Daniel did not cry.
He kept on looking at the sky.
And the Lord said to Gabriel:--
“Go chain the lions down,
Go chain the lions down.
Go chain the lions down.
Go chain the lions down.”
And _Gabriel_ chained the lions,
And _Gabriel_ chained the lions,
And _Gabriel_ chained the lions,
And Daniel got out of the den,
And Daniel got out of the den,
And Daniel got out of the den.
And Darius said:--“You’re a Christian child,”
Darius said:--“You’re a Christian child,”
Darius said:--“You’re a Christian child,”
And gave him his job again,
And gave him his job again,
And gave him his job again.
WHEN PETER JACKSON PREACHED IN THE OLD CHURCH
_To be sung to the tune of the old Negro Spiritual “Every time
I feel the spirit moving in my heart I’ll pray.”_
Peter Jackson was a-preaching
And the house was still as snow.
He whispered of repentance
And the lights were dim and low
And were almost out
When he gave the first shout:
“Arise, arise,
Cry out your eyes.”
And we mourned all our terrible sins away.
Clean, clean away.
Then we marched around, around,
And sang with a wonderful sound:--
“Every time I feel the spirit moving in my heart I’ll pray.
Every time I feel the spirit moving in my heart I’ll pray.”
And we fell by the altar
And fell by the aisle,
And found our Savior
In just a little while,
We all found Jesus at the break of the day,
We all found Jesus at the break of the day.
Blessed Jesus,
Blessed Jesus.
THE CONSCIENTIOUS DEACON
_A song to be syncopated as you please_
Black cats, grey cats, green cats miau--
Chasing the deacon who stole the cow.
He runs and tumbles, he tumbles and runs.
He sees big white men with dogs and guns.
He falls down flat. He turns to stare--
No cats, no dogs, and no men there.
But black shadows, grey shadows, green shadows come.
The wind says, “Miau!” and the rain says, “Hum!”
He goes straight home. He dreams all night.
He howls. He puts his wife in a fright.
Black devils, grey devils, green devils shine--
Yes, by Sambo,
And the fire looks fine!
Cat devils, dog devils, cow devils grin--
Yes, by Sambo,
And the fire rolls in.
And so, next day, to avoid the worst--
He takes that cow
Where he found her first.
DAVY JONES’ DOOR-BELL
_A Chant for Boys with Manly Voices._
_Every line sung one step deeper than the line preceding._
Any sky-bird sings,
“_Ring, ring!_”
Any church-chime calls,
“_Dong ding!_”
Any cannon says,
“_Boom bang!_”
Any whirlwind says,
“_Whing whang!_”
The bell-buoy hums and roars,
“_Ding dong!_”
And way down deep,
Where fishes throng,
By Davy Jones’ big deep-sea door,
Shaking the ocean’s flowery floor,
His door-bell booms
“_Dong dong,
Dong dong_,”
Deep, deep down,
“_Clang boom,
Boom dong,
Boom dong,
Boom dong!_”
THE SEA SERPENT CHANTEY
I
There’s a snake on the western wave
And his crest is red.
He is long as a city street,
And he eats the dead.
There’s a hole in the bottom of the sea
Where the snake goes down.
And he waits in the bottom of the sea
For the men that drown.
[Sidenote: _Let the audience join in the chorus._]
Chorus:--
This is the voice of the sand
(The sailors understand)
“There is far more sea than sand,
There is far more sea than land. Yo ... ho, yo ... ho.”
II
He waits by the door of his cave
While the ages moan.
He cracks the ribs of the ships
With his teeth of stone.
In his gizzard deep and long
Much treasure lies.
Oh, the pearls and the Spanish gold....
And the idols’ eyes....
Oh, the totem poles ... the skulls ...
The altars cold ...
The wedding rings, the dice ...
The buoy bells old.
Chorus:--This is the voice, etc.
III
Dive, mermaids, with sharp swords
And cut him through,
And bring us the idols’ eyes
And the red gold too.
Lower the grappling hooks
Good pirate men
And drag him up by the tongue
From his deep wet den.
We will sail to the end of the world,
We will nail his hide
To the main mast of the moon
In the evening tide.
Chorus:--This is the voice, etc.
IV
Or will you let him live,
The deep-sea thing,
With the wrecks of all the world
In a black wide ring
By the hole in the bottom of the sea
Where the snake goes down,
Where he waits in the bottom of the sea
For the men that drown?
Chorus:--This is the voice, etc.
THE LITTLE TURTLE
_A Recitation for Martha Wakefield, Three Years Old_
There was a little turtle.
He lived in a box.
He swam in a puddle.
He climbed on the rocks.
He snapped at a musquito.
He snapped at a flea.
He snapped at a minnow.
And he snapped at me.
He caught the musquito.
He caught the flea.
He caught the minnow.
But he didn’t catch me.
THIRD SECTION
COBWEBS AND CABLES
THE SCIENTIFIC ASPIRATION
Would that the dry hot wind called Science came,
Forerunner of a higher mystic day,
Though vile machine-made commerce clear the way--
Though nature losing shame should lose her veil,
And ghosts of buried angel-warriors wail
The fall of Heaven, and the relentless Sun
Smile on, as Abraham’s God forever dies--
Lord, give us Darwin’s eyes!
THE VISIT TO MAB
When glad vacation time began
A snail-king said to his dear spouse,
“Come, let us lock our birch-bark house
And visit some important man.
“Each summer we have hoped to go
To see the sultan Gingerbread
Who wears chopped citron on his head
And currant love-locks in a row.
“And see his vizier Chocolate Bill
And Popcorn Man, his pale young priest.
They live twelve inches to the east
Behind the lofty brown-bread hill.”
His wife said: “Simple elegance
Is what we want. It is the mode
To take the little western road
To where the blue-grass fairies dance.
“I think the queen will recognize
Our atmosphere of wealth and ease.
My steel-grey shell is sure to please,
And she will fear your fiery eyes.”
And so they visited proud Mab.
The firs were laughing overhead,
The chattering roses burned deep-red.
The snails were queer and dumb and drab.
The contrast made them quite the thing.
A setting spells success at times.
Mab gave the queen a book of rhymes.
A tissue-cap she gave the king,
Like caps the children wear for sport.
And vainer than he well could say
He called gay Mab his “pride and stay,”
With pompous speeches to the court.
They journeyed home, made young indeed,
But opening the book of song
Each poem looked so deep and long
They could not bear to start to read.
THE SONG OF THE STURDY SNAILS
Gristly bare-bone fingers
On my window-pane--
The drumbeat of a ghost
Louder than the rain!
Oh frail, storm-shaken hut--
No candle, not a spark
Of fire within the grate.
Oh the lonely dark!
Trembling by the window
I watched the lightning flash
And saw the little villains
Upon the outer sash
And other small musicians
Upon the window-pane--
Garden snails, a-dragging
Their shells amid the rain!
The thunder blew away.
My happiness began.
Over the dripping darkness
Rills of moonlight ran.
In the silence rich
The scratching of the shells
Became a crooning music
A lazy peal of bells.
So fearless in the night
My sluggard brothers bold!
Your fancies swift and glowing;
Your footsteps slow and cold!
My happy beggar-brothers
Tuning all together,
Playing on the pane
Praise of stormy weather!
Upon a ragged pillow
At last I laid my head
And watched the sparkling window
And the wan light on my bed.
Through the glass came flying
Dream snails, with leafy wings--
Glided on the moonbeams--
And all the snails were kings!
With crowns of pollen yellow
And eyes of firefly gold
Behold--to crooning music
Their coiling wings unrolled!
These tiny kings I saw
Reigning over white
Bisque jars of fairy flowers
In sturdy proud delight.
These jars in fairyland
Await good snails that keep
Vigils on the windows
Of beggars fast asleep.
ANOTHER WORD ON THE SCIENTIFIC ASPIRATION
“There’s machinery in the butterfly.
There’s a mainspring to the bee.
There’s hydraulics to a daisy
And contraptions to a tree.
“If we could see the birdie
That makes the chirping sound
With psycho-analytic eyes,
And x ray, scientific eyes,
We could see the wheels go round.”
_And I hope all men
Who think like this
Will soon lie
Underground._
DANCING FOR A PRIZE
Three fairies by the Sangamon
Were dancing for a prize.
The rascals were alike indeed
As they danced with drooping eyes.
I gave the magic acorn
To the one I loved the best,
The imp that made me think of her
My heart’s eternal guest,
My lady of the tea-rose, my lady far away,
Queen of the fleets of No-Man’s-Land
That sail to old Cathay.
How did the trifler hint of her?
Ah, when the dance was done
They begged me for the acorn,
Laughing every one.
Two had eyes of midnight,
And one had golden eyes,
And I gave the golden acorn
To the scamp with golden eyes.
Confessor Dandelion,
My priest so grey and wise
Whispered when I gave it
To the girl with golden eyes:
“She is like your Queen of Glory
On China’s holy strand
Who drove the coiling dragons
Like doves before her hand.”
COLD SUNBEAMS
The Question:
“Tell me, where do fairy queens
Find their bridal veils?”
The Answer:
“If you were now a fairy queen
Then I, your faithless page and bold
Would win the realm by winning you.
Your veil would be transparent gold
White magic spiders wove for you
At cold grey dawn, from sunbeams cold
While robins sang amid the dew.”
FOR ALL WHO EVER SENT LACE VALENTINES
The little-boy lover
And little-girl lover
Met the first time
At the house of a friend.
And great the respect
Of the little-boy lover.
The awe and the fear of her
Stayed to the end.
The little girl chattered
Incessantly chattered,
Hardly would look
When he tried to be nice.
But deeply she trembled
The little-girl lover,
Eaten with flame
While she tried to be ice.
The lion of loving
The terrible lion
Woke in the two
Long before they could wed.
The world said: “Child hearts
You must keep till the summer.
It is not allowed
That your hearts should be red.”
If only a wizard
A kindly grey wizard
Had built them a house
In a cave underground.
With an emerald door,
And honey to eat!
But it seemed that no wizard
Was waiting around.
Oh children with fancies,
The rarest of notions,
The rarest of passions
And hopes here below!
Many a child,
His young heart too timid
Has fled from his princess
No other to know.
I have seen them with faces
Like books out of Heaven,
With messages there
The harsh world should read,
The lions and roses and lilies of love,
Its tender, mystic, tyrannical need.
Were I god of the village
My servants should mate them.
Were I priest of the church
I would set them apart.
If the wide state were mine
It should live for such darlings,
And hedge with all shelter
The child-wedded heart.
MY LADY IS COMPARED TO A YOUNG TREE
When I see a young tree
In its white beginning,
With white leaves
And white buds
Barely tipped with green,
In the April weather,
In the weeping sunshine--
Then I see my lady,
My democratic queen,
Standing free and equal
With the youngest woodland sapling
Swaying, singing in the wind,
Delicate and white:
Soul so near to blossom,
Fragile, strong as death;
A kiss from far off Eden,
A flash of Judgment’s trumpet--
April’s breath.
TO EVE, MAN’S DREAM OF WIFEHOOD AS DESCRIBED BY MILTON
Darling of Milton--when that marble man
Saw you in shadow, coming from God’s hand
Serene and young, did he not chant for you
Praises more quaint than he could understand?
“To justify the ways of God to man”--
So, self-deceived, his printed purpose runs.
His love for you is the true key to him,
And Uriel and Michael were your sons.
Your bosom nurtured his Urania.
Your meek voice, piercing through his midnight sleep
Shook him far more than silver chariot wheels
Or rattling shields, or trumpets of the deep.
Titan and lover, could he be content
With Eden’s narrow setting for your spell?
You wound soft arms around his brows. He smiled
And grimly for your home built Heaven and Hell.
That was his posy. A strange gift, indeed.
We bring you what we can, not what is fit.
Eve, dream of wifehood! Each man in his way
Serves you with chants according to his wit.
A KIND OF SCORN
You do not know my pride
Or the storm of scorn I ride.
I am too proud to kiss you and leave you
Without wonders
Spreading round you like flame.
I am too proud to leave you
Without love
Haunting your very name:
Until you bear the Grail
Above your head in splendor
O child, dear and pale.
I am too proud to leave you
Though we part forevermore
Till all your thoughts
Go up toward Glory’s door.
Oh, I am but a sinner proud and poor,
Utterly without merit
To help you climb in wonder
A stair toward Heaven’s door--
Except that I have prayed my God,
And He will give the Grail,
And you will mourn no longer,
Beset, confused, and pale.
And God will lift you far on high,
The while I pray and pray
Until the hour I die.
The effectual fervent prayer availeth much.
And my first prayer ascends this proud harsh day.
HARPS IN HEAVEN
I will bring you great harps in Heaven,
Made of giant shells
From the jasper sea.
With a thousand burnt up years behind,
What then of the gulf from you to me?
It will be but the width of a thread,
Or the narrowest leaf of our sheltering tree.
You dare not refuse my harps in Heaven.
Or angels will mock you, and turn away.
Or with angel wit,
Will praise your eyes,
And your pure Greek lips, and bid you play,
And sing of the love from them to you,
And then of my poor flaming heart
In the far off earth, when the years were new.
I will bring you such harps in Heaven
That they will shake at your touch and breath,
Whose threads are rainbows,
Seventy times seven,
Whose voice is life, and silence death.
THE CELESTIAL CIRCUS
In Heaven, if not on earth,
You and I will be dancing.
I will whirl you over my head,
A torch and a flag and a bird,
A hawk that loves my shoulder,
A dove with plumes outspread.
We will whirl for God when the trumpets
Speak the millennial word.
We will howl in praise of God,
Dervish and young cyclone.
We will ride in the joy of God
On circus horses white.
Your feet will be white lightning,
Your spangles white and regal,
We will leap from the horses’ backs
To the cliffs of day and night.
We will have our rest in the pits of sleep
When the darkness heaps upon us,
And buries us for æons
Till we rise like grass in the spring.
We will come like dandelions,
Like buttercups and crocuses,
And all the winter of our sleep
But make us storm and sing.
We will tumble like swift foam
On the wave-crests of old ghostland,
And dance on the crafts of doom,
And wrestle on the moon.
And Saturn and his triple ring
Will be our tinsel circus,
Till all sad wraiths of yesterday
With the stars rejoice and croon.
O dancer, love undying,
My soul, my swan, my eagle,
The first of our million dancing years
Dawns, dawns soon.
THE FIRE-LADDIE, LOVE
The door has a bolt.
The window a grate.
O friend we are trapped
In the factory, Fate.
The flames pierce the ceiling.
The brands heap the floor.
But listen, dear heart:
A song at the door!
The forcing of bolts,
The hewing of oak!
A sword breaks the lock
With one cleaving stroke.
Naked and fair
Unscathed and wild
Behold he comes swiftly,
An elfin-eyed child.
The fire-laddie, _Love_,
Is our hero this night,
As he walks on the embers
His plumes are cloud white.
He sings of the lightning
And snow of desire,
His step parts the veil
Of the factory fire.
Oh his chubby child hands,
Oh his long curls agleam,
From out their soft tossing
Comes thunder and dream.
Our fire-laddie, Love,
At the last moment here,
To bear us away
To a road without fear,
To the dark, to the wind,
To the mist, to the dawn,
Where the lilac blooms nod
By the rain renewed lawn.
To a land of deep knowledge
Our tired feet are led,
While the stars of new morning
Still glint overhead.
Sweet Love walks between us
With silences long.
His step is the music.
The day is the song.
FOURTH SECTION
RHYMES CONCERNING THE LATE WORLD WAR AND THE NEXT WAR
IN MEMORY OF MY FRIEND JOYCE KILMER, POET AND SOLDIER
_Written Armistice Day, November eleventh, 1918_
I hear a thousand chimes,
I hear ten thousand chimes,
I hear a million chimes
In Heaven.
I see a thousand bells,
I see ten thousand bells,
I see a million bells
In Heaven.
Listen, friends and companions.
Through the deep heart,
Sweetly they toll.
I hear the chimes
Of tomorrow ring,
The azure bells
Of eternal love....
I see the chimes
Of tomorrow swing:
On unseen ropes
They gleam above.
Rejoice, friends and companions.
Through the deep heart
Sweetly they toll.
They shake the sky
They blaze and sing.
They fill the air
Like larks a-wing,
Like storm-clouds
Turned to blue-bell flowers.
Like Spring gone mad,
Like stars in showers.
Join the song,
Friends and companions.
Through the deep heart
Sweetly they toll.
And some are near,
And touch my hand,
Small whispering blooms
From Beulah Land.
Giants afar
Still touch the sky,
Still give their giant
Battle-cry.
Join hands, friends and companions.
Through the deep heart
Sweetly they toll.
And every bell
Is voice and breath
Of a spirit
Who has conquered death,
In this great war
Has given all,
Like Kilmer
Heard the hero-call.
Join hands,
Poets,
Friends,
Companions.
Through the deep heart
Sweetly they toll!
THE TIGER ON PARADE
The Sparrow and the Robin on a toot
Drunk on honey-dew and violet’s breath
Came knocking at the brazen bars of Death.
And Death, no other than a tiger caged,
In a street parade that had no ending,
Roared at them and clawed at them and raged--
Whose chirping was the height of their offending.
His paws too big--their fluttering bodies small
Escaped unscathed above the City Hall.
They learned new dances, scattering birdy laughter,
And filled again their throats with honey-dew.
A Maltese kitten killed them, two days after.
But they had had their fill. It was enough:--
Had quarreled, made up, on many a lilac swayed,
Darted through sunny thunder-clouds and rainbows,
High above that tiger on parade.
THE FEVER CALLED WAR
Love and Kindness,
Two sad shadows
Over the old nations,
Bigger than the world,
Mists above a grave!
Says Love, the shadow
To Kindness the shadow:--
“I weep for the children
No miracle will save.
All the little children
Are down with the fever,
Thousands upon thousands,
Blind and deaf and mad.
Their fathers are all dead,
And the same raging fever
Is burning up the children,
The babes that once were glad.”
STANZAS IN JUST THE RIGHT TONE FOR THE SPIRITED GENTLEMEN WHO WOULD
CONQUER MEXICO
ALEXANDER
Would I might waken in you Alexander,
Murdering the nations wickedly,
Flooding his time with blood remorselessly,
Sowing new Empires, where the Athenian light,
Knowledge and music, slay the Asian night,
And men behold Apollo in the sun.
God make us splendid, though by grievous wrong.
God make us fierce and strong.
MOHAMMED
Would that on horses swifter than desire
We rode behind Mohammed ’round the zones
With swords unceasing, sowing fields of bones,
Till New America, ancient Mizraim,
Cry: “Allah is the God of Abraham.”
God make our host relentless as the sun,
Each soul your spear, your banner and your slave,
God help us to be brave.
NAPOLEON
Would that the cold adventurous Corsican
Woke with new hope of glory, strong from sleep,
Instructed how to conquer and to keep
More justly, having dreamed awhile, yea crowned
With shining flowers, God-given; while the sound
Of singing continents, following the sun,
Calls freeborn men to guard Napoleon’s throne
Who makes the eternal hopes of man his own.
THE MODEST JAZZ-BIRD
The Jazz-bird sings a barnyard song--
A cock-a-doodle bray,
A jingle-bells, a boiler works,
A he-man’s roundelay.
The eagle said, “My noisy son,
I send you out to fight!”
So the youngster spread his sunflower wings
And roared with all his might.
His headlight eyes went flashing
From Oregon to Maine;
And the land was dark with airships
In the darting Jazz-bird’s train.
Crossing the howling ocean,
His bell-mouth shook the sky;
And the Yankees in the trenches
Gave back the hue and cry.
And Europe had not heard the like--
And Germany went down!
The fowl of steel with clashing claws
Tore off the Kaiser’s crown.
When the statue of Andrew Jackson before the White House in Washington
is removed, America is doomed. The nobler days of America’s innocence,
in which it was set up, always have a special tang for those who are
tasty. But this is not all. It is only the America that has the courage
of her complete past that can hold up her head in the world of the
artists, priests and sages. It is for us to put the iron dog and deer
back upon the lawn, the John Rogers group back into the parlor, and get
new inspiration from these and from Andrew Jackson ramping in bronze
replica in New Orleans, Nashville and Washington, and add to them a
sense of humor, till it becomes a sense of beauty that will resist the
merely dulcet and affettuoso.
Please read Lorado Taft’s _History of American Sculpture_, pages
123-127, with these matters in mind. I quote a few bits:
“... The maker of the first equestrian statue in the history of
American sculpture: Clark Mills.... Never having seen General Jackson
or an equestrian statue, he felt himself incompetent ... the incident,
however, made an impression on his mind, and he reflected sufficiently
to produce a design which was the very one subsequently executed....
Congress appropriated the old cannon captured by General Jackson....
Having no notion, nor even suspicion of a dignified sculptural
treatment of a theme, the clever carpenter felt, nevertheless, the need
of a feature.... He built a colossal horse, adroitly balanced on the
hind legs, and America gazed with bated breath. Nobody knows or cares
whether the rider looks like Jackson or not.
“The extraordinary pose of the horse absorbs all attention, all
admiration. There may be some subconscious feeling of respect for a
rider who holds on so well....”
THE STATUE OF OLD ANDREW JACKSON
_Written while America was in the midst of the war with Germany,
August, 1918_
Andrew Jackson was eight feet tall.
His arm was a hickory limb and a maul.
His sword was so long he dragged it on the ground.
Every friend was an equal. Every foe was a hound.
Andrew Jackson was a Democrat,
Defying kings in his old cocked hat.
His vast steed rocked like a hobby horse.
But he sat straight up. He held his course.
He licked the British at Noo Orleens;
Beat them out of their elegant jeans.
He piled the cotton-bales twenty feet high,
And he snorted “freedom,” and it flashed from his eye.
And the American Eagle swooped through the air,
And cheered when he heard the Jackson swear:--
“By the Eternal, let them come.
Sound Yankee Doodle. Let the bullets hum.”
And his wild men, straight from the woods, fought on
Till the British fops were dead and gone.
And now Old Andrew Jackson fights
To set the sad big world to rights.
He joins the British and the French.
He cheers up the Italian trench.
He’s making Democrats of these,
And freedom’s sons of Japanese.
His hobby horse will gallop on
Till all the infernal Huns are gone.
Yes,
Yes,
Yes!
By the Eternal!
Old Andrew Jackson!
SEW THE FLAGS TOGETHER
Great wave of youth, ere you be spent,
Sweep over every monument
Of caste, smash every high imperial wall
That stands against the new World State,
And overwhelm each ravening hate,
And heal, and make blood-brothers of us all.
Nor let your clamor cease
Till ballots conquer guns.
Drum on for the world’s peace
Till the Tory power is gone.
Envenomed lame old age
Is not our heritage,
But springtime’s vast release, and flaming dawn.
Peasants, rise in splendor
And your accounting render
Ere the lords unnerve your hand!
Sew the flags together.
Do not tear them down.
Hurl the worlds together.
Dethrone the wallowing monster
And the clown.
Resolving:--
“Only that shall grow
In Balkan furrow, Chinese row,
That blooms, and is perpetually young.”
That only be held fine and dear
That brings heart-wisdom year by year
And puts this thrilling word upon the tongue:
“The United States of Europe, Asia, and the World.”
“Youth will be served,” now let us cry.
Hurl the referendum.
Your fathers, five long years ago,
Resolved to strike, too late.
Now
Sun-crowned crowds
Innumerable,
Of boys and girls
Imperial,
With your patchwork flag of brotherhood
On high,
With every silk
In one flower-banner whirled--
Rise,
Citizens of one tremendous state,
The United States of Europe, Asia, and the World.
The dawn is rose-drest and impearled.
The guards of privilege are spent.
The blood-fed captains nod.
So Saxon, Slav, French, German,
Rise,
Yankee, Chinese, Japanese,
All the lands, all the seas,
With the blazing rainbow flag unfurled,
Rise, rise,
Take the sick dragons by surprise,
Highly establish,
In the name of God,
The United States of Europe, Asia, and the World.
Written for William Stanley Braithwaite’s Victory Anthology
issued at once, after Armistice Day, November, 1918.
JUSTINIAN
(_The Tory Reply_)