The wind scatters Tears upon dust; Your soul's in tatters Where the spears thrust. 

   Your race is ended--   See, it is run:   Nothing is mended Under the sun. 

   Straight as an arrow You fall to a sleep Not too narrow And not too deep. 

    BLOOD FEUD 

   Once, when my husband was a child, there came To his father's table, one who called him kin, In sunbleached corduroys paler than his skin. His look was grave and kind; he bore the name Of the dead singer of Senlac, and his smile. Shyly and courteously he smiled and spoke;   "I've been in the laurel since the winter broke; Four months, I reckon; yes, sir, quite a while." 

   He'd killed a score of foemen in the past, In some blood-feud, a dark and monstrous thing; To him it seemed his duty. At the last His enemies found him by a forest spring, Which, as he died, lay bright beneath his head, A silver shield that slowly turned to red. 

    SEA LULLABY 

   The old moon is tarnished With smoke of the flood, The dead leaves are varnished With color like blood, 

   A treacherous smiler With teeth white as milk, A savage beguiler In sheathings of silk, 

   The sea creeps to pillage, She leaps on her prey; A child of the village Was murdered to-day. 

   She came up to meet him In a smooth golden cloak, She choked him and beat him To death, for a joke. 

   Her bright locks were tangled, She shouted for joy, With one hand she strangled A strong little boy. 

   Now in silence she lingers Beside him all night To wash her long fingers In silvery light. 

    NANCY 

   You are a rose, but set with sharpest spine; You are a pretty bird that pecks at me; You are a little squirrel on a tree, Pelting me with the prickly fruit of the pine; A diamond, torn from a crystal mine, Not like that milky treasure of the sea A smooth, translucent pearl, but skilfully Carven to cut, and faceted to shine. 

   If you are flame, it dances and burns blue; If you are light, it pierces like a star Intenser 

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