Herbs and Apples

Helen Hay Whitney

Herbs and Apples

I give you this, the bitter and the sweet.It holds my heart, can you not hear it beat?So poor a gift to put within your hand—Apples and Herbs!—but you will understand.

TO NEIGHBOR LIFE

Neighbor Life, I love you well,Have you any goods to sell?Let me buy or let me borrowJoy, to tide me o'er the morrow;I will give you in exchangeBaskets full of thoughts that range,Bright utensils of my brain;Coins of feeling you shall gain.All I ask in equal measureIs your store of joy and pleasure.Neighbor Life, I love you well,Have you any joy to sell?

THE UNBURIED

In the wood the dead trees stand,Dead and living, hand to hand,Being Winter, who can tellWhich is sick and which is well?Standing upright, day by daySullenly their hearts decayTill a wise wind lays them low,Prostrate, empty, then we know.So thro' forests of the street,Men stand dead upon their feet,Corpses without epitaph;God withholds his wind of wrath,So we greet them, and they smile,Dead and doomed a weary while,Only sometimes thro' their eyesWe can see the worm that plies.

UP A LITTLE ROAD

Up a little road with the morning in my arms,Drenched with dew and tipsy with the madness of the May,Leafy fingers on my face, I stop not for your charms!Love is waiting round the turn, to be my Love to-day.Shouting as I ride on the springing ringing sod,Ah! my pony knows the goal to which his course is laid,Galloping thro' dawn he knows he bears a little godBacchus-mad with happiness who burns to meet his maid.

ON CEDAR STREET, NEW YORK

I, whose totem was a treeIn the days when earth was new,Joyous leafy ancestryKnown of twilight and of dew,Now within this iron wallSlave of tasks that irk the soul,To my parents send one call—That they give me of their dole.Thro' the roar of alien soundGrimy noise of work-a-day,Secretly a voice, half drowned,Whispers thro' the evening's grey,"Child, we know the path you tread,Ghost and manes, we are true;Cedar spirits, long since dead,Calm and sweet abide with you."

CHE SARÀ SARÀ

Deep as the permanent earth is deep,Fierce as its central fire,Man is his own conclusion,Woman her great desire.

THE DEAD WANTON

She was so light, so frail a thing,She had no wisdom but her face,Which caught men's fancy like the SpringYet held them but a moment's space.She is the youngest of the dead,And so the great lean round her feet;They strive to learn from her fair headWhy far-forgotten life was sweet.For now she knows what Plato knows,And lapped in languor she agreesWith Kant, and as her soft hair blows,Smiling, she flouts Demosthenes.

LEAVEN

Others furnish bread and meat,Busy hucksters on the street,They will give you what you need,All the facts your life to feed.Mine are not these wares of earth,I can give my love but mirth;Let, oh let this part be mine,I would be your salt and wine.

QUAERITUR

What if to-day, when I have made so sureThat love is utterly and wholly mine,What if I found that faith should not endureAnd all my trust in you I should resign;That when I send my thoughts like homing birdsTo your dear heart they find no resting place,But all misunderstood, far, foreign words,They die away like strangers at your face.Love, make me certain, make the circuit true,And when I wonder, give the faith I seekPerfectly trusting, let me end in youHeart against heart, and cheek upon your cheek.

LOVE LAND

Where is El Dorado?Where is bright Cathay?These are lands where we should goTo live and love to-day.Miles of glistening beachesOver all the sun,Tropic, spicy-laden breezeTo lull when day is done.Gypsy lass and loverWith the tides we'd rove;We be natives of no landSave the land of love.

BY THE WESTERN GATE

You and you only!—By the Western gateThat fronts the falling sun I shade my faceAnd watch for you. As one who's lost the raceTries to demand no further gift from FateLest he be hurled more low, so I, who waitAnd want you, ask no pity of your graceOn my defeat, I only long to traceMy lost heart; come to me, my need is great.I see the young men with their crystal eyes,They stand about my door, their hearts, I knowAre breaking in the poppies that they bring.I cannot love them for I am not wise;Ah, come, or else forever let me go,I grow so tired with waiting in the Spring.

FOR MUSIC

The Indian Summer and Love have fled,Oh, red, red lips like a crimson rose,Oh, slender hands with the tips of red,You are lost in the land of Nobody-knows.The sweet breeze blows but it comes not back,The water flows in a silver stream,But never returns on its moon-white track,They are gone, past recall, like a lovely dream.Ah, crimson lips like a tilted flower,Where sweetest honey awaits the bee;Come back, come back for a single hour,Dear Love, my Summer, come back to me.

THE LITTLE GHOST

The little one who loved the sunWho only lived for play,Ah, why was she the one condemnedTo dark and dreams for aye!The perfect perfume of her lifeWas as a rose's breath,And now she treads eternallyThe gusty walks of Death.

MADONNA EVE

From what far spicery derives your hairThe sweet faint fragrance that enslaves my sense?What subtle love trick taught you to be fairWith overt lure and covert reticence?Madonna Eve, you bear upon your breastA hungry emerald like the desiring sea,But warm upon your heart lie pearls of restWhat man could exorcise such witchery?

A CONVERSATION

"Laddy, leave your pedant's task,Rove the world with me.Fields and towns and pretty landsTogether we would see.There be workers everywhere,You would not be missed.Come, ah come, and take for yoursThe mouth you never kissed!""Lady, I am fain for play,So I may not go.Only those who hate to toilThe true enjoyment know;But could you love a larrikinWhose task he'd so resign?""Yes!—I'd love a larrikinIf only he were mine."

BE BRAVE

Be brave about yourselves, you little ones,If in the crazy warp and woof you gleamWith the insistence of determined suns,Shine, being true and modest in your dream.If to the peace of nature you respondDraw from her breast your milk, nor weep the highDuties for lack of which you now despond,Made for historic planets thro' the sky.Knowing yourself a gay and careless weed,Be you courageous in your light despair;Sure that you fill a space of unknown need,Idle and green in the bright coat you wear.Strive to the uttermost to find your worth,Jester or Gypsy, Body, Brain or Soul,Filling with perfect cheer your place on earth,So shall the tapestry of Time be whole.

FORFEITURE

So I have lost you. When the utter acheShall fade at length to mere despondencyWhat will the answer to this problem be?They say that nothing dies, that all we stakeBrings some unknown return; what then shall makeAn adequate exchange for love, to seeYour hand held out in friendship?—as for meThe episode is ended, for life's sake.You want me still for that small joy I gave,But now it ends for you. I am not braveTo love you seared; I have no happy daysTo brood upon at dusk, and so I claim,As all the wager that good fortune pays,Complete obliteration of your name.

THE SEARCH

I tire of the struggle, the search for the ultimate I,There hangs the chalice of sapphire, the infinite sky,Why thro' the space of despair should my spirit be hurledSeeking for truth, when beneath lies this pearl of a world?Seers may direct us thro' pain to discover the soul,Comforting joy may not give us the absolute whole,But if the seers should be wrong, may the truth not be oursThanking dear Life for its light and its beautiful hours?

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