Chapter I: Inscribe My First Book of Verse

TO THE MEMORY OF

MY BROTHER

JOHN VAN VORST

Thanks are tendered to Scribner’s Magazine and to the Pall Mall Magazine for the courteous permission to reprint verses already published in these periodicals.

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE SONG OF THE WHEAT 3

IN THE JOINT OF HIS ARMOUR 13

LAURENS VILLA 21

THE HOST 26

THE PAGAN 31

LYRICS

SING AGAIN 39

FOREST LOVERS 41

LIKE TO A SONGLESS BIRD 43

THREE YEARS 45

THE WIND UPON A SUMMER DAY 46

ON THE NORMAN CLIFFS 47

MID-WINTER 48

MARE PLACIDO 49

IN THE GREENWOOD 50

EVENING TIME 51

IN THE WINDOW 53

THE GLASS 55

THREE DAYS MORE 56

LOVE’S PARADOX 58

VITA, VITA! 59

THE SLEEP 60

THE REWARD 61

LES REVENANTS 63

THE BOON 65

THE SIGN 66

SONGS

THE FIRESIDE 69

LOVE--WHERE YOU GO! 70

COSTANZA SINGS 72

MAY IN FEBRUARY 73

BRIER ROSE 74

THE SLEEPING HEART 75

ABSENCE 76

TO-MORROW 77

OLD TIME MELODY 78

THOUGH ALL BETRAY 79

BREAK THY SLEEP 80

RED ROSES 81

SONG 82

SLUMBER SONG 83

FANTASY 85

ROUNDELS

THE INSPIRATION 89

LUCE ADORABILE 90

TEACH MY SONG 91

THE APOSTROPHE 92

CARRIER DOVES 93

THE NEW FRIEND 94

L’OISEAU DES BOIS 95

GOD’S IS THE NIGHT 96

CHRISTMAS 97

LOVE’S UNIVERSE 98

SUMMER 99

WINTER 100

AMOR IN EXCELSIS 101

THE ROSE 102

WHERE ARE YOU, DEAR? 103

LA MORT EST TOUJOURS FIDÈLE! 104

THE WATCH 105

THE YEAR’S END 106

OUTRE MORT 107

DEAD LOVE 108

SONNETS

VIVA! ANIMA CARISSIMA 111

EXCOMMUNICATE 115

THE CONFESSION 116

THE KINGDOM 117

AMOR VICTRIX 118

SAINT OUEN 119

RENUNCIATION 120

ENVOI 121

THE SONG OF THE WHEAT

THE SONG OF THE WHEAT

I

I sprang from the heart of the earth,
From the brown, still heart
That gives, though it pulseth not,
All things being and birth.
This vegetable mould,
Black, resisting, and cold,
Is pregnant in every part
With essence of life.
Infused with The Spark, my shell--
Pained with the mighty swell
Of being and life that woke--
Travailed: fibres broke.
Green shoots slender,
Powerful, though most tender,
Pushed upward--a crust gave way--
Earth opened ... and I saw day!

II

Myriad forms
Pure and new as a thought of God,
Rose from the sod,
Sprang into life with me,
A bending sea
Of distant, infinite blue,
From East to West, from South to North,
Bent over us. We, called forth
Up from the heart of the earth,
Shook in the east wind’s mirth,
Thrilled to the south wind’s kiss.
Rain and dew,
Storm and sun,
Blessed us, made us _this_,
And we grew.

III

Oh days
In early summer, when all things breathe
With delight in being! Golden haze
Covers valleys and distant heath.
The wind, these times,
Faints with its burden from Southern Climes
Of odours, subtler than balm or myrrh.
Then we stir
And surge like fair seas to and fro.
When through our green blades the light winds sweep,
Between our thin stalks straight and tall,
You may see, a-tremble, like flames that blow,
The Scarlet Flowers of Sleep.
Low down they grow,--
Fine as a film,
Red and soft as Love’s lips glow,
Red as jewels the gods let fall.

IV

Oh days,
When the sun, red through the haze,
Burns bronze to gold!
No breeze wakes,
Sleek cows stand in orchard shade;
And the little sound that ebb tide makes
At the foot of the cliffs is low and sweet
As sighs half-breathed, as lips that meet.
In this ripening time
We wait so still, that we scarce are stirred
By the flight of a startled bird
From its nest, in the furrows made.
Summer’s power
Changes our hue from royal green
To golden, hour by hour.

V

Oh days
Full of sweet noises! Songs of birds,
And gentle sound of lowing herds.
When all around--
From farther fields and orchard trees--
Comes the drowsy hum of bees.

VI

Bend the ear
To our sibilant whispering!
This is the full of the year.
The Golden Mene, when the rich earth bears
In plenty and fulness and mankind shares
In the good of her,
Oh hear, the wind wakes; and we sing!

VII

See the forms,
Big and sturdy and strong and brown!
The sinewy arms,
The naked chest, where the shirt falls down,
The blue veins swollen, the sweat of toil,
The sweat of brow and the earth-cast look,
The coarse shoes, red with the furrow’s toil,
The knotted hands....
The Field is the book
These fingers turn, and these eyes pursue.
The sudden hail, the deadly dew,
The blight of the boll and the dry, parched days
Are the lines that mark their tragedies!
These are the Workers--!
Their hands have made
The great earth fertile from sea to sea.
Silently
They bend to their labour, knowing not
What they shall reap that their hands have sown!
“Man may not live by bread alone;”
They ask but this, “and receive a stone!”

VIII

From the faint, gray dawn to the late night’s shade
The open air is their dwelling-place.
The sweetest and best that their lives have known
Is the mild, soft air in the summer-time,
When they learn the noon by the village chime
And pause to rest for an hour’s space.

IX

Misery,
Is in the hut for the worker there;
What for his eyes to see?--
Children, that dumbly ask for things
He knows not of, nor they know who plead!
More than a garment for nakedness,
Or warmth from woe that the winter brings,
Or bread--that, God! is a want indeed!

X

“Life for life,” the Prophet says,
The fulness of days shall come and the reapers reap.
The white blade seethes like a wind, and we
Tremble at death in the blade’s cold kiss.
Distant, infinite blue
From East to West, from South to North,
Bends over us.
We, called forth
Up from the heart of the earth,
Mother that gave us birth,
Lie on her heart again.
Sun and dew,
Wind and rain,
Pass over us.

XI

On the bare, brown land,
In level, close-bound sheaves, we stand;
And this is the end,
Till the fine, dry film from the blade’s unfurled
And we go forth,
From East to West, from South to North
Bread--for the world.

IN THE JOINT OF HIS ARMOUR

I

Then said the king:--“Stand here, Sir Guldemar,
Beside me, where the arras falleth close.
Now, down this marble stair the princess goes.
And thou shalt mark her, hidden here with me:--
And thou shalt tell me, on thine honour’s oath,
If any woman is as fair as she.
(Giving thy guerdon, no fear hanging loath!”)

II

“For, when thou sayest,--‘_She’s_ more fair
Than the queen’s sister!’--straight that woman shall,
Guldemar, to thy have and hold befall.
The hour thou didst so knightly lift thy lance
To shield our life, we gave our royal word--
For Guldemar! the fairest in all France!” ...
(Guldemar stood beside his king and heard.)

III

He held his head-gear downward in his hands;
The white plume kissed along the gleaming steel
Of his gray armour, close from head to heel.
High around his throat’s column, lay the fine,
Steel, tinkling little links, that rose and fell
To mark his breath. (Nor did the king divine
The hot heart beating in the mailèd shell!)

IV

“To women he is as the heart of ice,”
The women laughed: and held it for a wage
That none could Baron Guldemar engage
In sport of love, or earnest: his straight gaze
Was like the falcon’s on the hand held high,
Above the hunter and the under-maze,
Toward a goal cloud hidden in the sky.