Cactus and pine: Songs of the Southwest

by Sharlot Mabridth Hall

And yet—the face shall pass
As a shadow ’cross the grass;
As the shadow of a bird-wing
Spread a moment in the sun;
As the light-blown dust that dances
In the wind and whirls and glances
Mote-wise in a passing sunbeam,
When the Sand of Fate is run.
Out of silence—here and hither;
Into silence—whence and whither
Still unanswered; still unmapped
The road the feet have come and gone.
Heart of fire, soul aspiring;
Spirit daring, strong, untiring—
Is the unmapped Road to Silence
All that ye and Life have won?
Ah! but there was still the fight!
Darkness—and the search for light!
Road unmapped—but fearless going
Out upon the journey—knowing
Naught and daring all.
As ye will then, weigh and measure;
Count the gain and hoard the treasure—
But the Fight was more than all.

THE IMMORTAL

King and priest and poet met
In a garden, arbor set,
On a green hill by the sea
Where the waves lapped tenderly,
Crooning to the restless sands
Lullabies of distant lands.
From the stately palace near
Rippling music smote the ear,
Mingled with the solemn bell
Of the monks that matins tell
’Neath the censer swinging slow
In the ancient church below.
Dawn, with rosy fingertips
Reached to Day, her lingering lips
Pressed upon the dead Night’s brow;
As we mortals, too, somehow,
Turn us in the past to grope
Ere we grasp the hand of Hope.
Spake the king, as wistfully
He looked out across the sea
Sparkling in the growing light:
“Ah! the morning-promise bright!
Bright as life, whose morning glow
Shadows but to dusk we know!
Is it then a little striving,
Ending at the last in nothing?
Lieth there a fairer day
Past Death’s night, O poet, say?
Priest, what sayeth your heart’s need,
Standing clear of myth and creed?
Said the priest: “Man is the flower
Of creation’s natal hour;
He earth’s lord—and yet earth’s sorrow
Presseth him, till he must borrow
Joy from some half-guessed tomorrow—
If his making be not jest;
Or a mockery, at best.
You who rule and I who pray,
Shut from common strife away,
Still find in our life’s brief cup
Tears and wormwood welling up;
Vain would our existence be
Without immortality.”
Lightly then the poet laughed
As the ruddy wine he quaffed:
“What is immortality
To the butterfly or bee?
Yet life’s sweetest sweets are theirs,
Summer suns and summer airs;
Skyward still the brown larks climb
And the ring doves in the lime
Wake the roses with their cooing,
Silence into sweetness wooing;
And the grass is glad in growing
For the white flocks hillward going.
“E’en with gifts of sorrow’s giving
There is joy enough in living;
Heart-kept joys in every day
No ill chance can take away.
Truth and beauty are immortal,
And if we tomorrow’s portal
Should not pass, yet men may say:
“He lived kindly yesterday;
Sought no evil, thought no ill;
So we keep his memory still,
As a lamp our feet to guide
Till the ebbing of the tide
Calls us seaward in the dark.”
Look you, brothers, if a spark
Of eternal fire be caught
In these bodies weakly wrought,
Let it flame to noble deeds
For our present, human needs—
So from life itself may we
Build our immortality.”

THE BEDESMAN OF THE YEAR

Stands Time, the gray old bedesman,
And loosely through his hold
Slip down the days like carven beads,
Silver and dusk and gold.
And each day hath its whispered prayer,
Each one its patron saint;
And each its tender memories
Like incense sweet and faint.
O gray old bedesman, when you’ve told
Life’s rosary all through,
Leave us the old life’s memory
To consecrate the new.

THE LONG MARCH

REVEILLE

Ho, comrades, on the mountain top the sun has touched the trees,
Strike camp and march, the ringing bugles call;
Swing lightly to the saddle with the rifle held at ease,—
We may need it, we who ride to win or fall.
What is living but a battle? What is dying but a rest?
If there’s time to snatch a laurel ere we go,
And to leave one hot kiss printed on the lips we love the best
We have garnered all the fullest life can know.
With our faces toward the morning, with her music in our hearts,
And the sunrise on our banners bright with hope,
Lo, our line of march is upward where the snowy summit starts,
Press forward for the rough, untrodden slope.
Through the pines the wind is laughing and the tall trees sway and swing
Like the swaying crowds that cheer us as we ride;
And our bugles wake the echoes till the far peaks shout and sing—
Ah! but life is youth and love and battle-pride.

THE CAMP

Halt, comrades, here the sun of noon falls straight upon the grass,
And the droning locust drowns the bugle call;
In the valley there below us see the harvesters that pass
Where the gold of ripened grain is over all.
Like a flag of truce the home-smoke waving in the summer wind
Calls the workers from the field for rest and cheer—
When the battle din is over and the glory all behind
It were good to find such welcome kind and near.
Who has clasped the hand of woman in the hour when life was hard,
Who has loved a little child and called him son;
Who has set himself with broken arms the homeland road to guard,
Yearns for friendly board and hearth when all is done.
Coin of peace is price of battle, glory but a rainbow set
In the clearing sky for sign of hope to come;
As the road winds down the valley all the rest we may forget,
Knowing life is work and love and joy of home.