How may I justify the hope that risesThat I am giving you to a world of pain,And am a part of your love's sacrifices?Is it so little if I see you not again?You will croon soldier lads to sleep,Even to the last sleep of all.But in this absence, as your love will keepYour breast for me for comfort, if I fall,So I, though far away, shall kneel by youIf the last hour approaches, to bedewYour lips that from their infant wonderingLisped of a heaven lost.I shall kiss down your eyes, and count the costAs mine, who gave you, by the tragic giving.Go forth with spirit to death, and to the livingBearing a solace in death.God has breathed on you His transfiguring breath,—You are transfiguredBefore me, and I bow my head,And leave you in the light that lights your way,And shadows me. Even now the hour is sped,And the hour we must obey—Look you, I will go pray!
When you lie sleeping; golden hairTossed on your pillow, sea shell pinkEars that nestle, I forbearA moment while I look and thinkHow you are mine, and if I dareTo bend and kiss you lying there.
A Raphael in the flesh! ResistI cannot, though to break your sleepIs thoughtless of me—you are kissedAnd roused from slumber dreamless, deep—You rub away the slumber's mist,You scold and almost weep.
It is too bad to wake you so,Just for a kiss. But when awakeYou sing and dance, nor seem to knowYou slept a sleep too deep to breakFrom which I roused you long agoFor nothing but my passion's sake—What though your heart should ache!
I arise in the silence of the dawn hour.And softly steal out to the gardenUnder the Favrile goblet of the dawning.And a wind moves out of the south-land,Like a film of silver,And thrills with a far borne messageThe flowers of the garden.Poppies untie their scarlet hoods and wave themTo the south wind as he passes.But the zinnias and calendulas,In a mood of calm reserve, nod faintlyAs the south wind whispers the secretOf the dawn hour!I stand in the silence of the dawn hourIn the garden,As the star of morning fades.Flying from scythes of airThe hare-bells, purples and golden glowOn the sand-hill back of the orchardRace before the feet of the wind.But clusters of oak-leaves over the yellow sand rimBegin to flutter and glisten.And in a moment, in a twinkled passion,The blazing rapiers of the sun are flashed,As he fences the lilac lights of the sky,And drives them up where the ice of the melting moonIs drowned in the waste of morning!
In the silence of the garden,At the dawn hourI turn and see you—You who knew and followed,You who knew the dawn hour,And its sky like a Favrile goblet.You who knew the south-windBearing the secret of the morningTo waking gardens, fields and forests.You in a gown of green, O footed Iris,With eyes of dryad gray,And the blown glory of unawakened tresses—A phantom sprung out of the garden's enchantment,In the silence of the dawn hour!
And here I behold youAmid a trance of color, silent music,The embodied spirit of the morning:Wind from the south-land, flashing beams of the sunCaught in the twinkling oak leaves:Poppies who wave their untied hoods to the south wind;And the imperious bows of zinnias and calendulas;The star of morning drowned, and lights of lilacTurned white for the woe of the moon;And the silence of the dawn hour!
And there to take you in my arms and feel youIn the glory of the dawn hour,Along the sinuous rhythm of flesh and flesh!To know your spirit by that onenessOf living and of love, in the twinkled passionOf life re-lit and visioned.In dryad eyes beholdingThe dancing, leaping, touching hands and racingRapturous moment of the arisen sun;And the first drop of day out of this cup of Favrile.There to behold you,Our spirits lost togetherIn the silence of the dawn hour!
France fallen! France arisen! France of the brave!France of lost hopes! France of Promethean zeal!Napoleon's France, that bruised the despot's heelOf Europe, while the feudal world did rave.Thou France that didst burst through the rock-bound graveWhich Germany and England joined to seal,And undismayed didst seek the human weal,Through which thou couldst thyself and others save—The wreath of amaranth and eternal praise!When every hand was 'gainst thee, so was ours.Freedom remembers, and I can forget:—Great are we by the faith our past betrays,And noble now the great Republic flowersIncarnate with the soul of Lafayette.
Gourgaud, these tears are tears—but look, this laugh,How hearty and serene—you see a laughWhich settles to a smile of lips and eyesMakes tears just drops of water on the leavesWhen rain falls from a sun-lit sky, my friend,Drink to me, clasp my hand, embrace me, call meBeloved Bertrand. Ha! I sigh for joy.Look at our Paris, happy, whole, renewed,Refreshed by youth, new dressed in human leaves,Shaking its fresh blown blossoms to the world.And here we sit grown old, of memoriesTop-full—your hand—my breast is all afireWith happiness that warms, makes young again.You see it is not what we saw to-dayThat makes me spirit, rids me of the flesh:—But all that I remember, we rememberOf what the world was, what it is to-day,Beholding how it grows. Gourgaud, I seeNot in the rise of this man or of that,Nor in a battle's issue, in the blowThat lifts or fells a nation—no, my friend,God is not there, but in the living streamWhich sweeps in spite of eddies, undertows,Cross-currents, what you will, to that resultWhere stillness shows the star that fits the starOf truth in spirits treasured, imaged, keptThrough sorrow, blood and death,—God moves in thatAnd there I find Him.But these tears—for whomOr what are tears? The Old Guard—oh, my friendThat melancholy remnant! And the horse,White, to be sure, but not Marengo, wearingThe saddle and the bridle which he used.My tears take quality for these pitiful things,But other quality for the purple robeOver the coffin lettered in pure gold"Napoleon"—ah, the emperor at lastCome back to Paris! And his spirit looksOver the land he loved, with what result?Does just the army that acclaimed him riseWhich rose to hail him back from Elba?—noAll France acclaims him! Princes of the church,And notables uncover! At the doorA herald cries "The Emperor!" Those assembledRise and do reverence to him. Look at Soult,He hands the king the sword of Austerlitz,The king turns to me, hands the sword to me,I place it on the coffin—dear Gourgaud,Embrace me, clasp my hand! I weep and laughFor thinking that the Emperor is home;For thinking I have laid upon his bedThe sword that makes inviolable his bed,Since History stepped to where I stood and standsTo say forever: Here he rests, be still,Bow down, pass by in reverence—the AgesLike giant caryatides that lookWith sleepless eyes upon the world and holdWith never tiring hands the Vault of Time,Command your reverence.What have we seen?Why this, that every man, himself achievingExhausts the life that drives him to the workOf self-expression, of the vision in him,His reason for existence, as he sees it.He may or may not mould the epic stuffAs he would wish, as lookers on have hopeHis hands shall mould it, and by failing take—For slip of hand, tough clay or blinking eye,A cinder for that moment in the eye—A world of blame; for hooting or dispraiseHave all his work misvalued for the time,And pump his heart up harder to subdueEnvy, or fear or greed, in any caseHe grows and leaves and blossoms, so consumesHis soul's endowment in the vision of life.And thus of him. Why, there at FontainebleauHe is a man full spent, he idles, sleeps,Hears with dull ears: Down with the Corsican,Up with the Bourbon lilies! Royalists,Conspirators, and clericals may shoutTheir hatred of him, but he sits for hoursKicking the gravel with his little heel,Which lately trampled sceptres in the mud.Well, what was he at Waterloo?—you know:That piercing spirit which at mid-day powerKnew all the maps of Europe—could unfoldA map and say here is the place, the way,The road, the valley, hill, destroy them here.Why, all his memory of maps was blurredThe night before he failed at Waterloo.The Emperor was sick, my friend, we know it.He could not ride a horse at Waterloo.His soul was spent, that's all. But who was rested?The dirty Bourbons skulking back to Paris,Now that our giant democrat was sick.Oh, yes, the dirty Bourbons skulked to ParisHelped by the Duke and Blücher, damn their souls.What is a man to do whose work is doneAnd does not feel so well, has cancer, say?You know he could have reached AmericaAfter his fall at Waterloo. Good God!If only he had done it! For they sayNew Orleans is a city good to live in.And he had ceded to AmericaLouisiana, which in time would curbThe English lion. But he didn't go there.His mind was weakened else he had foreseenThe lion he had tangled, wounded, scourgedWould claw him if it got him, play with himBefore it killed him. Who was England then?—An old, mad, blind, despised and dying kingWho lost a continent for the lust that slewThe Emperor—the world will say at lastIt was no other. Who was England then?A regent bad as husband, father, son,Monarch and friend. But who was England then?Great Castlereagh who cut his throat, but whoHad cut his country's long before. The duke—Since Waterloo, and since the Emperor slept—The English stoned the duke, he bars his windowsWith iron 'gainst the mobs who break to fury,To see the Duke waylay democracy.The world's great conqueror's conqueror!—Eh bien!Grips England after Waterloo, but whenThe people see the duke for what he is:A blocker of reform, a Tory sentry,A spotless knight of ancient privilege,They up and stone him, by the very deedStone him for wronging the democracyThe Emperor erected with the sword.The world's great conqueror's conqueror—Oh, I sicken!Odes are like head-stones, standing while the gravesAre guarded and kept up, but falling downTo ruin and erasure when the gravesAre left to sink. Hey! there you English poets,Picking from daily libels, slanders, junkOf metal for your tablets 'gainst the Emperor,Melt up true metal at your peril, poets,Sweet moralists, monopolists of God.But who was England? Byron driven out,And courts of chancery vile but sacrosanct,Despoiling Shelley of his children; Southey,The turn-coat panegyrist of King George,An old, mad, blind, despised, dead king at last;A realm of rotten boroughs massed to stopThe progress of democracy and chantingTo God Almighty hymns for Waterloo,Which did not stop democracy, as they hoped.For England of to-day is freer—why?The revolution and the Emperor!They quench the revolution, send NapoleonTo St. Helena—but the ashes soarGrown finer, grown invisible at last.And all the time a wind is blowing ashes,And sifting them upon the spotless linenOf kings and dukes in England till at lastThey find themselves mistaken for the people.Drink to me, clasp my hand, embrace me—tiens!The Emperor is home again in France,And Europe for democracy is thrilling.Now don't you see the Emperor was sick,The shadows falling slant across his mindTo write to such an England: "My careerIs ended and I come to sit me downBefore the fireside of the British people,And claim protection from your Royal Highness"—This to the regent—"as a generous foeMost constant and most powerful"—I weep.They tricked him Gourgaud. Once upon the ship,He thinks he's bound for England, and why not?They dine him, treat him like an Emperor.And then they tack and sail to St. Helena,Give him a cow shed for a residence.Depute that thing Sir Hudson Lowe to watch him,Spy on his torture, intercept his letters,Step on his broken wings, and mock the filmDescending on those eyes of failing fire. ...One day the packet brought to him a bookInscribed by Hobhouse, "To the Emperor."Lowe kept the book but when the Emperor learnedLowe kept the book, because 'twas so inscribed,The Emperor said—I stood near by—"Who gave youThe right to slur my title? In a few yearsYourself, Lord Castlereagh, the duke himselfWill be beneath oblivion's dust, rememberedFor your indignities to me, that's all.England expended millions on her libelsTo poison Europe's mind and make my purposeObscure or bloody—how have they availed?You have me here upon this scarp of rock,But truth will pierce the clouds, 'tis like the sunAnd like the sun it cannot be destroyed.Your Wellingtons and Metternichs may damThe liberal stream, but only to make strongerThe torrent when it breaks. "Is it not true?That's why I weep and laugh to-day, my friendAnd trust God as I have not trusted yet.And then the Emperor said: "What have I claimed?A portion of the royal blood of Europe?A crown for blood's sake? No, my royal bloodIs dated from the field of Montenotte,And from my mother there in Corsica,And from the revolution. I'm a manWho made himself because the people made me.You understand as little as she didWhen I had brought her back from Austria,And riding through the streets of Paris pointedUp to the window of the little roomWhere I had lodged when I came from Brienne,A poor boy with my way to make—as poorAs Andrew Jackson in America,No more a despot than he is a despot.Your England understands. I was a menaceNot as a despot, but as head and front,Eyes, brain and leader of democracy,Which like the messenger of God was markingThe doors of kings for slaughter. England lies.Your England understands I had to holdBy rule compact a people drunk with rapture,And torn by counter forces, had to fightThe royalists of Europe who beheldTheir peoples feverish from the great infection,Who hoped to stamp the plague in France and stopIts spread to them. Your England understands.Save Castlereagh and Wellington and Southey.But look you, sir, my roads, canals and harbors,My schools, finance, my code, the manufacturesArts, sciences I builded, democraticTriumphs which I won will live for ages—These are my witnesses, will testifyForever what I was and meant to do.The ideas which I brought to power will stifleAll royalty, all feudalism—lookThey live in England, they illuminateAmerica, they will be faith, religionFor every people—these I kindled, carriedTheir flaming torch through Europe as the chiefTorch bearer, soldier, representative."You were not there, Gourgaud—but wait a minute,I choke with tears and laughter. Listen now:Sir Hudson Lowe looked at the EmperorContemptuous but not the less bewitched.And when the Emperor finished, out he drawled"You make me smile." Why that is memorable:It should be carved upon Sir Hudson's stone.He was a prophet, founder of the sectOf smilers and of laughers through the world,Smilers and laughers that the EmperorTold every whit the truth. Look you at Europe,What were it in this day except for France,Napoleon's France, the revolution's France?What will it be as time goes on but peoplesMade free through France?I take the good and ill,Think over how he lounged, lay late in bed,Spent long hours in the bath, counted the hours,Pale, broken, wracked with pain, insulted, watched,His child torn from him, Josephine and wifeSilent or separate, waiting long for death,Looking with filmed eyes upon his wingsBroken, upon the rocks stretched out to gainA little sun, and crying to the seaWith broken voice—I weep when I rememberSuch things which you and I from day to dayBeheld, nor could not mitigate. But thenThere is that night of thunder, and the dawningAnd all that day of storm and toward the eveningHe says: "Deploy the eagles!" "Onward!" Well,I leave the room and say to Steward there:"The Emperor is dead." That very momentA crash of thunder deafened us. You seeA great age boomed in thunder its renewal—Drink to me, clasp my hand, embrace me, friend.
By the blue sky of a clear vision,And by the white light of a great illumination,And by the blood-red of brotherhood,Draw the sword, O Republic!Draw the sword!For the light which is England,And the resurrection which is Russia,And the sorrow which is France,And for peoples everywhereCrying in bondage,And in poverty!You have been a leaven in the earth, O Republic!And a watch-fire on the hill-top scattering sparks;And an eagle clanging his wings on a cloud-wrapped promontory:Now the leaven must be stirred,And the brands themselves carried and touchedTo the jungles and the black-forests.Now the eaglets are grown, they are calling,They are crying to each other from the peaks—They are flapping their passionate wings in the sunlight,Eager for battle!As a strong man nurses his youthTo the day of trial;But as a strong man nurses it no moreOn the day of trial,But exults and cries: For Victory, O Strength!And for the glory of my City, O treasured youth!You shall neither save your youth,Nor hoard your strengthBeyond this hour, O Republic!For you have swornBy the passion of the Gaul,And the strength of the Teuton,And the will of the Saxon,And the hunger of the Poor,That the white man shall lie down by the black man,And by the yellow man,And all men shall be one spirit, as they are one flesh,Through Wisdom, Liberty and Democracy.And forasmuch as the earth cannot holdAught beside them,You have dedicated the earth, O Republic,To Wisdom, Liberty and Democracy!By the Power that drives the soul to Freedom,And by the Power that makes us love our fellows,And by the Power that comforts us in death,Dying for great races to come—Draw the sword, O Republic!Draw the Sword!
(Dedicated to Vachel Lindsay and in Memory of Richard E. Burke)
Said dear old DickTo the colored waiter:"Here, George! be quickRoast beef and a potato.I'm due at the courthouse at half-past one,You black old scoundrel, get a move on you!I want a pot of coffee and a graham bun.This vinegar decanter'll make a groove on you,You black-faced mandril, you grinning baboon—""Yas sah! Yas sah,"answered the coon."Now don't you talk back," said dear old Dick,"Go and get my dinner or I'll show you a trickWith a plate, a tumbler or a silver castor,Fuliginous monkey, sired by old Nick."And the nigger all the time was moving round the table,Rattling the silver things faster and faster—"Yes sah! Yas sah, soon as I'se ableI'll bring yo' dinnah as shore as yo's bawn.""Quit talking about it; hurry and be gone,You low-down nigger," said dear old Dick.Then I said to my friend: "Suppose he'd up and stickA knife in your side for raggin' him so hard;Or how would you relish some spit in your broth?Or a little Paris green in your cheese for chard?Or something in your coffee to make your stomach froth?Or a bit of asafoetida hidden in your pie?That's a gentlemanly nigger or he'd black your eye/'Then dear old Dick made this long reply:"You know, I love a nigger,And I love this nigger.I met him first on the train from CaliforniaOut of Kansas City; in the morning earlyI walked through the diner, feeling upsetFor a cup of coffee, looking rather surly.And there sat this nigger by a table all dressed,Waiting for the time to serve the omelet,Buttered toast and coffee to the passengers.And this is what he said in a fine southern way:'Good mawnin,' sah, I hopes yo' had yo' rest,I'm glad to see you on dis sunny day.'Now think! here's a human who has no other caresExcept to please the white man, serve him when he's starving,And who has as much fun when he sees you carvingThe sirloin as you do, does this black man.Just think for a minute, how the negroes excel,Can you beat them with a banjo or a broiling pan?There's music in their soul as originalAs any breed of people in the whole wide earth;They're elemental hope, heartiness, mirth.There are only two things real American:One is Christian Science, the other is the nigger.Think it over for yourself and see if you can figureAnything beside that is not imitationOf something in Europe in this hybrid nation.Return to this globe five hundred years hence—You'll see how the fundamental color of the coonIn art, in music, has altered our tune;We are destined to bow to their influence;There's a whole cult of music in Dixie alone,And that is America put into tone."And dear old Dick gathered speed and said:"Sometimes through Dvorák a vision arisesTo the words of Merneptah whose hands were red:'I shall live, I shall live, I shall grow, I shall grow,I shall wake up in peace, I shall thrill with the glowOf the life of Temu, the god who prizesFavorite souls and the souls of kings.'Now these are the words, and here is the dream,No wonder you think I am seeing things:The desert of Egypt shimmers in the gleamOf the noonday sun on my dazzled sight.And a giant negro as black as nightIs walking by a camel in a caravan.His great back glistens with the streaming sweat.The camel is ridden by a light-faced man,A Greek perhaps, or Arabian.And this giant negro is rhythmically swayingWith the rhythm of the camel's neck up and down.He seems to be singing, rollicking, playing;His ivory teeth are glistening, the Greek is listeningTo the negro keeping time like a tabouret.And what cares he for Memphis town,Merneptah the bloody, or Books of the Dead,Pyramids, philosophies of madness or dread?A tune is in his heart, a reality:The camel, the desert are things that be,He's a negro slave, but his heart is free."Just then the colored waiter brought in the dinner."Get a hustle on you, you miserable sinner,"Said dear old Dick to the colored waiter."Heah's a nice piece of beef and a great big potato.I hopes yo'll enjoy 'em sah, yas I do;Heah's black mustahd greens, 'specially for yo',And a fine piece of jowl that I swiped and tookFrom a dish set by, by the git-away cook.I hope yo'll enjoy 'em, sah, yas I do.""Well, George," Dick said, "if Gabriel blewHis horn this minute, you'd up and ascendTo wait on St. Peter world without end."
I saw a room where many feet were dancing.The ceiling and the wall were mirrors glancingBoth flames of candles and the heaven's light,Though windows there were none for air or flight.The room was in a form polygonalReached by a little door and narrow hall.One could behold them enter for the dance,And waken as it were out of a trance,And either singly or with some one whirl:The old, the young, full livers, boy and girl.And every panel of the room was justA mirrored door through which a hand was thrustHere, there, around the room, a soul to seizeWhereat a scream would rise, but no surceaseOf music or of dancing, save by himDrawn through the mirrored panel to the dimAnd unknown space behind the flashing mirrors,And by his partner struck through by the terrorsOf sudden loss.And looking I could seeThat scarcely any dancer here could freeHis eyes from off the mirrors, but would gazeUpon himself or others, till a crazeShone in his eyes thus to anticipateThe hand that took each dancer soon or late.Some analyzed themselves, some only glanced,Some stared and paled and then more madly danced.One dancer only never looked at all.He seemed soul captured by the carnival.There were so many dancers there he loved,He was so greatly by the music moved,He had no time to study his own faceThere in the mirrors as from place to placeHe quickly danced.Until I saw at lastThis dancer by the whirling dancers castFace full against a mirrored panel whereBefore he could look at himself or stareHe plunged through to the other side—and quick,As water closes when you lift the stick,The mirrored panel swung in place and leftNo trace of him, as 'twere a magic trick.But all his partners thus so soon bereftWent dancing to the music as before.But I saw faces in that mirrored doorAnatomizing their forced smiles and watchingTheir faces over shoulders, even matchingTheir terror with each other's to repressA growing fear in seeing it was lessThan some one else's, or to ease despairBy looking in a face who did not care,While watching for the hand that through some doorCaught a poor dancer from the dancing floorWith every time-beat of the orchestra.What is this room of mirrors? Who can say?
What does one gain by living? What by dyingIs lost worth having? What the daily thingsLived through together make them worth the whileFor their sakes or for life's? Where's the denyingOf souls through separation? There's your smile!And your hands' touch! And the long day that bringsHalf uttered nothings of delight! But thenNow that I see you not, and shall againTouch you no more—memory can possessYour soul's essential self, and none the lessYou live with me. I therefore write to youThis letter just as if you were awayUpon a journey, or a holiday;And so I'll put down everything that's newIn this secluded village, since you left. ...Now let me think! Well, then, as I remember,After ten days the lilacs burst in bloom.We had spring all at once—the long DecemberGave way to sunshine. Then we swept your room,And laid your things away. And then one morningI saw the mother robin giving warningTo little bills stuck just above the rimOf that nest which you watched while being built,Near where she sat, upon a leafless limb,With folded wings against an April rain.On June the tenth Edward and Julia married,I did not go for fear of an old pain.I was out on the porch as they drove by,Coming from church. I think I never scannedA girl's face with such sunny smiles upon itShowing beneath the roses on her bonnet—I went into the house to have a cry.A few days later Kimbrough lost his wife.Between housework and hoeing in the gardenI read Sir Thomas More and Goethe's life.My heart was numb and still I had to hardenAll memory or die. And just the sameAs when you sat beside the window, passedLarson, the cobbler, hollow-chested, lamed.He did not die till late November came.Things did not come as Doctor Jones forecast,'Twas June when Mary Morgan had her child.Her husband was in Monmouth at the time.She had no milk, the baby is not well.The Baptist Church has got a fine new bell.And after harvest Joseph Clifford tiledHis bottom land. Then Judy Heaton's crimeHas shocked the village, for the monster killedGlendora Wilson's father at his door—A daughter's name was why the blood was spilled.I could go on, but wherefore tell you more?The world of men has gone its olden wayWith war in Europe and the same routineOf life among us that you knew when here.This gossip is not idle, since I sayBy means of it what I would tell you, dear:I have been near you, dear, for I have beenNot with you through these things, but in despiteOf living them without you, therefore nearIn spirit and in memory with you.
Do you remember that delightful InnAt Chester and the Roman wall, and howWe walked from Avon clear to Kenilworth?And afterward when you and I came downTo London, I forsook the murky town,And left you to quaint ways and crowded places,While I went on to Putney just to seeOld Swinburne and to look into his face'sChangeable lights and shadows and to seize onA finer thing than any verse he wrote?(Oh beautiful illusions of our youth!)He did not see me gladly. Talked of treasonTo England's greatness. What was Camden like?Did old Walt Whitman smoke or did he drink?And Longfellow was sweet, but couldn't think.His mood was crusty. Lowell made him laugh!Meantime Watts-Dunton came and broke in halfMy visit, so I left.The thing was this:None of this talk was Swinburne any moreThan some child of his loins would take his hair,Eyes, skin, from him in some pangenesis,—His flesh was nothing but a poor affair,A channel for the eternal stream—his fleshGave nothing closer, mind you, than his book,But rather blurred it; even his eyes' lookConfused "Madonna Mia" from its freshAnd liquid meaning. So I knew at lastHis real immortal self is in his verse.
Since you have gone I've thought of this so much.I cannot lose you in this universe—I first must lose myself. The essential touchOf soul possession lies not in the walkOf daily life on earth, nor in the talkOf daily things, nor in the sight of eyesLooking in other eyes, nor daily breadBroken together, nor the hour of loveWhen flesh surrenders depths of things divineBeyond all vision, as they were the dreamOf other planets, but without these evenIn death and separation, there is heaven:By just that unison and its memoryWhich brought our lips together. To be freeFrom accidents of being, to be freeingThe soul from trammels on essential being,Is to possess the loved one. I have strayedInto the only heaven God has made:That's where we know each other as we are,In the bright ether of some quiet star,Communing as two memories with each other.
SONG OF MENHow beautiful are the bodies of men—The agonists!Their hearts beat deep as a brazen gongFor their strength's behests.Their arms are lithe as a seasoned thongIn games or testsWhen they run or box or swim the longSea-waves crestsWith their slender legs, and their hips so strong,And their rounded chests.I know a youth who raises his armsOver his head.He laughs and stretches and flouts alarmsOf flood or fire.He springs renewed from a lusty bedTo his youth's desire.He drowses, for April flames outspreadIn his soul's attire.The strength of men is for husbandryOf woman's flesh:Worker, soldier, magistrateOf city or realm;Artist, builder, wrestling FateLest it overwhelmThe brood or the race, or the cherished state.They sing at the helmWhen the waters roar and the waves are great,And the gale is fresh.There are two miracles, women and men—Yea, four there be:A woman's flesh, and the strength of a man,And God's decree.And a babe from the womb in a little spanEre the month be ten.Their rapturous arms entwine and clingIn the depths of night;He hunts for her face for his wondering,And her eyes are bright.A woman's flesh is soil, but the springIs man's delight.
SONG OF WOMENHow beautiful is the flesh of women—Their throats, their breasts!My wonder is a flame which burns,A flame which rests;It is a flame which no wind turns,And a flame which quests.I know a woman who has red lips,Like coals which are fanned.Her throat is tied narcissus, it dipsFrom her white-rose chin.Her throat curves like a cloud to the landWhere her breasts begin.I close my eyes when I put my handOn her breast's white skin.The flesh of women is like the skyWhen bare is the moon:Rhythm of backs, hollow of necks,And sea-shell loins.I know a woman whose splendors vexWhere the flesh joins—A slope of light and a circumflexOf clefts and coigns.She thrills like the air when silence wrecksAn ended tune.These are the things not made by hands in the earth:Water and fire,The air of heaven, and springs afresh,And love's desire.And a thing not made is a woman's flesh,Sorrow and mirth!She tightens the strings on the lyric lyre,And she drips the wine.Her breasts bud out as pink and neshAs buds on the vine:For fire and water and air are flesh,And love is the shrine.
SONG OF THE HUMAN SPIRITHow beautiful is the human spiritIn its vase of clay!It takes no thought of the chary doleOf the light of day.It labors and loves, as it were a soulWhom the gods repayWith length of life, and a golden goalAt the end of the way.There are souls I know who arch a dome,And tunnel a hill.They chisel in marble and fashion in chrome,And measure the sky.They find the good and destroy the ill,And they bend and plyThe laws of nature out of a willWhile the fates deny.I wonder and worship the human spiritWhen I beholdNumbers and symbols, and how they reachThrough steel and gold;A harp, a battle-ship, thought and speech,And an hour foretold.It ponders its nature to turn and teach,And itself to mould.The human spirit is God, no doubt,Is flesh made the word:Jesus, Beethoven and Raphael,And the souls who heardBeyond the rim of the world the swellOf an ocean stirredBy a Power on the waters inscrutable.There are souls who girdTheir loins in faith that the world is well,In a faith unblurred.How beautiful is the human spirit—The flesh made the word!
This way and that way measuring,Sighting from tree to tree,And from the bend of the river.This must be the place where Black EagleTwelve hundred moons agoStood with folded arms,While a Pottawatomie fatherPlunged a knife in his heart,For the murder of a son.Black Eagle stood with folded arms,Slim, erect, firm, unafraid,Looking into the distance, across the river.Then the knife flashed,Then the knife crashed through his ribsAnd into his heart.And like a wounded eagle's wingsHis arms fell, slowly unfolding,And he sank to death without a groan!And my name is Black Eagle too.And I am of the spirit,And perhaps of the bloodOf that Black Eagle of old.I am naked and alone,But very happy;Being rich in spirit and in memories.I am very strong.I am very proud,Brave, revengeful, passionate.No longer deceived, keen of eye,Wise in the ways of the tribes:A knower of winds, mists, rains, snows, changes.A knower of balsams, simples, blossoms, grains.A knower of poisonous leaves, deadly fungus, herries.A knower of harmless snakes,And the livid copperhead.Lastly a knower of the spirits,For there are many spirits:Spirits of hidden lakes,And of pine forests.Spirits of the dunes,And of forested valleys.Spirits of rivers, mountains, fields,And great distances.There are many spiritsUnder the Great Spirit.Him I know not.Him I only feelWith closed eyes.Or when I look from my bed of moss by the riverAt a sky of stars,When the leaves of the oak are asleep.I will fill this birch bark full of writingAnd hide it in the cleft of an oak,Here where Black Eagle fell.Decipher my story who can:When I was a boy of fourteenTobacco Jim, who owned many dogs,Rose from the door of his tentAnd came to where we were running,Young Coyote, Rattler, Little Fox,And said to me in their hearing:"You are the fastest of all.Now run again, and let me see.And if you can runI will make you my runner,I will care for you,And you shall have pockets of gold." ...And then we ran.And the others lagged behind me,Like smoke behind the wind.But the faces of Young Coyote, Rattler, Little FoxGrew dark.They nudged each other.They looked side-ways,Toeing the earth in shame. ...Then Tobacco Jim took me and trained me.And he went here and thereTo find a match.And to get wagers of ponies, nuggets of copper,And nuggets of gold.And at last the match was made.It was under a sky as blue as the cup of a harebell,It was by a red and yellow mountain,It was by a great riverThat we ran.Hundreds of Indians came to the race.They babbled, smoked and quarreled.And everyone carried a knife,And everyone carried a gun.And we runners—How young we were and unknowingWhat the race meant to them!For we saw nothing but the track,We saw nothing but our trainersAnd the starters.And I saw no one but Tobacco Jim.But the Indians and the squaws saw much else,They thought of the race in such different waysFrom the way we thought of it.For with me it was honor,It was triumph,It was fame.It was the tender looks of Indian maidensWherever I went.But now I know that to Tobacco Jim,And the old fathers and young bucksThe race meant jugs of whiskey,And new guns.It meant a squaw,A pony,Or some rise in the life of the tribe.So the shot of the starter rang at last,And we were off.I wore a band of yellow around my browWith an eagle's feather in it,And a red strap for my loins.And as I ran the feather fluttered and sang:"You are the swiftest runner, Black Eagle,They are all behind you."And they were all behind me,As the cloud's shadow is behindThe bend of the grass under the wind.But as we neared the end of the raceThe onlookers, the gamblers, the old Indians,And the young bucks,Crowded close to the track—I fell and lost.Next day Tobacco Jim went aboutLamenting his losses.And when I told him they tripped meHe cursed them.But later he went about asking in whispersIf I was wise enough to throw the race.Then suddenly he disappeared.And we heard rumors of his riches,Of his dogs and ponies,And of the joyous life he was leading.Then my father took me to New Mexico,And here my life changed.I was no longer the runner,I had forgotten it all.I had become a wise Indian.I could do many things.I could read the white man's writingAnd write it.And Indians flocked to me:Billy the Pelican, Hooked Nosed Weasel,Hungry Mole, Big Jawed Prophet,And many others.They flocked to me, for I could help them.For the Great Spirit may pick a chief,Or a leader.But sometimes the chief risesBy using wise Indians like meWho are rich in gifts and powers ...But at least it is true:All little great IndiansWho are after ponies,Jugs of whiskey and soft blanketsGain their ends through the gifts and powersOf wise Indians like me.They come to you and ask you to do this,And to do that.And you do it, because it would be smallNot to do it.And until all the cards are laid on the tableYou do not see what they were after,And then you see:They have won your friend away;They have stolen your hill;They have taken your place at the feast;They are wearing your feathers;They have much gold.And you are tired, and without laughter.And they drift away from you,As Tobacco Jim went away from me.And you hear of them as rich and great.And then you move on to another place,And another life.Billy the Pelican has built him a board houseAnd lives in Guthrie.Hook Nosed Weasel is a Justice of the Peace.Hungry Mole had his picture in the Denver News;He is helping the governmentTo reclaim stolen lands.(Many have told me it was Hungry MoleWho tripped me in the race.)Big Jawed Prophet is very rich.He has disappeared as an eagleWith a rabbit.And I have come back hereWhere twelve hundred moons agoBlack Eagle before meHad the knife run through his ribsAnd through his heart. ...I will hide this writingIn the cleft of the oakBy this bend in the river.Let him read who can:I was a swift runner whom they tripped.