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RECLAI M ED 
 
 BY 
 
 R. M. E. 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 BERT L. WHITE COMPANY 
 
 1921 
 

 Copyright, 1921 
 Rachel M. Erwin 
 
 5EP 19 1921 
 
 ©CI.A624430 
 
 ^^^ 
 
To 
 C. R. E. 
 R. C. E. 
 
 and 
 C. W. E. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 RECLAIMED 11 
 
 PINE KNOT 20 
 
 AN INNESS LANDSCAPE 25 
 
 THE SONG SHE SINGS 26 
 
 THE MIDNIGHT HOURS 31 
 
 ALOHA ON 34 
 
 YOUR ROSES 35 
 
 HE AND I 39 
 
 JANIE 41 
 
 YOUTH AND AGE 45 
 
 THEY 46 
 
REC LAI MED 
 
RECLAIMED 
 
 Kate 
 "Slow up a bit — this place must be the one — 
 *0n the hard road/ they said, *a trifle more 
 Than four miles from the town/ Here's the 
 white fence." 
 
 John 
 "Is it worth while? The rain is blinding, Kate; 
 The air is stifling and my glasses blur. 
 IVe lost my longing to possess a grove; 
 It's only sand, and most of that I have 
 Already in my two low shoes. Let's go. 
 Another day will do as well — and look! 
 'POSTED NO TRESPASSING' is on the gate." 
 
 Kate 
 "Don't be a quitter, John. What's a light 
 
 shower! 
 Our clothes are old; the sand is clean — besides 
 We're not just trespassers; we're buyers if 
 'Tis all they claim it is and cheap enough." 
 
 John 
 "All right; I'll go with you if you insist; 
 But only to the house, not one step more. 
 I have the key; we'll take a look inside." 
 
 11 
 
12 RECLAIMED 
 
 Kate 
 "Do come with me just to that highest point. 
 You see that sagging woodshed, don't you, John, 
 So interfering with the charming view 
 Of sky and lake and Hve-oak trees beyond? 
 When this is ours we'll clear that out and build — " 
 
 John 
 "Kate, not so fast — it may not be the place 
 And if it is the price no doubt's too high 
 For our lean purse. That sugar-cane is hideous 
 Growing in patches where 'twas once a field; 
 Some careless workman too has cut that palm — 
 'Twould take ten years — though if this place were 
 
 mine 
 I'd knock that woodshed down right now, and see 
 The lake beyond — for lake there is — 
 I get a glimpse of it between the trees 
 Now that the rain is letting up a bit." 
 
 Kate 
 **We'll have a woodshed, John, if nothing else — 
 Though not in just the place where that one is — 
 Full to the roof with pungent great pine logs 
 To blaze for us when evenings send us in 
 Beside our fire, to read and rest and dream 
 And to watch the moon behind the swaying moss 
 (Our Arthur Rackham pictures, window-framed). 
 You know the Bible says to covet not 
 The servant of our neighbor, nor his ox 
 
RECLAIMED 13 
 
 Nor aught within his gates — but his woodpile, 
 
 John, 
 It doesn't hinder me from wanting that. 
 I never see a woodpile, when we two 
 Are driving through small towns or farming lands, 
 That I don't wish it mine. It speaks so much 
 Of comfort, warmed fingertips, of cheer 
 For frosty nights and lonely, leaden days.'^ 
 
 John 
 "I'm not saying that we will, but if we do 
 Decide to buy this old neglected place 
 We'll have a lean-to on the low, gray barn 
 For tools and gas and oil and such as that; 
 We'll keep our bags of fertilizer there. 
 It surely has good lines. The floor is gone; 
 Partitions must come down, but one week's work 
 Will change it to a generous garage — 
 Not too near the house, yet near enough, — " 
 
 Kate 
 "Across the roof we'll fling a flaming vine — 
 Bignonia vine; it grows so fast down here; 
 And then we'll have our window-casings match 
 The color of the trumpets — orange-red; 
 Just a narrow line of staining near the panes; 
 The same tone as the fruit upon the trees. 
 Oh, can't you see it all as I do, John: 
 The low and sloping porch so near the ground — 
 And kiddies, John, kicking their chubby legs 
 
14 RECLAIMED 
 
 And munching cookies, sitting at this end 
 Or swinging in the shade of that near tree? 
 It's a peach tree, John, I wonder how it came 
 To be so near the kumquots and the hmes. 
 The leaves are tight green buds but blossoms 
 
 pink 
 Are thick upon its graceful little limbs. 
 Peaches are on it too — green fuzzy things 
 For all the world like pussy willows, John.'* 
 
 John 
 "You're looking far ahead, it seems to me, 
 Seeing chubby legs and cookies and a swing 
 When our young John is only twenty-one. 
 Hand me that key: you women never can 
 Unlock a door, or read a Blue Book straight 
 Or look up trains or understand a map — 
 Someone has tampered with the queer old lock! 
 The key won't turn; the lock goes round and 
 round." 
 
 Kate 
 "A tramp, a man tramp too it must have been 
 Who tried and couldn't turn the rusty key — 
 Two of you infallibles, you see, 
 Have failed to do a thing you bragged about. 
 I grant you that we women are not keen 
 At locks and keys, but in the present stage 
 Of your evolving — you who know so much 
 Or think you know it, which is much the same — 
 
RECLAIMED 15 
 
 You cannot do without us, not quite yet, 
 
 Even though there are some things we'll never 
 
 learn. 
 * Where ignorance is bliss — ' what are these words 
 On this old yellow card tied to the key? 
 A woman's calling card — whose was it, think? 
 The writing pointed, prim; the letters close; 
 Not the blind scrawl our schoolgirls practice now: 
 'KEY TO BENNIE'S HOUSE'— that's what it 
 
 says. 
 Surely his mother must have written this. 
 Had he a wife and children — help me up 
 On this big orange-crate and let me see. 
 
 The curtain's fallen 'cross the window pane. 
 *Mud-dobbers' nests are thick on all the walls. 
 In this front room are tables and a chair, 
 An old oak sideboard — such a funny one, 
 A dusty, bulging mattress — and Bennie was 
 A father, John, for I can see a doll 
 And a baby's shoe. Where is that baby now — 
 Did the young wife die and leave this pleasant 
 
 spot — 
 Did she leave her little one and her sweet home 
 (For sweet it may have been when it was new — 
 Her first real home perhaps) and Bennie — do 
 You see him old, neglected, sad and bent 
 Or proud and prosperous, happy and content? 
 
16 RECLAIMED 
 
 His name I think you'll find will always cling. 
 We'll say, when clouds and snow are in the north 
 And we are longing for the sunny south: 
 *How nice 'twill be when we can take the train 
 And go back to our Bennie's House again!' " 
 
 John 
 "Come, Kate, these sand-burs sting. Beneath 
 
 the house 
 A rattle-snake, perhaps, is coiled to strike. 
 The avocado pear trees on the shore 
 Are dead from frost, the beggar-weed too thick, 
 And pumpkin-bugs have sucked the fruit we pick. 
 There's rust on this young tree, and too much 
 
 lime 
 Has frenched the leaves; it can't be plowed till 
 
 June 
 And June's too hot for a white man to be here. 
 Is it worth while — all this — for just us two 
 The three short months we stay down south each 
 
 year?" 
 
 Kate 
 "Is anything worth while, then, that we can't 
 Have every day, for all time for our own ? 
 We do not always lose things just because 
 We cannot touch them with our reaching hands 
 And see them with our all-too-eager eyes. 
 Mere nearness is not dearness — you know that— 
 Nor can miles divide us ever from our own. 
 
RECLAIMED 17 
 
 We'll have, just as you say, not many years — 
 There can't be many but we want them sweet 
 In spots at least — and this one spot can be 
 A beauteous one to more than you and me: 
 To the stranger walking in the dusty road, 
 To the tired driver on his heavy load. 
 To the aviator swooping low to take 
 His morning flight above this quiet lake." 
 
 John 
 "YouVe missed your calling, Kate, the pulpit is 
 Your rightful place, with more than one as 
 
 audience. 
 Just save your sermons for the unconvinced; 
 I want it too — this long-abandoned farm. 
 There's more fruit here than Bennie's mother 
 
 thought. 
 We'll take two dozen boxes from those trees; 
 From each, when we have fed and cared for them — 
 Those tall grapefruit, I mean, those biggest ones. 
 
 Suppose we buy it, Kate, and fertilize 
 
 The trees, and harrow it right in; and plant 
 
 Strong re-sets where those sickly ones now 
 
 stand; 
 And clean the dead wood out and have it burned. 
 We'll hire a man — a colored man — and women 
 As they do down here — to hoe the choked fence- 
 lines. 
 
18 RECLAIMED 
 
 The fruit will bring returns in the March pool; 
 A tidy sum, perhaps, though not, of course, 
 As much as later seasons when we've turned 
 The maiden-cane, as humus, back to the roots 
 And have spread manure to overcome the blight 
 That came from too much lime applied one year, 
 (A state-wide error that was made, they say). 
 Tve heard all this of evenings at the hotel 
 And this tree talk brings back to me afresh 
 The knowledge that I once had from my books 
 When I was at an Ag. school for a time. 
 I thought Fd be a farmer, then. Come, Kate — " 
 
 Kate 
 
 "But what about sand-burs and rattle-snakes 
 And scale and our slim purse, white fly and rust 
 And fleeting years and pumpkin-bugs and frost 
 And avocado pear trees winter-killed.?" 
 
 John 
 
 "I want them too; they make it less secure. 
 We men don't like to be too sure of things. 
 Not being quite sure in groves, just as in love, 
 Gives zest to ownership, my constant Kate. 
 Though on the whole, when one is loved — Oh 
 
 hark! 
 A mocking bird is singing; do you hear?" 
 
RECLAIMED 19 
 
 Kate 
 "I hear it and \ feel it; that's the dehght. 
 Two shadowy gulls are circling near the lake. 
 I feel their gray wings fan the soft, sweet air. 
 A startled bunny makes a bobbing spot 
 Of white, between the rows of orange trees. 
 I feel his frightened feet just skim the ground. 
 A light wind rustles; it has a soothing sound — 
 A sound like water lapping — now it is still — " 
 
 John 
 
 "Stop dreaming, Kate, we must get back to town, 
 And buy the place. Fll pay some money down." 
 
PINE KNOT 
 
 A hundred years perhaps you stood 
 Among your fellows, tall and straight 
 And clean of trunk; your Hnes pure Greek; 
 Short, spreading branches at your top 
 Festooned with swaying, gray-green moss. 
 
 A century of growth, and then 
 They slashed your bark and rudely bound 
 Their ugly pots beneath your wounds 
 And bled you cruelly each year. 
 
 That precious life-blood slowly drained 
 And emptied into filthy vats 
 And changed to money, again they came 
 And looked you over greedily. 
 
 They put the axe to your rough feet. 
 Then helplessly your body fell 
 Upon its needled bed of cones. 
 A hundred years of growth despoiled. 
 
 20 
 
PINE KNOT 21 
 
 Nor would they give you sanctuary 
 On that low hill you dignified. 
 They tore your roots with dynamite 
 Out of the earth where you were born, 
 Out of the sand from which you sprang, 
 And roughly dragged you to the mill 
 And cut you into slabs. A mound 
 Of powdered wood now marks the place 
 Where "dust thou art to dust returned." 
 ('Twas sawdust in your case, old Pine.) 
 
 They burned that mutilated hill; 
 And now where once you proudly stood, 
 You and your peers, straight-planted rows 
 Of citrous trees usurp the land. 
 Low-limbed they sweep the tawny sand. 
 
 Such a short time for them to grow 
 And bloom and bear when one recalls 
 How long you stood before you fell. 
 Such a few years! And I myself 
 Have watched the changing tracts of land. 
 The drag; the plow; then sticks with roots; 
 Then slim, green whips; then glossy shrubs; 
 Then trees with fragrant blossoms white 
 And fruit which changed so soon from green 
 To orange-red of tangerine. 
 
22 PINE KNOT 
 
 Your stump, grotesque In shape, is here 
 Within this ingle-nook of mine. 
 I light it with a single match. 
 Its splinters catch the tiny flame. 
 Your veins of turpentine now blaze. 
 Your blood warms mine, O stately Pine. 
 Your body wraps me from the night. 
 Your warmth enfolds me. I am your guest. 
 
AN INNESS LANDSCAPE 
 
AN INNESS LANDSCAPE 
 
 {November, 1917) 
 
 Within the dreary foreground there 
 
 Is something lying. As I look — 
 
 My thoughts weighed down with cruel war 
 
 And wandering sadly from my book — 
 
 It proves to be but a fallen tree, 
 
 The winter sunlight showing 
 
 Naught else within its glowing 
 
 But weeds and spots of snow 
 
 Upon a few shrubs low. 
 
 And yet, too plainly I can see 
 A fallen soldier lying there; 
 His shattered form the broken tree; 
 The weeds the line of his matted hair; 
 The snow the dead face turned to me — 
 "George Inness' Winter in Montclair." 
 * * * * 
 
 (November, 1918) 
 
 These weeds and spots of snow 
 
 Are suddenly aglow. 
 
 The tree puts forth its buds of spring; 
 
 The gray ground greens, and everything 
 
 Behind my eyelids struggles through 
 
 Its clod of earth and blooms anew. 
 
 25 
 
THE SONG SHE SINGS 
 
 Each night I smile and dance and sing 
 
 Behind the foot-lights, cudgeling 
 
 My brains to make you laugh. 
 
 You really see me only half: 
 
 My mimicry, my dialect, 
 
 My supple body all bedecked 
 
 With tawdry silk and showy lace. 
 
 The silly make-up on my face. 
 
 Each night you laugh, but hear not half 
 
 The song I really sing. 
 
 For you I dance, my audience. 
 
 For you I sing — to you perchance 
 
 I give an hour*s forgetfulness 
 
 Of anxious nights and fretfulness. 
 
 Each night you laugh but know not half 
 
 The song I really sing. 
 
 Know not that from a mother's soul 
 
 This great world-war has taken toll; 
 
 That I have given my only lad; 
 
 That Death has taken all I had; 
 
 That even such as I can rise 
 
 Exalted to the sacrifice. 
 
 26 
 
THE SONG SHE SINGS 27 
 
 If you will only look behind 
 My masque, a woman's heart you'll find. 
 Each night you laugh but know not half 
 The song I really sing: 
 
 The sacrifice I gladly make — 
 
 He sleeps that all the world may wake! 
 
THE MIDNIGHT HOURS 
 
THE MIDNIGHT HOURS 
 
 Circling slowly, short and tall. 
 Three black figures on my wall. 
 Black hip-boots, long swishing hair; 
 Flapping coats with cufFs aflare; 
 Knees raised high, lean bodies bent; 
 Peaked hats at angles quaint; 
 Cheeks aburst with silent sound; 
 Slowly circling round and round; 
 Bringing thoughts of Robin Hood, 
 Of Dunsinane and Birnam's Wood, 
 Of Chaucer's Tales, Boccaccio, 
 King Arthur, and vague lines of Poe. 
 
 From their gaping pockets throwing 
 Small white rose-leaves, like those growing 
 On the sweet briar bushes low 
 That grew in Childhood's Long-Ago — 
 I dream I wake and find them here, 
 Silhouetted sharp and clear. 
 
 Deaf am I to all their droning 
 Minor strains and weird intoning. 
 Yet I hear them in my dreaming. 
 See them, with black hair all streaming. 
 
 31 
 
32 THE MIDNIGHT HOURS 
 
 See them circling short and tall 
 Shadows on my empty wall. 
 Low-chanted words a message bringing, 
 Swinging, swaying — this their singing: 
 
 "A mortal dwelleth here, we wot, 
 
 Dreaming, dreaming, heeding not 
 
 That forevermore the Hidden Powers 
 
 Have granted to us — the Midnight Hours — 
 
 This quiet room, with its empty wall. 
 
 For our circling shadows, short and tall. 
 
 Tra-la-la-la, tra-lo, tra-lo. 
 
 From midnight till the cock's first crow. 
 
 We're dropping flower-petals round 
 
 You Mortal — you who sleep^so sound, 
 
 Petals from the buds of youth, 
 
 Petals from the blossom truth, 
 
 And heartsease, and forgetfulness. 
 
 And courage for the day's new stress. 
 
 Surcease, surcease from all sorrow, 
 
 Surcease from the dreaded morrow. 
 
 Surcease, surcease from clogging care. 
 
 Thy Spirit House swept clean and bare. 
 
 Unheeding Mortal, all these we bring 
 
 As silently we move and sing: 
 
 Tra-la-la-la, tra-lo, tra-lo. 
 
 From stroke of twelve to the cock's first crow.' 
 
THE MIDNIGHT HOURS 33 
 
 Half rousing from my fevered sleep, 
 
 I gather to my heart the deep 
 
 Sweet healing of their singing; 
 
 Then watch them glide through the tight-closed 
 
 door 
 And hear no sound of singing more. 
 
 But far away, in the dawn's faint glow, 
 
 Is the shadowy sound of a cock's first crow. 
 
ALOHA ON 
 
 Aloha On— Aloha On 
 
 Queen Liliaoukalani. 
 
 'Midst yellow flowers lying, 
 
 And kahalis of feathers. 
 
 A diamond crown upon your head; 
 
 Your dress, brocaded satin; 
 
 Your hands with jewels covered. 
 
 Your women waving slowly 
 Their wands of mourning feathers. 
 Your men, in capes of yellow, 
 Chanting the deeds of valiance; 
 Chanting the kings, and wailing. 
 
 Your catafalque so slowly drawn 
 Between the kukua torches, 
 While your servitors, about their necks, 
 Bear royal household orders. 
 
 Aloha On— Aloha On 
 
 Queen Liliaoukalani. 
 
 The kukua torches light your way, 
 
 And Mother Earth will take you. 
 
 34 
 
YOUR ROSES 
 
 Just as all things that you wear, 
 
 Every tone and shade and line, 
 
 Seems to blend with eyes and hair 
 
 To make your image rare and fine; 
 
 So your flowers, and their green leaves dull, 
 
 And the gray vase, and the petals curled — 
 
 All velvet-pink and beautiful — 
 
 Make rare and fine my sick-room world. 
 
 35 
 
HE AND I 
 
HE AND I 
 
 My eyes meet eyes 
 Across the space 
 That 'tween them lies 
 Of linen white 
 And silver bright. 
 
 The table chat 
 Is vague and dim; 
 I only know 
 Tm loving him — 
 That he's the goal 
 Of my fond soul; 
 That all I am, 
 All I can be 
 Is his alone 
 If he loves me. 
 Oh coming years! 
 Oh happy tears! 
 
 If only I 
 
 Were near enough 
 To touch his hand! 
 My hand is rough; 
 Like velvet is 
 That hand of his. 
 
 39 
 
40 HE AND I 
 
 His smile meets mine 
 And makes a glow 
 I can't define. 
 I love him so! 
 (The others see 
 He's much to me 
 Though no words pass 
 Between us two.) 
 
 Alack! alas! 
 He says but "Go-o-o" 
 My darling one! 
 My baby son! 
 
JANIE 
 
 Visiting at grandma's home; 
 
 Glad to go or glad to come; 
 
 Mischievous and dear and sweet, 
 
 With restless little hands and feet. 
 
 Listening to all that's said; 
 
 Small footmarks on my clean white spread; 
 
 Taking off her English sox, 
 
 Upsetting my full button box — 
 
 "My muvver lets me do it." 
 
 "I'm just as clean as I can be, 
 So don't you get those towels for me. 
 You won't give me a bath, I hope, — 
 And please don't wash my face with soap! 
 My muvver never does it." 
 
 Carrying all her things to bed: 
 
 A teddy bear, a dolly's head, 
 
 A big conch-shell, two limp rose buds, 
 
 And other precious baby duds — 
 
 "My muvver lets me do it." 
 
 "Goodnight, sleep tight, not one more peep, 
 Shut up your eyes and go to sleep. 
 
 41 
 
42 JANIE 
 
 And grandmother'!! turn out the light — 
 For a sleepy girl it's far too bright." 
 
 "But I don't want you to shut the door; 
 
 Just open it a tiny morel 
 
 My muvver all'as does it! 
 
 I want another Iciss and hug; 
 
 I want a drink from that white mug; 
 
 I want my pillow th' other way, 
 
 And O grandmother, won't you stay 
 
 Where I can see you fru the door? 
 
 I've never slept in here before. 
 
 My muvver all'as does it." 
 
 At last the brown eyes are closed tight. 
 At last I can shut out the light, 
 And that dear kiddie's darling head 
 Is snuggled halfway down the bed. 
 Her feet are out, her arms are bare, 
 The useless pillow's fallen where 
 She'll never find it if she wakes. 
 The whole sweet picture surely makes 
 Me think how, many years ago. 
 Another brown-eyed one I know — 
 Her mother — always slept just so. 
 
YOUTH AND AGE 
 
YOUTH AND AGE 
 
 Youth cries for things. 
 
 Impetuous Youth! She cannot know 
 How weary grow the feet, and slow 
 
 The imaginings. 
 
 Youth sees a flower 
 
 And straightway wants a garden, quite 
 Her own, with hedges bright — 
 
 And wealth, and power. 
 
 Youth sees a home — 
 
 A nestling home among the trees 
 
 With grape-vines, roses, birds and bees — 
 
 This too must come. 
 
 Where garden ends 
 
 Youth covets 'neath those drooping trees 
 Gay coats and gowns and charming teas 
 
 For many friends. 
 
 But Age craves rest. 
 
 She longs for neither wealth nor power; 
 
 She only wants her quiet hour 
 With those loved best. 
 
 45 
 
THEY 
 
 True — he had not escaped all ills — 
 
 Though flair of youth had visioned high,— 
 
 Or kept his feet upon the hills, 
 Or always glimpsed the azure sky. 
 
 But through the mists and pouring rains 
 
 He sometimes walked on mounting plains. 
 
 And she — her castles of ideals 
 
 Had fallen, either stone by stone, 
 
 Or had been wrecked by storms and peals 
 Of thunder. They were prone 
 
 But vine and blade had covered o'er 
 
 The ruins, and she built no more. 
 
 Small chance fulfillments here and there 
 
 Amidst the unattained goals, 
 Like low brave pennants, straight and fair, 
 
 Caught the west sun — renewed their souls. 
 They trekked along without complaint — 
 This pseudo-sinner, pseudo-saint. 
 
 46 
 
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