ROSES AND REBELLIO>f ROBERT DeCAMP LELAND Roses and Rebellion ROSES AND REBELLION By Robert DeCamp Leland 11 BOSTON The Four Seas Company 1917 Copyright, 1917, by The Four Seas Company MAR -6 1918 The Four Seas Press Boston Mass., U. S. A. ©CI.A481926 Roses and Rebellion ETHICS Vagabond lips and vagabond hearts- — You and I, dear, Troubled about the traffic of the world As a bird is troubled to sing. Vagabonds down the road of life, With a glad song on our lips. And rebellion in our hearts. Flower of passion, Tender hands touching mine softly. Child of revolt, Red lips fast upon mine Fervently teaching youth a new measure. Beauty, beauty! To hell with all else. Qinging hands and burning kisses Under an August moon. Give me your lips, sweet, And tell me where morality has vanished. Daughter of Omar, I salute you! [7] ALLURE Elsa girl I love you this much, dear, That even when in some other best beloved's arms. And passion would have seemed to have melted memory away, I still can hear your voice, and see your eyes, and feel your arms about me; And sense again the lure and flair of you, Divine, eternal. [8] ROAD^S END Spring here in Boston — looking down from the park, and no hand in mine to lighten the haunting pathos of dying mem- ories and dying loves. A sob in my throat, thinking of the past so bright, so soon ended ; of joys and pleasures that might have been. Dreamed of, suffered for, but never realized. Across the path two lovers happy in each other, looking toward thie future with eager, confident eyes. A silent prayer that their love may not turn as bitter as did mine. His hand in hers, holding her close; her trusting eyes looking ever into his. Could they but know — perhaps they would be happy. The commonplace is al- ways happy. And God knows I did not want that. Seeking ever, but never finding — chasing the sweet chimeras of youth, all too swiftly fading. And then had romance vanished? Purchased love, minted kisses, or this, the everlasting commonplace of life : a preacher's words, a band of gold, five [9] brawling children in a parlor flat. Quarrels and kisses and the butcher to be paid. But no lamenting from the bitter truth. I will go down to Max's and drown my sorrow for a time. Glass upon glass and Edith, Edna and Gertrude spilling their small- talk in my ears — of clothes and food, of last night's ride, of petty conquests; and so an end to Romance. [lO] SARIA Glad heart, I have your picture here tonight; The one you gave me in December The day you gave yourself. That winter, once so fair, so poignant now, I Hve again this hour Reading once more the vivid beauty that was yours — The faded lines you penned beneath "Glad heart/' My heart is torn and broken At this ruin that the years have made. Life is a drifting on a storm-tossed sea — Purposeless we come, purposeless we go. The only law of years. Saria, a tear has fallen on your picture. And my heart is bitter with grief. How happy we were then, dear heart, When we fared down the road of youth And happiness. [II] MOTIF FROM MENDELSSOHN How I want you, dear. I am so lonely . . . Do you know what it is to be lonely in June, alone and friendless and all the world bright about you? If you did, I think you would come. Spring is here again, mingling its elusive beauty and sweetness with the poignant remorse of vain desires, of life without end or purpose. The birds echo it, the flowers turn it almost into tears ... I desire, I want . . . and yet . . . lonely, the inescapable loneliness of the soul . . . It is all the same — in the clamor of the city or the calm of the country . . . Won't you come, dear? I won't ask you to hold hands or take you to dances at evening and escort you home piously ... I have had all that I want here in this narrow town. I am fettered, suffocated with their smug, dreary conventions ... You will know what to do. I am all alone here for weeks. My study window is open to the light coolness of the evening, my books untouched, dusty on [12] their shelves, and my heart sad, burdened with a thousand vague regrets. Why did I ever let you go from my sight, you who have been so much to me all these years? Darling, we will be happy one in one, heart to heart, and hand in hand. Out of the sweet ecstasies of passion we'll fashion a wonder love that will live forever, glori- ously, majestically over into that world that ever stands before us, horrible, empty, pur- poseless ... I close my eyes and see you entering the room, stealing up softly to sur- prise me. Then your light step. I turn and your arms go about me tenderly. I can hear your whisper softly as of old: *'My boy, my lover." Your lips fasten madly to mine, your eyes closed and your arms tighter about me. How well we know each other. Together, you and I, all the riddles of the world fall away, all the doub tings and sorrow. And in each other we are happy. Heart of my heart, you must come . . . [13] AND ONE THERE WAS Evening and April and crowds passing by And only loneliness in my heart. Faded the bright hopes and all that we held dear Before Fate tore our souls apart And made life bitterness. Sorrow hiding in the mask of happiness, Hate where love had been. Evening and April and crowds passing by And only loneliness in my heart. [14] SYNCOPATION What do we care for rule or law or prim decorum. Life only as a means to beauty. Let us turn the temples of the puritans into dance halls and lead the surg- ing revolt of the hour. The old rules perish of dry-rot, the orchestra's playing a new fox-trot. Singing, singing, lilting along to the lure of the hour, clinging, clinging, kisses as youth's own dower. Ah, let's not argue, life w^ere far too short; a thousand creeds are born and are forgotten in half the time it takes our lips to meet. A fig for aspiration. Living and loving gayly, tasting each joy as it comes, finding a new at the pass of the old. Night. The city. Lights, laughter and song. Hand in hand from table to table. Day on the turnpike. Whirling along from tavern to tavern. Evening. Under the stars. Your hand in mine, soft, passionate whispering . . . This is the life, dear, for you and for me. And what shall we care if we part on the Us] morrow; tonight is our night, dear, damn care and damn sorrow. Oh, how I love you. Dear boy, take me novv^, dear. Kiss me, sweet. Do you love me? My heart is my vow, dear. Transport of passion, sweet daughter of Eve, dear. We're happy, this only we care or believe, dear . . . Give me the lights, the laughter and the not-to- reason-v/hy, a smile, a kiss, love hand in hand beneath an August sky. The glamour of the passing show, life vibrant, vivid, gay; a rose to care we buried there that wonder night in May . . . [i6] THEY SAY Mona mine, they're flinging our names about, Talk of the town, Little girl of the golden hair And the dancing blue, wanton eyes. They're dancing now at this latest jest — For jesting it is to us — a mirthful fancy — We who have lived and loved and suffered And rejoiced so much That all else seems trivial — Mostly their gutter-gibbering. [17] EPISODE IN AUGUST A phonograph hlting rag in the distance. You and I beneath the stars — a sob in the throat reaUzing you were no different than your sisters, that always I must follow the road alone. A falling star, the lights of the ships at sea, the surf singing at our feet, the pressure of your breast against mine, your fair lips eager for caresses. Gently I bent down, our lips met, but the old thrill had gone. I wanted to laugh softly, satiri- cally at what you thought the grandeur of passion. How insipid it all was. How ridiculous and stupid. Calling me "Dear boy'' and stroking my hair tenderly. It would end the same way. Desire and denial. Child of convention and taboo. Better a cold parting than tears of bitterness and regret . . . Well then, we would part. [i8] INDIAN SUMMER When I held you close, And you put your wan, tired face to mine So eagerly, so confidently, I wonder if you knew ... Had you but pressed your lips to mine A moment longer Smiling sweetly up at me, I should have spoken out the truth Savagely ; Wiping that smile of yours into the mire And made your little world go tumbling down about you. How much now for your fabled intuition? My love for you died Many months ago. [i9l QUEST Romance fading away tonight, heart of my heart, cherie. Lonely and desolate we go down the years when love should rule. Say it's not so, that love has cooled, that your lips are cold for kisses. Darling ! Sad is this world, bitter and futile days when love will not understand, when one tired heart gropes on in loneliness for the love that never comes . . . Looking back over the petty conquests, the purchased loves, the horrors of matrimony, searching ever, never finding the soul's true mate ; the touch of a hand in comradeship, trembling with yours at the pass of years, a heart that leaps with yours to the melody of youth . . . Rejoicing at my victories, sobbing on my shoulder at the failures . . . ever beside me . . . worshiping neither church nor fashion . . . seeking no legality to our union . . . asking no other happiness than the love of the moment — which is the only love eternal — loving me passionately, utterly, madly. [20] Stranger ever among her sisters as I am stranger among men . . . ready to fight for me savagely against all the world — though I be wrong as hell — foe to convention, brave reveler in the bright springtime of love . . . my dreams her dreams, my hopes her hopes, my sins her sins . . . Romance fad- ing away tonight, heart of my heart, cherie. [21] THE POETRY SOCIETY The long-drawn strophes of an age-worn creed, the sycophant poets strumming still the vague, the colorless, the dead. The dreary intonations cut to the classic mode, purposeless, correct, and empty as a wine- cellar at a week-end party. Breathing no vision or semblance of life, canned thought, embalmed when even Homer first took pen. Listless, correct, cold, futile things that pass for art, and still are praised by all the dolt professors. [22] NOISE Gabble, gabble from the rabble, Sibilant tongues whispering endlessly. Prating boldly, Lying eagerly. In constant unison over this-nothing and that-nothing. Babble, babble from the rabble Endlessly. [23] ILLICIA Lower the crape From the door of the house of my sorrow And let us steal down to our mansion of love — There by the river of joy and of beauty. Light all the candles in the chamber of passion, Spreading roses and incense on the coverlet. There we'll be happy, Alone with our laughter. Alone with our sinning. The walls will keep silence, and all of the glory And beauty of loving Will ne'er be recorded, Save where it is branded and stamped in our hearts. [24] FROM THE BOOK OF OMAR Put your lips up for a kiss Madly then Let passion sear us through and through — No sweeter pain than that. Your arms go tighter, your heart beats faster, Chimed to mine, Vernia. The years pass quickly — kiss me, sweet — And all that we have learned to love Will pass its way as dust to dust. . . Ah love, that's better, fevered lips. Scarlet burning on my cheek, flash of eyes, Touch of hands, heart to heart and breast to breast, Madly then. [25] YOUTH: BIBLIOGRAPHY And must life always be this drab affair, this furious trafficking for petty gold; the death of romance, beauty dull and cold; the crowning of the ugly and the passing of the fair? Youth following in the footsteps of Age, craven and beseeching; youth sycophant and humble- visaged. Is this the law of years ? Then speed revolt and sweet rebel- lion, bringing other deeds for other times. And grab at the sleek whiskers of Authority and pull them till the fossils squeal . . . Come, let us take Custom and put it on the fires of Love. Add a bit of Passion, sprinkle with Desire, and let it boil away to its heart's content. Who knows, perhaps in time it may be purged of its hypocrisy. .. And now it seem>s they have made pas- sion and love a fine thing, a thing of obste- trics and clinics, of doctors, lawyers and police; a thing to glut the papers and feed the tongues of the piazza-snipes. [26] Creatures of tradition they are, servants of what is. Youth knows not that sorrow. Youth eternally hates the sham, the law, the custom, spurning the taboos that bind and fetter; knowing but one law. Youth will be served and Age must carry the tray. I asked for romance and you gave me monogamy. I asked for love and you gave me the dead fruit of respectability. My heart hungered for beauty and you demonstrated its market value in dollars and cents. I asked for passion and you gave me ethics. But, alas, youth weaves a golden tapestry that even in the weaving is snatched away by the bitter hands of disillusion and flung into the gutter where its once radiant colors are mired and slimed with the rot of ugli- ness; and trampled upon by the savage heels of virtue and respectability. And ever the process goes on its interminable way, no matter how bright the dream that gave the pattern birth. [27] DEMOCRACY Oh, how I hate you and your petty niceties^ Your habits, customs, words and thoughts^ Defined, ordained, inevitable sun, to sun. ''And this is good, and this is bad, and Bessie told, and the papers say." These are your little all-in-alls. The drab, the barren and the mean, The little toads that crawl on earth — ''Yes, Johnny's doin' fine at school. And next week I should get that raise."' And so it goes. Each dreary fool Insensate to life's glamoured days. The smug, content, convention-bred, The miserable and sour. Twitching still to rules long dead. But proper every hour. [28] WISTARIA Ice in the river tonight and ice in my heart ; Seems but a week ago that it was May in - Enfield. Love, Youth and Spring hand in hand dov/n the Open Road, That Summer, dear, the fevered passion and the splendor of it all Forever written in my heart. Came Autumn and the slow fading of all that we held dear. Then Winter and our parting. There is ice in the river tonight And ice in my heart. [29] STREETS OF DISILLUSION Summer over. Back to the city, the city of sweet memories and remorse. The traffic swifter and noisier than ever, the ebb and flow eternal. Up and down the Avenue, searching unconsciously for the old faces, Claire, Marie, Faustine. Then it was vain, all had vanished down the years, vanished utterly and with all the poignancy of a fair day in Summer, a day that has held all the happiness of the heart but has gone its way, vagrant, elusive, hardly before we realize it or would move to hold it in its course. Faces and places and sounds and colors mingling in a vague confusion, the past be- fore my eyes as from a cinema screen . . . if only she had — ^but no, it would have proved as vain, she never knew the beauty in my soul or cared to know, the first fair wonder dream of love fading, fading away in the swift disillusion of the years. They would not listen to my songs, and she could never understand; they know not beauty in this [30] world and love is but a thing of purse. Was this the song, cherie? "Or rather put your arms about me and let us snatch our moment of joy from out the jaws of time. Sorrow vanished like a troubled dream that has too long lingered, and life forever fair..." [31] BOSTON, 1917 The hours, dear girl, that were ours will always be ours. They were ours alone, dear heart, ours to cherish and live anew till the end of time. The world can take all else. The puritans may heckle us and blow our nam.es about like spray in the wind ; we may grow old and ugly and poor and wretched. But always we will have the beauty and the glory of those hours of youth, brave revelers in a bright day that can never darken. [32] LIBRARY OF CONGRESS