Songs Ysame

Chiaro-Oscuro

SOMEHOW I love to look at the picture I made of her,Work of an idle time, the summer of life's long year;For as I stand and gaze, dreaming of those lost days,Almost it seems to me I can see her sitting here.That is the way she sat, with her head a trifle raised,Looking thoughtfully out at a scene I could never see.Delicate color of rose dawning and dying down,Flushing the rare sweet face as she listened or spoke to me.Whitest light of the sky I showered on her upturned brow,Gathered the darkest shades and brushed them into her hair,Thinking the while I worked of the law that always sendsThe deepest shadows to follow the high lights everywhere.Now as I sit and gaze at the dream on the canvas caught,Sadly the thought comes back, to torture with unbelief —Why must it always be that the strong white light of loveIs followed forevermore by the deepest shadow of grief?

When She Came Home

"When she comes home again, a thousand waysI fashion to myself the tendernessOf my glad welcome."Riley."WHEN she comes home," I thought with throbbing heart,That danced a measure to my mind's refrain.Again from out the door I leaned and looked,Where she should come along the leafy lane.And then she came. – I heard the measured soundOf slow, oncoming feet, whose heavy treadSeemed trampling out my life. I saw her face.Then through my brain a sudden numbness spread.The earth seemed spun away, the sun was gone,And time, and place, and thought. There was no thingIn all the universe, save one who laySo still and cold and white, unansweringSave by a graven smile my broken moan.She had come home, yet there I knelt alone.

A Resolve

THE fields of thought are plowed so deep,So carefully are tilled,That all the granaries of the worldWith plenteous store are filled.Unless I deeper plow and sow,What sheaf, then, can I bring?So like the black-bird in the field,I'll eat the wheat and sing.

Stranded

WE found a wreck cast up on the shore,Battered and bruised, and scarred and rent,And I spoke aloud, "Here was worthless work,And a barque unfit to the sea was sent."But he said, my friend, in his gentle mood,"Nay, none may say but the barque was good,For none can tell of the seas it sailed,Of the waves it braved and the storms withstood."Then we spoke no more, but I mutely musedAnd thought, oh, heart and oh, life of manThat we find wrecked! we may never knowHow brave you were when your course began.

At Last

WHAT will you give me, O World, O World!If I run in the race and win?Will you give me a fame that can never fade,Will you give me a crown that will never rust,Can you save my soul from the pall of sin,Can you keep my heart from the dust?What will you give me, O Earth, O Earth!If I fight in the fray and win?More than you gave those kings, who layAges past in forgotten clay?Can you give me more than the grave shuts in,Or the years can bear away?Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,Fame will fade and crowns will rust.Give me, O Earth, but your true embrace,When the battle is lost or won.Hide me away from the day's white face,From the eye of the dazzling sun.So I may lay my head on your breast,Forget the struggle and be at rest;Forget the laurels that fade away,The love that lasts but a wild, brief day;Forget it all, on your bosom pressed,Forever at rest – at rest!