Love Sonnet XXIX
Dearest, there is no part of us, but air
And earth are counterparts. Your fragrant eyes
Touching my own, some essence of the skies
Instil therein, and all your warm, brown hair
Smells of the sun’s slow passion, fine and fair.
I cannot touch your hands but I surprise
Some element of summer; and the sighs
Of stars from your red lips I seem to share.
O Love…Love…Love…Dearer than God to me.
Earth of the earth are we and light of light.
God-born, God-breathing, all our scented souls
In Death will glow, gladdening eternity.
So give me love…all love…this perfect night
As round our naked limbs its full fire rolls.
poem by Zora Bernice May Cross
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Love Sonnet XXVI
O my Beloved, when to-day you said:
“All this must perish and we two will go
Soulless and senseless, to the dust below!”
I could but smile and fondle your dear head.
I could but catch your fingers as they fled
Over my throbbing breasts and whisper low,
“Whence came this breast to lure your fingers’ flow?
These burning pulses, leaping passion-fed?”
Dearest, you had no answer. But your blood
Drawing from mine the primal fires of God,
Leapt, laughed, and shouted, panting into mine—
“Love…love is all; and sweeps in mighty flood
Minds, souls and bodies, from the nameless sod
Exultant to the feet of the Divine.”
poem by Zora Bernice May Cross
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The New Moon
What have you got in your knapsack fair,
White moon, bright moon, pearling the air,
Spinning your bobbins and fabrics free,
Fleet moon, sweet moon, in to the sea?
Turquoise and beryl and rings of gold,
Clear moon, dear moon, ne’er to be sold?
Roses and lilies, romance and love,
Still moon, chill moon, swinging above?
Slender your feet as a white birds throat,
High moon, shy moon, drifting your boat
Into the murk of the world awhile,
Slim moon, dim moon, adding a smile.
Tender your eyes as a maiden’s kiss,
Fine moon, wine moon, no one knows this,
Under the spell of your witchery,
Dream moon, cream moon, first he kissed me.
poem by Zora Bernice May Cross
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The Fairie's Fair
Who’s that dancing on the moonlight air,
Heel tapping, Toe-heel rapping?
Oberon opening the fairies’ fair
To jig away sorrow on the grave of Care.
Come along, old folk, cold fork, bold folk,
Drop your shears at the midnight stroke.
Elves are crying: "Who’ll come buying
Jugs of Joy from a fairy’s cloak?"
Mab is sitting on a silver shoe,
Bright eyes laughing, Light lips quaffing
Airy bubbles from a cup of dew,
Her bracelets tinkle with delights for you.
Come along tall folk, small folk, all folk,
Race the stream where the fat frogs croak,
Buy a bobbin! There goes Robin
Tying Time to a daisy’s yoke!
poem by Zora Bernice May Cross
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Sonnet Of Motherhood X
I walked among the flowers that bend their heads
Low to the earth and back again to light,
Hearing them prattle of their blue and white—
Violet and jasmine in the bordered beds.
They whispered them of every wing that weds
388ഊFragrance to fragrance in the dusky night;
And, seeing them, I knew another sight,
And saw them bowing where all Beauty spreads.
I touched each petal with the sunbeams flaked—
Roses and pansies of the early morn,
Lilies that lilted of the moon’s light grace,
And left them hushed when all my joy was slaked;
For in the garden of my soul, God-born,
Each flower made beauty for my child’s soft face.
poem by Zora Bernice May Cross
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Love Sonnet XXVIII
Give me a child!! Dear Heart, we have loved long,
Draining each other’s sweetness to the last
Wild drops of honeyed madness falling fast
Upon our limbs in ecstasies of song.
“More love,” we cried. “More, and still more.” And, strong
And fierce, the tide of passion filled the vast
Immeasured space of our desire, and cast
Us breathless to the realms the white gods throng.
My Poet, let the tempest rise once more,
Until from spirit out of spirit, wise
And free, we draw our own youth back again—
My dimpled chin, your eyes; and learn the lore
Of everlasting life and all emprise
From the sweet child that comes to us through pain.
poem by Zora Bernice May Cross
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Girl-Gladness
It’s holiday time on the hollyhock hills,
And I wish you would come with me laddie-love, now,
The butterfly-bells, from the Folly-fool rills,
Will ring if you listen, and drop on your brow.
So, dear come along,
I’ve a kiss and a song,
And I know where the fairies are forging a gong
To ring up the elves to a festival fair
Of snippets of sunshine and apples of air.
O laddie, my laddie, quick, run out of school,
And away with a shout and a shake of the head;
I’ll pick you a pearl from the pigeon-pink pool
Where cuddles and kisses are going to bed,
Away, come away To the lands of the fay,
For the afternoon tinkles your lassie-love’s lay.
Play truant with Time, and while Age is asleep
I’ll give you the heart of my girlhood to keep.
poem by Zora Bernice May Cross
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Books
Oh! Bury me in books when I am dead,
Fair quarto leaves of ivory and gold,
And silk octavos, bound in brown and red,
That tales of love and chivalry unfold.
Heap me in volumes of fine vellum wrought,
Creamed with the close content of silent speech;
Wrap me in sapphire tapestries of thought
From some old epic out of common reach.
I would my shroud were verse-embroidered too---
Your verse for preference—in starry stitch,
And powdered o’er with rhymes that poets woo,
Breathing dream-lyrics in moon-measures rich.
Night holds me with a horror of the grave
That knows not poetry, nor song, nor you;
Nor leaves of love that down the ages weave
Romance and fire in burnished cloths of blue.
Oh, bury me in books, and I’ll not mind
The cold, slow worms that coil around my head;
Since my lone soul may turn the page and find
The lines you wrote to me, when I am dead.
poem by Zora Bernice May Cross
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Memory
Late, late last night, when the whole world slept,
Along to the garden of dreams I crept.
And I pulled the bell of an old, old house
Where the moon dipped down like a little white mouse.
I tapped the door and I tossed my head:
"Are you in, little girl? Are you in?" I said.
And while I waited and shook with cold
Through the door tripped me---just eight years old.
I looked so sweet with my pigtails down,
Tied up with a ribbon of dusky brown,
With a dimpled chin full of childish charme,
And my old black dolly asleep in my arms.
I sat me down when I saw myself,
And I told little tales of a moonland elf.
I laughed and sang as I used to do
When the world was ruled by Little Boy Blue.
Then I danced with a toss and a twirl
And said: "Now have you been a good, good girl?
Have you had much spanking since you were Me?
And does it feel fine to be twenty-three?"
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poem by Zora Bernice May Cross
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Fortune
Dame Fortune’s jade with a fanciful horn
Of silver ambitions she warns of the flame;
With pearls for the princes and tears night and morn
For poor little poets who fluttered for fame,
Who smile when she sings as she dances along;
"Come; woo me with courage and delicate song."
I followed her once, but she wearied me soon.
All careless was I of her roseate quest.
I built a dream house, while the stars were in tune,
And slipped into silence and exquisite rest.
But she, like her sex, when my passion seemed cold,
Ran hither and offered me all of her gold.
I went to the door, and I looked at her ware
Of agate and amber and cool crysolite;
I shook my wise head with a holiday air,
And bade her good-day in a daring delight
For I am a fool, and my fortune is made;
I care not a fig for a crown or a spade;
I dwell with the elves ‘neath the odorous sky;
The dews of the dawn brush my gables with glee;
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poem by Zora Bernice May Cross
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