Turns now to where young China sings.
One thousand of ten thousand towns
Go down before her silent wrath;
Yet even lion-gods may faint
And die upon their brilliant path.
She sees the Chinese children romp
In dust that she must breathe and eat.
Her tongue is reddened by its lye;
She craves its grit, its cold and heat.
The Dust of Ages holds a glint
Of fire from the foundation-stones,
Of spangles from the sun’s bright face,
Of sapphires from earth’s marrow-bones.
Mad-drunk with it, she ends her day--
Slips when a high sea-wall gives way,
Drowns in the cold Confucian sea
Where the whirring fan-girl first flew free.
_In the light of the maxims of Chesterfield, Mencius,
Wilson, Roosevelt, Tolstoy, Trotsky,
Franklin or Nietzsche, how great was Confucius?_
“_Laughing Asia_” brown and wild,
That lyric and immortal child,
His fan’s gay daughter, crowned with sand,
Between the water and the land
Now cries on high in irony,
With a voice of night-wind alchemy:
“O cat, O sphinx,
O stony-face,
The joke is on Egyptian pride,
The joke is on the human race:
‘The meek inherit the earth too long--
When will the world belong to the strong?’
I am born from off the holy fan
Of the world’s most patient gentleman.
So answer me,
O courteous sea!
O deathless sea!”
And thus will the answering Ocean call:
“China will fall,
The Empire of China will crumble down,
When the Alps and the Andes crumble down;
When the sun and the moon have crumbled down,
The Empire of China will crumble down,
Crumble down.”
In the following narrative, Lucifer is not Satan, King of Evil, who in
the beginning led the rebels from Heaven, establishing the underworld.
Lucifer is here taken as a character appearing much later, the first
singing creature weary of established ways in music, moved with the
lust of wandering. He finds the open road between the stars too lonely.
He wanders to the kingdom of Satan, there to sing a song that so moves
demons and angels that he is, at its climax, momentary emperor of Hell
and Heaven, and the flame kindled of the tears of the demons devastates
the golden streets.
Therefore it is best for the established order of things that this
wanderer shall be cursed with eternal silence and death. But since then
there has been music in every temptation, in every demon voice.
Along with a set of verses called _The Heroes of Time_, and another
_The Tree of Laughing Bells_, I exchanged _The Last Song of Lucifer_
for a night’s lodging in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio, as narrated
in _A Handy Guide for Beggars_.
The fourteenth chapter of Isaiah contains these words on Lucifer:
“Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the
worm is spread under thee and the worms cover thee.
“How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning. How
art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations.
“For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into Heaven, I will
exalt my throne above the stars of God....
“All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every
one in his own house.
“But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as
the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that
go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcass trodden under feet.
“Thou shalt not be joined to them in burial, because thou hast
destroyed thy land.”
THE LAST SONG OF LUCIFER
_To Be Read Like a Meditation_
[Sidenote: _Lucifer dreams of his fate and then forgets the dream._]
When Lucifer was undefiled,
When Lucifer was young,
When only angel-music
Fell from his glorious tongue,
Dreaming in his innocence
Beneath God’s golden trees
By genius pure his fancy fell--
By sweet divine disease--
To a wilderness of sorrows dim
Beneath the ether seas.
That father of radiant harmony,
Of music transcendently bright--
Truest to art since heaven began,
Wrapped in royal, melodious light--
That beautiful light-bearer, lofty and loyal
Dreamed bitter dreams of enigma and night.
But soon the singer woke and stood
And tuned his harp to sing anew
And scorned the dreams (as well he should)
For only to the evil crew
Are dreams of dread and evil true,
Remembered well, or understood.
[Sidenote: _The dream is fulfilled._]
But when a million years were done
And a million million years beside,
He broke his harp-strings one by one;
He sighed, aweary of rich things,
He spread his pallid, heavy wings
And flew to find the deathless stains,
The wounds that come with wanderings.
[Sidenote: _He will never dream again, but the demons dream of
wandering and singing, and doing all things just as he did in his day._]
He chose the solemn paths of Hell,
He sang for that dumb land too well,
Defying their disdain
Till he was cursed and slain.
Ah--he shall never dream again--
Mourn, for he shall not dream again--
But the demons dream in pain,
Of wandering in the night
And singing in the night,
Singing till they reign.
[Sidenote: _Music is holy, even in the infernal world._]
[Sidenote: _If Lucifer’s song could be completely remembered, one would
be willing to pay the great price._]
Oh hallowed are the demons,
A-dreaming songs again,
And holy to my heart! the ancient music-art,
That echo of a memory in demon-haunted men,
That hope of music, sweet hope, vain,
That sets the world a-seeking--
A passion pure, a subtle pain
Too dear for song or speaking.
Oh, who would not with the demons be,
For the fullness of their memory
Of that dayspring song,
Of that holy thing
That Lucifer alone could sing,
That Hell and Earth so hopelessly
And gloriously are seeking!
[Sidenote: NOW FOLLOWS WHAT EVERY DEMON SAYS IN HIS HEART, REMEMBERING
THAT TIME]
* * * * *
* * * * *
[Sidenote: _How the singer made his lyre._]
Oh, Lucifer, great Lucifer,
Oh, fallen, ancient Lucifer,
Master, lost, of the angel choir--
Silent, suffering Lucifer:
Once your alchemies of Hell
Wrought your chains to a magic lyre
All strung with threads of purple fire,
Till the hell-hounds moaned from your bitter spell--
The sweetest song since the demons fell--
Haunting song of the heart’s desire.
[Sidenote: _How the song began._]
Oh, Lucifer, great Lucifer,
You who have sung in vain,
Ecstasy of sweet regret,
Ecstasy of pain,
Strain that the angels can never forget,
Haunting the children of punishment yet,
Bowing them, bringing their tears in the darkness;
Oh, the night-caves of Chaos are breathing it yet!
The last that your bosom may ever deliver,
Oh, musical master of æons and æons....
Nor devils nor dragons may ever forget,
Though the walls of our prison should crumble and shiver,
And the death-dews of Chaos our armor should wet,
For the song of the infamous Lucifer
Was an anthem of glorious scorning
And courage, and horrible pain--
Was the song of a Son of the Morning,
A song that was sung in vain.
Oh singing was only in Heaven
Ere Lucifer’s melody came,
But when Lucifer’s harp-strings grew loud in their sighing,
When he called up the dragons by name--
The song was the sorrow of sorrows,
The song was the Hope of Despair,
Or the smile of a warrior falling--
A prayer and a curse and a prayer--
Or a soul going down through the shadows and calling,
Or the laughter of Night in his lair;
The song was the fear of ten thousand tomorrows--
On the racks of grief and of pain--
The herald of silences, dreadful, unending,
When the last little echo should listen in vain....
[Sidenote: _How the song made the demons dream they were still fighting
for Satan._]
It was memory, memory,
Visions of glory,--
Memory, memory,
Visions of fight.
The pride of the onset,
The banners that fluttered,
The wails of the battle-pierced angels of light.
Song of the times of the Nether Empire
The age when our desperate band
Heaped our redoubts with the horrible fire
On the fringes of Holier Land--
Conquering always, conquering never,
Building a throne of sand--
When Satan still wielded that glorious scepter--
The sword of his glorious hand.
Then rang the martial music
Sung by the hosts of God
In the first of the shameful years of fear
When we bit the purple sod:
He sang that shameful battle-story--
He twanged each threaded torture-flame;
Wherever his leprous fingers came
They drew from the strings a groan of glory:
[Sidenote: _How the song enchanted them til they were in fancy the good
warriors of God, and they shouted their enemy’s battle-cry._]
Then we dreamed at last,
Then we lost the past,
We dreamed we were angels in battle-array:
We tore our hearts with God’s battle-yell
And the sound crashed up from the smoky fen
And the battle sweat stood forth
On the awful brows of our fighting men:
And the magical singer, grim and wild
Swept his harp again, and smiled,
And the harp-strings lifted our cries that day
Till the thundering charge reached the City on High--
God’s charge, that he thought
Had passed for aye,
When our last fond hope went down to die.
[Sidenote: _How, at the climax of the song Lucifer almost restored the
first day of creation, when the Universe was happy and sinless._]
[Sidenote: _How the tears of the distracted demons become a
heaven-climbing flame._]
Oh throbbing, sweet, enthralling spell!
Madly, madly, oh my heart--
Heart of anguish, heart of Hell--
Beat the music through your night--
Pierced the strain that the wanderer
Wrought with fingers white;
For last he sang--of the morning--
The song of the Sons of the Morning--
The fire of the star-souled Lucifer
Before he had known a stain;
That song which came when the suns were young
And the Dayspring knew his place--
That joy, full born, that unknown tongue,
That shouting chant of the Sons of God
When first they saw Jehovah’s face.
And the Wanderer laughed, then sang it at last
Till it leaped as a flame to the forests on high
And the tears of the demons were fire in the sky.
[Sidenote: _How Lucifer seemed to make himself God._]
And just for a breath he conquered and reigned,
For one quick pulse of time he stood;
By flame was crowned where God had been
Himself the Word sublime--
Himself the Most High Love unstained,
The Great, Good King of the Stars and Years--
Crowned, enthroned, by a leaping flame--
The fire of our love-born tears.
[Sidenote: _How the angels were conquered by the sound of his music
from afar, and the Demons were torn with love._]
And the angels bowed down, for his glory was vast--
Loving their conqueror, weeping, aghast--
While we sobbed, for a moment repenting the past,
And the mock-hope came, that eats and stings,
The hope for innocent dawns above,
The joy of it beat in our ears like wings,
Our iron cheeks seared with the tears of love--
Was it not enough,
Was it not enough
That our cheeks were seared with the tears of Love?
[Sidenote: _Demons and angels curse the singer._]
So we cursed the harping of Lucifer
The lyre was lost from his leper hands
And the hell-hounds tore his living heart.
And the angels cursed great Lucifer
For his purple flame consumed their lands
Till golden ways were desert sands;
They hurled him down, afar, apart.
[Sidenote: _The Punishment._]
Beneath where the Gulfs of Silence end,
Where never sighs nor songs descend,
Never a hell-flare in his eyes
Alone, alone, afar he lies....
Fearfully alone, beyond immortal ken
He is further down in the deep of pain
Than is Hell from the grief of men;
And his memories of music
Are rare as desert-rain.
Ended forever the ecstasy
And song too sweet for scorning--
The song that was still in vain;
And the shout of the battle-charge of God--
Ended forever the Song of the Morning--
The Song that was sung in vain.
SECOND SECTION
A RHYMED SCENARIO, SOME POEM GAMES, AND THE LIKE
A DOLL’S “ARABIAN NIGHTS”
_A Rhymed Scenario for Mae Marsh, when she acts in the new many-colored
films_
I dreamed the play was real.
I walked into the screen.
Like Alice through the looking-glass,
I found a curious scene.
The black stones took on flame.
The shadows shone with eyes.
The colors poured and changed
In a Hell’s debauch of dyes,
In a street with incense thick,
In a court of witch-bazars,
With flambeaux by the stalls
Whose splutter hid the stars.
Camels stalked in line.
Courtezans tripped by
Dressed in silks and gems,
Copper diadems,
All the wealth they had.
[Sidenote: _This refrain to be elaborately articulated and the
instrumental music then made to match it precisely._]
_Oh quivering lights,_
_Arabian Nights!_
_Bagdad,_
_Bagdad!_
You were a guarded girl
In a palanquin of gold.
I was buying figs:
All my hands could hold.
You slipped a note to me.
Your eyes made me your slave.
“Twelve paces back,” you wrote.
No other word gave.
The delicate dove house swayed
Close-veiled, a snare most sweet.
“Joy” said the silver bells
On the palanquin-bearers’ feet.
Then by a mosque, a dervish
Yelled and whirled like mad.
_Oh quivering lights,
Arabian Nights!
Bagdad,
Bagdad!_
I reached a dim, still court.
I saw you there afar,
Beckoning from the roof,
Veiled, a cloud-wrapped star.
And your black slave said: “Proud boy,
Do you dare everything
With your young arm and bright steel?
Then climb. You are her king.”
And I heard a hiss of knives
In the doorway dark and bad.
_Oh quivering lights,
Arabian Nights!
Bagdad,
Bagdad!_
The stairway climbed and climbed.
It spoke. It shouted lies.
I reached a tar-black room,
A panther’s belly gloom,
Filled with howls and sighs.
I found the roof. Twelve kings
Rose up to stab me there.
But I sent them to their graves.
My singing shook the air.
My scimitar seemed more
Than any steel could be,
A whirling wheel, a pack
Of death-hounds guarding me.
And then you came like May.
You bound my torn breast well
With your discarded veil.
And flowery silence fell.
While Mohammed spread his wings
In the stars, you bent me back,
With a quick kiss touched my mouth,
And my heart was on the rack.
Oh dreadful, deathless love!
Oh kiss of Islam fire.
And your flashing hands were more
Than all a thief’s desire.
[Sidenote: _The morning after is always noted in the Arabian Nights._]
I woke by twelve dead curs
On bloody, stony ground.
And the grey watch muttered “shame,”
As he tottered on his round.
You had written on my sword:--
“Goodby, O iron arm.
I love you much too well
To do you further harm.
And as my pledge and sign
You are in crimson clad.”
_Oh quivering lights,
Arabian Nights!
Bagdad,
Bagdad!_
* * * * *
* * * * *
The rocs scream in the air.
The ghouls my pathway clear.
For I have drunk the soul
Of the dazzling maid they fear.
The long handclasp you gave
Still shakes upon my hands.
O, daughter of a Jinn
I plot in Islam lands,
Haunting purple streets,
Hissing, snarling, bold,
A robber never jailed,
A beggar never cold.
I shall be sultan yet
In this old crimson clad.
_Oh quivering lights,
Arabian Nights!
Bagdad,
Bagdad!_
THE LAME BOY AND THE FAIRY
_To be Chanted with a Suggestion of Chopin’s Berceuse_
_A Poem Game. See the Chinese Nightingale, pages 93 through 97_
A lame boy
Met a fairy
In a meadow
Where the bells grow.
And the fairy
Kissed him gaily.
And the fairy
Gave him friendship,
Gave him healing,
Gave him wings.
“All the fashions
I will give you.
You will fly, dear,
All the long year.
“Wings of springtime,
Wings of summer,
Wings of autumn,
Wings of winter!
“Here is
A dress for springtime.”
And she gave him
A dress of grasses,
Orchard blossoms,
Wildflowers found in
Mountain passes,
_Shoes of song and
Wings of rhyme_.
“Here is
A dress for summer.”
And she gave him
A hat of sunflowers,
A suit of poppies,
Clover, daisies,
All from wheat-sheaves
In harvest time;
_Shoes of song and
Wings of rhyme_.
“Here is
A dress for autumn.”
And she gave him
A suit of red haw,
Hickory, apple,
Elder, paw paw,
Maple, hazel,
Elm and grape leaves.
And blue
And white
Cloaks of smoke,
And veils of sunlight,
From the Indian summer prime!
_Shoes of song and
Wings of rhyme._
“Here is
A dress for winter.”
And she gave him
A polar bear suit,
And he heard the
Christmas horns toot,
And she gave him
Green festoons and
Red balloons and
All the sweet cakes
And the snow flakes
Of Christmas time,
_Shoes of song and
Wings of rhyme_.
And the fairy
Kept him laughing,
Led him dancing,
Kept him climbing
On the hill tops
Toward the moon.
“We shall see silver ships.
We shall see singing ships,
Valleys of spray today,
Mountains of foam.
We have been long away,
Far from our wonderland.
Here come the ships of love
Taking us home.
“Who are our captains bold?
They are the saints of old.
One is Saint Christopher.
He takes your hand.
He leads the cloudy fleet.
He gives us bread and meat.
His is our ship till
We reach our dear land.
“Where is our house to be?
Far in the ether sea.
There where the North Star
Is moored in the deep.
Sleepy old comets nod
There on the silver sod.
Sleepy young fairy flowers
Laugh in their sleep.
“A hundred years
And
A day,
There we will fly
And play
I spy and cross tag.
And meet on the high way,
And call to the game
Little Red Riding Hood,
Goldilocks, Santa Claus,
Every beloved
And heart-shaking name.”
And the lame child
And the fairy
Journeyed far, far
To the North Star.
THE BLACKSMITH’S SERENADE
_A pantomime and farce, to be acted by My Lady on one side of
a shutter, while the singer chants on the other, to an iron
guitar._
John Littlehouse the redhead was a large ruddy man
Quite proud to be a blacksmith, and he loved Polly Ann, Polly Ann.
Straightway to her window with his iron guitar he came
Breathing like a blacksmith--his wonderful heart’s flame.
Though not very bashful and not very bold
He had reached the plain conclusion his passion must be told.
And so he sang: “Awake, awake,”--this hip-hoo-rayious man.
“Do you like me, do you love me, Polly Ann, Polly Ann?
The rooster on my coalshed crows at break of day.
It makes a person happy to hear his roundelay.
The fido in my woodshed barks at fall of night.
He makes one feel so safe and snug. He barks exactly right.
I swear to do my stylish best and purchase all I can
Of the flummeries, flunkeries and mummeries of man.
And I will carry in the coal and the water from the spring
And I will sweep the porches if you will cook and sing.
No doubt your Pa sleeps like a rock. Of course Ma is awake
But dares not say she hears me, for gentle custom’s sake.
Your sleeping father knows I am a decent honest man.
Will you wake him, Polly Ann,
And if he dares deny it I will thrash him, lash bash mash
Hash him, Polly Ann.
Hum hum hum, fee fie fo fum--
And my brawn should wed your beauty
Do you hear me, Polly Ann, Polly Ann?”
Polly had not heard of him before, but heard him now.
She blushed behind the shutters like a pippin on the bough.
She was not overfluttered, she was not overbold.
She was glad a lad was living with a passion to be told.
But she spoke up to her mother: “Oh, what an awful man:--”
This merry merry quite contrary tricky trixy, Polly Ann, Polly Ann.
The neighbors put their heads out of the windows. They said:--
“What sort of turtle dove is this that seems to wake the dead?”
Yes, in their nighties whispered this question to the night.
They did not dare to shout it. It wouldn’t be right.
And so, I say, they whispered:--“Does she hear this awful man,
Polly Ann, Polly Ann?”
John Littlehouse the redhead sang on of his desires:
“Steel makes the wires of lyres, makes the frames of terrible towers
And circus chariots’ tires.
Believe me, dear, a blacksmith man can feel.
I will bind you, if I can to my ribs with hoops of steel.
Do you hear me, Polly Ann, Polly Ann?”
And then his tune was silence, for he was not a fool.
He let his voice rest, his iron guitar cool.
And thus he let the wind sing, the stars sing and the grass sing,
The prankishness of love sing, the girl’s tingling feet sing,
Her trembling sweet hands sing, her mirror in the dark sing,
Her grace in the dark sing, her pillow in the dark sing,
The savage in her blood sing, her starved little heart sing,
Silently sing.
“Yes, I hear you, Mister Man,”
To herself said Polly Ann, Polly Ann.
He shouted one great loud “_Good night_,” and laughed,
And skipped home.
And every star was winking in the wide wicked dome.
And early in the morning, sweet Polly stole away.
And though the town went crazy, she is his wife today.
THE APPLE BLOSSOM SNOW BLUES
_A “blues” is a song in the mood of Milton’s Il Penseroso, or
a paragraph from Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy. This present
production is the chronicle of the secret soul of a vaudeville
man, as he dances in the limelight with his haughty lady. Let
the reader take special pains to make his own tune for this
production, to a very delicate drum beat._
“_Your_
Dandelion beauty,
_Your_
Cherry-blossom beauty,
_Your_
Apple-blossom beauty,
I will dance as I can,
O
You rag time lady,
O
You jazz dancing lady,
O
You blues-singing lady,”
_Thinks_ the blues-singing man.
“Your
Grace and slightness,
And your fragrant whiteness,
Make me see the bending
Of an apple-blossom bough.
_You_
Are a fairy,
Yet a jump-jazz dancer,
And your heart
Is a robin,
Singing, making merry
With the apple-flowers now.”
See him kneel and canter
And smirk and banter,
And essay her heart
While the gourd horns blow.
For he is her lover
_And_
Her dancing partner,
In the blues he made
Called “The Apple Blossom Snow.”
She does her duty
No more
Than her duty,
Yet the packed house cheers
To the gallery rim.
Her young scorn fires them,
Its pep inspires them,
They watch her lover
And envy him.
He does not fathom
What her heart has in keeping
Till that last circus leaping
Takes all by surprise.
Then he catches her softly,
Saves her gently,
And a mood for his soul
Lights her pansy eyes.
Then
She steps rare measures.
Her eyes are treasures.
Brave truth shines out
From her young-witch glance.
From the velvety shade,
Ah, the thoughts of the maid.
Relenting glory,
Unveiled by chance.
Though soon thereafter
She hides in laughter,
And flouts all his loving,
He will dance as he can,
As he can,
Like a man,
With his jazz dancing wonder,
With his pansy blossom wonder,
With his apple blossom wonder,
With his rag time lady,
The
Rag
Time
Man.
[Sidenote: _Grand finale of jazz music, like the fall of a pile of
dishes in the kitchen._]
THE DANIEL JAZZ
_Let the leader train the audience to roar like lions, and to
join in the refrain “Go chain the lions down,” before he begins
to lead them in this jazz._
[Sidenote: _Beginning with a strain of “Dixie.”_]
Darius the Mede was a king and a wonder.
His eye was proud, and his voice was thunder.
He kept bad lions in a monstrous den.
He fed up the lions on Christian men.
[Sidenote: _With a touch of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.”_]
Daniel was the chief hired man of the land.
He stirred up the jazz in the palace band.
He whitewashed the cellar. He shovelled in the coal.
And Daniel kept a-praying:--“Lord save my soul.”
Daniel kept a-praying:--“Lord save my soul.”
Daniel kept a-praying:--“Lord save my soul.”
Daniel was the butler, swagger and swell.
He ran up stairs. He answered the bell.
And _he_ would let in whoever came a-calling:--
Saints so holy, scamps so appalling.
“Old man Ahab leaves his card.
Elisha and the bears are a-waiting in the yard.
Here comes Pharaoh and his snakes a-calling.
Here comes Cain and his wife a-calling.
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego for tea.
Here comes Jonah and the whale,
And the _Sea_!
Here comes St. Peter and his fishing pole.
Here comes Judas and his silver a-calling.
Here comes old Beelzebub a-calling.”
And Daniel kept a-praying:--“Lord save my soul.”
Daniel kept a-praying:--“Lord save my soul.”
Daniel kept a-praying:--“Lord save my soul.”
His sweetheart and his mother were Christian and meek.
They washed and ironed for Darius every week.
One Thursday he met them at the door:--
Paid them as usual, but acted sore.
He said:--“Your Daniel is a dead little pigeon.
He’s a good hard worker, but he talks religion.”
And he showed them Daniel in the lion’s cage.
Daniel standing quietly, the lions in a rage.
His good old mother cried:--
“Lord save him.”
And Daniel’s tender sweetheart cried:--
“Lord save him.”
And she was a golden lily in the dew.
And she was as sweet as an apple on the tree
And she was as fine as a melon in the corn-field,
Gliding and lovely as a ship on the sea,
Gliding and lovely as a ship on the sea.
And she prayed to the Lord:--
“_Send_ Gabriel. _Send_ Gabriel.”
King Darius said to the lions:--
“Bite Daniel. Bite Daniel.
Bite him. Bite him. Bite him!”
[Sidenote: _Here the audience roars with the leader._]
Thus roared the lions:--
“We want Daniel, Daniel, Daniel,
We want Daniel, Daniel, Daniel.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr”
[Sidenote: _The audience sings this with the leader, to the old negro
tune._]