(I also knew the wind and sea;
And hill-tops had my feet by heart.
Their shagged heights would sting and start
When I came leaping on their backs.
I knew the earth’s queer crooked cracks,
Where hidden waters weave a low
And druid chant of joy and woe.)
But stars were with me most of all.
I heard them flame and break and fall.
Their excellent array, their free
Encounter with Eternity,
I learned. And it was good to know
That where God walked, I too might go.
Now, all these things are passed. For I
Grow very old and glad to die.
What did they profit me, say you,
These distant bloodless things I knew?
Profit? What profit hath the sea
Of her deep-throated threnody?
What profit hath the sun, who stands
Staring on space with idle hands?
And what should God Himself acquire
From all the aeons’ blood and fire?
My profit is as theirs: to be
Made proof against mortality:
To know that I have companied
With all that shines and lives, amid
So much the years sift through their hands,
Most mortal, windy, worthless sands.
This day I have great peace. With me
Shall stars abide eternally!
SOULS
My soul goes clad in gorgeous things,
Scarlet and gold and blue.
And at her shoulder sudden wings
Like long flames flicker through.
And she is swallow-fleet, and free
From mortal bonds and bars.
She laughs, because eternity
Blossoms for her with stars!
O folk who scorn my stiff gray gown,
My dull and foolish face,
Can ye not see my soul flash down,
A singing flame through space?
And folk, whose earth-stained looks I hate,
Why may I not divine
Your souls, that must be passionate,
Shining and swift, as mine?
Walter de la Mare
THE LISTENERS
“Is there anybody there?” said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor;
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head;
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
“Is there anybody there?” he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:—
“Tell them I came, and no one answered
That I kept my word,” he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.
AN EPITAPH
Here lies a most beautiful lady:
Light of step and heart was she;
I think she was the most beautiful lady
That ever was in the West Country.
But beauty vanishes; beauty passes;
However rare—rare it be;
And when I crumble, who will remember
This lady of the West Country?
Lee Wilson Dodd
THE TEMPLE
Hear me, brother!
Boldly I stepped into the Temple,
Into the Temple where the God dwells
Veiled with Seven Veils,
Into the Temple of Unbroken Silence:
And my joyous feet shod with crimson sandals
Rang out on the tesselated pavement,
Rang out fearlessly
Like a challenge and a cry!
And there—in that shrouded solitude,
There—before the Seven Veils,
There—because of youth and youth’s madness,
Because of love and love’s unresting heart,
There did I sing three songs!
And my first song praised the eyes of a wanton;
And my second song praised the lips of a wanton;
And my third song praised the feet of a dancing girl!
Thus did I desecrate the Temple,
Thus did I stand before the Seven Veils,
Proudly!
Thus did I wait upon the God’s Voice—
Proudly!—
And the sudden shaft of death....
But no Voice stirred the Seven Veils,
Though I stood long....
And my knees shook,
My bones were afraid....
Swiftly I loosed the crimson sandals,
And, tearing them from off my feet,
Crept shuddering forth!
Hear me, brother!
Now am I as one stricken with palsy,
Now am I sick with the close ache of terror,
Now am I as one who, having tasted poison,
Cowers, waiting for the pang!
_For the God spake not...._
And the sense of my littleness is upon me:
And I am a worm in my own sight,
Trodden and helpless;
A casual grain of sand
Indistinguishable amid a million grains:
And I take no pleasure now in youth
Nor in youth’s madness,
In love
Nor in love’s unresting heart;
And I praise no longer the eyes of a wanton,
Nor the lips of a wanton,
Nor the light feet of a dancing girl.
THE COMRADE
Call me friend or foe,
Little I care!
I go with all who go
Daring to dare.
I am the force,
I am the fire,
I am the secret source
Of desire.
I am the urge,
The spur and thong:
Moon of the tides that surge
Into song!
Call me friend or foe,
Little care I,
I go with all who go
Singing to die.
Call me friend or foe....
Taking to give,
I go with all who go
Dying to live.
John Drinkwater
SUNRISE ON RYDAL WATER
_To E. de S._
Come down at dawn from windless hills
Into the valley of the lake,
Where yet a larger quiet fills
The hour, and mist and water make
With rocks and reeds and island boughs
One silence and one element,
Where wonder goes surely as once
It went
By Galilean prows.
Moveless the water and the mist,
Moveless the secret air above,
Hushed, as upon some happy tryst
The poised expectancy of love;
What spirit is it that adores
What mighty presence yet unseen?
What consummation works apace
Between
These rapt enchanted shores?
Never did virgin beauty wake
Devouter to the bridal feast
Than moves this hour upon the lake
In adoration to the east.
Here is the bride a god may know,
The primal will, the young consent,
Till surely upon the appointed mood
Intent
The god shall leap—and, lo,
Over the lake’s end strikes the sun—
White, flameless fire; some purity
Thrilling the mist, a splendor won
Out of the world’s heart. Let there be
Thoughts, and atonements, and desires;
Proud limbs, and undeliberate tongue;
Where now we move with mortal care
Among
Immortal dews and fires.
So the old mating goes apace,
Wind with the sea, and blood with thought,
Lover with lover; and the grace
Of understanding comes unsought
When stars into the twilight steer,
Or thrushes build among the may,
Or wonder moves between the hills,
And day
Comes up on Rydal mere.
Louise Driscoll
THE METAL CHECKS
[_The scene is a bare room, with two shaded windows at the back, and a
fireplace between them with a fire burning low. The room contains
a few plain chairs, and a rough wooden table on which are piled
many small wooden trays. THE COUNTER, who is Death, sits at the
table. He wears a loose gray robe, and his face is partly
concealed by a gray veil. THE BEARER is the World, that bears the
burden of War. He wears a soiled robe of brown and green and he
carries on his back a gunny-bag filled with the little metal disks
that have been used for the identification of the slain common
soldiers._]
_The Bearer_
Here is a sack, a gunny sack,
A heavy sack I bring.
Here is toll of many a soul—
But not the soul of a king.
This is the toll of common men,
Who lived in the common way;
Lived upon bread and wine and love,
In the light of the common day.
This is the toll of working men,
Blood and brawn and brain.
Who shall render us again
The worth of all the slain?
_The Counter_
Pour them out on the table here.
_Clickety_—_clickety_—_clack_!
For every button a man went out,
And who shall call him back?
_Clickety_—_clickety_—_clack_!
One—two—three—four—
Every disk a soul!
Three score—four score—
So many boys went out to war.
Pick up that one that fell on the floor—
Didn’t you see it roll?
That was a man a month ago.
This was a man. Row upon row—
Pile them in tens and count them so.
_The Bearer_
I have an empty sack.
It is not large. Would you have said
That I could carry on my back
So great an army—and all dead?
[_As THE COUNTER speaks THE BEARER lays the sack over his arm and helps
count._]
_The Counter_
Put a hundred in each tray—
We can tally them best that way.
Careful—do you understand
You have ten men in your hand?
There’s another fallen—there—
Under that chair.
[_THE BEARER finds it and restores it._]
That was a man a month ago;
He could see and feel and know.
Then, into his throat there sped
A bit of lead.
Blood was salt in his mouth; he fell
And lay amid the battle wreck.
Nothing was left but this metal check—
And a wife and child, perhaps.
[_THE BEARER finds the bag on his arm troublesome. He holds it up,
inspecting it._]
_The Bearer_
What can one do with a thing like this?
Neither of life nor death it is!
For the dead serve not, though it served the dead.
The wounds it carried were wide and red,
Yet they stained it not. Can a man put food,
Potatoes or wheat, or even wood
That is kind and burns with a flame to warm
Living men who are comforted—
In a thing that has served so many dead?
There is no thrift in a graveyard dress,
It’s been shroud for too many men.
I’ll burn it and let the dead bless.
[_He crosses himself and throws it into the fire. He watches it burn.
THE COUNTER continues to pile up the metal checks, and drop them by
hundreds into the trays which he piles one upon another. THE BEARER
turns from the fire and speaks more slowly than before. He indicates
the metal checks._]
Would not the blood of these make a great sea
For men to sail their ships on? It may be
No fish would swim in it, and the foul smell
Would make the sailors sick. Perhaps in Hell
There’s some such lake for men who rush to war
Prating of glory, and upon the shore
Will stand the wives and children and old men
Bereft, to drive them back again
When they seek haven. Some such thing
I thought the while I bore it on my back
And heard the metal pieces clattering.
_The Counter_
Four score—five score—
These and as many more.
Forward—march!—into the tray!
No bugles blow today,
No captains lead the way;
But mothers and wives,
Fathers, sisters, little sons,
Count the cost
Of the lost;
And we count the unlived lives,
The forever unborn ones
Who might have been your sons.
_The Bearer_
Could not the hands of these rebuild
That which has been destroyed?
Oh, the poor hands! that once were strong and filled
With implements of labor whereby they
Served home and country through the peaceful day.
When those who made the war stand face to face
With these slain soldiers in that unknown place
Whither the dead go, what will be the word
By dead lips spoken and by dead ears heard?
Will souls say King or Kaiser? Will souls prate
Of earthly glory in that new estate?
_The Counter_
One hundred thousand—
One hundred and fifty thousand—
Two hundred—
_The Bearer_
Can this check plough?
Can it sow? can it reap?
Can we arouse it?
Is it asleep?
Can it hear when a child cries?—
Comfort a wife?
This little metal disk
Stands for a life.
Can this check build,
Laying stone upon stone?
Once it was warm flesh
Folded on bone.
Sinew and muscle firm,
Look at it—can
This little metal check
Stand for a man?
_The Counter_
One—two—three—four—
Dorothy Dudley
LA RUE DE LA MONTAGNE SAINTE-GÈNEVIÈVE
I have seen an old street weeping—
Narrow, dark, ascending;
Water o’er the spires
Of a church descending;
The church thrice veiled—in rain,
In the shadow of the years,
In the grace of old design;
Dim dwellings, blind with tears,
Rotting either side
The winding passage way,
To where the river crosses
Weeping, under gray
And limpid heavens weeping.
Gardens I have seen
Through archèd doors, whose gratings
Ever cry the keen
Dim melodies of lace
Long used and rare, gardens
With an old-time grace
Vibrating, dimly trembling
In the music of the rain.
Roses I have seen drip a faint
Perfume, and lilacs train
A quivering loveliness
From door to archèd door,
Passing by in flower carts;
While waters ever pour
O’er the white stones of the fountain,
Melting icily away
Half way up the mountain;
Where to mingle tears with tears,
Their clothes misshapen, sobbing,
Two or three old women,
In wooden sabots hobbling,
Meet to fill their pitchers,
From the stream of water leaping
Through the lips, a long time parted,
Of a face grotesquely weeping—
A carven face forever weeping.
Helen Dudley
TO ONE UNKNOWN
I have seen the proudest stars
That wander on through space,
Even the sun and moon,
But not your face.
I have heard the violin,
The winds and waves rejoice
In endless minstrelsy,
Yet not your voice.
I have touched the trillium,
Pale flower of the land,
Coral, anemone,
And not your hand.
I have kissed the shining feet
Of Twilight lover-wise,
Opened the gates of Dawn—
Oh, not your eyes!
I have dreamed unwonted things,
Visions that witches brew,
Spoken with images,
Never with you.
SONG
A few more windy days
Must come and go their ways,
And we will walk
My love and I
Beneath the amber-dripping boughs.
Then on the stars we’ll tread,
On purple stars and red,
And wonder why
The while we talk
Men sing so much of broken vows.
Max Eastman
DIOGENES
A hut, and a tree,
And a hill for me,
And a piece of a weedy meadow.
I’ll ask no thing,
Of God or king,
But to clear away his shadow.
IN MARCH
On a soaked fence-post a little blue-backed bird,
Opening her sweet throat, has stirred
A million music-ripples in the air
That curl and circle everywhere.
They break not shallow at my ear,
But quiver far within. Warm days are near!
AT THE AQUARIUM
Serene the silver fishes glide,
Stern-lipped, and pale, and wonder-eyed!
As through the aged deeps of ocean,
They glide with wan and wavy motion!
They have no pathway where they go,
They flow like water to and fro.
They watch with never winking eyes,
They watch with staring, cold surprise,
The level people in the air,
The people peering, peering there:
Who wander also to and fro,
And know not why or where they go,
Yet have a wonder in their eyes,
Sometimes a pale and cold surprise.
T. S. Eliot
PORTRAIT OF A LADY
I
Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoon
You have the scene arrange itself—as it will seem to do—
With “I have saved this afternoon for you”;
And four wax candles in the darkened room,
Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead:
An atmosphere of Juliet’s tomb
Prepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid.
We have been, let us say, to hear the latest Pole
Transmit the Preludes, through his hair and finger-tips.
“So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soul
Should be resurrected only among friends—
Some two or three, who will not touch the bloom
That is rubbed and questioned in the concert room.”
And so the conversation slips
Among velleities and carefully caught regrets,
Through attenuated tones of violins
Mingled with remote cornets,
And begins:
“You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends;
And how, how rare and strange it is, to find,
In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends—
(For indeed I do not love it ... you knew? you are not blind!
How keen you are!)
To find a friend who has these qualities,
Who has, and gives
Those qualities upon which friendship lives:
How much it means that I say this to you—
Without these friendships—life, what _cauchemar_!”
Among the windings of the violins,
And the ariettes
Of cracked cornets,
Inside my brain a dull tom-tom begins
Absurdly hammering a prelude of its own—
Capricious monotone
That is at least one definite “false note.”
Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance,
Admire the monuments,
Discuss the late events,
Correct our watches by the public clocks;
Then sit for half an hour and drink our bocks.
II
Now that lilacs are in bloom
She has a bowl of lilacs in her room
And twists one in her fingers while she talks.
“Ah my friend, you do not know, you do not know
What life is, you who hold it in your hands—”
(Slowly twisting the lilac stalks);
“You let it flow from you, you let it flow,
And youth is cruel, and has no remorse,
And smiles at situations which it cannot see.”
I smile, of course,
And go on drinking tea.
“Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall
My buried life, and Paris in the spring,
I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world
To be wonderful and youthful, after all.”
The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune
Of a broken violin on an August afternoon:
“I am always sure that you understand
My feelings, always sure that you feel,
Sure that across the gulf you reach your hand.
“You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles’ heel.
You will go on, and when you have prevailed
You can say: ‘At this point many a one has failed.’
But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
To give you, what can you receive from me?
Only the friendship and the sympathy
Of one about to reach her journey’s end.
“I shall sit here, serving tea to friends....”
I take my hat: how can I make a cowardly amends
For what she has said to me?
You will see me any morning in the park
Reading the comics and the sporting page.
Particularly I remark
An English countess goes upon the stage,
A Greek was murdered at a Polish dance,
Another bank defaulter has confessed.
I keep my countenance,
I remain self-possessed
Except when a street piano, mechanical and tired,
Reiterates some worn-out common song,
With the smell of hyacinths across the garden
Recalling things that other people have desired.
Are these ideas right or wrong?
III
The October night comes down. Returning as before,
Except for a slight sensation of being ill at ease,
I mount the stairs and turn the handle of the door
And feel as if I had mounted on my hands and knees.
“And so you are going abroad; and when do you return?
But that’s a useless question.
You hardly know when you are coming back,
You will find so much to learn.”
My smile falls heavily among the bric-a-brac.
“Perhaps you can write to me.”
My self-possession flares up for a second;
_This_ is as I had reckoned.
“I have been wondering frequently of late
(But our beginnings never know our ends!)
Why we have not developed into friends.”
I feel like one who smiles, and turning shall remark
Suddenly, his expression in a glass.
My self-possession gutters; we are really in the dark.
“For everybody said so, all our friends,
They all were sure our feelings would relate
So closely! I myself can hardly understand.
We must leave it now to fate.
You will write, at any rate.
Perhaps it is not too late.
I shall sit here, serving tea to friends.”
And I must borrow every changing shape
To find expression ... dance, dance
Like a dancing bear,
Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape.
Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance ...
Well! and what if she should die some afternoon,
Afternoon gray and smoky, evening yellow and rose;
Should die and leave me sitting pen in hand
With the smoke coming down above the house tops;
Doubtful, for quite a while
Not knowing what to feel or if I understand
Or whether wise or foolish, tardy or too soon...
Would she not have the advantage, after all?
This music is successful with a “dying fall”
Now that we talk of dying—
And should I have the right to smile?
Arthur Davison Ficke
MEETING
Gray-robed Wanderer in sleep ... Wanderer ...
You also move among
Those silent halls
Dim on the shore of the unsailed deep?
And your footfalls, yours also, Wanderer,
Faint through those twilight corridors have rung?
Of late my eyes have seen ... Wanderer ...
Amid the shadows’ gloom
Of that sleep-girdled place
I should have known such joy could not have been—
To see your face: and yet, Wanderer,
What hopes seem vain beneath the night in bloom?
Wearily I awake ... Wanderer ...
Your look of old despair,
Like a dying star,
In morning vanishes. But for all memories’ sake,
Though you are far, tonight, O Wanderer,
Tonight come, though in silence, to the shadows there ...
AMONG SHADOWS
In halls of sleep you wandered by,
This time so indistinguishably
I cannot remember aught of it,
Save that I know last night we met.
I know it by the cloudy thrill
That in my heart is quivering still;
And sense of loveliness forgot
Teases my fancy out of thought.
Though with the night the vision wanes,
Its haunting presence still may last—
As odor of flowers faint remains
In halls where late a queen has passed.
THE THREE SISTERS
Gone are the three, those sisters rare
With wonder-lips and eyes ashine.
One was wise and one was fair,
And one was mine.
Ye mourners, weave for the sleeping hair
Of only two, your ivy vine.
For one was wise and one was fair,
But one was mine.
PORTRAIT OF AN OLD WOMAN
She limps with halting painful pace,
Stops, wavers, and creeps on again;
Peers up with dim and questioning face
Void of desire or doubt or pain.
Her cheeks hang gray in waxen folds
Wherein there stirs no blood at all.
A hand like bundled cornstalks holds
The tatters of a faded shawl.
Where was a breast, sunk bones she clasps;
A knot jerks where were woman-hips;
A ropy throat sends writhing gasps
Up to the tight line of her lips.
Here strong the city’s pomp is poured ...
She stands, unhuman, bleak, aghast:
An empty temple of the Lord
From which the jocund Lord has passed.
He has builded him another house,
Whenceforth his flame, renewed and bright,
Shines stark upon these weathered brows
Abandoned to the final night.
I AM WEARY OF BEING BITTER
I am weary of being bitter and weary of being wise,
And the armor and the mask of these fall from me, after long.
I would go where the islands sleep, or where the sea-dawns rise,
And lose my bitter wisdom in the wisdom of a song.
There are magics in melodies, unknown of the sages;
The powers of purest wonder on secret wings go by.
Doubtless out of the silence of dumb preceding ages
Song woke the chaos-world—and light swept the sky.
All that we know is idle; idle is all we cherish;
Idle the will that takes loads that proclaim it strong.
For the knowledge, the strength, the burden—all shall perish:
One thing only endures, one thing only—song.
FROM “SONNETS OF A PORTRAIT PAINTER”
I am in love with high far-seeing places
That look on plains half-sunlight and half-storm,
In love with hours when from the circling faces
Veils pass, and laughing fellowship glows warm.
You who look on me with grave eyes where rapture
And April love of living burn confessed—
The Gods are good! the world lies free to capture!
Life has no walls. Oh, take me to your breast!
Take me—be with me for a moment’s span!
I am in love with all unveilèd faces.
I seek the wonder at the heart of man;
I would go up to the far-seeing places.
While youth is ours, turn toward me for a space
The marvel of your rapture-lighted face!
There are strange shadows fostered of the moon,
More numerous than the clear-cut shade of day....
Go forth, when all the leaves whisper of June,
Into the dusk of swooping bats at play;
Or go into that late November dusk
When hills take on the noble lines of death,
And on the air the faint astringent musk
Of rotting leaves pours vaguely troubling breath.
Then shall you see shadows whereof the sun
Knows nothing—aye, a thousand shadows there
Shall leap and flicker and stir and stay and run,
Like petrels of the changing foul or fair;
Like ghosts of twilight, of the moon, of him
Whose homeland lies past each horizon’s rim....
LIKE HIM WHOSE SPIRIT
Like him whose spirit in the blaze of noon
Still keeps the memory of one secret star
That in the dusk of a remembered June
Thrilled the strange hour with beauty from afar—
And perilous spells of twilight snare his heart,
And wistful moods his common thoughts subdue,
And life seethes by him utterly apart—
Last night I dreamed, today I dream, of you.
Gleams downward strike; bright bubbles upward hover
Through the charmed air; far sea-winds cool my brow.
Invisible lips tell me I shall discover
Today a temple, a mystery, a vow ...
The cycle rounds: only the false seems true.
Last night I dreamed, today I dream, of you.
John Gould Fletcher
IRRADIATIONS
I
Over the roof-tops race the shadows of clouds:
Like horses the shadows of clouds charge down the street.
Whirlpools of purple and gold,
Winds from the mountains of cinnabar,
Lacquered mandarin moments, palanquins swaying and balancing
Amid the vermilion pavilions, against the jade balustrades;
Glint of the glittering wings of dragon-flies in the light;
Silver filaments, golden flakes settling downwards;
Rippling, quivering flutters; repulse and surrender,
The sun broidered upon the rain,
The rain rustling with the sun.