Not land, nor sky, nor sea,
Nor love’s artillery of tears
Can keep mine own from me.
Serene, unchanging, ever fair,
I smile with secret mirth
And in a net of mine own hair
I swing the captive earth.
POETS
Vain is the chiming of forgotten bells
That the wind sways above a ruined shrine.
Vainer his voice in whom no longer dwells
Hunger that craves immortal Bread and Wine.
Light songs we breathe that perish with our breath
Out of our lips that have not kissed the rod.
They shall not live who have not tasted death.
They only sing who are struck dumb by God.
CITIZEN OF THE WORLD
No longer of Him be it said,
“He hath no place to lay His head.”
In every land a constant lamp
Flames by His small and mighty camp.
There is no strange and distant place
That is not gladdened by His face.
And every nation kneels to hail
The Splendour shining through Its veil.
Cloistered beside the shouting street,
Silent, He calls me to His feet.
Imprisoned for His love of me,
He makes my spirit greatly free.
And through my lips that uttered sin
The King of Glory enters in.
TO A BLACKBIRD AND HIS MATE WHO DIED IN THE SPRING
(For Kenton)
An iron hand has stilled the throats
That throbbed with loud and rhythmic glee
And dammed the flood of silver notes
That drenched the world in melody.
The blosmy apple boughs are yearning
For their wild choristers’ returning,
But no swift wings flash through the tree.
Ye that were glad and fleet and strong,
Shall Silence take you in her net?
And shall Death quell that radiant song
Whose echo thrills the meadow yet?
Burst the frail web about you clinging
And charm Death’s cruel heart with singing
Till with strange tears his eyes are wet.
The scented morning of the year
Is old and stale now ye are gone.
No friendly songs the children hear
Among the bushes on the lawn.
When babies wander out a-Maying
Will ye, their bards, afar be straying?
Unhymned by you, what is the dawn?
Nay, since ye loved ye cannot die.
Above the stars is set your nest.
Through Heaven’s fields ye sing and fly
And in the trees of Heaven rest.
And little children in their dreaming
Shall see your soft black plumage gleaming
And smile, by your clear music blest.
THE FOURTH SHEPHERD
(For Thomas Walsh)
I
On nights like this the huddled sheep
Are like white clouds upon the grass,
And merry herdsmen guard their sleep,
And chat and watch the big stars pass.
It is a pleasant thing to lie
Upon the meadow on the hill
With kindly fellowship near by
Of sheep and men of gentle will.
I lean upon my broken crook
And dream of sheep and grass and men--
O shameful eyes that cannot look
On any honest thing again!
On bloody feet I clambered down
And fled the wages of my sin,
I am the leavings of the town,
And meanly serve its meanest inn.
I tramp the courtyard stones in grief,
While sleep takes man and beast to her.
And every cloud is calling “Thief!”
And every star calls “Murderer!”
The hand of God is sure and strong,
Nor shall a man forever flee
The bitter punishment of wrong.
The wrath of God is over me!
With ashen bread and wine of tears
Shall I be solaced in my pain.
I wear through black and endless years
Upon my brow the mark of Cain.
Poor vagabond, so old and mild,
Will they not keep him for a night?
And She, a woman great with child,
So frail and pitiful and white.
Good people, since the tavern door
Is shut to you, come here instead.
See, I have cleansed my stable floor
And piled fresh hay to make a bed.
Here is some milk and oaten cake.
Lie down and sleep and rest you fair,
Nor fear, O simple folk, to take
The bounty of a child of care.
On nights like this the huddled sheep--
I never saw a night so fair.
How huge the sky is, and how deep!
And how the planets flash and glare!
At dawn beside my drowsy flock
What wingéd music I have heard!
But now the clouds with singing rock
As if the sky were turning bird.
O blinding Light, O blinding Light!
Burn through my heart with sweetest pain.
O flaming Song, most loudly bright,
Consume away my deadly stain!
The stable glows against the sky,
And who are these that throng the way?
My three old comrades hasten by
And shining angels kneel and pray.
The door swings wide--I cannot go--
I must and yet I dare not see.
Lord, who am I that I should know--
Lord, God, be merciful to me!
O Whiteness, whiter than the fleece
Of new-washed sheep on April sod!
O Breath of Life, O Prince of Peace,
O Lamb of God, O Lamb of God!
EASTER
The air is like a butterfly
With frail blue wings.
The happy earth looks at the sky
And sings.
MOUNT HOUVENKOPF
Serene he stands, with mist serenely crowned,
And draws a cloak of trees about his breast.
The thunder roars but cannot break his rest
And from his rugged face the tempests bound.
He does not heed the angry lightning’s wound,
The raging blizzard is his harmless guest,
And human life is but a passing jest
To him who sees Time spin the years around.
But fragile souls, in skyey reaches find
High vantage-points and view him from afar.
How low he seems to the ascended mind,
How brief he seems where all things endless are;
This little playmate of the mighty wind,
This young companion of an ancient star.
THE HOUSE WITH NOBODY IN IT
Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I’ve passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.
I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn’t haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn’t be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.
This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and
tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.
If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I’d put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I’d buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I’d find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.
Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.
But there’s nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.
But a house that has done what a house should do, a house that has
sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby’s laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it’s left alone, that ever your eyes could
meet.
So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen
apart,
For I can’t help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken
heart.
DAVE LILLY
There’s a brook on the side of Greylock that used to be full of trout,
But there’s nothing there now but minnows; they say it is all fished out.
I fished there many a Summer day some twenty years ago,
And I never quit without getting a mess of a dozen, or so.
There was a man, Dave Lilly, who lived on the North Adams road,
And he spent all his time fishing, while his neighbors reaped and sowed.
He was the luckiest fisherman in the Berkshire hills, I think.
And when he didn’t go fishing he’d sit in the tavern and drink.
Well, Dave is dead and buried and nobody cares very much;
They have no use in Greylock for drunkards and loafers and such.
But I always liked Dave Lilly, he was pleasant as you could wish;
He was shiftless and good-for-nothing, but he certainly could fish.
The other night I was walking up the hill from Williamstown
And I came to the brook I mentioned, and I stopped on the bridge and sat
down.
I looked at the blackened water with its little flecks of white
And I heard it ripple and whisper in the still of the Summer night.
And after I’d been there a minute it seemed to me I could feel
The presence of someone near me, and I heard the hum of a reel.
And the water was churned and broken, and something was brought to land
By a twist and flirt of a shadowy rod in a deft and shadowy hand.
I scrambled down to the brookside and hunted all about;
There wasn’t a sign of a fisherman; there wasn’t a sign of a trout.
But I heard somebody chuckle behind the hollow oak
And I got a whiff of tobacco like Lilly used to smoke.
It’s fifteen years, they tell me, since anyone fished that brook;
And there’s nothing in it but minnows that nibble the bait off your hook.
But before the sun has risen and after the moon has set
I know that it’s full of ghostly trout for Lilly’s ghost to get.
I guess I’ll go to the tavern and get a bottle of rye
And leave it down by the hollow oak, where Lilly’s ghost went by.
I meant to go up on the hillside and try to find his grave
And put some flowers on it--but this will be better for Dave.
ALARM CLOCKS
When Dawn strides out to wake a dewy farm
Across green fields and yellow hills of hay
The little twittering birds laugh in his way
And poise triumphant on his shining arm.
He bears a sword of flame but not to harm
The wakened life that feels his quickening sway
And barnyard voices shrilling “It is day!”
Take by his grace a new and alien charm.
But in the city, like a wounded thing
That limps to cover from the angry chase,
He steals down streets where sickly arc-lights sing,
And wanly mock his young and shameful face;
And tiny gongs with cruel fervour ring
In many a high and dreary sleeping place.
WAVERLEY
1814–1914
When on a novel’s newly printed page
We find a maudlin eulogy of sin,
And read of ways that harlots wander in,
And of sick souls that writhe in helpless rage;
Or when Romance, bespectacled and sage,
Taps on her desk and bids the class begin
To con the problems that have always been
Perplexed mankind’s unhappy heritage;
Then in what robes of honour habited
The laureled wizard of the North appears!
Who raised Prince Charlie’s cohorts from the dead,
Made Rose’s mirth and Flora’s noble tears,
And formed that shining legion at whose head
Rides Waverley, triumphant o’er the years!
EARLY POEMS
IN A BOOK-SHOP
All day I serve among the volumes telling
Old tales of love and war and high romance;
Good company, God wot, is in them dwelling,
Brave knights who dared to scorn untoward chance.
King Arthur--Sidney--Copperfield--the daring
And friendly souls of Meredith’s bright page--
The Pilgrim on his darksome journey faring,
And Shakespeare’s heroes, great in love and rage.
Fair ladies, too--here Beatricè smiling
Through hell leads Dante to the happy stars;
And Heloise, the cruel guards beguiling,
With Abelard makes mock of convent bars.
Yet when night comes I leave these folks with pleasure
To open Love’s great summer-scented tome
Within whose pages--precious beyond measure--
My own White Flower Lady hath her home.
SLENDER YOUR HANDS
Slender your hands and soft and white
As petals of moon-kissed roses;
Yet the grasp of your fingers slight
My passionate heart encloses.
Innocent eyes like delicate spheres
That are born when day is dying;
Yet the wisdom of all the years
Is in their lovelight lying.
SLEEP SONG
The Lady World
Is sleeping on her white and cloudy bed.
Like petals furled
Her eyelids close. Beside her dream-filled head
Her lover stands in silver cloak and shoon,
The faithful Moon.
So Love, my Love,
Sleep on, my Love, my Life, be not afraid.
The Moon above
Shall guard the World, and I my little maid.
Your life, your love, your dreams are mine to keep,
So sleep, so sleep.
WHITE BIRD OF LOVE
Little white bird of the summer sky,
Silver against the golden sun,
Over the green of the hills you fly,
You and the sweet, wild air are one.
Glorious sights are in that far place
Reached by your daisy-petal wing,
Rose-coloured meteors dive through space,
Stars made of molten music sing.
Still, though your quivering eager flight
Reaches the groves by Heaven town,
Where all the angels cry out, “Alight!
Stop, little bird, come down, come down!”
Careless you speed over fields of stars,
Darting through Heaven swift and free;
Nothing your arrowy passage bars
Back to the earth and back to me.
Here in the orchard of dream-fruit fair
Out of my dreams is built your nest.
Blossoming dreams all the branches bear,
Fit for my silver dream-bird’s rest.
Here, since they love you, the young stars shine,
Through the white petals come their beams.
Little white love-laden bird of mine,
Let them shine on you through my dreams.
TRANSFIGURATION
If it should be my task, I being God,
From whirling atoms to evolve your mate,
With hands omnipotent I should create
A great-souled hero, with the starlight shod.
The subject worlds should tremble at his nod
And all the angel host upon him wait,
Yet he should leave his pomp and splendid state
And kneel to kiss the ground whereon you trod.
But God, who like a little child is wise,
Made me, a common thing of earthly clay;
Then bade me go and see within your eyes
The flame of love that burns more bright than day,
And as I looked I knew with wild surprise
I was transformed--your heart in my heart lay.
BALLADE OF MY LADY’S BEAUTY
Squire Adam had two wives, they say,
Two wives had he, for his delight,
He kissed and clypt them all the day
And clypt and kissed them all the night.
Now Eve like ocean foam was white
And Lilith roses dipped in wine,
But though they were a goodly sight
No lady is so fair as mine.
To Venus some folk tribute pay
And Queen of Beauty she is hight,
And Sainte Marie the world doth sway
In cerule napery bedight.
My wonderment these twain invite,
Their comeliness it is divine,
And yet I say in their despite,
No lady is so fair as mine.
Dame Helen caused a grievous fray,
For love of her brave men did fight,
The eyes of her made sages fey
And put their hearts in woful plight.
To her no rhymes will I indite,
For her no garlands will I twine,
Though she be made of flowers and light
No lady is so fair as mine.
L’ENVOI
Prince Eros, Lord of lovely might
Who on Olympus dost recline,
Do I not tell the truth aright?
No lady is so fair as mine.
FOR A BIRTHDAY
April with her violets,
May and June with roses,
Young July with all her flowers, crimson, gold and white,
Each in place her tribute sets,
Each her wreath composes,
Making glad the roadway for the Lady of Delight.
Birds with many colours gay,
Through the branches flitting,
Sing, to greet my Lady Love, a lusty welcome song.
Even bees make holiday,
Hive and honey quitting,
Tremulous and jubilant they join the eager throng.
Now the road is flower-paved;
Timid fawns are peering
From their pleasant vantage in the roadside’s leafy green.
All the world in sunlight laved,
Knows the hour is nearing
That shall bring the golden presence of the well-loved Queen.
Hark! at last the silver trill
Of a lute is sounding--
Happy August, purple-clad, appears with all her train.
Sudden sweet the branches fill;
Every heart is bounding;
August comes, the kindly nurse of her who is to reign!
And now, with proud and valiant gait,
An hundred centaurs come.
Pan rides the foremost one in state;
The waiting crowd grows dumb.
Each centaur wears a jewelled thong
And harness bright of sheen;
They draw through surging floods of song
The carriage of the Queen!
“Hail! Hail! Hail! to the Queen in her moonstone car!
Hail! Hail! Hail! to the Lady whose slaves we are!
We of the meadows, the rocks and the hills,
Dwellers in oceans and rivers and rills,
Beasts of the forests and birds of the air,
Linnet and butterfly, lion and bear,
Daisy and daffodill, spruce-tree and fir,
Yield to our Queen and do homage to her!
Hail! Hail! Hail! we welcome thy royal sway!
Hail! Hail! Hail! O Queen, on this festal day!”
So all the world kneels down to you,
And all things are your own;
Now let a humble rhymer sue
Before your crystal throne.
Fair Queen, at your rose-petal feet
Bid me to live and die!
Not all your world of lovers, Sweet,
Can love so much as I.
[Illustration:
JOYCE KILMER, AGE 21
TAKEN IN ACADEMIC GOWN, IMMEDIATELY AFTER HIS GRADUATION, AND DIRECTLY
PRECEDING HIS MARRIAGE]
WAYFARERS
Underneath the orchard trees lies a gypsy sleeping,
Tattered cloak and swarthy face and shaggy moonlit hair;
One brown hand his crazy fiddle in its grasp is keeping,
Through the Land of Dreams he strolls and sings his love songs there.
Up above the apple blossoms where the stars are shining,
Free and careless wandering among the clouds he goes,
Singing of his lady-love and for her pleasure twining
Wreaths of Heaven flowers, violet and golden rose.
In his sleep he stirs, and wakes to find his love beside him,
Pours his load of Dreamland blooms before her silver feet,
Takes her in his arms and as her soft brown tresses hide him
Both together fare to Dreamland up the star-paved street.
PRINCESS BALLADE
Never a horn sounds in Sherwood to-night,
Friar Tuck’s drinking Olympian ale,
Little John’s wandered away from our sight,
Robin Hood’s bow hangs unused on its nail.
Even the moon has grown weary and pale
Sick for the glint of Maid Marian’s hair,
But there is one joy on mountain and dale,
Fairies abound all the time, everywhere!
Saints have attacked them with sacredest might,
They could not shatter their gossamer mail;
Steam-driven engines can never affright
Fairies who dance in their spark-sprinkled trail.
Still for a warning the sad Banshees wail,
Still are the Leprechauns ready to bear
Purses of gold to their captors for bail;
Fairies abound all the time, everywhere!
Oberon, king of the realms of delight,
May your domain over us never fail.
Mab, as a rainbow-hued butterfly bright,
Yours is the glory that age cannot stale.
When we are planted down under the shale,
Fairy-folk, drop a few daffodils there,
Comfort our souls in the Stygian vale;
Fairies abound all the time, everywhere.
L’ENVOI
White Flower Princess, though sophisters rail,
Let us be glad in faith that we share.
None shall the Good People safely assail;
Fairies abound all the time, everywhere!
LULLABY FOR A BABY FAIRY
Night is over; through the clover globes of crystal shine;
Birds are calling; sunlight falling on the wet green vine.
Little wings must folded lie, little lips be still
While the sun is in the sky, over Fairy Hill.
Sleep, sleep, sleep,
Baby with buttercup hair,
Golden rays
Into the violet creep.
Dream, dream deep;
Dream of the night-revels fair.
Daylight stays;
Sleep, little fairy child, sleep.
Rest in daytime; night is playtime, all good fairies know.
Under sighing grasses lying, off to slumber go.
Night will come with stars agleam, lilies in her hand,
Calling you from Hills of Dream back to Fairyland.
Sleep, sleep, sleep,
Baby with buttercup hair;
Golden rays
Into the violet creep.
Dream, dream deep;
Dream of the night-revels fair.
Daylight stays;
Sleep, little fairy child, sleep.
A DEAD POET
Fair Death, kind Death, it was a gracious deed
To take that weary vagrant to thy breast.
Love, Song and Wine had he, and but one need--
Rest.
THE MAD FIDDLER
I sleep beneath a bracken sheet
In sunlight or in rain,
The road dust burns my naked feet,
The sunrays sear my brain;
But children love my fiddle’s sound
And if a lad be straying,
His mother knows he may be found
Where old Mad Larry’s playing.
O fiddle, let us follow, follow,
Till we see my Eileen’s face,
Through the moonlight like a swallow
Off she flew to some far place.
O, did you ever love a lass?
I loved a lass one day,
And she would lie upon the grass
And sing while I would play.
She was a cruel, lovely thing,
Nor heart nor soul have I,
For Eileen took them that soft spring
When she flew to the sky.
So fiddle, let us follow, follow,
Till we see my Eileen’s face,
Through the moonlight like a swallow
Off she flew to some far place.
THE GRASS IN MADISON SQUARE
The pleasant turf is dried and marred and seared,
The grass is dead.
No soft green shoot, by rain and sunshine reared,
Lifts up its head.
I think the grass that made the park so gay
In early spring
Now decks the lawns of Heaven where babies play
And dance and sing.
And poor old vagabonds who now have left
The dusty street,
Find fields of which they were in life bereft,
Beneath their feet.
SAID THE ROSE
No flower hath so fair a face as this pale love of mine;
When he bends down to kiss my heart, my petals try to twine
About his lips to hold them fast. He is so very fair,
My lover with the pale, sad face and forest-fragrant hair.
I think it is a pleasant place, this garden where I grow,
With gravel walks and grassy mounds and crosses in a row.
There is no toil nor worry here, nor clatter of the street,
And here each night my lover comes, pale, sad and very sweet.
He never heeds the violets or lilies tall and white;
I am his love, his only love, his Flower of Delight;
And often when the cold moonbeams are lying all around
My lover kneels the whole night through beside me on the ground.
How can I miss the sunshine-laden breezes of the south
When all my heart is burning with the kisses of his mouth?
How can I miss the coming of the comfort-bringing rain
When his hot tears are filling me with heaven-sweet love-pain?
There is a jealous little bird that envies me my love,
He sings this bitter, bitter song from his brown nest above:
“Was ever yet a mortal man who wed a flower wife?
He loves the girl down in your roots whose dead breast gives you life.”
O little bird, O jealous bird, fly off and cease your chatter!
My lover is my lover, and what can a dead girl matter?
In his hot kisses and sweet tears I shall my petals steep;
I am his love, his only love, I have his heart to keep.
METAMORPHOSIS
He was an evil thing to see--
Of joy his mouth was desolate;
His body was a stunted tree,
His eyes were pools of lust and hate.
Now silverly the linnet sings
On leaves that from his temples start,
And gay the yellow crocus springs
From the rich clod that was his heart.
FOR A CHILD
His mind has neither need nor power to know
The foolish things that men call right and wrong.
For him the streams of pleasant love-wind flow,
For him the mystic, sleep-compelling song.
Through love he rules his love-made universe,
And sees with eyes by ignorance made keen
The fauns and elves whom older eyes disperse,
Great Pan and all the fairies with their queen.
King gods, I pray, bestow on him this dole,
Not wisdom, wealth, nor mighty deeds to do,
But let him keep his happy pagan soul,
The poet-vision, simple, free and true,
To hunt the rainbow-gold and phantom lights,
And meet with dryads on the wooded heights.
THE CLOUDED SUN
(To A. S.)
It is not good for poets to grow old,
For they serve Death that loves and Love that kills;
And Love and Death, enthroned above the hills,
Call back their faithful servants to the fold
Before Age makes them passionless and cold.
Therefore it is that no more sorry thing
Can shut the sunlight from the thirsty grass
Than some grey head through which no longer pass
Wild dreams more lively than the scent of Spring
To fire the blood and make the glad mouth sing.
Far happier he, who, young and full of pride
And radiant with the glory of the sun,
Leaves earth before his singing time is done.
All wounds of Time the graveyard flowers hide,
His beauty lives, as fresh as when he died.
Then through the words wherein his spirit dwells
The world may see his young impetuous face
Unmarred by Time, with undiminished grace;
While memory no piteous story tells
Of barren days, stale loves and broken spells.
* * * * *
Brother and Master, we are wed with woe.
Yea, Grief’s funereal cloud it is that hovers
About the head of us, thy mournful lovers.
Uncomforted and sick with pain we go,
Dust on our brows and at our hearts the snow.
The London lights flare on the chattering street,
Young men and maidens love and dance and die;
Wine flows, and the perfumes float up to the sky.
Once thou couldst feel that this was very sweet,
Now thou art still--mouth, hands and weary feet.
O subtle mouth, whereon the Sphinx has placed
The smile of those she kisses at their birth,
Sing once again, for Spring has thrilled the earth.
Nay, thou art dumb. Not even April’s taste
Is sweet to thee in thy live coffin cased.
There is no harsher tragedy than this--
That thou, who feltest as no man before
Scent, colour, taste and sound and didst outpour
For us rich draughts of thine enchanted bliss
Shouldst be plunged down this cruel black abyss.