Class. Book < Copyright^ . £_ COPYRIGHT DEPOSITt SHIPS IN PORT BY LEWIS WORTMNGTON SMITH «* G- P- PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK LONDON Zhc fmicfterbocfeer press J9J6 Copyright, 19 16 BY LEWIS WORTHINGTON SMITH Ube TKnfcfeerbocfeer press, IFlew 12orfe JUN 12 1916 ©CI.A431438 CONTENTS PAGE Ships in Port. (Putnam's Magazine) . . i On the Open Road. (Outing) ... 2 The Great Good World. (Reedy 1 s Mirror) . 3 After Ingathering. (The Youth's Companion) 6 After Voyaging. (People's Magazine) . .7 Spring Rain. (Lippincott' s Magazine) . . 8 Out from Lynn. (The Forum) . . .10 When My Life Slips Tether. (The Forum) . 12 Back from the Hospital. (The Forum) . 15 Song for Labor Day. (Pittsburg Despatch) . 21 The Singer. (Appleton's Magazine) . . 23 With Marjorie in April. (The Independent) 26 In the Workshop. (Poet Lore) . . . 27 Alma Barbelow. (The Youth's Companion) 31 The Highways of the Nations. (Out West) 34 Gypsying. (The Independent) ... 36 in iv Contents PAGE Souls of Song. (Ainslee's Magazine) . 38 Yielding the Quest. (The Poetry Journal) 39 The Prairie. (The Critic) .... 45 The Fire Dancer. (Appleton's Magazine) . 49 Whither Away. (The Bellman) ... 52 The Water in the Turbine. (Success) . 53 Ispahan. (The Woman's Home Companion) 56 Stories. (The Bellman) .... 58 In Recompense. (The Cavalier) ... 60 The Violin. (The Greater West) ... 62 Breaking the Road. (The Bellman) . . 65 Convalescence. (The Forum) ... 67 The Power House. (The Greater West) . 71 As the Winds Flit. (Ainslee's Magazine) . 73 Aglavaine. (Poetry) 74 Facing the Verdict 76 Alicia Told Me. (Home Magazine) . .81 The Lost Arcady. (Metropolitan Magazine) 82 April in the Air. (The Reader) . . 83 Contents PAGE Iron from Sinai. (Technical World Magazine) 84 Driftwood. (Poetry) 90 At the Motorman's Window. (Technical World Magazine) ..... 92 Art and the World. (Metaphysical Magazine) 94 Artists. (Technical World Magazine) . . 108 Coats for the Tourney. (New York Times) in News from Yorktown. (The Independent) . 113 Taking the Road. (The Bellman) . .115 A Shadow of Things to Come. (Des Moines Register) . . . . . . .116 SHIPS IN PORT When the ships come in I shall sit and spin, Twisting the carded wool they bring, Turning the threads as I dream and sing, While the funnels smoke and the flags break free, And my heart is out at sea. When the ships come in I shall sit and spin, Twisting the fancies brave and new, Wonders for which men search earth through — The Levant, Manila, and Pechili — That my heart has brought from sea. When the ships come in I shall sit and spin, Twisting the colors; then some day The threads will snap. I shall rise and sway, Trembling, blind, to the heart of me, While the ships put out to sea. ON THE OPEN ROAD Out to the joy of the open road Soon shall my feet be gone, Led by the dreams of the heart of youth Over the slopes of dawn. Desert and valley and heights of snow, Plains where the rivers run; Jungles and steppes of the frozen north, Islands that take the sun. Nautch girls that dance in the silent noon, Sphynx of the world-old Nile; Caravans crossing the trackless waste, Pyramids pile on pile. Italy, Greece and the Caucasus, Persia and Hindoostan; I shall see them all with the heart of a boy Alive in the heart of the man. Glad with the love of the open road, Free-hearted I take my way. Cities and men and a life of change Shall welcome me day by day. Midnights shall pass with their starry deeps, Noons shall have come and gone; While still from the gray of the skies before Breaks the orient rose of dawn. THE GREAT GOOD WORLD In the garnering of the years that death shall treas- ure, In the passing of the days that come no more, You shall never make me find life's fullest measure In the broken line of foam that beats the shore. In the mist that flies and hides the somber distance Where the ships may float or plunge in groaning wreck, I shall never pause with eyes of dumb persistence Looking vainly for some dim horizon speck. Let the harbor bar give passage or denial, I shall find it, pass or founder as I may. When the hour has come and fate has called to trial, I shall turn my face unfaltering to the day; But the deed is of the world, the joy of doing Ends forever when my boat is outward bound. Life that beats where summer's golden breath is wooing Comes upon me in a rush of light and sound. Pilgrim paths have crossed my own and pilgrim voices Echoed promises of life beyond the bourne. In the world of here and now my soul rejoices. It must end, but while it lasts I shall not mourn, 3 4 The Great Good World Life is double, being, doing. For me never One alone can be enough to sate desire. Through the blankness of the time men call forever, Let me perish into dust that once was fire. For the thing that makes life noble is achievement, Deeds that leap the pale of night from sun to sun. Earth becomes a smoking altar of bereavement Only when the will to do finds all things done. Now the distance is a splendor and a glory, And our human strength still triumphs over time. Earth is better in one moment of its story Than the asons of all heavens death may climb. Give me earth with women's voices, children's laugh- ter, Breath of storm upon the wind and tossing leaves. Never trouble me with talk of what comes after, Dead conjectures that an idle world receives. Give me earth with all her moods of gloom and glamor, Drip of rain and breast of robin in the sun, Human speech in hours of peace and hours of clamor When through tumult some new order is begun. Give me earth with man high-hearted making high- ways, East and west and north and south from land to land, Building palaces with noble courts and byways In which love and joy and knowledge may expand; The Great Good World 5 Quiet firesides where the genius of all ages Spreads the wonders man has treasured out of time, Busy merchant courts whose varied wealth engages All the toil of every race in every clime. Give me earth with washing seas and rolling rivers Where the argosies of fortune come and go; Streets of cities where each human passion quivers And the night is only day's long afterglow; Where I pass a thousand faces warm and breathing, Each a strangeness in its own desires and dreams; Where ambitions, transports, yearnings all are seeth- ing, And forever pour the changing human streams. I shall die, but when death comes I shall be ready. I have known the great good world and lived its joy. So my eyes shall look farewell then, firm and steady, Asking nothing for the future's dull employ. Let the hearts that find earth empty fail and falter, Crying anxious questions forward to the dark. It is full for me beyond my wish to alter, Though beyond it there should never glow a spark. AFTER INGATHERING From purple grape the juice is pressed, The grain and nuts are stored. The time has come to give the best Your memory has in hoard. And I will watch the fireplace flame, The breath of song shall blow; And you will tell across the game Old tales of long ago. Outside the winter storm and cold, The winter warmth within, And all the things we loved of old, Soft-footed, thronging in. Our curtained peace shall hold the best That fancy seeks or seems. The strenuous hours shall pause and rest, Like thoughts that drift in dreams. AFTER VOYAGING Oh, the winds blow north and the winds blow south And the good ship rides at the river's mouth, But here let me rest with my own once more, While I watch her sails as she slips from shore. Oh, the world lies east and the world lies west, But here is the hearth that my soul loves best, And here are the eyes that can kindle mine When the twilight falls into candle-shine. SPRING RAIN The cry of the water courses for the songs of the forest children, The hint of the freshness of springing green where the winter drift has lain ; A hope of the world-wide spaces in the balm of the wind's caresses, And deep at the heart of the underworld the joy of the roots in rain. The shiver of plashing footsteps where the rushes drink and tremble, The glint of the April-changing sun on the drop of leaf -held dew; The joy of the home-returning of the wind- winged prairie children To paths that the grasses bend above and the wild things loiter through. The strength of the horses plowing in the breath of the meadow grasses, The subtle sense of the earth astir beneath the plowman's feet; The hopes of the hills at even ere the twilight lamps dissemble, The will to be going on and on where the long, long highways meet. 8 Spring Rain 9 The world is a world of distance for the feet of the wildwood children. The rivers would have them follow on, the grasses bid them stay. The near and the far are passions when the south wind breathes upon them And all of the rover instincts wake and the joys of the dream-free way. OUT FROM LYNN When I came down the road to Lynn The surf was beating loud. Across the sea a ship came in, Each sail a clinging shroud. I stood upon the windy hill, The vagrant heart within me still. The world was larger to my view, That moment, than my boyhood knew. When I put out to sea from Lynn The tide was dropping down. I saw the evening lights begin To glint out in the town. Straining my eyes across the night, I watched them till they vanished quite. My father's house, the day before, Had seemed as distant as the shore. When I was out of sight of Lynn I caught the seaman's tread. I had a hole to stow me in And hard boards for my bed. Like one enchanted, through my work, I watched the stars out in the murk, Above and in Our wake of foam, The changeless stars I knew at home. 10 Out From Lynn n When I go back some day to Lynn, I know the street that leads To country lanes I loitered in Before my manhood's needs. I shall not mind the buffets then, The earnest give and take of men, If someone stands within the door, — If someone stands — I ask no more. WHEN MY LIFE SLIPS TETHER Something kindled when first I knew you, Something older than all my years. Some strange part of myself breathed through you, Came from your eyes and from mine went to you, Lived on the breath that the south wind blew you, Sang in your voice for my trembling ears. You were mine in a past Elysian ; I was yours where we once ranged free. Here we met by our fate's decision, To speak in passing like ships at sea. Outward and outward to cloud-capped islands, Lifted fair from the tumbling waves, Fresh green valleys and purple highlands, Almost touching the mist-wreathed sky-lands, Outward to lands the south sea laves, I was swept in the joy of being, Living and doing; but dimly seeing How much I was leaving in leaving you. Life led onward, blind fate decreeing; Heaven and the sea were fair and blue. Never a word that your lips had spoken, Never a song that your voice had sung Came as a kindred cry or token Out of a silence else unbroken, Never a sigh your heart had wrung. 12 When my Life Slips Tether 13 Over the earth men's thoughts were learning To fly in whispers. Some message burning With word of an empire's overturning Sped on the wires over sea and land; But never a lisp of your spirit's yearning Made me believe and understand. Never a glimpse of your brow's fair whiteness Under the massed hair floating free, Came with the morning's vestal brightness, Sped through the noon air's hovering lightness, Trembled over the twilight sea. Men were looking with eyes of wonder Through stones that earth's secrets burrow under, Learning the real for the past's poor blunder, Making the false thing clear and true. Never the miles that have held asunder You and me has a ray pierced through. Something kindled when first I knew you, Something that came before time and death. Now is the hour when my lips would woo you, Now is the time when my need calls to you, Seeking life's ultimate meaning through you, Feeling the bonds of the soul that drew you Once to my soul as its life and breath. Somewhere again when my life slips tether, Glad of the sun in the autumn weather, Wandering free in the leafy ways, Somewhere again we shall come together After the long and loveless days. 14 When my Life Slips Tether Never a stranger to stranger meeting Flashes a comradeship like this. Somewhere before these hearts were beating, Mortal as idle moments fleeting, We must have clung and given the kiss. Somewhere again with their earth-beat over, Heart of my heart, from that old embrace, You shall receive me and call me lover, There as we tremble face to face. BACK FROM THE HOSPITAL THE FIRST NIGHT This is the face they let me bring you home, The face you used to love and used to kiss, Calling it beautiful. For that light word I lost my soul. Is it a thing for smiles? For you, I know — before these cheeks and lips 1 Had been so marked, you used to say my laugh Was lite a sun-burst. Now I dare not smile — No, dare not. Hideous, more hideous — Youjwould not shrink from any vilest thing More surely than the smile you used to call — You were a lover once. I was half crazed To be so loved, to have such flowers of speech Fashioned for me, and now — Oh, you may go, May leave me here, a scarred and wretched thing, Just as you please. I know I could not be More than a ghost beside the banquet board Where once, a month ago, if I had gone, You would have been as proud as any knight Presenting princes to his queen of love. There have been women neither young nor fair Whom still you would have taken and been glad, Because, perhaps, — I knew the time must come When I should envy them their wit, their talk, 15 16 Back from the Hospital Their finer graces of the mind, the heart, Such women, women whom I used to see With foolish pity. You who told me then That being beautiful, no more than that, Was all a woman's duty, art, or need, You who so dared deceive me, tell me now^ What there can be for her who loses all, Who starves her mind to nothing, shrivels up The better instincts of her heart, and dwarfs Her very nature, just because one man Tells her be beautiful, be nothing else. What then when in a little week, a day That beauty that was all slips like a mask That hides a death's-head and she looks and sees No friend, no lover? Oh, you cannot know How horrible, how terrible — I think You would not sit there with that dull disgust, Half tolerating what I suffer, too, Because you soon will laugh with all the gay, Who ask but idly for your wife at home. It is an hour before you need to dress. Give me that hour. Let us turn down the light. In the half darkness, am I not the same? My voice, the voice you praised is just as low. My hands are just as soft to hold your own. My eyes — if you could see me all as eyes Here in the shadows, if your eyes could smile, — I think that they might glow as once they used, Seeing the love you gave them. You forget, Back from the Hospital 17 Or would forget, with me forgetting too, That what I am you made me. Years ago Before my life had felt the touch of yours, I dreamed of things, I had some thoughts worth while, And something of the glory of the world, With all God meant that we should be and do, Held me at times as in a trance of fear, Of fear and joy and wonder and resolve. You never knew, of course you could not know; But I remember once, a night of stars, When the great world was sleeping like a babe, We walked, Jerome and I, across a marsh, Along a causeway, while the water oozed In little puddles, where we saw the heavens A strange, sweet beauty in the muddy pools. We had been talking — no, that let me keep, But I remember, when we reached the end, We turned and looked and saw a thousand lights There in the city. Something held us both, A hush in that immensity of space, The deep, still darkness and the souls on souls Enwrapped within it, life within a pall; And something seemed to catch me, bear me on To those great wishes that the saints have felt Before the sin and struggle, pain and doubt, Through which the human gropes to the divine. I think, that night, if he had only dared, — Ah, God, if he had said the one great word And held me with a little mortal love 1 8 Back from the Hospital To all the immortalities I felt! I should not then have flung myself away And lost the things I was and might have been For this mad life. If you could understand, — You do not care that I have empty hands, That now, too, I must have an empty heart Fed with the husks of kindness only felt As something irksome. Going? Are you sure You might not stay at home and not be missed? I would not have you stay. Go, leave me, go. If you can laugh, our common cup of joy Is fuller, though the dregs are all my share. Of course you would not leave me here alone If it were possible for me to go, Or even possible for you to stay. Why make apologies? Do I not know The dull companionship I have to give? Besides, I need to think, and I must learn To shape a new life for the old I lose. I half conceive the part I have to play. Because I know we need not talk of love After this hour. That somehow makes me free To gather up those threads of old intent Too doubtfully drawn out and weave again A something beautiful, the thing I was, The thing I might have been before you came, As I dare still believe — and then, and then — You will not see, you will not seem to care. Some other woman with bold laughing eyes Back from the Hospital 19 And cheeks half red, with blood below the rouge And piled hair for the smiles to glow beneath, Some woman with a breast as full and warm And limbs as roundly splendid and a step That springs as freely with as great a joy And lips as bravely human with the pulse Of singing life — and then these cheeks, these cheeks! You ought to pity me. I hate her now. She should not dare be beautiful for you When I have nothing, I who need so much, Because you taught me how to ask and have, And now, and now — of course I should not ask Or seem to care. How could I with this face? Go. There are pretty women dressing too, Choosing the jewels for their round white necks That you may see them as they pause and pass And love them idly, all the evening through Forgetting me, as if— There is no hell, God could not make a hell beyond to-night While I sit waiting in the quiet house To catch your step. I should have died, have died Rather than never hear you any more Tell me how beautiful I look. There are— I cannot tell how many — thousands, yes, More beautiful, and you will praise them too; And I must know it, feel it, every hour And curse them every moment, like a fiend Shrieking in torments. Oh, these cheeks, these cheeks ! I wish — If God could only make you blind, You might forget, and I— these poor scarred cheeks! 20 Back from the Hospital No, leave the gas turned down and let me stay Here in the darkness. You can face the glow, Faultlessly dressed and faultless in yourself. It is the darkness brings the truth to light. It shuts away so many things untrue, So many mockeries, so many shows That lure and trick the fancy to our hurt, And, after all — I think that makes it clear. I needed this, I needed losing you To rind the good to which my eyes were blind And would have been forever. Leave me, go. Pour out your tinkling rill of compliment For other women. While I sit and wait, Find someone fairer. Let your fancy fly In brave disdain of bonds that hurt the flesh. Call yourself free, and, so becoming free, Kiss the first fresh-lipped girl you meet and dare Tell her the lies I could not disbelieve. Make her believe them — then — the last hard truth- Tell me you kissed her. So I, too, am free, And out of freedom I shall dare aspire To all I lost in girlhood, all I lost. It seems so far away, so wholly lost, And nothing left me, nothing. Oh, these cheeks, This loneliness, this being so afraid ! SONG FOR LABOR DAY We are the builders, the makers, The ultimate shapers of earth. Out of our blood and our sinews The joys that shall be must have birth. We are the builders, the makers; Without us life falls upon dearth. We are the hopers, the dreamers. We toil and we trust in the years. We fashion the fabrics of pleasure For those who take toll of our tears. We are the hopers, the dreamers; We must not fall back upon fears. We are the powers, the fulfillers. We harness the uttermost lands. We thrill to man's passionate fancies, Make fact of his burning commands. We are the powers, the fulfillers; The Destinies throb in our hands. We are the wills, the creators. We breathe on thejdust of our dreams. This is the seed-time of labor; To-morrow the purple fruit gleams. We are the wills, the creators; Dawn breaks on the hills and the streams. 21 22 Song for Labor Day We are the slaves and the masters. We wait till we come to our own. We shall be lords of the highways. We fashioned them stone by stone. We are the slaves and the masters ; We bow till we sit on the throne. THE SINGER In the burst of the song, When the singer's heart is free, When earth-roving fancies throng And the winds go down to sea; When words are too vain and idle and speech is too pale and cold, When thoughts that have flung the bridle dash on over ' paths of gold, When night is a star-strewn splendor and day,is young love aglow, m . Then song with a voice grown tender, song mad m its throbbing flow. _ In the burst of the song, Eyes glowing and cheeks one fire, With a cry from a heart grown strong In the sweep of a high desire; When the viol joins its fellows and the flutes are breathed in tune, When cornet and horn and 'cello are knit like love in June, When a thousand uplifted faces grow rapt on the singer's voice, Then song with its deep, true graces, song bidding the world rejoice. 23 24 The Singer In the burst of the song, When the life of far and near Is poured like wine for the throng In a pure voice fine and clear, — Who knows if the world forever shall spin through the grooves of change ? Who knows if our best endeavor shall find death's further range A fast shut door, or the portal to ever new delights? Song keeps us an hour immortal; song lifts us up to the heights. Radiant she stands in the silence, while the sudden lights burn low, And the violins call beneath her, and Ibefore her, row on row, Faces on faces leaning breathe out from their eager eyes A rapture of expectation half flushed with warm surprise. Sudden as love's first fancy the clear voice rings and thrills. The victors cry in the triumph the god of battles wills. Youth walks by the morning hedgerows and sees the world abloom. The meadows are fresh with sunrise, the air with rich perfume. Out of the deeps and the distance a thousand hearts made one, The Singer 25 From love and despair and losing, look singly toward the sun. The daybreak comes over Sinai, the night dies out in space. The world is gladness forever before God's radiant face. What now is the deathless meaning that mortals may never know? What matters the strange, far wonder to which thought may not go? They pass, like a somber twilight that lingers over long And then, with a friend at; the keyboard, is lost in the burst of the song. In the burst of the song, When viol and flute and horn Are bearing the singer along, And wonder with joy is born; When mother and maid and lover and stranger and lonely youth Are drawn till they each discover the palpitant heart of truth, Are touched with the selfsame splendor of good, unnamed, unknown, Then song with a cadence tender, on all the free winds blown. WITH MARJORIE IN APRIL Sweetheart here on my shoulder, Three years old next June, Do you know that the grass is springing, That April is coming soon? I shall take you by lanes and byways, Far off from the pavement noise, To a land of strange newwonder And a world of strange new joys. Sweetheart here on my shoulder, I shall find things for your eyes To see with a sweet new rapture And a rush of glad surprise. I shall feel your soft hand tremble, I shall hear your baby cry Of delight in each new-found treasure And the blue of the April sky. Sweetheart here on my shoulder, ,We shall sing on, hand in hand, With never a care to question Or a wishto understand. We shall both be happy, happy, The long, long daytime through. We shall both be happy, happy, With the twilight stars and dew. 26 IN THE WORKSHOP And here I shut myself from all my kind For love of them, God; and while I plan By day and night the turning of a wheel, The thickness of a rod, the strength and strain That falsely matching in the tiniest bar May make the hope a sudden thrill of wreck, While I devise each day some better shape For cam or lever, they pass lightly by, Unknowing, happy in their own desires, Rejoicing in their own companionships, Careless of what they do not understand.^ I might have written, painted for their praise, Or made the songs that lift a people's joy; I might have been a poet, I have felt The stirrings of that greatness in my soul. I might have known a woman's sweetness mixed With all the duller passions of my life, And so have saved myself for happiness ; But all this I have dared deny my heart That I might make a thing of iron and brass For men to use, ^a something that shall take The weight from burdened shoulders, leave the thoughts Free for the play of finer fantasies, Make every meaner life that plows the muck 27 28 In the Workshop Of uglier needs be glad in nobler tasks Of fairer service, while the fouler toil Is left to such dumb servants as are here Growing to life and use in this dark room I call my workshop. How I crave sometimes The flood of summer sunshine and the breath Of that free air of park and garden bloom That those may have who walk this present world And find it fair without a need or thought Of nobler beauty shaped for fuller joys By toil and patience, love and care like mine. But one thing still appalls me as I work. Are all my thoughts made grosser by the tasks I set myself? I lightly put aside The lees of happiness I might have drained, But must I turn away from all I am And lose myself in these dead, senseless things ? Must I, to serve the finer needs of man, To free his spirit from the primal curse, Take on myself the earthiness and be A something worse than angel sunk to brute? God, that seems too much. The fellowship With those ennobled ones whom I have seen In that far future that I hope to shape Would be denied me. They might know my hands Were strong, but they would never dream them fair. It cannot be the curse lights on me so. 1 shape the iron, but all my fancies rove In the Workshop 29 The happy, busy, crowded thoroughfares. For this fine care I spend on every part To make my thought work ceaselessly for man, There shall be sculptors, painters, lords of earth, Great poets walking freely all their days, Rejoicing in the wonder of the world. I shall be of them. I shall see their eyes Grown greatly luminous and marvelous With new-found splendors of the universe, New systems circling with the far-off suns, Great thoughts that light our human destinies With sudden glory. I shall walk with them Through dim-lit woodlands in the summer nights, Shall hear the music of the rolling spheres, Shall know the wonder of new loves and laws, The chemic, biologic, shall be glad Of that long vista of the troubled years Through which we glimpse the whence and how and why With that fine frenzy, holier than joy, Of those that know. Beside the sunset sea They shall be rapt on all the distant lands Where other customs rule in other lives, The painters who have love for all things fair, The singers who have hearts for every joy; And I shall be among them, I shall feel The rapture of their souls with that great thrill That only he who makes a thing can know When he has tried it and has found it good. 30 In the Workshop I might have been a poet, — but, indeed, I think I am and shall be. Is it not To be a poet just to know the worth Of all things as they are, as they must be Forever and forever? Is he not A poet truly, who, because he sees The good, the beauty, the unstinted joy In something that is not itself a joy Or beauty, does it gladly with his soul Filled with the good he knows that it shall be? What does the poet but see true and far, Knowing the seeds of good with subtle skill, And knowing so the things to make his joy The mad delirium that lesser men Must stand agape at? If he shapes, besides, The things he sees and makes them true and fair, Sweet with the joys of ages yet to be, Rich with new passions born of nobler lives And finer aspirations looking up To possibilities more bravely dreamed — It is enough, God, it is enough. Let those who will breathe out their hearts in words; For me these hands, these tools, this iron and brass. In them, my dreams, imaginings, desires; Through them, the purposes that live and grow, That call men onward to horizons dim Where under new-discovered suns and stars Their souls shall sing in new antiphonies, Where all the gracious bounty of the world Shall pour upon them till their hearts are peace. ALMA BARBELOW Singing, singing, singing, in the starlight or the sun, Dawn upon the mountains or the twilight falling dun. On the level road to yesterday I turn my eyes and see All the glory ofto-morrow on the face you lift to me. Alma, Alma Barbelow, That was very long ago. Are you singing still and clinging still, like spinners in the sun, To the gleams that lit the dreams you knit from fancies lightly spun? Give'me, Alma Barbelow, Once again their golden glow. Singing, singing, singing, in the rain-beat or the hush, Spring upon the treetops or the autumn's dying flush. In the paths that knew your footsteps while my heart, as yours, was young, Are there yet some lingering echoes of the wildwood joys you sung? Alma, Alma Barbelow, We are waiting for the snow. 31 32 Alma Barbelow Are V ou holding yet and folding yet against the last eclipse Through life's prosiness the rosiness that once was on your lips? Teach me, Alma Barbelow, What I knew once long ago. Singing, singing, singing, through the leaf-drift or the bloom, Friends upon the threshold, or the stars where moun- tains loom. Are you saved by simple wishes from the unfulfilled and lost? Do you never feel a wave-lift of the deeps where I am tossed?' Alma, Alma Barbelow, Lead me where your roses blow. Could you break your heart and take your part and keep the singing clear? Could you taste and drink and waste, and think the wasted moments dear? Bring me, Alma Barbelow, Some fresh fountain's overflow. Singing, singing, singing, through the simple house- hold fret, Older than a thousand years when Pharaoh's piles were set. 1 I can never think } t ou sated by the thoughts that flood the brain. Alma Barbelow 33 I can never lose the freshness of your meadow-drifting strain. Alma, Alma Barbelow, There's a call would make me go Out of Babylon, the rabble on its every lure-flamed street, To the trysted place, your lifted face, and find the journey sweet. Somewhere, Alma Barbelow, You are singing yet, I know. 3 THE HIGHWAYS OF THE NATIONS When the mists go up the mountains And the winds blow out to sea, I shall follow, follow, follow, Till I set my fancies free. I shall have a restless army Felling forests where I go, Where the wild things break from covert And the giant trees fall low. We shall tunnel, tunnel, tunnel, Till the way is straight and clear, While the joy of life thrills through us In the noontide of the year. We shall blaze a path straight forward Till before our eyes the sea Flashes blue and wide and wondrous, And I set my fancies free. I shall stand and watch them meeting, East and West, with alien eyes, Till the sudden flame of kinship Flashes out in swift surprise. Then in all the tremulous laughter, In the tears of joy I see Where the stranger finds a brother, I shall set my fancies free. 34 The Highways of the Nations 35 Oh, the long, long way before me Where my heart will soon be gone! Oh, that every rose of sunset Might at once glow into dawn! When the ice has left the rivers And the buds are on the tree, In the camps of highway makers, I shall set my fancies free. GYPSYING When you and I go gypsying we'll laugh the whole day long; We'll stop at every cottage gate and thrill our hearts with song. We'll live the joy of summer skies when hopes are well begun. When you and I go gypsying we'll travel toward the sun. We'll use the old, old magic that shall never cease to be, The charm of love, whose mystic spell is over you and me. Our hearts will know a rapture fine that time shall not outrun. When you and I go gypsying we'll travel toward the sun. With some far, Eastern splendor strange, with some unbought delight, We'll fill our eager vision as it looks beyond the night; And still, to feed the fire that burns within our hearts as one, When you and I go gypsying we'll travel toward the sun. 36 Gypsying 37 We'll leave behind us every care and set our way afar, Beyond the low horizon's verge to some love-lighted star. We'll dream the dreams of earth no more, a happier dream begun. When you and I go gypsying we'll travel toward the sun. SOULS OF SONG After the world has tried my eager heart, When every sense is burning with the smart Of some rebuff, some unattained desire, When down to ashes sinks the dwindling fire; Here in my chimney-nook to pause with you, Brave-hearted poets, all the gay, mad crew Who sang and jested, — Let the world go by. What are its idols where your fancies fly? Yours is a vintage for the soul to quaff And never drain the cup. The ringing laugh Bubbling above the wine of life you pour Need never fail ; its more still grows to more For every lip. All things besides may pass, But this shall sparkle still within the glass, Immortal as the gods. I drink and lose All memory of what my fates refuse. Helen? Pendragon? What shall be to-night The tale, the song, to which you now invite? It cannot matter. Joy is all your part. I shall be young again, a poet's heart Thrilling within me. Care, defeat, good-bye. The vapor wreathes are blue in the blue sky. The winds are blowing from some land of flowers. O souls of song, these joys are ours, are ours. 38 YIELDING THE QUEST " I love to lose myself in a mystery, to pursue my reason to an altitudo." Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici. The hour was after midnight, and we sat, Hearing the dying clangor of the bells That let the old year pass. Then Frawley rose And drew a book down from the shelves and flat Spread the leaves open. All of them were spells To lure the spirit out of its repose To worlds where other breath of being blows. "Here are the words," he said, "that set my feet On the undying quest. 'I love to lose Myself in a mystery.' How could I here, Where every moment flies on wings more fleet, How could I, from the things we daily use To dull the passions, leap up in the clear Serene of heaven and not feel earth too near? "Not here, not here. We touch the naked fact. Somewhere, in synagogue, church, temple, mosque, On lonely heights where burn the Magian fires, The thing might be. I took the lure and packed My travel scrip, as in some dim kiosk A prince may spurn the world and its desires And fast and pray, to lift him from its mires." 39 40 Yielding the Quest He paused and stood before the logs, whose flame Leaped up the chimney, and I turned and bent Over a drawer of letters. "Here, " I said, "Are things that made me wonder, when they came. One was all fire. Another seemed so spent I might have dreamed the man you were was dead And some cold ghost penned nothings in your stead." "Indeed, indeed, I was a ghost at times, Feeling the very earth slip under me, And then again, — " He made some sparks fly up Out of thejogs and listened to the chimes That rang the new year in. " My blood runs free Into new life, once more to come and sup At a friend's table, drink from a friend's cup. ■ ' Mine were long, lonely vigils by the fanes Where priests kept ward above some dwindling fire, Watching the worshipers with heads bent low Brooding upon earth's losses and her gains, While up from earth there sprang the old desire, Heaven and its mysteries, the roseate glow Of something wisdom cannot dare to know. "Always and always, — like a man who finds Crystals that vainly pledge the lure of gold And tosses them aside and passes by, Yielding the Quest 41 Braving the heights where the cold sunlight blinds, Still with his hammer testing every fold Of jutting rocks, until against the sky No higher point gives promise to the eye. "Always and always, so I pushed the quest- Altars before the Virgin, the Black Stone Worshiped at Mecca, crumbling Indian shrines, Confucian rites, the temples where a crest Proclaims Mikado and his ancient throne, A wayside chapel overhung with vines Sheltered and quiet in the Appenines. "On, on I passed, like some storm-beaten bark Making for harbor with her compass lost, Taking the star-shine on a lift of sea For lights that are the entry's guiding mark, Tacking and turning, and at daybreak tossed Still on a waste of waters stretching free, Nothing but tumbling waves on wind and lee. "On, on I pushed, and here at last I rest Beside your blazing hearth with empty hands. Never an eaglet's feather from the blue Dropped at my feet. The East may teach the West, But from the sacred places of all lands I bring you nothing that my soul calls new, Nothing more beautifully and nobly true." He dropped into a chair and turned his face So that the firelight caught his tremulous lips 42 Yielding the Quest And left the deep eye dark. "You cannot mean That you have tracked out every hiding place Of that diviner hope whose yearning whips Man to the heights where waits him the unseen, And that no spark flashed down to our terrene?" "Yes, yes, " he cried. "No revelations more Wait undiscovered in some land remote. No mystery can touch us with its awe, Shining from heaven on some distant shore. We have exhausted every singing note, Pan and Apollo and the tabled law And God in the burning bush that Moses saw. "At last, at last, earth's bounds have been explored. Once when the old gods fled a new god came, With garlands on his head, or in his feet Marks of the nails, or in his hand a sword. A cry went up. Men's'thoughts were sudden flame. They took the pilgrim path and found it sweet. No more, no more! We walk the well paved street." He paused and turned the book once in his hand, With brooding love as for a thing whose loss Burned in his heart. "The old romance is gone. There is no glamor where we understand. Our shield is but a shield. No glittering boss Makes it a splendor when the golden dawn Flings down her orient glow, night's veil with- drawn. Yielding the Quest 43 "And yet, once more, — what would I give to be A boy with eyes upon some wonder- world ! Looking across a valley's tangled green To purple peaks whose tops I cannot see, Jagged and torn as if by giants hurled Down from the empyrean's high serene, Mixed with the clouds, heaven's drifting, haunt- ing screen. "To be a boy with eyes for all things fair, Letting my boat slip down some river's mouth, Spreading her single sail against the breeze, Feeling the soft wind blowing on my hair, Hearing the ripples wash and turning south Under a warmer sun toward wider seas, Somewhere before me the Hesperides ! "To be a boy with everything to dare, All hopes to venture and all joys to win ! Seeing a net of lace along the sky When the moon passes and the stars are there Almost as near as fireflies drifting in Across the quiet when the winds go by And peace itself must tremble in a sigh. "No more, no more! The spirit paths are closed Into a circle. Every inn is known. Others are seated with you, pay the fee, Eat or reject and take the road proposed, Dreaming no dreams of winds from Dephi blown. No more, no more! No wildwood ways we see. I follow hundreds; hundreds follow me." 44 Yielding the Quest We sat a moment while the watch-night ring Of steps upon the pavement echoed home. "I find it pleasant by this dying glow To hear your voice, " I said. "The world may swing Back on its course until we beat the foanT Of stranger seas than those of long ago, And round us more tempestuous winds may blow." " No more, no more, " he echoed. "This remains: To sit and watch the long procession pass, Man and his fancies, bound he knows not where, Having no certain guerdon for his pains. I too might go. Some lover with his lass Would draw me out to breathe the spring-night air. No more, — and yet — a rose flames in her hair." THE PRAIRIE My soul is out on the prairie where the eye may sweep afar From gold of the burnished heavens to the silver evening star. I am not fenced by human eyes That shut me in from nature's guise, To shroud me in convention, make my spirit one with those That pace some narrow close. The grass in its tangled sweetness, The sky in its wide completeness, The breath of the wind that strays and tarries, The misty line where the earth hue marries The blue of heaven; these suffice To give to my raptured spirit the thrilling of surprise And laughter to mine eyes. However long the prairie swells may wait for heaven's tears To fall with loving tenderness for blight and dearth of years, The gentian springs when first she smiles, The wind-flower wakens, yellow isles Of goldenrod start up between The billowy reaches of sun-kissed green. 45 46 The Prairie The soul of the prairie knows no longer The ache of waiting. A passion stronger Than life or loving or hero-burning Or warm caressing of mother-yearning, Grows subtly sweet in the wind and weather, In wooing touch of the swan's dropped feather; And over the sea of the prairie lightly the heart looks far away For sails to show in the offing through the sunset gates of day. The twilight fades on the prairie, the night comes wide and far. The hush of the soft wind deepens in the light of one pale star, And faintly, sweetly, slowly, through infinitudes of {space, New-glowing out of darkness like the love of some rapt face, Flames out the sudden brightness of the gloom-dis- covered suns, And awe and rapture quicken to a hope that hope outruns. The vastness that is time and space and love broods warm and near. The silence is a glory, and the dark is crystal-clear. There is joy and strength in the prairie with its wild and steadfast mood. The brown hills hide their tenderness, like a maiden not yet wooed, The Prairie 47 And blossom and life and color are but waiting for the rain To thrill to the kiss of summer after cold and drouth and pain; To sway as the wind blows over, Half won by_ the light-heart rover, To lift, in the sun and the rain and dew, Unwavering eyes to the star-deep blue, To make sweet food for the wild deer straying And grassy paths for the rabbits playing, To hear the ring-dove's wailing flight, The wolf's long howl through the silent night, And low and clear And sweet and near, The plash of the river winding slow By sedgy banks where the willows grow, And, soft as the murmur of swarming bees, The sigh of wind-bowed trees. The sun and the rain of April's love shall touch the hills some day, And cold and drouth of the burdened year shall blossom into May. The wind-swept perfumes all day long shall beat from the land of balm ; Wide-arching heavens shall compass earth with deep on deep of calm. The passion of the prairie shall make one of near and far 48 The Prairie From the wet, green grass-clothed reaches to the dim horizon bar, Where earth and heaven are met and mixed in ame- thystine light, The flush of morning purpled with the glory of the night. THE FIRE DANCER A riot of colors, the orient splendor of dawn. The grace of a face round and sweet in its meshings of lace Where pearly and white falls the opaline light, till the space Is full of the filmy and fragrant effulgence of flowers Where rose petals close through the languorous lapse of the hours, And fancies are glances that smile in the eyes and are gone. Then lowly and slowly, Like winds drugged with moly, Or blown over meadows of asphodel bloom Where hyacinths pour out their heavy perfume, The violins breathe, and the billowy clouds touched with fire Break out into butterfly wings, gaudy sapphire and rose, Brave purples and amethysts lucent as dawn in the sky, When up, like a cup that is pouring the wine of desire, The sun rises over the hills and the singers go by 4 49 50 The Fire Dancer With hymns to Aurora, whose limbs catch the hues, where she goes, Of lily and rose, and the form, sweetly rounded and warm, Of soft, waxy petals that hide in the leaves from the storm. Then swaying and lithe, as a spirit too blithe for the earth, Like webs of the spider the winds toss and turn in the sun, While over the network the delicate shimmerings run, As bright, iridescent, and strangely canescent as fire That plays in the blaze where a diamond or opal has birth, She glides on the tides of the music that thrills with desire. She sways as the fronds Of the fern that responds To the kiss of that rifler Of sweets, that gay trifler, The South Wind. Her robes, soft and fine, Drift out on the air and then twine In mazes of happy inclosure About her fair figure's exposure, Protecting and draping its exquisite shaping With luminous fold upon fold of spun gold That trembles and faintly dissembles, escaping Again in a flutter of sunshine unrolled, The Fire Dancer 5* Like noonday ablaze on the grass, of the summer at height. , Then lightly as winds that blow ripplmgly over the wheat .. . That bends as if yielding itself to a lover s delight And offering grace for caresses unspeakably sweet, She flings her spread wings to the full of their emerald expanse . ■ . , , And turns where the heart of joy burns in the swirl of the dance. WHITHER AWAY This is the road that you all must take, Whither away so far. Seek what you will and your heart shall break, A glowworm or a star. After it all but a swirling wake Across the harbor bar. These are the things that you all have planned, Whether to make or mar, Love and the touch of a kindred hand, Fame and the conqueror's car. After it all but your boat unmanned Across the harbor bar. This is the thing that you all must know, Travel you near or far; Yours are the moments before they go, Which shall be, not which are. After it all but the lights burnt low Across the harbor bar. 52 THE WATER IN THE TURBINE Rain, rain in the hills! Till the flowers come out with the sun Rain till the lake in the mountain fills And over its edge the freshness spills And the spring-glad rivers run! The waters flow to the turbine ceaselessly day by From dark cool deeps of the hillside, from pools where the rushes sway. _ The waters flow to the turbine; it gathers from near and far A The multiform powers of the tempest, of earth and ot sun and star. Rain, rain on the slopes! Where the cattle stand deep in the grass. Rain till the soul of the black earth gropes Through root and leaf to its summer hopes. Rain till the wild things, bird and bee, Lizard and squirrel on rock and tree, With leap and flutter and panting cry, With whisk of the tail and turn of the eye, Thrill as the fresh winds pass. 53 54 The Water in the Turbine The waters bring to the turbine out of the rain-swept lands The tremor of life and being for thousands of busy hands, The buzz and whir of the spindles, the beauty that grows in the loom, The manifold uses and splendors earth piles where her cities bloom. Rain, rain on the face! While the horses tug in the mire. Rain while the dark's last lonely grace Of sunset glimmer is lost in space ! Rain while the eyes through the heavy night, Half -blinded, search for the window light Where, after the wet and the numbing chill, Love's watchful care must be shining still, Where flames the rosy fire. The waters bring to the turbine out of the heart of the hills The beautiful glow of the city, passions and pleasures and wills Throbbing and mingling and changing, swift as the thrill of desire, Strange with the infinite wonder of light on the wings of the wire. Rain, rain on the snows ! When the winter dissolves in May, When the tender hues of the buds unclose, The Water in the Turbine 55 The green of the leaves and the red of the rose, And over it all and far away The clear deep blue where the white clouds stray, And the warm wind comes and goes. The waters bring to the turbine ceaselessly day by day The gleam of my lady's diamonds under the storm- borne ray, Her dress in its silken shimmer, the warmth of her cheeks and eyes Where, lit by the wire's far magic, the wild-rose color flies. Rain, rain on the mouth! When the fever burns like fire. . Rain with its coolness in heat and drouth! Rain of kisses when winds breathe south! Rain till the sweet earth stretches green Where the maiden waits at her door unseen, Her lips a rose for the heart's desire, For love to touch with fire! ISPAHAN There are roads from dawn to sunset through the valleys of Kashmir. I should like to watch the ships come down from Cadiz to Tangier. When the awkward-moving camels take their cum- brous loads and start From Damascus to Palmyra I must follow in my heart; Yet these fancies lure me idly, as a face whose smile is wan, For the world is all a desert till you come to Ispahan. There the women at the fountain talk and loiter in the sun, On their lips old Omar's verses tasting pleasures as they run. There the night is cool with fragrance and the quiet day slips by Like a pageant of illusion compassed in an arch of sky. I shall take the road some morning through Tabriz and Teheran, Passing far across the desert till I come to Ispahan. 56 Ispahan 57 Life and death there throb with mystery, beat with human yearnings still. I shall feel no press of knowledge making truth the germ of ill. There they listen to the Sufis while the purple evening falls, And the distant line of camels ends the journey at the walls. All the shows of things are idle till I leave the Hama- dan On my way across the desert to the domes of Ispa- han. . STORIES When we listened in the firelight while the shadows leaped in flame, While our hearts were mounting raptures and the things we lived seemed tame, How we followed, followed, followed through the story-teller's gate To the land of What-May-Happen where the wonder- workers wait! How we listened, listened, listened, till the embers faded cold And we heard the night wind sweeping like a ghost across the wold. How we listened — I remember how your face warmed through the glow. For the moment you were standing where the turbid waters flow, Nile in flood, and over yonder Cleopatra breathing warm, Like a silver moon of beauty when the battle breaks in storm. How we listened, dreamed and listened! Was it Antony that night, Or was yours the heart of Cassar leading Rome's imperial might? 58 Stories 59 How we listened, — after nightfall we could leave the world we knew For the land of Ever-Changing under skies of Always- Blue. There a scarf might touch your shoulder tossed from Egypt's languorous hand. There the slave of drudging duty was the captain in command. How we listened, dreamed and listened, till the call should come to start Through the open doors of sunrise to the highways of the heart. How we listened, — Some November when the year has passed its bloom, With the firelight's soft illusions in a dance about the room, When we sit once more together, and the old again is new With the dear, immortal stories, while the flames leap up the flue, We shall listen, dream and listen, with the whistling wind blown high, Like a ghost of things remembered, like a passion and a cry. IN RECOMPENSE Sullen, sullen are the faces In earth's dark and silent places, When the word rings in a cry: "God is with us, God most high"; And a light comes like a gleam Of the starlight on a stream Over which the willows lace In a network veiling space, In a curtain darkly vernal Drawn across the far eternal. Weary, weary are the toilers At the tasks set by the spoilers. Is he with them, God most high? Do we think it, you and I, As we watch them day by day Where they plod the endless way? Do we see beyond the night Heaven itself a place of light" Opening wide a shining portal To the dream of life immortal? Burdened, burdened are the shoulders With their loads, the faint spark smoulders To a fire that seems to die 60 In Recompense 61 In its hope of God most high. Have we made their lips grow pale? Has our wisdom made theirs fail ? Have we smiled because their need Asked a more than earthly meed ? Have we robbed them, flesh and spirit, Of the things they should inherit? Helpless, helpless are the workers In the hands of us, the shirkers. Shall we give them for their loss Something more than gold, the dross? Still they need the light divine; It must be your love and mine. God shall quicken out of dust. Fellowship shall be their trust. In earth's dark and silent places They shall walk with lifted faces. THE VIOLIN Laughing you cry to me. Throbbing with splendor The sun brings up the day. Soft are your whisperings. Hazy and tender The night mists drift away. Slowly, caressingly, Idly, confessingly Trembles my hand on the string. Dreamily, musingly, Swiftly, confusingly All your soul thrills as you sing. So in your Italy, summer delighting you, Life was a rapture of longing inviting you, Making you human with vagrant excesses, Making you tender for woman's caresses, Making you vibrant with feelings that live again, Making you glad in a joy you can give again. Over you now Throbbingly bow Palpitant sympathies flashed as a fire from the striking of emeries, Hatreds and torturings clashed from the swift-flying laughter of Italy, Passions of happiness swept with the stream of your refluent memories, 62 The Violin 63 Joy of the dancers, adept in an opulent speech glancing wittily. Strange, it is strange, but I feel it; you take me again Over strange pathways and into the hearts of strange men. You are the soul of their souls, for they bowed their heads low, Giving their ears to your breast as their hands to the bow. You are the heart of their hearts, and I feel the strange thrill Deep in the pulse of their ecstasy calling me still. Trembling you answer me. Dreamily distant The reapers bind the sheaves. In through the window comes, idly persistent,... The lisp and rain of leaves. Singingly, sobbingly, Ringmgly, throbbingly, Surges the swell and the flow, Loudly and thrillingly, Softly and stillingly, Under the touch of the bow. You, who were shaped by the master so cunningly, Formed to make melody ripple so runningly, Slept with a beggar and burned with his pain, Sighed with the sting of a lover's disdain, Felt on your neck the firm hand of a king, Heard the wild-echoing battle-cry ring. 64 The Violin Now on my breast Vibrant you rest, Living it over and telling it over and making me know it again, Drawing the heart of my passion apart from the commonplace passions of men. Joys of the waifs who have loved you and sung to you, Griefs of the strong who have sought you and clung to you Answer my palpitant will in your strings, Make my voice dumb with ineffable things. So you have lived, a Cremona, a pauper, a prince, Loved and forgotten, wept over. These time-stains evince Passions that struck to the heart, that you cannot forget, Mellowed and sweetened by time, but immutable yet. So you have learned from the chance and the change you have known, Not to be worn by the years, but to make them your own. So you are prodigal, giving and giving again, Still growing richer in all the sweet fancies of men. So you are tender forever, and impulses swarm Out of the heart of your memories, pulsing and warm. BREAKING THE ROAD With the captain's eye on the compass and the cap- tain's hand on the wheel, They sailed from the port of Palos till they felt their senses reel, Till the stars seemed the devil's torches aflame on the road to hell, And only the heart of the captain still dreamed that all was well; But they kept the sails full-bellied to the winds that drove them west. Not theirs was the home-returning, not theirs was the dream-led quest, For the high-souled sons of the morning who seek the sea's[far spoil Need the true, unselfish service of the nameless sons of toil. With the captain's eye on the compass while the murky night came down, They' drove through the waves and the wind-spume over deeps where a world might drown, Till a light sprang out of the darkness and a cry leaped up to their lips, s 65 66 Breaking the Road And the heart of the dullest seaman grew mad, as in some eclipse, When the wonder of earth's great shadow thrown darkening across the moon Is as sweet as the sunset splendor of a rose-breathed night in June; But the crew, with their homesick hunger and their hopeless toil with the sails, — For them is the end full guerdon, a torch-light that flares and pales? One man with the breath of a runner cries out for the untrod road. The sledges and men are gathered, and the dogs shall carry the load. The whips are cracked, and the lashings set forward the eager pack; But only the one who drives them is praised when they bring him back. Ah, forgotten shall be the heroes who answer another's call. They are servitors, dumb, if loyal, to be nothingness one and all; But the roads cannot be broken except through the helping hands Of the nameless, unthanked toilers who do but their lord's commands. CONVALESCENCE I know you have forgiven me, sweetheart, But see; I bring you nothing, empty hands That should have been so full, that were so full. Perhaps we can be brave and happy still. We used to dream of books and love and song; I wooed your heart with stories of great thoughts On which our souls should feed— I know, I know; We have outlived these passions of our youth. I could not ask you to be satisfied So easily. We were such children then, And yet to be just children half a day — Why, they might have it all— and still, you know, I've spent my soul to get it, all these years Piling it up, lands, houses, yellow gold, This stately mansion of your happiness— You cannot give it up? Dear heart, you must. It is all gone, all gone, both yours and mine, And somehow it was all so hard to get, So hard, so long— I could not, if I would— After this week when I am strong again, When I can leave my bed and live, — perhaps, — Then I shall never see you sitting there, Never again with that brave smile of peace 67 68 Convalescence Framed in the glory of the pictured wall. I think I never knew life held so much Until I set you in these splendid rooms, And yet you always will be beautiful. I lie here wondering half the afternoon Whether the sober richness where you sit, Mahogany behind your head and hair And back of that the shadows strange and dim Before the Rembrandt that we found in France, I wonder whether all of this I bring Is more than just the spray of apple bloom You held before your face, half lost in dreams That made a passion of your musing eyes. You have forgotten? So we both forget, One this, one that, and so our lives are shut Out of the all we lived and dreamed and felt, The all we never can make ours again Alike together. This alone is real, This table where your hand rests lingeringly, This spoil of some old castle sacked in Spain, This cabinet that treasured secrets once That might have cost a duchess name and life. These are the things we live for. Do you hear? The maid is packing up the silver now For them to take away. Oh, God, great God — Is it so strange that I should call on God? Convalescence 69 There must be something real. If all of this That seemed to make our lives so wonderful Can be as nothing, then the thoughts that cling About our memories must be real instead. Let us go back and trust them. Shall we, dear? We should be safe against disaster then. They were so gracious to us once, so kind, So tender past the things we dream of now, So like the womanhood you were and are, Calm and reposeful, lulling as a song Heard by the fireside when we touch the latch And hold ourselves and listen. False, dear, false? Perhaps they were, perhaps they were. Who cares? I could believe them gladly, every one, And rest my heart upon them all day long, If you believed them too. You never can? God pity us and our poor barren lives. I took them from you, I? I know I did. I should not dare reproach you, if I wished; But what then shall we do, dear, you and I? What shall we do? How shall I make you glad So that you put your hands in mine each night Just as you always have, a little tired Because the day has brought your heart so much, But always happy? Can you — can you still Be happy? When you lose — I know too well How we shall tire each other with regrets — 70 Convalescence And then to see you growing worn and old — How can I keep you beautiful and young? What shall I clasp around your neck and arms? How shall you seem yourself in some bare room? No pictures on the walls, no mellowed light Gleaming from polished woods and sheeny silk Until the air itself seems light and shade Diaphanous as veils a goddess wears — And you, my goddess — we should better die Than think of things our hands can never touch, Than dream of things our eyes can never see, Than fancy things our hearts can never feel. This is a world of things, hard, senseless things, A world of senses to give things their worth, To revel in them, to live, live, and live, And then to lose them, oh, great God, and die. I hear the doctor's ring, I think. Go down. Tell him that I am better, almost well, That he must give me strength, more strength and more Until I win it back, these very rooms For you to sit in smiling — yes, my dear. I shall be quiet while your hand rests so Just like a kiss itself upon my cheek. Hot are they? But your hand can make them cool; And then go down and talk with him yourself Before the maid can bring him. He must know How much, how very much I have to do, And life so short, oh, life with you so short. THE POWER HOUSE Here in the heart of the many-voiced tumult that only the city knows, I shovel the coal to the ravenous furnace that trembles and roars and glows With heat like the torture of hell upflaming, to blacken and burn and brand. My breath is the dust of earth's long decayings; I shrivel in eye and hand. Out of the stores of the uttermost ages dug up from the deep of the mine, I shape the new joys of the pulsating present, ecstatic, aspiring, divine. Hour after hour through the flare of the furnace my heart hears the dynamos sing. Day after day through the surge of the city my spirit goes out on the wing. Hundreds and thousands in cottage and workshop must feel that they share in the harm, If here in the power house the fire becomes ashes because the strength fails in my arm, If under the wires I make living and human no mother rides home in the night, No fathers bears back the day's wage to the children, no daughter comes bringing delight. 7i 72 The Power House Grimy, unfit for the eyes of my fellows, thinking my thoughts alone, I thrill with the wonder of measureless kinship, myriads bone of my bone. Joys and ambitions and infinite yearnings and thwart- ings and helpless despair Flash up in the coal of my fireman's shovel to sym- pathies warm in the glare. Here, though I seem but a slave of the furnace, I know myself part of my kind ; Machinists, inventors, the consecrate dreamers that lifted me out of the hind Have set my pulse thrilling with instincts and passions more affluent, human and strong, Have made me delight in the fullness of being, in fellowships happy as song. This is the heart of the many- voiced tumult that only the city knows. I feel the red glare and my soul is exultant wherever the heart-beat goes. So in the grime and the heat and the labor, living the life of my kind, I lift myself out of the dumb and despairing, the brutish, unfeeling and blind AS THE WINDS FLIT THATjlay your laugh came down the wind I turned my head to hear. Beyond the bend the willows thinned, The sky was blue and clear. The scent of rain was on the wind; The apple blooms dropped down. I watched you as you turned and pinned A spray against your gown. And still elusive as the wind That fleets we know not where, Your smile, with mine a moment twinned, The next was gone in air. Then in a moment on the wind I lost you, like a bird Soaring where doubts are never dinned, Where plaints are never heard. So slipped the hour with changing wind, Joy clasping hands with pain, Futile as something youth has sinned, Baffling as wind and rain. 73 AGLAVAINE Aglavaine came to the inn. They gave him the foulest room. He, with a heart to win Love like the rose for bloom, Slept with the rustling straw for bed And cob webbed rafters overhead. Aglavaine's red-faced host Kept revel all night long. The bar-maid was their toast, The devil's flings their song. Still through the noise he heard the leaves Tossed in the wind against the eaves. Aglavaine heard the choir Chant in the church unseen; Then, with a heart of fire For beauty fine and clean, Ate where a clown might loathe to dine, While all his fellows reeled with wine. Aglavaine came to the inn. Short was their speech and curt. He of the tender chin, Lonely and worn and hurt, Saw through his window-round of sky God's pageantry of stars go by. 74 Aglavaine 75 Aglavaine sang in the sun, Taking the morning road. His was the course begun, His but the firstling load. They travel far and sup with sin Who find good quarters at an inn. FACING THE VERDICT The court was crowded, and a murmur ran From seat to seat, and then, when quiet fell, Out of the hush the prisoner rose and stood, Eyeing the jury. His was not a face On which the criminal was written large. A luminous softness breathed upon the lines Where all his sufferings hardened, and a light Brightened his eyes, half rapture and half rage. He spoke and silence deepened, while the rush Of changing passions quivered on his lips. ". . . Then someone spoke to me. I turned and asked The ceaseless question : ' Who and what is God ? Have any seen him or has no one dared Look in his face? I do not ask in vain Like some mad trifler. I must really know.' "The day was clear October. Where we stood Three things were in my eyes, the happy folk Crowding to church, all in their best attire, . The sea with ships that seemed as still as heaven While the waves beat and tried to drag them down, And in the alley, ragged, dirty, dwarfed, 76 Facing the Verdict 77 Two children fighting for a bit of bone Some dog had dropped and left. That very hour Had come the word that cursed me, put me far Out of my paradise of fond deceits, Betrayed and laughed at, made a name of scorn. I cried for someone, something, for some strength To wrestle with and hold me. No one came. Then while I panted down the narrow streets Where people pass you thick as circus crowds Eyeing the bears and lions cage by cage, — God, how they stared ! I could have dragged them all Down in the gutter and gone laughing on. Then while I almost ran I saw the sea And paused, half staggering in a sudden thought. " I never asked him why he spoke or more Than that one question. I remember still How well I studied, measured him, made sure How much his word might be a word to trust. His eyes grew grave, and in their depths they smiled, As if some secret of the universe Had made him calm forever. Then I knew He would not lie or waver. So he said: '"God is both you and I, the potencies Of good to conquer evil pushing man On to his best and highest, beating down The grosser instincts and the grosser lives That cumber earth. He is no far-off brain Or form or spirit like a larger man, 78 Facing the Verdict Something outside the world. In you and me, God is the finer passions we attain, The larger outlook that we teach men's eyes, The battlings with the brute we carry through, The slow emergence as the centuries pass Of those perfections that are man's true end. God is a creature of our best intents, Born of the things we love, the things we hate, Set in the heavens like the Northern star To guide our seaman's course without mishap, A nothingness, and yet man's all in all.' "I heard him with a brain that understood Only a little of the whole he meant. 'The battlings with the brute we carry through.' The phrase kept sounding, sounding in my ears Until the rest was clearer. Then I knew How close it came to the mad burst of rage That drove me to the thing I had to do. I did and do believe him, every word. There is no God holding the scales of right, Blasting the sinner in the hour of sin, Working his justice in the lives of men. This is the truth of it, I show you God: . 1 The battlings with the brute we carry through, ' And so I show you too why every day I say quite gladly that I killed the man And her, the woman who had been my wife. I know the world is sweeter since that hour, And I shall die and feel that God in me Facing the Verdict 79 Has touched the truth; his truth, in one sure deed, One battling with the brute I carried through. "Do with me as you will, but give me time, A week, a month, to find the man once more, To question him and see the warm smile play- Over his face as if his life were peace. I have no fears. I am at one with God. This thing I did is very God himself. I am quite sure of that, but thoughts and thoughts Crowd on me in an avalanche. I see How terrible, how wonderful is man, Changing the world in thinking a new thing, Taking the place of God and being God Through every grappling with that baser part That drags him in the devil-smirching mire. I should, perhaps, have had the strength to stay The murder passion in me till I climbed Out of my murkiest and found my best. The God I used to curse comes back sometimes And cries his old command, 'Thou shalt not kill,' But well I know, if I could hear him speak, In that slow voice with the untroubled smile, The man I tell you of, I should not care Now or forever. I should feel myself Bound to eternity and all high things Beyond your power to change, and yet, I say, Do with me as you will. The deed is done. I had the joy of it. I felt my hands Tighten about his throat. One foul thing passed 80 Facing the Verdict On into nothingness, and you may now Do with me as you will. I too must pass, While happier men and braver hopes abide." He paused, and once again his slow eye ran Over the twelve true men who weighed each word And shaped the verdict. Then the judge gave charge That they should answer on the evidence, Holding the sacredness of law supreme Above the throbbing passions. Justice rules, Not in the musings of a single breast, But in the gathered counselings where men draw Wisdom from all the past with clear resolve. They filed out to the jury room. God knows Murder is murder, whosoever dies, And yet there was a touch of something true In the man's words. How shall we drive the brute Where he shall never touch our finer lives With earth's foul reek? The twelve men answered that, Knowing the proper price for human blood. Next month the wretch whose ceaseless question beats Still in more hearts than one must take his stand, Wearing the black cap drawn about his face, And meet the wonder that perhaps is God. ALICIA TOLD ME Last night Alicia, with her stately air, Said, "Dear, I love you," she the good and fair. My heart could hardly hold its new delight. I scarcely knew that I had speech or sight, Or that 'twas really given me to hear Alicia telling me, "I love you, dear." Last night Alicia wore — I seemed to see Her gloves, her dress, her hat's fine filagree. The chandelier, that half her face in shade And half in more than passing beauty made, Comes back. Her dress was gray, at least I know. I never dreamed that she would love me so. Last night Alicia told me how it came There kindled in her heart so high a flame. I could not understand it. Still I seem To wander in the mazes of a dream. And yet what matters it, the while I know Alicia loves me? Yes, she told me so. 81 THE LOST ARCADY What is the road to Arcady? I went there once, God knows. The leaves were dancing in the path Now covered by the snows. What is the road to Arcady Where every light air blows? I loved my life in Arcady. When did I leave and why? Summer was always in the air, Blue always domed the sky. What was the road from Arcady I took with careless eye? There still are roads to Arcady, But is there one for me? I should have blazed the path I came On every wayside tree. Take me with you to Arcady, Young eyes that still can see. 82 APRIL IN THE AIR What though we sorrowed yesterday, As still your eyes declare? What though we clung with sudden tears To faiths become despair? Are there not other memories With April in the air? Beyond the hills, by field and stream, The sunlight on your hair, The awe and grace of womanhood Teaching my heart its prayer, Let us be boy and girl again With April in the air. Far and away across the world Letting our fancies fare, Braving with lifted eyes of joy Whatever heart may dare,— Let the old thrill come back again With April in the air. 83 IRON FROM SINAI Toil of the slave in the caverns of dark Sinai, Longings for freedom and life and the blue of the sky, Madness of hand and of brain in the gloom of the lamps, Surging insistence of pain in the poisonous damps. So from the rock was I torn and brought out to the day. Seamed with the dull of the iron, all unshapely I lay, Ready at Pharaoh's command to be molten, to glow, Losing my dross, to be changed to pure metal and flow Into the shape of the mould, till at last in men's hands, Bearing the flame, I should meet my new nature's demands. Sais the city of Pharaoh was fair in the light Glowing from thousands of lamps in the warmth of the night. I was but one that did honor to Neith in the feast, Lifting my soul to the stars that swept out of the east. Past me they moved to the sacrifice, women and men, Maidens and youths eager-hearted, and over them then 84 Iron from Sinai 85 Soft fell the balm and the perfume of night with its damps, Rapture looked out of each face at the feast of the lamps. So to the goddess they came, but my place was afar. I could but wonder at Neith. Did she dwell in a star, Dying at morn when the sun lived again in his strength? What did she keep for her worshipers passing at length Out of the sun and the glory to death-lighted gloom ? Out of the spirit's assurance to rest and the tomb? Question on question might crowd as I heard the hymns roll, Mine but to bear up the oil for the flame in my bowl. Faces might come and be gone and the years die away; Neith were no nearer my knowing, for all the rapt play Of eager aspiring in eyes that were fire and then dust Age after age as they passed to the gods of their trust. I could but symbol a passion of worship not mine, Seeing but death and not daring to dream the divine. Rusted and old, tossed aside with the refuse of years, Lost to all use, to all pleasure, and even to tears, Borne to the crucible's torturing passion of fire, 86 Iron from Sinai I was the chain of a slave at the forge's desire. Over the sea went our galley, the oars keeping time. Bitterly sweet was the song in its wave-beating rhyme. Soft the far distance where blue of the sea and the sky Seemed but the veil of an infinite peace to the eye. Sometimes a trireme of Greece or of Rome came in sight, Pirate ship loomed in the haze, or the fears of the night Deepened to terror past that of the goad or the lash When in the dark and the distance a light seemed to flash, Lurid, portentous. Then swiftly the oars beat the foam, Tense grew the muscles and fiercer the longing for home. Better were death than the bench and the oar and the chain ; Better the dirge than the galley song turning the brain, Mixing with laughter and song of a time-darkened day. Better, the body down-plunging, the soul through the spray Bubblingly seeking the wide empyrean of light, Free from the noisome and foul, from the day turned to night. What could a galley slave dream of a glory to be? Iron from Sinai 87 What could a galley slave know but the toil of the sea? Visions might come of the maidens bright-eyed in the dance, Shouts of the youths in the hunting, or gleam of the lance. Ever a mist would becloud and the glory be past, Wild-eyed delirium draining the passion at last. Year after year sped our galley. The rowers sank down Dead at the laboring oar. I could see the soft brown Change to the death-coursing blue on the pain-twisted limbs Ere they were tossed to the shark or the sea bird that skims Lightly the surface and gathers its meal as it flies.. Then a new rower, the hope not yet dead in his eyes, Took the oar grimly, nor knew that awake or asleep I should not loose him until he was food for the deep. So year by year, day by day, I was servant to pain, Bondman to death, seeing ever with wistf illness vain Night on the Nile and a glory surpassing the stars, Dearer that now in the dark and the din and the jars, Trembling and strange, of the galley's response to the oar, Mine it should be to see glory about me no more. 88 Iron from Siaai Fashioned again to a use and a purpose of man, I was a blade of Damascus. The swift flashings ran Over the heaps of the dying where peasant and lord Lay in the passionate peace of a somber accord. Hatred and wrong fell before me, and valor and strength, Daring too nobly against me, sank pulseless at length. Torn in the madness of conflict, the young and the old Gasped in the rush of their blood and grew one with the mold. Swung in the masterful might of a king's battle play, I was a scourge and a passion of ruthless dismay, Or, in the chance and the change of the mutable years, I was a promise of freedom that burned through man's fears. Now on a cushion of silk for the gazers to see, I shall be idle forever. New worships may be, Born of new hopes and new strivings, but never again Up to the stars shall I light the aspirings of men. Out of earth's hungry ambitions new serfdoms may come; Never again shall I chain the slave's agony dumb. Truths shall have birth in the flashings of battle-swung brand; Never again shall the hero hold me in his hand. Idle forever, no memories more to amass, Iron from Sinai 89 Food for the thoughts of the happy who see me and pass, I can but know that they dig the new ore from the hills, Put it to wonderful uses iron only fulfills; Strings that make music when thousands are silent for awe, Wires that have gathered earth's secrets, whose whisper is law, Through which the passions of myriads sweep in a day, Sweep and are gone as they came, — and I stay, and I stay Here where they pause for a moment with curious eyes, Idly regretting the ages of knightly emprise. Gone is the glory forever, the curse and the song- Tell me, oh, tell me, what yearnings and agonies throng Under the satisfied ease that has deadened your fears, You who inherit forever the good of the years DRIFTWOOD Like driftwood burning in the grate, Salt with the boundless sea, Glowing with all the changing fate That drove it far and held it late, Broken and beaten you may be; But sad experience leaps and flies To light and color in your eyes. Like wreckage tossing with the tide, Borne from we know not where, The wildness of the waves you ride, However much your face may hide, Has left its mark of foul and fair, And brave experience leaps and plays About my dreams of your dead days. Like love before a driftwood fire, I watch the colors warm Paint on your cheeks each old desire, Make you a thing I might aspire To hold and shelter from the storm. This is your lure, to drift wind-tossed, Compass and soul and rudder lost. 90 Driftwood 91 The firelight dies. Our fancies part. I, with the world, must shut my heart. Poor wasted beauty. It must be; The changing tide sweeps out to sea. AT THE MOTORMAN'S WINDOW Behind us the surge of midnight, silent and deep and black, Before us a moving marvel, the headlight along the track. I look from my little window, a splendor flying the dark. Our path is the sweep of an arrow clear-winged to the distant mark. White birches gleam for an instant, and through them the somber wood. A flash and the shadow follows, bright eyes and their sable hood. I look at a mist of branches, wind-stirred where the moon drops red. They pass; let me turn and follow the light on the track ahead. A farm-house lamp burns dimly. What issue of life or death Waits there for the gray of morning with tremulous, faltering breath? A splendor of wayside roses springs up like a rift of flame. The grasses are lush about them. They slip from the moving frame 92 At the Motorman's Window 93 That circles the world before me, and then as I lose their glow The white of a mile-post passes, sepulchral and cold as snow. What matter the things that have been? What lure has the dark and dead? I follow the flaring glory, the light on the track ahead. At the unseen turn of midnight I pass to another day. Here somewhere I meet to-morrow, perhaps where the willows sway Down-drawn to the slumberous water that curls in a drifting dream. I see but a cream of lace-work that floats in the light of the stream. We leap from the bridge to the cutting that drives through the hill's deep heart; Shut in by the earthy blackness, my pulse feels a sudden start. A moment the hand is doubtful, and then we are forward sped On, on through the widening radiance, the light on the track ahead. ART AND THE WORLD He speaks: The winds are sullen on the lake to-night. The clouds are closing in. Before the dark, The driving mist will break against your face, And when I take you to the dingy rooms That still were bright because we called them home, Our home until — dear heart, for this last time I shall be prodigal and make the fire Leap up with rosy flames to keep you warm. Let us go back and shut the leaden sky Out of our hearts. You love it more than home? You would not lose Mount Rondure towering there Above the thickening glooms beyond your sight ? Nor I, dear heart, nor I, but now at last We put it all into that happy world That never can seem happy any more. All, dear; yes, all. I dare to think sometimes That just to dream and cry ourselves to sleep With some sweet wonder that our fancies shape Would be the bravest joy our hearts could know. (Another boat with a man and a woman in it pass across their course. The two are singing slowly in unison.) 94 Art and the World 95 When the waters in the moonlight Are crossed with silver foam, In that soft and tender croon-light Who would pull the oar for home? With singing and laughter And eyes shining after, Hands trailing the water and heart in a dream, Let us drift in the star-shine, Souls lost in the far-shine That dies in the West with the daylight's last beam. When the city's lamps are flaming Their glow against the sky, From the joys our hearts are naming, Shall we seek them, you and I? With lap of waves lifting And swing of boat drifting, Eyes caught in the splendor that shimmers and flies, Let us dream, through the rowing, Of all things past knowing, While far on the waters the earth-glamour lies. (The boat floats by, and the two, after listening to the song a moment as it dies away, turn again toward each other and the current of their own thoughts.) He speaks: They love the world no more than you and I. They need its joy no more. They have no souls To take its good more bountifully than we, 96 Art and the World To need it with a deeper need than we. Joy fills their hearts. For them no senses beat With thwartings, limitations, mad desires That make these clouds a dull and driving gloom To shut us in with failure undeserved. Why should they laugh when we must be denied The all to need of which our souls were born? She speaks: The old, old question. Can we so demand That every instinct burning in our flesh And every aspiration of our hearts Be gratified? That else this great good world Is neither great nor good? He speaks: Yes. Is it good, Can it seem good to you or good to me, If those whose instincts are the purest, best, Whose dreams most surely seek the highest heavens, Whose pleasures take them farthest from the brute, If they must feel their every prompting mocked While lesser creatures spread the wings of joy? What have I cared for? Music, books, and art. They are my world. Gross tastes of grosser minds Are lost in these more perfect ministries Of flesh to spirit, followed, nurtured, loved. If I am given these nobler cares and aims, If I must breathe the thin, pure mountain air In which the pulses beat to the glory of God, Must I not then be given the nobler life Art and the World 97 With power to live it nobly to the full? Dear heart, dear heart, this is the bitter end. That picture that I painted with your arm Lying across the casement round and full, The sunlight on it and your upturned face, — How could they think that nothing but a daub When in yourjeyes the whole wide sky shone clear And on your lips life palpitated warm? There was my soul for all the world to see. What more have I to give them? Who could ask So much and! never seem to care or know? So much in vain She speaks: You do not paint for them. Have you not said almost with every stroke That folds the colors in the robe's deep blue Or rounds it on the cheek's too splendid flush, Have you not said that seeing beauty grow Under your hands was still your highest joy? Let us be happy, asking nothing more, Leaving the world the pleasures of its own, While we keep ours. You choose to paint a face And find your joy in painting. Rest in that And leave the world's rewards for those whose toil Is not itself reward. He speaks: Yes, if I could. That is the burning passion of it all, That when I seem to cry my soul to heaven 7 98 Art and the World In shapes and colors wonderful as truth, More beautiful than summer skies at dawn When purple peaks float in the irised clouds, That then, to make my joy more fast and sure, I still must have its warrant and excuse In acclamations of the common voice. To be so bound, so driven to depend Upon such chance of favor, like a god Stooping to beg of man a word of praise, A hallelujah or a loud Te Deum In token of his work's enduring worth, To be so checked, excluded from my own, Unless a thousand tongues, and they refuse, They who can neither see nor understand — Why should I need it? Being what I am, That is my warrant for the all I ask, Being so gifted with these finer tastes That hold me firmly bound to finer needs. That is the curse thatjmakes the world unjust, Makes God unjust, makes everything a lie, Even the beauty of your rounded throat That seems to give this poor and shrunken earth A fuller hope. I kiss its whiteness warm, Feeling myself a god in such a love, Seeming a Grecian singer in the sun With Aphrodite rising in the spray For him to clasp and claim ; and then while still Your eyes are shining on me and your breath Is warm against my cheek, as if a rose Had crushed its sweetness out against your breasts, Art and the World 99 Then in the highest joy of all you give My eyes drop down upon my empty hands, ' Empty of gifts with which to fill your own, Empty of everything the world holds dear, I Empty of everything to match those needs Of spirit in the flesh that make us throb Twin passions of denial. She speaks: No, not I. Have I been less than happy hour by hour, Knowing beyond the world the all you are? We are too grossly selfish every way. How should we dare expect to be and have? To live those fancies of the noblest minds That lesser creatures cannot hope to know And with them still to have the joys of sense As those may have who live for sense alone? Such double measure of all human joy Were more than human. Each, somewhere, somehow, Is stinted, must be stinted. Make your choice. Be in yourself the things that you would be, Or have the things that are not of yourself, Things that the world can give or take away. No man both is and has. We pay the price Of being in not having, or again Of having in not being, lest at last Not even the gift of earth and all the suns Could make us happy. ioo Art and the World He speaks: Oh, these needs, these needs I These things that ought to be because they are ! I hate such trifling wisdom, paying toll To meekness, prudence, all the host of fears That counsel compromise. I loathe them all. It is my right to have because I am. How should I care to be the more and more Through which man leaves behind the sodden brute, If every upward leap my spirit makes Narrows the hope that I may claim and hold The earthly good, the earthly fair and fine, The earthly tender as I need them more ? Man cannot be and have? Then down he sinks And wallows in the mire, a loathsome thing With eyes that gleam out of a foul, scarred face, Dumb aspiration prisoned in the muck. There is no god, no justice in the world, If so our souls and bodies fly apart. We have outlived that monkish faith and fear. Our noblest souls should be our kings of sense, Should clothe themselves in splendor, house them- selves In palaces of wonder, touch the skies In leaping fancies where the spirit springs To towering pinnacles of earthly pride. Why should I care to paint — I do not care. Let me go back and turn them to the walls, Each canvas with the joy of earth abloom, Art and the World 101 Lying about a world itself a lie. Let each mad daub be splotched with murky black Until at last it tells the bitter truth. Then with my eyes subdued, my spirit sunk Down to its tenement — Until I feel The clutch of death and all my being whirls In one mad tumult and my breath draws hard, I shall rebel forever, as a king Chained in a dungeon curses every slave Who brings him water when his right is wine. (They pass under the shadow of a church on the shore where worshipers have just gathered for the evening service of prayer and song. They begin singing a hymn at this moment, and the two in the boat listen.) For freighted argosies that brave the sea, For wealth of fold and field, For ringing laughter when our hearts are free, We offer here our praise and thanks to thee, Giver of every gift our meadows yield, The fruit of vine and tree. For larger hopes and more ennobling aims, For passions flying earth, For every finer thought or deed that flames Out of our dust, we praise thy name of names, Lord of the spirit's every purest birth That springs above our shames. 102 Art and the World For every unattainable desire, That makes us kin with thee, For every thwarting when our hearts are fire /Too boldly vain, we praise thee high and higher, Giver of good through ill that sets us free And bids us still aspire. For every need that binds us man with man In service fair and sweet, For human wishes as they still outran The wiser giving of thy wondrous plan, We praise the grace that draws us to thy feet, Lord of love's fullest span. (The singing stops, and they remain silent for a moment in the boat as it drifts along the shore. The woman's face shows itself the more responsive to the song.) She speaks: We ask too much. We are in every way Too selfish, too unmindful of the bond Of human fellowship. You should have said : It is my right to have the world's best gifts, Because I serve the world with hand and voice, Because its needs are thrilling in my heart, Its sorrows wound me and its joys inspire. Give in the measure of the service done, Art and the World 103 The hopes enhanced, the ways made straight and clear For man's endeavor looking on and on. I ask no more. That is the full reward. If what I am mates not with what I do, If finer instincts shape not finer deeds, Let me but share the common toil of men And walk content along the common ways. That is the thing we should have dared to say. I urged you selfishly to selfish aims. Now that they seem the worthless things they are, I fling them by and from my heart of hearts Urge you to fling them by. He speaks: Too late, too late. They have been snatched away like trifling gauds The light wind catches in its playful sweep. I have not given them up, but there they fly, My aims no more, but yet the things I watch With never changing passions of regret. I have no aims. How can I have again? This failure is the end. To-morrow night When we have locked the rooms and dropped the key Into our landlord's palm beside the gold His hungry eyes have waited for too long, When we have lost it all, the books, the prints, The easel in its place, the strange carved things, The yellowing keyboard where you played and sang And helped me at my work, the swords and guns, 104 Art and the World Old with a hundred mysteries of death, The fussy dresses that you used to wear, Posing a princess, and the coronet We bought with such wild pleasure. All, dear, all, When we have lost it all to-morrow night, I shall not be a painter any more. These hands will never bring the dead to life, 1 Lords in their pride and ladies in their bloom, Fair children with their great round smiling eyes Full of the dawning wonder of the world. I cannot think, I cannot understand What I shall be, how I shall live at all, When weary hour by hour and day by day I beat the pictures back into my brain, Lest I should so forget the price of wheat, And then we might not have a home at all. For you, for you, you who have still been kind, Patient, and hopeful through the darkest hours When cursing fate I cursed your patience too, Not for myself, for you, I shall be glad Until I smile in drudgery's despite. Perhaps at last, seeing the color come Back to your cheeks and gladness to your eyes, Seeing you dressed as beauty should be dressed In gowns of price, I shall somehow believe You are my picture, still more wonderful Than any I have painted or conceived. There still are dreams. To-morrow when it comes- It must come — every moment — near and near. I cannot half believe it even now. Art and the World 105 (Their boat has drifted on until they have passed into the little river and have come under the first of the bridges that span it. In the number of those pass- ing one way and the other over the bridge, there is a company of young people who are clearly on their way to some social gathering and whose good spirits are evident in the song they are singing.) Your eyes are wine, a vintage warm and mellow, Your hands are healths that pledge the lifted cup. Here once again each meets his heart's true fellow. This is the board where love may pause and sup. Then pour out the wine as we sing With hand clasping hand in a ring. Let them ponder and sigh Who are waiting to die, Who never have dared have their fling. We are living with joy on the wing. I may forget; you teach me to remember. I may "be sad; you thrill my heart with joy. Like April airs that linger through November, You breathe a girl and keep me still a boy. Then lift up the wine of your eyes While it brims to my heart's glad surprise. Let them worry and wait Who still hang upon fate, Who defer and delay, overwise. We live and take youth as it flies. 106 Art and the World (The sound of the singing dies away down the street across the river, and the boat drifts on.) She speaks: The world is full of youth and youth's delight, And we are young, too young to see the end, Too young to talk of life or know its worth. Let us be happy while we build anew In fairer seeming with more worthy aims The years to come. He speaks: I need to be resigned. That is a pious and philistine mood I never learned, but for your sake to-night I will sit down and laugh against defeat, While once again you robe yourself in dreams For me to paint before we lose them all. And once again, while violin and flute And horn and drum are sounding at the dance The merchant prince gives just across the street, Beside the window I will stand and watch, Seeing the carriages and all the lights, The women with their jeweled necks agleam And all the splendor as they turn and laugh. Only I will not ask why you and I, To whom such things could mean a thousandfold The little that they mean to his poor soul Fatting on sins and shames, I will not ask Why we should be shut out to starve our eyes Art and the World 107 And feel our little pleasures grown as dull As wayside pebbles by the sheen of silk. Just for your happiness, to see you smile Forgivingly with eyes that seem to shine With that old rapture once the whole of love, I will enjoy it all, and then once more Sit down beside you in the little room, And so be glad. Why did I never know The way to service is in serving you? Making you happy? I believe some day — Oh, you will teach me — teach me everything,^ To love, to live, perhaps at last to paint For men's approval. Yes, but that can wait. Here is the landing; here I find the world, The world that is, in place of that which was, The world of service. Come, shall we go on, Like children walking slowly hand in hand And marveling at everything they see? The new, new world ! And I shall see, perhaps, New things to paint, and things almost as fair, Seen with your eyes, so much more true than mine. (He has tied the boat to the bank, and in the gather- ing dusk they go up the street together. There they are soon lost in the hurrying crowds of men and women making up that old world that is always strange and new.) ARTISTS When the good old Saxon vikings drove their ships from land to land, Beauty was the thing they carried, mail on breast and sword in hand. Gems were on the hilt ; the flashings made the human wonder fine. Then the maker was the artist and men thought him half divine. How they gloated on the metal that he shaped from dull red ore, Turning earthly dross to splendor for the battle's sounding roar. How they praised the work of Wieland, praised the smith whose cunning skill Was a marvel of creation waiting on the artist's will. Makers, artists, as we fashion statues, bronzes, shapes of steel To a something fine and perfect where the stone shall still reveal, Not the clay inert and formless, but the mold of human thought, Human fancies, aspirations, into earth's hard sub- stance wrought, 1 08 Artists 109 Do we cry the forward, forward of the years that leap and run? Making swords no more, but flashings of new triumphs in the sun? We who breathe the Saxon spirit, do we feel the Saxon thrill In some fresh adventurous splendor of our new creating skill? Makers, artists! In the glory of our later days of peace Do we keep the throbbing passion as the things we make increase? Do we feel some monster engine as a master work of art, With the maker's purpose in it as the red blood in his heart ? They who fashioned swords of conquest felt an artist joy as pure As the painter's when his canvas takes a pageant's golden lure. We who are earth's last creators, born to make the world anew, Out of chaos and the darkness sweep upon a braver view. Ours to make the mountains spirit from the teeming brain of man. Ours to find unmeasured beauties in the things we do and plan. no Artists Eager, happy, lords of secrets that the earth has hidden long, We are children of the dawning and our fellowship is song. By the mast pile up the treasure as the vikings did of old, Trophies of the loom and workshop wonderful as gems and gold. Set the wheel and watch the furrow that the keel leaves in our wake. We are sailing toward to-morrow, waiting for the day to break. COATS FOR THE TOURNEY The coat I loved was firm and fine, a splendor Woven of myths and faiths as old as time. I wore it as a knight Wears shield and armor, bright Sweeping my way where all the galleries eyed me; Yet when I left the fight The sun had burned its colors out, the tender Of foemen's blades had slashed it till, beside me, It fell in rags and dulled my sword-hilt's chime Beating my belt's bronze buckle, foul with slime. Time heals my hurt. I am all hale. I gather New strength and life. Once more I love the sun, But what shall clothe me warm? What coat shall shut the storm Out of my breast when all the winds are round me? I cannot patch or form The broken threads again. I toss them, rather, Out where the driven tempest's furies hound me; And yet unclothed I need not think to run The wintry highway till my dream is won. in ii2 Coats for the Tourney There are new cloths and textures, strange new fashions. They seem grotesque, and yet I long to go On, on, with plume and lance Tossing as I advance, With love's fresh favor from my helmet flying. Some tremble of romance Must yet endure to meet my living passions. Some web must yet be woven for the dyeing That makes it stainless through time's pauseless flow, Changeless, secure, whatever wild winds blow. The coat that I shall wear ! Oh, men, my brothers, New faiths must be. I cannot ride the lists Unbonneted, unclad, Joyless, my heart grown mad. Give me your gonfalon to belt about me. Tell me what cry you had Deep in the heart, fearing the ears of others. Give it my lips, and not the world shall rout me, But dawn shall break a glory through the mists And light my sword-hilt's clustered amethysts. NEWS FROM YORKTOWN "Past two o'clock and Cornwallis is taken." How the voice rolled down the street, Till the silence rang and echoed With the stir of hurrying feet ! In the hush of the Quaker city, As the night drew on to morn, How it startled the troubled sleepers, Like the cry for a man-child born. "Past two o'clock and Cornwallis is taken." How they gathered, man and maid, Here the child with a heart for the flintlock, There the trembling grandsire staid. From the stateliest homes of the city, From hovels that love might scorn, How they followed that ringing summons, Like the cry for a king's heir born. "Past two o'clock and Cornwallis is taken." I can see the quick lights flare, See the glad, wild face at the window Half dumb in a breathless stare. In the pause of an hour portentous, In the gloom of a hope forlorn, How it throbbed to the star-deep heavens, Like the cry for a nation born. 8 113 ii4 News from Yorktown "Past two o'clock and Cornwallis is taken. How the message is sped and gone To the farm and the field and the forest Till the world is one vast dawn. To distant and slave-sunk races Bowed down in their chains that morn, How it swept on the wings of heaven, Like a cry for God's justice born. TAKING THE ROAD Here is my task. Why should I turn and go, Seeking in fairer fields a kindlier foe? Here is my task, and with it alien eyes Blaze foul and leering hate and mean surmise. Here is my task; I cannot turn aside. Here I must press straight on while fools deride. This is for me the one thing most worth while, Not to be lured by some well practiced smile, Not to be driven by a threat or blow Out of the road it is my will to go. It may not have a path the world can see. I make the paths, and in them I am free. Here is my task and here my joy at once. Why should I care to be some dawdling dunce Breathing the perfume of his lady's lips Idly, as flap the sails of anchored ships? I stretch my muscles, lift my head, and laugh. Being myself is all the wine I quaff. This is for me enough, that I so choose. I trust no toss of coin, and I refuse All leadings of dumb chance. Against the net The destinies may weave I shall not fret, But they must give me passage till I turn And write my own last message on my urn. "5 A SHADOW OF THINGS TO COME (Colossians II: 17) IN MEMORY OF HENRY WALLACE Forward the seed looks to the waving~grain," And who than he more loved to see things grow? No one could thrill more in an April rain, Or draw more rapture from a harvest row. Forward his heart looked, and his thoughts grew warm, Giving his love an ever widening range, Keeping an eye serene, whatever storm Drifted his fortunes on the sea of change. Forward his life looked; that is still its grace. To-morrow when we touch some burning hope, "This was his vision, " we shall say, and pace A larger world beneath his horoscope. Forward his world looked; so his steps were sure. He kept the path and knew its farthest goal. For him earth's wandering lights could have no lure. He trusted man and God and his own soul. 116 illiili 018 360105 2-