(A celebratory ode)

When did it happen Linda?
You were not so yesterday.

(How strange: the way
The young bud unnoticed grows,
Then at the break of it`s appointed day
Is suddenly a rose)

Was it the moon, last night,
Serene from the lovely zenith of her height,
Worked this white
Bewilder – witchery.
Most secretly
In the silent shedding of her light?

Now I can plainly see
You are not as you were before,
And somehow it doesn`t seem right
To call you `Little Linda` any more.
All the old candid, easy camaraderie-
All the old boistering now seems out of place
And, from henceforward courtesy
Must match this new regality of grace.

And though I feel dismay
That you, who used to play
All the livelong day
Out in the open courtyards of your eyes,
Pace now the pensive cloisters of your thought.
Know girl, certain strangenesss are wrought
In all beginings. And though you ponder
With sidelong glances of surmise,
And chafe at the unaccustomed stateliness,
You cannot guess
What I,
Made daft again with the whole wonder
Of what Woman is – and why –
See with my poet`s eye.

And so if, in some future day,
They say
That this time came and went
Without event
Tell them they lie!
Tell them the deep-most sigh
Of the deep-most breathing of this night`s sea
Lifted a lovely creature on the shore,
Who sat and combed her hair and, silverly,
Spoke with the night-wind whispering off the tor.
Tell them the Holy One who guards the height
Tip-toed down the mountain-side to see.
Say all the stars danced so exultantly
That the heavens dindled with delight.
Tell them great Gabriel playfully was pushed
By all the populace out of Paradise
And sent to see. And to the hushed
World bent, was glad, and returned with smiling eyes.
Tell them that daintily through the delicate air,
A strook of Fairy-bells was heard to ring.
And tell them…
That one old poet…
With straw-stalks sticking in his hair
Began to sing.