The following sections of this BookRags Literature Study Guide is offprint from Gale's For Students Series: Presenting Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Commonly Studied Works: Introduction, Author Biography, Plot Summary, Characters, Themes, Style, Historical Context, Critical Overview, Criticism and Critical Essays, Media Adaptations, Topics for Further Study, Compare & Contrast, What Do I Read Next?, For Further Study, and Sources.
(c)1998-2002; (c)2002 by Gale. Gale is an imprint of The Gale Group, Inc., a division of Thomson Learning, Inc. Gale and Design and Thomson Learning are trademarks used herein under license.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction: "Social Concerns", "Thematic Overview", "Techniques", "Literary Precedents", "Key Questions", "Related Titles", "Adaptations", "Related Web Sites". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
The following sections, if they exist, are offprint from Beacham's Guide to Literature for Young Adults: "About the Author", "Overview", "Setting", "Literary Qualities", "Social Sensitivity", "Topics for Discussion", "Ideas for Reports and Papers". (c)1994-2005, by Walton Beacham.
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Table of Contents | |
Section | Page |
Start of eBook | 1 |
INTRODUCTION | 1 |
OLIVER HERFORD | 2 |
One Spring day in London, long before the invention of freak verse and Freudism, I was standing in front of the Cafe Royal in Regent Street when there emerged from its portals the most famous young writer of the day, the Poet about whose latest work “The Book Bills of Narcissus” all literary London was then talking.
Richard Le Gallienne was the first real poet I had ever laid eyes upon in the flesh and it seemed to my rapt senses that this frock-coated young god, with the classic profile and the dark curls curving from the impeccable silk “tile” that surmounted them as curve the acanthus leaves of a Corinthian capital, could be none other than Anacreon’s self in modern shape.
I can see Le Gallienne now, as he steps across the sunlit sidewalk and with gesture Mercurian hails the passing Jehu. I can even hear the quick clud of the cab doors as the smartly turning hansome snatches from my view the glass-dimmed face I was not to behold again until years later at the house of a mutual friend in New York.
In another moment the swiftly moving vehicle was dissolved in the glitter of Regent Street and I fell to musing upon the curious interlacement of parts in this picture puzzle of life.
Here was a common Cabby, for the time being combining in himself the several functions of guide-book, chattel-mortgage and writ of habeas corpus on the person of the most popular literary idol of the hour and all for the matter of maybe no more than half a crown, including the pourboire!
Who would not have rejoiced to change places with that cabman! And how might not Pegasus have envied that cab-horse!
* * * * * *
Now after all these years it has come to pass that I am to change places with the cabman.
Perched aloft in the driver’s seat of the First Person Singular, it is my proud privilege to crack the prefatory whip and start this newest and best Le Gallienne Vehicle upon its course through the garlanded Via Laurea to the Sign of the Golden Sheaf.
Look at it well, Dear People, before it starts, this golden vehicle of Richard Le Gallienne.
Consider how it is built on the authentic lines of the best workmanship, made to last for generations, maybe for ever.
Take note of its springs so perfectly hung that the Muse may ride in luxurious ease, unjarred by metrical joltings as befits the Queen.
Mark the mirror smooth surface of the lacquer that only time and tireless labour can apply.
Before this Master Coach of Poesy the rattle-jointed Tin Lizzie of Free Verse and the painted jazz wagon of Futurism and the cheap imitation of the Chinese palanquin must turn aside, they have no right of way, these literary road-lice on the garlanded Via Laurea.
With angry thumb, the traffic cop Time will jerk them back to the side streets and byways where they belong, to make way for the Golden Coach of Richard Le Gallienne.
I
An echo from Horace
Lusisti est, et edisti, atque bibisti;
Tempus abire, tibi est.
Take away the dancing girls, quench the
lights, remove
Golden cups and garlands sere,
all the feast; away
Lutes and lyres and Lalage; close the
gates, above
Write upon the lintel this;
Time is done for play!
Thou hast had thy fill of love, eaten,
drunk; the show
Ends at last, ’twas long enough—time
it is to go.
Thou hast played—ah! heart,
how long!—past all count were they,
Girls of gold and ivory, bosomed
deep, all snow,
Leopard swift, and velvet loined, bronze
for hair, wild clay
Turning at a touch to flame,
tense as a strung bow.
Cruel as the circling hawk, tame at last
as dove,—
Thou hast had thy fill and more than enough
of love.
Thou hast eaten; peacock’s tongues,—fed
thy carp with slaves,—
Nests of Asiatic birds, brought
from far Cathay,
Umbrian boars, and mullet roes snatched
from stormy waves;
Half thy father’s lands
have gone one strange meal to pay;
For a morsel on thy plate ravished sea
and shore;
Thou hast eaten—’tis
enough, thou shalt eat no more.
Thou hast drunk—how hast thou
drunk! mighty vats, whole seas;
Vineyards purpling half a
world turned to gold thy throat,
Falernian, true Massic, the gods’
own vintages,
Lakes thou hast swallowed
deep enough galleys tall to float;
Wildness, wonder, wisdom, all, drunkenness
divine,
All that dreams within the grape, madness
too, were thine.
Time it is to go and sleep—draw
the curtains close—
Tender strings shall lull
thee still, mellow flutes be blown,
Still the spring shall shower down on
thy couch the rose,
Still the laurels crown thine
head, where thou dreamest alone.
Thou didst play, and thou didst eat, thou
hast drunken deep,
Time at last it is to go, time it is to
sleep.
Ballade of the oldest Duel in the world
A battered swordsman, slashed and scarred,
I scarce had thought to fight
again,
But love of the old game dies hard,
So to’t, my lady, if
you’re fain!
I’m scarce the mettle
to refrain,
I’ll ask no quarter from your art—
But what if we should both
be slain!
I fight you, darling, for your heart.
I warn you, though, be on your guard,
Nor an old swordsman’s
craft disdain,
He jests at scars—what saith
the Bard?
Love’s wounds are real,
and fierce the pain;
If we should die of love,
we twain!
You laugh—en garde then—so
we start;
Cyrano-like, here’s
my refrain:
I fight you, darling, for your heart.
If compliments I interlard
Twixt feint and lunge, you’ll
not complain
Lacking your eyes, the night’s un-starred,
The rose is beautiful in vain,
In vain smells sweet—Rose-in-the-Brain,
Dizzying the world—a touch!
sweet smart!—
Only the envoi doth remain:
I fight you, darling, for your heart.
Envoi
Princess, I’m yours; the rose-red
rain
Pours from my side—but
see! I dart
Within your guard—poor pretty
stain!
I fight you, darling, for
your heart.
Sorcery
Face with the forest eyes,
And the wayward wild-wood
hair,
How shall a man be wise,
When a girl’s so fair;
How, with her face once seen,
Shall life be as it has been,
This many a year?
Beautiful fearful thing!
You undulant sorcery!
I dare not hear you sing,
Dance not for me;
The whiteness of your breast,
Divinely manifest
I must not see.
Too late, thou luring child,
Moon matches little moon;
I must not be beguiled,
With the honied tune:
Yet O to lay my head
Twixt moon and moon!
’Twas so my sad heart said,
Only last June.
The dryad
My dryad hath her hiding place
Among ten thousand trees.
She flies to cover
At step of a lover,
And where to find her lovely face
Only the woodland bees
Ever discover,
Bringing her honey
From meadows sunny,
Cowslip and clover.
Vainly on beech and oak I knock
Amid the silent boughs;
Then hear her
laughter,
The moment after,
Making of me her laughing-stock
Within her hidden house.
The young moon with her wand of pearl
Taps on her hidden door,
Bids her beauty
flower
In that woodland
bower,
All white like a mortal girl,
With moonshine hallowed o’er.
Yet were there thrice ten thousand trees
To hide her face from me,
Not all her fleeing
Should ’scape
my seeing,
Nor all her ambushed sorceries
Secure concealment be
For her bright
being.
Yea! should she by the laddered pine
Steal to the stars on high,
Her fairy whiteness,
Hidden in brightness,
Her hiding-place would so out-shine
The constellated sky,
She could not ’scape
the eye
Of my pursuing,
Nor her fawn-foot lightness
Out-speed my wooing.
May is back
May is back, and You and I
Are at the stream again—
The leaves are out,
And all about
The building birds begin
To make a merry din:
May is back, and You and I
Are at the dream again.
May is back, and You and I
Lie in the grass again,—
The butterfly
Flits painted by,
The bee brings sudden fear,
Like people talking near;
May is back, and You and I
Are lad and lass again.
May is back, and You and I
Are heart to heart again,—
In God’s green house
We make our vows
Of summer love that stays
Faithful through winter days;
May is back, and You and I
Shall never part again.
Moon-marketing
Let’s go to market in the moon,
And buy some dreams together,
Slip on your little silver shoon,
And don your cap and feather;
No need of petticoat or stocking—
No one up there will think it shocking.
Across the dew,
Just I and you,
With all the world behind us;
Away from rules,
Away from fools,
Where nobody can find us.
Two birthdays
Your birthday, sweetheart, is my birthday
too,
For, had you not been born,
I who began to live beholding you
Up early as the morn,
That day in June beside the rose-hung
stream,
Had never lived at all—
We stood, do you remember? in a dream
There by the water-fall.
You were as still as all the other flowers
Under the morning’s
spell;
Sudden two lives were one, and all things
“ours”—
How we can never tell.
Surely it had been fated long ago—
What else, dear, could we
think?
It seemed that we had stood for ever so,
There by the river’s
brink.
And all the days that followed seemed
as days
Lived side by side before,
Strangely familiar all your looks and
ways,
The very frock you wore;
Nothing seemed strange, yet all divinely
new;
Known to your finger tips,
Yet filled with wonder every part of you,
Your hair, your eyes, your
lips.
The wise in love say love was ever thus
Through endless Time and Space,
Heart linked to heart, beloved, as with
us,
Only one face—one
face—
Our own to love, however fair the rest;
’Tis so true lovers
are,
For ever breast to breast,
On—on—from
star to star.
Song
My eye upon your eyes—
So was I born,
One far-off day in Paradise,
A summer morn;
I had not lived till then,
But, wildered, went,
Like other wandering men,
Nor what Life meant
Knew I till then.
My hand within your hand—
So would I live,
Nor would I ask to understand
Why God did give
Your loveliness to me,
But I would pray
Worthier of it to be,
By night and day,
Unworthy me!
My heart upon your heart—
So would I die,
I cannot think that God will part
Us, you and I;
The work he did undo,
That summer morn;
I lived, and would die too,
Where I was born,
Beloved, in you.
The faithful lover
All beauty is but thee in echo-shapes,
No lovely thing but echoes
some of thee,
Vainly some touch of thy perfection apes,
Sighing as fair as thou thyself
to be;
Therefore, be not disquieted that I
On other forms turn oft my
wandering gaze,
Nor deem it anywise disloyalty:
Nay! ’tis the pious
fervour of my eye,
Love’s tenderness
Deem not my love is only for the bloom,
The honey and the marble,
that is You;
Tis so, Beloved, common loves consume
Their treasury, and vanish
like the dew.
Nay, but my love’s a
thing that’s far more true;
For little loves a little hour hath room,
But not for us their brief and trivial
doom,
In a far richer soil our loving
grew,
From deeper wells of being it upsprings;
Nor shall the wildest kiss
that makes one mouth,
Draining all nectar
from the flowered world,
Slake its divine unfathomable
drouth;
And, when your
wings against my heart lie furled,
With what a tenderness it dreams and sings!
Anima Mundi
Let all things vanish, if but you remain;
For if you stay, beloved,
what is gone?
Yet, should you go, all permanence is
vain,
And all the piled abundance
is as none.
With you beside me in the desert sand,
Your smile upon me, and on mine your hand,
Oases green arise, and camel-bells;
For in the long adventure of your eyes
Are all the wandering ways to Paradise.
Existence, in your being, comes and goes;
What were the garden, love, without the
rose?
In vain were ears to hear,
And eyes in vain,
Lacking your ordered music, sphere to
sphere,
Blind, should your beauty
blossom not again.
The pulse that shakes the world with rhythmic
beat
Is but the passing of your little feet;
And all the singing vast of all the seas,
Down from the pole
To the Hesperides,
Is but the praying echo of
your soul.
Therefore, beloved, know that this is
true—
The world exists and vanishes in you!
Tis not a lover’s fancy; ask the
sky
If all its stars depend not, even as I,
Upon your eyelids, when they open or close;
And let the garden answer with the rose.
Ballade of the unchanging beloved
(To I——a)
When rumour fain would fright my ear
With the destruction and decay
Of things familiar and dear,
And vaunt of a swift-running
day
That sweeps the fair old Past
away;
Whatever else be strange and new,
All other things may go or
stay,
So that there be no change in you.
These loud mutations others fear
Find me high-fortressed ’gainst
dismay,
They trouble not the tranquil sphere
That hallows with immortal
ray
The world where love and lovers
stray
In glittering gardens soft with dew—
O let them break and burn
and slay,
So that there be no change in you.
Let rapine its republics rear,
And murder its red sceptre
sway,
Their blood-stained riot comes not near
The quiet haven where we pray,
And work and love and laugh
and play;
Unchanged, our skies are ever blue,
Nothing can change, for all
they say,—
So that there be no change in you.
Envoi
Princess, let wild men brag and bray,
The pure, the beautiful, the
true.
Change not, and changeless we as they—
So that there be no change
in you.
Love’s arithmetic
You often ask me, love, how much I love
you,
Bidding my fancy find
An answer to your mind;
I say: “Past count, as there
are stars above you.”
You shake your head and say,
“Many and bright are
they,
But that is not enough.”
Again
I try:
“If all the leaves on all the trees
Were counted over,
And all the waves on all the seas,
More times your lover,
Yea! more than twice ten thousand times
am I.”
“’Tis not enough,”
again you make reply.
“How many blades of grass,”
one day I said,
“Are there from here
to China? how many bees
Have gathered honey through
the centuries?
Tell me how many roses have bloomed red
Since the first rose till
this rose in your hair?
How many butterflies are born
each year?
How many raindrops are there
in a shower?
How many kisses, darling,
in an hour?”
Thereat you smiled, and shook your golden
head;
“Ah! not enough!” you said.
Then said I: “Dear, it is not
in my power
To tell how much, how many
ways, my love;
Unnumbered are its ways even as all these,
Nor any depth so deep, nor
height above,
May match therewith of any stars or seas.”
“I would hear more,” you smiled
. . .
“Then,
love,” I said,
“This will I do: unbind me
all this gold
Too heavy for your head,
And, one by one, I’ll
count each shining thread,
And when the tale of all its wealth is
told . . .”
“As much as that!”
you said—
“Then the full sum of all my love
I’ll speak,
To the last unit tell the
thing you ask . . .”
Thereat the gold, in gleaming
torrents shed,
Fell loose adown each cheek,
Hiding you from me; I began
my task.
“’Twill last our lives,” you said.
Beauty’s wardrobe
My love said she had nought to wear;
Her garments all were old,
And soon her body must go bare
Against the winter’s
cold.
I took her out into the dawn,
And from the mountain’s
crest
Unwound long wreaths of misty lawn,
And wound them round her breast.
Then passed we to the maple grove,
Like a great hall of gold,
The yellow and the red we wove
In rustling flounce and fold.
“Now, love,” said I, “go,
do it on!
And I would have you note
No lovely lady dead and gone
Had such a petticoat.”
Then span I out of milkweeds fine
Fair stockings soft and long,
And other things of quaint design
That unto maids belong.
And beads of amber and of pearl
About her neck I strung,
And in the bronze of her thick hair
The purple grape I hung. .
. .
Then led her to a glassy spring,
And bade her look and see
If any girl in all the world
Had such fine clothes as she.
The valley
I will walk down to the valley
And lay my head in her breast,
Where are two white doves,
The Queen of Love’s,
In a silken nest;
And, all the afternoon,
They croon and croon
The one word “Rest!”
And a little stream
That runs thereby
Sings “Dream!”
Over and over
It sings—
“O lover,
Dream!”
Ballade of the bees of trebizond
There blooms a flower in Trebizond
Stored with such honey for
the bee,
(So saith the antique book I conned)
Of such alluring fragrancy,
Not sweeter smells the Eden-tree;
Thither the maddened feasters fly,
Yet—so alas! is
it with me—
To taste that honey is to die.
Beloved, I, as foolish fond,
Feast still my eyes and heart
on thee,
Asking no blessedness beyond
Thy face from morn till night
to see,
Ensorcelled past all remedy;
Even as those foolish bees am I,
Though well I know my destiny—
To taste that honey is to die.
O’er such a doom shall I despond?
I would not from thy snare
go free,
Release me not from thy sweet bond,
I live but in thy mystery;
Though all my senses from
me flee,
I still would glut my glazing eye,
Thou nectar of mortality—
To taste that honey is to die.
Envoi
Princess, before I cease to be,
Bend o’er my lips so
burning dry
Thy honeycombs of ivory—
To taste that honey is to
die.
Broken tryst
Waiting in the woodland, watching for
my sweet,
Thinking every leaf that stirs the coming
of her feet,
Thinking every whisper the rustle of her
gown,
How my heart goes up and up, and then
goes down and down.
First it is a squirrel, then it is a dove,
Then a red fox feather-soft
and footed like a dream;
All the woodland fools me, promising my
love;
I think I hear her talking—’tis
but the running stream.
Vowelled talking water, mimicking her
voice—
O how she promised she’d
surely come to-day!
There she comes! she comes at last!
O heart of mine rejoice—
Nothing but a flight of birds
winging on their way.
Lonely grows the afternoon, empty grows
the world;
Day’s bright banners in the west
one by one are furled,
Sadly sinks the lingering sun that like
a lover rose,
One by one each woodland thing loses heart
and goes.
Back along the woodland, all the day is
dead,
All the green has turned to gray, and
all the gold to lead;
O ’tis bitter cruel, sweet, to treat
a lover so:
If only I were half a man . . . I’d
let the baggage go.
The Rival
She failed me at the tryst:
All the long afternoon
The golden day went by,
Until the rising moon;
But, as I waited on,
Turning my eyes about,
Aching for sight of her,
Until the stars came out,—
Maybe ’twas but a dream—
There close against my face,
“Beauty am I,” said one,
“I come to take her
place.”
And then I understood
Why, all the waiting through,
The green had seemed so green,
The blue had seemed so blue,
The song of bird and stream
Had been so passing sweet,
For all the coming not
Of her forgetful feet;
And how my heart was tranced,
For all its lonely ache,
Gazing on mirrored rushes
Sky-deep in the lake.
Said Beauty: “Me you
love,
You love her for my sake.”
The quarrel
Thou shall not me persuade
This love of ours
Can in a moment fade,
Like summer flowers;
That a swift word or two,
In angry haste,
Our heaven shall undo,
Our hearts lay waste.
For a poor flash of pride,
A cold word spoken,
Love shall not be denied,
Or long troth broken.
Yea; wilt thou not relent?
Be mine the wrong,
No more the argument,
Dear love, prolong.
The summer days go by,
Cease that sweet rain,
Those angry crystals dry,
Be friends again.
So short a time at best
Is ours to play,
Come, take me to thy breast—
Ah! that’s the way.
Lovers
Why should I ask perfection of thee, sweet,
That have so little of mine
own to bring?
That thou art beautiful from head to feet—
Is that, beloved, such a little
thing,
That I should ask more of
thee, and should fling
Thy largesse from me, in a world like
this,
O generous giver of thy perfect kiss?
Thou gavest me thy lips, thine eyes, thine
hair;
I brought thee worship—was
it not thy due?
If thou art cruel—still art
thou not fair?
Roses thou gavest—shalt
thou not bring rue?
Alas! have I not brought thee
sorrow too?
How dare I face the future and its drouth,
Missing that golden honeycomb thy mouth?
Kiss and make up—’tis
the wise ancient way;
Back to my arms, O bountiful
deep breast!
No more of words that know not what they
say;
To kiss is wisdom—folly
all the rest.
Dear loveliness so mercifully
pressed
Against my heart—I shake with
sudden fear
To think—to losing thee I came
so near.
Shadows
Shadows! the only shadows that I know
Are happy shadows of the light
of you,
The radiance immortal shining
through
Your sea-deep eyes up from the soul below;
Your shadow, like a rose’s,
on the grass
Where your feet pass.
The shadow of the dimple in your chin,
The shadow of the lashes of
your eyes,
As on your cheek, soft as
a moth, it lies;
And, as a church, I softly enter in
The solemn twilight of your
mighty hair,
Down falling there.
These are Love’s shadows, Love knows
none but these:
Shadows that are the very
soul of light,
As morning and the morning
blossom bright,
Or jewelled shadows of moon-haunted seas;
The darkest shadows in this
world of ours
Are made of flowers.
After tibullus
Illius est nobis lege colendus amor
On her own terms, O lover, must thou take
The heart’s beloved:
be she kind, ’tis well,
Cruel, expect no more; not for thy sake
But for the fire in thee that
melts her snows
For a brief spell
She loves thee—“loves”
thee! Though thy heart should break,
Though thou shouldst lie athirst
for her in hell,
She could not
pity thee: who of the Rose,
Or of the Moon, asks pity, or return
Of love for love?
and she is even as those.
Beauty is she, thou Love, and thou must
learn,
O lover, this:
Thine is she for the music thou canst
pour
Through her white
limbs, the madness, the deep dream;
Thine, while thy kiss
Can sweep her
flaming with thee down the stream
That is not thou nor she but
merely bliss;
The music ended, she is thine no more.
In her Eternal Beauty bends o’er
thee,
Be thou content;
She is the evening star in thy hushed
lake
Mirrored,—be
glad;
A soul-less creature of the
element,
Nor good, nor
bad;
That which thou callest to in the far
skies
Comes to thee in her eyes;
That thou mayst
slake
Thy love of lilies, lo! her breasts!
Be wise,
Ask not that she, as thou, should human
be,
She that doth smell so sweet
of distant heaven;
Pity is mortal leaven,
Dews know it not, nor morning on the hills,
And who hath yet found pity
of the sea
That blesses, knowing not, and, not knowing,
kills;
And sister unto all of these
is she,
Whose face, as theirs, none reads; whose
heart none knows;
Whose words are as the wind’s
A warning
We that were born, beloved, so far apart,
So many seas and lands,
The gods, one sudden day, joined heart
to heart,
Locked hands in hands,
Distance relented and became our friend,
And met, for our sakes, world’s
end with world’s end.
The earth was centred in one flowering
plot
Beneath thy feet, and all the rest was
not.
Now wouldst thou rend our nearness, and
again
Bring distance back, and place
Poles and equators, mountain range and
plain,
Between me and thy face,
Undoing what the gods divinely planned;
Heart, canst thou part? hand, loose me
from thy hand?
Not twice the gods their slighted gifts
bestow;
Bethink thee well, beloved, ere thou dost
go.
Primum Mobile
When thou art gone, then all the rest
will go;
Mornings no more shall dawn,
Roses no more shall blow,
Thy lovely face withdrawn—
Nor woods grow green again after the snow;
For of all these thy beauty
was the dream,
The soul, the sap, the song;
To thee the bloom and beam
Of flower and star belong,
And all the beauty thine of
bird and stream.
Thy bosom was the moonrise, and the morn
The roses of thy cheek,
No lovely thing was born
But of thy face did speak—
How shall all these endure, of thee forlorn?
The sad heart of the world
grew glad through thee,
Happy, men toiled and spun
That had thy smile for fee;
So flowers seek the sun,
So singing rivers hasten to
the sea.
Yet, though the world, bereft, should
bleakly bloom,
And wanly make believe
Against the general doom,
For me the earth you leave
Shall be for ever but a haunted room;
Yea! though my heart beat
on a little space,
When thou art strangely gone
To thy far hiding-place,
Soon shall I follow on,
Out-footing Death to over-take
thy face.
The last tryst
The cowbells wander through the woods,
’Neath arching boughs
a stream slips by,
In all the ferny solitude
A chipmunk and a butterfly
Are all that is—and
you and I.
This summer day, with all its flowers,
With all its green and gold
and blue,
Just for a little while is ours,
Just for a little—I
and you:
Till the stars rise and bring
the dew.
One perfect day to us is given;
Tomorrow—all the
aching years;
This is our last short day in heaven,
The last of all our kisses
nears—
Then life too arid even for
tears.
Here, as the day ends, we two end,
Two that were one, we said,
for ever;
We had Eternity to spend,
And laughed for joy to know
that never
Two so divinely one could
sever.
A year ago—how rich we seemed!
Like piles of gold our kisses
lay,
Enough to last our lives we dreamed,
And lives to come, we used
to say—
Yet are we at the last to-day.
The last, I say, yet scarce believe
What all my heart is black
with knowing;
Doomed, I yet watch for some reprieve,
But know too well that love
is going,
As sure as yonder stream is
flowing.
Look round us how the hot sun burns
In plots of glory here and
there,
Pouring its gold among the ferns:
So burned my lips upon your
hair,
So rained our kisses, love,
last year.
We saw not where a shadow loomed,
That, from its first auroral
hour,
Our happy paradise fore-doomed;
A Fate within whose icy power
Love blooms as helpless as
a flower.
Its shadow by the dial stands,
The golden moments shudder
past,
Soon shall he smite apart our hands,
In vain we hold each other
fast,
And the last kiss must come
at last.
The last! then be it charged with fire,
With sacred passion wild and
white,
With such a glory of desire,
We two shall vanish in its
light,
And find each other in God’s
sight.
The heart on the sleeve
I wore my heart upon my sleeve,
Tis most unwise, they say,
to do—
But then how could I but believe
The foolish thing was safe
with you?
Yet, had I known, ’twas safer far
With wolves and tigers, the
wild sea
Were kinder to it than you are—
Sweetheart, how you must laugh
at me!
Yet am I glad I did not know
That creatures of such tender
bloom,
Beneath their sanctuary snow,
Were such cold ministers of
doom;
For had I known, as I began
To love you, ere we flung
apart,
I had not been so glad a man
As holds his lady to his heart.
And am I lonely here to-night
With empty eyes, the cause
is this,
Your face it was that gave me sight,
My heart ran over with your
kiss.
Still do I think that what I laid
Before the altar of your face,
Flower of words that shall not fade,
Were worthy of a moment’s
grace;
Some thoughtless, lightly dropped largesse,
A touch of your immortal hand
Laid on my brow in tenderness,
Though you could never understand.
And yet with hungered lips to touch
Your feet of pearl and in
your face
To look a little was over-much—
In heaven is no such fair
a place
As, broken-hearted, at your feet
To lie there and to kiss them,
sweet.
At her feet
My head is at your feet,
Two Cytherean doves,
The same, O cruel sweet,
As were the Queen of Love’s;
They brush my dreaming brows
With silver fluttering beat,
Here in your golden house,
Beneath your feet.
No man that draweth breath
Is in such happy case:
My heart to itself saith—
Though kings gaze on her face,
I would not change my place;
To lie here is more sweet,
Here at her feet.
As one in a green land
Beneath a rose-bush lies,
Two petals in his hand,
With shut and dreaming eyes,
And hears the rustling stir,
As the young morning goes,
Shaking abroad the myrrh
Of each awakened rose;
So to me lying there
Comes the soft breath of her,—
O cruel sweet!—
There at her feet.
O little careless feet
That scornful tread
Upon my dreaming head,
As little as the rose
Of him who lies there knows
Nor of what dreams may be
Beneath your feet;
Know you of me,
Ah! dreams of your fair head,
Its golden treasure spread,
And all your moonlit snows,
Yea! all your beauty’s rose
That blooms to-day so fair
And smells so sweet—
Shoulders of ivory,
And breasts of myrrh—
Under my feet.
Reliquiae
This is all that is left—this
letter and this rose!
And do you, poor dreaming things, for
a moment suppose
That your little fire shall burn for ever
and ever on,
And this great fire be, all but these
ashes, gone?
Flower! of course she is—but
is she the only flower?
She must vanish like all the rest at the
funeral hour,
And you that love her with brag of your
all-conquering thew,
What, in the eyes of the gods, tall though
you be, are you?
You and she are no more—yea!
a little less than we;
And what is left of our loving is little
enough to see;
Sweet the relics thereof—a
rose, a letter, a glove—
That in the end is all that remains of
the mightiest love.
Six-foot two! what of that? for Death
is taller than he;
And, every moment, Death gathers flowers
as fair as she;
And nothing you two can do, or plan or
purpose or dream,
But will go the way of the wind and go
the way of the stream.
Love’s proud farewell
I am too proud of loving thee, too proud
Of the sweet months and years
that now have end,
To feign a heart
indifferent to this loss,
Too thankful-happy that the gods allowed
Our orbits cross,
Beloved and lovely friend;
And though I wend
Lonely henceforth along a road grown gray,
I shall not be all lonely on the way,
Companioned with the attar of thy rose,
Though in my garden it no longer blows.
Thou canst not give elsewhere thy gifts
to me,
Or only seem to give;
Yea, not so fugitive
The glory that hath hallowed me and thee,
Not thou or I alone that marvel wrought
Immortal is the paradise of thought,
Nor ours to destroy,
Born of our hearts together, where bright
streams
Ran through the woods for
joy,
That heaven of our dreams.
There shall it shine
Under green boughs,
So long as May and June bring leaves and
flowers,
Couches of moss and fern and woven bowers,
Still thine and mine,
A golden house;
And, perchance, e’er the winter
that takes all,
I, there alone in the deep
listening wood,
Shall hear thy lost foot-fall,
And, scarce believing the
beatitude,
Shall know thee there,
Wild heart to wild heart pressed,
And wrap me in the splendour of thine
hair,
And laugh within thy breast.
The rose has left the garden
The Rose has left the garden,
Here she but faintly lives,
Lives but for me,
Within this little urn of pot-pourri
Of all that was
And never more can be,
While her black berries harden
On the wind-shaken tree.
Yet if my song a little fragrance gives,
’Tis not all loss,
Something I save
From the sweet grave
Wherein she lies,
Something she gave
That never dies,
Something that may still live
In these my words
That draw from her their breath,
And fain would be her birds
Still in her death.
II
The gardens of Adonis
Beloved, I would tell a ghostly thing
That hides beneath the simple
name of Spring;
Wild beyond hope the news—the
dead return,
The shapes that slept, their
breath a frozen mist,
Ascend from out sarcophagus and urn,
Lips that were dust new redden
to be kissed,
Fires that were quenched re-burn.
The gardens of Adonis bloom again,
Proserpina may hold the lad
no more,
That in her arms the winter through hath
lain;
Up flings he from the hollow-sounding
door,
Where Love hath bruised her rosy breast
in vain:
Ah! through their tears—the
happy April rain—
They, like two stars aflame, together
run,
Then lift immortal faces in
the sun.
A faint far music steals from underground,
And to the spirit’s ear there comes
the sound,
The whisper vague, and rustle
delicate,
Of myriad atoms stirring in their trance
That for the lifted hand of
Order wait,
Taking their stations in the cosmic dance,
Mate linked to mystic mate.
And perished shapes rebuild themselves
anew,
Nourished on essences of fire and dew,
And in earth’s cheek,
but now so wistful wan,
The colour floods, and from deep wells
of power
Rises the sap of resurrection;
The dead branch buds, the dry staff breaks
in flower,
The grass comes surging on.
These ghostly things that in November
died,
How come they thus again adream with pride?
I saw the Red Rose lying in
her tomb,
Yet comes she lovelier back, a redder
rose;
What paints upon her cheek
this vampire bloom?
Beloved, when to the dark thy beauty goes,
Thee too will Spring re-lume?
Verily, nothing dies; a brief eclipse
Is all; and this blessed union of our
lips
Shall bind us still though
we have lips no more:
For as the Rose and as the gods are we,
Returning ever; but the shapes
we wore
Shall have some look of immortality
More shining than before.
Make we our offerings at Adonis’
shrine,
For this is Love’s own
resurrection day,
Bring we the honeyed cakes, the sacred
wine,
And myrtle garlands on his
altars lay:
O Thou, beloved alike of Proserpine
And Aphrodite, to our prayers incline;
Be thou propitious to this love of ours,
And we, the summer long, shall bring thee
flowers.
Nature the healer
When all the world has gone awry,
And I myself least favour
find
With my own self, and but to die
And leave the whole sad coil
behind,
Seems but the one and only way;
Should I but hear some water
falling
Through woodland veils in early May,
And small bird unto small
bird calling—
O then my heart is glad as they.
Lifted my load of cares, and fled
My ghosts of weakness and
despair,
And, unafraid, I raise my head
And Life to do its utmost
dare;
Then if in its accustomed place
One flower I should chance
find blowing,
With lovely resurrected face
From Autumn’s rust and
Winter’s snowing—
I laugh to think of my disgrace.
A simple brook, a simple flower,
A simple wood in green array,—
What, Nature, thy mysterious power
To bind and heal our mortal
clay?
What mystic surgery is thine,
Whose eyes of us seem all
unheeding,
That even so sad a heart as mine
Laughs at the wounds that
late were bleeding?—
Yea! sadder hearts, O Power Divine.
I think we are not otherwise
Than all the children of thy
knee;
For so each furred and winged one flies,
Wounded, to lay its heart
on thee;
And, strangely nearer to thy breast,
Knows, and yet knows not,
of thy healing,
Asking but there awhile to rest,
With wisdom beyond our revealing—
Knows and yet knows not, and is blest.
Love eternal
The human heart will never change,
The human dream will still
go on,
The enchanted earth be ever strange
With moonlight and the morning
sun,
And still the seas shall shout for joy,
And swing the stars as in
a glass,
The girl be angel for the boy,
The lad be hero for the lass.
The fashions of our mortal brains
New names for dead men’s
thoughts shall give,
But we find not for all our pains
Why ’tis so wonderful
to live;
The beauty of a meadow-flower
Shall make a mock of all our
skill,
And God, upon his lonely tower
Shall keep his secret—secret
still.
The old magician of the skies,
With coloured and sweet-smelling
things,
Shall charm the sense and trance the eyes,
Still onward through a million
springs;
And nothing old and nothing new
Into the magic world be born,
Yea! nothing older than the dew,
And nothing younger than the
morn.
Delight and Destiny and Death
Shall still the mortal story
weave,
Man shall not lengthen out his breath,
Nor stay when it is time to
leave;
And all in vain for him to ask
His little meaning in the
Whole,
Done well or ill his tiny task,
The mystic making of his soul.
Ah! love, and is it not enough
To have our part in this romance
Made of such planetary stuff,
Strange partners in the cosmic
dance?
Though Life be all too swift a dream,
And its fair rose must fade
and fall,
Life has no sorrow in its scheme
As never to have lived at
all.
This fire that through our being runs,
When our two hearts together
beat,
Is one with yonder burning sun’s,
Two atoms that in glory meet;
What unimagined loss it were,
If that dread power in which
we trust
Had left your eyes, your lips, your hair,
Nought but un-animated dust.
Unknown the thrilling touch divine
That sets our magic clay aflame,
That wrought your beauty to be mine,
And joy enough to speak your
name;
Thanks be to Life that did this thing,
Unsought, beloved, for you
and me,
Gave us the rose, and birds to sing,
The golden earth, the blue-robed
sea.
The loveliest face and the wild rose
The loveliest face! I turned to
her
Shut in ’mid savage
rocks and trees;—
’Twas in the May-time of the year,
And our two hearts were filled
with ease—
And pointed where a wild-rose grew,
Suddenly fair in that grim
place:
“We should know all, if we but knew
Whence came this flower, and
whence—this face.”
The loveliest face! My thoughts
went around:
“Strange sister of this
little rose,
So softly ’scaped from underground;
O tell me if your beauty knows,
Being itself so fair a thing,
How came this lovely thing
so fair,
How came it to such blossoming,
Leaning so strangely from
the air?
“The wonder of its being born,
So lone and lovely—even
as you—
Half maiden-moon, half maiden-morn,
And delicately sad with dew;
How came it in this rocky place?
Or shall I ask the rose if
she
Knows how this marvel of your face
On this harsh planet came
to be?”
Earth’s bluest eyes gazed into mine,
And on her head Earth’s
brightest gold
Made all the rocks with glory shine—
But still the secret went
untold;
For rose nor girl, no more than I,
Their own mysterious meaning
knew,
Save that alike from earth and sky
Each her enchanted being drew.
Both from deep wells of wonder sprang,
Both children of the cosmic
dream,
Alike with yonder bird that sang,
And little lives that flit
and gleam;
Sparks from the central rose of fire
That at the heart of being
burns,
That draws the lily from the mire
And trodden dust to beauty
turns.
Strange wand of Beauty—that
transforms
Old dross to dreams, that
softly glows
On the fierce rainbowed front of storms,
And smiles on unascended snows,
That from the travail of lone seas
Wrests sighing shell and moonlit
pearl,
And gathers up all sorceries
In the white being of one
girl.
As in the woodland I walk
As in the woodland I walk, many a strange
thing I learn—
How from the dross and the drift the beautiful
things return,
And the fires quenched in October in April
reburn;
How foulness grows fair with the stern
lustration
of sleets and
snows,
And rottenness changes back to the breath
and the cheek
of the rose,
And how gentle the wind that seems wild
to each blossom
that blows;
How the lost is ever found, and the darkness
the door
of the light,
And how soft the caress of the hand that
to shape
must not fear
to smite,
And how the dim pearl of the moon is drawn
from the gulf
of the night;
How, when the great tree falls, with its
empire
of rustling leaves,
The earth with a thousand hands its sunlit
ruin receives,
And out of the wreck of its glory each
secret artist weaves
Splendours anew and arabesques and tints
on his swaying loom,
Soft as the eyes of April, and black as
the brows of doom,
And the fires give back in blue-eyed flowers
the woodland
they consume;
How when the streams run dry, the thunder
calls on the hills,
And the clouds spout silver showers in
the laps
of the little
rills,
And each spring brims with the morning
star,
and each thirsty
fountain fills;
And how, when the songs seemed ended,
and all the music mute,
There is always somewhere a secret tune,
some string
of a hidden lute,
Lonely and undismayed that has faith in
the flower
and the fruit.
So I learn in the woods—that
all things come again,
That sorrow turns to joy, and that laughter
is born of pain,
That the burning gold of June is the gray
of December’s rain.
To A mountain spring
Strange little spring, by channels past
our telling,
Gentle, resistless, welling, welling,
welling;
Through what blind ways, we know not whence
You darkling come to dance and dimple—
Strange little spring!
Nature hath no such innocence,
And no more secret thing—
So mysterious and so simple;
And I believe when none is by,
Only the young moon in the sky—
The Greeks of old were right about you—
A naiad, like a marble flower,
Lifts up her lovely shape from out you,
Swaying like a silver shower.
So in old years dead and gone
Brimmed the spring on Helicon,
Just a little spring like you—
Ferns and moss and stars and dew—
Nigh the sacred Muses’ dwelling,
Dancing, dimpling, welling, welling.
Noon
Noon like a naked sword lies on the grass,
Heavy with gold, and Time
itself doth drowse;
The little stream, too indolent to pass,
Loiters below the cloudy willow
boughs,
That build amid the glare
a shadowy house,
And with a Paradisal freshness brims
Amid cool-rooted reeds with
glossy blade;
The antic water-fly above it skims,
And cows stand shadow-like
in the green shade,
Or knee-deep in the grassy
glimmer wade.
The earth in golden slumber dreaming lies,
Idly abloom, and nothing sings
or moves,
Nor bird, nor bee; and even the butterflies,
Languid with noon, forget
their painted loves,
Nor hath the woodland any
talk of doves.
Only at times a little breeze will stir,
And send a ripple o’er
the sleeping stream,
Or run its fingers through the willows’
hair,
And sway the rushes momently
agleam—
Then all fall back again into
a dream.
A rainy day
The beauty of this rainy day,
All silver-green and dripping gray,
Has stolen quite my heart away
From all the tasks I meant to do,
Made me forget the resolute blue
And energetic gold of things . . .
So soft a song the rain-bird sings.
Yet am I glad to miss awhile
The sun’s huge domineering smile,
The busy spaces mile on mile,
Shut in behind this shimmering screen
Of falling pearls and phantom green;
As in a cloister walled with rain,
Safe from intrusions, voices vain,
And hurry of invading feet,
Inviolate in my retreat:
Myself, my books, my pipe, my fire—
So runs my rainy-day desire.
Or I old letters may con o’er,
And dream on faces seen no more,
The buried treasure of the years,
Too visionary now for tears;
Open old cupboards and explore
Sometimes, for an old sweetheart’s
sake,
A delicate romantic ache,
Sometimes a swifter pang of pain
To read old tenderness again,
As though the ink were scarce yet dry,
And She still She and I still I.
What if I were to write as though
Her letter came an hour ago!
An hour ago!—This post-mark
says . . .
But out upon these rainy days!
Come tie the packet up again,
The sun is back—enough of rain.
In the city
Away from the silent hills and the talking
of upland waters,
The high still stars and the lonely moon
in her quarters,
I fly to the city, the streets, the faces,
the towers;
And I leave behind me the hush and the
dews
and the flowers,
The mink that steals by the stream a-shimmer
among the rocks,
The hawk o’er the barn-yard sailing,
the little cub-bear
and the fox,
The woodchuck and his burrow, and the
little snake at noon,
And the house of the yellow-jacket, and
the cricket’s
endless tune.
And what shall I find in the city that
shall take
the place of these?
O I shall find my love there, and fall
at her silken knees,
And for the moon her breast, and for the
stars her eyes,
And under her shadowed hair the gardens
of Paradise.
Country largesse
I bring a message from the stream
To fan the burning cheeks of town,
From morning’s tower
Of pearl and rose
I bring this cup of crystal down,
With brimming dews agleam,
And from my lady’s garden close
I bring this flower.
O walk with me, ye jaded brows,
And I will sing the song I found
Making a lonely rippling sound
Under the boughs.
The tinkle of the brook is there,
And cow-bells wandering through the fern,
And silver calls
From waterfalls,
And echoes floating through the air
From happiness I know not where,
And hum and drone where’er I turn
Of little lives that buzz and die;
And sudden lucent melodies,
Like hidden strings among the trees
Roofing the summer sky.
The soft breath of the briar I bring,
And wafted scents of mint and clover,
Rain-distilled balms the hill-winds fling,
Sweet-thoughted as a lover;
Incense from lilied urns a-swaying,
And the green smell of grass
Where men are haying.
As through the streets I pass,
With their shrill clatter,
This largesse from the hills and streams,
This quietude of flowers and dreams,
Round me I scatter.
Morn
Morn hath a secret that she never tells:
’Tis on her lips and
in her maiden eyes—
I think it is the way to Paradise,
Or of the Fount of Youth the crystal wells.
The bee hath no such honey in her cells
Sweet as the balm that in
her bosom lies,
As in her garden of the budding
skies
She walks among the silver asphodels.
He that is loveless and of heart forlorn,
Let him but leave behind his
haunted bed,
And set his feet
toward yonder singing star,
Shall have for sweetheart this same secret
morn;
She shall come
running to him from afar,
And on her cool breast lay
his lonely head.
The source
Water in hidden glens
From the secret heart of the
mountains,
Where the red fox hath its dens
And the gods their crystal
fountains;
Up runnel and leaping cataract,
Boulder and ledge, I climbed and tracked,
Till I came to the top of the world and
the fen
That drinks up the clouds and cisterns
the rain,
And down through the floors
of the deep morass
The procreant woodland essences drain—
The thunder’s home, where the eagles
scream
And the centaurs pass;
But, where it was born, I lost my stream.
’Twas in vain I said: “’Tis
here it springs,
Though no more it leaps and no more it
sings;”
And I thought of a poet whose songs I
knew
Of morning made and shining dew—
I remembered the mire of the marshes too.
Autumn
The sad nights are here and the sad mornings,
The air is filled with portents and with
warnings,
Clouds that vastly loom and winds that
cry,
A mournful prescience
Of bright things going hence;
Red leaves are blown about the widowed
sky,
And late disconsolate blooms
Dankly bestrew
The garden walks, as in deserted rooms
The parted guest, in haste to bid adieu,
Trinklets and shreds forgotten left behind,
Torn letters and a ribbon once so brave—
Wreckage none cares to save,
And hearts grow sad to find;
And phantom echoes, as of old foot-falls,
Wander and weary out in the thin air,
And the last cricket calls—
A tiny sorrow, shrilling “Where?
ah! where?”
The rose in winter
When last I saw this opening rose
That holds the summer in its
hand,
And with its beauty overflows
And sweetens half a shire
of land,
It was a black and cindered thing,
Drearily rocking in the cold,
The relic of a vanished spring,
A rose abominably old.
Amid the stainless snows it grinned,
A foul and withered shape,
that cast
Ribbed shadows, and the gleaming wind
Went rattling through it as
it passed;
It filled the heart with a strange dread,
Hag-like, it made a whimpering
sound,
And gibbered like the wandering dead
In some unhallowed burial-ground.
Whoso on that December day
Had seen it so deject and
lorn,
So lone a symbol of decay,
Had dreamed of it this summer
morn?
Divined the power that should relume
A flame so spent, and once
more bring
That blackened being back to bloom,—
Who could have dreamed so
strange a thing?
The frozen stream
Stream that leapt and danced
Down the rocky ledges,
All the summer long,
Past the flowered sedges,
Under the green rafters,
With their leafy laughters,
Murmuring your song:
Strangely still and tranced,
All your singing ended,
Winter magic
Winter that hath few friends yet numbers
those
Of spirit erect and delicate
of eye;
All may applaud sweet Summer, with her
rose,
And Autumn, with her banners
in the sky;
But when from the earth’s cheek
the colour goes,
Her old adorers from her presence
fly.
So cold her bosom seems, such icy glare
Is in her eyes, while on the
frozen mere
The shrill ice creaks in the congealing
air;
Where is the lover that shall
call her dear,
Or the devotion that shall find her fair?
The white-robed widow of the
vanished year.
Yet hath she loveliness and many flowers,
Dreams hath she too and tender
reveries,
Tranced mid the rainbows of her gleaming
bowers,
Or the hushed temples of her
pillared trees;
Summer has scarce such soft and silent
hours,
Autumn has no such antic wizardries.
Yea! he that takes her to his bosom knows,
Lost in the magic crystal
of her eyes,
Upon her vestal cheek a fairer rose,
What rapture and what passionate
surprise
Awaits his kiss beneath her mask of snows,
And what strange fire beneath
her pallor lies.
Beauty is hers all unconfused of sense,
Lustral, austere, and of the
spirit fine;
No cloudy fumes of myrrh and frankincense
Drug in her arms the ecstasy
divine;
But stellar awe that kneels in high suspense,
And hallowed glories of the
inner shrine.
And, for the idle summer, in our blood
Pleasures hath she of rapid
tingling joy,
With ruddy laughter ’neath her frozen
hood,
Purging our mortal metal of
alloy,
Stern benefactress of beatitude,
Turning our leaden age to
girl and boy.
A lover’s universe
When winter comes and takes away the rose,
And all the singing of sweet
birds is done,
The warm and honeyed world lost deep in
snows,
Still, independent of the
summer sun,
In vain, with sullen roar,
December shakes my door,
And sleet upon the pane
Threatens my peace in vain,
While, seated by the fire
upon my knee,
My love abides with me.
For he who, wise in time, his harvest
yields
Reaped into barns, sweet-smelling
and secure,
Smiles as the rain beats sternly on his
fields,
For wealth is his no winter
can make poor;
Safe all his waving gold
Shut in against the cold,
Treasure of summer grass—
So sit I with my lass,
My harvest sheaves of all
her garnered charms
Safe in my happy arms.
Still fragrant in the garden of her breast,
The flowers that fled with
summer softly bloom,
The birds that shook with song each empty
nest
Still, when she speaks, fill
all the listening room,
Deep-sheltered from the storm
Within her blossoming form.
Flower-breathed and singing sweet
Is she from head to feet;
All summer in my sweetheart
doth abide,
Though winter be outside.
So all the various wonder of the world,
The wizard moon and stars,
the haunted sea,
In her small being mystically furled,
She brings as in a golden
cup to me;
Within no other book
My eyes for wisdom look,
That have her eyes for lore;
And when the flaming door
Opens into the dark, what
shall I fear
Adventuring with my dear?
To the golden wife
With laughter always on the darkest day,
She danced before the very face of dread,
Starry companion of my mortal way,
Pre-destined merrily to be my mate,
With eyes as calm, she met the eyes of
Fate:
“For this it was that you and I
were wed—
What else?” she smiled and said.
Fair-weather wives are any man’s to find, The pretty sisters of the butterfly, Gay when the sun is out, and skies are kind; The daughters of the rainbow all may win— Pity their lovers when the sun goes in! Her smiles are brightest ’neath the stormiest sky— Thrice blest and all unworthy I!
Buried treasure
When the musicians hide away their faces,
And all the petals of the
rose are shed,
And snow is drifting through the happy
places,
And the last cricket’s
heart is cold and dead;
O Joy, where shall
we find thee?
O
Love, where shall we seek?
For summer is
behind thee,
And
cold is winter’s cheek.
Where shall I find me violets in December?
O tell me where the wood-thrush
sings to-day!
Ah! heart, our summer-love dost thou remember
Where it lies hidden safe
and warm away?
When woods once
more are ringing
With
sweet birds on the bough,
And brooks once
more are singing,
Will
it be there—thinkst thou?
When Autumn came through bannered woodlands
sighing,
We found a place of moonlight
and of tears,
And there, with yellow leaves for it to
lie in,
Left it to dream, watched
over by the spheres.
It lies like buried
treasure
Beneath
the winter’s cold,
The love beyond
all measure,
In
heaps of living gold.
When April’s here, with all her
sweet adorning,
And all the joys steal back
December hid,
Shall we not laughing run, some happy
morning,
And of our treasure lift the
leafy lid?
Again to find
it dreaming,
Just
as we left it still,
Our treasure far
out-gleaming
Crocus
and daffodil.
The new husbandman
Brother that ploughs the furrow I late
ploughed,
God give thee grace, and fruitful
harvesting,
Tis fair sweet earth, be it under sun
or cloud,
And all about it ever the
birds sing.
Yet do I pray your seed fares not as mine
That sowed there stars along
with good white grain,
But reaped thereof—be better
fortune thine—
Nettles and bitter herbs,
for all my gain.
Inclement seasons and black winds, perchance,
Poisoned and soured the fragrant
fecund soil,
Till I sowed poppies ’gainst remembrance,
And took to other furrows
my laughing toil.
And other men as I that ploughed before
Shall watch thy harvest, trusting
thou mayst reap
Where we have sown, and on your threshing
floor
Have honest grain within thy
barns to keep.
Paths that wind . . .
Paths that wind
O’er the hills and by the streams
I must leave behind—
Dawns and dews and dreams.
Trails that go
Through the woods and down the slopes
To the vale below;
Done with fears and hopes,
I must wander on
Till the purple twilight ends,
Where the sun has gone—
Faces, flowers and friends.
The immortal gods
The gods are there, they hide their lordly
faces
From you that will not kneel—
Worship, and they reveal,
Call—and
’tis they!
They have not changed, nor moved from
their high places,
The stars stream
past their eyes like drifted spray;
Lovely to look on are they as bright gold,
They are wise with beauty,
as a pool is wise.
Lonely with lilies; very sweet
their eyes—
Bathed deep in sunshine are they, and
very cold.
III
Ballade of woman
A woman! lightly the mysterious word
Falls from our lips, lightly
as though we knew
Its meaning, as we say—a flower,
a bird,
Or say the moon, the stream,
the light, the dew,
Simple familiar things, mysterious
too;
Or as a star is set down on a chart,
Named with a name, out yonder
in the blue:
A woman—and yet how much more
thou art!
So lightly spoken, and so lightly heard,
And yet, strange word, who
shall thy sense construe?
What sage hath yet fit designation dared?
Yet I have sought the dictionaries
through,
And of thy meaning found me
not a clue;
Blessing and breaking still the firmest
heart,
So fairy false, yet so divinely
true:
A woman—and yet how much more
thou art!
Mother of God, and Circe, bosom-bared,
That nursed our manhood, and
our manhood slew;
First dream, last sigh, all the long way
we fared,
Sweeter than honey, bitterer
than rue;
Thou fated radiance sorrowing
men pursue,
Thou art the whole of life—the
rest but part
Of thee, all things we ever
dream or do;
A woman—and yet how much more
thou art!
Envoi
Princess, that all this craft of moonlight
threw
Across my path, this deep
immortal smart
Shall still burn on when winds my ashes
strew:
A woman—and yet
how much more thou art!
The magic flower
You bear a flower in your hand,
You softly take it through
the air,
Lest it should be too roughly fanned,
And break and fall, for all
your care.
Love is like that, the lightest breath
Shakes all its blossoms o’er
the land,
And its mysterious cousin, Death,
Waits but to snatch it from
your hand.
O some day, should your hand forget,
Your guardian eyes stray otherwhere,
Your cheeks shall all in vain be wet,
Vain all your penance and
your prayer.
God gave you once this creature fair,
You two mysteriously met;
By Time’s strange stream
There stood this Dream,
This lovely Immortality
Given your mortal eyes to see,
That might have been your
darling yet;
But in the place
Of her strange face
Sorrow will stand forever
more,
And Sorrow’s hand be on your brow,
And vainly you shall watch
the door
For her so lightly with you now,
And all the world be as before.
Ah; Spring shall sing and Summer bloom,
And flowers fill Life’s empty room,
And all the singers sing in
vain,
Nor bring you back your flower
again.
O have a care!—for this is
all:
Let not your magic blossom fall.
Ballade of love’s cloister
Had I the gold that some so vainly spend,
For my lost loves a temple
would I raise,
A shrine for each dear name: there
should ascend
Incense for ever, and hymns
of golden praise;
And I would live the remnant
of my days,
Where hallowed windows cast their painted
gleams,
At prayer before each consecrated
face,
Kneeling within that cloister of old dreams.
And each fair altar, like a priest, I’d
tend,
Trimming the tapers to a constant
blaze,
And to each lovely and beloved friend
Garlands I’d bring,
and virginal soft sprays
From April’s bodice,
and moon-breasted May’s,
And there should be a sound for ever of
streams
And birds ’mid happy
leaves in that still place,—
Kneeling within that cloister of old dreams.
O’er missals of hushed memories
would I bend,
And thrilling scripts of bosom-scented
phrase,
Telling of love that never hath an end,
And sacred relics of wonder-working
grace,
Strands of bright hair, and
tender webs of lace,
Press to my lips—until the
Present seems
The Past again to my ensorcelled
gaze,—
Kneeling within that cloister of old dreams.
Envoi
Princesses unforgot, your lover lays
His heart upon your altars,
and he deems
He treads again the fair love-haunted
ways—
Kneeling within that cloister
of old dreams.
An old love letter
I was reading a letter of yours to-day,
The date—O a thousand
years ago!
The postmark is there—the month
was May:
How, in God’s name,
did I let you go?
What wonderful things for a girl to say!
And to think that I hadn’t
the sense to know—
What wonderful things for a man to hear!
O still beloved, O still most dear.
“Duty” I called it, and hugged
the word
Close to my side, like a shirt
of hair;
You laughed, I remember, laughed like
a bird,
And somehow I thought that
you didn’t care.
Duty!—and Love, with her bosom
bare!
No wonder you laughed, as
we parted there—
Then your letter came with this last good-by—
And I sat splendidly down to die.
Nor Duty, nor Death, would have aught
of me:
“He is Love’s,”
they said, “he cannot be ours;”
And your laugh pursued me o’er land
and sea,
And your face like a thousand
flowers.
“Tis her gown!” I said to
each rustling tree,
“She is coming!”
I said to the whispered showers;
But you came not again, and this letter
of yours
Is all that endures—all that
endures.
These aching words—in your
swift firm hand,
That stirs me still as the
day we met—–
That now ’tis too late to understand,
Say “hers is the face
you shall ne’er forget;”
That, though Space and Time be as shifting
sand,
We can never part—we
are meeting yet.
This song, beloved, where’er you
be,
Your heart shall hear and shall answer
me.
Too late
Too late I bring my heart, too late ’tis
yours;
Too late to bring the true love that endures;
Too long, unthrift, I gave
it here and there,
Spent it in idle love and idle song;
Youth seemed so rich, with
kisses all to spare—
Too late! too long!
Too late, O fairy woman; dreams and dust
Are in your hair, your face is dimly thrust
Among the flowers; and Time,
that all forgets,
Even you forgets, and only I prolong
The face I love, with ache
of vain regrets—
Too late! too long!
Too long I tarried, and too late I come,
O eyes and lips so strangely sealed and
dumb:
My heart—what is
it now, beloved, to you?
My love—that doth your holy
silence wrong?
Ah! fairy face, star-crowned
and chrismed with dew—
Too late! too long!
The door ajar
My door is always left ajar,
Lest you should suddenly slip through,
A little breathless frightened star;
Each footfall sets my heart abeat,
I always think it may be you,
Stolen in from the street.
My ears are evermore attent,
Waiting in vain for one blest sound—
The little frock, with lilac scent,
That used to whisper up the stair;
Then in my arms with one wild bound—
Your lips, your eyes, your hair.
Never the south wind through the rose,
Brushing its petals with soft hand,
Made such sweet talking as your clothes,
Rustling and fragrant as you came,
And at my aching door would stand—
Then vanish into flame.
Chipmunk
Little chipmunk, do you know
All you mean to me?—
She and I and Long Ago,
And you there in the tree;
With that nut between your paws,
Half-way to your twittering jaws,
Jaunty with your striped coat,
Puffing out your furry throat,
Eyes like some big polished seed,
Plumed tail curved like half a lyre .
. .
We pretended not to heed—
You, as though you would inquire
“Can I trust them?” . . .
then a jerk,
And you’d skipped three branches
higher,
Jaws again at work;
Like a little clock-work elf,
With all the forest to itself.
She was very fair to see,
She was all the world to me,
She has gone whole worlds away;
Yet it seems as though to-day,
Chipmunk, I can hear her say;
“Get that chipmunk, dear, for me——”
Chipmunk, you can never know
All she was to me.
That’s all—it was long
ago.
Ballade of the dead face that never dies
The peril of fair faces all his days
No man shall ’scape:
be it for joy or woe,
Each is the thrall of some predestined
face
Divinely doomed to work his
overthrow,
Transiently fair, as flowers
in gardens blow,
Then fade, and charm no more our listless
eyes;
But some fair faces ever fairer
grow—
Beware of the dead face that never dies.
No snare young beauty for thy manhood
lays,
No honeyed kiss the girls
of Paphos know,
Shall hold thee as the silent smiling
ways
Of her that went—yet
only seemed to go—
With April blossoms and with
last year’s snow;
Each year she comes again in subtler guise,
And beckons us to her green
bed below—
Beware of the dead face that never dies.
The living fade before her lunar gaze,
Her phantom youth their ruddy
veins out-glow,
She lays cold fingers on the lips that
praise
Aught save her lovely face
of long ago;
Oblivious poppies all in vain
we sow
Before the opening gates of Paradise;
There shalt thou find her
pacing to and fro—
Beware of the dead face that never dies.
Envoi
Prince, take thy fill of love, for even
so
Sad men grow happy and no
other wise;
But love the quick—and as thy
mortal foe
Beware of the dead face that
never dies.
The end of laughter
O never laugh again!
Laughter is dead,
Deep hiding in her grave,
A sacred thing.
O never laugh again,
Never take hands and run
Through the wild streets,
Or sing,
Glad in the sun:
For she, the immortal sweetness of all
sweets,
Took laughter with her
When she went away
With sleep.
O never laugh again!
Ours but to weep,
Ours but to pray.
The song that lasts
Songs I sang of lordly matters,
Life and death, and stars
and sea;
Nothing of them now remains
But the song I sang for thee.
Vain the learned elaborate metres,
Vain the deeply pondered line;
All the rest are dust and ashes
But that little song of thine.
The broker of dreams
Bring not your dreams to me—
Blown dust, and vapour, and the running
stream—
Saying, “He, too, doth dream,
Touched of the moon.”
Nay! wouldst thou vanish see
Thy darling phantoms,
Bring them then to me!
For my hard business—though
so soft it seems—
Was ever dreams and dreams.
And as some stern-eyed broker smiles disdain,
Valuing at nought
Her bosom’s locket, with its little
chain,
Love’s all that Love hath brought;
So must I weigh and measure
Thy fading treasure,
Sighing to see it go
As surely as the snow.
For I have such sad knowledge of all things
That shine like dew a little, all that
sings
And ends its song in weeping—
Such sowing and such reaping!—
There is no cure but sleeping.
IV
At the sign of the lyre
(To the Memory of Austin Dobson)
Master of the lyric inn
Where the rarer sort so long
Drew the rein, to ’scape the din
Of the cymbal and the gong,
Topers of the classic bin,—
Oporto, sherris and tokay,
Muscatel, and beaujolais—
Conning some old Book of Airs,
Lolling in their Queen Anne chairs—
Catch or glee or madrigal,
Writ for viol or virginal;
Or from France some courtly tune,
Gavotte, ridotto, rigadoon;
(Watteau and the rising moon);
Ballade, rondeau, triolet,
Villanelle or virelay,
Wistful of a statelier day,
Gallant, delicate, desire:
Where the Sign swings of the Lyre,
Garlands droop above the door,
Thou, dear Master, art no more.
Lo! about thy portals throng Sorrowing shapes that loved thy song: Taste and Elegance are there, The modish Muses of Mayfair, Wit, Distinction, Form and Style, Humour, too, with tear and smile.
Fashion sends her butterflies—
Pretty laces to their eyes,
Ladies from St. James’s there
Step out from the sedan chair;
Wigged and scented dandies too
Tristely wear their sprigs of rue;
Country squires are in the crowd,
And little Phyllida sobs aloud.
Then stately shades I seem to see,
Master, to companion thee;
Horace and Fielding here are come
To bid thee to Elysium.
Last comes one all golden: Fame
Calls thee, Master, by thy name,
On thy brow the laurel lays,
Whispers low—“In After
Days.”
TO MADAME JUMEL
Of all the wind-blown dust of faces fair,
Had I a god’s re-animating
breath,
Thee, like a perfumed torch in the dim
air
Lethean and the eyeless halls
of death,
Would I relume; the cresset of thine hair,
Furiously bright, should stream
across the gloom,
And thy deep violet eyes again
should bloom.
Methinks that but a pinch of thy wild
dust,
Blown back to flame, would
set our world on fire;
Thy face amid our timid counsels thrust
Would light us back to glory
and desire,
And swords flash forth that now ignobly
rust;
Maenad and Muse, upon thy
lips of flame.
Madness too wise might kiss
a clod to fame.
Like musk the charm of thee in the gray
mould
That lies on by-gone traffickings
of state,
Transformed a moment by that head of gold,
Touching the paltry hour with
splendid Fate;
To “write the Constitution!”
’twere a cold,
Dusty and bloomless immortality,
Without that last wild dying
thought of thee.
TO A BEAUTIFUL OLD LADY
(To the Sweet Memory of Lucy Hinton)
Say not—“She once was
fair;” because the years
Have changed her beauty to
a holier thing,
No girl hath such a lovely face as hers,
That hoards the sweets of
many a vanished spring,
Stealing from Time what Time in vain would
steal,
Culling perfections as each
came to flower,
Bearing on each rare lineament the seal
Of being exquisite from hour
to hour.
These eyes have dwelt with beauty night
and morn,
Guarding the soul within from
every stain,
No baseness since the first day she was
born
Behind those star-lit brows
could access again,
Bathed in the light that streamed from
all things fair,
Turning to spirit each delicate
door of sense,
And with all lovely shapes of earth and
air
Feeding her wisdom and her
innocence.
Life that, whate’er it gives, takes
more away
From those that all would
take and little give,
Enriched her treasury from day to day,
Making each hour more wonderful
to live;
And touch by touch, with hands of unseen
skill,
Transformed the simple beauty
of a girl,
Finding it lovely, left it lovelier still,
A mystic masterpiece of rose
and pearl.
Her grief and joy alike have turned to
gold,
And tears and laughter mingled
to one end,
With alchemy of living manifold:
If Life so wrought, shall
Death be less a friend?
Nay, earth to heaven shall give the fairest
face,
Dimming the haughty beauties
of the sky;
Would I could see her softly take her
place,
Sweeping each splendour with
her queenly eye!
TO LUCY HINTON: December 19, 1921
O loveliest face, on which we look our
last—
Not without hope we may again behold
Somewhere, somehow, when we ourselves
have passed
Where, Lucy, you have gone, this face
so dear,
That gathered beauty every changing year,
And made Youth dream of some day being
old.
Some knew the girl, and some the woman
grown,
And each was fair, but always ’twas
your way
To be more beautiful than yesterday,
To win where others lose; and Time, the
doom
Of other faces, brought to yours new bloom.
Now, even from Death you snatch mysterious
grace,
This last perfection for your lovely face.
So with your spirit was it day by day,
That spirit unextinguishably gay,
That to the very border of the shade
Laughed on the muttering darkness unafraid.
We shall be lonely for your lovely face,
Lonely for all your great and gracious
ways,
But for your laughter loneliest of all.
Yet in our loneliness we think of one
Lonely no more, who, on the heavenly stair,
Awaits your face, and hears your step
at last,
His dreamer’s eyes a glory like
the sun,
Again in his sad arms to hold you fast,
All your long honeymoon in heaven begun.
Thinking on that, O dear and loveliest
friend,
We, in that bright beginning of this end,
Must bate our grief, and count our mortal
loss
Only as his and your immortal gain,
Glad that for him and you it is so well.
Lucy, O Lucy, a little while farewell.
V
OTHER MATTERS, SACRED AND PROFANE
THE WORLD’S MUSQUETEER: TO MARSHAL FOCH
(Ballade a double refrain)
Marshal of France, yet still the Musqueteer,
Comrade at arms, on your bronzed
cheek we press
The soldier’s kiss, and drop the
soldier’s tear;
Brother by brother fought
we in the stress
Of the locked steel, all the wild work
that fell
For our reluctant doing; we that stormed
hell
And smote it down together, in the sun
Stand here once more, with all our fighting
done,
Garlands upon our helmets,
sword and lance
Quiet with laurel, sharing the peace they
won:
Soldier that saved the world
in saving France.
Soldier that saved the world in saving
France,
France that was Europe’s
dawn when light was none,
Clear eyes that with eternal vigilance
Pierce through the webs in
nether darkness spun,
Soul of man’s soul,
his sentinel upon
The ramparts of the world:
Ah! France, ’twas well
This soldier with the sword
of Gabriel
Was yours and ours in all that dire duresse,
This soldier, gentle as a
child, that here
Stands shy and smiling ’mid a world’s
caress—
Marshal of France, yet still
the Musqueteer.
Marshal of France, yet still the Musqueteer,
True knight and succourer
of the world’s distress
His might and skill we laurel, but more
dear
Our soldier for that “parfit
gentlenesse”
That ever in heroic hearts doth dwell,
That soul as tranquil as a vesper bell,
That glory in him that would glory shun,
Those kindly eyes alive with Gascon fun,
D’Artagnan’s brother—still
the old romance
Runs in the blood, thank God! and still
shall run:
Soldier that saved the world
in saving France.
ENVOI
Soldier that saved the world in saving
France,
Foch, to America’s deep
heart how near;
Betwixt us twain shall never come mischance.
Warrior that fought that war
might disappear,
Far and for ever far the unborn
year
That turns the ploughshare
back into the spear—
But, must it come, then Foch shall lead
the dance:
Marshal of France, yet still
the Musqueteer.
WE ARE WITH FRANCE
We are with France—not by the
ties
Of treaties made with tongue
in cheek,
The ancient diplomatic lies,
The paper promises that seek
To hide the long maturing guile,
Planning destruction with a smile.
We are with France by bonds no seal
Of the stamped wax and tape
can make,
Bonds no surprise of ambushed steel
With sneering devil’s
laughter break;
Nor need we any plighted speech
For our deep concord, each with each.
As ancient comrades tried and true
No new exchange of vows demand,
Each knows of old what each will do,
Nor needs to talk to understand;
So France with us and we with France—
Enough the gesture and the glance.
In a shared dream our loves began,
Together fought one fight
and won,
The Dream Republican of Man,
And now as then our dream
is one;
Still as of old our hearts unite
To dream and battle for the Right.
Nor memories alone are ours,
But purpose for the Future
strong,
Across the seas two signal towers,
Keeping stern watch against
the Wrong;
Seeking, with hearts of deep accord,
A better wisdom than the Sword.
We are with France, in brotherhood
Not of the spirit’s
task alone,
But kin in laughter of the blood:
Where Paris glitters in the
sun,
A second home, like boys, we find,
And leave our grown-up cares behind.
SATAN: 1920
I read there is a man who sits apart,
A sort of human spider in
his den,
Who meditates upon a fearful art—
The swiftest way to slay his
fellow men.
Behind a mask of glass he dreams his hell:
With chemic skill, to pack
so fierce a dust
Within the thunderbolt of one small shell—
Sating in vivid thought his
shuddering lust—
Whole cities in one gasp of flame shall
die,
Swept with an all-obliterating
rain
Of sudden fire and poison from the sky;
Nothing that breathes be left
to breathe again—
And only gloating eyes from out the air
Watching the twisting fires,
and ears attent
For children’s cries and woman’s
shrill despair,
The crash of shrines and towers
in ruin rent.
High in the sun the sneering airmen glide,
Glance at wrist-watches:
scarce a minute gone
And London, Paris, or New York has died!
Scarce twice they look, then
turn and hurry on.
And, far away, one in his quiet room
Dreams of a fiercer dust,
a deadlier fume:
The wireless crackles him, “Complete
success”;
“Next time,” he
smiles, “in half a minute less!”
To this the climbing brain has won at
last—
A nation’s life gone
like a shrivelled scroll—
And thus To-Day outstrips the dotard Past!
I envy not that man his devil’s
soul.
UNDER WHICH KING . . . ?
The fight I loved—the good
old fight—
Was clear as day ’twixt Might and
Right;
Satrap and slave on either hand,
Tiller and tyrant of the land;
One delved the earth the other trod,
The writhing worm, the thundering god.
Lords of an earth they deemed their own,
The tyrants laughed from throne to throne,
Scattered the gold and spilled the wine,
And deemed their foolish dust divine;
While, ’neath their heel, sublimely
strove
The martyred hosts of Human Love.
Such was the fight I dreamed of old
’Twixt Labour and the Lords of Gold;
I deemed all evil in the king,
In Demos every lovely thing.
But now I see the battle set—
Albeit the same old banners yet—
With no clear issue to decide,
With Right and Might on either side;
Yet small the rumour is of Right—
But the bared arms of Might and Might
Brandish across the hate-filled lands,
With blood alike on both their hands.
MAN, THE DESTROYER
O spirit of Life, by whatsoe’er
a name
Known among men, even as our
fathers bent
Before thee, and as little children came
For counsel in Life’s
dread predicament,
Even we, with all our lore,
That only beckons, saddens
and betrays,
Have no such key to the mysterious door
As he that kneels and prays.
The stern ascension of our climbing thought,
The martyred pilgrims of the
soaring soul,
Bring us no nearer to the thing we sought,
But only tempt us further
from the goal;
Yea! the eternal plan
Darkens with knowledge, and
our weary skill
But makes us more of beast and less of
man,
Fevered to hate and kill.
Loves flees with frightened eyes the world
it knew,
Fades and dissolves and vanishes
away,
And the sole art the sons of men pursue
Is to out-speed the slayer
and to slay:
And lovely secrets won
From radiant nature and her
magic laws
Serve but to stretch black deserts in
the sun,
And glut destruction’s
jaws.
Life! is it sweet no more? the same blue
sky
Arches the woods; the green
earth, filled with trees,
Glories with song, happy it knows not
why,
Painted with flowers, and
warm with murmurous bees;
This earth, this golden home,
Where men, like unto gods,
were wont to dwell,
Was all this builded, with the stars for
dome,
For man to make it hell?
Was it for this life blossomed with fair
arts,
That for some paltry leagues
of stolen land,
Or some poor squabble of contending marts,
Murder shall smudge out with
its reeking hand
Man’s faith and fanes alike;
And man be man no more—but
a brute brain,
A primal horror mailed and fanged to strike,
And bring the Dark again?
Fool of the Ages! fitfully wise in vain;
Surely the heavens shall laugh!—the
long long climb
Up to the stars, to dash him down again!
And all the travail of slow-moving
Time
And birth of radiant wings,
A dream of pain, an agony
for naught!
Highest and lowest of created things,
Man, the proud fool of thought.
THE LONG PURPOSES OF GOD
To Man in haste, flushed with impatient
dreams
Of some great thing to do,
so slowly done,
The long delay of Time all idle seems,
Idle the lordly leisure of
the sun;
So splendid his design, so brief his span,
For all the faith with which
his heart is burning,
He marvels, as he builds each shining
plan,
That heaven’s wheel
should be so long in turning,
And God more slow in righteousness than
Man.
Evil on evil mock him all about,
And all the forces of embattled
wrong,
There are so many devils to cast out—
Save God be with him, how
shall Man be strong?
With his own heart at war, to weakness
prone,
And all the honeyed ways of
joyous sinning,
How in this welter shall he hold his own,
And, single-handed, e’er
have hopes of winning?
How shall he fight God’s battle
all alone?
He hath no lightnings in his puny hand,
Nor starry servitors to work
his will,
Only his soul and his strong purpose planned,
His dream of goodness and
his hate of ill;
He, but a handful of the eddying dust,
At the wind’s fancy
shaped, from nowhere blowing;
A moment man—then, with another
gust,
A formless vapour into nowhere
going,
Even as he dreams back into darkness thrust.
O so at least it seems—if life
were his
A little longer! grant him
thrice his years,
And God should see a better world than
this,
Pure for the foul, and laughter
for the tears:
So fierce a flame to burn the dross away
Dreams in his spark of life
so swiftly fleeing:
If Man can do so much in one short day,
O strange it seems that an
Eternal Being
Should in his purposes so long delay.
Easy to answer—lo! the unfathomed
time
Gone ere each small perfection
came to flower,
Ere soul shone dimly in the wastes of
slime;
Wouldst thou turn Hell to
Heaven in an hour?
Easy to say—God’s purposes
are long,
His ways and wonders far beyond
our knowing,
He hath mysterious ministers even in wrong,
Sure is His harvest, though
so long His sowing:
So say old poets with persuasive tongue.
And yet—and yet—it
seems some swifter doom
From so august a hand might
surely fall,
And all earth’s rubbish in one flash
consume,
And make an end of evil once
for all . . .
But vain the questions and the answers
vain,
Who knows but Man’s
impatience is God’s doing?
Who knows if evil be so swiftly slain?
Be sure none shall escape,
with God pursuing.
Question no more—but to your
work again!
BALLADE TO A DEPARTING GOD
God of the Wine List, roseate lord,
And is it really then good-by?
Of Prohibitionists abhorred,
Must thou in sorry sooth then die,
(O fatal morning of July!)
Nor aught hold back the threatened hour
That shrinks thy purple clusters dry?
Say not good-by—but au revoir!
For the last time the wine is poured,
For the last toast the glass raised high,
And henceforth round the wintry board,
As dumb as fish, we’ll sit and sigh,
And eat our Puritanic pie,
And dream of suppers gone before,
With flying wit and words that fly—
Say not good-by—but au revoir!
’Twas on thy wings the poet soared,
And Sorrow fled when thou wentst by,
And, when we said “Here’s
looking toward” . . .
It seemed a better world, say I,
With greener grass and bluer sky . . .
The writ is on the Tavern Door,
And who would tipple on the sly? . . .
’Tis not good-by—but
au revoir!
ENVOI
Gay God of Bottles, I deny
Those brave tempestuous times are o’er;
Somehow I think, I scarce know why,
’Tis not good-by—but
au revoir!
BALLADE OF THE ABSENT GUEST
Friends whom to-night once more I greet,
Most glad am I with you to
be,
And, as I look around, I meet
Many a face right good to
see;
But one I miss—ah!
where is he?—
Of merry eye and sparkling jest,
Who used to brim my glass
for me;
I drink—in what?—the
Absent Guest.
Low lies he in his winding-sheet,
By organized hypocrisy
Hurled from his happy wine-clad seat,
Stilled his kind heart and
hushed his glee;
His very name daren’t
mention we,
That good old friend who brought such
zest,
And set our tongues and spirits
free:
I drink—in what?—the
Absent Guest.
No choice to-night ’twixt “dry”
or “sweet,”
’Twixt red or white,
’twixt Rye,—ah! me—
Or Scotch—and think! we live
to see’t—
No whispered word, nor massive
fee,
Nor even influenza plea,
Can raise a bubble; but, as best
We may, we make our hollow
spree:
I drink—in what?—the
Absent Guest.
ENVOI
Friends, good is coffee, good is tea,
And water has a charm unguessed—
And yet—that brave old deity!
I drink—in tears—the
Absent Guest.
TOBACCO NEXT
They took away your drink from you,
The kind old humanizing glass;
Soon they will take tobacco too,
And next they’ll take
our demi-tasse.
Don’t say, “The
bill will never pass,”
Nor this my warning word disdain;
You said it once, you silly
ass—
Don’t make the same mistake again.
We know them now, the bloodless crew,
We know them all too well,
alas!
There’s nothing that they wouldn’t
do
To make the world a Bible
class;
Though against bottled beer
or Bass
I search the sacred text in vain
To find a whisper—by
the Mass!
Don’t make the same mistake again.
Beware these legislators blue,
Pouring their moral poison-gas
On all the joys our fathers knew;
The very flowers in the grass
Are safe no more, and, lad
and lass,
’Ware the old birch-rod and the
cane!
Here comes our modern Hudibras!—
Don’t make the same mistake again.
ENVOI
Prince, vanished is the rail of brass,
So mark me well and my refrain—
Tobacco next! you silly ass,
Don’t make the same
mistake again.
BALLADE OF THE PAID PURITAN
In vain with whip and knotted cord
The hirelings of hypocrisy
Would make us comely for the Lord:
Think ye God works through
such as ye—
Paid Puritan, plump Pharisee,
And lobbyist fingering his fat bill,
Reeking of rum and bribery:
God needs not you to work His will.
We know you whom you serve, abhorred
Traducers of true piety,
What tarnished gold is your reward
In Washington and Albany;
’Tis not from God you
take your fee,
Another’s purpose to fulfil,
You that are God’s worst
enemy:
God needs not you to work His will.
Not by the money-changing horde,
Base traders in the sanctuary,
Nor by fanatic fire and sword,
Shall man grow as God wills
him be;
In his own heart a voice hath
he
That whispers to him small and still;
God gives him eyes His good
to see:
God needs not you to work His will.
ENVOI
Dear Prince, a sinner’s honesty
Is more to God, much nearer
still,
Than the bribed hypocritic knee:
God needs not you to work
His will.
THE OVERWORKED GHOST
When the embalmer closed my eyes,
And all the family went in
black,
And shipped me off to Paradise,
I had no thought of coming
back;
I dreamed of undisturbed repose
Until the Judgment Day went
crack,
Tucked safely in from top to toes.
“I’ve done my bit,”
I said. “I’ve earned
The right to take things at
my ease!”
When folk declared the dead returned,
I called it all tomfooleries.
“They are too glad to get to bed,
To stretch their weary limbs
in peace;
Done with it all—the lucky
dead!”
But scarcely had I laid me down,
When comes a voice: “Is
that you, Joe?
I’m calling you from Williamstown!
Knock once for ‘yes,’
and twice for ‘no.’”
Then, hornet-mad, I knocked back two—
The table shook, I banged
it so—
“Not Joe!” they said, “Then
tell us who?
“We’re waiting—is
there no one here,
No friend, you have a message
for?”
But I pretended not to hear.
“Perhaps he fell in
the great war?”
“Perhaps he’s German?”
someone said;
“How goes it on the
other shore?”
“That’s no way to address
the dead!”
And so they talked, till I got sore,
And made the blooming table
rock,
And ribald oaths and curses swore,
And strange words guaranteed
to shock.
“He’s one of those queer spooks
they call
A poltergeist—the
ghosts that mock,
Throw things—” said one,
who knew it all.
“I wish an old thigh-bone was round
To break your silly head!”
I knocked.
“A humourist of the burial-ground!”
A bright young college graduate
mocked.
Then a young girl fell in a trance,
And foamed: “Get
out—we are deadlocked—
And give some other ghost a chance!”
Such was my first night in the tomb,
Where soft sleep was to hold
me fast;
I little knew my weary doom!
It even makes a ghost aghast
To think of all the years in store—
The slave, as long as death
shall last,
To ouija-boards forevermore.
For morning, noon, and night they call!
Alive, some fourteen hours
a day
I worked, but now I work them all.
No sooner down my head I lay,
A lady writer knocks me up
About a novel or a play,
Nor gives me time for bite or sup.
I hear her damned typewriter click
With all the things she says
I say,
You’d think the public would get
sick;
And that’s my only hope—some
day!
Then seances, each night in dozens
I must attend, their parts
to play
For dead grandpas and distant cousins.
O for my life to live again!
I’d know far better
than to die;
You’d never hear me once complain,
Could I but see the good old
sky,
For here they work me to the bone;
“Rest!”—don’t
believe it! Well, good-by!
That’s Patience Worth there on the
phone!
THE VALIANT GIRLS
The valiant girls—of them I
sing—
Who daily to their business
go,
Happy as larks, and fresh as spring;
They are the bravest things
I know.
At eight, from out my lazy tower,
I watch the snow, and shake
my head;
But yonder petticoated flower
Braves it alone, with aery
tread;
Nor wind, nor rain, nor ice-fanged storm,
Frightens that valiant little form.
Strange! she that sweetens all the air,
The New York sister of the
rose,
To a grim office should repair,
With picture-hat and silken
hose,
And strange it is to see her there,
With powder on her little
nose;
And yet how business-like is she,
With pad and pencil on her knee.
Changed are the times—no stranger
sign,
If you but think the matter
over,
Than she, the delicate, the divine,
Whose lot seemed only love
and lover,
Should to Life’s rough and muddy
wheel
So gravely set her pretty
shoulder;—
(What would her dead grandmother feel,
If someone woke her up and
told her!)
Yet bate not, through her dreary duty,
One jot of womanhood or beauty.
A woman still—yes! still a
girl,
She changes, yet she does
not change,
A moon-lit creature made of pearl
And filled with music sad
and strange:
The while she takes your gruff dictation,
Who knows her secret meditation!
Most skilled of all our new
machines,
She sits there at the telephone,
Prettier far than fabled queens;
Yea! Greece herself has never known,
Nor Phidias wrought, nor Homer
sung,
Girls fairer than the girls
that throng,
So serious and so debonair,
At morn and eve, the Subway stair;
A bright processional of faces,
So valiant—for
all their laces.
The girls that work! that take their share
In Life’s grim battle,
hard and rough,
Wearing their crowns of silken hair,
Armed only with a powder-puff:
These, not the women of old time,
Though, doubtless, they were
fair enough,
Shall be the theme for modern rhyme.
Nay! never shall our hearts
forget
The flower face of Juliet,
Or Helen on her golden throne;
But there shall come a Homer
yet,
A Shakespeare still to fame unknown,
To sing among the stars up
there
Fair Helen, the stenographer,
Sweet Juliet of the telephone.
NOT SOUR GRAPES
I’m not sorry I am older, love—are
you?
Over all youth’s fuss
and flurry,
All its everlasting hurry,
All its solemn self-importance and to-do.
Perhaps we missed the highest reaches
of high art;
Love we missed not, and the
laughter,
Seeing both before and after—
Life was such a serious business at the
start!
We’ve lost nothing worth the keeping—do
you think?
You are just as slim and elfish,
And I’ve grown a world
less selfish;
We look back on life together—and
we wink.
Over all those old misgivings of the heart,
Growing pains of love and
lover;
Life’s fun begins, its
fevers over—
Life was such a serious business at the
start!
Garners full, life’s grain and chaff
we have sifted;
Youth went by in idle tasting,
Now we drink the cup, unhasting,
Spill not a drop, brimful and high uplifted;
And we watch now, calm and fearless, the
years depart,
Knowing nothing can now sever
Two that life made one forever—
Life was such a serious business
at the start!
BALLADE OF READING BAD BOOKS
O sad-eyed man who yonder sits,
Face in a book from morn till
night,
Who, though the world should go to bits,
Pores on right through the
waning light;
O is it sorrow or delight
That holds you, though the sun has set?
“I read,” he said,
“what these fools write,
Not to remember—but forget.”
“Man drinks or gambles, woman knits,
To put their sorrow out of
sight,
From folly unto folly flits
The weary mind, or wrong or
right;
My melancholy taketh flight
Reading the worst books I can get,
The worst—yet best!
such is my plight—
Not to remember—but forget.”
“’Tis not alone the immortal
wits,
The lords of language, pens
of might,
Past masters of the word that fits
In their mosaic true and bright,
That aid us in our mortal
fight,
And heal us of our wild regret,
But books that humbler pens
indite,
Not to remember—but forget.”
ENVOI
“O Prince, ’tis but the neophyte
Who scorns this humble novelette
You watch me reading, un-contrite—
Not to remember—but
forget.”
BALLADE OF THE MAKING OF SONGS
Bees make their honey out of coloured
flowers,
Through the June day, with
all its beam and scent,
Heather of breezy hills, and idle bowers,
Brushing soft doors of every
blossoming tent,
Filling gold thighs in drowsy
ravishment,
Pillaging vines on the hot garden wall,
Taking of each small bloom
its little rent—
Poets must make their honey out of gall.
Singers, not so this craven life of ours,
Our honey out of bitter herbs
is blent;
The songs that fall as soft as April showers
Came of the whips and scorns
of chastisement,
From smitten lips and hearts
in sorrow bent,
Distilled of blood and wormwood are they
all—
Idly you heard, indifferent
what they meant:
Poets must make their honey out of gall.
You lords and ladies sitting high in towers,
Scarcely attending the sweet
instrument
That lulls you ’mid your cruel careless
hours,
Melodious minister of your
content;
Think you this music was from
Heaven sent?
Nay, Hell hath made it thus so musical.
And to its making thorns and
nettles went—
Poets must make their honey out of gall.
ENVOI
Prince of this world, enthroned and insolent,
Beware, lest with a song your
towers fall,
Your pride sent blazing up the firmament—
Poets must make their honey
out of gall.
BALLADE OF RUNNING AWAY WITH LIFE
O ships upon the sea, O shapes of air,
O lands whose names are made
of spice and tar,
Old painted empires that are ever fair,
From Cochin-China down to
Zanzibar!
O Beauty simple, soul-less,
and bizarre!
I would take Danger for my bosom-wife,
And light our bed with some
wild tropic star—
O how I long to run away with Life!
To run together, Life and I! What
care
Ours if from Duty we may run
so far
As to forget the daily mounting stair,
The roaring subway and the
clanging car,
The stock that ne’er
again shall be at par,
The silly speed, the city’s stink
and strife,
The faces that to look on
leaves a scar:
O how I long to run away with Life!
Fling up the sail—all sail
that she can bear,
And out across the little
frightened bar
Into the fearless seas alone with her,
The great sail humming to
the straining spar,
Curved as Love’s breast,
and white as nenuphar,
The spring wind singing like a happy fife,
The keen prow cutting like
a scimitar:
O how I long to run away with Life!
ENVOI
Princess, the gates of Heaven are ajar,
Cut we our bonds with Freedom’s
gleaming knife,—
Lo! where Delight and all the Dancers
are!
O how I long to run away with
Life!
TO A CONTEMNER OF THE PAST
You that would break with the Past, Why with so rude a gesture take your leave? None hinders, go your way; but wherefore cast Contempt and boorish scorn Upon the womb from which even you were born? Begone in peace! Forbear to flout and grieve, Vulgar iconoclast, Those of a faith you cannot comprehend, To whom the Past is as a lovely friend Nobly grown old, yet nobly ever young; The temple and the treasure-house of Time, With gains immortal stored Of dream and deed and song, Since man from chaos first began to climb, His lonely soul for sword.
O base and trivial tongue That dares to mock this solemn heritage, And foul this sacred page! Sorry the future that hath you for sire! And happy we who yet Can bear the golden chimes from tower and spire In the old heaven set, And link our hands and hearts with the great dead ThatPage 38
lived with God for friend, And drew strange sustenance from overhead, And knew a bright beginning in life’s end; For all their earthly days Were filled with meaning deeper than the hour.
Leave us our simple faith in star and flower, And all our simple ways Of prayer and praise, And ancient virtues of humility, Honour and reverence and the bended knee, Old tenderness and gracious courtesies, From Time so hardly won: But you that no more have content in these, From out our sanctuaries Begone—and gladly gone!