Poems (Radford)/Your Gift

by Dollie Radford

Your Gift

 You turn your face away,
  Whose light would shine
On the flower of my spirit that pales,
That is sick for the comfort that fails,
  Whose petals pine
 And wither day by day.

 Your heart so cold in sleep,
  I may not wake,
And I wander and slip from your sight
To the measureless caves of the night,
  And for your sake
 My flower of passion keep.

 You give me to the night
  That chains the stars,
To the dreams that are locked in the earth,
That must anguish and die at their birth,
  Whose shadowy bars
 Shall ever stay their flight.

 You give me to the wind
  That rocks the day,
And I drift in the wrack of his wings,
In the salt of the seas that he flings.
  A castaway
 Unloved and left behind

 You give me to my grief
  That has no place
In the cities of earth or of Heaven,
That must drift as a ghost that is driven,
  Shut out from grace,
 In its great unbelief.

 Oh you whose heart is cold,
  If I should show
All the waste of my life at your side,
All the flower of my soul that has died,
  You would not know
 The gift of gifts you hold,

 Oh you whose sleep is dear,
  And long to take,
Should you dream how they sicken and die,
Who are cast from the earth and the sky,
  You would awake
 And keep your gift for fear.