I pray you buy.
Here’s one will win a lady’s tears,
Here’s one will make her gay,
Here’s one will charm your true love true
Forever and a day;
Good sir, I pray you buy!
Oh, no, he will not buy.
My songs to sell, sweet maid!
I pray you buy.
This one will teach you Lilith’s lore,
And this what Helen knew,
And this will keep your gold hair gold,
And this your blue eyes blue;
Sweet maid, I pray you buy!
Oh, no, she will not buy.
If I’d as much money as I could tell,
I never would cry my songs to sell,
I never would cry my songs to sell.
AVIS
Avis, the fair, at dawn
Rose lightly from her bed,
Herself arrayed,
Avis, the fair, the maid,
In vestiment of lawn;
Across the fields she sped,
Five flowerets there she found,
In fragrant garland wound,
Avis, the fair, at dawn,
Five roses red.
Go thou from thence of thy pity!
Thou lov’st not me.
Doom
Peter stands by the gate,
And Michael by the throne.
“Peter, I would pass the gate
And come before the throne.”
“Whose spirit prayed never at the gate
In life nor at the throne,
In death he may not pass the gate
To come before the throne:”
Peter said from the gate;
Said Michael from the throne.
Grain Field
Scarlet the poppies
Blue the corn-flowers,
Golden the wheat.
Gold for The Eternal:
Blue for Our Lady:
Red for the five
Wounds of her Son.
Song
I make my shroud but no one knows,
So shimmering fine it is and fair,
With stitches set in even rows.
I make my shroud but no one knows.
In door-way where the lilac blows,
Humming a little wandering air,
I make my shroud and no one knows,
So shimmering fine it is and fair.
Pierrot
For Aubrey Beardsley’s picture “Pierrot is dying.”
Pierrot is dying;
Tiptoe in,
Finger touched to lip,
Harlequin,
Columbine and Clown.
Hush! how still he lies
In his bed,
White slipped hand and white
Sunken head.
Oh, poor Pierrot.
There’s his dressing-gown
Across the chair,
Slippers on the floor...
Can he hear
Us who tiptoe in?
Pillowed high he lies
In his bed;
Listen, Columbine.
“He is dead.”
Oh, poor Pierrot.
The Monk in the Garden
He comes from Mass early in the morning
The sky’s the very blue Madonna wears;
The air’s alive with gold! Mark you the way
The birds sing and the dusted shimmer of dew
On leaf and fruit?.. Per Bacco, what a day!
The Mourner
I have no heart for noon-tide and the sun,
But I will take me where more tender night
Shakes, fold on fold, her dewy darkness down,
And shelters me that I may weep in peace,
And feel no pitying eyes, and hear no voice
Attempt my grief in comfort’s alien tongue.
Where cypresses, more black than night is black,
Border straight paths, or where, on hillside slopes,
The dim grey glimmer of the olive trees
Lies like a breath, a ghost, upon the dark,
There will I wander when the nightingale
Ceases, and even the veiled stars withdraw
Their tremulous light, there find myself at rest,
A silence and a shadow in the gloom.
But all the dead of all the world shall know
The pacing of my sable-sandall’d feet,
And know my tear-drenched veil along the grass,
And think them less forsaken in their graves,
Saying: There’s one remembers, one still mourns;
For the forgotten dead are dead indeed.
Night
I have minded me
Of the noon-day brightness,
And the crickets’ drowsy
Singing in the sunshine..
I have minded me
Of the slim marsh-grasses
That the winds at twilight,
Dying, scarcely ripple..
And I cannot sleep.
I have minded me
Of a lily-pond,
Where the waters sway
All the moonlit leaves
And the curled long stems..
And I cannot sleep.
Harvesters’ Song
Reap, reap the grain and gather
The sweet grapes from the vine;
Our Lord’s mother is weeping,
She hath nor bread nor wine;
She is weeping, The Queen of Heaven,
She hath nor bread nor wine.
Rose-Mary Of The Angels
Little Sister Rose-Marie,
Will thy feet as willing-light
Run through Paradise, I wonder,
As they run the blue skies under,
Willing feet, so airy-light?
Little Sister Rose-Marie,
Will thy voice as bird-note clear
Lift and ripple over Heaven
As its mortal sound is given,
Swift bird-voice, so young and clear?
How God will be glad of thee,
Little Sister Rose-Marie!
Angélique
Have you seen Angélique,
What way she went?
A white robe she wore;
A flickering light near spent
Her pale hand bore.
Have you seen Angélique?
Will she know the place
Dead feet must find,
The grave-cloth on her face
To make her blind?
Have you seen Angélique..
At night I hear her moan,
And I shiver in my bed;
She wanders all alone,
She cannot find the dead.
Chimes
(1)
The rose new-opening saith,
And the dew of the morning saith,
(Fallen leaves and vanished dew)
Remember death.
Ding dong bell
Ding dong bell
(2)
May-moon thin and young
In the sky,
Ere you wax and wane
I shall die;
So my faltering breath,
So my tired heart saith,
That foretell me death.
Ding-dong
Ding-dong
Ding-dong ding-dong bell
(3)
“Thy gold hair likes me well
And thy blue eyes,” he saith,
Who chooses where he will
And none may hinder — Death.
At head and feet for candles
Roses burning red,
The valley lilies tolling
For the early dead:
Ding-dong ding-dong
Ding-dong ding-dong
Ding-dong ding-dong bell
Ding dong bell
Mad-Song
Grey gaolers are my griefs
That will not let me free;
The bitterness of tears
Is warder unto me.
I
may not leap or run;
I may nor laugh nor sing.
“Thy cell is small,” they say,
“Be still thou captived thing.”
But in the dusk of the night,
Too sudden-swift to see,
Closing and ivory gates
Are refuge unto me.
My griefs, my tears must watch,
And cold the watch they keep;
They whisper, whisper there —
I hear them in my sleep.
They know that I must come,
And patient watch they keep,
Whispering, shivering there,
Till I come back from sleep.
But in the dark of a night,
Too dark for them to see,
The refuge of black gates
Will open unto me.
Whisper up there in the dark..
Shiver by bleak winds stung..
My dead lips laugh to hear
How long you wait... how long!
Grey gaolers are my griefs
That will not let me free;
The bitterness of tears
Is warder unto me.
The Witch
When I was girl by Nilus stream
I watched the desert stars arise;
My lover, he who dreamed the Sphinx,
Learned all his dreaming from my eyes.
I bore in Greece a burning name,
And I have been in Italy
Madonna to a painter-lad,
And mistress to a Medici.
And have you heard (and I have heard)
Of puzzled men with decorous mien,
Who judged — The wench knows far too much —
And burnt her on the Salem green?
Cry of the Nymph to Eros
Hear thou my lamentation,
Eros, Aphrodite’s son!
My heart is broken and my days are done.
Where the woods are dark and the stream runs clear in the dark,
Eros!
I prayed to thy mother and planted the seeds of her flowers,
And smiled at the planting and wept at the planting. Oh, violets,
Ye are dead and your whiteness, your sweetness, availed not. Thy mother
Is cruel. Her flowers lie dead at the steps of her altar,
Eros! Eros!
With a shining like silver they cut through the blue of the sky Eros!
The dove’s wings, the white doves I brought to thy mother in worship;
And I said, she will laugh for joy of my doves. Oh, stillness
Of dead wings. She laughed not nor looked. My doves are dead,
Are dead at the steps of her altar. Thy mother is cruel,
Eros, Eros!
Hear thou my lamentation,
Eros, Aphrodite’s son!
My heart is broken and my days are done.
Cradle-Song
Madonna, Madonnina
Sat by the grey road-side,
Saint Joseph her beside,
And Our Lord at her breast;
Oh they were fain to rest,
Mary and Joseph and Jesus,
All by the grey road-side.
She said, Madonna Mary,
“I am thirsty, Joseph, and weary,
All in the desert wide.”
Then bent a tall palm-tree
Its branches low to her knee;
“Behold,” the palm-tree said,
“My fruit that is drink and bread.”
So were they satisfied,
Mary and Joseph and Jesus,
All by the grey road-side.
From Herod they were fled
Over the desert wide,
Mary and Joseph and Jesus,
In Egypt to abide:
Mary and Joseph and Jesus,
In Egypt to abide.
The blessed Queen of Heaven
Her own dear Son hath given
For my son’s sake; his sleep
Is safe and sweet and deep.
Lully. Lulley..
So may you sleep alway,
My baby, my dear son:
Amen, Amen, Amen.
My baby, my dear son.
To Man Who Goes Seeking Immortality
Bidding Him Look Nearer Home.
Too far afield thy search. Nay, turn. Nay, turn.
At thine own elbow potent Memory stands,
Thy double, and eternity is cupped
In the pale hollow of those ghostly hands.
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 a-flame
In the grey of the dawn; and myself
Will lay myself straight in my bed,
And draw the sheet under my chin.
Lo, All The Way
Lo, all the way,
Look you, I said, the clouds will break, the sky
Grow clear, the road
Be easier for my travelling, the fields,
So sodden and dead,
Will shimmer with new green and starry bloom,
And there will be,
There will be then, with all serene and fair,
Some little while
For some light laughter in the sun; and lo,
The journey’s end,
Grey road, grey fields, wind and a bitter rain.
The Crucifixion
And the centurion who stood by said:
Truly this was a son of God.
Not long ago but everywhere I go
There is a hill and a black windy sky.
Portent of hill, sky, day’s eclipse I know;
Hill, sky, the shuddering darkness, these am I.
The dying at His right hand, at His left,
I am — the thief redeemed and the lost thief;
I am the careless folk; I those bereft,
The Well-Belov’d, the women bowed in grief.
The gathering Presence that in terror cried,
In earth’s shock, in the Temple’s veil rent through,
I; and a watcher, ignorant, curious-eyed,
I the centurion who heard and knew.
The Immortal Residue
Inscription for my verse
Wouldst thou find my ashes? Look
In the pages of my book;
And as these thy hand doth turn,
Know here is my funeral urn.
POSTHUMOUS POEMS
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 others are.”
And this each body and ghost of you hath heard
That in your graves do therefore lie so still.
Saranac Lake —
November — 1913
To an Unfaithful Lover
What words
Are left thee then
Who hast squandered on thy
Forgetfulness eternity’s
I love?
To A Hermit Thrush
Art thou
Not kin to him
Who loved Mark’s wife and both
Died for it? O, thou harper in
Green woods?
The Source
Thou hast
Drawn laughter from
A well of secret tears
And thence so elvish it rings, — mocking
And sweet.
For Lucas Cranach’s Eve
Oh me,
Was there a time
When Paradise knew Eve
In this sweet guise, so placid and
So young?
Blue Hyacinths.
In your
Complete Works of Adelaide Crapsey Page 3