War took the city, and the laughter died
From lips that pain had kissed. One after one
All lovely things went down the sanguine tide,
While death made moaning answer to the gun.
Then, as a golden voice dies in the throat
Of one who lives, but whose glad heart is dead,
The bells were taken; and a sterner note
Rang from their bronze where Lee and Jackson led.
The rhythmic seasons chill and burn and chill,
Cooling old angers, warming hearts again.
The ancient building quickens to the thrill
Of lilting feet; but only singing rain
Flutters old echoes in the portico;
Those who can still remember love it so.
D.H.
[1] [See the note on the chimes at back of book.]
PRESENCES
Despise the garish presences that flaunt
The obvious possession of today,
To wear with me the spectacles that haunt
The optic sense with wraiths of yesterday—
These cobbled shores through which the traffic streams
Have been the stage-set of successive towns,
Where coffined actors postured out their dreams,
And harlot Folly changed her thousand gowns.
This corner-shop was Bull's Head Tavern,
When names now dead on marble lived in clay;
Its rooms were like a sanded cavern,
Where candles made a sallow jest of day,
And drovers' boots came grinding like a quern,
While merchants drank their steaming cups of "tay."
Here pock-marked Black Beard covenanted Bonnet
To slit the Dons' throats at St. Augustine,
And bussed light ladies, unknown to this sonnet,
Whose names, no doubt, would rime with Magdalene.
And English parsons, who had lost their fames,
Sat tippling wine as spicy as their joke,
Larding bald texts with bets on cocking mains,
And whiffing pipes churchwardens used to smoke.
Here macaronis, hands a-droop with laces,