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@@ -0,0 +1,4126 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dreams and Dust, by Don Marquis + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Dreams and Dust + +Author: Don Marquis + +Posting Date: September 13, 2008 [EBook #458] +Release Date: March, 1996 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DREAMS AND DUST *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Boss + + + + + + + + + + DREAMS & DUST + + POEMS BY DON MARQUIS + + + + + TO + MY MOTHER + VIRGINIA WHITMORE MARQUIS + + + + + + + + + + CONTENTS + + + PROEM + + + DAYLIGHT HUMORS + + THIS IS ANOTHER DAY + APRIL SONG + THE EARTH, IT IS ALSO A STAR + THE NAME + THE BIRTH + A MOOD OF PAVLOWA + THE POOL + "THEY HAD NO POET" + NEW YORK + A HYMN + THE SINGER + WORDS ARE NOT GUNS + WITH THE SUBMARINES + NICHOLAS OF MONTENEGRO + DICKENS + A POLITICIAN + THE BAYONET + THE BUTCHERS AT PRAYER + + + + + SHADOWS + + HAUNTED + A NIGHTMARE + THE MOTHER + IN THE BAYOU + THE SAILOR'S WIFE SPEAKS + HUNTED + A DREAM CHILD + ACROSS THE NIGHT + SEA CHANGES + THE TAVERN OF DESPAIR + + + COLORS AND SURFACES + + A GOLDEN LAD + THE SAGE AND THE WOMAN + NEWS FROM BABYLON + A RHYME OF THE ROADS + THE LAND OF YESTERDAY + OCTOBER + CHANT OF THE CHANGING HOURS + + + DREAMS AND DUST + + SELVES + THE WAGES + IN MARS, WHAT AVATAR? + THE GOD-MAKER, MAN + UNREST + THE PILTDOWN SKULL + THE SEEKER + THE AWAKENING + A SONG OF MEN + THE NOBLER LESSON + AT LAST + + + LYRICS + + "KING PANDION, HE IS DEAD" + DAVID TO BATHSHEBA + THE JESTERS + "MARY, MARY, QUITE CONTRARY" + THE TRIOLET + FROM THE BRIDGE + "PALADINS, PALADINS, YOUTH NOBLE-HEARTED" + "MY LANDS, NOT THINE" + TO A DANCING DOLL + LOWER NEW YORK--A STORM + AT SUNSET + A CHRISTMAS GIFT + SILVIA + THE EXPLORERS + EARLY AUTUMN + "TIME STEALS FROM LOVE" + THE RONDEAU + VISITORS + THE PARTING + AN OPEN FIRE + + + REALITIES + + REALITIES + THE STRUGGLE + THE REBEL + THE CHILD AND THE MILL + "SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI" + THE COMRADE + ENVOI + + + + + + PROEM + + "SO LET THEM PASS, THESE SONGS OF MINE" + + So let them pass, these songs of mine, + Into oblivion, nor repine; + Abandoned ruins of large schemes, + Dimmed lights adrift from nobler dreams, + + Weak wings I sped on quests divine, + So let them pass, these songs of mine. + They soar, or sink ephemeral-- + I care not greatly which befall! + + For if no song I e'er had wrought, + Still have I loved and laughed and fought; + So let them pass, these songs of mine; + I sting too hot with life to whine! + + Still shall I struggle, fail, aspire, + Lose God, and find Gods in the mire, + And drink dream-deep life's heady wine-- + So let them pass, these songs of mine. + + + + + + DAYLIGHT HUMORS + + + + + + THIS IS ANOTHER DAY + + I AM mine own priest, and I shrive myself + Of all my wasted yesterdays. Though sin + And sloth and foolishness, and all ill weeds + Of error, evil, and neglect grow rank + And ugly there, I dare forgive myself + That error, sin, and sloth and foolishness. + God knows that yesterday I played the fool; + God knows that yesterday I played the knave; + But shall I therefore cloud this new dawn o'er + With fog of futile sighs and vain regrets? + + This is another day! And flushed Hope walks + Adown the sunward slopes with golden shoon. + This is another day; and its young strength + Is laid upon the quivering hills until, + Like Egypt's Memnon, they grow quick with song. + This is another day, and the bold world + Leaps up and grasps its light, and laughs, as leapt + Prometheus up and wrenched the fire from Zeus. + + This is another day--are its eyes blurred + With maudlin grief for any wasted past? + A thousand thousand failures shall not daunt! + Let dust clasp dust; death, death--I am alive! + And out of all the dust and death of mine + Old selves I dare to lift a singing heart + And living faith; my spirit dares drink deep + Of the red mirth mantling in the cup of morn. + + + APRIL SONG + + FLEET across the grasses + Flash the feet of Spring, + Piping, as he passes + Fleet across the grasses, + "Follow, lads and lasses! + Sing, world, sing!" + Fleet across the grasses + Flash the feet of Spring! + + _Idle winds deliver + Rumors through the town, + Tales of reeds that quiver, + Idle winds deliver, + Where the rapid river + Drags the willows down-- + Idle winds deliver + Rumors through the town._ + + In the country places + By the silver brooks + April airs her graces; + In the country places + Wayward April paces, + Laughter in her looks; + In the country places + By the silver brooks. + + _Hints of alien glamor + Even reach the town; + Urban muses stammer + Hints of alien glamor, + But the city's clamor + Beats the voices down; + Hints of alien glamor + Even reach the town._ + + + THIS EARTH, IT IS ALSO A STAR + + WHERE the singers of Saturn find tongue, + Where the Galaxy's lovers embrace, + Our world and its beauty are sung! + They lean from their casements to trace + If our planet still spins in its place; + Faith fables the thing that we are, + And Fantasy laughs and gives chase: + This earth, it is also a star! + + Round the sun, that is fixed, and hung + For a lamp in the darkness of space + We are whirled, we are swirled, we are flung; + Singing and shining we race + And our light on the uplifted face + Of dreamer or prophet afar + May fall as a symbol of grace: + This earth, it is also a star! + + Looking out where our planet is swung + Doubt loses his writhen grimace, + Dry hearts drink the gleams and are young;-- + Where agony's boughs interlace + His Garden some Jesus may pace, + Lifting, the wan avatar, + His soul to this light as a vase! + This earth, it is also a star! + + Great spirits in sorrowful case + Yearn to us through the vapors that bar: + Canst think of that, soul, and be base?-- + This earth, it is also a star! + + + THE NAME + + IT shifts and shifts from form to form, + It drifts and darkles, gleams and glows; + It is the passion of the storm, + The poignance of the rose; + Through changing shapes, through devious + ways, + By noon or night, through cloud or flame, + My heart has followed all my days + Something I cannot name. + + In sunlight on some woman's hair, + Or starlight in some woman's eyne, + Or in low laughter smothered where + Her red lips wedded mine, + My heart hath known, and thrilled to know, + This unnamed presence that it sought; + And when my heart hath found it so, + _"Love is the name,"_ I thought. + + Sometimes when sudden afterglows + In futile glory storm the skies + Within their transient gold and rose + The secret stirs and dies; + Or when the trampling morn walks o'er + The troubled seas, with feet of flame, + My awed heart whispers, _"Ask no more, + For Beauty is the name!"_ + + Or dreaming in old chapels where + The dim aisles pulse with murmurings + That part are music, part are prayer-- + (Or rush of hidden wings) + Sometimes I lift a startled head + To some saint's carven countenance, + Half fancying that the lips have said, + _All names mean God, perchance!"_ + + + THE BIRTH + + THERE is a legend that the love of God + So quickened under Mary's heart it wrought + Her very maidenhood to holier stuff.... + However that may be, the birth befell + Upon a night when all the Syrian stars + Swayed tremulous before one lordlier orb + That rose in gradual splendor, + Paused, + Flooding the firmament with mystic light, + And dropped upon the breathing hills + A sudden music + Like a distillation from its gleams; + A rain of spirit and a dew of song! + + + A MOOD OF PAVLOWA + + THE soul of the Spring through its body of earth + Bursts in a bloom of fire, + And the crocuses come in a rainbow riot of mirth.... + They flutter, they burn, they take wing, they + aspire.... + Wings, motion and music and flame, + Flower, woman and laughter, and all these the + same! + She is light and first love and the youth of the + world, + She is sandaled with joy ... she is lifted and + whirled, + She is flung, she is swirled, she is driven along + By the carnival winds that have torn her away + From the coronal bloom on the brow of the + May.... + She is youth, she is foam, she is flame, she is + visible Song! + + + THE POOL + + REACH over, my Undine, and clutch me a reed-- + Nymph of mine idleness, notch me a pipe-- + For I am fulfilled of the silence, and long + For to utter the sense of the silence in song. + + Down-stream all the rapids are troubled with pebbles + That fetter and fret what the water would utter, + And it rushes and splashes in tremulous trebles; + It makes haste through the shallows, its soul is + aflutter; + + But here all the sound is serene and outspread + In the murmurous moods of a slow-swirling pool; + Here all the sounds are unhurried and cool; + Every silence is kith to a sound; they are wed, + They are mated, are mingled, are tangled, are + bound; + Every hush is in love with a sound, every sound + By the law of its life to some silence is bound. + + Then here will we hide; idle here and abide, + In the covert here, close by the waterside-- + Here, where the slim flattered reeds are aquiver + With the exquisite hints of the reticent river, + Here, where the lips of this pool are the lips + Of all pools, let us listen and question and wait; + Let us hark to the whispers of love and of death, + Let us hark to the lispings of life and of fate-- + In this place where pale silences flower into sound + Let us strive for some secret of all the profound + Deep and calm Silence that meshes men 'round! + There's as much of God hinted in one ripple's + plashes-- + There's as much of Truth glints in yon + dragon-fly's flight-- + There's as much Purpose gleams where yonder + trout flashes + As in--any book else!--could we read things + aright. + + Then nymph of mine indolence, here let us hide, + Learn, listen, and question; idle here and abide + Where the rushes and lilies lean low to the tide. + + + "THEY HAD NO POET ..." + + "Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride! + They had no poet and they died."--POPE. + + By Tigris, or the streams of Ind, + Ere Colchis rose, or Babylon, + Forgotten empires dreamed and sinned, + Setting tall towns against the dawn, + + Which, when the proud Sun smote upon, + Flashed fire for fire and pride for pride; + Their names were ... Ask oblivion! ... + _"They had no poet, and they died."_ + + Queens, dusk of hair and tawny-skinned, + That loll where fellow leopards fawn ... + Their hearts are dust before the wind, + Their loves, that shook the world, are wan! + + Passion is mighty ... but, anon, + Strong Death has Romance for his bride; + Their legends ... Ask oblivion! ... + _"They had no poet, and they died."_ + + Heroes, the braggart trumps that dinned + Their futile triumphs, monarch, pawn, + Wild tribesmen, kingdoms disciplined, + Passed like a whirlwind and were gone; + + They built with bronze and gold and brawn, + The inner Vision still denied; + Their conquests ... Ask oblivion! ... + _"They had no poet, and they died."_ + + Dumb oracles, and priests withdrawn, + Was it but flesh they deified? + Their gods were ... Ask oblivion! ... + _"They had no poet, and they died."_ + + + NEW YORK + + SHE is hot to the sea that crouches beside, + Human and hot to the cool stars peering down, + My passionate city, my quivering town, + And her dark blood, tide upon purple tide, + With throbs as of thunder beats, + With leaping rhythms and vast, is swirled + Through the shaken lengths of her veined streets... + She pulses, the heart of a world! + + I have thrilled with her ecstasy, agony, woe-- + Hath she a mood that I do not know? + The winds of her music tumultuous have seized + me and swayed me, + Have lifted, have swung me around + In their whorls as of cyclonic sound; + Her passions have torn me and tossed me and + brayed me; + Drunken and tranced and dazzled with visions + and gleams, + + I have spun with her dervish priests; + I have searched to the souls of her hunted beasts + And found love sleeping there; + I have soared on the wings of her flashing dreams; + I have sunk with her dull despair; + I have sweat with her travails and cursed with + her pains; + I have swelled with her foolish pride; + I have raged through a thick red mist at one + with her branded Cains, + With her broken Christs have died. + + O beautiful half-god city of visions and love! + O hideous half-brute city of hate! + O wholly human and baffled and passionate town! + The throes of thy burgeoning, stress of thy fight, + Thy bitter, blind struggle to gain for thy body a + soul, + I have known, I have felt, and been shaken + thereby! + Wakened and shaken and broken, + For I hear in thy thunders terrific that throb + through thy rapid veins + The beat of the heart of a world. + + + A HYMN + + (1914) + + CLOTHED on with thunder and with steel + And black against the dawn + The whirling armies clash and reel.... + A wind, and they are gone + Like mists withdrawn, + Like mists withdrawn! + + Like clouds withdrawn, like driven sands, + Earth's body vanisheth: + One solid thing unconquered stands, + The ghost that humbles death. + All else is breath, + All else is breath! + + Man rose from out the stinging slime, + Half brute, and sought a soul, + And up the starrier ways of time, + Half god, unto his goal, + + He still must climb, + He still must climb! + + What though worlds stagger, and the suns + Seem shaken in their place, + Trust thou the leaping love that runs + Creative over space: + Take heart of grace, + Take heart of grace! + + What though great kingdoms fall on death + Before the stabbing blade, + Their brazen might was only breath, + Their substance but a shade-- + Be not dismayed, + Be not dismayed! + + Man's dream which conquered brute and clod + Shall fail not, but endure, + Shall rise, though beaten to the sod, + Shall hold its vantage sure-- + As sure as God, + As sure as God! + + + THE SINGER + + A LITTLE while, with love and youth, + He wandered, singing:-- + He felt life's pulses hot and strong + Beat all his rapid veins along; + He wrought life's rhythms into song: + He laughed, he sang the Dawn! + So close, so close to life he dwelt + That at rare times and rapt he felt + The fleshly barriers yield and melt; + He trembled, looking on + Creation at her miracles; + His soul-sight pierced the earthly shells + And saw the spirit weave its spells, + The veil of clay withdrawn;-- + A little while, with love and youth, + He wandered, singing! + + A little while, with age and death, + He wanders, dreaming;-- + + No more the thunder and the urge + Of earth's full tides that storm the verge + Of heaven with their sweep and surge + Shall lift, shall bear him on; + Where is the golden hope that led + Him comrade with the mighty dead? + The love that aureoled his head?-- + The glory is withdrawn! + How shall one soar with broken wings? + The leagued might of futile things + Wars with the heart that dares and sings;-- + It is not always Dawn! + A little while, with age and death, + He wanders, dreaming. + + + WORDS ARE NOT GUNS + + _Put by the sword_ (a dreamer saith), + _The years of peace draw nigh! + Already the millennial dawn + Makes red the eastern sky!_ + + Be not deceived. It comes not yet! + The ancient passions keep + Alive beneath their changing masks. + They are not dead. They sleep. + + Surely peace comes. As sure as Man + Rose from primeval slime. + That was not yesterday. There's still + A weary height to climb! + + And we can dwell too long with dreams + And play too much with words, + Forgetting our inheritance + Was bought and held with swords. + + _But Truth_ (you say) _makes tyrants quail-- + Beats down embattled Wrong?_ + If truth be armed! Be not deceived. + The strife is to the strong. + + Words are not guns. Words are not ships. + And ships and guns prevail. + Our liberties, that blood has gained, + Are guarded, or they fail. + + Truth does not triumph without blows, + Error not tamely yields. + But falsehood closes with quick faith, + Fierce, on a thousand fields. + + And surely, somewhat of that faith + Our fathers fought for clings! + Which called this freedom's hemisphere, + Despite Earth's leagued kings. + + Great creeds grow thews, or else they die. + Thought clothed in deed is lord. + What are thy gods? Thy gods brought love? + They also brought a sword. + + Unchallenged, shall we always stand, + Secure, apart, aloof? + Be not deceived. That hour shall come + Which puts us to the proof. + + Then, that we hold the trust we have + Safeguarded for our sons, + Let us cease dreaming! Let us have + More ships, more troops, more guns! + + + WITH THE SUBMARINES + + ABOVE, the baffled twilight fails; beneath, the + blind snakes creep; + Beside us glides the charnel shark, our pilot + through the deep; + And, lurking where low headlands shield from + cruising scout and spy, + We bide the signal through the gloom that bids + us slay or die. + + All watchful, mute, the crouching guns that guard + the strait sea lanes-- + Watchful and hawklike, plumed with hate, the + desperate aeroplanes-- + And still as death and swift as fate, above the + darkling coasts, + The spying Wireless sows the night with troops + of stealthy ghosts, + + While hushed through all her huddled streets the + tide-walled city waits + The drumming thunders that announce brute + battle at her gates. + + Southward a hundred windy leagues, through + storms that blind and bar, + Our cheated cruisers search the waves, our captains + seek the war; + But here the port of peril is; the foeman's + dreadnoughts ride + Sullen and black against the moon, upon a sullen + tide. + And only we to launch ourselves against their + stark advance-- + To guide uncertain lightnings through these + treacherous seas of chance! + + . . . . . . + + And now a wheeling searchlight paints a signal on + the night; + And now the bellowing guns are loud with the + wild lust of fight. + + . . . . . . + + And now, her flanks of steel apulse with all the + power of hell, + Forth from the darkness leaps in pride a hateful + miracle, + The flagship of their Admiral--and now God help + and save!-- + We challenge Death at Death's own game; we + sink beneath the wave! + + . . . . . . + + Ah, steady now--and one good blow--one straight + stab through the gloom-- + Ah, good!--the thrust went home!--she founders-- + flounders to her doom!-- + Full speed ahead!--those damned quick-firing guns + --but let them bark-- + What's that--the dynamos?--they've got us, men! + --_Christ! in the dark!_ + + + NICHOLAS OF MONTENEGRO + + (1912) + + HE speaks as straight as his rifles shot, + As straight as a thrusting blade, + Waiting the deed that shall trouble the truce + His savage guns have made. + + "You have dared the wrath of a dozen states," + Was the challenge that he heard; + "We can die but once!" said the grim old King + As he gripped his mountain sword. + + "For I paid in blood for the town I took, + The blood of my brave men slain,-- + And if you covet the town I took + You must buy it with blood again!" + + Stern old King of the stark, black hills, + Where the lean, fierce eagles breed, + Your speech rings true as your good sword rings-- + And you are a king indeed! + + + DICKENS + + "The only book that the party had was a volume of Dickens. + During the six months that they lay in the cave which they + had hacked in the ice, waiting for spring to come, they read + this volume through again and again."--_From a newspaper + report of an antarctic expedition._ + + HUDDLED within their savage lair + They hearkened to the prowling wind; + They heard the loud wings of despair ... + And madness beat against the mind.... + A sunless world stretched stark outside + As if it had cursed God and died; + Dumb plains lay prone beneath the weight + Of cold unutterably great; + Iron ice bound all the bitter seas, + The brutal hills were bleak as hate.... + Here none but Death might walk at ease! + + Then Dickens spoke, and, lo! the vast + Unpeopled void stirred into life; + + The dead world quickened, the mad blast + Hushed for an hour its idiot strife + With nothingness.... + + And from the gloom, + Parting the flaps of frozen skin, + Old friends and dear came trooping in, + And light and laughter filled the room.... + Voices and faces, shapes beloved, + Babbling lips and kindly eyes, + Not ghosts, but friends that lived and moved ... + They brought the sun from other skies, + They wrought the magic that dispels + The bitterer part of loneliness ... + And when they vanished each man dreamed + His dream there in the wilderness.... + One heard the chime of Christmas bells, + And, staring down a country lane, + Saw bright against the window-pane + The firelight beckon warm and red.... + And one turned from the waterside + Where Thames rolls down his slothful tide + To breast the human sea that beats + Through roaring London's battered streets + + And revel in the moods of men.... + And one saw all the April hills + Made glad with golden daffodils, + And found and kissed his love again.... + + . . . . . . + + By all the troubled hearts he cheers + In homely ways or by lost trails, + By all light shed through all dark years + When hope grows sick and courage quails, + We hail him first among his peers; + Whether we sorrow, sing, or feast, + He, too, hath known and understood-- + Master of many moods, high priest + Of mirth and lord of cleansing tears! + + + A POLITICIAN + + LEADER no more, be judged of us! + Hailed Chief, and loved, of yore-- + Youth, and the faith of youth, cry out: + _Leader and Chief no more!_ + + We dreamed a Prophet, flushed with faith, + Content to toil in pain + If that his sacrifice might be, + Somehow, his people's gain. + + We saw a vision, and our blood + Beat red and hot and strong: + _"Lead us_ (we cried) _to war against + Some foul, embattled wrong!"_ + + We dreamed a Warrior whose sword + Was edged for sham and shame; + We dreamed a Statesman far above + The vulgar lust for fame. + + We were not cynics, and we dreamed + A Man who made no truce + With lies nor ancient privilege + Nor old, entrenched abuse. + + We dreamed ... we dreamed ... Youth dreamed + a dream! + And even you forgot + Yourself, one moment, and dreamed, too-- + Struck, while your mood was hot! + + Struck three or four good blows ... and then + Turned back to easier things: + The cheap applause, the blatant mob, + The praise of underlings! + + Praise ... praise ... was ever man so filled, + So avid still, of praise? + So hungry for the crowd's acclaim, + The sycophantic phrase? + + O you whom Greatness beckoned to ... + O swollen Littleness + Who turned from Immortality + To fawn upon Success! + + O blind with love of self, who led + Youth's vision to defeat, + Bawling and brawling for rewards, + Loud, in the common street! + + O you who were so quick to judge-- + Leader, and loved, of yore-- + Hear now the judgment of our youth: + _Leader and Chief no more!_ + + + THE BAYONET + + (1914) + + THE great guns slay from a league away, the death-bolts + fly unseen, + And bellowing hill replies to hill, machine to brute + machine, + But still in the end when the long lines bend and + the battle hangs in doubt + They take to the steel in the same old way that + their fathers fought it out-- + It is man to man and breast to breast and eye + to bloodshot eye + And the reach and twist of the thrusting wrist, as + it was in the days gone by! + + Along the shaken hills the guns their drumming + thunder roll-- + But the keen blades thrill with the lust to kill + that leaps from the slayer's soul! + + For hand and heart and living steel, one pulse of + hate they feel. + Is your clan afraid of the naked blade? Does it + flinch from the bitter steel? + Perish your dreams of conquest then, your swollen + hopes and bold, + For empire dwells with the stabbing blade, as it + did in the days of old! + + + THE BUTCHERS AT PRAYER + + (1914) + + EACH nation as it draws the sword + And flings its standard to the air + Petitions piously the Lord-- + Vexing the void abyss with prayer. + + O irony too deep for mirth! + O posturing apes that rant, and dare + This antic attitude! O Earth, + With your wild jest of wicked prayer! + + I dare not laugh ... a rising swell + Of laughter breaks in shrieks somewhere-- + No doubt they relish it in Hell, + This cosmic jest of Earth at prayer! + + + + + SHADOWS + + + + + + HAUNTED + + (THE GHOST SPEAKS) + + A GHOST is the freak of a sick man's brain? + Then why do ye start and shiver so? + That's the sob and drip of a leaky drain? + But it sounds like another noise we know! + The heavy drops drummed red and slow, + The drops ran down as slow as fate-- + Do ye hear them still?--it was long ago!-- + But here in the shadows I wait, I wait! + + Spirits there be that pass in peace; + Mine passed in a whorl of wrath and dole; + And the hour that your choking breath shall cease + I will get my grip on your naked soul-- + Nor pity may stay nor prayer cajole-- + I would drag ye whining from Hell's own gate: + To me, to me, ye must pay the toll! + And here in the shadows I wait, I wait! + + The dead they are dead, they are out of the way? + And a ghost is the whim of an ailing mind? + Then why did ye whiten with fear to-day + When ye heard a voice in the calling wind? + Why did ye falter and look behind + At the creeping mists when the hour grew late? + Ye would see my face were ye stricken blind! + And here in the shadows I wait, I wait! + + Drink and forget, make merry and boast, + But the boast rings false and the jest is thin-- + In the hour that I meet ye ghost to ghost, + Stripped of the flesh that ye skulk within, + Stripped to the coward soul 'ware of its sin, + Ye shall learn, ye shall learn, whether dead men + hate! + Ah, a weary time has the waiting been, + But here in the shadows I wait, I wait! + + + A NIGHTMARE + + LEAGUES before me, leagues behind, + Clamor warring wastes of flood, + All the streams of all the worlds + Flung together, mad of mood; + Through the canon beats a sound, + Regular of interval, + Distant, drumming, muffled, dull, + Thunderously rhythmical; + + Crafts slip by my startled soul-- + Soul that cowers, a thing apart-- + They are corpuscles of blood! + That's the throbbing of a heart! + God of terrors!--am I mad?-- + Through my body, mine own soul, + Shrunken to an atom's size, + Voyages toward an unguessed goal! + + + THE MOTHER + + THE mother by the gallows-tree, + The gallows-tree, the gallows-tree, + (While the twitching body mocked the sun) + Lifted to Heaven her broken heart + And called for sympathy. + + Then Mother Mary bent to her, + Bent from her place by God's left side, + And whispered: "Peace--do I not know?-- + My son was crucified!" + + "O Mother Mary," answered she, + "You cannot, cannot enter in + To my soul's woe--you cannot know-- + For your son wrought no sin!" + + (And men whose work compelled them there, + Their hearts were stricken dead; + + They heard the rope creak on the beam; + I thought I heard the frightened ghost + Whimpering overhead.) + + The mother by the gallows-tree, + The gallows-tree, the gallows-tree, + Lifted to Christ her broken heart + And called in agony. + + Then Lord Christ bent to her and said: + "Be comforted, be comforted; + I know your grief; the whole world's woe + I bore upon my head." + + "But O Lord Christ, you cannot know, + No one can know," she said, "no one"-- + (While the quivering corpse swayed in the wind)-- + "Lord Christ, no one can understand + Who never had a son!" + + + IN THE BAYOU + + LAZY and slow, through the snags and trees + Move the sluggish currents, half asleep; + Around and between the cypress knees, + Like black, slow snakes the dark tides creep-- + How deep is the bayou beneath the trees? + "Knee-deep, + Knee-deep, + Knee-deep, + Knee-deep!" + Croaks the big bullfrog of Reelfoot Lake + From his hiding-place in the draggled brake. + + What is the secret the slim reeds know + That makes them to shake and to shiver so, + And the scared flags quiver from plume to foot?-- + The frogs pipe solemnly, deep and slow: + "Look under + the root! + Look under + the root!" + + The hoarse frog croaks and the stark owl hoots + Of a mystery moored in the cypress roots. + + Was it love turned hate? Was it friend turned foe? + Only the frogs and the gray owl know, + For the white moon shrouded her face in a mist + At the spurt of a pistol, red and bright-- + At the sound of a shriek that stabbed the night-- + And the little reeds were frightened and whist; + But always the eddies whimper and choke, + And the frogs would tell if they could, for they + croak: + "Deep, deep! + Death-deep! + Deep, deep! + Death-deep!" + And the dark tide slides and glisters and glides + Snakelike over the secret it hides. + + + THE SAILOR'S WIFE SPEAKS + + YE are dead, they say, but ye swore, ye swore, + Ye would come to me back from the sea! + From out of the sea and the night, ye cried, + Nor the crawling weed nor the dragging tide + Could hold ye fast from me:-- + Come, ah, come to me! + + Three spells I have laid on the rising sun + And three on the waning moon-- + Are ye held in the bonds of the night or the day + Ye must loosen your bonds and away, away! + Ye must come where I wait ye, soon-- + Ah, soon! soon! soon! + + Three times I have cast my words to the wind, + And thrice to the climbing sea; + If ye drift or dream with the clouds or foam + Ye must drift again home, ye must drift again + home-- + + Wraith, ye are free, ye are free; + Ghost, ye are free, ye are free! + + Are the coasts of death so fair, so fair? + But I wait ye here on the shore! + It is I that ye hear in the calling wind-- + I have stared through the dark till my soul is blind! + O lover of mine, ye swore, + Lover of mine, ye swore! + + + HUNTED + + _Oh, why do they hunt so hard, so hard, who have + no need of food? + Do they hunt for sport, do they hunt for hate, do + they hunt for the lust of blood?_ + + . . . . . . + + If I were a god I would get me a spear, I would + get me horse and dog, + And merrily, merrily I would ride through covert + and brake and bog, + + With hound and horn and laughter loud, over the + hills and away-- + For there is no sport like that of a god with a + man that stands at bay! + + Ho! but the morning is fresh and fair, and oh! + but the sun is bright, + And yonder the quarry breaks from the brush and + heads for the hills in flight; + + A minute's law for the harried thing--then follow + him, follow him fast, + With the bellow of dogs and the beat of hoofs + and the mellow bugle's blast. + + . . . . . . + + _Hillo! Halloo! they have marked a man! there is + sport in the world to-day-- + And a clamor swells from the heart of the wood that + tells of a soul at bay! + + + A DREAM CHILD + + WHERE tides of tossed wistaria bloom + Foam up in purple turbulence, + Where twining boughs have built a room + And wing'd winds pause to garner scents + And scattered sunlight flecks the gloom, + She broods in pensive indolence. + + What is the thought that holds her thrall, + That dims her sight with unshed tears? + What songs of sorrow droop and fall + In broken music for her ears? + What voices thrill her and recall + The poignant joy of happier years? + + She dreams 'tis not the winds which pass + That whisper through the shaken vine; + Whose footstep stirs the rustling grass + None else that listened might divine; + She sees her child that never was + Look up with longing in his eyne. + + Unkissed, his lifted forehead gains + A grace not earthly, but more rare-- + For since her heart but only feigns, + Wherefore should love not feign him fair? + Put blood of roses in his veins, + Weave yellow sunshines for his hair? + + All ghosts of little children dead + That wander wistful, uncaressed, + Their seeking lips by love unfed, + She fain would cradle on her breast + For his sweet sake whose lonely head + Has never known that tender rest. + + And thus she sits, and thus she broods, + Where drifted blossoms freak the grass; + The winds that move across her moods + Pulse with low whispers as they pass, + And in their eerier interludes + She hears a voice that never was. + + + ACROSS THE NIGHT + + MUCH listening through the silences, + Much staring through the night, + And lo! the dumb blind distances + Are bridged with speech and sight! + + Magician Thought, informed of Love, + Hath fixed her on the air-- + Oh, Love and I laughed down the fates + And clasped her, here as there! + + Across the eerie silences + She came in headlong flight, + She stormed the serried distances, + She trampled space and night! + + Oh, foolish scientists might give + This miracle a name-- + But Love and I care but to know + That when we called she came. + + And since I find the distances + Subservient to my thought, + And of the sentient silences + More vital speech have wrought, + + Then she and I will mock Death's self, + For all his vaunted might-- + There are no gulfs we dare not leap, + As she leapt through the night! + + + + SEA CHANGES + + + I + + MORNING + + WE stood among the boats and nets; + We saw the swift clouds fall, + We watched the schooners scamper in + Before the sudden squall;-- + The jolly squall strove lustily + To whelm the sheltered street-- + The merry squall that piled the seas + About the patient headland's knees + And chased the fishing fleet. + + She laughed; as if with wings her mirth + Arose and left the wingless earth + And all tame things behind; + Rose like a bird, wild with delight + Whose briny pinions flash in flight + Through storm and sun and wind. + + Her laughter sought those skies because + Their mood and hers were one, + For she and I were drunk with love + And life and storm and sun! + + And while she laughed, the Sun himself + Leapt laughing through the rain + And struck his harper hand along + The ringing coast; and that wind-song + Whose joy is mixed with pain + Forgot the undertone of grief + And joined the jocund strain, + And over every hidden reef + Whereon the waves broke merrily + Rose jets and sprays of melody + And leapt and laughed again. + + + II + + MOONLIGHT + + We stood among the boats and nets ... + We marked the risen moon + Walk swaying o'er the trembling seas + As one sways in a swoon; + + The little stars, the lonely stars, + Stole through the hollow sky, + And every sucking eddy where + The waves lapped wharf or rotten stair + Moaned like some stricken thing hid there + And strangled with its own despair + As the shuddering tide crept by. + + I loved her, and I hated her-- + Or did I hate myself because, + Bound by obscure, strong, silken laws, + I felt myself the worshiper + Of beauty never wholly mine? + With lures most apt to snare, entwine, + With bonds too subtle to define, + Her lighter nature mastered mine; + Herself half given, half withheld, + Her lesser spirit still compelled + Its tribute from my franker soul: + So--rebel, slave, and worshiper!-- + I loved her and I hated her. + + I gazed upon her, I, her thrall, + And musing, murmured, _What if death_ + + _Were just the answer to it all?-- + Suppose some dainty dagger quaffed + Her life in one deep eager draught?-- + Suppose some amorous knife caressed + The lovely hollow of her breast?"_-- + She turned a mocking look to mine: + She read the thought within my eyne, + She held me with her look--and laughed! + + Now who may tell what stirs, controls, + And shapes mad fancies into facts? + What trivial things may quicken souls + To irrevocable, swift acts? + Now who has known, who understood, + Wherefore some idle thing + May stab with deadlier sting + Than well-considered insult could?-- + May spur the languor of a mood + And rouse a tiger in the blood?-- + + Ah, Christ!--had she not laughed just when + That fancy came! ... for then ... and then ... + A sudden mist dropped from the sky, + + A mist swept in across the sea ... + A mist that hid her face from me ... + A weeping mist all tinged with red, + A dripping mist that smelt like blood ... + It choked my throat, it burnt my brain ... + And through it peered one sallow star, + And through it rang one shriek of pain ... + And when it passed my hands were red, + My soul was dabbled with her blood; + And when it passed my love was dead + And tossed upon the troubled flood. + + + III + + MOONSET + + But see! ... the body does not sink; + It rides upon the tide + (A starbeam on the dagger's haft), + With staring eyes and wide ... + And now, up from the darkling sea, + Down from the failing moon, + Are come strange shapes to mock at me ... + All pallid from the star-pale sea, + White from the paling moon ... + + Or whirling fast or wheeling slow + Around, around the corpse they go, + All bloodless o'er the sickened sea + Beneath the ailing moon! + + And are they only wisps of fog + That dance along the waves? + Only shapes of mist the wind + Drives along the waves? + Or are they spirits that the sea + Has cheated of their graves? + The ghosts of them that died at sea, + Of murdered men flung in the sea, + Whose bodies had no graves?-- + Lost souls that haunt for evermore + The sobbing reef and hollowed shore + And always-murmuring caves? + + Ah, surely something more than fog, + More than starlit mist! + For starlight never makes a sound + And fogs are ever whist-- + But hearken, hearken, hearken, now, + For these sing as they dance! + + As airily, as eerily, + They wheel about and whirl, + They jeer at me, they fleer at me, + They flout me as they swirl! + As whirling fast or swaying slow, + Reeling, wheeling, to and fro, + Around, around the corpse they go, + They chill me with their chants! + These be neither men nor mists-- + Hearken to their chants: + + _Ever, ever, ever, + Drifting like a blossom + Seaward, with the starlight + Wan upon her bosom-- + Ever when the quickened + Heart of night is throbbing, + Ever when the trembling + Tide sets seaward, sobbing, + Shall you see this burden + Borne upon its ebbing: + See her drifting seaward + Like a broken blossom,_ + + _Ever see the starlight + Kiss her bruised bosom. + + Flight availeth nothing ... + Still the subtle beaches + Draw you back where Horror + Walks their shingled reaches ... + Ever shall your spirit + Hear the surf resounding, + Evermore the ocean + Thwarting you and bounding; + Vainly struggle inland! + Lashing you and hounding, + Still the vision hales you + From the upland reaches, + Goading you and gripping, + Binds you to the beaches! + + Ever, ever, ever, + Ever shall her laughter, + Hunting you and haunting, + Mock and follow after; + Rising where the buoy-bell + Clangs across the shallows,_ + + _Leaping where the spindrift + Hurtles o'er the hollows, + Ringing where the moonlight + Gleams along the billows, + Ever, ever, ever, + Ever shall her laughter, + Hounding you and haunting, + Whip and follow after!_ + + + IV + + SUNSET + + I stood among the boats + The sinking sun, the angry sun, + Across the sullen wave + Laid the sudden strength of his red wrath + Like to a shaken glaive:-- + Or did the sun pause in the west + To lift a sword at me, + Or was it she, or was it she, + Rose for an instant on some crest + And plucked the red blade from her breast + And brandished it at me? + + + THE TAVERN OF DESPAIR + + THE wraiths of murdered hopes and loves + Come whispering at the door, + Come creeping through the weeping mist + That drapes the barren moor; + But we within have turned the key + 'Gainst Hope and Love and Care, + Where Wit keeps tryst with Folly, at + The Tavern of Despair. + + And we have come by divers ways + To keep this merry tryst, + But few of us have kept within + The Narrow Way, I wist; + For we are those whose ampler wits + And hearts have proved our curse-- + Foredoomed to ken the better things + And aye to do the worse! + + Long since we learned to mock ourselves; + And from self-mockery fell + + To heedless laughter in the face + Of Heaven, Earth, and Hell. + We quiver 'neath, and mock, God's rod; + We feel, and mock, His wrath; + We mock our own blood on the thorns + That rim the "Primrose Path." + + We mock the eerie glimmering shapes + That range the outer wold, + We mock our own cold hearts because + They are so dead and cold; + We flout the things we might have been + Had self to self proved true, + We mock the roses flung away, + We mock the garnered rue; + + The fates that gibe have lessoned us; + There sups to-night on earth + No madder crew of wastrels than + This fellowship of mirth.... + (Of mirth ... drink, fools!--nor let it flag + Lest from the outer mist + Creep in that other company + Unbidden to the tryst. + + We're grown so fond of paradox + Perverseness holds us thrall, + So what each jester loves the best + He mocks the most of all; + But as the jest and laugh go round, + Each in his neighbor's eyes + Reads, while he flouts his heart's desire, + The knowledge that he lies. + + Not one of us but had some pearls + And flung them to the swine, + Not one of us but had some gift-- + Some spark of fire divine-- + Each might have been God's minister + In the temple of some art-- + Each feels his gift perverted move + Wormlike through his dry heart. + + If God called Azrael to Him now + And bade Death bend the bow + Against the saddest heart that beats + Here on this earth below, + Not any sobbing breast would gain + The guerdon of that barb-- + + The saddest ones are those that wear + The jester's motley garb. + + Whose shout aye loudest rings, and whose + The maddest cranks and quips-- + Who mints his soul to laughter's coin + And wastes it with his lips-- + Has grown too sad for sighs and seeks + To cheat himself with mirth; + We fools self-doomed to motley are + The weariest wights on earth! + + But yet, for us whose brains and hearts + Strove aye in paths perverse, + Doomed still to know the better things + And still to do the worse,-- + What else is there remains for us + But make a jest of care + And set the rafters ringing, in + Our Tavern of Despair? + + + + + COLORS AND SURFACES + + + + + + A GOLDEN LAD + + (D. V. M.) + + "Golden lads and lasses must + Like chimney-sweepers come to dust." + --SHAKESPEARE. + + So young, but already the splendor + Of genius robed him about-- + Already the dangerous, tender + Regard of the gods marked him out-- + + (On whom the burden and duty + They bind, at his earliest breath, + Of showing their own grave beauty, + They love and they crown with death.) + + We were of one blood, but the olden + Rapt poets spake out in his tone; + We were of one blood, but the golden + Rathe promise was his, his alone. + + And ever his great eye glistened + With visions I could not see, + Ever he thrilled and listened + To voices withholden from me. + + Young lord of the realms of fancy, + The bright dreams flocked to his call + Like sprites that the necromancy + Of a Prospero holds in thrall-- + + Quick visions that served and attended, + Elusive and hovering things, + With a quiver of joy in the splendid + Wild sweep of their luminous wings; + + He dwelt in an alien glamor, + He wrought of its gleams a crown,-- + But the world, with its cruelty and clamor, + Broke him and beat him down; + + So he passed; he was worn, he was weary, + He was slain at the touch of life;-- + With a smile that was wistful and eerie + He passed from the senseless strife;-- + + So he ceased (is their humor satiric, + These gods that make perfect and blight?)-- + He ceased like an exquisite lyric + That dies on the breast of night. + + + THE SAGE AND THE WOMAN + + 'TWIXT ancient Beersheba and Dan + Another such a caravan + Dazed Palestine had never seen + As that which bore Sabea's queen + Up from the fain and flaming South + To slake her yearning spirit's drouth + At wisdom's pools, with Solomon. + + With gifts of scented sandalwood, + And labdanum, and cassia-bud, + With spicy spoils of Araby + And camel-loads of ivory + And heavy cloths that glanced and shone + With inwrought pearl and beryl-stone + She came, a bold Sabean girl. + + And did she find him grave, or gay? + Perchance his palace breathed that day + With psalters sounding solemnly-- + Or cymbals' merrier minstrelsy-- + Perchance the wearied monarch heard + Some loose-tongued prophet's meddling word;-- + None knows, no one--but Solomon! + + She looked--with eyne wherein were blent + All ardors of the Orient; + She spake--all magics of the South + Were compassed in the witch's mouth;-- + He thought the scarlet lips of her + More precious than En Gedi's myrrh, + The lips of that Sabean girl; + + By many an amorous sun caressed, + From lifted brow to amber breast + She gleamed in vivid loveliness-- + And lithe as any leopardess-- + And verily, one blames thee not + If thine own proverbs were forgot, + O Solomon, wise Solomon! + + She danced for him, and surely she + Learnt dancing from some moonlit sea + + Where elfin vapors swirled and swayed + While the wild pipes of witchcraft played + Such clutching music 'twould impel + A prophet's self to dance to hell-- + So spun the light Sabean girl. + + He swore her laughter had the lilt + Of chiming waters that are spilt + In sprays of spurted melody + From founts of carven porphyry, + And in the billowy turbulence + Of her dusk hair drowned soul and sense-- + Dark tides and deep, O Solomon! + + Perchance unto her day belongs + His poem called the Song of Songs, + Each little lyric interval + Timed to her pulse's rise and fall;-- + Or when he cried out wearily + That all things end in vanity + Did he mean that Sabean girl? + + The bright barbaric opulence, + The sun-kist Temple, Kedar's tents,-- + + How many a careless caravan + 'Twixt Beersheba and ruined Dan, + Within these forty centuries, + Has flung their dust to many a breeze, + With dust that was King Solomon! + + But still the lesson holds as true, + O King, as when she lessoned you: + _That very wise men are not wise + Until they read in Folly's eyes + The wisdom that escapes the schools, + That bids the sage revise his rules + By light of some Sabean girl!_ + + + NEWS FROM BABYLON + + "Archaeologists have discovered a love-letter among the ruins + of Babylon." --Newspaper report. + + _The world hath just one tale to tell, and it is very old, + A little tale--a simple tale--a tale that's easy told: + "There was a youth in Babylon who greatly loved a + maid!" + The world hath just one song to sing, but sings it + unafraid, + A little song--a foolish song--the only song it hath: + "There was a youth in Ascalon who loved a girl in + Gath!"_ + + Homer clanged it, Omar twanged it, Greece and + Persia knew!-- + Nimrod's reivers, Hiram's weavers, Hindu, Kurd, + and Jew-- + Crowning Tyre, Troy afire, they have dreamed + the dream; + Tiber-side and Nilus-tide brightened with the + gleam-- + + Oh, the suing, sighing, wooing, sad and merry + hours, + Blisses tasted, kisses wasted, building Babel's + towers! + Hearts were aching, hearts were breaking, lashes + wet with dew, + When the ships touched the lips of islands Sappho + knew; + Yearning breasts and burning breasts, cold at last, + are hid + Amid the glooms of carven tombs in Khufu's + pyramid-- + Though the sages, down the ages, smile their cynic + doubt, + Man and maid, unafraid, put the schools to rout; + Seek to chain love and retain love in the bonds of + breath, + Vow to hold love, bind and fold love even unto + death! + + _The dust of forty centuries has buried Babylon, + And out of all her lovers dead rises only one; + Rises with a song to sing and laughter in his eyes, + The old song--the only song--for all the rest are lies!_ + + _For, oh, the world has just one dream, and it is very + old-- + 'Tis youth's dream--a silly dream--but it is flushed + with gold!_ + + + A RHYME OF THE ROADS + + PEARL-SLASHED and purple and crimson and + fringed with gray mist of the hills, + The pennons of morning advance to the music of + rock-fretted rills, + The dumb forest quickens to song, and the little + gusts shout as they fling + A floor-cloth of orchard bloom down for the flashing, +quick feet of the Spring. + + To the road, gipsy-heart, thou and I! 'Tis the + mad piper, Spring, who is leading; + 'Tis the pulse of his piping that throbs through + the brain, irresistibly pleading; + Full-blossomed, deep-bosomed, fain woman, + light-footed, lute-throated and fleet, + We have drunk of the wine of this Wanderer's song; + let us follow his feet! + + Like raveled red girdles flung down by some + hoidenish goddess in mirth + The tangled roads reach from rim unto utter-most + rim of the earth-- + We will weave of these strands a strong net, we + will snare the bright wings of delight,-- + We will make of these strings a sweet lute that + will shame the low wind-harps of night. + + The clamor of tongues and the clangor of trades + in the peevish packed street, + The arrogant, jangling Nothings, with iterant, + dissonant beat, + The clattering, senseless endeavor with dross of + mere gold for its goal, + These have sickened the senses and wearied the + brain and straitened the soul. + + "Come forth and be cleansed of the folly of strife + for things worthless of strife, + Come forth and gain life and grasp God by foregoing + gains worthless of life"-- + + It was thus spake the wizard wildwood, low-voiced + to the hearkening heart, + It was thus sang the jovial hills, and the harper + sun bore part. + + O woman, whose blood as my blood with the fire + of the Spring is aflame, + We did well, when the red roads called, that we + heeded the call and came-- + Came forth to the sweet wise silence where soul + may speak sooth unto soul, + Vine-wreathed and vagabond Love, with the goal + of Nowhere for our goal! + + What planet-crowned Dusk that wanders the + steeps of our firmament there + Hath gems that may match with the dew-opals + meshed in thine opulent hair? + What wind-witch that skims the curled billows + with feet they are fain to caress + Hath sandals so wing'd as thine art with a + god-like carelessness? + + And dare we not dream this is heaven?--to wander + thus on, ever on. + Through the hush-heavy valleys of space, up the + flushing red slopes of the dawn?-- + For none that seeks rest shall find rest till he + ceaseth his striving for rest, + And the gain of the quest is the joy of the road + that allures to the quest. + + + THE LAND OF YESTERDAY + + AND I would seek the country town + Amid green meadows nestled down + If I could only find the way + Back to the Land of Yesterday! + + How I would thrust the miles aside, + Rush up the quiet lane, and then, + Just where her roses laughed in pride, + Find her among the flowers again. + I'd slip in silently and wait + Until she saw me by the gate, + And then ... read through a blur of tears + Quick pardon for the selfish years. + + This time, this time, I would not wait + For that brief wire that said, _Too late!_-- + If I could only find the way + Into the Land of Yesterday. + + I wonder if her roses yet + Lift up their heads and laugh with pride, + And if her phlox and mignonette + Have heart to blossom by their side; + I wonder if the dear old lane + Still chirps with robins after rain, + And if the birds and banded bees + Still rob her early cherry-trees.... + + I wonder, if I went there now, + How everything would seem, and how-- + But no! not now; there is no way + Back to the Land of Yesterday. + + + OCTOBER + + CEASE to call him sad and sober, + Merriest of months, October! + Patron of the bursting bins, + Reveler in wayside inns, + I can nowhere find a trace + Of the pensive in his face; + There is mingled wit and folly, + But the madcap lacks the grace + Of a thoughtful melancholy. + Spendthrift of the seasons' gold, + How he flings and scatters out + Treasure filched from summer-time!-- + Never ruffling squire of old + Better loved a tavern bout + When Prince Hal was in his prime. + Doublet slashed with gold and green; + Cloak of crimson; changeful sheen, + Of the dews that gem his breast; + Frosty lace about his throat; + + Scarlet plumes that flaunt and float + Backward in a gay unrest-- + Where's another gallant drest + With such tricksy gaiety, + Such unlessoned vanity? + With his amber afternoons + And his pendant poets' moons-- + With his twilights dashed with rose + From the red-lipped afterglows-- + With his vocal airs at dawn + Breathing hints of Helicon-- + Bacchanalian bees that sip + Where his cider-presses drip-- + With the winding of the horn + Where his huntsmen meet the morn-- + With his every piping breeze + Shaking from familiar trees + Apples of Hesperides-- + With the chuckle, chirp, and trill + Of his jolly brooks that spill + Mirth in tangled madrigals + Down pebble-dappled waterfalls-- + (Brooks that laugh and make escape + Through wild arbors where the grape + + Purples with a promise of + Racy vintage rare as love)-- + With his merry, wanton air, + Mirth and vanity and folly + Why should he be made to bear + Burden of some melancholy + Song that swoons and sinks with care? + Cease to call him sad or sober,-- + He's a jolly dog, October! + + + CHANT OF THE CHANGING HOURS + + THE Hours passed by, a fleet, confused crowd; + With wafture of blown garments bright as fire, + Light, light of foot and laughing, morning-browed, + And where they trod the jonquil and the briar + Thrilled into jocund life, the dreaming dells + Waked to a morrice chime of jostled bells;-- + They danced! they danced! to piping such as + flings + The garnered music of a million Springs + Into one single, keener ecstasy;-- + One paused and shouted to my questionings: + "Lo, I am Youth; I bid thee follow me!" + + The Hours passed by; they paced, great lords and + proud, + Crowned on with sunlight, robed in rich attire; + Before their conquering word the brute deed + bowed, + And Ariel fancies served their large desire; + + They spake, and roused the mused soul that dwells + In dust, or, smiling, shaped new heavens and + hells, + Dethroned old gods and made blind beggars kings: + "And what art thou," I cried to one, "that brings + His mistress, for a brooch, the Galaxy?"-- + "I am the plumed Thought that soars and sings: + Lo, I am Song; I bid thee follow me!" + + The Hours passed by, with veiled eyes endowed + Of dream, and parted lips that scarce suspire, + To breathing dusk and arrowy moonlight vowed, + South wind and shadowy grove and murmuring + lyre;-- + Swaying they moved, as drows'd of wizard spells + Or tranc'd with sight of recent miracles, + And yet they trembled, down their folded wings + Quivered the hint of sweet withholden things, + Ah, bitter-sweet in their intensity! + One paused and said unto my wonderings: + "Lo, I am Love; I bid thee follow me!" + + The Hours passed by, through huddled cities loud + With witless hate and stale with stinking mire: + + So cowled monks might march with bier and shroud + Down streets plague-spotted toward some cleansing pyre;-- + Yet, lo! strange lilies bloomed in lightless cells, + And passionate spirits burst their clayey shells + And sang the stricken hope that bleeds and clings: + Earth's bruised heart beat in the throbbing strings, + And joy still struggled through the threnody! + One stern Hour said unto my marvelings: + "Lo, I am Life; I bid thee follow me!" + + The Hours passed by, the stumbling hours and + cowed, + Uncertain, prone to tears and childish ire,-- + The wavering hours that drift like any cloud + At whim of winds or fortunate or dire,-- + The feeble shapes that any chance expells; + Their wisdom useless, lacking the blood that swells + The tensed vein: the hot, swift tide that stings + With life. Ah, wise! but naked to the slings + Of fate, and plagued of youthful memory! + A cracked voice broke upon my pityings: + "Lo, I am Age; I bid thee follow me!" + + Ah, Youth! we dallied by the babbling wells + Where April all her lyric secret tells;-- + Ah, Song! we sped our bold imaginings + As far as yon red planet's triple rings;-- + O Life! O Love! I followed, followed thee! + There waits one word to end my journeyings: + "Lo, I am Death; I bid thee follow me!" + + + + + DREAMS AND DUST + + + + + SELVES + + _My dust in ruined Babylon + Is blown along the level plain, + And songs of mine at dawn have soared + Above the blue Sicilian main._ + + We are ourselves, and not ourselves ... + For ever thwarting pride and will + Some forebear's passion leaps from death + To claim a vital license still. + + Ancestral lusts that slew and died, + Resurgent, swell each living vein; + Old doubts and faiths, new panoplied, + Dispute the mastery of the brain. + + The love of liberty that flames + From written rune and stricken reed + Shook the hot hearts of swordsmen sires + At Marathon and Runnymede. + + _What are these things we call our "selves"? ... + Have I not shouted, sobbed, and died + In the bright surf of spears that broke + Where Greece rolled back the Persian tide?_ + + Are we who breathe more quick than they + Whose bones are dust within the tomb? + Nay, as I write, what gray old ghosts + Murmur and mock me from the gloom.... + + They call ... across strange seas they call, + Strange seas, and haunted coasts of time.... + They startle me with wordless songs + To which the Sphinx hath known the rhyme. + + Our hearts swell big with dead men's hates, + Our eyes sting hot with dead men's tears; + We are ourselves, but not ourselves, + Born heirs, but serfs, to all the years! + + _I rode with Nimrod ... strove at Troy ... + A slave I stood in Crowning Tyre, + A queen looked on me and I loved + And died to compass my desire._ + + + THE WAGES + + EARTH loves to gibber o'er her dross, + Her golden souls, to waste; + The cup she fills for her god-men + Is a bitter cup to taste. + + Who sees the gyves that bind mankind + And strives to strike them off + Shall gain the hissing hate of fools, + Thorns, and the ingrate's scoff. + + Who storms the moss-grown walls of eld + And beats some falsehood down + Shall pass the pallid gates of death + _Sans_ laurel, love or crown; + + For him who fain would teach the world + The world holds hate in fee-- + For Socrates, the hemlock cup; + For Christ, Gethsemane. + + + IN MARS, WHAT AVATAR? + + "In Vishnu-land, what avatar?" + --BROWNING. + + PERCHANCE the dying gods of Earth + Are destined to another birth, + And worn-out creeds regain their worth + In the kindly air of other stars-- + What lords of life and light hold sway + In the myriad worlds of the Milky Way? + What avatars in Mars? + + What Aphrodites from the seas + That lap the plunging Pleiades + Arise to spread afar + The dream that was the soul of Greece? + In Mars, what avatar? + + Which hundred moons are wan with love + For dull Endymions? + Which hundred moons hang tranced above + Audacious Ajalons? + + What Holy Grail lures errants pale + Through the wastes of yonder star? + What fables sway the Milky Way? + In Mars, what avatar? + + When morning skims with crimson wings + Across the meres of Mercury, + What dreaming Memnon wakes and sings + Of miracles on Mercury? + What Christs, what avatars, + Claim Mars? + + + + THE GOD-MAKER, MAN + + NEVERMORE + Shall the shepherds of Arcady follow + Pan's moods as he lolls by the shore + Of the mere, or lies hid in the hollow; + Nevermore + Shall they start at the sound of his reed-fashioned + flute; + + Fallen mute + Are the strings of Apollo, + His lyre and his lute; + And the lips of the Memnons are mute + Evermore; + And the gods of the North,--are they dead or + forgetful, + Our Odin and Baldur and Thor? + Are they drunk, or grown weary of worship and + fretful, + Our Odin and Baldur and Thor? + + And into what night have the Orient dieties + strayed? + Swart gods of the Nile, in dusk splendors arrayed, + Brooding Isis and somber Osiris, + You were gone ere the fragile papyrus, + (That bragged you eternal!) decayed. + + The avatars + But illumine their limited evens + And vanish like plunging stars; + They are fixed in the whirling heavens + No firmer than falling stars; + Brief lords of the changing soul, they pass + Like a breath from the face of a glass, + Or a blossom of summer blown shallop-like over + The clover + And tossed tides of grass. + + Sink to silence the psalms and the paeans + The shibboleths shift, and the faiths, + And the temples that challenged the aeons + Are tenanted only by wraiths; + Swoon to silence the cymbals and psalters, + The worships grow senseless and strange, + + And the mockers ask, _"Where be thy altars?"_ + Crying, _"Nothing is changeless--but Change!"_ + + Yes, nothing seems changeless, but Change. + And yet, through the creed-wrecking years, + One story for ever appears; + The tale of a City Supernal-- + The whisper of Something eternal-- + A passion, a hope, and a vision + That peoples the silence with Powers; + A fable of meadows Elysian + Where Time enters not with his Hours;-- + Manifold are the tale's variations, + Race and clime ever tinting the dreams, + Yet its essence, through endless mutations, + Immutable gleams. + + Deathless, though godheads be dying, + Surviving the creeds that expire, + Illogical, reason-defying, + Lives that passionate, primal desire; + Insistent, persistent, forever + Man cries to the silences, _Never_ + + _Shall Death reign the lord of the soul, + Shall the dust be the ultimate goal-- + I will storm the black bastions of Night! + I will tread where my vision has trod, + I will set in the darkness a light, + In the vastness, a god!"_ + + As the forehead of Man grows broader, so do + his creeds; + And his gods they are shaped in his image, and + mirror his needs; + And he clothes them with thunders and beauty, + he clothes them with music and fire; + Seeing not, as he bows by their altars, that he + worships his own desire; + And mixed with his trust there is terror, and + mixed with his madness is ruth, + And every man grovels in error, yet every man + glimpses a truth. + + For all of the creeds are false, and all of the creeds + are true; + And low at the shrines where my brothers bow, + there will I bow, too; + + For no form of a god, and no fashion + Man has made in his desperate passion + But is worthy some worship of mine;-- + Not too hot with a gross belief, + Nor yet too cold with pride, + I will bow me down where my brothers bow, + Humble--but open-eyed! + + + UNREST + + A FIERCE unrest seethes at the core + Of all existing things: + It was the eager wish to soar + That gave the gods their wings. + + From what flat wastes of cosmic slime, + And stung by what quick fire, + Sunward the restless races climb!-- + Men risen out of mire! + + There throbs through all the worlds that are + This heart-beat hot and strong, + And shaken systems, star by star, + Awake and glow in song. + + But for the urge of this unrest + These joyous spheres were mute; + But for the rebel in his breast + Had man remained a brute. + + When baffled lips demanded speech, + Speech trembled into birth-- + (One day the lyric word shall reach + From earth to laughing earth)-- + + When man's dim eyes demanded light + The light he sought was born-- + His wish, a Titan, scaled the height + And flung him back the morn! + + From deed to dream, from dream to deed, + From daring hope to hope, + The restless wish, the instant need, + Still lashed him up the slope! + + . . . . . . + + I sing no governed firmament, + Cold, ordered, regular-- + I sing the stinging discontent + That leaps from star to star! + + + THE PILTDOWN SKULL + + WHAT was his life, back yonder + In the dusk where time began, + This beast uncouth with the jaw of an ape + And the eye and brain of a man?-- + Work, and the wooing of woman, + Fight, and the lust of fight, + Play, and the blind beginnings + Of an Art that groped for light?-- + + In the wonder of redder mornings, + By the beauty of brighter seas, + Did he stand, the world's first thinker, + Scorning his clan's decrees?-- + Seeking, with baffled eyes, + In the dumb, inscrutable skies, + A name for the greater glory + That only the dreamer sees? + + One day, when the afterglows, + Like quick and sentient things, + + With a rush of their vast, wild wings, + Rose out of the shaken ocean + As great birds rise from the sod, + Did the shock of their sudden splendor + Stir him and startle and thrill him, + Grip him and shake him and fill him + With a sense as of heights untrod?-- + Did he tremble with hope and vision, + And grasp at a hint of God? + + London stands where the mammoth + Caked shag flanks with slime-- + And what are our lives that inherit + The treasures of all time? + Work, and the wooing of woman, + Fight, and the lust of fight, + A little play (and too much toil!) + With an Art that gropes for light; + And now and then a dreamer, + Rapt, from his lonely sod + Looks up and is thrilled and startled + With a fleeting sense of God! + + + THE SEEKER + + THE creeds he wrought of dream and thought + Fall from him at the touch of life, + His old gods fail him in the strife-- + Withdrawn, the heavens he sought! + + Vanished, the miracles that led, + The cloud at noon, the flame at night; + The vision that he wing'd and sped + Falls backward, baffled, from the height; + + Yet in the wreck of these he stands + Upheld by something grim and strong; + Some stubborn instinct lifts a song + And nerves him, heart and hands: + + He does not dare to call it hope;-- + It is not aught that seeks reward-- + + Nor faith, that up some sunward slope + Runs aureoled to meet its lord; + + It touches something elder far + Than faith or creed or thought in man, + It was ere yet these lived and ran + Like light from star to star; + + It touches that stark, primal need + That from unpeopled voids and vast + Fashioned the first crude, childish creed,-- + And still shall fashion, till the last! + + For one word is the tale of men: + They fling their icons to the sod, + And having trampled down a god + They seek a god again! + + Stripped of his creeds inherited, + Bereft of all his sires held true, + Amid the wreck of visions dead + He thrills at touch of visions new.... + + He wings another Dream for flight.... + He seeks beyond the outmost dawn + A god he set there ... and, anon, + Drags that god from the height! + + . . . . . . + + But aye from ruined faiths and old + That droop and die, fall bruised seeds; + And when new flowers and faiths unfold + They're lovelier flowers, they're kindlier creeds. + + + THE AWAKENING + + THE steam, the reek, the fume, of prayer + Blown outward for a million years, + Becomes a mist between the spheres, + And waking Sentience struggles there. + + Prayer still creates the boon we pray; + And gods we've hoped for, from those hopes + Will gain sufficient form one day + And in full godhood storm the slopes + Where ancient Chaos, stark and gray, + Already trembles for his sway. + + When that the restless worlds would fly + Their wish created rapid wings, + But not till aeons had passed by + With dower of many idler things; + And when dumb flesh demanded speech + Speech struggled to the lips at last;-- + Now the unpeopled Void, and vast, + + Clean to that uttermost blank beach + Whereto the boldest thought may reach + That voyages from the vaguest past-- + (Dim realm and ultimate of space)-- + Is vexed and troubled, stirs and shakes, + In prescience of a god that wakes, + Born of man's wish to see God's face! + + The endless, groping, dumb desires,-- + The climbing incense thick and sweet, + The lovely purpose that aspires, + The wraiths of vapor wing'd and fleet + That rise and run with eager feet + Forth from a myriad altar fires: + All these become a mist that fills + The vales and chasms nebular; + A shaping Soul that moves and thrills + The wastes between red star and star! + + + A SONG OF MEN + + OUT of the soil and the slime, + Reeking, they climb, + + Out of the muck and the mire, + Rank, they aspire; + + Filthy with murder and mud, + Black with shed blood, + + Lust and passion and clay-- + Dying, they slay; + + Stirred by vague hints of a goal, + Seeking a soul! + + Groping through terror and night + Up to the light: + + Life in the dust and the clod + Sensing a God; + + Flushed of the glamor and gleam + Caught from a dream; + + Stained of the struggle and toil, + Stained of the soil, + + Ally of God in the end-- + Helper and friend-- + + Hero and prophet and priest + Out of the beast! + + + THE NOBLER LESSON + + CHRIST was of virgin birth, and, being slain, + The creedists say, He rose from death again. + Oh, futile age-long talk of death and birth!-- + His life, that is the one thing wonder-worth; + Not how He came, but how He lived on earth. + For if gods stoop, and with quaint jugglery + Mock nature's laws, how shall that profit thee?-- + The nobler lesson is that mortals can + Grow godlike through this baffled front of man! + + + AT LAST + + EACH race has died and lived and fought for the + "true" gods of that poor race, + Unconsciously, divinest thought of each race + gilding its god's face. + And every race that lives and dies shall make itself + some other gods, + Shall build, with mingled truth and lies, new icons + from the world-old clods. + Through all the tangled creeds and dreams and + shifting shibboleths men hold + The false-and-true, inwoven, gleams: a matted + mass of dross and gold. + Prove, then, thy gods in thine own soul; all others' + gods, for thee, are vain; + Nor swerved be, struggling for the goal, by bribe + of joy nor threat of pain. + + As skulls grow broader, so do faiths; as old tongues + die, old gods die, too, + + And only ghosts of gods and wraiths may meet + the backward-gazer's view. + Where, where the faiths of yesterday? Ah, + whither vanished, whither gone? + Say, what Apollos drive to-day adown the flaming + slopes of dawn? + Oh, does the blank past hide from view forgotten + Christs, to be reborn, + The future tremble where some new Messiah-Memnon + sings the morn? + Of all the worlds, say any earth, like dust + wind-harried to and fro, + Shall give the next Prometheus birth; but say--at + last--you do not know. + + How should I know what dawn may gleam beyond + the gates of darkness there?-- + Which god of all the gods men dream? Why + should I whip myself to care? + Whichever over all hath place hath shaped and + made me what I am; + Hath made me strong to front his face, to dare + to question though he damn. + + Perhaps to cringe and cower and bring a shrine + a forced and faithless faith + Is far more futile than to fling your laughter in + the face of Death. + For writhe or whirl in dervish rout, they are not + flattered there on high, + Or sham belief to hide a doubt--no gods are mine + that love a lie! + Nor gods that beg belief on earth with portents + that some seer foretells-- + Is life itself not wonder-worth that we must cry + for miracles? + Is it not strange enough we breathe? Does every- + thing not God reveal? + Or must we ever weave and wreathe some creed + that shall his face conceal? + Some creed of which its prophets cry it holds + the secret's all-in-all: + Some creed which ever bye and bye doth crumble, + totter, to its fall! + Say any dream of all the dreams that drift and + darkle, glint and glow, + Holds most of truth within its gleams; but say + --at last--you do not know. + + Oh, say the soul, from star to star, with victory + wing'd, leap on through space + And scale the bastioned nights that bar the secret's + inner dwelling-place; + Or say it ever roam dim glades where pallid + wraiths of long-dead moons + Flit like blown feathers through the shades, borne + on the breath of sobbing tunes: + Say any tide of any time, of all the tides that ebb + and flow, + Shall buoy us on toward any clime; but say--at + last--you do not know! + + + + + LYRICS + + + "KING PANDION, HE IS DEAD" + + "King Pandion, he is dead; + All thy friends are lapp'd in lead." + --SHAKESPEARE. + + + DREAMERS, drinkers, rebel youth, + Where's the folly free and fine + You and I mistook for truth? + Wits and wastrels, friends of wine, + Wags and poets, friends of mine, + Gleams and glamors all are fled, + Fires and frenzies half divine! + King Pandion, he is dead! + + Time's unmannerly, uncouth! + Here's the crow's-foot for a sign! + And, upon our brows, forsooth, + Wits and wastrels, friends of wine, + Time hath set his mark malign; + Frost has touched us, heart and head, + Cooled the blood and dulled the eyne: + King Pandion, he is dead! + + Time's a tyrant without ruth:-- + Fancies used to bloom and twine + Round a common tavern booth, + Wits and wastrels, friends of wine, + In that youth of mine and thine! + 'Tis for youth the feast is spread; + When we dine now--we but dine!-- + King Pandion, he is dead! + + How our dreams would glow and shine, + Wits and wastrels, friends of wine, + Ere the drab Hour came that said: + King Pandion, he is dead! + + + DAVID TO BATHSHEBA + + VERY red are the roses of Sharon, + But redder thy mouth, + There is nard, there is myrrh, in En Gedi, + From the uplands of Lebanon, heavy + With balsam, the winds + Drift freighted and scented and cedarn-- + But thy mouth is more precious than spices! + + Thy breasts are twin lilies of Kedron; + White lilies, that sleep + In the shallows where loitering Kedron + Broadens out and is lost in the Jordan; + Globed lilies, so white + That David, thy King, thy beloved + Declareth them meet for his gardens. + + Under the stars very strangely + The still waters gleam; + Deep down in the waters of Hebron + + The soul of the starlight is sunken, + But deep in thine eyes + Stirs a more wonderful secret + Than pools ever learn of the starlight. + + + THE JESTERS + + A TOAST to the Fools! + Pierrot, Pantaloon, + Harlequin, Clown, + Merry-Andrew, Buffoon-- + Touchstone and Triboulet--all of the tribe.-- + Dancer and jester and singer and scribe. + We sigh over Yorick--(unfortunate fool, + Ten thousand Hamlets have fumbled his skull!)-- + But where is the Hamlet to weep o'er the biers + Of his brothers? + And where is the poet solicits our tears + For the others? + They have passed from the world and left never + a sign, + And few of us now have the courage to sing + That their whimsies made life a more livable + thing-- + We, that are left of the line, + Let us drink to the jesters--in gooseberry wine! + + Then here's to the Fools! + Flouting the sages + Through history's pages + And driving the dreary old seers into rages-- + The humbugging Magis + Who prate that the wages + Of Folly are Death--toast the Fools of all ages! + They have ridden like froth down the whirlpools + of time, + They have jingled their caps in the councils of + state, + They have snared half the wisdom of life in a + rhyme, + And tripped into nothingness grinning at fate-- + Ho, brothers mine, + Brim up the glasses with gooseberry wine! + + Though the prince with his firman, + The judge in his ermine, + Affirm and determine + Bold words need the whip, + Let them spare us the rod and remit us the + sermon, + For Death has a quip + + Of the tomb and the vermin + That will silence at last the most impudent lip! + Is the world but a bubble, a bauble, a joke? + Heigho, Brother Fools, now your bubble is broke, + Do you ask for a tear?--or is it worth while? + Here's a sigh for you, then--but it ends in a smile! + Ho, Brother Death, + We would laugh at you, too--if you spared us the + breath! + + + "MARY, MARY, QUITE CONTRARY" + + "Mary, Mary, quite contrary, + How does your garden grow? + With silver bells and cockle-shells + And pretty maids all in a row!" + --Mother Goose. + + MARY, Mistress Mary, + How does your garden grow? + From your uplands airy, + Mary, Mistress Mary, + Float the chimes of faery + When the breezes blow! + Mary, Mistress Mary, + How does your garden grow? + + With flower-maidens, singing + Among the morning hills-- + With silvern bells a-ringing, + With flower-maidens singing, + With vocal lilies, springing + By chanting daffodils; + With flower-maidens, singing + Among the morning hills! + + + THE TRIOLET + + YOUR triolet should glimmer + Like a butterfly; + In golden light, or dimmer, + Your triolet should glimmer, + Tremble, turn, and shimmer, + Flash, and flutter by; + Your triolet should glimmer + Like a butterfly. + + + FROM THE BRIDGE + + HELD and thrilled by the vision + I stood, as the twilight died, + Where the great bridge soars like a song + Over the crawling tide-- + + Stood on the middle arch-- + And night flooded in from the bay, + And wonderful under the stars + Before me the city lay; + + Girdled with swinging waters-- + Guarded by ship on ship-- + A gem that the strong old ocean + Held in his giant grip; + + There was play of shadows above + And drifting gleams below, + And magic of shifting waves + That darkle and glance and glow; + + Dusky and purple and splendid, + Banded with loops of light, + The tall towers rose like pillars, + Lifting the dome of night; + + The gliding cars of traffic + Slid swiftly up and down + Like monsters, fiery mailed, + Leaping across the town. + + Not planned with a thought of beauty; + Built by a lawless breed; + Builded of lust for power, + Builded of gold and greed. + + Risen out of the trader's + Brutal and sordid wars-- + And yet, behold! a city + Wonderful under the stars! + + + "PALADINS, PALADINS, YOUTH NOBLE-HEARTED" + + GALAHADS, Galahads, Percivals, gallop! + Bayards, to the saddle!--the clangorous trumpets, + Hoarse with their ecstasy, call to the mellay. + Paladins, Paladins, Rolands flame-hearted, + Olivers, Olivers, follow the bugles! + + Girt with the glory and glamor of power, + Error sits throned in the high place of justice; + Paladins, Paladins, youth noble-hearted, + Saddle and spear, for the battle-flags beckon! + Thrust the keen steel through the throat of the liar. + + Star (or San Grael) that illumines thy pathway, + Follow it, follow that far Ideal!-- + Thine not the guerdon to gain it or grasp it; + Soul of thee, passing, ascendeth unto it, + Augmenting its brightness for them that come + after. + + Heed then the call of the trumpets, the trumpets, + Hoarse with the fervor, the frenzy of battle,-- + Paladins, Paladins, saddle! to saddle! + Bide not, abide not, God's bugles are calling!-- + Thrust the sharp sword through the heart of the + liar. + + + "MY LANDS, NOT THINE" + + MY lands, not thine, we look upon, + Friend Croesus, hill and vale and lawn. + Mine every woodland madrigal, + And mine thy singing waterfall + That vaguely hints of Helicon. + + Mark how thine upland slopes have drawn + A golden glory from the dawn!-- + _Fool's gold?_--thy dullness proves them all + My lands--not thine! + + For when all title-deeds are gone, + Still, still will satyr, nymph, and faun + Through brake and covert pipe and call + In dances bold and bacchanal-- + For them, for me, you hold in pawn, + My lands--not thine! + + + TO A DANCING DOLL + + FORMAL, quaint, precise, and trim, + You begin your steps demurely-- + There's a spirit almost prim + In the feet that move so surely, + So discreetly, to the chime + Of the music that so sweetly + Marks the time. + + But the chords begin to tinkle + Quicker, + And your feet they flash and flicker-- + Twinkle!-- + Flash and flutter to a tricksy + Fickle meter; + And you foot it like a pixie-- + Only fleeter! + + Now our current, dowdy + Things-- + + "Turkey-trots" and rowdy + Flings-- + For they made you overseas + In politer times than these, + In an age when grace could please, + Ere St. Vitus + Clutched and shook us, spine and knees;-- + Loosed a plague of jerks to smite us! + + Well, our day is far more brisk + And our manner rather slacker), + And you are nothing more than bisque + And lacquer-- + But you shame us with the graces + Of courtlier times and places + When the cheap + And vulgar wasn't "art"-- + When the faunal prance and leap + Weren't "smart." + + Have we lost the trick of wedding + Grace to pleasure? + Must we clown it at the bidding + Of some tawdry, common measure? + + Can't you school us in the graces + Of your pose and dainty paces?-- + Now the chords begin to tinkle + Quicker-- + And your feet they flash and flicker-- + Twinkle!-- + And you mock us as you featly + Swing and flutter to the chime + Of the music-box that sweetly + Marks the time! + + + LOWER NEW YORK--A STORM + + WHITE wing'd below the darkling clouds + The driven sea-gulls wheel; + The roused sea flings a storm against + The towers of stone and steel. + + The very voice of ocean rings + Along the shaken street-- + Dusk, storm, and beauty whelm the world + Where sea and city meet-- + + But what care they for flashing wings, + Quick beauty, loud refrain, + These huddled thousands, deaf and blind + To all but greed and gain? + + + AT SUNSET + + THE sun-god stooped from out the sky + To kiss the flushing sea, + While all the winds of all the world + Made jovial melody; + The night came hurrying up to hide + The lovers with her tent; + The governed thunders, rank on rank, + Stood mute with wonderment; + The pale worn moon, a jealous shade, + Peered from the firmament; + The early stars, the curious stars, + Came peering forth to see + What mighty nuptials shook the world + With such an ecstasy + Whenas the sun-god left the sky + To mingle with the sea. + + + A CHRISTMAS GIFT + + ALACK-A-DAY for poverty! + What jewels my mind doth give to thee! + + Carved agate stone porphyrogene, + Green emerald and beryl green, + Deep sapphine and pale amethyst, + Sly opal, cloaking with a mist + The levin of its love elate, + Shy brides' pearls, flushed and delicate, + Sea-colored lapis lazuli, + Sardonyx and chalcedony, + Enkindling diamond, candid gold, + Red rubies and red garnets bold: + And all their humors should be blent + In one intolerable blaze, + Barbaric, fierce, and opulent, + To dazzle him that dared to gaze! + + Alack-a-day for poverty: + My rhymes are all you get of me! + Yet, if your heart receive, behold! + The worthless words are set in gold. + + + SILVIA + + I STILL remember how she moved + Among the rathe, wild blooms she loved, + (When Spring came tip-toe down the slopes, + Atremble 'twixt her doubts and hopes, + Half fearful and all virginal)-- + How Silvia sought this dell to call + Her flowers into full festival, + And chid them with this madrigal: + + _"The busy spider hangs the brush + With filmy gossamers, + The frogs are croaking in the creek, + The sluggish blacksnake stirs, + But still the ground is bare of bloom + Beneath the fragrant firs. + + "Arise, arise, O briar rose, + And sleepy violet! + Awake, awake, anemone, + Your wintry dreams forget--_ + + _For shame, you tardy marigold, + Are you not budded yet? + + "The Swallow's back, and claims the eaves + That last year were his home; + The Robin follows where the plow + Breaks up the crusted loam; + And Red-wings spies the Thrush and pipes: + 'Look! Speckle-breast is come!' + + "Up, blooms! and storm the wooded slopes, + The lowlands and the plain-- + Blow, jonquil, blow your golden horn + Across the ranks of rain! + To arms! to arms! and put to flight + The Winter's broken train!"_ + + She paused beside this selfsame rill, + And as she ceased, a daffodil + Held up reproachfully his head + And fluttered into speech, and said: + + _"Chide not the flowers! You little know + Of all their travail 'neath the snow,_ + + _Their struggling hours + Of choking sorrow underground. + Chide not the flowers! + You little guess of that profound + And blind, dumb agony of ours! + Yet, victor here beside the rill, + I greet the light that I have found, + A Daffodil!"_ + + And when the Daffodil was done + A boastful Marigold spake on: + + _"Oh, chide the white frost, if you choose, + The heavy clod, so hard to loose, + The preying powers + Of worm and insect underground. + Chide not the flowers! + For spite of scathe and cruel wound, + Unconquered by the sunless hours, + I rise in regal pride, a bold + And golden-hearted, golden-crowned + Marsh Marigold!"_ + + And when she came no more, her creek + Would not believe, but bade us seek + + Hither, yon, and to and fro-- + Everywhere that children go + When the Spring + Is on the wing + And the winds of April blow-- + "I will never think her dead; + "She will come again!" it said; + And then the birds that use the vale, + Broken-hearted, turned the tale + Into syllables of song + And chirped it half a summer long: + + _"Silvia, Silvia, + Be our Song once more, + Our vale revisit, Silvia, + And be our Song once more: + For joy lies sleeping in the lute; + The merry pipe, the woodland flute, + And all the pleading reeds are mute + That breathed to thee of yore._ + + _"Silvia, Silvia, + Be our Moon again,_ + + _Shine on our valley, Silvia, + And be our Moon again: + The fluffy owl and nightingale + Flit silent through the darkling vale, + Or utter only words of wail + From throats all harsh with pain. + + "Silvia, Silvia, + Be Springtime, as of old; + Come clad in laughter, Silvia, + Our Springtime, as of old: + The waiting lowlands and the hills + Are tremulous with daffodils + Unblown, until thy footstep thrills + Their promise into gold."_ + + And, musing on her here, I too + Must wonder if it can be true + She died, as other mortals do. + The thought would fit her more, to feign + That, full of life and unaware + That earth holds aught of grief or stain, + The fairies stole and hold her where + Death enters not, nor strife nor pain;-- + + That, drowsing on some bed of pansies, + By Titania's necromancies + Her senses were to slumber lulled, + Deeply sunken, steeped and dulled, + And by wafture of swift pinions + She was borne out through earth's portals + To the fairy queen's dominions, + To some land of the immortals. + + + THE EXPLORERS + + AND some still cry: _"What is the use? + The service rendered? What the gain? + Heroic, yes!--but in what cause? + Have they made less one earth-borne pain? + Broadened the bounded spirit's scope? + Or died to make the dull world hope?"_ + + Must man still be the slave of Use?-- + But these men, careless and elate, + Join battle with a burly world + Or come to wrestling grips with fate, + And not for any good nor gain + Nor any fame that may befall-- + But, thrilling in the clutch of life, + Heed the loud challenge and the call;-- + And grown to symbols at the last, + Stand in heroic silhouette + Against horizons ultimate, + As towers that front lost seas are set;-- + + The reckless gesture, the strong pose, + Sharp battle-cry flung back to Earth, + And buoyant humor, as a god + Might say: _"Lo, here my feet have trod!"_-- + There lies the meaning and the worth! + + They bring no golden treasure home, + They win no acres for their clan, + Nor dream nor deed of theirs shall mend + The ills of man's bedeviled span-- + Nor are they skilled in sleights of speech, + (Nor overeager) to make plain + The use they serve, transcending use,-- + The gain beyond apparent gain! + + + EARLY AUTUMN + + WITH half-hearted levies of frost that make foray, + retire, and refrain-- + Ambiguous bugles that blow and that falter to + silence again-- + + With banners of mist that still waver above them, + advance and retreat, + The hosts of the Autumn still hide in the hills, + for a doubt stays their feet;-- + + But anon, with a barbaric splendor to dazzle the + eyes that behold, + And regal in raiment of purple and umber and + amber and gold, + + And girt with the glamor of conquest and scarved + with red symbols of pride, + From the hills in their might and their mirth on + the steeds of the wind will they ride, + + To make sport and make spoil of the Summer, + who dwells in a dream on the plain, + Still tented in opulent ease in the camps of her + indolent train. + + + "TIME STEALS FROM LOVE" + + TIME steals from Love all but Love's wings; + And how should aught but evil things, + Or any good but death, befall + Him that is thrall unto Time's thrall, + Slave to the lesser of these Kings? + + O heart of youth that wakes and sings! + O golden vows and golden rings! + Life mocks you with the tale of all + Time steals from Love! + + O riven lute and writhen strings, + Dead bough whereto no blossom clings, + The glory was ephemeral! + Nor may our Autumn grief recall + The passion of the perished Springs + Time steals from Love! + + + THE RONDEAU + + YOUR rondeau's tale must still be light-- + No bugle-call to life's stern fight! + Rather a smiling interlude + Memorial to some transient mood + Of idle love and gala-night. + + Its manner is the merest sleight + O' hand; yet therein dwells its might, + For if the heavier touch intrude + Your rondeau's stale. + + Fragrant and fragile, fleet and bright, + And wing'd with whim, it gleams in flight + Like April blossoms wind-pursued + Down aisles of tangled underwood;-- + Nor be too serious when you write + Your rondeau's tail! + + + VISITORS + + THEY haunt me, they tease me with hinted + Withheld revelations, + The songs that I may not utter; + They lead me, they flatter, they woo me. + I follow, I follow, I snatch + At the veils of their secrets in vain-- + For lo! they have left me and vanished, + The songs that I cannot sing. + + There are visions elusive that come + With a quiver and shimmer of wings;-- + Shapes shadows and shapes, and the murmur + Of voices;-- + Shapes, that out of the twilight + Leap, and with gesture appealing + Seem to deliver a message, + And are gone 'twixt a breath and a breath;-- + Shapes that race in with the waves + Moving silverly under the moon, + + And are gone ere they break into foam on the rocks + And recede;-- + Breathings of love from invisible + Flutes, + Blown somewhere out in the tender + Dusk, + That die on the bosom of Silence;-- + Formless, + And fleeter than thought, + Vaguer than thought or emotion, + What are these visitors? + + Out of the vast and uncharted + Realms that encircle the visible world, + With a glimmer of light on their pinions, + They rush ... + They waver, they vanish, + Leaving me stirred with a dream of the ultimate + beauty, + A sense of the ultimate music, + I never shall capture;-- + + They are Beauty, + Formless and tremulous Beauty, + + Beauty unborn; + Beauty as yet unappareled + In thought; + Beauty that hesitates, + Falters, + Withdraws from the verge of birth, + Flutters, + Retreats from the portals of life;-- + O Beauty for ever uncaptured! + O songs that I never shall sing! + + + THE PARTING + + WE have come "the primrose way," + Folly, thou and I! + Such a glamor and a grace + Ever glimmered on thy face, + Ever such a witchery + Lit the laughing eyes of thee, + Could a fool like me withstand + Folly's feast and beckoning hand? + Drinking, how thy lips' caress + Spiced the cup of waywardness! + So we came "the primrose way," + Folly, thou and I! + + But now, Folly, we must part, + Folly, thou and I! + Shall one look with mirth or tears + Back on all his wasted years, + Purposes dissolved in wine, + Pearls flung to the heedless swine?-- + + Idle days and nights of mirth, + Were they pleasures nothing worth? + Well, there's no gainsaying we + Squandered youth right merrily! + But now, Folly, we must part, + Folly, thou and I! + + + AN OPEN FIRE + + THESE logs with drama and with dream are rife, + For all their golden Summers and green Springs + Through leaf and root they sucked the forest's life, + Drank in its secret, deep, essential things, + Its midwood moods, its mystic runes, + Its breathing hushes stirred of faery wings, + Its August nights and April noons; + The garnered fervors of forgotten Junes + Flare forth again and waste away; + And in the sap that leaps and sings + We hear again the chant the cricket flings + Across the hawthorn-scented dusks of May. + + + + + + + REALITIES + + + + + REALITIES + + WE are deceived by the shadow, we see not the + substance of things. + For the hills are less solid than thought; and + deeds are but vapors; and flesh + Is a mist thrown off and resumed by the soul, as + a world by a god. + Back of the transient appearance dwells in + ineffable calm + The utter reality, ultimate truth; this seems and + that is. + + + THE STRUGGLE + + I HAVE been down in a dark valley; + I have been groping through a deep gorge; + Far above, the lips of it were rimmed with moonlight, + And here and there the light lay on the dripping + rocks + So that it seemed they dripped with moonlight, + not with water; + So deep it was, that narrow gash among the hills, + That those great pines which fringed its edge + Seemed to me no larger than upthrust fingers + Silhouetted against the sky; + And at its top the vale was strait, + And the rays were slant + And reached but part way down the sides; + I could not see the moon itself; + I walked through darkness, and the valley's edge + Seemed almost level with the stars, + The stars that were like fireflies in the little trees. + + It was the midnight of defeat; + I felt that I had failed; + I was mocked of the gods; + There was no way out of that gorge; + The paths led no whither + And I could not remember their beginnings; + I was doomed to wander evermore, + Thirsty, with the sound of mocking waters in + mine ears, + Groping, with gleams of useless light + Splashed in ironic beauty on the rocks above. + And so I whined. + + And then despair flashed into rage; + I leapt erect, and cried: + _"Could I but grasp my life as sculptors grasp the clay + And knead and thrust it into shape again!-- + If all the scorn of Heaven were but thrown + Into the focus of some creature I could clutch!-- + If something tangible were but vouchsafed me + By the cold, far gods!-- + If they but sent a Reason for the failure of my life + I'd answer it; + If they but sent a Fiend, I'd conquer it!--_ + + _But I reach out, and grasp the air, + I rage, and the brute rock echoes my words in + mockery-- + How can one fight the sliding moonlight on the cliffs? + You gods, coward gods, + Come down, I challenge you!-- + You who set snares with roses and with passion, + You who make flesh beautiful and damn men through + the flesh, + You who plump the purple grape and then put poison + in the cup, + You who put serpents in your Edens, + You who gave me delight of my senses and broke me + for it, + You who have mingled death with beauty, + You who have put into my blood the impulses for + which you cursed me, + You who permitted my brain the doubts wherefore + you damn me, + Behold, I doubt you, gods, no longer, but defy!-- + I perish here? + Then I will be slain of a god! + You who have wrapped me in the scorn of your silence, + The divinity in this same dust you flout_ + + _Flames through the dust, + And dares, + And flings you back your scorn,-- + Come, face to face, and slay me if you will, + But not until you've felt the weight + Of all betricked humanity's contempt + In one bold blow!-- + Speak forth a Reason, and I will answer it, + Yes, to your faces I will answer it; + Come garmented in flesh and I will fight with you, + Yes, in your faces will I smite you, gods; + Coward gods and tricksters that set traps + In paradise!-- + Far gods that hedge yourselves about with silence + And with distance; + That mock men from the unscalable escarpments of + your Heavens."_ + + Thus I raved, being mad. + I had no sooner finished speaking than I felt + The darkness fluttered by approaching feet, + And the silence was burned through by trembling + flames of sound, + And I was 'ware that Something stood by me. + + And with a shout I leapt and grasped that Being, + And the Thing grasped me. + We came to wrestling grips, + And back and forth we swayed, + Hand seeking throat, and crook'd knee seeking + To encrook unwary leg, + And spread toes grasping the uneven ground; + The strained breast muscles cracked and creaked, + The sweat ran in my eyes, + The plagued breath sobbed and whistled through + my throat, + I tasted blood, and strangled, but still struggled + on-- + The stars above me danced in swarms like yellow + bees, + The shaken moonlight writhed upon the rocks;-- + But at the last I felt his breathing weaker grow, + The tense limbs grow less tense, + And with a bursting cry I bent his head right + back, + Back, back, until + I heard his neck bones snap; + His spine crunched in my grip; + I flung him to the earth and knelt upon his breast + + And listened till the fluttering pulse was stilled. + Man, god, or devil, I had wrenched the life from + him! + + And lo!--even as he died + The moonlight failed above the vale,-- + And somehow, sure, I know now how!-- + Between the rifted rocks the great Sun struck + A finger down the cliff, and that red beam + Lay sharp across the face of him that I had slain; + And in that light I read the answer of the silent + gods + Unto my cursed-out prayer, + For he that lay upon the ground was--I! + I understood the lesson then; + It was myself that lay there dead; + Yes, I had slain my Self. + + + THE REBEL + + No doubt the ordered worlds speed on + With purpose in their wings; + No doubt the ordered songs are sweet + Each worthy angel sings; + And doubtless it is wise to heed + The ordered words of Kings; + + But how the heart leaps up to greet + The headlong, rebel flight, + Whenas some reckless meteor + Blazes across the night! + Some comet--Byron--Lucifer-- + Has dared to Be, and fight! + + No doubt but it is safe to dwell + Where ordered duties are; + No doubt the cherubs earn their wage + Who wind each ticking star; + + No doubt the system is quite right!-- + Sane, ordered, regular; + + But how the rebel fires the soul + Who dares the strong gods' ire! + Each Byron!--Shelley!--Lucifer!-- + And all the outcast choir + That chant when some Prometheus + Leaps up to steal Jove's fire! + + + THE CHILD AND THE MILL + + BETTER a pauper, penniless, asleep on the kindly + sod-- + Better a gipsy, houseless, but near to the heart + of God, + + That beats for ears not dulled by the clanking + wheels of care-- + Better starvation and freedom, hope and the good + fresh air + + Than death to the Something in him that was + born to laugh and dream, + That was kin to the idle lilies and the ripples of + the stream. + + For out of the dreams of childhood, that careless + come and go, + The boy gains strength, unknowing, that the Man + will prove and know. + + But these fools with their lies and their dollars, + their mills and their bloody hands, + Who make a god of a wheel, who worship their + whirring bands, + + They are flinging the life of a people, raw, to the + brute machines. + Dull-eyed, weary, and old--old in his early teens-- + + Stunted and stupid and twisted, marred in the + mills of grief, + Can your factories fashion a Man of this thing-- + a Man and a Chief? + + Dumb is the heart of him now, at the time when + his heart should sing-- + Wasters of body and brain, what race will the + future bring? + + What of the nation's nerve whenas swift crises + come? + What of the brawn that should heave the guns on + the beck of the drum? + + + Thieves of body and soul, who can neither think + nor feel, + Swine-eyed priests of little false gods of gold and + steel, + + Bow to your obscene altars, worship your loud + mills then! + Feed to Moloch and Baal the brawn and brains + of men-- + + But silent and watchful and hidden forever over + all + The masters brood of those Mills that "grind + exceeding small." + + And it needs no occult art nor magic to foreshow + That a people who sow defeat they will reap the + thing they sow. + + "SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI" + + CONQUERORS leonine, lordly, + Princes and vaunting kings, + Ye are drunk with the sound of your braggart + trumps-- + _But lo! ye are little things! + + Earth ... it is charnel with monarchs! + And the puffs of dust that start + Where your war steeds stamp with their ringing hoofs + Were each some warrior's heart._ + + Peoples imperial, mighty, + Masterful, challenging fate, + The tread of your cohorts shakes the hills-- + _But lo! ye are not great! + + Nations that swarm and murmur, + Ye are moths that flutter and climb-- + Ye are whirling gnats, ye are swirling bees, + Tossed in the winds of time!_ + + Earth that is flushed with glory, + A marvelous world ye are! + _But lo! in the midst of a million stars + Ye are only one pale star! + + A breath stirs the dark abysses.... + The deeps below the deep + Are troubled and vexed ... and a thousand worlds + Fall on eternal sleep!_ + + + THE COMRADE + + I + + HATH not man at his noblest + An air of something more than man?-- + A hint of grace immortal, + Born of his greatly daring to assist the gods + In conquering these shaggy wastes, + These desert worlds, + And planting life and order in these stars?-- + So Woman at her best: + Her eyes are bright with visions and with dreams + That triumph over time; + Her plumed thought, wing for wing, is mate with + his. + + + II + + The world rolls on from dream to dream, + And 'neath the vast impersonal revenges of its + going, + + Crushed fools that cried defeat + Lie dead amid the dust they prophesied-- + Ye doubters of man's larger destiny, + Ye that despair, + Look backward down the vistaed years, + And all is battle--and all victory! + Man fought, to be a man! + Through painful centuries the slow beast fought, + Blinded and baffled, fought to gain his soul;-- + Wild, hairy, shag, and feared of shadows, + Yet the clouds + Made him strange signals that he puzzled o'er;-- + Beast, child, and ape, + And yet the winds harped to him, and the sea + Rolled in upon his consciousness + Its tides of wonder and romance;-- + Uncouth and caked with mire, + And yet the stars said something to him, and the + sun + Declared itself a god;-- + The lagging cycles turned at last + The pictures into thought, + Thought flowered in soul;-- + But, oh, the myriad weary years + Ere Caliban was Shakespeare's self + And Darwin's ape had Darwin's brain!-- + The battling, battling, and the steep ascent, + The fight to hold the little gained, + The loss, the doubt, the shaken heart, + The stubborn, groping slow recovery!-- + But looking backward toward the dim beginnings, + You that despair, + Hath he not climbed and conquered? + Look backward and all's Victory! + What coward looks forward and foresees defeat? + + + III + + Who climbed beside him, and who fought + And suffered and was glad? + Is she a lesser thing than he, + Who stained the slopes with bloody feet, or stood + Beside him on some hard-won eminence of hope + Exulting as the bold dawn swept + A harper hand along the ringing hills? + Flesh of his flesh, and of his soul the soul, + Hath she not fought, hath she not climbed? + + And how is she a lesser thing?-- + Nay, if she ever was + 'Twas we that made her so, who called her queen + But kept her slave. + + + IV + + Had she not courage for the fight? + Hath she not courage for the years to come? + Hath she not courage who descends alone-- + (How pitifully alone, except for Love!) + Where man's thought even falters that would + follow, + Into the shadowy abyss + (Through vast and murmurous caverns dark with + crowding dread + And terrible with hovering wings), + To battle there with Death?--to battle + There with Death, and wrest from him, + O Conqueror and Mother, + Life! + + + V + + Hath she too long dwelt dream-bound in the world + of love, + + Unconscious of the sterner throes, + The more austere, impersonal, wide faith, + The urge that drives Christs to the cross + Not for the love of one beloved, + But for the love of all? + If so, she wakes! + Wakes and demands a share in all man's bolder + destinies, + The high, audacious ventures of the soul + That thinks to scale the bastioned slopes + And strike stark Chaos from his throne. + We still stand in the dawn of time. + Not meanly let us stand nor shaken with low + doubts! + For there beyond the verge and margin of gray cloud + The future thrills with promise + And the skies are tremulous with golden light;-- + She too would share those victories, + Comrade, and more than comrade;-- + New times, new needs confront us now; + We must evolve new powers + To battle with;-- + We must go forward now together, + Or perchance we fail! + + + ENVOI + + A LITTLE WHILE + + _A little while the tears and laughter, + The willow and the rose-- + A little while, and what comes after + No man knows. + + An hour to sing, to love and linger ... + Then lutanist and lute + Will fall on silence, song and singer + Both be mute. + + Our gods from our desires we fashion.... + Exalt our baffled lives, + And dream their vital bloom and passion + Still survives; + + But when we're done with mirth and weeping, + With myrtle, rue, and rose, + Shall Death take Life into his keeping? ... + No man knows._ + + _What heart hath not, through twilight places, + Sought for its dead again + To gild with love their pallid faces? ... + Sought in vain! ... + + Still mounts the Dream on shining pinion ... + Still broods the dull distrust ... + Which shall have ultimate dominion, + Dream, or dust? + + A little while with grief and laughter, + And then the day will close; + The shadows gather ... what comes after + No man knows!_ + + + + + +Note: In "The Parting," page 161, line 4, I have changed "they +face" to "thy face"; in "The Struggle," page 173, line 4, I have +changed "l!o" to "lo!" + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Dreams and Dust, by Don Marquis + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DREAMS AND DUST *** + +***** This file should be named 458.txt or 458.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/4/5/458/ + +Produced by Judith Boss + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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