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If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The New Poetry - An Anthology - -Author: Various - -Editor: Harriet Monroe - Alice Corbin Henderson - -Release Date: July 9, 2021 [eBook #65807] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team - at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW POETRY *** - - This ebook (originally published in 1920) was created in honour of - Distributed Proofreaders 20th Anniversary. - - - - - THE NEW POETRY - - - - -[Illustration] - - THE MACMILLAN COMPANY - - NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS · ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO - - MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED - - LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA · MELBOURNE - - THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO - - - - - THE NEW POETRY - - AN ANTHOLOGY - - - EDITED BY - - HARRIET MONROE - - AND - - ALICE CORBIN HENDERSON - - EDITORS OF “POETRY” - - - _WITH REVISED BIBLIOGRAPHY_ - - - New York - - THE MACMILLAN COMPANY - - 1920 - - _All rights reserved_ - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1917, - BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. - - Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1917. - - - Norwood Press: - - Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. - - - - - INTRODUCTION - - -During the last three or four years there has been a remarkable -renascence of poetry in both America and England, and an equally -extraordinary revival of public interest in the art. - -The editors of this anthology wish to present in convenient form -representative work of the poets who are to-day creating what is -commonly called “the new poetry,”—a phrase no doubt rash and most -imperfectly descriptive, since the new in art is always the elder old, -but one difficult to replace with any form of words more exact. Much -newspaper controversy, and a number of special magazines, testify to the -demand for such a book; also many letters to the editors of _Poetry_ -asking for information—letters not only from individual lovers of the -art, but also from college professors and literary clubs or groups, who -have begun to feel that the poetry of to-day is a vital force no longer -to be ignored. Indeed, many critics feel that poetry is coming nearer -than either the novel or the drama to the actual life of to-day. The -magazine _Poetry_, ever since its foundation in October, 1912, has -encouraged this new spirit in the art, and the anthology is a further -effort on the part of its editors to present the new spirit to the -public. - -What is the new poetry? and wherein does it differ from the old? The -difference is not in mere details of form, for much poetry infused with -the new spirit conforms to the old measures and rhyme-schemes. It is not -merely in diction, though the truly modern poet rejects the so-called -“poetic” shifts of language—the _deems_, _’neaths_, _forsooths_, etc., -the inversions and high-sounding rotundities, familiar to his -predecessors: all the rhetorical excesses through which most Victorian -poetry now seems “over-apparelled,” as a speaker at a _Poetry_ dinner—a -lawyer, not a poet—put it in pointing out what the new movement is -aiming at. These things are important, but the difference goes deeper -than details of form, strikes through them to fundamental integrities. - -The new poetry strives for a concrete and immediate realization of life; -it would discard the theory, the abstraction, the remoteness, found in -all classics not of the first order. It is less vague, less verbose, -less eloquent, than most poetry of the Victorian period and much work of -earlier periods. It has set before itself an ideal of absolute -simplicity and sincerity—an ideal which implies an individual, -unstereotyped diction; and an individual, unstereotyped rhythm. Thus -inspired, it becomes intensive rather than diffuse. It looks out more -eagerly than in; it becomes objective. The term “exteriority” has been -applied to it, but this is incomplete. In presenting the concrete object -or the concrete environment, whether these be beautiful or ugly, it -seeks to give more precisely the emotion arising from them, and thus -widens immeasurably the scope of the art. - -All this implies no disrespect for tradition. The poets of to-day do not -discard tradition because they follow the speech of to-day rather than -that of Shakespeare’s time, or strive for organic rhythm rather than use -a mold which has been perfected by others. On the contrary, they follow -the great tradition when they seek a vehicle suited to their own epoch -and their own creative mood, and resolutely reject all others. - -Great poetry has always been written in the language of contemporary -speech, and its theme, even when legendary, has always borne a direct -relation with contemporary thought, contemporary imaginative and -spiritual life. It is this direct relation which the more progressive -modern poets are trying to restore. In this effort they discard not only -archaic diction but also the shop-worn subjects of past history or -legend, which have been through the centuries a treasure-trove for the -second-rate. - -This effort at modern speech, simplicity of form, and authentic vitality -of theme, is leading our poets to question the authority of the accepted -laws of English verse, and to study other languages, ancient and modern, -in the effort to find out what poetry really is. It is a strange fact -that, in the common prejudice of cultivated people during the four -centuries from just before 1400 to just before 1800, nothing was -accepted as poetry in English that did not walk in the iambic measure. -Bits of Elizabethan song and of Dryden’s two musical odes, both beating -four-time instead of the iambic three, were outlandish intrusions too -slight to count. To write English poetry, a man must measure his paces -according to the iambic foot-rule; and he must mark off his lines with -rhymes, or at least marshal them in the pentameter movement of blank -verse. - -The first protest against this prejudice, which long usage had hardened -into law, came in the persons of four or five great poets—Burns, -Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Byron—who puzzled the ears of their -generation with anapæsts and other four-time measures, and who carried -into their work a certain immediacy of feeling and imagery—a certain -modern passion of life—which even Cowper, Thompson and a few others of -their time, though they had written of things around them, had scarcely -attained. Quarterly critics and London moralists blinked and gasped, but -at last the bars had to go down for these great radicals. And before -long the extreme virtuosity of Swinburne had widened still further the -musical range of the English language. - -By the time Whitman appeared, the ear of the average reader—that -formidable person—was attuned to anapæsts, dactyls, choriambics, -sapphics, rhymed or unrhymed. He could not call them by name, but he was -docile to all possible intricacies of pattern in any closely woven -metrical scheme. But Whitman gave him a new shock. Here was a so-called -poet who discarded all traditional patterns, and wove a carpet of his -own. Once more the conservatives protested: was this poetry? and, if so, -why? If poetry was not founded on the long-accepted metrical laws, then -how could they distinguish it from prose, and thus keep the labels and -catalogues in order? What was Whitman’s alleged poetry but a kind of -freakish prose, invented to set forth a dangerous anarchistic -philosophy? - -It would take too long to analyze the large rhythms of Whitman’s free -verse; but the mere fact that he wrote free verse and called it poetry, -and that other poets—men like Rossetti, Swinburne, Symonds, even the -reluctant Emerson—seemed to agree that it was poetry, this fact alone -was, in the opinion of the conservatives, a challenge to four centuries -of English poets. And this challenge, repeated by later poets, compels -us to inquire briefly into the origins of English poetry, in the effort -to get behind and underneath the instinctive prejudice that English -poetry, to be poetry, must conform to prescribed metres. - -Chaucer, great genius that he was, an aristocrat by birth and breeding, -and a democrat by feeling and sympathy—Chaucer may have had it in his -power to turn the whole stream of English poetry into either the French -or the Anglo-Saxon channel. Knowing and loving the old French epics -better than the Norse sagas, he naturally chose the French channel, and -he was so great and so beloved that his world followed him. Thus there -was no longer any question—the iambic measure and rhyme, both dear to -the French-trained ears of England’s Norman masters, became fixed as the -standard type of poetic form. - -But it was possibly a toss-up—the scale hung almost even in that -formative fourteenth century. If Chaucer’s contemporary Langland—the -great democrat, revolutionist, mystic—had had Chaucer’s authority and -universal sympathy, English poetry might have followed his example -instead of Chaucer’s; and Shakespeare, Milton and the rest might have -been impelled by common practice to use—or modify—the curious, heavy, -alliterative measure of _Piers Ploughman_, which now sounds so strange -to our ears: - - In a somer seson, - When softe was the sonne, - I shoop me into shroudes - As I a sheep weere; - In habite as an heremite - Unholy of werkes, - Wente wide in this world - Wondres to here. - -Though we must rejoice that Chaucer prevailed with his French forms, -Langland reminds us that poetry—even English poetry—is older than rhyme, -older than the iambic measure, older than all the metrical patterns -which now seem so much a part of it. If our criticism is to have any -value, it must insist upon the obvious truth that poetry existed before -the English language began to form itself out of the débris of other -tongues, and that it now exists in forms of great beauty among many -far-away peoples who never heard of our special rules. - -Perhaps the first of these disturbing influences from afar to be felt in -modern English poetry was the Celtic renascence, the wonderful revival -of interest in old Irish song, which became manifest in translations and -adaptations of the ancient Gaelic lyrics and epics, made by W. B. Yeats, -Lady Gregory, Douglas Hyde and others. - -This influence was most powerful because it came to us directly, not at -second-hand, through the English work of two poets of genius, Synge and -Yeats. These great men, fortified and inspired by the simplicity and -clarity of primitive Celtic song, had little patience with the -“over-appareled” art of Tennyson and his imitators. They found it -stiffened by rhetoric, by a too conscious morality leading to pulpit -eloquence, and by second-hand bookish inspirations; and its movement -they found hampered, thwarted of freedom, by a too slavish acceptance of -ready-made schemes of metre and rhyme. The surprises and irregularities, -found in all great art because they are inherent in human feeling, were -being ruled out of English poetry, which consequently was stiffening -into forms too fixed and becoming more and more remote from life. As Mr. -Yeats said in Chicago: - -“We were weary of all this. We wanted to get rid not only of rhetoric -but of poetic diction. We tried to strip away everything that was -artificial, to get a style like speech, as simple as the simplest prose, -like a cry of the heart.” - -It is scarcely too much to say that “the new poetry”—if we may be -allowed the phrase—began with these two great Irish masters. Think what -a contrast to even the simplest lyrics of Tennyson the pattern of their -songs presents, and what a contrast their direct outright human feeling -presents to the somewhat culture-developed optimism of Browning, and the -science-inspired pessimism of Arnold. Compared with these Irishmen the -best of their predecessors seem literary. This statement does not imply -any measure of ultimate values, for it is still too early to estimate -them. One may, for example, believe Synge to be the greatest -poet-playwright in English since Shakespeare, and one of the great poets -of the world; but a few more decades must pass before such ranking can -have authority. - -At the same time other currents were influencing progressive minds -toward even greater freedom of form. Strangely enough, Whitman’s -influence was felt first in France. It reached England, and finally -America, indirectly from Paris, where the poets, stimulated by -translations of the great American, especially Bajazette’s, and by the -ever-adventurous quality of French scholarship, have been experimenting -with free verse ever since Mallarmé. The great Irish poets felt the -French influence—it was part of the education which made them realize -that English poetry had become narrow, rigid, and insular. Yeats has -held usually, though never slavishly, to rhyme and a certain regularity -of metrical form—in which, however, he makes his own tunes; but Synge -wrote his plays in that wide borderland between prose and verse, in a -form which, whatever one calls it, is essentially poetry, for it has -passion, glamour, magic, rhythm, and glorious imaginative life. - -This borderland between prose and verse is being explored now as never -before in English; except, perhaps in the King James translation of the -Bible. The modern “vers-libertines,” as they have been wittily called, -are doing pioneer work in an heroic effort to get rid of obstacles that -have hampered the poet and separated him from his audience. They are -trying to make the modern manifestations of poetry less a matter of -rules and formulæ, and more a thing of the spirit, and of organic as -against imposed, rhythm. In this enthusiastic labor they are following -not only a strong inward impulse, not only the love of freedom which -Chaucer followed—and Spenser and Shakespeare, Shelley and Coleridge and -all the masters—but they are moved also by influences from afar. They -have studied the French _symbolistes_ of the ’nineties, and the more -recent Parisian _vers-libristes_. Moreover, some of them have listened -to the pure lyricism of the Provençal troubadours, have studied the more -elaborate mechanism of early Italian sonneteers and canzonists, have -read Greek poetry from a new angle of vision; and last, but perhaps most -important of all, have bowed to winds from the East. - -In the nineteenth century the western world—the western æsthetic -world—discovered the orient. Someone has said that when Perry knocked at -the gates of Japan, these opened, not to let us in, but to let the -Japanese out. Japanese graphic art, especially, began almost at once to -kindle progressive minds. Whistler, of course, was the first great -creative artist to feel the influence of their instinct for balance and -proportion, for subtle harmonies of color and line, for the integrity of -beauty in art as opposed to the moralizing and sentimental tendencies -which had been intruding more and more. - -Poetry was slower than the graphic arts to feel the oriental influence, -because of the barrier of language. But European scholarship had long -dabbled with Indian, Persian and Sanskrit literatures, and Fitzgerald -even won over the crowd to some remote suspicion of their beauty by -meeting Omar half-way, and making a great poem out of the marriage, not -only of two minds, but of two literary traditions. Then a few airs from -Japan blew in—a few translations of _hokku_ and other forms—which showed -the stark simplicity and crystal clarity of the art among Japanese -poets. And of late the search has gone further: we begin to discover a -whole royal line of Chinese poets of a thousand or more years ago; and -we are trying to search out the secrets of their delicate and beautiful -art. The task is difficult, because our poets, ignorant of Chinese, have -to get at these masters through the literal translations of scholars. -But even by this round-about way, poets like Allen Upward, Ezra Pound, -Helen Waddell and a few others, give us something of the rare flavor, -the special exquisite perfume, of the original. And of late the Indian -influence has been emphasized by the great Bengali poet and sage, -Rabindranath Tagore, whose mastery of English makes him a poet in two -languages. - -This oriental influence is to be welcomed because it flows from deep -original streams of poetic art. We should not be afraid to learn from -it; and in much of the work of the imagists, and other radical groups, -we find a more or less conscious, and more or less effective, yielding -to that influence. We find something of the oriental directness of -vision and simplicity of diction, also now and then a hint of the -unobtrusive oriental perfection of form and delicacy of feeling. - -All these influences, which tend to make the art of poetry, especially -poetry in English, less provincial, more cosmopolitan, are by no means a -defiance of the classic tradition. On the contrary, they are an endeavor -to return to it at its great original sources, and to sweep away -artificial laws—the _obiter dicta_ of secondary minds—which have -encumbered it. There is more of the great authentic classic tradition, -for example, in the _Spoon River Anthology_ than in the _Idylls of the -King_, _Balaustian’s Adventure_, and _Sohrab and Rustum_ combined. And -the free rhythms of Whitman, Mallarmé, Pound, Sandburg and others, in -their inspired passages, are more truly in line with the biblical, the -Greek, the Anglo-Saxon, and even the Shakespearean tradition, than all -the exact iambics of Dryden and Pope, the patterned alexandrines of -Racine, or the closely woven metrics of Tennyson and Swinburne. - -Whither the new movement is leading no one can tell with exactness, nor -which of its present manifestations in England and America will prove -permanently valuable. But we may be sure that the movement is toward -greater freedom of spirit and form, and a more enlightened recognition -of the international scope, the cosmopolitanism, of the great art of -poetry, of which the English language, proud as its record is, offers -but a single phase. As part of such a movement, even the most -extravagant experiments, the most radical innovations, are valuable, for -the moment at least, as an assault against prejudice. And some of the -radicals of to-day will be, no doubt, the masters of to-morrow—a -phenomenon common in the history of the arts. - - * * * * * - -It remains only to explain the plan of this anthology, its inclusions -and omissions. - -It has seemed best to include no poems published before 1900, even -though, as in a few cases, the poets were moved by the new impulses. For -example, those two intensely modern, nobly impassioned, lyric poets, -Emily Dickinson and the Shropshire Lad (Alfred Edward Housman)—the one -dead, the other fortunately still living—both belong, by date of -publication, to the ’nineties. The work of poets already, as it were, -enshrined—whether by fame, or death, or both—has also not been quoted: -poets whose works are already, in a certain sense, classics, and whose -books are treasured by all lovers of the art—like Synge and Moody and -Riley, too early gone from us, and William Butler Yeats, whose later -verse is governed, even more than his earlier, by the new austerities. - -Certain other omissions are more difficult to explain, because they may -be thought to imply a lack of consideration which we do not feel. The -present Laureate, Robert Bridges, even in the late ’eighties and early -’nineties, was led by his own personal taste, especially in his _Shorter -Poems_, toward austere simplicity of subject, diction and style. But his -most representative poems were written before 1900. Rudyard Kipling has -been inspired at times by the modern muse, but his best poems also -antedate 1900. This is true also of Louise Imogen Guiney and Bliss -Carman, though most of their work, like that of Arthur Symons and the -late Stephen Phillips and Anna Hempstead Branch, belongs, by its -affinities, to the earlier period. And Alfred Noyes, whatever the date -of his poems, bears no immediate relation to the more progressive modern -movement in the art. - -On the other hand, we have tried to be hospitable to the adventurous, -the experimental, because these are the qualities of pioneers, who look -forward, not backward, and who may lead on, further than we can see as -yet, to new domains of the ever-conquering spirit of beauty. - - _H. M._ - - _NOTE. A word about the typography of this volume. No rigid system of - lineation, indention, etc., has been imposed upon the poets who very - kindly lend us their work. For example, sonnets are printed with or - without indention according to the individual preference of the poet; - also other rhymed forms, such as quatrains rhyming alternately; as - well as various forms of free verse. Punctuation and spelling are more - uniform, although a certain liberty has been conceded in words like_ - gray _or_ grey, _the color of which seems to vary with the spelling, - and in the use of dots, dashes, commas, colons, etc._ - - - - - TABLE OF CONTENTS - - - CONRAD AIKEN: PAGE - Music I Heard 1 - Dead Cleopatra 1 - Dancing Adairs 2 - - ZOË AKINS: - The Tragedienne 3 - I Am the Wind 3 - Conquered 4 - The Wanderer 4 - - RICHARD ALDINGTON: - The Poplar 5 - Lesbia 6 - Images, I-VI 6 - Choricos 7 - - MARY ALDIS: - Barberries 10 - When You Come 11 - Flash-lights, I-III 12 - - WALTER CONRAD ARENSBERG: - Voyage à l’Infini 13 - At Daybreak 14 - To Hasekawa 14 - Dialogue 14 - Song of the Souls Set Free 15 - - WILTON AGNEW BARRETT: - A New England Church 15 - - JOSEPH WARREN BEACH: - Rue Bonaparte 16 - The View at Gunderson’s 17 - - WILLIAM ROSE BENÉT: - The Falconer of God 18 - The Horse Thief 20 - - MAXWELL BODENHEIM: - The Rear Porches of an Apartment-Building 24 - The Interne 24 - The Old Jew 25 - The Miner 25 - To an Enemy 25 - To a Discarded Steel Rail 26 - - GORDON BOTTOMLEY: - Night and Morning Songs: - My Moon 26 - Elegiac Mood 27 - Dawn 27 - - ROLLO BRITTEN: - Bird of Passion 28 - - RUPERT BROOKE: - Retrospect 28 - Nineteen-Fourteen: - I. Peace 29 - II. Safety 30 - III. The Dead 30 - IV. The Dead 31 - V. The Soldier 31 - - WITTER BYNNER: - To Celia: - I. Consummation 32 - II. During a Chorale by Cesar Franck 33 - III. Songs Ascending 34 - Grieve not for Beauty 34 - - JOSEPH CAMPBELL: - At Harvest 35 - On Waking 36 - The Old Woman 38 - - NANCY CAMPBELL: - The Apple-Tree 38 - The Monkey 39 - - SKIPWITH CANNÉLL: - The Red Bridge 40 - The King 41 - - WILLA SIBERT CATHER: - The Palatine (In the “Dark Ages.”) 43 - Spanish Johnny 44 - - PADRAIC COLUM: - Polonius and the Ballad Singers 45 - The Sea Bird to the Wave 49 - Old Men Complaining 49 - - GRACE HAZARD CONKLING: - Refugees (Belgium—1914) 52 - “The Little Rose is Dust, My Dear” 53 - - ALICE CORBIN: - O World 53 - Two Voices 54 - Love Me at Last 55 - Humoresque 55 - One City Only 55 - Apparitions, I-II 57 - The Pool 57 - Music 58 - What Dim Arcadian Pastures 59 - Nodes 59 - - ADELAIDE CRAPSEY: - Cinquains: - November Night 60 - Triad 60 - Susanna and the Elders 61 - The Guarded Wound 61 - The Warning 61 - Fate Defied 61 - The Pledge 61 - Expenses 62 - Adventure 62 - Dirge 62 - Song 62 - The Lonely Death 63 - - H. D.: - Hermes of the Ways, I-II 63 - Priapus (Keeper of Orchards) 65 - The Pool 66 - Oread 66 - The Garden, I-II 66 - Moonrise 67 - The Shrine, I-IV 68 - - MARY CAROLYN DAVIES: - Cloistered 71 - Songs of a Girl, I-V 72 - - FANNIE STEARNS DAVIS: - Profits 73 - Souls 74 - - WALTER DE LA MARE: - The Listeners 74 - An Epitaph 75 - - LEE WILSON DODD: - The Temple 76 - The Comrade 77 - - JOHN DRINKWATER: - Sunrise on Rydal Water 78 - - LOUISE DRISCOLL: - The Metal Checks 80 - - DOROTHY DUDLEY: - La Rue de la Montagne Sainte-Gèneviève 84 - - HELEN DUDLEY: - To One Unknown 86 - Song 86 - - MAX EASTMAN: - Diogenes 87 - In March 87 - At the Aquarium 87 - - T. S. ELIOT: - Portrait of a Lady, I-III 88 - - ARTHUR DAVISON FICKE: - Meeting 92 - Among Shadows 93 - The Three Sisters 93 - Portrait of an Old Woman 93 - I am Weary of Being Bitter 94 - From “Sonnets of a Portrait Painter” 95 - Like Him Whose Spirit 95 - - JOHN GOULD FLETCHER: - Irradiations, I-IV 96 - Arizona Poems: - Mexican Quarter 98 - Rain in the Desert 99 - The Blue Symphony, I-V 100 - - F. S. FLINT: - Poems in Unrhymed Cadence, I-III 104 - - MOIREEN FOX: - Liadain to Curithir, I-V 106 - - FLORENCE KIPER FRANK: - The Jewish Conscript 108 - The Movies 109 - You 109 - - ROBERT FROST: - Mending Wall 110 - After Apple-Picking 111 - My November Guest 112 - Mowing 113 - Storm Fear 113 - Going for Water 114 - The Code—Heroics 115 - - HAMLIN GARLAND: - To a Captive Crane 119 - The Mountains are a Lonely Folk 119 - Magic 119 - - WILFRID WILSON GIBSON: - Color 120 - Oblivion 121 - Tenants 121 - Gold 122 - On Hampstead Heath 122 - Battle: - The Going 123 - The Joke 123 - In the Ambulance 123 - Hit 124 - The Housewife 124 - Hill-born 125 - The Fear 125 - Back 125 - - RICHARD BUTLER GLAENZER: - Star-Magic 126 - - DOUGLAS GOLDRING: - Voyages, I-IV 127 - - HERMANN HAGEDORN: - Early Morning at Bargis 128 - Doors 129 - Departure 129 - Broadway 130 - - THOMAS HARDY: - She Hears the Storm 130 - The Voice 131 - In the Moonlight 132 - The Man He Killed 132 - - RALPH HODGSON: - The Mystery 133 - Three Poems, I-III 133 - Stupidity Street 134 - - HORACE HOLLEY: - Three Poems: - Creative 134 - Twilight at Versailles 135 - Lovers 135 - - HELEN HOYT: - Ellis Park 135 - The New-Born 136 - Rain at Night 137 - The Lover Sings of a Garden 137 - Since I Have Felt the Sense of Death 138 - - FORD MADOX HUEFFER: - Antwerp, I-VI 138 - - SCHARMEL IRIS: - After the Martyrdom 143 - Lament 143 - Iteration 144 - Early Nightfall 144 - - ORRICK JOHNS: - Songs of Deliverance: - I. The Song of Youth 144 - II. Virgins 146 - III. No Prey Am I 146 - - JOYCE KILMER: - Trees 150 - Easter 150 - - ALFRED KREYMBORG: - America 151 - Old Manuscript 151 - Cézanne 152 - Parasite 152 - - WILLIAM LAIRD: - Traümerei at Ostendorff’s 153 - A Very Old Song 154 - - D. H. LAWRENCE: - A Woman and Her Dead Husband 155 - Fireflies in the Corn 157 - Green 158 - Grief 158 - Service of All the Dead 159 - - AGNES LEE: - Motherhood 159 - A Statue in a Garden 161 - On the Jail Steps 161 - Her Going 162 - - WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD: - Indian Summer 165 - - VACHEL LINDSAY: - General William Booth Enters into Heaven 166 - The Eagle that is Forgotten 168 - The Congo (A Study of the Negro Race): - I. Their Basic Savagery 169 - II. Their Irrepressible High Spirits 171 - III. The Hope of Their Religion 172 - Aladdin and the Jinn 174 - The Chinese Nightingale 175 - - AMY LOWELL: - Patterns 182 - 1777: - I. The Trumpet-Vine Arbor 186 - II. The City of Falling Leaves 187 - Venus Transiens 191 - A Lady 192 - Chinoiseries: - Reflections 192 - Falling Snow 193 - Hoar-frost 193 - Solitaire 193 - A Gift 194 - Red Slippers 194 - Apology 195 - - PERCY MACKAYE: - Old Age 196 - Song from “Mater” 197 - - FREDERIC MANNING: - Sacrifice 198 - At Even 199 - - JOHN MASEFIELD: - Ships 200 - Cargoes 203 - Watching by a Sick-Bed 203 - What am I, Life? 204 - - EDGAR LEE MASTERS: - Spoon River Anthology: - The Hill 205 - Ollie M^cGee 206 - Daisy Fraser 207 - Hare Drummer 207 - Doc Hill 208 - Fiddler Jones 208 - Thomas Rhodes 209 - Editor Whedon 210 - Seth Compton 210 - Henry C. Calhoun 211 - Perry Zoll 212 - Archibald Higbie 212 - Father Malloy 213 - Lucinda Matlock 213 - Anne Rutledge 214 - William H. Herndon 215 - Rutherford M^cDowell 215 - Arlo Will 216 - Aaron Hatfield 217 - Webster Ford 218 - Silence 219 - - ALICE MEYNELL: - Maternity 221 - Chimes 221 - - MAX MICHELSON: - O Brother Tree 222 - The Bird 223 - Storm 223 - A Hymn to Night 224 - Love Lyric 224 - - EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY: - God’s World 225 - Ashes of Life 226 - The Shroud 226 - - HAROLD MONRO: - Great City 227 - Youth in Arms 228 - The Strange Companion 229 - - HARRIET MONROE: - The Hotel 231 - The Turbine 233 - On the Porch 236 - The Wonder of It 237 - The Inner Silence 238 - Love Song 238 - A Farewell 239 - Lullaby 239 - Pain 240 - The Water Ouzel 241 - The Pine at Timber-Line 242 - Mountain Song 242 - - JOHN G. NEIHARDT: - Prayer for Pain 243 - Envoi 244 - - YONE NOGUCHI: - The Poet 245 - I Have Cast the World 246 - - GRACE FALLOW NORTON: - Allegra Agonistes 246 - Make No Vows 247 - I Give Thanks 247 - - JAMES OPPENHEIM: - The Slave 248 - The Lonely Child 249 - Not Overlooked 249 - The Runner in the Skies 250 - - PATRICK ORR: - Annie Shore and Johnnie Doon 250 - In the Mohave 251 - - SEUMAS O’SULLIVAN: - My Sorrow 252 - Splendid and Terrible 252 - The Others 253 - - JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY: - Cradle Song, I-III 254 - The Cedars 256 - A Song of Solomon 257 - - EZRA POUND: - Δώρια 257 - The Return 258 - Piccadilly 259 - N. Y. 259 - The Coming of War: Actaeon 260 - The Garden 260 - Ortus 261 - The Choice 261 - The Garret 262 - Dance Figure 262 - From “Near Périgord” 263 - An Immorality 264 - The Study in Aesthetics 265 - Further Instructions 265 - Villanelle: The Psychological Hour, I-III 266 - Ballad of the Goodly Fere 268 - Ballad for Gloom 270 - La Fraisne 271 - The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter (from the Chinese of Li Po.) 273 - Exile’s Letter (From the Chinese of Li Po.) 274 - - JOHN REED: - Sangar 277 - - ERNEST RHYS: - Dagonet’s Canzonet 280 - A Song of Happiness 281 - - EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON: - The Master 283 - John Gorham 285 - Richard Cory 287 - The Growth of Lorraine, I-II 287 - Cassandra 288 - - CARL SANDBURG: - Chicago 290 - The Harbor 291 - Sketch 292 - Lost 292 - Jan Kubelik 293 - At a Window 293 - The Poor 294 - The Road and the End 294 - Killers 295 - Nocturne in a Deserted Brickyard 296 - Handfuls 296 - Under the Harvest Moon 297 - Choose 297 - Kin 298 - Places 298 - Joy 299 - The Great Hunt 299 - Our Prayer of Thanks 300 - - CLARA SHANAFELT: - To Thee 301 - Caprice 301 - A Vivid Girl 301 - Invocation 302 - Pastel 302 - A Gallant Woman 302 - Scherzo 303 - - FRANCES SHAW: - Who Loves the Rain 304 - The Harp of the Wind 304 - The Ragpicker 305 - Cologne Cathedral 305 - Star Thought 305 - The Child’s Quest 306 - Little Pagan Rain Song 306 - - CONSTANCE LINDSAY SKINNER: - Songs of the Coast-Dwellers: - The Chief’s Prayer after the Salmon Catch 307 - Song of Whip-Plaiting 308 - No Answer is Given 309 - - JAMES STEPHENS: - What Tomas An Buile said in a Pub 312 - Bessie Bobtail 313 - Hate 313 - The Waste Places, I-II 314 - Hawks 316 - Dark Wings 317 - - GEORGE STERLING: - A Legend of the Dove 317 - Kindred 318 - Omnia Exeunt in Mysterium 318 - The Last Days 319 - - WALLACE STEVENS: - Peter Quince at the Clavier, I-IV 320 - In Battle 322 - Sunday Morning, I-V 323 - - AJAN SYRIAN: - The Syrian Lover in Exile Remembers Thee, Light of my Land 325 - - RABINDRANATH TAGORE: - From “Gitanjali,” I-VI 327 - From “The Gardener,” I-IX 329 - - SARA TEASDALE: - Leaves 334 - Morning 334 - The Flight 335 - Over the Roofs 335 - Debt 336 - Songs in a Hospital: - The Broken Field 336 - Open Windows 336 - After Death 337 - In Memoriam F. O. S. 337 - Swallow Flight 338 - The Answer 338 - - EUNICE TIETJENS: - The Bacchante to Her Babe 339 - The Steam Shovel 341 - The Great Man 343 - - RIDGELY TORRENCE: - The Bird and the Tree 344 - The Son 345 - - CHARLES HANSON TOWNE: - Beyond the Stars 346 - - LOUIS UNTERMEYER: - Landscapes 348 - Feuerzauber 350 - On the Birth of a Child 351 - Irony 352 - - ALLEN UPWARD: - Scented Leaves from a Chinese Jar: - The Acacia Leaves 352 - The Bitter Purple Willows 352 - The Coral Fisher 353 - The Diamond 353 - The Estuary 353 - The Intoxicated Poet 353 - The Jonquils 353 - The Marigold 353 - The Mermaid 354 - The Middle Kingdom 354 - The Milky Way 354 - The Onion 354 - The Sea-Shell 354 - The Stupid Kite 354 - The Windmill 355 - The Word 355 - - JOHN HALL WHEELOCK: - Sunday Evening in the Common 355 - Spring 356 - Like Music 356 - The Thunder-Shower 357 - Song 357 - Alone 358 - Nirvana 358 - Triumph of the Singer 358 - - HERVEY WHITE: - Last Night 359 - I Saw the Clouds 360 - - MARGARET WIDDEMER: - The Beggars 361 - Teresina’s Face 362 - Greek Folk Song 362 - - FLORENCE WILKINSON: - Our Lady of Idleness 363 - Students 365 - - MARGUERITE WILKINSON: - A Woman’s Beloved—A Psalm 367 - An Incantation 368 - - WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS: - Sicilian Emigrant’s Song 369 - Peace on Earth 370 - The Shadow 371 - Metric Figure 371 - Sub Terra 372 - Slow Movement 373 - Postlude 374 - - CHARLES ERSKINE SCOTT WOOD: - “The Poet in the Desert”—Extracts from the Prologue 375 - - EDITH WYATT: - On the Great Plateau 377 - Summer Hail 379 - To F. W. 380 - A City Afternoon 382 - - - - - THE NEW POETRY - - - - - Conrad Aiken - - - MUSIC I HEARD - - Music I heard with you was more than music, - And bread I broke with you was more than bread. - Now that I am without you, all is desolate, - All that was once so beautiful is dead. - - Your hands once touched this table and this silver, - And I have seen your fingers hold this glass. - These things do not remember you, beloved: - And yet your touch upon them will not pass. - - For it was in my heart you moved among them, - And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes. - And in my heart they will remember always: - They knew you once, O beautiful and wise! - - - DEAD CLEOPATRA - - Dead Cleopatra lies in a crystal casket, - Wrapped and spiced by the cunningest of hands. - Around her neck they have put a golden necklace - Her tatbebs, it is said, are worn with sands. - - Dead Cleopatra was once revered in Egypt— - Warm-eyed she was, this princess of the south. - Now she is very old and dry and faded, - With black bitumen they have sealed up her mouth. - - Grave-robbers pulled the gold rings from her fingers, - Despite the holy symbols across her breast; - They scared the bats that quietly whirled above her. - Poor lady! she would have been long since at rest - - If she had not been wrapped and spiced so shrewdly, - Preserved, obscene, to mock black flights of years. - What would her lover have said, had he foreseen it? - Had he been moved to ecstasy, or tears? - - O sweet clean earth from whom the green blade cometh!— - When we are dead, my best-beloved and I, - Close well above us that we may rest forever, - Sending up grass and blossoms to the sky. - - - DANCING ADAIRS - - Behold me, in my chiffon, gauze and tinsel, - Flitting out of the shadow into the spotlight, - And into the shadow again, without a whisper!— - Firefly’s my name, I am evanescent. - - Firefly’s your name. You are evanescent. - But I follow you as remorselessly as darkness, - And shut you in and enclose you, at last, and always, - Till you are lost, as a voice is lost in silence. - - Till I am lost, as a voice is lost in silence.... - Are you the one who would close so cool about me? - My fire sheds into and through you and beyond you: - How can your fingers hold me? I am elusive. - - How can my fingers hold you? You are elusive? - Yes, you are flame; but I surround and love you, - Always extend beyond you, cool, eternal, - To take you into my heart’s great void of silence. - - You shut me into your heart’s great void of silence.... - O sweet and soothing end for a life of whirling! - Now I am still, whose life was mazed with motion. - Now I sink into you, for love of sleep. - - - - - Zoë Akins - - - THE TRAGEDIENNE - - A storm is riding on the tide; - Grey is the day and grey the tide, - Far-off the sea-gulls wheel and cry— - A storm draws near upon the tide; - - A city lifts its minarets - To winds that from the desert sweep, - And prisoned Arab women weep - Below the domes and minarets; - - Upon a hill in Thessaly - Stand broken columns in a line - About a cold forgotten shrine, - Beneath a moon in Thessaly: - - But in the world there is no place - So desolate as your tragic face. - - - I AM THE WIND - - I am the wind that wavers, - You are the certain land; - I am the shadow that passes - Over the sand. - - I am the leaf that quivers, - You the unshaken tree; - You are the stars that are steadfast, - I am the sea. - - You are the light eternal— - Like a torch I shall die; - You are the surge of deep music, - I but a cry! - - - CONQUERED - - O pale! O vivid! dear! - O disillusioned eyes - Forever near! - O Dream, arise! - - I will not turn away - From the face I loved again; - Your beauty may sway - My life with pain. - - I will drink the wine you pour, - I will seek to put asunder - Our ways no more— - O Love! O Wonder! - - - THE WANDERER - - The ships are lying in the bay, - The gulls are swinging round their spars; - My soul as eagerly as they - Desires the margin of the stars. - - So much do I love wandering, - So much I love the sea and sky, - That it will be a piteous thing - In one small grave to lie. - - - - - Richard Aldington - - - THE POPLAR - - Why do you always stand there shivering - Between the white stream and the road? - - The people pass through the dust - On bicycles, in carts, in motor-cars; - The wagoners go by at dawn; - The lovers walk on the grass path at night. - - Stir from your roots, walk, poplar! - You are more beautiful than they are. - - I know that the white wind loves you, - Is always kissing you and turning up - The white lining of your green petticoat. - The sky darts through you like blue rain, - And the grey rain drips on your flanks - And loves you. - And I have seen the moon - Slip his silver penny into your pocket - As you straightened your hair; - And the white mist curling and hesitating - Like a bashful lover about your knees. - - I know you, poplar; - I have watched you since I was ten. - But if you had a little real love, - A little strength, - You would leave your nonchalant idle lovers - And go walking down the white road - Behind the wagoners. - - There are beautiful beeches - Down beyond the hill. - Will you always stand there shivering? - - - LESBIA - - Grow weary if you will, let me be sad. - Use no more speech now; - Let the silence spread gold hair above us, - Fold on delicate fold. - Use no more speech; - You had the ivory of my life to carve.... - - And Picus of Mirandola is dead; - And all the gods they dreamed and fabled of, - Hermes, and Thoth and Bêl are rotten now, - Rotten and dank. - - And through it all I see your pale Greek face; - Tenderness - Makes me eager as a little child to love you, - You morsel left half-cold on Cæsar’s plate. - - - IMAGES - - I - - Like a gondola of green scented fruits - Drifting along the dank canals at Venice, - You, O exquisite one, - Have entered my desolate city. - - II - - The blue smoke leaps - Like swirling clouds of birds vanishing. - So my love leaps forth towards you, - Vanishes and is renewed. - - III - - A rose-yellow moon in a pale sky - When the sunset is faint vermilion - In the mist among the tree-boughs, - Art thou to me. - - IV - - As a young beech-tree on the edge of a forest - Stands still in the evening, - Yet shudders through all its leaves in the light air - And seems to fear the stars— - So are you still and so tremble. - - V - - The red deer are high on the mountain, - They are beyond the last pine trees. - And my desires have run with them. - - VI - - The flower which the wind has shaken - Is soon filled again with rain; - So does my mind fill slowly with misgiving - Until you return. - - - CHORICOS - - The ancient songs - Pass deathward mournfully. - - Cold lips that sing no more, and withered wreaths, - Regretful eyes and drooping breasts and wings— - Symbols of ancient songs - Mournfully passing - Down to the great white surges, - Watched of none - Save the frail sea-birds - And the lithe pale girls, - Daughters of Okeanos. - - And the songs pass - From the green land - Which lies upon the waves as a leaf - On the flowers of hyacinth; - And they pass from the waters, - The manifold winds and the dim moon, - And they come, - Silently winging through soft Kimmerian dusk, - To the quiet level lands - That she keeps for us all, - That she wrought for us all for sleep - In the silver days of the earth’s dawning— - Prosperine, daughter of Zeus. - - And we turn from the Kuprian’s breasts, - And we turn from thee, - Phoibos Apollon, - And we turn from the music of old - And the hills that we loved and the meads, - And we turn from the fiery day, - And the lips that were over-sweet; - For silently - Brushing the fields with red-shod feet, - With purple robe - Searing the flowers as with a sudden flame, - Death, - Thou hast come upon us. - - And of all the ancient songs - Passing to the swallow-blue halls - By the dark streams of Persephone, - This only remains: - That in the end we turn to thee, - Death, - That we turn to thee, singing - One last song. - - O Death, - Thou art an healing wind - That blowest over white flowers - A-tremble with dew; - Thou art a wind flowing - Over long leagues of lonely sea; - Thou art the dusk and the fragrance; - Thou art the lips of love mournfully smiling; - Thou art the pale peace of one - Satiate with old desires; - Thou art the silence of beauty, - And we look no more for the morning; - We yearn no more for the sun, - Since with thy white hands, - Death, - Thou crownest us with the pallid chaplets, - The slim colorless poppies - Which in thy garden alone - Softly thou gatherest. - - And silently; - And with slow feet approaching; - And with bowed head and unlit eyes, - We kneel before thee. - And thou, leaning towards us, - Caressingly layest upon us - Flowers from thy thin cold hands, - And, smiling as a chaste woman - Knowing love in her heart, - Thou sealest our eyes - And the illimitable quietude - Comes gently upon us. - - - - - Mary Aldis - - - BARBERRIES - - You say I touch the barberries - As a lover his mistress? - What a curious fancy! - One must be delicate, you know— - They have bitter thorns. - You say my hand is hurt? - Oh no, it was my breast, - It was crushed and pressed. - I mean—why yes, of course, of course— - There is a bright drop—isn’t there?— - Right on my finger; - Just the color of a barberry, - But it comes from my heart. - - Do you love barberries? - In the autumn - When the sun’s desire - Touches them to a glory of crimson and gold? - I love them best then. - There is something splendid about them: - They are not afraid - Of being warm and glad and bold; - They flush joyously, - Like a cheek under a lover’s kiss; - They bleed cruelly - Like a dagger wound in the breast; - They flame up madly for their little hour, - Knowing they must die. - Do you love barberries? - - - WHEN YOU COME - - “_There was a girl with him for a time. She took him to her room when - he was desolate and warmed him and took care of him. One day he could - not find her. For many weeks he walked constantly in that locality in - search of her._”—From _Life of Francis Thompson_. - - When you come tonight - To our small room - You will look and listen— - I shall not be there. - - You will cry out your dismay - To the unheeding gods; - You will wait and look and listen— - I shall not be there. - - There is a part of you I love - More than your hands in mine at rest; - There is a part of you I love - More than your lips upon my breast. - - There is a part of you I wound - Even in my caress; - There is a part of you withheld - I may not possess. - - There is a part of you I hate— - Your need of me - When you would be alone, - Alone and free. - - When you come tonight - To our small room - You will look and listen— - I shall not be there. - - - FLASH-LIGHTS - - I - - Candles toppling sideways in tomato cans - Sputter and sizzle at head and foot. - The gaudy patterns of a patch-work quilt - Lie smooth and straight - Save where upswelling over a silent shape. - A man in high boots stirs something on a rusty stove - Round and round and round, - As a new cry like a bleating lamb’s - Pierces his brain. - After a time the man busies himself - With hammer and nails and rough-hewn lumber, - But fears to strike a blow. - Outside the moonlight sleeps white upon the plain - And the bark of a coyote shrills across the night. - - II - - A smell of musk - Comes to him pungently through the darkness. - On the screen - Scenes from foreign lands, - Released by the censor, - Shimmer in cool black and white - Historic information. - He shifts his seat sideways, sideways— - A seeking hand creeps to another hand, - And a leaping flame - Illuminates the historic information. - - III - - Within the room, sounds of weeping - Low and hushed: - Without, a man, beautiful with the beauty - Of young strength, - Holds pitifully to the handle of the door. - He hiccoughs and turns away, - While a hand-organ plays, - “The hours I spend with thee, dear heart.” - - - - - Walter Conrad Arensberg - - - VOYAGE À L’INFINI - - The swan existing - Is like a song with an accompaniment - Imaginary. - - Across the grassy lake, - Across the lake to the shadow of the willows, - It is accompanied by an image— - As by Debussy’s - “_Reflets dans l’eau_.” - - The swan that is - Reflects - Upon the solitary water—breast to breast - With the duplicity: - “_The other one!_” - - And breast to breast it is confused. - O visionary wedding! O stateliness of the procession! - It is accompanied by the image of itself - Alone. - - At night - The lake is a wide silence, - Without imagination. - - - AT DAYBREAK - - I had a dream and I awoke with it— - Poor little thing that I had not unclasped - After the kiss good-by. - - And at the surface how it gasped— - This thing that I had loved in the unlit - Depth of the drowsy sea.... - Ah me! - This thing with which I drifted toward the sky. - - Driftwood upon a wave— - Senseless the motion that it gave. - - - TO HASEKAWA - - Perhaps it is no matter that you died. - Life’s an _incognito_ which you saw through: - You never told on life—you had your pride; - But life has told on you. - - - DIALOGUE - - Be patient, Life, when Love is at the gate, - And when he enters let him be at home. - Think of the roads that he has had to roam. - Think of the years that he has had to wait. - - _But if I let Love in I shall be late. - Another has come first—there is no room. - And I am thoughtful of the endless loom— - Let Love be patient, the importunate._ - - O Life, be idle and let Love come in, - And give thy dreamy hair that Love may spin. - _But Love himself is idle with his song. - Let Love come last, and then may Love last long._ - - Be patient, Life, for Love is not the last. - Be patient now with Death, for Love has passed. - - - SONG OF THE SOULS SET FREE - - Wrap the earth in cloudy weather - For a shroud. - We have slipped the earthly tether, - We’re above the cloud. - Peep and draw the cloud together, - Peep upon the bowed. - - What can they be bowing under, - Wild and wan? - Peep, and draw the cloud asunder, - Peep, and wave a dawn. - It will make them rise and wonder - Whether we are gone. - - - - - Wilton Agnew Barrett - - - A NEW ENGLAND CHURCH - - The white church on the hill - Looks over the little bay— - A beautiful thing on the hill - When the mist is gray; - When the hill looks old, and the air turns cold - With the dying day! - - The white church on the hill— - A Greek in a Puritan town— - Was built on the brow of the hill - For John Wesley’s God’s renown, - And a conscience old set a steeple cold - On its Grecian crown. - - In a storm of faith on the hill - Hands raised it over the bay. - When the night is clear on the hill, - It stands up strong and gray; - But its door is old, and the tower points cold - To the Milky Way. - - The white church on the hill - Looks lonely over the town. - Dim to them under the hill - Is its God’s renown, - And its Bible old, and its creed grown cold, - And the letters brown. - - - - - Joseph Warren Beach - - - RUE BONAPARTE - - You that but seek your modest rolls and coffee, - When you have passed the bar, and have saluted - Its watchful madam, then pray enter softly - The inner chamber, even as one who treads - The haunts of mating birds, and watch discreetly - Over your paper’s edge. There in the corner, - Obscure, ensconced behind the uncovered table, - A man and woman keep their silent tryst. - Outside the morning floods the pavement sweetly; - Yonder aloft a maid throws back the shutters; - The hucksters utter modulated cries - As wistful as some old pathetic ballad. - Within the brooding lovers, unaware, - Sit quiet hand in hand, or in low whispers - Communicate a more articulate love. - Sometimes she plays with strings and, gently leaning - Against his shoulder, shows him childish tricks. - She has not touched the glass of milk before her, - Her breakfast and the price of their admittance. - She has a look devoted and confiding - And might be pretty were not life so hard. - But he, gaunt as his rusty bicycle - That stands against the table, and with features - So drawn and stark, has only futile strength. - The love they cherish in this stolen meeting - Through all the day that follows makes her sweeter, - And him perhaps it only leaves more bitter. - But you that have not love at all, old men - That warm your fingers by this fire, discreetly - Play out your morning game of dominoes. - - - THE VIEW AT GUNDERSON’S - - Sitting in his rocker waiting for your tea, - Gazing from his window, this is what you see: - - A cat that snaps at flies; a track leading down - By log-built shanties gray and brown; - - The corner of a barn, and tangled lines of fence - Of rough-hewn pickets standing dense; - - The ghost of a tree on a dull, wet day; - And the blanket fog where lies the bay. - - But when he’s seen the last of you, - Sitting in his rocker, what’s _his_ view? - - (For there he sits, day in, day out, - Nursing his leg—and his dreams, no doubt.) - - The snow-slide up behind the _gaard_; - The farm beside old Trondjem _fjord_; - - Daughters seven with their cold blue eyes, - And the great pine where his father lies; - - The boat that brought him over the sea; - And the toothless woman who makes his tea. - - (Their picture, framed on the rough log wall, - Proves she had teeth when he was tall.) - - He sees the balsam thick on the hill, - And all he’s cleared with a stubborn will. - - And last he sees the full-grown son - For whom he hoards what he has won. - - You saw little worth the strife: - What he sees is one man’s life. - - - - - William Rose Benét - - - THE FALCONER OF GOD - - I flung my soul to the air like a falcon flying. - I said, “Wait on, wait on, while I ride below! - I shall start a heron soon - In the marsh beneath the moon— - A strange white heron rising with silver on its wings, - Rising and crying - Wordless, wondrous things; - The secret of the stars, of the world’s heart-strings - The answer to their woe. - Then stoop thou upon him, and grip and hold him so!” - - My wild soul waited on as falcons hover. - I beat the reedy fens as I trampled past. - I heard the mournful loon - In the marsh beneath the moon. - And then, with feathery thunder, the bird of my desire - Broke from the cover - Flashing silver fire. - High up among the stars I saw his pinions spire. - The pale clouds gazed aghast - As my falcon stooped upon him, and gript and held him fast. - - My soul dropped through the air—with heavenly plunder?— - Gripping the dazzling bird my dreaming knew? - Nay! but a piteous freight, - A dark and heavy weight - Despoiled of silver plumage, its voice forever stilled— - All of the wonder - Gone that ever filled - Its guise with glory. O bird that I have killed, - How brilliantly you flew - Across my rapturous vision when first I dreamed of you! - - Yet I fling my soul on high with new endeavor, - And I ride the world below with a joyful mind. - _I shall start a heron soon - In the marsh beneath the moon— - A wondrous silver heron its inner darkness fledges!_ - I beat forever - The fens and the sedges. - The pledge is still the same—for all disastrous pledges, - All hopes resigned! - My soul still flies above me for the quarry it shall find! - - - THE HORSE THIEF - - There he moved, cropping the grass at the purple canyon’s lip. - His mane was mixed with the moonlight that silvered his snow-white - side, - For the moon sailed out of a cloud with the wake of a spectral ship. - I crouched and I crawled on my belly, my lariat coil looped wide. - - Dimly and dark the mesas broke on the starry sky. - A pall covered every color of their gorgeous glory at noon. - I smelt the yucca and mesquite, and stifled my heart’s quick cry, - And wormed and crawled on my belly to where he moved against the moon! - - Some Moorish barb was that mustang’s sire. His lines were beyond all - wonder. - From the prick of his ears to the flow of his tail he ached in my - throat and eyes. - Steel and velvet grace! As the prophet says, God had “clothed his neck - with thunder.” - Oh, marvelous with the drifting cloud he drifted across the skies! - - And then I was near at hand—crouched, and balanced, and cast the coil; - And the moon was smothered in cloud, and the rope through my hands - with a rip! - But somehow I gripped and clung, with the blood in my brain aboil,— - With a turn round the rugged tree-stump there on the purple canyon’s - lip. - - - Right into the stars he reared aloft, his red eye rolling and raging. - He whirled and sunfished and lashed, and rocked the earth to thunder - and flame. - He squealed like a regular devil horse. I was haggard and spent and - aging— - Roped clean, but almost storming clear, his fury too fierce to tame. - - And I cursed myself for a tenderfoot moon-dazzled to play the part, - But I was doubly desperate then, with the posse pulled out from town, - Or I’d never have tried it. I only knew I must get a mount and a start. - The filly had snapped her foreleg short. I had had to shoot her down. - - So there he struggled and strangled, and I snubbed him around the tree. - Nearer, a little nearer—hoofs planted, and lolling tongue— - Till a sudden slack pitched me backward. He reared right on top of me. - Mother of God—that moment! He missed me ... and up I swung. - - Somehow, gone daft completely and clawing a bunch of his mane, - As he stumbled and tripped in the lariat, there I was—up and astride - And cursing for seven counties! And the mustang? _Just insane!_ - Crack-bang! went the rope; we cannoned off the tree—then—gods, that - ride! - - A rocket—that’s all, a rocket! I dug with my teeth and nails. - Why, we never hit even the high spots (though I hardly remember - things), - But I heard a monstrous booming like a thunder of flapping sails - When he spread—well, _call_ me a liar!—when he spread those wings, - those wings! - - - So white that my eyes were blinded, thick-feathered and wide unfurled - They beat the air into billows. We sailed, and the earth was gone. - Canyon and desert and mesa withered below, with the world. - And then I knew that mustang; for I—was Bellerophon! - - Yes, glad as the Greek, and mounted on a horse of the elder gods, - With never a magic bridle or a fountain-mirror nigh! - _My chaps and spurs and holster must have looked it?_ What’s the odds? - I’d a leg over lightning and thunder, careering across the sky! - - And forever streaming before me, fanning my forehead cool, - Flowed a mane of molten silver; and just before my thighs - (As I gripped his velvet-muscled ribs, while I cursed myself for a - fool), - The steady pulse of those pinions—their wonderful fall and rise! - - The bandanna I bought in Bowie blew loose and whipped from my neck. - My shirt was stuck to my shoulders and ribboning out behind. - The stars were dancing, wheeling and glancing, dipping with smirk and - beck. - The clouds were flowing, dusking and glowing. We rode a roaring wind. - - We soared through the silver starlight to knock at the planets’ gates. - New shimmering constellations came whirling into our ken. - Red stars and green and golden swung out of the void that waits - For man’s great last adventure; the Signs took shape—and then - - I knew the lines of that Centaur the moment I saw him come! - The musical-box of the heavens all around us rolled to a tune - That tinkled and chimed and trilled with silver sounds that struck you - dumb, - As if some archangel were grinding out the music of the moon. - - - Melody-drunk on the Milky Way, as we swept and soared hilarious, - Full in our pathway, sudden he stood—the Centaur of the Stars, - Flashing from head and hoofs and breast! I knew him for Sagittarius. - He reared, and bent and drew his bow. He crouched as a boxer spars. - - Flung back on his haunches, weird he loomed—then leapt—and the dim void - lightened. - Old White Wings shied and swerved aside, and fled from the - splendor-shod. - Through a flashing welter of worlds we charged. I knew why my horse was - frightened. - He _had_ two faces—a dog’s and a man’s—that Babylonian god! - - Also, he followed us real as fear. Ping! went an arrow past. - My broncho buck-jumped, humping high. We plunged ... I guess that’s - all! - I lay on the purple canyon’s lip, when I opened my eyes at last— - Stiff and sore and my head like a drum, but I broke no bones in the - fall. - - So you know—and now you may string me up. Such was the way you caught - me. - Thank you for letting me tell it straight, though you never could - greatly care. - For I took a horse that wasn’t mine!... But there’s one the heavens - brought me, - And I’ll hang right happy, because I know he is waiting for me up - there. - - From creamy muzzle to cannon-bone, by God, he’s a peerless wonder! - He is steel and velvet and furnace-fire, and death’s supremest prize; - And never again shall be roped on earth that neck that is “clothed with - thunder” ... - String me up, Dave! Go dig my grave! _I rode him across the skies!_ - - - - - Maxwell Bodenheim - - - THE REAR-PORCHES OF AN APARTMENT-BUILDING - - A sky that has never known sun, moon or stars, - A sky that is like a dead, kind face, - Would have the color of your eyes, - O servant-girl, singing of pear-trees in the sun, - And scraping the yellow fruit you once picked - When your lavender-white eyes were alive.... - On the porch above you are two women, - Whose faces have the color of brown earth that has never felt rain. - The still wet basins of ponds that have been drained - Are their eyes. - They knit gray rosettes and nibble cakes.... - And on the top-porch are three children - Gravely kissing each others’ foreheads— - And an ample nurse with a huge red fan.... - - The passing of the afternoon to them - Is but the lengthening of blue-black shadows on brick walls. - - - THE INTERNE - - Oh, the agony of having too much power! - In my passive palm are hundreds of lives. - Strange alchemy!—they drain my blood: - My heart becomes iron; my brain copper; my eyes silver; my lips brass. - Merely by twitching a supple finger, I twirl lives from - me—strong-winged, - Or fluttering and broken. - They are my children, I am their mother and father. - I watch them live and die. - - - THE OLD JEW - - No fawn-tinged hospital pajamas could cheat him of his austerity, - Which tamed even the doctors with its pure fire. - They examined him; made him bow to them: - Massive altars were they, at whose swollen feet grovelled a worshiper. - Then they laughed, half in scorn of him; and there came a miracle. - The little man was above them at a bound. - His austerity, like an irresistible sledge-hammer, drove them lower and - lower: - They dwindled while he soared. - - - THE MINER - - Those on the top say they know you, Earth—they are liars. - You are my father, and the silence I work in is my mother. - Only the son knows his father. - We are alike—sweaty, inarticulate of soul, bending under thick - knowledge. - I drink and shout with my brothers when above you— - Like most children we soon forget the parents of our souls. - But you avidly grip us again—we pay for the little noise of life we - steal. - - - TO AN ENEMY - - I despise my friends more than you. - I would have known myself, but they stood before the mirrors - And painted on them images of the virtues I craved. - You came with sharpest chisel, scraping away the false paint. - Then I knew and detested myself, but not you: - For glimpses of you in the glasses you uncovered - Showed me the virtues whose images you destroyed. - - - TO A DISCARDED STEEL RAIL - - Straight strength pitched into the surliness of the ditch, - A soul you have—strength has always delicate secret reasons. - Your soul is a dull question. - I do not care for your strength, but for your stiff smile at Time— - A smile which men call rust. - - - - - Gordon Bottomley - - - NIGHT AND MORNING SONGS - - - MY MOON - - My moon was lit in an hour of lilies; - The apple-trees seemed older than ever. - It rose from matted trees that sever - The oats from the meadow, and woke the fillies - That reared in dew and gleamed with dew - And ran like water and shadow, and cried. - It moistened and veiled the oats yet new, - And seemed to drip long drops of the tide, - Of the mother-sea so lately left. - Feathers of flower were each bereft - Of color and stem, and floated low; - Another lily opened then - And lost a little gold dust; but when - The lime-boughs lifted there seemed to go - Some life of the moon, like breath that moves - Or parting glances that flutter and strain— - A ghost with hands the color of doves - And feet the color of rain. - - - ELEGIAC MOOD - - From song and dream for ever gone - Are Helen, Helen of Troy, - And Cleopatra made to look upon, - And many a daring boy— - Young Faust and Sigurd and Hippolytus: - They are twice dead and we must find - Great ladies yet unblemished by the mind, - Heroes and acts not cold for us - In amber or spirits of too many words. - Ay, these are murdered by much thinking on. - I hanker even for new shapes of swords, - More different sins, and raptures not yet done. - Yet, as I wait on marvels, such a bird - As maybe Sigurd heard— - A thrush—alighting with a little run - Out-tops the daisies as it passes - And peeps bright-eyed above the grasses. - - - DAWN - - A thrush is tapping a stone - With a snail-shell in its beak; - A small bird hangs from a cherry - Until the stem shall break. - No waking song has begun, - And yet birds chatter and hurry - And throng in the elm’s gloom - Because an owl goes home. - - - - - Rollo Britten - - - BIRD OF PASSION - - Leave the lovely words unsaid; - For another thought is fled - From my dream-entangled mind. - Bird of passion, unenshrined, - I can never phrase thee quite— - So I speed thee on thy flight, - Unembodied thus forever, - Floating in a mist that never - May be raised. Thou art one - Of the black-winged birds that run, - With uncomprehended flight, - Unimpeded down the night. - - - - - Rupert Brooke - - - RETROSPECT - - In your arms was still delight, - Quiet as a street at night; - And thoughts of you, I do remember, - Were green leaves in a darkened chamber, - Were dark clouds in a moonless sky. - Love, in you, went passing by, - Penetrative, remote, and rare, - Like a bird in the wide air; - And, as the bird, it left no trace - In the heaven of your face. - In your stupidity I found - The sweet hush after a sweet sound. - All about you was the light - That dims the graying end of night; - Desire was the unrisen sun, - Joy the day not yet begun, - With tree whispering to tree, - Without wind, quietly. - Wisdom slept within your hair, - And Long-suffering was there, - And, in the flowing of your dress, - Undiscerning Tenderness. - And when you thought, it seemed to me, - Infinitely, and like a sea, - About the slight world you had known - Your vast unconsciousness was thrown.... - O haven without wave or tide! - Silence, in which all songs have died! - Holy book, where hearts are still! - And home at length under the hill! - O mother quiet, breasts of peace, - Where love itself would faint and cease! - O infinite deep I never knew, - I would come back, come back to you, - Find you, as a pool unstirred, - Kneel down by you, and never a word, - Lay my head, and nothing said, - In your hands, ungarlanded; - And a long watch you would keep; - And I should sleep, and I should sleep! - - - NINETEEN-FOURTEEN - - - I—PEACE - - Now, God be thanked who has matched us with his hour, - And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping! - With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power, - To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping, - Glad about a world grown old and cold and weary; - Leave the sick hearts that honor could not move, - And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary, - And all the little emptiness of love! - Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there, - Where there’s no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending, - Naught broken save this body, lost but breath; - Nothing to shake the laughing heart’s long peace there, - But the only agony, and that has ending; - And the worst friend and enemy is but Death. - - - II—SAFETY - - Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest - He who has found our hid security, - Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest, - And heard our word, “Who is so safe as we?” - We have found safety with all things undying. - The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth, - The deep night and birds singing, and clouds flying, - And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth. - We have built a house that is not for Time’s throwing. - We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever. - War knows no power. Safe shall be my going, - Secretly armed against all death’s endeavor; - Safe though all safety’s lost; safe where men fall; - And if these poor limbs die, safest of all. - - - III—THE DEAD - - Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead! - There’s none of these so lonely and poor of old, - But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold. - These laid the world away; poured out the red - Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be - Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene - That men call age; and those who would have been - Their sons they gave, their immortality. - Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth, - Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain. - Honor has come back, as a king, to earth, - And paid his subjects with a royal wage; - And Nobleness walks in our ways again; - And we have come into our heritage. - - - IV—THE DEAD - - These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, - Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. - The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, - And sunset, and the colors of the earth. - These had seen movement, and heard music; known - Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; - Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone; - Touched flowers and furs, and cheeks. All this is ended. - There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter - And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after, - Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance - And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white - Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance, - A width, a shining peace, under the night. - - - V—THE SOLDIER - - If I should die, think only this of me: - That there’s some corner of a foreign field - That is for ever England. There shall be - In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; - A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, - Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, - A body of England’s, breathing English air, - Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. - And think, this heart, all evil shed away, - A pulse in the eternal mind, no less - Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; - Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; - And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, - In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. - - - - - Witter Bynner - - - TO CELIA - - - I—CONSUMMATION - - There was a strangeness on your lips, - Lips that had been so sure; - You still were mine but in eclipse, - Beside me but obscure. - - There was a cloud upon your heart; - For, Celia, where you lay, - Death, come to break your life apart, - Had led your love away. - - Through the cold distance of your eyes - You could no longer see. - But when you died, you heard me rise - And followed suddenly. - - And close beside me, looking down - As I did on the dead, - You made of time a wedding-gown, - Of space a marriage-bed. - - I took, in you, death for a wife, - You married death in me, - Singing, “There is no other life, - No other God than we!” - - - II—DURING A CHORALE BY CESAR FRANCK - - In an old chamber softly lit - We heard the Chorale played, - And where you sat, an exquisite - Image of Life and lover of it, - Death sang a serenade. - - I know now, Celia, what you heard, - And why you turned and smiled. - It was the white wings of a bird - Offering flight, and you were stirred - Like an adventurous child. - - Death sang: “Oh, lie upon your bier, - Uplift your countenance!” - Death bade me be your cavalier, - Called me to march and shed no tear, - But sing to you and dance. - - And when you followed, lured and led - By those mysterious wings, - And when I heard that you were dead, - I could not weep. I sang instead, - As a true lover sings. - - · · · · · - - Today a room is softly lit; - I hear the Chorale played. - And where you come, an exquisite - Image of Death and lover of it, - Life sings a serenade. - - - III—SONGS ASCENDING - - Love has been sung a thousand ways— - So let it be; - The songs ascending in your praise - Through all my days - Are three. - - Your cloud-white body first I sing; - Your love was heaven’s blue, - And I, a bird, flew carolling - In ring on ring - Of you. - - Your nearness is the second song; - When God began to be, - And bound you strongly, right or wrong, - With his own thong, - To me. - - But oh, the song, eternal, high, - That tops these two!— - You live forever, you who die, - I am not I - But you. - - - GRIEVE NOT FOR BEAUTY - - Grieve not for the invisible, transported brow - On which like leaves the dark hair grew, - Nor for the lips of laughter that are now - Laughing inaudibly in sun and dew, - Nor for those limbs that, fallen low - And seeming faint and slow, - Shall yet pursue - More ways of swiftness than the swallow dips - Among ... and find more winds than ever blew - The straining sails of unimpeded ships! - Mourn not!—yield only happy tears - To deeper beauty than appears! - - - - - Joseph Campbell - - - AT HARVEST - - Earth travails, - Like a woman come to her time. - - The swaying corn-haulms - In the heavy places of the field - Cry to be gathered. - Apples redden, and drop from their rods. - Out of their sheath of prickly leaves - The marrows creep, fat and white. - The blue pallor of ripeness - Comes on the fruit of the vine-branch. - - Fecund and still fecund - After æons of bearing: - Not old, not dry, not wearied out; - But fresh as when the unseen Right Hand - First moved on Brí, - And the candle of day was set, - And dew fell from the stars’ feet, - And cloths of greenness covered thee. - - Let me kiss thy breasts: - I am thy son and lover. - - Womb-fellow am I of the sunburnt oat, - Friendly gossip of the mearings; - Womb-fellow of the dark and sweet-scented apple; - Womb-fellow of the gourd and of the grape: - Like begotten, like born. - - And yet without a lover’s knowledge - Of thy secrets - I would walk the ridges of the hills, - Kindless and desolate. - - What were the storm-driven moon to me, - Seed of another father? - What the overflowing - Of the well of dawn? - What the hollow, - Red with rowan fire? - What the king-fern? - What the belled heath? - What the drum of grouse’s wing, - Or glint of spar, - Caught from the pit - Of a deserted quarry? - - Let me kiss thy breasts: - I am thy son and lover. - - - ON WAKING - - Sleep, gray brother of death, - Has touched me, - And passed on. - - I arise, facing the east— - Pearl-doored sanctuary - From which light, - Hand-linked with dew and fire, - Dances. - - Hail, essence, hail! - Fill the windows of my soul - With beauty: - Pierce and renew my bones: - Pour knowledge into my heart - As wine. - - Cualann is bright before thee. - Its rocks melt and swim: - The secret they have kept - From the ancient nights of darkness - Flies like a bird. - - What mourns? - Cualann’s secret flying, - A lost voice - In endless fields. - What rejoices? - My voice lifted praising thee. - - Praise! Praise! Praise! - Praise out of trumpets, whose brass - Is the unyoked strength of bulls; - Praise upon harps, whose strings - Are the light movements of birds; - Praise of leaf, praise of blossom, - Praise of the red-fibred clay; - Praise of grass, - Fire-woven veil of the temple; - Praise of the shapes of clouds; - Praise of the shadows of wells; - Praise of worms, of fetal things, - And of the things in time’s thought - Not yet begotten. - To thee, queller of sleep, - Looser of the snare of death. - - - THE OLD WOMAN - - As a white candle - In a holy place, - So is the beauty - Of an agèd face. - - As the spent radiance - Of the winter sun, - So is a woman - With her travail done. - - Her brood gone from her, - And her thoughts as still - As the waters - Under a ruined mill. - - - - - Nancy Campbell - - - THE APPLE-TREE - - I saw the archangels in my apple-tree last night, - I saw them like great birds in the starlight— - Purple and burning blue, crimson and shining white. - - And each to each they tossed an apple to and fro, - And once I heard their laughter gay and low; - And yet I felt no wonder that it should be so. - - But when the apple came one time to Michael’s lap - I heard him say: “The mysteries that enwrap - The earth and fill the heavens can be read here, mayhap.” - - Then Gabriel spoke: “I praise the deed, the hidden thing.” - “The beauty of the blossom of the spring - I praise,” cried Raphael. Uriel: “The wise leaves I sing.” - - And Michael: “I will praise the fruit, perfected, round, - Full of the love of God, herein being bound - His mercies gathered from the sun and rain and ground.” - - So sang they till a small wind through the branches stirred, - And spoke of coming dawn; and at its word - Each fled away to heaven, winged like a bird. - - - THE MONKEY - - I saw you hunched and shivering on the stones, - The bleak wind piercing to your fragile bones, - Your shabby scarlet all inadequate: - A little ape that had such human eyes - They seemed to hide behind their miseries— - Their dumb and hopeless bowing down to fate— - Some puzzled wonder. Was your monkey soul - Sickening with memories of gorgeous days, - Of tropic playfellows and forest ways, - Where, agile, you could swing from bole to bole - In an enchanted twilight with great flowers - For stars; or on a bough the long night hours - Sit out in rows, and chatter at the moon? - Shuffling you went, your tiny chilly hand - Outstretched for what you did not understand; - Your puckered mournful face begging a boon - That but enslaved you more. They who passed by - Saw nothing sorrowful; gave laugh or stare, - Unheeding that the little antic there - Played in the gutter such a tragedy. - - - - - Skipwith Cannéll - - - THE RED BRIDGE - - The arches of the red bridge - Are stronger than ever: - The arches of the scarlet bridge - Are of rough, bleak stone. - - (Why should such massive arches be the span - From cloud to tenuous cloud?) - - Let us not seek omens in the guts - Of newly slain fowls; - Leaving such play to the children, - Let us pluck wild swans - From under the moon; - Or, challenging strong, terrible men, - Let us slay them and seek truth - In their smoking entrails. - - Let us fling runners - Across the red bridge, - Deep-lunged runners who will return to us - With tidings of the far countries - And the strange seas! - - There be many terrible men - Going out upon the bridge, - Through the little door - That is by the steps from the river. - - - THE KING - - Seven full-paunched eunuchs came to me, - Bearing before them upon a silver shield - The secrets of my enemy. - - As they crossed my threshold to stand, - With stately and hypocritical gesture - In a row before me, - One stumbled. - The dull, incurious eyes of the others - Blazed into no laughter, - Only a haggard malice - At the discomfiture - Of their companion. - - Why should such _Things_ have power - Not spoken for in the rules of men? - - - I would not receive them. - With my head covered I motioned them - To go forth from my presence. - - Where shall I find an enemy - Worthy of me as him they defaced? - - As they left me, - Bearing with them - Lewd shield and scarlet crown, - One paused upon the threshold, - Insolent, - To sniff a flower. - Even him I permitted to go forth - Safely. - - · · · · · - - Therefore - I have renounced my kingdom; - In a little bronze boat I have set sail - Out - Upon the sea. - - There is no land, and the sea - Is black like the cypresses waiting - At midnight in the place of tombs; - Is black like the pool of ink - In the palm of a soothsayer. - - - My boat - Fears the white-lipped waves - That snatch at her, - Hungrily, - Furtively, - As they steal past like cats - Into the night: - And beneath me, in their hidden places, - The great fishes talk of me - In a tongue I have forgotten. - - - - - Willa Sibert Cather - - - THE PALATINE - - _In the “Dark Ages”_ - - “Have you been with the King to Rome, - Brother, big brother?” - “I’ve been there and I’ve come home. - Back to your play, little brother.” - - “Oh, how high is Cæsar’s house, - Brother, big brother?” - “Goats about the doorways browse; - Night-hawks nest in the burnt roof-tree. - Home of the wild bird and home of the bee, - A thousand chambers of marble lie - Wide to the sun and the wind and the sky. - Poppies we find amongst our wheat - Grow on Cæsar’s banquet seat. - Cattle crop and neat-herds drowse - On the floors of Cæsar’s house.” - - “But what has become of Cæsar’s gold, - Brother, big brother?” - “The times are bad and the world is old— - Who knows the where of the Cæsar’s gold? - Night comes black o’er the Cæsar’s hill; - The wells are deep and the tales are ill; - Fireflies gleam in the damp and mold— - All that is left of the Cæsar’s gold. - Back to your play, little brother.” - - “What has become of the Cæsar’s men, - Brother, big brother?” - “Dogs in the kennel and wolf in the den - Howl for the fate of the Cæsar’s men, - Slain in Asia, slain in Gaul, - By Dacian border and Persian wall. - Rhineland orchard and Danube fen - Fatten their roots on Cæsar’s men.” - - “Why is the world so sad and wide, - Brother, big brother?” - “Saxon boys by their fields that bide - Need not know if the world is wide. - Climb no mountain but Shere-end Hill, - Cross no water but goes to mill. - Ox in the stable and cow in the byre, - Smell of the wood-smoke and sleep by the fire; - Sun-up in seed-time—a likely lad - Hurts not his head that the world is sad. - Back to your play, little brother.” - - - SPANISH JOHNNY - - The old West, the old time, - The old wind singing through - The red, red grass a thousand miles— - And, Spanish Johnny, you! - He’d sit beside the water ditch - When all his herd was in, - And never mind a child, but sing - To his mandolin. - - The big stars, the blue night, - The moon-enchanted lane; - The olive man who never spoke, - But sang the songs of Spain. - His speech with men was wicked talk— - To hear it was a sin; - But those were golden things he said - To his mandolin. - - The gold songs, the gold stars, - The word so golden then; - And the hand so tender to a child— - Had killed so many men. - He died a hard death long ago - Before the Road came in— - The night before he swung, he sang - To his mandolin. - - - - - Padraic Colum - - - POLONIUS AND THE BALLAD SINGERS - - A gaunt-built woman and her son-in-law— - A broad-faced fellow, with such flesh as shows - Nothing but easy nature—and his wife, - The woman’s daughter, who spills all her talk - Out of a wide mouth, but who has eyes as gray - As Connemara, where the mountain-ash - Shows berries red indeed: they enter now— - Our country singers! - - “Sing, my good woman, sing us some romance - That has been round your chimney-nooks so long - ’Tis nearly native; something blown here - And since made racy—like yon tree, I might say, - Native by influence if not by species, - Shaped by our winds. You understand, I think?” - - “I’ll sing the song, sir.” - - To-night you see my face— - Maybe nevermore you’ll gaze - On the one that for you left his friends and kin; - For by the hard commands - Of the lord that rules these lands - On a ship I’ll be borne from Cruckaunfinn! - - Oh, you know your beauty bright - Has made him think delight - More than from any fair one he will gain; - Oh, you know that all his will - Strains and strives around you till - As the hawk upon his hand you are as tame! - - Then she to him replied: - I’ll no longer you deny, - And I’ll let you have the pleasure of my charms; - For to-night I’ll be your bride, - And whatever may betide - It’s we will lie in one another’s arms! - - “You should not sing - With body doubled up and face aside— - There is a climax here—‘It’s we will lie’— - Hem—passionate! And what does your daughter sing?” - - “A song I like when I do climb bare hills— - ’Tis all about a hawk.” - - No bird that sits on rock or bough - Has such a front as thine; - No king that has made war his trade - Such conquest in his eyne! - I mark thee rock-like on the rock - Where none can see a shape. - I climb, but thou dost climb with wings, - And like a wish escape, - She said— - And like a wish escape! - - No maid that kissed his bonny mouth - Of another mouth was glad; - Such pride was in our chieftain’s eyes, - Such countenance he had! - But since they made him fly the rocks, - Thou, creature, art my quest. - Then lift me with thy steady eyes. - If then to tear my breast, - She said— - If then to tear my breast! - - “The songs they have - Are the last relics of the feudal world: - Women will keep them—byzants, doubloons, - When men will take up songs that are as new - As dollar bills. What song have you, young man?” - - “A song my father had, sir. It was sent him - From across the sea, and there was a letter with it, - Asking my father to put it to a tune - And sing it all roads. He did that, in troth, - And five pounds of tobacco were sent with the song - To fore-reward him. I’ll sing it for you now— - _The Baltimore Exile_.” - - The house I was bred in—ah, does it remain? - Low walls and loose thatch standing lone in the rain, - With the clay of the walls coming through with its stain, - Like the blackbird’s left nest in the briar! - - Does a child there give heed to the song of the lark, - As it lifts and it drops till the fall of the dark, - When the heavy-foot kine trudge home from the paurk, - Or do none but the red-shank now listen? - - The sloe-bush, I know, grows close to the well, - And its long-lasting blossoms are there, I can tell, - When the kid that was yeaned when the first ones befell - Can jump to the ditch that they grow on! - - But there’s silence on all. Then do none ever pass - On the way to the fair or the pattern or mass? - Do the gray-coated lads drive the ball through the grass - And speed to the sweep of the hurl? - - O youths of my land! Then will no Bolivar - Ever muster your ranks for delivering war? - Will your hopes become fixed and beam like a star? - Will they pass like the mists from your fields? - - The swan and the swallows, the cuckoo and crake, - May visit my land and find hillside and lake. - And I send my song. I’ll not see her awake— - I’m too old a bird to uncage now! - - “Silver’s but lead in exchange for songs, - But take it and spend it.” - - “We will. And may we meet your honor’s like - Every day’s end.” - - “A tune is more lasting than the voice of the birds.” - - “A song is more lasting than the riches of the world.” - -NOTE. _The last stanza in the first ballad sung is a fragment of an old -country song; the rest of it, with the other two ballads, is invented. -But they are all in the convention of songs still sung by strolling -ballad-singers. I have written the common word for pasture-field “paurk” -so as not to give a wrong association: it might be written “park,” as -Burns, using the word in the same sense, writes it. “Paurk” or “park” is -Gaelic for pasture field, and is always used in Irish country speech in -that sense. The two last lines spoken are translations of a Gaelic -phrase which has been used by Dr. Douglas Hyde as a motto for his -collection of Connacht love songs. P. C._ - - - THE SEA BIRD TO THE WAVE - - On and on, - O white brother! - Thunder does not daunt thee! - How thou movest! - By thine impulse— - With no wing! - Fairest thing - The wide sea shows me! - On and on - O white brother! - Art thou gone! - - - OLD MEN COMPLAINING - - _First Old Man_ - _He threw his crutched stick down: there came - Into his face the anger flame, - And he spoke viciously of one - Who thwarted him—his son’s son. - He turned his head away._—“I hate - Absurdity of language, prate - From growing fellows. We’d not stay - About the house the whole of a day - When we were young, - Keeping no job and giving tongue! - - “Not us in troth! We would not come - For bit or sup, but stay from home - If we gave answers, or we’d creep - Back to the house, and in we’d peep - Just like a corncrake. - - “My grandson and his comrades take - A piece of coal from you, from me - A log, or sod of turf, maybe; - And in some empty place they’ll light - A fire, and stay there all night, - A wisp of lads! Now understand - The blades of grass under my hand - Would be destroyed by company! - There’s no good company: we go - With what is lowest to the low! - He stays up late, and how can he - Rise early? Sure he lags in bed, - And she is worn to a thread - With calling him—his grandmother. - She’s an old woman, and she must make - Stir when the birds are half awake - In dread he’d lose this job like the other!” - - - _Second Old Man_ - “They brought yon fellow over here, - And set him up for an overseer: - Though men from work are turned away - That thick-necked fellow draws full pay— - Three pounds a week.... They let burn down - The timber yard behind the town - Where work was good; though firemen stand - In boots and brasses big and grand - The crow of a cock away from the place. - And with the yard they let burn too - The clock in the tower, the clock I knew - As well as I know the look in my face.” - - - _Third Old Man_ - “The fellow you spoke of has broken his bounds— - He came to skulk inside of these grounds: - Behind the bushes he lay down - And stretched full hours in the sun. - He rises now, and like a crane - He looks abroad. He’s off again: - Three pounds a week, and still he owes - Money in every street he goes, - Hundreds of pounds where we’d not get - The second shilling of a debt.” - - - _First Old Man_ - “Old age has every impediment - Vexation and discontent; - The rich have more than we: for bit - The cut of bread, and over it - The scrape of hog’s lard, and for sup - Warm water in a cup. - But different sorts of feeding breaks - The body more than fasting does - With pains and aches. - - “I’m not too badly off, for I - Have pipe and tobacco, a place to lie, - A nook to myself; but from my hand - Is taken the strength to back command— - I’m broken, and there’s gone from me - The privilege of authority.” - - _I heard them speak— - The old men heavy on the sod, - Letting their angers come - Between them and the thought of God._ - - - - - Grace Hazard Conkling - - - REFUGEES - - _Belgium—1914_ - - “Mother, the poplars cross the moon; - The road runs on, so white and far, - We shall not reach the city soon: - Oh, tell me where we are!” - - “Have patience, patience, little son, - And we shall find the way again: - (God show me the untraveled one! - God give me rest from men!)” - - “Mother, you did not tell me why - You hurried so to come away. - I saw big soldiers riding by; - I should have liked to stay.” - - “Hush, little man, and I will sing - Just like a soldier, if I can— - They have a song for everything. - Listen, my little man! - - “This is the soldiers’ marching song: - We’ll play this is the village street—” - “Yes, but this road is very long, - And stones have hurt my feet.” - - “Nay, little pilgrim, up with you! - And yonder field shall be the town. - I’ll show you how the soldiers do - Who travel up and down. - - “They march and sing and march again, - Not minding all the stones and dust: - They go, (God grant me rest from men!) - Forward, because they must.” - - “Mother, I want to go to sleep.” - “No, darling! Here is bread to eat! - (O God, if thou couldst let me weep, - Or heal my broken feet!)” - - - “THE LITTLE ROSE IS DUST, MY DEAR” - - The little rose is dust, my dear; - The elfin wind is gone - That sang a song of silver words - And cooled our hearts with dawn. - - And what is left to hope, my dear, - Or what is left to say? - The rose, the little wind and you - Have gone so far away. - - - - - Alice Corbin - - - O WORLD - - O world that changes under my hand, - O brown world, bitter and bright, - And full of hidden recesses - Of love and light— - - O world, what use would there be to me - Of power beyond power - To change, or establish new balance, - To build, or deflower? - - O world, what use would there be? - Had I the Creator’s fire, - I could not build you nearer - To my heart’s desire! - - - TWO VOICES - - There is a country full of wine - And liquor of the sun, - Where sap is running all the year, - And spring is never done, - Where all is good as it is fair, - And love and will are one. - Old age may never come there, - But ever in to-day - The people talk as in a dream - And laugh slow time away. - - But would you stay as now you are, - Or as a year ago? - Oh, not as then, for then how small - The wisdom we did owe! - Or if forever as to-day, - How little we could know! - - Then welcome age, and fear not sorrow; - To-day’s no better than to-morrow, - Or yesterday that flies. - By the low light in your eyes, - By the love that in me lies, - I know we grow more lovely - Growing wise. - - - LOVE ME AT LAST - - Love me at last, or if you will not, - Leave me; - Hard words could never, as these half-words, - Grieve me: - Love me at last—or leave me. - - Love me at last, or let the last word uttered - Be but your own; - Love me, or leave me—as a cloud, a vapor, - Or a bird flown. - Love me at last—I am but sliding water - Over a stone. - - - HUMORESQUE - - To some the fat gods - Give money, - To some love; - - But the gods have given me - Money _and_ love: - - Not _too much_ money, - Nor _quite enough_ love! - - To some the fat gods - Give money, - To some love. - - - ONE CITY ONLY - - One city only, of all I have lived in, - And one house of that city, belong to me ... - I remember the mellow light of afternoon - Slanting across brick buildings on the waterfront, - And small boats at rest on the floating tide, - And larger boats at rest in the near-by harbor; - And I know the tidal smell, and the smell of mud, - Uncovering oyster flats, and the brown bare toes of small negroes - With the mud oozing between them; - And the little figures leaping from log to log, - And the white children playing among them— - I remember how I played among them. - And I remember the recessed windows of the gloomy halls - In the darkness of decaying grandeur, - The feel of cool linen in the cavernous bed, - And the window curtain swaying gently - In the night air; - All the half-hushed noises of the street - In the southern town, - And the thrill of life— - Like a hand in the dark - With its felt, indeterminate meaning: - I remember that I knew there the stirring of passion, - Fear, and the knowledge of sin, - Tragedy, laughter, death.... - - And I remember, too, on a dead Sunday afternoon - In the twilight, - When there was no one else in the house, - My self suddenly separated itself - And left me alone, - So that the world lay about me, lifeless. - I could not touch it, or feel it, or see it; - Yet I was there. - The sensation lingers: - Only the most vital threads - Hold me at all to living ... - Yet I only live truly when I think of that house; - Only enter then into being. - One city only of all I have lived in, - And one house of that city, belong to me. - - - APPARITIONS - - I - - A thin gray shadow on the edge of thought - Hiding its wounds: - These are the wounds of sorrow— - It was my hand that made them; - And this gray shadow that resembles you - Is my own heart, weeping ... - You sleep quietly beneath the shade - Of willows in the south. - - II - - When the cold dawn stood above the house-tops, - Too late I remembered the cry - In the night of a wild bird flying - Through the rain-filled sky. - - - THE POOL - - Do you remember the dark pool at Nîmes, - The pool that had no bottom? - Shadowed by Druids ere the Romans came— - Dark, still, with little bubbles rising - So quietly level with its rim of stone - That one stood shuddering with the breathless fear - Of one short step? - - My little sister stood beside the pool - As dark as that of Nîmes. - I saw her white face as she took the plunge; - I could not follow her, although I tried. - The silver bubbles circled to the brink, - And then the water parted: - With dream-white face my little sister rose - Dripping from that dark pool, and took the hands - Outstretched to meet her. - - I may not speak to her of all she’s seen; - She may not speak to me of all she knows, - Because her words mean nothing: - She chooses them - As one to whom our language is quite strange, - As children make queer words with lettered blocks - Before they know the way.... - - My little sister stood beside the pool— - I could not plunge in with her, though I tried. - - - MUSIC - - _The ancient songs - Pass deathward mournfully._ - _R. A._ - - The old songs - Die. - Yes, the old songs die. - Cold lips that sang them, - Cold lips that sang them— - The old songs die, - And the lips that sang them - Are only a pinch of dust. - - I saw in Pamplona - In a musty museum— - I saw in Pamplona - In a buff-colored museum— - I saw in Pamplona - A memorial - Of the dead violinist; - I saw in Pamplona - A memorial - Of Pablo Sarasate. - - Dust was inch-deep on the cases, - Dust on the stick-pins and satins, - Dust on the badges and orders, - On the wreath from the oak of Guernica! - - The old songs - Die— - And the lips that sang them. - Wreaths, withered and dusty, - Cuff-buttons with royal insignia, - These, in a musty museum, - Are all that is left of Sarasate. - - - WHAT DIM ARCADIAN PASTURES - - What dim Arcadian pastures - Have I known - That suddenly, out of nothing, - A wind is blown, - Lifting a veil and a darkness, - Showing a purple sea— - And under your hair the faun’s eyes - Look out on me? - - - NODES - - The endless, foolish merriment of stars - Beside the pale cold sorrow of the moon, - Is like the wayward noises of the world - Beside my heart’s uplifted silent tune. - - The little broken glitter of the waves - Beside the golden sun’s intense white blaze, - Is like the idle chatter of the crowd - Beside my heart’s unwearied song of praise. - - The sun and all the planets in the sky - Beside the sacred wonder of dim space, - Are notes upon a broken, tarnished lute - That God will someday mend and put in place. - - And space, beside the little secret joy - Of God that sings forever in the clay, - Is smaller than the dust we can not see, - That yet dies not, till time and space decay. - - And as the foolish merriment of stars - Beside the cold pale sorrow of the moon, - My little song, my little joy, my praise, - Beside God’s ancient, everlasting rune. - - - - - Adelaide Crapsey - - - CINQUAINS - - - NOVEMBER NIGHT - - Listen. - With faint dry sound, - Like steps of passing ghosts, - The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees - And fall. - - - TRIAD - - These be - Three silent things: - The falling snow ... the hour - Before the dawn ... the mouth of one - Just dead. - - - SUSANNA AND THE ELDERS - - “Why do - You thus devise - Evil against her?” “For that - She is beautiful, delicate; - Therefore.” - - - THE GUARDED WOUND - - If it - Were lighter touch - Than petal of flower resting - On grass, oh still too heavy it were, - Too heavy! - - - THE WARNING - - Just now, - Out of the strange - Still dusk ... as strange, as still ... - A white moth flew. Why am I grown - So cold? - - - FATE DEFIED - - As it - Were tissue of silver - I’ll wear, O fate, thy grey, - And go mistily radiant, clad - Like the moon. - - - THE PLEDGE - - White doves of Cytherea, by your quest - Across the blue Heaven’s bluest highest air, - And by your certain homing to Love’s breast, - Still to be true and ever true—I swear. - - - EXPENSES - - Little my lacking fortunes show - For this to eat and that to wear; - Yet laughing, Soul, and gaily go! - An obol pays the Stygian fare. - - - ADVENTURE - - Sun and wind and beat of sea, - Great lands stretching endlessly ... - Where be bonds to bind the free? - All the world was made for me! - - - DIRGE - - Never the nightingale, - Oh, my dear, - Never again the lark - Thou wilt hear; - Though dusk and the morning still - Tap at thy window-sill, - Thou ever love call and call - Thou wilt not hear at all, - My dear, my dear. - - - SONG - - I make my shroud, but no one knows— - So shimmering fine it is and fair, - With stitches set in even rows. - I make my shroud, but no one knows. - - In door-way where the lilac blows, - Humming a little wandering air, - I make my shroud and no one knows, - So shimmering fine it is and fair. - - - THE LONELY DEATH - - In the cold I will rise, I will bathe - In waters of ice; myself - Will shiver, and shrive myself, - Alone in the dawn, and anoint - Forehead and feet and hands; - I will shutter the windows from light, - I will place in their sockets the four - Tall candles and set them a-flame - In the grey of the dawn; and myself - Will lay myself straight in my bed, - And draw the sheet under my chin. - - - - - H. D. - - - HERMES OF THE WAYS - - I - - The hard sand breaks, - And the grains of it - Are clear as wine. - - Far off over the leagues of it, - The wind, - Playing on the wide shore, - Piles little ridges, - And the great waves - Break over it. - - But more than the many-foamed ways - Of the sea, - I know him - Of the triple path-ways. - Hermes, - Who awaiteth. - - Dubious, - Facing three ways, - Welcoming wayfarers, - He whom the sea-orchard - Shelters from the west, - From the east - Weathers sea-wind; - Fronts the great dunes. - - Wind rushes - Over the dunes, - And the coarse, salt-crusted grass - Answers. - - Heu, - It whips round my ankles! - - II - - Small is - This white stream, - Flowing below ground - From the poplar-shaded hill, - But the water is sweet. - - Apples on the small trees - Are hard, - Too small, - Too late ripened - By a desperate sun - That struggles through sea-mist. - The boughs of the trees - Are twisted - By many bafflings; - Twisted are - The small-leafed boughs. - - But the shadow of them - Is not the shadow of the mast head - Nor of the torn sails. - - Hermes, Hermes, - The great sea foamed, - Gnashed its teeth about me; - But you have waited, - Where sea-grass tangles with - Shore-grass. - - - PRIAPUS - - _Keeper of Orchards_ - - I saw the first pear - As it fell. - The honey-seeking, golden-banded, - The yellow swarm - Was not more fleet than I, - (Spare us from loveliness!) - And I fell prostrate, - Crying, - “Thou hast flayed us with thy blossoms; - Spare us the beauty - Of fruit-trees!” - - The honey-seeking - Paused not, - The air thundered their song, - And I alone was prostrate. - - O rough-hewn - God of the orchard, - I bring thee an offering; - Do thou, alone unbeautiful - (Son of the god), - Spare us from loveliness. - - The fallen hazel-nuts, - Stripped late of their green sheaths, - The grapes, red-purple, - Their berries - Dripping with wine, - Pomegranates already broken, - And shrunken figs, - And quinces untouched, - I bring thee as offering. - - - THE POOL - - Are you alive? - I touch you— - You quiver like a sea-fish. - I cover you with my net. - What are you, banded one? - - - OREAD - - Whirl up, sea— - Whirl your pointed pines. - Splash your great pines - On our rocks. - Hurl your green over us— - Cover us with your pools of fir. - - - THE GARDEN - - I - - You are clear, - O rose, cut in rock. - I could scrape the color - From the petals, - Like spilt dye from a rock. - - If I could break you - I could break a tree. - - If I could stir - I could break a tree, - I could break you. - - II - - O wind, rend open the heat, - Cut apart the heat, - Slit it to tatters. - - Fruit cannot drop - Through this thick air; - Fruit cannot fall into heat - That presses up and blunts - The points of pears, - And rounds grapes. - - Cut the heat: - Plough through it, - Turning it on either side - Of your path. - - - MOONRISE - - Will you glimmer on the sea? - Will you fling your spear-head - On the shore? - What note shall we pitch? - We have a song, - On the bank we share our arrows— - The loosed string tells our note: - - _O flight, - Bring her swiftly to our song. - She is great, - We measure her by the pine-trees._ - - - THE SHRINE - - “_She watches over the sea_” - - I - - Are your rocks shelter for ships?— - Have you sent galleys from your beach, - Are you graded—a safe crescent— - Where the tide lifts them back to port? - Are you full and sweet, - Tempting the quiet - To depart in their trading ships? - - Nay, you are great, fierce, evil— - You are the land-blight. - You have tempted men - But they perished on your cliffs. - - Your lights are but dank shoals, - Slate and pebble and wet shells - And sea-weed fastened to the rocks. - - It was evil—evil - When they found you, - When the quiet men looked at you. - They sought a headland - Shaded with ledge of cliff - From the wind-blast. - But you—you are unsheltered, - Cut with the weight of wind. - You shudder when it strikes, - Then lift, swelled with the blast. - You sink as the tide sinks, - You shrill under hail and sound, - Thunder when thunder sounds. - - You are useless: - When the tides swirl - Your boulders cut and wreck - The staggering ships. - - II - - You are useless, - O grave, O beautiful. - The landsmen tell it—I have heard— - You are useless. - - And the wind sounds with this - And the sea - Where rollers shot with blue - Cut under deeper blue. - - Oh, but stay tender, enchanted - Where wave-lengths cut you - Apart from all the rest— - For we have found you, - We watch the splendor of you, - We thread throat on throat of freesia - For your shelf. - - You are not forgot, - O plunder of lilies, - Honey is not more sweet - Than the salt stretch of your beach. - - III - - Stay—stay— - But terror has caught us now. - We passed the men in ships, - We dared deeper than the fisher-folk; - And you strike us with terror, - O bright shaft. - - Flame passes under us - And sparks that unknot the flesh— - Sorrow, splitting bone from bone, - Splendors thwart our eyes - And rifts in the splendor, - Sparks and scattered light. - - Many warned of this, - Men said: - “There are wrecks on the fore-beach, - Wind will beat your ship, - There is no shelter in that headland; - It is useless waste, that edge, - That front of rock— - Sea-gulls clang beyond the breakers, - None venture to that spot.” - - IV - - But hail— - As the tide slackens, - As the wind beats out, - We hail this shore— - We sing to you, - Spirit between the headlands - And the further rocks. - Though oak-beams split, - Though boats and sea-men flounder, - And the strait grind sand with sand - And cut boulders to sand and drift— - - Your eyes have pardoned our faults, - Your hands have touched us; - You have leaned forward a little - And the waves can never thrust us back - From the splendor of your ragged coast. - - - - - Mary Carolyn Davies - - - CLOISTERED - - To-night the little girl-nun died. - Her hands were laid - Across her breast; the last sun tried - To kiss her quiet braid; - And where the little river cried, - Her grave was made. - - The little girl-nun’s soul, in awe, - Went silently - To where her brother Christ she saw, - Under the Living Tree; - He sighed, and his face seemed to draw - Her tears, to see. - - He laid his hands on her hands mild, - And gravely blessed; - “Blind, they that kept you so,” he smiled, - With tears unguessed. - “Saw they not Mary held a child - Upon her breast?” - - - SONGS OF A GIRL - - I - - Perhaps, - God, planting Eden, - Dropped, by mistake, a seed - In Time’s neighbor-plot, - That grew to be - This hour? - - II - - You and I picked up Life and looked at it curiously; - We did not know whether to keep it for a plaything or not. - It was beautiful to see, like a red firecracker, - And we knew, too, that it was lighted. - We dropped it while the fuse was still burning.... - - III - - I am going to die too, flower, in a little while— - Do not be so proud. - - IV - - The sun is dying - Alone - On an island - In the bay. - - Close your eyes, poppies— - I would not have you see death, - You are so young! - - V - - The sun falls - Like a drop of blood - From some hero. - - We, - Who love pain, - Delight in this. - - - - - Fannie Stearns Davis - - - PROFITS - - Yes, stars were with me formerly. - (I also knew the wind and sea; - And hill-tops had my feet by heart. - Their shagged heights would sting and start - When I came leaping on their backs. - I knew the earth’s queer crooked cracks, - Where hidden waters weave a low - And druid chant of joy and woe.) - - But stars were with me most of all. - I heard them flame and break and fall. - Their excellent array, their free - Encounter with Eternity, - I learned. And it was good to know - That where God walked, I too might go. - - Now, all these things are passed. For I - Grow very old and glad to die. - What did they profit me, say you, - These distant bloodless things I knew? - - Profit? What profit hath the sea - Of her deep-throated threnody? - What profit hath the sun, who stands - Staring on space with idle hands? - And what should God Himself acquire - From all the aeons’ blood and fire? - - My profit is as theirs: to be - Made proof against mortality: - To know that I have companied - With all that shines and lives, amid - So much the years sift through their hands, - Most mortal, windy, worthless sands. - - This day I have great peace. With me - Shall stars abide eternally! - - - SOULS - - My soul goes clad in gorgeous things, - Scarlet and gold and blue. - And at her shoulder sudden wings - Like long flames flicker through. - - And she is swallow-fleet, and free - From mortal bonds and bars. - She laughs, because eternity - Blossoms for her with stars! - - O folk who scorn my stiff gray gown, - My dull and foolish face, - Can ye not see my soul flash down, - A singing flame through space? - - And folk, whose earth-stained looks I hate, - Why may I not divine - Your souls, that must be passionate, - Shining and swift, as mine? - - - - - Walter de la Mare - - - THE LISTENERS - - “Is there anybody there?” said the Traveller, - Knocking on the moonlit door; - And his horse in the silence champed the grasses - Of the forest’s ferny floor; - And a bird flew up out of the turret, - Above the Traveller’s head; - And he smote upon the door again a second time; - “Is there anybody there?” he said. - But no one descended to the Traveller; - No head from the leaf-fringed sill - Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, - Where he stood perplexed and still. - But only a host of phantom listeners - That dwelt in the lone house then - Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight - To that voice from the world of men: - Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair, - That goes down to the empty hall, - Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken - By the lonely Traveller’s call. - And he felt in his heart their strangeness, - Their stillness answering his cry, - While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, - ’Neath the starred and leafy sky; - For he suddenly smote on the door, even - Louder, and lifted his head:— - “Tell them I came, and no one answered - That I kept my word,” he said. - Never the least stir made the listeners, - Though every word he spake - Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house - From the one man left awake: - Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, - And the sound of iron on stone, - And how the silence surged softly backward, - When the plunging hoofs were gone. - - - AN EPITAPH - - Here lies a most beautiful lady: - Light of step and heart was she; - I think she was the most beautiful lady - That ever was in the West Country. - But beauty vanishes; beauty passes; - However rare—rare it be; - And when I crumble, who will remember - This lady of the West Country? - - - - - Lee Wilson Dodd - - - THE TEMPLE - - Hear me, brother! - Boldly I stepped into the Temple, - Into the Temple where the God dwells - Veiled with Seven Veils, - Into the Temple of Unbroken Silence: - And my joyous feet shod with crimson sandals - Rang out on the tesselated pavement, - Rang out fearlessly - Like a challenge and a cry! - And there—in that shrouded solitude, - There—before the Seven Veils, - There—because of youth and youth’s madness, - Because of love and love’s unresting heart, - There did I sing three songs! - And my first song praised the eyes of a wanton; - And my second song praised the lips of a wanton; - And my third song praised the feet of a dancing girl! - - Thus did I desecrate the Temple, - Thus did I stand before the Seven Veils, - Proudly! - Thus did I wait upon the God’s Voice— - Proudly!— - And the sudden shaft of death.... - - But no Voice stirred the Seven Veils, - Though I stood long.... - - And my knees shook, - My bones were afraid.... - - Swiftly I loosed the crimson sandals, - And, tearing them from off my feet, - Crept shuddering forth! - - Hear me, brother! - Now am I as one stricken with palsy, - Now am I sick with the close ache of terror, - Now am I as one who, having tasted poison, - Cowers, waiting for the pang! - -_For the God spake not...._ - - And the sense of my littleness is upon me: - And I am a worm in my own sight, - Trodden and helpless; - A casual grain of sand - Indistinguishable amid a million grains: - And I take no pleasure now in youth - Nor in youth’s madness, - In love - Nor in love’s unresting heart; - And I praise no longer the eyes of a wanton, - Nor the lips of a wanton, - Nor the light feet of a dancing girl. - - - THE COMRADE - - Call me friend or foe, - Little I care! - I go with all who go - Daring to dare. - - I am the force, - I am the fire, - I am the secret source - Of desire. - - I am the urge, - The spur and thong: - Moon of the tides that surge - Into song! - - Call me friend or foe, - Little care I, - I go with all who go - Singing to die. - - Call me friend or foe.... - Taking to give, - I go with all who go - Dying to live. - - - - - John Drinkwater - - - SUNRISE ON RYDAL WATER - - _To E. de S._ - - Come down at dawn from windless hills - Into the valley of the lake, - Where yet a larger quiet fills - The hour, and mist and water make - With rocks and reeds and island boughs - One silence and one element, - Where wonder goes surely as once - It went - By Galilean prows. - - Moveless the water and the mist, - Moveless the secret air above, - Hushed, as upon some happy tryst - The poised expectancy of love; - What spirit is it that adores - What mighty presence yet unseen? - What consummation works apace - Between - These rapt enchanted shores? - - Never did virgin beauty wake - Devouter to the bridal feast - Than moves this hour upon the lake - In adoration to the east. - Here is the bride a god may know, - The primal will, the young consent, - Till surely upon the appointed mood - Intent - The god shall leap—and, lo, - - Over the lake’s end strikes the sun— - White, flameless fire; some purity - Thrilling the mist, a splendor won - Out of the world’s heart. Let there be - Thoughts, and atonements, and desires; - Proud limbs, and undeliberate tongue; - Where now we move with mortal care - Among - Immortal dews and fires. - - So the old mating goes apace, - Wind with the sea, and blood with thought, - Lover with lover; and the grace - Of understanding comes unsought - When stars into the twilight steer, - Or thrushes build among the may, - Or wonder moves between the hills, - And day - Comes up on Rydal mere. - - - - - Louise Driscoll - - - THE METAL CHECKS - - [_The scene is a bare room, with two shaded windows at the back, and a - fireplace between them with a fire burning low. The room contains - a few plain chairs, and a rough wooden table on which are piled - many small wooden trays. THE COUNTER, who is Death, sits at the - table. He wears a loose gray robe, and his face is partly - concealed by a gray veil. THE BEARER is the World, that bears the - burden of War. He wears a soiled robe of brown and green and he - carries on his back a gunny-bag filled with the little metal disks - that have been used for the identification of the slain common - soldiers._] - - _The Bearer_ - - Here is a sack, a gunny sack, - A heavy sack I bring. - Here is toll of many a soul— - But not the soul of a king. - - This is the toll of common men, - Who lived in the common way; - Lived upon bread and wine and love, - In the light of the common day. - - This is the toll of working men, - Blood and brawn and brain. - Who shall render us again - The worth of all the slain? - - - _The Counter_ - Pour them out on the table here. - _Clickety_—_clickety_—_clack_! - For every button a man went out, - And who shall call him back? - _Clickety_—_clickety_—_clack_! - - One—two—three—four— - Every disk a soul! - Three score—four score— - So many boys went out to war. - Pick up that one that fell on the floor— - Didn’t you see it roll? - That was a man a month ago. - This was a man. Row upon row— - Pile them in tens and count them so. - - - _The Bearer_ - - I have an empty sack. - It is not large. Would you have said - That I could carry on my back - So great an army—and all dead? - - [_As THE COUNTER speaks THE BEARER lays the sack over his arm and helps - count._] - - - _The Counter_ - Put a hundred in each tray— - We can tally them best that way. - Careful—do you understand - You have ten men in your hand? - There’s another fallen—there— - Under that chair. - - [_THE BEARER finds it and restores it._] - - That was a man a month ago; - He could see and feel and know. - - Then, into his throat there sped - A bit of lead. - Blood was salt in his mouth; he fell - And lay amid the battle wreck. - Nothing was left but this metal check— - And a wife and child, perhaps. - - [_THE BEARER finds the bag on his arm troublesome. He holds it up, - inspecting it._] - - - _The Bearer_ - What can one do with a thing like this? - Neither of life nor death it is! - For the dead serve not, though it served the dead. - The wounds it carried were wide and red, - Yet they stained it not. Can a man put food, - Potatoes or wheat, or even wood - That is kind and burns with a flame to warm - Living men who are comforted— - In a thing that has served so many dead? - There is no thrift in a graveyard dress, - It’s been shroud for too many men. - I’ll burn it and let the dead bless. - - - [_He crosses himself and throws it into the fire. He watches it burn. - THE COUNTER continues to pile up the metal checks, and drop them by - hundreds into the trays which he piles one upon another. THE BEARER - turns from the fire and speaks more slowly than before. He indicates - the metal checks._] - - Would not the blood of these make a great sea - For men to sail their ships on? It may be - No fish would swim in it, and the foul smell - Would make the sailors sick. Perhaps in Hell - There’s some such lake for men who rush to war - Prating of glory, and upon the shore - Will stand the wives and children and old men - Bereft, to drive them back again - - When they seek haven. Some such thing - I thought the while I bore it on my back - And heard the metal pieces clattering. - - - _The Counter_ - Four score—five score— - These and as many more. - Forward—march!—into the tray! - No bugles blow today, - No captains lead the way; - But mothers and wives, - Fathers, sisters, little sons, - Count the cost - Of the lost; - And we count the unlived lives, - The forever unborn ones - Who might have been your sons. - - - _The Bearer_ - Could not the hands of these rebuild - That which has been destroyed? - Oh, the poor hands! that once were strong and filled - With implements of labor whereby they - Served home and country through the peaceful day. - When those who made the war stand face to face - With these slain soldiers in that unknown place - Whither the dead go, what will be the word - By dead lips spoken and by dead ears heard? - Will souls say King or Kaiser? Will souls prate - Of earthly glory in that new estate? - - - _The Counter_ - One hundred thousand— - One hundred and fifty thousand— - Two hundred— - - - - _The Bearer_ - Can this check plough? - Can it sow? can it reap? - Can we arouse it? - Is it asleep? - - Can it hear when a child cries?— - Comfort a wife? - This little metal disk - Stands for a life. - - Can this check build, - Laying stone upon stone? - Once it was warm flesh - Folded on bone. - - Sinew and muscle firm, - Look at it—can - This little metal check - Stand for a man? - - - _The Counter_ - One—two—three—four— - - - - - Dorothy Dudley - - - LA RUE DE LA MONTAGNE SAINTE-GÈNEVIÈVE - - I have seen an old street weeping— - Narrow, dark, ascending; - Water o’er the spires - Of a church descending; - The church thrice veiled—in rain, - In the shadow of the years, - In the grace of old design; - Dim dwellings, blind with tears, - Rotting either side - The winding passage way, - To where the river crosses - Weeping, under gray - And limpid heavens weeping. - Gardens I have seen - Through archèd doors, whose gratings - Ever cry the keen - Dim melodies of lace - Long used and rare, gardens - With an old-time grace - Vibrating, dimly trembling - In the music of the rain. - Roses I have seen drip a faint - Perfume, and lilacs train - A quivering loveliness - From door to archèd door, - Passing by in flower carts; - While waters ever pour - O’er the white stones of the fountain, - Melting icily away - Half way up the mountain; - Where to mingle tears with tears, - Their clothes misshapen, sobbing, - Two or three old women, - In wooden sabots hobbling, - Meet to fill their pitchers, - From the stream of water leaping - Through the lips, a long time parted, - Of a face grotesquely weeping— - A carven face forever weeping. - - - - - Helen Dudley - - - TO ONE UNKNOWN - - I have seen the proudest stars - That wander on through space, - Even the sun and moon, - But not your face. - - I have heard the violin, - The winds and waves rejoice - In endless minstrelsy, - Yet not your voice. - - I have touched the trillium, - Pale flower of the land, - Coral, anemone, - And not your hand. - - I have kissed the shining feet - Of Twilight lover-wise, - Opened the gates of Dawn— - Oh, not your eyes! - - I have dreamed unwonted things, - Visions that witches brew, - Spoken with images, - Never with you. - - - SONG - - A few more windy days - Must come and go their ways, - And we will walk - My love and I - Beneath the amber-dripping boughs. - - Then on the stars we’ll tread, - On purple stars and red, - And wonder why - The while we talk - Men sing so much of broken vows. - - - - - Max Eastman - - - DIOGENES - - A hut, and a tree, - And a hill for me, - And a piece of a weedy meadow. - I’ll ask no thing, - Of God or king, - But to clear away his shadow. - - - IN MARCH - - On a soaked fence-post a little blue-backed bird, - Opening her sweet throat, has stirred - A million music-ripples in the air - That curl and circle everywhere. - They break not shallow at my ear, - But quiver far within. Warm days are near! - - - AT THE AQUARIUM - - Serene the silver fishes glide, - Stern-lipped, and pale, and wonder-eyed! - As through the aged deeps of ocean, - They glide with wan and wavy motion! - They have no pathway where they go, - They flow like water to and fro. - They watch with never winking eyes, - They watch with staring, cold surprise, - The level people in the air, - The people peering, peering there: - Who wander also to and fro, - And know not why or where they go, - Yet have a wonder in their eyes, - Sometimes a pale and cold surprise. - - - - - T. S. Eliot - - - PORTRAIT OF A LADY - - I - - Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoon - You have the scene arrange itself—as it will seem to do— - With “I have saved this afternoon for you”; - And four wax candles in the darkened room, - Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead: - An atmosphere of Juliet’s tomb - Prepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid. - - We have been, let us say, to hear the latest Pole - Transmit the Preludes, through his hair and finger-tips. - “So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soul - Should be resurrected only among friends— - Some two or three, who will not touch the bloom - That is rubbed and questioned in the concert room.” - - And so the conversation slips - Among velleities and carefully caught regrets, - Through attenuated tones of violins - Mingled with remote cornets, - And begins: - “You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends; - And how, how rare and strange it is, to find, - In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends— - (For indeed I do not love it ... you knew? you are not blind! - How keen you are!) - To find a friend who has these qualities, - Who has, and gives - Those qualities upon which friendship lives: - How much it means that I say this to you— - Without these friendships—life, what _cauchemar_!” - - Among the windings of the violins, - And the ariettes - Of cracked cornets, - Inside my brain a dull tom-tom begins - Absurdly hammering a prelude of its own— - Capricious monotone - That is at least one definite “false note.” - Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance, - Admire the monuments, - Discuss the late events, - Correct our watches by the public clocks; - Then sit for half an hour and drink our bocks. - - II - - Now that lilacs are in bloom - She has a bowl of lilacs in her room - And twists one in her fingers while she talks. - “Ah my friend, you do not know, you do not know - What life is, you who hold it in your hands—” - (Slowly twisting the lilac stalks); - “You let it flow from you, you let it flow, - And youth is cruel, and has no remorse, - And smiles at situations which it cannot see.” - I smile, of course, - And go on drinking tea. - “Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall - My buried life, and Paris in the spring, - I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world - To be wonderful and youthful, after all.” - - The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune - Of a broken violin on an August afternoon: - “I am always sure that you understand - My feelings, always sure that you feel, - Sure that across the gulf you reach your hand. - - “You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles’ heel. - You will go on, and when you have prevailed - You can say: ‘At this point many a one has failed.’ - But what have I, but what have I, my friend, - To give you, what can you receive from me? - Only the friendship and the sympathy - Of one about to reach her journey’s end. - - “I shall sit here, serving tea to friends....” - - I take my hat: how can I make a cowardly amends - For what she has said to me? - - You will see me any morning in the park - Reading the comics and the sporting page. - Particularly I remark - An English countess goes upon the stage, - A Greek was murdered at a Polish dance, - Another bank defaulter has confessed. - I keep my countenance, - I remain self-possessed - Except when a street piano, mechanical and tired, - Reiterates some worn-out common song, - With the smell of hyacinths across the garden - Recalling things that other people have desired. - Are these ideas right or wrong? - - III - - The October night comes down. Returning as before, - Except for a slight sensation of being ill at ease, - I mount the stairs and turn the handle of the door - And feel as if I had mounted on my hands and knees. - - “And so you are going abroad; and when do you return? - But that’s a useless question. - You hardly know when you are coming back, - You will find so much to learn.” - My smile falls heavily among the bric-a-brac. - - “Perhaps you can write to me.” - My self-possession flares up for a second; - _This_ is as I had reckoned. - “I have been wondering frequently of late - (But our beginnings never know our ends!) - Why we have not developed into friends.” - I feel like one who smiles, and turning shall remark - Suddenly, his expression in a glass. - My self-possession gutters; we are really in the dark. - - “For everybody said so, all our friends, - They all were sure our feelings would relate - So closely! I myself can hardly understand. - We must leave it now to fate. - You will write, at any rate. - Perhaps it is not too late. - I shall sit here, serving tea to friends.” - - And I must borrow every changing shape - To find expression ... dance, dance - Like a dancing bear, - Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape. - Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance ... - Well! and what if she should die some afternoon, - Afternoon gray and smoky, evening yellow and rose; - Should die and leave me sitting pen in hand - With the smoke coming down above the house tops; - Doubtful, for quite a while - Not knowing what to feel or if I understand - Or whether wise or foolish, tardy or too soon... - Would she not have the advantage, after all? - This music is successful with a “dying fall” - Now that we talk of dying— - And should I have the right to smile? - - - - - Arthur Davison Ficke - - - MEETING - - Gray-robed Wanderer in sleep ... Wanderer ... - You also move among - Those silent halls - Dim on the shore of the unsailed deep? - And your footfalls, yours also, Wanderer, - Faint through those twilight corridors have rung? - - Of late my eyes have seen ... Wanderer ... - Amid the shadows’ gloom - Of that sleep-girdled place - I should have known such joy could not have been— - To see your face: and yet, Wanderer, - What hopes seem vain beneath the night in bloom? - - Wearily I awake ... Wanderer ... - Your look of old despair, - Like a dying star, - In morning vanishes. But for all memories’ sake, - Though you are far, tonight, O Wanderer, - Tonight come, though in silence, to the shadows there ... - - - AMONG SHADOWS - - In halls of sleep you wandered by, - This time so indistinguishably - I cannot remember aught of it, - Save that I know last night we met. - I know it by the cloudy thrill - That in my heart is quivering still; - And sense of loveliness forgot - Teases my fancy out of thought. - Though with the night the vision wanes, - Its haunting presence still may last— - As odor of flowers faint remains - In halls where late a queen has passed. - - - THE THREE SISTERS - - Gone are the three, those sisters rare - With wonder-lips and eyes ashine. - One was wise and one was fair, - And one was mine. - - Ye mourners, weave for the sleeping hair - Of only two, your ivy vine. - For one was wise and one was fair, - But one was mine. - - - PORTRAIT OF AN OLD WOMAN - - She limps with halting painful pace, - Stops, wavers, and creeps on again; - Peers up with dim and questioning face - Void of desire or doubt or pain. - - Her cheeks hang gray in waxen folds - Wherein there stirs no blood at all. - A hand like bundled cornstalks holds - The tatters of a faded shawl. - - Where was a breast, sunk bones she clasps; - A knot jerks where were woman-hips; - A ropy throat sends writhing gasps - Up to the tight line of her lips. - - Here strong the city’s pomp is poured ... - She stands, unhuman, bleak, aghast: - An empty temple of the Lord - From which the jocund Lord has passed. - - He has builded him another house, - Whenceforth his flame, renewed and bright, - Shines stark upon these weathered brows - Abandoned to the final night. - - - I AM WEARY OF BEING BITTER - - I am weary of being bitter and weary of being wise, - And the armor and the mask of these fall from me, after long. - I would go where the islands sleep, or where the sea-dawns rise, - And lose my bitter wisdom in the wisdom of a song. - - There are magics in melodies, unknown of the sages; - The powers of purest wonder on secret wings go by. - Doubtless out of the silence of dumb preceding ages - Song woke the chaos-world—and light swept the sky. - - All that we know is idle; idle is all we cherish; - Idle the will that takes loads that proclaim it strong. - For the knowledge, the strength, the burden—all shall perish: - One thing only endures, one thing only—song. - - - FROM “SONNETS OF A PORTRAIT PAINTER” - - I am in love with high far-seeing places - That look on plains half-sunlight and half-storm, - In love with hours when from the circling faces - Veils pass, and laughing fellowship glows warm. - You who look on me with grave eyes where rapture - And April love of living burn confessed— - The Gods are good! the world lies free to capture! - Life has no walls. Oh, take me to your breast! - Take me—be with me for a moment’s span! - I am in love with all unveilèd faces. - I seek the wonder at the heart of man; - I would go up to the far-seeing places. - While youth is ours, turn toward me for a space - The marvel of your rapture-lighted face! - - There are strange shadows fostered of the moon, - More numerous than the clear-cut shade of day.... - Go forth, when all the leaves whisper of June, - Into the dusk of swooping bats at play; - Or go into that late November dusk - When hills take on the noble lines of death, - And on the air the faint astringent musk - Of rotting leaves pours vaguely troubling breath. - Then shall you see shadows whereof the sun - Knows nothing—aye, a thousand shadows there - Shall leap and flicker and stir and stay and run, - Like petrels of the changing foul or fair; - Like ghosts of twilight, of the moon, of him - Whose homeland lies past each horizon’s rim.... - - - LIKE HIM WHOSE SPIRIT - - Like him whose spirit in the blaze of noon - Still keeps the memory of one secret star - That in the dusk of a remembered June - Thrilled the strange hour with beauty from afar— - And perilous spells of twilight snare his heart, - And wistful moods his common thoughts subdue, - And life seethes by him utterly apart— - Last night I dreamed, today I dream, of you. - Gleams downward strike; bright bubbles upward hover - Through the charmed air; far sea-winds cool my brow. - Invisible lips tell me I shall discover - Today a temple, a mystery, a vow ... - The cycle rounds: only the false seems true. - Last night I dreamed, today I dream, of you. - - - - - John Gould Fletcher - - - IRRADIATIONS - - I - - Over the roof-tops race the shadows of clouds: - Like horses the shadows of clouds charge down the street. - - Whirlpools of purple and gold, - Winds from the mountains of cinnabar, - Lacquered mandarin moments, palanquins swaying and balancing - Amid the vermilion pavilions, against the jade balustrades; - Glint of the glittering wings of dragon-flies in the light; - Silver filaments, golden flakes settling downwards; - Rippling, quivering flutters; repulse and surrender, - The sun broidered upon the rain, - The rain rustling with the sun. - - Over the roof-tops race the shadows of clouds: - Like horses the shadows of clouds charge down the street. - - II - - O seeded grass, you army of little men - Crawling up the low slopes with quivering quick blades of steel: - You who storm millions of graves, tiny green tentacles of earth, - Interlace your tangled webs tightly over my heart - And do not let me go: - For I would lie here for ever and watch with one eye - The pilgrimaging ants in your dull savage jungles, - While with the other I see the long lines of the slope - Break in mid air, a wave surprisingly arrested; - And above it, wavering, bodiless, colorless, unreal, - The long thin lazy fingers of the heat. - - III - - Not noisily, but solemnly and pale, - In a meditative ecstasy, you entered life, - As for some strange rite, to which you alone held the clue. - Child, life did not give rude strength to you; - From the beginning you would seem to have thrown away, - As something cold and cumbersome, that armor men use against death. - You would perchance look on death face to face and from him wrest the - secret - Whether his face wears oftenest a smile or no? - Strange, old and silent being, there is something - Infinitely vast in your intense tininess: - I think you could point out with a smile some curious star - Far off in the heavens which no man has seen before. - - IV - - The morning is clean and blue, and the wind blows up the clouds: - Now my thoughts, gathered from afar, - Once again in their patched armor, with rusty plumes and blunted swords, - Move out to war. - - - Smoking our morning pipes we shall ride two and two - Through the woods. - For our old cause keeps us together, - And our hatred is so precious not death or defeat can break it. - - God willing, we shall this day meet that old enemy - Who has given us so many a good beating. - Thank God, we have a cause worth fighting for, - And a cause worth losing, and a good song to sing! - - - ARIZONA POEMS - - - MEXICAN QUARTER - - By an alley lined with tumble-down shacks, - And street-lamps askew, half-sputtering, - Feebly glimmering on gutters choked with filth, and dogs - Scratching their mangy backs: - Half-naked children are running about, - Women puff cigarettes in black doorways, - Crickets are crying. - Men slouch sullenly - Into the shadows. - Behind a hedge of cactus, - The smell of a dead horse - Mingles with the smell of tamales frying. - - And a girl in a black lace shawl - Sits in a rickety chair by the square of unglazed window, - And sees the explosion of the stars - Fiercely poised on the velvet sky. - And she seems humming to herself: - “Stars, if I could reach you - (You are so very near that it seems as if I could reach you), - I would give you all to the Madonna’s image - On the gray plastered altar behind the paper flowers, - So that Juan would come back to me, - And we could live again those lazy burning hours, - Forgetting the tap of my fan and my sharp words, - And I would only keep four of you— - Those two blue-white ones overhead, - To put in my ears, - And those two orange ones yonder - To fasten on my shoe-buckles.” - - A little further along the street - A man squats stringing a brown guitar. - The smoke of his cigarette curls round his hair, - And he too is humming, but other words: - “Think not that at your window I wait. - New love is better, the old is turned to hate. - Fate! Fate! All things pass away; - Life is forever, youth is but for a day. - Love again if you may - Before the golden moons are blown out of the sky - And the crickets die. - Babylon and Samarkand - Are mud walls in a waste of sand.” - - - RAIN IN THE DESERT - - The huge red-buttressed mesa over yonder - Is merely a far-off temple where the sleepy sun is burning - Its altar fires of pinyon and toyon for the day. - - The old priests sleep, white-shrouded; - Their pottery whistles lie beside them, the prayer-sticks closely - feathered. - On every mummied face there glows a smile. - - - The sun is rolling slowly - Beneath the sluggish folds of the sky-serpents, - Coiling, uncoiling, blue black, sparked with fires. - - The old dead priests - Feel in the thin dried earth that is heaped about them, - Above the smell of scorching, oozing pinyon, - The acrid smell of rain. - - And now the showers - Surround the mesa like a troop of silver dancers: - Shaking their rattles, stamping, chanting, roaring, - Whirling, extinguishing the last red wisp of light. - - - THE BLUE SYMPHONY - - I - - The darkness rolls upward. - The thick darkness carries with it - Rain and a ravel of cloud. - The sun comes forth upon earth. - - Palely the dawn - Leaves me facing timidly - Old gardens sunken: - And in the gardens is water. - - Sombre wreck-autumnal leaves; - Shadowy roofs - In the blue mist, - And a willow-branch that is broken. - - O old pagodas of my soul, how you glittered across green trees! - - Blue and cool: - Blue, tremulously, - Blow faint puffs of smoke - Across sombre pools. - The damp green smell of rotted wood; - And a heron that cries from out the water. - - II - - Through the upland meadows - I go alone. - For I dreamed of someone last night - Who is waiting for me. - - Flower and blossom, tell me do you know of her? - Have the rocks hidden her voice? - They are very blue and still. - - Long upward road that is leading me, - Light hearted I quit you, - For the long loose ripples of the meadow-grass - Invite me to dance upon them. - - Quivering grass, - Daintily poised - For her foot’s tripping. - - O blown clouds, could I only race up like you! - Oh, the last slopes that are sun-drenched and steep! - - Look, the sky! - Across black valleys - Rise blue-white aloft - Jagged unwrinkled mountains, ranges of death. - - Solitude. Silence. - - III - - One chuckles by the brook for me: - One rages under the stone. - One makes a spout of his mouth, - One whispers—one is gone. - - One over there on the water - Spreads cold ripples - For me - Enticingly. - - The vast dark trees - Flow like blue veils - Of tears - Into the water. - - Sour sprites, - Moaning and chuckling, - What have you hidden from me? - - “In the palace of the blue stone she lies forever - Bound hand and foot.” - - Was it the wind - That rattled the reeds together? - - Dry reeds, - A faint shiver in the grasses. - - IV - - On the left hand there is a temple: - And a palace on the right-hand side. - Foot-passengers in scarlet - Pass over the glittering tide. - - Under the bridge - The old river flows - Low and monotonous - Day after day. - - I have heard and have seen - All the news that has been: - Autumn’s gold and Spring’s green! - - Now in my palace - I see foot-passengers - Crossing the river, - Pilgrims of autumn - In the afternoons. - - Lotus pools; - Petals in the water: - Such are my dreams. - - For me silks are outspread. - I take my ease, unthinking. - - V - - And now the lowest pine-branch - Is drawn across the disk of the sun. - Old friends who will forget me soon, - I must go on - Towards those blue death mountains - I have forgot so long. - - In the marsh grasses - There lies forever - My last treasure, - With the hope of my heart. - - The ice is glazing over; - Torn lanterns flutter, - On the leaves is snow. - - In the frosty evening - Toll the old bell for me - Once, in the sleepy temple. - Perhaps my soul will hear. - - Afterglow: - Before the stars peep - I shall creep into the darkness. - - - - - F. S. Flint - - - POEMS IN UNRHYMED CADENCE - - I - - London, my beautiful, - It is not the sunset - Nor the pale green sky - Shimmering through the curtain - Of the silver birch, - Nor the quietness; - It is not the hopping - Of the little birds - Upon the lawn, - Nor the darkness - Stealing over all things - That moves me. - - But as the moon creeps slowly - Over the tree-tops - Among the stars, - I think of her - And the glow her passing - Sheds on men. - - London, my beautiful, - I will climb - Into the branches - To the moonlit tree-tops, - That my blood may be cooled - By the wind. - - II - - Under the lily shadow - And the gold - And the blue and mauve - That the whin and the lilac - Pour down on the water, - The fishes quiver. - - Over the green cold leaves - And the rippled silver - And the tarnished copper - Of its neck and beak, - Toward the deep black water - Beneath the arches, - The swan floats slowly. - - Into the dark of the arch the swan floats - And the black depth of my sorrow - Bears a white rose of flame. - - - III—IN THE GARDEN - - The grass is beneath my head; - And I gaze - At the thronging stars - In the aisles of night. - - They fall ... they fall.... - I am overwhelmed, - And afraid. - - Each little leaf of the aspen - Is caressed by the wind, - And each is crying. - - And the perfume - Of invisible roses - Deepens the anguish. - - Let a strong mesh of roots - Feed the crimson of roses - Upon my heart; - And then fold over the hollow - Where all the pain was. - - - - - Moireen Fox - - - LIADAIN TO CURITHIR - -_Liadain and Curithir were two poets who lived in Ireland in the seventh -century. They fell in love, but while Curithir was absent making -preparations for their marriage, Liadain, for some unexplained reason, -took the vows of a nun. Curithir in despair became a monk. At first they -continued to see each other, but when this led to the breaking of their -vows, Curithir left Liadain to spend his life in penance and thus save -his soul._ - - I - - If I had known how narrow a prison is love, - Never would I have given the width of the skies - In return for thy kiss, O Curithir, thou my grief! - - If I had known love’s poverty, I would have given - Dúns and forests and ploughlands and begged my bread: - For now I have lost the earth and the stars and my soul. - - If I had known the strength of love, I would have laid - The ridge of the world in ashes to stay his feet: - I would have cried on a stronger lord—on Death. - - II - - I, that was wont to pass by all unmoved - As the long ridge of the tide sweeps to the shore, - Am broken at last on the crags of a pitiless love. - - I, who was wont to see men pale at my glance, - Like the quivering grass am shaken beneath thine eyes; - At thy touch my spirit is captive, my will is lost. - - I would darken the sun and moon to break from thy love, - I would shatter the world to win thee again to my side. - O aching madness of love! Have the dead repose? - Or wilt thou tear my heart in the close-shut grave? - - III - - I have done with blame, I have risen from the cold earth - Where night and day my forehead has known the clay. - With faltering steps I have passed out to the sun. - - Now in the sight of all I stand, that all may know - (For I myself will praise thee and prove their words) - How great was thy wisdom in turning away from me. - - Who that has drunken wine will keep the lees? - Who that has slain a man will wait for revenge? - Who that has had his desire of a woman will stay? - - Farewell, O Curithir, let thy soul be saved! - I have not found a thing that is dearer to thee. - In the eyes of God is it priceless? Who can say! - - My soul is a thing of little worth unto God: - Of less worth unto thee, O Curithir, than my love. - And unto me so small I flung it beneath thy feet. - - IV - - If the dark earth hold a Power that is not God - I pray It to bind up memory lest I die. - - There was a day when Curithir loved me, now it is gone. - It was I that sundered his love from me, I myself; - Or it was God who struck me with madness and mocked. - - If the dark earth hold a Power that is not God - I pray It to hide me for ever away from His face. - - V - - All things are outworn now—grief is dead, - And passion has fallen from me like a withered leaf. - Little it were to me now though Curithir were beside me: - Though he should pass I would not turn my head. - My heart is like a stone in my body. - All I have grasped I loose again from my hands. - - - - - Florence Kiper Frank - - - THE JEWISH CONSCRIPT - - _There are nearly a quarter of a million Jews in the Czar’s army - alone.—Newspaper clipping._ - - They have dressed me up in a soldier’s dress, - With a rifle in my hand, - And have sent me bravely forth to shoot - My own in a foreign land. - - Oh, many shall die for the fields of their homes, - And many in conquest wild; - But I shall die for the fatherland - That murdered my little child. - - How many hundreds of years ago— - The nations wax and cease!— - Did the God of our fathers doom us to bear - The flaming message of peace! - - We are the mock and the sport of time! - Yet why should I complain!— - For a Jew that they hung on the bloody cross, - He also died in vain. - - - THE MOVIES - - She knows a cheap release - From worry and from pain— - The cowboys spur their horses - Over the unending plain. - - The tenement rooms are small; - Their walls press on the brain. - Oh, the dip of the galloping horses - On the limitless, wind-swept plain! - - - YOU - - I go my way complacently, - As self-respecting persons should. - You are to me the rebel thought, - You are the wayward rebel mood. - - What shall we share who are separate? - We part—as alien persons should. - But oh, I have need of the rebel thought, - And a wicked urge to the rebel mood! - - - - - Robert Frost - - - MENDING WALL - - Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, - That sends the frozen ground-swell under it, - And spills the upper boulders in the sun; - And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. - The work of hunters is another thing: - I have come after them and made repair - Where they have left not one stone on stone, - But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, - To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, - No one has seen them made or heard them made, - But at spring mending-time we find them there. - I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; - And on a day we meet to walk the line - And set the wall between us once again. - We keep the wall between us as we go. - To each the boulders that have fallen to each. - And some are loaves and some so nearly balls - We have to use a spell to make them balance: - “Stay where you are until our backs are turned!” - We wear our fingers rough with handling them. - Oh, just another kind of out-door game, - One on a side. It comes to little more: - There where it is we do not need the wall: - He is all pine and I am apple orchard. - My apple trees will never get across - And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. - He only says, “Good fences make good neighbors.” - Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder - If I could put a notion in his head: - “Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it - Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. - Before I built a wall I’d ask to know - What I was walling in or walling out, - And to whom I was like to give offence. - Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, - That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him, - But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather - He said it for himself. I see him there - Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top - In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. - He moves in darkness as it seems to me, - Not of woods only and the shade of trees. - He will not go behind his father’s saying, - And he likes having thought of it so well - He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.” - - - AFTER APPLE-PICKING - - My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree - Toward heaven still, - And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill - Beside it, and there may be two or three - Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough. - But I am done with apple-picking now. - Essence of winter sleep is on the night, - The scent of apples: I am drowsing off. - I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight - I got from looking through a pane of glass - I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough - And held against the world of hoary grass. - It melted, and I let it fall and break. - But I was well - Upon my way to sleep before it fell, - And I could tell - What form my dreaming was about to take. - Magnified apples appear and disappear, - Stem end and blossom end, - And every fleck of russet showing clear. - My instep arch not only keeps the ache, - It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round. - I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend. - And I keep hearing from the cellar bin - The rumbling sound - Of load on load of apples coming in. - For I have had too much - Of apple-picking: I am overtired - Of the great harvest I myself desired. - There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, - Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall. - For all - That struck the earth, - No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, - Went surely to the cider-apple heap - As of no worth. - One can see what will trouble - This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is. - Were he not gone, - The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his - Long sleep, as I describe its coming on, - Or just some human sleep. - - - MY NOVEMBER GUEST - - My Sorrow, when she’s here with me, - Thinks these dark days of autumn rain - Are beautiful as days can be; - She loves the bare, the withered tree; - She walks the sodden pasture lane. - - Her pleasure will not let me stay. - She talks and I am fain to list: - She’s glad the birds are gone away, - She’s glad her simple worsted grey - Is silver now with clinging mist. - - The desolate, deserted trees, - The faded earth, the heavy sky, - The beauties she so truly sees, - She thinks I have no eye for these, - And vexes me for reason why. - - Not yesterday I learned to know - The love of bare November days - Before the coming of the snow; - But it were vain to tell her so, - And they are better for her praise. - - - MOWING - - There was never a sound beside the wood but one, - And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground. - What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself; - Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun, - Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound— - And that was why it whispered and did not speak. - It was no dream of the gift of idle hours, - Or easy cold at the hand of fay or elf: - Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak - To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows— - Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers - (Pale orchises)—and scared a bright green snake. - The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows. - My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make. - - - STORM FEAR - - When the wind works against us in the dark, - And pelts with snow - The lower chamber window on the east, - And whispers with a sort of stifled bark, - The beast, - “Come out! Come out!”— - It costs no inward struggle not to go, - Ah, no! - I count our strength, - Two and a child, - Those of us not asleep subdued to mark - How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length— - How drifts are piled, - Dooryard and road ungraded, - Till even the comforting barn grows far away, - And my heart owns a doubt - Whether ’tis in us to arise with day - And save ourselves unaided. - - - GOING FOR WATER - - The well was dry beside the door, - And so we went with pail and can - Across the fields behind the house - To seek the brook if still it ran; - - Not loth to have excuse to go, - Because the autumn eve was fair - (Though chill) because the fields were ours, - And by the brook our woods were there. - - We ran as if to meet the moon - That slowly dawned behind the trees, - The barren boughs without the leaves, - Without the birds, without the breeze. - - But once within the wood, we paused - Like gnomes that hid us from the moon, - Ready to run to hiding new - With laughter when she found us soon. - - Each laid on other a staying hand - To listen ere we dared to look, - And in the hush we joined to make - We heard—we knew we heard—the brook. - - A note as from a single place, - A slender tinkling fall that made - Now drops that floated on the pool - Like pearls, and now a silver blade. - - - THE CODE—HEROICS - - There were three in the meadow by the brook, - Gathering up windrows, piling haycocks up, - With an eye always lifted toward the west, - Where an irregular, sun-bordered cloud - Darkly advanced with a perpetual dagger - Flickering across its bosom. Suddenly - One helper, thrusting pitchfork in the ground, - Marched himself off the field and home. One stayed. - The town-bred farmer failed to understand. - - What was there wrong? - Something you said just now. - What did I say? - About our taking pains. - To cock the hay?—because it’s going to shower? - I said that nearly half an hour ago. - I said it to myself as much as you. - - You didn’t know. But James is one big fool. - He thought you meant to find fault with his work. - That’s what the average farmer would have meant. - James had to take his time to chew it over - Before he acted; he’s just got round to act. - - He _is_ a fool if that’s the way he takes me. - Don’t let it bother you. You’ve found out something. - The hand that knows his business won’t be told - To do work faster or better—those two things. - I’m as particular as anyone: - Most likely I’d have served you just the same: - But I know you don’t understand our ways. - You were just talking what was in your mind, - What was in all our minds, and you weren’t hinting. - Tell you a story of what happened once. - I was up here in Salem, at a man’s - Named Sanders, with a gang of four or five, - Doing the haying. No one liked the boss. - He was one of the kind sports call a spider, - All wiry arms and legs that spread out wavy - From a humped body nigh as big as a biscuit. - But work!—that man could work, especially - If by so doing he could get more work - Out of his hired help. I’m not denying - He was hard on himself: I couldn’t find - That he kept any hours—not for himself. - Day-light and lantern-light were one to him: - I’ve heard him pounding in the barn all night. - But what he liked was someone to encourage. - Them that he couldn’t lead he’d get behind - And drive, the way you can, you know, in mowing— - Keep at their heels and threaten to mow their legs off. - I’d seen about enough of his bulling tricks— - We call that bulling. I’d been watching him. - So when he paired off with me in the hayfield - To load the load, thinks I, look out for trouble! - I built the load and topped it off; old Sanders - Combed it down with the rake and said, “O. K.” - Everything went right till we reached the barn - With a big take to empty in a bay. - You understand that meant the easy job - For the man up on top of throwing down - The hay and rolling it off wholesale, - Where, on a mow, it would have been slow lifting. - You wouldn’t think a fellow’d need much urging - Under those circumstances, would you now? - But the old fool seizes his fork in both hands, - And looking up bewhiskered out of the pit, - Shouts like an army captain, “Let her come!” - Thinks I, d’ye mean it? “What was that you said?” - I asked out loud so’s there’d be no mistake. - “Did you say, let her come?” “Yes, let her come.” - He said it over, but he said it softer. - Never you say a thing like that to a man, - Not if he values what he is. God, I’d as soon - Murdered him as left out his middle name. - I’d built the load and knew just where to find it. - Two or three forkfuls I picked lightly round for - Like meditating, and then I just dug in - And dumped the rackful on him in ten lots. - I looked over the side once in the dust - And caught sight of him treading-water-like, - Keeping his head above. “Damn ye,” I says, - “That gets ye!” He squeaked like a squeezed rat. - - That was the last I saw or heard of him. - I cleaned the rack and drove out to cool off. - As I sat mopping the hayseed from my neck, - And sort of waiting to be asked about it, - One of the boys sings out, “Where’s the old man?” - “I left him in the barn, under the hay. - If you want him you can go and dig him out.” - They realized from the way I swobbed my neck - More than was needed, something must be up. - They headed for the barn—I stayed where I was. - They told me afterward: First they forked hay, - A lot of it, out into the barn floor. - Nothing! They listened for him. Not a rustle! - I guess they thought I’d spiked him in the temple - Before I buried him, else I couldn’t have managed. - They excavated more. “Go keep his wife - Out of the barn.” - Some one looked in a window; - And curse me, if he wasn’t in the kitchen, - Slumped way down in a chair, with both his feet - Stuck in the oven, the hottest day that summer. - He looked so mad in back, and so disgusted - There was no one that dared to stir him up - Or let him know that he was being looked at. - Apparently I hadn’t buried him - (I may have knocked him down), but just my trying - To bury him had hurt his dignity. - He had gone to the house so’s not to face me. - He kept away from us all afternoon. - We tended to his hay. We saw him out - After a while picking peas in the garden: - He couldn’t keep away from doing something. - - Weren’t you relieved to find he wasn’t dead? - - No!—and yet I can’t say: it’s hard to tell. - I went about to kill him fair enough. - - You took an awkward way. Did he discharge you? - - Discharge me? No! He knew I did just right. - - - - - Hamlin Garland - - - TO A CAPTIVE CRANE - - Ho, brother! Art thou prisoned too? - Is thy heart hot with restless pain? - I heard the call thy bugle blew - Here by the bleak and chilling main - (Whilst round me shaven parks are spread - And cindered drives wind on and on); - And at thy cry, thy lifted head, - My gladdened heart was westward drawn. - - O splendid bird! your trumpet brings - To my lone heart the prairie springs. - - - THE MOUNTAINS ARE A LONELY FOLK - - The mountains they are silent folk - They stand afar—alone, - And the clouds that kiss their brows at night - Hear neither sigh nor groan. - Each bears him in his ordered place - As soldiers do, and bold and high - They fold their forests round their feet - And bolster up the sky. - - - MAGIC - - Within my hand I hold - A piece of lichen-spotted stone— - Each fleck red-gold— - And with closed eyes I hear the moan - Of solemn winds round naked crags - Of Colorado’s mountains. The snow - Lies deep about me. Gray and old - Hags of cedars, gaunt and bare, - With streaming, tangled hair, - Snarl endlessly. White-winged and proud, - With stately step and queenly air, - A glittering, cool and silent cloud - Upon me sails. - The wind wails, - And from the cañon stern and steep - I hear the furious waters leap. - - - - - Wilfrid Wilson Gibson - - - COLOR - - A blue-black Nubian plucking oranges - At Jaffa by a sea of malachite, - In red tarboosh, green sash, and flowing white - Burnous—among the shadowy memories - That haunt me yet by these bleak northern seas - He lives for ever in my eyes’ delight, - Bizarre, superb in young immortal might— - A god of old barbaric mysteries. - - Maybe he lived a life of lies and lust, - Maybe his bones are now but scattered dust; - Yet, for a moment he was life supreme - Exultant and unchallenged: and my rhyme - Would set him safely out of reach of time - In that old heaven where things are what they seem. - - - OBLIVION - - Near the great pyramid, unshadowed, white, - With apex piercing the white noon-day blaze. - Swathed in white robes beneath the blinding rays - Lie sleeping Bedouins drenched in white-hot light. - About them, searing to the tingling sight, - Swims the white dazzle of the desert ways - Where the sense shudders, witless and adaze, - In a white void with neither depth nor height. - - Within the black core of the pyramid, - Beneath the weight of sunless centuries, - Lapt in dead night King Cheops lies asleep: - Yet in the darkness of his chamber hid - He knows no black oblivion more deep - Than that blind white oblivion of noon skies. - - - TENANTS - - Suddenly, out of dark and leafy ways, - We came upon the little house asleep - In cold blind stillness, shadowless and deep, - In the white magic of the full moon-blaze: - Strangers without the gate, we stood agaze, - Fearful to break that quiet, and to creep - Into the home that had been ours to keep - Through a long year of happy nights and days. - - So unfamiliar in the white moon-gleam, - So old and ghostly like a house of dream - It stood, that over us there stole the dread - That even as we watched it, side by side, - The ghosts of lovers, who had lived and died - Within its walls, were sleeping in our bed. - - - GOLD - - All day the mallet thudded far below - My garret, in an old ramshackle shed - Where ceaselessly, with stiffly nodding head - And rigid motions ever to and fro - A figure like a puppet in a show - Before the window moved till day was dead, - Beating out gold to earn his daily bread, - Beating out thin fine gold-leaf blow on blow. - - And I within my garret all day long - Unto that ceaseless thudding tuned my song, - Beating out golden words in tune and time - To that dull thudding, rhyme on golden rhyme. - But in my dreams all night, in that dark shed, - With aching arms I beat fine gold for bread. - - - ON HAMPSTEAD HEATH - - Against the green flame of the hawthorn-tree, - His scarlet tunic burns; - And livelier than the green sap’s mantling glee - The spring fire tingles through him headily - As quivering he turns - - And stammers out the old amazing tale - Of youth and April weather; - While she, with half-breathed jests that, sobbing, fail, - Sits, tight-lipped, quaking, eager-eyed and pale - Beneath her purple feather. - - - BATTLE - - - THE GOING - - He’s gone. - I do not understand. - I only know - That as he turned to go - And waved his hand, - In his young eyes a sudden glory shone: - And I was dazzled by a sunset glow, - And he was gone. - - - THE JOKE - - He’d even have his joke - While we were sitting tight, - And so he needs must poke - His silly head in sight - To whisper some new jest - Chortling. But as he spoke - A rifle cracked ... - And now God knows when I shall hear the rest! - - - IN THE AMBULANCE - - “Two rows of cabbages, - Two of curly-greens, - Two rows of early peas, - Two of kidney-beans.” - - That’s what he is muttering, - Making such a song, - Keeping other chaps awake, - The whole night long. - - Both his legs are shot away, - And his head is light; - So he keeps on muttering - All the blessed night: - - “Two rows of cabbages, - Two of curly-greens, - Two rows of early peas, - Two of kidney-beans.” - - - HIT - - Out of the sparkling sea - I drew my tingling body clear, and lay - On a low ledge the livelong summer day, - Basking, and watching lazily - White sails in Falmouth Bay. - - My body seemed to burn - Salt in the sun that drenched it through and through, - Till every particle glowed clean and new - And slowly seemed to turn - To lucent amber in a world of blue.... - - I felt a sudden wrench— - A trickle of warm blood— - And found that I was sprawling in the mud - Among the dead men in the trench. - - - THE HOUSEWIFE - - She must go back, she said, - Because she’d not had time to make the bed. - We’d hurried her away - So roughly ... and for all that we could say, - She broke from us, and passed - Into the night, shells falling thick and fast. - - - HILL-BORN - - I sometimes wonder if it’s really true - I ever knew - Another life - Than this unending strife - With unseen enemies in lowland mud; - And wonder if my blood - Thrilled ever to the tune - Of clean winds blowing through an April noon - Mile after sunny mile - On the green ridges of the Windy Gile. - - - THE FEAR - - I do not fear to die - ’Neath the open sky, - To meet death in the fight - Face to face, upright. - - But when at last we creep - Into a hole to sleep, - I tremble, cold with dread, - Lest I wake up dead. - - - BACK - - They ask me where I’ve been, - And what I’ve done and seen. - But what can I reply - Who know it wasn’t I, - But someone, just like me, - Who went across the sea - And with my head and hands - Slew men in foreign lands ... - Though I must bear the blame - Because he bore my name. - - - - - Richard Butler Glaenzer - - - STAR-MAGIC - - Though your beauty be a flower - Of unimagined loveliness, - It cannot lure me tonight; - For I am all spirit. - - As in the billowy oleander, - Full-bloomed, - Each blossom is all but lost - In the next— - One flame in a glow - Of green-veined rhodonite; - So is heaven a crystal magnificence - Of stars - Powdered lightly with blue. - - For this one night - My spirit has turned honey-moth - And has made of the stars - Its flowers. - - So all uncountable are the stars - That heaven shimmers as a web, - Bursting with light - From beyond, - A light exquisite, - Immeasurable! - - For this one night - My spirit has dared, and been caught - In the web of the stars. - - Though your beauty were a net - Of unimagined power, - It could not hold me tonight; - For I am all spirit. - - - - - Douglas Goldring - - - VOYAGES - - I - - To come so soon to this imagined dark— - More velvet-deep than any midnight park! - Palaces hem me in, with blind black walls; - The water is hushed for a voice that never calls. - My gondolier sways silently over his oar. - - II - - _At St. Blaise, à la Zuecca! Oh, my dear, - Laugh your gentle laughter! This old land, - From Provence to Paris—never fear— - All the heart can feel will understand._ - - A small town, a white town, - A town for you and me— - With a _Café Glacier_ in the square, - And schooners at the quay; - And the _terrasse_ of a small hotel - That looks upon the sea! - There gay sounds and sweet sounds - And sounds of peace come through: - The cook sings in the kitchen, - The pink-foot ring-doves coo, - And Julien brings the Pernods - That are bad for me and you. - - _At St. Blaise, à la Zuecca! Oh, my dear, - Laugh your gentle laughter! This old land, - From Provence to Paris—never fear— - All the heart can feel will understand._ - - III - - Waves lap the beach, pines stretch to meet the sea; - A pale light on the horizon lingers and shines, - That might shine round the Graal: and we - Stand very silent, underneath the pines. - - O swift expresses for the spirit’s flight! - Sometimes the moon is like a maid I know, - Looking roguishly back, and flying forward—so - I follow, flashing after. Blessed night! - - IV - - Do you remember, have you been these ways, - Dreaming or waking, after sunny days; - Sailed, in a moment, to imagined lands— - With one to love you, holding both your hands— - To old hot countries where the warm grape clings, - And an old, musical language strikes the ear - Like a caress, most exquisite to hear— - Your soul the voyager and your heart her wings? - - - - - Hermann Hagedorn - - - EARLY MORNING AT BARGIS - - Clear air and grassy lea, - Stream-song and cattle-bell— - Dear man, what fools are we - In prison-walls to dwell! - To live our days apart - From green things and wide skies, - And let the wistful heart - Be cut and crushed with lies! - - Bright peaks!—And suddenly - Light floods the placid dell, - The grass-tops brush my knee: - A good crop it will be, - So all is well! - O man, what fools are we - In prison-walls to dwell! - - - DOORS - - Like a young child who to his mother’s door - Runs eager for the welcoming embrace, - And finds the door shut, and with troubled face - Calls and through sobbing calls, and o’er and o’er - Calling, storms at the panel—so before - A door that will not open, sick and numb, - I listen for a word that will not come, - And know, at last, I may not enter more. - - Silence! And through the silence and the dark - By that closed door, the distant sob of tears - Beats on my spirit, as on fairy shores - The spectral sea; and through the sobbing—hark!— - Down the fair-chambered corridor of years, - The quiet shutting, one by one, of doors. - - - DEPARTURE - - My true love from her pillow rose - And wandered down the summer lane. - She left her house to the wind’s carouse, - And her chamber wide to the rain. - - She did not stop to don her coat, - She did not stop to smooth her bed— - But out she went in glad content - There where the bright path led. - - She did not feel the beating storm, - But fled like a sunbeam, white and frail, - To the sea, to the air, somewhere, somewhere— - I have not found her trail. - - - BROADWAY - - How like the stars are these white, nameless faces— - These far innumerable burning coals! - This pale procession out of stellar spaces, - This Milky Way of souls! - Each in its own bright nebulæ enfurled, - Each face, dear God, a world! - - I fling my gaze out through the silent night: - In those far stars, what gardens, what high halls, - Has mortal yearning built for its delight, - What chasms and what walls? - What quiet mansions where a soul may dwell? - What heaven and what hell? - - - - - Thomas Hardy - - - SHE HEARS THE STORM - - There was a time in former years— - While my roof-tree was his— - When I should have been distressed by fears - At such a night as this. - - I should have murmured anxiously, - “The pricking rain strikes cold; - His road is bare of hedge or tree, - And he is getting old.” - - But now the fitful chimney-roar, - The drone of Thorncombe trees, - The Froom in flood upon the moor, - The mud of Mellstock Leaze, - - The candle slanting sooty wick’d, - The thuds upon the thatch, - The eaves-drops on the window flicked, - The clacking garden-hatch, - - And what they mean to wayfarers, - I scarcely heed or mind; - He has won that storm-tight roof of hers - Which Earth grants all her kind. - - - THE VOICE - - Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me, - Saying that now you are not as you were - When you had changed from the one who was all to me, - But as at first, when our day was fair. - - Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then, - Standing as when I drew near to the town - Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then, - Even to the original air-blue gown! - - Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness - Travelling across the wet mead to me here, - You being ever consigned to existlessness, - Heard no more again far or near? - Thus I; faltering forward, - Leaves around me falling, - Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward - And the woman calling. - - - IN THE MOONLIGHT - - “O lonely workman, standing there - In a dream, why do you stare and stare - At her grave, as no other grave there were? - - “If your great gaunt eyes so importune - Her soul by the shine of this corpse-cold moon, - Maybe you’ll raise her phantom soon!” - - “Why, fool, it is what I would rather see - Than all the living folk there be; - But alas, there is no such joy for me!” - - “Ah—she was one you loved, no doubt, - Through good and evil, through rain and drought, - And when she passed, all your sun went out?” - - “Nay: she was the woman I did not love, - Whom all the others were ranked above, - Whom during her life I thought nothing of.” - - - THE MAN HE KILLED - - “Had he and I but met - By some old ancient inn, - We should have sat us down to wet - Right many a nipperkin! - - “But ranged as infantry, - And staring face to face, - I shot at him as he at me, - And killed him in his place. - - “I shot him dead because— - Because he was my foe, - Just so: my foe of course he was; - That’s clear enough; although - - “He thought he’d ’list, perhaps, - Off-hand like—just as I— - Was out of work—had sold his traps— - No other reason why. - - “Yes; quaint and curious war is! - You shoot a fellow down - You’d treat if met where any bar is, - Or help to half-a-crown.” - - - - - Ralph Hodgson - - - THE MYSTERY - - He came and took me by the hand - Up to a red rose tree, - He kept His meaning to Himself - But gave a rose to me. - - I did not pray Him to lay bare - The mystery to me; - Enough the rose was Heaven to smell, - And His own face to see. - - - THREE POEMS - - I - - Babylon—where I go dreaming - When I weary of to-day, - Weary of a world grown gray. - - II - - God loves an idle rainbow, - No less than laboring seas. - - III - - Reason has moons, but moons not hers - Lie mirrored on her sea, - Confounding her astronomers, - But, oh, delighting me! - - - STUPIDITY STREET - - I saw with open eyes - Singing birds sweet - Sold in the shops - For the people to eat, - Sold in the shops of - Stupidity Street. - - I saw in vision - The worm in the wheat, - And in the shops nothing - For people to eat; - Nothing for sale in - Stupidity Street. - - - - - Horace Holley - - - CREATIVE - - Renew the vision of delight - By vigil, praise and prayer, - Till every sinew leaps in might - And every sense is fair. - - - TWILIGHT AT VERSAILLES - - Unfold for men, O God, love’s true, creative day, - To flower our barren souls by mellow sun and noon: - The glory of old thought is still, and cold, and gray, - Like gardens unrenewed beneath the sterile moon. - - - LOVERS - - Whate’er our joy compelled, men’s praise and blame fall hollow, - A voice upon the winds that drown it as they blow: - So fair a vision led, our thought was all to follow; - So strong a passion urged, our will was all to go. - - - - - Helen Hoyt - - - ELLIS PARK - - Little park that I pass through, - I carry off a piece of you - Every morning hurrying down - To my work-day in the town; - Carry you for country there - To make the city ways more fair. - I take your trees, - And your breeze, - Your greenness, - Your cleanness, - Some of your shade, some of your sky, - Some of your calm as I go by; - Your flowers to trim - The pavements grim; - Your space for room in the jostled street - And grass for carpet to my feet. - Your fountains take and sweet bird calls - To sing me from my office walls. - All that I can see - I carry off with me. - But you never miss my theft, - So much treasure you have left. - As I find you, fresh at morning, - So I find you, home returning— - Nothing lacking from your grace. - All your riches wait in place - For me to borrow - On the morrow. - - Do you hear this praise of you, - Little park that I pass through? - - - THE NEW-BORN - - I have heard them in the night— - The cry of their fear, - Because there is no light, - Because they do not hear - Familiar sounds and feel the familiar arm, - And they awake alone. - Yet they have never known - Danger or harm. - What is their dread?— - This dark about their bed? - But they are so lately come - Out of the dark womb - Where they were safely kept. - That blackness was good; - And the silence of that solitude - Wherein they slept - Was kind. - Where did they find - Knowledge of death? - Caution of darkness and cold? - These—of the little, new breath— - Have they a prudence so old? - - - RAIN AT NIGHT - - Are you awake? Do you hear the rain? - How rushingly it strikes upon the ground, - And on the roof, and the wet window-pane! - Sometimes I think it is a comfortable sound, - Making us feel how safe and snug we are: - Closing us off in this dark, away from the dark outside. - The rest of the world seems dim tonight, mysterious and far. - Oh, there is no world left! Only darkness, darkness stretching wide - And full of the blind rain’s immeasurable fall! - - How nothing must we seem unto this ancient thing! - How nothing unto the earth—and we so small! - Oh, wake, wake!—do you not feel my hands cling? - One day it will be raining as it rains tonight; the same wind blow— - Raining and blowing on this house wherein we lie: but you and I— - We shall not hear, we shall not ever know. - O love, I had forgot that we must die. - - - THE LOVER SINGS OF A GARDEN - - Oh, beautiful are the flowers of your garden, - The flowers of your garden are fair: - Blue flowers of your eyes - And dusk flower of your hair; - Dew flower of your mouth - And peony-budded breasts, - And the flower of the curve of your hand - Where my hand rests. - - - SINCE I HAVE FELT THE SENSE OF DEATH - - Since I have felt the sense of death, - Since I have borne its dread, its fear— - Oh, how my life has grown more dear - Since I have felt the sense of death! - Sorrows are good, and cares are small, - Since I have known the loss of all. - - Since I have felt the sense of death, - And death forever at my side— - Oh, how the world has opened wide - Since I have felt the sense of death! - My hours are jewels that I spend, - For I have seen the hours end. - - Since I have felt the sense of death, - Since I have looked on that black night— - My inmost brain is fierce with light - Since I have felt the sense of death. - O dark, that made my eyes to see! - O death, that gave my life to me! - - - - - Ford Madox Hueffer - - - ANTWERP - - I - - Gloom! - An October like November; - August a hundred thousand hours, - And all September, - A hundred thousand, dragging sunlit days, - And half October like a thousand years ... - And doom! - That then was Antwerp ... - In the name of God, - How could they do it? - Those souls that usually dived - Into the dirty caverns of mines; - Who usually hived - In whitened hovels; under ragged poplars; - Who dragged muddy shovels, over the grassy mud, - Lumbering to work over the greasy sods ... - Those men there, with the appearance of clods - Were the bravest men that a usually listless priest of God - Ever shrived ... - And it is not for us to make them an anthem. - If we found words there would come no wind that would fan them - To a tune that the trumpets might blow it, - Shrill through the heaven that’s ours or yet Allah’s, - Or the wide halls of any Valhallas. - We can make no such anthem. So that all that is ours - For inditing in sonnets, pantoums, elegiacs, or lays - Is this: - “In the name of God, how could they do it?” - - II - - For there is no new thing under the sun, - Only this uncomely man with a smoking gun - In the gloom.... - What the devil will he gain by it? - Digging a hole in the mud and standing all day in the rain by it - Waiting his doom; - The sharp blow, the swift outpouring of the blood - Till the trench of gray mud - Is turned to a brown purple drain by it. - Well, there have been scars - - Won in many wars, - Punic, - Lacedæmonian, wars of Napoleon, wars for faith, wars for honor, for - love, for possession, - But this Belgian man in his ugly tunic, - His ugly round cap, shooting on, in a sort of obsession, - Overspreading his miserable land, - Standing with his wet gun in his hand.... - Doom! - He finds that in a sudden scrimmage, - And lies, an unsightly lump on the sodden grass ... - An image that shall take long to pass! - - III - - For the white-limbed heroes of Hellas ride by upon their horses - Forever through our brains. - The heroes of Cressy ride by upon their stallions; - And battalions and battalions and battalions— - The Old Guard, the Young Guard, the men of Minden and of Waterloo, - Pass, for ever staunch, - Stand, for ever true; - And the small man with the large paunch, - And the gray coat, and the large hat, and the hands behind the back, - Watches them pass - In our minds for ever.... - But that clutter of sodden corses - On the sodden Belgian grass— - That is a strange new beauty. - - IV - - With no especial legends of marchings or triumphs or duty, - Assuredly that is the way of it, - The way of beauty.... - - And that is the highest word you can find to say of it. - For you cannot praise it with words - Compounded of lyres and swords, - But the thought of the gloom and the rain - And the ugly coated figure, standing beside a drain, - Shall eat itself into your brain: - And you will say of all heroes, “They fought like the Belgians!” - And you will say, “He wrought like a Belgian his fate out of gloom.” - And you will say, “He bought like a Belgian - His doom.” - And that shall be an honorable name; - “Belgian” shall be an honorable word; - As honorable as the fame of the sword, - As honorable as the mention of the many-chorded lyre, - And his old coat shall seem as beautiful as the fabrics woven in Tyre. - - V - - And what in the world did they bear it for? - I don’t know. - And what in the world did they dare it for? - Perhaps that is not for the likes of me to understand. - They could very well have watched a hundred legions go - Over their fields and between their cities - Down into more southerly regions. - They could very well have let the legions pass through their woods, - And have kept their lives and their wives and their children and cattle - and goods. - I don’t understand. - Was it just love of their land? - Oh, poor dears! - Can any man so love his land? - Give them a thousand thousand pities - And rivers and rivers of tears - To wash off the blood from the cities of Flanders. - - - VI - - This is Charing Cross; - It is midnight; - There is a great crowd - And no light— - A great crowd, all black, that hardly whispers aloud. - Surely, that is a dead woman—a dead mother! - She has a dead face; - She is dressed all in black; - She wanders to the book-stall and back, - At the back of the crowd; - And back again and again back, - She sways and wanders. - - This is Charing Cross; - It is one o’clock. - There is still a great cloud, and very little light; - Immense shafts of shadows over the black crowd - That hardly whispers aloud.... - And now!... That is another dead mother, - And there is another and another and another.... - And little children, all in black, - All with dead faces, waiting in all the waiting-places, - Wandering from the doors of the waiting-room - In the dim gloom. - These are the women of Flanders: - They await the lost. - They await the lost that shall never leave the dock; - They await the lost that shall never again come by the train - To the embraces of all these women with dead faces; - They await the lost who lie dead in trench and barrier and fosse, - In the dark of the night. - This is Charing Cross; it is past one of the clock; - There is very little light. - - There is so much pain. - - - _L’Envoi_: - - And it was for this that they endured this gloom; - This October like November, - That August like a hundred thousand hours, - And that September, - A hundred thousand dragging sunlit days - And half October like a thousand years.... - Oh, poor dears! - - - - - Scharmel Iris - - - AFTER THE MARTYRDOM - - They threw a stone, you threw a stone, - I threw a stone that day. - Although their sharpness bruised his flesh - He had no word to say. - - But for the moan he did not make - To-day I make my moan; - And for the stone I threw at him - My heart must bear a stone. - - - LAMENT - - Lady, your heart has turned to dust, - Your wail is taken by the sea. - The wind is knocking at my heart, - And will not let me be. - - Your moaning smites me in my dreams, - And I must sorrow till I die. - And I shall rove, and I shall weep, - Till in the grave I lie. - - - ITERATION - - My son is dead and I am going blind, - And in the Ishmael-wind of grief - I tremble like a leaf; - I have no mind for any word you say: - My son is dead and I am going blind. - - - EARLY NIGHTFALL - - The pale day drowses on the western steep; - The toiler faints along the marge of sleep - Within the sunset-press, incarnadine, - The sun, a peasant, tramples out his wine. - - Ah, scattered gold rests on the twilight streams; - The poppy opes her scarlet purse of dreams. - Night with the sickle-moon engarners wheat, - And binds the sheaves of stars beneath her feet. - - Rest, weary heart, and every flight-worn bird! - The brooklet of the meadow lies unstirred. - Sleep, every soul, against a comrade breast! - God grant you peace, and guard you in your rest! - - - - - Orrick Johns - - - SONGS OF DELIVERANCE - - - I—THE SONG OF YOUTH - - This is the song of youth, - This is the cause of myself; - I knew my father well and he was a fool, - Therefore will I have my own foot in the path before I take a step; - - I will go only into new lands, - And I will walk on no plank-walks. - The horses of my family are wind-broken, - And the dogs are old, - And the guns rusty; - I will make me a new bow from an ash-tree, - And cut up the homestead into arrows. - - Behold how people stand around! - (There are always crowds of people standing around, - Whose legs have no knees)— - While the engineers put up steel work ... - Is it something to catch the sunlight, - Jewelry and gew-gaw? - I have no time to wait for them to build bridges for me; - Where awful the gap seems stretching there is no gap, - Leaping I take it at once from a thought to a thought. - I can no more walk in the stride of other men - Than be father of their children. - - My treasure lured like a bright star, - And I went to it young and desirous. - Lo, as it stood there in its great chests, - The wise men came up with the keys, - Crying, “Blasphemy, blasphemy!” - For I had broken the locks.... - And when the procession went waving to a funeral, - They cried it again; - For I stayed in my home and spoke truth about the dead. - - Much did I learn waiting in my youth; - At the door of a great man I waited on one foot and then on the other. - The files passed in and out before me to the antechamber, for at that - door I was not favored: - (O costly preferment!) - Yet I watched them coming and going, - And I learned the great man by heart from the stories on their faces. - When presently the retainers arrived, one above the other in a row, - saying: - “The great man is ready,” - I had long been a greater than he. - - - This is the reason for myself: - When I used to go in the races, I had but one prayer, - And I went first before the judges, saying; - “Give everyone a distance, such as you consider best; - I will run scratch.” - - - II—VIRGINS - - I have had one fear in my life— - When I was young I feared virgins; - But I do not any more.... - By contact with them I learn that each is a center, - And has a period of brightness, - And stands epitome in that brief space - Of the Universe! - Ah, the ephemeral eternal! - In virgins’ eyes I would live reflected as in a globe, - And know myself purer than crystal. - - - III—NO PREY AM I - - No prey am I of poor thoughts. - I leave all of my followers; I tire quickly of them; - I send them away from me when they ask too much; for though I live alone - Still will I live, night and day ... - - There is not anything in me save mutation and laughter; - My laughter is like a sword, - Like the piston-rod that defies oceans and grades. - - When I labor it is a song of battle in the broad noon; - For behold the muscles of a man— - They are piston-rods; they are cranes, hydraulic presses, - powder-magazines: - But though my body be as beautiful as a hill crowned with flowers - I will despise it and make it obey me ... - - Is the old love dead? - Then I shall await the new, - To embrace it more sturdily and passionately than ever the old; - And break it under the white force of my laughter - Until it lies passive in my arms. - There is nothing in me but renewal; - If my friend bow his head over me I soon surprise him with shouts of - joy: - For in an instant I am again what I was, - Only with a few moments more of the infusion of earth; - I tell him, the griever, to follow me and he is a griever no more; - He raises his head and must follow. - Yet it is my battle, not his battle, - For in me I absorb others ... - I hail parties and partisans from afar; - Not men but parties are my comrades, - Not persons but nations are my associates. - I shake the hand of nations; - For I am a nation and a party, and majorities do not elect me— - I elect myself. - I swam in the sea, and lo! - The continents assembled like islands off my coast. - My talk is with Homer and Bonaparte, with David and Garibaldi, with - China and Pharaoh and Texas; - When I laugh it is with Lucifer and Rabelais. - A pathfinder is my mistress, one hard to keep and unbridled— - I have no respect for tame women. - My friends and I do not meet every day, - For we are centuries apart, our salutations girdle the globe. - - I have eaten locusts with Jeremiah; - I invite all hatreds and the stings of little creatures— - They enrich me, I glory in my parasites. - - No man shall ever read me, - For I bring about in a gesture what they cannot fathom in a life; - Yet I tell Bob and Harry and Bill— - It costs me nothing to be kind; - If I am a generous adversary, be not deceived, neither be devoted— - It is because I despise you. - Yet if any man claim to be my peer I shall meet him, - For that man has an insolence that I like; - I am beholden to him. - I know the lightning when I see it, - And the toad when I see it... - I warn all pretenders. - Yet before I came it was known of me to the chosen, all that I should - do. - Every tree knew it; - Every lion and every leech knew it— - And called out to meet the new enemy, - The new friend... - What power can deny me? - It was known that I should do not one thing but hundreds, - For I despise my works and make them obey me. - I have my time and I bide it... - It was known that I should turn no whit from my end, until I had - attained it. - - Nothing has scathed me, - Nothing ever, nor ever will. - I have touched pitch, I have revelled in it and rolled in it; - Buried in mire and filth, I laughed long, - And sprang up. - I have loved lust and vain deviltries. - And taken them into my heart— - - Their dirt and their lies—and my heart was aflame - With a new fancy... - Not me can pitch defile! - For the Spring, my sister, rose under my feet - And I was again naked and white, - Ready to dive into the deep pool, green and bottomless, - The medium for heroes, since it is dangerous and beautiful— - The pool of Tomorrow! - It is because I breathe like fishes and live in the waters of Tomorrow - that Death fears me... - - How often I have intercepted thee, O Death! - O windy liar! - Thou canst do nothing against me; - If I command thee to stand back thou art afraid and cowerest, - For I have caught thee often and punished thee... - - I am the greatest laugher of all, - Greater than the sun and the oak-tree, - Than the frog and Apollo; - I laugh all day long! - I laugh at Death, I hail Death, I kiss her on the cheek as a lover his - bride, - But the lover goes not to his bride unless he desire her; - I go not to Death until I am ready. - The strong lover goes not to his bride save when he would people his - land with sons; - Then I, too, I go not to Death, save it be for the labor greater than - all others. - I shall break her with my laughter; - I shall complete her... - Only then shall Death be when I die! - - - - - Joyce Kilmer - - - TREES - - I think that I shall never see - A poem lovely as a tree. - - A tree whose hungry mouth is prest - Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast; - - A tree that looks at God all day, - And lifts her leafy arms to pray; - - A tree that may in summer wear - A nest of robins in her hair; - - Upon whose bosom snow has lain; - Who intimately lives with rain. - - Poems are made by fools like me, - But only God can make a tree. - - - EASTER - - The air is like a butterfly - With frail blue wings. - The happy earth looks at the sky - And sings. - - - - - Alfred Kreymborg - - - AMERICA - - Up and down he goes - With terrible, reckless strides, - Flaunting great lamps - With joyous swings— - One to the East - And one to the West— - And flaunting two words - In a thunderous call - That thrills the hearts of all enemies: - All, One; All, One; All, One; All, One! - Beware that queer, wild, wonderful boy - And his playground—don’t go near! - All, One; All, One; All, One; All, One; - Up and down he goes. - - - OLD MANUSCRIPT - - The sky - Is that beautiful old parchment - In which the sun - And the moon - Keep their diary. - To read it all, - One must be a linguist - More learned than Father Wisdom; - And a visionary - More clairvoyant than Mother Dream. - But to feel it, - One must be an apostle: - One who is more than intimate - In having been, always, - The only confidant— - Like the earth - Or the sea. - - - CÉZANNE - - Our door was shut to the noon-day heat. - We could not see him. - We might not have heard him either— - Resting, dozing, dreaming pleasantly. - But his step was tremendous— - Are mountains on the march? - - He was no man who passed; - But a great faithful horse - Dragging a load - Up the hill. - - - PARASITE - - Good woman: - Don’t love the man. - Love yourself, - As you have done so exquisitely before. - Like that tortoise-shell cat of yours - Washing away the flies; or are they fleas? - You’ve hurt him again? - Good! - Do it often. - No— - He’ll love you the more— - Always. - Remember how he forgave you the last time, - And how he loved you in the forgiving. - Give him an adventure in godhood - And the higher moralities. - Hurt him again. - Fine! - - - - - William Laird - - - TRAÜMEREI AT OSTENDORFF’S - - I ate at Ostendorff’s, and saw a dame - With eager golden eyes, paired with a red, - Bald, chilled, old man. Piercing the clatter came - Keen _Traümerei_. On the sound he bowed his head, - Covered his eyes, and looked on things long sped. - Her white fierce fingers strained, but could not stir - His close-locked hands, nor bring him back to her. - - Let him alone, bright lady; for he clips - A fairer lass than you, with all your fire: - Let him alone; he touches sweeter lips - Than yours he hired, as others yet shall hire: - Leave him the quickening pang of clean desire, - Even though vain: nor taint those spring winds blown - From banks of perished bloom: let him alone. - - Bitter-sweet melody, that call’st to tryst - Love from the hostile dark, would God thy breath - Might break upon him now through thickening mist, - The trumpet-summons of imperial Death; - That now, with fire-clean lips where quivereth - Atoning sorrow, he shall seek the eyes - Long turned towards earth from fields of paradise. - - In vain: by virtue of a far-off smile, - Men may be deaf a space to gross behests - Of nearer voices; for some little while - Sharp pains of youth may burn in old men’s breasts. - But—men must eat, though angels be their guests: - The waiter brought spaghetti; he looked up, - Hemmed, blinked, and fiddled with his coffee-cup. - - - A VERY OLD SONG - - “Daughter, thou art come to die: - Sound be thy sleeping, lass.” - “Well: without lament or cry, - Mother, let me pass.” - - “What things on mould were best of all? - (Soft be thy sleeping, lass.)” - “The apples reddening till they fall - In the sun beside the convent wall. - Let me pass.” - - “Whom on earth hast thou loved best? - (Sound be thy sleeping, lass.)” - “Him that shared with me thy breast; - Thee; and a knight last year our guest. - He hath an heron to his crest. - Let me pass.” - - “What leavest thou of fame or hoard? - (Soft be thy sleeping, lass.)” - “My far-blown shame for thy reward; - To my brother, gold to get him a sword. - Let me pass.” - - “But what wilt leave thy lover, Grim? - (Sound be thy sleeping, lass.)” - “The hair he kissed to strangle him. - Mother, let me pass.” - - - - - D. H. Lawrence - - - A WOMAN AND HER DEAD HUSBAND - - Ah stern cold man, - How can you lie so relentless hard - While I wash you with weeping water! - Ah face, carved hard and cold, - You have been like this, on your guard - Against me, since death began. - - You masquerader! - How can you shame to act this part - Of unswerving indifference to me? - It is not you; why disguise yourself - Against me, to break my heart, - You evader? - - You’ve a warm mouth, - A good warm mouth always sooner to soften - Even than your sudden eyes. - Ah cruel, to keep your mouth - Relentless, however often - I kiss it in drouth. - - You are not he. - Who are you, lying in his place on the bed - And rigid and indifferent to me? - His mouth, though he laughed or sulked, - Was always warm and red - And good to me. - - And his eyes could see - The white moon hang like a breast revealed - By the slipping shawl of stars, - Could see the small stars tremble - As the heart beneath did wield - Systole, diastole. - - And he showed it me - So, when he made his love to me; - And his brows like rocks on the sea jut out, - And his eyes were deep like the sea - With shadow, and he looked at me, - Till I sank in him like the sea, - Awfully. - - Oh, he was multiform— - Which then was he among the manifold? - The gay, the sorrowful, the seer? - I have loved a rich race of men in one— - But not this, this never-warm - Metal-cold—! - - Ah masquerader! - With your steel face white-enamelled, - Were you he, after all, and I never - Saw you or felt you in kissing? - —Yet sometimes my heart was trammelled - With fear, evader! - - Then was it you - After all, this cold, hard man? - —Ah no, look up at me, - Tell me it isn’t true, - That you’re only frightening me! - - You will not stir, - Nor hear me, not a sound. - —Then it was you— - And all this time you were - Like this when I lived with you. - - It is not true, - I am frightened, I am frightened of you - And of everything. - O God!—God too - Has deceived me in everything, - In everything. - - - FIREFLIES IN THE CORN - - _A woman taunts her lover_: - Look at the little darlings in the corn! - The rye is taller than you, who think yourself - So high and mighty: look how its heads are borne - Dark and proud on the sky, like a number of knights - Passing with spears and pennants and manly scorn. - - And always likely!—Oh, if I could ride - With my head held high-serene against the sky - Do you think I’d have a creature like you at my side - With your gloom and your doubt that you love me? - O darling rye, - How I adore you for your simple pride! - - And those bright fireflies wafting in between - And over the swaying cornstalks, just above - All their dark-feathered helmets, like little green - Stars come low and wandering here for love - Of this dark earth, and wandering all serene—! - - How I adore you, you happy things, you dears, - Riding the air and carrying all the time - Your little lanterns behind you: it cheers - My heart to see you settling and trying to climb - The corn-stalks, tipping with fire their spears. - All over the corn’s dim motion, against the blue - Dark sky of night, the wandering glitter, the swarm - Of questing brilliant things:—you joy, you true - Spirit of careless joy: ah, how I warm - My poor and perished soul at the joy of you! - - _The man answers and she mocks_: - You’re a fool, woman. I love you, and you know I do! - —Lord, take his love away, it makes him whine. - And I give you everything that you want me to. - —Lord, dear Lord, do you think he ever _can_ shine? - - - GREEN - - The dawn was apple-green, - The sky was green wine held up in the sun, - The moon was a golden petal between. - - She opened her eyes, and green - They shone, clear like flowers undone - For the first time, now for the first time seen. - - - GRIEF - - The darkness steals the forms of all the queens. - But oh, the palms of her two black hands are red! - It is Death I fear so much, it is not the dead— - Not this gray book, but the red and bloody scenes. - - The lamps are white like snowdrops in the grass; - The town is like a churchyard, all so still - And gray, now night is here: nor will - Another torn red sunset come to pass. - - And so I sit and turn the book of gray, - Feeling the shadows like a blind man reading, - All fearful lest I find some next word bleeding. - Nay, take my painted missal book away. - - - SERVICE OF ALL THE DEAD - - Between the avenue of cypresses - All in their scarlet capes and surplices - Of linen, go the chaunting choristers, - The priests in gold and black, the villagers. - - And all along the path to the cemetery - The round dark heads of men crowd silently; - And black-scarfed faces of women-folk wistfully - Watch at the banner of death, and the mystery. - - And at the foot of a grave a father stands - With sunken head and forgotten, folded hands; - And at the foot of a grave a mother kneels - With pale shut face, nor neither hears nor feels - - The coming of the chaunting choristers - Between the avenue of cypresses, - The silence of the many villagers, - The candle-flames beside the surplices. - - - - - Agnes Lee - - - MOTHERHOOD - - Mary, the Christ long slain, passed silently, - Following the children joyously astir - Under the cedrus and the olive-tree, - Pausing to let their laughter float to her. - Each voice an echo of a voice more dear, - She saw a little Christ in every face; - When lo, another woman, gliding near, - Yearned o’er the tender life that filled the place. - And Mary sought the woman’s hand, and spoke: - “I know thee not, yet know thy memory tossed - With all a thousand dreams their eyes evoke - Who bring to thee a child beloved and lost. - - “I, too, have rocked my little one. - Oh, He was fair! - Yea, fairer than the fairest sun, - And like its rays through amber spun - His sun-bright hair. - Still I can see it shine and shine.” - “Even so,” the woman said, “was mine.” - - “His ways were ever darling ways”— - And Mary smiled— - “So soft, so clinging! Glad relays - Of love were all His precious days. - My little child! - My infinite star! My music fled!” - “Even so was mine,” the woman said. - - Then whispered Mary: “Tell me, thou, - Of thine.” And she: - “Oh, mine was rosy as a bough - Blooming with roses, sent, somehow, - To bloom for me! - His balmy fingers left a thrill - Within my breast that warms me still.” - - Then gazed she down some wilder, darker hour, - And said—when Mary questioned, knowing not: - “Who art thou, mother of so sweet a flower?”— - “I am the mother of Iscariot.” - - - A STATUE IN A GARDEN - - I was a goddess ere the marble found me. - Wind, wind, delay not! - Waft my spirit where the laurel crowned me! - Will the wind stay not? - - Then tarry, tarry, listen, little swallow! - An old glory feeds me— - I lay upon the bosom of Apollo! - Not a bird heeds me. - - For here the days are alien. Oh, to waken - Mine, mine, with calling! - But on my shoulders bare, like hopes forsaken, - The dead leaves are falling. - - The sky is gray and full of unshed weeping - As dim down the garden - I wait and watch the early autumn sweeping. - The stalks fade and harden. - - The souls of all the flowers afar have rallied. - The trees, gaunt, appalling, - Attest the gloom, and on my shoulders pallid - The dead leaves are falling. - - - ON THE JAIL STEPS - - I’ve won the race. - Young man, I’m new! - _Old Sallow-face - Good luck to you!_ - - I’ve turned about, - And paid for sin. - _And you come out, - As I go in._ - - Ten years! but mark, - I am free, free! - _Ten years of dark - Shall gather me._ - - My wife—long-while - She wept her pain. - _She cannot smile; - She weeps again._ - - My little one - Shall know my call. - _Child is there none - For sin grows tall._ - - Now who are you, - Spar of hell’s flood? - _And who, and who, - But your own blood?_ - - - HER GOING - - _The Wife_ - Child, why do you linger beside her portal? - None shall hear you now if you knock or clamor. - All is dark, hidden in heaviest leafage. - None shall behold you. - - _Truth_ - Gone, gone, the dear, the beautiful lady! - I, her comrade, tarry but to lament her. - Ah, the day of her vanishing all things lovely - Shared in her fleetness! - Tell me her going. - - _The Wife_ - You are a child. How tell you? - - _Truth_ - I am a child, yet old as the earliest sorrow. - Talk to me as you would to an old, old woman. - I own the ages. - - _The Wife_ - Voices, they say, gossipped around her dwelling. - She awoke, departing, they say, in silence. - I am glad she is gone. The old hurt fastens. - Hate is upon me. - - It was hard to live down the day, and wonder, - Wonder why the tears were forever welling, - Wonder if on his lips her kiss I tasted - Turning to claim him. - - _Truth_ - Jealousy, mad, brooding blind and unfettered, - Takes its terrible leap over lie and malice. - Who shall question her now in the land of shadow? - Who shall uphold her? - - _The Wife_ - It was hard to know that peace had forsaken - All my house, to greet with a dull endeavor - Babe or book, so to forget a moment - I was forgotten. - - _Truth_ - Who shall question her now in the land of shadow, - Question the mute pale lips, and the marble fingers, - Eyelids fallen on eyes grown dim as the autumn? - Ah, the beloved! - - _The Wife_ - Go, go, bringer of ache and discord! - - _Truth_ - Go I may not. Some, they think to inter me. - Out of the mold and clay my visible raiment - Rises forever. - - _The Wife_ - Hers the sin that lured the light from our threshold, - Hers the sin that I lost his love and grew bitter. - - _Truth_ - Lost his love? You never possessed it, woman. - - _The Wife_ - Sharp tongue, have pity!... - - Yes, I knew. But I loved him, hoping for all. - I said in my heart: “Time shall bring buds to blossom.” - I almost saw the flower of the flame descending. - Then—she came toying. - - He is mine, mine, by the laws of the ages! - Mine, mine, mine—yes, body and spirit! - I am glad she has gone her way to the shadow. - Hate is upon me. - - Oh, the bar over which my soul would see - All that eludes my soul, while he remembers! - You, dispel if you can my avenging passion— - Clouds are before me! - - - - - William Ellery Leonard - - - INDIAN SUMMER - - _After completing a book for one now dead._ - - (_O Earth-and-Autumn of the Setting Sun, - She is not by, to know my task is done!_) - In the brown grasses slanting with the wind, - Lone as a lad whose dog’s no longer near, - Lone as a mother whose only child has sinned, - Lone on the loved hill.... And below me here - The thistle-down in tremulous atmosphere - Along red clusters of the sumach streams; - The shrivelled stalks of goldenrod are sere, - And crisp and white their flashing old racemes. - (... forever ... forever ... forever ...) - This is the lonely season of the year, - This is the season of our lonely dreams. - - (_O Earth-and-Autumn of the Setting Sun - She is not by, to know my task is done!_) - The corn-shocks westward on the stubble plain - Show like an Indian village of dead days; - The long smoke trails behind the crawling train, - And floats atop the distant woods ablaze - With orange, crimson, purple. The low haze - Dims the scarped bluffs above the inland sea, - Whose wide and slaty waters in cold glaze - Await yon full-moon of the night-to-be. - (.... far ... and far ... and far ...) - These are the solemn horizons of man’s ways, - These the horizons of solemn thought to me. - - (_O Earth-and-Autumn of the Setting Sun, - She is not by, to know my task is done!_) - And this the hill she visited, as friend; - And this the hill she lingered on, as bride— - Down in the yellow valley is the end: - They laid her ... in no evening autumn tide ... - Under fresh flowers of that May morn, beside - The queens and cave-women of ancient earth. - - This is the hill ... and over my city’s towers - Across the world from sunset, yonder in air, - Shines, through its scaffoldings, a civic dome - Of piled masonry, which shall be ours - To give, completed, to our children there ... - And yonder far roof of my abandoned home - Shall house new laughter.... Yet I tried ... I tried ... - And, ever wistful of the doom to come, - I built her many a fire for love ... for mirth ... - (When snows were falling on our oaks outside, - Dear, many a winter fire upon the hearth) ... - (... farewell ... farewell ... farewell ...) - We dare not think too long on those who died, - While still so many yet must come to birth. - - - - - Vachel Lindsay - - - GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH ENTERS INTO HEAVEN - - _To be sung to the tune of_ THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB _with indicated - instruments_. - - Booth led boldly with his big bass drum. - _Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?_ - The saints smiled gravely, and they said, “He’s come.” - _Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?_ [Sidenote: _Bass drums_] - Walking lepers followed, rank on rank, - Lurching bravos from the ditches dank, - Drabs from the alleyways and drug-fiends pale— - Minds still passion-ridden, soul-powers frail! - - Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy breath - Unwashed legions with the ways of death— - _Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?_ - - Every slum had sent its half-a-score - The round world over—Booth had groaned for more. - Every banner that the wide world flies - Bloomed with glory and transcendent dyes. - Big-voiced lasses made their banjos bang! [Sidenote: _Banjos_] - Tranced, fanatical, they shrieked and sang, - _Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?_ - Hallelujah! It was queer to see - Bull-necked convicts with that land make free! - Loons with bazoos blowing blare, blare, blare— - On, on, upward through the golden air. - _Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?_ - - Booth died blind, and still by faith he trod, - Eyes still dazzled by the ways of God. - Booth led boldly and he looked the chief: [Sidenote: _Bass drums slower - and softer_] - Eagle countenance in sharp relief, - Beard a-flying, air of high command - Unabated in that holy land. - - Jesus came from out the Court-House door, - Stretched his hands above the passing poor. - Booth saw not, but led his queer ones there [Sidenote: _Flutes_] - Round and round the mighty Court-House square. - Yet in an instant all that blear review - Marched on spotless, clad in raiment new. - The lame were straightened, withered limbs uncurled - And blind eyes opened on a new sweet world. - - Drabs and vixens in a flash made whole! [Sidenote: _Bass drums louder - and faster_] - Gone was the weasel-head, the snout, the jowl; - Sages and sibyls now, and athletes clean, - Rulers of empires, and of forests green! - - - The hosts were sandalled and their wings were fire— - _Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?_ - But their noise played havoc with the angel-choir. [Sidenote: _Grand - chorus tambourines—all instruments in full blast_] - _Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?_ - Oh, shout Salvation! it was good to see - Kings and princes by the Lamb set free. - The banjos rattled and the tambourines blast - Jing-jing-jingled in the hands of queens! - - And when Booth halted by the curb for prayer - He saw his Master through the flag-filled air. [Sidenote: _Reverently - sung—no instruments_] - Christ came gently with a robe and crown - For Booth the soldier while the throng knelt down. - He saw King Jesus—they were face to face, - And he knelt a-weeping in that holy place. - _Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?_ - - - THE EAGLE THAT IS FORGOTTEN - - _John P. Altgeld: Dec. 30, 1847–March 12, 1902._ - - Sleep softly ... eagle forgotten ... under the stone. - Time has its way with you there, and the clay has its own. - - “We have buried him now,” thought your foes, and in secret rejoiced. - They made a brave show of their mourning, their hatred unvoiced. - They had snarled at you, barked at you, foamed at you day after day; - Now you were ended. They praised you ... and laid you away. - - The others that mourned you in silence and terror and truth, - The widow bereft of her crust, and the boy without youth, - The mocked and the scorned and the wounded, the lame and the poor, - That should have remembered forever ... remember no more. - - Where are those lovers of yours, on what name do they call— - The lost, that in armies wept over your funeral pall? - They call on the names of a hundred high-valiant ones; - A hundred white eagles have risen, the sons of your sons. - The zeal in their wings is a zeal that your dreaming began, - The valor that wore out your soul in the service of man. - - Sleep softly ... eagle forgotten ... under the stone. - Time has its way with you there and the clay has its own. - Sleep on, O brave-hearted, O wise man, that kindled the flame— - To live in mankind is far more than to live in a name; - To live in mankind, far, far more ... than to live in a name. - - - THE CONGO - _A Study of the Negro Race_ - - - I—THEIR BASIC SAVAGERY - - - Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room, - Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable, - Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table, [Sidenote: _A deep rolling - bass_] - Pounded on the table, - Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom, - Hard as they were able, - Boom, boom, BOOM, - With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom, - Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM. - THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision. - I could not turn from their revel in derision. - THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK, [Sidenote: _More - deliberate. Solemnly chanted_] - CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK. - Then along that riverbank - A thousand miles - Tattooed cannibals danced in files; - Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song - And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong. - - And “BLOOD!” screamed the whistles and the fifes of the warriors, - [Sidenote: _A rapidly piling climax of speed and racket_] - “BLOOD!” screamed the skull-faced, lean witch-doctors; - “Whirl ye the deadly voo-doo rattle, - Harry the uplands, - Steal all the cattle, - Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle, - Bing! - Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM!” - A roaring, epic, rag-time tune [Sidenote: _With a philosophic pause_] - From the mouth of the Congo - To the Mountains of the Moon. - Death is an Elephant, - Torch-eyed and horrible, [Sidenote: _Shrilly and with a heavily accented - metre._] - Foam-flanked and terrible. - BOOM, steal the pygmies, - BOOM, kill the Arabs, - BOOM, kill the white men, - HOO, HOO, HOO. - Listen to the yell of Leopold’s ghost [Sidenote: _Like the wind in the - chimney_] - Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host. - Hear how the demons chuckle and yell - Cutting his hands off, down in Hell. - Listen to the creepy proclamation, - Blown through the lairs of the forest-nation, - Blown past the white-ants’ hill of clay, - Blown past the marsh where the butterflies play:— - “Be careful what you do, [Sidenote: _All the O sounds very golden. Heavy - accents very heavy. Light accents very light. Last line whispered._] - Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo, - And all of the other - Gods of the Congo, - Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, - Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, - Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.” - - - II—THEIR IRREPRESSIBLE HIGH SPIRITS - - Wild crap-shooters with a whoop and a call [Sidenote: _Rather shrill and - high_] - Danced the juba in their gambling-hall - And laughed fit to kill, and shook the town, - And guyed the policemen and laughed them down - With a boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM. - THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK, [Sidenote: _Read - exactly as in first section_] - CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK. - A negro fairyland swung into view, [Sidenote: _Lay emphasis on the - delicate ideas._] - A minstrel river - Where dreams come true. - The ebony palace soared on high [Sidenote: _Keep as light-footed as - possible_] - Through the blossoming trees to the evening sky. - The inlaid porches and casements shone - With gold and ivory and elephant-bone. - And the black crowd laughed till their sides were sore - At the baboon butler in the agate door, - And the well-known tunes of the parrot band - That trilled on the bushes of that magic land. - - A troupe of skull-faced witch-men came [Sidenote: _With pomposity_] - Through the agate doorway in suits of flame, - Yea, long-tailed coats with a gold-leaf crust - And hats that were covered with diamond-dust. - And the crowd in the court gave a whoop and a call - And danced the juba from wall to wall. - But the witch-men suddenly stilled the throng [Sidenote: _With a great - deliberation and ghostliness_] - With a stern cold glare, and a stern old song: - “Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.”... - Just then from the doorway, as fat as shotes [Sidenote: _With - overwhelming assurance, good cheer, and pomp_] - Came the cake-walk princes in their long red coats, - Canes with a brilliant lacquer shine, - And tall silk hats that were red as wine. - And they pranced with their butterfly partners there, [Sidenote: _With - growing speed and sharply marked dance-rhythm_] - Coal-black maidens with pearls in their hair, - Knee-skirts trimmed with the jassamine sweet, - And bells on their ankles and little black feet. - And the couples railed at the chant and the frown - Of the witch-men lean, and laughed them down. - (Oh, rare was the revel, and well worth while - That made those glowering witch-men smile.) - - - The cake-walk royalty then began - To walk for a cake that was tall as a man - To the tune of “Boomlay, boomlay, BOOM,” - While the witch-men laughed, with a sinister air, [Sidenote: _With a - touch of negro dialect, and as rapidly as possible toward the end_] - And sang with the scalawags prancing there: - “Walk with care, walk with care, - Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo, - And all of the other - Gods of the Congo, - Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you. - Beware, beware, walk with care, - Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom. - Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom, - Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom, - Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, - BOOM.” - Oh, rare was the revel, and well worth while [Sidenote: _Slow - philosophic calm_] - That made those glowering witch-men smile. - - - III—THE HOPE OF THEIR RELIGION - - A good old negro in the slums of the town [Sidenote: _Heavy bass. With a - literal imitation of camp-meeting racket, and trance_] - Preached at a sister for her velvet gown. - Howled at a brother for his low-down ways, - His prowling, guzzling, sneak-thief days. - Beat on the Bible till he wore it out - Starting the jubilee revival shout. - And some had visions, as they stood on chairs, - And sang of Jacob, and the golden stairs. - And they all repented, a thousand strong, - From their stupor and savagery and sin and wrong, - And slammed with their hymn-books till they shook the room - With “Glory, glory, glory,” - And “Boom, boom, BOOM.” - THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK, - CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK. - And the gray sky opened like a new-rent veil [Sidenote: _Exactly as in - the first section. Begin with terror and power, end with joy_] - And showed the apostles with their coats of mail. - In bright white steel they were seated round, - And their fire-eyes watched where the Congo wound. - And the twelve Apostles, from their thrones on high, - Thrilled all the forest with their heavenly cry: [Sidenote: _Sung to the - tune of “Hark, ten thousand harps and voices”_] - “Mumbo-Jumbo will die in the jungle; - Never again will he hoo-doo you, - Never again will he hoo-doo you.” - - - Then along that river, a thousand miles [Sidenote: _With growing - deliberation and joy_] - The vine-snared trees tell down in files. - Pioneer angels cleared the way - For a Congo paradise, for babes at play, - For sacred capitals, for temples clean. - Gone were the skull-faced witch-men lean. - There, where the wild ghost-gods had wailed, [Sidenote: _In a rather - high key—as delicately as possible_] - A million boats of the angels sailed - With oars of silver, and prows of blue - And silken pennants that the sun shone through. - ’Twas a land transfigured, ’twas a new creation. - Oh, a singing wind swept the negro nation, - And on through the backwoods clearing flew:— [Sidenote: _To the tune of - “Hark, ten thousand harps and voices”_] - “Mumbo-Jumbo is dead in the jungle. - Never again will he hoo-doo you. - Never again will he hoo-doo you.” - - Redeemed were the forests, the beasts and the men, - And only the vulture dared again - By the far, lone mountains of the moon - To cry, in the silence, the Congo tune: [Sidenote: _Dying down into a - penetrating, terrified whisper_] - “Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, - Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you. - Mumbo ... Jumbo ... will ... hoo-doo ... you.” - - - ALADDIN AND THE JINN - - “Bring me soft song,” said Aladdin; - “This tailor-shop sings not at all. - Chant me a word of the twilight, - Of roses that mourn in the fall. - Bring me a song like hashish - That will comfort the stale and the sad, - For I would be mending my spirit, - Forgetting these days that are bad: - Forgetting companions too shallow, - Their quarrels and arguments thin; - Forgetting the shouting muezzin.” - “_I am your slave_,” said the Jinn. - - “Bring me old wines,” said Aladdin, - “I have been a starved pauper too long. - Serve them in vessels of jade and of shell, - Serve them with fruit and with song: - Wines of pre-Adamite Sultans - Digged from beneath the black seas, - New-gathered dew from the heavens - Dripped down from heaven’s sweet trees, - Cups from the angels’ pale tables - That will make me both handsome and wise; - For I have beheld her, the Princess— - Firelight and starlight her eyes! - Pauper I am—I would woo her. - And ... let me drink wine to begin, - Though the Koran expressly forbids it.” - “_I am your slave_,” said the Jinn. - - “Plan me a dome,” said Aladdin, - “That is drawn like the dawn of the moon, - When the sphere seems to rest on the mountains - Half-hidden, yet full-risen soon. - Build me a dome,” said Aladdin, - “That shall cause all young lovers to sigh— - The fulness of life and of beauty, - Peace beyond peace to the eye; - A palace of foam and of opal, - Pure moonlight without and within, - Where I may enthrone my sweet lady.” - “_I am your slave_,” said the Jinn. - - - THE CHINESE NIGHTINGALE - -_A Song in Chinese Tapestries_ - -_Dedicated to S. T. F._ - - “How, how,” he said. “Friend Chang,” I said, - “San Francisco sleeps as the dead— - Ended license, lust and play: - Why do you iron the night away? - Your big clock speaks with a deadly sound, - With a tick and a wail till dawn comes round. - While the monster shadows glower and creep, - What can be better for man than sleep?” - - “I will tell you a secret,” Chang replied; - “My breast with vision is satisfied, - And I see green trees and fluttering wings, - And my deathless bird from Shanghai sings.” - Then he lit five fire-crackers in a pan. - “Pop, pop!” said the fire-crackers, “cra-cra-crack!” - He lit a joss-stick long and black. - Then the proud gray joss in the corner stirred; - On his wrist appeared a gray small bird, - And this was the song of the gray small bird: - - “Where is the princess, loved forever, - Who made Chang first of the kings of men?” - - And the joss in the corner stirred again; - And the carved dog, curled in his arms, awoke, - Barked forth a smoke-cloud that whirled and broke. - It piled in a maze round the ironing-place, - And there on the snowy table wide - Stood a Chinese lady of high degree, - With a scornful, witching, tea-rose face ... - Yet she put away all form and pride, - And laid her glimmering veil aside - With a childlike smile for Chang and for me. - - The walls fell back, night was aflower, - The table gleamed in a moonlit bower, - While Chang, with a countenance carved of stone, - Ironed and ironed, all alone. - And thus she sang to the busy man Chang: - “Have you forgotten ... - Deep in the ages, long, long ago, - I was your sweetheart, there on the sand— - Storm-worn beach of the Chinese land? - We sold our grain in the peacock town - Built on the edge of the sea-sands brown— - Built on the edge of the sea-sands brown ... - - “When all the world was drinking blood - From the skulls of men and bulls, - And all the world had swords and clubs of stone, - We drank our tea in China beneath the sacred spice-trees, - And heard the curled waves of the harbor moan. - And this gray bird, in Love’s first spring, - With a bright-bronze breast and a bronze-brown wing, - Captured the world with his carolling. - Do you remember, ages after, - At last the world we were born to own? - You were the heir of the yellow throne— - The world was the field of the Chinese man - And we were the pride of the sons of Han. - We copied deep books, and we carved in jade, - And wove white silks in the mulberry shade.”... - - “I remember, I remember - That Spring came on forever, - That Spring came on forever,” - Said the Chinese nightingale. - - My heart was filled with marvel and dream, - Though I saw the western street-lamps gleam, - Though dawn was bringing the western day, - Though Chang was a laundryman ironing away ... - Mingled there with the streets and alleys, - The railroad-yard, and the clock-tower bright, - Demon-clouds crossed ancient valleys; - Across wide lotus-ponds of light - I marked a giant firefly’s flight. - - And the lady, rosy-red, - Opened her fan, closed her fan, - Stretched her hand toward Chang, and said: - “Do you remember, - Ages after, - Our palace of heart-red stone? - Do you remember - The little doll-faced children - With their lanterns full of moon-fire, - That came from all the empire - Honoring the throne?— - The loveliest fête and carnival - Our world had ever known? - The sages sat about us - With their heads bowed in their beards, - With proper meditation on the sight. - Confucius was not born; - We lived in those great days - Confucius later said were lived aright ... - And this gray bird, on that day of spring, - With a bright-bronze breast and a bronze-brown wing, - Captured the world with his carolling. - Late at night his tune was spent. - Peasants, - Sages, - Children, - Homeward went, - And then the bronze bird sang for you and me. - We walked alone, our hearts were high and free. - I had a silvery name, I had a silvery name, - I had a silvery name—do you remember - The name you cried beside the tumbling sea?” - - Chang turned not to the lady slim— - He bent to his work, ironing away; - But she was arch and knowing and glowing. - And the bird on his shoulder spoke for him. - - “Darling ... darling ... darling ... darling ...” - Said the Chinese nightingale. - - · · · · · - - The great gray joss on a rustic shelf, - Rakish and shrewd, with his collar awry, - Sang impolitely, as though by himself, - Drowning with his bellowing the nightingale’s cry: - “Back through a hundred, hundred years - Hear the waves as they climb the piers, - Hear the howl of the silver seas, - Hear the thunder! - Hear the gongs of holy China - How the waves and tunes combine - In a rhythmic clashing wonder, - Incantation old and fine: - ‘Dragons, dragons, Chinese dragons; - Red fire-crackers, and green fire-crackers, - And dragons, dragons, Chinese dragons.’” - - Then the lady, rosy-red, - Turned to her lover Chang and said: - “Dare you forget that turquoise dawn - When we stood in our mist-hung velvet lawn, - And worked a spell this great joss taught - Till a God of the Dragons was charmed and caught? - From the flag high over our palace-home - He flew to our feet in rainbow-foam— - A king of beauty and tempest and thunder - Panting to tear our sorrows asunder, - A dragon of fair adventure and wonder. - We mounted the back of that royal slave - With thoughts of desire that were noble and grave. - We swam down the shore to the dragon-mountains, - We whirled to the peaks and the fiery fountains. - To our secret ivory house we were borne. - We looked down the wonderful wing-filled regions - Where the dragons darted in glimmering legions. - Right by my breast the nightingale sang; - The old rhymes rang in the sunlit mist - That we this hour regain— - Song-fire for the brain. - When my hands and my hair and my feet you kissed, - When you cried for your heart’s new pain, - What was my name in the dragon-mist, - In the rings of rainbowed rain?” - - “Sorrow and love, glory and love,” - Said the Chinese nightingale. - “Sorrow and love, glory and love,” - Said the Chinese nightingale. - - And now the joss broke in with his song: - “Dying ember, bird of Chang, - Soul of Chang, do you remember?— - Ere you returned to the shining harbor - There were pirates by ten thousand - Descended on the town - In vessels mountain-high and red and brown, - Moon-ships that climbed the storms and cut the skies. - On their prows were painted terrible bright eyes. - But I was then a wizard and a scholar and a priest; - I stood upon the sand; - With lifted hand I looked upon them - And sunk their vessels with my wizard eyes, - And the stately lacquer-gate made safe again. - Deep, deep below the bay, the sea-weed and the spray, - Embalmed in amber every pirate lies, - Embalmed in amber every pirate lies.” - - Then this did the noble lady say: - “Bird, do you dream of our home-coming day - When you flew like a courier on before - From the dragon-peak to our palace-door, - And we drove the steed in your singing path— - The ramping dragon of laughter and wrath; - And found our city all aglow, - And knighted this joss that decked it so? - There were golden fishes in the purple river - And silver fishes and rainbow fishes. - There were golden junks in the laughing river, - And silver junks and rainbow junks: - There were golden lilies by the bay and river, - And silver lilies and tiger-lilies, - And tinkling wind-bells in the gardens of the town - By the black-lacquer gate - Where walked in state - The kind king Chang - And his sweetheart mate ... - With his flag-born dragon - And his crown of pearl ... and ... jade; - And his nightingale reigning in the mulberry shade, - And sailors and soldiers on the sea-sands brown, - And priests who bowed them down to your song— - By the city called Han, the peacock town, - By the city called Han, the nightingale town, - The nightingale town.” - - Then sang the bird, so strangely gay, - Fluttering, fluttering, ghostly and gray, - A vague, unravelling, answering tune, - Like a long unwinding silk cocoon; - Sang as though for the soul of him - Who ironed away in that bower dim: - - “I have forgotten - Your dragons great, - Merry and mad and friendly and bold. - Dim is your proud lost palace-gate. - I vaguely know - There were heroes of old, - Troubles more than the heart could hold, - There were wolves in the woods - Yet lambs in the fold, - Nests in the top of the almond tree ... - The evergreen tree ... and the mulberry tree ... - Life and hurry and joy forgotten, - Years on years I but half-remember ... - Man is a torch, then ashes soon, - May and June, then dead December, - Dead December, then again June. - Who shall end my dream’s confusion? - Life is a loom, weaving illusion ... - I remember, I remember - There were ghostly veils and laces ... - In the shadowy, bowery places ... - With lovers’ ardent faces - Bending to one another, - Speaking each his part. - They infinitely echo - In the red cave of my heart. - ‘Sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart!’ - They said to one another. - They spoke, I think, of perils past. - They spoke, I think, of peace at last. - One thing I remember: - Spring came on forever, - Spring came on forever,” - Said the Chinese nightingale. - - - - - Amy Lowell - - - PATTERNS - - I walk down the garden paths, - And all the daffodils - Are blowing, and the bright blue squills. - I walk down the patterned garden paths - In my stiff, brocaded gown. - - With my powdered hair and jewelled fan, - I too am a rare - Pattern. As I wander down - The garden paths. - - My dress is richly figured, - And the train - Makes a pink and silver stain - On the gravel, and the thrift - Of the borders. - Just a plate of current fashion, - Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes. - Not a softness anywhere about me, - Only whale-bone and brocade. - And I sink on a seat in the shade - Of a lime tree. For my passion - Wars against the stiff brocade. - The daffodils and squills - Flutter in the breeze - As they please. - And I weep; - For the lime tree is in blossom - And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom. - - And the plashing of waterdrops - In the marble fountain - Comes down the garden paths. - The dripping never stops. - Underneath my stiffened gown - Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin, - A basin in the midst of hedges grown - So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding, - But she guesses he is near, - And the sliding of the water - Seems the stroking of a dear - Hand upon her. - - What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown! - I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground. - All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground. - - I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths, - And he would stumble after, - Bewildered by my laughter. - I should see the sun flashing from his sword hilt and the buckles on his - shoes. - I would choose - To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths, - A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover, - Till he caught me in the shade, - And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he clasped me, - Aching, melting, unafraid. - With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops, - And the plopping of the waterdrops, - All about us in the open afternoon— - I am very like to swoon - With the weight of this brocade, - For the sun shifts through the shade. - - Underneath the fallen blossom - In my bosom, - Is a letter I have hid. - It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the Duke. - “Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell - Died in action Thursday se’nnight.” - As I read it in the white, morning sunlight, - The letters squirmed like snakes. - “Any answer, Madam?” said my footman. - “No,” I told him. - “See that the messenger takes some refreshment. - No, no answer.” - - And I walked into the garden, - Up and down the patterned pat - In my stiff, correct brocade. - The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun, - Each one. - I stood upright too, - Held rigid to the pattern - By the stiffness of my gown. - Up and down I walked, - Up and down. - - In a month he would have been my husband. - In a month, here, underneath this lime, - We would have broke the pattern; - He for me, and I for him, - He as Colonel, I as Lady, - On this shady seat. - He had a whim - That sunlight carried blessing. - And I answered, “It shall be as you have said.” - Now he is dead. - - In Summer and in Winter I shall walk - Up and down - The patterned garden paths - In my stiff, brocaded gown. - The squills and daffodils - Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow. - I shall go - Up and down, - In my gown. - Gorgeously arrayed, - Boned and stayed. - And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace - By each button, hook, and lace. - - For the man who should loose me is dead, - Fighting with the Duke in Flanders, - In a pattern called a war. - Christ! What are patterns for? - - - 1777 - - - I—THE TRUMPET-VINE ARBOR - - The throats of the little red trumpet-flowers are wide open, - And the clangor of brass beats against the hot sunlight. - They bray and blare at the burning sky. - Red! Red! Coarse notes of red, - Trumpeted at the blue sky. - In long streaks of sound, molten metal, - The vine declares itself. - Clang!—from its red and yellow trumpets. - Clang!—from its long, nasal trumpets, - Splitting the sunlight into ribbons, tattered and shot with noise. - - I sit in the cool arbor, in a green and gold twilight. - It is very still, for I cannot hear the trumpets; - I only know that they are red and open, - And that the sun above the arbor shakes with heat. - My quill is newly mended, - And makes fine-drawn lines with its point. - Down the long white paper it makes little lines, - Just lines,—up—down—criss-cross. - My heart is strained out at the pin-point of my quill; - It is thin and writhing like the marks of the pen. - My hand marches to a squeaky tune, - It marches down the paper to a squealing of fifes. - My pen and the trumpet-flowers, - And Washington’s armies away over the smoke-tree to the southwest. - “Yankee Doodle,” my darling! It is you against the British, - Marching in your ragged shoes to batter down King George. - - What have you got in your hat? Not a feather, I wager. - Just a hay-straw, for it is the harvest you are fighting for. - Hay in your hat, and the whites of their eyes for a target! - Like Bunker Hill, two years ago, when I watched all day from the - housetop, - Through father’s spy-glass, - The red city, and the blue, bright water, - And puffs of smoke which you made. - Twenty miles away, - Round by Cambridge, or over the Neck, - But the smoke was white—white! - To-day the trumpet-flowers are red—red— - And I cannot see you fighting; - But old Mr. Dimond has fled to Canada, - And Myra sings “Yankee Doodle” at her milking. - - The red throats of the trumpets bray and clang in the sunshine, - And the smoke-tree puffs dun blossoms into the blue air. - - - II—THE CITY OF FALLING LEAVES - - Leaves fall, - Brown leaves, - Yellow leaves streaked with brown. - They fall, - Flutter, - Fall again. - The brown leaves, - And the streaked yellow leaves, - Loosen on their branches - And drift slowly downwards. - One, - One, two, three, - One, two, five. - All Venice is a falling of autumn leaves, - Brown, - And yellow streaked with brown. - - “That sonnet, Abate, - Beautiful, - I am quite exhausted by it. - Your phrases turn about my heart, - And stifle me to swooning. - Open the window, I beg. - Lord! What a strumming of fiddles and mandolins! - ’Tis really a shame to stop indoors. - Call my maid, or I will make you lace me yourself. - Fie, how hot it is, not a breath of air! - See how straight the leaves are falling. - Marianna, I will have the yellow satin caught up with silver fringe, - It peeps out delightfully from under a mantle. - Am I well painted to-day, _caro Abate mio_? - You will be proud of me at the Ridotto, hey? - Proud of being _cavalier servente_ to such a lady?” - “Can you doubt it, _bellissima Contessa_? - A pinch more rouge on the right cheek, - And Venus herself shines less ...” - “You bore me, Abate; - I vow I must change you! - A letter, Achmet? - Run and look out of the window, Abate. - I will read my letter in peace.” - - The little black slave with the yellow satin turban - Gazes at his mistress with strained eyes. - His yellow turban and black skin - Are gorgeous—barbaric. - The yellow satin dress with its silver flashings - Lies on a chair, - Beside a black mantle and a black mask. - Yellow and black, - Gorgeous—barbaric. - The lady reads her letter, - And the leaves drift slowly - Past the long windows. - “How silly you look, my dear Abate, - With that great brown leaf in your wig. - Pluck it off, I beg you, - Or I shall die of laughing.” - - A yellow wall, - Aflare in the sunlight, - Chequered with shadows, - Shadows of vine-leaves, - Shadows of masks. - Masks coming, printing themselves for an instant, - Then passing on, - More masks always replacing them. - Masks with tricorns and rapiers sticking out behind, - Pursuing masks with veils and high heels, - The sunlight shining under their insteps. - One, - One, two, - One, two, three— - There is a thronging of shadows on the hot wall, - Filigreed at the top with moving leaves. - Yellow sunlight and black shadows, - Yellow and black, - Gorgeous—barbaric. - Two masks stand together, - And the shadow of a leaf falls through them, - Marking the wall where they are not. - From hat-tip to shoulder-tip, - From elbow to sword-hilt, - The leaf falls. - The shadows mingle, - Blur together, - Slide along the wall and disappear. - Gold of mosaics and candles, - And night-blackness lurking in the ceiling beams. - Saint Mark’s glitters with flames and reflections. - A cloak brushes aside, - And the yellow of satin - Licks out over the colored inlays of the pavement. - Under the gold crucifixes - There is a meeting of hands - Reaching from black mantles. - Sighing embraces, bold investigations, - Hide in confessionals, - Sheltered by the shuffling of feet. - Gorgeous—barbaric - In its mail of jewels and gold, - Saint Mark’s looks down at the swarm of black masks; - And outside in the palace gardens brown leaves fall, - Flutter, - Fall. - Brown, - And yellow streaked with brown. - - Blue-black the sky over Venice, - With a pricking of yellow stars. - There is no moon, - And the waves push darkly against the prow - Of the gondola, - Coming from Malamocco - And streaming toward Venice. - It is black under the gondola hood, - But the yellow of a satin dress - Glares out like the eye of a watching tiger. - Yellow compassed about with darkness, - Yellow and black, - Gorgeous—barbaric. - The boatman sings, - It is Tasso that he sings; - The lovers seek each other beneath their mantles, - And the gondola drifts over the lagoon, aslant to the coming dawn. - But at Malamocco in front, - In Venice behind, - Fall the leaves, - Brown, - And yellow streaked with brown. - They fall, - Flutter, - Fall. - - - VENUS TRANSIENS - - Tell me, - Was Venus more beautiful - Than you are, - When she stopped - The crinkled waves, - Drifting shoreward - On her plaited shell? - Was Botticelli’s vision - Fairer than mine; - And were the painted rosebuds - He tossed his lady - Of better worth - Than the words I blow about you - To cover your too great loveliness - As with a gauze - Of misted silver? - - For me, - You stand poised - In the blue and buoyant air, - Cinctured by bright winds, - Treading the sunlight. - And the waves which precede you - Ripple and stir - The sands at my feet. - - - A LADY - - You are beautiful and faded, - Like an old opera tune - Played upon a harpsichord; - Or like the sun-flooded silks - Of an eighteenth century boudoir. - In your eyes - Smoulder the fallen roses of outlived minutes, - And the perfume of your soul - Is vague and suffusing, - With the pungence of sealed spice jars. - Your half-tones delight me, - And I grow mad with gazing - At your blent colors. - - My vigor is a new-minted penny, - Which I cast at your feet. - Gather it up from the dust, - That its sparkle may amuse you. - - - CHINOISERIES - - - REFLECTIONS - - When I looked into your eyes, - I saw a garden - With peonies, and tinkling pagodas, - And round-arched bridges - Over still lakes. - A woman sat beside the water - In a rain-blue, silken garment. - She reached through the water - To pluck the crimson peonies - Beneath the surface, - But as she grasped the stems, - They jarred and broke into white-green ripples, - And as she drew out her hand, - The water-drops dripping from it - Stained her rain-blue dress like tears. - - - FALLING SNOW - - The snow whispers about me, - And my wooden clogs - Leave holes behind me in the snow. - But no one will pass this way - Seeking my footsteps, - And when the temple bell rings again - They will be covered and gone. - - - HOAR-FROST - - In the cloud-gray mornings - I heard the herons flying; - And when I came into my garden, - My silken outer-garment - Trailed over withered leaves. - A dried leaf crumbles at a touch, - But I have seen many Autumns - With herons blowing like smoke - Across the sky. - - - SOLITAIRE - - When night drifts along the streets of the city, - And sifts down between the uneven roofs, - My mind begins to peek and peer. - It plays at ball in old, blue Chinese gardens, - And shakes wrought dice-cups in Pagan temples, - Amid the broken flutings of white pillars. - It dances with purple and yellow crocuses in its hair, - And its feet shine as they flutter over drenched grasses. - How light and laughing my mind is, - When all the good folk have put out their bed-room candles, - And the city is still! - - - A GIFT - - See! I give myself to you, Beloved! - My words are little jars - For you to take and put upon a shelf. - Their shapes are quaint and beautiful, - And they have many pleasant colors and lustres - To recommend them. - Also the scent from them fills the room - With sweetness of flowers and crushed grasses. - - When I shall have given you the last one - You will have the whole of me, - But I shall be dead. - - - RED SLIPPERS - -Red slippers in a shop-window; and outside in the street, flaws of gray, -windy sleet! - - -Behind the polished glass the slippers hang in long threads of red, -festooning from the ceiling like stalactites of blood, flooding the eyes -of passers-by with dripping color, jamming their crimson reflections -against the windows of cabs and tram-cars, screaming their claret and -salmon into the teeth of the sleet, plopping their little round maroon -lights upon the tops of umbrellas. - - -The row of white, sparkling shop-fronts is gashed and bleeding, it -bleeds red slippers. They spout under the electric light, fluid and -fluctuating, a hot rain—and freeze again to red slippers, myriadly -multiplied in the mirror side of the window. - -They balance upon arched insteps like springing bridges of crimson -lacquer; they swing up over curved heels like whirling tanagers sucked -in a wind-pocket; they flatten out, heelless, like July ponds, flared -and burnished by red rockets. - -Snap, snap, they are cracker sparks of scarlet in the white, monotonous -block of shops. - -They plunge the clangor of billions of vermilion trumpets into the crowd -outside, and echo in faint rose over the pavement. - - -People hurry by, for these are only shoes, and in a window farther down -is a big lotus bud of cardboard, whose petals open every few minutes and -reveal a wax doll, with staring bead eyes and flaxen hair, lolling -awkwardly in its flower chair. - -One has often seen shoes, but whoever saw a cardboard lotus bud before? - - -The flaws of gray, windy sleet beat on the shop-window where there are -only red slippers. - - - APOLOGY - - Be not angry with me that I bear - Your colors everywhere, - All through each crowded street, - And meet - The wonder-light in every eye, - As I go by. - - Each plodding wayfarer looks up to gaze, - Blinded by rainbow-haze, - The stuff of happiness, - No less, - Which wraps me in its glad-hued folds - Of peacock golds. - - Before my feet the dusty, rough-paved way - Flushes beneath its gray. - My steps fall ringed with light, - So bright - It seems a myriad suns are strown - About the town. - - Around me is the sound of steepled bells, - And rich perfumèd smells - Hang like a wind-forgotten cloud, - And shroud - Me from close contact with the world. - I dwell, impearled. - - You blazon me with jewelled insignia. - A flaming nebula - Rims in my life. And yet - You set - The word upon me, unconfessed, - To go unguessed. - - - - - Percy Mackaye - - - OLD AGE - - Old Age, the irrigator, - Digs our bosoms straighter, - More workable and deeper still - To turn the ever-running mill - Of nights and days. He makes a trough - To drain our passions off, - That used so beautiful to lie - Variegated to the sky, - On waste moorlands of the heart— - Haunts of idleness, and art - Still half-dreaming. All their piedness, - Rank and wild and shallow wideness, - Desultory splendors, he - Straightens conscientiously - To a practicable sluice - Meant for workaday, plain use. - All the mists of early dawn, - Twilit marshes, being gone - With their glamor, and their stench, - There is left—a narrow trench. - - - SONG FROM “MATER” - - Long ago, in the young moonlight, - I lost my heart to a hero; - Strong and tender and stern and right, - Darker than night, - And terribler than Nero. - Heigh, but he was dear, O! - - And there, to bind our fellowship, - I laughed at him; and a moment after, - I laughed again till he bit his lip, - For the test of love is laughter. - - “Lord and master, look up!” I cried; - “I wreathe your brow with a laurel! - Gloom and wisdom and right and pride - Cast them aside, - And kiss, and cure our quarrel. - Never mind the moral!” - - Alas! with strange and saddened eyes - He looked on me; and my mirth grew dafter, - To feel the flush of his dark surprise; - For the zest of love is laughter. - - Long ago, in the old moonlight, - I lost my hero and lover; - Strong and tender and stern and right, - Never shall night - Nor day his brow uncover. - Ah, my heart, that is over! - - Yet still, for joy of the fellowship - That bound us both through the years long after, - I laugh to think how he bit his lip; - For the test of love— - And the best of love—is laughter. - - - - - Frederic Manning - - - SACRIFICE - - Love suffereth all things, - And we, - Out of the travail and pain of our striving, - Bring unto Thee the perfect prayer: - For the lips of no man utter love, - Suffering even for love’s sake. - - For us no splendid apparel of pageantry— - Burnished breast-plates, scarlet banners, and trumpets - Sounding exultantly. - But the mean things of the earth Thou hast chosen, - Decked them with suffering; - Made them beautiful with the passion for rightness, - Strong with the pride of love. - - Yea, though our praise of Thee slayeth us, - Yet love shall exalt us beside Thee triumphant, - Dying that these live; - And the earth again be beautiful with orchards, - Yellow with wheatfields; - And the lips of others praise Thee, though our lips - Be stopped with earth, and songless. - Yet we shall have brought Thee their praises - Brought unto Thee the perfect prayer: - For the lips of no man utter love, - Suffering even for love’s sake. - - O God of sorrows, - Whose feet come softly through the dews, - Stoop Thou unto us, - For we die so Thou livest, - Our hearts the cups of Thy vintage: - And the lips of no man utter love, - Suffering even for love’s sake. - - - AT EVEN - - Hush ye! Hush ye! My babe is sleeping. - Hush, ye winds, that are full of sorrow! - Hush, ye rains, from your weary weeping! - Give him slumber until to-morrow. - - Hush ye, yet! In the years hereafter, - Surely sorrow is all his reaping; - Tears shall be in the place of laughter, - Give him peace for a while in sleeping. - - Hush ye, hush! he is weak and ailing: - Send his mother his share of weeping. - Hush ye, winds, from your endless wailing; - Hush ye, hush ye, my babe is sleeping! - - - - - John Masefield - - - SHIPS - - I cannot tell their wonder nor make known - Magic that once thrilled through me to the bone; - But all men praise some beauty, tell some tale, - Vent a high mood which makes the rest seem pale, - Pour their heart’s blood to flourish one green leaf, - Follow some Helen for her gift of grief, - And fail in what they mean, whate’er they do: - You should have seen, man cannot tell to you - The beauty of the ships of that my city. - - That beauty now is spoiled by the sea’s pity; - For one may haunt the pier a score of times, - Hearing St. Nicholas bells ring out the chimes, - Yet never see those proud ones swaying home - With mainyards backed and bows a cream of foam, - Those bows so lovely-curving, cut so fine, - Those coulters of the many-bubbled brine, - As once, long since, when all the docks were filled - With that sea-beauty man has ceased to build. - - Yet, though their splendor may have ceased to be - Each played her sovereign part in making me; - Now I return my thanks with heart and lips - For the great queenliness of all those ships. - - And first the first bright memory, still so clear, - An autumn evening in a golden year, - When in the last lit moments before dark - The _Chepica_, a steel-gray lovely barque, - Came to an anchor near us on the flood, - Her trucks aloft in sun-glow red as blood. - - Then come so many ships that I could fill - Three docks with their fair hulls remembered still, - Each with her special memory’s special grace, - Riding the sea, making the waves give place - To delicate high beauty; man’s best strength, - Noble in every line in all their length. - _Ailsa_, _Genista_, ships, with long jibbooms, - The _Wanderer_ with great beauty and strange dooms, - _Liverpool_ (mightiest then) superb, sublime, - The _California_ huge, as slow as time. - The _Copley_ swift, the perfect _J. T. North_, - The loveliest barque my city has sent forth, - Dainty _John Lockett_ well remembered yet, - The splendid _Argus_ with her skysail set, - Stalwart _Drumcliff_, white-blocked, majestic _Sierras_, - Divine bright ships, the water’s standard-bearers; - _Melpomene_, _Euphrosyne_, and their sweet - Sea-troubling sisters of the Fernie fleet; - _Corunna_ (in whom my friend died) and the old - Long since loved _Esmeralda_ long since sold. - _Centurion_ passed in Rio, _Glaucus_ spoken, - _Aladdin_ burnt, the _Bidston_ water-broken, - _Yola_, in whom my friend sailed, _Dawpool_ trim, - Fierce-bowed _Egeria_ plunging to the swim, - _Stanmore_ wide-sterned, sweet _Cupica_, tall _Bard_, - Queen in all harbors with her moon-sail yard. - - Though I tell many, there must still be others, - McVickar Marshall’s ships and Fernie Brothers’, - _Lochs_, _Counties_, _Shires_, _Drums_, the countless lines - Whose house-flags all were once familiar signs - At high main-trucks on Mersey’s windy ways - When sunlight made the wind-white water blaze. - Their names bring back old mornings, when the docks - Shone with their house-flags and their painted blocks, - Their raking masts below the Custom House - And all the marvellous beauty of their bows. - - Familiar steamers, too, majestic steamers, - Shearing Atlantic roller-tops to streamers, - _Umbria_, _Etruria_, noble, still at sea, - The grandest, then, that man had brought to be. - _Majestic_, _City of Paris_, _City of Rome_, - Forever jealous racers, out and home. - - The _Alfred Holt’s_ blue smoke-stacks down the stream, - The fair _Loanda_ with her bows a-cream. - Booth liners, Anchor liners, Red Star liners, - The marks and styles of countless ship-designers, - The _Magdalena_, _Puno_, _Potosi_, - Lost _Cotopaxi_, all well known to me. - - These splendid ships, each with her grace, her glory, - Her memory of old song or comrade’s story, - Still in my mind the image of life’s need, - Beauty in hardest action, beauty indeed. - “They built great ships and sailed them,” sounds most brave, - Whatever arts we have or fail to have. - I touch my country’s mind, I come to grips - With half her purpose, thinking of these ships: - That art untouched by softness, all that line - Drawn ringing hard to stand the test of brine; - That nobleness and grandeur, all that beauty - Born of a manly life and bitter duty; - That splendor of fine bows which yet could stand - The shock of rollers never checked by land; - That art of masts, sail-crowded, fit to break, - Yet stayed to strength and backstayed into rake; - The life demanded by that art, the keen - Eye-puckered, hard-case seamen, silent, lean. - They are grander things than all the art of towns; - Their tests are tempests and the sea that drowns. - They are my country’s line, her great art done - By strong brains laboring on the thought unwon. - They mark our passage as a race of men— - Earth will not see such ships as those again. - - - CARGOES - - Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir, - Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, - With a cargo of ivory, - And apes and peacocks, - Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine. - - Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus, - Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores, - With a cargo of diamonds, - Emeralds, amethysts, - Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores. - - Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke-stack, - Butting through the Channel in the mad March days, - With a cargo of Tyne coal, - Road-rails, pig-lead, - Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays. - - - WATCHING BY A SICK-BED - - I heard the wind all day, - And what it was trying to say. - I heard the wind all night - Rave as it ran to fight; - After the wind the rain, - And then the wind again - Running across the hill - As it runs still. - - And all day long the sea - Would not let the land be, - But all night heaped her sand - On to the land; - I saw her glimmer white - All through the night, - Tossing the horrid hair - Still tossing there. - - And all day long the stone - Felt how the wind was blown; - And all night long the rock - Stood the sea’s shock; - While, from the window, I - Looked out, and wondered why, - Why at such length - Such force should fight such strength. - - - WHAT AM I, LIFE? - - What am I, Life? A thing of watery salt - Held in cohesion by unresting cells, - Which work they know not why, which never halt, - Myself unwitting where their Master dwells. - I do not bid them, yet they toil, they spin - A world which uses me as I use them; - Nor do I know which end or which begin - Nor which to praise, which pamper, which condemn. - So, like a marvel in a marvel set, - I answer to the vast, as wave by wave - The sea of air goes over, dry or wet, - Or the full moon comes swimming from her cave, - Or the great sun comes forth: this myriad I - Tingles, not knowing how, yet wondering why. - - - - - Edgar Lee Masters - - - SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY - - - THE HILL - - _Where are Elmer, Herman, Bert, Tom and Charley, - The weak of will, the strong of arm, the clown, the boozer, the fighter? - All, all, are sleeping on the hill._ - - _One passed in a fever, - One was burned in a mine, - One was killed in a brawl, - One died in a jail, - One fell from a bridge toiling for children and wife— - All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill._ - - _Where are Ella, Kate, Mag, Lizzie and Edith, - The tender heart, the simple soul, the loud, the proud, the happy one?— - All, all, are sleeping on the hill._ - - _One died in shameful child-birth, - One of a thwarted love, - One at the hands of a brute in a brothel, - One of a broken pride, in the search for heart’s desire, - One after life in far-away London and Paris - Was brought to her little space by Ella and Kate and Mag— - All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill._ - - - _Where are Uncle Isaac and Aunt Emily, - And old Towny Kincaid and Sevigne Houghton, - And Major Walker who had talked - With venerable men of the revolution?— - All, all, are sleeping on the hill._ - - _They brought them dead sons from the war, - And daughters whom life had crushed, - And their children fatherless, crying— - All, all are sleeping, sleeping, sleeping on the hill._ - - _Where is Old Fiddler Jones - Who played with life all his ninety years, - Braving the sleet with bared breast, - Drinking, rioting, thinking neither of wife nor kin, - Nor gold, nor love, nor heaven? - Lo! he babbles of the fish-frys of long ago, - Of the horse-races of long ago at Clary’s Grove, - Of what Abe Lincoln said - One time at Springfield._ - - - OLLIE M^cGEE - - Have you seen walking through the village - A man with downcast eyes and haggard face? - That is my husband who, by secret cruelty - Never to be told, robbed me of my youth and my beauty; - Till at last, wrinkled and with yellow teeth, - And with broken pride and shameful humility, - I sank into the grave. - But what think you gnaws at my husband’s heart? - The face of what I was, the face of what he made me! - These are driving him to the place where I lie. - In death, therefore, I am avenged. - - - DAISY FRASER - - Did you ever hear of Editor Whedon - Giving to the public treasury any of the money he received - For supporting candidates for office? - Or for writing up the canning factory - To get people to invest? - Or for suppressing the facts about the bank, - When it was rotten and ready to break? - Did you ever hear of the Circuit Judge - Helping anyone except the “Q” railroad, - Or the bankers? Or did Rev. Peet or Rev. Sibley - Give any part of their salary, earned by keeping still, - Or speaking out as the leaders wished them to do, - To the building of the water works? - But I—Daisy Fraser, who always passed - Along the streets through rows of nods and smiles, - And coughs and words such as “there she goes,” - Never was taken before Justice Arnett - Without contributing ten dollars and costs - To the school fund of Spoon River! - - - HARE DRUMMER - - Do the boys and girls still go to Siever’s - For cider, after school, in late September? - Or gather hazel nuts among the thickets - On Aaron Hatfield’s farm when the frosts begin? - For many times with the laughing girls and boys - Played I along the road and over the hills - When the sun was low and the air was cool, - Stopping to club the walnut tree - Standing leafless against a flaming west. - Now, the smell of the autumn smoke, - And the dropping acorns, - And the echoes about the vales - Bring dreams of life. They hover over me. - They question me: - Where are those laughing comrades? - How many are with me, how many - In the old orchards along the way to Siever’s, - And in the woods that overlook - The quiet water? - - - DOC HILL - - I went up and down the streets - Here and there by day and night, - Through all hours of the night caring for the poor who were sick. - Do you know why? - My wife hated me, my son went to the dogs. - And I turned to the people and poured out my love to them. - Sweet it was to see the crowds about the lawns on the day of my funeral, - And hear them murmur their love and sorrow. - But oh, dear God, my soul trembled, scarcely able - To hold to the railing of the new life - When I saw Em Stanton behind the oak tree - At the grave, - Hiding herself, and her grief! - - - FIDDLER JONES - - The earth keeps some vibration going - There in your heart, and that is you. - And if the people find you can fiddle, - Why, fiddle you must, for all your life. - What do you see, a harvest of clover? - Or a meadow to walk through to the river? - The wind’s in the corn; you rub your hands - For beeves hereafter ready for market; - Or else you hear the rustle of skirts - Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove. - To Cooney Potter a pillar of dust - Or whirling leaves meant ruinous drouth; - They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy - Stepping it off, to “Toor-a-Loor.” - How could I till my forty acres - Not to speak of getting more, - With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos - Stirred in my brain by crows and robins - And the creak of a wind-mill—only these? - And I never started to plow in my life - That some one did not stop in the road - And take me away to a dance or picnic. - I ended up with forty acres; - I ended up with a broken fiddle— - And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories, - And not a single regret. - - - THOMAS RHODES - - Very well, you liberals, - And navigators into realms intellectual, - You sailors through heights imaginative, - Blown about by erratic currents, tumbling into air pockets, - You Margaret Fuller Slacks, Petits, - And Tennessee Claflin Shopes— - You found with all your boasted wisdom - How hard at the last it is - To keep the soul from splitting into cellular atoms. - While we, seekers of earth’s treasures, - Getters and hoarders of gold, - Are self-contained, compact, harmonized, - Even to the end. - - - EDITOR WHEDON - - To be able to see every side of every question; - To be on every side, to be everything, to be nothing long; - To pervert truth, to ride it for a purpose, - To use great feelings and passions of the human family - For base designs, for cunning ends, - To wear a mask like the Greek actors— - Your eight-page paper—behind which you huddle, - Bawling through the megaphone of big type: - “This is I, the giant.” - Thereby also living the life of a sneak-thief, - Poisoned with the anonymous words - Of your clandestine soul. - To scratch dirt over scandal for money, - And exhume it to the winds for revenge, - Or to sell papers - Crushing reputations, or bodies, if need be, - To win at any cost, save your own life. - To glory in demoniac power, ditching civilization, - As a paranoiac boy puts a log on the track - And derails the express train. - To be an editor, as I was— - Then to lie here close by the river over the place - Where the sewage flows from the village, - And the empty cans and garbage are dumped, - And abortions are hidden. - - - SETH COMPTON - - When I died, the circulating library - Which I built up for Spoon River, - And managed for the good of inquiring minds, - Was sold at auction on the public square, - As if to destroy the last vestige - Of my memory and influence. - For those of you who could not see the virtue - Of knowing Volney’s _Ruins_ as well as Butler’s _Analogy_ - And _Faust_ as well as _Evangeline_, - Were really the power in the village, - And often you asked me, - “What is the use of knowing the evil in the world?” - I am out of your way now, Spoon River— - Choose your own good and call it good. - For I could never make you see - That no one knows what is good - Who knows not what is evil; - And no one knows what is true - Who knows not what is false. - - - HENRY C. CALHOUN - - I reached the highest place in Spoon River, - But through what bitterness of spirit! - The face of my father, sitting speechless, - Child-like, watching his canaries, - And looking at the court-house window - Of the county judge’s room, - And his admonitions to me to seek - My own in life, and punish Spoon River - To avenge the wrong the people did him, - Filled me with furious energy - To seek for wealth and seek for power. - But what did he do but send me along - The path that leads to the grove of the Furies? - I followed the path and I tell you this: - On the way to the grove you’ll pass the Fates, - Shadow-eyed, bent over their weaving. - Stop for a moment, and if you see - The thread of revenge leap out of the shuttle - Then quickly snatch from Atropos - The shears and cut it, lest your sons, - And the children of them and their children - Wear the envenomed robe. - - - PERRY ZOLL - - My thanks, friends of the County Scientific Association, - For this modest boulder, - And its little tablet of bronze. - Twice I tried to join your honored body, - And was rejected, - And when my little brochure - On the intelligence of plants - Began to attract attention - You almost voted me in. - After that I grew beyond the need of you - And your recognition. - Yet I do not reject your memorial stone, - Seeing that I should, in so doing, - Deprive you of honor to yourselves. - - - ARCHIBALD HIGBIE - - I loathed you, Spoon River. I tried to rise above you, - I was ashamed of you. I despised you - As the place of my nativity. - And there in Rome, among the artists, - Speaking Italian, speaking French, - I seemed to myself at times to be free - Of every trace of my origin. - I seemed to be reaching the heights of art - And to breathe the air that the masters breathed, - And to see the world with their eyes. - But still they’d pass my work and say: - “What are you driving at, my friend? - Sometimes the face looks like Apollo’s, - At others it has a trace of Lincoln’s.” - There was no culture, you know, in Spoon River, - And I burned with shame and held my peace. - And what could I do, all covered over - And weighted down with western soil, - Except aspire, and pray for another - Birth in the world, with all of Spoon River - Rooted out of my soul? - - - FATHER MALLOY - - You are over there, Father Malloy, - Where holy ground is, and the cross marks every grave, - Not here with us on the hill— - Us of wavering faith, and clouded vision - And drifting hope, and unforgiven sins. - You were so human, Father Malloy, - Taking a friendly glass sometimes with us, - Siding with us who would rescue Spoon River - From the coldness and the dreariness of village morality. - You were like a traveler who brings a little box of sand - From the wastes about the pyramids - And makes them real and Egypt real. - You were a part of and related to a great past, - And yet you were so close to many of us. - You believed in the joy of life. - You did not seem to be ashamed of the flesh. - You faced life as it is, - And as it changes. - Some of us almost came to you, Father Malloy, - Seeing how your church had divined the heart, - And provided for it, - Through Peter the Flame, - Peter the Rock. - - - LUCINDA MATLOCK - - I went to the dances at Chandlerville, - And played snap-out at Winchester. - One time we changed partners, - Driving home in the moonlight of middle June, - And then I found Davis. - We were married and lived together for seventy years, - Enjoying, working, raising the twelve children, - Eight of whom we lost - Ere I had reached the age of sixty. - I spun, I wove, I kept the house, I nursed the sick, - I made the garden, and for holiday - Rambled over the fields where sang the larks, - And by Spoon River gathering many a shell, - And many a flower and medicinal weed— - Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys. - At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all, - And passed to a sweet repose. - What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness, - Anger, discontent and drooping hopes? - Degenerate sons and daughters, - Life is too strong for you— - It takes life to love Life. - - - ANNE RUTLEDGE - - Out of me unworthy and unknown - The vibrations of deathless music; - “With malice toward none, with charity for all.” - Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions, - And the beneficent face of a nation - Shining with justice and truth. - I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds, - Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln, - Wedded to him, not through union, - But through separation. - Bloom forever, O Republic, - From the dust of my bosom! - - - WILLIAM H. HERNDON - - There by the window in the old house - Perched on the bluff, overlooking miles of valley, - My days of labor closed, sitting out life’s decline, - Day by day did I look in my memory, - As one who gazes in an enchantress’ crystal globe, - And I saw the figures of the past, - As if in a pageant glassed by a shining dream, - Move through the incredible sphere of time. - And I saw a man arise from the soil like a fabled giant - And throw himself over a deathless destiny, - Master of great armies, head of the republic, - Bringing together into a dithyramb of recreative song - The epic hopes of a people; - At the same time Vulcan of sovereign fires, - Where imperishable shields and swords were beaten out - From spirits tempered in heaven. - Look in the crystal! See how he hastens on - To the place where his path comes up to the path - Of a child of Plutarch and Shakespeare. - O Lincoln, actor indeed, playing well your part, - And Booth, who strode in a mimic play within the play, - Often and often I saw you, - As the cawing crows winged their way to the wood - Over my house-top at solemn sunsets, - There by my window, - Alone. - - - RUTHERFORD M^cDOWELL - - They brought me ambrotypes - Of the old pioneers to enlarge. - And sometimes one sat for me— - Some one who was in being - When giant hands from the womb of the world - Tore the republic. - What was it in their eyes?— - For I could never fathom - That mystical pathos of drooped eyelids, - And the serene sorrow of their eyes. - It was like a pool of water, - Amid oak trees at the edge of a forest, - Where the leaves fall, - As you hear the crow of a cock - From a far-off farm house, seen near the hills - Where the third generation lives, and the strong men - And the strong women are gone and forgotten. - And these grand-children and great grand-children - Of the pioneers!— - Truly did my camera record their faces, too, - With so much of the old strength gone, - And the old faith gone, - And the old mastery of life gone, - And the old courage gone, - Which labors and loves and suffers and sings - Under the sun! - - - ARLO WILL - - Did you ever see an alligator - Come up to the air from the mud, - Staring blindly under the full glare of noon? - Have you seen the stabled horses at night - Tremble and start back at the sight of a lantern? - Have you ever walked in darkness - When an unknown door was open before you - And you stood, it seemed, in the light of a thousand candles - Of delicate wax? - Have you walked with the wind in your ears - And the sunlight about you - And found it suddenly shine with an inner splendor? - Out of the mud many times, - Before many doors of light, - Through many fields of splendor, - Where around your steps a soundless glory scatters - Like new-fallen snow, - Will you go through earth, O strong of soul, - And through unnumbered heavens - To the final flame! - - - AARON HATFIELD - - Better than granite, Spoon River, - Is the memory-picture you keep of me - Standing before the pioneer men and women - There at Concord Church on Communion day. - Speaking in broken voice of the peasant youth - Of Galilee who went to the city - And was killed by bankers and lawyers; - My voice mingling with the June wind - That blew over wheat fields from Atterbury; - While the white stones in the burying ground - Around the Church shimmered in the summer sun. - And there, though my own memories - Were too great to bear, were you, O pioneers, - With bowed heads breathing forth your sorrow - For the sons killed in battle and the daughters - And little children who vanished in life’s morning, - Or at the intolerable hour of noon. - But in those moments of tragic silence, - When the wine and bread were passed, - Came the reconciliation for us— - Us the ploughmen and the hewers of wood, - Us the peasants, brothers of the peasant of Galilee— - To us came the Comforter - And the consolation of tongues of flame! - - - WEBSTER FORD - - Do you remember, O Delphic Apollo, - The sunset hour by the river, when Mickey M’Grew - Cried, “There’s a ghost,” and I, “It’s Delphic Apollo”; - And the son of the banker derided us, saying, “It’s light - By the flags at the water’s edge, you half-witted fools.” - And from thence, as the wearisome years rolled on, long after - Poor Mickey fell down in the water tower to his death, - Down, down, through bellowing darkness, I carried - The vision which perished with him like a rocket which falls - And quenches its light in earth, and hid it for fear - Of the son of the banker, calling on Plutus to save me? - Avenged were you for the shame of a fearful heart, - Who left me alone till I saw you again in an hour - When I seemed to be turned to a tree with trunk and branches - Growing indurate, turning to stone, yet burgeoning - In laurel leaves, in hosts of lambent laurel, - Quivering, fluttering, shrinking, fighting the numbness - Creeping into their veins from the dying trunk and branches! - ’Tis vain, O youth, to fly the call of Apollo. - Fling yourselves in the fire, die with a song of spring, - If die you must in the spring. For none shall look - On the face of Apollo and live, and choose you must - ’Twixt death in the flame and death after years of sorrow, - Rooted fast in the earth, feeling the grisly hand, - Not so much in the trunk as in the terrible numbness - Creeping up to the laurel leaves that never cease - To flourish until you fall. O leaves of me - Too sere for coronal wreaths, and fit alone - For urns of memory, treasured, perhaps, as themes - For hearts heroic, fearless singers and livers— - Delphic Apollo! - - - SILENCE - - I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea, - And the silence of the city when it pauses, - And the silence of a man and a maid, - And the silence of the sick - When their eyes roam about the room. - And I ask: For the depths - Of what use is language? - A beast of the field moans a few times - When death takes its young. - And we are voiceless in the presence of realities— - We cannot speak. - - A curious boy asks an old soldier - Sitting in front of the grocery store, - “How did you lose your leg?” - And the old soldier is struck with silence, - Or his mind flies away - Because he cannot concentrate it on Gettysburg. - It comes back jocosely - And he says, “A bear bit it off.” - And the boy wonders, while the old soldier - Dumbly, feebly lives over - The flashes of guns, the thunder of cannon, - The shrieks of the slain, - And himself lying on the ground, - And the hospital surgeons, the knives, - And the long days in bed. - But if he could describe it all - He would be an artist. - But if he were an artist there would be deeper wounds - Which he could not describe. - - There is the silence of a great hatred, - And the silence of a great love, - And the silence of an embittered friendship. - There is the silence of a spiritual crisis, - Through which your soul, exquisitely tortured, - Comes with visions not to be uttered - Into a realm of higher life. - There is the silence of defeat. - There is the silence of those unjustly punished; - And the silence of the dying whose hand - Suddenly grips yours. - There is the silence between father and son, - When the father cannot explain his life, - Even though he be misunderstood for it. - - There is the silence that comes between husband and wife. - There is the silence of those who have failed; - And the vast silence that covers - Broken nations and vanquished leaders. - There is the silence of Lincoln, - Thinking of the poverty of his youth. - And the silence of Napoleon - After Waterloo. - And the silence of Jeanne d’Arc - Saying amid the flames, “Blessed Jesus”— - Revealing in two words all sorrows, all hope. - And there is the silence of age, - Too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it - In words intelligible to those who have not lived - The great range of life. - - And there is the silence of the dead. - If we who are in life cannot speak - Of profound experiences, - Why do you marvel that the dead - Do not tell you of death? - Their silence shall be interpreted - As we approach them. - - - - - Alice Meynell - - - MATERNITY - - One wept whose only child was dead - New-born, ten years ago. - “Weep not; he is in bliss,” they said. - She answered, “Even so. - - “Ten years ago was born in pain - A child not now forlorn. - But oh, ten years ago, in vain - A mother, a mother was born.” - - - CHIMES - - Brief on a flying night, - From the shaken tower, - A flock of bells take flight, - And go with the hour. - - Like birds from the cote to the gales, - Abrupt—oh, hark!— - A fleet of bells set sails, - And go to the dark. - - Sudden the cold airs swing: - Alone, aloud, - A verse of bells takes wing - And flies with the cloud. - - - - - Max Michelson - - - O BROTHER TREE - - O brother tree! O brother tree! Tell to me, thy brother, - The secret of thy life, - The wonder of thy being. - - My brother tree, my brother tree, - My heart is open to thee— - Reveal me all thy secrets. - - Beloved tree, beloved tree, - I have shattered all my pride. - I love thee, brother, as myself. - Oh, explain to me thy wonders. - - Beloved one, adored one, - I will not babble of it among fools— - I will tell it only to the unspoiled: - Reveal to me thy being. - - I have watched thy leaves in sunshine, - I have heard them in the storm. - My heart drank a droplet of thy holy joy and wonder, - One drop from the ocean of thy wonder. - - I am thy humble brother—I am thine own. - Reveal thy life to me, - Reveal thy calm joy to me, - Reveal to me thy serene knowledge. - - - THE BIRD - - _From a branch - The bird called_: - - I hold your heart - I wash it - And scour it - With bits of song - Like pebbles; - And your doubts - And your sorrows - Fall—drip, drip, drip— - Like dirty water. - I pipe to it - In little notes - Of life clear as a pool, - And of death - Clearer still; - And I swoop with it - In the blue - And in the nest - Of a cloud. - - - STORM - - Storm, - Wild one, - Take me in your whirl, - In your giddy reel, - In your shot-like leaps and flights. - Hear me call—stop and hear. - I know you, blusterer; I know you, wild one— - I know your mysterious call. - - - A HYMN TO NIGHT - - Come, mysterious night; - Descend and nestle to us. - - Descend softly on the houses - We built with pride, - Without worship. - Fold them in your veil, - Spill your shadows. - - Come over our stores and factories, - Hide our pride—our shame— - With your nebulous wings. - - Come down on our cobbled streets: - Unleash your airy hounds. - Come to the sleepers, night; - Light in them your fires. - - - LOVE LYRIC - - Stir— - Shake off sleep. - Your eyes are the soul of clear waters— - Pigeons - In a city street. - - Suns now dead - Have tucked away of their gold for your hair: - My buried mouth still tastes their fires. - - A tender god built your breasts— - Apples of desire; - Their whiteness slakes the throat; - Their form soothes like honey. - - Wake up! - Or the song-bird in my heart - Will peck open the shell of your dreams. - - · · · · · - - Sleep, my own, - Soaring over rivers of fire. - Sleep, my own, - Wading waters of gold. - - Joy is in my heart— - It flutters around in my soul. - ... Softly— - I hear the rosy dreams ... - - - - - Edna St. Vincent Millay - - - GOD’S WORLD - - O world, I cannot hold thee close enough! - Thy winds, thy wide gray skies! - Thy mists, that roll and rise! - Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag - And all but cry with color! That gaunt crag - To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff! - World, world, I cannot get thee close enough! - - Long have I known a glory in it all - But never knew I this. - Here such a passion is - As stretcheth me apart. Lord, I do fear - Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year. - My soul is all but out of me—let fall - No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call. - - - ASHES OF LIFE - - Love has gone and left me, and the days are all alike. - Eat I must, and sleep I will—and would that night were here! - But ah, to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike! - Would that it were day again, with twilight near! - - Love has gone and left me, and I don’t know what to do; - This or that or what you will is all the same to me; - But all the things that I begin I leave before I’m through— - There’s little use in anything as far as I can see. - - Love has gone and left me, and the neighbors knock and borrow, - And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse. - And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow - There’s this little street and this little house. - - - THE SHROUD - - Death, I say, my heart is bowed - Unto thine, O mother! - This red gown will make a shroud - Good as any other. - - (I, that would not wait to wear - My own bridal things, - In a dress dark as my hair - Made my answerings. - - I, to-night, that till he came - Could not, could not wait, - In a gown as bright as flame - Held for them the gate.) - - Death, I say, my heart is bowed - Unto thine, O mother! - This red gown will make a shroud - Good as any other. - - - - - Harold Monro - - - GREAT CITY - - When I returned at sunset, - The serving-maid was singing softly - Under the dark stairs, and in the house - Twilight had entered like a moon-ray. - Time was so dead I could not understand - The meaning of midday or of midnight, - But like falling waters, falling, hissing, falling, - Silence seemed an everlasting sound. - - I sat in my room, - And watched sunset, - And saw starlight. - I heard the tramp of homing men, - And the last call of the last child; - Then a lone bird twittered, - And suddenly, beyond the housetops, - I imagined dew in the country, - In the hay, on the buttercups; - The rising moon, - The scent of early night, - The songs, the echoes, - Dogs barking, - Day closing, - Gradual slumber, - Sweet rest. - - When all the lamps were lighted in the town - I passed into the street ways and I watched, - Wakeful, almost happy, - And half the night I wandered in the street. - - - YOUTH IN ARMS - - Happy boy, happy boy, - David the immortal-willed, - Youth a thousand thousand times - Slain, but not once killed, - Swaggering again today - In the old contemptuous way; - - Leaning backward from your thigh - Up against the tinselled bar— - Dust and ashes! is it you? - Laughing, boasting, there you are! - First we hardly recognized you - In your modern avatar. - - Soldier, rifle, brown khaki— - Is your blood as happy so? - Where’s your sling or painted shield, - Helmet, pike or bow? - Well, you’re going to the wars— - That is all you need to know. - - Graybeards plotted. They were sad. - Death was in their wrinkled eyes. - At their tables—with their maps, - Plans and calculations—wise - They all seemed; for well they knew - How ungrudgingly Youth dies. - - At their green official baize - They debated all the night - Plans for your adventurous days - Which you followed with delight, - Youth in all your wanderings, - David of a thousand slings. - - - THE STRANGE COMPANION - - _A Fragment_ - - That strange companion came on shuffling feet, - Passed me, then turned, and touched my arm. - - He said (and he was melancholy, - And both of us looked fretfully, - And slowly we advanced together), - He said: “I bring you your inheritance.” - - I watched his eyes; they were dim. - I doubted him, watched him, doubted him ... - But, in a ceremonious way, - He said: “You are too grey: - Come, you must be merry for a day.” - - And I, because my heart was dumb, - Because the life in me was numb, - Cried: “I will come. I _will_ come.” - - So, without another word, - We two jaunted on the street. - I had heard, often heard, - The shuffling of those feet of his, - The shuffle of his feet. - - And he muttered in my ear - Such a wheezy jest - As a man may often hear— - Not the worst, not the best - That a man may hear. - - Then he murmured in my face - Something that was true. - He said: “I have known this long, long while, - All there is to know of you.” - And the light of the lamp cut a strange smile - On his face, and we muttered along the street, - Good enough friends, on the usual beat. - - We lived together long, long. - We were always alone, he and I. - We never smiled with each other; - We were like brother and brother, - Dimly accustomed. - Can a man know - Why he must live, or where he should go? - - He brought me that joke or two, - And we roared with laughter, for want of a smile, - As every man in the world might do. - He who lies all night in bed - Is a fool, and midnight will crush his head. - - When he threw a glass of wine in my face - One night, I hit him, and we parted; - But in a short space - We came back to each other melancholy-hearted, - Told our pain, - Swore we would not part again. - - One night we turned a table over - The body of some slain fool to cover, - And all the company clapped their hands; - So we spat in their faces, - And travelled away to other lands. - - I wish for every man he find - A strange companion so - Completely to his mind - With whom he everywhere may go. - - - - - Harriet Monroe - - - THE HOTEL - - The long resounding marble corridors, the shining parlors with shining - women in them. - The French room, with its gilt and garlands under plump little tumbling - painted Loves. - The Turkish room, with its jumble of many carpets and its stiffly - squared un-Turkish chairs. - The English room, all heavy crimson and gold, with spreading palms - lifted high in round green tubs. - The electric lights in twos and threes and hundreds, made into festoons - and spirals and arabesques, a maze and magic of bright persistent - radiance. - The people sitting in corners by twos and threes, and cooing together - under the glare. - The long rows of silent people in chairs, watching with eyes that see - not while the patient band tangles the air with music. - The bell-boys marching in with cards, and shouting names over and over - into ears that do not heed. - The stout and gorgeous dowagers in lacy white and lilac, bedizened with - many jewels, with smart little scarlet or azure hats on their - gray-streaked hair. - - The business men in trim and spotless suits, who walk in and out with - eager steps, or sit at the desks and tables, or watch the shining - women. - The telephone girls forever listening to far voices, with the silver - band over their hair and the little black caps obliterating their - ears. - The telegraph tickers sounding their perpetual chit—chit-chit from the - uttermost ends of the earth. - The waiters, in black swallow-tails and white aprons, passing here and - there with trays of bottles and glasses. - The quiet and sumptuous bar-room, with purplish men softly drinking in - little alcoves, while the barkeeper, mixing bright liquors, is - rapidly plying his bottles. - The great bedecked and gilded café, with its glitter of a thousand - mirrors, with its little white tables bearing gluttonous dishes - whereto bright forks, held by pampered hands, flicker daintily back - and forth. - The white-tiled, immaculate kitchen, with many little round blue fires, - where white-clad cooks are making spiced and flavored dishes. - The cool cellars filled with meats and fruits, or layered with sealed - and bottled wines mellowing softly in the darkness. - The invisible stories of furnaces and machines, burrowing deep into the - earth, where grimy workmen are heavily laboring. - The many-windowed stories of little homes and shelters and - sleeping-places, reaching up into the night like some miraculous, - high-piled honey-comb of wax-white cells. - The clothes inside of the cells—the stuffs, the silks, the laces; the - elaborate delicate disguises that wait in trunks and drawers and - closets, or bedrape and conceal human flesh. - The people inside of the clothes, the bodies white and young, bodies fat - and bulging, bodies wrinkled and wan, all alike veiled by fine - fabrics, sheltered by walls and roofs, shut in from the sun and - stars. - - The soul inside of the bodies—the naked souls; souls weazen and weak, or - proud and brave; all imprisoned in flesh, wrapped in woven stuffs, - enclosed in thick and painted masonry, shut away with many shadows - from the shining truth. - God inside of the souls, God veiled and wrapped and imprisoned and - shadowed in fold on fold of flesh and fabrics and mockeries; but ever - alive, struggling and rising again, seeking the light, freeing the - world. - - - THE TURBINE - - _To W. S. M._ - - Look at her—there she sits upon her throne - As ladylike and quiet as a nun! - But if you cross her—whew! her thunderbolts - Will shake the earth! She’s proud as any queen, - The beauty—knows her royal business too, - To light the world, and does it night by night - When her gay lord, the sun, gives up his job. - I am her slave; I wake and watch and run - From dark till dawn beside her. All the while - She hums there softly, purring with delight - Because men bring the riches of the earth - To feed her hungry fires. I do her will - And dare not disobey, for her right hand - Is power, her left is terror, and her anger - Is havoc. Look—if I but lay a wire - Across the terminals of yonder switch - She’ll burst her windings, rip her casings off, - And shriek till envious Hell shoots up its flames, - Shattering her very throne. And all her people, - The laboring, trampling, dreaming crowds out there— - Fools and the wise who look to her for light— - Will walk in darkness through the liquid night - Submerged. - - Sometimes I wonder why she stoops - To be my friend—oh yes, who talks to me - And sings away my loneliness; my friend - Though I am trivial and she sublime. - Hard-hearted?—No, tender and pitiful, - As all the great are. Every arrogant grief - She comforts quietly, and all my joys - Dance to her measures through the tolerant night. - She talks to me, tells me her troubles too, - Just as I tell her mine. Perhaps she feels - An ache deep down—that agonizing stab - Of grit grating her bearings; then her voice - Changes its tune, it wails and calls to me - To soothe her anguish, and I run, her slave, - Probe like a surgeon and relieve the pain. - - We have our jokes too, little mockeries - That no one else in all the swarming world - Would see the point of. She will laugh at me - To show her power: maybe her carbon packings - Leak steam, and I run madly back and forth - To keep the infernal fiends from breaking loose: - Suddenly she will throttle them herself - And chuckle softly, far above me there, - At my alarms. - - But there are moments—hush!— - When my turn comes; her slave can be her master, - Conquering her he serves. For she’s a woman, - Gets bored there on her throne, tired of herself, - Tingles with power that turns to wantonness. - Suddenly something’s wrong—she laughs at me, - Bedevils the frail wires with some mad caress - That thrills blind space, calls down ten thousand lightnings - To ruin her pomp and set her spirit free. - Then with this puny hand, swift as her threat, - Must I beat back the chaos, hold in leash - Destructive furies, rescue her—even her— - From the fierce rashness of her truant mood, - And make me lord of far and near a moment, - Startling the mystery. Last night I did it— - Alone here with my hand upon her heart - I faced the mounting fiends and whipped them down; - And never a wink from the long file of lamps - Betrayed her to the world. - - So there she sits, - Mounted on all the ages, at the peak - Of time. The first man dreamed of light, and dug - The sodden ignorance away, and cursed - The darkness; young primeval races dragged - Foundation stones, and piled into the void - Rage and desire; the Greek mounted and sang - Promethean songs and lit a signal fire: - The Roman bent his iron will to forge - Deep furnaces; slow epochs riveted - With hope the secret chambers: till at last - We, you and I, this living age of ours, - A new-winged Mercury, out of the skies - Filch the wild spirit of light, and chain him there - To do her will forever. - - Look, my friend, - Here is a sign! What is this crystal sphere— - This little bulb of glass I lightly lift, - This iridescent bubble a child might blow - Out of its brazen pipe to hold the sun— - What strange toy is it? In my hand it lies - Cold and inert, its puny artery— - That curling cobweb film—ashen and dead. - But now—a twist or two—let it but touch - The hem, far trailing, of my lady’s robe, - And look, the burning life-blood of the stars - Leaps to its heart, and glows against the dark, - Kindling the world. - - Even so I touch her garment, - Her servant through the quiet night; and thus - I lay my hand upon the Pleiades - And feel their throb of fire. Grandly she gives - To me unworthy; woman inscrutable, - Scatters her splendors through my darkness, leads me - Far out into the workshop of the worlds. - There I can feel those infinite energies - Our little earth just gnaws at through the ether, - And see the light our sunshine hides. Out there, - Close to the heart of life, I am at peace. - - - ON THE PORCH - - As I lie roofed in, screened in, - From the pattering rain, - The summer rain— - As I lie - Snug and dry, - And hear the birds complain: - - Oh, billow on billow, - Oh, roar on roar, - Over me wash - The seas of war. - Over me—down—down— - Lunges and plunges - The huge gun with its one blind eye, - The armored train, - And, swooping out of the sky, - The aeroplane. - - Down—down— - The army proudly swinging - Under gay flags, - The glorious dead heaped up like rags, - A church with bronze bells ringing, - A city all towers, - Gardens of lovers and flowers, - The round world swinging - In the light of the sun: - All broken, undone, - All down—under - Black surges of thunder ... - - Oh, billow on billow - Oh, roar on roar, - Over me wash - The seas of war ... - - As I lie roofed in, screened in, - From the pattering rain, - The summer rain— - As I lie - Snug and dry, - And hear the birds complain. - - - THE WONDER OF IT - - How wild, how witch-like weird that life should be! - That the insensate rock dared dream of me, - And take to bursting out and burgeoning— - Oh, long ago—yo ho!— - And wearing green! How stark and strange a thing - That life should be! - - Oh, mystic mad, a rigadoon of glee, - That dust should rise, and leap alive, and flee - A-foot, a-wing, and shake the deeps with cries— - Oh, far away—yo-hay! - What moony masque, what arrogant disguise - That life should be! - - - THE INNER SILENCE - - Noises that strive to tear - Earth’s mantle soft of air - And break upon the stillness where it dwells: - The noise of battle and the noise of prayer, - The cooing noise of love that softly tells - Joy’s brevity, the brazen noise of laughter— - All these affront me not, nor echo after - Through the long memories. - They may not enter the deep chamber where - Forever silence is. - - Silence more soft than spring hides in the ground - Beneath her budding flowers; - Silence more rich than ever was the sound - Of harps through long warm hours. - It’s like a hidden vastness, even as though - Great suns might there beat out their measures slow, - Nor break the hush mightier than they. - There do I dwell eternally, - There where no thought may follow me, - Nor stillest dreams whose pinions plume the way. - - - LOVE SONG - - I love my life, but not too well - To give it to thee like a flower, - So it may pleasure thee to dwell - Deep in its perfume but an hour. - I love my life, but not too well. - - I love my life, but not too well - To sing it note by note away, - So to thy soul the song may tell - The beauty of the desolate day. - I love my life, but not too well. - - I love my life, but not too well - To cast it like a cloak on thine, - Against the storms that sound and swell - Between thy lonely heart and mine. - I love my life, but not too well. - - - A FAREWELL - - Good-by!—no, do not grieve that it is over, - The perfect hour; - That the winged joy, sweet honey-loving rover, - Flits from the flower. - - Grieve not—it is the law. Love will be flying— - Oh, love and all. - Glad was the living—blessed be the dying! - Let the leaves fall. - - - LULLABY - - My little one, sleep softly - Among the toys and flowers. - Sleep softly, O my first-born son, - Through all the long dark hours. - And if you waken far away - I shall be wandering too. - If far away you run and play - My heart must follow you. - - Sleep softly, O my baby, - And smile down in your sleep. - Here are red rose-buds for your bed— - Smile, and I will not weep. - We made our pledge—you did not fear - To go—why then should I? - Though long you sleep, I shall be near; - So hush—we must not cry. - - Sleep softly, dear one, softly— - They can not part us now; - Forever rest here on my breast, - My kiss upon your brow. - What though they hide a little grave - With dream-flowers false or true? - What difference? We will just be brave - Together—I and you. - - - PAIN - - She heard the children playing in the sun, - And through her window saw the white-stemmed trees - Sway like a film of silver in the breeze - Under the purple hills; and one by one - She noted chairs and cabinets, and spun - The pattern of her bed’s pale draperies: - Yet all the while she knew that each of these - Was a dull lie, in irony begun. - For down in hell she lay, whose livid fires - Love may not quench, whose pangs death may not quell. - The round immensity of earth and sky - Shrank to a point that speared her. Loves, desires, - Darkened to torturing ministers of hell, - Whose mockery of joy deepened the lie. - - Little eternities the black hours were, - That no beginning knew, that knew no end. - Day waned, and night came like a faithless friend, - Bringing no joy; till slowly over her - A numbness grew, and life became a blur, - A silence, an oblivion, a dark blend - Of dim lost agonies, whose downward trend - Led into time’s eternal sepulchre. - And yet, when, after aeons infinite - Of dark eclipse she woke—lo, it was day! - The pictures hung upon the walls, each one; - Under the same rose-patterned coverlet - She lay; spring was still young, and still the play - Of happy children sounded in the sun. - - - THE WATER OUZEL - - Little brown surf-bather of the mountains! - Spirit of foam, lover of cataracts, shaking your wings in falling - waters! - Have you no fear of the roar and rush when Nevada plunges— - Nevada, the shapely dancer, feeling her way with slim white fingers? - How dare you dash at Yosemite the mighty— - Tall, white-limbed Yosemite, leaping down, down, over the cliff? - Is it not enough to lean on the blue air of mountains? - Is it not enough to rest with your mate at timber-line, in bushes that - hug the rocks? - Must you fly through mad waters where the heaped-up granite breaks them? - Must you batter your wings in the torrent? - Must you plunge for life or death through the foam? - - - THE PINE AT TIMBER-LINE - - What has bent you, - Warped and twisted you, - Torn and crippled you?— - What has embittered you, - O lonely tree? - - You search the rocks for a footing, - dragging scrawny roots; - You bare your thin breast to the storms, - and fling out wild arms behind you; - You throw back your witch-like head, - with wisps of hair stringing the wind. - - You fight with the snows, - You rail and shriek at the tempests. - Old before your time, you challenge the cold stars. - - Be still, be satisfied! - Stand straight like your brothers in the valley, - The soft green valley of summer down below. - - Why front the endless winter of the peak? - Why seize the lightning in your riven hands? - Why cut the driven wind and shriek aloud? - - Why tarry here? - - - MOUNTAIN SONG - - I have not where to lay my head; - Upon my breast no child shall lie; - For me no marriage feast is spread: - I walk alone under the sky. - - My staff and scrip I cast away— - Light-burdened to the mountain height! - Climbing the rocky steep by day, - Kindling my fire against the night. - - The bitter hail shall flower the peak, - The icy wind shall dry my tears. - Strong shall I be, who am but weak, - When bright Orion spears my fears. - - Under the horned moon I shall rise - Up-swinging on the scarf of dawn. - The sun, searching with level eyes, - Shall take my hand and lead me on. - - Wide flaming pinions veil the West— - Ah, shall I find? and shall I know? - My feet are bound upon the Quest— - Over the Great Divide I go. - - - - - John G. Neihardt - - - PRAYER FOR PAIN - - I do not pray for peace nor ease, - Nor truce from sorrow: - No suppliant on servile knees - Begs here against to-morrow! - - Lean flame against lean flame we flash, - O Fates that meet me fair; - Blue steel against blue steel we clash— - Lay on, and I shall dare! - - But Thou of deeps the awful Deep, - Thou Breather in the clay, - Grant this my only prayer—Oh, keep - My soul from turning gray! - - For until now, whatever wrought - Against my sweet desires, - My days were smitten harps strung taut, - My nights were slumberous lyres. - - And howsoe’er the hard blow rang - Upon my battered shield, - Some lark-like, soaring spirit sang - Above my battle-field. - - And through my soul of stormy night - The zigzag blue flame ran. - I asked no odds—I fought my fight— - Events against a man. - - But now—at last—the gray mist chokes - And numbs me. Leave me pain! - Oh, let me feel the biting strokes, - That I may fight again! - - - ENVOI - - Oh, seek me not within a tomb— - Thou shalt not find me in the clay! - I pierce a little wall of gloom - To mingle with the day! - - I brothered with the things that pass, - Poor giddy joy and puckered grief; - I go to brother with the grass - And with the sunning leaf. - - Not death can sheathe me in a shroud; - A joy-sword whetted keen with pain, - I join the armies of the cloud, - The lightning and the rain. - - Oh, subtle in the sap athrill, - Athletic in the glad uplift, - A portion of the cosmic will, - I pierce the planet-drift. - - My God and I shall interknit - As rain and ocean, breath and air; - And oh, the luring thought of it - Is prayer! - - - - - Yone Noguchi - - - THE POET - - Out of the deep and the dark, - A sparkling mystery, a shape, - Something perfect, - Comes like the stir of the day: - One whose breath is an odor, - Whose eyes show the road to stars, - The breeze in his face, - The glory of heaven on his back. - He steps like a vision hung in air, - Diffusing the passion of eternity; - His abode is the sunlight of morn, - The music of eve his speech: - In his sight, - One shall turn from the dust of the grave, - And move upward to the woodland. - - - I HAVE CAST THE WORLD - - I have cast the world, - and think me as nothing. - Yet I feel cold on snow-falling day, - And happy on flower day. - - - - - Grace Fallow Norton - - - ALLEGRA AGONISTES - - A gleam of gold in gloom and gray, - A call from out a fairer day. - O pang at heart and ebbing blood! - (Hush, bread and salt should be thy mood, - Stern woman of the Brotherhood.) - - Clamor of golden tones and tunes, - Hunt of faint horns, breath of bassoons; - They wound my soul again; I lie - Face earthward in fresh agony. - Oh, give me joy before I die! - - World, world, I could have danced for thee, - And I had tales and minstrelsy; - Kept fairer, I had been more good. - (Hush, bread and salt should be thy mood, - Soul of the breadless Brotherhood.) - - Some thou hast formed to play thy part, - The bold, the cold, the hard of heart. - Thy rue upon my lips I toss. - Rose was my right. O world, the loss, - When Greek limbs writhe upon the cross! - - - MAKE NO VOWS - - I made a vow once, one only. - I was young and I was lonely. - When I grew strong I said: “This vow - Is too narrow for me now. - Who am I to be bound by old oaths? - I will change them as I change my clothes!” - - But that ancient outworn vow - Was like fetters upon me now. - It was hard to break, hard to break; - Hard to shake from me, hard to shake. - - I broke it by day, but it closed upon me at night. - He is not free who is free only in the sun-light. - He is not free who bears fetters in his dreams, - Nor he who laughs only by dark dream-fed streams. - - Oh, it costs much bright coin of strength to live! - Watch, then, where all your strength you give! - For I, who would be so wild and wondrous now, - Must give, give, to break a burdening bitter vow. - - - I GIVE THANKS - - There’s one that I once loved so much - I am no more the same. - I give thanks for that transforming touch. - I tell you not his name. - - He has become a sign to me - For flowers and for fire. - For song he is a sign to me - And for the broken lyre. - - And I have known him in a book - And never touched his hand. - And he is dead—I need not look - For him through his green land. - - Heaven may not be. I have no faith, - But this desire I have— - To take my soul on my last breath, - To lift it like a wave, - - And surge unto his star and say, - His friendship had been heaven; - And pray, for clouds that closed his day - May light at last be given! - - And say, he shone at noon so bright - I learned to run and rejoice! - And beg him for one last delight— - The true sound of his voice. - - There’s one that once moved me so much - I am no more the same; - And I pray I too, I too, may touch - Some heart with singing flame. - - - - - James Oppenheim - - - THE SLAVE - - They set the slave free, striking off his chains.... - Then he was as much of a slave as ever. - - He was still chained to servility, - He was still manacled to indolence and sloth, - He was still bound by fear and superstition, - By ignorance, suspicion, and savagery ... - His slavery was not in the chains, - But in himself ... - - They can only set free men free ... - And there is no need of that: - Free men set themselves free. - - - THE LONELY CHILD - - Do you think, my boy, when I put my arms around you - To still your fears, - That it is I who conquer the dark and the lonely night? - - My arms seem to wrap love about you, - As your little heart fluttering at my breast - Throbs love through me ... - - But, dear one, it is not your father: - Other arms are about you, drawing you near, - And drawing the Earth near, and the Night near, - And your father near.... - - Some day you shall lie alone at nights, - As now your father lies; - And in those arms, as a leaf fallen on a tranquil stream, - Drift into dreams and healing sleep. - - - NOT OVERLOOKED - - Though I am little as all little things, - Though the stars that pass over my tininess are as the sands of the sea, - Though the garment of the night was made for a sky-giant and does not - fit me, - Though even in a city of men I am as nothing, - Yet at times the gift of life is almost more than I can bear.... - I laugh with joyousness, the morning is a blithe holiday; - And in the overrunning of my hardy bliss praise rises for the very - breath I breathe. - - - How soaked the universe is with life— - Not a cranny but is drenched! - Ah, not even I was overlooked! - - - THE RUNNER IN THE SKIES - - Who is the runner in the skies, - With her blowing scarf of stars, - And our earth and sun hovering like bees about her blossoming heart! - Her feet are on the winds where space is deep; - Her eyes are nebulous and veiled; - She hurries through the night to a far lover. - - - - - Patrick Orr - - - ANNIE SHORE AND JOHNNIE DOON - - Annie Shore, ’twas, sang last night - Down in South End saloon; - A tawdry creature in the light, - Painted cheeks, eyes over bright, - Singing a dance-hall tune. - - I’d be forgetting Annie’s singing— - I’d not have thought again— - But for the thing that cried and fluttered - Through all the shrill refrain: - Youth crying above foul words, cheap music, - And innocence in pain. - - They sentenced Johnnie Doon today - For murder, stark and grim; - Death’s none too dear a price, they say, - For such-like men as him to pay; - No need to pity him! - - And Johnnie Doon I’d not be pitying— - I could forget him now— - But for the childish look of trouble - That fell across his brow, - For the twisting hands he looked at dumbly - As if they’d sinned, he knew not how. - - - IN THE MOHAVE - - As I rode down the arroyo through yuccas belled with bloom - I saw a last year’s stalk lift dried hands to the light, - Like age at prayer for death within a careless room, - Like one by day o’ertaken, whose sick desire is night. - - And as I rode I saw a lean coyote lying - All perfect as in life upon a silver dune, - Save that his feet no more could flee the harsh light’s spying, - Save that no more his shadow would cleave the sinking moon. - - O cruel land, where form endures, the spirit fled! - You chill the sun for me with your gray sphinx’s smile, - Brooding in the bright silence above your captive dead, - Where beat the heart of life so brief, so brief a while! - - - - - Seumas O’Sullivan - - - MY SORROW - - My sorrow that I am not by the little dun, - By the lake of the starlings at Rosses under the hill— - And the larks there, singing over the fields of dew, - Or evening there, and the sedges still! - For plain I see now the length of the yellow sand, - And Lissadell far off and its leafy ways, - And the holy mountain whose mighty heart - Gathers into it all the colored days. - My sorrow that I am not by the little dun, - By the lake of the starlings at evening when all is still— - And still in whispering sedges the herons stand. - ’Tis there I would nestle at rest till the quivering moon - Uprose in the golden quiet over the hill. - - - SPLENDID AND TERRIBLE - - Splendid and terrible your love. - The searing pinions of its flight - Flamed but a moment’s space above - The place where ancient memories keep - Their quiet; and the dreaming deep - Moved inly with a troubled light, - And that old passion woke and stirred - Out of its sleep. - - Splendid and terrible your love. - I hold it to me like a flame; - I hold it like a flame above - The empty anguish of my breast. - There let it stay, there let it rest— - Deep in the heart whereto it came - Of old as some wind-wearied bird - Drops to its nest. - - - THE OTHERS - - From our hidden places, - By a secret path, - We come in the moonlight - To the side of the green rath. - - There the night through - We take our pleasure, - Dancing to such a measure - As earth never knew. - - To dance and lilt - And song without a name, - So sweetly chanted - ’Twould put a bird to shame. - - And many a maiden - Is there, of mortal birth, - Her young eyes laden - With dreams of earth. - - Music so piercing wild - And forest-sweet would bring - Silence on blackbirds singing - Their best in the ear of spring. - - And many a youth entrancèd - Moves slow in the dreamy round, - His brave lost feet enchanted - With the rhythm of faery sound. - - Oh, many a thrush and blackbird - Would fall to the dewy ground, - And pine away in silence - For envy of such a sound. - - So the night through, - In our sad pleasure, - We dance to many a measure - That earth never knew. - - - - - Josephine Preston Peabody - - - CRADLE SONG - - I - - Lord Gabriel, wilt thou not rejoice - When at last a little boy’s - Cheek lies heavy as a rose, - And his eyelids close? - - Gabriel, when that hush may be, - This sweet hand all heedfully - I’ll undo, for thee alone, - From his mother’s own. - - Then the far blue highways paven - With the burning stars of heaven - He shall gladden with the sweet - Hasting of his feet— - - Feet so brightly bare and cool, - Leaping, as from pool to pool; - From a little laughing boy - Splashing rainbow joy! - - Gabriel, wilt thou understand - How to keep his hovering hand— - Never shut, as in a bond, - From the bright beyond? - - Nay, but though it cling and close - Tightly as a clinging rose, - Clasp it only so—aright, - Lest his heart take fright. - - (_Dormi, dormi, tu; - The dusk is hung with blue._) - - II - - Lord Michael, wilt not thou rejoice - When at last a little boy’s - Heart, a shut-in murmuring bee, - Turns him into thee? - - Wilt thou heed thine armor well— - To take his hand from Gabriel, - So his radiant cup of dream - May not spill a gleam? - - He will take thy heart in thrall, - Telling o’er thy breastplate all - Colors, in his bubbling speech, - With his hand to each. - - (_Dormi, dormi, tu, - Sapphire is the blue; - Pearl and beryl, they are called, - Chrysoprase and emerald, - Sard and amethyst. - Numbered so, and kissed._) - - Ah, but find some angel word - For thy sharp, subduing sword! - Yea, Lord Michael, make no doubt - He will find it out: - - (_Dormi, dormi, tu!_) - _His eyes will look at you._ - - III - - Last, a little morning space, - Lead him to that leafy place - Where Our Lady sits awake, - For all mothers’ sake. - - Bosomed with the Blessèd One, - He shall mind her of her Son, - Once so folded from all harms, - In her shrining arms. - - (_In her veil of blue, - Dormi, dormi, tu._) - - So—and fare thee well. - Softly—Gabriel ... - When the first faint red shall come, - Bid the Day-star lead him home— - For the bright world’s sake— - To my heart, awake. - - - THE CEDARS - - All down the years the fragrance came, - The mingled fragrance, with a flame, - Of cedars breathing in the sun, - The cedar-trees of Lebanon. - - O thirst of song in bitter air, - And hope, wing-hurt from iron care, - What balm of myrrh and honey, won - From far-off trees of Lebanon! - - Not from these eyelids yet have I - Ever beheld that early sky. - Why do they call me through the sun?— - Even the trees of Lebanon? - - - A SONG OF SOLOMON - - King Solomon was the wisest man - Of all that have been kings. - He built an House unto the Lord; - And he sang of creeping things. - - Of creeping things, of things that fly, - Or swim within the seas; - Of the little weed along the wall, - And of the cedar-trees. - - And happier he, without mistake, - Than all men since alive. - God’s House he built; and he did make - A thousand songs and five. - - - - - Ezra Pound - - - Δώρια - - Be in me as the eternal moods - of the bleak wind, and not - As transient things are— - gaiety of flowers. - Have me in the strong loneliness - of sunless cliffs - And of gray waters. - Let the gods speak softly of us - In days hereafter, - the shadowy flowers of Orcus - Remember thee. - - - THE RETURN - - See, they return; ah, see the tentative - Movements, and the slow feet, - The trouble in the pace and the uncertain - Wavering! - - See, they return, one, and by one, - With fear, as half-awakened; - As if the snow should hesitate - And murmur in the wind, - and half turn back; - These were the “Wing’d-with-Awe,” - inviolable. - - Gods of that wingèd shoe! - With them the silver hounds, - sniffing the trace of air! - - Haie! Haie! - These were the swift to harry; - These the keen-scented; - These were the souls of blood. - - Slow on the leash, - pallid the leash-men! - - - PICCADILLY - - Beautiful, tragical faces— - Ye that were whole, and are so sunken; - And, O ye vile, ye that might have been loved, - That are so sodden and drunken, - Who hath forgotten you? - - O wistful, fragile faces, few out of many! - - The crass, the coarse, the brazen, - God knows I cannot pity them, perhaps, as I should do; - But oh, ye delicate, wistful faces, - Who hath forgotten you? - - - N. Y. - - My City, my beloved, my white! - Ah, slender, - Listen! Listen to me, and I will breathe into thee a soul. - Delicately upon the reed, attend me! - - _Now do I know that I am mad, - For here are a million people surly with traffic; - This is no maid. - Neither could I play upon any reed if I had one._ - - My City, my beloved, - Thou art a maid with no breasts, - Thou art slender as a silver reed. - Listen to me, attend me! - And I will breathe into thee a soul, - And thou shalt live for ever. - - - THE COMING OF WAR: ACTAEON - - An image of Lethe, - and the fields - Full of faint light - but golden, - Gray cliffs, - and beneath them - A sea - Harsher than granite, - unstill, never ceasing; - - High forms - with the movement of gods, - Perilous aspect; - And one said: - “This is Actaeon.” - Actaeon of golden greaves! - - Over fair meadows, - Over the cool face of that field, - Unstill, ever moving, - Host of an ancient people, - The silent cortège. - - - THE GARDEN - - _En robe de parade. Samain_ - - Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall - She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens, - And she is dying piece-meal - of a sort of emotional anemia. - - And round about there is a rabble - Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor. - They shall inherit the earth. - - In her is the end of breeding. - Her boredom is exquisite and excessive. - - She would like some one to speak to her, - And is almost afraid that I - will commit that indiscretion. - - - ORTUS - - How have I labored? - How have I not labored - To bring her soul to birth, - To give these elements a name and a centre! - - She is beautiful as the sunlight, and as fluid. - She has no name, and no place. - How have I labored to bring her soul into separation; - To give her a name and her being! - - Surely you are bound and entwined, - You are mingled with the elements unborn; - I have loved a stream and a shadow. - - I beseech you enter your life. - I beseech you learn to say “I” - When I question you: - For you are no part, but a whole; - No portion, but a being. - - - THE CHOICE - - It is true that you say the gods are more use to you than fairies, - But for all that I have seen you on a high, white, noble horse, - Like some strange queen in a story. - - It is odd that you should be covered with long robes and trailing - tendrils and flowers; - - It is odd that you should be changing your face and resembling some - other woman to plague me; - It is odd that you should be hiding yourself in the cloud of beautiful - women, who do not concern me. - - And I, who follow every seed-leaf upon the wind! - They will say that I deserve this. - - - THE GARRET - - Come let us pity those who are better off than we are. - Come, my friend, and remember - that the rich have butlers and no friends, - And we have friends and no butlers. - Come let us pity the married and the unmarried. - - Dawn enters with little feet - like a gilded Pavlova, - And I am near my desire. - Nor has life in it aught better - Than this hour of clear coolness, - the hour of waking together. - - - DANCE FIGURE - - _For the Marriage in Cana of Galilee_ - - Dark-eyed, - O woman of my dreams, - Ivory sandaled, - There is none like thee among the dancers, - None with swift feet. - - I have not found thee in the tents, - In the broken darkness. - I have not found thee at the well-head - Among the women with pitchers. - - - Thine arms are as a young sapling under the bark; - Thy face as a river with lights. - - White as an almond are thy shoulders; - As new almonds stripped from the husk. - - They guard thee not with eunuchs; - Not with bars of copper. - Gilt turquoise and silver are in the place of thy rest. - A brown robe, with threads of gold woven in patterns, hast thou gathered - about thee, - O Nathat-Ikanaie, “Tree-at-the-river.” - - As a rillet among the sedge are thy hands upon me; - Thy fingers a frosted stream. - - Thy maidens are white like pebbles; - Their music about thee! - - There is none like thee among the dancers; - None with swift feet. - - - FROM “NEAR PÉRIGORD” - - _Ed eran due in uno, ed uno in due. Inferno, XXVIII, 125._ - - I loved a woman. The stars fell from heaven. - And always our two natures were in strife. - Bewildering spring, and by the Auvezère - Poppies and day’s eyes in the green émail - Rose over us; and we knew all that stream, - And our two horses had traced out the valleys; - Knew the low flooded lands squared out with poplars, - In the young days when the deep sky befriended. - And great wings beat above us in the twilight, - And the great wheels in heaven - Bore us together ... surging ... and apart ... - Believing we should meet with lips and hands. - - High, high and sure ... and then the counterthrust: - “Why do you love me? Will you always love me? - But I am like the grass, I can not love you.” - Or, “Love, and I love and love you, - And hate your mind, not _you_, your soul, your hands.” - - So to this last estrangement, Tairiran! - - There shut up in his castle, Tairiran’s, - She who had nor ears nor tongue save in her hands, - Gone—ah, gone—untouched, unreachable! - She who could never live save through one person, - She who could never speak save to one person, - And all the rest of her a shifting change, - A broken bundle of mirrors ... ! - - - AN IMMORALITY - - Sing we for love and idleness, - Naught else is worth the having. - - Though I have been in many a land, - There is naught else in living. - - And I would rather have my sweet, - Though rose-leaves die of grieving, - - Than do high deeds in Hungary - To pass all men’s believing. - - - THE STUDY IN AESTHETICS - - The very small children in patched clothing, - Being smitten with an unusual wisdom, - Stopped in their play as she passed them - And cried up from their cobbles: - _Guarda! Ahi, guarda! ch’e b’ea!_ - - But three years after this - I heard the young Dante, whose last name I do not know— - For there are, in Sirmione, twenty-eight young Dantes and thirty-four - Catulli; - And there had been a great catch of sardines, - And his elders - Were packing them in the great wooden boxes - For the market in Brescia, and he - Leapt about, snatching at the bright fish - And getting in both of their ways; - And in vain they commanded him to _sta fermo_! - And when they would not let him arrange - The fish in the boxes - He stroked those which were already arranged, - Murmuring for his own satisfaction - This identical phrase: - _Ch’e b’ea_. - - And at this I was mildly abashed. - - - FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS - - Come, my songs, let us express our baser passions. - Let us express our envy for the man with a steady job and no worry about - the future. - - You are very idle, my songs; - I fear you will come to a bad end. - - You stand about the streets. You loiter at the corners and bus-stops, - You do next to nothing at all. - You do not even express our inner nobility; - You will come to a very bad end. - - And I? I have gone half cracked. - I have talked to you so much that I almost see you about me, - Insolent little beasts! Shameless! Devoid of clothing! - - But you, newest song of the lot, - You are not old enough to have done much mischief. - I will get you a green coat out of China - With dragons worked upon it. - I will get you the scarlet silk trousers - From the statue of the infant Christ at Santa Maria Novella; - - Lest they say we are lacking in taste, - Or that there is no caste in this family. - - - VILLANELLE: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL HOUR - - I - - I had over-prepared the event— - that much was ominous. - With middle-aging care - I had laid out just the right books, - I almost turned down the right pages. - - _Beauty is so rare a thing ... - So few drink of my fountain._ - - So much barren regret! - So many hours wasted! - And now I watch from the window - rain, wandering busses. - Their little cosmos is shaken— - the air is alive with that fact. - In their parts of the city - they are played on by diverse forces; - - I had over-prepared the event. - _Beauty is so rare a thing ... - So few drink at my fountain._ - - Two friends: a breath of the forest ... - Friends? Are people less friends - because one has just, at last, found them? - - Twice they promised to come. - “_Between the night and morning_?” - - _Beauty would drink of my mind._ - Youth would awhile forget - my youth is gone from me. - Youth would hear speech of beauty. - - II - - (“Speak up! You have danced so stiffly? - Someone admired your works, - And said so frankly. - - “Did you talk like a fool, - The first night? - The second evening?” - - “_But_ they promised again: - ‘Tomorrow at tea-time.’”) - - III - - Now the third day is here— - no word from either; - No word from her nor him, - Only another man’s note: - “Dear Pound, I am leaving England.” - - - BALLAD OF THE GOODLY FERE - - _Simon Zelotes speaketh it somewhile after the Crucifixion._ - - Ha’ we lost the goodliest fere o’ all - For the priests and the gallows tree? - Aye lover he was of brawny men, - O’ ships and the open sea. - - When they came wi’ a host to take Our Man - His smile was good to see, - “First let these go!” quo’ our Goodly Fere, - “Or I’ll see ye damned,” says he. - - Aye he sent us out through the crossed high spears - And the scorn of his laugh rang free, - “Why took ye not me when I walked about - Alone in the town?” says he. - - Oh we drank his “Hale” in the good red wine - When we last made company. - No capon priest was the Goodly Fere, - But a man o’ men was he. - - I ha’ seen him drive a hundred men - Wi’ a bundle o’ cords swung free, - That they took the high and holy house - For their pawn and treasury. - - They’ll no’ get him a’ in a book, I think, - Though they write it cunningly; - No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere - But aye loved the open sea. - - If they think they ha’ snared our Goodly Fere - They are fools to the last degree. - “I’ll go to the feast,” quo’ our Goodly Fere, - “Though I go to the gallows tree.” - - “Ye ha’ seen me heal the lame and blind, - And wake the dead,” says he. - “Ye shall see one thing to master all: - ’Tis how a brave man dies on the tree.” - - A son of God was the Goodly Fere - That bade us his brothers be. - I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men. - I have seen him upon the tree. - - He cried no cry when they drave the nails - And the blood gushed hot and free. - The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue, - But never a cry cried he. - - I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men - On the hills o’ Galilee. - They whined as he walked out calm between, - Wi’ his eyes like the gray o’ the sea. - - Like the sea that brooks no voyaging, - With the winds unleashed and free, - Like the sea that he cowed at Genseret - Wi’ twey words spoke suddently. - - A master of men was the Goodly Fere, - A mate of the wind and sea. - If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere - They are fools eternally. - - I ha’ seen him eat o’ the honey-comb - Sin’ they nailed him to the tree. - - - BALLAD FOR GLOOM - - For God, our God, is a gallant foe - That playeth behind the veil. - - I have loved my God as a child at heart - That seeketh deep bosoms for rest, - I have loved my God as maid to man— - But lo, this thing is best: - - To love your God as a gallant foe - that plays behind the veil, - To meet your God as the night winds meet - beyond Arcturus’ pale. - - I have played with God for a woman, - I have staked with my God for truth, - I have lost to my God as a man, clear-eyed— - His dice be not of ruth. - - For I am made as a naked blade, - But hear ye this thing in sooth: - - Who loseth to God as man to man - Shall win at the turn of the game. - I have drawn my blade where the lightnings meet - But the ending is the same: - Who loseth to God as the sword blades lose - Shall win at the end of the game. - For God, our God, is a gallant foe - that playeth behind the veil. - Whom God deigns not to overthrow - hath need of triple mail. - - - LA FRAISNE - - _Scene: The Ash Wood of Malvern_ - - For I was a gaunt, grave councillor, - Being in all things wise, and very old; - But I have put aside this folly and the cold - That old age weareth for a cloak. - - I was quite strong—at least they said so— - The young men at the sword-play; - But I have put aside this folly, being gay - In another fashion that more suiteth me. - - I have curled mid the boles of the ash wood, - I have hidden my face where the oak - Spread his leaves over me, and the yoke - Of the old ways of men have I cast aside. - - By the still pool of Mar-nan-otha - Have I found me a bride - That was a dog-wood tree some syne. - She hath called me from mine old ways; - She hath hushed my rancor of council, - Bidding me praise - - Naught but the wind that flutters in the leaves. - - She hath drawn me from mine old ways, - Till men say that I am mad; - But I have seen the sorrow of men, and am glad, - For I know that the wailing and bitterness are a folly. - And I? I have put aside all folly and all grief. - I wrapped my tears in an ellum leaf - And left them under a stone; - And now men call me mad because I have thrown - All folly from me, putting it aside - To leave the old barren ways of men, - Because my bride - Is a pool of the wood; and - Though all men say that I am mad - It is only that I am glad— - Very glad, for my bride hath toward me a great love - That is sweeter than the love of women - That plague and burn and drive one away. - - Aie-e! ’Tis true that I am gay, - Quite gay, for I have her alone here - And no man troubleth us. - - Once when I was among the young men ... - And they said I was quite strong, among the young men ... - Once there was a woman ... - ... but I forget ... she was ... - ... I hope she will not come again. - - ... I do not remember ... - I think she hurt me once, but ... - That was very long ago. - - I do not like to remember things any more. - - I like one little band of winds that blow - In the ash trees here: - For we are quite alone, - Here mid the ash trees. - - - THE RIVER-MERCHANT’S WIFE: A LETTER - - While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead - I played about the front gate, pulling flowers. - You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse; - You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums. - And we went on living in the village of Chokan: - Two small people, without dislike or suspicion. - - At fourteen I married My Lord you. - I never laughed, being bashful. - Lowering my head, I looked at the wall. - Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back. - - At fifteen I stopped scowling, - I desired my dust to be mingled with yours - Forever and forever, and forever. - Why should I climb the look-out? - - At sixteen you departed, - You went into far Ku-to-Yen, by the river of swirling eddies, - And you have been gone five months. - The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead. - You dragged your feet when you went out. - By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses, - Too deep to clear them away! - The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind. - The paired butterflies are already yellow with August - Over the grass in the west garden— - They hurt me. - I grow older. - If you are coming down through the narrows of the river, - Please let me know beforehand, - And I will come out to meet you, - As far as Cho-fu-Sa. - _From the Chinese of Li Po._ - - - EXILE’S LETTER - -_From the Chinese of Li Po, usually considered the greatest poet of -China: written by him while in exile about 760 A. D., to the Hereditary -War-Councillor of Sho, “recollecting former companionship.”_ - - So-Kin of Rakuho, ancient friend, I now remember - That you built me a special tavern, - By the south side of the bridge at Ten-Shin. - With yellow gold and white jewels - we paid for the songs and laughter, - And we were drunk for month after month, - forgetting the kings and princes. - Intelligent men came drifting in, from the sea - and from the west border, - And with them, and with you especially, - there was nothing at cross-purpose; - And they made nothing of sea-crossing - or of mountain-crossing, - If only they could be of that fellowship. - And we all spoke out our hearts and minds ... - and without regret. - And then I was sent off to South Wei, - smothered in laurel groves, - And you to the north of Raku-hoku, - Till we had nothing but thoughts and memories between us. - And when separation had come to its worst - We met, and travelled together into Sen-Go - Through all the thirty-six folds of the turning and twisting waters; - Into a valley of a thousand bright flowers ... - that was the first valley, - And on into ten thousand valleys - full of voices and pine-winds. - With silver harness and reins of gold, - prostrating themselves on the ground, - Out came the East-of-Kan foreman and his company; - And there came also the “True-man” of Shi-yo to meet me, - Playing on a jewelled mouth-organ. - In the storied houses of San-Ko they gave us - more Sennin music; - Many instruments, like the sound of young phœnix broods. - And the foreman of Kan-Chu, drunk, - Danced because his long sleeves - Wouldn’t keep still, with that music playing. - And I, wrapped in brocade, went to sleep with my head on his lap, - And my spirit so high that it was all over the heavens. - - - And before the end of the day we were scattered like stars or rain. - I had to be off to So, far away over the waters, - You back to your river-bridge. - And your father, who was brave as a leopard, - Was governor in Hei Shu and put down the barbarian rabble. - And one May he had you send for me, despite the long distance; - And what with broken wheels and so on, I won’t say it wasn’t hard - going ... - Over roads twisted like sheep’s guts. - And I was still going, late in the year, - in the cutting wind from the north, - And thinking how little you cared for the cost ... - and you caring enough to pay it. - Then what a reception! - Red jade cups, food well set, on a blue jewelled table; - And I was drunk, and had no thought of returning; - And you would walk out with me to the western corner of the castle, - To the dynastic temple, with the water about it clear as blue jade, - With boats floating, and the sound of mouth-organs and drums, - With ripples like dragon-scales going grass-green on the water, - Pleasure lasting, with courtezans going and coming without hindrance, - With the willow-flakes falling like snow, - And the vermilioned girls getting drunk about sunset, - And the waters a hundred feet deep reflecting green eyebrows— - Eyebrows painted green are a fine sight in young moonlight, - Gracefully painted—and the girls singing back at each other, - Dancing in transparent brocade, - And the wind lifting the song, and interrupting it, - Tossing it up under the clouds. - - - And all this comes to an end, - And is not again to be met with. - I went up to the court for examination, - Tried Layu’s luck, offered the Choyu song, - And got no promotion, - And went back to the East Mountains white-headed. - - And once again we met, later, at the South Bridge head. - And then the crowd broke up—you went north to San palace. - And if you ask how I regret that parting? - It is like the flowers falling at spring’s end, - confused, whirled in a tangle. - What is the use of talking! And there is no end of talking— - There is no end of things in the heart. - - I call in the boy, - Have him sit on his knees to write and seal this, - And I send it a thousand miles, thinking. - - (_Translated by Ezra Pound from the notes of the late Ernest - Fenollosa, and the decipherings of the Professors Mori and Araga._) - - - - - John Reed - - - SANGAR - - _To Lincoln Steffens_ - - Somewhere I read a strange, old, rusty tale - Smelling of war; most curiously named - _The Mad Recreant Knight of the West_. - Once, you have read, the round world brimmed with hate, - Stirred and revolted, flashed unceasingly - Facets of cruel splendor. And the strong - Harried the weak ... - Long past, long past, praise God, - In these fair, peaceful, happy days. - - _The Tale_: - - Eastward the Huns break border, - Surf on a rotten dyke; - They have murdered the Eastern Warder - (His head on a pike). - “Arm thee, arm thee, my father! - Swift rides the Goddes-bane, - And the high nobles gather - On the plain!” - - “O blind world-wrath!” cried Sangar, - “Greatly I killed in youth; - I dreamed men had done with anger - Through Goddes truth!” - Smiled the boy then in faint scorn, - Hard with the battle-thrill; - “Arm thee, loud calls the war-horn - And shrill!” - - He has bowed to the voice stentorian, - Sick with thought of the grave— - He has called for his battered morion - And his scarred glaive. - On the boy’s helm a glove - Of the Duke’s daughter— - In his eyes splendor of love - And slaughter. - - Hideous the Hun advances - Like a sea-tide on sand; - Unyielding, the haughty lances - Make dauntless stand. - And ever amid the clangor, - Butchering Hun and Hun, - With sorrowful face rides Sangar - And his son.... - - Broken is the wild invader - (Sullied, the whole world’s fountains); - They have penned the murderous raider - With his back to the mountains. - Yet though what had been mead - Is now a bloody lake, - Still drink swords where men bleed, - Nor slake. - - Now leaps one into the press— - The hell ’twixt front and front— - Sangar, bloody and torn of dress - (He has borne the brunt). - “Hold!” cries, “Peace! God’s peace! - Heed ye what Christus says—” - And the wild battle gave surcease - In amaze. - - “When will ye cast out hate? - Brothers—my mad, mad brothers— - Mercy, ere it be too late, - These are sons of your mothers. - For sake of Him who died on Tree, - Who of all creatures, loved the least—” - “Blasphemer! God of Battles, He!” - Cried a priest. - - “Peace!” and with his two hands - Has broken in twain his glaive. - Weaponless, smiling he stands— - (Coward or brave?) - “Traitor!” howls one rank, “Think ye - The Hun be our brother?” - And “Fear we to die, craven, think ye?” - The other. - - Then sprang his son to his side, - His lips with slaver were wet, - For he had felt how men died - And was lustful yet; - (On his bent helm a glove - Of the Duke’s daughter, - In his eyes splendor of love - And slaughter)— - - Shouting, “Father no more of mine! - Shameful old man—abhorr’d, - First traitor of all our line!” - Up the two-handed sword. - He smote—fell Sangar—and then - Screaming, red, the boy ran - Straight at the foe, and again - Hell began.... - - Oh, there was joy in Heaven when Sangar came. - Sweet Mary wept, and bathed and bound his wounds, - And God the Father healed him of despair, - And Jesus gripped his hand, and laughed and laughed.... - - - - - Ernest Rhys - - - DAGONET’S CANZONET - - A queen lived in the South; - And music was her mouth, - And sunshine was her hair, - By day, and all the night - The drowsy embers there - Remember’d still the light; - _My soul, was she not fair!_ - - But for her eyes—they made - An iron man afraid; - Like sky-blue pools they were, - Watching the sky that knew - Itself transmuted there - Light blue, or deeper blue; - _My soul, was she not fair!_ - - The lifting of her hands - Made laughter in the lands - Where the sun is, in the South: - But my soul learnt sorrow there - In the secrets of her mouth, - Her eyes, her hands, her hair: - _O soul, was she not fair!_ - - - A SONG OF HAPPINESS - - Ah, Happiness: - Who called you “Earandel”? - (Winter-star, I think, that is); - And who can tell the lovely curve - By which you seem to come, then swerve - Before you reach the middle-earth? - And who is there can hold your wing, - Or bind you in your mirth, - Or win you with a least caress, - Or tear, or kiss, or anything— - Insensate Happiness? - - Once I thought to have you - Fast there in a child: - All her heart she gave you, - Yet you would not stay. - Cruel, and careless, - Not half reconciled, - Pain you cannot bear; - When her yellow hair - Lay matted, every tress; - When those looks of hers, - Were no longer hers, - You went: in a day - She wept you all away. - - Once I thought to give - You, plighted, holily— - No more fugitive, - Returning like the sea: - But they that share so well - Heaven must portion Hell - In their copartnery: - Care, ill fate, ill health, - Came we know not how - And broke our commonwealth. - Neither has you now. - - Some wait you on the road, - Some in an open door - Look for the face you showed - Once there—no more. - You never wear the dress - You danced in yesterday; - Yet, seeming gone, you stay, - And come at no man’s call: - Yet, laid for burial, - You lift up from the dead - Your laughing, spangled head. - - Yes, once I did pursue - You, unpursuable; - Loved, longed for, hoped for you— - Blue-eyed and morning brow’d. - Ah, lovely Happiness! - Now that I know you well, - I dare not speak aloud - Your fond name in a crowd; - Nor conjure you by night, - Nor pray at morning-light, - Nor count at all on you: - - But, at a stroke, a breath, - After the fear of death, - Or bent beneath a load; - Yes, ragged in the dress, - And houseless on the road, - I might surprise you there. - Yes: who of us shall say - When you will come, or where? - Ask children at their play, - The leaves upon the tree, - The ships upon the sea, - Or old men who survived, - And lived, and loved, and wived. - Ask sorrow to confess - Your sweet improvidence, - And prodigal expense - And cold economy, - Ah, lovely Happiness! - - - - - Edwin Arlington Robinson - - - THE MASTER - - _Lincoln as he appeared to one soon after the Civil War_ - - A flying word from here and there - Had sown the name at which we sneered, - But soon the name was everywhere, - To be reviled and then revered: - A presence to be loved and feared, - We cannot hide it, or deny - That we, the gentlemen who jeered, - May be forgotten by and by. - - He came when days were perilous - And hearts of men were sore beguiled, - And having made his note of us, - He pondered and was reconciled. - Was ever master yet so mild - As he, and so untamable? - We doubted, even when he smiled, - Not knowing what he knew so well. - - He knew that undeceiving fate - Would shame us whom he served unsought; - He knew that he must wince and wait— - The jest of those for whom he fought; - He knew devoutly what he thought - Of us and of our ridicule; - He knew that we must all be taught - Like little children in a school. - - We gave a glamour to the task - That he encountered and saw through; - But little of us did he ask, - And little did we ever do. - And what appears if we review - The season when we railed and chaffed?— - It is the face of one who knew - That we were learning while we laughed. - - The face that in our vision feels - Again the venom that we flung, - Transfigured, to the world reveals - The vigilance to which we clung. - Shrewd, hallowed, harassed, and among - The mysteries that are untold— - The face we see was never young, - Nor could it ever have been old. - - For he, to whom we had applied - Our shopman’s test of age and worth, - Was elemental when he died, - As he was ancient at his birth: - The saddest among kings of earth, - Bowed with a galling crown, this man - Met rancor with a cryptic mirth, - Laconic—and Olympian. - - The love, the grandeur, and the fame - Are bounded by the world alone; - The calm, the smouldering, and the flame - Of awful patience were his own: - With him they are forever flown - Past all our fond self-shadowings, - Wherewith we cumber the Unknown - As with inept, Icarian wings. - - For we were not as other men: - ’Twas ours to soar and his to see. - But we are coming down again, - And we shall come down pleasantly; - Nor shall we longer disagree - On what it is to be sublime, - But flourish in our perigee - And have one Titan at a time. - - - JOHN GORHAM - - “Tell me what you’re doing over here, John Gorham— - Sighing hard and seeming to be sorry when you’re not. - Make me laugh or let me go now, for long faces in the moonlight - Are a sign for me to say again a word that you forgot.” - - “I’m over here to tell you what the moon already - May have said or maybe shouted ever since a year ago; - I’m over here to tell you what you are, Jane Wayland, - And to make you rather sorry, I should say, for being so.” - - “Tell me what you’re saying to me now, John Gorham, - Or you’ll never see as much of me as ribbons any more; - I’ll vanish in as many ways as I have toes and fingers, - And you’ll not follow far for one where flocks have been before.” - - “I’m sorry now you never saw the flocks, Jane Wayland; - But you’re the one to make of them as many as you need. - And then about the vanishing: it’s I who mean to vanish; - And when I’m here no longer you’ll be done with me indeed.” - - “That’s a way to tell me what I am, John Gorham! - How am I to know myself until I make you smile? - Try to look as if the moon were making faces at you, - And a little more as if you meant to stay a little while.” - - “You are what it is that over rose-blown gardens - Makes a pretty flutter for a season in the sun. - You are what it is that with a mouse, Jane Wayland, - Catches him and let’s him go and eats him up for fun.” - - “Sure I never took you for a mouse, John Gorham. - All you say is easy, but so far from being true - That I wish you wouldn’t ever be again the one to think so; - For it isn’t cats and butterflies that I would be to you.” - - “All your little animals are in one picture— - One I’ve had before me since a year ago to-night; - And the picture where they live will be of you, Jane Wayland, - Till you find a way to kill them or to keep them out of sight.” - - “Won’t you ever see me as I am, John Gorham, - Leaving out the foolishness and all I never meant? - Somewhere in me there’s a woman, if you know the way to find her— - Will you like me any better if I prove it and repent?” - - “I doubt if I shall ever have the time, Jane Wayland; - And I dare say all this moonlight lying round us might as well - Fall for nothing on the shards of broken urns that are forgotten, - As on two that have no longer much of anything to tell.” - - - RICHARD CORY - - Whenever Richard Cory went down town, - We people on the pavement looked at him: - He was a gentleman from sole to crown, - Clean favored, and imperially slim. - - And he was always quietly arrayed, - And he was always human when he talked; - But still he fluttered pulses when he said, - “Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked. - - And he was rich—yes, richer than a king, - And admirably schooled in every grace: - In fine, we thought that he was everything - To make us wish that we were in his place. - - So on we worked, and waited for the light, - And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; - And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, - Went home and put a bullet through his head. - - - THE GROWTH OF LORRAINE - - I - - While I stood listening, discreetly dumb, - Lorraine was having the last word with me: - “I know,” she said, “I know it, but you see - Some creatures are born fortunate, and some - Are born to be found out and overcome— - Born to be slaves, to let the rest go free; - And if I’m one of them (and I must be) - You may as well forget me and go home. - - “You tell me not to say these things, I know, - But I should never try to be content: - I’ve gone too far; the life would be too slow. - Some could have done it—some girls have the stuff; - But I can’t do it—I don’t know enough. - I’m going to the devil.” And she went. - - II - - I did not half believe her when she said - That I should never hear from her again; - Nor when I found a letter from Lorraine, - Was I surprised or grieved at what I read: - “Dear friend, when you find this, I shall be dead. - You are too far away to make me stop. - They say that one drop—think of it, one drop!— - Will be enough; but I’ll take five instead. - - “You do not frown because I call you friend; - For I would have you glad that I still keep - Your memory, and even at the end— - Impenitent, sick, shattered—cannot curse - The love that flings, for better or for worse, - This worn-out, cast-out flesh of mine to sleep.” - - - CASSANDRA - - I heard one who said: “Verily, - What word have I for children here? - Your Dollar is your only Word, - The wrath of it your only fear. - - “You build it altars tall enough - To make you see, but you are blind; - You cannot leave it long enough - To look before you or behind. - - “When Reason beckons you to pause, - You laugh and say that you know best; - But what it is you know, you keep - As dark as ingots in a chest. - - “You laugh and answer, ‘We are young; - Oh, leave us now, and let us grow:’ - Not asking how much more of this - Will Time endure or Fate bestow. - - “Because a few complacent years - Have made your peril of your pride, - Think you that you are to go on - Forever pampered and untried? - - “What lost eclipse of history, - What bivouac of the marching stars, - Has given the sign for you to see - Millenniums and last great wars? - - “What unrecorded overthrow - Of all the world has ever known, - Or ever been, has made itself - So plain to you, and you alone? - - “Your Dollar, Dove and Eagle make - A Trinity that even you - Rate higher than you rate yourselves; - It pays, it flatters, and it’s new. - - “And though your very flesh and blood - Be what your Eagle eats and drinks, - You’ll praise him for the best of birds, - Not knowing what the Eagle thinks. - - “The power is yours, but not the sight; - You see not upon what you tread; - You have the ages for your guide, - But not the wisdom to be led. - - “Think you to tread forever down - The merciless old verities? - And are you never to have eyes - To see the world for what it is? - - “Are you to pay for what you have - With all you are?”—No other word - We caught, but with a laughing crowd - Moved on. None heeded, and few heard. - - - - - Carl Sandburg - - - CHICAGO - - Hog-Butcher for the World, - Tool-maker, Stacker of Wheat, - Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight-handler; - Stormy, husky, brawling, - City of the Big Shoulders: - - They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your - painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys. - And they tell me you are crooked, and I answer, Yes, it is true I have - seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again. - And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is, On the faces of women - and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger. - - And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my - city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them: - Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be - alive and coarse and strong and cunning. - Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a - tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities; - Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage - pitted against the wilderness, - Bareheaded, - Shoveling, - Wrecking, - Planning, - Building, breaking, rebuilding, - Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth, - Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs, - Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle, - Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his - ribs the heart of the people, - Laughing! - Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of youth; half-naked, - sweating, proud to be Hog-butcher, Tool-maker, Stacker of Wheat, - Player with Railroads, and Freight-handler to the Nation. - - - THE HARBOR - - Passing through huddled and ugly walls, - By doorways where women haggard - Looked from their hunger-deep eyes, - Haunted with shadows of hunger-hands, - Out from the huddled and ugly walls, - I came sudden, at the city’s edge, - On a blue burst of lake, - Long lake waves breaking under the sun - On a spray-flung curve of shore; - And a fluttering storm of gulls, - Masses of great gray wings - And flying white bellies - Veering and wheeling free in the open. - - - SKETCH - - The shadows of the ships - Rock on the crest - In the low blue lustre - Of the tardy and the soft inrolling tide. - - A long brown bar at the dip of the sky - Puts an arm of sand in the span of salt. - - The lucid and endless wrinkles - Draw in, lapse and withdraw. - Wavelets crumble and white spent bubbles - Wash on the floor of the beach. - - Rocking on the crest - In the low blue lustre - Are the shadows of the ships. - - - LOST - - Desolate and lone - All night long on the lake - Where fog trails and mist creeps, - The whistle of a boat - Calls and cries unendingly, - Like some lost child - In tears and trouble - Hunting the harbor’s breast - And the harbor’s eyes. - - - JAN KUBELIK - - Your bow swept over a string, and a long low note quivered to the air. - (A mother of Bohemia sobs over a new child, perfect, learning to suck - milk.) - - Your bow ran fast over all the high strings fluttering and wild. - (All the girls in Bohemia are laughing on a Sunday afternoon in the - hills with their lovers.) - - - AT A WINDOW - - Give me hunger, - O you gods that sit and give - The world its orders. - Give me hunger, pain and want, - Shut me out with shame and failure - From your doors of gold and fame, - Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger! - - But leave me a little love, - A voice to speak to me in the day end, - A hand to touch me in the dark room - Breaking the long loneliness. - - In the dusk of day-shapes - Blurring the sunset, - One little wandering, western star - Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow. - Let me go to the window, - Watch there the day-shapes of dusk, - And wait and know the coming - Of a little love. - - - THE POOR - - Among the mountains I wandered and saw blue haze and red crag and was - amazed; - On the beach where the long push under the endless tide maneuvers, I - stood silent; - Under the stars on the prairie watching the Dipper slant over the - horizon’s grass, I was full of thoughts. - Great men, pageants of war and labor, soldiers and workers, - mothers lifting their children—these all I touched, and felt the solemn - thrill of them. - And then one day I got a true look at the Poor, millions of the Poor, - patient and toiling; more patient than crags, tides, and stars; - innumerable, patient as the darkness of night—and all broken, humble - ruins of nations. - - - THE ROAD AND THE END - - I shall foot it - Down the roadway in the dusk, - Where shapes of hunger wander - And the fugitives of pain go by. - - I shall foot it - In the silence of the morning, - See the night slur into dawn, - Hear the slow great winds arise - Where tall trees flank the way - And shoulder toward the sky. - - The broken boulders by the road - Shall not commemorate my ruin. - Regret shall be the gravel under foot. - I shall watch for - Slim birds swift of wing - That go where wind and ranks of thunder - Dive the wild processionals of rain. - - The dust of the travelled road - Shall touch my hands and face. - - - KILLERS - - I am singing to you - Soft as a man with a dead child speaks; - Hard as a man in handcuffs, - Held where he can not move: - - Under the sun - Are sixteen million men, - Chosen for shining teeth, - Sharp eyes, hard legs, - And a running of young warm blood in their wrists. - - And a red juice runs on the green grass; - And a red juice soaks the dark soil. - And the sixteen million are killing ... and killing and killing. - - I never forget them day or night: - They beat on my head for memory of them; - They pound on my heart and I cry back to them, - To their homes and women, dreams and games. - - I wake in the night and smell the trenches, - And hear the low stir of sleepers in lines— - Sixteen million sleepers and pickets in the dark: - Some of them long sleepers for always, - Some of them tumbling to sleep to-morrow for always, - Fixed in the drag of the world’s heartbreak, - Eating and drinking, toiling ... on a long job of killing. - - Sixteen million men. - - - NOCTURNE IN A DESERTED BRICKYARD - - Stuff of the moon - Runs on the lapping sand - Out to the longest shadows. - Under the curving willows, - And round the creep of the wave line, - Fluxions of yellow and dusk on the waters - Make a wide dreaming pansy of an old pond in the night. - - - HANDFULS - - Blossoms of babies - Blinking their stories - Come soft - On the dusk and the babble; - Little red gamblers, - Handfuls that slept in the dust. - - Summers of rain, - Winters of drift, - Tell off the years; - And they go back - - Who came soft— - Back to the sod, - To silence and dust; - Gray gamblers, - Handfuls again. - - - UNDER THE HARVEST MOON - - Under the harvest moon, - When the soft silver - Drips shimmering - Over the garden nights, - Death, the gray mocker, - Comes and whispers to you - As a beautiful friend - Who remembers. - - Under the summer roses - When the flagrant crimson - Lurks in the dusk - Of the wild red leaves, - Love, with little hands, - Comes and touches you - With a thousand memories, - And asks you - Beautiful, unanswerable questions. - - - CHOOSE - - The single clenched fist lifted and ready, - Or the open asking hand held out and waiting. - Choose: - For we meet by one or the other. - - - KIN - - Brother, I am fire - Surging under the ocean floor. - I shall never meet you, brother— - Not for years, anyhow; - Maybe thousands of years, brother. - Then I will warm you, - Hold you close, wrap you in circles, - Use you and change you— - Maybe thousands of years, brother. - - - PLACES - - Roses and gold - For you today, - And the flash of flying flags. - - I will have - Ashes, - Dust in my hair, - Crushes of hoofs. - - Your name - Fills the mouth - Of rich man and poor. - Women bring - Armfuls of flowers - And throw on you. - - I go hungry - Down in dreams - And loneliness, - Across the rain - To slashed hills - Where men wait and hope for me. - - - JOY - - Let a joy keep you. - Reach out your hands - And take it when it runs by, - As the Apache dancer - Clutches his woman. - I have seen them - Live long and laugh loud, - Sent on singing, singing, - Smashed to the heart - Under the ribs - With a terrible love. - Joy always, - Joy everywhere— - Let joy kill you! - Keep away from the little deaths. - - - THE GREAT HUNT - - I can not tell you now; - When the wind’s drive and whirl - Blow me along no longer, - And the wind’s a whisper at last— - Maybe I’ll tell you then— - some other time. - - When the rose’s flash to the sunset - Reels to the wrack and the twist, - And the rose is a red bygone, - When the face I love is going - And the gate to the end shall clang, - And it’s no use to beckon or say, “So long”— - Maybe I’ll tell you then— - some other time. - - I never knew any more beautiful than you: - I have hunted you under my thoughts, - I have broken down under the wind - And into the roses looking for you. - I shall never find any - greater than you. - - - OUR PRAYER OF THANKS - - God, - For the gladness here where the sun is shining at evening on the weeds - at the river, - Our prayer of thanks. - - God, - For the laughter of children who tumble barefooted and bareheaded in the - summer grass, - Our prayer of thanks. - - God, - For the sunset and the stars, the women and their white arms that hold - us, - Our prayer of thanks. - - God, - If you are deaf and blind, if this is all lost to you, - God, if the dead in their coffins amid the silver handles on the edge of - town, or the reckless dead of war days thrown unknown in pits, if - these dead are forever deaf and blind and lost, - Our prayer of thanks. - - God, - The game is all your way, the secrets and the signals and the system; - and so, for the break of the game and the first play and the last, - Our prayer of thanks. - - - - - Clara Shanafelt - - - TO THEE - - White foam flower, red flame flower - On my tree of delight. - Lean from the shadow - Like singing in sorrow— - Pale flower of thy smile, flame flower of thy touch, - In my night. - - - CAPRICE - - Who will be naming the wind - That lifts me and leaves me; - Swelleth my budding flame, - Foully bereaves me? - From the land whose forgotten name - Man shall not find, - Blowest thou, wind? - - - A VIVID GIRL - - Her face is fair and smooth and fine, - Childlike, with secret laughter lit, - Drooping in pity, bright with wit, - A flower, a flame—God fashioned it. - Who sees her tastes the sacred wine. - - - INVOCATION - - O glass-blower of time, - Hast blown all shapes at thy fire? - Canst thou no lovelier bell, - No clearer bubble, clear as delight, inflate me— - Worthy to hold such wine - As was never yet trod from the grape, - Since the stars shed their light, since the moon - Troubled the night with her beauty? - - - PASTEL - - She has a clear, wind-sheltered loveliness, - Like pale streams winding far and hills withdrawn - From the bright reaches of the noon. Dawn - Is her lifting fancy, but her heart - Is orchard boughs and dusk and quietness. - - - A GALLANT WOMAN - - She burst fierce wine - From the tough skin of pain, - Like wind that wrings from rigid skies - A scant and bitter gleam, - Long after the autumnal dusk - Has folded all the valleys in. - - - SCHERZO - - The elder’s bridal in July, - Bright as a cloud! - A ripe blonde girl, - Billowing to the ground in foamy petticoats, - With breasts full-blown - Swelling her bodice. - - But later - When the small black-ruddy berries - Tempt the birds to strip the stems, - And the leaves begin to yellow and fall off - While late summer’s still in its green, - Then you look lank and used up, - Elder; - Your big bones stick out, - You’re the kind of woman - Wears bleak at forty. - - I’ll take my constant pleasure - In a willow-tree that ripples silver - All the summer. - And when the winter comes in greasy rags - Like a half-naked beggar, - Lets out the plaited splendor - Of her bright and glancing hair. - - - - - Frances Shaw - - - WHO LOVES THE RAIN - - Who loves the rain - And loves his home, - And looks on life with quiet eyes, - Him will I follow through the storm; - And at his hearth-fire keep me warm; - Nor hell nor heaven shall that soul surprise, - Who loves the rain, - And loves his home, - And looks on life with quiet eyes. - - - THE HARP OF THE WIND - - My house stands high— - Where the harp of the wind - Plays all day, - Plays all night; - And the city light - Is far away. - - Where hangs the harp that the winds play?— - High in the air— - Over the sea? - - The long straight streets of the far-away town, - Where the lines of light go sweeping down, - Are the strings of its minstrelsy. - - And the harp of the wind - Gives to the wind - A song of the city’s tears; - Thin and faint, the cry of a child, - Plaint of the soul unreconciled, - A song of the passing years. - - - THE RAGPICKER - - The Ragpicker sits and sorts her rags: - Silk and homespun and threads of gold - She plucks to pieces and marks with tags; - And her eyes are ice and her fingers cold. - - The Ragpicker sits in the back of my brain; - Keenly she looks me through and through. - One flaming shred I have hidden away— - She shall not have my love for you. - - - COLOGNE CATHEDRAL - - The little white prayers - Of Elspeth Fry - Float up the arches - Into the sky. - - A little black bird - On the belfry high - Pecks at them - As they go by. - - - STAR THOUGHT - - I shall see a star tonight - From a distant mountain height; - From a city you will see - The same star that shines on me. - - ’Tis not of the firmament - On a solar journey bent; - Fixed it is through time and weather;— - ’Tis a thought we hold together. - - - THE CHILD’S QUEST - - My mother twines me roses wet with dew; - Oft have I sought the garden through and through; - I cannot find the tree whereon - My mother’s roses grew. - Seek not, O child, the tree whereon - Thy mother’s roses grew. - - My mother tells me tales of noble deeds; - Oft have I sought her book when no one heeds; - I cannot find the page, alas, - From which my mother reads. - Seek not, O child, to find the page - From which thy mother reads. - - My mother croons me songs all soft and low, - Through the white night where little breezes blow; - Yet never when the morning dawns, - My mother’s songs I know. - Seek not, O child, at dawn of day - Thy mother’s songs to know. - - - LITTLE PAGAN RAIN SONG - - In the dark and peace of my final bed, - The wet grass waving above my head, - At rest from love, at rest from pain, - I lie and listen to the rain. - - Falling, softly falling, - Song of my soul that is free; - Song of my soul that has not forgot - The sleeping body of me. - - When quiet and calm and straight I lie, - High in the air my soul rides by: - Shall I await thee, soul, in vain? - Hark to the answer in the rain. - - Falling, softly falling, - Song of my soul that is free; - Song of my soul that will not forget - The sleeping body of me. - - - - - Constance Lindsay Skinner - - - SONGS OF THE COAST-DWELLERS - - - THE CHIEF’S PRAYER AFTER THE SALMON CATCH - - O Kia-Kunæ, praise! - Thou hast opened thy hand among the stars, - And sprinkled the sea with food; - The catch is great; thy children will live. - See, on the roofs of the villages, the red meat drying; - Another year thou hast encompassed us with life. - Praise! Praise! Kunæ! - O Father, we have waited with shut mouths, - With hearts silent, and hands quiet, - Waited the time of prayer; - Lest with fears we should beset thee, - And pray the unholy prayer of asking. - We waited silently; and thou gavest life. - - Oh, praise! Praise! Praise! - - Open the silent mouths, the shut hearts, my tribe: - Sing high the prayer of Thanksgiving, - The prayer He taught in the beginning to the Kwakiutl— - - The good rejoicing prayer of thanks. - As the sea sings on the wet shore, when the ice thunders back, - And the blue water floats again, warm, shining, living, - So break thy ice-bound heart, and the cold lip’s silence— - Praise Kunæ for life, as wings up-flying, as eagles to the sun. - Praise! Praise! Praise! - - - SONG OF WHIP-PLAITING - - In the dawn I gathered cedar-boughs - For the plaiting of thy whip. - They were wet with sweet drops; - They still thought of the night. - - All alone I shredded cedar-boughs, - Green boughs in the pale light, - Where the morning meets the sea, - And the great mountain stops. - - Earth was very still. - - I heard no sound but the whisper of my knife, - My black flint knife. - It whispered among the white strands of the cedar, - Whispered in parting the sweet cords for thy whip. - O sweet-smelling juice of cedar— - Life-ooze of love! - My knife drips: - Its whisper is the only sound in all the world! - - Finer than young sea-lions’ hairs - Are my cedar-strands: - They are fine as little roots deep down. - (O little roots of cedar - Far, far under the bosom of Tsa-Kumts!— - - They have plaited her through with love.) - Now, into my love-gift - Closely, strongly, I will weave them— - Little strands of pain! - Since I saw thee - Standing with thy torch in my doorway, - Their little roots are deep in me. - - In the dawn I gathered cedar-boughs: - Sweet, sweet was their odor, - They were wet with tears— - The sweetness will not leave my hands, - No, not in salt sea-washings: - Tears will not wash away sweetness, - I shall have sweet hands for thy service. - - (Ah—sometimes—thou wilt be gentle? - Little roots of pain are deep, deep in me - Since I saw thee standing in my doorway.) - - I have quenched thy torch— - I have plaited thy whip. - I am thy Woman! - - - NO ANSWER IS GIVEN - - I am Ah-woa-te, the Hunter. - - I met a maiden in the shadow of the rocks; - Her eyes were strange and clear, - Her fair lips were shaped like the bow of dawning. - I asked her name, - Striking my spear in the deep earth for resting. - - “I am Kantlak, a maiden, named for the Morning. - On the mountain-top I heard two eagles talking— - The word was Love. - They cried it, beating their wings on each other - Until they bled; and she fell, - Yet, falling, still weakly cried it - To him soaring: and died. - I came to a mossy low valley of flowers. - There I saw Men-iak, the white grouse, - (White with chaste dreams, like the Spring Moon, fairer than flowers). - Through the forest a dark bird swooped, with fierce eyes, - And Men-iak flew down to it. - Her white breast is red-dyed, she lies on the moss; - Yet faintly cries the same strange word, - Hunter, will you come to my little fire and tell me - What Love is?” - - I could not see the maiden’s face clearly, for the dusk, - Where she sat by her small fire—only her eyes. - In the little flicker I saw her feet; they were bare— - Tireless, slim brown feet. - I saw how fair her lips were— - I drew nearer to cast my log on the fire. I said: - “Maiden, I am the Hunter. - When dusk ends the chase I leave the Mighty Killing. - Far or near, where gleams some little fire, - I grope through the forest with my heavy log; - Till I find one by the fire, sitting alone without fuel. - I cast my log gladly into the fire—thus, - It grips, the flames mount, the warmth embraces. - - “Almost I can see your face, Woman; - The bow of your fair lips is hot with speeded arrows, - Your strange clear eyes have darkened. - Fear not—our fire will outlast the dark.” - - “Hunter, what of the cold on the bleak hillside - When the log burns gray, and the fire is ashes?” - I replied, “I have never seen this: - When the fire burns low I am asleep.” - She said: “What of me, if I sleep not, and see the ashes?” - I yawned: I said, “I know not; - I wake in the sun and go forth.” - - The bow of her lips was like the moon’s cold circle. - She said, “Hunter, you have told me of Love!” - “It may be so,” I answered. I wished to sleep. - She said, “Already it is ashes.” - I looked and saw that her face was gray, - As if the wind had blown the ashes over it. - I was angry; I said, “Better you had slept.” - She said, “Yes—but I lie bleeding on the moss, - Crying this word.” - I answered, “This is so; but wherefore?” and asked, idly, - “Wherefore remember him who brought to your lone little fire - The log that now is ashes?” - She shivered in the cold dawn; - I saw that her eyes were darker than shadows. - Her fair mouth was like my perfect bow, - But I could fit no more arrows to it. - - She said, “Hunter, see how gray are these rocks - Where we have sheltered our brief night.” - I looked—they were ashen. - She said: “See how they come together here—and here— - As the knees, the breast, the great brow, the forgotten eyes, - Of a woman, - Sitting, waiting, stark and still, - And always gray; - Though hunters camp each night between her knees, - And little fires are kindled and burned out in her hollows.” - It was so; the mountain was a stone woman sitting. - Kantlak said: “She remembers him who turned her fire to ashes; - She waits to know the meaning of her waiting— - Why the love that wounded her can never be cast out.” - - I asked idly, “Who will tell her?”— - And laughed, for the sun was up. I reached for my arrows; - I drew my strong spear from the deep earth by her feet. - Kantlak looked up to the other gray face, and said, - “No answer is given.” - Down to the cold white endless sea-shore - Slowly she went, with bent head. - A young deer cast its leaping shadow on the pool. - I ran upon the bright path, swaying my spear. - - - - - James Stephens - - - WHAT TOMAS AN BUILE SAID IN A PUB - - I saw God. Do you doubt it? - Do you dare to doubt it? - I saw the Almighty Man. His hand - Was resting on a mountain, and - He looked upon the World and all about it: - I saw Him plainer than you see me now, - You mustn’t doubt it. - - He was not satisfied; - His look was all dissatisfied. - His beard swung on a wind far out of sight - Behind the world’s curve, and there was light - Most fearful from His forehead, and He sighed, - “That star went always wrong, and from the start - I was dissatisfied.” - - He lifted up His hand— - I say He heaved a dreadful hand - Over the spinning Earth, then I said: “Stay— - You must not strike it, God; I’m in the way; - And I will never move from where I stand.” - He said, “Dear child, I feared that you were dead,” - And stayed His hand. - - - BESSIE BOBTAIL - - As down the street she wambled slow, - She had not got a place to go: - She had not got a place to fall - And rest herself—no place at all. - She stumped along and wagged her pate - And said a thing was desperate. - - Her face was screwed and wrinkled tight - Just like a nut—and, left and right, - On either side she wagged her head - And said a thing; and what she said - Was desperate as any word - That ever yet a person heard. - - I walked behind her for a while - And watched the people nudge and smile. - But ever as she went she said, - As left and right she swung her head, - —“Oh, God He knows,” and “God He knows:” - And surely God Almighty knows. - - - HATE - - My enemy came high, - And I - Stared fiercely in his face. - My lips went writhing back in a grimace, - And stern I watched him with a narrow eye. - Then, as I turned away, my enemy, - That bitter heart and savage, said to me: - “Some day, when this is past, - When all the arrows that we have are cast, - We may ask one another why we hate, - And fail to find a story to relate. - It may seem to us then a mystery - That we could hate each other.” - Thus said he, - And did not turn away, - Waiting to hear what I might have to say. - But I fled quickly, fearing if I stayed - I might have kissed him as I would a maid. - - - THE WASTE PLACES - - I - - As a naked man I go - Through the desert sore afraid, - Holding up my head although - I’m as frightened as a maid. - - The couching lion there I saw - From barren rocks lift up his eye; - He parts the cactus with his paw, - He stares at me as I go by. - - He would follow on my trace - If he knew I was afraid, - If he knew my hardy face - Hides the terrors of a maid. - - In the night he rises and - He stretches forth, he snuffs the air; - He roars and leaps along the sand, - He creeps and watches everywhere. - - His burning eyes, his eyes of bale, - Through the darkness I can see; - He lashes fiercely with his tail, - He would love to spring at me. - - I am the lion in his lair; - I am the fear that frightens me; - I am the desert of despair - And the nights of agony. - - Night or day, whate’er befall, - I must walk that desert land, - Until I can dare to call - The lion out to lick my hand. - - II - - As a naked man I tread - The gloomy forests, ring on ring, - Where the sun that’s overhead - Cannot see what’s happening. - - There I go: the deepest shade, - The deepest silence pressing me; - And my heart is more afraid - Than a maiden’s heart would be. - - Every day I have to run - Underneath the demon tree, - Where the ancient wrong is done - While I shrink in agony. - - There the demon held a maid - In his arms, and as she, daft, - Screamed again in fear, he laid - His lips upon her lips and laughed. - - And she beckoned me to run, - And she called for help to me, - And the ancient wrong was done - Which is done eternally. - - I am the maiden and the fear; - I am the sunless shade, the strife; - I the demon lips, the sneer - Showing under every life. - - I must tread that gloomy way - Until I shall dare to run - And bear the demon with his prey - From the forest to the sun. - - - HAWKS - - And as we walked the grass was faintly stirred; - We did not speak—there was no need to speak. - Above our heads there flew a little bird, - A silent one who feared that we might seek - Her hard-hid nest. - - Poor little frightened one! - If we had found your nest that sunny day - We would have passed it by; we would have gone - And never looked or frightened you away. - - O little bird! there’s many have a nest, - A hard-found, open place, with many a foe; - And hunger and despair and little rest, - And more to fear than you can know. - - Shield the nests where’er they be, - On the ground or on the tree; - Guard the poor from treachery. - - - DARK WINGS - - Sing while you may, O bird upon the tree! - Although on high, wide-winged above the day, - Chill evening broadens to immensity, - Sing while you may. - - On thee, wide-hovering too, intent to slay, - The hawk’s slant pinion buoys him terribly— - Thus near the end is of thy happy lay. - - The day and thou and miserable me - Dark wings shall cover up and hide away - Where no song stirs of bird or memory: - Sing while you may. - - - - - George Sterling - - - A LEGEND OF THE DOVE - - Soft from the linden’s bough, - Unmoved against the tranquil afternoon, - Eve’s dove laments her now: - “Ah, gone! long gone! shall not I find thee soon?” - - That yearning in his voice - Told not to Paradise a sorrow’s tale: - As other birds rejoice - He sang, a brother to the nightingale. - - By twilight on her breast - He saw the flower sleep, the star awake; - And calling her from rest, - Made all the dawn melodious for her sake. - - And then the Tempter’s breath, - The sword of exile and the mortal chain— - The heritage of death - That gave her heart to dust, his own to pain.... - - In Eden desolate - The seraph heard his lonely music swoon, - As now, reiterate; - “Ah, gone! long gone! shall not I find thee soon?” - - - KINDRED - - Musing, between the sunset and the dark, - As Twilight in unhesitating hands - Bore from the faint horizon’s underlands, - Silvern and chill, the moon’s phantasmal ark, - I heard the sea, and far away could mark - Where that unalterable waste expands - In sevenfold sapphire from the mournful sands, - And saw beyond the deep a vibrant spark. - - There sank the sun Arcturus, and I thought: - Star, by an ocean on a world of thine, - May not a being, born like me to die, - Confront a little the eternal Naught - And watch our isolated sun decline— - Sad for his evanescence, even as I? - - - OMNIA EXEUNT IN MYSTERIUM - - The stranger in my gates—lo! that am I, - And what my land of birth I do not know, - Nor yet the hidden land to which I go. - One may be lord of many ere he die, - And tell of many sorrows in one sigh, - But know himself he shall not, nor his woe, - Nor to what sea the tears of wisdom flow; - Nor why one star is taken from the sky. - - An urging is upon him evermore, - And though he bide, his soul is wanderer, - Scanning the shadows with a sense of haste— - Where fade the tracks of all who went before: - A dim and solitary traveller - On ways that end in evening and the waste. - - - THE LAST DAYS - - The russet leaves of the sycamore - Lie at last on the valley floor— - By the autumn wind swept to and fro - Like ghosts in a tale of long ago. - Shallow and clear the Carmel glides - Where the willows droop on its vine-walled sides. - - The bracken-rust is red on the hill; - The pines stand brooding, somber and still; - Gray are the cliffs, and the waters gray, - Where the seagulls dip to the sea-born spray. - Sad November, lady of rain, - Sends the goose-wedge over again. - - Wilder now, for the verdure’s birth, - Falls the sunlight over the earth; - Kildees call from the fields where now - The banding blackbirds follow the plow; - Rustling poplar and brittle weed - Whisper low to the river-reed. - - Days departing linger and sigh: - Stars come soon to the quiet sky; - Buried voices, intimate, strange, - Cry to body and soul of change; - Beauty, eternal fugitive, - Seeks the home that we cannot give. - - - - - Wallace Stevens - - - PETER QUINCE AT THE CLAVIER - - I - - Just as my fingers on these keys - Make music, so the self-same sounds - On my spirit make a music too. - - Music is feeling then, not sound; - And thus it is that what I feel, - Here in this room, desiring you, - - Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk, - Is music. It is like the strain - Waked in the elders by Susanna: - - Of a green evening, clear and warm, - She bathed in her still garden, while - The red-eyed elders, watching, felt - - The basses of their being throb - In witching chords, and their thin blood - Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna. - - II - - In the green water, clear and warm, - Susanna lay. - She searched - The touch of springs, - And found - Concealed imaginings. - She sighed - For so much melody. - - Upon the bank she stood - In the cool - Of spent emotions. - She felt, among the leaves, - The dew - Of old devotions. - - She walked upon the grass, - Still quavering. - The winds were like her maids, - On timid feet, - Fetching her woven scarves, - Yet wavering. - - A breath upon her hand - Muted the night. - She turned— - A cymbal crashed, - And roaring horns. - - III - - Soon, with a noise like tambourines, - Came her attendant Byzantines. - - They wondered why Susanna cried - Against the elders by her side: - - And as they whispered, the refrain - Was like a willow swept by rain. - - Anon, their lamps’ uplifted flame - Revealed Susanna and her shame. - - And then the simpering Byzantines, - Fled, with a noise like tambourines. - - IV - - Beauty is momentary in the mind— - The fitful tracing of a portal; - But in the flesh it is immortal. - - The body dies; the body’s beauty lives. - So evenings die, in their green going, - A wave, interminably flowing. - So gardens die, their meek breath scenting - The cowl of Winter, done repenting. - So maidens die, to the auroral - Celebration of a maiden’s choral. - - Susanna’s music touched the bawdy strings - Of those white elders; but, escaping, - Left only Death’s ironic scraping. - Now, in its immortality, it plays - On the clear viol of her memory, - And makes a constant sacrament of praise. - - - IN BATTLE - - Death’s nobility again - Beautified the simplest men. - Fallen Winkle felt the pride - Of Agamemnon - When he died. - - What could London’s - Work and waste - Give him— - To that salty, sacrificial taste? - - What could London’s - Sorrow bring— - To that short, triumphant sting? - - - SUNDAY MORNING - - I - - Complacencies of the peignoir, and late - Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, - And the green freedom of a cockatoo - Upon a rug, mingle to dissipate - The holy hush of ancient sacrifice. - She dreams a little, and she feels the dark - Encroachment of that old catastrophe, - As a calm darkens among water-lights. - The pungent oranges and bright, green wings - Seem things in some procession of the dead, - Winding across wide water, without sound. - The day is like wide water, without sound, - Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet - Over the seas, to silent Palestine, - Dominion of the blood and sepulchre. - - II - - She hears, upon that water without sound, - A voice that cries: “The tomb in Palestine - Is not the porch of spirits lingering; - It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.” - We live in an old chaos of the sun, - Or old dependency of day and night, - Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, - Of that wide water, inescapable. - Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail - Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; - Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; - And, in the isolation of the sky, - At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make - Ambiguous undulations as they sink, - Downward to darkness, on extended wings. - - III - - She says: “I am content when wakened birds, - Before they fly, test the reality - Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings; - But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields - Return no more, where, then, is paradise?” - There is not any haunt of prophecy, - Nor any old chimera of the grave, - Neither the golden underground, nor isle - Melodious, where spirits gat them home, - Nor visionary South, nor cloudy palm - Remote on heaven’s hill, that has endured - As April’s green endures; or will endure - Like her remembrance of awakened birds, - Or her desire for June and evening, tipped - By the consummation of the swallow’s wings. - - IV - - She says, “But in contentment I still feel - The need of some imperishable bliss.” - Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, - Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams - And our desires. Although she strews the leaves - Of sure obliteration on our paths— - The path sick sorrow took, the many paths - Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love - Whispered a little out of tenderness— - She makes the willow shiver in the sun - For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze - Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet. - She causes boys to bring sweet-smelling pears - And plums in ponderous piles. The maidens taste - And stray impassioned in the littering leaves. - - V - - Supple and turbulent, a ring of men - Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn - Their boisterous devotion to the sun— - Not as a god, but as a god might be, - Naked among them, like a savage source. - Their chant shall be a chant of paradise, - Out of their blood, returning to the sky; - And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice, - The windy lake wherein their lord delights, - The trees, like seraphim, and echoing hills, - That choir among themselves long afterward. - They shall know well the heavenly fellowship - Of men that perish and of summer morn— - And whence they came and whither they shall go, - The dew upon their feet shall manifest. - - - - - Ajan Syrian - - - THE SYRIAN LOVER IN EXILE REMEMBERS THEE, LIGHT OF MY LAND - - Rose and amber was the sunset on the river, - Red-rose the hills about Bingariz. - High upon their brows, the black tree-branches - Spread wide across the turquoise sky. - I saw the parrots fly— - A cloud of rising green from the long green grasses, - A mist of gold and green winging fast - Into the gray shadow-silence of the tamarisks. - Pearl-white and wild was the flood below the ford. - I ran down the long hot road to thy door; - Thy door shone—a white flower in the dusk lingering to close. - The stars rose and stood above thy casement. - I cast my cloak and climbed to thee, - To thee, Makhir Subatu! - - · · · · · - - Naked she stood and glistening like the stars over her— - Her hair trailed about her like clouds about the moon— - Naked as the soul seeking love, - As the soul that waits for death. - White with benediction, pendulous, unfolding from the dark - As the crystal sky of morning, she waited, - And leaned her light above the earth of my desire. - Like a world that spins from the hand of Infinity, - Up from the night I leaped— - To thee, Makhir Subatu! - - · · · · · - - Pearl-bright and wild, a flood without a ford, - The River of Love flowed on. - Her eyes were gleaming sails in a storm, - Dipping, swooning, beckoning. - The dawn came and trampled over her; - Gray-arched and wide, the sanctuary of light descended. - It was the altar where I lay; - And I lifted my face at last, praying. - I saw the first glow fall about her, - Like marble pillars coming forth from the shadow. - I raised my hands, thanking the gods - That in love I had grown so tall - I could touch the two lamps in heaven, - The sun and moon hanging in the low heaven beneath her face. - How great through love had I grown - To breathe my flame into the two lamps of heaven! - - O eyes of the eagle and the dove, - Eyes red-starred and white-starred, - Eyes that have too much seen, too much confessed, - Close, close, beneath my kisses! - Tell me no more, demand me no more—it is day. - I see the gold-green rain of parrot-wings - Sparkling athwart the gray and rose-gold morning. - I go from thy closed door down the long lone road - To the ricefields beyond the river, - Beyond the river that has a ford. - - · · · · · - - I came to thee with hope, with desire. I have them no longer. - Sleep, sleep; I am locked in thee. - - · · · · · - - _Thus the exile lover remembers thee, Makhir Subatu!_ - - - - - Rabindranath Tagore - - - FROM “GITANJALI” - - I - - Thou hast made me known to friends whom I knew not. Thou hast given me - seats in homes not my own. Thou hast brought the distant near and - made a brother of the stranger. I am uneasy at heart when I have to - leave my accustomed shelter; I forgot that there abides the old in - the new, and that there also thou abidest. - Through birth and death, in this world or in others, wherever thou - leadest me it is thou, the same, the one companion of my endless life - who ever linkest my heart with bonds of joy to the unfamiliar. When - one knows thee, then alien there is none, then no door is shut. Oh, - grant me my prayer that I may never lose the bliss of the touch of - the One in the play of the many. - - - II - - No more noisy, loud words from me, such is my master’s will. Henceforth - I deal in whispers. The speech of my heart will be carried on in - murmurings of a song. - Men hasten to the King’s market. All the buyers and sellers are there. - But I have my untimely leave in the middle of the day, in the thick - of work. - Let then the flowers come out in my garden, though it is not their time, - and let the midday bees strike up their lazy hum. - Full many an hour have I spent in the strife of the good and the evil, - but now it is the pleasure of my playmate of the empty days to draw - my heart on to him, and I know not why is this sudden call to what - useless inconsequence! - - III - - On the day when the lotus bloomed, alas, my mind was straying, and I - knew it not. My basket was empty and the flower remained unheeded. - Only now and again a sadness fell upon me, and I started up from my - dream and felt a sweet trace of a strange smell in the south wind. - That vague fragrance made my heart ache with longing, and it seemed to - me that it was the eager breath of the summer seeking for its - completion. - I knew not then that it was so near, that it was mine, and this perfect - sweetness had blossomed in the depth of my own heart. - - IV - - By all means they try to hold me secure who love me in this world. But - it is otherwise with thy love, which is greater than theirs, and thou - keepest me free. Lest I forget them they never venture to leave me - alone. But day passes by after day and thou art not seen. - If I call not thee in my prayers, if I keep not thee in my heart—thy - love for me still waits for my love. - - - V - - I was not aware of the moment when I first crossed the threshold of this - life. What was the power that made me open out into this vast mystery - like a bud in the forest at midnight? When in the morning I looked - upon the light I felt in a moment that I was no stranger in this - world, that the inscrutable without name and form had taken me in its - arms in the form of my own mother. Even so, in death the same unknown - will appear as ever known to me. And because I love this life, I know - I shall love death as well. The child cries out when from the right - breast the mother takes it away to find in the very next moment its - consolation in the left one. - - VI - - Thou art the sky and thou art the nest as well. Oh, thou beautiful, - there in the nest it is thy love that encloses the soul with colors - and sounds and odors. There comes the morning with the golden basket - in her right hand bearing the wreath of beauty, silently to crown the - earth. And there comes the evening over the lonely meadows deserted - by herds, through trackless paths, carrying cool draughts of peace in - her golden pitcher from the western ocean of rest. - But there, where spreads the infinite sky for the soul to take her - flight in, reigns the stainless white radiance. There is no day nor - night, nor form nor color, and never never a word. - - - FROM “THE GARDENER” - - I - - Over the green and yellow rice fields sweep the shadows of the autumn - clouds, followed by the swift-chasing sun. - The bees forget to sip their honey; drunken with the light they - foolishly hum and hover; and the ducks in the sandy riverbank clamor - in joy for mere nothing. - - None shall go back home, brothers, this morning, none shall go to work. - We will take the blue sky by storm and plunder the space as we run. - Laughters fly floating in the air like foams in the flood. - Brothers, we shall squander our morning in futile songs. - - II - - Keep me fully glad with nothing. Only take my hand in your hand. - In the gloom of the deepening night take up my heart and play with it as - you list. Bind me close to you with nothing. - I will spread myself out at your feet and lie still. Under this clouded - sky I will meet silence with silence. I will become one with the - night clasping the earth in my breast. - Make my life glad with nothing. - The rains sweep the sky from end to end. Jasmines in the wet untamable - wind revel in their own perfume. The cloud-hidden stars thrill in - secret. Let me fill to the full of my heart with nothing but my own - depth of joy. - - III - - My soul is alight with your infinitude of stars. Your world has broken - upon me like a flood. The flowers of your garden blossom in my body. - The joy of life that is everywhere burns like an incense in my heart. - And the breath of all things plays on my life as on a pipe of reeds. - - IV - - Leave off your works, bride. Listen, the guest has come. Do you hear, he - is gently shaking the fastening chain of the door? - Let not your anklets be loud, and your steps be too hurried to meet him. - Leave off your works, bride; the guest has come, in the evening. - - - No, it is not the wind, bride. Do not be frightened. - It is the full-moon night of April, shadows are pale in the courtyard, - the sky overhead is bright. - Draw your veil over your face if you must, take the lamp from your room - if you fear. - No, it is not the wind, bride; do not be frightened. - - Have no word with him if you are shy, stand aside by the door when you - meet him. - If he asks you questions, lower your eyes in silence, if you wish. - Do not let your bracelets jingle, when, lamp in hand, you lead him in. - Have no word with him if you are shy. - - Have you not finished your works yet, bride? Listen, the guest has come. - Have you not lit the lamp in the cowshed? - Have you not got ready the offering basket for the evening service? - Have you not put the auspicious red mark at the parting of your hair, - and done your toilet for the night? - O bride, do you hear, the guest has come? - Have you not finished your works yet? - - V - - Come as you are, tarry not over your toilet. - If your braiding has come loose, if the parting of your hair be not - straight, if the ribbons of your bodice be not fastened, do not mind. - Come as you are, tarry not over your toilet. - - Come with quick steps over the grass. - If your feet are pale with the dew, if your anklets slacken, if pearls - drop out of your chain, do not mind. - Come with quick steps over the grass. - - - Do you see the clouds wrapping the sky? - Flocks of cranes fly up from the further riverbank and fitful gusts of - wind rush over the heath. - The anxious cattle run to their stalls in the village. - Do you see the clouds wrapping the sky? - - In vain you light your toilet lamp; it flickers and goes out in the - wind. - Surely, who would know that with lamp-black your eyelids are not - touched? For your eyes are darker than rain clouds. - In vain you light your toilet lamp; it goes out. - - Come as you are, tarry not over your toilet. - If the wreath is not woven, who cares? If the wrist-chain has not been - tied, leave it by. - The sky is overcast with clouds; it is late. - Come as you are, tarry not over your toilet. - - VI - - Lest I should know you too easily, you play with me. - You blind me with flashes of laughter to hide your tears. - I know, I know your art; - You never say the word you would. - - Lest I should prize you not, you elude me in a thousand ways. - Lest I should mix you with the crowd, you stand aside. - I know, I know your art; - You never walk the path you would. - - Your claim is more than others; that is why you are silent. - With a playful carelessness you avoid my gifts. - I know, I know your art; - You never accept what you would. - - - VII - - Amidst the rush and roar of life, O beauty, carved in stone, you stand - mute and still, alone and aloof. - Great Time sits enamoured at your feet and repeats to you: - “Speak, speak to me, my love; speak, my mute bride!” - But your speech is shut up in stone, O you immovably fair! - - VIII - - Tell me if this is all true, my lover? tell me if it is true. - When the eyes of me flash their lightning on you, dark clouds in your - breast make stormy answer; - Is it then true that the dew drops fall from the night when I am seen, - and the morning light is glad when it wraps my body? - - Is it true, is it true, that your love travelled alone through ages and - worlds in search of me? that when you found me at last, your age-long - desire found utter peace in my gentle speech, and my eyes and lips - and flowing hair? - - Is it then true that the mystery of the Infinite is written on this - little brow of mine? - Tell me, my lover, if all this is true! - - IX - - With a glance of your eyes you could plunder all the wealth of songs - struck from poets’ harps, fair woman! - But for their praises you have no ear; therefore do I come to praise - you. - You could humble at your feet the proudest heads of all the world; - But it is your loved ones, unknown to fame, whom you choose to worship; - therefore I worship you. - - - Your perfect arms would add glory to kingly splendor with their touch; - But you use them to sweep away the dust, and to make clean your humble - home; therefore I am filled with awe. - - - - - Sara Teasdale - - - LEAVES - - One by one, like leaves from a tree, - All my faiths have forsaken me; - But the stars above my head - Burn in white and delicate red, - And beneath my feet the earth - Brings the sturdy grass to birth. - I who was content to be - But a silken-singing tree, - But a rustle of delight - In the wistful heart of night, - I have lost the leaves that knew - Touch of rain and weight of dew. - Blinded by a leafy crown - I looked neither up nor down— - But the little leaves that die - Have left me room to see the sky; - Now for the first time I know - Stars above and earth below. - - - MORNING - - I went out on an April morning - All alone, for my heart was high. - I was a child of the shining meadow, - I was a sister of the sky. - - There in the windy flood of morning - Longing lifted its weight from me, - Lost as a sob in the midst of cheering, - Swept as a sea-bird out to sea. - - - THE FLIGHT - - Look back with longing eyes and know that I will follow, - Lift me up in your love as a light wing lifts a swallow, - Let our flight be far in sun or windy rain— - _But what if I heard my first love calling me again?_ - - Hold me on your heart as the brave sea holds the foam, - Take me far away to the hills that hide your home; - Peace shall thatch the roof and love shall latch the door— - _But what if I heard my first love calling me once more?_ - - - OVER THE ROOFS - - I said, “I have shut my heart, - As one shuts an open door, - That Love may starve therein - And trouble me no more.” - - But over the roofs there came - The wet new wind of May, - And a tune blew up from the curb - Where the street-pianos play. - - My room was white with the sun - And Love cried out in me, - “I am strong, I will break your heart - Unless you set me free.” - - - DEBT - - What do I owe to you - Who loved me deep and long? - You never gave my spirits wings - Nor gave my heart a song. - - But oh, to him I loved, - Who loved me not at all, - I owe the little gate - That led through heaven’s wall. - - - SONGS IN A HOSPITAL - - - THE BROKEN FIELD - - My soul is a dark ploughed field - In the cold rain; - My soul is a broken field - Ploughed by pain. - - Where windy grass and flowers - Were growing, - The field lies broken now - For another sowing. - - Great Sower, when you tread - My field again, - Scatter the furrows there - With better grain. - - - OPEN WINDOWS - - Out of the window a sea of green trees - Lift their soft boughs like arms of a dancer; - They beckon and call me, “Come out in the sun!” - But I cannot answer. - - I am alone with Weakness and Pain, - Sick abed and June is going, - I cannot keep her, she hurries by - With the silver-green of her garments blowing. - - Men and women pass in the street - Glad of the shining sapphire weather; - But we know more of it than they, - Pain and I together. - - They are the runners in the sun, - Breathless and blinded by the race, - But we are watchers in the shade - Who speak with Wonder face to face. - - - AFTER DEATH - - Now while my lips are living - Their words must stay unsaid, - And will my soul remember - To speak when I am dead? - - Yet if my soul remembered - You would not heed it, dear, - For now you must not listen, - And then you could not hear. - - - IN MEMORIAM F. O. S. - - You go a long and lovely journey, - For all the stars, like burning dew, - Are luminous and luring footprints - Of souls adventurous as you. - - Oh, if you lived on earth elated, - How is it now that you can run - Free of the weight of flesh and faring - Far past the birthplace of the sun? - - - SWALLOW FLIGHT - - I love my hour of wind and light, - I love men’s faces and their eyes, - I love my spirit’s veering flight - Like swallows under evening skies. - - - THE ANSWER - - When I go back to earth - And all my joyous body - Puts off the red and white - That once had been so proud, - If men should pass above - With false and feeble pity, - My dust will find a voice - To answer them aloud: - - “Be still, I am content, - Take back your poor compassion!— - Joy was a flame in me - Too steady to destroy. - Lithe as a bending reed - Loving the storm that sways her— - I found more joy in sorrow - Than you could find in joy.” - - - - - Eunice Tietjens - - - THE BACCHANTE TO HER BABE - - _Scherzo_ - - Come, sprite, and dance! The sun is up, - The wind runs laughing down the sky - That brims with morning like a cup. - Sprite, we must race him, - We must chase him— - You and I! - And skim across the fuzzy heather— - You and joy and I together - Whirling by! - - You merry little roll of fat!— - Made warm to kiss, and smooth to pat, - And round to toy with, like a cub; - To put one’s nozzle in and rub - And breathe you in like breath of kine, - Like juice of vine, - That sets my morning heart a-tingling, - Dancing, jingling, - All the glad abandon mingling - Of wind and wine! - - Sprite, you are love, and you are joy, - A happiness, a dream, a toy, - A god to laugh with, - Love to chaff with, - The sun come down in tangled gold, - The moon to kiss, and spring to hold. - - There was a time once, long ago, - Long—oh, long since ... I scarcely know. - Almost I had forgot ... - There was a time when you were not, - You merry sprite, save as a strain, - The strange dull pain - Of green buds swelling - In warm, straight dwelling - That must burst to the April rain. - A little heavy I was then, - And dull—and glad to rest. And when - The travail came - In searing flame ... - But, sprite, that was so long ago!— - A century!—I scarcely know. - Almost I had forgot - When you were not. - - So, little sprite, come dance with me! - The sun is up, the wind is free! - Come now and trip it, - Romp and skip it, - Earth is young and so are we. - Sprite, you and I will dance together - On the heather, - Glad with all the procreant earth, - With all the fruitage of the trees, - And golden pollen on the breeze, - With plants that bring the grain to birth, - With beast and bird, - Feathered and furred, - With youth and hope and life and love, - And joy thereof— - While we are part of all, we two— - For my glad burgeoning in you! - - So, merry little roll of fat, - Made warm to kiss and smooth to pat - And round to toy with, like a cub, - To put one’s nozzle in and rub, - My god to laugh with, - Love to chaff with, - Come and dance beneath the sky, - You and I! - Look out with those round wondering eyes, - And squirm, and gurgle—and grow wise! - - - THE STEAM SHOVEL - - Beneath my window in a city street - A monster lairs, a creature huge and grim - And only half believed: the strength of him— - Steel-strung and fit to meet - The strength of earth— - Is mighty as men’s dreams that conquer force. - Steam belches from him. He is the new birth - Of old Behemoth, late-sprung from the source - Whence Grendel sprang, and all the monster clan - Dead for an age, now born again of man. - - The iron head, - Set on a monstrous, jointed neck, - Glides here and there, lifts, settles on the red - Moist floor, with nose dropped in the dirt, at beck - Of some incredible control. - He snorts, and pauses couchant for a space, - Then slowly lifts, and tears the gaping hole - Yet deeper in earth’s flank. A sudden race - Of loosened earth and pebbles trickles there - Like blood-drops in a wound. - But he, the monster, swings his load around— - Weightless it seems as air. - His mammoth jaw - Drops widely open with a rasping sound, - And all the red earth vomits from his maw. - - O thwarted monster, born at man’s decree, - A lap-dog dragon, eating from his hand - And doomed to fetch and carry at command, - Have you no longing ever to be free? - In warm, electric days to run a-muck, - Ranging like some mad dinosaur, - Your fiery heart at war - With this strange world, the city’s restless ruck, - Where all drab things that toil, save you alone, - Have life; - And you the semblance only, and the strife? - Do you not yearn to rip the roots of stone - Of these great piles men build, - And hurl them down with shriek of shattered steel, - Scorning your own sure doom, so you may feel, - You too, the lust with which your fathers killed? - Or is your soul in very deed so tame, - The blood of Grendel watered to a gruel, - That you are well content - With heart of flame - Thus placidly to chew your cud of fuel - And toil in peace for man’s aggrandizement? - - Poor helpless creature of a half-grown god, - Blind of yourself and impotent! - At night, - When your forerunners, sprung from quicker sod, - Would range through primal woods, hot on the scent, - Or wake the stars with amorous delight, - You stand, a soiled, unwieldy mass of steel, - Black in the arc-light, modern as your name, - Dead and unsouled and trite; - Till I must feel - - A quick creator’s pity for your shame: - That man, who made you and who gave so much, - Yet cannot give the last transforming touch; - That with the work he cannot give the wage— - For day, no joy of night, - For toil, no ecstasy of primal rage. - - - THE GREAT MAN - - I cannot always feel his greatness. - Sometimes he walks beside me, step by step, - And paces slowly in the ways— - The simple, wingless ways - That my thoughts tread. He gossips with me then, - And finds it good; - Not as an eagle might, his great wings folded, be content - To walk a little, knowing it his choice, - But as a simple man, - My friend. - And I forget. - - Then suddenly a call floats down - From the clear airy spaces, - The great keen, lonely heights of being. - And he who was my comrade hears the call - And rises from my side, and soars, - Deep-chanting, to the heights. - Then I remember. - And my upward gaze goes with him, and I see - Far off against the sky - The glint of golden sunlight on his wings. - - - - - Ridgely Torrence - - - THE BIRD AND THE TREE - - Blackbird, blackbird in the cage, - There’s something wrong tonight. - Far off the sheriff’s footfall dies, - The minutes crawl like last year’s flies - Between the bars, and like an age - The hours are long tonight. - - The sky is like a heavy lid - Out here beyond the door tonight. - What’s that? A mutter down the street. - What’s that? The sound of yells and feet. - For what you didn’t do or did - You’ll pay the score tonight. - - No use to reek with reddened sweat, - No use to whimper and to sweat. - They’ve got the rope; they’ve got the guns, - They’ve got the courage and the guns; - And that’s the reason why tonight - No use to ask them any more. - They’ll fire the answer through the door— - You’re out to die tonight. - - There where the lonely cross-road lies, - There is no place to make replies; - But silence, inch by inch, is there, - And the right limb for a lynch is there; - And a lean daw waits for both your eyes, - Blackbird. - - Perhaps you’ll meet again some place. - Look for the mask upon the face: - That’s the way you’ll know them there— - - A white mask to hide the face. - And you can halt and show them there - The things that they are deaf to now, - And they can tell you what they meant— - To wash the blood with blood. But how - If you are innocent? - - Blackbird singer, blackbird mute, - They choked the seed you might have found. - Out of a thorny field you go— - For you it may be better so— - And leave the sowers of the ground - To eat the harvest of the fruit, - Blackbird. - - - THE SON - - _Southern Ohio Market Town_ - - I heard an old farm-wife, - Selling some barley, - Mingle her life with life - And the name “Charley.” - - Saying: “The crop’s all in, - We’re about through now; - Long nights will soon begin, - We’re just us two now. - - “Twelve bushel at sixty cents, - It’s all I carried— - He sickened making fence; - He was to be married— - - “It feels like frost was near— - His hair was curly. - The spring was late that year, - But the harvest early.” - - - - - Charles Hanson Towne - - - BEYOND THE STARS - - Three days I heard them grieve when I lay dead, - (It was so strange to me that they should weep!) - Tall candles burned about me in the dark, - And a great crucifix was on my breast, - And a great silence filled the lonesome room. - - I heard one whisper, “Lo! the dawn is breaking, - And he has lost the wonder of the day.” - Another came whom I had loved on earth, - And kissed my brow and brushed my dampened hair. - Softly she spoke: “Oh, that he should not see - The April that his spirit bathed in! Birds - Are singing in the orchard, and the grass - That soon will cover him is growing green. - The daisies whiten on the emerald hills, - And the immortal magic that he loved - Wakens again—and he has fallen asleep.” - Another said: “Last night I saw the moon - Like a tremendous lantern shine in heaven, - And I could only think of him—and sob. - For I remembered evenings wonderful - When he was faint with Life’s sad loveliness, - And watched the silver ribbons wandering far - Along the shore, and out upon the sea. - Oh, I remembered how he loved the world, - The sighing ocean and the flaming stars, - The everlasting glamour God has given— - His tapestries that wrap the earth’s wide room. - I minded me of mornings filled with rain - When he would sit and listen to the sound - As if it were lost music from the spheres. - He loved the crocus and the hawthorn-hedge, - He loved the shining gold of buttercups, - And the low droning of the drowsy bees - That boomed across the meadows. He was glad - At dawn or sundown; glad when Autumn came - With her worn livery and scarlet crown, - And glad when Winter rocked the earth to rest. - Strange that he sleeps today when Life is young, - And the wild banners of the Spring are blowing - With green inscriptions of the old delight.” - - I heard them whisper in the quiet room. - I longed to open then my sealed eyes, - And tell them of the glory that was mine. - There was no darkness where my spirit flew, - There was no night beyond the teeming world. - Their April was like winter where I roamed; - Their flowers were like stones where now I fared. - Earth’s day! it was as if I had not known - What sunlight meant!... Yea, even as they grieved - For all that I had lost in their pale place, - I swung beyond the borders of the sky, - And floated through the clouds, myself the air, - Myself the ether, yet a matchless being - Whom God had snatched from penury and pain - To draw across the barricades of heaven. - I clomb beyond the sun, beyond the moon; - In flight on flight I touched the highest star; - I plunged to regions where the Spring is born, - Myself (I asked not how) the April wind, - Myself the elements that are of God. - Up flowery stairways of eternity - I whirled in wonder and untrammeled joy, - An atom, yet a portion of His dream— - His dream that knows no end.... - I was the rain, - I was the dawn, I was the purple east, - I was the moonlight on enchanted nights, - (Yet time was lost to me); I was a flower - For one to pluck who loved me; I was bliss, - And rapture, splendid moments of delight; - And I was prayer, and solitude, and hope; - And always, always, always I was love. - I tore asunder flimsy doors of time, - And through the windows of my soul’s new sight - I saw beyond the ultimate bounds of space. - I was all things that I had loved on earth— - The very moonbeam in that quiet room, - The very sunlight one had dreamed I lost, - The soul of the returning April grass, - The spirit of the evening and the dawn, - The perfume in unnumbered hawthorn-blooms. - There was no shadow on my perfect peace, - No knowledge that was hidden from my heart. - I learned what music meant; I read the years; - I found where rainbows hide, where tears begin; - I trod the precincts of things yet unborn. - - Yea, while I found all wisdom (being dead), - They grieved for me ... I should have grieved for them! - - - - - Louis Untermeyer - - - LANDSCAPES - - The rain was over, and the brilliant air - Made every little blade of grass appear - Vivid and startling—everything was there - With sharpened outlines, eloquently clear, - As though one saw it in a crystal sphere. - - The rusty sumac with its struggling spires; - The goldenrod with all its million fires - (A million torches swinging in the wind); - A single poplar, marvellously thinned, - Half like a naked boy, half like a sword; - Clouds, like the haughty banners of the Lord; - A group of pansies with their shrewish faces, - Little old ladies cackling over laces; - The quaint, unhurried road that curved so well; - The prim petunias with their rich, rank smell; - The lettuce-birds, the creepers in the field— - How bountifully were they all revealed! - How arrogantly each one seemed to thrive— - So frank and strong, so radiantly alive! - - And over all the morning-minded earth - There seemed to spread a sharp and kindling mirth, - Piercing the stubborn stones until I saw - The toad face heaven without shame or awe, - The ant confront the stars, and every weed - Grow proud as though it bore a royal seed; - While all the things that die and decompose - Sent forth their bloom as richly as the rose.... - Oh, what a liberal power that made them thrive - And keep the very dirt that died, alive. - - And now I saw the slender willow-tree - No longer calm or drooping listlessly, - Letting its languid branches sway and fall - As though it danced in some sad ritual; - But rather like a young, athletic girl, - Fearless and gay, her hair all out of curl, - And flying in the wind—her head thrown back, - Her arms flung up, her garments flowing slack, - And all her rushing spirits running over.... - What made a sober tree seem such a rover— - - Or made the staid and stalwart apple-trees, - That stood for years knee-deep in velvet peace, - Turn all their fruit to little worlds of flame, - And burn the trembling orchard there below? - What lit the heart of every golden-glow— - Oh, why was nothing weary, dull, or tame?... - Beauty it was, and keen, compassionate mirth - That drives the vast and energetic earth. - - And, with abrupt and visionary eyes, - I saw the huddled tenements arise. - Here where the merry clover danced and shone - Sprang agonies of iron and of stone; - There, where green Silence laughed or stood enthralled, - Cheap music blared and evil alleys sprawled. - The roaring avenues, the shrieking mills; - Brothels and prisons on those kindly hills— - The menace of these things swept over me; - A threatening, unconquerable sea.... - - A stirring landscape and a generous earth! - Freshening courage and benevolent mirth— - And then the city, like a hideous sore.... - Good God, and what is all this beauty for? - - - “FEUERZAUBER” - - I never knew the earth had so much gold— - The fields run over with it, and this hill - Hoary and old, - Is young with buoyant blooms that flame and thrill. - - Such golden fires, such yellow—lo, how good - This spendthrift world, and what a lavish God— - This fringe of wood, - Blazing with buttercup and goldenrod. - - You too, beloved, are changed. Again I see - Your face grow mystical, as on that night - You turned to me, - And all the trembling world—and you—were white. - - Aye, you are touched; your singing lips grow dumb; - The fields absorb you, color you entire.... - And you become - A goddess standing in a world of fire! - - - ON THE BIRTH OF A CHILD - - _Jerome Epstein—August 8, 1912_ - - Lo—to the battle-ground of life, - Child, you have come, like a conquering shout, - Out of a struggle—into strife; - Out of a darkness—into doubt. - - Girt with the fragile armor of youth, - Child, you must ride into endless wars, - With the sword of protest, the buckler of truth, - And a banner of love to sweep the stars. - - About you the world’s despair will surge; - Into defeat you must plunge and grope— - Be to the faltering an urge; - Be to the hopeless years a hope! - - Be to the darkened world a flame; - Be to its unconcern a blow— - For out of its pain and tumult you came, - And into its tumult and pain you go. - - - IRONY - - Why are the things that have no death - The ones with neither sight nor breath! - Eternity is thrust upon - A bit of earth, a senseless stone. - A grain of dust, a casual clod - Receives the greatest gift of God. - A pebble in the roadway lies— - It never dies. - - The grass our fathers cut away - Is growing on their graves to-day; - The tiniest brooks that scarcely flow - Eternally will come and go. - There is no kind of death to kill - The sands that lie so meek and still.... - But Man is great and strong and wise— - And so he dies. - - - - - Allen Upward - - - SCENTED LEAVES FROM A CHINESE JAR - - - THE ACACIA LEAVES - -The aged man, when he beheld winter approaching, counted the leaves as -they lapsed from the acacia trees; while his son was talking of the -spring. - - - THE BITTER PURPLE WILLOWS - -Meditating on the glory of illustrious lineage I lifted up my eyes and -beheld the bitter purple willows growing round the tombs of the exalted -Mings. - - - THE CORAL FISHER - -The coral fisher, who had been a long time beneath the water, rose to -the surface with nothing in his hand but a spray of crimson seaweed. In -answer to the master of the junk he said, “While I was in the world of -fishes this miserable weed appeared to me more beautiful than coral.” - - - THE DIAMOND - -The poet Wong, after he had delighted a company of mandarins at a feast, -sat silent in the midst of his household. He explained, “The diamond -sparkles only when it is in the light.” - - - THE ESTUARY - -Some one complained to the Master, “After many lessons I do not fully -understand your doctrine.” In response the Master pointed to the tide in -the mouth of the river, and asked, “How wide is the sea in this place?” - - - THE INTOXICATED POET - -A poet, having taken the bridle off his tongue, spoke thus: “More -fragrant than the heliotrope, which blooms all the year round, better -than vermilion letters on tablets of sendal, are thy kisses, thou shy -one!” - - - THE JONQUILS - -I have heard that a certain princess, when she found that she had been -married by a demon, wove a wreath of jonquils and sent it to the lover -of former days. - - - THE MARIGOLD - -Even as the seed of the marigold, carried by the wind, lodges on the -roofs of palaces, and lights the air with flame-colored blossoms, so may -the child-like words of the insignificant poet confer honor on lofty and -disdainful mandarins. - - - THE MERMAID - -The sailor boy who leant over the side of the Junk of Many Pearls, and -combed the green tresses of the sea with his ivory fingers, believing -that he had heard the voice of a mermaid, cast his body down between the -waves. - - - THE MIDDLE KINGDOM - -The emperors of fourteen dynasties, clad in robes of yellow silk -embroidered with the Dragon, wearing gold diadems set with pearls and -rubies, and seated on thrones of incomparable ivory, have ruled over the -Middle Kingdom for four thousand years. - - - THE MILKY WAY - -My mother taught me that every night a procession of junks carrying -lanterns moves silently across the sky, and the water sprinkled from -their paddles falls to the earth in the form of dew. I no longer believe -that the stars are junks carrying lanterns, no longer that the dew is -shaken from their oars. - - - THE ONION - -The child who threw away leaf after leaf of the many-coated onion, to -get to the sweet heart, found in the end that he had thrown away the -heart itself. - - - THE SEA-SHELL - -To the passionate lover, whose sighs come back to him on every breeze, -all the world is like a murmuring sea-shell. - - - THE STUPID KITE - -A kite, while devouring a skylark, complained, “Had I known that thy -flesh was no sweeter than that of a sparrow I should have listened -longer to thy delicious notes.” - - - THE WINDMILL - -The exquisite painter Ko-tsu was often reproached by an industrious -friend for his fits of idleness. At last he excused himself by saying, -“You are a watermill—a windmill can grind only when the wind blows.” - - - THE WORD - -The first time the emperor Han heard a certain Word he said, “It is -strange.” The second time he said, “It is divine.” The third time he -said, “Let the speaker be put to death.” - - - - - John Hall Wheelock - - - SUNDAY EVENING IN THE COMMON - - Look—on the topmost branches of the world - The blossoms of the myriad stars are thick; - Over the huddled rows of stone and brick - A few sad wisps of empty smoke are curled - Like ghosts, languid and sick. - - One breathless moment now the city’s moaning - Fades, and the endless streets seem vague and dim; - There is no sound around the world’s rim, - Save in the distance a small band is droning - Some desolate old hymn. - - Van Wyck, how often have we been together - When this same moment made all mysteries clear— - The infinite stars that brood above us here, - And the gray city in the soft June weather, - So tawdry and so dear! - - - SPRING - - The air is full of dawn and spring; - Outside the room I see - A swallow, like a shaft of light, - Shift sideways suddenly. - - There is no room for death at all - In earth or heaven above; - He never yet believed in death - Who ever learned to love. - - Build me a tomb when I am dead, - But leave a window free - That I may watch the swallow’s flight, - And spring come back to me. - - Build me a tomb of steel and stone, - But leave one window free, - That I may feel the spring come back— - And you come back to me! - - - LIKE MUSIC - - Your body’s motion is like music; - Her stride ecstatical and bright - Moves to the rhythm of dumb music, - The unheard music of delight. - - The silent splendor of the creation - Speaks through your body’s stately strength, - And the lithe harmony of beauty - Undulates through its lovely length. - - And rhythmically your bosom’s arches, - Alternately, with every breath - Lift lifeward in long lines of beauty - And lapse along the slopes of death. - - - THE THUNDER-SHOWER - - The lightning flashed, and lifted - The lids of heaven apart, - The fiery thunder rolled you - All night long through my heart. - - From dreams of you at dawn - I rose to the window ledge: - The storm had passed away, - The lake lapped on the sedge. - - The lyre of heaven trembled - Still with the thought of you, - The twilight on the waters, - And all my spirit, too. - - - SONG - - All my love for my sweet - I bared one day to her. - Carelessly she took it, - And like a conqueror - She bowed the neck of my soul - To fit it to her yoke, - And bridled the lips of Song— - Fear within me awoke! - But Love cried: “Swiftly, swiftly - Bear her along the road; - Beautiful is the goal - And Beauty is the goad.” - - - ALONE - - Ah, never in all my life - Have I ever fled away - From the loneliness that follows - My spirit night and day! - - Though I fly to the dearest face, - It follows without rest— - To the kind heart of love, - And the belovèd breast. - - Though I walk amid the crowd, - Still I walk apart; - Alone, alone I lie - Even at the loved one’s heart. - - - NIRVANA - - Sleep on—I lie at heaven’s high oriels, - Over the stars that murmur as they go - Lighting your lattice-window far below. - And every star some of the glory spells - Whereof I know. - - I have forgotten you, long long ago; - Like the sweet, silver singing of thin bells - Vanished, or music fading faint and low. - Sleep on—I lie at heaven’s high oriels, - Who loved you so. - - - TRIUMPH OF THE SINGER - - I shake my hair in the wind of morning - For the joy within me that knows no bounds. - I echo backward the vibrant beauty - Wherewith heaven’s hollow lute resounds. - - I shed my song on the feet of all men, - On the feet of all shed out like wine; - On the whole and the hurt I shed my bounty, - The beauty within me that is not mine. - - Turn not away from my song, nor scorn me, - Who bear the secret that holds the sky - And the stars together; but know within me - There speaks another more wise than I. - - Nor spurn me here from your heart to hate me, - Yet hate me here if you will. Not so - Myself you hate, but the love within me - That loves you whether you would or no. - - Here love returns with love to the lover - And beauty unto the heart thereof, - And hatred unto the heart of the hater, - Whether he would or no, with love! - - - - - Hervey White - - - LAST NIGHT - - Last night the full moon laid a cloth of white - Within my window, spread upon my bed, - And, with her old-time splendor, asked of me - To share her harvest supper. I arose, - And stepped without to pay my greetings. When, Behold! - The old world flowered again, as it had done - When I was twenty, at the gate of life; - The meadows held untouched their virgin bloom, - The darkling trees with gleaming leaves flashed bright, - Dewy and pendant till the waiting morn; - The shadows lay like cool soft soothing hands - Upon the pastures pulsing with sweet June: - I, too, was young again, and God was just, - And through my blood propelled great future acts— - Big things to do, and thoughts, and voice to speak— - So potent was the charm of my white queen. - It was not till I walked for many miles, - And came back weary to my quiet room, - That I had once more taken back my years, - My cares, my listlessness, and stagnant grief. - And, even as I sit in full faced day, - My memory faintly shadows out this song. - - - I SAW THE CLOUDS - - I saw the clouds among the hills - Trailing their plumes of rainy gray. - The purple of the woods behind - Fell down to where the valley lay - In sweet satiety of rain, - With ripened fruit, and full filled grain. - - I saw the graves, upon the plain, - Of pioneers, who took the land, - And tamed the stubborn elements - Till they were gentle to the hand. - Their children, now in fortune’s ways, - Dwell in their father’s palaces. - - I saw some old forgotten lays; - And treasured volumes I passed by. - They were but repetitions cheap - For any hucksterer to buy. - The clouds, the graves, the worn old song, - I bear them in my heart along. - - - - - Margaret Widdemer - - - THE BEGGARS - - The little pitiful, worn, laughing faces, - Begging of Life for Joy! - - I saw the little daughters of the poor, - Tense from the long day’s working, strident, gay, - Hurrying to the picture-place. There curled - A hideous flushed beggar at the door, - Trading upon his horror, eyeless, maimed, - Complacent in his profitable mask. - They mocked his horror, but they gave to him - From the brief wealth of pay-night, and went in - To the cheap laughter and the tawdry thoughts - Thrown on the screen; in to the seeking hand - Covered by darkness, to the luring voice - Of Horror, boy-masked, whispering of rings, - Of silks, of feathers, bought—so cheap!—with just - Their slender starved child-bodies, palpitant - For beauty, laughter, passion—that is life: - (A frock of satin for an hour’s shame, - A coat of fur for two days’ servitude; - “And the clothes last,” the thought runs on, within - The poor warped girl-minds drugged with changeless days; - “Who cares or knows after the hour is done?”) - —Poor little beggars at Life’s door for Joy! - - The old man crouched there, eyeless, horrible, - Complacent in the marketable mask - That earned his comforts—and they gave to him! - - But ah, the little painted, wistful faces - Questioning Life for Joy! - - - TERESINA’S FACE - - He saw it last of all before they herded in the steerage, - Dark against the sunset where he lingered by the hold, - The tear-stained dusk-rose face of her, the little Teresina, - Sailing out to lands of gold: - - Ah, the days were long, long days, still toiling in the vineyard, - Working for the coins that set him free to go to her, - Where gay it glowed, the flower face of little Teresina, - Where the joy and riches were: - - Hard to find one rose-face where the dark rose-faces cluster, - Where the outland laws are strange and outland voices hum, - (Only one lad’s hoping, and the word of Teresina, - Who would wait for him to come!) - - · · · · · - - God grant he may not find her, since he might not win her freedom, - Nor yet be great enough to love, in such marred, captive wise, - The patient, painted face of her, the little Teresina, - With its cowed, all-knowing eyes! - - - GREEK FOLK SONG - - Under dusky laurel leaf, - Scarlet leaf of rose, - I lie prone, who have known - All a woman knows. - - Love and grief and motherhood, - Fame and mirth and scorn— - These are all shall befall - Any woman born. - - Jewel-laden are my hands, - Tall my stone above— - Do not weep that I sleep, - Who was wise in love. - - Where I walk, a shadow gray - Through gray asphodel, - I am glad, who have had - All that life can tell. - - - - - Florence Wilkinson - - - OUR LADY OF IDLENESS - - They in the darkness gather and ask - Her name, the mistress of their endless task. - - - _The Toilers_ - - Tinsel-makers in factory gloom, - Miners in ethylene pits, - Divers and druggists mixing poisonous bloom; - - Huge hunters, men of brawn, - Half-naked creatures of the tropics, - Furred trappers stealing forth at Labrador dawn; - - Catchers of beetles, sheep-men in bleak sheds, - Pearl-fishers perched on Indian coasts, - Children in stifling towers pulling threads; - - Dark bunchy women pricking intricate laces, - Myopic jewelers’ apprentices, - Arabs who chase the long-legged birds in sandy places: - - They are her invisible slaves, - The genii of her costly wishes, - Climbing, descending, running under waves. - - They strip earth’s dimmest cell, - They burn and drown and stifle - To build her inconceivable and fragile shell. - - - _The Artist-Artisans_ - - They have painted a miracle-shawl - Of cobwebs and whispering shadows, - And trellised leaves that ripple on a wall. - - They have broidered a tissue of cost, - Spun foam of the sea - And lilied imagery of the vanishing frost. - - Her floating skirts have run - Like iridescent marshes, - Or like the tossed hair of a stormy sun. - - Her silver cloak has shone - Blue as a mummy’s beads, - Green as the ice-glints of an Arctic zone. - - She is weary and has lain - At last her body down. - What, with her clothing’s beauty, they have slain! - - - _The Angel With the Sword_ - - Come, brothers, let us lift - Her pitiful body on high, - Her tight-shut hands that take to heaven no gift - But ashes of costly things. - We seven archangels will - Bear her in silence on our flame-tipped wings. - - - _The Toilers_ - - Lo, she is thinner than fire - On a burned mill-town’s edge, - And smaller than a young child’s dead desire. - - Yea, emptier than the wage - Of a spent harlot crying for her beauty, - And grayer than the mumbling lips of age. - - - _A Lost Girl_ - - White as a drowned one’s feet - Twined with the wet sea-bracken, - And naked as a Sin driven from God’s littlest street. - - - STUDENTS - - John Brown and Jeanne at Fontainebleau— - ’Twas Toussaint, just a year ago; - Crimson and copper was the glow - Of all the woods at Fontainebleau. - They peered into that ancient well, - And watched the slow torch as it fell. - John gave the keeper two whole sous, - And Jeanne that smile with which she woos - John Brown to folly. So they lose - The Paris train. But never mind!— - All-Saints are rustling in the wind, - And there’s an inn, a crackling fire— - (It’s _deux-cinquante_, but Jeanne’s desire); - There’s dinner, candles, country wine, - Jeanne’s lips—philosophy divine! - There was a bosquet at Saint Cloud - Wherein John’s picture of her grew - To be a Salon masterpiece— - Till the rain fell that would not cease. - Through one long alley how they raced!— - ’Twas gold and brown, and all a waste - Of matted leaves, moss-interlaced. - Shades of mad queens and hunter-kings - And thorn-sharp feet of dryad-things - Were company to their wanderings; - Then rain and darkness on them drew. - The rich folks’ motors honked and flew. - They hailed an old cab, heaven for two; - The bright Champs-Elysées at last— - Though the cab crawled it sped too fast. - - Paris, upspringing white and gold: - Flamboyant arch and high-enscrolled - War-sculpture, big, Napoleonic— - Fierce chargers, angels histrionic; - The royal sweep of gardened spaces, - The pomp and whirl of columned Places; - The _Rive Gauche_, age-old, gay and gray; - The _impasse_ and the loved café; - The tempting tidy little shops; - The convent walls, the glimpsed tree-tops; - Book-stalls, old men like dwarfs in plays; - Talk, work, and Latin Quarter ways. - - May—Robinson’s, the chestnut trees— - Were ever crowds as gay as these? - The quick pale waiters on a run, - The round green tables, one by one, - Hidden away in amorous bowers— - Lilac, laburnum’s golden showers. - Kiss, clink of glasses, laughter heard, - And nightingales quite undeterred. - And then that last extravagance— - O Jeanne, a single amber glance - Will pay him!—“Let’s play millionaire - For just two hours—on princely fare, - At some hotel where lovers dine - _A deux_ and pledge across the wine!” - They find a damask breakfast-room, - Where stiff silk roses range their bloom. - The garçon has a splendid way - Of bearing in _grand déjeuner_. - Then to be left alone, alone, - High up above Rue Castiglione; - Curtained away from all the rude - Rumors, in silken solitude; - And, John, her head upon your knees— - Time waits for moments such as these. - - - - - Marguerite Wilkinson - - - A WOMAN’S BELOVED - _A Psalm_ - - To what shall a woman liken her beloved, - And with what shall she compare him to do him honor? - He is like the close-folded new leaves of the woodbine, odorless, but - sweet, - Flushed with a new and swiftly rising life, - Strong to grow and give glad shade in summer. - Even thus should a woman’s beloved shelter her in time of anguish. - - And he is like the young robin, eager to try his wings, - For within soft-stirring wings of the spirit has she cherished him, - And with the love of the mother bird shall she embolden him, that his - flight may avail. - - A woman’s beloved is to her as the roots of the willow, - Long, strong, white roots, bedded lovingly in the dark. - Into the depths of her have gone the roots of his strength and of his - pride, - That she may nourish him well and become his fulfilment. - None may tear him from the broad fields where he is planted! - - A woman’s beloved is like the sun rising upon the waters, making the - dark places light, - And like the morning melody of the pine trees. - Truly, she thinks the roses die joyously - If they are crushed beneath his feet. - A woman’s beloved is to her a great void that she may illumine, - A great king that she may crown, a great soul that she may redeem. - And he is also the perfecting of life, - Flowers for the altar, bread for the lips, wine for the chalice. - - You that have known passion, think not that you have fathomed love. - It may be that you have never seen love’s face. - For love thrusts aside storm-clouds of passion to unveil the heavens, - And, in the heart of a woman, only then is love born. - - To what shall I liken a woman’s beloved, - And with what shall I compare him to do him honor? - He is a flower, a song, a struggle, a wild storm, - And, at the last, he is redemption, power, joy, fulfilment and perfect - peace. - - - AN INCANTATION - - O great sun of heaven, harm not my love; - Sear him not with your flame, blind him not with your beauty, - Shine for his pleasure! - - O gray rains of heaven, harm not my love; - Drown not in your torrent the song of his heart, - Lave and caress him. - - O swift winds of heaven, harm not my love; - Bruise not nor buffet him with your rough humor, - Sing you his prowess! - - O mighty triad, strong ones of heaven, - Sun, rain, and wind, be gentle, I charge you— - For your mad mood of wrath have me—I am ready— - But spare him, my lover, most proud and most dear, - O sun, rain and wind, strong ones of heaven! - - - - - William Carlos Williams - - - SICILIAN EMIGRANT’S SONG - - _In New York Harbor_ - - O—eh—lee! La—la! - Donna! Donna! - Blue is the sky of Palermo; - Blue is the little bay; - And dost thou remember the orange and fig, - The lively sun and the sea breeze at evening? - Hey—la! - Donna! Donna! Maria! - - O—eh—li! La—la! - Donna! Donna! - Gray is the sky of this land. - Gray and green is the water. - I see no trees, dost thou? The wind - Is cold for the big woman there with the candle. - Hey—la! - Donna! Donna! Maria! - - O—eh—li! O—la! - Donna! Donna! - I sang thee by the blue waters; - I sing thee here in the gray dawning. - Kiss, for I put down my guitar; - I’ll sing thee more songs after the landing. - O Jesu, I love thee! - Donna! Donna! Maria! - - - PEACE ON EARTH - - The Archer is wake! - The Swan is flying! - Gold against blue - An Arrow is lying. - There is hunting in heaven— - Sleep safe till tomorrow. - - The Bears are abroad! - The Eagle is screaming! - Gold against blue - Their eyes are gleaming! - Sleep! - Sleep safe till tomorrow. - - The Sisters lie - With their arms intertwining; - Gold against blue - Their hair is shining! - The Serpent writhes! - Orion is listening! - - Gold against blue - His sword is glistening! - Sleep! - There is hunting in heaven— - Sleep safe till tomorrow. - - - THE SHADOW - - Soft as the bed in the earth - Where a stone has lain— - So soft, so smooth and so cool, - Spring closes me in - With her arms and her hands. - - Rich as the smell - Of new earth on a stone, - That has lain, breathing - The damp through its pores— - Spring closes me in - With her blossomy hair; - Brings dark to my eyes. - - - METRIC FIGURE - - There is a bird in the poplars— - It is the sun! - The leaves are little yellow fish - Swimming in the river; - The bird skims above them— - Day is on his wings. - Phoenix! - It is he that is making - The great gleam among the poplars. - It is his singing - Outshines the noise - Of leaves clashing in the wind. - - - SUB TERRA - - Where shall I find you— - You, my grotesque fellows - That I seek everywhere - To make up my band? - None, not one - With the earthy tastes I require: - The burrowing pride that rises - Subtly as on a bush in May. - - Where are you this day— - You, my seven-year locusts - With cased wings? - Ah, my beauties, how I long! - That harvest - That shall be your advent— - Thrusting up through the grass, - Up under the weeds, - Answering me— - That shall be satisfying! - The light shall leap and snap - That day as with a million lashes! - - Oh, I have you! - Yes, you are about me in a sense, - Playing under the blue pools - That are my windows. - But they shut you out still - There in the half light— - For the simple truth is - That though I see you clear enough ... - You are not there. - - It is not that—it is you, - You I want, my companions! - - God! if I could only fathom - The guts of shadows!— - You to come with me - Poking into negro houses - With their gloom and smell! - In among children - Leaping around a dead dog! - Mimicking - Onto the lawns of the rich! - You! - To go with me a-tip-toe - Head down under heaven, - Nostrils lipping the wind! - - - SLOW MOVEMENT - - All those treasures that lie in the little bolted box whose tiny space - is - Mightier than the room of the stars, being secret and filled with - dreams: - All those treasures—I hold them in my hand—are straining continually - Against the sides and the lid and the two ends of the little box in - which I guard them; - Crying that there is no sun come among them this great while and that - they weary of shining; - Calling me to fold back the lid of the little box and to give them sleep - finally. - - But the night I am hiding from them, dear friend, is far more desperate - than their night! - And so I take pity on them and pretend to have lost the key to the - little house of my treasures; - For they would die of weariness were I to open it, and not be merely - faint and sleepy - As they are now. - - - POSTLUDE - - Now that I have cooled to you - Let there be gold of tarnished masonry, - Temples soothed by the sun to ruin - That sleep utterly. - Give me hand for the dances, - Ripples at Philae, in and out, - And lips, my Lesbian, - Wall flowers that once were flame. - - Your hair is my Carthage - And my arms the bow, - And our words arrows - To shoot the stars - Who from that misty sea - Swarm to destroy us. - - But you there beside me— - Oh, how shall I defy you, - Who wound me in the night - With breasts shining - Like Venus and like Mars? - The night that is shouting Jason - When the loud eaves rattle - As with waves above me - Blue at the prow of my desire. - - - - - Charles Erskine Scott Wood - - - THE POET IN THE DESERT - _Extracts from the Prologue_ - - I have come into the Desert because my soul is athirst as the Desert is - athirst; - My soul which is the soul of all; universal, not different. - We are athirst for the waters which make beautiful the path - And entice the grass, the willows and poplars, - So that in the heat of the day we may lie in a cool shadow, - Soothed as by the hands of quiet women, listening to the discourse of - running waters as the voices of women, exchanging the confidences of - love. - - · · · · · - - The mountains afar girdle the Desert as a zone of amethyst; - Pale, translucent walls of opal, - Girdling the Desert as Life is girt by Eternity. - They lift their heads high above our tribulation - Into the azure vault of Time; - Theirs are the airy castles which are set upon foundations of sapphire. - My soul goes out to them as the bird to her secret nest. - They are the abode of peace. - - · · · · · - - The flowers bloom in the Desert joyously— - They do not weary themselves with questioning; - They are careless whether they be seen, or praised. - They blossom unto life perfectly and unto death perfectly, leaving - nothing unsaid. - They spread a voluptuous carpet for the feet of the Wind - And to the frolic Breezes which overleap them, they whisper: - “Stay a moment, Brother; plunder us of our passion; - Our day is short, but our beauty is eternal.” - - Never have I found a place, or a season, without beauty. - Neither the sea, where the white stallions champ their bits and rear - against their bridles, - Nor the Desert, bride of the Sun, which sits scornful, apart, - Like an unwooed princess, careless, indifferent. - She spreads her garments, wonderful beyond estimation, - And embroiders continually her mantle. - She is a queen, seated on a throne of gold - In the Hall of Silence. - She insists upon humility. - She insists upon meditation. - She insists that the soul be free. - She requires an answer. - She demands the final reply to thoughts which cannot be answered. - She lights the sun for a torch - And sets up the great cliffs as sentinels: - The morning and the evening are curtains before her chambers. - She displays the stars as her coronet. - She is cruel and invites victims, - Restlessly moving her wrists and ankles, - Which are loaded with sapphires. - Her brown breasts flash with opals. - She slays those who fear her, - But runs her hand lovingly over the brow of those who know her, - Soothing with a voluptuous caress. - She is a courtesan, wearing jewels, - Enticing, smiling a bold smile; - Adjusting her brilliant raiment negligently, - Lying brooding upon her floor which is richly carpeted; - Her brown thighs beautiful and naked. - She toys with the dazzelry of her diadems, - Smiling inscrutably. - She is a nun, withdrawing behind her veil; - Gray, subdued, silent, mysterious, meditative; unapproachable. - She is fair as a goddess sitting beneath a flowering peach-tree, beside - a clear river. - - Her body is tawny with the eagerness of the Sun - And her eyes are like pools which shine in deep cañons. - She is beautiful as a swart woman, with opals at her throat, - Rubies on her wrists and topaz about her ankles. - Her breasts are like the evening and the day stars; - She sits upon her throne of light, proud and silent, indifferent to her - wooers. - The Sun is her servitor, the Stars are her attendants, running before - her. - She sings a song unto her own ears, solitary, but it is sufficient— - It is the song of her being. Oh, if I may sing the song of my being it - will be sufficient. - She is like a jeweled dancer, dancing upon a pavement of gold; - Dazzling, so that the eyes must be shaded. - She wears the stars upon her bosom and braids her hair with the - constellations. - - I know the Desert is beautiful, for I have lain in her arms and she has - kissed me. - I have come to her, that I may know freedom; - That I may lie upon the breast of the Mother and breathe the air of - primal conditions. - I have come out from the haunts of men; - From the struggle of wolves upon a carcass, - To be melted in Creation’s crucible and be made clean; - To know that the law of Nature is freedom. - - - - - Edith Wyatt - - - ON THE GREAT PLATEAU - - In the Santa Clara Valley, far away and far away, - Cool-breathed waters dip and dally, linger towards another day— - Far and far away—far away. - - Slow their floating step, but tireless, terraced down the great Plateau. - Towards our ways of steam and wireless, silver-paced the brookbeds go. - Past the ladder-walled Pueblos, past the orchards, pear and quince, - Where the back-locked river’s ebb flows, miles and miles the valley - glints, - Shining backwards, singing downwards, towards horizons blue and bay. - All the roofs the roads ensconce so dream of visions far away— - Santa Cruz and Ildefonso, Santa Clara, Santa Fé. - Ancient, sacred fears and faiths, ancient, sacred faiths and fears— - Some were real, some were wraiths—Indian, Franciscan years, - Built the Khivas, swung the bells; while the wind sang plain and free, - “Turn your eyes from visioned hells!—look as far as you can see!” - In the Santa Clara Valley, far away and far away, - Dying dreams divide and dally, crystal-terraced waters sally— - Linger towards another day, far and far away—far away. - - As you follow where you find them, up along the high Plateau, - In the hollows left behind them Spanish chapels fade below— - Shaded court and low corrals. In the vale the goat-herd browses. - Hollyhocks are seneschals by the little buff-walled houses. - Over grassy swale and alley have you ever seen it so— - Up the Santa Clara Valley, riding on the Great Plateau? - Past the ladder-walled Pueblos, past the orchards, pear and quince, - Where the trenchèd waters’ ebb flows, miles and miles the valley glints, - Shining backwards, singing downwards towards horizons blue and bay. - All the haunts the bluffs ensconce so breathe of visions far away, - As you ride near Ildefonso back again to Santa Fé. - Pecos, mellow with the years, tall-walled Taos—who can know - Half the storied faiths and fears haunting green New Mexico? - Only from her open places down arroyos blue and bay, - - One wild grace of many graces dallies towards another day. - Where her yellow tufa crumbles, something stars and grasses know, - Something true, that crowns and humbles, shimmers from the Great - Plateau: - Blows where cool-paced waters dally from the stillness of Puyé, - Down the Santa Clara Valley through the world from far away— - Far and far away—far away. - - - SUMMER HAIL - - Once the heavens’ gabled door - Opened: down a stabled floor, - Down the thunders, something galloped far and wide, - Glancing far and fleet - Down the silver street— - And I knew of nothing, nothing else beside. - _Pitty patty polt— - Shoe the wild colt! - Here a nail! There a nail! - Pitty patty polt!_ - - Good and badness, die away. - Strength and swiftness down the day, - Dapple happy down my glancing silver street! - Oh, the touch of summer cold!— - Beauty swinging quick and bold, - Dipping, dappling where the distant roof-tops meet! - _Pitty patty polt— - Shoe the wild colt!_ - - Listen, dusty care: - Through a magic air, - Once I watched the way of perfect splendor ride, - Swishing far and gray, - Buoyant and gay— - And I knew of nothing, nothing else beside. - Good and badness, go your ways, - Vanish far and fleet. - Strength and swiftness run my days, - Down my silver street. - Little care, forevermore - Be you lesser than before. - Mighty frozen rain, - Come! oh, come again! - Let the heavens’ door be rended - With the touch of summer cold— - Dappling hoof-beats clatter splendid, - Infinitely gay and bold! - _Pitty patty polt— - Shoe the wild colt! - Here a nail and there a nail! - Pitty patty polt!_ - - Once the heavens’ gabled door - Opened: down the stabled floor, - Down the thunders something galloped wide and far; - Something dappled far and fleet, - Glancing down my silver street, - And I saw the ways of life just as they are. - _Pitty patty polt— - Shoe the wild colt! - Here a nail! There a nail! - Pitty patty polt!_ - - - TO F. W. - - You are my companion - Down the silver road, - Still and many-changing, - Infinitely changing. - You are my companion. - Something sings in lives— - Days of walking on and on, - Deep beyond all singing, - Wonderful past singing. - - Wonderful our road, - Long and many-changing, - Infinitely changing. - This, more wonderful— - We are here together, - You and I together, - I am your companion; - You are my companion, - My own, true companion. - - Let the road-side fade: - Morning on the mountain-top, - Hours along the valley, - Days of walking on and on, - Pulse away in silence, - In eternal silence. - Let the world all fade, - Break and pass away. - Yet will this remain, - Deep beyond all singing, - My own true companion, - Beautiful past singing: - We were here together— - On this earth together; - I was your companion, - You were my companion, - My own true companion. - - - A CITY AFTERNOON - - Green afternoon serene and bright, along my street you sail away - Sun-dappled like a ship of light that glints upon a rippled bay. - Afar, freight-engines call and toll; the sprays flash on the fragrant - grass; - The children and the nurses stroll; the charging motors plunge and pass. - Invisibly the shadows grow, empurpling in a rising tide - The walks where light-gowned women go, white curb, gray asphalt - iris-dyed. - A jolting trolley shrills afar; nasturtiums blow, and ivy vines; - Wet scents of turf and black-smoothed tar float down the rooftrees’ - vergent lines. - Where will you go, my afternoon, that glints so still and swift away, - Blue-shaded like a ship of light bound outward from a wimpled bay? - Oh—thrilling, pulsing, dark and bright, shall you, your work, your pain, - your mirth, - Fly into the immortal night and silence of our mother earth? - She bore all Eden’s green and dew, and Persia’s scented wine and rose, - And, flowering white against the blue, acanthus leaf and marbled pose. - And deep the Maenad’s choric dance, Crusader’s cross, and heathen crest - Lie sunk with rose and song and lance all veiled and vanished in her - breast. - - And all those afternoons once danced and sparkled in the sapphire light - And iris shade as you have glanced, green afternoon, in vibrant flight. - - As, down dim vistas, echoing, dead afternoons entreat our days, - What breath of beauty will you sing to souls unseen and unknown ways? - How close and how unanswering, green afternoon, you pulse away, - So little and so great a thing—deep towards the bourne of every day. - - - - - BIBLIOGRAPHY - - -The editors desire to express their thanks to the poets represented in -this anthology; also to the publishers of books marked with an asterisk -(*), and to the editors and publishers of magazines listed below, for -their very kind permission to use the poems here reprinted. - -The endeavor has been to list below all the books of verse, or books -about poetry, thus far printed by the poets quoted in this anthology: -and then to refer the reader to magazines which first published the -quoted poems, and to some of the anthologies which have included them. -It has been impossible, however, to note in every case the magazine in -which a poem was first printed, the records not being included in the -volumes from which they are taken; but we have tried to credit -especially certain periodicals which make a specialty of this subject. - -A recent revision of the bibliography, for the ninth edition, enables -the editors to include all titles of books published up to Oct. 1st, -1919. - - - CONRAD AIKEN - - Earth Triumphant Macmillan Co., New York: 1914 - - * Turns and Movies Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston: 1916 - - The Jig of Forslin Four Seas Co., Boston: 1916 - - Nocturne of Remembered Spring Four Seas Co.: 1917 - - The Charnel Rose: Senlin, a Four Seas Co.: 1918 - Biography - - In _Poetry_: Sept., 1915 (Vol. VI). - - - ZOË AKINS - - * Interpretations Grant Richards, London: 1912 - - * Interpretations Mitchell Kennerley, New York: 1914 - - In _Poetry_: Jan., 1915 (Vol. V). - - - RICHARD ALDINGTON - - * Images, Old and New Poetry Bookshop, London: 1915 - - * Images, Old and New Four Seas Co., Boston: 1916 - - Reverie (ed. of 50) Clerk’s Press, Cleveland: 1917 - - War and Love Four Seas Co.: 1919 - - Images of War Beaumont Press, London: 1919 - - In _Poetry_: Jan., 1914 (Vol. III); Oct., 1915 (Vol. VII); Oct., 1912 - (Vol. I). - In _Some Imagist Poets_: I-II Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1915, 1916 - - In _Des Imagistes_ Albert & Chas. Boni, New York: 1914 - - - MARY ALDIS - - * Flashlights Duffield & Co., New York: 1916 - - In _Others: An Anthology of the New Alf. A. Knopf, N.Y.: 1916 - Verse_ - - - WALTER CONRAD ARENSBERG - - Poems Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston: 1914 - - * Idols Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1916 - - In _Others: An Anthology of the New Alf. A. Knopf, N. Y.: 1916 - Verse_ - - - WILTON AGNEW BARRETT - - In _Poetry_: Oct., 1915 (Vol. VII). - - - JOSEPH WARREN BEACH - - Sonnets of the Head and Heart Richard G. Badger, Boston: 1903 - - In _Poetry_: May, 1915 (Vol. VI). - - - WILLIAM ROSE BENÉT - - Merchants from Cathay Century Co., New York: 1913 - - * The Falconer of God Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, Conn.: - 1914 - - The Great White Wall Yale Univ. Press: 1916 - - The Burglar of the Zodiac Yale Univ. Press: 1918 - - In _Poetry_: June, 1914 (Vol. IV); - April, 1916 (Vol. VIII). - - - MAXWELL BODENHEIM - - Minna and Myself Pagan Pub. Co., New York: 1918 - - In _Poetry_: Aug., 1914 (Vol. IV). - - In _Others_: Sept., 1915 (Vol. I). - - In _Others: An Anthology of the New Alf. A. Knopf, N. Y.: 1916 - Verse_ - - In _Catholic Anthology_ Elkin Mathews, London: 1915 - - - GORDON BOTTOMLEY - - * Chambers of Imagery: Series I-II Elkin Mathews, London: 1912 - - Laodice and Danaë Four Seas Co., Boston: 1916 - - In _Georgian Poetry_: I-II Poetry Bookshop, London: 1912, 1915 - - - ROLLO BRITTEN - - In _Poetry_: June, 1913 (Vol. - III). - - - RUPERT BROOKE - - * The Collected Poems of Rupert John Lane Co., London and N. Y.: - Brooke 1915 - - Selected Poems Sidgwick & Jackson, London: 1917 - - Rupert Brooke, a Memoir, by Edward John Lane Co.: 1918 - Marsh - - In _Poetry_: Oct., 1914 (Vol. V); - April, 1915 (Vol. VI). - - In _New Numbers_ Privately printed, London: - 1914–1915 - - In _Georgian Poetry_: I-II Poetry Bookshop, London: 1912, 1915 - - - WITTER BYNNER - - An Ode to Harvard and Other Poems Small, Maynard & Co.: 1907 - - Tiger Mitchell Kennerley, New York: 1913 - - The Little King Mitchell Kennerley: 1914 - - * The New World Mitchell Kennerley: 1915 - - Iphigenia in Tauris Mitchell Kennerley: 1916 - - Grenstone Poems Fred. A. Stokes Co.: 1917 - - A Canticle of Praise (Ltd. ed.) Privately printed by John Henry - Nash, San Francisco: 1919 - - The Beloved Stranger Alf. A. Knopf, N. Y.: 1919 - - In _Poetry_: April, 1914 (Vol. - IV); Feb., 1913 (Vol. I). - - - JOSEPH CAMPBELL (Seosamh MacCathmhaoil) - - The Garden of the Bees Erskine Mayne, Belfast: 1905 - - The Rushlight Maunsel & Co., Ltd., Dublin: 1906 - - The Gilly of Christ Maunsel & Co., Ltd.: 1907 - - The Man-Child Loch Press, London: 1907 - - The Mountainy Singer Maunsel & Co., Ltd.: 1909 - - Mearing Stones Maunsel & Co., Ltd.: 1911 - - Judgment: a Play Maunsel & Co., Ltd.: 1912 - - *Irishy Maunsel & Co., Ltd.: 1913 - - Earth of Cualann Maunsel & Co., Ltd.: 1917 - - The Mountainy Singer Four Seas Co., Boston: 1919 - - In _Poetry_: March, 1916 (Vol. - VII). - - - NANCY CAMPBELL - - The Little People Arthur Humphreys, London: 1910 - - Agnus Dei Maunsel & Co., Ltd., Dublin: 1912 - - In _Poetry_: Aug., 1915 (Vol. VI). - - - SKIPWITH CANNÉLL - - In _Poetry_: Sept., 1914 (Vol. IV). - - In _Others: An Anthology of the New Alf. A. Knopf, N. Y.: 1916 - Verse_ - - - WILLA SIBERT CATHER - - April Twilights Richard G. Badger, Boston: 1903 - - In _McClure’s Magazine_: June, 1909 (Vol. XXXIII); June, 1912 (Vol. - XXXIX). - - - PADRAIC COLUM - - * Wild Earth Maunsel & Co., Ltd., Dublin: 1910 - (_cir._) - - * Wild Earth and Other Poems Henry Holt & Co., New York: 1916 - - In _Poetry_: July, 1915 (Vol. VI); - March, 1914 (Vol. III). - - In _Others_: Dec., 1915 (Vol. I). - - - GRACE HAZARD CONKLING - - * Afternoons of April Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston: 1915 - - In _Poetry_: Nov., 1915 (Vol. VII). - - - ALICE CORBIN (Mrs. Wm. P. Henderson) - - * The Spinning Woman of the Sky Ralph Fletcher Seymour, Chicago: - 1912 - - In _Poetry_: Dec., 1914 (Vol. V); Jan., 1916 (Vol. VII); Dec., 1912 - (Vol. I). - In _Catholic Anthology_ Elkin Mathews, London: 1915 - - - ADELAIDE CRAPSEY - - * Verse The Manas Press, Rochester, N. Y.: - 1915 - - A Study in English Metrics Alf. A. Knopf, New York: 1918 - - In _Others_: March, 1916 (Vol. II). - - In _Others: An Anthology of the New Alf. A. Knopf, N. Y.: 1916 - Verse_ - - - H. D. (Mrs. Richard Aldington) - - * Sea-garden: Imagist Poems Constable & Co., Ltd., London; - Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston: 1916 - - In _Poetry_: Jan., 1913 (Vol. I); - March, 1915 (Vol. V). - - In _Des Imagistes_ Albert & Chas. Boni, New York: 1914 - - In _Some Imagist Poets_: I-II Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1915, 1916 - - - MARY CAROLYN DAVIES - - Songs Univ. of Cal. Press, Berkeley, - Cal.: 1914 (_cir._) - - The Drums in our Street Macmillan Co.: 1918 - - The Slave with Two Faces (a play) Egmont Arens, New York: 1918 - - A Little Freckled Person (child Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1919 - verse) - - Youth Riding Macmillan Co.: 1919 - - In _Others_: July, 1915 (Vol. II). - - In _Others: An Anthology of the New Alf. A. Knopf, N. Y.: 1916 - Verse_ - - - FANNIE STEARNS DAVIS (Mrs. Augustus McK. Gifford) - - Myself and I Macmillan Co., New York: 1914 - - Crack O’Dawn Macmillan Co.: 1915 - - In _Poetry_: March, 1913 (Vol. I). - - In _Atlantic Monthly_: Jan., 1913 - (Vol. CXI). - - - WALTER DE LA MARE - - Songs of Childhood Longmans, Green & Co., London: - 1902, 1916 - - Poems John Murray, London: 1906 - - A Child’s Day Constable & Co., Ltd., London: 1912 - - Peacock Pie Constable & Co., Ltd.: 1913 - - * The Listeners Constable & Co., Ltd.: 1912 - - * The Listeners Henry Holt & Co., New York: 1915 - - The Sunken Garden and Other Poems Beaumont Press, London: 1917 - (Ltd. ed.) - - Peacock Pie Henry Holt & Co.: 1917 - - Motley and Other Poems Henry Holt & Co.: 1918 - - In _Georgian Poetry_: I-II Poetry Bookshop, London: 1912, 1915 - - - LEE WILSON DODD - - A Modern Alchemist Richard G. Badger, Boston: 1906 - - * The Middle Miles Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, Conn.: - 1915 - - In _Poetry_: Jan., 1915 (Vol. V). - - - JOHN DRINKWATER - - Cophetua David Nutt, London: 1912 - - Rebellion David Nutt: 1914 - - * Swords and Ploughshares Sidgwick & Jackson, London: 1915 - - Olton Pools Sidgwick & Jackson: 1916 - - Poems: 1908–1914 Sidgwick & Jackson: 1917 - - Pawns: Three Poetic Plays Sidgwick & Jackson: 1917 - - Tides Sidgwick & Jackson: 1917 - - Loyalties Sidgwick & Jackson: 1919 - - In _Poetry_: Dec., 1915 (Vol. VII). - - In _Georgian Poetry_: I-II Poetry Bookshop, London: 1912, 1915 - - - LOUISE DRISCOLL - - In _Poetry_: Nov., 1914 (Vol. V). - - - DOROTHY DUDLEY (Mrs. Henry B. Harvey) - - In _Poetry_: June, 1915 (Vol. VI). - - - HELEN DUDLEY - - In _Poetry_: Oct., 1912 (Vol. I), - Aug., 1914 (Vol. IV). - - - MAX EASTMAN - - * Child of the Amazons and Other Mitchell Kennerley: 1913 - Poems - - Colors of Life Alf. A. Knopf, New York: 1918 - - The Enjoyment of Poetry Chas. Scribner’s Sons, New York: - 1913 - - - T. S. ELIOT - - Prufrock and Other Observations The Egoist, Ltd., London: 1917 - - Ezra Pound, his Metric and Poetry Alf. A. Knopf, New York: 1917 - - In _Others_: Sept., 1915 (Vol. I). - - In _Others: An Anthology of the New Alf. A. Knopf, N. Y.: 1916 - Verse_ - - In _Catholic Anthology_ Elkin Mathews, London: 1915 - - - ARTHUR DAVISON FICKE - - From the Isles Samurai Press, Cranleigh and - London: 1907 - - The Happy Princess and Other Poems Small, Maynard & Co.: 1907 - - The Earth Passion Samurai Press: 1908 - - The Breaking of Bonds Mitchell Kennerley, New York: 1910 - - Twelve Japanese Painters Ralph Fletcher Seymour Co., - Chicago: 1913 - - Mr. Faust Mitchell Kennerley: 1913 - - * Sonnets of a Portrait Painter Mitchell Kennerley: 1914 - - * The Man on the Hilltop Mitchell Kennerley: 1915 - - An April Elegy Mitchell Kennerley: 1917 - - In _Poetry_: March, 1915 (Vol. V); - Feb., 1913 (Vol. I). - - In _The Forum_: Aug., 1914 (Vol. - LII). - - - JOHN GOULD FLETCHER - - Fire and Wine Grant Richards, London: 1913 - - Fool’s Gold Max Goschen, Ltd., London: 1913 - - The Dominant City Max Goschen, Ltd.: 1913 - - The Book of Nature Constable & Co., Ltd., London: 1913 - - Visions of the Evening Erskine McDonald, London: 1913 - - * Irradiations Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston: 1916 - - * Goblins and Pagodas Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1916 - - The Tree of Life Chatto & Windus, London: 1918 - - Japanese Prints Four Seas Co., Boston: 1918 - - In _Poetry_: Dec., 1913 (Vol. III); - March, 1916 (Vol. VI); Sept., - 1914 (Vol. IV). - - In _Some Imagist Poets_: I-II Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1915, 1916 - - - F. S. FLINT - - In the Net of the Stars Elkin Mathews, London: 1909 - - * Cadences Poetry Bookshop, London: 1915 - - The Mosella of Decimus Magnus The Egoist, London: 1916 - Ansonius - - Philip II (translated from the Constable & Co., Ltd., London: 1916 - French of Emile Verhaeren) - - The Love Poems of Emile Verhaeren Constable & Co., Ltd.: 1916 - (Translated from French) - - The Closed Door (from French of John Lane Co., London & New York: - Jean de Bosschère) 1917 - - In _Poetry_: July, 1913 (Vol. II). - - In _Des Imagistes_ Albert & Chas. Boni, New York: 1914 - - In _Some Imagist Poets_: I-II Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1915, 1916 - - - MOIREEN FOX (Mrs. a Cheavasa) - - Liadain and Curithir B. H. Blackwell, Oxford, Eng.: 1917 - - Midyir and Etain Candle Press, Dublin: 1918 - - In _Poetry_: March, 1915 (Vol. V). - - - FLORENCE KIPER FRANK - - Cinderelline Dramatic Publ. Co., Chicago: 1913 - - * The Jew to Jesus and Other Poems Mitchell Kennerley: 1915 - - In _Poetry_: Nov., 1914 (Vol. V). - - - ROBERT FROST - - * A Boy’s Will David Nutt, London: 1913 - - * A Boy’s Will Henry Holt & Co., New York: 1915 - - * North of Boston David Nutt, London: 1914 - - * North of Boston Henry Holt & Co., New York: 1915 - - Mountain Interval Henry Holt & Co.: 1916 - - In _Poetry_: Feb., 1914 (Vol. III). - - - HAMLIN GARLAND - - Prairie Songs Stone & Kimball, Chicago: 1893 - - In _Poetry_: Nov. 1913 (Vol. III). - - - WILFRID WILSON GIBSON - - The Golden Helm Elkin Mathews, London: 1903 - - The Nets of Love Elkin Mathews, London: 1905 - - On the Threshold Samurai Press, Cranleigh & London: - 1907 - - The Stonefolds Samurai Press: 1907 - - The Web of Life Samurai Press: 1908 - - Fires I-II Elkin Mathews, London: 1912 - - Daily Bread Elkin Mathews, London: 1913 - - Womenkind Adams & Black, London: 1913 - - Womenkind Macmillan Co., New York: 1912 - - * Borderlands Elkin Mathews, London: 1914 - - * Thoroughfares Elkin Mathews, London: 1914 - - * Borderlands and Thoroughfares Macmillan Co., New York: 1914 - - * Battle and Other Poems Elkin Mathews, London; Macmillan - Co., New York: 1916 - - Daily Bread Macmillan Co., New York: 1916 - - Fires Macmillan Co., New York: 1916 - - Livelihood Macmillan Co., N. Y. & London: 1917 - - Collected Works Macmillan Co., N. Y. & London: 1917 - - Hill Tracks Macmillan Co., N. Y. & London: 1918 - - In _Poetry_: March, 1916 (Vol. - III); June, 1914 (Vol. IV); Aug., - 1915 (Vol. VI). - - In _Georgian Poetry_: I-II Poetry Bookshop, London: 1912, 1915 - - - RICHARD BUTLER GLAENZER - - Beggar and King Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, Conn.: - 1917 - - In _Poetry_: July, 1914 (Vol. IV). - - - DOUGLAS GOLDRING - - A Country Boy Adelphi Press, London: 1910 - - Streets Max Goschen, London: 1912 - - In the Town Selwyn & Blount, London: 1916 - - *On the Road Selwyn & Blount, London: 1916 - - In _Poetry_: May, 1915 (Vol. VI). - - - HERMANN HAGEDORN - - The Silver Blade Alfred Unger, Berlin: 1907 - - The Woman of Corinth (out of print) Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1908 - - A Troop of the Guard and Other Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1909 - Poems (out of print) - - * Poems and Ballads Macmillan Co., New York: 1909 - - The Great Maze and The Heart of Macmillan Co.: 1916 - Youth - - Hymn of Free Peoples Triumphant Macmillan Co.: 1918 - - In _Poetry_: Sept., 1915 (Vol. VI). - - - THOMAS HARDY - - Wessex Poems, and Other Verses Macmillan & Co., Ltd., London - - Wessex Poems, and Other Verses Harper & Bros., N. Y.: 1899 - - Poems of the Past and the Present Macmillan & Co., Ltd., London - - Poems of the Past and the Present Harper & Bros., N. Y.: 1901 - - The Dynasts: a Drama in Three Parts Macmillan & Co.: 1904 - - The Dynasts: a Drama in Three Parts Macmillan Co., N. Y.: 1904 - - * Time’s Laughing-stocks Macmillan & Co., Ltd., London: 1909 - - * Satires of Circumstance Macmillan & Co., Ltd., London: 1914 - - Selected Poems Macmillan & Co., Ltd., London: 1916 - - Moments of Vision and Miscellaneous Macmillan & Co., Ltd. 1917 - Verse - - - RALPH HODGSON - - * Eve Flying Fame, London: 1913 - - The Bull Flying Fame: 1913 - - * The Mystery Flying Fame: 1913 - - The Song of Honour (out of print) Flying Fame: 1913 - - Seven Broadsides (Decorated by Flying Fame: 1913 - Lovat Fraser) - - All the above re-issued by the Poetry Bookshop, London: 1914 - Poems Macmillan Co., New York: 1917 - - The Last Blackbird and Other Lines George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., London; - Macmillan Co., New York: 1917 - - In _Georgian Poetry_: 1913–1915 Poetry Bookshop, London: 1915 - - - HORACE HOLLEY - - The Inner Garden Sherman French & Co., Boston: 1913 - - The Stricken King Shakespeare Head Press, - Stafford-on-Avon: 1913 - - Divinations and Creation Mitchell Kennerley, New York: 1916 - - In _Poetry_: May, 1915 (Vol. VI). - - In _Others: An Anthology of the New Alf. A. Knopf, N. Y.: 1916 - Verse_ - - - HELEN HOYT - - In _Poetry_: Aug., 1913 (Vol. II); - Aug., 1915 (Vol. VI). - - In _Masses_: Dec., 1915 (Vol. - VIII). - - In _Others: An Anthology of the New Verse_ Alf. A. Knopf, N. Y.: - 1916 - - - FORD MADOX HUEFFER - - Collected Poems Max Goschen, London: 1914 - - * Antwerp Poetry Bookshop, London: 1915 - - On Heaven and Poems Written on John Lane Co., London & New York: - Active Service 1918 - - - SCHARMEL IRIS - - * Lyrics of a Lad Seymour Daughaday & Co., Chicago: - 1914 - - In _Poetry_: Dec., 1914 (Vol. V). - - - ORRICK JOHNS - - Asphalt and Other Poems Alf. A. Knopf, New York: 1917 - - In _Poetry_: Feb., 1914 (Vol. III). - - In _Catholic Anthology_ Elkin Mathews: 1915 - - In _Others: An Anthology of the New Alf. A. Knopf, N. Y.: 1916 - Verse_ - - - JOYCE KILMER - - Summer of Love Doubleday Page & Co.: 1911 - - * Trees and Other Poems George H. Doran Co., New York: 1914 - - Main Street and Other Poems George H. Doran Co.: 1917 - - Joyce Kilmer: Poems, Essays and George H. Doran Co.: 1918 - Letters; with a Memoir by Robert - Coates Holliday - - In _Poetry_: Aug., 1913 (Vol. II); - April, 1914 (Vol. IV). - - - ALFRED KREYMBORG - - * Mushrooms John Marshall Co., Ltd., New York: - 1916 - - Plays for Poem-mimes The Other Press, New York: 1918 - - In _Poetry_: Feb., 1916 (Vol. VII). - - In _Catholic Anthology_ Elkin Mathews, London: 1915 - - In _Others: An Anthology of the New Alf. A. Knopf, N. Y.: 1916 - Verse_ - - - WILLIAM LAIRD - - In _Poetry_: Sept., 1914 (Vol. IV); - July, 1913 (Vol. II). - - - D. H. LAWRENCE - - Love Poems and Others Duckworth, London: 1913 - - * Amores Duckworth, London: 1916 - - * Amores B. W. Huebsch, New York: 1916 - - Look! We have Come Through Chatto & Windus, London: 1917 - - Look! We have Come Through B. W. Huebsch: 1918 - - New Poems Martin Secker, London: 1918 - - In _Poetry_: Jan., 1914 (Vol. III); - Dec., 1914 (Vol. V). - - In _Some Imagist Poets_: I-II Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1915, 1916 - - In _Georgian Poetry_: I-II Poetry Bookshop, London: 1912, 1915 - - - AGNES LEE (Mrs. Otto Freer) - - Verses for Children Copeland and Day, Boston: 1898 - - Verses for Children Small, Maynard & Co., Boston: 1901 - - The Border of the Lake Sherman, French & Co., Boston: 1910 - - * The Sharing Sherman, French & Co.: 1914 - - Théophile Gautier’s Émaux et Camées George D. Sproul, New York: 1903 - (Translation) - - Fernand Gregh’s La Maison de Dodd, Mead & Co., New York: 1907 - l’Enfance (Translation) - - In _Poetry_: Oct., 1914 (Vol. V). - - - WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD - - The Vaunt of Man and Other Poems B. W. Huebsch, N. Y.: 1913 - - Fragments of Empedocles, translated Open Court Pub. Co., Chicago: 1908 - into English verse - - Aesop and Hyssop (fables in verse) Open Court Pub. Co.: 1912 - - Of the Nature of Things, by J. M. Dent & Sons, London; E. P. - Lucretius, translated into blank Dutton & Co., New York: 1916 - verse - - In _Poetry_: Oct., 1913 (Vol. III). - - - VACHEL LINDSAY - - Rhymes to be Traded for Bread Privately printed, Springfield, - Ill.: 1912 - - The Village Magazine Privately printed, Springfield, - Ill.: 1912 - - * General William Booth Enters into Mitchell Kennerley, 1913; Macmillan - Heaven and Other Poems Co.: 1916 - - * The Congo and Other Poems Macmillan Co.: 1915 - - The Chinese Nightingale and Other Macmillan Co.: 1917 - Poems - - In _Poetry_: Jan., 1913 (Vol. I); April, 1914 (Vol. IV); Feb., 1915 - (Vol. V). - - - AMY LOWELL - - * A Dome of Many-coloured Glass Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1912 - - * A Dome of Many-coloured Glass Macmillan Co., New York: 1914 - - * Sword Blades and Poppy Seed Macmillan Co.: 1914 - - Men, Women and Ghosts Macmillan Co.: 1916 - - Can Grande’s Castle Macmillan Co.: 1918 - - Pictures of the Floating World Macmillan Co.: 1919 - - Six French Poets—Studies in Macmillan Co.: 1915 - Contemporary Literature - - Tendencies in Modern American Macmillan Co.: 1917 - Poetry - - In _Poetry_: Aug., 1916 (Vol. - VIII); April, 1915 (Vol. VI); - April, 1914 (Vol. IV); Sept., - 1915 (Vol. VI); July, 1913 (Vol. - II). - - In _The Little Review_: Aug., 1915 - (Vol. II). - - - PERCY MACKAYE - - Poems Macmillan Co., New York: 1909 - - Lincoln: Centenary Ode Macmillan Co.: 1909 - - Uriel and Other Poems Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston: 1912 - - The Present Hour Macmillan Co.: 1914 - - The Sistine Eve and Other Poems Macmillan Co.: 1915 - (reprint of Poems, 1909) - - * Collected Poems Macmillan Co.: 1916 - - Poems and Plays (2 vols.) Macmillan Co.: 1916 - - - FREDERIC MANNING - - The Vigil of Brunhilde John Murray, London: 1905 - - Poems John Murray, London: 1908 - - Eidola John Murray, London; E. P. Dutton & - Co., N. Y.: 1917 - - In _Poetry_: June, 1913 (Vol. II). - - - JOHN MASEFIELD - - * Salt Water Ballads Grant Richards, London: 1902 - - Ballads (out of print) Elkin Mathews, London: 1903 - - Ballads and Poems Elkin Mathews, London: 1910 - - The Everlasting Mercy Sidgwick & Jackson, London: 1911 - - The Widow in the Bye Street Sidgwick & Jackson, London: 1912 - - The Everlasting Mercy and the Widow Macmillan Co., New York: 1912 - in the Bye Street - - The Story of a Round-house and Macmillan Co., N. Y.: 1912 - Other Poems (including Dauber) - - The Daffodil Fields Macmillan Co., N. Y.: 1913 - - The Daffodil Fields Wm. Heinemann, London: 1913 - - Dauber Wm. Heinemann, London: 1914 - - Philip the King and Other Poems Macmillan Co., N. Y.: 1914 - - Philip the King Wm. Heinemann, London: 1914 - - John M. Synge: a Few Personal Macmillan Co., N. Y.: 1915 - Recollections (Edition limited to - 500) - - Good Friday and Other Poems Macmillan Co., N. Y.: 1916 - - Good Friday and Other Poems Wm. Heinemann, London: 1916 - - * Sonnets Macmillan Co., N. Y.: 1916 - * Salt-water Poems and Ballads Macmillan Co., N. Y.: 1916 - (reprint) - - Lollingdon Downs and Other Poems Wm. Heinemann, London; Macmillan - Co., N. Y.: 1917 - - Rosas (autographed ed.) Macmillan Co., N. Y.: 1917 - - Poems and Plays (collected, 2 Macmillan Co., N. Y.: 1918 - vols.) - - A Poem and Two Plays Wm. Heinemann, London: 1919 - - In _Georgian Poetry_: I-II Poetry Bookshop, London: 1912, 1915 - - - EDGAR LEE MASTERS - - A Book of Verses Way & Williams, Chicago: 1898 - - Maximilian, a Tragedy in blank Richard G. Badger: 1902 - verse - - The Blood of the Prophets, by Rooks Press, Chicago: 1905 - Dexter Wallace - - Songs and Sonnets, by Webster Ford Rooks Press: 1911 - - * Spoon River Anthology Macmillan Co.: 1915 - - * Songs and Satires Macmillan Co.: 1916 - - The Great Valley Macmillan Co.: 1916 - - Spoon River Anthology (with Macmillan Co.: 1916 - additions) - - Toward the Gulf Macmillan Co.: 1918 - - Starved Rock Macmillan Co.: 1919 - - In _Reedy’s Mirror_: 1914. - - In _Poetry_: Feb., 1915 (Vol. V). - - In _Catholic Anthology_ Elkin Mathews, London: 1915 - - - ALICE MEYNELL - - Poems John Lane Co., London: 1896 - - Poems Copeland & Day, Boston: 1896 - - * Later Poems John Lane Co., London and N. Y.: - 1902 - - * Poems (including above) Chas. Scribner’s Sons, N. Y.: 1913 - - In _Poetry_: March, 1913 (Vol. I). - - - MAX MICHELSON - - In _Poetry_: July, 1915 (Vol. VI); - May, 1916 (Vol. III). - - - EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY - - Renascence and Other Poems Mitchell Kennerley, New York: 1917 - - In _The Forum_: July, 1913; Oct., - 1914; Aug., 1915. - - - HAROLD MONRO - - Judas Sampson Low, London: 1908 - - Before Dawn Constable & Co., Ltd., London: 1911 - - * Children of Love Poetry Bookshop, London: 1914 - - Trees Poetry Bookshop, London: 1915 - - In _Catholic Anthology_ Elkin Mathews, London: 1915 - - In _Georgian Poetry_: I-II Poetry Bookshop, London: 1912, 1915 - - - HARRIET MONROE - - Valeria and Other Poems Privately printed: 1892 - - Valeria and Other Poems A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago: 1893 - - Columbian Ode (with decorations by W. Irving Way & Co., Chicago: 1893 - Will. H. Bradley) - - The Passing Show Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1903 - - * You and I Macmillan Co.: 1914 - - In _Poetry_: Feb., 1914 (Vol. III); - Sept., 1914 (Vol. III); Aug., - 1915 (Vol. IV). - - In _Catholic Anthology_ Elkin Mathews: 1915 - - - JOHN G. NEIHARDT - - The Divine Enchantment James T. White & Co., N. Y.: 1900 - (_cir._) - - A Bundle of Myrrh Outing Co., New York: 1907 - - * Man-Song Mitchell Kennerley, New York: 1909 - - The Stranger at the Gate Mitchell Kennerley: 1912 - - The Song of Hugh Glass Macmillan Co., New York: 1915 - - * The Quest (Collected Lyrics) Macmillan Co.: 1916 - - The Song of Three Friends Macmillan Co.: 1919 - - - YONE NOGUCHI - - From the Eastern Sea Privately printed, London: 1906; - Elkin Mathews, London: 1910; Japan - Press, Tokio: 1910 - - * The Pilgrimage The Valley Press, Kamalsura, Japan: - 1909; Elkin Mathews,London; - Mitchell Kennerley, New York: 1912 - - Spirit of Japanese Poetry E. P. Dutton & Co., New York: 1914 - - - GRACE FALLOW NORTON - - Little Gray Songs from St. Joseph’s Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1912 - - * The Sister of the Wind Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1914 - - Roads Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1916 - - What is Your Legion? Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1916 - - In _Poetry_: Jan., 1914 (Vol. III); - Dec., 1915 (Vol. VII). - - - JAMES OPPENHEIM - - Monday Morning and Other Poems Sturgis & Walton Co., N. Y.: 1909 - - The Pioneers B. W. Huebsch, New York: 1910 - - * Songs for the New Age Century Co., New York: 1914 - - War and Laughter Century Co., New York: 1916 - - The Book of Self Alf. A. Knopf, New York: 1917 - - - PATRICK ORR - - In _Poetry_: Jan., 1915 (Vol. V). - - - SEUMAS O’SULLIVAN - - New Songs (in collaboration) O’Donoghue, Dublin: 1904 - - The Twilight People Whaley, Dublin: 1905 - - Verses, Sacred and Profane Maunsel & Co., Ltd., Dublin: 1908 - - The Earth Lover New Nation Press, Dublin: 1909 - - Selected Lyrics Thos. B. Mosher, Portland, Maine: - 1910 - - Poems Maunsel & Co., Ltd.: 1912 - - An Epilogue and Other Poems Maunsel & Co., Ltd.: 1914 - - Requiem and Other Poems Privately ptd., Dublin: 1917 - - The Rosses and Other Poems Maunsel & Co., Ltd.: 1918 - - In _Poetry_: Dec., 1914 (Vol. V). - - - JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY (Mrs. Lionel S. Marks) - - Marlowe, A Drama Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston: 1901 - - The Singing Leaves Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1908 - - Fortune and Men’s Eyes Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1909 - - * The Singing Man Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1911 - - The Piper Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1911 - - The Wolf of Gubbio Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1914 - - * Harvest Moon Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1916 - - - EZRA POUND - - A Lume Spento (ed. of 100) Autonelli, Venice, Italy: 1908 - - A Quinzaine for this Yule Pollock, London (100); Elkin - Mathews, London (100): 1908 - - * Personæ Elkin Mathews, London: 1909 - - * Exultations Elkin Mathews: 1909 - - Provença Small, Maynard & Co., Boston: 1910 - - Canzoni Elkin Mathews, London: 1911 - - * Ripostes Stephen Swift & Co., Ltd., London: - 1912 - - Sonnets and Ballate of Guido Small, Maynard & Co., Boston; - Cavalcanti Stephen Swift & Co., London: 1912 - - * Poems (Vols. I-II) Elkin Mathews: 1913 - - * Cathay Elkin Mathews: 1915 - - * Lustra Elkin Mathews: 1916 - - * Lustra, with Earlier Poems Alfred A. Knopf, New York: 1917 - - Certain Noble Plays of Japan, Cuala Press, Dundrum, Ireland: 1916 - trans. by Ernest Fenollosa and - Ezra Pound, with Introd. by W. B. - Yeats - - Noh, or Accomplishment: a Study of Macmillan & Co., Ltd., London; Alf. - the Classical Stage of Japan with A. Knopf, New York: 1917 - trans. of 15 plays, by E. F. & E. - P. - - Pavannes and Divisions (prose Alf. A. Knopf: 1918 - essays) - - In _Poetry_: April, 1913 (Vol. II); - Nov., 1913 (Vol. III); March, - 1915 (Vol. V); Dec., 1915 (Vol. - VII). - - In _Catholic Anthology_ Elkin Mathews, London: 1915 - - In _Others: An Anthology of the New Alf. A. Knopf, N. Y.: 1916 - Verse_ - - - JOHN REED - - * Sangar Privately printed, Riverside, - Conn.: 1912 - - The Day in Bohemia Privately printed, Riverside, - Conn.: 1913 - - Tamburlaine and Other Poems Fred. C. Bursch, Riverside, Conn.: - 1916 - - In _Poetry_: Dec., 1912 (Vol. I). - - - ERNEST RHYS - - The Great Cockney Tragedy T. Fisher Unwin, London: 1891 - - A London Rose and Other Rhymes John Lane, London: 1894 - - Welsh Ballads David Nutt, London: 1898 - - Guenevere J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., London: - 1905 - - Lays of the Round Table J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.: 1905 - - Enid J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.: 1908 - - The Masque of the Grail Elkin Mathews, London: 1908 - - The Leaf-burners J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.: 1916 - - In _Poetry_: Sept., 1913 (Vol. II); - Jan., 1913 (Vol. I). - - - EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON - - The Torrent and the Night Before Privately printed, Gardiner, Me.: - (out of print) 1896 - - The Children of the Night Richard G. Badger: 1897 - - Captain Craig Houghton Mifflin Co.: 1902 - - * The Children of the Night. Chas. Scribner’s Sons, New York: - 1905 - - * The Town Down the River Chas. Scribner’s Sons: 1910 - - * Captain Craig Macmillan Co., New York: 1915 - - * The Man Against the Sky Macmillan Co.: 1916 - - Merlin Macmillan Co.: 1917 - - - CARL SANDBURG - - * Chicago Poems Henry Holt & Co., New York: 1916 - - Cornhuskers Henry Holt & Co.: 1918 - - In _Poetry_: March, 1914 (Vol. - III); Oct., 1915 (Vol. VII); - June, 1914 (Vol. IV). - - In _Catholic Anthology_ Elkin Mathews, London: 1915 - - In _Others: An Anthology of the New Alf. A. Knopf, N. Y.: 1916 - Verse_ - - - CLARA SHANAFELT - - In _Poetry_: Oct., 1913 (Vol. III); - May, 1915 (Vol. VI); June, 1916 - (Vol. VII). - - - FRANCES SHAW - - Ragdale Book of Verse Privately printed, Lake Forest, - Ill.: 1911 - - Songs of a Baby’s Day A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago: 1917 - - In _Poetry_: March, 1914 (Vol. - III); July, 1915 (Vol. VI). - - - CONSTANCE LINDSAY SKINNER - - In _Poetry_: Oct., 1914 (Vol. V). - - - JAMES STEPHENS - - * Insurrections Maunsel & Co., Ltd., Dublin: 1909 - - * Insurrections Macmillan Co., New York: 1912 - - The Hill of Vision Macmillan Co.: 1912 - - The Hill of Vision Maunsel & Co., Ltd.: 1912 - - * Songs from the Clay Macmillan Co., New York: 1914 - - * The Adventures of Seumas Beg Macmillan & Co., Ltd., London: 1915 - - * The Rocky Road to Dublin (same Macmillan Co., N. Y.: 1915 - contents as Seumas Beg) - - Green Branches Maunsel & Co., Ltd., Dublin; - Macmillan Co., N. Y.: 1916 - - Reincarnations Macmillan Co.: 1917 - - In _Poetry_: Aug., 1914 (Vol. IV). - In _Georgian Poetry_: I—II Poetry Bookshop, London: 1912, 1915 - - - GEORGE STERLING - - The Testimony of the Suns A. M. Robertson, San Francisco: - 1903 - - A Wine of Wizardry A. M. Robertson: 1909 - - The House of Orchids A. M. Robertson: 1911 - - * Beyond the Breakers A. M. Robertson: 1914 - - Yosemite A. M. Robertson: 1915 - - The Evanescent City A. M. Robertson: 1915 - - Ode on Opening of Panama Pacific A. M. Robertson: 1915 - International Exposition - - The Caged Eagle A. M. Robertson: 1916 - - In _Poetry_: Dec., 1912 (Vol. I). - - - WALLACE STEVENS - - In _Poetry_: Nov., 1915 (Vol. VII). - - In _Others_: Aug., 1915 (Vol. I). - - In _Others: An Anthology of the New Alf. A. Knopf, N. Y.: 1916 - Verse_ - - - AJAN SYRIAN - - In _Poetry_: June, 1915 (Vol. VI). - - - RABINDRANATH TAGORE - - Gitanjali Privately printed by the India - Society, London: 1912 - - * Gitanjali Macmillan & Co., Ltd., London: 1913 - - * Gitanjali Macmillan Co., New York: 1913 - - * The Gardener Macmillan Co., N. Y. and London: - 1913 - - Chitra India Society, London: 1913 - - Chitra Macmillan Co., N. Y. and London: - 1913 - - Songs of Kabir (translation) India Society, London: 1914 - - Songs of Kabir Macmillan Co., N. Y. and London: - 1914 - - The Crescent Moon Macmillan Co., N. Y. and London: - 1914 - - The Post-office Macmillan Co., N. Y. and London: - 1914 - - The King of the Dark Chamber Macmillan Co., N. Y. and London: - 1914 - - Fruit-gathering Macmillan Co., N. Y. and London: - 1916 - - Stray Birds Macmillan Co., N. Y. and London: - 1916 - - The Cycle of Spring Macmillan Co., N. Y. and London: - 1917 - - Gitanjali and Fruit-gathering Macmillan Co.: 1918 - (1 vol., illus’d) - - Lover’s Gift and Crossing Macmillan Co., N. Y. and London: - 1918 - - Gitanjali (popular ed.) Four Seas Co., Boston: 1919 - - In _Poetry_: Dec., 1912 (Vol. I); - June, 1913 (Vol. II). - - - SARA TEASDALE - - Sonnets to Duse Poet-lore Co., Boston: 1907 - - Helen of Troy and Other Poems G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York: 1911 - - * Rivers to the Sea Macmillan Co., New York: 1915 - - Love Songs Macmillan Co.: 1917 - - Sonnets to Duse Four Seas Co., Boston: 1919 - - In _Poetry_: Oct., 1915 (Vol. VII); - March, 1914 (Vol. III). - - In _Yale Review_: July, 1916 (Vol. - V). - - - EUNICE TIETJENS - - Profiles from China Ralph Fletcher Seymour, Chicago: - 1917; Alf. A. Knopf, N. Y.: 1919 - - Body and Raiment Alf. A. Knopf: 1919 - - In _Poetry_: March, 1915 (Vol. V); - Sept., 1914 (Vol. IV). - - In _The Century_: June, 1915 (Vol. - XC). - - - RIDGELY TORRENCE - - The House of a Hundred Lights Small, Maynard & Co., Boston: 1900 - - El Dorado: A Tragedy John Lane Co., New York: 1903 - - Abelard and Heloise Chas. Scribner’s Sons, New York: - 1907 - - Plays for a Negro Theatre Macmillan Co., New York: 1917 - - In _Poetry_: April, 1916 (Vol. VI). - - In _The New Republic_, Feb. 26, - 1916. - - - CHARLES HANSON TOWNE - - The Quiet Singer Mitchell Kennerley, New York: 1908 - - Manhattan Mitchell Kennerley: 1909 - - Youth Mitchell Kennerley: 1910 - - * Beyond the Stars and Other Poems Mitchell Kennerley: 1912 - - To-day and To-morrow Geo. H. Doran Co., New York: 1916 - - Autumn Loiterers Geo. H. Doran Co.: 1917 - - In _Poetry_: Nov., 1912 (Vol. I). - - - LOUIS UNTERMEYER - - The Younger Quire (out of print) The Moods Publishing Co.: 1911 - - First Love Sherman French & Co.: 1911 - - * Challenge Century Co., New York: 1914 - - “... and Other Poets” Henry Holt & Co., New York: 1916 - - These Times Henry Holt & Co.: 1917 - - Poems of Heinrich Heine (trans.) Henry Holt & Co.: 1917 - - The New Era in American Poetry Henry Holt & Co.: 1919 - - - ALLEN UPWARD - - _In Poetry_: Sept., 1913 (Vol. II). - - - JOHN HALL WHEELOCK - - The Human Fantasy (out of print) Sherman French & Co.: 1911 - - * The Beloved Adventure Sherman French & Co.: 1912 - - * Love and Liberation Sherman French & Co.: 1913 - - Dust and Light Charles Scribner’s Sons: 1919 - - In _Poetry_: Aug., 1913 (Vol. II); - Nov., 1915 (Vol. VII). - - - HERVEY WHITE - - New Songs for Old Maverick Press, Woodstock, N. Y.: 1910 - - * A Ship of Souls Maverick Press: 1910 - - In an Old Man’s Garden Maverick Press: 1910 - - The Adventures of Young Maverick Maverick Press: 1911 - - - MARGARET WIDDEMER (Mrs. Robert Haven Schauffler) - - * The Factories with Other Lyrics John C. Winston Co., Philadelphia: - 1915; Henry Holt & Co., New York: - 1917 - - Old Road to Paradise Henry Holt & Co.: 1918 - - In _Poetry_: Nov., 1912 (Vol. I); Aug., 1913 (Vol. II); Feb., 1915 - (Vol. V). - - - FLORENCE WILKINSON (Mrs. Wilfrid Muir Evans) - - * The Far Country McClure Phillips & Co., New York: - 1906 - - * The Ride Home Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston: 1916 - - In _Poetry_: Dec., 1913 (Vol. III), - Jan., 1916 (Vol. VII). - - - MARGUERITE WILKINSON - - * In Vivid Gardens Sherman French & Co., Boston: 1911 - - By a Western Wayside Privately printed: 1913 - - Mars, a Modern Morality Play Privately printed: 1915 - - New Voices: an Introduction to Macmillan Co.: 1919 - Contemporary Poetry - - - WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS - - The Tempers Elkin Mathews, London: 1913 - - Al Que Quiere Four Seas Co., Boston: 1917 - - Kora in Hell: Improvisations Four Seas Co.: 1919 - - In _Poetry_: June, 1913 (Vol. II); - May, 1915 (Vol. VI). - - In _Others: An Anthology of the New Alf. A. Knopf, N. Y.: 1916 - Verse_ - - - CHARLES ERSKINE SCOTT WOOD - - The Masque of Love Walter Hill, Chicago: 1904 - - * The Poet in the Desert Privately printed, Portland, Ore.: - 1915 - - The Poet in the Desert (new Privately printed, Portland: 1918 - version) - - Maia: a Sonnet Sequence (limited Privately printed, Portland, Ore.: - illustrated ed.) 1918 - - - EDITH WYATT - - The Wind in the Corn and Other D. Appleton & Co., New York: 1917 - Poems - - In _Poetry_: Jan., 1915 (Vol. V). - - In _McClure’s Magazine_: Aug., - 1911. - - - Printed in the United States of America. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - - - 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. - 2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. - 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. - 4. 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