THE HILLS OF SAN JOSÉI look at the long low hills of golden brownWith their little wooded canyonsAnd at the haze hanging its beauty in the air—And I am caught and held, as a ball is caught and held by a playerWho leaps for it in the field.And as the heart in the breast of the player beats toward the ball,And as the heart beats in the breast of him who shoutstoward the player,So my heart beats toward the hills that are playing ball with the sun,That leap to catch the sunAnd to throw it to other hills—Or to me!
THE HILLS OF SAN JOSÉ
I look at the long low hills of golden brownWith their little wooded canyonsAnd at the haze hanging its beauty in the air—And I am caught and held, as a ball is caught and held by a playerWho leaps for it in the field.And as the heart in the breast of the player beats toward the ball,And as the heart beats in the breast of him who shoutstoward the player,So my heart beats toward the hills that are playing ball with the sun,That leap to catch the sunAnd to throw it to other hills—Or to me!
GRIEVE NOT FOR BEAUTYGrieve not for the invisible, transported browOn which like leaves the dark hair grew,Nor for the lips of laughter that are nowLaughing inaudibly in sun and dew,Nor for those limbs that, fallen lowAnd seeming faint and slow,Shall yet pursueMore ways of swiftness than the swallow dipsAmong ... and find more winds than ever blewThe straining sails of unimpeded ships!Mourn not!—yield only happy tearsTo deeper beauty than appears!
GRIEVE NOT FOR BEAUTY
Grieve not for the invisible, transported browOn which like leaves the dark hair grew,Nor for the lips of laughter that are nowLaughing inaudibly in sun and dew,Nor for those limbs that, fallen lowAnd seeming faint and slow,Shall yet pursueMore ways of swiftness than the swallow dipsAmong ... and find more winds than ever blewThe straining sails of unimpeded ships!Mourn not!—yield only happy tearsTo deeper beauty than appears!
THE MYSTICBy seven vineyards on one hillWe walked. The native wineIn clusters grew beside us two,For your lips and for mine,When, "Hark!" you said,—"Was that a bellOr a bubbling spring we heard?"But I was wise and closed my eyesAnd listened to a bird;For as summer leaves are bent and shakeWith singers passing through,So moves in me continuallyThe wingèd breath of you.You tasted from a single vineAnd took from that your fill—But I inclined to every kind,All seven on one hill.
THE MYSTIC
By seven vineyards on one hillWe walked. The native wineIn clusters grew beside us two,For your lips and for mine,
When, "Hark!" you said,—"Was that a bellOr a bubbling spring we heard?"But I was wise and closed my eyesAnd listened to a bird;
For as summer leaves are bent and shakeWith singers passing through,So moves in me continuallyThe wingèd breath of you.
You tasted from a single vineAnd took from that your fill—But I inclined to every kind,All seven on one hill.
PASSING NEARI had not till today been sure,But now I know:Dead men and women come and goUnder the pureSequestering snow.And under the autumnal fernAnd carmine bush,Under the shadow of a thrush,They move and learn;And in the rushOf all the mountain-brooks that wakeWith upward flingTo brush and break the loosening clingOf ice, they shakeThe air with Spring!I had not till today been sure,But now I know:Dead youths and maidens come and goBelow the lureAnd undertowOf cities, under every streetOf empty stress,Or heart of an adulteress:Each loud retreatOf lovelessness.For only by the stir we makeIn passing nearAre we confused, and cannot hearThe ways they takeCertain and clear.Today I happened in a placeWhere all aroundWas silence; until, underground,I heard a pace,A happy sound.And people whom I there could seeTenderly smiled,While under a wood of silent, wildAntiquityWandered a child,Leading his mother by the hand,Happy and slow,Teaching his mother where to goUnder the snow.Not even now I understand—I only know.Witter Bynner
PASSING NEAR
I had not till today been sure,But now I know:Dead men and women come and goUnder the pureSequestering snow.
And under the autumnal fernAnd carmine bush,Under the shadow of a thrush,They move and learn;And in the rush
Of all the mountain-brooks that wakeWith upward flingTo brush and break the loosening clingOf ice, they shakeThe air with Spring!
I had not till today been sure,But now I know:Dead youths and maidens come and goBelow the lureAnd undertow
Of cities, under every streetOf empty stress,Or heart of an adulteress:Each loud retreatOf lovelessness.
For only by the stir we makeIn passing nearAre we confused, and cannot hearThe ways they takeCertain and clear.
Today I happened in a placeWhere all aroundWas silence; until, underground,I heard a pace,A happy sound.
And people whom I there could seeTenderly smiled,While under a wood of silent, wildAntiquityWandered a child,
Leading his mother by the hand,Happy and slow,Teaching his mother where to goUnder the snow.Not even now I understand—I only know.
Witter Bynner
The Story of a Round House and other Poems,byJohn Masefield(Macmillan)
N
Not long ago I chanced to see upon a well-known page, reflective and sincere, these words: "The invisible root out of which the poetry deepest in and dearest to humanity grows is Friendship."
A recent volume may well serve as a distinguished illustration of the saying's truth. Few persons, I think, will readThe Story of a Round House and other Poemswithout a sense that the invisible root of its deep poetry is that fine power which Whitman called Friendship, the genius of sympathetic imagination.
This is the force that knits the sinews of the chief, the life-size figure of the book.Dauberis the tale of a man and his work. It is the story of an artist in the making. The heroic struggles of an English farmer's son of twenty-one to become a painter of ships and the ocean, form the drama of the poem. The scene is a voyage around the Horn, the ship-board and round-house of a clipper where Dauber spends cruel, grinding months of effort to become an able seaman on the road of his further purpose—
Of beating thought into the perfect line.
His fall from the yard-arm toward the close of the conquered horrors of his testing voyage; the catastrophe of his death after
He had emerged out of the iron timeAnd knew that he could compass his life's scheme—
He had emerged out of the iron timeAnd knew that he could compass his life's scheme—
these make the end of the tragedy.
Tragedy? Yes. But a tragedy of the same temper as that of the great Dane, where the pursuit of a mortal soul's intention is more, far more, than his mortality. Unseen forever by the world, part of its unheard melodies, are all the lines and colors of the Dauber's dreaming. At Elsinore rules Fortinbras, the foe: the fight is lost; the fighter has been slain. These are great issues, hard, unjust and wrong. But the greatest issue of all is that men should be made of the stuff of magnificence. You close the poem, you listen to the last speech of its deep sea-music, thinking: Here is death, the real death we all must die; here is futility, and who knows what we all are here for? But here is glory.
Only less powerful than the impression of the strain of Dauber's endeavor, is the impression of its loneliness. The sneers of the reefers, their practical jokes, the dulness, the arrogance, the smugness and endless misunderstanding, the meanness of man on the apprentice journey, has a keener tooth than the storm-wind.
The verities ofDauberare built out of veracities. The reader must face the hardship of labor at sea. He must face the squalors, the miseries. If he cannot find poetry in a presentment of the cruel, dizzying reality of a sailor's night on a yard-arm in the icy gale off Cape Horn, then he will not perhaps feel in the poem the uncompromising raciness inherent in romances that are true. For the whole manner of this sea-piece is that of bold, free-hand drawing of things as they are. Its final event presents a genuinely epic subject from our contemporary history—the catastrophic character of common labor, and one of its multitudinous fatalities.
Epic rather than lyric, the verse ofDauberhas an admirable and refreshing variety in its movement. It speaks the high, wild cry of an eagle:
—the eagle's songScreamed from her desolate screes and splintered scars.
—the eagle's songScreamed from her desolate screes and splintered scars.
It speaks thick-crowding discomforts on the mast with a slapping, frozen sail:
His sheath-knife flashed,His numb hand hacked with it to clear the strips;The flying ice was salt upon his lips.The ice was caking on his oil-skins; coldStruck to his marrow, beat upon him strong,The chill palsied his blood, it made him old;The frosty scatter of death was being flung.
His sheath-knife flashed,His numb hand hacked with it to clear the strips;The flying ice was salt upon his lips.The ice was caking on his oil-skins; coldStruck to his marrow, beat upon him strong,The chill palsied his blood, it made him old;The frosty scatter of death was being flung.
Some of the lines, such as—
The blackness crunched all memory of the sun—
The blackness crunched all memory of the sun—
have the hard ring, the thick-packed consonantal beauty of stirring Greek.
Dauberwill have value to American poetry-readers if only from its mere power of revealing that poetry is not alone the mellow lin-lan-lone of evening bells, though it be that also, but may have music of innumerable kinds.
Biography, the next poem in the book, sings with a different voice and sees from a different point of view, the difficulty of re-creating in expression—here expression through words, not through colors—
This many-pictured world of many passions.
This many-pictured world of many passions.
Biography, too, rises from the invisible root of friendship and bears with wonderfully vivid arborescence an appreciative tale of the fine contribution of different companionships to a life.
Among the two-score shorter lyrics of the collection are songs of the sea or of the country-side; chants of coast-town bells and ports, marine ballads, and love-poems. This is, however, the loosest entitling of their kinds; nothing but the work itself in its entirety, can ever tell the actual subject of any true poem. Of these kinds it is not to the marine ballads that one turns back again and again, not to the story of "Spanish Waters" nor to any of the jingling-gold, the clinking-glass, the treasure-wreck verses of the book. Their tunes are spirited, but not a tenth as spirited as those of "The Pirates of Penzance." Indeed, to the conventionally villainous among fictive sea-faring persons of song, Gilbert and Sullivan seem to have done something that cannot now ever be undone.
The poems in the volume one does turn back to again and again are those with the great singing tones, that pour forth with originality, with inexpressible free grace and native power. Again and again you will readA Creed,C. L. M.,Born for Nought Else,Roadways,Truth,The Wild Duck,Her Heart, and—
But at the falling of the tideThe golden birds still sing and gleam.The Atlanteans have not died,Immortal things still give us dream.The dream that fires man's heart to make,To build, to do, to sing or sayA beauty Death can never take,An Adam from the crumbled clay.
But at the falling of the tideThe golden birds still sing and gleam.The Atlanteans have not died,Immortal things still give us dream.
The dream that fires man's heart to make,To build, to do, to sing or sayA beauty Death can never take,An Adam from the crumbled clay.
Wonderful, wonderful it is that in the hearing of our own generation, one great voice after another has called and sung to the world from the midst of the sea-mists of England. From the poetry of Swinburne, of Rudyard Kipling, of John Masefield immortal things still give us dream.
Among the poems of this new book, more than one appear as incarnations of the beauty Death can never take. Of these, perhaps, none is more characteristic of the poet, nor will any more fittingly evince his volume's quality thanTruth.
Man with his burning soulHas but an hour of breathTo build a ship of TruthIn which his soul may sail,Sail on the sea of death.For death takes tollOf beauty, courage, youth,Of all but Truth.Life's city ways are dark,Men mutter by, the wellsOf the great waters moan.O death, O sea, O tide,The waters moan like bells.No light, no mark,The soul goes out aloneOn seas unknown.Stripped of all purple robes,Stripped of all golden lies,I will not be afraid.Truth will preserve through death;Perhaps the stars will rise,The stars like globes.The ship my striving madeMay see night fade.Edith Wyatt
Man with his burning soulHas but an hour of breathTo build a ship of TruthIn which his soul may sail,Sail on the sea of death.For death takes tollOf beauty, courage, youth,Of all but Truth.
Life's city ways are dark,Men mutter by, the wellsOf the great waters moan.O death, O sea, O tide,The waters moan like bells.No light, no mark,The soul goes out aloneOn seas unknown.
Stripped of all purple robes,Stripped of all golden lies,I will not be afraid.Truth will preserve through death;Perhaps the stars will rise,The stars like globes.The ship my striving madeMay see night fade.
Edith Wyatt
Présences, par P. J. Jouve: Georges Crès, Paris.
I take pleasure in welcoming, in Monsieur Jouve, a contemporary. He writes the new jargon and I have not the slightest doubt that he is a poet.
Whatever may be said against automobiles and aeroplanes and the modernist way of speaking of them, and however much one may argue that this new sort of work is mannered, and that its style will pass, still it is indisputable that the vitality of the time exists in such work.
Here is a book that you can read without being dead sure of what you will find on the next page, or at the end of the next couplet. There is no doubt that M. Jouve sees with his own eyes and feels with his own nerves. Nothing is more boresome than an author who pretends to know less about things than he really does know. It is this silly sort of false naïveté that rots the weaker productions of Maeterlinck. Thank heaven the advance guard is in process of escaping it.
It is possible that the new style will grow as weak in the future in the hands of imitators as has, by now, the Victorian manner, but for the nonce it is refreshing. Work of this sort can not be produced by the yard in stolid imitation of dead authors.
I defy anyone to read it without being forced to think, immediately, about life and the nature of things. I have perused this volume twice, and I have enjoyed it.
E. P.
The Poetry Society of America, organized in 1910, was a natural response, perhaps at the time unconscious, to the reawakened interest in poetry, now so widely apparent.
There seemed no reason why poetry, one of the noblest of the arts, should not take to itself visible organization as well as its sister arts of music and painting, since it was certain that such organization contributed much to their advancement and appreciation. Poetry alone remained an isolated art, save through the doubtful value of coteries dedicated to the study of some particular poet. In the sense of fellowship, of the creative sympathy of contact, of the keener appreciation which must follow the wider knowledge of an art, poetry stood alone, detached from these avenues open from the beginning to other arts.
The Society was therefore founded, with a charter membership of about fifty persons, which included many of the poets doing significant work to-day, together with critics and representatives of other arts, the purpose from the outset being to include the appreciators of poetry as well as its producers. It has grown to nearly two hundred members, distributed from coast to coast, and eventually it will probably resolve itself into branch societies, with the chief organization, as now, in New York. Such societies should have a wide influence upon their respective communities in stimulating interest in the work of living poets, to which the Poetry Society as an organization is chiefly addressed.
Since the passing of the nineteenth-century poets, the art of poetry, like the art of painting, has taken on new forms and become the vehicle of a new message. The poet of to-day speaks through so different a medium, his themes are so diverse from those of the elder generation, that he cannot hope to find his public in their lingering audience. He must look to his contemporaries, to those touched by the same issues and responsive to the same ideals. To aid in creating this atmosphere for the poet, to be the nucleus of a movement for the wider knowledge of contemporaneous verse, the Poetry Society of America took form and in its brief period has, I think, justified the idea of its promoters.
Its meetings are held once a month at the National Arts Club in New York, with which it is affiliated, and are given chiefly to the reading and discussion of poetry, both of recently published volumes and of poems submitted anonymously. This feature has proved perhaps the most attractive, and while criticism based upon one hearing of a poem cannot be taken as authoritative, it is often constructive and valuable.
The Society is assembling an interesting collection of books, a twentieth century library of American poetry. Aside from its own collection, it is taking steps to promote a wider representation of modern poets in public libraries.
Jessie B. Rittenhouse.
"THAT MASS OF DOLTS"
Mr. Pound's phrase in his poemTo Whistler, American, has aroused more or less resentment, some of it quite emphatic. Apparently we of "these states" have no longing for an Ezekiel; our prophets must give us, not the bitter medicine which possibly we need, but the sugar-and-water of compliment which we can always swallow with a smile.
Perhaps we should examine our consciences a little, or at least step down from our self-erected pedestals long enough to listen to this accusation. What has become of our boasted sense of humor if we cannot let our young poets rail, or our sense of justice if we cannot cease smiling and weigh their words? In certain respects we Americansare a "mass of dolts," and in none more than our huge stolid, fundamental indifference to our own art. Mr. Pound is not the first American poet who has stood with his back to the wall, and struck out blindly with clenched fists in a fierce impulse to fight. Nor is he the first whom we, by this same stolid and indifferent rejection, have forced into exile and rebellion.
After a young poet has applied in vain to the whole list of American publishers and editors, and learned that even though he were a genius of the first magnitude they could not risk money or space on his poetry because the public would not buy it—after a series of such rebuffs our young aspirant goes abroad and succeeds in interesting some London publisher. The English critics, let us say, praise his book, and echoes of their praises reach our astonished ears. Thereupon the poet in exile finds that he has thus gained a public, and editorial suffrages, in America, and that the most effective way of increasing that public and those suffrages is, to remain in exile and guard his foreign reputation.
Meantime it is quite probable that a serious poet will have grown weary of such open and unashamed colonialism, that he will prefer to stay among people who are seriously interested in aesthetics and who know their own minds. For nothing is so hard to meet as indifference; blows are easier for a live man to endure than neglect. The poet who cries out his message against a stone wall will be silenced in the end, even though he bear a seraph's wand and speak with the tongues of angels.
One phase of our colonialism in art, the singing of opera in foreign languages, has been persistently opposed by Eleanor E. Freer, who has set to music of rare distinction many of the finest English lyrics, old and new. She writes:
In the Basilikon Doron, King James I of England writes to his son: "And I would, also, advise you to write in your own language; for there is nothing left to be said in Greek and Latin already—and besides that, it best becometh a King to purify and make famous his own tongue." Might we add, it best becometh the kings of art in America and England to sing their own language and thus aid in the progress of their national music and poetry?
Messrs. Arthur Davison Ficke and Witter Bynner belong to the younger group of American poets, both having been born since 1880, the former in Davenport, Iowa, and the latter in Brooklyn. Both were graduated from Harvard early in this century, after which Mr. Ficke was admitted to the bar, and Mr. Bynner became assistant editor of McClure's.
Mr. Ficke has publishedFrom the Isles,The Happy Princess,The Earth PassionandThe Breaking of Bonds; alsoMr. Faust, a dramatic poem, and a series of poems calledTwelve Japanese Painters, will be published this year. Mr. Bynner has publishedAn Ode to Harvard and Other Poems, andAn Immigrant. His play,His Father's House, was recently produced in California.
The March number ofPoetrywill containThe Silent House, a one-act play, by Agnes Lee, and poems by Alice Meynell, Alfred Noyes, Fannie Stearns Davis and others.
Bugle Notes of Courage and Love, by Althea A. Ogden. Unity Publishing Co.Altar-Side Messages, by Evelyn H. Walker. Unity Publishing Co.Dream Harbor, by J. W. Vallandingham. Privately printed.Hopeful Thoughts, by Eleanor Hope. Franklin Hudson Publishing Co.The Youth Replies, by Louis How. Sherman, French & Co.Songs of the Love Unending, A Sonnet Sequence, by Kendall Banning. Brothers of the Book.William Allingham, The Golden Treasury Series. The Macmillan Co.Idylls Beside the Strand, by Franklin F. Phillips. Sherman, French & Co.The Minstrel with the Self-Same Song, by Charles A. Fisher. The Eichelberger Book Co.The Wife of Potiphar, with Other Poems, by Harvey M. Watts. The John C. Winston Co.A Scroll of Seers, A Wall Anthology. Peter Paul & Son.
Bugle Notes of Courage and Love, by Althea A. Ogden. Unity Publishing Co.Altar-Side Messages, by Evelyn H. Walker. Unity Publishing Co.Dream Harbor, by J. W. Vallandingham. Privately printed.Hopeful Thoughts, by Eleanor Hope. Franklin Hudson Publishing Co.The Youth Replies, by Louis How. Sherman, French & Co.Songs of the Love Unending, A Sonnet Sequence, by Kendall Banning. Brothers of the Book.William Allingham, The Golden Treasury Series. The Macmillan Co.Idylls Beside the Strand, by Franklin F. Phillips. Sherman, French & Co.The Minstrel with the Self-Same Song, by Charles A. Fisher. The Eichelberger Book Co.The Wife of Potiphar, with Other Poems, by Harvey M. Watts. The John C. Winston Co.A Scroll of Seers, A Wall Anthology. Peter Paul & Son.
THE SILENT HOUSEDavid.[Re-reading a letter.]How may a letter bring such darkness down—With this: "She dallied with your love too long!"And this: "It is the word of all the town:"Corinna has no soul, for all her song!"Martha.[Entering with flowers.]O sir, I bring you flaming bergamot,And early asters, for your window-sill.And where I found them? Now you'll guess it not.I visited the garden on the hill,And gathered till my arms could hold no more.David.The garden of the little silent house!Martha.The city lured her from her viny door.But see, the flowers have stayed!David.They seem to drowseAnd dream of one they lost, a paler-blown.How fares the house upon the hill?Martha.The blindsAre fast of late, and all are intergrownWith weedy havoc tossed by searching winds.David.How somber suddenly the sky! A showerIs in the air.Martha.I'll light the lamps.David.Not yet.Leave me the beauty of the twilit hour.Martha.Hear the wind rising! How the moorings fret!More than a shower is on its way through space.I would not be aboard of yonder barque.[She goes out.]David.Corinna! Now may I recall her face.It is my light to think by in the dark.Yes, all my years of study, all the willTenacious to achieve, the tempered strife,The victories attained through patient skill,Lie at the door of one dear human life.And yet ... the letter ...Often have I readHow love relumes the flowers and the trees.True! For my world is newly garmented:Rewards seem slight, and slighter penalties.Daily companionship is more and more.To make one little good more viable,To lift one load, is worth the heart's outpour.And she—she has made all things wonderful.And yet ... the letter ...O to break a spellWherein the stars are crumbling unto dust!There never was a hope—I know it well,And struggle on, and love because I must.Never a hope? Shall ever any scheme,Her silence, or alarm of written word,Or voiced asseveration, shake my dream?She loves me! By love's anguish, I have heard!We two from our soul-towers across a valeAre calling each to each, alert, aware.Shall one of us one day the other hail,And no reply be borne upon the air?Corinna, come to light my heart's dim place!O come to me, Belovèd and Besought,O'er grief, o'er gladness,—even o'er death apace,—For I could greet your phantom, so it broughtLove's own reality!...A song of hersSeems striving hither, a faint villanelleHalf smothered by the gale's mad roisterers.She used to sing it in the bracken dell.Here is the rain against the window beatingIn heavy drops that presage wilder storm.The lake is lost within a lurid sheeting;The house upon the hill has changed its form.The melancholy pine-trees weep in rocking.And what's that clamor at the outer door?Martha! O Martha! Somebody is knocking! [Calling.]Martha.[Re-entering.] You hear the rills that down the gutters roar.David.And are you deaf? The door—go open it!This is no night to leave a man outside!Martha.[Muttering and going toward the door.]And is it I am growing deaf a bit,And blind a bit, with other ill-betide!Well, I can see to thread a needle still,And I can hear the ticking of the clock,And I can fetch a basket from the mill.But hallow me if ever I heard knock![She throws the door open. David starts up and rushesforward with outstretched arms.]David.Corinna! You, Corinna! Drenched and cold!At last, at last! But how in all the rain!Martha![Martha stands motionless, unseeing.]Good Martha, you are growing old!Draw fast the shades—shut out the hurricane.Here, take the dripping cloak from out the room;Bring cordial from the purple damson pressed,And light the lamps, the candles—fire the gloom.Why stand you gaping? See you not the guest?Martha.I opened wide the door unto the storm.But never heard I step upon the sill.All the black night let in no living form.I see no guest. Look hard as e'er I will,I see none here but you and my poor self.David.The room that was my mother's room prepare.Spread out warm garments on the oaken shelf—Her gown, the little shawl she used to wear.[Martha, wide-eyed, bewildered, lights the lamps andcandles and goes out, raising her hands.]Corinna.The moments I may tarry fade and press.Something impelled me hither, some clear flame.They said I had no soul! O David, yes,They said I had no soul! And so I came.I have been singing, singing, all the way,O, singing ever since the darkness grewAnd I grew chill and followed the small ray.Lean close, and let my longing rest in you!David.Dear balm of light, I never thought to winFrom out the pallid hours for ever throbbing!How did you know the sorrow I was in?Corinna.A flock of leaves came sobbing, sobbing, sobbing.David.O, now I hold you fast, my love, my own,My festival upleaping from an ember!But, timid child, how could you come aloneAcross the pathless woods?Corinna.Do you remember?—Over the summer lake one starry, stilly,Sweet night, when you and I were drifting, dear,I frighted at the shadow of a lily!It is all strange, but now I have no fear.David.Your eyes are weary, drooping. Sleep, then, sleep.Corinna.I must go over to the silent house.David.The dwelling stands forsaken up the steep,With never beast nor human to arouse!Corinna.Soon will the windows gleam with many lamps.Hark!—heavy wheels are toiling to the north.David.I will go with you where the darkness ramps.Corinna.Strong arms are in the storm to bear me forth.David.Not in these garments dripping as the trees!Not in these clinging shadows!Corinna.Ah, good-night!Dear love, dear love, I must go forth in these.Tomorrow you shall see me all in white.Agnes Lee
THE SILENT HOUSE
David.[Re-reading a letter.]How may a letter bring such darkness down—With this: "She dallied with your love too long!"And this: "It is the word of all the town:"Corinna has no soul, for all her song!"
Martha.[Entering with flowers.]O sir, I bring you flaming bergamot,And early asters, for your window-sill.And where I found them? Now you'll guess it not.I visited the garden on the hill,And gathered till my arms could hold no more.
David.The garden of the little silent house!
Martha.The city lured her from her viny door.But see, the flowers have stayed!
David.They seem to drowseAnd dream of one they lost, a paler-blown.How fares the house upon the hill?
Martha.The blindsAre fast of late, and all are intergrownWith weedy havoc tossed by searching winds.
David.How somber suddenly the sky! A showerIs in the air.
Martha.I'll light the lamps.
David.Not yet.Leave me the beauty of the twilit hour.
Martha.Hear the wind rising! How the moorings fret!More than a shower is on its way through space.I would not be aboard of yonder barque.[She goes out.]David.Corinna! Now may I recall her face.It is my light to think by in the dark.Yes, all my years of study, all the willTenacious to achieve, the tempered strife,The victories attained through patient skill,Lie at the door of one dear human life.And yet ... the letter ...Often have I readHow love relumes the flowers and the trees.True! For my world is newly garmented:Rewards seem slight, and slighter penalties.Daily companionship is more and more.To make one little good more viable,To lift one load, is worth the heart's outpour.And she—she has made all things wonderful.And yet ... the letter ...O to break a spellWherein the stars are crumbling unto dust!There never was a hope—I know it well,And struggle on, and love because I must.Never a hope? Shall ever any scheme,Her silence, or alarm of written word,Or voiced asseveration, shake my dream?She loves me! By love's anguish, I have heard!We two from our soul-towers across a valeAre calling each to each, alert, aware.Shall one of us one day the other hail,And no reply be borne upon the air?Corinna, come to light my heart's dim place!O come to me, Belovèd and Besought,O'er grief, o'er gladness,—even o'er death apace,—For I could greet your phantom, so it broughtLove's own reality!...A song of hersSeems striving hither, a faint villanelleHalf smothered by the gale's mad roisterers.She used to sing it in the bracken dell.Here is the rain against the window beatingIn heavy drops that presage wilder storm.The lake is lost within a lurid sheeting;The house upon the hill has changed its form.The melancholy pine-trees weep in rocking.And what's that clamor at the outer door?Martha! O Martha! Somebody is knocking! [Calling.]
Martha.[Re-entering.] You hear the rills that down the gutters roar.
David.And are you deaf? The door—go open it!This is no night to leave a man outside!
Martha.[Muttering and going toward the door.]And is it I am growing deaf a bit,And blind a bit, with other ill-betide!Well, I can see to thread a needle still,And I can hear the ticking of the clock,And I can fetch a basket from the mill.But hallow me if ever I heard knock![She throws the door open. David starts up and rushesforward with outstretched arms.]David.Corinna! You, Corinna! Drenched and cold!At last, at last! But how in all the rain!Martha![Martha stands motionless, unseeing.]Good Martha, you are growing old!Draw fast the shades—shut out the hurricane.Here, take the dripping cloak from out the room;Bring cordial from the purple damson pressed,And light the lamps, the candles—fire the gloom.Why stand you gaping? See you not the guest?
Martha.I opened wide the door unto the storm.But never heard I step upon the sill.All the black night let in no living form.I see no guest. Look hard as e'er I will,I see none here but you and my poor self.
David.The room that was my mother's room prepare.Spread out warm garments on the oaken shelf—Her gown, the little shawl she used to wear.[Martha, wide-eyed, bewildered, lights the lamps andcandles and goes out, raising her hands.]Corinna.The moments I may tarry fade and press.Something impelled me hither, some clear flame.They said I had no soul! O David, yes,They said I had no soul! And so I came.I have been singing, singing, all the way,O, singing ever since the darkness grewAnd I grew chill and followed the small ray.Lean close, and let my longing rest in you!
David.Dear balm of light, I never thought to winFrom out the pallid hours for ever throbbing!How did you know the sorrow I was in?
Corinna.A flock of leaves came sobbing, sobbing, sobbing.
David.O, now I hold you fast, my love, my own,My festival upleaping from an ember!But, timid child, how could you come aloneAcross the pathless woods?
Corinna.Do you remember?—Over the summer lake one starry, stilly,Sweet night, when you and I were drifting, dear,I frighted at the shadow of a lily!It is all strange, but now I have no fear.
David.Your eyes are weary, drooping. Sleep, then, sleep.
Corinna.I must go over to the silent house.
David.The dwelling stands forsaken up the steep,With never beast nor human to arouse!
Corinna.Soon will the windows gleam with many lamps.Hark!—heavy wheels are toiling to the north.
David.I will go with you where the darkness ramps.
Corinna.Strong arms are in the storm to bear me forth.
David.Not in these garments dripping as the trees!Not in these clinging shadows!
Corinna.Ah, good-night!Dear love, dear love, I must go forth in these.Tomorrow you shall see me all in white.
Agnes Lee
THE ORACLE(To the New Telescope on Mt. Wilson)Of old sat one at Delphi brooding o'erThe fretful earth;—ironically wise,Veiling her prescience in dark replies,She shaped the fates of men with mystic lore.The oracle is silent now. No moreFate parts the cloud that round omniscience lies.But thou, O Seer, dost tease our wild surmiseWith portents passing all the wealth of yore.For thou shalt spell the very thoughts of God!Before thy boundless vision, world on worldShall multiply in glit'ring sequence far;And all the little ways which men have trodShall be as nothing by His star-dust whirledInto the making of a single star.
THE ORACLE(To the New Telescope on Mt. Wilson)
Of old sat one at Delphi brooding o'erThe fretful earth;—ironically wise,Veiling her prescience in dark replies,She shaped the fates of men with mystic lore.The oracle is silent now. No moreFate parts the cloud that round omniscience lies.But thou, O Seer, dost tease our wild surmiseWith portents passing all the wealth of yore.For thou shalt spell the very thoughts of God!Before thy boundless vision, world on worldShall multiply in glit'ring sequence far;And all the little ways which men have trodShall be as nothing by His star-dust whirledInto the making of a single star.
A GARGOYLE ON NOTRE DAMEWith angel's wings and brutish-human form,Weathered with centuries of sun and storm,He crouches yonder on the gallery wall,Monstrous, superb, indifferent, cynical:And all the pulse of Paris cannot stirHer one immutable philosopher.Edmund Kemper Broadus
A GARGOYLE ON NOTRE DAME
With angel's wings and brutish-human form,Weathered with centuries of sun and storm,He crouches yonder on the gallery wall,Monstrous, superb, indifferent, cynical:And all the pulse of Paris cannot stirHer one immutable philosopher.
Edmund Kemper Broadus
SANTA BARBARA BEACHNow while the sunset offers,Shall we not take our own:The gems, the blazing coffers,The seas, the shores, the throne?The sky-ships, radiant-masted,Move out, bear low our way.Oh, Life was dark while it lasted,Now for enduring day.Now with the world far under,To draw up drowning menAnd show them lands of wonderWhere they may build again.There earthly sorrow falters,There longing has its wage;There gleam the ivory altarsOf our lost pilgrimage.—Swift flame—then shipwrecks onlyBeach in the ruined light;Above them reach up lonelyThe headlands of the night.A hurt bird cries and fluttersHer dabbled breast of brown;The western wall unshuttersTo fling one last rose down.A rose, a wild light after—And life calls through the years,"Who dreams my fountains' laughterShall feed my wells with tears."Ridgely Torrence
SANTA BARBARA BEACH
Now while the sunset offers,Shall we not take our own:The gems, the blazing coffers,The seas, the shores, the throne?
The sky-ships, radiant-masted,Move out, bear low our way.Oh, Life was dark while it lasted,Now for enduring day.
Now with the world far under,To draw up drowning menAnd show them lands of wonderWhere they may build again.
There earthly sorrow falters,There longing has its wage;There gleam the ivory altarsOf our lost pilgrimage.
—Swift flame—then shipwrecks onlyBeach in the ruined light;Above them reach up lonelyThe headlands of the night.
A hurt bird cries and fluttersHer dabbled breast of brown;The western wall unshuttersTo fling one last rose down.
A rose, a wild light after—And life calls through the years,"Who dreams my fountains' laughterShall feed my wells with tears."
Ridgely Torrence
MATERNITYOne wept, whose only babe was dead,New-born ten years ago."Weep not; he is in bliss," they said.She answered, "Even so."Ten years ago was born in painA child, not now forlorn;But oh, ten years ago in vainA mother, a mother was born."Alice Meynell
MATERNITY
One wept, whose only babe was dead,New-born ten years ago."Weep not; he is in bliss," they said.She answered, "Even so.
"Ten years ago was born in painA child, not now forlorn;But oh, ten years ago in vainA mother, a mother was born."
Alice Meynell
PROFITSYes, stars were with me formerly.(I also knew the wind and sea;And hill-tops had my feet by heart.Their shaggéd heights would sting and startWhen I came leaping on their backs.I knew the earth's queer crooked cracks,Where hidden waters weave a lowAnd druid chant of joy and woe.)But stars were with me most of all.I heard them flame and break and fall.Their excellent array, their freeEncounter with Eternity,I learned. And it was good to knowThat where God walked, I too might go.Now, all these things are passed. For IGrow very old and glad to die.What did they profit me, say you,These distant bloodless things I knew?Profit? What profit hath the seaOf her deep-throated threnody?What profit hath the sun, who standsStaring on space with idle hands?And what should God Himself acquireFrom all the aeons' blood and fire?My profit is as theirs: to beMade proof against mortality:To know that I have companiedWith all that shines and lives, amidSo much the years sift through their hands,Most mortal, windy, worthless sands.This day I have great peace. With meShall stars abide eternally!
PROFITS
Yes, stars were with me formerly.(I also knew the wind and sea;And hill-tops had my feet by heart.Their shaggéd heights would sting and startWhen I came leaping on their backs.I knew the earth's queer crooked cracks,Where hidden waters weave a lowAnd druid chant of joy and woe.)
But stars were with me most of all.I heard them flame and break and fall.Their excellent array, their freeEncounter with Eternity,I learned. And it was good to knowThat where God walked, I too might go.
Now, all these things are passed. For IGrow very old and glad to die.What did they profit me, say you,These distant bloodless things I knew?Profit? What profit hath the seaOf her deep-throated threnody?What profit hath the sun, who standsStaring on space with idle hands?And what should God Himself acquireFrom all the aeons' blood and fire?
My profit is as theirs: to beMade proof against mortality:To know that I have companiedWith all that shines and lives, amidSo much the years sift through their hands,Most mortal, windy, worthless sands.
This day I have great peace. With meShall stars abide eternally!
TWO SONGS OF CONN THE FOOLMOON FOLLYI will go up the mountain after the Moon:She is caught in a dead fir-tree.Like a great pale apple of silver and pearl,Like a great pale apple is she.I will leap and will clasp her in quick cold handsAnd carry her home in my sack.I will set her down safe on the oaken benchThat stands at the chimney-back.And then I will sit by the fire all night,And sit by the fire all day.I will gnaw at the Moon to my heart's delight,Till I gnaw her slowly away.And while I grow mad with the Moon's cold taste,The World may beat on my door,Crying "Come out!" and crying "Make haste!And give us the Moon once more!"But I will not answer them ever at all;I will laugh, as I count and hideThe great black beautiful seeds of the MoonIn a flower-pot deep and wide.Then I will lie down and go fast asleep,Drunken with flame and aswoon.But the seeds will sprout, and the seeds will leap:The subtle swift seeds of the Moon.And some day, all of the world that beatsAnd cries at my door, shall seeA thousand moon-leaves sprout from my thatchOn a marvellous white Moon-tree!Then each shall have moons to his heart's desire:Apples of silver and pearl:Apples of orange and copper fire,Setting his five wits aswirl.And then they will thank me, who mock me now:"Wanting the Moon is he!"Oh, I'm off to the mountain after the Moon,Ere she falls from the dead fir-tree!
TWO SONGS OF CONN THE FOOLMOON FOLLY
I will go up the mountain after the Moon:She is caught in a dead fir-tree.Like a great pale apple of silver and pearl,Like a great pale apple is she.
I will leap and will clasp her in quick cold handsAnd carry her home in my sack.I will set her down safe on the oaken benchThat stands at the chimney-back.And then I will sit by the fire all night,And sit by the fire all day.I will gnaw at the Moon to my heart's delight,Till I gnaw her slowly away.
And while I grow mad with the Moon's cold taste,The World may beat on my door,Crying "Come out!" and crying "Make haste!And give us the Moon once more!"But I will not answer them ever at all;I will laugh, as I count and hideThe great black beautiful seeds of the MoonIn a flower-pot deep and wide.Then I will lie down and go fast asleep,Drunken with flame and aswoon.But the seeds will sprout, and the seeds will leap:The subtle swift seeds of the Moon.
And some day, all of the world that beatsAnd cries at my door, shall seeA thousand moon-leaves sprout from my thatchOn a marvellous white Moon-tree!Then each shall have moons to his heart's desire:Apples of silver and pearl:Apples of orange and copper fire,Setting his five wits aswirl.And then they will thank me, who mock me now:"Wanting the Moon is he!"Oh, I'm off to the mountain after the Moon,Ere she falls from the dead fir-tree!