Chapter II: Introduction

Poetry is one of the realities that persist. The façade and dome of palace and temple, the monuments of heroes and saints, crumble before the ruining breath of time, while the Psalms last. So when another year passes and we sum up our achievements, there is no achievement more vital in registering the soul of a people than its poetry. But in all things that men do, their relationship is objective except those things in which art, religion, love, and nature express their influence through the private thoughts and feelings of men. These four things are the realities, all the others are symbols. And the essence of art, as well as religion and love and nature, is a conscious and mysterious thing, called Poetry. And men will find, if they will only stop to look, that at the bottom of all this poetry, no matter what the theme or the particular artistic shaping, there is something with which they are familiar, because in their own souls there has been an unceasing mystery which they find named in the magic utterance of some lonely and neglected maker of verses.

The poetry in the magazines for this past year has been of a general high standard. The long poems have been well sustained, and there has been a larger quantity of pure lyric pieces than in the past two or three years. The influence of Masefield has shown itself in American verse, notably in the two long poems by Harry Kemp, “The Harvest Hand” and “The Factory.” One of the noblest poems of the year is Henry van Dyke’s “Daybreak in the Grand Cañon of Arizona,” which breathes a fine national spirit, full of reverence for the greatness with which the American destiny is symbolized in the natural grandeur of our country. Mr. Markham has a long narrative in “The Shoes of Happiness,” full of his visionary and spiritual promptings. And in “The Vision of Gettysburg” Mr. Robert Underwood Johnson reflects also the national spirit with particular significance.

The poetry of the year in volumes has not been as ample as last year. The three poets who have aroused most discussion are the Bengali poet Tagore, who brought to the Western world in “Gitanjali” a spiritual message full of mystic but exalted idealism; Francis Thompson, the great Catholic poet, because of the publication of his collected works; and Robert Bridges, who, by his appointment to the English laureateship, became known to a large number of readers who had hitherto been unfamiliar with his very perfect and delicate gift of lyric beauty. Of American poets the volumes by Fannie Stearns Davis, William Rose Benét, Josephine Preston Peabody, Margaret Root Garvin, and George Edward Woodberry are the most significant. The most important book of poems of the year by an American poet, however, is that of Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, “General William Booth Enters into Heaven and Other Poems.” Here is a man with a big vision, with a fine originality, and an art that is particularly his own. There has been no “Lyric Year” this autumn, but a little volume that serves in some sense its purpose is Miss Jessie B. Rittenhouse’s “Little Book of Modern Verse,” which is intended to represent the quality of contemporary American verse.

I want to call attention to a poet who has not yet presented himself except through an occasional magazine piece, but who has written two of the finest sonnets in American poetry. Last year I reprinted, in my annual summary, Mr. Mahlon Leonard Fisher’s “As an Old Mercer,” and pronounced that an achievement which could hardly be surpassed. But in the sonnet “November,” which is reprinted in this book, Mr. Fisher has done, I believe, something that is even greater. It must rank with Lizette Woodworth Reese’s “Tears” and Longfellow’s “Nature” as the best sonnets that have been accomplished by American poets. I have known one competent judge and lover of poetry to declare that not since Keats’ “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” and Miss Reese’s “Tears” has there appeared so fine a sonnet in English poetry. The man who has written “November” has added something to American poetry that cannot be too highly estimated.

Another poet who has enriched the magazines this year, after a period of silence, is Mr. Edwin Arlington Robinson, and in “The Field of Glory” we are under the spell once more of that characteristic magic with which he is endowed alone among American poets.

As in former years, in my annual summary in the _Boston Transcript_, I have examined the contents of the leading American monthly magazines. I originally started, nine years ago, when the first summary appeared, with these six: The Atlantic, Harper’s, Scribner’s, Century, Lippincott’s, and McClure’s. Later I turned to The Forum. The poetry in McClure’s during the two years previous to the beginning of the present year had fallen off; the magazine would reprint occasionally verses from the books of accomplished but little known English and Irish poets, which, with the small amount of space that it devoted to verse, left but little chance of encouragement to native singers. This year I have included The Smart Set, which, under the new editorship of Mr. Willard Huntington Wright, himself a poet of considerable attainment, has been the means of offering the public a high and consistent standard of excellence in the verse it printed.

To the six magazines, namely, Harper’s, Scribner’s, Century, Forum, Lippincott’s, and The Smart Set, I have added this year a weekly, The Bellman. West of New York it is the best edited and most influential periodical published. Indeed, it is widely read in the East. In its pages three of the younger American poets of distinctive achievement have been presented. Though the late Arthur Upson had published some two or three books of verse before The Bellman was established, yet it was practically the first American magazine to print his work. Amelia J. Burr made her first considerable poetic appearance in The Bellman, and the best work, the sonnets that have placed Mr. Mahlon Leonard Fisher in the forefront of contemporary American, or English, sonnet writers, appeared in this same publication. As last year, I have winnowed from other magazines distinctive poems for classification and notice, one each from The Outlook, The Independent, the North American Review, Poetry, A Magazine of Verse; three from the Poetry Journal and three from the Yale Review.

* * * * *

The poems published during the year in the seven representative magazines I have submitted to an impartial critical test, choosing from the total number what I consider the “distinctive” poems of the year. From the distinctive pieces are selected eighty-one poems, to which are added five from the other magazines not represented in the list of seven, making a total of eighty-six, which are intended to represent what I call an “Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1913.”

By a further process of elimination, similar to that of previous years, I have made another selection of forty poems which for one reason or another in the purpose of this estimate seem to stand grouped above the others.

The medium of magazine publication, towards which some critics, and some poets too (a fact which can hardly be justified), and a considerable portion of the reading public have a disparaging opinion, is deserving of better repute for the general high quality of poetic art that is published. Not many years ago it was a favorite exercise of the reviewer, when noticing the average book of verse which happened to include selections reprinted from various magazines, to term the work “magazinable,” or the poet a “magazine poet.” Even poets who detested being called “minor” poets preferred that rather vague and indiscriminate distinction, rather than the unrespectable “magazinable.”

Quoting what I have written in previous years, to emphasize the methods which guided my selections, the reader will see how impartial are the tests by which the distinctive and best poems are chosen: “I have not allowed any special sympathy with the subject to influence my choice. I have taken the poet’s point of view, and accepted his value of the theme he dealt with. The question was: How vital and compelling did he make it? The first test was the sense of pleasure the poem communicated; then to discover the secret or the meaning of the pleasure felt; and in doing so to realize how much richer one became in a knowledge of the purpose of life by reason of the poem’s message.”

In one hundred and twenty-one numbers of these seven magazines I find there were published during 1913 a total of 506 poems. The total number of poems printed in each magazine, and the number of the distinctive poems are: Century, total 58, 30 of distinction; Harper’s, total 57, 29 of distinction; Scribner’s, total 45, 30 of distinction; Forum, total 53, 27 of distinction; Lippincott’s, total 66, 21 of distinction; The Bellman, total 53, 25 of distinction; The Smart Set, total 169, 49 of distinction.

Following the text of the poems making the anthology in this volume, I have given the titles and authors of all the poems classified as the distinctive, published in the magazines for the year, only excepting those that are included in the anthology; in addition I give a list of all the poems and their authors in the one hundred and twenty-one numbers of the magazines examined, for the purpose of a record which readers and students of poetry will find useful.

I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness and thanks to the editors of Scribner’s Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, The Forum, The Century Magazine, The Outlook, Lippincott’s Magazine, The Bellman, The Independent, The Smart Set, the Yale Review, Poetry, A Magazine of Verse; and to the publishers of these magazines, including The Poetry Journal, for the permission kindly given to reprint in this volume the text of the poems making the “Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1913.” To the authors of these poems I am equally indebted and grateful for their willingness to have me reprint their work in this form. Since their appearance in the magazines and before the close of the year when the contents of this volume was made up, two poems herein included appeared in the original volumes of their authors. For the use of William Rose Benét’s “The Marvelous Munchausen” I have also to thank The Century Co., publishers of “Merchants of Cathay,” in which volume it appears. As far as I know, only three of the poems here included are to come out immediately in books by their authors. The last four stanzas of “A Threnody,” by Mr. Louis V. Ledoux, are reprinted by permission of the editor of Scribner’s Magazine, and the rest of the poem is published in advance, by permission of Messrs. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, from a volume of Mr. Ledoux’s poems, which is also to include the “Hymn to Demeter” from “A Sicilian Idyl,” they are to issue in January, under the title of “The Shadow of Ætna.” The two selections by Mr. Richard Burton, “Here Lies Pierrot” and “Human”; the two by Willard Huntington Wright, “What of the Night?” and “Later”; the one by George Edward Woodberry, “St. John and the Faun”; and the two by Richard Le Gallienne, “May is Building Her House” and “Desiderium” (which while this Introduction is being written has come out in Mr. Le Gallienne’s volume, “The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems,” John Lane Co.), are also being issued immediately in forthcoming volumes. If there are any others I do not know of them, and in which case I would gladly give credit, so I trust any omission of such will be charged to ignorance rather than intention. I wish it to be understood that the privilege extended me so courteously, by both the authors and the magazines, to print the poems in this volume, does not in any sense restrict the authors in their rights to print the poems in volumes of their own.

A significant fact which the poetry in this volume must bring to the reader’s mind in considering American poetry of today is, that these selections have been published for the first time during the current year. Our poetry needs, more than anything else, encouragement and support, to reveal its qualities. The poets are doing satisfying and vitally excellent work, and it only remains for the American public to do its duty by showing a substantial appreciation.

Lastly, I wish to thank the Boston Transcript for the privilege of reprinting material in this book which originally appeared in the columns of that paper.

_Cambridge, December, 1913._ W. S. B.

HYMN TO DEMETER

FROM “A SICILIAN IDYL”

Weave the dance, and raise again the sacred chorus;
Wreathe the garlands of the spring about the hair;
Now once more the meadows burst in bloom before us,
Crying swallows dart and glitter through the air.
Glints the plowshare in the brown and fragrant furrow;
Pigeons coo in shady coverts as they pair;
Come the furtive mountain folk from cave and burrow,
Lean, and blinking at the sunlight’s sudden glare.

Bright through midmost heaven moves the lesser Lion;
Hide the Hyades in ocean caverns hoar;
Past the shoulders of the sunset flames Orion,
Following the sisters seaward evermore.
Gleams the east at evening, lit by low Arcturus;
Out to subtle-scented dawns beside the shore,
Yet a little and the Pleiades will lure us:
Weave the dance and raise the chorus as of yore.

Far to eastward up the fabled gulf of Issus,
Northward, southward, westward, now the trader goes,
Passing headlands clustered yellow with narcissus,
Bright with hyacinth, with poppy, and with rose.
Shines the sea and falls the billow as undaunted,
Past the rising of the stars that no man knows,
Sails he onward through the islands siren-haunted,
Till the clashing gates of rock before him close.

Kindly Mother of the beasts and birds and flowers,
Gracious bringer of the barley and the grain,
Earth awakened feels thy sunlight and thy showers;
Great Demeter! Let us call thee not in vain;
Lead us safely from the seed-time to the threshing,
Past the harvest and the vineyard’s purple stain;
Let us see thy corn-pale hair the sunlight meshing,
When the sounding flails of autumn swing again.

_Yale Review_ _Louis V. Ledoux_

OVER THE WINTRY THRESHOLD

Over the wintry threshold
Who comes with joy today,
So frail, yet so enduring,
To triumph o’er dismay?

Ah, quick her tears are springing,
And quickly they are dried,
For sorrow walks before her,
But gladness walks beside.

She comes with gusts of laughter,--
The music as of rills;
With tenderness and sweetness,
The wisdom of the hills.

Her hands are strong to comfort,
Her heart is quick to heed;
She knows the signs of sadness,
She knows the voice of need;

There is no living creature,
However poor or small,
But she will know its trouble,
And hearken to its call.

Oh, well they fare forever,
By mighty dreams possessed,
Whose hearts have lain a moment
On that eternal breast.

_Smart Set_ _Bliss Carman_

IN APRIL

If I am slow forgetting,
It is because the sun
Has such old tricks of setting
When April days are done.

The soft spring sunlight traces
Old patterns--green and gold;
The flowers have no new faces,
The very buds are old!

If I am slow forgetting--
Ah, well, come back and see
The same old sunbeams petting
My garden-plots and me.

Come smell the green things growing,
The boxwood after rain;
See where old beds are showing
Their slender spears again.

At dusk, that fosters dreaming--
Come back at dusk and rest,
And watch our old star gleaming
Against the primrose west.

_Harper’s_ _Margaret Lee Ashley_

MAY IS BUILDING HER HOUSE

May is building her house. With apple blooms She is roofing over the glimmering rooms; Of the oak and the beech hath she builded its beams, And, spinning all day at her secret looms, With arras of leaves each wind-swayed wall She pictureth over, and peopleth it all With echoes and dreams, And singing of streams.

May is building her house. Of petal and blade, Of the roots of the oak is the flooring made, With a carpet of mosses and lichen and clover, Each small miracle over and over, And tender, traveling green things strayed.

Her windows, the morning and evening star, And her rustling doorways, ever ajar With the coming and going Of fair things blowing, The thresholds of the four winds are.

May is building her house. From the dust of things
She is making the songs and the flowers and the wings;
From October’s tossed and trodden gold
She is making the young year out of the old;
Yea! out of winter’s flying sleet
She is making all the summer sweet,
And the brown leaves spurned of November’s feet
She is changing back again to spring’s.

_Harper’s_ _Richard Le Gallienne_

IN A FORGOTTEN BURYING-GROUND

Eternal in the brooding of the old Norwegian spruces I hear the wistful tenderness of loves They used to know, And in the swelling wood-notes that the eager springtide looses Sobs again Their heart-break from the Springs of Long Ago:

And sometime, thro’ the silence, with the April shadows lying Aslant the solemn acre where I take my dreamless rest, Perhaps the stifled need of You my heart was ever crying Will find its way across the years--to stir a stranger’s breast!

_The Poetry Journal_ _Ruth Guthrie Harding_

WIND

The Wind bows down the poplar trees, The Wind bows down the crested seas; And he has bowed the heart of me Under his hand of memory.

O heavy-handed Wind, who goes Hurting the petals of the rose; Who leaves the grasses on the hill Broken and pallid, spent and still!

O heavy-handed Wind, who brings To me all echoing ancient things: Echoing sorrow and defeat, Crying like mourners, hard to meet!

The Wind bows down the poplar trees And all the ocean’s argosies; But deeper bends the heart of me, Under his hand of memory.

_Harper’s_ _Fannie Stearns Davis_

THE SPECKLED TROUT

With rod and line I took my way That led me through the gossip trees, Where all the forest was asway With hurry of the running breeze.

I took my hat off to a flower That nodded welcome as I passed; And, pelted by a morning shower, Unto its heart a bee held fast.

A head of gold one great weed tossed, And leaned to look when I went by; And where the brook the roadway crossed The daisy kept on me its eye.

And when I stooped to bathe my face, And seat me at a great tree’s foot, I heard the stream say, “Mark the place: And undermine it rock and root.”

And o’er the whirling water there A dragonfly its shuttle plied, Where wild a fern let down its hair, And leaned to see the water’s pride--

A speckled trout. The spotted elf, Whom I had come so far to see, Stretched out above a rocky shelf, A shadow sleeping mockingly.

* * * * *

And I have sat here half the day Regarding it. It has not stirred. I heard the running water say-- “He does not know the magic word.

“The word that changes everything, And brings all Nature to his hand: That makes of this great trout a king, And opes the way to Faeryland.”

_The Bellman_ _Madison Cawein_

TREES

I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the sweet earth’s hungry breast;

A tree that looks at God all day And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree!

_Poetry, A Magazine of Verse_ _Joyce Kilmer_

IN THE HOSPITAL

Because on the branch that is tapping my pane
A sun-wakened leaf-bud, uncurled,
Is bursting its rusty brown sheathing in twain,
I know there is Spring in the world.

Because through the sky-patch whose azure and white
My window frames all the day long
A yellow-bird dips for an instant of flight,
I know there is Song.

Because even here in this Mansion of Woe
Where creep the dull hours, leaden-shod,
Compassion and Tenderness aid me, I know
There is God.

_Scribner’s_ _Arthur Guiterman_

LOVE OF LIFE

Love you not the tall trees spreading wide their branches,
Cooling with their green shade the sunny days of June?
Love you not the little bird lost among the leaflets,
Dreamily repeating a quaint, brief tune?

Is there not a joy in the waste windy places;
Is there not a song by the long dusty way?
Is there not a glory in the sudden hour of struggle?
Is there not a peace in the long quiet day?

Love you not the meadows with the deep lush grasses;
Love you not the cloud-flocks noiseless in their flight?
Love you not the cool wind that stirs to meet the sunrise;
Love you not the stillness of the warm summer night?

Have you never wept with a grief that slowly passes;
Have you never laughed when a joy goes running by?
Know you not the peace of rest that follows labor?--
You have not learnt to live then; how can you dare to die?

_Scribner’s_ _Tertius van Dyke_

GOD’S WILL

God meant me to be hungry,
So I should seek to find
Wisdom, and truth, and beauty,
To satisfy my mind.

God meant me to be lonely,
Lest I should wish to stay
In some green earthly Eden
Too long from heaven away.

God meant me to be weary,
That I should yearn to rest
This feeble, aching body
Deep in the earth’s dark breast.

_Harper’s_ _Mildred Howells_

ON THE BIRTH OF A CHILD

Lo--to the battle-ground of Life,
Child, you have come, like a conquering shout,
Out of a struggle--into strife;
Out of a darkness--into doubt.

Girt with the fragile armor of Youth,
Child, you must ride into endless wars,
With the sword of protest, the buckler of truth,
And a banner of love to sweep the stars....

About you the world’s despair will surge;
Into defeat you must plunge and grope--
Be to the faltering, an urge;
Be to the hopeless years, a hope!

Be to the darkened world a flame;
Be to its unconcern a blow--
For out of its pain and tumult you came,
And into its tumult and pain you go.

_The Independent_ _Louis Untermeyer_

TO A CHILD FALLING ASLEEP

Over the dim edge of sleep I lean, And in her eyes’ illimitable grey distances, Look down into the shadow-tinted space,-- The cloudy air of sleep,-- To see the rose-lit petal of a Child’s fair soul Seek dreamily the farther gloom, Where waking eyes may follow her no more.

One more last time her lids are lifted, And in her look I read a wistful fare-thee-well; Her spirit waves a twinkling white hand, Her bark is out upon the sea of dream,-- The calm, grey sea, full and immovably established, That drinks the river of my love, without o’erflowing, Nor ever gives my image back to me.

When o’er the sun-swept land Murmuring twilight spread her dusky tent, A Stranger passed before our friendly sun,-- Between the dark and dawn,-- A Stranger whom we love but never see. And as she came and cast her blue benignant shadow over all, She set a silver trumpet to her lips, And blew a note that thrilled in Children’s hearts; Because in little hearts the echo-fairies love to play, Roaming the scented meadows there, Where Love has been and sown the amaranthine flowers, Out of whose pristine cups are born the singing stars. And as the first free rainbow bubble sailed, Launched by the Stranger with the silver pipe, Upon the listening air; As first the hollow note Kissed the sweet lips and died of happiness, The little Child unfurled her sails.

I stood there on the very verge of sleep, And called to her, And Love’s own self had deigned to wait within my heart, (Because I kept it always fit for Childish guests) And would have given welcome had she stayed. But then I saw the eyelids close, And knew that Azrael who championed her soul, Had shut the gates lest I should see More than my life could bear.

Yet I had seen her go, And sight no more could hold of Beauty’s wine. I had seen the fair face flush, As the soft curtains of the tinted west, Are drawn before the temple of the Night, When the day-worn Sun has passed within; Had seen the little body, whitely gowned, Folded within its nest; Had caught the last light kiss Before the lips lay still; And I had looked into the cool grey deep, Where Sleep received the rose-leaf soul of her, And bore it out upon her gentle waters.

Into the night I passed, Where on the mellow bosom of the west, Floated the flame-lit shell of Hesperus; And as I stayed with hallowed breath, The soul of fire fell over the rim of night: And then I knew the soul of her I loved, Had heard the last clear call, The low Elysian chant of Hesperus, And loving me had borne the love I gave, Out and beyond and over all the ends of earth, And where the altar flame of Venus burned, Had laid the gift and breathed her Childhood’s prayer.

_The Poetry Journal_ _Robert Alden Sanborn_

A ROMAN DOLL

(IN A MUSEUM)

How an image of paint and wood Leaped to her life with a love’s control, Struck the chords of her motherhood, Passionate little mother-soul! Fair to her sight were the stolid eyes, Dear to her toil the robes empearled. She crooned it the ancient lullabies, She gathered it close from the outer world. They watched together, as Nero’s pyres Fed the haze of a hundred fires.

_Me in her fresh young arms she bore.
See, I am small,
Only a doll.
But I keep her kiss forevermore._

Long and lonely the toy has lain. One by one into time’s abyss Years have dropped as the drops of rain. Yet the cycles have left us this! O red-lipped mother, O mother sweet, Today a sister has heard you call, Your heart is beating in her heart-beat. I saw her weep o’er the crumbling doll. She knew, she knew! You had lived and smiled! You had loved your dream, little Roman child!

_Me in her fresh young arms she bore.
See, I am small,
Only a doll.
But I keep her kiss forevermore._

_The Poetry Journal_ _Agnes Lee_

SAPPHO

Midnight, and in the darkness not a sound; So, with hushed breathing, sleeps the autumn night. Only the white immortal stars shall know, Here in the house by the low-lintelled door, How for the last time I have lit the lamp. I think you are not wholly careless now, Walls, that have sheltered me so many an hour, Bed, that has brought me ecstasy and sleep, Floors, that have borne me when a gale of joy Lifted my soul and made me half a god. Farewell; across the threshold many feet Shall pass, but never Sappho’s feet again. Girls shall come in whom love has made aware Of all their swaying beauty--they shall sing, But never Sappho’s voice like golden fire Shall seek for heaven thro’ your echoing rafters; There shall be sparrows bringing back the spring Over the long blue meadows of the sea, And south wind playing on the reeds of rain, But never Sappho’s whisper in the night, Never her love-cry when the lover comes. Farewell, I close the door and make it fast.

* * * * *

The little street lies meek beneath the moon, Running, as rivers run, to meet the sea. I too go seaward and shall not return. Oh, garlands on the door-posts that I pass, Woven of asters and of autumn leaves, I make a prayer for you: Cypris, be kind, That every lover may be given love. I shall not hasten lest the paving-stones Should echo with my sandals and awake Those who are warm beneath the cloak of sleep; Lest they should rise and see me and should say: “Whither goes Sappho lonely in the night?” Whither goes Sappho? Whither all men go, But they go driven, straining back with fear, And Sappho goes as lightly as a leaf Blown from brown autumn forests to the sea.

* * * * *

Here on the rock Zeus lifted from the waves, I shall await the waking of the dawn, Lying beneath the weight of dark as one Lies breathless till the lover shall awake. And with the sun, the sea shall cover me; I shall be less than the dissolving foam, Murmuring and melting on the ebbing tide. I shall be less than spindrift, less than shells-- And yet I shall be greater than the gods; For destiny no more can bow my soul As rain bows down the watch-fires on the hills. Yea, if my soul escape, it shall aspire Toward the white heaven as flame that has its will. I go not bitterly, not dumb with grief, Not broken by the ache of love--I go As one grown tired lies down and hopes to sleep. Yet they shall say: “It was for Cercolas-- She died because she could not bear her love.” They shall remember how we used to walk Here on the cliff beneath the oleanders, In the long limpid twilight of the spring, Looking toward Khios where the amber sky Was pierced by the faint arrow of a star. How should they know the wind of a new beauty Sweeping my soul had winnowed it with song? I have been glad tho’ love should come or go, Happy as trees that find a wind to sway them, Happy again when it has left them rest. Others shall say: “Grave Dica wrought her death.” She would not lift her lips to take a kiss, Or ever lift her eyes to take a smile. She was a pool the winter paves with ice, That the wild hunter in the hills must leave With thirst unslaked in the brief southward sun. Ah, Dica, it is not for thee I go. And not for Phaon, tho’ his ship lifts sail Here in the windless harbor, for the south. Oh, darkling deities that guard the Nile, Watch over one whose gods are far away; Egypt, be kind to him--his eyes are deep. Yet they are wrong who say, it was for him. How should they know that Sappho lived and died Faithful to love, not faithful to the lover, Never transfused and lost in what she loved, Never so wholly loving nor at peace. I asked for something greater than I found, And every time that love has made me weep, I have rejoiced that love could be so strong; For I have stood apart and watched my soul Caught in the gust of passion, as a bird With baffled wings against the dusty whirlwind Struggles and frees itself to find the sky.

* * * * *

It is not for a single god, I go. I have grown weary of the winds of heaven. I will not be a reed to hold the sound Of whatsoever breath the gods may blow, Turning my torment into music for them. They gave me life--the gift was bountiful, I lived with the swift singing strength of fire, Seeking for beauty as a flame for fuel, Beauty in all things and in every hour. The gods have given life, I gave them song; The debt is paid and now I turn to go. The breath of dawn blows the stars out like lamps, There is a rim of silver on the sea. As one grown tired, who hopes to sleep, I go.

_Scribner’s_ _Sara Teasdale_

OF MOIRA UP THE GLEN

It’s little that I’d care for the glories of Ireland,
Waiting for the shadows to gather in the glen,
Come the time of darkness, sitting by the hearth-light,
Whispering with bated breath for fear the little men
Should catch us and spell us to serve them for a year’s time,
Toiling and moiling within a faëry snare.
I’m thinkin’ ’twould be fearsome in the gray misty strangeness.--
’Tis hiding we’ll be in the clear free air!

The sunlight above us, and willow hedge for shelter,
A tangle of soft things to rustle by the stream,
Where Moira, my white dove, whose beauty is my sorrow,
Would sit with me and travel on the long bright dream,
Travel with the water from the mountain to the meadow,
Down across the lowlands and gaily to the sea,
Out beyond the breakers to the shimmer of a far line
Poised and trembling within the heart of me.

What shall I murmur to coax the dream of beauty
Out from the shadows to welcome in the dawn?
How shall I sing it that she may know the glory,
Know it and come by the first flush of morn?
The moonlight is dark light, ’tis fear I’m after feelin’,
The fairies should be in it and steal her heart away,
A goblet for their feasting, they’d drain it and fill it
With dreams of a far world beyond the light of day.

It’s God’s light I’m wanting, and Moira to see it,
See it and tremble with the love of God,
And seeing it she’d turn, and look within my own eyes,
And wonder at the vision transforming a sod
Into worshipful silence and thought that is living,
Burning, and shaped by the warmth of its fire
To a chalice of tears and of laughter for singing
The lovely unfolding of dream-purged desire.

_Smart Set_ _Edward J. O’Brien_

MORNING GLORIES

Distant as a dream’s flight, Lay an eerie plain, Where the weary moonlight Swooned into a moan; Wailing after dead seed Came the ghost of rain. There was I, a wild weed, Growing all alone.

Like a doubted story, Came the thought of day; God and all His glory Lingered otherwhere, Busy with the spring thrill Many dreams away. Could a little weed’s will Fling so far a prayer?

Lo, the sudden wonder! (Is a prayer so fleet?) From the desert under, Morning glories grew; Twined me, bound me With caressing feet; Wove song ’round me-- Pink, white, blue!

As a fog is rifted By the eager breeze, Darkness broke and lifted, Tossing like a sea! Lo, the dawn was flowering Through the maple trees! Oh, and you were showering Kisses over me!

_Smart Set_ _John G. Neihardt_

LEST I LEARN

Lest I learn, with clearer sight,
Such beauty cannot be--
Tie a bandage, pull it tight,
Blind me, I would not see!

Lest I learn, with clearer will,
Such wonder cannot be--
Oh, kiss me nearer, nearer still,
And make a fool of me!

_Smart Set_ _Witter Bynner_

LATER

I went to the place where my youth took birth
In the slow, round kiss of an amorous girl,
When sonnets and lace were the measure of earth,
When death was forgotten and life was a whirl.

I addled my brain with the memories flown
Of Heatherby Kaiser and Muriel Moore;
I thought of the women and men I had known,--
The glittering eyes and the bolt on the door--

The warm, gray walls and the odor of musk,
The wine, the piano, the glistening feet,
The eyes grown hazy like shadows at dusk,
The minstreling music that rose from the street.

I thought of Elise with her soft, gold hair;
And the buttonhook hung from the chandelier.
The spirit of passionate youth had been there--
But somehow the dream of it wasn’t quite clear,

For the place had been altered; the walls were red,
And the woodwork was stained with a desolate brown;
And they told me a woman had lain in the bed
For a year and a half with the curtains down.

_Smart Set_ _Willard Huntington Wright_

THE OLD MAID

I saw her in a Broadway car,
The woman I might grow to be;
I felt my lover look at her
And then turn suddenly to me.

Her hair was dull and drew no light,
And yet its color was as mine;
Her eyes were strangely like my eyes,
Tho’ love had never made them shine.

Her body was a thing grown thin,
Hungry for love that never came;
Her soul was frozen in the dark,
Unwarmed forever by love’s flame.

I felt my lover look at her
And then turn suddenly to me--
His eyes were magic to defy
The woman I shall never be.

_The Forum_ _Sara Teasdale_

DEPARTURE

The twilight is starred,
The dawn has arisen;
Light breaks from the east
And Song from her prison.

Faint odors and sounds
The west-wind discloses
Of laughter and birds,
Of singing and roses.

It is time to be gone--
Day scatters the gloom;
But here at my side,
But still in the room,

Like the angel of life,
Too kind to depart,
You hang at my lips,
You hang at my heart!

_The Forum_ _John Hall Wheelock_

AN ADIEU

Sorrow, quit me for a while!
Wintry days are over;
Hope again, with April smile,
Violets sows and clover.

Pleasure follows in her path,
Love itself flies after,
And the brook a music hath
Sweet as childhood’s laughter.

Not a bird upon the bough
Can repress its rapture,
Not a bud that blossoms now
But doth beauty capture.

Sorrow, thou art Winter’s mate,
Spring cannot regret thee;
Yet, ah, yet--my friend of late--
I shall not forget thee!

_Harper’s_ _Florence Earle Coates_

HEART’S TIDE

I thought I had forgotten you,
So far apart our lives were thrust!
’Twas only as the earth forgets
The seed the sower left in trust.

’Twas only as the creeks forget
The tides that left their hollows dry;
Or as the home-bound ship forgets
Streamers of seaweed drifting by.

My heart is earth that keeps untold
The secret of the seeds that sleep.
My thoughts are chalices of sand;
Your memory floods them and I weep.

_Harper’s_ _Ethel M. Hewitt_

WAITING

I thought my heart would break
Because the Spring was slow.
I said, “How long young April sleeps
Beneath the snow!”

But when at last she came,
And buds broke in the dew,
I dreamed of my lost love,
And my heart broke, too!

_Harper’s_ _Charles Hanson Towne_

DESIDERIUM

Face in the tomb, that lies so still,
May I draw near,
And watch you sleep and love you,
Without word or tear?

You smile, your eyelids flicker;
Shall I tell
How the world goes that lost you?
Shall I tell?

Ah, love, lift not your eyelids;
’Tis the same
Old story that we laughed at,
Still the same.

We knew it, you and I,
We knew it all:
Still is the small the great,
The great the small;

Still the cold lie quenches
The flaming truth,
And still embattled age
Wars against youth.

Yet I believe still in the ever-living God That fills your grave with perfume, Writing your name in violets across the sod, Shielding your holy face from hail and snow; And, though the withered stay, the lovely go. No transitory wrong or wrath of things Shatters the faith--that each slow minute brings That meadow nearer to us where your feet Shall flutter near me like white butterflies-- That meadow where immortal lovers meet, Gazing forever in immortal eyes.

_Smart Set_ _Richard Le Gallienne_

HUMAN

Weighed down by grief, o’erborne by deep despair,
She lifted up white arms to heaven and prayed
That day for death; she made a mighty prayer
Beside her dear one gently to be laid.

And standing thus, it flashed across her mind
How she must make a seemly silhouette
Against the sky, her figure sharply lined
Upon the westering sunlight, black as jet.

_Smart Set_ _Richard Burton_

THE GHOST

One whom I loved and never can forget
Returned to me in dream, and spoke with me,
As audibly, as sweet familiarly
As though warm fingers twined warm fingers yet.
Her eyes were bright and with great wonder wet
As in old days when some strange, swift decree
Brought touch-close love or death; and sorrow-free
She spoke as one long purged of all regret.
I heard, oh, glad beyond all speech, I heard,
Till to my lips the flaming query flashed:
_How is it--over there?_ Then, quite undone,
She trembled; in her deep eyes like a bird
The gladness fluttered, and as one abashed
She shook her head bewildered, and was gone.

_Scribner’s_ _Hermann Hagedorn_

A MOUNTAIN GATEWAY

I know a vale where I would go one day, When June comes back and all the world once more Is glad with summer. Deep with shade it lies, A mighty cleft in the green bosoming hills, A cool, dim gateway to the mountains’ heart.

On either side the wooded slopes come down, Hemlock and beech and chestnut; here and there Through the deep forest laurel spreads and gleams, Pink-white as Daphne in her loveliness-- That still perfection from the world withdrawn, As if the wood gods had arrested there Immortal beauty in her breathless flight.

Far overhead against the arching blue Gray ledges overhang from dizzy heights, Scarred by a thousand winters and untamed. The road winds in from the broad riverlands, Luring the happy traveler turn by turn, Up to the lofty mountains of the sky.

And where the road runs in the valley’s foot, Through the dark woods the mountain stream comes down, Singing and dancing all its youth away Among the boulders and the shallow runs, Where sunbeams pierce and mossy tree trunks hang, Drenched all day long with murmuring sound and spray.

There, light of heart and footfree, I would go Up to my home among the lasting hills, And in my cabin doorway sit me down, Companioned in that leafy solitude By the wood ghosts of twilight and of peace.

And in that sweet seclusion I should hear, Among the cool-leafed beeches in the dusk, The calm-voiced thrushes at their evening hymn-- So undistraught, so rapturous, so pure, It well might be, in wisdom and in joy, The seraphs singing at the birth of time The unworn ritual of eternal things.

_Smart Set_ _Bliss Carman_

PERUGIA

For the sake of a weathered gray city set high on a hill
To the northward I go,
Where Umbria’s valley lies mile upon emerald mile
Outspread like a chart.
The wind in her steep, narrow streets is eternally chill
From the neighboring snow,
But linger who will in the lure of a southerly smile,
Here is my heart.

Wrought to a mutual blueness are mountains and sky,
Intermingling they meet;
Little gray breathings of olive arise from the plain
Like sighs that are seen,
For man and his Maker harmonious toil, and the sigh
Of such labor is sweet,
And the fruits of their patience are vistas of vineyards and grain
In a glory of green.

No wind from the valley that passes the casement but flings
Invisible flowers.
The carol of birds is a gossamer tissue of gold
On a background of bells.
Sweetest of all, in the silence the nightingale sings
Through the silver-pure hours,
Till the stars disappear like a dream that may never be told,
Which the dawning dispels.

Never so darkling the alley but opens at last
On unlimited space;
Each gate is the frame of a vision that stretches away
To the rims of the sky.
Never a scar that was left by the pitiless past
But has taken a grace,
Like the mark of a smile that was turned upon children at play
In a summer gone by.

Many the tyrants, my city, who held thee in thrall.
What remains of them now?
Names whispered back from the dark through a portal ajar,
They come not again.
By men thou wert made and wert marred, but, outlasting them all,
Is the soul that is thou--
A soul that shall speak to my soul till I, too, pass afar,
And perchance even then.

_Century_ _Amelia Josephine Burr_

GHOSTS

They call you cold New England,
But underneath your snow
Is blood as red as roses
That in your gardens blow.

The God that lights your forests
With torch of cardinal flower,
Forbids that ever the Puritan
Escape his crimson hour.

The flame that skims brown furrows--
The scarlet tanager’s breast,
Is sign to preacher and ploughman
Of dreams that haunt their rest.

When witch and warlock perished
By fagot, scaffold and tree,
Their tortures slew their bodies
But set their spirits free!

In freedom gliding, gloating,
Through the haunts their children claim
The swollen ghosts of the wicked
Grow fat on new-wrought shame.

The old, sweet evil lingers,
The demon of uncontrol,
And madness creeps and crouches
In every haggard soul.

And he who held moon revels
In Salem forests deep,
Well loves his hypocrite servants
Nor seeks to spoil their sleep.

They call you cold New England--
But surely even your snow
Is drift not of ice but of ashes,
To guard the flames below!

_Smart Set_ _Marguerite Mooers Marshall_

ST. JOHN AND THE FAUN

I

O blest Imagination!
Bright power beneath man’s lid,
That in apparent beauty
Unveils the beauty hid!
In the gleaming of the instant
Abides the immortal thing;
Our souls that voyage unspeaking
Press forward, wing and wing;
From every passing object
A brighter radiance pours;
The Lethe of our daily lives
Sweeps by eternal shores.

II

On the deep below Amalfi,
Where the long roll of the wave
Slowly breathed, and slipped beneath me
To gray cliff and sounding cave,
Came a boat-load of dark fishers,
Passed, and on the bright sea shone;
There, the vision of a moment,
I beheld the young St. John.

At the stern the boy stood bending
Full his dreaming gaze on me;
Inexorably spread between us
Flashed the blue strait of the sea;
Slow receding,--distant,--distant,--
While my bosom scarce drew breath,--
Dreaming eyes on my eyes dreaming
Holy beauty without death.