(A birthday celebration)

 

 

When did it happen Linda?

You were not so yesterday.

 

(How strange: the way

The young bud unnoticed grows,

Then at the break of it`s appointed day

Is suddenly a rose)

 

Was it the moon, last night,

Serene from the lovely zenith of her height,

Worked this white

Bewilder – witchery,

Most secretly

In the silent shedding of her light?

 

Now I can plainly see

You are not as you were before,

And somehow it doesn`t seem right

To call you `Little Linda` any more.

All the old candid, easy camaraderie-

All the old boistering - now seems out of place

And from henceforward courtesy

Must match this new regality of grace.

 

And though I feel dismay

That you, who used to play

All the livelong day

Out in the open courtyards of your eyes

Pace now the pensive cloisters of your thought,

Know girl, certain strangeness are wrought

 In all beginings. And though you ponder

With sidelong glances of surmise,

And chafe at the unaccustomed stateliness,

You cannot guess

What I,

 made daft again with the whole wonder

Of what Woman is – and why,

See with my poet`s eye.

 

And so if, in some future day,

They say

That this time came and went

Without event

Tell them they lie!

Tell them the deep-most sigh

Of the deep-most breathing of this night`s sea

Lifted a lovely creature on the shore,

Who sat and combed her hair and, silverly,

Spoke with the night-wind whispering off the tor.

Tell them the Holy One who guards the height

Tip-toed down the mountain-side to see,

How all the stars danced so exultantly

That the heavens dindled with delight.

Tell them great Gabriel playfully was pushed

By heavens` populace out of Paradise

And sent to see, And to the hushed

World bent, was glad, and returned with smiling eyes.

Tell them that daintily through the delicate air,

A peal of Fairy-bells was heard to ring.

…And tell them…

That one old poet

With straw-stalks sticking in his hair

Began to sing.