The Project Gutenberg eBook ofSongs and SatiresThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Songs and SatiresAuthor: Edgar Lee MastersRelease date: May 18, 2011 [eBook #36149]Most recently updated: November 22, 2023Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by David E. Brown, Bryan Ness and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from images generously made availableby The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONGS AND SATIRES ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Songs and SatiresAuthor: Edgar Lee MastersRelease date: May 18, 2011 [eBook #36149]Most recently updated: November 22, 2023Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by David E. Brown, Bryan Ness and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from images generously made availableby The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
Title: Songs and Satires
Author: Edgar Lee Masters
Author: Edgar Lee Masters
Release date: May 18, 2011 [eBook #36149]Most recently updated: November 22, 2023
Language: English
Credits: Produced by David E. Brown, Bryan Ness and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from images generously made availableby The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONGS AND SATIRES ***
SONGS AND SATIRES
THE MACMILLAN COMPANYNEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLASATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LimitedLONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTAMELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.TORONTO
SONGS AND SATIRES
By
EDGAR LEE MASTERS
AUTHOR OF
"SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY"
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1916
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1916,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1916.
Reprinted March, June, 1916.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A
For permission to print in book form certain of these poems I wish to acknowledge an indebtedness toPoetry,The Smart Set,The Little Review,The Cosmopolitan Magazine, and William Marion Reedy, Editor ofReedy's Mirror.
CONTENTS
SONGS AND SATIRES
SONGS AND SATIRES
SILENCE
I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea,And the silence of the city when it pauses,And the silence of a man and a maid,And the silence for which music alone finds the word,And the silence of the woods before the winds of spring begin,And the silence of the sickWhen their eyes roam about the room.And I ask: For the depthsOf what use is language?A beast of the field moans a few timesWhen death takes its young:And we are voiceless in the presence of realities—We cannot speak.A curious boy asks an old soldierSitting in front of the grocery store,"How did you lose your leg?"And the old soldier is struck with silence,Or his mind flies away,Because he cannot concentrate it on Gettysburg.It comes back jocoselyAnd he says, "A bear bit it off."And the boy wonders, while the old soldierDumbly, feebly lives overThe flashes of guns, the thunder of cannon,The shrieks of the slain,And himself lying on the ground,And the hospital surgeons, the knives,And the long days in bed.But if he could describe it allHe would be an artist.But if he were an artist there would be deeper woundsWhich he could not describe.There is the silence of a great hatred,And the silence of a great love,And the silence of a deep peace of mind,And the silence of an embittered friendship.There is the silence of a spiritual crisis,Through which your soul, exquisitely tortured,Comes with visions not to be utteredInto a realm of higher life.And the silence of the gods who understand each other without speech.There is the silence of defeat.There is the silence of those unjustly punished;And the silence of the dying whose handSuddenly grips yours.There is the silence between father and son,When the father cannot explain his life,Even though he be misunderstood for it.There is the silence that comes between husband and wife.There is the silence of those who have failed;And the vast silence that coversBroken nations and vanquished leaders.There is the silence of Lincoln,Thinking of the poverty of his youth.And the silence of NapoleonAfter Waterloo.And the silence of Jeanne d'ArcSaying amid the flames, "Blessed Jesus"—Revealing in two words all sorrow, all hope.And there is the silence of age,Too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter itIn words intelligible to those who have not livedThe great range of life.And there is the silence of the dead.If we who are in life cannot speakOf profound experiences,Why do you marvel that the deadDo not tell you of death?Their silence shall be interpretedAs we approach them.
ST. FRANCIS AND LADY CLARE
Antonio loved the Lady Clare.He caught her to him on the stairAnd pressed her breasts and kissed her hair,And drew her lips in his, and drewHer soul out like a torch's flare.Her breath came quick, her blood swirled round;Her senses in a vortex swound.She tore him loose and turned around,And reached her chamber in a boundHer cheeks turned to a poppy's hue.She closed the door and turned the lock,Her breasts and flesh were turned to rock.She reeled as drunken from the shock.Before her eyes the devils skipped,She thought she heard the devils mock.For had her soul not been as pureAs sifted snow, could she endureAntonio's passion and be sureAgainst his passion's strength and lure?Lean fears along her wonder slipped.Outside she heard a drunkard call,She heard a beggar against the wallShaking his cup, a harlot's squallStruck through the riot like a sword,And gashed the midnight's festival.She watched the city through the pane,The old Silenus half insane,The idiot crowd that drags its chain—And then she heard the bells again,And heard the voices with the word:Ecco il santo! Up the streetThere was the sound of running feetFrom closing door and window seat,And all the crowd turned on its wayThe Saint of Poverty to greet.He passed. And then a circling thrill,As water troubled which was still,Went through her body like a chill,Who of Antonio thought untilShe heard the Saint begin to pray.And then she turned into the roomHer soul was cloven through with doom,Treading the softness and the gloomOf Asia's silk and Persia's wool,And China's magical perfume.She sickened from the vases huedIn corals, yellows, greens, the lewdTwined dragon shapes and figures nude,And tapestries that showed a broodOf leopards by a pool!Candles of wax she lit beforeA pier glass standing from the floor;Up to the ceiling, off she toreWith eager hands her jewels, thenThe silken vesture which she wore.Her little breasts so round to seeWere budded like the peony.Her arms were white as ivory,And all her sunny hair lay freeAs marigold or celandine.Her blue eyes sparkled like a vaseOf crackled turquoise, in her faceWas memory of the mad embraceAntonio gave her on the stair,And on her cheeks a salt tear's trace.Like pigeon blood her lips were red.She clasped her bands above her head.Under her arms the waxlight shedDelicate halos where was spreadThe downy growth of hair.Such sudden sin the virgin knewShe quenched the tapers as she blewPuff! puff! upon them, then she threwHerself in tears upon her knees,And round her couch the curtain drew.She called upon St. Francis' name,Feeling Antonio's passion maimHer body with his passion's flameTo save her, save her from the shameOf fancies such as these!"Go by mad life and old pursuits,The wine cup and the golden fruits,The gilded mirrors, rosewood flutes,I would praise God forevermoreWith harps of gold and silver lutes."She stripped the velvet from her couchHer broken spirit to avouch.She saw the devils slink and slouch,And passion like a leopard crouchHalf mirrored on the polished floor.Next day she found the saint and said:I would be God's bride, I would wedPoverty and I would eat the breadThat you for anchorites prepare,For my soul's sake I am in dread.Go then, said Francis, nothing loth,Put off this gown of green snake cloth,Put on one somber as a moth,Then come to me and make your trothAnd I will clip your golden hair.She went and came. But still there lay,A gem she did not put away,A locket twixt her breasts, all gayIn shimmering pearls and tints of blue,And inlay work of fruit and spray.St. Francis felt it as he slippedHis hand across her breast and whippedHer golden tresses ere he clipped—He closed his eyes then as he grippedThe shears, plunged the shears through.The waterfall of living gold.The locks fell to the floor and rolled,And curled like serpents which unfold.And there sat Lady Clare despoiled.Of worldly glory manifold.She thrilled to feel him take and hideThe locket from her breast, a tideOf passion caught them side by side.He was the bridegroom, she the bride—Their flesh but not their spirits foiled.Thus was the Lady Clare debasedTo sack cloth and around her waistA rope the jeweled belt replaced.Her feet made free of silken hoseNaked in wooden sandals casedWent bruised to Bastia's chapel, thenThey housed her in St. DamianAnd here she prayed for poor womenAnd here St. Francis sought her whenHis faith sank under earthly woes.Antonio cursed St. Clare in rhymeAnd took to wine and got the limeOf hatred on his soul, in timeGrew healed though left a little lame,And laughed about it in his prime;When he could see with crystal eyesThat love is a winged thing which flies;Some break the wings, some let them riseFrom earth like God's dove to the skiesDiffused in heavenly flame.
THE COCKED HAT
Would that someone would knock Mr. Bryan into a cocked hat.—Woodrow Wilson.
It ain't really a hat at all, Ed:You know that, don't you?When you bowl over six out of the nine pins,And the three that are standingAre the triangular three in front,You've knocked the nine into a cocked hat.If it was really a hat, he would be knocked in, too.Which he hardly is. For a man with money,And a man who can draw a crowd to listenTo what he says, ain't all-in yet....Oh yes, defeatedAnd killed off a dozen times, but stillHe's one of the three nine pins that's standing ...Eh? Why, the other is Teddy, the otherWilson, we'll say. We'll see, perhaps.But six are down to make the cocked hat—That's me and thousands of others like me,And the first-rate men who were cuffed aboutAfter the Civil War,And most of the more than six million menWho followed this fellow into the ditch,While he walked down the ditch and stepped to the level—Following an ideal!
****
Do you remember how slim he was,And trim he was,With black hair and pale brow,And the hawk-like nose and flashing eyes,Not turning slowly like an owlBut with a sudden eagle motion?...One time, in '96, he came hereAnd we had just a dollar and sixty centsIn the treasury of the organization.So I stuck his lithograph on a poleAnd started out for the station.By the time we got back here to Clark streetFour thousand men were marching in line,And a band that was playing for an openingOf a restaurant on Franklin streetHad left the job and was following his carriage.Why, it took all the money Mark Hanna could raiseTo beat me, with nothing but a poleAnd a lithograph.And it wasn't because he was one of the prophetsCome back to earth again.It shows how human hearts are hungryHow wonderfully true they are—And how they will rise and follow a manWho seems to see the truth!Well, these fellows who marched are the cocked hat,And I am the cocked hat and the six millions,And more are the cocked hat,Who got themselves despised or suspectedOf ignorance or something for being with him.But still, he's one of the pins that's standing.He got the money that he went after,And he has a place in history, perhaps—Because we took the blow and fell downWhen the ripping ball went wild on the alley.
****
For we were radicals,And he wasn't a radical.Eh? Why, a radical stands for freedom,And for truth—which he never findsBut always looks for.A radical is not a moralist.A radical doesn't say:"This is true and you must believe it;This is good and you must accept it,And if you don't believe it and accept itWe'll get a law and make you,And if you don't obey the law, we'll kill you—"Oh no! A radical stands for freedom.
****Do you remember that banquet at the TremontIn '97 on Jackson's day?Bryan and Altgeld walked togetherOut to the banquet room.That's the time he said the bolters mustBring fruits meet for repentance—ha! ha! Oh, Gawd!—They never did it and they didn't have to,For they had made friends of the mammon of unrighteousness,Even as he did, a little later, in his own way.Well, Darrow was there that night.I thought it was terribly raw in him,But he said to Bryan, there, in a group:"You'd better go back to Lincoln and studyScience, history, philosophy,And read Flaubert's Madam something-or-other,And quit this village religious stuff.You're head of the party before you are readyAnd a leader should lead with thought."And Bryan turned to the others and said:"Darrow's the only man in the worldWho looks down on me for believing in God.""Your kind of a God," snapped Darrow.Honest, Ed, I didn't see this religious businessIn Bryan in '96 or 1900.Oh well, I knew he went to Church,And talked as statesmen do of God—But McKinley did it, and I used to laugh:"We've got a man to match McKinley,And it's good for us, in a squeeze like this,We didn't nominate some fellowEthical culture or Unitarian."You see, the newspapers and preachers thenWere raising such a hullabalooAbout irreligion and dishonesty,And calling old Altgeld an anarchist,And comparing us to RobespierreAnd the guillotine boys in France.And a little of this religion came in handy.The same as if you saw a Mason button on me,You'd know, you see—but Gee!He was 24-carat religious,A cover-to-cover man....He was a trained collie,And he looked like a lion,There in the convention of '96—What do you know about that?
****But right here, I tell you he ain't a hypocrite,This ain't a pose. But I'll tell you:In '96 when they knocked him out,I know what he said to himself as wellAs if I heard him say it ...I'll tell you in a minute.But suppose you were giving a lecture on the constitution,And you got mixed on your dates,And the audience rotten-egged you,And some one in the confusionStole the door receipts,And there you were, disgraced and broke!But suppose you could just change your clothes,And lecture to the same audienceOn the religious nature of Washington,And be applauded and make money—You'd do it, wouldn't you?Well, this is what Bill said to himself:"I'm naturally regular and religious.I'm a moral man and I can prove itBy any one in Marion County,Or Jacksonville or Lincoln, Nebraska.I'm a radical, but a radicalAlone can be religious.I belong to the church, if not to the bank,Of the people who defeated me.And I'll prove to religious peopleThat I'm a man to be trusted—And just what a radical is.And I'll make some money while winning the votesOf the churches over the country."...That's it—it ain't hypocrisy,It's using what you are for ends,When you find yourself in trouble.And this accounts for "The Prince of Peace"—Except no one but him could write it—And "The Value of an Ideal"—(Which is money in bank and several farms) ...His place in history?One time my grandfather, who was nearly blind,Went out to sow some grass seed.They had two sacks in the barn,One with grass seed, one with fertilizer,And he got the sack with fertilizer,And scattered it over the ground,Thinking he was sowing grass.And as he was finishing up, a grandchild,Dorothy, eight years old,Followed him, dropping flower seeds.Well, after a timeThat was the greatest patch of weedsYou ever saw! And the old man sat,Half blind, on the porch, and said:"Good land, that grass is growing!"And there was nothing but weeds exceptA few nasturtiums here and thereThat Dorothy had sown....Well, I forgot.There was a sunflower in one cornerThat looked like a man with a golden beardAnd a mass of tangled, curly hair—And a pumpkin growing near it....
****Say, Ed! lend me eighty dollarsTo pay my life insurance.
THE VISION
Of that dear vale where you and I have lainScanning the mysteries of life and deathI dreamed, though how impassable the spaceOf time between the present and the past!This was the vision that possessed my mind;I thought the weird and gusty days of MarchHad eased themselves in melody and peace.Pale lights, swift shadows, lucent stalks, clear streams,Cool, rosy eves behind the penciled meshOf hazel thickets, and the huge feathered boughsOf walnut trees stretched singing to the blast;And the first pleasantries of sheep and kine;The cautioned twitterings of hidden birds;The flight of geese among the scattered clouds;Night's weeping stars and all the pageantriesOf awakened life had blossomed into May,Whilst she with trailing violets in her hairBlew music from the stops of watery stems,And swept the grasses with her viewless robes,Which dreaming men thought voices, dreaming still.Now as I lay in vision by the streamThat flows amidst our well beloved vale,I looked throughout the vista stretched betweenTwo ranging hills; one meadowed rich in grass;The other wooded, thick and quite obscureWith overgrowth, rank in the luxuryOf all wild places, but ever growing sparseOf trees or saplings on the sudden slopeThat met the grassy level of the vale;—But still within the shadow of those woods,Which sprinkled all beneath with fragrant dew,There grew all flowers, which tempted little pathsBetween them, up and on into the wood.Here, as the sun had left his midday peakThe incommunicable blue of heaven blentWith his fierce splendor, filling all the airWith softened glory, while the pasturageTrembled with color of the poppy bloomsShook by the steps of the swift-sandaled wind.Nor any sound beside disturbed the dreamOf Silence slumbering on the drowsy flowers.Then as I looked upon the widest spaceOf open meadow where the sunlight fellIn veils of tempered radiance, I sawThe form of one who had escaped the careAnd equal dullness of our common day.For like a bright mist rising from the earthHe made appearance, growing more distinctUntil I saw the stole, likewise the lyreGrasped by the fingers of the modeled hand.Yea, I did see the glory of his hairAgainst the deep green bay-leaves filletingThe ungathered locks. And so throughout the valeHis figure stood distinct and his own shadeWas the sole shadow. Deeming this approachAugur of good, as if in hidden waysOf loveliness the gods do still appearThe counselors of men, and even whereWonder and meditation wooed us oft,I cried, "Apollo"—and his form dissolved,As if the nymphs of echo, who took upThe voice and bore it to the hollow wood,By that same flight had startled the great godTo vanishment. And thereupon I wokeAnd disarrayed the figment of my thought.For of the very air, magic with hues,Blent with the distant objects, I had formedThe splendid apparition, and so knewIt was, alas! a dream within a dream!
"SO WE GREW TOGETHER"
Reading over your letters I find you wrote me"My dear boy," or at times "dear boy," and the envelopeSaid "master"—all as I had been your very son,And not the orphan whom you adopted.Well, you were father to me! And I can recallThe things you did for me or gave me:One time we rode in a box car to SpringfieldTo see the greatest show on earth;And one time you gave me redtop boots,And one time a watch, and one time a gun.Well, I grew to gawkiness with a voiceLike a rooster trying to crow in AugustHatched in April, we'll say.And you went about wrapped up in silenceWith eyes aflame, and I heard little rumorsOf what they were doing to you, and howThey wronged you—and we were poor—so poor!And I could not understand why you failed,And why if you did good things for the peopleThe people did not sustain you.And why you loved another woman than Aunt Susan,So it was whispered at school, and what could be baser,Or so little to be forgiven?...They crowded you hard in those days.But you fought like a wounded lionFor yourself I know, but for us, for me.At last you fell ill, and for months you totteredAround the streets as thin as death,Trying to earn our bread, your great eyes glowingAnd the silence around you like a shawl!But something in you kept you up.You grew well again and rosy with cheeksLike an Indian peach almost, and eyesFull of moonlight and sunlight, and a voiceThat sang, and a humor that wardedThe arrows off. But still between usThere was reticence; you kept me awayWith a glittering hardness; perhaps you thoughtI kept you away—for I was movingIn spheres you knew not, living throughBeliefs you believed in no more, and idealsThat were just mirrors of unrealities.As a boy can be I was critical of you.And reasons for your failures began to ariseIn my mind—I saw specific facts here and thereWith no philosophy at hand to weld themAnd synthesize them into one truth—And a rush of the strength of youthDeluded me into thinking the worldWas something so easily understood and managedWhile I knew it not at all in truth.And an adolescent egotismMade me feel you did not know meOr comprehend the all that I was.All this you divined....So it went. And when I left you and passedTo the world, the city—still I see youWith eyes averted, and feel your handLimp with sorrow—you could not speak.You thought of what I might be, and whereLife would take me, and how it would end—There was longer silence. A year or twoBrought me closer to you. I saw the play nowAnd the game somewhat and understood your fightsAnd enmities, and hardnesses and silences,And wild humor that had kept you whole—For your soul had made it as an antitoxinTo the world's infections. And you swung to meCloser than before—and a chumship beganBetween us....What vital power was yours!You never tired, or needed sleep, or had a pain,Or refused a delight. I loved the things nowYou had always loved, a winning horse,A roulette wheel, a contest of skillIn games or sports ... long talks on the cornerWith men who have lived and tell youThings with a rich flavor of old wisdom or humor;A woman, a glass of whisky at a tableWhere the fatigue of life falls, and our reservesThat wait for happiness come up in smiles,Laughter, gentle confidences. Here you wereA man with youth, and I a youth was a man,Exulting in your braveries and delight in life.How you knocked that scamp over at Harry Varnell'sWhen he tried to take your chips! And how I,Who had thought the devil in cards as a boy,Loved to play with you now and watch you play;And watch the subtle mathematics of your mindProphecy, divine the plays. Who was itIn your ancestry that you harked back toAnd reproduced with such various giftsOf flesh and spirit, Anglo-Saxon, Celt?—You with such rapid wit and powerful skillFor catching illogic and whipping Error'sFangéd head from the body?...I was really ahead of youAt this stage, with more self-consciousnessOf what man is, and what life is at last,And how the spirit works, and by what laws,With what inevitable force. But still I wasBehind you in that strength which in our youth,If ever we have it, squeezes all the nectarFrom the grapes. It seemed you'd never loseThis power and sense of joy, but yet at timesI saw another phase of you....There was the dayWe rode together north of the old town,Past the old farm houses that I knew—Past maple groves, and fields of corn in the shock,And fields of wheat with the fall green.It was October, but the clouds were summer's,Lazily floating in a sky of June;And a few crows flying here and there,And a quail's call, and around us a great silenceThat held at its core old memoriesOf pioneers, and dead days, forgotten things!I'll never forget how you looked that day. Your hairWas turning silver now, but still your eyesBurned as of old, and the rich olive glowIn your cheeks shone, with not a line or wrinkle!—You seemed to me perfection—a youth, a man!And now you talked of the world with the old wit,And now of the soul—how such a man went downThrough folly or wrong done by him, and howMan's death cannot end all,There must be life hereafter!...As you were that day, as you looked and spoke,As the earth was, I hear as the soul of it allGodard'sDawn, Dvorák'sHumoresque,The Morris Dances, Mendelssohn'sBarcarole,And old Scotch songs,When the Kye Come Hame,AndThe Moon Had Climbed the Highest Hill,The Musseta Waltz and Rudolph's Narrative;Your great brow seemed Beethoven'sAnd the lust of life in your face Cellini's,And your riotous fancy like Dumas.I was nearer you now than ever before,And finding each other thus I see to-dayHow the human soul seeks the human soulAnd finds the one it seeks at last.For you know you can open a windowThat looks upon embowered darkness,When the flowers sleep and the trees are stillAt Midnight, and no light burns in the room;And you can hide your butterflySomewhere in the room, but soon you will seeA host of butterfly matesFluttering through the window to joinYour butterfly hid in the room.It is somehow thus with souls....This day then I understood it all:Your vital democracy and love of menAnd tolerance of life; and how the excess of theseHad wrought your sorrows in the daysWhen we were so poor, and the small of mindSpoke of your sins and your connivanceWith sinful men. You had lived it down,Had triumphed over them, and you had grown.Prosperous in the world and had passedInto an easy mastery of life and beyond the thoughtOf further conquests for things.As the Brahmins say, no more you worshiped matter,Or scarcely ghosts, or even the godsWith singleness of heart.This day you worshiped Eternal PeaceOr Eternal Flame, with scarce a laugh or jestTo hide your worship; and I understood,Seeing so many facets to you, why it wasBlind Condon always smiled to hear your voice,And why it was in a greenroom years agoBooth turned to you, marking your faceFrom all the rest, and said, "There is a manWho might play Hamlet—better still Othello";And why it was the women loved you; and the priestCould feed his body and soul together drinkingA glass of beer and visiting with you....Then something happened:Your face grew smaller, your brow more narrow,Dull fires burned in your eyes,Your body shriveled, you walked with a cynical shuffle,Your hands mixed the keys of life,You had become a discord.A monstrous hatred consumed you—You had suffered the greatest wrong of all,I knew and granted the wrong.You had mounted up to sixty years, now breathing hard,And just at the time that honor belonged to youYou were dishonored at the hands of a friend.I wept for you, and still I wonderedIf all I had grown to see in you and find in youAnd love in you was just a fond illusion—If after all I had not seen you aright as a boy:Barbaric, hard, suspicious, cruel, redeemedAlone by bubbling animal spirits—Even these gone now, all of you smokeLaden with stinging gas and lethal vapor....Then you came forth again like the sun after storm—The deadly uric acid driven out at lastWhich had poisoned you and dwarfed your soul—So much for soul!The last time I saw youYour face was full of golden light,Something between flame and the richness of flesh.You were yourself again, wholly yourself.And oh, to find you again and resumeOur understanding we had worked so long to reach—You calm and luminant and rich in thought!This time it seemed we said but "yes" or "no"—That was enough; we smoked togetherAnd drank a glass of wine and watchedThe leaves fall sitting on the porch....Then life whirled me away like a leaf,And I went about the crowded ways of New York.And one night Alberta and I took dinnerAt a place near Fourteenth Street where the musicWas like the sun on a breeze-swept lakeWhen every wave is a patine of fire,And I thought of you not at allLooking at Alberta and watching her white teethBite off bits of Italian bread,And watching her smile and the wide pupilsOf her eyes, electrified by wineAnd music and the touch of our handsNow and then across the table.We went to her house at last.And through a languorous evening.Where no light was but a single candle,We circled about and about a pending themeTill at last we solved it suddenly in raptureAlmost by chance; and when I leftShe followed me to the hall and leaned aboveThe railing about the stair for the farewell kiss—And I went into the open air ecstatically,With the stars in the spaces of sky betweenThe towering buildings, and the rushOf wheels and clang of bells,Still with the fragrance of her lips and cheeksAnd glinting hair about me, delicateAnd keen in spite of the open air.And just as I entered the brilliant carSomething said to me you are dead—I had not thought of you, was not thinking of you.But I knew it was true, as it was,For the telegram waited me at my room....I didn't come back.I could not bear to see the breathless breathOver your brow—nor look at your face—However you fared or whereTo what victories soever—Vanquished or seemingly vanquished!
RAIN IN MY HEART
There is a quiet in my heartLike one who rests from days of pain.Outside, the sparrows on the roofAre chirping in the dripping rain.Rain in my heart; rain on the roof;And memory sleeps beneath the grayAnd windless sky and brings no dreamsOf any well remembered day.I would not have the heavens fair,Nor golden clouds, nor breezes mild,But days like this, until my heartTo loss of you is reconciled.I would not see you. Every hopeTo know you as you were has ranged.I, who am altered, would not findThe face I loved so greatly changed.
THE LOOP
From State street bridge a snow-white glimpse of seaBeyond the river walled in by red buildings,O'ertopped by masts that take the sunset's gildings,Roped to the wharf till spring shall set them free.Great floes make known how swift the river's current.Out of the north sky blows a cutting wind.Smoke from the stacks and engines in a torrentWhirls downward, by the eddying breezes thinned.Enskyed are sign boards advertising soap,Tobacco, coal, transcontinental trains.A tug is whistling, straining at a rope,Fixed to a dredge with derricks, scoops and cranes.Down in the loop the blue-gray air enshrouds,As with a cyclops' cape, the man-made hillsAnd towers of granite where the city crowds.Above the din a copper's whistle shrills.There is a smell of coffee and of spices.We near the market place of trade's devices.Blue smoke from out a roasting room is pouring.A rooster crows, geese cackle, men are bawling.Whips crack, trucks creak, it is the place of storing,And drawing out and loading up and haulingFruit, vegetables and fowls and steaks and hams,Oysters and lobsters, fish and crabs and clams.And near at hand are restaurants and bars,Hotels with rooms at fifty cents a day,Beer tunnels, pool rooms, places where cigarsAnd cigarettes their window signs display;Mixed in with letterings of printed tags,Twine, boxes, cartels, sacks and leather bags,Wigs, telescopes, eyeglasses, ladies' tresses,Or those who manicure or fashion dresses,Or sell us putters, tennis balls or brassies,Make shoes, pull teeth, or fit the eye with glasses.And now the rows of windows showing laces,Silks, draperies and furs and costly vases,Watches and mirrors, silver cups and mugs,Emeralds, diamonds, Indian, Persian rugs,Hats, velvets, silver buckles, ostrich-plumes,Drugs, violet water, powder and perfumes.Here is a monstrous winking eye—beneathA showcase by an entrance full of teeth.Here rubber coats, umbrellas, mackintoshes,Hoods, rubber boots and arctics and galoshes.Here is half a block of overcoats,In this bleak time of snow and slender throats.Then windows of fine linen, snakewood canes,Scarfs, opera hats, in use where fashion reigns.As when the hive swarms, so the crowded streetRoars to the shuffling of innumerable feet.Skyscrapers soar above them; they go byAs bees crawl, little scales upon the skinOf a great dragon winding out and in.Above them hangs a tangled tree of signs,Suspended or uplifted like dædalianHieroglyphics when the saturnalianNight commences, and their racing linesRun fire of blue and yellow in a puzzle,Bewildering to the eyes of those who guzzle,And gourmandize and stroll and seek the bubbleOf happiness to put away their trouble.Around the loop the elevated crawls,And giant shadows sink against the wallsWhere ten to twenty stories strive to holdThe pale refraction of the sunset's gold.Slop underfoot, we pass beneath the loop.The crowd is uglier, poorer; there are smellsAs from the depths of unsuspected hells,And from a groggery where beer and soupAre sold for five cents to the thieves and bums.Here now are huge cartoons in red and blueOf obese women and of skeleton men,Egyptian dancers, twined with monstrous snakes,Before the door a turbaned lithe Hindoo,A bagpipe shrilling, underneath a denOf opium, whence a man with hand that shakes,Rolling a cigarette, so palely comes.The clang of car bells and the beat of drums.Draft horses clamping with their steel-shod hoofs.The buildings have grown small and black and worn;The sky is more beholden; o'er the roofsA flock of pigeons soars; with dresses tornAnd yellow faces, labor women passSome Chinese gabbling; and there, buying fruit,Stands a fair girl who is a late recruitTo those poor women slain each year by lust.'Tis evening now and trade will soon begin.The family entrance beckons for a glassOf hopeful mockery, the piano's dinInto the street with sounds of rasping wiresFilters, and near a pawner's window showsPistols, accordions; and, luring buyers,A Jew stands mumbling to the passer-byOf jewelry and watches and old clothes.A limousine gleams quickly—with a cryA legless man fastened upon a boardWith casters 'neath it by a sudden shoveDarts out of danger. And upon the cornerA lassie tells a man that God is love,Holding a tambourine with its copper hoardTo be augmented by the drunken scorner.A woman with no eyeballs in her socketsPlays "Rock of Ages" on a wheezy organ.A newsboy with cold hands thrust in his pocketsCries, "All about the will of Pierpont Morgan!"The roofline of the street now sinks and dwindles.The windows are begrimed with dust and beer.A child half clothed, with legs as thin as spindles,Carries a basket with some bits of coal.Between lace curtains eyes of yellow leer,The cheeks splotched with white places like the skinInside an eggshell—destitute of soul.One sees a brass lamp oozing keroseneUpon a stand whereon her elbows lean;Lighted, it soon will welcome negroes in.The railroad tracks are near. We almost chokeFrom filth whirled from the street and stinging vapors.Great engines vomit gas and heavy smokeUpon a north wind driving tattered papers,Dry dung and dust and refuse down the street.A circumambient roar as of a wheelWhirring far off—a monster's heart whose beatIs full of murmurs, comes as we retreatTowards Twenty-second. And a man with jawSet like a tiger's, with a dirty beard,Skulks toward the loop, with heavy wrists red-rawGlowing above his pockets where his handsPushed tensely round his hips the coat tails draw,And show what seems a slender piece of metalIn his hip pocket. On these barren strandsHe waits for midnight for old scores to settleAgainst his ancient foe society,Who keeps the soup house and who builds the jails.Switchmen and firemen with their dinner pailsGo by him homeward, and he wonders ifThese fellows know a hundred thousand workersWalk up and down the city's highways, stiffFrom cold and hunger, doomed to poverty,As wretched as the thieves and crooks and shirkers.He scurries to the lake front, loiters pastThe windows of wax lights with scarlet shades,Where smiling diners back of ambuscadesOf silk and velvet hear not winter's blastBlowing across the lake. He has a thoughtOf Michigan, where once at picking berriesHe spent a summer—then his eye is caughtAt Randolph street by written light which tarries,Then like a film runs into sentences.He sees it all as from a black abyss.Taxis with skid chains rattle, limousinesDraw up to awnings; for a space he catchesA scent of musk or violets, sees the patchesOn powdered cheeks of furred and jeweled queens.The color round his cruel mouth grows whiter,He thrusts his coarse hands in his pockets tighter:He is a thief, he knows he is a thief,He is a thief found out, and, as he knows,The whole loop is a kingdom held in fiefBy men who work with laws instead of blowsFrom sling shots, so he curses under breathThe money and the invisible hand that ownsFrom year to year, in spite of change and death,The wires for the lights and telephones,The railways on the streets, and overheadThe railways, and beneath the winding tunnelWhich crooks stole from the city for a runnelTo drain her nickels; and the pipes of leadWhich carry gas, wrapped round us like a snake,And round the courts, whose grip no court can break.He curses bitterly all those who rise,And rule by just the spirit which he pliesCoarsely against the world's great store of wealth;Bankers and usurers and cliques whose stealthWorks witchcraft through the market and the press,And hires editors, or owns the stockControlling papers, playing with finesseThe city's thinking, that they may unlockTreasures and powers like burglars in the dark.And thinking thus and cursing, through a flurryOf sudden snow he hastens on to Clark.In a cheap room there is an eye to markHis coming and be glad. His footsteps hurry.She will have money, earned this afternoonThrough men who took her from a near saloonWherein she sits at table to dragoonRoughnecks or simpletons upon a lark.Within a little hall a fierce-eyed youthRants of the burdens on the people's backs—He would cure all things with the single tax.A clergyman demands more gospel truth,Speaking to Christians at a weekly dinner.A parlor Marxian, for a beginnerWould take the railways. And amid applauseWhere lawyers dine, a judge says all will beWell if we hand down to posterityRespect for courts and judges and the laws.An anarchist would fight. Upon the whole,Another thinks, to cultivate one's soulIs most important—let the passing showGo where it wills, and where it wills to go.Outside the stars look down. Stars are contentTo be so quiet and indifferent.
WHEN UNDER THE ICY EAVES
When under the icy eavesThe swallow heralds the sun,And the dove for its lost mate grievesAnd the young lambs play and run;When the sea is a plane of glass,And the blustering winds are still,And the strength of the thin snows passIn mists o'er the tawny hill—The spirit of life awakesIn the fresh flags by the lakes.When the sick man seeks the air,And the graves of the dead grow green,Where the children play unawareOf the faces no longer seen;When all we have felt or can feel,And all we are or have been,And all the heart can hide or reveal,Knocks gently, and enters in:—The spirit of life awakes,In the fresh flags by the lakes.
IN THE CAR
We paused to say good-by,As we thought for a little while,Alone in the car, in the cornerAround the turn of the aisle.A quiver came in your voice,Your eyes were sorrowful too;'Twas over—I strode to the doorway,Then turned to wave an adieu.But you had not come from the corner,And though I had gone so far,I retraced, and faced you comingInto the aisle of the car.You stopped as one who was caughtIn an evil mood by surprise.—I want to forget, I am tryingTo forget the look in your eyes.Your face was blank and cold,Like Lot's wife turned to salt.I suddenly trapped and discoveredYour soul in a hidden fault.Your eyes were tearless and wide,And your wide eyes looked on meLike a Mænad musing murder,Or the mask of Melpomene.And there in a flash of lightningI learned what I never could prove:That your heart contained no sorrow,And your heart contained no love.And my heart is light and heavy,And this is the reason why:I am glad we parted forever,And sad for the last good-by.
SIMON SURNAMED PETER
Time that has lifted you over them all—O'er John and o'er Paul;Writ you in capitals, made you the chiefWord on the leaf—How did you, Peter, when ne'er on His breastYou leaned and were blest—And none except Judas and you broke the faithTo the day of His death,—You, Peter, the fisherman, worthy of blame,Arise to this fame?'Twas you in the garden who fell into sleepAnd the watch failed to keep,When Jesus was praying and pressed with the weightOf the oncoming fate.'Twas you in the court of the palace who warmedYour hands as you stormedAt the damsel, denying Him thrice, when she cried:"He walked at his side!"You, Peter, a wave, a star among clouds, a reed in the wind,A guide of the blind,Both smiter and flyer, but human alway, I protest,Beyond all the rest.When at night by the boat on the sea He appearedDid you wait till he neared?You leaped in the water, not dreading the worstIn your joy to be firstTo greet Him and tell Him of all that had passedSince you saw Him the last.You had slept while He watched, but fierce were you, fierce and awakeWhen they sought Him to take,And cursing, no doubt, as you smote off, as one of the least,The ear of the priest.Then Andrew and all of them fled, but you followed Him, hoping for strengthTo save him at lengthTill you lied to the damsel, oh penitent Peter, and crept,Into hiding and wept.Oh well! But he asked all the twelve, "Who am I?"And who made reply?As you leaped in the sea, so you spoke as you smote with the sword;"Thou art Christ, even Lord!"John leaned on His breast, but he asked you, your strength to foresee,"Nay, lovest thou me?"Thrice over, as thrice you denied Him, and chose you to leadHis sheep and to feed;And gave you, He said, the keys of the den and the foldTo have and to hold.You were a poor jailer, oh Peter, the dreamer, who sawThe death of the lawIn the dream of the vessel that held all the four-footed beasts,Unclean for the priests;And heard in the vision a trumpet that all men are worthThe peace of the earthAnd rapture of heaven hereafter,—oh Peter, what powerWas yours in that hour:You warder and jailer and sealer of fates and decrees,To use the big keysWith which to reveal and fling wide all the soul and the schemeOf the Galilee dream,When you flashed in a trice, as later you smote with the sword:"Thou art Christ, even Lord!"We men, Simon Peter, we men also give you the crownO'er Paul and o'er John.We write you in capitals, make you the chiefWord on the leaf.We know you as one of our flesh, and 'tis wellYou are warder of hell,And heaven's gatekeeper forever to bind and to loose—Keep the keys if you choose.Not rock of you, fire of you make you sublimeIn the annals of time.You were called by Him, Peter, a rock, but we give you the nameOf Peter the Flame.For you struck a spark, as the spark from the shockOf steel upon rock.The rock has his use but the flame gives the lightIn the way in the night:—Oh Peter, the dreamer, impetuous, human, divine,Gnarled branch of the vine!
ALL LIFE IN A LIFE
His father had a large familyOf girls and boys and he was born and bredIn a barn or kind of cattle shed.But he was a hardy youngster and grew to beA boy with eyes that sparkled like a rodOf white hot iron in the blacksmith shop.His face was ruddy like a rising moon,And his hair was black as sheep's wool that is black.And he had rugged arms and legs and a strong back.And he had a voice half flute and half bassoon.And from his toes up to his head's topHe was a man, simple but intricate.And most men differ who try to delineateHis life and fate.He never seemed ashamedOf poverty or of his origin. He was a wayward child,Nevertheless though wise and mild,And thoughtful but when angered then he flamedAs fire does in a forge.When he was ten years old he ran awayTo be alone and watch the sea, and the starsAt midnight from a mountain gorge.When he returned his parents scolded himAnd threatened him with bolts and bars.Then they grew soft for his return and gayAnd with their love would have enfolded him.But even at ten years old he had a wayOf gazing at you with a look austereWhich gave his kinfolk fear.He had no childlike love for father or mother,Sister or brother,They were the same to him as any other.He was a little cold, a little queer.His father was a laborer and nowThey made the boy work for his daily bread.They say he readA book or two during these years of work.But if there was a secret prone to lurkBetween the pages under the light of his browIt came forth. And if he had a womanIn love or out of love, or a companion or a chum,History is dumb.So far as we know he dreamed and worked with handsAnd learned to know his genius' commandsOr what is called one's dæmon.And this became at last the city's call.He had now reached the age of thirty years,And found a Dream of Life and a solutionFor slavery of soul and even allMiseries that flow from things material.To free the world was his soul's resolution.But his family had great fearsFor him, knowing the evilWhich might befall him, seeing that the lightOf his own dream had blinded his mind's eyes.They could not tell but what he had a devil.But still in their tears despite,And warnings he departed with repliesThat when a man's genius calls himHe must obey no matter what befalls him.What he had in his mind was growthOf soul by watching,And the creation of eyesOver your mind's eyes to superviseA clear activity and to ward off sloth.What he had in his mind was scotchingAnd killing the snake of Hatred and stripping the gloveFrom the hand of Hypocrisy and quenching the fireOf Falsehood and Unbrotherly Desire.—What he had in his mind was simply Love.And it was strange he preached the sword and forceTo establish Love, but it was not strange,Since he did this, his life took on a change.And what he taught seems muddled at its sourceWith moralizing and with moral strife.For morals are merely the Truth dilutedAnd sweetened up and suitedTo the business and bread of Life.And now this City was just what you'd findA city anywhere,A turmoil and a Vanity Fair,A sort of heaven and a sort of Tophet.There were so many leaders of his kindThe city didn't careFor one additional prophet.He said some extravagant thingsAnd planted a few stingsUnder the rich man's hide.And one of the sensational newspapersGave him a line or two for cutting capersIn front of the Palace of Justice and the Church.But all of the first grade people took the other sideOf the street when they saw him comingWith a rag tag crowd singing and humming,And curious boys and men up in a perchOf a tree or window taking the spectacle in,And the Corybantic dinOf a Salvation Army as it were.And whatever he dreamed when he lived in a little townThe intelligent people ignored him, and this is the stirAnd the only stir he made in the city.But there was a certain sinisterFellow who came to him hearing of his renownAnd said "You can be Mayor of this city,We need a man like you for Mayor."And others said "You'd make a lawyer or a politician,Look how the people follow you;Why don't you hire out as a special writer,You could become a business man, a rhetorician,You could become a player,You can grow rich. There's nothing for a fighter,Fighting as you are, but to end in ruin."But he turned from them on his way pursuingThe dream he had in view.He had a rich man or twoWho took up with him against the powerful frownWhich looked him down.For you'll always find a rich man or twoTo take up with anything.There are those who can't get into society or bringTheir riches to a social recognition;Or ill-formed souls who lack the real patricianSpirit for life.But as for him he didn't care, he passedWhere the richness of living was rife.And like wise Goethe talking to the lastWith cabmen rather than with lordsHe sat about the markets and the fountains,He walked about the country and the mountains,Took trips upon the lakes and waded fordsBarefooted, laughing as a young animalDisports itself amid the festivalOf warm winds, sunshine, summer's carnival—With laborers, carpenters, seamenAnd some loose women.And certain notable sinnersGave him dinners.And he went to weddings and to places where youth slakesIts thirst for happiness, and they served him cakesAnd wine wherever he went.And he ate and drank and spentHis time in feasting and in telling stories,And singing poems of lilies and of trees,With crowds of people crowded around his kneesThat searched with lightning secrets hiddenOf life and of life's glories,Of death and of the soul's way after death.Time makes amends usually for scandal's breath,Which touched him to his earthly ruination.But this city had a Civic Federation,And a certain social order which intriguesThrough churches, courts, with an endless ramificationOf money and morals to save itself.And this city had a Bar Association,Also its Public Efficiency LeaguesFor laying honest men upon the shelfWhile making private pelfSecure and free to increase.And this city had illustrious PhariseesAnd this city had a legionOf men who make a business of religion,With eyes one inch apart,Dark and narrow of heart,Who give themselves and give the city no peace,And who are everywhere the best policeFor Life as business.And when they saw this youthWas telling the truth,And that his followers were multiplying,And were going about rejoicing and defyingThe social order and were stirring upThe dregs of discontent in the cupWith the hand of their own happiness,They saw dynamic mysteriesIn the poems of lilies and trees,Therefore they held him for a felony.If you will take a kernel of wheatAnd first make freeThe outer flake and then pare off the meatOf edible starch you'll find at the kernel's coreThe life germ. And this young man's words were dimWith blasphemy, sedition at the rim,Which fired the heads of dreamers like new wine.But this was just the outward force of him.For this young man's philosophy was moreThan such external ferment, being divineWith secrets so profound no plummet lineCan altogether sound it. It means growthOf soul by watching,And the creation of eyesOver your mind's eyes to superviseA clear activity and to ward off sloth.What he had in mind was scotchingAnd killing the snake of Hatred and stripping the gloveFrom the hand of Hypocrisy and quenching the fireOf falsehood and unbrotherly Desire.What he had in mind was simply Love.But he was prosecutedAs a rebel and as a rebel executedRight in a public place where all could see.And his mother watched him hang for the felony.He hated to die being but thirty-three,And fearing that his poems might be lost.And certain members of the Bar Association,And of the Civic Federation,And of the League of Public Efficiency,And a legionOf men devoted to religion,With policemen, soldiers, roughs,Loose women, thieves and toughs,Came out to see him die,And hooted at him giving up the ghostIn great despair and with a fearful cry!And after him there was a man named PaulWho almost spoiled it all.And protozoan things like hypocrites,And parasitic things who make a foodOf the mysteries of God for earthly powerMust wonder how before this young man's hourThey lived without his blood,Shed on that day, and whichIn red cells is so rich.