Scale the highest crags glad-hearted, fearful only lest the bliss
Of an earth-remembering instant should delay the great sun’s kiss—
Consuming us within the flame?
DOROTHEA LAWRENCE MANN
TO IMAGINATION
SUGGESTED BY MAXFIELD PARRISH’S “AIR CASTLES”
O beauteous boy a-dream, what visions sought
Of pictures magical thy eyes unfold,
What triumphs of celestial wonders wrought,
What marvels from a breath of beauty rolled!
Skyward and seaward on the clouds are scrolled,
A mystic imagery of castled thought,
A thousand worlds to lose,—or win and mould—
A radiant iridescence swiftly caught
Of ever-changing glory, fancy-fraught.
Blue wonder of the sea and luminous sky,
A thousand wonders in thy dreamlit face,—
Eyes that behold afar the turrets high
Of Ilium, and the transient mortal grace
Of Deirdre’s sadness, all the conquering race
Of Athens,—eyes that saw Eden’s beauty lie
In passionate adoration—visions trace
Across the tender brooding of the sigh
That wrecked a city and made chieftains die.
Forward not backward turns the mystic shine
Of those far-seeing orbs that track the gleam—
The fleecy marvel of the cloud is line
On line the wizard tracery of a dream.
O lad, who buildest not of things that seem,
Beyond what bounds of visioning divine
Came that far smile, from what long-strayed sun-beam
Caught thou the radiance, from what fostering vine
The power to build and mould the deep design?
Knowest thou the secret that thy brush would tell,
Is all the dream a bubbled splendor white,
Beyond those castles cloud-bound, does there dwell
The eternal silence of the dark—or light?
Will thy hand hold the pen which shall indict
The symboled mystery-write the final knell
Of rainbow fancy-is the distant sight
A nothingless encircled by a spell
Of gleaming bubbles wrought of beauty’s shell?
In vain to question, where the mystery
Of Youth’s short golden dream is lord and king.
The eyes that farthest gaze in ecstasy,
Were never meant to paint the immortal thing
They see, nor understand the joy they bring.
The misty baubles of the sky and sea
Sail on. Dream still, bright-visioned boy, and fling
The glittering mantle of thy thoughts that flee,
Weaving us evermore thy shining pageantry.
DORTHEA LAWRENCE MANN
DRAGON
Some saw a dragon eating up the light,
Oho! Oho! Oho, ho, ho!
Some heard a lost bird riding out the night,
Oho! Oho! Oho, ho, ho!
But I saw:
A low dark hill with its twisted back
Two wings of flame from the green cloud rack,
A sprawling flank overlaid with leaf
Glitter and gleam and shine like steel,
Crackle and lash like a serpent’s tail!
And I heard:
The wind draw out of the west and wail,
Dance and stagger and jig and reel!
With the long low sound of a life in grief!
I saw a life in grief
Oho! Oho! Oho, ho, ho
Dance and stagger and jig and reel!
Oho! Oho! Oho, ho, ho!
JEANNETTE MARKS
“THE BOOKMAN.”
GREEN GOLDEN DOOR
Green golden door, swing in, swing in!
Fanning the life a man must live,
Echoes and airs and minstrelsies,
Love and hope that he called his,
Fear and hurt and a man’s own sin
Casting them forth and sucking them in,
Green golden door, swing out, swing out!
Green golden door, swing in, swing in!
Show me the youth that will not die,
Tell me the dream that has not waked,
Seek me the heart that never ached,
Green golden door, swing out, swing out!
Green golden door, swing in, swing out!
Long is the wailing of man’s breath,
Short is the wail of death.
JEANNETTE MARKS
SLEEPY HOLLOW, CONCORD
Four graves there are upon the wooded crest,
Each one a shrine to pilgrims ever dear.
Uncovered, mute, are those who tarry here.
Romance’s dreaming master lies at rest
Beneath the cedars. Near is one whose breast
Held Mother Nature’s lore. Beyond, the seer
And sage. There, one who saw her duty clear,
Her name by little men and women blessed.
Four friends who walked in Concord’s pleasant ways
Long years ago. They dwelt and worked apart,
But now the world has crowned them with its bays,
And holds them close forever to its heart.
O, sacred hill! There Genius, guarding stays,
And from its slopes shall never Love depart!
JOHN CLAIR MINOT
THE SWORD OF ARTHUR
A castle stands in Yorkshire
(Oh, the hill is fair and green!)
And far beneath it lies a cave
No living man has seen.
It is the cave enchanted
(Oh, seek it ere ye die!)
And there King Arthur and his knights
In dreamless slumber lie.
One time a peasant found it
(Oh, the years have hurried well!)
It was the day of fate for him,
And this is what befell:
Upon a couch of crystal
(Oh, heart be pure and strong!)
He saw the King, and, close beside,
The armored knights athrong.
And all of them were sleeping
(Praise God, who sendeth rest!)
The sleep that comes when strife is done
And ended every quest.
Beside the good King Arthur
(How high is your desire?)
His sword within its scabbard lay,
The sword with blade of fire.
Now had the peasant known it
(Oh, if we all could know!)
He should have drawn that wondrous blade
Before he turned to go.
If but his hand had touched it
(The sword still lieth there!)
He would have felt in every vein
A lofty purpose thrill.
If but his hand had drawn it
(The sword still lieth there!)
A kingly way he would have walked,
Wherever he might fare.
But no; he fled affrighted
(Oh, pitiful the cost!)
And then he knew; but lo! the way
Into the cave was lost.
He searched forever after
(All this was long ago!)
But nevermore that crystal cave
His eager eyes could know.
Pray God ye have the vision
(Oh, search in every land!)
To seize the sword that Arthur bore
When it lies at your hand.
JOHN CLAIR MINOT
THE DIVINE FOREST
If there be leaves on the forest floor,
Dead leaves there are and nothing more,
If trunks of trees seem sentinels,
For what their vigil no man tells.
And if you clasp these guardian trees
Nothing there is to hurt or please;
Only the dead roof of the forest drops
Gently down and never stops
And roofs you in and roofs you under,
Mute and away from life’s dim thunder;
And if there come eternal spring
It is but more disheartening,
For Autumn takes the Spring and Summer—
Autumn that is the latest comer—
With the Springtime’s misty wonder
And the Summer’s yield of gold,
Weighs you down and weighs you under
To where the blackened leaves are mold. . .
The lone gift of the forest is ever new:
Eternity where dwell not you.
The forest, accepting, heeds you not;
Accepting all-you are forgot.
If there be leaves on the forest floor,
Dead leaves there are and nothing more.
Once the forest spoke but now is silent,
Save in the skyward branches whence no sound
Seems to touch ear of any man below—
Or else no longer the man knows how to hear.
Such men build roofs to keep the forest out,
Yet all their roofs are built of the forest’s self;
Only they make the dead tree a shield against the living.
Such lapsing of the forest then they use
And turn it into countless lowly dwellings;
Sometimes they even cut the living down
To leaven the dead roofs they would erect.
Though some of these low roofs are lovely there
Beneath the guardianship of forest trees,
And some yearn upward as with thought of wings,
Yet the eyes of the dwellers therein are dark
To the upper forest and they
Fearful of the windy freedom of its top.
They have forgotten
That the greatest roof is but a banner
And that it was a tree that made a Cross.
CHARLES R. MURPHY
MAGIC
TO W.S.B.
I ran into the sunset light
As hard as I could run:
The treetops bowed in sheer delight
As if they loved the sun:
And all the songs of little birds
Who laughed and cried in silver words
Were joined as they were one.
And down the streaming golden sky
A lark came circling with a cry
Of wonder-weaving joy:
And all the arch of heaven rang
Where meadowlands of dreaming hang
As when I was a boy.
And through the ringing solitude
In pulsing lovely amplitude
A mist hung in a shroud,
As though the light of loneliness
Turned pure delight to holiness,
And bathed it in a cloud.
I stripped my laughing body bare
And plunged into that holy air
That washed me like a sea,
And raced against its silver tide
That stroked my eager glancing side
And made my spirit free.
Across the limits of the land
The wind and I swept hand and hand
Beyond the golden glow.
We danced across the ocean plain
Like thrushes singing in the rain
A song of long ago.
And on into the silver night
We strove to win the race with light
And bring the vision home,
And bring the wonder home again
Unto the sleeping eyes of men
Across the singing foam.
And down the river of the world
Our glowing, limbs in glory swirled
As spring within a flower,
And stars in music of delight
Streamed gayly down our shoulders white
Like petals in a shower.
And tears of awful wonder ran
Adown my cheeks to hear the clan
Of beauty chaunting white
The prayer too deep for living word,
Or sight of man or winging bird,
Or music over forest heard
At falling of the night.
And dropping slowly as the dew
On grasses that the winds renew
In urge of flooding fire,
And softly as the hushing boughs
The gentle airs of dawn arouse
To cradle morning’s quire.
The murmur of the singing leaves
Around the secret Flame,
Like mating swallows ’neath the eaves
In rustling silence came,
And flowing through the silent air
Creation fluttered in a prayer
Descending on a spiral stair,
And calling me by name.
It nestled in my dreaming eyes
Like heaven in a lake,
And softened hope into surprise
For very beauty’s sake,
And silence blossomed into morn,
Whose fragrant rosy-breasted dawn
Could scarcely bear to break.
I sang into the morning light
As loud as I could sing,
The treetops bowed in sheer delight
Before the slanting wing.
And all the songs of little birds
Who laughed and cried in silver words
Adored the Risen Spring.
EDWARD J. O’BRIEN
MICHAEL PAT
TO ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH
Old Michael Pat he said to me
He saw an angel in a tree.
He knew I’d never, never doubt him,
For what would heaven be without them.
The angel laughed for very glee
And sang out loud: “Heigh! come with me!”
Old Michael felt a creeping kind
Of wonder in his humble mind,
And, hardly knowing what to say,
Ran where the angel showed the way.
The lambs were running on the hills,
Glad laughter echoed from the rills,
And many hidden little birds
Talked pleasant things in singing words.
He followed up a mountain then
And saw a crowd of singing men
Approaching to a Crown of Light
Wherein they took a fresh delight.
He danced and sang and whooped and crew
To see the Lord of all he knew
Surrounded by the living songs
Of stars and men in countless throngs,
And then he died to life again,
And shovelled with the strength of ten.
He taught me how to say my letters,
And take my hat off to my betters,
And when I asked for fairy stories,
He told me of angelic glories.
He was a lovely farmer, he
Had seen an angel in a tree.
EDWARD J. O’BRIEN
SONG
FROM “FLESH: A GEOGORIAN ODE”
Ebb on with me across the sunset tide
And float beyond the waters of the world,
The light of evening slipping from my side,
Thy softened voice in waves of silence furled.
Flow on into the flaming morning wine,
Drowning the land in color. Then on high
Rise in thy candid innocence and shine
Like to a poplar straight against the sky.
EDWARD J. O’BRIEN
IN MEMORIAM: FRANCIS LEDWIDGE
(Killed in action, July 31, 1917)
Soldier and singer of Erin,
What may I fashion for thee?
What garland of words or of flowers?
Singer of sunlight and showers,
The wind on the lea;
Of clouds, and the houses of Erin,
Wee cabins, white on the plain,
And bright with the colours of even,
Beauty of earth and of heaven
Outspread beyond Slane!
Slane, where the Easter of Patrick
Flamed on the night of the Gael,
Guard both the honor and story
Of him who has died for the glory
That crowns Innisfail.
Soldier of right and of freedom,
I offer thee song and not tears.
With Brian, and Red Hugh O’Donnell,
The chiefs of Tyrone and Tryconnell,
Live on through the years!
NORREYS JEPHSON O’CONOR
EVENSONG
A shepherd piping, herald of the Night
Who comes with Silence up the coloured vale,
Treading low gently, clad in greyish white,
Poignantly piping, sound your reedy wail!
For Day departed moves in funeral train
Tended by Twilight and, in deepest rose,
The splendid Sunset melts beneath the main
While sweet the Sea-wind with cool softness blows.
As when a mother gathers to her breast
The child who frets for Dad’s remembered smart,
Now Light fades quickly in the ashen west,
And Night-Peace falls across my troubled heart.
Flutes, for the night through let my mind be still,
And God keep safe with Him my stubborn will!
NORREYS JEPHSON O’CONOR
THE PROPHET
All day long he kept the sheep:—
Far and early, from the crowd,
On the hills from steep to steep,
Where the silence cried aloud;
And the shadow of the cloud
Wrapt him in a noonday sleep.
Where he dipped the water’s cool,
Filling boyish hands from thence,
Something breathed across the pool
Stir of sweet enlightenments;
And he drank, with thirsty sense,
Till his heart was brimmed and full.
Still, the hovering Voice unshed,
And the Vision unbeheld,
And the mute sky overhead,
And his longing, still withheld!
—Even when the two tears welled,
Salt, upon that lonely bread.
Vaguely blessed in the leaves,
Dim-companioned in the sun,
Eager mornings, wistful eyes,
Very hunger drew him on;
And To-morrow ever shone
With the glow the sunset weaves.
Even so, to that young heart,
Words and hands and Men were dear;
And the stir of lane and mart
After daylong vigil here.
Sunset called, and he drew near,
Still to find his path apart.
When the Bell, with gentle tongue,
Called the herd-bells home again,
Through the purple shades he swung,
Down the mountain, through the glen;
Towards the sound of fellow-men,—
Even from the light that clung.
Dimly too, as cloud on cloud,
Came that silent flock of his:
Thronging whiteness, in a crowd,
After homing twos and threes;
With the longing memories
Of all white things dreamed and vowed.
Through the fragrances, alone,
By the sudden-silent brook,
From the open world unknown,
To the close of speech and book;
There to find the foreign look
In the faces of his own.
Sharing was beyond his skill;
Shyly yet, he made essay:
Sought to dip, and share, and fill
Heart’s-desire, from day to day.
But their eyes, some foreign way,
Looked at him; and he was still.
Last, he reached his arms to sleep,
Where the Vision waited, dim,
Still beyond some deep-on-deep.
And the darkness folded him,
Eager heart and weary limb.—
All day long, he kept the sheep.
JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY
HARVEST-MOON: 1914
Over the twilight field,
The overflowing field,—
Over the glimmering field,
And bleeding furrows with their sodden yield
Of sheaves that still did writhe,
After the scythe;
The teeming field and darkly overstrewn
With all the garnered fulness of that noon—
Two looked upon each other.
One was a Woman men called their mother;
And one, the Harvest-Moon.
And one, the Harvest-Moon,
Who stood, who gazed
On those unquiet gleanings where they bled;
Till the lone Woman said:
“But we were crazed…
We should laugh now together, I and you,
We two.
You, for your dreaming it was worth
A star’s while to look on and light the Earth;
And I, forever telling to my mind,
Glory it was, and gladness, to give birth
To humankind!
Yes, I, that ever thought it not amiss
To give the breath to men,
For men to slay again:
Lording it over anguish but to give
My life that men might live
For this.
You will be laughing now, remembering
I called you once Dead World, and barren thing,
Yes, so we named you then,
You, far more wise
Than to give life to men.”
Over the field, that there
Gave back the skies
A shattered upward stare
From blank white eyes,—
Striving awhile, through many a bleeding dune
Of throbbing clay, but dumb and quiet soon,
She looked; and went her way—
The Harvest-Moon.
JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEAODY
HORSEMAN SPRINGING FROM THE DARK: A DREAM
“Horseman, springing from the dark,
Horseman, flying wild and free,
Tell me what shall be thy road
Whither speedest far from me?”
“From the dark into the light,
From the small unto the great,
From the valleys dark I ride
O’er the hills to conquer fate!”
“Take me with thee, horseman mine!
Let me madly rode with thee!”
As he turned I met his eyes,
My own soul looked back at me!
LILLA CABOT PERRY
THREE QUATRAINS
THE CUP
She said, “Lift high the cup!”
Of her arm’s weariness she gave no sign,
But, smiling, raised it up
That none might see or guess it held no wine.
FORGIVE ME NOT!
Forgive me not! Hate me and I shall know
Some of Love’s fire still burns within your breast!
Forgiveness finds its home in hearts at rest,
On dead volcanoes only lies the snow.
THE ROSE
One deep red rose I dropped into his grave,
So small a thing to give so great a friend!
Yet well he knew it was my heart I gave
And must fare on without it to the end,
LILLA CABOT PERRY
A VALENTINE, UNSENT
Stay, flaming rose, ’twould grieve her heart
To see you fade away,
Unloved, unwelcome and apart
From every joy to-day.
Once long ago your tale was new,
Days distant yet so dear;
Why say her lover still is true,
When that is all her fear?
Why thus recall another’s pain,
Her tender heart to fret?
Best let her think he loves again,
Who never can forget!
MARGARET PERRY
SHIPBUILDERS
The German people reared them
An idol made of wood;
And Hindenburg before them
Lifelike and stupid stood.
To clothe him all in iron
And thus his soul express,
With nails and spikes they covered
His wooden nakedness.
And when they, thus had clothed him
All in a suit of mail,
Still came they, wild-eyed, looking
For space to drive a nail.
Whenever Teuton airmen
Slay boys and girls at play,
Or U-boats, drowning babies,
Create a holiday.
Then, gathering round their statue,
A happy German throng
Drive nails into the idol
To make him still more strong.
Avenge the babes, shipbuilders,
That on the seas have died;
Avenge the little children
Murdered for Wilhelm’s pride.
Come, gather at the shipyards,
And let your hammers ring,
For more than ships and cargoes
Waits on your fashioning.
Come, gather at the shipyards;
With every bolt you drive
Bethink you ’tis the Kaiser
Whose brutish head you rive.
Come, gather at the shipyards,
And swing with might and main;
’Tis Tirpitz and the Crown Prince
That you to-day have slain.
Come, gather at the shipyards,
And heat the metal hot,
For it is Bethmann Hollweg
You’re boiling in the pot.
Come, gather at the shipyards,—
And when the day is done,
You’ve spent it in driving spikes,
In Hindernburg the Hun.
Come, gather at the shipyards,
And toil with healthy hate,
For only you can save the world,
The Hun is at the gate.
ARTHUR STANWOOD PIER
UNFADING PICTURES
(“The air from the sea came blowing in again, mixed with the perfume of
the flowers…. The old-fashioned furniture brightly rubbed and polished,
my aunt’s inviolable chair and table by the round green fan in the
bow-window, the drugget-covered carpet, the cat, the kettle-holder, the
two canaries, the old china … and, wonderfully out of keeping with the
rest, my dusty self upon the sofa, taking note of everything.”
—“David Copperfield,” Chapter XIII.)
How many are the scenes he limned,
With artist strokes, clear-cut and free—
Our Dickens; time shall not efface
Their charm, and they will ever grace
The halls of memory.
Oft and again we turn to them,
To contemplate in pleased review;
And like some picture on the screen
Comes now to mind a favorite scene
His master-pencil drew:—
Upon a sofa, stretched in sleep,
I see a small lad, spent and worn,
And by the window, stern and grim,
A silent figure watching him,
So dusty, ragged, torn.
Ah, now she rises from behind
The round green fan beside her chair;
“Poor fellow!” croons-and pity lends
Her voice new softness-and she bends
And brushes back his hair.
Then in his sleep he softly stirs.
Was that a dream, these murmured words?
He wakes! There by the casement sat
Miss Trotwood still; close by, her cat
And her canary birds.
The peaceful calm of that quaint room,
Its marks of comfort everywhere—
Old china and mahogany
And blowing in, fresh from the sea,
The perfume-laden air.
Poor little pilgrim so bereft,
So weary at his journey’s end!
What joy must then have filled his soul
To reach at last such happy goal—
To find—oh, such a friend!…
And then night came, and from his bed
He saw the sea, moonlit and bright,
And dreamed there came, to bless her son,
His mother, with her little one,
Adown that path of light.
Ah, greater blessing I’d not crave,
When my life’s pilgrimage is o’er,
Than such repose, content, and love;
Some shining path that leads above
To dear ones gone before!
LOUELLA C. POOLE
WITH WAVES AND WINGS
Waves and Wings and Growing Things!
As through the gladden sight ye flow
And flit and glow,
Ye win me so
In soul to go,
I too am waves, I too am wings,
And kindred motion in me springs.
With thee I pass, glad growing grass!—
I climb the air with lissome mien;
Unsheathing keen
The vivid sheen
Of springing green,
I thrill the crude, exalt the crass
Fine-flex’d and fluent from Earth’s mass.
And impulse craves with thee, Sea Waves!—
To make all mutable the floor
Of Earth’s firm shore,
With flashing pour
Whose brimming o’er
Impassion’d motion loves and laves
And livens sombre slumbering caves.
Then soaring where the wild birds fare,
My song would sweep the windy lyre
Of Heaven’s choir,
Pulsing desire
For starry fire,
Abashing chilling vagues of air
With throbbing of warm breasts that dare!
CHARLOTTE PORTER
BLUEBERRIES
Upon the hills of Garlingtown
Beneath the summer sky,
In many pleasant pastures
On sunny slopes and high,
Their skins abloom with dusty blue,
Asleep, the berries lie.
And all the lads of Garlingtown,
And all the lasses too,
Still climb the tranquil hillsides,
A merry, barefoot crew;
Still homeward plod with unfilled pails
And mouths of berry blue.
And all the birds of Garlingtown,
When flocking back to nest,
Remember well the patches
Where berries are the best;
They pick the ripest ones at dawn
And leave the lads the rest.
Upon the hills of Garlingtown
When berry-time was o’er,
I looked into the sunset,
And saw an open door,
And from the hills of Garlingtown
I went, and came no more.
FRANK PRENTICE RAND
NOCTURNE
Night of infinite power and infinite silence and space,
From you may mortals infer, if ever, the scope divine!
The jealous sun conceals all but his arrogant face,
You bid the Milky Way and a million suns to shine.
Each star to numberless planets gives light and motion and heat,
But you enmantle them all, the nearest and most remote;
And the lustres of all the suns are but spangles under your feet,—
Mere bubbles and beads of noon, they circle and shine and float.
WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER
ENVOI
I walked with poets in my youth,
Because the world they drew
Was beautiful and glorious
Beyond the world I knew.
The poets are my comrades still,
But dearer than in youth,
For now I know that they alone
Picture the world of truth.
WILLIAM ROSCOE THAYER
THERE WHERE THE SEA
There where the sea enwrapt
A strip of land and wind-swept dune,
Where nature was quiescent in the glimmering
Noonday sun of early June,—
The Placid sea lay shimmering
In a mist of blue,
From which the sky now drew
Its wealth of hue and colour;
One heard but the deep breathing of the ocean,
As it breathed along the shore in even motion.
Among the pines and listless of the scene,
Atthis and Alcæus lay,
Within the heart of each a hunger
For the unknown gift of life.
Here from day to day
They met and dreamed away
The soft unfloding days of spring,—
Now turning to the summer.
_Alcæus:_
I am faint with all the fire
In my blood,
And I would plunge into the quiet blue
And lose all sense of time and you.
_Atthis:_
I, too, would plunge
And swim with you!