Chapter I: Give Thanks (1)

There’s one that I once loved so much
I am no more the same.
I give thanks for that transforming touch.
I tell you not his name.

He has become a sign to me
For flowers and for fire.
For song he is a sign to me
And for the broken lyre.

And I have known him in a book
And never touched his hand.
And he is dead—I need not look
For him through his green land.

Heaven may not be. I have no faith,
But this desire I have—
To take my soul on my last breath,
To lift it like a wave,

And surge unto his star and say,
His friendship had been heaven;
And pray, for clouds that closed his day
May light at last be given!

And say, he shone at noon so bright
I learned to run and rejoice!
And beg him for one last delight—
The true sound of his voice.

There’s one that once moved me so much
I am no more the same;
And I pray I too, I too, may touch
Some heart with singing flame.

James Oppenheim

THE SLAVE

They set the slave free, striking off his chains....
Then he was as much of a slave as ever.

He was still chained to servility,
He was still manacled to indolence and sloth,
He was still bound by fear and superstition,
By ignorance, suspicion, and savagery ...
His slavery was not in the chains,
But in himself ...

They can only set free men free ...
And there is no need of that:
Free men set themselves free.

THE LONELY CHILD

Do you think, my boy, when I put my arms around you
To still your fears,
That it is I who conquer the dark and the lonely night?

My arms seem to wrap love about you,
As your little heart fluttering at my breast
Throbs love through me ...

But, dear one, it is not your father:
Other arms are about you, drawing you near,
And drawing the Earth near, and the Night near,
And your father near....

Some day you shall lie alone at nights,
As now your father lies;
And in those arms, as a leaf fallen on a tranquil stream,
Drift into dreams and healing sleep.

NOT OVERLOOKED

Though I am little as all little things, Though the stars that pass over my tininess are as the sands of the sea, Though the garment of the night was made for a sky-giant and does not fit me, Though even in a city of men I am as nothing, Yet at times the gift of life is almost more than I can bear.... I laugh with joyousness, the morning is a blithe holiday; And in the overrunning of my hardy bliss praise rises for the very breath I breathe.

How soaked the universe is with life— Not a cranny but is drenched! Ah, not even I was overlooked!

THE RUNNER IN THE SKIES

Who is the runner in the skies,
With her blowing scarf of stars,
And our earth and sun hovering like bees about her blossoming heart!
Her feet are on the winds where space is deep;
Her eyes are nebulous and veiled;
She hurries through the night to a far lover.

Patrick Orr

ANNIE SHORE AND JOHNNIE DOON

Annie Shore, ’twas, sang last night
Down in South End saloon;
A tawdry creature in the light,
Painted cheeks, eyes over bright,
Singing a dance-hall tune.

I’d be forgetting Annie’s singing—
I’d not have thought again—
But for the thing that cried and fluttered
Through all the shrill refrain:
Youth crying above foul words, cheap music,
And innocence in pain.

They sentenced Johnnie Doon today
For murder, stark and grim;
Death’s none too dear a price, they say,
For such-like men as him to pay;
No need to pity him!

And Johnnie Doon I’d not be pitying—
I could forget him now—
But for the childish look of trouble
That fell across his brow,
For the twisting hands he looked at dumbly
As if they’d sinned, he knew not how.

IN THE MOHAVE

As I rode down the arroyo through yuccas belled with bloom
I saw a last year’s stalk lift dried hands to the light,
Like age at prayer for death within a careless room,
Like one by day o’ertaken, whose sick desire is night.

And as I rode I saw a lean coyote lying
All perfect as in life upon a silver dune,
Save that his feet no more could flee the harsh light’s spying,
Save that no more his shadow would cleave the sinking moon.

O cruel land, where form endures, the spirit fled!
You chill the sun for me with your gray sphinx’s smile,
Brooding in the bright silence above your captive dead,
Where beat the heart of life so brief, so brief a while!

Seumas O’Sullivan

MY SORROW

My sorrow that I am not by the little dun,
By the lake of the starlings at Rosses under the hill—
And the larks there, singing over the fields of dew,
Or evening there, and the sedges still!
For plain I see now the length of the yellow sand,
And Lissadell far off and its leafy ways,
And the holy mountain whose mighty heart
Gathers into it all the colored days.
My sorrow that I am not by the little dun,
By the lake of the starlings at evening when all is still—
And still in whispering sedges the herons stand.
’Tis there I would nestle at rest till the quivering moon
Uprose in the golden quiet over the hill.

SPLENDID AND TERRIBLE

Splendid and terrible your love.
The searing pinions of its flight
Flamed but a moment’s space above
The place where ancient memories keep
Their quiet; and the dreaming deep
Moved inly with a troubled light,
And that old passion woke and stirred
Out of its sleep.

Splendid and terrible your love.
I hold it to me like a flame;
I hold it like a flame above
The empty anguish of my breast.
There let it stay, there let it rest—
Deep in the heart whereto it came
Of old as some wind-wearied bird
Drops to its nest.

THE OTHERS

From our hidden places,
By a secret path,
We come in the moonlight
To the side of the green rath.

There the night through
We take our pleasure,
Dancing to such a measure
As earth never knew.

To dance and lilt
And song without a name,
So sweetly chanted
’Twould put a bird to shame.

And many a maiden
Is there, of mortal birth,
Her young eyes laden
With dreams of earth.

Music so piercing wild
And forest-sweet would bring
Silence on blackbirds singing
Their best in the ear of spring.

And many a youth entrancèd
Moves slow in the dreamy round,
His brave lost feet enchanted
With the rhythm of faery sound.

Oh, many a thrush and blackbird
Would fall to the dewy ground,
And pine away in silence
For envy of such a sound.

So the night through,
In our sad pleasure,
We dance to many a measure
That earth never knew.

Josephine Preston Peabody

CRADLE SONG

I

Lord Gabriel, wilt thou not rejoice
When at last a little boy’s
Cheek lies heavy as a rose,
And his eyelids close?

Gabriel, when that hush may be,
This sweet hand all heedfully
I’ll undo, for thee alone,
From his mother’s own.

Then the far blue highways paven
With the burning stars of heaven
He shall gladden with the sweet
Hasting of his feet—

Feet so brightly bare and cool,
Leaping, as from pool to pool;
From a little laughing boy
Splashing rainbow joy!

Gabriel, wilt thou understand
How to keep his hovering hand—
Never shut, as in a bond,
From the bright beyond?

Nay, but though it cling and close
Tightly as a clinging rose,
Clasp it only so—aright,
Lest his heart take fright.

(_Dormi, dormi, tu;
The dusk is hung with blue._)

II

Lord Michael, wilt not thou rejoice
When at last a little boy’s
Heart, a shut-in murmuring bee,
Turns him into thee?

Wilt thou heed thine armor well—
To take his hand from Gabriel,
So his radiant cup of dream
May not spill a gleam?

He will take thy heart in thrall,
Telling o’er thy breastplate all
Colors, in his bubbling speech,
With his hand to each.

(_Dormi, dormi, tu,
Sapphire is the blue;
Pearl and beryl, they are called,
Chrysoprase and emerald,
Sard and amethyst.
Numbered so, and kissed._)

Ah, but find some angel word
For thy sharp, subduing sword!
Yea, Lord Michael, make no doubt
He will find it out:

(_Dormi, dormi, tu!_)
_His eyes will look at you._

III

Last, a little morning space,
Lead him to that leafy place
Where Our Lady sits awake,
For all mothers’ sake.

Bosomed with the Blessèd One,
He shall mind her of her Son,
Once so folded from all harms,
In her shrining arms.

(_In her veil of blue,
Dormi, dormi, tu._)

So—and fare thee well.
Softly—Gabriel ...
When the first faint red shall come,
Bid the Day-star lead him home—
For the bright world’s sake—
To my heart, awake.

THE CEDARS

All down the years the fragrance came,
The mingled fragrance, with a flame,
Of cedars breathing in the sun,
The cedar-trees of Lebanon.

O thirst of song in bitter air,
And hope, wing-hurt from iron care,
What balm of myrrh and honey, won
From far-off trees of Lebanon!

Not from these eyelids yet have I
Ever beheld that early sky.
Why do they call me through the sun?—
Even the trees of Lebanon?

A SONG OF SOLOMON

King Solomon was the wisest man
Of all that have been kings.
He built an House unto the Lord;
And he sang of creeping things.

Of creeping things, of things that fly,
Or swim within the seas;
Of the little weed along the wall,
And of the cedar-trees.

And happier he, without mistake,
Than all men since alive.
God’s House he built; and he did make
A thousand songs and five.

Ezra Pound

Δώρια

Be in me as the eternal moods
of the bleak wind, and not
As transient things are—
gaiety of flowers.
Have me in the strong loneliness
of sunless cliffs
And of gray waters.
Let the gods speak softly of us
In days hereafter,
the shadowy flowers of Orcus
Remember thee.

THE RETURN

See, they return; ah, see the tentative
Movements, and the slow feet,
The trouble in the pace and the uncertain
Wavering!

See, they return, one, and by one,
With fear, as half-awakened;
As if the snow should hesitate
And murmur in the wind,
and half turn back;
These were the “Wing’d-with-Awe,”
inviolable.

Gods of that wingèd shoe!
With them the silver hounds,
sniffing the trace of air!

Haie! Haie!
These were the swift to harry;
These the keen-scented;
These were the souls of blood.

Slow on the leash,
pallid the leash-men!

PICCADILLY

Beautiful, tragical faces—
Ye that were whole, and are so sunken;
And, O ye vile, ye that might have been loved,
That are so sodden and drunken,
Who hath forgotten you?

O wistful, fragile faces, few out of many!

The crass, the coarse, the brazen,
God knows I cannot pity them, perhaps, as I should do;
But oh, ye delicate, wistful faces,
Who hath forgotten you?

N. Y.

My City, my beloved, my white!
Ah, slender,
Listen! Listen to me, and I will breathe into thee a soul.
Delicately upon the reed, attend me!

_Now do I know that I am mad,
For here are a million people surly with traffic;
This is no maid.
Neither could I play upon any reed if I had one._

My City, my beloved,
Thou art a maid with no breasts,
Thou art slender as a silver reed.
Listen to me, attend me!
And I will breathe into thee a soul,
And thou shalt live for ever.

THE COMING OF WAR: ACTAEON

An image of Lethe,
and the fields
Full of faint light
but golden,
Gray cliffs,
and beneath them
A sea
Harsher than granite,
unstill, never ceasing;

High forms
with the movement of gods,
Perilous aspect;
And one said:
“This is Actaeon.”
Actaeon of golden greaves!

Over fair meadows,
Over the cool face of that field,
Unstill, ever moving,
Host of an ancient people,
The silent cortège.

THE GARDEN

_En robe de parade. Samain_

Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall
She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens,
And she is dying piece-meal
of a sort of emotional anemia.

And round about there is a rabble
Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.
They shall inherit the earth.

In her is the end of breeding.
Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.

She would like some one to speak to her,
And is almost afraid that I
will commit that indiscretion.

ORTUS

How have I labored?
How have I not labored
To bring her soul to birth,
To give these elements a name and a centre!

She is beautiful as the sunlight, and as fluid.
She has no name, and no place.
How have I labored to bring her soul into separation;
To give her a name and her being!

Surely you are bound and entwined,
You are mingled with the elements unborn;
I have loved a stream and a shadow.

I beseech you enter your life.
I beseech you learn to say “I”
When I question you:
For you are no part, but a whole;
No portion, but a being.

THE CHOICE

It is true that you say the gods are more use to you than fairies, But for all that I have seen you on a high, white, noble horse, Like some strange queen in a story.

It is odd that you should be covered with long robes and trailing
tendrils and flowers;

It is odd that you should be changing your face and resembling some
other woman to plague me;
It is odd that you should be hiding yourself in the cloud of beautiful
women, who do not concern me.

And I, who follow every seed-leaf upon the wind!
They will say that I deserve this.

THE GARRET

Come let us pity those who are better off than we are.
Come, my friend, and remember
that the rich have butlers and no friends,
And we have friends and no butlers.
Come let us pity the married and the unmarried.

Dawn enters with little feet
like a gilded Pavlova,
And I am near my desire.
Nor has life in it aught better
Than this hour of clear coolness,
the hour of waking together.

DANCE FIGURE

_For the Marriage in Cana of Galilee_

Dark-eyed, O woman of my dreams, Ivory sandaled, There is none like thee among the dancers, None with swift feet.

I have not found thee in the tents, In the broken darkness. I have not found thee at the well-head Among the women with pitchers.

Thine arms are as a young sapling under the bark; Thy face as a river with lights.

White as an almond are thy shoulders; As new almonds stripped from the husk.

They guard thee not with eunuchs; Not with bars of copper. Gilt turquoise and silver are in the place of thy rest. A brown robe, with threads of gold woven in patterns, hast thou gathered about thee, O Nathat-Ikanaie, “Tree-at-the-river.”

As a rillet among the sedge are thy hands upon me; Thy fingers a frosted stream.

Thy maidens are white like pebbles; Their music about thee!

There is none like thee among the dancers; None with swift feet.

FROM “NEAR PÉRIGORD”

_Ed eran due in uno, ed uno in due. Inferno, XXVIII, 125._

I loved a woman. The stars fell from heaven.
And always our two natures were in strife.
Bewildering spring, and by the Auvezère
Poppies and day’s eyes in the green émail
Rose over us; and we knew all that stream,
And our two horses had traced out the valleys;
Knew the low flooded lands squared out with poplars,
In the young days when the deep sky befriended.
And great wings beat above us in the twilight,
And the great wheels in heaven
Bore us together ... surging ... and apart ...
Believing we should meet with lips and hands.

High, high and sure ... and then the counterthrust:
“Why do you love me? Will you always love me?
But I am like the grass, I can not love you.”
Or, “Love, and I love and love you,
And hate your mind, not _you_, your soul, your hands.”

So to this last estrangement, Tairiran!

There shut up in his castle, Tairiran’s,
She who had nor ears nor tongue save in her hands,
Gone—ah, gone—untouched, unreachable!
She who could never live save through one person,
She who could never speak save to one person,
And all the rest of her a shifting change,
A broken bundle of mirrors ... !

AN IMMORALITY

Sing we for love and idleness,
Naught else is worth the having.

Though I have been in many a land,
There is naught else in living.

And I would rather have my sweet,
Though rose-leaves die of grieving,

Than do high deeds in Hungary
To pass all men’s believing.

THE STUDY IN AESTHETICS

The very small children in patched clothing, Being smitten with an unusual wisdom, Stopped in their play as she passed them And cried up from their cobbles: _Guarda! Ahi, guarda! ch’e b’ea!_

But three years after this I heard the young Dante, whose last name I do not know— For there are, in Sirmione, twenty-eight young Dantes and thirty-four Catulli; And there had been a great catch of sardines, And his elders Were packing them in the great wooden boxes For the market in Brescia, and he Leapt about, snatching at the bright fish And getting in both of their ways; And in vain they commanded him to _sta fermo_! And when they would not let him arrange The fish in the boxes He stroked those which were already arranged, Murmuring for his own satisfaction This identical phrase: _Ch’e b’ea_.

And at this I was mildly abashed.

FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS

Come, my songs, let us express our baser passions. Let us express our envy for the man with a steady job and no worry about the future.

You are very idle, my songs; I fear you will come to a bad end.

You stand about the streets. You loiter at the corners and bus-stops, You do next to nothing at all. You do not even express our inner nobility; You will come to a very bad end.

And I? I have gone half cracked. I have talked to you so much that I almost see you about me, Insolent little beasts! Shameless! Devoid of clothing!

But you, newest song of the lot, You are not old enough to have done much mischief. I will get you a green coat out of China With dragons worked upon it. I will get you the scarlet silk trousers From the statue of the infant Christ at Santa Maria Novella;

Lest they say we are lacking in taste, Or that there is no caste in this family.

VILLANELLE: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL HOUR

I

I had over-prepared the event—
that much was ominous.
With middle-aging care
I had laid out just the right books,
I almost turned down the right pages.

_Beauty is so rare a thing ...
So few drink of my fountain._

So much barren regret!
So many hours wasted!
And now I watch from the window
rain, wandering busses.
Their little cosmos is shaken—
the air is alive with that fact.
In their parts of the city
they are played on by diverse forces;

I had over-prepared the event.
_Beauty is so rare a thing ...
So few drink at my fountain._

Two friends: a breath of the forest ...
Friends? Are people less friends
because one has just, at last, found them?

Twice they promised to come.
“_Between the night and morning_?”

_Beauty would drink of my mind._
Youth would awhile forget
my youth is gone from me.
Youth would hear speech of beauty.

II

(“Speak up! You have danced so stiffly?
Someone admired your works,
And said so frankly.

“Did you talk like a fool,
The first night?
The second evening?”

“_But_ they promised again:
‘Tomorrow at tea-time.’”)

III

Now the third day is here—
no word from either;
No word from her nor him,
Only another man’s note:
“Dear Pound, I am leaving England.”

BALLAD OF THE GOODLY FERE

_Simon Zelotes speaketh it somewhile after the Crucifixion._

Ha’ we lost the goodliest fere o’ all
For the priests and the gallows tree?
Aye lover he was of brawny men,
O’ ships and the open sea.

When they came wi’ a host to take Our Man
His smile was good to see,
“First let these go!” quo’ our Goodly Fere,
“Or I’ll see ye damned,” says he.

Aye he sent us out through the crossed high spears
And the scorn of his laugh rang free,
“Why took ye not me when I walked about
Alone in the town?” says he.

Oh we drank his “Hale” in the good red wine
When we last made company.
No capon priest was the Goodly Fere,
But a man o’ men was he.

I ha’ seen him drive a hundred men
Wi’ a bundle o’ cords swung free,
That they took the high and holy house
For their pawn and treasury.

They’ll no’ get him a’ in a book, I think,
Though they write it cunningly;
No mouse of the scrolls was the Goodly Fere
But aye loved the open sea.

If they think they ha’ snared our Goodly Fere
They are fools to the last degree.
“I’ll go to the feast,” quo’ our Goodly Fere,
“Though I go to the gallows tree.”

“Ye ha’ seen me heal the lame and blind,
And wake the dead,” says he.
“Ye shall see one thing to master all:
’Tis how a brave man dies on the tree.”

A son of God was the Goodly Fere
That bade us his brothers be.
I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men.
I have seen him upon the tree.

He cried no cry when they drave the nails
And the blood gushed hot and free.
The hounds of the crimson sky gave tongue,
But never a cry cried he.

I ha’ seen him cow a thousand men
On the hills o’ Galilee.
They whined as he walked out calm between,
Wi’ his eyes like the gray o’ the sea.

Like the sea that brooks no voyaging,
With the winds unleashed and free,
Like the sea that he cowed at Genseret
Wi’ twey words spoke suddently.

A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.

I ha’ seen him eat o’ the honey-comb
Sin’ they nailed him to the tree.

BALLAD FOR GLOOM

For God, our God, is a gallant foe
That playeth behind the veil.

I have loved my God as a child at heart
That seeketh deep bosoms for rest,
I have loved my God as maid to man—
But lo, this thing is best:

To love your God as a gallant foe
that plays behind the veil,
To meet your God as the night winds meet
beyond Arcturus’ pale.

I have played with God for a woman,
I have staked with my God for truth,
I have lost to my God as a man, clear-eyed—
His dice be not of ruth.

For I am made as a naked blade,
But hear ye this thing in sooth:

Who loseth to God as man to man
Shall win at the turn of the game.
I have drawn my blade where the lightnings meet
But the ending is the same:
Who loseth to God as the sword blades lose
Shall win at the end of the game.
For God, our God, is a gallant foe
that playeth behind the veil.
Whom God deigns not to overthrow
hath need of triple mail.

LA FRAISNE

_Scene: The Ash Wood of Malvern_

For I was a gaunt, grave councillor,
Being in all things wise, and very old;
But I have put aside this folly and the cold
That old age weareth for a cloak.

I was quite strong—at least they said so—
The young men at the sword-play;
But I have put aside this folly, being gay
In another fashion that more suiteth me.

I have curled mid the boles of the ash wood,
I have hidden my face where the oak
Spread his leaves over me, and the yoke
Of the old ways of men have I cast aside.

By the still pool of Mar-nan-otha
Have I found me a bride
That was a dog-wood tree some syne.
She hath called me from mine old ways;
She hath hushed my rancor of council,
Bidding me praise

Naught but the wind that flutters in the leaves.

She hath drawn me from mine old ways,
Till men say that I am mad;
But I have seen the sorrow of men, and am glad,
For I know that the wailing and bitterness are a folly.
And I? I have put aside all folly and all grief.
I wrapped my tears in an ellum leaf
And left them under a stone;
And now men call me mad because I have thrown
All folly from me, putting it aside
To leave the old barren ways of men,
Because my bride
Is a pool of the wood; and
Though all men say that I am mad
It is only that I am glad—
Very glad, for my bride hath toward me a great love
That is sweeter than the love of women
That plague and burn and drive one away.

Aie-e! ’Tis true that I am gay,
Quite gay, for I have her alone here
And no man troubleth us.

Once when I was among the young men ...
And they said I was quite strong, among the young men ...
Once there was a woman ...
... but I forget ... she was ...
... I hope she will not come again.

... I do not remember ...
I think she hurt me once, but ...
That was very long ago.

I do not like to remember things any more.

I like one little band of winds that blow
In the ash trees here:
For we are quite alone,
Here mid the ash trees.

THE RIVER-MERCHANT’S WIFE: A LETTER

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse;
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever, and forever.
Why should I climb the look-out?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-Yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the west garden—
They hurt me.
I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you,
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.
_From the Chinese of Li Po._

EXILE’S LETTER

_From the Chinese of Li Po, usually considered the greatest poet of China: written by him while in exile about 760 A. D., to the Hereditary War-Councillor of Sho, “recollecting former companionship.”_

So-Kin of Rakuho, ancient friend, I now remember That you built me a special tavern, By the south side of the bridge at Ten-Shin. With yellow gold and white jewels we paid for the songs and laughter, And we were drunk for month after month, forgetting the kings and princes. Intelligent men came drifting in, from the sea and from the west border, And with them, and with you especially, there was nothing at cross-purpose; And they made nothing of sea-crossing or of mountain-crossing, If only they could be of that fellowship. And we all spoke out our hearts and minds ... and without regret. And then I was sent off to South Wei, smothered in laurel groves, And you to the north of Raku-hoku, Till we had nothing but thoughts and memories between us. And when separation had come to its worst We met, and travelled together into Sen-Go Through all the thirty-six folds of the turning and twisting waters; Into a valley of a thousand bright flowers ... that was the first valley, And on into ten thousand valleys full of voices and pine-winds. With silver harness and reins of gold, prostrating themselves on the ground, Out came the East-of-Kan foreman and his company; And there came also the “True-man” of Shi-yo to meet me, Playing on a jewelled mouth-organ. In the storied houses of San-Ko they gave us more Sennin music; Many instruments, like the sound of young phœnix broods. And the foreman of Kan-Chu, drunk, Danced because his long sleeves Wouldn’t keep still, with that music playing. And I, wrapped in brocade, went to sleep with my head on his lap, And my spirit so high that it was all over the heavens.

And before the end of the day we were scattered like stars or rain. I had to be off to So, far away over the waters, You back to your river-bridge. And your father, who was brave as a leopard, Was governor in Hei Shu and put down the barbarian rabble. And one May he had you send for me, despite the long distance; And what with broken wheels and so on, I won’t say it wasn’t hard going ... Over roads twisted like sheep’s guts. And I was still going, late in the year, in the cutting wind from the north, And thinking how little you cared for the cost ... and you caring enough to pay it. Then what a reception! Red jade cups, food well set, on a blue jewelled table; And I was drunk, and had no thought of returning; And you would walk out with me to the western corner of the castle, To the dynastic temple, with the water about it clear as blue jade, With boats floating, and the sound of mouth-organs and drums, With ripples like dragon-scales going grass-green on the water, Pleasure lasting, with courtezans going and coming without hindrance, With the willow-flakes falling like snow, And the vermilioned girls getting drunk about sunset, And the waters a hundred feet deep reflecting green eyebrows— Eyebrows painted green are a fine sight in young moonlight, Gracefully painted—and the girls singing back at each other, Dancing in transparent brocade, And the wind lifting the song, and interrupting it, Tossing it up under the clouds.

And all this comes to an end, And is not again to be met with. I went up to the court for examination, Tried Layu’s luck, offered the Choyu song, And got no promotion, And went back to the East Mountains white-headed.

And once again we met, later, at the South Bridge head. And then the crowd broke up—you went north to San palace. And if you ask how I regret that parting? It is like the flowers falling at spring’s end, confused, whirled in a tangle. What is the use of talking! And there is no end of talking— There is no end of things in the heart.

I call in the boy, Have him sit on his knees to write and seal this, And I send it a thousand miles, thinking.

(_Translated by Ezra Pound from the notes of the late Ernest
Fenollosa, and the decipherings of the Professors Mori and Araga._)

John Reed

SANGAR

_To Lincoln Steffens_

Somewhere I read a strange, old, rusty tale
Smelling of war; most curiously named
_The Mad Recreant Knight of the West_.
Once, you have read, the round world brimmed with hate,
Stirred and revolted, flashed unceasingly
Facets of cruel splendor. And the strong
Harried the weak ...
Long past, long past, praise God,
In these fair, peaceful, happy days.

_The Tale_:

Eastward the Huns break border,
Surf on a rotten dyke;
They have murdered the Eastern Warder
(His head on a pike).
“Arm thee, arm thee, my father!
Swift rides the Goddes-bane,
And the high nobles gather
On the plain!”

“O blind world-wrath!” cried Sangar,
“Greatly I killed in youth;
I dreamed men had done with anger
Through Goddes truth!”
Smiled the boy then in faint scorn,
Hard with the battle-thrill;
“Arm thee, loud calls the war-horn
And shrill!”

He has bowed to the voice stentorian,
Sick with thought of the grave—
He has called for his battered morion
And his scarred glaive.
On the boy’s helm a glove
Of the Duke’s daughter—
In his eyes splendor of love
And slaughter.

Hideous the Hun advances
Like a sea-tide on sand;
Unyielding, the haughty lances
Make dauntless stand.
And ever amid the clangor,
Butchering Hun and Hun,
With sorrowful face rides Sangar
And his son....

Broken is the wild invader
(Sullied, the whole world’s fountains);
They have penned the murderous raider
With his back to the mountains.
Yet though what had been mead
Is now a bloody lake,
Still drink swords where men bleed,
Nor slake.

Now leaps one into the press—
The hell ’twixt front and front—
Sangar, bloody and torn of dress
(He has borne the brunt).
“Hold!” cries, “Peace! God’s peace!
Heed ye what Christus says—”
And the wild battle gave surcease
In amaze.

“When will ye cast out hate?
Brothers—my mad, mad brothers—
Mercy, ere it be too late,
These are sons of your mothers.
For sake of Him who died on Tree,
Who of all creatures, loved the least—”
“Blasphemer! God of Battles, He!”
Cried a priest.

“Peace!” and with his two hands
Has broken in twain his glaive.
Weaponless, smiling he stands—
(Coward or brave?)
“Traitor!” howls one rank, “Think ye
The Hun be our brother?”
And “Fear we to die, craven, think ye?”
The other.

Then sprang his son to his side,
His lips with slaver were wet,
For he had felt how men died
And was lustful yet;
(On his bent helm a glove
Of the Duke’s daughter,
In his eyes splendor of love
And slaughter)—

Shouting, “Father no more of mine!
Shameful old man—abhorr’d,
First traitor of all our line!”
Up the two-handed sword.
He smote—fell Sangar—and then
Screaming, red, the boy ran
Straight at the foe, and again
Hell began....

Oh, there was joy in Heaven when Sangar came.
Sweet Mary wept, and bathed and bound his wounds,
And God the Father healed him of despair,
And Jesus gripped his hand, and laughed and laughed....

Ernest Rhys

DAGONET’S CANZONET

A queen lived in the South;
And music was her mouth,
And sunshine was her hair,
By day, and all the night
The drowsy embers there
Remember’d still the light;
_My soul, was she not fair!_

But for her eyes—they made
An iron man afraid;
Like sky-blue pools they were,
Watching the sky that knew
Itself transmuted there
Light blue, or deeper blue;
_My soul, was she not fair!_

The lifting of her hands
Made laughter in the lands
Where the sun is, in the South:
But my soul learnt sorrow there
In the secrets of her mouth,
Her eyes, her hands, her hair:
_O soul, was she not fair!_

A SONG OF HAPPINESS

Ah, Happiness:
Who called you “Earandel”?
(Winter-star, I think, that is);
And who can tell the lovely curve
By which you seem to come, then swerve
Before you reach the middle-earth?
And who is there can hold your wing,
Or bind you in your mirth,
Or win you with a least caress,
Or tear, or kiss, or anything—
Insensate Happiness?

Once I thought to have you
Fast there in a child:
All her heart she gave you,
Yet you would not stay.
Cruel, and careless,
Not half reconciled,
Pain you cannot bear;
When her yellow hair
Lay matted, every tress;
When those looks of hers,
Were no longer hers,
You went: in a day
She wept you all away.

Once I thought to give
You, plighted, holily—
No more fugitive,
Returning like the sea:
But they that share so well
Heaven must portion Hell
In their copartnery:
Care, ill fate, ill health,
Came we know not how
And broke our commonwealth.
Neither has you now.

Some wait you on the road,
Some in an open door
Look for the face you showed
Once there—no more.
You never wear the dress
You danced in yesterday;
Yet, seeming gone, you stay,
And come at no man’s call:
Yet, laid for burial,
You lift up from the dead
Your laughing, spangled head.

Yes, once I did pursue
You, unpursuable;
Loved, longed for, hoped for you—
Blue-eyed and morning brow’d.
Ah, lovely Happiness!
Now that I know you well,
I dare not speak aloud
Your fond name in a crowd;
Nor conjure you by night,
Nor pray at morning-light,
Nor count at all on you:

But, at a stroke, a breath,
After the fear of death,
Or bent beneath a load;
Yes, ragged in the dress,
And houseless on the road,
I might surprise you there.
Yes: who of us shall say
When you will come, or where?
Ask children at their play,
The leaves upon the tree,
The ships upon the sea,
Or old men who survived,
And lived, and loved, and wived.
Ask sorrow to confess
Your sweet improvidence,
And prodigal expense
And cold economy,
Ah, lovely Happiness!

Edwin Arlington Robinson

THE MASTER

_Lincoln as he appeared to one soon after the Civil War_

A flying word from here and there
Had sown the name at which we sneered,
But soon the name was everywhere,
To be reviled and then revered:
A presence to be loved and feared,
We cannot hide it, or deny
That we, the gentlemen who jeered,
May be forgotten by and by.

He came when days were perilous
And hearts of men were sore beguiled,
And having made his note of us,
He pondered and was reconciled.
Was ever master yet so mild
As he, and so untamable?
We doubted, even when he smiled,
Not knowing what he knew so well.

He knew that undeceiving fate
Would shame us whom he served unsought;
He knew that he must wince and wait—
The jest of those for whom he fought;
He knew devoutly what he thought
Of us and of our ridicule;
He knew that we must all be taught
Like little children in a school.

We gave a glamour to the task
That he encountered and saw through;
But little of us did he ask,
And little did we ever do.
And what appears if we review
The season when we railed and chaffed?—
It is the face of one who knew
That we were learning while we laughed.

The face that in our vision feels
Again the venom that we flung,
Transfigured, to the world reveals
The vigilance to which we clung.
Shrewd, hallowed, harassed, and among
The mysteries that are untold—
The face we see was never young,
Nor could it ever have been old.

For he, to whom we had applied
Our shopman’s test of age and worth,
Was elemental when he died,
As he was ancient at his birth:
The saddest among kings of earth,
Bowed with a galling crown, this man
Met rancor with a cryptic mirth,
Laconic—and Olympian.

The love, the grandeur, and the fame
Are bounded by the world alone;
The calm, the smouldering, and the flame
Of awful patience were his own:
With him they are forever flown
Past all our fond self-shadowings,
Wherewith we cumber the Unknown
As with inept, Icarian wings.

For we were not as other men:
’Twas ours to soar and his to see.
But we are coming down again,
And we shall come down pleasantly;
Nor shall we longer disagree
On what it is to be sublime,
But flourish in our perigee
And have one Titan at a time.

JOHN GORHAM

“Tell me what you’re doing over here, John Gorham—
Sighing hard and seeming to be sorry when you’re not.
Make me laugh or let me go now, for long faces in the moonlight
Are a sign for me to say again a word that you forgot.”

“I’m over here to tell you what the moon already
May have said or maybe shouted ever since a year ago;
I’m over here to tell you what you are, Jane Wayland,
And to make you rather sorry, I should say, for being so.”

“Tell me what you’re saying to me now, John Gorham,
Or you’ll never see as much of me as ribbons any more;
I’ll vanish in as many ways as I have toes and fingers,
And you’ll not follow far for one where flocks have been before.”

“I’m sorry now you never saw the flocks, Jane Wayland;
But you’re the one to make of them as many as you need.
And then about the vanishing: it’s I who mean to vanish;
And when I’m here no longer you’ll be done with me indeed.”

“That’s a way to tell me what I am, John Gorham!
How am I to know myself until I make you smile?
Try to look as if the moon were making faces at you,
And a little more as if you meant to stay a little while.”

“You are what it is that over rose-blown gardens
Makes a pretty flutter for a season in the sun.
You are what it is that with a mouse, Jane Wayland,
Catches him and let’s him go and eats him up for fun.”

“Sure I never took you for a mouse, John Gorham.
All you say is easy, but so far from being true
That I wish you wouldn’t ever be again the one to think so;
For it isn’t cats and butterflies that I would be to you.”

“All your little animals are in one picture—
One I’ve had before me since a year ago to-night;
And the picture where they live will be of you, Jane Wayland,
Till you find a way to kill them or to keep them out of sight.”

“Won’t you ever see me as I am, John Gorham,
Leaving out the foolishness and all I never meant?
Somewhere in me there’s a woman, if you know the way to find her—
Will you like me any better if I prove it and repent?”

“I doubt if I shall ever have the time, Jane Wayland;
And I dare say all this moonlight lying round us might as well
Fall for nothing on the shards of broken urns that are forgotten,
As on two that have no longer much of anything to tell.”

RICHARD CORY

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

THE GROWTH OF LORRAINE

I

While I stood listening, discreetly dumb,
Lorraine was having the last word with me:
“I know,” she said, “I know it, but you see
Some creatures are born fortunate, and some
Are born to be found out and overcome—
Born to be slaves, to let the rest go free;
And if I’m one of them (and I must be)
You may as well forget me and go home.

“You tell me not to say these things, I know,
But I should never try to be content:
I’ve gone too far; the life would be too slow.
Some could have done it—some girls have the stuff;
But I can’t do it—I don’t know enough.
I’m going to the devil.” And she went.

II

I did not half believe her when she said
That I should never hear from her again;
Nor when I found a letter from Lorraine,
Was I surprised or grieved at what I read:
“Dear friend, when you find this, I shall be dead.
You are too far away to make me stop.
They say that one drop—think of it, one drop!—
Will be enough; but I’ll take five instead.

“You do not frown because I call you friend;
For I would have you glad that I still keep
Your memory, and even at the end—
Impenitent, sick, shattered—cannot curse
The love that flings, for better or for worse,
This worn-out, cast-out flesh of mine to sleep.”

CASSANDRA

I heard one who said: “Verily,
What word have I for children here?
Your Dollar is your only Word,
The wrath of it your only fear.

“You build it altars tall enough
To make you see, but you are blind;
You cannot leave it long enough
To look before you or behind.

“When Reason beckons you to pause,
You laugh and say that you know best;
But what it is you know, you keep
As dark as ingots in a chest.

“You laugh and answer, ‘We are young;
Oh, leave us now, and let us grow:’
Not asking how much more of this
Will Time endure or Fate bestow.

“Because a few complacent years
Have made your peril of your pride,
Think you that you are to go on
Forever pampered and untried?

“What lost eclipse of history,
What bivouac of the marching stars,
Has given the sign for you to see
Millenniums and last great wars?

“What unrecorded overthrow
Of all the world has ever known,
Or ever been, has made itself
So plain to you, and you alone?

“Your Dollar, Dove and Eagle make
A Trinity that even you
Rate higher than you rate yourselves;
It pays, it flatters, and it’s new.

“And though your very flesh and blood
Be what your Eagle eats and drinks,
You’ll praise him for the best of birds,
Not knowing what the Eagle thinks.

“The power is yours, but not the sight;
You see not upon what you tread;
You have the ages for your guide,
But not the wisdom to be led.

“Think you to tread forever down
The merciless old verities?
And are you never to have eyes
To see the world for what it is?

“Are you to pay for what you have
With all you are?”—No other word
We caught, but with a laughing crowd
Moved on. None heeded, and few heard.

Carl Sandburg

CHICAGO

Hog-Butcher for the World, Tool-maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight-handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your
painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked, and I answer, Yes, it is true I have
seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is, On the faces of women
and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.

And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my
city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be
alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a
tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage
pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his
ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of youth; half-naked,
sweating, proud to be Hog-butcher, Tool-maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads, and Freight-handler to the Nation.

THE HARBOR

Passing through huddled and ugly walls,
By doorways where women haggard
Looked from their hunger-deep eyes,
Haunted with shadows of hunger-hands,
Out from the huddled and ugly walls,
I came sudden, at the city’s edge,
On a blue burst of lake,
Long lake waves breaking under the sun
On a spray-flung curve of shore;
And a fluttering storm of gulls,
Masses of great gray wings
And flying white bellies
Veering and wheeling free in the open.

SKETCH

The shadows of the ships
Rock on the crest
In the low blue lustre
Of the tardy and the soft inrolling tide.

A long brown bar at the dip of the sky
Puts an arm of sand in the span of salt.

The lucid and endless wrinkles
Draw in, lapse and withdraw.
Wavelets crumble and white spent bubbles
Wash on the floor of the beach.

Rocking on the crest
In the low blue lustre
Are the shadows of the ships.

LOST

Desolate and lone
All night long on the lake
Where fog trails and mist creeps,
The whistle of a boat
Calls and cries unendingly,
Like some lost child
In tears and trouble
Hunting the harbor’s breast
And the harbor’s eyes.

JAN KUBELIK

Your bow swept over a string, and a long low note quivered to the air. (A mother of Bohemia sobs over a new child, perfect, learning to suck milk.)

Your bow ran fast over all the high strings fluttering and wild. (All the girls in Bohemia are laughing on a Sunday afternoon in the hills with their lovers.)

AT A WINDOW

Give me hunger,
O you gods that sit and give
The world its orders.
Give me hunger, pain and want,
Shut me out with shame and failure
From your doors of gold and fame,
Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger!

But leave me a little love,
A voice to speak to me in the day end,
A hand to touch me in the dark room
Breaking the long loneliness.

In the dusk of day-shapes
Blurring the sunset,
One little wandering, western star
Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow.
Let me go to the window,
Watch there the day-shapes of dusk,
And wait and know the coming
Of a little love.

THE POOR

Among the mountains I wandered and saw blue haze and red crag and was
amazed;
On the beach where the long push under the endless tide maneuvers, I
stood silent;
Under the stars on the prairie watching the Dipper slant over the
horizon’s grass, I was full of thoughts.
Great men, pageants of war and labor, soldiers and workers,
mothers lifting their children—these all I touched, and felt the solemn
thrill of them.
And then one day I got a true look at the Poor, millions of the Poor,
patient and toiling; more patient than crags, tides, and stars;
innumerable, patient as the darkness of night—and all broken, humble
ruins of nations.

THE ROAD AND THE END

I shall foot it
Down the roadway in the dusk,
Where shapes of hunger wander
And the fugitives of pain go by.

I shall foot it
In the silence of the morning,
See the night slur into dawn,
Hear the slow great winds arise
Where tall trees flank the way
And shoulder toward the sky.

The broken boulders by the road
Shall not commemorate my ruin.
Regret shall be the gravel under foot.
I shall watch for
Slim birds swift of wing
That go where wind and ranks of thunder
Dive the wild processionals of rain.

The dust of the travelled road
Shall touch my hands and face.

KILLERS

I am singing to you
Soft as a man with a dead child speaks;
Hard as a man in handcuffs,
Held where he can not move:

Under the sun
Are sixteen million men,
Chosen for shining teeth,
Sharp eyes, hard legs,
And a running of young warm blood in their wrists.

And a red juice runs on the green grass;
And a red juice soaks the dark soil.
And the sixteen million are killing ... and killing and killing.

I never forget them day or night:
They beat on my head for memory of them;
They pound on my heart and I cry back to them,
To their homes and women, dreams and games.

I wake in the night and smell the trenches,
And hear the low stir of sleepers in lines—
Sixteen million sleepers and pickets in the dark:
Some of them long sleepers for always,
Some of them tumbling to sleep to-morrow for always,
Fixed in the drag of the world’s heartbreak,
Eating and drinking, toiling ... on a long job of killing.