In the garden the chrysanthemums were dying
like desires when you came. Calmly
you laughed, like little white flowers.
Silent, I made a sweetest song
out of the darkness deep within me
and the petals sing it up above you.
List to the forest-voice murmuring low:
All that it saw when alone with its laughter,
All that it suffered in times that came after,
Mournful it tells, that the wind may know.
In the end, the mountains of imagination were nothing
but a house.
And this grand life of mine was nothing but an excuse.
You've been hearing my story so patiently for a lifetime
Now hear this: it was nothing but a fairy tale.
The dearest child in all the world,
Should have the dearest songs,
And that is why this little book
To David-Boy belongs.
Her candle-light is silvery on her chill bright screen.
Her little silk fan is for fireflies....
She lies watching her staircase cold in the moon,
And two stars parted by the River of Heaven.
Inter marmoreas Leonorae pendula colles
Fortunata mmis Machina dicit horas.
Quas manibus premit ilia duas insensa papillas
Cur mihi sit digito tangere, amata, nefas?
In India's land one listens aghast
To the people who scream and bawl;
For each caste yells at a lower caste,
And the Britisher yells at them all.
They burnt a corpse upon the sand--
The light shone out afar;
It guided home the plunging dhows
That beat from Zanzibar.
Spirit of Fire, where'er Thy altars rise,
Thou art the Light of Guidance to our eyes!
Picnics is fun 'at's purty hard to beat.
I purt'-nigh ruther go to them than eat.
I purt'-nigh ruther go to them than go
With our Charlotty to the Trick-Dog Show.
In the dead of night, moon-gazing,
The thought of the deep mountain affrighted,
Yet longings for the mountain village
At all other moments filled my heart.
