Three Songs to Poems of Mary Cecilia Becker

Open your arms to me,
O mother of the Tibetan skies:
Mark for me a grave
In your turquoise mists.
I am weary of monotony,
Of green stretches of deadly marble
And neat prim graves.
Cradle me under the prairie sky
In amber wastes of sand.

High to the altar of sacrifice
Bear me up, o spirit of beauty.
Short was my sojourn, gay were my hours.
As a rare white orchid I blazed one night.
And now I am sought after
But even the winds shall not find me.

I should like to dance,
To shout, to sing,
To fasten a crimson blossom in my hair
And sport the gay frivolity of my gown
To make your hard Puritan conscience
Wonder about my Soul.