Ballad ("She wandered singing...")

Muna Lee

Lest stertorous breath tendril and twig displace,

Pliant or riven or staunch, I had proved my part .

And wrested peace thereby from the tempest's heart.

EPITHALAMIUM

I find you surely in denial,

You come closest in withdrawal:

Love so tested by long trial

Lifts the head in proud avowal.

If I sought you, I should lose you;

If you faltered, you were other.

What you ask not, how refuse you?

Separate, how taut the tether!

Life becomes one endless prayer

To life's immutable refusal;

Negation, all fulfilled desire;

Absence, rapturous espousal.

BALLAD

She wandered singing down the street

Nor looked at us at all;

"Love," she sang, "is warm as frost

Kindling the hill in fall!"

"And love," she sang, "oh, love" she sang,

"Ts kind as nettles be;

Smooth thistles make its bed, its roof

The shady cactus tree."

She sang the silliest mad song

Of any woman born:

"Oh, love is sweet as juniper,

And gentle as a thorn!"

Muna Lee

THE POPLAR

And worth the blossoms that acacias

And chestnuts wear are these

Leaves that number and that motion have,

And verberation of the wind and rain.

With quick heartshapen leaves