Scene I.
The time—a glorious summer afternoon.
The place—somewhere along the Palisades.
Rocks here and there; some trees and many bushes.
A youthful artist, seated on a rock,
With great strokes paints the sun-illumined Hudson.
A fair young woman enters on the scene,
Absorbed in picking many kinds of flowers.
The youthful artist, catching sight of her,
Stands up and drops his palette and his brushes.
And when she sees the youth she drops the flowers.
They stand in silence looking at each other.
He then approaches her to raise her flowers—
And then she smiles, and he says foolish things,
Deliciously absurd and foolish things.
The insects are abuzzing, and the leaves—
The foliage of the bushes and the trees
Are whispering—are gossiping in whispers.
He takes her by the hand and kisses her,
He kisses her and takes her in his arms,
And carries her behind a clump of bushes.
Scene II.
The time and place and scene just as before.
From left to right there enters on the scene
Quite simultaneously a man and woman.
Each reads a book while walking, so absorbed
That they well-nigh collide with one another.
He begs her pardon which, of course, she grants.
He asks her if they have not met before,
Her face seems so familiar, and she says:
Perhaps he saw her somewhere at a lecture.
And so they start to talk about their books,
About their lectures and about their books.
They seat themselves upon a rock and talk,
And talk and talk and talk and talk and talk.
The insects are abuzzing and the leaves—
The foliage of the bushes and the trees
Are whispering, are gossiping in whispers.
And from behind the softly swaying bushes
Escape the sounds of kisses and of sighs,
The kisses and the sighs of youthful lovers.
And all the time the woman and the man
Sit arguing, discussing and discussing
Psychology, sociology and ethics.
So different it is behind the bushes.
And while some hug and kiss and others argue,
A sudden gloom spreads over everything.
The azure sky is now a sky of ink,
The lightning flashes and the thunder claps,
The shower is terrific’ly intense.
Both couples find an overhanging rock,
A scanty shelter ’gainst a raging storm.
A blinding lightning flash, a thunder clap,
All four lie dead.
Is there a moral?
Guess!
THE TEMPLE
Round, full and fertile is her abdomen,
Even as Mother Earth.
O! tree of life bearing the fruit of love,
O! precious shell a precious pearl enclosing,
O! wondrous instrument whereon love plays
A fiery rhapsody,
The echo whereof is a human life.
O! blessed mother of the child of man.
Ye fools, detach your gaze from godless heavens,
God is right here if you would worship God,
The mystery of life and love is God,
And every pregnant woman is God’s temple.
SHELLEY
Lucifer! dripping with celestial splendour,
All aglow with cosmic rebellion,
Thundering forth pious blasphemies,
Chanting sacrilegious hymns,
Thy voice is like unto the trumpet sounds
Of the Archangels of the Apocalypse
Calling the dead to life.
Meteor fallen from the bosom of infinitude
Into the common clay,
Strange visitant from another orb,
Permeated with the music of the spheres,
Replete and radiant with rarest gems,
Perplexing, exciting, soothing, betwitching.
Lucifer! Prometheus! Dionysos! Shelley!
THE SCULPTOR AND THE CLAY
The sculptor, man, in woman mostly sees
The clay of which to model gods of love.
Some, cunning little cupids only are,
The little rascal gods of light flirtation,
Who like the fire-flies on a summer night
Are luminous a moment—and that’s all.
While others are the serious gods of love,
Majestic and intense as life itself,
Mysterious and perplexing as the Sphinx,
Relentless as the furies or as death,
As maddening as poison of the snake,
As soothing as is balm upon a wound,
And sweet as that which passeth understanding.
As sweet as that and sometimes just as bitter.
Such are the statues man, the sculptor, moulds
Of woman—clay.
CONTEMPT
I spit upon the laws that thieves have made
To give the crooked strength to rob the weak.
I spit upon a country full of wealth
Where millions live in squalor and in want.
I spit upon a flag that waves above
A nation made of masters and of slaves.
I spit upon religions that defend
A hell on earth, and preach a life to come.
I spit upon all morals that contend
That joy of life is not life’s highest end.
I spit upon the education that
Makes pygmies out of what might have been men.
Upon this whole damned system do I spit,
And while I spit—I weep.
WILLIAM MORRIS
Dreamer of dreams—dreamer of golden dreams,
Explorer of the rainbow-lands of yore,
Columbus of Arcadian Continents,
Poetic founder of Utopian states.
Dreamer of dreams? Dreamer of only dreams?
A master worker with the mind and hand
Who made the beautiful and useful wed,
An alchemist who turned all work to art.
Dreamer of dreams? Maker of wondrous things?
A knight in mortal combat for a cause,
A sower of emancipation’s seed,
A master builder of a better world.
DON JUAN’S SONG
From maids yet in their spring-time teens
To full blown thirty summer queens,
I love them all!
From golden blondes and deep brunettes
To Titian-locked one ne’er forgets—
I love them all!
From fairies frail or plump or slender
To women built with queenly splendor,
I love them all!
From damsels pale and melancholy
To matrons gay and widows jolly,
I love them all!
From maidens unsophisticated
To syrens well initiated,
I love them all! I love them all!
EASTER ON FIFTH AVENUE
Capital best qualifies the weather
That Easter Sunday donned for the occasion
And the parade was also capital,
It was indeed a capital parade.
The gorgeous gowns, the stunning Easter hats
Were capital and those hand-made complexions
Down to the escorts groomed with perfect style
Down to the sermons that the preachers preached
In fashionable churches were most capital.
Indeed the sight I saw that Easter morn
Along Fifth Avenue was capital,
Upon the sidewalks silently and slow
The grand cortège of capital marched on.
And whilst I was enjoying this grand sight
There rose before my mind another sight:
I saw the street between the sidewalks filled
In compact mass with wan and worn spectators
Who were in silence viewing the parade,
It was a mob of children, men and women
Whose pallid faces and whose piteous rags
Gave to the spectacle a capital contrast,
’Twas Easter, Easter, lo! The Christ has risen!
Upon the whole the show was capital.
CONTEMPLATION
I went into a house of many lofts,
And in each loft I saw a thousand men,
And women, too, and children, too, I saw.
And all around arose a deaf’ning roar—
The roaring of machines o’er which were bent
The toilers toiling at their tiresome task.
And as I stood and gazed upon this scene
I wondered why it was—I wondered why....
I went into a house of gilded halls,
And in each hall there shone a thousand lights,
And many men and women also shone.
Delightful music mingled with perfume.
Around luxurious tables, diners sat
Enjoying luscious viands, mellow wines.
And as I stood and gazed upon this scene,
I thought of toilers and I understood.
CONFIDENCES
I have to go to work to win my bread,
When oft upon my way the Muse of song,
Espying me from far approaches me
And takes me by the hand as tenderly
As would a sister take her little brother.
She whispers words as sparkling as champagne,
As warm as blood, as pure as morning dew,
And so enchants me that I cannot help
But yield unto the tempting muse of song.
She takes me from the world’s drear, dusty road
And leads me into that mysterious park
Where lies the limpid lake of inspiration.
The flowers of life and death grow in this park—
Of love and hate, the flowers of joy and pain,
Of smiles and sighs, of laughter and of tears,
The blooms of hope and those of disillusion.
All, all these flowers grow in this wondrous park.
I drink some water from the Muse’s palm,
The water of the lake of inspiration.
And then in silence do I wend my way
Through rows of silent and mysterious flowers,
Inhaling all the odors of the flowers,
The sweet and bitter odors of the flowers.
And like the bee, I also make some honey,
Alas! my honey is not always sweet.
Perhaps because the flowers of life are bitter.
Then I am harshly driven from this Eden
By the compulsion of a god I hate,
And I must go to work to win my bread.
The honey of the poet has no market.
Tempt me no more, dear Muse, or else I’ll starve.
IN THE LIBRARY
As she sat facing me the other day
Reading a book, while I was writing verses,
Or rather trying to, for I could not
Detach my gaze from her bewitching visage,
Nor could my mind in rhythmic furrows flow,
Pursuing thoughts to her all unrelated,
When like the heaving billows that are yielding
To the attracting powers of the moon,
My every thought by her has been attracted.
I thus bethought me: “Wherefore write I poems,
When here, before me, breathes a living poem,
Compared to whom, all poems are as dust
Besides a sweetly smelling, blooming flower.”
So I lay down my pen and gazed at her.
BYRON
The thought of Byron wakens in my mind
The vision of a solitary tree
Titanic and contorted on a cliff
That overhangs a wild abysmal sea.
Its mighty root, a maze of tentacles,
Has put a lasting clutch-hold on the rock,
Much like the miser’s fingers on his gold.
Within its arteries the sap of life,
The procreative juice in torrents flows,
And gushes forth luxurious vegetation.
The foliage-covered head is always raised
In bold defiance of the elements.
Undaunted by the tempest’s fiendish rage,
Calm under the concerted stare of stars,
The fickle lover of a fickle moon.
On balmy days or peaceful summer eves
The rendezvous of master-singer birds.
Perennial, rich, melodious and sad,
Passionate and desolate and wild
And beautiful and always beautiful.
CHIAROSCURO
I met a plum-hued Venus late one night,
Live specimen of pure Egyptian art.
The regal amplitude of tropic zones,
Their rich luxuriance breathed on her face
And radiated from her clothed form.
Her eyes shone with that lustful brilliancy
Of eyes of jungle prowlers who at night
A-sniffling and a-growling hunt for mates.
Her mellow, soft and sing-song voice was whisp’ring
Enticing promises of untold joys
To taste of in this paradise of jet.
Alas! the curse of value, price and profit
Indelibly was branded on her brow,
The brow that ages past was of a savage.
Oh! thou hast conquered glorious Christian progress.
DESPONDENCY
I sadly watch the hours go by,
The hours, the days, the months, the years,
And what’s called life shall soon go by,
And helpless and with fruitless rage
I watch the hours of life go by.
And I must curse when I would bless,
And I who am all love, must hate,
And I who have been born to sing
Must spend myself in moans and tears.
And must I perish on this rock
A cruel God has bound me to?
Will not some Hercules ere come
And make me free?
IN MEMORIAM
Within the mansion of my memory
There is a sumptuous chapel, where at times
I kneel in deep devotion at the shrines
Of all the blessed women I have loved.
I burn for them the incense of my thoughts;
Before their sacred images I lay
The flowers of my purest sentiments,
And on their altars piously I light
The pallid candles of my vain regrets.
I oft hold retrospective rendezvous
Within the chapel of the loves of yore.
SPRING SONG
I too shall sing thy glory, Spring,
Oh, season in thyself a song;
In every tongue thy name doth ring
With music we remember long.
Fruehling! Primavera! Spring!
Thy name to whisper is to sing.
Why should I seek sweet melody
And softly sounding words to say
All that the spring-time means to me?
Why should I make an effort, pray,
When Fruehling! primavera! spring!
To whisper only is to sing.
TO A FRIEND
You sigh because you are not loved.
You only think you are not loved.
I also sighed as you now sigh,
Because I thought I was not loved.
But I was loved—how I was loved!
She lay awake at night and dreamed
Of me, who thought I was not loved.
Some loves like blooms that blush unseen,
Remain unknown and unconfessed,
And we oftimes are best beloved
When loved with love in silence shrined.
So be not sad, dear friend, nor sigh,
But feel assured there is a heart
In this wide world that beats for you.
I SAW THREE NUNS
I saw three nuns go by the other day:
Three upright coffins slowly gliding by.
Funereal, black and chilling to behold,
The ghastly shadows of a defunct past.
The worms of ignorance and superstition
Give to these dead, the semblances of life.
The past has not yet buried all its dead.
I saw three nuns go by the other day:
Three upright coffins slowly gliding by.
A WOMAN LOVES ME
A woman loves me!
’Tis not of her I sing whose womb has been
The primal cradle of my tender self;
I mean not mother-love.
A woman loves me!
’Tis not of her I sing who also sprang
From that same source whence also I have sprung;
I mean not sister-love.
A woman loves me!
I sing of her who “from the mobs of life”
Has chosen me as him to whom alone
She will unlock her body and her soul
To welcome all my love.
ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN
(The Workers’ Jeanne d’Arc)
She too a vision had and voices heard:
She heard the groans of slaving, starving workers:
She had a vision of their liberation.
She also mounted steed and armor donned.
The soap-box or the platform is her steed.
Her coat of mail defiance of the powers.
She too to victory an army leads.
Her army is the risen proletariat,
In arms against their pitiless exploiters.
She too is hated by the church and state.
They’d burn her at the stake if they but dared,
Condemned for witchcraft or some other crime.
She too shall live an ever-shining glory,
In human history, in human hearts—
An even brighter glory than Jeanne d’Arc.
The Maid of Orleans routed but the English,
And to a worthless king restored a throne,
To sway a sceptre o’er a land of serfs.
Lead by Elizabeth we’ll rout the masters
And to the workers of the world restore
The earth itself and all its joys and riches.
Let all men rally round her blood-red banner
Which bears the motto of the revolution:
“Death to all masters! Freedom to all slaves!”
JEALOUSY
As you peruse those heavy, dusty volumes
With tense attention hour after hour,
Whilst totally indifferent to me,—
To me, who sees in you the book of books,
To whom the very cover of this book,
Your outward aspect, is more interesting
Than the contents of all books ever printed.
Is it a wonder I would like to build
A mammoth pile of all the books there are
And let the raging fire consume them all?
MISERS
I know of misers meaner than are those
Who lay awake at night to guard their treasure,
Which is in their possession only dust,
A sordid, useless heap of gilded dust
That might have given peace and bread to many.
The misers whom I mean are fair to see,
Delightful to converse with and to kiss;
They fascinate us with their wondrous eyes
As serpents fascinate the little birds.
They draw us closer to them, ever closer,
Then suddenly like serpents they coil up
And put beyond our grasp their queenly treasures,
Alas! in their possession to remain,
But useless, vain and perishable things
That might have given ecstasy to many.
SWINBURNE
Algernon Swinburne, is there not in thee
Something akin to bells that ring at sea?
In their sound so clear
There is little cheer,
When their knell I hear
I recoil with fear.
Though thy voice be clear as the day’s light,
It is pregnant with mystery, death, and night.
OUR LADY OF INFINITE MERCY
I often think of a mysterious woman—
There must be somewhere a mysterious woman,
Mysterious and most marvelous of beauty,
Most beautiful,—miraculously kind,
Indeed a kindness passing understanding,
So great a kindness that it seemeth madness.
It seemeth madness, for she sallies forth
At dead of night into the dismal streets,
Into the dismal and deserted streets,
Monotously criss-crossing the city,
The monstrous, lightless, heartless, sleeping city,
Where prowling as the vermin shunning light,
Or derelicts adrift on dreary seas,
She seeks the disinherited of joy
She seeks the stunted, the disfigured children,
The starved, diseased and the discouraged children
Of stepmother society, seeks them out,
Whom everybody shuns and no one loves.
She seeks them out and gives herself to them,
This queenly woman, marvelous of beauty,
Entirely gives herself to those of whom
The thought alone makes shudder with disgust.
She gives herself even as the twilight enters
A fetid, vermin-ridden, mildewed dungeon,
A whiff of heaven in a life of hell.
Oh, have you, have you ever seen that woman,
That beautiful, that kind, mysterious woman?
She is our Lady of Infinite Mercy.
Blessed be our Lady of Infinite Mercy!
A PAGAN’S PRAYER
I sought the shrine of Eros and I prayed:—
O God omnipotent, O God supreme,
O God of love who art the God of Gods,
Behold thy worshipper upon his knees
Prostrated in the dust.
Let not my supplications rise in vain
From depths iniquitous to heights sublime.
O grant me my request, good God of love.
Unlock for me thy secret treasure house
And make me master of the arts of love.
My heart conceives great symphonies of love
That my poor body cannot execute.
I am a Beethoven, I am a Wagner,
My orchestration needs a thousand pieces,
But am restricted to a shepherd’s reed.
Reveal to me the secrets of the ancients,
Instruct me in the art of love long lost;
That love of time when Gods and humans mingled.
In love I am a God, in love expression
I am alas! a frail, a weakling human.
O Eros! Eros! Eros! God of love,
Give me the power to love as Gods can love.
NIETZSCHE
A sombre silhouette
Against a sun-rise sky
In solemn solitude,
The wanderer goes by.
The shadow that he casts
Upon the plains below
Strikes terror to the hearts
Of those that do not know.
O messenger sublime
Who hailest from that land
Where joy and beauty reign;
If they could understand!...
If they could understand
The message that you bring,
They’d strew your path with palms;
Hosannahs would they sing.
Strength superceding faith,
Joy superceding fear:
The Super-Christ has come;
The Superman is near....
TO A NEGRO BELLE
You make me dream of distant tropic climes,
Luxurious vegetation; nights serene
By burning passion made tempestuous,
The witching scent of rare exotic flowers
That sooth and render sweetly languorous,
Of music soft and weird, whose savage rhythm
Compels each fibre of the frame to dance.
I see you as the princess of an isle
Whose jungles are replete with beasts of prey,
And whose vast forests ever are alive
With cries and frolickings of birds and apes;
Whose villages of bamboo huts are full
Of dusky-hued and happy naked people.
Your simple hearted subjects pay you homage;
Prostrated in the dust, they weirdly chant
Thy praises, even as in my own way,
I sing your praises, sweet, exotic princess.
Oh, let me enter your enchanted realm,
And make of me your happy, humble slave.
WALT WHITMAN
Mountain-like he towers, a Matterhorn
Midst many minor peaks;
And like a mountain, mighty, vast and wild;
A finger pointing into boundless space,
A head raised high above the shifting clouds,
A heart that beats in unison with all,
An eye that first beholds the rising sun
And is the last to see her parting glory,
A clarion-call to freedom,
A gesture of revolt,
A world-encircling brotherhood embrace,
An exaltation of the lowly,
A vindication of the truth,
A glorification of the human body,
A declaration of the right of all
To live, to love, to dare and to do,
A hymn to life, a rhapsody of joy!
LIFE-LUST
My mouth—the mouth of my whole being waters
For all the fruit upon the lap of Life;
The luscious fruit of Life, (delicious fruit,
All running over with the juice of joy.)
Life seems a banquet and my gourmand senses
Would gorge themselves with all good things thereof.
My taste, my touch, my smell, my sight, my hearing
Would drink the seasoned vintages of Life,
And relish all Life’s rarest fruits and viands.
Content to go whene’er the feast is over
Content, the feast was not prepared in vain.
ON A TALK OF SPINOZA
Durant spoke of Spinoza yesterday
And I sat list’ning, feeling, meditating.
And now and ever afterwards will feel
And live and think more deeply than before,
For having heard Durant speak of Spinoza.
Spinoza! what a mighty, mighty name!
All Alexanders, Caesars and Napoleons—
Mere specks of dust upon a polished lense,
Compared to that poor polisher of lenses.
He polished lenses for myopic eyes,
The world’s myopic eyes hath need of them—
And long will need them,—poor myopic world.
My own sight seems improved since I have heard
Durant speak of Spinoza yesterday.
THE REVOLT OF THE RAGGED
We who have but rags to wear,
Let us go out on strike
And face the robber-master class
In all our naked might.
Do they not hold that man is made
In the image of his God?
So we refuse to desecrate
The image of their God.
No longer will we soil our limbs,
These beautiful, these wondrous limbs
With filthy, fetid rags.
Where is the beast so wild,
The reptile or the worm so base in kind,
Would not disdain the rags “creation’s kings”
Disgrace their bodies with?
Oh be not shocked at our forced nakedness,
Ye masters who refuse to clothe your slaves.
Do you not steal the wool that we have shorn,
The cloth we weave, the garments that we made?
You stole our clothes, behold us naked now.
Let us arise and from our bodies tear
The fetid uniform that brands us slaves.
In countless masses let us rally forth
And through each pore of our free body shout
Our right to life, to liberty, and joy.
I’VE SEEN A PRINCESS
I’ve read of princesses in fairy tales
And I have sometimes dreamed of princesses
But not until to-day have I beheld,
Beheld or ever spoken to a princess.
Yes, I have seen and spoken to a princess
In body and in mind; in thought and gesture,
Indeed, in every way a perfect princess.
Since I am not some mighty potentate
In whom it would not seem as sheer presumption
To lay his heart and domains at her feet,
Would I at least could be a humble page
Forever in attendance on his princess,
To serve her and to worship her in silence,
And be allowed as wages for his hire
To breathe within the shadow of her charms.
But though my princess be reality,
My hopes, my aspirations, my desires,
Alas, are dreams, mere dreams, alas, mere dreams.
THE GREAT DISCARD
I see a mighty junk-heap rising high,
Old bibles, crosses, crescents, six-point stars
And other symbols, idol’s fetiches—
The bloody tools of greed and superstition,
That have tormented man for centuries,
Disfiguring his body and his mind.
I see the flags of all the various nations,
In whose defense men slaughtered one another
Upon this junk-heap also; and the books
Wherein the laws are writ, that give to man
The power over man;
And all the institutions that have helped
To make of man an abject slave or tyrant,
These, too, are on this junk-heap.
THE SCULPTOR’S RHAPSODY
I am a God!
I am drunk with the joy of creating.
At my touch form comes out of chaos.
With a handful of clay I build monuments,
Vaster than the pyramids,
More mysterious than the Sphinx,
As startling as the Colossus of Rhodes.
My statues are austere as ancient cathedrals,
Their silhouette effaces the sky,
Their shadows engulf entire cities.
I am a God!
I am drunk with the joy of creating.
ATAVISM
O, have you ever heard the gutter’s call?
E’er felt the strange attraction of the sewer?
Or ceded to the urge from underneath,
To wallow in the mire, to plunge, to sink
Into the frightful abyss of perdition?
Were you e’er tempted from some siren’s lips,
To cull the bliss, you know, is venomous?
Or did you feel the satanic desire,
To soil and mutilate the sacred image
Of that ideal you worshiped all your life?
It is the atavistic voice that’s waking,
The dormant beast in you. Beware! Beware!