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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 
 
ENGLISH B 
 
 BY 
 
 AGNES PORTER 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 
 
 1917 
 
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 CoPY^iOHT, 1917 
 
 SHEmMAN, French df Compakt 
 
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 ©CI.A479831 
 
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I. 
 
 TO 
 
 SARAH PEIRCE GUNNISON 
 
Fanfares of noiseless trumpets flood 
 
 'Roun^ your dark windows^ English By 
 
 But I mus* stan* like I have stood 
 A small, dumb hairnie at your knee. 
 
 For all their things I thank ^em goody 
 For smiles and food they give to me; 
 
 They never showed me Gods at Foody 
 My dear dumb thanks I hold to thee. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE BLUE FLAME AROUND THE 
 CHRISTMAS PUDDING 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Blue Flame Around the Christmas 
 
 Pudding 1 
 
 Childhoods 2 
 
 South Boston 3 
 
 Bobby in Starr King 4 
 
 A Complaint 5 
 
 Petition of a Small Girl 6 
 
 TO THE YOUNG 
 
 To the Young 9 
 
 The First Dream Ends 10 
 
 To THE Spirit of Poetry 11 
 
 TENANTRY 
 
 Tenantry 15 
 
 Alpha and Omega 16 
 
 To My Old Art Museum 17 
 
 The Faith 18 
 
 After a Coming-Out Tea 19 
 
 Lights out 20 
 
 Our Future's Master-Playwright ... 21 
 
 Tolstoi's Last Words 22 
 
 Addresses in an Old Book 23 
 
 After Reading ** Mr. Britling Sees it 
 
 Through " 24 
 
 BLUE POND LILIES 
 
 Blue Pond Lilies 27 
 
 Summerville, South Carolina .... 28 
 
 The Dreamer 29 
 
 This 30 
 
PAGE 
 
 JEsTHETic Dancing ....... SI 
 
 Reality 32 
 
 Hymn of the Young Crusaders ... 33 
 
 Clouds 34 
 
 The D*el Sarto Madonna 35 
 
 Harvard Summer School 36 
 
 Marigolds 39 
 
 Infantile Paralysis 40 
 
 A Robin's Egg Lying Unbroken in the 
 
 Path 42 
 
 On Reading the Names of Books About to 
 
 Be Published 43 
 
 "If" 44 
 
 THE BEACH OF ETERNITY 
 
 The Beach of Eternity 47 
 
 God, Seen in the Glass Cases of a Natural 
 
 History Museum 48 
 
 After Reading Maeterlinck's " Death " . 49 
 
 The Three Crosses 50 
 
 The Lord of the Lavender Land . . .51 
 
 Prayer of One Dumb to Buddha ... 52 
 
 To A Cheap Copy of the Elgin Marbles . 53 
 
 Stilts 54 
 
 Heritage 55 
 
 Two Atlantics 56 
 
 MAY MOONLIGHT 
 
 May Moonlight 59 
 
 To K. C 60 
 
 Yale College Gives a Prize to Rupert 
 
 Brooke 61 
 
THE BLUE FLAME 
 AROUND THE CHRISTMAS PUDDING 
 
THE BLUE FLAME 
 AROUND THE CHRISTMAS PUDDING 
 
 The white-dressed children gaze and gaze 
 In wonder at the Christmas blaze, 
 The violet flames, the spicy ball, 
 And cries of " Mind the alcohol I " 
 
 Aerial, lambent, once-a-year, 
 The violet flames, the atmosphere 
 Of darling England, Yules forgot, 
 All that we love and yet have not; 
 
 And as we see the violet spent. 
 Faces of little ones that went 
 Come back to help this lusty crew 
 Push violent dessert-spoons through. 
 
 The children make a romping game 
 Of blowing out the violet flame. 
 Not dreaming that our visions wake 
 More in the Flame than in the Cake. 
 
 [1] 
 
CHILDHOODS 
 
 One childhood is not enough ; 
 
 In the All of Eternity 
 
 Grant me a thousand childhoods, gay and 
 
 rough, 
 Made of a sheer, bright, dazzling stuff 
 In the arms of the Time-to-be. 
 
 [2] 
 
SOUTH BOSTON 
 
 Union, Trust, and Travel fill 
 Parent-mouths, but all the talk 
 
 Is a smile at Commerce' Mill 
 When they see the Baby walk. 
 
 Tricks and Trade are all until 
 Junior learns to hold his fork, 
 
 Or they watch the Baby fill 
 Empty bottles with a cork. 
 
 Printers' ink and tailors' chalk 
 Toil for Freddy's Sunday frill ; 
 
 Men will very seldom balk 
 Till the Twins are getting ill. 
 
 Life is mostly Beans and Pork, 
 Getting well or getting ill. 
 Taking Kiddies after work 
 For a Norumbega thrill. 
 
 [3] 
 
BOBBY IN STARR KING 
 " OuE Bobby died in 1842." 
 
 He has for night-light Venus in the Spring; 
 He has for bath the icy breath of brooks ; 
 Parents with God ; his little life in books ; 
 I cannot pity Bobby of Starr King. 
 
 [4] 
 
A COMPLAINT 
 
 When I am good they promise me 
 
 A Pony and a Basket Cart ; 
 Or if I fall and hurt my knee — 
 
 A Pony and a Basket Cart ; 
 The day I shell the beans for lunch — 
 
 A Pony and a Basket Cart ; 
 Or pick the ferns — an awful bunch — 
 
 A Pony and a Basket Cart ; 
 But Christmas comes and I don't get 
 
 A Pony and a Basket Cart ; 
 When Birthday comes, I'm waiting yet 
 
 A Pony and a Basket Cart ; 
 I s'pose I must grow up to hunt 
 
 A Pony and a Basket Cart, 
 But then I guess that I won't want 
 
 A Pony and a Basket Cart. 
 
 [5] 
 
PETITION OF A SMALL GIRL 
 
 Lord, you know that I repent, or 
 Will do better when I wake; 
 Let me be a Big Inventor; 
 Edison eats Hamburg Steak. 
 
 Please be quick, for I am growing 
 Faster than the Setter Pup ; 
 He'll be dead before I'm knowing, 
 So Good-night, Lord ; hurry up. 
 
 [6] 
 
TO THE YOUNG 
 
 [7] 
 
TO THE YOUNG 
 
 Hatchet-jawed, tense, misunderstood and 
 
 blind, 
 Trying to quench your thirst on orange-rind ; 
 We smile for you because our hearts are wrung, 
 And know, because we smile, we are no longer 
 
 young. 
 
 m 
 
THE FIRST DREAM ENDS 
 
 There is a sort of comfort when the First 
 
 Dream ends 
 In silence and in quietness some night, 
 When that thing passes by, which we have most 
 Desired, and is counted with the lost 
 Dreams of all ages. 
 
 We see the world swing in the Almighty's hand 
 As if we saw it through a sharper lens ; 
 Our earlier visions showed another land, 
 But we are calmer, being citizens. 
 
 [10] 
 
TO THE SPIRIT OF POETRY 
 
 Childhood could not love thee ; thou wert it 
 And it unconscious ; girlhood — not a bit ; 
 
 Girlhood is panicked at the sight of wings, 
 Those vastly beatific awkward things ; 
 
 It is the middle-life that harnesses 
 Thee, with the first white-turning hairs ; 
 
 It is the middle life, when " Thee " turns 
 
 " You," 
 And you sit down to bread and mutton stew. 
 
 Oh, no one knows you, Spirit of Poetry, 
 Who has not counted birthdays with a sigh. 
 
 Two-thirds delight, because you came along. 
 Oh, no one knows you who has not had song 
 
 Ring in his ears intolerably; who has not 
 Believed in some dark hour you were not. 
 
 [11] 
 
TENANTRY 
 
TENANTRY 
 
 We are but tenants of New England hills ; 
 Our Lease is written out by one who smiles 
 Like a Rug-Salesman, and who ever piles, 
 To catch our eye, Red Leaves and Cider Mills, 
 Wrenching the golden juice until it fills 
 With cloying sparkle all the airy miles. 
 We may build swimming-salons lined with tiles 
 Below the edge of Grecian Marble sills. 
 Yet are but tenants ; others, coming after 
 To old white houses hung with old green blinds. 
 Shall puzzle here, as we now bend with laughter, 
 (Stirring the garden loam), at our quaint finds. 
 " Blue and white china ! Ah, what curious 
 
 kinds ; 
 Was this a nail in some old oaken rafter? " 
 
 [15] 
 
ALPHA AND OMEGA 
 
 Alpha, the First, O darling thought of Spring ! 
 And did we, too, once learn our A-B-C's? 
 And standing 'round, in trembling minor keys 
 Our " Onward, Christian Soldiers " bravely 
 
 sing? 
 And nightly too, not doubt an angel's wing 
 Shut out the dark above our sleepy head, 
 And never doubted that he saw the bed 
 Or little sleeper ; heard the whispering 
 Of little fairies in the Plaything-Box — 
 And then we had to leave the nursery floor. 
 And now behind us the old nursery door 
 Closes forever with a slam that mocks ; 
 The iron key is turned, it firmly locks ; 
 Omega, Last, what can you give us, more — ? 
 
 [16] 
 
TO MY OLD ART MUSEUM 
 
 This is to drink to those old, far-ofF days 
 When I went up the steps in Copley Square, 
 And for the first time in my life saw there 
 The Victory Flying, met the marble gaze 
 Of Psyches from the wall, or in a maze 
 Of jewels found myself, such as kings wear, 
 Of scarabs and the blue Egyptian haze. 
 Or in a Mummy-Room where I could scare 
 Myself of Ra. Today, I walking there 
 Saw the red walls that you had laid aside 
 The old red walls in which you used to hide 
 Your Spirit's mission ; you have donned at last 
 Garments of marble, yet your soul is fast 
 Brick walls or marble, that has never died. 
 
 [17] 
 
THE FAITH 
 
 Is this the Faith for which believers flamed 
 As living torches on the Roman heights, 
 This placid service? There are no more fights 
 With heretics ; the Church has grown ashamed 
 Of her stern courage : Can our foes be blamed, 
 She asks, for their conviction?: Let them be! 
 O Church, a foe besets you whom I see. 
 By whom you will be crippled, stunted, 
 
 maimed — 
 You blame the bloody, fiercer days of old 
 When man was mighty -svdth the Spirit's fire; 
 But would you now go out into the cold 
 While the steel fell, and ever see still higher 
 Than your assassin's face? Oh, be not sold 
 To the inertness of the modern mire. 
 
 [18] 
 
AFTER A COMING-OUT TEA 
 
 The guests are gone ; the heavy tenderness 
 Of dying flowers fills the rooms and hall ; 
 Ruddy carnations droop beyond recall; 
 The roses hang their heads for weariness, 
 And over all a perfumed dreariness 
 Drifts like the echo of a song that's done. 
 Life ; and then — death. Nought new is, un- 
 der sun 
 I think half smiling and half teariness. 
 But something new 1 For up in one high vase 
 I see a flower of death shine blessedly, — 
 The sweet curved whiteness of a lily face 
 Still fresh as dawn, and singing regally 
 With glory-music-perfume, and a grace 
 That seems to hold its youth eternally. 
 
 [19] 
 
LIGHTS OUT 
 
 The candle shot long shadows on the wall ; 
 The nursery bed was cool and white ; but I 
 Kneeled on the floor to send petition high 
 Up to the Lord. " God, I was cross and all ; 
 But then, you know, it hurts so much to fall 
 Out of a tree. Oh, if your angel blows 
 His horn tonight, I pray you not to close 
 Your heaven-gates until I hear his call. 
 I am so sleepy, heavenly Father dear, 
 Oh, make the kitten come and sleep with me,- 
 She is so warm, and I had only three 
 Cookies at supper. Make tomorrow clear 
 And good for picnics. — Keep me ever near. 
 Amen. — Bless all the family and me." 
 
 [20] 
 
OUR FUTURE'S MASTER-PLAYWRIGHT 
 
 Oh, come I Iconoclastic, confident ! 
 
 Writing in common terms our life's equation. 
 
 Giving the Truth instead of an evasion, 
 
 Smashing the footlights to the detriment 
 
 Of " ivied tow'rs," and to the evident 
 
 Decease of old worm-eaten stage-properties ; 
 
 Old mossy towns, conventionalities 
 
 Of other lands ; be the true instrument 
 
 Of us ourselves, and not of other soils ; 
 
 Fearlessly write on paper all the toils, 
 
 The questions, the mistakes, of our ozcn land ; 
 
 Forswear the " picturesque " ; with searching 
 
 hand 
 Show us the faults that drag, the truths that 
 
 star. 
 Not " what we wish we were," but " what we 
 
 are 
 
 "I 
 
 [21] 
 
TOLSTOI'S LAST WORDS 
 
 A Russian night was drawing to its end ; 
 A Russian life was drawing to its close; 
 Old Tolstoi from his death-bed half arose 
 To give his final message to a friend: 
 " What message, Tolstoi, do you wish to send? " 
 Did tired years come to his vision then, 
 Memories of struggles with unconquered men? 
 With Holy Church would he now try to mend 
 A breach of years ? Or would he even dare 
 Depart with anathemas? Tolstoi spoke; 
 " Bury me under the old Poverty Oak ; 
 I and my little brother breathed that air ; 
 We buried our green rocking-pony there ! 
 There let me lie by my own peasant folk," 
 
 im 
 
ADDRESSES IN AN OLD BOOK 
 
 These are so faint, the lines are very blurred ; 
 
 Far addresses in far and distant lands 
 
 That have become, since wrote these childish 
 
 hands. 
 The bloody graves of nations ; — you have 
 
 heard. 
 What thoughts a child's chirography has 
 
 stirred ; 
 This crooked writing : — " Posen," here it 
 
 stands, — 
 " Warsaw,"—" Berlin "— " St. Leonard's-on- 
 
 the-Sands ; '* 
 And furthermore, a sweet, light-hearted third 
 That in accord the hills once over ran, 
 (Not everyone a little English smock. 
 For some wore German challis, grey or tan). 
 Have lived to learn how roaring Maxims mock 
 The International Friendships of Lausanne — 
 And bury Friendship in each cannon-shock. 
 
 [^] 
 
AFTER READING " MR. BRITLING 
 SEES IT THROUGH" 
 
 One perfect, poignant, English afternoon. 
 Till darkness falls on Essex and on Kent ; 
 And that bright England into which we went 
 Swims in the darkness of a wdld typhoon ; 
 And as if walking on an English dune, 
 Spotted with daisies like a firmament 
 With stars, we saw the sunny breezes vent 
 Sandstorms and dust, by some grand-opera 
 
 moon; 
 O Mr. Britling, while the storm is blowing, 
 Not for her pride do w^e pray England's luck, 
 (We all are fools), but for the daisies growing 
 Pink on the sward the first invader struck, 
 (We do not have them pink), and for the glow- 
 ing 
 Of your boys' cheeks, in battle with the puck. 
 
 [24] 
 
BLUE POND LILIES 
 
BLUE POND LILIES 
 
 Blue lilies yawning on the Nile, 
 When panting hostages made tile; 
 
 Pollen-embalmed and water-drugged, 
 Old when the Temple logs were lugged ; 
 
 They are the Age of Rameses, 
 
 They are the Souls on Isis' Knees ; 
 
 They are the Musk of Orient; 
 They are the Salve Osiris sent 
 
 To Babylon; my stranger-eyes 
 Droop in Egyptian mists that rise 
 
 On blue pond lilies when I meet 
 
 Their timeless smile on Boylston Street. 
 
 [27] 
 
SUMMERVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA 
 
 Draked in grey moss, like Peace, that floats 
 From the tall masts of broken pines ; 
 Azaleas flush the sleepy brines, 
 Like quickened sailors of lost boats ; 
 
 Daffodils glimmer in white sand, 
 Seem pieces of old Spanish gold 
 Sunk from some rotting hull or hold. 
 Forgot in Isabella's land. 
 
 Swung in a lull, sea-green and still, 
 A thousand leagues below the surf ; — 
 The strangeness of an ocean's turf 
 Has this enchanted Summerville. 
 
 [28] 
 
THE DREAMER 
 
 He went about with a far-seeing smile, 
 
 Humble, with few complaints ; 
 And all he asked was we should bear him while 
 
 He put the golden haloes on his saints. 
 
 [29] 
 
THIS 
 
 All day I labored ; past the drum 
 Of woodland-shot and woodland-song, 
 Down to the sounding of day's gong, 
 That took my pencil with a " come." 
 
 The dip's hot wax stung not so deep 
 As failure ; yet I lay me calm 
 Into the hollow of night's arm, 
 For I have tried ; and I can sleep. 
 
 [80] 
 
ESTHETIC DANCING 
 
 Hip-out, middy-bloused, hot, the class towers, 
 Until a wide-eyed anthem clear from Greece 
 
 Enters us, and we float in a divine peace. 
 And do cool things with our hands, like drop- 
 ping flowers. 
 
 II 
 
 Haggardly hot, grotesquely old and young, 
 Stockily, dumbly, inexpressive, till 
 
 The motion sings them to the Holy Hill, 
 To the same songs the Seven Sisters sung. 
 
 [31] 
 
REALITY 
 
 I STOOD in a salt city by the sea, 
 
 Where salty cords made harps of all the masts ; 
 
 All through the sky I felt the pink brush- 
 strokes, 
 
 Like " broken-color " in a sketch. 
 
 The black galleys that once sailed, 
 
 Had sailed for you; 
 
 The mystical green flash from No Man's Land 
 
 Was for you ; 
 
 I picked up Reality and scrutinized warp and 
 woof; 
 
 I threw it down ; 
 
 It smelt of dust and the people in the street; 
 
 It was like Arts' and Crafts' pottery, 
 
 With monstrous shape and small meaning; 
 
 Life was too much like one of those yellow, jig- 
 saw ducks. 
 
 Whose wheels move only when you push. 
 
 But then there came to me a humorous content. 
 
 That we were doing such wooden things in such 
 a wooden world ; 
 
 Otherwise we might be too much transported 
 
 By the copper-green and violet in soap-bubbles. 
 
 [32] 
 
HYMN OF THE YOUNG CRUSADERS 
 
 That I may strike! 
 
 As I have been y-struck ! 
 The stinging lash to wield ; 
 Mine arm to hold the shield, 
 
 And let them cry to Luck! 
 
 On with the Cross ! 
 
 Soft tongues are weapons poor! 
 But here a holy chance ; 
 Their hateful pennons glance 
 
 By our encampment door! 
 
 Joseph and Mary! 
 
 Hold up the lovely Son 
 And let his lightnings wild, 
 Eyes of the awful child. 
 
 Spur us to stone and stun! 
 
 Accursed Saracens ! 
 
 We shall prevent! 
 Cross each one's face with blood 
 That has thy name withstood. 
 
 Till we are spent ! 
 
 Drink this oblation ! 
 
 God, fair and holy, 
 Blood of thy heathen, 
 With laurel wreathen. 
 
 We serve thee truly ! 
 [33] 
 
CLOUDS 
 
 God's aeroplanes, wingless they fly ; 
 Soulless, they are all soul 
 In rose and purple ; see, they clash and cry 
 Goal-less to some sweet goal. 
 
 Having no form beyond a moment, still 
 They approach him nearer in their nothingness 
 Than we by passionate will 
 And studied dress. 
 
 [34] 
 
THE DEL SARTO MADONNA 
 
 (In the Yale Collection) 
 
 Out of a palette of color, 
 
 Yellow, lavender, rose. 
 These three divinest tinges 
 
 Andrea del Sarto chose. 
 
 Only a few flakes are left, 
 Rosy and golden that stay, 
 
 But the cherub-face of the child 
 Flirts from the canvas today. 
 
 And the mother holds him near 
 With her meekly yearning smile ; 
 
 Thus she has held him four 
 
 Hundred years, — quite a while ! 
 
 [85] 
 
HARVARD SUMMER SCHOOL 
 
 In winter, Yard and Sever Hall 
 
 Ring to the echo and the call 
 
 Of young men's voices, and the Yard, 
 
 Bare of its mat of velvet sward. 
 
 Is brown beneath the boys' swift feet ; 
 
 But now in summer it is sweet 
 
 With children's voices, — little loves, 
 
 And beating of the wings of doves. 
 
 Where are they all, who all and all 
 Trooped into old Memorial Hall, 
 Stuffing their Latins and their Greeks, 
 Where have they vanished in three weeks? 
 Spring is long gone ; vacation grass 
 Has summoned every Harvard class. 
 The halls are empty. Locust-saws 
 Exasperate, and news of wars 
 I)isturb, but Cambridge must keep cool 
 To entertain the Summer School. 
 Oh, it is different when we crawl 
 Like this to Harvard for the ball 
 Of knowledge that we learn to want 
 Beyond all barriers that daunt. 
 We have not much in one with College ; 
 The boys who enter here to grow in knowledge 
 Are rightful in their heritage, 
 And we outsiders, by our age. 
 Oh, but the gay young lords would smile 
 If they could see us here the while; 
 [36] 
 
If they could see the women con 
 Their books, outside of " Emerson." 
 
 Muslins and garden-hats we wear ; 
 They bared their heads to mild Spring air ; 
 But August burns, though knowledge calls, 
 We struggle with our parasols. 
 
 I seem to see the smile of Youth 
 Behind those beautiful old trees, 
 That patronizes quest of Truth 
 And all ignores the stiffening knees. 
 
 Listen, I heard a secret joy; 
 The locusts sawed it in the Yard, 
 That all the wisdom of a boy 
 Could not o'er hear by listening hard : 
 That seals and affidavits fair 
 Are nothing to a rightful heir; 
 That heritage by manhood's wage 
 Is not the only heritage. 
 Harvard benevolent, the eyes 
 Of thy Great Dead lie kindly, wise, 
 (I like to think), lie fondly, well. 
 On this great firm Memorial ; 
 They know we do not come as boys. 
 Coerced and hearty, with a noise 
 Of shouting in the College Yard; 
 We come as Strangers, when the sward 
 Is dry and the swift August burns ; 
 We come as Learners, — the grass turns 
 Yellow — we have not time to look ; 
 
 [37] 
 
Our heart lies on an open book. 
 
 Harvard benevolent and good 
 Offers us all her kindly food; 
 We, with the pigeons, all may share 
 Her benefit from Sever's stair. 
 
 [38] 
 
MARIGOLDS 
 
 Red-gold, I quaff 
 Your thjmy tonic, 
 Its mint ironic ; 
 And I can laugh! 
 I have forgot 
 The hazy pest, 
 Drinking your hot 
 Incarnate zest ! 
 
 [39] 
 
INFANTILE PARALYSIS 
 
 " Are you concealing children there? " 
 The wide-jawed guardian of the Public Peace 
 Demanded suddenly. And all the smaller 
 Traffic, full of Fords and bonny children's 
 
 heads, 
 Halted to hear the answer. 
 Mothers, whose breath came only moment by 
 
 moment, 
 With fear that saw in every dimpled limb 
 Potential impotence and death, looked up ; 
 Fathers struggling to earn the money 
 That would keep the terror from the door, 
 Yet loathed themselves 
 As possible carriers of the terror, stopped ; 
 The blue limousine stopped; 
 The heads came out; grand furs, style; 
 The question must be repeated. 
 "Are you concealing children there.'* " 
 As he spoke, even, 
 The officer invaded the car. 
 Ploughing up velvet cushions and rugs; 
 The traffic without thrilled cheaply; 
 Grand indeed the childhood 
 That would come from this. 
 " They have none ; let 'um by." 
 The messy, children-spotted crowd 
 Parted to " let 'um by " ; 
 But even while it parted 
 [40] 
 
It hugged its fear, 
 
 While those who passed, unstopped, 
 
 To the White Mountains 
 
 Would have taken all the torment to be stopped 
 
 Because of one small, white face. 
 
 [«] 
 
A ROBIN'S EGG LYING UNBROKEN IN 
 THE PATH 
 
 Geeen, yellow-green, the lineaments of day, 
 We brushed aside and only came to beg, 
 The rustling resurrection in an egg ; 
 Grief-blue, indeed, like God's own tear, it lay 
 On massy mud and warm, last summer's hay ; 
 A potent pearl, an energetic keg. 
 Rebuffed in panic by a robin's leg ; 
 But one within the shell discovered May ; 
 That which but yesterday was white and yolk. 
 Lived — and cried shrilly : Lo, I come, I rack 
 This turquoise thimble, for the jasmine's smoke; 
 I swell to shunt the prison from my back ; 
 Whistling, from out the shredded blue to poke 
 A breathing bill, impetuous and black. 
 
 [48] 
 
ON READING THE NAMES OF BOOKS 
 ABOUT TO BE PUBLISHED 
 
 Look softly here, the names are still quite wet 
 With printers' ink ; and no one knows as yet 
 Whether these books are vacant trash, or 
 whether 
 They blaze with light the world will not 
 forget ; 
 
 As friendly priest baptizeth : " John " ! 
 Knowing not if his wrinkled foot 
 
 Shall kick a gallows' willow's root, 
 Or cross another Rubicon. 
 
 So 'wait these books, nativity ; 
 With no addenda but a name ; 
 
 No shadow on them, or no flame, 
 To augur their proclivity. 
 
 Look softly on this list ; you are well met, 
 But by veiled faces, covered with a net ; 
 
 And no one knows who crowd this list together 
 But only they are all One Thirty, Net. 
 
 [43] 
 
" IF " 
 (With apologies to Mr. Kipling) 
 
 If I have had the chicken-pox and measles 
 Within three months, and never said a thing, 
 
 Yet longed to see the chipmunks and the weasels 
 And other interests of the early spring ; 
 
 If I have wanted like the Jungle Kiddie 
 To skip from bow to bow within the green. 
 
 And raised my head, and felt uncommon giddy 
 And had to grease my face with vaseline ; 
 
 If I had written this to Mr. Kipling, 
 
 He would have said : " You're doing very 
 well; 
 
 You are a man, my son, a fine young stripling." 
 The only out is — I'm a damosel 1 
 
 [M] 
 
THE BEACH OF ETERNITY 
 
THE BEACH OF ETERNITY 
 
 The Other Children swam the swells, 
 But He stuck cockles in the sod; 
 And Time approved the cockle-shells 
 Of that eccentric genius, God. 
 
 [47] 
 
GOD, SEEN IN THE GLASS CASES OF 
 A NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM 
 
 O Thou dear Self-expressive One, 
 Who standest bearing all the sore. 
 
 Sarcastic taunt we give this bone 
 They call a Dinosaur : 
 
 Thou : this small adder-head we sneer 
 To see raised up above great thighs ; 
 
 Forgetful of the toil to rear 
 Thy head, so little for thy size. 
 
 We would ignore this Life's Old Hem, 
 Stitches of stuff, unspecialized ; 
 
 Yet art thou very greatly them : 
 
 These small, still, star-fish, fossilized. 
 
 O Thou dear Self-expressive One, 
 
 A Psalter or a dinosaur. 
 The vertebrata or a stone. 
 
 Alike to Thee, who wert before. 
 
 [48] 
 
AFTER READING MAETERLINCK'S 
 " DEATH " 
 
 The All is a great cool vacuum ; 
 O doubtless good, but very strangely still ; 
 No whisper of the old unquiet will 
 Hateful the silence of that quiet room. 
 
 Lovely the old accustomed jokes of Time: 
 Life, Death and Rainy Days. 
 Lovely the old commonplace, 
 To eat chestnuts by the blaze. 
 
 [49] 
 
THE THREE CROSSES 
 
 On a gaunt, grey hillside 
 Me, on three crosses crucified, — 
 Me, with the hanging culprit-head, 
 Me, the glutton full of bread. 
 
 But the third me, blameless eyed, — 
 Him, also, they crucified. 
 
 [60] 
 
THE LORD OF THE LAVENDER LAND 
 
 The Lord of the Lavender Land, 
 Yearned to the souls that vex, 
 In mistaken years and sex, 
 On the bitterly surfless sand. 
 
 With one of his pungent looks, 
 Stringently unafraid. 
 He gave them the gift that stayed. 
 The Ultima Thule; Books. 
 
 [51] 
 
PRAYER OF ONE DUMB 
 TO BUDDHA 
 
 Buddha, before I go 
 
 Unto the Unrecalled, 
 
 Before I sit enthralled 
 
 In their Eternal Snow, 
 
 Before the taper's glow 
 
 Has evermore burned low, 
 
 Buddha, I make a prayer 
 
 With flames that shout and glisten. 
 
 Unrealized Buddha, listen 
 
 To this bright fire's flare, 
 
 Welcome the holy glare. 
 
 Breathe up the incense rare 
 
 Before my day is greyer. 
 
 Open my mouth to throw 
 
 Words burning lava-hot. 
 
 Throbbing, not soon forgot 
 
 Where all the Four Winds blow ; — 
 
 Then I will quiet go 
 
 To the Eternal Snow. 
 
 [52] 
 
TO A CHEAP COPY OF THE ELGIN 
 MARBLES 
 
 If, out of earth in Utah made to clay, 
 
 In Newark moulded to its present fashion, 
 
 I hear the trumpet of the battle bray, 
 
 And spears, long rusted in museums, clash on. 
 
 There is no death; for surely never arm 
 Of corpse could curve as this to lay the lash on ! 
 These are no dreamers of immortal calm ; 
 These are the drivers of immortal passion. 
 
 [53] 
 
STILTS 
 
 Hot days, sore throat, and flies. 
 Are stilts to make us hunch 
 
 Together in a bunch 
 And linger destinies. 
 
 Unless we felt the beat 
 Of other hearts, the skies 
 
 Would interest our eyes 
 And we would never meet. 
 
 Because we limp, we meet ; 
 
 Angel-shod, I would miss 
 (In running on to bliss) 
 
 You, darling, on the street. 
 
 [54] 
 
HERITAGE 
 
 The bastard tiptoe on the run 
 
 Covets the lanterns of his father's place 
 With more of passion than the lawful son 
 
 Can ever know in comfort and in grace. 
 
 Every fistful of the homely earth 
 
 His heart begrudges ; and all this because 
 
 He was created by a sorry birth 
 
 A half step higher than his village was. 
 
 [55] 
 
TWO ATLANTICS 
 
 Swells of the Ocean fetch 
 Gaunt seaweeds to the beach, 
 
 Where sanded sprigs of vetch 
 Rustle beyond our reach. 
 
 But homing, at tide's flow, 
 I see by cottage light 
 
 Your saffron covers' glow, 
 And happy, hold you tight. 
 
 The Atlantic's grey recall 
 Purports to make me free, 
 
 But in your saffron wall 
 I comprehend the sea. 
 
 [66] 
 
MAY MOONLIGHT 
 
MAY MOONLIGHT 
 
 A suEGE of opal, and of Thee and May, 
 Ah, thou who knowest what we sadly lose ; 
 Forgive our longing to be gods at play ; 
 We will get headaches if we wet our shoes. 
 
 [59] 
 
TO K. C. 
 
 SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE 
 
 I HEARD that you had died, and then I wept 
 That so much fun and life and genius slept ; 
 But I was proud that you had laid aside 
 Genius and life and loveliness — and died. 
 
 [60] 
 
YALE COLLEGE GIVES A PRIZE TO 
 RUPERT BROOKE 
 
 June, 1916 
 
 They offered still a prize to thee, 
 Who hast the prize of Immortality ; 
 
 They spoke thy name, with the same breath, 
 Yet the great difference, which is Death; 
 
 So that all glamour could not rob 
 Us of the impulse of a sob ; 
 
 And those who had not read thy book 
 Still read thy spirit, Rupert Brooke. 
 
 [61] 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 mt 
 
 144 7 #