COLLECTED POEMS 1907-1922 OTHER BOOKS BY JOHN ERSKINE THE MORAL OBLIGATION TO BE INTELLIGENT AND OTHER ESSAYS THE KINDS OF POETRY AND OTHER ESSAYS DEMOCRACY AND IDEALS GREAT AMERICAN WRITERS (With W. P. Trent) POETRY ACTION AND OTHER POEMS THE SHADOWED HOUR HEARTS ENDURING A Play in on Scene COLLECTED POEMS 1907-1922 BY JOHN ERSKINE Professor of English at Columbia University NEW YORK DUFFIELD AND COMPANY 1922 Copyright, 1906, by JOHN LANE COMPANY Copyright, 1907, by JOHN ERSKINE Copyright, 1922, by DUFFIELD & COMPANY Printed in U. S. A. iv NOTE The poems here gathered are those I care to preserve from previous volumes, Act a on ana Other Poems, 1907, and The Shadowed Hour, 1917, together with certain poems that have ap peared in magazines during the last fifteen years, and others that are now printed for the first time. For permission to reprint I thank the editors of The Century Magazine, The Atlantic Month- y, Harpers Magazine, East and West, The Lyric, The Yale Review, The Texas Review, The Am- herst Graduates Quarterly, The Columbia Uni versity Quarterly, The Harvard Graduates Maga zine, La Revue de Bourgogne, and The En chanted Years. J. E. August I, 1923 CONTENTS PAGE ACTION I THE SONS OF METANEIRA 9 IPHIDAMUS 29 PENTHESILEIA 36 ACHILLES AND THE MAIDEN 47 SIR GRAELENT 54 "GREAT VOICES OF THE PAST" 66 "BENEATH THIS BEAUTY" 67 SONG 68 "LOVE THAT NEVER TOLD CAN BE" 69 ROSE RIME . . 7O "LOVE, THE WINGED LORD" 71 PARTING 72 DEGUSTIBUS 73 "IN MEMORY I HAVE MY WILL" 74 FIREFLY 76 THE RETURN 77 EDGAR ALLAN POE 80 RHYTHMS 84 ECHOES 85 ON READING THE SYMPOSIUM 86 CATULLUS 87 vii Vlll CONTENTS CARLO LEONARDO SPERANZA 88 TO A POET IN THE MEDITERRANEAN QI WILDWOOD 95 CHERRY BLOSSOM 101 WHIP-POOR-WILL 104 YOUTH DYING I06 THE CITY FLAG 114 DEDICATION , . 117 AT THE FRONT . t Il8 APPARITION . 123 HOSPITAL 125 SATAN 126 PARIS, HELEN S LOVER 132 ASH-WEDNESDAY 138 "TAKE NOT THY HOLY SPIRIT FROM us" .... 149 CHILDHOOD 151 THE INN-KEEPER I2 COLLECTED POEMS 1907-1922 ACTION Fair bloomed the happy world, fair bloomed the May, But over Lethe came no bloom nor change, Only the ancient languor; soft and smooth, Save where a slumbrous poppy, nodding low, Trailed into ripples, Lethe slipped away; And there the dead, fresh from the bright world, came, And drank forgetfulness one cup for all, Whether their crown of life were flower or thorn, Their draught of life proved sweet or bitter wine. There statesmen, soldiers, leaders of their times, Heart-worn with blazing out new paths for truth, Drank with their meanest follower, side by side ; Two lovers there, one with the passionate kiss Of sweet lips clinging, one in patient love Of those same lips, which never might be his, Together drank, and equally forgot; I 2 ACTAEON Thither came joy and sorrow ceaselessly, And straight passed over, levelled unto peace. But with them came a spirit not for peace; Violently, as one half crazed, he came Down to the banks of Lethe. There he stood; As a true arrow, springing from the bow, Qeaves a long arch, then quivers in the gold, So fled the spirit to the banks and stood. A moment so; then to the dead cried out: "What drink ye here?" And one in answer told, Stammering for amazement, of the stream That stills the love of life, and sweetens death With pure forget fulness. Then rang that land And loud re-echoed with the strangest voice. The strangest cry, that ever startled hell: "Better a life of torture, death of shame, And sorrow lasting on to many deaths, Than peace for me, bought by forgetfulness !" He stood erect, the rough wild hair blown back, As from swift running; at his heart one hand, The other raised as if to warn the dead ACTAEON 3 From Lethe; and his face more than the light Of life and youth and May burned in that brow And flushed those lips, pain-set ; his eyes seemed blind Of glory, as from gazing on the sun. As when a tree falls prone across a brook, [And gathers up its waters to a pool, So rose the startled dead around him there, And wondered at him. Then a woman spoke: "Wouldst thou remember now? When the light goes, Why lay another shadow on the dark? Has sorrow met thee? There are double scars For wounds remembered; here no memory lives ; No more thy thought shall cling to what is gone- How can the ivy climb when the house falls?" He almost smiled, for pity; then there flamed Fire in his eyes, and his heart filled his voice. "Oft as I hunted through the summer woods, 4 ACTAEON The wind would fly with me and spur me on, The low pine-sweetness urge me, fern and flower Lean to my flight, and whisper after me, Till the wide forest fell to murmuring Of sounds that echoed clearer than the pack, And followed something swifter than the deer. But when I rested breathless, at the noon, The whole world came to silence suddenly, With one refrain still lasting on to haunt me Of what the woods sang: Every flower of the world Waits to be gazed on ; all the honey of the earth Waits to be gathered; no forbidden sweets, And no forbidden beauty/ So befell This morning, that I hunted till the noon, And thirsting, came upon a forest pool, A silver mirror where the sun looked in. I came a-tiptoe, for the forest song Was on me All the honey of the earth* when, hark! A whirl of laughter never brook could sing, ACTAEON 5 Though silver pebbles teased it into song. O perilous music! Marvelling I stood For one dear moment, dreaming not at all To break the age-long privacy of gods ; But then the breeze stirred Every flower of the world the music, O the wild refrain That rapt my soul! I drew the leaves apart 1 looked on Dian! Knee-deep in the pool, So white against the forest; all her hair Falling in tangles, dark against the white, And dripping silver in the noonday sun. She raised her eyes, the swift blush covered her, One divine rose burning with terrible fire. Lightly she dipped her fingers in the pool, And lightly flung the silver in my eyes, And I, amazed to be so gently used, Still poring on her beauty all at once I felt the bow and quiver slip my fingers ; My hand was as the hoof of a great stag; A hairy covering fringed my eyes, and clothed 6 ACTAEON My limbs with awful change ; then keen I felt The branching antlers cleave my brow, and knew A sudden trembling, not like human fear, Bite at my heart. She watched me, still as death, Nor longer cared to screen herself; the blush Fell from her face like the deep set of sun, That brings the stars out cold; but as I looked, Her beauty grew and kindled in the cold, Until my heart broke into fire before it, And the fear passed away. I heard the pack Crying; deep pity changed her look. I knew, But left her not, so marvellous the pity That drew her eyes to mine. They slew me there, My own poor hounds, but, ere I fell, I saw Her face grow sorrowful. How can I forget That divine face? Ye may forget, but I Gazed once on beauty till her glance grew kind, Suffered the cost of it, drank of the bliss, And evermore remember." High the voice ACTAEON . 7 Rang o er that dismal country, triumphing, And a great glory flushed Actseon s face. But ere the silence half resumed itself Back from the echo, turned the spirit band Incredulous, forth to their flight again. As when strong rising waters burst the dam, Sweep clear the river-bed, and only leave One stubborn buttress stiff against the flood, So stood Actaeon while the dead rushed by. "One draught of Lethe for a world of pain? An easy bargain; yet I keep the thorn, To keep the rose. I will remember Dian ; If I forget, who shall remain to tell What beauty was? Perchance the gods have kept Some unillumined corner of deep hell To brighten with this memory. This I know : They have no power to take her from me, more Than she could keep me from her in the world, Nor death could keep me !" Slowly turned he then 8 ACTAEON Where the dark country sleeps beneath the gloom ; And as he went, the glory of his face Spread gleams before him, like the coming dawn Trailed brightness after, like the fading day; And when he passed, the quiet gloom returned. THE SONS OF METANEIRA I Darkening the open door, in thought he gazed On his ripe meadows, on the mountain road, On the still trees above the shaded well; Then inward to the twilight room he turned Where Metaneira sat "Strange that a woman Who fears not child-bearing, neither the pain Nor peril, cannot face, save panic-pale, The bringing up of children day by day. With danger courage comes, and with thine hour Comes on brave yearnings for this child unborn, But no heart comes for the safe homely years Small fingers at thy bosom, growing hands That cling to thine, and running feet beside thee, And face upturned to love thee with quick smiles. The boy we have, what dread was thine to rear ! Yet he takes life as one who loves to live; 9 10 THE SONS OF METANEIRA Joy is the breath of him. This other child As fair, I think, befalls, if but thy fear Cloud not its spirit." Leaning from the low couch She answered "I feared no danger, nor shunned pain ; I thought only of what a man may share With woman, the precious burden of childhood Not the nine months, the birth more exquisite Of the young soul slowly finding the world. Celeus, when I brood on the frail bark We dare be pilot for, and blindly grope With clumsy guesses toward the eternal shore, 1 think how reckless in the eyes of gods Human desire must seem, and human love. So thinking, I feel terror and loneliness ; Then I reach out for help to thee, but thou Answerest as though these were but simple things, And life simple, and children in the world No care." "The gods who send desire," he said, THE SONS OF METANEIRA II "Fear not to trust us with the incarnate dream. But art thou lonely, Metaneira thou Who wouldst not keep handmaid, nor slave nor free, Near, if thy child need rearing? Lonely art thou? Nay, jealous as the wild deer for thy young! So fearful when the boy was born, and now Thou hast sent thy woman away, even ere the birth. Do I not know?" "Celeus," she cried, "wherefore Chide me for what is love ? To thee the day Brings a plain round, things simply to be done, What happens, happens, and so to dreamless rest. But I see what might happen, and the hours Come fateful with hard choices, good and ill, And the day s labor is, by taking thought, To seize the good. Therefore with all my love I watch the lightest breath the infant draws; The ill that might molest him comes on me, I feel the blow that falls not. What hireling Cares for another s child so? Bruise and tumble 12 THE SONS OF METANEIRA Are natural luck, they say; and the child s soul Takes its luck too. I have sent them all away. Nay, but the loneliness I feel is more A mystery that lifts me from the world, A strangeness as if earth were not my home, And our love but a visitant from afar." Celeus with earnest eyes looked from the door, And saw Eleusis under summer skies, The meadows and the mountain road the world Wherein he native was, and she was strange. Then turning toward her "Thou art a wistful woman; Dreams and weird thoughts are more to thee than breath, And the unsecret earth before thee, thou Veilest with phantoms, with imagined clouds. Wherefore dost thou reach ever out from life With eyes for what cannot be seen, with hearing For whispers and echoes where none else hears sound? Our loves, that made us one, in this alone, Drive our two hearts asunder. Sorrow I see, THE SONS OF METANEIRA 13 And mischief, yet the common fate is plain; Nothing waylays nor haunts us ; life, in itself Clear, would ask but courage to be lived. Earth is our brother, and light over all Draws from our dust the destined fruit and bloom Dreams, fears and hopes, rooted in what we are. So I have thought, and the one child we have Through his seven years confirms me. Hast thou seen How humanly he learns the arts whereby Man and the gods within him build his world? His hopes are better than the things he has, And what he has, helps him to reach his hopes. Nothing will harm him, no shadow threaten, Save his own errors; nothing this child unborn Will harm, if but the darkness of thy mood Blight not its soul. Fate is man s handiwork, I believe, whereon the gods look, and forgive, And a dark fancy prophesying ill Is but a true suspicion of ourselves ; The gods, whose eyes are clear, clearly behold 14 THE SONS OF METANEIRA The seeds within us of our cherished doom; They with immortal sorrow watch us all Thwarting the good they will us ; and most they grieve When love like thine, exquisitely alert, Brings headlong on its danger, fancy-framed." She answered sadly "Celeus, the boy and thou Feel not the mystery that oppresses me; Would that I had thy nature, the sunshine, The faith opening like earth after fresh rain; But my love reaches, and I feel thy hand Helping, but cannot find thy heart." His hand Reached out. "I would a woman were here," he said, "To share thy loneliness ; I would the gods Would send, however humble, a comrade for thee, Comrade for thee, and helper for the child." With large eyes she questioned him "A stranger?" THE SONS OF METANEIRA 1 5 II All glamour, golden beauty arched with blue, Eleusis, vale of peace, enchanted lay Meadows, and by the mountain road one house, Dark trees, beneath their shadow a clear well, And far away the immeasurable sea Faint-sounding; drunk with autumn savors, earth Rich harvest-scent was breathing, and burnt leaves When down the road a lonely wanderer came, An aged form, that step by step between Some place far back and some place far beyond Measured the weariness. Grey was her hair, Her eyes were grieving, her firm lips were proud ; Her body, tall and stately, mantle-wrapped, Majestic swayed like wheat in summer wind, As slowly to the wellside she drew near There darkly paused, with folded patient hands, Fixed as a carven stone. Over the world l6 THE SONS OF METANEIRA The magic gleam shone brighter, the low sun, Slanting, reached to the grass beneath the trees And robbed the well of shadow, save where still The woman stood. Suddenly from the house A radiant boy came running with light foot, Balancing on his shoulder a water- jar Then at the shadow waiting unawares, Marble-like, with bowed and grieving head, He curbed his dancing mood and walked sedate, Shamefaced before a stranger. While he drew, She watched in silence till the jar was full, Then in low tones that thrilled with pleasure- pain Like the delirious chill from autumn fields Swift after sunset "Doth thy mother live, A rich woman, that without envy looks On strangers children ? Who of yon wide house Is master?" Brimming with joy to share, "Celeus, My father hark, my one brother weeping, born This very day!" THE SONS OF METANEIRA 17 He paused for sheer delight, And she, kindling with sudden hope "What woman Ministers to thy mother and the child? Where is thy father ? Run to him bid him say If there be timely service I can do, Service that wisdom asks and practised hands; Tell him, brief is the shelter age desires, But long the recompense of pity endures." Eagerly on his errand sped the boy, Tasting a new adventure; soon he brought His father, walking slow, whose earnest words Challenged her "Woman, what thing of grief art thou, Shadowing these waters with unbidden gloom? What thing of grief and age, that dost desire To handle joy newborn?" Her quiet voice Like a soft rainfall sang "Bitter the bread The stranger eats and earns not; gods nor men Who suffer alms are free; let me but serve. l8 THE SONS OF METANEIRA Only to abide a little, to be still, To seek for nothing, to buy with quiet hands A quiet heart" "Quietness and to spare/ Celeus broke in, "room by the hearth enough, And work enough; abide here, since thou wilt." When he had spoke, the boy, as if to unfold Kindness out of the scant and measured words, Reached for her hand and slowly toward the home, Silently to the doorway, brought her. There With lifted arms of prophecy she prayed "To all this house the immortal gods be friends, And chiefly to this lad, who gave me rest. Master of field and meadow shall he be, To plow, to plant, to reap him and his sons The earth obey forever!" His boyhood felt Exquisite shadowed beauty, earth under stars; Her words startled like bird-notes in the dawn; Suddenly for her presence the house seemed small. THE SONS OF METANEIRA 19 III Autumn to winter, winter drew to spring, And comfortable became her ways, like all Love-service wrought by customary hands. Sap in the vein, soft-stirring with the year, And kindling at her presence, human love ; Strange wants unrealized, hungers of heart, Mystical poverties of soul, she filled; Even as common field-flowers casually Borrow the sun and use the earth and sky, The household without reckoning dwelt with her. But when to autumn the year turned again And the old poignant beauty filled the world, The mother Metaneira, spirit-quick, Felt the home troubled with awe wonderful. She pondered long these motions of vague fear, Still troubled more, till in a twilight mood She broke them to her husband and the boy, Under the spell of her strange insight rising Maenad-mad, wild eyes and haunted face; With the intense flame of passionate thought 2O THE SONS OF METANEIRA Her fragile body quivered as she spoke "Who is this phantom, this weird wayfarer, Ye two brought in to aid me? Know ye not The Shining Ones oft hide in human forms, And darker spirits, brooding mischief, oft Resemble to betray us?" Celeus frowned; "She is a quiet phantom, grant her that! All that haunt us, the gods make old like her, So quiet and so wise ! Summer and winter Has not her faithful toil prospered the year? What strangeness has she done?" Poised among fears, Perplexed to choose, the mother hesitated, Then answered not his question but her own thoughts "She loves the child, she loves, but not as we Love it, not with a simple heart; secrets We cannot guess at, her deep manner hides ; Her service steals upon us like a spell, Yet something fugitive in all she does, Some touch of marvel, some too perfect skill, THE SONS OF METANEIRA 21 Makes helpless those she helps. Oft she escapes, As though her mood were hampered by our eyes, And strangely broods or dreams or works alone. Now for two nights, with the first dusk, I saw her Stealthily watch me, then the cradled babe She lifted to her breast and made pretense To soothe, though it slept sound, then to the hall Yonder carried the child, and slyly drew The bolts, I heard them creak, in the closed door." Celeus, still unpersuaded, comforted her "The skill of old hands is another youth; Youth is the earliest magic, and the last Is practice, nothing more ; this woman s skill Came with her years, but sorrow makes her strange." Instant upon the word, as at the return Of half-forgotten fear, the mother cried "What is this sorrow, then, that shadows her? A human grief with time unfolds to love, And tears that are not shame are shared at last, But all the kindness of our house melts not 22 THE SONS OF METANEIRA The silence from her lips ; she may not will Mischief, but power she has, she brings on fate Were not her words prophetic for the boy That named him master of meadows and of fields, Whom the earth should obey ? Did not the grain Ripen miraculous where she bade him sow? Did not the grove she planted, the young trees, Thrive beyond hope ? Weird blessings fall on us, Yet rather would I lose the alien gift Than dread the lurking debt still to be paid." Wondering at his mother, the young boy Pleaded, suddenly eloquent out of love "All that she taught me, of earth and sun and showers, Of seed and tilth and gathering of the grain, To others I could teach no weird secret, But simple knowledge waiting to be used. The things that beauty touches become strange, I heard her say; the strangeness thou dost fear, Is it not beauty?" The mother, following her dread, Hearing him not " Only a little while, THE SONS OF METANEIRA 23 A little while ago I found her gazing On the bare fields as one looks on the dead, And from her moving lips came soft, wild words : *O loveliness (she whispered) rapt away! Who now, thy face beholding, gathers joy? Ay me, the joy that from eternal love Up from my bosom flowing bloomed in thee! The wheat, the poppy languish meadow-shorn, The summer dies. O thou that canst not lan guish, Maiden lost, Immortal One ! " The voice Of Metaneira faltered and grew faint, Uttering the remembered cry; but Celeus With deeper pity reproved her perverse mood "Hast thou not heard of lost loves in the world, Of hearths vacant, of hopes precious but vain? She in her years is wounded with old sorrows; This babe of ours, soft-breathing on her breast, Brings back through tears the frail unburied ghost, 24 THE SONS OF METANEIRA Some girl long dead, whom grief hath made divine. Ah, Metaneira, that having lost no child Knowest not the faithful pain, the abiding grief !" "And wouldst thou lose him," Metaneira cried, "The babe that helpless lies on her strange heart ? Have I not said, when the day ends she carries To yonder room the sleeping child away, Stealing with furtive glances, and with guile Barring the door? Now hearken! Underneath And over, by the hinges, through the latch, Sharp gleams shoot out, long blades of eerie light, That all but pierce the nailed and paneled wood. After a space the light fades, stealthily The latch withdraws, and with too perfect care She enters crooning slumber-songs O clear The triumph in her face, the evil shining! And when I take the child, dim meadow-scent, Damp odors, flood ethereal o er my brain, And the child s eyes, on more than infant depths Brooding, grow wonderful with calm Celeus ! THE SONS OF METANEIRA 2$ See now," she cried, "the light streams through the door!" Flinging her fragile body, she burst the latch, And frenzied saw the woman holding outstretched The child, and waves of weird light washing it, Fire that from the hearth seemed not to flame, But like a rolling sea rilled the whole room. One glimpse and Metaneira, crazed with love, Tore fiercely from those hands the flame-wrapped babe. Then from the earth the woman rose, a queen Celestial, young and fair; the glowing sea Ebbed from the room into her burning heart, As to its source, and beautiful was her wrath, Light-giving. And Metaneira stood aghast. IV Slowly a sad, majestic voice began, "Blind, like all mortals ! Ye withhold the gods From their unfinished blessings. Know ye me? Demeter; from vain walking in this world 26 THE SONS OF METANEIRA To find the lost Persephone, Pluto s bride, Hither I came, and here for a little rest, A little quietness to sorrow in, I laid my godhood by, and hid myself In human poverty and mortal years. Could ye not guess, such blessings as I brought Come only from the gods? First I bestowed On yonder lad the mastery of earth. The labors that men do beneath the sun Shall be for him no burden but sheer joy; He shall have knowledge of this world as it is, He shall love what is kindred to his fate, He shall know men, and he shall know his gods. But for this other child, this dreaming babe That stirred the memory of my ancient heart, I would have furnished immortality. So frail he seemed, so pitiful, so pure, And time so stern a teacher, and the path So rough, where he must stumble, fall by fall Painfully fashioning his eternal soul To spare him, I desired, to make his days All of such moments as the happiest men THE SONS OF METANEIRA 27 Dream only at their best. Here by the fire I washed in deathless love the mortal mind, And fast the god grew in him, till your fear Ruined the heavenly will. Now he shall be Master of nothing, but dreams shall master him. A pilgrim of confusion shall he be ; Two worlds alternate shall be his, but rest In neither; painfully shall his hand, his eye, On the obdurate face of things lay hold, The while his dreams look on what never was; And for he cannot tell the twain apart, Madness and ecstasy shall envelop him, Out of the world he finds but will not see, Building a world he sees but cannot find. Nothing that is shall teach him what it is Pain of this world, still knocking at the door, Nor grief that stabs, nor joy that comforts him; He shall be strange to thee, for all thy love, And for thy sake, for him all things be strange ; Whate er he loves shall whisper him farewell, And waft him on the exile of his dream A human face, a shining on the sea, 28 THE SONS OF METANEIRA The cold moon, or the still march of stars, If but the inexorable beauty call, Eternity, rising in him like a tide, Shall from their bases lift and set afloat The stranded accidents of time." She ceased, The light died from the room, and she was gone. But Metaneira heard, far-off, the voice Of Celeus, like a sound breaking on sleep. IPHIDAMUS There on the shore his lonely roof was set Bordering the dunes, storm-beaten, and below, The never-tiring breaker crashed and roared. The sloping sands, wave-wrinkled and untrod, Now kissed the feet of Theano, when she first Gladdened the house, under the bridal stars, And the warm hearth blazed welcome through the door. He would not mourn the summer, nor regret The failing year, for Theano in his heart Brought greenness on the barren sands, and kindling A warmer glory in the Thracian dawns, Drew purple o er the wave, grey with the winter. The hearth that once flamed lonely to the skies, Now sang of human comfort, and the girlish Music, Theano s laughter, made her love Hear not the broken sea. The thin young moon, The silver-eyed, rose wondering on their joy, 29 30 IPHIDAMUS And shining larger, found no love like theirs From shore to shore. But all too soon she waned ; And ere the nights were dark, their joy was dead. A Greek-born wanderer, resting at their door, Grown thankful over generous meat and wine, Paid them but ill, the idle woe-bringer! "Friends, have ye made the mercy of the gods So welcome, it will never dwell elsewhere? How lightly here the breath of Eros moves, Stirring the quiet air to music low; But all my land bows to one gust of war, As on the forest falls the bitter North, Bending one way the marsh-flag and the pine. Now all the sails of Hellas, raised in wrath, Are set for Troy; false Helen and her love Look seaward now, and count how many wings Urge on the will of the rewarding gods. Lo, now the seamen prop the dripping keels High on the beach; the Argive spear is loosed, And with it flies a swift unlovely sleep IPHIDAMUS 31 For Trojan eyes ; or in the reddened night The glaring camp-fires through the Achaian host Wake Paris from his dreams. Even, it may be, Old Priam, fallen poor of younger arms, Hides a white beard under the cloak of bronze To pace the shaken walls." He spoke the words: And Theano listened sorrowful, with her eyes Full of the grief of war ; but ere he ceased, On her the woe was fallen. For now no more Had he beside her pleasure, as of old, In word of love or laughing, but his eyes Followed her ever, restless with bright fear. He found no comfort in the hearth moodily Stared at the flame unbrightened. The wave- worn beach All day he paced, revolving anguished thoughts, Like one whose heart two purposes besiege; And when against the sky some wide- winged gull Flashed like a sail over the last billow, Long would he watch its flight ; and in his face, 32 IPHIDAMUS Like carrion-ravens, trouble circled dark, Low-brooding o er the battle in his soul. There came a sullen day in the late year, Dim with low clouds, blown huddling from the North, And then at last his spirit bowed itself To one possessing purpose. Down the coast He called his men, old lovers of the sea, Scarred from the fierce embrace of boisterous waves, Brave hearts that found their hope in bleak sea- dawns. Swiftly they shouldered down the unpropped keels, Freighted with arms and gifts, where the flood- tide With every wave more rudely tossed the bows, And where the cliff robbed nothing of the wind. Then from the ships, the seamen at their oars, The rocking masts that spread out hungry arms Wfde-yearning to the wind he climbed the steps IPHIDAMUS 33 To Theano, where she waited at the door. She had no welcoming smile, but took his kiss Quietly, and the words: "O weep not, Theano! Though with great mischief work the gods their will. They drive the plow of anger, and uproot Slowly-blossoming, early-blasted flowers; The joy of man they spare not. Was it I Forgot the hungry days of love, expecting The honey and the wine for evermore? The dreadful Three have cloven the single thread, And weave us separate fates. O having thee Who art my wisest goddess and most fair, I could not go : but thee I have no more. That day when he, the raven-throated, told His evil tale of Helen and her wars, And Priam stricken, shorn of friends I turned A selfish ear, and said, He needs not me! Truly, my father s guest- friend, unto whom My blood beats loyal and I owe it all, 34 IPHIDAMUS But now he cannot ask it! Lonely souls With no fair face to live for, let them die A happy death for Helen; but for me Love pours the cup of life, wine of desire: I will not take away my lips/ No more Delight of dawn was mine, when the young day Came stirring at the window, nor the song Of breakers brought me slumber in the night; For with the dawn I felt uncertain dooms Gathering, and the sad reluctant sea Wearily thundered woe. Lovely no more Thy beauty seemed, and all thy words unsweet, For Priam rose before me comfortless, Shaken with age, and cried, May love forget Him who forgets the ancient love of friends ! Now, ere the curse strike deeper, I will go; Late, but the wind is swift to overtake The Spartan, where he seeks his worthless bride. I, for a better love, have swifter wings, And on the plains of Troy shall win again The first unclouded vision, thee once more, IPHIDAMUS 35 To cheer me home from deeds of friendly faith, So to abide as when I saw thee first Under a happy moon, and heard thy voice. Lo, even now thy cheeks are rose again, Flushed with the promise. Ah, remember, sweet, Thou art not alone, though lonely, and our house Not desolate, like that Lacedaemon home ! At night when we two sit by the warm blaze, And hear the hungry sea, I think that Love Stands in the doorway, and no harm comes in. And when I go, the god himself sits down Before the empty hearth and keeps the house. Now Love and thou keep well my house for me !" On her white lips his kiss, and on her cheeks His warm tears fell, as from her arms he turned Down to the ship, to the grey wind-combed sea. On him she fixed her hopeless eyes amazed; As when in hell unwelcome Hermes comes, Earthward to lead Persephone, their queen, And the wan dead, with infinite despair, Knowing the woe at hand, the utter gloom, Watch that fair comfort swiftly borne away. PENTHESILEIA So Hector fell, and Troy without defence Looked for Achilles knocking at the gate; There was no other heart to brave him thence, The stubborn walls at last must let in fate. But he, delaying, held away their doom, For on a bleak hill far across the plain, Beside his lost friend in the new-built tomb, Whom Hector slew and for that death was slain, He grieved, and clasped his knees, and bowed his head, To hear no sound though night and day went by, Mourning the friendship and the glory sped, And after Hector, his own turn to die; 36 PENTHESILEIA 37 Beholding now the end of mortal things, He would not lift his armor from the ground, He would not hear the pleading of the kings To storm the city and be homeward bound. Yet he would come at last, Troy knew, and woke To daily respite and to daily fear, And wild devices, thin as drifting smoke, Crossed their dark hour with unconvincing cheer ; So long he tarried when he might have come, What if the subtle-planning gods intended Another shift in the apparent doom, Another Hector, Troy once more defended? Two only undeluded met the woes Long fated, and the approaching night of dread ; Andromache, who when the wailing rose Was weaving in her house a purple web, 3 PENTHESILEIA And she had called for water on the fire, That Hector, soon returning after toil, Might wash away the battle and the mire, And cool the wounds with delicate-scented oil; Even then she heard the sudden cry of death; She said, "It was his mother s voice I heard," And hurried to the walls with choking breath, To the pale throng that, pitifully stirred, Made room, with boding silence on their lips, And there she saw the chariot on the plain, Swift horses dragging Hector to the ships; She had seen this, she could not hope again : And Priam, the sad king, who in the dark Crept to Achilles and humbled his white head, And brought again the body, torn and stark, And gave it peace with the untroubled dead PENTHESILEIA 39 He too was hopeless and would live no longer, But being king, he staggered to the close, His desperate strength by each despair made stronger, And he was patient when fresh hopes arose. Then out of Thermodon the huntress came, The maiden warrior with her slender grace, With her two spears, and her mysterious fame That no foe lived before her cold, clear face. Quietly she dawned as a dream doubly-bright That unforetold we dream, on Priam s town, Or as a moon that noiseless in the night Rises with gradual silver and looks down. She had no need to tell them, they beheld What errand she was on she was their lives, Their city, and their safety, and she held Death for Achilles in those gleaming knives. 4 PENTHESILEIA They were as perished travelers in a waste, Who see above salt grasses, parched and thinned, A cloud-like thing is it a cloud? and taste Cool dampness coming on a ghostly wind. King Priam watched this frenzy seize the throng, Studying her bright youth with tired eyes, And heard a voice beside him "They are wrong, She is no goddess walking in disguise; "So slight a girl my Hector once could hold Shoulder-high with his hand, and feel no weight, Yet he for all his strength was over-bold; Priam, you will not send her to her fate?" "No goddess," said the king, "yet she might prove A rescue, and this miracle might be, That first a woman bound us with her love, And at the last a woman set us free. PENTHESILEIA 41 "But she will try her fortune, come what may; She thinks to conquer, let the gods decide ; Were she my child, I would not bid her stay, So many children have gone forth and died." "O Priam, lingering shadow, hardly living, Has the long slaughter dulled its own despair? Once the fresh sight of blood was torture- giving ; Now after so much battle can you bear "This long procession of lost youth, and take The sacrifice in unabating flood Poured out, poured vainly, for the city s sake ? O King, they are your city, and their blood "Is the red heart of Troy that ebbs away! Rather a fury and a cruel wrath Than this accepted horror, day by day; Rather the storm that scorches in its path, 42 PENTHESILEIA "Walls scattered to confusion, stone from stone, Old folk with bleeding lips struck cold and mute, The skulls of children cloven to the bone, And frantic women captive to the brute "Agonies that consume and then pass by Than horror stretched to habit, and the skill To formulate another s right to die, Or utter the illusion that will kill." "Daughter, I love not war, though war has made Sorrow indeed my habit, nor love to see Youth come so straight on death how I have prayed For my own end, and yet it will not be! "Yet there is medicine in these perishings, A kind of mercy in so many woes ; Even in peace the great departing brings Anguish, and hearts are broken in its throes, PENTHESILEIA 43 "But then the shadow falls so seldom, we Make us an armor of the interval; Now here in war our shield is frequency The shadows are less dark, so close they fall. "And they who die at home, fall as the leaf Falls in a casual wind; but he who gives A life for something, is a noble grief, He has a meaning, and his memory lives. "Now if this maiden in her destiny Be not our savior, she may find her grave; Achilles may be gentle, she may be Spear-booty, and go home his household slave ; "Or she may stay and never fight at all, Till the doomed city crumbles in the fire, Then into long-drawn misery may fall, Living to serve a vulgar man s desire ; 44 PENTHESILEIA "She may return and wed in her own land, And die in child-birth; or sons of her bearing Like Paris, may bring mischief in their hand, Like Hector, may be lost in battle- f aring ; "Or she may never wed, but slowly fade Into old age unnoticed, as a tree In a wild forest, that to none gives shade Or fruit, but moulders in futility. "Is it for this you would draw back the wreath, The laurel, that her fingers all but touch? I am too old to quarrel much with death; Life is our sorrow, we may live too much." "Grief is the savor of a woman s lot," She said, "whether we wed or die unmated, We cannot be a woman and taste it not ; But battle-wounds for us were never fated." PENTHESILEIA 45 "Daughter, if woman s fighting grieves you more Than war itself, is it less terrible Men should be slain than women?" "No, all war, Whoever falls but if this maiden fell " "Daughter, you never pleaded so to shield Our dearest, not our Hector!" She replied, "I begged him to be prudent in the field; Had he been not so bold, he had not died. "But still there was a chance he might return, None for this girl." "You would have asked him then To stay at home and let the city burn Had you been sure he would not come again? "Out of our dangers come what life we have, Our single fate, the separate name we cherish ; It was like Hector simply to be brave, And to have stayed at home had been to perish. 46 PENTHESILEIA "Now if this girl falls by Achilles sword, Her beauty undiminished dies secure, But if we save her, what shall life afford In place of that one moment high and pure? "Poets and priests and lovers fallen so, Youth through clear doorways entering to the dead, Would you take from them the immortal woe And give safe insignificance instead?" So on her battle errand when the maid Passed, in an ecstacy of faith the crowd Hailed her their goddess on divine crusade, And Priam watched her passing, young and proud ; She, from her radiance in the morning air, Looked smiling up at the forlorn old chief She came to rescue at his scant white hair And grey skin wrinkled with the folds of grief. ACHILLES AND THE MAIDEN Wind cannot bring so far the blood and dust, But only raise your head up do you hear Faint bell-notes from the plain? Blade-stroke, sword-thrust, Shield-rattle! They are fighting, and you not there. He would not heed the challenge, would not stir, Though none so well as he that signal knew ; From his unhappy memories would not pause, Though the breeze whispered and the danger grew. No man, a maiden drives them from the field, A wicked huntress out of the cold moon! She touches them, they die, they have no shield; What will you come to, if you come not soon? 47 48 ACHILLES AND THE MAIDEN But he with bowed head let the voice go by, And felt rebellious loathing, and behind Impenetrable silence nursed disgust. This, then, was this the great hour he should find- Brief, crowded with beauty, bringing fame? Beauty? What beauty? Fame? Blown with the dust! Take up your arms, come down and fight again, They have bidden the wind carry their last cry. You shall hear now the curse of dying men; What will you say, Achilles? Must they die? It was the wind that freshened, or the wave Of flight and terror toward his station broke; At last he heard, and wearily bound on Breast-plate, picked up the shield, the spear of oak, Toward the battle strode superbly down, Wearing the armor lightly, a mere cloak, Easy in his hand the spear ; and bold he went ACHILLES AND THE MAIDEN 49 Unhelmeted, with insolent beauty brave, His body moving in rhythm magnificent. He came down from his lonely hill, by charred And scattered ashes of abandoned fires, Hoof -prints of stamping horses, and spilled oats, Through the weird, empty camp, where yester night The army took its shelter. Here were coats Dropped at the first alarum, a wine-cup With half its ruby burden yet untouched, And the ironic dice lay on the board. Beyond the tents he walked through a green calm Of clover, untrodden meadows poppy-sown, And then the crowded plain and the loud fight. Before him as he came the host made room All peril over, with him there, the one man! Yet without shout they saw him, raised no cry, No welcome, so many bodies lay, for whom He came late to the rescue. But he strode by, Bringing his solitude, and opened up 50 ACHILLES AND THE MAIDEN A wedge of silence till he reached the van. Then from the other side the headlong foe Following the maiden felt him in the track. Caught sight of armor and his golden hair, Fled unabashed, and left those two alone With awe and terror, both lines swaying back Within a girdled silence gave them space. She, when the battle ceased from round her, stood Waiting for him, a little thrilled to know The moment come at last, and see him there Splendid as they had said, now face to face. And he casually marked against the grove Of slender cypress that behind her rose, Her helmet crested, her corselet glittering, Her belted sword, the two spears in her hand, Twin javelins, light as a hunter s dart, All gleaming against the shadowy green. Illusive radiance on that vivid form Smoothness to sight and touch, the enchanted sheen Of jade or porphyry the gold sunbeams threw; Caught from this world she seemed, and wrought in art, ACHILLES AND THE MAIDEN 51 Cut marble or ivory cameo. What eyes the helmet hid, he tried to guess, To trace her body under the bronzen dress, He fancied her heart panting, her wild pulse After the running and the rain of blows, Yet asked again whether she breathed at all, So motionless her beauty held its pose. Each stood on guard to know the other s will. With unexcited spirit, unlifted arm, He studied the bright mystery until The quiet weighed upon him like a charm. With that she threw a spear, a silver flash; He caught it on his shield, and the shaft broke. Did her heart faint a little, certitude Fall from her? She leapt toward him like a flame, She cast that other javelin furiously, And drew her sword. He only leaned aside, Slipped from the peril, and reaching back for aim, Drove true through the vain bronze his matchless spear, 52 ACHILLES AND THE MAIDEN Straight through the corselet to her living heart. It never left his hand, she was so near; His fingers on the weapon felt her death, Felt the woman quiver along the wood. He had not loosed a stream of fighting wrath To ride him lightly over things like this To see her body crumble with quick breath. He leaned, and gently turned the relaxed form, To lift the armor on the wounded side; How stubborn, as he raised it, seemed the bronze ! And how to draw the spear-head out ? He tried In pity not to disturb the delicate cloth Blood-molded to her bosom, soft and warm. With eyes impulse-averted he untied The helmet from the limp and drooping head, And lo, a face made for another fate Brown hair upon a white and queenly brow. And dreaming lips that held no curve of hate, Eyelids self-closed, as though content to sleep, And cheeks with rose-bloom not yet ebbed away ; Beauty that called for worship and the prayers Of lovers tortured with their empty arms, ACHILLES AND THE MAIDEN 53 Yet in itself austere, remote, unmoved; A face to set on passion, yet beneath Archness and ardor, beneath the golden breasts, A maiden soul as at evening when fleecy clouds Blush in the east a farewell to the sun, Glides, under the warmth, untouched, the new moon. He stood up to his height, gazed down at her, Then stooping yet again as though he must, Took up his scarlet spear from where it lay, Then gazed once more on the face whitening fast. He that had killed her, found it ill to leave The fragile danger he had laid in dust; Not well to stay, but hard to turn at last To thread his journey through the evening camp, Through cheerful noises around supper-fires, Through laughter of soldiers at their lucky day, With joke and ribald song. He heard one say How he would use his safety after war What sort of woman, and what kind of wine. SIR GRAELENT "I will ride to the forest/ Sir Graelent said ; "The town walls shut me in, but the forest has clean air, And trees have cool branches, but here are bitter tongues ; I will ride to the forest, I shall be alone there." He rode to the forest he clattered down the street Between old houses leaning close and high, And faces at the window-ledge thrust out to greet him, And mocked him in his worn coat riding by. He came where the highway twines through field and vineyard, A ribbon white and dusty, mile on mile; 54 SIR GRAELENT 55 The men raised their heads from working in the vines, And had their word about him and a smile; He came to the wood with the trees set out in order, And old women tending their sheep along the border Stopped knitting and looked up to watch him go ; He turned upon a narrow path that promised to be lonely, And rode till he reached green quiet broken only By near-by waters moving smooth and slow. It was a magic river that wound among the trees, Through a young glade sunlit with silver flame ; Red flowers through the carpet rose up in the green, And one was waiting there till Sir Graelent came. She was a queen of faery, and she wore a blue gown, 56 SIR GRAELENT It was for her the red flowers rose up at her feet, Her slender hands were clasped, and two golden braids Forward o er her shoulders were falling to her feet. He had not thought to find her, he drew a sud den rein, Spellbound he looked on her, and saw how she was fair. Whence she came he knew not, he never asked her name; She was a queen of faery, and she waited for him there. She was a loveliness beyond words to measure, She was a last and absolute delight, More than you could dream of, of beauty in the world, Was standing in the glade, in the enchanted light. Her eyes were unstartled and her brow serene, She kept a pleasant secret till he should come ; SIR GRAELENT 57 What had he asked, and her beauty was the answer? Spellbound he looked at her, and his lips were dumb. They met, as in a dream two strange hearts meeting, Know they are strange, yet cannot feel sur prise Come from afar, yet need no other greeting Than silence of the lips and wonder of the eyes. Down from his steed where the glade begins, He stood by the bridle, too happy to draw nigh, Flutter of a leaf he heard among the branches, Whisper of the smooth river-water slipping by. Long, long ago she knew that he would come, Now that he was silent, she did find it strange ; Lightly he breathed, and stirred nor foot nor finger Lest the charm should break, or the dream change. 58 SIR GRAELENT Though she was beautiful beyond speech to tell of, It was not her body whereon his wonder dwelt ; It was not her face, though, as she stood be fore him, Light of it and color within his blood he felt. These were but instruments her magic was play ing on, To call up another beauty in his soul ; He looked at her, and marveled at the world unrolling Within him, horizons of delight unroll. Like one who listens to a noble singing When the tide of music lifts the heart along, Tone after tone earth-wrought but heaven-reach ing, And one forgets the voice, and goes with the song So in the glade, in silence gazing On the tall strange woman beside the forest stream, SIR GRAELENT 59 Not her slender body his eyes found wonderful ; He looked at her, and saw not her, but saw a dream. "Long have I sought for you!" he said, and suddenly Remembered he had never sought for her at all; Quietly she heard him: she turned her stately head And listened, as though to hear a far-off call. "Long have I waited for you," she answered slowly, She listened again "yet I must leave you soon" ; She watched his eyes, and saw the quick pain there, "Love with us, at daybreak now, will die ere noon! Easy in your words and open on your lips Will you waste your dream, not hold it in your heart; 60 SIR GRAELENT You will waste my beauty, I will wait no more, And empty will the forest be when I depart." "Let me be silent then," he cried, "dc you but stay; Leave words for desire, but never love be spoken !" Faintly she smiled, "We shall be happy for a day, Then you will tell it, and our love be broken." Sadly he looked at her, and knew it would be so ; Silence is for winter, when the frost is come, But the high sun draws blossoms from the heart Living in her beauty, how could he be dumb? "Lady, till our speech be handmaid to our seeing, Till words give out again the eyes delight, We cannot seize the wonder we have gazed upon, And half of beauty escapes our cheated sight !" Quiet still she listened ; she too was sad for him "Is there not a beauty that walks the world alone ? Is there no wonder that takes the heart unaided, SIR GRAELENT 6l And sight of her, and love of her, and speech of her, are one? Frail are the words we have frail and fleeting; Can they build a beauty that never will grow old? Keep your dream in secret now, or tell your dream away ! For you have looked on beauty that cannot be told." II Graelent, silent lover, came again to the town; Bitter tongues were harmless, scorn was light to bear, For he had learned the way now, he could mount his steed And ride to the forest, and find her waiting there. Oft in the market-place, sometimes in the court, He heard men speaking of a beauty beyond price ; 62 SIR GRAELENT He held his tongue with them, but his thoughts ran before him To the tall lady in her glade of paradise. Then he would take the white road between the vineyards To the cool shadows and the path through the wood, To where the placid river whispered, and red flowers Rose in the grass before her feet and there she stood. Smoothly he came to her, like the soft waters Flowing between grassy banks without foam ; Sure he was to find her, like a chord of music Waiting for the falling cadence to come home. But once in Spring-time, when the sap was stir ring And secrets in young hearts burned to be said Sick they were of loneliness, and weary of longing SIR GRAELENT 63 For blue eyes that passed them, or a golden head When bright names sounded in many a boasting And a fair body became many a prayer, They marked how Graelent listened without speaking, The one happy lover among them there. "Speak up, Sir Graelent, were you never young?" It was a girl mocked him, and their glee was loud: "Don t you know," a neighbor said, "Graelent never loved? Pride likes an empty heart, and he was always proud." Their words were unkind, but he thought of the forest "Once he gave his heart away, but his love was shame." He saw the queen of faery by the quiet river "Once a woman loved him, he has forgot her 64 SIR GRAELENT He cried, "I have loved beyond your wit to guess at, "I have looked on beauty no one of you could see. Ask me not her name, no one of you could find her, She is the queen of wonder, and she waits for me." "Tell us," they mocked him, and his tongue was loosed. Sir Graelent s heartache! They drew around to hear. "In a glade in the forest" one said beneath his breath, "That s where my uncle cut fire-wood last year!" "Grass like a carpet spread beside the river, Sunlight falling silver on the green blade, There she waited for me" a rough voice shouted, " Tis Bess the hunter s daughter kissed him in the shade!" SIR GRAELENT 65 O for a word to bring before their blindness All that her happy presence said to him ! But even as he told of her, the memory faded; Even as he praised her, her face grew dim. Like as a dream from which we wake in rapture, So clear the path joy led us, height to height, We can tell the plot of it, but cannot capture The riding heart again, the wings of the de light; And telling it too often, we wear out at last The glamour we would overtake, the elusive glory, Wear away with telling, the wonder, till at last It is a dream no more, but becomes a story. "Cool is the forest; here are bitter tongues; I will return to beauty in the blessed wood! * He came to the forest, to the cold river, And lonely was the glade where once she stood. "GREAT VOICES OF THE PAST" Great voices of the past she knows and loves, And most of all the poets are her friends, Such eager kinship in their singing moves, And to their ancient mood her spirit bends ; Surrey his Geraldine to her makes known, Sidney s highway of love her heart delights; The faith her poets held she makes her own, Nor thee, dear Saint whom Chauncer loved, she slights. St. Valentine, this lady be thy care! The days are evil, and thy service sweet Uncherished dies from our ungentle race; Another heart like hers when shalt thou meet? Happy her fate be ever! With the prayer Thy day I honour and my lips I grace. 66 "BENEATH THIS BEAUTY" Beneath this beauty when my spirit swayeth And with the praise of it my soul is stirred, Love on my lips a wary finger layeth And bindeth in my heart the eager word! My heart, that for love s sake these long years holdeth One dear desire to win all ways of speech, Whose secret, love himself, I dreamed, un- foldeth O, is it silence, Love, that thou wouldst teach? I have desired to suffer thy sweet burning And prayed thy fiercest blow should on me fall; I have grown scarred and wise in bitter learning, But not to love I never learned at all. Now to thy mischief, Love, add not this choice To know not love, or never use love s voice. SONG Thrilled with heavenward-flaming fires, When my eyes meet yours, Mingled joy and pain divine My prisoned heart endures. Prisoned still my heart aspires And never has its say, Till your dear lips, set to mine, Drink my soul away. 68 "LOVE THAT NEVER TOLD CAN BE" No bird hath ever lifted note so clear, Or poured so prodigal his lyric breast, But carried still some music from the nest, When Winter laid the seal of silence there. No sea hath ever woo d the shore so fair But turn of tide left something half expressed ; Nor true love every burned so strangely blest That words could hold it all or heart could hear. And yet the tide will turn again, and tell Its sweet persistent story o er and o er The bird take up the cadence where it fell, And pipe it towards the ending more and more And only love be inexpressible, The endless song, the sea that hath no shore. ROSE RIME Fair rose, that fortune favors so, So near her heart to die, Her tenderest-spoken word to know, To share her gentlest sigh; I fear me, rose, we both shall miss Joy s perfect measure thou Who knowest not, yet hast, the bliss, And I, who only know. "LOVE, THE WINGED LORD" Love, the winged lord of art, That all sweet song inspires, First-fruits from the gentle heart Evermore requires. Not in every field he sows, l Never sows he long, But the swiftest path he goes Blossoms into song. Catch the flying seed who may, Ere the god go by; Little love has come my way Little song have I. PARTING Music s meaning first is known, Though the bird sing all day long, When the last faint-falling tone Divides the silence from the song. Not in absence, nor when face To face, thy love means most to me, But in the narrow parting-space, The cadence of felicity. DE GUSTIBUS One used his pinions eagle-like, And straight against the sun would rise And scout among the stars, and strike His quarry from across the skies; And one was as the bee that strives Against no wind, but simply blows Across the garden, and arrives Upon an unsuspected rose. 73 "IN MEMORY I HAVE MY WILL" When in the garden-walk you stayed Beside the rose-bush, grace to grace, I saw the happy rose persuade A sister-fragrance in your face. Who would not wish to pluck it for you, So utterly you twain were one ! But my slow heart, delaying o er you, Only wished till you were gone. In memory I have my will! Still in the garden-walk you stand; By the rose-bush I see you still; And now the rose is in your hand. 74 75 II When in the garden of your days You took the scent of flower and vine Your summer-bloom of love and praise And paused beside this heart of mine, I saw your eyes upon me darken, My sorrow dimmed them unaware; My mirrored hope that you would harken, My frustrate silence, I saw there. Ah, to be master only of The rhetoric of memory! Now in my dream I tell my love, Now in my dream you hark to me. Ill And since you died, I seek in vain Words for my grief to labor through; For all my eloquence of pain Turns inward, and remembers you. FIREFLY Last night, in the garden no stir of leaves A firefly, twinkling from spray to spray, Flew to my lips, and I brushed it by. Now at dawn the voice of my love grieves ; "Last night, dreaming I was a firefly, I flew to your lips, and you brushed me away." THE RETURN Walking in the garden At the heart of noon, In my hand a flower, On my lips a tune, I saw a face before me, Dim eyes, dim eyes I knew ! I saw a shadow-woman, The garden glanced her through. She hid no branch behind her, Through her the rose-bough ran; She was a ghostly woman To meet a living man. 77 78 THE RETURN "What change, what change, my lover! Ah, heedless God!" she cried, "If help there were in love or prayer, Dear lad, thou hadst not died!" " Tis thou art dead/ I faltered, "The futile prayers are mine; My foot still marks the garden walk No print nor sound from thine !" "Lie soft," she cried, "vext spirit That once wert true and brave!" Her dim eyes sorrowed on me As though they watched my grave. "Wouldst thou sell me as the living sell, An old love for a new? Dream not so wild ! Thou hast no choice Lie soft ! the dead are true. THE RETURN 79 "From their life-moulded passions Didst thou dream the dead were free? The rose thou comest bringing Thou bringest still to me. "Wouldst thou sing to another bosom Love-rhythms phantom-fine ? Still, still thou comest singing Thy heartbeats set to mine. "Yea, though her magic call thee To rise and put death by, Though thy body walk to meet her, Thy perished heart have I. "For the lure the maiden fashions To snare the ghost of thee, Ere thou wert dead, my lover, Was what thou lovedst in me." EDGAR ALLAN POE Who is this, of all our Voices hushed beyond the singing shore, Where the foamless roll of silence cradles peace for evermore, Who is this, that still returning, mourns his eerie dream of Aden, And his mystic, bloodless music chants the spell of lost Lenore? Was thy singing ever mortal, warmed by human fierce desires, Ere the living passion flickered into pale sepul chral fires ? Or was life to thee but shadow, song to thee but friendless yearning, Thy first home the spirit vision whither still thy heart aspires ? 80 EDGAR ALLAN POE 8 1 O thy high and pallid singing, fugitive from baffled death, Surely moves from phantom lips, and pulses with unearthly breath ! Not of earth thou wert, dead singer, thee hath also death rejected? Hath nor death nor life its laurel for thy song s ethereal wreath? Changeling of the Muses, bearing mortal exile all thy days, Rapt from starry heights of faery to endure earth s heavy ways, Alien from what land, and pilgrim to what shrine here lost and lonely? Even praise of thee will falter; scarce we know the man we praise. Lost indeed and hither fallen, as the proud light- bearer fell, Out of harmonies eternal, out of peace ineffable, 82 EDGAR ALLAN FOE Into discord, into darkness, into bitterness in fernal, For to wear our wingless vesture, for a soul like thine was hell. Shadow-lover, building twilight- wo rids of swift- enfolding doom, Where the haunted soul is mirrored in its own demonic gloom, Yet from utter darkness kindling still the tragic flame of beauty, Till from death, from hate, from horror streams its melancholy bloom; Dreamer of the dauntless will, that darkened soars to perfect sight, Dauntless, though this muddy garment weight its wings and dull its flight, Up from lesser gloom to lesser gloom a finer ether winning, Till the thought escape the body into skies of cloudless light; EDGAR ALLAN POE 83 Shall we call thee lost, dead poet, we whose fate is kin to thine? Shadows are our world, and phantom half the stars that o er us shine; Shall we call him lost, who faithful toward the light of beauty beacons, And our days his mystic singing floods with loveliness divine? RHYTHMS Poet, you that build the rhyme Dear to the Muse, the lovable maiden, Breathe again the beauty-laden Breath of wisdom s earlier time! Now the people fancy more Popular art, sensational poses, Not the rarer-chosen roses, Not the laurel Tennyson wore; But to you my wreaths belong, Wrought of Apollo s hyacinth-treasure, You that tread to every measure Dainty steps of delicate song. 84 ECHOES Thou on the stars divine Gazest, O star of mine! Would that I were the skies, To gaze on thee with many eyes. II A star of dawn thou wast to me ; Now I have twilight, missing thee : But O, how bright the spirits are, Shined on by thee, their evening star! ON READING THE SYMPOSIUM To George Edward Woodberry Plato, what splendid names I link with thine ! My poets all, who had from thee their dream : Sweet Spenser first, who of our English line Love earliest learned and Beauty made his theme ; Milton the next, from whom no veiled sun Could Wisdom hide nor Virtue s lamp remove ; Then Shelley, heart of hearts! and nearest, one Loyal to these, who bred me in their love. He taught me Shelley, who his own youth nurst, Taught me the loftier music Milton sings, Spenser he taught, and thee through these to trace ; Now have I felt thee mine, as the eaglet first Craves the deep heaven, and clothes his heart with wings To join the star-wide hunting of his race. 86 CATULLUS When we can sound the ocean from the beach, Counting how oft the waves rise and return, Then from thy words, Catulus, we may learn All thy heart surging on the bounds of speech. What swift design the lightning-fork would teach, The startled eye not wholly can discern; So into sudden words thy sorows burn, So darkness has them back beyond our reach. Had thy love waned, clear were its history; After the tide the cliff informs the skies How the majestic waters scarred the stone; But thou from life passed to proud mystery, As when a rose escapes the praise of eyes And all night long blooms to itself alone. 87 CARLO LEONARDO SPERANZA Where the strong tide bears you, Master, Silent freight from our lonely shore, Where the dim sail, fast and faster Lessening, fades forevermore What welcome waits on what pale strand? Do ghosts you loved make shadowy room For the soldier come to his long-lost land Bringing his battle-laurels home? Sentinel, outpost, they shall greet you Home at last from the bleak frontier. Comrade, shall the captains meet you You who carried their standards here; Deep in your nature Dante s belief, And Pulci s laughter in your eyes, Midwinter gloom of Tasso s grief, Sunlight of Ariosto s skies. 88 CARLO LEONARDO SPERANZA 89 Tears on your cheek, as they ever started When face to face we gave you praise? Ay me! Many s the time, child-hearted Master, we gave you tearless days ! Nor praise nor silence sapped your will, But from the fortune of your birth Exiled and strange, you bore life still With human-sweet Chaucerian mirth. Master of antique courtly bearing Though uncourtly fate befell, Farewell, who go your long wayfaring Safe to the shore of rest, farewell ! How could we wish more years to you Where Song, outwearied and baffled, faints, And Beauty, heard of a random few, Utters but small and timid plaints? Ah, the still small voice we cover With silly fret and cheap uproars; Only comes the silence-lover Death, as of old, through quiet doors 90 CARLO LEONARDO SPERANZA So quietly you slipt away And carried from ignoble stress Thoughts graceful as Italian day, Acts of Italian gentleness. TO A POET IN THE MEDITERRANEAN Master who knowest song, the spell of mystical rhythm, The lure of the cry of the soul, the beat of her mounting wings, Lover of poets, and lover of youth, and lover of freedom, Lift for us over the sea the song that no one sings ! Who hath sung of the hour that stalks the land like a phantom, The fear that starts at its shadow, and turns on itself, and is dumb? And the land that outbraves her fate with in destructible beauty When will the singer to praise her, lover and poet come ? 92 TO A POET IN THE MEDITERRANEAN Mediterranean wanderer, haunting the shrines of the poets, Surges and strains no homeward prayer in thy heart for the free There where earth and ocean plead for the free dom-lovers, Torrent and crag for Byron, for Shelley the stars and the sea? Never so far they wandered, never so drear their exile But their hearts still beat in England, and still her need was near; How they would bid thee, poet, harken thy country s anguish, If thou so far canst hear it, or carest at all to hear ! What Vergilian odors of earth, what silvery- fountained Garden that lulled Catullus s heart-ache draws thee now, TO A POET IN THE MEDITERRANEAN 93 Where olive and ilex bear their freight of a poet s blossoms Breath and blood of the Muses in the scent and sap of the bough? Would thou wert here, my poet, where rioting orchards take us, Meadowy dreams waylay us that lurk in the mothering loam, And over the hillroads set with whitening shoals of laurel, Clear as the heaven of Italy, the Northern skies of home ! Comrades that walk beside me have left their hearts behind them In the long Virginia valley, on the Carolina hill; Love, to the last horizon, beggarly pleads to be uttered, And thou, the voice God gave us, art wander ing, wandering still! 94 TO A POET IN THE MEDITERRANEAN Thou hast the shrines of silence, the ghosts that cannot answer, The paths that would not miss thee, though one less pilgrim came; Here are the passion, the hope of the song that craves the singer, And the hearts that are waiting, waiting to love him into fame. WILDWOOD In Memory of Edward Hitchcock Let us go up to Wildwood, Haven on the starry hill, Where one by one beneath their names Men we knew lie still; Still as the shadows touch them And the west pales from its red; Still in the fresh September night The mist creeps on the dead. Grey mist and green earth-cover Between the dead and the skies, Or the sunset on their cheek would blush, The dawn would light their eyes; Half to the east are sentinel, Half are a watch in the west; And the trees stand above them all, Rooted deep in rest. 95 96 WILDWOOD The branch that takes the weather, And moves in rain or sun, Lays hold below on buried men And their two lives are one. Is it ghosts that talk, or branches Planted in Wildwood s trust, Who by the open grave rebuke The solemn "Dust to dust" ? Why hurt with mournful speech Our pleasant comfort, Brother, That children of one mother Shall mingle each with each? Is it ghosts that walk in Wildwood, Or only living trees, That shimmer past beneath the stars And touch us with the breeze ? This tender, frail beseeching, This presence tremulous, Is it man to earth outreaching, Is it earth that yearns to us? Let us go up to Wildwood And think on men we knew, WILDWOOD 97 Who from the peace wherein they lie, Brother to earth and tree and sky, Still through quenchless love draw nigh And watch to keep us true. The day is ended of boyish greeting On the village street, in the college halls, The summer-scattered comrades meeting With laugh and jest and happy calls, Ah, single in the glee and riot, Who is this boy with shining eyes That in a manful cloak of quiet Wraps his tumult of surprise? Through surges of delirious clamor Aloof with his new thoughts he moves, And, lonely, sees in brighter glamour The household of his homely loves. He feels with unsuspected power; No nerve seems habit-worn or dim ; Edged with a weird-illumined wonder, All sights and sounds take hold of him; 98 WILD WOOD The hillsides from the chapel tower, How the bell haled the hours by, How his room looked, and the valley yonder, He will remember till he die. This answer to the world that calls him, This reach of heart, shall he outgrow? This spirit infinitely thrilling Ever be dull? We cannot know; Keen-thoughted now, with quick desires, Ah, for a friend to walk beside, Through the fierce dividing fires Where the fate of youth is tried! Would not the eyes that watched this venture Kindle to judgment less and less? Would not the voice of cheer or censure Sound at last of wistfulness? Let us go up to Wildwood, Star-home of faithful men, And bid the new earth lightly cover Boyhood s most forgiving lover, Such a friend, the wide world over, Boyhood shall not find again. WILDWOOD 99 Who is this walks the Wildwood road In the soft starlight, Who plies his staff, his shoulders stooping, And hurries through the night? The sombre hat, broad brim, high crown; The long hair white with many snows; The prophet beard that squarely down A span s length on his bosom flows; Winthrop s counsellor, or Bradford s, Comrade of Cotton Mather s men, What Puritan, what Pilgrim Father Is summoned from his rest again? He strikes his staff with quick impatience, Yet we hear nothing meet the ground; His lips what errand troubles him? Move and mutter without sound. His bent head suddenly he raises, He takes us sharply in his view, He sights at us along his beard, He is the man we knew! Into the wistful phantom eyes We ask ah me, without avail ! ICO WILDWOOD We gaze we almost hear once more His sudden, sharp, emphatic hail. He will not tarry, well we know His trouble and his journey s end; Yonder a boy away from home Has need of him for friend! Ah, lad, could you but see him here, Could he but find you with his love, The passion of the forest-breath Would draw you hillward till your death, The yearning of the earth beneath And the clean stars above. Trees that stand in Wildwood, How firm your love endures, Now he, your best interpreter, Mingles his life with yours. We cannot tell you twain apart, Tree-lover from the trees, Who move beneath the stars together And touch us with the breeze. CHERRY-BLOSSOM I Easter in the Pelham hills Easter late, as Pel- ham likes Northern boughs need time enough to sprout their tardy cones and spikes ! Checkered squares of shimmering green prom ise faintly, one by one, Where the orchards, long besieged, surrender to the ardent sun. From dawn till eve the promise ripens, chang ing tints from noon to noon, And through the mist of breathing things nightly climbs the Paschal moon. Oh, were you now in Amherst, it s walking you d be now The pathway up the chapel hill, and a white tree crowns the brow ! 101 102 CHERRY-BLOSSOM It rises from the moonlight still foam from a waveless sea And Amherst boys are walking there, beneath the cherry-tree. It rises from a random thought old love from an old perfume And Amherst boys that are far away still walk beneath the bloom. II Easter in the Pelham hills, Easter blossoms as of yore, And earth, that bears the bloom anew, maiden seems forevermore. Yet what if earth remembers, when the warm familiar rain, Driving in a joyous fury, stirs her languid blood again, Stirs the sleeping branch where beauty folded close in darkness shrouds, And from every bud the cherry-blossoms burst in snowy clouds ? CHERRY-BLOSSOM IO3 You cannot bloom so strangely, O phantom tree I love, But my heart, like earth, remembers where- f rom your beauty throve Perished Spring, and Spring that s here, and Spring that s still to be, And o er them all the Paschal light and, lo, my cherry-tree ! Your sailing boughs are wrapped in dreams, your flower is white, like truth; Boyhood walks beneath your branches ; under neath your shade is youth. WHIP-POOR-WILL We traveled through the soundless night And breathed the fragrant June, Tumultous fragrance, flooded bright With an unwaning moon; Till from the whitened field the wood Rose dark along the hill, And there with sudden joy we stood To hear thee, whip-poor-will! Bird, O Wonder! Long and high Thy measured question calls! 1 marvel, till thy perfect cry Almost too perfect falls. What art thou singing, voice divine, Heart of the poignant night? What utter loveliness is thine, Of suffering or delight? 104 WHIP-POOR-WILL 105 Delight too lovely, all but pain, Would thy frail spirit pour? Would sorrow, in thy perfect strain, Be joy forevermore? Thou hadst no answer but thy song Clear as the soft June light, Sweet as the fragrant earth, and long As that immortal night. YOUTH DYING Ye who love youth, bring tears and aching hearts ; For now the dark hour calls, and youth departs, Where the red scythe swings close o er crowd ed fields, And stroke by vivid stroke the moment yields Our bravest, our most beautiful, our most loved. Against such loveliness Time would have moved Gently, to do his work with gradual grace, Marking with all but unseen lines the face, Whitening the hair and making dim the eye. Love, feeling the slow change, "Can beauty die ?" Would ask, and mourn in poet-strain youth s dying. But now the bullet s speed outwings Time s flying; 106 YOUTH DYING 1 07 The bursting shell makes haste ; the poisoned air Brings darkness, though the wild eyes start and stare : And song is stilled, so close the horrors break, Only youth s name repeating, for love s sake. Over wide seas and far away youth dies, Yet here on us the growing shadow lies ; First the brown khaki spreading through the room, As one by one death brings his hopes to bloom ; Then vacant seats, and thoughts of youth at drill, And sense of near disaster mounting still, And wonder if these rooms again shall fill With boys young-hearted or only phantom men To their accustomed seats shall come again, Haunting young hearts to follow where they led. 108 YOUTH DYING Ye that love youth, come ere their hour be sped, And gazing in their eyes, behold if hate Drive them, or reckless pride bring on their fate; No hatred dwells in them, but quietness, Slow hearts to curse, and ready hands to bless, Slowness to cruelty, slowness to shame, And readiness to die. The dark hour came Thwarting with malice their supreme desires, To kindle the ancient torch with clearer fires, More poignant music, the new world set to song, And art with modern pulses beating strong, Knowledge and justice free at every door, No more disease, and poverty no more, And man, their brother, by their aid to rise; Such dreams, not hatred, smoulder in their eyes, Such hopes the kindred stars above them rouse, Such starlike loves tfue lips and happy vows. YOUTH DYING IOQ Their hearts are like the hearts of those with whom They share youth s dying; only a swifter doom At Antwerp, at Liege, ended such dreams ; Such marching youth as theirs from London streams, From Sydney, from Cape Town, from Montreal, From Edinburgh, most beautiful of all Such hearts, whom death called from their hopes away; Paris, twice great in trial, more brave and gay The darker grew the danger, in the wrack Gave up her youth and turned the peril back; Florence and Rome, firm in accomplished glory, Cities eternal, set in timeless story, And many a hamlet on far Russian slopes That dreamed of forward time and new-born hopes 110 YOUTH DYING Death called to them, to us: "Now come away; When Youth is ready, why should Age delay? Mourn not for these; why grieve, when all must go !" Ye that love youth, ah, what of youth the foe ! Alas, man s folly, and the mindless sin That bade this strife of youth with youth begin! They, too, imagined a new world; they, too, Had dreams to brood on, and their work to do; Hate came not easy to them, nor their flesh Yearned to be dust again; only a mesh Of ancient lies ensnared them die they must, And their true empire withers in their dust. Ye that love youth, ah, not alone they perish Whom the sword covets and the ravens cherish ; We who remain to win the towers of truth, YOUTH DYING III How fares our battle, with no aid from youth Our battle with the darkness evermore? Age yields the torch and follows, youth before Lifts it but in what hands now shall it rise? The world grows old, time darkens, and youth dies. Ye that love youth, mourn not with tears, but pray Curses on the black hearts who willed this day, Who willed that youth should die, or, being blind, Pulled down pillars of wrath on lost mankind. May they know the last foulness they have wrought ; May their huge guilt come to them thought by thought, Like water dropping on the shaven skull ; May their racked conscience, quickened to the full, Build a new hell for their new depths of crime, Till, thinking of themselves throughout all time, 112 YOUTH DYING Their plea shall reach up to the Crucified To die by their own poison, as youth died. Nay, let them die and pass and be forgot, Our grief die, and our wrath, but perish not The justice-loving, the crusading heart, This will of youth to take the righteous part. So youth shall pass through death and still live on; Youth dies not tis the shadowed hour is gone; To these rooms shall the springing steps re turn, And radiant the familiar eyes shall burn, New beauty gathering round us, and new truth, New wisdom, and new kindness yea, new youth ! Then not alone the supreme soul of France Shall light new paths for the new world s advance ; Beethoven then shall stir with tragic power The children of men dying at this hour; Goethe shall speak to them and they shall hear YOUTH DYING 113 Their youth true-mirrored by the poet seer; And smile a little at the note of strife In Heine, who made such hard work of life. Yea, let us pass with the dark hour of hate, So wisdom come at last though late how late! And youth be free to follow deathless wars, Ardent for love, still striving for the stars. THE CITY FLAG Flag of our hope, out of our heritage woven, Flag for a storied city, forever new, What shall you mean to the myriads you wave over? What master-loves shall be lifted up in you? Strangely will you greet the endless dream the city harbors, Greet the astonished eyes the ships bring to the city shore, Greet the adventurous hearts with surprise of familiar welcome, Weird as a face remembered, yet never seen before. Here where the rivers divide, where the eastern bridges Carry their ant-like streams, where crag upon crag 114 THE CITY FLAG 115 The walls of Aladdin gleam with sunlit windows, Here, looking up, they shall look on you, bright flag. No banner of ancient traffic, realm of the Nether lands, rule of England, Ghost of adventure long ago, nor of names gone down with the past ; Flag of a nobler faring, flag of the port of vision, They shall look up and behold! their mirage come true at last ! Here in their hearts horizon they find haven, Dawns that lured them hither, here they find ; Here is the threshing-floor of the tireless spirit, Here on new bread feeds the eternal mind Infinite purpose, infinite reach, infinite aspira tion, Desire of the starlike beauty born of the com mon dust of things, Il6 THE CITY FLAG Beauty changing the restless street with faery glamour, Lifting the city towers light as a song with wings. Flag of our fathers, out of our heritage woven, Flag for a city of hope, forever young, Fling to the winds of earth our ageless chal lenge, Skyward man s faith in man once more is flung. Still may the ships come riding home, thronged with alien faces That yearn with light disguised, that glow with unsuspected power, Till our happy eyes, grown old, look up and see you waving Welcome to younger days and newer dreams than ours. DEDICATION When imperturbable the gentle moon Glides above war and onslaught through the night, When the sun burns magnificent at noon On hate contriving horror by its light, When man, for whom the stars were and the skies, Turns beast to rend his fellow, fang and hoof Shall we not think, with what ironic eyes Nature must look on us and stand aloof? But not alone the sun, the moon, the stars, Shining unharmed above man s folly move; For us three beacons kindle one another Which waver not with any wind of wars We love our children still, still them we love Who gave us birth, and still we love each other. 117 AT THE FRONT French Army, January-March, 1918 Is this the front this level sweep of life, This pageant without pulse of haste or fear? Can this calm exercise be mortal strife? Is the last reach of passion measured here? We looked for angry blade and poisonous breath Striking the floor of judgment, flail and fan; Here lurked, we thought, crude agonies of death, But here, in one wide dignity, is man. Others behind the conflict, safe and far, Still wage with lips their travesty of war; We catch the rumor when the cannon cease. Here at the front, when most the cannon rage, The dream-touched actors on this mighty stage In silence play their parts, and seem at peace. 118 AT THE FRONT II Framed in with battle, this weird pantomime, This dignity of action, conjures up Shades of old heroes Lancelot in his prime, Galahad, questing for the holy cup, Beautiful Hector marching to his fate, Tristram and Palamides, rivals twain, And Roland sounding his proud horn too late These quiet actors play these parts again. And in the lull the critics far away, Who have not seen, nor ever read, this play, Who cannot act, who never trod the stage Their quarrel mingles with the threatening cry Of the scene-shifters watching Roland die, Who seize the moment for a better wage. 120 AT THE FRONT III If this world be a stage, what hours we give To tedious make-up in the tiring-room; How simply comes at last our cue to live, How, ere we know it, we enact our doom! The wisdom that impels us to the play Is patient with us while we choose our parts, But without warning sounds our judgment day; The curtain rises life, the drama, starts. How late it starts! Ere this grim curtain rose. How long we practised attitude and pose, Disguise of accent, costume, mood or mind! Yet in this inventory of our art, Living at last, we play our naked heart; How brief a reckoning counts us with our kind ! AT THE FRONT 121 IV If character be fate, no need to ask Who set the stage, who cast you for the role ; Put on what man you are, put off the mask, Put on the tragic pattern of your soul, At last be true; no gesture now let spring But from supreme sincerity of art; Let him who plays the monarch be a king, Who plays the rogue be perfect in his part. So when this hour had rung, the scene began. One played the rash, one played the patient man, And one, the hero, drew the dragon s fangs; One heard death s bugler calling, and obeyed; And one, a rose-cheeked boy, the martyr played ; One played the traitor well see where he hangs. 122 AT THE FRONT V We yet may play more roles than we believed, Since to himself at last each man is known, Since now the actor studies undeceived The part he learned, and lived, and has out grown. And those, the few and flawless, the sublime Whose poignance of perfection strikes us dumb Even for themselves, in the surprise of time, Doubt not another reckoning will come. "Comrades, we shall rehearse more wisely yea, There shall be nobler persons in our play, We shall rebuild the plot on kindlier laws." So at the front they act, and see, and ponder, And win with simple gratitude and wonder, Peace in themselves, which is their sole ap plause. APPARITION I I walked my fastest down the twilight street; Sometimes I ran a little, it was so late; At first the houses echoed back my feet, Then the path softened just before our gate. Even in the dusk I saw, even in my haste, Lawn-tracks and gravel marks. "That s where he plays; The scooter and the cart these lines have traced, And Baby wheels her doll here, sunny days." Our door was open; on the porch still lay Ungathered toys; our hearth-light cut the gloam ; Within, round table-candles, you and they. And I called out, I shouted, "I am come home!" At first you heard not, then you raised your eyes, Watched me a moment and showed no surprise. 123 124 APPARITION II Such dreams we have had often, when we stood Thought-struck amid the merciful routine, And distance more than danger chilled the blood. When we looked back and saw what lay be tween ; Like ghosts that have their portion of farewell, Yet will be looking in on life again, And see old faces, and have news to tell, But no one heeds them ; they are phantom men. Now home indeed and old loves greet us back, Yet shall we say it? something here we lack, Some reach and climax we have left behind, And something here is dead, that without sound Moves lips at us and beckons, shadow-bound, But what it means, we cannot call to mind. HOSPITAL They who look up from white beds in the ward, Handless, ; disfeatured, pitifully lamed, Seem often those whom suffering least has marred, he body broken but the soul unmaimed. / Even it seems a richer life is theirs, As though these shattered hours had left them wise; Even a ghostlike smile the poor mouth wears, As though a pleasure took them by surprise. Is it that to have walked the road of pain, Or fainted half-way, neighbor to the slain, And still to be alive, makes life more sweet? Is it, we ask, that when the reckoning calls us, Merely to face whatever doom befalls us Is peace of mind, and more than hands or feet? 125 SATAN In the last hour, the utter lapse of time, Shrill from the vast the voice of Satan cried "Hail, Lord of Heaven, Almighty Loneliness, World-maker! thou who not in love but wrath Didst shape this plot of sham infinitudes Earth, the day-fire, stars and the useless moon, And man and creatures meaner, and called them good! Good for how long? Lord, Lord, shall goodness end? Where shines the light that healed thy want of me, Light-bearer once, thy shadow-bringer now? Behold, the unsteady sun, now glow, now gloom, Like a spent coal blown on by wind and sand, Is quenched with sifting dust of the dead stars. Where is that world for which the heavens were made, 126 SATAN 127 That globe unquiet of the lava-spume Which from thine anger dript and cooled itself, That world whereon thy breath malign, thy vast Ponderous loom of motion, force, and rhythm Stroking the planet-paths, at length begot Man in thy image, infinitely small, To squirm, and breed, and marvel at his race Even of us, much more of things much less, To take the measure and impose the name, And fear us, or desire us, or forget? Where is that world by thee for man designed ? See where yon little whiteness near the sun Walks virginal, a moon of innocence, That hell reformed, which of our deathless war Remembers nothing, nor of man s debauch In futile lusts he never learned from me, His godlike wallowings in the slough of love And fattenings of his purposeless desire; Nor of man s end remembers, nor its own Foresees, but coldly haunts the dying sun, Thy little world, which, being dead, is pure." 128 SATAN So at the vaulted shell of utmost heaven Challenging toward the impenetrable beyond, The eternal questioner waited upon God. Merely to stand in that great light he strove; Even as a bird in a strong wind pendulous With league-long flight only his station holds, So beating up into the sight of God Satan no headway made, but with fierce wing Pushing from darkness, the orbed vacancy Retraced of an annihilated star. Soon, unrebuked, he shouted up through space "Thou who didst build this crumbling universe, O Boaster, who wouldst bruise me with the heel Of man, but first wouldst play me for his soul, Alas, the pieces and the board wear out Ere the game quite begins! Omnipotence, Did prudence whisper thee to this shrewd end, Or thy weak will that could not well create? Or hast thou played, Gambler Divine, as one Who sits no longer at a losing game, But sweeps the board away? * SATAN 129 Still unperturbed The blessed silence of the face of God Came luminous against Satan as he strove. He then with moderated insolence "Forgive, Almighty God; for well I know Not from thy weakness flows this huge decay, But from thy central virtue, Change. Forgive One like me steadfast, who from star to star Tracked in exile my yearnings and my faith, The azure promise of my heart of light, Eternity, that only in me was; Whereon man gazing fed his want therewith, Like the cool stars to endure perpetually. How should he dream of goodness but from thee ? And this desire was good; who then but thou Should be his everlasting, his length of days? Thou knowest, who knowest all, in honorable Intent the least advantage to abjure, Though my own nature bred it, I drove out This strong delusion from man s clinging soul; Me only eternal, me the evil one 130 SATAN He by my aid beheld ; and worshiped thee The various, the time-server, the manifold death. Though I have helped man to a little truth, Lord, blame not me that his excited mind Hath thrown thee in these meshes of thyself, Thinking, since all things alter, God must change ; Seasons of climax limit even the arc Of godhood, flowering ever from age to age, Full blown, then fading, then in bud again. But why, O Prudence, who alone art wise, Didst thou proclaim thyself Absolute Good? Man with his maggot reason sapped thy boast : The perfect evil must at last be good, The perfect good be evil, for all evolve. Lo, man hath reconciled us, who before Diluted never our happiness of hate Yea, in a twilight kinship hath confused What in our will were strange as night and day ; Evil uprooted from me I have felt, With alien pang some graft of goodness known, And, though I look not on thy holy face, SATAN I3 1 Wearest thou not some scars that once were mine?" On venom more sinister meditative Circlewise through wide heaven the Serpent swayed Cobra-headed, darting his vibrant tongue "The secret of thy treacherous plan for him Did man not solve, the terminus foresee Of breath-departed dust and cooling earth Unfathomable emptiness at the last? Yea, did he not forestall thy trick, O God, And ere his end, annihilate thee first? For him were not all causes but deceits Raised by mirage in his hot, barren soul, Thou the mere shadow of his little self Cast large in front by me, his following light?" Wrath-wearied, yet defiant, Satan abode; Then bafHed from the eyes inscrutable Of the First Patience and the Ultimate Good, Into profounder hate the fiend withdrew. PARIS, HELEN S LOVER I Things of immortal beauty that are grown Lovelier with love, with worship more divine, Dreams that command us from the bronze or stone, Music that draws the heart out, line by line, Pageants of fate that from a trivial story Took life-blood, and on humble lips began, And oft rehearsed, grew to heroic glory, And speak at last the destiny of man "Oh shroud yourselves and be of earth again; Will you expect a passion to sustain Your unrelenting loveliness?" we cry, We, frailer than our fathers, and our eyes Look down, and ask for lowlier gods to rise Things of immortal beauty that pass by! 132 PARIS, HELEN S LOVER 133 II Helen s remote forefathers would we be, Happier the more remote, is our belief; Excused from worship and from wonder free, Crude beauty serves our passion rude and brief. Such humble tribute to Oenone came When Paris on the mountain spied her charms, And kept his herds and followed the wild game, And when the mood was on him, sought her arms, Until he saw Queen Helen in her bower, And her imperious beauty had its power. He knew not then his poverty of heart; He only knew he had a way with beauty, And kiss and touch were all a lover s duty, And not to love too much was half his art. 134 PARIS, HELEN S LOVER III Helen s remote forefather, when he chose An easy mate for soul and body, learned A faith in love that out of love arose, And beauty kindling upon beauty burned; Some Spartan girl he took by casual choice Brought to the vacant shrine the sacred fire, Some grace of body, some delight of voice, That laid a consecration on desire. Then on the passing rapture memory fell, And glamour even through absence kept its spell, And the deep-brooding intervals of passion Glimpses of this new wonder would beget That beauty gives love being, and is yet Of love sustained, and takes its form and fashion. PARIS, HELEN S LOVER 135 IV "Things of immortal beauty that are grown Lovelier with love, with worship more divine, Bring us to Helen on her queenly throne !" Whether this yearning stirred her ancient line, Or only a blind fate around them played, Fairer through generations fell their lot ; Radiant, more radiant, maid was born from maid, And nobler lovers nobler loves begot, Torch lighting torch ; and the up-leaping flames, All but immortal under earthly names, Promised the things of beauty that abide A stream of gathered loveliness and growing, Swifter with time and clearer from long flowing, And toward eternal meaning drove the tide. 136 PARIS, HELEN S LOVER V Leda at last no lover among men Worthy to meet her loveliness could find; It was a god, she thought, that wooed her then, And matched her beauty with his heavenly mind; Her body, yielded to his bright desire, Took whiteness from his heart, and swanlike grace, And, lips to lips, she learned celestial fire, And starlike were their glances, face to face, Till all-surrendered in delicious swoon, Yet maiden-minded as the stately moon That has the unceasing ardor of the sun. She knew this miracle of ecstasy Some birth of marvellous delight must be, Some god-like thing exquisitely begun. PARIS, HELEN S LOVER 137 VI Then Paris, Helen s lover, to this stream Of loveliness unfolding, set a stay; Led by his hand, the child of Leda s dream Went seaward, and the sails were salt with spray, But ere the mariners made the happy coast, He would have turned from Helen if he could, He would have left her when she charmed him most To seek again Oenone in the wood. For when he saw with terror open-eyed That fixed immortal beauty by his side, Impeccable, invincible, sublime, He yearned for beauty of the earlier strain That could relax a little and be plain, And rest a Ipver s heart from time to time. ASH-WEDNESDAY After hearing a lecture on the origins of religion Here in the lonely chapel I will wait, I Here will I rest, if any rest may be ; So fair the day is, and the hour so late, I shall have few to share the blessed calm with me. Calm and soft light, sweet inarticulate calls ! One shallow dish of eerie golden fire By molten chains above the altar swinging, Draws my eyes up from the shadowed stalls To the warm chancel-dome;/ Crag-like , the clustered organs loom, Yet from their thunder-threatening choir Flows but a ghostly singing Half-human voices reaching home In infinite, tremulous surge and falls. Light on his stops and keys, 138 ASH- WEDNESDAY 139 And pallor on the player s face, Who, listening rapt, with finger-skill to seize The pattern of a mood s elusive grace, Captures his spirit in an airy lace Of fading, fading harmonies. / fc^/Oh, let your coolness soothe jju UM/\ My weariness, frail music, where you keep (Tryst with the even-fall ; Where tone by tone you find a pathway smooth To yonder gleaming cross, or nearer creep Along the bronzed wall, Where shade by shade through deeps of brown Comes the still twilight down. Wilt thou not rest, my thought? Wouldst thou go back to that pain-breeding room Whence only by strong wrenchings thou wert brought ? O weary, weary questionings, Will ye pursue me to the altar rail Where my old faith for sanctuary clings, 140 ASH-WEDNESDAY And back again my heart reluctant hale Yonder, where crushed against the cheerless wall Tiptoe I glimpsed the tier on tier Of faces unserene and startled eyes Such eyes as on grim surgeon-work are set, On desperate out-maneuverings of doom?/ Still must I hear The boding voice with cautious rise and fall Tracking relentless to its lair Each fever-bred progenitor of faith, Each fugitive ancestral fear? Still must I follow, as the wraith Of antique awe toward a wreck-making beach Drives derelict? Nay, rest, rest, my thought, Where long-loved sound and shadow teach Quietness to conscience overwrought. Hearken ! The choristers, the white-robed priest, Move through the chapel dim Sounding of warfare and the victor s palm, Of valiant marchings, of the feast ASH-WEDNESDAY I4 1 Spread for the pilgrim in a haven d calm. How on the first lips of my steadfast race Sounded that battle hymn, Quaint heaven-vauntings, with God s gauntlet flung, To me bequeathed, from age to age, My challenge and my heritage; "The Lord is in His holy place" How in their ears the herald voice has rung! Now will I make bright their sword, Will pilgrim in their ancient path, Will haunt the temple of their Lord ; Truth that is neither variable nor hath Shadow of turning, I will find In the wise ploddings of their faithful mind; Or finding not, as in this frustrate hour By questions hounded, waylaid by despair, Yet in these uses shall I know His power, As the warm flesh by breathing knows the air. 142 ASH-WEDNESDAY futile comfort! My faith-hungry heart Still in your sweetness tastes a poisonous sour; Far-off, far-off I quiver neath the smart Of old indignities and obscure scorn Indelibly on man s proud spirit laid, That now in time s ironic masquerade Minister healing to the hurt and worn ! What are those streams that from the altar pour Where goat and ox and human captive bled To feed the blood-lust of the murderous priest? 1 cannot see where Christ s dear love is shed, So deep the insatiate horror washes red Flesh-stains and frenzy-sears and gore. Beneath that Cross, whereon His hands out spread, What forest shades behold what shameful rites Of maidenhood surrendered to the beast In obscene worship on midsummer nights! What imperturbable disguise Enwraps these organs with a chaste restraint To chant innocuous hymns and litanies For sinner and adoring saint, ASH-WEDNESDAY 143 Which yet inherit like an old blood-taint Some naked caperings in the godliest tune, Goat-songs and jests strong with the breath of Pan, That charmed the easy cow-girl and her man In uncouth tryst beneath a scandalous moon! Ah, could I hearken with their trust, Or see with their pure-seeing eyes Who of the frame of these dear mysteries Were not too wise! Why cannot I, as in a stronger hour, Outface the horror that defeats me now? Have I not reaped complacent the rich power That harvests from this praise and bowing low? On this strong music I have mounted up, At yonder rail broke bread, and shared the holy cup, And on that cross have hung, and felt God s pain Sorrowing, sorrowing, till the world shall end. 144 ASH-WEDNESDAY Not from these forms my questionings come That serving truth are purified, But from the truth itself, the way, the goal, One challenge vast that strikes faith dumb If truth be fickle, who shall be our guide? "Truth that is neither variable, nor hath Shadow of turning?" Ah, where turns she not! Where yesterday she stood, Now the horizon empties lo, her steps Where yonder scholar woos, are hardly cold, Yet shall he find her never, but the thought Mantling within him like her blood Shall from his eloquence fade, and leave his words Flavor d with vacant quaintness for his son. What crafty patience, scholar, hast thou used, Useless ere it was begun What headless waste of wing, Beating vainly round and round! In no one Babel were the tongues confused, But they who handle truth, from sound to sound Master another speech continuously. ASH-WEDNESDAY 145 Deaf to familiar words, our callous ear Will quiver to the edge of utterance strange; When truth to God s truth-weary sight draws near, Cannot God see her till she suffer change? Must ye then change, my vanished youth, Home customs of my dreams? Change and farewell! Farewell, your lost phantasmic truth That will not constant dwell, But flees the passion of our eyes And leaves no hint behind her Whence she dawns or whither dies, Or if she live at all, or only for a moment seems. Here though I only dream I find her, Here will I watch the twilight darken. Yonder the scholar s voice spins on Mesh upon mesh of loveless fate; Here will I rest while truth deserts him still. What hath she left thee, Brother, but thy voice? After her, have thy will, 146 ASH-WEDNESDAY And happy be thy choice! Here rather will I rest, and harken Voices longer dead but longer loved than thine. Yet still my most of peace is more unrest, As one who plods a summer road Feels the coolness his own motion stirs, But when he stops the dead heat smothers him, Here in this calm my soul is weariest, Each question with malicious goad Pressing the choice that still my soul defers To visioned hours not thus eclipsed and dim, Lest in my haste I deem That truth s invariable part Is her eluding of man s heart. Farewell, calm priest who pacest slow After the stalwart-marching choir! Have men through thee taught God their dear desire ? Hath God through thee absolved sin? What is thy benediction, if I go Sore perplexed and wrought within? ASH-WEDNESDAY 147 Open the chapel doors, and let Boisterous music play us out Toward the flaring molten west Whither the nerve-racked day is set; Let the loud world, flooding back, Gulf us in its hungry rout ; Rest? What part have we in rest? Boy with the happy face and hurrying feet, Who with thy friendly cap s salute Sendest bright hail across the college street, If thou couldst see my answering lips, how mute, How loth to take thy student courtesy ! What truth have I for thee? Rather thy wisdom, lad, impart, Share thy gift of strength with me, Still with the past I wrestle, but the future girds thy heart. Clutter of stubborn yesterdays that clothe us like a shell, Thy spirit sloughs their bondage off, to walk new-born and free. ASH-WEDNESDAY All things the human heart hath learned God, Heaven, earth and hell Thou weighest not for what they were, but what they still may be. Whether the scholar delve and mine for faith- wreck buried deep, Or the priest his rules and holy rites, letter and spirit, keep, Toil or trust in breathless dust, they shall starve at last for truth; Scholar and priest shall live from thee, who art eternal youth. Holier if thou dost tread it, every path the prophets trod; Clearer where thou dost worship, rise the ancient hymns to God; Not by the priest but by thy prayers are altars sanctified ; Strong with new love where thou dost kneel, the cross whereon Christ died. "TAKE NOT THY HOLY SPIRIT FROM US" I Sigh and thunder, pause and roar Unwearied on the foam-laced shore Since the changing tides began, Speaks the ocean-voice to man. How silently, ere man was made, Up and down the long tides swayed, Weaving under sun and moon Song without meaning, word or tune. 149 150 "TAKE NOT THY SPIRIT FROM us II Above the altar s silk and lawn The lips of patience, sorrow-drawn, Lean from the cross toward my heart; Then in His sufferings have I part. Of mortal sins the wounds divine That racked His spirit, rescue mine. Homeward in peace we go, and see, The unmoved sexton turns the key ! The dying Christ upon the rood Hangs in unworshiped solitude, And that which made God s mercy known Is loveless carving, speechless stone. Ill If our thought of them can give The sea its voice, the stone its word, So in Thy thought of us we live ! Take not Thy Spirit from us, Lord. CHILDHOOD To be Himself a star most bright To bring the wise men to His sight, To be Himself a voice most sweet To call the shepherds to His feet, To be a child it was His will, That folk like us might find Him still. INNKEEPER "I said, don t thank me. Well, if you insist, It was my father thought of it, thank him. I told you at the gate there was no room ; No more there is, and I will not pretend I wanted you. I said the inn was full ; I did not say the stable was to let." But Joseph heard him to the end, and had The quiet of the stars above his head, Past midnight, in the courtyard, and replied, "Use now what words soever, yet you were kind, You and your father both, to shelter her, Such kindness to remember, to tell over" "Man, if you can t forget, don t speak of it! Don t say you lodged with us; you don t, you know. Frankly, we have a name for comfort here, Our guests lie easy; it would hurt the house To have you for a witness to our fare ; 152 INNKEEPER 153 You are no guest, you see, you pay nothing, We give you nothing; the stable for a night" Then Joseph spoke: "You have a name for comfort ; Why not a name for kindness ? I have known No innkeeper in his high tide of trade Take in the poor; shall I not speak of it?" The other shook his head in slow contempt, And threw up thin, exasperated hands : "Who would believe you, even if you spoke? It was our meanness, all your friends will think, Thrust you into the stable, though you know There was no room. But better to be frank And take no praise for kindness we don t feel. We ve just so many rooms, and the worst is, The gold a late guest brings won t build a room, And the late-comer never will take no. Innkeeper s art, I say, is keeping out; My father s passion is for taking in. He says a door was made to open. God ! I camp at our door, just to keep it closed. Since the son left us, he has gone clean mad. 154 INNKEEPER "His son?" asked Joseph; "Are you not his son?" "Only the elder brother. I keep the inn. The other was my father s son, hating The business as my father hates it; I By toil and thrift made fortunes for them both, Till one fine day he said, Give me my portion, Father, I must go ; he gave it, and he went, Where, we don t know, with part of what I earned. Good-bye to that ! But now my father grieves And must be entertainer to the poor, A specialist in guests who cannot pay; Lame, halt or blind, the heathen or the strange, We have them all in now, so they be queer. A while ago, when your rough callers knocked, Would I have turned a key, and past midnight, Had I the say? Well then, I am a fool Talking so much, so late, under the sky." "I have troubled you; my going thanks you best," And Joseph through the darkness to the stable INNKEEPER 155 Door moved, a shadow and a sound of steps. Then down the stairway of the inn a taller Shadow, a heavier step: "Well then, what voice Was that, my son? or was it yours I heard Raised in rebuke? What scolding at this hour?" "It was your stable-tenant; there he goes. A busy night for him ! His wife, you know, Gave him a child, it must be now two hours. That business scarcely ended, then we had A band of shepherds banging at the gate To inspect the baby. In they trooped, of course, And hardly with persuasion were got out, When comes the happy father with profuse Thanks for the great convenience of your shed. Here we have talked till morning, as you see; The hour means nothing to us. I said, thank you, Not me. He ll thank you, and I ll get to bed." The innkeeper, remembering, to himself, "That woman with the weary face, I knew Needed quick shelter when I saw her first." "I knew it too ; that s why I told the man To go elsewhere. Oh, children must be born, 156 INNKEEPER And travelers must be lodged and warmed and fed, But how to manage both in the same place ?" He laughed, but stopped at the Innkeeper s tone "You said this to the father? You could touch His happiest moment with your selfish spleen? It was your voice, then, sounded that tirade To rouse the sleepers in my house! Who else Would hurt the man? I told you when he came, Whether or not you liked it, they should have What we could give them, little though it were. You could not keep them out, the inn is mine, So you take a mean way to shade their joy !" "We can be frank, my Father; you and I Know where we disagree. The inn is yours How long it would be so I cannot tell If all your princely humor had its way. If food and lodging are for giving free, Where do we get the food and roof to give? This inn is all you have ; prosperity Never took hold here by your open hand ; INNKEEPER 157 And even this I made for you I saw That honest men were served, and what is more, Made sure they paid like honest men. Day-long I slave for you, at night I watch your gate, Keeping a cat-like ear for thieves, or oft As now awake for you almost till dawn. You are revered for a large-hearted man, I hated for a mean one; would they knew What you are generous with is what I earn! For this I have no thanks, no praise from you; You, too, see meanness in me but you loved My idle brother, generous like yourself. Know me at least, then, for sincerity; My duty is to you, but my own thoughts Are mine, and I have never worn a mask. When this man offered thanks for what he got, I told him to thank you ; had I my way, He never had come in. True, is it not? Now I tell you what I would not tell him f Tis I who buy, not you, his food and straw, The welcome you commanded. I alone Lose sleep between two heavy days for him; 158 INNKEEPER You who came quickly to reprove my speech, Stirred not a foot to serve him, all night long." He paused, and in the darkness the two men, Facing each other, heard the small night- sounds The breathing house far off beyond the town A faint call from the fields and then a voice, A word or two, caught through the stable door. Stillness. In husky syllables at last The older man half-whispered, "Your own thoughts Are yours; indeed, what truth you see, you tell. By the slow turning of incessant toil, Your unrelaxing vigilance, our wealth Has come on us like fate inexorable. The house itself, the habit of our trade, My father gave me; whatever came besides, You chiefly earned so far, all that I have Is yours. And were the silver in the hand The one bright end of hospitality, Your duty were well done, and I had failed. Even what I give away, so far as lies INNKEEPER 159 Within a trader s science to compute, May well be something you have earned for me. Yet if I give kind greeting, use a tone Above the warmth the body understands, That to the soul says hospitable things, I part with what never belonged to you. And if your brother had the neighbors love For headlong sheer delight in daily life, Prophetic tasting of the human lot And zest for the strong flavor of the world, So that whoever lodged here found an eye Kindling, an ear friendly to traveler s talk, A heart inquisitive of space and light This comrade interest prodigally given Was what you never had. Shall we be frank? If in this course of duty you perform The inn makes silver for us, thanks to you, Therefore you feel some dedicated breath Exalt your service and refine your zeal. How know you this is duty? Who desired, But you, to make the inn more than it was A house of warmth for wayfarers, a home? 160 INNKEEPER Did anyone but you ask to be rich ? Who asked to be an innkeeper ? Not I ! Nor our true boy who rose and went away; If ever he comes back, it will not be To rival you, nor envy the inn-trade. When I am dead and the inn yours at last, Do anything you like, and call it duty, But while I live and the house bears my name, Just for that human name I turn away No poor soever, coming as these came Not while I have a stable and some straw." "Your human name?" the elder brother asked. "Your human name will never profit by it; Men being so, they never will be sure Whether the stable was a gift of love, You having nothing better, or a sign Of meanness, to treat poor folk like dumb beasts." "Well, have they not excuse ?" his father said. "No innkeeper was ever hospitable, Nor ever could be, while he plied his trade, Or if he was, it never could be known. INNKEEPER l6l The least of men will share what food he has, What roof, what fire, with whomsoe er God sends ; If I have food before me, and one knocks And steps across my threshold, of that meat I proffer him yes, though he were my foe, Yet if he eat with me he goes in peace, So binding is the sacrament on mankind On all save innkeepers ; but how on them ? Remember what you said if they give aught, Lodging or food or fire, how shall they earn The things to give? No, if the innkeeper Sits down to eat, and one knocks at the door, He bids him in and shares the meal with him, And makes him pay for both. Or if he show Kindness, the rumor will be that he made Profit no less, but handsomely disguised. This from my youth I felt about my trade, Your brother felt, and this you did not feel ; To go a lifetime through this happy world And never have a friend draw to the table, Nor casual guests at twilight in the rooms l62 INNKEEPER Bidden to share the ritual of bread And ceremony of the household wine, But diabolic thoughts of who should pay Must steal away the blessing. For the feast We pay indeed always some sacrifice, Hardship or drudgery, buys the right to give; But gifts cannot be sold. This many a year I would have left the inn and fled the curse, But old roots held me to the earth, and you Furnished me with a duty to remain. But when your brother asked to leave us both I knew what called him hence, what drew him out To make the large escape I failed to make, To have a free soul and a liberal heart, And taste unsoured the natural grace of life. He may not come again, though I shall wait, He may not come again, he may be dead, But some of us who breathe have never lived; Had but this house been what a hearth should be, He would have found a good life here." "My father, INNKEEPER 163 You are unjust, you make me out too base And him too fine, but so you always did. And I who toil here " "As you said. Enough; Have you to rest or watch beside the gate; No visitor I think will now invade Your quiet." Ready to answer, the elder son Thought better of it, and deliberately Walked to his station by the gate. Straightway His father, turning toward the stable door, Knocked softly and turned back, and stood wait ing. Into the starlit courtyard Joseph came Quickly: "Who calls?" and the Innkeeper said, "It is a blessing for the child, who merely By being born puts wonder on my house. We welcome here many a chance arrival, Rarely a life itself/ "You are the master?" The other said ; "I would have brought the news Earlier of your guest, of this new life 164 INNKEEPER Your mercy welcomed to a crowded world. Your kind voice is good omen may he find Among men of good will his friends hereafter. It is as though he heard and thanked you now, So well he will remember, growing up In the strong habit of our gratitude." "A son a son." Slowly the Innkeeper Said the word over; "Is there an elder son?" "There is no other." "The one child of your heart, To taste your life again, the best of it, Radiant as he lives it with the bloom Your own days wore only in memory. The pleasures he must come on, the delights, The traps and tangles in the way foreseeing, Your hand will steady him from many a fall, Or since mistakes may have rich meaning, oft You will look on and trust him to himself. What is your trade?" "A carpenter," he said. "I envy you/ said the Innkeeper; "yours Is happy trade you build, you make us doors INNKEEPER 165 That open, thresholds to be crossed, tables For gathering round ; from life to life the home Handles your work; your carving on a chair That had a charm, it may be, for a child One glimpse of it in age brings childhood back, And fills with spirits the old room. Your mark Cuts deeper than you purpose. I say, the boy Is happy, born to such a trade." Joseph Caught at the word "He will not follow it!" "Not follow it?" asked the Innkeeper. "Why not? Are you so soon acquainted with his mind These first two breathing hours? Or why fore bode Evil so early? Where the father s work Is happy, it is happy for the son, Or custom, even when the work is dull, Sometimes compels us, and may bring content." "I did not think of evil," Joseph said, "Nor of the infant s will, but of my own; For me my life is happy, yet for him l66 INNKEEPER I wish far better." "Man, if you are happy, Nothing is better. To be content at home, Rooted in memories, sheltered among friends, Measuring experience by steady hours Through broadening angles of the arc of life First leaning on the love that gave you birth, Then turned away, ungraciously it seems, Little by little, irresistibly, To contemplate new passions of your own, Then, meaning to be selfish, step by step Entering by miracle of unnoticed change The newer lives your centered love begot, Till you awake to where your father stood And find yourself rehearsing what he was, Your own spontaneous acts ghostly with his All this to taste deliberately, and miss None of the richness; is life more than this?" "Seldom it is," Joseph replied, "and yet It might be more. To keep him, as you say, With us at home were happiness and yet There is another and a larger way, INNKEEPER 167 If happiness is something to be shared. Households there are where memory is grim, And ghosts insisting and unbeautiful Beset old age; not all fires on the hearth Burn comfortably too feeble, or they scorch. There are whole lands, they say, that never had, Like us, the light to choose a good life by, Never found out the secret of the home, Nor reached our usage of still moving time This looking back on age when we are young And forward over youth when we are old ; No gracious art, as you to us have shown, Of welcome and receiving, but they grope Baffled in darkness. Why should we alone Walk under stars? Someone must bring them news, Someone who merely being what we all Might be, will loose to utterance their sleeping Spirit, and teach their sightless eyes to see. What miracle, if only through the world One kind and understanding heart should go, Spreading the temper of your own innkeeping, l68 INNKEEPER Making the earth his home, from land to land Arriving a blood-brother among men! O were I young, with courage to begin, Into the far countries would I journey. The boy will do it; he will grow to this By daily subtle promptings of the home And hearing how the world has need of friends, And how the nations in our time have fallen Like an old house whose tired rafter-ends Unwatched, dead where they touch, moulder apart ; And how old timbers can be used again, Yet now for lack of skill we let them lie; And np one knows his neighbor, but suspects Meanness, and would be safe, and bars life out. O, if the best of us would only stand Patient before strange doors, and knock, and cry, Open, and let me in! and stay an hour, How startled they would whisper, His own folk Are then like us ? How well the youth behaves ! Good manners where he came from! Or per haps, INNKEEPER 169 Touched to a deeper frankness, they would say, Where he was bred, a blessing we have missed, A grace, a wisdom, grows/ Would not the thought Pull us together with good will toward peace? If he can spread the thought, should he stay home?" "The benefit you hope for will not be, Friend carpenter and that way should not be. Peace at the hearth we need, and every house Long-memoried with consecrated days, Yet if the road to wisdom is increase Of hospitable rites and homely love, Shall we be happier with one hearth the less, With him a wanderer who best loves the home? He dwelling constant had set up a lamp Eloquent far off of a sacred fire, But now, a wistful looker-in at doors, A tarrier for the night, a passer-by, He is a question poisoning their peace, Why goodness should be exiled and astray. For to be hospitable is sometimes sad. INNKEEPER Pleasant to greet the twilight guest, and open Your life for sharing with the fire and food, So for a moment he is of the house Pleasant, if in this language he can speak, Having himself the ritual of the hearth. But if the guest be homeless, what you do Will be your private ceremony, rather A cloak for queerness than a tongue to touch Exquisitely the heart ; foreigners meeting With nod and smile, who have no other speech, Such you will be with him ; you will sit down Inside your household words, and wish you knew What sounds to reach him with, or shamed to be So rich, you will touch lightly and avoid Things precious for you know he has no hearth, He has begot no child, nor lived through passion From the red kindling to the steady flame; These are as jewels not decent to put on Full in the open face of poverty. So sad a presence would he be, your son, Lover of earth and human things, yet lonely, Being not of earth, with no part among men ; INNKEEPER I?I Where he was entertained, disquietude Would linger, the pale shadow of his fate, Something uneasy in the household ways That till he came were natural as sunlight And rain, and soil, and fruit, and bread, and wine. And he, having no home nor place in earth, No habit of the flesh toward flesh, no sense Of heart with kindred heartbeat keeping time, How should he seem but vain and vanishing Like a fine music we forget to play? Will he be entering at all doors, yet never Have his own door to ask the traveler in? Will he take all, and never give again, And have no knowledge of the grace he spreads ? This is no joy, I say, no peace at all, Only a wandering from the few great paths We walk in all alike and so to fill, By parting more, the gulfs between us now! This hospitable lesson you would teach Is the one art mankind learned long ago ; Who in what foreign land, will call it news 172 INNKEEPER That not the body only but the soul Sits at the board? or if some have not learned, Perhaps we need the lesson close at hand. Better to rest unshaken, and take life One lifetime further, each where he was born, Studying our little place to know the world And understanding others through ourselves. Keep the boy home, strike roots, open the door And have a door to open." "You would be right," Said Joseph, courteous and unconvinced, "For other children, or for common times, And right if all this traveling here and there Were a retreat from what he did not love, An exile, or a searching for delight. Even at the best, some sorrow with high thoughts Goes hand in hand; the healing of the world Is costly. Yet to have seen the stars, and read Heavenly patterns, and to prefer content Though one were rooted in an ancient home, Would be to vanish like a ghost, vainer Than music no one plays. It is his star, INNKEEPER 173 His calling, his one end ; this to decline, Would be his blotting from the book of life. What you have said to-night, how many times, From lips how various, will he hear again Lips kind as yours, or treacherous with a smooth Temptation; for to him who has a star, Pressure to follow lowly things may prove Fiend-counsel, caught from hell. The boy will go- With so much to be done, and with a way To do it, we are not free to rest in peace." The Innkeeper was silent, seeing well What end the talk had found then softly laughed As at the general quaintness of the world: "Yes, if the child is called, he will be called, But often it is age that does the calling ; Too late grown wise, what things we left undone We call the young to do, and our desires, More poignant since we know our power is gone, Sound to us like the authentic voice of heaven. You and I argue of the boy s career, 174 INNKEEPER Who has not yet set lips on mother s milk; It is our own lives we would live again. You say the boy is called, as though our fate Were grooved in orbits waiting to be filled, And you had found for him a track that fits ; I say we call ourselves, and first the heart Conceives whatever pattern the eye finds Happy indeed if we have but the will To follow what we find, the plan we dreamed. And this world is so poor of dreaming hearts That one man with a plan seems sent from God. Having the dreams God gave us, and the eyes, Facing the chance and changes of the world We see what we have dreamed, no more, no less ; And this is to be called. A pile of wood Thrown pell-mell from a cart what should it mean To clerk or lawyer but a pile of wood? To you, a chair, a table, or a shelf, What you had thought of, and the wood could serve; You would be called to make it. Time itself, INNKEEPER 1/5 So much a tangle, was it ever else Than a vast timber-pile thrown from a cart By the great Forest-Cutter passing by? If we but have a plan, the time comes apt To you, for all this journeying in the world, To me, keeping a hearth; opening a door; But if we have no plan, it is all blind, A pause of blowing dust and bitter flame. What plan will your boy have? Your plan, you think. Perhaps. I have known sons who would not trace Their fathers pattern. Let it be his own, Whatever it be, the dream of his own heart; There is no other calling What voice was that?" It was the elder brother from the gate: "Knock till you re weary, then, you can t come in, There s not a bed What s that you re looking for? Not sleep! What? Wise men, are you? O, you are ! UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY NOV 6 1947 " YB 73673 34788 *"** VS .;>* UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY