The Project Gutenberg eBook of Herbs and Apples

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Title: Herbs and Apples

Author: Helen Hay Whitney

Illustrator: Lucretia Van Horn

Release date: August 6, 2013 [eBook #43406]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Greg Bergquist, Diane Monico, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HERBS AND APPLES ***

HERBS AND APPLES

(inside cover)
To be alone, to watch the dusk and weep
"To be alone, to watch the dusk and weep"

HERBS AND APPLES
BY
HELEN HAY WHITNEY

Author of "Songs and Sonnets,"
"Gypsy Verses," Etc.

New York: JOHN LANE COMPANY
London: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
MCMX

Copyright, 1910
By John Lane Company

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

I give you this, the bitter and the sweet.
 It holds my heart, can you not hear it beat?
 So poor a gift to put within your hand—
 Apples and Herbs!—but you will understand.

CONTENTS

PAGE
To Neighbor Life1
The Unburied2
Up a Little Road3
On Cedar Street, New York4
Che Sarà Sarà5
The Dead Wanton6
Leaven7
Quaeritur8
Love Land9
By the Western Gate10
For Music11
The Little Ghost12
Madonna Eve13
A Conversation14
Be Brave15
Forfeiture16
The Search17
Dust18
Nature's Child19
Veritatis20
The Peacock21
Anticipation22
The Wayfarer23
Renunciation24
Arabesque25
The Architects26
Ambush27
The Scales28
The Old Tragedy29
Taboo30
The Rivals31
Alone32
Beneath the Mask33
Thoth34
Little Dancer35
Sic Itur ad Astra36
The Judges37
The Spring Planting38
An Impressionist Picture39
Such Help for Singing40
Tempus Edax Rerum41
The Coward42
The Lost Romany43
Compensation44
Untamed45
To Pervanche46
The Belle47
Release48
The Thief49
I will Write Letters to the Grass50
Only This51
The Survivor52
Megaera53
The Song of Mokai54
To the Gypsy Man55
There is no Danger in Disdain56
The Playmate57
Afterwards58
The Old Maid59
Madness?60
The Scholar61
Wisdom's Secret62
Caged63
The Wife Speaks64
The Altar65

Acknowledgment is made to Messrs. Harper & Bros., the Century Company, The Metropolitan Magazine, and Collier's Weekly, for courteous permission to reproduce certain of the verses included in this volume.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
"To be Alone, to Watch the Dusk and Weep"
Frontispiece		32
 
"Smiling She Flouts Demosthenes"6
The Peacock21
Little Dancer35
The Romany43
Pervanche46
"And Wrap My Heart Close Shrouded in the Hours"50

HERBS AND APPLES

TO NEIGHBOR LIFE

Neighbor Life, I love you well,
 Have you any goods to sell?
 Let me buy or let me borrow
 Joy, to tide me o'er the morrow;
 I will give you in exchange
 Baskets full of thoughts that range,
 Bright utensils of my brain;
 Coins of feeling you shall gain.
 All I ask in equal measure
 Is your store of joy and pleasure.
 Neighbor Life, I love you well,
 Have you any joy to sell?

THE UNBURIED

In the wood the dead trees stand,
 Dead and living, hand to hand,
 Being Winter, who can tell
 Which is sick and which is well?
 Standing upright, day by day
 Sullenly their hearts decay
 Till a wise wind lays them low,
 Prostrate, empty, then we know.
So thro' forests of the street,
 Men stand dead upon their feet,
 Corpses without epitaph;
 God withholds his wind of wrath,
 So we greet them, and they smile,
 Dead and doomed a weary while,
 Only sometimes thro' their eyes
 We can see the worm that plies.

UP A LITTLE ROAD

Up a little road with the morning in my arms,
 Drenched with dew and tipsy with the madness of the May,
 Leafy fingers on my face, I stop not for your charms!
 Love is waiting round the turn, to be my Love to-day.
Shouting as I ride on the springing ringing sod,
 Ah! my pony knows the goal to which his course is laid,
 Galloping thro' dawn he knows he bears a little god
 Bacchus-mad with happiness who burns to meet his maid.

ON CEDAR STREET, NEW YORK

I, whose totem was a tree
 In the days when earth was new,
 Joyous leafy ancestry
 Known of twilight and of dew,
 Now within this iron wall
 Slave of tasks that irk the soul,
 To my parents send one call—
 That they give me of their dole.
Thro' the roar of alien sound
 Grimy noise of work-a-day,
 Secretly a voice, half drowned,
 Whispers thro' the evening's grey,
 "Child, we know the path you tread,
 Ghost and manes, we are true;
 Cedar spirits, long since dead,
 Calm and sweet abide with you."

CHE SARÀ SARÀ

Deep as the permanent earth is deep,
 Fierce as its central fire,
 Man is his own conclusion,
 Woman her great desire.

THE DEAD WANTON

She was so light, so frail a thing,
 She had no wisdom but her face,
 Which caught men's fancy like the Spring
 Yet held them but a moment's space.
She is the youngest of the dead,
 And so the great lean round her feet;
 They strive to learn from her fair head
 Why far-forgotten life was sweet.
For now she knows what Plato knows,
 And lapped in languor she agrees
 With Kant, and as her soft hair blows,
 Smiling, she flouts Demosthenes.
Smiling, she flouts Demosthenes
"Smiling, she flouts Demosthenes"

LEAVEN

Others furnish bread and meat,
 Busy hucksters on the street,
 They will give you what you need,
 All the facts your life to feed.
Mine are not these wares of earth,
 I can give my love but mirth;
 Let, oh let this part be mine,
 I would be your salt and wine.

QUAERITUR

What if to-day, when I have made so sure
 That love is utterly and wholly mine,
 What if I found that faith should not endure
 And all my trust in you I should resign;
That when I send my thoughts like homing birds
 To your dear heart they find no resting place,
 But all misunderstood, far, foreign words,
 They die away like strangers at your face.
Love, make me certain, make the circuit true,
 And when I wonder, give the faith I seek
 Perfectly trusting, let me end in you
 Heart against heart, and cheek upon your cheek.

LOVE LAND

Where is El Dorado?
 Where is bright Cathay?
 These are lands where we should go
 To live and love to-day.
Miles of glistening beaches
 Over all the sun,
 Tropic, spicy-laden breeze
 To lull when day is done.
Gypsy lass and lover
 With the tides we'd rove;
 We be natives of no land
 Save the land of love.

BY THE WESTERN GATE

You and you only!—By the Western gate
 That fronts the falling sun I shade my face
 And watch for you. As one who's lost the race
 Tries to demand no further gift from Fate
 Lest he be hurled more low, so I, who wait
 And want you, ask no pity of your grace
 On my defeat, I only long to trace
 My lost heart; come to me, my need is great.
I see the young men with their crystal eyes,
 They stand about my door, their hearts, I know
 Are breaking in the poppies that they bring.
 I cannot love them for I am not wise;
 Ah, come, or else forever let me go,
 I grow so tired with waiting in the Spring.

FOR MUSIC

The Indian Summer and Love have fled,
 Oh, red, red lips like a crimson rose,
 Oh, slender hands with the tips of red,
 You are lost in the land of Nobody-knows.
The sweet breeze blows but it comes not back,
 The water flows in a silver stream,
 But never returns on its moon-white track,
 They are gone, past recall, like a lovely dream.
Ah, crimson lips like a tilted flower,
 Where sweetest honey awaits the bee;
 Come back, come back for a single hour,
 Dear Love, my Summer, come back to me.

THE LITTLE GHOST

The little one who loved the sun
 Who only lived for play,
 Ah, why was she the one condemned
 To dark and dreams for aye!
The perfect perfume of her life
 Was as a rose's breath,
 And now she treads eternally
 The gusty walks of Death.

MADONNA EVE

From what far spicery derives your hair
 The sweet faint fragrance that enslaves my sense?
 What subtle love trick taught you to be fair
 With overt lure and covert reticence?
Madonna Eve, you bear upon your breast
 A hungry emerald like the desiring sea,
 But warm upon your heart lie pearls of rest
 What man could exorcise such witchery?

A CONVERSATION

"Laddy, leave your pedant's task,
 Rove the world with me.
 Fields and towns and pretty lands
 Together we would see.
 There be workers everywhere,
 You would not be missed.
 Come, ah come, and take for yours
 The mouth you never kissed!"
"Lady, I am fain for play,
 So I may not go.
 Only those who hate to toil
 The true enjoyment know;
 But could you love a larrikin
 Whose task he'd so resign?"
 "Yes!—I'd love a larrikin
 If only he were mine."

BE BRAVE

Be brave about yourselves, you little ones,
 If in the crazy warp and woof you gleam
 With the insistence of determined suns,
 Shine, being true and modest in your dream.
If to the peace of nature you respond
 Draw from her breast your milk, nor weep the high
 Duties for lack of which you now despond,
 Made for historic planets thro' the sky.
Knowing yourself a gay and careless weed,
 Be you courageous in your light despair;
 Sure that you fill a space of unknown need,
 Idle and green in the bright coat you wear.
Strive to the uttermost to find your worth,
 Jester or Gypsy, Body, Brain or Soul,
 Filling with perfect cheer your place on earth,
 So shall the tapestry of Time be whole.

FORFEITURE

So I have lost you. When the utter ache
 Shall fade at length to mere despondency
 What will the answer to this problem be?
 They say that nothing dies, that all we stake
 Brings some unknown return; what then shall make
 An adequate exchange for love, to see
 Your hand held out in friendship?—as for me
 The episode is ended, for life's sake.
You want me still for that small joy I gave,
 But now it ends for you. I am not brave
 To love you seared; I have no happy days
 To brood upon at dusk, and so I claim,
 As all the wager that good fortune pays,
 Complete obliteration of your name.

THE SEARCH

I tire of the struggle, the search for the ultimate I,
 There hangs the chalice of sapphire, the infinite sky,
 Why thro' the space of despair should my spirit be hurled
 Seeking for truth, when beneath lies this pearl of a world?
Seers may direct us thro' pain to discover the soul,
 Comforting joy may not give us the absolute whole,
 But if the seers should be wrong, may the truth not be ours
 Thanking dear Life for its light and its beautiful hours?

DUST

Motes of the city dust, could this thing be
 That midst your myriad particles for me
 Might come one atom out of Ispahan,
 One spiced far memory of caravan.
Indrawn upon my breath I'd know an urge
 To dissipate monotony, and purge
 The spirit of its spleen; one with the man
 Who takes the sun blue air of Ispahan.

NATURE'S CHILD

I had a friend whose soul was very fair,
 His word was wisdom and his strength was sure;
 His courage in the ills he had to bear
 Made others strong and able to endure.
 I asked no love, no tribute of the sense
 For his companionship was recompense.
I thought I was beloved, but did not care,
 He smiled on me as he on others smiled,
 But one grey day a chill was in the air
 And then to prove that I was Nature's child,
 He spoke—"I do not love you very much—"
 And all my friendship shattered at the touch.

VERITATIS

Seated among the shards of Potiphar
 I pondered. Shall we still strive on? forsooth
 There is no better, that is good as Best,
 There is no truer that is true as Truth.
THE PEACOCK
THE PEACOCK

THE PEACOCK

She was more beautiful than tropic night,
 Luring, compelling as the smile of Fate;
 Like a poor wastrel, I for her delight
 Squandered my soul and gained her idle hate.
 Peacock and paroquet!—at last I know
 The sorriest songsters make the bravest show.

ANTICIPATION

The joy is in the making. While we sow
 Our dream is wonderful with flowers, we name
 The purlieus of our garden and the aim
 Is worth the effort, yet we cannot know
 The garden will be just a garden, so
 The dream is heaven. This way mothers frame
 The child's high dedication to its fame,
 Repaid for all reality may show.
God knows this, so He lets us have the best,
 The vast anticipation, rugged man
 Joys in the struggle, triumphs over throes,
 Vanquished a thousand times he still finds zest
 In hope and all his pleasure in a plan
 To be fulfilled at length in Heaven?—who knows.

THE WAYFARER

Half way to happiness,
 The whole way back again,
 Stumbling up the stubborn hill
 From the luring lane.
Little sunset House of Hearts
 Standing all alone,
 I could come and sweep the leaves
 From your stepping stone.
I, and he, could light your fires
 Laughing at the rain
 But O it's far to Happiness,
 A short way back again.

RENUNCIATION

Not what I ask, but what I do not ask,
 O my Beloved, proves my love for you.
 And love can set to love no harder task
 Than wistful silence, reticence to sue.
I lock my lips, I force a wise content
 With all my being wailing for a sign.
 Ah, if men knew what woman's smiling meant
 When fierce and hard the heart cries out "He's mine."
Mothers of men are we, we barren ones
 Who say "Be happy, dear, and play your part."
 What matter how we yearn, you are our sons
 Whose every footfall breaks a woman's heart.

ARABESQUE

Gold fish, rose and red
 As lady Lillith's hair,
 Mauve and blue as curling smoke
 And water-sapphires there.
At the fountain's brim
 I built a little dream,
 As a goldsmith cunningly
 I made it flash and gleam.
I wrought a maiden shape,
 I colored it with love,
 Scarlet mouth and breast of pearl
 And eyes of turtle dove.
Thro' hours of moony dark,
 I woo'd her for my bride
 But ah! I could not build her soul,
 So with the dawn she died.

THE ARCHITECTS

How shall we build it curiously well,
 Our house to live and love in?—Shall it be
 Only significant to you and me,
 Or shall it be a palace where may dwell
 Those whom our spirits notice? May we tell
 An architect to loose his fancy free
 To toss up towers in soaring ecstasy
 With Doric dignity or temple bell?
 Or shall we build it with our hands, alone,
 Working together over wood and stone
 To learn an art we never knew, and strive,
 Patient, to raise with faith and trust and love,
 Fashioned so cunningly it must survive,
 A secret cottage in a silent grove?

AMBUSH