A FAMILY ALBUM 
 
A FAMILY ALBUM 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 by 
 
 ALTER BRODY 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 LOUIS UNTERMEYER 
 
 New York B. W. HUEBSCH Mcmxviii 
 
Copyright, 1918, by B. W. Huebsch 
 
 PRINTED IN U. S. A. 
 
TO RUSSIA 
 
 39GG60 
 
Some of the poems in this book appeared in the following 
 magazines : The Atlantic Monthly, The Outlook, The Seven 
 Arts, The Dial, Hearst s, Everybody s, McCall s, The Inde 
 pendent, The Bookman, The American Hebrew and Ameri 
 can Jewish Chronicle, to the editors of which the author 
 exDresses his acknowledgment for the right to reprint. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 A favorite literary theory (and one which I always de 
 fended) concerns the vast amount of remarkable poetic 
 work that is produced in America by poets whose names 
 are known only to the postmaster and the callous clerks 
 who have charge of the rejection slips. If once these in 
 glorious but never mute Miltons could reach their audience, 
 our native literature would develop a sudden and spontane 
 ous power that would rouse the nation and blend our 
 polyglot voices in one homogeneous choir. At least, so 
 I thought. My first shock came when I helped read the 
 manuscripts submitted to the late lamented (by some) 
 Masses. True, I became acquainted with a few thousand 
 names I had never seen before; I was made privy to the 
 rhymed and vers libre secrets of a generation of publicly 
 intimate young people; I became convinced that every 
 motorman, bill-collector, plumber, minister, travelling sales 
 man and undergraduate had read Whitman and was con 
 vinced he could improve upon him. But the fresh, per 
 sonal and authentic note that should have been so strik 
 ingly in evidence was striking only in its absence. 
 
 A year or two later The Seven Arts was founded, and part 
 of its unwritten programme was based on the hope of dis 
 covering new and significant talent. I entered upon my 
 combined duties as advisory editor, second reader and 
 theorist with renewed enthusiasm. But, with two excep- 
 
 [7] 
 
dons, .my e*pennde> w&sr. almost identically the same as 
 when I performed a similar function a little earlier in my 
 journalistic career. The only new thing I learned was 
 that most of the writers referred to in the previous paragraph 
 seemed to have stopped imitating Whitman and were busy 
 boiling down the psycho-analytic studies of Doctors Freud 
 and Jung. It may be blasphemy these revolutionary days, 
 but it is a fact that the best poetry was submitted by the 
 best known poets. 
 
 This was the cheerless conclusion that had been forced 
 upon me the day that a particularly high tower of manu 
 scripts was left on my desk. I remember slitting the en 
 velopes with a certain pity for letter-carriers in general and 
 a contempt for theories in particular. And then my eye 
 was arrested by a few lines signed Alter Brody. I may as 
 well admit that it was the name, with its frank incongruity, 
 that held me first. But it was the brief poem that held me 
 longest. It was called " Lamentations " and it was the sort 
 of poignant picture that persists and grows stronger after 
 the mind has passed to other matters. I took up another 
 poem. Then two more. There were only four sheets (a 
 surprisingly modest amount compared to the quires sent in 
 by most of the clamoring applicants for space) and they 
 were of uneven quality. But in all of them there was re 
 vealed a sincerity and sensitivity so keen that they seemed 
 to possess not only the soul but the blood and bones of 
 poetry. In those four poems I caught an intensity that 
 was both racial and individual, an utterance that was no 
 less personal because it caught up the accents of a people. 
 So with this collection of his poems. What racial signifi 
 cance it has is almost always unconscious. And yet the 
 unifying note is its definitely Semitic undertone that 
 queer blend of love and hate, brutality and tenderness, cyn- 
 
 [8] 
 
icism and faith, of a great scorn and a greater suffering. 
 It is this Hebraic power that makes his lines seem to leap 
 hotly from the cold black and white of the printed page. 
 Everywhere in these pages one sees the impress of an alert 
 and original mind, of imagination fed by strengthening fact; 
 of sight that is sharpened by insight. This pungency is sel 
 dom absent, but it is most clearly seen in his poems where 
 Brody shows a passionate participation in city life and, 
 at the same time, an apparent detachment from it. Much 
 of this work is an interpretation of industrial activity 
 against a background of ancient dreams; young America 
 seen through the eyes of old Russia. Witness " Kartushkiya- 
 Beroza " which is, in microcosm, a whole Russian-Jewish 
 boyhood; "Times Square" where one world impinges on 
 another; "Ma," "A Family Album" and "The Neurologi 
 cal Institute " which is a sort of Spoon River Anthology of 
 the East Side. The memory of the Ghetto haunts this vol 
 ume, even Broadway takes on the quality of a seething 
 Judengasse. 
 
 There is, let me hasten to add, no attempt at reconstruc 
 tion here. Brody offers no panaceas, no partisan pro 
 nouncements; he attempts no propaganda. He is content 
 to record the interplay of environment and heredity, to fix 
 the moment when the fact blossoms into fantasy, to follow 
 the line between realism and rapture. He pierces the super- 
 ficials of his subjects and goes deep, turning away from 
 nothing that is raw or unpleasant. He does not reject what 
 is usually concealed, knowing that ugliness is as inextricably 
 knit with life as beauty; his poetry seems striving to find 
 the point where what is ugly can be balanced and finally 
 fused with the whole. These occasional discords and sus 
 pensions are not only natural but necessary in any work 
 that purports to be a rendering of truth. " Art," this poet 
 
 [9] 
 
seems to summarize, "is not only a record but a harmon 
 izing of dissonances." 
 
 This is what gives Brody s lines such vitality. A dozen 
 poems illustrate his gift of making a picture and then, 
 with a slight turn of phrase, making it come to life. Ob 
 serve "The Deserted Church," "A Funeral: Italian Quar 
 ter," " A City Park," " November " to name four utterly 
 dissimilar examples. We have, in each of these, the sharp 
 word, the vivid image fused and fired by something warmer 
 and more vivifying than theories of art. It is a personal 
 magic that pervades these young and passionate pages 
 a magic that is even more haunting for being human. 
 Poetry is almost the last thing that one can be dogmatic 
 about, and yet I am sure that these poems . . . But it is 
 better that they should speak for themselves. 
 
 Louis UNTERMEYER. 
 
 [10] 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Introduction, 7 
 
 Kartushkiya-Beroza, 13 
 
 A Family Album, 18 
 
 Ma, 25 
 
 Portrait, 30 
 
 In the Circulating Library: Seward Park, 31 
 
 Lamentations, 36 
 
 Times Square, 37 
 
 Ghetto Twilight, 39 
 
 In t)he Children s Reading Room, 40 
 
 Jean, 43 
 
 An Old Picture, 44 
 
 On the Street-Car, 47 
 
 From the Third Story Window, 49 
 
 A Bedroom Interior, 52 
 
 A Funeral: Italian Quarter, 54 
 
 Cross-Streets, 56 , 
 
 A City Park, 57 
 
 Before the Storm, 58 
 
 A Sunlit Street, 59 
 
 A Sunlit Room, 60 
 
 By the Window, 61 
 
 The Hill-Path, 64 
 
 Soliloquy of a Realist, 67 
 
 Pastel: from the Williamsburgh Bridge, 72 
 
 The Fire-Garden, 74 
 
On the Bridge, 78 
 
 From the Jersey Bank, 80 
 
 November, 81 
 
 The Neurological Institute, 82 
 
 To-Day, 93 
 
 The Fiddler, 94 
 
 Crowds, 95 
 
 Grotesque, 96 
 
 A Clump of Pines: Mt. Morris Park, 99 
 
 On a Park Bench, 101 
 
 The Play Pond: Central Park, 102 
 
 The Deserted Church, 104 
 
 My Beloved, 106 
 
 A Brooklyn By-Street, 107 
 
 Nocturne: Fifth Avenue and Central Park, 110 
 
 Winter Nocturne: The Hospital, 111 
 
 After the Lecture, 112 
 
 Nocturne: Central Park, 113 
 
 Spring Tryst, 115 
 
 At the Florist s, 117 
 
 A Postscript, 119 
 
 Nocturne, 120 
 
 A Row of Poplars: Central Park, 121 
 
 The Old Courtesan, 123 
 
 Pride, 124 
 
 Psalm CLI, 126 
 
 A Lost Leader, 128 
 
 To Russia, 1917, 130 
 
KARTUSHKIYA-BEROZA 
 
 IT is twelve years since I have been there 
 I was born there, 
 In the little town, by the river 
 It all comes back to me now 
 Reading in the newspaper: 
 
 " The Germans have seized the bridge-head at Kartushkiya- 
 Beroza ; 
 
 The Russians are retreating in good order across the marshes. 
 The town is in flames." 
 
 Kartushkiya-Beroza ! 
 Sweet-sounding, time-scented name 
 Smelling of wide-extending marshes of hay; 
 Smelling of cornfields; 
 Smelling of apple-orchards; 
 Smelling of cherry-trees in full blossom; 
 Smelling of all the pleasant recollections of my childhood 
 Smelling of Grandmother s kitchen, 
 Grandmother s freshly-baked dainties, 
 Grandmother s plum-pudding 
 Kartushkiya-Beroza ! 
 
 I see before me a lane running between two rows of strag 
 gling cottages 
 
 I cannot remember the name of the lane; 
 I do not know whether it has any name at all ; 
 
 [13] 
 
But I remember it was broad and unpaven and shaded with 
 wide-branching chestnuts 
 
 And enters the market-place 
 
 Just a few houses after my Grandfather s 
 
 Kartiishkiya-Beroza ! 
 
 I can see it ever now 
 
 My Grandfather s house 
 
 On the lane, to the right, as you come from the market 
 place; 
 
 A big, hospitable frame building 
 
 Big as my Grandfather s own heart, 
 
 And hospitable as Grandmother s smile. 
 
 I can see it even now, 
 
 With the white-pillared porch in the center and the sharp- 
 gabled roof 
 
 Pierced with little windows; 
 
 And the great quadrangular garden behind it; 
 
 And the tall fence surrounding the garden; 
 
 And the old well in the corner of the garden; 
 
 With the bucket-lift 
 
 Rising over the fence 
 
 Kartiishkiya-Beroza ! 
 
 I can see him even now, 
 
 My Grandfather 
 
 Bending over me, tall and sad-eyed and thoughtful 
 
 Lifting me up and seating me on his knees 
 
 Lovingly, 
 
 And listening to all my childish questions and confessions; 
 
 Pardoning, admonishing, remonstrating 
 
 Satisfying my interrogative soul with good-humored indul 
 gence. 
 
 And my Grandmother, 
 
 Dear little woman ! 
 
 [14] 
 
I can never dissociate her from plum-pudding and apple- 
 dumplings, 
 
 And raisin-cakes and almond-cakes and crisp potato-pan 
 cakes 
 
 And the smell of fish frying on the fire. 
 
 And then there is my cousin, Miriam, 
 
 Who lived in the yellow house across the lane 
 
 A freckle-faced, cherry-eyed little girl with a puckered-up 
 nose 
 
 I was very romantic about her. 
 
 And then there is my curse, my rival at school, my arch 
 enemy 
 
 Jacob, 
 
 The synagogue sexton s boy, 
 
 On whom I was always warring 
 v<k>d knows on what battlefield he must be lying now! 
 
 And then there is Nathan and Joseph and Berel and Solo 
 mon 
 
 And Ephraim, the baker s boy, 
 
 And Baruch and Gershen and Mendel 
 
 And long-legged, sandy-haired Emanuel who fell into the 
 pond with me that time, 
 
 While we were skating on the ice 
 
 Kartushkiya-Beroza ! 
 
 I can see myself even now 
 
 In the lane on a summer s day, 
 
 Cap in hand, chasing after dragon-flies 
 
 Suddenly, nearby, sounds the noise of drums and bugles 
 
 I know what that means! 
 
 Breathlessly I dash up the lane. 
 
 It is the regiment quartered in the barracks at the end of 
 the town, in its annual parade on the highway 
 
 How I would wish to be one of those gray-coated heroes! 
 
 [15] 
 
I watch them eager-eyed 
 
 And run after them until they reach the Gentile Quarter 
 
 And then I turn back. 
 
 Kartushkiya-Beroza ! 
 
 I am in the market-place 
 
 At a Fair ; 
 
 The market-place is a heaving mass of carts and horses and 
 
 oxen; 
 The oxen are lowing, the horses are neighing, the peasants 
 
 are cursing in a dozen different dialects. 
 I am in Grandfather s store, 
 On the lower end of the market-place, right opposite the 
 
 public well 
 The store is full of peasants and peasant women, bargaining 
 
 at the top of their voices; 
 The peasants are clad in rough sheepskin coats and fur 
 
 caps; 
 The peasant women are gay in bright-colored cottons and 
 
 wear red kerchiefs around their heads; 
 My Grandfather is standing behind the counter measuring 
 
 out rope to some peasants; 
 Grandmother is cutting a strip of linen for a peasant woman, 
 
 chaffering with another one at the same time about the 
 
 price of a pair of sandals 
 And I am sitting there, behind the counter, on a sack of 
 
 flour, 
 Playing with my black-eyed little cousin. . . . 
 
 Kartushkiya-Beroza ! 
 
 Kartushkiya-Beroza ! 
 
 It comes back to me suddenly 
 
 That I am sitting here, with a newspaper in my hand 
 
 Reading : 
 
 [16] 
 
" The Germans have seized the bridge-head at Kartushkiya- 
 
 Beroza ; 
 
 The Russians are retreating in good order across the marshes. 
 The town is in flames! " 
 
 [17] 
 
A FAMILY ALBUM 
 
 WORN and torn by many fingers 
 
 It stands on the bed-room dresser, 
 
 Resting back against its single cardboard buttress, 
 
 (There were two) 
 
 The gilt clasp that bound it, loose and broken, 
 
 The beautiful Madonna on its cover, faded and pencil- 
 marked, 
 
 And the coarse wood of its back showing through its velvet 
 lining. 
 
 II 
 
 I remember the time that my sister Pauline bought it for 
 
 the house 
 
 (300 Cherry Street, fourth floor, right-hand side, front) 
 Thirteen years ago, 
 
 With the proceeds of her first week at the factory. 
 It was beautiful then, 
 
 The golden-haired, grave-eyed Madonna that adorned it. 
 Her blue eyes were ever so much bluer and clearer, and so 
 
 sweetly pensive, 
 
 Her golden hair fell forward over her bare breast, 
 Brighter and yellower than gold, 
 And there were no black pencil marks across the pure white 
 
 of her brow 
 
 [18] 
 
Or the delicate pink of her cheeks. 
 
 She was beautiful . . . 
 
 And my father, 
 
 I remember my father didn t like that album, 
 
 And murmured against the open-bosomed female on its 
 
 cover, 
 
 " It is sinful to have such a picture in a Jewish home ! " 
 But I, 
 I loved that album because of its glorious, golden-haired 
 
 Madonna. 
 
 And when I was left alone in the house 
 I would stand in the parlor for hours 
 And gaze into her ecstatic face 
 Half reverently, half tenderly. 
 And sometimes, 
 
 When I was doubly certain of being alone, 
 I would drag a chair up to the mantel-piece 
 And get on top of it, 
 And, timidly extending my hand, 
 Touch with my trembling fingers the yellow threads of her 
 
 hair as they lay across her breast, 
 Or the soft slope of her breast into her loose robe. 
 And once, I remember, 
 
 Ashamed of my feelings, yet unable to repress them, 
 I drew the picture closer to my face. 
 And pressed my lips passionately on that white bosom 
 My first kiss. . . . 
 
 Ill 
 
 Somehow I never cared to open the gilt clasp of the album 
 And look through the photographs that were collecting 
 
 there: 
 
 Photographs brought here from Russia, 
 
 [19] 
 
Photographs taken here at various times, 
 
 Grandfathers, grandmothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, 
 
 Sisters and sisters-in-law, brothers and brothers-in-law; 
 
 Photographs of some of the many boarders that always oc 
 cupied our bedrooms; 
 
 (The family usually slept on folding-beds in the kitchen and 
 parlor 
 
 Together with some other boarders) 
 
 Boarders-in-law; sweethearts, wives, husbands of the board 
 ers; 
 
 Group pictures: family pictures, shop pictures, school pic 
 tures. 
 
 Somehow I never cared to open the gilt clasp of the album 
 
 And look through that strange kaleidoscope of Life. 
 
 But now, 
 
 As I find myself turning its heavy cardboard pages, 
 
 Turning them meditatively back and forth, 
 
 My brain loosens like the gilt clasp of the album, 
 
 Unburdening itself of its locked memories, 
 
 Page after page, picture after picture, 
 
 Until the miscellaneous photographs take to themselves 
 color and meaning, 
 
 Standing forth out of their places like a series of paintings; 
 
 As if a Master-Artist had gone over them with his brush, 
 
 Revealing in them things I did not see in the originals, 
 
 Solving in Art that which baffled me in Life. 
 
 And all the while as I go through the album, supporting 
 the cover with my hand, 
 
 The yellow-haired Madonna gazes at me from under my 
 fingers, 
 
 Sadly, reproachfully. 
 
 [20] 
 
IV 
 
 Poor, warm-hearted, soft-headed, hard-fisted Uncle Isaac 
 In his jaunty coat and flannel shirt, 
 Stiff and handsome and moustached, 
 Standing as if he were in evening dress 
 His head thrown backward, his eyes fixed forward; 
 Conscious of the cleanliness of his face and hands, 
 Fresh washed from a day s grime at the coal cellar. 
 When I look at his bold, blank face 
 My mind tears through the dense years, 
 Along the crazy alley of his life, 
 Back to a Lithuanian village on a twig of the Vistula. 
 Kartushkiya-Beroza (what a sweet name 
 Beroza is the Russian for birch-trees) 
 
 And from a background of a dusty road meandering be 
 tween high, green banks of foliage 
 I feel two black eyes looking at me strangely, 
 Two black passion-pregnant eyes 
 Nestling in a little dark face. 
 
 Every Saturday afternoon in the summertime 
 
 When the town was like a green bazaar 
 
 With the houses half -hidden under leaves and the lanes 
 drifting blindly between the dense shade-trees 
 
 After the many-coursed Sabbath dinner and the long syn 
 agogue services that preceded it 
 
 Mother took the four of us over to Grandpa s 
 
 A few houses up the lane 
 
 Where the aunts and the uncles and the cousins and the 
 nephews and the nieces 
 
 In silk and in flannel and in satin and in linen, 
 
 Every face shining with a Sabbath newness, 
 
 [21] 
 
Gathered on the porch for the family promenade: 
 
 Up the lane and across the Gentile quarter and around the 
 
 Bishop s orchard; 
 Through the Polish Road past the Tombs of the Rebels to 
 
 the haunted red chapel at the crossroads 
 And back again by cross cuts through the cornfields, 
 With the level yellow plain mellowing mystically around us 
 
 in the soft sunshine, 
 
 And the sunset fading behind us like the Sabbath, 
 At twilight just before the evening service 
 Every Saturday afternoon, in summertime. 
 
 VI 
 
 They rise in my brain with mysterious insistence 
 
 The blurred images of those Sabbath walks 
 
 Poignantly, painfully, vaguely beautiful, 
 
 Half obliterated under the cavalcade of the years, 
 
 They lurk in the wayside of my mind and ambush me un 
 awares 
 
 Like little children they steal behind me unawares and 
 blindfold me with intangible fingers 
 
 Asking me to guess who it is: 
 
 Across a wide city street a patch of pavement like a slab 
 of gold; 
 
 A flash of sunlight on a flying wheel 
 
 And I am left wondering, wondering where I have seen 
 sunlight before? 
 
 By a holiday-thronged park walk, a trio of huge trees thrust 
 their great, brown arms through uplifted hillocks of 
 green leaves 
 
 And I stand staring at them penetratively; 
 
 Trying to assure myself that they were real, 
 
 And not something that had swum up in my mind 
 
 [22] 
 
From a summer that has withered years ago 
 In the beaches by the wayside on the Polish Road, 
 Isled among the birch woods, 
 As you come out of Kartushkiya-Beroza. 
 On my bed, within the padded prison-walls of sleep, lurch 
 ing through a night of dreams; 
 
 I am awakened by a shrill wide-spreading triumphant out 
 burst of incessant twittering 
 Under my window in the park, 
 
 Catching like fire from tree to tree, from throat to throat 
 Until the whole green square seems ablaze with joy, 
 As if each growing leaf had suddenly found tongue 
 And I raise myself in my bed, dreamily, on my elbows 
 Listening with startled attentiveness to a sweet, clear twitter 
 ing in my brain 
 
 As of a hundred populous treetops vying with the pebble- 
 tuned waters of a brook 
 Gurgling timidly across a wide road. 
 
 In a hallway among a party of girls and young men trip 
 ping downstairs for an outing on a Sunday morn 
 ing* 
 The coarse, keen pungency of satin from some girl s new 
 
 shirtwaist, 
 
 Through my nose into my brain pierces like a rapier 
 And suddenly I am standing on a sunny country porch with 
 
 whitewashed wooden columns, 
 All dressed up for a Sabbath walk, 
 In a red satin blouse with a lacquered, black belt 
 With my mother in her blue silk Sabbath dress and grand 
 mother with a black lace shawl around her head 
 With my sisters and my brother and portly Uncle Zalman 
 
 with his fat, red-bearded face 
 
 And my grandfather stooping in his shining black capote 
 
 [23] 
 
with his grizzled beard and earlocks and thoughtful, 
 
 tiny eyes 
 And poor Aunt Bunya who died of her first childbirth, with 
 
 her roguish-eyed young husband 
 And smooth-shaven, moustached Uncle Isaac half-leaning, 
 
 half-sitting on the bannister with his little girl clamped 
 
 playfully between his knees 
 
 And his wife Rebecca, with black eyes and pursed up scorn 
 ful lips standing haughtily aloof 
 And my cousins Basha and Miriam and little Nachman 
 
 clutching at Uncle Zalman s trousers 
 And their mother, smiling, big-hearted, big-bosomed Aunt 
 
 Golda, offering me a piece of tart 
 As I am staring absently sideways 
 Into the little dark face rimmed lovingly between Uncle 
 
 Isaac s coarse hands. 
 
 124] 
 
MA 
 
 WHAT can she be thinking of 
 This gray-haired, dark-faced little woman 
 With those close-drawn cheeks and humbly lowered eyes, 
 As she bends over the washtub, 
 
 Scrubbing the wet underwear against the wash-board 
 All morning long! 
 What can she be thinking of 
 In this queerly quiet kitchen, 
 Dark and small and clean-kept like herself, 
 As the blown rain whips against the window pane 
 And swishes into the yard 
 With a soft, continual splash. 
 I have an impelling desire to understand her; 
 To know her and get nearer to her 
 This tired-faced woman who is my mother. 
 I wish I could get into her bowed head 
 As she bends over the washtub, 
 And look through her dimmed eyes 
 And see how things seem to her 
 After fifty-seven years of life 
 Fifty-seven years of the great commonplaces of life: 
 Childhood, girlhood, wifehood, motherhood; 
 All but death 
 And that too. 
 
 Fifty -seven years of sorrowing, rejoicing, despairing, 
 
 [25] 
 
Over the world s timeless joys and griefs; 
 
 Questioning not the scheme 
 
 That mostly gave her things to sorrow over, 
 
 And despair over 
 
 All these years. 
 
 After bringing ten children into the world, 
 
 In the ordinary, miraculous way; 
 
 Nursing them with unwearied breasts, 
 
 Working for them with unwearied hands, 
 
 Loving them with unwearied patience, 
 
 Battling for them 
 
 With poverty, death and disease 
 
 For thirty years; 
 
 Seeing some of them struggle into manhood ; 
 
 Seeing some of them struggle into womanhood, 
 
 Painfully, joylessly; 
 
 And following some of them to their little graves, 
 
 In their birthplace across the sea, 
 
 Under the Russian birch trees. 
 
 And one 
 
 She who was your first born, mother ! 
 
 She who gave you most joy and most pain 
 
 Seeing her grow up in your barren house, 
 
 Like a tall tree from a cleft rock, 
 
 Strong and healthy and haughty with beauty, 
 
 Hating her humble birth, 
 
 Panting for color and joy; 
 
 Seeing her flare out her tumultuous years, 
 
 In a brief feverish fire; 
 
 Until you followed her too, 
 
 Burying half of your heart, 
 
 Under a tombstone in Brooklyn. 
 
 And all the while, 
 
 [26] 
 
These thirty-seven years, 
 
 Mated with the wreck of a strong man, 
 
 The wreck of a great soul, 
 
 Broken and humbled by a strange disease, 
 
 That lurked in him like an assassin 
 
 Patiently loving, living, bearing with him; 
 
 Suffering his pain as your own; 
 
 Sharing his weakness and worshipping his strength ; 
 
 Respecting the tragedy you could not understand. 
 
 Woman, woman, 
 
 Sublime, simple mother of mine, 
 
 Scrubbing away at the washboard 
 
 With gnarled, mechanical fingers 
 
 What do you make of all this! 
 
 How do you reconcile, 
 
 All the purposelessness and fruitlessness and contrariness 
 
 of things 
 
 In that crude mind of yours 
 Seeing the faith that cloaked you from the truth, 
 That explained and arranged and combined, 
 Systematizing the universe into a well-ordered household 
 With a Master who saw all and knew all; 
 Punishing and rewarding in inexplicable ways 
 Seeing your old faith cast off and trampled under foot, 
 Ignored and derided by your own children 
 As a foolish, baseless fable. 
 Mother, poor mother of mine, 
 What can you make of all this, 
 Scrubbing away at your washboard, 
 This rainy morning! 
 What are you thinking about? 
 I wish I could know; 
 Are you thinking of her that you lost, 
 
 [27] 
 
In the full-blown bloom of your hope 
 
 Plucked from your arms, 
 
 As you held her do..n to the bed 
 
 Helping the doctor that day; 
 
 Do you see her come in through the door, 
 
 Quick and abrupt as of old: 
 
 Her heavy, masculine step; 
 
 Her straight and broad-bosomed figure; 
 
 The animal health of her cheeks. 
 
 Are you remembering, 
 
 Some word that she carelessly dropped; 
 
 A certain twist of her neck? 
 
 And your dark face darkens; 
 
 And your gray head pensively droops; 
 
 And your eyes that have wept themselves red, 
 
 Glistening with oncoming tears. 
 
 Or are you thinking of your husband, 
 
 Reeling his way through the years, 
 
 Stupefied by his fate 
 
 Falling and rising and falling, 
 
 Under the bludgeon of life ! 
 
 And you remember a Sabbath afternoon 
 
 In Kartushkiya-Beroza, 
 
 When the town turned out for a stroll ; 
 
 How you walked by his side on the highway, 
 
 Proud to be envied of all. 
 
 Or are you thinking of me 
 
 Your strange, queer, puzzle of a son; 
 
 The poet-changeling of your womb 
 
 Whom you would love but do not know how; 
 
 Whom you would hope for but do not know what. 
 
 And your heart is sad with apprehension 
 
 Knowing not why. 
 
 [28] 
 
Or are you thinking of the little ones 
 And your little daily cares: 
 Those socks that you washed just now - 
 They are far too torn to be mended; 
 Or those worn out shreds of underwear 
 And winter coming. . . . 
 
 Here they are back from school 
 With a loud ring at the door 
 " I ll open it, Ma." 
 
 [29] 
 
PORTRAIT 
 
 THIS is her picture hanging on the wall, 
 
 Above the mantelpiece. 
 
 The face is grave 
 
 And wistful 
 
 Not like the life 
 
 The eyes are much too moody, 
 
 The nose too thin, 
 
 The lips too firmly set 
 
 Too pale; 
 
 Also the chin and cheeks 
 
 Too sharply curved, 
 
 Not full enough, 
 
 The general impression rather tame. 
 
 Always, 
 
 When I could see her, 
 
 She made me think of some sleek leopardess 
 
 Pacing the desert 
 
 Her beauty was so fiercely-fair. 
 
 Peculiar though, 
 
 She did look somewhat changed^ 
 
 Wistful and awed, 
 
 Just like this picture 
 
 The day she died! 
 
 [30] 
 
IN THE CIRCULATING LIBRARY: 
 SEWARD PARK 
 
 OUTSIDE 
 
 It is hot and arid; 
 
 And the sun glares down upon the tall tenements; 
 
 And the tall tenements glare back into the park; 
 
 And the little park lies gasping between them, 
 
 Thrusting its parched trees pitifully to the sky 
 
 Inside, 
 
 In the oak arm-chairs by the windows, 
 
 It is almost cool; 
 
 And the drawn green blinds beat back the insistent sun-light 
 
 Like long shields; 
 
 And the rotating fans sting the air into motion 
 
 Like gigantic bees; 
 
 And the stacked books stand loosely in their shelves 
 
 Leaning lazily against each other 
 
 It is almost cool here in the library, 
 
 Cool and absorbingly quiet, 
 
 With the intense quiet of a thousand dreams 
 
 That oozes out of the books. 
 
 A red-haired librarian with starched white cuffs, 
 Sits at a table marking colored cards, 
 Red and white and green 
 With a purple pencil. 
 
 [31] 
 
I follow her fingers as she writes 
 Until I am half hypnotized into sleep. 
 
 Strange, strange, 
 
 How familiar all this is and yet how strange 
 The walls and the pictures and the books and the self- 
 absorbed faces about me 
 Strange! strange! 
 
 There is a boy sitting beside me at the window; 
 
 His back bent, his head lowered, 
 
 Peering at the book in his hands, 
 
 Through rusty, iron-rimmed spectacles 
 
 His ears are outspread and huge; 
 
 His little eyes sparkle feverishly behind his thick lenses; 
 
 And his brow is knitted intently. 
 
 There is a girl standing near by, 
 
 With black curly hair and thick drooping lips, 
 
 Leaning heavily against the tall shelf as she reads 
 
 Her eyes are gray and restless, 
 
 And her lips are passionately a-quiver. 
 
 There is a young man standing beside her 
 Tall and lanky and long-haired; 
 Casually scanning the book in his hands; 
 Looking up from it from time to time, 
 As if waiting for someone. 
 
 What a flood of memories 
 My brain is dizzy with them ! 
 
 A dark girl, 
 Ill-featured and pimply, 
 
 [32] 
 
Sits at the table opposite the red-haired librarian ; 
 
 Her long nose strains upward out of her face; 
 
 Her shell-rimmed spectacles rest back against her cheeks 
 
 like cart-wheels; 
 
 But her eyes shine from under them, 
 Kindly and sweet, 
 Like sun-warmed pools. 
 
 Strange, strange, 
 
 How familiar all this is and yet how strange! 
 
 There is a boy and girl talking there together, 
 
 Beside that window, 
 
 By the gray, dormant radiator 
 
 Half-drawn to her, half afraid of her, 
 
 He fidgets nervously with his books, 
 
 Looking aside as he speaks to her, 
 
 In long jerky sentences 
 
 And her eyes are dark and soft; 
 
 And her lips are pale and sweet; 
 
 And her chin so prettily pointed. . . . 
 
 Ghosts! ghosts! 
 
 Ghosts of my old selves and my old loves and my old 
 
 dreams 
 How I know you all. . . . 
 
 Boy there, 
 
 With the Slavic face and the Jewish soul; 
 
 With the stubborn nose and the sensitive mouth 
 
 What are you reading? 
 
 Keats or Shelley or Swinburne or Browning 
 
 Which is it now? 
 
 [33] 
 
Girl, 
 
 With the passionate lips and the restless eyes 
 
 Are you reading "The Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff "? 
 
 And does your heart ache; and does your soul smart 
 
 With pride, ambition and love 
 
 Or are you building here another Lesbos, 
 
 For another Sappho? 
 
 And you, 
 
 With the homely face and the strong sweet smile i 
 
 What are you reading, 
 
 George Eliot or Emily Bronte? 
 
 Or are you dreaming of Georges Sand? 
 
 And your heart is secretly pleased, 
 
 At the thought of the genius and fame, 
 
 That will bring great men to your feet! 
 
 And you, poor youth, 
 
 Searching the room with those patient eyes - 
 
 I know for whom you are here. 
 
 She isn t here ... it is late . . . 
 
 Someone who never will come. . . . 
 
 Perhaps it is best! 
 
 Boy-lover there by the window, 
 
 Are you afraid to look at her face, 
 
 Lest your eyes be tempted to speak? 
 
 And yet 
 
 Is it not sweet to be near her; 
 
 To talk to her; to look at her sidewise; 
 
 To blush; to stammer unconcernedly, 
 
 Art, Economics, Philosophy, 
 
 While your lips are a-quiver with love! 
 
 [34] 
 
Ghosts! ghosts! 
 
 Ghosts of my old selves, and my old loves and my old 
 
 dreams, 
 
 Croivding in through my eyes and my ears, 
 Until my mind is a haunted house, 
 Running over with ghosts 
 Until I feel myself like a ghost, 
 Haunting this home of my thoughts. 
 
 [351 
 
LAMENTATIONS 
 
 IN a dingy kitchen 
 
 Facing a Ghetto backyard 
 
 An old woman is chanting Jeremiah s Lamentations, 
 
 Quaveringly, 
 
 Out of a Hebrew Bible. 
 
 The gaslight flares and falls. . . . 
 
 This night, 
 
 Two thousand years ago, 
 
 Jerusalem fell and the Temple was burned. 
 
 Tonight 
 
 This white-haired Jewess 
 
 Sits in her kitchen and chants by the banks of the Hud 
 
 son 
 The Lament of the Prophet. 
 
 The gaslight flares and falls. . . . 
 
 Nearby, 
 
 Locked in her room, 
 
 Her daughter lies on a bed convulsively sobbing. 
 Her face is dug in the pillows; 
 Her shoulders heave with her sobs 
 The bits of a photograph lie on the dresser. . . . 
 
 [36] 
 
TIMES SQUARE 
 
 AN August day, 
 
 The eddying roar of the Square 
 
 Crowds, stores, theatres, tall buildings 
 
 Assaulting the senses together 
 
 And suddenly, 
 
 The taste of an apple between my teeth 
 
 Suffuses my mouth. . . . 
 
 Where did it come from? 
 
 Strong and sharp and deliciously sour, 
 
 The taste in my mouth 
 
 Where? 
 
 I cross the street 
 And suddenly, 
 
 Crowds, stores, theatres, tall buildings, 
 The blare and the glare of the day 
 Fade. . . . 
 
 October blows through the market-place 
 In a town of faraway Russia 
 The booths are laden with fruit. . . . 
 A little boy, 
 
 Snub-nosed, freckle-faced, plump, 
 Dressed in a newly-washed jacket, 
 Stolidly strolls by the booths 
 Clutching a coin in his fingers 
 [37] 
 
I know him, 
 
 That freckle-faced boy; 
 
 I know him. 
 
 Proudly he passes the stores of the Row, 
 
 Ignoring them all 
 
 Until he reaches at last 
 
 The booth of the widow Rebecca: 
 
 " What do you want, little darling? " 
 
 "Here is a penny; 
 
 I want this apple." 
 
 "Take it." 
 
 The tense little fingers unclose to surrender the penny 
 
 And close on a big red apple. 
 
 And suddenly, 
 
 The taste of an apple between my teeth, 
 
 Strong and sharp and deliciously sour, 
 
 Suffuses my mouth. . . . 
 
 The toot of an automobile, 
 
 Insistent, shrill, 
 
 Jars me back to the Square. 
 
 [38] 
 
GHETTO TWILIGHT 
 
 AN infinite weariness comes into the faces of the old tene 
 ments, 
 
 As they stand massed together on the block, 
 Tall and thoughtfully silent, 
 In the enveloping twilight. 
 Pensively, 
 
 They eye each other across the street, 
 Through their dim windows 
 With a sad recognizing stare, 
 Watching the red glow fading in the distance, 
 At the end of the street, 
 Behind the black church spires; 
 Watching the vague sky lowering overhead, 
 Purple with clouds of colored smoke 
 From the extinguished sunset; 
 Watching the tired faces coming home from work, 
 Like dry-breasted hags 
 Welcoming their children to their withered arms. 
 
 [39] 
 
IN THE CHILDREN S READING ROOM 
 
 LITTLE girl, 
 
 Dreaming here in the library 
 
 Over a volume of romance, 
 
 Who can he be 
 
 The Hero of your dreams! 
 
 Is he a Knight of old days, 
 Stout-hearted and strong, 
 Astride on a steed, 
 
 Breast-plated, helmetted, shield-on-arm, lance-in-hand 
 Charging the world in your name ! 
 Or else - 
 
 Does he kneel at your feet even now, 
 A Boy-Prince, 
 Blue-eyed, curly-locked, 
 With ruddy cheeks 
 And lips as sweet as your own 
 Asking the realm of your heart? 
 Or else, 
 Who knows? 
 A King perhaps 
 Stern -eyed, royal-browed; 
 With crown and sceptre and ermine, 
 Sitting in state by your side! . . . 
 Or are you tired of unreal reveries, 
 [40] 
 
And mould him in a modern form 
 
 A statesman 
 
 With a tongue that wakes a million hearts; 
 
 With a pen that guides a million swords 
 
 Leading his country to greatness! 
 
 Or an Inventor 
 
 Larger-souled, 
 
 Working not only for a single selfish nation, 
 
 But for the greater Nation of humanity 
 
 Liberating Labor from toil. 
 
 Or else 
 
 (Those eyes are strangely, dimly deep) 
 
 A Poet perhaps, 
 
 Divine in his love; 
 
 Pouring his soul into mad, magnificent poems 
 
 Eternal as time! 
 
 Or a Musician 
 
 A-thrill with melodies, 
 
 Whose passion shall mount into marvels of sound, 
 
 And storm your heart and the world s! 
 
 Or a Painter 
 
 Who will glorify that brow 
 
 And those eyes 
 
 And those lips, 
 
 For all the world to behold! 
 
 Or a Sculptor 
 
 With creative, God-like fingers 
 
 Moulding flesh out of clay, 
 
 Carving beauty out of the struggling marble. . . . 
 
 Or else 
 
 Who knows? 
 
 Is he sitting here 
 
 Even here in the library, 
 
 [41] 
 
Across the table 
 
 That little pale-faced boy! 
 
 Little boy 
 
 With that far-away look of yours 
 
 Sitting here in the library 
 
 Over a volume of romance 
 
 Who can she be 
 
 The Lady of your dreams? . . . 
 
 [42] 
 
JEAN 
 
 GRAY-EYED 
 
 Freckle-faced 
 
 Jean 
 
 Snub-nosed 
 
 Chubby-cheeked 
 
 Golden -haired 
 
 Jean, 
 
 Little Jean 
 
 With her big gray eyes, 
 
 Spoke to me to-day: 
 
 "Aren t you queer! 
 
 Why do you look 
 
 Into my eyes 
 
 So 
 
 What do you see in my eyes? " 
 
 Said I: 
 
 " Little Jean, 
 
 Aren t you queer! 
 
 Why do you look 
 
 Into my soul 
 
 So 
 
 What do you see in my soul? " 
 
 [43] 
 
AN OLD PICTURE 
 
 FADED and rumpled, 
 Under a cracked glass cover 
 In a dirty gilt frame 
 It hangs on the kitchen wall 
 Right over the stove. 
 
 A music room; 
 
 Twilight; 
 
 A young woman sits at a piano playing; 
 
 Three little girls behind her, 
 
 Accompanying with their voices 
 
 One of them gravely directing. 
 
 (The picture is entitled " The Trio.") 
 
 The window of the room opens on a landscape of trees 
 
 A wood or a park. 
 
 Once it hung in the parlor, 
 With a companion piece 
 A Spanish girl in a monastery 
 Confessing to a young priest. 
 That one was burnt in the stove, 
 Long since, 
 
 After being shattered by a fall. 
 Now " The Trio " hangs alone. 
 
 [44] 
 
I remember when I was a child, 
 
 And we lived on the fourth floor of a Cherry Street tene 
 ment 
 
 I used to get on top of a chair, 
 A parlor chair, too 
 
 And look through the window of the picture, 
 Far out, 
 
 On the melancholy masses of trees 
 Waving under the twilight sky, 
 (I didn t like little girls then 
 Nor big ones) 
 
 Something stirred me as I looked at those trees 
 And pervaded my spirit. . . . 
 When mother dusted in the parlor 
 She always wondered why that chair was so dirty. 
 Then when I became a long lanky boy, 
 And didn t have to get on top of a chair 
 I was fascinated by the dark-haired little director. 
 I was reading the Waverly Novels then. 
 How many day-dreams did I build about her 
 Clothed her (and myself) 
 In all the enchantment I could conjure: 
 Fought duels for her; 
 Jousted for her 
 What not! 
 
 Now I find myself looking at it again, 
 (It hangs on the kitchen wall 
 Right over the stove) 
 Wonderingly, 
 Trying to understand it. 
 Who is she; 
 
 That young woman sitting at the piano, 
 Playing so sadly 
 
 [45] 
 
I swear she is playing some sad ditty! 
 
 Are those three cherub-children hers, 
 
 Or just that dark-haired little director 
 
 Or is she a music teacher perhaps, 
 
 And those are her pupils. . . . 
 
 She has an interesting face, 
 
 And beautiful hands 
 
 I wonder why she is watching her fingers so pensively! 
 
 [46] 
 
ON THE STREET-CAR 
 
 WE were alone in the car 
 
 I and her soft, black eyes, 
 
 Looking blandly at me from the opposite seat. 
 
 The car raced along the tracks, through the wide street, 
 
 Past forbidding porches and lit store-windows and dark 
 
 cross-streets, 
 
 Stopping at some of the corners with a jar. 
 The rain pattered invisibly on the dewed windows of the car, 
 Denting them with a thousand tiny drops. 
 The lamplights quivered past us on their posts 
 Shimmering through the windows on either side, 
 Blurred and rayed. 
 We were alone in the car 
 I and her soft black eyes 
 Wearily vacant, 
 
 Soothing me with their vacancy. 
 I found myself staring into her mild face, 
 Wistfully, 
 
 Seeking for something. 
 
 Her lips caressed me with their calm curves; 
 My eyes cooled themselves on her pale forehead. 
 Like a long needle 
 
 The electric bulb over her seat pierced into my eye-balls 
 I lowered my eyes, 
 
 Resting them on the green folds of her skirt. 
 
 [47] 
 
Her hands lay loosely on her lap. 
 
 I found myself staring at them, 
 
 Envying them with a strange envy. 
 
 Something choked downward in my throat 
 
 Fell heavily upon my heart and lay there, 
 
 Like some corrosive substance. 
 
 My head tipped forward weakly, 
 
 A wild wish surged giddily through my brain, 
 
 Pulling me and pushing me to speak 
 
 She is a woman; 
 
 She will understand. . . . 
 
 If I could only sit down beside her, 
 
 And hide my face where her hands are lying, 
 
 And tell her all, all! ... 
 
 And cry for once 
 
 Cry out all the bitterness of my life, 
 
 Cry for all the times that I didn t cry, 
 
 Because there was no woman s lap to hide myself in, 
 
 No woman s face to bend tenderly over me, 
 
 No woman s voice to soothe me softly. . . . 
 
 To cry. . . . 
 
 The car stopped at the corner with a reverberating jar. 
 She arranged the green folds of her dress, 
 Walked up quietly to the platform, 
 And stepped off into the night. 
 
 [48] 
 
FROM THE THIRD STORY WINDOW 
 
 THIS is our backyard; 
 Walls and windows and clothes lines 
 Wherever you look 
 See 
 
 How the sunlight slants across the topmost bricks, 
 On the opposite wall 
 Like a golden triangle; 
 We don t get much of it here, 
 So we can appreciate it. 
 You d be surprised 
 How beautiful this place can look, 
 At night 
 
 With those tiers of windows rising on all sides, 
 Dark and secretive, 
 Looking at each other queerly 
 
 As if they knew what was taking place behind the blinds, 
 But chose to be silent. 
 When I come home late, 
 
 And go searching for my supper on the fire-escape, 
 (My mother leaves it there) 
 I like to sit there a while 
 And look out into the yard. 
 Sometimes there is a moon 
 And some stars, 
 In that square piece of heaven 
 
 [49] 
 
That the walls cut out. 
 
 It s a little piece to have, 
 
 But a good enough sample to see 
 
 People are spoiled 
 
 Getting the whole sky to look at 
 
 Every time they choose. 
 
 Mondays, 
 
 The clothes lines are freighted with wash, 
 
 Bridging the yard in long white files. 
 
 It s a good night to see it. 
 
 The moon can look wonderful through a white bed sheet. 
 
 It lights up the clothes lines, 
 
 Until each piece of wash seems to clothe a ghost. 
 
 Sometimes a wind clambers into the yard 
 
 And goes blundering among the wash, 
 
 Blowing them into billowy folds, 
 
 Twisting them together clumsily. 
 
 Even in the daytime, 
 
 It s not at all a bad place to look at. 
 
 It s true, 
 
 We don t see much of sunset here 
 
 Or sunrise 
 
 But you can watch that wedge of light 
 
 On the top of that wall, 
 
 A silver spike in the morning 
 
 Lengthening and broadening and lowering, 
 
 Until it reaches the fourth story windows. 
 
 (That s the lowest it can go) 
 
 And then, 
 
 Mellowing into pale gold, 
 
 Softer and shorter and higher, 
 
 Until it climbs back into the sky 
 
 At twilight 
 
 [50] 
 
Then the yard is steeped in such melancholy ; 
 
 Such an absorbing singing sadness; 
 
 It makes you think of a fond woman 
 
 Bidding a last good-bye to her lover. 
 
 It s so infecting. 
 
 It oozes into the windows; 
 
 It fills every room 
 
 Until the walls and the beds and the tables and chairs, 
 
 Just swim in it. 
 
 Even the prosaic washtub becomes pensive, 
 
 In spite of itself; 
 
 You can t escape it. ... 
 
 Of course, 
 
 If you want to think of it, 
 
 It s a foul place to have your windows open on 
 
 Full of dust and refuse and vermin. 
 
 And the air you breathe isn t changed very often, 
 
 In this four-walled air tank. 
 
 But what of that: 
 
 Poems are not made to live in. 
 
 [51] 
 
A BED-ROOM INTERIOR 
 
 OUT of a half -curtained window 
 
 The bed-room peers into the yard, 
 
 Three stories below. 
 
 The twilight filters through the window 
 
 Touching the walls and ceiling and woodwork 
 
 (All white) 
 
 With moody shadows. 
 
 A bed stands against the window 
 
 Stolidly 
 
 It rests upon its iron posts, 
 
 Lifting its broad brass head 
 
 Over pillows and beddings, 
 
 A ghastly white. 
 
 The other side of the doorway, 
 
 Facing the head of the bed, 
 
 A tall, panelled closet. 
 
 The doors are slightly ajar; 
 
 The hem of a petticoat peeps between them. 
 
 In the opposite corner, 
 
 Cross-wise, 
 
 Facing the foot of the bed, 
 
 A dresser, 
 
 (White as the hem of the petticoat) 
 
 Mounting a big, round mirror 
 
 In two curved arms. 
 
 [52] 
 
On top: 
 
 Brush, combs, hair-pins; 
 
 Boxes of powder and cold cream; 
 
 An ivory-framed photograph; 
 
 (The portrait of a young man), 
 
 Bronze statuettes. 
 
 The mirror of the dresser is covered with a white cloth. 
 
 From the opposite wall 
 
 The portrait of a young woman gazes into its covered face. 
 
 The heavy gilt frame is draped in black crepe. . . . 
 
 [53] 
 
A FUNERAL: ITALIAN QUARTER 
 
 SOMEONE is dead. . . . 
 
 Like an intermittent wail, 
 
 The music rises at each corner, 
 
 As the band blares out the strain 
 
 Poignantly rises and falls, 
 
 Like a sharp-crested wave 
 
 Breaking wearily against the stone tenements; 
 
 Like the sigh of an invisible sword 
 
 Cleaving through the air, 
 
 Up and down 
 
 Someone is dead. . . . 
 
 Like a row of black beetles 
 
 The coaches crawl after the bedecked hearse, 
 
 Through the narrow gully of the street, banked by brood 
 ing tenements, 
 
 Slowly, monotonously filing 
 
 Into the boisterous breadth of the Avenue, under the harsh- 
 rumbling Elevated 
 
 The coachmen crack their whips and the horses strain for 
 ward; 
 
 And the music strikes a shriller, wilder key, 
 
 Struggling desperately to assert itself in the multi-mouthed 
 tumult 
 
 Someone is dead. . . . 
 
 In the garland-decked hearse he is lying 
 
 [54] 
 
In the garland-decked hearse, within the carved casket, 
 Reposing royally. 
 
 Yesterday he was a hewer of wood and a carrier of coal, 
 Bending under his endless burdens on the endless stairs 
 Now he is riding in a garland-decked hearse, within a carved 
 
 casket, 
 
 In fine linen bathed and washed at last 
 Guarded by four angels in livery! 
 
 [55] 
 
CROSS-STREETS 
 
 I LOVE to watch them as I pass by them on the street-car 
 Rambling away from the Avenue between blocks of tall 
 
 tenements 
 
 That brood over them from both sides, 
 Like old market women; 
 Or stealing mysteriously through long low brown-stone 
 
 blocks at night, 
 
 Between trees and porches and lamplights 
 Lonely lamplights retreating behind each other on their 
 
 posts, 
 Mingling with the stars where the dark street meets the dark 
 
 sky; 
 
 Or lying resignedly at the bottom of gloomy office-buildings, 
 Or stately apartment-palaces 
 At twilight, 
 
 With the last remnants of sunset for a background, 
 Fading moodily in the sky; 
 Or at noon, 
 
 Spreading lazily between sun-steeped mansions, 
 Long and wide and warm and bright 
 Under hot, blue, cloudless skies; 
 Or at early dawn; 
 Waking from sleep, 
 With the red face of sunrise, 
 Glowing behind the green foliage of a park 
 Where the street ends ! 
 
 [56] 
 
A CITY PARK 
 
 TIMIDLY 
 
 Against a background of brick tenements 
 
 Some trees spread their branches 
 
 Skyward. 
 
 They are thin and sapless, 
 
 They are bent and weary 
 
 Tamed with captivity; 
 
 And they huddle behind the fence 
 
 Swaying helplessly before the wind, 
 
 Forward and backward, 
 
 Like a group of panicky deer 
 
 Caught in a cage. 
 
 II 
 
 AT NIGHT 
 
 I wonder what they are whispering about, 
 
 These lean old trees 
 
 With their bent heads 
 
 Swaying in the night-wind 
 
 What treacheries are they planning together, 
 
 Nudging each other in the dark 
 
 With gnarled fingers; 
 
 Scowling at the sleeping tenements 
 
 From under their great brows 
 
 So ominously. 
 
 [57] 
 
BEFORE THE STORM 
 
 LIKE a petulant child 
 
 The wind railed in the tree tops, 
 
 Tearing aimlessly through the foliage 
 
 Pulling plaintively at the twigs, 
 
 Shaking the branches, 
 
 Fretfully. 
 
 Like mothers, 
 
 Fondly-indulgent, 
 
 The old trees bent their heads 
 
 Chidingly, soothingly. 
 
 [58] 
 
A SUNLIT STREET 
 
 THE City lay back in the sunshine 
 
 And quivered with pleasure, 
 
 Like a woman in the arms of her lover. 
 
 Tenderly 
 
 The warm, white sunlight kissed her cheeks, 
 
 And wound itself about her body, 
 
 And clung to her, 
 
 Passionately. 
 
 In the middle of the street 
 A dead dog lay, 
 With blood-shot envious eyes, 
 A-stare at the sun. 
 
 [59] 
 
A SUNLIT ROOM 
 
 FROM the hot blinded street 
 
 The sunshine overflows 
 
 Into the whole room. 
 
 The curtains hang stiff and taut 
 
 As the yellow light sifts through their white lacework 
 
 Turning them into gold; 
 
 The window-panes sparkle with delight 
 
 Golden are the ivory keys of the piano as the sunshine plays 
 
 upon them 
 
 And its dark mahogany body is a bright red. 
 Opposite 
 
 The chairs stand close against the illumined wall 
 And sun themselves; 
 
 The peacocks spread their tails within the two black panels 
 And stretch themselves in the sun. 
 On the marble mantelpiece, over the mock fireplace, 
 A canary trills in a cage 
 In a golden cage burnished with sunshine, 
 Trills and twitters and hops in the light 
 As her throat bubbles over with joy. 
 
 [60] 
 
BY THE WINDOW 
 
 (FOR H. R.) 
 
 That photograph is not you 
 Nor this one; 
 
 That profile does not bring into play 
 The massive oval of your face 
 Full and firm and long 
 Too bad 
 
 Cameras cannot reproduce souls 
 As well as bodies; 
 But that s the trouble: 
 
 Bodies can be reproduced but souls must be interpreted 
 By poets, painters, actresses, 
 Like you and me 
 That s Art! 
 
 I wish I were a painter though; 
 I would paint you right now, 
 As you sit there facing me, 
 
 In the broad yellow arm chair by the window 
 Right now, 
 
 With the sunlight streaming eagerly through the panes 
 Kissing the bent curve of your neck; 
 Striving to warm the black masses of your hair into gold; 
 Putting forth passionate arms about the cool green folds of 
 your dress, 
 
 [61] 
 
As if to embrace you 
 
 With the whole Park lying behind you for a background 
 
 Ten stories below 
 
 The Park with its trees and the vast circumference of the 
 
 Reservoir in the center, 
 Sparkling in the sun, 
 Like a round blue shield of steel; 
 And afar, 
 The length of the City stretching on the other side of the 
 
 Park 
 A long straight line of mansions zig-zagged into the clear 
 
 sky 
 
 So sharply so minutely visible, 
 One would think it to be an architect s model 
 Or a toy-city made out of blocks. 
 That would be a background for you 
 After Zuloaga s own heart 
 
 Only I doubt if Zuloaga could have painted that smile: 
 Vast, omniscient, contemplative, 
 Yet bright and wholesome as the sunshine 
 And sweetly playful, 
 That floods me from your calm face, 
 Zuloaga s portraits do not smile that way. 
 Somebody else would have to do it 
 And soften into depth 
 
 The firmness of that mouth and the fixity of those eyes 
 Even as Spring softens the outlines of these trees below. 
 Otherwise you would be merely beautiful ; 
 A " Greek Goddess " as the dramatic critic calls you 
 I don t agree with him at least I don t want to, 
 Being a Jew. 
 
 I prefer Christ to Plato any time; 
 Mary Magdalene rather than Helen 
 
 [62] 
 
Even Salome. 
 
 I always think of Greece as being soulless: 
 
 A beautiful youth playing in the sun, 
 
 Carelessly happy, 
 
 Taking and giving love lightly 
 
 So I would prefer to see you as a Jewess, 
 
 Pale, 
 
 Chastened with sorrow as the Magdalene; 
 
 Or primevally, orientally passionate as Salome 
 
 " Give me the head of Jokahnaan ! " 
 
 I surely would have given it to you if I were Herod, 
 
 And thought it well worth the price 
 
 To see the Dance of the Seven Veils danced by you. 
 
 I would rather see you as a Magdalene though 
 
 You are far too tall for Salome; 
 
 Too royal looking to play the part of a wild-cat or a tigress. 
 
 Magdalene would suit you much better: 
 
 A big-souled, big-bodied woman who has sinned greatly 
 
 And suffered greatly, 
 
 And capable of great repentance. 
 
 I can see you as the Magdalene 
 
 Washing the feet of Jesus 
 
 On your knees; 
 
 Your eyes lowered but without shame 
 
 Washing them with those large soft hands, 
 
 And drying them with the thick black coils of your hair; 
 
 And I can see Jesus looking down upon you 
 
 Filled with a greater awe than yours, 
 
 Worshipping you as you are worshipping Him! 
 
 The Magdalene would suit you much better I think; 
 
 Have you ever played it 
 
 I wonder! 
 
 [63] 
 
THE HILL-PATH 
 
 (FOR E. R.) 
 
 TRUE, 
 
 We could walk up the hills 
 
 One can see ever so much more from there I suppose. 
 
 The Bay must look lovely now, 
 
 With a thousand little waves lapping this yellow light, 
 
 As the grass here on the hillside. 
 
 I love afternoon sunlight 
 
 Striking grass or water or windowed city-streets 
 
 Such a soft, pale, melancholy gold. 
 
 Only isn t it much easier walking here? 
 
 Sometimes I am almost satisfied with looking at hills, 
 
 Instead of climbing them to look down 
 
 As one should. 
 
 Hills are so uncertain; 
 
 Always beautiful to look up to but not always beautiful to 
 
 look down from 
 
 There are so many things one can see from them 
 This City, for instance, 
 On the other side of the Bay, 
 With its factories and tenements 
 
 Skulking back of the piled-up pinnacles on the waterfront; 
 Here, 
 
 You can look up to them, 
 But not through them 
 
 [64] 
 
I am afraid I am getting symbolical; 
 
 I feel that way, 
 
 Walking in Staten Island beside you, 
 
 Who wants to go up the hills 
 
 These low-browed docile hills 
 
 You! 
 
 Who have climbed the mountains, 
 
 With Ibsen, Strindberg, Hauptmann, 
 
 And all the Titan thinkers of your age. 
 
 And looked down with them, 
 
 Into the dizzy abysses of life 
 
 Yourself a mountain -peak of Art! 
 
 Yes, 
 
 When I look at your big form, 
 
 Broad-shouldered and generously rounded, 
 
 With the wide jaws narrowing to a sparsely-covered head; 
 
 And those eyes, 
 
 Firm and keen and greyish, 
 
 Nestling back of that eagle nose 
 
 Like eaglets 
 
 Eyes that have looked on so much from their perch! 
 
 I think you are yourself a mountain 
 
 Of piled-up hopes, dreams, triumphs of the past, 
 
 That one must scale to understand. 
 
 It s easier though to look up than to climb up, 
 
 And it may not be beautiful from the top 
 
 Looking down 
 
 Still . . . 
 
 I ll climb with you 
 
 And take my chance on the view. 
 
 Whatever it may be upon the surface, 
 
 If one but looks deep enough into truth, 
 
 It is always beautiful. 
 
 [65] 
 
That s Realism I take it 
 
 You ought to know, 
 
 Being Arch-Realist of your age. 
 
 (I love your phrase: 
 
 " Realism is but a broom, 
 
 Clearing the stage for a deeper Romanticism.") 
 
 So let s go up the hills, 
 
 Where one can see far and clear and deep, 
 
 Tower and tenement and ocean and river and bay, 
 
 And Liberty lifting her torch from the Bay 
 
 To light up the sky for our eyes. 
 
 It s getting darker 
 
 Soon she will be lit up, 
 
 And rise from the water, resplendently tall, 
 
 A statue of silver and gold. 
 
 I like her much better now 
 
 With that lonely star 
 
 Glittering there by her wrist 
 
 Be careful where you walk 
 
 Look at that muddy pool, 
 
 With its deep-sunken filmy eye, 
 
 Staring out of the side of the hill, 
 
 As if someone lay drowned there. 
 
 The trees step back from it 
 
 Avoiding it as they climb the hill 
 
 It s peculiar, 
 
 How the trees seem to climb with you laboriously 
 
 When you ascend a wooded slope, 
 
 And step down with you, 
 
 Slowly and carefully, 
 
 As if they feared to lose their footing. 
 
 Here we are at the top 
 
 At last! 
 
 [66] 
 
SOLILOQUY OF A REALIST 
 
 QUEER 
 
 How that picture bothers me! 
 
 I can t get it out of my mind: 
 
 That tall-columned portico by the blue Aegean, 
 
 With the sea framed between the two columns, 
 
 And the young witch bending there over the glass hemi 
 sphere on the tripod, 
 
 Watching the reflection of a sail 
 
 On the horizon s edge. 
 
 "Circe s Palace "it s called; 
 
 I think she has bewitched me too 
 
 Not she so much as that portico of hers, 
 
 With its mysteriously-majestic Ionic pillars, 
 
 Like marble oak trunks rising. 
 
 Every time I think of them my mind slips loose, 
 
 And sails off into a sea of vague desires 
 
 For beautiful unreal things. 
 
 Pictures form in my mind 
 
 Of such fantastic loveliness: 
 
 Secluded oak groves where the wind whispers fearful ora 
 cles through the trees 
 
 While black-robed priests dance together in the moonlight 
 
 And gash themselves with flashing knives; 
 
 Dark lakes a-shimmer with the limbs of bathing goddesses ; 
 
 Vast deserted palaces 
 
 [67] 
 
With labyrinthine corridors and long silent halls 
 
 Where footsteps echo forever; 
 
 Cities built to music, 
 
 Whose streets are susurras of song 
 
 It s so tempting to let yourself go 
 
 And just drift away from reality 
 
 Far away; 
 
 From tenements and fire-escapes and backyards; 
 
 From squalor and poverty and pettiness 
 
 Only it s such a hard job coming back! 
 
 The more I think of marble palaces the less I like to look 
 
 at these tenements; 
 The more I wander through moonlit oak groves the less I 
 
 like to pick my way through these pushcarts; 
 And those creatures there 
 Swarming busily in and out of this filth, 
 Satisfied to live and to breed, 
 Like fleas on a carcass 
 I hate to think I am one of them. 
 Ah! 
 How different those great white symbolic-looking columns 
 
 are 
 
 Speaking and singing of beauty and mystery and Greece! 
 Of days and years and lives of perfect joy, 
 Lived like poems in rhythm. 
 But then; 
 
 Aren t there different kinds of poetry? 
 The kind that I have been preaching to myself all these 
 
 years 
 
 Where does that come in: 
 "The Beauty of the Commonplace"; "The Miracle of the 
 
 Everyday"; "The Universality of Art"? 
 Are these just phrases? 
 
 [68] 
 
I am ashamed of myself 
 
 I, I who have taken Art to myself for lawful wife; 
 
 I who have known her body and soul 
 
 In the common intimacies of wedlock 
 
 To be talking like a silly lover, 
 
 Serenading the lady of the moon. 
 
 Isn t sunlight on those rusty fire-escapes a deeper gold; 
 
 Something more than mere sunlight, the very soul of 
 things 
 
 Coaxed out of the iron? 
 
 Is that ugly? 
 
 That dreamy-eyed little ragamuffin urinating so contempla 
 tively on the pavement, 
 
 Patterning that square patch of sunlight into circles and 
 ellipses 
 
 With such intense absorption 
 
 Or is it what? . . . 
 
 Everywhere, always, if one but look; 
 
 If one but tear the callous crust off one s eyes and let life 
 shine through 
 
 Life always is Beauty and Beauty is Life 
 
 Keats said very much the same thing if I remember; 
 
 Only there isn t much trace of it in his poetry. 
 
 Well, 
 
 I don t blame you, John Keats. 
 
 Some people don t care to strain their eyes that way. 
 
 You need steeled sight; 
 
 An obstinacy of vision that melts the hard edge of things 
 like compressed fire 
 
 And fuses them into beauty. 
 
 It s so much easier to make it up yourself, 
 
 Out of yourself 
 
 Rather than to wrest it out of stubborn facts. 
 
 [69] 
 
Of course, 
 
 There is a recompense for the harder work; 
 
 A higher beauty, a deeper truth 
 
 I like to think so. 
 
 But sometimes 
 
 Sometimes I weary of it so ! 
 
 The adjusting and reconciling and harmonizing of shrieking 
 
 dissonances. 
 Something fails in me; 
 
 And Reality breaks through like a jagged rock, 
 Coarse and hard and merciless. 
 The streets cut through me and narrow me into squalid 
 
 alleys; 
 The tenements crowd into and divide my mind into little 
 
 dingy rooms; 
 And people walk up and down through me with unheeding 
 
 feet 
 
 And wear me into shallow ruts, 
 And trample the delicacy out of my innermost self. 
 Then I want to divest myself of Reality as of a dirty shirt, 
 To give up the dingy rooms and squalid alleys of my soul ; 
 And retreat into a world of my own making >. 
 Deep, deep within ; 
 Far, far away 
 Yet so familiarly my own. 
 
 A world by the blue sea, framed between Ionic columns; 
 Where there are no stunting tenements, no narrowing streets, 
 
 no pettif ying cares. 
 
 A world of trees and temples, peopled by immortal youths 
 Whose duty is but to live beautifully all their lives; 
 And be initiated into pagan mysteries day by day, 
 By the skies and the seas and the winds and the trees; 
 By the sun and the moon and the stars and the flowers 
 
 [70] 
 
And the subtle-sensed bodies of women and men. . . . 
 
 But that doesn t last long, 
 
 And proves: 
 
 Merely that poets are too lazy to live and think at the same 
 
 time; 
 
 So they take a vacation from life. 
 I have come to this afler much thinking: 
 Beauty, rhythm, harmony, and so forth 
 These are but the garments that life tries to cover herself 
 
 with, 
 
 As artists hide themselves behind poems, pictures, sonatas. 
 Only through rifts in the beauty, through breaks in the 
 
 rhythm, can one see her wonderful, dissonant soul 
 (Tragedy or comedy we call it when that happens) 
 Therefore a good motto might be: 
 One needs a keen ear for dissonance to be an artist. 
 
 [71] 
 
PASTEL: FROM THE WILLIAMSBURGH 
 BRIDGE 
 
 SUBTLY, swiftly, mysteriously, 
 
 Like the memory of some wonderful dream, 
 
 The sunset fades out of the emblazoned west 
 
 Sinking behind the massed tower-peaks of Manhattan, 
 
 Lower, and fainter and further. 
 
 The grey sky darkens overhead, 
 
 Turning into pale green; 
 
 Deepening 
 
 Darker and darker and darker 
 
 Until it is one vast canopy of blue, 
 
 Glowing with a soft satiny sheen. 
 
 A purple haze gathers in the air, 
 
 Expanding slowly; 
 
 Settles on the river and on the bridges and on the roof 
 
 tops, 
 
 Downward, 
 
 Like a cloud of colored smoke 
 Smoothing out their harsh outlines; 
 Harmonizing them into dark masses. 
 One after another, 
 Like the points of diamond needles, 
 The stars pierce through the blue canopy of the sky; 
 The lights of the city come out to meet them, 
 Soarkling more brilliantly as the haze deepens 
 
 [72] 
 
Clustering around the vague outlines of the buildings; 
 
 Like fireflies; 
 
 Crowning the tall heads of the towers 
 
 Like tiaras; 
 
 Stretching in gold chains across the river 
 
 On either side of the bridgeways. 
 
 Dimly gigantic 
 
 Like the trunks of headless Titans 
 
 The bridge towers rise from the river bed 
 
 Steel-limbed and stone-footed 
 
 Standing astride the bridge. 
 
 The river flows between them, 
 
 Under the curving sweep of the bridges, 
 
 Against the clustering lights of the wharves 
 
 Heavy and sluggish with darkness, 
 
 Like a black marsh. 
 
 [73] 
 
THE FIRE-GARDEN 
 
 " PM just going down the cellar 
 
 To throw a few shovelfuls of coal into the furnace 
 
 Will you come along? 
 
 I think the fire is low." 
 
 He flung the door back 
 
 Flooding the cellar with yellow light 
 
 From the gas-lit kitchen. 
 
 "Yes, 
 
 Let s go down; 
 
 It s always good to be on the safe side before going to bed, 
 
 And it s going to be a cold night." 
 
 The stairs creaked under our feet as we stepped carefully 
 
 down. 
 
 " You can shut the door behind you; 
 There is a light there in the corner, 
 I ll just turn it on a little more." 
 The little ball of fire burning out of the gas-tip 
 Lengthened into a thin long jet, 
 Stabbing into the blackness like a knife-blade. 
 A faint draft coming from somewhere in the cellar 
 Wrestled with it for a while, 
 Blowing it backward and forward. 
 " Haven t you ever been in our cellar before? " 
 He opened the furnace door. 
 I stepped back, 
 
 [74] 
 
Tense and thrilled 
 (You feel that way in a theatre 
 When the curtain lifts suddenly over the footlights.) 
 "Well, that s splendid! " 
 Like a garden of fiery flowers 
 (Staged in a theatre or painted on a panel) 
 The red mouth of the furnace glowed in the darkness 
 Red and white and gold and blue, 
 A hundred little flames frisked about it like elves, 
 Nodding with their forked heads, 
 Tumbling over each other lightly, 
 Swaying in a rythmic dance. 
 " It s a shame to spoil this thing; 
 Don t throw any coal on the fire now > 
 You ll choke it." 
 
 " Oh, it ll be all right in a moment 
 Fire must be fed, you know." 
 As he spoke 
 
 He thrust his shovel into the coal; 
 
 The coals came clattering down from the top of the heap. 
 " I wonder whether they heard it? " 
 "Who?" 
 " The dancers." 
 
 " It hasn t interrupted the dance any." 
 He lifted a shovelful of coal 
 And swung it heavily into the furnace 
 The fire went out under the black mass 
 As if under a blow; 
 The garden withered into pale smoke; 
 The dancers disappeared suddenly. 
 Then another shovelful; 
 Then another 
 
 "Oh, you ve choked it all up! " 
 
 [75] 
 
" It ll be all right in a moment; 
 
 See" 
 
 Slowly, 
 
 Regaining consciousness, 
 
 Blue tongues of flame clambered out of the coals 
 
 Darting here and there 
 
 As if looking for something; 
 
 Meeting together; 
 
 Joining hands joyfully 
 
 Then red, then white, then gold, 
 
 And the whole furnace was aglare again. 
 
 " There s your dance again 
 
 Going on as merrily as before 
 
 Come, 
 
 Let s close the furnace 
 
 And leave them; 
 
 There s enough coal there 
 
 To keep the dance going all night 
 
 Did you ever read Poe s Masque of the Red Death ? 
 
 " Yes; why? " 
 
 " I was just thinking about it." 
 
 He closed the furnace door with a bang. 
 
 I went to bed that night 
 
 With the furnace glowing red in my brain, 
 
 As it glowed there in the cellar 
 
 Within its iron heart. 
 
 Half thinking, half dreaming, 
 
 I thought of the dancers dancing all night 
 
 Among the fiery flowers of the furnace 
 
 Unseen, unheard. 
 
 I wondered whether they were really happy 
 
 Dancing all night; 
 
 [76] 
 
Or whether they just pretended 
 
 I thought of the coals dying of their own fire, 
 
 And wondered. 
 
 When I fell asleep 
 
 I dreamt that I was sitting in a theatre, 
 
 Vast and dark and empty 
 
 Watching the performance of a mystic play, 
 
 Going on interminably, invisibly, 
 
 Behind the luminous curtain of the stage. 
 
 [77] 
 
ON THE BRIDGE 
 
 A-GLARE with electric lights, 
 
 Like a great, luminous bug, 
 
 The car crawled through the steel meshes of the bridge- 
 way 
 
 Carrying its unheeding passengers with it through the night, 
 
 As if on some mysterious errand. 
 
 The passengers packed it to the doors; 
 
 Squeezed between each other on the benches on both sides; 
 
 Holding to the worn leather straps over the benches; 
 
 Pressed against each other in the aisle. 
 
 The air was heavy with their breath. 
 
 Three girls in shabby red coats stood chattering together ; 
 
 Gossipping about the foreman and the new designer of 
 their shop. 
 
 A dark, slight girl and a spectacled young man stood un 
 comfortably face to face 
 
 Their bodies crushed closely together; 
 
 Their eyes evading each other bashfully. 
 
 A bearded, round-faced man sat reading a newspaper 
 
 With square Hebrew print. 
 
 The car quickened its motion imperceptibly. 
 
 Two college boys sat talking together; 
 
 Comparing notes carefully on the last biology lecture. 
 
 A pale tired-faced girl sat beside them reading 
 
 Some yellow-covered novel by Turgeniev. 
 
 [78] 
 
Next to her was a stout girl with a millinery box on her 
 
 knees; 
 
 A young man leaned over her on a strap, 
 Staring hungrily into her bulging bosom 
 Through her unbuttoned coat and low shirtwaist. . . . 
 Over her head, 
 
 Through a clean space in the window, 
 The night sparkled like a crown 
 River and city and sky, 
 Set with a million jewels. 
 
 [79] 
 
 
FROM THE JERSEY BANK 
 
 WEARILY, 
 
 The River stretches its broad breast, 
 
 Northward and southward, 
 
 Dozing between its banks. 
 
 Ferries, 
 
 Lone-funneled and ugly 
 
 Furrow its blue surface constantly 
 
 Sending up black streamers of smoke against the hazy sky 
 
 Glowing with the last colours of the sunset. 
 
 Tug-boats 
 
 With engines incessantly clicking, 
 
 Ply busily up and down 
 
 Dragging the long, heavy barges behind them. 
 
 Occasionally 
 
 Stately liners pass royally among them, 
 
 Three-funneled and huge, 
 
 Challenging the tall towers on the opposite shore. . . . 
 
 But the River ignores them all, 
 
 Flowing slowly between the tall towers on one side and 
 
 the tall crags on the other 
 Slowly, moodily, reluctantly, 
 Into the far-off, inevitable Sea. 
 
 [80] 
 
NOVEMBER 
 
 FEARLESSLY, 
 
 They thrust their dry branches against the sky; 
 
 Long since the wind rifled their blossoms 
 
 And scattered their foliage on the ground 
 
 Now they stand sternly erect, 
 
 Naked and strong, 
 
 Having nothing to lose. 
 
 II 
 
 They strew the ground, 
 
 Drifting into long, shallow banks, 
 
 Piling into deep red mounds, 
 
 Eddying under the trees 
 
 Aimlessly 
 
 Long since the wind wilted them with its breath 
 
 And tore them from their twigs 
 
 Now they are free, 
 
 Having no need to grow. 
 
 [81] 
 
THE NEUROLOGICAL INSTITUTE 
 
 A TALL, red narrow-chested building, 
 Anaemic-looking and old; 
 It lifts its steepled head above the block, 
 Fearful of its own height. 
 
 II 
 
 A line, 
 
 Men, women, children, 
 
 (Alas for humanity!) 
 
 All in their Sunday best, 
 
 Hiding a hundred ailments under their clothes 
 
 Pushing and jostling and shuffling, 
 
 Wait for the doors to open. 
 
 in 
 
 First shall be last and last shall be first 
 If you fellows would only read your Bible, 
 For one thing you wouldn t be pushing like that. 
 Look at me: 
 I m not pushing, 
 
 But you ll see who ll be treated first. 
 Old man? . . . 
 Who s an old man? 
 
 You wouldn t take me to be over thirty, would you? 
 You better not. 
 
 Maybe you think I m going here because I m sick? 
 
 [82] 
 
Certainly not; 
 
 This place happens to be an hour s walk from my house, 
 
 So 1 take a walk here every Wednesday. 
 
 Don t be talking so much against the rich people, young 
 
 fellow, 
 
 I m one of them; 
 It s beastly cold, though; 
 Left my overcoat behind, by a mistake, you know." 
 
 IV 
 
 A nurse appears in the hall 
 The doors swing open. 
 
 Baldheaded and clean-shaven, 
 
 With folds of cheek and chin 
 
 Like a well-washed hog, 
 
 He sits behind the railing, 
 
 (How many years?) 
 
 Quavering solemnly: 
 
 " What is your name? 
 
 Are you willing to pay one dollar for your examination? 
 
 Where were you born? 
 
 How old are you? " 
 
 His face has set into a questioning stare, 
 
 Eyes, ears, mouth, 
 
 Interrogatively wide. 
 
 VI 
 
 She sits beside him 
 
 Filling the cards out, 
 
 Collecting the money from the patients, 
 
 Snapping alternately: 
 
 [83] 
 
" Find yourself a seat, 
 
 Doctor or treatment? 
 
 Find yourself a seat." 
 
 Her face is dried and hollowed, 
 
 Her lips are thin and bloodless, 
 
 Her voice is like the crackling of briars. 
 
 VII 
 
 A steam-heated hot-house 
 
 With souls instead of plants, 
 
 On rows of chairs. 
 
 If all the pain upon those chairs would speak! 
 
 If all the souls within this room were bared! 
 
 VIII 
 
 School-marm turned nurse, 
 
 Pretty and conscious of it. 
 
 She bosses the patients about like little children, 
 
 Seating them here and there, 
 
 Calling them constantly to order: 
 
 " Look here, you, 
 
 I want you to stop talking; 
 
 Find yourself a seat 
 
 There are plenty of chairs in the back; 
 
 Heavens, what a chatterbox! 
 
 Can t you, please, stop talking? " 
 
 She s pretty, though 
 
 From the tip of her shoe to the top of her cap, 
 
 Face and figure perfect. 
 
 How strange she seems 
 Standing there by her desk, 
 
 [84] 
 
Tall and well-formed 
 Like a stately poplar, 
 Amid a tropic swamp. 
 
 X 
 
 If those lips were mine to kiss 
 And that hair were mine to touch, 
 And those breasts were mine to crush 
 For one wild moment 
 I could half forget the pain 
 That walls me out from Life. 
 
 XI 
 
 From the steaming jaws of hell, 
 
 Clear and sweet and sudden, 
 
 A child s treble: 
 
 " Mamma, 
 
 Why does that man wear that black thing over his eyes? 
 
 Can he see through it? 
 
 Look, mamma, 
 
 When I ll be a big boy 
 
 Then could I walk then, 
 
 Like when we used to live in Brooklyn? 
 
 Yes, Mamma? 
 
 Then I could go in a shop 
 
 And make ten dollars a week, 
 
 Like papa. 
 
 Wouldn t you be glad if I make ten dollars a week? 
 
 I m tired, Mamma, 
 
 Why doesn t the doctor take us in? 
 
 Maybe he isn t here? 
 
 Where does the doctor live? 
 
 Does he live here? 
 
 [85] 
 
Mamma, 
 
 Come home; 
 
 I want to go home, 
 
 Come 
 
 xn 
 
 A face framed in black curls, 
 
 Restless roaming eyes 
 
 Under a bulging brow, 
 
 Deep set; 
 
 He stabs me with his beauty, 
 
 That little boy. 
 
 His mother holds him in her arms, 
 
 Listening to his querulous prattling, 
 
 Blandly, indifferently; 
 
 From time to time 
 
 Chiding him in a low voice, 
 
 Readjusting his fretful body on her lap. 
 
 Her face is like moulded wax. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Rembrandt Van Rijn, 
 
 God s photographer, 
 
 Artist-in-ordinary to His Majesty, Life, 
 
 He would have painted them well: 
 
 This "Mother and Child." 
 
 Painted them just as they sit there 
 
 With all this crowded clinic for a background, 
 
 He would have called it with divine simplicity; 
 
 " A Woman holding a Boy on Her Lap. * 
 
 XIV 
 
 " Charity, 
 That s what they call charity. 
 
 [86] 
 
First they keep you shiverin two hours outside, 
 
 Then they keep you chokin two hours here. 
 
 Look at that woman. 
 
 Is it her fault that her child s paralyzed? 
 
 Is it her fault that she hasn t got no money? 
 
 I ll tell you what, 
 
 If she had money she wouldn t be waitin here like that 
 
 With that kid in her arms, too. 
 
 I don t care about myself, I tell you. 
 
 I got the Fits 
 
 Epilepsy they call it; 
 
 Got it ten years; 
 
 But I don t give a damn about myself 
 
 It s the kid 
 
 Why should the kid have tha mis ry? 
 
 It ain t done anybody no harm; 
 
 There s somethin wrong, I tell you." 
 
 XV 
 
 A big muscular-looking man of about forty, 
 
 Long-faced and weather-beaten, 
 
 With fierce, gray eyes. 
 
 Epilepsy! 
 
 So, he s got epilepsy. 
 
 He might as well have told me: 
 
 " I am the crater of Mt. Vesuvius, 
 
 Got the Eruptions, you know." 
 
 XVI 
 
 " Been going here long? 
 First time, eh? 
 Well, you ll see 
 A bunch of fakers. 
 
 rtrn 
 
They ain t know nothin nothin about me leastways, 
 
 Give me some dope for my nerves! 
 
 I ain t nervous 
 
 I drive the craziest hunks o horseflesh in the town. 
 
 Couldn t drive em a block, if I was nervous. 
 
 I know what I got it from 
 
 Got it from goin with the women too much, 
 
 But what the hell! 
 
 I ain t gonna begin to go to Sunday School now, 
 
 Too old a buck. 
 
 I was born from the women so I ll die from the women. 
 
 Whaddya say? 
 
 There goes my name 
 
 Yes, doctor 
 
 Good-bye, young un." 
 
 XVII 
 
 On the nurse s desk 
 
 The telephone rings ; 
 
 She drops her work. 
 
 "Hello, 
 
 Who is that? 
 
 Oh, is that you, Paul? 
 
 I had forgotten all about you. 
 
 What are you doing with yourself? 
 
 Oh! 
 
 Listen, Paul, 
 
 I ve heard strange rumors about you. . . . 
 
 Yes, strange rumors. 
 
 Somebody told somebody else that you re going to marry 
 
 somebody. 
 
 You heard what I said, alright. 
 Well, I m sort of curious to know. . . . 
 
 [88] 
 
Who? 
 
 Me? 
 
 What do you mean by saying that to me? 
 
 I have half a mind to drop the receiver right now. 
 
 No! 
 
 Can t see you to-night. 
 
 Yes, to punish you. . . . 
 
 It all depends. 
 
 I ll see how you behave. . . . 
 
 Flatterer! 
 
 I said you were a flatterer. 
 
 No. 
 
 Because I don t want to. 
 
 Did you really get the tickets already? 
 
 I don t believe you. . . . 
 
 What s playing? 
 
 It s your luck it s Lohengrin. 
 
 Listen, Paul, I m dreadfully busy. 
 
 Call me up a little later, 
 
 About five. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Good-bye. 
 
 Don t be silly! 
 
 I said you were a silly boy. 
 
 Good-bye." 
 
 XVIII 
 
 She picks up her work: 
 
 Filing some " histories " 
 
 Looking some up in the catalogue. 
 
 Paul! 
 
 I wonder who he is, 
 
 Some healthy young male, 
 
 [89] 
 
Tall and good-looking 
 
 With a good-looking income 
 
 Or prospect of such. 
 
 Paul, 
 
 If you could make those cheeks rosier, 
 
 And those eyes brighter, 
 
 And those hands nervous, 
 
 I envy you, Paul! 
 
 XIX 
 
 So, he s my fellow patient 
 
 That idiot boy there, 
 
 Staring at me with his huge glassy eyes, 
 
 Half vacantly, half recollectively, 
 
 Then bursting into a loud chuckle. 
 
 It s he. 
 
 XX 
 
 He lives across the clothes-lines 
 
 On the third floor of the opposite tenement, 
 
 Forming the rear of our yard. 
 
 All day long the yard resounds with him 
 
 Either laughing like a satyr 
 
 Or braying like an animal in pain. 
 
 He s about fifteen, 
 
 Dark and hatchet-faced, 
 
 With a moustache sprouting under his snout-like nose. 
 
 His mouth is open as he stares at me, 
 
 Showing two rows of teeth. 
 
 Disgustingly foul. 
 
 XXI 
 
 A girl enters the room 
 And seats herself down in a chair, 
 
 [90] 
 
Just in front of my own. 
 
 I caught a glimpse of her face 
 
 As she turned to look at the clock, 
 
 And the warmth of her big black eyes, 
 
 And the delicate curve of her nose, 
 
 Stabbed through my head like a knife. 
 
 XXII 
 
 I remember a January afternoon, 
 
 Cold and wet and foggy, 
 
 When we strolled through the snow-covered Park. 
 
 Her arm was tight in my own 
 
 As we strolled through the ghastly lawns. 
 
 " Look, 
 
 Isn t it wonderful? " 
 
 " Yes," I answered, 
 
 Looking aside at her face. 
 
 " Do you know, 
 
 I love the Park in Winter." 
 
 " Yes," I trembled, 
 
 Tightening her arm in my own, 
 
 I remember a January afternoon, 
 
 Cold and wet and foggy. 
 
 This was my June. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 I am tired of waiting. 
 
 Life s the waiting-room of a clinic 
 
 And I suppose the doctor is Death, 
 
 And the grave must be behind the little door marked 
 
 " Private." 
 
 I think I m going to faint; 
 My head swims. . . . 
 
 [91] 
 
A baby tumbles from her mother s arms, 
 
 On the hard, stone floor 
 
 God! 
 
 The white door of the little room marked " Private " opens; 
 
 A man in a black suit comes out; 
 
 My name is called! 
 
 XXIV 
 
 " What s your complaint? 
 
 Pains in the back of your head? 
 
 My dear boy, how do you know it s terrific? 
 
 Don t sleep, eh? 
 
 Is that so? 
 
 Anything been happening to worry you lately, 
 
 Any affairs of yours gone wrong? 
 
 Been jilted by your sweetheart, perhaps? 
 
 Nothing of that, eh? 
 
 Let s examine your heart; 
 
 Open your shirt up, 
 
 Way up. 
 
 More! 
 
 Your heart s all right. 
 
 Are you leading a normal life? 
 
 How about your appetite? 
 
 Is that so? 
 
 Take these pills four times a day, 
 
 After every meal and at bedtime; 
 
 There s nothing the matter with you * 
 
 Nothing organic, that is, 
 
 Just functional nervousness. 
 
 You ll be alright, 
 
 Good-bye." 
 
 [92] 
 
TO-DAY 
 
 TO-DAY 
 
 The wind goes sighing through the streets; 
 
 Prowling stealthily into each open door; 
 
 Tapping at the windows; 
 
 Like a maniac, 
 
 Searching, searching 
 
 For what it knows not! 
 
 To-day 
 
 My soul goes sighing through my heart; 
 
 Prowling into old familiar corners; 
 
 Treading long-forsaken byways 
 
 And looking backward 
 
 Fearfully 
 
 Why? 
 
 [93] 
 
THE FIDDLER 
 
 LIKE Nero of old 
 
 I sit amid the ruins of my life, 
 
 Fiddling in tune 
 
 While my soul is on fire 
 
 Poet! Poet! Poet! 
 Incorrigible Poet! 
 
 [94] 
 
CROWDS 
 
 CROWDS! 
 
 I am shy 
 
 Yet I love crowds 
 
 I love to plunge into a crowd as a swimmer plunges into the 
 
 sea; 
 
 I love to feel against my ribs the rough pressure of life; 
 I love to push and be carried along with the tide 
 I love the rude shoulders of men. 
 
 Crowds! 
 
 I am a dreamer 
 
 Yet I love crowds 
 
 I love to hear in my soul the rhythmic jar of existence; 
 
 Only in the crush of the mart can I build my dreams; 
 
 Only in the noise of the street can I find my songs 
 
 I love the harsh voices of men. 
 
 Crowds! 
 
 I love crowds 
 
 Yet in the midst of them, 
 
 I am lonely. 
 
 [95] 
 
GROTESQUE 
 
 CLEAVING 
 
 The darkness of the night 
 
 Two spires shoot upward ; 
 
 Two spires of fretted stone. 
 
 Behind them 
 
 The long gray body of the great Cathedral 
 
 Squats like a Beast. 
 
 There is something threatening in your strength; 
 There is something sinister about your strange magnifi 
 cence 
 
 Grim, gray Beast! 
 
 Is it the ghost of dead Faith still haunting me? 
 Is it the power of old spells still binding me? 
 I have seen you standing strong 
 Under the high stars, 
 And revelled in your might. 
 I have seen you rising 
 Coldly clear 
 Under the cold moon, 
 And worshipped your beauty. 
 Tonight 
 
 This beauty is an apparition 
 Challenging me, 
 Maddening me, 
 
 Defying my soul with its strength. 
 
 [96] 
 
Ah, that I could take you in my hands and break yoa 
 
 between my palms, 
 Great Beast! 
 
 With the vehemence of my hate 
 
 Encircle my arms about you and crush you in my embrace. 
 How stolid you stand! 
 How insolently calm, 
 
 Buttressed with strong, stupid masses of stone, 
 And strong, stupid masses of soul, 
 Tauntingly, flauntingly firm 
 Beast! Beast! Beast! 
 Gray-coated Leprosy, 
 Charnel-house, 
 Urinal, 
 
 Carved for the worship of God 
 Where big-bellied Bishops and Cardinals 
 Empty themselves of their lies. . . . 
 Avaunt ! 
 
 How filthy you are 
 With putrid odors; 
 The stench of decayed superstitions reeks from your 
 
 haunches. 
 
 Hypocrisy shines on your face like a bloated boil 
 Ripe for the scalpel 
 Ah! 
 
 If I could only prick that boil with the point of my pen 
 And squeeze out the pus with some forceps 
 Exposing the sore, 
 That all the world might see it 
 Even as I 
 
 How loathsome you are! 
 
 The poisonous breath of your mouth corrupts the air 
 Like a pestilence. 
 I choke, 
 
 [97] 
 
I faint with its fumes, 
 
 I fall, fall, fall 
 
 Endlessly, 
 
 Into the torpor of death, 
 
 Into the horror of hell 
 
 Endlessly. . . . 
 
 Beast! Beast! Beast! 
 
 Gray Beast with the ravenous maw 
 
 Devouring my soul, 
 
 Avaunt Avaunt ! 
 
 [98] 
 
A CLUMP OF PINES: MOUNT MORRIS 
 PARK 
 
 LIKE swarthy young gods 
 
 The pines rise from the sloped forehead of the hill; 
 
 Looking upward over its bald top 
 
 Into the downward curving sky 
 
 That frames it in a blue infinity. 
 
 Behind them 
 
 The trees straggle up the hillside 
 
 With naked branches waiting to be budded 
 
 Impatient of Spring. 
 
 Wantonly, 
 
 The birches spread their white limbs in the sunshine; 
 
 The poplars sway with tender passion; 
 
 The young oaks stand taut with desire. 
 
 Behind them 
 
 The lawns lie bellied out under the sunshine 
 
 Each faded grass-blade impregnated with new life. 
 
 Children play on the walks. 
 
 Full-bosomed young mothers 
 
 With moist breasts crushed under their coats 
 
 Sit on the benches beside the baby-carriages. 
 
 At the bottom 
 
 The City spreads like a besieging army, 
 
 Petrified into massed blocks manacled by long streets 
 
 As it surged forward. 
 
 [99] 
 
The houses glare impotently at the hill 
 Out of their sun-dazzled eyes. 
 
 The churches lift up their steeples among them like stand 
 ards. 
 
 But the pines rise in their fenced copse on the hill-side 
 Solemnly apart 
 
 Over the massed houses and challenging steeples; 
 Over the warm placid lawns and restless spring-stirred trees; 
 Standing as in a sacred grove, 
 And looking fixedly over the hill 
 Into the infinite abysmal blue. 
 
 [100] 
 
ON A PARK BENCH 
 
 UNDER the green-bosomed chestnuts bulging into the drive 
 way 
 
 She sat there 
 
 Big-bodied and immobile as the trees; 
 
 Ripening in the warm insinuating sunshine 
 
 Like a huge plant. 
 
 Feverishly 
 
 The automobiles hurried after each other before her vacant 
 unheeding eyes 
 
 Sparkling into view like sudden suns 
 
 And darkening out of sight. 
 
 Like a moving tapestry 
 
 The equestrians swept after each other across the drive 
 
 Shining brown haunches, polished black boots gleaming 
 through the leaves. 
 
 The birds darted through the sunlight like fishes 
 
 Riddling it with a million melodious trills. 
 
 She sat there 
 
 Rooted to the bench, 
 
 Feeling only the bulging mystery in her womb, 
 
 Dull-eyed and grandly immobile, 
 
 Growing with the green lawns and the silent sap-veined 
 trees. 
 
 [101] 
 
THE PLAY POND: CENTRAL PARK 
 
 UNDER the dazzling sweep of sun-burnished blue skies 
 
 The pond blinks between the recumbent hills, 
 
 Rippling ceaselessly away 
 
 From the whirlpool of white fire 
 
 Flaming on the further side. 
 
 Saturated with light 
 
 The trees climb down the bent backs of the hills 
 
 With drooping heads and faint limbs 
 
 Pale from the weariless lust of the sun 
 
 Like raped women. 
 
 Out of its great round eye 
 
 The pond gapes piteously at the trees. 
 
 Like a quarry seeking shelter, 
 
 In frantic ripples 
 
 It scurries under the explosive, blinding sparkle 
 
 Groping at its planked rim, 
 
 With little lapping tongues 
 
 But the trees are far and helpless 
 
 Ravished with sunlight 
 
 And the hot, hard planks are merciless as the sun. 
 
 Nearby 
 
 Across the scorched backs of the hills 
 
 The mansions sit back comfortably on the broad sidewalk 
 
 of the Avenue 
 With well-shaded eyes 
 
 [102] 
 
Watching the tortured pond struggling under the glare 
 
 Like a pinned butterfly. 
 
 On the green benches ranged around the pond 
 
 Women sit in white groups 
 
 Reading, knitting; 
 
 With lowered eyelids 
 
 Evading the blazing pond. 
 
 Beside the rim of the pond 
 
 A red-haired little boy squats on his brown chubby hands 
 
 With eager lips and unblinking blue eyes, 
 
 Watching a wilful breeze driving his toy schooner, 
 
 Against the feverish ripples fleeing from the fire 
 
 Cruelly, swiftly, 
 
 Into the heart of the flaming whirlpool. 
 
 [103] 
 
THE DESERTED CHURCH 
 
 IT has stood that way for years, 
 
 Awesomely empty 
 
 A flat-roofed lumbering structure in the shape of a half 
 
 cross, 
 
 Jutting out of the block at the corner of two busy avenues; 
 The long head of the cross stretching towards the street 
 With a sign on the door telling passers-by it is for sale; 
 The two arms receding awkwardly into the block. 
 Weed-covered grounds 
 One boasting of a tree 
 Flank the long head of the cross 
 On either side. 
 Windows, 
 Tall, narrow slits 
 With broken panes and curved tops, 
 Stare gravely into the ground like owls 
 The building stands there like a tomb 
 Deserted of its God. 
 
 I pass it sometimes on my way to the library, 
 At night 
 
 When gray clouds sail over its flat roof like shrouded souls, 
 And the yellow moon shines down from among the clouds, 
 On its bare, brown walls, 
 Through its tall, dilapidated windows, 
 On the gaunt spare-branched tree. 
 
 [104] 
 
Then I am almost afraid of it 
 
 I am afraid of the God that is haunting His old home. . . . 
 
 If I were bold enough to climb over that fence 
 
 And steal up close to one of those windows, 
 
 And look through its broken panes 
 
 I think I would see Him sweeping up and down the chancel, 
 
 Seeking vainly for His old worshippers, 
 
 Listening vainly for the blessed sound of the Mass, 
 
 Forever hushed 
 
 Yes, 
 
 God s ghost is haunting this gloomy church 
 
 I am afraid of it! 
 
 Soon, 
 
 An enterprising Jew will buy up the property, 
 
 And turn it into a moving-picture house 
 
 (Jews are not afraid of God because they created Him.) 
 
 "The Vitagraph Palace" or " The Art Motion Pictures" 
 
 or " The Lee Avenue Theatre " or some other name 
 Will glare in electric letters over the door; 
 Signs and posters all around the building will tell the public 
 
 what is playing. 
 At night, 
 Sweethearts from the cosmopolitan neighborhood will sit 
 
 together in the aisles, 
 
 Playing secretly with each other s hands in the dark, 
 Flirting together in a dozen different languages, 
 While the hero and heroine make love to each other on the 
 
 screen, 
 
 Where once the altar stood. 
 Gayety and pleasure shall crowd into every nook of the 
 
 church, 
 
 And God s ghost shall be driven out. 
 
 [105] 
 
MY BELOVED 
 
 AT night 
 
 When I am asleep, 
 
 My Beloved comes to me 
 
 And falls upon my breast 
 
 And caresses me 
 
 Calls me her Poet, her Artist, her Soul; 
 
 Calls me her Genius, her Saviour, her God 
 
 I crush her in my arms 
 
 And kiss her 
 
 And hite her 
 
 Amorously 
 
 I may not hint at half the joy we have; 
 
 I may not tell of half the love we share; 
 
 At night! 
 
 In the daytime 
 
 I sit beside her, 
 
 Sometimes, 
 
 And talk to her 
 
 Bashfully 
 
 About all sorts of things 
 
 Literature, Art, Philosophy 
 
 She listens, 
 
 Sometimes 
 
 I am a very queer fellow 
 
 She thinks. 
 
 [106] 
 
A BROOKLYN BY-STREET 
 
 Two straight rows of low brick buildings 
 
 Interminably red, interminably neat, interminably double- 
 storied ; 
 
 Fronted with the same brown porches and the same small 
 grass plots, 
 
 Stare at each other across the street, 
 
 Placidly, 
 
 Out of a hundred windows. 
 
 Automobiles 
 
 Race between them intermittently; 
 
 Delivery-wagons 
 
 Rattle by from the markets 
 
 Stopping at some of the porches; 
 
 A boy alights from a wagon 
 
 Carrying a parcel 
 
 He is tall and freckle-faced 
 
 A girl in a white dress is sitting on one of the porches, 
 
 Reading a yellow-bound book. . . . 
 
 I wonder what she is reading 
 
 A story or an essay or a poem, 
 
 A novel or a play! 
 
 I think she is reading a poem: 
 
 Her eyes are so open and restless, 
 
 Her lips are so languidly pensive 
 
 I am sure she is reading a poem. 
 
 [107] 
 
If I wanted 
 
 I could walk up that porch and speak to her. 
 I know 
 
 She wouldn t mind it. 
 
 I would walk up those steps and say to her, smilingly: 
 "Pardon me ... but ... 
 May I ask you 
 What are you reading? " 
 (I can almost see her, 
 Lifting her face from the book, 
 Startled somewhat!) 
 
 " Some poetry. . . . Swinburne s .... my favorite." 
 " Mine, too." 
 " Do you like him? " 
 "I love him; 
 
 He s a wonderful wizard of words ! " 
 And . . . 
 
 " Did you read his Garden of Proserpine ? " 
 " I was reading it now for the twentieth time 
 I m crazy about it ! " 
 And ... 
 
 " Did you read them? 
 Laus Veneris, Dolores, Fragoletta, Faustine, 
 Anactoria, Hertha, Aholibah, Thalassius? " 
 "All!" 
 
 " What marvellous word -woven tapestries all ; 
 What palaces builded of sound, 
 Oriental, Ionic and Gothic; 
 In color, melody, rhythm, 
 In power and passion of words, 
 There s no one like Swinburne! " 
 And ... 
 
 " Do you remember the opening chorus 
 
 [108] 
 
In Atalanta in Calydon ? 
 
 A Greek might have written it 
 
 (Apologetically) 
 
 You see, 
 
 I know these things 
 
 Being a poet myself " 
 
 "A poet! 
 
 You? " 
 
 And ... 
 
 If I wanted 
 
 I could walk up those steps and speak to her 
 
 All this and much more . . . 
 
 But something 
 
 Out of a hundred hooded windows 
 
 Staring complacently 
 
 Cowes me and drives me away 
 
 Abashed. 
 
 I wonder what she is reading! . . . 
 
 [109] 
 
NOCTURNE: FIFTH AVENUE AND 
 CENTRAL PARK 
 
 THE omnibus moved joltingly up the Avenue 
 
 Double-storied and top-heavy; 
 
 Shaking the drowsy passengers on the roof, 
 
 Sideward and forward. 
 
 The sky curved over us like a dim dome, 
 
 Moonless and murky, 
 
 Indefinitely deep. 
 
 A few stars struggled out of the thick mists 
 
 And followed us. 
 
 On one side slept the Park 
 
 A long, black mass of trees, 
 
 Facing the Avenue and melting backward into the blacker 
 
 sky. 
 On the other side stretched the white mansions of the 
 
 Avenue, 
 
 With blinds pulled down and curtains drawn close, 
 Big and empty looking. 
 
 The omnibus moved joltingly up the Avenue. 
 Tall, curved lamp-posts, 
 
 With great electric globes bulging from their bent heads, 
 Challenged us on either side like sentinels. 
 The Avenue stretched endlessly before us, 
 Shining under their white glare, 
 Like a moonlit river. 
 
 [110] 
 
WINTER NOCTURNE: THE HOSPITAL 
 
 A MASS of ledged rock 
 
 Steep and brown and long 
 
 Ribbed with white streaks of snow 
 
 Rises up suddenly from among level blocks of tenements, 
 
 Lifting the red hospital buildings on its top, 
 
 Higher 
 
 Over the huddled heads of the tenements 
 
 Over the uncoiled length of the Elevated 
 
 Up to the very disc of the moon. 
 
 [mi 
 
AFTER THE LECTURE 
 
 I AM sick of believing and disbelieving 
 
 Cults and creeds and systems of thought; 
 
 Philosophy, Morality, Cosmology, concern me no more 
 
 Let the eternal verities go to the dogs! 
 
 Enough has been prattled about them 
 
 Aristotle, Socrates, Plato; 
 
 Fichte and Hegel and Schelling and Kant. 
 
 It is all so simple to me 
 
 I know it is Good to be out under the stars tonight, 
 
 And Evil to be pent up in a sultry lecture room. 
 
 I know it is Good to be walking beside you, dear, 
 
 And Evil of you to be philosophising so much. 
 
 I know it is Right to put my arms around you and kiss you, 
 
 And Wrong of you to deny me that kiss. 
 
 As to who made this ramshackle, top-heavy Universe, 
 
 Dear little girl, 
 
 Let God have the credit. 
 
 [112] 
 
NOCTURNE: CENTRAL PARK 
 
 THE snow soughed ceaselessly through the air 
 
 In long thin threads like rain, 
 
 Ceaselessly, softly descending, 
 
 On the white sheeted trees with their freighted branches 
 
 Bending under the full moon; 
 
 On the undulating, creamy lawns 
 
 Glistening in the moonlight; 
 
 On the frozen surface of the Pond 
 
 Gleaming from behind the trees 
 
 Like a sheet of lacquered silver. 
 
 Clouds, 
 
 Big-bellied and fluffy 
 
 Like great grey whales 
 
 Sailed across the blue arch of the sky. 
 
 Brushing against the round disk of the moon, 
 
 Putting out the stars in their path 
 
 Like sputtering matches 
 
 Only die moon shone steadfastly in the sky 
 
 Like a lighthouse set among the clouds, 
 
 We stood together. 
 Made one in each other s arms 
 Under the low-bending branches of the sheered trees, 
 Under the gray-dappled moonlit sky 
 Her eyes shone through me like two moons 
 
 [113] 
 
Lighting up strange vistas within my brain; 
 
 Her soft cheek pressed warmly against my own; 
 
 A stray wisp of black hair fell from under her hat, 
 
 Caught between my lips, and filled my nostrils with an 
 
 odor of crushed flowers 
 And the snow soughed coolingly on our hot faces. 
 
 [114] 
 
SPRING TRYST 
 
 WHAT shall I say to her first, 
 
 As she comes tripping to meet me, 
 
 Here at our tryst in the Park 
 
 Comes with her wide hat aslant 
 
 And her brown eyes glowing beneath 
 
 What shall I say to her first! 
 
 Shall I put on a piteous face 
 
 And pout: 
 
 " I have waited so long; 
 
 The birds taunted me from the tree-tops as I stood here;- 
 
 Chirping two, two, two, two, two, 
 
 Silly, silly, silly, silly boy, 
 
 She will never come she will never come 
 
 See, you naughty birds, 
 
 She has come! " 
 
 Or shall I look tenderly at her: 
 
 " You are tired, dear; 
 
 Sit down . . . 
 
 What a sweet dress you have on to-day; 
 
 It goes so well with the Spring, 
 
 The rose on your cheeks and the green on your dress; 
 
 Only what shall we do with your eyes 
 
 They are so brown! " 
 
 Or shall I let my joy free, 
 
 [115] 
 
Caged in my throat like a bird: 
 
 " Darling, 
 
 At last 
 
 I am so happy! 
 
 All night I was wakeful thinking about you, 
 
 And my heart kept ticking the seconds; 
 
 I am so happy, so happy 
 
 I think I could fly! " 
 
 Or shall I take her hand, 
 
 Gently, 
 
 And lead her down to the pond: 
 
 " Do you remember the time we stood here 
 
 Here, under the very same trees, 
 
 When the trees were sheeted in snow, 
 
 And the pond was frozen across, 
 
 And the wind bit into our faces 
 
 You jested: 
 
 Do you know 
 
 We ought to draw up a petition to the Spring, 
 
 All lovers, 
 
 And ask him to hurry this way! 
 
 Do you remember? "... 
 
 Or shall I not say anything at all to her, 
 
 But clasp her in my trembling arms, 
 
 And speak to her lips and her cheeks and her eyes and 
 
 her brow 
 Where shall I kiss her first! 
 
 [116] 
 
AT THE FLORIST S 
 
 THROUGH the big show window on the Avenue, 
 
 The flowers called to me as I stopped 
 
 Piping and chirping and singing in a dozen different colors, 
 
 Like a tree-top of bright-plumaged birds: 
 
 " Take me to her, bring me with you, choose me for her; 
 
 I am sweet, I am sweeter; but I am more beautiful, but I 
 
 am more graceful." 
 
 I looked recollectively through the frosted glass. 
 " You are familiar to me," said I to a little red flower who 
 
 was louder than the rest 
 "Aren t you a jasmine? " 
 "Oh! " trilled the little red flower impatiently through her 
 
 creamy throat, 
 " Only a month ago she passed here with you and told you 
 
 my name 
 Take me along with you and I ll forgive you for being so 
 
 stupid." 
 "Take us too," breathed a cloud of white flowerets in a 
 
 corner 
 
 " Don t you remember us? 
 
 That time ... on the Palisades ... in June. . . . 
 She passed her fingers through our stems to show us to 
 
 you, and we glittered on them so 
 Like seed pearls, you said." 
 "And me 
 
 [117] 
 
Don t you remember me? " said a little yellow flower 
 
 naughtily. 
 " She pinned me near her bosom that time, and you crushed 
 
 me there with your kisses." 
 I blushed. 
 "I I remember something like that, but I can t think of 
 
 your names. 
 
 You see . . . one sees you so seldom in the city. . . . 
 Please excuse me this once; 
 When she gets well I ll 
 And who are you? " turned I to a big crimson flower that 
 
 interrupted my eye. 
 " Never mind my name," answered she drawing herself up 
 
 haughtily on her tall stem, 
 " You d forget it anyway if I told you 
 Take me with you and she will know." 
 " Please take me to her," pleaded a little blue flower in a 
 
 crowd of ferns. 
 
 " She never pointed me out to you, but I love her so much; 
 Take me along with you and make me happy 
 I will look so beautiful in her hair! " 
 " I am truly sorry," confided I to the little blue flower as 
 
 I walked away 
 ** I have only a dime for carfare and can t buy any of you 
 
 for her 
 But I will put you all in a poem and read it to her." 
 
 [118] 
 
A POSTSCRIPT 
 
 DEAREST! 
 
 When I pressed you to my heart that time 
 
 And the impatient engine drowned our last good-bye 
 
 I walked back through the station, 
 
 Dizzy, 
 
 Because of the kiss I carried, 
 
 Poised tremulously, 
 
 Like a bird upon my lips. 
 
 Breathless, 
 
 Lest my breath blow it off; 
 
 Fearful, 
 
 As one who bears a fragile treasure home; 
 
 I walked back through the crowded staring station 
 
 Into the crowded staring street, 
 
 With moist half-open lips 
 
 Until the shy bird spread her wings 
 
 And flew within for shelter, 
 
 Making my heart flutter with her wings. 
 
 [119] 
 
NOCTURNE 
 
 (FOR H. R.) 
 
 As we walked there by the park-wall 
 
 The moon went with us all the way, 
 
 Shining from behind the trees 
 
 Big and round and yellow 
 
 Like a Chinese lantern 
 
 Dangling from the dark sky 
 
 By some invisible thread; 
 
 As we walked there by the park-wall 
 
 The moon followed us all the way, 
 
 Big-faced and piteous, 
 
 Like a wild creature 
 
 Snared behind the impenetrable net-work of the trees; 
 
 As we stopped there in the doorway 
 
 The moon watched us all the time, 
 
 Yellow-faced and envious 
 
 Like a jealous lover 
 
 Peering through the lattice of the trees. 
 
 [120] 
 
A ROW OF POPLARS: CENTRAL PARK 
 
 THE poplars stood in a straight row, 
 
 Upright under the moon, 
 
 Facing the broad sidewalk of the Avenue 
 
 Their tipped heads rising high over the park wall, 
 
 Their slender bodies cutting sharply through the humid 
 
 air, 
 
 Like dark-draped statues. 
 Elms, 
 
 Thick-trunked and fan-shaped, 
 Arched towards each other across the walk, 
 Forming a leafy arcade by the park wall. 
 Crowds sauntered through the arcade, 
 In twos and threes and fours 
 Streaming back and forth 
 Bevies of young girls, 
 In light summer dresses, with hair curled roguishly over 
 
 their ears, 
 
 Laughing and chattering as they tripped along, 
 Coquetting boldly with the boys; 
 Plump-bodied, perspiring matrons trying to keep pace with 
 
 their husbands, 
 
 In stiff silk dresses and little straw hats; 
 Sweethearts strolling arm-in-arm, 
 Looking at each other happily, 
 Oblivious of everything else. 
 
 [121] 
 
At intervals 
 
 On the long benches by the park wall, 
 
 Couples sat huddled amorously together 
 
 Their intertwined shadows projecting into the walk, 
 
 Under the passing feet. 
 
 Nearby, 
 
 On the other side of the park wall, 
 
 The poplars stood in a straight row, 
 
 Upright under the moon, 
 
 Virginally slender 
 
 Holding themselves stiffly aloof. 
 
 Afar 
 
 The lake lay in the moonlight 
 
 Gold and black and silver 
 
 Rippling together. 
 
 [122] 
 
THE OLD COURTESAN 
 
 (AFTER THE BRONZE CAST BY AUGUSTE RODIN) 
 
 SHE is old and ugly 
 
 Battered with years, 
 
 Like an inn 
 
 That life has deserted 
 
 Long ago 
 
 Love once held revel in her heart; 
 
 Youth once lay captive on those breasts; 
 
 Now! 
 
 She is old and ugly 
 
 Wrinkled with years, 
 
 Like a grape 
 
 That Life has squeezed out 
 
 Over its cup 
 
 Time has pressed flat the fulness of her cheeks; 
 
 Lust has sucked dry the sweetness of her lips; 
 
 Now! 
 
 She is old and ugly 
 
 Yellow with years, 
 
 Like a parchment 
 
 That life has scrawled over and over 
 
 With villainous rhymes. 
 
 [123] 
 
PRIDE 
 
 YESTERDAY, 
 
 Passing through the Bowery, 
 
 I saw a dry crust of bread lying on a heap of offal, 
 
 A big, starved-looking yellow cat was rummaging through 
 
 the heap. 
 
 She seemed to have noticed the crust of bread 
 Evidently it was too hard for her teeth. 
 Just as I was turning the corner 
 A tramp lurched by. 
 He was not drunk, 
 He was hungry 
 So he staggered as he walked. 
 I stopped. 
 
 My eyes fixed themselves on that heap of offal; 
 And on the dry crust of bread lying on top of it; 
 And on the old yellow cat rummaging beside it. ... 
 
 The man stopped also; 
 
 He was examining that heap of offal 
 
 His eyes wandered from the dry crust of bread to the old 
 
 yellow cat. 
 
 Something within him drew him to that heap of offal ; 
 Something within him revolted against it. 
 The man hesitated 
 
 On the top of the heap squatted the old yellow cat 
 
 [124] 
 
Munching, munching, munching; 
 
 The man hesitated 
 
 Finally he dragged himself away, 
 
 Proudly. 
 
 [125] 
 
PSALM CLI 
 
 PRAISE ye the Lord, Nations! 
 
 Praise ye the Lord with the bayonet and the bullet 
 
 Praise Him with the scattering of shrapnel, praise Him 
 
 with the throwing of hand-grenades 
 Praise, praise ye the Lord ! 
 
 II 
 
 Raise ye trenches on the hill-tops; 
 
 Build ye fortifications on the high places of the earth; 
 
 That ye may worship the Lord 
 
 Fittingly! 
 
 ill 
 
 Praise ye the Lord, for His vengeance consumeth the Na 
 tions; 
 
 Praise ye the Lord, for His terror abideth forever; 
 
 Praise Him with lyddite shells, praise Him with dum-dum 
 bullets, praise Him with nitro-glycerine bombs 
 
 Praise ye the Lord with light artillery and heavy artillery 
 and all manner of ordnance! 
 
 IV 
 
 Praise ye the Lord with asphyxiating chlorine; 
 Praise Him with the sacking of cities, praise Him with the 
 
 [126] 
 
raping of women, praise Him with the slaughter of 
 
 children 
 
 Praise Him with zeppelins, aeroplanes, dirigibles 
 Praise ye the Lord on the face of the earth, praise ye the 
 
 Lord in the depths of the sea, praise ye the Lord from 
 
 the heights of the air! 
 
 Praise ye the Lord with submarine torpedoes 
 
 Praise Him with battleships, cruisers, destroyers without 
 
 number ; 
 
 Praise Him with floating mines and stationary mines; 
 Praise ye the Lord on the face of the earth, praise ye the 
 
 Lord in the depths of the sea, praise ye the Lord from 
 
 the heights of the sky! 
 
 VI 
 
 Praise ye the Lord, Nations of the earth 
 
 All ye that are dreaming of Peace and Brotherhood; 
 
 All ye that are praying for Justice and Law 
 
 Let the guns of your dreadnoughts praise the Lord; 
 
 Let the mouths of your howitzers praise the Lord 
 
 Praise, praise ye the Lord! 
 
 [127] 
 
A LOST LEADER 
 (FOR C. E. R.) 
 
 I SAW him once, 
 
 In a great, hushed hall, 
 
 Where thousands held their breath to hear him 
 
 Thousands of tired faces made eager with hope, 
 
 Listening, believing, worshipping. 
 
 His voice was like an insistent trumpet call; 
 
 His bold frank face shone under his gray hair, 
 
 Like the face of some warrior saint; 
 
 And his fixed eyes flamed out of their deep sockets. 
 
 And I thought of Christ addressing the multitude on the 
 
 Mount; 
 
 And I thought of One crying in the wilderness; 
 And I waited there, 
 To touch his hand, 
 And look into his face; 
 So beautiful it was. 
 
 Christ turned Judas 
 Christ himself, 
 Reviling his own disciples, 
 Betraying them for what! 
 He who cried to us in the wilderness; 
 He who preached to us on the Mount; 
 
 [128] 
 
Is this the same? 
 
 One with our foes at the Council 
 
 One with our Lords at the feast 
 
 He who was the seven-fold trumpet blast, 
 
 Around the Jericho of Greed 
 
 Now that the walls are crumbling; 
 
 Now f that the city is ours 
 
 Deserting our hosts in the battle; 
 
 Crowning our triumph with shame; 
 
 This is a great defeat! 
 
 [129J 
 
TO RUSSIA 1917 
 
 RUSSIA! Russia! 
 
 Sweet, vast, strong-shouldered Russia, 
 
 With the subtle soul and the simple, guileless heart 
 
 I never knew I loved you, 
 
 Until this your Day of Truth, 
 
 When your soul flared up through the leaden chains that 
 
 bound you 
 
 And melted them like fire 
 Melted the king s crown upon your head, melted the priest s 
 
 cross in your hand; 
 
 Shrivelled the black robes around your limbs; 
 And you stood up among the nations, 
 Naked and beautiful, 
 Innocent, 
 
 As if Tyranny had never touched you. 
 Ah, how I watched you then! 
 How I looked at your beauty unrobed at last 
 Tenderly, reverently, 
 As I look at the body of my own love. 
 But when you picked up from the earth 
 The fallen torch of freedom, 
 And held it on high, 
 For all the world to see 
 Then my tenderness became passion, 
 And my reverence became yearning, 
 
 [130] 
 
And I knew that I was yours and you were mine, 
 Mother and sweetheart and comrade of my soul! 
 
 Russia! Russia! 
 
 Take me to your heart again; 
 
 Put your strong arms about me that I may feel them 
 
 And be assured of your forgiveness; 
 
 I have sinned against you greatly 
 
 I did not know you; 
 
 I feared you, 
 
 Because of the king s crown that you wore and the priest s 
 
 cross that you held 
 
 And the black robes that shrouded your limbs 
 I fled from you 
 
 To an alien country across the sea; 
 I learned her tongue and forgot your face; 
 I thought her thoughts and sang her songs; 
 And in your hour of trial I was not by your side, 
 To think your thoughts and to sing your songs 
 And to fight your fight 
 Forgive me! 
 
 I saw only your black robes; 
 I did not see the beautiful body beneath 
 And the Diadem dazzled my eyes from your face 
 Now I know! 
 Now I see! 
 I will fly to you, 
 
 And help you upbear in your arms 
 The torch of the new-born Freedom 
 That you hold for the world. 
 I will learn your tongue and go in your ways, 
 And breathe out on your steppes, in your forests, 
 New York s fever and dust 
 
 [131] 
 
Turgenieff, Tolstoy, Dostoyeffsky, Gorki, 
 
 TcheckofF, Andreyeff, Pushkin, 
 
 Souls of your living and dead, 
 
 Immortal alike 
 
 I will sit at their feet and learn from them 
 
 How to love you! 
 
 I will watch their lips and follow their eyes; 
 
 And perhaps, 
 
 If I prove myself worthy to love, 
 
 I will be admitted to the table 
 
 A humble guest 
 
 1132] 
 
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