Three Poems

Three Poems

Lost Girl

Call to her, she will not answer;
Run to her in dreams, there is no embrace.
She has disappeared down an echoing well of laughter,
She has left the place.

All that you know of her was lights and bauble.
As the evergreen glows in a trance awaiting the Birth
Now she holds richest joy and guards hereafter
Her peace on earth.

Look for her, she has changed past knowing.
Ask in the old haunts, there will be no trace,
She has grown into herself, she has lost her girlness
And found her face.

Climbers

Dusk falls on my roses:
On Purity and Peace,
On Tausenchon and Elegance,
And Pax and Golden Fleece.

I lean from my room inconsolable
To see fair Radiance dimmed.
The shapeliness of roses No longer clearly limned—

Ah, but their perfume rises,
Now, while the moon smells sweet,
Climb, climb to my window,
Dr. W. Van Fleet.

Feed My Birds

Feed my birds,
But not the whitethroat in his cage of air!
Feed robin, hawk,
The attendant flock
Of rooftree birds, and birds of prey or prayer;
But not the lost love calling, calling there.

At that wild voice
Trees touch their tips together and rejoice,
Rising full-leaved through waterfalls of sound.
That evergreen lament
Beyond all words has sent
Touch as soft as moss on woodland limbs unbound.

O feed them, scatter seed upon the ground!
Feed homing dove and jay,
Chickadees in black berets,
Feed simple starling, thrush, and small-shawled wren;
But sparrow, the white-throated one,
Feed not again!