Cactus And Rose

She wore red roses as a queen Her jewels when she wills to shine; She pressed one full bud to her lips, The while she bent her eyes to mine: “Were not life cheap for such a flower?” Was it by chance her fingers strayed So near my own? But ere the touch The tempter in my blood was stayed.

A mist was on the laughing eyes, It veiled her soft, enticing grace; Beyond her lure of gold and blue A tender, shadowy, haunting face Grew like a star in twilit skies When evening fades to rarer light; Again I saw the cactus flowers, Blood red, in braids as black as night.

Again we paced the earthen floor In waiting measure, till the dance Swept to its swift and dizzy whirl; And there were eyes that looked askance Because her brown hand lay in mine Like some small, gentle, brown-winged bird; And there were hearts had given life For that one shy, low-spoken word

That made the night so more than dear; That set my years to one strange tune Of footfalls on the hard-beat earth, And soft guitar and low-hung moon; And wind that whispered through the roof’s Rude thatch of branches interlaced; And bare, dark, earthen walls whereon The leaping firelight roughly traced

Her shadow, swaying as we danced.-- Then morning came, as calm and pale As some dead face where tapers shine; And through the tule reeds the quail Called mournfully--as if they knew No other night would ever be So dear, so rare, so blessed of God, From sunrise to eternity.

White-robed as any bride she lay; Like weary stars the tapers shone; And what I vowed in that dim place Was vowed to her dead heart alone: I went forth old, that had been young; But still I keep till life’s last hour The quail call through the tule reeds, And one dead, crumbling, cactus flower.