j ''/ ■ in hag mom PJassTS SB 1-5 Rnnk ,AlSV» rmyrighr'N *Vi3 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. POEMS AND BALLADS •Tl *&&& THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO POEMS AND BALLADS By Hermann Hagedorn THE MACMILLAN COMPANY All rights reserved Copyright, 1912, By HERMANN HAGEDORN. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright, 1913, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. New edition with new matter, published October, 1913. Norfccocti 3J3rcss : Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. ©CU354896 TO DOROTHY The thanks of the author are due the Editors of the fol- lowing magazines for permission to reprint the subjoined poems: The Atlantic Monthly, "Death and the Lord," "Rest at Noon 1 ' ; The North American Review, "Doors, 1 ' "The Three False Women of Llanlar"; The Century, " Discovery,' 1 "Fifteen"} The Bookman, "The Boy and the Mother," "Song at Ending Day," and, under a dif- ferent title, "L' Envoi"} and The Outlook, "Music at Twilight," "The Keepers of the Nation." CONTENTS THE INFIDEL .... 3 DEATH AND THE LORD . 12 BROADWAY .... 14 WINGS ..... 15 MONNA VITA .... 22 DOORS ..... 26 abdiel-the-syrian's CHANT OF THE KISS . 27 THE LAST FARING 30 THE WILD ROSE . 35 LANEER . . 37 SONG ..... 45 DISCOVERY .... 46 A CHANT ON THE TERRIBLE HIGHWAY 47 CONVERSE OF ANGELS 51 SONG AT ENDING DAY . 52 SONG AFTER RAIN 54 CONTENTS THE THREE FALSE WOMEN OF LLANLAR REST AT NOON .... ARAB SONG .... MUSIC AT TWILIGHT THE WOOL GATHERER . THE CHASM .... THE COBBLER OF GLAMORGAN . HOLIDAY ..... FIFTEEN ..... THE RHAPSODY OF ABDIEL-THE-SYRIAN FOR HIS BELOVED .... THE MARKETPLACE IN PIEVENICK THE DUKE'S LADYE THE FIGHTING SCRLBE OF IONA . "OUT OF THIS CAGE MY BODY" MEMORY . THE SICKBED ANNP7ERSARY THE PEDDLER 55 62 64 66 67 68 69 82 85 86 92 93 96 99 100 101 102 103 CONTENTS THE DEVIL AND ST. DON AT THE HUMMINGBIRD THE LAST WABANAKI . THE BOY AND THE MOTHER THE CRIER IN THE NIGHT THE KEEPERS OF THE NATION . ON THE SENATE'S REPUDIATION OF AN ABLE COMPACT EPITAPH .... THE VIGIL OF PADRE JUNIPERO SHIPWRECK L' ENVOI .... HONOR- 105 110 112 117 120 124 125 126 127 132 142 POEMS AND BALLADS Hinauf ! Hinauf strebt's. Es schweben die Wolken Abwarts, die Wolken Neigen sich der sehnenden Liebe. Mir ! Mir ! In eurem Schosse Aufvvarts ! Umfangend umfangen! Aufvvarts an deinen Busen, Allliebender Vater! GOETHE. THE INFIDEL (Mexico, 1867) High in the palace a light burns at the fall of night, Burns every eve of the year like the patient lamp in the nave ; And tzvoscore years have passed, but the fame out- lasts the last, As the grave outlasts the fame, and love outlasts the grave. I was a rebel when they brought Their pale Archduke from over sea. I was a rebel and I fought The rotting ages to be free ! I was a rebel, and my thought Strode mid the shapes of things to be. Wild years were those, and I was young. I questioned all things, low and high. The Devil or Saint on every tongue, 3 THE INFIDEL And each glib, comfortable lie To which the ardent faithful clung For death-bed solace by and by. Devil and saint ! Each from his perch Twittered and wooed me. But I trod A hill-road of my own, in search Of days beyond our six-foot sod. The Devil I laughed at, but the Church I loathed. And yet I had my God. The Church ! They scrawled my infant mind With Jesuitics o'er and o'er ; They strove to make me deaf and blind, Lest I should do what once before Prometheus did for humankind And leave a torch at each hut-door ! They foiled me there. But when the war Broke like a wreath of flames about Their dreaming fop of Miramar And burned, and would not be put out — I was the whirlwind and the star, The brain, the sword, the strong redoubt. 4 THE INFIDEL Yet, while I battled for the gleam That lit To-morrow's hopeful eyes, Pale Yesterday her dying dream Showed forth in such alluring guise, Surely I could not help but deem That vision fair beyond surmise. A noblewoman bred in Spain : More exquisite than they who burn Their loves out in a flash of pain With us. Like rose-leaves in an urn Her love was, as in sweet refrain She begged me to my saints return; She begged, and all the glory dead Of what was once the Faith of Christ Shot like a pang through heart and head. And all I loathed, emparadised In her high love, seemed wine and bread; And hollow all that once sufficed. From sea to sea through Mexico From Yucatan to Rio Grande With flaming ploughshare, row on row, 5 THE INFIDEL I harrowed deep my fallow land; And ever, comet- wise, aglow, An instant flashed on her. Her hand A red church- lamp kept ever lit In the deep window -arch for me ; And every twilight she would sit And wait ; and far off I would see The shadows of the church-lamp flit Across her beauty balefully. I went, I came; again I went. a Come once again, and I will wed My infidel ; and go content Wherever God shall lead," she said. And over us with cloying scent The lamp her scarlet blessing shed. I went, but as I rode once more Down from the mountains to my mate Behind, the battle won ; before, My dear love, beautiful, elate — A headlong rider came, who bore Her letter : " At the postern-gate 6 THE INFIDEL To-night stand sentries. Draw not sword ! Your foes buzz round our doors like flies. Your foes who are my friends ! Dear Lord ! I give you much. So, love, be wise, And bear at heart this sentry-word : Tlii) Faith, thy Church I All else is lies I " Beneath it all her name, beneath Her name, a swift, large- limbed : " Come soon ! " I stirred my horse. A dusty heath Stretched right and left ; above, a moon Hung like a soul cold after death In the appalling blue of noon. Tliy Faith, thy Church ! A girlish whim To make the portals where her love Dwelt in far chambers, sweet and dim, On such resounding hinges move. All else is lies ! The cherubim Some day that argument might prove. I galloped, and my heart ablaze With love and what the dark should bring 7 THE INFIDEL Laughed. " Lies P What matter ? Faith P A P h rase Into the sentry's teeth I fling The eight dead words — the end repays Full- brimmed the momentary sting." I galloped. Now a heavy wood Enveloped me in stifling air. 77iy Faith, thy Church ! I felt my blood Chill, and like pin- pricks tingle, where The memories dwelt. It was not good To stir the tiger sleeping there. I galloped. To the dusty west The sun bent. " Does she test me thus ? Her faith ? 'T is high. Her Church ? The test Is childish and ungenerous ! All else is lies ! What priests infest Her chambers, making sport of us ? " I galloped on. The moon's pale wraith Brightened, and from the vales, the night Like incense rose. Tfiy Church, thy Faith ! 8 THE INFIDEL The ardor died in my delight. I checked my horse, I held my breath. In dusk below me, cool and white And mute, save for the dogs who barked Hungry, incessant, and a bell Tolling a death — her City, sparked With light like fields with asphodel, Lay, and upon a knoll I marked The red church-lamp I knew too well. I walked my horse. What scarce had seemed More than the pang we pay for bliss Gladly — grew monstrous, till I deemed All heaven at handclutch with the abyss; The only God I knew, blasphemed, And sold to Caiaphas with a kiss. Thy Church, thy Faith ! And must I drown The bold, exploring thoughts, devise No more my webwork reaching down 'Neath hell, and up beyond thy skies ? Forget all else save how the clown Juggles three spheres ? All else is lies I " 9 THE INFIDEL A clatter and a spark of hoofs On pavement — twice a hundred yards, White walls and grated windows, roofs Like cards laid flat on walls of cards — Her house ! All else is lies I " The proofs Of that be in the sentries' swords ! " I tied my horse, and soft I crept Through shadow to the shadowed gate. High up, the scarlet church-lamp kept Its vigil. Like a voice, " I wait," Its flicker spoke. . . . Two sentries leapt From blackness, gloom made animate, Leapt and laid hold on me ! I flung Back from their clutch and tore my blade Forth, but they held my arms and clung Fiercely. We scuffled. Now we swayed Into the moon-path, now we swung Against the postern, till it made Answer from groaning hinge and lock. " Password ! " one gasped, and one, "Let be ! " I laughed, and with a wrench, a shock 10 THE INFIDEL Of head on head, my blade swung free ; Thrust, thrust again. They fell. A block Of granite falls less perfectly. My hand was on the postern's latch. " Truth wins," I cried, " I win, and sell No tittle of my soul to snatch My bird from her cage ! " But it befell My eyes went where a lamp kept watch To pilot home an infidel. I gazed ; my hand dropped, and I stood Rigid before the unlocked door, In spiritual widowhood Sudden as death, for in my core I knew, and know, I never could Enter that happy postern more. Night, like a care that slowly lifts Its weight from the too laden mind, Rose in slow beauty. Silver rifts Came where she went, and cooling wind, Dawn, and the day with shining gifts. I rode, and cast no look behind. DEATH AND THE LORD Death touched the Winter's arm, and spoke : " Faith, you are pleasing in my sight. A thousand of this beggar-folk Knocked at my Iron Gate last night." — " I starved the fools that paid for fire, I froze the fools that paid for bread. I have my human helpers, Sire.' 1 — Death nodded, and " Well done," he said. "The old," quoth Death, u the white of hair, That lived their span and seek the grave — What prize are those ? But these were fair, And all were young, and most were brave. "I saw them stiffen in the gloom, Waiting, wide-eyed, the tardy dawn. The huddled dozen in the room — How should they know that one was gone ? 12 DEATH AND THE LORD " They crouched all silent, black and grim. And once I thought a woman prayed Through tears a cursing prayer to Him Of whom I once was half afraid. " Poor Jesus Christ ! A gift to me They snared Him, scourged Him, nailed Him high. Yet are there times I seem to see His Face, and wonder, Did He dieP " That was the only Face that e'er Woke aught in me but scorn of men. Fools, fools, mankind! Who will not bear That Face against my hosts again ! " By all the stinging tears that flow Because of me, by all the grace That might have been on earth, I know I could be bondman to that Face." Death plucked the Winter's sleeve, and spoke; " Christ is not here. Your work is light. A thousand of this beggar-folk Send whirling to my Gate to-night." BROADWAY How like the stars are these white, nameless faces ! These far innumerable burning coals ! This pale procession out of stellar spaces, This Milky Way of souls ! Each in its own bright nebula? enfurled, Each face, dear God, a world ! I fling my gaze out through the silent night — In those far stars, what gardens, what high halls, Has mortal yearning built for its delight, What chasms and what walls ? What quiet mansions where a soul may dwell ? What Heaven and what Hell ? 14 WINGS Hark ! The wind ! Pile higher the fire, fasten the blind. It knocks like a feared guest, It mocks like a troll, It calls like a weird guest Come for a soul. Fasten the blind, the sashes — Up the chimney, the wind Whirls the ashes. The flames leap like dogs behind — Pile high the logs — The wind ! Listen ! Afar In the terrible caves Where the lost gods are In prisons and graves, W T here Death the herder Huddles his pack — The bloodhound, the brach. Demoniac war 15 WINGS And famine and murder, White wolf and black — Hear! Afar In the hoar nadir Of a snuffed-out star, Ymer the giant Has loosened his rage; The grim, the defiant, Has opened the doors Of the terrible cage Where tumult roars Through age and age Like the sea a-wage On iron shores. He has lifted high The cage in his arms. Wings ! How they flutter to fly The unborn storms ! Back, bolt and chain! Wings ! Woe to the lands Till ye come again, Ye wings ! 16 WINGS Warning, oh, comrades of gales, Sons of the tides ; Mourning, oh, pitiful brides, Watching for sails ! Hark ! What cry Through the dark ? First a sigh, but, mark, The topmost bough Sees wings, and shivers, And the rose-branch swings And quivers. Now a petal falls. Wings ! And what now ? What murmurs the bush ? And bough, who calls ? Now a hush. But, oh, hark ! The cry- On high through the dark : Wings from the north, wings ! Wings, wings and wings behind - Ymer the king's Birds of the wind ! 17 WINGS The wind ! Fasten the shutter, Bolt the blind. The wings are a-flutter — Pile higher the hearth; The licking flames utter Things not of earth. How they climb Toward their comrades, the birds ! What spells of old time, What magical words Reply with their mutter Of ancient things To the moan and the cry, And the terrible flutter Of wings ? Hush ! The wild legion ! What riot, what rush ! Tree-top and brush They lay their mad siege on, And over and over they wheel — ■ Wings ! Bend to the rover and reel ! 18 WINGS Wings ! Chaos opposes ! Spill out your gems ! Scatter your roses, Fairest of stems. Wings ! Bend, oh, ye branches^ Like thieves afraid In the wake ! Now blanches My tender maid, My olive, to break. Sway, eucalyptus, Like masts ; Fling your boughs Like rent sails In the gale's Winged blasts. Ymer hath whipped us His gauge on our brows. Hark ! The carouse Of his inchoate rage ! Wings ! Over and through and back 19 WINGS Whirl, wings ! Anew the ruthless attack Hurl, wings! Break, eucalyptus, My brother ! The wings have another Soul for their wage. Hear it ! The wind ! Wedge the shivering door,, Tie -firmer the blind. Wings ! The infinite sorrow Of broken things Clutches my spirit. Hear it ! Voices of fire Crying high jubilee ! Hear it, the roar ! Do they know there shall be Fresh bodies to-morrow To lay on the pyre ? More wood and more ! Bring oak and bring redwood, 20 WINGS Bring sycamore, cypress ! The imps, where they lie, press Out as the dead would From graves to attain The air and the stars And their comrades again. Wings ! In chimney and eaves What cityful grieves In pitiful murmurings ? Wings ! Do they seek to speak ? Draw closer, my mate ! They come too near. Their woe, their hate I fear ! Through the night afar, they Cry, cry wild things ! Wings ! Who are they ? Who are they ? MONNA VITA Coquette ! And is it flattery you ask ? A chanted crown, a seven-stringed applause, Since you press thus the lyre into my hands Here by this fountain-side, while hour by hour In ancient thickets wonderfully sings The holy ©urse of hearts, the nightingale, And overhead high wheels the playing hawk ? Must it be praise, or may I venture truth ? She smiled, and then she spoke. " Tell me your guess." Quiet, then, quiet ! Play not so your eyes On flower and tree-top, earth, and through the blue Unto the sleeping stars. Let the babes sleep, And let me have those eyes a winged minute To read, to read ! A- field once more ! Coquette ! Give me your hand, then, let me read the lines. 'T is a Minerva's hand, a woman's hand, Though from a helmet sprung. Your sire was Jove — King, wizard, slipper-serf, philanderer, god. 22 MONNA VITA He 's dead. Nous avons change tout cela — And we have better wizards, better gods; You only stay unchanging. Quiet, now ! Twitch not your hand. Now that I hold it thus I '11 not release it till it tells me all A hand can tell. A hand ! Could I but see Your eyes ! Booh ! Hide them, then, who cares ? Coquette ! You have more lovers than the earth has men, For even the unfleshed must love you still. (There speaks the lover, now the oracle !) Somewhat you love your lovers ; give, withhold, As gods and sovereigns may, as women must, Or lovers will grow bold, and spurn the love. — Is it to keep the aging ardor warm You save sometimes your kiss for funerals ? — You love not much, I think, the too hot heart That would lay wifely reins and drudgeries On those immortal shoulders ; nor not much The self-assured and haughty mind that woos Your tinkling purse. You love him most who comes Eager and passionate from the peaks of youth, Demanding, where the frail ones plead ; and loves 23 MONNA VITA Though you withhold, undaunted by your scorn, Knowing that deathless love at last wakes love, And love awakened will come forth with gifts. For him you have no anger and no spite. You chide, you twinge his ear for some rash word ; For some too hot " I will" you give him tears, Crush him to raise him higher. And ever yet He loves, and loves more nobly. For you teach, As women do, your lovers how to love. The lust dies in their eyes, the love is born ; The youth dies of youth's fever; from his dust Steps forth the man with chastened eyes that ask Beauty and wisdom, and above all, calm. You wake desire for music in his heart And answer the desire ; you teach his hands To play with pebbles, and to build with worlds ; His feet, to dance upon the dancing wave, Bleed on the stony highway of great deeds, And grow not weary of their vassalage. You teach his soul to yearn for journeying With his nocturnal beckoners, the while You teach his eyes to see their stately march Across an acorn's dome. Oh, you most wise ! That man shall love you with a love that fears 24 MONNA VITA No woman's fickleness; for he has lain Close to your heart and heard its rhythmic beat, And in quiescent midnights woven his dreams Of the spun glories of your comradeship. I love you thus ! Madonna, kiss me now ! DOORS Like a young child who to his mother's door Runs eager for the welcoming embrace, And finds the door shut, and with troubled face Calls and through sobbing calls, and o'er and o'er Calling, storms at the panel — so before A door that will not open, sick and numb, I listen for a word that will not come, And know, at last, I may not enter more. Silence ! And through the silence and the dark By that closed door, the distant sob of tears Beats on my spirit, as on fairy shores The spectral sea ; and through the sobbing, hark ! Down the fair-chambered corridor of years, The quiet shutting, one by one, of doors. 26 ABDIEL-THE-SYRIAN'S CHANT OF THE KISS I have come home to thee Out of the world ! I know thine arms Once more beneath my arms, Thy brow against my brow, Thine eyes against my eyes. The labor of the day, The heat is done — I have come home to thee Out of the world ! Oh, my Beloved, All day and all the days I mantle thee With my wide love. I serve thee with hands, The light of my brain, The heat of my heart ; I serve thee with my spirit, That wings into far countries 27 CHANT OF THE KISS With thine; That rides upon the spheres, Following thee ; That gathers the showering meteors In upturned palms, That we may muse Darkly over the shapes Together in the dusk, And ponder the eternal Whither and Why. I have come home to thee Out of the world ! After labor cometh rest, After heat, the dusk, After the world, thy face ! I hold thee close, In my two arms I hold thee, Thou universe, my love ! I hold thee As the calyx holds the rose, The lamp the flame, As the new-moon The darkling segment 28 CHANT OF THE KISS That completes him ! I press my lips At last upon thy lips ! Thus, oh, my Beloved, The sunset gathers Into one flaming moment The pervasive splendors Of the day ; Thus, oh, my Beloved, The morning star Gathers into one silver cry The scattered glories Of the night. THE LAST FARING THE FATHER What boots the fight, what boots the triumph, my son? What boots the foeman flying ? In the ring of the dead on the coast so hardly won, Our King, our King is dying ! THE SON I saw him battle like Odin when he conquered the world, Alone, fighting and fending! THE FATHER 'Twas a fleeing knave from the hill the white spear hurled That brought a King to his ending. THE SON He speaks : " Not in the earth, not in a mound Like a land-king bind me ! At the last I would know the wash of the sea around And the roar of breakers behind me. 30 THE LAST FARING " On my own swift ship never whelmed of man or the tide With cups and weapons lay me ; And the dead brought low at my side shall watch at my side And the sea to sleep shall sway me. " A storm is a-foot in the west ! I am dying — be swift ! For I would go forth to meet him ; With the light of bales aflare at our prow as we drift Triumphant, triumphant, to greet him ! " Look, oh, my father, they bear the King to the shore. On his ship, by his tiller, they lay him; His face they set west-over-sea as of yore And in crown and mantle array him. The dead that fought and fell they lay at his feet. But he sits so still — doth he slumber? THE FATHER He dreams of the feasts of Walhalla, the mead and the meat, And battles without number. 31 THE LAST FARING THE SON My father, what makes so scarlet and golden the sail Like the sun on a warrior's byrnie ? THE FATHER At prow and midship the}' kindle with torches the bale That shall light a King on his journey. THE SON My father, what shapes so stately move through the surge Like youths a dead man bearing ? THE FATHER 'T is the naked mariners that go forth to urge A King's ship on its faring. THE SON Look ! On the dune those silent shadowy forms A-stare through the daylight failing. THE FATHER They are his oath-friends, fighters of men and of storms, Whose hearts are too heavy for wailing. 32 THE LAST FARING THE SON Louder and louder the tempest comes up from the west. The bale bums higher and higher! My father, who gives at last our King his rest, Wind or water or fire ? THE FATHER Into the storm he drives ! Full is the sail ; But the wind blows wilder and shriller ! THE SON 'T is the ghost of a Sea-King, my father, rigid and pale, That holds so firm the tiller ! Wings as of luminous gulls are round the prow, Dipping, dipping and turning! My father, why is the sail not ashes ere now In the bale-fire's ravenous burning ? THE FATHER The lightning blinds me. My son, what now do you see ? S3 THE LAST FARING THE SON 'T is a King's ship rides in splendor, Though the heavens sweep down with flaming swords to the sea, And the waves sweep up to end her ! THE FATHER What crashing tumult ? What thunder on thunder hurled Out of Chaos that never hath tamed him ? THE SON The bolt of Odin hath rent the walls of the world ! Walhalla, Walhalla hath claimed him ! "THE WILD ROSE" (FOR MUSIC BY EDWARD MACDOWELL) THE SPIRIT OF THE MASTER SPEAKS IN DEEP WOODS : Come, oh, songs ! Come, oh, dreams ! Soft the gates of day close — Sleep, my birds ! sleep, streams ! Sleep, my wild rose ! Pool and bud, hill and deep, You who wore my robes, sleep ! Droop, East ! die, West ! Let my land rest. Woods ! I woke your boughs ! Hills! I woke your elf-throngs! Land ! all thy hopes and woes Rang from me in songs ! Come, oh, songs ! Come, oh, dreams ! In our house is deep rest. Through the pines gleams, gleams Bright the gold West ! 35 THE WILD ROSE There the flutes shall cry, There the viols weep. Laugh, my dreams, and sigh, Sing, and vigil keep. Call to them that sleep ! Call! call! LANEER The blue was gone from the lake, the blue wae gone from the sky. Weak as though wounded fluttered the swallow that tried to fly. A gale was afoot on the hills. " We will wait," I said, " till it die." She laughed her wonderful laugh that stole the breath of fear. " I have sailed these waters of mine for many and many a year; I have harnessed these wayward winds. They will harm not me," said Laneer. " I am not afraid of the storm and I love the spray in my face, The wind in my hair and the throb of the wild and perilous pace, With the lee-rail under, and Death half a length be- hind in the race ! " 37 LANEER " You are brave, you are strong, and you swim like a child of the sea," said I. " But the white-caps rise." She laughed. " Why, then to-day we will fly! The peril is half the joy, and some day or other we die." We reefed the rebel sail, though it fought as with animate will. Then out of the cove and out from the lee of the sheltering hill, Into the reach of the storm ! The storm cried, hungry and shrill. We tacked, and the fluttering sail seemed to catch its breath, ere the wind Lashed it to labor once more. Far over we heeled, and the grind Of ring and tackle and stay was clear through the roar behind. Into the crests we plunged. They swept us from top to toe. 38 LANEER Then crashing into the hollow ! Laneer's wet cheeks were aglow. " Give me the tiller," she cried. And she steered to the heart of the blow. Close-hauled, till the taut sheet groaned, like a gull that hunts as she flies, Beaking the silver herring with a clean, straight lunge from the skies, We drove. She laughed, Laneer, and two bright stars were her eyes. She did not speak, nor I. The wind was too loud, but I knew A flame that had never been had burst in her soul as we flew. I clutched the cleated sheet, and watched the flame as it grew. And I knew in my heart that this was the end for which all was made, That we should plunge through the storm, mad, eager, and unafraid, And see the Light and be glad and live or die as it bade. 39 LANEER We sailed! And the waves seemed to lift white fingers that flashed and were gone I And down to the masthead swirled the vapors, ragged and wan. We shook out a reef in despite, and into the storm sped on ! And on o'er the savage waters, the spitting crests and the shoals, We played with the gale, and we laughed that any comber that rolls Should think it could quench the Light when it burns in two living souls ! But the treacherous winds of a sudden were still ; and the strained, wet sail Hung limp. Like hawks we watched. Then down from the hills with a wail Rushed a thousand gales at once on the heels of the vanished gale. Like a frightened hound the craft shivered. A crashing sea 40 LANEER Broke on the plunging rudder, wrenched it and wrenched it free. Into the swirling waters thundered the boom a-lee. Like straws the hungry deluge swept us over the side. Fiercely up through the surge we fought. u Laneer ? " I cried. Sputtering, gasping, laughing, " Aye, aye, sir ! " La- neer replied. We clung to the knifelike keel. The waterwas biting cold, And up from the windward combers and ever new combers rolled, And pounded us, tore at us, wrenched us, fighting to loosen our hold. Laneer's flushed cheeks were pale. But she laughed and her eyes were light. Why, this is a lark to boast of for many a day and night." I could not laugh, for her cheeks were blue that had just been white. 41 LANEER "We must swim," I cried. She nodded and tried to smile, and her hand Pulled at the oiler buckles and loosened the soaked skirt-band. I tore at her shoes. " Are you ready ? " It was hundred yards to the land. " I am ready," said she, and her voice was so faint that I scarcely heard ; And painfully from the keel her stiffened fingers stirred. Into the waters she glided, and sank with never a word. She sank ! I plunged and I clutched her. I clutched her loosened hair. But my fingers were stiff and lifeless, and deeper I plunged in despair, Useless forever and ever but to clutch her and die with her there. I held her, I held her at last, I dragged her up to the day. 42 LANEER Dear God, her face was like stone, her closed eyes stark and gray ! I struck out against the crests and choked the sud- den dismay. Shoreward, inch by inch ! And I held her close to my side. I was her strong arm at last and she my wonderful bride ! And what God with his tempest had joined, would God with his waters divide ? On, on, plodding, once more, struggling, borne over the crest ! Then suddenly dimness, the dark ! And the tearing ceased in my breast. The treacherous peace was on me, and now there was only rest. I move among men again, and scarce I know how or why, 43 LANEER For a thousand miles to the north placid the waters lie, But I hear ever the billows break and the shrill winds cry ; And all day long and all night waters surge over my head, And I fight crests, and my feet strain down for something to tread, And always clutched to my side, Laneer, close, close, and dead ! SONG There is a music in my head. By day and night it dins — A far away, sweet, silken thread Of ghostly violins : Now like a morning gush of sound Beneath the friendly eaves, Now like a hermit-thrush caged round By tender, laughing leaves. Last morn it was the sea a-surge, At dusk the ebb a-sighing ; Last night a low and piteous dirge — I dreamt true-love lay dying. And now a laugh, and now a plaint Of viols half in tears, A sea-shell echo, fair and faint, Of distant, humming spheres. 45 DISCOVERY Out of the Eden of my love, The little house so lean and spent, The little room where, like a dove, Under the rafters lives my love, Back to the bustling world I went. I wandered down the dusty street. Men jostled there and wept and swore, But in the throbbing and the beat, The Babel of the feverish street, Was something that was not before. Deep into each pale, passing face I gazed in wonder. What strange gleam Had in this gray and sordid place Clothed as with glory each pale face, And lit dim eyes with dream ? Like an explorer, midst those eyes, By unimagined deeps I trod ; And, lo ! where yesterday were lies And lusts in those world-hardened eyes, I saw the stars of God. 46 A CHANT ON THE TERRIBLE HIGHWAY I walk these cold, gray streets All day and half the night. Oh, ugly shapes, Worn of disease and storm, Worn of hunger and thirst, Worn eternally by that hunger That feeds on husks, And wonders amazed Why it is never stilled ; Distorted shapes, Stript, oh, long since Of that lovely raiment, So like the lily, So like the rose, The Creator at your coming Laid on the shoulders of your spirits ! It is rags in the gutter. Who will find the dazzle, The immortality, 47 A CHANT ON THE TERRIBLE HIGHWAY In that shred in the rinsings, In the slime ? Oh, debtors' prison, This world of barter ! Where men are penned With their beloved and best In noisome places, Away from sun and growing things, Away from the chaste companionship of the stars, Away from joy That is the bread of souls ! How pitifully They waste their loveliness, To breathe, to eat, To sleep, and soon to die ; Love, beauty, faith, Aspiring spirit, yearning heart, A feather in the scale Against the heavy reckoning Of Necessity, ghastly creditor, Christ ! Art thou crucified Diurnally 48 A CHANT ON THE TERRIBLE HIGHWAY For those immortal Thirty pieces of silver ? Racked, twisted shapes, Hurrying like ants Busily to and fro Twixt mole-hill and mole-hill. How close are you my kin ! Half I wonder Am I still myself, A rider in the dawn, Or am I you, Dark, voiceless figure, Scurrying from wall to wall Of your underground prison ? Kinsman, Who will release us ? You from your burning pain, Me from my seething pity ? Dreamers, and craftsmen Who build in lath and stucco What the dreamers in marble devise, They will minister to us The little while, oh, kinsman, 49 A CHANT ON THE TERRIBLE HIGHWAY That the outermost planet asks Wheeling once about the sun. But the temple of their laboring Shall become a house loathed, A court of doves and money-changers, A despotism to our sons. Kinsman, Our release is not yet. Nor shall it come amid shouts, The exhortations of loud tongues, Or the uprising of multitudes. Our release cometh When the heart of man Shall be as a ploughed field, Awaiting in the cool dawn The footsteps of the Sower. Over the vales from the hills Rolls the day. Nothing is the night ! In the air, fragrance ! In the leafage, bird-song ! Peace, and a waking earth, Ecstasy, and the footsteps of God I CONVERSE OF ANGELS Listen, Ithuriel. Do you hear the sound of weeping? It riseth from the Earth, it riseth night and day. The noble hands, the noble eyes have gone astray, The noble spirits, born to fly, in dust are creeping. Hark ! 'T is their hunger. Thus they cry, awake or sleeping. Desire for shells and bells hath made their souls its prey ; It burns their youth, their dreams, their loves, their lives away; And of a burnt field, lo, no man shall make a reaping. Ithuriel, I would that one day from His throne The Lord would let me go down to the dusty plain, Crying : " All 's well, oh, rebel man, save you alone ! Be still, tumultuous soul; fold those hot hands that strain Forever against God ! " Ithuriel, might their moan Not yield to ecstasy, and unto peace their pain ? 51 SONG AT ENDING DAY Meseems as though a ghostly light Had round me flung its beams to-day • An airy mantle, warm and white, To keep the cold away. Sad things are of a sudden gay, And in me wakes an old delight. The heaviness, the pain are fled, Filled as with music are the room* Where yesterday a human tread Rang hollow as in tombs ; And all the garden blows and blooms With lilies white and roses red. Has she returned, who went from me ? So near she is, so strangely near — It seems that I might almost see Her happy eyes, and hear Her gentle chiding for the tea* That wakened in my ecstasy. 52 SONG AT ENDING DAY Here by the high-walled garden's gate, Here is the bench she loved so well. Perchance she comes again, elate, Some mystic thing to tell ! My heart is as a far clear bell, Tolling. I close my eyes — and wait. SONG AFTER RAIN Over the stars drifts the morning, oh, loved one. Tree-leaf and flower-leaf speak. My heart hears them. All the green world lifts one jubilant anthem! Surely, oh, loved one, you cannot be far. 54 THE THREE FALSE WOMEN OF LLANLAR BESS It 's a cold, cold wind blows in from the sea. MOLL It 's a stormy night we shall have this night. BESS I Ve a bed in my attic. Come lodge with me. I 'm afeard o' the wind and the wild moonlight. JOAN Afeard ! Afeard ! The dead sleep sound. MOLL Will they bury him now ? BESS Will they bury him deep ? JOAN There 's never a bed for him in the ground. It 's high in his rattling chains he '11 sleep ! 55 THE THREE FALSE WOMEN OF LLANLAR MOLL I 'm afeard, I 'm afeard ! JOAN Moll, hold thy tongue ! MOLL I 'm afeard of his eyes so straight an' still A-stare at his true-love till he swung, And she fell like dead o'er her window-sill. JOAN It 's half way back to the town we are ! We '11 be lodged an hour before the night. BESS Oh, her face in the window was like a star, As cold, as far, and as ghostly white. JOAN The Devil made ye o' craven stuff A-tremble for ghosts at dusk o' day ! At the Magistrate's ye were brave enough When ye went and swore his life away. 56 THE THREE FALSE WOMEN OF LLANLAR MOLL I was sick wi' love, and bad wi 1 hate. BESS And 't was thou, Joan, that made us swear ! JOAN And now it 's done, and his pretty mate Wears black ; and never a babe to bear ! MOLL The dark comes soon to-night. BESS The dark ! MOLL And it 's heavy my feet are ! JOAN The village is nigh. MOLL And it 's here, Joan, it 's here is the Fork Where ye tempted us to swear the lie ! 57 THE THREE FALSE WOMEN OF LLANLAR JOAN Quick, on MOLL They clutch me ! BESS Mother o' Christ ! JOAN 'T was the wind, and the fallen branch of a fir ! BESS Joan, Joan, my feet are viced In a cloven rock, and I cannot stir. JOAN It 's the fear has got ye, body and blood ! MOLL Joan ! BESS The fiends! 58 THE THREE FALSE WOMEN OF LLANLAR MOLL They choke me with hands! BESS Joan ! JOAN Who holds me ? Who plucked at my hood ? MOLL They burn my eyes wi 1 their terrible brands ! JOAN What imps possess ye ? Come swift, come swift ! Give me your hands ! MOLL Joan ! BESS Joan* JOAN Who clutched me ? 59 THE THREE FALSE WOMEN OF LLANLAK MOLL I saw the mountains lift ! And on a gallows I saw a man ! JOAN Give me your hands, I '11 drag ye loose ! Joan! MOLL Joan ! JOAN What weight 7 s on my feet ? BESS Hangman, stand back ! MOLL A noose, a noose ! BESS Stand back wi' your cap and your winding-sheet ! 60 THE THREE FALSE WOMEN OF LLANLAR JOAN They 've tied my body with icy bands, And it 's cold is my flesh and hard as bone ! MOLL Joan ! BESS Joan ! JOAN Your hands, your hands ! But the three false women of Llanlar were stone. REST AT NOON Now with a re-created mind Back to the world my way I find; Fed by the hills one little hour, By meadow-slope and beechen-bower ? Cedar serene, benignant larch, Hoar mountains and the azure arch Where dazzling vapors make vast sport In God's profound and spacious court. The universe played with me. Earth Harped to high heaven her sweetest mirth ; The clouds built castles for my pleasure, And airy legions without measure Flung, spindrift-wise, across the sky To thrill my heart once and to die. 62 REST AT NOON I have held converse with large things; For cherubim with cooling wings Brushed me ; and gay stars, hid from view, Called through the arras of the blue And clapped their hands : " These veils uproll ! And see the comrades of your soul ! " The very flowers that ringed my bed Their little " God-be-with-you " said, And every insect, bird and bee Brought cool cups from eternity. ARAB SONG I cry to thee in the day, Love me ! And in the night, Love me, I cry unto thee ! Thy love is sun and moon unto my being, My nourishment, my strength, my stair, my wings ! Love me, I cry to thee in the day, And in the night, Love me, I cry unto thee ! Love is a runner making clear the highway. " Cometh the royal chair ! Make room, make room ! " Love is a pilot over unknown oceans. The sun and stars fail, but Love keeps the course. Love me, I cry to thee in the day, And in the night, Love me, I cry unto thee ! 64 ARAB SONG The Sphinx is mute to solitary suppliants. To close-clasped hands she opes her eyes, and speaks. Love me, I cry to thee in the day, And in the night, Love me, I cry unto thee! MUSIC AT TWILIGHT Twilight, and now the day Ends as the day began — Purple and gold for the heart, Stars for the soul of man. Dawn saw the toil begin, Dusk sees the toil fulfilled — Now let there be music and song Till the fevered blood be stilled. Not passionate thunders of sound, Nor statelier measures sage, But the melodies borne on the lips Of children from age to age. With the tinkle of bells in the notes, And dew of the fields on the words Immortal as dawn and dusk, And pure as the songs of the birds. 66 THE WOOL GATHERER Surely the watchman of my brain At his portal dozes, That I who would fain upraise my strain For the beauty her lifted veil discloses Can think of nothing but roses. He 's shearing ewes in Arcady Forgetting bolts and bars. Else why should it be that the words all flee, And I who would sing of that spirit of hers Can think of nothing but stars ? e>7 THE CHASM There is a chasm in the world, more dark Than any carved of rivers and slow Time, A murky horror in a frosty clime, Where no sun peers, no pale moon's virgin arc. There Shame and Fear, twin wolves, forever bark, Huddling their stolen herd in night and grime, Forsaken culprits guilty of no crime, Gnawed, harried, crushed, heart-stricken, hopeless, stark. Forever moaning Why f forever Why ? The lost ones err about the gloomy damps. Too poor, too rich, too young, too frail to blame, They live obscurely and obscurely die ; For these are they who have burnt out their lamps, Ere yet they knew what meant the golden flame. 68 THE COBBLER OF GLAMORGAN Glamorgan is in Wales, and in Glamorgan, free from mortal sin, From Devil, drink and women free, Bold son of Greed and Charity, Suckling of Wisdom, playmate of Mirth, Dwells Evan Bach, at peace with earth. A cobbler who hath cobbled long, Pegged each hope and stitched each wrong — - Sorrow to gain and money to lose — Out of his heart and into his shoes. He has no wife to drive him wild, No wayward brother, yelping child, Only a house and settle warm, A dancing flame against the storm, A brain as green as April grass And the quickest tongue that ever was ; And underneath his little stone house, Known of none save him and the bat and the mouse, A pot of gold, that moon by moon Grows like a patch of weeds in June. 69 THE COBBLER OF GLAMORGAN And he loves his gold as he loves his days, And he twinkles it in the lanthorn's rays, And tinkles it up and tinkles it down, Tosses a sovereign, bites a crown, Loves it and leaves it, and climbs the stair With a proud, but what 's-itching-my-shoulder air As though he half feared that the shadows might hold Reproaches for him and his black pot of gold. i Now Evan had reached full sixty years — His hair was white at temples and ears, His body was thin, but his eyes were sharp, And his voice was clear as a paradise harp — When, list, at his cottage door, the lock Murmured, and through the dark, a knock Came like a tap at the door of the mind (Locked and barred and hidden behind Rubbish and treasure, years unending) A knock like the scarce-heard whisper, spending Man's last dear gasp in a message of love — A knock, and a gentle, soundless shove. That night the creaking hinge was still. 70 THE COBBLER OF GLAMORGAN A gust through the widening crack blew chill. Evan bent low o'er the half pegged shoes : " A gust in the neck means chilling news. Peg home ! Peg home ! I locked the door, I bolted the window, caulked the floor. Peg home ! Lady Ellen wants her boot. That gust again ! And list, the hoot Of the owl on the blackthorn ! Evan, peg ! And seven devils bewitch the leg That wears the foot that wears the shoe That Evan pegged while the weird gust blew." He pegged. Tap, tap ! And a third time came The gust as cold as the thought of shame. He muttered the witch-charm with never a stammer, He laid down the boot, he laid down the hammer. He coughed, he turned ; and crystal-eyed He stared, for the bolted door stood wide, And on the threshold, faint and grand, He saw the awful Gray Man stand. His flesh was a thousand snails that crept, But his face was calm though his pulses leapt. " Come in, Gray Man," quoth he, " come in, And close the door, for my coat is thin." u Nay, Evan Bach, I come not thither, n THE COBBLER OF GLAMORGAN And ye need no coat -where zve go together" " Come in, Gray Man, the fire burns high. The night is wet, but my settle is dry. I 've a jug of the kindliest rum on earth And a well-baked pipe hangs over the hearth. So enter, and sit you down with me." " Nay, Evan Bach, where your seat shall be All night the seven gray -wives grieve." "This chair, Gray Man. And by your leave We '11 let them sing to the yews and the moon. Think ye not yourself ye come foolishly soon ? " " Evan Bach— " " Nay, sit." "lam Death!" " Even so." " I come — " u But the hearth hath a kindly glow." " Evan — " " Here, Gray Man, your cup of rum." "Come hither — " "It warms the heart that's numb." " Death hath not time — " " What 's an hour to you With all time on your hands and nothing to do ? — But to knock at houses at dusk of day, Leave the rot, and steal the gem away. But I am a cobbler. I need each minute For the sixty precious peg-taps in it. 72 THE COBBLER OF GLAMORGAN So sit you down while I finish the boot For the Lady Ellen's shapely foot, And smoke, and drink my rum with me. For the rest, Gray Man, who lives will see." The Gray Man sat him down and drank, And from the room the terror shrank ; And Evan pegged the little shoe Up and over and down and through And stitched it in circles and stitched it plain And ripped it and stitched it and ripped it again ; And spoke at last, as calmly as though, He were at meat in the inn below Where the brook from the hill sang its elvish song To the tippling farmers all da}- long. He said : " Gray Man, 't is not for me To presume you Ve misreckoned egregiously. Perhaps you forgot. I 'm a bare threescore With a body that 's good for forty years more. A man should work as long as he can, And they need a cobbler here, Gray Man." And he drew a new thread from his hempen skein, And waxed it and wet it and waxed it again. The Gray Man's face had the carved stone's calm, But he stretched to the flame one bony palm. 73 THE COBBLER OF GLAMORGAN " Evan Bach, you threescore men are proud, So a threescore man to-night I vowed To carry home ivhere the seven -wives weepT " Let the seven wives go home and sleep ! I am young in body and heart, and I urge No ghostly ladies to howl my dirge." " Evan Bach ! " — " Besides, there 's a threescore wretch Below in Porthcawl ten years a-stretch With pains in his legs, and quirks in his hands, And cramps in his belly and aches in his glands. Be gentle, Gray Man, and bid them cease. Tom Mirth is his name. May he rest in peace ! " And he hammered the sole like August rain And pegged it, unpegged it, and pegged it again. The Gray Man gazed in Evan's eyes That the hammer stopped 'twixt fall and rise. " / want a man of soul and shape ; Not a crooked weakling glad to escape. I zvant the neighbors to cry by your sod : 'Behold, the visitation of God! ' " And the Gray Man turned his stony face To the hearth, but Evan from his place On the little bare bench, with voice like a breath 74 THE COBBLER OF GLAMORGAN Whispered low in the shadowy ears of Death : " I 've your man, i' faith, I 've your man to a 77 He 's Dewi Mawr o' Cornelly. Out o' this door you go, as fast As your legs will allow, and the cobbler's-last, Up the hill and over the brow Where your seven wives are wailing now, Then down, and the second road, where an oak Stands black, takes you straight to the Cornelly folk. His house has a white-thorn. You remember ? You stopped for his wife there last December. But the rascal 's married again. For shame, Gray Man, it 's the highest time that ye came ! " " / do not want him I " " God in heaven, Who then ? Ned of Newton ? He 's seventy-seven. Married three times, and each wife a shrew — You're hard to please, or he should do." " Too old! " Evan lifted his hands in disgust. " Well, take me then, dam-me, if take me you must." And he gave the boot a last, fierce tap, And laid down his hammer and reached for his cap. 75 THE COBBLER OF GLAMORGAN But his hand in midair paused ; he stood All motionless, till the truant blood, Home bound to the heart, came back once more And tingled like pins at each happy pore. He turned not his head, but his sharp, brown eyes Like coast-lamps under shaggy skies Swung slowly round till they caught at last The Gray Man's eyes and held them fast. '"''Evan Bach, what more P " " Tssh, close the door. A pot of gold 's neath my cellar floor. Three thousand pounds ! How much must I pay To live a hundred years and a day ?" " Evan Bach, your gold I cannot use." u 'T was honestly pegged from the county's shoes, And a bit of a sale of a horse or a sow And milk and hens and — you '11 have it now ? " The Gray Man turned, and like a wisp And a sound as soft as an infant's lisp He crossed the room. " If I let you live, As you learned to take, will you learn to give f You shall have your hundred years and a day, But as Death is a just man, you shall pay ! Not me ! I spurn the rubbish ! Spend Your gold to feed, your gold to mend, 76 THE COBBLER OF GLAMORGAN Till every hovel and cot and hall In Glamorgan, but most in your ozvn Porthcazvlj Shall know you, Evan Bach, and say, ' We need you a hundred years and a day? " " Indeed, Gray Man, indeed, they shall ! " " Tfie Devil was good zvhen he was small. But Time is a torrent zvrenching down The mightiest dike and the lordliest town. It breaks the weak and it twists the strong, And man it bears like foam along Under the cliff and over the crag — ■ A tear, a bubble, a splinter, a rag. And age on age, the stern pines -watch Tie noisy, grim, uneven match And wonder when the man will come Who is more on its surface than bubble or scum?' He ceased ; but Evan's heart was light For the forty years he had won that night — But the Gray Man had vanished quite. n The years have passed as all years will, Be they swift with joy or laggard with ill — One long deep swell on a sandy shore — 77 THE COBBLER OF GLAMORGAN And Evan Bach is aged fourscore. His hair and beard are new-fallen snow, His eyes like stars in winter glow, But Glamorgan's shoes by night and by day He pegs, save at dusk when he goes to pay. He goes with his basket, he goes with his purse, Buys quilt for the cradle and pall for the hearse, Pays the priest for the living, the dying, the dead, The too young to be wise and too poor to be wed, A bed in the churchyard, a hut in the heather, A roof for two fools to grow wise together. He gives, though the coat on his back is shoddy, He gives, though it wrenches the soul from his body ; And a mournful man of sighs untold Is Evan at night by his pot of gold. But in all Glamorgan the good folk say : " May he live a hundred years and a day ! " in The years spin on as spin they must — Rosebud to rose, and rose to dust — And Evan, trembling at neck and at knee, Is ninety-one, ninety-two, ninety-three. 78 THE COBBLER OF GLAMORGAN But he pegs by night and he pegs by day Save an hour, at whiles, when he goes to pay. He goes with his basket, he goes with his purse, But he pays with a phrase, he pays with a verse, A " God be wi' you," a " Christ bless all," When he stumps through the streets of his own Porthcawl. And underneath his little stone house He holds each eve a lone carouse, For the gold in the black pot, moon by moon, Grows till I fear 't will crack it soon. And he tinkles it up and tinkles it down, Tosses a sovereign, bites a crown; " For gold is heavy to carry, and thieves Are thick in Glamorgan as beechen leaves, And men are not now what once they were, And the sticks a man gathers a man should bear — Their load of pain, the shiftless-souled ; And I my pot of clinking gold." And down the road a little mile Goes Evan his debt to pay - — with a smile. Dusk ! And over the purple heather Meet Day and Night and speak together. 79 THE COBBLER OF GLAMORGAN Sleepy bird and sleepy bough — Where is noon's light rapture now ? Purple shadows, monstrous forms, Earth for thieves and sky for storms ; Music dumb and color dying; Tree-toad; and tree-toad replying. Croaks the frog from dismal swamp, Blinks the marsh-fay's treacherous lamp. Now the wind; and like a fog Rolls the night o'er wood and bog. Evan comes not to Porthcawl ; For the mist is over highway and all. And the dark is thick ; he stops, he turns, His soul is chill, but his body burns. Quoth he, " I should have brought my gold. Mayhap I had not felt so cold." He climbs to his house ; but, lo, at the gate He starts, for a score of black forms wait On his garden-path, and he tries to speak, But his tongue is lamed, his breath is weak. His house-door opens, a windy torch Lights up the faces a-crowd at the porch, There 's Dewi Mawr and Dewi's son, 80 THE COBBLER OF GLAMORGAN And the Cornelly neighbors, every one, And the priest, in the torch's flicker now, On his lips the Latin, the scowl on his brow He keeps for the times when he buries the dead Or weds the fools who forgot to be wed. And Evan Bach gazed still ; nor spoke. For out of his door the Porthcawl folk Were bearing a body, slim and black. The heavy door swung shut at their back. Cried Evan aloud — but his heart was a-cower — " Whom bury ye here from my house this hour ? " Vanished ! Vanished — corpse, neighbors, and all ! But one cried : u ' Tis the miser Bach of Porth- cawl." Evan entered his house, he sank on his bench — The air was thick with a torch's stench. He reached out his hands to the hearth's faint spark. His hands met hands in the shivering dark. He shrieked, and through infinite spaces heard The voice : u Evan Bach, you have broken your word!" And the stars that blink through casements, sighed. That night Evan Bach the cobbler died. HOLIDAY Beneath the beech' *s shade I read My song of passion and of dread : " / like the -wild tale well" you said. " And yet I would that you would write A something else for my delight — A dancing thing in gold and zvhite." And so, beneath the beeches shade, While round me ant and zephyr played, I sat and this light song I made. Over us the sky, under us the green ; Earth is serene and merry am I ! All that can smart hath taken wing — What shall I sing to touch your heart ? Portentous songs of steam and steel ? Peoples' weal, peoples' wrongs ? A world with gold o'erspilled, o'erflushed, Armies crushed, nations sold ? 82 HOLIDAY Things of a day to come and go ! Too fleeting, low, for lover's lay. Sweet, I will lift a lordlier stave Of deep and grave, eternal drift. Of how your eyes are blue as the heaven That 's bluest of seven in Paradise. Of how your laugh is clear as the stream That Saints a-gleam in Eden quaff. Of how your hands are soft and kind As the twilight wind in spirit-lands. And ages on when from the deep Of dust and sleep unto the sun Some delving finger brings this lay, And whiles away an hour to linger In long-dead times, and faintly wonder What tale lay under these light rhymes, Perchance he '11 muse : " When that boy sang, Daily earth rang with titan news. 83 HOLIDAY " And men strove then as none had striven, And Space was given as toy to men. " And there were heroes in those ages, Knaves and sages, Darwins, Neros. " And yet the thunder of those great aeons — Dead crusts mid pagans bursting asunder, " Triumphs that long shook sphere and sphere, Are not so clear as this boy's song, " This tinkling lute that echoes on Though clarion and king are mute. " For nothing we dare to count as proved — Save that he loved and she was fair." FIFTEEN (To a Face on Fifth Avenue) How close must be the city air To make your young head droop so soon, Ere ever May's wild-flying hair Yield to the silken bonds of June ! Faded ! Before the bloom, the blight ! Unshamed, but faded ! Where are now Those tremulous glories that made bright That powdered cheek and brow ? Oh, cheek that flamed, oh, sparkling eyes ! Was it for this, that perfect mirth ? For this the love, the sacrifice, The patience, and the pangs of birth ? Faded ! And now the long decay ; Years, and the hungering look behind. November on the heels of May ! A crumpled leaf, the whirling wind ! 85 THE RHAPSODY OF ABDIEL-THE- SYRIAN FOR HIS BELOVED I whisper it to the sea! Oh, hear it, combers from afar! Hear it, oh, placid spirit, Sleeping and breathing All the long night In thy shimmering silks; Hear it, brother of man ! In thy storm, in thy calm, In thy eternal ebb and flow Of waters, knowing not rest, So like thy kin, The tillers of unprofitable soil ! I cry it to the winds ! Oh, hear it, swift-spurring riders, Who seek out with your spears The decaying trees ; As Justice, knight-errant in armor, Seeks out the decaying souls ! 86 THE RHAPSODY OF ABDIEL-THE-SYRIAN Hear it, ye clouds ! Marvellous in your manifold And ever-new beauties As the heart of my Beloved ! Ye, whom I mark Born like a goddess from azure, Growing till ye possess the sky And our up-jutting summits In inconceivable kingliness; Fading, dissolving In gold and iridescence, Leaving the sky as before, Indestructible azure ! Hear it, ye who speed Loftily above the first star That weds the Day to the Night; And thou, who liest, Purple and huge, Awaiting thy pilot At the harbor-mouth of the sunset — Hear it ! I cry it to the stars ! That speak in the utter silence 87 THE RHAPSODY OF ABDIEL-THE— SYRIAN When the winds slumber and the sun, And the hurrying thoughts of men Crackle no more, noisily, Through the intervening void. I cry it to ye, Companionable stars, Hear it! Oh, living spirits, sea and wind ! Loftily errant kinsmen, cloud and star! My Beloved hath spoken to me In the dusk, In the hour of the large, first star, Hath she spoken with me. From between her white breasts She hath taken a key ; With her hands she hath unlocked, With her fingers, more soft Than the apple-blossom When it falls In windless noon, She hath unlocked, One after one, The doors of this, my spirit, 88 THE RHAPSODY OF ABDIEL-THE-SYRIAN That reaches up to ye, ultimate stars, Eternally aspiring From this lonely star, the world ! Into each room she hath come. Darkness fled before her ! Dust}', forgotten lamps Broke like a red moon Through vapors ! Walls were not ! Light was and walls could be not ! My Beloved hath brought the Day ! I was blind and I see, I was a wanderer, I was a homeless man — My Beloved hath led me home ! Hear it ! Oh, wind}' reapers ! Imperious brothers ! My Beloved hath told me my lineage ! All that lives is my kin, All that grows Yearningly sunward ! You are my brothers, The clouds are my exquisite, Beloved sisters. 89 THE RHAPSODY OF ABDIEL— THE-SYRIAN Our Father Is too wonderful to name. Oh, sea, oh, populous air ! I and my Beloved, We are building us a house ! All crystal it shall be The pinnacled home Wherein I and my Beloved Shall dwell together ! (The airy builders Have begun their work — I hear the sound Of laughter and crystal spades, Of singing and crystal hammers !) All crystal it shall be ! And through the crystal Eternally shall fall The splendor of the White Flame That kindles the sun. Glorious shall be the company That communes with us From dayrise to dayfall. 90 THE RHAPSODY OF ABDIEL-THE— SYRIAN Our house shall be a music Of many notes But one harmony. Far shall our guests come To bide with us in peace, Oh, my Beloved ! Winds, ye cannot escape us ! Stars, ye cannot dwell so high That we shall not reach you ! I have heard my Beloved Call to you at dusk. Like a sister She hath called unto you — And ye have not been mute. THE MARKETPLACE IN PIEVENICK At Pievenick in the marketplace The sun shone down with waning glow, Where two cab-horses, face to face, Discussed with ponderous nods and slow In melancholy ruminations Time's ravages and shortened rations. Deserted were the streets ; no sound Broke on the heavy silence round Save the faint plash of waters cool From brazen goose-bills, gaping wide; And tongues of drowsy boys, beside The wet curb of the shady pool. Over the square a lone dog crept, Stretched in the fountain's shade, and slept ; And by the sombre Rathaus wall An old fruit-vendor drowsed and drowsed, While bees hummed idly in the stall And roundabout the green flies browsed. The Clock on the Rathaus pealed the hour, And a gargoyle droned from the minster- tower: "We do not heed your foolish tick In the marketplace in Pievenick." 92 THE DUKE'S LADtfE Peter of Mayence sings it to his Bishop : I heard of a Duke in Rimini (He is dead, my lord) ; A base and a violent man was he With poison-cup and sword, But he loved well his ladye. He had a wife, oh, wonder-eyed, (She is dead, ah me !) She was young, and once (only once) she cried Against the Duke's ladye. But he gave her to drink, and she died. The Duke he wedded a kingdom's heir, (Oh, fair was she !) She choked her breath with her golden hair Because of the Duke's ladye Who was so noble and fair. The Duke was cruel, the Duke was wild. (He ruled a wild countree.) 93 THE DUKE S LADYE Many the sweet maid he beguiled. But ever to his ladye He turned home like a child. He builded her sonnets and lover's lays (Like a boy sang he); And a moonVspan oft of stainless days, Of his marvellous ladye He sang the golden praise. And he builded a church in Rimini-town. (Oh, fair it is to see !) Spirits and hands of high renown Devised it for his ladye The fairest, stateliest crown. Nymphs and Pan and the gods of old, (Not Christ, ah me !) In line and legend featly scrolled Tell of his high ladye In purple and scarlet and gold. Capital, balustrade, cornice, and wall, (That this should be !) 94 THE DUKE S LADYE His name bear, linked high over all, With the name of his fair ladye In a deathless coronal. In Michael's chapel tombed she sleeps, (Oh, royally!) " Isottae Divse " / Still he keeps The soul of his dear ladye Like a pure star over the deeps ! And still, the prayerful bow the knee To a statue of wondrous grace. They call him Michael, but, ah me ! The guardian angel's holy face Is the face of the Duke's ladye. THE FIGHTING SCRIBE OF IONA So, are you come again Out of your cave in Hell, Monster of vapor and hands ? Over the strait in Mull I heard you howl, and I heard you Wild on the waters that crowd Past us up from the sea, Past us to Staffa to-night. I heard you, fiend, in my soul ! I knew to-night you would come. What is your will of me ? Speak ! Monster a-crouch by my lattice ! What is your will ? My book ? Once more my book ? Once more My Patriarchs, scarlet and azure, My thickets, my wonderful angels ? No ! Not my book ! Not this ! Back to your lattice, back, Palpitant bag of vapors ; Fume of the marsh, with hands ! 96 THE FIGHTING SCRIBE OF IONA Jehovah, sitting on clouds In sapphire of heaven and ocean, Jehovah shall leap from the parchment And smite you ! Soul of the Snake, Lilith, mother of Cain ! Back ! You shall break me no more My quills ; or muddy my paints, Or with your vapors make odious My shining leaves ! They shall cry Glory to God in Iona Though nightly Gehenna and Ireland Loose all their devils against me. This is God's work I do ! Satyr, in regions afar, Where Mahound in unlighted places Stalks, bringing not day, My Genesis shall carry the dawn ! Silence that laughter ! What ! Will you grapple ? Then come ! Those hands ! I fear them not .' I tell you I fear those hands no more ! What now ? Do you flee ? So soon ? Coward, are you shaken at last ? 97 THE FIGHTING SCRIBE OF IONA Stay, fiend ! I clutch you now ! Yes, writhe ! Spew round, Spew your tenebrious vapors ! I let not go my hold Till I have torn from your breast Your heart to make it my ink-pot. One wrench ! Writhe, for I have it ! I go again to my book, My Genesis, to my Patriarchs. Visitant, the blood from your heart Shall make more glorious the firmament Where Jehovah rests amid angels ; More dazzling the wonderful garment Of Jacob wringing at Peniel A blessing from God in the night. "OUT OF THIS CAGE MY BODY" Out of this cage my body, out of me like a bird, Freed by the touch of your fingers, lured by the song of your word, Laughter like sun on its pinions, tears like the mir- roring dew, Out of me, out of me, wings my soul unto the soul of you ! It lies in your hand and it quivers, it quivers in joy, not in fear; It feels the warmth of your fingers, and hears the heart beating near. It feeds on the bread of your silence, and buoyant and strong grow its wings, And day and night in the light of your love it sings and it sings and it sings ! 99 MEMORY Moodily down the street men call The Years I wandered visiting old friends and foes, Dear days, that laughed and played with me, and those Scarcely less dear that shared unstained tears. And other days that greeted me with jeers I visited, sick days without repose, That decked their scars in bright, deceptive shows, And spoke of debts and payments in arrears ; Usurious days that muttered from the dark, Pillowed on rags, unhappy, broken, old : Pay, pay, thou wooer of the far Sublime ! I cried : Have I not paid to the last mark, Have I not paid you back a hundredfold ? Oh miserly, inhuman sons of Time ! 100 THE SICKBED Dear heart, when thus I stroke your aching head I do believe the pain at last must go. For so much love is in these hands, I know There must be healing ; for hath One not said That love shall comfort the uncomforted, Heal man's diseases as it heals his woe ? Shall I then doubt that I who love you so Can tame the rebel shades that haunt thy bed ? Sleep, my beloved. Vaster love than mine Grants these poor fingers power to lull the ache. Through love am I become God's instrument : A harp whereon he breathes his high intent ; A hollow reed, made for love's holy sake A carrier of harmonies divine. 101 ANNIVERSARY I wonder had you wept or had you smiled, Could you have read the book of things to be That summer dusk we sat beside the sea, And, like the children that we were, beguiled Our wiser sense to think that we but whiled An hour away in casual company? Could you have known what now is memory I wonder had you wept or had you smiled ? Men call you happy. Boldly I believe That year by year I see the gladness grow ; Yet care and pain and vigils bravely kept Gauntly confront the joys. That August eve Could you have dreamed the pain the happiest know I wonder had you smiled or had you wept ? 102 THE PEDDLER I peddles pencils on Broadway. I know it ain't a great career. It 's dull an' footless — so folks say — And yet I 've done it twenty year, Held down my same old corner here An' never missed a day. I peddles, an' I watch the crowd. I knows 'em — all they say an' do — As if they shouted it out loud. I look 'em through an' through an' through ! By crabs ! they 'd kill me if they knew — They are so fine an' proud. I knows 'em ! Oh, it 's in their eyes, It 's in their walk, it 's in their lips ! They tries to bluff it — but I 'in wise ! An' they're just children when you strips The smirk off; an' the clerks, the chips, Stands clean of all the lies. 103 THE PEDDLER I 've watched so long, I scarcely see The clo'es — it 's just the faces now. Somehow I knows their misery, An' wonders — when? An' where? An' how? Elbow an' shoulder — on they plough — An' yet somehow they speaks to me. I'm like the priest — an' all day long They tells me what they 've thought an' done. An' some is flabby, some is strong, An' some of 'em was dead an' gone Before they ever saw the sun. . . . I knows where some of 'em belong. I peddles pencils. Christ ! An' they ? They does the things that seems worth while. I watch 'em grow in' old an' gray, An' queer about the eyes, an' smile To see 'em when they 've made their pile, A-totterin' up Broadway. THE DEVIL AND ST. DONAT The Devil hath made him a ship To bear the sinful souls ; He hath made it well of roots from Hell, And sulphur and brimstone and coals. He cruises from midnight till dawn 'Twixt Severn-mouth and Dee : At one by Harlech, at two by Llanbadrig, By wild Worm's Head at three; From Severn-mouth to Dee, Dee to Severn again, Till he picks up the oar-boat come from shore With its catch of damned men. Then all night long the good folk That on the seacoasts be, Will hear the Devil holding his revel On his mad ship out at sea. St. Donat lived in Pembroke And miracles many he wrought; And the Devil and all that come at his call By day and night he fought. 105 THE DEVIL AND ST. DONAT Cried he, " A shame I deem it That we should weakly stand, And let a knave live at peace on the wave Whom we harry for aye on the land." He made him a spear of an ash- wood tree, Of iron he made him a head ; And set it in shrine for midnights nine And holy prayers he said. Then out from Llanfihangel He stole 'twixt the night and the day, Till the Devil's bark like a coal in the dark He spied in Gwbert Bay. On Csemmas Head, St. Donat Crouched o'er the harbor- bar. No stars did hover the black ship over, And the moon was fled afar. The Devil he saw at the hatchway As the reeking hold he crammed. " I will wait till he go," quoth he, " below, To count the newly damned. 106 THE DEVIL AND ST. DONAT " But when the Devil hath gone below I will lift my bright spear-head, And save the sin-weary for the Virgin Mary And kill the Devil dead." And lo, the ship turned slowly Forth from Gwbert Bay ; And St. Donat heard the music weird Of the Devil's triumph-lay. It slew the bird as he fled, It withered the leaf on the tree, It clave the rock, and block on block Flung thundering into the sea. But on Caemmas Head, St. Donat Stood up with never a fear, Though bats of the air whirred through his hair And the winds clutched at his spear. And he flung the weapon straight As the moon flings her shaft o'er the wave ; 'T was a mile, I wot, that the good spear shot Ere into the hull it drave. 107 THE DEVIL AND ST. DONAT A mile, and maybe twain, It sped with a sound like thunder, And when at last it struck, it brast The hellish keel asunder. The Devil was gone below Branding the souls with his finger ; But when he was ware of the danger there, Pardee, not long did he linger ! For the waters (that are of God) Leapt over the sinking rail ; The stays they wrenched and the Devil they drenched, They tore the black mainsail. The sinning souls outstrewn On the waves of Gwbert Bay, Like one they fled to Csemmas Head — But the Devil he swam away. St. Donat hath gone to glory And sits at Mary's knee ; And never the Devil holds his revel 'Twixt Severn more and Dee. 108 THE DEVIL AND ST. DONAT But a giant grins on Worm's Head Serenely year on year, As he wipes his mouth with the black sail-cloth And picks his teeth with the spear. THE HUMMINGBIRD Through tree-top and clover a-whirr and away ! Hi ! little rover, stop and stay. Merry, absurd, excited wag — Lilliput-bird in Brobdingnag ! Wild and free as the wild thrush, and warier — Was ever a bee merrier, airier ? Wings folded so, a second or two — Was ever a crow more solemn than you ? A-whirr again over the garden, away ! Who calls, little rover ? Bird or fay ? Agleam and aglow, incarnate bliss ! What do you know that we humans miss ? In the lily's chalice, what rune, what spell, In the rose's palace, what do they tell (When the door you bob in, airily) That they hush from the r^bin, hide from the bee ? — 110 THE HUMMINGBIRD Fearing the crew of chatter and song, And tell to you of the chantless tongue ? Chantless ! Ah, yes. Is that the sting Masked in gay dress and whirring wing ? Faith ! But a wing of such airy stuff! What need to sing ? Here 's music enough. A- whirr, and over tree-top, and through ! Hi ! little rover, fair travel to you. Sweet, absurd, excited wag — Lilliput-bird in Brobdingnag! THE LAST WABANAKI LappilatTvan, Lappilatzvan, Gray singer of the dusk, High in the birch-tree, High, where the squirrels Cannot come, Not the flying squirrels — Lappilatwan, I hear you : " It is twilight. Go to sleep, Birds and insects, Go to sleep, Bear and moose, Go to sleep, Chiefs of the Wabanakis. Braves, leave your hunting. Squaws and maidens, Lay jour weaving In the baskets, Tend the fire In the wigwam. 112 THE LAST WABANAKI Young papooses, Let the little river Flow by unhindered. Go to sleep, I, Lappilatwan, Singer in the dusk, Say it." Lappilatwan, Lappi/atzvan, Why do you sing ? The birds have all Gone to sleep. The little birds That sang to the elves In the deep forest All day long, To the little elves That slid clown the sunbeams And ran races Over the shining hill Of the rainbow. The birds have all Gone to sleep 113 THE LAST WABANAKI With the elves That laughed in the forest. There is no more forest. Lappilatxvan, Lappilatwan, Why do you sing ? The Big Moose Whom Kuloskap the Master Called Kchi Mus He is gone to sleep. Muuin the Bear And Malsumsis, the little wolf — Hark, Lappilatwan, They do not shout Through the forest. They have all Gone to sleep. Only Sexkatu The flying squirrel, The chipmunk and the woodchuck, Only your foes, Lappilatwan, Still wake. 114 THE LAST WABANAKI Lappilatxvan, Lappi/atwan, Why do you sing ? The crafty chiefs Of the Wabanakis They have all Gone to sleep. The medicine man, The wizard, The strong man with the bow — They, too, have all Gone to sleep. The squaws are silent. They have laid aside The bright blankets And the weaving of baskets, They have gone into the wigwam. But there is no smoke Rising through the trees Of the forest. The fires in the wigwams — The squaws have forgotten them. They have all Gone to sleep. 115 THE LAST WABANAKI Lappilatrvan, Lappilatwan, Why do you sing ? The braves and the maidens They have looked At each other, Sadly, without smiling — They have gone into their wigwams? They have all Gone to sleep. The papooses Cried from the wigwams. They cried, But now they are still. Hark, Lappilatxvan ! Not one Whispers to the elves That slide down the beam Of the first star. They have all Gone to sleep. THE BOY AND THE MOTHER THE BOY IN THE CITY All day long, all day long Up and down the streets I go — Not a face in all the throng That I know ! Aching eyes and heavy feet, All day long and days and days! Oh, for something good to eat, And a warm wood blaze ! Fields are gray and frosty now, Trees are stripped, except maybe For an apple on the bough All forgot — like me. In the house there 's smell o' pine, Where the fire cracks and roars, And the sound of winds that whine Under floors and doors! 117 THE BOY AND THE MOTHER And the kettle puffing hot And her voice — " Some kindlin's, Jack ! " And — she '11 cry : " Oh ! I forgot ! " But I won't go back ! THE MOTHER IN THE VILLAGE I sit all day an' think an' think, My hands they scarce can sew, They lie here in my lap like stones — Why did I let him go ? He might ha' worked here in the store An' earned enough for him an' me. I told him, told him, till he cried. Somehow, he could n't see. Perhaps, we country folks is queer, An' old an' sot an' dull; But townsfolk, they 're so rich an' bad — An' he 's so beautiful ! They '11 ask him to their parties, him That was so dear an' true, An' make him drink an' smoke, an' do The things that bad men do. 118 THE BOY AND THE MOTHER The girls '11 prink to catch his eye, With hair all frizzed an' curled. An' mothers '11 set traps for him, Who does n't know the world ! An' then some fluffy, city girl, With just clothes in her head, Will snap him up away from me To love her folks instead. I sit all day an' think an' think — My hands they scarce can sew. They 're achin' just to touch his cheeks. Why did I let him go ? THE BOY Up and down the crowded street, All day long and days and days — Oh, for something good to eat And a warm wood blaze ! THE CRIER IN THE NIGHT I cry to you through the night, towers ! I cry to you through the night, machines ! I cry to you through the night, oh, city of smoke and roaring ! — Where my Beloved dwells And labors and grows wan. Day by day in her wonderful eyes The lamp burns dimmer; Day by day, her dancing fingers Grow heavier, and her dancing feet. I cry to you through the night, ye inexorable ! Must it be That she too shall grow listless, Those eyes dull, those lips dumb ? — That spirit, eager as the bird, Swift as the steed, sniffing the sea, Beautiful as the sea awaiting the night — Oh, terrible watchmen at the gate, Must that gold mote be quenched ? What do you answer, towers ? W T hat do you answer, machines ? 120 THE CRIER IN THE NIGHT What do you answer, oh, city of toil and weep= ing? You who chant by day The pitiless power of man, By night, his awful grandeur! Relentless Caesars! The multitudes cry and clap their hands, They crowd about your chariot, They fling you roses, They wind you wreaths — But, oh, what of my Beloved, A captive at your wheel ? Oh, potent, terrible spirits ! I flee from you, I flee to the hills, To the wilderness canopied of heaven, To the sunny vale, the peaceful village. The shepherd with his shorn, his bleating flock, On quiet slopes Companions me; Sown fields that quiver into green Lie at my feet, the clear church bell Breaks like a star the silent air of dusk. Dark, Hesperidean orchards 121 THE CRIER IN THE NIGHT Solace my eyes, my ears Ten thousand doves cooing in the warm noon. - I flee! Is it the voice of my Beloved ? I flee to the white peaks ; Vapor and gold is their crown. Wonderful heights, Brooding over the far still lake As Jehovah over the face of the deep ! I flee, daemons of torment ! I flee! But your runners are upon my trail ! Your tongues are as the tongue of the sea. Ever you call me, though I flee from you, Ever you call me, and I return ! I cannot escape you ! Your clutches are terribly upon me ! You are my masters. But you shall answer, oh, towers ! You shall answer, machines ! You shall answer, city of stripes and millstones ! There will come a day When my Beloved will take my hand at last. 122 THE CRIER IN THE NIGHT Out of the ashes of our woe We shall rise up before you ; Without humility, without fear, We shall look into your eyes. And we shall cry : Lay bare, lay bare your hearts ! What is true in you, What is noble in you, What is enduring in you ? Lay bare, lay bare ! For what is otherwise The God-in-us has risen to destroy ! THE KEEPERS OF THE NATION (1912) Clear o'er the turbulence that night and day From dark vales rises where men war and weep ; Clear o'er the noisy toil of them that reap Unholy harvests, and the noisy play Of idle souls that fling their years away, They heard a voice that echoed up the deep Ravines of time and would not let them sleep, And they arose, daring no more delay — " Where is thy brother ? " In the streets were tongues Reiterating Cain's accursed reply. But they walked boldly, heeding not the throngs ; And like a trumpet shivering the sky Cried as one voice : " My brother droops in thongs ! Guide me, Lord God ! My brother's keeper ami!" 124 ON THE SENATE'S REPUDIATION OF AN HONORABLE COMPACT Blind guardians of the glory of our land, Defenders of our fame, what have you done ? — Crying: Our holiest pledges every one Are idle words writ on the windy sand ! How shameless at the judgment do we stand! Through cynic Europe hear the laughter run ; Shrewd Machiavellis mocking as they shun The great republic of the faithless hand ! Yea, we are great, but not by juggled phrases! Yea, we are strong, but not by troth denied ! The age is full of change and insecure ; Hot in the fevered blood of nations blazes The strife of souls. Only by clear-descried, Intrepid equity can we endure. 125 EPITAPH Humanity and Valor, Wisdom, Faith, Keep watch beside him, Truth makes smooth his brow. His days, his deeds stand shining round him now. Against such guards what power hast thou, O Death ? 126 THE VIGIL OF PADRE JUNIPERO (San Diego, March, 1770) Dawn ! And over the peaks, over the serried wall, Day, the silver, the flame-born, spreads out her wings through the blue ! What folk is astir so early, what hammers impa- tiently fall, Waking the bird from his slumber, heavy with poppy and dew ? What mariners row what burdens to their ship ere break of day ? What cowled one kneels so early on the hill-top over the Bay ? Heroes have come from the south, heroes have striven and failed. The Cross of God on high they have raised, but raised it in vain. Hunger and thirst are potent, though the breast be stoutly mailed. u We will turn," quoth grave Portola, " at dawn home to New Spain. 127 THE VIGIL OF PADRE JUNIPERO We have dreamed a noble dream, but the dream was not to be ; And I must save the Spanish-men that trust their weal to me." Calm is the voice of the Padre : " We are God's men. Shall we fear ? I follow God's dream, not mine, and God knows no rebuff. God who loves His wilds, will feed His pioneer. God rules. Relief will come. God rules. It is enough." " Relief! " Portola cried. "The relief-ship is lost, I say!" Cried the Padre : " One day more ! " Quoth Por- tola : u So be it, one day ! " Day ! And who kneels so mute on the hill-top over the Bay ? The mariners load their bark, the stores lie heaped on the strand. Blue and unclouded bends over the world the day, Waking each canyon to life in the beautiful, terrible land. 128 THE VIGIL OF PADRE JUNIPERO Shouts, and hurrying steps, shriek of tackles and wheels ; A bell through the long, hot hours, a shape in the sun that kneels] Noon is over the world, silence is over the Bay. The mariners rest from their labor in shadow of mast and tree. Silence is over the soul of one, who dares not pray Lest the whispered want in the heart bring back mortality ; Or the seeming need of the cry, the passionate, pleading word, Break, like thunder, the crystalline walls of the house of the Lord. Dusk ! And up from the sea, the gray soars over the gold. The bark in the harbor is laden. The quivering canvas is up. But the cowled one lone on the hill-top kneels like a knight of old, Keeping his breathless vigil beside the glowing Cup. 129 THE VIGIL OF PADRE JUNIPERO And U I believe!'''' speak the folded hands on his breast; but, lo, The eyes that stare o'er the sea to God, they cry: "I know!" Night ! The world is asleep and the stars sing over its bed. Soft as a song the south-wind carries the odors of even. But to one, the earth, the sea, the stars, are as words that are said, Flown, and faded forever in the infinite ether of Heaven. And God is all that was, or is, or ever can be — Save one white sail somewhere that climbs the rim of the sea. Once more breaks the purple bowl and spills the liquid light ! What rapture cries to the dawn ? What figures dance on the strand ? On the hill the Watchman kneels, and the sun is his aureole bright, 130 THE VIGIL OF PADRE JUNIPERO As he murmuring slips the beads one by one through his hand. Over the waves, the wakened, the sun flings his glimmering trail — Kindling to starry silver, a lone, white, hastening sail ! SHIPWRECK The wind cried up from the east with a long thin wail. The dark rolled over the stars, the dull sea rose. And the Skipper turned from his light-o'-love by the rail And his body tingled with sweat and his blood froze, For he heard a babe, the cry of a babe in the gale. " It 's come at last, it 's come ! D' ye hear, d' ye hear? Last night, d' hear ? Last night, I tell ye, it came ! I heerd her moanin' all night, an' I knew it was near, In my dreams I heerd her moanin' an' callin' my name, Andy, Andy, Andy ! like a hammer in my ear. " An' at last near morning I heerd a cry, an' I knew ! A baby's cry, a bit of a second it cried. 132 SHIPWRECK An' ye woke me then an' I knew nothin' but you, Till the dark came again an' whispered : 1 They ''ve died! They 've died 1 ' An' I heerd the wind tellin' the sea as it blew. " An' they 're all alone on the Cape, an' round them 's the night. All alone in the bed she faced north to the sea, That wherever I was I 'd know one beacon-light Was shinin', she 'd say, thro' fog an' the dark, for me. Art it 's shinirf now I I can see it — starey an' white ! " The Skipper's light-o'-love she stood like an oak Bred amid crags and whipped by the wild wind's scourge. And the wind loosened her hair and tore at her cloak, But she laughed like the spume back to the shout- ing surge And the taunt of the deep spoke in her voice when she spoke. 133 SHIPWRECK " Andy, little fool Andy, afraid of his wife Cooking her beans an' cod, safe on the Cape ! What 's she done for you ? You was dead. I kissed ye to life." — He laughed, shrilly, and flung back his head to escape The perilous scent of her flesh, poised like a knife ; But her face was close, her loose hair flew in his eyes. His limbs grew faint of her nearness, her lips on his cheeks, The hot forge-flame of her breath and her breath- less cries, Till he sank on her pulsing throat, and, dizzy and weak, Knew nothing at all but her bosom's fall and rise. Up through the dark the hurricane called the sea, And the billows shrank and sprang and bel- lowed and boiled. The mate whistled, and out from the hatch's lee Shadows leapt up the shrouds and dizzily toiled ; And the bark eased, but the gale cried terribly. 134 SHIPWRECK The Skipper stirred, but he heard not whistle or gale Though the prow plunged deep and flung in his face the foam. He heard only the sound of footsteps frail In the sandy yard of his bleak Yarmouth home, And the creak of a gate and the crunch of the loose beach-trail. The Skipper stared like a dead man out into space. " It 's her ! An' she 's white an' her cheeks is wet with the storm. The gray shawl 's over her head an' close to her face She 's holdin' our little baby to keep him warm, An' she's striding down to the sea wi' ghostly pace." The storm was loud. His woman drew close his head. " Baby, Andy, yourself, scared at the wind ! " But the Skipper's voice was thick with a new dread : u She 's gone, gone into the sea ! She 's gone to find Me an' you to show us the baby that 's dead. 135 SHIPWRECK " D' ye hear, d' ye hear ? She 's gone down into the sea, An' she '11 come an' find us an' make me look in her eyes. O beast, you ! Why could n't ye leave me be ? I hated ye half the time, but ye hooked me wi' lies, Till ye had me high an' dry wi' your devilry. " Let me go, d' ye hear ? Christ, how I hate ye ! le' go ! They 've furled the tops' Is. Not a stitch on her sticks ! " He pushed her down. She kissed him. He struck her a blow. " Christ ! Not to-night I won't tumble to you an' your tricks Wi' God chasin' me here — an' a ghost below." He lurched to the wheel, he shouted, and swift thro' the dark Men climbed, swaying, and labored. The loosed sail roared. The Skipper steered on, but his boyish face was stark ; 136 SHIPWRECK And blindly on, like a frightened mare at a ford, Snorted and plunged and reared the maddened bark. On ! And he heard a footfall under the sea ! On ! And the swish of great fins making room ! He saw the sea-floor's desert shadow}', And he saw her coming, whiter and swifter than doom, Though she moved not her shoulder at all, nor bent her knee. He saw her pass like a wisp through the level sea- weed, Like a ray of the moon he saw her move over the crag. Before her he saw undulant arms recede, Lumps drop to cover, racing fishes lag — And he shook out canvas to match his speed to her speed. The sea with shock and thunder broke over the side And the mast shuddered and yawed and the beams droned. 137 SHIPWRECK But the Skipper heard not wind nor bellowing tide, He heard only a voice that faintly moaned And close under his feet the steps of his bride. His hands were no more his own on the plunging wheel, For a stronger soul than his own had taken com- mand. It turned the rudder, it turned the shivering keel Till the bark jibed in the clutch of the awful hand, And the gale broke a sail from its bolts with a loud peal. The Skipper's light-o'-love clutched, wildly, his arm. With a curse the mate leapt to the wheel: "The shoal ! " But the Skipper fought free, he feared not the tem- pest-harm, He feared only a ghost pursuing his soul With feet swifter than all the pinions of storm. 138 SHIPWRECK And the vessel crashed with shiver and shock on the bar, And the waves pursuing swept tumbling the deck. Up the shrouds shadows leapt to a groaning spar ; But over the shoal the storm flung the harried wreck, And it staggered into the breakers, jar on jar, Beaten and open-seamed, to the last mad clash ! The Skipper dragged his light-o'-love to the yards. Shouts, and shouts again, and the mortar's flash, And in bonfire-light the black shapes of the guards Coiling again and again the whirring lash ! They drew the Skipper's light-o'-love to the shore, They drew the seamen safe, but the Skipper alone Abode the buoy's slow return once more, Alone with eddying soul and face of stone, Alone with a voice low thro' the storm's roar : 139 SHIPWRECK " Andy, Andy, I 'm here ! Andy, it 's me ! Look up, Andy, look. I ' ve brought you your boy. He 's so pretty, Andy. Why can't ye look up an' see ? Who'd ever ha' guessed, Andy, 't you could destroy Me an' the babe an' yourself so foolishly ? " The Skipper's flesh crawled, for he felt the touch Of a hand on his hair and lips' faint press and glow. " Was she kind to you, Andy ? An' did ye love her so much ? She never loved you as I did, Andy, I know. An' you — you was all too good for the like of such. " Come to me, Andy. There 's nothing for you over there. An', Andy, the baby an' me are close to you here. There's nothing for you wi' her only hate an' despair. But I shall be in your eye, Andy, an' in your ear, An' in your heart forever an' everywhere." 140 SHIPWRECK The Skipper heard, through howl and thunder he heard ! But the buoy was nigh and voices called from the beach. He sprang to the buoy — eternity ! — it stirred ! Slowly with groaning rope and the tackle's screech, Shoreward, darting, plunging like a great bird, It hurtled. But once more the hollow steep Rose up with hands, it rose, unearthly, vast. It hovered above him, gaunt awfulness waiting to leap, Leapt, broke, thundered, whelmed him at last. Day came. But the Skipper came not forth from the deep. L'ENVOI To-night on Madagascar! shores dark hands Are lifted to the wide benignant sky. To-night where green oases with the sands Of Libya mate, dark hands Are lifted up on high ; Are lifted up in yearning through the bars That keep man's soul in exile from the stars. To-night, on Himalayan slopes a voice Over the world's white roof takes its high way< In parched valley, ice-imprisoned bay, Where'er men toil and suffer and rejoice Unto the stars a voice Leaps like the day. To-night in every hamlet of Cathay, Forgotten Orkney, lost Domingo, hark, A voice ! that cleaves the daylight or the dark In wonder or dismay. To-night in cities old and new Where'er men strive and feel the yoke, A voice aspires through dust and smoke 142 L ENVOI Seeking the calm, untarnished blue. Laughter and pain, passion and sweet delight, Glory and wrong ! Hark, how they seek the friendly stars to-night In song ! Oh, lucid stream struck from the rock of Life By thirsty spirits, homeless, over-bowed ! Bright wires of sunlight in this frame of cloud, Given of the first departing day as he went, To his golden wife, Earth, the bereaved, bewildered, for lament Of tears forever rife, And solace eloquent. Oh, strange telegraphy that links man's soul To bird and tree, tempest and whirling sphere .' Tell me, what is the rose ? Tell me, what is the wind that blows ? Tell me, what is this music that I hear Forever heavenward roll ? Bright miracle of song ! High alchemy ! We hear, and are made strong, 143 L ENVOI We sing, and are made free ! We sing to heal, exalt, defy, We sing we scarce know how or why j Only we know When the heart's barriers overflow That we must sing or die. Song! To the stars a glorious symphony Blent of the million little songs goes forth '. The anthems of the singers of the north, The cry with lifted hands by tropic sea ; The West's loud call, the Orient's dirge In one glad surge Of heavenly melody ! THE END HpHE following pages are advertisements of recent im. portant poetry published by the Macmillan Company IMPORTANT BOOKS OF POETRY By RABINDRANATH TAGORE Gltanjall (Song Offerings) A Collection of Prose Translations made by the Author from the Original Bengali With an Introduction by W. B. YEATS And a Portrait of the Author by W. ROTHENSTEIN Cloth. 1 2ino. $1.40 net "His poems are of the very stuff of imagination, and yet gay and vivid with a fresh and delicious fancy. Their beauty is as delicate as the reflection of the colour of a flower." — The Westminster Gazette. "They reveal a poet of undeniable authority and a spiritual influence singularly in touch with modern thought and modern needs." — The Daily News. "Mr. Tagore's translations are of trance-like beauty." — The Athenaeum. "... It is the essence of all poetry of East and West alike, the language of the soul." — The Indian Magazine and Review. BY THE SAME AUTHOR The Gardener A new volume of poems. 16mo. The Problem of Evil and Other Lectures 8vo PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York IMPORTANT BOOKS OF POETRY Three New Books £p JOHN MASEFIELD SALT WATER BALLADS Cloth. i2tno. $j.oo net. Postpaid $1.10. "Masefield has prisoned in verse the spirit of life at sea." — New York Sun. A MAINSAIL HAUL Cloth. i2mo. $1.25 net. Postpaid $1.36. "There is strength about everything Masefield writes that compels the feeling that he has an inward eye on which he draws to shape new films of old pictures. In these pictures is freshness combined with power." — New York Globe. THE TRAGEDY OF POMPEY i2mo. A vigorous, vivid and convincing play, in the virile and impressive vein associated with Mr. Masefield's striking poetic gifts. PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York IMPORTANT BOOKS OF POETRY New Editions of JOHN MASEFIEID'S Other Works THE DAFFODIL FIELDS Second Edition. $1.25 net. "Neither in the design nor in the telling did, or could, 'Enoch Arden' come near the artistic truth of 'The Daffo- dil Fields.' " — Sir Quiller-Couch, Cambridge University. THE STORY OF A ROUND-HOUSE, AND OTHER POEMS New and Revised Edition. $1.30 net. "The story of that rounding of the Horn! Never in prose has the sea been so tremendously described." — Chicago Evening Post. THE EVERLASTING MERCY and THE WIDOW IN THE BYE STREET (Awarded the Royal Society of Literature's prize of $500.) New and Revised Edition. $1.25 net. "Mr. Masefield comes like a flash of light across con- temporary English poetry. The improbable has been ac- complished; he has made poetry out of the very material that has refused to yield it for almost a score of years. "->- Boston Evening Transcript. PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York IMPORTANT BOOKS OF POETRY WILFRID WILSON GIBSON Daily Bread New Edition. Three volumes in one. Cloth, i2mo. $1.25 net. "A Millet in word-painting who writes with a terrible simplicity is Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, born in Hexham, England, in 1878, of whom Canon Cheyne wrote: 'A new poet of the people has risen up among us.' The story of a soul is written as plainly in ' Daily Bread ' as in ' The Divine Comedy' and in 'Paradise Lost."' — The Outlook. Fires Cloth. i2mo. $1.25 net. "In 'Fires' as in 'Daily Bread,' the fundamental note is human sympathy with the whole of life. Impressive as these dramas are, it is in their cumulative effect that they are chiefly powerful." — Atlantic Monthly. Womenkind Cloth. i2mo. $1.25 net. "Mr. Gibson is a genuine singer of his own day and turns into appealing harmony the world's harshly jarring notes of poverty and pain." — The Outlook. PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York IMPORTANT BOOKS OF POETRY By FANNIE STEARNS DAVIS MYSELF AND I Cloth. i2mo. $i.oonet "For some years the poems of Miss Davis have at- tracted wide attention in the best periodicals. That note of wistful mysticism which shimmers in almost every line gives her art a distinction that is bound to make its appeal. In this first book — where every verse is significant — Miss Davis has achieved very beautiful and serious poetry." — Boston Transcript. By JOHN HELSTON LONICERA AND OTHER POEMS Cloth. i2tno. This book introduces another poet of promise to the verse-lovers of this country. It is of interest to learn that Mr. Helston, who for several years was an operative me- chanic in electrical works, has created a remarkable im- pression in England where much is expected of him. This volume, characterized by verse of rare beauty, presents his most representative work, ranging from the long descrip- tive title-poem to shorter lyrics. PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 23 1913 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 015 898 551 2