I SAW A THOUGHT

BY VIRGINIA MOORE

I

I shall not fear the face of God,
Volcanic though it be,

And most magnificently odd;

I shall but lean against a star

And grasp at rails where meteors are,

Being a little overwrought

But not from God, nor hell, nor heaven,

For what are these to me riven

By the sight of one man's thought?

II

I saw a thought rise in a man
And spill out through his eyes,
I saw the spring where it began,
The tributaries where it ran,
The rocks it ate, the rills it drank,
Before its own imperative size
Had burst a hard cerebral bank
Into a mouth, grown wise.

For cruel and white beauty!

That made our days of living

Great pearls of price

To be thrown and scattered in thorns and mold.

The Mother of the Snows,

Whose Son was God,

Lives her everlasting death

And dies her everlasting life,

And she is frail and white and very fair.

Men have loved the thorns within her hair
They have turned their backs upon

The day,

And said to sunshine,

"Go thy way."

And the children of their brains,

Joy, peace, and ease,

And the children of their loins

Who might have climbed their knees

They have left unborn

For the cruelest loveliness

And the Rose of bitterest thorn,

For the Kiss that scars and sears,

And walked the way of Francis and of tears.

Glory and praise

To the cruel beauty that has taught us

To tread thorns,

To the women who have taught us

To wear crowns!

They have made the midnight blossom
Morning stars;

They have reared us temples, towers,

Faith, and wars.

They have given us oath and hymn,
Have winged us like the cherubim;
Out of clay our feet had trod

They have shaped and fashioned for us
Everlasting, everlasting God.

MY BABIES ASLEEP

BY ROBERT P. TRISTRAM COFFIN

April Patience sleeps like dew

Or opal clouds the moon comes through,
The little moonlit clouds that rest
Like down upon an angel's breast.
She is first primrose petals,

All gentle, tender things, and blue
Morning glories,

Cricket songs, roses damp and new.
She sleeps with all the wistfulness
That mothers have when they caress.

July Glory sleeps like dawn

Fiercely eastern hills upon;

Her hands are gripped in dreamful zest,
Proud passions on her lids lie pressed;
Each separate curl is twisted

Into a flaming phoenix' nest

Tightly and hotly;

Albrecht Dürer might have etched them.

She is all spices, Troy's old stress,

And Helen's terrific tenderness.

January Fire yearns

Like clean, clear youths on Grecian urns;

Heat and cold and mystery

Deeper than the midmost sea.

He is the flame of icicles

More splendid than the sunlight is,
Softer than dewdrops

Should he melt to running laughter.

He is the promise mornings are

And the dewy, breathless morning star.