O white Priest of Eternity, aroundWhose lofty summit veiling clouds ariseOf the earth's immemorial sacrificeTo Brahma in whose breath all lives and dies;O Hierarch enrobed in timeless snows,First-born of Asia whose maternal throesSeem changed now to a million human woes,Holy thou art and still! Be so, nor soundOne sigh of all the mystery in thee found.
For in this world too much is overclear,Immortal Ministrant to many lands,From whose ice-altars flow to fainting sandsRivers that each libation poured expands.Too much is known, O Ganges-giving sire!Thy people fathom life and find it dire,Thy people fathom death, and, in it, fireTo live again, though in Illusion's sphere,Behold concealed as Grief is in a tear.
Wherefore continue, still enshrined, thy rites,Though dark Thibet, that dread ascetic, fallsIn strange austerity, whose trance appalls,Before thee, and a suppliant on thee calls.Continue still thy silence high and sure,That something beyond fleeting may endure —Something that shall forevermore allureImagination on to mystic flightsWherein alone no wing of Evil lights.
Yea, wrap thy awful gulfs and acolytesOf lifted granite round with reachless snows.Stand for Eternity while pilgrim rowsOf all the nations envy thy repose.Ensheath thy swart sublimities, unscaled.Be that alone on earth which has not failed.Be that which never yet has yearned or ailed,But since primeval Power upreared thy heightsHas stood above all deaths and all delights.
And though thy loftier Brother shall be King,High-priest art thou to Brahma unrevealed,While thy white sanctity forever sealedIn icy silence leaves desire congealed.In ghostly ministrations to the sun,And to the mendicant stars and the moon-nun,Be holy still, till East to West has run,And till no sacrificial sufferingOn any shrine is left to tell life's sting.
Scum o' the Earth. [Robert Haven Schauffler]
At the gate of the West I stand,On the isle where the nations throng.We call them "scum o' the earth";
Stay, are we doing you wrong,Young fellow from Socrates' land? —You, like a Hermes so lissome and strongFresh from the Master Praxiteles' hand?So you're of Spartan birth?Descended, perhaps, from one of the band —Deathless in story and song —Who combed their long hair at Thermopylae's pass?Ah, I forget the straits, alas!More tragic than theirs, more compassion-worth,That have doomed you to march in our "immigrant class"Where you're nothing but "scum o' the earth".
You Pole with the child on your knee,What dower bring you to the land of the free?Hark! does she croonThat sad little tuneThat Chopin once found on his Polish leaAnd mounted in gold for you and for me?Now a ragged young fiddler answersIn wild Czech melodyThat Dvorak took whole from the dancers.And the heavy faces bloomIn the wonderful Slavic way;The little, dull eyes, the brows a-gloom,Suddenly dawn like the day.While, watching these folk and their mystery,I forget that they're nothing worth;That Bohemians, Slovaks, Croatians,And men of all Slavic nationsAre "polacks" — and "scum o' the earth".
Genoese boy of the level brow,Lad of the lustrous, dreamy eyesA-stare at Manhattan's pinnacles nowIn the first sweet shock of a hushed surprise;Within your far-rapt seer's eyesI catch the glow of the wild surmiseThat played on the Santa Maria's prowIn that still gray dawn,Four centuries gone,When a world from the wave began to rise.Oh, it's hard to foretell what high empriseIs the goal that gleamsWhen Italy's dreamsSpread wing and sweep into the skies.Caesar dreamed him a world ruled well;Dante dreamed Heaven out of Hell;Angelo brought us there to dwell;And you, are you of a different birth? —You're only a "dago", — and "scum o' the earth"!
Stay, are we doing you wrongCalling you "scum o' the earth",Man of the sorrow-bowed head,Of the features tender yet strong, —Man of the eyes full of wisdom and mysteryMingled with patience and dread?Have not I known you in history,Sorrow-bowed head?Were you the poet-king, worthTreasures of Ophir unpriced?Were you the prophet, perchance, whose artForetold how the rabble would mockThat shepherd of spirits, erelong,Who should carry the lambs on his heartAnd tenderly feed his flock?Man — lift that sorrow-bowed head.Lo! 't is the face of the Christ!
The vision dies at its birth.You're merely a butt for our mirth.You're a "sheeny" — and therefore despisedAnd rejected as "scum o' the earth".
Countrymen, bend and invokeMercy for us blasphemers,For that we spat on these marvelous folk,Nations of darers and dreamers,Scions of singers and seers,Our peers, and more than our peers."Rabble and refuse", we name themAnd "scum o' the earth", to shame them.Mercy for us of the few, young years,Of the culture so callow and crude,Of the hands so grasping and rude,The lips so ready for sneersAt the sons of our ancient more-than-peers.Mercy for us who dare despiseMen in whose loins our Homer lies;Mothers of men who shall bring to usThe glory of Titian, the grandeur of Huss;Children in whose frail arms shall restProphets and singers and saints of the West.
Newcomers all from the eastern seas,Help us incarnate dreams like these.Forget, and forgive, that we did you wrong.Help us to father a nation, strongIn the comradeship of an equal birth,In the wealth of the richest bloods of earth.
Da Boy from Rome. [Thomas Augustine Daly]
To-day ees com' from EetalyA boy ees leeve een Rome,An' he ees stop an' speak weeth me —I weesh he stay at home.
He stop an' say "Hallo," to me.An' w'en he standin' dereI smal da smal of EetalySteell steeckin' een hees hair,Dat com' weeth heem across da sea,An' een da clo'es he wear.
Da peopla bomp heem een da street,Da noise ees scare heem, too;He ees so clumsy een da feetHe don't know w'at to do,Dere ees so many theeng he meetDat ees so strange, so new.
He sheever an' he ask eef hereEet ees so always cold.Den een hees eye ees com' a tear —He ees no vera old —An', oh, hees voice ees soun' so queerI have no heart for scold.
He look up een da sky so gray,But oh, hees eye ees beSo far away, so far away,An' w'at he see I see.Da sky eet ees no gray to-dayAt home een Eetaly.
He see da glada peopla seetWhere warma shine da sky —Oh, while he eesa look at eetHe ees baygeen to cry.Eef I no growl an' swear a beetSo, too, my frand, would I.
Oh, why he stop an' speak weeth me,Dees boy dat leeve een Rome,An' com' to-day from Eetaly?I weesh he stay at home.
The Fugitives. [Florence Wilkinson]
We are they that go, that go,Plunging before the hidden blow.We run the byways of the earth,For we are fugitive from birth,Blindfolded, with wide hands abroadThat sow, that sow the sullen sod.
We cannot wait, we cannot stopFor flushing field or quickened crop;The orange bow of dusky dawnGlimmers our smoking swath upon;Blindfolded still we hurry on.
How we do know the ways we runThat are blindfolded from the sun?We stagger swiftly to the call,Our wide hands feeling for the wall.
Oh, ye who climb to some clear heaven,By grace of day and leisure given,Pity us, fugitive and driven —The lithe whip curling on our track,The headlong haste that looks not back!
The Song of the Unsuccessful. [Richard Burton]
We are the toilers from whom God barredThe gifts that are good to hold.We meant full well and we tried full hard,And our failures were manifold.
And we are the clan of those whose kinWere a millstone dragging them down.Yea, we had to sweat for our brother's sin,And lose the victor's crown.
The seeming-able, who all but scored,From their teeming tribe we come:What was there wrong with us, O Lord,That our lives were dark and dumb?
The men ten-talented, who stillStrangely missed of the goal,Of them we are: it seems Thy willTo harrow some in soul.
We are the sinners, too, whose lustConquered the higher claims,We sat us prone in the common dust,And played at the devil's games.
We are the hard-luck folk, who stroveZealously, but in vain;We lost and lost, while our comrades throve,And still we lost again.
We are the doubles of those whose wayWas festal with fruits and flowers;Body and brain we were sound as they,But the prizes were not ours.
A mighty army our full ranks make,We shake the graves as we go;The sudden stroke and the slow heartbreak,They both have brought us low.
And while we are laying life's sword aside,Spent and dishonored and sad,Our epitaph this, when once we have died:"The weak lie here, and the bad."
We wonder if this can be really the close,Life's fever cooled by death's trance;And we cry, though it seem to our dearest of foes,"God, give us another chance!"
They went forth to Battle, but they always fell. [Shaemas O Sheel]
They went forth to battle, but they always fell;Their eyes were fixed above the sullen shields;Nobly they fought and bravely, but not well,And sank heart-wounded by a subtle spell.They knew not fear that to the foeman yields,They were not weak, as one who vainly wieldsA futile weapon; yet the sad scrolls tellHow on the hard-fought field they always fell.
It was a secret music that they heard,A sad sweet plea for pity and for peace;And that which pierced the heart was but a word,Though the white breast was red-lipped where the swordPressed a fierce cruel kiss, to put surceaseOn its hot thirst, but drank a hot increase.Ah, they by some strange troubling doubt were stirred,And died for hearing what no foeman heard.
They went forth to battle but they always fell;Their might was not the might of lifted spears;Over the battle-clamor came a spellOf troubling music, and they fought not well.Their wreaths are willows and their tribute, tears;Their names are old sad stories in men's ears;Yet they will scatter the red hordes of Hell,Who went to battle forth and always fell.
The Eagle that is forgotten. [Nicholas Vachel Lindsay]
(John P. Altgeld)
Sleep softly . . . eagle forgotten . . . under the stone.Time has its way with you there, and the clay has its own."We have buried him now," thought your foes, and in secret rejoiced.They made a brave show of their mourning, their hatred unvoiced.They had snarled at you, barked at you, foamed at you, day after day.Now you were ended. They praised you . . . and laid you away.The others, that mourned you in silence and terror and truth,The widow bereft of her crust, and the boy without youth,The mocked and the scorned and the wounded, the lame and the poor,That should have remembered forever, . . . remember no more.Where are those lovers of yours, on what name do they call,The lost, that in armies wept over your funeral pall?They call on the names of a hundred high-valiant ones,A hundred white eagles have risen, the sons of your sons.The zeal in their wings is a zeal that your dreaming began,The valor that wore out your soul in the service of man.Sleep softly . . . eagle forgotten . . . under the stone.Time has its way with you there, and the clay has its own.Sleep on, O brave-hearted, O wise man that kindled the flame —To live in mankind is far more than to live in a name,To live in mankind, far, far more than to live in a name! —
A Memorial Tablet. [Florence Wilkinson]
Oh, Agathocles, fare thee well!
Naked and brave thou goestWithout one glance behind!Hast thou no fear, Agathocles,Or backward grief of mind?
The dreamy dog beside theePresses against thy knee;He, too, oh, sweet Agathocles,Is deaf and visioned like thee.
Thou art so lithe and lovelyAnd yet thou art not ours.What Delphic saying compels theeOf kings or topless towers?
That little blowing mantleThou losest from thine arm —No shoon nor staff, Agathocles,Nor sword, to fend from harm!
Thou hast the changed impersonalAwed brow of mystery —Yesterday thou wast burning,Mad boy, for Glaucoe.
Philis thy mother calls thee:Mine eyes with tears are dim,Turn once, look once, Agathocles —(~The gods have blinded him.~)
Come back, Agathocles, the night —Brings thee what place of rest?Wine-sweet are Glaucoe's kisses,Flower-soft her budding breast.
He seems to hearken, Glaucoe,He seems to listen and smile;(~Nay, Philis, but a god-songHe follows this many a mile.~)
Come back, come back, Agathocles!(~He scents the asphodel;Unearthly swift he runneth.~)Agathocles, farewell!
To-Day. [Helen Gray Cone]
Voice, with what emulous fire thou singest free hearts of old fashion,English scorners of Spain, sweeping the blue sea-way,Sing me the daring of life for life, the magnanimous passionOf man for man in the mean populous streets of To-day!
Hand, with what color and power thou couldst show, in the ring hot-sanded,Brown Bestiarius holding the lean tawn tiger at bay,Paint me the wrestle of Toil with the wild-beast Want, bare-handed;Shadow me forth a soul steadily facing To-day!
The Man with the Hoe. [Edwin Markham]
(Written after seeing Millet's world-famous painting)
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leansUpon his hoe and gazes on the ground,The emptiness of ages in his face,And on his back the burden of the world.Who made him dead to rapture and despair,A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gaveTo have dominion over sea and land;To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;To feel the passion of Eternity?Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the sunsAnd marked their ways upon the ancient deep?Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulfThere is no shape more terrible than this —More tongued with censure of the world's blind greed —More filled with signs and portents for the soul —More fraught with menace to the universe.
What gulfs between him and the seraphim!Slave of the wheel of labor, what to himAre Plato and the swing of Pleiades?What the long reaches of the peaks of song,The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop;Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,Plundered, profaned and disinherited,Cries protest to the Judges of the World,A protest that is also prophecy.
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,Is this the handiwork you give to God,This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?How will you ever straighten up this shape;Touch it again with immortality;Give back the upward looking and the light;Rebuild in it the music and the dream;Make right the immemorial infamies,Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,How will the Future reckon with this Man?How answer his brute question in that hourWhen whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world?How will it be with kingdoms and with kings —With those who shaped him to the thing he is —When this dumb Terror shall reply to God,After the silence of the centuries?
Exordium. [George Cabot Lodge]
Speak! said my soul, be stern and adequate;The sunset falls from Heaven, the year is late,Love waits with fallen tresses at thy gateAnd mourns for perished days.Speak! in the rigor of thy fate and mine,Ere these scant, dying days, bright-lipped with wine,All one by one depart, resigned, divine,Through desert, autumn ways.
Speak! thou art lonely in thy chilly mind,With all this desperate solitude of wind,The solitude of tears that make thee blind,Of wild and causeless tears.Speak! thou hast need of me, heart, hand and head,Speak, if it be an echo of thy dread,A dirge of hope, of young illusions dead —Perchance God hears!
The Frozen Grail. [Elsa Barker]
(To Peary and his men, before the last expedition)
Why sing the legends of the Holy Grail,The dead crusaders of the Sepulchre,While these men live? Are the great bards all dumb?Here is a vision to shake the blood of Song,And make Fame's watchman tremble at his post.
What shall prevail against the spirit of man,When cold, the lean and snarling wolf of hunger,The threatening spear of ice-mailed Solitude,Silence, and space, and ghostly-footed FearPrevail not? Dante, in his frozen hellShivering, endured no bleakness like the voidThese men have warmed with their own flaming will,And peopled with their dreams. The wind from fierceArcturus in their faces, at their backsThe whip of the world's doubt, and in their soulsCourage to die — if death shall be the priceOf that cold cup that will assuage their thirst;They climb, and fall, and stagger toward the goal.They lay themselves the road whereby they travel,And sue God for a franchise. Does He watchBehind the lattice of the boreal lights?In that grail-chapel of their stern-vowed quest,Ninety of God's long paces toward the North,Will they behold the splendor of His face?To conquer the world must man renounce the world?These have renounced it. Had ye only faithYe might move mountains, said the Nazarene.Why, these have faith to move the zones of manOut to the point where All and Nothing meet.They catch the bit of Death between their teeth,In one wild dash to trample the unknownAnd leap the gates of knowledge. They have daredEven to defy the sentinel that guardsThe doors of the forbidden — dared to hurlTheir breathing bodies after the Ideal,That like the heavenly kingdom must be takenOnly by violence. The star that leadsThe leader of this quest has held the worldTrue to its orbit for a million years.
And shall he fail? They never fail who lightTheir lamp of faith at the unwavering flameBurnt for the altar service of the RaceSince the beginning. He shall find the strange —The white immaculate Virgin of the North,Whose steady gaze no mortal ever dared,Whose icy hand no human ever grasped.In the dread silence and the solitudeShe waits and listens through the centuriesFor one indomitable, destined soul,Born to endure the glory of her eyes,And lift his warm lips to the frozen Grail.
The Unconquered Air. [Florence Earle Coates]
Others endure Man's rule: he therefore deemsI shall endure it — I, the unconquered Air!Imagines this triumphant strength may bearHis paltry sway! yea, ignorantly dreams,Because proud Rhea now his vassal seems,And Neptune him obeys in billowy lair,That he a more sublime assault may dare,Where blown by tempest wild the vulture screams!
Presumptuous, he mounts: I toss his bonesBack from the height supernal he has braved:Ay, as his vessel nears my perilous zones,I blow the cockle-shell away like chaffAnd give him to the Sea he has enslaved.He founders in its depths; and then I laugh!
Impregnable I held myself, secureAgainst intrusion. Who can measure Man?How should I guess his mortal will outranDefeat so far that danger could allureFor its own sake? — that he would all endure,All sacrifice, all suffer, rather thanForego the daring dreams OlympianThat prophesy to him of victory sure?
Ah, tameless courage! — dominating powerThat, all attempting, in a deathless hourMade earth-born Titans godlike, in revolt! —Fear is the fire that melts Icarian wings:Who fears nor Fate, nor Time, nor what Time brings,May drive Apollo's steeds, or wield the thunderbolt!
The Happiest Heart. [John Vance Cheney]
Who drives the horses of the sunShall lord it but a day;Better the lowly deed were done,And kept the humble way.
The rust will find the sword of fame,The dust will hide the crown;Ay, none shall nail so high his nameTime will not tear it down.
The happiest heart that ever beatWas in some quiet breastThat found the common daylight sweet,And left to Heaven the rest.
To a New York Shop-Girl dressed for Sunday. [Anna Hempstead Branch]
To-day I saw the shop-girl goDown gay Broadway to meet her beau.
Conspicuous, splendid, conscious, sweet,She spread abroad and took the street.
And all that niceness would forbid,Superb, she smiled upon and did.
Let other girls, whose happier daysPreserve the perfume of their ways,
Go modestly. The passing hourAdds splendor to their opening flower.
But from this child too swift a doomMust steal her prettiness and bloom,
Toil and weariness hide the graceThat pleads a moment from her face.
So blame her not if for a dayShe flaunts her glories while she may.
She half perceives, half understands,Snatching her gifts with both her hands.
The little strut beneath the skirtThat lags neglected in the dirt,
The indolent swagger down the street —Who can condemn such happy feet!
Innocent! vulgar — that's the truth!Yet with the darling wiles of youth!
The bright, self-conscious eyes that stareWith such hauteur, beneath such hair!~Perhaps the men will find me fair!~
Charming and charmed, flippant, arrayed,Fluttered and foolish, proud, displayed,Infinite pathos of parade!
The bangles and the narrowed waist —The tinsled boa — forgive the taste!Oh, the starved nights she gave for that,And bartered bread to buy her hat!
She flows before the reproachful sageAnd begs her woman's heritage.
Dear child, with the defiant eyes,Insolent with the half surmiseWe do not quite admire, I knowHow foresight frowns on this vain show!
And judgment, wearily sad, may seeNo grace in such frivolity.
Yet which of us was ever boldTo worship Beauty, hungry and cold!
Scorn famine down, proudly expressedApostle to what things are best.
Let him who starves to buy the foodFor his soul's comfort find her good,
Nor chide the frills and furbelowsThat are the prettiest things she knows.
Poet and prophet in God's eyesMake no more perfect sacrifice.
Who knows before what inner shrineShe eats with them the bread and wine?
Poor waif! One of the sacred fewThat madly sought the best they knew!
Dear — let me lean my cheek to-nightClose, close to yours. Ah, that is right.
How warm and near! At last I seeOne beauty shines for thee and me.
So let us love and understand —Whose hearts are hidden in God's hand.
And we will cherish your brief SpringAnd all its fragile flowering.
God loves all prettiness, and on thisSurely his angels lay their kiss.
A Faun in Wall Street. [John Myers O'Hara]
What shape so furtive steals along the dimBleak street, barren of throngs, this day of June;This day of rest, when all the roses swoonIn Attic vales where dryads wait for him?What sylvan this, and what the stranger whimThat lured him here this golden afternoon;Ways where the dusk has fallen oversoonIn the deep canyon, torrentless and grim?
Great Pan is far, O mad estray, and theseBare walls that leap to heaven and hide the skiesAre fanes men rear to other deities;Far to the east the haunted woodland lies,And cloudless still, from cyclad-dotted seas,Hymettus and the hills of Hellas rise.
The Mystic. [Witter Bynner]
By seven vineyards on one hillWe walked. The native wineIn clusters grew beside us two,For your lips and for mine,
When, "Hark!" you said, — "Was that a bellOr a bubbling spring we heard?"But I was wise and closed my eyesAnd listened to a bird;
For as summer leaves are bent and shakeWith singers passing through,So moves in me continuallyThe winged breath of you.
You tasted from a single vineAnd took from that your fill —But I inclined to every kind,All seven on one hill.
The Cloud. [Josephine Preston Peabody]
The islands called me far away,The valleys called me home.The rivers with a silver voiceDrew on my heart to come.
The paths reached tendrils to my hairFrom every vine and tree.There was no refuge anywhereUntil I came to thee.
There is a northern cloud I know,Along a mountain crest;And as she folds her wings of mist,So I could make my rest.
There is no chain to bind her soUnto that purple height;And she will shine and wander, slow,Slow, with a cloud's delight.
Would she begone? She melts away,A heavenly joyous thing.Yet day will find the mountain white,White-folded with her wing.
As you may see, but half awareIf it be late or soon,Soft breathing on the day-time air,The fair forgotten Moon.
And though love cannot bind me, Love,— Ah no! — yet I could stayMaybe, with wings forever spread,— Forever, and a day.
The Thought of her. [Richard Hovey]
My love for thee doth take me unaware,When most with lesser things my brain is wrought,As in some nimble interchange of thoughtThe silence enters, and the talkers stare.Suddenly I am still and thou art there,A viewless visitant and unbesought,And all my thinking trembles into noughtAnd all my being opens like a prayer.Thou art the lifted Chalice in my soul,And I a dim church at the thought of thee;Brief be the moment, but the mass is said,The benediction like an aureoleIs on my spirit, and shuddering through meA rapture like the rapture of the dead.
Song. "If love were but a little thing —". [Florence Earle Coates]
If love were but a little thing —Strange love, which, more than all, is great —One might not such devotion bring,Early to serve and late.
If love were but a passing breath —Wild love — which, as God knows, is sweet —One might not make of life and deathA pillow for love's feet.
The Rosary. [Robert Cameron Rogers]
The hours I spent with thee, dear heart,Are as a string of pearls to me;I count them over, every one apart,My rosary.
Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer,To still a heart in absence wrung;I tell each bead unto the end — and thereA cross is hung.
Oh, memories that bless — and burn!Oh, barren gain — and bitter loss!I kiss each bead, and strive at last to learnTo kiss the cross,Sweetheart,To kiss the cross.
Once. [Trumbull Stickney]
That day her eyes were deep as night.She had the motion of the rose,The bird that veers across the light,The waterfall that leaps and throwsIts irised spindrift to the sun.She seemed a wind of music passing on.
Alone I saw her that one dayStand in the window of my life.Her sudden hand melted awayUnder my lips, and without strifeI held her in my arms awhileAnd drew into my lips her living smile, —
Now many a day ago and year!Since when I dream and lie awakeIn summer nights to feel her near,And from the heavy darkness breakGlitters, till all my spirit swimsAnd her hand hovers on my shaking limbs.
If once again before I dieI drank the laughter of her mouthAnd quenched my fever utterly,I say, and should it cost my youth,'T were well! for I no more should waitHammering midnight on the doors of fate.
Love knocks at the Door. [John Hall Wheelock]
In the pain, in the loneliness of love,To the heart of my sweet I fled.I knocked at the door of her living heart,"Let in — let in —" I said.
"What seek you here?" the voices cried,"You seeker among the dead" —"Herself I seek, herself I seek,Let in — let in!" I said.
They opened the door of her living heart,But the core thereof was dead.They opened the core of her living heart —A worm at the core there fed.
"Where is my sweet, where is my sweet?""She is gone away, she is fled.Long years ago she fled away,She will never return," they said.
The Candle and the Flame. [George Sylvester Viereck]
Thy hands are like cool herbs that bringBalm to men's hearts, upon them laid;Thy lovely-petalled lips are madeAs any blossom of the spring.But in thine eyes there is a thing,O Love, that makes me half afraid.
For they are old, those eyes . . . They gleamBetween the waking and the dreamWith antique wisdom, like a brightLamp strangled by the temple's veil,That beckons to the acolyteWho prays with trembling lips and paleIn the long watches of the night.
They are as old as Life. They wereWhen proud Gomorrah reared its headA new-born city. They were thereWhen in the places of the deadMen swathed the body of the Lord.They visioned Pa-wak raise the wallOf China. They saw Carthage fallAnd marked the grim Hun lead his horde.
There is no secret anywhereNor any joy or shame that liesNot writ somehow in those child-eyesOf thine, O Love, in some strange wise.Thou art the lad Endymion,And that great queen with spice and myrrhFrom Araby, whom SolomonDelighted, and the lust of her.
The legions marching from the seaWith Caesar's cohorts sang of thee,How thy fair head was more to himThan all the land of Italy.Yea, in the old days thou wast sheWho lured Mark Antony from homeTo death and Egypt, seeing heLost love when he lost Rome.
Thou saw'st old Tubal strike the lyre,Yea, first for thee the poet hurledDefiance at God's starry choir!Thou art the romance and the fire,Thou art the pageant and the strife,The clamour, mounting high and higher,From all the lovers in the worldTo all the lords of love and life.
. . . . .
Perhaps the passions of mankindAre but the torches mysticalLit by some spirit-hand to findThe dwelling of the Master-MindThat knows the secret of it all,In the great darkness and the wind.
We are the Candle, Love the Flame,Each little life-light flickers out,Love bides, immortally the same:When of life's fever we shall tireHe will desert us and the fireRekindle new in prince or lout.
Twin-born of knowledge and of lust,He was before us, he shall beIndifferent still of thee and me,When shattered is life's golden cup,When thy young limbs are shrivelled up,And when my heart is turned to dust.
Nay, sweet, smile not to know at lastThat thou and I, or knave, or fool,Are but the involitient toolOf some world-purpose vague and vast.No bar to passion's fury set,With monstrous poppies spice the wine:For only drunk are we divine,And only mad shall we forget!
Stains. [Theodosia Garrison]
The three ghosts on the lonesome roadSpake each to one another,"Whence came that stain about your mouthNo lifted hand may cover?""From eating of forbidden fruit,Brother, my brother."
The three ghosts on the sunless roadSpake each to one another,"Whence came that red burn on your footNo dust nor ash may cover?""I stamped a neighbor's hearth-flame out,Brother, my brother."
The three ghosts on the windless roadSpake each to one another,"Whence came that blood upon your handNo other hand may cover?""From breaking of a woman's heart,Brother, my brother."
"Yet on the earth clean men we walked,Glutton and Thief and Lover;White flesh and fair it hid our stainsThat no man might discover.""Naked the soul goes up to God,Brother, my brother."
De Massa ob de Sheepfol'. [Sarah Pratt McLean Greene]
De massa ob de sheepfol'Dat guard de sheepfol' bin,Look out in de gloomerin' meadowsWhar de long night rain begin —So he call to de hirelin' shephe'd:"Is my sheep — is dey all come in?"
Oh den, says de hirelin' shephe'd,"Dey's some, dey's black and thin,And some, dey's po' ol' wedda's —But de res', dey's all brung in.But de res', dey's all brung in."
Den de massa ob de sheepfol'Dat guard de sheepfol' bin,Goes down in de gloomerin' meadowsWhar de long night rain begin —So he le' down de ba's ob de sheepfol',Callin' sof': "Come in! Come in!"Callin' sof': "Come in! Come in!"
Den up t'ro de gloomerin' meadows,T'ro de col' night rain an' win',An' up t'ro de gloomerin' rain-pafWhar de sleet fa' piercin' thin —De po' los' sheep ob de sheepfol'Dey all comes gadderin' in.De po' los' sheep ob de sheepfol',Dey all comes gadderin' in!
Black Sheep. [Richard Burton]
From their folded mates they wander far,Their ways seem harsh and wild;They follow the beck of a baleful star,Their paths are dream-beguiled.
Yet haply they sought but a wider range,Some loftier mountain-slope,And little recked of the country strangeBeyond the gates of hope.
And haply a bell with a luring callSummoned their feet to treadMidst the cruel rocks, where the deep pitfallAnd the lurking snare are spread.
Maybe, in spite of their tameless daysOf outcast liberty,They're sick at heart for the homely waysWhere their gathered brothers be.
And oft at night, when the plains fall darkAnd the hills loom large and dim,For the Shepherd's voice they mutely hark,And their souls go out to him.
Meanwhile, "Black sheep! Black sheep!" we cry,Safe in the inner fold;And maybe they hear, and wonder why,And marvel, out in the cold.
Let me no more a Mendicant. [Arthur Colton]
Let me no more a mendicantWithout the gateOf the world's kingly palace wait;Morning is spent,The sentinels change and challenge in the tower,Now slant the shadows eastward hour by hour.
Open the door, O Seneschal! WithinI see them sit,The feasters, daring destiny with wit,Casting to winOr lose their utmost, and men hurry byAt offices of confluent energy.
Let me not here a mendicantWithout the gateLinger from dayspring till the night is late,And there are sentAll homeless stars to loiter in the sky,And beggared midnight winds to wander by.
Lincoln, the Man of the People. [Edwin Markham]
When the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind HourGreatening and darkening as it hurried on,She left the Heaven of Heroes and came downTo make a man to meet the mortal need.She took the tried clay of the common road —Clay warm yet with the genial heat of Earth,Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy;Tempered the heap with thrill of human tears;Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff.Into the shape she breathed a flame to lightThat tender, tragic, ever-changing face.Here was a man to hold against the world,A man to match the mountains and the sea.
The color of the ground was in him, the red earth;The smack and tang of elemental things;The rectitude and patience of the cliff;The good-will of the rain that loves all leaves;The friendly welcome of the wayside well;The courage of the bird that dares the sea;The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn;The pity of the snow that hides all scars;The secrecy of streams that make their wayBeneath the mountain to the rifted rock;The tolerance and equity of lightThat gives as freely to the shrinking flowerAs to the great oak flaring to the wind —To the grave's low hill as to the MatterhornThat shoulders out the sky.
Sprung from the West,The strength of virgin forests braced his mind,The hush of spacious prairies stilled his soul.Up from log cabin to the Capitol,One fire was on his spirit, one resolve —To send the keen ax to the root of wrong,Clearing a free way for the feet of God.And evermore he burned to do his deedWith the fine stroke and gesture of a king:He built the rail-pile as he built the State,Pouring his splendid strength through every blow,The conscience of him testing every stroke,To make his deed the measure of a man.
So came the Captain with the mighty heart;And when the judgment thunders split the house,Wrenching the rafters from their ancient rest,He held the ridgepole up, and spiked againThe rafters of the Home. He held his place —Held the long purpose like a growing tree —Held on through blame and faltered not at praise.And when he fell in whirlwind, he went downAs when a lordly cedar, green with boughs,Goes down with a great shout upon the hills,And leaves a lonesome place against the sky.
The Master. [Edwin Arlington Robinson]
(Lincoln)
A flying word from here and thereHad sown the name at which we sneered,But soon the name was everywhere,To be reviled and then revered:A presence to be loved and feared,We cannot hide it, or denyThat we, the gentlemen who jeered,May be forgotten by and by.
He came when days were perilousAnd hearts of men were sore beguiled;And having made his note of us,He pondered and was reconciled.Was ever master yet so mildAs he, and so untamable?We doubted, even when he smiled,Not knowing what he knew so well.
He knew that undeceiving fateWould shame us whom he served unsought;He knew that he must wince and wait —The jest of those for whom he fought;He knew devoutly what he thoughtOf us and of our ridicule;He knew that we must all be taughtLike little children in a school.
We gave a glamour to the taskThat he encountered and saw through,But little of us did he ask,And little did we ever do.And what appears if we reviewThe season when we railed and chaffed?It is the face of one who knewThat we were learning while we laughed.
The face that in our vision feelsAgain the venom that we flung,Transfigured to the world revealsThe vigilance to which we clung.Shrewd, hallowed, harassed, and amongThe mysteries that are untold,The face we see was never young,Nor could it ever have been old.
For he, to whom we have appliedOur shopman's test of age and worth,Was elemental when he died,As he was ancient at his birth:The saddest among kings of earth,Bowed with a galling crown, this manMet rancor with a cryptic mirth,Laconic — and Olympian.
The love, the grandeur, and the fameAre bounded by the world alone;The calm, the smouldering, and the flameOf awful patience were his own:With him they are forever flownPast all our fond self-shadowings,Wherewith we cumber the UnknownAs with inept Icarian wings.
For we were not as other men:'T was ours to soar and his to see.But we are coming down again,And we shall come down pleasantly;Nor shall we longer disagreeOn what it is to be sublime,But flourish in our perigeeAnd have one Titan at a time.
On the Building of Springfield. [Nicholas Vachel Lindsay]
Let not our town be large — rememberingThat little Athens was the Muses' home;That Oxford rules the heart of London still,That Florence gave the Renaissance to Rome.
Record it for the grandson of your son —A city is not builded in a day:Our little town cannot complete her soulTill countless generations pass away.
Now let each child be joined as to a churchTo her perpetual hopes, each man ordained;Let every street be made a reverent aisleWhere music grows, and beauty is unchained.
Let Science and Machinery and TradeBe slaves of her, and make her all in all —Building against our blatant restless timeAn unseen, skillful, mediaeval wall.
Let every citizen be rich toward God.Let Christ, the beggar, teach divinity —Let no man rule who holds his money dear.Let this, our city, be our luxury.
We should build parks that students from afarWould choose to starve in, rather than go home —Fair little squares, with Phidian ornament —Food for the spirit, milk and honeycomb.
Songs shall be sung by us in that good day —Songs we have written — blood within the rhymeBeating, as when old England still was glad,The purple, rich, Elizabethan time.
Say, is my prophecy too fair and far?I only know, unless her faith be high,The soul of this our Nineveh is doomed,Our little Babylon will surely die.
Some city on the breast of IllinoisNo wiser and no better at the start,By faith shall rise redeemed — by faith shall riseBearing the western glory in her heart —
The genius of the Maple, Elm and Oak,The secret hidden in each grain of corn —The glory that the prairie angels singAt night when sons of Life and Love are born —
Born but to struggle, squalid and alone,Broken and wandering in their early years.When will they make our dusty streets their goal,Within our attics hide their sacred tears?
When will they start our vulgar blood athrillWith living language — words that set us free?When will they make a path of beauty clearBetween our riches and our liberty?
We must have many Lincoln-hearted men —A city is not builded in a day —And they must do their work, and come and goWhile countless generations pass away.
The Poet's Town. [John G. Neihardt]
'Mid glad green miles of tillageAnd fields where cattle graze,A prosy little village,You drowse away the days.
And yet — a wakeful gloryClings round you as you doze;One living lyric storyMakes music of your prose.
Here once, returning never,The feet of song have trod;And flashed — Oh, once forever! —The singing Flame of God.
These were his fields Elysian:With mystic eyes he sawThe sowers planting vision,The reapers gleaning awe.
Serfs to a sordid duty,He saw them with his heart,Priests of the Ultimate Beauty,Feeding the flame of art.
The weird, untempled MakersPulsed in the things he saw;The wheat through its virile acresBillowed the Song of Law.
The epic roll of the furrowFlung from the writing plow,The dactyl phrase of the green-rowed maizeMeasured the music of Now.
Sipper of ancient flagons,Often the lonesome boySaw in the farmers' wagonsThe chariots hurled at Troy.
Trundling in dust and thunderThey rumbled up and down,Laden with princely plunder,Loot of the tragic Town.
And once when the rich man's daughterSmiled on the boy at play,Sword-storms, giddy with slaughter,Swept back the ancient day!
War steeds shrieked in the quiet,Far and hoarse were the cries;And Oh, through the din and the riot,The music of Helen's eyes!
Stabbed with the olden Sorrow,He slunk away from the play,For the Past and the vast To-morrowWere wedded in his To-day.
Rich with the dreamer's pillage,An idle and worthless lad,Least in a prosy village,And prince in Allahabad;
Lover of golden apples,Munching a daily crust;Haunter of dream-built chapels,Worshipping in the dust;
Dull to the worldly duty,Less to the town he grew,And more to the God of BeautyThan even the grocer knew!
Corn for the buyers, and cattle —But what could the dreamer sell?Echoes of cloudy battle?Music from heaven and hell?
Spices and bales of plunderArgosied over the sea?Tapestry woven of wonder,And myrrh from Araby?
None of your dream-stuffs, Fellow,Looter of Samarcand!Gold is heavy and yellow,And value is weighed in the hand!
And yet, when the years had humbledThe Kings in the Realm of the Boy,Song-built bastions crumbled,Ash-heaps smothering Troy;
Thirsting for shattered flagons,Quaffing a brackish cup,With all of his chariots, wagons —He never could quite grow up.
The debt to the ogre, To-morrow,He never could comprehend:Why should the borrowers borrow?Why should the lenders lend?
Never an oak tree borrowed,But took for its needs — and gave.Never an oak tree sorrowed;Debt was the mark of the slave.
Grass in the priceless weatherSucked from the paps of the Earth,And the hills that were lean it fleshed with green —Oh, what is a lesson worth?
But still did the buyers barterAnd the sellers squint at the scales;And price was the stake of the martyr,And cost was the lock of the jails.
Windflowers herald the Maytide,Rendering worth for worth;Ragweeds gladden the wayside,Biting the dugs of the Earth;
Violets, scattering glories,Feed from the dewy gem:But dreamers are fed by the living and dead —And what is the gift from them?
Never a stalk of the SummerDreams of its mission and doom:Only to hasten the Comer —Martyrdom unto the Bloom.
Ever the Mighty ChooserPlucks when the fruit is ripe,Scorning the mass and letting it pass,Keen for the cryptic type.
Greece in her growing seasonTroubled the lands and seas,Plotted and fought and suffered and wrought —Building a Sophocles!
Only a faultless templeStands for the vassal's groan;The harlot's strife and the faith of the wifeBlend in a graven stone.
Ne'er do the stern gods cherishThe hope of the million lives;Always the Fact shall perishAnd only the Truth survives.
Gardens of roses wither,Shaping the perfect rose:And the poet's song shall live for the long,Dumb, aching years of prose.
King of a Realm of Magic,He was the fool of the town,Hiding the ache of the tragicUnder the grin of the clown.
Worn with the vain endeavorTo fit in the sordid plan;Doomed to be poet forever,He longed to be only a man;
To be freed from the god's enthralling,Back with the reeds of the stream;Deaf to the Vision calling,And dead to the lash of the Dream.
But still did the Mighty MakersStir in the common sod;The corn through its awful acresTrembled and thrilled with God!
More than a man was the sower,Lured by a man's desire,For a triune Bride walked close at his side —Dew and Dust and Fire!
More than a man was the plowman,Shouting his gee and haw;For a something dim kept pace with him,And ever the poet saw;
Till the winds of the cosmic struggleMade of his flesh a flute,To echo the tune of a whirlwind runeUnto the million mute.
Son of the Mother of mothers,The womb and the tomb of Life,With Fire and Air for brothersAnd a clinging Dream for a wife;
Ever the soul of the dreamerStrove with its mortal mesh,And the lean flame grew till it fretted throughThe last thin links of flesh.
Oh, rending the veil asunder,He fled to mingle againWith the dred Orestean thunder,The Lear of the driven rain!
Once in a cycle the cometDoubles its lonesome track.Enriched with the tears of a thousand years,Aeschylus wanders back.
Ever inweaving, returning,The near grows out of the far;And Homer shall sing once more in a swingOf the austere Polar Star.
Then what of the lonesome dreamerWith the lean blue flame in his breast?And who was your clown for a day, O Town,The strange, unbidden guest?
~'Mid glad green miles of tillageAnd fields where cattle graze;A prosy little village,You drowse away the days.
And yet — a wakeful gloryClings round you as you doze;One living, lyric storyMakes music of your prose!~
The New Life. [Witter Bynner]
Perhaps they laughed at Dante in his youth,Told him that truthHad unappealably been saidIn the great masterpieces of the dead: —Perhaps he listened and but bowed his headIn acquiescent honour, while his heartHeld natal tidings, — that a new life is the partOf every man that's born,A new life never lived before,And a new expectant art;It is the variations of the mornThat are forever, more and more,The single dawning of the single truth.So answers Dante to the heart of youth!
Martin. [Joyce Kilmer]
When I am tired of earnest men,Intense and keen and sharp and clever,Pursuing fame with brush or penOr counting metal disks forever,Then from the halls of shadowlandBeyond the trackless purple seaOld Martin's ghost comes back to standBeside my desk and talk to me.
Still on his delicate pale faceA quizzical thin smile is showing,His cheeks are wrinkled like fine lace,His kind blue eyes are gay and glowing.He wears a brilliant-hued cravat,A suit to match his soft gray hair,A rakish stick, a knowing hat,A manner blithe and debonair.
How good, that he who always knewThat being lovely was a duty,Should have gold halls to wander throughAnd should himself inhabit beauty.How like his old unselfish wayTo leave those halls of splendid mirthAnd comfort those condemned to stayUpon the bleak and sombre earth.
Some people ask: What cruel chanceMade Martin's life so sad a story?Martin? Why, he exhaled romanceAnd wore an overcoat of glory.A fleck of sunlight in the street,A horse, a book, a girl who smiled, —Such visions made each moment sweetFor this receptive, ancient child.
Because it was old Martin's lotTo be, not make, a decoration,Shall we then scorn him, having notHis genius of appreciation?Rich joy and love he got and gave;His heart was merry as his dress.Pile laurel wreaths upon his graveWho did not gain, but was, success.
As in the Midst of Battle there is Room. [George Santayana]
As in the midst of battle there is roomFor thoughts of love, and in foul sin for mirth;As gossips whisper of a trinket's worthSpied by the death-bed's flickering candle-gloom;As in the crevices of Caesar's tombThe sweet herbs flourish on a little earth:So in this great disaster of our birthWe can be happy, and forget our doom.
For morning, with a ray of tenderest joyGilding the iron heaven, hides the truth,And evening gently woos us to employOur grief in idle catches. Such is youth;Till from that summer's trance we wake, to findDespair before us, vanity behind.
Ex Libris. [Arthur Upson]
In an old book at even as I readFast fading words adown my shadowy page,I crossed a tale of how, in other age,At Arqua, with his books around him, spedThe word to Petrarch; and with noble headBowed gently o'er his volume that sweet sageTo Silence paid his willing seigniorage.And they who found him whispered, "He is dead!"
Thus timely from old comradeships would ITo Silence also rise. Let there be night,Stillness, and only these staid watchers by,And no light shine save my low study light —Lest of his kind intent some human cryInterpret not the Messenger aright.
The Poet. [Mildred McNeal Sweeney]
Himself is least afraidWhen the singing lips in the dustWith all mute lips are laid.For thither all men must.Nor is the end long stayed.
But he, having cast his songUpon the faithful airAnd given it speed — is strongThat last strange hour to dare,Nor wills to tarry long.
Adown immortal timeThat greater self shall pass,And wear its eager primeAnd lend the youth it hasLike one far blowing chime.
He has made sure the questAnd now — his word gone forth —May have his perfect restLow in the tender earth,The wind across his breast.
When I have gone Weird Ways. [John G. Neihardt]
When I have finished with this episode,Left the hard, uphill road,And gone weird ways to seek another load,Oh, friends, regret me not, nor weep for me,Child of Infinity!
Nor dig a grave, nor rear for me a tombTo say with lying writ: "Here in the gloomHe who loved bigness takes a narrow room,Content to pillow here his weary head,For he is dead."
But give my body to the funeral pyre,And bid the laughing fire,Eager and strong and swift, like my desire,Scatter my subtle essence into space,Free me of time and place.
And sweep the bitter ashes from the hearth,Fling back the dust I borrowed from the earthInto the chemic broil of death and birth,The vast alembic of the cryptic scheme,Warm with the master-dream.
And thus, O little house that sheltered me,Dissolve again in wind and rain, to bePart of the cosmic weird economy.And, Oh, how oft with new life shalt thou liftOut of the atom-drift!
Trumbull Stickney. [George Cabot Lodge]