Brother, big brother?”
“Saxon boys by their fields that bide
Need not know if the world is wide.
Climb no mountain but Shere-end Hill,
Cross no water but goes to mill.
Ox in the stable and cow in the byre,
Smell of the wood-smoke and sleep by the fire;
Sun-up in seed-time—a likely lad
Hurts not his head that the world is sad.
Back to your play, little brother.”
SPANISH JOHNNY
The old West, the old time,
The old wind singing through
The red, red grass a thousand miles—
And, Spanish Johnny, you!
He’d sit beside the water ditch
When all his herd was in,
And never mind a child, but sing
To his mandolin.
The big stars, the blue night,
The moon-enchanted lane;
The olive man who never spoke,
But sang the songs of Spain.
His speech with men was wicked talk—
To hear it was a sin;
But those were golden things he said
To his mandolin.
The gold songs, the gold stars,
The word so golden then;
And the hand so tender to a child—
Had killed so many men.
He died a hard death long ago
Before the Road came in—
The night before he swung, he sang
To his mandolin.
Padraic Colum
POLONIUS AND THE BALLAD SINGERS
A gaunt-built woman and her son-in-law—
A broad-faced fellow, with such flesh as shows
Nothing but easy nature—and his wife,
The woman’s daughter, who spills all her talk
Out of a wide mouth, but who has eyes as gray
As Connemara, where the mountain-ash
Shows berries red indeed: they enter now—
Our country singers!
“Sing, my good woman, sing us some romance
That has been round your chimney-nooks so long
’Tis nearly native; something blown here
And since made racy—like yon tree, I might say,
Native by influence if not by species,
Shaped by our winds. You understand, I think?”
“I’ll sing the song, sir.”
To-night you see my face—
Maybe nevermore you’ll gaze
On the one that for you left his friends and kin;
For by the hard commands
Of the lord that rules these lands
On a ship I’ll be borne from Cruckaunfinn!
Oh, you know your beauty bright
Has made him think delight
More than from any fair one he will gain;
Oh, you know that all his will
Strains and strives around you till
As the hawk upon his hand you are as tame!
Then she to him replied:
I’ll no longer you deny,
And I’ll let you have the pleasure of my charms;
For to-night I’ll be your bride,
And whatever may betide
It’s we will lie in one another’s arms!
“You should not sing
With body doubled up and face aside—
There is a climax here—‘It’s we will lie’—
Hem—passionate! And what does your daughter sing?”
“A song I like when I do climb bare hills—
’Tis all about a hawk.”
No bird that sits on rock or bough
Has such a front as thine;
No king that has made war his trade
Such conquest in his eyne!
I mark thee rock-like on the rock
Where none can see a shape.
I climb, but thou dost climb with wings,
And like a wish escape,
She said—
And like a wish escape!
No maid that kissed his bonny mouth
Of another mouth was glad;
Such pride was in our chieftain’s eyes,
Such countenance he had!
But since they made him fly the rocks,
Thou, creature, art my quest.
Then lift me with thy steady eyes.
If then to tear my breast,
She said—
If then to tear my breast!
“The songs they have
Are the last relics of the feudal world:
Women will keep them—byzants, doubloons,
When men will take up songs that are as new
As dollar bills. What song have you, young man?”
“A song my father had, sir. It was sent him
From across the sea, and there was a letter with it,
Asking my father to put it to a tune
And sing it all roads. He did that, in troth,
And five pounds of tobacco were sent with the song
To fore-reward him. I’ll sing it for you now—
_The Baltimore Exile_.”
The house I was bred in—ah, does it remain?
Low walls and loose thatch standing lone in the rain,
With the clay of the walls coming through with its stain,
Like the blackbird’s left nest in the briar!
Does a child there give heed to the song of the lark,
As it lifts and it drops till the fall of the dark,
When the heavy-foot kine trudge home from the paurk,
Or do none but the red-shank now listen?
The sloe-bush, I know, grows close to the well,
And its long-lasting blossoms are there, I can tell,
When the kid that was yeaned when the first ones befell
Can jump to the ditch that they grow on!
But there’s silence on all. Then do none ever pass
On the way to the fair or the pattern or mass?
Do the gray-coated lads drive the ball through the grass
And speed to the sweep of the hurl?
O youths of my land! Then will no Bolivar
Ever muster your ranks for delivering war?
Will your hopes become fixed and beam like a star?
Will they pass like the mists from your fields?
The swan and the swallows, the cuckoo and crake,
May visit my land and find hillside and lake.
And I send my song. I’ll not see her awake—
I’m too old a bird to uncage now!
“Silver’s but lead in exchange for songs,
But take it and spend it.”
“We will. And may we meet your honor’s like
Every day’s end.”
“A tune is more lasting than the voice of the birds.”
“A song is more lasting than the riches of the world.”
NOTE. _The last stanza in the first ballad sung is a fragment of an old
country song; the rest of it, with the other two ballads, is invented.
But they are all in the convention of songs still sung by strolling
ballad-singers. I have written the common word for pasture-field “paurk”
so as not to give a wrong association: it might be written “park,” as
Burns, using the word in the same sense, writes it. “Paurk” or “park” is
Gaelic for pasture field, and is always used in Irish country speech in
that sense. The two last lines spoken are translations of a Gaelic
phrase which has been used by Dr. Douglas Hyde as a motto for his
collection of Connacht love songs. P. C._
THE SEA BIRD TO THE WAVE
On and on,
O white brother!
Thunder does not daunt thee!
How thou movest!
By thine impulse—
With no wing!
Fairest thing
The wide sea shows me!
On and on
O white brother!
Art thou gone!
OLD MEN COMPLAINING
_First Old Man_
_He threw his crutched stick down: there came
Into his face the anger flame,
And he spoke viciously of one
Who thwarted him—his son’s son.
He turned his head away._—“I hate
Absurdity of language, prate
From growing fellows. We’d not stay
About the house the whole of a day
When we were young,
Keeping no job and giving tongue!
“Not us in troth! We would not come
For bit or sup, but stay from home
If we gave answers, or we’d creep
Back to the house, and in we’d peep
Just like a corncrake.
“My grandson and his comrades take
A piece of coal from you, from me
A log, or sod of turf, maybe;
And in some empty place they’ll light
A fire, and stay there all night,
A wisp of lads! Now understand
The blades of grass under my hand
Would be destroyed by company!
There’s no good company: we go
With what is lowest to the low!
He stays up late, and how can he
Rise early? Sure he lags in bed,
And she is worn to a thread
With calling him—his grandmother.
She’s an old woman, and she must make
Stir when the birds are half awake
In dread he’d lose this job like the other!”
_Second Old Man_
“They brought yon fellow over here,
And set him up for an overseer:
Though men from work are turned away
That thick-necked fellow draws full pay—
Three pounds a week.... They let burn down
The timber yard behind the town
Where work was good; though firemen stand
In boots and brasses big and grand
The crow of a cock away from the place.
And with the yard they let burn too
The clock in the tower, the clock I knew
As well as I know the look in my face.”
_Third Old Man_
“The fellow you spoke of has broken his bounds—
He came to skulk inside of these grounds:
Behind the bushes he lay down
And stretched full hours in the sun.
He rises now, and like a crane
He looks abroad. He’s off again:
Three pounds a week, and still he owes
Money in every street he goes,
Hundreds of pounds where we’d not get
The second shilling of a debt.”
_First Old Man_
“Old age has every impediment
Vexation and discontent;
The rich have more than we: for bit
The cut of bread, and over it
The scrape of hog’s lard, and for sup
Warm water in a cup.
But different sorts of feeding breaks
The body more than fasting does
With pains and aches.
“I’m not too badly off, for I
Have pipe and tobacco, a place to lie,
A nook to myself; but from my hand
Is taken the strength to back command—
I’m broken, and there’s gone from me
The privilege of authority.”
_I heard them speak—
The old men heavy on the sod,
Letting their angers come
Between them and the thought of God._
Grace Hazard Conkling
REFUGEES
_Belgium—1914_
“Mother, the poplars cross the moon;
The road runs on, so white and far,
We shall not reach the city soon:
Oh, tell me where we are!”
“Have patience, patience, little son,
And we shall find the way again:
(God show me the untraveled one!
God give me rest from men!)”
“Mother, you did not tell me why
You hurried so to come away.
I saw big soldiers riding by;
I should have liked to stay.”
“Hush, little man, and I will sing
Just like a soldier, if I can—
They have a song for everything.
Listen, my little man!
“This is the soldiers’ marching song:
We’ll play this is the village street—”
“Yes, but this road is very long,
And stones have hurt my feet.”
“Nay, little pilgrim, up with you!
And yonder field shall be the town.
I’ll show you how the soldiers do
Who travel up and down.
“They march and sing and march again,
Not minding all the stones and dust:
They go, (God grant me rest from men!)
Forward, because they must.”
“Mother, I want to go to sleep.”
“No, darling! Here is bread to eat!
(O God, if thou couldst let me weep,
Or heal my broken feet!)”
“THE LITTLE ROSE IS DUST, MY DEAR”
The little rose is dust, my dear;
The elfin wind is gone
That sang a song of silver words
And cooled our hearts with dawn.
And what is left to hope, my dear,
Or what is left to say?
The rose, the little wind and you
Have gone so far away.
Alice Corbin
O WORLD
O world that changes under my hand,
O brown world, bitter and bright,
And full of hidden recesses
Of love and light—
O world, what use would there be to me
Of power beyond power
To change, or establish new balance,
To build, or deflower?
O world, what use would there be?
Had I the Creator’s fire,
I could not build you nearer
To my heart’s desire!
TWO VOICES
There is a country full of wine
And liquor of the sun,
Where sap is running all the year,
And spring is never done,
Where all is good as it is fair,
And love and will are one.
Old age may never come there,
But ever in to-day
The people talk as in a dream
And laugh slow time away.
But would you stay as now you are,
Or as a year ago?
Oh, not as then, for then how small
The wisdom we did owe!
Or if forever as to-day,
How little we could know!
Then welcome age, and fear not sorrow;
To-day’s no better than to-morrow,
Or yesterday that flies.
By the low light in your eyes,
By the love that in me lies,
I know we grow more lovely
Growing wise.
LOVE ME AT LAST
Love me at last, or if you will not,
Leave me;
Hard words could never, as these half-words,
Grieve me:
Love me at last—or leave me.
Love me at last, or let the last word uttered
Be but your own;
Love me, or leave me—as a cloud, a vapor,
Or a bird flown.
Love me at last—I am but sliding water
Over a stone.
HUMORESQUE
To some the fat gods
Give money,
To some love;
But the gods have given me
Money _and_ love:
Not _too much_ money,
Nor _quite enough_ love!
To some the fat gods
Give money,
To some love.
ONE CITY ONLY
One city only, of all I have lived in,
And one house of that city, belong to me ...
I remember the mellow light of afternoon
Slanting across brick buildings on the waterfront,
And small boats at rest on the floating tide,
And larger boats at rest in the near-by harbor;
And I know the tidal smell, and the smell of mud,
Uncovering oyster flats, and the brown bare toes of small negroes
With the mud oozing between them;
And the little figures leaping from log to log,
And the white children playing among them—
I remember how I played among them.
And I remember the recessed windows of the gloomy halls
In the darkness of decaying grandeur,
The feel of cool linen in the cavernous bed,
And the window curtain swaying gently
In the night air;
All the half-hushed noises of the street
In the southern town,
And the thrill of life—
Like a hand in the dark
With its felt, indeterminate meaning:
I remember that I knew there the stirring of passion,
Fear, and the knowledge of sin,
Tragedy, laughter, death....
And I remember, too, on a dead Sunday afternoon
In the twilight,
When there was no one else in the house,
My self suddenly separated itself
And left me alone,
So that the world lay about me, lifeless.
I could not touch it, or feel it, or see it;
Yet I was there.
The sensation lingers:
Only the most vital threads
Hold me at all to living ...
Yet I only live truly when I think of that house;
Only enter then into being.
One city only of all I have lived in,
And one house of that city, belong to me.
APPARITIONS
I
A thin gray shadow on the edge of thought
Hiding its wounds:
These are the wounds of sorrow—
It was my hand that made them;
And this gray shadow that resembles you
Is my own heart, weeping ...
You sleep quietly beneath the shade
Of willows in the south.
II
When the cold dawn stood above the house-tops,
Too late I remembered the cry
In the night of a wild bird flying
Through the rain-filled sky.
THE POOL
Do you remember the dark pool at Nîmes,
The pool that had no bottom?
Shadowed by Druids ere the Romans came—
Dark, still, with little bubbles rising
So quietly level with its rim of stone
That one stood shuddering with the breathless fear
Of one short step?
My little sister stood beside the pool
As dark as that of Nîmes.
I saw her white face as she took the plunge;
I could not follow her, although I tried.
The silver bubbles circled to the brink,
And then the water parted:
With dream-white face my little sister rose
Dripping from that dark pool, and took the hands
Outstretched to meet her.
I may not speak to her of all she’s seen;
She may not speak to me of all she knows,
Because her words mean nothing:
She chooses them
As one to whom our language is quite strange,
As children make queer words with lettered blocks
Before they know the way....
My little sister stood beside the pool—
I could not plunge in with her, though I tried.
MUSIC
_The ancient songs
Pass deathward mournfully._
_R. A._
The old songs
Die.
Yes, the old songs die.
Cold lips that sang them,
Cold lips that sang them—
The old songs die,
And the lips that sang them
Are only a pinch of dust.
I saw in Pamplona
In a musty museum—
I saw in Pamplona
In a buff-colored museum—
I saw in Pamplona
A memorial
Of the dead violinist;
I saw in Pamplona
A memorial
Of Pablo Sarasate.
Dust was inch-deep on the cases,
Dust on the stick-pins and satins,
Dust on the badges and orders,
On the wreath from the oak of Guernica!
The old songs
Die—
And the lips that sang them.
Wreaths, withered and dusty,
Cuff-buttons with royal insignia,
These, in a musty museum,
Are all that is left of Sarasate.
WHAT DIM ARCADIAN PASTURES
What dim Arcadian pastures
Have I known
That suddenly, out of nothing,
A wind is blown,
Lifting a veil and a darkness,
Showing a purple sea—
And under your hair the faun’s eyes
Look out on me?
NODES
The endless, foolish merriment of stars
Beside the pale cold sorrow of the moon,
Is like the wayward noises of the world
Beside my heart’s uplifted silent tune.
The little broken glitter of the waves
Beside the golden sun’s intense white blaze,
Is like the idle chatter of the crowd
Beside my heart’s unwearied song of praise.
The sun and all the planets in the sky
Beside the sacred wonder of dim space,
Are notes upon a broken, tarnished lute
That God will someday mend and put in place.
And space, beside the little secret joy
Of God that sings forever in the clay,
Is smaller than the dust we can not see,
That yet dies not, till time and space decay.
And as the foolish merriment of stars
Beside the cold pale sorrow of the moon,
My little song, my little joy, my praise,
Beside God’s ancient, everlasting rune.
Adelaide Crapsey
CINQUAINS
NOVEMBER NIGHT
Listen.
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees
And fall.
TRIAD
These be
Three silent things:
The falling snow ... the hour
Before the dawn ... the mouth of one
Just dead.
SUSANNA AND THE ELDERS
“Why do
You thus devise
Evil against her?” “For that
She is beautiful, delicate;
Therefore.”
THE GUARDED WOUND
If it
Were lighter touch
Than petal of flower resting
On grass, oh still too heavy it were,
Too heavy!
THE WARNING
Just now,
Out of the strange
Still dusk ... as strange, as still ...
A white moth flew. Why am I grown
So cold?
FATE DEFIED
As it
Were tissue of silver
I’ll wear, O fate, thy grey,
And go mistily radiant, clad
Like the moon.
THE PLEDGE
White doves of Cytherea, by your quest
Across the blue Heaven’s bluest highest air,
And by your certain homing to Love’s breast,
Still to be true and ever true—I swear.
EXPENSES
Little my lacking fortunes show
For this to eat and that to wear;
Yet laughing, Soul, and gaily go!
An obol pays the Stygian fare.
ADVENTURE
Sun and wind and beat of sea,
Great lands stretching endlessly ...
Where be bonds to bind the free?
All the world was made for me!
DIRGE
Never the nightingale,
Oh, my dear,
Never again the lark
Thou wilt hear;
Though dusk and the morning still
Tap at thy window-sill,
Thou ever love call and call
Thou wilt not hear at all,
My dear, my dear.
SONG
I make my shroud, but no one knows—
So shimmering fine it is and fair,
With stitches set in even rows.
I make my shroud, but no one knows.
In door-way where the lilac blows,
Humming a little wandering air,
I make my shroud and no one knows,
So shimmering fine it is and fair.
THE LONELY DEATH
In the cold I will rise, I will bathe
In waters of ice; myself
Will shiver, and shrive myself,
Alone in the dawn, and anoint
Forehead and feet and hands;
I will shutter the windows from light,
I will place in their sockets the four
Tall candles and set them a-flame
In the grey of the dawn; and myself
Will lay myself straight in my bed,
And draw the sheet under my chin.
H. D.
HERMES OF THE WAYS
I
The hard sand breaks,
And the grains of it
Are clear as wine.
Far off over the leagues of it,
The wind,
Playing on the wide shore,
Piles little ridges,
And the great waves
Break over it.
But more than the many-foamed ways
Of the sea,
I know him
Of the triple path-ways.
Hermes,
Who awaiteth.
Dubious,
Facing three ways,
Welcoming wayfarers,
He whom the sea-orchard
Shelters from the west,
From the east
Weathers sea-wind;
Fronts the great dunes.
Wind rushes
Over the dunes,
And the coarse, salt-crusted grass
Answers.
Heu,
It whips round my ankles!
II
Small is
This white stream,
Flowing below ground
From the poplar-shaded hill,
But the water is sweet.
Apples on the small trees
Are hard,
Too small,
Too late ripened
By a desperate sun
That struggles through sea-mist.
The boughs of the trees
Are twisted
By many bafflings;
Twisted are
The small-leafed boughs.
But the shadow of them
Is not the shadow of the mast head
Nor of the torn sails.
Hermes, Hermes,
The great sea foamed,
Gnashed its teeth about me;
But you have waited,
Where sea-grass tangles with
Shore-grass.
PRIAPUS
_Keeper of Orchards_
I saw the first pear
As it fell.
The honey-seeking, golden-banded,
The yellow swarm
Was not more fleet than I,
(Spare us from loveliness!)
And I fell prostrate,
Crying,
“Thou hast flayed us with thy blossoms;
Spare us the beauty
Of fruit-trees!”
The honey-seeking
Paused not,
The air thundered their song,
And I alone was prostrate.
O rough-hewn
God of the orchard,
I bring thee an offering;
Do thou, alone unbeautiful
(Son of the god),
Spare us from loveliness.
The fallen hazel-nuts,
Stripped late of their green sheaths,
The grapes, red-purple,
Their berries
Dripping with wine,
Pomegranates already broken,
And shrunken figs,
And quinces untouched,
I bring thee as offering.
THE POOL
Are you alive?
I touch you—
You quiver like a sea-fish.
I cover you with my net.
What are you, banded one?
OREAD
Whirl up, sea—
Whirl your pointed pines.
Splash your great pines
On our rocks.
Hurl your green over us—
Cover us with your pools of fir.
THE GARDEN
I
You are clear,
O rose, cut in rock.
I could scrape the color
From the petals,
Like spilt dye from a rock.
If I could break you
I could break a tree.
If I could stir
I could break a tree,
I could break you.
II
O wind, rend open the heat,
Cut apart the heat,
Slit it to tatters.
Fruit cannot drop
Through this thick air;
Fruit cannot fall into heat
That presses up and blunts
The points of pears,
And rounds grapes.
Cut the heat:
Plough through it,
Turning it on either side
Of your path.
MOONRISE
Will you glimmer on the sea?
Will you fling your spear-head
On the shore?
What note shall we pitch?
We have a song,
On the bank we share our arrows—
The loosed string tells our note:
_O flight,
Bring her swiftly to our song.
She is great,
We measure her by the pine-trees._
THE SHRINE
“_She watches over the sea_”
I
Are your rocks shelter for ships?—
Have you sent galleys from your beach,
Are you graded—a safe crescent—
Where the tide lifts them back to port?
Are you full and sweet,
Tempting the quiet
To depart in their trading ships?
Nay, you are great, fierce, evil—
You are the land-blight.
You have tempted men
But they perished on your cliffs.
Your lights are but dank shoals,
Slate and pebble and wet shells
And sea-weed fastened to the rocks.
It was evil—evil
When they found you,
When the quiet men looked at you.
They sought a headland
Shaded with ledge of cliff
From the wind-blast.
But you—you are unsheltered,
Cut with the weight of wind.
You shudder when it strikes,
Then lift, swelled with the blast.
You sink as the tide sinks,
You shrill under hail and sound,
Thunder when thunder sounds.
You are useless:
When the tides swirl
Your boulders cut and wreck
The staggering ships.
II
You are useless,
O grave, O beautiful.
The landsmen tell it—I have heard—
You are useless.
And the wind sounds with this
And the sea
Where rollers shot with blue
Cut under deeper blue.
Oh, but stay tender, enchanted
Where wave-lengths cut you
Apart from all the rest—
For we have found you,
We watch the splendor of you,
We thread throat on throat of freesia
For your shelf.
You are not forgot,
O plunder of lilies,
Honey is not more sweet
Than the salt stretch of your beach.
III
Stay—stay—
But terror has caught us now.
We passed the men in ships,
We dared deeper than the fisher-folk;
And you strike us with terror,
O bright shaft.
Flame passes under us
And sparks that unknot the flesh—
Sorrow, splitting bone from bone,
Splendors thwart our eyes
And rifts in the splendor,
Sparks and scattered light.
Many warned of this,
Men said:
“There are wrecks on the fore-beach,
Wind will beat your ship,
There is no shelter in that headland;
It is useless waste, that edge,
That front of rock—
Sea-gulls clang beyond the breakers,
None venture to that spot.”
IV
But hail—
As the tide slackens,
As the wind beats out,
We hail this shore—
We sing to you,
Spirit between the headlands
And the further rocks.
Though oak-beams split,
Though boats and sea-men flounder,
And the strait grind sand with sand
And cut boulders to sand and drift—
Your eyes have pardoned our faults,
Your hands have touched us;
You have leaned forward a little
And the waves can never thrust us back
From the splendor of your ragged coast.
Mary Carolyn Davies
CLOISTERED
To-night the little girl-nun died.
Her hands were laid
Across her breast; the last sun tried
To kiss her quiet braid;
And where the little river cried,
Her grave was made.
The little girl-nun’s soul, in awe,
Went silently
To where her brother Christ she saw,
Under the Living Tree;
He sighed, and his face seemed to draw
Her tears, to see.
He laid his hands on her hands mild,
And gravely blessed;
“Blind, they that kept you so,” he smiled,
With tears unguessed.
“Saw they not Mary held a child
Upon her breast?”
SONGS OF A GIRL
I
Perhaps,
God, planting Eden,
Dropped, by mistake, a seed
In Time’s neighbor-plot,
That grew to be
This hour?
II
You and I picked up Life and looked at it curiously;
We did not know whether to keep it for a plaything or not.
It was beautiful to see, like a red firecracker,
And we knew, too, that it was lighted.
We dropped it while the fuse was still burning....
III
I am going to die too, flower, in a little while—
Do not be so proud.
IV
The sun is dying
Alone
On an island
In the bay.
Close your eyes, poppies—
I would not have you see death,
You are so young!
V
The sun falls
Like a drop of blood
From some hero.
We,
Who love pain,
Delight in this.
Fannie Stearns Davis
PROFITS