Flashlights and Echoes

From the Years of 1914 and 1915

A COAST

Scaling where a hundred crags
Disclose their high, precipitous walls,
Up hidden clefts and burnished jags,
The shore-line like a python crawls.
Along a league of ridges overspread
With the dead trunks of pine and oak, it drags
A roughening path; around the head
Of the last bluff it climbs, then falls,
Spilling its folds on spur and boulder,
Down a deep gulch where it rears and sprawls
Upon the Cape's lean shoulder.

Rolling dusks and vapors pour
A turgid silence on the shore,
Broken by a curlew screaming,
And a low, regurgitant note
Borne in from the laboring throat
Of a wave along a line of basalt streaming;
And, further off, where denser gloom
The headland and a reef-curve hides,
Falls the ground-swell's muttered boom
From the belfries of the tides.

Under a tattered curtain of fog
A flaw of wind makes the waters start;
They drift and scud and whirl;
And, held a moment near the heart
Of the eddy, a waterspout,—
Or some wild thing with twisted shape,
Compact of mist and wind and surge—
Hangs like a felon off the Cape.

LATER

(A man speaks)

Was that a cry you say you heard?
Where? No. The winds would drown it quite.
No sound would reach the shore to-night,
Except the scream of some wild bird.

A flash, you say, that cut the rain
Like a red knife? It could not be;
There's nothing living in this sea.
Don't look so frightened. What—again?

The lifeboat! They are hailing me.
They need a man for the stern oar;
The wind drives dead upon this shore,
A rudder's helpless in this sea.

III

(A woman speaks).

No. That was not a scream I heard;
One could not hear so far away.
That flash was but the breakers' spray,
That cry, the note of some wild bird.

MORNING

I would not know him had I not
Once marked for him that tattoo spot—
A ship with flying-jib and spanker,
And underneath a chain and anchor.

Nor I, but for that reefer flap
Of moleskin, and this oilskin cap
I found a gunshot from the shore,
I'd know it from a hundred more.

We cannot take him home this way.
'Twould kill the woman straight to lay
The lad like this upon the bed,
And fetch her in to see him dead.

There is a chance she might not know
It was her son—he's battered so.
She'd know him by some canny trace,
Such as that birth-mark on his face,
And, what would smite her like a brand,
This stumped, third finger of his hand.

This coat and cap will tell her all;
We'll get him buried by night-fall;
There is no need to tell her more—
That we found the body on the shore.

GREAT TIDES

Great Tides! You filled the reaches
Under the North's wild blow;
Yet could not spare this smaller cup
Its salter overflow.

Huge hands! You rear our bulwarks up
With power to none akin;
Yet cannot lift a door-latch up
That a lad may enter in.

THE AFTER-CALM

What is that color on the sea,
Dotted by the white sails of ships?
It is blue, you say. We know it not, and yet
We know the blue of violet,

The hue of mid-day skies,
And the sapphire of young children's eyes;
But that we do not know—unless it be
The pallor of dead lips.

That band upon the sea?
A sash of green that in a moment's time
Becomes a girdle of wrought gold,
Held by a silver clasp of surge.
It cannot be.
That green is now a belt of slime,
And now—an iron-knotted scourge,
And now—the form of some anguineal fold.

That crimson core with sepia fringe,
And orange tints between,
Shows how the sun's white alchemy
In vain attempt is seen
To paint a pansy on the sea.

That red is not the pansy's red,
Nor what the garden poppy shows,
Nor the vermilion that is spread
Upon the pastel of the rose,
But some deep smear that has its name
In the sprawled characters of the flood,
A splash of fire, a troubled flame,
That takes its color from the blood
Of one who through the night had died,
Breaking his body on the tide.

VII

SCENES FROM AFAR

(A Battlefield)

Above the tottering ramparts of the day
Massed clouds dissolve their lines; reform, and break
Into a thousand fragments from the grey.
Scattered, they drift awhile, then come to rest
On some far shore like mariners marooned,
While down the burning avenue of the west
The sun drops, flaming, like an angry wound.

A raven rises from the eastern skies,
Mounts up the lifted causeways of the north,
Winging an arc of shadow as she flies;
And soon the broken fragments close again,
The straylings of her brood flock to her wings—
Whirlwind and cloud, the thunder and the rain,
And what is left of night's unuttered things.

Now closed is every seam of sky and land.
The air, the water and the sod are one,
And every gulf of light and darkness spanned.
O spirits that love the daylight and the sun,
That with unerring fingers trace,
When night's dark moments are outrun,
The swarthy features of the morning's face;
In whose involvéd weavings hour by hour
Are fashioned forth the hues of nature's dress,
In dew and rainbow, grass and tree and flower,
And all the patterns of earth's loveliness;
Whose iridescent splendors burn
In vein of leaf, in curl of fern.
And in the flame the summer throws
Upon the poppy and the rose!
Draw near with every voice that's heard
In sound of cataract and bird,
With every color that the spring
Sheds on a blossom, blade or wing:
Come with your potencies that stir
The sap of life in pine and fir
That high along the mountains climb;
Bring rosemary and thorn and thyme
And heather—all that dawn distils
Of fragrance from your clouded hills:
From heath and glade and marge of lake,
Draw near and watch the morning break!

Wherefore should a daisy bloom,
Or scent come from the thorn?
What sun could penetrate this gloom,
Make redolent this morn?
The lark is banished from the sky,
The thrush has fled the ground,
Not heaven's chorus could outvie
This bacchanal of sound
That from the throat of fire and flood
Would drown the voice of God,
Answering the challenge of the blood
That cries out from the clod.

Where are the lilies that your valleys yield,
Or those that in foul waters blow?
May not the primrose of the field
Bloom near the snow?
Should not the clover in the meadows bare,
The sweet-briar in the hedges there,
Burst red and grow?

They cannot bloom. Spring's gales have lost
Their power the earth to leaven,
For those dark vapors would exhaust
The lavender of heaven.

VIII

A DIRGE

Now let the earth take
Into its care,
All that it travailed for,
All that it bare.

Leaves of the forest,
Yellow and red,
The drifting and scattered,
The dying and dead;

Grass of the hill-slopes,
Sickled and dried,
Vines that over-night
Blasted and died;

Blossoms and flowers
Nipped with the cold,
Trees that have fallen
A century old;

Moths of the candle-flame,
Gnats from the stream,
Wraiths from the moonlight,
Spectres of dream;

All that the earth gave,
All that it bare—
With all its far kindred
Of water and air.

And in those rutted acres
Which the heart's red blood has sown,
Soon shall the bramble flourish
Where the gentian had grown;
And wherever ran the myrtle,
Let the dust of thistles be shed,
For these, with nightshade and burdock,
Shall fast cover the dead.

THE SEED MUST DIE

Ye meadows, groves, your birth renew; ye orchards, vineyards, grow!
Where fast the wastrel waters of the Marne and Yser flow;
On the plains bestow your verdure, to the hills your odors fling.
Before the smile of Ceres, let your golden censer swing.

For never since great Nature ran her sluices to the sea,
And opened up her flood-gates at the Rain-God's first decree,
Have richer tides flowed round your rooted hidings in the clay,
Than these which seek quite other veins from those of yesterday.

Bring forth the fruitage of your loins in deep, impurpurate stain,
Ye vines, that sprang to life from out the throes of British pain;
Gird on your strength, ye pines that shade the dead on yonder height;
Re-knot your tissues with the stubborn fibre of their might.

And let the rose its crimson darken towards the purple shade,
Full-flushed with blood imperial—the price that Britain paid,
The lily and the jonquil greet once more their native hills,
Companioned by anemones and sun-crowned daffodils.

Command the earth its seed receive, in rare profusion sent,
Pledged to high increase in the wine of life's last sacrament,
For when sowed Nature seed like this since Time in cycles ran,
Or bade the soil accept so strange, so stern a harvest plan?

COME NOT THE SEASONS HERE

Comes not the springtime here,
Though the snowdrop came,
And the time of the cowslip is near,
For a yellow flame
Was found in a tuft of green;
And the joyous shout
Of a child rang out
That a cuckoo's eggs were seen.

Comes not the summer here,
Though the cowslip be gone,
Though the wild rose blow as the year
Draws faithfully on;
Though the face of the poppy be red
In the morning light,
And the ground be white
With the bloom of the locust shed.

Comes not the autumn here,
Though someone said
He found a leaf in the sere
By an aster dead;
And knew that the summer was done,
For a herdsman cried
That his pastures were brown in the sun,
And his wells were dried.

Nor shall the winter come,
Though the elm be bare,
And every voice be dumb
On the frozen air;
But the flap of a waterfowl
In the marsh alone,
Or the hoot of a hornéd owl
On a glacial stone.

ON THE SHORE

Come home! the year has left you old;
Leave those grey stones; wrap close this shawl,
Around you for the night is cold;
Come home! he will not hear your call.

No sign awaits you here but the beat
Of tides upon the strand,
The crag's gaunt shadow with gull's feet
Imprinted on the sand,
And spars and sea-weed strewn
Under a pale moon.

Come home! he will not hear your call;
Only the night winds answer as they fall
Along the shore,
And evermore
Only the sea-shells
On the grey stones singing,
And the white foam-bells
Of the North Sea ringing.

XII

BEFORE A BULLETIN BOARD

(After Beaumont-Hamél)

God! How should letters change their color so:
A little k or m stab like a sword;
How dry, black ink should turn to red and flow,
And figures leap like hydras on the board?

A woman raised her voice, and she was told
That strange things happen at the will of God;
Thus, dawn from midnight; thus, from fire the gold;
Thus did a rose once blossom from a rod.

But stranger things to-day, than that the rod
Should flower, or the cross become a crown—
Stranger than gold from fire; else how should God
Bring on the night before the sun go down.

XIII

BEFORE AN ALTAR

(After Gneudecourt)

Break we the bread once more,
The cup we pass around—
No, rather let us pour
This wine upon the ground;

And on the salver lay
The bread—there to remain.
Perhaps, some other day,
Shrovetide will come again.

Blurred is the rubric now,
And shadowy the token,
When blood is on the brow,
And the frail body broken.

XIV

SNOWFALL ON A BATTLE-FIELD

Compassion of heaven,
From night's crystal bars,
Falling so gently
In wreaths of white stars;

Petals of mystery
Culled in far lands;
Crosses of Calvary,
Wrought by strange hands;

Gems from His mountains,
Facets so rare,
Foam from His fountain
Eternally fair.

Why do they lovingly
Leave their fair home,
These leaves of God's gardens,
To stray on earth's loam?

See how they hover
Over faces so cold,
How reverently cover
The young and the old!

Compassion of heaven,
Tears from God's eyes,
Falling so gently
Out of the skies.