Night fell. I heard his tread,Not stealthy, but firm and serene,As if my comrade's headWere lifted far from that sceneOf passion and pain and dread;As if my comrade's heartIn carnage took no part;As if my comrade's feetWere set on some radiant streetSuch as no darkness might haunt;As if my comrade's eyes,No deluge of flame could surprise,No death and destruction daunt,No red-beaked bird dismay,Nor sight of decay.
Then in the bursting shells' dim lightI saw he was clad in white.For a moment I thought that I saw the smockOf a shepherd in search of his flock.Alert were the enemy, too,And their bullets flewStraight at a mark no bullet could fail;For the seeker was tall and his robe was bright;But he did not flee nor quail.Instead, with unhurrying strideHe came,And gathering my tall frame,Like a child, in his arms . . .
I slept,And awokeFrom a blissful dreamIn a cave by a stream.My silent comrade had bound my side.No pain now was mine, but a wish that I spoke, —A mastering wish to serve this manWho had ventured through hell my doom to revoke,As only the truest of comrades can.I begged him to tell me how best I might aid him,And urgently prayed himNever to leave me, whatever betide;When I saw he was hurt —Shot through the hands that were clasped in prayer!Then, as the dark drops gathered thereAnd fell in the dirt,The wounds of my friendSeemed to me such as no man might bear.Those bullet-holes in the patient handsSeemed to transcendAll horrors that ever these war-drenched landsHad known or would know till the mad world's end.Then suddenly I was awareThat his feet had been wounded, too;And, dimming the white of his side,A dull stain grew."You are hurt, White Comrade!" I cried.His words I already foreknew:"These are old wounds," said he,"But of late they have troubled me."
Smith, of the Third Oregon, dies. [Mary Carolyn Davies]
Autumn in Oregon is wet as Spring,And green, with little singings in the grass,And pheasants flying,Gold, green and red,Great, narrow, lovely things,As if an orchid had snatched wings.There are strange birds like blots against a skyWhere a sun is dying.Beyond the river where the hills are blurredA cloud, like the one wordOf the too-silent sky, stirs, and there standBlack trees on either hand.Autumn in Oregon is wet and newAs Spring,And puts a fever like Spring's in the cheekThat once has touched her dew —And it puts longing tooIn eyes that once have seenHer season-flouting green,And ears that listened to her strange birds speak.
Autumn in Oregon — I'll never seeThose hills again, a blur of blue and rainAcross the old Willamette. I'll not stirA pheasant as I walk, and hear it whirrAbove my head, an indolent, trusting thing.When all this silly dream is finished here,The fellows will go home to where there fallRose-petals over every street, and allThe year is like a friendly festival.But I shall never watch those hedges dripColor, not see the tall spar of a shipIn our old harbor. — They say that I am dying,Perhaps that's why it all comes back again:Autumn in Oregon and pheasants flying —
Song. [Edward J. O'Brien]
She goes all so softlyLike a shadow on the hill,A faint wind at twilightThat stirs, and is still.
She weaves her thoughts whitely,Like doves in the air,Though a gray mound in FlandersClouds all that was fair.
Lonely Burial. [Stephen Vincent Benet]
There were not many at that lonely place,Where two scourged hills met in a little plain.The wind cried loud in gusts, then low again.Three pines strained darkly, runners in a raceUnseen by any. Toward the further woodsA dim harsh noise of voices rose and ceased.— We were most silent in those solitudes —Then, sudden as a flame, the black-robed priest,The clotted earth piled roughly up aboutThe hacked red oblong of the new-made thing,Short words in swordlike Latin — and a routOf dreams most impotent, unwearying.Then, like a blind door shut on a carouse,The terrible bareness of the soul's last house.
I have a Rendezvous with Death. [Alan Seeger]
I have a rendezvous with DeathAt some disputed barricade,When Spring comes back with rustling shadeAnd apple-blossoms fill the air —I have a rendezvous with DeathWhen Spring brings back blue days and fair.
It may be he shall take my handAnd lead me into his dark landAnd close my eyes and quench my breath —It may be I shall pass him still.I have a rendezvous with DeathOn some scarred slope of battered hillWhen Spring comes round again this yearAnd the first meadow-flowers appear.
God knows 'twere better to be deepPillowed in silk and scented down,Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep,Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,Where hushed awakenings are dear . . .But I've a rendezvous with DeathAt midnight in some flaming town,When Spring trips north again this year,And I to my pledged word am true,I shall not fail that rendezvous.
Rouge Bouquet. [Joyce Kilmer]
In a wood they call the Rouge BouquetThere is a new-made grave to-day,Built by never a spade nor pickYet covered with earth ten metres thick.There lie many fighting men,Dead in their youthful prime,Never to laugh nor love againNor taste the Summertime.For Death came flying through the airAnd stopped his flight at the dugout stair,Touched his prey and left them there,Clay to clay.He hid their bodies stealthilyIn the soil of the land they fought to freeAnd fled away.Now over the grave abrupt and clearThree volleys ring;And perhaps their brave young spirits hearThe bugle sing:"Go to sleep!Go to sleep!Slumber well where the shell screamed and fell.Let your rifles rest on the muddy floor,You will not need them any more.Danger's past;Now at last,Go to sleep!"
There is on earth no worthier graveTo hold the bodies of the braveThan this place of pain and prideWhere they nobly fought and nobly died.Never fear but in the skiesSaints and angels standSmiling with their holy eyesOn this new-come band.St. Michael's sword darts through the airAnd touches the aureole on his hairAs he sees them stand saluting there,His stalwart sons;And Patrick, Brigid, ColumkillRejoice that in veins of warriors stillThe Gael's blood runs.And up to Heaven's doorway floats,From the wood called Rouge Bouquet,A delicate cloud of buglenotesThat softly say:"Farewell!Farewell!Comrades true, born anew, peace to you!Your souls shall be where the heroes areAnd your memory shine like the morning-star.Brave and dear,Shield us here.Farewell!"
Francis Ledwidge. [Grace Hazard Conkling]
(Killed in action July 31, 1917)
Nevermore singingWill you go now,Wearing wild moonlightOn your brow.The moon's white moodIn your silver mindIs all forgotten.Words of windFrom off the hedgerowAfter rain,You do not hear them;They are vain.There is a linnetCraves a song,And you returningBefore long.Now who will tell her,Who can sayOn what great errandYou are away?You whose kindredWere hills of Meath,Who sang the lane-roseFrom her sheath,What voice will cry themThe grief at dawnOr say to the blackbirdYou are gone?
April on the Battlefields. [Leonora Speyer]
April now walks the fields again,Trailing her tearful leavesAnd holding all her frightened buds against her heart:Wrapt in her clouds and mists,She walks,Groping her way among the graves of men.
The green of earth is differently green,A dreadful knowledge trembles in the grass,And little wide-eyed flowers die too soon:There is a stillness here —After a terror of all raving sounds —And birds sit close for comfort upon the boughsOf broken trees.
April, thou grief!What of thy sun and glad, high wind,Thy valiant hills and woods and eager brooks,Thy thousand-petalled hopes?~The sky forbids thee sorrow, April!~And yet —I see thee walking listlesslyAcross those scars that once were joyous sod,Those graves,Those stepping-stones from life to life.
Death is an interruption between two heart-beats,That I know —Yet know not how I know —But April mourns,Trailing her tender green,The passion of her green,Across the passion of those fearful fields.
~Yes, all the fields!~No barrier here,No challenge in the night,No stranger-land;She passes with her perfect countersign,Her green;She wanders in her mournful garden,Dropping her buds like tears,Spreading her lovely grief upon the graves of man.
Earth's Easter. [Robert Haven Schauffler]
(1915)
Earth has gone up from its Gethsemane,And now on Golgotha is crucified;The spear is twisted in the tortured side;The thorny crown still works its cruelty.Hark! while the victim suffers on the tree,There sound through starry spaces, far and wide,Such words as in the last despair are cried:"My God! my God! Thou hast forsaken me!"
But when earth's members from the cross are drawn,And all we love into the grave is gone,This hope shall be a spark within the gloom:That, in the glow of some stupendous dawn,We may go forth to find, where lilies bloom,Two angels bright before an empty tomb.
The Fields. [Witter Bynner]
Though wisdom underfootDies in the bloody fields,Slowly the endless rootGathers again and yields.
In fields where hate has hurledIts force, where folly rots,Wisdom shall be unfurledSmall as forget-me-nots.
In Spite of War. [Angela Morgan]
In spite of war, in spite of death,In spite of all man's sufferings,Something within me laughs and singsAnd I must praise with all my breath.In spite of war, in spite of hateLilacs are blooming at my gate,Tulips are tripping down the pathIn spite of war, in spite of wrath."Courage!" the morning-glory saith;"Rejoice!" the daisy murmureth,And just to live is so divineWhen pansies lift their eyes to mine.
The clouds are romping with the sea,And flashing waves call back to meThat naught is real but what is fair,That everywhere and everywhereA glory liveth through despair.Though guns may roar and cannon boom,Roses are born and gardens bloom;My spirit still may light its flameAt that same torch whence poppies came.Where morning's altar whitely burnsLilies may lift their silver urnsIn spite of war, in spite of shame.
And in my ear a whispering breath,"Wake from the nightmare! Look and seeThat life is naught but ecstasyIn spite of war, in spite of death!"
Wide Haven. [Clement Wood]
Tired of man's futile, petty cry,Of lips that lie and flout,I saw the slow sun dim and dieAnd the slim dusk slip out . . .Life held no room for doubt.
What though Death claim the ones I prizeIn War's insane crusade,Last night I saw Orion riseAnd the great day-star fade,And I am not dismayed.
To Any one. [Witter Bynner]
Whether the time be slow or fast,Enemies, hand in hand,Must come together at the lastAnd understand.
No matter how the die is castNor who may seem to win,You know that you must love at last —Why not begin?
Peace. [Agnes Lee]
Suddenly bells and flags!Suddenly — door to door —Tidings! Can we believe,We, who were used to war?
Yet we have dreamed her face,Knowing her light must be,Knowing that she must come.Look — she comes, it is she!
Tattered her raiment floats,Blood is upon her wings.Ah, but her eyes are clear!Ah, but her voice outrings!
Soon where the shrapnel fellPetals shall wake and stir.Look — she is here, she lives!Beauty has died for her.
The Kings are passing Deathward. [David Morton]
The Kings are passing deathward in the darkOf days that had been splendid where they went;Their crowns are captive and their courts are starkOf purples that are ruinous, now, and rent.For all that they have seen disastrous things:The shattered pomp, the split and shaken throne,They cannot quite forget the way of Kings:Gravely they pass, majestic and alone.
With thunder on their brows, their faces setToward the eternal night of restless shapes,They walk in awful splendor, regal yet,Wearing their crimes like rich and kingly capes . . .Curse them or taunt, they will not hear or see;The Kings are passing deathward: let them be.
Jerico. [Willard Wattles]
Jerico, Jerico,Round and round the walls I goWhere they watch with scornful eyes,Where the captained bastions rise;Heel and toe, heel and toe,Blithely round the walls I go.
Jerico, Jerico,Round and round the walls I go . . .All the golden ones of earthRegal in their lordly mirth . . .Heel and toe, heel and toe,Round and round the walls I go.
Jerico, Jerico,Blithely round the walls I go,With a broken sword in handWhere the mighty bastions stand;Heel and toe, heel and toe,Hear my silly bugle blow.
Heel and toe, heel and toe,Round the walls of Jerico . . .Past the haughty golden gateWhere the emperor in stateSmiles to see the ragged show,Round and round the towers go.
Jerico, Jerico,Round and round and round I go . . .All their sworded bodies mustLie low in their tower's dust . . .Heel and toe, heel and toe,Blithely round the walls I go.
Heel and toe, heel and toe, —I will blow a thunder noteFrom my brazen bugle's throatTill the sand and thistle knowThe leveled walls of Jerico,Jerico, Jerico, Jerico. . . .
Students. [Florence Wilkinson]
John Brown and Jeanne at Fontainebleau —'T was Toussaint, just a year ago;Crimson and copper was the glowOf all the woods at Fontainebleau.They peered into that ancient well,And watched the slow torch as it fell.John gave the keeper two whole sous,And Jeanne that smile with which she woosJohn Brown to folly. So they loseThe Paris train. But never mind! —All-Saints are rustling in the wind,And there's an inn, a crackling fire —(It's `deux-cinquante', but Jeanne's desire);There's dinner, candles, country wine,Jeanne's lips — philosophy divine!
There was a bosquet at Saint CloudWherein John's picture of her grewTo be a Salon masterpiece —Till the rain fell that would not cease.Through one long alley how they raced! —'T was gold and brown, and all a wasteOf matted leaves, moss-interlaced.Shades of mad queens and hunter-kingsAnd thorn-sharp feet of dryad-thingsWere company to their wanderings;Then rain and darkness on them drew.The rich folks' motors honked and flew.They hailed an old cab, heaven for two;The bright Champs-Elysees at last —Though the cab crawled it sped too fast.
Paris, upspringing white and gold:Flamboyant arch and high-enscrolledWar-sculpture, big, Napoleonic —Fierce chargers, angels histrionic;The royal sweep of gardened spaces,The pomp and whirl of columned Places;The Rive Gauche, age-old, gay and gray;The impasse and the loved cafe;The tempting tidy little shops;The convent walls, the glimpsed tree-tops;Book-stalls, old men like dwarfs in plays;Talk, work, and Latin Quarter ways.
May — Robinson's, the chestnut trees —Were ever crowds as gay as these?The quick pale waiters on a run,The round, green tables, one by one,Hidden away in amorous bowers —Lilac, laburnum's golden showers.Kiss, clink of glasses, laughter heard,And nightingales quite undeterred.And then that last extravagance —O Jeanne, a single amber glanceWill pay him! — "Let's play millionaireFor just two hours — on princely fare,At some hotel where lovers dineA deux and pledge across the wine!"They find a damask breakfast-room,Where stiff silk roses range their bloom.The garcon has a splendid wayOf bearing in grand dejeuner.Then to be left alone, alone,High up above Rue Castiglione;Curtained away from all the rudeRumors, in silken solitude;And, John, her head upon your knees —Time waits for moments such as these.
Tampico. [Grace Hazard Conkling]
Oh, cut me reeds to blow upon,Or gather me a star,But leave the sultry passion-flowersGrowing where they are.
I fear their sombre yellow deeps,Their whirling fringe of black,And he who gives a passion-flowerAlways asks it back.
Which. [Corinne Roosevelt Robinson]
We ask that Love shall rise to the divine,And yet we crave him very human, too;Our hearts would drain the crimson of his wine,Our souls despise him if he prove untrue!Poor Love! I hardly see what you can do!We know all human things are weak and frail,And yet we claim that very part of you,Then, inconsistent, blame you if you fail.When you would soar, 't is we who clip your wings,Although we weep because you faint and fall.Alas! it seems we want so many things,That no dear love could ever grant them all!Which shall we choose, the human or divine,The crystal stream, or yet the crimson wine?
Apology. [Amy Lowell]
Be not angry with me that I bearYour colours everywhere,All through each crowded street,And meetThe wonder-light in every eye,As I go by.
Each plodding wayfarer looks up to gaze,Blinded by rainbow haze,The stuff of happiness,No less,Which wraps me in its glad-hued foldsOf peacock golds.
Before my feet the dusty, rough-paved wayFlushes beneath its gray.My steps fall ringed with light,So bright,It seems a myriad suns are strownAbout the town.
Around me is the sound of steepled bells,And rich perfumed smellsHang like a wind-forgotten cloud,And shroudMe from close contact with the world.I dwell impearled.
You blazon me with jewelled insignia.A flaming nebulaRims in my life. And yetYou setThe word upon me, unconfessedTo go unguessed.
The Great Hunt. [Carl Sandburg]
I cannot tell you now;When the wind's drive and whirlBlow me along no longer,And the wind's a whisper at last —Maybe I'll tell you then —some other time.
When the rose's flash to the sunsetReels to the wrack and the twist,And the rose is a red bygone,When the face I love is goingAnd the gate to the end shall clang,And it's no use to beckon or say, "So long" —Maybe I'll tell you then —some other time.
I never knew any more beautiful than you:I have hunted you under my thoughts,I have broken down under the windAnd into the roses looking for you.I shall never find anygreater than you.
Dialogue. [Walter Conrad Arensberg]
Be patient, Life, when Love is at the gate,And when he enters let him be at home.Think of the roads that he has had to roam.Think of the years that he has had to wait.
~But if I let Love in I shall be late.Another has come first — there is no room.And I am thoughtful of the endless loom —Let Love be patient, the importunate.~
O Life, be idle and let Love come in,And give thy dreamy hair that Love may spin.
~But Love himself is idle with his song.Let Love come last, and then may Love last long.~
Be patient, Life, for Love is not the last.Be patient now with Death, for Love has passed.
Song. [Margaret Widdemer]
The Spring will come when the year turns,As if no Winter had been,But what shall I do with a locked heartThat lets no new year in?
The birds will go when the Fall goes,The leaves will fade in the field,But what shall I do with an old loveWill neither die nor yield?
Oh! youth will turn as the world turns,And dim grow laughter and pain,But how shall I hide from an old dreamI never may dream again?
The Bitter Herb. [Jeanne Robert Foster]
O bitter herb, Forgetfulness,I search for you in vain;You are the only growing thingCan take away my pain.
When I was young, this bitter herbGrew wild on every hill;I should have plucked a store of it,And kept it by me still.
I hunt through all the meadowsWhere once I wandered free,But the rare herb, Forgetfulness,It hides away from me.
O bitter herb, Forgetfulness,Where is your drowsy breath?Oh, can it be your seed has blownFar as the Vales of Death?
Behind the House is the Millet Plot. [Muna Lee]
Behind the house is the millet plot,And past the millet, the stile;And then a hill where melilotGrows with wild camomile.
There was a youth who bade me goodbyWhere the hill rises to meet the sky.I think my heart broke; but I have forgotAll but the smell of the white melilot.
Men of Harlan. [William Aspinwall Bradley]
Here in the level country, where the creeks run straight and wide,Six men upon their pacing nags may travel side by side.But the mountain men of Harlan, you may tell them all the while,When they pass through our village, for they ride in single file.And the children, when they see them, stop their play and stand and cry,"Here come the men of Harlan, men of Harlan, riding by!"
O the mountain men of Harlan, when they come down to the plain,With dangling stirrup, jangling spur, and loosely hanging rein,They do not ride, like our folks here, in twos and threes abreast,With merry laughter, talk and song, and lightly spoken jest;But silently and solemnly, in long and straggling line,As you may see them in the hills, beyond Big Black and Pine.
For, in that far strange country, where the men of Harlan dwell,There are no roads at all, like ours, as we've heard travelers tell.But only narrow trails that wind along each shallow creek,Where the silence hangs so heavy, you can hear the leathers squeak.And there no two can ride abreast, but each alone must go,Picking his way as best he may, with careful steps and slow,
Down many a shelving ledge of shale, skirting the trembling sands,Through many a pool and many a pass, where the mountain laurel standsSo thick and close to left and right, with holly bushes, too,The clinging branches meet midway to bar the passage through, —O'er many a steep and stony ridge, o'er many a high divide,And so it is the Harlan men thus one by one do ride.
Yet it is strange to see them pass in line through our wide street,When they come down to sell their sang, and buy their stores of meat,These silent men, in sombre black, all clad from foot to head,Though they have left their lonely hills and the narrow creek's rough bed.And 't is no wonder children stop their play and stand and cry:"Here come the men of Harlan, men of Harlan, riding by."
Have you an Eye. [Edwin Ford Piper]
Have you an eye for the trails, the trails,The old mark and the new?What scurried here, what loitered there,In the dust and in the dew?
Have you an eye for the beaten track,The old hoof and the young?Come name me the drivers of yesterday,Sing me the songs they sung.
O, was it a schooner last went by,And where will it ford the stream?Where will it halt in the early dusk,And where will the camp-fire gleam?
They used to take the shortest cutThe cattle trails had made;Get down the hill by the easy slopeTo the water and the shade.
But it's barbed wire fence, and section line,And kill-horse travel now;Scoot you down the canyon bank, —The old road's under plough.
Have you an eye for the laden wheel,The worn tire or the new?Or the sign of the prairie pony's hoofWas never trimmed for shoe?
After Apple-Picking. [Robert Frost]
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a treeToward heaven still,And there's a barrel that I didn't fillBeside it, and there may be two or threeApples I didn't pick upon some bough.But I am done with apple-picking now.Essence of winter sleep is on the night,The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.I cannot rub the strangeness from my sightI got from looking through a pane of glassI skimmed this morning from the drinking troughAnd held against the world of hoary grass.It melted, and I let it fall and break.But I was wellUpon my way to sleep before it fell,And I could tellWhat form my dreaming was about to take.Magnified apples appear and disappear,Stem end and blossom end,And every fleck of russet showing clear.My instep arch not only keeps the ache,It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.And I keep hearing from the cellar binThe rumbling soundOf load on load of apples coming in.For I have had too muchOf apple-picking: I am overtiredOf the great harvest I myself desired.There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.For allThat struck the earth,No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,Went surely to the cider-apple heapAs of no worth.One can see what will troubleThis sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.Were he not gone,The woodchuck could say whether it's like hisLong sleep, as I describe its coming on,Or just some human sleep.
Autumn. [Jean Starr Untermeyer]
(For my Mother)
How memory cuts away the years,And how clean the picture comesOf autumn days, brisk and busy;Charged with keen sunshine.And you, stirred with activity;The spirit of these energetic days.
There was our back-yard,So plain and stripped of green,With even the weeds carefully pulled awayFrom the crooked, red bricks that made the walk,And the earth on either side so black.
Autumn and dead leaves burning in the sharp air;And winter comforts coming in like a pageant.I shall not forget them:Great jars laden with the raw green of pickles,Standing in a solemn row across the back of the porch,Exhaling the pungent dill;And in the very center of the yard,You, tending the great catsup kettle of gleaming copperWhere fat, red tomatoes bobbed up and downLike jolly monks in a drunken dance.And there were bland banks of cabbages that came by the wagon-load,Soon to be cut into delicate ribbonsOnly to be crushed by the heavy, wooden stompers.Such feathery whiteness — to come to kraut!And after, there were grapes that hid their brightness under a grey dust,Then gushed thrilling, purple blood over the fire;And enamelled crab-apples that tricked with their fragranceBut were bitter to taste.And there were spicy plums and ill-shaped quinces,And long string beans floating in pans of clear waterLike slim, green fishes.And there was fish itself,Salted, silver herring from the city . . .
And you moved among these mysteries,Absorbed and smiling and sure;Stirring, tasting, measuring,With the precision of a ritual.I like to think of you in your years of power —You, now so shaken and so powerless —High priestess of your home.
Autumn Movement. [Carl Sandburg]
I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.
The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.
The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go, not one lasts.
God's World. [Edna St. Vincent Millay]
O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!Thy mists that roll and rise!Thy woods this autumn day, that ache and sagAnd all but cry with colour! That gaunt cragTo crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!
Long have I known a glory in it all,But never knew I this;Here such a passion isAs stretcheth me apart, — Lord, I do fearThou'st made the world too beautiful this year;My soul is all but out of me, — let fallNo burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.
Overtones. [William Alexander Percy]
I heard a bird at break of daySing from the autumn treesA song so mystical and calm,So full of certainties,No man, I think, could listen longExcept upon his knees.Yet this was but a simple bird,Alone, among dead trees.
When the Year grows Old. [Edna St. Vincent Millay]
I cannot but rememberWhen the year grows old —October — November —How she disliked the cold!
She used to watch the swallowsGo down across the sky,And turn from the windowWith a little sharp sigh.
And often when the brown leavesWere brittle on the ground,And the wind in the chimneyMade a melancholy sound,
She had a look about herThat I wish I could forget —The look of a scared thingSitting in a net!
Oh, beautiful at nightfallThe soft spitting snow!And beautiful the bare boughsRubbing to and fro!
But the roaring of the fire,And the warmth of fur,And the boiling of the kettleWere beautiful to her!
I cannot but rememberWhen the year grows old —October — November —How she disliked the cold!
In the Monastery. [Norreys Jephson O'Conor]
Cold is the wind to-night, and rough the sea,Too rough for even the daring Dane to findA landing-place upon the frozen lea.Cold is the wind.
The blast sweeps round the chapel from behind,Making the altar-light flare fitfully,While I must kneel and pray with troubled mind.
Patrick and Brigid, I have prayed to ye!The night is over, and my task resignedTo Colum. Though God's own dwelling shelter me,Cold is the wind.
The Narrow Doors. [Fannie Stearns Davis]
The Wide Door into SorrowStands open night and day.With head held high and dancing feetI pass it on my way.
I never tread within it,I never turn to seeThe Wide Door into Sorrow.It cannot frighten me.
The Narrow Doors to SorrowAre secret, still, and low:Swift tongues of dusk that spoil the sunBefore I even know.
My dancing feet are frozen.I stare. I can but see.The Narrow Doors to SorrowThey stop the heart in me.
— Oh, stranger than my midnightsOf loneliness and strifeThe Doors that let the dark leap inAcross my sunny life!
"I Pass a Lighted Window". [Clement Wood]
I pass a lighted windowAnd a closed door —And I am not troubledAny more.
Though the road is murky,I am not afraid,For a shadow passesOn the lighted shade.
Once I knew the sesameTo the closed door;Now I shall not enterAny more;
Nor will people passingBy the lit place,See our shadows marryIn a gray embrace.
Strange a passing shadowHas a long spell!What can matter, knowingShe does well?
How can life annoy meAny more?Life: a lighted windowAnd a closed door.
Doors. [Hermann Hagedorn]
Like a young child who to his mother's doorRuns eager for the welcoming embrace,And finds the door shut, and with troubled faceCalls and through sobbing calls, and o'er and o'erCalling, storms at the panel — so beforeA door that will not open, sick and numb,I listen for a word that will not come,And know, at last, I may not enter more.
Silence! And through the silence and the darkBy that closed door, the distant sob of tearsBeats on my spirit, as on fairy shoresThe spectral sea; and through the sobbing — hark!Down the fair-chambered corridor of years,The quiet shutting, one by one, of doors.
Where Love once was. [James Oppenheim]
Where love once was, let there be no hate:Though they that went as one by night and dayGo now alone,Where love once was, let there be no hate.
The seeds we planted togetherCame to rich harvest,And our hearts are as bins brimming with the golden plenty:Into our loneliness we carry granaries of old love . . .
And though the time has come when we cannot sow our acres together,And our souls need diverse fields,And a tilling apart,Let us go separate ways with a blessing each for each,And gentle parting,And let there be no hate,Where love once was.
Irish Love Song. [Margaret Widdemer]
Well, if the thing is over, better it is for me,The lad was ever a rover, loving and laughing free,Far too clever a lover not to be having stillA lass in the town and a lass by the road and a lass by the farther hill —Love on the field and love on the path and love in the woody glen —(Lad, will I never see you, never your face again?)
Ay, if the thing is ending, now I'll be getting rest,Saying my prayers and bending down to be stilled and blest,Never the days are sending hope till my heart is soreFor a laugh on the path and a voice by the gate and a stepon the shieling floor —Grief on my ways and grief on my work and grief till the evening's dim —(Lord, will I never hear it, never a sound of him?)
Sure if it's done forever, better for me that's wise,Never the hurt, and never tears in my aching eyes,No more the trouble ever to hide from my asking folkBeat of my heart at click o' the latch, and throb if his name is spoke;Never the need to hide the sighs and the flushing thoughts and the fret,And after awhile my heart will hush and my hungering hands forget . . .Peace on my ways, and peace in my step, and maybe my heart grown light —(~Mary, helper of heartbreak, send him to me to-night!~)
Nirvana. [John Hall Wheelock]
Sleep on — I lie at heaven's high oriels,Over the stars that murmur as they goLighting your lattice-window far below;And every star some of the glory spellsWhereof I know.I have forgotten you, long long ago;Like the sweet, silver singing of thin bellsVanished, or music fading faint and low.Sleep on — I lie at heaven's high oriels,Who loved you so.
A Nun. [Odell Shepard]
One glance and I had lost her in the riotOf tangled cries.She trod the clamor with a cloistral quietDeep in her eyesAs though she heard the muted music onlyThat silence makesAmong dim mountain summits and on lonelyDeserted lakes.
There is some broken song her heart remembersFrom long ago,Some love lies buried deep, some passion's embersSmothered in snow,Far voices of a joy that sought and missed herFail now, and cease . . .And this has given the deep eyes of God's sisterTheir dreadful peace.
Silence. [Edgar Lee Masters]
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 of the sickWhen their eyes roam about the room.And I ask: For the depths,Of 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 awayBecause 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 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.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 sorrows, 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.
The Dark Cavalier. [Margaret Widdemer]
I am the Dark Cavalier; I am the Last Lover:My arms shall welcome you when other arms are tired;I stand to wait for you, patient in the darkness,Offering forgetfulness of all that you desired.
I ask no merriment, no pretense of gladness,I can love heavy lids and lips without their rose;Though you are sorrowful you will not weary me;I will not go from you when all the tired world goes.
I am the Dark Cavalier; I am the Last Lover;I promise faithfulness no other lips may keep;Safe in my bridal place, comforted by darkness,You shall lie happily, smiling in your sleep.
Indian Summer. [William Ellery Leonard]
(After completing a book for one now dead)
(~O Earth-and-Autumn of the Setting Sun,She is not by, to know my task is done.~)In the brown grasses slanting with the wind,Lone as a lad whose dog's no longer near,Lone as a mother whose only child has sinned,Lone on the loved hill . . . and below me hereThe thistle-down in tremulous atmosphereAlong red clusters of the sumach streams;The shrivelled stalks of golden-rod are sere,And crisp and white their flashing old racemes.(. . . forever . . . forever . . . . forever . . .)This is the lonely season of the year,This is the season of our lonely dreams.
(~O Earth-and-Autumn of the Setting Sun,She is not by, to know my task is done!~)The corn-shocks westward on the stubble plainShow like an Indian village of dead days;The long smoke trails behind the crawling train,And floats atop the distant woods ablazeWith orange, crimson, purple. The low hazeDims the scarped bluffs above the inland sea,Whose wide and slaty waters in cold glazeAwait yon full-moon of the night-to-be,(. . . far . . . and far . . . and far . . .)These are the solemn horizons of man's ways,These are the horizons of solemn thought to me.
(~O Earth-and-Autumn of the Setting Sun,She is not by, to know my task is done!~)And this the hill she visited, as friend;And this the hill she lingered on, as bride —Down in the yellow valley is the end:They laid her . . . in no evening autumn tide . . .Under fresh flowers of that May morn, besideThe queens and cave-women of ancient earth . . .
This is the hill . . . and over my city's towers,Across the world from sunset, yonder in air,Shines, through its scaffoldings, a civic domeOf piled masonry, which shall be oursTo give, completed, to our children there . . .And yonder far roof of my abandoned homeShall house new laughter . . . Yet I tried . . . I triedAnd, ever wistful of the doom to come,I built her many a fire for love . . . for mirth . . .(When snows were falling on our oaks outside,Dear, many a winter fire upon the hearth) . . .(. . . farewell . . . farewell . . . farewell . . .)We dare not think too long on those who died,While still so many yet must come to birth.
Death — Divination. [Charles Wharton Stork]
Death is like moonlight in a lofty wood,That pours pale magic through the shadowy leaves;'T is like the web that some old perfume weavesIn a dim, lonely room where memories brood;Like snow-chilled wine it steals into the blood,Spurring the pulse its coolness half reprieves;Tenderly quickening impulses it gives,As April winds unsheathe an opening bud.
Death is like all sweet, sense-enfolding things,That lift us in a dream-delicious tranceBeyond the flickering good and ill of chance;But most is Death like Music's buoyant wings,That bear the soul, a willing Ganymede,Where joys on joys forevermore succeed.
The Mould. [Gladys Cromwell]
No doubt this active will,So bravely steeped in sun,This will has vanquished DeathAnd foiled oblivion.
But this indifferent clay,This fine experienced hand,So quiet, and these thoughtsThat all unfinished stand,
Feel death as though it wereA shadowy caress;And win and wear a frailArchaic wistfulness.
In Patris Mei Memoriam. [John Myers O'Hara]
By the fond name that was his own and mine,The last upon his lips that strove with doom,He called me and I saw the light assumeA sudden glory and around him shine;And nearer now I saw the laureled lineOf the august of Song before me loom,And knew the voices, erstwhile through the gloom,That whispered and forbade me to repine.And with farewell, a shaft of splendor sankOut of the stars and faded as a flame,And down the night, on clouds of glory, cameThe battle seraphs halting rank on rank;And lifted heavenward to heroic peace,He passed and left me hope beyond surcease.
Ad Matrem Amantissimam et Carissimam Filii in Aeternum Fidelitas.[John Myers O'Hara]
With all the fairest angels nearest God,The ineffable true of heart around the throne,There shall I find you waiting when the flownDream leaves my heart insentient as the clod;And when the grief-retracing ways I trodBecome a shining path to thee alone,My weary feet, that seemed to drag as stone,Shall once again, with wings of fleetness shod,Fare on, beloved, to find you! Just beyondThe seraph throng await me, standing nearThe gentler angels, eager and apart;Be there, near God's own fairest, with the fondSweet smile that was your own, and let me hearYour voice again and clasp you to my heart.
Afterwards. [Mahlon Leonard Fisher]
There was a day when death to me meant tears,And tearful takings-leave that had to be,And awed embarkings on an unshored sea,And sudden disarrangement of the years.But now I know that nothing interferesWith the fixed forces when a tired man dies;That death is only answerings and replies,The chiming of a bell which no one hears,The casual slanting of a half-spent sun,The soft recessional of noise and coil,The coveted something time nor age can spoil;I know it is a fabric finely spunBetween the stars and dark; to seize and keep,Such glad romances as we read in sleep.
Pierrette in Memory. [William Griffith]
Pierrette has gone, but it was notExactly that she died,So much as vanished and forgotTo tell where she would hide.
To keep a sudden rendezvous,It came into her mindThat she was late. What could she doBut leave distress behind?
Afraid of being in disgrace,And hurrying to dress,She heard there was another placeIn need of loveliness.
She went so softly and so soon,She hardly made a stir;But going took the stars and moonAnd sun away with her.
The Three Sisters. [Arthur Davison Ficke]
Gone are the three, those sisters rareWith wonder-lips and eyes ashine.One was wise and one was fair,And one was mine.
Ye mourners, weave for the sleeping hairOf only two, your ivy vine.For one was wise and one was fair,But one was mine.
Song. [Adelaide Crapsey]
I make my shroud, but no one knows —So shimmering fine it is and fair,With stitches set in even rows,I make my shroud, but no one knows.
In door-way where the lilac blows,Humming a little wandering air,I make my shroud and no one knows,So shimmering fine it is and fair.
The Unknown Beloved. [John Hall Wheelock]
I dreamed I passed a doorwayWhere, for a sign of death,White ribbons one was bindingAbout a flowery wreath.
What drew me so I know not,But drawing near I said,"Kind sir, and can you tell meWho is it here lies dead?"
Said he, "Your most belovedDied here this very day,That had known twenty AprilsHad she but lived till May."
Astonished I made answer,"Good sir, how say you so!Here have I no beloved,This house I do not know."
Quoth he, "Who from the world's endWas destined unto theeHere lies, thy true belovedWhom thou shalt never see."
I dreamed I passed a doorwayWhere, for a sign of death,White ribbons one was bindingAbout a flowery wreath.
Cinquains. [Adelaide Crapsey]
Fate Defied
As itWere tissue of silverI'll wear, O fate, thy grey,And go mistily radiant, cladLike the moon.
Night Winds
The oldOld winds that blewWhen chaos was, what doThey tell the clattered trees that IShould weep?
The Warning
Just now,Out of the strangeStill dusk . . . as strange, as still . . .A white moth flew . . . Why am I grownSo cold?
The Lonely Death. [Adelaide Crapsey]
In the cold I will rise, I will batheIn waters of ice; myselfWill shiver, and shrive myself,Alone in the dawn, and anointForehead and feet and hands;I will shutter the windows from light,I will place in their sockets the fourTall candles and set them aflameIn the grey of the dawn; and myselfWill lay myself straight in my bed,And draw the sheet under my chin.
Exile from God. [John Hall Wheelock]
I do not fear to lay my body downIn death, to shareThe life of the dark earth and lose my own,If God is there.
I have so loved all sense of Him, sweet mightOf color and sound, —His tangible loveliness and living lightThat robes me 'round.
If to His heart in the hushed grave and dimWe sink more near,It shall be well — living we rest in Him.Only I fear
Lest from my God in lonely death I lapse,And the dumb clodLose him; for God is life, and death perhapsExile from God.
Loam. [Carl Sandburg]
In the loam we sleep,In the cool moist loam,To the lull of years that passAnd the break of stars.
From the loam, then,The soft warm loam,We rise:To shape of rose leaf,Of face and shoulder.
We stand, then,To a whiff of life,Lifted to the silver of the sunOver and out of the loamA day.
Hills of Home. [Witter Bynner]
Name me no names for my disease,With uninforming breath;I tell you I am none of these,But homesick unto death —
Homesick for hills that I had known,For brooks that I had crossed,Before I met this flesh and boneAnd followed and was lost. . . .
And though they break my heart at last,Yet name no name of ills.Say only, "Here is where he passed,Seeking again those hills."
The Last Piper. [Edward J. O'Brien]
Dark winds of the mountain,White winds of the sea,Are skirling the pibrochOf Seumas an Righ.
The crying of gannets,The shrieking of terns,Are keening his dyingHigh over the burns.
Grey silence of watersAnd wasting of landsAnd the wailing of musicDown to the sands,
The wailing of music,And trailing of wind,The waters before him,The mountains behind, —
Alone at the gathering,Silent he stands,And the wail of his pipingCries over the lands,
To the moan of the waters,The drone of the foam,Where his soul, a white gannet,Wings silently home.
The Provinces. [Francis Carlin]
~O God that IMay arise with the GaelTo the song in the skyOver Inisfail!~
Ulster, your darkMold for me;Munster, a larkHold for me!
Connaght, a `caoine'Croon for me;Lienster, a meanStone for me!
~O God that IMay arise with the GaelTo the song in the skyOver Inisfail!~
Omnium Exeunt in Mysterium. [George Sterling]
The stranger in my gates — lo! that am I,And what my land of birth I do not know,Nor yet the hidden land to which I go.One may be lord of many ere he die,And tell of many sorrows in one sigh,But know himself he shall not, nor his woe,Nor to what sea the tears of wisdom flow;Nor why one star is taken from the sky.An urging is upon him evermore,And though he bide, his soul is wanderer,Scanning the shadows with a sense of haste —Where fade the tracks of all who went before:A dim and solitary travellerOn ways that end in evening and the waste.
Moth-Terror. [Benjamin De Casseres]
I have killed the moth flying around my night-light; wingless and dead it lies upon the floor. (O who will kill the great Time-Moth that eats holes in my soul and that burrows in and through my secretest veils!) My will against its will, and no more will it fly at my night-light or be hidden behind the curtains that swing in the winds. (But O who will shatter the Change-Moth that leaves me in rags — tattered old tapestries that swing in the winds that blow out of Chaos!) Night-Moth, Change-Moth, Time-Moth, eaters of dreams and of me!
Old Age. [Cale Young Rice]
I have heard the wild geese,I have seen the leaves fall,There was frost last nightOn the garden wall.It is gone to-dayAnd I hear the wind call.The wind? . . . That is all.
If the swallow will lightWhen the evening is near;If the crane will not screamLike a soul in fear;I will think no moreOf the dying year,And the wind, its seer.
Atropos. [John Myers O'Hara]
Atropos, dreadOne of the Three,Holding the threadWoven for me;
Grimly thy shears,Steely and bright,Menace the yearsLeft for delight.
Grant it may chance,Just as they close,June may entranceEarth with the rose;
Reigning as though,Bliss to the breath,Endless and noWhisper of death.
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Biographical Notes
[The format of these notes has been slightly altered. Most notably, dates (hopefully correct, but not entirely certain for the lesser known poets) have been added — when available — in square brackets after each name, and the number of entries for that author in this anthology is in parentheses. In some cases there are several short poems under one entry. These notes (first included in 1920, whereas the selections were made in 1919) combined with the searchability of electronic texts, renders the original Indexes of Authors and of First Lines obsolete, and so both have been dropped. Occasionally, relevant comments follow in angled brackets. — A. L., 1998.]
Aiken, Conrad. [1889-1973] (3) Born at Savannah, Ga., Aug. 5, 1889. Received the degree of A.B. from Harvard University in 1912 and in August of the same year married Miss Jessie McDonald, of Montreal, Canada. Mr. Aiken's first volume of poetry, "Earth Triumphant", was published in 1914, and has been followed by "Turns and Movies", 1916; "Nocturne of Remembered Spring", 1917; and "The Charnel Rose", 1918. Mr. Aiken is a keen and trenchant critic, as well as a poet, and his volume on the modern movement in poetry, "Skepticisms", is one of the finest and most stimulating contributions to the subject. [Conrad Aiken won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1930 for "Selected Poems". — A. L., 1998.]
Akins, Zoe. [1886-1958] (1)
Anderson, Margaret Steele. [1867-1921] (2) Born in Louisville, Ky., and educated in the public schools of that city, with special courses at Wellesley College. Since 1901 Miss Anderson has been Literary Editor of the `Evening Post' of Louisville, and is known as one of the most discriminating critics of the South. She has published but one volume of verse, "The Flame in the Wind", 1914, but it is choice in quality. Miss Anderson is also a critic of Art and is the author of "A Study of Modern Painting".
Arensberg, Walter Conrad. [1878-1954] (2)Mr. Arensberg has been active in the new movement in poetry and wasone of the group who contributed to the yearly collection called "Others".He is the author of "Idols", 1916.
Baker, Karle Wilson. [1878-1960] (2) Born in Little Rock, Ark., Oct. 13, 1878. Educated in public and private schools at Little Rock and at the University of Chicago. Mrs. Baker taught for several years in Virginia and in the High Schools of Little Rock, but in 1901 took up her residence in Texas, whither her family had preceded her, and in 1907 was married to Thomas Ellis Baker, of Nacogdoches, which is her present home. Mrs. Baker is one of the promising new writers, her first volume of verse, "Blue Smoke", having been published in 1919, by the Yale Press.
Bates, Katharine Lee. [1859-1929] (1) Born at Falmouth, Mass., Aug. 12, 1859. Was educated at Wellesley College, from which she received the degree of A.B., in 1880 and that of A.M. in 1891. She also had the honorary degree of Litt.D. conferred upon her by Middlebury College and by Oberlin. She was continuously in educational work, teaching first at Dana Hall and then in Wellesley College, where she was professor and head of the English Department. Miss Bates spent four years in foreign travel and study and published numerous books in the field of education. Her best-known volumes of verse are: "America the Beautiful", 1911; "Fairy Gold", 1916; and "The Retinue", 1918.
Benet, Stephen Vincent. [1898-1943] (1)
Benet, William Rose. [1886-1950] (2)
Bradley, William Aspinwall. [1878-1939] (1) Born at Hartford, Conn., Feb. 8, 1878. Educated at Columbia University where he received the degree of A.M. in 1900. Married Miss Grace Goodrich in 1903. From 1900 to 1908 Mr. Bradley was art director and literary advisor to McClure, Phillips & Co. and the McClure Co. and left them to become typographical designer and supervisor of printing at the Yale University Press, where he remained until 1917, when America entered the World War. He then became connected with the War Camp Community Service in which he did excellent work for the period of the war. Mr. Bradley is the author of several books and brochures upon art and particularly upon prints and etchings, such as "French Etchers of the Second Empire", 1916. In poetry, he is the author of "Garlands and Wayfarings", 1917; "Old Christmas and Other Kentucky Tales in Verse", 1917; "Singing Carr", 1918. The last two books are based upon Kentucky folk-tales and ballads gathered by Mr. Bradley among the people of the Cumberland Mountains.