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1884-1915
HIGH and solemn mountains guard Rioupéroux
—Small untidy village where the river drives a mill—
Frail as wood anemones, white and frail were you,
And drooping a little, like the slender daffodil.
O I will go to France again, and tramp the valley through,
And I will change these gentle clothes for clog and corduroy,
And work with the mill-hands of black Rioupéroux,
And walk with you, and talk with you, like any other boy.
HOW splendid in the morning glows
the lily; with what grace he throws
His supplication to the rose:
do roses nod the head, Yasmin?
But when the silver dove descends
I find the little flower of friends
Whose very name that sweetly ends
I say when I have said ‘Yasmin’.
The morning light is clear and cold,
I dare not in that light behold
A deeper light, a deeper gold
a glory too far shed, Yasmin.
But when the deep red eye of day
is level with the lone highway,
And some to Mecca turn to pray,
and I toward thy bed, Yasmin,
Or when the wind beneath the moon
is drifting like a soul aswoon,
And harping planets talk love’s tune
with milky wings outspread, Yasmin,
Shower down thy love, O burning bright!
for one night or the other night
Will come the Gardener in white,
and gathered flowers are dead, Yasmin!
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