As ladylike and quiet as a nun!
But if you cross her—whew! her thunderbolts
Will shake the earth! She’s proud as any queen,
The beauty—knows her royal business too,
To light the world, and does it night by night
When her gay lord, the sun, gives up his job.
I am her slave; I wake and watch and run
From dark till dawn beside her. All the while
She hums there softly, purring with delight
Because men bring the riches of the earth
To feed her hungry fires. I do her will
And dare not disobey, for her right hand
Is power, her left is terror, and her anger
Is havoc. Look—if I but lay a wire
Across the terminals of yonder switch
She’ll burst her windings, rip her casings off,
And shriek till envious Hell shoots up its flames,
Shattering her very throne. And all her people,
The laboring, trampling, dreaming crowds out there—
Fools and the wise who look to her for light—
Will walk in darkness through the liquid night
Submerged.
Sometimes I wonder why she stoops
To be my friend—oh yes, who talks to me
And sings away my loneliness; my friend
Though I am trivial and she sublime.
Hard-hearted?—No, tender and pitiful,
As all the great are. Every arrogant grief
She comforts quietly, and all my joys
Dance to her measures through the tolerant night.
She talks to me, tells me her troubles too,
Just as I tell her mine. Perhaps she feels
An ache deep down—that agonizing stab
Of grit grating her bearings; then her voice
Changes its tune, it wails and calls to me
To soothe her anguish, and I run, her slave,
Probe like a surgeon and relieve the pain.
We have our jokes too, little mockeries
That no one else in all the swarming world
Would see the point of. She will laugh at me
To show her power: maybe her carbon packings
Leak steam, and I run madly back and forth
To keep the infernal fiends from breaking loose:
Suddenly she will throttle them herself
And chuckle softly, far above me there,
At my alarms.
But there are moments—hush!—
When my turn comes; her slave can be her master,
Conquering her he serves. For she’s a woman,
Gets bored there on her throne, tired of herself,
Tingles with power that turns to wantonness.
Suddenly something’s wrong—she laughs at me,
Bedevils the frail wires with some mad caress
That thrills blind space, calls down ten thousand lightnings
To ruin her pomp and set her spirit free.
Then with this puny hand, swift as her threat,
Must I beat back the chaos, hold in leash
Destructive furies, rescue her—even her—
From the fierce rashness of her truant mood,
And make me lord of far and near a moment,
Startling the mystery. Last night I did it—
Alone here with my hand upon her heart
I faced the mounting fiends and whipped them down;
And never a wink from the long file of lamps
Betrayed her to the world.
So there she sits,
Mounted on all the ages, at the peak
Of time. The first man dreamed of light, and dug
The sodden ignorance away, and cursed
The darkness; young primeval races dragged
Foundation stones, and piled into the void
Rage and desire; the Greek mounted and sang
Promethean songs and lit a signal fire:
The Roman bent his iron will to forge
Deep furnaces; slow epochs riveted
With hope the secret chambers: till at last
We, you and I, this living age of ours,
A new-winged Mercury, out of the skies
Filch the wild spirit of light, and chain him there
To do her will forever.
Look, my friend,
Here is a sign! What is this crystal sphere—
This little bulb of glass I lightly lift,
This iridescent bubble a child might blow
Out of its brazen pipe to hold the sun—
What strange toy is it? In my hand it lies
Cold and inert, its puny artery—
That curling cobweb film—ashen and dead.
But now—a twist or two—let it but touch
The hem, far trailing, of my lady’s robe,
And look, the burning life-blood of the stars
Leaps to its heart, and glows against the dark,
Kindling the world.
Even so I touch her garment,
Her servant through the quiet night; and thus
I lay my hand upon the Pleiades
And feel their throb of fire. Grandly she gives
To me unworthy; woman inscrutable,
Scatters her splendors through my darkness, leads me
Far out into the workshop of the worlds.
There I can feel those infinite energies
Our little earth just gnaws at through the ether,
And see the light our sunshine hides. Out there,
Close to the heart of life, I am at peace.
ON THE PORCH
As I lie roofed in, screened in,
From the pattering rain,
The summer rain—
As I lie
Snug and dry,
And hear the birds complain:
Oh, billow on billow,
Oh, roar on roar,
Over me wash
The seas of war.
Over me—down—down—
Lunges and plunges
The huge gun with its one blind eye,
The armored train,
And, swooping out of the sky,
The aeroplane.
Down—down—
The army proudly swinging
Under gay flags,
The glorious dead heaped up like rags,
A church with bronze bells ringing,
A city all towers,
Gardens of lovers and flowers,
The round world swinging
In the light of the sun:
All broken, undone,
All down—under
Black surges of thunder ...
Oh, billow on billow
Oh, roar on roar,
Over me wash
The seas of war ...
As I lie roofed in, screened in,
From the pattering rain,
The summer rain—
As I lie
Snug and dry,
And hear the birds complain.
THE WONDER OF IT
How wild, how witch-like weird that life should be!
That the insensate rock dared dream of me,
And take to bursting out and burgeoning—
Oh, long ago—yo ho!—
And wearing green! How stark and strange a thing
That life should be!
Oh, mystic mad, a rigadoon of glee,
That dust should rise, and leap alive, and flee
A-foot, a-wing, and shake the deeps with cries—
Oh, far away—yo-hay!
What moony masque, what arrogant disguise
That life should be!
THE INNER SILENCE
Noises that strive to tear
Earth’s mantle soft of air
And break upon the stillness where it dwells:
The noise of battle and the noise of prayer,
The cooing noise of love that softly tells
Joy’s brevity, the brazen noise of laughter—
All these affront me not, nor echo after
Through the long memories.
They may not enter the deep chamber where
Forever silence is.
Silence more soft than spring hides in the ground
Beneath her budding flowers;
Silence more rich than ever was the sound
Of harps through long warm hours.
It’s like a hidden vastness, even as though
Great suns might there beat out their measures slow,
Nor break the hush mightier than they.
There do I dwell eternally,
There where no thought may follow me,
Nor stillest dreams whose pinions plume the way.
LOVE SONG
I love my life, but not too well
To give it to thee like a flower,
So it may pleasure thee to dwell
Deep in its perfume but an hour.
I love my life, but not too well.
I love my life, but not too well
To sing it note by note away,
So to thy soul the song may tell
The beauty of the desolate day.
I love my life, but not too well.
I love my life, but not too well
To cast it like a cloak on thine,
Against the storms that sound and swell
Between thy lonely heart and mine.
I love my life, but not too well.
A FAREWELL
Good-by!—no, do not grieve that it is over,
The perfect hour;
That the winged joy, sweet honey-loving rover,
Flits from the flower.
Grieve not—it is the law. Love will be flying—
Oh, love and all.
Glad was the living—blessed be the dying!
Let the leaves fall.
LULLABY
My little one, sleep softly
Among the toys and flowers.
Sleep softly, O my first-born son,
Through all the long dark hours.
And if you waken far away
I shall be wandering too.
If far away you run and play
My heart must follow you.
Sleep softly, O my baby,
And smile down in your sleep.
Here are red rose-buds for your bed—
Smile, and I will not weep.
We made our pledge—you did not fear
To go—why then should I?
Though long you sleep, I shall be near;
So hush—we must not cry.
Sleep softly, dear one, softly—
They can not part us now;
Forever rest here on my breast,
My kiss upon your brow.
What though they hide a little grave
With dream-flowers false or true?
What difference? We will just be brave
Together—I and you.
PAIN
She heard the children playing in the sun,
And through her window saw the white-stemmed trees
Sway like a film of silver in the breeze
Under the purple hills; and one by one
She noted chairs and cabinets, and spun
The pattern of her bed’s pale draperies:
Yet all the while she knew that each of these
Was a dull lie, in irony begun.
For down in hell she lay, whose livid fires
Love may not quench, whose pangs death may not quell.
The round immensity of earth and sky
Shrank to a point that speared her. Loves, desires,
Darkened to torturing ministers of hell,
Whose mockery of joy deepened the lie.
Little eternities the black hours were,
That no beginning knew, that knew no end.
Day waned, and night came like a faithless friend,
Bringing no joy; till slowly over her
A numbness grew, and life became a blur,
A silence, an oblivion, a dark blend
Of dim lost agonies, whose downward trend
Led into time’s eternal sepulchre.
And yet, when, after aeons infinite
Of dark eclipse she woke—lo, it was day!
The pictures hung upon the walls, each one;
Under the same rose-patterned coverlet
She lay; spring was still young, and still the play
Of happy children sounded in the sun.
THE WATER OUZEL
Little brown surf-bather of the mountains!
Spirit of foam, lover of cataracts, shaking your wings in falling
waters!
Have you no fear of the roar and rush when Nevada plunges—
Nevada, the shapely dancer, feeling her way with slim white fingers?
How dare you dash at Yosemite the mighty—
Tall, white-limbed Yosemite, leaping down, down, over the cliff?
Is it not enough to lean on the blue air of mountains?
Is it not enough to rest with your mate at timber-line, in bushes that
hug the rocks?
Must you fly through mad waters where the heaped-up granite breaks them?
Must you batter your wings in the torrent?
Must you plunge for life or death through the foam?
THE PINE AT TIMBER-LINE
What has bent you,
Warped and twisted you,
Torn and crippled you?—
What has embittered you,
O lonely tree?
You search the rocks for a footing,
dragging scrawny roots;
You bare your thin breast to the storms,
and fling out wild arms behind you;
You throw back your witch-like head,
with wisps of hair stringing the wind.
You fight with the snows,
You rail and shriek at the tempests.
Old before your time, you challenge the cold stars.
Be still, be satisfied!
Stand straight like your brothers in the valley,
The soft green valley of summer down below.
Why front the endless winter of the peak?
Why seize the lightning in your riven hands?
Why cut the driven wind and shriek aloud?
Why tarry here?
MOUNTAIN SONG
I have not where to lay my head;
Upon my breast no child shall lie;
For me no marriage feast is spread:
I walk alone under the sky.
My staff and scrip I cast away—
Light-burdened to the mountain height!
Climbing the rocky steep by day,
Kindling my fire against the night.
The bitter hail shall flower the peak,
The icy wind shall dry my tears.
Strong shall I be, who am but weak,
When bright Orion spears my fears.
Under the horned moon I shall rise
Up-swinging on the scarf of dawn.
The sun, searching with level eyes,
Shall take my hand and lead me on.
Wide flaming pinions veil the West—
Ah, shall I find? and shall I know?
My feet are bound upon the Quest—
Over the Great Divide I go.
John G. Neihardt
PRAYER FOR PAIN
I do not pray for peace nor ease,
Nor truce from sorrow:
No suppliant on servile knees
Begs here against to-morrow!
Lean flame against lean flame we flash,
O Fates that meet me fair;
Blue steel against blue steel we clash—
Lay on, and I shall dare!
But Thou of deeps the awful Deep,
Thou Breather in the clay,
Grant this my only prayer—Oh, keep
My soul from turning gray!
For until now, whatever wrought
Against my sweet desires,
My days were smitten harps strung taut,
My nights were slumberous lyres.
And howsoe’er the hard blow rang
Upon my battered shield,
Some lark-like, soaring spirit sang
Above my battle-field.
And through my soul of stormy night
The zigzag blue flame ran.
I asked no odds—I fought my fight—
Events against a man.
But now—at last—the gray mist chokes
And numbs me. Leave me pain!
Oh, let me feel the biting strokes,
That I may fight again!
ENVOI
Oh, seek me not within a tomb—
Thou shalt not find me in the clay!
I pierce a little wall of gloom
To mingle with the day!
I brothered with the things that pass,
Poor giddy joy and puckered grief;
I go to brother with the grass
And with the sunning leaf.
Not death can sheathe me in a shroud;
A joy-sword whetted keen with pain,
I join the armies of the cloud,
The lightning and the rain.
Oh, subtle in the sap athrill,
Athletic in the glad uplift,
A portion of the cosmic will,
I pierce the planet-drift.
My God and I shall interknit
As rain and ocean, breath and air;
And oh, the luring thought of it
Is prayer!
Yone Noguchi
THE POET
Out of the deep and the dark,
A sparkling mystery, a shape,
Something perfect,
Comes like the stir of the day:
One whose breath is an odor,
Whose eyes show the road to stars,
The breeze in his face,
The glory of heaven on his back.
He steps like a vision hung in air,
Diffusing the passion of eternity;
His abode is the sunlight of morn,
The music of eve his speech:
In his sight,
One shall turn from the dust of the grave,
And move upward to the woodland.
I HAVE CAST THE WORLD
I have cast the world,
and think me as nothing.
Yet I feel cold on snow-falling day,
And happy on flower day.
Grace Fallow Norton
ALLEGRA AGONISTES
A gleam of gold in gloom and gray,
A call from out a fairer day.
O pang at heart and ebbing blood!
(Hush, bread and salt should be thy mood,
Stern woman of the Brotherhood.)
Clamor of golden tones and tunes,
Hunt of faint horns, breath of bassoons;
They wound my soul again; I lie
Face earthward in fresh agony.
Oh, give me joy before I die!
World, world, I could have danced for thee,
And I had tales and minstrelsy;
Kept fairer, I had been more good.
(Hush, bread and salt should be thy mood,
Soul of the breadless Brotherhood.)
Some thou hast formed to play thy part,
The bold, the cold, the hard of heart.
Thy rue upon my lips I toss.
Rose was my right. O world, the loss,
When Greek limbs writhe upon the cross!
MAKE NO VOWS
I made a vow once, one only.
I was young and I was lonely.
When I grew strong I said: “This vow
Is too narrow for me now.
Who am I to be bound by old oaths?
I will change them as I change my clothes!”
But that ancient outworn vow
Was like fetters upon me now.
It was hard to break, hard to break;
Hard to shake from me, hard to shake.
I broke it by day, but it closed upon me at night.
He is not free who is free only in the sun-light.
He is not free who bears fetters in his dreams,
Nor he who laughs only by dark dream-fed streams.
Oh, it costs much bright coin of strength to live!
Watch, then, where all your strength you give!
For I, who would be so wild and wondrous now,
Must give, give, to break a burdening bitter vow.
I GIVE THANKS
There’s one that I once loved so much
I am no more the same.
I give thanks for that transforming touch.
I tell you not his name.
He has become a sign to me
For flowers and for fire.
For song he is a sign to me
And for the broken lyre.
And I have known him in a book
And never touched his hand.
And he is dead—I need not look
For him through his green land.
Heaven may not be. I have no faith,
But this desire I have—
To take my soul on my last breath,
To lift it like a wave,
And surge unto his star and say,
His friendship had been heaven;
And pray, for clouds that closed his day
May light at last be given!
And say, he shone at noon so bright
I learned to run and rejoice!
And beg him for one last delight—
The true sound of his voice.
There’s one that once moved me so much
I am no more the same;
And I pray I too, I too, may touch
Some heart with singing flame.
James Oppenheim
THE SLAVE
They set the slave free, striking off his chains....
Then he was as much of a slave as ever.
He was still chained to servility,
He was still manacled to indolence and sloth,
He was still bound by fear and superstition,
By ignorance, suspicion, and savagery ...
His slavery was not in the chains,
But in himself ...
They can only set free men free ...
And there is no need of that:
Free men set themselves free.
THE LONELY CHILD
Do you think, my boy, when I put my arms around you
To still your fears,
That it is I who conquer the dark and the lonely night?
My arms seem to wrap love about you,
As your little heart fluttering at my breast
Throbs love through me ...
But, dear one, it is not your father:
Other arms are about you, drawing you near,
And drawing the Earth near, and the Night near,
And your father near....
Some day you shall lie alone at nights,
As now your father lies;
And in those arms, as a leaf fallen on a tranquil stream,
Drift into dreams and healing sleep.
NOT OVERLOOKED
Though I am little as all little things,
Though the stars that pass over my tininess are as the sands of the sea,
Though the garment of the night was made for a sky-giant and does not
fit me,
Though even in a city of men I am as nothing,
Yet at times the gift of life is almost more than I can bear....
I laugh with joyousness, the morning is a blithe holiday;
And in the overrunning of my hardy bliss praise rises for the very
breath I breathe.
How soaked the universe is with life—
Not a cranny but is drenched!
Ah, not even I was overlooked!
THE RUNNER IN THE SKIES
Who is the runner in the skies,
With her blowing scarf of stars,
And our earth and sun hovering like bees about her blossoming heart!
Her feet are on the winds where space is deep;
Her eyes are nebulous and veiled;
She hurries through the night to a far lover.
Patrick Orr
ANNIE SHORE AND JOHNNIE DOON
Annie Shore, ’twas, sang last night
Down in South End saloon;
A tawdry creature in the light,
Painted cheeks, eyes over bright,
Singing a dance-hall tune.
I’d be forgetting Annie’s singing—
I’d not have thought again—
But for the thing that cried and fluttered
Through all the shrill refrain:
Youth crying above foul words, cheap music,
And innocence in pain.
They sentenced Johnnie Doon today
For murder, stark and grim;
Death’s none too dear a price, they say,
For such-like men as him to pay;
No need to pity him!
And Johnnie Doon I’d not be pitying—
I could forget him now—
But for the childish look of trouble
That fell across his brow,
For the twisting hands he looked at dumbly
As if they’d sinned, he knew not how.
IN THE MOHAVE
As I rode down the arroyo through yuccas belled with bloom
I saw a last year’s stalk lift dried hands to the light,
Like age at prayer for death within a careless room,
Like one by day o’ertaken, whose sick desire is night.
And as I rode I saw a lean coyote lying
All perfect as in life upon a silver dune,
Save that his feet no more could flee the harsh light’s spying,
Save that no more his shadow would cleave the sinking moon.
O cruel land, where form endures, the spirit fled!
You chill the sun for me with your gray sphinx’s smile,
Brooding in the bright silence above your captive dead,
Where beat the heart of life so brief, so brief a while!
Seumas O’Sullivan
MY SORROW
My sorrow that I am not by the little dun,
By the lake of the starlings at Rosses under the hill—
And the larks there, singing over the fields of dew,
Or evening there, and the sedges still!
For plain I see now the length of the yellow sand,
And Lissadell far off and its leafy ways,
And the holy mountain whose mighty heart
Gathers into it all the colored days.
My sorrow that I am not by the little dun,
By the lake of the starlings at evening when all is still—
And still in whispering sedges the herons stand.
’Tis there I would nestle at rest till the quivering moon
Uprose in the golden quiet over the hill.
SPLENDID AND TERRIBLE
Splendid and terrible your love.
The searing pinions of its flight
Flamed but a moment’s space above
The place where ancient memories keep
Their quiet; and the dreaming deep
Moved inly with a troubled light,
And that old passion woke and stirred
Out of its sleep.
Splendid and terrible your love.
I hold it to me like a flame;
I hold it like a flame above
The empty anguish of my breast.
There let it stay, there let it rest—
Deep in the heart whereto it came
Of old as some wind-wearied bird
Drops to its nest.
THE OTHERS
From our hidden places,
By a secret path,
We come in the moonlight
To the side of the green rath.
There the night through
We take our pleasure,
Dancing to such a measure
As earth never knew.
To dance and lilt
And song without a name,
So sweetly chanted
’Twould put a bird to shame.
And many a maiden
Is there, of mortal birth,
Her young eyes laden
With dreams of earth.
Music so piercing wild
And forest-sweet would bring
Silence on blackbirds singing
Their best in the ear of spring.
And many a youth entrancèd
Moves slow in the dreamy round,
His brave lost feet enchanted
With the rhythm of faery sound.
Oh, many a thrush and blackbird
Would fall to the dewy ground,
And pine away in silence
For envy of such a sound.
So the night through,
In our sad pleasure,
We dance to many a measure
That earth never knew.
Josephine Preston Peabody
CRADLE SONG
I
Lord Gabriel, wilt thou not rejoice
When at last a little boy’s
Cheek lies heavy as a rose,
And his eyelids close?
Gabriel, when that hush may be,
This sweet hand all heedfully
I’ll undo, for thee alone,
From his mother’s own.
Then the far blue highways paven
With the burning stars of heaven
He shall gladden with the sweet
Hasting of his feet—
Feet so brightly bare and cool,
Leaping, as from pool to pool;
From a little laughing boy
Splashing rainbow joy!
Gabriel, wilt thou understand
How to keep his hovering hand—
Never shut, as in a bond,
From the bright beyond?
Nay, but though it cling and close
Tightly as a clinging rose,
Clasp it only so—aright,
Lest his heart take fright.
(_Dormi, dormi, tu;
The dusk is hung with blue._)
II
Lord Michael, wilt not thou rejoice
When at last a little boy’s
Heart, a shut-in murmuring bee,
Turns him into thee?
Wilt thou heed thine armor well—
To take his hand from Gabriel,
So his radiant cup of dream
May not spill a gleam?
He will take thy heart in thrall,
Telling o’er thy breastplate all
Colors, in his bubbling speech,
With his hand to each.
(_Dormi, dormi, tu,
Sapphire is the blue;
Pearl and beryl, they are called,
Chrysoprase and emerald,
Sard and amethyst.
Numbered so, and kissed._)
Ah, but find some angel word
For thy sharp, subduing sword!
Yea, Lord Michael, make no doubt
He will find it out:
(_Dormi, dormi, tu!_)
_His eyes will look at you._
III
Last, a little morning space,
Lead him to that leafy place
Where Our Lady sits awake,
For all mothers’ sake.
Bosomed with the Blessèd One,
He shall mind her of her Son,
Once so folded from all harms,
In her shrining arms.
(_In her veil of blue,
Dormi, dormi, tu._)
So—and fare thee well.
Softly—Gabriel ...
When the first faint red shall come,
Bid the Day-star lead him home—
For the bright world’s sake—
To my heart, awake.
THE CEDARS
All down the years the fragrance came,
The mingled fragrance, with a flame,
Of cedars breathing in the sun,
The cedar-trees of Lebanon.
O thirst of song in bitter air,
And hope, wing-hurt from iron care,
What balm of myrrh and honey, won
From far-off trees of Lebanon!
Not from these eyelids yet have I
Ever beheld that early sky.
Why do they call me through the sun?—
Even the trees of Lebanon?
A SONG OF SOLOMON
King Solomon was the wisest man
Of all that have been kings.
He built an House unto the Lord;
And he sang of creeping things.
Of creeping things, of things that fly,
Or swim within the seas;
Of the little weed along the wall,
And of the cedar-trees.
And happier he, without mistake,
Than all men since alive.
God’s House he built; and he did make
A thousand songs and five.
Ezra Pound
Δώρια
Be in me as the eternal moods
of the bleak wind, and not
As transient things are—
gaiety of flowers.
Have me in the strong loneliness
of sunless cliffs
And of gray waters.
Let the gods speak softly of us
In days hereafter,
the shadowy flowers of Orcus
Remember thee.
THE RETURN
See, they return; ah, see the tentative
Movements, and the slow feet,
The trouble in the pace and the uncertain
Wavering!
See, they return, one, and by one,
With fear, as half-awakened;
As if the snow should hesitate
And murmur in the wind,
and half turn back;
These were the “Wing’d-with-Awe,”
inviolable.
Gods of that wingèd shoe!
With them the silver hounds,
sniffing the trace of air!
Haie! Haie!
These were the swift to harry;
These the keen-scented;
These were the souls of blood.
Slow on the leash,
pallid the leash-men!
PICCADILLY
Beautiful, tragical faces—
Ye that were whole, and are so sunken;
And, O ye vile, ye that might have been loved,
That are so sodden and drunken,
Who hath forgotten you?
O wistful, fragile faces, few out of many!
The crass, the coarse, the brazen,
God knows I cannot pity them, perhaps, as I should do;
But oh, ye delicate, wistful faces,
Who hath forgotten you?
N. Y.