LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE [8910]

Lizette Woodworth Reese 

(9 enero 1856 a 17 diciembre 1935) fue una poeta estadounidense.

Nacido en el Waverly de Baltimore, Maryland, fue maestra de escuela desde 1873 hasta 1918. Durante la década de 1920, se convirtió en una figura literaria prominente, recibiendo elogios de la crítica y el reconocimiento, en particular, de HL Mencken, que provenía también de Baltimore. Ha sido citada como influencia de las poetas mujeres más jóvenes las y se la ha comparado con Emily Dickinson.

LA VUELTA DEL AMOR

Bajo el rocío de la tarde oscura

volvió el amor con su vieja canción,

mas yo tenía una palabra dura

para despedazar su corazón.

“Aquel que viene a la luz de la vela,

cuando temprano debió de venir,

vaya a ver si la noche lo consuela

porque esta puerta no se le ha de abrir.”

Fue esta palabra de separación

al caer del rocío,

la que despedazó su corazón,

pero también el mío.

A Song

Oh, Love, he went a-straying,

A long time ago!

I missed him in the Maying,

When blossoms were of snow;

So back I came by the old sweet way;

And for I loved him so, wept that he came not with me,

A long time ago!

Wide open stood my chamber door,

And one stepped forth to greet;

Gray Grief, strange Grief, who turned me sore

With words he spake so sweet.

I gave him meat; I gave him drink;

(And listened for Love’s feet.)

How many years? I cannot think;

In truth, I do not know—

Ah, long time ago!

Oh, love, he came not back again,

Although I kept me fair;

And each white May, in field and lane,

I waited for him there!

Yea, he forgot; but Grief stayed on,

And in Love’s empty chair

Doth sit and tell of days long gone—

’Tis more than I can bear!

Mid-March

It is too early for white boughs, too late

For snows. From out the hedge the wind lets fall

A few last flakes, ragged and delicate.

Down the stripped roads the maples start their small,

Soft, ’wildering fires. Stained are the meadow stalks

A rich and deepening red. The willow tree

Is woolly. In deserted garden-walks

The lean bush crouching hints old royalty,

Feels some June stir in the sharp air and knows

Soon ’twill leap up and show the world a rose.

The days go out with shouting; nights are loud;

Wild, warring shapes the wood lifts in the cold;

The moon’s a sword of keen, barbaric gold,

Plunged to the hilt into a pitch black cloud.

Tell Me Some Way

Oh, you who love me not, tell me some way

Whereby I may forget you for a space;

Nay, clean forget you and your lovely face--

Yet well I know how vain this prayer I pray.

All weathers hold you. Can I make the May

Forbid her boughs blow white in every place?

Or rob June of her rose that comes apace?

Cheat of their charm the elder months and gray?

Aye, were you dead, you could not be forgot;

So sparse the bloom along the lanes would be;

Such sweetness out the briery hedges fled;

My tears would fall that you had loved me not;

And bitterer tears that you had gone from me;

Living you break my heart, so would you dead!

(Above text from American Sonnets)

Tears

When I consider Life and its few years --

A wisp of fog betwixt us and the sun;

A call to battle, and the battle done

Ere the last echo dies within our ears;

A rose choked in the grass; an hour of fears;

The gusts that past a darkening shore do beat;

The burst of music down an unlistening street,--

I wonder at the idleness of tears.

Ye old, old dead, and ye of yesternight

Chieftains, and bards, and keepers of the sheep

By every cup of sorrow that you had,

Loose me from tears, and make me see aright

How each hath back at once he stayed to weep:

Homer his sight, David his little lad!