Nets to Catch the Wind

Elinor Wylie
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Title: Nets to Catch the Wind
Author: Elinor Wylie
Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6682]?[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]?[This file was first posted on January 12, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
? START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NETS TO CATCH THE WIND ***
Produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Tom Allen, Charles Franks?and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
NETS TO CATCH THE WIND
By ELINOR WYLIE
CONTENTS
BEAUTY
THE EAGLE AND THE MOLE
MADMAN'S SONG
THE PRINKIN' LEDDIE
AUGUST
THE CROOKED STICK
ATAVISM
WILD PEACHES
SANCTUARY
THE LION AND THE LAMB
THE CHURCH-BELL
A CROWDED TROLLEY CAR
BELLS IN THE RAIN
WINTER SLEEP
VILLAGE MYSTERY
SUNSET ON THE SPIRE
ESCAPE
THE FAIRY GOLDSMITH
"FIRE AND SLEET AND CANDLELIGHT"
BLOOD FEUD
SEA LULLABY
NANCY
A PROUD LADY
THE TORTOISE IN ETERNITY
INCANTATION
SILVER FILIGREE
THE FALCON
BRONZE TRUMPETS AND SEA WATER--ON TURNING LATIN INTO ENGLISH
SPRING PASTORAL
VELVET SHOES
VALENTINE
BEAUTY
Say not of Beauty she is good,?Or aught but beautiful,?Or sleek to doves' wings of the wood?Her wild wings of a gull.
Call her not wicked; that word's touch?Consumes her like a curse;?But love her not too much, too much,?For that is even worse.
O, she is neither good nor bad,?But innocent and wild!?Enshrine her and she dies, who had?The hard heart of a child.
THE EAGLE AND THE MOLE
Avoid the reeking herd,?Shun the polluted flock,?Live like that stoic bird,?The eagle of the rock.
The huddled warmth of crowds?Begets and fosters hate;?He keeps, above the clouds,?His cliff inviolate.
When flocks are folded warm,?And herds to shelter run,?He sails above the storm,?He stares into the sun.
If in the eagle's track?Your sinews cannot leap,?Avoid the lathered pack,?Turn from the steaming sheep.
If you would keep your soul?From spotted sight or sound,?Live like the velvet mole;?Go burrow underground.
And there hold intercourse?With roots of trees and stones,?With rivers at their source,?And disembodied bones.
MADMAN'S SONG
Better to see your cheek grown hollow,?Better to see your temple worn,?Than to forget to follow, follow,?After the sound of a silver horn.
Better to bind your brow with willow?And follow, follow until you die,?Than to sleep with your head on a golden pillow,?Nor lift it up when the hunt goes by.
Better to see your cheek grown sallow?And your hair grown gray, so soon, so soon,?Than to forget to hallo, hallo,?After the milk-white hounds of the moon.
THE PRINKIN' LEDDIE
_"The Hielan' lassies are a' for spinnin'?The Lowlan' lassies for prinkin' and pinnin';?My daddie w'u'd chide me, an' so w'u'd my minnie?If I s'u'd bring hame sic a prinkin' leddie."_
Now haud your tongue, ye haverin' coward,?For whilst I'm young I'll go flounced an' flowered,?In lutestring striped like the strings o' a fiddle,?Wi' gowden girdles aboot my middle.
In your Hielan' glen, where the rain pours steady,?Ye'll be gay an' glad for a prinkin' leddie;?Where the rocks are all bare an' the turf is all sodden,?An' lassies gae sad in their homespun an' hodden.
My silks are stiff wi' patterns o' siller,?I've an ermine hood like the hat o' a miller,?I've chains o' coral like rowan berries,?An' a cramoisie mantle that cam' frae Paris.
Ye'll be glad for the glint o' its scarlet linin'?When the larks are up an' the sun is shinin';?When the winds are up an' ower the heather?Your heart'll be gay wi' my gowden feather.
When the skies are low an' the earth is frozen,?Ye'll be gay an' glad for the leddie ye've chosen,?When ower the snow I go prinkin' an' prancin'?In my wee red slippers were made for dancin'.
It's better a leddie like Solomon's lily?Than one that'll run like a Hielan' gillie?A-linkin' it ower the leas, my laddie,?In a raggedy kilt an' a belted plaidie!
AUGUST
Why should this Negro insolently stride?Down the red noonday on such noiseless feet??Piled in his barrow, tawnier than wheat,?Lie heaps of smoldering daisies, somber-eyed,?Their copper petals shriveled up with pride,?Hot with a superfluity of heat,?Like a great brazier borne along the street?By captive leopards, black and burning pied.
Are there no water-lilies, smooth as cream,?With long stems dripping crystal? Are there none?Like those white lilies, luminous and cool,?Plucked from some hemlock-darkened northern stream?By fair-haired swimmers, diving where the sun?Scarce warms the surface of the deepest pool?
THE CROOKED STICK
First Traveler: What's that lying in the
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