THE LITTLE GOLDEN FOUNTAIN

Oh, my heart is a little golden fountain,

Through it and spilling over the brim.

Wells the love of you.

Brighter gleams the gold for the sparkling water,

And down below where the overflow drips

Into a clear little pool of bubbles,

Fresh spears of grass spring against the golden column.
Oh, my heart is a little golden fountain
Fashioned purely for that leaping grace,
The luminous love of you.

Up through the column and over the golden basin
It thrills and fills and trembles in the sunlight,
Showering its gladness over and bestrewing

The golden fountainhead with rainbow rapture.
-Mary MacMillan

SONGS OF A GIRL *

XIX

Within the little house

Of my great love for you,

This safe and happy house,

I sit and sing, while all the world goes by.

*From Youth Riding, by Mary Carolyn Davies. Used by special permission of The Macmillan Company, publishers.

Within the house that is my love for you
No harm can come, nor any thought of fear;
There is no danger that can cross the threshold.

You did not build this house

Nor I;

But God the Carpenter

-Mary Carolyn Davies

PSALM TO MY BELOVED

Lo, I have opened unto you the wide gates of my being,
And like a tide you have flowed into me.

The innermost recesses of my spirit are full of you, and all the channels of my soul are grown sweet with your pres

ence.

For you have brought me peace;

The peace of great tranquil waters, and the quiet of the sum

mer sea.

Your hands are filled with peace as the noon-tide is filled with light; about your head is bound the eternal quiet of the stars, and in your heart dwells the calm miracle of twilight.

I am utterly content.

In all my spirit is no ripple of unrest.

For I have opened unto you the wide gates of my being
And like a tide you have flowed into me.

-Eunice Tietjens

THE REFLECTION*

I have not heard her voice, nor seen her face,
Nor touched her hand;

And yet some echo of her woman's grace

I understand.

I have no picture of her lovelihood,

Her smile, her tint;

But that she is both beautiful and good

I have true hint.

In all that my friend thinks and says, I see
Her mirror true;

His thought of her is gentle; she must be
All gentle too.

In all his grief or laughter, work or play,
Each mood and whim,

How brave and tender, day by common day,
She speaks through him!

Therefore I say I know her, be her face

Or dark or fair

For when he shows his heart's most secret place

I see her there!

-Christopher Morley

* From The Rocking Horse, by Christopher Morley. Copyright, 1919,

George H. Doran Company, publishers.

A LYNMOUTH WIDOW *

He was straight and strong, and his eyes were blue
As the summer meeting of sky and sea,

And the ruddy cliffs had a colder hue

Than flushed his cheek when he married me.

We passed the porch where the swallows breed,
We left the little brown church behind,

And I leaned on his arm, though I had no need,
Only to feel him so strong and kind.

One thing I never can quite forget;
It grips my throat when I try to pray-
The keen salt smell of a drying net

That hung on the churchyard wall that day.

He would have taken a long, long grave—

A long, long grave, for he stood so tall

Oh, God, the crash of a breaking wave,

And the smell of the nets on the churchyard wall!

-Amelia Josephine Burr

* From In Deep Places, by Amelia Josephine Burr. Copyright, 1914,

George H. Doran Company, publishers.

Though I go from you to die,

We shall both lie down

At the foot of the hill, and sleep.

Now I go, do not weep, woman-
Woman, do not weep;

Earth is our mother and our tent the sky.
Though I go from you to die,

We shall both lie down

At the foot of the hill, and sleep.

-Alice Corbin Henderson

THE PENALTY OF LOVE

If Love should count you worthy, and should deigu
One day to seek your door and be your guest,
Pause! ere you draw the bolt and bid him rest,
If in your old content you would remain.
For not alone he enters: in his train

Are angels of the mists, the lonely quest,
Dreams of the unfulfilled and unpossessed,
And sorrow, and Life's immemorial pain.

He wakes desires you never may forget,

He shows you stars you never saw before, He makes you share with him, for evermore, The burden of the world's divine regret. How wise were you to open not!—and yet, How poor if you should turn him from the door. -Sidney Royse Lysaght