("I make no question...")

Muna Lee

My autumns are merely quiet, and they show

Straight trees that are bared alike of leaves and snow-

Yet it is only thus you can know the trees.

Love proud enough to forego bloom and song,

To strip the boughs of foliage; bare and strong

To bide your judgment, would be most like these.

vi

It would be easy to say: "The moon and lake

Made wizardry-how could we see aright?

That was a world unreal in silver light,

And we were lovers for the moment's sake.

It was youth spoke in us, quick to mistake

Earth-lamp for dawn, the mirage for true sight;

Hailing a hill-crest as the long-sought height,

Swearing such oaths as honors us to break."

That would be easiest: then no regret

Could chill a heart grown happy to forget,

Nor touch a soul that sophistry sufficed.

There was a man once, in a hall of trial,

Thrice before cock-crow uttered such denial-

And knows forever that he denied the Christ!

vil

I make no question of your right to go-

Rain and swift lightning, thunder and the sea,

Sand and dust and ashes are less free!

Follow all paths that wings and spread sails know;

Unheralded you came, and even so

If so you will, may you take leave of me.

Yours is your life, and what you will shall be.

I ask no question: hasten or be slow!

But I who would not hold you-I who give

Your freedom to you with no word to say;

And, watching quietly, with my prayers all dumb,

Speed you to any life you choose to live-

Shall ask God's self, incredulous, some day,

Why in the name of Christ He let you come!

vill

No love can quite forego the battle-field;

Since life is struggle, and love and life are one.

No soul is quiet and sheltered enough to shun

The tireless foes at work to make love yield.

Not flowers and samite, but lance and shield

Were dower of love; not wreath but gonfalon;

And while the bitter struggle is unwon

Not even to faith is all the truth revealed.

Each heart its own most dreaded foe must meet;

Each heart its own conspiracies must lay,

And fight what it finds hardest to defeat.

Mine is it to meet Doubt in serried mass