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THE DANCE OF YOUTH 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 y JULIA COOLEY 
 
 Author of 'Toems of a Child," etc. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 SHj:3ElMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 
 
 1917 
 
P53501 
 .L795II3 
 
 Copyright, 1917 
 Shebmax, Frexch &• Company 
 
 APR 14 1917 
 6)aA-JG032' 
 
.*5 
 
 t 
 
 TO 
 
 MY MOTHER AND FATHER 
 
NOTE 
 
 For permission to reprint certain of 
 these poems grateful acknowledgment is 
 made to Harper's Magazine, Poetry, 
 Contemporary Verse and The Midland. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Dance of Youth 1 
 
 The First Poet 3 
 
 The Dawning 5 
 
 Completion 6 
 
 The Poet Dispraises His Material . . .11 
 
 world-oldness is 
 
 Determinism 14 
 
 The Beautiful Chance 16 
 
 To A Mother 17 
 
 Flood-tide 18 
 
 The Blossoming Bough 21 
 
 The Golden Flies 24 
 
 The Changed Moon 25 
 
 Entity 27 
 
 The Song of the Unwedded Woman . . 29 
 
 The Seeming Sea SO 
 
 The Message SI 
 
 The Anthem 34 
 
 The After-song 35 
 
 Interlude on Matter 36 
 
 Idleness S7 
 
 Of the Statue of Buddha S9 
 
 To THE Night-wind 40 
 
 Spring Sorrow . 41 
 
 A Query in a Garden 43 
 
 Certitude 44 
 
 The Mirror 45 
 
 Vide Astra 46 
 
 Experience 48 
 
PAGE 
 
 Attuned 49 
 
 The Shadow of a Tree 50 
 
 Magic Moonlight 53 
 
 Insulation 54 
 
 On the Shore 56 
 
 Into a Room 58 
 
 Success 59 
 
 Defeat 60 
 
 The Cloak 61 
 
 To AN Egyptian Maiden 63 
 
 The Rose of Now 64 
 
 The Dissembler 66 
 
 She Bends above a Flower 67 
 
 Morning 68 
 
 The Sun-grail 69 
 
 Passion 70 
 
 To A Woman in Her Garden 71 
 
 Contentment 72 
 
 The Poet to His Bodily Instrument . . 73 
 
 Laughter 75 
 
 Orion . 76 
 
 In Praise of Sculpture 77 
 
 In a Corridor of Statues 79 
 
 Vanita Speaks 81 
 
 The Quarrel 82 
 
 A Cry 83 
 
 Surface Snow 84 
 
 Petals 85 
 
 Uncloaked 86 
 
 The Dancer and the Dawn 87 
 
PAGE 
 
 Before the Dusk 88 
 
 The Turned Blade 89 
 
 Flame and Shadow 90 
 
 Sleep 92 
 
 A Prayer 93 
 
 Spring Stars 94 
 
 The Acolyte 96 
 
 A Wife to Her Husband 97 
 
 The Two 98 
 
 The Anomaly 100 
 
 Fancy 101 
 
 Love Life, but Not Too Much .... 102 
 
 The False Face 103 
 
 In a Grove 104 
 
 An Answer 105 
 
 Futility . 106 
 
 To A Soul Unprejudiced 107 
 
 The Burnt Offering 109 
 
 The Coquette Regenerated 110 
 
 The Woman Ill 
 
 Hope 114 
 
 The Old Poet by the Fireside . . . .115 
 
 Beauty 118 
 
 Recapitulation in Heaven 119 
 
 The Builders of Walls 123 
 
DANCE OF YOUTH 
 
 The stars are aflare and the moon is white, 
 And the wind blows over the grass ! 
 Light is my youth and my feet are light, 
 And swift are the years that pass. 
 
 Come, all maidens, and bind your hands 
 About your heads of gold. 
 Swiften your feet and trip the sands 
 Before the world grows old. 
 
 Lais and Thais have gone from the noon. 
 And Berenice bloomed of yore. 
 Lesbia whiteTis beneath the moon. 
 And Sappho sings no more. 
 
 Come, while the life of you lifts in the day, 
 And laughter through you slips. 
 Supple and sweet is the leaping clay, 
 From the feet to the fingertips ! 
 
 Come, while love is a reaching fire, 
 And never a flickered dream. 
 Leap and dance till you touch the Lyre, 
 And bathe in the upper stream ! 
 
 Lais and Thais have gone from the noon. 
 And Berenice bloomed of yore. 
 Lesbia whitens beneath the moon. 
 And Sappho sings no more. 
 
 [1] 
 
A shadow lurks in the Milky Way, 
 And behind the moon is Death. 
 Dance, oh dance, till the night is grey, 
 And the dew is a shuddering breath ! 
 
 Ye are Lai's and Thais now. 
 
 Ye are the fruit of the hour. 
 
 Sway we and sing like a summer bough, 
 
 Till another youth shall flower ! 
 
 Lais and Thais have gone from the noon, 
 And Berenice bloomed of yore, 
 Lesbia whitens beneath the moon. 
 And Sappho svngs no more. 
 
 [2] 
 
THE FIRST POET 
 
 Some say the first poet was the one who threw, 
 From the brown, dancing ring of savage crew, 
 The first wild cry of diff^erent pitch or sound, 
 Or first new gesture, as they beat the ground 
 With throbbing feet, and leaped in blue mid-air 
 With arms defiant and with flying hair. 
 Wracked as the twisted leaves of forest trees, — 
 Then bent again on swift, resilient knees 
 To spring with animal rebound ! They say 
 That different cry, that different move or stay. 
 First variant, where pregnant change began. 
 Spelled the first, living, vibrant poem of man. 
 
 Perchance. — And yet, wherefore should merest 
 
 change, 
 Unconscious shift of nerves in the wide range 
 Of the organic tissue, so bespeak 
 The poet ? 'Twas muscular reaction, freak 
 Of Nature, wherefore should he bear the name 
 Of poet, this mad-cap dancer, what his claim? 
 Who shall not rather say that that first one 
 Who paused beside his cave at setting-sun 
 And watched the miracle with half -shut eyes 
 For one bare instant, while the flaming skies 
 Crowned his brown form and nascent soul with 
 
 light. 
 That he first pierced the overwhelming night 
 Of savage sleep and animal desire, 
 [3] 
 
And filled it with the first poetic fire. 
 Or he again who, in some hunting-hour, 
 Dropped his red spear and stooped to smell a 
 
 flower ; 
 Or he who paused beside some meadow-stream 
 And listened, eyes a-gleam, to the brook's 
 
 dream ; 
 Or he who breasted the night-wind for glee. 
 And laughed at drifting star and flying tree ! 
 
 Such the first poets, not leapers on the knolls, — 
 Not dancing forms, but dancing, dawning souls ! 
 
 [4] 
 
THE DAWNING 
 
 Beautiful is love in its low dawn, 
 
 Before the word of wonderment is said, 
 
 Or the soul's shutters are undrawn, 
 
 When the first thoughts are incorporeally wed. 
 
 love, touch not my lips or hands or hair. 
 
 1 would dwell with thee always in this wise. 
 To find the dawn forever dim and fair, 
 And promise, not fruition in thine eyes. 
 
 CS] 
 
COMPLETION 
 
 Completion, without hope of increase, empty 
 
 thing 
 Of marbled deadness, wintry silence, shorn of 
 
 wing. 
 
 Completion, laurel-crowned, stripped of the 
 
 laughing stress 
 Of assay, stilled of limb. Gaunt, destitute 
 
 success I 
 
 Completion, sterile, without seed to propagate. 
 Pale, terrible and mute with terminated fate. 
 
 Completion, dusty-footed, with no race to win. 
 Completion, crumple-fingered, with no webs to 
 spin. 
 
 Cold loser of the springing step, the starward 
 
 plunge of youth, 
 From whose dead eyes has gone the gleaming 
 
 quest for truth. 
 
 Closed past the happy adolescence and light 
 
 swerve 
 Of the rounding, circle-striving, crescent curve. 
 
 [6] 
 
Finished, filled, completed, fruited, towered, all 
 
 wrought, 
 Full smaller than the air-wide, great initial 
 
 thought. 
 
 Dead, dead, robbed of the golden, swirling dance 
 
 of flight, 
 Brought to a petty perfectness, a withered 
 
 plight. 
 
 Worn to a cold close in a world of warm, bright 
 
 birth. 
 Faded mid bud and blossom, imitating dearth. 
 
 Completion, poising in a universe where End 
 Is not, where all is birth, growth, flight, reced- 
 ing End ! 
 
 The runner leaps to the far, shining goal 
 With surging sinews, jubilant with flight. 
 The winds rush past him and the stars burn by ! 
 Beneath his pulsing feet swift flowers arise; 
 All lives, all moves, all radiates, all sings ! 
 The world is one great trumpet, he the strain. 
 But when the dwindled goal is reached at last. 
 He sinks upon the dusty path foot-sore ; 
 The fire within his seething soul turns ash. 
 The winds die down, the splendent stars recede, 
 The flowers decay, the living song goes out. 
 
 [7] 
 
More glorious to chase the shifting dream 
 That melts into the sky, from star to star 
 And flies forever on, than find a compassed 
 
 dream ! 
 How fair is that first whiff of April flowers 
 That stirs the senses to unmeasured loveliness, 
 And that first step upon the leaning shore 
 Before the winged ship puts out to sea. 
 How fair are all things guessed and incomplete. 
 And therefore infinite, before 
 The girdle of the act encloses them. 
 Wondrous Dawn, in whose cool silences 
 The glory of the day lies all unspilled 
 As in a pool before the water brims. 
 There lie the yet unloosened, sealed wings 
 Of butterflies, the silent songs of birds, 
 The hidden fragrance of the sleeping flowers, 
 The fertile wealth of day's futurity. 
 O wondrous, drowsy dusk that lies in swoon, 
 Rich with the burden of the yet unlighted moon. 
 O Spring, a-dream with all the lurking year 
 That follows after, flower and bird and tree, 
 O Spring, poise there forever on the hills. 
 Thine eyes filled with the dream of daffodils. 
 Thy body thrilling with expectant fire, 
 Thy spirit shedding promise and desire ! 
 Man loves thee for thy promise and his dream. 
 The Summer is too wide with blossoming. 
 Exuberance of flowers and flocks of birds. 
 
 [8] 
 
And full-blown spheres of weary, rounded 
 
 moons, 
 Too near exhaustion and the Winter's death. 
 We must have essences that take our thoughts 
 And draw them out to dim infinity, 
 And form processions in our eager souls. 
 We must have spirals like the nebulae. 
 And roomy mists and laughing distances ! 
 We must have buds that hint the perfect flower. 
 We must have crescent moons that keep the 
 
 whole 
 Within the slim, prophetic, mystic curve; 
 We must have Dawn and Dusk and Spring and 
 
 Youth! 
 
 What if, — it is a shuddering thought, — 
 What if the world were one great finished whole, 
 One closed round of doom; one ring of death; 
 One globe of dark concavity, one tomb ; 
 One empire of completion, one full sphere. 
 Choked with the massive labors of the past ! 
 No room for seeds or hopes or wings or dreams, 
 No distances, no clouds, no stirring things, 
 No skies to climb, no spinning universe. 
 No stars ! 
 
 Man, blest with the yearning eyes. 
 Whose search can yet discern no verge, no end, 
 No tottering rim, no withered boundary. 
 Whose soul is mighty with pursuit, whose world 
 Is measureless — plunge on to mysteries 
 
 [9] 
 
Unsolved, into new paths, new seas, new skies. 
 Never at seedless aim or fruited goal arrive ! — 
 Yet if perchance, star-weary, you should wing 
 At some dim day into a closing round 
 Of dead completion, — bend thou the cosmic 
 
 span 
 With the living deeds and the deathless dreams 
 
 of man 1 
 
 [10] 
 
THE POET DISPRAISES HIS 
 MATERIAL 
 
 Give me a mountain-side to carve, to blast ! 
 I am forespent with trafficking in words. 
 Words are but fragile things that flitter past 
 Lighter than the light wings of humming-birds. 
 
 They are faint aurae of the fleshless soul, 
 Pale duplicates of paler, wanner thought. 
 Give me a block of granite, huge and whole. 
 Fierce to the touch, objective, hard, unwrought! 
 
 So shall I bruise my flaccid palms against the 
 
 rock 
 And find it strong of substance, solid, sealed. 
 So shall I sing with impact of the shock, 
 And, singing, carve out beauty, real, revealed! 
 
 And, by the gods, this statue shall have mass 
 And shape and matter, curve and lift and line, 
 And body that shall not take wing and pass, 
 And flame more palpable than fire divine. 
 
 We shall have beauty large and looming to the 
 
 eyes. 
 Beauty blocked in the world for men to see. 
 To touch, to feel, to glory in, to prize. 
 Beauty at last hewn from her mystery. 
 
 [11] 
 
No more of flimsy fancies floating past, 
 And words as light as lightest humming-birds. 
 Give me a mountain-side to carve, to blast ! 
 I am forespent with trafiicking in words. 
 
 [12] 
 
WORLD-OLDNESS 
 
 Lo, that strange thought swooped upon my 
 
 mind again, 
 That sense that I have lived through all the 
 
 coursing pain 
 And dancing pleasure of the years, — before the 
 
 earth 
 Was dreamed of in the womb of space or 
 
 yearned towards birth, 
 Before the stars struck fire within the vacant 
 
 air, 
 Or the dim nebulae spread out their misty hair. 
 Know you not this at times, — this straining of 
 
 a thought 
 Too great to lodge within us, vastness-wrought, 
 This sudden chaining of the pigmy human soul 
 To all eternity, and the fuU, sweeping whole, — 
 This instant parting of the clay, in flamed 
 
 surprise. 
 Which lets the roof of heaven into the brain's 
 
 eyes ? 
 
 [13] 
 
DETERMINISM 
 
 Quite, quite secure and fast, philosopher, 
 
 In this dark thought, — that all our deeds are 
 
 fixed 
 Within the shell of our identity ? 
 Are we but pearls cast by the tide of time. 
 Marked by some fire from the begetting slime? 
 Are we indeed so closely, roundly set 
 Within the swift-revolving wheel of things, 
 To move as the wheel moves and not dance off 
 Into the realms of unadventured space, 
 And unconditioned, happy, happy search? 
 Is it quite certain that we find our way 
 By mounting paths our reaching forebears 
 
 raised ? 
 Are these our acts, so seeming-free, so swift. 
 Deep down and rooted in the unyielding soil of 
 
 past ? 
 Do we but mimic in enacted deed 
 The thoughts poured in our minds by past 
 
 effects ? 
 Are we bound hand and foot and heart and 
 
 brain, 
 Lashed blindly by that skulking genius, — Fate? 
 Are these our tears brewed in the bowl of Fate? 
 Is this our mirth foam-spilled from out its 
 
 hand ? 
 Are not our deeds our own ? — 
 
 We're mastered then! 
 [14] 
 
Automata ? — 
 
 Ah well, if this be true, 
 Let's laugh a Fate-brewed laugh, within the 
 
 light, 
 Rejoicing that we live to see ourselves 
 Go dancing, at Fate's summons, down the way ! 
 The way is bright, life moves with beauty on. 
 Through all the years it moves with beauty 
 
 on, — 
 Through whirl of stars and flight of rounded 
 
 worlds. 
 Through foam of seas, and airy dance of motes. 
 Through rise of life and glint of ocean-form. 
 Through flash of fin and heavy growth of 
 
 power. 
 Through splash of beast and surge to open land, 
 Through press of nerves and silent birth of 
 
 brain, 
 To breath of man ! — 
 
 Oh sing, philosopher, 
 That at this point our souls flame into space 
 To watch the predetermined dance of hfe ! 
 
 [15] 
 
THE BEAUTIFUL CHANCE 
 
 What if the planets have no plan, 
 
 The universe no aim? 
 What if there's nothing worth in man, 
 
 And in a God the same? 
 
 What does it matter, after all. 
 
 The sun will not unburn. 
 The stars not from their spaces fall, 
 
 The stream of life not turn. 
 
 All lives and flames and moves and sings, 
 
 There's beauty all abroad. 
 From comet-sweep to meadow-wings, — 
 
 As if there were a God ! 
 
 [16] 
 
TO A MOTHER 
 
 Woman of many motherhoods, I stand before 
 
 you 
 With my unscathed virginity, 
 And I envy you all your body's pains and 
 
 anguishes, 
 And your soul's divinity ! 
 
 [17] 
 
FLOOD-TIDE 
 
 We meet each other, you and I, with smiles 
 
 And shallow idiom of the mortal world. 
 
 But well below the little, shimmering rill 
 
 Of parley runs a deeper-surging tide. 
 
 The tide that flows between our utter souls, 
 
 Unfathomable thoughts that heave against the 
 
 shores 
 Of our small beings, waves of visioning 
 That may not be translated into form 
 Or mould of intercourse, strange, phraseless 
 
 passions. 
 Dim imaginings borne in from God, 
 Or from the centres of the ranging stars. 
 We feel them surging, but we speak light words. 
 They are too vast for our young compassing, 
 For in them are old thoughts of nebulae. 
 Of contacts of the stars and births of moons, 
 The vital processes of the blown earth, 
 The stir of origins, the drift of spores. 
 The golden flight of pollinating bees. 
 The search of wings for wings, of flower for 
 
 flower. 
 Stamen for pistil, wind-borne seed for soil. 
 And the eternal yearn of man for woman ! 
 Courses through us the immemorial tide. 
 With the resurgent retinues of love. 
 The columns of all lovers who have lived 
 
 [18] 
 
From the first dawn of beauty, through the 
 
 years, 
 On, on to the still-fertile present, 
 And through the legions of futurity! 
 And, tributary to the sea, the streams 
 Of beauty which are ministrant to love, 
 Through all the naught-withholding rush of 
 
 time. 
 Song and music, poetry, dancing, revel. 
 Color and worship, painting, fire and light, 
 Rose windows and the spire that springs to God ! 
 And in the pulsing currents of the tide 
 Visions and yearnings — and faces of little 
 
 children. 
 
 Once, as we fared together in the night. 
 
 Speaking jocosely of the latest verse, 
 
 Tossing our words above our straining hearts, 
 
 We suddenly passed into an open street, 
 
 And there, above the house-tops, loomed Orion. 
 
 The eternal river smote us, with his fires. 
 
 And we were mute. — Then, childlike, fearful 
 
 Of the vast, open verity of heaven. 
 
 And of the fullness of our souls, we laughed. 
 
 "Vers libre," I said. "Yes. What a thing 
 
 it is ! " 
 Once, as we walked, you made unreasoned stay 
 From speaking, — and the waves washed us both. 
 Last night we met and touched hands in the 
 
 dance, 
 
 [19] 
 
Palm upon palm, vein upon vein, as soft, 
 As lightly as two nestling butterflies, 
 But there was conscious passion in the touch. 
 Repressed and fierce, sufficient to destroy 
 And crumple the ten fingers ! — 
 
 Still we wait. 
 In awe of the immensity of love. 
 
 I wonder in what moment of great pause 
 And loosened beauty, the on-coming sea 
 Will sweep upon us, inundate the rills. 
 And flood us with the resistless, radiant tide ! 
 
 I wonder. — I anticipate. — I fear. 
 
 [20] 
 
THE BLOSSOMING BOUGH 
 
 Before the white shape of the soul of you dies, 
 Brim you with life in the day ! 
 Bask on the bough 
 Of the blossoming Now 
 A-scent with the warm sun^s ray, 
 And breathe it and gather it up with your eyes. 
 
 Linger, your body a-curve with the tree, 
 Feeling it, sensing its wood 
 Blocked in the air, 
 Existent and fair, 
 Knowing it salient and good. 
 Linger, your body at one with the tree. 
 
 One with the bark and the trunk and the hour, 
 
 One with the branching of Time. 
 
 One with the day, 
 
 One with the spray, 
 
 You at the tree's tip, the prime, 
 
 You for a moment the climax, the flower ! 
 
 Feel the sun of eternity drift through the sky, 
 Filling your flesh with the light, 
 Bathing you. 
 Swathing you. 
 Painting your blood in its flight. 
 Bask you in beauty before you die I 
 
 [21] 
 
Rest close upon the ridged bark, 
 Sun-branded, yellow-warm. 
 And let it press, 
 Without redress. 
 Upon your sentient form. 
 Fluting you with its patterned mark. 
 
 Flick it, too, with gay white hands, 
 And let the essence blow. 
 Unbind the scent, 
 With wonderment. 
 The spice and musk that dimly flow 
 Beneath the dark and woody bands. 
 
 Drink in the flaring, falling skies, 
 O youth, until you drown ! 
 Drink deep 
 Of that blue sweep 
 Until it sinks far down 
 Into your avid pores and eyes. 
 
 Let the sharp leaves enpierce your soul 
 With every sky-cut line. 
 And rounding joint 
 And arrowy point 
 And sun-illumined spine 
 And poignant massing of the whole. 
 
 And all the blossoms, youth, take these 
 Into your hands and eyes. 
 
Your touch, your sight, 
 With full delight 
 And to your nostrils' brimmed surprise. 
 Till you are satiate as the bees. 
 
 Take all the tree, from crown to bole. 
 All life, O youth, all light. 
 Bask on the bough 
 Of the blossoming Now, 
 Till its beauty is dusked with the night. 
 Take life with five-sensed body and soul! 
 
 [23] 
 
THE GOLDEN FLIES 
 
 I SHALL have none of this, this little love, 
 
 This firefly thing that glints along the earth 
 
 And knows not of the greater flames above, 
 
 This that hath laughter and no dearth 
 
 Of amorous words drawn from antiquity, 
 
 And touch of hands and not the touch of soul. 
 
 If so I cannot have immensity 
 
 As large as skies, communion great and whole, 
 
 A love that goes with splendid fire upwhirled, 
 
 Up to the gates of stars and heaven's extreme, 
 
 Above the insect-flickers of the world. 
 
 Then shall I have no love, but live with dream. 
 
 None shall I have of this, this firefly-flame. 
 
 Flit elsewhere, elfin users of love's name ! 
 
 [24] 
 
THE CHANGED MOON 
 
 I USED to find you fair, O moon, 
 
 Globed with enchantment, 
 
 Ringed with haunting fire, 
 
 Burning with wonderment. 
 
 Creator of desire. 
 
 Round and romantic, 
 
 Necromantic, 
 Drawing all beauty up into the air. 
 To spread it with your strange, moon-colored 
 
 hair. 
 Nor white, nor gold, nor blue, nor dark, nor 
 
 clear. 
 Into the mesmerized atmosphere. 
 I used to find you fair, moon. 
 
 My blood ran wildly at the gleam of you, 
 Strange phantasies of sight. 
 Gold-colored streams and seas 
 With fluid crests of light, 
 And molten flowers and trees 
 And planetary grove and glen 
 And floating forms of men 
 And Faun trooped to the crystals of my eyes. 
 The world took beauty from the haunted skies, 
 Absorbed your spirit to the least flower-root, 
 Became, O moon, your glamorous, gold 
 
 off-shoot. 
 My blood ran flaming at the sight of vou, 
 [25] 
 
To-night I look and find you changed, moon. 
 
 When did your spirit die? 
 
 Only a disc I see 
 
 Set in an empty sky. 
 
 Passed is the mystery. 
 
 When did your spirit die, 
 
 Or was it I? 
 I strain to catch the slightest aural light, 
 But there is only your clear globe and night, 
 No shimmer of a dream, no horn of Faun, 
 No fantasy. The aureole is gone. — 
 I'll shut the casement to your vacancy, old 
 moon. 
 
 [26] 
 
ENTITY 
 
 Smite, Life, that I may know you well ! 
 
 Let bluebells pelt me with their indigo, 
 And summer skies pour down their rain of 
 sapphire 
 
 On mine eyes ! Sunsets, 
 
 Blind me with your fierce intensities 
 
 Of golden fires ! Seas, resound within mine 
 ears! 
 
 Waves, break your white, thundered foam about 
 me! 
 
 Autumn rains, descend in splendor round me; 
 
 Let me feel you lash my body and the hills. 
 
 And drive the crimson leaves from off the trees ! 
 
 Birds, sing poignantly 
 
 Into the yearning silence of mine ears. 
 
 Fill all my frame with your reverberant song. 
 
 And strike your colored wings together in the 
 sun! 
 
 Winds, spread out my hair 
 
 Above the tossing meadows. 
 
 Grasses, press my feet with your cool, outstand- 
 ing blades. 
 
 Prick me, thorns and brambles, — let me feel the 
 sting, 
 
 The fierce solidity of life ! 
 
 Exhale, deep roses ; fill the day with your per- 
 fumed existence, 
 
 Let your crimson glory float into my veins ! 
 
 [27] 
 
Breathe out, low meadow-flowers, 
 The sunny spices of your treasury. 
 
 Friend, touch my hand, let me be ware 
 
 Of the great stream of life in you, 
 
 The leaping motion hidden in your limbs ! 
 
 Let me look deep into your eyes. 
 
 Wherein the wheeling stars drop down the image 
 
 of their fires, 
 Let me behold your mighty soul ! 
 
 Smite, Life, and let me feel your fires ! 
 
 Smite me even with pain, that all your joys 
 
 May prick the air with sharper sweetness. 
 
 Let me see the blue, bright sky 
 
 Between two twisted trees of pain. 
 
 Let breath of lilacs come to me. 
 
 Enriched on a cloud of suffering. 
 
 Let my ears hear the sharp, sweet morning-song 
 
 of robins. 
 Borne on the current of an agony, 
 So only. Life, that I may feel your saliency 1 
 
 Smite, Life, with all your flaring essences, 
 So pierce your way into my soul 
 And bum me with your being, — 
 That Death cannot pass through your living 
 fire! 
 
 [88] 
 
THE SONG OF THE UNWEDDED 
 WOMAN 
 
 I HAVE come in the dark night, dark earth, 
 
 To lie against you and to seek reply. — 
 
 Why did you bring me up out of your depths. 
 
 From your great fruitfulness, to walk alone? 
 
 I walk apart within a laughing world, 
 
 A world of beautiful dualities. 
 
 All things unite, all men and women join 
 
 To brush your aisles together, side by side. 
 
 And speak and sing in wondrous partnership. 
 
 And bring forth children for your increment. 
 
 But I alone, unfound, unblended, dwell. 
 
 And unproductive in your glad domains. 
 
 All the long, empty day I have withdrawn 
 
 From the blithe songs of birds, for they have 
 
 called 
 One to another from the heights of trees 
 In amorous antiphonies. — 
 
 And now. 
 Even within this darkness I am bruised 
 By the soft sound of cricket-castanets 
 As they make passion in the underbrush ! 
 Why did you bring me up out of your depths, 
 Out of your rich plurality, great earth. 
 Into this unity of loneliness.? 
 I am an error of your fruitfulness. 
 I crave to be drawn back into your heart, 
 Like all life's wasted seeds and sterile flowers. — 
 [29] 
 
THE SEEMING SEA 
 
 I STAND alone upon the shore. 
 The wound net of life enmeshes me. 
 As life has made me so I am, 
 And so I look upon the sea. 
 
 The blue of waves dwells in my eyes. 
 Within my ears the sound is sweet. 
 The breath of salt is of my breath. 
 The press of sand is of my feet. — 
 
 Could I but know the moving waves 
 As beyond the touch they lie, 
 And the essence of the shore 
 As it seemeth to God's eye! — 
 
 Without bedazzlement of thought, 
 Sway of motion, flux of sound. 
 Surge of color, sentient flesh. 
 Toils of custom tightly wound. 
 
 Free me, — mockery of sense ! 
 Shed the color from my sight ; 
 Pour the music from my ears ; 
 Divest me of the patterned light ! 
 
 So might I stand upon the shore, 
 And of the heart of things be ware. 
 Knowing if earth and seas be real. 
 Or plots of space and tintless air ! 
 [30] 
 
THE MESSAGE 
 
 Message? — Would God I had a roaring 
 
 message, 
 And I would shout it lustily like Whitman ! 
 Nothing exults as does the flame of faith, 
 Mantling the soul and body with hot strength ! 
 I too would glow with credent certainty ! 
 I would put my yearnings and my faithlessness 
 Into a loud cry, a trumpet-song, 
 A great, sonorous faith ! — Would God that I 
 Could plait the universe into a plan, 
 A figured wreath, like other men, and find 
 A spruce and pretty pattern in the maze. 
 Would I could put my hands upon Design 
 And find it firm and cosmic, not man-made. 
 Would I could seek out bodies of brave causes, 
 Bouquets of beautiful Effects and Ends, 
 And Truth and Abstract Beauty and a God, 
 Those things which men large-type and under- 
 line 
 And bring forth from their vision-brimming 
 
 souls. 
 I would gather up my tears and mix of them 
 A cascade of pure joy. I would gather up 
 My frayed and search-worn nerves and fashion 
 
 of them 
 A cluster of strength and irrefutability ! 
 I would gather up my crescent interrogations 
 And wind of them a glorious, golden circle, 
 
 [31] 
 
Swirling around and around unalterably 
 In utter and beautiful completion ! — 
 
 Message? 
 Ah you who talk of a message, you are either 
 
 children 
 Or angels, I cannot tell which. If I knew of a 
 
 message, 
 A message, not a concoction to solace sick souls, 
 But a veritable solution, true as the core 
 Of a star, I would sing it to the ends of time 
 
 and space! 
 How should I make dishonest, hollow compacts 
 With my soul ? How should I bravely sing 
 What I know not, only because your pale. 
 Yearning, anxious ears are distended to listen? 
 No ! All I can sing of is what I discern, — 
 A few flying, drifting bits of color, 
 A few straying sounds, — a little of beauty, 
 Much of pain, much of sorrow, some joy, 
 Hearts of men dilated with frantic hope, 
 Marvelous hearts inured to mortal anguish, 
 Marvelous brains up-grown through obstruc- 
 tion and darkness. 
 Marvelous men, fully as glorious as stars, 
 Set in the world to glimpse angelic beauty, 
 And die like ephemerae. — Only these frag- 
 mentary things, 
 
 [32] 
 
These colors, 
 
 these sounds, 
 
 these soul-lights, 
 
 these beauties, 
 
 these thoughts. 
 Can I sing. — Oh gladly, exultantly would I 
 
 shout 
 A confident, puissant pagan ! Had I a message. 
 Do you not think I would sing it with ecstasy? 
 Do you not think I also yearn for an answer, 
 Writhe and thirst and weep and reach for a 
 
 solution ? 
 You who long for a man-befitting cosmos. 
 Go to some world beyond our universe. 
 Heavy and gravid with Purpose, reeking with 
 
 Reason 1 
 Bask in gardens of Design, in pools of Plan, 
 In circles of Perfectness ! 
 
 Ask me no message 
 In this wild, jogging, reckless, irresponsible 
 
 earth. 
 Message? — 
 
 I will sing you a few strains from her songs. 
 The mad floatings of her minstrelsy. — None 
 
 else. 
 I have no message, — and I think she has none ! 
 
 [33] 
 
THE ANTHEM 
 
 " As it was in the beginning 
 Is now and shall forever be.'* — 
 So sings the church on bended knee, — 
 While the nebulae are spinning ; 
 
 Spinning, spinning into flower. 
 
 Sudden patterns, shifting streams. 
 
 Falling fire and starry shower. — 
 
 New worlds, fresh souls, and undreamt dreams ! 
 
 As they flame and surge and pour. 
 On atom-earth the church is singing, — 
 " It shall be forevermore 
 As it was in the beginning ! " 
 
 [34] 
 
THE AFTER-SONG 
 
 Why should it be that when I walk with you 
 
 I hide my love and gossamer my words, 
 
 And smile into your face, as light-hearts do? 
 
 But when you leave, my love lifts into space, 
 Uprushing into singing syllables, like birds, — 
 In beauteous memory of your soul and face ! 
 
 [35] 
 
INTERLUDE ON MATTER 
 
 It grew outside my door, 
 An Autumn-golden tree ; — 
 Through my dumb soul it tore 
 With rushing ecstasy. 
 
 I laughed, — and paused to dream 
 How matter holds us still 
 With its refreshing gleam. 
 And interweaves our will! 
 
 [36] 
 
IDLENESS 
 
 I LIE in a pool of idleness, — like a leaf. 
 
 The wind turns up a ripple here and there 
 
 In momentary flame. 
 
 But the ripple returns to the pool, 
 
 Lost in its passionless quiet. 
 
 I stretch out an arm or a thought. 
 
 But complete neither gesture nor dream. 
 
 My thoughts fall back, unformed, 
 
 Into the frail images of the pool. 
 
 The clouds pass and move their whiteness 
 
 Into the water. 
 
 The boughs bend and mirror their sprays 
 
 Of still and poignant leaves. 
 
 No word is spoken. 
 
 No soul interprets. 
 
 I am passive as the mirroring pool. 
 
 I longed once, in my ardent youth, 
 
 To cry out, 
 
 To shape the impinging beauty in words. 
 
 To give new form and being to the crowding 
 
 loveliness ! 
 The blue sky burned and sued 
 For splendid utterance! 
 The leaves pressed into space 
 And smote the brain with their swinging 
 
 clusters ! 
 The birds dipped in mystic curves. 
 [37] 
 
Even the still water 
 Importuned the soul! 
 
 Now I sit with folded arms by the pool. 
 Full is the world of the futility of effort. — 
 Perchance it is better to dream than to labor. 
 
 [38] 
 
OF THE STATUE OF BUDDHA 
 
 Calm as the deathless mountains is his face, 
 Where brooding quiet sits with giant thought; 
 Calm as some planetary sea unsought 
 By savage winds ; calm as the sunset space 
 That mellows into prayerful night apace ; 
 Calm as the desert, with its teeming nought. 
 Its unperturbed, concentrate stillness, fraught 
 With power ; — calm as some lotus-breathed 
 
 place. 
 He is the God of Silence, from closed eyes 
 To enervate feet, from Sphinx-like forehead 
 To the tangent thumbs, arrayed in silence deep. 
 Like fumes of incense it surrounds him, lies 
 Close at his heart as life-in-death, — not dead, — 
 But rich with thought, as potent life in sleep. 
 
 [39] 
 
TO THE NIGHT-WIND 
 
 You are my lover, O wind of the night, 
 Beautiful, wonderful, cleaving and bright. 
 No breath of a mortal might ever compare 
 With the sweep of your splendor of measureless 
 air. 
 
 Carnal are mortals and slender and small. 
 Their thoughts as their bodies are only as tall. 
 They slave and they suffer; they lust and they 
 
 die. 
 You are the infinite flow of the sky ! 
 
 Take me, wind, In your beautiful gale. 
 Yours is the breath that my heart shall inhale. 
 Yours the embrace that shall charge me with 
 
 fire, 
 Pure of all earthly, all wanton desire. 
 
 Take me, O wind, in your radiant tide. 
 Take me, O wind, for your substanceless bride. 
 Wind that sweepeth the white stars apart, 
 Blow through my spirit, blow through my 
 heart ! 
 
 Lift me up out of my being, the mesh 
 Of my body, the lure of my flesh. 
 Out of man's dreaming. — Efface me in flight. 
 You are my lover, O wind of the night \ 
 [40] 
 
SPRING SORROW 
 
 There comes a time in the early Spring of the 
 
 year, 
 Before the buds have broken, 
 When sorrow lays its hush upon the world. 
 In syllables unspoken ; 
 
 Sorrow deep as the spheres of darkened moons. 
 The sorrow that blindly knows 
 The futility of all unfolding, and the fading 
 Of every flower that grows. 
 
 Cool is the earth with the drooping of unspilled 
 
 rain, 
 And the imminence of tears. 
 The buds lie under the stifling bark of the 
 
 twigs. 
 Suppressed with haunting fears. 
 
 The flowers are too deep beneath the fettered 
 
 earth. 
 Too closely bound in coil 
 To raise the delusion of their beauty 
 Above the dreary soil. 
 
 The mighty winds of the Winter have gone 
 
 down. 
 No breath of motion stirs. 
 
 All is silence. There is no impulse anywhere. 
 Not even a bird's wing whirs. 
 
Earth is weary of the empty tumult of Winter, 
 Weary of the new weight 
 
 That presses against her heart for large re- 
 lease, 
 Weary of futile freight. 
 
 These buds will blow away in the Autumn twi- 
 
 light, 
 
 Borne on the wind's cold breath. 
 
 These flowers will add the shining of their petals 
 
 To the mould of death. 
 
 The vast, grey tragedy of life lies bare. 
 
 No Spring flowers cover it. 
 
 No network of blossoms hides it from the eyes. 
 
 No light lies over it. 
 
 A sadness, a Spring sadness touches the world, 
 The sorrow that blindly knows 
 The futility of all unfolding, and the fading 
 Of every flower that grows. 
 
 [42] 
 
A QUERY IN A GARDEN 
 
 I woNDEB, love, when you and I return 
 Over the shining passes of the sky, 
 After our seeming-death, when we shall yearn 
 For just a breath of little plots that lie 
 
 Here on this blessed earth, beneath the moon. 
 Where our great love was wrought. I wonder, 
 
 dear. 
 Will these same roses burn with flame of noon, 
 And shadows of our souls, when we walk here? 
 
 Or will they be to our dead spirit-eyes 
 Pale roses, robbed of earth's dear wonderments. 
 Or yet, — ah God — will no dim flowers arise. 
 And we not walk, — wrapped in our cerements ? 
 
 Come, take my hand, that I may feel the pour 
 Of life through you, forgetful of eternity. — 
 Love, let us breathe the roses just once more, 
 Within the sweet, warm current of — Reality! 
 
 [43] 
 
CERTITUDE 
 
 The Man Speaks : 
 How deep the night is, — with not even a star 
 
 to clutch! 
 They say Arcturus is a trillion miles away ; 
 And God, — who knows where God is ? — 
 
 Press closer to my touch, 
 Beloved, with your sweet body's certainty of 
 
 clay! 
 
 [44] 
 
THE MIRROR 
 
 A MiSROE on the wall. — 
 I saw a maiden pass, 
 All eagerly and tall, 
 And smile into the glass. 
 
 It was not buoyant youth, 
 Nor foolish vanity, 
 Nor peacock pride, in sooth, 
 Nor soft inanity. — 
 
 But it was Life that stayed. 
 And drank its own sweet eyes, 
 In figure of the maid, — 
 Life in its mortal guise! 
 
 [45] 
 
VIDE ASTRA 
 
 Say not so briefly that the stars to-night 
 
 Are fair, as if to name them flocks of light, 
 
 Those hosted stars that all unheeded ride, 
 
 Unloved, unsought and unidentified. 
 
 Though they be severed similarities, 
 
 Say not they glint with sameness through the 
 
 trees 
 And flash alike before your sightless eyes. 
 Say rather that you see blue Vega rise 
 To cap the topmost wave of heaven with fire. 
 Where flies, bright with her sapphire song, the 
 
 Lyrel 
 Say that Arcturus gleams with torrid red. 
 And casts the image of his burning head. 
 His giant, million-sunned intensity 
 Into our minimizing earthly sea. 
 As one red spark upon the smitten wave ! 
 Say that the Crown, whose perfectness you 
 
 crave. 
 That mystic, radiant, half-unfinished Crown, 
 Whose candles the deep seas of Heaven cannot 
 
 drown. 
 Shines like a nightly promise to your soul. 
 Say that over the horizon's bowl 
 Most lightly twinkles Berenice's hair, 
 In ecstasy of beauty, — madding-fair. 
 Say that the Lynx glows watchfully and near, 
 
 [46] 
 
With burnished eyes, striking your heart with 
 
 fear. 
 Then turn, and fear no more ! The white Swan 
 
 brings 
 Tranquillity, flying with peaceful wings. 
 Serenely, with the starred world, to the west. 
 Say that bright Scorpius flashes without rest 
 In the warm South, while scorched Antares 
 
 burns 
 Upon its heart, and near skies, as it turns, 
 Are bubbling with the heat! Say that you see 
 Great Pegasus plunge upward recklessly, 
 From the abandoned East, and that near by 
 Andromeda stands tall in the mid-sky. 
 While Perseus arches guarding at her side. 
 Then look once more, while the deep heavens 
 
 glide. 
 The North holds clusters other than the Bear, 
 For there flames Cassiopeia in her floating 
 
 chair. 
 
 Say not, in loveless haste, the stars to-night 
 Are fair. Blind joying! Know each leaping 
 
 light! 
 Behold each star, embarked in sundered flight. 
 Name every flame! Rejoice the soul of sight! 
 
 [47] 
 
EXPERIENCE 
 
 I DID not know until this bladed day 
 
 That thoughts are flesh and Life a sword, — 
 
 but now 
 I could describe the heft, the edge, the play. 
 The calibre. — I know what swords are now! 
 
 [4«] 
 
ATTUNED 
 
 I FEEi. the caU of things that should be told,-— 
 The pulse-beat of the earth; the heaven's gold, 
 The turning of the wave, the moon's white wing: 
 And yet, deep-stirred, I can but songless sing. 
 Man is too small to comprehend the whole 
 Of God's eternal plan, yet with his soul 
 Leaps to the glory of it, in reply; 
 Mounts in mute wonder to the star-bright sky, 
 
 Falls back, with mute, ecstatic tongue, 
 
 Yet knows himself a part and Heaven-sprung. 
 
 [49] 
 
THE SHADOW OF A TREE 
 
 I SIT and mark the shadow of a tree 
 
 With worship, — as it were some holy thing. 
 
 The great sun, onward-sweeping, sends it near 
 
 With indeterminable pace. It moves 
 
 Like the smooth, silent progress of all time, 
 
 Pauseless and profluent and undeterred 
 
 As is the pace of planets in their paths. 
 
 Or the slow passing of the dusk of years 
 
 Across the face of beauty. What may shadow 
 
 Be? — Is it with meaning and with dream. 
 
 Or is it darkness which we fill with dream.? 
 
 Is it a thing of spirit or a void? 
 
 Is it negation or a sombrous veil 
 
 Drawn over the gold body of the light ; 
 
 Or some misplaced, intrusive entity. 
 
 Supplanting the fair element of flame? 
 
 Has it a separate essence of its own. 
 
 Or is it dark withdrawal of all light? 
 
 I sit and mark the shadow of a tree 
 With worship, — as it were some holy thing. 
 Whatever it may be, it is most strange, 
 Most beautiful, most cogent to the soul; 
 An obscure aspect of reality, 
 A subtle contrast slipped into the world. 
 It is a magic offspring of the sun 
 A million miles of reaching light away, 
 And of the present, overhanging branches 
 [50] 
 
Of an earthly tree ; — child of the marriage 
 Of celestial flame and earth's dark substance. 
 Yet it is not dark nor flame nor loss of light, 
 But wrought of many tints and elements, 
 Rich purples, deep as shadows in Greek tombs, 
 And flickerings of grass-and-tendril green. 
 And blues of seas and streams and greys of 
 
 cloud 
 And shimmering hints of softly-kindled gold. 
 It is more luminous than light itself. 
 My eyes swim with the worship as before a 
 
 flame ! 
 
 This is the stuffs which gives the world its shape, 
 Which sets the contrast in the house of space, 
 Draws color out, by mating it with night. 
 Swerves contours into rounding reach, makes 
 
 curves. 
 Gives vista, distance and solidity ; 
 So, wrapping its dark presence round the earth. 
 Educes beauty, — rears Reality ! 
 This hints all other shadows, seen and felt. 
 Shadows of dusk and dawn, the dark eclipse 
 Of moons, shadows of flying wings. 
 Shadows of clouds across chameleon seas. 
 Shadows of lifted hills and slender flowers. 
 Shadows of faces, shadows of human lives. 
 All shadows strewn through the great world of 
 
 light. 
 This holds the token of all mystery, 
 [51] 
 
The dark, the hidden, the occult, the strange, 
 
 All things which summon and provoke the soul, 
 
 And draw the spirit from the manifest 
 
 To the dim vistas of the undefined, 
 
 Where lurks the magic of the possible ! 
 
 This is the portal to the unexplored! 
 
 Cross once the gates of shadow and the world 
 
 Of death-past-life is gained. This is the 
 
 door ! — 
 Who looks at shadow looks at miracle. 
 
 With worship, as it were some holy thing 
 I sit and mark the shadow of a tree. 
 
 [52] 
 
MAGIC MOONLIGHT 
 
 In this white chamber of the moon, 
 This earthly anteroom of light, 
 This magic memory of noon. 
 Enchanted sleep the songs of night. 
 
 The enraptured breeze, with elfin leap. 
 Brushes the leaves in silent sound ; 
 The crickets whisper from their sleep 
 Of charmed rays upon the ground. 
 
 The pensive owl, with rippled troll. 
 Murmurs fantastic, moon-mad lore, 
 Like silver dreams from Circe's bowl 
 The waves drip softly on the shore. 
 
 [53] 
 
INSULATION 
 
 Theee are spaces in my soul, O my beloved, 
 Which you have never entered nor approached, 
 Nor found the gates unto. — We are alone. 
 We meet and merge in a few areas. 
 And hear each other's dreams go by beyond, 
 Unique and questing through the universe. 
 Passionately I crave your supplementing 
 
 thoughts, 
 In some vast things, yet find no answering 
 In you to my philosophy. Only 
 In some stray passages I brush your thought. 
 Some few small, sheltered crannies of the 
 
 mind. — 
 Yet they are sweet for our encounter there. 
 And you, who knows what passages in you 
 I fail to find, what undreamed, spreading 
 
 tracts } 
 Strangely, I thought that love discharged all 
 
 needs, 
 Filled up the intervals, supplied the voids. 
 Furnished what friendship and what fondness 
 
 missed. 
 Perfected hope, made want and yearning whole, 
 O'erbrimmed the vacancies, surcharged the soul. 
 That there was glad replenishment, content, 
 Superfluence, sufficiency at last, 
 Impletion of the uttermost desire! 
 
 [54] 
 
I did not dream that love was loneliness. 
 I dreamed that love was fusion, perfectness. 
 
 If this be love, then this is tragedy. 
 
 In which our partial union aggravates 
 
 Our souls' disunity. — Coming so near. 
 
 We trace the distant ranging of our thoughts, 
 
 As the tangent points of two touch-shouldered 
 
 circles 
 Feel the attendant lines slip swerving off 
 Into a curved and vast divergency. — 
 Is there no being in this teeming world 
 With whom I may as crescent clasped to cres- 
 cent 
 Join, in perfect circularity, — 
 Not tangent only, but completely wed, 
 In body and in spirit and in mind ? — 
 And you, should you not find your crescent too ^ 
 
 Must we go lonely to our parted deaths, 
 
 And incomplete and hungering through the 
 
 years ? 
 Life is but yearning, then, and even love 
 Fills not the yawning chasm of our search.? 
 Beloved, if we are wed in body, even, 
 We shall be sundered, disespoused in soul.'' 
 If death gives surcease to impassioned search. 
 Why should I live to find the flaws in love.'' — 
 
 I dreamed that love was fusion, perfectness ! 
 I did not dream that love was loneliness. 
 [65] 
 
ON THE SHORE 
 
 I LIE on the warm, gold sand beneath the sky, 
 
 My eyes look up through the wind-blown sword- 
 grasses, 
 
 The sun-steeped, gold-bladed, green-swaying 
 sword-grasses. 
 
 Up through the golden omnipresence of the sun- 
 shine. 
 
 Up past the white-sailing gulls, the clear, white 
 gulls 
 
 That stab the sunshine with their snowy wings, 
 
 And glide like slow, poising curvate arrows 
 
 On the invisible currents of the floating wind. 
 
 Up, up to the blue, still heights. 
 
 Up to the everlasting background of the sky! 
 
 At my feet the sea roars with a thunderous din, 
 The blue, white-furrowed waves rush in upon 
 
 the shore 
 With their running burden of shining, saffron 
 
 sand. 
 They burst in a whirlpool of flashing, oncoming 
 
 foam. 
 The foam bubbles dancingly up ; the shore sips 
 
 it thirstily. 
 In the light of the golden sun. The blue wave 
 
 recedes. 
 
 [56] 
 
To be borne in over and over again, by new 
 
 strength, 
 A perpetual procession and recession ! 
 
 There is infinite change 
 At my feet and infinite calm overhead. — 
 
 Withal, 
 I cannot decide which is the more majestic! 
 
 [57] 
 
INTO A ROOM 
 
 Though his thoughts have been riding the wind, 
 
 Or shouting between the stars, 
 
 His ecstasies unbind 
 
 And his soul puts up its bars 
 
 When he enters a peopled room. 
 His eyes turn skyless and small. 
 And fill with a curtained gloom. 
 And the peaks of his gladness fall. 
 
 The curves of his body shrink 
 From the spaces of the skies 
 And his hill-wide gestures sink — 
 To the reach of human size. 
 
 His voice that has throbbed in his throat 
 With the splendid clamor of seas 
 Falls chimeless and far remote 
 And the flame of his spirit flees. 
 
 Why, why are we full afraid 
 To cherish the moods that loom. 
 And lest our rapture invade, 
 Subdue ourselves to a room? 
 
 [68] 
 
SUCCESS 
 
 I HEAED one say : I lay within the night, 
 When mortal triumph caught me in its flight, 
 Bewildered, filled with flashing song unheard, 
 Each atom brisk within me as a bird! 
 
 My thoughts were fire, my breath a colored 
 
 draught. 
 Within my mind a thousand echoes laughed, 
 A thousand flowers sent out their perfumed 
 
 spray, 
 A thousand satyrs danced, — I saw them sway. 
 
 The world grew narrow like a little ball 
 And tumbled in my room, from wall to wall, — 
 Until I took the world and cast it far. 
 Rose up, — and went to meet the morning- 
 star. — 
 
 [59] 
 
DEFEAT 
 
 The light of new defeat shines in his eyes, 
 
 Yet will his future deeds deserve men's note. 
 
 There stands the victor, smug with feigned sur- 
 prise, 
 
 Blind joy and suave speech trickling in his 
 throat. 
 
 The victor knows not joy. He is but mad 
 With the dark wine, — success ! His is no 
 
 dream. 
 The vanquished hides the latent flower, full glad 
 To check his bloom, until approval beam. 
 
 Uncrushed, alert with hampered, straining 
 
 power, 
 Potential, whipped to action, stung to strength 
 By bloated foes and scomers of his dower, — 
 Defeat will laugh, sing, and achieve at length! 
 
 [60] 
 
THE CLOAK 
 
 Though I do say it 
 You do wear a cloak 
 Across your thoughts, — there. 
 'Tis a blinding joke, 
 
 Mortalia. See, 
 I cannot glimpse your soul, 
 The cloak's so dense. — There, 
 Yes, a spark of soul, 
 
 Deep down in water. 
 Like a drowning child. 
 Ah, snatch it out now, — 
 'Tis a likely child! 
 
 The cloak is stifling. 
 Your big eyes are wide 
 With great thoughts, longings. 
 Hidden deep for pride. 
 
 " 'Tis a lovely day," 
 You said. " Lovely," " Fair,"— 
 God's gold day stamped thus ? 
 No more than, — fair ? 
 
 Look. Between the clouds 
 Eternity ! Stay ! 
 There the gold stars beat 
 Past the gates of day. 
 [61] 
 
You see no star-light 
 Through the daylight whirled? 
 Your words you keep, then, 
 In the solar world? 
 
 You say " Good-morning," 
 With a slippery air, 
 " Farewell," " Good-evening," 
 With your self elsewhere. 
 
 As if it were not 
 Wonderful to greet. 
 Great God ! — A miracle 
 When two,— souls, — meet I 
 
 We all are faulty. 
 Making great things naught. 
 Pygmies. Hypocrites. 
 Bottlers of spreading thought ! 
 
 Friends, draw off your cloaks, 
 I mine. We will aspire 
 To truth and light. 
 For we hide, — cosmic fire ! 
 
 [62] 
 
TO AN EGYPTIAN MAIDEN 
 
 O GIRL of Egypt, as we strive and dream, 
 And probe the vasty secrets we would know. 
 Are we more wise than you, beside the stream, 
 Who filled the lotus with your thought, so long 
 ago? 
 
 [63] 
 
THE ROSE OF NOW 
 
 ROSE, rich with the color of this hour, 
 
 The poignant perfume of Time's latest flower, 
 
 1 fold within your petals, deep and wide, 
 And full with the sweet plunge of life, the pride 
 And vivid, glowing gladness of this day. 
 
 I add the rainbow sparkle of the spray 
 Freed from the crested wave of newest birth, 
 The glint of the last sunbeam bounding to the 
 
 earth, 
 The joy of all new buds on the great bough, 
 The surging of the great, potential Now, 
 The essence of all things that now are young 
 And shall be quickly old when Youth is sung. 
 Take all my vibrant youth, my shining strength, 
 My thoughts that thread the heaven's starry 
 
 length 
 And burn their way into the singing Lyre 
 Beneath blue Vega, and the whirling fire 
 Of the gold Pleiades, with that swift flame 
 Of unquenched hope, in every human soul the 
 
 same. 
 Take these into your living leaves and close 
 Your heart around them. Keep them there, 
 
 O rose. 
 
 Then, when at length the germinative Now 
 Has fruited into Past, and the blue prow 
 Of all those distant waves has broken into spray, 
 [64] 
 
Then, when my youth has slipt away 
 
 To that dim treasure-house where the sweet 
 
 Past 
 And all its retinue is kept. Then, then at last 
 When I shall look at you in other wise. 
 With tender, dim and reminiscent eyes, — 
 Give back, O rose, from your frail, desiccated 
 
 heart. 
 Your grey and fragile leaves, your spirit-heart. 
 Give back O rose, the magic crimson flower 
 Of Now, the throbbing beauty of this hour ! 
 
 [65] 
 
THE DISSEMBLER 
 
 God, teach me the serviceable art 
 
 Of hiding sorrow well, 
 
 Deep in the utmost caverns of the heart. 
 
 To-day I found grief rising to my eyes, 
 
 Dimming the well-feigned light, 
 
 And to my lips, where crescent laughter lies. 
 
 Methought that pain crept from the soul of me 
 
 And sat upon my face. 
 
 And it and I were odious to see. 
 
 Help me to cover from the world's sharp sight 
 
 My bitterness. 
 
 And smile, until Death sets the mask aright. 
 
 [66] 
 
SHE BENDS ABOVE A FLOWER 
 
 In the garden at moon-hour, 
 Before dead darkness had slipped down, 
 I saw her come with trailing gown, 
 And lightly bend above a flower. 
 
 Vast beauty of that earthly place ! — 
 Above the stem and fragrant bowl, 
 A burning breath, a human soul, — 
 Sprung from the nescient seeds of space. 
 
 Between the petals and the moon, 
 A face, a consciousness, a soul. 
 A mystic mirror of the whole, 
 Between the petals and the moon. 
 
 [67] 
 
MORNING 
 
 Why does the world spring up so blithely at 
 the mom, 
 
 Exuberant with purpose, setting its face 
 towards the light, 
 
 As if there were wonders to achieve? 
 
 The leaves rustle with fresh merriment, the birds 
 sing with ecstasies not yet fulfilled, 
 
 The clouds dance onwards as if to a goal. 
 
 The sun climbs with splendid advance. 
 
 And man, deluding himself, laughs and plans ! — 
 
 But what has the sunset achieved. 
 
 And what signifies the song sung in the morn- 
 ing? 
 
 O gods that drive the little earth on in its path. 
 
 Tell me why all things laugh, at the dawn, 
 
 And I will cast out the mistrust from my heart. 
 
 And make music with the cardinal-birds ! 
 
 [68] 
 
THE SUN-GRAIL 
 
 I SAW the Holy Grail 
 Hang crimson in the sky, 
 Just as the day grew pale. 
 I saw the Holy Grail 
 Across my spirit sail. 
 " It was the sun," you cry. 
 I saw the Holy Grail 
 Hang crimson in the sky. 
 
 [69] 
 
PASSION 
 
 You came too swiftly, with too clamant cries, 
 Too eager to break down my spirit's bars ! 
 You were all tempest, with no glimpse of skies, 
 Low-running blaze, without a shaft of stars. 
 
 You knew not love ; — the mystery, the calm. 
 The pregnant pause, the mutual awe, the fair, 
 Sweet hesitance, the bended knee, the psalm. 
 The reverence, the vision and the prayer. 
 
 Some flowers will blast, not bend, when wild 
 
 winds roar. 
 You were a flame, a storm, a gale of power ! 
 Your love was passion. — Love is vastly more. — 
 So I came not to be your prostrate flower. 
 
 [70] 
 
TO A WOMAN IN HER GARDEN 
 
 WOMAN, what dost thou do in thy garden 
 all day, 
 Sowing, sowing, sowing? 
 What will the sun yield thee and the winds and 
 the waters grey. 
 Blowing, blowing, blowing? 
 
 Is it for the flowers, the sheer, bright beauty of 
 
 flowers 
 That thou givest through all the days the 
 
 stream of thine hours? 
 
 O woman, look to the depths of thy soul, deep 
 
 down, 
 Then leap back up to earth, lest in horror thou 
 shouldst drown. 
 
 There shalt thou see the starkness of life, 
 the pain. 
 Knowing, knowing, knowing 
 Wherefore with bright flowers thou fiUest the 
 spaces inane, — 
 
 Sowing, sowing, sowing! 
 
 [71] 
 
CONTENTMENT 
 
 When shall I be content, — content 
 To sit at the white feet of dawn 
 In nnimpatient wonderment 
 And pray no future be forth-drawn? 
 
 Content to watch the day unfold 
 In shifting subtleties of light, 
 And ask no blessing of its gold, 
 Content to wait for stars and night ? 
 
 When shall I cease to press my dream 
 Into Life's slow development. 
 And crave no splendor of the stream? - 
 When shall I be content, content? 
 
 [72] 
 
THE POET TO HIS BODILY 
 INSTRUMENT 
 
 I AM tired of sitting with my fleshless thoughts, 
 In the dim tissues of the mind. Not Life 
 Dwells here, but the faint vestiges of Life, 
 Fetched from the throbbing centres of the 
 
 world. 
 How should they keep their ruddy essences 
 And not grow white like ghosts .'* — being 
 
 brought in 
 To darkness out of light, to a small void 
 Out of the brimming beauty of the earth? 
 How should they keep their life, their entity.'' 
 Here is faint duplication of the world. 
 And not the world ! — 
 
 Up, up and out, live body. 
 Up to meet the contacts of event. 
 And re-engage the flagging animal ! 
 Up to meet fresh impacts and fresh blows, 
 And send new streams of beauty through the 
 
 blood! 
 Re-charge the soul, re-vivify the flesh ! 
 Better to let one tree invade the eyes. 
 With unsymbolic, living, ligneous trunk, 
 And vital branches and green, urgent leaves 
 And press its way into percipience 
 Then fashion fleshless concepts in the soul I 
 Take trees and faces, flowers and circumstance. 
 The flail of life, the scourge, — experience ! 
 
 [73] 
 
Up, up and out, brave body, to the day. 
 Lift up the flaming mirrors of the eyes. 
 Throw wide the ears' reverberant corridors, 
 Intensify and sensitize the touch ! 
 Let the seas flood you and the earth oppress! 
 Make way into the real, the corporal world. 
 From whose resources all the thoughts are made. 
 And from whose plenum rises the clear soul ! 
 
 [74] 
 
LAUGHTER 
 
 The child in the door-yard paused in play, 
 
 Looked up and scattered a golden spray 
 
 Of purest laughter through the heart of day. 
 
 The woman heeded her work and smiled, 
 Then caught the glory of the undefiled, 
 And laughed with pain-touched gladness at the 
 child. 
 
 The rose in the meadow is fair 
 
 With its petals unfolded there. 
 But there grows a rose with a cup more deep 
 Where the thorn-heavy flowers in the garden 
 sleep. 
 
 The brook in the meadow is sweet 
 
 With its sun-shod, laughing feet. 
 But the wave that tosses its heart in the sea 
 Sings a song of more haunting melody ! 
 
 [75] 
 
ORION 
 
 Now, now am I full ready to pass out 
 
 Upon the great winds of infinity. 
 
 I have seen, in the pause of the midnight, 
 
 Orion flashing his sword above the earth ! 
 
 Day by day the rolling planet flieth 
 
 Beneath his sky-path. I think his glory 
 
 Would brush mine eyes, would strike them full 
 
 awake 
 Were I under that film of earth-surface 
 Which men, with fearsome faces, call the 
 
 grave, — 
 Fancying that it shuts out the flaming soul 
 Prom its companion-fires of the universe ! 
 
 [76] 
 
IN PRAISE OF SCULPTURE 
 
 Theee is no art like this. 
 
 All else is void, 
 All else is substanceless and vague and pale 
 As empty voices fainting in the wind. 
 Music pours out her swiftly-flowing notes 
 And they are gone. Of her no traces live. 
 She moves the yearning spaces with a song, 
 A spreading ripple of blue air, a stir. 
 And silence closes over the last swell. 
 Art flashes into being for a trice 
 With little painted plots that lightly dance 
 And quiver in the tiny eyes of men. 
 Until Time sweeps across his moon-grey hand 
 And draws away the color and the life. 
 Words flicker foolishly among the winds 
 Without or form or shape or entity, 
 The transient syllables of passing thought, 
 That take new patterns as the races die. 
 
 These statues, these are flung into the world 
 To live, — until the last man lays him down 
 Along the age-worn earth beneath the moon ! 
 These are the shape, the very life of life. 
 They need no rendering in viewless words, 
 No sign, no utterance, for they are words 
 In clay, inhabitants of shining space. 
 Formed of the throbbing fingers, clear to the 
 eyes 
 
 [77] 
 
As carven moons, strong to the touch as rock. 
 Tall, white, indubious, solid, strong. 
 Corporeal against the splendent sky ! 
 Poetry in stone. Soul inwrought with clay. 
 Embodied vision. Shafts of immortal thought ! 
 
 [78] 
 
IN A CORRIDOR OF STATUES 
 
 They crowd about me, close and white and still, 
 These statues. On their lips is vocal silence. 
 They frighten me with the depth of their un- 
 spoken wisdom 
 And with the vast presences of spectral 
 
 thoughts floating 
 In the white, un-pupiled spaces of their eyes. 
 They look down upon me with the penetration 
 
 of Sphinxes. 
 It seems as if in the depths of their soulless clay 
 They held all the secrets which my living soul 
 
 knows not. 
 Yet for a moment, a sunlit while, I rise 
 Above their white perpetuity ! 
 I am rosy with life, dancing in the current of 
 
 motion ! 
 Their stillness vivifies my strength, my power. 
 For a little the great world is mine completely. 
 The Faun, chained whitely in his marble statue. 
 Yearns to leap out into the world with me. 
 He would rush, singing for joy, with me, down 
 
 the street. 
 King Arthur strains to march out into the city 
 With his sword and his buckler, and his eyes 
 
 filled with the Grail. 
 But they are fast in their cases of clay, and I 
 
 am free. 
 
 [79] 
 
I will walk forth with the borrowed strength of 
 
 their mastery. 
 I will walk on and on, until my gladness, my 
 
 motion, my life. 
 Are sealed like theirs in the silent wisdom of 
 
 clay. 
 I will walk forth with the life-giving power of 
 
 their beauty ! 
 
 [80] 
 
VANITA SPEAKS 
 
 I ONCE was fair, — as morning light. 
 I once was lithe, — as bending tree. 
 I walked with splendor in man's sight, 
 And watched all faces fill with me, 
 
 And brighten like a sunset sea. 
 
 Where'er I passed. — Now comes the night. 
 
 I walk alone in mystery. 
 
 With changed beauty on the height. 
 
 [81] 
 
THE QUARREL 
 
 A STORM swept in and drove us out with pain 
 From the still lake of peace, to the two poles, 
 And their dark, severed seas. Our drifted souls 
 Dreamed not that they should meet or merge 
 again. 
 
 But the great tides of being, full and vast, 
 And our deep yearnings urged and pressed and 
 
 drove. 
 Until our mountainous waters reached the stars, 
 
 and strove 
 And climbed, — then flooded back, star-brimmed, 
 
 at last. 
 
 Tumultuous, towards each other, with desire! 
 Then, huge, gigantic, with a larger lease 
 We made our way to the still lake of peace, 
 And found it small for our great, fluid fire ! 
 
 As tides drawn out, seek back their basin-forms 
 With cumulative swell and pour and surge. 
 So we returned with vaster, passionate urge. 
 And vehemence of love ! — 
 
 Praise God for storms ! 
 
 [83] 
 
A CRY 
 
 Flame till I am one with all the skies, 
 O blazing stars. 
 
 Tomorrow death may darkly seal my eyes; 
 Bum, oh stars ! 
 
 [83] 
 
SURFACE SNOW 
 
 You thought me cold and never came to know. 
 For with strange pride I feigned frigidity. 
 Around my heart I heaped the whitened snow 
 And swirled the currents of the Northern Sea. 
 
 Up to my eyes I drew indifference 
 Lest my own face should tell my heart its tale, 
 And bore myself from the least lure of sense 
 That my false firmness might not faint or fail. 
 
 I hid from the bright worship of your eyes, 
 And from the sound and song and words of you. 
 As from great lightning a gull lifts and flies 
 So past the fervor of your love I flew. 
 
 From the least touch I sheered myself apart. 
 For had you brushed me with a single hand 
 The snows had vanished, and revealed my heart ! 
 So you went on, and did not understand. 
 
 [84] 
 
PETALS 
 
 I BADE you go and take love with you as you 
 
 went, 
 Denying you all lodgment in my heart. 
 I shed light laughter on the flowers you sent, 
 And closed the path into my house and heart. 
 
 Only the gods, my soul in its profoundest deep, 
 And the frail ghosts of a few roses, wan and 
 
 spent, 
 Know how I loved you and how close I keep. 
 With tears, all laughterless, the flowers you 
 
 sent. 
 
 [85] 
 
UNCLOAKED 
 
 Do you remember, you, who long ago 
 
 Asked me to draw the clinging cloak that hid 
 
 My thoughts? You said I wore a clinging 
 
 cloak 
 About my heart and soul. — And so I did. 
 
 But at this latter day, too late for joy, 
 Yet not too late for peace, I will unwear 
 The cloak and slipping it from my soul away 
 Let you look in upon your imprint there. 
 
 Behold, how much I loved you. — Is it plain 
 At last ? — Then, let us draw the cloak again. 
 
 [86] 
 
THE DANCER AND THE DAWN 
 
 'TwAs at a dance. You said I slighted you. 
 I tossed my head and smilingly denied. 
 You said, " I go, I will not wend with you." 
 " 'Tis well. Farewell," I carelessly replied, 
 
 And sent a spray of laughter as you went. 
 
 All night I danced and gave away my smiles, 
 
 All night I danced, and burned with wonder- 
 ment, 
 
 I flamed with ardor, scorched men with my 
 wiles. 
 
 And brimmed them with my laughter. I was 
 
 mad 
 With youth, with ecstasy, with power, with 
 
 play! 
 I thought that I could nevermore be sad. 
 That I could dance forever and a day ! 
 
 Dawn came. — The dancers fled away. 
 I fared into my house, but not to sleep. 
 I fell upon my knees, but not to pray. — 
 I fell, fire-spent, to yearn for you and weep. 
 
 [87] 
 
BEFORE THE DUSK 
 
 I WOUI.D give all the burnings of the noon, 
 The shimmering sweetness of the dawning day, 
 Yea, even all the wonders of the moon, 
 If, dying now, I might re-find my way. 
 
 Each sun-down, from the paths of death, 
 To this brief hour before the falling dusk. 
 Then would I ever with fierce, mortal breath 
 Meet this same scent of meadows, warm with 
 musk, 
 
 Find these same shadows gathered on the earth. 
 These shadows deeped with splendor of the 
 
 light. 
 All rich with promise of the day's rebirth, 
 Before the immitigable gloom of night. 
 
 Now is life full and maximal and clear* 
 Perfect, by its own beauty justified. 
 Earth melts into the skies and God seems near, 
 And all the universe beatified. 
 
 I would give stars and burnings of the noon, 
 The shimmering sweetness of the dawning day, 
 Yea, even all the wonders of the moon. 
 If to this beauty I might find my way ! 
 
 [88] 
 
THE TURNED BLADE 
 
 Once, long ago, I spoke sharp words to you 
 To speed you from my heart with a swift pace. 
 You have forgotten, though the sword thrust 
 
 through 
 And gave you wounding for a little space. 
 
 You have forgotten. You have found new day, 
 
 New faces and a pangless heart. 
 
 New hands and eyes have drawn your love 
 
 away, — 
 But I sit, with fierce memory, apart. 
 
 For since that day the relic of the sword has 
 
 lain 
 Within my hands, so close I cannot fling 
 It forth, so sharp I cannot lose the pain, 
 Nor shift to other thoughts, nor smile, nor sing. 
 
 And it has seemed of late as if towards me 
 The blade were turning, to fulfill my lot. 
 And give me death. So cruel is memory, 
 So strong ! — Yet I am glad you have forgot. 
 
 [89] 
 
FLAME AND SHADOW 
 
 I AM young 
 And I was singing, 
 In a flame of rapture springing, 
 With mj reaching arms upflung. 
 And my feet with laughter winging ! 
 
 Ecstasy 
 Was I and gladness 
 Full of triumph, far from sadness, 
 With my life upcoursing through me, 
 Full of mirth and merry madness ! 
 
 Sudden, — as a shadow sweeping 
 Came a thought upon my leaping. 
 Thought of death and endless sleeping. 
 
 Through the surging flame it tore. 
 Through my lighted eyes it bore. 
 
 Into my singing throat it sprang. 
 Into my arms it plunged its fang. 
 
 Down through all my body gay. 
 Till the lifting heels gave way. 
 
 I am young 
 And I was singing. 
 In a flame of rapture swinging, 
 [90] 
 
When a shadow overhung 
 
 And my heart left off its ringing. 
 
 Those who lie 
 In death declining 
 Have strange thoughts and strange repining. 
 Why, oh gods of blackness, why 
 Send the shadow to the shining.? 
 
 [91] 
 
SLEEP 
 
 Slip through the loop of sleep with rne. 
 
 From the giant world and its bruising ways, 
 To meadows of mildness and fields of haze, 
 Where nothing is real and all is a dream. 
 And eternity lies like a silver stream ! 
 
 There the soul unlearns in the truce of the brain 
 The evil of life and the pungent pain, 
 The pattern of things and the plan and the plot. 
 All is soft-loosened and sweet-forgot. 
 
 Slip through the loop, nor shall we return 
 To the world, where hot colors seethe and burn, 
 Where angles sharpen and objects pierce 
 And sounds are brutal and passions fierce. 
 
 From earth and her moon let us journey far 
 And the night that lies between star and star. 
 To the simple pastures of tender sleep, 
 Clement, unwounding, dim, dream-deep! 
 
 Slip through the loop of sleep with me! 
 
 [92] 
 
A PRAYER 
 
 When over that abyss I pause at last, 
 
 Called Death, the temporary stay 
 
 Twixt life and life's successor, — then when fast 
 
 My soul resolves itself like spray 
 
 Swirled from the firm companion-rock of 
 sense, — 
 
 Be with me, Christ, with your strong recom- 
 pense. 
 
 When my dim spirit wavers in the dark. 
 
 And moves from the white gates of flesh, 
 
 The throbbing caves of sound where sings the 
 
 the lark, 
 The rosy fingertips, the mesh 
 
 Of life, the dazzling mirrors of the eyes, 
 
 Be with me, Christ, and bid my soul arise. 
 
 When, in that hour, my selfhood sinks away 
 Beneath the palpitating screen 
 Of sense, and struggles with the clod of clay 
 Fear-spent, to be as it has been. 
 Trembling before the strange, eternal sea,— 
 Be with me, Christ, with your eternity. 
 
 [93] 
 
SPRING STARS 
 
 Spring mil break to-morrow. 
 Spring is in the skies! 
 Stars that love the morrow 
 
 In the East arise. 
 
 Tremulous of xvvng. 
 
 Winter puissance, Winter storm, 
 With Orion's giant form, 
 Sink below the Western ford, 
 Where he feebly swings his sword. 
 
 Arcturus' eye is full awake. — 
 To-morrow arbutus will break, 
 And robins the green South forsake. 
 
 Scorpius simmers now. 
 Bright, below the East. 
 Summer hastens now. 
 
 Beating at the East, 
 
 Where the gold stars sing. 
 
 Roaring Taurus thunders past. 
 West with Winter's blowing blast. 
 Pegasus lies in his shrouds. 
 Among the dying, starry crowds. 
 
 The Swan rides in the trees to-night. 
 To-morrow they will burst with light, 
 And glow with unsheathed blossoms bright. 
 [94] 
 
Spring will break to-morrow. 
 Spring is in the skies! 
 Stars that love the morrow. 
 
 In the East arise. 
 
 Tremulous of wing. 
 
 Summer dreams within the flower, 
 Spring is bursting buds with power. 
 Spring will break to-morrow mom, 
 Spring among the stars is bom ! 
 
 Lo! Vega looks with ardent eyes.— 
 
 To-morrow viblets will rise. 
 
 And bluebirds sail in sapphire skies ! 
 
 [95] 
 
THE ACOLYTE 
 
 I ONCE held place within your thought 
 Where now are other shrines. 
 
 But I could see such treason wrought, 
 And ask no other signs, 
 
 If I might know that in your heart 
 
 You visit memory, 
 And sometimes dream and fare apart 
 
 To that old shrine of me. 
 
 [96] 
 
A WIFE TO HER HUSBAND 
 
 Oh, see me not among these chattel-things, 
 These little window-pots and curving chairs. 
 And dusty shelves and pygmy furnishings, 
 These stooping walls and trodden floors and 
 stairs. 
 
 I am not wrought of these, though all my ways 
 Have moved among them, small and ventureless ; 
 Though all my hours have touched them through 
 
 the days. 
 And they have crushed my deeds to littleness. 
 
 Though thou hast seen my body harbored here, 
 Anchored and moored within this little place, 
 Think not my soul is tethered to this gear. — 
 My selfhood is not tangent to this space. 
 
 Canst thou not see me now as full of dream 
 As in old days of fancy and of fire.? — 
 How should my spirit dispossess the gleam. 
 The spacious wandering, the vast desire.? 
 
 Come, rend the daily web of circimistance. 
 And see me, O my love, with freshened eyes ! 
 Walk with my soul, in ways of young romance, 
 Among the vast and unadventured skies. 
 
 [97] 
 
THE TWO 
 
 They are walking in the dusk 
 Down the city's narrow street. 
 They are arm-in-arm and smiling, — 
 Thinking love is wholly sweet. 
 
 As the city hovers over 
 With its chimneys and its gloom 
 So the future lifts in darkness, 
 But they do not see it loom. 
 
 She does not think of anguish. 
 Nor of how his strong embrace 
 Will fill her frame with travail, — 
 So she smiles into his face. 
 
 She does not think of struggle 
 Nor the drudgings of a wife. 
 Nor of duties sempiternal. 
 Nor the three-score years of life. 
 
 Nor does he think of burdens, 
 Nor the toiling of his flesh. 
 Till he lose his soul and body 
 In the suffocating mesh. 
 
 Nor does he think of labor. 
 Nor of wheels and mills and plying, 
 Nor of worry and oppression 
 Till there come the day of dying. 
 [98] 
 
They do not see the sorrow, 
 Nor the tidal rush of tears, 
 Nor the loss of each one's rapture. 
 Nor the dull, drab line of years. 
 
 They are walking in the dusk. 
 Thinking love is wholly sweet. — 
 Oh, send a little prayer for them 
 To the empty Judgment-Seat! 
 
 [99] 
 
THE ANOMALY 
 
 I DANCED across the meadows yesternoon ; 
 The glory of the day withdrew too soon ; 
 I drained the brimming goldenness of sight, 
 I danced, a swaying torch, a wave of light ! 
 
 At end of day beneath the stars I ran, 
 Myself a star, caught in the flaming span. 
 I drank the blue, blue wine of Vega's fire. 
 I heard the music of the spinning choir ! 
 
 At dawn I rose to kiss the waking Day, 
 Down the soft, flowering slopes I made my way. 
 With unspilt strength, with life's unopened 
 
 dream ! 
 And lo, I found you, — Death, — beside the 
 
 stream. 
 
 [100] 
 
FANCY 
 
 Give me not wisdom that dissects the flower 
 And stoops above a rounded, dreaming pool 
 Discerning rajs reflected by some rule ; 
 That with steel pointers tells the golden hour, 
 And chains the crystal magic of a shower ; 
 That squeezes Nature into man's poor school 
 And makes her majesty his puppet-tool, 
 Depriving her of all her reachless power ! 
 Give me the light and unimprisoned flight 
 That journeys on the pathway of a star 
 More swift than science, on a fleeter wing. 
 And threads with unpretentious love the night. 
 The glamorous day, the world; and passes far 
 Into the mystic heart of everything ! 
 
 [101] 
 
LOVE LIFE, BUT NOT TOO MUCH 
 
 Love life, but not too much, for it will slay you 
 as you sing ! 
 
 Love it and laugh and play and glimpse and 
 touch, but do not cling, 
 
 For as you cleave in ecstasy, deep darkness 
 rends the light. 
 
 And as you love the more, more black and an- 
 guished is the night. 
 
 Love life and meet it lightly, with awareness in 
 
 your eyes. 
 Seeing where on the slopes of Spring a shadow 
 
 lies. 
 Love life, but not too much, with open sight, an 
 
 even breath, 
 A sound of mirth, — and a white, uncovered 
 
 breast for the sword of death ! 
 
 [102] 
 
THE FALSE FACE 
 
 What are you doing down there, face of my 
 
 flesh, 
 Making the same deft patterns, the same apt 
 
 lines ? 
 The same white-glinting smiles, the facile curves 
 Of quick reply, the runnels for light laughter, 
 The old responsive rayings of the eyes? 
 Yes, you were thrust and shapen to the world 
 Of bone and flesh and shrewd motility 
 And race-old habit and the present need. 
 You cannot move in any other wise. 
 Though all the thoughts be brooding in the 
 
 mind. 
 Though tears be at the neap-tide in its bays, 
 Though there be heaviness in every curve, 
 And lagging at each fold and nerve. 
 Though there be mortal weariness diffused 
 Through the vast, inner soul, your face must 
 
 lift. 
 And make its smiles, despite the irony. 
 The bitter, the sardonic thought, — must flash, 
 Up-curve its mouth, make gay its musing eyes. 
 Give forth through laughing lips the jaunty jest 
 And with some section of the mind make words. 
 If this were not, the world would dub you mad. 
 
 Oh, for some little time, to dwell unf alse 
 Within the candid darkness of one's soul ! 
 
 [103] 
 
IN A GROVE 
 
 If I within this grove my days should spend, 
 Where sunlight falls with such unsaddened gold, 
 And leaves are green and young, and naught is 
 
 old. 
 And streams sing on and know no muted end. 
 
 Were I to stay here through each day and 
 
 night. 
 And feast upon this loveliness of things. 
 The permanence of trees, the flow of wings. 
 The laughter of the wood, the deathless light, — 
 
 Might not my youth forget to slip away, 
 
 And life dwell with me always, stripped of 
 
 fear? — 
 How should death cast his shadow here, 
 Where so much endlessness and beauty stay ? 
 
 [104] 
 
AN ANSWER 
 
 If I marry you, dear lad, 
 You will lose the look of wonder, 
 It will vanish from your eyes. 
 Its beauty will go under. 
 And its light will not re-rise. 
 
 You will look at me as husband, 
 Wonted, wonderless of sight. 
 Blind and quiet and accustomed, 
 Calm and passionless as night. 
 
 Starry youth will slip away, 
 Love and light surprise. 
 Oh, I would not dark the ray 
 That marvels in your eyes. 
 
 I would keep their light forever 
 And the present flame they carry. 
 Till my soul and body sever ! — 
 All the wonder would not tarry 
 If I married you, dear lad. 
 
 [105] 
 
FUTILITY 
 
 I CRUSHED the roses in my hand, 
 To save them from the breath of Time. 
 Time breathed with instant reprimand 
 From the dead perfume of my crime ! 
 
 [106] 
 
TO A SOUL UNPREJUDICED 
 
 This song I sing straight to the soul of you, 
 The soul of you, deep down beneath the pride! 
 Since the dark day when I bade you depart 
 And found repentance when your footsteps 
 
 passed, 
 You have looked ever at me with harsh eyes, 
 More dark than burned wood with the flame 
 
 withdrawn. 
 Your pride has charged your soul check well its 
 
 fires 
 As you have vowed a vow most fierce and strong 
 Never again to let a spark upleap ! 
 So I, likewise, am deep within my pride. 
 And dare not yield to summon you again. 
 We are world's beings, so, wrapped round about 
 The blazing core with heaped complexities. 
 Defences deep and strong, pride, self-respect. 
 Timidity, esteem, those subtle faculties 
 Which age-long intercourse has builded well 
 About the too stark and outstanding soul. 
 If you and I were pristine and unf alse 
 We would leap towards each other, past resent- 
 ment. 
 Like two stars ! 
 
 But no, your present attributes 
 And mine, gathered from the long centuries. 
 Our dignities, our flushed nobilities. 
 Our massive honor will maintain their hold 
 [107] 
 
And keep us severed as the sun and moon. 
 You will go jour way and I mine, apart, 
 Though our deep spirits yearn unceasingly 
 Each towards the other. Is it not laughable.'^ 
 Is it not tragic as the jest of life.'' 
 I can not speak with you, nor you with me, 
 Nor may I bear into your soul my thoughts, 
 For stood we now together, face to face. 
 The darkness would swoop down and change 
 
 our eyes, 
 The pattern of our visage and our words. 
 Plunging the truth below among the fires 
 We hide so well. We should at once be strange ! 
 
 This being so, I sing this song to you. 
 Whose purport my own lips would not betray. 
 Straight to your soul my soul forthsings it now ! 
 Down past the you of salon and of street, 
 Down past the crust of artifice and pride, 
 Down to the you that was before and is 
 And shall be when we meet within the stars ! 
 Read it, O soul, beneath the prejudice. 
 Read it and know, for the whole song is, — love. 
 
 [108] 
 
THE BURNT OFFERING 
 
 Did you not guess it was for love of you 
 
 I caused you less instead of greater pain ? 
 
 I saw how your bright passion waxed and grew, 
 
 And knowing that this might only bring us bane, 
 
 I took my heart in sudden, desperate wise 
 And covered it, and crushed it with constraint, 
 And, holding my hands before my yearning eyes. 
 Lest I should see your beauty and grow faint, 
 
 I said, " Depart. I love you not." — My gate 
 Struck open, — and you went. Your face was 
 
 dazed. 
 But your surprise grew to a sudden hate. 
 And the fierce fires of enmity forth-blazed. 
 
 Hate me! For I would rather suffer this. 
 Than have you suffer for my love. Your ire 
 I take, your hatred, — and account them bliss. 
 See how I stand as to a forest-fire ! 
 
 Sear me and scorch and cauterize and brand ! 
 I take your hate as if you came to woo 
 With flame! Beloved, do you not under- 
 stand ? — 
 I give my life, — burnt offering for you. 
 
 [109] 
 
THE COQUETTE REGENERATED 
 
 I WAS until these days what the world names 
 " Coquette," a blithe and uncompassionate child, 
 A little salamander in the flames, 
 Unburned but burning, conscienceless and wild. 
 
 There came to me one beautiful as prayer. 
 I wove my spell and took away his breath. 
 I thrust me deep into his heart, so fair, 
 I thrust me down, — until I drew his death. 
 
 Ah, God, if any come again to me. 
 
 With love, — how true, how tender I shall be ! 
 
 [110] 
 
THE WOMAN 
 
 I SAID, — I will be strong, as strong as man. 
 
 I will put off the winsome ways of woman. 
 
 I will be strong in body and in mind. 
 
 I will put off the futile charms, the grace, 
 
 The comeliness, the comity, the lure. 
 
 I will forego the feminine seductions, 
 
 SnufF from my eyes the flame of blandishment, 
 
 Draw from my lips the smiles and courting 
 
 curves, 
 And bring forth from my brain the mightier 
 
 thoughts, 
 To dwell upon my face. 
 
 I will abjure 
 The long inheritance of coquetry, 
 The futile raptures and the sparkling laughter, 
 The suavities, the vanities, the arts. 
 The light conceits which steal into the souls of 
 
 men 
 And touch and blind them as with summer 
 
 lightning. 
 I will loose the soft, slight ways of woman 
 And gird myself for strength. 
 
 My thoughts shall be 
 Of iron and I will fashion puissant dreams ! 
 I will become a man and front the world ! 
 The hills, the mountains shall be mine, the rocks, 
 The crash of steel, the heave of mighty hammers, 
 The blast of furnaces, the pour of smoke, 
 
 [111] 
 
The tide of trade, the surge of enterprise, 
 Power and gigantic roles and plans. 
 Lo, I will leave the soft and futile ways 
 Of woman and confront the world as man! 
 
 So said I in the early days of dawn. 
 In my contemptuous and stalwart youth ! 
 And then I rose and faced the world, un- 
 womaned. 
 
 As a man the world received me, stern 
 
 And harsh and truculent and unappeased ! 
 
 The outer earth lost all its loveliness, 
 
 For I found only the unbeauteous things. 
 
 The understructure of vast strength, the force. 
 
 The ribs, the sinews, and the solid base. 
 
 No beauty slipped into my hardened soul. 
 
 For beauty I had forfeited for strength. 
 
 No lips curved smiling to my straightened lips. 
 
 No eyes sought mine, for mine were passionless. 
 
 So at last the old desires of woman 
 
 Surged to my soul and vanquished the false 
 
 strength. 
 At last I knew the beauty and the charm, 
 The power, the wonder of her fair estate, 
 Even a vindication for her wiles. 
 Her wooings, her devices, her soft arts. 
 For are they not accessories of love, 
 And is not love commendable.'* 
 [112] 
 
At dawn, 
 I knew not of the vital need for love, 
 When I made cry for strength ! — 
 
 I will put off 
 At last my blundering virility 
 And find my femininity again ! — 
 I will acknowledge all my womanhood ! 
 
 [118] 
 
HOPE 
 
 I WAIT within the inner court of life 
 For something wonderful to poise, to pass. 
 To-morrow it will float above the walls 
 In the bright shaping of a golden bird ; 
 Or the wide gates will open both their doors 
 For mystery to enter, strange of guise, — 
 Perchance some visitant with magic wares 
 Borne in his hands and beauty in his soul. 
 Or yet the walls themselves will disappear 
 And the great wonder of the heavens lie re- 
 vealed ! 
 This emptiness will overflow at last ! — 
 But nothing happens. Day by day I wait. 
 I nurse my flickering heart. I count the stones, 
 And the up-croppings of the moss between. 
 I watch the clouds float by and wonder well 
 What beauty they imagine lures them on. 
 What is it which induces me to hope 
 And to endure, endure and yet to hope.? 
 What is this strange expectancy of soul 
 Which will not die and never will be stayed.'' 
 Is it called Hope, Fatuity or Dream, . . . 
 Or is it Life itself ? . . . 
 
 [114] 
 
THE OLD POET BY THE FIRESIDE 
 
 We have our thoughts, — God wot, — as we sit 
 by the fireside, 
 
 And let our fancies simmer, we old poets. 
 
 You young singers, with the tide of life brim- 
 ming in your eyes 
 
 And the crests of joy breaking in your wave- 
 white limbs. 
 
 You with the rich, wine-bright thoughts in your 
 veins. 
 
 You with the motion and the laughter and the 
 sunrise and the song. 
 
 You with the running, leaping words in your 
 throat. 
 
 You with the dancing colors and the rampant 
 images, 
 
 And the fiery ideas that beat against the stars, 
 
 O you young poets, with the strength and the 
 glory and the arrogance. 
 
 And the sphere of the world swinging in your 
 hearts ! — 
 
 Do you not know that our fingertips and our 
 souls still vibrate with the memory 
 
 Of all this, that the beauty of the world still 
 flickers faintly 
 
 In the iridescent hollows of our minds ? Do you 
 not know 
 
 That we also see with our burning mortal eyes 
 
 The robin red against the darkened bough, 
 
 [115] 
 
And the separate flutings of the leaves, and the 
 
 blazing sky? 
 Do you not know that the words quiver on our 
 
 lips 
 Like summer shadows to break the gates of 
 
 silence ? 
 Do you not know that our silence is wrought of 
 
 many things, 
 That it is wrought of some things too vast to 
 
 nestle in the little curves 
 Of words ? — 
 
 And do you guess also, young poets, that 
 grief is ours, 
 That the thoughts may sometimes sway and 
 
 flutter, and the words 
 Refuse to come to our aching, yearning souls, 
 That we stretch forth our hands in agony and 
 
 find at the last 
 That we move our arms in a mist? Do you 
 
 know the pain 
 Of an unborn thought, that finds no longer any 
 
 body 
 To bring it forth, and perishes in desolation 
 In the waste and weeping places of the soul? 
 
 O you young poets, with the wine-bright 
 
 thoughts in your veins 
 And the dancing colors and the rampant images, 
 
 and the tide 
 
 [116] 
 
Brimming in your eyes ! — ^We have our 
 
 thoughts, — God wot, — 
 As we sit by the fireside and watch you speak 
 
 with the stars. 
 
 [117] 
 
BEAUTY 
 
 Beauty pours over us in constant flood, 
 In flaming sunsets, mammoth tides of stars, 
 Vast, iridescent seas and spraying streams, 
 Billows of colored mist and sweeping winds. 
 High clouds and sulphur storms and lightning- 
 fires. 
 Currents of showers and blinding falls of snow. 
 Torrents of leaves and grasses, flowers and 
 
 trees. 
 Bevies of butterflies and waves of birds. 
 Tempests of motion, flame and giant sound. 
 
 And we, we lift our instruments of being 
 To the world and let the beauty pour 
 Majestic, over our white, listless bodies. 
 And our unrapturous souls. 
 
 God, make us great. 
 As great as this our beauty-flooded world! 
 
 [118] 
 
RECAPITULATION IN HEAVEN 
 
 Come with me, love, we have been idle guest 
 In heaven for so long. Let us slip doAvn, 
 Between the jets of Ariadne's Crown, 
 And find a little planet for our rest. 
 
 Let us go down to that scant, elfin sphere, 
 Do you remember, — Earth — where little ways 
 Were once so sweet, and all the fragile days 
 Were flung between the dawn and moon-appear ? 
 
 Do you remember what a moon was there, 
 How large it looked and plenteous with dreams, 
 And with what strange, unutterable beams 
 It drew all beauty up into the air.? 
 
 Do you remember on a tiny hill 
 The scent of basswood blossoms in the Spring 
 That with the sprays of wind went eddying.? — 
 It gives me poignancy in heaven, still! 
 
 And those fair friends of rocks, red columbine? 
 Rocks, — you remember.? — more than flowers 
 
 in girth, 
 The great, unmantled sinews of the earth, 
 That lie and bask within the brave sunshine ? 
 
 [119] 
 
We knew a sea there, too, that gave a sound 
 Piercing and sweet upon the little shore. 
 More welcome than the comets' lisp and roar, — 
 Full of strange beauties all in heaven unfound. 
 
 And there was many a shape of waterway, 
 Of rill and river washing to the sea. 
 Of lakes that clasped the world all silverly. 
 And clamant brooks tossing the rock-blown 
 spray ! 
 
 And irised falls and many a stirless pool. 
 
 And then, — the great, moon-lifted tides. — All 
 
 fair. 
 Not like these seething vapors of the air. 
 But settled limpidly and deep and cool. 
 
 Do you remember rain that smote the street, — 
 God ! Streets ! — You wist ? — those little 
 
 ways 
 Laid out for human going, through the maze.^ 
 Mind you of all that mortal gear most sweet. 
 
 And of the very forms of men, their hands. 
 Their smiling lips, their lighted brows and 
 
 eyes ? — 
 Come with me, dear, from this high Paradise 
 Down to the little, human-peopled lands. 
 
 [120] 
 
For I would offer all this skyey boon, 
 My life-in-death, my chapter of re-birth, 
 For one small sound of old, terrestrial mirth, 
 Or one earth-cricket chirping to the moon. 
 
 [121] 
 
THE BUILDERS OF WALLS 
 
 A Masque 
 
DRAMATIS PERSONiE 
 
 The Young Man 
 
 Sylvius and his Three Fauns 
 
 Sylvia and her Three Nymphs 
 
 Silence 
 
 The Soet Wind 
 
 Two Fireflies 
 
 Four Dune-Maidens 
 
 Four Wave-Maidens 
 
 Two Silent Human Beings 
 
 Scene: An open forest glade. A path rims 
 from left to right, foreground. Darky slim 
 trees on either hand. Open space, centre, rich 
 with the afternoon sunlight mellomng into sun- 
 set. 
 
 Sounds of joyous laughter and shouting are 
 heard. A group of wood-creatures tushes in. 
 Fauns and Nymphs. The Nymphs are clad in 
 light, fluttering garinents of green. The Fauns 
 wear the skins of pards and flaunt green leaves 
 in their hair. 
 
 [124] 
 
Sylvia 
 
 [^Leaping in and tossing her hairl 
 Oh, how golden the wind is ! 
 
 Second Nymph 
 
 I touched a cloud ! 
 
 Sylvius 
 I touched the evening-star behind that cloud ! 
 
 Third Nymph 
 I kissed the sun, and felt it bum my hair ! 
 
 Second Faun 
 I leaped ten willow-bushes in my path ! 
 
 FIRST Nymph 
 
 Did you not smell the daisies as we passed, 
 How rich they were with pungent spiciness? 
 
 [She sniffs in joyous recollection and 
 tosses daisies at a Faun] 
 
 Third Faun 
 
 I could outskip the waves! What say you all? 
 [125] 
 
Let's vault the foamy crests that dance below 
 Upon the shining beach. 
 
 Second Nymph 
 
 No! No! Let's wait 
 Until the setting sun has kindled them, 
 And tipped their crests with roses and with fire ! 
 
 Third Nymph 
 Yes, till the sea is all one liquid flame! 
 
 Second Faun 
 
 Then shall we slant our bodies through the 
 
 waves. 
 Cleave the crimson water, leap and dive. 
 And float beneath the gulls. 
 
 [He makes the glad motions of swimming'] 
 
 Sylvius 
 
 Come ! Come ! 
 You lovers of the sea, join hands, join hands, 
 And let's bestow our love upon the earth. 
 While yet the sun hangs golden in the day. 
 
 [They cluster about him^ 
 It is the magic hour of purest light. 
 Before the day gives up her glowing soul 
 To dusk. Now is the sunlight dripping gold ! 
 Now all the streams that quiver to the sea 
 Are drenched with fire, and ringed with yellow 
 
 pools. 
 
 [126] 
 
Now all the leaves on all the forest trees 
 Are smitten with the slanting of the sun, 
 And burned with clarity. Now all the glades 
 Are warm with saffron moss. Now every flower 
 With all the outpoured perfume of the day 
 Is rich and odorous and sweet, before 
 The sunset falls. Now in the golden fields 
 The laden grasses stoop with dust o' dreams. 
 Now all is gold, the earth and sky and sea. 
 Now all is gold ! Come, circle in the dance. 
 
 [The Fauns and Nymphs call out in mu- 
 sical voices'] 
 Come! Come! Come! Come! 
 
 [They run together m a circle, and dam:e 
 about, singing or saying rhythmically'] 
 
 Fauns and Nymphs 
 
 Come, come with the wind in your hair 
 And the slipping earth at your feet. 
 Come, while the golden day is fair, 
 And the meadow-grass is sweet. 
 
 Come, while the air is all a-wing, 
 And the fields are all a-fire. 
 Come! Come! Leap and sing! 
 To the wheeling stars aspire ! 
 
 Come, while the world is a tossing sphere. 
 Afloat on the windy way. 
 Come and dance till the moon is clear, 
 [127] 
 
And the night has kissed the day ! 
 
 \They break the circle swiftly, each Faun 
 callmg to each Nymph'\ 
 Come! Come! Come! Come! 
 
 \_Each Faun circles each Nymph. Sud- 
 denly Sylvius cries out^ 
 
 Sylvius 
 Cease ! Cease ! 
 
 [They cease dancvng and liste7i\ 
 
 It is a human foot that falls 
 The heavy plodding of a human soul. 
 Yes. On this path that winds before us here. 
 A path ! A human path ! By all the ways 
 Of space, a little, trampled, human path! 
 A little, dusty track worn through the flowers. 
 These creatures do not know the trackless ways. 
 The yielding, windy ways of space. Their feet 
 Are captive to the earth and weighed with dust. 
 Their hands are stiff and have forgot to curve 
 Over the billows of a summei: cloud. 
 Or wings of butterflies. Their backs are round. 
 That never braved the beating of the wind. 
 Nor leaned in leisure 'gainst a poplar tree. 
 If they but danced, their very limbs would laugh 
 With all the rippling curveis of ecstasy ! 
 
 \The Nymphs and Fauns caper a little, 
 and cry out: Yes! Yes!] 
 
 Sylvius 
 They have forgot the rhythm of the world! 
 [128] 
 
Back! Back! And let us hide beneath these 
 
 trees, 
 And watch the human being plodding by. 
 
 [They hide behind the trees. An old man 
 issues from the wood, carrying a bag of 
 stones on his back. He never looks to 
 right or left. Norn and then he wipes 
 his brow. He passes across the path, 
 without uttering a word, and disappears 
 into the wood, left. The Second Faun 
 dashes out from under cover, callkigl 
 
 Second Faun 
 
 Come! They are all blind and cannot see. 
 They are as moles that tunnel in the ground, 
 And never catch the shimmer of the sun. 
 Let's weave a dance upon their dusty path. 
 
 [The others follow him. Now, from the 
 other end of the path appears a young 
 girl of great loveliness, likewise bur- 
 dened. They rush to surround her. 
 She looks about with startled eyes, as if 
 half-seeing them, and begins to run. 
 She disappears into the wood. The 
 Fauns and Nymphs are startled] 
 
 Sylvius 
 She almost saw us with her cloudless eyes. 
 [1^9] 
 
Second Faun 
 
 She ran so slowly, with so tired a foot. 
 Where she could vault a stone, we'd vault the 
 
 hills! 
 We are not human, we, for we are, — free ! 
 
 \_The Nymphs and Fauns echo: Free! 
 Free!] 
 
 Third Faun 
 Let's run far out beyond the track of men, 
 Until we pass the wind ! 
 
 Second Faun 
 
 And strike a comet's trail! 
 
 \_The Nymphs and Fauns cr^ out'\ 
 Beyond the wind! Beyond the wind! 
 
 [They all rush into the woods, A slight 
 pause. Now there appears a young 
 man who looks all about hirBy at cloud, 
 tree, and earth. He advances almost to 
 the middle of the path, flings out his 
 arms, and, with the movement, dislodges 
 the bag of stones from his back^ 
 
 Young Man 
 
 Great God ! I'll carry no more stones 
 And bend my body to the wasting earth. 
 I'll not crawl, reptile-like, along the way 
 And hear life singing high above my head 
 Among the unreached clouds. 
 [130] 
 
I'll not move on 
 With this mad throng of sightless, toiling moles. 
 Is this called life, this madman's pageantry, 
 This rushing on the highway to and fro? 
 The air resounds with all the petty furor 
 Of the crowd. Their voices lash the heavens. 
 Their fingers writhe and twine and pluck and 
 
 grasp. 
 Their feet despoil the earth and thickly tread 
 Making crude echoes in her sacred aisles. 
 Their eyes contract and narrow the sweet sky. 
 This is not life, this is but mania. 
 
 [He fdUs to his knees in griefs 
 O God, uncoil my mind and all its ways, — 
 Its burning thoughts, its colored jets and fires, 
 Its rushing torrents and its checkless streams. 
 Constrain the world that rushes through these 
 
 doors. 
 Close up the aching aisles of thought. 
 
 Close up 
 The stricken eyes and seal them from these 
 
 sights. 
 Silence the throbbing ears, make still the world. 
 Smooth out the paths that life has wrought. 
 
 Unbind 
 The knotted ways of mortal thought. Let in 
 The peace of primal silence, the great soul 
 Of still and manless calm. — 
 
 [He gradually falls and buries his head 
 in the grass'\ 
 
 [131] 
 
Take me, grasses, fold me with your peace, 
 The cool, sweet tenderness of your green blades. 
 Sheathe me in perpetual green silence. 
 Take me from the world. 
 
 \_He falls to weeping, then to silence. 
 Sylvius emerges from the wood. He 
 goes quietly over to the Young Man] 
 
 Sylvius 
 
 Come, come, you creature of the builded world. 
 Why do you lie all shriveled in the grass? 
 [The Young Man starts half-way up] 
 
 Young Man 
 Who are you, — man with the griefless eyes ? 
 
 Sylvius 
 
 I am Sylvius, — laughter and freedom and life ! 
 And you, who are you that carry the bags of 
 
 stones, 
 And walk in the dusty path and fall in the 
 
 grass 
 Like a withered leaf when its veins are cold.'* 
 
 Young Man 
 
 [JRisvng] 
 
 I.? 
 
 Only a man am I with a back and a pack 
 And a pair of hands and a bag of dusty stones. 
 And what do I do with my fellow-men ? I build, 
 [182] 
 
I build from the break of the morn to the dusk 
 
 of the day 
 The walls of the City of Life. Walls. Walls. 
 They shut the spirit in, they build up walls 
 About the yearning soul. — Oh travesty of 
 
 life! — 
 Hast thou ever been in the shouting cities of 
 
 men.? 
 There the silence of air is slashed with the 
 
 swords of sound 
 And the peace of the sky and the clear, white 
 
 light of the stars 
 Are choked with the blinding towers. In the 
 
 paths they have cut 
 For their scurrying feet, the traffic of commerce 
 
 runs, 
 Wagons that thunder, horses that struggle, 
 
 motors 
 That rush on the wind. Everywhere motion, 
 
 everywhere sound. 
 Nowhere is peace and the sky's great round. — 
 [He falls on the sun-browned shoulders of 
 the Faun] 
 
 Sylvius 
 
 Come, man of the world, lift up your eyes 
 To the blossoming beauty of earth. 
 
 Young Man 
 
 What are you saying, 
 [133] 
 
Faun of the woods, O Faun, in whose crystal 
 
 eyes 
 No shadow has darkened, no grief has 
 
 e'erpassed ? 
 What know you of tears that flow in the human 
 
 heart? 
 What know you of pain that wrenches the 
 
 human form 
 As the lashing lightnings split the white-riven 
 
 trees ? 
 What know you of fears that rise in the human 
 
 throat 
 With sulphurous fumes and smother the flame 
 
 of mirth? 
 What know you of madness that enters the 
 
 temple of peace? 
 What know you of shadows that lie in the path 
 
 of the light? 
 What of the hidden side of the mystic moon? 
 
 Sylvius 
 
 Come! Come! You are filling the golden 
 
 places 
 With dusk from your own dark eyes. What is 
 
 there but joy? 
 What is there but rapture and mirth and 
 
 laughter and light? 
 Where has the sun a shadow that does not 
 
 dance 
 
 [134] 
 
With ripples of lavender, lilac, damask, and 
 
 rose ? 
 What has the moon but a golden sphere? 
 
 Young Man 
 
 You are blind, 
 Poor Faun. In all the pattern of the earth 
 There is no tint, no color resting there. 
 It shimmers in the gateways of your eyes. 
 The rose is colorless, a mad mirage 
 Of floating loveliness, without or form 
 Or fragrance or design. Her petals are 
 The shaping of your fingertips, her breath 
 Your breath, her color rises in your eyes. 
 There is no Dawn, no Dusk, no Autumn glow. 
 No sapphire of the sea, no crimson wing, 
 No green of meadow-grass, no blazing star. 
 All is delusion, — emptiness, — delusion, — 
 emptiness. 
 
 Sylvius 
 
 Poor man. You are mad with the ways of the 
 
 world, — bruised. 
 Battered, all but slain, your finer instincts 
 Crushed from the round, sunny grapes of joy 
 Into a mass of withered, purple skins. 
 Your soul is clouded with complexities. — 
 But we shall teach you joy and mirth and sun. 
 And dancing feet and dancing ways of thought. 
 Behold! I shall summon all my Fauns! 
 [1351 
 
Young Man 
 
 No. No, good Faun, I would rather more 
 That you should summon Silence than the 
 
 Dance. 
 I would feel the holy emptiness of Silence, 
 And all the great, calm beauty of the sky 
 Encircling me. 
 
 Sylvius 
 
 Then shall we summon Silence. 
 
 [^He runs softly to the edge of the 'wood'\ 
 
 Come, Silence, slip from the vast curves of the 
 
 sky. 
 And from the spans that lie between the stars. 
 And from the silver circle of the moon. 
 Rise softly from thy couch upon the moss. 
 From all the resting shadows of the pools, 
 From shafts of cardinal-flowers, and boughs of 
 
 trees. 
 From throats of lilies on the lake and folds 
 Of fallen leaves, and mists upon the seas. 
 Come, Silence, come, from all the soundless 
 
 spaces 
 Of the earth. 
 
 [Silence emerges from the wood, a woman, 
 tall and heawtiful, clothed in a long 
 garment of grey, which trails for a long 
 space behind her. She advances with 
 slow steps towards the Young Man, who 
 falls on the ground before her, kissing 
 [136] 
 
the hem of her robe. She stands with 
 perfect stillness over him, her head 
 bowed. He gradually relaxes and lies 
 as if i/n sleep. This still poise is re- 
 tained for a full moment at least. 
 Finally Silence moves away to the wood. 
 Then the Young Man rises very quietly, 
 with the spell of Silence still hovering 
 over hinti] 
 
 Young Man 
 
 I have drunk of the motionless waters 
 
 Of silence. My soul has wandered to starless 
 
 spaces, 
 Where no light flickers and no sound enters and 
 
 no breath 
 Moves from the fragrant world. All was a 
 
 vast, white calm. 
 My senses were drawn from my body. I 
 
 became as a soul. 
 No substances beat on the hollow sphere of my 
 
 being. 
 All was as empty as sleep, or as air. It seemed 
 As if silence swept through me at first like a 
 
 stream of beauty, 
 And then like a stream of, — death. I pray 
 
 you, O Faun, 
 Bring motion again into these breathless places. 
 Man cannot dwell in the temple of silence for- 
 ever. 
 
 [137] 
 
I would feel the soft wind blow about my hair, 
 And gentle rhythm stray into my soul. 
 
 [Sylvius spins very softlif on his feet 
 twice, and waves his hand toward the 
 wood. As he speaks y a very soft tune, 
 like the rustling of leaves, arises from 
 violms'] 
 
 Sylvius 
 
 Come, Soft Wind, that wanders over earth, 
 And trips the laughing leaves, and droops the 
 
 grass, 
 And blows the perfume from the clustered 
 
 flowers, 
 
 And sprays the blue waves into whitened crests. 
 
 Come, Soft Wind, with gentle motion swayed! 
 
 [From the wood emerges a maiden, dressed 
 
 in a soft, grey, fluttering, knee-length 
 
 gown, with a grey scarf in her hands. 
 
 The Soft Wind weaves a slow, delicate 
 
 motion about the Young Man, while the 
 
 Faun watches from the sidel 
 
 The Soft Wind 
 
 I come from the perfumed vales of space, 
 On golden waves of air, 
 And waters ever sweet. 
 
 With incense in my hair. 
 And laughter in my feet. 
 From spicy pine, 
 
 [138] 
 
And scented vine, 
 
 And fragrant flower, 
 And mossy bower. 
 And freshened stream. 
 And lands of dream, 
 I shall blow the shadows away from your face ! 
 [Gradually the Soft Wind unweaves, and 
 makes her swaying way towards the 
 wood. The Young Man stands happy 
 and bewildered for a momenty then tries 
 to foUom, but Sylvius intercepts hint] 
 
 Sylvius 
 Your joy returns, O man? 
 
 Young Man 
 
 It seems a light, 
 A soft, low light as of the dawn breaks in 
 Upon my soul. 
 
 Oh, let us have more motion. 
 Faun, a lighter step, a little sound 
 Of laughter! 
 
 Sylvius 
 
 Fireflies then. The little fireflies 
 Of a summer night that carry sparks of mirth 
 Into the densest clusters of the hanging leaves. 
 Ho, fireflies, stars of the underwood ! 
 
 [He snaps his fingers and two skipping 
 figures emerge from the wood. They 
 are clad in tight jackets and knicker- 
 [139] 
 
bockers, yellow in front, brown in back. 
 They carry small electric flashlights.. 
 As they run, they give vent to light. 
 Puck-like laughter. They dance about 
 the Young Man, very lightly, in a circle, 
 flashing their lights the while. The 
 Fireflies utter one after another, in 
 bright staccato, these little phrases, as 
 they dance'] 
 
 Fireflies 
 
 Sparkle ! 
 Twinkle! 
 
 Light o' feet! 
 Fairy-fleet ! 
 Make a star ! 
 Glitter here! 
 Flash a-far 
 Flash a-near! 
 Touch a leaf! 
 Brighten grief! 
 
 Pierce the shower ! 
 Firefly! 
 
 Flicker by! 
 
 [It is seen that the Young Man begins to 
 move his feet a little, as if in unconscious 
 response. The Faun motions to the 
 Fireflies, and they disappear suddenly 
 into the wood] 
 
 [140] 
 
Young Man 
 
 More! More, magic Faun! My blood 
 
 begins 
 To dance like Spring sap twinkling in the 
 
 bough ! 
 More mirth ! More sound ! The mounting life 
 
 in me 
 Tilts softly open the shut doors 
 Of all my senses for the inflow of the world. 
 
 Sylvius 
 
 Then listen, man of clay. Let all the conches 
 Of your ears be vibrant to the earth. 
 Attuned to all the hidden under-sounds, 
 The unloosed voices of the earth. Behold, 
 The world is straining with imprisoned sound! 
 The forest lifts its branches with a sunlit 
 Sound, The grass beneath our feet sings 
 
 faintly 
 Of the flower-roots tangled in its mesh, of 
 
 streams, 
 And swaying shadows and of meadow-things 
 That brush its surface lightly as they pass. 
 The very light is vocal, and the motes 
 Of air laugh as they weave their golden 
 
 maze ! — 
 Let dunes and waves reveal their minstrelsy. 
 
 [He leaps into the air, summoning the 
 spirits of the dimes and the sea from the 
 woods. There rtish from the woods 
 [141] 
 
four maidens clad in longy sand-colored 
 goitms, with green girdles about their 
 maists. On their feet are sandals. In 
 their girdles are sprays of sword-grass. 
 They wave above their heads soft 
 scarves. Their hair flies behind them. 
 Back of them are four other maidens in 
 short f very full indigo-blue dresses. 
 About their shoulders clvngs a mass of 
 foamy white scarf -material. They also 
 carry white scarves. Immediately upon 
 the svmvmons of the Faun, the maidens 
 emerge and burst into speech. They 
 svng or say as they advance^ 
 
 Dune-Maldens 
 
 Sing of the pour of the sunlight 
 On the golden slopes of sand. 
 
 Wave-Maidens 
 
 Sing of the blue of the waters 
 Caught from the blue of the dome. 
 
 Dune-Maidens 
 
 Sing of the sweep of the sea-winds 
 That gather us up from the strand. 
 
 Wave-Maidens 
 
 Sing of the wings of the sea-gulls 
 That dip through the bubbles of foam. 
 [142] 
 
Dune-Maidens 
 
 Sing of the willows and grasses 
 That touch us with soft delight. 
 
 Wave-Maidens 
 
 Sing of the sun on the spray-crests 
 That flashes with multiple fire! 
 
 Dune-Maidens 
 
 Sing of the desert silence 
 That covers us day and night. 
 
 Wave-Maidens 
 
 Sing of the motion and laughter 
 
 That ruffles our waves to desire 1 
 
 [^They cease singing and continue their 
 separate rhythmic movement on the 
 woodland path. Then the Waves, lift- 
 ing their mhite scarves over the Dunes, 
 pass by them, performing a running 
 daU'ce in front of them, while the Dunes 
 stand erect and silent. Presently the 
 Waves turn and leap into the air before 
 the Dunes, tossing their white scarves 
 high. The Dunes became active, an- 
 swering to the onrush and leap high in 
 response, fluttering their sand-colored 
 scarves. The Waves gradually subside 
 lower and lower, the Dunes slowly drop 
 down their scarves and lessen their mad 
 [143] 
 
dance to the former swaying movement. 
 The Waves break through their line 
 again and dance away into the woodSy 
 the Dunes following. The Young Man 
 leaps after the retreating flgureSy then 
 turns and shouts'] 
 
 Young Man 
 
 The joy has mounted to m}^ soul, and puts 
 
 forth 
 Flowers and leaves. 'Twill bourgeon to the 
 
 clouds ! — 
 O Faun, bring forth the essence of the woods, 
 The veriest, maddest joy that all the world 
 Contains ! 
 
 Sylvius 
 
 My Fauns, my Fauns are symbols of mad joy. 
 The joy that dwells in Nature, and that man 
 Has long forgot, the joy of growing things 
 And singing things, and things that leap and 
 
 dance 
 Within the sunlit air, without a trace of grief, 
 Without a stain of pride or vanity 
 Or all the mad complexities and false 
 Emotions of the little tribe of men. 
 Free, free and glad, and pure as floating air. 
 Glad even to die, with song upon the lips. 
 As birds that drop with music to the earth, and 
 
 lose 
 Their little dream among the flowers. — Glad, 
 [144] 
 
Glad as sunlight and as Life itself ! 
 Come. Come, my Fauns, from all the wood- 
 land ways ! 
 
 [The Fauns and Nymphs rush madly 
 from the woods. Sylvius joins them. 
 They circle about the Young Man] 
 
 Fauns and Nymphs 
 
 We leap, we leap through the shining air, 
 And through the floods of light. 
 The winds spread out our flying hair. 
 And lash us on to flight! 
 
 We run, we run in the showering rain. 
 
 And drink the melted skies. 
 
 And then when the rainbow caps the rain, 
 
 We dance with the butterflies. 
 
 [The Fauns and Nymphs open out into 
 a wide crescent back of the Young Man. 
 They move rhythmically from side to 
 side, while Sylvia skips forward, bends 
 low before the Young Man, sways 
 lightly before him, and addresses to him 
 the following^ 
 
 Sylvia 
 
 Hast thou ever lain along a bough. 
 And cooled the sunlight on thy brow, 
 And brushed a passing robin's wing, 
 And heard the peopled orchard sing? 
 [14f5] 
 
Hast thou ever crouched in columbine, 
 On some green hill-slope's soft incline, 
 And felt the earth around thee grow. 
 And life and beauty through thee flow? 
 
 Hast thou ever in the night 
 
 Bent above a flowering spray 
 
 And waited for the moon's white light 
 
 To fill the star-endrifted way? 
 
 Hast thou ever come to dream 
 
 Far from flaming town and mart, 
 
 By a little, simple stream. 
 
 And found the Universe's heart? 
 
 [Sylvia returns to the Nymphs and 
 Fauns, and they circle anew about the 
 Young Man. He has raised his hand 
 to his forehead, as if overwhelmed with 
 a new sense of heaiity'] 
 
 Fauns and Nymphs 
 
 We vault, we vault like the bounding deer 
 
 Over the rocks and trees ! 
 We follow the streams where the water is clear, 
 And wade to our sun-browned knees. 
 
 [The Young Man, able to contain himself 
 no longer, cries out, as they dance'\ 
 
 Young Man 
 Oh joy of laughter and of light, 
 [146] 
 
Of leaping limbs and starry flight, 
 Of windy dances, fetter-free. 
 And souls brimful of ecstasy ! 
 O Fauns, take me into your throng 
 And fill the planet with your song ! 
 
 \^He leaps mto their midst and joins their 
 wheeling circle, hand in hand^] 
 
 Fauns and Nymphs and Young Man 
 
 We dive, we dive through the foaming spray, 
 
 And down the slopes of sea! 
 We capture the stars at the end of day. 
 
 And sleep where the shadows be. 
 
 We bound, we bound and brush the flowers, 
 And pluck the fruit on the bough. 
 
 We weave a garland of petaled hours 
 From the living leaves of Now. 
 
 We dance, we dance in the golden night. 
 
 And spring to the stars of the sky. 
 We laugh, we laugh till the stars take flght 
 And the flowering earth shall die ! — 
 And the flowering earth shall die. 
 
 [The sound of a hell is heard from the 
 direction of the city. The Fauns a/nd 
 Nymphs, with half -startled glances, 
 break the circle quietly. The Young 
 Man separates himself from the group, 
 listens for a moment with an expression 
 [147] 
 
changing from perplexity to the calm- 
 ness of decision^ 
 
 Young Man 
 
 I must return again. My soul cries out 
 
 For human faces and for human hands, 
 
 Men's yearning eyes, their seeking feet, the 
 
 shadows 
 Of their doors, the windings of their streets, 
 The sad-glad music of their life. — But oh, 
 The walls ! — I shall not help to build the walls. 
 [The Fauns and Nymphs run over softly, 
 capture the hag of stones which still 
 lies upon the ground, begin to pelt each 
 other lightly, and run off in this way 
 into the woods^ 
 There are too many walls twixt soul and star, 
 Too many walls twixt soul and soul ! I shall 
 Return with all the wonder thou hast poured 
 Into my being, — silence, dreams and dancing. 
 Stars and seas and dunes, and strike a gate- 
 way 
 Through the walls ! 
 
 Farewell, exultant Faun. 
 
 Sylvius 
 
 Farewell, O man, and let the dancing tingle 
 In your blood, and let the great, white stars 
 Glow in your soul, until your little dream 
 Be folded in the earth. — 
 [148] 
 
Young Man 
 
 Till then, O Faun, 
 I shall have life in all its wonderment. 
 No walls of living shall shut in my soul. 
 My brothers build and build and build, — 
 
 customs, 
 Mad desires, machinery, gear. 
 Trappings, wealth, complexity, — for what? 
 They know not, but they build. 
 
 And all the while 
 Life stands afar and summons them 
 Out into the broad, white fields of space. — 
 
 O Faun, I go to strike a sudden gateway 
 Through the walls, between the tight, blind 
 
 stones. 
 Into the open causeway of the stars ! 
 
 [The Faun gives a gesture of farewell, 
 turns and runs away into the woods, 
 left. The Young Man walks down the 
 path, right, towards the city] 
 
 [149] 
 
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