Soft as a treader on mossesI go through the village that sleeps;The village too early abed,For the night still shuffles, a gypsy,In the woods of the east,And the west remembers the sun.Not all are asleep; there are facesThat lean from the walls of the gardens.Look sharply, or you will not see them,Or think them another stone in the wall.I spoke to a stone, and it answeredLike an agèd rock that crumbles;Each falling piece was a word.“Five have I buried,” it said,“And seven are over the sea.”Here is a hut that I pass,So lowly it has no brow,And dwarfs sit within at a table.A boy waits apart by the hearth;On his face is the patience of firelight,But his eyes seek the door and a far-worldIt is not the call to the table he waits,But the call of the sea-rimmed forests,And cities that stir in a dream.I haste by the low-browed door,Lest my arms go in and betray me,A mother jealously passing.He will go, the pale dwarf, and walk tall among giants;The child with his eyes on the far land,And fame like a young curled leaf in his heart.The stream that darts from the hanging hillLike a silver wing that must sing as it flies,Is folded and still on the breastOf the village that sleeps.Each mute old house is more old than the other,And each wears its vines like ragged hairRound the half-blind windows.If a child should laugh, if a girl should sing,Would the houses rub the vines from their eyes,And listen and live?A voice comes now from a cottage,A voice that is young and must sing,A honeyed stab on the air,And the houses do not wake.I look through the leaf-blowsed window,And start as a gazer who, passing a death-vault,Sees Life sitting hopeful within.She is young, but a woman, round-breasted,Waiting the peril of Eve;And she makes the shadows about her sweetAs the glooms that play in a pine-wood.She sits at a harpsichord (old as the walls are),And longing flows in the trickling, fairy notesLike a hidden brook in a forestSeeking and seeking the sun.I have watched a young tree on the edge of a woodWhen the mist is weaving and drifting;Slowly the boughs disappear, and the leaves reach outLike the drowning hands of children,Till a grey blur quivers coldWhere the green grace drank of the sun.So now, as I gaze, the morrowsCreep weaving and winding their mistRound the beauty of her who sings.They hide the soft rings of her hair,Dear as a child’s curling fingers;They shut out the trembling sun of eyesThat are deep as a bending mother’s;And her bridal body is scarfed with their chill.For old, and old, is the story;Over and over I hear it,Over and over I listen to murmursThat are always the same in these towns that sleep;Where, grey and unwed, a woman passes,Her cramped, drab gown the bounds of a worldShe holds with grief and silence;And a gossip whose tongue alone is unwitheredMumbles the tale by her affable gate;How the lad must go, and the girl must stay,Singing alone to the years and a dream;Then a letter, a rumor, a word,From the land that reaches for loversAnd gives them not back;And the maiden looks up with a face that is old;Her smile, as her body, is evermore barren;Her cheek like the bark of the beech-treeWhere climbs the grey winter.Now have I seen her young,The lone girl singing,With the full, round breast and the berry lip,And heart that runs to a dawn-riseOn new-world mountains.The weeping ash in the dooryardGathers the song in its boughs,And the gown of dawn she will never wear.I can listen no more; good-by, little town, old Fairingdown.I climb the long, dark hillside,But the ache I have found here I cannot outclimb.O Heart, if we had not heard, if we did not knowThere is that in the village that never will sleep!
Soft as a treader on mossesI go through the village that sleeps;The village too early abed,For the night still shuffles, a gypsy,In the woods of the east,And the west remembers the sun.Not all are asleep; there are facesThat lean from the walls of the gardens.Look sharply, or you will not see them,Or think them another stone in the wall.I spoke to a stone, and it answeredLike an agèd rock that crumbles;Each falling piece was a word.“Five have I buried,” it said,“And seven are over the sea.”Here is a hut that I pass,So lowly it has no brow,And dwarfs sit within at a table.A boy waits apart by the hearth;On his face is the patience of firelight,But his eyes seek the door and a far-worldIt is not the call to the table he waits,But the call of the sea-rimmed forests,And cities that stir in a dream.I haste by the low-browed door,Lest my arms go in and betray me,A mother jealously passing.He will go, the pale dwarf, and walk tall among giants;The child with his eyes on the far land,And fame like a young curled leaf in his heart.The stream that darts from the hanging hillLike a silver wing that must sing as it flies,Is folded and still on the breastOf the village that sleeps.Each mute old house is more old than the other,And each wears its vines like ragged hairRound the half-blind windows.If a child should laugh, if a girl should sing,Would the houses rub the vines from their eyes,And listen and live?A voice comes now from a cottage,A voice that is young and must sing,A honeyed stab on the air,And the houses do not wake.I look through the leaf-blowsed window,And start as a gazer who, passing a death-vault,Sees Life sitting hopeful within.She is young, but a woman, round-breasted,Waiting the peril of Eve;And she makes the shadows about her sweetAs the glooms that play in a pine-wood.She sits at a harpsichord (old as the walls are),And longing flows in the trickling, fairy notesLike a hidden brook in a forestSeeking and seeking the sun.I have watched a young tree on the edge of a woodWhen the mist is weaving and drifting;Slowly the boughs disappear, and the leaves reach outLike the drowning hands of children,Till a grey blur quivers coldWhere the green grace drank of the sun.So now, as I gaze, the morrowsCreep weaving and winding their mistRound the beauty of her who sings.They hide the soft rings of her hair,Dear as a child’s curling fingers;They shut out the trembling sun of eyesThat are deep as a bending mother’s;And her bridal body is scarfed with their chill.For old, and old, is the story;Over and over I hear it,Over and over I listen to murmursThat are always the same in these towns that sleep;Where, grey and unwed, a woman passes,Her cramped, drab gown the bounds of a worldShe holds with grief and silence;And a gossip whose tongue alone is unwitheredMumbles the tale by her affable gate;How the lad must go, and the girl must stay,Singing alone to the years and a dream;Then a letter, a rumor, a word,From the land that reaches for loversAnd gives them not back;And the maiden looks up with a face that is old;Her smile, as her body, is evermore barren;Her cheek like the bark of the beech-treeWhere climbs the grey winter.Now have I seen her young,The lone girl singing,With the full, round breast and the berry lip,And heart that runs to a dawn-riseOn new-world mountains.The weeping ash in the dooryardGathers the song in its boughs,And the gown of dawn she will never wear.I can listen no more; good-by, little town, old Fairingdown.I climb the long, dark hillside,But the ache I have found here I cannot outclimb.O Heart, if we had not heard, if we did not knowThere is that in the village that never will sleep!
Soft as a treader on mossesI go through the village that sleeps;The village too early abed,For the night still shuffles, a gypsy,In the woods of the east,And the west remembers the sun.
Not all are asleep; there are facesThat lean from the walls of the gardens.Look sharply, or you will not see them,Or think them another stone in the wall.I spoke to a stone, and it answeredLike an agèd rock that crumbles;Each falling piece was a word.“Five have I buried,” it said,“And seven are over the sea.”
Here is a hut that I pass,So lowly it has no brow,And dwarfs sit within at a table.A boy waits apart by the hearth;On his face is the patience of firelight,But his eyes seek the door and a far-worldIt is not the call to the table he waits,But the call of the sea-rimmed forests,And cities that stir in a dream.I haste by the low-browed door,Lest my arms go in and betray me,A mother jealously passing.He will go, the pale dwarf, and walk tall among giants;The child with his eyes on the far land,And fame like a young curled leaf in his heart.
The stream that darts from the hanging hillLike a silver wing that must sing as it flies,Is folded and still on the breastOf the village that sleeps.Each mute old house is more old than the other,And each wears its vines like ragged hairRound the half-blind windows.If a child should laugh, if a girl should sing,Would the houses rub the vines from their eyes,And listen and live?A voice comes now from a cottage,A voice that is young and must sing,A honeyed stab on the air,And the houses do not wake.
I look through the leaf-blowsed window,And start as a gazer who, passing a death-vault,Sees Life sitting hopeful within.She is young, but a woman, round-breasted,Waiting the peril of Eve;And she makes the shadows about her sweetAs the glooms that play in a pine-wood.She sits at a harpsichord (old as the walls are),And longing flows in the trickling, fairy notesLike a hidden brook in a forestSeeking and seeking the sun.
I have watched a young tree on the edge of a woodWhen the mist is weaving and drifting;Slowly the boughs disappear, and the leaves reach outLike the drowning hands of children,Till a grey blur quivers coldWhere the green grace drank of the sun.So now, as I gaze, the morrowsCreep weaving and winding their mistRound the beauty of her who sings.They hide the soft rings of her hair,Dear as a child’s curling fingers;They shut out the trembling sun of eyesThat are deep as a bending mother’s;And her bridal body is scarfed with their chill.
For old, and old, is the story;Over and over I hear it,Over and over I listen to murmursThat are always the same in these towns that sleep;Where, grey and unwed, a woman passes,Her cramped, drab gown the bounds of a worldShe holds with grief and silence;And a gossip whose tongue alone is unwitheredMumbles the tale by her affable gate;How the lad must go, and the girl must stay,Singing alone to the years and a dream;Then a letter, a rumor, a word,From the land that reaches for loversAnd gives them not back;And the maiden looks up with a face that is old;Her smile, as her body, is evermore barren;Her cheek like the bark of the beech-treeWhere climbs the grey winter.
Now have I seen her young,The lone girl singing,With the full, round breast and the berry lip,And heart that runs to a dawn-riseOn new-world mountains.The weeping ash in the dooryardGathers the song in its boughs,And the gown of dawn she will never wear.
I can listen no more; good-by, little town, old Fairingdown.I climb the long, dark hillside,But the ache I have found here I cannot outclimb.O Heart, if we had not heard, if we did not knowThere is that in the village that never will sleep!
Hampshire, England.Scribner’sOlive Tilford Dargan
Hampshire, England.Scribner’sOlive Tilford Dargan
Hampshire, England.
Scribner’sOlive Tilford Dargan
Nothing but beauty, now.No longer at the point of goading fearThe sullen, tributary world comes nearBefore all-subjugating Rome to bow.No more the pavement of the Forum ringsTo breathless Victory’s exultant treadBefore the heavy march of captive kings.Here stood the royal deadIn sculptured immortality; their gazeRemote above the turmoil of the streetHoarse with its living struggle at their feet.Here spoke the law—that voice of bronze was heardBy all the world, and stirredThe latent mind of nations in the bud.Bright with the laurels, bitter with the bloodOf heroes upon heroes was this placeWhere the strong heart of an imperial raceBeat with the essence of a man’s life.Princes and people evermore at strife—Incense and worship—clash of armored rage—Ambition soaring up the sky like flame—Interminable war that mortals wageFrom century to century the same.Still Fortune holds the crown for those who dare;Mankind in many a distant otherwhereLeaps panting toward the promise of her face—But here, no more of coveting nor care.No longer here the weltering human tideSluices the market-place and scatters wideThe weak as foam, to perish where they list.Now by the Sovereign Silence purified,Spring showers all with fragrant amethyst.Were once these pulses violent and swiftAs those that shake the cities of to-day?How indolently sweet the petals driftFrom yonder nodding spray!Warming their broidered raiment in the sun,The little-bright-eyed lizards bask and runO’er fallen temples gracious in decay.Man’s arrogance with calculated artBoasted in marble—now the quiet heartOf the Great Mother dreams eternal thingsIn brief, bright roses and ethereal green,Or more exuberant, singsIn poppies poured profusely to the airFrom secret hoards of scarlet. Nothing seenBut swoons with beauty—beauty everywhere—Nothing but beauty ... now.Here is the immortality of Rome.Not where the city rises, dome on dome,Seek we the living soul of ancient might,But in this temple of green silence—hereFlame purer than the vestal is alight.The world again draws nearIn reverence, but now it comes to payThe tribute of a nobler coin than fear.In wondering worship, not in fierce dismay,Men bow the knee to what of Rome remains.Time’s long lustration has effaced her stains,All that is perishable now is pastAnd earth her portion tenderly transmutesTo evanescent beauty of her own—Jubilant flowers and nectar-breathing fruits—Living in deathless glory at the lastDivinity alone.
Nothing but beauty, now.No longer at the point of goading fearThe sullen, tributary world comes nearBefore all-subjugating Rome to bow.No more the pavement of the Forum ringsTo breathless Victory’s exultant treadBefore the heavy march of captive kings.Here stood the royal deadIn sculptured immortality; their gazeRemote above the turmoil of the streetHoarse with its living struggle at their feet.Here spoke the law—that voice of bronze was heardBy all the world, and stirredThe latent mind of nations in the bud.Bright with the laurels, bitter with the bloodOf heroes upon heroes was this placeWhere the strong heart of an imperial raceBeat with the essence of a man’s life.Princes and people evermore at strife—Incense and worship—clash of armored rage—Ambition soaring up the sky like flame—Interminable war that mortals wageFrom century to century the same.Still Fortune holds the crown for those who dare;Mankind in many a distant otherwhereLeaps panting toward the promise of her face—But here, no more of coveting nor care.No longer here the weltering human tideSluices the market-place and scatters wideThe weak as foam, to perish where they list.Now by the Sovereign Silence purified,Spring showers all with fragrant amethyst.Were once these pulses violent and swiftAs those that shake the cities of to-day?How indolently sweet the petals driftFrom yonder nodding spray!Warming their broidered raiment in the sun,The little-bright-eyed lizards bask and runO’er fallen temples gracious in decay.Man’s arrogance with calculated artBoasted in marble—now the quiet heartOf the Great Mother dreams eternal thingsIn brief, bright roses and ethereal green,Or more exuberant, singsIn poppies poured profusely to the airFrom secret hoards of scarlet. Nothing seenBut swoons with beauty—beauty everywhere—Nothing but beauty ... now.Here is the immortality of Rome.Not where the city rises, dome on dome,Seek we the living soul of ancient might,But in this temple of green silence—hereFlame purer than the vestal is alight.The world again draws nearIn reverence, but now it comes to payThe tribute of a nobler coin than fear.In wondering worship, not in fierce dismay,Men bow the knee to what of Rome remains.Time’s long lustration has effaced her stains,All that is perishable now is pastAnd earth her portion tenderly transmutesTo evanescent beauty of her own—Jubilant flowers and nectar-breathing fruits—Living in deathless glory at the lastDivinity alone.
Nothing but beauty, now.No longer at the point of goading fearThe sullen, tributary world comes nearBefore all-subjugating Rome to bow.No more the pavement of the Forum ringsTo breathless Victory’s exultant treadBefore the heavy march of captive kings.Here stood the royal deadIn sculptured immortality; their gazeRemote above the turmoil of the streetHoarse with its living struggle at their feet.Here spoke the law—that voice of bronze was heardBy all the world, and stirredThe latent mind of nations in the bud.Bright with the laurels, bitter with the bloodOf heroes upon heroes was this placeWhere the strong heart of an imperial raceBeat with the essence of a man’s life.Princes and people evermore at strife—Incense and worship—clash of armored rage—Ambition soaring up the sky like flame—Interminable war that mortals wageFrom century to century the same.Still Fortune holds the crown for those who dare;Mankind in many a distant otherwhereLeaps panting toward the promise of her face—But here, no more of coveting nor care.No longer here the weltering human tideSluices the market-place and scatters wideThe weak as foam, to perish where they list.Now by the Sovereign Silence purified,Spring showers all with fragrant amethyst.Were once these pulses violent and swiftAs those that shake the cities of to-day?How indolently sweet the petals driftFrom yonder nodding spray!Warming their broidered raiment in the sun,The little-bright-eyed lizards bask and runO’er fallen temples gracious in decay.Man’s arrogance with calculated artBoasted in marble—now the quiet heartOf the Great Mother dreams eternal thingsIn brief, bright roses and ethereal green,Or more exuberant, singsIn poppies poured profusely to the airFrom secret hoards of scarlet. Nothing seenBut swoons with beauty—beauty everywhere—Nothing but beauty ... now.Here is the immortality of Rome.Not where the city rises, dome on dome,Seek we the living soul of ancient might,But in this temple of green silence—hereFlame purer than the vestal is alight.The world again draws nearIn reverence, but now it comes to payThe tribute of a nobler coin than fear.In wondering worship, not in fierce dismay,Men bow the knee to what of Rome remains.Time’s long lustration has effaced her stains,All that is perishable now is pastAnd earth her portion tenderly transmutesTo evanescent beauty of her own—Jubilant flowers and nectar-breathing fruits—Living in deathless glory at the lastDivinity alone.
The BellmanAmelia Josephine Burr
Here in the lonely chapel I will wait,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 fireBy molten chains above the altar swinging,Draws my eyes up from the shadowed stallsTo the warm chancel-dome;Crag-like the clustered organs loom,Yet from their thunder-threatening choirFlows but a ghostly singing—Half-human voices reaching homeIn infinite, tremulous surge and falls.Light on his stops and keys,And pallor on the player’s face,Who, listening rapt, with finger-skill to seizeThe pattern of a mood’s elusive grace,Captures his spirit in an airy laceOf fading, fading harmonies.Oh, let your coolness sootheMy weariness, frail music, where you keepTryst with the even-fall;Where tone by tone you find a pathway smoothTo yonder gleaming cross, or nearer creepAlong the bronzèd wall,Where shade by shade thro’ deeps of brownComes the still twilight down.Wilt thou not rest, my thought?Wouldst thou go back to that pain-breeding roomWhence only by strong wrenchings thou wert brought?O weary, weary questionings,Will ye pursue me to the altar railWhere my old faith for sanctuary clings,And back again my heart reluctant haleYonder, where crushed against the cheerless wallTiptoe I glimpsed the tier on tierOf faces unserene and startled eyes—Such eyes as on grim surgeon-work are set,On desperate outmaneuverings of doom?Still must I hearThe boding voice with cautious rise and fallTracking relentless to its lairEach fever-bred progenitor of faith,Each fugitive ancestral fear?Still must I follow, as the wraithOf antique awe toward a wreck-making beachDrives derelict?Nay, rest, rest, my thought,Where long-loved sound and shadow teachQuietness to conscience overwrought.Harken! The choristers, the white-robed priestMove thro’ the chapel dimSounding of warfare and the victor’s palm,Of valiant marchings, of the feastSpread for the pilgrim in a haven’d calm.How on the first lips of my steadfast raceSounded 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 hathShadow of turning, I will findIn the wise ploddings of their faithful mind;Of finding not, as in this frustrate hourBy question hounded, waylaid by despair,Yet in these uses shall I know His powerAs the warm flesh by breathing knows the air.O futile comfort! My faith-hungry heartStill in your sweetness tastes a poisonous sour;Far off, far off I quiver ’neath the smartOf old indignities and obscure scornIndelibly on man’s proud spirit laid,That now in time’s ironic masqueradeMinister healing to the hurt and worn!What are those streams that from the altar pourWhere goat and ox and human captive bledTo feed the blood-lust of the murderous priest?I cannot see where Christ’s dear love is shed,So deep the insatiate horror washes redFlesh-stains and frenzy-sears and gore.Beneath that Cross, whereon His hands outspread,What forest shades behold what shameful ritesOf maidenhood surrendered to the beastIn obscene worship on midsummer nights!What imperturbable disguiseEnwraps these organs with a chaste restraintTo chant innocuous hymns and litaniesFor sinner and adoring saint,Which yet inherit like an old blood-taintSome naked caperings in the godliest tune,—Goat-songs and jests strong with the breath of Pan,That charmed the easy cow-girl and her manIn uncouth tryst beneath a scandalous moon!Ah, could I hearken with their trust,Or see with their pure-seeing eyesWho of the frame of these dear mysteriesWere not too wise!Why cannot I, as in a stronger hour,Outface the horror that defeats me now?Hare I not reaped complacent the rich powerThat harvest from this praise and bowing low?On this strong music have I mounted up,At yonder rail broke bread, and shared the holy cup,And on that cross have hung, and felt God’s painSorrowing, sorrowing, till the world shall end.Not from these forms my questionings comeThat 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 hathShadow of turning?” Ah, where turns she not!Where yesterday she stood,Now the horizon empties—lo, her stepsWhere yonder scholar woos, are hardly cold,Yet shall he find her never, but the thoughtMantling within him like her bloodShall from his eloquence fade, and leave his wordsFlavor’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 soundMaster another speech continuously.Deaf to familiar words, our callous earWill 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 truthThat will not constant dwell,But flees the passion of our eyesAnd leaves no hint behind herWhence she dawns or whither dies,Or if she live at all, or only for a moment seems.Here tho’ I only dream I find her,Here will I watch the twilight darken.Yonder the scholar’s voice spins onMesh 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,And happy be thy choice!Here rather will I rest, and harkenVoices longer dead but longer loved than thine.Yet still my most of peace is more unrest,As one who plods a summer roadFeels 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 goadPressing the choice that still my soul defersTo visioned hours not thus eclipsed and dim,Lest in my haste I deemThat truth’s invariable partIs her eluding of man’s heart.Farewell, calm priest who pacest slowAfter the stalwart-marching choir!Have men thro’ thee taught God their dear desire?Hath God thro’ thee absolvèd sin?What is thy benediction, if I goSore perplexed and wrought within?Open the chapel doors, and letBoisterous music play us outToward the flaring molten westWhither 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 saluteSendest 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 shriveled yesterdays that clothe us like a shell,Thy spirit sloughs their bondage off, to walk newborn and free.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.
Here in the lonely chapel I will wait,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 fireBy molten chains above the altar swinging,Draws my eyes up from the shadowed stallsTo the warm chancel-dome;Crag-like the clustered organs loom,Yet from their thunder-threatening choirFlows but a ghostly singing—Half-human voices reaching homeIn infinite, tremulous surge and falls.Light on his stops and keys,And pallor on the player’s face,Who, listening rapt, with finger-skill to seizeThe pattern of a mood’s elusive grace,Captures his spirit in an airy laceOf fading, fading harmonies.Oh, let your coolness sootheMy weariness, frail music, where you keepTryst with the even-fall;Where tone by tone you find a pathway smoothTo yonder gleaming cross, or nearer creepAlong the bronzèd wall,Where shade by shade thro’ deeps of brownComes the still twilight down.Wilt thou not rest, my thought?Wouldst thou go back to that pain-breeding roomWhence only by strong wrenchings thou wert brought?O weary, weary questionings,Will ye pursue me to the altar railWhere my old faith for sanctuary clings,And back again my heart reluctant haleYonder, where crushed against the cheerless wallTiptoe I glimpsed the tier on tierOf faces unserene and startled eyes—Such eyes as on grim surgeon-work are set,On desperate outmaneuverings of doom?Still must I hearThe boding voice with cautious rise and fallTracking relentless to its lairEach fever-bred progenitor of faith,Each fugitive ancestral fear?Still must I follow, as the wraithOf antique awe toward a wreck-making beachDrives derelict?Nay, rest, rest, my thought,Where long-loved sound and shadow teachQuietness to conscience overwrought.Harken! The choristers, the white-robed priestMove thro’ the chapel dimSounding of warfare and the victor’s palm,Of valiant marchings, of the feastSpread for the pilgrim in a haven’d calm.How on the first lips of my steadfast raceSounded 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 hathShadow of turning, I will findIn the wise ploddings of their faithful mind;Of finding not, as in this frustrate hourBy question hounded, waylaid by despair,Yet in these uses shall I know His powerAs the warm flesh by breathing knows the air.O futile comfort! My faith-hungry heartStill in your sweetness tastes a poisonous sour;Far off, far off I quiver ’neath the smartOf old indignities and obscure scornIndelibly on man’s proud spirit laid,That now in time’s ironic masqueradeMinister healing to the hurt and worn!What are those streams that from the altar pourWhere goat and ox and human captive bledTo feed the blood-lust of the murderous priest?I cannot see where Christ’s dear love is shed,So deep the insatiate horror washes redFlesh-stains and frenzy-sears and gore.Beneath that Cross, whereon His hands outspread,What forest shades behold what shameful ritesOf maidenhood surrendered to the beastIn obscene worship on midsummer nights!What imperturbable disguiseEnwraps these organs with a chaste restraintTo chant innocuous hymns and litaniesFor sinner and adoring saint,Which yet inherit like an old blood-taintSome naked caperings in the godliest tune,—Goat-songs and jests strong with the breath of Pan,That charmed the easy cow-girl and her manIn uncouth tryst beneath a scandalous moon!Ah, could I hearken with their trust,Or see with their pure-seeing eyesWho of the frame of these dear mysteriesWere not too wise!Why cannot I, as in a stronger hour,Outface the horror that defeats me now?Hare I not reaped complacent the rich powerThat harvest from this praise and bowing low?On this strong music have I mounted up,At yonder rail broke bread, and shared the holy cup,And on that cross have hung, and felt God’s painSorrowing, sorrowing, till the world shall end.Not from these forms my questionings comeThat 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 hathShadow of turning?” Ah, where turns she not!Where yesterday she stood,Now the horizon empties—lo, her stepsWhere yonder scholar woos, are hardly cold,Yet shall he find her never, but the thoughtMantling within him like her bloodShall from his eloquence fade, and leave his wordsFlavor’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 soundMaster another speech continuously.Deaf to familiar words, our callous earWill 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 truthThat will not constant dwell,But flees the passion of our eyesAnd leaves no hint behind herWhence she dawns or whither dies,Or if she live at all, or only for a moment seems.Here tho’ I only dream I find her,Here will I watch the twilight darken.Yonder the scholar’s voice spins onMesh 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,And happy be thy choice!Here rather will I rest, and harkenVoices longer dead but longer loved than thine.Yet still my most of peace is more unrest,As one who plods a summer roadFeels 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 goadPressing the choice that still my soul defersTo visioned hours not thus eclipsed and dim,Lest in my haste I deemThat truth’s invariable partIs her eluding of man’s heart.Farewell, calm priest who pacest slowAfter the stalwart-marching choir!Have men thro’ thee taught God their dear desire?Hath God thro’ thee absolvèd sin?What is thy benediction, if I goSore perplexed and wrought within?Open the chapel doors, and letBoisterous music play us outToward the flaring molten westWhither 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 saluteSendest 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 shriveled yesterdays that clothe us like a shell,Thy spirit sloughs their bondage off, to walk newborn and free.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.
Here in the lonely chapel I will wait,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 fireBy molten chains above the altar swinging,Draws my eyes up from the shadowed stallsTo the warm chancel-dome;Crag-like the clustered organs loom,Yet from their thunder-threatening choirFlows but a ghostly singing—Half-human voices reaching homeIn infinite, tremulous surge and falls.Light on his stops and keys,And pallor on the player’s face,Who, listening rapt, with finger-skill to seizeThe pattern of a mood’s elusive grace,Captures his spirit in an airy laceOf fading, fading harmonies.Oh, let your coolness sootheMy weariness, frail music, where you keepTryst with the even-fall;Where tone by tone you find a pathway smoothTo yonder gleaming cross, or nearer creepAlong the bronzèd wall,Where shade by shade thro’ deeps of brownComes the still twilight down.
Wilt thou not rest, my thought?Wouldst thou go back to that pain-breeding roomWhence only by strong wrenchings thou wert brought?O weary, weary questionings,Will ye pursue me to the altar railWhere my old faith for sanctuary clings,And back again my heart reluctant haleYonder, where crushed against the cheerless wallTiptoe I glimpsed the tier on tierOf faces unserene and startled eyes—Such eyes as on grim surgeon-work are set,On desperate outmaneuverings of doom?Still must I hearThe boding voice with cautious rise and fallTracking relentless to its lairEach fever-bred progenitor of faith,Each fugitive ancestral fear?Still must I follow, as the wraithOf antique awe toward a wreck-making beachDrives derelict?Nay, rest, rest, my thought,Where long-loved sound and shadow teachQuietness to conscience overwrought.
Harken! The choristers, the white-robed priestMove thro’ the chapel dimSounding of warfare and the victor’s palm,Of valiant marchings, of the feastSpread for the pilgrim in a haven’d calm.How on the first lips of my steadfast raceSounded 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 hathShadow of turning, I will findIn the wise ploddings of their faithful mind;Of finding not, as in this frustrate hourBy question hounded, waylaid by despair,Yet in these uses shall I know His powerAs the warm flesh by breathing knows the air.
O futile comfort! My faith-hungry heartStill in your sweetness tastes a poisonous sour;Far off, far off I quiver ’neath the smartOf old indignities and obscure scornIndelibly on man’s proud spirit laid,That now in time’s ironic masqueradeMinister healing to the hurt and worn!What are those streams that from the altar pourWhere goat and ox and human captive bledTo feed the blood-lust of the murderous priest?I cannot see where Christ’s dear love is shed,So deep the insatiate horror washes redFlesh-stains and frenzy-sears and gore.Beneath that Cross, whereon His hands outspread,What forest shades behold what shameful ritesOf maidenhood surrendered to the beastIn obscene worship on midsummer nights!What imperturbable disguiseEnwraps these organs with a chaste restraintTo chant innocuous hymns and litaniesFor sinner and adoring saint,Which yet inherit like an old blood-taintSome naked caperings in the godliest tune,—Goat-songs and jests strong with the breath of Pan,That charmed the easy cow-girl and her manIn uncouth tryst beneath a scandalous moon!Ah, could I hearken with their trust,Or see with their pure-seeing eyesWho of the frame of these dear mysteriesWere not too wise!Why cannot I, as in a stronger hour,Outface the horror that defeats me now?Hare I not reaped complacent the rich powerThat harvest from this praise and bowing low?On this strong music have I mounted up,At yonder rail broke bread, and shared the holy cup,And on that cross have hung, and felt God’s painSorrowing, sorrowing, till the world shall end.
Not from these forms my questionings comeThat 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 hathShadow of turning?” Ah, where turns she not!Where yesterday she stood,Now the horizon empties—lo, her stepsWhere yonder scholar woos, are hardly cold,Yet shall he find her never, but the thoughtMantling within him like her bloodShall from his eloquence fade, and leave his wordsFlavor’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 soundMaster another speech continuously.Deaf to familiar words, our callous earWill 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 truthThat will not constant dwell,But flees the passion of our eyesAnd leaves no hint behind herWhence she dawns or whither dies,Or if she live at all, or only for a moment seems.
Here tho’ I only dream I find her,Here will I watch the twilight darken.Yonder the scholar’s voice spins onMesh 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,And happy be thy choice!Here rather will I rest, and harkenVoices longer dead but longer loved than thine.
Yet still my most of peace is more unrest,As one who plods a summer roadFeels 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 goadPressing the choice that still my soul defersTo visioned hours not thus eclipsed and dim,Lest in my haste I deemThat truth’s invariable partIs her eluding of man’s heart.Farewell, calm priest who pacest slowAfter the stalwart-marching choir!Have men thro’ thee taught God their dear desire?Hath God thro’ thee absolvèd sin?What is thy benediction, if I goSore perplexed and wrought within?Open the chapel doors, and letBoisterous music play us outToward the flaring molten westWhither 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 saluteSendest 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 shriveled yesterdays that clothe us like a shell,Thy spirit sloughs their bondage off, to walk newborn and free.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.
Yale ReviewJohn Erskine
I had no heart to write to thee in prose,The sadness in me sore demanded song;But the song came not,—laggard as the birds,That will not sing us back the little leaves.O winter of my heart—when comes the spring?I am sore weary of these deathlike days,This shroud unheaving of eternal snow,—O winter of my heart—when comes the spring?’Tis time to answer, O nightingale,—’Tis thine to sing the winter all away,Release the world from bondage, and bring backThe sound of many waters and of trees,And little sleeping lives anumb with cold,—Yea! all the resurrection of the world.O winter of my heart! O nightingale!
I had no heart to write to thee in prose,The sadness in me sore demanded song;But the song came not,—laggard as the birds,That will not sing us back the little leaves.O winter of my heart—when comes the spring?I am sore weary of these deathlike days,This shroud unheaving of eternal snow,—O winter of my heart—when comes the spring?’Tis time to answer, O nightingale,—’Tis thine to sing the winter all away,Release the world from bondage, and bring backThe sound of many waters and of trees,And little sleeping lives anumb with cold,—Yea! all the resurrection of the world.O winter of my heart! O nightingale!
I had no heart to write to thee in prose,The sadness in me sore demanded song;But the song came not,—laggard as the birds,That will not sing us back the little leaves.O winter of my heart—when comes the spring?I am sore weary of these deathlike days,This shroud unheaving of eternal snow,—O winter of my heart—when comes the spring?
’Tis time to answer, O nightingale,—’Tis thine to sing the winter all away,Release the world from bondage, and bring backThe sound of many waters and of trees,And little sleeping lives anumb with cold,—Yea! all the resurrection of the world.O winter of my heart! O nightingale!
Harper’sRichard Le Gallienne
With the first light on the skyline came the rapping of the sicklesAnd the brown arms of the reapers bent to toil another morn;Close beside me in the glimmer, in the golden sweep and shimmer,Knelt a reaper strange among us, crooning thro’ the ragged corn:“Born of sorrow,Gone to-morrow—Gone to lie in yonder valley where their fathers long have lain;Men who know not ship nor sabre,Each but drudges by his neighbor,And the fields wherein they labor are a heritage of pain!”Sleep was heavy on our eyelids when a lone star followed sunset,But we missed the pale young stranger, none knew whither he had gone—Then, from where the dead are lying, with the nightwind’s tender sighingRose and fell a last low cadence of the voice we heard at dawn:“Weary reapers,Early sleepers—Brief the glow that drifts across them from the waning August moon:These that rest beyond its gleamingLie unvexed of drift or dreaming,And the fields with harvest teeming have forgot them all too soon!”
With the first light on the skyline came the rapping of the sicklesAnd the brown arms of the reapers bent to toil another morn;Close beside me in the glimmer, in the golden sweep and shimmer,Knelt a reaper strange among us, crooning thro’ the ragged corn:“Born of sorrow,Gone to-morrow—Gone to lie in yonder valley where their fathers long have lain;Men who know not ship nor sabre,Each but drudges by his neighbor,And the fields wherein they labor are a heritage of pain!”Sleep was heavy on our eyelids when a lone star followed sunset,But we missed the pale young stranger, none knew whither he had gone—Then, from where the dead are lying, with the nightwind’s tender sighingRose and fell a last low cadence of the voice we heard at dawn:“Weary reapers,Early sleepers—Brief the glow that drifts across them from the waning August moon:These that rest beyond its gleamingLie unvexed of drift or dreaming,And the fields with harvest teeming have forgot them all too soon!”
With the first light on the skyline came the rapping of the sicklesAnd the brown arms of the reapers bent to toil another morn;Close beside me in the glimmer, in the golden sweep and shimmer,Knelt a reaper strange among us, crooning thro’ the ragged corn:“Born of sorrow,Gone to-morrow—Gone to lie in yonder valley where their fathers long have lain;Men who know not ship nor sabre,Each but drudges by his neighbor,And the fields wherein they labor are a heritage of pain!”
Sleep was heavy on our eyelids when a lone star followed sunset,But we missed the pale young stranger, none knew whither he had gone—Then, from where the dead are lying, with the nightwind’s tender sighingRose and fell a last low cadence of the voice we heard at dawn:“Weary reapers,Early sleepers—Brief the glow that drifts across them from the waning August moon:These that rest beyond its gleamingLie unvexed of drift or dreaming,And the fields with harvest teeming have forgot them all too soon!”
Boston TranscriptRuth Guthrie Harding
All old fair things are in their places,I count them over, and miss but one;The April flowers are running races,The green world stretches its arms to the sun;The nuptial dance of the days is begun—The same young stars in the same old skies;And all that was lost again is won—But where have they hidden those great eyes?All have come back—dogwood and daisies—All things ripple and riot and run;Swallow and swallow in aery mazes,A fairy frolic of fire and fun;The same old enchanted web is spun,With diamond dews for the same old flies;Yet all is new, spite of Solomon—But where have they hidden those great eyes?Lovely as love are the new-born faces—God knows they are fair to look upon;And my heart goes out to the young embraces,To the flight of the young to the young;But, Time, what is it that thou hast done?For my heart ’mid all the blossom cries:“Roses are many, the Rose is gone—Ah! where have they hidden those great eyes?”
All old fair things are in their places,I count them over, and miss but one;The April flowers are running races,The green world stretches its arms to the sun;The nuptial dance of the days is begun—The same young stars in the same old skies;And all that was lost again is won—But where have they hidden those great eyes?All have come back—dogwood and daisies—All things ripple and riot and run;Swallow and swallow in aery mazes,A fairy frolic of fire and fun;The same old enchanted web is spun,With diamond dews for the same old flies;Yet all is new, spite of Solomon—But where have they hidden those great eyes?Lovely as love are the new-born faces—God knows they are fair to look upon;And my heart goes out to the young embraces,To the flight of the young to the young;But, Time, what is it that thou hast done?For my heart ’mid all the blossom cries:“Roses are many, the Rose is gone—Ah! where have they hidden those great eyes?”
All old fair things are in their places,I count them over, and miss but one;The April flowers are running races,The green world stretches its arms to the sun;The nuptial dance of the days is begun—The same young stars in the same old skies;And all that was lost again is won—But where have they hidden those great eyes?
All have come back—dogwood and daisies—All things ripple and riot and run;Swallow and swallow in aery mazes,A fairy frolic of fire and fun;The same old enchanted web is spun,With diamond dews for the same old flies;Yet all is new, spite of Solomon—But where have they hidden those great eyes?
Lovely as love are the new-born faces—God knows they are fair to look upon;And my heart goes out to the young embraces,To the flight of the young to the young;But, Time, what is it that thou hast done?For my heart ’mid all the blossom cries:“Roses are many, the Rose is gone—Ah! where have they hidden those great eyes?”
Prince, I bring you my April praises,But O! on my heart a shadow lies;For a face I see not at all my gaze is—Ah! where have they hidden those great eyes?
Prince, I bring you my April praises,But O! on my heart a shadow lies;For a face I see not at all my gaze is—Ah! where have they hidden those great eyes?
Prince, I bring you my April praises,But O! on my heart a shadow lies;For a face I see not at all my gaze is—Ah! where have they hidden those great eyes?
PuckRichard Le Gallienne
Perhaps it doesn’t matter that you died,Life is abal masquéwhich you saw through.You never told on Life—you had your pride;But Life has told on you.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter that you died,Life is abal masquéwhich you saw through.You never told on Life—you had your pride;But Life has told on you.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter that you died,Life is abal masquéwhich you saw through.You never told on Life—you had your pride;But Life has told on you.
The TrendWalter Conrad Arensberg
Fools, fools, fools,Your blood is hot to-day.It coolsWhen you are clay.It joins the very clodWherein you look at God,Wherein at last you seeThe living God,The loving God,Which was your enemy.
Fools, fools, fools,Your blood is hot to-day.It coolsWhen you are clay.It joins the very clodWherein you look at God,Wherein at last you seeThe living God,The loving God,Which was your enemy.
Fools, fools, fools,Your blood is hot to-day.It coolsWhen you are clay.It joins the very clodWherein you look at God,Wherein at last you seeThe living God,The loving God,Which was your enemy.
The NationWitter Bynner
Half artist and half anchorite,Part siren and part Socrates,Her face—alluring and yet recondite—Smiled through her salons and academies.Lightly she wore her double mask,Till sudden, at war’s kindling spark,Her inmost self, in shining mail and casque,Blazed to the world her single soul—Jeanne d’Arc!
Half artist and half anchorite,Part siren and part Socrates,Her face—alluring and yet recondite—Smiled through her salons and academies.Lightly she wore her double mask,Till sudden, at war’s kindling spark,Her inmost self, in shining mail and casque,Blazed to the world her single soul—Jeanne d’Arc!
Half artist and half anchorite,Part siren and part Socrates,Her face—alluring and yet recondite—Smiled through her salons and academies.
Lightly she wore her double mask,Till sudden, at war’s kindling spark,Her inmost self, in shining mail and casque,Blazed to the world her single soul—Jeanne d’Arc!
The Nation.Percy MacKaye
There’s a rhythm down the road where the elms overarchOf the drum, of the drum,There’s a glint through the green, there’s a column on the march,Here they come, here they come,To the flat resounding clank they are tramping rank on rank,And the bayonet flashes ripple from the flank to the flank.“I am rhythm, marching rhythm,” says the drum.“No aid am I desiring of the loud brazen choiring,“Of bugle or of trumpet the lilt and the lyring,“I’m the slow dogged rhythm, unending, untiring,“I am rhythm, marching rhythm,” says the drum.“I am rhythm, dogged rhythm, and the plodders feel me with ’em,“I’m the two miles an hour that is empire, that is power,“I’m the slow resistless crawl in the dust-cloud’s choking pall,“I’m the marching days that run from the dawn to set of sun,“I’m the rifle and the kit and the dragging weight of it,“I’m the jaws grimly set and the faces dripping sweat,“I’m the how, why, and when, the Almighty made for men,”Says the rhythm, marching rhythm, of the drum.“Did you call my song ‘barbaric’? Did you mutter, ‘out of date’?“When you hear me with the foemen then your cry will come too late.“Here are hearts a-beating for you, to my pulsing as I come,“To the rhythm, tramping rhythm,“To the rhythm, dogged rhythm,“To the dogged tramping rhythm“Of the drum!”There’s a clashing snarling rhythm down the valley broad and ampleOf the drum, kettledrum,There’s a low, swelling rumor that is cavalry a-trample,Here they come, here they come,To the brassy crash and wrangle, to the horseman’s clink and jangle,And the restive legs beneath ’em all a-welter and a-tangle.“I am rhythm, dancing rhythm,” says the drum.“White and sorrel, roan and dapple, hocks as shiny as an apple,“Don’t they make a splendid showing, ears a-pricking, tails a-blowing?“Good boys—bless ’em—well they’re knowing all my tricks to set ’em going“To my rhythm, dancing rhythm!” says the drum.“I am rhythm, clashing rhythm, and the horses feel me with ’em.“I’m the foray and the raid, I’m the glancing sabre-blade.“Now I’m here, now I’m there, flashing on the unaware.“How I scout before the ranks, how I cloud along the flanks,“How the highway smokes behind me let the faint stars tell that find me“All night through, all night through, when the bridles drip with dew.“I’m the labor, toil, and pain, I’m the loss that shall be gain,”Says the rhythm, clashing rhythm, of the drum.“Did you speak of ‘useless slaughter’? Did you murmur ‘Christian love’?“Pray that such as these before you when the war-cloud bursts above,“With the bridle on the pommel meet the foemen as they come,“To the rhythm, dashing rhythm,“To the rhythm, crashing rhythm“To the crashing, dashing rhythm“Of the drum!”There’s an echo shakes the valley o’er the rhythm deep and slowOf the drum, of the drum,’Tis the guns, the guns a-rolling on the bridges down below,Here they come, here they come,Hark the felloes grind and lumber through the shadows gray and umber,And the triple spans a-panting up the slope the stones encumber,With the rhythm, distant rhythm, of the drum.“’Tis the long Shapes of Fear that the moonlight silvers here,“And the jolting limber’s weighted with the silent cannoneer,“’Tis the Pipes of Peace are passing, O ye people, give an ear!”Says the rhythm, iron rhythm, of the drum.“They are rhythm, thunder rhythm, and they do not need me with ’em,“That can overtone my choir like the bourdon from the spire.“Avant-gardeam I to these Lords of dreadful revelries,“Iron Cyclops with an eye to confound the earth and sky.“Love and Fear, Love and Fear, neither one but both revere,“And whatever grace ye deal let it be from courts of steel,“Set the guns’ emplacement then to expound the Law to men,”Says the rhythm, iron rhythm, of the drum.“O ye coiners, sentence-joiners, in a fatted, tradesman’s land,“Here’s evangel Pentecostal that all nations understand,“When they speak before the battle fools and theories are dumb!”God be with ’em, and the rhythm,And the rhythm, iron rhythm,And the rolling thunder rhythmOf the drum!There’s a rhythm still and toneless with the wind amid the green,Of the drum, muffled drum,And there’s arms reversed, and something ’neath a flag that goes betweenAs they come, as they come.“Just a soldier, nothing more, such as all the ages bore“And as time and tide shall bear them till the sun be sere and hoar,”Says the rhythm, muffled rhythm, of the drum.“No more am I requiring of the keen brazen lyring“Than ‘taps’ from the bugle—some shots for the firing.“Hats off; stand aside; it is all I’m desiring,”Says the rhythm, muffled rhythm, of the drum.“I am rhythm, muffled rhythm; long and deep farewell go with him,“Hands that bore their portion through tasks our nature needs must do,“Feet that stepped the ancient rhyme of the battle-march of Time.“Blood or tribute, steel or gold, stillVae Victisas of old,“Stern and curt the message runs taught to sons and sons of sons.“Chair à canon, would you call? What else are we, one and all?“Write it thus to close his span: ‘Here there lies a fighting man,’”Says the rhythm, muffled rhythm, of the drum.“O ye farms upon the hillside and ye cities by the sea,“With the laughter of young mothers and the babes about the knee,“’Tis a heart that once beat for you that is passing, still and dumb,“To the rhythm, muffled rhythm,“To the rhythm, solemn rhythm,“To the slow and muffled rhythm“Of the drum!”
There’s a rhythm down the road where the elms overarchOf the drum, of the drum,There’s a glint through the green, there’s a column on the march,Here they come, here they come,To the flat resounding clank they are tramping rank on rank,And the bayonet flashes ripple from the flank to the flank.“I am rhythm, marching rhythm,” says the drum.“No aid am I desiring of the loud brazen choiring,“Of bugle or of trumpet the lilt and the lyring,“I’m the slow dogged rhythm, unending, untiring,“I am rhythm, marching rhythm,” says the drum.“I am rhythm, dogged rhythm, and the plodders feel me with ’em,“I’m the two miles an hour that is empire, that is power,“I’m the slow resistless crawl in the dust-cloud’s choking pall,“I’m the marching days that run from the dawn to set of sun,“I’m the rifle and the kit and the dragging weight of it,“I’m the jaws grimly set and the faces dripping sweat,“I’m the how, why, and when, the Almighty made for men,”Says the rhythm, marching rhythm, of the drum.“Did you call my song ‘barbaric’? Did you mutter, ‘out of date’?“When you hear me with the foemen then your cry will come too late.“Here are hearts a-beating for you, to my pulsing as I come,“To the rhythm, tramping rhythm,“To the rhythm, dogged rhythm,“To the dogged tramping rhythm“Of the drum!”There’s a clashing snarling rhythm down the valley broad and ampleOf the drum, kettledrum,There’s a low, swelling rumor that is cavalry a-trample,Here they come, here they come,To the brassy crash and wrangle, to the horseman’s clink and jangle,And the restive legs beneath ’em all a-welter and a-tangle.“I am rhythm, dancing rhythm,” says the drum.“White and sorrel, roan and dapple, hocks as shiny as an apple,“Don’t they make a splendid showing, ears a-pricking, tails a-blowing?“Good boys—bless ’em—well they’re knowing all my tricks to set ’em going“To my rhythm, dancing rhythm!” says the drum.“I am rhythm, clashing rhythm, and the horses feel me with ’em.“I’m the foray and the raid, I’m the glancing sabre-blade.“Now I’m here, now I’m there, flashing on the unaware.“How I scout before the ranks, how I cloud along the flanks,“How the highway smokes behind me let the faint stars tell that find me“All night through, all night through, when the bridles drip with dew.“I’m the labor, toil, and pain, I’m the loss that shall be gain,”Says the rhythm, clashing rhythm, of the drum.“Did you speak of ‘useless slaughter’? Did you murmur ‘Christian love’?“Pray that such as these before you when the war-cloud bursts above,“With the bridle on the pommel meet the foemen as they come,“To the rhythm, dashing rhythm,“To the rhythm, crashing rhythm“To the crashing, dashing rhythm“Of the drum!”There’s an echo shakes the valley o’er the rhythm deep and slowOf the drum, of the drum,’Tis the guns, the guns a-rolling on the bridges down below,Here they come, here they come,Hark the felloes grind and lumber through the shadows gray and umber,And the triple spans a-panting up the slope the stones encumber,With the rhythm, distant rhythm, of the drum.“’Tis the long Shapes of Fear that the moonlight silvers here,“And the jolting limber’s weighted with the silent cannoneer,“’Tis the Pipes of Peace are passing, O ye people, give an ear!”Says the rhythm, iron rhythm, of the drum.“They are rhythm, thunder rhythm, and they do not need me with ’em,“That can overtone my choir like the bourdon from the spire.“Avant-gardeam I to these Lords of dreadful revelries,“Iron Cyclops with an eye to confound the earth and sky.“Love and Fear, Love and Fear, neither one but both revere,“And whatever grace ye deal let it be from courts of steel,“Set the guns’ emplacement then to expound the Law to men,”Says the rhythm, iron rhythm, of the drum.“O ye coiners, sentence-joiners, in a fatted, tradesman’s land,“Here’s evangel Pentecostal that all nations understand,“When they speak before the battle fools and theories are dumb!”God be with ’em, and the rhythm,And the rhythm, iron rhythm,And the rolling thunder rhythmOf the drum!There’s a rhythm still and toneless with the wind amid the green,Of the drum, muffled drum,And there’s arms reversed, and something ’neath a flag that goes betweenAs they come, as they come.“Just a soldier, nothing more, such as all the ages bore“And as time and tide shall bear them till the sun be sere and hoar,”Says the rhythm, muffled rhythm, of the drum.“No more am I requiring of the keen brazen lyring“Than ‘taps’ from the bugle—some shots for the firing.“Hats off; stand aside; it is all I’m desiring,”Says the rhythm, muffled rhythm, of the drum.“I am rhythm, muffled rhythm; long and deep farewell go with him,“Hands that bore their portion through tasks our nature needs must do,“Feet that stepped the ancient rhyme of the battle-march of Time.“Blood or tribute, steel or gold, stillVae Victisas of old,“Stern and curt the message runs taught to sons and sons of sons.“Chair à canon, would you call? What else are we, one and all?“Write it thus to close his span: ‘Here there lies a fighting man,’”Says the rhythm, muffled rhythm, of the drum.“O ye farms upon the hillside and ye cities by the sea,“With the laughter of young mothers and the babes about the knee,“’Tis a heart that once beat for you that is passing, still and dumb,“To the rhythm, muffled rhythm,“To the rhythm, solemn rhythm,“To the slow and muffled rhythm“Of the drum!”
There’s a rhythm down the road where the elms overarchOf the drum, of the drum,There’s a glint through the green, there’s a column on the march,Here they come, here they come,To the flat resounding clank they are tramping rank on rank,And the bayonet flashes ripple from the flank to the flank.“I am rhythm, marching rhythm,” says the drum.“No aid am I desiring of the loud brazen choiring,“Of bugle or of trumpet the lilt and the lyring,“I’m the slow dogged rhythm, unending, untiring,“I am rhythm, marching rhythm,” says the drum.“I am rhythm, dogged rhythm, and the plodders feel me with ’em,“I’m the two miles an hour that is empire, that is power,“I’m the slow resistless crawl in the dust-cloud’s choking pall,“I’m the marching days that run from the dawn to set of sun,“I’m the rifle and the kit and the dragging weight of it,“I’m the jaws grimly set and the faces dripping sweat,“I’m the how, why, and when, the Almighty made for men,”Says the rhythm, marching rhythm, of the drum.“Did you call my song ‘barbaric’? Did you mutter, ‘out of date’?“When you hear me with the foemen then your cry will come too late.“Here are hearts a-beating for you, to my pulsing as I come,“To the rhythm, tramping rhythm,“To the rhythm, dogged rhythm,“To the dogged tramping rhythm“Of the drum!”
There’s a clashing snarling rhythm down the valley broad and ampleOf the drum, kettledrum,There’s a low, swelling rumor that is cavalry a-trample,Here they come, here they come,To the brassy crash and wrangle, to the horseman’s clink and jangle,And the restive legs beneath ’em all a-welter and a-tangle.“I am rhythm, dancing rhythm,” says the drum.“White and sorrel, roan and dapple, hocks as shiny as an apple,“Don’t they make a splendid showing, ears a-pricking, tails a-blowing?“Good boys—bless ’em—well they’re knowing all my tricks to set ’em going“To my rhythm, dancing rhythm!” says the drum.“I am rhythm, clashing rhythm, and the horses feel me with ’em.“I’m the foray and the raid, I’m the glancing sabre-blade.“Now I’m here, now I’m there, flashing on the unaware.“How I scout before the ranks, how I cloud along the flanks,“How the highway smokes behind me let the faint stars tell that find me“All night through, all night through, when the bridles drip with dew.“I’m the labor, toil, and pain, I’m the loss that shall be gain,”Says the rhythm, clashing rhythm, of the drum.“Did you speak of ‘useless slaughter’? Did you murmur ‘Christian love’?“Pray that such as these before you when the war-cloud bursts above,“With the bridle on the pommel meet the foemen as they come,“To the rhythm, dashing rhythm,“To the rhythm, crashing rhythm“To the crashing, dashing rhythm“Of the drum!”
There’s an echo shakes the valley o’er the rhythm deep and slowOf the drum, of the drum,’Tis the guns, the guns a-rolling on the bridges down below,Here they come, here they come,Hark the felloes grind and lumber through the shadows gray and umber,And the triple spans a-panting up the slope the stones encumber,With the rhythm, distant rhythm, of the drum.“’Tis the long Shapes of Fear that the moonlight silvers here,“And the jolting limber’s weighted with the silent cannoneer,“’Tis the Pipes of Peace are passing, O ye people, give an ear!”Says the rhythm, iron rhythm, of the drum.“They are rhythm, thunder rhythm, and they do not need me with ’em,“That can overtone my choir like the bourdon from the spire.“Avant-gardeam I to these Lords of dreadful revelries,“Iron Cyclops with an eye to confound the earth and sky.“Love and Fear, Love and Fear, neither one but both revere,“And whatever grace ye deal let it be from courts of steel,“Set the guns’ emplacement then to expound the Law to men,”Says the rhythm, iron rhythm, of the drum.“O ye coiners, sentence-joiners, in a fatted, tradesman’s land,“Here’s evangel Pentecostal that all nations understand,“When they speak before the battle fools and theories are dumb!”God be with ’em, and the rhythm,And the rhythm, iron rhythm,And the rolling thunder rhythmOf the drum!
There’s a rhythm still and toneless with the wind amid the green,Of the drum, muffled drum,And there’s arms reversed, and something ’neath a flag that goes betweenAs they come, as they come.“Just a soldier, nothing more, such as all the ages bore“And as time and tide shall bear them till the sun be sere and hoar,”Says the rhythm, muffled rhythm, of the drum.“No more am I requiring of the keen brazen lyring“Than ‘taps’ from the bugle—some shots for the firing.“Hats off; stand aside; it is all I’m desiring,”Says the rhythm, muffled rhythm, of the drum.“I am rhythm, muffled rhythm; long and deep farewell go with him,“Hands that bore their portion through tasks our nature needs must do,“Feet that stepped the ancient rhyme of the battle-march of Time.“Blood or tribute, steel or gold, stillVae Victisas of old,“Stern and curt the message runs taught to sons and sons of sons.“Chair à canon, would you call? What else are we, one and all?“Write it thus to close his span: ‘Here there lies a fighting man,’”Says the rhythm, muffled rhythm, of the drum.“O ye farms upon the hillside and ye cities by the sea,“With the laughter of young mothers and the babes about the knee,“’Tis a heart that once beat for you that is passing, still and dumb,“To the rhythm, muffled rhythm,“To the rhythm, solemn rhythm,“To the slow and muffled rhythm“Of the drum!”
Scribner’s MagazineE. Sutton
Suppose ’twere done!The lanyard pulled on every shotted gun;Into the wheeling death-clutch sentEach millioned armament,To grapple thereOn land, on sea and under, and in air!Suppose at last ’twere come—Now, while each bourse and shop and mill is dumbAnd arsenals and dockyards hum,—Now all complete, supreme,That vast, Satanic dream!—Each field were trampled, soaked,Each stream dyed, choked,Each leaguered city and blockaded portMade famine’s sport;The empty waveMade reeling dreadnought’s grave;Cathedral, castle, gallery, smoking fell’Neath bomb and shell;In deathlike tranceLay industry, finance;Two thousand years’Bequest, achievement, saving disappears,In blood and tears,In widowed woeThat slum and palace equal know,In civilization’s suicide,—What served thereby, what satisfied?For justice, freedom, right, what wrought?Naught!—Save, after the great cataclysm, perhapOn the world’s shaken mapNew lines, more near or far,Binding to King or CzarIn fostering hateSome newly vassaled state;And passion, lust and pride made satiate;And just a traceOf lingering smile on Satan’s face!
Suppose ’twere done!The lanyard pulled on every shotted gun;Into the wheeling death-clutch sentEach millioned armament,To grapple thereOn land, on sea and under, and in air!Suppose at last ’twere come—Now, while each bourse and shop and mill is dumbAnd arsenals and dockyards hum,—Now all complete, supreme,That vast, Satanic dream!—Each field were trampled, soaked,Each stream dyed, choked,Each leaguered city and blockaded portMade famine’s sport;The empty waveMade reeling dreadnought’s grave;Cathedral, castle, gallery, smoking fell’Neath bomb and shell;In deathlike tranceLay industry, finance;Two thousand years’Bequest, achievement, saving disappears,In blood and tears,In widowed woeThat slum and palace equal know,In civilization’s suicide,—What served thereby, what satisfied?For justice, freedom, right, what wrought?Naught!—Save, after the great cataclysm, perhapOn the world’s shaken mapNew lines, more near or far,Binding to King or CzarIn fostering hateSome newly vassaled state;And passion, lust and pride made satiate;And just a traceOf lingering smile on Satan’s face!
Suppose ’twere done!The lanyard pulled on every shotted gun;Into the wheeling death-clutch sentEach millioned armament,To grapple thereOn land, on sea and under, and in air!Suppose at last ’twere come—Now, while each bourse and shop and mill is dumbAnd arsenals and dockyards hum,—Now all complete, supreme,That vast, Satanic dream!—
Each field were trampled, soaked,Each stream dyed, choked,Each leaguered city and blockaded portMade famine’s sport;The empty waveMade reeling dreadnought’s grave;Cathedral, castle, gallery, smoking fell’Neath bomb and shell;In deathlike tranceLay industry, finance;Two thousand years’Bequest, achievement, saving disappears,In blood and tears,In widowed woeThat slum and palace equal know,In civilization’s suicide,—What served thereby, what satisfied?For justice, freedom, right, what wrought?Naught!—
Save, after the great cataclysm, perhapOn the world’s shaken mapNew lines, more near or far,Binding to King or CzarIn fostering hateSome newly vassaled state;And passion, lust and pride made satiate;And just a traceOf lingering smile on Satan’s face!
Boston New BureauBartholomew F. Griffin
Embracing the woman I love, I stood by the stream that circles the town I love in the peace of theSummer night,And I loved the joyous and cruel leash of life at my throat,And I loved the peace in the soul of the woman I love, and I knew that the net of her beauty was cast in a sea of peace.I loved the silver-blue flood of the moon that flowed over the quiet townAnd the trees that shaded the stream and the town I love;(For Nature is personal always to me and is never untrue and intrusive.)The garrulous, intimate talk of the trees, I loved;And the birds asleep in their nests in the trees,And the rosy wet-mouthed babes that never have minted speech, asleep in the quiet town and kissed by the warm and mothering night—The merry uncertain tentative falling leaves that fell on the rocks and the path and were carriedlaughing away by the musical stream, I loved,And the sentient gaiety of the flowers I felt were near and knew my affection, I loved;And the neighborly boisterous wind that trampled in play across the yellowing wheat;And the cattle that lay in the meadow;And the moonlight that hid in the silver sheen of the birch by the gate, I loved;And the moonlight that lay like frost that had over-slept on the Summer grass;And I loved the peaceful, close-breathing, embracing night that breathed the scent of unseen flowers and the fragrance of the woman I love.Ancient and cruel songs passed deathward into the night,And symbols of ancient wrongs went mournfully by and away,And the peace that is finally done with old desires and with conqueringCaressingly laid her cheek, with illimitable quietude, between my cheek and the cheek of the womanI love,And the three of us were one as we stood by the stream in the peace of the Summer night.The silence gathered and rolled above us fold upon exquisite fold,Till tenderness made me eager to shout and to sing aloud in the positive light of Day,And to see the early marching sun brushing the fields and the town I love with his gold-shod feet,And wrapping the flowers and the intimate personal trees in the sudden flame of his breath.Christ; Christ; Christ;—That this day dawned;Peace; Peace; Peace—Raped and mangled and dead,And none to lay a healing hand for easement on her head.War; War; War—Came with withering day.Ancient cruel songsFrom red throats hurledAnd none to sing a healing song of peace in all the world.The sunlight is a wound to me and Jesus Christ has rotted overnight,And peace is now a corpse whose naked body lies half cold upon a shield.The morning wind has grown a hawk’s strong claws,And nothing brings my heart so near to breaking as sunlight surging over the long grass.
Embracing the woman I love, I stood by the stream that circles the town I love in the peace of theSummer night,And I loved the joyous and cruel leash of life at my throat,And I loved the peace in the soul of the woman I love, and I knew that the net of her beauty was cast in a sea of peace.I loved the silver-blue flood of the moon that flowed over the quiet townAnd the trees that shaded the stream and the town I love;(For Nature is personal always to me and is never untrue and intrusive.)The garrulous, intimate talk of the trees, I loved;And the birds asleep in their nests in the trees,And the rosy wet-mouthed babes that never have minted speech, asleep in the quiet town and kissed by the warm and mothering night—The merry uncertain tentative falling leaves that fell on the rocks and the path and were carriedlaughing away by the musical stream, I loved,And the sentient gaiety of the flowers I felt were near and knew my affection, I loved;And the neighborly boisterous wind that trampled in play across the yellowing wheat;And the cattle that lay in the meadow;And the moonlight that hid in the silver sheen of the birch by the gate, I loved;And the moonlight that lay like frost that had over-slept on the Summer grass;And I loved the peaceful, close-breathing, embracing night that breathed the scent of unseen flowers and the fragrance of the woman I love.Ancient and cruel songs passed deathward into the night,And symbols of ancient wrongs went mournfully by and away,And the peace that is finally done with old desires and with conqueringCaressingly laid her cheek, with illimitable quietude, between my cheek and the cheek of the womanI love,And the three of us were one as we stood by the stream in the peace of the Summer night.The silence gathered and rolled above us fold upon exquisite fold,Till tenderness made me eager to shout and to sing aloud in the positive light of Day,And to see the early marching sun brushing the fields and the town I love with his gold-shod feet,And wrapping the flowers and the intimate personal trees in the sudden flame of his breath.Christ; Christ; Christ;—That this day dawned;Peace; Peace; Peace—Raped and mangled and dead,And none to lay a healing hand for easement on her head.War; War; War—Came with withering day.Ancient cruel songsFrom red throats hurledAnd none to sing a healing song of peace in all the world.The sunlight is a wound to me and Jesus Christ has rotted overnight,And peace is now a corpse whose naked body lies half cold upon a shield.The morning wind has grown a hawk’s strong claws,And nothing brings my heart so near to breaking as sunlight surging over the long grass.
Embracing the woman I love, I stood by the stream that circles the town I love in the peace of theSummer night,And I loved the joyous and cruel leash of life at my throat,And I loved the peace in the soul of the woman I love, and I knew that the net of her beauty was cast in a sea of peace.I loved the silver-blue flood of the moon that flowed over the quiet townAnd the trees that shaded the stream and the town I love;(For Nature is personal always to me and is never untrue and intrusive.)The garrulous, intimate talk of the trees, I loved;And the birds asleep in their nests in the trees,And the rosy wet-mouthed babes that never have minted speech, asleep in the quiet town and kissed by the warm and mothering night—The merry uncertain tentative falling leaves that fell on the rocks and the path and were carriedlaughing away by the musical stream, I loved,And the sentient gaiety of the flowers I felt were near and knew my affection, I loved;And the neighborly boisterous wind that trampled in play across the yellowing wheat;And the cattle that lay in the meadow;And the moonlight that hid in the silver sheen of the birch by the gate, I loved;And the moonlight that lay like frost that had over-slept on the Summer grass;And I loved the peaceful, close-breathing, embracing night that breathed the scent of unseen flowers and the fragrance of the woman I love.
Ancient and cruel songs passed deathward into the night,And symbols of ancient wrongs went mournfully by and away,And the peace that is finally done with old desires and with conqueringCaressingly laid her cheek, with illimitable quietude, between my cheek and the cheek of the womanI love,And the three of us were one as we stood by the stream in the peace of the Summer night.
The silence gathered and rolled above us fold upon exquisite fold,Till tenderness made me eager to shout and to sing aloud in the positive light of Day,And to see the early marching sun brushing the fields and the town I love with his gold-shod feet,And wrapping the flowers and the intimate personal trees in the sudden flame of his breath.
Christ; Christ; Christ;—That this day dawned;Peace; Peace; Peace—Raped and mangled and dead,And none to lay a healing hand for easement on her head.
War; War; War—Came with withering day.Ancient cruel songsFrom red throats hurledAnd none to sing a healing song of peace in all the world.
The sunlight is a wound to me and Jesus Christ has rotted overnight,And peace is now a corpse whose naked body lies half cold upon a shield.The morning wind has grown a hawk’s strong claws,And nothing brings my heart so near to breaking as sunlight surging over the long grass.
The MassesEdmond McKenna