Five Songs for Voice and Pianoforte , opus 154

Three sycamores down the road,
High, blotched, shaken in the cold;
A field; cut in its grass,
A pool, like small, wild gold.

And this was all I saw,
As you came by with me
A day last week. Now you are dead.
What is it that I see?

Three sycamores down the road,
High, blotched, shaken in the cold;
A field; cut in its grass,
A pool, like small, wild gold.

Three wild kings come to the town,
Riding with one mind;
Scarlet, cinnamon, stormy blue,
Stream their cloaks behind.

Call the wild kings through the night,
Standing each at door;
"Open. There is here a gift,
Kept for you of yore."

"Here is gold," saith the wild king,
He the blue-clad one;
"Here is frankincense," saith he,
All in cinnamon.

Saith the king in scarlet cloak,
Standing there at door;
"Here is myrrh, a bitter thing,
Kept for you of yore."

Let all the towns remember you,
And tell it out with mellow tongue,
Down April yards at fall of dew —
That you were fair, that you were young.

A wind at dusk shaken to and fro
Against a melon-colored pane;
White flags in a brief, wistful row;
An only star after a rain.

But let this secret keep unsung;
Nor wise nor fool must it divine,
And tell it out with April tongue —
That all this loveliness was mine!

Turn me to fagot, dusk,
To heap your fire!
Oh, tear me through and through,
White daggers of the brier!

I may not keep you long;
Before I go,
Oh, fill me full of you;
I shall not miss you so!

Some dusk within a silver wood,
A narrow wood of the wild pear,
A hundred trees in a windy rood,
I shall be tall, I shall be fair.

Wild pear will strew me foot and head
With white, like samite wrought of old
For troubled women lying-dead
In falling towns, curious with gold.

The pools will show me my changed face,
With all its April back again,
A silver thing in a silver place
And yet unsung by singing men.

At dusk, it will be very good
To have not any tears to weep;
At last, within a wild pear wood,
To turn to silence and to sleep.