Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1914

by Unknown

SECTION THREE

In Which, contrary to Artistic Custom, the moral of the piece is placed before the reader.

(From the first Khandaka of the Mahavagga: “There Buddha thus addressed his disciples: ‘Everything, O mendicants, is burning. With what fire is it burning? I declare unto you it is burning with the fire of passion, with the fire of anger, with the fire of ignorance. It is burning with the anxieties of birth, decay and death, grief, lamentation, suffering and despair.... A disciple, ... becoming weary of all that, divests himself of passion. By absence of passion, he is made free.’”)

To be intoned after the manner of a priestly service.

I once knew a teacher,
Who turned from desire,
Who said to the young men,
“Wine is a fire.”
Who said to the merchants:—
“Gold is a flame
That sears and tortures
If you play at the game.”
I once knew a teacher
Who turned from desire
Who said to the soldiers,
“Hate is a fire.”
Who said to the statesmen:—
“Power is a flame
That flays and blisters
If you play at the game.”
I once knew a teacher
Who turned from desire,
Who said to the lordly,
“Pride is a fire.”
Who thus warned the revellers:—
“Life is a flame.
Be cold as the dew
Would you win at the game
With hearts like the stars,

Interrupting very loudly for the last time.

With hearts like the stars.”
So BEWARE,
So BEWARE,
So BEWARE OF THE FIRE.
Clear the streets,
Boom, boom,
Clear the streets,
Boom, boom,
Give the engines room,
Give the engines room,
Lest souls be trapped
In a terrible tomb.
Says the swift white horse
To the swift black horse:—
“There goes the alarm,
There goes the alarm.
They are hitched, they are off,
They are gone in a flash,
And they strain at the driver’s iron arm.”
Clang ... a ... ranga ... clang ... a ... ranga....
Clang ... clang ... clang ...
Clang ... a ... ranga ... clang ... a ... ranga...
Clang ... clang ... clang....
Clang ... a ... ranga ... clang ... a ... ranga.
Clang ... clang ... clang.

Poetry: A Magazine of Verse Vachel Lindsay

SUMMONS

The eager night and the impetuous winds,
The hints and whispers of a thousand lures,
And all the swift persuasion of the Spring,
Surged from the stars and stones, and swept me on....
The smell of honeysuckles, keen and clear,
Startled and shook me, with the sudden thrill
Of some well-known but half-forgotten voice.
A slender stream became a naked sprite,
Flashed around curious bends, and winked at me
Beyond the turns, alert and mischievous.
A saffron moon, dangling among the trees,
Seemed like a toy balloon caught in the boughs,
Flung there in sport by some too-mirthful breeze....
And as it hung there, vivid and unreal,
The whole world’s lethargy was brushed away;
The night kept tugging at my torpid mood
And tore it into shreds. A warm air blew
My wintry slothfulness beyond the stars;
And over all indifference there streamed
A myriad urges in one rushing wave....
Touched with the lavish miracles of earth,
I felt the brave persistence of the grass;
The far desire of rivulets; the keen,
Unconquerable fervor of the thrush;
The endless labors of the patient worm;
The lichen’s strength; the prowess of the ant;
The constancy of flowers; the blind belief
Of ivy climbing slowly toward the sun;
The eternal struggles and eternal deaths—
And yet the groping faith of every root!
Out of old graves arose the cry of life;
Out of the dying came the deathless call.
And, thrilling with a new sweet restlessness,
The thing that was my boyhood woke in me—
Dear, foolish fragments made me strong again;
Valiant adventures, dreams of those to come,
And all the vague, heroic hopes of youth,
With fresh abandon, like a fearless laugh,
Leaped up to face the heaven’s unconcern....

And then—veil upon veil was torn aside—
Stars, like a host of merry girls and boys,
Danced gaily ’round me, plucking at my hand;
The night, scorning its ancient mystery,
Leaned down and pressed new courage in my heart;
The hermit-thrush, throbbing with more Song,
Sang with a happy challenge to the skies;
Love, and the faces of a world of children,
Swept like a conquering army through my blood—
And Beauty, rising out of all its forms,
Beauty, the passion of the universe,
Flamed with its joy, a thing too great for tears,
And, like a wine, poured itself out for me
To drink of, to be warmed with, and to go
Refreshed and strengthened to the ceaseless fight;
To meet with confidence the cynic years;
Battling in wars that never can be won,
Seeking the lost cause and the brave defeat.

Century Louis Untermeyer

PATTERNS

Would you lay a pattern on life and say, thus shall ye live?
I tell you that is a denial of life;
I say that thus we pour our spirits in a mold, and they cake and die.

I want to go to the man who quickens me;
I want the gift of life, the flame of his spirit eating along the tinder of my heart;
I want to feel the flood-gates within flung open and the tides pouring through me;
I want to take what I am and bring it to fruit.

Quicken me, and I will grow;
Touch me with flame, and the blossoms will open and the fruit appear.
Call forth in me a creator, and the god will answer.
And then, if I commit what you call a sin,
Better so.
It will not be a sin. It will be a mere breaking of your patterns;
For the only sin is death, and the only virtue to be altogether alive and your own authentic self.

Century James Oppenheim

NEW YORK

Sea-rimmed and teeming with millions poured out on thy granite shore
Surge upon surge, many-nationed, O City far-famed for the roar
Of thy cavernous iron streets and thy towers half hung in the sun,
Rising in layer on layer, twelve cities piled upon one,
All feeding and sleeping and breeding, enormous, half palace, half den,
With ever a tide washing through thee whose clamoring waters are men,
O where is the hand of thy builder? What god, canst thou tell,
Hath his hand on the clay of thy face? Or what demon from Hell?
I have viewed with the eye of the stranger and the pride of the New World man
The mountainous leap of thy glory, the miles of thy endless span,
And my heart has gone up with thy towers and my love has fallen as dew
On thy night-blooming lamps in rows on thy beautiful Avenue.
I have stood with a seaman’s glass on the roofs of thy high hotels;
I have rolled through the sheer ravines where the cliff dweller dwells;
I have peered from the place of the Tomb far up where the hills break free
And the length of the lordly River comes down as a bride to the sea;
I have fled with a roar through the rock where the myriad lights flash by;
I have heard the song of the soaring steel come down from the sky;
I have watched as a lover thy waters all mottled with cloud and with sun
Where the ocean comes in to caress thee, O Beautiful One;
And the days and the years of my life are a gift unto thee,
And I dwell in thy marvelous gates, O Goddess cast up by the sea!

I have surged with the morning throng down the gulf of the Great White Way
That gashes thy granite length from the towers of sleep to the Bay
When the West rolls in with a rush and the North comes down with a roar
And the tramp of the Island men is loud on thy island shore.
Shoulder to shoulder they come from the loins of a hundred lands,
The men with the New World brains and the men with the Old World hands,
And the vision is bright on the sky of the City to be
And the joy of the morning is there and the thrill of the sea.
As a surf is the sound of thy labor, O City; as wine
Is the hum of thy human streets filled with faces divine
When from building on populous building thy power unfurled
Leaps down to the sea and off through the air to the ends of the world.
I have loafed round the banging wharves where the foreign freighters lie;
I have watched the bridge-weaving shuttles pass over the sky;
I have felt the quick leap of thy drills where the builders of Rome
Swing the rock from the hole in the ground for the walls of thy home;
I have heard far down through the canyons the clamor and yell
When the brokers are out with their signs and the Curb is a hell;
I have sounded thy chattering markets; I have watched the noon hour
Come over thy toiling miles with a slack of thy terrible power
When story on story lets out on the pavement below
And thy streets are a-swarm with the Jew and the parks overflow.
Far-famed is the rustling hour when the shoppers flow in,
For miles thy walks are abloom and the monstrous fairs begin,
And the aisles of the merchants are crowded, and dark-faced boys,
Are out on the corners with flowers, and fakirs are there with their toys.
I have paused with the passing throng where the hoyden sea wind whirls
And whisks round the tall gray towers the skirts of the laughing girls;
I have watched round the wonder of windows the beauty and grace;
I have breasted the streaming throngs and have come to the quiet place
Of the Fountain, and weary with tramping have lounged on the benches there
With the homeless man of the streets, the man with the unkempt hair;
Have given him soul for soul as we watched far up in the skies
The just-seen worker wave and the slab of marble rise
To its place on the fortieth story. Still lit by the sun
Is the face of the golden clock when the toil of the day is done.
Then the long gray miles are a-murmur and the builders come down from the sky,
And Speed throws her myriad shuttles and the ambulance hurries by,
And the foam of the evening papers is white on the living sea,
And the deep defiles are black with men as far as the eye can see,
And loaded trains rush north and west from thy mighty central heart,
And the rivers foam and the bridges sag till their strong steel cables start,
And the Rock drinks in its thousands from the moving flood in the street
As the strong male tide goes out with the roar of a million feet.
I know when the night comes down that a beautiful Siren awakes.
I have seen the flash of her eyes and the light that her shadow makes
On the rain-wet Avenue when the flutes of pleasure are heard
And she dances her way to the wine cup and sings like a bird.
Hand in hand go the sons of Youth and the daughters of Beauty divine,
And the children of Hunger are there who have trodden the grapes of their wine,
And the thousands pour and pour through the huge illumined Fair,
And the booths of a hundred lands are bright and the Wonder-worker is there.
The red star is out on the roof and the horses are off on the wall,
And the girl and the dog are blown along and the flashing water fall,
And the flush of thy far-flung revel goes up to the ribbons of sky,
And forgotten Orion sinks down and the Pleiades die.
I have trailed down the pleasant river; I have tramped where the iron “L’s”
Go thundering down through the haunts of care; I have slummed through the hidden hells;
I have jostled the mingling Bowery where the stream of the races rolls;
I know the town where the yellow man goes by on his velvet soles;
I have threaded the still, dark canyons where the clustered towers rise;
Not a foot is heard of the thousands; they are ghosts on the midnight skies;
I have seen o’er the glamour of waters thy piles upon shadowy piles
Standing out on the canvas of night and twinkling for miles upon miles.
As a grail is the gleam of thy towers and the glow of the Great White Way,
And a thousand ships have sailed and sailed to the lure of the lights on the Bay,
And the spell of thy song, O Enchantress, is sweet on the southern air,
And the shepherd far out on the plains feels the sting of thy hair.
Thou art young with the youth of them, strong with the strength of them, filled with the beauty of girls;
Thy throat where the River gleams is beaded with lamps as with pearls;
And the languor of night is around thee and the waters rise and fall,
And over invisible bridges slow fireworms crawl,
And the Ferries that glide o’er the bay, o’er the rivers that lave
The feet of thy emerald towers, are lighted swans on the wave,
As Merlin had walked o’er thy waters, or Prospero’s eye
Were watching alternate old cities line out on the sky,
One moment Jerusalem gleams and thy towers are holy and white,
And lo, at the turn of a glass, old Babylon etched on the night
With high summer gardens abloom and the wealth of the world in her hair;
Then Carnival laughs in thy streets and Cairo is there
Barbaric all over with brooches and fountains of fire
Till the new day quenches the lamps and flares over Tyre.

The Smart Set Edwin Davies Schoonmaker

WE DEAD

When from the brooding home,
The silent, immemorial love-house,
The belovèd body of the mother in her travail,
Naked, the little one comes and wails at the world’s bleak weather,
We say that on earth and to us a child has been born.
But now we move with unhalting pace toward the dark evening,
And toward the cold, lengthening shadow,
And quick we avert our fearful eyes from the strange event,
The burial and the bourne,
That leaving home, the end—death.

Are these, then, birth and death?
Does the cut of a cord bring life, and dust to dust expunge it?
If so, what are we, then, we dead?

For, in the cities,
And dark on the lonely farms, and waifs on the ocean,
As a harrying of wind, as an eddying of dust,
We dead, in our soft, shining bodies that are combed and are kissed,
Are ghosts fleeing from the inescapable hell of ourselves.

We are even as beetles skating over the waters of our own darkness;
Even as beetles, darting and restless,
But the depths dark and void—

We have found no peace, no peace, though our engines are crafty.
What avail wings to the flier in the skies
While his dead soul, like an anchor, drags on the earth?
And what avails lightning darting a man’s voice, linking the cities,
While in the booth he is the same varnished clod,
And his soul flies not after?
And what avails it that the body of man has waxed mammoth,
Limbed with the lightning and the stream,
While his spirit remains a torment and a trifle,
And, gaining the world, profits nothing?

Self-murdered, self-slain, the dead cumber the earth;
And how did they die?
A boy was born in the pouring radiance of creative magic;
And with pulses of music he was born.
Of himself he might have been shaping a song-wingèd poet;
But he was afraid.
He feared the gaunt garret of starvation and the lonely years in his soul’s desert,
And he feared to be a jest and a fool before his friends.
Now he clerks, the slave,
And the magic is slimed with disastrous opiates of the night.

A girl was bathed with the lissome beauty of the seeker of love,
The call of the animals one to another in the spring,
The desire of the captive woman in her heart, as she ran and leaped on the hills;
But the imprisoned beast’s cry terrified her as she looked out over the love-quiet of the modern world.
Yet she desired to take this man-lure and release it into loveliness,
Become a dancer, lulling with witchcraft of her young body the fevered world.
But, no, her mother spied here a wickedness,
Shamefully she submitted, making a smoldering inferno of the hidden nymph in her soul,
And so died.

A woman was made body and heart for the beautiful love-life;
But of the mother-miracle,
How the cry of a troubled child whitens the red passions,
She did not know.
Fear of poverty corrupted her: she chose a fool that her heart hated,
And now through him no release for her native passions,
But only a spending of her loathsome fury on adornment and luxury.
Ah, dead glory! and the heart sick with betrayal!
There is no grace for the dead save to be born again:
Engines shall not drag us from the grave,
Nor wine nor meat revive us.

For our thirst is a thirst no liquor can reach nor slake,
And our hunger a hunger by no bread filled.
The waters we crave bubble up from the springs of life,
And the bread we would break comes down from invisible hands.

We dead, awake!
Kiss the beloved past good-by,
Go leave the love-house of the betrayèd self,
And through the dark of birth go and enter the soul the soul’s bleak weather.
And I—I will not stay dead, though the dead cling to me;
I will put away the kisses and the soft embraces and the walls that encompass me,
And out of this womb I will surely move to the world of my spirit.
I will lose my life to find it, as of old;
Yea, I will turn from the life-lie I lived to the truth I was wrought for,
And I will take the creator within, sower of the seed of the race,
And make him a god, a shaper of civilization.

Now on my soul’s imperious surge,
Taking the risk, as of death, and in deepening twilight,
I ride on the darkening flood and go out on the waters
Till over the tide comes music, till over the tide the breath
Of the song of my far-off soul is wafted and blown,
Murmuring commandments.

Storm and darkness! I am drowned in the torrent!
I am moving forth irrevocably from the sheltering womb!
I am naked and little!
Oh, cold of the world, and light blinding, and space terrifying
Now my cry goes up and the wailing of my helpless soul:
Mother! my mother!

Lo, then, the mother eternal!
In my opening soul the footfall of her fleeting tread,
And the song of her voice piercing and sweet with love of me,
And the enwinding of her arms and adoring of her breath,
And the milk of her plenty!
Oh, Life, of which I am part—Life, from the depths of the heavens,
That ascended like a water-spring into David of Asia on the eastern hills in the night,
That came like a noose of golden shadow on Joan in the orchard,
That gathers all life—the binding of brothers into sheaves,
That of old, kneelers in the dust
Named, glorying, Allah, Jehovah, God.

Century James Oppenheim

GOD AND THE FARMER

God sat down with the farmer
When the noontide heat grew harsh.
The One had builded a world that day,
And the other had drained a marsh.
They sat in the cooling shadow
At the porch of the templed wood;
And each looked forth on his handiwork,
And saw that the work was good.

On God’s right hand two cherubs
Bent waiting, winged with fire;
On the farmer’s left his oxen bowed
Deep bosoms marked with mire.
Still clung around the plowshare
The dark, mysterious mold,
Where the furrow it turned had heaved the new
O’er the chill and churlish old.

Jehovah’s face was seen not
By ox or grazing kine;
But the farmer’s eyes, were they dazed with sun,
Or saw he that look divine?
Was it the wind in passing
That stroked that farmer’s hair?
Or had God’s own hand of wind and flame
Laid benediction there?

Through muffling miles he fancied
Far calls of greeting blew,
Where on sounding plains the lords of war
Hurled down to rear anew.
Glad hail from nation-builders
Crossed faint those dreamland bounds,
Like a brother’s cry from a distant hill.
And God spake as the pine-tree sounds.

“There are seven downy meadows
That never before were mown;
There were seven fields of brush and rock
Where now is nor bush nor stone.
There are seven heifers grazing
Where but one could graze before.
O lords of marts—and of broken hearts—
What have you given me more?”

God rose up from the farmer
When the cool of the evening neared;
And the One went forth through the worlds He built,
And the one through the fields he cleared.
The stars outlasting labor
Leaned down o’er the flowering soil;
And all night long o’er His child there leaned
A Toiler more old than toil.

Yale Review Frederick Erastus Pierce

SONG

O shadows past the candle-gleam, so brief to pause in flight,
Are shadows that can come no more
Still moving unseen on the door
Of Yesternight?

O roses on the crumbling wall, so soon to droop and die,
Are any roses that are dead
Still fragrant where their petals bled
In Junes gone by?

O heart of mine, there is a face nor grief nor prayer can bring....
Think you in some far Shadow-land
One keeps my roses in his hand,
Remembering?

Boston Transcript Ruth Guthrie Harding

SURETY

We have each other’s deathless love,
A love that flies on wings of light
From star to star and sings above
The night:
We bid each other’s eyes reveal
The face whose images we are;
We find each other’s hand upon the wheel
Piloting every star.

Shall we then watch with a less lonely breath
Gradual, sudden, everlasting death?

Oh, lest a separating wind assail
The jocund stars and all their ways be dearth,
And love, undone of its immense avail,
Go homeless even on earth,
Let us be constant, though we travel far,
With every mortal token of our trust,
And not forget, piloting any star,
How dear a thing is dust!

Yale Review Witter Bynner

REMEMBRANCE: GREEK FOLK-SONG

Not unto the forest—not unto the forest, O my lover!
Why do you lead me to the forest?
Joy is where the temples are, lines of dancers swinging far,
Drums and lyres and viols in the town
(It is dark in the forest)
And the flapping leaves will blind me and the clinging vines will bind me
And the thorny rose-boughs tear my saffron gown—
And I fear the forest.

Not unto the forest—not unto the forest, O my lover!
There was one once who led me to the forest:
Hand in hand we wandered mute, where was neither lyre nor flute,
Little stars were bright against the dusk
(There was wind in the forest)
And the thicket of wild rose breathed across our lips locked close
Dizzy perfumings of spikenard and musk....
I am tired of the forest.

Not unto the forest—not unto the forest, O my lover!
Take me from the silence of the forest!
I will love you by the light and the beat of drums at night
And echoing of laughter in my ears,
But here in the forest
I am still, remembering a forgotten, useless thing,
And my eyelids are locked down for fear of tears—
There is memory in the forest.

The Craftsman Margaret Widdemer

THE TWO FLAMES

Behind my mask of life there lies a shrine
Wherein two flames are burning. Day and night
I tend these leaping treasures that are mine,
These lambent loves, the red one and the white,
While, priestess-like, I hang at either glow,
For each is perfect. And to each I bring
The oil of pure emotion, hottest so,
And draw new strength from my own offering.

The first of these my loves burns as a star
That lifts its keen, white glory into space
With virgin fervor, lavishing afar
Its vivid purity: and in the face
Of changeful worlds it glows unaltered still.
So burns my flame of friendship. In its sight
All things are silvered with a new delight
And beauty’s self strikes deeper, till the thrill
Of mere existence vibrates like a string.
Then life is grown so taut that it must sing,
And all the little hills must clap their hands.
The soul is free as never bird on wing
To bathe in friendship like a sea of light:
And ever as it mounts the sea expands
In new infinities, and each new height
Grows keener than the last, until the mind
For very dizziness sweeps downward then
To simpler things, the cadence of a voice,
Or sweet, low laughter, idle as the wind,
Or fleeting touch of hands that quick rejoice
But ask no more and do not touch again.
With this white flame there comes a strange new peace,
A deep tranquillity unknown beside,
Where all my life’s cross-currents shift and cease
Like runways in the sand before the tide.
And all that I have longed to be, the brave
High dreams of youth that languished nigh forgot
Seem half accomplished. Easy now to slave
At tasks colossal, so my friend fail not.
And I am filled with gentle wonderment
That life can be so good and breath so sweet:
While all my world grows suddenly complete.
That I must love it with a new content.
So speech grows overfull, and we are fain
To drink of silence like a golden cup
With wine of sweet companionship filled up
That has no end, nor any thirst can drain.
And so at last no wish is left to me
Save thus to dream into eternity.
This is my first white love.

The second flame
Burns red and fierce as noon-time on the earth,
A wild, full-blooded love that sprang to birth
Naked and unafraid, yet scorning shame
And clean as winds that sweep the desert’s breast.
My flame of passion this, born of the sun
And warm red earth, so æon-long ago,
In languid, throbbing noons, when dust was pressed
To amorous dust, and longing made it one.
This is a good love too, and must be so,
Though bloodless fathers crushed it and denied,
And on a cross of virtue crucified
This firm sweet flesh that colors with our soul.
Aye! it is good, and beautiful, and clean,
To feel within my veins the surge and flow
Of young desire waking, that the whole
Warm universe has felt: to call, and preen,
And dance before my mate that he may know
An answering surge, and leap, and make me his
And glad with every fecund thing that is.
God! It is good to feel the primal cry,
The deep, mad longing for another life,—
My life and his, that shall be born of me,—
A little child of flame, that when we die
We may cheat time, nor perish in the strife:
But in this hour of vital ecstasy
When life is molten, we may stamp thereon
Our own glad image, and conceive, and live.
And sweet it is, and languid, when the tide
Has ebbed, for lack of more than I can give,
To take his hand who breathes so close beside
And lay it on my breast, and humble me
To say: “Thou art my lord. Thy will my own.”
So at the last this wish is mine, to be
Struck at the high-tide into nothingness,
To die, ere he can learn to love me less.

So these my loves are perfect, each alone
Sufficient in itself and all complete,
Yet one of two, like rival beacons shown,
That call and call me, but that never meet.
For yet they have not met, nor ever burned
The white flame in the red, the red in white
Till both were wed together there, and turned
To some half-dreamed intensity of light.

For I have dreamed,—yes, in my priestess soul
The longing grows for one great altar fire
That shall leap up to heaven, a winged desire,
Not two but one, a perfect, living whole.
Is this a dream? Are all great lovers dreams?
Can red and white be fused, or two be one?
Yseult and Eloise, are they but themes
Whereon men hang the yearnings they have spun?
And must I cherish so till the end’s end
My sweet loves sundered, lover here, or friend?
Nay, I know not! I guard by day and night
My leaping flames, the red one and the white.

The Forum Eloise Briton

THE LOOK

Strephon kissed me in the spring,
Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me
And never kissed at all.

Strephon’s kiss was lost in jest,
Robin’s lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin’s eyes
Haunts me night and day.

Harper’s Magazine Sara Teasdale

THE FLIRT

Beautiful boy, lend me your youth to play with;
My heart is old.
Lend me your fire to make my twilight gay with,
To warm my cold;
Prove that the power my look has not forsaken,
That at my will
My touch can quicken pulses and awaken
Man’s passion still.
The moment that I ask do not begrudge me.
I shall not stay.
I shall have gone, ere you have time to judge me,
My empty way.
I am not worth remembrance, little brother,
Even to damn.

One kiss—O God! if I were only other
Than what I am!

Century Amelia Josephine Burr

YOUNG EDEN

Flushed from a fairy flagon
My country love and I,
Sat by a bush forgetting,
Old conscience and his fretting,
Just dreaming there and letting
Trouble trundle by—
Like a dragon
Dead on a wagon
Drawn against the sky.
Fol de rol de raly O—
Trouble in the sky!

She knew it was only a cloud I saw
When I pointed out a dangling claw,
But she let me say my say;
For the day, red-ripe, was a pretty day
And she thought my way was a city way.
And O I liked her thinking—while each unhindered curl
Glinted in the sunlight, hinted of its yellow—
That I who spoke to such a girl
Was something of a fellow.
Fol de rol de raly O!
Was she really thinking so?

There’s the tree, I gaily told her,
Apples, apples, at our feet!
Come, before we’re one day older,
We shall gather, we shall eat!
Now’s the time for apple hunger!
Not if we were one day younger,
Younger, older, shyer, bolder,
Would an apple taste so sweet!
Fol de rol de raly O!
Apples at our feet!

Bewildered, she was with me on the run
Toward the tree that held its treasure to the sun;
This, of all the trees of treasure, was the one
Condemning leisure
And inviting lovely pleasure—
She was with me, she was by me on the run,
With a cheek that turned its treasure to the sun.
Fol de rol de raly O!
Raly O, we gaily go,
Fol—

Why should she stop and never speak?
Why should the color in her cheek
Change, not glowing gay and meek?
Deeper, redder than I knew
She was mistress of, a hue,
Though demurely,
Richly, surely
Rising in her cheek!
Fol de rol de raly O!
The change in her cheek!

There was before us on the ground,
Eyes upon us, not a sound,
Sat a neighbor’s truant child of seven years;
Her lap was full of sunny gold,
But her eyes in the sun, her eyes were old,
Were sober, seeming laden
—And such a little maiden—
Unawares but laden
With some dead woman’s tears.
Fol de rol de raly O!
A child of seven years!

Some woman who had watched and wept
But had not any speech
Watched and wept now within that little breast,
Caught and caressed
Those little hands and would have kept
Beyond their reach
The anguish in that orchard,
The apple-bough unblessed,
The brightness that had tortured
The heart within the breast....
And we beheld, and see it even now,
A bent and withered apple-bough,
Of beauty dispossessed,
Which bore its poison long ago.
Oh, why we pluck it still we may not know,
But only that it leaves no rest
To the heart within the breast.
Fol de rol de raly O!
This heart within the breast!

Abashed and parting on our ways,
We saw that woman’s poor dead hand,
Ghostly making, its demand,
Fall pitiful and sad, ...
We saw the child, forgetful of our gaze,
Laughing like any child that plays,
And laughs in any land,
Lean and touch a toy she had
Half hidden in her hand,
We saw her pat and poise and raise—
An apple in her hand!
Fol de rol de raly O!
The apple in her hand!

Yale Review Witter Bynner

ABLUTION

Thus drowsy Atthis, laughing at my door:
“Sappho, I vow that I will kiss no more
Thy lips, and every loveliness, if thou
Shouldst still refuse to bare thy beauty now!

“O from thy bed unloosen every charm
Of all thy strength beloved in limb and arm;
And doff thy robe and bathe thee as the white
Lily that leaves the river for the light;

“And Cleis on thee, at thy glowing call,
A shimmering robe of saffron shall let fall;
And we, thy girl friends, in a vestal throng,
Shall wreathe thy hair while thirsting for thy song.”

Smart Set John Myers O’Hara

PILGRIMAGE

I will tread on the golden grass of my bright field,
When the passion-star has paled, when the night has fled;
I will tread on the golden grass of my bright field,
In the glow of the early day when the east is red.

In my bright field a broken beech-tree leans;
And a giant boulder stands by a black-burned wood;
And a rough-built, falling wall and a rotting door
Sear, like a scar, the spot where a house once stood.

My eyes are mute on the white edge of the dawn,
My feet fall swift and bare upon the way....
The long soft hills grow black against the sky,
The great wood moves, unfolds; the high trees sway.

The worn road stretches thin, and the low hedge stirs,
And a strong old bridge looms frail o’er a ghostly stream;
And a white flower turns and breathes, and turns again....
Does it live, as I live? Does it wake, as I waked, from a dream?

(How merciless is the dawn! how poignant the hush in my soul!
How changeless the changing sky! how fearful that wild bird’s call!
I hear the quick suck of his wing, the push of his breast—he is gone!
How swift is an æon of time! how endless, beginningless, all!)

I tread on the golden grass of my bright field;
The sun’s on a hundred hills; the night has fled;
I tread on the golden grass of my bright field
In the glow of the early day; and the east is red.

The Forum Laura Campbell

BALLAD OF TWO SEAS

“Wherefore, thy woe these many years,
O hermit by the sea?
What is the grief the winds awake,
And the waters cry to thee?”

“It was in piracy we sailed,
Great galleons to strip.
On a far day, on a far sea,
We took her father’s ship.

“Red-sided rocked the Rey del Sur
Whenas its deck we won.
I slew before her eyes divine
Her father and his son.

“There was no sin I had not sinned,
On deep sea and ashore;
But when I looked in those great eyes
Villain was I no more.

“I, captain, claimed her as my prize,
Though maids in common were.
Alone ’mid that fell company
I cast my lot with her.

“They put us in an open boat
With four days’ food and drink;
Then slipped those traitor topsails down
Beyond the ocean’s brink.

“Night came, and morn, but rose no sail
On that horizon verge;
I took the oars and set our prow
Against the lessening surge.

“It was scant provender we had,
Though she was unaware;
Right soon I feared, and by deceit
I gave her all my share.

“She would not speak; she scarce would look;
Her pain was past my cure.
Red-scuppered in our hells of dream
Wallowed the Rey del Sur.

“On a far day, on a far sea,
Our shallop southward crept;
With weary arms and splitten lips
I labored—and she wept.

“Dawn upon dawn, dark upon dark,
Nor ever land nor wind!
The nights were chill, the stars were keen,
The sun swung hot and blind.

“Our drink and food were long since gone....
We laid us down to die....
Then came a booming of the surf,
And palm trees met mine eye.

“I steered us through the broken reef;
Fainting, I won to shore;
I gazed upon her changèd face,
But she on mine no more.

“Below the palms I buried her
Whose bale star I had been.
And since, by this bleak coast of snows,
I sorrow for my sin.

“There was no other of our kind
That had her heavenly face.
On a far Day, by a far Sea,
I trust to know her grace.”

Smart Set George Sterling

EROS TURANNOS

She fears him, and will always ask
What fated her to choose him;
She meets in his engaging mask
All reasons to refuse him;
But what she meets and what she fears
Are less than are the downward years,
Drawn slowly to the foamless weirs
Of age, were she to lose him.

Between a blurred sagacity
That once had power to sound him,
And Love, that will not let him be
The seeker that she found him,
Her pride assuages her, almost,
As if it were alone the cost.
He sees that he will not be lost,
And waits, and looks around him.

A sense of ocean and old trees
Envelops and allures him;
Tradition, touching all he sees
Beguiles and reassures him;
And all her doubts of what he says
Are dimmed with what she knows of days,
Till even prejudice delays,
And fades—and she secures him.

The falling leaf inaugurates
The reign of her confusion;
The pounding wave reverberates
The crash of her illusion;
And home, where passion lived and died
Becomes a place where she can hide,—
While all the town and harbor side
Vibrate with her seclusion.

We tell you, tapping on our brows,
The story as it should be,—
As if the story of a house
Were told, or ever could be;
We’ll have no kindly veil between
Her visions and those we have seen,—
As if we guessed what hers have been
Or what they are, or would be.

Meanwhile, we do no harm; for they
That with a god have striven,
Not hearing much of what we say,
Take what the god has given;
Though like waves breaking it may be,
Or like a changed familiar tree,
Or like a stairway to the sea,
Where down the blind are driven.

Poetry: A Magazine of Verse Edwin Arlington Robinson

THE SHROUD

Death, I say, my heart is bowed
Unto thine,—O mother!
This red gown will make a shroud
Good as any other!

(I, that would not wait to wear
My own bridal things,
In a dress dark as my hair
Made my answerings.

I, to-night, that till he came
Could not, could not wait,
In a gown as bright as flame
Held for them the gate.)

Death, I say, my heart is bowed
Unto thine,—O mother!
This red gown will make a shroud
Good as any other!

The Forum Edna St. Vincent Millay

THE MOTHER

Never again to feel that little kiss—
That hungry kiss—that heavy little head,
Pressing and groping, eager to be fed.
My breast is burning with the weight of this—
My arms are empty and my heart is dead.

Through the long nights never to hear the cry—
The little cry that called me from my sleep;
Always from now a vigil black to keep;
Always awake and listening to lie,
While over my seared heart the ashes heap.

Ah, God!—there is no God. There is no rest,
No rest. No pity. No release from pain.
How could God give those little hands again?
How could God cool the throbbing of my breast?
Oh—little hands ... that in the dust have lain!

The Masses Lydia Gibson

A HANDFUL OF DUST

I stooped to the silent earth and lifted a handful of her dust.
Was it a handful of humanity I held?
Was it the crumbled and blown beauty of a woman or a babe?
For over the hills of earth blows the dust of the withered generations;
And not a water-drop in the sea but was once a blood-drop or a tear,
And not an atom of sap in leaf or bud but was once the love-sap in a human being;
And not a lump of soil but was once the rosy curve of lip or breast or cheek.
Handful of dust, you stagger me;
I did not dream the world was so full of the dead,
And the air I breathe so rich with the bewildering past.
Kiss of what girls is on the wind?
Whisper of what lips is in the cup of my hand?
Cry of what deaths is in the break of the wave tossed by the sea?
I am enfolded in an air of rushing wings;
I am engulfed in clouds of love-lives gone.
Who leans yonder? Helen of Greece?
Who walks with me? Isolde?
The trees are shaking down the blossoms from Juliet’s breast,
And the bee drinks honey from the lips of David.

Come, girl, my comrade;
Stand close, sun-tanned one, with your bright eyes lifted.
Behold this dust!
This is you: this of the earth under our feet is you.
Raised by what miracle? Shaped by what magic?
Breathed into by what god?

And a hundred years hence one like myself may come,
And stoop, and take a handful of the yielding earth,
And never dream that in his palm
Lies she that laughed and ran and lived beside this sea
On an afternoon a hundred years before.

Listen to the dust in this hand.
Who is trying to speak to us?

Century James Oppenheim

A LYNMOUTH WIDOW

He was straight and strong, and his eyes were blue
As the summer meeting of sky and sea,
And the ruddy cliffs have a colder hue
Than flushed his cheek when he married me.

We passed the porch where the swallows breed,
We left the little brown church behind,
And I leaned on his arm though I had no need,
Only to feel him so strong and kind.

One thing I never can quite forget—
It grips my throat when I try to pray—
The keen salt smell of a drying net
That hung on the churchyard wall that day.

He would have taken a long, long grave—
A long, long grave, for he stood so tall....
Oh, God—the crash of the breaking wave,
And the smell of the nets on the churchyard wall!

The Bellman Amelia Josephine Burr

THE GIFT OF GOD

Blessed with a joy that only she
Of all alive shall ever know,
She wears a proud humility
For what it was that willed it so,—
That her degree should be so great
Among the favored of the Lord
That she may scarcely bear the weight
Of her bewildering reward.

As one apart, immune, alone,
Or featured for the shining ones,
And like to none that she has known
Of other women’s other sons,—
The firm fruition of her need,
He shines anointed; and he blurs
Her vision, till it seems indeed
A sacrilege to call him hers.

She fears a little for so much
Of what is best, and hardly dares
To think of him as one to touch
With aches, indignities, and cares;
She sees him rather at the goal,
Still shining; and her dream foretells
The proper shining of a soul
Where nothing ordinary dwells.

Perchance a canvass of the town
Would find him far from flags and shouts,
And leave him only the renown
Of many smiles and many doubts;
Perchance the crude and common tongue
Would havoc strangely with his worth;
But she, with innocence unstung,
Would read his name around the earth.

And others, knowing how this youth
Would shine, if love could make him great,
When caught and tortured for the truth
Would only writhe and hesitate;
While she, arranging for his days
What centuries could not fulfil,
Transmutes him with her faith and praise,
And has him shining where she will.

She crowns him with her gratefulness,
And says again that life is good;
And should the gift of God be less
In him than in her motherhood,
His fame, though vague, will not be small,
As upward through her dream he fares,
Half clouded with a crimson fall
Of roses thrown on marble stairs.

Scribner’s Edwin Arlington Robinson

SONNET XXIX

In the fair picture of my life’s estate
Which long ago my yearning fancy drew
From hints of poets, prophets, lords of fate,
What place is there, belovèd one, for you?
How in this edifice of the soaring dome,
Noble, harmonious, lifted towards the stars,
Shall I carve forth a niche to be the home
Of you and of my love that round you wars?
Ah, folly his, who builds him such a house
Too early, by impatient visions led,
Ere he can know what blood shall stain his brows,
And from what troubled streams his heart is fed.
Now must he labor, in late night, alone
To wreck,—and then rebuild it, stone by stone.

The Forum Arthur Davison Ficke

ROMANCE

The last farewells were said, friends hurried ashore,—
The screw threshed foam, and jarred; the pier slid by;
Hands went to ears to still the siren’s roar,
Handkerchiefs waved, and there was call and cry;
Over it all, austere and pure and high,
Glittering snow and gold, the towers looked down,—
Serene and cold, regardless of the town.

The wind blew north; and gravely on it came
The trolling of the Metropolitan bells,
First the four chimes, softly as puffs of flame,
Then the deep five ... Slow, gentle gleaming swells
Came glancing in the sun, with ocean smells,
Up from the harbor and the further sea;
Over the stern poised white gulls, giddily.

Over the stern they poised and dipped and glanced,
Now dull in shade, now shining in bright sun,
And one youth watched them as they whirled and danced,
And noticed how they circled, one by one;
To have those wings, that freedom,—God, what fun!—
And watching them he felt youth in him, strong,
Wings in his blood, and in his heart a song.

Autumn! Already now the keen wind nipped,
The skies arched cold bright blue, the leaves were turning;
Whitely over the waves the cold squalls whipped;
Scarlet and pale, the maple trees were burning,
Tossing in gusts, and whirling and returning,
On Staten Island, wonderfully afire;
In bacchic song they flamed, with mad desire.

Autumn! bringing to old adventures death,
Sadness at all things past, things passing still,
Touching all earth with strange and mystic breath,
Veiling all earth in fire ere winter kill;
Even this youth felt now his deep heart fill
With a grey tide of mystery and sadness,
Poignant sorrow for all past hours of gladness....

Those times—would others come as keen as they?
Was life to come as living as life past?—
Ah, he was youth, life could not say him nay,—
The blood sang swift in him, doubt could not last;
Let all life dead beneath his feet be cast
And he would trample it, divinely singing:
Life lay before, more rapturous music bringing!

More lusts, more shining eyes, more dizzy laughter,
More, madder music, flute and violin,
With drums before and roses showered after,
Always in new bliss drowning his old sin;
Sin?—Was it that?—And straight in merry din
Of song and shout and laugh this thought was lost;
It was no sin to live, whate’er the cost!...

High overhead the Brooklyn bridges passed,
Span upon span and rumorous with cars,
Their shadows on the deck a moment cast,
With dizzy thunder from their traffic’s wars;
Those grey stone piers would soon be crowned with stars,—
Even now their brows were soft with waning sun;
The homeward march of armies was begun.

Good-bye, old bridges! And New York, good-bye!
Northward the engines took him; now no more
His gaze hung here; he watched the western sky
Blazing with vision-isles and faery shore;
Northward the vibrant ship beneath him bore;
The Sound spread out before them, wide and blue,
Clean came the wind whereon the sea-gulls flew....

Soft fields, the flaming trees, a twilight farm ...
New York was gone. He drew deep breaths of air,
Keen as keen fire it was; then slow and calm,
He turned to walk ... when lo, a girl came there,
Deep sunset in her eyes and on her hair,
Her white dress clinging to her knees, one hand
Rising to shade her blue eyes; as she scanned

The swiftly gliding shore, the passing ships,
The bell-buoys, bobbing and tolling in the tide....
A moment, breath hung lifeless on his lips,
His heart froze quiet; no one was at her side;
Faintly, he smiled; he thought her eyes replied,
Remote lights meeting in them,—quickening;
He passed, and all his body seemed to sing....

He passed, then turned; and, as he turned, she turned,—
Her eyes met his eyes shyly, then again
She looked away, and all her soft face burned,
And all her virgin heart was big with pain.
From the saloon below came soft a strain
Of some new rag-time, bidding feet to move,
Imploring hands to cling, young hearts to love....

Sweetly it came, seductive, soft bizarre,
Huddled and breathless now, now note by note
Crying its separate pain ... now near, now far ...
Mingled with all the throbbing of the boat.
How beautiful! the first star came, to float
Impalpable in dusk, low in the east;
It seemed to sing on when the music ceased.

Herald of love, lo, love itself it seemed,
Singing into the twilight of her soul....
How beautiful!... across dark waters gleamed
Red lights and green, she heard a bell-buoy toll
Suddenly caught in the after-wash’s roll;
A smell of autumn fires came down the wind;
Beauty so keen it seemed it must have sinned....

What was this night, what did it bring to her,
What flower unfolded in its darkness now?
She was this night; she felt her deep soul stir,
The slow strange stir of blossoms in the bough....
How beautiful! She watched the forefoot plough
Sheer through the foaming black, the white waves gliding
Dizzily past, now swelling, now subsiding....

O Youth, O music, O sweet wizardry
Of young life sung like fire through beating veins!
O covering darkness and persuasive sea!
O night of stars, of blisses and of pains!
But most, O Youth, that but an hour remains,—
Be fierce, be sweet with us before you go;
For, knowing you, the best of life we know.

Enchanted so she watched dark waters slipping
Swiftly and dizzily past the sheer black side,
Watched the fierce wind in sudden flurries whipping
The torn spray from the waves, against the tide;
High among stars she saw the mast-head glide,—
Steadily now, now swinging slowly, slightly,
There the high mast-head lantern burning brightly....

O Youth, O music, O sweet wizardy,—
O covering darkness of mysterious night!—
She turned; along the dark deck, quietly,
He came again; an open door shed light
Strongly across him for a space, then fright
Suddenly set her wild heart beating, beating,—
Suddenly set her endlessly repeating

“I mustn’t speak! I mustn’t speak!”—And then
He stood beside her, close and warm and strong,
And she knew sudden the beauty that’s in men,
And all her blood flew musical with song....
“—Beautiful, isn’t it?—Have you known it long?”—
Calmly he looked at her, and gently spoke.
She nodded, lightly; then the warm words broke

Easily, quickly, fervently from her heart,
All the restraint of all her youth was gone,
She felt a thousand warm new instincts start
Out of her soul, birds taking wing with dawn,
Singing their hearts out ... With a deep breath drawn,
“Yes! I’ve known it for years, and loved it, too;
Beautiful!—This—is this the first for you?”

They talked, in low tones; and the sound of sea,
Falling of foam and swish of dropping spray,
Encircled them with song, incessantly;—
They felt alone, the world seemed far away.
They two! they two! so seemed the night to say;
A darkness and a stealing fragrance came
Spreading through all their souls, silent as flame....

O beauty of being a living thing, she thought,—
Of drawing breath beneath these stars, this sky!—
O beautiful fire that from his eyes she caught,
That made her breath rise quick, her lips burn dry!
What was this thing? Dread came, she scarce knew why,—
Impulsively she went; yet she had given
Her word to dine with him, her earth was heaven.

He watched her go, and smiled,—her white dress blowing,
Softly in dark,—so young, so sweet, so brave!
She was so pure! by God, there was no knowing,—
And he had half a mind, still, to behave....
No, though: far better take what fortune gave,—
Dance to the music that was played for him;
Smiling he mused of her, his eyes grew dim,—

And he could feel her warmness by his side,
And all his body flushed with sweet desire
To take her shining loveliness for bride,
To kiss, to fuse with her in single fire....
O youth, O young heart musical as a lyre!
O covering darkness of mysterious night!
He knew these things; his heart was filled with light....

What was one more? Pah, how he scorned this qualm!
Innocent? Such girls seem—but never are.
No, he was not her first.... And cold and calm
He turned and sought the brightly-lighted bar....
The music rose, through shut doors, faint and far,
Wailful.... Down in her stateroom mirror there
A young girl eyed herself, with frightened stare.