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 SONNETS
 AND SONGS

 BY
 HELEN HAY WHITNEY

 NEW YORK AND LONDON

 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

 MCMV




 Copyright, 1905, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
 _All rights reserved._
 Published August, 1905.




 TO
 P. W.




 _Contents_

 SONNETS


                                        PAGE

 Ave atque Vale                           3
 "Chaque baiser vaut un roman"            4
 As a Pale Child                          5
 Flower of the Clove                      6
 Too Late                                 7
 The Supreme Sacrifice                    8
 Malua                                    9
 Love's Legacy                           10
 How we would Live!                      11
 In Extremis                             12
 The Forgiveness                         13
 With Music                              14
 Alpha and Omega                         15
 Flowers of Ice                          16
 Love and Death                          17
 The Message                             18
 Tempest and Calm                        19
 After Rain                              20
 Not through this Door                   21
 Pot-Pourri                              22
 Eadem Semper                            23
 To a Woman                              24
 Aspiration--I                           25
 Aspiration--II                          26
 The Gypsy Blood                         27
 Not Dead but Sleeping                   28
 The Last Gift                           29
 Amor Mysticus                           30
 The Pattern of the Earth                31
 Disguised                               32


 SONGS

 On the White Road                       35
 The Wanderer                            36
 False                                   37
 A Song of the Oregon Trail              38
 The Apple-Tree                          39
 Silver and Rose                         40
 To-Morrow                               41
 The Greater Joy                         42
 The Rose-Colored Camelia-Tree           43
 Good-Bye Sorrow                         44
 In Harbor                               45
 Rosa Mundi                              46
 The Ribbon                              47
 The Aster                               48
 Heart and Hand                          49
 The Golden Fruit                        50
 To a Moth                               52
 Winter Song                             53
 Youth                                   54
 Persephone                              55
 Etoiles d'Enfer                         57
 Enough of Singing                       58
 Truth                                   59
 The Philosopher                         60
 Prayers                                 61
 A South-Sea Lover Scorned               62
 In May                                  64
 For Your Sake                           65
 Lyric Love                              67
 Be Still                                68
 Butterfly Words                         69
 Music                                   70
 The Ghost                               72
 Fight!                                  74
 In Tonga                                75
 This was the Song                       76
 To E. D.                                78
 The Dance                               79
 Vanquished                              80
 Tranquillity                            81




 SONNETS




I

_Ave atque Vale_


 As a blown leaf across the face of Time
   Your name falls emptily upon my heart.
   In this new symmetry you have no part,
 No lot in my fair life. The stars still chime
 Autumn and Spring in ceaseless pantomime.
   I play with Beauty, which is kin to Art,
   Forgetting Nature.  Nor do pulses start
 To hear your soul remembered in a rhyme.

 You may not vex me any more. The stark
   Terror of life has passed, and all the stress.
   Winds had their will of me, and now caress,
     Blown from bland groves I know. Time dreams, and I,
     As on a mirror, see the days go by
 In nonchalant procession to the dark.




II

"_Chaque baiser vaut un roman._"


 I, living love and laughter, have forgot
   The way the heart has uttered melody.
   As sobbing, plaintive cadence of the sea
 A poet's soul should rest, remembering not
 The inland paths of green, the flowers, the spot
   Where fairies ring. In hermit ecstasy
   Music is born, and gay or wofully
 Lovers of Poesy share her lonely lot.

 For you and me, Beloved, crowned with Spring,
   Catching Love's flowers from off the lap of Time,
 What are the songs my voice has scorned to sing?
 Ghostly they hover round my heart-wise lips;
   Into a kiss I fold my rose of Rhyme,
 Laid like a martyr on your finger-tips.




III

_As a Pale Child_


 As a pale child, hemmed in by windy rain,
   Patiently turns to touch his well-known toys,
   Playing as children play who make no noise,
 Yet happy in a way; then sighs again,
 To watch the world across the storm-dim pane,
   And sees with wistful eyes glad girls and boys
   Who romp beneath the rain's unlicensed joys,
 And feels wild longings sweep his gentle brain.

 So I, contented with my flowers for stars,
   Stroll in my fair, walled garden happily,
   Knowing no gladder game till, shrill and sweet,
   I hear life's cry ring down the silent street,
 And press my face against the sunlit bars
   To watch the joyous spirits who are free.




IV

_Flower of the Clove_


 Ah, Love, have pity!--I am but a child;
   I ask but light and laughter, and the tears
   Darken the sunlight of my fairest years.
 By love made desolate, by love beguiled,
 I waste the Spring. Love's harvest wains are piled
   With poppies and gold grain--I glean but fears
   Of empty hands, grim hunger, and the jeers
 Of happy wives whose loves are reconciled.

 But mine! Ah, mine is like a tattered leaf
   Upon a turbid stream. I have no pride,
 No life, but love, which is a bitter grief.
   As a lost star I wander down your sky.
   Give me your heart. Open it wide--so wide!
   I must have love and laughter, or I die.




V

_Too Late_


 Upon your stone the wine of my desire
   Is spilled. Your poppy lips have grown too pale
   From fasting. Your white hands will not avail
 The cold eyes of your heart to light the fire.
 I did not think my prayers could ever tire.
   Now, like doomed ships, they flutter without sail.
   Lost in a calm which held no rock, no gale--
 Now, when your chilly smile bids me aspire!

 So, without history, my soul is slain--
   Woman of barren love; the wine was red--
 Beautiful for your spending. Not again
   Will the bud blossom where the frost has sped.
 Timid, you dared not hark when angels sang.
 All, all is lost, without one saving pang.




VI

_The Supreme Sacrifice_


 Better than life, better than sea and morn,
   And all the sun-stained fragments of the day--
   Ah! more than breeze, than purple clouds that stray
 Across dim twilights--I, the tempest-torn,
 Fighting the stars for glory, who must scorn
   Heart-drops bespread along love's cruel way
   Like scattered petals on the breast of May--
 Better than life I love you, I forlorn.

 Better than death--the sleeping and the peace
   When warm within the breast of brooding Earth
 My weary heart should give its woes release,
     The pitiful dark remembering not my loss,
   The calm, wise years restoring joy for dearth--
     Better than death, my love, my burning cross.




VII

_Malua_


 Out of the purple treasuries of night
   Came the dark wind of evening silver-starred--
   Stirred on his cheek. The forest keeping ward
 Breathed with a tremulous silence, and the bright,
 Bare moon crowned his adoring brow with light.
   The exquisite dream of beauty held him hard
   In a great love, a forest love, unmarred--
 Still unprofaned--by human nature's sight.

 Guarding the temple gates of peace he stood,
   Statue of bronze with pagan heart of stone.
 Sudden, a dazzling glory lit the wood--
     Moon in his soul that dimmed the moon above.
   Life was revealed, a Spring-sweet maid, alone--
     Beauty was woman, and the woman--Love.




VIII

_Love's Legacy_


 As one who looks too long upon the sun
   When he must turn to earth from flame-shot skies
   Sees all else dark through his bereaved eyes,
 And yet may watch the rainbow ribbons run
 Athwart the gravity of gray and dun,
   He holds the darkness dearer for the prize
   Wherein his only pledge of radiance lies
 When he the vast magnificence must shun.

 So we who play with rainbows, having seen
   The sun's own face.