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THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
•Th£)^£ 
 
 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 
 
THE FLIGHT AND 
 OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY 
 
 n 
 
 Neto garfc 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1914 
 
 All rights reserved 
 

 Copyright, 1912, 1913, 
 By GEORGE E. WOODBERRY. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1914, 
 
 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1914. 
 
 NcrfajooU Press 
 
 J. 8. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
 JAN 22 1914 
 
 ©CU362263 
 
^> 
 
 NOTE 
 
 Several of these poems originally appeared in 
 the Atlantic Monthly, Century, Harper's, Scrib- 
 ner's, Outlook, Forum, North American, Interna- 
 tional, Independent, Boston Daily Transcript, and 
 Old Farmer's Almanack, Twenty-three are now 
 
 first published. 
 
 G. E. W. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Proem : page 
 
 The Flight ....... 3 
 
 I. The Kingdom of All-Souls and Other Poems : 
 
 The Kingdom of All-Souls .... 7 
 What the Stars Sang in the Desert . . .15 
 
 The Riding 20 
 
 In the Oasis 25 
 
 The Winged Eros of Tunis, recovered from the 
 
 sea near Mahdia in 1904 .... 29 
 
 The Revenant 31 
 
 The Blue Star 34 
 
 The Leopard 38 
 
 The White Bone . . . . . .41 
 
 The Way 44 
 
 Beyond Good and Evil .... . 48 
 
 Comrades . 55 
 
 II. The Poet in Italy and Other Poems: 
 
 The Poet in Italy .61 
 
 Calogero 63 
 
 Flower of Etna 68 
 
 Orfeo 71 
 
 TheFesta 73 
 
 St. John and the Faun 75 
 
 The Sicilian 79 
 
 A Day at Castrogiovanni : 
 
 I. Etna 80 
 
 II. Proserpine : by Lake Pergusa . . 81 
 
 III. Demeter 86 
 
 vii 
 
Vlll 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 The Rhythm 
 
 To the Venus of Syracuse 
 
 Helicon 
 
 The Delphian Child . 
 
 The Isle 
 
 To an Ionian Boy 
 
 The Mosque at Ephesus 
 
 The Reveller : A Vineyard Song 
 
 By the Tyrrhene Sea . 
 
 " One Last Kiss " . 
 
 " In Thy Chambers " . 
 
 III. The Reed and Other Poems : 
 
 PAGE 
 
 96 
 98 
 99 
 100 
 104 
 107 
 114 
 117 
 120 
 121 
 121 
 
 125 
 
 133 
 
 136 
 
 The Reed 
 
 Lines for the Ingham Memorial at Le Roy, 
 
 1911 
 
 E. A. P 
 
 " Beautiful Wings " 139 
 
 The Dirge 140 
 
 Distance ....... 143 
 
 To a Child . 144 
 
 A Life 146 
 
 Death and Fame 147 
 
 Peary's Sledge 148 
 
 The Voice of the Antarctic .... 149 
 
 Fame 150 
 
 In Memoriam : Charles Eliot Norton. Read 
 before the Alpha Chapter of Phi Beta 
 Kappa, Harvard, June 16, 1913 . . 151 
 
 Epilogue : 
 
 The Poet to the Reader 
 
 161 
 
PROEM 
 
THE FLIGHT 
 
 I 
 r\ WILD HEART, track the land's perfume, 
 
 Beach-roses and moor-heather ! 
 All fragrancies of herb and bloom 
 
 Fail, out at sea, together. 
 O follow where aloft find room 
 Lark-song and eagle-feather ! 
 All ecstasies of throat and plume 
 Melt, high on yon blue weather. 
 
 O leave on sky and ocean lost 
 
 The flight creation dareth ; 
 Take wings of love, that mount the most ; 
 
 Find fame, that furthest fareth ! 
 Thy flight, albeit amid her host 
 
 Thee, too, night star-like beareth, 
 Flying, thy breast on heaven's coast, 
 
 The infinite outweareth. 
 
 3 
 
THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 II 
 
 "Dead o'er us roll celestial fires ; 
 
 Mute stand earth's ancient beaches ; 
 Old thoughts, old instincts, old desires, 
 
 The passing hour outreaches ; 
 The soul creative never tires, — 
 
 Evokes, adores, beseeches ; 
 And that heart most the god inspires 
 
 Whom most its wildness teaches. 
 
 "For I will course through falling years, 
 
 And stars and cities burning ; 
 And I will march through dying cheers 
 
 Past empires unreturning ; 
 Ever the world-flame reappears 
 
 Where mankind power is earning, 
 The nations' hopes, the people's tears, 
 
 One with the wild heart yearning." 
 
THE KINGDOM OF ALL-SOULS 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
my friend 
 
 John Alphonse Arrouet 
 
 i dedicate these echoes 
 
 of African days 
 
THE KINGDOM OF ALL-SOULS 
 
 X HEARD in my youth of a Kingdom, lying far 
 at the whole world's end, 
 
 And pilgrim-wise I clothed myself in my boyhood 
 there to wend ; 
 
 Through the beautiful, the dutiful, the holy high- 
 way ran, 
 
 So was I told, and it stretched through the midst 
 of all the glory of man ; 
 
 And all men spoke of the Kingdom, when they 
 looked on my face of joy, 
 
 And the souls of the dead spun the golden thread 
 in the heart of the silent boy. 
 
 So I lived with beauty and duty long ; and I flour- 
 ished in noble years ; 
 
 But I came not nigh to the Kingdom thereby ; and 
 my youth was thronged with fears ; 
 
 7 
 
8 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 For he who seeks only the Kingdom, goes lonely, 
 
 however it be at the prime ; 
 Now, in man's estate, perplexed, desolate, I looked 
 
 forward and back through time. 
 
 For a curious thing had happened in the lands 
 
 where eternally 
 Blows the mighty breath of the Trades of Death 
 
 by the old remembering sea ; 
 Incredible was the leap and sweep of my astonished 
 
 sense ; 
 Stars in their burning unveiled to me yearning 
 
 their spirit-throngs intense ; 
 And on glimmering seas Tripolitan borne, bright 
 
 as to Jacob's eye, 
 I saw, all the night, forms whose substance was 
 
 light move in the gold on high ; 
 And on earth the fire-fountains and snowy 
 
 mountains that first poured the power of man, 
 Blue blown spaces and sandy places where his 
 
 racing raptures ran ; 
 
GDOM OF ALL-SOULS 9 
 
 3 soul has fashioned fairest, 
 
 d or sung, 
 
 ' ears, on my moving lips, ever 
 
 in my mystic self of a discord 
 
 led my outward "eye and netted 
 
 of his sorrowing life had such 
 
 sight ; 
 
 nurk of Sicilian mines I lost my 
 
 torch came gazing on me, with 
 
 line 
 
 marbles of Athens, and the fire 
 n mine ; 
 
 es, the want of his limbs, the 
 his soul, — 
 
 the wave of passion that from 
 ay roll ! 
 
8 THE FLIGHT AND OTI 
 
 For he who seeks only the Kin 
 however it be at the prime ; 
 
 Now, in man's estate, perplexed 
 forward and back through tii 
 
 For a curious thing had happ 
 
 where eternally 
 Blows the mighty breath of th 
 
 by the old remembering sea ; 
 Incredible was the leap and swec 
 
 sense ; 
 Stars in their burning unveile< 
 
 their spirit-throngs intense ; 
 And on glimmering seas Tripol 
 
 as to Jacob's eye, 
 I saw, all the night, forms wh 
 
 light move in the gold on hig] 
 And on earth the fire-founl 
 
 mountains that first poured t 
 Blue blown spaces and sandy 
 
 racing raptures ran ; 
 
THE KINGDOM OF ALI^-SOULS 9 
 
 And whatever his soul has fashioned fairest, 
 
 carved or painted or sung, 
 On my eyes, in my ears, on my moving lips, ever 
 
 divinely hung. 
 
 Then was I ware in my mystic self of a discord 
 
 shaping there, 
 And a darkness filmed my outward eye and netted 
 
 the visual air ; 
 Man in the strife of his sorrowing life had such 
 
 power upon my sight ; 
 In the stench and murk of Sicilian mines I lost my 
 
 ways of light ; 
 For a youth with a torch came gazing on me, with 
 
 the nude archaic line 
 That I loved in the marbles of Athens, and the fire 
 
 of his soul sank in mine ; 
 The woe of his eyes, the want of his limbs, the 
 
 intimate look of his soul, — 
 Who shall measure the wave of passion that from 
 
 spirit to spirit may roll ! 
 
10 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 And, year after year, grew poverty dear; and 
 
 thereat I wondered then, 
 That my soul issued first unto wan lives accurst in 
 
 the loveliest lands of men. 
 
 Then I said to my Spirit beside me tall : "I have 
 
 fear — this is some charm 
 That the Impish Ones have wrought upon me to 
 
 do me malignant harm, 
 That for the blood- wasted and beauty-blasted I lay 
 
 bright worship by, — 
 Hover above it — sink in it — love it, — 'tis some 
 
 charm of the Evil Eye !" 
 But my Spirit beside gathered height in his pride. 
 
 Then a greater wonder arose, 
 Whereat my delicate being aloof with the horror 
 
 thereof froze ; 
 For I saw in the den of a prison-pen, on a peak of 
 
 Argos' coast, 
 Men whom whips compel, mould as in hell the 
 
 matrix of the Host ; 
 
THE KINGDOM OF ALI^SOULS 11 
 
 Murderers, thieves, and every brood of dark and 
 
 heinous sin 
 Forged in that shed the seal of God's Bread, that 
 
 stamps Christ's name therein. 
 
 Since then I have taken man's hands in mine, and 
 
 nevermore felt shame, 
 Such unearthly light upon my soul-sight in that 
 
 flooding moment came ; 
 And I mixed with all races in primitive places, 
 
 wherever we might meet, 
 In the gangway of the nations, drunken tavern, 
 
 desert street ; 
 And I saw men's souls unsheltered and bare, as one 
 
 seeth eye to eye, — 
 This the wonder, this the marvel, that my nature, 
 
 all awry, 
 Trembling ever jturned most truly to the lower and 
 
 the worse. 
 Then I said, abashed, to my Spirit, who flashed : 
 
 "This is some terrible curse 
 
12 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 That Heavenly Wrath sends on my path, that I 
 
 lose from my soul the awe 
 Of all justice human, eternal, — I, who was born 
 
 in the law !" 
 
 Then my Spirit brightened as a cloud that light- 
 ened ; and I heard o'er confusions within 
 
 The Voice that comes over chaos when a new 
 world shall begin : 
 
 "I have cleansed thy eyes of beauty; I have 
 cleansed thy heart of duty ; 
 
 I am soul that brightens from thee, seeing spiritual 
 beauty, — 
 
 Greatens, doing spiritual duty; incorruptible is 
 spirit, — 
 
 Nought to thee the vesture meaneth, gleam or 
 gloom that men inherit ; 
 
 Thou art waking in the Kingdom, where through 
 shadows half -divined 
 
 The dark planet moves up slowly to the glory of 
 the mind ; 
 
THE KINGDOM OF ALL-SOULS 13 
 
 Past the sensual, past the moral, now thy being 
 newly rolls, — 
 
 Thou art living, thou art breathing, in the King- 
 dom of All-Souls !" 
 
 I lay in the darkness hushed and o'erawed, as the 
 
 sense of the words sank in, — 
 One human spirit that all men inherit, undeprived 
 
 by their woe or their sin ; 
 No curst servile races, no virtue-throned places ! — 
 
 and splendors o'er me ran, — 
 Above me immense, gathering light intense, with 
 
 the beautiful form of man, 
 The Spirit stood bright in angelical might, and his 
 
 countenance beamed afar, 
 Born with our birth for dominion o'er earth, 
 
 Master and Lord of our Star ; 
 Heaven shook with the rays from his arrowy hand, 
 
 and the stars in the zenith grew wan, — 
 I saw, I know, in that mighty glow the foregleam 
 
 of some dawn ; 
 
14 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 And as a gold pillar of sunrise that flamed, and a 
 
 mounting glory showered, 
 Majestical over my dark form that soul of morning 
 
 towered. 
 
WHAT THE STARS SANG IN THE 
 DESERT 
 
 T WOKE in the desert rude 
 
 O'erhung by the star-sweet sky, 
 And ever the radiant multitude 
 In the silence drew more nigh, 
 As if on my eyes to brood, 
 And inward glory nurse, 
 And out of the heart of the universe 
 Soared forth my singing cry : 
 
 "We are young — our song up-springing 
 
 The crystal blue along, 
 Creation's morning singing, — 
 It was but children-song, 
 Melodiously ringing, 
 Mysteriously forewarning 
 The realm beyond the morning 
 We infinitely throng. 
 
 15 
 
16 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 "We sit in our burning spheres 
 inimitably hung ; 
 By the speed of light we measure the years 
 On purple ether flung ; 
 
 Without a shadow time appears, 
 A calendar of echoing lights 
 That flame and dusk from depths and heights, 
 And all our years are young. 
 
 "We are borne through darkness streaming 
 Wherein our glory glides ; 
 We dower the deep with the beaming 
 Where prophecy resides ; 
 
 Forevermore we are dreaming, 
 Still in the springtime blossom 
 Of thoughts that light our bosom 
 And beat our glowing sides. 
 
 "Wide the abyss ; we span it, 
 
 Who showering a bright spark came, 
 And forever we smite it and fan it 
 
WHAT THE STARS SANG IN THE DESERT 17 
 
 Forth from the forging flame, — 
 
 Life, flower of the planet, 
 
 Flower of the fire, supernal, 
 Burning, blooming, eternal, — 
 A million names are his name. 
 
 "We tremble; we thrill heaven's ocean 
 With the myriad-glittering quest ; 
 Aspiration and devotion 
 
 From the prime were our brooding nest ; 
 And youth, — 'tis breathed emotion, 
 A seeing and a hearkening, 
 A gleaming and a darkening, 
 And a whispering to the breast. 
 
 "Then with bright hands uplifted 
 We strike the thousand lyres ; 
 The music, on dreams drifted, 
 Pours all the world's desires ; 
 And ever the song is sifted 
 From the heart of youth forecasting 
 
18 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 The unknown everlasting 
 That bathes us and inspires. 
 
 "We gaze on the far flood flowing 
 Unimaginably free, 
 Multitudinous, mystical, glowing, 
 But all we do not see ; 
 
 And a rapture is all our knowing, 
 * That on fiery nerves comes stealing, 
 An intimate revealing 
 That all is yet to be. 
 
 "When sheathed and glacial o'er us 
 Arcturus courses cold, 
 And dry and dark before us 
 Aldebaran is rolled, 
 
 Far-clustering orbs in chorus 
 Shall light the pealing sky, 
 And throne to throne reply, 
 'The heavens grow not old." 
 
 Round the desert wild and eerie 
 The starry echoes clung ; 
 
WHAT THE STARS SANG IN THE DESERT 19 
 
 In a region weird and dreary 
 
 The golden song was sung ; i 
 
 Over lands forlorn and weary, 
 Where the drifting white sand only 
 Drifts anew the sand- wreath lonely, 
 The radiant silence hung. 
 
THE RIDING 
 
 SAID to my young soul riding, 
 "Thou shalt not await the hour, 
 Though no strength in thy arm be abiding, 
 
 Though thy virtue hath put forth no flower, 
 And life be all thy having, 
 
 And only hope thy dower ; 
 Courage will fly from thy laggard breast 
 Till thy sword be out, and thy lance in rest, 
 And ever the deed that man does best 
 
 Is a deed beyond his power." 
 
 I ride in lands of danger 
 
 Where wakes unknown alarm ; 
 But the strength that I find there is stranger 
 
 Than is any magical charm ; 
 
 From the grave is this befriending, 
 
 And it hides in my life-blood warm ; 
 20 
 
THE RIDING 21 
 
 From hearts that are dust is the nameless flow, 
 The strengthless dead in my muscles glow, 
 And I muse, as I lean o'er the monstrous foe, — 
 "It was my father's arm." 
 
 Through wide wastes I ride finding 
 
 Strange sights by lonesome strands ; 
 And wounds that none knows I stoop binding 
 
 Through the dumb and woeful lands ; 
 Out of my body goes healing 
 
 From the touch of my wandering hands ; 
 But my hands that I feel go confessing 
 Strange wrongs, and strange sacrifice blessing, 
 The dark children of sorrow caressing, — 
 
 They are not my mortal hands. 
 
 I set the reed to my lips, 
 
 Where my soul and my breath are wed ; 
 On far heights the song from me slips, 
 
 Down the slopes of the world it has sped ; 
 Out of my heart that goes mourning 
 
 The beautiful life has fled ; 
 
THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 But my song that I hear go singing, 
 Half over the wide world winging, 
 To the hearts and lips of men clinging, 
 Is the breath of poets dead. 
 
 Through dark night I go dreaming 
 
 Where unknown oceans roll ; 
 My thoughts, in flights, sweep gleaming 
 
 With the spirit's aureole ; 
 I know not where they have vanished 
 
 That from my bosom stole ; 
 But my dream that goes unreturning, 
 Fulfilled of the millions yearning, 
 And wraps the whole world burning, 
 
 Is the flaming of man's soul. 
 
 Through endless barren spaces, 
 Apart from all men thrown, 
 
 I ride through lonely places 
 In ways to no man known, 
 
 With none before nor after, 
 But I do not ride alone ; 
 
THE RIDING 23 
 
 Though there none names me brother, 
 I am ware, in my heart, of some other, 
 And my deeds are the deeds of another, 
 And none of my deeds is my own. 
 
 I never saw them shining 
 
 In that phantasmal air ; 
 But I feel dark hearts inclining 
 
 Round mine, in hostings fair ; 
 Though I ride sole and lonely, 
 
 They are thousands everywhere ; 
 In the scarlet desert sterile, 
 By the beaches' stormy beryl, 
 They stand about my peril, 
 
 And I can feel them there. 
 
 They lean from old bronzed races 
 
 Who plied red spears at morn ; 
 They troop from nameless places, 
 
 The lords of shame and scorn ; 
 And the souls of the uncreated 
 
 Flock to the way forlorn ; 
 
THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 I feel them grope and hover, 
 Where dark night clouds me over, 
 On the route of the lonely lover 
 Of the dead and the unborn. 
 
 Out of the unapparent 
 
 Doth the breath of all being blow ; 
 From a million natures errant 
 
 Doth the stream of man's blood flow ; 
 The nerves are the burning current 
 
 Of the universe aglow ; 
 Of the infinite was my making, 
 And I ride of the infinite taking 
 The strength that knows no breaking, 
 
 Wheresoever I go. 
 
IN THE OASIS 
 
 TT was a paradise of trees 
 
 In the blue vague of sand and sea ; 
 An isle of ocean histories, 
 
 An unknown isle, it seemed to me ; 
 A precinct of the ancient grove, 
 
 Sacred to fruit and corn and peace ; 
 Old as the spring of life and love, 
 
 It seemed a bank where time might cease. 
 
 It was a tract of sky and palm 
 
 Where yellowing waters ooze and run, 
 And dark folk dwell amid the calm 
 
 Of earthen shadows red and dun ; 
 They brought me gourds of liquor pale 
 
 The cut palm yields at break of dawn ; 
 In hearts so simple could not fail 
 
 The kindness out of nature drawn. 
 85 
 
26 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 So voyagers whose victorious keel 
 
 First swam the lone Pacific floods, 
 Felt morn's mysterious lights unseal 
 
 The tribes of ocean solitudes ; 
 And found the bloom without decay, 
 
 The life through fading centuries sown, 
 That flower-like lifts a little way 
 
 Its head to heavens that soar unknown. 
 
 There Carthage led her navied host, 
 
 Passing the desert solemn ; 
 And nigher rose on that sparse coast 
 
 Rome's eagle-bearing column ; 
 The distant centuries lapsed away, 
 
 But nothing here knew time had flown ; 
 The small dark race that moulds the clay 
 
 Outlasts the race that built in stone. 
 
 You wonder how I understand 
 
 Man's soul in dusky faces, 
 And, though a stranger in the land, 
 
 A friend roved that oasis ; 
 
IN THE OASIS 27 
 
 They strove to please with gentle art, 
 
 Soft smiles and silent duty ; 
 Unconsciously they soothed my heart 
 
 With touches of wild beauty. 
 
 I twined my soft gray hat with bloom 
 
 They brought me in the desert bowers, 
 And wound along the palm's white plume 
 
 The dark-leaved red pomegranate flowers; 
 I wandered, thoughtless of the lure, 
 
 Beside the burning sapphire sea ; 
 The bronzed boys laughed, and sat demure, 
 
 And every eye shot love at me. 
 
 Ah, never moves man far apart 
 
 From kinship and from duty, 
 And straightest unto every heart 
 
 Winds the old path of beauty ; 
 They showed me all the secret isle, 
 
 They brought me all their meagre store, 
 And many a child's caressing smile 
 
 Followed me down to the sea-shore. 
 
28 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 It was a paradise of trees 
 
 In the blue vague of sand and sea ; 
 An isle of antique histories, 
 
 A long-lost isle, it seemed to me ; 
 They rowed my boat, I sailed away 
 
 To lands beyond the western star ; 
 Like something lost my natal day, 
 
 Within my mind these memories are. 
 
THE WINGED EROS OF TUNIS 
 
 RECOVERED FROM THE SEA NEAR MAHDIA 
 
 IN 1904 
 
 "DEAUTIFUL bronze boy, wing 
 
 Of the golden age in flower 
 With the bloom of an Asian spring, — 
 
 Sheathless beauty and power ; 
 Life in its delicate fuse 
 
 Of first thought, first desire, — 
 Of Meleager's muse 
 
 The radiance and the fire ! 
 
 Thy loveliness disdained 
 
 A rude barbarian fate ; 
 No Christian touch profaned 
 
 Thy form inviolate ; 
 But plunged in ocean-peace 
 
 The blue waves did thee cover ; 
 A score of centuries 
 
 Thou hadst the sea for lover. 
 
30 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 Late thence emerging now 
 
 Into the gray light wan, 
 Thou bringest the youthful brow 
 
 The world's dawn rests upon. 
 Strange is the sight, forlorn 
 
 The heart with the sense thereof, 
 Beautiful boy, reborn 
 
 Of the waves for our worship and love. 
 
THE REVENANT 
 
 TT was at Tunis, in the shop 
 
 I told you of, where women stop, 
 And falls the perfume, drop by drop, 
 
 That first he came, 
 Who in my own flesh clotheth him, " 
 And drugs my soul with memories dim, 
 And fills my body to the brim, 
 
 A perfumed flame. 
 
 I know new meanings in the rose, 
 Old channels in my sense unclose, 
 Along my nerves the music goes 
 
 Of ancient time ; 
 And I am changed to what has been, — 
 Silk-robed, and turbaned with the green, 
 I try the thin edge damascene 
 
 Of secret crime. 
 
 31 
 
32 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 To leaner sheaths my spirit shrinks, 
 And long-forbidden pleasures drinks ; 
 The mindless life that never thinks, 
 
 Crumbles my soul ; 
 And o'er the ruined yellow wall 
 Of what I was, there groweth tall 
 A flower, whose incense like a pall 
 
 Doth round me roll. 
 
 I hear a padding on the stones, 
 There comes a terror in my bones, 
 A throttling stills my crumpled moans 
 
 And little cries ; 
 And who is he sits in my place, 
 A lither soul, a softer grace, 
 A lore of ages in his face, 
 
 And world-wise eyes ? 
 
 The Revenant ! in every clime 
 He uses me to be the mime 
 Of weird things acted in the time 
 Of long-ago ; 
 
THE REVENANT 33 
 
 What mysteries of heart and brain, 
 What forms of beauty, forms of pain, 
 The sun shall never see again, 
 Revive and glow ! 
 
 A thousand years has he been clay 
 Who from me takes the soul away, 
 And in my body makes his play, 
 
 Do what I can ; 
 Strange visitant, in myriad shapes, 
 Who in myself my being apes ! 
 Ah, nowhere now my soul escapes 
 
 The Ghost of Man. 
 
THE BLUE STAR 
 
 TT7HAT I remember of the soul 
 
 That out of darkness on me stole, 
 Is just a blue star, like a mole, 
 
 Upon her brow, — 
 And then, her arms and ankle-rings ; 
 A nameless mystery of things 
 Inscrutable about her clings, 
 
 And charms me now. 
 
 A mountain woman, Djelfa's child, 
 Whose foot had never left the wild, 
 She draws from nature undefiled 
 
 Her swaying grace ; 
 Her body sparkles like a gem 
 Beneath the gold coins' clinking hem, — 
 Her throat an oleander stem, 
 
 A flower her face. 
 
 34 
 
THE BLUE STAR 35 
 
 Out of the solitude she came 
 Into the waste without a name ; 
 Dancing, she seems the wind-blown flame 
 
 Of desert fires ; 
 Her beauty burns beneath the stars, 
 Her journeys no horizon bars, 
 In lands where nought the freedom mars 
 
 Of man's desires. 
 
 With lids that doze in panther sleep 
 Bedouins upon her motions keep 
 Their couchant eyes whose forward leap 
 
 She holds at gaze ; 
 Of love that dwells beneath the tent 
 She makes her body eloquent ; 
 At every step a veil is rent, — 
 
 The passions blaze. 
 
 I hear the tinkle of her feet 
 In world-wide rhythms darkly sweet, 
 That, drop by drop, my veins repeat, 
 Like violin-strings ; 
 
36 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 To the mute cadence of her hips 
 A growth of ages from me slips, — 
 In morning worlds my body dips 
 Primeval springs. 
 
 It seems a life before the Flood 
 
 Is hers, — and hers the brotherhood 
 
 Of all that swam or flew or stood 
 
 In old marsh-lands ; 
 A hundred centuries have rolled 
 To her the desert's tribute gold ; 
 Dancing, she saw the world grow old 
 
 In buried sands. 
 
 And then, — how strange my fancies are ! 
 I saw the dance, retreating far, 
 Diminish into that blue star, 
 
 Just like a mole ; 
 It came upon me in the gloom 
 And grave dusk of the sombre room, 
 Soft as a disk of moth-wing bloom, — 
 
 The moth, her soul. 
 
THE BLUE STAR 37 
 
 The dance was done. In gentle mood 
 A slender girl before me stood, 
 The slip of desert womanhood 
 
 My memory keeps ; 
 But most the vision to me brings 
 The mystery of human things, — 
 How spirit unto spirit springs 
 
 Across what deeps. 
 
 Ah, had we power to enter in 
 To Nature's innocence of sin, 
 What revelations might begin 
 
 For you and me ! 
 Oft through the wide world as I go, 
 I mind me where the date-palms grow, 
 And on a brow, serene and low, 
 
 The blue star see. 
 
THE LEOPARD 
 
 |~N lands where only jackals call, 
 And only vulture-shadows fall 
 Day-long, beside a city wall, 
 
 Did this betide. 
 'Twas night ; the ^ands were camel-strewn ; 
 Around me was a world unknown ; 
 Far off the drifted desert blown, 
 
 A bugle died. 
 
 I felt dim shapes of thought arise, 
 Which turn to stone the human eyes 
 That long have gazed on desert skies, 
 
 Far from mankind ; 
 Grim mammoth things that come unbid, 
 In the great pit of being hid, 
 Kin to the Sphinx and Pyramid, 
 
 Unhinged my mind. 
 
 38 
 
THE LEOPARD 39 
 
 Grotesque enchantments that begin 
 In motions of the twisted drin, 
 Wound in my senses, and within 
 
 My spirit stirred ; 
 The desert magic o'er me drew 
 Cast skins of nature she outgrew, 
 Worn in the time she man foreknew 
 
 In beast and bird. 
 
 I seemed a creature strange, apart* 
 
 Crept from a crevice of the heart 
 
 Of things, — to come and to depart, — 
 
 A foot, a face ; 
 There, peering in my hour of light 
 Upon the centuries' ageless flight, 
 I held the whole world on my sight, — 
 
 All time, all space. 
 
 One moment, robed in starry air, 
 As 'twere a spangled leopard there, 
 I crouched, — and slipped back unaware 
 Into all things ; 
 
40 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 As when the phoenix melts in flame, 
 The soul of matter went and came, 
 And in one throb great nature's frame 
 Folded its wings. 
 
 How dark it was, when I came back 
 
 Along the spiritual track 
 
 To my own world ! how mortal black 
 
 The city wall, — 
 The forms of men like shadows seen, 
 Sleeping the camel-heaps between, 
 Unconscious of the spectral scene, 
 
 The jackal's call ! 
 
THE WHITE BONE 
 
 TTTHEN first I saw the city lone 
 
 Lift on the blue its burial-stone, 
 " Look," said I, " where the desert's bone 
 
 Gleams in its mouth ! " 
 The bleached light across the plain 
 Stamped the grim image on my brain, 
 Of bones that trail the camel-train 
 In burning drougth. 
 
 Alone that skeleton city stands, 
 By none remembered, in lost lands, 
 And miles about are blown the sands 
 
 Like a red sea ; 
 And in the night the stars that lean 
 Over that spectreless pale scene, 
 Shudder at what there once had been 
 
 Man's memory. 
 
 41 
 
THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 'Tis strange how such a fancied thing 
 Will shape and stain our visioning. 
 I saw the beast's fawn-stripes en-ring 
 
 The preying mouth ; 
 And when I lay at night alone, 
 I seemed myself that ruin shown, 
 Gnawed by the sands, like a white bone 
 
 In the red south. 
 
 The wrecks of eld in me were met ; 
 A million suns had on me set ; 
 The wild sand heaped the parapet, 
 
 Ribbed in long bars ; 
 There sat my soul, with time o'er-grown, 
 And saw on heaven's wide prospect thrown, 
 The orb that bears the death- white bone 
 
 Among the stars. 
 
 What longings shook me for my youth 
 Still unimpregnated with truth, 
 Unpacked, brain-deep, with mental ruth, 
 From old time free ! 
 
THE WHITE BONE 43 
 
 To have once more my soul my own, 
 That was of God the monotone, 
 When I was young, ere I was grown 
 Man's soul to be ! 
 
 Then the Wraith spoke within me : "Who 
 Shall tell my age ? arisen anew, 
 Out of antiquity I drew 
 
 A subtle thing ; 
 Borne flaming from my backward wake, 
 New exhalations from me flake, 
 And the past glories upward take 
 
 The Eternal Wing." 
 
 But often when the Wraith is dumb, 
 
 That Incubus will on me come, 
 
 And hoarse I hear my heart-beats drum, 
 
 Awake, alone; 
 And aye it is a fearsome sight, 
 When flashes on me in the night 
 The image of the beast bedight 
 
 With the white bone. 
 
THE WAY 
 
 "HY wisdom that cometh at night and by stealth 
 
 The soul of a man is made free ; 
 It is not in the giving of learning or wealth, — 
 
 The divine gift, liberty ; 
 But these things shall bind on him chain on chain 
 
 Of inward slavery ; 
 He shall lay earthly things on an earthen altar, 
 And go out from all gods, nor turn back, nor 
 falter, 
 
 And he shall follow me. 
 
 He shall do the deeds of the great life-will 
 
 That is manifest under the sun ; 
 He shall not repine though he doeth ill 
 
 It repenteth him to have done ; 
 Behold, he is brother to thousands 
 
 Who before was brother to none ; 
 
 44 
 
THE WAY 45 
 
 And because all his deeds are done in the spirit, 
 Great is the love that he shall inherit, 
 And all other gain shall he shun. 
 
 He shall not take note what another hath, 
 
 Or what to himself is due ; 
 He shall not give heed what another saith, 
 
 Or to doctrines false or true ; 
 He shall lead the life, he shall follow the path, 
 
 And all things shall come to him new ; 
 And he shall pluck from the life in his bosom, 
 Flower by flower, the eternal blossom, 
 
 Rose, rosemary, and rue. 
 
 He shall not make narrow his heart with truth, 
 
 Nor wall for another the way ; 
 He shall not give a bond in the days of his youth 
 
 Against his manhood's day ; 
 And he shall go out from all aloof, 
 
 And alone in his heart shall he pray ; 
 And to him in the fulness of time shall be given 
 
46 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 To have no master on earth or in heaven, 
 But he shall be master alway. 
 
 He shall do the will that is stronger than his ; 
 
 He shall act in the infinite ; 
 He shall not draw back for sorrow or bliss, — 
 
 He shall bear the embrace of it ; 
 So shall he create all things anew, — 
 
 Not parcel the old, bit by bit ; 
 And to him shall be known that the glory of living 
 Is to love, be it receiving or giving, 
 
 And his heart with the whole shall knit. 
 
 In the dark of the dawn we are waifs blown forth, 
 
 Above great oceans to roll, 
 Of powers that never measured the worth 
 
 Of bird, or beast, or soul ; 
 And bridals of contingency 
 
 The fires of our youth control ; 
 But whether we soar, or swoop, or hover, 
 Only the lover all the world over 
 
 Hath the freedom of the whole. 
 
THE WAY 47 
 
 For I wandered forth without a mate 
 
 My bread with the poor to find ; 
 The learned, the rich, the good, the great, 
 
 I left in their niches behind ; 
 I had only a lover's heart in my breast, 
 
 And a world's dead lies in my mind ; 
 In the life of the poor I escaped my prison, 
 Like a soul from the grave had my free soul arisen 
 
 To live in the unconfined. 
 
BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL 
 
 T RODE in the dark of the spirit 
 A marvellous, marvellous way ; 
 The faiths that the races inherit 
 
 Behind in the sunset lay ; 
 Dome, mosque, and temple huddled 
 
 Bade farewell to the day ; 
 But I rode into the leagues of the dark, 
 There was no light but my hoof -beats' spark 
 
 That sprang from that marvellous way. 
 
 Behind were the coffined gods in their shroud 
 
 Of jungle, desert, and mound, 
 The mighty man-bones and the mummies proud 
 
 Stark in their caves underground ; 
 And the planet that sepulchres god and man, 
 
 Bore me in the cone of its dark profound 
 To the ultimate clash in stellar space, 
 The way of the dead, god-making race 
 
 Whirled with its dead gods round. 
 
 48 
 
BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL 49 
 
 And my heart, as the night grew colder, 
 
 Drew near to the heart of my steed ; 
 I had pillowed my head on his shoulder 
 
 Long years in the sand and the reed ; 
 Long ago he was foaled of the Muses, 
 
 And sired, of the heroes' deed ; 
 And he came unto me by the fountain 
 Of the old Hellenic mountain, 
 
 And of heaven is his breed. 
 
 So my heart grew near to the heart of my horse, 
 
 Who was wiser, far wiser than I ; 
 Yet wherever I leaned in my spirit's course, 
 
 He swayed, and questioned not why ; 
 And this was because he was born above, 
 
 A child of the beautiful sky ; 
 And now we were come to the kingdoms black, 
 And nevermore should we journey back 
 
 To the land where dead men lie. 
 
 Now whether or not in that grewsome air 
 My soul was seized by the dread cafard, 
 
50 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 Terror of deserts, I cannot swear ; 
 
 But I rode straight into an orbed star, 
 Where only reigned the spirit of good, 
 
 And only the holy and virtuous are ; 
 And my horse's eyes sent forth sun-rays, 
 And in my own was a noon-tide gaze 
 
 That mastered that splendid star. 
 
 The madness of deserts, if so it be, 
 
 Burned in my brain, and I saw 
 The multitudinous progeny 
 
 Of the talon and the claw ; 
 And Mammon in all their palaces 
 
 Gaped with a golden maw ; 
 And we rode far off from the glittering roofs, 
 And the horse, as he passed, with his heaven- 
 shod hoofs 
 
 Broke the tables of their law. 
 
 And we came to a city adjacent thereby, 
 For the twain to one Empire belong ; 
 
BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL 51 
 
 Black over it hung a terrible cry 
 
 From eternal years of wrong ; 
 And the land, it was full of gallows and prisons 
 
 And the horrible deeds of the strong ; 
 And we fled ; but the flash of my horse's feet 
 Broke open the jails in every street, 
 
 And lightning burned there long. 
 
 We were past the good and the evil, 
 
 In the spirit's uttermost dark ; 
 He is neither god nor devil 
 
 For whom my heart-beats hark ; 
 And I leaned my cheek to my horse's neck, 
 
 And I sang to his ear in the dark : 
 "There is neither good nor evil, 
 There is neither god nor devil, 
 
 And our way lies on through the dark. 
 
 "Once I saw by a throne 
 
 A burning angel who cried, — 
 'I will suffer all woes that man's spirit has known,' 
 
 And he plunged in the turbid tide ; 
 
52 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 And wherever he sank with that heart of love, 
 
 He rose up purified ; 
 Glowed brighter his limbs and his beautiful face, 
 And he went not back to the heavenly place, 
 
 And he drew all men to his side. 
 
 "I have never heard it or learnt it, 
 
 It is in me like my soul, 
 And the sights of this world have burnt it 
 
 In me to a living coal, — 
 The soul of man is a masterless thing 
 
 And bides not another's control ; 
 And gypsy-broods of bandit-loins 
 Shall teach what the lawless life enjoins 
 
 Upon the lawless soul. 
 
 "When we dare neither to loose nor to bind, 
 
 However to us things appear ; 
 When whatsoever in others we find, 
 
 We shall feel neither shame nor fear ; 
 When we learn that to love the lowliest 
 
 We must first salute him our peer ; 
 
BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL 53 
 
 When the basest is most our brother, 
 And we neither look down on nor up to an- 
 other, — 
 The end of our ride shall be near." 
 
 A wind arose from the dreadful past, 
 
 And the sand smoked on the knoll ; 
 I saw, blown by the bolts of the blast, 
 
 The shreds of the Judgment scroll ; 
 I heard the death-spasms of Justice old 
 
 Under the seas and the mountains roll ; 
 Then the horse who had borne me through all 
 
 disaster, 
 Turned blazing eyes upon me his master, 
 
 For the thoughts I sing are his soul. 
 
 And I sang in his ear, — " 'Tis the old world 
 dying 
 
 Whose death-cries through heaven are rolled ; 
 Through the souls of men a flame is flying 
 
 That shall a new firmament mould ; 
 
54 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 And the uncreated light in man's spirit 
 Shall sun, moon, and stars unfold;" 
 Then the horse snuffed the dark with his nostrils 
 
 bright, 
 And he strode, and he stretched, and he neighed 
 to the light 
 That shall beam at the word to be told. 
 
COMRADES 
 
 TTTHERE are the friends that I knew in my 
 Maying, 
 In the days of my youth, in the first of my 
 roaming ? 
 We were dear; we were leal; oh, far we went 
 straying ; 
 Now never a heart to my heart comes hom- 
 ing!— 
 Where is he now, the dark boy slender 
 
 Who taught me bare-back, stirrup and reins ? 
 I loved him ; he loved me ; my beautiful, tender 
 Tamer of horses on grass-grown plains. 
 
 Where is he now whose eyes swam brighter, 
 Softer than love, in his turbulent charms ; 
 
 Who taught me to strike, and to fall, dear fighter, 
 And gathered me up in his boyhood arms ; 
 
 55 
 
56 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 Taught me the rifle, and with me went riding, 
 Suppled my limbs to the horseman's war ; 
 
 Where is he now, for whom my heart's biding, 
 Biding, biding — but he rides far ? 
 
 love that passes the love of woman ! 
 Who that hath felt it shall ever forget, 
 
 When the breath of life with a throb turns human, 
 And a lad's heart is to a lad's heart set ? 
 
 Ever, forever, lover and rover, 
 
 They shall cling, nor each from other shall part 
 
 Till the reign of the stars in the heavens be over, 
 And life is dust in each faithful heart ! 
 
 They are dead, the American grasses under ; 
 
 There is no one now who presses my side ; 
 By the African chotts I am riding asunder, 
 
 And with great joy ride I the last great ride. 
 
 1 am fey ; I am fain of sudden dying ; 
 Thousands of miles there is no one near ; 
 
 And my heart — all the night it is crying, crying 
 In the bosoms of dead lads darling-dear. 
 
COMRADES 57 
 
 Hearts of my music — them dark earth covers ; 
 
 Comrades to die, and to die for, were they ; 
 In the width of the world there were no such 
 rovers — 
 Back to back, breast to breast, it was ours to stay ; 
 And the highest on earth was the vow that we 
 cherished, 
 To spur forth from the crowd and come back 
 never more, 
 And to ride in the track of great souls perished 
 Till the nests of the lark shall roof us o'er. 
 
 Yet lingers a horseman on Altai highlands, 
 
 Who hath joy of me, riding the Tartar glissade ; 
 And one, far faring o'er orient islands 
 
 Whose blood yet glints with my blade's accolade ; 
 North, west, east, I fling you my last hallooing, 
 
 Last love to the breasts where my own has bled ; 
 Through the reach of the desert my soul leaps 
 pursuing 
 
 My star where it rises a Star of the Dead. 
 
THE POET IN ITALY AND OTHER 
 POEMS 
 
Eo tjje Poet 
 
 Salvatore di Giacomo 
 
 i dedicate this tribute to the beauty 
 
 and the heart of italy. 
 
THE POET IN ITALY 
 
 IMITATED AFTER RENATO RINALDl's "iL GIROVAGO" 
 
 A RAGGED, sweet little fellow 
 """ Slips — Heaven knows whence — into view, 
 Jestingly greets me his mellow, 
 
 "What's new?" 
 
 — "What's new ? Not a thing. Tranquil 
 I leave things as they are, 
 
 And the words and the song gush upward 
 The same as ever they were." 
 
 There's a door where I make a great clatter — 
 
 Hands in pockets — kick fair ; 
 Cries a voice — I know well its chatter — 
 "Who's there?" 
 
 — "Same as ever to-day 'tis — 
 
 Drinks the fountain, and goes on his way — 
 Up the peaks, o'er the rise, he is going — 
 Every night he turns into day." 
 
 61 
 
62 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 On the highroad a plough-bound peasant 
 
 Is fixing his ox-gear anew, 
 And, passing, he hails me pleasant, 
 "Whereto?" 
 
 — "Where to ? I don't know. The road only 
 So long is the guide of my feet. 
 
 I go. I don't ask. My country ? 
 
 'Tis the world — 'tis tranquil and sweet." 
 
 Through wayside and town I sing trolling, 
 
 And some pitiful heart among men 
 Asks low, as the song goes rolling, 
 "Till when?" 
 
 — "Till when ? Always. Take heart. 
 Men's doors still open to me. 
 
 Always. Till on my worn pathway 
 Death comes, with a grin, to see." 
 
CALOGERO 
 
 "T3UON riposo, signorino," 
 
 Half he turned his face to go, 
 Half I held him lingeringly, 
 
 "Ma dove va Calogero?" 
 He looked at his feet, he looked at the moon, 
 
 And he answered gallantly, 
 "Nell' albergo della luna 
 
 There is always room for me. 
 
 "Ma non sgomentarvi, signor," 
 
 Quickly he stroked my arm ; 
 "All my life is da fuori, — 
 
 There was never any harm. 
 II Domineddio, la," 
 
 He nodded up to the deep, 
 "Since I was born has made my bed 
 
 Where all at last must sleep. 
 
64 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 "Cosi va bene. All the dead 
 
 Lie out beneath the sky ; 
 'Tis best to be acquainted, sure, 
 
 Where one so long must lie ; 
 And when 'tis still, some nights it seems 
 
 That it all belongs to me 
 From the silver tips of the olive-tops 
 
 To the silver edge of the sea. 
 
 "Joking ? oh, no, signore, 
 
 I was only thinking in fun, 
 Modo Siciliano, — 
 
 Always a little sun. 
 E molto curioso 
 
 How many thoughts there are, — 
 Sempre di lei, all the nights, 
 
 Lontano, like a star." 
 
 Siciliano vero, — 
 
 Sunshine, and night beneath ! 
 Bravo ragazzo mio, 
 
 Who laughed with chattering teeth ! 
 
CALOGERO 65 
 
 "Gia siamo insieme," 
 
 And close within my coat, 
 As I drew its folds about him, 
 
 I felt his throbbing throat. 
 
 "Si, signor, I'm not happy 
 
 Unless about me be 
 Great spaces, large enough to hold 
 
 The mountains and the sea. 
 Nell' albergo della luna, 
 
 Signor, there is room for two ; 
 Mio caro signorino, 
 
 There would be room for you. 
 
 "What is there in a grand hotel 
 
 With none to know or love you ? 
 'Tis better to have friends, signor, 
 
 With only heaven above you. 
 Nell' albergo della luna 
 
 There'll be none to say you nay, 
 And all will there embrace you, 
 
 And make you holiday. 
 
66 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 "I cannot go with you, signor, 
 
 In that great world to be 
 That man has made like a house of gold, — 
 
 It was not made for me. 
 Caro signore, be my guest, 
 
 For you with me can come, 
 And in the world that God has made 
 
 We both will be at home. 
 
 " 'Tis great, signore mio, 
 
 When the summer nights begin, 
 To take the blanket of the stars 
 
 And feel Him wrap you in." 
 He deftly showed a gleam of steel 
 
 In the streaming street-lamp yellow ; 
 "My heart is yours, my life," — he bowed, 
 
 "Ed anche il coltello." 
 
 And I beneath whose feet the weight 
 
 Of all this world rang hollow, 
 Who felt his warm arms round me fold, 
 
 Was half disposed to follow. 
 
CALOGERO 67 
 
 Still on my shelf the fan is 
 That he gave me years ago. 
 
 Che addios ! che fiori ! 
 Dolce, bel Calogero. 
 
FLOWER OF ETNA 
 
 "DOY on the almond bough, 
 
 Clinging against the wind, 
 A-sway from foot to brow, 
 
 With the emerald sea behind ; 
 The illimitable blue, 
 The lone tree, and you ! 
 
 Aloft gleams Etna's snow 
 In the bright weather ; 
 
 The green surf boils below, 
 Vast crests together ; 
 
 On the high hillside we 
 
 Plunder the blowing tree. 
 
 Boy of the mountain-cave 
 Beside the flower-hung pool ; 
 
 What snowy torrents lave 
 The bather beautiful ! 
 
FLOWER OF ETNA 69 
 
 And the waters drip all over 
 The sun glistening on their lover. 
 
 O blithest in the tavern, 
 
 Dark head above the wine ; 
 Blooms in the dingy cavern 
 
 A creature of the vine ; 
 Vine-bloom upon his glowing cheeks, 
 And from soft eyes the vine-light speaks. 
 
 He sports ; what youthful blisses 
 
 Of trifles there befell ! 
 Magic the poet misses 
 
 The Bacchic boy could spell ; 
 He stuck red cherries in his ears, — 
 He smiled, — and slew three thousand years. 
 
 Once in the lone wood 
 
 Beyond the long red clover, — 
 Sombre, in solitude, 
 
 The gray rock hung far over ; 
 The parting bushes prest 
 Their young leaves to his breast. 
 
70 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 Dear heart ! how had he learned 
 The world's magnetic soul ? 
 
 Sudden on me he turned, 
 While the rose twilight stole 
 
 Over shy features bright, 
 
 A face all love and light. 
 
 Fond boy, art cannot limn thee, 
 Bud of the white dawn's hour ; 
 
 And language doth but dim thee, 
 Youth's violet, Etna's flower ; 
 
 But I will bear thy face with me 
 
 As far as shines eternity. 
 
ORFEO 
 
 • nnEACH me to kiss the Dorian flute, 
 
 The Dorian pipe to blow; 
 I with my own breath would salute 
 
 Great Pan before I go ; 
 And may the genius of the place 
 Adopt me in the shepherd race ! " 
 
 So, perched on Monte Venere, 
 I prayed a little goat-skin boy 
 
 To leave his herd and sit by me, 
 
 And teach me all the shepherd's joy. 
 
 "What is your name ?" to him I said : 
 
 " Orfeo," blithe reply he made. 
 
 I took the flute, I took the pipe ; 
 
 No reed would to my breath respond ; 
 He laughed to see me blow, and wipe 
 
 My lips, the pretty vagabond ; 
 71 
 
72 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 Still nature's child, though notes I snatch, 
 Was victor in that singing match. 
 
 But I was paid when, as behooved, 
 
 I threw into his shaggy lap 
 The gifts by ancient time approved, 
 
 My London scarf and Naples cap ; 
 And, as of old, the happy boy 
 Leaped high, and clapped his hands for joy. 
 
THE FESTA 
 
 T HAVE seen a vision pure 
 
 As is the sea's white foam, 
 Full of the divine allure 
 Of beauty in her home. 
 
 With Giovan' as I was rowing 
 
 By the lilac sea-cliff's breach, 
 Where the pinkish houses glowing 
 
 Cling for foothold, each o'er each, 
 Came a clangor of bells blowing 
 
 O'er the indigo-lipped beach, 
 From the fishers' low church flowing 
 
 Down the brown nets' amber reach. 
 
 Now the loud bombs quick-resounding 
 
 Vivas to the saint declare ! 
 How the festa is confounding, — 
 
 Salvos to the throne of prayer ! 
 
 73 
 
74 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 From the sea the boys race bounding 
 To the booming strada there ; 
 
 Comes the long procession rounding 
 The marina to the square. 
 
 Young girls, virginal and flower-like, 
 
 Each a lily in her hand, 
 Walk before the image tower-like, 
 
 Borne abroad to bless the land ; 
 And round about the maidens, bower-like, 
 
 Youthful bathers sun-bright stand ; 
 Still the salt wave, shimmering shower-like, 
 
 Beads their bodies golden-tanned. 
 
 Sweetly walked the maidens singing 
 White-robed, each a lily bore ; 
 
 Reverent stood the fair youth ringing 
 That fair scene by that fair shore. 
 
ST. JOHN AND THE FAUN 
 I 
 
 r\ BLEST Imagination, 
 
 Sphered 'neath the eye's frail lid, 
 That in apparent beauty 
 
 Unveils the beauty hid ! 
 In the gleaming of the instant 
 
 Abides the immortal thing ; 
 Our souls that voyage unspeaking 
 
 Press forward, wing and wing ; 
 From every passing object 
 
 A brighter radiance pours ; 
 The Lethe of our daily lives 
 
 Sweeps what eternal shores ! 
 
 II 
 
 On the deep below Amalfi, 
 
 Where the long roll of the wave 
 
 Slowly breathed, and slipped beneath me 
 To gray cliff and sounding cave, 
 
 75 
 
76 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 Came a boat-load of dark fishers, 
 Passed, and on the bright sea shone ; 
 
 There, the vision of a moment, 
 I beheld the young St. John. 
 
 At the stern the boy stood bending 
 
 Full his dreaming gaze on me ; 
 Inexorably spread between us 
 
 Flashed the blue strait of the sea ; 
 Slow receding, — distant, — distant, — 
 
 While my bosom scarce drew breath, - 
 Dreaming eyes on my eyes dreaming 
 
 Holy beauty without death. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In the cloudland o'er Amalfi 
 
 Where with mists the deep ravine 
 
 Like a cauldron smoked, and, clearing, 
 Showed, far down, the pictured scene, 
 
 Capes and bays and peaks and ocean, 
 And the city, like a gem, 
 
ST. JOHN AND THE FAUN 77 
 
 Set in circlets of pale azure 
 
 That her beauty ring and hem, — 
 Once, returning from the chasm 
 
 By the mountain's woodland way, 
 Underneath the oak and chestnut 
 
 Where I loved to make delay, 
 (And dark boys and girls with fagots 
 
 Would pass near on that wild lawn, 
 And at times they brought me rosebuds) — 
 
 There one day I saw a faun. 
 
 The wood was still with noontide, 
 
 The very trees seemed lone, 
 When from a neighboring thicket 
 
 His moon-eyes on me shone, 
 Motionless, and bright, and staring, 
 
 And with a startled grace ; 
 As nature, wildly magical 
 
 Was the beauty of his face ; 
 And as some gentle creature 
 
 That, curious, has fear, 
 
78 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 Dumb he stood and gazed upon me, 
 But did not venture near ; 
 
 And I moved not, nor motioned, 
 Nor gave him any sign, 
 
 Nor broke the momentary spell 
 Of the old world divine. 
 
 IV 
 
 Love, with no other agent 
 
 Save communion by the eye, 
 Evoked from those bright creatures 
 
 Our human unity ; 
 There, flowering from old ages, 
 
 Hung on time's blossoming stem 
 All that fairest was in me 
 
 Or loveliest in them ; 
 And truly it was happiness 
 
 Unto a poet's heart 
 To find that living in his breast 
 
 Which is immortal art. 
 
THE SICILIAN 
 
 XT IS golden face, un tipo 9 
 
 Was minted like a coin ; 
 On the reverse un toro, — 
 
 So stood his neck and loin. 
 The bull of Agrigentum 
 
 A thousand years had ploughed 
 The furrow of his fathers, — 
 
 Per Baccho 1 he was proud ! 
 
 To the beautiful old ages 
 
 His line ran straight and true ; 
 His blood coursed like the clover-tops 
 
 Beneath his cheeks' bronze hue ; 
 And all his skin was polished brown, 
 
 And muscled hard with toil ; 
 And when he turned his back, Ecco! 
 
 A classic of the soil. 
 
 79 
 
A DAY AT CASTROGIOVANNX 
 
 ETNA 
 
 T3IRD-WAKENED out of sleep my darkling 
 eyes 
 Saw Etna bloom and whiten in the dawn, 
 While over hollow leagues of crag and lawn 
 
 Brightened earth's edge upon the far-set skies ; 
 
 Now, volleying light, the lucid mountain lies 
 Transfigured, in the breath of gold updrawn, 
 Dim base to rosy plume ; and high the wan 
 
 Worn moon turns snow, and worships as it dies. 
 
 Then o'er the shoulder of that mount in heaven 
 Rose like a moon divine, celestial seen, 
 
 The Star to which all glory hath been given, 
 The orb of life whence all things here have been. 
 
 The nightingales sang on ; — and I shall see 
 No sight so mighty in tranquillity. 
 
 80 
 
II 
 
 PROSERPINE 
 
 BY LAKE PERGUSA 
 
 t IFTED on hollow lands and grassy miles, 
 
 The lake low-girdled, to all memories sweet, 
 Draws heaven to itself ; and wave-flung smiles 
 The laughter of the waters in the wheat. 
 It is a morn of May 
 Before the heat of day ; 
 The swallow comes among the reeds to drink 
 The wind-blown cup of blue amid the green, 
 And sings his song ; and near or far is seen 
 The plash of wild-fowl on the life-fringed brink ; 
 
 See, every step I take 
 Stirs up a host of azure dragon-flies ; 
 Floored with swift wings the path cerulean lies, 
 And round my knees flutters a living lake. 
 
 I pick the flowers that Proserpine let fall, 
 
 Sung through the world by every honeyed muse : 
 
 G 81 
 
82 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 Wild morning-glories, daisies waving tall, 
 At every step is something new to choose ; 
 And oft I stop and gaze 
 Upon the flowery maze ; 
 By yonder cypresses, on that soft rise, 
 
 Scarce seen through poppies and the knee-deep 
 
 wheat, 
 Juts the dark cleft where on her came the fleet 
 Thunder-black horses, and the cloud's surprise, 
 
 And he who filled the place. 
 Did marigolds bright as these, gilding the mist, 
 Drop from her maiden zone ? Wert thou last 
 kissed, 
 Pale hyacinth, last seen, before his face ? 
 
 O swallow, on the rocked reed warbling long, 
 Dost thou remember such a morn of May ? 
 There is a chord of silence in thy song, 
 
 Deepening the hush on which it dies away. 
 Ah, flower so pure, so white, 
 Winnowing the air like light, 
 
A DAY AT CASTROGIOVANNI 83 
 
 Whiter than Phosphor in the golden morn, — 
 The bright narcissus she was wont to wear, 
 The star of springtime shining in her hair, 
 
 Wasted not thus, immortally forlorn ; 
 Soon will thy soul be ta'en, 
 
 While still the bird's song haunts the warmed sky ; 
 
 With all dead flowers that were thy light shall lie ; 
 Empty the barley-field, and cut the grain. 
 
 Oh, whence has silence stolen on all things here, 
 
 Where every sight makes music to the eye ? 
 Through all one unison is singing clear ; 
 All sounds, all colors in one rapture die. 
 More slow, O heart, more slow ! 
 A presence from below 
 Moves toward the breathing world from that dark 
 deep, 
 Whereof men fabling tell what no man knows, 
 By little fires amid the winter snows, 
 When earth lies stark in her titanic sleep 
 And doth with cold expire ; 
 
84 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 He brings thee all, O Maiden, flower of earth, 
 Her child in whom all nature comes to birth, 
 Thee, the fruition of all dark desire. 
 
 No living eyes have seen him save thine own, 
 
 And hence he bore thee to the dark deep under, 
 Far from the beauty of this heaven-bright zone, 
 Where the corn ripens in the summer thunder, 
 And all things throb, and lave 
 In color's rainbow wave. 
 Vainly we question things whose home is here : 
 No rose that ever bloomed, nor herb of grace 
 Crushed with sweet odors, ever saw his face, 
 Nor golden lilies laid upon the bier. 
 
 Nor only now I ponder 
 Hunger divine that beauty cannot dull ; 
 Who beauty loves, his soul is beautiful, 
 The master said, and oft on this I wonder. 
 
 O Proserpine, dream not that thou art gone 
 Far from our loves, half -human, half-divine ; 
 
A DAY AT CASTROGIOVANNI 85 
 
 Thou hast a holier adoration won 
 
 In many a heart that worships at no shrine. 
 Where light and warmth behold me, 
 And flower and wheat enfold me, 
 I lift a dearer prayer than all prayers past : 
 He who so loved thee that the live earth clove 
 Before his pathway unto light and love, 
 And took thy flower-full bosom, — who at last 
 
 Shall every blossom cull, — 
 Lover the most of what is most our own, 
 The mightiest lover that the world has known, 
 Dark lover, Death, — was he not beautiful ? 
 
Ill 
 
 DEMETER 
 
 TTERE stood thy temple, on the mountain's 
 horn, 
 Lifted high over the subjected plain ; 
 Here rose the sower's incense in the morn ; 
 
 Here pealed his loud thanksgiving for the rain. 
 Demeter, goddess of the fruitful earth, 
 Our Mother of the Wheat, behold thy hearth ! 
 
 Vacant the rock, of every herb swept clean, 
 Juts naked in the blue sky, — all is gone : 
 
 Tall grow the crops beneath ; the fields lie green ; 
 The rain cloud has not failed ; the sun has shone. 
 
 Were the hands crazed that reared thy altar-stone 
 
 And laid the first-fruits of the world thereon ? 
 
 Long generations knelt in this hoar place 
 
 And filled thy marble hall with prayer and praise ; 
 
 And sire and stripling of the mountain race 
 
 Paid here thy golden dues and went their ways, — 
 
A DAY AT CASTROGIOVANNI 87 
 
 Thy children, — vanished all in Time's advance, — 
 Vanished their temple ! O dense ignorance ! 
 
 Yet surely there are gods — thou or another, 
 Some happier offspring of eternal mind ; 
 
 Nor halts man's adoration, mighty Mother, 
 Nor all his yearning through the world to find ; 
 
 All things have had his worship, — earth, sea, air ; 
 
 Oh, unto whom now shall he lift up prayer ? 
 
 From old religion and that fair array 
 Of beauty and of love once eminent, 
 
 He turned unto the light, clearer than day, 
 Within his breast, and thought it heaven-sent ; 
 
 He throned invisible a world ideal ; 
 
 Again the thousand years their will reveal. 
 
 Crescent and Cross, with equal carnage wet, 
 Rode a long age the aye-revolving skies ; 
 
 They are declining now ; soon shall they set ; 
 But over man shall other heavens arise, 
 
 And other thoughts and other rites appear, 
 
 And other forms shall the old faith endear. 
 
88 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 Temple and shrine have fallen to the ground ; 
 
 Minster and spire by truth deserted lie ; 
 Minaret and mosque have heard a far roar sound, 
 
 And tremble in their little squares of sky ; 
 All ancient superstition has been doomed — 
 Soon shall the stars see the old world entombed. 
 
 The sorceries of midnight and moonshine, 
 Brewers of witchcraft, dabbling in eclipse, 
 
 Went out long since on that dark border-line 
 Where the old world into the new world slips ; 
 
 Now go the gods from every land away — 
 
 So great a dawn is broadening into day. 
 
 And gladly we behold the great event 
 
 That frees our cities from the hooded fear ; 
 
 And joyfully we take the element 
 Of nature for our habitation here ; 
 
 Ours, not another's : but old woes abide ; 
 
 Not yet the soul is wholly purified. 
 
 We will not mourn, deserted by the gods 
 By us so much beloved, the gods divine, 
 
A DAY AT CASTROGIOVANNI 89 
 
 Though on them also fall the solemn clods, 
 As on our earthen sleep where we recline; 
 111 is he bred, and foolish draws his breath, 
 Who has not learned to live life-long with death. 
 
 Once, O Demeter, was thy woe as ours, 
 
 And, like our own, all mortal was thy mood ; 
 Then, weeping, thou didst crave through orphaned 
 hours 
 Holy responses to lorn motherhood ; 
 And when thy wandering through the world was 
 
 o'er, 
 Men found thee sitting by Eleusis' shore. 
 
 A light was in thy face ; not of our sphere 
 Nor of the world Olympian that clear beam ; 
 
 And from them passed the old religious fear 
 Who there beheld the Resurrection gleam ; 
 
 And thou didst shrine in sacred rites that word 
 
 Which first by us was in thy temple heard. 
 
 Ah, desolate I found that pleasant shore 
 
 Where sat thy temple, once the awe of Greece ; 
 
90 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 From later gods we hold an ampler store, 
 
 And still the granaries of the world increase ; 
 But that great word was moulded not in vain 
 Upon man's lips, the planter of the grain. 
 
 The spirit-thronged world has passed away, 
 And shorn of terror is the sun's eclipse ; 
 
 Science has dulled our wonder day by day ; 
 No awe, no silence, lingers on our lips ; 
 
 For deity in things we do not look ; 
 
 Now closed to all the gods is nature's book. 
 
 Yet, though man grows in truth from more to 
 more, 
 
 Old forces through our mystic being sweep ; 
 The soul remembereth its holy lore ; 
 
 Some moods habitual to mankind we keep ; 
 We believe ; though time forever on the scroll 
 Buries the early writing of the soul. 
 
 Lo, I believed in all the gods in turn, 
 
 And know they have no being but in me ; 
 
A DAY AT CASTROGIOVANNI 91 
 
 All is the form of what doth inly burn, 
 
 Up from the fetich to eternity ; 
 Wherever man doth pray, and finds faith there, 
 I kneel beside him and repeat his prayer. 
 
 Thou of many names, whom I invoke, 
 
 Thought in our souls and breath within our lungs, 
 
 One is the burden of the human yoke, 
 
 Though many are the earth's confused tongues ; 
 
 Christian and Moslem, Buddhist, Pagan, Greek, 
 
 A thousand dialects, the same prayer speak. 
 
 Illusion all ; for only man is real, 
 
 Dreaming on truth through symbols known to 
 sense ; 
 Of his own heart is formed each new ideal 
 
 That fires the nations with its eloquence ; 
 So spring-like through the centuries ever ran 
 The resurrection of the hope of man. 
 
 Thou wilt not answer, who in us art power ; 
 Yet quicker is the beating of my heart, 
 
92 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 Seeing from year to year, and hour to hour, 
 
 The joyful springtime in this old world start, 
 And in me feeling the fresh power of man 
 Unfold, and recreate what time began. 
 
 For now creation is, not long ago 
 
 In chaos ; chaos reigned not on the deep ; 
 
 Order is all of nature that we know. 
 
 Which, changing all, itself unchanged doth keep ; 
 
 And true creation is the soul's alone — 
 
 A light that grows upon the vast unknown. 
 
 O foul and bloody strife, since time began, 
 Up from the beast to man's imperial mould ! 
 
 O long his empire-toil, since he was man, 
 The soul's confederation to unfold ! 
 
 And many heavens he scaled ere Bethlehem's star 
 
 Hymned human love above all gods that are ! 
 
 He doth prevail, who masters, age by age, 
 The secret forces that through nature ply, 
 
 And with the changes of the mind grows sage, — 
 Whose faith burns brighter as the old truths die ; 
 
A DAY AT CASTROGIOVANNI 93 
 
 Truth is the cloud, moulded by every storm ; 
 Faith, like the rainbow, changes not its form. 
 
 He hath transcended nature — such a flame 
 Is nourished on his body ; he shall rise, 
 
 Remembering the altars whence he came, 
 To be for all the nations sacrifice ; 
 
 Nor only for far ages is the fruit — 
 
 Eternal beams did in his first loves shoot. 
 
 There is no truth save what to him is known ; 
 
 There is no beauty save within his eye ; 
 There is no love but what in him has grown, 
 
 And only in his mandate right doth lie ; 
 Justice and mercy his, and good and ill, 
 And virtue throneless save within his will. 
 
 No longer outwardly shall godhood shine, 
 
 To tend the flock, the ripened field to thresh ; 
 
 Nor only Christ shall harbor love divine 
 Within the tabernacle of our flesh ; 
 
 But every soul shall be that form of grace, 
 
 And universal man love's dwelling-place. 
 
94 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 This is the faith, the crown of many years, 
 
 That long has gathered prescience in his heart ; 
 
 Now shall it run its course through blood and tears 
 Wherever from the world the gods depart ; 
 
 Sealed by this intuition, over all, 
 
 That truth doth unto resurrection fall. 
 
 Oh, fain to love the gods, the gods divine, 
 He clasped unto his breast the phantom fair 
 
 That emanates from nature and doth shine 
 From isle and mount on visionary air ; 
 
 And thee he deified, O Mother-Love, 
 
 And throned thee on the rock, his fields above. 
 
 Each race in turn a mighty harvest reaps, 
 And shares with gods the glory of its toil ; 
 
 And old divinity forever keeps 
 
 Some portion in the consecrated soil ; 
 
 And what was sacred once is sacred still — 
 
 Lo, great Demeter, I salute thy hill. 
 
 Though born too late to bring unto thy shrine 
 From scanty stores a poor man's offering, 
 
A DAY AT CASTROGIOVANNI 95 
 
 The empire of another world is mine, 
 
 Whose only treasure is the lyre I bring ; 
 I lay it down upon the naked rock, 
 And on thy gates invisible I knock. 
 
 Giver of the Corn, thy child is dead, 
 
 And Greece lies buried by the sounding sea ; 
 A greater sun uprears a mightier head 
 
 On a new land where many oceans be ; 
 And where the bison and the reindeer ran 
 A world of wheat renews the hope of man. 
 
 1 thank thee for our food through sun and rain, 
 The summer's wealth, the winter's garnered 
 
 store ; 
 I thank thee for the rising of the grain ; 
 
 And ever thee I thank, and more and more, 
 For the hope hid in kernels of the corn, 
 Great Mother, vanished from the mountain's horn. 
 
THE RHYTHM 
 
 f I HIE rhythm of beauty beat in my blood all 
 
 day; 
 The rhythm of passion beat in my blood all night ; 
 The morning came, and it seemed the end of the 
 world. 
 
 Day, thou wast so beautiful I held my breath from 
 
 song ! 
 Night, how passion- wild thy throb, how voiceless, 
 
 oh, how strong ! 
 The night was not more lonely than the day ; — 
 But death-deep was the glimmer of the snow-dawn 
 
 far away. 
 
 I remember the throb of beauty that caught my 
 throat from song, 
 
 And the wilder throb when passion held me voice- 
 less the night long ; 
 
 96 
 
THE RHYTHM 97 
 
 And life with speed gone silent swept to its seas 
 
 untold ; — 
 But oh, the death-white glory on the pale height 
 
 far and cold ! 
 
 When passion gives beauty yet one day more the 
 
 rapture of my breath, 
 Ever a luminous silence comes dawn, and the chill 
 
 more cold than death ; 
 But rhythm to rhythm, deep unto deep, through 
 
 the years my spirit is hurled, 
 As when that morning on Etna came, and it seemed 
 
 the end of the world. 
 
 This is it to be immortal, O Life found death after 
 
 death, 
 From the deep of passion and beauty to draw the 
 
 infinite breath, 
 To be borne through the throb and the throe and 
 
 the sinking heart of strife, 
 And to find in the trough one more billow of thy 
 
 infinite rhythm, O Life ! 
 
TO THE VENUS OF SYRACUSE 
 
 S~\ SILENT form of beauty ! O divine 
 
 Body of woman given to mortal gaze, 
 Round which the ever-moving sculptural line 
 
 Meanders motionless, and clasps the ways 
 Of all men's longing in its pure embrace, 
 
 Moulding the marble vesture of desire — 
 What deep power hast thou to exalt our race, 
 
 And lovers' thoughts ennoble and inspire ! 
 
 This is the form of her who ruled supreme 
 
 The master-lovers of antiquity ; 
 Great spirits they were who could so fairly 
 dream, 
 
 And in a woman's form divinely see 
 The loveliness unto the world unknown 
 Flow into being in the breathless stone. 
 
HELICON 
 
 S~\ HAD I native power to sweep thee, 
 Lyre that awoke the Delian dawn, 
 And with the soul of music steep thee, 
 
 From old Hellenic poets drawn, 
 Who would their joys and griefs rehearse 
 In pure, pellucid Attic verse ; 
 
 Then would I loose in noble numbers 
 The heart I dare not now invoke 
 
 To stir the golden eagle's slumbers 
 And horses of the sun to yoke ; 
 
 Ocean would hist his waves to peace, 
 
 And heavenly stars their music cease. 
 
 99 
 
THE DELPHIAN CHILD 
 
 TXIGH over Castaly, on Delphi's steep, 
 
 A cabin stands where loops the mountain 
 way, 
 A ruin, girdled by the azure deep, 
 
 And o'er its rude stones giant crags hold sway. 
 
 Fain would I believe that He who for that home 
 Found humble room in such majestic air, 
 
 Marked, too, my path upon the pale sea's foam, 
 Foreknew my need and drew my footsteps there. 
 
 Two children stood before the dark low door, 
 A six-year boy holding an infant's hand ; 
 
 The single garment that his bare form wore 
 Fluttered and clung at the light wind's command. 
 
 Hunger made delicate his face and limbs ; 
 
 Eyes violet-pale that only knew to stare ; 
 Ah, did such boyhood lips pour Delphic hymns ? 
 
 And did Apollo wear such golden hair ? 
 100 
 
THE DELPHIAN CHILD 101 
 
 Father and mother gone, and they left lone 
 Night-long and through the longer day — no 
 food; 
 Facing the gray magnificence of stone, 
 
 Where no man came, the unconscious suppliants 
 stood. 
 
 They looked for no relief, they asked no boon, 
 But timidly upon the stranger gazed ; 
 
 Remote down western skies, and far from noon, 
 The parting lord of light divinely blazed. 
 
 Poor children of the god-deserted hill, 
 
 What bond with me should to this boy be 
 known ? 
 
 Yet when I came again their wants to fill, 
 His tender fingers never left my own. 
 
 Sweetly he took the orange and the bread ; 
 
 And o'er my hand the little prince of grace 
 Bowed beautiful that living golden head, — 
 
 It was not joy whose light was in his face. 
 
102 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 Still closer bent that glory o'er my hand, 
 The infant majesty of life child-borne ; 
 
 Then, shuddering from the far Judean land, 
 I felt the fibres of the whole earth mourn 
 
 Beneath my flesh, while warmly wandered there 
 From that child-mouth the breath angelical ; 
 
 And as through palpitant and fire-flecked air 
 Upon Christ's hand I saw his kisses fall. 
 
 " World-pain ! " I sighed ; " how is my heart a pool 
 Of sorrow, brimming tears at each light touch ! 
 
 Oh, in life's tragedy play not the fool ; 
 
 Have patience ! thou has suffered overmuch. 
 
 "Not in the globe of nature hast thou found 
 The Hider of Himself in things that be ; 
 
 Not in the march of progress, world-renowned, 
 The Providence whose breath is history. 
 
 "If ever, only in some random hour 
 The miracle of flashing soul on soul 
 
 Shows pouring in thyself the secret power 
 That oft in simple deeds doth purest roll. 
 
THE DELPHIAN CHILD 103 
 
 "Oh, of the Delphian not unbeloved, 
 
 With race and lore dowered deep, the son of time, 
 Save in thy soul how far from him removed, 
 
 This child, o'er whom Parnassus aye doth 
 climb, — 
 
 "Now going hence from great Apollo's hill 
 And slopes of holiness by old faith trod, 
 
 Own humbly while he holds thy fingers still, 
 'This Delphian child hath brought me nearest 
 God.'" 
 
THE ISLE 
 
 A LL day the island-world had been 
 To me a finer sphere, 
 And all that I had touched or seen 
 
 Grew intimate and dear ; 
 The world of recollection slept, 
 
 It had no power to stir, — 
 So sky and sea and mountain kept 
 
 Me beauty's prisoner. 
 
 Far from the human-haunted shore 
 
 In sunk and cloven dells, 
 Deep nooks, where caverned waters pour, 
 
 I dipped in iris wells ; 
 There silence seemed a higher sense 
 
 Than is known unto the ear, 
 And life a being more intense 
 
 Than doth anywhere appear. 
 
 104 
 
THE ISLE 105 
 
 An arm's-breadth off she breathed the wild, 
 
 Her face was golden fair, 
 A Greek girl, supple, warm and mild, 
 
 And half her figure bare ; 
 She stood so lightly on the mould, 
 
 So silently, so near, 
 I felt the forest round her fold 
 
 A phantom atmosphere. 
 
 And all about such faun-like bliss 
 
 Was breathing from the scene ! 
 Those aery rocks, that green abyss, 
 
 Antiquity had been ! 
 She glided down the dark-stemmed wood, — 
 
 Ah, had she known ! the grace 
 Of an immortal sisterhood 
 
 Was on her form and face. 
 
 Old isle ! what handed lovers oft 
 
 Wandered in thy dark grove, 
 With undropped eyes and touches soft, 
 
 Kisses, and vows, and love ! 
 
106 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 Ah, had she known, — would she have fled 
 
 And let the glamour die, 
 Or covert on to covert led 
 
 And answered sigh with sigh ? 
 
 I came where shores in moonlight slept 
 
 On the dark violet air, 
 As if in dreams their slumbers kept 
 
 A reign of memory there, — 
 As if a thousand years ago 
 
 Something from them had flown, 
 Ocean nor heaven no more shall know, 
 
 Nor any lover own. 
 
TO AN IONIAN BOY 
 
 T>OY of Mitylene ! thou 
 
 Of the immortal foot and brow, 
 Sailing o'er the harbor-sea 
 In my boat that hideth thee, 
 Fleeing from the Turkish power 
 That defiles thine Asian bower, 
 Seeking that far western shore, 
 Where thy hopes have gone before 
 Even with thy childish years 
 Through heavy toil and orphan tears ! 
 Thou, whose eyes of wonder see 
 The American in me ; 
 Confident to take my hand 
 As an earnest of the land 
 That shall mother thee and thine, 
 Our common mother, thine and mine ! 
 I wonder at thy courage, child, 
 Venturing the unknown wild ; 
 
 107 
 
108 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 The ticket, hidden in thy sole, 
 Thy anchor where the great seas roll ; 
 The White Star, pinned within thy shirt 
 Thy only talisman from hurt ; 
 Earth's and ocean's waif thou art ! 
 Waif of God ! brave is thy heart ! 
 
 Three hundred years have passed away 
 Since upon the Devon bay 
 Rowed the English emigrant 
 From whose loins my line I vaunt. 
 Centuries three their leaves have shed 
 Since on the rock he made his bed, 
 And helped to build with axe and book 
 The land to which all nations look. 
 Generations nine have wrought 
 To save and better what he brought ; 
 Each, in turn, on land and sea, 
 Toiling for the next to be. 
 Lo, the forest fell like wheat ; 
 Cities blossomed round their feet : 
 
TO AN IONIAN BOY 109 
 
 Came war, came peace, came war again ; 
 And now 'twas muscle, now 'twas brain ; 
 And now 'twas gold, and now 'twas blood ; 
 All things tried them, — firm they stood ; 
 And the land from sea to sea 
 Spread, and was filled with liberty ; 
 And serving mankind more and more 
 The race found sweetness at the core, — 
 A hand of welcome for all men, 
 And free to all the book, the pen. 
 
 So grew the world my boyhood trod, 
 Thy home to be, thy sky, thy sod, 
 And climbed Time's zodiac to shed 
 Heaven's horn of blessing on thy head. 
 To this end my fathers toiled ; 
 Take thou the heritage unsoiled, — 
 Years of ever milder power, 
 Years of ever wealthier dower ; 
 Make free to all the tool, the soil, — 
 So shalt thou share the mighty toil ! 
 
110 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 For now full circuit comes the wheel ; 
 The land a newer blood doth feel, 
 Thine and others ; take thy turn, 
 And with the new world's passion burn ! 
 Unto thee we give the state, 
 Rich and glorious, free and great ; 
 To the old blood I belong ; 
 Swan-like dies it in my song ; 
 And all that was of life and love, 
 Behold I am the fruit thereof, — 
 Speeding on the ocean track, 
 To the old world turning back, 
 And now unto thy land I come 
 As the spirit travels home. 
 
 When again three hundred years 
 
 Have torn their way through blood and tears 
 
 (For this old world will not change, 
 
 Howsoe'er men roam and range), 
 
 Some boy beautiful with grace 
 
 Dropt from thy vanished form and face, 
 
TO AN IONIAN BOY 111 
 
 Shall proudly trace his humble line 
 
 To Lesbos, and to thee and thine. 
 
 Over ocean will he come, 
 
 Seeking the ancestral home, 
 
 Where freedom's war-cry with fierce clang 
 
 First against the tyrant rang, 
 
 Where Sappho loved, Alcseus sang. 
 
 Will he look on sea and sun, 
 On isle and mount, as I have done, — 
 Youngest-born of time's last race, 
 On his knees lay down his face, 
 Mourning in his lonely mind, 
 Finding what he weeps to find ? — 
 The old forms gone from grove and hill, 
 The armor rust, the music still ; 
 The gods of Greece long overthrown, 
 The temples razed, the statues down ; 
 Scant relics of the brain and hand 
 That for the soul all beauty planned ! 
 Ah, not for this his tears shall roll, 
 
112 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 For plinth and coin, for bust and scroll ; 
 He weeps the ruin of the soul. 
 
 O City of the violet crown ! 
 O race familiar with the god ! 
 O lyric isles ! O civic town ! 
 The soul's first home was this dear sod ! 
 O Greece, where first the race began 
 To know itself, and reason clear, 
 Thou the Creator wast of man ! 
 Thou didst abolish human fear ! 
 And still from thee he takes the best 
 That his dark spirit can enjoy ; — 
 Because Greece held thee to her breast, 
 Therefore I love thee, wandering boy ! 
 Nothing in all the world so sweet 
 As was the message of her feet ; 
 Nothing in all the world so dear 
 As now her human aims appear ; 
 Nothing in all the world so wise 
 As was the bright death in her eyes ; 
 
TO AN IONIAN BOY 113 
 
 O wisest, dearest, sweetest far, 
 
 In love and beauty, sport and war ! 
 
 Then shall that far American, 
 Who out of thee shall be made man, 
 Looking on plain and sea and sky, 
 Unto his gods lift up his cry : — 
 "O Land of Promise in the west, 
 So to the shades go thou not down ! 
 Nor with great Athens take thy rest, 
 My country of the starry crown !" 
 
 Fair befall thee, tender child ! 
 
 Seek thou my home ; grow sweet, grow mild ! 
 
 And fair befall thy race to be, — 
 
 Fairer than hath fallen to me ! 
 
THE MOSQUE AT EPHESUS 
 
 A GRAY shell with a ruined tower 
 Whereon the wild stork sees 
 On the Moor's arch the wind-sown flower, 
 
 Within, the aged trees ; 
 Tranquil decay, and silence meet 
 
 To strew round old belief, 
 While every mellowing stone grows sweet 
 
 With time's unconscious grief ! 
 
 Once as on Salisbury's moor I lay 
 
 Where the great stones remain, 
 I felt my very soul grow gray 
 
 And sink into the plain ; 
 A solitary lark climbed up 
 
 In the dark sunset sky, 
 And, singing, filled from heaven the cup 
 
 I drink of till I die. 
 114 
 
THE MOSQUE AT EPHESUS 115 
 
 Now world-wide pours the music rare 
 
 Within my listening mind ; 
 I hear the lark's song everywhere 
 
 That I the gray stone find ; 
 Thy lovely Mosque, O Ephesus, 
 
 Reverts to nature's plan ; 
 But dying gods bequeath to us 
 
 Their deathless faith in man. 
 
 I hear the song at Stonehenge heard 
 
 Abolishing gray death ; 
 Again the rapture of the bird 
 
 Is singing in my breath ; 
 It rises in my heart of hearts 
 
 And music floods my brain — 
 Old Mosque, o'er thee it fluttering starts, 
 
 And soars, and comes again. 
 
 Ye antique trees, grow fresh and green 
 
 Within the roofless nave ! 
 The song that cleaves your heaven unseen 
 
 Shall nest upon my grave ; 
 
116 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 And while it hovers o'er my breast 
 Yon arch shall break to flower, 
 
 And the wild stork shall cap his nest 
 White on the mouldering tower. 
 
THE REVELLER 
 
 A VINEYARD SONG 
 
 T TNWREATHE thy brow ! Thy cheek outvies 
 
 The golden grape in lustres rare ; 
 The rosebud of thy mouth denies 
 
 The living rosebud hanging there ; 
 Nor teach the radiance of thy eyes 
 
 To counterfeit the starry air ; 
 From all things else the beauty dies 
 
 When thou art near, though they are fair ; 
 Star, rose and grape but mirrors warm 
 Of loves that from thy beauty swarm, 
 Thy brief, incarnate shades ; in thee 
 The world returns to unity. 
 
 Unwreathe thyself, and singly shine 
 Wine of the world, the rose-divine 
 Body of love, desire star-sown 
 That sparkles in the midnight zone, — 
 
 117 
 
118 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 All beauty cast in passion's mould 
 
 In thee corporeally bright, — 
 O Dionysian bloom, unfold ! 
 
 Crown, crown the revel's height, 
 Sweet reveller ! Thy golden cheek, 
 
 Thy rosebud mouth, thy radiant eyes, 
 A darling of the gods bespeak, 
 
 Who take thee to the skies ; 
 With hands divinely holding up, 
 As 'twere youth's flower, the vine-clad cup, 
 Drink deep, O heavy-breathing boy, 
 Crush on thy lips long draughts of joy ! 
 
 Then bear with thee to heaven along 
 The wisdom of the vineyard song ; 
 Chime and charm thou mayst not bear, 
 For the shadows' source reigns there ; 
 And when thou puttest thy beauty by, 
 
 And shall at last unwreathe thee quite, 
 Like stars that on the distant sky 
 
 Suddenly beam, and cease from light ; — 
 
THE REVELLER 119 
 
 For who may know what shall befall 
 
 After the whole earth's funeral ? 
 
 And who may know what there shall be 
 
 Without the senses' imagery ? — 
 
 Ah, when the grape and rose shall shed 
 
 Their bloom, and garden-mould shall be, 
 Reveal, all beauty being dead, 
 
 Love's imageless eternity ! 
 
BY THE TYRRHENE SEA 
 
 rflHE shepherd folds his white 
 
 Flocks by the Tyrrhene sea ; 
 My wandering thoughts at night 
 I fold in my thought of thee. 
 
 To the maiden her shepherd's kiss 
 And the flower of the orange-tree ; 
 
 Boy and girl have their bliss 
 
 And the nightingale sings for three. 
 
 Night-long he sings, night-long I hear, 
 And wakeful croons the sea ; 
 
 Night-long in wakeful music, dear, 
 I fold my thought of thee. 
 
 120 
 
ONE LAST KISS" 121 
 
 One last kiss and the morning star were one ; 
 And in the chorus of the birds the sun 
 Neared in his glory. I into the dark 
 Ocean of slumber felt my spirit's bark 
 Slip from the music and the shining vales ; 
 The song, the glory filled the fading sails. 
 
 In thy chambers are many lovers, O Mediterra- 
 nean Sea ; 
 
 Here, in a niche of thy caverns, would sleep were 
 strewn o'er me ; 
 
 Slumber as deep as ever the sleep of the spirit 
 may be ! 
 
THE REED AND OTHER POEMS 
 
&0 tire ifKemorjj 
 
 of my friend, and master 
 
 among the living, 
 
 Charles Eliot Norton, 
 
 I dedicate 
 
 THIS LITTLE SHEAF OF VERSE. 
 
THE REED 
 
 A S when the poet, muttering low, 
 
 Doth feel his blood prophetic flow, 
 And reaches with his hand 
 For some diviner instrument 
 To give the coming music vent, 
 My hands moved to and fro. 
 
 "0 Face Divine that bent over my youth 
 
 With sweet, victorious, battle-quick breath, 
 
 Who sealed on my lips the love of truth, 
 
 And taught my childhood the lore of death, 
 
 And I caught from thy bosom the glow and the lift 
 
 Of thoughts whereon I heavenward drift, — 
 
 Spirit of Justice, purest and best 
 
 Of the powers that spring from the human breast, 
 
 What is thy will ?" I murmured low. 
 "I see thee sweep thy robe from the land ; 
 As one fain to go I see thee stand, 
 
 And I, too, am fain to go." 
 
 125 
 
126 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 She looked as one who sees in pain 
 His armies waste away in vain 
 
 And from the lost field turns ; 
 His plans o'erthrown, ambitions fled, 
 Glory obscured, and comrades dead, — 
 
 His bosom darkly burns. 
 
 "Thou hadst a reed," she said ; 
 
 "Its notes were battle-born; 
 I would hear if its dumb stops keep 
 
 Some echoes of its morn. 
 Sing me the hosting music 
 
 Of men who march to death ; 
 Bring me the reed of thy boyhood, — 
 
 Though it holds but a little breath, 
 I shall hear on its faintest flute-note 
 
 The feet of a million men ; 
 It was a curious instrument, 
 
 And seemed both sword and pen." 
 
 I took the reed I threw away ; 
 I tried again its music rude ; 
 
THE REED 127 
 
 A blush came over the laurel spray, 
 
 And the eagle rose from the wood ; 
 And the reed, as 'twere from a brazen throat, 
 With my boyhood breath blew a trumpet-note : 
 
 "Peace be with God ! armies and fleet, 
 Marshal them, launch them, after my feet, 
 Who am gone to the field where dying is sweet ! 
 Youth, all the land over, 
 Your manhood discover ! 
 Part, maiden and lover ! 
 
 Swords, over the border to the realms of disorder ! 
 In the shadow of war sleeps the fate of all lands ; 
 I am Justice, — the web of the world in my hands." 
 
 "Lo !" she said, "where the loud cannon spoke for 
 
 the cause, 
 Half over the land the silenced laws ! 
 Shall they bind with a pact the realms abroad, 
 Who maintain not the bond on their native sod ? 
 What noble assizes Americans make 
 With bloodhound and rifle, the noose and the stake ! 
 
128 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 The strength of his arm is the taskmaster's creed ; 
 How long will laboring millions bleed ! 
 They mind ill the lesson of times gone by, — 
 When the silence is deepest, 'ware Truth's war-cry ! 
 And the rich man's gift with his lavish gold 
 Is children's children to usury sold. 
 War hath its crimes, which may time decrease ! 
 The crimes universal are crimes of peace." 
 
 Like a hand-fast child I held to the flute ; 
 
 Deathly wan were her cheeks ; 
 Fain was I to be understood, 
 
 As one who stammering speaks. 
 I pressed the reed to my mouth ; 
 
 I spent my kiss of fire ; 
 The little stem enraptured shook 
 
 With the glory of the lyre : 
 
 "With the popular breath the planet 
 
 This way and that may roll ; 
 I am the Master of empires, 
 
 I am the Lord of the soul. 
 
THE REED 129 
 
 Throne whom they will in the churches, 
 
 Crown whom they may in the school, 
 Who obeyeth me is the Christian, 
 
 Who denieth me is the fool. 
 I buried Egypt at daybreak ; 
 
 I doomed Nineveh and Rome ; 
 The starry spear of Paris 
 
 Late drove my judgment home. 
 With ships and arms let nations 
 
 Steel hard their cities and coasts ; 
 One word of the lonely Truth-teller 
 
 Lords it o'er fleets and hosts. 
 My heralds summon Asia ; 
 
 I mine the Muscovite ; 
 My Peace, my War, are equal powers, 
 The left hand and the right." 
 
 "Ah, here," she said, "how was my coming sweet, 
 And o'er all other lands was this land dear ! 
 
 I thought to fix my everlasting seat 
 
 Hereon, and stay my world-wide wandering here." 
 
130 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 Full heavily she leaned upon that lance 
 
 Which through the sides of nations makes its 
 way; 
 
 Then saw I in her eyes a light advance 
 As 'twere the flaming majesty of day. 
 
 I blew ; on that weird flute 
 
 Seemed coming from afar 
 The trample of all human feet 
 
 That ever trod this star ; 
 Hard on Turanian rock, 
 
 And desert-soft on sands, 
 Poured the innumerable footfall 
 
 Of the children of all lands : 
 
 "Not for a single age, 
 
 Not for a favored land, 
 Not for a separate race, 
 
 Was heavenly Justice planned ; 
 But destined to one fold 
 
 Of science, art, and love, 
 
THE REED 131 
 
 Are the wandering peoples all 
 
 And every soul thereof. 
 Lo ! where the old East flames, 
 
 How great a light hath broke ! 
 Lo ! what a burden falls 
 
 From Allah's patient folk ! 
 Their feet are many millions 
 
 Who toward light traveling are, 
 Where world-wide beams thy promise 
 
 From Freedom's morning star. 
 Come, though grief be thy portion, 
 
 And war thy housemate be, 
 Thou canst not build on less than man, 
 
 Nor man on less than thee." 
 
 I rose, still fluting in the dark, 
 
 And to her side drew nigh, 
 And all the while new stars spread out 
 
 The interminable sky : 
 
 "Through many thousand ages 
 May man's ideal refine ! 
 
132 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 Yet here in nature's periods 
 
 . The brute shows half divine, 
 Who thinks that he who loves the most, 
 
 And most denies his lust, 
 Who giveth all and taketh nought — 
 
 Only that man is just. 
 And still we dream beyond this truth 
 
 What deeper glories lie ; 
 Come, Justice, teach mankind to live, 
 
 Teach nations how to die ! " 
 
 On that dark strand she bent her head full low, 
 Far down, and with her tears my hand impearled, 
 
 And drew it into hers, and led me forth, — 
 
 "Come," said she, "sing thy reed-song through 
 the world." 
 
LINES FOR THE INGHAM MEMORIAL AT 
 LE ROY, 1911 
 
 /^\NLY yesterday it was morning 
 
 And the spring put forth its leaves ; 
 We have lived ; and the summer is warning 
 
 Us to bring in our sheaves ; 
 And to all of us comes one thought 
 
 As we look to the westering sun, — 
 How little of all we have wrought 
 
 Was by our own hands done. 
 
 We have sown the homelands over 
 
 With the ancient seed of the home ; 
 Broad acres of wheat and of clover 
 
 Laugh again to the sun from the loam ; 
 But our joy as we go reaping 
 
 In the green field and the gold 
 Is to find the new harvest keeping 
 
 The color and weight of the old. 
 
 133 
 
134 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 We remember the forms and the faces 
 
 Round our youth like an aureole ; 
 We remember the virtues and graces 
 
 That gave us heart and soul ; 
 But the crowning joy that we cherish, 
 
 The source and the stay of our powers, 
 Is to feel in our lives that perish 
 
 The work of their hands in ours. 
 
 Through times and seasons flying 
 
 We have found one thing stand sure, 
 One truth, among all things dying, 
 
 The years leave more secure ; 
 Only what is spent in giving 
 
 Escapes from wealth's decay, 
 Only what is built into living 
 
 Never passes away. 
 
 Of the dust are man's creations ; 
 
 Both dome and tower shall fall ; 
 Dark lies on its foundations 
 
 The roof -tree of our hall ; 
 
LINES FOR THE INGHAM MEMORIAL 135 
 
 But the homes the soul builds fasting 
 
 Of truth and art and song, 
 Unto the everlasting 
 
 Mansions of light belong. 
 
 We carve with last thanksgiving 
 
 The bare memorial-stone, 
 Where nothing now is living 
 
 And all but memory flown ; 
 With the flower that blooms here never 
 
 We clasp the long-loved name, 
 But in us it lives forever, 
 
 The Rose, that was seed and flame. 
 
E. A. P. 
 
 ON THE FLY-LEAF OF WHITTY's "POE" 
 
 TN the proudest of the nations 
 
 Was a wandering poet born ; 
 Skyward its accumulations 
 
 Towered, from mine and forest torn ; 
 Never state was so victorious 
 
 In world-plundering wars of gold ; 
 Never land so earthly glorious 
 
 Of the conquering lands of old. 
 
 From the star-bound pole of heaven 
 
 That spins in lyric mirth, 
 Where the Pleiads are, the Seven, 
 
 Came that vagrant soul to earth ; 
 Echoes of some lost existence, 
 
 Pre-natal melody, 
 As of angels in the distance, 
 
 Haunted his mortality. 
 
 136 
 
E. A. P. 137 
 
 But because the poet ever 
 
 Needs befriending, most of men, 
 And his soul reposes never 
 
 In the gross and citizen, 
 From the moment that he quickened 
 
 In the heavy air, 
 The heavenly spirit pined and sickened 
 
 Because no love was there. 
 
 Spectral thoughts — grim foes — assailed him 
 
 Only poets' minds evoke ; 
 Nought his beauty there availed him, 
 
 Dying, stroke on stroke ; 
 Long his genius pleaded, pealing 
 
 Melancholy chimes, — 
 As from Paradise came stealing 
 
 The supra-mundane rhymes. 
 
 Then his living turned to anguish 
 
 Of the demon-driven storm, 
 And men saw his glory languish 
 
 Into one pale form, 
 
138 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 Ghostly, ghastly, — and his heart was torn with 
 
 Life's wan dream, Despair ; 
 And the beauty he was born with 
 
 Faded in the sepulchre. 
 
 The proudest of the nations 
 
 Watched that starved power decay ; 
 Heard the maniac lamentations 
 
 Where that soul of beauty lay. 
 Now, men whisper, genius glorious 
 
 Flees that barbarous strand forlorn, 
 Lined with turrets, gold- victorious, — 
 
 And no poets there are born. 
 
"BEAUTIFUL WINGS" 
 
 T3EAUTIFUL wings that beat the void, 
 
 At every stroke a deathless song, 
 A joy embodied, a grief destroyed, — 
 Mortal, you live not long. 
 
 But in the mind you still shall soar 
 O'er him whom you leave dead ; 
 
 The poet, buried evermore, 
 Builds heaven overhead. 
 
 139 
 
THE DIRGE 
 
 T DREAMED I wove a shroud of flowers 
 
 For one who loved me young, 
 My playmate in the childish bowers 
 
 Where my first songs were sung ; 
 I dreamed the words, I dreamed the flowers, 
 
 And thus the dirge was sung. — 
 
 "There was a boy, a lovely child, 
 
 Who loved me long ago ; 
 I found him in the lonesome wild 
 
 Where buds of boyhood blow ; 
 I loved him in the flowering wild, 
 
 And laid him in the snow. 
 
 "Many years hath he been gone 
 
 Where shades of beauty fare ; 
 They are few who think upon 
 
 The road that he goes there ; 
 
 140 
 
THE DIRGE 141 
 
 He put away the sun ; alone 
 He went to wander there. 
 
 "I laid his body in the snow, 
 
 That was a living flower ; 
 We were two buds that love made blow 
 
 The self -same hour ; 
 And I had many years to grow, 
 
 And he an hour. 
 
 "Violets, that were his eyes ; 
 
 Roses that his kisses were ; 
 Breath of jasmine be his sighs, 
 
 And his tears be myrrh ! 
 Every flower that soonest dies 
 
 To him minister ! 
 
 "Many years he travels far 
 
 In the flowerless land ; 
 None to honor him there are, 
 
 None to understand ; 
 
142 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 I shut my laurel, leaf and star, 
 In his dear hand." — 
 
 Oh, is it that eternity- 
 Hath in my dark flesh sprung ? 
 
 Forty winters now there be 
 Since he I loved was young. 
 
 Oh, had, unknown, perpetually, 
 Spirit to spirit clung ? 
 
DISTANCE 
 
 I71AR from my earthly home, 
 Far from my spirit's goal, 
 I seek across the endless foam 
 Pacifies of the soul. 
 
 To me the singer's lonely bliss 
 Far on the chartless sea ! 
 
 But the soul of distance is, 
 Dear, to be far from thee. 
 
 143 
 
TO A CHILD 
 
 TTTOW shall I thee remember 
 From springs of long ago, 
 Where in my own December 
 
 I think upon thee now ? 
 Thou comest in such changeful shapes 
 That memory from itself escapes. 
 
 A winsome elf whom beauty 
 And love alone made wise ; 
 
 Who never heard of duty, 
 Nor rules, nor sacrifice ; 
 
 He storms me with his kisses, 
 
 And tears, and sudden blisses. 
 
 What transports of emotion 
 His fond breast could conceive ! 
 
 What heart-breaks of devotion ! 
 What power he had to grieve ! 
 
 144 
 
TO A CHILD 145 
 
 From Napoli the memory swells ; 
 What welcomes, what farewells ! 
 
 Aye will I thee remember ! 
 
 How should I thee forget ? 
 Like the New Year to December, 
 
 Press to my bosom yet ! 
 Across a thousand leagues I hear 
 Thy "Buon Natale" in my ear. 
 
A LIFE 
 
 I" HEARD my ancient sea-blood say, 
 And wise in youth it counselled me, — 
 "When women lure, when men betray, 
 Break topsails for the open sea." 
 
 I crowded sail on spar and mast, 
 And half the world I left behind ; 
 
 But in my breast I held it fast, 
 
 That truth in men I still should find. 
 
 I set my life on swords of three, 
 My back against my castle wall ; 
 
 Now should I cry, "A moi 9 amis!' 9 
 It is three ghosts would come at call. 
 
 Alone upon the "Far Away," 
 
 And nothing human sails with me ; 
 
 My bare poles dip, through sun and spray, 
 The dim marge of God's outer sea. 
 
 146 
 
DEATH AND FAME 
 
 JT HAVE planted a flower on the peak ; 
 
 My soul has cast its star. 
 Star and peak ! and dawn's a-streak ! 
 And my tomb is where they are. 
 
 Though never a climber scale the height 
 Where my love exhales its fire, — 
 
 Though only the heavenly side of night 
 Shakes with my soul's desire, — 
 
 There, on the peak, a life's perfume ! 
 
 There, cresting the dark, a star ! 
 There, light that breaks upon a tomb ! — 
 
 And fame is where they are. 
 
 147 
 
PEARY'S SLEDGE 
 
 T3 UDE sledge, that shalt the mortal relic be, 
 
 When he is nameless dust, of that strong 
 soul 
 Who won the great adventure of the Pole, 
 I read the lineaments of fate in thee. 
 Thou art the image of necessity, 
 
 Framed of denial, the wise will's control, — 
 "Least will do most," — "Spare all, and win 
 the whole," 
 Thou sayest, — "Art, life, are brothers unto me." 
 
 So was that soul accoutred, in and out ; 
 
 So stood he on the gray roof of the world, 
 Gazing on heavens he lifted up from earth ; 
 
 Illimitable chaos round about 
 Knelt to his flag ; victor, beneath him whirled 
 
 Earth's axis ; and within him was man's mirth. 
 
 148 
 
THE VOICE OP THE ANTARCTIC 
 
 1 HID within the everlasting dearth, — 
 
 And who art thou that comest ? dreadful 
 thou art 
 Unto all Being who hast power to dart 
 Thy weird self-knowledge through creation's girth ! 
 What is thy purpose ? Wherefore was thy birth ? 
 Thou of the mystic understanding heart ! 
 What thinkest thou, seeing to-day depart 
 The last Unknown from the all-conquered earth ? 
 
 "What prospect, if not this, should give thee pause, 
 O Human Eye, whose lustre, age by age, 
 
 Spreads through the blind deep wherein thou wast 
 born ? 
 Of the Eternal Dark thy gendering was ; 
 
 Eternal Want has been thy pilgrimage ; 
 
 Oh, to what cold horizons bring'st thou morn !" 
 
 149 
 
FAME 
 
 /^i REAT thoughts had swelled my breast since 
 morning light, — 
 
 Of one who, vibrating the ether, spake ; 
 
 And one whose ray abolished the opaque ; 
 Sailors, who drove from eithel* Pole the night ; 
 Aerial Chavez o'er the Alpine height 
 
 Icarian borne, the eagle in his wake ; 
 
 The twain whose love unveiled the radium flake ; 
 And him who dragged the pestilence to light. 
 
 And when the long day drew to evening's close, 
 And on heaven's face the eternal beauty came, 
 
 So in my memory gloriously arose 
 The starry universe of human fame ; 
 
 And through the midst thereof uncounted glows 
 The light of souls who died without a name. 
 
 150 
 
IN MEMORIAM 
 
 Ctjarles Ultot Morton 
 
 READ BEFORE THE ALPHA CHAPTER OF THE PHI 
 BETA KAPPA, HARVARD, JUNE 16, 1913 
 
 TTTHY comes the wandered poet back 
 To tread again his boyhood track 
 Where all must changed be ? 
 Long since the brood of youth is flown ; 
 The woods are still ; the paths are lone ; 
 He hangs on one memorial stone 
 A wreath of memory. 
 
 Envy me not, whose hand the Master took, 
 His firstling charge, boy-leader of the host 
 Of those who followed in the after-time ; 
 Meet is it that I praise him, — who forsook 
 All else to travel the steep heavenly coast 
 Where what he told me of is won or lost, 
 And aye the lone soul to its sun doth climb. 
 
 151 
 
152 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 He hardened me to breathe the burning frost 
 Where Truth on all things pours its naked ray ; 
 He taught me to neglect all worldly cost 
 And through that shining element make way 
 Where Reason doth the spirit of light obey. 
 Yet, with prophetic forecast, evermore 
 He brought forth things of beauty from his store ; 
 And in my bosom fed love's fiery core 
 With wisdom sternly tender, warmly high, 
 That through love only doth man live and die, 
 Howe'er his nature may through art refine ; 
 Thus had he from the deathless Florentine 
 Intelligence of love, the poet's power ; 
 And oft he led me to the Muse's bower. 
 
 O cherished privacy that seems my own, 
 And memories sacred unto me alone ! 
 A thousand hearts such youthful records bear 
 Of him who gave their souls to breathe free air, 
 Broke up their pent horizons, winged their feet ; 
 And after him their wondering lips repeat 
 
N MEMORIAM 153 
 
 ly and truth ; each word, 
 
 i mouth, seemed gospels newly 
 
 m in those pastures sweet, 
 
 , where Beauty's self doth dwell, 
 
 is its own oracle. 
 
 masked his solitude, 
 >s of his seigniorial wood ; 
 vas hid how warm a hearth 
 right with children's mirth. 
 i recall his social grace, 
 me beaming from his face, 
 sment of his good- will 
 le forms that held it still ; 
 :e hours, the high discourse, 
 ion veiling moral force ; 
 :h, the sweet reserved style ; 
 still lingered in his smile ; 
 han ever he expressed, 
 when in his conscious breast 
 
152 THE FLIGHT AND OT 
 
 He hardened me to breathe th( 
 Where Truth on all things pou] 
 He taught me to neglect all wo 
 And through that shining elem< 
 Where Reason doth the spirit c 
 Yet, with prophetic forecast, e\ 
 He brought forth things of beai 
 And in my bosom fed love's fier 
 With wisdom sternly tender, wa 
 That through love only doth m; 
 Howe'er his nature may througl 
 Thus had he from the deathless 
 Intelligence of love, the poet's p 
 And oft he led me to the Muse's 
 
 O cherished privacy that seems ] 
 And memories sacred unto me a] 
 A thousand hearts such youthful 
 Of him who gave their souls to b 
 Broke up their pent horizons, wii 
 And after him their wondering li] 
 
IN MEMORIAM 153 
 
 Honor and courtesy and truth ; each word, 
 Dropped from his mouth, seemed gospels newly 
 
 heard. 
 So did he lead them in those pastures sweet, 
 Loved of all youth, where Beauty's self doth dwell, 
 And the fair soul is its own oracle. 
 
 A grave demeanor masked his solitude, 
 Like the dark pines of his seigniorial wood ; 
 But there within was hid how warm a hearth 
 Hospitable, and bright with children's mirth. 
 How many thence recall his social grace, 
 The general welcome beaming from his face, 
 The shy embarrassment of his good- will 
 Chafing against the forms that held it still ; 
 Or, in more private hours, the high discourse, 
 With soft persuasion veiling moral force ; 
 The reticent mouth, the sweet reserved style ; 
 Something unsaid still lingered in his smile ; 
 For more he felt than ever he expressed, 
 Then silent most when in his conscious breast 
 
154 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 Most intimate with some long-cherished guest ; 
 He struck the dying log, and still the spark 
 Flashed on the incommunicable dark ; 
 Or by his open window's leafy screen 
 Mused on the world's inscrutable fair scene ; 
 Or, seeking for the soul its hermitage, 
 He, meditative, turned the poet's page. 
 Ay me, how many pictures line the wall 
 Of that long memory, and his face in all ! 
 
 Others with critic judgment shall refine 
 Censure and praise, and his just place assign, 
 And the historic portrait nicely blend, 
 The artists' comrade, and the poets' friend ; 
 And all that doth in eulogy have end 
 Others shall speak, and lesser loves shall sing ; 
 My thoughts of him on vaster orbits swing ; 
 The star revolves about its parent fire ; 
 Still from his ashes leaps my young desire ; 
 Not what he was, but what he gave, is mine, 
 Inspiriting the loyalties divine 
 
IN MEMORIAM 155 
 
 That hold men true, and in their actions shine. 
 So full of heavenly impulse life may be, 
 And even on earth breed immortality. 
 
 Fain would I paint for coming youth to view 
 
 Him whose lone light, a generation through, 
 
 The fairest flower of Harvard to him drew, 
 
 Our guide and prophet of the life ideal. 
 
 He through himself best made his great appeal, 
 
 Lover of beauty found, in every art, 
 
 And that fair treasure could to us impart, 
 
 The loveliness that shall eternal be, 
 
 The spirit of divine antiquity 
 
 Immortal borne, whatever age assail ; 
 
 So doth the soul of Greece o'er time avail. 
 
 This his chief charge, who from the fountain-head 
 
 Poured baptism on our eyes, and inward shed 
 
 On the young soul the drop of ecstasy 
 
 That makes the soul itself beauty to be ; 
 
 We seemed to carve ourselves in noble lines, 
 
 And sculptured on life's walls our great designs. 
 
156 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 What could we else, whom Athens moulded there, 
 Whose breath was Italy ? The wise and fair 
 Of every land mingled that golden air 
 That bathed our youth. O life beyond compare, 
 When we shot up in that dear Master's care ! 
 
 Ah, long ago the inexorable years 
 
 Dismissed us to life's labor with our peers, 
 
 Yet not from him divided did we go ; 
 
 His counsel stayed us ; still would memory show 
 
 The man we honored, who, all else below, 
 
 Laying of character the cornerstone, 
 
 Taught us, in this rude world, to stand alone ; 
 
 Nor seldom, o'er the ever-widening years, 
 
 Far-shining on the public view appears 
 
 That private stamp that most a friend endears ; 
 
 And proud we saw him, justly eminent 
 
 Whatever clamor rose, grow eloquent, 
 
 When gusts of folly swept the commonweal ; 
 
 Still from his hillside-peace swift words he sent, 
 
 Whether the sentence sweet or bitter fell ; 
 
IN MEMORIAM 157 
 
 The man of principle, our Abdiel, 
 
 Still faithful found to his unshared ideal. 
 
 Now he is gone, O how the heart grows still ! 
 How deep a silence lies on Shady Hill ! — 
 Joy be to you, ye listening youth, rejoice, 
 From whom another age awaits its voice ! 
 In you is He who comes ; but we depart ; 
 In you beats high the rising century's heart. 
 O faring forth from this soul-nurturing air, 
 So may you live, so be your memory fair. 
 
EPILOGUE 
 
THE POET TO THE READER 
 
 L/lULL many a poem have I made 
 
 That never by the world was heard ; 
 I am the Fowler, not the Bird ; 
 I am the Body, not the Shade. 
 
 The image is an outward thing 
 Though in a magic mirror shown ; 
 But in their essence were they known, 
 
 Poets their lyres would downward fling. 
 
 Their choiring breath, their star-girt glow 
 Is matter's ; and their songs repeat 
 Pulsations of the ringing feet 
 
 That through creation run and go. 
 
 For only thus can mortals hear 
 The music, and the rapture guess 
 Of the invisible loveliness 
 
 Whose shadows enter eye and ear. 
 
 M 161 
 
162 THE FLIGHT AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 Lo, beauty's grace and love's desire 
 Are but the singing robes I don ; 
 Apart, the soul, its vesture gone, 
 
 Sits naked in creative fire. 
 
 For it, the soul, is increate, 
 
 And when in music it takes form, 
 Mortals are ravished in the storm 
 
 Of harmony at heaven's gate. 
 
 But could they hear the song I sing 
 When all apart I tune the lyre, 
 Their sluggard veins would run with fire, 
 
 And from their lips the soul take wing. 
 
 And were there one with power to bear 
 The full contagion of my breast, 
 Such glory would his arms invest 
 
 As if he clasped an angel there. 
 
 For though my music world-wide roll, 
 By thy own heart must it be sung ; 
 The master chord remains unstrung 
 
 Save when two mingle, soul in soul. 
 
T 
 
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 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 Athentzum. 
 
 " . . . It is the essence of all poetry of East and West 
 alike, the language of the soul. 
 
 — The Indian Magazine and Review. 
 
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IMPORTANT BOOKS OF POETRY 
 
 Three New Books 
 Bp JOHN MASEFIELD 
 
 SALT WATER BALLADS 
 
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 " Masefield has prisoned in verse the spirit of life at 
 sea." — New York Sun. 
 
 A MAINSAIL HAUL 
 
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 "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 
 
 Preparing. 
 
 A vigorous, vivid and convincing play, in the virile and 
 impressive vein associated with Mr. Masefield's striking 
 poetic gifts. 
 
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IMPORTANT BOOKS OF POETRY 
 
 New Editions of 
 JOHN MASEFIELD'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. 
 
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IMPORTANT BOOKS OF POETRY 
 
 By HERMANN HAGEDORN 
 
 POEMS AND BALLADS Cloth. i2mo. 
 
 "His is perhaps the most confident of the prophecies 
 of our new poets, for he has seen most clearly the poetry 
 in the new life. His song is full of the spirit of youth and 
 hope. ... It is the song that the new century needs. 
 His verse is strong and flexible and has an ease, a natural- 
 ness, a rhythm that is rare in young poets. In many of 
 his shorter lyrics he recalls Heine." — Boston Transcript. 
 
 By FANNIE STEARNS DA VIS 
 
 MYSELF AND I Cloth. 12mo. $1.00 net 
 
 "For some years the poems of Miss Davies 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 
 
 APHRODITE AND OTHER POEMS 
 
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 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. 
 
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IMPORTANT BOOKS OF POETRY * 
 
 By 
 WILFRID WILSON GIBSON 
 
 Daily Bread 
 
 New Edition. Three volumes in one. Cloth, i2tno, 
 $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: 'Anew 
 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 
 
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 "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 
 
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 "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. 
 
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