PS 
 
 3505 
 
 U^9S^ Sonds and Portraits 
 
 /9zo 
 
 Maxwell StrutKers Burt 
 
Class i:is:^ 
 
 Book 
 
 Copight]^^—- 
 
 COPn^IGHT DEPOSm 
 
By the Same Author 
 
 John O'May and Other 
 Stories. 12 wo. Illustrated 
 
SONGS AND PORTRAITS 
 
SONGS AND PORTRAITS 
 
 BY 
 
 MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1920 
 

 COPYWGHT, 1920, BY 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published April, 1920 
 
 m 29 1920 
 
 ©CI,A566785 
 
r- 
 
 TO 
 
 THE MEMORY OF MY SISTER 
 
 JEAN BROOKE BURT 
 
 B. AUG. 10, 1886: D. JULY 4, 1918 
 
The dawns will cover you with gold, 
 
 The night with a starwebbed lace, 
 
 And by noon the mountain winds will come 
 
 To bathe with youth your face, • 
 
 So that your beauty shall not fade 
 
 From your hidden resting place. 
 
 East are the hills you loved so well. 
 
 And west the hills again; 
 
 And the gallant heart they lifted up 
 
 Will never grow old, nor be slain, 
 
 For now it is one with the rustling grass, 
 
 And the leaves, and the soft gray rain. 
 
 Music is lost and vanishes 
 
 When the last sweet echoes rise; 
 
 And never a day but finds an end 
 
 In the hush of twilight skies; 
 
 Only the dead who are young like you. 
 
 Know a grace that never dies. 
 
 O Heart, you will open wide your arms 
 
 To the new found joy of these: 
 
 You will hear the whispering flame of the flowers. 
 
 You will laugh at the hum of the bees; 
 
 And the birds will weave with songs the time 
 
 You talk with the secret trees. 
 
Contents 
 
 I 
 
 As We Go On 
 
 3 
 
 Resurgam 
 
 4 
 
 The Land (Winter: 1916) 
 
 7 
 
 The Young Dead 
 
 10 
 
 Trumpets 
 
 II 
 
 If Once the Great Archangel of Our Dreams 
 
 12 
 
 II 
 
 
 The Little House 
 
 15 
 
 Fishing 
 
 16 
 
 Crepuscle 
 
 19 
 
 Dusk (From "Love on a Ranch") 
 
 20 
 
 Night (From "Love on a Ranch") 
 
 21 
 
 Spring in Princeton 
 
 22 
 
 Two Songs for Music 
 
 25 
 
 The Small Song 
 
 26 
 
 Marchen 
 
 27 
 
 From a Tuscan Song 
 
 30 
 
 Pierrot at War (191 5) 
 
 31 
 
 All Night Through 
 
 32 
 
 Non Omnis Moriar 
 
 33 
 
 City Trees 
 
 34 
 
 Trinity 
 
 36 
 
 The House 
 
 37 
 
 Drifting 
 
 38 
 
 Vll 
 
Question ^o 
 
 The Bird .q 
 
 The Companion aj 
 
 Princeton — 1917 42 
 
 Words ^^ 
 
 Friend of Mine ^r 
 
 Silver Feet (To N.B.; at. 6) 46 
 
 Night is the Time 47 
 
 Desert Hours 48 
 
 Lullaby to be Sung to Mothers 49 
 
 The Pursuit qo 
 
 Morning C3 
 
 III 
 
 The Reformer c^ 
 
 To a Friend Recently Married 59 
 
 K. N. B. 60 
 
 Mr. Latimer 61 
 
 • • • 62 
 
 And Adah Bare Jabal 63 
 
 The Ouija Player 65 
 
 Uncle Jim 65 
 
 Mr. Smithers 68 
 
 Advice to a Modern Puritan 72 
 
 J. G. H.: President 74 
 Primavera (To My Daughter upon Reaching Four) 75 
 
 The Good Dean: Humanist (A. F. W.) jG 
 
 Brown Men 77 
 viii 
 
As We Go On 
 
 As we go on, grow older, grow more wise, 
 Grow friendlier with every friendly thing, 
 The honourable trees, grave dusk, the swing 
 Of upland meadows upward to the skies. 
 And even the old new fraudulent surprise 
 Of that quaint smiling paradox the spring. 
 How greatly beauty once again can bring 
 In smaller ways tears to our tenderer eyes. 
 
 We do not wait on mountains or on seas. 
 
 For there's a little lake between the hills. 
 
 That rustles with the sedges and the bees; 
 
 And great adventure found in daffodils 
 
 Stirs April gardens, when the world again 
 
 Is quick with mice and moles, crickets and men. 
 
Resurgam 
 
 (^) . 
 
 Now is a great and shining company, 
 Choired like stars before the break of day, 
 So radiant, their silence is like singing, 
 Like mist of music down the Milky Way; 
 And they who wake, hearing the dawn wind bring- 
 ing 
 Comfort of voices, are content and stay 
 A little while their tears, forbear the clinging 
 Of hands that hinder youth at last made free. 
 
 There is no death, nor change, nor any ending. 
 Only a journey, and so many go. 
 That we who stay at length discern the blending 
 Of the two roads, two breaths, two lives, and so 
 Come to the high and quiet knowledge that the 
 
 dead 
 Are but ourselves made beautiful instead. 
 
 (11) 
 
 And you, O best beloved of them all. 
 
 How is it with you ? Is it well indeed ? 
 
 Or is there in the vivid quiet need 
 
 Of some familiar task; yet does the call 
 
 Of the warm earth, the rise and fall 
 
 Of accents you held dear, when in the night 
 
 They talk of you, trouble the winged Hght? 
 
 O foolish question wisdom should forestall ! 
 
 Now are you most immediate: so near, 
 
 That there is left no thing between us; no, 
 
 4 
 
Nor veil of life. Ah dear, my very dear, 
 Only the dead are close and never apart. 
 Speaking in lucid silences, and so, 
 Can find their way unhampered to a heart. 
 
 (HI) 
 
 I would not have you know me as I am, 
 And all I think, or did, or still may do. 
 And yet can it be otherwise, you being you, 
 And dead, and knowing all things, even the plan 
 Of this sweet sorrowful mystery we call life .? 
 How must it seem, the beating of clipped wings: 
 My blindness, when the multitude of things 
 Is sharp with beauty as a moonlit knife? 
 
 Ah Love, I should be wonderfully glad ! 
 For here at length is what all men desire, 
 And though I seem a beggar am I clad 
 In the clear flames of an unceasing fire: 
 Surely there is no gift in death unless 
 It brings all knowledge and all tenderness. 
 
 (IV) 
 
 They told me this was all when we should die; 
 A sudden end, a silence, and a going; 
 And even farewell only a fluttering sigh. 
 And then a secret, far beyond our knowing. 
 Could this be so, you, who were a bestowing 
 Of song and light and laughter? Were it true. 
 What of the subtle diff"erence that was you: 
 The exquisite mould, under the craftsman grow- 
 ing? 
 
They have not heard. For on that very day 
 
 There came a shining presence where I wept, 
 
 As if a radiant child had turned away 
 
 From some dear, rapt engagement long unkept: 
 
 And see, I have a sign, for I made trial. 
 
 And you looked back, and paused, a little while. 
 
 There is a wind that blows from earth when dusk 
 
 is coming, 
 Laden with richness of the stored up day; 
 The secret warmth of hidden paths; the humming 
 Of pollened bees; the sweetness of damp hay; 
 And mist along a shining valley stream; 
 And green cool reaches where the bending trees, 
 After the hot noon, listen for the breeze: 
 All this, I know, is part of your new dream. 
 And when I wake, and death seems most unfair. 
 Even then is some new mystery on the air, 
 Of scent, or sound, or loveliness of hue. 
 Stirring my heart and making me aware 
 I cannot grasp the rapture now of you. 
 Who were so close to dawn, and trees, and dew. 
 
The Land 
 
 (Winter : 19 16) 
 
 (I) . . 
 
 I THINK it is not hard to love with ease 
 
 A little land, for there a man may go 
 
 From southern dawn to northern eve, and so, 
 
 Compass, within a day-time heart, the seas 
 
 White on a sun drenched clifF, and after these, 
 
 A river shining, and a purple hill. 
 
 And lights that star the dusk, where valleys fill 
 
 An evening with the tenderness of trees. 
 
 But only a great lover loves the great 
 
 Scarred beauty of a lonely land, and seeks 
 
 Ever to keep renewed an hundred dreams. 
 
 Of plains that brood by wide unwearying streams: 
 
 Of how archangels hold red sunset peaks, 
 
 Winged with a flaming splendour desolate. 
 
 (11) 
 
 And I have known a man, who back from wan- 
 dering. 
 Come when September rippled in the grain. 
 Fall straight upon his knees to find the pondering 
 Grave twilight of his country once again; 
 And taste the earth; and watch the sentinel corn 
 March, as an army marches from the sight, 
 To where, below, the valley mist was torn, 
 Showing a river pendant in the night: 
 And black encircling hills that held the damp 
 Sweet frost of autumn moonlight on their rim. . . . 
 7 
 
. . . Until his heart was like a swaying lamp: 
 Until the memory came again on him, 
 Of brook, and field; of secret wood; the yearning 
 Smell of dead leaves: an upland road returning. 
 
 (Ill) 
 
 Be not afraid, O Dead, be not afraid: 
 We have not lost the dreams that once were flung 
 Like pennons to the world: we yet are stung 
 With all the starry prophecies that made 
 You, in the gray dawn watchful, half afraid 
 Of visions. Never a night that all men sleep un- 
 stirred : 
 Never a sunset but the west is blurred 
 With banners marching and a sign displayed. 
 Be not afraid, O Dead, lest we forget 
 A single hour your living glorified; 
 Come but a drum-beat, and the sleepers fret 
 To walk again the places where you died: 
 Broad is the land, our loves are broadly spread. 
 But now, even more widely scattered lie our dead. 
 
 (IV) 
 
 O Lord of splendid nations let us dream 
 Not of a place of barter, nor *the State', 
 But dream as lovers dream — for it is late — 
 Of some small place beloved; perhaps a stream 
 Running beside a house set round with flowers; 
 Perhaps a garden wet with hurrying showers. 
 Where bees are thick about a leaf hid gate. 
 For such as these, men die nor hesitate. 
 
 8 
 
The old gray cities, gossippy and wise, 
 
 The candid valleys, like a woman's brow. 
 
 The mountains treading mightily toward the skies, 
 
 Turn dreams to visions — there's a vision now ! 
 
 Of hills panoplied, fields of waving spears. 
 
 And a great campus shaken with flags and tears. 
 
The Young Dead 
 
 These who were born so beautifully 
 
 Of straight limbed men and candid white browed 
 
 wives, 
 Now have walked out beyond where we can see, 
 Are full grown men with spent and splendid lives: 
 And these who only a Httle while ago, 
 Without our help, would stumble in steep places, 
 Need never our hands, stride proudly on, and so. 
 Come to a dawn of great unknown spaces. 
 
 O lithe young limbs and radiant grave young eyes, 
 Now have you taught us beauty cannot fade: 
 The years will find a rounding of the skies, 
 And all our summer nights be overlaid 
 With strength, a calm, a loveliness, a lending 
 Of grace that will not go, that has no ending. 
 
 10 
 
Trumpets 
 
 And they had planned a future filled with bright 
 Upstanding days that held the warming sun 
 Even where shadows are: when these were done, 
 Sleep, with a heart made curiously light. 
 They dreamed so much, as all men dream, at night; 
 Of tasks, and the fine heat of them, the cool 
 That comes by dusk Hke colour on a pool: 
 Now this is over and new things begun. 
 
 Now this is over, and their dreams, once caught 
 Up in a great cloud, terrible and unsought, 
 And every hour, so straightly marked before, 
 Blown and broken by the wind of war. 
 Have left them dead, with never a time for reap- 
 ing: 
 The trumpets cared so little for their sleeping. 
 
 II 
 
If Once the Great Archangel 
 of Our Dreams 
 
 If once the great archangel of our dreams 
 Would leave his high estate and for a span 
 Grow close to us through some concordant plan, 
 Walking at midday near the country streams, 
 Or by the hearth, discuss our common themes, 
 I think that he would prove an artizan 
 Of souls, and a most comfortable man; 
 Smaller and larger than as now he seems. 
 
 And though his talk would still have much to do 
 With that strange rose we seek within the fire, 
 Petalled with flames of unfulfilled desire, 
 It would have quiet laughter in it too; 
 Laughter with children, and old folks, and dogs; 
 And good men; and with poor unwitting rogues. 
 
 12 
 
II 
 
The Little House 
 
 And I said to myself I will build a house, 
 
 The day my love comes by. 
 
 And there shall be much of a river wind, and much 
 
 of the open sky; 
 With a singing bird to wake us, and a great rose, 
 
 red and high. 
 
 A great rose red and high and near. 
 
 And shaken by the bees. 
 
 Close in the shadow of green-gold vines and a depth 
 
 of green-gold trees: 
 And night will bring a cool of dreams like rain 
 
 upon the breeze. 
 
 O little house of river winds: 
 
 O house so hid and neat: 
 
 The long white road that leads to you is cruel to 
 
 weary feet; 
 Yet, with my Love for company, even the dust 
 
 is sweet. 
 
 IS 
 
Fishing 
 
 The days when I went fishing 
 
 I would wake before the dawn. 
 
 The moon a Httle Hp of gold 
 
 Above a silver lawn, 
 
 Where, in a velvet pool of trees, 
 
 A gray mist hung unstirred by breeze, 
 
 Or any sound, so patiently 
 
 The world bore night, it seemed to me. 
 
 The house was silent to my feet. 
 
 Beneath a tip-toe tread; 
 
 And I could see behind each door, 
 
 Calm in a white-paned bed. 
 
 An aunt, with high patrician nose. 
 
 An uncle carmined; there arose 
 
 A smell of matting on the air. 
 
 Sober and cooling everywhere. 
 
 Beside the kitchen stove the cat 
 Blinked twice with eyes of gold. 
 And yawned with infinite contempt. 
 For sleep is new, and old 
 Is fishing; on the Nile, 
 Once with mysterious feline guile. 
 In moonht, temple-shadowed bays. 
 Were caught bright fins, in other days. 
 
 The cat, the stove, the open door, 
 
 Upon a miracle of sun ! 
 
 O for the dew upon the grass: 
 
 i6 
 
for the feet that dance and run ! 
 And in the maples' tip-top spires 
 
 The swaying song of passionate choirs ! 
 
 1 think that morning's finest joys 
 Are saved for little fishing boys. 
 
 Where trout lie there are white, white stones, 
 
 With running water over; 
 
 And half the air is made of mint, 
 
 And half is made of clover; 
 
 And slow clouds come and go and sail 
 
 Like giant fish with lazy tail. 
 
 A stream runs out a fine spun song 
 From shadowy pools to laughter; 
 A wood song, with a chorus clear. 
 And a lilt and a chuckle after; 
 For little pools with sunlight in 
 Are like plucked notes of a vioHn, 
 While through the mist of melodies 
 Stirs ever the motif of the breeze: 
 
 Some find bird carolling sweet at dawn. 
 And some more sweet at noon; 
 But fishing boys like dusk, I think. 
 For there's a hush that soon. 
 When evening sends them homeward bound. 
 Turns every field to tremulous sound. 
 Where thrush and owl and meadow-lark 
 Chant to the coming of the dark. 
 
 17 
 
The nights when I'd been fishing 
 
 Were always very still, 
 
 Save for a rusthng of the leaves; 
 
 A distant whippoorwill; 
 
 And in a sky of velvet-blue, 
 
 The stars were golden fishes too; 
 
 Swam slowly, swam into a dream 
 
 Of white stones and a running stream. 
 
 i8 
 
Crepuscle 
 
 In all the lonely places and the hills 
 
 By dusk comes down faint trumpeting; it fills 
 
 The hollows and the river banks with sound, 
 
 And music is like mist along the ground. 
 
 In all the forest paths and secret places 
 
 The liHes seem like small forgotten faces, 
 
 And clothed in dimming gold, and by our side, 
 
 With muted hoofs, the dead contented ride. 
 
 19 
 
Dusk 
 
 (From "Love on a Ranch") 
 
 The tall pines are a myriad host at prayer; 
 
 A half-moon swings a censer on the air; 
 
 Silver and far away 
 
 The hills turn gray. 
 
 And while the transparent moment rounds and 
 
 breaks 
 There is no music but the antiphonal wind of lakes. 
 
 Love, wait ! Be still ! Hush even our hearts, 
 
 Lest they, loud with this beauty, 
 
 Beat against some calm 
 
 Beyond our understanding, and we be 
 
 Bereft of this most requisite memory. 
 
 Under the ceaseless murmur of the days 
 
 Lies silence. 
 
 20 
 
Night 
 
 (From "Love on a Ranch") 
 
 Hush of the world, save for a small and quiet wind, 
 Out of the north, through slumberous fir tops stir- 
 ring: 
 A late pale moon conjuring the dreaming hills 
 With passionate white magic, and the whirring 
 Of a belated cricket in the grass. 
 
 amber night, alive, and wonderful, and still ! 
 
 1 have arisen for I cannot sleep: 
 
 Too sweet, too near the outspread shadow of your 
 hair! 
 
 Is it not strange, this love which holds us 
 Lips cling to lips, so much 
 
 I strive to lose myself in you, and yet, beyond, 
 Always we stand as beggars at the gates of sound 
 and touch. 
 
 21 
 
Spring in Princeton 
 
 Sweet, very sweet, the meadows now. 
 
 New blackened by the turning plough. 
 
 And soon across the Jersey hills 
 
 Will drip the gold of daffodils, 
 
 Until the furrows in the train 
 
 Of drifting winds drift deep with grain. 
 
 Apple and judas tree and pear 
 
 Breaking in blossom everywhere; 
 
 And in the night — nights soft falling ! 
 
 To hear the little * peepers' calling ! 
 
 I wonder if, as used to be. 
 
 The dusk is damp with mystery. 
 
 And shadowy black, where trees, inlacing. 
 
 Make patterns for a round moon's tracing; 
 
 And if, down every silent lane. 
 
 Lovers walk hand in hand again? 
 
 ... O to awake on such a day 
 
 And open windows wide to May: 
 
 To watch the hesitant red dawn 
 
 Stealing across the close-turfed lawn; 
 
 Each lilac bush, to purple springing, 
 
 A very rain — a pain, of singing; 
 
 While here and there, with merry tapping, 
 
 A flicker stirs the laggard napping! 
 
 To breakfast underneath the trees 
 
 With silver and white naperies 
 
 On honey, tasting yet of clover. 
 
 In a warm field, a blue sky over: 
 
 And read, nor care a pinch of snuff, 
 
 What the world does — sad world enough! 
 
 22 
 
While, just to make full life completer, 
 
 Your cigarette burns sweet and sweeter ! 
 
 O little town in spring I find 
 
 You altogether to my mind: 
 
 Your towers silvery gray and high, 
 
 Against the background of a sky, 
 
 Where white clouds drift as lazily 
 
 As galleons on a summer sea: 
 
 Your old bells ringing, old clocks chiming. 
 
 Dawn and dusk and high noon timing; 
 
 And, underneath your elm trees stately. 
 
 The brisk don, walking now sedately 1 
 
 Time is unwasteable in May 
 
 There is no night, there is no day. 
 
 One can dream honestly the hours. 
 
 Over old books, over new flowers, 
 
 Scenting an ancient tome of leather 
 
 With shrubs and grass and sunny weather. 
 
 Until John Lyly struts once more. 
 
 And Gil Bias laughs from a tavern door. 
 
 And Borrow foots it through his Spain 
 
 With bibles and with lies again: 
 
 Although, in truth, a hocus-pocus. 
 
 With print mixed up with thoughts of crocus, 
 
 TuHp, hyacinth, red japonica, 
 
 Where Wells is marrying Ann Veronica, 
 
 And, sentimental, swings his feet 
 
 For nothing save that life is sweet. . . . 
 
 . . . And Hfe is sweet, no matter where; 
 Even the big gray towns are fair, 
 And daisies white and buttercup 
 23 
 
Creep to their very gates, and up 
 
 Each narrow street the children sing 
 
 To hurdy-gurdys, in the spring. 
 
 Dusk is brimful and soft with speech 
 
 That Parma, Umbria, Sicily teach; 
 
 And Vevey, and Lucerne; and merry. 
 
 Rich, and quaint is the tongue of Kerry. 
 
 I think there's nothing like at dark 
 
 To see the lamps in Central Park 
 
 Turn yellow in the purple gloom 
 
 To huge gold lilies dripping bloom; 
 
 And watch the great walls through the night 
 
 Ripple to towers of fabulous light. 
 
 . . . But ah the best, the very best, 
 
 My little town twice score miles west ! 
 
 There, as the sun folds down its wings. 
 
 On every lawn a robin sings, 
 
 And kindly people take their tea 
 
 Under an elm or maple tree; 
 
 While dogs, politely consequent. 
 
 Vaguely consider each new scent. 
 
 And ah, the lilac trees are rare ! 
 
 And ah, the green-gold evening there! 
 
 O quiet lawns ! O friendly town ! 
 
 O the soft drift of petals down ! 
 
 24 
 
Two Songs for Music 
 
 (I) 
 
 Never a day turns blue; never a day's begun 
 
 But I feel you near, 
 
 And somewhere here, 
 
 As one feels in May the sun, 
 
 Knows in June the passing cloud, 
 
 And with Fall that the year is done. 
 
 Never a dusk grows cool, and the night is come 
 
 again, ^ . 
 
 But your whispering feet 
 Are like the beat 
 On the roof of the falling rain; 
 Until there is no roof at all. 
 And my heart is washed with pain. 
 
 (11) 
 
 I walk all day beneath the burning sun. 
 And all day long my shadow follows me: 
 There is a street where falls a chequered shade. 
 And here, for once, my shadow lets me be, 
 Beside a wall, with coolness dark and steep: 
 And so, at noon, I rest awhile and sleep. 
 But in the white unsmiling hours that speed 
 Towards dusk, I run again but am not freed. 
 By night there is no shadow. . . . Never I knew, 
 Until the haunted night, that it was you. 
 
 25 
 
The Small Song 
 
 Somewhere far off a woman's voice is singing; 
 A little song . . . tender . . . and clinging ! 
 
 O small song you sang to me, 
 A score of score of days ago; 
 
 small song whose melody 
 
 Walks in my heart and stumbles so: 
 
 1 cannot bear the level nights, 
 And all the moons are over long. 
 And all the hours from sun to sun 
 Turn to a little song. 
 
 O small song, O song ! 
 Why is a voice full of tears? 
 Why is a woman's throat a bird, 
 White in the thicket of the years? 
 
 26 
 
Marchen 
 
 The wind is a finger on the pane; 
 
 The firs a cloak across the snows; 
 
 The moon a lantern down the lane 
 
 Where an old witch-woman goes: 
 
 But here the fire-lights dance and lie, 
 
 And up from the hearth the great sparks fly; 
 
 While the cat hums sleepily. 
 
 . . . Gather you close and round your ear 
 
 To nurse's voice old and slow, 
 
 While nurse's nose makes a shadow queer 
 
 On the wall where the fire-flames glow: 
 
 Stretched at their ease the two dogs snore 
 
 From the big brown bearskin on the floor: 
 
 And our hair stirs creepily. 
 
 . . . Hist: hark! A crackling spark! . . . 
 
 The cat hums sleepily. 
 
 On winter nights, they say, they say, 
 
 When everyone is fast asleep. 
 
 The forest dances a rare gambade 
 
 To a tune the small stars keep; 
 
 And all the pine trees unafraid 
 
 Sway in a limb-locked black charade 
 
 Adown the hillside steep, so steep. 
 
 The shadowy hillside steep. 
 
 O then, if one has eyes to see, 
 
 There follows the quaintest mystery; 
 
 But should one tell — ^why then — why, well, 
 
 They'd turn one into a fairy bell, 
 
 27 
 
Or the bole of an old oak tree — an hideous old oak 
 
 tree. 
 Hist ! Hark ! . . . Just a spark ! . . . 
 
 A little man with cap of red, 
 
 And horn-brown lamp of glow-worm light, 
 
 An elfin porter, Fve heard said. 
 
 Comes out and peers around the night; 
 
 And then, as sudden as raindrops, quite. 
 
 The forest rustles overhead: 
 
 Rustles, and shivers, and laughs, and is still: 
 
 And out from thicket, and out from hill. 
 
 With an echo of horse and a tinkle of horn. 
 
 And glittering spears of a half inch thorn. 
 
 Rides a fairy hunt, as sure as you're born. 
 
 There's a *Morte Halloa!' and a *Harke Away!', 
 
 And the night is filled with the tumult gay; 
 
 But save you're possessed of the keenest of ears. 
 
 You'd think it the crinkle of ice, my dears: 
 
 Way in the front is a tiny shape — 
 
 Breath o' my body! — ^A fairy ape? 
 
 No, it's a spider! — No, it's a bear! 
 
 As small as the round black seed of a pear ! 
 
 And oh, how it roars as it bustles and bounds 
 
 From the very jaws of the fairy hounds. 
 
 Down the valley, and everywhere. 
 
 Up the hill-side far and near. 
 
 With a silver call and a faint fanfare. 
 
 And a 'Ride him down!' and a *Lend me your 
 
 spear!'; 
 Till, suddenly, thrice, and loud, and clear, 
 A cock crows into the frosty air, 
 28 
 
And the little man with cap of red 
 Waves his lantern above his head. 
 
 So ... ! One by one the stars turn white, 
 
 So . . . ! Cloaked and sandalled, through the 
 
 night, 
 Before you know it, in cowl of gray, 
 Strides the bearded palmer, day. 
 The forest is still, but the old black oak 
 Stir in their sleep and chuckle and choke. 
 . . . Hist: hark! What was that? 
 Hu-ush ! Hu-ush ! Only the cat. 
 
 29 
 
From a Tuscan Song 
 
 If I were dead a little and could hear, 
 
 In the dawn hour, the cock crow clear 
 
 Above the damp and quiet smell of field and yard, 
 
 Dear Heart, this dying were not then so very hard. 
 
 If I were dead a httle, and the night 
 Would show me, in the empty stars, your light 
 Glimmering below from under sheltering bhnds, 
 Even the winds would warm me — even the winds. 
 
 Sweet is the good black earth; the hours 
 Spread in my heart like open August flowers: 
 To die a long, long way were lonely, lonely: 
 Could I not die a little way only? 
 
 30 
 
Pierrot at War 
 
 (1915) 
 
 A YEAR ago in Carnival 
 
 We danced till break of day; 
 
 A year ago in Carnival 
 
 The boulevards were gay, 
 
 And roses shook the whispering air 
 
 With a great sibilant soft fanfare. 
 
 In Carnival, in Carnival, 
 
 A Prince of Magic comes. 
 
 To the sound of fifes, and the sound of horns, 
 
 And the sound of little drums. 
 
 A year ago in Carnival 
 
 The lamps along the quays 
 
 Lay sweeter on the misty night 
 
 Than stars in leafy trees; 
 
 And down the ribboned, sparkling street, 
 
 Pierrot ran on twinkling feet. 
 
 Ah year, there is no Carnival! 
 
 The north burns dusky red. 
 
 And on the white of Pierrot's brow 
 
 Is a long scar instead; 
 
 While ever the muttering runs 
 
 From the bleeding lips of the guns. . . . 
 
 This year, this year at Carnival 
 
 A Prince of Magic comes, 
 
 With blood-red crest against the sky 
 
 And a snarl of angry drums. 
 
 31 
 
All Night Through 
 
 Quick as the tread of summer rain 
 
 Is the stir and whisper of the grain: 
 
 All night through 
 
 The road is sweet 
 
 And rhythmic with the murmurous wheat: 
 
 All night through, as wind, my heart 
 
 Seems of summer winds a part; 
 
 And my lips are cool with dew. 
 
 Cool as the evening Hps of you. 
 
 Straight ahead the dark trees bend, 
 
 And over the hill, where they make an end. 
 
 All night through, 
 
 A guinea moon 
 
 Swings in a measured rigadoon: 
 
 Drifting cloud and swaying leaf. 
 
 And, subtly sweet in the hedge's sheaf, 
 
 The dancing note of a cricket, too. 
 
 Like the little dancing laugh of you. 
 
 All night through. 
 
 Till dawn is come. 
 
 With a ruffle of song like a ruffling drum 
 
 — ^The sky is blue — 
 
 And over the down. 
 
 To a dancing cove and a spired town, 
 
 And a long ship putting out to sea. 
 
 My dancing feet are taking me. 
 
 And now that it's day, with a job to do, 
 
 Do you think FU forget, or remember you? 
 
 32 
 
Non Omnis Moriar 
 
 This we can say, when all is said and done, 
 We have seen great days, you and I together. 
 Days when the loosed winds danced before the sun. 
 And the gray plains shook with galloping weather. 
 
 This we can say when weariness is ours. 
 Cooler than rain when the noons are sere with heat. 
 Dusk has crept up to us and night changed to stars, 
 And the dim hours sped on dew-clad feet. 
 
 Sped, till the wind blew dawn again, and we 
 Turned to the hills that brought us near the sky: 
 Love, with the days that have passed beyond decree. 
 Much that is part of us can never wholly die. 
 
 33 
 
City Trees 
 
 I MIND me well an elm that grew 
 
 Here at the corner; and a square above 
 
 A slender maple kindly threw 
 
 Its shade for goodly men long dead: 
 
 On April mornings in the spread 
 
 Of branch and leaf and dehcate spire, 
 
 Sparrows gave greeting to their kind, 
 
 Or joined in shrill cacophonous choir: 
 
 And when the sky was very blue. 
 
 The soft green stir that one looked through, 
 
 Was suddenly a gracious thing 
 
 To country eyes and country hearts 
 
 Weary of waiting for the spring. 
 
 The early summer nights of rain, 
 
 When clouded moons came back again, 
 
 Found all the new washed silent street 
 
 Bosky with scent of dripping boughs, 
 
 Distilled and overpoweringly sweet; 
 
 And perfume hung upon the pave 
 
 From either side, for gardens gave. 
 
 High walled with brick, of secret mien. 
 
 Upon the uneven, echoing flag, 
 
 A shadowy crown of fragrant green. 
 
 Here were set apple tree and pear. 
 
 And quince, and heavy on the air. 
 
 Magnolias raised their wax-wraith cup, 
 
 Drinking the falHng star-light up. 
 
 Year after year, and yet below. 
 
 Youth changed to age, and age to slow 
 
 Inevitable hearse and crawling carriages — 
 
 34 
 
Birth, burial, sorrow, laughter, marriages — 
 Till now, indeed — I wondered then — 
 If trees grow weary of much men; 
 Weary of old recurrent change. 
 And long as men do for a wind 
 Over a high white mountain range; 
 Or, country bred, they miss the hush 
 Of morning meadows, cool and lush, 
 Where, in the place of ragged sparrows. 
 The singing birds, lark, robin, vireo, 
 Drop their melodic silver arrows 
 Straight to the heart of quivering boughs; 
 Or perhaps the quiet munching cows 
 On summer nights, the little sounds. 
 Snuffling and breathing, pressing close. 
 The white sheep make upon their rounds: 
 And if drab women decked to please 
 Are not sad sights for good green trees. 
 
 35 
 
Trinity 
 
 There were three things I loved to see 
 When evening walked along with me; 
 The crowded street, and the leafy Square, 
 And the high tower of Trinity. 
 
 The drab sprawled city seemed to soar 
 A breathless moment toward the sky: 
 And ever since, when dusk is by, 
 The crowded street comes back to me 
 And the rose-gray of Trinity. 
 
 A single shaft above the Square, 
 And here and there and everywhere, 
 The soft scent of April rain 
 And little pools of wet aflare. 
 
 36 
 
The House 
 
 Here in this house my father lived, 
 Here on the corner facing west, 
 The tall white stoop knew much of him 
 And led to all that loved him best. 
 
 Once was a garden by the side. 
 Where we would sit in sunny May, 
 To hear him tell of wondrous things 
 In his gay, quiet, humorous way. 
 
 And I recall his brown bright beard. 
 The slow and graceful strength of him. 
 The heavy lidded eyes of gray; 
 Yes, even those are not yet dim. 
 
 Nor dim the breathless night I crept 
 Into the shadowy room apart. 
 And found a shadow lying there 
 That stopped the beating of my heart. 
 
 I cannot pass the corner now, 
 So full it is of memory; 
 And of the garden where we sat. 
 Smug jewel shops make mockery: 
 
 And I must wonder if, at night, 
 Between the trinkets cold as death, 
 The shadow of a little boy 
 Still weeps with stricken breath. 
 
 37 
 
Drifting 
 
 Sun-drift, cloud-drift, drifting fall of light, 
 Drifting into Metatsee with the scent of night 
 Sweet upon a hundred hills; 
 Fragrant where the valley fills 
 With a whirr of wild wings lake-ward bound in 
 flight. 
 
 Star-drift, moon-drift, drifting pony feet, 
 Through the white plaza, where the four roads 
 
 meet; 
 In the purple dusk about. 
 Yellow lights come slowly out, 
 Drift in little pools of gold across a silver street. 
 
 Sage-drift, dew-drift, drifting scent of flowers. 
 Drifting out of Metatsee in the morning hours; 
 All the world ahead of you, 
 Cool with birds and meadow-dew, 
 Straight to where along the west a white peak 
 towers. 
 
 38 
 
Question 
 
 When it is warm I know the quiet flowers 
 Content you through the dreaming summer hours; 
 But when it rains, it rains, my dear, instead. 
 How can I bear to know that you are dead ? 
 
 39 
 
The Bird 
 
 There is a bird that sings at night, 
 
 A soft note, a sudden note, 
 
 As if, with half awakened throat, 
 
 It could not keep its sweetness in. . . . 
 
 I think sometimes the bird is you. 
 
 There was a time you sang at night: 
 
 little songs that talked of spring ! 
 But now so much I hear you sing, 
 
 1 think sometimes the bird is you. 
 
 I think no melody is lost. 
 
 Nor loveliness for very long. 
 
 For in the place where beauty walked, 
 
 A budding tree is like a song. 
 
 And when a heart is touched with flowers. 
 
 Is there not music through the hours ? 
 
 Is there not music where you went. 
 And singing down each mountain trail. 
 And echoes that are never spent. 
 And silver words that never fail? 
 
 40 
 
The Companion 
 
 Now am I nevermore afraid; 
 
 I have cast out fear; 
 
 Since you, who were part of me, are dead. 
 
 And therefore near: 
 
 Since you, who are part of me, are wise 
 
 Beyond all hope and pain, 
 
 I shall walk with my face to the stars. 
 
 And look up at them again. 
 
 There are nights when I ride alone: 
 
 In the unstirred dew. 
 
 There will be feet that leave no mark, 
 
 And yet are you; 
 
 And I shall be glad for their sound, 
 
 I shall have no choice. 
 
 For the winds will be you accompanying me, 
 
 And the silence use your voice. 
 
 41 
 
Princeton— 1917 
 
 Like to a mother who watches for her sons, 
 Sons whose voices may never come again, 
 Hour on hour on hour that laggard runs. 
 You watch these grave gray winter nights of rain. 
 
 O Beautiful 
 
 We who have loved you when the spring is lit, 
 And breaks in flame along the western hills; 
 When every hollow place and damp sweet bit 
 Of woodland red arbutus spills, 
 And in the valley all the apple trees 
 Tremble in loveliness before the breeze; 
 O Beautiful, your beauty was of Hght, 
 Now more than beautiful, since it is dark and 
 night. 
 
 Stern as a mother whose sons are outward borne. 
 On some far quest that ends beside the grail. 
 You will remember them, lost and battle-torn. 
 Recalling their voices, their steps; nor ever fail. 
 
 Beautiful 
 
 1 think on April nights, 
 
 On April nights when all the world is green. 
 And soft with open windows and with lights. 
 They will come back where now their dreams have 
 
 been. 
 Walking again the paths they knew so well — 
 And, as the hours grow quieter and long. 
 Shake out their hearts once more in silent song. 
 42 
 
Words 
 
 Some day when I am well content. 
 When I have paid the uttermost rent, 
 Paid the butcher, paid the cook, 
 rU write a leafy, shadowy book; 
 A book so quiet, clear, and cool 
 The words will rest you like a pool. 
 And thirsty folk, who need a drink. 
 Will come and buy that book — I think. 
 
 Some day when I am very rich, 
 
 I'll hire a private, grass grown ditch. 
 
 With silver maples bending over 
 
 A secret amplitude of clover. 
 
 And just a bit of blue mud, so 
 
 Blue butterflies can come and go. 
 
 . . . Over and under and round and together, 
 
 Lazy as thoughts in lazy weather: 
 
 And into my mind, sweet word on word 
 
 Will flutter and stir there; gracious, absurd; 
 
 Quaintly beautiful, stately, gay; 
 
 And after a little while fly away. 
 
 And I shall not hold them, shall not care, 
 
 Simply be glad that they once were there. 
 
 ... I shan't be even sorry, I think, 
 
 I killed them Monday last with ink. 
 
 When I've done all the work I should, 
 I'll buy a thick and tangled wood, 
 And lie behind a thorn and peer 
 At the travellers on the highroad near; 
 43 
 
But ril have my ears stuffed up with cotton 
 
 So's not to hear their talk besotten. 
 
 And if perchance they trespass there, 
 
 I'll lose them; Fll have everywhere 
 
 Signs to guide them wrong; one item, 
 
 A gentle bear I know to bite 'em. 
 
 Never a sound, but like a tune 
 
 Will come the damp cool smell of June, 
 
 Come from hidden hollows where 
 
 Primrose grows with maidenhair. 
 
 And all the afternoon of glades 
 
 Is misty with sunUght and cascades. 
 
 Out of the ultimate heart of trees 
 
 ril get me quiet and dreams and ease. 
 
 . . . Quiet? They say the best of quiet 
 Is found in heaven — Some day I'll try it. 
 
 44 
 
Friend of Mine 
 
 Friend of Mine, come back again. 
 Now the spring is soft with rain; 
 Rain that walks with shining feet 
 Up the shadowy, lamp-Ht street. 
 See, in every pool the showers 
 Widen into water-flowers; 
 And the skirts of night are wet 
 With hyacinth and mignonette. 
 Friend of Mine, come back again, 
 Here's the spring once more; and rain. 
 
 45 
 
Silver Feet 
 
 (To N. B.; at. 6) 
 
 All because of silver feet, slippers shod with light 
 
 and dew, 
 Somewhere on the highroad there's a spring for 
 
 you; 
 Such a clear and shining pool, maples bending 
 
 over, 
 With a blackbird lately come from a field of clover. 
 
 Silver feet, roaming feet, feet forever skimming. 
 
 You will rest at noon beside the cool water brim- 
 ming; 
 
 Cup your hands to drink it with; in the mirror 
 deep 
 
 Watch your eyes grow round and rounder till you 
 fall asleep. 
 
 Rain will wake you up at four, gentle and persis- 
 tent. 
 
 Make the hills you're travelling to, misty-far and 
 distant; 
 
 Never mind, the road's the thing, that, and silver 
 shoon, 
 
 Midday with a waiting spring; evening with the 
 moon. 
 
 46 
 
Night is the Time! 
 
 Night is the time ! Look out and see; 
 Out of your window is mystery. 
 
 Lean far out, and leaning far, 
 
 Look down at the earth and up at a star. 
 
 There is no earth, for in between 
 Sways a shadow deep and green; 
 
 And this makes all the odder still. 
 
 The bark of a dog on a neighboring hill; 
 
 The sound of footsteps coming near; 
 The talk of two lovers, soft and clear: 
 
 Someone whistles; someone calls; 
 Somehow utter silence falls: 
 
 Until, far off, a voice once more. 
 And unseen laughter passes your door. 
 
 That is the lovely thing about night. 
 
 You see without hearing, and hear without sight. 
 
 For if you turn your head to the sky. 
 Quite unheard the crowd goes by: 
 
 Never a sound from the rustling wind; 
 
 And the close warm mystery leaves your mind; 
 
 Quiet and far and very bright. 
 The unheard star fills all the night. 
 47 
 
Desert Hours 
 
 There comes at times by pallid noon a breeze, 
 
 And in the eager moment following after, 
 
 A sudden scent of far off pines that dream. 
 
 Blue-shadowed by a secret mountain stream. 
 
 Above sun-places shaken with luminous laughter: 
 
 Or in the hot-lipped canon we descend, 
 
 So hid and rapturous our caught breath's a prayer, 
 
 Finding lost azure unaware. 
 
 Is lupin, under firs that bend 
 
 Curved to a windless south. . . . 
 
 These only, and the heat and dust; 
 
 Heat, dust, mirage, slow plodding hoofs. 
 
 Mirage and dust and toil; yet, soon; 
 
 Hours that never end; yet very soon, 
 
 Dusk stirs the afternoon. 
 
 And sweeps on purple wings towards the dark — 
 
 And hark! 
 
 Here sings an unexpected lark! 
 
 Sings once ! Sings once again ! 
 
 Cool, cool! O silver throated rain! 
 
 48 
 
Lullaby to be Sung to Mothers 
 
 If I had my way, as way I should, 
 You'd live in a house of polished wood; 
 Rugs on the floor, and color on the wall 
 And a scent of rosemary over all. 
 
 You'd sleep in a bed of eiderdown 
 Men would come for to see from the town. 
 While women would stare and jealous grow 
 At sheet and counterpane smooth as snow. 
 
 And O you would sleep so well, my dear; 
 Long as the hours, and as soft, and as clear, 
 As stars that hang in a velvet night 
 To make for you a candle light. 
 
 Never a care, nor 'bothersome stuff,' 
 Save perhaps if the grass had dew enough, 
 Or perhaps if the flowers were tended by the bee 
 And the house was furnished with rosemary. 
 
 Prettily, properly, silver-white 
 As the new half-moon on a young June night. 
 Your hair would turn, but your heart still run 
 Like a child's first laughter when the day's begun. 
 
 Never a care? Ah well, let's see! 
 
 There'd be always your son, O mother of me. 
 
 49 
 
The Pursuit 
 
 Down the road 
 
 Between the trees, 
 
 In the new-moon time of May, 
 
 Lighter than the small light breeze, 
 
 Whiter than anemonies, 
 
 Whiter than shy waterfalls 
 
 Where in summer white moths stir, 
 
 SHm, and clad in mysteries, 
 
 Was the dim far shape of her. 
 
 Music seemed 
 To underlie 
 
 All the sudden startled night; 
 Music which, so faint and high, 
 Here and distant, passing by. 
 Halts the lonely traveller 
 When at evening he has strayed 
 Near some sylphic revelry 
 In a hidden forest glade. 
 
 Music faint, 
 And sweeter far 
 Than the honey-noted flute. 
 In a place where viols are. 
 Where long windows make a bar. 
 Yellow, dancing in the night; 
 And the cypress shadows mark, 
 And a pool that holds a star. 
 Some enclosed and secret park. 
 
 50 
 
Blossoms pale 
 
 With moon and spring 
 
 Lapped the forest edge about, 
 
 And there went a magic thing, 
 
 Not a breeze, but whispering. 
 
 Through the patterned aisles and vales; 
 
 Through the meadows where the grass. 
 
 Bright with daisies in a ring. 
 
 Did not stir to let her pass. 
 
 Surely where 
 
 Her feet had gone 
 
 There would be a silvery trace: 
 
 Surely when the moon was high 
 
 She would turn and show her face: 
 
 Surely by some cryptic stream 
 
 She would pause and rest awhile. 
 
 Till the water troubled be 
 
 With her hid unknown smile. 
 
 Swifter than 
 
 The night-jar flings 
 
 His small body to the moon; 
 
 Swifter than the gossamer wings 
 
 That the dusk of August brings 
 
 Over water-lilied pools; 
 
 Swift, O swiftly down the hill. 
 
 Up where tangled grape-vine swings. 
 
 Sped her going; speeds it still. 
 
 No pursuing 
 Feet can win 
 51 
 
Ever a glimpse of her shy brow; 
 Lost the hidden forest in, 
 Trapped as if with deHcate gin, 
 Sore perplexed the hunter bides; 
 Till the stars begin to fade; 
 Till the dawn, where she had been, 
 Finds him lonely and afraid. 
 
 52 
 
Morning 
 
 Mist along the water willows, stealing, feeling ! 
 
 . . . A drowsy bird; silence; then blowing, 
 
 His thin small silver trumpet on the air, 
 
 A cock, loud crowing ! 
 
 O unknown whisper down the trees; 
 
 Dawn wind; the white dawn breeze; 
 
 Or night wind going ! 
 
 Rising, growing, 
 
 Dying ! 
 
 Again the cool gray silence and the cool 
 
 Fragrance of reeds from green enfringed pool. 
 
 An emerald light touches the hills. 
 
 And slowly, up, and eastward fills 
 
 The sky with crimson: 
 
 Slowly . . . till . . . there, where spired pines are 
 
 blue; 
 Here where the moss is wet with dew; 
 One edge of a yellow sun looks through ! 
 
 At a distance are heard the pipes of a faun: 
 "Cool and sweet! Cool and sweet! Meadow 
 
 and hill my flute notes greet ! 
 Sweet and cool, sweet and cool, water dripping 
 
 in amber pool !" 
 
 Suddenly the pellucid silence awakes to sound: 
 Twigs snap, insects hum, a meadow-lark sings; 
 From the depths of the woods comes the liquid 
 
 chanting of a thrush: 
 The sound of water is audible. 
 53 
 
Faun pipes (drowsily): 
 
 '*Dew is wet, dew is wet, on lace of fern and 
 
 spider's net; 
 Water sings, water sings, and the ousel dips 
 
 her wet gray wings V 
 
 O sun, after the little death of sleep. 
 And, all forgot, the finished gift of dreams. 
 Once more to see thy quivering radiance leap 
 Across the misty mountains, and the streams 
 T^urning once more their cataracts to Hght ! . . . 
 
 Faun pipes (sleepily): 
 
 "Drowsy sweet, drowsy sweet; the light is 
 
 warm on flower and wheat : 
 Cool the shade, cool the shade, and deep, deep 
 
 green the forest glade ! " 
 
 54 
 
Ill 
 
The Reformer 
 
 I DO not know what keenness and delight, 
 
 What Httle moons, and stars, what summer night 
 
 Have passed you by, and going, left unheard 
 
 Silence and music and the drowsy bird. 
 
 Is there no thrill, no meagre thrill at all. 
 
 In April, when the bland young evenings fall; 
 
 And evening and the dusk and lighted street 
 
 Soften and yellow and expand and meet? 
 
 There is a great wide highway where in spring 
 
 Shop window, pavement, warm wet asphalt sing 
 
 With whispering romances after dark. . . . 
 
 And have you heard girls' laughter in the park? 
 
 I know — ! You see beneath to tears and lust: 
 
 O poor bHnd prophet of the sterile dust ! 
 
 Here is the fruitful earth, and rain, and sun; 
 
 And old things dead, and new begun; 
 
 And. death is a beginning, and the soil 
 
 Is diligent with death and blood and toil; 
 
 And laughter, and good wine, and children's voices. 
 
 And quiet age that sees the end of choices. 
 
 Bad, fine, indifferent; all forgot. 
 
 Now that the pulse is cool, no longer hot. 
 
 Where old folk sit and watch the western skies 
 
 With patient, waiting, gravely humorous eyes. 
 
 Here's fabric too; color without and in; 
 
 And yet you see them both an ultimate sin. 
 
 Texture and hue of comely wife and maid 
 
 Poor love, drab, sordid, dirty, all afraid ! 
 
 While there beyond your dullness and your fear 
 
 Is all the loveliness of lip and ear, 
 
 57 
 
And smooth white skin, and flowing lines that talk 
 Like rhythmed music in the gracious walk. 
 Have you no sense of love's great plenitude: 
 Largesse for every moment and each mood? 
 Your dreary women answer all I ask; 
 Slaves of the cradle, unsought bed, and task. 
 And wine! that ruddy gift of autumn hills; 
 When every land with dancing sunshine fills, 
 And up and down the valleys in the wheat 
 The flutes of old half slumbering gods are sweet ! 
 Blood of the earth, and secret of earth's veins; 
 Mixture of sun and cobwebbed dawns and rains ! 
 O little man, when once you come to die. 
 And stand bemused and shaken by the sky. 
 How will you bear the laughter on your head 
 Of all the great, full bodied, splendid dead? 
 
 58 
 
To a Friend Recently Married 
 
 Johnny O'May; Johnny O'May, 
 What did you say to her? What did you say? 
 "I told her my heart was as big as the moon." 
 Why, Johnny ! it's naught but a golden doubloon 1 
 
 Johnny O'May, Johnny O'May, 
 
 How did you win her, this girl like a spray 
 
 Caught from a hedge when the hawthorn's in 
 
 bloom 
 **I swore that Vd live like a new garnished room." 
 
 Johnny O'May; John of the May, 
 It's time you were down on your knees for to pray : 
 They'll dance to the dawn before they are wed, 
 But John, when they're married, what's said to 
 them's said. 
 
 Johnny O'May; Johnny O'May 
 Now you've the brown eyes, what of the gray? 
 No more will you pipe the stars out of the sky: 
 Well . . . maybe you'll climb to them, John, by 
 and by. 
 
 59 
 
K. N. B. 
 
 This is a great gift, 
 
 So keen, so swift, 
 
 The gift that is yours of the heart of a boy: 
 
 Fluid and leaping, crystal clear. 
 
 Song of a bird; a flute note near; 
 
 With the Hft of it, laugh of it, hit of it, joy, 
 
 The eager heart that is yours of a boy. 
 
 Ah, it is brave, that eager heart you have; 
 Here's the savour of springtime sure; 
 With all the light of the break of the day in it. 
 And all the thrust of a sea wind gay in it, 
 Over the blue-white noon of a moor. 
 
 Sail will we on to the march of the waters; 
 Climb will we up where the world thins out; 
 Aye, and run will we down the heather. 
 Through life's long fields in rainy weather. 
 With a great wind blowing our hearts about. 
 
 60 
 
Mr. Latimer 
 
 I THINK it's fine to be so rich 
 That one can be eternally rude, 
 Whenever one is out of sorts; 
 In other words, to buy one's mood. 
 
 I think it's righteous, your contempt. 
 Patrician, delicate, always true. 
 For people who wear shabby clothes. 
 Have shabby homes; don't eat like you. 
 
 Of course it's obvious anyone 
 
 Can have green lawns; you subtly guess 
 
 To live in dingy houses is 
 
 A sign of spiritual carelessness. 
 
 A secret nastiness resides 
 In those whose women are unkempt; 
 Women are sleek, and white, and jewels 
 Were fashioned for their ornament. 
 
 But there's one danger always in 
 The journeys of the self-sufficed; 
 Suppose one night you lose your way 
 And in a stable sneer at Christ? 
 
 6i 
 
Now you are dead, so much apart, so dead, 
 I find I cannot think of all you were; 
 The glamour of your eyes, nor how the stir 
 Was ever near of wings your lifted head: 
 So ! and the room you entered in 
 Became a place of stars instead ! 
 
 Your fame, your words, I half forget; I spill 
 All of my heart in little things it seems: 
 I share with half a world your singing dreams 
 But you; ah you, I cannot share until. 
 Some sudden fooHsh memory takes my heart. 
 Bidding it leap and falter and lie still. 
 
 62 
 
And Adah Bare Jabal: 
 
 He was the father of such as dwell 
 in tents, and of such as have cattle. 
 (To D.N.) 
 
 Lord, I give thanks for myriad gifts 
 
 That I have tasted, touched, and seen; 
 
 Spring, when with deHcate shy steps 
 
 It treads a valley, and the green 
 
 Of quivering aspen trees is laughter 
 
 Of leaves above the loosed streams after. 
 
 Thanks for young grass, when blade on blade, 
 
 Tender for cattle being made. 
 
 . . . Lord, it's a goodly sight 
 
 To watch the big herds graze by night. 
 
 And when the summer comes amain. 
 The swift, the cool, the occasional rain ! 
 And all those breathless moments when 
 Your wings are very close to men ! 
 How often do I watch where speaks 
 The thunder to the listening peaks; 
 Shoulder to shoulder, watch them raise 
 Their giant heads; in those hot days. 
 When I have borne the drought of sorrow, 
 Came, well I knew, a green to-morrow. 
 
 Lord, In the valley, after rain. 
 
 Do you recall that smell of grain.? . . . 
 
 I even thank you for the snow; 
 The winter nights I rode, for so 
 63 
 
I grew more close to frost and stars. 
 And when, beyond my pasture bars, 
 I came to where the cattle lay, 
 I learned the precious gift of hay: 
 All humble, all unconscious things; 
 How tenderness like beauty stings. 
 I understood why you should be 
 Reborn with beasts for company. 
 
 And after, when a lamp was lit; 
 
 And after, when a fire was warm; 
 
 I knew why men should suffer cold; 
 
 I knew why men should suffer storm; 
 
 I even knew why death is here. 
 
 Since death makes life more close and dear; 
 
 And how, when death at length betideth. 
 
 Death is but warmth that long abideth. 
 
 I would not miss one wound, O Lord, 
 
 Made with your clean, stern, merciful sword. 
 
 . . . O Lord, you mind that day last Fall 
 We heard the great elk bugles call? 
 
 64 
 
The Ouija Player 
 
 Poor faded, fat, bemused idealist. 
 
 Eager for lips long dead you once have kissed, 
 
 You think that heaven at last youVe really caught 
 
 Within this varnished square so newly bought? 
 
 You think the shining dead can be detained 
 
 By anxious flabby muscles, over-strained? 
 
 Ah no; if death is anything but death. 
 
 Cease troubling, save your eyes, your questioning 
 
 breath; 
 Save them for life, that in the end you be 
 For all the sensible dead fit company. 
 
 65 
 
Uncle Jim 
 
 Uncle Jim with snow clad peak 
 Played a life-long hide and seek; 
 Dug in every rocky fold 
 For a trace of hidden gold; 
 Sometimes, very seldom, 'struck,' 
 Usually *was out of luck'; 
 But, meanwhile, the hills and he 
 Came to a marvelous harmony. 
 
 Every spring with pack and pick, 
 Bag of flour, blanket thick. 
 And a large tobacco can 
 Just as comfort for a man. 
 He would take the higher trails 
 With the soft May-laden gales. 
 Birds were singing as he went; 
 Brooks were white and turbulent. 
 
 In the mountain meadows where 
 He would pitch his camp, the air 
 Bore a resinous warm scent; 
 Juniper with grasses blent; 
 And his waking eye could see 
 Ranges like eternity. 
 Golden stars for supper mates: 
 That is not the worst of fates. 
 
 Nor the worst of fates to die 
 Quietly beneath the sky; 
 August, and your tools and bars 
 66 
 
Laid in order like the stars; 
 Handy every pick and pan, 
 Handy for a mining man, 
 When *the great analysist' 
 Shall each 'sample' weigh and list. 
 
 Uncle Jim, I know you hold 
 
 Now the very crock of gold 
 
 In your hands, while at your knee 
 
 Angels listen breathlessly: 
 
 How you found at Coeur d'Alene 
 
 That big * pesky' triple vein: 
 
 How that August night you dreamed 
 
 Thunder Mountain yellow gleamed. 
 
 67 
 
Mr. Smithers 
 
 Mr. Smithers wears a ring, 
 
 A heavy, brilliant, ruby thing; 
 
 And Mr. Smithers' hands are white, 
 
 So that the nails reflect the light; 
 
 The four-worlds bring, in fact, their booty 
 
 To add to Smithers' well-kept beauty. 
 
 Once, when we were having tea, 
 Mr. Smithers talked to me; 
 On a terrace, velvet sod. 
 Under a sky that spoke of God; 
 Just before the wandering light 
 Sowed the poppies of the night. 
 
 From a horizon heather blue. 
 High, heart stirring, called to you 
 Distant hills and in between. 
 Sloping fields stretched tender green; 
 One could almost see the day 
 Open wide its arms and pray. 
 
 Mr. Smithers thoughtfully 
 Lit a cigar and talked to me. 
 
 "All this rot,'* said Mr. Smithers, 
 "Blows to dust and quickly withers 
 With a breath of commonsense; 
 I mean this brotherly pretence. 
 If a man's a man, then — ^well — 
 He'll make his *pile' in spite of hell. 
 68 
 
Don't, of course, misunderstand me; 
 
 I pay out checks when they command me: 
 
 For any worthy cause or reason 
 
 My purse is wide at every season. 
 
 Charity becomes *the classes'; 
 
 As for 'the masses' — ^well — they're 'masses/ 
 
 You know, my boy, as well as I 
 That all a man need do is try; 
 The world has never had enough 
 Of the right kind of mental stuff: 
 Instead of milk and water cooing, 
 We need more blood and iron doing. 
 
 (Mr. Smithers' hands are quite, 
 
 I think I said, large, soft, and white.) 
 
 Cent for cent the world rewards 
 The valiant heart, the trusty swords; 
 Look — I ask you modestly — 
 Look at my friends, and — ^well, at me! 
 Talk of Rome ? Well, now, our story 
 Reflects, I think, an equal glory. 
 
 (An ancient Smithers, so I'm told, 
 Made from soap the Smithers' gold.) 
 
 But what could I do, when he talked to me, 
 
 Save drink the younger Smithers' tea? 
 
 Smile, and nod, and watch the dark 
 
 Creep across the elm-sweet park; 
 
 And wonder why, with lavish hand, 
 
 God gives to each the springtime land. 
 
 69 
 
Gives to each man the stars and night; 
 The yellow dawn, the tremulous light; 
 The Httle flowers, all gold and free; 
 The great thunder; the straight tree; 
 The whole round world, when it by right 
 Belonged to Smithers, large and white. 
 
 And, though no doubt a stupid sign, 
 I thought of ancient friends of mine; 
 Of camp fires, where the ruddy dome 
 Makes the whispering night a home; 
 Of bearded farmer men; and great 
 Glad souls that swarm the slopes of Fate. 
 
 There was a boy — Richard Grael 
 
 We'll call him — slim, lithe, golden pale. 
 
 Whose heart was tears, quick smiles, hot strife, 
 
 So much it was a harp of life; 
 
 He died half starved; but now he's dead, 
 
 His verse is very widely read. 
 
 And there was, grizzled, bent and dumb. 
 That old Swiss gardener, Carlos Strumm. 
 Or was it Strumm ? — I've half forgot. 
 All save his passion and the hot 
 Fine love of him for all that grew. 
 Swam, budded, fluttered, sapped or flew. 
 
 An ignorant fellow; slow of speech; 
 
 But he could teach ! — Man, he could teach ! 
 
 While out across the wide gray plains, 
 In desert dust, or mountain rains, 
 70 
 
Thin flanked, high booted, tight of Hp, 
 
 With a swing Hke a verse to the turn of a hip. 
 
 Are all the silent, hawkey ed crew 
 
 Of the men I knew — the men I knew ! 
 
 (. . . Mr. Smithers' recompense 
 Never reached them — not in cents.) 
 
 "Lucky" Sharpe, I saw him fling. 
 
 Where great white waters whimper and swing. 
 
 His horse head first and, swimming, free 
 
 A small black dog from a drowning tree: 
 
 A small black dog who never whined. 
 
 For his men, he knew, were ready and kind. 
 
 Or take a rope, so harmless seeming. 
 One finds in a moment the devil teeming 
 With death, bite, sear and burn; 
 "Shorty" sHpped his fist in a turn 
 And saved a leg, but a stump hand wears: 
 From the same, the Smithers' ruby stares. 
 
 As I have said, the dusk was near; 
 
 The black far hills grew sharp and clear; 
 
 A robin sang; the locust trees 
 
 Were sweeter than the evening breeze; 
 
 While from a neighboring hidden wood. 
 
 The ignorant frogs sang: "Good! Good! Good!" 
 
 Mr. Smithers thoughtfully 
 Flung his cigar at a lilac tree. 
 
 71 
 
Advice to a Modern Puritan 
 
 Jonathan Edwards, wonderful man, 
 Had an extremely workable plan; 
 Seventy years or so of life. 
 Seventy years of church and wife, 
 Seventy years without much laughter, 
 But oh the joys of the life hereafter ! 
 Jonathan Edwards' recompense 
 Was a highly ethereal bacchic sense. 
 
 Jonathan Edwards thought of heaven 
 As a place where decorous folk get even: 
 Lyres and harps and fiddlers many, 
 Merry-go-rounds and chuck-a-penny. 
 Pasty pies of every sort, 
 And, after each slice, a glass of port; 
 Served where you sit on a roseate cloud 
 Telling jokes in a voice loud. 
 
 Space was a golden bowHng alley; 
 Young archangels kept the tally; 
 Shining worlds were the distant pins. 
 Planets and comets bumped your shins, 
 And you used a rounded star as a ball. 
 And watched it tumble and roll and fall. 
 In short, the Jonathan Edwards plan 
 Demanded a large two-legged man. 
 
 Jonathan Edwards never meant 
 
 That life and death should both be spent 
 
 Thinly, whitely, undecided; 
 
 72 
 
Shrinkingly, wearily, all divided: 
 Heaven he knew remarkably well, 
 And he also had his respect for hell. 
 Jonathan Edwards, great and spleenic, 
 Was certainly never a neurasthenic. 
 
 73 
 
J. G. H. : President 
 
 A GREAT love makes a great man, 
 And a great man has a great love; 
 And I think there has never been a lover 
 Greater than you of the place you serve. 
 
 Princeton. 
 
 74 
 
Primavera 
 
 (To My Daughter upon Reacning Four) 
 
 The time is April, and a cloud, 
 Round as a little puff of song, 
 Sails in a sky of palest blue. 
 Sped by an urchin wind along. 
 
 While down the viridescent slope. 
 The silly lambs, with wrinkled faces. 
 Dance like a band of young white stars 
 In green, horizon, twilight spaces. 
 
 An unkempt meadow, half awake. 
 Wears as a crown a daisied ring: 
 Some tiny Pan has found her out. 
 While she, the sloth, was slumbering. 
 
 We cannot trace the piping yet. 
 The odd fresh piping over the hill, 
 But if we walk till dusk, I think 
 That, hand in hand, we will. 
 
 75 
 
The Good Dean: Humanist 
 
 (A. F. W.) 
 
 Men grow like buildings, 
 
 And like buildings, men 
 
 Take on the color of sky and earth and grass; 
 
 And books within, and pictures, and rich glass; 
 
 And, here, a dream upstanding, so we mark 
 
 A tower that catches heaven Hke a lark. 
 
 Dreams are a splendour when they break 
 In blossom as a valley shaken with May; 
 And dreams are warming when they keep 
 The man who dreams as young as yesterday. 
 
 Youth wrote the language of the world. 
 Aye, even if poets reach seventy-seven. 
 And all the books, and all the songs: 
 The earth is young, and so is heaven. 
 
 And some quaint childish mind first wondered 
 What stars were, and why one was one. 
 And two made two, and why it thundered; 
 And why the riddle was begun. 
 
 Men grow like buildings. 
 
 And like buildings, men 
 
 Are m.eagre and cold; or mellow and filled with 
 
 shade 
 Of courtyards where new trees grow unafraid; 
 Of cloisters, where youth ponders to be wise. 
 And wisdom walks with eager, amiable eyes. 
 
 76 
 
Brown Men 
 
 On sultry days by river front, 
 Behind the forest of the sHps, 
 The world is heavy with Malay 
 And the redolence of ships; 
 And in the darkened parlor-bar, 
 Sun-browned men and hairy are. 
 Who tell in voices windlass clear 
 Strange tales of the sea. 
 
 While out, and out, where stars hang low 
 
 And mountain winds forever walk, 
 
 Beside a little fire's glow 
 
 Brown men sit and talk: 
 
 And O, their talk is very fine. 
 
 Slow and acid and heady wine; 
 
 And the tang reaches me. 
 
 Caithness, Cadiz, Frisco Bay, 
 Yokohama, Far Cathay; 
 Saigon, Singapore, Bombay, 
 Port au Prince and Mandalay: — 
 Selkirks, Tetons, Mogollons, 
 Sierra Madres and Shoshones; 
 Pend d'Oreille, Lost River, Nome, 
 Painted Deserts — and back home! 
 
 Trade winds blowing down the blue, 
 'Chinooks' coming up the gale; 
 Barks at anchor, two by two, 
 Cattle feeding in the swale; 
 
 n 
 
Stamp and rattle of the blocks, 
 Surf awash on silver rocks: 
 And brown men, with eagle faces, 
 At their old ways in the old places ! 
 
 78 
 
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