WHAT YOU WILL
April rain, delicious weeping,Washes white bones from the grave,Long enough have they been sleeping.They are cleansed, and now they craveOnce more on the earth to gatherPleasure from the springtime weather.The pine trees and the long dark grassFeed on what is placed below.Think you not that there doth passIn them something we did know?This spell—well, friends, I greet ye once againWith joy—but with a most unuttered pain.
THE CITY
The Sun hung like a red balloonAs if he would not rise;For listless Helios drowsed and yawned.He cared not whether the morning dawned,The brother of Eos and the MoonStretched him and rubbed his eyes.He would have dreamed the dream againThat found him under sea:He saw Zeus sit by Hera's side,He saw Hæphestos with his bride;He traced from Enna's flowery plainThe child Persephone.There was a time when heaven's vaultCracked like a temple's roof.A new hierarchy burst its shell,And as the sapphire ceiling fell,From stern Jehovah's mad assault,Vast spaces stretched aloof:Great blue black depths of frozen airEngulfed the soul of Zeus.And then Jehovah reigned instead.For Judah was living and Greece was dead.And Hope was born to nurse Despair,And the Devil was let loose.
****Far off in the waste empyreanThe world was a golden mote.And the Sun hung like a red balloon,Or a bomb afire o'er a barracoon.And the sea was drab, and the sea was greenLike a many colored coat.The sea was pink like cyclamen,And red as a blushing rose.It shook anon like the sensitive plant,Under the golden light aslant.The little waves patted the shore againWhere the restless river flows.And thus it has been for ages gone—For a hundred thousand years;Ere Buddha lived or Jesus came,Or ever the city had place or name,The sea thrilled through at the kiss of dawnLike a soul of smiles and tears.When the city's seat was a waste of sand,And the hydra lived alone,The sound of the sea was here to be heard,And the moon rose up like a great white bird,Sailing aloft from the yellow strandTo her silent midnight throne.Now Helios eyes the universe,And he knows the world is small.Of old he walked through pagan Tyre,Babylon, Sodom destroyed by fire,And sought to unriddle the primal curseThat holds the race in thrall.So he stepped from the Sun in robes of flameAs the city woke from sleep.He walked the markets, walked the squares,He walked the places of sweets and snares,Where men buy honor and barter shame,And the weak are killed as sheep.He saw the city is one great martWhere life is bought and sold.Men rise to get them meat and breadTo barter for drugs or coffin the dead.And dawn is but a plucked-up heartFor the dreary game of gold."Ho! ho!" said Helios, "father ZeusWould never botch it so.If he had stolen Joseph's bride,And let his son be crucifiedThe son's blood had been put to useTo ease the people's woe.""He of the pest and the burning bush,Of locusts, lice, and frogs,Who made me stand, veiling my light,While Joshua slaughtered the Amorite,Who blacked the skin of the sons of Cush,And builded the synagogues.""And Jehovah the great is omnipotent,While Zeus was bound by Fate.But Athens fell when Peter took Rome,And Chicago is made His hecatomb.And since from the hour His son was sentThe hypocrite holds the state."Helios traversed the city streetsAnd this is what he saw:Some sold their honor, some their skill,The soldier hired himself to kill,The judges bartered the judgment seatsAnd trafficked in the law.The starving artist sold his youth,The writer sold his pen;The lawyer sharpened up his witsLike a burglar filing auger bits,And Jesus' vicar sold the truthTo the famished sons of men.In every heart flamed crueltyLike a little emerald snake.And each one knew if he should standIn another's way the dagger-handWould make the stronger the feofeeOf the coveted wapentake.There's not a thing men will not doFor honor, gold, or power.We smile and call the city fair,We call life lovely and debonair,But Proserpina never grewSo deadly a passion flower.Go live for an hour in a tropic landHid near a sinking pool:The lion and tiger come to drink,The boa crawls to the water's brink,The elephant bull kneels down in the sandAnd drinks till his throat is cool.Jehovah will keep you awhile unseenAs you lie behind the rocks.But go, if you dare, to slake your thirst,Though Jesus died for our life accursedYour bones by the tiger will be licked cleanAs he licks the bones of an ox.And the sky may be blue as fleur de lis,And the earth be tulip red;And God in heaven, and life all goodWhile you lie hid in the underwood:And the city may leave you sorrow freeIf you ask it not for bread.One day Achilles lost a horseWhile the pest at Troy was rife,And a million maggots fought and ateLike soldiers storming a city's gate,And Thersites said, as he looked at the corse,"Achilles, that is life."
****Day fades and from a million cellsThe office people pour.Like bees that crawl on the honeycombThe workers scurry to what is home,And trains and traffic and clanging bellsMake the cañon highways roar.Helios walked the city's waysTill the lights began to shine.Then the janitor women start to scrubAnd the Pharisees up and enter the club,And the harlot wakes, and the music playsAnd the glasses glow with wine.Now we're good fellows one and all,And the buffet storms with talk."The market's closed and trade's at endWe had our battle, now I'm your friend."And thanks to the spirit of alcoholMen go for a ride or walk.Oh but traffic is not all doneNor everything yet sold.There's woman to win, and plots to weave,There's a heart to hurt, or one to deceive,And bargains to bind ere rise of SunTo garner the morrow's gold.The market at night is as full of fraudAs the market kept by day.The courtesan buys a soul with a look,A dinner tempers the truth in a book,And love is sold till love is a bawd,And falsehood froths in the play.And men and women sell their smilesFor friendship's lifeless dregs.For fear of the morrow we bend and bowTo moneybags with the slanting brow.For the heart that knows life's little wilesSeldom or never begs."Poor men," sighed Helios, "how they longFor the ultimate fire of love.They yearn, through life, like the peacock moth,And die worn out in search of the troth.For love in the soul is the siren songThat wrecks the peace thereof."
****Helios turned from the world and fledAs the convent bell tolled six.For he caught a glimpse of an agéd croneWho knelt beside a coffin alone;She had sold her cloak to shrive the deadAnd buy a crucifix!
THE IDIOT
Two children in a gardenShouting for joyWere playing dolls and houses,A girl and boy.I smiled at a neighbor window,And watched them playUnder a budding oak treeOn a wintry day.And then a board half brokenIn the high fenceFell over and there entered,I know not whence,A jailbird face of yellowWith a vacant sulk,His body was a sicklyThing of bulk.His open mouth was slavering,And a green lightTurned disc-like in his eyeballs,Like a dog's at night.His teeth were like a giant's,And far apart;I saw him reel on the childrenWith a stopping heart.He trampled their dolls and ruinedThe house they made;He struck to earth the childrenWith a dirty spade.As a tiger growls with an antelopeAfter the hunt,Over the little facesI heard him grunt.I stood at the window frozen,And short of breath,And then I saw the idiotWas Master Death!A bird in the lilac bushesBegan to sing.The garden colored before meTo the kiss of spring.And the yellow face in a momentWas a mystic white;The matted hair was softenedTo starry light.The ragged coat flowed downwardInto a robe;He carried a sword and a balanceAnd stood on a globe.I watched him from the windowUnder a spell;The idiot was the angelAzrael!
HELEN OF TROY
On an ancient vase representing in bas-relief the flight of Helen.
This is the vase of LoveWhose feet would ever roveO'er land and sea;Whose hopes forever seekBright eyes, the vermeiled cheek,And ways made free.Do we not understandWhy thou didst leave thy land,Thy spouse, thy hearth?Helen of Troy, Greek artHath made our heart thy heart,Thy mirth our mirth.For Paris did appear,—Curled hair and rosy earAnd tapering hands.He spoke—the blood ran fast,He touched, and killed the past,And clove its bands.And this, I deem, is whyThe restless ages sigh,Helen, for thee.Whate'er we do or dream,Whate'er we say or seem,We would be free.We would forsake old love,And all the pain thereof,And all the care;We would find out new seas,And lands more strange than these,And flowers more fair.We would behold fresh skiesWhere summer never diesAnd amaranths spring;Lands where the halcyon hoursNest over scented bowersOn folded wing.We would be crowned with bays,And spend the long bright daysOn sea or shore;Or sit by haunted woods,And watch the deep sea's moods,And hear its roar.Beneath that ancient skyWho is not fain to flyAs men have fled?Ah! we would know reliefFrom marts of wine and beef,And oil and bread.Helen of Troy, Greek artHath made our heart thy heart,Thy love our love.For poesy, like thee,Must fly and wander freeAs the wild dove.
O GLORIOUS FRANCE
You have become a forge of snow white fire,A crucible of molten steel, O France!Your sons are stars who cluster to a dawnAnd fade in light for you, O glorious France!They pass through meteor changes with a songWhich to all islands and all continentsSays life is neither comfort, wealth, nor fame,Nor quiet hearthstones, friendship, wife nor childNor love, nor youth's delight, nor manhood's power,Nor many days spent in a chosen work,Nor honored merit, nor the patterned themeOf daily labor, nor the crowns nor wreathsOr seventy years.These are not all of life,O France, whose sons amid the rolling thunderOf cannon stand in trenches where the deadClog the ensanguinéd ice. But life to theseProphetic and enraptured souls is vision,And the keen ecstasy of fated strife,And divination of the loss as gain,And reading mysteries with brightened eyesIn fiery shock and dazzling pain beforeThe orient splendor of the face of Death,As a great light beside a shadowy sea;And in a high will's strenuous exercise,Where the warmed spirit finds its fullest strengthAnd is no more afraid. And in the strokeOf azure lightning when the hidden essenceAnd shifting meaning of man's spiritual worthAnd mystical significance in timeAre instantly distilled to one clear dropWhich mirrors earth and heaven.This is lifeFlaming to heaven in a minute's spanWhen the breath of battle blows the smoldering spark.And across these seasWe who cry Peace and treasure life and clingTo cities, happiness, or daily toilFor daily bread, or trail the long routineOf seventy years, taste not the terrible wineWhereof you drink, who drain and toss the cupEmpty and ringing by the finished feast;Or have it shaken from your hand by sightOf God against the olive woods.As Joan of Arc amid the apple treesWith sacred joy first heard the voices, thenObeying plunged at Orleans in a fieldOf spears and lived her dream and died in fire,Thou, France, hast heard the voices and hast livedThe dream and known the meaning of the dream,And read its riddle: How the soul of manMay to one greatest purpose make itselfA lens of clearness, how it loves the cupOf deepest truth, and how its bitterest gallTurns sweet to soul's surrender.And you say:Take days for repetition, stretch your handsFor mocked renewal of familiar things:The beaten path, the chair beside the window,The crowded street, the task, the accustomed sleep,And waking to the task, or many springsOf lifted cloud, blue water, flowering fields—The prison house grows close no less, the feastA place of memory sick for senses dulledDown to the dusty end where pitiful TimeGrown weary cries Enough!
FOR A DANCE
There is in the danceThe joy of children on a May day lawn.The fragments of old dreams and dead romanceCome to us from the dancers who are gone.What strains of ancient bloodMove quicker to the music's passionate beat?I see the gulls fly over a shadowy floodAnd Munster fields of barley and of wheat.And I see sunny France,And the vine's tendrils quivering to the light,And faces, faces, yearning for the danceWith wistful eyes that look on our delight.They live through us againAnd we through them, who wish for lips and eyesWherewith to feel, not fancy, the old painPassed with reluctance through the centuriesTo us, who in the mazeOf dancing and hushed music woven afreshAmid the shifting mirrors of hours and daysKnow not our spirit, neither know our flesh;Nor what ourselves have been,Through the long way that brought us to the dance:I see a little green by CamolinAnd odorous orchards blooming in Provence.Two listen to the roarOf waves moon-smitten, where no steps intrude.Who knows what lips were kissed at Laracor?Or who it was that walked through Burnham wood?
WHEN LIFE IS REAL
We rode, we rode against the wind.The countless lights along the townMade the town blacker for their fire,And you were always looking down.To 'scape the blustering breath of March,Or was it for your mind's disguise?Still I could shut my eyes and seeThe turquoise color of your eyes.Surely your ermine furs were warm,And warm your flowing cloak of red;Was it the wild wind kept you thusPensive and with averted head?I scarcely spoke, my words were sweptLike winged things in the wind's despite.We rode, and with what shadow speedAcross the darkness of the night!Without a word, without a look.What was the charm and what the spellThat made one hour of life becomeA memory ever memorable?
****All craft, all labor, all desire,All toil of age, all hope of youthAre shadows from the fount of fireAnd mummers of the truth.How bloodless books, how pulseless art,Vain kingly and imperial zeal,Vain all memorials of the heart!When Life itself is real!We traced the golden clouds of spring,We roved the beach, we walked the land.What was the world? A Phantom thingThat vanished in your hand.You were as quiet as the sky.Your eyes were liquid as the sea.And in that hour that passed us byWe lived eternally.
THE QUESTION
I
The sea moans and the stars are bright,The leaves lisp 'neath a rolling moon.I shut my eyes against the nightAnd make believe the time is June—The June that left us over-soon.This is the path and this the placeWe sat and watched the moving sea,And I the moonlight on your face.We were not happy—woe is me,Happiness is but memory!It seemeth, now that you are gone,My heart a measured pain doth keep:—Are you now, as I am, alone?Do you make merry, do you weep?In whose arms are you now asleep?
THE ANSWER
II
I made my bed beneath the pinesWhere the sea washed the sandy bars;I heard the music of the winds,And blest the aureate face of Mars.All night a lilac splendor throveAbove the heaven's shadowy verge;And in my heart the voice of loveKept music with the dreaming surge.A little maid was at my side—She slept—I scarcely slept at all;Until toward the morning-tideA dream possessed me with its thrall.She sweetly breathed; around my breastI felt her warmth like drowsy bliss,Then came the vision of unrest—I saw your face and felt your kiss.I woke and knew with what dismayShe read my secret and surprise;She only said, "Again 'tis day!How red your cheeks, how bright your eyes!"
THE SIGN
There's not a soul on the square,And the snow blows up like a sail,Or dizzily drifts like a drunken manFalling, before the gale.And when the wind eddies it riftsThe snow that lies in drifts;And it skims along the walk and siftsIn stairways, doorways all aboutThe steps of the church in an angry rout.And one would think that a hungry houndWas out in the cold for the sound.But I do not seem to mindThe snow that makes one blind,Nor the crying voice of the wind—I hate to hear the creak of the signOf Harmon Whitney, attorney at law:With its rhythmic monotone of awe.And neither a moan nor yet a whine,Nor a cry of pain—one can't defineThe sound of a creaking sign.Especially if the sky be bleak,And no one stirs however you seek,And every time you hear it creakYou wonder why they leave it stayWhen a man is buried and hidden awayMany a day!
WILLIAM MARION REEDY
He sits before you silent as Buddha,And then you sayThis man is Rabelais.And while you wonder what his stock is,English or Irish, you behold his eyesAs big and brown as those desirable crockiesWith which as boys we used to play.And then you see the spherical light that liesJust under the iris coloring,Before which everything,Becomes as plain as day.If you have noticed the rolling jowlsAnd the face that speaks its chiefDelight in beer and roast beefBefore you have seen his eyes, you seeA man of fleshly jollity,Like the friars of old in gowns and cowlsTo make a show of scowls.And when he speaks from an orotund depth that growlsIn a humorous way like Fielding or SmollettThat turns in a trice to Robert La FolletteOr retraces to Thales of Crete,And touches upon Descartes coming backThrough the intellectual ZodiacThat's something of a feat.And you see that the eyes are really the man,For the thought of him proliferatesThis way over to Hindostan,And that way descanting on Yeats.With a word on Plato's symposium,And a little glimpse of Theocritus,Or something of Bruno's martyrdom,Or what St. Thomas Aquinas meantBy a certain line obscure to us.And then he'll take up Horace's odesOr the Roman civilization;Or a few of the Iliad's episodes,Or the Greek deterioration.Or skip to a word on the plasmic jelly,Which Benjamin Moore and others thinkIs the origin of life. Then ShelleyComes in a for a look of understanding.Or he'll tell you about the orientationOf the ancient dream of Zion.Or what's the matter with Bryan.And while the porter is bringing a drinkSomething into his fancy skipsAnd he talks about the Apocalypse,Or a painter or writer now unknownIn France or Germany who will soonHave fame of him through the whole earth blown.It's not so hard a thing to be wiseIn the lore of books.It's a different thing to be all eyes,Like a lighthouse which revolves and looksOver the land and out to sea:And a lighthouse is what he seems to me!Sitting like Buddha spiritually cool,Young as the light of the sun is young,And taking the even with the oddAs a matter of course, and the path he's trodAs a path that was good enough.With a sort of transcendental senseWhose hatred is less than indifference,And a gift of wisdom in love.And who can say as he classifiesMen and ages with his eyesWith cool detachment: this is dung,And that poor fellow is just a fool.And say what you will death is a rod.But I see a light that shines and shinesAnd I rather think it's God.
A STUDY
If your thoughts were as clear as your eyes,And the whole of your heart were true,You were fitter by far for winning—But then that would not be you.If your pulse beat time to loveAs fast as you think and plan,You could kindle a lasting passionIn the breast of the strongest man.If you felt as much as you thought,And dreamed what you seem to dream,A world of elysian beautyYour ruined heart would redeem.If you thought in the light of the sun,Or the blood in your veins flowed free,If you gave your kisses but gladly,We two could better agree.If you were strong where I counted,And weak where yourself were at stake,You would have my strength for your giving,You would gain and not lose for my sake.If your heart overruled your head,Or your head were lord of your heart,Or the two were lovingly balanced,I think we never should part.If you came to me spite of yourself,And staid not away through design,These days of loving and livingWere sweet as Olympian wine.If you could weep with another,And tears for yourself controlled,You could waken and hold to a pityYou waken, but do not hold.If your lips were as fain to speakAs your face is fashioned to hide—You would know that to lay up treasureA woman's heart must confide.If your bosom were something richer,Or your hands more fragile and thin,You would call what the world calls evil,Or sin and be glad of the sin.If your soul were aflame with love,Or your head were devoted to truth,You never would toss on your pillowBewildered 'twixt rapture and ruth.If you were the you of my dreams,And the you of my dreams were mine,These days, half sweet and half bitter,Would taste like Olympian wine.Oh, subtle and mystic Egyptians!Who chiseled the Sphinx in the East,With head and the breasts of a woman,And body and claws of a beast.And gave her a marvellous riddleThat the eyeless should read as he ran:What crawls and runs and is baffledBy woman, the sphinx—but a man?Many look in her face and are conquered,Where one all her heart has explored;A thousand have made her their sovereign,But one is her sovereign and lord.For him she leaps from her standardAnd fawns at his feet in the sand,Who sees that himself is her riddle,And she but the work of his hand.
PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN
The pathos in your face is like a peace,It is like resignation or a graceWhich smiles at the surceaseOf hope. But there is in your faceThe shadow of pain, and there is a traceOf memory of pain.I look at you again and again,And hide my looks lest your quick eye perceivesMy search for your despair.I look at your pale hands—I look at your hair;And I watch you use your hands, I watch the flareOf thought in your eyes like light that interweavesA flutter of color running under leaves—Such anguished dreams in your eyes!And I listen to you speakWords like crystals breaking with a tinkle,Or a star's twinkle.Sometimes as we talk you riseAnd leave the room, and then I rub a streakOf a tear from my cheek.You tell me such magical thingsOf pictures, books, romanceAnd of your life in FranceIn the varied music of exquisite words,And in a voice that sings.All things are memory now with you,For poverty girdsYour hopes, and only your dreams remain.And sometimes here and thereI see as you turn your head a whitened hair,Even when you are smiling most.And a light comes in your eyes like a passing ghost,And a color runs through your cheeks as freshAs burns in a girl's flesh.Then I can shut my eyes and feel the painThat has become a part of you, though I feignLaughter myself. One sees another's bruiseAnd shakes his thought out of it shuddering.So I turn and clamp my will lest I bringYour sorrow into my flesh, who cannot chooseBut hear your words and laughter,And watch your hands and eyes.Then as I think you over afterI have gone from you, and your faceComes to me with its graceOf memory of unfound love:You seem to me the image of all womenWho dream and keep under smiles the grief thereof,Or sew, or sit by windows, or read booksTo hide their Secret's looks.And after a time go out of life and leaveNo uttered words but in their silence grieveFor Life and for the things no tongue can tell:Why Life hurts so, and why Love haunts and hurtsPoor men and women in this demi-hell.Perhaps your pathos means that it is wellDeath in his time the aspiring torch inverts,And all tired flesh and haunted eyes and handsMoving in painéd whiteness are put underThe soothing earth to brighten April's wonder.
IN THE CAGE
The sounds of mid-night trickle into the roarOf morning over the water growing blue.At ten o'clock the August sunbeams pourA blinding flood on Michigan Avenue.But yet the half-drawn shades of bottle greenLeave the recesses of the roomWith misty auras drawn around their gloomWhere things lie undistinguished, scarcely seen.You, standing between the window and the bedAre edged with rainbow colors. And I lieDrowsy with quizzical half-open eyeMusing upon the contour of your head,Watching you comb your hair,Clothed in a corset waist and skirt of silk,Tied with white braid above your slender hipsWhich reaches to your knees and makes your bareAnd delicate legs by contrast white as milk.And as you toss your head to comb its tressesThey flash upon me like long strips of sandBetween a moonlit sea, pale as your hand,And a red sun that on a high dune stressesIts sanguine heat.And then at times your lips,Protruding half unconscious half in scornEngage my eyes while looking through the mornAt the clear oval of your brow brought fullOver the sovereign largeness of your eyes;Or at your breasts that shake not as you pullThe comb through stubborn tangles, only riseScarcely perceptible with breath or signs,Firm unmaternal like a young Bacchante's,Or at your nose profoundly dipped like Dante'sOver your chin that softly melts away.Now you seem fully under my heart's sway.I have slipped through the magic of your meshFreed once again and strengthened by your flesh,You seem a weak thing for a strong man's play.Yet I know now that we shall scarce have partedWhen I shall think of you half heavy hearted.I know our partings. You will faintly smileAnd look at me with eyes that have no guile,Or have too much, and pass into the sphereWhere you keep independent life meanwhile.How do you live without me, is the fear?You do not lean upon me, ask my love, or wonderOf other loves I may have hidden underThese casual renewals of our love.And if I loved you I should lie in flame,Ari, go about re-murmuring your name,And these are things a man should be above.And as I lie here on the imminent brinkOf soul's surrender into your soul's power,And in the white light of the morning hourI see what life would be if we should linkOur lives together in a marriage pact:For we would walk along a boundless tractOf perfect hell; but your disloyaltyWould be of spirit, for I have not wonMastered and bound your spirit unto me.And if you had a lover in the wayI have you it would not by half betrayMy love as does your vague and chainless thought,Which wanders, soars or vanishes, returns,Changes, astonishes, or chills or burns,Is unresisting, plastic, freely wroughtUnder my hands yet to no unisonOf my life and of yours. Upon this brinkI watch you now and thinkOf all that has been preached or sung or spokenOf woman's tragedy in woman's fall;And all the pictures of a woman brokenBy man's superior strength.And there you standYour heart and life as firmly in commandOf your resolve as mine is, knowing allOf man, the master, and his power to harm,His rulership of spheres material,Bread, customs, rules of fair repute—What are they all against your slender arm?Which long since plucked the fruitOf good and evil, and of life at lastAnd now of Life. For dancing you have castVeil after veil of ideals or pretenseWith which men clothe the being feminineTo satisfy their lordship or their senseOf ownership and hide the things of sin—You have thrown them aside veil after veil;And there you stand unarmored, weirdly frail,Yet strong as nature, making comicalThe poems and the tales of woman's fall....You nod your head, you smile, I feel the airMade by the closing door. I lie and stareAt the closed door. One, two, your tuftèd stepsDie on the velvet of the outer hall.You have escaped. And I would not pursue.Though we are but caged creatures, I and you—A male and female tiger in a zoo.For I shall wait you. Life himself will trackYour wanderings and bring you back,And shut you up again with me and cageOur love and hatred and our silent rage.
SAVING A WOMAN: ONE PHASE
To a lustful thirst she came at firstAnd gave him her maiden's pride;And the first man scattered the flower of her love,Then turned to his chosen bride.She waned with grief as a fading star,And waxed as a shining flame;And the second man had her woman's love,But the second was playing the game.With passion she stirred the man who was third;Woe's me! what delicate skillShe plied to the heart that knew her artAnd fled from her wanton will.Now calm and demure, oh fair, oh pure,Oh subtle, patient and wise,She trod the weary round of life,With a sorrow deep in her eyes.Now a hero who knew how false, how trueWas the speech that fell from her lips,With a Norseman's strength took sail with her,And landed and burnt his ships.He gave her pity, he gave her mirth,And the hurt in her heart he nursed;But under the silence of her browsWas a dream of the man who was first.And all the deceit and lust of menHad sharpened her own deceit;And down to the gates of hell she ledHer friend with her flying feet.For a bitten bud will never bloom,And a woman lost is lost!And the first and the third may go unscathed,But some man pays the cost.And the books of life are full of the rune,And this is the truth of the song:No man can save a woman's soul,Nor right a woman's wrong.
LOVE IS A MADNESS
Love is a madness, love is a fevered dream,A white soul lost in a field of scarlet flowers—Love is a search for the lost, the ever vanishing gleamOf wings, desires and sorrows and haunted hours.Will the look return to your eyes, the warmth to your hand?Love is a doubt, an ache, love is a writhing fear.Love is a potion drunk when the ship puts out from land,Rudderless, sails at full, and with none to steer.The end is a shattered lamp, a drunken seraph asleep,The upturned face of the drowned on a barren beach.The glare of noon is o'er us, we are ashamed to weep—The beginning and end of love are devoid of speech.
ON A BUST
Your speeches seemed to answer for the nonce—They do not justify your head in bronze!Your essays! talent's failures were to youYour philosophic gamut, but things true,Or beautiful, oh never! What's the ponsFor you to cross to fame?—Your head in bronze?What has the artist caught? The sensual chinThat melts away in weakness from the skin,Sagging from your indifference of mind;The sullen mouth that sneers at human kindFor lack of genius to create or rule;The superficial scorn that says "you fool!"The deep-set eyes that have the mud-cat lookWhich might belong to Tolstoi or a crook.The nose half-thickly fleshed and half in point,And lightly turned awry as out of joint;The eyebrows pointing upward satyr-wise,Scarce like Mephisto, for you scarcely riseTo cosmic irony in what you dream—More like a tomcat sniffing yellow cream.The brow! 'Tis worth the bronze it's molded inSave for the flat-top head and narrow thinBackhead which shows your spirit has not soared.You are a Packard engine in a Ford,Which wrecks itself and turtles with its load,Too light and powerful to keep the road.The master strength for twisting words is caughtIn the swift turning wheels of iron thought.With butcher knives your hands can vivisectOur butterflies, but you can not erectTemples of beauty, wisdom. You can crawlHungry and subtle over Eden's wall,And shame half grown up truth, or make a lieFull grown as good. You cannot glorifyOur dreams, or aspirations, or deep thirst.To you the world's a fig tree which is curst.You have preached every faith but to betray;The artist shows us you have had your day.A giant as we hoped, in truth a dwarf;A barrel of slop that shines on Lethe's wharf,Which seemed at first a vessel with sweet wineFor thirsty lips. So down the swift declineYou went through sloven spirit, craven heartAnd cynic indolence. And here the artOf molding clay has caught you for the nonceAnd made your shame our shame—your head in bronze!Some day this bust will lie amid old metalsOld copper boilers, wires, faucets, kettles.Some day it will be melted up and moldedIn door knobs, inkwells, paper knives, or foldedIn leaves and wreaths around the capitalsOf marble columns, or for arsenalsFashioned in something, or in course of timeSuccessively made each of these, from grimeRescued successively, or made a bellFor fire or worship, who on earth can tell?One thing is sure, you will not long be dustWhen this bronze will be broken as a bustAnd given to the junkman to re-sell.You know this and the thought of it is hell!
ARABEL
Twists of smoke rise from the limpness of jewelled fingers,The softness of Persian rugs hushes the room.Under a dragon lamp with a shade the color of coralSit the readers of poems one by one.And all the room is in shadow except for the blurOf mahogany surface, and tapers against the wall.And a youth reads a poem of love: forever and everIs his soul the soul of the loved one; a woman singsOf the nine months which go to the birth of a soul.And after a time under the lamp a manBegins to read a letter having no poem to read.And the words of the letter flash and die like a fuseDampened by rain—it's a dying mind that writesWhat Byron did for the Greeks against the Turks.And a sickness enters our hearts. The jewelled handsClutch at the arms of the chairs—about the roomOne hears the parting of lips, and a nervous shiftingOf feet and arms.And I look up and overThe reader's shoulder and see the name of the writer.What is it I see? The name of a man I knew!You are an ironical trickster, Time, to bringAfter so many years and into a place like thisThis face before me: hair slicked down and partedIn the middle and cheeks stuck out with fatness,Plump from camembert and clicquot, eyelidsThin as skins of onions, cut like dough 'round the eyes.Such was your look in a photograph I sawIn a silver frame on a woman's dresser—and suchYour look in life, you thing of flesh alone!And thenAs a soul looks down on the body it leaves—A body by fever slain—I look on myselfAs I was a decade ago, while the letter is read:I enter a boxOf a theater with Jim, my friend of fifty,I being twenty-two. Two women are in the boxOne of an age for Jim and one of an age for me.And mine is dressed in a dainty gown of dimity,And she fans herself with a fan of silver spanglesTill a subtle odor of delicate powder or of herselfEnters my blood and I stare at her snowy neck,And the glossy brownness of her hair untilShe feels my stare, and turns half-view and I seeHow like a Greek's is her nose, with just a littleAquiline touch; and I catch the flash of an eye,And the glint of a smile on the richness of her lips.The company now discourses upon the letterBut my dream goes on:I re-live a raptureWhich may be madness, and no man understandsUntil he feels it no more. The youth that was IFrom the theater under the city's lights follows the girlDesperate lest in the city's curious chancesHe never sees her again. And boldly he speaks.And she and the older woman, her sisterSmile and speak in turn, and Jim who standsWhile I break the ice comes up—and soArm in arm we go to the restaurant,I in heaven walking with Arabel,And Jim with her older sister.We drive them home under a summer moon,And while I explain to Arabel my boldness,And crave her pardon for it, Jim, the devil,Laughs apart with her sister while I wonderWhat Jim, the devil, is laughing at. No matterTo-morrow I walk in the park with Arabel.Just now the reader of the letterTells of the writer's swift descentFrom wealth to want.We are in the park next afternoon by the water.I look at her white throat full as it were of song.And her rounded virginal bosom, beautiful!And I study her eyes, I search to the depths her eyesIn the light of the sun. They are full of little raysLike the edge of a fleur de lys, and she smilesAt first when I fling my soul at her feet.But when I repeat I love her, love her only,A cloud of wonder passes over her face,She veils her eyes. The color comes to her cheeks.And when she picks some clover blossoms and tears themHer hand is trembling. And when I tell her againI love her, love her only, she blots her eyesWith a handkerchief to hide a tear that starts.And she says to me: "You do not know me at all,How can you love me? You never saw me beforeLast night." "Well, tell me about yourself."And after a time she tells me the story:About her father who ran away from her mother;And how she hated her father, and how she grievedWhen her mother died; and how a good grandmotherHelped her and helps her now. And how her sisterDivorced her husband. And then she paused a moment:"I am not strong, you'd have to guard me gently,And that takes money, dear, as well as love.Two years ago I was very ill, and since thenI am not strong.""Well I can work," I said."And what would you think of a little cottageNot too far out with a yard and hosts of roses,And a vine on the porch, and a little garden,And a dining room where the sun comes in,When a morning breeze blows over your brow,And you sit across the table and serve meAnd neither of us can speak for happinessWithout our voices breaking, or lips trembling."She is looking down with little frowns on her brow."But if ever I had to work, I could not do it,I am not really well.""But I can work," I said.I rise and lift her up, holding her hand.She slips her arm through mine and presses it."What a good man you are," she said. "Just like a brother—I almost love you, I believe I love you."The reader of the letter, being a doctor,Is talking learnedly of the writer's caseWhich has the classical marks of paresis.Next day I look up Jim and rhapsodizeAbout a cottage with roses and a garden,And a dining room where the sun comes in,And Arabel across the table. Jim is smokingAnd flicking the ashes, but never says a wordTill I have finished. Then in a quiet voice:"Arabel's sister says that Arabel's straight,But she isn't, my boy—she's just like Arabel's sister.She knew you had the madness for Arabel.That's why we laughed and stood apart as we talked.And I'll tell you now I didn't go home that night,I shook you at the corner and went back,And staid that night. Now be a man, my boy,Go have your fling with Arabel, but dropThe cottage and the roses."They are still discussing the madman's letter.And memory permeates me like a subtle drug:The memory of my love for Arabel,The torture, the doubt, the fear, the restless longing,The sleepless nights, the pity for all her sorrows,The speculation about her and her sister,And what her illness was;And whether the man I saw one time was leavingHer door or the next door to it, and if her doorWhether he saw my Arabel or her sister....The reader of the letter is telling how the writerLeft his wife chasing the lure of women.And it all comes back to me as clear as a vision:The night I sat with Arabel strong but conquered.Whatever I did, I loved her, whatever she was.Madness or love the terrible struggle must end.She took my hand and said, "You must see my room."We stood in the doorway together and on her dresserWas a silver frame with the photograph of a man—I had seen him in life: hair slicked down and partedIn the middle and cheeks stuck out with fatnessPlump from camembert and clicquot, eyelidsThin as skins of onions, cut like dough 'round the eyes."There is his picture," she said, "ask me whatever you will.Take me as mistress or wife, it is yours to decide.But take me as mistress and grow like the picture before you,Take me as wife and be the good man you can be.Choose me as mistress—how can I do less for dearest?Or make me your wife—fate makes me your mistress or wife.""I can leave you," I said. "You can leave me," she echoed,"But how about hate in your heart.""You are right," I replied.The company is now discussing the subject of love—They seem to know little about it.But my wife, who is sitting beside me, exclaims:"Well, what is this jangle of madness and weakness,What has it to do with poetry, tell me?""Well, it's life," Arabel."There's the story of Hamlet, for instance," I added.Then fell into silence.
JIM AND ARABEL'S SISTER
Last night a friend of mine and I sat talking,When all at once I found 'twas one o'clock.So we came out and he went home to wifeAnd children, and I started for the clubWhich I call home; and then just like a flashYou came into my mind. I bought a slugAnd stood, in the booth, with doubtful heart and heardThe buzzer buzz. Well, it was sweet to meTo hear your voice at last—it was so drowsy,Like a child's voice. And I could see your eyesHeavy with sleep, and I could see you standingIn nightgown with head leaned against the wall....Julia! the welcome of your drowsy voiceWent through me like the warmth of priceless wine—It showed your understanding, that you knowHow it is with a man, and how it is with meWho work by day and sometimes drift by nightAbout this hellish city. Though you knowThat I am fifty-one, can you imagineMy feeling with no children growing up?My feeling as of one who sees a playAnd afterwards sits somewhere at a tableAnd talks with friends about the different partsOver a sandwich and a glass of beer?My feeling with this money which I've madeAnd cannot use? Sometimes the stress of workingThe money dulls the fancy which could use itIn splendid dreams or in the art of life.Well, here was I ringing your bell at lastAt half-past one, and there you stood before meWith a sleepy voice and a sleepy smile, with handsSo warm, and cheeks so red from sleep, not vexed,But like a child, awakened, who smiles at youWith half-shut eyes and kisses you, so youGave me a kiss. The world seems better, Julia,For that kiss which you gave me at the door....Breakfast? Why, toast and coffee, not too strong,My heart acts queer of late....I want to sayLest I forget it, if you ever hearFrom Arabel or Francis what I saidTo Francis when he told me he intendedTo marry Arabel, why just rememberOur talk this morning and forget I said it—I'm sorry that I said it. But, you see,That night we met, I being fifty-oneAnd old at what men call the game, looked onWith steady eye and quiet nerve, I saw youJust as I'd see a woman anywhere;Just as I'd see a woman anywhere;And I found you as I'd found others before you,But with this difference so it seemed to me:What had been false with them was real with you,What had been shame with them with you was life,What had been craft with them with you was nature,What had been sin with them to you was good,What had been vice with them to you the honestAnd uncorrupted innocence of a humanHeart so human looking on our souls.What had been coarse to them to you was cleanAs rain is, or fresh flowers, all things that growAnd move and sing along creation's way.You came to me like friendship, what you gaveWas friendship's gift, when friends think least of selfAnd least of motive. And it is through youThat I have risen out of the pit where sneersAnd laughter, looks and words obscene,Blaspheme our nature. It is through you, Julia,As one amid great beach trees where soft mossesPillow our heads and where we see the cloudsUpon their infinite sailings and the lakeWashes beneath us, and we lie and thinkHow this has been forever and will beWhen we are dust a thousand, thousand years,Yet how life is eternal—just as oneWho there falls into prayer for ecstasyOf wonder, prophecy could not blasphemeThe Eternal Power (as he might well blasphemeThe gospel hymns and ritual) that ICannot blaspheme you, Julia.For what is our communion, yours and mine,If it be not a way of laying holdOn that mysterious essence which makes oneOf heaven and earth, makes kindred human hands....Tears are not like you, Julia; laugh, that's right!Pour me a little coffee, if you please.I'll take from my herbarium certain speciesTo make my points: Now here there is the womanOf life promiscuous, or nearly so.She fixes her design upon a man,Who's married and the riotous game begins.They go along a year or two perhaps.Then psychic chemistry performs its part:They are in love, or he's in love with her.What shall be done with love? Now watch the woman:That which she gave without love at the firstShe now withdraws in spite of love unlessHe breaks his life up, cuts all former tiesAnd weds her. Do you wonder sometimes menKill women with a knife or strangle them?Well, here's another: She has been to Ogontz,You meet her at a dinner-dance, we'll say.She has green eyes and hair as light as jonquils;She wears black velvet and a salmon sash.And when you dance with her she has a wayOf giving you her flesh beneath thin silk,Which almost lisps as she caresses youWith legs that scarcely touch you; and she saysThings with a double meaning, and she smilesTo carry out her meaning. Well, you thinkThe girl is yours, and after weeks of chasingShe lands you up at the appointed placeWith mamma, who looks at you with big eyes,That have a nervous way of openingAnd closing slowly like a big wax doll's,From which great clouds of wrath and wonder come;Which meeting is a way of saying to you:The girl is yours if you will marry her,And let her have your money.Julia, be still;I can't go on while you are laughing so.I know that men are easy, but to seeWomen as women see them is a giftThat comes to men who reach my age in life....Well, here's another, here's the type of womanWhose power of motherhood conceals the artBy which she thrives, through which she reaches alsoAn apotheosis in society.Her dream is children conscious or unconscious.And her strength is the race's, and she drawsThe urgings of posterity and leansUpon the hopes and ideals of the day.To her a man must sacrifice his life.But women, Julia, of whatever type,Are still but waiting ovules seeking man,And man's life to develop, even to live.And like the praying mantis who's devouredIn the embrace, man is devoured by womenIn some way, by some sort. Love is a flameIn man's life where he warms him but to suckThe invisible heat and perish. Life is cramped,Bound down with many ropes, shut in by gates—Love is not free which should be wholly freeFor Life's sake.On Michigan AvenueAt lunch time, or at five o'clock, you'll seeIn rain or shine a certain tailor walkIn modish coat and trousers, with a cane.That fellow is the pitifulest man I know.He has no woman, cannot find a woman,Because all women, seeing him, divineWhat surges through him, and within their heartsLaugh slyly and deny him for the funOf seeing how denial keeps him walkingAll up and down the boulevard. He's foundNo hand of human friendship like yours, Julia.I use him for my point. If we could makeSome fine erotometer one could sitAnd watch its trembling springs and nervous handsRecord the waves of longing in the city,And the urge of life that writhes beneath the blowsOf custom and of fear. Love is not free,Which should be wholly free for Life's sake.Julia.So much for all these things, and now for youTo whom they lead.You'll find among the marshesThe sundew and the pitcher plant; in shallows,Where the green scum floats languidly you'll findThe water lily with white petals andA sickly perfume. But the sundew catchesThe midges flitting by with rainbow wings,Impales them on its tiny spines, in timeDevours them. And the pitcher plant holds outIts cup of green for larger bugs, which fallInto the water, treasured there like tearsOf women, and so drowned are soon absorbedInto the verdant vesture of its leaves.The pitcher plant and sundew, water lilyWell typify the nature of most womenWho must have blood or soul of man to live—Except you, Julia. For my friend at HinsdaleWho raises flowers laid out a primrose bed.He read somewhere that primroses will changeUnder your eyes sometimes to something else,Become another flower and not a primrose,Another species even. So he watchedAnd saw it, saw this miracle! The seedHas somewhere in its vital self the powerOf this mutation. What is the originOf spiritual species? For you're a primrose, Julia,Who has mutated: You are not a mother;Nor are you yet the woman seeking marriage;Nor yet the woman thriving by her sex;Nor yet the woman spoken of by SolomonWho waits and watches and whose steps lead downTo death and hell. Nor yet Delilah whoRejoices in the secret of man's strengthAnd in subduing it.You are a flowerDesigned to comfort such poor men as I,And show the world how love can be a thingThat asks no more than what it freely gives,And gives all—all some women call the prizeFor life or honor, riches, power or place.You are a blossom in the primrose bedSo raised to subtler color, sweeter scent.You have mutated, Julia, that is it,This flower of you is what I callThe Lover!
THE SORROW OF DEAD FACES
I have seen many faces changed by the Sculptor Death—But never a face like Harold's who passed in a throe of pain.There were maidens and youths in the bud, and men in the lust of life;And women whom child-birth racked till the crying soul slipped through;Patriarchs withered with age and nuns ascetical white;And one who wasted her virgin wealth in a riot of joy.Brothers and sisters at last in a quiet and purple pall,Fellow voyagers bound to a port on an ash-blue sea,Locked in an utterless grief, in a mystery fearful to dream.All of these I have seen—but the face of Harold the boldLooked with a penitent pallor and stared with a sad surprise.For now at last he was still who never knew rest in life.And the ardent heat of his blood was cold as the sweat of a stone.Life came in an evil hour and stabbed with a poisoned wordThe heart of a girl who faintly smiled through her tears.And her little life was tossed as the eddies that whirl in the hollowsFrom the great world-currents that wreck the battle ships at sea.And the face of dead Lillian seemed like a rain-ruined flower.Or what is writ on the brow of the babe as the mother wails for the dayWhen it leaped in the light of the sun and babbled its pure delight?But the face of William the Great was fashioned by life and thought;And death made it massive as bronze, and deepened the lines thereof:Some for the will and some for patience, and some for hope—Hope for the weal of the world wherein he mightily strove—Yet what did it all bespeak—what but submission and awe,And a trace of pain as one with a sword in his side?I have seen many faces changed by the Sculptor DeathBut the sorrow thereof is dumb like the cloth that lies on the brow.So what should be said of the faun surprised in the woodland dances,Of Harold the light of heart who fought with fear to the last?
THE CRY
There's a voice in my heart that cries and cries for tears.It is not a voice, but a pain of many fears.It is not a pain, but the rune of far-off spheres.It may be a dæmon of pent and high emprise,That looks on my soul till my soul hides and cries,Loath to rebuke my soul and bid it arise.It may be myself as I was in another life,Fashioned to lead where strife gives way to strife,Pinioned here in failure by knife thrown after knife.The child turns o'er in the womb; and perhaps the soulNurtures a dream too strong for the soul's control,When the dream hath eyes, and senses its destined goal.Deep in darkness the bulb under mould and clodFeels the sun in the sky and pushes above the sod;Perhaps this cry in my heart is nothing but God!
THE HELPING HAND
Mother, my head is bloody, my breast is red with scars.Well, foolish son, I told you so, why went you to the wars?Mother, my soul is crucified, my thirst is past belief.How are you crucified, my son, betwixt a thief and thief?Mother, I feel the terror and the loveliness of life.Tell me of the children, son, and tell me of the wife.Mother, your face is but a face among a million more.You're standing on the deck, my son, and looking at the shore.I lean against the wall, mother, and struggle hard for breath.You must have heard the step, my son, of the patrolman Death.Mother, my soul is weary, where is the way to God?Well, kiss the crucifix, my son, and pass beneath the rod.
THE DOOR
This is the room that thou wast ushered in.Wouldst thou, perchance, a larger freedom win?Wouldst thou escape for deeper or no breath?There is no door but death.Do shadows crouch within the mocking light?Stand thou! but if thy terrored heart takes flightFacing maimed Hope and wide-eyed Nevermore,There is no less one door.Dost thou bewail love's end and friendship's doom,The dying fire, drained cup, and gathering gloom?Explore the walls, if thy soul ventureth—There is no door but death.There is no window. Heaven hangs aloofAbove the rents within the stairless roof.Hence, soul, be brave across the ruined floor—Who knocks? Unbolt the door!
SUPPLICATION
For He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust.—Psalm ciii. 14.
Oh Lord, when all our bones are thrustBeyond the gaze of all but Thine;And these blaspheming tongues are dustWhich babbled of Thy name divine,How helpless then to carp or railAgainst the canons of Thy word;Wilt Thou, when thus our spirits fail,Have mercy, Lord?Here from this ebon speck that floatsAs but a mote within Thine eye,Vain sneers and curses from our throatsRise to the vault of Thy fair sky:Yet when this world of ours is stillOf this all-wondering, tortured horde,And none is left for Thee to kill—Have mercy, Lord!Thou knowest that our flesh is grass;Ah! let our withered souls remainLike stricken reeds of some morass,Bleached, in Thy will, by ceaseless rain.Have we not had enough of fire,Enough of torment and the sword?—If these accrue from Thy desire—Have mercy, Lord!Dost Thou not see about our feetThe tangles of our erring thought?Thou knowest that we run to greetHigh hopes that vanish into naught.We bleed, we fall, we rise again;How can we be of Thee abhorred?We are Thy breed, we little men—Have mercy, Lord!Wilt Thou then slay for that we slay,Wilt Thou deny when we deny?A thousand years are but a day,A little day within Thine eye:We thirst for love, we yearn for life;We lust, wilt Thou the lust record?We, beaten, fall upon the knife—Have mercy, Lord!Thou givest us youth that turns to age;And strength that leaves us while we seek.Thou pourest the fire of sacred rageIn costly vessels all too weak.Great works we planned in hopes that ThouFit wisdom therefor wouldst accord;Thou wrotest failure on our brow—Have mercy, Lord!Could we but know, as Thou dost know—Hold the whole scheme at once in mind!Yet, dost Thou watch our anxious woeWho piece with palsied hands and blindThe fragments of our little plan,To thrive and earn Thy blest reward,And make and keep the world of man—Have mercy, Lord!Thou settest the sun within his placeTo light the world, the world is Thine,Put in our hands and through Thy graceTo be subdued and made divine.Whether we serve Thee ill or well,Thou knowest our frame, nor canst affordTo leave Thy own for long in hell—Have mercy, Lord!
THE CONVERSATION
The Human Voice
You knew then, starting let us say with ether,You would become electrons, out of whirlingWould rise to atoms; then as an atom restingTill through Yourself in other atoms movingAnd by the fine affinity of powerAtom with atom massed, You would go onOver the crest of visible forms transformed,Would be a molecule, a little systemWherein the atoms move like suns and planetsWith satellites, electrons. So as worlds buildFrom star-dust, as electron to electron,The same attraction drawing, moleculesWould wed and pass over the crest againOf visible forms, lying content as crystals,Or colloids—ready now to use the gleamOf life. As 'twere I see You with a match,As one in darkness lights a candle, and oneSees not his friend's form in the shadowed roomUntil the candle's lighted? Even his formIs darkened by the new-made light, he standsSo near it! Well, I add to all I've askedWhether You knew the cell born to the glintOf that same lighted candle would not restEven as electrons rest not—but would surgeOver the crest of visible forms, becomeBeneath our feet things hidden from the eyeHowever aided,—as above our headsBeyond the Milky Way great systems whirlBeyond the telescope,—become bacilli,Amœba, starfish, swimming things, on landThe serpent, and then birds, and beasts of preyThe tiger (You in the tiger) on and onSurging above the crest of visible forms untilThe ape came—oh what ages they are to us—But still creation flies on wings of light—Then to the man who roamed the frozen fieldsNeither man nor ape,—we found his jaw, You know,At Heidelberg, in a sand-pit. On and onTill Babylon was builded, and aroseJerusalem and Memphis, Athens, Rome,Venice and Florence, Paris, London, Berlin,New York, Chicago—did You know, I ask,All this would come of You in ether moving?