The dexterous touch that shaped the soul of you,
Mingled, to mix, and make you what you are,
Magic between the sugar and the spice.
A PROUD LADY
Hate in the world's hand
Can carve and set its seal
Like the strong blast of sand
Which cuts into steel.
I have seen how the finger of hate
Can mar and mold
Faces burned passionate
And frozen cold.
Sorrowful faces worn
As stone with rain,
Faces writhing with scorn
And sullen with pain.
But you have a proud face
Which the world cannot harm,
You have turned the pain to a grace
And the scorn to a charm.
You have taken the arrows and slings
Which prick and bruise
And fashioned them into wings
For the heels of your shoes.
From the world's hand which tries
To tear you apart
You have stolen the falcon's eyes
And the lion's heart.
What has it done, this world,
With hard finger tips,
But sweetly chiseled and curled
Your inscrutable lips?
THE TORTOISE IN ETERNITY
Within my house of patterned horn
I sleep in such a bed
As men may keep before they're born
And after they are dead.
Sticks and stones may break their bones,
And words may make them bleed;
There is not one of them who owns
An armor to his need.
Tougher than hide or lozenged bark,
Snow-storm and thunder proof,
And quick with sun, and thick with dark,
Is this my darling roof.
Men's troubled dreams of death and birth
Pulse mother-o'-pearl to black;
I bear the rainbow bubble Earth
Square on my scornful back.
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