Helen Whitney - Herbs and Apples

I give you this, the bitter and the sweet.
It holds my heart, can you not hear it beat?
So poor a gift to put within your hand—
Apples and Herbs!—but you will understand.

Neighbor Life, I love you well,
Have you any goods to sell?
Let me buy or let me borrow
Joy, to tide me o'er the morrow;
I will give you in exchange
Baskets full of thoughts that range,
Bright utensils of my brain;
Coins of feeling you shall gain.
All I ask in equal measure
Is your store of joy and pleasure.
Neighbor Life, I love you well,
Have you any joy to sell?

In the wood the dead trees stand,
Dead and living, hand to hand,
Being Winter, who can tell
Which is sick and which is well?
Standing upright, day by day
Sullenly their hearts decay
Till a wise wind lays them low,
Prostrate, empty, then we know.

So thro' forests of the street,
Men stand dead upon their feet,
Corpses without epitaph;
God withholds his wind of wrath,
So we greet them, and they smile,
Dead and doomed a weary while,
Only sometimes thro' their eyes
We can see the worm that plies.

Up a little road with the morning in my arms,
Drenched with dew and tipsy with the madness of the May,
Leafy fingers on my face, I stop not for your charms!
Love is waiting round the turn, to be my Love to-day.

Shouting as I ride on the springing ringing sod,
Ah! my pony knows the goal to which his course is laid,
Galloping thro' dawn he knows he bears a little god
Bacchus-mad with happiness who burns to meet his maid.

I, whose totem was a tree
In the days when earth was new,
Joyous leafy ancestry
Known of twilight and of dew,
Now within this iron wall
Slave of tasks that irk the soul,
To my parents send one call—
That they give me of their dole.

Thro' the roar of alien sound
Grimy noise of work-a-day,
Secretly a voice, half drowned,
Whispers thro' the evening's grey,
"Child, we know the path you tread,
Ghost and manes, we are true;
Cedar spirits, long since dead,
Calm and sweet abide with you."

Deep as the permanent earth is deep,
Fierce as its central fire,
Man is his own conclusion,
Woman her great desire.

She was so light, so frail a thing,
She had no wisdom but her face,
Which caught men's fancy like the Spring
Yet held them but a moment's space.

She is the youngest of the dead,
And so the great lean round her feet;
They strive to learn from her fair head
Why far-forgotten life was sweet.

For now she knows what Plato knows,
And lapped in languor she agrees
With Kant, and as her soft hair blows,
Smiling, she flouts Demosthenes.

Others furnish bread and meat,
Busy hucksters on the street,
They will give you what you need,
All the facts your life to feed.

Mine are not these wares of earth,
I can give my love but mirth;
Let, oh let this part be mine,
I would be your salt and wine.

What if to-day, when I have made so sure
That love is utterly and wholly mine,
What if I found that faith should not endure
And all my trust in you I should resign;

That when I send my thoughts like homing birds
To your dear heart they find no resting place,
But all misunderstood, far, foreign words,
They die away like strangers at your face.

Love, make me certain, make the circuit true,
And when I wonder, give the faith I seek
Perfectly trusting, let me end in you
Heart against heart, and cheek upon your cheek.

Where is El Dorado?
Where is bright Cathay?
These are lands where we should go
To live and love to-day.

Miles of glistening beaches
Over all the sun,
Tropic, spicy-laden breeze
To lull when day is done.

Gypsy lass and lover
With the tides we'd rove;
We be natives of no land
Save the land of love.

You and you only!—By the Western gate
That fronts the falling sun I shade my face
And watch for you. As one who's lost the race
Tries to demand no further gift from Fate
Lest he be hurled more low, so I, who wait
And want you, ask no pity of your grace
On my defeat, I only long to trace
My lost heart; come to me, my need is great.

I see the young men with their crystal eyes,
They stand about my door, their hearts, I know
Are breaking in the poppies that they bring.
I cannot love them for I am not wise;
Ah, come, or else forever let me go,
I grow so tired with waiting in the Spring.

The Indian Summer and Love have fled,
Oh, red, red lips like a crimson rose,
Oh, slender hands with the tips of red,
You are lost in the land of Nobody-knows.

The sweet breeze blows but it comes not back,
The water flows in a silver stream,
But never returns on its moon-white track,
They are gone, past recall, like a lovely dream.

Ah, crimson lips like a tilted flower,
Where sweetest honey awaits the bee;
Come back, come back for a single hour,
Dear Love, my Summer, come back to me.

The little one who loved the sun
Who only lived for play,
Ah, why was she the one condemned
To dark and dreams for aye!

The perfect perfume of her life
Was as a rose's breath,
And now she treads eternally
The gusty walks of Death.

From what far spicery derives your hair
The sweet faint fragrance that enslaves my sense?
What subtle love trick taught you to be fair
With overt lure and covert reticence?

Madonna Eve, you bear upon your breast
A hungry emerald like the desiring sea,
But warm upon your heart lie pearls of rest
What man could exorcise such witchery?

"Laddy, leave your pedant's task,
Rove the world with me.
Fields and towns and pretty lands
Together we would see.
There be workers everywhere,
You would not be missed.
Come, ah come, and take for yours
The mouth you never kissed!"

"Lady, I am fain for play,
So I may not go.
Only those who hate to toil
The true enjoyment know;
But could you love a larrikin
Whose task he'd so resign?"
"Yes!—I'd love a larrikin
If only he were mine."

Be brave about yourselves, you little ones,
If in the crazy warp and woof you gleam
With the insistence of determined suns,
Shine, being true and modest in your dream.