There'S Wisdom In Women

"Oh love is fair, and love is rare;" my dear one she said, "But love goes lightly over." I bowed her foolish head, And kissed her hair and laughed at her. Such a child was she; So new to love, so true to love, and she spoke so bitterly.

But there's wisdom in women, of more than they have known, And thoughts go blowing through them, are wiser than their own, Or how should my dear one, being ignorant and young, Have cried on love so bitterly, with so true a tongue?

HE WONDERS WHETHER TO PRAISE OR TO BLAME HER

I have peace to weigh your worth, now all is over, But if to praise or blame you, cannot say. For, who decries the loved, decries the lover; Yet what man lauds the thing he's thrown away?

Be you, in truth, this dull, slight, cloudy naught, The more fool I, so great a fool to adore; But if you're that high goddess once I thought, The more your godhead is, I lose the more.

Dear fool, pity the fool who thought you clever! Dear wisdom, do not mock the fool that missed you! Most fair,--the blind has lost your face for ever! Most foul,--how could I see you while I kissed you?

So ... the poor love of fools and blind I've proved you, For, foul or lovely, 'twas a fool that loved you.

A MEMORY (From a sonnet-sequence)

Somewhile before the dawn I rose, and stept Softly along the dim way to your room, And found you sleeping in the quiet gloom, And holiness about you as you slept. I knelt there; till your waking fingers crept About my head, and held it. I had rest Unhoped this side of Heaven, beneath your breast. I knelt a long time, still; nor even wept.

It was great wrong you did me; and for gain Of that poor moment's kindliness, and ease, And sleepy mother-comfort! Child, you know How easily love leaps out to dreams like these, Who has seen them true. And love that's wakened so Takes all too long to lay asleep again.

WAIKIKI, October 1913