The blossoms of the myriad stars are thick;
Over the huddled rows of stone and brick
A few sad wisps of empty smoke are curled
Like ghosts, languid and sick.
One breathless moment now the city’s moaning
Fades, and the endless streets seem vague and dim;
There is no sound around the world’s rim,
Save in the distance a small band is droning
Some desolate old hymn.
Van Wyck, how often have we been together
When this same moment made all mysteries clear—
The infinite stars that brood above us here,
And the gray city in the soft June weather,
So tawdry and so dear!
SPRING
The air is full of dawn and spring;
Outside the room I see
A swallow, like a shaft of light,
Shift sideways suddenly.
There is no room for death at all
In earth or heaven above;
He never yet believed in death
Who ever learned to love.
Build me a tomb when I am dead,
But leave a window free
That I may watch the swallow’s flight,
And spring come back to me.
Build me a tomb of steel and stone,
But leave one window free,
That I may feel the spring come back—
And you come back to me!
LIKE MUSIC
Your body’s motion is like music;
Her stride ecstatical and bright
Moves to the rhythm of dumb music,
The unheard music of delight.
The silent splendor of the creation
Speaks through your body’s stately strength,
And the lithe harmony of beauty
Undulates through its lovely length.
And rhythmically your bosom’s arches,
Alternately, with every breath
Lift lifeward in long lines of beauty
And lapse along the slopes of death.
THE THUNDER-SHOWER
The lightning flashed, and lifted
The lids of heaven apart,
The fiery thunder rolled you
All night long through my heart.
From dreams of you at dawn
I rose to the window ledge:
The storm had passed away,
The lake lapped on the sedge.
The lyre of heaven trembled
Still with the thought of you,
The twilight on the waters,
And all my spirit, too.
SONG
All my love for my sweet
I bared one day to her.
Carelessly she took it,
And like a conqueror
She bowed the neck of my soul
To fit it to her yoke,
And bridled the lips of Song—
Fear within me awoke!
But Love cried: “Swiftly, swiftly
Bear her along the road;
Beautiful is the goal
And Beauty is the goad.”
ALONE
Ah, never in all my life
Have I ever fled away
From the loneliness that follows
My spirit night and day!
Though I fly to the dearest face,
It follows without rest—
To the kind heart of love,
And the belovèd breast.
Though I walk amid the crowd,
Still I walk apart;
Alone, alone I lie
Even at the loved one’s heart.
NIRVANA
Sleep on—I lie at heaven’s high oriels,
Over the stars that murmur as they go
Lighting your lattice-window far below.
And every star some of the glory spells
Whereof I know.
I have forgotten you, long long ago;
Like the sweet, silver singing of thin bells
Vanished, or music fading faint and low.
Sleep on—I lie at heaven’s high oriels,
Who loved you so.
TRIUMPH OF THE SINGER
I shake my hair in the wind of morning
For the joy within me that knows no bounds.
I echo backward the vibrant beauty
Wherewith heaven’s hollow lute resounds.
I shed my song on the feet of all men,
On the feet of all shed out like wine;
On the whole and the hurt I shed my bounty,
The beauty within me that is not mine.
Turn not away from my song, nor scorn me,
Who bear the secret that holds the sky
And the stars together; but know within me
There speaks another more wise than I.
Nor spurn me here from your heart to hate me,
Yet hate me here if you will. Not so
Myself you hate, but the love within me
That loves you whether you would or no.
Here love returns with love to the lover
And beauty unto the heart thereof,
And hatred unto the heart of the hater,
Whether he would or no, with love!
Hervey White
LAST NIGHT
Last night the full moon laid a cloth of white
Within my window, spread upon my bed,
And, with her old-time splendor, asked of me
To share her harvest supper. I arose,
And stepped without to pay my greetings. When, Behold!
The old world flowered again, as it had done
When I was twenty, at the gate of life;
The meadows held untouched their virgin bloom,
The darkling trees with gleaming leaves flashed bright,
Dewy and pendant till the waiting morn;
The shadows lay like cool soft soothing hands
Upon the pastures pulsing with sweet June:
I, too, was young again, and God was just,
And through my blood propelled great future acts—
Big things to do, and thoughts, and voice to speak—
So potent was the charm of my white queen.
It was not till I walked for many miles,
And came back weary to my quiet room,
That I had once more taken back my years,
My cares, my listlessness, and stagnant grief.
And, even as I sit in full faced day,
My memory faintly shadows out this song.
I SAW THE CLOUDS
I saw the clouds among the hills
Trailing their plumes of rainy gray.
The purple of the woods behind
Fell down to where the valley lay
In sweet satiety of rain,
With ripened fruit, and full filled grain.
I saw the graves, upon the plain,
Of pioneers, who took the land,
And tamed the stubborn elements
Till they were gentle to the hand.
Their children, now in fortune’s ways,
Dwell in their father’s palaces.
I saw some old forgotten lays;
And treasured volumes I passed by.
They were but repetitions cheap
For any hucksterer to buy.
The clouds, the graves, the worn old song,
I bear them in my heart along.
Margaret Widdemer
THE BEGGARS
The little pitiful, worn, laughing faces,
Begging of Life for Joy!
I saw the little daughters of the poor,
Tense from the long day’s working, strident, gay,
Hurrying to the picture-place. There curled
A hideous flushed beggar at the door,
Trading upon his horror, eyeless, maimed,
Complacent in his profitable mask.
They mocked his horror, but they gave to him
From the brief wealth of pay-night, and went in
To the cheap laughter and the tawdry thoughts
Thrown on the screen; in to the seeking hand
Covered by darkness, to the luring voice
Of Horror, boy-masked, whispering of rings,
Of silks, of feathers, bought—so cheap!—with just
Their slender starved child-bodies, palpitant
For beauty, laughter, passion—that is life:
(A frock of satin for an hour’s shame,
A coat of fur for two days’ servitude;
“And the clothes last,” the thought runs on, within
The poor warped girl-minds drugged with changeless days;
“Who cares or knows after the hour is done?”)
—Poor little beggars at Life’s door for Joy!
The old man crouched there, eyeless, horrible,
Complacent in the marketable mask
That earned his comforts—and they gave to him!
But ah, the little painted, wistful faces
Questioning Life for Joy!
TERESINA’S FACE
He saw it last of all before they herded in the steerage,
Dark against the sunset where he lingered by the hold,
The tear-stained dusk-rose face of her, the little Teresina,
Sailing out to lands of gold:
Ah, the days were long, long days, still toiling in the vineyard,
Working for the coins that set him free to go to her,
Where gay it glowed, the flower face of little Teresina,
Where the joy and riches were:
Hard to find one rose-face where the dark rose-faces cluster,
Where the outland laws are strange and outland voices hum,
(Only one lad’s hoping, and the word of Teresina,
Who would wait for him to come!)
· · · · ·
God grant he may not find her, since he might not win her freedom,
Nor yet be great enough to love, in such marred, captive wise,
The patient, painted face of her, the little Teresina,
With its cowed, all-knowing eyes!
GREEK FOLK SONG
Under dusky laurel leaf,
Scarlet leaf of rose,
I lie prone, who have known
All a woman knows.
Love and grief and motherhood,
Fame and mirth and scorn—
These are all shall befall
Any woman born.
Jewel-laden are my hands,
Tall my stone above—
Do not weep that I sleep,
Who was wise in love.
Where I walk, a shadow gray
Through gray asphodel,
I am glad, who have had
All that life can tell.
Florence Wilkinson
OUR LADY OF IDLENESS
They in the darkness gather and ask
Her name, the mistress of their endless task.
_The Toilers_
Tinsel-makers in factory gloom,
Miners in ethylene pits,
Divers and druggists mixing poisonous bloom;
Huge hunters, men of brawn,
Half-naked creatures of the tropics,
Furred trappers stealing forth at Labrador dawn;
Catchers of beetles, sheep-men in bleak sheds,
Pearl-fishers perched on Indian coasts,
Children in stifling towers pulling threads;
Dark bunchy women pricking intricate laces,
Myopic jewelers’ apprentices,
Arabs who chase the long-legged birds in sandy places:
They are her invisible slaves,
The genii of her costly wishes,
Climbing, descending, running under waves.
They strip earth’s dimmest cell,
They burn and drown and stifle
To build her inconceivable and fragile shell.
_The Artist-Artisans_
They have painted a miracle-shawl
Of cobwebs and whispering shadows,
And trellised leaves that ripple on a wall.
They have broidered a tissue of cost,
Spun foam of the sea
And lilied imagery of the vanishing frost.
Her floating skirts have run
Like iridescent marshes,
Or like the tossed hair of a stormy sun.
Her silver cloak has shone
Blue as a mummy’s beads,
Green as the ice-glints of an Arctic zone.
She is weary and has lain
At last her body down.
What, with her clothing’s beauty, they have slain!
_The Angel With the Sword_
Come, brothers, let us lift
Her pitiful body on high,
Her tight-shut hands that take to heaven no gift
But ashes of costly things.
We seven archangels will
Bear her in silence on our flame-tipped wings.
_The Toilers_
Lo, she is thinner than fire
On a burned mill-town’s edge,
And smaller than a young child’s dead desire.
Yea, emptier than the wage
Of a spent harlot crying for her beauty,
And grayer than the mumbling lips of age.
_A Lost Girl_
White as a drowned one’s feet
Twined with the wet sea-bracken,
And naked as a Sin driven from God’s littlest street.
STUDENTS
John Brown and Jeanne at Fontainebleau—
’Twas Toussaint, just a year ago;
Crimson and copper was the glow
Of all the woods at Fontainebleau.
They peered into that ancient well,
And watched the slow torch as it fell.
John gave the keeper two whole sous,
And Jeanne that smile with which she woos
John Brown to folly. So they lose
The Paris train. But never mind!—
All-Saints are rustling in the wind,
And there’s an inn, a crackling fire—
(It’s _deux-cinquante_, but Jeanne’s desire);
There’s dinner, candles, country wine,
Jeanne’s lips—philosophy divine!
There was a bosquet at Saint Cloud
Wherein John’s picture of her grew
To be a Salon masterpiece—
Till the rain fell that would not cease.
Through one long alley how they raced!—
’Twas gold and brown, and all a waste
Of matted leaves, moss-interlaced.
Shades of mad queens and hunter-kings
And thorn-sharp feet of dryad-things
Were company to their wanderings;
Then rain and darkness on them drew.
The rich folks’ motors honked and flew.
They hailed an old cab, heaven for two;
The bright Champs-Elysées at last—
Though the cab crawled it sped too fast.
Paris, upspringing white and gold:
Flamboyant arch and high-enscrolled
War-sculpture, big, Napoleonic—
Fierce chargers, angels histrionic;
The royal sweep of gardened spaces,
The pomp and whirl of columned Places;
The _Rive Gauche_, age-old, gay and gray;
The _impasse_ and the loved café;
The tempting tidy little shops;
The convent walls, the glimpsed tree-tops;
Book-stalls, old men like dwarfs in plays;
Talk, work, and Latin Quarter ways.
May—Robinson’s, the chestnut trees—
Were ever crowds as gay as these?
The quick pale waiters on a run,
The round green tables, one by one,
Hidden away in amorous bowers—
Lilac, laburnum’s golden showers.
Kiss, clink of glasses, laughter heard,
And nightingales quite undeterred.
And then that last extravagance—
O Jeanne, a single amber glance
Will pay him!—“Let’s play millionaire
For just two hours—on princely fare,
At some hotel where lovers dine
_A deux_ and pledge across the wine!”
They find a damask breakfast-room,
Where stiff silk roses range their bloom.
The garçon has a splendid way
Of bearing in _grand déjeuner_.
Then to be left alone, alone,
High up above Rue Castiglione;
Curtained away from all the rude
Rumors, in silken solitude;
And, John, her head upon your knees—
Time waits for moments such as these.
Marguerite Wilkinson
A WOMAN’S BELOVED
_A Psalm_
To what shall a woman liken her beloved,
And with what shall she compare him to do him honor?
He is like the close-folded new leaves of the woodbine, odorless, but
sweet,
Flushed with a new and swiftly rising life,
Strong to grow and give glad shade in summer.
Even thus should a woman’s beloved shelter her in time of anguish.
And he is like the young robin, eager to try his wings,
For within soft-stirring wings of the spirit has she cherished him,
And with the love of the mother bird shall she embolden him, that his
flight may avail.
A woman’s beloved is to her as the roots of the willow,
Long, strong, white roots, bedded lovingly in the dark.
Into the depths of her have gone the roots of his strength and of his
pride,
That she may nourish him well and become his fulfilment.
None may tear him from the broad fields where he is planted!
A woman’s beloved is like the sun rising upon the waters, making the
dark places light,
And like the morning melody of the pine trees.
Truly, she thinks the roses die joyously
If they are crushed beneath his feet.
A woman’s beloved is to her a great void that she may illumine,
A great king that she may crown, a great soul that she may redeem.
And he is also the perfecting of life,
Flowers for the altar, bread for the lips, wine for the chalice.
You that have known passion, think not that you have fathomed love.
It may be that you have never seen love’s face.
For love thrusts aside storm-clouds of passion to unveil the heavens,
And, in the heart of a woman, only then is love born.
To what shall I liken a woman’s beloved,
And with what shall I compare him to do him honor?
He is a flower, a song, a struggle, a wild storm,
And, at the last, he is redemption, power, joy, fulfilment and perfect
peace.
AN INCANTATION
O great sun of heaven, harm not my love;
Sear him not with your flame, blind him not with your beauty,
Shine for his pleasure!
O gray rains of heaven, harm not my love;
Drown not in your torrent the song of his heart,
Lave and caress him.
O swift winds of heaven, harm not my love;
Bruise not nor buffet him with your rough humor,
Sing you his prowess!
O mighty triad, strong ones of heaven,
Sun, rain, and wind, be gentle, I charge you—
For your mad mood of wrath have me—I am ready—
But spare him, my lover, most proud and most dear,
O sun, rain and wind, strong ones of heaven!
William Carlos Williams
SICILIAN EMIGRANT’S SONG
_In New York Harbor_
O—eh—lee! La—la!
Donna! Donna!
Blue is the sky of Palermo;
Blue is the little bay;
And dost thou remember the orange and fig,
The lively sun and the sea breeze at evening?
Hey—la!
Donna! Donna! Maria!
O—eh—li! La—la!
Donna! Donna!
Gray is the sky of this land.
Gray and green is the water.
I see no trees, dost thou? The wind
Is cold for the big woman there with the candle.
Hey—la!
Donna! Donna! Maria!
O—eh—li! O—la!
Donna! Donna!
I sang thee by the blue waters;
I sing thee here in the gray dawning.
Kiss, for I put down my guitar;
I’ll sing thee more songs after the landing.
O Jesu, I love thee!
Donna! Donna! Maria!
PEACE ON EARTH
The Archer is wake!
The Swan is flying!
Gold against blue
An Arrow is lying.
There is hunting in heaven—
Sleep safe till tomorrow.
The Bears are abroad!
The Eagle is screaming!
Gold against blue
Their eyes are gleaming!
Sleep!
Sleep safe till tomorrow.
The Sisters lie
With their arms intertwining;
Gold against blue
Their hair is shining!
The Serpent writhes!
Orion is listening!
Gold against blue
His sword is glistening!
Sleep!
There is hunting in heaven—
Sleep safe till tomorrow.
THE SHADOW
Soft as the bed in the earth
Where a stone has lain—
So soft, so smooth and so cool,
Spring closes me in
With her arms and her hands.
Rich as the smell
Of new earth on a stone,
That has lain, breathing
The damp through its pores—
Spring closes me in
With her blossomy hair;
Brings dark to my eyes.
METRIC FIGURE
There is a bird in the poplars—
It is the sun!
The leaves are little yellow fish
Swimming in the river;
The bird skims above them—
Day is on his wings.
Phoenix!
It is he that is making
The great gleam among the poplars.
It is his singing
Outshines the noise
Of leaves clashing in the wind.
SUB TERRA
Where shall I find you—
You, my grotesque fellows
That I seek everywhere
To make up my band?
None, not one
With the earthy tastes I require:
The burrowing pride that rises
Subtly as on a bush in May.
Where are you this day—
You, my seven-year locusts
With cased wings?
Ah, my beauties, how I long!
That harvest
That shall be your advent—
Thrusting up through the grass,
Up under the weeds,
Answering me—
That shall be satisfying!
The light shall leap and snap
That day as with a million lashes!
Oh, I have you!
Yes, you are about me in a sense,
Playing under the blue pools
That are my windows.
But they shut you out still
There in the half light—
For the simple truth is
That though I see you clear enough ...
You are not there.
It is not that—it is you,
You I want, my companions!
God! if I could only fathom
The guts of shadows!—
You to come with me
Poking into negro houses
With their gloom and smell!
In among children
Leaping around a dead dog!
Mimicking
Onto the lawns of the rich!
You!
To go with me a-tip-toe
Head down under heaven,
Nostrils lipping the wind!
SLOW MOVEMENT
All those treasures that lie in the little bolted box whose tiny space
is
Mightier than the room of the stars, being secret and filled with
dreams:
All those treasures—I hold them in my hand—are straining continually
Against the sides and the lid and the two ends of the little box in
which I guard them;
Crying that there is no sun come among them this great while and that
they weary of shining;
Calling me to fold back the lid of the little box and to give them sleep
finally.
But the night I am hiding from them, dear friend, is far more desperate
than their night!
And so I take pity on them and pretend to have lost the key to the
little house of my treasures;
For they would die of weariness were I to open it, and not be merely
faint and sleepy
As they are now.
POSTLUDE
Now that I have cooled to you
Let there be gold of tarnished masonry,
Temples soothed by the sun to ruin
That sleep utterly.
Give me hand for the dances,
Ripples at Philae, in and out,
And lips, my Lesbian,
Wall flowers that once were flame.
Your hair is my Carthage
And my arms the bow,
And our words arrows
To shoot the stars
Who from that misty sea
Swarm to destroy us.
But you there beside me—
Oh, how shall I defy you,
Who wound me in the night
With breasts shining
Like Venus and like Mars?
The night that is shouting Jason
When the loud eaves rattle
As with waves above me
Blue at the prow of my desire.
Charles Erskine Scott Wood
THE POET IN THE DESERT
_Extracts from the Prologue_
I have come into the Desert because my soul is athirst as the Desert is
athirst;
My soul which is the soul of all; universal, not different.
We are athirst for the waters which make beautiful the path
And entice the grass, the willows and poplars,
So that in the heat of the day we may lie in a cool shadow,
Soothed as by the hands of quiet women, listening to the discourse of
running waters as the voices of women, exchanging the confidences of
love.
· · · · ·
The mountains afar girdle the Desert as a zone of amethyst;
Pale, translucent walls of opal,
Girdling the Desert as Life is girt by Eternity.
They lift their heads high above our tribulation
Into the azure vault of Time;
Theirs are the airy castles which are set upon foundations of sapphire.
My soul goes out to them as the bird to her secret nest.
They are the abode of peace.
· · · · ·
The flowers bloom in the Desert joyously—
They do not weary themselves with questioning;
They are careless whether they be seen, or praised.
They blossom unto life perfectly and unto death perfectly, leaving
nothing unsaid.
They spread a voluptuous carpet for the feet of the Wind
And to the frolic Breezes which overleap them, they whisper:
“Stay a moment, Brother; plunder us of our passion;
Our day is short, but our beauty is eternal.”
Never have I found a place, or a season, without beauty.
Neither the sea, where the white stallions champ their bits and rear
against their bridles,
Nor the Desert, bride of the Sun, which sits scornful, apart,
Like an unwooed princess, careless, indifferent.
She spreads her garments, wonderful beyond estimation,
And embroiders continually her mantle.
She is a queen, seated on a throne of gold
In the Hall of Silence.
She insists upon humility.
She insists upon meditation.
She insists that the soul be free.
She requires an answer.
She demands the final reply to thoughts which cannot be answered.
She lights the sun for a torch
And sets up the great cliffs as sentinels:
The morning and the evening are curtains before her chambers.
She displays the stars as her coronet.
She is cruel and invites victims,
Restlessly moving her wrists and ankles,
Which are loaded with sapphires.
Her brown breasts flash with opals.
She slays those who fear her,
But runs her hand lovingly over the brow of those who know her,
Soothing with a voluptuous caress.
She is a courtesan, wearing jewels,
Enticing, smiling a bold smile;
Adjusting her brilliant raiment negligently,
Lying brooding upon her floor which is richly carpeted;
Her brown thighs beautiful and naked.
She toys with the dazzelry of her diadems,
Smiling inscrutably.
She is a nun, withdrawing behind her veil;
Gray, subdued, silent, mysterious, meditative; unapproachable.
She is fair as a goddess sitting beneath a flowering peach-tree, beside
a clear river.
Her body is tawny with the eagerness of the Sun
And her eyes are like pools which shine in deep cañons.
She is beautiful as a swart woman, with opals at her throat,
Rubies on her wrists and topaz about her ankles.
Her breasts are like the evening and the day stars;
She sits upon her throne of light, proud and silent, indifferent to her
wooers.
The Sun is her servitor, the Stars are her attendants, running before
her.
She sings a song unto her own ears, solitary, but it is sufficient—
It is the song of her being. Oh, if I may sing the song of my being it
will be sufficient.
She is like a jeweled dancer, dancing upon a pavement of gold;
Dazzling, so that the eyes must be shaded.
She wears the stars upon her bosom and braids her hair with the
constellations.
I know the Desert is beautiful, for I have lain in her arms and she has
kissed me.
I have come to her, that I may know freedom;
That I may lie upon the breast of the Mother and breathe the air of
primal conditions.
I have come out from the haunts of men;
From the struggle of wolves upon a carcass,
To be melted in Creation’s crucible and be made clean;
To know that the law of Nature is freedom.
Edith Wyatt
ON THE GREAT PLATEAU
In the Santa Clara Valley, far away and far away,
Cool-breathed waters dip and dally, linger towards another day—
Far and far away—far away.
Slow their floating step, but tireless, terraced down the great Plateau.
Towards our ways of steam and wireless, silver-paced the brookbeds go.
Past the ladder-walled Pueblos, past the orchards, pear and quince,
Where the back-locked river’s ebb flows, miles and miles the valley
glints,
Shining backwards, singing downwards, towards horizons blue and bay.
All the roofs the roads ensconce so dream of visions far away—
Santa Cruz and Ildefonso, Santa Clara, Santa Fé.
Ancient, sacred fears and faiths, ancient, sacred faiths and fears—
Some were real, some were wraiths—Indian, Franciscan years,
Built the Khivas, swung the bells; while the wind sang plain and free,
“Turn your eyes from visioned hells!—look as far as you can see!”
In the Santa Clara Valley, far away and far away,
Dying dreams divide and dally, crystal-terraced waters sally—
Linger towards another day, far and far away—far away.