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Title: Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1913

Editor: William Stanley Braithwaite

Release date: September 22, 2020 [eBook #63265]
Most recently updated: October 8, 2022

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANTHOLOGY OF MAGAZINE VERSE FOR 1913 *** 


Transcriber’s Note


Table of Contents added by Transcriber.







ANTHOLOGY OF

MAGAZINE VERSE

FOR 1913


Including the Magazines

and the Poets   ***   A Review


BY

WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE


Author of “The House of Falling Leaves,”

“The Book of Elizabethan Verse,” etc.


* * *


ISSUED BY

W. S. B.

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS








COPYRIGHT 1913, BY

WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE


Thomas Todd Co., Printers

14 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.





TO THE POETS OF AMERICA

SINGING TODAY

THE SOUL OF THEIR COUNTRY

TRUTH, BEAUTY, BROTHERHOOD

THEIR NAMES ARE TORCHES







v


CONTENTS







 
Page




Introduction
v




Hymn to Demeter, by Louis V. Ledoux
1




Over the Wintry Threshold, by Bliss Carman
2




In April, by Margaret Lee Ashley
3




May Is Building Her House, by Richard Le Gallienne
3




In a Forgotten Burying-ground, by Ruth Guthrie Harding
4




Wind, by Fannie Stearns Davis
5




The Speckled Trout, by Madison Cawein
5




Trees, by Joyce Kilmer
7




In the Hospital, by Arthur Guiterman
7




Love of Life, by Tertius van Dyke
8




God’s Will, by Mildred Howells
8




On the Birth of a Child, by Louis Untermeyer
9




To a Child Falling Asleep, Robert Alden Sanborn
9




A Roman Doll, by Agnes Lee
12




Sappho, by Sara Teasdale
13




Of Moira Up the Glen, by Edward J. O’Brien
16




Morning Glories, by John G. Neihardt
17




Lest I Learn, by Witter Bynner
18




Later, by Willard Huntington Wright
18




The Old Maid, by Sara Teasdale
19




Departure, by John Hall Wheelock
20




An Adieu, by Florence Earle Coates
20




Heart’s Tide, by Ethel M. Hewitt
21




Waiting, by Charles Hanson Towne
22




Desiderium, by Richard Le Gallienne
22




Human, by Richard Burton
23




The Ghost, by Hermann Hagedorn
23




A Mountain Gateway, by Bliss Carman
24




Perugia, by Amelia Josephine Burr
25




Ghosts, by Marguerite Mooers Marshall
27




St. John and the Faun, by George Edward Woodberry
28




School, by Percy MacKaye
30




The Marvelous Munchausen, by William Rose Benét
34




Train-mates, by Witter Bynner
38




The Kallyope Yell, by Nicholas Vachel Lindsay
39




Thanksgiving For Our Task, by Shaemas OSheel
43




A Likeness, by Willa Sibert Cather
46




The Field of Glory, by Edwin Arlington Robinson
48




Rich Man, Poor Man—, by Francis Hill
49




The Sin Eater, by Ruth Comfort Mitchell
50




Night-sentries, by George Sterling
52




The Swordless Christ, by Percy Adams Hutchison
54




What of the Night?, by Willard Huntington Wright
55




A Threnody, by Louis V. Ledoux
57




November, by Mahlon Leonard Fisher
61




Salutation, by Ruth Sterry
62




Here Lies Pierrot, by Richard Burton
62




List of “Distinctive Poems,” Their Authors, and the Magazines in Which They Appeared
64




The “Best Poems” Chosen from the “Distinctive” List
69




Titles and Authors of All Poems Appearing in the Seven Magazines For 1918
71




Index of First Lines
99









INTRODUCTION




P


Poetry is one of the realities that
persist. The façade and dome of
palace and temple, the monuments
of heroes and saints, crumble before
the ruining breath of time, while the
Psalms last. So when another year
passes and we sum up our achievements, there is
no achievement more vital in registering the soul
of a people than its poetry. But in all things
that men do, their relationship is objective except
those things in which art, religion, love, and
nature express their influence through the private
thoughts and feelings of men. These four things
are the realities, all the others are symbols. And
the essence of art, as well as religion and love
and nature, is a conscious and mysterious thing,
called Poetry. And men will find, if they will only
stop to look, that at the bottom of all this poetry,
no matter what the theme or the particular artistic
shaping, there is something with which they are
familiar, because in their own souls there has been
an unceasing mystery which they find named in the
magic utterance of some lonely and neglected maker
of verses.


The poetry in the magazines for this past year
has been of a general high standard. The long
poems have been well sustained, and there has been
a larger quantity of pure lyric pieces than in the
past two or three years. The influence of Masefield
has shown itself in American verse, notably in the
two long poems by Harry Kemp, “The Harvestvi
Hand” and “The Factory.” One of the noblest
poems of the year is Henry van Dyke’s “Daybreak
in the Grand Cañon of Arizona,” which breathes a
fine national spirit, full of reverence for the greatness
with which the American destiny is symbolized
in the natural grandeur of our country. Mr. Markham
has a long narrative in “The Shoes of Happiness,”
full of his visionary and spiritual promptings.
And in “The Vision of Gettysburg” Mr. Robert
Underwood Johnson reflects also the national spirit
with particular significance.


The poetry of the year in volumes has not been
as ample as last year. The three poets who have
aroused most discussion are the Bengali poet
Tagore, who brought to the Western world in
“Gitanjali” a spiritual message full of mystic
but exalted idealism; Francis Thompson, the great
Catholic poet, because of the publication of his
collected works; and Robert Bridges, who, by his
appointment to the English laureateship, became
known to a large number of readers who had hitherto
been unfamiliar with his very perfect and delicate
gift of lyric beauty. Of American poets the volumes
by Fannie Stearns Davis, William Rose Benét,
Josephine Preston Peabody, Margaret Root Garvin,
and George Edward Woodberry are the most
significant. The most important book of poems of
the year by an American poet, however, is that
of Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, “General William
Booth Enters into Heaven and Other Poems.”
Here is a man with a big vision, with a fine originality,
and an art that is particularly his own. There
has been no “Lyric Year” this autumn, but a littlevii
volume that serves in some sense its purpose is
Miss Jessie B. Rittenhouse’s “Little Book of
Modern Verse,” which is intended to represent the
quality of contemporary American verse.


I want to call attention to a poet who has not
yet presented himself except through an occasional
magazine piece, but who has written two of the
finest sonnets in American poetry. Last year I
reprinted, in my annual summary, Mr. Mahlon
Leonard Fisher’s “As an Old Mercer,” and pronounced
that an achievement which could hardly be
surpassed. But in the sonnet “November,” which
is reprinted in this book, Mr. Fisher has done, I
believe, something that is even greater. It must
rank with Lizette Woodworth Reese’s “Tears”
and Longfellow’s “Nature” as the best sonnets
that have been accomplished by American poets.
I have known one competent judge and lover of
poetry to declare that not since Keats’ “On First
Looking into Chapman’s Homer” and Miss Reese’s
“Tears” has there appeared so fine a sonnet in
English poetry. The man who has written “November”
has added something to American poetry
that cannot be too highly estimated.


Another poet who has enriched the magazines
this year, after a period of silence, is Mr. Edwin
Arlington Robinson, and in “The Field of Glory”
we are under the spell once more of that characteristic
magic with which he is endowed alone among
American poets.


As in former years, in my annual summary in
the Boston Transcript, I have examined the contents
of the leading American monthly magazines.viii
I originally started, nine years ago, when the first
summary appeared, with these six: The Atlantic,
Harper’s, Scribner’s, Century, Lippincott’s, and
McClure’s. Later I turned to The Forum. The
poetry in McClure’s during the two years previous
to the beginning of the present year had fallen off;
the magazine would reprint occasionally verses
from the books of accomplished but little known
English and Irish poets, which, with the small
amount of space that it devoted to verse, left but
little chance of encouragement to native singers.
This year I have included The Smart Set, which,
under the new editorship of Mr. Willard Huntington
Wright, himself a poet of considerable attainment,
has been the means of offering the public a
high and consistent standard of excellence in the
verse it printed.


To the six magazines, namely, Harper’s, Scribner’s,
Century, Forum, Lippincott’s, and The Smart
Set, I have added this year a weekly, The Bellman.
West of New York it is the best edited and most
influential periodical published. Indeed, it is widely
read in the East. In its pages three of the younger
American poets of distinctive achievement have
been presented. Though the late Arthur Upson
had published some two or three books of verse
before The Bellman was established, yet it was
practically the first American magazine to print
his work. Amelia J. Burr made her first considerable
poetic appearance in The Bellman, and the
best work, the sonnets that have placed Mr. Mahlon
Leonard Fisher in the forefront of contemporary
American, or English, sonnet writers, appeared inix
this same publication. As last year, I have winnowed
from other magazines distinctive poems for
classification and notice, one each from The Outlook,
The Independent, the North American Review,
Poetry, A Magazine of Verse; three from the
Poetry Journal and three from the Yale Review.


* * * * *


The poems published during the year in the
seven representative magazines I have submitted
to an impartial critical test, choosing from the
total number what I consider the “distinctive”
poems of the year. From the distinctive pieces are
selected eighty-one poems, to which are added five
from the other magazines not represented in the
list of seven, making a total of eighty-six, which
are intended to represent what I call an “Anthology
of Magazine Verse for 1913.”


By a further process of elimination, similar to
that of previous years, I have made another selection
of forty poems which for one reason or another
in the purpose of this estimate seem to stand
grouped above the others.


The medium of magazine publication, towards
which some critics, and some poets too (a fact
which can hardly be justified), and a considerable
portion of the reading public have a disparaging
opinion, is deserving of better repute for the general
high quality of poetic art that is published.
Not many years ago it was a favorite exercise of the
reviewer, when noticing the average book of verse
which happened to include selections reprinted from
various magazines, to term the work “magazinable,”
or the poet a “magazine poet.” Even poetsx
who detested being called “minor” poets preferred
that rather vague and indiscriminate distinction,
rather than the unrespectable “magazinable.”


Quoting what I have written in previous years,
to emphasize the methods which guided my selections,
the reader will see how impartial are the tests
by which the distinctive and best poems are chosen:
“I have not allowed any special sympathy with the
subject to influence my choice. I have taken the
poet’s point of view, and accepted his value of
the theme he dealt with. The question was: How
vital and compelling did he make it? The first test
was the sense of pleasure the poem communicated;
then to discover the secret or the meaning of the
pleasure felt; and in doing so to realize how much
richer one became in a knowledge of the purpose
of life by reason of the poem’s message.”


In one hundred and twenty-one numbers of
these seven magazines I find there were published
during 1913 a total of 506 poems. The total number
of poems printed in each magazine, and the
number of the distinctive poems are: Century, total
58, 30 of distinction; Harper’s, total 57, 29 of distinction;
Scribner’s, total 45, 30 of distinction;
Forum, total 53, 27 of distinction; Lippincott’s,
total 66, 21 of distinction; The Bellman, total 53,
25 of distinction; The Smart Set, total 169, 49 of
distinction.


Following the text of the poems making the
anthology in this volume, I have given the titles
and authors of all the poems classified as the distinctive,
published in the magazines for the year,
only excepting those that are included in the anxithology;
in addition I give a list of all the poems
and their authors in the one hundred and twenty-one
numbers of the magazines examined, for the
purpose of a record which readers and students
of poetry will find useful.


I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness and
thanks to the editors of Scribner’s Magazine,
Harper’s Magazine, The Forum, The Century
Magazine, The Outlook, Lippincott’s Magazine,
The Bellman, The Independent, The Smart Set,
the Yale Review, Poetry, A Magazine of Verse;
and to the publishers of these magazines, including
The Poetry Journal, for the permission kindly
given to reprint in this volume the text of the poems
making the “Anthology of Magazine Verse for
1913.” To the authors of these poems I am equally
indebted and grateful for their willingness to have
me reprint their work in this form. Since their
appearance in the magazines and before the close
of the year when the contents of this volume was
made up, two poems herein included appeared in
the original volumes of their authors. For the use
of William Rose Benét’s “The Marvelous Munchausen”
I have also to thank The Century Co.,
publishers of “Merchants of Cathay,” in which
volume it appears. As far as I know, only three
of the poems here included are to come out immediately
in books by their authors. The last four
stanzas of “A Threnody,” by Mr. Louis V. Ledoux,
are reprinted by permission of the editor of Scribner’s
Magazine, and the rest of the poem is published
in advance, by permission of Messrs. G. P.
Putnam’s Sons, from a volume of Mr. Ledoux’sxii
poems, which is also to include the “Hymn to
Demeter” from “A Sicilian Idyl,” they are to
issue in January, under the title of “The Shadow
of Ætna.” The two selections by Mr. Richard
Burton, “Here Lies Pierrot” and “Human”; the
two by Willard Huntington Wright, “What of
the Night?” and “Later”; the one by George
Edward Woodberry, “St. John and the Faun”;
and the two by Richard Le Gallienne, “May is
Building Her House” and “Desiderium” (which
while this Introduction is being written has come
out in Mr. Le Gallienne’s volume, “The Lonely
Dancer and Other Poems,” John Lane Co.), are
also being issued immediately in forthcoming volumes.
If there are any others I do not know of
them, and in which case I would gladly give credit,
so I trust any omission of such will be charged to
ignorance rather than intention. I wish it to be
understood that the privilege extended me so courteously,
by both the authors and the magazines,
to print the poems in this volume, does not in any
sense restrict the authors in their rights to print
the poems in volumes of their own.


A significant fact which the poetry in this volume
must bring to the reader’s mind in considering
American poetry of today is, that these selections
have been published for the first time during the
current year. Our poetry needs, more than anything
else, encouragement and support, to reveal
its qualities. The poets are doing satisfying and
vitally excellent work, and it only remains for the
American public to do its duty by showing a substantial
appreciation.


xiii


Lastly, I wish to thank the Boston Transcript
for the privilege of reprinting material in this
book which originally appeared in the columns of
that paper.



Cambridge, December, 1913. W. S. B.







1


HYMN TO DEMETER

From “A Sicilian Idyl”










Weave the dance, and raise again the sacred chorus;


Wreathe the garlands of the spring about the hair;


Now once more the meadows burst in bloom before us,


Crying swallows dart and glitter through the air.


Glints the plowshare in the brown and fragrant furrow;


Pigeons coo in shady coverts as they pair;


Come the furtive mountain folk from cave and burrow,


Lean, and blinking at the sunlight’s sudden glare.






Bright through midmost heaven moves the lesser Lion;


Hide the Hyades in ocean caverns hoar;


Past the shoulders of the sunset flames Orion,


Following the sisters seaward evermore.


Gleams the east at evening, lit by low Arcturus;


Out to subtle-scented dawns beside the shore,


Yet a little and the Pleiades will lure us:


Weave the dance and raise the chorus as of yore.






Far to eastward up the fabled gulf of Issus,


Northward, southward, westward, now the trader goes,


Passing headlands clustered yellow with narcissus,


Bright with hyacinth, with poppy, and with rose.


Shines the sea and falls the billow as undaunted,


Past the rising of the stars that no man knows,


Sails he onward through the islands siren-haunted,


Till the clashing gates of rock before him close.






Kindly Mother of the beasts and birds and flowers,


Gracious bringer of the barley and the grain,


Earth awakened feels thy sunlight and thy showers;


Great Demeter! Let us call thee not in vain;
2

Lead us safely from the seed-time to the threshing,


Past the harvest and the vineyard’s purple stain;


Let us see thy corn-pale hair the sunlight meshing,


When the sounding flails of autumn swing again.




Yale Review     Louis V. Ledoux










OVER THE WINTRY THRESHOLD










Over the wintry threshold


Who comes with joy today,


So frail, yet so enduring,


To triumph o’er dismay?






Ah, quick her tears are springing,


And quickly they are dried,


For sorrow walks before her,


But gladness walks beside.






She comes with gusts of laughter,—


The music as of rills;


With tenderness and sweetness,


The wisdom of the hills.






Her hands are strong to comfort,


Her heart is quick to heed;


She knows the signs of sadness,


She knows the voice of need;






There is no living creature,


However poor or small,


But she will know its trouble,


And hearken to its call.






Oh, well they fare forever,


By mighty dreams possessed,


Whose hearts have lain a moment


On that eternal breast.




Smart Set     Bliss Carman










3


IN APRIL










If I am slow forgetting,


It is because the sun


Has such old tricks of setting


When April days are done.






The soft spring sunlight traces


Old patterns—green and gold;


The flowers have no new faces,


The very buds are old!






If I am slow forgetting—


Ah, well, come back and see


The same old sunbeams petting


My garden-plots and me.






Come smell the green things growing,


The boxwood after rain;


See where old beds are showing


Their slender spears again.






At dusk, that fosters dreaming—


Come back at dusk and rest,


And watch our old star gleaming


Against the primrose west.




Harper’s     Margaret Lee Ashley










MAY IS BUILDING HER HOUSE










May is building her house. With apple blooms


She is roofing over the glimmering rooms;


Of the oak and the beech hath she builded its beams,


And, spinning all day at her secret looms,


With arras of leaves each wind-swayed wall


She pictureth over, and peopleth it all


With echoes and dreams,


And singing of streams.
4





May is building her house. Of petal and blade,


Of the roots of the oak is the flooring made,


With a carpet of mosses and lichen and clover,


Each small miracle over and over,


And tender, traveling green things strayed.






Her windows, the morning and evening star,


And her rustling doorways, ever ajar


With the coming and going


Of fair things blowing,


The thresholds of the four winds are.






May is building her house. From the dust of things


She is making the songs and the flowers and the wings;


From October’s tossed and trodden gold


She is making the young year out of the old;


Yea! out of winter’s flying sleet


She is making all the summer sweet,


And the brown leaves spurned of November’s feet


She is changing back again to spring’s.




Harper’s     Richard Le Gallienne










IN A FORGOTTEN BURYING-GROUND










Eternal in the brooding of the old Norwegian spruces


I hear the wistful tenderness of loves They used to know,


And in the swelling wood-notes that the eager springtide looses


Sobs again Their heart-break from the Springs of Long Ago:






And sometime, thro’ the silence, with the April shadows lying


Aslant the solemn acre where I take my dreamless rest,
5

Perhaps the stifled need of You my heart was ever crying


Will find its way across the years—to stir a stranger’s breast!




The Poetry Journal     Ruth Guthrie Harding










WIND










The Wind bows down the poplar trees,


The Wind bows down the crested seas;


And he has bowed the heart of me


Under his hand of memory.






O heavy-handed Wind, who goes


Hurting the petals of the rose;


Who leaves the grasses on the hill


Broken and pallid, spent and still!






O heavy-handed Wind, who brings


To me all echoing ancient things:


Echoing sorrow and defeat,


Crying like mourners, hard to meet!






The Wind bows down the poplar trees


And all the ocean’s argosies;


But deeper bends the heart of me,


Under his hand of memory.




Harper’s     Fannie Stearns Davis










THE SPECKLED TROUT










With rod and line I took my way


That led me through the gossip trees,


Where all the forest was asway


With hurry of the running breeze.
6





I took my hat off to a flower


That nodded welcome as I passed;


And, pelted by a morning shower,


Unto its heart a bee held fast.






A head of gold one great weed tossed,


And leaned to look when I went by;


And where the brook the roadway crossed


The daisy kept on me its eye.






And when I stooped to bathe my face,


And seat me at a great tree’s foot,


I heard the stream say, “Mark the place:


And undermine it rock and root.”






And o’er the whirling water there


A dragonfly its shuttle plied,


Where wild a fern let down its hair,


And leaned to see the water’s pride—






A speckled trout. The spotted elf,


Whom I had come so far to see,


Stretched out above a rocky shelf,


A shadow sleeping mockingly.








* * * * *






And I have sat here half the day


Regarding it. It has not stirred.


I heard the running water say—


“He does not know the magic word.






“The word that changes everything,


And brings all Nature to his hand:


That makes of this great trout a king,


And opes the way to Faeryland.”




The Bellman     Madison Cawein










7


TREES










I think that I shall never see


A poem lovely as a tree.






A tree whose hungry mouth is prest


Against the sweet earth’s hungry breast;






A tree that looks at God all day


And lifts her leafy arms to pray;






A tree that may in summer wear


A nest of robins in her hair;






Upon whose bosom snow has lain;


Who intimately lives with rain.






Poems are made by fools like me,


But only God can make a tree!




Poetry, A Magazine of Verse     Joyce Kilmer










IN THE HOSPITAL










Because on the branch that is tapping my pane


A sun-wakened leaf-bud, uncurled,


Is bursting its rusty brown sheathing in twain,


I know there is Spring in the world.






Because through the sky-patch whose azure and white


My window frames all the day long


A yellow-bird dips for an instant of flight,


I know there is Song.






Because even here in this Mansion of Woe


Where creep the dull hours, leaden-shod,


Compassion and Tenderness aid me, I know


There is God.




Scribner’s     Arthur Guiterman










8


LOVE OF LIFE










Love you not the tall trees spreading wide their branches,


Cooling with their green shade the sunny days of June?


Love you not the little bird lost among the leaflets,


Dreamily repeating a quaint, brief tune?






Is there not a joy in the waste windy places;


Is there not a song by the long dusty way?


Is there not a glory in the sudden hour of struggle?


Is there not a peace in the long quiet day?






Love you not the meadows with the deep lush grasses;


Love you not the cloud-flocks noiseless in their flight?


Love you not the cool wind that stirs to meet the sunrise;


Love you not the stillness of the warm summer night?






Have you never wept with a grief that slowly passes;


Have you never laughed when a joy goes running by?


Know you not the peace of rest that follows labor?—


You have not learnt to live then; how can you dare to die?




Scribner’s     Tertius van Dyke










GOD’S WILL










God meant me to be hungry,


So I should seek to find


Wisdom, and truth, and beauty,


To satisfy my mind.






God meant me to be lonely,


Lest I should wish to stay


In some green earthly Eden


Too long from heaven away.
9





God meant me to be weary,


That I should yearn to rest


This feeble, aching body


Deep in the earth’s dark breast.




Harper’s     Mildred Howells










ON THE BIRTH OF A CHILD










Lo—to the battle-ground of Life,


Child, you have come, like a conquering shout,


Out of a struggle—into strife;


Out of a darkness—into doubt.






Girt with the fragile armor of Youth,


Child, you must ride into endless wars,


With the sword of protest, the buckler of truth,


And a banner of love to sweep the stars....






About you the world’s despair will surge;


Into defeat you must plunge and grope—


Be to the faltering, an urge;


Be to the hopeless years, a hope!






Be to the darkened world a flame;


Be to its unconcern a blow—


For out of its pain and tumult you came,


And into its tumult and pain you go.




The Independent     Louis Untermeyer










TO A CHILD FALLING ASLEEP










Over the dim edge of sleep I lean,


And in her eyes’ illimitable grey distances,


Look down into the shadow-tinted space,—


The cloudy air of sleep,—
10

To see the rose-lit petal of a Child’s fair soul


Seek dreamily the farther gloom,


Where waking eyes may follow her no more.






One more last time her lids are lifted,


And in her look I read a wistful fare-thee-well;


Her spirit waves a twinkling white hand,


Her bark is out upon the sea of dream,—


The calm, grey sea, full and immovably established,


That drinks the river of my love, without o’erflowing,


Nor ever gives my image back to me.






When o’er the sun-swept land


Murmuring twilight spread her dusky tent,


A Stranger passed before our friendly sun,—


Between the dark and dawn,—


A Stranger whom we love but never see.


And as she came and cast her blue benignant shadow over all,


She set a silver trumpet to her lips,


And blew a note that thrilled in Children’s hearts;


Because in little hearts the echo-fairies love to play,


Roaming the scented meadows there,


Where Love has been and sown the amaranthine flowers,


Out of whose pristine cups are born the singing stars.


And as the first free rainbow bubble sailed,


Launched by the Stranger with the silver pipe,


Upon the listening air;


As first the hollow note


Kissed the sweet lips and died of happiness,


The little Child unfurled her sails.






I stood there on the very verge of sleep,


And called to her,


And Love’s own self had deigned to wait within my heart,
11

(Because I kept it always fit for Childish guests)


And would have given welcome had she stayed.


But then I saw the eyelids close,


And knew that Azrael who championed her soul,


Had shut the gates lest I should see


More than my life could bear.






Yet I had seen her go,


And sight no more could hold of Beauty’s wine.


I had seen the fair face flush,


As the soft curtains of the tinted west,


Are drawn before the temple of the Night,


When the day-worn Sun has passed within;


Had seen the little body, whitely gowned,


Folded within its nest;


Had caught the last light kiss


Before the lips lay still;


And I had looked into the cool grey deep,


Where Sleep received the rose-leaf soul of her,


And bore it out upon her gentle waters.






Into the night I passed,


Where on the mellow bosom of the west,


Floated the flame-lit shell of Hesperus;


And as I stayed with hallowed breath,


The soul of fire fell over the rim of night:


And then I knew the soul of her I loved,


Had heard the last clear call,


The low Elysian chant of Hesperus,


And loving me had borne the love I gave,


Out and beyond and over all the ends of earth,


And where the altar flame of Venus burned,


Had laid the gift and breathed her Childhood’s prayer.




The Poetry Journal     Robert Alden Sanborn










12


A ROMAN DOLL

(In a Museum)










How an image of paint and wood


Leaped to her life with a love’s control,


Struck the chords of her motherhood,


Passionate little mother-soul!


Fair to her sight were the stolid eyes,


Dear to her toil the robes empearled.


She crooned it the ancient lullabies,


She gathered it close from the outer world.


They watched together, as Nero’s pyres


Fed the haze of a hundred fires.






Me in her fresh young arms she bore.


See, I am small,


Only a doll.


But I keep her kiss forevermore.






Long and lonely the toy has lain.


One by one into time’s abyss


Years have dropped as the drops of rain.


Yet the cycles have left us this!


O red-lipped mother, O mother sweet,


Today a sister has heard you call,


Your heart is beating in her heart-beat.


I saw her weep o’er the crumbling doll.


She knew, she knew! You had lived and smiled!


You had loved your dream, little Roman child!






Me in her fresh young arms she bore.


See, I am small,


Only a doll.


But I keep her kiss forevermore.




The Poetry Journal     Agnes Lee










13


SAPPHO










Midnight, and in the darkness not a sound;


So, with hushed breathing, sleeps the autumn night.


Only the white immortal stars shall know,


Here in the house by the low-lintelled door,


How for the last time I have lit the lamp.


I think you are not wholly careless now,


Walls, that have sheltered me so many an hour,


Bed, that has brought me ecstasy and sleep,


Floors, that have borne me when a gale of joy


Lifted my soul and made me half a god.


Farewell; across the threshold many feet


Shall pass, but never Sappho’s feet again.


Girls shall come in whom love has made aware


Of all their swaying beauty—they shall sing,


But never Sappho’s voice like golden fire


Shall seek for heaven thro’ your echoing rafters;


There shall be sparrows bringing back the spring


Over the long blue meadows of the sea,


And south wind playing on the reeds of rain,


But never Sappho’s whisper in the night,


Never her love-cry when the lover comes.


Farewell, I close the door and make it fast.








* * * * *






The little street lies meek beneath the moon,


Running, as rivers run, to meet the sea.


I too go seaward and shall not return.


Oh, garlands on the door-posts that I pass,


Woven of asters and of autumn leaves,


I make a prayer for you: Cypris, be kind,


That every lover may be given love.


I shall not hasten lest the paving-stones


Should echo with my sandals and awake


Those who are warm beneath the cloak of sleep;


Lest they should rise and see me and should say:
14

“Whither goes Sappho lonely in the night?”


Whither goes Sappho? Whither all men go,


But they go driven, straining back with fear,


And Sappho goes as lightly as a leaf


Blown from brown autumn forests to the sea.








* * * * *






Here on the rock Zeus lifted from the waves,


I shall await the waking of the dawn,


Lying beneath the weight of dark as one


Lies breathless till the lover shall awake.


And with the sun, the sea shall cover me;


I shall be less than the dissolving foam,


Murmuring and melting on the ebbing tide.


I shall be less than spindrift, less than shells—


And yet I shall be greater than the gods;


For destiny no more can bow my soul


As rain bows down the watch-fires on the hills.


Yea, if my soul escape, it shall aspire


Toward the white heaven as flame that has its will.


I go not bitterly, not dumb with grief,


Not broken by the ache of love—I go


As one grown tired lies down and hopes to sleep.


Yet they shall say: “It was for Cercolas—


She died because she could not bear her love.”


They shall remember how we used to walk


Here on the cliff beneath the oleanders,


In the long limpid twilight of the spring,


Looking toward Khios where the amber sky


Was pierced by the faint arrow of a star.


How should they know the wind of a new beauty


Sweeping my soul had winnowed it with song?


I have been glad tho’ love should come or go,


Happy as trees that find a wind to sway them,


Happy again when it has left them rest.


Others shall say: “Grave Dica wrought her death.”
15

She would not lift her lips to take a kiss,


Or ever lift her eyes to take a smile.


She was a pool the winter paves with ice,


That the wild hunter in the hills must leave


With thirst unslaked in the brief southward sun.


Ah, Dica, it is not for thee I go.


And not for Phaon, tho’ his ship lifts sail


Here in the windless harbor, for the south.


Oh, darkling deities that guard the Nile,


Watch over one whose gods are far away;


Egypt, be kind to him—his eyes are deep.


Yet they are wrong who say, it was for him.


How should they know that Sappho lived and died


Faithful to love, not faithful to the lover,


Never transfused and lost in what she loved,


Never so wholly loving nor at peace.


I asked for something greater than I found,


And every time that love has made me weep,


I have rejoiced that love could be so strong;


For I have stood apart and watched my soul


Caught in the gust of passion, as a bird


With baffled wings against the dusty whirlwind


Struggles and frees itself to find the sky.








* * * * *






It is not for a single god, I go.


I have grown weary of the winds of heaven.


I will not be a reed to hold the sound


Of whatsoever breath the gods may blow,


Turning my torment into music for them.


They gave me life—the gift was bountiful,


I lived with the swift singing strength of fire,


Seeking for beauty as a flame for fuel,


Beauty in all things and in every hour.


The gods have given life, I gave them song;


The debt is paid and now I turn to go.
16

The breath of dawn blows the stars out like lamps,


There is a rim of silver on the sea.


As one grown tired, who hopes to sleep, I go.




Scribner’s     Sara Teasdale










OF MOIRA UP THE GLEN










It’s little that I’d care for the glories of Ireland,


Waiting for the shadows to gather in the glen,


Come the time of darkness, sitting by the hearth-light,


Whispering with bated breath for fear the little men


Should catch us and spell us to serve them for a year’s time,


Toiling and moiling within a faëry snare.


I’m thinkin’ ’twould be fearsome in the gray misty strangeness.—


’Tis hiding we’ll be in the clear free air!






The sunlight above us, and willow hedge for shelter,


A tangle of soft things to rustle by the stream,


Where Moira, my white dove, whose beauty is my sorrow,


Would sit with me and travel on the long bright dream,


Travel with the water from the mountain to the meadow,


Down across the lowlands and gaily to the sea,


Out beyond the breakers to the shimmer of a far line


Poised and trembling within the heart of me.






What shall I murmur to coax the dream of beauty


Out from the shadows to welcome in the dawn?


How shall I sing it that she may know the glory,


Know it and come by the first flush of morn?
17

The moonlight is dark light, ’tis fear I’m after feelin’,


The fairies should be in it and steal her heart away,


A goblet for their feasting, they’d drain it and fill it


With dreams of a far world beyond the light of day.






It’s God’s light I’m wanting, and Moira to see it,


See it and tremble with the love of God,


And seeing it she’d turn, and look within my own eyes,


And wonder at the vision transforming a sod


Into worshipful silence and thought that is living,


Burning, and shaped by the warmth of its fire


To a chalice of tears and of laughter for singing


The lovely unfolding of dream-purged desire.




Smart Set     Edward J. O’Brien










MORNING GLORIES










Distant as a dream’s flight,


Lay an eerie plain,


Where the weary moonlight


Swooned into a moan;


Wailing after dead seed


Came the ghost of rain.


There was I, a wild weed,


Growing all alone.






Like a doubted story,


Came the thought of day;


God and all His glory


Lingered otherwhere,


Busy with the spring thrill


Many dreams away.


Could a little weed’s will


Fling so far a prayer?
18





Lo, the sudden wonder!


(Is a prayer so fleet?)


From the desert under,


Morning glories grew;


Twined me, bound me


With caressing feet;


Wove song ’round me—


Pink, white, blue!






As a fog is rifted


By the eager breeze,


Darkness broke and lifted,


Tossing like a sea!


Lo, the dawn was flowering


Through the maple trees!


Oh, and you were showering


Kisses over me!




Smart Set     John G. Neihardt










LEST I LEARN










Lest I learn, with clearer sight,


Such beauty cannot be—


Tie a bandage, pull it tight,


Blind me, I would not see!






Lest I learn, with clearer will,


Such wonder cannot be—


Oh, kiss me nearer, nearer still,


And make a fool of me!




Smart Set     Witter Bynner










LATER










I went to the place where my youth took birth


In the slow, round kiss of an amorous girl,


When sonnets and lace were the measure of earth,


When death was forgotten and life was a whirl.




19

I addled my brain with the memories flown


Of Heatherby Kaiser and Muriel Moore;


I thought of the women and men I had known,—


The glittering eyes and the bolt on the door—






The warm, gray walls and the odor of musk,


The wine, the piano, the glistening feet,


The eyes grown hazy like shadows at dusk,


The minstreling music that rose from the street.






I thought of Elise with her soft, gold hair;


And the buttonhook hung from the chandelier.


The spirit of passionate youth had been there—


But somehow the dream of it wasn’t quite clear,






For the place had been altered; the walls were red,


And the woodwork was stained with a desolate brown;


And they told me a woman had lain in the bed


For a year and a half with the curtains down.




Smart Set     Willard Huntington Wright










THE OLD MAID










I saw her in a Broadway car,


The woman I might grow to be;


I felt my lover look at her


And then turn suddenly to me.






Her hair was dull and drew no light,


And yet its color was as mine;


Her eyes were strangely like my eyes,


Tho’ love had never made them shine.






Her body was a thing grown thin,


Hungry for love that never came;


Her soul was frozen in the dark,


Unwarmed forever by love’s flame.




20

I felt my lover look at her


And then turn suddenly to me—


His eyes were magic to defy


The woman I shall never be.




The Forum     Sara Teasdale










DEPARTURE










The twilight is starred,


The dawn has arisen;


Light breaks from the east


And Song from her prison.






Faint odors and sounds


The west-wind discloses


Of laughter and birds,


Of singing and roses.






It is time to be gone—


Day scatters the gloom;


But here at my side,


But still in the room,






Like the angel of life,


Too kind to depart,


You hang at my lips,


You hang at my heart!




The Forum     John Hall Wheelock










AN ADIEU










Sorrow, quit me for a while!


Wintry days are over;


Hope again, with April smile,


Violets sows and clover.




21

Pleasure follows in her path,


Love itself flies after,


And the brook a music hath


Sweet as childhood’s laughter.






Not a bird upon the bough


Can repress its rapture,


Not a bud that blossoms now


But doth beauty capture.






Sorrow, thou art Winter’s mate,


Spring cannot regret thee;


Yet, ah, yet—my friend of late—


I shall not forget thee!




Harper’s     Florence Earle Coates










HEART’S TIDE










I thought I had forgotten you,


So far apart our lives were thrust!


’Twas only as the earth forgets


The seed the sower left in trust.






’Twas only as the creeks forget


The tides that left their hollows dry;


Or as the home-bound ship forgets


Streamers of seaweed drifting by.






My heart is earth that keeps untold


The secret of the seeds that sleep.


My thoughts are chalices of sand;


Your memory floods them and I weep.




Harper’s     Ethel M. Hewitt










22


WAITING










I thought my heart would break


Because the Spring was slow.


I said, “How long young April sleeps


Beneath the snow!”






But when at last she came,


And buds broke in the dew,


I dreamed of my lost love,


And my heart broke, too!




Harper’s     Charles Hanson Towne










DESIDERIUM










Face in the tomb, that lies so still,


May I draw near,


And watch you sleep and love you,


Without word or tear?






You smile, your eyelids flicker;


Shall I tell


How the world goes that lost you?


Shall I tell?






Ah, love, lift not your eyelids;


’Tis the same


Old story that we laughed at,


Still the same.






We knew it, you and I,


We knew it all:


Still is the small the great,


The great the small;






Still the cold lie quenches


The flaming truth,


And still embattled age


Wars against youth.




23

Yet I believe still in the ever-living God


That fills your grave with perfume,


Writing your name in violets across the sod,


Shielding your holy face from hail and snow;


And, though the withered stay, the lovely go.


No transitory wrong or wrath of things


Shatters the faith—that each slow minute brings


That meadow nearer to us where your feet


Shall flutter near me like white butterflies—


That meadow where immortal lovers meet,


Gazing forever in immortal eyes.




Smart Set     Richard Le Gallienne










HUMAN










Weighed down by grief, o’erborne by deep despair,


She lifted up white arms to heaven and prayed


That day for death; she made a mighty prayer


Beside her dear one gently to be laid.






And standing thus, it flashed across her mind


How she must make a seemly silhouette


Against the sky, her figure sharply lined


Upon the westering sunlight, black as jet.




Smart Set     Richard Burton










THE GHOST










One whom I loved and never can forget


Returned to me in dream, and spoke with me,


As audibly, as sweet familiarly


As though warm fingers twined warm fingers yet.


Her eyes were bright and with great wonder wet


As in old days when some strange, swift decree


Brought touch-close love or death; and sorrow-free


She spoke as one long purged of all regret.
24

I heard, oh, glad beyond all speech, I heard,


Till to my lips the flaming query flashed:


How is it—over there? Then, quite undone,


She trembled; in her deep eyes like a bird


The gladness fluttered, and as one abashed


She shook her head bewildered, and was gone.




Scribner’s     Hermann Hagedorn










A MOUNTAIN GATEWAY










I know a vale where I would go one day,


When June comes back and all the world once more


Is glad with summer. Deep with shade it lies,


A mighty cleft in the green bosoming hills,


A cool, dim gateway to the mountains’ heart.






On either side the wooded slopes come down,


Hemlock and beech and chestnut; here and there


Through the deep forest laurel spreads and gleams,


Pink-white as Daphne in her loveliness—


That still perfection from the world withdrawn,


As if the wood gods had arrested there


Immortal beauty in her breathless flight.






Far overhead against the arching blue


Gray ledges overhang from dizzy heights,


Scarred by a thousand winters and untamed.


The road winds in from the broad riverlands,


Luring the happy traveler turn by turn,


Up to the lofty mountains of the sky.






And where the road runs in the valley’s foot,


Through the dark woods the mountain stream comes down,


Singing and dancing all its youth away


Among the boulders and the shallow runs,
25

Where sunbeams pierce and mossy tree trunks hang,


Drenched all day long with murmuring sound and spray.






There, light of heart and footfree, I would go


Up to my home among the lasting hills,


And in my cabin doorway sit me down,


Companioned in that leafy solitude


By the wood ghosts of twilight and of peace.






And in that sweet seclusion I should hear,


Among the cool-leafed beeches in the dusk,


The calm-voiced thrushes at their evening hymn—


So undistraught, so rapturous, so pure,


It well might be, in wisdom and in joy,


The seraphs singing at the birth of time


The unworn ritual of eternal things.




Smart Set     Bliss Carman










PERUGIA










For the sake of a weathered gray city set high on a hill


To the northward I go,


Where Umbria’s valley lies mile upon emerald mile


Outspread like a chart.


The wind in her steep, narrow streets is eternally chill


From the neighboring snow,


But linger who will in the lure of a southerly smile,


Here is my heart.






Wrought to a mutual blueness are mountains and sky,


Intermingling they meet;


Little gray breathings of olive arise from the plain


Like sighs that are seen,


For man and his Maker harmonious toil, and the sigh


Of such labor is sweet,


And the fruits of their patience are vistas of vineyards and grain


In a glory of green.




26

No wind from the valley that passes the casement but flings


Invisible flowers.


The carol of birds is a gossamer tissue of gold


On a background of bells.


Sweetest of all, in the silence the nightingale sings


Through the silver-pure hours,


Till the stars disappear like a dream that may never be told,


Which the dawning dispels.






Never so darkling the alley but opens at last


On unlimited space;


Each gate is the frame of a vision that stretches away


To the rims of the sky.


Never a scar that was left by the pitiless past


But has taken a grace,


Like the mark of a smile that was turned upon children at play


In a summer gone by.






Many the tyrants, my city, who held thee in thrall.


What remains of them now?


Names whispered back from the dark through a portal ajar,


They come not again.


By men thou wert made and wert marred, but, outlasting them all,


Is the soul that is thou—


A soul that shall speak to my soul till I, too, pass afar,


And perchance even then.




Century     Amelia Josephine Burr










27


GHOSTS










They call you cold New England,


But underneath your snow


Is blood as red as roses


That in your gardens blow.






The God that lights your forests


With torch of cardinal flower,


Forbids that ever the Puritan


Escape his crimson hour.






The flame that skims brown furrows—


The scarlet tanager’s breast,


Is sign to preacher and ploughman


Of dreams that haunt their rest.






When witch and warlock perished


By fagot, scaffold and tree,


Their tortures slew their bodies


But set their spirits free!






In freedom gliding, gloating,


Through the haunts their children claim


The swollen ghosts of the wicked


Grow fat on new-wrought shame.






The old, sweet evil lingers,


The demon of uncontrol,


And madness creeps and crouches


In every haggard soul.






And he who held moon revels


In Salem forests deep,


Well loves his hypocrite servants


Nor seeks to spoil their sleep.




28

They call you cold New England—


But surely even your snow


Is drift not of ice but of ashes,


To guard the flames below!




Smart Set     Marguerite Mooers Marshall










ST. JOHN AND THE FAUN


I








O blest Imagination!


Bright power beneath man’s lid,


That in apparent beauty


Unveils the beauty hid!


In the gleaming of the instant


Abides the immortal thing;


Our souls that voyage unspeaking


Press forward, wing and wing;


From every passing object


A brighter radiance pours;


The Lethe of our daily lives


Sweeps by eternal shores.








II








On the deep below Amalfi,


Where the long roll of the wave


Slowly breathed, and slipped beneath me


To gray cliff and sounding cave,


Came a boat-load of dark fishers,


Passed, and on the bright sea shone;


There, the vision of a moment,


I beheld the young St. John.






At the stern the boy stood bending


Full his dreaming gaze on me;


Inexorably spread between us


Flashed the blue strait of the sea;
29

Slow receding,—distant,—distant,—


While my bosom scarce drew breath,—


Dreaming eyes on my eyes dreaming


Holy beauty without death.








III








In the cloudland o’er Amalfi,


Where with mists the deep ravine


Like a cauldron smoked, and, clearing,


Showed, far down, the pictured scene,


Capes and bays and peaks and ocean,


And the city, like a gem,


Set in circlets of pale azure


That her beauty ring and hem,—


Once, returning from the chasm


By the mountain’s woodland way,


Underneath the oak and chestnut


Where I loved to make delay,


(And dark boys and girls with faggots


Would pass near on that wild lawn,


And at times they brought me rosebuds),


There one day I saw a faun.






The wood was still with noontide,


The very trees seemed lone,


When from a neighboring thicket


His moon-eyes on me shone,


Motionless, and bright, and staring,


And with a startled grace;


As nature, wildly magical


Was the beauty of his face;






And as some gentle creature


That, curious, has fear,


Dumb he stood and gazed upon me,


But did not venture near;
30

And I moved not, nor motioned,


Nor gave him any sign,


Nor broke the momentary spell


Of the old world divine.








IV








Love, with no other agent


Save communion by the eye,


Evoked from those bright creatures


Our secret unity;


There, flowering from old ages,


Hung on time’s blossoming stem


All that fairest was in me


Or loveliest in them;


And truly it was happiness


Unto a poet’s heart


To find that living in his breast


Which is immortal art.




The Forum     George Edward Woodberry












SCHOOL


I








Old Hezekiah leaned hard on his hoe


And squinted long at Eben, his lank son.


The silence shrilled with crickets. Day was done,


And, row on dusky row,


Tall bean poles ribbed with dark the gold-bright afterglow.


Eben stood staring: ever, one by one,


The tendril tops turned ashen as they flared.


Still Eben stared.






O, there is wonder on New Hampshire hills,


Hoeing the warm, bright furrows of brown earth,


And there is grandeur in the stone wall’s birth,
31

And in the sweat that spills


From rugged toil its sweetness; yet for wild young wills


There is no dew of wonder, but stark dearth,


In one old man who hoes his long bean rows,


And only hoes.






Old Hezekiah turned slow on his heel.


He touched his son. Thro’ all the carking day


There are so many littlish cares to weigh


Large natures down, and steel


The heart of understanding. “Son, how is’t ye feel?


What are ye starin’ on—a gal?” A ray


Flushed Eben from the fading afterglow:


He dropped his hoe.






He dropped his hoe, but sudden stooped again


And raised it where it fell. Nothing he spoke,


But bent his knee and—crack! the handle broke,


Splintering. With glare of pain,


He flung the pieces down, and stamped upon them; then—


Like one who leaps out naked from his cloak—


Ran. “Here, come back! Where are ye bound—you fool?”


He cried—“To school!”








II








Now on the mountain morning laughed with light—


With light and all the future in her face,


For there she looked on many a far-off place


And wild adventurous sight,


For which the mad young autumn wind hallooed with might


And dared the roaring mill-brook to the race,


Where blue-jays screamed beyond the pine-dark pool—


“To school!—To school!”




32

Blackcoated, Eben took the barefoot trail,


Holding with wary hand his Sunday boots;


Harsh catbirds mocked his whistling with their hoots;


Under his swallowtail


Against his hip-strap bumping, clinked his dinner pail;


Frost maples flamed, lone thrushes touched their lutes;


Gray squirrels bobbed, with tails stiff curved to backs,


To eye his tracks.






Soon at the lonely crossroads he passed by


The little one-room schoolhouse. He peered in.


There stood the bench where he had often been


Admonished flagrantly


To drone his numbers: now to this he said good-bye


For mightier lure of more romantic scene:


Good-bye to childish rule and homely chore


Forevermore!






All day he hastened like the flying cloud


Breathless above him, big with dreams, yet dumb.


With tightened jaw he chewed the tart spruce gum,


And muttered half aloud


Huge oracles. At last, where thro’ the pine-tops bowed


The sun, it rose!—His heart beat like a drum.


There, there it rose—his tower of prophecy:


The Academy!








III








They learn to live who learn to contemplate,


For contemplation is the unconfined


God who creates us. To the growing mind


Freedom to think is fate,


And all that age and after-knowledge augurate


Lies in a little dream of youth enshrined:


That dream to nourish with the skilful rule


Of love—is school.




33

Eben, in mystic tumult of his teens,


Stood bursting—like a ripe seed—into soul.


All his life long he had watched the great hills roll


Their shadows, tints and sheens


By sun- and moonrise; yet the bane of hoeing beans,


And round of joyless chores, his father’s toll,


Blotted their beauty; nature was as naught:


He had never thought.






But now he climbed his boyhood’s castle tower


And knocked. Ah, well then for his after-fate


That one of nature’s masters opened the gate,


Where like an April shower


Live influence quickened all his earth-blind seed to power.


Strangely his sense of truth grew passionate,


And like a young bull, led in yoke to drink,


He bowed to think.






There also bowed their heads with him to quaff—


The snorting herd! And many a wholesome grip


He had of rivalry and fellowship.


Often the game was rough,


But Eben tossed his horns and never balked the cuff;


For still through play and task his Dream would slip—


A radiant Herdsman, guiding destiny


To his degree.








IV








Once more old Hezekiah stayed his hoe


To squint at Eben. Silent, Eben scanned


A little roll of sheepskin in his hand,


While, row on dusky row,


Tall bean poles ribbed with dark the gold-pale afterglow.


The boy looked up: here was another land!


Mountain and farm with mystic beauty flared


Where Eben stared.




34

Stooping, he lifted with a furtive smile


Two splintered sticks, and spliced them. Nevermore


His spirit would go beastwise to his chore


Blinded, for even while


He stooped to the old task, sudden in the sunset’s pile


His radiant Herdsman swung a fiery door,


Thro’ which came forth with far-borne trumpetings


Poets and kings,






His fellow conquerors: there Virgil dreamed,


There Cæsar fought and won the barbarous tribes,


There Darwin, pensive, bore the ignorant gibes,


And One with thorns redeemed


From malice the wild hearts of men: there surged and streamed


With chemic fire the forges of old scribes


Testing anew the crucibles of toil


To save God’s soil.






So Eben turned again to hoe his beans,


But now, to ballads which his Herdsman sung,


Henceforth he hoed the dream in with the dung,


And for his ancient spleens


Planting new joys, imagination found him means.


At last old Hezekiah loosed his tongue:


“Well, boy, this school—what has it learned ye to know?”


He said: “To hoe.”




The Forum     Percy MacKaye












THE MARVELOUS MUNCHAUSEN










The snug little room with its brazier fire aglow,


And Piet and Sachs and Vroom—all in the long ago,—


Oh, the very long ago!—o’er their pipes and hollands seen;


And on the wall the man-o’-war, and firelight on the screen!




35

Their flowered, bulging waistcoats that wrinkle when they chuckle;


The baron, much-mustachioed, and gay with star and buckle,


And bristling in a uniform as scarlet as his cheeks,


With choker lace beneath his chin, and splendid, yellow breeks!






The smoke drifts blue, and bluer through that window, all abreeze,


Are glinting sky and glistening sea beyond the Holland quays.


Blue tiles, red bricks, the bustling wharves, with color’s oriflamme;


Starched caps and rosy-posy cheeks—the girls of Amsterdam!






The snug little room with its brazier fire aglow!


Oh, listen, will he tell them, as he told them long ago,—


Oh, very long ago, a-laughing in his sleeve!—


The marvelous Munchausen, with the fables I believe?








* * * * *






“When I had sown the Turkey beans that reachéd to the moon,


And lifted all Westminster in the sling from my balloon


(Swung over the Atlantic,


They peered from windows, frantic),


When, eagle-back, I’d scanned the pole in broad, eternal noon,






“In Queen Mab’s chariot I ventured on the sea.


’Twas like a mammoth hazelnut, with matchless orrery


A-sparkle on its ceiling,


With planet systems wheeling


And giddy comets sizzling all about the head o’ me.




36

“The nine bulls drew it, as stout as those of Crete,


And all were shod with horrid skulls that clattered on their feet.


Rich banners waved behind ’em,


While on their backs, to mind ’em,


Postilion crickets chirruped them, all chirping loud and sweet.






“Ghost of the Cape I warn you of, for he is bottle-blue.


We split his Table Mountain. He gibbered and he flew.


The bulls straight showed disfeature


With gazing on the creature,


Stampeding in their harness when I gave the view-halloo.






“Though wrecked on Egypt’s obelisks, disaster I defied,


And harnessed Sphinx, the emperor’s gift, to tow an ark as wide


As great Westminster;


With beau and bell and spinster,


And cleric, clerk, and coronet all tête-à-tête inside.






“‘Good folk, we sail for Africa,’ said I to all my train.


‘When bold Munchausen leads you forth, what laggard dares remain


In slippered ease, uncaring


To share my deeds of daring?’


Their cheers amazed my modesty, and more had made me vain.






“‘The sultan’s bees I’ve shepherded. I’ve hornpiped at Marseilles,


Where gulped me down, well nigh to drown, the liveliest of whales.
37

I’m riskiest of riskers,


But, blow my grizzled whiskers!’


I cried, ‘May jackals gnaw my bones if now Munchausen fails!’






“By night the lions roared at us. By day the simoons came


And swept across our caravan in sandy clouds of flame;


But naught dismayed our temper, or


The genial Afric emperor


Had missed my handsome greeting, to his long-abiding shame.






“The people of the Mountains of the Moon I wined and dined.


I reigned at Gristariska when His Majesty declined.


Reforms I wrought untiring,


With Gog and Magog squiring,


And Frosticos, my bosom friend, who lent a legal mind.






“For last superb achievement,—bright tears may Envy shed!—


I built a bridge, from Africa to distant England spread:


No edifice of fable,


Nay, not the Tower of Babel,


Surpassed its mammoth glory in the heavens overhead.






“So back across its noble arch my retinue and I


Advanced with blaring trumpets through the regions of the sky.


Clouds lingered to enwreathe us,


Earth’s kingdoms far beneath us,


And martial music cheered our march from all the birds that fly.”








* * * * *






The snug little room with its brazier fire aglow,


And Piet and Sachs and Vroom all sleeping long ago,—
38

Oh, so very long ago!—and, chuckling in his sleeve,


Still, o’er the slumbering table,


Drone-droning on his fable,


The marvelous Munchausen, with the stories I believe!




Century     William Rose Benét










TRAIN-MATES










Outside hove Shasta, snowy height on height,


A glory; but a negligible sight,


For you had often seen a mountain-peak


But not my paper. So we came to speak.


A smoke, a smile,—a good way to commence


The comfortable exchange of difference!—


You a young engineer, five feet eleven,


Forty-five chest, with football in your heaven,


Liking a road-bed newly built and clean,


Your fingers hot to cut away the green


Of brush and flowers that bring beside a track


The kind of beauty steel lines ought to lack,—


And I a poet, wistful of my betters,


Reading George Meredith’s high-hearted Letters,


Joining betweenwhile in the mingled speech


Of a drummer, circus-man, and parson, each


Absorbing to himself—as I to me


And you to you—a glad identity!


After a while when the others went away,


A curious kinship made us want to stay,


Which I could tell you now; but at the time


You thought of baseball teams and I of rhyme,


Until we found that we were college men


And smoked more easily and smiled again;


And I from Cambridge cried, the poet still:


“I know your fine Greek Theatre on the hill
39

At Berkeley!” With your happy Grecian head


Upraised, “I never saw the place,” you said.


“Once I was free of class, I always went


Out to the field.”


Young engineer,


You meant as fair a tribute to the better part


As ever I did. Beauty of the heart


Is evident in temples. But it breathes


Alive where athletes quicken airy wreaths,


Which are the lovelier because they die.


You are a poet quite as much as I,


Though differences appear in what we do,


And I an athlete quite as much as you.


Because you half-surmised my quarter-mile


And I your quatrain, we could greet and smile.


Who knows but we shall look again and find


The circus-man and drummer, not behind


But leading in our visible estate,


As discus-thrower and as laureate?




Yale Review     Witter Bynner










THE KALLYOPE YELL




[Loudly and rapidly with a leader, College yell
fashion]


I








Proud men


Eternally


Go about,


Slander me,


Call me the “Calliope.”


Sizz . . . . .


Fizz . . . . .








II








I am the Gutter Dream,


Tune-maker, born of steam,
40

Tooting joy, tooting hope.


I am the Kallyope,


Car called the Kallyope.


Willy willy willy wah HOO!


See the flags: snow-white tent,


See the bear and elephant,


See the monkey jump the rope,


Listen to the Kallyope, Kallyope, Kallyope!


Soul of the rhinoceros


And the hippopotamus


(Listen to the lion roar!)


Jaguar, cockatoot,


Loons, owls,


Hoot, Hoot.


Listen to the lion roar,


Listen to the lion roar,


Listen to the lion R-O-A-R!


Hear the leopard cry for gore,


Willy willy willy wah HOO!


Hail the bloody Indian band,


Hail, all hail the popcorn stand,


Hail to Barnum’s picture there,


People’s idol everywhere,


Whoop, whoop, whoop, WHOOP!


Music of the mob am I,


Circus day’s tremendous cry:—


I am the Kallyope, Kallyope, Kallyope!


Hoot toot, hoot toot, hoot toot, hoot toot,


Willy willy willy wah HOO!


Sizz, fizz . . . . .








III








Born of mobs, born of steam,


Listen to my golden dream,


Listen to my golden dream,


Listen to my G-O-L-D-E-N D-R-E-A-M!


Whoop whoop whoop whoop WHOOP!
41

I will blow the proud folk low,


Humanize the dour and slow,


I will shake the proud folk down,


(Listen to the lion roar!)


Popcorn crowds shall rule the town—


Willy willy willy wah HOO!


Steam shall work melodiously,


Brotherhood increase.


You’ll see the world and all it holds


For fifty cents apiece.


Willy willy willy wah HOO!


Every day a circus day.






What?






Well, almost every day.


Nevermore the sweater’s den,


Nevermore the prison pen.


Gone the war on land and sea


That aforetime troubled men.


Nations all in amity,


Happy in their plumes arrayed


In the long bright street parade.


Bands a-playing every day.






What?






Well, almost every day.


I am the Kallyope, Kallyope, Kallyope!


Willy willy willy wah HOO!


Hoot, toot, hoot, toot,


Whoop whoop whoop whoop,


Willy willy willy wah HOO!


Sizz, fizz . . . . .








IV








Every soul


Resident


In the earth’s one circus tent!
42

Every man a trapeze king


Then a pleased spectator there.


On the benches! In the ring!


While the neighbors gawk and stare


And the cheering rolls along.


Almost every day a race


When the merry starting gong


Rings, each chariot on the line,


Every driver fit and fine


With the steel-spring Roman grace.


Almost every day a dream,


Almost every day a dream.


Every girl,


Maid or wife,


Wild with music,


Eyes a-gleam


With that marvel called desire:


Actress, princess, fit for life,


Armed with honor like a knife,


Jumping thro’ the hoops of fire.


(Listen to the lion roar!)


Making all the children shout


Clowns shall tumble all about,


Painted high and full of song


While the cheering rolls along,


Tho’ they scream,


Tho’ they rage,


Every beast


In his cage,


Every beast


In his den


That aforetime troubled men.








V








I am the Kallyope, Kallyope, Kallyope,


Tooting hope, tooting hope, tooting hope, tooting hope;
43

Shaking window-pane and door


With a crashing cosmic tune,


With the war-cry of the spheres,


Rhythm of the roar of noon,


Rhythm of Niagara’s roar,


Voicing planet, star and moon,


Shrieking of the better years.


Prophet-singers will arise,


Prophets coming after me,


Sing my song in softer guise


With more delicate surprise;


I am but the pioneer


Voice of the Democracy;


I am the gutter-dream,


I am the golden dream,


Singing science, singing steam.


I will blow the proud folk down,


(Listen to the lion roar!)


I am the Kallyope, Kallyope, Kallyope,


Tooting hope, tooting hope, tooting hope, tooting hope,


Willy willy willy wah HOO!


Hoot toot, hoot toot, hoot toot, hoot toot,


Whoop whoop, whoop whoop,


Whoop whoop, whoop whoop,


Willy willy willy wah HOO!


Sizz .....


Fizz .....




The Forum     Nicholas Vachel Lindsay










THANKSGIVING FOR OUR TASK










The sickle is dulled of the reaping and the threshing-floor is bare;


The dust of night’s in the air.
44

The peace of the weary is ours:


All day we have taken the fruit and the grain and the seeds of the flowers.






The ev’ning is chill,


It is good now to gather in peace by the flames of the fire.


We have done now the deed that we did for our need and desire:


We have wrought our will.






And now for the boon of abundance and golden increase,


And immurèd peace,


Shall we thank our God?


Bethink us, amid His indulgence, His terrible rod?






Shall we be as the maple and oak,


Strew the earth with our gold, giving only bare boughs to the sky?


Nay, the pine stayeth green while the Winter growls sullenly by,


And doth not revoke






For soft days or stern days the pledge of its constancy.


Shall we not be


Also the same through all days,


Giving thanks when the battle breaks on us, in toil giving praise?






O Father who saw at the dawn,


That the folly of Pride would be the lush weed of our sin,


There is better than that in our hearts, O enter therein,


A light burneth, though wan






And weak be the flame, yet it gloweth, our Humility!


Ah, how can it be


Trimmed o’ the wick,


And replenished with oil to burn brightly and golden and quick?




45

For deep in our hearts


We wish to be thankful through lean years and fat without change,


Knowing that here Thou hast set for the spirit a range:


We would play well our parts,






Making America throb with the building of souls and the glory of good;


Yea, and we would,


And before the last Autumn we will


Build a temple from ocean to ocean where deeds never still






Melodiously shall proclaim


Thanksgiving forever that Thou hast set here to our hand


So wondrous a mystical harvest, that Thou dost demand


Sheaves bound in Thy name,






Yea, supersubstantial sheaves of strong souls that have grown


Fain to be known


As the corn of Thine occident field:


O Yielder of All, can America worthily thank Thee till such be her yield?






In the mellowing light


Of the goldenest days that precede the gray days of the year,


We sing Thee our harvesting song and we pray Thee to hear,


In the midst of Thy might:






Labor is given to us,


Let us give thanks!


Power worketh through us,


Let us give thanks!


Not for what we have


(So might speak a slave),
46

Not for the garnering,


Gratefully we sing,


But for the mighty thing


We must do, travailing!


For our task and for our strength;


For the journey and its length;


For our dauntless eagerness;


For our humbling weariness;


For these, for these, O Father,


Let us give thanks!


For these, O Mighty Father,


Take Thou our thanks!




The Forum     Shaemas OSheel










A LIKENESS

Portrait Bust of an Unknown, Capitol, Rome










In every line a supple beauty—


The restless head a little bent—


Disgust of pleasure, scorn of duty,


The unseeing eyes of discontent.


I often come to sit beside him,


This youth who passed and left no trace


Of good or ill that did betide him,


Save the disdain upon his face.






The hope of all his House, the brother


Adored, the golden-hearted son,


Whom Fortune pampered like a mother;


And then—a shadow on the sun.


Whether he followed Cæsar’s trumpet,


Or chanced the riskier game at home


To find how favor played the strumpet


In fickle politics at Rome;




47

Whether he dreamed a dream in Asia


He never could forget by day,


Or gave his youth to some Aspasia,


Or gamed his heritage away;


Once lost, across the Empire’s border


This man would seek his peace in vain;


His look arraigns a social order


Somehow entrammelled with his pain.






“The dice of gods are always loaded”;


One gambler, arrogant as they,


Fierce, and by fierce injustice goaded,


Left both his hazard and the play.


Incapable of compromises,


Unable to forgive or spare,


The strange awarding of the prizes


He had no fortitude to bear.






Tricked by the forms of things material—


The solid-seeming arch and stone,


The noise of war, the pomp imperial,


The heights and depths about a throne—


He missed, among the shapes diurnal,


The old, deep-travelled road from pain,


The thoughts of men which are eternal,


In which, eternal, men remain.






Ritratto d’ignoto; defying


Things unsubstantial as a dream—


An Empire, long in ashes lying—


His face still set against the stream.


Yes, so he looked, that gifted brother


I loved, who passed and left no trace,


Not even—luckier than this other—


His sorrow in a marble face.




Scribner’s     Willa Sibert Cather










48


THE FIELD OF GLORY










War shook the land where Levi dwelt,


And fired the dismal wrath he felt,


That such a doom was ever wrought


As his, to toil while others fought;


To toil, to dream—and still to dream,


With one day barren as another;


To consummate, as it would seem,


The dry despair of his old mother.






Far off one afternoon began


The sound of man destroying man;


And Levi, sick with nameless rage,


Condemned again his heritage,


And sighed for scars that might have come,


And would, if once he could have sundered


Those harsh, inhering claims of home


That held him while he cursed and wondered.






Another day, and then there came,


Rough, bloody, ribald, hungry, lame,


But yet themselves, to Levi’s door,


Two remnants of the day before.


They laughed at him and what he sought;


They jeered him, and his painful acre;


But Levi knew that they had fought,


And left their manners to their Maker.






That night, for the grim widow’s ears,


With hopes that hid themselves in fears,


He told of arms, and featly deeds,


Whereat one leaps the while he reads,


And said he’d be no more a clown,


While others drew the breath of battle.


The mother looked him up and down,


And laughed—a scant laugh with a rattle.




49

She told him what she found to tell,


And Levi listened, and heard well


Some admonitions of a voice


That left him no cause to rejoice.


He sought a friend, and found the stars,


And prayed aloud that they should aid him;


But they said not a word of wars,


Or of a reason why God made him.






And who’s of this or that estate


We do not wholly calculate,


When baffling shades that shift and cling


Are not without their glimmering;


When even Levi, tired of faith,


Beloved of none, forgot by many,


Dismissed as an inferior wraith,


Reborn may be as great as any.




The Outlook     Edwin Arlington Robinson










RICH MAN, POOR MAN—










Oh, joy that burns in Denver tavern!


The lights, the drink, the ceaseless play!


A kingdom, dull within a cavern,


Across the boards he flings away.






Then night that falls on either mountain


(Ah, bitter black it falls between);


But he, like water to its fountain,


Is come again where life runs clean.






So Death shall find him, delving, peering.


Still silver rock, still golden sand.


He weeps to hear the magpies’ jeering,


But he is back in his own land.




Lippincott’s     Francis Hill










50


THE SIN EATER


I








Hark ye! Hush ye! Margot’s dead!


Hush! Have done wi’ your brawling tune!


Danced, she did, till the stars grew pale;


Mother o’ God, an’ she’s gone at noon!


Sh-h ... d’ye hear me?—Margot’s dead!


Sickened an’ drooped an’ died in an hour!


(Bring me th’ milk an’ th’ meat an’ bread.)


Drooped, she did, like a wilted flower.


Come an’ look at her, how she lies,


Little an’ lone, and like she’s scared....


(She lost her beads last Friday week,


Tore her Book, an’ she never cared.)...


Eh, my lass, but it’s winter, now—


You that ever was meant for June,


Your laughing mouth an’ your dancing feet—


An’ now you’re done, like an ended tune.


Where’s that woman? Ah, give it me quick,


Food at her head an’ her poor, still feet....


There’s plenty, fool! D’ye think the wench


Had so many sins for himself to eat?


Take up your cloak an’ hand me mine....


Are we fetchin’ him? Eh, for sure!


An’ you’ll come with me for all your quakes,


Clear to his cave across the moor!


—Margot, dearie, don’t look so scared,


It’s no long while till your peace begins!


What if you tore your Book, poor lamb?


I’m bringin’ you one will eat your sins!








II








It’s a blood-red sun that’s sinkin’....


Ohooo, but the marshland’s drear!


Woman, for why will you be shrinkin’?


I’m tellin’ you there’s nought to fear.
51

What if the twilight’s gloomish


An’ th’ shadows creep an’ crawl?—


Woman, woman, here’ll be th’ cave!


Stand by me close till I call!


“Sin Eater! Devil Cheater!”


(Eh, it echoes hollowly!)


“Margot’s dead at Willow Farm!


Shroud your face and follow me!”








III








One o’ th’ clock ... two o’ th’ clock....


This night’s a week in span!


Still he crouches by her side....


Devil ... ghost ... or man?...








IV








Woman, never cock’s crow sounded sweet before!


Set the casement wide ajar, fasten back the door!


Eh, but I be cold an’ stiff, waitin’ for th’ dawn;


Fetch me flowers—jessamine—see, the food is gone....


Light enough to see her now.... Mary! How her face


Shines on us like altar fires, now she’s sure o’ grace!


Never mind your Book, my lamb, never mind your beads,


There’s th’ Gleam before you now, follow where it leads.








V








Tearful peace and gentle grief


Brood on Willow Farm:


Margot, sleeping in her flowers,


Smiles, secure from harm:
52

In a cave across the moor,


Dank and dark within,


Moans the trafficker in souls,


Freshly bowed with sin.




Smart Set     Ruth Comfort Mitchell












NIGHT-SENTRIES










Ever as sinks the day on sea or land,


Called or uncalled, you take your kindred posts.


At helm and lever, wheel and switch, you stand,


On the world’s wastes and melancholy coasts.


Strength to the patient hand!


To all, alert and faithful in the night,


May there be Light!






Now roars the wrenching train along the dark;


How many watchers guard the barren way


In signal-towers, at stammering keys, to mark


The word the whispering horizons say!


To all that see and hark—


To all, alert and faithful in the night,


May there be Light!






On ruthless streets, on byways sad with sin—


Half-hated by the blinded ones you guard—


Guard well, lest crime unheeded enter in!


The dark is cruel and the vigil hard,


The hours of guilt begin.


To all, alert and faithful in the night,


May there be Light!






Now storms the pulsing hull adown the sea:


Gaze onward, anxious eyes, to mist or star!


Where foams the heaving highway blank and free?


Where wait the reef, the berg, the cape, the bar?


Whatever menace be,
53

To all, alert and faithful in the night,


May there be Light!






Now the surf-rumble rides the midnight wind,


And grave patrols are on ocean edge.


Now soars the rocket where the billows grind,


Discerned too late, on sunken shoal or ledge.


To all that seek and find,


To all, alert and faithful in the night,


May there be Light!






On lonely headlands gleam the lamps that warn,


Star-steady, or ablink like dragon-eyes.


Govern your rays, or wake the giant horn


Within the fog that welds the sea and skies!


Far distant runs the morn:


To all, alert and faithful in the night,


May there be Light!






Now glow the lesser lamps in rooms of pain,


Where nurse and doctor watch the joyless breath,


Drawn in a sigh, and sighing lost again.


Who waits without the threshold, Life or Death?


Reckon you loss or gain?


To all, alert and faithful in the night,


May there be Light!






Honor to you that guard our welfare now!


To you that constant in the past have stood!


To all by whom the future shall avow


Unconquerable fortitude and good!


Upon the sleepless brow


Of each, alert and faithful in the night,


May there be Light!




Harper’s     George Sterling










54


THE SWORDLESS CHRIST

Vicisti, Galilee










Aye, down the years, behold, he rides,


The lowly Christ, upon an ass;


But conquering? Ten shall heed the call,


A thousand idly watch him pass:






They watch him pass, or lightly hold


In mock lip-loyalty his name:


A thousand—were they his to lead!


But meek, without a sword, he came.






A myriad horsemen swept the field


With Attila, the whirlwind Hun:


A myriad cannon spake for him,


The silent, dread Napoleon.






For these had ready spoil to give.


Had reeking spoil for savage hands;


Slaves, and fair wives, and pillage rare:


The wealth of cities: teeming lands.






And if the world, once drunk with blood,


Sated, has turned from arms to peace,


Man hath not lost his ancient lusts;


The weapons change; war doth not cease.






The mother in the stifling den,


The brain-dulled child beside the loom,


The hordes that swarm and toil and starve,


We laugh, and tread them to their doom.






They shriek, and cry their prayers to Christ;


And lift wan faces, hands that bleed:


In vain they pray, for what is Christ?


A leader—without men to lead.




55

Ah, piteous Christ, afar he rides:


We see him, but the face is dim.


We, that would leap at crash of drums,


Are slow to rise and follow him.




The Forum     Percy Adams Hutchison










WHAT OF THE NIGHT?










What of the night


And the eventual silences?


Art thou not cold with the knowledge of decay


And the uncompromising reaches of the earth?


What of the night


When the tune falters and the blood chills?


When thou art one with the grass


And the underbrush of the world,


Wilt thou forget the names of flowers,


The rhythm of song and the lips, still balmy with the breasts of women?


When thou and the fog on the hilltop are as brother and sister,


Wilt thou forget utterly the ways of men,


The clash of swords and the sting of wine,


The dim horizons and the grace of girls?


When thou art alone eternally


What of the night?






Where will God be


When thou art swathed in silence;


When the wreckage of dreams has crushed thee


And the lust for springtimes dissolved thee?


Wilt thou have visions only of the dawn


And autumn sunsets?


Will the memory of women’s faces haunt thy grave?


Will the odor of blue flowers find thy dust?
56

When thou art choking on the calm indifference of youth


And the everlasting beauty of trees,


Wilt thou dream only of the June,


The love of women and the great democracy of men?






When thou hast fought and failed,


And thy brow has withered laurelless,


And thy name has been effaced by the insatiable winds,


And thou hast gone out at the Western gate


To join the laggards of the dead,


Wilt thou crave only the withheld success,


The transitory fame of twilight years?


Will thy soul cry out only for the song,


The red dawn and the glad triumph of love?






Wilt thou indeed forget the days of pain,


The ineffectual prayers,


The lies of time and the bitterness of defeat?


Or, remembering these things,


Wilt thou forget the hands of women and the rude love of men,


And be glad of thy dark quietude?






When thou art part of the impending gloom,


I deem that life will seem to thee


In no such wise,—


But rather thou wilt dream it as a whole;


Not as a song, nor yet a broken bell;


But all that thou hast been—the great tears,


The rain, the kisses and the flutes,


The old sorrows and the hills at dawn,


Much laughter and much grief and the stern fight.


And thou shalt know how all of life is gain—


The gold of youth, the gray defeat of age—


How in the soul’s inharmony there lies


The incoherent unity of things.




The Forum     Willard Huntington Wright










57


A THRENODY

In Memory of the Destruction of Messina By Earthquake










Sicilian Muse! O thou who sittest dumb


Amid the sodden fields and ways forlorn,


Where once the herdsmen singing, watched their kine


Breast-deep in fragrance, odorous eve and morn;


Stranger to thee, yet led by love I come,


A suppliant sable-stoled, to mix with thine


My tears, and at thy shrine


Kindle a funeral torch for Sicily:


Give not the suppliant’s prayer the meed of blame!


Scorn not the stranger’s proffered oil and wine!


O thou from whom the heavenly madness came,


When Orpheus hymning struck his golden lute,


And stirred old memories in Persephone,


While all the lonely shades in hell stood mute


To watch the still-beloved Eurydice


Borne lightly upward on the silver surge


To Enna’s flowery verge;—


Spirit august! Child of Mnemosyne!


With reverence and true humility


I break before thy feet my careless flute,


And wait upon my lips thy touch of flame:


Begin, Sicilian Muse! Begin the dirge!


O race unmindful of the Destinies!


The dread Euminides


Or Mœræ old, sent from Earth’s inmost core


A tremor, warning blindly ye who, blind,


See not the sleepless doom that evermore


Has watched your tragic shore


Since lost sea-rovers shaded first their eyes


To spy the riches of your waving store,


And grated up your sands with doubtful keel.


The startled jungle growled above its young;
58

The Arctic foxes snuffed the scentless wind;


But ye who knew yourselves a fated race,


That gods have loved and gods to hate exposed,


Though black the death clouds over Ætna hung,


Forgot the anguish in Pompeii’s face,


Beneath her half-drawn winding sheet disclosed;


Forgot white Lisbon’s doom, nor called to mind—


In pleasant Zancle taking noonday ease—


How, from its ashes by the western seas


A stricken Phœnix rises, stone and steel.


Fresh as her Poro flowers at early dawn,


When over Hybla’s hills the yellow bees


From aromatic blossoms shake the dew;


Fair as the maiden ere by dark Fate drawn,


She saw the wide earth yawn


Before the thunderous horses, and the strong


Arm of Aïdes crushed her gathered flowers;


So fresh, so fair, amid her storied seas,


She who remains through changes æon-long


A greater Helen wooed with sword and song,


Of mightier victors bride and battle prize,


Lay lapped in peace, when swift from Hades driven,


Upward the death-king came; the earth was riven,


And through the darkness rang her children’s cries.


Now Scylla unto fierce Charybdis calls,


While on the water spreads a crimson stain;


Now Galatea sobs in Ocean’s halls,


And vengeful Polyphemus laughs again.


The Nereids now in oozy caverns hide,


Where sea-kings of the old Æolian shore


Watch sunken argosies forevermore,


And tell their tales of dread Poseidon’s hate;


While dimly from the far, ensanguined tide


Patient Odysseus furrowed once of yore,


A glint of daylight through the darkness falls


On swaying helmets, tumbled bronze and gold,
59

On broidered vestments stiff and Tyrian dyed.


There hide they; but the sea-kings keep their state,


Telling of ancient dooms and deaths of old,


Nor know they how beside the darkened strait


And up the slopes of olive, vine and grain,


The dryads wail a land left desolate.


Wail thou, great Muse, the dear Sicilian land!


Now greater grief is thine than when of old


Young Adon in the Cyprian’s arms lay cold,


And Daphnis’ years were told.


Take thou the lyre from Time’s enfeebled hand;


Hushed is the music of Empedocles,


Of splendid Pindar, pure Simonides,


Bion and Moschus and Theocritus,


And those who unto us


Nameless, yet live as human memories.


Hushed is the last of all that laurelled band,


Hushed, or on Charon’s strand


Urging in vain petition dolorous,


To pass where Pan, his boyish pipings done,


Stands wistful, while the nymphs, by fear made bold,


Cling with their long lithe arms about his knees.


Wail thou, great Muse! or loose from Acheron


Some worthy bearer of the singing bough


Whose madness whirls me now


On melting wings too near the southern sun.


Yet why for aught on earth should grief be loud,


Since all that is, is born to pass away?


Hero and maiden to the urn are vowed,


And beauty saves not when the debt falls due;


Apollo with the darker gods has died,


And Gæa at the last shall be as they.


O Helen of the soul! O golden isle!


By beauty doomed, by beauty sanctified,


Thou too canst not abide,


But like all else shalt last a little while—
60

A little longer than the falling spray—


Then pass as planet dust or gaseous cloud,


To build new cosmos, gnawed by new decay.


Earth’s senseless atoms ever clasp and whirl,


Unclasp again to form in mazes new;


And ever on the white cliff stands some girl


With dead eyes gazing on the sailless blue.


Earth’s roses die, but still the rose lives on,


The song survives the swift Leucadian leap;—


A dream of immortality is ours.


Where golden Daphnis in the morning shone,


Fresh sprung from Helicon,


New shepherds singing lead their careless sheep


Above the graves of Athens, Carthage, Rome,


Vandals and Moslems, and strange Northern Powers


That filled their destined hours,


And fed in turn the rich Sicilian loam,


Building, like coral insects from the deep,


Enchanted islands that till earth is gone,


Swept back to chaos in the atom swirl,


Shall be the seeker’s light, the spirit’s home.


Though Ætna crumble and the dark seas rise


Sowing the uplands with their sterile brine,


Still shall the soul descry with wistful eyes


Sicilian headlands bright with flower and fruit;


Still shall she hear, though all earth’s lips be mute,


Sicilian music in the morning skies.


Yea, deep within the heart of man it lies,


This visioned island bright with old romance,


A race inheritance


Of rest and joy and faith in things divine,


That shall endure awhile through change and chance,


And have the meaning of a childhood shrine,


Remembered when the faith of childhood dies.
61

Now fails the song, and down the lonely ways


The last low echoes die upon the breeze.


I lay my lyre upon the moveless knees


Of her who by the hollow roadway stays,


In anguish waiting for her children slain


That shall not come again


With springtime, leading the new lambs to graze.


They come no more; but while o’er hill and plain


The twilight darkens, and the evening rose


Aloft on Ætna glows,


Silent she sits amid the sodden leas,


With eyes that level on the ocean haze


Their unobserving stare, as seaward gaze


The eyes of stolid caryatides.




Scribner’s     Louis V. Ledoux










NOVEMBER










Hark you such sound as quivers? Kings will hear,


As kings have heard, and tremble on their thrones;


The old will feel the weight of mossy stones;


The young alone will laugh and scoff at fear.


It is the tread of armies marching near,


From scarlet lands to lands forever pale;


It is a bugle dying down the gale;


It is the sudden gushing of a tear.


And it is hands that grope at ghostly doors;


And romp of spirit children on the pave;


It is the tender sighing of the brave


Who fell, ah! long ago, in futile wars;


It is such sound as death; and, after all,


’Tis but the forest letting dead leaves fall.




The Bellman     Mahlon Leonard Fisher










62


SALUTATION










Did you choose the journey, friend?


No, nor I;


But to make it cheerfully,


Let us try.


When the day is dark, I pray,


Sing a song to cheer the way,


For tomorrow we will be


One day nearer to the sea.






Did you choose the journey, friend?


No, nor I;


But we know the end will come


By and by.


All today we bear the load


Up the weary winding road,


But tomorrow we may be


At the Inn in company.




The Independent     Ruth Sterry










HERE LIES PIERROT










The moon’s ashine; by many a lane


Walk wistful lovers to and fro;


It must be like old days again;


How they do love! Here lies Pierrot.






She loved me once, did Columbine.


It sets my dusty heart aglow


Merely to lie and dream how fine


Her semblance was,—Here lies Pierrot!






Her perfumed presence, silks and lace,


Did madden men and wrought them woe;


For me alone her witching grace.


Where is she now? Here lies Pierrot.




63

We two walked once beneath the moon—


Yellow it hung, and large and low—


And listened to the tender tune


Of nightingales,—Here lies Pierrot!






Our foolish vows of passion shook


The very stars, they trembled so.


How it comes back, her soft, shy look,


Now I am dead! Here lies Pierrot!






These other men and maids, who stroll


Through moonlit poplar trees arow,


Does each play the enchanted rôle


We phantoms played? Here lies Pierrot!






O joy, that I remember yet


Sweet follies of the long ago!


Dear heaven, I would not quite forget!


The moon’s ashine; Here lies Pierrot!




Scribner’s     Richard Burton










64


LIST OF “DISTINCTIVE POEMS,” THEIR
AUTHORS, AND THE MAGAZINES IN
WHICH THEY APPEARED









THE “BEST POEMS” CHOSEN FROM THE “DISTINCTIVE” LIST









TITLES AND AUTHORS OF ALL POEMS
APPEARING IN THE SEVEN MAGAZINES
FOR 1918


CENTURY



HARPER’S



SCRIBNER’S



THE FORUM



LIPPINCOTT’S



80


THE BELLMAN



THE SMART SET









85


INDEX OF FIRST LINES







 
PAGE




Aye, down the years, behold, he rides.




Percy Adams Hutchison
54




Because on the branch that is tapping my pane.




Arthur Guiterman
7




Did you choose the journey, friend?




Ruth Sterry
62




Distant as a dream’s flight.




John G. Neihardt
17




Eternal in the brooding of the old Norwegian spruces.




Ruth Guthrie Harding
4




Ever as sinks the day on sea or land.




George Sterling
52




Face in the tomb, that lies so still.




Richard Le Gallienne
22




For the sake of a weathered gray city set high on a hill.




Amelia J. Burr
25




God meant me to be hungry.




Mildred Howells
8




Hark ye! Hush ye! Margot’s dead.




Ruth Comfort Mitchell
50




Hark you such sound as quivers? Kings will hear.




Mahlon Leonard Fisher
61




How an image of paint and wood.




Agnes Lee
12




I know a vale where I would go one day.




Bliss Carman
24




I saw her in a Broadway car.




Sara Teasdale
19




I think that I shall never see.




Joyce Kilmer
7




I thought I had forgotten you.




Ethel M. Hewitt
21




I thought my heart would break.




Charles Hanson Towne
22




I went to the place where my youth took birth.




Willard Huntington Wright
1886




If I am slow forgetting.




Margaret Lee Ashley
3




In every line a supple beauty.




Willa Sibert Cather
46




It’s little that I’d care for the glories of Ireland.




Edward J. O’Brien
16




Lest I learn, with clearer sight.




Witter Bynner
18




Lo—to the battle-ground of Life.




Louis Untermeyer
9




Love you not the tall trees spreading wide their branches.




Tertius van Dyke
8




May is building her house. With apple blooms.




Richard Le Gallienne
3




Midnight, and in the darkness not a sound.




Sara Teasdale
13




O blest Imagination.




George Edward Woodberry
28




Oh, joy that burns in Denver tavern.




Francis Hill
49




Old Hezekiah leaned hard on his hoe.




Percy MacKaye
30




One whom I loved and never can forget.




Hermann Hagedorn
23




Outside hove Shasta, snowy height on height.




Witter Bynner
38




Over the dim edge of sleep I lean.




Robert Alden Sanborn
9




Over the wintry threshold.




Bliss Carman
2




Proud men.




Nicholas Vachel Lindsay
39




Sicilian Muse! O thou who sittest dumb.




Louis V. Ledoux
57




Sorrow, quit me for a while.




Florence Earle Coates
20




The moon’s ashine; by many a lane.




Richard Burton
62




The sickle is dulled of the reaping and the threshing-floor is bare.




Shaemas OSheel
43




The snug little room with its brazier fire aglow.




William Rose Benét
3487




The twilight is starred.




John Hall Wheelock
20




The Wind bows down the poplar trees.




Fannie Stearns Davis
5




They call you cold New England.




Marguerite Mooers Marshall
27




War shook the land where Levi dwelt.




Edwin Arlington Robinson
48




Weave the dance, and raise again the sacred chorus.




Louis V. Ledoux
1




Weighed down by grief, o’erborne by deep despair.




Richard Burton
23




What of the night?




Willard Huntington Wright
55




With rod and line I took my way.




Madison Cawein
5









Transcriber’s Notes


Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling variations were were not
changed.


Simple typographical errors were corrected.


Poems are shown here as they appeared in the original book. Some of
them appear elsewhere with different words or punctuation.


When it was not clear whether or not new stanzas began on new pages,
Transcriber did not add stanza breaks.