XIII
~'Mid glad green miles of tillage
And fields where cattle graze;
A prosy little village,
You drowse away the days.
And yet — a wakeful glory
Clings round you as you doze;
One living, lyric story
Makes music of your prose!~
The New Life. [Witter Bynner]
Perhaps they laughed at Dante in his youth,
Told him that truth
Had unappealably been said
In the great masterpieces of the dead: —
Perhaps he listened and but bowed his head
In acquiescent honour, while his heart
Held natal tidings, — that a new life is the part
Of every man that's born,
A new life never lived before,
And a new expectant art;
It is the variations of the morn
That are forever, more and more,
The single dawning of the single truth.
So answers Dante to the heart of youth!
Martin. [Joyce Kilmer]
When I am tired of earnest men,
Intense and keen and sharp and clever,
Pursuing fame with brush or pen
Or counting metal disks forever,
Then from the halls of shadowland
Beyond the trackless purple sea
Old Martin's ghost comes back to stand
Beside my desk and talk to me.
Still on his delicate pale face
A quizzical thin smile is showing,
His cheeks are wrinkled like fine lace,
His kind blue eyes are gay and glowing.
He wears a brilliant-hued cravat,
A suit to match his soft gray hair,
A rakish stick, a knowing hat,
A manner blithe and debonair.
How good, that he who always knew
That being lovely was a duty,
Should have gold halls to wander through
And should himself inhabit beauty.
How like his old unselfish way
To leave those halls of splendid mirth
And comfort those condemned to stay
Upon the bleak and sombre earth.
Some people ask: What cruel chance
Made Martin's life so sad a story?
Martin? Why, he exhaled romance
And wore an overcoat of glory.
A fleck of sunlight in the street,
A horse, a book, a girl who smiled, —
Such visions made each moment sweet
For this receptive, ancient child.
Because it was old Martin's lot
To be, not make, a decoration,
Shall we then scorn him, having not
His genius of appreciation?
Rich joy and love he got and gave;
His heart was merry as his dress.
Pile laurel wreaths upon his grave
Who did not gain, but was, success.
As in the Midst of Battle there is Room. [George Santayana]
As in the midst of battle there is room
For thoughts of love, and in foul sin for mirth;
As gossips whisper of a trinket's worth
Spied by the death-bed's flickering candle-gloom;
As in the crevices of Caesar's tomb
The sweet herbs flourish on a little earth:
So in this great disaster of our birth
We can be happy, and forget our doom.
For morning, with a ray of tenderest joy
Gilding the iron heaven, hides the truth,
And evening gently woos us to employ
Our grief in idle catches. Such is youth;
Till from that summer's trance we wake, to find
Despair before us, vanity behind.
Ex Libris. [Arthur Upson]
In an old book at even as I read
Fast fading words adown my shadowy page,
I crossed a tale of how, in other age,
At Arqua, with his books around him, sped
The word to Petrarch; and with noble head
Bowed gently o'er his volume that sweet sage
To Silence paid his willing seigniorage.
And they who found him whispered, "He is dead!"
Thus timely from old comradeships would I
To Silence also rise. Let there be night,
Stillness, and only these staid watchers by,
And no light shine save my low study light —
Lest of his kind intent some human cry
Interpret not the Messenger aright.
The Poet. [Mildred McNeal Sweeney]
Himself is least afraid
When the singing lips in the dust
With all mute lips are laid.
For thither all men must.
Nor is the end long stayed.
But he, having cast his song
Upon the faithful air
And given it speed — is strong
That last strange hour to dare,
Nor wills to tarry long.
Adown immortal time
That greater self shall pass,
And wear its eager prime
And lend the youth it has
Like one far blowing chime.
He has made sure the quest
And now — his word gone forth —
May have his perfect rest
Low in the tender earth,
The wind across his breast.
When I have gone Weird Ways. [John G. Neihardt]
When I have finished with this episode,
Left the hard, uphill road,
And gone weird ways to seek another load,
Oh, friends, regret me not, nor weep for me,
Child of Infinity!
Nor dig a grave, nor rear for me a tomb
To say with lying writ: "Here in the gloom
He who loved bigness takes a narrow room,
Content to pillow here his weary head,
For he is dead."
But give my body to the funeral pyre,
And bid the laughing fire,
Eager and strong and swift, like my desire,
Scatter my subtle essence into space,
Free me of time and place.
And sweep the bitter ashes from the hearth,
Fling back the dust I borrowed from the earth
Into the chemic broil of death and birth,
The vast alembic of the cryptic scheme,
Warm with the master-dream.
And thus, O little house that sheltered me,
Dissolve again in wind and rain, to be
Part of the cosmic weird economy.
And, Oh, how oft with new life shalt thou lift
Out of the atom-drift!
Trumbull Stickney. [George Cabot Lodge]