Chapter I: Am the Wind (2)

“Have patience, patience, little son,
And we shall find the way again:
(God show me the untraveled one!
God give me rest from men!)”

“Mother, you did not tell me why
You hurried so to come away.
I saw big soldiers riding by;
I should have liked to stay.”

“Hush, little man, and I will sing
Just like a soldier, if I can—
They have a song for everything.
Listen, my little man!

“This is the soldiers’ marching song:
We’ll play this is the village street—”
“Yes, but this road is very long,
And stones have hurt my feet.”

“Nay, little pilgrim, up with you!
And yonder field shall be the town.
I’ll show you how the soldiers do
Who travel up and down.

“They march and sing and march again,
Not minding all the stones and dust:
They go, (God grant me rest from men!)
Forward, because they must.”

“Mother, I want to go to sleep.”
“No, darling! Here is bread to eat!
(O God, if thou couldst let me weep,
Or heal my broken feet!)”

“THE LITTLE ROSE IS DUST, MY DEAR”

The little rose is dust, my dear;
The elfin wind is gone
That sang a song of silver words
And cooled our hearts with dawn.

And what is left to hope, my dear,
Or what is left to say?
The rose, the little wind and you
Have gone so far away.

Alice Corbin

O WORLD

O world that changes under my hand,
O brown world, bitter and bright,
And full of hidden recesses
Of love and light—

O world, what use would there be to me
Of power beyond power
To change, or establish new balance,
To build, or deflower?

O world, what use would there be?
Had I the Creator’s fire,
I could not build you nearer
To my heart’s desire!

TWO VOICES

There is a country full of wine
And liquor of the sun,
Where sap is running all the year,
And spring is never done,
Where all is good as it is fair,
And love and will are one.
Old age may never come there,
But ever in to-day
The people talk as in a dream
And laugh slow time away.

But would you stay as now you are,
Or as a year ago?
Oh, not as then, for then how small
The wisdom we did owe!
Or if forever as to-day,
How little we could know!

Then welcome age, and fear not sorrow;
To-day’s no better than to-morrow,
Or yesterday that flies.
By the low light in your eyes,
By the love that in me lies,
I know we grow more lovely
Growing wise.

LOVE ME AT LAST

Love me at last, or if you will not,
Leave me;
Hard words could never, as these half-words,
Grieve me:
Love me at last—or leave me.

Love me at last, or let the last word uttered
Be but your own;
Love me, or leave me—as a cloud, a vapor,
Or a bird flown.
Love me at last—I am but sliding water
Over a stone.

HUMORESQUE

To some the fat gods
Give money,
To some love;

But the gods have given me
Money _and_ love:

Not _too much_ money,
Nor _quite enough_ love!

To some the fat gods
Give money,
To some love.

ONE CITY ONLY

One city only, of all I have lived in,
And one house of that city, belong to me ...
I remember the mellow light of afternoon
Slanting across brick buildings on the waterfront,
And small boats at rest on the floating tide,
And larger boats at rest in the near-by harbor;
And I know the tidal smell, and the smell of mud,
Uncovering oyster flats, and the brown bare toes of small negroes
With the mud oozing between them;
And the little figures leaping from log to log,
And the white children playing among them—
I remember how I played among them.
And I remember the recessed windows of the gloomy halls
In the darkness of decaying grandeur,
The feel of cool linen in the cavernous bed,
And the window curtain swaying gently
In the night air;
All the half-hushed noises of the street
In the southern town,
And the thrill of life—
Like a hand in the dark
With its felt, indeterminate meaning:
I remember that I knew there the stirring of passion,
Fear, and the knowledge of sin,
Tragedy, laughter, death....

And I remember, too, on a dead Sunday afternoon
In the twilight,
When there was no one else in the house,
My self suddenly separated itself
And left me alone,
So that the world lay about me, lifeless.
I could not touch it, or feel it, or see it;
Yet I was there.
The sensation lingers:
Only the most vital threads
Hold me at all to living ...
Yet I only live truly when I think of that house;
Only enter then into being.
One city only of all I have lived in,
And one house of that city, belong to me.

APPARITIONS

I

A thin gray shadow on the edge of thought
Hiding its wounds:
These are the wounds of sorrow—
It was my hand that made them;
And this gray shadow that resembles you
Is my own heart, weeping ...
You sleep quietly beneath the shade
Of willows in the south.

II

When the cold dawn stood above the house-tops,
Too late I remembered the cry
In the night of a wild bird flying
Through the rain-filled sky.

THE POOL

Do you remember the dark pool at Nîmes,
The pool that had no bottom?
Shadowed by Druids ere the Romans came—
Dark, still, with little bubbles rising
So quietly level with its rim of stone
That one stood shuddering with the breathless fear
Of one short step?

My little sister stood beside the pool
As dark as that of Nîmes.
I saw her white face as she took the plunge;
I could not follow her, although I tried.
The silver bubbles circled to the brink,
And then the water parted:
With dream-white face my little sister rose
Dripping from that dark pool, and took the hands
Outstretched to meet her.

I may not speak to her of all she’s seen;
She may not speak to me of all she knows,
Because her words mean nothing:
She chooses them
As one to whom our language is quite strange,
As children make queer words with lettered blocks
Before they know the way....

My little sister stood beside the pool—
I could not plunge in with her, though I tried.

MUSIC

_The ancient songs
Pass deathward mournfully._
_R. A._

The old songs
Die.
Yes, the old songs die.
Cold lips that sang them,
Cold lips that sang them—
The old songs die,
And the lips that sang them
Are only a pinch of dust.

I saw in Pamplona
In a musty museum—
I saw in Pamplona
In a buff-colored museum—
I saw in Pamplona
A memorial
Of the dead violinist;
I saw in Pamplona
A memorial
Of Pablo Sarasate.

Dust was inch-deep on the cases,
Dust on the stick-pins and satins,
Dust on the badges and orders,
On the wreath from the oak of Guernica!

The old songs
Die—
And the lips that sang them.
Wreaths, withered and dusty,
Cuff-buttons with royal insignia,
These, in a musty museum,
Are all that is left of Sarasate.

WHAT DIM ARCADIAN PASTURES

What dim Arcadian pastures
Have I known
That suddenly, out of nothing,
A wind is blown,
Lifting a veil and a darkness,
Showing a purple sea—
And under your hair the faun’s eyes
Look out on me?

NODES

The endless, foolish merriment of stars
Beside the pale cold sorrow of the moon,
Is like the wayward noises of the world
Beside my heart’s uplifted silent tune.

The little broken glitter of the waves
Beside the golden sun’s intense white blaze,
Is like the idle chatter of the crowd
Beside my heart’s unwearied song of praise.

The sun and all the planets in the sky
Beside the sacred wonder of dim space,
Are notes upon a broken, tarnished lute
That God will someday mend and put in place.

And space, beside the little secret joy
Of God that sings forever in the clay,
Is smaller than the dust we can not see,
That yet dies not, till time and space decay.

And as the foolish merriment of stars
Beside the cold pale sorrow of the moon,
My little song, my little joy, my praise,
Beside God’s ancient, everlasting rune.

Adelaide Crapsey

CINQUAINS

NOVEMBER NIGHT

Listen.
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees
And fall.

TRIAD

These be
Three silent things:
The falling snow ... the hour
Before the dawn ... the mouth of one
Just dead.

SUSANNA AND THE ELDERS

“Why do
You thus devise
Evil against her?” “For that
She is beautiful, delicate;
Therefore.”

THE GUARDED WOUND

If it
Were lighter touch
Than petal of flower resting
On grass, oh still too heavy it were,
Too heavy!

THE WARNING

Just now,
Out of the strange
Still dusk ... as strange, as still ...
A white moth flew. Why am I grown
So cold?

FATE DEFIED

As it
Were tissue of silver
I’ll wear, O fate, thy grey,
And go mistily radiant, clad
Like the moon.

THE PLEDGE

White doves of Cytherea, by your quest
Across the blue Heaven’s bluest highest air,
And by your certain homing to Love’s breast,
Still to be true and ever true—I swear.

EXPENSES

Little my lacking fortunes show
For this to eat and that to wear;
Yet laughing, Soul, and gaily go!
An obol pays the Stygian fare.

ADVENTURE

Sun and wind and beat of sea,
Great lands stretching endlessly ...
Where be bonds to bind the free?
All the world was made for me!

DIRGE

Never the nightingale,
Oh, my dear,
Never again the lark
Thou wilt hear;
Though dusk and the morning still
Tap at thy window-sill,
Thou ever love call and call
Thou wilt not hear at all,
My dear, my dear.

SONG

I make my shroud, but no one knows—
So shimmering fine it is and fair,
With stitches set in even rows.
I make my shroud, but no one knows.

In door-way where the lilac blows,
Humming a little wandering air,
I make my shroud and no one knows,
So shimmering fine it is and fair.

THE LONELY DEATH

In the cold I will rise, I will bathe
In waters of ice; myself
Will shiver, and shrive myself,
Alone in the dawn, and anoint
Forehead and feet and hands;
I will shutter the windows from light,
I will place in their sockets the four
Tall candles and set them a-flame
In the grey of the dawn; and myself
Will lay myself straight in my bed,
And draw the sheet under my chin.

H. D.

HERMES OF THE WAYS

I

The hard sand breaks,
And the grains of it
Are clear as wine.

Far off over the leagues of it,
The wind,
Playing on the wide shore,
Piles little ridges,
And the great waves
Break over it.

But more than the many-foamed ways
Of the sea,
I know him
Of the triple path-ways.
Hermes,
Who awaiteth.

Dubious,
Facing three ways,
Welcoming wayfarers,
He whom the sea-orchard
Shelters from the west,
From the east
Weathers sea-wind;
Fronts the great dunes.

Wind rushes
Over the dunes,
And the coarse, salt-crusted grass
Answers.

Heu,
It whips round my ankles!

II

Small is
This white stream,
Flowing below ground
From the poplar-shaded hill,
But the water is sweet.

Apples on the small trees
Are hard,
Too small,
Too late ripened
By a desperate sun
That struggles through sea-mist.
The boughs of the trees
Are twisted
By many bafflings;
Twisted are
The small-leafed boughs.

But the shadow of them
Is not the shadow of the mast head
Nor of the torn sails.

Hermes, Hermes,
The great sea foamed,
Gnashed its teeth about me;
But you have waited,
Where sea-grass tangles with
Shore-grass.

PRIAPUS

_Keeper of Orchards_

I saw the first pear
As it fell.
The honey-seeking, golden-banded,
The yellow swarm
Was not more fleet than I,
(Spare us from loveliness!)
And I fell prostrate,
Crying,
“Thou hast flayed us with thy blossoms;
Spare us the beauty
Of fruit-trees!”

The honey-seeking
Paused not,
The air thundered their song,
And I alone was prostrate.

O rough-hewn
God of the orchard,
I bring thee an offering;
Do thou, alone unbeautiful
(Son of the god),
Spare us from loveliness.

The fallen hazel-nuts,
Stripped late of their green sheaths,
The grapes, red-purple,
Their berries
Dripping with wine,
Pomegranates already broken,
And shrunken figs,
And quinces untouched,
I bring thee as offering.

THE POOL

Are you alive?
I touch you—
You quiver like a sea-fish.
I cover you with my net.
What are you, banded one?

OREAD

Whirl up, sea—
Whirl your pointed pines.
Splash your great pines
On our rocks.
Hurl your green over us—
Cover us with your pools of fir.

THE GARDEN

I

You are clear,
O rose, cut in rock.
I could scrape the color
From the petals,
Like spilt dye from a rock.

If I could break you
I could break a tree.

If I could stir
I could break a tree,
I could break you.

II

O wind, rend open the heat,
Cut apart the heat,
Slit it to tatters.

Fruit cannot drop
Through this thick air;
Fruit cannot fall into heat
That presses up and blunts
The points of pears,
And rounds grapes.

Cut the heat:
Plough through it,
Turning it on either side
Of your path.

MOONRISE

Will you glimmer on the sea?
Will you fling your spear-head
On the shore?
What note shall we pitch?
We have a song,
On the bank we share our arrows—
The loosed string tells our note:

_O flight,
Bring her swiftly to our song.
She is great,
We measure her by the pine-trees._

THE SHRINE

“_She watches over the sea_”

I

Are your rocks shelter for ships?—
Have you sent galleys from your beach,
Are you graded—a safe crescent—
Where the tide lifts them back to port?
Are you full and sweet,
Tempting the quiet
To depart in their trading ships?

Nay, you are great, fierce, evil—
You are the land-blight.
You have tempted men
But they perished on your cliffs.

Your lights are but dank shoals,
Slate and pebble and wet shells
And sea-weed fastened to the rocks.

It was evil—evil
When they found you,
When the quiet men looked at you.
They sought a headland
Shaded with ledge of cliff
From the wind-blast.
But you—you are unsheltered,
Cut with the weight of wind.
You shudder when it strikes,
Then lift, swelled with the blast.
You sink as the tide sinks,
You shrill under hail and sound,
Thunder when thunder sounds.

You are useless:
When the tides swirl
Your boulders cut and wreck
The staggering ships.

II

You are useless,
O grave, O beautiful.
The landsmen tell it—I have heard—
You are useless.

And the wind sounds with this
And the sea
Where rollers shot with blue
Cut under deeper blue.

Oh, but stay tender, enchanted
Where wave-lengths cut you
Apart from all the rest—
For we have found you,
We watch the splendor of you,
We thread throat on throat of freesia
For your shelf.

You are not forgot,
O plunder of lilies,
Honey is not more sweet
Than the salt stretch of your beach.

III

Stay—stay—
But terror has caught us now.
We passed the men in ships,
We dared deeper than the fisher-folk;
And you strike us with terror,
O bright shaft.

Flame passes under us
And sparks that unknot the flesh—
Sorrow, splitting bone from bone,
Splendors thwart our eyes
And rifts in the splendor,
Sparks and scattered light.

Many warned of this,
Men said:
“There are wrecks on the fore-beach,
Wind will beat your ship,
There is no shelter in that headland;
It is useless waste, that edge,
That front of rock—
Sea-gulls clang beyond the breakers,
None venture to that spot.”

IV

But hail—
As the tide slackens,
As the wind beats out,
We hail this shore—
We sing to you,
Spirit between the headlands
And the further rocks.
Though oak-beams split,
Though boats and sea-men flounder,
And the strait grind sand with sand
And cut boulders to sand and drift—

Your eyes have pardoned our faults,
Your hands have touched us;
You have leaned forward a little
And the waves can never thrust us back
From the splendor of your ragged coast.

Mary Carolyn Davies

CLOISTERED

To-night the little girl-nun died.
Her hands were laid
Across her breast; the last sun tried
To kiss her quiet braid;
And where the little river cried,
Her grave was made.

The little girl-nun’s soul, in awe,
Went silently
To where her brother Christ she saw,
Under the Living Tree;
He sighed, and his face seemed to draw
Her tears, to see.

He laid his hands on her hands mild,
And gravely blessed;
“Blind, they that kept you so,” he smiled,
With tears unguessed.
“Saw they not Mary held a child
Upon her breast?”

SONGS OF A GIRL

I

Perhaps,
God, planting Eden,
Dropped, by mistake, a seed
In Time’s neighbor-plot,
That grew to be
This hour?

II

You and I picked up Life and looked at it curiously;
We did not know whether to keep it for a plaything or not.
It was beautiful to see, like a red firecracker,
And we knew, too, that it was lighted.
We dropped it while the fuse was still burning....

III

I am going to die too, flower, in a little while—
Do not be so proud.

IV

The sun is dying
Alone
On an island
In the bay.

Close your eyes, poppies—
I would not have you see death,
You are so young!

V

The sun falls
Like a drop of blood
From some hero.

We,
Who love pain,
Delight in this.

Fannie Stearns Davis

PROFITS

Yes, stars were with me formerly.
(I also knew the wind and sea;
And hill-tops had my feet by heart.
Their shagged heights would sting and start
When I came leaping on their backs.
I knew the earth’s queer crooked cracks,
Where hidden waters weave a low
And druid chant of joy and woe.)

But stars were with me most of all.
I heard them flame and break and fall.
Their excellent array, their free
Encounter with Eternity,
I learned. And it was good to know
That where God walked, I too might go.

Now, all these things are passed. For I
Grow very old and glad to die.
What did they profit me, say you,
These distant bloodless things I knew?

Profit? What profit hath the sea
Of her deep-throated threnody?
What profit hath the sun, who stands
Staring on space with idle hands?
And what should God Himself acquire
From all the aeons’ blood and fire?

My profit is as theirs: to be
Made proof against mortality:
To know that I have companied
With all that shines and lives, amid
So much the years sift through their hands,
Most mortal, windy, worthless sands.

This day I have great peace. With me
Shall stars abide eternally!

SOULS

My soul goes clad in gorgeous things,
Scarlet and gold and blue.
And at her shoulder sudden wings
Like long flames flicker through.

And she is swallow-fleet, and free
From mortal bonds and bars.
She laughs, because eternity
Blossoms for her with stars!

O folk who scorn my stiff gray gown,
My dull and foolish face,
Can ye not see my soul flash down,
A singing flame through space?

And folk, whose earth-stained looks I hate,
Why may I not divine
Your souls, that must be passionate,
Shining and swift, as mine?

Walter de la Mare

THE LISTENERS

“Is there anybody there?” said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor;
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head;
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
“Is there anybody there?” he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:—
“Tell them I came, and no one answered
That I kept my word,” he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.

AN EPITAPH

Here lies a most beautiful lady:
Light of step and heart was she;
I think she was the most beautiful lady
That ever was in the West Country.
But beauty vanishes; beauty passes;
However rare—rare it be;
And when I crumble, who will remember
This lady of the West Country?

Lee Wilson Dodd

THE TEMPLE

Hear me, brother!
Boldly I stepped into the Temple,
Into the Temple where the God dwells
Veiled with Seven Veils,
Into the Temple of Unbroken Silence:
And my joyous feet shod with crimson sandals
Rang out on the tesselated pavement,
Rang out fearlessly
Like a challenge and a cry!
And there—in that shrouded solitude,
There—before the Seven Veils,
There—because of youth and youth’s madness,
Because of love and love’s unresting heart,
There did I sing three songs!
And my first song praised the eyes of a wanton;
And my second song praised the lips of a wanton;
And my third song praised the feet of a dancing girl!

Thus did I desecrate the Temple,
Thus did I stand before the Seven Veils,
Proudly!
Thus did I wait upon the God’s Voice—
Proudly!—
And the sudden shaft of death....

But no Voice stirred the Seven Veils,
Though I stood long....

And my knees shook,
My bones were afraid....

Swiftly I loosed the crimson sandals,
And, tearing them from off my feet,
Crept shuddering forth!

Hear me, brother!
Now am I as one stricken with palsy,
Now am I sick with the close ache of terror,
Now am I as one who, having tasted poison,
Cowers, waiting for the pang!

_For the God spake not...._

And the sense of my littleness is upon me:
And I am a worm in my own sight,
Trodden and helpless;
A casual grain of sand
Indistinguishable amid a million grains:
And I take no pleasure now in youth
Nor in youth’s madness,
In love
Nor in love’s unresting heart;
And I praise no longer the eyes of a wanton,
Nor the lips of a wanton,
Nor the light feet of a dancing girl.

THE COMRADE

Call me friend or foe,
Little I care!
I go with all who go
Daring to dare.

I am the force,
I am the fire,
I am the secret source
Of desire.

I am the urge,
The spur and thong:
Moon of the tides that surge
Into song!

Call me friend or foe,
Little care I,
I go with all who go
Singing to die.

Call me friend or foe....
Taking to give,
I go with all who go
Dying to live.

John Drinkwater

SUNRISE ON RYDAL WATER

_To E. de S._

Come down at dawn from windless hills
Into the valley of the lake,
Where yet a larger quiet fills
The hour, and mist and water make
With rocks and reeds and island boughs
One silence and one element,
Where wonder goes surely as once
It went
By Galilean prows.

Moveless the water and the mist,
Moveless the secret air above,
Hushed, as upon some happy tryst
The poised expectancy of love;
What spirit is it that adores
What mighty presence yet unseen?
What consummation works apace
Between
These rapt enchanted shores?

Never did virgin beauty wake
Devouter to the bridal feast
Than moves this hour upon the lake
In adoration to the east.
Here is the bride a god may know,
The primal will, the young consent,
Till surely upon the appointed mood
Intent
The god shall leap—and, lo,

Over the lake’s end strikes the sun—
White, flameless fire; some purity
Thrilling the mist, a splendor won
Out of the world’s heart. Let there be
Thoughts, and atonements, and desires;
Proud limbs, and undeliberate tongue;
Where now we move with mortal care
Among
Immortal dews and fires.

So the old mating goes apace,
Wind with the sea, and blood with thought,
Lover with lover; and the grace
Of understanding comes unsought
When stars into the twilight steer,
Or thrushes build among the may,
Or wonder moves between the hills,
And day
Comes up on Rydal mere.

Louise Driscoll

THE METAL CHECKS

[_The scene is a bare room, with two shaded windows at the back, and a
fireplace between them with a fire burning low. The room contains
a few plain chairs, and a rough wooden table on which are piled
many small wooden trays. THE COUNTER, who is Death, sits at the
table. He wears a loose gray robe, and his face is partly
concealed by a gray veil. THE BEARER is the World, that bears the
burden of War. He wears a soiled robe of brown and green and he
carries on his back a gunny-bag filled with the little metal disks
that have been used for the identification of the slain common
soldiers._]

_The Bearer_

Here is a sack, a gunny sack,
A heavy sack I bring.
Here is toll of many a soul—
But not the soul of a king.

This is the toll of common men,
Who lived in the common way;
Lived upon bread and wine and love,
In the light of the common day.

This is the toll of working men,
Blood and brawn and brain.
Who shall render us again
The worth of all the slain?

_The Counter_
Pour them out on the table here.
_Clickety_—_clickety_—_clack_!
For every button a man went out,
And who shall call him back?
_Clickety_—_clickety_—_clack_!

One—two—three—four—
Every disk a soul!
Three score—four score—
So many boys went out to war.
Pick up that one that fell on the floor—
Didn’t you see it roll?
That was a man a month ago.
This was a man. Row upon row—
Pile them in tens and count them so.

_The Bearer_

I have an empty sack.
It is not large. Would you have said
That I could carry on my back
So great an army—and all dead?

[_As THE COUNTER speaks THE BEARER lays the sack over his arm and helps
count._]

_The Counter_
Put a hundred in each tray—
We can tally them best that way.
Careful—do you understand
You have ten men in your hand?
There’s another fallen—there—
Under that chair.

[_THE BEARER finds it and restores it._]

That was a man a month ago;
He could see and feel and know.

Then, into his throat there sped
A bit of lead.
Blood was salt in his mouth; he fell
And lay amid the battle wreck.
Nothing was left but this metal check—
And a wife and child, perhaps.

[_THE BEARER finds the bag on his arm troublesome. He holds it up,
inspecting it._]

_The Bearer_
What can one do with a thing like this?
Neither of life nor death it is!
For the dead serve not, though it served the dead.
The wounds it carried were wide and red,
Yet they stained it not. Can a man put food,
Potatoes or wheat, or even wood
That is kind and burns with a flame to warm
Living men who are comforted—
In a thing that has served so many dead?
There is no thrift in a graveyard dress,
It’s been shroud for too many men.
I’ll burn it and let the dead bless.

[_He crosses himself and throws it into the fire. He watches it burn.
THE COUNTER continues to pile up the metal checks, and drop them by
hundreds into the trays which he piles one upon another. THE BEARER
turns from the fire and speaks more slowly than before. He indicates
the metal checks._]

Would not the blood of these make a great sea
For men to sail their ships on? It may be
No fish would swim in it, and the foul smell
Would make the sailors sick. Perhaps in Hell
There’s some such lake for men who rush to war
Prating of glory, and upon the shore
Will stand the wives and children and old men
Bereft, to drive them back again

When they seek haven. Some such thing
I thought the while I bore it on my back
And heard the metal pieces clattering.

_The Counter_
Four score—five score—
These and as many more.
Forward—march!—into the tray!
No bugles blow today,
No captains lead the way;
But mothers and wives,
Fathers, sisters, little sons,
Count the cost
Of the lost;
And we count the unlived lives,
The forever unborn ones
Who might have been your sons.

_The Bearer_
Could not the hands of these rebuild
That which has been destroyed?
Oh, the poor hands! that once were strong and filled
With implements of labor whereby they
Served home and country through the peaceful day.
When those who made the war stand face to face
With these slain soldiers in that unknown place
Whither the dead go, what will be the word
By dead lips spoken and by dead ears heard?
Will souls say King or Kaiser? Will souls prate
Of earthly glory in that new estate?

_The Counter_
One hundred thousand—
One hundred and fifty thousand—
Two hundred—

_The Bearer_
Can this check plough?
Can it sow? can it reap?
Can we arouse it?
Is it asleep?

Can it hear when a child cries?—
Comfort a wife?
This little metal disk
Stands for a life.

Can this check build,
Laying stone upon stone?
Once it was warm flesh
Folded on bone.

Sinew and muscle firm,
Look at it—can
This little metal check
Stand for a man?

_The Counter_
One—two—three—four—

Dorothy Dudley

LA RUE DE LA MONTAGNE SAINTE-GÈNEVIÈVE

I have seen an old street weeping—
Narrow, dark, ascending;
Water o’er the spires
Of a church descending;
The church thrice veiled—in rain,
In the shadow of the years,
In the grace of old design;
Dim dwellings, blind with tears,
Rotting either side
The winding passage way,
To where the river crosses
Weeping, under gray
And limpid heavens weeping.
Gardens I have seen
Through archèd doors, whose gratings
Ever cry the keen
Dim melodies of lace
Long used and rare, gardens
With an old-time grace
Vibrating, dimly trembling
In the music of the rain.
Roses I have seen drip a faint
Perfume, and lilacs train
A quivering loveliness
From door to archèd door,
Passing by in flower carts;
While waters ever pour
O’er the white stones of the fountain,
Melting icily away
Half way up the mountain;
Where to mingle tears with tears,
Their clothes misshapen, sobbing,
Two or three old women,
In wooden sabots hobbling,
Meet to fill their pitchers,
From the stream of water leaping
Through the lips, a long time parted,
Of a face grotesquely weeping—
A carven face forever weeping.

Helen Dudley

TO ONE UNKNOWN

I have seen the proudest stars
That wander on through space,
Even the sun and moon,
But not your face.

I have heard the violin,
The winds and waves rejoice
In endless minstrelsy,
Yet not your voice.

I have touched the trillium,
Pale flower of the land,
Coral, anemone,
And not your hand.

I have kissed the shining feet
Of Twilight lover-wise,
Opened the gates of Dawn—
Oh, not your eyes!

I have dreamed unwonted things,
Visions that witches brew,
Spoken with images,
Never with you.

SONG

A few more windy days
Must come and go their ways,
And we will walk
My love and I
Beneath the amber-dripping boughs.

Then on the stars we’ll tread,
On purple stars and red,
And wonder why
The while we talk
Men sing so much of broken vows.

Max Eastman

DIOGENES

A hut, and a tree,
And a hill for me,
And a piece of a weedy meadow.
I’ll ask no thing,
Of God or king,
But to clear away his shadow.

IN MARCH

On a soaked fence-post a little blue-backed bird,
Opening her sweet throat, has stirred
A million music-ripples in the air
That curl and circle everywhere.
They break not shallow at my ear,
But quiver far within. Warm days are near!

AT THE AQUARIUM

Serene the silver fishes glide,
Stern-lipped, and pale, and wonder-eyed!
As through the aged deeps of ocean,
They glide with wan and wavy motion!
They have no pathway where they go,
They flow like water to and fro.
They watch with never winking eyes,
They watch with staring, cold surprise,
The level people in the air,
The people peering, peering there:
Who wander also to and fro,
And know not why or where they go,
Yet have a wonder in their eyes,
Sometimes a pale and cold surprise.

T. S. Eliot

PORTRAIT OF A LADY

I

Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoon
You have the scene arrange itself—as it will seem to do—
With “I have saved this afternoon for you”;
And four wax candles in the darkened room,
Four rings of light upon the ceiling overhead:
An atmosphere of Juliet’s tomb
Prepared for all the things to be said, or left unsaid.

We have been, let us say, to hear the latest Pole
Transmit the Preludes, through his hair and finger-tips.
“So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soul
Should be resurrected only among friends—
Some two or three, who will not touch the bloom
That is rubbed and questioned in the concert room.”

And so the conversation slips
Among velleities and carefully caught regrets,
Through attenuated tones of violins
Mingled with remote cornets,
And begins:
“You do not know how much they mean to me, my friends;
And how, how rare and strange it is, to find,
In a life composed so much, so much of odds and ends—
(For indeed I do not love it ... you knew? you are not blind!
How keen you are!)
To find a friend who has these qualities,
Who has, and gives
Those qualities upon which friendship lives:
How much it means that I say this to you—
Without these friendships—life, what _cauchemar_!”

Among the windings of the violins,
And the ariettes
Of cracked cornets,
Inside my brain a dull tom-tom begins
Absurdly hammering a prelude of its own—
Capricious monotone
That is at least one definite “false note.”
Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance,
Admire the monuments,
Discuss the late events,
Correct our watches by the public clocks;
Then sit for half an hour and drink our bocks.

II

Now that lilacs are in bloom
She has a bowl of lilacs in her room
And twists one in her fingers while she talks.
“Ah my friend, you do not know, you do not know
What life is, you who hold it in your hands—”
(Slowly twisting the lilac stalks);
“You let it flow from you, you let it flow,
And youth is cruel, and has no remorse,
And smiles at situations which it cannot see.”
I smile, of course,
And go on drinking tea.
“Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall
My buried life, and Paris in the spring,
I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world
To be wonderful and youthful, after all.”

The voice returns like the insistent out-of-tune
Of a broken violin on an August afternoon:
“I am always sure that you understand
My feelings, always sure that you feel,
Sure that across the gulf you reach your hand.

“You are invulnerable, you have no Achilles’ heel.
You will go on, and when you have prevailed
You can say: ‘At this point many a one has failed.’
But what have I, but what have I, my friend,
To give you, what can you receive from me?
Only the friendship and the sympathy
Of one about to reach her journey’s end.

“I shall sit here, serving tea to friends....”

I take my hat: how can I make a cowardly amends
For what she has said to me?

You will see me any morning in the park
Reading the comics and the sporting page.
Particularly I remark
An English countess goes upon the stage,
A Greek was murdered at a Polish dance,
Another bank defaulter has confessed.
I keep my countenance,
I remain self-possessed
Except when a street piano, mechanical and tired,
Reiterates some worn-out common song,
With the smell of hyacinths across the garden
Recalling things that other people have desired.
Are these ideas right or wrong?

III

The October night comes down. Returning as before,
Except for a slight sensation of being ill at ease,
I mount the stairs and turn the handle of the door
And feel as if I had mounted on my hands and knees.

“And so you are going abroad; and when do you return?
But that’s a useless question.
You hardly know when you are coming back,
You will find so much to learn.”
My smile falls heavily among the bric-a-brac.

“Perhaps you can write to me.”
My self-possession flares up for a second;
_This_ is as I had reckoned.
“I have been wondering frequently of late
(But our beginnings never know our ends!)
Why we have not developed into friends.”
I feel like one who smiles, and turning shall remark
Suddenly, his expression in a glass.
My self-possession gutters; we are really in the dark.

“For everybody said so, all our friends,
They all were sure our feelings would relate
So closely! I myself can hardly understand.
We must leave it now to fate.
You will write, at any rate.
Perhaps it is not too late.
I shall sit here, serving tea to friends.”

And I must borrow every changing shape
To find expression ... dance, dance
Like a dancing bear,
Cry like a parrot, chatter like an ape.
Let us take the air, in a tobacco trance ...
Well! and what if she should die some afternoon,
Afternoon gray and smoky, evening yellow and rose;
Should die and leave me sitting pen in hand
With the smoke coming down above the house tops;
Doubtful, for quite a while
Not knowing what to feel or if I understand
Or whether wise or foolish, tardy or too soon...
Would she not have the advantage, after all?
This music is successful with a “dying fall”
Now that we talk of dying—
And should I have the right to smile?

Arthur Davison Ficke

MEETING

Gray-robed Wanderer in sleep ... Wanderer ...
You also move among
Those silent halls
Dim on the shore of the unsailed deep?
And your footfalls, yours also, Wanderer,
Faint through those twilight corridors have rung?

Of late my eyes have seen ... Wanderer ...
Amid the shadows’ gloom
Of that sleep-girdled place
I should have known such joy could not have been—
To see your face: and yet, Wanderer,
What hopes seem vain beneath the night in bloom?

Wearily I awake ... Wanderer ...
Your look of old despair,
Like a dying star,
In morning vanishes. But for all memories’ sake,
Though you are far, tonight, O Wanderer,
Tonight come, though in silence, to the shadows there ...

AMONG SHADOWS

In halls of sleep you wandered by,
This time so indistinguishably
I cannot remember aught of it,
Save that I know last night we met.
I know it by the cloudy thrill
That in my heart is quivering still;
And sense of loveliness forgot
Teases my fancy out of thought.
Though with the night the vision wanes,
Its haunting presence still may last—
As odor of flowers faint remains
In halls where late a queen has passed.

THE THREE SISTERS

Gone are the three, those sisters rare
With wonder-lips and eyes ashine.
One was wise and one was fair,
And one was mine.

Ye mourners, weave for the sleeping hair
Of only two, your ivy vine.
For one was wise and one was fair,
But one was mine.

PORTRAIT OF AN OLD WOMAN

She limps with halting painful pace,
Stops, wavers, and creeps on again;
Peers up with dim and questioning face
Void of desire or doubt or pain.

Her cheeks hang gray in waxen folds
Wherein there stirs no blood at all.
A hand like bundled cornstalks holds
The tatters of a faded shawl.

Where was a breast, sunk bones she clasps;
A knot jerks where were woman-hips;
A ropy throat sends writhing gasps
Up to the tight line of her lips.

Here strong the city’s pomp is poured ...
She stands, unhuman, bleak, aghast:
An empty temple of the Lord
From which the jocund Lord has passed.

He has builded him another house,
Whenceforth his flame, renewed and bright,
Shines stark upon these weathered brows
Abandoned to the final night.