Loneliness

Now it is Loneliness who comes at night


Instead of Sleep, to sit beside my bed.


Like a tired child I lie and wait her tread,


I watch her softly blowing out the light.


Motionless sitting, neither left or right


She turns, and weary, weary droops her head.


She, too, is old; she, too, has fought the fight.


So, with the laurel she is garlanded.


Through the sad dark the slowly ebbing tide


Breaks on a barren shore, unsatisfied.


A strange wind flows... then silence. I am fain


To turn to Loneliness, to take her hand,


Cling to her, waiting, till the barren land

Fills with the dreadful monotone of rain.

Katherine Mansfield (Wellington, 1888 - Fontainebleau, 1923)

Secret flowers

Is love a light for me? A steady light,

A lamp within whose pallid pool I dream

Over old love-books? Or is it a gleam,

A lantern coming towards me from afar

Down a dark mountain? Is my love a star?

Ah me!- so high above so coldly bright!

The fire dances. Is my love a fire

Leaping down the twilight muddy and bold?

Nay, I'd be frightened of him. I'm too cold

For quick and eager loving. There's a gold

Sheen on these flower petals as they fold

More truly mine, more like to my desire.

The flower petals fold. They are by the sun

Forgotten. In a shadowy wood they grow

Where the dark trees keep up a to-and-fro

Shadowy waving. Who will watch them shine

When I have dreamed my dream? Ah, darling mine,

Find them, gather them for me one by one.

Katherine Mansfield (Wellington, 1888 - Fontainebleau, 1923)

Sorrowing love

And again the flowers are come,
And the light shakes,
And no tiny voice is dumb,
And a bud breaks
On the humble bush and the proud restless tree.
Come with me!

Look, this little flower is pink,
And this one white.
Here's a pearl cup for your drink,
Here's for your delight
A yellow one, sweet with honey.
Here's fairy money
Silver bright
Scattered over the grass
As we pass.

Here's moss. How the smell of it lingers
On my cold fingers!
You shall have no moss. Here's a frail
Hyacinth, deathyly pale.
Not for you, not for you!
And the place where they grew
You must promise me not to discover,
My sorrowful lover!
Shall we never be happy again?
Never again play?
In vain--in vain!
Come away!

Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield

The meeting

We started speaking,
Looked at each other, then turned away.
The tears kept rising to my eyes.
But I could not weep.
I wanted to take your hand
But my hand trembled.
You kept counting the days
Before we should meet again.
But both of us felt in our hearts
That we parted for ever and ever.
The ticking of the little clock filled the quiet room.
"Listen," I said. "It is so loud,
Like a horse galloping on a lonely road,
As loud as a horse galloping past in the night."
You shut me up in your arms.
But the sound of the clock stifled our hearts' beating.
You said, "I cannot go: all that is living of me
Is here for ever and ever."
Then you went.
The world changed. The sound of the clock grew fainter,
Dwindled away, became a minute thing.
I whispered in the darkness. "If it stops, I shall die."

Katherine Mansfield