Chapter I: Front Matter

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EIGHT HARVARD POETS

E. ESTLIN CUMMINGS
S. FOSTER DAMON
J. R. DOS PASSOS
ROBERT HILLYER
R. S. MITCHELL
WILLIAM A. NORRIS
DUDLEY POORE
CUTHBERT WRIGHT

NEW YORK
LAURENCE J. GOMME
1917

Copyright, 1917, by
LAURENCE J. GOMME

VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY
BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK

CONTENTS

PAGE
E. ESTLIN CUMMINGS

Thou in Whose Sword-Great Story Shine the Deeds 3
A Chorus Girl 4
This is the Garden 5
It May not Always be so 6
Crepuscule 7
Finis 8
The Lover Speaks 9
Epitaph 10

S. FOSTER DAMON

Incessu Patuit Deus 13
You Thought I had Forgotten 15
Venice 16
The New Macaber 18
To War 20
Calm Day, with Rollers 21
Phonograph--Tango 22
Decoration 24
Threnody 25

J. R. DOS PASSOS

The Bridge 29
Salvation Army 30
Incarnation 32
Memory 34
Saturnalia 37
"Whan that Aprille" 39
Night Piece 40

ROBERT HILLYER

Four Sonnets from a Sonnet-Sequence 45
A Sea Gull 49
Domesday 50
To a Passepied by Scarlatti 52
Elegy for Antinous 53
Song 54
"My Peace I Leave with You" 55
The Recompense 56

R. S. MITCHELL

Poppy Song 59
Love Dream 62
The Island of Death 64
From the Arabian Nights 66
Threnody 68
Helen 70
Largo 72
Lazarus 73
A Crucifix 74
Neith 75
A Farewell 77

WILLIAM A. NORRIS

Of Too Much Song 81
Wherever My Dreams Go 82
Out of the Littleness 83
Nahant 84
Qui Sub Luna Errant 85
Across the Taut Strings 86
Escape 87
On a Street Corner 88
Sea-burial 89

DUDLEY POORE

A Renaissance Picture 93
The Philosopher's Garden 95
The Tree of Stars 96
After Rain 97
Cor Cordium 99
The Withered Leaf, the Faded Flower be Mine 105

CUTHBERT WRIGHT

The End of It 109
The New Platonist 110
The Room Over the River 112
The Fiddler 114
Falstaff's Page 116
A Dull Sunday 117

* * * * *

E. ESTLIN CUMMINGS

[THOU IN WHOSE SWORD-GREAT STORY SHINE THE DEEDS]

Thou in whose sword-great story shine the deeds
Of history her heroes, sounds the tread
Of those vast armies of the marching dead,
With standards and the neighing of great steeds
Moving to war across the smiling meads;
Thou by whose page we break the precious bread
Of dear communion with the past, and wed
To valor, battle with heroic breeds;

Thou, Froissart, for that thou didst love the pen
While others wrote in steel, accept all praise
Of after ages, and of hungering days
For whom the old glories move, the old trumpets cry;
Who gav'st as one of those immortal men
His life that his fair city might not die.

A CHORUS GIRL

When thou hast taken thy last applause, and when
The final curtain strikes the world away,
Leaving to shadowy silence and dismay
That stage which shall not know thy smile again,
Lingering a little while I see thee then
Ponder the tinsel part they let thee play;
I see the red mouth tarnished, the face grey,
And smileless silent eyes of Magdalen.

The lights have laughed their last; without, the street
Darkling, awaiteth her whose feet have trod
The silly souls of men to golden dust.
She pauses, on the lintel of defeat,
Her heart breaks in a smile--and she is Lust ...
Mine also, little painted poem of God.

This is the garden: colors come and go,
Frail azures fluttering from night's outer wing,
Strong silent greens serenely lingering,
Absolute lights like baths of golden snow.
This is the garden: pursed lips do blow
Upon cool flutes within wide glooms, and sing,
Of harps celestial to the quivering string,
Invisible faces hauntingly and slow.

This is the garden. Time shall surely reap,
And on Death's blade lie many a flower curled,
In other lands where other songs be sung;
Yet stand They here enraptured, as among
The slow deep trees perpetual of sleep
Some silver-fingered fountain steals the world.

It may not always be so; and I say
That if your lips, which I have loved, should touch
Another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
His heart, as mine in time not far away;
If on another's face your sweet hair lay
In such a silence as I know, or such
Great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
Stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

If this should be, I say if this should be--
You of my heart, send me a little word;
That I may go unto him, and take his hands,
Saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall I turn my face, and hear one bird
Sing terribly afar in the lost lands.

CREPUSCULE

I will wade out
till my thighs are steeped in burn-
ing flowers
I will take the sun in my mouth
and leap into the ripe air
Alive
with closed eyes
to dash against darkness
in the sleeping curves of my
body
Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery
with chasteness of sea-girls
Will I complete the mystery
of my flesh
I will rise
After a thousand years
lipping
flowers
And set my teeth in the silver of the moon

FINIS

Over silent waters
day descending
night ascending
floods the gentle glory of the sunset
In a golden greeting
splendidly to westward
as pale twilight
trem-
bles
into
Darkness
comes the last light's gracious exhortation
Lifting up to peace
so when life shall falter
standing on the shores of the
eternal
god
May I behold my sunset
Flooding
over silent waters

THE LOVER SPEAKS

Your little voice
Over the wires came leaping
and I felt suddenly
dizzy
With the jostling and shouting of merry flowers
wee skipping high-heeled flames
courtesied before my eyes
or twinkling over to my side
Looked up
with impertinently exquisite faces
floating hands were laid upon me
I was whirled and tossed into delicious dancing
up
Up
with the pale important
stars and the Humorous
moon
dear girl
How I was crazy how I cried when I heard
over time
and tide and death
leaping
Sweetly
your voice

EPITAPH

Tumbling-hair
picker of buttercups
violets
dandelions
And the big bullying daisies
through the field wonderful
with eyes a little sorry
Another comes
also picking flowers

* * * * *

S. FOSTER DAMON

INCESSU PATUIT DEUS

The little clattering stones along the street
Dance with each other round my swimming feet;
The street itself, as in some crazy dream,
Streaks past, a half-perceived material stream.

Brighter than early dawn's most brilliant dye
Are blown clear bands of color through the sky,
That swirl and sweep and meet, to break and foam
Like rainbow veils upon a bubble's dome.

Yours are the songs that burst about my ears,
Or blow away as many-colored spheres.

You are the star that made the skies all bright,
Yet tore itself away in flaming flight;
You are the tree that suddenly awoke;
You are the rose that came to life and spoke....

Guided by you, how we might stroll towards death,
Our only music one another's breath,
Through gardens intimate with hollyhocks,
Where silent poppies burn between the rocks,
By pools where birches bend to confidants
Above green waters scummed with lily-plants.

There we might wander, you and I alone,
Through gardens filled with marble seats moss-grown,
And fountains--water-threads that winds disperse--
While in the spray the birds sit and converse.

And when the fireflies mix their circling glow
Through the dark plants, then gently might I know
Your lips, light as the wings of the dragon-flies....

--Merely dreams, fluttering in my eyes....

[YOU THOUGHT I HAD FORGOTTEN]

You thought I had forgotten. Well, I had!
(Although I never guessed I could forget
Those few great moments when we both went mad.)

The other day at someone's tea we met,
Smiling gayly, bowed, and went our several ways,
Complacent with successful coldness.--Yet

Suddenly I was back in the old days
Before you felt we ought to drift apart.
It was some trick--the way your eyebrows raise,

Your hands--some vivid trifle. With a start
Then I remembered how I lived alone,
Writing bad poems and eating out my heart

All for your beauty.--How the time has flown!

VENICE

In a sunset glowing of crimson and gold,
She lies, the glory of the world,
A beached king's galley, whose sails are furled,
Who is hung with tapestries rich and old.

Beautiful as a woman is she,
A woman whose autumn of life is here,
Proud and calm at the end of the year
With the grace that now is majesty.

The sleeping waters bathe her sides,
The warm, blue streams of the Adrian Sea;
She dreams and drowses languorously,
Swayed in the swaying of the tides.

She is a goddess left for us,
Veiled with the softening veils of time;
Her blue-veined breasts are now sublime,
Her moulded torso glorious.

The pity that we must come and go--!
While the old gold and the marble stays,
Forever gleaming its soft strong blaze,
Calm in the early evening glow.

And still the sensitive silhouettes
Of the gondolas pass and leave no track,
Light on the tides as lilies, and black
In the rippling waters of long sunsets.

THE NEW MACABER

The pleasant graveyard of my soul
With sentimental cypress trees
And flowers is filled, that I may stroll
In meditation, at my ease.

The little marble stones are lost
In flowers surging from the dead;
Nor is there any mournful ghost
To wail until the night is sped.

And while night rustles through the trees,
Dragging the stars along, I know
The moon is rising on the breeze,
Quivering as in a river's flow.

And ah! that moon of silver sheen!
It is my heart hung in the sky;
And no clouds ever float between
The grave-flowers and my heart on high.

I do not read upon each stone
The name that once was carven there;
I merely note new blossoms blown
And breathe the perfume of the air.

Thus walk I through my wonderland
While all the evening is atune,
Beneath the cypress trees that stand
Like candles to the barren moon.

TO WAR

The music beats, up the chasmed street,
Then flares from around the curve;
The cheers break out from the waving crowd:
--Our soldiers march, superb!
Over the track-lined city street
The young men, the grinning men, pass.

Last night they danced to that very tune;
Today they march away;
Tomorrow, perhaps no band at all,
Or the band beside the grave.
Above, in the long blue strip of sky,
The whirling pigeons, the thoughtless pigeons, pass.

Another band beats down the street;
Contending rhythms clash;
New melodies win place, then fade,
And the flashing legs move past.
Down the cheering, grey-paved street
The fringed flags, the erect flags, pass.

CALM DAY, WITH ROLLERS

Always the ships that move in mystery, on the dim horizon,
Shadow-filled sails of dreams, sliding over the blue-grey ocean,
Far from the rock-edged shore where willow-green waves are rushing,
And white foam-people leap, to stand erect for the moment.

Ho! ye sails that seem to wander in dream-filled meadows,
Say, is the shore where I stand the only field of struggle,
Or are ye hit and battered out there by waves and wind-gusts
As ye tack over a clashing sea of watery echoes?

PHONOGRAPH--TANGO

Old dances are simplified of their yearning, bleached by Time.
Yet from one black disc
we tasted again the bite of crude Spanish passion.

... He had got into her courtyard.
She was alone that night.
Through the black night-rain, he sang to her window bars:

_Love me, love--ah, love me!_
_If you will not, I can follow_
_Into the highest of mountains;_
_And there, in the wooden cabin,_
_I will strangle you for your lover._

--That was but rustling of dripping plants in the dark.
More tightly under his cloak, he clasped his guitar.

_Love, ah-h! love me, love me!_
_If you will do this, I can buy_
_A fringed silk scarf of yellow,_
_A high comb carved of tortoise;_
_Then we will dance in the Plaza._

She was alone that night.
He had broken into her courtyard.
Above the gurgling gutters
he heard--
surely--
a door unchained?

The passage was black; but he risked it--
death in the darkness--
or her hot arms--(_love--love me ah-h-h!_)

"A good old tune," she murmured
--and I found we were dancing.

DECORATION

A little pagan child-god plays
Beyond the far horizon haze,
And underneath the twilight trees
He blows a bubble to the breeze,
Which is borne upward in the night
And makes the heavens shine with light.
But soon it sinks to earth again,
And, hitting hills, it bursts! And then
With foam the skies are splashed and sprayed;
And that's how all the stars are made.

THRENODY

She is lain with high things and with low.
She lies
With shut eyes,
Rocked in the eternal flow
Of silence evermore.

Desperately immortal, she;
She stands
With wide hands
Dim through the veil of eternity,
Behind the supreme door.

* * * * *

J. R. DOS PASSOS

THE BRIDGE

The lonely bridge cuts dark across the marsh
Whose long pools glow with the light
Of a flaring summer sunset.
At this end limp bushes overhang,
Palely reflected in the amber-colored water;
Among them a constant banjo-twanging of frogs,
And shrilling of toads and of insects
Rises and falls in chorus rhythmic and stirring.

Dark, with crumbling railing and planks,
The bridge leads into the sunset.
Across it many lonely figures,
Their eyes a-flare with the sunset,
Their faces glowing with its colors,
Tramp past me through the evening.

I am tired of sitting quiet
Among the bushes of the shore,
While the dark bridge stretches onward,
And the long pools gleam with light;
I am tired of the shrilling of insects
And the croaking of frogs in the rushes,
For the wild rice in the marsh-pools
Waves its beckoning streamers in the wind,
And the red sky-glory fades.

SALVATION ARMY

A drum pounds out the hymn,
Loud with gaudy angels, tinsel cherubim,
To drown the fanfare of the street,
And with exultant lilting beat,
To mingle the endless rumble of carts,
The scrape of feet, the noise of marts
And dinning market stalls, where women shout
Their wares, and meat hangs out--
Grotesque, distorted by the gas flare's light--
Into one sacred rhythm for the Devil's spite.

A woman's thin, raucous voice
Carries the tune, bids men rejoice,
Bathe in God's mercy,
Draw near and learn salvation, see
With their own eyes the mystery.
Cymbals, at the hands of a tired girl,
Slim wisp amid the swirl
Of crowded streets, take up the tune,
Monotonously importune.
Faces are wan in the arc-light's livid glare;
A wind gust carries the band's flare
Of song, in noisy eddies echoing,
Round lonely black street-corners,

Till, with distance dimming,
It fades away,
Among the silent, dark array
Of city houses where no soul stirs.

The crowd thins, the players are alone;
In their faith's raucous monotone,
Loud with gaudy angels, tinsel cherubim,
A drum pounds out the hymn.

INCARNATION

Incessantly the long rain falls,
Slanting on black walls,
Which glisten gold where a street lamp shines.

In a shop-window, spangled in long lines,
By rain-drops all a-glow,
An Italian woman's face
Flames into my soul as I go
Hastily by in the turbulent darkness;--
An oval olive face,
With the sweetly sullen grace
Of the Virgin when first she sees,
Amid her garden's silver lilies,
The white-robed angel gleam,
And softly, as by a sultry dream,
Feels all her soul subdued unto the fire
And radiance of her ecstasy.
So in some picture, on which as on a lyre,
An old Italian painter laboriously has played
His soul away, his love, all his desire
For fragrant things afar from earth,
Shines the Madonna, as with a veil overlaid
By incense-smoke and dust age-old,
At whose feet, in time of dearth
Or need, a myriad men have laid
Their sorrows and arisen bold.

Incessantly the long rain falls,
Slanting on black walls.
But through the dark interminable streets,
Along pavements where rain beats
Its sharp tattoo, and gas-lamps shine,
Greenish gold in the solitude,
The vision flames through my mood
Of that Italian woman's face,
Through the dripping window-pane.

MEMORY

Between rounded hills,
White with patches of buckwheat, whose fragrance fills
The little breeze that makes the birch-leaves quiver,
Beside a rollicking swift river,
Light green in the deeps,--
Like your eyes in sunshine,--
Winds the canal,
Lazy and brown as a water-snake,
Full of dazzle and sheen where the breeze sweeps
The water with gossamer garments, that shake
The reeds standing sentinel,
And the marginal line
Of birches and willows.

Our little steamer pulls its way
With jingle of bells and panting throb
Of old engines.
In stiff array
The water-reeds wave,
And solemnly sway
To the wash and swell of our passing.
Among the reeds the ripples sob,
And die away,
'Till the canal is still again, save
For a kingfisher's flashing
Across the noon shimmer.

I stood beside you in the bow,
Watched the sunlight lose itself among your hair,
That the breeze tugged at.
Bright as the shattered sun-rays, where the prow
Cut the still water,
The warm light caught and tangled there,
Red gold amid your hair.

You were very slim in your blue serge dress....
We talked of meaningless things, education,
Agreed that unless,
Something were changed disaster would come to the nation.
You smiled when I pointed where
A group of birches shivered in the green wood-shadow,
Up to their knees in water, white and fair
As dryads bathing.
A row
Of flat white houses and a wharf
Glided in sight.
The hoarse whistle shrieked for a landing;
Bells jangled.... You were standing
A slim blue figure amid the wharf's crowd;
The little steamer creaked against the side, loud
Screamed the whistle again....

Monotonously the solemn reeds
Waved to our passing;
Ahead the canal shimmered, blotched green by the water-weeds.
With a grinding swing
And see-saw of sound,
The steamer slunk down the canal.

I never even knew your name....

That night from a dingy hotel room,
I saw the moon, like a golden gong,
Redly loom
Across the lake; like a golden gong
In a temple, which a priest ere long
Will strike into throbbing song,
To wake some silent twinkling city to prayer.
The lake waves were flakes of red gold,
Burnished to copper,
Gold, red as the tangled gleam
Of sunlight in your hair.

SATURNALIA

In earth's womb the old gods stir,
Fierce chthonian dieties of old time.
With cymbals and rattle of castanets,
And shriek of slug-horns, the North Wind
Bows the oak and the moaning fir,
On russet hills and by roadsides stiff with rime.

In nature, dead, the life gods stir,
From Rhadamanthus and the Isles,
Where Saturn rules the Age of Gold,
Come old, old ghosts of bygone gods;
While dim mists earth's outlines blur,
And drip all night from lichen-greened roof-tiles.

In men's hearts the mad gods rise
And fill the streets with revelling,
With torchlight that glances on frozen pools,
With tapers starring the thick-fogged night,
A-dance, like strayed fireflies,
'Mid dim mad throngs who Saturn's orisons sing.

In driven clouds the old gods come,
When fogs the face of Apollo have veiled;
A fear of things, unhallowed, strange,
And a fierce free joy flares in the land.
Men mutter runes in language dead,
By night, with rumbling drum,
In quaking groves where the woodland spirits are hailed.

To earth's brood of souls of old,
With covered heads and aspen wands,
Mist-shrouded priests do ancient rites;
The black ram's fleece is stained with blood,
That steams, dull red on the frozen ground;
And pale votaries shiver with the cold,
That numbs the earth, and etches patterned mirrors on the ponds.

"WHAN THAT APRILLE ..."

Is it the song of a meadow lark
Off the brown, sere salt marshes,
Or the eager patches in dooryards
Of yellow and pale lilac crocuses;
Or else the suburban street golden with sunlight,
And the bare branches of elm trees
Twined in the delicate sky?
Or is it the merry piping
Of a distant hurdy-gurdy?--
That makes me so weary and faint with desire
For strange lands and new scents;
For the rough-rhythmed clank
Of train couplings at night,
And the stormy, gay-tinted sunrises
That shade with purple the contours
Of far-off, unfamiliar hills.

NIGHT PIECE

A silver web has the moon spun,
A silver web upon all the sky,
Where the frail stars quiver, every one
Like tangled gnats that hum and die.

The moon has tangled the dull night
In her silver skein and set alight
Each dew-damp branch with milky flame.
And huge the moon broods on the night.

My soul is caught in the web of the moon,
Like a shrilling gnat in a spider's web.
Importunate memories shrill in my ears
Like the gnats that die in the spider web.

Lovely as death, in the moon's shroud,
Were town streets, grey houses, dim,
Full of strange peace in the silent night.
As we walked our footsteps clattered loud.
We felt the night as a troubled song ...
Oh, the triumphing sense of life a-throb.
Behind those walls, in those dark streets,
Like the sound of a river, swift, unseen,
Flowing in darkness. Oh, the hoarse
Half-heard murmur swirling beneath
The snowy beauty of moonlight....

And that other night,
When the river rippled with faint spears
Of street lights vaguely reflected. Grey
The evening, like an opal; low,
A grey moon shrouded in sea fog:
Air pregnant with spring; rasp of my steps
Beside the lapping water; within
The dark. Down the worn out years a sob
Of broken loves; old pain
Of dead farewells; and one face
Fading into grey....

A silver web has the moon spun,
A silver web over all the sky.
In her flooding glory, one by one,
Like gnats in a web the stars die.

* * * * *

ROBERT HILLYER

FOUR SONNETS FROM A SONNET-SEQUENCE

I

Quickly and pleasantly the seasons blow
Over the meadows of eternity,
As wave on wave the pulsings of the sea
Merge and are lost, each in the other's flow.
Time is no lover; it is only he
That is the one unconquerable foe,
He is the sudden tempest none can know,
Winged with swift winds the none may hope to flee.

Fair child of loveliness, these endless fears
Are nought to us; let us be gods of stone,
And set our images beyond the years
On some high mount where we can be alone.
And thou shalt ever be as now thou art,
And I shall watch thee with untroubled heart.

II

Then judge me as thou wilt, I cannot flee,
I cannot turn away from thee forever,
For there are bonds that wisdom cannot sever
And slaves with souls far freer than the free.
Such strong desires the universal Giver
With unknown plan has buried deep in me
That the exquisite joy of watching thee
Has dominated all my life's endeavor.

Thou weariest of having me so near,
I feel the scorn thou hast within thy heart,
And yet thy face has never seemed so dear
As now, when I am minded to depart.
Though thou shouldst drive me hence, I love thee so
That I would watch thee when thou dost not know.

III

Fly, joyous wind, through all the wakened earth
Now when the portals of the dawn outpour
A myriad wonders from the radiant store
Of spring's deep passion and loud-ringing mirth.
Cry to the world that I despair no more,
Heart greets my heart and hope has proved its worth;
Fly where the legions of the sun have birth,
Chant everywhere and everywhere adore.

Circle the basking hills in fragrant flight,
Shout Rapture! Rapture! if sweet sorrow passes,
And whisper low in intimate delight
My love-song to the undulating grasses.
Grief is no more, love rises with the spring,
O fly, free wind, and Rapture! Rapture! sing.