path: root/53149-0.txt

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 53149 ***

                            THE DYAK CHIEF
                           AND OTHER VERSES




                            The Dyak Chief
                           and Other Verses

                                  BY
                        ERWIN CLARKSON GARRETT
                              _Author of_
                     “My Bunkie and Other Ballads”

                            [Illustration]

                               NEW YORK
                            BARSE & HOPKINS
                              PUBLISHERS

                            Copyright, 1914
                          BY BARSE & HOPKINS




                             To My Mother


                    _Some Ye bid to teach us, Lord,_
                      _And some Ye bid to learn;_
                    _And some Ye bid to triumph--_
                      _And some to yearn and yearn:_
                    _And some Ye bid to conquer_
                      _In blood by land and sea;_
                    _And some Ye bid to tarry here--_
                      _To prove the love of Thee._




PREFACE


Neither desiring to plagiarize Cæsar nor to compare my book to Gaul, I
wish to mention briefly that this volume as a whole is divided into
three parts, of which one is occupied by the single poem, “The Dyak
Chief,” the verses that give title to the book; another, the second, is
occupied by American army ballads, and yet another, the third, is
occupied by various verses on miscellaneous subjects.

However, if recollections of my personal campaigns against Cæsar--armed
only with a Latin vocabulary and grammar--serve me rightly, the old
Roman was not merely a worthy foe, but one who might well be held up as
a worthy example; who dealt with his chronicles as he dealt with his
enemies on the field, in a simple, direct, forcible manner, bare of
circumlocution, tautology or ambiguity--that he who runs may read--and
reading, know his Gaul and Gallic chieftains, his Cæsar and his Cæsar’s
legionaries, even as Cæsar knew them.

The initial poem, “The Dyak Chief,” forming Part One, is a romance of
Central Borneo, that I visited in July, 1908, during a little trip
around the World.

Coming over from Java, which I had just finished touring, I arrived at
Bandjermasin, in southeastern Borneo, near the coast, and from whence I
took a small steamer up the Barito River to Poeroek Tjahoe, pronounced
“Poorook Jow,” deep in the interior of the island.

Poeroek Tjahoe was the last white (Dutch) settlement, and from there I
went with three Malay coolies five days tramp on foot through the
jungle, northwest, penetrating the very heart of Borneo, sleeping the
first three nights in the houses of the Dyaks, some nomadic tribes of
whom still roam the jungle as head-hunters, and the last two nights upon
improvised platforms out in the open, till I reached Batoe Paoe, a town
or kampong in the geographical center of the island.

I also visited a nearby village, Olong Liko, afterwards returning by the
Moeroeng and Barito Rivers to Poeroek Tjahoe, and from thence back to
Bandjermasin on the little river-steamer and then by boat to Singapore,
which was the radiating headquarters for my trips to Sumatra, Java,
Borneo and Siam.

Having thus reached the very center of Borneo on foot, I had an
excellent opportunity to study the country, the people and the general
conditions, so that the reader of “The Dyak Chief” need feel no
hesitancy in accepting as accurate and authentic, all descriptions,
details and touches of “local color” or “atmosphere” contained in the
poem.

Full notes on “The Dyak Chief” will be found at the end of the volume.

Part Two contains a number of new American army ballads, gathered mostly
as a result of my personal observations and experiences when serving as
a private in Companies “L” and “G,” 23rd U. S. Infantry (Regulars) and
Troop “I,” 5th U. S. Cavalry (Regulars), during the Philippine
Insurrection of 1899-1902.

As I have just mentioned, the army verses are all new ones, and
consequently not to be found among those contained in my previous
volume, “My Bunkie and Other Ballads.”

Part Three consists of individual poems on various subjects without any
interrelation.

It is sincerely hoped that the reader will make full use of the notes
appended at the end of the book, which addenda I have endeavored to
treat with as much brevity as may be compatible with succinctness.

E. C. G.

Philadelphia, February 1st, 1914.




CONTENTS


  PART ONE

                                                                    PAGE

  THE DYAK CHIEF                                                      13


  PART TWO--AMERICAN ARMY BALLADS

  ON THE WATER-WAGON                                                  33
  ARMY OF PACIFICATION                                                35
  SOLITARY                                                            38
  THE SULTAN COMES TO TOWN                                            40
  PHILIPPINE RANKERS                                                  45
  DOBIE ITCH                                                          48
  THE SERVICE ARMS                                                    50


  PART THREE--OTHER VERSES

  SHAH JEHAN                                                          55
  THE OMNIPOTENT                                                      59
  THE OUTBOUND TRAIL                                                  62
  THE FOOL                                                            64
  THE SHIPS                                                           67
  THE FIRST POET                                                      68
  THE TEST                                                            70
  THE PORT O’ LOST DELIGHT                                            72
  WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT                                               76
  KING BAMBOO                                                         77
  MARK TWAIN                                                          79
  THE SUMMIT                                                          80
  THE LITTLE BRONZE CROSS                                             81
  KEATS                                                               83
  CHRISTMAS                                                           84
  TUCK AWAY--LITTLE DREAMS                                            85
  BLOODY ANGLE                                                        87
  THE MICROBE                                                         89
  THE SEAS                                                            90
  GOD’S ACRE                                                          92
  GOLD                                                                94
  THE LEGION                                                          95
  THE ALTAR                                                           97
  THE SONG OF THE AEROPLANE                                           99
  PACK YOUR TRUNK AND GO                                             101
  WOMAN                                                              103
  NIPPON                                                             105
  THE NEW BARD                                                       107
  FATHER TIME                                                        110
  MY LOVES                                                           112
  THE FORUM                                                          114
  THE MASTERPIECE                                                    116
  THE HERITAGE                                                       118
  THE ADJUSTING HOUR                                                 120
  THE OUTPOSTERS                                                     121
  WONDERING                                                          124
  LINES TO AN ELDERLY FRIEND                                         126
  BATTLESHIPS                                                        127
  THE AMERICAN FLAG                                                  131
  THE GREAT DOCTORS                                                  133
  THE DREAMER AND THE DOER                                           134
  SPAIN                                                              135
  C. Q. D.                                                           138
  THE LIGHTS                                                         140
  THE CHOSEN                                                         141
  THE FAIREST MOON                                                   144
  THE STRIVER                                                        146
  THE OLD MEN                                                        148
  THE FOUR-ROADS POST                                                150
  THE DAYS OF CHIVALRY                                               152
  PHANTOM-LAND                                                       154
  THE ROSE                                                           156
  PATRIOTISM                                                         157
  KELVIN                                                             159




PART ONE

THE DYAK CHIEF




THE DYAK CHIEF


    _Hear ye a tale from the deepest depths of the heart of Borneo,_
        _Where the Moeroeng leaps in wild cascades,_
        _And the endless green of the jungle fades,_
        _And night shuts down on the fern-choked glades_
    _Where the kampong hearth-fires glow._

        Listen, Oh White Man, that ye hear
          The words of a Dyak chief,
        Till ye learn the weight of the Dyak hate
          And the depth of the Dyak grief.

        Once in the days of my strength and pride
          I loved a kampong maid,
       And very old was the tale I told
          ’Neath the lace of the jungle shade.

        And very old was the tale I told,
          Though born year by year;
        Till I thought of the headless waist I bore--
          And I drew the maiden near:

    And I pledged her there by the tree-banked stream
      Where the rippling shadows flee,
    “None but the skull of a kampong chief
      Shall hang at my belt for thee.”


II

        When over the palm-topped endless hills
          First broke the golden day,
        The taintless breeze in the highest trees
          Laughed as I swung away.

        Laughed as I climbed the mountain path
          Or skirted the river’s bank,
        And the great lianes sung to me
          As on my knees I drank.

        And the great lianes softly swayed
          And twisted in snake-like guise,
        Till I lost their sight in the leafy height
          Where peeped the purple skies.

        And down through the dank morasses
          I leapt from clod to clod,
        O’er fallen trunk and lifted root
          And the ooze of the sunken sod--

        Where the tiny trees stand tall and straight,
          A mass of mossy green,
        And lighting all like a fairy hall
          The sunlight sifts between.

        Day by day through stress and strain
          I pressed my marches through;
        Day by day through strain and stress
          The weary hours flew.

        And silent, from the dank brown leaves
          As swept my hurrying tread,
        The little waiting leeches rose
          And caught me as I sped.

        Till my feet and ankles bled in streams--
          But I let them clinging stay,
        And they swelled to seven times their size
          And glutted and fell away.

        For never time had I to stop,
          And so they sucked their fill,
        As I splashed through the knee-deep rivers
          And clambered the jungle hill.

        And only night could halt me,
          And the stars in their proud parade,
        They bade me look to the fray before,
          And back to the kampong maid.


III

    Weary at last I reached a height
      That showed a fertile glade,
    Where the bending trees of the river brink
      Leaned out o’er a wild cascade.

    And white above the waving banks
      The towering giants rose high,
    And tossed their heads in hauteur,
      Full-plumed across the sky.

    And waved their long lianes
      A hundred feet in air,
    And shook their clinging vine-leaves
      As a Dyak maid her hair.

    And down by the Moeroeng’s turning
      The river rock rose sheer,
    And out of the cracks the tasseled palms
      Like mighty plumes hung clear.

    While still, behind a boulder,
      Where the little ripples gleam,
    A fisher sat in his sunken proa
      In the midst of the gliding stream.

    Only the crash of the underbrush
      Told where a hunter sped,
    And I caught the glint of the morning sun
      On the blow-spear’s glittering head.

    Only the crack of a mandauw
      Felling the little trees,
    And the murmuring call of a water-fall
      That echoed the jungle breeze.

    But more to me than the hunter--
      The fisher and stream and hill--
    Was the kampong deep in the hollow,
      Nestling dark and still.

    Dark and still in the valley,
      A single house and strong;
    Perched on piles two warriors high
      And a hundred paces long.

    And straight before the tall-stepped door
      The mighty chief poles rose,
    And seemed to shake their tasseled tops
      In warning to their foes--

    As they who slept beneath them
      Once did, when in their might--
    With shining steel and sinews--
      Full-armed they sprang to fight.

    Long from the hill-side trees I watched
      The water women go
    Back and forth to the river bank,
      Chattering to and fro.

    Long from the hill-side trees I watched
      Till--straight as the windless flame--
    With spear and shield and mandauw,
      The kampong chieftain came.

    Full well I knew the waist-cloth blue
      Where hung each shriveled head.
    Full well I saw the eyes of awe
      That followed in his tread.

    Full well I heard the spoken word--
      The quick obedience fanned--
    And I felt the trance of the royal glance
      Of the Lord of the Jungle-land.

    Lightly he scorned the proffered guard
      As he strode the upland grade,
    And softly I drew my mandauw
      And fingered the sharpened blade.

    Was it for game or a head he came
      To the hills in the golden morn?
    But little I cared as the heavens stared
      On the day that my hope was born.

    For over and over I muttered--
      As I slunk from tree to tree--
    “None but the head of a kampong chief
      Shall hang at my belt for thee.”

    (None but the head of a kampong chief
      For you my belt shall grace,
    Taken by right in fairest fight--
      Full-fronted--face to face.)

    And I found a leafy clearing
      That lay across his path,
    And I stood to wait his coming--
      The chieftain in his wrath.

    As the moan before the wind-storm
      That breaks across the night,
    Were the rhythmic, muffled foot falls
      Of the war-lord come to fight.

    The crack of little branches--
      The branches pushed away--
    And the Scourge of the Moeroeng Valley
      Sprang straight to the waiting fray.

    ’Twas then I knew the stories true
      They told of his fearful fame,
    As through my shield a hand’s-length
      His hurtling spearhead came.

    Stunned I reeled and a moment kneeled
      To the shock of the blinding blow,
    But I rose again at the stinging pain
      And the wet of the warm blood’s flow.

    And I staggered straight and I scorned to wait
      And I swept my mandauw high--
    But ere my stroke descended
      He smote me athwart the thigh.

    As the lean rattan at the workman’s knife--
      As the stricken game in the dell--
    As a bird on the wing at the blow-spear’s sting,
      To the reddened earth I fell.

    And merrily with fiendish glee
      He knelt and held me fast;
    And I looked on high at the fleecy sky--
      And I thought the look was the last.

    But by the will that knows no law
      I wrenched my right hand free,
    And I drove my mandauw’s gleaming point
      A hand’s-breadth in his knee.

    Stung by the pain he loosened,
      And a moment bared his breast,
    And like the dash of the lightning flash
      My weapon sought its rest.

    As a log in the Moeroeng rapids
      The mighty chieftain rolled,
    And I pinned him fast for the head-stroke,
      In the reek of the blood-stained mold.

    And I pinned him fast for the head-stroke--
      But the glare of the dying eyes
    Gleamed forth to show the worthy foe
      And the heart that never dies.

    *       *       *       *       *

    A moment toward a kampong,
      And toward a kampong maid,
    I looked ... and a head rolled helpless
      To the crash of a falling blade.


IV

    With strips from my torn jacket
      I bound my arm and thigh,
    And I headed back o’er the leafy track
      With hope and spirits high.

    And as I sped with leaping heart
      All Nature seemed to sing;
    And my legs ran red where trickling bled
      The head of the Jungle King.

    The purring tree-tops called me--
      The fleecy clouds rolled by--
    And the forest green was a sun-shot sheen,
      And the sky was a laughing sky.

    And only night could halt me,
      And the stars in their proud parade,
    They bade me look to the path before
      That led to the kampong maid.

    Bleeding and torn, spent and worn,
      At last I reached the hill,
    Whence each hearth-light in the falling night
      Was a welcome bright and still.

    For each hearth-light in the falling night
      Cut clear through the growing gloam--
    Of all brave things the best that brings
      The weary Wanderer home.

    But the waiting watchers spied me,
      And met me as I ran;
    And they saw the head of the chieftain,
      And they hailed me man and man.

    But through the heart-whole greetings
      I felt the anxious gaze,
    And over my brain like a pall was lain
      The weight of the Doubter’s craze.

    And I begged them to tell me quickly--
      For I quailed at the story stayed--
    And I asked them if aught had happened
      To the head of the kampong maid.

    And there in the leafy gloaming--
      Where the stars lit one by one,
    They told me the tale at my homing--
      And I felt the passions run--

    Hate as the white-hot flame jet--
      Shame as the burning bar--
    Grief as the poisoned arrow--
      Revenge as the salted scar:

    Rankling--roaring--blinding--
      Rising and ebbing low;
    Till overhead the skies burst red,
      And I tottered beneath the blow.

    For they told of a White Man’s coming,
      And the weapon that carries far;
    And his love for the Maid--but over it laid
      The hush of the falling star.

    Faithlessness--treachery--cunning--
      Weakness and love and fear--
    Oh very old was the tale they told,
      Though born year by year.

    And I drew my blade and I leapt away--
      But they sprang and held me fast:
    And they promised me there by the dead chief’s hair,
      My hate should be filled to the last.

    And they showed me him bound and knotted
      To the base of a splintered tree,
    Stripped to the sun and spat upon
      And taunted--awaiting me.

    And I saw _her_ in the shadows--
      But ... I might not know her, then--
    A sneer for the kampong women--
      And a jest for the kampong men.

    *       *       *       *       *

    And thus in the days of my strength and pride,
      From over the distant sea,
    The White Man came in his open shame
      And stole my love from me.


V

    The next morn at the rising sun
      The tom-toms roared their fill,
    And echoed like rolling thunder
      From hill to farthest hill.

    And the birds of the jungle fluttered
      And lifted and soared away,
    And we dragged the fettered prisoner forth
      To blink at the blinding day.

    Full length and naked on the ground
      We staked him foot and hand,
    And we laughed in glee as we watched to see
      The pest of the jungle-land.

    Oh we laughed in glee as we watched to see
      The little leeches swing,
    End on end till they reached the flesh
      Of the prostrate, struggling Thing.

    Like river flies in the summer rains
      They covered the White Man o’er--
    Body and legs and arms and face,
      Till the whole was a bleeding sore.

    And the red streams ran from the crusted pools
      And crimsoned the leafy ground,
    And the scent of gore but brought the more
      As the smell of game to the hound.

    Hour by hour I watched him die,
      Slowly day by day,
    Hour by hour I watched the flesh
      Sinking and turning gray:

    Hour by hour I heard him shriek
      To the skies and the White Man’s God--
    But only the gluttons came again
      And reddened the reeking sod.

    Weeping, writhing, groaning--
      Paled to an ashen dun--
    And the clotted blood turned black as mud
      And stunk in the midday sun.

    (Bones where stretched the tautening flesh--
      A shining, yellow sheen--
    And the flies that helped the leeches work
      In the stagnant pools between.)

    *       *       *       *       *

    Till the fourth day broke in a blaze of gold--
      And I knew the end was nigh--
    And I called the tribes from near and far,
      To watch the White Man die.

    From every kampong of the south
      Where the broad Barito winds--
    From every kampong of the east
      The murmuring hill-wind finds--

    From every kampong of the west
      Where the Djoeloi falls and leaps--
    From every kampong of the north
      Where the great Mohakkam sweeps--

    From east and west and south and north
      The mighty warriors came,
    To prove the weight of the Dyak hate
      And the shame of the naked shame.

    In noiseless scorn and wonder
      They scanned the victim there,
    Except that when an Elder spake
      To mock at his despair.

    Or when from out the long-house--
      Where loosened footboards creaked--
    A woman leaned in frenzy
      And tore her hair and shrieked.

    And from the wooded hill-tops
      The answering echoes came,
    Till all our far-flung wilderness
      Stooped down to curse his name.

    In sullen, savage silence
      They watched the streamlets flow:
    In savage, sullen silence--
      The war-lords--row on row--

    Ranged around by rank and years,
      Oh goodly was the sight,
    Square shouldered--spare--with muscles bare
      Coiled in their knotted might--

    And little serpent eyes that gleamed
      In glittering, primal hate,
    Like adders, that beneath the leaves
      The coming foot falls wait.

    The shrunken heads about their belts
      Stared with senseless grin,
    As though in voiceless mummery
      They mocked him in his sin.

    As though in sightless greeting--
      To make his entry good
    To th’ lost and leering legion
      Of the martyred brotherhood.

    *       *       *       *       *

    We rubbed his lips with costly salt--
      (You know how far it comes)--
    And when he called for drink--we laughed--
      And rolled the Sick-man’s Drums.

    *       *       *       *       *

    They beckoned me unto his side--
      The blood-stench filled the dell--
    They asked me--“Ye are satisfied?”
      And I answered--“It is well.”

    The final glaze was settling fast--
      The weary struggles ceased--
    And on his breath was the moan of death
      That prayed for life released.

    So we propped his mouth wide open
      With a knob of rotten vine,
    And the leeches entered greedily
      As white men to their wine.

    Palate and roof and tongue and gums,
      They gushed in rivers gay--
    And gasping--his own blood choked him--
      And his Spirit passed away.

    _This is the tale the old chief tells
      When the western gold-belt dies,
    And the jungle trees in the evening breeze
      Tower against the skies,
    And the good-wife bakes the greasy cakes
      Where the kampong hearth-fires rise._




    PART TWO

    AMERICAN ARMY BALLADS




ON THE WATER-WAGON


    Pay-day’s done and I’ve had my little fun--
      I’ve had my monthly row--
    And they put me in “the mill” and they told me, “Peace be still,”
      And--I am on the Water-wagon now.

    _Oh I’m on the Water-wagon and the time is surely draggin’_
      _And I’m thirsty as I can be;_
    _And I’m nursing of an eye that I got for being fly,_
      _And I’m bunking back o’ bars exclusively._

    Now wouldn’t it upset you--now wouldn’t it afret you
      If they jugged you ’cause you got a little tight,
    And a zig-zag course you laid when doing Dress Parade,
      And you really thought Guide Right was _Column_ Right.

    _Oh I’m on the Water-wagon but the trial is surely laggin’_
      _And I’m dryer than the Arizona dust_,
    _And my throat is full o’ hay and I’m choppin’ wood all day_
      _‘Cause the Sergeant of the Guard, he says I must._

    The Jug is rank and slummy and I’m sitting like a dummy
      Looking over at the barracks where I hear the mess-tins clang:
    And the fool I am comes o’er me, as I chant the same old story,
      The Ballad of the Guard-house--until I go and hang:--

    _“Oh I’m on the Water-wagon, you’ll never see me saggin’,_
      _I am glued and tied and fastened to the seat ...”_
    _And I hear the fellers snicker where the two lone candles flicker,_
      _And I shut-up like a soldier--with the Ballad incomplete._




ARMY OF PACIFICATION

Cuba 1907


    I’ve hiked a trail where the last marks fail
      And the vine-choked jungles yawn,
    I’ve doubled-out on a dirty scout
      Two hours before the dawn,
    I’ve done my drill when the palms hung still
      And the rations nearly gone.

    I’ve soldier’d in Pinar del Rio--
      In ’Frisco and Aparri--
    I’ve lifted their lights through the tropic nights
      O’er the breast of a golden sea,
    But this is surely the craziest puzzle
      That ever has puzzled me.

    It’s this. I’m here in Cuba
      Where the royal palms swing high,
    And the White Man’s plantations of all o’ the Nations
      Are scattered ahither and nigh
    And the native galoot who _must_ revolute
      Though no one can tell you just why.

    And when I go mapping the mountain and vale
      Or a practice-march happens my way,
    Each planter I meet is lovely and sweet
      And setteth them up right away,
    “And won’t I come in and how’ve I been?”
      And--“_How long do I think the troops stay?_”

    They never besprinkled my bosom
      When I soldier’d over home,
    Nor clasped me in glee when I came from the sea
      Where the Seal Rock breakers comb,
    Or stamped on a strike and scattered them wide
      Like the scud of the back-set foam.

    When I saved ’em their stinking Islands
      They cursed me for being rough:
    (They wouldn’t dare to have soldier’d there
      But they called me brutal and tough.
    I had done their work and the land was theirs,
      Which I reckon was nearly enough).

    They never enthuse over khaki or “blues”
      Anywhere else I’ve been.
    They never go wild and bless the child
      And say “Oh Willie come in.”
    Though on my soul, I’m damned if I see
      Just where is the Cardinal Sin.

    _I’m only a buck o’ the rank and file_
      _As stupid as I can be,_
    _So this is the craziest puzzle_
      _That ever has puzzled me._
    (_I’m perfectly dry but I_ must _bat an eye,_
      _For you think that I cannot see._)




SOLITARY


    We’re walking our post like a little tin soldier,
      Backward and forward we go,
    By the Solitary’s cell, which assuredly is hell--
      It’s five foot square you know.

    The boy was all right but he would get tight
      When pay-day came around;
    And the non-com he hated was thereupon slated
      To measure 5-10 on the ground.

    Oh yes, _we’ve_ been in the calaboose,
      We’ve done _our_ turn in the jug;
    ’Cause the fellow we lick must go raise a kick--
      The dirty, cowardly mug.

    His heart was all right and his arm was all right,
      But it’s fearful what drink will do:
    And the corporal he hit with the butt of a gun
      And nigh put the corporal through.

    It’s way against orders, it’s awful, I know,
      They’d jug me myself--what’s more--
    But I must slip the beggar a chew and a smoke
      Just under the jamb of the door.

    He’s bound to get Ten and a Bob for sure
      Abreaking stone on the Isle,
    So they fastened ’im fair in a five foot square
      Till the day that they give ’im a trial.

    Oh the Corporal o’ the Guard is a wakeful man--
      My duty is written plain,
    But the Solitary there in his cramped and lonely lair,
      It’s enough to drive a man insane.

    He’s time to repent for the money that he spent
      And the temper that cursed him too,
    When he’s breaking rock all day by the shores o’ ’Frisco Bay
      Where he sees the happy homeward-bounds come through.

    Shall we risk it--shall we risk it--heart o’ mine?
      Oh _damn_ the Corporal of the Guard.
    While we slip “the makings” under to the Solitary’s wonder,
      And the whispered thanks come back--“God bless you, pard.”




THE SULTAN COMES TO TOWN

A Philippine Reminiscence of 1900


    The Sultan of Jolo has come to town--
          Do tell!
    The Sultan of Jolo has come to town--
    The Sultan of Jolo of great renown--
    And he’s dressed like a general and walks like a clown
          As well.

    The Sultan of Jolo’s a mighty chief--
          My word!
    The Sultan of Jolo’s a mighty chief--
    (Don’t call ’im a grafter or chicken-thief,
    For you’ll surely come to your grief,
          If heard).

    The Sultan of Jolo’s _such_ a stride,
          And style!
    The Sultan of Jolo’s _such_ a stride,
    And his skin’s the color of rhino hide,
    And he cheweth betel-nut beside:
          (Oh vile!)

    The Sultan of Jolo’s a swell galoot--
          You bet.
    The Sultan of Jolo’s a swell galoot,
    So we line the scorching streets and salute,
    (“Presenting Arms” to the royal boot),
          And sweat.

    The Sultan of Jolo’s a full-fledged king--
          I say
    The Sultan of Jolo’s a full-fledged king
    As down the regiment’s front they swing,
    He and his Escort--wing and wing:
          Hurray!

    The Sultan of Jolo feels his weight,
          In truth.
    The Sultan of Jolo feels his weight
    As he marches by in regal state
    With Major Sour and all The Great,
          Forsooth.

    The Sultan proudly treads the earth
          With “cuz.”
    The Sultan proudly treads the earth
    O’ershadowed by the Major’s girth,
    But he knows just what the Major’s worth:
          _He does_.

    The Sultan of Jolo’s a haughty bun--
          (Don’t quiz).
    The Sultan of Jolo’s a haughty bun--
    An honest, virtuous gentleman--
    And he’s rated high in Washington--
          He is.

    The Sultan of Jolo’s a splendid bird--
          Whoopee!
    The Sultan of Jolo’s a splendid bird,
    But we in our ignorance pledge our word
    His asinine plumage is absurd
          To see.

    The Sultan and Major Sour are
          Such chums:
    The Sultan and Major Sour are
    So wrapped in love exceeding par,
    That war shall never war-time mar--
      --what comes.

    (The Sultan of Jolo guesseth right--
          Yo ho!
    The Sultan of Jolo guesseth right,
    As sure as daytime follows night,
    That Major Sour wouldn’t fight:
          Lord--no!)

    The Sultan of Jolo is pretty wise--
          (And weeds).
    The Sultan of Jolo is pretty wise,
    In spite of innocent, bovine eyes,
    And the soothing tongue o’ the Eastern skies
          And creeds.

    The Sultan of Jolo passeth by--
          Oh Lor’!
    The Sultan of Jolo passeth by,
    But we in the ranks can’t wink an eye,
    Though we think we know the Reasons Why,
          And more.

    The Sultan of Jolo walketh flat--
          (Have a care!)
    The Sultan of Jolo walketh flat,
    But Nature’s surely the cause of that;
    And he’s salaried high--and sleek and fat--
          So there!

    The Sultan of Jolo laughs in glee--
          Why not?
    The Sultan of Jolo laughs in glee
    As his wages come across the sea
    From those who _hate_ polygamy--
          God wot!

    Oh the Sultan of Jolo’s gold and gilt--
          He is.
    Oh the Sultan of Jolo’s gold and gilt,
    His chest and his sleeves and his good sword hilt,
    And he knows the lines on which are built--
          His _biz_.




PHILIPPINE RANKERS


    Clear down the thin-thatched barrack-room
      The varying voices rise--
    The shrill New England teacher’s--
      (The wisest of the wise)--
    And the Cowboy cleaning cartridges
      And telling fearful lies.

    The Bowery Boy is fast asleep
      Performing Bunk-fatigue,
    The Kid who simply can’t keep still
      Is pounding through a jig,
    And a plain darn fool just sits and sings
      And sneaks another swig.

    A bouncing bargain-counter clerk
      Dilates to Private Brown,
    The lordly top-notch swell he is
      When _he_ is back in town,
    And the scion of an ancient name
      Just yawns and hides a frown.

    The mountain-riding Parson talks
      T’ his Y. M. C. A. band,
    And mine Professor’s turning Keats
      With hard and grimy hand,
    And Johnny’s reading football news
      When baseball fills the land.

    And some they pull together--
      And some won’t gee at all--
    And some are looking for a fight
      And riding for a fall--
    And some, they ran from prison bars;
      And some, just heard The Call.

    And some are simply “rotters”--
      And some the Country’s best:
    And some are from the cultured East--
      And some the sculptured West:
    And some they never heard of Burke--
      And some they sport a crest.

    (“The Backbone of the Army”--
      “The Chosen of the Lord”--
    The Faithful of the Fathers--
      The Wielders of the Sword--
    The hired of the helpless--
      The bruisers and the bored.)

    The east-sides of the cities
      Are aye foregathered here;
    The best sides of the cities
      Are come from far and near,
    To mix their books and Bibles
      With oaths and rotten beer.

    *       *       *       *       *

    Clear down the mud-browed, blood-plowed ranks
      The thin, tanned faces lift;
    The long, lean line that hears the whine
      Of the bamboo’s silken sift,
    And the sudden rush and the chug and the hush
      Where the careless bullets drift.

    The Parson’s up and shooting
      And cursing like a fool;
    The Bowery Boy is bleeding fast
      In a red and ragged pool;
    And mine Professor gags the wound--
      (Which he didn’t learn in school).

    *       *       *       *       *

    _Nor creed nor sign nor order--
      Nor clan nor clique nor class:
    Never a mark to brand him
      As he chokes in the paddy grass:
    Only the tide of Bunker Hill,
      That ebbs, but may not pass._




DOBIE ITCH


    _Tell about the fever
      And all y’ tropic ills,
    Tell about the cholera camp
      Over ’mong the hills;
    Tell about the small-pox
      Where the bamboos switch,
    But close y’ face and let me tell
      About the Dobie Itch._

    It isn’t erysipelas--
      It isn’t nettle-rash;
    It isn’t got from eating pork,
      Or drinking native trash.
    You smear your toes with ointment,
      And think you’re getting well,
    And then the damn thing comes again
      And simply raises hell.

    You’ve hiked all day in sun and rain
      Through hills and paddy mire,
    Abaft the slippery googoos
      Who shoot--and then retire:
    And now you’ve taken off your shoes
      And settled for a rest,
    When suddenly your feet they start
      To itch _like all possessed_.

    (Better take your socks off
      And then see how it goes....
    “Ouch! m’ bloody stockin’s
      Stickin’ to m’ toes.”)

    Scratching, scratching, scratching,
      Burning scab and sore,
    (“Stop, you fool, you’ll poison ’em!”
      Hear your bunkie roar).
    Never mind the poison--
      Ease the maddening pain,
    Till your poor old tired feet
      Start to bleed again.

    _Tell about the fever
      And all y’ tropic ills,
    Tell about the cholera camp
      Over ’mong the hills;
    Tell about the small-pox
      Where the bamboos switch,
    But close y’ face and let me tell
      About the Dobie Itch._




THE SERVICE ARMS


    _Clear from clotted Bunker Hill
      And frozen Valley Forge,
    To the Luzon trenches
      And the fern-choked gorge:
    All the Service--all the Arms--
      Horse and Foot and Guns--
    East and West who gave your best--
      Stand and pledge your Sons!_


THE INFANTRY:

    As the Juggernaut slow rolls
    Ringing red with reeking tolls,
    Crushing out its Hindu souls
      In Vishnu’s name:
    As the unrelenting tide
    Sweeps the weary wreckage wide,
    Bidding all men stand aside
      Or rue the game:

    Meeting front and flank and rear,
    Charge on charge with cheer on cheer,
    Where the senseless corpses leer
      Against the sun:
    Sure as fate and faith and sign
    I o’erwhelm them--they are mine;
    And I pause where weeps the wine
      Of battle won.


THE ARTILLERY:

    As the slumbering craters wake,
    And the neighboring foot hills shake,
    As in shotted flame they break
      Athwart the sky:
    As the swollen streams of Spring
    Meet their river wing and wing,
    Till it sweeps a monstrous thing
      Where cities die:

    With a cold sardonic smile,
    At a range of half a mile,
    I--I lop them off in style
      By six and eights:
    As they come--their Country’s best--
    Like a roaring, seething crest,
    And I knock them Galley West
      Where Glory Waits.


THE CAVALRY:

    As the tidal wave in spate
    Batters down the great flood gate
    Where the huddled children wait
      Behind the doors:
    As the eagle in its flight
    Sweeps the plain to left and right,
    Strewing carnage, wreck and blight
      And homeward soars:

    As the raging, wild typhoon,
    ’Neath a white and callous moon,
    Lifts the listless low lagoon
      Into the sea:
    In my tyranny and power
    I have swept them where they cower,
    I have turned the battle-hour
      To the cry of Victory!




    PART THREE

    OTHER VERSES




SHAH JEHAN

BUILDER OF THE TAJ MAHAL.


    They have carried my couch to the window
      Up over the river high,
    That a Great Mogul may have his wish
      Ere he lay him down to die.

    And the wish was ever this, and is,
      Ere the last least shadows flee,
    To gaze at the end o’er the river’s bend
      On the shrine that I raised for thee.

    And the plans I wrought from the plans they brought,
      And I watched it slowly rise,
    A vision of snow forever aglow
      In the blue of the northern skies.

    For I built it of purest marble,
      That all the World might see
    The depth of thy matchless beauty
      And the light that ye were to me.

    The silver Jumna broadens--
      The day is growing dark,
    And only the peacock’s calling
      Comes over the rose-rimmed park.

    And soon thy sunset marble
      Will glow as the amethyst,
    And moonlit skies shall make thee rise
      A vision of pearly mist.

    A vision of light and wonder
      For the hordes in the covered wains,
    From the snow-peaked north where the tides burst forth
      To the Ghauts and the Rajput plains.

    From the sapphire lakes in the Kashmir hills,
      Whence crystal rivers rise,
    To the jungles where the tiger’s lair
      Lies bare to the Deccan skies.

    And the proud Mahratta chieftains
      And the Afghan lords shall see
    The tender gleam of thy living dream,
      Through all Eternity.

    The black is bending lower--
      Ah wife--the day-star nears--
    And I see you come with calling arms
      As ye came in the yester-years.

    And the joy is mine that ne’er was mine
      By Palace and Peacock Throne--
    By marble and gold where the World grows cold
      In the seed that It has sown.

    More bright than the Rajputana stars
      Thine eyes shone out to me--
    More gay thy laugh than the rainbow chaff
      That lifts from the Southern Sea.

    More fair thy hair than any silk
      In Delhi’s proud bazaars--
    More true thy heart than the tulwar’s start--
      Blood-wet in a hundred wars.

    More red thy lips than the Flaming Trees
      That brighten the Punjab plains--
    More soft thy tread than the winds that spread
      The last of the summer rains.

    No blush of the dawning heavens--
      No rose by the garden wall,
    May ever seek to match thy cheek--
      Oh fairest rose of all.

    Above the bending river
      The midday sun is gone,
    But the glow of thy tomb dispels the gloom
      Where doubting shadows yawn.

    And the glow of thy tomb shall break the gloom
      Through the march of the marching years,
    Where, builded and bound from the dome to the ground
      It was wrought of a monarch’s tears.

    The silver Jumna broadens
      Like a moonlit summer sea,
    But bank and bower and town and tower
      Have bidden farewell to me:

    And only the tall white minarets,
      And the matchless dome shine through--
    The silver Jumna broadens and--
      It bears me--love--to you.




THE OMNIPOTENT


    The Lord looked down on the nether Earth
      He had made so fair and green,
    Fertile valleys and snow-capped hills
      And the oceans that lie between.

    The Lord looked down on Man and Maid,
      Through the birth of the crystal air:
    And the Lord leaned back in His well-earned rest--
      And He knew that the sight was fair.

    The eons crept and the eons swept
      And His children multiplied,
    And ever they lived in simple faith,
      And in simple faith they died.

    They blessed the earth that gave them birth--
      They wept to the midnight star--
    And they stood in awe where the tides off-shore
      Rose leaping across the bar.

    They blessed the earth that gave them birth--
      But passed all time and tide,
    They blessed their Lord-Creator--
      Nor knew Him mystified.

    They came and went--the little men--
      The men of a primal breed--
    And the Lord He gathered them as they lived,
      Each in his simple creed.

    And the Lord He gathered them as they came--
      Ere the Earth had time to cool
    And the horde of Cain had clouted the brain
      ’Neath the lash of a monstrous school.


II

    The Lord looked down on the nether Earth
      He had made so fair and green--
    Fertile valleys and snow-capped hills
      And the oceans that lie between.

    And He saw the strife of the thousand sects--
      And ever anew they came--
    Torture and farce and infamy
      Committed in His name.

    Figure and form and fetich--
      Councils of hate and greed--
    Prophet on prophet warring,
      Each to his separate need.

    Symbol and sign and surplice
      And ostentatious prayer,
    And the hollow mock of the chanceled dark
      Flung back through the raftered air.

    *       *       *       *       *

    And the Lord He gazèd wistfully
      Through the track of a falling star;
    And He turned His sight from the homes of men,
      Where the ranting cabals are.




THE OUTBOUND TRAIL


    The Outbound Trail--The Outbound Trail--
      We hear it calling still:
    Coralline bight where the waves churn white--
      Ocean and plain and hill:
    Jungle and palm--where the starlit calm
      The Wanderer’s loves fulfil.

    Where the bleak, black blizzards blinding sweep
      Across the crumpled floe,
    And the Living Light makes white the night
      Above the boundless snow,
    And the sentinel penguins watch the waste
      Where the whale and the walrus go:

    Where the phosphor fires flash and flare
      Along the bellowing bow,
    And the soft salt breeze of the Southern Seas
      Is sifting across the prow,
    And the glittering Cross in the blue-black sky,
      The Watcher of Then and Now:

    We’ll lift again the lineless plain
      Where the deep-cut rivers run--
    And the pallid peaks as the eagle seeks
      His crag when the day is done:
    And the rose-red glaciers glance and gleam
      In the glow of the setting sun.

    We’ll go once more to a farther shore--
      We’ll track the outbound trail;
    Harbor and hill where the World stands still--
      Where the strange-rigged fishers sail--
    And only the tune of the tasseled fronds,
      Like the moan of a distant gale.

    We’ll tramp anew the jungle through
      Where ferned Pitcairnias rise,
    And the softly fanned Tjemaras stand
      Green lace against the skies,
    And the last red ray of the tropic day
      Flickers and flares and dies.

    _Across the full-swung, shifting seas
      There comes a beck’ing gleam,
    Strong as the iron hand of Fate--
      Sweet as a lover’s dream.
    What can bind us--what can keep us--
      Who shall tell us nay?
    When the Outbound Trail is calling us--
      Is calling us away._




THE FOOL


    In the first gray dawn of history
      A Paleolithic man
    Observed an irate mammoth--
      Observed how his neighbors ran:
    And he sat on a naked boulder
      Where the plains stretched out to the sun,
    And jowl in hand he frowned and planned
      As none before had done.

    Next day his neighbors passed him,
      And still he sat and thought,
    And the next day and the next day,
      But never a deed was wrought.
    Till the fifth sun saw him flaking
      Some flint where the rocks fall free--
    And the sixth sun saw him shaping
      A shaft from a fallen tree.

    Enak and Oonak and Anak
      And their children and kith and kin,
    They paused where they watched him working,
      And they smiled and they raised the chin,
    And they tapped their foreheads knowingly--
      As you and I have done--
    But he--he had never a moment
      To mark their mocking fun.

    And Enak passed on to bury
      His brother the mammoth slew.
    And Oonak, to stay his starving,
      With his fingers grubbed anew.
    And Anak, he thought of his tender spouse
      An ichthyosaurus ate--
    Because in seeking the nearest tree
      She had reached it a trifle late.

    *       *       *       *       *

    Around the Council fire,
      More beast and ape than man,
    The hairy hosts assembled,
      And their talk to the crazed one ran.
    And they said, “It is best that we kill him
      Ere he strangle us in the night,
    Or brings on our head the curse of the dead
      When the thundering heavens light.

    “It is best that we rid our caverns
      Of neighbors such as these--
    It is best--” but the Council shuddered
      At the rustle of parting leaves.
    Out of the primal forest
      Straight to their midst he strode--
    Weathered and gaunt--but they gave no taunt--
      As he flung to the ground his load.

    They eyed them with suspicion--
      The long smooth shafts and lean:
    They felt of the thong-bound flint barbs--
      They saw that the work was clean.
    Like children with a plaything,
      When first it is understood,
    They leapt to their feet and hurled them--
      And they knew that the act was good.

    They pictured the mighty mammoth
      As the hurtling spear shafts sank,
    They pictured the unsuspecting game
      Down by the river’s bank;
    They pictured their safe-defended homes--
      They pictured the fallen foe....
    And the Fool they led to the highest seat,
      Where the Council fires glow.




THE SHIPS


    The White Ship lifts the horizon--
      The masts are shot with gold--
    And I know by the shining canvas
      The cargo in the hold.

    And now they’ve warped and fastened her,
      Where I impatient wait--
    To find a hollow mockery,
      Or a rank and rotted freight.

    *       *       *       *       *

    The Black Ship shows against the storm--
      Her hull is low and lean--
    And a flag of gore at the stern and fore,
      And the skull and bones between.

    I shun the wharf where she bears down
      And her desperate crew make fast,
    But manifold from the darkest hold
      Come forth my dreams at last.

    _The White Ships and the Black Ships
      They loom across the sea--
    But I may not know until they dock--
      The wares they bring to me._




THE FIRST POET


    In the days of prose ere a bard arose
      There came from a Northern Land,
    A man with tales of the spouting whales
      And the Lights that the ice-winds fanned.

    And they sat them ’round on the barren ground,
      And they clicked their spears to the time,
    And they lingered each on the golden speech
      Of the man with the words that rhyme.

    With the words that rhyme like the rolling chime
      Of the tread of the rhythmic sea,
    And silent they listened with eyes that glistened
      In savage ecstasy.

    Over the plain as a pall was lain
      The hand of the primal heart,
    Till slowly there rose through the rock-bound close
      The first faint glimmering Start.

    As a ray of light in the storm-lashed night,
      O’er the virgin forests swept
    From the star-staked sea the Symbols Three--
      And the cave-men softly wept.

    Softly wept as slowly crept
      To the depth of the savage brain,
    Honor, forsooth, and Faith and Truth--
      And they rose from the rock-rimmed plain--

    And in twos and threes ’neath the mammoth trees
      They whispered as children do:
    And the Great World sprang from the Bard that sang,
      And the First of the Men that Knew.




THE TEST


    The Lord He scanned His children,
      His good, well-meaning children,
    And He murmured as He saw them
      Where they came and paused and passed;
    “I will drag them I will drive them
      Through the fourfold Hells of Torture,
    And--I will test the product
      That comes back to me at last.”

    His children came--His children paused--
      His children slowly passed Him--
    And for the sweat upon the brow
      And scar upon the cheek,
    He heaped the burdens higher--
      He cut and smote and lashed them--
    And as they swayed and tottered
      He hurled them spent and weak.

    They cast an eye, a gleaming eye,
      Above to where they sought Him--
    But blank the empty skies gave back,
      And blank the heavens stared.
    And even they with riven heart,
      Who strove to hide the hiding,
    He drove the scalpel deeper,
      That the inmost core lay bared.

    At last He took the Test-Tubes
      And the Acids of the Ages,
    And he lit the Mighty Forges
      With the Fires of the Years,
    And He turned and smote and hammered,
      And He poured and paused and pondered,
    Till a clear precipitate formed ’neath
      A residue of tears.

    Across the outer spaces--
      Beyond the last least sun-path,
    He called them gently homeward
      And He murmured as they passed,
    “I have driven ye and dragged ye
      Through the fourfold Hells of Torture,
    And--I will keep the product
      That comes back to me at last.”




THE PORT O’ LOST DELIGHT


    _Some call it Fame or Honor--
      Some call it Love or Power--
    Whence running rails and bellied sails
      The four-banked galleons tower.
    To each the separate vision--
      To each the guiding light--
    Where, ’bove the dim horizon lifts
      The Port o’ Lost Delight._

    ’Mid mighty cheers and the hope of years
      They swung the good Ship free,
    And with laughter brave she took the wave
      Of the wonderful, whispering sea.

    Over the scud of the white-capped flood--
      Over the strong, young days--
    Over the lift of the chaff-churned drift
      And the mist of the moonlit haze--

    Running the lights o’ the Ports-o’-Call,
      Where the beckoning beacons shine;
    But she passed them by with callous eye,
      Nor saw the luring sign.

    Piercing the glow of the ocean’s dawn,
      As slow the seas unfold;
    Scudding again across the plain
      Of rippling, sunset gold.

    Joyous and fair in the brine-wet air,
      Where the phosphor bow-wave slips,
    And the Wraiths of the Deep their secrets keep
      Of the tale o’ the passing ships.


II

    Till there lifted a wondrous Haven
      Across the swinging main,
    As ne’er before had lifted--
      Nor e’er might lift again.

    Clear it shone, each gleaming stone,
      Mystic, white and far,
    Castle and tree above the sea
      Where the lilac combers are.

    And over all there came a call,
      As a Siren’s soft refrain--
    Nor ever a helm to guide her,
      The Good Ship turned again.

    Swift o’er the back-set breakers
      She plunged against the wind,
    And never a look to left or right,
      And never a thought behind:

    Swinging, swaying, singing,
      With all her canvas spread,
    And bending spars and laughter
      She fast and faster sped.

    A little space--a little space--
      A little nearer, then--
    The Haven sank from the sunset sea,
      And the sea was a waste again.


III

    As the quivering stag at the bullet’s sting,
      Who knew not harm was nigh,
    So shook the Ship by seam and seam
      In the death that may not die.

    And though it sailed o’er every wave,
      By reef and barrier bar,
    ’Neath the glare of the South Seas’ scorching sun
      And the gleam of the lone North Star.

    Though it lifted the lights o’ the Ports-o’-Call,
      By green and crimson beam,
    It never lifted the Light again--
      The Light that fled as a dream.

    Over a blue-black endless sea--
      Over a timeless void--
    Callous and careless plunged the Ship
      That never a storm destroyed.

    Skimming the foaming coral reef--
      Daring the mid-deep wind--
    Clipping the roar of the white lee shore
      Where the Gods of Chance run blind.

    Full belly sail before the gale--
      With scuppers churning green--
    And eyes set dead in a figure-head
      That dipped in the troughs between:

    That rose and fell and cut the swell--
      Or knew the day or night;
    That rose and fell to the soundless bell
      Of the Port o’ Lost Delight.




WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT


    O’er the rock of all eternal--
      Over sacred soil ye’ve trod;
    Whither king and priest and people
      Make their mockery of God.

    Like the rolling of an organ
      Down the mighty nave of Time,
    In the hush of Things Supernal
      Ye have sung of Things Sublime.

    Living lilt beyond the starlight--
      Living light beyond the spheres--
    With a calm majestic cadence
      Came the call of all the years.

    As a pause across the storm-path--
      As the swaying starlit sea--
    As the faith of little children--
      Ye have writ _ETERNITY_.




KING BAMBOO

A BALLAD OF THE EAST INDIES


    I build them boats and houses--
      I check their mountain roads--
    I bear their double burdens--
      The squeaking, creaking loads.
    Adown the broken hill sides
      My long, high pipings run,
    To bring their water to them
      Adripping ’neath the sun.

    And when from spring and river
      The weary climbers strain,
    ’Tis I who hold the nectar
      To bring them life again.
    I am the quivering bridges
      That span the deep ravine--
    I am the matted fences
      That twist and wind between.

    _When ye sing of the lace Tjemara tree--_
      _When ye speak of the swaying Palm--_
    _When ye talk of the ferned Pitcairnia,_
      _And the monkey’s wild alarm:_
    _When ye tell of the blazing sunsets--_
      _When ye know ye are nearly through--_
    _Bend ye a knee to a Sovereign Lord--_
      _As my flat-nosed children do._




MARK TWAIN

Died, April 21st, 1910


    Fresh as the break o’ the dawning--
      Clear as the sunlit pool;
    Ye came on a World of weariness--
      Lord of a kingly school.

    Shuttle and lathe and hammer--
      Mill and mine and mart--
    They paused awhile to linger and smile--
      Children again in heart.

    And a World of work and trouble
      Bent to their tasks anew,
    With strength reborn of the joyous morn
      Made manifest by you.

    *       *       *       *       *

    Again the marts are silenced--
      There’s a hush o’er land and sea--
    With only the sobs of a Nation,
      That loved and honored thee.




THE SUMMIT


    Out of the murky valleys
      By the sweat of brow and brain;
    Out of the dank morasses--
      On to the spreading plain:
    Climbing the broken ranges--
      Falling and driving through,
    While the toil and tears of the countless years
      Bid ye back to the task anew.

    Glory and fame and honor
      Perched on the distant peak--
    Beckoning over land and sea
      To the gaze of the men who seek.
    Lifting the faltering footstep--
      Bathing the tired brow,
    Till out of the lanes of the sunken plains
      Ye come to the golden Now.

    Far spread the gleaming foot hills,
      And the deep, green vales between;
    Fair lift the distant coast-lines
      And the water’s shifting sheen--
    And weary, ye pause on the Summit
      For the first victorious breath,
    When a hand at your elbow beckons--
      And ye know that the hand is Death.




THE LITTLE BRONZE CROSS

THE VICTORIA CROSS IN THE CROWN JEWELS ROOM OF THE TOWER OF LONDON


    Glittering--glaring--glistening--
      In pompous, proud array;
    Maces and crowns and sceptres--
      Orders and ribbons gay:
    Bright in the white electric light;
      Caged and guarded there;
    Symbol and sign that the luck of line
      A king or a cad might wear.

    Blinking--blinding--blazing--
      The crown-topped hillock shone,
    And the gaping crowd in voices loud
      Coveted gilt and stone.
    Coveted idle gilt and stone,
      Though never stopped to stare
    At a little cross on the other side,
      Half hid in the alcove there.

    But slowly into the Tower
      Through the narrow windows crept,
    The Winds of the Outer Marches--
      The Winds that had seen and wept
    At Ladysmith--Trafalgar--
      Sebastopol--Lahore;
    Khartoum--Seringapatam--
      Kabul and Gwalior.

    The breath of the red Sirocco
      That sweeps from the white Soudan:
    The winds that beat through the Kyber Pass
      Where the blood of England ran:
    The winds that lift o’er the Great South Drift--
      O’er the veldt and the frozen plain--
    They stooped and kissed the little bronze cross,
      And went on their way again.

    And the blaze of crowns and sceptres--
      The power and pomp of kings;
    And the glare of the glittering Orders--
      The tinsel of Little Things,
    Paled in the ancient Tower--
      Faded and died alone,
    And only a cross--For Valour--
      With mystic brightness shone.




KEATS


     Who, in a spirit of supersensitive self-abnegation, had placed upon
     his tombstone that here lay “one whose name is writ in water.”


    If your name is writ in water,
      As your humble tombstone saith,
    Then it forms a crystal fountain
      Born to mock at mortal death.

    If your name is writ in water,
      ’Tis the water of the stream
    Where the wise of all the nations
      Stoop to drink and stay to dream.

    If your name is writ in water,
      It has flowed into the sea
    Of the ages past and present--
      And of Immortality.




CHRISTMAS


    Childish prattle and merry laugh
      And the joy of Christmas-tide,
    And the old are young as the gay bells fling
      Their messages far and wide.

    Steaming pudding and lighted tree
      And the litter of scattered toys,
    We’re all of us children again to-day
      Along o’ the girls and boys.

    (_Back behind the happy faces
      Lifts another looking through?
    Drop your merry mask and tell me
      What does Christmas mean to you?_)

    Laughter long of the joyous throng,
      Festival, fun and feast,
    And there’s never a care in the echoing air
      In the joy of a year released.

    There’s never a care in the echoing air--
      There’s never a break in the song--
    And we rise with the rest when the children are blessed
      And the hours have galloped along.




TUCK AWAY--LITTLE DREAMS


    His nose was pressed to the grindstone--
      His shoulders bent to the wheel,
    One of the numbered millions
      That bore no right to feel.
    Child of a callous calling--
      Waif of a wilful day;
    I heard him murmur beneath his breath--
      “Tuck away--little dreams--tuck away.”

    The loom and lathe and ledger--
      Pencil and square and drill--
    They saw his pain and they laughed again
      As hardened headsmen will.
    While ’neath their chains and chiding,
      Through the gloom of the endless day,
    I heard him murmur beneath his breath--
      “Tuck away--little dreams--tuck away.”

    I saw him going down the hill--
      I saw him pause, and start,
    And bend again to the grinding grain--
      Lord of a broken heart.
    The sunset shadows lengthened--
      The earth was turning gray,
    As I caught the breath of the living death--
      “Tuck away--little dreams--tuck away.”




BLOODY ANGLE

July 3, 1863; July 3, 1913

THE SPIRIT OF BLOODY ANGLE SPEAKS.


    I saw them charge across the field
      The Stars and Bars above them,
    I saw them fall in hundreds--
      I heard the rebel yell.
    Behind me, ’neath the Stars and Stripes,
      I watched the blue coats pouring
    Into the men of Pickett
      The flaming vials of Hell.

    _I thought of Yorktown--Bunker Hill--
      Of Valley Forge and Monmouth.
    Again the Elders signed our birth--
       The great Bell tolled anew.
    And I closed my eyes and shuddered--
      And I looked to the Lord of Battle--
    And I prayed, “Forgive them Father,
      For they know not what they do.”_

    I saw them striding o’er the field--
      A gray-clad, aged remnant;
    I heard again across the plain
      The piercing rebel call.
    Behind me, ’neath a peaceful sky,
      I saw the blue coats standing--
    I saw the columns meet--clasped hands--
      Above my battered wall.

    _I knew my blood-stained conscience--_
      _My reeking rowels were whitened._
    _I saw the line of Sections_
      _Fade dim and die away._
    _And Phœnix-like, from fire and hate,_
      _A reunited nation_
    _Rose up to bless her children,_
      _Forever and for aye._




THE MICROBE


    The Microbe said--“There is no Man--
      I know there may not be:
    I cannot hear his voice that sings--
    I cannot see his arm that swings--
    I cannot feel his mind that flings
      My earth-born destiny.”

    The Man-Child said--“There is no God--
      I know there may not be:
    I cannot pause and meet His eye--
    I cannot see His form on high--
    I only know an empty sky
      Stares mocking back at me.”




THE SEAS


    _Purple seas and garnet seas, emerald seas and blue,
    Foaming seas and frothing seas spraying rainbow dew:
    Laughing seas and chaffing seas, gay in the morning light,
    Endless seas and bendless seas ayawn in the starless night._

    Seas that reach o’er the long white beach
      Where the clean-washed pebbles roll,
    And the nodding groves and the coral coves
      And the deep-toned voices toll.

    Seas that lift the broken drift
      And crash through the crag-lined fjord--
    Seas that cut the channel’s rut
      With the thrust of a mighty sword.

    Seas that brood in silent mood
      When the midnight stars are set--
    Seas that roar as a charging boar
      Till the rails of the bridge run wet.

    Seas that foam where the porpoise roam
      And the spouting whale rolls high--
    Seas that use in the sunset hues
      Till all is a blended sky.

    Seas that reek with the golden streak
      And the flash of phosphor fire--
    Seas that glance in a moonlit dance
      With feet that never tire.

    Seas that melt in the mist-hung belt
      When sky and waters close--
    Seas that meet the day’s retreat,
      Amber and gold and rose.

    _Purple seas and garnet seas, emerald seas and blue,
    Foaming seas and frothing seas spraying rainbow dew:
    Laughing seas and chaffing seas, gay in the morning light,
    Endless seas and bendless seas ayawn in the starless night._




GOD’S ACRE


    I’m drivin’ backward to the farm--
      The harvest day is done,
    And I’m passing by God’s Acre
      At the setting o’ the Sun:
    And I slow the homing horses--
      For I must soliloquize
    On that white crop standin’ silent
      Against the crimson skies.

    I guess there’s tares aplenty--
      And I guess there’s lots o’ chaff,
    And I guess there’s many stories that
      Ed make a feller laugh.
    And I guess there’s mebbe stories
      Ed make a feller weep,
    And the Angels kind o’ whisper
      As around the stones they creep.

    Well, the Lord He up and planted--
      And the Harvest’s come to head;
    (And He shore is most particular
      When all is done and said).
    But I reckon when it’s sifted,
      And the Crop is in the bin,
    It’ll be a durned hard sinner
      As the Lord ain’t gathered in.




GOLD


    From the green Cycadeæn ages,
      From the gloom of the Cambrian fen,
    From the days of the mighty mammoth
      And the years of the dog-toothed men,
    I’ve lifted ye clear to the summits--
      A toy of the upper air--
    I’ve dashed ye down to the pits again
      To laugh at your despair.

    I beckoned across the chasm
      To watch ye stumble in,
    And never a light to left or right
      On the crags of shame and sin.
    I called ye over mountains--
      I called ye over seas--
    And ye came in hosts from all the coasts
      To taste of the tainted breeze.

    Honor and King and Country--
      Sire and Seed and God--
    Ye have given all to the Siren’s call
      When I but chose to nod.
    Ye have given all to the Siren’s call--
      To the mock of the Siren’s strain--
    Ye have made a choice and never a voice
      May bid ye back again.




THE LEGION

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA REUNION ODE


    Across the hill I saw them come--
      A deep-ranked serried legion.
    Across the hill I saw them come--
      The faithful cohorts there.
    Bank, bar and bench--mine, mart and trench--
      From every clime and region,
    In manly might and majesty--
      And I knew the sight was fair.

    I saw them halt against the hill
      In loyal lines unbroken;
    I heard them answer to the Roll,
      Nor ever missed a name;
    For they foregathered past recall
      Were there by every token,
    As, ’cross the valley to a man
      The thundering echoes came.

    I saw them passing o’er the hill
      In serried ranks unbroken;
    ’Twas stirrup touching stirrup
      In the sunshine and the rain.
    And good the pride to see them ride
      With strength renewed and spoken,
    Till love of Pennsylvania
      Should call them home again.




THE ALTAR

UPON THE APENNINE HILL OF ROME


    ’Neath the gardens of the Emperors
      Unnoticed you may pass
    A little altar nestling
      In the poppies and the grass.
    No gorgeous columns flank it,
      Where priest or Vestal trod--
    Only the carven words that sing--
      “To the Unknown God.”

    The haughty praetor scanned it
      With humble, thoughtful air--
    The base-born slave espied it
      With sullen, frightened stare:
    The Roman matron touched it,
      And went upon her way--
    The gladiator saw it,
      And paused awhile to pray.
    Even the passing Cæsar
      Bowed the imperial head,
    With faltering eyes that swept the skies
      In reverent fear and dread.

    The arching heavens domed it
      With royal lapis blue--
    The soft Campania’s whisper
      Brought the sunshine and the dew:
    The candles of the firmament
      Bent down their brightest rays,
    Where, midst their Pagan Pantheon
      A People paused to gaze.




THE SONG OF THE AEROPLANE


    I scan your mighty fortresses--
      I scorn your splendid fleets--
    I chart your chosen cities--
      Trenches and lanes and streets.

    No secret ’neath the heavens,
      No tale of land or sea,
    But bares the breast at my behest
      To stand revealed to me.

    I pierce the rainbow’s bending,
      Uncovering fold on fold,
    Till I come to the arch’s ending
      Where lies the pot of gold.

    I romp in the crimson sunset--
      I mount the wings o’ the dawn--
    I glide o’er the brakes and marshes
      To laugh at the startled fawn.

    Never a mark may scorn me,
      From the noise of the rising quail
    To the topmost peak where the eagles seek
      Their home in the driving gale.

    Where lies the last least wilderness
      Man may not dare to know--
    Where stands the unscaled mountain,
      Fair crowned with virgin snow:

    Where hide the hidden ages--
      Where flow the golden streams--
    Where lurks the land of Crœsus
      Or the Lotus-land o dreams:

    Up through the rushing firmament,
      With never halt or toll,
    I bear ye far till ye come where are
      The gates of the cherished goal.

    *       *       *       *       *

    On the wonderful things I show you
      Lucullus-like ye dine--
    For the wonderful thoughts I bring you
      Ye love and are wholly mine.




PACK YOUR TRUNK AND GO


    If you meet a little fräulein
    As pretty as a rosebud,
    And eyes that make your silly heart-strings
      Thump and bump and glow--
    Don’t stand and linger dawdlin’
    When you _know_ you’re getting maudlin,
    But call yourself a bally fool
      And pack your trunk and go.

    If the mocking, hollow laughter,
    Like the creaking of a rafter,
    Greets you--standing watching after
      At the Chance you didn’t know:
    Sneering in its craven power
    Comes to seek you by the hour,
    Try the palm-grove, veldt or paddy--
      Pack your trunk and go.

    If the skies are rent asunder
    O’er some hasty little blunder,
    And you start to really wonder
      How _wise_ some people grow:
    Let the empty carp-heads haggle--
    Let the teacup headwear waggle--
    Just tell ’em all to run along--
      And pack your trunk and go.

    If the silent blades are dipping
    And the green canoes are slipping
    By the birches white and dripping
      In the crimson after-glow:
    And the harvest-moon is rising
    With a fullness most surprising--
    It’s summer on the northern lakes
      So pack your trunk and go.

    If the Faith your Fathers taught you
    And the Land your Fathers wrought you,
    (The Land their blood has bought you),
      Shall hear the bugles blow--
    Don’t watch in doubt and waiting,
    Don’t stand procrastinating,
    But say good-bye with laughing eye
      And pack your trunk and go.

    _Where the coral turns to cactus,
    And the cactus turns to harvest,
    And the harvest turns to hemlock,
      And the hemlock turns to snow:
    By the phosphor-bordered beaches--
    By the endless, bendless reaches--
    You will find him where the Whisper bade him
      Pack his trunk and go._




WOMAN

A REPLY TO RUDYARD KIPLING


    “A woman is only a woman”--
      These are the words you spoke.
    And you deemed they were bright and caustic--
      And you thought you had made us a joke.
    Well, we who have been in the Tropics,
      Who’ve noted the Eastern “way,”
    ’May be we should half forgive you
      For some of the things you say.

    When the Cave-man spat on his neighbor
      And smote him hip and thigh--
    When the Bronze-man slivered the boulders
      Where the tin and the copper lie--
    When the Iron-man reared him bridges
      And engines of steam and steel--
    What was the Light that lifted them,
      And bade them to live and to feel?

    When the sunshine turns to shadow--
      And the shadow turns to night;
    When faith and fair intention
      Have fought them a failing fight;
    When Hell has drawn nearest--
      And God is very far--
    Mayhap ye then can tell us who
      The Ministering Angels are?

    A rose is only a flower--
      Can ye bring us the bud more rare?
    “A woman is only a woman”--
      Can ye show us the work more fair?
    Harrie ye all Creation--
      Look ye without surcease,
    And when ye are weary and broken, kneel--
      To your Master’s masterpiece.




NIPPON


    _Trust ye the Nations of the Earth
      From sea to farthest sea--
    But trust ye not, Oh trust ye not
      The wily Japanee._

    Truth? A jest o’ the High and Low--
      A juggler’s tossing toy--
    A two-faced guile and a child-like smile--
      (Oh Innocence _sans_ alloy!)

    Honor? An empty mockery
      Beneath the Sunrise Sky;
    A hollow, vain, fanatic strain
      That lifts with the loud “Banzai!”

    Virtue? Not even a figurehead,
      So scarce indeed thou art.
    Rank to the core a shameless sore
      In a yet more shameless heart.

    Faith? A faithless phantom
      That knows no law or creed.
    To flare and wane for the moment’s gain,
      And serve the moment’s need.

    _Trust ye the Nations of the Earth_
      _From sea to farthest sea--_
    _But trust ye not, Oh trust ye not_
      _The wily Japanee._




THE NEW BARD


        They had sung the song how very long
          Of Love and Faith and Truth:
        And they polished fine till it ran as wine,
          With never a spot uncouth.

        Mellow it spread with softened tread
          To the beat of the perfect time--
        Chastened and blest and colorless
          In stilted, vapid rhyme.

        Songs of love that the angels above
          Laughed as they bended near--
        Songs of fight that the men of might
          Sneered as they stopped to hear--

        Till a stronger people rising--
          They cast the cant aside,
        And they lifted free for the open sea
          Where the plunging porpoise ride.

        For there lifted free from the open sea
          The voice of a bard who knew,
        And he brought them tales from the spouting whales
          Where only the lean gulls flew.

        And he brought them tales from the coral bight
          Where the lilac waters spend,
        And the ceaseless sift of the phosphor drift
          Where the palm-lined beaches bend.

        But better than all through the endless pall
          His clear-shot wordings ran,
        And the tale he bore by peace and war
          Was the heart of his fellow-man.

        Under the ragged raiment--
          Under the silken sheen--
        They caught the worth of the spinning Earth,
          And the black and the gold between.

        For ’neath a coat of roughest hide,
          And ’neath the rugged brink,
        He covered whole the yearning Soul--
          The Soul of the Men Who Think.

        The Little Things with mystic wings
          That flitting merrily,
        Bind West and East and best and least,
          From sea to outer sea.

        The Little Things with mystic wings,
          Hidden the eons through--
        From his Children’s gaze he swept the haze,
          And his Children seeing--knew

        Each throbbing lane of pulse and brain--
          The far-flung Brotherhood:
        The thoughts untold and the hopes unrolled--
          And they answered him where they stood:

        “In measures strong we’ve heard your song,
          And the warm blood mounts again;
        And we scorn the beat of the stifled street
          And strike for the open main.

        “Far back--far back--we leave the plains
          To the little hurrying hosts,
        And over the seas in the scud-wet breeze
          We lift for the Land o’ Ghosts.

        “For the Land o’ Ghosts and the laughing coasts
          And the goal we hope to win--
        Though ne’er we reach the beckoning beach,
          Ye have let us look within.

        *       *       *       *       *

        “Though ne’er we reach the beckoning beach--
          Though it fades ere we leap to land,
        Ye have made us rife with the strength of life--
          Ye have spoke ... and we understand.”




FATHER TIME


    When your doctors fail to render--
      When your lotions fail to heal--
    When the salted scar is burning--
      When aturtle turns the keel:
    When the lights are lost to leeward--
      When the last least hope is gone--
    Then I call ye--Oh my children--
      As a Mother calls her spawn.

    By no magic may I do it--
      By no sudden quick surcease:
    Slow, so slow, ye cannot know it
      Do I bring ye your release.
    As the blackened heavens soften
      To the morning’s growing gray,
    And the gray spreads gold and crimson
      Till in splendor breaks the day:

    So by little and by little,
      That ye may not know or see,
    Do I soothe the salted searing--
      Do I bid the shadows flee--
    Do I weld the torn heart-cord
      No surgeon art may heal,
    Till ye lift the fastened latchet
      And go forth in laughing weal.

    From Eastward and from Westward
      I call my broken clan;
    We may not meet in lane or street
      Or greet us man and man:
    But slowly spread my wide-leagued wings--
      And falling tenderly,
    I wrap my troubled Earth-spawn
      Unto the heart of me.




MY LOVES


    _Oh do you wish to know my Loves?
      Then you must come with me
    To every land of all the lands
      And the waves of every sea._

    My love she nestles to my side,
      Nor careth who discern,
    For she’s the breeze o’ the Southern Seas
      Where the egg-spume waters turn.

    My love she wraps me in her arms
      With a crushing grasp and wild,
    For she was born o’ the six-months morn,
      A strong, tumultuous child.

    My love needs throw a kiss to me,
      And the kiss is the rainbow spray,
    Then laughing in glee, coquettishly,
      She lightly trips away.

    My love she comes with open arms,
      A dazzling beauty bold--
    Lilac and rose and amber,
      Scarlet and blazing gold.

    My love she gently beckons me
      And folds me nearer yet,
    A blushing maid with crown of jade
      Where the first pale stars are set.

    _Oh do you wish to know my Loves?
      Then you must come with me
    To every land of all the lands
      And the waves of every sea._




THE FORUM


    Here strode triumphant Cæsars
      Returning honored home:
    Here rose the gorgeous temples
      Of proud imperial Rome.

    Here burned the Vestal Fire
      The endless seasons through:
    Here reared the haughty Arches
      The far-flung Nations knew.

    Lord of the last least horizon--
      King of the Outer Seas--
    Where beat a heart, where stood a mart,
      There bended suppliant knees--

    To Thee--Resplendent Sovereign--
      Cradled among the hills,
    Who still through the countless centuries
      The wondering watcher thrills.

    _Only a Tale of the Ages--_
      _Power and Pride and Death--_
    _And the afterlight of an Empire’s might--_
      _And the soft Campania’s breath._

    _Only the crumbled marble,_
      _And Memory’s lingering wine,_
    _And the grass and the scarlet poppies_
      _And clover and dandelion._




THE MASTERPIECE


     “Des Sohnes letzter Gruss” (“The Son’s last Salutation”). A modern
     painting by Karl Hoff in the Royal Picture Gallery, Dresden.


    We tramped the stretching galleries--
      We gazed each priceless gem--
    Jordäens--Rubens--Raphael--
      We paused and pondered them.

    The famous, same Madonnas--
      The fatuous forms at ease--
    And the Wedding Feast with Cavaliers--
      And a drunken Hercules.

    We saw the Sistine Mother,
      The farthest Nations know--
    Till room on room of light and gloom
      Swept row on outer row.

    And some we knew and reverenced--
      Whose praise the wide World sings;
    And some we fled with callous dread
      For flat and flaccid things.

    Till at last at the gallery’s ending
      In the room with the roof-let door,
    We saw a young man standing--
      The Lone Son bid to War.

    Lithe and strong and supple,
      Clean-limbed, clear-eyed and tall--
    And the parting gaze of the parting ways
      When the battered trumpets call.

    And we saw the widowed Mother--
      And the prostrate, sobless grief;
    And the pitying priest beside her,
      And the gentle, vain relief.

    And the Sister--standing--watching--
      ’Twixt love, reproach and tears--
    The tender light of the summer night
      Where brood the unfathomed years.

    The Maiden--standing, watching--
      Fair as the first, faint star:
    A dainty symbol sent to prove
      How near the angels are.

    *       *       *       *       *

    We gleaned the gallery’s gorgeous wealth--
      But lost its wondrous worth,
    As we bowed a head in silence
      To the Good of all the Earth.




THE HERITAGE


    Full well they tilled the barren soil--
      Full well they sowed the seed--
    Full well they held by life and life
      The seal of the title deed.

    From Bunker Hill to Yorktown
      They waged a sacred fray:
    Oh Sons of Iron Men give ye not
      Your heritage away.

    By commerce, mart and culture
      Ye’ve raised a mighty state;
    But ’ware the pampered spirit,
      Ere ye ’ware the worst too late.

    By commerce, mart and culture
      Thrive ye forevermore,
    But hold ye to the Iron Age--
      The Iron Age of War.

    With rugged heart and sinew--
      With spirit stern and high,
    Keep ye the ways o’ warrior days--
      The days that may not die.

    Keep ye the ways o’ warrior days,
      Maintain the armor bright,
    For where ye’ve raised your fathers blazed--
      _Hold ye their honor white_.

    That through the unborn years to come--
      Unpampered, age on age--
    Shall guarded stand their promised land--
      Our Sacred Heritage.




THE ADJUSTING HOUR


    Just the Adjusting Hour,
      With nobody else around,
    And you sort o’ straighten things a bit,
      Beginning right down at the ground.

    Just the Adjusting Hour,
      When plans have gone askew,
    And you stand with your back to the fire--
      And only your God and you.

    Just the Adjusting Hour,
      Pondering very slow,
    And you lay the firm foundations
      And you pray that they will grow--

    Tall and strong and splendid--
      That they who run may see,
    What the Adjusting Hour
      Has given to you and me.




THE OUTPOSTERS


    We’ve _tête-à-têted_ here and there
      Whence all the breezes fan,
    From Cuba clear to Tokio
      And back to Hindustan.

    We’ve journeyed out of Agra
      To see the Taj Mahal
    Rise mystic white in the moonlit night
      Above the Jumna wall.

    Along the plains of Java
        We shook you by the hand,
    And watched among Tosari’s hills
      The lace Tjemaras stand:

    Or Aden’s great cathedral rocks--
      High--majestic--bare--
    Or Karnak’s columns rising sheer
      Through the clear Egyptian air.

    We’ve laughed with you in Poeroek Tjahoe,[A]
      In the heart of Borneo,
    Ere we hit the trail to northward
      Where the lesser rivers flow:

    Where the angry Moeroeng cuts the hills
      And the endless jungles rise,
    And the Dyak kampongs nestle ’neath
      The speckless, fleckless skies.

    By the myriad ship-lights stretching through
      The Roads of Singapore,
    By the crooked, winding, white-walled streets
      Of burning Bangalore:

    By the mighty, gilded Shwe Dagon
      Aglitter above the trees,
    Where the tiny ti bells tinkle
      In the sough of the sunset breeze:

    From where the terrace-sculptured gates
      Of the great Sri Rangam rise,
    To Bangkok’s triple temple roofs,
      Red-gold against the skies:

    By crowded, sewerless Canton--
      By Hong Kong’s towering lights--
    By the gorgeous Rajputana stars
      That blazon the blue-black nights:

    We’ve met you, Men of the Millionth Mark--
      Outposters--far--alone--
    Beyond the glut of the cities’ rut,
      And we claim you for our own.

    (Beyond the glut of the cities’ rut
      And the roar of the rolling cart,
    Beyond the blind of the stifled mind
      And the hawking, haggling mart.)

    And some of you were “rotters”--
      And some were “18 fine”--
    But on the whole--we saw your soul--
      Oh outbound kin of mine.

    _So stand we pledged and hand in hand_
    _By every ocean, gulf and land,_
      _Stout hearts and humble knees:_
    _Oh men of the Outer Reaches--_
    _Oh men of the palm-lined beaches--_
    _Oh men where the ice-pack bleaches--_
      _Oh Brethren o’ the far-flung seas._

 [A] Pronounced Poorook Jow.




WONDERING


    Leaning on the midnight rail,
      Looking o’er the sea,
    Winking at the little stars,
      While they wink at me.
    Wondering how it happened
      Ages long ago,
    Wondering why I’m here to night--
      Wondering where I’ll go.

    Wondering how the Scorpion
      Bends his mighty tail,
    Wondering if the Archer’s aim
      Makes Antares quail:
    Wondering why Australia’s Crown
      Happened to be made,
    Wondering if I really ought
      Not to be afraid.

    Wondering if the blackened sea
      Ever has a bend,
    Wondering if the Milky Way
      Ever has an end,
    Wondering why the Southern Cross
      Has an arm askew,
    Wondering lots o’ funny things,
      (I wonder, wouldn’t you?)

    Wondering where He’s watching from--
      Wondering if He’d see
    Anything so very small
      Just as you or me?
    Wondering and wondering--
      But still the echoes fail--
    And so I’m left awondering
      Over the silent rail.




LINES TO AN ELDERLY FRIEND


     Written in a presentation copy of “My Bunkie and Other Ballads”
     given to A. Van Vleck, Esq., of New York City.


    Where the sails hang limp and lifeless
      In the doldrums’ deadly pause,
    Where the lights above the Polar capes
      Spread out in a golden gauze:
    Where lilac tints are listing
      O’er purple tropic seas--
    Where the Arctic winds are whistling
      And the north-flung rivers freeze--
    We’ve met the men the Maker made
      To dwell ’neath fir and palm--
    And, we salute thee, friend and man--
      _M’sieur--le gentilhomme_.




BATTLESHIPS

Addressed to “little-navy” Congressmen.


    _Fools there lived when the Nations sprang newborn from
       the arms of God--_
    _Fools there’ll live when the Nations melt in the mold of
       the markless sod._
    _Fools there are and fools there were and fools there’ll ever be--_
    _But none like the fools whom the ages teach, and then refuse to see._

    With Other Peoples building them in squadrons--
      The Other Peoples laden down with debt--
    In the richest of the Nations you’ll cut appropriations,
      But the Day of Reckoning--have ye counted yet?

    Oh be careful, Oh be meager, Oh My Brothers;
      Weigh the cost, and gasp, and pare it down again;
    Till the twelve-inch children roar and the troop-ships grate the shore
      And you hear the coming tread of marching men.

    Then My Brothers, Oh my wise far-seeing Brothers,
      Build a Fleet and build it swiftly overnight;
    Ah truly ye who knew it all these years can surely do it,
      For ye and only ye alone are right.

    Go gaze across your growing, waving acres--
      Go gaze adown the peaceful, busy street;
    May the prestige of your town be your all-in-all renown,
      And scorn the men who bid you, “_BUILD THE FLEET_.”

    Or whine about your irrigation ditches--
      Much they’ll help a scarred and battle-riven land.
    Oh they’ll do a monstrous earning when the crops they grow are burning--
      Because you would not hear the clear command.

    With the jealous nations standing to the east-ward--
      And the Sneaking Cur that watches on the west--
    You’ll bargain, skimp and whine till the gray hulls lift the line,
      And your children stand betrayèd and confessed.

    For the sake of saving five or fifty millions--
      For the sake of “politics” or local greed--
    Will you brand yourselves arch traitors to the Nation--
      You, the sons of men who served us in our need?

    Will you risk a land your Sires died to bring you--
      A land our faithful Fathers fell to save,
    By the bleaching bones of Valley Forge and Monmouth
      Or the crimson flood the Bloody Angle gave?

    Will you see one half the Nation raped and burning--
      Will you learn War’s callous, lurid, livid wrath
    By the wailing ’long the wayside, by the ashes of the cities,
      Ere your gathered army flings across their path?

    You may strut and boast our boundless might and power--
      You may call our race the Chosen of the Lord--
    But if _your_ town they raze--and if _your_ home’s ablaze
      You will wake and learn the Kingdom of the Sword.

    You will wake and learn the word your Fathers taught you--
      You will wake and learn the truth--but all too late:
    By the shrieking shrapnel’s crying--by the homeless, wronged and dying--
      You shall count what, you begrudged to Guard the Gate.




THE AMERICAN FLAG


     It should be needless to note that the persons here addressed do
     not comprise the whole American people but a certain distinctive
     type.


    Oh little men and sheltered--
      Oh fatted pigs of a sty,
    Through the Star Spangled Banner ye calmly sit,
      Nor see the wrong, nor the why,
    And ye stand with your hats on your thoughtless heads,
      When the Flag of the Nation goes by.

    Has the lust of the dollar gripped you
      Till the fetid brain’s grown cold,
    Till ye forget the days that are set
      And the glorious deeds of old--
    And the Song and the Passing Colors
      Are drowned in a flood of gold?

    Awake from your listless lethargy--
      Arise and understand
    The battle-hymn of your fathers--
      And the Flag of your Fatherland--

    As it rose to the hum of the feet that come
      To the drum and the bugle’s call;
    As it tasted the dregs of raw reverse--
      As it rushed through the breach in the wall:

    As it fell again on the gore-wet plain
      Till new hands swung it high--
    As it dipped in rest to East and West
      Where it watched its Children die:

    As it swept anew o’er the shotted blue,
      And the great gulls reeled in fright;
    As it bore the brave ’neath the whispering wave
      To the Squadron’s hushed Goodnight:

    As it mounted sheer ’mid cheer on cheer,
      Till, far o’er land and sea,
    It gave each fold to the sunlight’s gold--
      And the name of Victory.

    Then on your feet when the first proud strain
      Of the Anthem rolls on high--
    And see that ye stand uncovered
      To the Colors passing by
    And pray to your God for strength to guard
      The Flag ye glorify.




THE GREAT DOCTORS


    Chiefs of all the Conquerors--
      Kings above the Kings--
    Fame beyond all earthly fame
      Where the censer swings.

    Brave and strong and silent--
      Patient, cautious, calm--
    E’en as the ministering angels--
      Even as Gilead’s Balm--

    They come; the quiet god-men,
      Where hope has fled apace,
    And the Reaper’s scythe is swaying
      Across the ashen face.

    No miracle proclaims them--
      No thundering cheer and drum--
    As creeps the light of the starlit night
      God’s Emissaries come.

    A touch to the raveled life-cord
      Or ever it snaps in twain;
    And as the light of the starlit night
      They silently pass again.




THE DREAMER AND THE DOER


    The Dreamer saw a vision
      High in th’ empyrean blue,
    And slowly it passed until at last
      He called to the Man he knew--
    “Look, thou Dolt of the Blinded Heart--
      Slave of Rod and Rule--
    And drink of the wine of my sight divine--
      Oh churl of a plodding school!”

    The Doer he checked and plotted
      And hammered and pieced again,
    But his eyes they were on the things that he saw--
      The Things of the Earth-bound Men:
    And he called to the Dreamer passing--
      “Oh stop, thou fool, and see
    On water and land the work of my hand,
      For the service of such as thee.”

    “Dolt,” said the Dreamer, “ye stole my dream
      I showed where the lightnings ran ...”
    “Fool,” said the Doer, “but for my toil--
      Ye’d still be a Stone-age Man.”




SPAIN


    Might and far-flung power
      And we call the vision Rome,
    Where the close-locked legions trample
      And the triremes cut the foam.
    Grace and regal beauty--
      And Athena’s temples rise
    Above the fertile Attic plains
      And blue Ægean skies.
    But when, in wanton whispers
      Creeps o’er the tired brain
    The word Romance, there falls the trance--
      The spell of olden Spain.

    *       *       *       *       *

    The humdrum of the city
      The workshop and the street,
    They gently slip behind us--
      As glide our tired feet
    O’er the pavements of Sevilla,
      Where the Grandees pass again
    To ogle in the balconies
      The matchless eyes of Spain.

    Once more the somersaulting bells
      In the great square tower ring--
    Once more the sword and cowl draw back--
      “The King--make way--The King!”
    Sevilla--Mother of a world
      Of pride and golden gain,
    And greed and love and laughter
      Of Periclean Spain.

    Once more o’er purple ocean
      Or coral-locked lagoon,
    We watch the bowsprit cutting
      The pathway of the moon.
    The long white beach, the swaying palms’
      Shifting silver sheen--
    And the flickering flares of the flimsy fleet
      Where the spear-poised fishers lean.

    The low-hung, skimming scuppers--
      The flaunting skull and bones--
    The buccaneer on his poop-deck
      Roaring in thunder tones
    To a swarthy, ill-begotten crew--
      As slow the daylight dies,
    And he lifts with a smile the chartless isle
      Where the buried treasure lies.

    The lilt of living music
      Caressing heart and brain:
    Harp, guitar and mandolin
      In languorous, limpid strain.
    The fluttering fan--the furtive glance--
      The black mantilla’s reign--
    And the Captains bold who drop their gold
      To bask in the eyes of Spain.

    The towering galleons plunging
      Thrice-tiered above the foam:
    The ringing round-shot roaring,
      And the crash of the hit gone home:
    The yard-arms staggering under,
      Where, scorning the iron rain
    And showing its fangs to a parting world,
      Goes down the Lion of Spain.

    *       *       *       *       *

    When the clattering city cloys you
      With the stress of its strident call--
    When practical, calculating Things
      Are domineering all--
    When your clamped mind in its weariness
      To Romance turns again,
    Seek ye the Andalusian crags--
    The flare of the gold and crimson flags--
    And the scented breath where the night wind drags
      Through the Isles of the Spanish Main.




C. Q. D.

THE PRESENT-DAY “S. O. S.”


    Cities and kings and nations
      Hush at my outer breath,
    As sightless I glide o’er the wind-lashed tide
      In my race with the deep-sea death.
    War and Trade and the Laws ye made
      Halt at the Letters Three,
    Bound on my errand of mercy--I--
      The ultimate C.Q.D.

    No wave may intercept me,
      Though it tower a hundred feet;
    No storm shall ever stay me,
      Though sky and waters meet.
    Piercing the howling heavens--
      Skimming the churning sea--
    Through blast and gale I bring the tale--
      I--the pitying C.Q.D.

    And when through the white-toothed combers
      The helping hull looms high,
    And when the small-boats leap aside
      Through the glare of the red-shot sky,
    Out, out across the ocean’s dawn
      The final flashes flee--
    “All saved!” And the circling shores ring back--
      “Thank God--and the C.Q.D!”




THE LIGHTS


    The fair-weather lights are gleaming
      Across a tranquil main,
    By beam and beam so bright they seem
      A laughing, endless chain.

    The foul-weather lights are few and far--
      Nor flash nor leap nor fail--
    But slowly burn where the billows churn
      In the teeth of the driving gale.

    _Oh the fair-weather lights o’er the sheltered bights
      Are welcome sights to see--
    But the foul-weather lights o’ the stormy nights,
      Are the Lamps of the Years to be._




THE CHOSEN


    And the Guiding One he pointed me
      To each and each the deed,
    And never a word was ever heard
      Of Prophet or Saint or Creed.

    And never a word was ever heard
      But the path that each had run,
    Till the purple mist stooped down and kissed
      And said that the work was done.

    And there stood he of the iron will
      Nor gold could bend or buy:
    And there stood she of the Mother Love
      That never asketh why.

    And there stood he who striving lost,
      But striving, gained the Crest:
    And there stood she who nursed them back
      With bullet-ridden breast.

    And there stood he whose right hand gave,
      But the left--it never knew:
    And there stood she who held him fast
      When the Beckoning Whispers blew.

    And there stood he who saved a life
      By fire, sea or sword:
    And these were Chiefs of the Upper Hosts
      And first before the Lord.

    But high o’er the great Arch-angels,
      Higher than any stand,
    I saw the chosen of the King
      At the right of the Master’s hand.

    And I questioning gazed in the deep-lit eyes
      And the silent face aglow,
    Till the Guiding One It answered me
      The word that I wished to know--

    “Out of the crash of battle,
      Where the shrieking bullet sings,
    The roaring front lines reel and rock
      As a wounded vulture swings.

    “As a wounded vulture halting swings
      The quivering squadrons break,
    Till the shattered herds catch up the words,
      ‘Back, back for your Country’s sake!’”

    (Back, back to follow after
      The light of fearless eyes,
    And the sound of a voice that knows no choice
      Where the love of a Nation lies.)

    And the Guiding One it paused apace,
      And then I heard it say--
    “And he?--_He died in leading
    The charge that won the day._”




THE FAIREST MOON


    Oh ye who tell of the harvest moon
      Above the waving grain,
    Oh ye who tell of the silent moon
      That glitters across the plain.

    Oh ye who tell of the mountain moon
      That lifts each peak and crag,
    Oh ye who tell of the ocean moon
      Where the long, black shadows drag.

    Oh ye who tell of the silver moon
      In wanton ecstasy,
    Ye never tell of the fairest moon--
      The fairest moon to me.

    ’Tis well the tale of the crescent moon
      Above the lake-side pine,
    And good is your song of the circling moon
      Where snowy meadows shine.

    And fair’s the lilt of the gleaming moon
      Where dazzling rapids leap:
    For wondrous bright is the fairy sight
      Of the soul of a World asleep.

    But a waning moon, just half a moon,
      With a rough and ragged rim,
    And a mystic light that makes the night
      All bright but doubly dim....

    Low down, low down in a starry sky,
      O’er the shift of a swinging sea
    With a mellow fold o’ silver gold,
      Reveals my moon to me.




THE STRIVER


    The trumpets bore his name afar
      By East and West anew,
    Where, roaring through the riven tape
      The sweeping Conqueror drew.
    And East and West they rose and blest
      With laurel wreath and cheers,
    As they had done ’neath every sun
      Adorn the countless years.

    The trumpets echoed far ahead--
      A faltering footfall trailed,
    Till broken flesh that called on flesh
      Stumbled and rocked and failed.
    A well run dry--a sightless sky--
      Where mind and matter part:
    A quivering frame--a nameless name--
      Wrapped in a lion’s heart.

    The nearer stars they winded him--
      The farther planets heard;
    The outer spheres of all the spheres
      Took up the Master’s word.
    They lifted him and bouyed him
      And bore him gently in
    To the Goal of Lost Endeavor--
      In the Land of Might-have-been.




THE OLD MEN


    Ye sing a song of the young men
      In the pride of an early strength,
    Ye sing a song of the young men
      And ye give it goodly length;
    _I_ sing a song of the old men--
      Of the men on a homeward tack
    And a steady wheel and an even keel
      That never a wind may rack.

    Ye sing a song of the strong men
      In the birth of a splendid youth,
    Ye sing a song of the strong men
      And ye sing mayhap in truth;
    But I--I sing of the old men
      Who’ve weathered the outer seas,
    And lifting the bark through the growing dark,
      Bear back in the sunset breeze.

    Ye sing a song of the young men
      Ere they reach the second stake,
    And a name to choose and a name to lose
      In the scruff of the rudder’s wake;
    But I--I sing of the old men
      In the glow of the tempered days,
    Whose chartings show the paths to go
      Through the mesh of a million ways.

    Ye sing a song of the strong men
      In the flush of the first fair blow,
    Ye sing a song of the strong men
      Or ever the end ye know;
    But I--I sing of the old men--
      Time-tested--weathered brown--
    Who unafraid the port have made,
      Where all brave ships go down.




THE FOUR-ROADS POST


    They had come at the Spirit’s bidding--
      Who bore the right to seek--
    And the hungry he brake and gave them bread,
      And strength he gave to the weak.

    Honor and Gold and Triumph--
      Love and Land and Fame--
    As they deserved to each he served--
      And they left and blessed his name.

    And only one was waiting
      Before the Giver’s knee,
    And He said, “Oh spawn of a troubled Earth--
      What may I do for thee?”

    And the suppliant cried, “Good Master
      I asked nor fame nor gold--
    I only seek the bygone peak
      Where I saw the lands unfold.

    “I only seek the bygone peak
      Where every pathway sung,
    And every sea had a ship for me,
      And all the World was young.

    “Oh let me know the place once more,
      The parting of the lane--
    Oh give me back the Four-Roads Post,
      That I may choose again.”

    *       *       *       *       *

    The Spirit gazed across the vale
      And his eyes had a tender glow,
    And his voice ran mild as ye speak to a child,
      Wondrous soft and low:

    “Little Waif of a Later Day,
      Where the unthought hours flee,
    The only treasure I have not.
      Is the boon that ye ask of me.

    “I can give you balms and riches--
      I can ease you of your pain--
    But I cannot give the Four-Roads Post--
      That ye may choose again.”




THE DAYS OF CHIVALRY


    Sing me a song of Chivalry,
      The little Man-child said.
    Of days of old when knights were bold
      And fields of honor red.
    Take me far to a maiden’s tower
      And the black traducer slain;
    To Honor and Truth and Faith forsooth--
      Oh carry me back again.

    So the Waif of Chance be wafted him
      And set him down apace,
    But never a field of tourney,
      And never a knight of grace.
    He set him down where the whipping flames
      Leap red athwart the sky,
    And the crashing wall that forms a pall
      Where the fire-fighters lie.

    The Waif of Chance he wafted him
      Across a broken main,
    And the great ship’s roll like a foundering soul
      Groaned to the depths again:
    But over the breast of the ocean’s crest
      The plunging life-boats neared,
    And the shout that burst was “Women first,”
      And the men that were left--they cheered.

    Where the staggering brethren dragged their loads
      From the mouth of the stricken mine,
    Where the hand at the throttle never flinched
      At the sight of the open line;
    By curb and forge and death-hung gorge--
      By river, sea and plain--
    The Waif of Chance the Man-child brought,
      And bade him gaze again.

    Honor and Faith and Sacrifice
      In the midst of the city’s roil--
    Faith and Honor and Sacrifice
      Where the frontier-hewers toil:
    And the Man-child slowly knelt and clasped
      The Waif about the knee,
    And he murmured low, “Oh now I know--
      The Days of Chivalry.”




PHANTOM-LAND


    _Come board the boat for Phantom-land--
      Come join the merry crew;
    Come board the boat for Phantom-land
      That lies acalling you._

    Oh throw away the red-shot day--
      The broken, weary night--
    And come with me across the sea
      To where you lift the light
    Of Phantom-land of Phantom-land,
      Uprising from the blue,
    With mountains green and castles
      That stand acalling you.

    It doesn’t cost a single cent
      To join the joyous band;
    You needn’t spend a penny
      To reach the sunny land;
    So come away at close o’ day
      Or in the morning dew,
    To Phantom-land to Phantom-land
      That lies acalling you.

    And they who once have been there--
      Who’ve trod the laughing hills,
    They’re always going back there--
      From roil and toil and ills:
    And when they come to Earth again--
      (I cross m’ heart, it’s true),
    They sing the praise o’ Phantom-land
      That lies acalling you.




THE ROSE


    He plucked the Rose in anger--
      The Rose across his path;
    And the thorns they cut and tore him
      And scorned him in his wrath.

    He plucked the Rose in hauteur
      And pride no bond could bind,
    And the Rose it tossed its royal head
      Nor deigned to look behind.

    He plucked the Rose in sadness--
      And the red Rose seeing, knew:
    And it gave its sweetest incense,
      And its petals shone with dew.

    He plucked the Rose in gladness--
      Nor sorrow’s least alloy--
    And the Rose it shook its leaves and laughed
      In its tumultuous joy.

    By all the devious ways he came--
      By every mood and whim;
    And as he stooped to gather--
      The Rose gave back to him.




PATRIOTISM


    _Ends of the riven Nation
      I’ve drawn near and near,
    Duty and love and honor
      I’ve garnered year by year;
    Oh fair they tell o’ the Lasting Peace,
      And the Final Brotherhood,
    But I call my sons to the signal guns,
      And I know that the call is good._

    Mongol and Teuton and Slav and Czech--
      Saxon and Celt and Gaul--
    Out of the mire at my desire
      They leapt to the battle-call,
    The Mean and the Low and the Goodly--
      Murderer, saint and thief--
    From city and plow with lofty brow
      They rode to My Belief.

    The Mean and the Low and the Goodly
      O’er the fields of carnage swept,
    And for those that returned, the laurel crown--
      And for those that stayed--they wept.
    And the Mother showed her stripling
      The place where the foeman ran,
    And he pledged to the skies with yearning eyes--
      And the pledge was the pledge of a man.

    Over the field of battle
      The well aimed arrows flew,
    Over a sea of wreckage
      The bending galleons blew;
    And where the arrow found him,
      Or the round-shot rent atwain,
    He fell--but turned in the falling
      To bless his Land again.

    _Ends of the riven Nation
      I’ve drawn, near and near,
    Duty and love and honor
      I’ve garnered year by year;
    Oh fair they tell o’ the Lasting Peace,
      And the Final Brotherhood,
    But I call my sons to the signal guns--
      And I know that the call is good._




KELVIN


    Never a mark of Mortal Man
      But ye delved to a greater depth--
    Never a truth of Mortal Truths
      But ye stirred it where it slept.
    Never a veil but ye drew aside,
      Till ye came where the Wide Ways part,
    And ye bowed a head as ye lowly said,
      “Oh God, how fair Thou art.”


THE END




NOTES


THE DYAK CHIEF      13.

The Dyaks, a “brown” race, are the savage inhabitants of Central Borneo,
and are said to have come originally from the Malay Peninsula, but to
have since been gradually driven into the center of the island by the
influx of the present Malays, who now inhabit the coasts and often far
inland, especially up the rivers.

The Dyaks, though an old, aboriginal Malay stock, differ radically from
the Malays in nearly every particular.

They are a dark-skinned, strong, well-knit, square-shouldered and
beautifully muscled type of men, neither tall nor short, fat nor lean,
but comparable to the typical American cavalryman or football halfback
or trained middle-weight boxer or wrestler.

They have small, dark, heady, snake-like eyes, high cheek bones and
straight black hair, often “bobbed” at the neck and frequently with a
band around it, giving them much the appearance of North American
Indians, were it not that their eyes and noses are smaller. They affect
a breech-cloth only, excepting for the sake of warmth, when they don a
light cloth jacket or a fibre coat, the latter being a simple affair,
hanging straight, with a slit at the top through which the head is
placed, after the manner of a present-day American Army “poncho.”

A chief is distinguished by having pheasant feathers falling down the
back of one of these coats, and in the town or “kampong” of Olong Liko I
was the recipient of the unusual privilege of having a friendly Dyak
chief take off his cloak-like garment that I had been examining, put it
on over my head, and insist on my keeping it--which it is needless to
say I was only too glad to do--and which I still have preserved as the
most valued treasure of all the many that I brought back from my
travels.

The women are of the typical heavy-waisted savage category, frequently
wearing something above the waist, but whose usual costume consists
merely of a long cloth, resembling a skirt, wrapped around their legs.

Truth compels me to ungallantly state the ladies are not prepossessing.

The chief occupations of the Dyaks are hunting, fishing and tending
their little truck-gardens, which mode of life probably accounts for
their average splendid physique.

_Moeroeng_      13.

The Moeroeng (River) is a long stream in Central Borneo that unites with
the Djoeloi to form the Barito, the latter being one of the great rivers
of Borneo, flowing from its center in a general southerly direction, and
emptying into the Java Sea a short distance to the west of the
southeastern extremity of the island. Pronunciation: Moeroeng=Mooroong:
Djoeloi=Jooloi.

_kampong_      13.

Kampong is a native Dyak village, and consists of from one to three or
four long houses, and sometimes small detached ones. The long house, the
characteristic building, is anywhere from fifty to two or three hundred
feet in length, elevated, on poles, from eight to twenty feet in the
air. The sides of the houses are of rough boards or of bark and the
roofs usually of bark shingles. The age of the dwellings can be told by
the height they stand above the ground, those on the highest poles being
the oldest ones, because of the former greater savagery of, and more
frequent warfare between, the natives. Here literally we have a case of
the home being the fortress.

Within, the long house is of one of two arrangements; either it consists
of a huge hall, often decorated with the skull and horns of the chase,
running practically the entire length, and with family rooms opening
into it and bake-rooms or kitchens at both ends, or the house consists
merely of one very long room without partitions, the different families,
with their crude cooking hearths, “squatting” around the sides of the
room at intervals of ten or fifteen feet. Occasionally some of the
families will hang up cloth divisions. Here, truly, we have the communal
scheme of living carried to its ultimate extreme.

_headless waist_      13.

The Dyaks are the famous “head-hunters” of Borneo, and although their
inhuman proclivities of procuring heads for their belts, in order to
give them certain distinctions, among them, the prerogative of marrying,
have, at the present time been largely suppressed by the Dutch
authorities, nevertheless a traveler’s trip through Central Borneo is
dangerous owing to the fact that some actual head-hunting bands are
still roaming the dense jungles through which he is passing.

Due to pure luck my path was not crossed by any of these outlaw nomad
troops, which is possibly why I am writing this to-day, as one white
man, even though armed with a long 38 Army Colt revolver could probably
make little headway against a whole band of these savages. My three
Malay coolies were highly trustworthy and efficient, but I am not
positive as to exactly what extent I could have counted on them in the
eventuality of an actual attack.

_lianes_      14.

Long, bare, tropical, vine-like growths that sometimes wrap themselves
around the trunk of it tree, and sometimes hang from the branches
straight to the ground.

_leeches_      15.

Little gray leeches, up to half an inch in length that, as a barefooted
person walks through the jungle, attach themselves to his feet and
ankles and suck the blood, until removed or until, having gotten their
fill and swollen to many times their former size, fall back to the
ground satiated.

In the case of a white man, they will burrow through the seam at the
back of his sock to get the blood they crave.

_proa_      16.

Pronounced prow, and is any small crude Dyak or Malay Bornese boat,
propelled by paddling.

_blow-spear_      17.

A spear with a hollow shaft through which the Dyaks blow a light, wooden
dart or arrow. I have seen these in Java and the Philippines also.

_mandauw_ (_or parang_)      17.

Pronounced mandow, and is the typical Dyak sword with a straight blade
broadening gradually until near the end, then abruptly narrowing again
to a point. It is sharpened on one edge only.

_chief poles_      17.

High wooden flag-like poles, carved near the base, and with long tassels
falling from the top. Erected in front of the long house in memory of
dead kampong (village) chiefs.

_Moeroeng rapids_      21.

The Moeroeng River has magnificent rapids, which I and my three Malay
coolies shot on my return by river from Olong Liko to Poeroek Tjahoe.

_tom-toms_      24.

Round, drum-like, metal musical instruments, beaten with a stick having
a large knob.

(_You know how far it comes_)      28.

Refers to the fact that salt is precious to the Dyaks, and must be
gotten from the distant coasts, through traders.

_Sick-man’s Drums_      28.

The heating of the tom-toms, with the playing of other “musical”
instruments, when a Dyak is sick. The nearer death, the louder the
beating. Supposed to be very efficacious. In this particular case the
“Sick-man’s Drums” were, of course, beaten ironically.

_greasy cakes_      29.

Thick, round, half-cooked, greasy, Dyak cakes, utterly indigestible and
unprepossessing.


ON THE WATER-WAGON      33.

Slang for “not drinking.”

“_the mill_,”      33.

The guard-house or soldier prison.


ARMY OF PACIFICATION      35.

_Islands_      36.

The Philippine Islands.


SOLITARY      38.

“Solitary confinement” is punishment meted out to particularly
obstreperous prisoners or to those under very severe sentence.

_calaboose_      38.

Guard-house or soldier prison.

_jug_      38.

Guard-house or soldier prison.

_Ten and a Bob_      39.

A prisoner’s sentence of ten years and a dishonorable discharge from the
Army.

_The Isle_      39.

Refers to Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, used as a discharge station
for time-expired soldiers returning from the Philippines after the
Insurrection of 1899-1902. On Angel Island there was also a military
convict station for serious offenders, who had to break stone.

_“the makings”_ 39.

The paper and tobacco for cigarettes


THE SULTAN COMES TO TOWN      40.

_Major Sour_      41.

The Major’s name was Sour--if we speak in antithesis.


SHAH JEHAN      55.

One of the Great Moguls of India, who at Agra built the lovely, white
marble Taj Mahal as a mausoleum for his favorite wife, who died in 1629.

Near the city of Aurangabad, in the northwestern part of the state of
Hyderabad, is the so-called “Little Taj,” the Mausoleum of Rabi’a
Durrani, the wife of a later Great Mogul, Auraugzeb. Though built only
of stucco, and not kept in the same immaculate condition as the Taj
Mahal, the “Little Taj,” with its inset, pointed arches, viewed at an
advantageous distance of several hundred feet, from just within the
ground’s entrance, is to me really more beautiful than the splendid Taj
Mahal itself, because the height of the “Little Taj,” and, inclusively,
of its arches, is greater in proportion to its base than is that of its
famous predecessor. The result is a more delicate, lofty and inspiring
effect--which effect appears, obviously, to be the most apropos and
essential one to obtain in erecting mausoleums of this nature.

Close, detailed inspection of the two tombs would present a
diametrically opposite analysis, but in work such as this, it would seem
that the most crucial aspect is the ensemble and not the minutiæ or
finis.

_Rajputana stars_      57.

When in Rajputana, a great state of northwestern India, I was impressed
by the brilliancy of the stars on a clear night. It may have been due to
atmospheric or other conditions, but whatever the cause, in no other
part of the World have I seen such magnificent stars.

_tulwar_      57.

The large, splendid, curved sword of India.

_Flaming Trees_      57.

The trees that spread out like great umbrellas, covered on top with
masses of blood-orange colored blossoms, and called “Flame of the
Forest,” though in the Philippines we usually nicknamed them “Fire
Trees.”


NIPPON      105.

Let us be charitable, and hope that through contact with outside nations
the Japanese will eventually be able to eradicate their traits of
character, though the probability, much less the possibility, that the
leopard can really change its spots, is remote indeed. Among the poorer
classes and in the rural interior of Japan, you will, however, sometimes
find at least two mitigating attributes, simplicity and kindliness.


MY LOVES      112.

The loves here referred to are picked at random from among the many of
the World Wanderer. The second stanza refers to the breeze of the South
Seas; the third stanza, to the North Wind; the fourth stanza, to the
Sea; the fifth stanza, to the Sunrise; the sixth stanza, to the Sunset.


C. Q. D.      138.

The old “C. Q. D.,” or present-day “S. O. S.,” the wireless telegraphic
signal of ships in distress.


KELVIN      159.

The great British scientist. Born in Belfast, Ireland in 1824. Died near
Largs, Scotland in 1907. His name is among those the British Government
has honored by carving into the floor of Westminster Abbey.

       *       *       *       *       *

                               MY BUNKIE
                           and Other Ballads

                       By ERWIN CLARKSON GARRETT


=Army and Navy Register:=

“The poems show a keen appreciation of the romantic and picturesque side
of the soldier’s life with touches of humor and pathos that make up the
comedy and tragedy of the calling. Mr. Garrett’s verses are truly
sympathetic and appeal to worthy sentiment. They are among the best of
anything which has been written in any form concerning the Army and they
deserve appreciation. If the Army has a poet who has shown himself by
his verses capable of expressing in this form service traditions and
military life, it must be this former soldier. Mr. Garrett has preserved
the varying conditions of the soldier’s life and the soldier’s sentiment
in verses that are really worth while.***”

=The Philadelphia Record:=

“He has a happy knack of making vivid word-pictures; when he describes
something of a battle it all seems clear before our vision; when he
tells of camp life, the tented fields are there, and the men, and their
tasks. When he draws portraits such as those of ‘The Old Sergeant,’ ‘The
ex-Soldier’ and ‘The Rookie’ these men stand strong and life-like before
us.***”

=Chicago Inter-Ocean:=

“***‘My Bunkie and Other Ballads,’ by Erwin Clarkson Garrett, are poems
straight from the heart of a private soldier, full of freshness and
color, swing and melody.***”

“Mr. Garrett’s songs are racy of the soil and of the life they
celebrate. They have an appeal for all Americans, but particularly for
the thousands of American young men who in war times saw the Philippines
over the sights of a Krag-Jorgensen.”

=Philadelphia Press:=

“The American soldier has found his Kipling in Erwin Clarkson
Garrett.***”

=The New York Evening Post:=

“***They are the poems of a man who has marched and fought and slept
with the Army, and they have the right ring.***”





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dyak Chief, and other verses, by 
Erwin Clarkson Garrett

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