What seeds are you sowing for the New Time?
“_Pollen of souls that died
In a young smiling pride,
Scattered of chivalry and world-dream sublime._”
West Wind filling all the green trees,
What hope did they leave for us on our knees?
“_Their happy, high Belief
To you they now bequeath--
Their vast, unconquered Sky bannered with breeze._”
Bright Wind surging from the clean West,
What were they urging on their gay young quest?
“_High Urge and keen,
That Life shall mean
Bold truths, faced with a bold broad breast._”
West Wind blowing from their dim coasts,
Do they see weakness of all human boasts?
“_Yes, but they know
That men still go
Forward and Forward in strong steady hosts._”
West Wind, West Wind, what will they do
If we should fail them--should prove us untrue?
_Fail them? That cannot be._
_For all Eternity_
_Faith in World-Liberty_
_Joins them to You!_
OTHER POEMS
THE HAPPY PEOPLE
“_And as I sat, over the pale blue hills came a noise
of revellers._"--ENDYMION.
Down the spring slope sweep the Happy People
In a stream;
Pressing naked feet in rosy clover,
Flitting through the glades where songbirds hover,
Following brooks that run the meadows over;
(In my dream.)
Down the green lawns throng the Happy People,
Joy supreme
In their poised hands garlanded with flowers,
Joy of soft limbs fresh from sun and showers,
Joy of sweet lips tasting dewy hours;
(In my dream.)
Toward the mountains fare the Happy People,
And they seem
Waving me a promise bright and splendid,
Calling me to take the way they wended.
(But that way began--so has it ended
In my dream.)
FROM TREE CLOISTER
Out of the city I came,
Heart aflame,
Thoughts oblique, confused, amazed;
My yester dreamings hurt and dazed
With the stifling buildings sweeping high
And the towers choking the dingy sky.
But I left it all to cross the dune,
Hand in hand with the crescent moon.
Out of the city I came,
Dreams of Fame
Dogged me up to my cottage walls,
Human passions and powers and thralls
Challenged the way I took
By the frozen meadow brook;
But the hill-top pasture bars
Chapelled the winter stars,
And their votive candles burned
At the gate wherein I turned.
Out of the city I came.
Father of endless name,
Who burn there burn on thy sacred pyre--
Burn with the flame of the heart’s desire
Toward flame of worthier things,
Toward lifting of broader wings;
And their purple gift and their scarlet boon
I hang on my altars of winter noon.
I speak to the brook in its icy shrine,
Confess to the tall dark palmer pine,
And soft on the country air,
I breathe the cities’ prayer.
FROM A WINDOW
The ever-greens that line the road
Bow snowy heads upon the sight;
The netted horses draw the load
As it were light.
The living grief I would not see,
The hands in helpless quiet wrung;
But the white trappings say that she
Was fair and young.
The coaches blot the wintry scene
Passing where snow-blue shadows lurk....
Youth, Life, Love, Death--what do they mean?
Back to my work!
BIRTHRIGHT
How have I lost them, the old powers of dream?
I used to float through life, as on expanse
Quivering with light, slow-moving in a trance
That bore me like a petal on its stream.
Now, mouth and eyes are filled with dust of life.
I, once a Seer, with my crystal globe,
Know now no sphere, no irridescent robe;
But bear me like a thief, with hand on knife.
How have I lost them, the old powers of dream?
I, who was so content with simple things--
With one bright Autumn leaf, wood murmurings,
The near-spun grass, or one star’s far off gleam?
Now, I bear burdens with an ashen face.
I count my gains, I clamor at my loss;
I too have joined the tawdry pitch and toss,
Who once walked trancéd, with illusioned pace.
Since they are dead to me, dear dreaming powers--
Dead, with their grail and magic, visions, wings--
I shall distil the attar sorrow brings,
And lave them in the sweet of their own hours.
I shall their delicate bright figures lay
Embalmed in gold, in so profound a rock,
That no sharp-featured pain shall find a way
To touch, and no smug knowledge come to mock.
TO A LONELY STAR
Once more we keep our tryst--I on the beach,
Brooding in milky tides of Autumn moon,
Watching the gold black water softly reach
And fill the hollows of grass silvered dune;
Till, far beyond the rim of a lagoon
I see Thee in thy calm ascension tread
A darkened way to thy cloud-cloistered rest;
Hanging thy maiden lantern in the West,
Where planet torches lie extinguishéd.
The world will never miss me when I go.
These gossip ripples in the sedges there
Will still be whispering of that Thing they know;
The moon’s new milk will bathe the young and fair,
Nourishing Youth and Passion with such care.
But Thou, O Abbess Star! keep trimmed thy light,
Taking thy warder-way across the moor.
Yea, many a woman by her cottage door
Will need thy comfort all the lonely night.
THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH
There comes the time when he who gathers grapes
Must find his vineyard in the city street,
Must press what wine he may from lobate shapes
And globules clustered at his head and feet.
The press he treads will be the city night--
Bubble and bloom and burst of heady wine;
No fairer fresher grapes will meet his sight
Than pallid fruit of the electric vine!
There comes the time when he who longs for song
Must turn to monsters dreaming in the dark,
That Science-incubated aeons long;
Will give to music new heresiarch!
But Harmonies of pride and lust and doubt
Will greet the ear, that for some human hymn
Longs bitterly, hearing the brassy shout
Of engine songs, massive, superb and grim.
In those stark days new Lancelots shall pass
Accoutered black, with the bi-colored plume.
New Siegfrieds, armored in their steel and brass,
Shall flash subseas in tunnelled ocean gloom.
Woman and Science, gaunt with bold new brow,
Shall say what shall be born, what thing shall cry
Pioneer on its lurching, airdashed prow,
Air-immigrant to harbors of the sky.
There comes the day when on the sea of stars
Unspoken ships shall lay unsounded course,
And looming shapes, outside uncharted bars,
Shall dumbly signal with some speechless force.
New worlds shall stare on other worlds that be,
Sailing close by them on that starry sea,
And know that all the Main that round them rolls
Swells to new moons, new seas, new tides, new poles.
There comes the time, O patient Human heart,
O Brave Pathetic--time when thou must see
The old, the dear, the simple things depart,
Who canst not love the strange new things to be.
Yet by this New, shall not thy vision grow
To some estate, some altitude of range,
Where it is given thee that thou shalt know
What Changeless ’tis, that underlies all change?
THE TRAMP
The ragged sun, the wind-filled sky,
The wet track and the empty car;
The night-hung woods, and, raised on high,
The lighted candle of a star.
So reads his heraldry, who prowls
On listless following of chance;
Who, sullenly appraising, scowls
On the rich dwelling’s circumstance.
The cloud of smoke upon the hill,
The rag left on the highway’s beat,
The light o’er a deserted sill--
These mark the passing of his feet.
No strenuous call of noontime bells
Vibrates through ether of his dreams;
For him no clock the hour tells;
For him no church’s spire gleams.
Though from his thoughts undisciplined
To warehouse and to street averse,
He, in exchanges of his mind,
Diverts him with a lavish purse--
Diverts him with his social schemes,
His plan against the existing plot;
And what he, of his justice, deems
Would--justice practised--be his lot.
Of whence he comes, of where he goes--
These things no human record keeps.
What black unwritten deed he does,
What pure fair hope within him sleeps.
What strange mysterious power he wields,
What undeveloped force to sway,
None guess who see him cross the fields,
Or plodding on his stealthy way.
Only dead fires attest his life,
Only dumb trees his brothers stand;
He knows not home nor child, nor wife,
Nor friendly grasp of any hand,
Yet lays his scheme for daily food,
Yet keeps him keen for filching pence
For this ... o’er pipe and fire to brood--
Spending imagined affluence!
IN THE STRANGE COUNTRY
I speak your language very glibly now,
Have all the countersigns and know the range
Of all your boundaries; the streets I know....
And yet, your land is strange.
You ask me whence I came? I cannot tell.
My Race? Ah! God forbid that you should see
Others like me,--in this land where you dwell--
Not such as we.
“Do you have news?” you ask. My heart contracts.
Do I have news?... Yea, messages do come,
As if I had made wistful, faithful pacts
With those ... back home....
This butterfly brought one, that errant vine
Conveys a Word; the Sea, it would seem, knows....
Sweet tidings that I cannot quite divine
The flowers disclose.
But since you ask me idly, let me say,
I know not whence I am, nor why I come;
Yet I sit with you in your inn today
Devising speech--though dumb.
RAIN PICTURES
_First Picture_
MONOCHORD
The soft rain falls; the willow trees
Throw silver tangle on the breeze,
While Robin tunes his pipe and blows
His joyance down the orchard-close.
Amid the spraying crystal notes
One irridescent bubble floats--
Bubble of music, that careens
Adown the pasture’s mottled greens.
How tell the rapture that he sings
To beatings of his happy wings?
Why praise the story that he tells,
The message that his bosom swells ...?
Ah! he is Robin, and he goes,
Singing the only song he knows.
The sweet saps rise; the maple trees
Drink deep and scatter crimson lees.
I wander up and down the stream,
Singing the music of my dream;
Its cadence vague, its plaintive strain
Attunes it to the Harp of Rain;
The muted branches softly play
An obligato to my lay;
The drooping willows pluck the stream
With pensive touch that marks the theme,
And all the trilling water-tune
Accompanies my simple rune.
No heart have I to wake the green
With joyous lilting loud and keen.
I tune no pipe for jaunty snatch
Like Robin’s loud ecstatic catch.
I sing the song of wistful things,
Dumb longings, blind imaginings....
And yet, why blame me that I stray,
Crooning so poor a rondelay?
Ah! I am Human, and I go
Singing the only song I know.
_Second Picture_
OMEN
My tree-calf books; my seven branched candle-stick;
The pine-knot’s bursting heart, flame-plethoric;
My jug from old Fiesole; the rain,
And the witch-vine that darkly taps the pane.
The witch-vine signals, and the rainy night
Enters my heart; puts out its wan rush light,
Like a chill blast of fore-writ doom and tears,
Extinguishing the meaning of my years.
Then come the spectral tapping on the pane,
Counting the unmarked graves of things as vain
As that bright-bound, dumb company of books
And worthless treasure of my chamber nooks.
Let be, O witch-vine fingers! I have grown
So kindly used to living all alone.
Let be, O furtive night! And I would fain
Be unremarked of thee, O brooding rain!
Be unreminded, when the tendril taps
Keep count of years--of the remorseless lapse
Of time ... for I must tend my fire yet,
And hear the storm, and see the window wet,
Thinking of some strange hour of frozen peace,
When the reproach of wind and rain shall cease
Thinking what Guest sits by ... when fires wane,
And the witch-vine lies withered on the pane.
_Third Picture_
FANTASY
Down the black mountain
The fairies come, I ween;
Tarrying hither,
Hurrying thither,
Grey-bright,
Phantom flight,
Winging by the glass.
Lo! spreads a green,
Leaf-lattice screen.
In the stark valley
The fairies riches feign;
They fling, they sprinkle
Tiny gems a-twinkle;
Water gems,
Flower gems
Sparkle in the grass.
Lo! in the lane,
Blood-root again.
On the dull houses
The fairies come to dance;
They masque, they chatter,
Elfin goblets shatter,
“Health to Spring,”
So they sing,
Laughing in the eaves.
Lo! like a lance,
See sunlight glance!
From a poor spirit
The fairies take the fears;
They soothe, they flatter,
They sing, “What matter?”
“Oh! Life is good to try!”
Lo! through my tears,
All the sky clears.
WAR POEMS
“WE MUST MAKE THE WORLD SAFE FOR
DEMOCRACY.” 1917.
Out on the prairies;
Where rivers flow;
On crests of mountains
The stern words glow.
“War,” say the rocks.
The rails ring, “War.”
From smoking chimneys
The solemn clouds pour.
War in the khaki,
War in the lace;
On youthful forehead
And stern old face.
“War!” smiles the lips,
Though the heart sobs “War.”
A Nation’s eyes flash
Like keen scimitar.
On all the houses
The flags are like fires.
East, West, arouses,
West, East inspires.
Light fills the banners
Light tips the poles,
The thrilled Stars and Stripes
Slowly unrolls.
Doom of the nations,
Doom of the brave.
Now it breaks o’er us,
War’s bitter wave;
But we shall hold us
Face toward the light....
We have enrolled us
Now for the fight!
THE MEANING
Peace is not small white flowers
Shining on a lawn.
Peace is not youths and maidens wedded in their beauty.
Peace is not silver sandals of a stainless dawn.
Peace is the calm acceptance of heroic duty.
War is not bloody standards hung with crape.
War is not murdered men and women’s sorrow.
War, for our hearts and hands, is but a Shape,
That once destroyed, leaves ghost-less the tomorrow.
THE MARCHING FAITH
I have seen the men go marching,
Marching away from life;
Away from love and children
Into a bitter strife.
I have seen the men go marching
With strange high courage shod--
The old, old way of Crusaders
Men who believe in God.
Brown eyes, blue eyes, grey eyes,
Swing of the Highland kilt,
Shoulders of English lordling,
Slight form Eastern built,
Chin of a New York lawyer,
Head of a happy Greek.
I have seen the men go marching,
And I know the thing they seek.
I have seen the men go marching,
And I have no word to say;
They have read their hearts more truly
Than I in my wistful way.
They sprang to an instinct Action,
Though they scorned the path they trod.
Gold help us! we must follow--
Men who go forth for God.
Brown eyes, blue eyes, grey eyes,
Eyes that have laughed with love,
Eyes that have glowed with music,
Indian eyes that rove,
Jaw of a tall Italian,
Teeth of the French Touraine,
Faces full of the tide of life,
That will not come back again.
I have seen the men go marching,
And I know what I must do:--
Never to play them weak or false
Though the news be false or true;
Whatever the Great Endeavor
For body or brain or pen,
I must be true forever
To the faith of the Marching Men!
HOME COMING
[A]"They will fight until the stolen and lost and scattered
children return home.”
T’will be a great day for the Children,
The lost and scattered Children,
When they come home!
I can see now the little faces smiling,
Hear broken words, see baby hands beguiling,
And watch the dear processions straggled filing,
When the Children come.
In all the crushed, insulted, stricken households,
In all the bare and desecrated households
There will be joy.
Mothers will rouse them from their haunted sorrow,
Because their love has given the Tomorrow
A pledge, on which posterity may borrow
From girl and boy.
Mothers will rouse them from their stricken anguish,
Daring to face the future in their anguish,
Because the Children say,
“We have no part in all the hopeless killing;
We are your sacrament, your holy willing;
We are your cups for the glad, new wine-filling
Of a new Day.”
T’will be a great day for the Future,
The dim and broken Future,
When the Children come!
They will bring back some clean, unlooted treasure;
New hope in life, of love a higher measure;
Unselfish aim, and purer, keener, pleasure
When they come home.
I see them dazed, the little bare feet stumbling;
I see them hasten, stunned, confused, and stumbling--
Yet unafraid.
For one great People comes to bring them gladness;
To take away the pitiful child-sadness;
To heal the infant pain and baby madness--
Another People made.
On one side wait the agonizing mothers,
The tearless, outraged, consecrated mothers,
To see them come;
The other side is lined with silent fathers,
Dead, mutilated, tortured, murdered fathers,
Sacred, elect, regenerated fathers,
Who died for Home.
And with them march the gay and ready Strangers,
The sunny, stern Americans, the Strangers,
Who bid them come.
Yea, though my eyes be blind with bitter crying,
Yet do I count worth while the fearful dying;
When dead men on a hundred red fields lying
Send the children--Home!
[A] Editorial Leader of New York Times, July 21st, 1917.
FOR OUR MEN
Let us keep home safe for them--
Fires, laughter and song,
The curtains close, the beds all smooth and white,
The leisure long.
Let us make good things for them--
Sweet meats and bright conserves,
Nourishing breads and all the dear delights
Hunger deserves.
Let us lift high God for them,
And like tall candles hold
The straight white lights that in the trench they knew--
Were more than gold.
Let us grow up for them,
And hold us to impassioned lofty thought--
So they shall never come to be ashamed
Of that for which they fought.
Let us all work hard for them--
For such as live and come to us once more;
To those that do not come. Ah! for those men--
Passionate love and honor, evermore!
WORLD FLOWER
On the Stem of the World
A flower hangs blighted,
Flower that plighted
Its scarlet, uncurled,
To Pageant of Kings
And war-garlandings
And banners unfurled.
On the Stalk of the World
That flower hangs broken,
Gold pollen-token,
Nothingward hurled,
Withered its fineness
Its perfumed divineness,
Petals far whirled!
On the Branch of the World,
Bud of tomorrow,
Watered by sorrow,
Holds, all impearled,
Blossom increase,
Petals of peace
In sunlight whorled.
Ye, who walk doubting,
Care for this Flower!
Not yet its hour,
In all the shouting....
Only, soft hid in the stamens, is lying
Pollen of souls that dared all the dying.
They gave the seed. Wet from our crying
Blooms the New World.
EPOCH, 1914
Morning broke on Fécamp shore.
The sun rose from the sea.
Along the stone digue, wooden shoes
Clattered busily,
And one glad, little Norman voice
Carolled, “Sans Souci.”
“_No care! no care! Tra-lal-la-la!_”
The child’s glad voice sang on;
A red-capped figure crossed the digue
To where the great boats swung
At peaceful anchor, with their nets
Spread azure in the sun.
Evening came to the little town
Where white cliffs wall the sea.
A dark bell rang, “To arms! To arms!”
The women on the quay
Choked back the tears, when Jean and Pierre
Marched forth gallantly.
And then no lift of little voice
Singing, “Sans Souci.”
“_Black care, Black care for home and hearth!_”
_For children needing bread!_
Oh! the men’s faces! Oh! their eyes,
That would be cold and dead
Ere the new moon, all pitiless
And smiling at her dreams,
Took her strange way of battlefields
And bloody battle-streams.
The ripe grain dies on Fécamp hills.
Sails wither at the quay.
Old people totter to the digue,
And shiver ceaselessly,
And in the pallid Gothic church
The dead and wounded see
To it that no Norman voice
Carols “Sans Souci.”
_Deep care, deep care, for us who try_
_To save and clothe and feed!_
_Men taunt us for our dream of Peace_
_Our hope of better breed!_
Courage! Let faith fight down the years
Oh! let our battle be,
That the world’s children some day sing
Another, “Sans Souci!”
TO AMERICANS
Sooth, Citizens! there are few hours to dawn
Of a red day and black gun-horrored night.
The cities sleep not soundly mid, their spawn
Of golden-balled and silver-webbed light.
Tomorrow breaks the rancor and the spite--
To try our souls and test our bodies’ brawn.
Americans! How stand we? Does the Dream
Still hold? Once more the robust States declare
Against the Wrong, their Right. Where millions teem,
Curious, thoughtful, fateful, do we share
The same proud purpose to defend the Scheme,
Under the flag our lofty standards bear?
Americans! Look we with fearless eyes
Loyalty? Truth? Self-sacrifice? For Her,
Our Country, now enringed by foreign spies,
Will our set faces prove our calibre--
Our Destiny all penalties incur,
So that we show us pledged and patriot-wise.
Countrymen! Rise, and let your ranks be formed
For War, or Peace in solid moveless Race!
We are not aliens, who for plunder swarmed
To cover neath the glorious Freedom-Face.
We are Souls, standing in our rightful place,
Impregnable, unswerving, unalarmed.
Brothers! defend the gates! Upon us lowers
Portentously the brooding Europe pall.
Until it comes, the fateful hour of hours,
When our World-Dream must either stand or fall--
Arm ye with Loyalty!--Hark, hear the call!
Democracy still trumpets on the towers!
PENMARCH--BRITTANY
At the time of the “Pardon,” 1914.
The Penmarch roads are sandy white;
By the old church the blue nets dry,
Stretched to the sea. The poppies bright,
Tremulous scarlet splashes high
On tawny dunes. Small wooden shoes,
Stiff snowy caps and ribbon hues
Go clattering to the market place.
’Tis Pardon-day by Maries’ Grace,
(And little Bretons form a ring,
And pause to hear a Lady sing.)
What does she sing, this Lady, who
Is like embodied song, her eyes,
Clear with the light of faith where through
Looks sweetness of her soul’s surmise?
What are the words she sings, her smile
So Mother-merry? What the wile
That draws the small coifs nearer, near,
And charms away the peasant fear
(Shy little Bretons keep their ring,
And stay to hear the Lady sing.)
Blue sky is part, blue sea is part;
Flax, wheat, and poppies fill the strain;
Her wide eyes deepen with her art
Like gentian flowers after rain.
’Tis World-Dream in her simple lay--
Adventure, Faith, and Love and Play.
No wonder wooden shoes keep time
To magic of her lilting rhythm.
(Gay little Bretons hold their ring,
Shouting the Stranger-Lady, “Sing!”)
That was one summer. Now a dirge
Breaks on that coast in bitter wail,
And news told by the ocean surge
Makes Breton-maids and mothers quail.
O holy Fires of fisher-lights.
Gleam out no more on Pardon nights!
The great red sails hang listless, torn
The empty blue nets trail forlorn.
And yet I think that little feet
Sometimes on Penmarch beaches meet,
And Penmarch children cease their play
To talk of how She sang that day,
And that once more a happy ring
Is formed to hear a Lady sing!
TO AN AMERICAN SOLDIER GOING INTO
ACTION
_France, August, 1918._
Today’s your turn to take the road of fire;
Your turn to rally at the gates of hell;
Your turn for steel and gas and blood and mire,
In shell-holes and through mazes of barbed wire,
Where men before you fought and bled and fell.
And we go with you, we, who know your face--
Its dear and merry shining, and intent;
Follow you blindly to this testing place.
Breathless, with you at this, the ultimate pace
Your fleet strong spirit takes for its ascent.
Whatever agony is yours is ours,
Whatever thing the soul of you endures;
We are the witness of your manhood’s powers;
Not one of us who has your measure cowers--
What we know of you all our thought insures.
Go you, then, to the Front! May God be good!
Whatever face you raise to Him will be
The face of one, who for our Hope has stood,
Manly and resolute, whose spirit would
Be at the Front, and elsewhere could not be!
RESURGENCE
To C. L. B.
Down the glad morning lane a lucent veil
Of dogwood wavers like a windblown screen
Revealing vistas lit by golden trail
Of netted water-brooks that intervene
Where ferns their dewy plumage spread and preen;
Soft, myriad breaths of budding boughs exhale
On the spring world; a buoyant path of green
Makes sign by leaf and foliate flower-grail
Of exquisite re-capture of the frail
Fresh renascence of all that fair has been.
Nature survives. Lift then the haggard eyes
That watch Life on its dark death-shuttled loom!
Are ours the only forms that may not rise
Out of the Dark to unfrustrated bloom?
Nay--burst we forth out of the moment’s doom,
Instinct toward suns of flowering destinies,
Lifting glad lips to deep full-breasted skies,
Branching like stars where radiant dreams resume.
GARDEN ADVENTURES
NO. 1--AERIAL.
Down the long garden path the message came,
Borne by the breeze in a soft, wayward speed;
“My petals spread, soft burns my blossom-flame,
Yet do I know defeat and barren shame;
Dost thou then fail me in my flower-need?”
A lily-bell hung in her curving spire;
Sweet peas on pools of morning air set sail;
Womanly roses opened; did this fire,
This wordless furthering of deep desire
Waft from their midst down to the meadow-rail?