Jessie Redmon Fauset Work

Dead Fires

If this is peace, this dead and leaden thing,

Then better far the hateful fret, the sting.

Better the wound forever seeking balm

Than this gray calm!

Is this pain's surcease?

Better far the ache,

The long-drawn dreary day, the night's white wake,

Better the choking sigh, the sobbing breath

Than passion's death!


Enigma



There is no peace with you,

Nor any rest!

Your presence is a torture to the brain.

Your words are barbed arrows to the breast,

And one but greets To wish you sped again.

Frustrate you make desire

And action vain.

There is no peace with you .

No peace . . .

Nor any rest.

Yet in your absence

Longing springs anew,

And hopefulness besets the baffled brain.

"If only you were you and yet not you!"

If you such joy could give as you give pain!

Then what an unguent for the burning breast!

And for the harassed heart

What rapture true!

"If only you were you and yet not you!"

There is no peace with you

Nor ever any rest!


Oblivion



I hope when I am dead that I shall lie

In some deserted grave--I cannot tell you why,

But I should like to sleep in some neglected spot,

Unknown to every one, by every one forgot.



There lying I should taste with my dead breath

The utter lack of life, the fullest sense of death;

And I should never hear the note of jealousy or hate,

The tribute paid by passers-by to tombs of state.



To me would never penetrate the prayers and tears

That futilely bring torture to dead and dying ears;

There I should lie annihilate and my dead heart would bless

Oblivion--the shroud and envelope of happiness.


Words! Words!



How did it happen that we quarreled?

We two who loved each other so!

Only the moment before we were one,

Using the language that lovers know.

And then of a sudden, a word, a phrase

That struck at the heart like a poignard's blow.

And you went berserk, and I saw red,

And love lay between us, bleeding and dead!

Dead! When we'd loved each other so!

How could it happen that we quarreled!

Think of the things we used to say!

"What does it matter, dear, what you do?

Love such as ours has to last for aye!"

--"Try me! I long to endure your test!"

--"Love, we shall always love, come what may!"

What are the words the apostle saith?

"In the power of the tongue are Life and Death!"

Think of the things we used to say!



Noblesse Oblige



Lolotte, who attires my hair,

Lost her lover. Lolotte weeps;

Trails her hand before her eyes;

Hangs her head and mopes and sighs,

Mutters of the pangs of hell.

Fills the circumambient air

With her plaints and her despair.

Looks at me:

"May you never know, Mam'selle,

Love's harsh cruelty."

Love's dart lurks in my heart too,--

None may know the smart

Throbbing underneath my smile.

Burning, pricking all the while

That I dance and sing and spar,

Juggling words and making quips

To hide the trembling of my lips.

I must laugh

What time I moan to moon and star

To help me stand the gaff.



What a silly thing is pride!

Lolotte bares her heart.

Heedless that each runner reads

All her thoughts and all her needs.

What I hide with my soul's life

Lolotte tells with tear and cry.

Blurs her pain with sob and sigh

Happy Lolotte, she!

I must jest while sorrow's knife

Stabs in ecstasy.



"If I live, I shall outlive."

Meanwhile I am barred

From expression of my pain.

Let my heart be torn in twain,

Only I may know the truth.

Happy Lolotte, blessed she

Who may tell her agony!

On me a seal is set.

Love is lost, and--bitter ruth--

Pride is with me yet!

La Vie C'est la Vie



On summer afternoons I sit

Quiescent by you in the park,

And idly watch the sunbeams gld

And tint the ash-trees' bark.

Or else I watch the squirrels frisk

And chaffer in the grassy lane;

And all the while I mark your voice

Breaking with love and pain.



I know a woman who would give

Her chance of heaven to take my place;

To see the love-light in your eyes,

The love-glow on your face!



And there's a man whose lightest word

Can set my chilly blood afire;

Fulfillment of his least behest

Defines my life's desire.



But he will none of me, nor I

Of you. Nor you of her. 'Tis said

The world is full of jests like these--

I wish that I were dead.


Touche


Dear, when we sit in that high, placid room,

'Loving' and 'doving' as all lovers do,

Laughing and leaning so close in the gloom,--



What is the change that creeps sharp over you?

Just as you raise your fine hand to my hair

Bringing that glance of mixed wonder and rue?



'Black hair,' you murmur, 'so lustrous and rare,

Beautiful too, like a raven's smooth wing;

Surely no gold locks were ever more fair.'



Why do you say every night that same thing?

Turning your mind to some old constant theme,

Half meditating and half murmuring?



Tell me, that girl of your young manhood's dream,

Her you loved first in that dim long ago--

Had she blue eyes? Did her hair goldly gleam?



Does she come back to you softly and slow,

Stepping wraith-wise from the depths of the past?

Quickened and fired by the warmth of our glow?



There I've divined it! My wit holds you fast.

Nay, no excuses; 'tis little I care.

I knew a lad in my own girlhood's past,--

Blue eyes he had and such waving gold hair!