Anne Spencer – The Wife-Woman

Maker-of-Sevens in the scheme of things

From earth to star;

Thy cycle holds whatever is fate, and

Over the border the bar.

Though rank and fierce the mariner

Sailing the seven seas,

He prays as he holds his glass to his eyes,

Coaxing the Pleiades.

I cannot love them; and I feel your glad,

Chiding from the grave,

That my all was only worth at all, what

Joy to you it gave,

These seven links the Law compelled

For the human chain—

I cannot love them; and you, oh,

Seven-fold months in Flanders slain!

A jungle there, a cave here, bred six

And a million years.

Sure and strong, mate for mate, such

Love as culture fears;

I gave you clear the oil and wine;

You saved me your hob and hearth—

See how even life may be ere the

Sickle comes and leaves a swath.

But I can wait the seven of moons,

Or years I spare,

Hoarding the heart's plenty, nor spend

A drop, nor share—

So long but outlives a smile and

A silken gown;

Then gaily I reach up from my shroud,

And you, glory-clad, reach down.

Anne Spencer – Before the Feast of Shushan

Garden of Shushan!

After Eden, all terrace, pool, and flower recollect thee:

Ye weavers in saffron and haze and Tyrian purple,

Tell yet what range in color wakes the eye;

Sorcerer, release the dreams born here when

Drowsy, shifting palm-shade enspells the brain;

And sound! ye with harp and flute ne'er essay

Before these star-noted birds escaped from paradise awhile to

Stir all dark, and dear, and passionate desire, till mine

Arms go out to be mocked by the softly kissing body of the wind—

Slave, send Vashti to her King!

The fiery wattles of the sun startle into flame

The marbled towers of Shushan:

So at each day's wane, two peers—the one in

Heaven, the other on earth—welcome with their

Splendor the peerless beauty of the Queen.

Cushioned at the Queen's feet and upon her knee

Finding glory for mine head,—still, nearly shamed

Am I, the King, to bend and kiss with sharp

Breath the olive-pink of sandaled toes between;

Or lift me high to the magnet of a gaze, dusky,

Like the pool when but the moon-ray strikes to its depth;

Or closer press to crush a grape ‘gainst lips redder

Than the grape, a rose in the night of her hair;

Then—Sharon's Rose in my arms.

And I am hard to force the petals wide;

And you are fast to suffer and be sad.

Is any prophet come to teach a new thing

Now in a more apt time?

Have him ‘maze how you say love is sacrament;

How says Vashti, love is both bread and wine;

How to the altar may not come to break and drink,

Hulky flesh nor fleshly spirit!

I, thy lord, like not manna for meat as a Judahn;

I, thy master, drink, and red wine, plenty, and when

I thirst. Eat meat, and full, when I hunger.

I, thy King, teach you and leave you, when I list.

No woman in all Persia sets out strange action

To confuse Persia's lord—

Love is but desire and thy purpose fulfillment;

I, thy King, so say!

Anne Spencer – Letter To My Sister

It is dangerous for a woman

to defy the gods;

To taunt them with the tongue's thin tip,

Or strut in the weakness

of mere humanity,

Or draw a line daring them to cross;

The gods own the searing lightning,

The drowning waters, tormenting fears

And anger of red sins.

Oh, but worse still if you mince timidly--

Dodge this way or that, or kneel or pray,

Be kind, or sweat agony drops

Or lay your quick body over

your feeble young;

If you have beauty or none, if celibate

Or vowed--the gods are Juggernaut,

Passing over . . . over . . .

This you may do:

Lock your heart, then, quietly,

And lest they peer within,

Light no lamp when dark comes down

Raise no shade for sun;

Breathless must your

breath come through

If you'd die and dare deny

The gods their god-like fun.

Anne Spencer – For Jim, Easter Eve

If ever a garden was Gethsemane,

with old tombs set high against

the crumpled olive tree--and lichen,

this, my garden, has been to me.

For such as I none other is so sweet:

Lacking old tombs, here stands my grief,

and certainly its ancient tree.

Peace is here and in every season

a quiet beauty.

The sky falling about me

evenly to the compass . . .

What is sorrow but tenderness now

in this earth-close frame of land and sky

falling constantly into horizons

of east and west, north and south;

what is pain but happiness here

amid these green and wordless patterns,--

indefinite texture of blade and leaf:

Beauty of an old, old tree,

last comfort in Gethsemane.

Anne Spencer – Life-Long, Poor Browning

Life-long, poor Browning never knew Virginia,

Or he'd not grieved in Florence for April sallies

Back to English gardens after Euclid's linear:

Clipt yews, Pomander Walks, and preached alleys;

Primroses, prim indeed, in quiet ordered hedges,

Waterways, soberly, sedately enchanneled,

No thin riotous blade even among the sedges,

All the wild country-side tamely impaneled . . .

Dead, now, dear Browning, lives on in heaven,--

(Heaven's Virginia when the year's at its Spring)

He's haunting the byways of wine-aired leaven

And throating the notes of the wildings on wing;

Here canopied reaches of dogwood and hazel,

Beech tree and redbud fine-laced in vines,

Fleet clapping rills by lush fern and basil,

Drain blue hills to lowlands scented with pines . . .

Think you he meets in this tender green sweetness

Shade that was Elizabeth . . . immortal completeness!