Ada Langworthy Collier - Lilith

Strange fruits thick-set, or blossoms lightly tossed

Low at my feet.” Therewith, a dusk globe, crossed

With golden bands, from bent boughs, stripped she. Through

The gleaming sphere its nectrous juices drew,

And thirsting cried—as one grown drunken: “Mine

These fruits unknown, in thorny combs that shine,

Or gray-green spikes that glow, dull on the sands.

Fain would I pluck, out-reaching eager hands,

Save that a marvel grows of ruddier rind

Out-flinging fruity breath upon the wind,

Beneath harsh spines half-hid. Nor drains

My wilful spouse such nectars fine. Nor gains

His patient care the fruitage rare, these plains

That heaps unheeded. Nay, nor bearded grains

Golding this goodly land, where Lilith reigns.”

So passed the glad years on, and o’er her home—

Its woods and mountains, its clear streams—to roam,

She loved. The inmost throb of Nature’s heart

She felt amid the grass. Each daintiest part

Of Nature’s work she knew; each gain, each loss.

And reverent watched on high the starry cross

Gleaming, mute symbol in that southern dome

Of One—the Promised One—of days to come.

The rifted sea-shell on the shingly beach

She scanned, pitying each inmate gone. Each

Named. ’Mong beetling crags, the sea-bird’s home,

Light-footed, went. Or, idly, in the foam

Under the cocoa-palms, her fingers dipped,

Much marveling to see where featly slipped

Beneath the waves scaled creatures, crimson-dyed

Or luminous: Barred-yellow, purple pied,

Rose-tinted, opaline, or dight with stain,

Rich as the rainbow streaks, when through the rain

The Sun’s kiss falls. Much wondered she when bright

By sedgy pools, flamingoes stalked. And light

The startled ostrich bent his headlong flight

O’er desert bare. And on the woody height

Trooped zebras, velvet-brown. The date’s green crest

Beneath, the peaceful camels lay at rest.

And slender-straight camelopards the boughs

Down-drew, the lush-green leaves thereon to browse.

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