The Project Gutenberg eBook ofA Lonely FluteThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: A Lonely FluteAuthor: Odell ShepardRelease date: November 7, 2010 [eBook #34234]Most recently updated: January 7, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Al Haines*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LONELY FLUTE ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: A Lonely FluteAuthor: Odell ShepardRelease date: November 7, 2010 [eBook #34234]Most recently updated: January 7, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Al Haines
Title: A Lonely Flute
Author: Odell Shepard
Author: Odell Shepard
Release date: November 7, 2010 [eBook #34234]Most recently updated: January 7, 2021
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LONELY FLUTE ***
And now 't was like all instruments,Now like a lonely flute;And now it is an angel's songThat makes the Heavens be mute.COLERIDGE.
PROEMLAUS MARIÆRECOLLECTIONNIGHTFALLA BALLAD OF LOVE AND DEATHBIRDS OF PASSAGEWASTETHE WATCHER IN THE SKYHOUSEMATESPOMP AND CIRCUMSTANCETHE HIDDEN WEAVERVANITASSPENSER'S "FAËRIE QUEENE"MORNING ROAD SONGEVENING ROAD SONGWINDY MORNINGTHE GRAVE OF THOREAUEARTH-BORN"WHENCE COMETH MY HELP"UNITYVISTASA NUNLOVE AMONG THE CLOVERCERTAIN AMERICAN POETSTHE SINGER'S QUESTDEAD MAGDALENTHE ADVENTURERTHE GOLDFINCHORIOLESBY A MOUNTAIN STREAMAPRILA CHAPEL BY THE SEAEPHEMEROSWANDERLUSTTHE IDEALTHE FIRST CHRISTIAN
Beyond the pearly portal,Beyond the last dim star,Pale, perfect, and immortal,The eternal visions are,That never any raptureOf sorrow or of mirthOf any song shall captureTo dwell with men on earth.
Many a strange and tragicOld sorrow still is muteAnd melodies of magicStill slumber in the flute,Many a mighty visionHas caught my yearning eyeAnd swept with calm derisionIn robes of splendor by.
The rushing susurrationOf some eternal wingBeats mighty variationThrough all the song I sing;The vague, deep-mouthed commotionFrom its ancestral homeBooms like the shout of oceanAcross the crumbling foam;And these low lyric whispersMake answer wistfullyAs sea-shells ... dreaming lispersBeside the eternal sea.
There is a name like some deep melodyHallowed by sundown, delicate as the plashOf lonely waves on solitary lakesAnd rounded as the sudden-bursting bloomOf bold, deep-throated notes in a midnight cloudWhen shadowy belfries far away roll outAcross the dark their avalanche of sound.
It is a wild voice lost in the wail of the wind;The silvery-twinkling plectrum of the rainPlays in the poplar tree no other tuneAnd pines intone it softly as a prayerIn leafy litanies.The name is raisedEven to God's ear from ancient arches dimWith caverned twilight and dull altar smokeWhere tapers weave athwart the azure hazeInnumerable pageantries of dusk.
Low-voiced and soft-eyed women must they liveWho bear that holy name. And now for oneTime has no other honor than to beThe meaning of an unremembered rhyme,The breath of a forgotten singer's song.
(October, 1903)
I must forget awhile the mellow flutesAnd all the lyric wizardry of strings;The fragile clarinet,Tremulous over meadows rich with dawn,Must knock against my vagrant heartAnd throb and cry no more.
For I am shaken by the lovelinessAnd lights and laughter and beguiling songOf all this siren world;The regal beauty of women, round on round,The swift, lithe slenderness of girls,And children's loyal eyes,
Hill rivers and the lilac fringe of seasLazily plunging, glow of city nightsAnd faces in the glow—These things have stolen my heart away, I lieParcelled abroad in sound and hue,Dispersed through all I love.
I must go far away to a still placeAnd draw the shadows down across my eyesAnd wait and listen thereFor wings vibrating from beyond the stars,Wide-ranging, swiftly winnowing wingsBearing me back mine own.
So soon, now, I shall lie deep hidden awayFrom sound or sight, with hearing strangely dullAnd heavy-lidded eyes,—'T is time, O passionate soul, for me to goSome far, hill-folded road apartAnd learn the ways of peace.
In a crumbling glory setsThe unhastening sun;The fishers draw their shining nets;The day is done.
Across the ruddy wineThat brims the seaBlack boats drag shoreward through the brineDreamily,
And dark against the glowFiring the west,By three and two the great gulls goSeaward to rest.
Beneath the gradual hostOf heaven, paleAnd glimmering, rides a dim sea-ghost,A large slow sail.
Slowly she cometh onDay's last faint breath,Drifting across the water, wanAnd gray as death.
From what far-lying landSwimmeth thy keel,Dim ship? And what mysterious handIs at thy wheel?
What far-borne news for me?What vast release?Quiet is in my heart, and on the seaPeace.
(Balboa, California)
She winded on the castle horn,She clamored long and bold,For she was way-spent and forlornAnd she was sore a-cold.
And she stood lonely in the snow.Vague quiet filled the air....From heaven's roof looked down aloofThe stars, with steady stare.
She heard the droning drift of snowAnd the wolf-wind on the hill....No other sound.... For leagues aroundThe night was very still.
She cried aloud in sudden fright,"Open! Warder ho!Here is a pilgrim guest to-nightWho can no farther go."
The steady beat of mailed feetIn angry answer rangAlong the floor. The castle doorGave in with iron clang
And the warder strode into his towerAnd saw her standing thereWeary, like a storm-tossed flower,And, like an angel, fair.
"Here is no lodging for the night,No bread and wine for thee,No ingle bright, no warm firelight,No cheerful company.
"Here is no inn nor any kinOf thine to harbor guest,Nor thee to house will any rouseOut of his ancient rest."
Unearthly, dark, nocturnal thingsWith faint and furtive stirHovered on feather-muffled wingsRound the fair face of her
As she made answer wearily:"Ah! open now the gate.Though I was fleet with willing feet,I have come very late.
"Yea, though I came through flood and flame,Through tempest, flood, and fire,And left the wind to trail behindThe wings of my desire,
"And though I prayed the stars for aidAnd seas for wind and tide,And though God gave me goodly paveAnd ran, Himself, beside...
"Aye, though my feet have been thus fleet,Unto one heart, I know,Whose sleep is still beneath the hill,My coming has been slow."
And he bent gently down above,A soft light in his eye..."Is not the holy name of LoveThe name men call thee by?
"Ah, Love, I know thee, for thy faceIs other-worldly fair;A great light of some heavenly placeIs on thy shining hair.
"But thou, Love, who canst tread the stars,Whose seat is by God's throne,Why wilt thou bend thee to the dustAnd walk the dark alone?
"Thy ways are not our mortal ways.Hast thou nought else to doThan wander with thy dream-lit faceOur glimmering darkness through?"
But Love made answer, and her voiceWas as God's voice to him;As tall and fair she towered thereAs heavenly seraphim...
"Open the gate! for Love shall dwellEven among the deadAnd in the darkest deeps of hell!Open! For God hath said!"
Dropping round and clear across the still miles,Ringing down the midnight's marble stair,A bird's cry is falling through the darkness,Falling from the fields of upper air.
Through the rainy fragrance of the April nightSlow it falls, circling in the fall,And all the sheeted lake of sleeping silencesIs troubled by the solitary call.
Each human heart awake knows the lonelinessOf that strange voice clear and far,That lost voice searching through the midnight,That lonely star calling to a star.
Old memories are thronging through the darkness...Slow tears are blinding sleepless eyes...O lonely hearts remembering in the midnight!O dark and empty skies!
Reluctant, groping fog crept gray and coldUp from the fields where now the guns were still;Far off the thundering surge of battle rolledAnd darkness brooded on the quiet hill;Clearly, across the listening night, the shrillAnd rhythmic cry of a lonely cricket fellOn ears long deafened by the scream of shot and shell.
And there were two who listened wistfullyTo that glad voice, that sad last voice of all,Who on the morrow after reveilleWould make no answer to the muster call;Others would eat their mess, others would fallWhen the lines formed again into their places,And soon their marching comrades would forget their faces.
One moaned a little and the other turnedPainfully sidewise, peering up the bareShell-furrowed slope. Then, while his deep wound burned,He crawled, slow inch by weary inch, to whereThe boy lay,—young, he thought, and strangely fair."You see, I came," he said. "It was a wrench.I thought I'd die. Let's have a light here. What! You're French!
"No matter ... we'll be going pretty soon...Dying 's a lonesome business at the best,And when there's nothing but a ghastly moonAnd fog for company, I lose my zest.There's a girl somewhere ... well... you know the rest.I'm glad I came. It's hand in hand now, brother.I think I laid you here. I wish 't had been another.
"I never meant it, and you did n't meanFor me this ugly gash along my side.Something has pushed us on. Our slate is clean.And long and long after we two have diedSome learnedest of doctors will decideWhat thing it was. But we ... we'll never know.Our business now 's to help make next year's harvest grow.
"You've been at school? College de France! You knowNext year I should have heard your Bergson there,—Greatest since Hegel. Think of Haeckel, though,At my own Jena! Mighty men they were.Not mighty enough for what they had to bear.They read and wrote and taught, but you and I,How have we profited at last? Well, here we lie.
"If I had known you by the silver Rhine,That dreamy country where I had my birth,The land of golden corn and golden wineAnd surely, I think, the world's most lovely earth,—I should have loved you, brother, and known your worth.But you were born beside the racing Rhone.Ah, yes, that made the difference. That thing alone.
"We might have fronted this world's stormy weatherHand clasped in hand and seeing eye to eye.What was there we could not have done together?Who dares to say we should have feared to die,Shoulder to shoulder standing, you and I?But now you are slain by me, your unknown friend.I die by your unknowing hand. This ... this is the end!
"And all the love that might have been is blownFar off like clouds that fade across the blue;The game is over and the night shuts down,Blotting the little dreams of me and youAnd all our hope of all we longed to do.But courage, comrade! It's not hard to die.It's not so lonely now. If only we know why!"
The fog-damp folded closer round the hillAnd stillness deepened, but the cricket's songTore at the heavy hem of silence still—One small voice left of love in a world of wrong.A few dim stars looked down. The yelling throngOf guns had passed beyond the mountain's browWhen once again he spoke, but slowly, faintlier now.
"Something discovered that it didn't need us—Me in the Fatherland and you in France.We were less worth than what it took to feed us,And so life gave us only a little glance.It's true to say we never had a chance.It's like this fog, around, above, below.Reach out your hand to me. Good-night. We'll never know."
And then they lay so still they seemed asleep,For death was near and they had little pain.The midnight did not hear them moan or weepFor life and love and gladness lost in vainAnd faces they would never see again,—Old friends, old lovers. All seemed at a distance.The minutes crept and crept. They made no strong resistance.
They only lay and looked up at the stars,Feeling they had not known how fair they were.I think their hearts were far from those loud warsAs they lay listening to the cricket's chirrUntil it faded to a drowsy blur,Dwindled, and died, lost in the distant roarOf waves that plunged and broke on some eternal shore.
She has grown pale and spectral with our woundsAnd she is worn with memories of woeOlder than Karnak. Multitudinous feetOf all the phantom armies of the worldResounding down the hollow halls of time,Have kept their far-off rumor in her ear.For she was old when Nineveh and TyreAnd Baalbec of the waste went down in blood;Pompey and Tamburlaine and Genghis KhanAre dreams of only yesternight to her.And still she keeps, chained to a loathsome thing,Her straining, distant paces up and downThe vaulted cell, but wistful of an endWhen all our swarm of shuddering life shall dropLike some dead cooling cinder down the void,Leaving her clean, in blessed barrenness.
(August, 1914)
This little flickering planetIs such a lonely sparkAmong the million mighty firesThat blaze in the outer dark,
The homeless waste about usLeaves such a narrow spanTo this dim lodging for a night,This bivouac of man,
That all the heavens wonderIn all their alien starsTo see us wreck our fellowshipIn mad fraternal wars.
With a shout of trumpets and roll of drums,Down the road the music comesAnd all my heart leaps up to greetThe steady tread of the marching feet.
Blare of bugle and shriek of fife...This is the triumphing wine of life!My senses reel and my glad heart sings,My spirit soars on jubilant wings.
Fluttering banners and gonfalonsCover with beauty the murderous guns;'T is sweet to live, 't were great to dieWith this vast music marching by.
For all my heart leaps up to greetThe steady tread of the marching feetWhen down the road the music comesWith a shout of trumpets and roll of drums.
There where he sits in the cold, in the gloom,Of his far-away place by his thundering loom,He weaves on the shuttles of day and of nightThe shades of our sorrow and shapes of delight.He has wrought him a glimmering garment to flingOver the sweet swift limbs of the Spring,He has woven a fabric of wonder to beFor a blue and a billowy robe to the sea,He has fashioned in sombre funereal dyesA tissue of gold for the midnight skies.
But sudden the woof turns all to red.Has he lost his craft? Has he snapped his thread?Sudden the web all sanguine runs.Does he hear the yell of the thirsting guns?While the scarlet crimes and the crimson sinsGrow from the dizzying outs and insOf the shuttle that spins, does he see it and feel?Or is he the slave of a tyrannous wheel?
Inscrutable faces, mysterious eyes,Are watching him out of the drifting skies;Exiles of chaos crowd through the gloomOf the uttermost cold to that thundering roomAnd whisper and peer through the dusk to markWhat thing he is weaving there in the dark.Will he leave the loom that he won from themAnd rend his fabric from hem to hem?Is he weaving with daring and skill sublimeA wonderful winding-sheet for time?
Ah, but he sits in a darkling place,Hiding his hands, hiding his face,Hiding his art behind the shineOf the web that he weaves so long and fine.Loudly the great wheel hums and ringsAnd we hear not even the song that he sings.Over the whirr of the shuttles and allThe roar and the rush, does he hear when we call?
Only the colors that grow and glowSwift as the hurrying shuttles go,Only the figures vivid or dimThat flow from the hastening hands of him,Only the fugitive shapes are we,Wrought in the web of eternity.
Three queens of old in YemenBeside forgotten streams,Three tall and stately women,Dreamt three great stately dreamsOf love and power and pleasure and conquering quinqueremes.
They dreamt of love that squanderedAll Egypt for a kiss,They dreamt of fame and ponderedOn proud Persepolis,But most they yearned for the wild delights of pale Semiramis.
They had for lords and loversDark kings of Araby,Corsairs and wild sea-roversFrom many an alien lea,—Black-bearded men who loved and fought and won them cruelly.
They reared a dreamlike palaceStately and white and tallAs a lily's ivory chaliceWhere every echoing hallWas rumorous with rustling leaves and plashing water's fall.
There to the tinkling zitherAnd passionate guitarsThey footed hence and hitherBeneath the breathless stars,From bare round breast and shoulder waved their glimmering cymars.
Theirs was an empire's treasureOf gems and rich attire,Love had they beyond measureAnd wine that burnt like fire;Each stately queen in Yemen found verily her desire.
But beauty waned and smouldered,Love languished into lust,The centuries have moulderedTheir raven hair to rust,The desert sand is over them, their darkling eyes are dust.
Their bosoms' pride is sunkenBeneath the purple pall,Their smooth round limbs are shrunken,Through clasp and anklet crawlLithe little snakes, upon their tombs lean lizards twitch and sprawl.
Like some clear well of water in the waste,Some magic well beside the weary miles,This beauty is. I turn aside and tasteThe cool Lethean drink. Suddenly smilesA leafy world upon me,—peristylesOf flickering shade! The hush is only stirredWhere silver runlets brighten down the aisles,From pool to pool rehearsing one low wordAnswered at drowsy intervals by a lonely bird.
Along the rustling arches and through vastDim caverns of green solitude are rolledThe wintry leaves of all the withered past,One confraternity of common mould.From summers perished, autumn's tarnished goldLong blown to dust in many a fallen gladeIs reared this rumorous temple million-boled,This shrine of peace, this whispering colonnadeTrembling from court to court with restless sun and shade.
And here a while may weary Fancy turnAnd loiter by the rote of guttural streams.Brushing the skirts of silence, the stirred fernBreathes softly "hush" and "hush"—a sound that seemsOnly the fluttering sigh of deepest dreams.Here comes no sound or sight of fevered things...No sight or sound. Green-gold the daylight beams,And deep in the heart of dusk a far bird singsFaint as the feathered beat of her own wavering wings.
*****
Calm singer in the chambers of the dawn,Our hearts are weary singing in the heatWhen all thy dewy matin hopes are goneAnd all thy raptures, prophesyings sweet,And fair, false dreams are flying in defeat.O thou, the poet's poet, from thy skyOf ancient morning look thou down and greetThy brothers of the noon with gentle eye.Lift them from out the dust. Forlorn and low they lie!
Heart-easing poet, sing to us like bellsAcross wide waters paven by the stainsOf sunset; like a vagrant breeze that swellsAnd rises lingering, fails and grows and wanesAlong a listening wood; like April rainsIn which the anemones of dream are born.And though you cannot save us from the painsOf life,—the heat, the insensate noise, the scorn,—Here may we find our rose, forget a while the thorn.
Let me have my fill of the wide blue airAnd the emerald cup of the seaAnd a wandering road blown bright and bareAnd it is enough for me.
The love of a man is a goodly thingAnd the love of a woman is true,But give me a rollicking song to singAnd a love that is always new.
For I am a rover and cannot stayAnd blithe at heart am IWhen free and afoot on a winding wayBeneath the great blue sky.
It's a long road and a steep roadAnd a weary road to climb.The air bites chill on the windy hill.At home it is firelight time.
The sunset pales ... along the valesThe cottage candles shineAnd twinkle through the early dew.Thank God that one is mine!
And dark and late she'll watch and waitBeyond the last long mileFor the weary beat of homing feetWith her wise and patient smile.
Dawn with a jubilant shoutLeaps on the shivering seaAnd puffs the last pale planet outAnd scatters the flame-bright clouds aboutLike the leaves of a frost-bitten tree.
Does a gold seed split the rosy husk?Nay, a sword ... a shield ... a spear!The kindler of all fires that burnDeep in the day's cerulean urnRides up across the clearAnd tramples down the cowering duskLike a strong-browed charioteer.
Blow out and far awayThe dim, the dull, the dun;Prosper the crimson, blight the gray,And blow us clean of yesterday,Stern morning fair begun,Till the earth is an opal bathed in dew,Flashing with emerald, gold, and blue,Held where the skies wash through and throughHigh up against the sun.
(Catalina Island, 1913)
Brown earth, blue sky, and solitude,—Three things he loved, three things he wooedLifelong; and now no rhyme can tellHow ultimately all is wellWith his wild heart that worshipped God'sEpiphany in crumbling sodsAnd like an oak brought all its worthBack to the kindly mother earth.
But something starry, something bold,Eludes the clutch of dark and mould,—Something that will not wholly dieOut of the old familiar sky.No spell in all the lore of gravesCan still the plash of Walden wavesOr wash away the azure stainOf Concord skies from heart and brain.Clear psalteries and faint citolesOnly recall the oriolesFluting reveille to the mornAcross the acres of the cornHe wanders somewhere lonely stillAlong a solitary hillAnd sits by ever lonelier firesRemote from heaven's bright rampires,A hermit in the blue BeyondBeside some dim celestial pondWith beans to hoe and wood to hewAnd halcyon days to loiter throughAnd angel visitors, no doubt,Who shut the air and sunlight out.But he who scoffed at human waysAnd, finding us unworthy of praise,Sang misanthropic pæans toThe muskrat and the feverfew,Will droop those archangelic wingsWith praise of how we manage things,Prefer his Walden tupeloTo even the Tree of Life, and growA little wistful looking downAcross the fields of Concord town.