A Friend

Old age is gentle as an autumn morn;
The harvest over, you will put the plough
Into another, stronger hand, and watch
The sowing you were wont to do.
Old age
Is like an alabaster room, with soft
White curtains. All is light, but light so mild,
So quiet, that it cannot hurt.
The pangs
Are hushed, for life is wild no more with strife,
Nor breathless uphill work, nor heavy with
The brewing tempests, which have torn away
So much, that nothing more remains to fear.
What once was hope, is gone. You know. You saw
The worst, and not a sigh is left of all
The heavy sighs that tore your heart, and not
A tear of all those tears that burnt your cheeks,
And ploughed the forrows into them.
You see
How others work again and weep again,

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poem by Carmen Sylva
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Down the Stream

From whence the brook? From where the waters gather
In mountains' deep recesses, stone-black lakes
And dripping crevices. It ripples forth
Into the shining day with scarce a voice,
And with no strength at all, till mountain showers
And winter's snow and spring storms pour their flood
Into the dancing brook, that foams and starts
And rushes headlong down the steeps and throws
Into the Unknown all its youth and strength,
And thunders into hell, to rise again
In sheets of whiteness into dreamy veils,
To kiss the flowers' feet and overflow
The meadows; thence, o'erbridged and caught and fastened
To wheels, to grind and grind with irksome noise,
To lose all liberty, all winsome frolic,
And work till doomsday. On and on the stream
Goes widening into calm and mighty strength,
A hero of a stream, that bears the ships
Like toys, and carries legions.
Wider still

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poem by Carmen Sylva
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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In the Rushing Wind

The wind hath whirled the leaves from off the tree.
The leaves were yellow, they had lived their time,
And lie a golden heap or fly away,
As if the butterflies had left their wings
Behind, when love's short summertime had gone,
And killed them. Lightly doth the leaves' great shower
Whirl on and skim the ground, where ancient leaves
Lie rotten, trampled on, so featureless,
That you can hardly tell what formed that mould,
That never-ending burial-place of leaves.
And then the wind will shake and bend the tree,
And twist its branches off, burst it asunder,
Uproot the giant and bring low his head,
Upheave the granite block round which the roots
Had taken hold for countless centuries.
On goes the wind! The corn is green and soft--
Earth's wavy fur. It does but ripple lightly
In childish laughter at the harmless fun
That was a death-blow. But the sea awakes
And frowns and foams and rises into anger

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poem by Carmen Sylva
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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A Room

Whitewashed or panelled, filled with books, with light,
With flowers, with trifles sacred to the heart,
And work so pure and sweet that morning-dew
Might settle there and feel itself at home
As though 'mid garden fragrance; while the carol
Of birds streams through the window joyously,
Mistaking that abode of peace and love
For their own woodland haunts! And in that room
A woman's dainty hands ever at work,
A woman's loving heart ever awake
For others' happiness, a woman's thought
Alive in tender memories that embalm
The past in mute forgiveness. Enter then
As 'twere a sanctuary, lay aside
Thy load of care, and yield thy weary soul
To the deep sense of comfort reigning there.
Not many words--nay, not a single word--
Need tremble through the stillness, not a sigh
With untoward avowal break the peace
That folds thee to its heart and asks no question.

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poem by Carmen Sylva
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Out of the Deep

Thy soul grows silent, when its accents are
Disturbed, and low thy heart, when dark a burden
Has deeply covered it. Thy soul is proud.
When thou hast made it free of wants and wishes,
Then art thou rich.
Our life is seldom open,
For love and fear have shut it. When we lay
It open, there is nought to show in it,
But wounds and burning pain.
Mysterious is
Thy power, great as it may be, a trial
Of thine own will and of the curb upon
Thyself; mysterious to thyself, the more,
The greater it has grown, surrounded as
We are by fear and pain.
And when the soul
Lifts up her voice and speaks, then must she go
Against the will of people, not her own,
The will that is herself, the soul's own might.
When heaven asks, we work with joy, a dear

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poem by Carmen Sylva
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Mosaic

The island city sleeps. The twilight rideth
Gold-shod above San Marco's treasure-plunder;
As if it would enjoy this golden wonder,
A sunbeam stealeth in and softly glideth

Along Christ's head and trembleth there and strideth
To earth where columns cut the light asunder;
It glideth, sent of God, the choir, where, under
The dome, the glory of the ages bideth.

High in an attic room this decoration
In splendor wakens, where a man, deft-handed,
Sets tiny bits of bright illumination--
To shield his fading sight, his white locks banded
With a green shade.--What profits lamentation?
The work's eternal--God hath so commanded!

poem by Carmen Sylva
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Scissors-Grinder's Song

Fetch on your scissors, your slender blade--
To make them brilliant and sharp's my trade;
To every door-step my grindstone comes,
And on and ever it strolls and hums.

I and my grindstone, we wander by,
And no one asks me from whence come I;
How poor I am, no one cares to know,
None care to hear of my spirit's woe.

I'm ground by sorrow both day and night,
And yet I never am polished bright;
I'm ground by hunger, and though it pales
The face, to sharpen the wit it fails.

I'm ground by grief, but the work is ill,
For notched and rusty my heart is, still.
The wheel is whirling, the stone has grit--
Fetch on your steel--shall I sharpen it?

poem by Carmen Sylva
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Sentinel

Each flower is a sentinel of God,
And ev'ry tree and ev'ry grassblade. Not
An unseen little stem, but that will stand
And wait and shine, and never ask wherefore
It came and why it has to whither. Thou
Art such a sentinel, O Heart! Thou hast
To stand and bloom and love beside the others,
And wither when thy work is done, the spot
Being given to another, whereupon
Thou standest. And that other heart is growing
And blooming into life beneath thy shade,
As strong as thine, as ruby-red as thine,
To wither and to fall beneath the scythe,
As thine has done. Why ask and why despair?
Why not be happy with the sun, the dew,
The other flowery hearts that, full of life
Unfold their petals, which are deep like thine,
And rich as thine? Ye are to be a glorious
And many-coloured meadow. Is it not
Enough? And must ye grumble? Must ye strive

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poem by Carmen Sylva
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Lethe

When dark thy childhood, tears and grief have filled
Thy swelling heart, that understood too much,
Yet not enough to be forgiving, when
The sun was pale, and darkness lonely, when
The fear of unknown evil made thy lips
Turn cold, and wonder changed to horror, then
To dumb despair, to childhood's hopelessness,
More hopeless than old age's iron clutch
Of unbelief, the shadow of the past
Will cast a pall o'er all thy life, then say:
Go down, Remembrance, into Lethe, go!
When work was hard and sacrifice in vain,
And stones were hurled at thee, thy flowers trodden
Into the soil, that, soaked with all thy blood,
Could not resist, and giving way would swallow
Thy noblest thoughts, and teach thee to undo
Thyself, gainsay thyself, as if a coward
Were crouching on thy shoulders, making thee
Believe that all thy heroism was
A sham--then say: Go down to Lethe, Thought,

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poem by Carmen Sylva
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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"Vengeance is Mine," Saith the Lord

Thou wouldst not be avenged if thou hadst but
Insight enough into the human heart,
Into its frailty and its cowardice.
Thou wouldst not be avenged if thou but sawest
How mad, how childish and how selfish are
The helpless ones, that did thee harm because
They thought--Ah! What then thought they! That perchance
You hated them, or trod them down, or took
Their sun away; and e'en for love will they
Destroy thee, meaning well with thee--so well,
That they as lief would see thee dead, not to
Belong to what they hate--thy work, thy friend,
Thy strong ambition, or the gift that God
Hath put into thy soul, that calleth thee
Away to other heights and other temples,
Then where they long have worshipped. They dislike
Thy road, they word, they call it strange and dark,
And they would lead thee back to where they started
So long ago with thee, and show the wrong
Thou doest quite unwittingly. A sigh,

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poem by Carmen Sylva
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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