Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Four Poems in Unrhymed Cadence

F. S. Flint

LONDON, my beautiful,

it is not the sunset

nor the pale green sky

shimmering through the curtain

of the silver birch,

nor the quietness;

it is not the hopping

of the little birds

upon the lawn,

nor the darkness

stealing over all things

that moves me.

But as the moon creeps slowly

over the tree-tops

among the stars,

I think of her

and the glow her passing

sheds on men.

London, my beautiful,

I will climb

into the branches

to the moonlit tree-tops,

that my blood may be cooled

by the wind.

Dear one!

you sit there

in the corner of the carriage;

and you do not know me;

and your eyes forbid.

Is it the dirt, the squalor,

the wear of human bodies,

and the dead faces of our neighbors?

These are but symbols.

You are proud; I praise you;

your mouth is set; you see beyond us;

and you see nothing.

I have the vision of your calm, cold face,

and of the black hair that waves above it;

I watch you; I love you;

I desire you.

There is a quiet here

within the thud-thud of the wheels

upon the railway.

There is a quiet here

within my heart,

but tense and tender….

This is my station….

Under the lily shadow

and the gold

and the blue and mauve

that the whin and the lilac

pour down on the water,

the fishes quiver.

Over the green cold leaves

and the rippled silver

and the tarnished copper

of its neck and beak,

toward the deep black water

beneath the arches,

the swan floats slowly.

Into the dark of the arch the swan floats

and the black depth of my sorrow

bears a white rose of flame.

The grass is beneath my head;

and I gaze

at the thronging stars

in the aisles of night.

They fall … they fall….

I am overwhelmed,

and afraid.

Each little leaf of the aspen

is caressed by the wind,

and each is crying.

And the perfume

of invisible roses

deepens the anguish.

Let a strong mesh of roots

feed the crimson of roses

upon my heart;

and then fold over the hollow

where all the pain was.