Chapter II

The lone green of the lawn-slope,
The grey light on the sky-line,
The mournful stir of birch-leaves,
The thin note of the brown thrush,
And the call of troubled white-throats
Across the afternoon!--
Ah, Summer now is over,
And for us the season closed,
For she who came an hour ago
Has gone again--
Has gone!

THE REVOLT

God knows that I've tinkled and jingled and strummed,
That I've piped it and jigged it until I'm fair sick of the game,
That I've given them slag and wasted the silver of song,
That I've thrown them the tailings and they've taken them up content!
But now I want to slough off the bitterness born of it all,
I want to throw off the shackles and chains of time,
I want to sit down with my soul and talk straight out,
I want to make peace with myself,
And say what I have to say,
While still there is time!

Yea, I will arise and go forth, I have said,
To the uplands of truth, to be free as the wind,
Rough and unruly and open and turbulent-throated!
Yea, I will go forth and fling from my soul
The shackles and chains of song!

But, lo, on my wrists are the scars,
And here on my ankles the chain-galls,
And the cell-pallor, see, on my face!
And my throat seems thick with the cell-dust,
And for guidance I grope to the walls,
And after my moment of light

I want to go back to the Dark,
Since the Open still makes me afraid,
And silence seems best in the sun,
And song in the dusk!

ATAVISM

I feel all primal and savage to-day.
I could eat and drink deep and love strong
I could fight and exult and boast and be glad!
I could tear out the life of a wild thing and laugh at it!
I could crush into panting submission the breast of a woman
A-stray from her tribe and her smoke-stained tent-door!
I could glory in folly and fire and ruin,
And race naked-limbed with the wind,
And slink on the heels of my foes
And dabble their blood on my brows--
For to-day I am sick of it all,
This silent and orderly empty life,
And I feel all savage again!

MARCH TWILIGHT

Black with a batter of mud
Stippled with silvery pools
Stands the pavement at the street-end;
And the gutter snow is gone
From cobble and runnelling curb;
And no longer the ramping wind
Is rattling the rusty signs;
And moted and soft and misty
Hangs the sunlight over the cross-streets,
And the home-bound crowds of the city
Walk in a flood of gold.

And suddenly out of the dusk
There comes the ancient question:
Can it be that I have lived
In earlier worlds unknown?
Or is it that somewhere deep
In this husk that men call Me
Are kennelled a motley kin
I never shall know or name,--
Are housed still querulous ghosts
That sigh and awaken and move,
And sleep once more?

THE ECHO

I

I am only a note in the chorus,
A leaf in the fluttering June,
A wave on the deep.
These things that I struggle to utter
Have all been uttered before.
In many another heart
The selfsame song was born,
The ancient ache endured,
The timeless wonder faced,
The unanswered question nursed,
The resurgent hunger felt,
And the eternal failure known!