THE SECOND BOOK OF MODERN VERSE. THE LITTLE BOOK OF AMERICAN POETS. THE LITTLE BOOK OF MODERN VERSE. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON AND NBW YORK THE SECOND BOOK OF MODERN VERSE THE SECOND BOOK OF MODERN VERSE A SELECTION FROM THE WORK OF CONTEMPORANEOUS AMERICAN POETS EDITED BY JESSIE B. RITTENHOUSE BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY (Cfce ffitetfibe $119$ Camhrit>0e 1919 s COPYRIGHT, IQig, BY JESSIE B. RITTENHOUSE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED FOREWORD IT was my intention, when preparing The Little Book of Modern Verse, published in 1913, to continue the series by a volume once in five years, but as it seemed inadvisable to issue one during the war, it is now six years since the publication of the first volume. In the meantime, that the series might cover the period of American poetry from the beginning, The Little Book of American Poets was edited, confined chiefly to work of the nineteenth century, but ending with a group of living poets whose work has fallen equally within our own period. This group, includ ing Edwin Markham, Bliss Carman, Edith Thomas, Louise Imogen Guiney, Lizette Woodworth Reese, and many others whose work has enriched both pe riods, was fully represented also in The Little Book of Modern Verse; and it has seemed necessary, therefore, keenly as I regret the necessity, which limits of space impose, to omit the work of all poets who have been represented in both of my former collections. Indeed the period covered by the present volume has been so prolific that it became necessary, if one would represent it with even approximate adequacy, to forego including many poets from The Little Book of Modern Verse itself, and but twenty-eight are repeated from that collection. Even with these necessary eliminations in the in terest of space for newer poets, the general scheme of the series that of small, intimate volumes that shall be typical of the period, rather than exhaustive has made it impossible to include all whose work I should otherwise have been glad to represent. vi FOREWORD While I have not hesitated, where a poet s earlier work seemed finer and more characteristic than his later, to draw upon such earlier work, in the main The Second Book of Modern Verse has been selected from poetry published since 1913, the date of my first anthology. JESSIE B. RITTENHOUSE NEW YORK September 3, 1919 #p CONTENTS Abraham Lincoln walks at Midnight. Vachel Lindsay . 157 Acceptance. Willard Wattles 26 Ad Matrem Amantissimam et Carissimam Filii in JSter- num Fidelitas. John Myers O Hara 203 After Apple-Picking. Robert Frost 185 After Sunset. Grace Hazard Conkling 86 Afternoon on a Hill. Edna St. Vincent MiUay . . 84 Afterwards. Mahlon Leonard Fisher 203 Ambition. Aline Kilmer 127 Ancient Beautiful Things, The. Fannie Stearns Davis . 128 Apology. Amy Lowell 178 April on the Battlefields. Leonora Speyer . . . 168 April North Carolina. Harriet Monroe .... 14 Atropos. John Myers O Hara 213 Autumn. Jean Starr Untermeyer 186 Autumn Movement. Carl Sandburg 188 Ballad of a Child. John G. Neihardt 124 Behind the House is the Millet Plot. Muna Lee . . 182 Berkshires in April. Clement Wood 6 Beyond Rathkelly. Francis Carlin 78 Birches. Robert Frost 91 Bitter Herb, The. Jeanne Robert Foster . . . .181 Blind. Harry Kemp 13 Blue Squills. Sara Teasdale 8 Breaking, The. Margaret Steele Anderson .... 29 Chanson of the Bells of Oseney. Cole Young Rice . . 25 Chant of the Colorado, The. Cole Young Rice . . 96 Child in Me, The. May Riley Smith 141 Chinese Nightingale, The. Vachel Lindsay ... 37 Choice. Angela Morgan 75 Cinquains. Adelaide Crapsey 206 viii CONTENTS City, The. Charles Hanson Towns 94 City Roofs. Charles Hanson Towne 55 Compensation. William Ellery Leonard .... 65 Convention. Agnes Lee Ill Cradle Song. Josephine Preston Peabody .... 121 Dark Cavalier, The. Margaret Widdemer . . . .199 Day before April, The. Mary Carolyn Davies ... 6 Days. Karle Wilson Baker 82 Death Divination. Charles Wharton Stork . . . 201 Dialogue. Walter Conrad Arensberg 180 Dilemma. Orrick Johns 31 Doors. Hermann Hagedorn 193 Dream. Anna Hempstead Branch 20 Dream of Aengus Og, The. Eleanor Rogers Cox . . 73 Dusk at Sea. Thomas S. Jones, Jr 51 Earth. John Hall Wheelock 9 Earth s Easter. Robert Haven Schavjfler . . . .169 Ellis Park. Helen Hoyt 82 Enchanted Sheepfold, The. Josephine Preston Peabody 67 Envoi. Josephine Preston Peabody 119 Evening Song of Senlin. Conrad Aiken .... 99 Exile from God. John Hall Wheelock 208 Eye-Witness. Ridgely Torrence 56 Falconer of God, The. William Rose Benet ... 30 "Feuerzauber." Louis Untermeyer 90 Fields, The. Witter Bynner 170 Fifty Years Spent. Maxwell Struthers Burt ... 93 First Food, The. George Sterling 134 Flammonde. Edwin Arlington Robinson .... 33 Flower of Mending, The. Vachel Lindsay .... 71 Four Sonnets. Thomas S. Jones, Jr 22 Francis Ledwidge. Grace Hazard Conkling . . . 167 Gift, The. Louis V. Ledoux 128 Girl s Songs, A. Mary Carolyn Davies .... 66 CONTENTS ix General William Booth Enters into Heaven. Vachel Lindsay 63 God s Acre. Witter Bynner 62 God s World. Edna St. Vincent Millay . . . .188 Good-Bye. Norreys Jephson Conor 77 Good Company. Karle Wilson Baker .... 90 Great Hunt, The. Carl Sandburg 179 Harbury. Louise Driscoll 52 Have you an Eye. Edwin Ford Piper 184 Heat. H. D 102 Hill Wife, The. Robert Frost 116 Hills of Home. Witter Bynner 209 Homeland, The. Dana Burnet 120 How much of Godhood. Louis Untermeyer . . . 134 Hrolf s Tnrall, His Song. Willard Wattles . . .144 "I am in Love with High Far-Seeing Places." Arthur Davison Ficke 74 I have a Rendezvous with Death. Alan Seeger . . 164 "I Pass a Lighted Window." Clement Wood . . .192 Idealists. Alfred Kreymborg 12 Idol-Maker prays, The. Arthur Guiterman ... 28 "If you should tire of loving me." Margaret Widdemer . 70 Indian Summer. William Ellery Leonard .... 199 In Excelsis. Thomas S. Jones, Jr 7 In the Hospital. Arthur Guiterman 27 In the Monastery. Norreys Jephson Conor . . . 191 In the Mushroom Meadows. Thomas Walsh ... 80 In Patris Mei Memoriam. John Myers O Hara . . 202 In Spite of War. Angela Morgan . . . . . 170 Interlude. Scudder Middleton 69 Interpreter, The. Orrick Johns 145 Invocation. Clara Shanafelt 20 Irish Love Song. Margaret Widdemer 194 Jerico. Willard Wattles .... 173 CONTENTS Kings are passing Deathward, The. David Morton . . 173 Lady, A. Amy Lowell 140 Last Piper, The. Edward J. O Brien . . . . .209 Lincoln. John Gould Fletcher 153 Little Things. Orrick Johns 18 Loam. Carl Sandburg 208 Lonely Burial. Stephen Vincent Benet , . . .164 Lonely Death, The. Adelaide Crapsey .... 207 Love is a Terrible Thing. Grace Fallow Norton . . 47 Love Song, A. Theodosia Garrison 119 Love Songs. Sara Teasdale 45 Lover envies an Old Man, The. Shaemas Sheel . . 69 Lynmouth Widow, A. Amelia Josephine Burr . . 54 Madonna of the Evening Flowers. Amy Lowell . . 103 Mad Blake. William Rose Benet Ill Mater Dolorosa. Louis V. Ledoux 132 Men of Harlan. William Aspinwall Bradley . . . 182 Monk in the Kitchen, The. Anna Hempstead Branch . 135 Morning Song of Senlin. Conrad Aiken .... 87 Most-Sacred Mountain, The. Eunice Tietjens ... 95 Moth-Terror. Benjamin De Casseres 212 Mould, The. Gladys Cromwell 202 Music I heard. Conrad Aiken 50 Muy Vieja Mexicana. Alice Corbin 143 Name, The. Anna Hempstead Branch 112 Narrow Doors, The. Fannie Stearns Davis . . . 191 New Dreams for Old. Cale Young Rice . . . .19 New God, The. James Oppenheim 104 Nirvana. John Hall Wheelock 195 Note from the Pipes, A. Leonora Speyer .... 83 Nun, A. Odell Shepherd 196 Of One Self-Slain. Charles Hanson Towne . . .110 Old Age. Cale Young Rice 212 Old Amaze. Mahlon Leonard Fisher 85 CONTENTS xi Old King Cole. Edwin Arlington Robinson .... 145 Old Manuscript. Alfred Kreymborg 98 Old Ships. David Morton 51 Omnium Exeunt in Mysterium. George Sterling . .211 Open Windows. Sara Teasdale 84 Orchard. H. D 101 Our Little House. Thomas Walsh 120 Overnight, a Rose. Caroline Giltinan 27 Overtones. William Alexander Percy 189 Path Flower. Olive TUford Dargan 15 Path that leads to Nowhere, The. Corinne Roosevelt Robinson 81 Patterns. Amy Lowell 105 Peace. Agnes Lee 172 Pierrette in Memory. William Griffith 204 Poets. Joyce Kilmer 26 Prayer during Battle. Hermann Hagedorn . . . 158 Prayer of a Soldier in France. Joyce Kilmer . . . 159 Prevision. Aline Kilmer 132 Provinces, The. Francis Carlin 210 Reveille. Louis Untermeyer ,29 Richard Cory. Edwin Arlington Robinson . . . 109 Road not taken, The. Robert Frost 3 Romance. Scudder Middleton 76 Rouge Bouquet. Joyce Kilmer 165 Runner in the Skies, The. James Oppenheim ... 99 Saint s Hours, A. Sarah N. Cleghorn 139 Silence. Edgar Lee Masters 196 Silent Folk, The. Charles Wharton Stork . . . .110 Slumber Song. Louis V. Ledoux 124 Smith, of the Third Oregon, dies. Mary Carolyn Davies . 162 Son, The. Ridgely Torrence 142 Song. Margaret Steele Anderson 76 Song. Adelaide Crapsey 205 Song. Edward J. O Brien ...,,,. 163 xii CONTENTS Song. Margaret Widdemer 181 Song of two Wanderers, A. Marguerite Wilkinson . 79 Songs of an Empty House. Marguerite Wilkinson . .115 Spoon River Anthology. Edgar Lee Masters . . . 148 Spring. John Gould Fletcher 4 Spring in Carmel. George Sterling 48 Spring Song. William Griffith 5 Students. Florence Wilkinson . 175 Symbol. David Morton 5 Tampico. Grace Hazard Conkling 177 "There will come Soft Rain." Sara Teasdale ... 5 Three Sisters. Arthur Davison Ficke 205 Thrush in the Moonlight, A. Witter Bynner . . .100 To a Portrait of Whistler in the Brooklyn Art Museum. Eleanor Rogers Cox 32 To Any one. Witter Bynner 172 Trees. Joyce Kilmer 12 Unknown Beloved, The. John Hall Wheelock . . .205 Valley Song. Carl Sandburg 48 Venus Transiens. Amy Lowell 72 Voyage a 1 Infini. Walter Conrad Arensberg ... 86 Wanderer, The. Zoe Akins 52 Water Ouzel, The. Harriet Monroe 97 When the Year grows Old. Edna St. Vincent Millay . 189 Where Love is. Amelia Josephine Burr .... 68 Where Love once was. James Oppenheim . . . 194 Which. Corinne Roosevelt Robinson 177 White Comrade, The. Robert Haven Schauffler . . .159 Wide Haven. Clement Wood 171 Wind Rose in the Night, A. Aline Kilmer . . . .133 Yellow Warblers. Katharine Lee Bates .... 13 You. Ruth Guthrie Harding 74 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS THANKS are due to the following publishers, editors, and individual owners of copyright for their kind per mission to include selections from the volumes enu merated below : To the estate of Edmund Brooks for a selection from " A Lark Went Singing," by Ruth Guthrie Harding. To the Century Company for selections from "Trails Sun ward," "Wraiths and Realities," and "Collected Poems" of Cale Young Rice; "Challenge" by Louis Untermeyer; "Songs for the New Age" and "War and Laughter" by James Oppenheim; and for "After Sunset" by Grace Haz ard Conkling, from the Century Magazine. To the Cornhill Company for selections from "The Divine Image," by Caroline Giltinan. To Messrs. E. P. Dutton & Co. for selections from "The Retinue, and Other Poems," by Katharine Lee Bates (copy right, 1918), "Lanterns in Gethsemane," by Willard Wat tles (copyright, 1918), and "The Earth Turns South," by Clement Wood (copyright, 1919). To Messrs. Dodd, Mead & Co. for selections from "A Masque of Poets," edited by Edward J. O Brien. To Messrs. George H. Doran Company for selections from "Joyce Kilmer: Poems, Essays and Letters," edited by Robert Cortes Holliday (copyright, 1918); "Candles That Burn," by Aline Kilmer (copyright, 1919); "The Dreamers," by Theodosia Garrison (copyright, 1917); "Fifes and Drums" (copyright, 1917); "The Roadside Fire" (copyright, 1912) and "In Deep Places" (copyright, 1914), by Amelia Jose phine Burr; "To-Day and To-Morrow" (copyright, 1916) and "World of Windows" (copyright, 1919), by Charles Hanson Towne. To The Four Seas Company for selections from "The Charnel Rose," by Conrad Aiken. To Messrs. Henry Holt & Co. for selections from "North xiv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS of Boston" and "Mountain Interval," by Robert Frost; "Chicago Poems" and " Cornhuskers," by Carl Sandburg; "These Times," by Louis Untermeyer; "Portraits and Pro tests," by Sarah N. Cleghorn; "The Factories, and Other Poems" and The Old Road to Paradise," by Margaret Widdemer; and "My Ireland," by Francis Carlin. To Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company for selections from "Rose of the Wind," by Anna Hempstead Branch; "The Singing Leaves" and "Harvest Moon," by Josephine Pres ton Peabody; "A Sister of the Wind," by Grace Fallow Nor ton; "Sea Garden," by H. D.; for the poem "Lincoln," by John Gould Fletcher, from "Some Imagist Poets, 1917"; "In the High Hills," by Maxwell Struthers Burt; "Old Christmas and Other Kentucky Tales," by William Aspin- wall Bradley; "Turns and Movies," by Conrad Aiken; "A Lonely Flute," by Odell Shepherd; "Idols," by Walter Con rad Arensberg; and to the Atlantic Monthly for the use of " The Ancient Beautiful Things" and "The Narrow Doors," by Fannie Stearns Davis. To Messrs. Harper & Bros, for selections from "Poems," by Dana Burnet, "The Mirthful Lyre," by Arthur Guiter- man, and for the poem "There Will Come Soft Rain," by Sara Teasdale, from Harper s Magazine. To Mr. B. W. Huebsch for selections from "Growing Pains," by Jean Starr Untermeyer, and " The Vaunt of Man," by William Ellery Leonard. To Mr. Mitchell Kennerley for selections from "Renas cence and Other Poems," by Edna St. Vincent Millay; "Son nets of a Portrait Painter" and "The Man on the Hill-Top," by Arthur Davison Ficke; and for the poems, "Blind," by Harry Kemp, and "The Wanderer," by Zoe Akins. To Mr. Alfred A. Knopf for selections from "Asphalt," by Orrick Johns; "Mushrooms," by Alfred Kreymborg; and "Profiles from China," by Eunice Tietjens. To the John Lane Company for selections from "Forward, March," by Angela Morgan; "Songs of the Celtic Past," by Norreys Jephson O Conor; "Singing Fires of Erin," by Eleanor Rogers Cox; and "Gardens Overseas," by Thomas Walsh. To The Macmillan Company for selections from "The Man Against the Sky," by Edwin Arlington Robinson; ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xv "General William Booth Enters into Heaven, and Other Poems," "The Congo, and Other Poems," and "The Chinese Nightingale and Other Poems," by Vachel Lindsay; "Songs and Satires" and "Spoon River Anthology," by Edgar Lee Masters; "Sword Blades and Poppy Seed," "Men, Women and Ghosts," and "Pictures of the Floating World," by Amy Lowell; "Love Songs," by Sara Teasdale; "Poems and Ballads," by Hermann Hagedorn; " The Story of Eleu- sis," by Louis V. Ledoux; "The New Day," by Scudder Middleton; "The Drums in Our Street," by Mary Carolyn Davies; and "The Quest," by John G. Neihardt. To The Midland Press for a selection from "Barbed Wire," by Edwin Ford Piper. To Mr. Thomas B. Mosher for selections from "The Voice in the Silence," by Thomas S. Jones, Jr. To Messrs. John P. Morton & Co. for selections from "A Flame in the Wind," by Margaret Steele Anderson. To The Manas Press for selections from "Verse" by Ade laide Crapsey. To Messrs. G. P. Putnam s Sons for selections from "The Shadow of yEtna," by Louis V. Ledoux. To Messrs. Small, Maynard & Co. for selections from "White Fountains," by Edward J. O Brien. To Mr. A. M. Robertson for the use of the poem, "Om nium Exeunt," by George Sterling. To Messrs. Charles Scribner s Sons for selections from "Path-Flower," by Olive Tilford Dargan; "The Children of the Night," by Edwin Arlington Robinson; "One Woman to Another" and "Service and Sacrifice," by Corinne Roosevelt Robinson; "Poems," by Alan Seeger; "Dust and Light," by John Hall Wheelock; and for the poems, "Eye- Witness," by Ridgely Torrence, and "In the Hos pital," by Arthur Guiterman, from Scribner s Magazine. To Messrs. Smith & Sale for selections from "Threnodies," by John Myers O Hara. To Messrs. Frederick A. Stokes Company for selections from "Grenstone Poems," by Witter Bynner. To Mr. Robert J. Shores for selections from "The Loves and Losses of Pierrot," by William Griffith. To Mr. James T. White for selections from "City Pastor als," by William Griffith. xvi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS To The Wilmarth Company for selections from "The Shadow Eater," by Benjamin De Casseres. To the Yale University Press for selections from "The Falconer of God" and "The Burglar of the Zodiac," by William Rose Benet; " Young Adventure " by Stephen Vincent Benet, and "Blue Smoke," by Karl Wilson Baker. To the Yale Review for the use of "Open Windows," by Sara Teasdale. To Miss Harriet Monroe, editor of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, for the use of the following selections: "Indian Sum mer," by William Ellery Leonard; "Song," "Let It Be For gotten," by Sara Teasdale; "The Mould," by Gladys Crom well; "Ellis Park," by Helen Hoyt; "Harbury," by Louise Driscoll; "Muy Vieja Mexicana," by Alice Corbin Hender son; "Hrolf s Thrall," by Willard Wattles; "Invocation," by Clara Shanafelt; "Peace" and "Convention," by Agnes Lee; "The Millet Plot," by Muna Lee; "Students," by Florence Wilkinson; "Tampico," by Grace Hazard Conk- ling; "To a Portrait of Whistler in the Brooklyn Art Mu seum," by Eleanor Rogers Cox; and "April North Caro lina" and "The Water Ouzel," by Harriet Monroe. To William Stanley Braithwaite for the use of "Spring," by John Gould Fletcher, first published in The Poetry Review of America. To Charles Wharton Stork, editor of Contemporary Verse, for "April on the Battlefields," by Leonora Speyer; "Songs of an Empty House," by Marguerite Wilkinson; and for permission to use his own poems, "Death Divination," and "The Silent Folk." To Everybody s Magazine for permission to use " A Song of Two Wanderers," by Marguerite Wilkinson, and " Old Ships," by David Morton. To the Nation for "A Note from the Pipes," by Leonora Speyer. To Mahlon Leonard Fisher, editor of The Sonnet, for the use of his poems, "Afterwards" and "Old Amaze." To the Outlook lor "The White Comrade," by Robert Haven Schaufiler. To the New Republic for "The Son," by Ridgely Torrence. To the Bellman for "The Kings are passing Deathward," by David Morton. THE SECOND BOOK OF MODERN VERSE THE ROAD NOT TAKEN Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Robert Frost SYMBOL MY faith is all a doubtful thing, Wove on a doubtful loom, Until there comes, each showery spring, A cherry-tree in bloom; ^SPRING v ^ - ^An&Gh-HstVho died upon a tree That death had stricken bare, Comes beautifully back to me, In blossoms, everywhere. David Morton SPRING AT the first hour, it was as if one said, " Arise." At the second hour, it was as if one said, "Go forth." And the winter constellations that are like patient ox-eyes Sank below the white horizon at the north. At the third hour, it was as if one said, "I thirst"; At the fourth hour, all the earth was still : Then the clouds suddenly swung over, stooped, and burst; And the rain flooded valley, plain and hill. At the fifth hour, darkness took the throne; At the sixth hour, the earth shook and the -wind cried; At the seventh hour, the hidden seed was sown; At the eighth hour, it gave up the ghost and died. At the ninth hour, they sealed up the tomb; And the earth was then silent for the space of three hours. But at the twelfth hour, a single lily from the gloom Shot forth, and was followed by a whole host of flowers. John Gould Fletcher SPRING SONG "THERE WILL COME SOFT RAIN" THERE will come soft rain and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound; And frogs in the pools singing at night, And wild plum-trees in tremulous white; Robins will wear their feathery fire Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire. And not one will know of the war, not one Will care at last when it is done. Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, If mankind perished utterly. And Spring herself when she woke at dawn, Would scarcely know that we were gone. Sara Teasdale ft SPRING SONG SOFTLY at dawn a whisper stole Down from the Green House on the Hill, Enchanting many a ghostly bole And wood-song with the ancient thrill. Gossiping on the country-side, Spring and the wandering breezes say, God has thrown Heaven open wide And let the thrushes out to-day. William Griffith BERKSHIRES IN APRIL THE DAY BEFORE APRIL THE day before April Alone, alone, I walked in the woods And I sat on a stone. I sat on a broad stone And sang to the birds. The tune was God s making But I made the words. Mary Carolyn Dames BERKSHIRES IN APRIL IT is not Spring not yet But at East Schaghticoke I saw an ivory birch Lifting a filmy red mantle of knotted buds Above the rain-washed whiteness of her arms. It is not Spring not yet But at Hoosick Falls I saw a robin strutting, Thin, still, and fidgety, Not like the puffed, complacent ball of feathers That dawdles over the cidery Autumn loam. It is not Spring not yet But up the stocky Pownal hills Some springy shrub, a scarlet gash on the grayness, Climbs, flaming, over the melting snows. It is not Spring not yet But at Williamstown the willows are young and golden, IN EXCELSIS Their tall tips flinging the sun s rays back at him; And as the sun drags over the Berkshire crests, The willows glow, the scarlet bushes burn, The high hill birches shine like purple plumes, A royal headdress for the brow of Spring. It is the doubtful, unquiet end of Winter, And Spring is pulsing out of the wakening soil. Clement Wood IN EXCELSIS SPRING! And all our valleys turning into green, Remembering As I remember ! So my heart turns glad For so much youth and joy this to have had When in my veins the tide of living fire Was at its flow; This to know, When now the miracle of young desire Burns on the hills, and Spring s sweet choristers again Chant from each tree and every bush aflame Love s wondrous name; This under youth s glad reign, With all the valleys turning into green This to have heard and seen! And Song! Once to have known what every wakened bird Has heard; Once to have entered into that great harmony Of love s creation, and to feel The pulsing waves of wonder steal BLUE SQUILLS Through all my being; once to be In that same sea Of wakened joy that stirs in every tree And every bird; and then to sing To sing aloud the endless Song of Spring! Waiting, I turn to Thee, Expectant, humble, and on bended knee; Youth s radiant fire Only to burn at Thy unknown desire For this alone has Song been granted me. Upon Thy altar burn me at Thy will; All wonders fill My cup, and it is Thine; Life s precious wine For this alone: for Thee. Yet never can be paid The debt long laid Upon my heart, because my lips did press In youth s glad Spring the Cup of Loveliness ! Thomas S. Jones, Jr. BLUE SQUILLS How many million Aprils came Before I ever knew How white a cherry bough could be, A bed of squills, how blue. And many a dancing April When life is done with me, Will lift the blue flame of the flower And the white flame of the tree. EARTH Oh, burn me with your beauty, then, Oh, hurt me, tree and flower, Lest in the end death try to take Even this glistening hour. O shaken flowers, O shimmering trees, O sunlit white and blue, Wound me, that I through endless sleep May bear the scar of you. Sara TeasdaU EARTH GRASSHOPPER, your fairy song And my poem alike belong To the dark and silent earth From which all poetry has birth; All we say and all we sing Is but as the murmuring Of that drowsy heart of hers When from her deep dream she stirs: If we sorrow, or rejoice, You and I are but her voice. Deftly does the dust express In mind her hidden loveliness, And from her cool silence stream The cricket s cry and Dante s dream; For the earth that breeds the trees Breeds cities too, and symphonies. Equally her beauty flows Into a savior, or a rose 10 EARTH Looks down in dream, and from above Smiles at herself in Jesus love. Christ s love and Homer s art Are but the workings of her heart; Through Leonardo s hand she seeks Herself, and through Beethoven speaks In holy thunderings around The awful message of the ground. The serene and humble mold Does in herself all selves enfold Kingdoms, destinies, and creeds, Great dreams, and dauntless deeds, Science that metes the firmament, The high, inflexible intent Of one for many sacrificed Plato s brain, the heart of Christ: All love, all legend, and all lore Are in the dust forevermore. Even as the growing grass Up from the soil religions pass, And the field that bears the rye Bears parables and prophecy. Out of the earth the poem grows Like the lily, or the rose; And all man is, or yet may be, Is but herself in agony Toiling up the steep ascent Toward the complete accomplishment When all dust shall be, the whole Universe, one conscious soul. Yea, the quiet and cool sod Bears in her breast the dream of God. EARTH 11 If you would know what earth is, scan The intricate, proud heart of man, Which is the earth articulate, And learn how holy and how great, How limitless and how profound Is the nature of the ground How without terror or demur We may entrust ourselves to her When we are wearied out, and lay Our faces in the common clay. For she is pity, she is love, All wisdom she, all thoughts that move About her everlasting breast Till she gathers them to rest: All tenderness of all the ages, Seraphic secrets of the sages, Vision and hope of all the seers, All prayer, all anguish, and all tears Are but the dust, that from her dream Awakes, and knows herself supreme Are but earth when she reveals All that her secret heart conceals Down in the dark and silent loam, Which is ourselves, asleep, at home. Yea, and this, my poem, too, Is part of her as dust and dew, Wherein herself she doth declare Through my lips, and say her prayer. John Hall Wheelock IDEALISTS TREES I THINK that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth s sweet flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in summer wear A nest of robins in her hair; Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree. Joyce Kilmer IDEALISTS BROTHER Tree : Why do you reach and reach? Do you dream some day to touch the sky? Brother Stream: Why do you run and run? Do you dream some day to fill the sea? Brother Bird: Why do you sing and sing? Do you dream Young Man: Why do you talk and talk and talk f Alfred Kreymborg YELLOW WARBLERS 13 BLIND THE Spring blew trumpets of color; Her Green sang in my brain I heard a blind man groping "Tap tap" with his cane; I pitied him in his blindness; But can I boast, "I see" ? V Perhaps there walks a spirit Close by, who pities me, A spirit who hears me tapping The five-sensed cane of mind Amid such unguessed glories That I am worse than blind. Harry Kemp YELLOW WARBLERS THE first faint dawn was flushing up the skies When, dreamland still bewildering mine eyes, I looked out to the oak that, winter-long, a winter wild with war and woe and wrong Beyond my casement had been void of song. And lo! with golden buds the twigs were set, Live buds that warbled like a rivulet Beneath a veil of willows. Then I knew Those tiny voices, clear as drops of dew, Those flying daffodils that fleck the blue, Those sparkling visitants from myrtle isles, Wee pilgrims of the sun, that measure miles 14 APRIL NORTH CAROLINA Innumerable over land and sea With wings of shining inches. Flakes of glee, They filled that dark old oak with jubilee, Foretelling in delicious roundelays Their dainty courtships on the dipping sprays, How they should fashion nests, mate helping mate, Of milkweed flax and fern-down delicate To keep sky-tinted eggs inviolate. Listening to those blithe notes, I slipped once more From lyric dawn through dreamland s open door, And there was God, Eternal Life that sings, Eternal joy, brooding all mortal things, A nest of stars, beneath untroubled wings. Katharine Lee Bates APRIL NORTH CAROLINA WOULD you not be in Tryon Now that the spring is here, When mocking-birds are praising The fresh, the blossomy year? Look on the leafy carpet Woven of winter s browns Iris and pink azaleas Flutter their gaudy gowns. The dogwood spreads white meshes So white and light and high To catch the drifting sunlight Out of the cobalt sky. PATH FLOWER 15 The pointed beech and maple, The pines, dark-tufted, tall, Pattern with many colors The mountain s purple wall. Hark what a rushing torrent Of crystal song falls sheer! Would you not be in Tryon Now that the spring is here? Harriet Monroe PATH FLOWER A RED-CAP sang in Bishop s wood, A lark o er Golder s lane, As I the April pathway trod Bound west for Willesden. At foot each tiny blade grew big And taller stood to hear, And every leaf on every twig Was like a little ear. As I too paused, and both ways tried To catch the rippling rain, So still, a hare kept at my side His tussock of disdain, Behind me close I heard a step, A soft pit-pat surprise, And looking round my eyes fell deep Into sweet other eyes; 16 PATH FLOWER The eyes like wells, where sun lies too, So clear and trustful brown, Without a bubble warning you That here s a place to drown. "How many miles?" Her broken shoes Had told of more than one. She answered like a dreaming Muse, "I came from Islington." " So long a tramp? " Two gentle nods, Then seemed to lift a wing, And words fell soft as willow-buds, "I came to find the Spring." A timid voice, yet not afraid In ways so sweet to roam, As it with honey bees had played And could no more go home. Her home! I saw the human lair, I heard the huckster s bawl, I stifled with the thickened air Of bickering mart and stall. Without a tuppence for a ride, Her feet had set her free. Her rags, that decency defied, Seemed new with liberty. But she was frail. Who would might note The trail of hungering That for an hour she had forgot In wonder of the Spring. PATH FLOWER 17 So shriven by her joy she glowed It seemed a sin to chat. (A tea-shop snuggled off the road; Why did I think of that?) Oh, frail, so frail ! I could have wept, But she was passing on, And I but muddled, "You ll accept A penny for a bun?" Then up her little throat a spray Of rose climbed for it must; A wilding lost till safe it lay Hid by her curls of rust; And I saw modesties at fence With pride that bore no name; So old it was she knew not whence It sudden woke and came; But that which shone of all most clear Was startled, sadder thought That I should give her back the fear Of life she had forgot. And I blushed for the world we d made, Putting God s hand aside, Till for the want of sun and shade His little children died; And blushed that I who every year With Spring went up and down, Must greet a soul that ached for her With "penny for a bun!" 18 LITTLE THINGS Struck as a thief in holy place Whose sin upon him cries, I watched the flowers leave her face, The song go from her eyes. Then she, sweet heart, she saw my rout, And of her charity A hand of grace put softly out And took the coin from me. A red-cap sang in Bishop s wood, A lark o er Golder s lane; But I, alone, still glooming stood, And April plucked in vain; Till living words rang in my ears And sudden music played: Out of such sacred thirst as hers The world shall be remade. Afar she turned her head and smiled As might have smiled the Spring, And humble as a wondering child I watched her vanishing. Olive Tilford Dargan LITTLE THINGS v THERE S nothing very beautiful and nothing very gay About the rush of faces in the town by day, But a light tan cow in a pale green mead, That is very beautiful, beautiful indeed . . NEW DREAMS FOR OLD 19 And the soft March wind and the low March mist Are better than kisses in a dark street kissed . . . The fragrance of the forest when it wakes at dawn, The fragrance of a trim green village lawn, The hearing of the murmur of the rain at play These things are beautiful, beautiful as day! And I shan t stand waiting for love or scorn When the feast is laid for a day new-born . . . Oh, better let the little things I loved when little Return when the heart finds the great things brittle; And better is a temple made of bark and thong Than a tall stone temple that may stand too long. Orrick Johns NEW DREAMS FOR OLD Is there no voice in the world to come crying, "New dreams for old! New for old!"? Many have long in my heart been lying, Faded, weary, and cold. All of them, all, would I give for a new one. (Is there no seeker Of dreams that were?) Nor would I ask if the new were a true one: Only for new dreams! New for old! For I am here, half way of my journey, Here with the old! All so old! And the best heart with death is at tourney, If naught new it is told. 20 DREAM Will there no voice, then, come or a vision Come with the beauty That ever blows Out of the lands that are called Elysian? I must have new dreams! New for old! Gale Young Rice INVOCATION O GLASS-BLOWER of time, Hast blown all shapes at thy fire? Canst thou no lovelier bell, No clearer bubble, clear as delight, inflate me Worthy to hold such wine As was never yet trod from the grape, Since the stars shed their light, since the moon Troubled the night with her beauty? Clara Shanafelt DREAM BUT now the Dream has come again, the world is as of old. Once more I feel about my breast the heartening splendors fold. Now I am back hi that good place from which my foot steps came, And I am hushed of any grief and have laid by my shame. I know not by what road I came oh wonderful and fair! DREAM 21 Only I know I ailed for thee and that thou wert not there. Then suddenly Time s stalwart wall before thee did divide, Its solid bastions dreamed and swayed and there was I inside. It is thy nearness makes thee seem so wonderful and far. In that deep sky thou art obscured as in the noon, a star. But when the darkness of my grief swings up the mid-day sky, My need begets a shining world. Lo, in thy light am I. All that I used to be is there and all I yet shall be. My laughter deepens in the air, my quiet in the tree. My utter tremblings of delight are manna from the sky, And shining flower-like in the grass my innocencies lie. And here I run and sleep and laugh and have no name at all. Only if God should speak to me then I would heed the call. And I forget the curious ways, the alien looks of men, For even as it was of old, so is it now again. Still every angel looks the same and all the folks are there That are so bounteous and mild and have not any care. But kindest to me is the one I would most choose to be. She is so beautiful and sheds such loving looks on me. FOUR SONNETS She is so beautiful and lays her cheek against my own. Back in the world they all will say, "How happy you have grown." Her breath is sweet about my eyes and she has healed me now, Though I be scarred with grief, I keep her kiss upon my brow. All day, sweet land, I fight for thee outside the goodly wall, And twixt my breathless wounds I have no sight of thee at all! And sometimes I forget thy looks and what thy ways may be! I have denied thou wert at all yet still I fight for thee. Anna Hempstead Branch FOUR SONNETS i SANCTUARY How may one hold these days of wonderment And bind them into stillness with a thong, Ere as a fleeting dream they pass along Into the waste of lovely things forspent; How may one keep what the Great Powers have sent, The prayers fulfilled more beautiful and strong Than any thought could fashion into song Of all the rarest harmonies inblent? FOUR SONNETS 23 There is an Altar where they may be laid And sealed in Faith within Its sacred care, Here they are safe unto the very end; For these are of the things that never fade, Brought from the City that is built four-square, The gifts of Him who is the Perfect Friend. THE LAST SPRING THE first glad token of the Spring is here That bears each time one miracle the more, For in the sunlight is the golden ore, The joyous promise of a waking year; And in that promise all clouds disappear And youth itself comes back as once before, For only dreams are real in April s store When buds are bursting and the skies are clear. Fair Season! at your touch the sleeping land Quickens to rapture, and a rosy flame Is the old signal of awakening; Thus in a mystery I understand The deepest meaning of your lovely name How it will be in that perpetual Spring! in THE GARDEN BEHIND the pinions of the Seraphim, Whose wings flame out upon the swinging spheres, There is a Voice that speaks the numbered years Until that Day when all comes back to Him; 24 FOUR SONNETS Behind the faces of the Cherubim, Whose smiles of love are seen through broken tears, There is a Face that every creature fears, The Face of Love no veil may ever dim. O Angels of Glad Laughter and of Song, Your voices sound so near, the little wall Can scarcely hide the trees that bend and nod; Unbar the gate, for you have waited long To show the Garden that was made for all, Where all is safe beneath the Smile of God. IV THE PATH OF THE STABS DOWN through the spheres that chant the Name of One Who is the Law of Beauty and of Light He came, and as He came the waiting Night Shook with the gladness of a Day begun; And as He came, He said : Thy Will Be Done On Earth; and all His vibrant Words were white And glistering with silver, and their might Was of the glory of a rising sun. Unto the Stars sang out His Living Words White and with silver, and their rhythmic sound Was as a mighty symphony unfurled; And back from out the Stars like homing birds They fell in love upon the sleeping ground And were forever in a wakened world. Thomas S. Jones, Jr. CHANSON OF THE BELLS OF OSENEY 25 CHANSON OF THE BELLS OF OSENfiY Thirteenth Century THE bells of Oseney (Hautclere, Doucement, Austyn) Chant sweetly every day, And sadly, for our sin. The bells of Oseney (John, Gabriel, Marie) Chant lowly, Chant slowly, Chant wistfully and holy Of Christ, our Paladin. Hautclere chants to the East (His tongue is silvery high), And Austyn like a priest Sends west a weighty cry. But Doucement set between (Like an appeasive nun) Chants cheerly, Chants clearly, As if Christ heard her nearly, A plea to every sky. A plea that John takes up (He is the evangelist) Till Gabriel s angel cup Pours sound to sun or mist. And last of all Marie (The virgin-voice of God) Peals purely, Demurely, And with a tone so surely Divine, that all must hear. 26 ACCEPTANCE The bells of Oseney (Doucement, Austyn, Hautclere) Pour ever day by day Their peals on the rapt air; And with their mellow mates (John, Gabriel, Marie) Tell slowly, Tell lowly, Of Christ the High and Holy, Who makes the whole world fair. Cole Young Rice POETS VAIN is the chiming of forgotten bells That the wind sways above a ruined shrine. Vainer his voice in whom no longer dwells Hunger that craves immortal Bread and Wine. Light songs we breathe that perish with our breath Out of our lips that have not kissed the rod. They shall not live who have not tasted death. They only sing who are struck dumb by God. Joyce Kilmer ACCEPTANCE 4> I CANNOT think nor reason, I only know he came With hands and feet of healing And wild heart all aflame. With eyes that dimmed and softened At all the things he saw, OVERNIGHT, A ROSE 27 And in his pillared singing I read the marching Law. I only know he loves me, Enfolds and understands And oh, his heart that holds me, And oh, his certain hands! Willard Wattles IN THE HOSPITAL BECAUSE on the branch that is tapping my pane A sun-wakened leaf-bud, uncurled, Is bursting its rusty brown sheathing in twain, I know there is Spring hi the world. Because through the sky-patch whose azure and white My window frames all the day long, A yellow-bird dips for an instant of flight, I know there is Song. Because even here in this Mansion of Woe Where creep the dull hours, leaden-shod, Compassion and Tenderness aid me, I know There is God. Arthur Guiterman OVERNIGHT, A ROSE THAT overnight a rose could come I one time did believe, For when the fairies live with one, They wilfully deceive. But now I know this perfect thing Under the frozen sod 28 THE IDOL-MAKER PRAYS In cold and storm grew patiently Obedient to God. My wonder grows, since knowledge came Old fancies to dismiss; And courage comes. Was not the rose A winter doing this? Nor did it know, the weary while, What color and perfume With this completed loveliness Lay in that earthly tomb. So maybe I, who cannot see What God wills not to show, May, some day, bear a rose for Him It took my life to grow. Caroline Giltinan THE IDOL-MAKER PRAYS GREAT god whom I shall carve from this gray stone Wherein thou liest, hid to all but me, Grant thou that when my art hath made thee known And others bow, I shall not worship thee. But, as I pray thee now, then let me pray Some greater god, like thee to be conceived Within my soul, for strength to turn away From his new altar, when, that task achieved, He, too, stands manifest. Yea, let me yearn From dream to grander dream! Let me not rest Content at any goal ! Still bid me spurn Each transient triumph on the Eternal Quest, Abjuring godlings whom my hand hath made For Deity, revealed, but unportrayed! Arthur Guiterman THE BREAKING 29 REVEILLE WHAT sudden bugle calls us in the night And wakes us from a dream that we had shaped; Flinging us sharply up against a fight We thought we had escaped. It is no easy waking, and we win No final peace; our victories are few. But still imperative forces pull us in And sweep us somehow through. Summoned by a supreme and confident power That wakes our sleeping courage like a blow, We rise, half-shaken, to the challenging hour, And answer it and go. Louis Untermeyer THE BREAKING (The Lord God speaks to a youth) , BEND now thy body to the common weight! (But oh, that vine-clad head, those limbs of morn! Those proud young shoulders I myself made straight! How shall ye wear the yoke that must be worn?) Look thou, my son, what wisdom comes to thee! (But oh, that singing mouth, those radiant eyes! Those dancing feet that I myself made free! How shall I sadden them to make them wise?) 30 THE FALCONER OF GOD Nay then, thou shalt! Resist not, have a care! (Yea, I must work my plans who sovereign sit! Yet do not tremble so ! I cannot bear Though I am God to see thee so submit!) Margaret Steele Anderson THE FALCONER OF GOD I FLUNG my soul to the air like a falcon flying. I said, "Wait on, wait on, while I ride below! I shall start a heron soon In the marsh beneath the moon A strange white heron rising with silver on its wings, Rising and crying Wordless, wondrous things; The secret of the stars, of the world s heart-strings, The answer to their woe. Then stoop thou upon him, and grip and hold him so!" My wild soul waited on as falcons hover. I beat the reedy fens as I trampled past. I heard the mournful loon In the marsh beneath the moon. And then with feathery thunder the bird of my desire Broke from the cover Flashing silver fire. High up among the stars I saw his pinions spire. The pale clouds gazed aghast As my falcon stoopt upon him, and gript and held him fast. DILEMMA 31 My soul dropt through the air with heavenly plun der? Gripping the dazzling bird my dreaming knew? Nay ! but a piteous freight, A dark and heavy weight Despoiled of silver plumage, its voice forever stilled, All of the wonder Gone that ever filled Its guise with glory. Oh, bird that I have killed, How brilliantly you flew Across my rapturous vision when first I dreamed of you! * Yet I fling my soul on high with new endeavor, And I ride the world below with a joyful mind. / shall start a heron soon In the marsh beneath the moon A wondrous silver heron its inner darkness fledges I I beat forever The fens and the sedges. The pledge is still the same for all disastrous pledges, All hopes resigned ! My soul still flies above me for the quarry it shall find. Wm. Rose Benet DILEMMA WHAT though the moon should come With a blinding glow, And the stars have a game On the wood s edge, 32 TO A PORTRAIT OF WHISTLER A man would have to still Cut and weed and sow, And lay a white line When he plants a hedge. What though God With a great sound of rain Came to talk of violets And things people do, I would have to labor And dig with my brain Still to get a truth Out of all words new. Orrick Johns TO A PORTRAIT OF WHISTLER IN THE BROOKLYN ART MUSEUM WHAT waspish whim of Fate Was this that bade you here Hold dim, unhonored state, No single courtier near? Is there, of all who pass, No choice, discerning few To poise the ribboned glass And gaze enwrapt on you? Sword-soul that from its sheath Laughed leaping to the fray, How calmly underneath Goes Brooklyn on her way! FLAMMONDE 33 Quite heedless of that smile Half-devil and half-god, Your quite unequalled style, The airy heights you trod. Ah, could you from earth s breast Come back to take the air, What matter here for jest Most exquisite and rare! But since you may not come, Since silence holds you fast, Since all your quips are dumb And all your laughter past I give you mine instead, And something with it too That Brooklyn leaves unsaid The world s fine homage due. Ah, Prince, you smile again "My faith, the court is small!" I know, dear James but then It s I or none at all! Eleanor Rogers Cox FLAMMONDE 1 THE man Flammonde, from God knows where, With firm address and foreign air, With news of nations in his talk And something royal in his walk, With glint of iron in his eyes, But never doubt, nor yet surprise, 1 Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from The Man against the Sky, by Edwin Arlington Robinson. Copyright, 1916, by The Macmillan Company. 34 FLAMMONDE Appeared, and stayed, and held his head As one by kings accredited. Erect, with his alert repose About him, and about his clothes, He pictured all tradition hears Of what we owe to fifty years. His cleansing heritage of taste Paraded neither want nor waste; And what he needed for his fee To live, he borrowed graciously. He never told us what he was, Or what mischance, or other cause, Had banished him from better days To play the Prince of Castaways. Meanwhile he played surpassing well A part, for most, unplayable; In fine, one pauses, half afraid To say for certain that he played. For that, one may as well forego Conviction as to yes or no; Nor can I say just how intense Would then have been the difference To several, who, having striven In vain to get what he was given, Would see the stranger taken on By friends not easy to be won. Moreover, many a malcontent He soothed and found munificent; His courtesy beguiled and foiled Suspicion that his years were soiled; FLAMMONDE 35 His mien distinguished any crowd, His credit strengthened when he bowed; And women, young and old, were fond Of looking at the man Flammonde. There was a woman in our town On whom the fashion was to frown; But while our talk renewed the tinge Of a long-faded scarlet fringe, The man Flammonde saw none of that, And what he saw we wondered at That none of us, in her distress, Could hide or find our littleness. There was a boy that all agreed Had shut within him the rare seed Of learning. We could understand, But none of us could lift a hand. The man Flammonde appraised the youth, And told a few of us the truth; And thereby, for a little gold, A flowered future was unrolled. There were two citizens who fought For years and years, and over nought; They made life awkward for their friends, And shortened their own dividends. The man Flammonde said what was wrong Should be made right, nor was it long Before they were again in line, And had each other in to dine. And these I mention are but four Of many out of many more. 36 FLAMMONDE So much for them. But what of him So firm in every look and limb? What small satanic sort of kink Was hi his brain? What broken link Withheld him from the destinies That came so near to being his? What was he, when we came to sift His meaning, and to note the drift Of incommunicable ways That make us ponder while we praise? Why was it that his charm revealed Somehow the surface of a shield? What was it that we never caught? What was he, and what was he not? How much it was of him we met We cannot ever know; nor yet Shall all he gave us quite atone For what was his, and his alone; Nor need we now, since he knew best, Nourish an ethical unrest: Rarely at once will nature give The power to be Flammonde and live. We cannot know how much we learn From those who never will return, Until a flash of unforeseen Remembrance falls on what has been. We ve each a darkening hill to climb; And this is why, from time to time In Tilbury Town, we look beyond Horizons for the man Flammonde. Edwin Arlington Robinson THE CHINESE NIGHTINGALE 37 THE CHINESE NIGHTINGALE 1 "How, how," he said. "Friend Chang," I said, "San Francisco sleeps as the dead Ended license, lust and play : Why do you iron the night away? Your big clock speaks with a deadly sound, With a tick and a wail till dawn comes round. While the monster shadows glower and creep, What can be better for man than sleep?" "I will tell you a secret," Chang replied; "My breast with vision is satisfied, And I see green trees and fluttering wings, And my deathless bird from Shanghai sings." Then he lit five fire-crackers in a pan. "Pop, pop," said the fire-crackers, "cra-cra-crack." He lit a joss stick long and black. Then the proud gray joss in the corner stirred; On his wrist appeared a gray small bird, And this was the song of the gray small bird : "Where is the princess, loved forever, Who made Chang first of the kings of men?" And the joss in the corner stirred again; And the carved dog, curled in his arms, awoke, Barked forth a smoke-cloud that whirled and broke. It piled in a maze round the ironing-place, And there on the snowy table wide Stood a Chinese lady of high degree, With a scornful, witching, tea-rose face . . . 1 Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from The Chinese Night ingale, and Other Poems, by Vachel Lindsay. Copyright, 1917, by The Macmillan Company. 38 THE CHINESE NIGHTINGALE Yet she put away all form and pride, And laid her glimmering veil aside With a childlike smile for Chang and for me. The walls fell back, night was aflower, The table gleamed in a moonlit bower, While Chang, with a countenance carved of stone, Ironed and ironed, all alone. And thus she sang to the busy man Chang : "Have you forgotten . . . Deep in the ages, long, long ago, I was your sweetheart, there on the sand Storm-worn beach of the Chinese land? We sold our grain in the peacock town Built on the edge of the sea-sands brown Built on the edge of the sea-sands brown . . . When all the world was drinking blood From the skulls of men and bulls And all the world had swords and clubs of stone, We drank our tea in China beneath the sacred spice- trees, And heard the curled waves of the harbor moan. And this gray bird, in Love s first spring, With a bright-bronze breast and a bronze-brown wing, Captured the world with his carolling. Do you remember, ages after, At last the world we were born to own? You were the heir of the yellow throne The world was the field of the Chinese man And we were the pride of the Sons of Han? We copied deep books and we carved in jade, And wove blue silks in the mulberry shade . . ." THE CHINESE NIGHTINGALE 39 "I remember, I remember That Spring came on forever, That Spring came on forever," Said the Chinese nightingale. My heart was filled with marvel and dream, Though I saw the western street-lamps gleam, Though dawn was bringing the western day, Though Chang was a laundryman ironing^ away . . . Mingled there with the streets and alleys, The railroad-yard and the clock-tower bright, Demon clouds crossed ancient valleys; Across wide lotus-ponds of light I marked a giant firefly s flight. And the lady, rosy-red, Flourished her fan, her shimmering fan, Stretched her hand toward Chang, and said: "Do you remember, Ages after, Our palace of heart-red stone? Do you remember The little doll-faced children With their lanterns full of moon-fire, That came from all the empire Honoring the throne? The loveliest fte and carnival Our world had ever known? The sages sat about us With their heads bowed in their beards, With proper meditation on the sight. Confucius was not born; We lived in those great days 40 THE CHINESE NIGHTINGALE Confucius later said were lived aright . . . And this gray bird, on that day of spring, With a bright-bronze breast, and a bronze-brown wing, Captured the world with his carolling. Late at night his tune was spent. Peasants, Children, Homeward went, And then the bronze bird sang for you and me. We walked alone. Our hearts were high and free. I had a silvery name, I had a silvery name, I had a silvery name do you remember The name you cried beside the tumbling sea?" Chang turned not to the lady slim He bent to his work, ironing away; But she was arch, and knowing and glowing, And the bird on his shoulder spoke for him. "Darling . . . darling . . . darling . . . darling ..." Said the Chinese nightingale. The great gray joss on a rustic shelf, Rakish and shrewd, with his collar awry, Sang impolitely, as though by himself, Drowning with his bellowing the nightingale s cry: "Back through a hundred, hundred years Hear the waves as they climb the piers, Hear the howl of the silver seas, Hear the thunder. Hear the gongs of holy China THE CHINESE NIGHTINGALE 41 How the waves and tunes combine In a rhythmic clashing wonder, Incantation old and fine: Dragons, dragons, Chinese dragons, Red fire-crackers, and green fire-crackers, And dragons, dragons, Chinese dragons. " Then the lady, rosy-red, Turned to her lover Chang and said : "Dare you forget that turquoise dawn, When we stood in our mist-hung velvet lawn, And worked a spell this great joss taught Till a God of the Dragons was charmed and caught? From the flag high over our palace home He flew to our feet in rainbow-foam A king of beauty and tempest and thunder Panting to tear our sorrows asunder: A dragon of fair adventure and wonder. We mounted the back of that royal slave With thoughts of desire that were noble and grave. We swam down the shore to the dragon-mountains, We whirled to the peaks and the fiery fountains. To our secret ivory house we were borne. We looked down the wonderful wing-filled regions Where the dragons darted in glimmering legions. Right by my breast the nightingale sang; The old rhymes rang in the sunlit mist That we this hour regain Song-fire for the brain. When my hands and my hair and my feet you kissed, When you cried for your heart s new pain, What was my name in the dragon-mist, In the rings of rainbowed rain?" 42 THE CHINESE NIGHTINGALE "Sorrow and love, glory and love, * Said the Chinese nightingale. "Sorrow and love, glory and love," Said the Chinese nightingale. And now the joss broke in with his song: "Dying ember, bird of Chang, Soul of Chang, do you remember? Ere you returned to the shining harbor There were pirates by ten thousand Descended on the town In vessels mountain-high and red and brown, Moon-ships that climbed the storms and cut the skies. On their prows were painted terrible bright eyes. But I was then a wizard and a scholar and a priest; I stood upon the sand; With lifted hand I looked upon them And sunk their vessels with my wizard eyes, And the stately lacquer-gate made safe again. Deep, deep below the bay, the sea-weed and the spray, Embalmed in amber every pirate lies, Embalmed hi amber every pirate lies." Then this did the noble lady say : "Bird, do you dream of our home-coming day When you flew like a courier on before From the dragon-peak to our palace-door, And we drove the steed in your singing path The ramping dragon of laughter and wrath: And found our city all aglow, THE CHINESE NIGHTINGALE 43 And knighted this joss that decked it so? There were golden fishes in the purple river And silver fishes and rainbow fishes. There were golden junks in the laughing river. And silver junks and rainbow junks: There were golden lilies by the bay and river, And silver lilies and tiger-lilies, And tinkling wind-bells in the gardens of the town By the black-lacquer gate Where walked in state The kind king Chang And his sweetheart mate . . . With his flag-born dragon And his crown of pearl . . . and . . . jade, And his nightingale reigning in the mulberry shade, And sailors and soldiers on the sea-sands brown, And priests who bowed them down to your song By the city called Han, the peacock town, By the city called Han, the nightingale town, The nightingale town." Then sang the bird, so strangely gay, Fluttering, fluttering, ghostly and gray, A vague, unravelling, final tune, Like a long unwinding silk cocoon; Sang as though for the soul of him Who ironed away in that bower dim : "I have forgotten Your dragons great, Merry and mad and friendly and bold. Dim is your proud lost palace-gate. 44 THE CHINESE NIGHTINGALE I vaguely know There were heroes of old, Troubles more than the heart could hold, There were wolves in the woods Yet lambs in the fold, Nests in the top of the almond tree . . . The evergreen tree . . . and the mulberry tree . . . Life and hurry and joy forgotten, Years on years I but half -remember . . . Man is a torch, then ashes soon, May and June, then dead December, Dead December, then again June. Who shall end my dream s confusion? Life is a loom, weaving illusion . . ; I remember, I remember There were ghostly veils and laces . . . In the shadowy bowery places . . . With lovers ardent faces Bending to one another, Speaking each his part. They infinitely echo In the red cave of my heart. Sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart, They said to one another. They spoke, I think, of perils past. They spoke, I think, of peace at last. One thing I remember: Spring came on forever, Spring came on forever," Said the Chinese nightingale. Vachel Lindsay LOVE SONGS 45 LOVE SONGS COME 1 COME, when the pale moon like a petal Floats in the pearly dusk of Spring, Come with arms outstretched to take me, Come with lips that long to cling. Come, for life is a frail moth flying, Caught in the web of the years that pass, And soon we two, so warm and eager, Will be as the gray stones in the grass. MESSAGE l I HEARD a cry in the night, A thousand miles it came, Sharp as a flash of light, My name, my name! It was your voice I heard, You waked and loved me so I send you back this word, I know, I know! MOODS l I AM the still rain falling, Too tired for singing mirth Oh, be the green fields calling, Oh, be for me the earth! * Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from Love Songs, by Sara Teaadale. Copyright, 1917, by The Macmillan Company. 46 LOVE SONGS . I am the brown bird pining To leave the nest and fly Oh, be the fresh cloud shining, Oh, be for me the sky! NIGHT SONG AT AMALFI 1 I ASKED the heaven of stars What I should give my love It answered me with silence, Silence above. I asked the darkened sea Down where the fishers go It answered me with silence, Silence below. Oh, I could give him weeping, Or I could give him song But how can I give silence My whole life long? SONG LET it be forgotten as a flower is forgotten, Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold, Let it be forgotten forever and ever, Time is a kind friend, he will make us old. If any one asks, say it was forgotten Long and long ago, As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall In a long forgotten snow. Sara Teasdale 1 Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from Love Songt, by Sara Teasdale. Copyright, 1917, by the Macmillan Company. LOVE IS A TERRIBLE THING 47 LOVE IS A TERRIBLE THING I WENT out to the farthest meadow, I lay down in the deepest shadow; And I said unto the earth, "Hold me," And unto the night, "O enfold me," | And unto the wind petulantly I cried, "You know not for you are free!" And I begged the little leaves to lean Low and together for a safe screen; Then to the stars I told my tale : "That is my home-light, there in the vale, "And 0, I know that I shall return, But let me lie first mid the unfeeling fern. "For there is a flame that has blown too near, And there is a name that has grown too dear, And there is a fear ..." And to the still hills and cool earth and far sky I made moan, "The heart in my bosom is not my own! "0 would I were free as the wind on wing; Love is a terrible thing!" Grace Fallow Norton 48 SPRING IN CARMEL VALLEY SONG YOUR eyes and the valley are memories. Your eyes fire and the valley a bowl. It was here a moonrise crept over the timberline. It was here we turned the coffee cups upside down. And your eyes and the moon swept the valley. I will see you again to-morrow. I will see you again in a million years. I will never know your dark eyes again. These are three ghosts I keep. These are three sumach-red dogs I run with. All of it wraps and knots to a riddle : I have the moon, the timberline, and you. All three are gone and I keep all three. Carl Sandburg SPRING IN CARMEL O ER Carmel fields in the springtime the sea-gulls follow the plow. White, white wings on the blue above ! White were your brow and breast, O Love ! But I cannot see you now. Tireless ever the Mission swallow Dips to meadow and poppied hollow; Well for her mate that he can follow, As the buds are on the bough. By the woods and waters of Carmel the lark is glad in the sun. Harrow! Harrow! Music of God! SPRING IN CARMEL 49 Near to your nest her feet have trod Whose journeyings are done. Sing, O lover! I cannot sing. Wild and sad are the thoughts you bring. Well for you are the skies of spring, And to me all skies are one. In the beautiful woods of Carmel an iris bends to the wind. O thou far-off and sorrowful flower! Rose that I found in a tragic hour! Rose that I shall not find! Petals that fell so soft and slowly, Fragrant snows on the grasses lowly, Gathered now would I call you holy Ever to eyes once blind. In the pine-sweet valley of Carmel the cream- cups scatter in foam. Azures of early lupin there! Now the wild lilac floods the air Like a broken honey-comb. So could the flowers of Paradise Pour their souls to the morning skies; So like a ghost your fragrance lies On the path that once led home. On the emerald hills of Carmel the spring and winter have met. Here I find in a gentled spot The frost of the wild forget-me-not* And I cannot forget. 50 MUSIC I HEARD Heart once light as the floating feather Borne aloft in the sunny weather, Spring and winter have come together Shall you and she meet yet? On the rocks and beaches of Carmel the surf is mighty to-day. Breaker and lifting billow call To the high, blue Silence over all With the word no heart can say. Time-to-be, shall I hear it ever? Time-that-is, with the hands that sever, Cry all words but the dreadful "Never"! And name of her far away. George Sterling MUSIC I HEARD Music I heard with you was more than music, And bread I broke with you was more than bread; Now that I am without you, all is desolate; All that was once so beautiful is dead. Your hands once touched this table and this silver, And I have seen your fingers hold this glass. These things do not remember you, beloved, And yet your touch upon them will not pass. For it was in my heart you moved among them, And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes; And in my heart they will remember always, They knew you once, O beautiful and wise. Conrad Aiken OLD SHIPS 51 DUSK AT SEA TO-NIGHT eternity alone is near: The sea, the sunset, and the darkening blue; Within their shelter is no space for fear, Only the wonder that such things are true. The thought of you is like the dusk at sea Space and wide freedom and old shores left far, The shelter of a lone immensity Sealed by the sunset and the evening star. Thomas S. Jones, Jr. OLD SHIPS THERE is a memory stays upon old ships, A weightless cargo in the musty hold, Of bright lagoons and prow-caressing lips, Of stormy midnights, and a tale untold. They have remembered islands in the dawn, And windy capes that tried their slender spars, And tortuous channels where their keels have gone, And calm blue nights of stillness and the stars. Ah, never think that ships forget a shore, Or bitter seas, or winds that made them wise; There is a dream upon them, evermore; And there be some who say that sunk ships rise To seek familiar harbors in the night, Blowing in mists, their spectral sails like light. David Morton 52 HARBURY THE WANDERER THE ships are lying in the bay, The gulls are swinging round their spars; My soul as eagerly as they Desires the margin of the stars. So much do I love wandering, So much I love the sea and sky, That it will be a piteous thing In one small grave to lie. Zoe Akins HARBURY ALL the men of Harbury go down to the sea in ships, The wind upon their faces, the salt upon their lips. The little boys of Harbury when they are laid to sleep, Dream of masts and cabins and the wonders of the deep. The women-folk of Harbury have eyes like the sea, Wide with watching wonder, deep with mystery. I met a woman: "Beyond the bar," she said, "Beyond the shallow water where the green lines spread, "Out beyond the sand-bar and the white spray, My three sons wait for the Judgment Day." HARBURY 53 I saw an old man who goes to sea no more, Watch from morn till evening down on the shore. "The sea s a hard mistress," the old man said; "The sea is always hungry and never full fed. "The sea had my father and took my son from me Sometimes I think I see them, walking on the sea! "I d like to be in Harbury on the Judgment Day, When the word is spoken and the sea is wiped away, "And all the drowned fisher boys, with sea-weed in their hair, Rise and walk to Harbury to greet the women there. "I d like to be in Harbury to see the souls arise, Son and mother hand in hand, lovers with glad eyes. "I think there would be many who would turn and look with me, Hoping for another glimpse of the cruel sea! "They tell me that in Paradise the fields are green and still, With pleasant flowers everywhere that all may take who will, "And four great rivers flowing from out the Throne of God That no one ever drowns in and souls may cross dry- shod. \ 54 A LYNMOUTH WIDOW "I think among those wonders there will be men like me, Who miss the old salt danger of the singing sea. "For in my heart, like some old shell, inland, safe and dry, Any one who harks will still hear the sea cry." Louise Driscoll A LYNMOUTH WIDOW HE was straight and strong, and his eyes were blue As the summer meeting of sky and sea, And the ruddy cliffs had a colder hue Than flushed his cheek when he married me. We passed the porch where the swallows breed, We left the little brown church behind, And I leaned on his arm, though I had no need, Only to feel him so strong and kind. One thing I never can quite forget; It grips my throat when I try to pray The keen salt smell of a drying net That hung on the churchyard wall that day. He would have taken a long, long grave A long, long grave, for he stood so tall . . . Oh, God, the crash of a breaking wave, And the smell of the nets on the churchyard wall! Amelia Josephine Burr CITY ROOFS 55 CITY ROOFS ROOF-TOPS, roof-tops, what do you cover? Sad folk, bad folk, and many a glowing lover; Wise people, simple people, children of despair Roof-tops, roof-tops, hiding pain and care. Roof-tops, roof-tops, O what sin you re knowing, While above you in the sky the white clouds are blowing; While beneath you, agony and dolor and grim strife Fight the olden battle, the olden war of Life. Roof-tops, roof-tops, cover up their shame Wretched souls, prisoned souls too piteous to name; Man himself hath built you all to hide away the stars Roof-tops roof-tops, you hide ten million scars. Roof-tops, roof-tops, well I know you cover Many solemn tragedies and many a lonely lover; But ah, you hide the good that lives in the throbbing city Patient wives, and tenderness, forgiveness, faith, and pity. Roof-tops, roof -tops, this is what I wonder: You are thick as poisonous plants, thick the people under; Yet roofless, and homeless, and shelterless they roam, The driftwood of the town who have no roof-top and no home! Charles Hanson Towne 56 EYE-WITNESS EYE-WITNESS DOWN by the railroad in a green valley By dancing water, there he stayed awhile Singing, and three men with him, listeners, All tramps, all homeless reapers of the wind, Motionless now and while the song went on Transfigured into mages thronged with visions; There with the late light of the sunset on them And on clear water spinning from a spring Through little cones of sand dancing and fading, Close beside pine woods where a hermit thrush Cast, when love dazzled him, shadows of music That lengthened, fluting, through the singer s pauses While the sure earth rolled eastward bringing stars Over the singer and the men that listened There by the roadside, understanding all. A train went by but nothing seemed to be changed. Some eye at a car window must have flashed From the plush world inside the glassy Pullman, Carelessly bearing off the scene forever, With idle wonder what the men were doing, Seeing they were so strangely fixed and seeing Torn papers from their smeary dreary meal Spread on the ground with old tomato cans Muddy with dregs of lukewarm chicory, Neglected while they listened to the song. And while he sang the singer s face was lifted, And the sky shook down a soft light upon him Out of its branches where like fruits there were Many beautiful stars and planets moving, With lands upon them, rising from their seas, EYE-WITNESS 57 Glorious lands with glittering sands upon them, With soils of gold and magic mould for seeding, The shining loam of lands afoam with gardens On mightier stars with giant rains and suns There in the heavens; but on none of all Was there ground better than he stood upon: There was no world there in the sky above him Deeper in promise than the earth beneath him Whose dust had flowered up in him the singer And three men understanding every word. The Tramp Sings: I will sing, I will go, and never ask me "Why?" I was born a rover and a passer-by. I seem to myself like water and sky, A river and a rover and a passer-by. But in the winter three years back We lit us a night fire by the track, And the snow came up and the fire, it flew And we could n t find the warming room for two. One had to suffer, so I left him the fire And I went to the weather from my heart s desire. It was night on the line, it was no more fire, But the zero whistle through the icy wire. As I went suffering through the snow Something like a shadow came moving slow. 58 EYE-WITNESS I went up to it and I said a word; Something flew above it like a kind of bird. I leaned in closer and I saw a face; A light went round me but I kept my place. My heart went open like an apple sliced; I saw my Saviour and I saw my Christ. Well, you may not read it in a book, But it takes a gentle Saviour to give a gentle look. I looked in his eyes and I read the news; His heart was having the railroad blues. Oh, the railroad blues will cost you dear, Keeps you moving on for something that you don t see here. We stood and whispered in a kind of moon; The line was looking like May and June. I found he was a roamer and a journey man Looking for a lodging since the night began. He went to the doors but he did n t have the pay. He went to the windows, then he went away. Says, "We ll walk together and we ll both be fed." Says, "I will give you the other bread." Oh, the bread he gave and without money! O drink, O fire, O burning honey ! EYE-WITNESS 59 It went all through me like a shining storm: I saw inside me, it was light and warm. I saw deep under and I saw above, I saw the stars weighed down with love. They sang that love to burning birth, They poured that music to the earth. I heard the stars sing low like mothers. He said: "Now look, and help feed others." I looked around, and as close as touch Was everybody that suffered much. They reached out, there was darkness only; They could not see us, they were lonely. I saw the hearts that deaths took hold of, With the wounds bare that were not told of; Hearts with things in them making gashes; Hearts that were choked with their dreams ashes; Women in front of the rolled-back air, Looking at their breasts and nothing there; Good men wasting and trapped in hells; Hurt lads shivering with the fare-thee- wells. I saw them as if something bound them; I stood there but my heart went round them. EYE-WITNESS I begged him not to let me see them wasted. Says, "Tell them then what you have tasted." Told him I was weak as a rained-on bee; Told him I was lost. Says: "Lean on me." Something happened then I could not tell, But I knew I had the water for every hell. Any other thing it was no use bringing; They needed what the stars were singing, What the whole sky sang like waves of light, The tune that it danced to, day and night. Oh, I listened to the sky for the tune to come; The song seemed easy, but I stood there dumb. The stars could feel me reaching through them They let down light and drew me to them. I stood in the sky in a light like day, Drinking in the word that all things say Where the worlds hang growing in clustered shapes Dripping the music like wine from grapes. With "Love, Love, Love," above the pain, * The vine-like song with its wine-like rain. Through heaven under heaven the song takes root Of the turning, burning, deathless fruit. EYE-WITNESS 61 I came to the earth and the pain so near me, I tried that song but they could n t hear me. I went down into the ground to grow, A seed for a song that would make men know. Into the ground from my reamer s light I went; he watched me sink to night. Deep in the ground from my human grieving, His pain ploughed in me to believing. Oh, he took earth s pain to be his bride, While the heart of life sang in his side. For I felt that pain, I took its kiss, My heart broke into dust with his. Then sudden through the earth I found life springing; The dust men trampled on was singing. Deep in my dust I felt its tones; The roots of beauty went round my bones. I stirred, I rose like a flame, like a river, I stood on the line, I could sing forever. Love had pierced into my human sheathing, Song came out of me simple as breathing. A freight came by, the line grew colder, He laid his hand upon my shoulder. 62 GOD S ACRE Says, "Don t stay on the line such nights," And led me by the hand to the station lights. I asked him in front of the station-house wall If he had lodging. Says, "None at all." I pointed to my heart and looked in his face. "Here, if you have n t got a better place." He looked and he said: "Oh, we still must roam But if you ll keep it open, well, I ll call it home. " The thrush now slept whose pillow was his wing. So the song ended and the four remained Still in the faint starshinj that silvered them, While the low sound went on of broken water Out of the spring and through the darkness flowing Over a stone that held it from the sea. Whether the men spoke after could not be told, A mist from the ground so veiled them, but they waited A little longer till the moon came up; Then on the gilded track leading to the mountains, Against the moon they faded in common gold And earth bore East with all toward the new morning. Eidgely Torrence GOD S ACRE BECAUSE we felt there could not be A mowing in reality So white and feathery-blown and gay With blossoms of wild caraway, I said to Celia, "Let us trace The secret of this pleasant place!" GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH 63 We knew some deeper beauty lay Below the bloom of caraway, And when we bent the white aside We came to paupers who had died: Rough wooden shingles row on row, And God s name written there John Doe. Witter Bynner GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH ENTERS INTO HEAVEN l (To be sung to the tune of The Blood of the Lamb with indicated instrument) I (Bass drum beaten loudly) BOOTH led boldly with his big bass drum (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) The Saints smiled gravely and they said: "He s come." (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) Walking lepers followed, rank on rank, Lurching bravoes from the ditches dank, Drabs from the alleyways and drug fiends pale Minds still passion-ridden, soul-powers frail : Vermin-eaten saints with mouldy breath, Unwashed legions with the ways of Death (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) (Banjos) Every slum had sent its half-a-score The round world over. (Booth had groaned for more.) Every banner that the wide world flies Bloomed with glory and transcendent dyes. 1 Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from General William Booth Enters into Heaven, and Other Poems, by Vachel Lindsay. Copyright, 1913, by The Macmillan Company. 64 GENERAL WILLIAM BOOTH Big-voiced lasses made their banjos bang, Tranced, fanatical, they shrieked and sang: "Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?" Hallelujah! It was queer to see Bull-necked convicts with that land make free. Loons with trumpets blowed a blare, blare, blare, On, on upward thro the golden air! (Are you washed hi the blood of the Lamb?) II (Bass drum slower and softer) Booth died blind and still by Faith he trod, Eyes still dazzled by the ways of God. Booth led boldly, and he looked the chief, Eagle countenance in sharp relief, Beard a-flying, air of high command Unabated in that holy land. (Sweet flute music) Jesus came from out the court-house door, Stretched his hands above the passing poor. Booth saw not, but led his queer ones there Round and round the mighty court-house square. Yet in an instant all that blear review Marched on spotless, clad in raiment new. The lame were straightened, withered limbs uncurled And blind eyes opened on a new, sweet world. (Bass drum louder) Drabs and vixens in a flash made whole! Gone was the weasel-head, the snout, the jowl ! Sages and sibyls now, and athletes clean, Rulers of empires and of forests green! COMPENSATION 65 (Grand chorus of all instruments. Tambourines to the foreground) The hosts were sandalled, and their wings were fire! (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) But their noise played havoc with the angel-choir (Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?) O, shout Salvation! It was good to see Kings and Princes by the Lamb set free. The banjos rattled and the tambourines Jing-j ing- jingled in the hands of Queens. (Reverently sung, no instruments) And when Booth halted by the curb for prayer He saw his Master thro the flag-filled air. Christ came gently with a robe and crown For Booth the soldier, while the throng knelt down. He saw King Jesus. They were face to face, And he knelt a-weeping in that holy place. Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb? Vachel Lindsay COMPENSATION I KNOW the sorrows of the last abyss: I walked the cold black pools without a star; I lay on rock of unseen flint and spar; I heard the execrable serpent hiss; I dreamed of sun, fruit-tree, and virgin s kiss; I woke alone with midnight near and far, And everlasting hunger, keen to mar; But I arose, and my reward is this : 66 A GIRL S SONGS I am no more one more amid the throng : Though name be naught, and lips forever weak, I seem to know at last of mighty song; And with no blush, no tremor on the cheek, I do claim consort with the great and strong Who suffered ill and had the gift to speak. s William Ellery Leonard A GIRL S SONGS BORROWER I SING of sorrow, I sing of weeping. I have no sorrow. i I only borrow From some tomorrow Where it lies sleeping, Enough of sorrow To sing of weeping. VINTAGE Heartbreak that is too new Can not be used to make Beauty that will startle; That takes an old heartbreak. Old heartbreaks are old wine. Too new to pour is mine. THE KISS Your kiss lies on my face Like the first snow Upon a summer place. THE ENCHANTED SHEEPFOLD 67 Bewildered by that wonder, The grasses tremble under The thing they do not know. I tremble even so. FREE Over and over I tell the sky: I am free I! Over and over I tell the sea: I am free! Over and over I tell my lover I am free, free! Over and over. But when the night comes black and cold, I who am young, with fear grow old; And I know, when the world is clear of sound, I am bound bound. Mary Carolyn Davies THE ENCHANTED SHEEPFOLD THE hills far-off were blue, blue, The hills at hand were brown; And all the herd-bells called to me As I came by the down. The briars turned to roses, roses; Ever we stayed to pull 68 WHERE LOVE IS A white little rose, and a red little rose, And a lock of silver wool. Nobody heeded, none, none; And when True Love came by, They thought him naught but the shepherd-boy. Nobody knew but I! The trees were feathered like birds, birds; Birds were in every tree. Yet nobody heeded, nobody heard, Nobody knew, save me. And he is fairer than all all. How could a heart go wrong? For his eyes I knew, and his knew mine, Like an old, old song. Josephine Preston Peabody WHERE LOVE IS BY the rosy cliffs of Devon, on a green hill s crest, I would build me a house as a swallow builds its nest; I would curtain it with roses, and the wind should breathe to me The sweetness of the roses and the saltness of the sea. Where the Tuscan olives whiten in the hot blue day, I would hide me from the heat in a little hut of gray, While the singing of the husbandman should scale my lattice green From the golden rows of barley that the poppies blaze between. THE LOVER ENVIES AN OLD MAN 69 Narrow is the street, Dear, and dingy are the walls Wherein I wait your coming as the twilight falls. All day with dreams I gild the grime till at your step I start Ah Love, my country in your arms my home upon your heart! Amelia Josephine Burr INTERLUDE * I AM not old, but old enough To know that you are very young. It might be said I am the leaf, And you the blossom newly sprung. So I shall grow a while with you, And hear the bee and watch the cloud, Before the dragon on the branch, The caterpillar, weaves a shroud. Scudder Middleton THE LOVER ENVIES AN OLD MAN I ENVY the feeble old man Dozing there in the sun. When all you can do is done And life is a shattered plan, What is there better than Dozing in the sun? I could grow very still Like an old stone on a hill Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from The New Day, by Scudder Middleton. Copyright, 1919, by The Macmillan Company. 70 IF YOU SHOULD TIRE OF LOVING ME And content me with the one Thing that is ever kind, The tender sun. I could grow deaf and blind And never hear her voice, Nor think I could rejoice With her in any place; And I could forget her face, And love only the sun. Because when we are tired, Very very tired, And cannot again be fired By any hope, The sun is so comforting! A little bird under the wing Of its mother, is not so warm. Give me only the scope Of an old chair Out in the air, Let me rest there, Moving not, Loving not, Only dozing my days till my days be done, Under the sun. Shaemas Sheet IF YOU SHOULD TIRE OF LOVING ME IF you should tire of loving me Some one of our far days, Oh, never start to hide your heart Or cover thought with praise. THE FLOWER OF MENDING 71 For every word you would not say Be sure my heart has heard, So go from me all silently Without a kiss or word ; For God must give you happiness, And Oh, it may befall In listening long to Heaven-song I may not care at all! Margaret Widdemer THE FLOWER OF MENDING 1 WHEN Dragon-fly would fix his wings, When Snail would patch his house, When moths have marred the overcoat Of tender Mister Mouse, The pretty creatures go with haste To the sunlit blue-grass hills Where the Flower of Mending yields the wax And webs to help their ills. The hour the coats are waxed and webbed They fall into a dream, And when they wake the ragged robes Are joined without a seam. My heart is but a dragon-fly, My heart is but a mouse, My heart is but a haughty snail In a little stony house. 1 Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from The Chinese Nightin gale, and Other Poemt, by Vachel Lindsay. Copyright, 1917, by The Mac- 72 VENUS TRANSIENS Your hand was honey-comb to heal, Your voice a web to bind. You were a Mending Flower to me To cure my heart and mind. Vachel Lindsay VENUS TRANSIENS 1 TELL me, Was Venus more beautiful Than you are, When she topped The crinkled waves, Drifting shoreward On her plaited shell? Was Botticelli s vision Fairer than mine; And were the painted rosebuds He tossed his lady, Of better worth Than the words I blow about you To cover your too great loveliness As with a gauze Of misted silver? For me, You stand poised In the blue and buoyant air, Cinctured by bright winds, Treading the sunlight. And the waves which precede you Ripple and stir The sands at your feet. Amy Lowell i Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from Pictures of the Float ing World, by Amy Lowell. Copyright, 1919, by The Macmillan Company. THE DREAM OF AENGUS OG 73 THE DREAM OF AENGUS OG WHEN the rose of Morn through the Dawn was breaking, And white on the hearth was last night s flame, Thither to me twixt sleeping and waking, Singing out of the mists she came. And grey as the mists on the spectre meadows Were the eyes that on my eyes she laid, And her hair s red splendor through the shadows Like to the marsh-fire gleamed and played. And she sang of the wondrous far-off places That a man may only see in dreams, The death-still, odorous, starlit spaces Where Time is lost and no life gleams. And there till the day had its crest uplifted, She stood with her still face bent on me, Then forth with the Dawn departing drifted Light as a foam-fleck on the sea. And now my heart is the heart of a swallow That here no solace of rest may find, Forevermore I follow and follow Her white feet glancing down the wind. And forevermore in my ears are ringing (Oh, red lips yet shall I kiss you dumb!) Twain sole words of that May morn s singing, Calling to me "Hither"! and "Come"! From flower-bright fields to the wild lake-sedges Crying my steps when the Day has gone, 74 YOU Till dim and small down the Night s pale edges The stars have fluttered one by one. And light as the thought of a love forgotten, The hours skim past, while before me flies That face of the Sun and Mist begotten, Its singing lips and death-cold eyes. Eleanor Rogers Cox "I AM IN LOVE WITH HIGH FAR-SEEING PLACES" I AM in love with high far-seeing places That look on plains half-sunlight and half-storm, In love with hours when from the circling faces Veils pass, and laughing fellowship glows warm. You who look on me with grave eyes where rapture And April love of living burn confessed, The Gods are good! The world lies free to capture! Life has no walls. O take me to your breast! Take me, be with me for a moment s span! I am hi love with all unveiled faces. I seek the wonder at the heart of man; I would go up to the far-seeing places. While youth is ours, turn toward me for a space The marvel of your rapture-lighted face! Arthur Davison Ficke -, YOU DEEP in the heart of me, I Nothing but You! See through the art of me Deep in the heart of me CHOICE 75 Find the best part of me, Changeless and true. Deep in the heart of me, Nothing but You! Ruth Guthrie Harding CHOICE I d rather have the thought of you To hold against my heart, My spirit to be taught of you With west winds blowing, Than all the warm caresses Of another love s bestowing, Or all the glories of the world In which you had no part. I d rather have the theme of you To thread my nights and days, I d rather have the dream of you With faint stars glowing, I d rather have the want of you, The rich, elusive taunt of you Forever and forever and forever unconfessed Than claim the alien comfort Of any other s breast. O lover! O my lover, That this should come to me! I d rather have the hope for you, Ah, Love, I d rather grope for you Within the great abyss Than claim another s kiss 76 ROMANCE Alone I d rather go my way Throughout eternity. Angela Morgan SONG THE bride, she wears a white, white rose the plucking it was mine; The poet wears a laurel wreath and I the laurel twine; And oh, the child, your little child, that s clinging close to you, It laughs to wear my violets they are so sweet and blue! And I, I have a wreath to wear ah, never rue nor thorn ! I sometimes think that bitter wreath could be more sweetly worn! For mine is made of ghostly bloom, of what I can t forget The fallen leaves of other crowns rose, laurel, violet! Margaret Steele Anderson ROMANCE 1 WHY should we argue with the falling dust Or tremble in the traffic of the days? Our hearts are music-makers in the clouds, Our feet are running on the heavenly ways. 1 Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from The New Day, by Scudder Middleton. Copyright, 1919, by The Macmillan Company. GOOD-BYE 77 We ll go and find the honey of romance Within the hollow of the sacred tree. There is a spirit in the eastern sky, Calling along the dawn to you and me. She 11 lead us to the forest where she hides The yellow wine that keeps the angels young We are the chosen lovers of the earth For whom alone the golden comb was hung. Scudder Middleton GOOD-BYE GOOD-BYE to tree and tower, To meadow, stream, and hill, Beneath the white clouds marshalled close At the wind s will. Good-bye to the gay garden, With prim geraniums pied, And spreading yew trees, old, unchanging Tho men have died. Good-bye to the New Castle, With granite walls and grey, And rooms where faded greatness still Lingers to-day. To every friend in Mallow, When I am gone afar, These words of ancient Celtic hope, "Peace after war." 78 BEYOND RATHKELLY I would return to Erin When all these wars are by, Live long among her hills before My last good-bye. Norreys Jephson Conor BEYOND RATHKELLY As I went over the Far Hill, Just beyond Rathkelly, Och, to be on the Far Hill O er Newtonstewart Town! As I went over the Far Hill With Marget s daughter Nellie, The night was up and the moon was out, And a star was falling down. As I went over the Far Hill, Just beyond Rathkelly, Och, to be on the Far Hill Above the Bridge o Moyle! As I went over the Far Hill, With Marget s daughter Nellie, I made a wish before the star Had fallen in the Foyle. As I went over the Far Hill, Just beyond Rathkelly, Och, to be on the Far Hill With the hopes that I had then! As I went over the Far Hill, I wished for little Nellie, And if a star were falling now I d wish for her again. Francis Carlin A SONG OF TWO WANDERERS 79 A SONG OF TWO WANDERERS DEAR, when I went with you To where the town ends, Simple things that Christ loved - They were our friends; Tree shade and grass blade And meadows in flower; Sun-sparkle, dew-glisten, Star-glow and shower; Cool-flowing song at night Where the river bends, And the shingle croons a tune These were our friends* Under us the brown earth Ancient and strong, The best bed for wanderers All the night long; Over us the blue sky Ancient and dear, The best roof to shelter all Glad wanderers here; And racing between them there Falls and ascends The chantey of the clean winds These were our friends. By day on the broad road Or on the narrow trail, Angel wings shadowed us, Glimmering pale 80 IN THE MUSHROOM MEADOWS Through the red heat of noon; In the twilight of dawn Fairies broke fast with us; Prophets led us on, Heroes were kind to us Day after happy day; Many white Madonnas We met on our way Farmer and longshoreman, Fisherman and wife, Children and laborers Brave enough for Life, Simple folk that Christ loved They were our friends. . . . Dear, we must go again To where the town ends. . . Marguerite Wilkinson IN THE MUSHROOM MEADOWS SUN on the dewy grasslands where late the frost hath shone, And lo, what elfin cities are these we come upon! What pigmy domes and thatches, what Arab caravan, What downy-roofed pagodas that have known no touch of man ! Are these the oldtime meadows? Yes, the wildgrape scents the air; The breath of ripened orchards still is incense every where; Yet do these dawn-encampments bring the lurking memories Of Egypt and of Burma and the shores of China Seas. Thomas Walsh THE PATH THAT LEADS TO NOWHERE 81 THE PATH THAT LEADS TO NOWHERE THERE S a path that leads to Nowhere In a meadow that I know, Where an inland island rises And the stream is still and slow; There it wanders under willows And beneath the silver green Of the birches silent shadows Where the early violets lean. Other pathways lead to Somewhere, But the one I love so well Had no end and no beginning Just the beauty of the dell, Just the windflowers and the lilies Yellow striped as adder s tongue, Seem to satisfy my pathway As it winds their sweets among. There I go to meet the Springtime, When the meadow is aglow, Marigolds amid the marshes, And the stream is still and slow. There I find my fair oasis, And with care-free feet I tread For the pathway leads to Nowhere, And the blue is overhead! All the ways that lead to Somewhere Echo with the hurrying feet Of the Struggling and the Striving, But the way I find so sweet 82 ELLIS PARK Bids me dream and bids me linger, Joy and Beauty are its goal, On the path that leads to Nowhere I have sometimes found my soul ! Corinne Roosevelt Robinson ,, DAYS SOME days my thoughts are just cocoons all cold, and dull, and blind, They hang from dripping branches in the grey woods of my mind; And other days they drift and shine such free and flying things ! I find the gold-dust in my hair, left by their brushing wings. Karle Wilson Baker ELLIS PARK LITTLE park that I pass through, I carry off a piece of you Every morning hurrying down To my work-day in the town; Carry you for country there To make the city ways more fair. I take your trees, And your breeze, Your greenness, Your cleanness, Some of your shade, some of your sky, Some of your calm as I go by; A NOTE FROM THE PIPES 83 Your flowers to trim The pavements grim; Your space for room in the jostled street And grass for carpet to my feet. Your fountains take and sweet bird calls To sing me from my office walls. All that I can see I carry off with me. But you never miss my theft, So much treasure you have left. As I find you, fresh at morning, So I find you, home returning Nothing lacking from your grace. All your riches wait in place For me to borrow On the morrow. Do you hear this praise of you, Little park that I pass through? Helen Hoyt A NOTE FROM THE PIPES PAN, blow your pipes and I will be Your fern, your pool, your dream, your tree! I heard you play, caught your swift eye, "A pretty melody!" called I, "Hail, Pan!" And sought to pass you by. Now blow your pipes and I will sing To your sure lips accompanying! 84 OPEN WINDOWS Wild God, who lifted me from earth, Who taught me freedom, wisdom, mirth, Immortalized my body s worth, Blow, blow your pipes ! And from afar I 11 come I 11 be your bird, your star, Your wood, your nymph, your kiss, your rhyme, And all your godlike summer-time! Leonora Speyer AFTERNOON ON A HILL I WILL be the gladdest thing Under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers And not pick one. I will look at cliffs and clouds With quiet eyes, Watch the wind bow down the grass, And the grass rise. And when lights begin to show Up from the town, I will mark which must be mine, And then start down! Edna St. Vincent Millay OPEN WINDOWS OUT of the window a sea of green trees Lift their soft boughs like the arms of a dancer; They beckon and call me, "Come out in the sun!" But I cannot answer. OLD AMAZE 85 I am alone with Weakness and Pain, Sick abed and June is going, I cannot keep her, she hurries by With the silver-green of her garments blowing. Men and women pass in the street Glad of the shining sapphire weather; But we know more of it than they, Pain and I together. They are the runners in the sun, Breathless and blinded by the race, But we are watchers in the shade Who speak with Wonder face to face. Sara Teasdale OLD AMAZE MINE eyes are filled today with old amaze At mountains, and at meadows deftly strewn With bits of the gay jewelry of June And of her splendid vesture; and, agaze, I stand where Spring her bright brocade of days Embroidered o er, and listen to the flow Of sudden runlets the faint blasts they blow, Low, on their stony bugles, in still ways. For wonders are at one, confederate yet: Yea, where the wearied year came to a close, An odor reminiscent of the rose; And everywhere her seal has Summer set; And, as of old, in the horizon-sky, The sun can find a lovely place to die. Mahlon Leonard Fisher 86 AFTER SUNSET VOYAGE A L INFINI THE swan existing Is like a song with an accompaniment Imaginary. Across the grassy lake, Across the lake to the shadow of the willows, It is accompanied by an image, as by Debussy s "Reflets dans 1 eau." The swan that is Reflects Upon the solitary water breast to breast With the duplicity: "The other one!" And breast to breast it is confused. O visionary wedding! O stateliness of the procession! It is accompanied by the image of itself Alone. At night The lake is a wide silence, Without imagination. Walter Conrad Arensberg AFTER SUNSET I HAVE an understanding with the hills At evening when the slanted radiance fills Their hollows, and the great winds let them be, And they are quiet and look down at me. MORNING SONG OF SENLIN 87 Oh, then I see the patience in their eyes Out of the centuries that made them wise. They lend me hoarded memory and I learn Their thoughts of granite and their whims of fern, And why a dream of forests must endure Though every tree be slain : and how the pure, Invisible beauty has a word so brief A flower can say it or a shaken leaf, But few may ever snare it in a song, Though for the quest a life is not too long. When the blue hills grow tender, when they pull The twilight close with gesture beautiful, And shadows are their garments, and the air Deepens, and the wild veery is at prayer, Their arms are strong around me; and I know That somehow I shall follow when you go To the still land beyond the evening star, Where everlasting hills and valleys are: And silence may not hurt us any more, And terror shall be past, and grief, and war. Grace Hazard Conkling MORNING SONG OF SENLIN IT is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning When the light drips through the shutters like the dew, I arise, I face the sunrise, And do the things my fathers learned to do. Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die, And I myself on a swiftly tilting planet Stand before a glass and tie my tie. 88 MORNING SONG OF SENLIN Vine leaves tap my window, Dew-drops sing to the garden stones, The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree Repeating three clear tones. It is morning. I stand by the mirror And tie my tie once more. While waves far off in a pale rose twilight Crash on a white sand shore. I stand by a mirror and comb my hair: How small and white my face ! The green earth tilts through a sphere of air And bathes in a flame of space. There are houses hanging above the stars And stars hung under a sea . . . And a sun far off in a shell of silence Dapples my walls for me . . . It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning Should I not pause in the light to remember God? Upright and firm I stand on a star unstable, He is immense and lonely as a cloud. I will dedicate this moment before my mirror To him alone, for him I will comb my hair. Accept these humble offerings, cloud of silence! I will think of you as I descend the stair. Vine leaves tap my window, The snail-track shines on the stones, Dew-drops flash from the chinaberry tree Repeating two clear tones. It is morning, I awake from a bed of silence, Shining I rise from the starless waters of sleep. MORNING SONG OF SENLIN 89 The walls are about me still as in the evening, I am the same, and the same name still I keep. The earth revolves with me, yet makes no motion, The stars pale silently in a coral sky. In a whistling void I stand before my mirror, Unconcerned, and tie my tie. There are horses neighing on far-off hills Tossing their long white manes, And mountains flash in the rose-white dusk, Their shoulders black with rains . . . It is morning. I stand by the mirror And surprise my soul once more; The blue air rushes above my ceiling, There are suns beneath my floor . . . ... It is morning, Senlin says, I ascend from dark ness And depart on the winds of space for I know not where, My watch is wound, a key is in my pocket, And the sky is darkened as I descend the stair. There are shadows across the windows, clouds in heaven, And a god among the stars; and I will go Thinking of him as I might think of daybreak And humming a tune I know . . . Vine-leaves tap at the window, Dew-drops sing to the garden stones, The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree Repeating three clear tones. Conrad Aiken 90 FEUERZAUBER GOOD COMPANY TO-DAY I have grown taller from walking with the trees, The seven sister-poplars who go softly in a line; And I think my heart is whiter for its parley with a star That trembled out at nightfall and hung above the pine. The call-note of a redbird from the cedars in the dusk Woke his happy mate within me to an answer free and fine; And a sudden angel beckoned from a column of blue smoke Lord, who am I that they should stoop these holy folk of thine? Karle Wilson Baker "FEUERZAUBER" I NEVER knew the earth had so much gold The fields run over with it, and this hill, Hoary and old, Is young with buoyant blooms that flame and thrill. Such golden fires, such yellow lo, how good This spendthrift world, and what a lavish God This fringe of wood, Blazing with buttercup and goldenrod. You too, beloved, are changed. Again I see Your face grow mystical, as on that night You turned to me, And all the trembling world and you were white. BIRCHES 91 Aye, you are touched; your singing lips grow dumb; The fields absorb you, color you entire . . . And you become A goddess standing in a world of fire! Louis Untermeyer BIRCHES WHEN I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy s been swinging them. But swinging does n t bend them down to stay. Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun s warmth makes them shed crystal shells, Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves : You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm (Now am I free to be poetical?) I should prefer to have some boy bend them 92 BIRCHES As he went out and in to fetch the cows Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, Whose only play was what he found himself, Summer or winter, and could play alone. One by one he subdued his father s trees By riding them down over and over again Until he took the stiffness out of them, And not one but hung limp, not one was left For him to conquer. He learned all there was To learn about not launching out too soon And so not carrying the tree away Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise To the top branches, climbing carefully With the same pains you use to fill a cup Up to the brim, and even above the brim. Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be. It s when I m weary of considerations, And life is too much like a pathless wood Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs Broken across it, and one eye is weeping From a twig s having lashed across it open. I d like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. May no fate willfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and snatch me away Not to return. Earth s the right place for love: I don t know where it s likely to go better. I d like to go by climbing a birch tree, And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, , FIFTY YEARS SPENT 93 But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches. Robert Frost FIFTY YEARS SPENT FIFTY years spent before I found me, Wind on my mouth and the taste of the rain, Where the great hills circled and swept around me And the torrents leapt to the mist-drenched plain; Ah, it was long this coming of me Back to the hills and the sounding sea. Ye who can go when so it tideth To fallow fields when the Spring is new, Finding the spirit that there abideth, Taking fill of the sun and the dew; Little ye know of the cross of the town And the small pals folk who go up and down. Fifty years spent before I found me A bank knee-deep with climbing rose, Saw, or had space to look around me, Knew how the apple buds and blows; And all the while that I thought me wise I walked as one with blinded eyes. Scarcely a lad who passes twenty But finds him a girl to balm his heart; Only I, who had work so plenty, Bade this loving keep apart: Once I saw a girl in a crowd, But I hushed my heart when it cried out aloud. 94 THE CITY City courts in January, City courts in wilted June, Often ye will catch and carry Echoes of some straying tune: Ah, but underneath the feet Echo stifles in a street. Fifty years spent, and what do they bring me? Now I can buy the meadow and hill : Where is the heart of the boy to sing thee? Where is the life for thy living to fill? And thirty years back in a city crowd I passed a girl when my heart cried loud ! Maxwell Struthers Burt THE CITY WHEN, sick of all the sorrow and distress That flourished in the City like foul weeds, I sought blue rivers and green, opulent meads, And leagues of unregarded loneliness Whereon no foot of man had seemed to press, I did not know how great had been my needs, How wise the woodland s gospels and her creeds, How good her faith to one long comfortless. But in the silence came a Voice to me; In every wind it murmured, and I knew It would not cease though far my heart might roam. It called me in the sunrise and the dew, At noon and twilight, sadly, hungrily, The jealous City, whispering always "Home!" Charles Hanson Towne THE MOST-SACRED MOUNTAIN 95 THE MOST-SACRED MOUNTAIN SPACE, and the twelve clean winds of heaven, And this sharp exultation, like a cry, after the slow six thousand steps of climbing! This is Tai Shan, the beautiful, the most holy. Below my feet the foot-hills nestle, brown with flecks of green; and lower down the flat brown plain, the floor of earth, stretches away to blue in finity. Beside me in this airy space the temple roofs cut their slow curves against the sky, And one black bird circles above the void. Space, and the twelve clean winds are here; And with them broods eternity a swift, white peace, a presence manifest. The rhythm ceases here. Time has no place. This is the end that has no end. Here, when Confucius came, a half a thousand years before the Nazarene, he stepped, with me, thus into timelessness. The stone beside us waxes old, the carven stone that says: "On this spot once Confucius stood and felt the smallness of the world below." The stone grows old : Eternity is not for stones. But I shall go down from this airy place, this swift white peace, this stinging exultation. 96 THE CHANT OF THE COLORADO And time will close about me, and my soul stir to the rhythm of the daily round. Yet, having known, life will not press so close, and always I shall feel time ravel thin about me; For once I stood In the white windy presence of eternity. Eunice Tietjens THE CHANT OF THE COLORADO . (At the Grand Canyon) MY brother, man, shapes him a plan And builds him a house in a day, But I have toiled through a million years For a home to last alway. I have flooded the sands and washed them down, I have cut through gneiss and granite. No toiler of earth has wrought as I, Since God s first breath began it. High mountain-buttes I have chiselled, to shade My wanderings to the sea. With the wind s aid, and the cloud s aid, Unweary and mighty and unafraid, I have bodied eternity. My brother, man, builds for a span: His life is a moment s breath. But I have hewn for a million years, Nor a moment dreamt of death. By moons and stars I have measured my task And some from the skies have perished : THE WATER OUZEL 97 But ever I cut and flashed and foamed, As ever my aim I cherished : My aim to quarry the heart of earth, Till, in the rock s red rise, Its age and birth, through an awful girth Of strata, should show the wonder-worth Of patience to all eyes. My brother, man, builds as he can, And beauty he adds for his joy, But all the hues of sublimity My pinnacled walls employ. Slow shadows iris them all day long, And silvery veils, soul-stilling, The moon drops down their precipices, Soft with a spectral thrilling. For all immutable dreams that sway With beauty the earth and air, Are ever at play, by night and day, My house of eternity to array In visions ever fair. Cole Young Rice THE WATER OUZEL LITTLE brown surf -bather of the mountains! Spirit of foam, lover of cataracts, shaking your wings in falling waters! Have you no fear of the roar and rush when Nevada plunges Nevada, the shapely dancer, feeling her way with slim white fingers? 98 OLD MANUSCRIPT How dare you dash at Yosemite the mighty Tall, white limbed Yosemite, leaping down, down over the cliff? Is it not enough to lean on the blue air of moun tains? Is it not enough to rest with your mate at timberline, in bushes that hug the rocks? Must you fly through mad waters where the heaped-up granite breaks them? Must you batter your wings in the torrent? Must you plunge for life and death through the foam? Harriet Monroe OLD MANUSCRIPT THE sky Is that beautiful old parchment In which the sun And the moon Keep their diary. To read it all, One must be a linguist More learned than Father Wisdom; And a visionary More clairvoyant than Mother Dream. But to feel it, One must be an apostle: One who is more than intimate In having been, always, The only confidant Like the earth Or the sky. Alfred Kreymborg EVENING SONG OF SENLIN THE RUNNER IN THE SKIES WHO is the runner in the skies, With her blowing scarf of stars, And our Earth and sun hovering like bees about her blossoming heart? Her feet are on the winds, where space is deep, Her eyes are nebulous and veiled, She hurries through the night to a far lover. James Oppenheim EVENING SONG OF SENLIN IT is moonlight. Alone in the silence I ascend my stairs once more, While waves, remote in a pale blue starlight, Crash on a white sand shore. It is moonlight. The garden is silent. I stand in my room alone. Across my wall, from the far-off moon, A rain of fire is thrown . . . There are houses hanging above the stars, And stars hung under a sea : And a wind from the long blue vault of time Waves my curtains for me . . . I wait in the dark once more, Swung between space and space: Before my mirror I lift my hands And face my remembered face. Is it I who stand in a question here, Asking to know my name? . . . 100 A THRUSH IN THE MOONLIGHT ^ _ It is I, yet I know not whither I go, Nor why, nor whence I came. It is I, who awoke at dawn And arose and descended the stair, Conceiving a god in the eye of the sun, In a woman s hands and hair. It is I whose flesh is grey with the stones I builded into a wall : With a mournful melody in my brain Of a tune I cannot recall . . . There are roses to kiss: and mouths to kiss; And the sharp-pained shadow of death. I remember a rain-drop on my cheek, A wind like a fragrant breath . . . And the star I laugh on tilts through heaven; And the heavens are dark and steep . . . I will forget these things once more In the silence of sleep. Conrad Aiken A THRUSH IN THE MOONLIGHT IN came the moon and covered me with wonder, Touched me and was near me and made me very still. In came a rush of song, like rain after thunder, Pouring importunate on my window-sill. I lowered my head, I hid it, I would not see nor hear, The birdsong had stricken me, had brought the moon too near. But when I dared to lift my h^ad ; jiight ^begari ttf an With singing in the darkness. And then the thrush grew still. And the moon came in, and silence, on my window- sill. Witter Bynner ORCHARD I SAW the first pear As it fell The honey-seeking, golden-banded, The yellow swarm Was not more fleet than I, (Spare us from loveliness) And I fell prostrate Crying: You have flayed us With your blossoms, Spare us the beauty Of fruit-trees. The honey-seeking Paused not, The air thundered their song, And I alone was prostrate. rough-hewn God of the orchard, 1 bring you an offering Do you, alone unbeautiful, 102 > .- 1. ; HEAT v : jfoi* of the god,/ Spare us from loveliness: These fallen hazel-nuts, Stripped late of their green sheaths, Grapes, red-purple, Their berries Dripping with wine, Pomegranates already broken, And shrunken figs And quinces untouched, I bring you as offering. H. D. HEAT O WIND, rend open the heat, Cut apart the heat, Rend it to tatters. Fruit cannot drop Through this thick air Fruit cannot fall into heat That presses up and blunts The points of pears And rounds the grapes. Cut the heat Plough through it, Turning it on either side Of your path. H. D. MADONNA OF THE EVENING FLOWERS 103 MADONNA OF THE EVENING FLOWERS 1 ALL day long I have been working, Now I am tired. I call: "Where are you?" But there is only the oak tree rustling in the wind. The house is very quiet, The sun shines in on your books, On your scissors and thimble just put down, But you are not there. Suddenly I ain lonely: Where are you? I go about searching. Then I see you, Standing under a spire of pale blue larkspur, With a basket of roses on your arm. You are cool, like silver, And you smile. I think the Canterbury bells are playing little tunes. You tell me that the peonies need spraying, That the columbines have overrun all bounds, That the pyrus japonica should be cut back and rounded. You tell me these things. But I look at you, heart of silver, White heart-flame of polished silver, Burning beneath the blue steeples of the larkspur. And I long to kneel instantly at your feet, While all about us peal the loud, sweet Te Deums of the Canterbury bells. Amy Lowell 1 Reprinted, by permission ol the publishers, from Pictures of the Float ing World, by Amy Lowell. Copyright, 1919, by The Macmillan Company. 104 THE NEW GOD THE NEW GOD YE morning-glories, ring in the gale your bells, And with dew water the walk s dust for .the burden- bearing ants: Ye swinging spears of the larkspur, open your wells of gold And pay your honey-tax to the hummingbird . . . O now I see by the opening of blossoms, And of bills of the hungry fledglings, And the bright travel of sun-drunk insects, Morning s business is afoot: Earth is busied with a million mouths! Where goes eaten grass and thrush-snapped dragon fly? Creation eats itself, to spawn in swarming sun-rays . . . Bull and cricket go to it: life lives on life . . . But O, ye flame-daubed irises, and ye hosts of gnats, Like a well of light moving in morning s light, What is this garmented animal that comes eating and drinking among you? What is this upright one, with spade and with shears? He is the visible and the invisible, Behind his mouth and his eyes are other mouth and eyes . . . Thirster after visions He sees the flowers to their roots and the Earth back through its silent ages: He parts the sky with his gaze: PATTERNS 105 He flings a magic on the hills, clothing them with Upanishad music, Peopling the valley with dreamed images that van ished in Greece millenniums back; And in the actual morning, out of longing, shapes on the hills To-morrow s golden grandeur . . . O ye million hungerers and ye sun-rays Ye are the many mothers of this invisible god, This Earth s star and sun that rises singing and toiling among you, This that is I, in joy, in the garden, Singing to you, ye morning-glories, Calling to you, ye swinging spears of the larkspur. James Oppenheim PATTERNS * I WALK down the garden paths, And all the daffodils Are blowing, and the bright blue squills. I walk down the patterned garden-paths In my stiff, brocaded gown. With my powdered hair and jewelled fan, I too am a rare Pattern. As I wander down The garden paths. My dress is richly figured, And the train 1 Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from Men, Wvmen and Qhosts, by Amy Lowell. Copyright, 1916, by The Macmillan Company. 106 PATTERNS Makes a pink and silver stain On the gravel, and the thrift Of the borders. Just a plate of current fashion, Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes. Not a softness anywhere about me, Only whalebone and brocade. And I sink on a seat in the shade Of a lime tree. For my passion Wars against the stiff brocade. The daffodils and squills Flutter in the breeze As they please. And I weep; For the lime tree is in blossom And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom. And the plashing of waterdrops In the marble fountain Comes down the garden-paths. The dripping never stops. Underneath my stiffened gown Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin, A basin in the midst of hedges grown So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding, But she guesses he is near, And the sliding of the water Seems the stroking of a dear Hand upon her. What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown ! I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground. All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground. PATTERNS 107 I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths, And he would stumble after, Bewildered by my laughter. I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the buckles on his shoes. I would choose To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths, A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover. Till he caught me in the shade, And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he clasped me, Aching, melting, unafraid. With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops, And the plopping of the waterdrops, All about us in the open afternoon I am very like to swoon With the weight of this brocade, For the sun sifts through the shade. Underneath the fallen blossom In my bosom, Is a letter I have hid. It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the Duke. "Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell Died in action Thursday se nnight." As I read it in the white, morning sunlight, The letters squirmed like snakes. "Any answer, Madam," said my footman. "No," I told him. " See that the messenger takes some refreshment. No, no answer." 108 PATTERNS And I walked into the garden, Up and down the patterned paths, In my stiff, correct brocade. The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun, Each one. I stood upright too, Held rigid to the pattern By the stiffness of my gown. Up and down I walked, Up and down. In a month he would have been my husband. In a month, here, underneath this lime, We would have broke the pattern; He for me, and I for him, He as Colonel, I as Lady, On this shady seat. He had a whim That sunlight carried blessing. And I answered, "It shall be as you have said." Now he is dead. In Summer and in Winter I shall walk Up and down The patterned garden-paths In my stiff, brocaded gown. The squills and daffodils Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow. I shall go Up and down In my gown. RICHARD CORY 109 Gorgeously arrayed, Boned and stayed. And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace By each button, hook, and lace. For the man who should loose me is dead, Fighting with the Duke in Flanders, In a pattern called a war. Christ! What are patterns for? Amy Lowell RICHARD CORY WHENEVER Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him : He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim. And he was always quietly arrayed, And he was always human when he talked; But still he fluttered pulses when he said, "Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked. And he was rich, yes, richer than a king, And admirably schooled in every grace: In fine, we thought that he was everything To make us wish that we were in his place. So on we worked, and waited for the light, And went without the meat, and cursed the bread, And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head. Edwin Arlington Robinson 110 THE SILENT FOLK OF ONE SELF-SLAIN WHEN he went blundering back to God, His songs half written, his work half done, Who knows what paths his bruised feet trod, What hills of peace or pain he won? I hope God smiled and took his hand, And said, "Poor truant, passionate fool! Life s book is hard to understand: Why couldst thou not remain at school?" Charles Hanson Towne THE SILENT FOLK OH, praise me not the silent folk; To me they only seem Like leafless, bird-abandoneo! oak And muffled, frozen stream. I want the leaves to talk and tell The joy that s in the tree, And water-nymphs to weave a spell Of pixie melody. Your silent folk may be sincere, But still, when all is said, We have to grant they re rather drear, And maybe, too, they re dead. Charles Wharton Stork MAD BLAKE 111 CONVENTION THE snow is lying very deep. My house is sheltered from the blast. I hear each muffled step outside, I hear each voice go past. But I ll not venture in the drift Out of this bright security, Till enough footsteps come and go To make a path for me. Agnes Lee MAD BLAKE BLAKE saw a treeful of angels at Peckham Rye, And his hands could lay hold on the tiger s terrible heart. Blake knew how deep is Hell, and Heaven how high, And could build the universe from one tiny part. Blake heard the asides of God, as with furrowed brow He sifts the star-streams between the Then and the Now, In vast infant sagacity brooding, an infant s grace Shining serene on his simple, benignant face. Blake was mad, they say, and Space s Pandora-box Loosed its wonders upon him devils, but angels indeed. I, they say, am sane, but no key of mine unlocks One lock of one gate wherethrough Heaven s glory is freed. 112 THE NAME And I stand and I hold my breath, daylong, yearlong, Out of comfort and easy dreaming evermore starting awake, Yearning beyond all sanity for some echo of that Song Of Songs that was sung to the soul of the madman, Blake! Wm. Rose Eentt THE NAME WHEN I come back from secret dreams In gardens deep and fair, How very curious it seems This mortal name I bear. For by this name I make their bread And trim the household light And sun the linen for the bed And close the door at night. I wonder who myself may be, And whence it was I came Before the Church had laid on me This frail and earthly name. My sponsors spake unto the Lord And three things promised they, Upon my soul with one accord Their easy vows did lay. My ancient spirit heard them not. I think it was not there. But in a place they had forgot It drank a starrier air. THE NAME 113 Yes, in a silent place and deep There did it dance and run, And sometimes it lay down to sleep Or sprang into the sun. The Priest saw not my aureole shine! My sweet wings saw not he ! He graved me with a solemn sign And laid a name on me. Now by this name I stitch and mend, The daughter of my home, By this name do I save and spend And when they call, I come. But oh, that Name, that other Name, More secret and more mine! It burns as does the angelic flame Before the midmost shrine. Before my soul to earth was brought Into God s heart it came, He wrote a meaning in my thought And gave to me a Name. By this Name do I ride the air And dance from star to star, And I behold all things are fair, For I see them as they are. I plunge into the deepest seas, In flames I, laughing, burn. In roseate clouds I take my ease Nor to the earth return. 114 THE NAME It is my beauteous Name my own That I have never heard. God keeps it for Himself alone, That strange and lovely word. God keeps it for Himself but yet You are His voice, and so In your heart He is calling me, And unto you I go. Love, by this Name I sing, and breathe A fresh, mysterious air. By this I innocently wreathe New garlands for my hair. By this Name I am born anew More beautiful, more bright. More roseate than angelic dew, Apparelled in delight. I 11 sing and stitch and make the bread In the wonder of my Name, And sun the linen for the bed And tend the fireside flame. By this Name do I answer yes Word beautiful and true. By this I 11 sew the bridal dress I shall put on for you. Anna Hempstead Branch SONGS OF AN EMPTY HOUSE 115 SONGS OF AN EMPTY HOUSE VISTA BEFORE I die I may be great, The chanting guest of kings, A queen in wonderlands of song Where every blossom sings. I may put on a golden gown And walk in sunny light, Carrying in my hair the day, And in my eyes the night. It may be men will honor me The wistful ones and wise, Who know the ruth of victory, The joy of sacrifice. I may be rich, I may be gay, But all the crowns grow old The laurel withers and the bay And dully rusts the gold. Before I die I may break bread With many queens and kings Oh, take the golden gown away, For there are other things And I shall miss the love of babes With flesh of rose and pearl, The dewy eyes, the budded lips A boy, a little girl. THE END My father got me strong and straight and slim, And I give thanks to him; 116 THE HILL WIFE My mother bore me glad and sound and sweet, I kiss her feet. But now, with me, their generation fails, And nevermore avails To cast through me the ancient mould again, Such women and men. I have no son, whose life of flesh and fire Sprang from my splendid sire, No daughter for whose soul my mother s flesh Wrought raiment fresh. Life s venerable rhythms like a flood Beat in my brain and blood, Crying from all the generations past, "Is this the last?" And I make answer to my haughty dead, Who made me, heart and head, " Even the sunbeams falter, flicker and bend I am the end." Marguerite Wilkinson THE HILL WIFE LONELINESS (Her Word) ONE ought not to have to care So much as you and I Care when the birds come round the house To seem to say good-bye; THE HILL WIFE 117 Or care so much when they come back With whatever it is they sing; The truth being we are as much Too glad for the one thing As we are too sad for the other here With birds that fill their breasts But with each other and themselves And their built or driven nests. HOUSE FEAR ALWAYS I tell you this they learned Always at night when they returned To the lonely house from far away, To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray, They learned to rattle the lock and key To give whatever might chance to be Warning and time to be off in flight: And preferring the out- to the in-door night, They learned to leave the house-door wide Until they had lit the lamp inside. THE OFT-REPEATED DREAM SHE had no saying dark enough For the dark pine that kept Forever trying the window-latch Of the room where they slept. The tireless but ineffectual hands That with every futile pass Made the great tree seem as a little bird Before the mystery of glass! 118 THE HILL WIFE It never had been inside the room, And only one of the two Was afraid in an oft-repeated dream Of what the tree might do. THE IMPULSE IT was too lonely for her there, And too wild, And since there were but two of them, And no child, And work was little in the house, She was free, And followed where he furrowed field, Or felled tree. She rested on a log and tossed The fresh chips, With a song only to herself On her lips. And once she went to break a bough Of black alder. She strayed so far she scarcely heard When he called her And did n t answer did n t speak Or return. She stood, and then she ran and hid In the fern. He never found her, though he looked Everywhere, ENVOI 119 And he. asked at her mother s house Was she there. Sudden and swift and light as that The ties gave, And he learned of finalities Besides the grave. Robert Frost A LOVE SONG MY love it should be silent, being deep And being very peaceful should be still Still as the utmost depths of ocean keep Serenely silent as some mighty hill. Yet is my love so great it needs must fill With very joy the inmost heart of me, The joy of dancing branches on the hill The joy of leaping waves upon the sea. Theodosia Garrison ENVOI BELOVED, till the day break, Leave wide the little door; And bless, to lack and longing, Our brimming more-and-more. Is love a scanted portion, That we should hoard thereof? Oh, call unto the deserts, Beloved and my Love! Josephine Preston Peabody 120 THE HOMELAND OUR LITTLE HOUSE OUR little house upon the hill In winter time is strangely still ; The roof tree, bare of leaves, stands high, A candelabrum for the sky, And down below the lamplights glow, And ours makes answer o er the snow. Our little house upon the hill In summer time strange voices fill; With ceaseless rustle of the leaves, And birds that twitter in the eaves, And all the vines entangled so The village lights no longer show. Our little house upon the hill Is just the house of Jack and Jill, And whether showing or unseen, Hid behind its leafy screen; There s a star that points it out When the lamp lights are in doubt. Thomas Walsh THE HOMELAND MY land was the west land; my home was on the hill. I never think of my land but it makes my heart to thrill; I never smell the west wind that blows the golden skies, But old desire is in my feet and dreams are hi my eyes. CRADLE SONG 121 My home crowned the high land; it had a stately grace. I never think of my land but I see my mother s face; I never smell the west wind that blows the silver ships But old delight is in my heart and mirth is on my lips. My land was a high land; my home was near the skies. I never think of my land but a light is in my eyes; I never smell the west wind that blows the summer rain But I am at my mother s knee, a little lad again. Dana Burnet CRADLE SONG LORD GABRIEL, wilt thou not rejoice When at last a little boy s Cheek lies heavy as a rose And his eyelids close? Gabriel, when that hush may be, This sweet hand all heedf ully I ll undo for thee alone, From his mother s own. Then the far blue highway paven With the burning stars of heaven, He shall gladden with the sweet Hasting of his feet : Feet so brightly bare and cool, Leaping, as from pool to pool; 122 CRADLE SONG From a little laughing boy Splashing rainbow joy ! Gabriel, wilt thou understand How to keep this hovering hand? Never shut, as in a bond, From the bright beyond? Nay, but though it cling and close Tightly as a climbing rose, Clasp it only so, aright, Lest his heart take fright. (Dormi, dormi, tu. The dusk is hung with blue.) ii Lord Michael, wilt not thou rejoice When at last a little boy s Heart, a shut-in murmuring bee, Turns him unto thee? Wilt thou heed thine armor well, To take his hand from Gabriel, So his radiant cup of dream May not spill a gleam? He will take thy heart in thrall, Telling o er thy breastplate, all Colors, in his bubbling speech, With his hand to each. (Dormi, dormi, tu. Sapphire is the blue, CRADLE SONG 123 Pearl and beryl, they are called, Crysoprase and emerald, Sard and amethyst Numbered so, and kissed.) Ah, but find some angel-word For thy sharp, subduing sword! Yea, Lord Michael, make no doubt He will find it out: (Dormi, dormi, tul His eyes will look at you.) \ in Last, a little morning space, Lead him to that leafy place Where Our Lady sits awake, For all mothers sake. Bosomed with the Blessed One, He shall mind her of her Son, Once so folded from all harms In her shrining arms. (In her veil of blue, Dormi, dormi, tu.) So; and fare thee well. Softly, Gabriel . . . When the first faint red shall come, Bid the Day-star lead him home, For the bright world s sake, To my heart, awake. Josephine Preston Peabody 124 BALLAD OF A CHILD SLUMBER SONG DROWSILY come the sheep From the place where the pastures be, By a dusty lane To the fold again, First one, and then two, and three: First one, then two, by the paths of sleep Drowsily come the sheep. Drowsily come the sheep, And the shepherd is singing low: After eight comes nine In the endless line, They come, and then in they go. First eight, then nine, by the paths of sleep Drowsily come the sheep. Drowsily come the sheep And they pass through the sheepfold door; After one comes two, After one comes two, Comes two and then three and four. First one, then two, by the paths of sleep, Drowsily come the sheep. Louis V. Ledoux J BALLAD OF A CHILD * YEARLY thrilled the plum tree With the mother-mood; Every June the rose stock 1 Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from The Quest, by John G. Neihardt. Copyright, 1916, by The Macmillan Company. BALLAD OF A CHILD 125 Bore her wonder-child: Every year the wheatlands Reared a golden brood : World of praying Rachaels, Heard and reconciled! "Poet," said the plum tree s Singing white and green, "What avails your mooning, Can you fashion plums?" "Dreamer," crooned the wheatland s Rippling vocal sheen, "See my golden children Marching as with drums!" "By a god begotten," Hymned the sunning vine, "In my lyric children Purple music flows ! " "Singer," breathed the rose bush, "Are they not divine?" "Have you any daughters Mighty as a rose?" Happy, happy mothers ! Cruel, cruel words ! Mine are ghostly children, Haunting all the ways; Latent in the plum bloom, Calling through the birds, Romping with the wheat brood In their shadow plays I 126 BALLAD OF A CHILD Gotten out of star-glint, Mothered of the Moon; Nurtured vnth the rose scent, Wild elusive throng ! Something of the vine s dream Crept into a tune; Something of the wheat-drone Echoed in a song. Once again the white fires Smoked among the plums; Once again the world-joy Burst the crimson bud; Golden-bannered wheat broods Marched to fairy drums; Once again the vineyard Felt the Bacchic blood. "Lo, he comes, the dreamer" Crooned the whitened boughs, "Quick with vernal love-fires Oh, at last he knows ! See the bursting plum bloom There above his brows! " "Boaster!" breathed the rose bush, "Tis a budding rose!" Droned the glinting acres, "In his soul, mayhap, Something like a wheat-dream Quickens into shape!" Sang the sunning vineyard, "Lo, the lyric sap AMBITION 127 Sets his heart a-throbbing Like a purple grape!" Mother of the wheatlands, Mother of the plums, Mother of the vineyard All that loves and grows Such a living glory To the dreamer comes, Mystic as a wheat-song, Mighty as a rose ! Star-glint, moon-glow, Gathered in a mesh ! Spring-hope, white fire By a kiss beguiled ! Something of the world-joy Dreaming into flesh ! Bird-song, vine-thrill Quickened to a child ! John G. Neihardt AMBITION RENTON and Deborah, Michael and Rose, These are fine children as all the world knows, But into my arms in my dreams every night Come Peter and Christopher, Faith and Delight. Kenton is tropical, Rose is pure white, Deborah shines like a star in the night; Michael s round eyes are as blue as the sea, And nothing on earth could be dearer to me. 128 THE ANCIENT BEAUTIFUL THINGS But where is the baby with Faith can compare? What is the colour of Peterkin s hair? Who can make Christopher clear to my sight, Or show me the eyes of my daughter Delight? When people inquire I always just state: "I have four nice children and hope to have eight. Though the first four are pretty and certain to please, Who knows but the rest may be nicer than these?" Aline Kilmer THE GIFT LET others give you wealth and love, And guard you while you live; I cannot set my gift above The gifts that others give. And yet the gift I give is good : In one man s eyes to see The worship of your maidenhood While children climb your knee. Louis V. Ledoux THE ANCIENT BEAUTIFUL THINGS I AM all alone in the room. The evening stretches before me Like a road all delicate gloom Till it reaches the midnight s gate. And I hear his step on the path, And his questioning whistle, low At the door as I hurry to meet him. THE ANCIENT BEAUTIFUL THINGS 129 He will ask, "Are the doors all locked? Is the fire made safe on the hearth? And she is she sound asleep?" I shall say, "Yes, the doors are locked, And the ashes are white as the frost: Only a few red eyes To stare at the empty room. And she is all sound asleep, Up there where the silence sings, And the curtains stir in the cold." He will ask, "And what did you do While I have been gone so long? So long! Four hours or five!" I shall say, "There was nothing I did. I mended that sleeve of your coat. And I made her a little white hood Of the furry pieces I found Up in the garret to-day. She shall wear it to play in the snow, Like a little white bear, and shall laugh, And tumble, and crystals of stars Shall shine on her cheeks and hair. It was nothing I did. I thought You would never come home again!" Then he will laugh out, low, Being fond of my folly, perhaps; And softly and hand in hand We shall creep upstairs in the dusk To look at her, lying asleep : Our little gold bird in her nest: 130 THE ANCIENT BEAUTIFUL THINGS The wonderful bird who flew in At the window our Life flung wide. (How should we have chosen her, Had we seen them all in a row, The unborn vague little souls, All wings and tremulous hands? How should we have chosen her, Made like a star to shine, Made like a bird to fly, Out of a drop of our blood, And earth, and fire, and God?) Then we shall go to sleep, Glad. O God, did you know When you moulded men out of clay, Urging them up and up Through the endless circles of change, Travail and turmoil and death, Many would curse you down, Many would live all gray With their faces flat like a mask : But there would be some, God, Crying to you each night, "I am so glad! so glad! I am so rich and gay! How shall I thank you, God?" Was that one thing you knew When you smiled and found it was good : The curious teeming earth That grew like a child at your hand? Ah, you might smile, for that! THE ANCIENT BEAUTIFUL THINGS 131 I am all alone in the room. The books and the pictures peer, Dumb old friends, from the dark. The wind goes high on the hills, And my fire leaps out, being proud. The terrier, down on the hearth, Twitches and barks in his sleep, Soft little foolish barks, More like a dream than a dog . . . I will mend the sleeve of that coat, All ragged, and make her the hood Furry, and white, for the snow. She shall tumble and laugh . . . Oh, I think Though a thousand rivers of grief Flood over my head, though a hill Of horror lie on my breast, Something will sing, "Be glad! You have had all your heart s desire : The unknown things that you asked When you lay awake in the nights, Alone, and searching the dark For the secret wonder of life. You have had them (can you forget?) : The ancient beautiful things!" . . . How long he is gone. And yet It is only an hour or two. . . . Oh, I am so happy. My eyes Are troubled with tears. Did you know, 132 PREVISION O God, they would be like this, Your ancient beautiful things? Are there more ? Are there more, out there ? God, are there always more ? Fannie Stearns Davis MATER DOLOROSA * O CLINGING hands, and eyes where sleep has set Her seal of peace, go not from me so soon. little feet, take not the pathway yet, The dust of other feet with tears is wet, And sorrow wanders there with slow regret; \l O eager feet, take not the path so soon. Take it not yet, for death is at the end, And kingly death will wait until you come. Full soon the feet of youth will turn the bend, The eyes will see where followed footsteps wend. Go not so soon, though death be found a friend; For kingly death will wait until you come. Louis V. Ledoux PREVISION I KNOW you are too dear to stay; i You are so exquisitely sweet: My lonely house will thrill some day To echoes of your eager feet. I hold your words within my heart, So few, so infinitely dear; Watching your fluttering hands I start At the corroding touch of fear. 1 Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from The Story of Eleusis, by Louis V. Ledoux. Copyright, 1916, by The Macmillan Company. A WIND ROSE IN THE NIGHT 133 A faint, unearthly music rings From you to Heaven it is not far! A mist about your beauty clings Like a thin cloud before a star. My heart shall keep the child I knew, When you are really gone from me, And spend its life remembering you As shells remember the lost sea. A line Kilmer "A WIND ROSE IN THE NIGHT" A WIND rose in the night, (She had always feared it so !) Sorrow plucked at my heart And I could not help but go. Softly I went and stood By her door at the end of the hall. Dazed with grief I watched The candles flaring and tall. The wind was wailing aloud: I thought how she would have cried For my warm familiar arms And the sense of me by her side. The candles flickered and leapt, The shadows jumped on the wall. She lay before me small and still And did not care at all. Aline Kilmer 134 THE FIRST FOOD HOW MUCH OF GODHOOD How much of Godhood did it take What purging epochs had to pass, Ere I was fit for leaf and lake And worthy of the patient grass? What mighty travails must have been, What ages must have moulded me, Ere I was raised and made akin To dawn, the daisy and the sea. In what great struggles was I felled, In what old lives I labored long, Ere I was given, a world that held A meadow, butterflies and Song? But oh, what cleansings and what fears, What countless raisings from the dead, Ere I could see Her, touched with tears, Pillow the little weary head. Louis Untermeyer THE FIRST FOOD MOTHER, in some sad evening long ago, From thy young breast my groping lips were taken, Their hunger stilled, so soon again to waken, But nevermore that holy food to know. Ah! nevermore! for all the child might crave! Ah! nevermore! through years unkind and dreary! Often of other fare my lips are weary, Unwearied once of what thy bosom gave. THE MONK IN THE KITCHEN 135 (Poor wordless mouth that could not speak thy name! At what unhappy revels has it eaten The viands that no memory can sweeten, The banquet found eternally the same!) Then fell a shadow first on thee and me, And tendrils broke that held us two how dearly! Once infinitely thine, then hourly, yearly, Less thine, as less the worthy thine to be. (0 mouth that yet should kiss the mouth of Sin! Were lies so sweet, now bitter to remember? Slow sinks the flame unfaithful to an ember; New beauty fades and passion s wine is thin.) How poor an end of that solicitude And all the love I had not from another! Peace to thine unforgetting heart, O Mother, Who gav st the dear and unremembered food ! George Sterling THE MONK IN THE KITCHEN i ORDER is a lovely thing; On disarray it lays its wing, Teaching simplicity to sing. It has a meek and lowly grace, Quiet as a nun s face. Lo I will have thee in this place ! Tranquil well of deep delight, Transparent as the water, bright 136 THE MONK IN THE KITCHEN All things that shine through thee appear As stones through water, sweetly clear. Thou clarity, That with angelic charity Revealest beauty where thou art, Spread thyself like a clean pool. Then all the things that in thee are Shall seem more spiritual and fair, Reflections from serener air Sunken shapes of many a star In the high heavens set afar. ii Ye stolid, homely, visible things, Above you all brood glorious wings Of your deep entities, set high, Like slow moons in a hidden sky. But you, their likenesses, are spent Upon another element. Truly ye are but seemings The shadowy cast-off gleamings Of bright solidities. Ye seem Soft as water, vague as dream; Image, cast in a shifting stream. in What are ye ? I know not. Brazen pan and iron pot, Yellow brick and grey flag-stone That my feet have trod upon Ye seem to me Vessels of bright mystery. THE MONK IN THE KITCHEN 137 For ye do bear a shape, and so Though ye were made by man, I know An inner Spirit also made And ye his breathings have obeyed. IV Shape the strong and awful Spirit, Laid his ancient hand on you. He waste chaos doth inherit; He can alter and subdue. Verily, he doth lift up Matter, like a sacred cup. Into deep substance he reached, and lo Where ye were not, ye were; and so Out of useless nothing, ye Groaned and laughed and came to be. And I use you, as I can, Wonderful uses, made for man, Iron pot and brazen pan. v What are ye ? I know not; Nor what I really do When I move and govern you. There is no small work unto God. He requires of us greatness; Of his least creature A high angelic nature, Stature superb and bright completeness. He sets to us no humble duty. Each act that he would have us do Is haloed round with strangest beauty. 138 THE MONK IN THE KITCHEN Terrific deeds and cosmic tasks Of his plainest child he asks. When I polish the brazen pan I hear a creature laugh afar In the gardens of a star, And from his burning presence run Flaming wheels of many a sun. Whoever makes a thing more bright, He is an angel of all light. When I cleanse this earthen floor My spirit leaps to see Bright garments trailing over it. Wonderful lustres cover it, A cleanness made by me. Purger of all men s thoughts and ways, With labor do I sound Thy praise, My work is done for Thee. Whoever makes a thing more bright, He is an angel of all light. Therefore let me spread abroad The beautiful cleanness of my God. VI One time in the cool of dawn Angels came and worked with me. The air was soft with many a wing. They laughed amid my solitude And cast bright looks on everything. Sweetly of me did they ask That they might do my common task. And all were beautiful but one With garments whiter than the sun A SAINT S HOURS 139 Had such a face Of deep, remembered grace, That when I saw I cried "Thou art The great Blood-Brother of my heart. Where have I seen thee?" And he said, "When we are dancing round God s throne, How often thou art there. Beauties from thy hands have flown Like white doves wheeling in mid-air. Nay thy soul remembers not? Work on, and cleanse thy iron pot." VII What are we? I know not. Anna Hempstead Branch A SAINT S HOURS IN the still cold before the sun Her Matins Her brothers and her sisters small She woke, and washed and dressed each one. And through the morning hours all Prime Singing above her broom she stood And swept the house from hall to hall. Then out she ran with tidings good Tierce Across the field and down the lane, To share them with the neighborhood. Four miles she walked, and home again, Sexts To sit through half the afternoon And hear a feeble crone complain. 140 A LADY But when she saw the frosty moon Nones And lakes of shadow on the hill, Her maiden dreams grew bright as noon. She threw her pitying apron frill Vespers Over a little trembling mouse When the sleek cat yawned on the sill. In the late hours and drowsy house, Evensong At last, too tired, beside her bed She fell asleep her prayers half said. Sarah N. Cleghorn A LADY i You are beautiful and faded Like an old opera tune Played upon a harpsichord; Or like the sun-flooded silks Of an eighteenth-century boudoir. In your eyes Smoulder the fallen roses of out-lived minutes, And the perfume of your soul Is vague and suffusing, With the pungence of sealed spice-jars. Your half-tones delight me, And I grow mad with gazing At your blent colours. 1 Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from Sword Blades and Poppy Seed, by Amy Lowell. Copyright, 1914, by The Macmillan Com pany. THE CHILD IN ME 141 My vigour is a new-minted penny, Which I cast at your feet. Gather it up from the dust, That its sparkle may amuse you. Amy Lowell THE CHILD IN ME SHE follows me about my House of Life (This happy little ghost of my dead Youth!) She has no part in Time s relentless strife She keeps her old simplicity and truth And laughs at grim Mortality, This deathless Child that stays with me (This happy little ghost of my dead Youth !) My House of Life is weather-stained with years (0 Child in Me, I wonder why you stay.) Its windows are bedimmed with rain of tears, The walls have lost their rose, its thatch is gray. One after one its guests depart, So dull a host is my old heart. (0 Child in Me, I wonder why you stay!) For jealous Age, whose face I would forget, Pulls the bright flowers you bring me from my hair And powders it with snow; and yet and yet I love your dancing feet and jocund air. I have no taste for caps of lace To tie about my faded face I love to wear your flowers in my hair. 142 THE SON O Child in Me, leave not my House of Clay Until we pass together through the Door, When lights are out, and Life has gone away And we depart to come again no more. We comrades who have travelled far Will hail the Twilight and the Star, And smiling, pass together through the Door! May Riley Smith THE SON I HEARD an old farm-wife, Selling some barley, Mingle her life with life And the name "Charley." Saying, "The crop s all in, We re about through now; Long nights will soon begin, We re just us two now. Twelve bushels at sixty cents, It s all I carried He sickened making fence; He was to be married It feels like frost was near His hair was curly. The spring was late that year, But the harvest early." Ridgely Torrence MUY VIEJA MEXICANA 143 MUY VIEJA MEXICANA I VE seen her pass with eyes upon the road An old bent woman in a bronze-black shawl, With skin as dried and wrinkled as a mummy s, As brown as a cigar-box, and her voice Like the low vibrant strings of a guitar. And I have fancied from the girls about What she was at their age, what they will be When they are old as she. But now she sits And smokes away each night till dawn comes round, Thinking, beside the piiions flame, of days Long past and gone, when she was young content To be no longer young, her epic done : For a woman has work and much to do, And it s good at the last to know it s through, And still have time to sit alone, To have some time you can call your own. It s good at the last to know your mind And travel the paths that you traveled blind, To see each turn and even make Trips in the byways you did not take But that, por Dios, is over and done, It s pleasanter now in the way we ve come; It s good to smoke and none to say What s to be done on the coming day, No mouths to feed or coat to mend, And none to call till the last long end. Though one have sons and friends of one s own, It s better at last to live alone. For a man must think of food to buy, And a woman s thoughts may be wild and high; 144 HROLF S THRALL, HIS SONG But when she is young she must curb her pride, And her heart is tamed for the child at her side. But when she is old her thoughts may go Wherever they will, and none to know. And night is the time to think and dream, And not to get up with the dawn s first gleam; Night is the time to laugh or weep, And when dawn comes it is time to sleep . . . When it s all over and there s none to care, I mean to be like her and take my share Of comfort when the long day s done, And smoke away the nights, and see the sun Far off, a shrivelled orange in a sky gone black, Through eyes that open inward and look back. Alice Corbin HROLF S THRALL, HIS SONG THERE be five things to a man s desire: Kine flesh, roof-tree, his own fire, Clean cup of sweet wine from goat s hide, And through dark night one to lie beside. Four things poor and homely be : Hearth-fire, white cheese, own roof -tree, True mead slow brewed with brown malt; But a good woman is savour and salt. Plow, shove deep through gray loam; Hack, sword, hack for straw-thatch home; Guard, buckler, guard both beast and human God, send true man his true woman! Willard Wattles OLD KING COLE 145 THE INTERPRETER IN the very early morning when the light was low She got all together and she went like snow, Like snow in the springtime on a sunny hill, And we were only frightened and can t think still. We can t think quite that the katydids and frogs And the little crying chickens and the little grunting hogs, And the other living things that she spoke for to us Have nothing more to tell her since it happened thus. She never is around for any one to touch, But of ecstasy and longing she too knew much, And always when any one has time to call his own She will come and be beside him as quiet as a stone. Orrick Johns OLD KING COLE * IN Tilbury Town did Old King Cole A wise old age anticipate, Desiring, with his pipe and bowl, No Khan s extravagant estate. No crown annoyed his honest head, No fiddlers three were called or needed; For two disastrous heirs instead Made music more than ever three did. 1 Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from The Man Against the Sky, by Edwin Arlington Robinson. Copyright, 1916, by The Mac- millan Company. 146 OLD KING COLE Bereft of her with whom his life Was harmony without a flaw, He took no other for a wife, Nor sighed for any that he saw; And if he doubted his two sons, And heirs, Alexis and Evander, He might have been as doubtful once Of Robert Burns and Alexander. Alexis, in his early youth, Began to steal from old and young. Likewise Evander, and the truth Was like a bad taste on his tongue. Born thieves and liars, their affair Seemed only to be tarred with evil The most insufferable pair Of scamps that ever cheered the devil. The world went on, their fame went on, And they went on from bad to worse; Till, goaded hot with nothing done, And each accoutred with a curse, The friends of Old King Cole, by twos, And fours, and sevens, and elevens, Pronounced unalterable views Of doings that were not of heaven s. And having learned again whereby Their baleful zeal had come about, King Cole met many a wrathful eye So kindly that its wrath went out Or partly out. Say what they would, He seemed the more to court their candor; OLD KING COLE 147 But never told what kind of good Was in Alexis and Evander. And Old King Cole, with many a puff That haloed his urbanity, Would smoke till he had smoked enough, And listen most attentively. He beamed as with an inward light That had the Lord s assurance in it; And once a man was there all night, Expecting something every minute. But whether from too little thought, Or too much fealty to the bowl, A dim reward was all he got For sitting up with Old King Cole. "Though mine," the father mused aloud, "Are not the sons I would have chosen, Shall I, less evilly endowed, By their infirmity be frozen? "They ll have a bad end, I ll agree, But I was never born to groan; For I can see what I can see, And I m accordingly alone. With open heart and open door, I love my friends, I like my neighbors; But if I try to tell you more, Your doubts will overmatch my labors. "This pipe would never make me calm, This bowl my grief would never drown. For grief like mine there is no balm In Gilead, or in Tilbury Town. 148 SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY And if I see what I can see, I know not any way to blind it; Nor more if any way may be For you to grope or fly to find it. " There may be room for ruin yet, And ashes for a wasted love; Or, like One whom you may forget, I may have meat you know not of. And if I d rather live than weep Meanwhile, do you find that surprising? Why, bless my soul, the man s asleep! That s good. The sun will soon be rising." Edwin Arlington Robinson SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY * WASHINGTON McNEELY RICH, honored by my fellow citizens, The father of many children, born of a noble mother, All raised there In the great mansion-house, at the edge of town. Note the cedar tree on the lawn! I sent all the boys to Ann Arbor, all of the girls to Rockford, The while my life went on, getting more riches and honors Resting under my cedar tree at evening. The years went on. I sent the girls to Europe; I dowered them when married. 1 Reprinted, by permission of the. publishers, from Spoon River Anthology, by Edgar Lee Masters. Copyright, 1915, by The Macmillan Company. SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY 149 I gave the boys money to start in business. They were strong children, promising as apples Before the bitten places show. Bat John fled the country in disgrace. Jenny died in child-birth I sat under my cedar tree. Harry killed himself after a debauch, Susan was divorced I sat under my cedar tree. Paul was invalided from over study, Mary became a recluse at home for love of a man I sat under my cedar tree. All were gone, or broken-winged or devoured by life I sat under my cedar tree. My mate, the mother of them, was taken I sat under my cedar tree, Till ninety years were tolled. O maternal Earth, which rocks the fallen leaf to sleep! HARMON WHITNEY OUT of the lights and roar of cities, Drifting down like a spark in Spoon River, Burnt out with the fire of drink, and broken, The paramour of a woman I took in self -contempt, But to hide a wounded pride as well. To be judged and loathed by a village of little minds I, gifted with tongues and wisdom, Sunk here to the dust of the justice court, A picker of rags in the rubbage of spites and wrongs, I, whom fortune smiled on ! I in a village, Spouting to gaping yokels pages of verse, Out of the lore of golden years, Or raising a laugh with a flash of filthy wit 150 SPOON HIVER ANTHOLOGY When they brought the drinks to kindle my dying mind. To be judged by you, The soul of me hidden from you, With its wound gangrened By love for a wife who made the wound, With her cold white bosom, treasonous, pure and hard, Relentless to the last, when the touch of her hand At any time, might have cured me of the typhus, Caught in the jungle of life where many are lost. And only to think that my soul could not react, As Bryon s did, in song, in something noble, But turned on itself like a tortured snake Judge me this way, O world! THOMAS TREVELYAN READING in Ovid the sorrowful story of Itys, Son of the love of Tereus and Procne, slain For the guilty passion of Tereus for Philomela, The flesh of him served to Tereus by Procne, And the wrath of Tereus, the murderess pursuing Till the gods made Philomela a nightingale, Lute of the rising moon, and Procne a swallow! Oh livers and artists of Hellas centuries gone, Sealing in little thuribles dreams and wisdom, Incense beyond all price, forever fragrant, A breath whereof makes clear the eyes of the soul! How I inhaled its sweetness here in Spoon River! The thurible opening when I had lived and learned How all of us kill the children of love, and all of us, Knowing not what we do, devour their flesh; And all of us change to singers, although it be But once in our lives, or change alas to swallows, To twitter amid cold winds and falling leaves ! SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY 151 ALEXANDER THROCKMORTON IN youth my wings were strong and tireless, But I did not know the mountains. In age I knew the mountains But my weary wings could not follow my vision Genius is wisdom and youth. RUTHERFORD MCDOWELL THEY brought me ambrotypes Of the old pioneers to enlarge. And sometimes one sat for me Some one who was in being When giant hands from the womb of the world Tore the republic. What was it in their eyes? For I could never fathom That mystical pathos of drooped eyelids, And the serene sorrow of their eyes. It was like a pool of water, Amid oak trees at the edge of a forest, Where the leaves fall, As you hear the crow of a cock Where the third generation lives, and the strong men From a far-off farm-house, seen near the hills And the strong women are gone and forgotten. And these grand-children and great grand-children Of the pioneers ! Truly did my camera record their faces, too, With so much of the old strength gone, And the old faith gone, And the old mastery of life gone, And the old courage gone, 152 SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY Which labors and loves and suffers and sings Under the sun! WILLIAM H. HERNDON THERE by the window in the old house Perched on the bluff, overlooking miles of valley, My days of labor closed, sitting out life s decline, Day by day did I look in my memory, As one who gazes in an enchantress crystal globe, And I saw the figures of the past, As if in a pageant glassed by a shining dream, Move through the incredible sphere of time. And I saw a man arise from the soil like a fabled giant And throw himself over a deathless destiny, Master of great armies, head of the republic, Bringing together into a dithyramb of recreative song The epic hopes of a people; At the same time Vulcan of sovereign fires, Where imperishable shields and swords were beaten out From spirits tempered in heaven. Look in the crystal ! See how he hastens on To the place where his path comes up to the path Of a child of Plutarch and Shakespeare. O Lincoln, actor indeed, playing well your part, And Booth, who strode in a mimic play within the play, Often and often I saw you, As the cawing crows winged their way to the wood Over my house-top at solemn sunsets, There by my window, Alone. LINCOLN 153 ANNE RUTLEDGE OUT of me unworthy and unknown The vibrations of deathless music : "With malice toward none, with charity for all." Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions, And the beneficent face of a nation Shining with justice and truth. I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds, Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln, Wedded to him, not through union, But through separation. Bloom forever, Republic, From the dust of my bosom ! Edgar Lee Masters LINCOLN i LIKE a gaunt, scraggly pine Which lifts its head above the mournful sandhills; And patiently, through dull years of bitter silence, Untended and uncared for, starts to grow. Ungainly, labouring, huge, The wind of the north has twisted and gnarled its branches; Yet in the heat of midsummer days, when thunder clouds ring the horizon, A nation of men shall rest beneath its shade. And it shall protect them all, Hold everyone safe there, watching aloof in silence; Until at last one mad stray bolt from the zenith Shall strike it in an instant down to earth. 154 LINCOLN ii There was a darkness in this man; an immense and hollow darkness, Of which we may not speak, nor share with him, nor enter; A darkness through which strong roots stretched down wards into the earth Towards old things: Towards the herdman-kings who walked the earth and spoke with God, Towards the wanderers who sought for they knew not what, and found their goal at last; Towards the men who waited, only waited patiently when all seemed lost, Many bitter winters of defeat; Down to the granite of patience These roots swept, knotted fibrous roots, prying, piercing, seeking, And drew from the living rock and the living waters about it The red sap to carry upwards to the sun. Not proud, but humble, Only to serve and pass on, to endure to the end through service; For the ax is laid at the roots of the trees, and all that bring not forth good fruit Shall be cut down on the day to come and cast into the fire. LINCOLN 155 in There is a silence abroad in the land to-day, And in the hearts of men, a deep and anxious silence; And, because we are still at last, those bronze lips slowly open, Those hollow and weary eyes take on a gleam of light. Slowly a patient, firm-syllabled voice cuts through the endless silence Like labouring oxen that drag a plow through the chaos of rude clay-fields: "I went forward as the light goes forward in early spring, But there were also many things which I left behind. "Tombs that were quiet; One, of a mother, whose brief light went out in the darkness, One, of a loved one, the snow on whose grave is long falling, One, only of a child, but it was mine. "Have you forgot your graves? Go, question them in anguish, Listen long to their unstirred lips. From your hostages to silence, Learn there is no life without death, no dawn without sun-setting, No victory but to him who has given all." / IV The clamour of cannon dies down, the furnace-mouth of the battle is silent. 156 LINCOLN The midwinter sun dips and descends, the earth takes on afresh its bright colours. But he whom we mocked and obeyed not, he whom we scorned and mistrusted, He has descended, like a god, to his rest. Over the uproar of cities, Over the million intricate threads of life wavering and crossing, In the midst of problems we know not, tangling, per plexing, ensnaring, Rises one white tomb alone. Beam over it, stars, Wrap it round, stripes stripes red for the pain that he bore for you Enfold it forever, O flag, rent, soiled, but repaired through your anguish; Long as you keep him there safe, the nations shall bow to your law. Strew over him flowers : Blue forget-me-nots from the north, and the bright pink arbutus From the east, and from the west rich orange blos som, And from the heart of the land take the passion flower; Rayed, violet, dim, With the nails that pierced, the cross that he bore and the circlet, LINCOLN WALKS AT MIDNIGHT 157 And beside it there lay also one lonely snow-white magnolia, Bitter for remembrance of the healing which has passed. John Gould Fletcher ABRAHAM LINCOLN WALKS AT MIDNIGHT * IT is portentous, and a thing of state That here at midnight, in our little town A mourning figure walks, and will not rest, Near the old court-house pacing up and down, Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards He lingers where his children used to play, Or through the market, on the well-worn stones He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away., A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black, A famous high-top hat and plain worn shawl Make him the quaint great figure that men love, The prairie lawyer, master of us all. He cannot sleep upon his hillside now. He is among us: as in times before! And we who toss and lie awake for long Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door. His head is bowed. He thinks on men and kings. Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep? 1 Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from The Congo, and Other Poems, by Vachel Lindsay. Copyright, 1914, by The Macmillan Company. 158 PRAYER DURING BATTLE Too many peasants fight, they know not why, Too many homesteads in black terror weep. The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart. He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main. He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now The bitterness, the folly and the pain. He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn Shall come; the shining hope of Europe free: The league of sober folk, the Workers Earth, Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea. It breaks his heart that kings must murder still, That all his hours of travail here for men Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace That he may sleep upon his hill again? Vachel Lindsay PRAYER DURING BATTLE LORD, in this hour of tumult, Lord, in this night of fears, Keep open, oh, keep open My eyes, my ears. Not blindly, not in hatred, Lord, let me do my part. Keep open, oh, keep open My mind, my heart! Hermann Hagedorn THE WHITE COMRADE 159 PRAYER OF A SOLDIER IN FRANCE MY shoulders ache beneath my pack (Lie easier, Cross, upon His back). I march with feet that burn and smart (Tread, Holy Feet, upon my heart). Men shout at me who may not speak (They scourged Thy back and smote Thy cheek). I may not lift a hand to clear My eyes of salty drops that sear. (Then shall my fickle soul forget Thy Agony of Bloody Sweat?) My rifle hand is stiff and numb (From Thy pierced palm red rivers come). Lord, Thou didst suffer more for me Than all the hosts of land and sea. So let me render back again This millionth of Thy gift. Amen. Joyce Kilmer THE WHITE COMRADE UNDER our curtain of fire, Over the clotted clods, We charged, to be withered, to reel And despairingly wheel When the bugles bade us retire From the terrible odds, 160 THE WHITE COMRADE As we ebbed with the battle-tide. Fingers of red-hot steel Suddenly closed on my side. I fell, and began to pray. I crawled on my hands and lay Where a shallow crater yawned wide; Then I swooned. . . . When I woke, it was yet day. Fierce was the pain of my wound, But I saw it was death to stir, For fifty paces away Their trenches were. In torture I prayed for the dark And the stealthy step of my friend Who, stanch to the very end, Would creep to the danger zone And offer his life as a mark To save my own. Night fell. I heard his tread, Not stealthy, but firm and serene, As if my comrade s head Were lifted far from that scene Of passion and pain and dread; As if my comrade s heart In carnage took no part; As if my comrade s feet Were set on some radiant street Such as no darkness might haunt; As if my comrade s eyes, No deluge of flame could surprise, No death and destruction daunt, THE WHITE COMRADE 161 No red-beaked bird dismay, Nor sight of decay. Then in the bursting shells dim light I saw he was clad in white. For a moment I thought that I saw the smock Of a shepherd in search of his flock. Alert were the enemy, too, And their bullets flew Straight at a mark no bullet could fail; For the seeker was tall and his robe was bright; But he did not flee nor quail. Instead, with unhurrying stride He came, And gathering my tall frame, Like a child, in his arms . . . I slept, And awoke From a blissful dream In a cave by a stream. My silent comrade had bound my side. No pain now was mine, but a wish that I spoke, A mastering wish to serve this man Who had ventured through hell my doom to revoke, As only the truest of comrades can. I begged him to tell me how best I might aid him, And urgently prayed him Never to leave me, whatever betide; When I saw he was hurt Shot through the hands that were clasped in prayer! Then, as the dark drops gathered there And fell in the dirt, 162 SMITH, OF THE THIRD OREGON, DIES The wounds of my friend Seemed to me such as no man might bear. Those bullet-holes in the patient hands Seemed to transcend All horrors that ever these war-drenched lands Had known or would know till the mad world s end. Then suddenly I was aware That his feet had been wounded, too; And, dimming the white of his side, A dull stain grew. "You are hurt, White Comrade!" I cried. His words I already foreknew: "These are old wounds," said he, "But of late they have troubled me." Robert Haven Schauffler SMITH, OF THE THIRD OREGON, DIES * AUTUMN in Oregon is wet as Spring, And green, with little singings in the grass, And pheasants flying, , Gold, green and red, Great, narrow, lovely things, As if an orchid had snatched wings. There are strange birds like blots against a sky Where a sun is dying. Beyond the river where the hills are blurred A cloud, like the one word Of the too-silent sky, stirs, and there stand Black trees on either hand. 1 Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from Drums in Our Street, 6y Mary Carolyn Davies. Copyright, 1918, by the Macmillan Company. SONG 16 Autumn in Oregon is wet and new As Spring, And puts a fever like Spring s in the cheek That once has touched her dew And it puts longing too In eyes that once have seen Her season-flouting green, And ears that listened to her strange birds speak. Autumn in Oregon I ll never see Those hills again, a blur of blue and rain Across the old Willamette. I ll not stir A pheasant as I walk, and hear it whirr Above my head, an indolent, trusting thing. When all this silly dream is finished here, The fellows will go home to where there fall Rose-petals over every street, and all The year is like a friendly festival. But I shall never watch those hedges drip Color, not see the tall spar of a ship In our old harbor. They say that I am dying, Perhaps that s why it all comes back again : Autumn in Oregon and pheasants flying Mary Carolyn Dames SONG SHE goes all so softly Like a shadow on the hill, A faint wind at twilight That stirs, and is still. 164 I HAVE A RENDEZVOUS WITH DEATH She weaves her thoughts whitely, Like doves in the air, Though a gray mound in Flanders Clouds all that was fair. Edward J. O Brien LONELY BURIAL THERE were not many at that lonely place, Where two scourged hills met in a little plain. The wind cried loud in gusts, then low again. Three pines strained darkly, runners in a race Unseen by any. Toward the further woods A dim harsh noise of voices rose and ceased. We were most silent in those solitudes Then, sudden as a flame, the black-robed priest, The clotted earth piled roughly up about The hacked red oblong of the new-made thing, Short words in swordlike Latin and a rout Of dreams most impotent, unwearying. Then, like a blind door shut on a carouse, The terrible bareness of the soul s last house. Stephen Vincent Benet I HAVE A RENDEZVOUS WITH DEATH I HAVE a rendezvous with Death At some disputed barricade, When Spring comes back with rustling shade And apple-blossoms fill the air I have a rendezvous with Death When Spring brings back blue days and fair. ROUGE BOUQUET 165 It may be he shall take my hand And lead me into his dark land And close my eyes and quench my breath It may be I shall pass him still. I have a rendezvous with Death On some scarred slope of battered hill When Spring comes round again this year And the first meadow-flowers appear. God knows t were better to be deep Pillowed in silk and scented down, Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep, Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath, Where hushed awakenings are dear . . . But I ve a rendezvous with Death At midnight in some flaming town, When Spring trips north again this year, And I to my pledged word am true, I shall not fail that rendezvous. A Ian Seeger ROUGE BOUQUET IN a wood they call the Rouge Bouquet There is a new-made grave to-day, Built by never a spade nor pick Yet covered with earth ten metres thick. There lie many fighting men, Dead in their youthful prime, Never to laugh nor love again Nor taste the Summertime. For Death came flying through the air And stopped his flight at the dugout stair, 166 ROUGE BOUQUET Touched his prey and left them there, Clay to clay. He hid their bodies stealthily In the soil of the land they fought to free And fled away. Now over the grave abrupt and clear Three volleys ring; And perhaps their brave young spirits hear The bugle sing: "Go to sleep! Go to sleep! Slumber well where the shell screamed and fell. Let your rifles rest on the muddy floor, You will not need them any more. Danger s past; Now at last, Go to sleep!" There is on earth no worthier grave To hold the bodies of the brave Than this place of pain and pride Where they nobly fought and nobly died. Never fear but in the skies Saints and angels stand Smiling with their holy eyes On this new-come band. St. Michael s sword darts through the air And touches the aureole on his hair As he sees them stand saluting there, His stalwart sons; And Patrick, Brigid, Columkill Rejoice that in veins of warriors still The Gael s blood runs. FRANCIS LEDWIDGE 167 And up to Heaven s doorway floats, From the wood called Rouge Bouquet, A delicate cloud of buglenotes That softly say: "Farewell! Farewell ! Comrades true, born anew, peace to you! Your souls shall be where the heroes are And your memory shine like the morning-star. Brave and dear, Shield us here. Farewell!" Joyce Kilmer FRANCIS LEDWIDGE (Killed in action July 31, 1917} NEVERMORE singing Will you go now, Wearing wild moonlight On your broiv. The moon s white mood In your silver mind Is all forgotten. Words of wind From off the hedgerow After rain, You do not hear them; They are vain. There is a linnet Craves a song, And you returning Before long. 168 APRIL ON THE BATTLEFIELDS Now who will tell her, Who can say On what great errand You are away? You whose kindred Were hills of Meath, Who sang the lane-rose From her sheath, What voice will cry them The grief at dawn Or say to the blackbird You are gone? Grace Hazard Conkling APRIL ON THE BATTLEFIELDS APRIL now walks the fields again, Trailing her tearful leaves And holding all her frightened buds against her heart : Wrapt in her clouds and mists, She walks, Groping her way among the graves of men. The green of earth is differently green, A dreadful knowledge trembles in the grass, And little wide-eyed flowers die too soon : There is a stillness here After a terror of all raving sounds And birds sit close for comfort upon the boughs Of broken trees. April, thou grief! What of thy sun and glad, high wind, EARTH S EASTER 169 Thy valiant hills and woods and eager brooks, Thy thousand-petalled hopes? The sky forbids thee sorrow, April! And yet I see thee walking listlessly Across those scars that once were joyous sod, Those graves, Those stepping-stones from life to life. Death is an interruption between two heart-beats, That I know Yet know not how I know But April mourns, Trailing her tender green, The passion of her green, Across the passion of those fearful fields. Yes, all the fields! No barrier here, No challenge in the night, No stranger-land; She passes with her perfect countersign, Her green; She wanders in her mournful garden, Dropping her buds like tears, Spreading her lovely grief upon the graves of man. Leonora Speyer EARTH S EASTER (1915) EARTH has gone up from its Gethsemane, And now on Golgotha is crucified; The spear is twisted in the tortured side; The thorny crown still works its cruelty. 170 IN SPITE OF WAR Hark! while the victim suffers on the tree, There sound through starry spaces, far and wide, Such words as in the last despair are cried: "My God! my God! Thou hast forsaken me!" But when earth s members from the cross are drawn, And all we love into the grave is gone, This hope shall be a spark within the gloom : That, in the glow of some stupendous dawn, We may go forth to find, where lilies bloom, Two angels bright before an empty tomb. Robert Haven Schauffler THE FIELDS THOUGH wisdom underfoot Dies in the bloody fields, Slowly the endless root Gathers again and yields. In fields where hate has hurled Its force, where folly rots, Wisdom shall be unfurled Small as forget-me-nots. Witter Bynner IN SPITE OF WAR IN spite of war, in spite of death, In spite of all man s sufferings, Something within me laughs and sings And I must praise with all my breath. In spite of war, in spite of hate Lilacs are blooming at my gate, WIDE HAVEN 171 Tulips are tripping down the path In spite of war, in spite of wrath. "Courage!" the morning-glory saith; "Rejoice!" the daisy murmureth, And just to live is so divine When pansies lift their eyes to mine. The clouds are romping with the sea, And flashing waves call back to me That naught is real but what is fair, That everywhere and everywhere A glory liveth through despair. Though guns may roar and cannon boom, Roses are born and gardens bloom; My spirit still may light its flame At that same torch whence poppies came. Where morning s altar whitely burns Lilies may lift their silver urns In spite of war, in spite of shame. And in my ear a whispering breath, "Wake from the nightmare! Look and see That life is naught but ecstasy In spite of war, in spite of death!" Angela Morgan WIDE HAVEN TIRED of man s futile, petty cry, Of lips that lie and flout, I saw the slow sun dim and die And the slim dusk slip out . . . Life held no room for doubt. 172 PEACE What though Death claim the ones I prize In War s insane crusade, Last night I saw Orion rise And the great day-star fade, And I am not dismayed. Clement Wood TO ANY ONE WHETHER the time be slow or fast, Enemies, hand in hand, Must come together at the last And understand. No matter how the die is cast Nor who may seem to win, You know that you must love at last Why not begin? Witter Bynner PEACE SUDDENLY bells and flags! Suddenly door to door Tidings ! Can we believe, We, who were used to war? Yet we have dreamed her face, Knowing her light must be, Knowing that she must come. Look she comes, it is she! Tattered her raiment floats, Blood is upon her wings. JERICO 173 Ah, but her eyes are clear ! Ah, but her voice outrings ! Soon where the shrapnel fell Petals shall wake and stir. Look she is here, she lives ! Beauty has died for her. Agnes Lee THE KINGS ARE PASSING DEATHWARD THE Kings are passing deathward in the dark Of days that had been splendid where they went; Their crowns are captive and their courts are stark Of purples that are ruinous, now, and rent. For all that they have seen disastrous things : The shattered pomp, the split and shaken throne, They cannot quite forget the way of Kings : Gravely they pass, majestic and alone. With thunder on their brows, their faces set Toward the eternal night of restless shapes, They walk in awful splendor, regal yet, Wearing their crimes like rich and kingly capes . . Curse them or taunt, they will not hear or see; The Kings are passing deathward : let them be. David Morton JERICO JERICO, Jerico, Round and round the walls I go Where they watch with scornful eyes, Where the captained bastions rise; JERICO Heel and toe, heel and toe, Blithely round the walls I go. Jerico, Jerico, Round and round the walls I go ... All the golden ones of earth Regal in their lordly mirth . . . Heel and toe, heel and toe, Round and round the walls I go. Jerico, Jerico, Blithely round the walls I go, With a broken sword in hand Where the mighty bastions stand; Heel and toe, heel and toe, Hear my silly bugle blow. Heel and toe, heel and toe, Round the walls of Jerico . . . Past the haughty golden gate Where the emperor in state Smiles to see the ragged show, Round and round the towers go. Jerico, Jerico, Round and round and round I go ... All their sworded bodies must Lie low in their tower s dust . . . Heel and toe, heel and toe, Blithely round the walls I go. Heel and toe, heel and toe, I will blow a thunder note STUDENTS 175 From my brazen bugle s throat Till the sand and thistle know The leveled walls of Jerico, Jerico, Jerico, Jerico, . . . Willard Wattles STUDENTS JOHN BROWN and Jeanne at Fontainebleau T was Toussaint, just a year ago; Crimson and copper was the glow Of all the woods at Fontainebleau. They peered into that ancient well, And watched the slow torch as it fell. John gave the keeper two whole sous, And Jeanne that smile with which she woos John Brown to folly. So they lose The Paris train. But never mind! All-Saints are rustling in the wind, And there s an inn, a crackling fire (It s deux-cinquante, but Jeanne s desire) ; There s dinner, candles, country wine, Jeanne s lips philosophy divine! There was a bosquet at Saint Cloud Wherein John s picture of her grew To be a Salon masterpiece Till the rain fell that would not cease. Through one long alley how they raced! Twas gold and brown, and all a waste Of matted leaves, moss-interlaced. Shades of mad queens and hunter-kings And thorn-sharp feet of dryad-things 176 STUDENTS Were company to their wanderings; Then rain and darkness on them drew. The rich folks motors honked and flew. They hailed an old cab, heaven for two; The bright Champs-Elysees at last Though the cab crawled it sped too fast. \ Paris, upspringing white and gold: Flamboyant arch and high-enscrolled War-sculpture, big, Napoleonic Fierce chargers, angels histrionic; The royal sweep of gardened spaces, The pomp and whirl of columned Places; The Rive Gauche, age-old, gay and gray; The impasse and the loved cafe; The tempting tidy little shops; The convent walls, the glimpsed tree-tops; Book-stalls, old men like dwarfs in plays; Talk, work, and Latin Quarter ways. May Robinson s, the chestnut trees Were ever crowds as gay as these? The quick pale waiters on a run, The round, green tables, one by one, Hidden away in amorous bowers Lilac, laburnum s golden showers. Kiss, clink of glasses, laughter heard, And nightingales quite undeterred. And then that last extravagance O Jeanne, a single amber glance Will pay him! " Let s play millionaire For just two hours on princely fare, WHICH 177 At some hotel where lovers dine A deux and pledge across the wine!" They find a damask breakfast-room, Where stiff silk roses range their bloom. The garcon has a splendid way Of bearing in grand dejeuner. Then to be left alone, alone, High up above Rue Castiglione; Curtained away from all the rude Rumors, in silken solitude; And, John, her head upon your knees Time waits for moments such as these. Florence Wilkinson TAMPICO OH, cut me reeds to blow upon, Or gather me a star, But leave the sultry passion-flowers Growing where they are. I fear their sombre yellow deeps, Their whirling fringe of black, And he who gives a passion-flower Always asks it back. Grace Hazard Conkling WHICH WE ask that Love shall rise to the divine, And yet we crave him very human, too; Our hearts would drain the crimson of his wine, Our souls despise him if he prove untrue! 178 APOLOGY Poor Love! I hardly see what you can do! We know all human things are weak and frail, And yet we claim that very part of you, Then, inconsistent, blame you if you fail. When you would soar, t is w r e who clip your wings, Although we weep because you faint and fall. Alas! it seems we want so many things, That no dear love could ever grant them all! Which shall we choose, the human or divine, The crystal stream, or yet the crimson wine? Corinne Roosevelt Robinson APOLOGY i BE not angry with me that I bear Your colours everywhere, All through each crowded street, And meet The wonder-light in every eye, As I go by. Each plodding wayfarer looks up to gaze, Blinded by rainbow haze, The stuff of happiness, No less, Which wraps me in its glad-hued folds Of peacock golds. Before my feet the dusty, rough-paved way Flushes beneath its gray. 1 Reprinted, by permission of the publishers from Sword Blades and Poppy Seed, by Amy Lowell. Copyright, 1914, by The Macmillan Com pany. \ THE GREAT HUNT 179 My steps fall ringed with light, So bright, It seems a myriad suns are strown About the town. Around me is the sound of steepled bells, And rich perfumed smells Hang like a wind-forgotten cloud, And shroud Me from close contact with the world. I dwell impearled. You blazen me with jewelled insignia. A naming nebula Rims in my life. And yet You set The word upon me, unconfessed To go unguessed. Amy Lowell THE GREAT HUNT I CANNOT tell you now ; When the wind s drive and whirl Blow me along no longer, And the wind s a whisper at last Maybe I ll tell you then some other time. When the rose s flash to the sunset Reels to the wrack and the twist, And the rose is a red bygone, When the face I love is going 180 DIALOGUE And the gate to the end shall clang, And it s no use to beckon or say, "So long" Maybe I ll tell you then some other time. I never knew any more beautiful than you: I have hunted you under my thoughts, I have broken down under the wind And into the roses looking for you. I shall never find any greater than you. Carl Sandburg DIALOGUE BE patient, Life, when Love is at the gate, And when he enters let him be at home. Think of the roads that he has had to roam. Think of the years that he has had to wait. But if I let Love in I shall be late. Another has come first there is no room. And I am thoughtful of the endless loom Let Love be patient, the importunate. O Life, be idle and let Love come in, And give thy dreamy hair that Love may spin. But Love himself is idle with his song. Let Love come last, and then may Love last long. Be patient, Life, for Love is not the last. Be patient now with Death, for Love has passed. Walter Conrad Arensberg THE BITTER HERB 181 SONG THE Spring will come when the year turns, As if no Winter had been, But what shall I do with a locked heart That lets no new year in? The birds will go when the Fall goes, The leaves will fade in the field, // But what shall I do with an old love Will neither die nor yield? Oh! youth will turn as the world turns, And dim grow laughter and pain, But how shall I hide from an old dream I never may dream again? Margaret Widdemer THE BITTER HERB BITTER herb, Forgetfulness, 1 search for you in vain; You are the only growing thing Can take away my pain. When I was young, this bitter herb Grew wild on every hill; I should have plucked a store of it, And kept it by me still. I hunt through all the meadows Where once I wandered free, But the rare herb, Forgetfulness, It hides away from me. 182 MEN OF HARLAN O bitter herb, Forgetfulness, Where is your drowsy breath? Oh, can it be your seed has blown Far as the Vales of Death? Jeanne Robert Foster BEHIND THE HOUSE IS THE MILLET PLOT BEHIND the house is the millet plot, And past the millet, the stile; And then a hill where melilot Grows with wild camomile. There was a youth who bade me goodby Where the hill rises to meet the sky. I think my heart broke; but I have forgot All but the smell of the white melilot. Muna Lee MEN OF HARLAN HERE in the level country, where the creeks run straight and wide, Six men upon their pacing nags may travel side by side. But the mountain men of Harlan, you may tell them all the while, When they pass through our village, for they ride in single file. And the children, when they see them, stop their play and stand and cry, "Here come the men of Harlan, men of Harlan, riding by!" MEN OF HARLAN 183 the mountain men of Harlan, when they come down to the plain, With dangling stirrup, jangling spur, and loosely hanging rein, They do not ride, like our folks here, in twos and threes abreast, With merry laughter, talk and song, and lightly spoken jest; But silently and solemnly, in long and straggling line, As you may see them in the hills, beyond Big Black and Pine. For, in that far strange country, where the men of Harlan dwell, There are no roads at all, like ours, as we ve heard travelers tell. But only narrow trails that wind along each shallow creek, Where the silence hangs so heavy, you can hear the leathers squeak. And there no two can ride abreast, but each alone must go, Picking his way as best he may, with careful steps and slow, Down many a shelving ledge of shale, skirting the trembling sands, Through many a pool and many a pass, where the mountain laurel stands So thick and close to left and right, with holly bushes, too, The clinging branches meet midway to bar the passage through, 184 HAVE YOU AN EYE O er many a steep and stony ridge, o er many a high divide, , And so it is the Harlan men thus one by one do ride. Yet it is strange to see them pass in line through our wide street, When they come down to sell their sang, and buy their stores of meat, These silent men, in sombre black, all clad from foot to head, Though they have left their lonely hills and the nar row creek s rough bed. And t is no wonder children stop their play and stand and cry: "Here come the men of Harlan, men of Harlan, riding by." William Aspinwall Bradley HAVE YOU AN EYE HAVE you an eye for the trails, the trails, The old mark and the new? What scurried here, what loitered there, In the dust and in the dew? Have you an eye for the beaten track, The old hoof and the young? Come name me the drivers of yesterday, Sing me the songs they sung. O, was it a schooner last went by, And where will it ford the stream? Where will it halt in the early dusk, And where will the camp-fire gleam? AFTER APPLE-PICKING 185 They used to take the shortest cut The cattle trails had made; Get down the hill by the easy slope To the water and the shade. But it s barbed wire fence, and section line, And kill-horse travel now; Scoot you down the canyon bank, The old road s under plough. Have you an eye for the laden wheel, The worn tire or the new? Or the sign of the prairie pony s hoof Was never trimmed for shoe? Edwin Ford Piper AFTER APPLE-PICKING MY long two-pointed ladder s sticking through a tree Toward heaven still, And there s a barrel that I did n t fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I did n t pick upon some bough. But I am done with apple-picking now. Essence of winter sleep is on the night, The scent of apples : I am drowsing off. I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight I got from looking through a pane of glass I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough And held against the world of hoary grass. It melted, and I let it fall and break. But I was well Upon my way to sleep before it fell, And I could tell 186 AUTUMN What form my dreaming was about to take. Magnified apples appear and disappear, Stem end and blossom end, And every fleck of russet showing clear. My instep arch not only keeps the ache, It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round. I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend. And I keep hearing from the cellar bin The rumbling sound Of load on load of apples coming in. For I have had too much Of apple-picking : I am overtired Of the great harvest I myself desired. There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall. For all That struck the earth, No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, Went surely to the cider-apple heap As of no worth. One can see what will trouble This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is. Were he not gone, The woodchuck could say whether it s like his Long sleep, as I describe its coming on, Or just some human sleep. Robert Frost AUTUMN (For my Mother) How memory cuts away the years, And how clean the picture comes Of autumn days, brisk and busy; AUTUMN 187 Charged with keen sunshine. And you, stirred with activity; The spirit of these energetic days. There was our back-yard, So plain and stripped of green, With even the weeds carefully pulled away From the crooked, red bricks that made the walk. And the earth on either side so black. Autumn and dead leaves burning in the sharp air; And winter comforts coming in like a pageant. I shall not forget them : Great jars laden with the raw green of pickles, Standing in a solemn row across the back of the porch, Exhaling the pungent dill; And in the very center of the yard, You, tending the great catsup kettle of gleaming copper Where fat, red tomatoes bobbed up and down Like jolly monks in a drunken dance. And there were bland banks of cabbages that came by the wagon-load, Soon to be cut into delicate ribbons Only to be crushed by the heavy, wooden stompers. Such feathery whiteness to come to kraut! And after, there were grapes that hid their brightness under a grey dust, Then gushed thrilling, purple blood over the fire; And enamelled crab-apples that tricked with their fragrance But were bitter to taste. And there were spicy plums and ill-shaped quinces, 188 GOD S WORLD And long string beans floating in pans of clear water Like slim, green fishes. And there was fish itself, Salted, silver herring from the city . . . And you moved among these mysteries, Absorbed and smiling and sure; Stirring, tasting, measuring, With the precision of a ritual. I like to think of you in your years of power You, now so shaken and so powerless High priestess of your home. Jean Starr Untermeyer AUTUMN MOVEMENT I CRIED over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts. The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds. The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go, not one lasts. Carl Sandburg GOD S WORLD O WORLD, I cannot hold thee close enough! Thy winds, thy wide grey skies! Thy mists that roll and rise! WHEN THE YEAR GROWS OLD 189 Thy woods this autumn day, that ache and sag And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff! World, World, I cannot get thee close enough! Long have I known a glory in it all, But never knew I this; Here such a passion is As stretcheth me apart, Lord, I do fear Thou st made the world too beautiful this year; My soul is all but out of me, let fall No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call. Edna St. Vincent Millay OVERTONES I HEARD a bird at break of day Sing from the autumn trees A song so mystical and calm, So full of certainties, No man, I think, could listen long Except upon his knees. Yet this was but a simple bird, Alone, among dead trees. William Alexander Percy WHEN THE YEAR GROWS OLD I CANNOT but remember When the year grows old October November How she disliked the cold ! 190 WHEN THE YEAR GROWS OLD She used to watch the swallows Go down across the sky, And turn from the window With a little sharp sigh. And often when the brown leaves Were brittle on the ground, And the wind in the chimney Made a melancholy sound, She had a look about her That I wish I could forget The look of a scared thing Sitting in a net! Oh, beautiful at nightfall The soft spitting snow! And beautiful the bare boughs Rubbing to and fro! But the roaring of the fire, And the warmth of fur, And the boiling of the kettle Were beautiful to her! I cannot but remember When the year grows old October November How she disliked the cold! Edna St. Vincent Millay THE NARROW DOORS 191 IN THE MONASTERY COLD is the wind to-night, and rough the sea, Too rough for even the daring Dane to find A landing-place upon the frozen lea. Cold is the wind. The blast sweeps round the chapel from behind, Making the altar-light flare fitfully, While I must kneel and pray with troubled mind. Patrick and Brigid, I have prayed to ye! The night is over, and my task resigned To Colum. Though God s own dwelling shelter me, Cold is the wind. Norreys Jephson Conor THE NARROW DOORS THE Wide Door into Sorrow Stands open night and day. With head held high and dancing feet I pass it on my way. I never tread within it, I never turn to see The Wide Door into Sorrow. It cannot frighten me. The Narrow Doors to Sorrow Are secret, still, and low : Swift tongues of dusk that spoil the sun Before I even know. 192 I PASS A LIGHTED WINDOW My dancing feet are frozen. I stare. I can but see. The Narrow Doors to Sorrow They stop the heart in me. Oh, stranger than my midnights Of loneliness and strife The Doors that let the dark leap in Across my sunny life! Fannie Stearns Davis I PASS A LIGHTED WINDOW I PASS a lighted window And a closed door And I am not troubled Any more. Though the road is murky, I am not afraid, For a shadow passes On the lighted shade. Once I knew the sesame To the closed door; Now I shall not enter Any more; Nor will people passing By the lit place, See our shadows marry In a gray embrace. DOORS 193 Strange a passing shadow Has a long spell ! What can matter, knowing She does well? How can life annoy me Any more? Life : a lighted window And a closed door. Clement Wood DOORS i / / LIKE a young child who to his mother s door Runs eager for the welcoming embrace, And finds the door shut, andjyith troubled face Calls and through sobbing calls, and o er and o er Calling, storms at the panel so before A door that will not open, sick and numb, I listen for a word that will not come, And know, at last, I may not enter more. Silence! And through the silence and the dark By that closed door, the distant sob of tears Beats on my spirit, as on fairy shores The spectral sea; and through the sobbing hark! Down the fair-chambered corridor of years, The quiet shutting, one by one, of doors. Hermann Hagedorn i Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from Poetrn and Ballads, by Hermann Hagedorn. Copyright 1913, by The Macmillan Company. 194 IRISH LOVE SONG WHERE LOVE ONCE WAS WHERE love once was, let there be no hate: Though they that went as one by night and day Go now alone, Where love once was, let there be no hate. The seeds we planted together Came to rich harvest, And our hearts are as bins brimming with the golden plenty: Into our loneliness we carry granaries of old love . . . And though the time has come when we cannot sow our acres together, And our souls need diverse fields, And a tilling apart, Let us go separate ways with a blessing each for each, And gentle parting, And let there be no hate, Where love once was. James Oppenheim IRISH LOVE SONG WELL, if the thing is over, better it is for me, The lad was ever a rover, loving and laughing free, Far too clever a lover not to be having still A lass in the town and a lass by the road and a lass by the farther hill Love on the field and love on the path and love in the woody glen (Lad, will I never see you, never your face again?) NIRVANA 195 Ay, if the thing is ending, now I 11 be getting rest, Saying my prayers and bending down to be stilled and blest, Never the days are sending hope till my heart is sore For a laugh on the path and a voice by the gate and a step on the shieling floor Grief on my ways and grief on my work and grief till the evening s dim (Lord, will I never hear it, never a sound of him?) Sure if it s done forever, better for me that s wise, Never the hurt, and never tears in my aching eyes, No more the trouble ever to hide from my asking folk Beat of my heart at click o the latch, and throb if his name is spoke; Never the need to hide the sighs and the flushing thoughts and the fret, And after awhile my heart will hush and my hungering hands forget . . . Peace on my ways, and peace in my step, and maybe my heart grown light (Mary, helper of heartbreak, send him to me to-night!) Margaret Widdemer NIRVANA SLEEP on I lie at heaven s high oriels, Over the stars that murmur as they go Lighting your lattice-window far below; And every star some of the glory spells Whereof I know. 196 SILENCE I have forgotten you, long long ago; Like the sweet, silver singing of thin bells Vanished, or music fading faint and low. Sleep on I lie at heaven s high oriels, Who loved you so. John Hall Wheelock A NUN ONE glance and I had lost her in the riot Of tangled cries. She trod the clamor with a cloistral quiet Deep in her eyes As though she heard the muted music only That silence makes Among dim mountain summits and on lonely Deserted lakes. There is some broken song her heart remembers From long ago, Some love lies buried deep, some passion s embers Smothered in snow, Far voices of a joy that sought and missed her Fail now, and cease . . . And this has given the deep eyes of God s sister Their dreadful peace. Odell Shepherd SILENCE i I HAVE known the silence of the stars and of the sea, And the silence of the city when it pauses, And the silence of a man and a maid, 1 Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from Songs and Satires, by Edgar Lee Masters. Copyright, 1915, by The Macmillan Company. SILENCE 197 And the silence of the sick When their eyes roam about the room. And I ask : For the depths, Of what use is language? A beast of the field moans a few times When death takes its young. And we are voiceless in the presence of realities - We cannot speak. A curious boy asks an old soldier Sitting in front of the grocery store, "How did you lose your leg?" And the old soldier is struck with silence, Or his mind flies away Because he cannot concentrate it on Gettysburg. It comes back jocosely And he says, "A bear bit it off." And the boy wonders, while the old soldier Dumbly, feebly lives over The flashes of guns, the thunder of cannon, The shrieks of the slain, And himself lying on the ground, And the hospital surgeons, the knives, And the long days in bed. But if he could describe it all He would be an artist. But if he were an artist there would be deeper wounds Which he could not describe. There is the silence of a great hatred, And the silence of a great love, And the silence of an embittered friendship. 198 SILENCE There is the silence of a spiritual crisis, Through which your soul, exquisitely tortured, Comes with visions not to be uttered Into a realm of higher life. There is the silence of defeat. There is the silence of those unjustly punished; And the silence of the dying whose hand Suddenly grips yours. There is the silence between father and son, When the father cannot explain his life, Even though he be misunderstood for it. There is the silence that comes between husband and wife. There is the silence of those who have failed; And the vast silence that covers Broken nations and vanquished leaders. There is the silence of Lincoln, ; Thinking of the poverty of his youth. And the silence of Napoleon After Waterloo. And the silence of Jeanne d Arc Saying amid the flames, "Blessed Jesus * Revealing in two words all sorrows, all hope. And there is the silence of age, Too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it In words intelligible to those who have not lived The great range of life. And there is the silence of the dead. If we who are in life cannot speak Of profound experiences, Why do you marvel that the dead INDIAN SUMMER 199 Do not tell you of death? Their silence shall be interpreted As we approach them. Edgar Lee Masters THE DARK CAVALIER I AM the Dark Cavalier; I am the Last Lover: My arms shall welcome you when other arms are tired; I stand to wait for you, patient in the darkness, Offering forgetfulness of all that you desired. I ask no merriment, no pretense of gladness, I can love heavy lids and lips without their rose; Though you are sorrowful you will not weary me; I will not go from you when all the tired world goes. I am the Dark Cavalier; I am the Last Lover; I promise faithfulness no other lips may keep; Safe in my bridal place, comforted by darkness, You shall lie happily, smiling in your sleep. Margaret Widdemer INDIAN SUMMER (After completing a book for one now dead) (0 Earth-and-Autumn of the Setting Sun, She is not by, to know my task is done.) In the brown grasses slanting with the wind, Lone as a lad whose dog *s no longer near, Lone as a mother whose only child has sinned, Lone on the loved hill . . . and below me here 200 INDIAN SUMMER The thistle-down in tremulous atmosphere Along red clusters of the sumach streams; The shrivelled stalks of golden-rod are sere, And crisp and white their flashing old racemes. ( . . . forever . . . forever .... forever . . .) This is the lonely season of the year, This is the season of our lonely dreams. (0 Earth-and- Autumn of the Setting Sun, She is not by, to know my task is done!) The corn-shocks westward on the stubble plain Show like an Indian village of dead days; The long smoke trails behind the crawling train, And floats atop the distant woods ablaze With orange, crimson, purple. The low haze Dims the scarped bluffs above the inland sea, Whose wide and slaty waters in cold glaze Await yon full-moon of the night-to-be, ( . . . far . . . and far . . . and far . . .) These are the solemn horizons of man s ways, These are the horizons of solemn thought to me. (0 Earth-and-Autumn of the Setting Sun, She is not by, to know my task is done!) And this the hill she visited, as friend; And this the hill she lingered on, as bride Down in the yellow valley is the end: They laid her ... in no evening autumn tide . . . Under fresh flowers of that May morn, beside The queens and cave-women of ancient earth . . . This is the hill . . . and over my city s towers, Across the world from sunset, yonder in air, DEATH DIVINATION 201 Shines, through its scaffoldings, a civic dome Of piled masonry, which shall be ours To give, completed, to our children there . . . And yonder far roof of my abandoned home Shall house new laughter . . . Yet I tried ... I tried And, ever wistful of the doom to come, I built her many a fire for love . . . for mirth . . . (When snows were falling on our oaks outside, Dear, many a winter fire upon the hearth) . . . ( . . . farewell . . . farewell . . . farewell . . . ) We dare not think too long on those who died, While still so many yet must come to birth. William Ellery Leonard DEATH DIVINATION DEATH is like moonlight in a lofty wood, That pours pale magic through the shadowy leaves; T is like the web that some old perfume weaves In a dim, lonely room where memories brood; Like snow-chilled wine it steals into the blood, Spurring the pulse its coolness half reprieves; Tenderly quickening impulses it gives, As April winds unsheathe an opening bud. Death is like all sweet, sense-enfolding things, That lift us in a dream-delicious trance Beyond the flickering good and ill of chance; But most is Death like Music s buoyant wings, That bear the soul, a willing Ganymede, Where joys on joys forevermore succeed. Charles Wharton Stork 202 IN PATRIS MEI MEMORIAM THE MOULD No doubt this active will, So bravely steeped in sun, This will has vanquished Death And foiled oblivion. But this indifferent clay, This fine experienced hand, So quiet, and these thoughts That all unfinished stand, Feel death as though it were A shadowy caress; And win and wear a frail Archaic wistfulness. Gladys Cromwell IN PATRIS MEI MEMORIAM BY the fond name that was his own and mine, The last upon his lips that strove with doom, He called me and I saw the light assume A sudden glory and around him shine; And nearer now I saw the laureled line Of the august of Song before me loom, And knew the voices, erstwhile through the gloom, That whispered and forbade me to repine. Arid with farewell, a shaft of splendor sank Out of the stars and faded as a flame, AFTERWARDS 203 And down the night, on clouds of glory, came The battle seraphs halting rank on rank; And lifted heavenward to heroic peace, He passed and left me hope beyond surcease. John Myers O Hara AD MATREM AMANTISSIMAM ET CARIS- SIMAM FILII IN STERNUM FIDELITAS WITH all the fairest angels nearest God, The ineffable true of heart around the throne, There shall I find you waiting when the flown Dream leaves my heart insentient as the clod; And when the grief-retracing ways I trod Become a shining path to thee alone, My weary feet, that seemed to drag as stone, Shall once again, with wings of fleetness shod, Fare on, beloved, to find you! Just beyond The seraph throng await me, standing near The gentler angels, eager and apart; Be there, near God s own fairest, with the fond Sweet smile that was your own, and let me hear Your voice again and clasp you to my heart. John Myers O Hara AFTERWARDS THERE was a day when death to me meant tears, And tearful takings-leave that had to be, And awed embarkings on an unshored sea, And sudden disarrangement of the years, now I know that nothing interferes 204 PIERRETTE IN MEMORY With the fixed forces when a tired man dies; That death is only answerings and replies, The chiming of a bell which no one hears, The casual slanting of a half-spent sun, The soft recessional of noise and coil, The coveted something time nor age can spoil; I know it is a fabric finely spun Between the stars and dark; to seize and keep, Such glad romances as we read in sleep. Mahlon Leonard Fisher PIERRETTE IN MEMORY PIERRETTE has gone, but it was not Exactly that she died, So much as vanished and forgot To tell where she would hide. To keep a sudden rendezvous, It came into her mind That she was late. What could she do But leave distress behind? Afraid of being in disgrace, And hurrying to dress, She heard there was another place In need of loveliness. She went so softly and so soon, She hardly made a stir; But going took the stars and moon And sun away with her. William Griffith THE UNKNOWN BELOVED 205 THE THREE SISTERS GONE are the three, those sisters rare With wonder-lips and eyes ashine. One was wise and one was fair, And one was mine. Ye mourners, weave for the sleeping hair Of only two, your ivy vine. For one was wise and one was fair, But one was mine. Arthur Davison Ficke SONG I MAKE my shroud, but no one knows So shimmering fine it is and fair, With stitches set in even rows, I make my shroud, but no one knows. In door-way where the lilac blows, Humming a little wandering air, I make my shroud and no one knows, So shimmering fine it is and fair. Adelaide Crapsey THE UNKNOWN BELOVED I DREAMED I passed a doorway Where, for a sign of death, White ribbons one was binding About a flowery wreath. CINQUAINS What drew me so I know not, But drawing near I said, "Kind sir, and can you tell me Who is it here lies dead?" Said he, "Your most beloved Died here this very day, That had known twenty Aprils Had she but lived till May." Astonished I made answer, "Good sir, how say you so! Here have I no beloved, This house I do not know." Quoth he, "Who from the world s end Was destined unto thee Here lies, thy true beloved Whom thou shalt never see." I dreamed I passed a doorway Where, for a sign of death, White ribbons one was binding About a flowery wreath. John Hall Wheelock CINQUAINS FATE DEFIED As it Were tissue of silver I 11 wear, O fate, thy grey, THE LONELY DEATH 207 And go mistily radiant, clad Like the moon. NIGHT WINDS THE old Old winds that blew When chaos was, what do They tell the clattered trees that I Should weep? THE WARNING JUST now, Out of the strange Still dusk ... as strange, as still . . . A white moth flew . . . Why am I grown So cold? Adelaide Crapsey I THE LONELY DEATH IN the cold I will rise, I will bathe In waters of ice; myself Will shiver, and shrive myself, Alone in the dawn, and anoint Forehead and feet and hands; I will shutter the windows from light, I will place in their sockets the four Tall candles and set them aflame In the grey of the dawn; and myself Will lay myself straight in my bed, And draw the sheet under my chin. Adelaide Crapsey 208 LOAM EXILE FROM GOD I DO not fear to lay my body down In death, to share The life of the dark earth and lose my own, If God is there. I have so loved all sense of Him, sweet might Of color and sound, His tangible loveliness and living light That robes me round. If to His heart in the hushed grave and dim We sink more near, It shall be well living we rest in Him. Only I fear Lest from my God in lonely death I lapse, And the dumb clod Lose him; for God is life, and death perhaps Exile from God. John Hall Wheelock LOAM IN the loam we sleep, In the cool moist loam, To the lull of years that pass And the break of stars. From the loam, then, The soft warm loam, We rise: To shape of rose leaf, Of face and shoulder. THE LAST PIPER 209 We stand, then, To a whiff of life, Lifted to the silver of the sun Over and out of the loam A day. Carl Sandburg HILLS OF HOME NAME me no names for my disease, With uninforming breath; I tell you I am none of these, But homesick unto death Homesick for hills that I had known, For brooks that I had crossed, Before I met this flesh and bone And followed and was lost. . . . And though they break my heart at last, Yet name no name of ills. Say only, "Here is where he passed, Seeking again those hills." Witter Bynner THE LAST PIPER DARK winds of the mountain, White winds of the sea, Are skirling the pibroch Of Seumas an Righ. 210 THE PROVINCES __ The crying of gannets, The shrieking of terns, Are keening his dying High over the burns. Grey silence of waters And wasting of lands And the wailing of music Down to the sands, The wailing of music, And trailing of wind, The waters before him, The mountains behind, Alone at the gathering, Silent he stands, And the wail of his piping Cries over the lands, To the moan of the waters, The drone of the foam, Where his soul, a white gannet, Wings silently home. Edward J. O Brien THE PROVINCES God that I May arise with the Gael To the song in the sky Over Jnisfail! OMNIUM EXEUNT IN MYSTERIUM 21 Ulster, your dark Mold for me; Minister, a lark Hold for me! Connaght, a caoine Croon for me; Lienster, a mean Stone for me! God that I May arise with the Gael To the song in the sky Over Inisfail! Francis Carlin OMNIUM EXEUNT IN MYSTERIUM THE stranger in my gates lo ! that am I, And what my land of birth I do not know, Nor yet the hidden land to which I go. One may be lord of many ere he die, And tell of many sorrows in one sigh, But know himself he shall not, nor his woe, Nor to what sea the tears of wisdom flow; Nor why one star is taken from the sky. An urging is upon him evermore, And though he bide, his soul is wanderer, Scanning the shadows with a sense of haste Where fade the tracks of all who went before: A dim and solitary traveller On ways that end in evening and the waste. George Sterling OLD AGE MOTH-TERROR I HAVE killed the moth flying around my night-light; wingless and dead it lies upon the floor. (O who will kill the great Time-Moth that eats holes in my soul and that burrows in and through my secretest veils!) My will against its will, and no more will it fly at my night-light or be hidden behind the curtains that swing in the winds. (But O who will shatter the Change-Moth that leaves me in rags tattered old tapestries that swing in the winds that blow out of Chaos!) Night-Moth, Change-Moth, Time-Moth, eaters of dreams and of me! Benjamin De Casseres OLD AGE I HAVE heard the wild geese, I have seen the leaves fall, There was frost last night On the garden wall. It is gone to-day And I hear the wind call. The wind? . . .That is all. If the swallow will light When the evening is near; If the crane will not scream Like a soul in fear; ATROPOS 213 I will think no more Of the dying year, And the wind, its seer. Cole Young Rice ATROPOS ATROPOS, dread One of the Three, Holding the thread Woven for me; Grimly thy shears, Steely and bright, Menace the years Left for delight. Grant it may chance, Just as they close, June may entrance Earth with the rose; Reigning as though, Bliss to the breath, Endless and no Whisper of death. John Myers O Hara INDEX OF AUTHORS AIKEN, CONRAD 50, 87. 99 AKINS, ZOE 52 ANDERSON, MARGARET STEELE . 29, 76 ARENSBERG, WALTER CONRAD 86, 180 BAKER, KARLE WILSON 82, 90 BATES, KATHARINE LEE 13 BENET, STEPHEN VINCENT 164 BENET, WILLIAM ROSE 30, 111 BRADLEY, WILLIAM ASPINWALL 182 BRANCH, ANNA HEMPSTEAD 20, 112, 135 BURNET, DANA 120 BURR, AMELIA JOSEPHINE 54, 68 BURT, MAXWELL STRUTHERS 93 BYNNER, WITTER 62,100,170,172,209 CARLIN, FRANCIS 78, 210 CLEGHORN, SARAH N 139 CONKLING, GRACE HAZARD 86, 167, 177 CORBIN, ALICE 143 Cox, ELEANOR ROGERS 32, 73 CRAPSEY, ADELAIDE 203, 206, 207 CROMWELL, GLADYS 202 DARGAN, OLIVE TILFORD 15 DAVIES, MARY CAROLYN 6, 66, 162 DAVIS, FANNIE STEARNS 128, 191 DE CASSERES, BENJAMIN 212 DRISCOLL, LOUISE 52 FICKE, ARTHUR DAVISON 74, 205 FISHER, MAHLON LEONARD 85, 203 216 INDEX OF AUTHORS FLETCHER, JOHN GOULD 4, 153 FOSTER, JEANNE ROBERT 181 FROST, ROBERT 3, 91, 116, 185 GARRISON, THEODOSIA 119 GILTINAN, CAROLINE 27 GRIFFITH, WILLIAM 5, 204 GUITERMAN, ARTHUR 27, 28 H. D 101, 102 HAGEDORN, HERMANN 158, 195 HARDING, RUTH GUTHRIE 74 HOYT, HELEN 82 JOHNS, ORRICK 18, 31, 145 JONES, THOMAS S., JR 7, 22, 51 KEMP, HARRY 13 KILMER, ALINE 127, 132, 133 KILMER, JOYCE 12, 26, 159, 165 KREYMBORG, ALFRED 12, 98 LEE, AGNES 111,172 LEE, MUNA 182 LEDOUX, Louis V 124, 128, 132 LEONARD, WILLIAM ELLERY 65, 199 LINDSAY, VACHEL 37, 63, 71, 157 LOWELL, AMY 72, 103, 105, 140, 178 MASTERS, EDGAR LEE 148, 196 MlDDLETON, SCUDDER 69, 76 MILLAY, EDNA ST. VINCENT 84, 188, 189 MONROE, HARRIET 14, 97 MORGAN, ANGELA 75, 170 MORTON, DAVID 3, 51, 173 NEIHARDT, JOHN G 124 NORTON, GRACE FALLOW 47 INDEX OF AUTHORS 217 O BRIEN, EDWARD J 163, 209 O CONOR, NORREYS JEPHSON 77, 191 O HARA, JOHN MYERS 202, 203, 213 O SHEEL, SHAEMAS 69 OPPENHEIM, JAMES 99, 104, 194 PEABODY, JOSEPHINE PRESTON 67, 119, 121 PERCY, WILLIAM ALEXANDER 189 PIPER, EDWIN FORD 184 RICE, GALE YOUNG 19, 25, 96, 212 ROBINSON, CORINNE ROOSEVELT 81, 177 ROBINSON, EDWIN ARLINGTON 33, 109, 145 SANDBURG, CARL 48, 179, 188, 208 SCHAUFFLER, ROBERT HAVEN 159, 169 SEEGER, ALAN 164 SHANAFELT, CLARA 20 SHEPHERD, ODELL 196 SMITH, MAY RILEY 141 SPEYER, LEONORA 83, 168 STERLING, GEORGE 48, 134, 211 STORK, CHARLES WHARTON 110, 201 TEASDALE, SARA 5, 8, 45, 84 TIETJENS, EUNICE 95 TORRENCE, RlDGELY 56, 142 TOWNE, CHARLES HANSON 55, 94, 110 UNTERMEYER, JEAN STARR 186 UNTERMEYER, Louis 29, 90, 134 WALSH, THOMAS 80, 120 WATTLES, WILLARD 26, 144, 173 WHEELOCK, JOHN HALL 9, 195, 205, 208 WIDDEMER, MARGARET 70, 181, 194, 199 WILKINSON, FLORENCE 175 WILKINSON, MARGUERITE 79, 115 WOOD, CLEMENT 6, 171, 192 INDEX OF FIRST LINES A red-cap sang in Bishop s wood 15 A wind rose in the night 133 All day long I have been working 103 All the men of Harbury go down to the sea in ships . . 52 Always I tell you this they learned 117 April now walks the fields again 168 As I went over the Far Hill 78 As it 206 At the first hour, it was as if one said, "Arise "... 4 Atropos, dread 213 Autumn in Oregon is wet as Spring 162 Be not angry with me that I bear 178 Be patient, Life, when Love is at the gate 180 Because on the branch that is tapping my pane ... 27 Because we felt there could not be 62 Before I die I may be great 115 Behind the house is the millet plot 182 Beloved, till the day break 119 Bend now thy body to the common weight .... 29 Blake saw a treeful of angels at Peckham Rye . . . .111 Booth led boldly with his big bass drum 63 Brother Tree 12 But now the Dream has come again, the world is as of old 20 By the fond name that was his own and mine . . . 202 By the rosy cliffs of Devon, on a green hill s crest . . 68 Cold is the wind to-night, and rough the sea . . . .191 Come, when the pale moon like a petal 45 Dark winds of the mountain 209 Dear, when I went with you 79 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 219 Death is like moonlight in a lofty wood 201 Deep in the heart of me 74 Down by the railroad in a green valley 56 Drowsily come the sheep 124 Earth has gone up from its Gethsemane 169 Fifty years spent before I found me 93 Good-bye to tree and tower 77 Gone are the three, those sisters rare 205 Grasshopper, your fairy song 9 Great god whom I shall carve from this gray stone . . 28 Have you an eye for the trails, the trails 184 He was straight and strong and his eyes were blue . . 54 Heartbreak that is too new 66 Here in the level country, where the creeks run straight and wide 182 "How, how," he said. "Friend Chang," I said . . . 37 How many million Aprils came 8 How may one hold these days of wonderment ... 22 How memory cuts away the years 186 How much of Godhood did it take 134 I am all alone in the room 128 am in love with high, far-seeing places 74 . am not old, but old enough 69 am the Dark Cavalier; I am the Last Lover .... 199 am the still rain falling 45 asked the heaven of stars 46 cannot but remember 189 cannot tell you now 179 cannot think nor reason 26 I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts 188 I d rather have the thought of you 75 220 INDEX OF FIRST LINES I do not fear to lay my body down 208 I dreamed I passed a doorway 205 ! envy the feeble old man 69 flung my soul to the air like a falcon flying .... 30 have a rendezvous with Death 164 have an understanding with the hills 86 have heard the wild geese 212 I have killed the moth flying around my night-light . 212 I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea . 196 I heard a bird at break of day 189 I heard a cry in the night 45 I heard an old farm-wife 142 I know the sorrows of the last abyss 65 I know you are too dear to stay 132 I make my shroud but no one knows 205 I never knew the earth had so much gold 90 I pass a lighted window 192 I saw the first pear 101 I sing of sorrow 66 I think that I shall never see 12 I ve seen her pass with eyes upon the road . . . .143 I walk down the garden paths 105 I went out to the farthest meadow 47 I will be the gladdest thing 84 If you should tire of loving me 70 In a wood they call the Rouge Bouquet 165 In came the moon and covered me with wonder . .100 In spite of war, in spite of death 170 In the cold I will rise, I will bathe 207 In the loam we sleep 208 In the still cold before the sun 139 In the very early morning when the light was low . .145 In Tilbury Town did Old King Cole 145 In youth my wings were strong and tireless . . . .151 Is there no voice in the world to come crying . . . .19 It is moonlight. Alone in the silence 99 It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning ... 87 INDEX OF FIRST LINES It is not Spring not yet .......... 6 It is portentous and a thing of state ....... 157 It was too lonely for her there ......... 118 Jerico, Jerico .............. 173 John Brown and Jeanne at Fontainebleau ..... 175 Just now ................ 207 Kenton and Deborah, Michael and Rose ..... 1527 Let it be forgotten as a flower is forgotten .... 46 Let others give you wealth and love ...... 128 Like a gaunt scraggly pine .......... 153 Like a young child who to his mother s door .... 193 Little brown surf-bather of the mountains .... 97 Little park that I pass through ........ 82 Lord Gabriel, wilt thou not rejoice ....... 121 Lord, in this hour of tumult ......... 158 Mine eyes are filled today with old amaze ..... 85 Mother, in some sad evening long ago ...... 134 Music I heard with you was more than music ... 50 My brother, man, shapes him a plan ...... 96 My faith is all a doubtful thing ........ 3 My father got me strong and straight and slim . . .115 My land was the west land, my home was on the hill . 120 My long two-pointed ladder s sticking through a tree . 185 My love it should be silent, being deep ...... 119 My shoulders ache beneath my pack ...... 159 Name me no names for my disease ....... 209 Nevermore singing ............ 167 No doubt this active will .......... 202 O bitter herb, Forgetfulness ......... 181 O clinging hands, and eyes where sleep has set . . .132 O Earth-and-Autumn of the Setting Sun ..... 199 222 INDEX OF FIRST LINES O Glass-Blower of time 20 O God that I 210 O wind, rend open the heat 102 world, I cannot hold thee close enough 188 O er Carmel fields in the springtime the sea-gulls fol low the plow 48 Oh, cut me reeds to blow upon 177 Oh, praise me not the silent folk 110 One glance and I had lost her in the riot 196 One ought not to have to care 116 Order is a lovely thing 135 Our little house upon the hill 120 Out of me, unworthy and unknown 153 Out of the lights and roar of cities 149 Out of the window a sea of green trees 84 Over and over 67 Pan, blow your pipes and I will be 83 Pierrette has gone, but it was not 204 Reading in Ovid the sorrowful story of Itys .... 150 Rich, honored by my fellow citizens 148 Roof-tops, roof-tops, what do you cover 55 She follows me about my House of Life 141 She goes all so softly 163 She had no saying dark enough 117 Sleep on I lie at heaven s high oriels 195 Softly at dawn a whisper stole 5 Some days my thoughts are just cocoons 82 Space, and the twelve clean winds of heaven .... 95 Spring 7 Suddenly bells and flags 172 Sun on the dewy grasslands where late the frost hath shone 80 Tell me 72 That overnight a rose could come 27 INDEX OF FIRST LINES 223 The bells of Oseney 25 The bride she wears a white, white rose 76 The day before April 6 The first faint dawn was flushing up the skies ... 13 The hills far-off were blue, blue 67 The kings are passing deathward in the dark .... 173 The man Flammonde, from God knows where ... 33 The old 207 The ships are lying in the bay 52 The sky 98 The snow is lying very deep Ill The Spring blew trumpets of olor 13 The Spring will come when the year turns .... 181 The stranger in my gates lo! that am I .... 211 The swan existing 86 The Wide Door into Sorrow 191 There be five things to a man s desire 144 There is a memory stays upon old ships 51 There s a path that leads to Nowhere 81 There s nothing very beautiful and nothing very gay . 18 There was a day when death to me meant tears . . . 203 There were not many at that lonely place 164 There will come soft rain and the smell of the ground . 5 They brought me ambrotypes 151 Though wisdom underfoot 170 To-day I have grown taller from walking with the trees . 90 To-night eternity alone is near 51 Tired of man s futile, petty cry 171 Two roads diverged in a yellow wood S Under our curtain of fire 159 Vain is the chiming of forgotten bells 26 We ask that love shall rise to the divine 177 Well, if the thing is over, better it is for me . . . . 194 What though the moon should come 31 INDEX OF FIRST LINES What sudden bugle calls us in the night ..... 29 What waspish whim of Fate ......... 32 When Dragon-fly would fix his wings ...... 71 When he went blundering back to God ..... 110 When I come back from secret dreams ...... 112 When I see birches bend to left and right .... 91 When sick of all the sorrow and distress ..... 94 When the rose of Morn through the Dawn was breaking 73 Whenever Richard Cory went down town . . . . .109 Where love once was, let there be no hate ..... 194 Whether the time be slow or fast ........ 172 Who is the runner in the skies ......... 99 Why should we argue with the falling dust .... 76 With all the fairest angels nearest God ...... 203 Would you not be in Tryon .......... 14 Ye morning-glories, ring in the gale your bells . . .104 Yearly thrilled the plum tree ......... 124 You are beautiful and faded ......... 140 Your eyes and the valley are memories ...... 48 Your kiss lies on my face .......... 66 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. REC D LD NOV 14 1957 3 LD MAY 2V B62 .u TCuIT 1961 62 C LD 21A-50w-8, 57 (C8481slO)476B General Library University of California Berkeley I A (MO ft THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY