THE FLYING PARLIAMENT
THE SACRED SHIPS
Out past the Highlands’ smoke and Autumn gold,
The great gray ships on secret orders steam;
Battalioned boys their dawn-lit land behold
Drifting astern, like towers in a dream;
They watch the havened harbor lights that gleam
Speechless farewell, too tender to be told—
Until within their breasts austere and bold,
The former days remote and alien seem,
And they, the fathers of a Day supreme.
Thus, visioning their service—to a man—
They grim in their stern blitheness, sail to War.
Yea, while we sleep, in one night’s star-lit span—
Youth leaves our shores—to face the Minotaur.
THE FLYING PARLIAMENT
Scene. Venice, November, 1917. The piazza of San Marco.
A chill air emphasizes the weather stains on arcade and collonade. Now and then the pale sunlight glitters faintly on a bit of mosaic, but the lacy fretwork of St. Marks and the Palazzo Giustizia are nearly covered by sandbags and scaffoldings. The statues are all removed from their pedestals. The four famous bronze horses are once more removed; also the giants on the famous clock tower. The winged lion of St. Mark and the little St. Theodore and his crocodile have been carried to places of safety. From the bronze flagstaffs in the Piazza of St. Marks the Italian flags are flying. From afar off there comes the slow booming of guns. Suddenly the piazza is a whirl with pigeons. The guns sound like huge bass chords; the pigeon wings beat a curious suggestion of delicate pastoral themes. The canals are deserted except for one gondola slowly approaching a bridge. An American war correspondent wields the great oar unaccustomedly. The American steps out at a bridge; he makes fast the gondola; he walks slowly into the deserted piazza. Near the bronze base of the flagstaffs is a single child standing among the whirling pigeons. The child has a small bit of black bread in his hand; now and then he breaks off a tiny bit of the bread and throws it to the birds who come eagerly to him.
Child looking at pigeons circling in the sky speaks as though to them:
Fly—Fly! Where?
In the unlibertied air!
Wings of gray instinct,
All opal tinct,
Pulses of pleasure,
Feathery measure—
Wings of delicate vibrant life,
Cutting blue air with halcyon knife;
Sky-strewn garlands of pleasant days,
No more your turret and tower ways!
Nowhere—nowhere
Do hearers your sweet counsels share!
Nowhere—nowhere
Is your place in the militant air!
The American advances slowly; he is clad in khaki, and carries field glasses; his broad brimmed hat is worn down low over his eyes which, burned out and weary, are fixed on the Duomo of St. Marks.
As he notices the Italian flags, his lips close firmly together, and he looks down at the little American flag set in his button-hole. He stares around the deserted piazza and shivers. Taking out his notebook he sits down on the steps of the Duomo and commences writing:
(American, writing)
Here in the Piazza
Where the colonnades
Dripped with globules
Of colored beads,
Where delicate shapes
Of Venetian glass
Expanded like flowers
In cavelike booths;
Here where the band played strains,
Wild and rich and forlorn,
Till the very stars dropped down,
Like gold tears on the night;
And the moon, like an orbèd lyre,
Tried to echo the strain
Through strings of fine-drawn cloud....
Here where the musing crowds
Sat in the coffee stalls
Of Florian’s and drank
Tiny glasses of green
Or golden yellow Chartreuse;
In a sweet dazed waking dream—
Here is emptiness now,
Emptiness like a curse,
Emptiness like a house
With the light and life all gone;
All the loving turned to dread,
The children statues of Fear,
The windows closed and stark,
And the pictures turned to the wall,
The people are fled away
To Padua and the plains,
Because the Prussian comes.
All the men are on the lagoons,
With Latin passion and pride
Fighting the Prussians back;
But here in this empty place,
Thronged once by a brilliant world,
Stands a little Venetian child
Feeding the hungry doves.