No lapidary's heaven, no brazier's hell for me,For I am made of dust and dew and stream and plant and tree;I'm close akin to boulders, I am cousin to the mud,And all the winds of all the skies make music in my blood.
I want a brook and pine trees, I want a storm to blowLoud-lunged across the looming hills with rain and sleet and snow;Don't put me off with diadems and thrones of chrysoprase,—I want the winds of northern nights and wild March days.
My blood runs red with sunset, my body is white with rain,And on my heart auroral skies have set their scarlet stain,My thoughts are green with spring time, among the meadow rueI think my very soul is growing green and gold and blue.
What will be left, I wonder, when Death has washed me cleanOf dust and dew and sundown and April's virgin green?If there's enough to make a ghost, I'll bring it back againTo the little lovely earth that bore me, body, soul, and brain.
Let me sleep among the shadows of the mountains when I die,In the murmur of the pines and sliding streams,Where the long day loiters byLike a cloud across the skyAnd the moon-drenched night is musical with dreams.
Lay me down within a canyon of the mountains, far away,In a valley filled with dim and rosy light,Where the flashing rivers playOut across the golden dayAnd a noise of many waters brims the night.
Let me lie where glinting rivers ramble down the slanted gladeUnder bending alders garrulous and cool,Where they gather in the shadeTo the dazzling, sheer cascade,Where they plunge and sleep within the pebbled pool.
All the wisdom, all the beauty, I have lived for unawareCame upon me by the rote of highland rills;I have seen God walking thereIn the solemn soundless airWhen the morning wakened wonder in the hills.
I am what the mountains made me of their green and gold and gray,Of the dawnlight and the moonlight and the foam.Mighty mothers far away,Ye who washed my soul in spray,I am coming, mother mountains, coming home.
When I draw my dreams about me, when I leave the darkling plainWhere my soul forgets to soar and learns to plod,I shall go back home againTo the kingdoms of the rain,To the blue purlieus of heaven, nearer God.
Where the rose of dawn blooms earlier across the miles of mist,Between the tides of sundown and moonrise,I shall keep a lover's trystWith the gold and amethyst,With the stars for my companions in the skies.
Where the long valley slopes awayFive miles across the dreaming dayA maple sends a scarlet prayerInto the still autumnal air,Three golden-smouldering hickoriesAre fanned to flame beneath the breezeAnd one great crimson oak tree firesThe sky-line over the Concord spires.
In worship mystically sweetThe rimy asters at my feetAnd spiring gentian bells that burnBlue incense in an azure urnBreathe softly from the aspiring sod:"This is our utmost. Take it, God,—This chant of green, this prayer of blue.This is the best thy clay can do."
*****
O lonely heart and widowed brainSick with philosophies that strainBody from spirit, flesh from soul,—Worship with asters and be whole;Live simply as still water flowsTill soul shall border brain so closeNo blade of wit can thrust betweenAnd hearts are pure as grass is green;Pray with the maple tree and trustThe ancient ritual of the dust.
As I walked through the rumorous streetsOf the wind-rustled, elm-shaded cityWhere all of the houses were friendsAnd the trees were all lovers of her,The spell of its old enchantmentWas woven again to subdue meWith magic of flickering shadows,Blown branches and leafy stir.
Street after street, as I passed,Lured me and beckoned me onwardWith memories frail as the odorOf lilac adrift on the air.At the end of each breeze-blurred vistaShe seemed to be watching and waiting,With leaf shadows over her gownAnd sunshine gilding her hair.
For there was a dream that the kind GodWithheld, while granting us many—But surely, I think, we shall comeSometime, at the end, she and I,To the heaven He keeps for all tired souls,The quiet suburban gardensWhere He Himself walks in the eveningBeneath the rose-dropping skyAnd watches the balancing elm treesSway in the early starshineWhen high in their murmurous archesThe night breeze ruffles by.
One glance and I had lost her in the riotOf tangled cries.She trod the clamor with a cloistral quietDeep in her eyesAs though she heard the muted music onlyThat silence makesAmong dim mountain summits and on lonelyDeserted lakes.
There is some broken song her heart remembersFrom long ago,Some love lies buried deep, some passion's embersSmothered in snow,Far voices of a joy that sought and missed herFail now, and cease....And this has given the deep eyes of God's sisterTheir dreadful peace.
"If you dare," she said,And oh, her breath was clover-sweet!Clover nodded over her,Her lips were clover red.Blackbirds fluted down the wind,The bobolinks were mad with joy,The wind was playing in her hair,And "If you dare," she said.
Clover billowed down the windFar across the happy fields,Clover on the breezy hillsLeaned along the skiesAnd all the nodding clover headsAnd little clouds with silver sailsAnd all the heaven's dreamy blueWere mirrored in her eyes.
Her laughing lips were clover-redWhen long ago I kissed her thereAnd made for one swift moment allMy heaven and earth complete.I've loved among the roses sinceAnd love among the lilies now,But love among the clover...Her breath was clover-sweet.
O wise, wise-hearted boy and girlWho played among the clover bloom!I think I was far wiser thenThan now I dare to be.For I have lost that Eden now,I cannot find my Eden now,And even should I find it now,I've thrown away the key.
They cowered inert before the study fireWhile mighty winds were ranging wide and free,Urging their torpid fancies to aspireWith "Euhoe! Bacchus! Have a cup of tea."
They tripped demure from church to lecture-hall,Shunning the snare of farthingales and curls.Woman they thought half angel and half doll,The Muses' temple a boarding-school for girls.
Quaffing Pierian draughts from Boston pump,They toiled to prove their homiletic artCould match with nasal twang and pulpit thumpIn maxims glib of meeting-house and mart.
Serenely their ovine admirers graze.Apollo wears frock-coats, the Muses stays.
I've been wandering, listening for a song,Dreaming of a melody, all my life long...The lilting tune that God sang to rock the tides asleepAnd crooned above the cradled stars before they learned to creep.
O, there was laughter in it and many a merry chimeBefore He had turned moralist, grown old before His time,And He was happy, trolling out His great blithe-hearted tune,Before He slung the little earth beneath the sun and moon.
But I know that somewhere that song is rolling on,Like flutes along the midnight, like trumpets in the dawn;It throbs across the sunset and stirs the poplar treeAnd rumbles in the long low thunder of the sea.
*****
First-love sang me one note and heart-break taught me two,A child has told me three notes, and soon I'll know it through;And when I stand before the Throne I'll hum it low and sly,Watching for a great light of welcome in His eye...
"Put a white raiment on him and a harp into his handAnd golden sandals on his feet and tell the saints to standA little farther off unless they wish to hear the truth,For this blessed lucky sinner is going to sing about my youth!"
Cover her over with pallid white roses,Her who had none but red roses to wear;All that her last grim lover bestows isVirginal white for her bosom and hair.Cover the folds of the glimmering sheetClear from her eyelids weary and sweetDown to her nevermore wayward feet.Then They may find her fair.
Lovingly, tenderly, let us array herFair as a bride for the way she must go,Leaving no lingering stain to betray her,Letting them see we have sullied her so.Over the curve of the fair young breastLeave we this maidenly lily to restWhite as the snow in its snow-soft nest.Now They will never know.
He came not in the red dawnNor in the blaze of noon,And all the long bright highwayLay lonely to the moon,
And nevermore, we know now,Will he come wandering downThe breezy hollows of the hillsThat gird the quiet town.
For he has heard a voice cryA starry-faint "Ahoy!"Far up the wind, and followedUnquestioning after joy.
But we are long forgettingThe quiet way he went,With looks of love and gentle scornSo sweetly, subtly blent.
We cannot cease to wonder,We who have loved him, howHe fares along the windy waysHis feet must travel now.
But we must draw the curtainAnd fasten bolts and barsAnd talk here in the firelightOf him beneath the stars.
Down from the sky on a sudden he dropsInto the mullein and juniper tops,Flushed from his bath in the midsummer shineFlooding the meadowland, drunk with the wineSpilled from the urns of the blue, like a boldSky-buccaneer in his sable and gold.
Lightly he sways on the pendulous stem,Vividly restless, a fluttering gem,Then with a flash of bewildering wingsDazzles away up and down, and he singsClear as a bell at each dip as he fliesBounding along on the wave of the skies.
Sunlight and laughter, a winged desire,Motion and melody married to fire,Lighter than thistle-tuft borne on the wind,Frailer than violets, how shall we findWords that will match him, discover a nameMeet for this marvel, this lyrical flame?
How shall we fashion a rhythm to wing with him,Find us a wonderful music to sing with himFine as his rapture is, free as the rollickingSong that the harlequin drops in his frolickingDance through the summer sky, singing so merrilyHigh in the burning blue, winging so airily?
(Mount Vernon, New Hampshire)
Wings in a blur of goldHigh in the elm trees,Looping like tawny flameThrough the green shadows,Now at an airy heightPausing a heart beatQuite at the twig's tip,Pendulous, bending.
Golden against the blue,Gold in an azure cup,Golden wine bubblingOut of blue goblets...Cool, smooth and reedy notesFly low across the noonWhile through the drowsy heatDrums the cicada.
Tropical wing and songBound from Bolivia...All the blue AmazonSings to New England....Flute-noted orioles,Flame-coated orioles,Gold-throated orioles,Spirits of summer.
Where the rivulet swept by a sycamore rootWith a turbulent voice and a hurrying foot,I bent by the water and spoke in my dreamTo the wavering, restless, unlingering stream:"Oh, turbulent rivulet hastening past,For what wonderful goal do you hope at the lastThat never you pause in the shimmering greenOf the undulant shade where the sycamores leanOr rest in the moss-curtained, cool dripping hallsHidden under the veils of your musical fallsOr loiter at peace by the tremulous fern—White wandering waters that never return?"
And I dreamed by the rivulet's wavering sideThat a myriad ripple of voices replied:"Aloft on the mountain, afar on the steep,A voice that we knew cried aloud in our sleep,'Come, hasten ye down to the vale and to me,Your begetter, destroyer, preserver, the Sea!'We must carry our feebleness down to the Strong,We must mingle us deep in the Whole, and ere longAll the numberless host of the heaven shall rideWith the pale Lady Moon on our slumbering tide."
The voices swept out and away through the doorOf the canyon, and on to the infinite shore.
Oh, vast in thy destiny, slender of span,Wild rivulet, how thou art like to a man!
(Cold Brook, California, 1912)
(To Bliss Carman)
There's a murmur in the patient forest alleys,There's an elfin echo whispering through the trees,Lonely pipes are lifted softly in the valleys...All the air is filled with waking melodies.
From the crucibles of Erebus and Endor,Flame of emerald has fallen by the rills,And it flashes up the slope and sits in splendorIn the glory of the beauty of the hills.
Now my heart will yearn again to voice its wonderAnd my song must sing again between the wordsWith a mutter of unutterable thunderAnd a twitter of inimitable birds.
(April, 1903)
(To Paul Dowling)
There's a mouldering mountain chapel gazing out across the seaFrom beneath the lisping shelter of a eucalyptus treeThat has drawn the ancient silence from the mountain's heart and fillsAnd subdues a fevered spirit with the quiet of the hills.
For silvery in the morning the chimes go dropping downAcross the vales of purple mist that gird the island townAnd golden in the evening the vesper bells againCall back the weary fishing folk along the leafy lane.
I'd like to be the father priest and call the folk to prayerUp through the winding dewy ways that climb the morning air,And send them down at even-song with all the silent skyOf early starshine teaching them far deeper truth than I.
I'd like to lie at rest there beneath a mossy stoneAbove the crooning sea's low distant monotone,Lulled by the lisping whisper of the eucalyptus treeThat shades my mountain chapel gazing out across the sea.
(Avalon, Christmas Day, 1913)
A firefly cried across the night:"O lofty star, O streaming light,Clear eye of heaven, immortal lampSet high above the dew and damp,Thou great high-priest to heaven's KingAnd chief of all the choirs that singTheir golden, endless antiphonsOf praise before the eternal thrones—Hear thou my prayer of worship! ThineThe glory, all the dimness mine.I am a feeble glimmering sparkVagrant along the lower dark."
The star called down from heaven's roofWith a humble heart and mild reproof:"The Power that made, the Breath that blewMy fire aglow has kindled youWith equal love and equal painAnd equal toil of heart and brain.For I am only a wandering light,Your elder comrade in the night.We are two sisters, you and I,And when we two burn out and dieIt will be hardly known from farWhich was the firefly, which the star."
(To Willard)
The birds were beating north again with faint and starry criesAlong their ancient highway that spans the midnight skies,And out across the rush of wings my heart went crying too,Straight for the morning's windy walls and lakes of misted blue.
They gave me place among them, for well they understoodThe magic wine of April working madness in my blood,And we were kin in thought and dream as league by league togetherWe kept that pace of straining wings across the starry weather.
The dim blue tides of Fundy, green slopes of LabradorSlid under us ... our course was set for earth's remotest shore;But tingling through the ether and searching star by starA lonely voice went crying that drew me down from far.
Farewell, farewell, my brothers! I see you far awayGo drifting down the sunset across the last green bay,But I have found the haven of this lonely heart and wild—My falconer has called me—I am prisoned by a child.
(Easter Day, 1916)
Serenely, from her mountain height sublime,She mocks my hopeless labor as I creepEach day a day's strength farther from the deepAnd nearer to her side for which I climb.So may she mock when for the sad last timeI fall, my face still upward, upon sleep,With faithful hands still yearning up the steepIn patient and pathetic pantomime.
I am content, O ancient, young-eyed childOf love and longing. Pity not our warsOf frail-spun flesh, and keep thee undefiledBy all our strife that only breaks and mars.But let us see from far thy footing, wildAnd wayward still against the eternal stars!
A little wandering wind went up the hill.It had a lonely voice as though it knewWhat it should find before it came to whereThe broken body of him that had been ChristHung in the ruddy glow. A bowshot downThe bleak rock-shouldered hill the soldieryHad piled a fire, and when the searching windCame stronger from the distant sea and dashedThe shadows and the gleam together, songsOf battle and lust were blown along the slopeMingled with clash of swords on cuisse and shield.But of the women sitting by the crossEven she whose life had been as gravely sweetAnd sheltered as a lily's did not flinch.Her face was buried in her shrouding cloak.And she who knew too sorrowfully wellThe cruelty and bitterness of lifeHeard not. She sat erect, her shadowy hairBlown back along the darkness and her eyesThat searched the distant spaces of the nightSplendid and glowing with an inward joy.And at the darkest hour came three or fourFrom round the fire and would have driven them thence;But one who knew them, gazing in their eyes,Said: "Nay. It is his mother and his love,The scarlet Magdalena. Let them be."So, in the gloom beside that glimmering cross,Beneath the broken body of him they loved,They wept and watched—the lily and the rose.
At last the deep, low voice of Magdalen,Toned like a distant bell, broke on the hush:"We are so weak! What can poor women do?So pitifully frail! God pity us!How he did pity us! He understood...Out of his own great strength he understoodHow it might feel to be so very weak...To be a tender lily of the field,To be a lamb lost in the windy hillsFar from the fold and from the shepherd's voice,To be a child with no strength, only love.And ah, he knew, if ever a man can know,What 't is to be a woman and to live,Strive how she may to out-soar and overcome,Tied to this too frail body of too fair earth!
"Oh, had I been a man to shield him thenIn his great need with loving strong right arm!One of the twelve—ha!—of that noble twelveThat ran away, and two made mock of himOr else betrayed him ere they ran? Ah no!And yet, a man's strength with a woman's love...That might have served him somewhat ere the end."
Then with a weary voice the mother said:"What can we do but only watch and weep,Sit with weak hands and watch while strong men rendAnd break and ruin, bringing all to noughtThe beauty we have nearly died to make?
"It is not true to say that he was strong.He did not claim the kingdom that was his,He did not even seek for wealth and power,He did not win a woman's love and getStrong children to live after him, and allThat strong men strive for he passed heedless by.Because that he was weak I loved him so...For that and for his soft and gentle ways,The tender patient calling of his voiceAnd that dear trick of smiling with his eyes.Ah no! I have had dreams—a mother's dreams—But now I cannot dream them any more.
"I sorrowed little as the happy daysSped by and by that still the fair-haired ladWho lay at first beside me in the stall,The cattle stall outside Jerusalem,Found no great throne to dazzle his mother's eye.He was so good a workman ... axe and sawDid surely suit him better than a sword.I was content if only he would wedSome village girl of little NazarethAnd get me children with his own slow smile,Deep thoughtful eyes and golden kingly brow.
"It seems but yesterday he played amongThe shavings strewn on Joseph's work-shop floor.The sunlight of the morning slanted throughThe window—'t was in springtime—and acrossThe bench where Joseph sat, and then it layIn golden glory on the boy's bright hairAnd on the shavings that were golden too.I saw him through the open door. I thought,'My little king has found his golden crown.'But unto Joseph I said nought at all.
"But now, ah me! he won no woman's love,Nor loved one either as most men call love,And so he had no child and he is goneAnd I am left without him and alone."
So by her son's pale broken body mournedThe mother, dreaming on departed days.And as with one who looks into the west,Watching the embers of the outburned dayCrumble and cool and slowly droop and fade,And will not take the darkling eastward pathWhere lies his way until the last faint glowHas left the sky and the early stars shine forth,So did her dream cling to the ruined pastAnd all the joy they had in NazarethBefore the years of doubt and trouble came.Then, while loud laughter sounded up the hillWhere yet that ribald crew sang o'er the wine,She bowed her head above her cradling armsAnd softly sang, as to herself, the songsOf Israel that once had served her wellTo soothe the wakeful child.
But MagdalenArose upon her feet and tossed her cloakBack from the midnight of her wind-blown hairAnd lifted up her eyes into the darkAs though, beyond this circle of all our woe,To read a hidden meaning in the stars.
"Aye, it is dark," she said. "The night comes on.He was the sunshine of our little day.The clouds unsettled softly and we sawLadders of glory climbing into lightUnspeakable, with dazzling interchangeOf Majesties and Powers. But suddenlyThe tides of darkness whelm us round againAnd this drear dwindled earth becomes once moreWhat it has ever been—a core of shadeAnd steaming vapor spinning in the dark,A deeper clot of blackness in the void!
"The night comes on. 'T is hard to pierce the dark.And if to me who loved him, whom he loved—Though well thou sayest, 'Not as most men call love'—Far harder will it be for those who holdIn memory no gesture of his hand,No haunting echo of his patient voice,Nor that dear trick of smiling with his eyes.
"O ceaseless tramp of armies down the years!O maddened cries of 'Christ' and 'Son of Mary!'While o'er the crying screams the hurtling death....Thou gentle shepherd of the quiet fold,Mild man of sorrows, hast thou done this thing,Who camest not to bring peace but a sword?Ah no, not thou, but only our childishness,The pitifully childish heart of manThat cannot learn and know beyond a little.
"The priests and captains and the little kingsWill tear each other at the throat and cry:'Thus said he, lived he; swear it or thou diest!'But these shall pass and perish in the darkWhile the lorn strays and outcasts of the world,The souls whose pain has seared their pride to dustAnd burned a way for love to enter in—These only know his meaning and shall live.
"So is it as with one whose feet have trodThe valley of the shadow, who has seenHis dearest lowered into endless night.All music holds for him a deeper strainOf nobler meaning, and the flush of dawn,High wind at noonday, crumbling sunset gold,And the dear pathetic look of children's eyes—All beauty pierces closer to his heart.
"Yea, thou thyself, pale youth upon the cross—The godlike strength of thee was rooted deepIn human weakness. Even she who bore thee,Seeing the man too nearly, missed the God,Erring as fits the mother. Some will sayIn coming years, I feel it in my heart,That thou didst face thy death a conscious God,Knowing almighty hands were stretched to snatchAnd lift thee from the greedy clutching grave.Falsely! Forgetting dark Gethsemane,—Not knowing, as I know, what doubt assailedThy human heart until the latest breath.Ah, what a trumpery death, what mockeryAnd mere theatric mimicry of pain,If thou didst surely know thou couldst not die!Thou didst not know. And whether even nowThy straying ghost, like some great moth of nightBlown seaward through the shadow, flies and driftsAlong dim coasts and headlands of the dark,A homeless wanderer up and down the void,Or whether indeed thou art enthroned aboveIn light and life, I know not. This I know—That in the moment of sheer certaintyMy soul will die.
"No! On thy spirit layAll the dark weight and mystery of painAnd all our human doubt and flickering hope,Deathless despairs and treasuries of tears,Gropings of spirit blindfold by the fleshAnd grapplings with the fiend. Else were thy deathLess like a God's than even mine may be.
"Thou broken mother who canst see in himOnly the quiet man, the needful child,And most of all the Babe of Bethlehem,Let it suffice thee. Thy reward is great.Who loveth God that never hath loved man?Who knoweth man but cometh to know God?Thou sacred, sorrowing mother, canst thou learn—Thou who hast gone so softly in God's sight—Of me, the scarlet woman of old days?Come, let us talk together, thou and I.Apart, we see him darkly, through a glass;Together, we shall surely see aright.Bring thou thine innocence, thy stainless soul,And I will bring deep lore of suffering,My dear-bought wisdom of defeat and pain.For out of these may come, believe it thou,Sanctities not like thine, but fit to bearThe bitter storms and whirlwinds of this world.Aye, out of evil often springeth good,And sweetest honey from the lion's mouth.And that he knew. That very thing he meantWhen he withdrew me from the pits of shame.'T is I who see God shining through the man.I see the deity, the godlike strengthIn his supreme capacity for pain.Nor have I known the cruel love of menThese many years to err when now I sayThis man loved not like men but like a God.Thou broken mother, weep not for the child,Mourn not the man. Acclaim the risen Christ!"
She turned and touched the other lovingly,Then stooped and peered into her darkened face.The mother slept, forspent and overborneBy weariness and woe too great to bear.
She gently smiled. "So it is best," she said.
Tall and elate she stood, her shadowy hairBlown back along the darkness and her eyesThat searched the distant spaces of the nightSplendid and glowing with an inward joy.And over that dark hill of tragedyAnd triumph, victory and dull despair,Over the sleeping Roman soldiery,Over the three stark crosses and the twoWho loved Him most, the lily and the rose,Shone still and clear the great compassionate stars.
THE END
Some of these poems have been published before inThe Sunset Magazine, The Smart Set, Munsey's Magazine, The Bellman, The International, The Overland Monthly, The Youth's Companion, Poetry—A Magazine of Verse, The Harvard Graduates' Magazine, The Book News Monthly, Current Opinion, The Literary Digest, The Boston Transcript, and theAnthologies of Magazine Versefor 1915 and 1916. I wish to thank the editors of those publications in which they originally appeared for permission to reprint.