I'll not be patient. I will not lie still.

And in ironic quietude who is

The despot of our days and lord of dust

Needs but, scarce heeding, wait to drop

Grim casual comment on rebellion's end:

"Yes; yes . . . Wilful and petulant but now

As dead and quiet as the other are."

And this each body and ghost of you hath heard

That in your graves do therefore lie so still.

Adelaide Crapsey
Saranac Lake
November, 1913