Why are the things that have no death
The ones with neither sight nor breath.
Eternity is thrust upon
A bit of earth, a senseless stone.
A grain of dust, a casual clod
Receives the greatest gift of God.
A pebble in the roadway lies—
It never dies.
The grass our fathers cut away
Is growing on their graves to-day;
The tiniest brooks that scarcely flow
Eternally will come and go.
There is no kind of death to kill
The sands that lie so meek and still...
But Man is great and strong and wise—
And so he dies.
God, I return to you on April days
When along country-roads you walk with me;
And my faith blossoms like the earliest tree
That shames the bleak world with its yellow sprays.
My faith revives when, through a rosy haze,
The clover-sprinkled hills smile quietly;
Young winds uplift a bird's clean ecstacy...
For this, oh God, my joyousness and praise.
But now—the crowded streets and choking airs,
The huddled thousands bruised and tossed about—
These, or the over-brilliant thoroughfares,
The too-loud laughter and the empty shout;
The mirth-mad city, tragic with its cares...
For this, oh God, my silence—and my doubt.
Oh God, if I have ever been
So filled with ignorance and sin
That I have dared to use Thy name
In blasphemy, in jest, in shame;
If ever I have dared to flout
Thy works, and mock Thy deeds with doubt,
Thou must forgive me as Thou art divine
For, God, the fault was Thine as well as mine.
Oh, I have used Thee, time on time,
To fill a phrase, to round a rhyme;
But was this wrong? Nay, in Thy heart
Thou knowest the noble theme Thou art...
Was it my fault that as I sung
The daring speech was on my tongue?
Nay; if my singing, God, gave Thee offense,
Thou wouldst have robbed me of the lyric sense.
But dignity hath made Thee dumb,
And so Thou biddest me to come
And be a sonant part of Thee;
To sing Thy praise in blasphemy,
To be the life within the clod
That points the paradox of God.
To chant, beneath a loud and lyric grief,
A faith that flaunts its very disbelief.
The world's running over with color,
With whispers, strange fervors and April—
There's a smell in the air as if meadows
Were under our feet.
Spring smiles at the commonest waysides;
But she pours out her heart to the city,
As one woman might to another
Who meet after years...
Restless with color and perfume,
The streets are a riot of blossoms.
What garden could boast of such flowers—
Not Eden itself.
Primroses, pinks and gardenias,
Shame the gray town and its squalor—
Windows are flaming with jonquils;
Fires of gold!
Out of a florist's some pansies
Peer at the crowd, like the faces
Of solemnly mischievous children
Going to bed...
And women—Spring's favorite children—
Frail and phantastically fashioned,
Pass like a race of immortals,
Too radiant for earth.
The pale and the drab are transfigured,
They sing themselves into the sunshine—
Every girl is a lyric,
An urge and a lure.
And, like a challenge of trumpets,
The Spring and its impulse goes through me—
Breezes and flowers and people
Sing in my blood...
Breezes and flowers and people—
And under it all, oh beloved,
Out of the song and the sunshine,
Rises your face!
Never will you let me
Tire of leaping passion;
Never can I grow weary
Of undesired joys.
The delicate strength of your bosom;
Your hands' incredible softness;
The fluent curve of your body;
The fierceness of your lips;
Ceaselessly do they call me—
You and your eloquent beauty
Are challenge and invitation
Too ravishing to resist.
Always the burning summons,
The sweet, imperative madness,
Rides over me, like a conqueror,
Careless and confident...
Even so goes Love,
Trampling and invincible;
With rapt and pitiless beauty,
Rough-shod over the world!
The quiet and courageous night,
The keen vibration of the stars,
Call me, from morbid peace, to fight
The world's forlorn and desperate wars.
The air throbs like a rolling drum—
The brave hills and the singing sea,
Unrest and people's faces come
Like battle-trumpets, rousing me.
And while Life's lusty banner flies,
I shall assail, with raging mirth,
The scornful and untroubled skies,
The cold complacency of earth.
God, we don't like to complain
We know that the mine is no lark—
But—there's the pools from the rain;
But—there's the cold and the dark.
God, You don't know what it is—
You, in Your well-lighted sky,
Watching the meteors whizz;
Warm, with the sun always by.
God, if You had but the moon
Stuck in Your cap for a lamp,
Even You'd tire of it soon,
Down in the dark and the damp.
Nothing but blackness above,
And nothing that moves but the cars—
God, if You wish for our love,
Fling us a handful of stars!
Into the staring street
She goes on her nightly round,
With weary and tireless feet
Over the wretched ground.
A thing that man never spurns,
A thing that all men despise;
Into her soul there burns
The street with its pitiless eyes.
She needs no charm or wile,
She carries no beauty or power,
But a tawdry and casual smile
For a tawdry and casual hour.
The street with its pitiless eyes
Follows wherever she lurks,
But she is hardened and wise—
She rattles her bracelets and smirks...
She goes with her sordid array,
Luring, without a lure;
She is man's hunger and prey—
His lust and its hideous cure.
All that she knows are the lies,
The evil, the squalor, the scars;
The street with its pitiless eyes,
The night with its pitiless stars.
The rain was over, and the brilliant air
Made every little blade of grass appear
Vivid and startling—everything was there
With sharpened outlines, eloquently clear,
As though one saw it in a crystal sphere.
The rusty sumac with its struggling spires;
The golden-rod with all its million fires;
(A million torches swinging in the wind)
A single poplar, marvellously thinned,
Half like a naked boy, half like a sword;
Clouds, like the haughty banners of the Lord;
A group of pansies with their shrewish faces,
Little old ladies cackling over laces;
The quaint, unhurried road that curved so well;
The prim petunias with their rich, rank smell;
The lettuce-birds, the creepers in the field—
How bountifully were they all revealed!
How arrogantly each one seemed to thrive—
So frank and strong, so radiantly alive!
And over all the morning-minded earth
There seemed to spread a sharp and kindling mirth,
Piercing the stubborn stones until I saw
The toad face heaven without shame or awe,
The ant confront the stars, and every weed
Grow proud as though it bore a royal seed;
While all the things that die and decompose
Sent forth their bloom as richly as the rose...
Oh, what a liberal power that made them thrive
And keep the very dirt that died, alive.
And now I saw the slender willow-tree
No longer calm or drooping listlessly,
Letting its languid branches sway and fall
As though it danced in some sad ritual;
But rather like a young, athletic girl,
Fearless and gay, her hair all out of curl,
And flying in the wind—her head thrown back,
Her arms flung up, her garments flowing slack,
And all her rushing spirits running over...
What made a sober tree seem such a rover—
Or made the staid and stalwart apple-trees,
That stood for years knee-deep in velvet peace,
Turn all their fruit to little worlds of flame,
And burn the trembling orchard there below.
What lit the heart of every golden-glow—
Oh, why was nothing weary, dull or tame?...
Beauty it was, and keen, compassionate mirth
That drives the vast and energetic earth.
And, with abrupt and visionary eyes,
I saw the huddled tenements arise.
Here where the merry clover danced and shone
Sprang agonies of iron and of stone;
There, where green Silence laughed or stood enthralled,
Cheap music blared and evil alleys sprawled.
The roaring avenues, the shrieking mills;
Brothels and prisons on those kindly hills—
The menace of these things swept over me;
A threatening, unconquerable sea...
A stirring landscape and a generous earth!
Freshening courage and benevolent mirth—
And then the city, like a hideous sore...
Good God, and what is all this beauty for?
Upon a field of shrieking red
A mighty general stormed and fell.
They raised him from the common dead
And all the people mourned him well.
"Swiftly," they cried, "let honors come,
And Glory with her deathless bays;
For him let every muffled drum
And grieving bugle thrill with praise.
Has he not made the whole world fear
The very lifting of his sword—
Has he not slain his thousands here
To glorify the Law and Lord!
Then make his bed of sacred sod;
To greater deeds no man can win"...
And each amused and ancient god
Began to grin.
Facing a cold and sneering sky,
Cold as the sneering hearts of men,
A man began to prophesy,
To speak of love and faith again.
Boldly he spoke, and bravely dared
The savage jest, the kindlier stone;
The armies mocked at him; he fared
To battle gaily—and alone.
Alone he fought; alone, to move
A world whose wars would never cease—
And all his blows were struck for love,
And all his fighting was for peace...
They tortured him with thorns and rods,
They hanged him on a frowning hill—
And all the old and heartless gods
Are laughing still.
It was Sunday—
Eleven in the morning; people were at church—
Prayers were in the making; God was near at hand—
Down the cramped and narrow streets of quiet Lawrence
Came the tramp of workers marching in their hundreds;
Marching in the morning, marching to the grave-yard,
Where, no longer fiery, underneath the grasses,
Callous and uncaring, lay their friend and sister.
In their hands they carried wreaths and drooping flowers,
Overhead their banners dipped and soared like eagles—
Aye, but eagles bleeding, stained with their own heart's-blood—
Red, but not for glory—red, with wounds and travail,
Red, the buoyant symbol of the blood of all the world...
So they bore their banners, singing toward the grave-yard,
So they marched and chanted, mingling tears and tributes,
So, with flowers, the dying went to deck the dead.
Within the churches people heard
The sound, and much concern was theirs—
God might not hear the Sacred Word—
God might not hear their prayers!
Should such things be allowed these slaves—
To vex the Sabbath peace with Song,
To come with chants, like marching waves,
That proudly swept along...
Suppose God turned to these—and heard!
Suppose He listened unawares—
God might forget the Sacred Word,
God might forget their prayers!
And so (oh, tragic irony)
The blue-clad Guardians of the Peace
Were sent to sweep them back—to see
The ribald song should cease;
To scatter those who came and vexed
God with their troubled cries and cares.
Quiet—so God might hear the text;
The sleek and unctuous prayers!
Up the rapt and singing streets of little Lawrence,
Came the stolid soldiers; and, behind the blue-coats,
Grinning and invisible, bearing unseen torches,
Rode red hordes of anger, sweeping all before them.
Lust and Evil joined them—Terror rode among them;
Fury fired its pistols; Madness stabbed and yelled...
Through the wild and bleeding streets of shuddering Lawrence,
Raged the heedless panic, hour-long and bitter.
Passion tore and trampled; men once mild and peaceful,
Fought with savage hatred in the name of Law and Order.
And, below the outcry, like the sea beneath the breakers,
Mingling with the anguish, rolled the solemn organ...
Eleven in the morning—people were at church—
Prayers were in the making—God was near at hand—
It was Sunday!
In the mud and scum of things,
Underneath the whole world's blot,
Something, they tell us, always sings—
Why do we hear it not?
In the heart of things unclean,
Somewhere, in the furious fight,
The face of God is plainly seen—
What has destroyed our sight?
Yet have we heard enough to feel,
Yet have we seen enough to know
Who bound us to the awful wheel,
Whose hands have brought us low.
And we shall cry out till the wind
Roars in their ears the thing to come—
Yea, though they made us deaf and blind,
Nothing shall keep us dumb!
Chaos is tamed and ordered as we ride;
The rock is rent, the darkness flung aside
And all the horrors of the deep defied.
A coil of wires, a throb, a sudden spark—
And on a screaming meteor we embark
That hurls us past the cold and breathless dark.
The centuries disclose their secret graves—
Riding in splendor through a world of waves
The ancient elements become our slaves.
Uncanny fancies whisper to and fro;
Terror and Night surround us here below,
And through the house of Death we come and go...
And here, oh wildest glimpse of all, I see
The score of men and women facing me
Reading their papers calmly, leisurely.
Yes, Jim hez gone—ye didn't know?
He's fightin' at the front.
It's him as bears 'his country's hopes'.
An' me as bears the brunt.
Wen war bruk out Jim 'lowed he'd go—
He allus loved a scrap—
Ye see, the home warn't jest the place
Fer sech a lively chap.
O' course, the work seems ruther hard;
The kids is ruther small—
It ain't that I am sore at Jim,
I envy him—that's all.
He doesn't know what he's about
An' cares still less, does Jim...
With all his loose an' roarin' ways
I wisht that I was him.
It makes him glad an' drunken-like
That music an' the smoke;
An' w'en they shout, the whole thing seems
A picnic an' a joke.
Oh, yellin' puts a heart in ye,
An' stren'th into yer blows—
I wisht that I could hears those cheers
Washin' the neighbors clo'es...
It's funny how some things work out—
Life is so strange, Lord love us—
Here am I, workin' night an' day
To keep a roof above us;
An' Jim is somewhere in the south,
An' Jim ain't really bad,
A-runnin' round an' raisin' Cain,
An' stabbin' some kid's dad.
But that's w'at men are made for—eh?
W'at else is there for me
But workin' on till Jim comes home,
Sick of his bloody spree.
"Praise God from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him all creatures here below.
Every morning mercies new
Fall as fresh as morning dew."
Yet we are choked with sin
With bestial lusts and guile;
God (so it runs) made this world clean
And Man has made it vile.
Aye, here Man lives on man,
And breaks him day by day—
But in the trampled jungle
The tiger claws his prey.
God's curse is on the thief;
The murderer fares ill—
Who gave the beasts their taste for blood
Who taught them how to kill?
"All praise to Him Who built the hills,
All praise to Him Who each stream fills;
All praise to Him Who lights each star
That sparkles in the sky afar."
All praise to Him who made
The earthquake and the flood;
All praise to Him who made the pest
That sucks away the blood.
All praise to Him whose mind
Had the desire to make
The shark, the scorpion, the gnat
And the envenomed snake.
Beauty itself He turns
To slay and to be slain—
A thousand evil poisons
His peaceful woods contain.
"Lift up your heart! Lift up your voice!
Rejoice! Again I say, rejoice!
For His mercies, they are sure
His compassion will endure!"
Rejoice because each man
Has but a man's desire
To sin the little human sins
As a child that plays with fire.
Rejoice because God's plans
Are far too deep for talk...
He lets the swallow feed on flies—
Then gives it to the hawk!
Rejoice because He made
A world in some wild mood;
A world that feeds upon itself—
'And God saw it was good...'
Yet who are we to rail—
Vainly we strive and storm—
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform!
'Blind unbelief is sure to err,'
They say, and yet again,
'God is His own interpreter'—
When will He make it plain?
Gay flags flying down the street;
Comes the drum's insistent beat
Like a fierce, gigantic pulse,
And the screaming fife exults.
Soldier, soldier, spic and span,
Aren't you the lucky man;
Splendid in your gold and blue—
How the small boy envies you!
Oh, there's glory for you here—
Girls to smile and men to cheer;
Bands behind and bands before
Thrilling with the lust of War.
Soldier, soldier, proud as though
Marching to a sanguine foe,
Bravely would you face the brink
Fired with music, and with drink...
Stalwart warrior pass, and be
Glad you are not such as we—
We, who, without flags or drums,
March to battle in the slums.
Regiments of workers—we
Are a foolish soldiery,
Combating, till we convert,
Ignorance, disease and dirt...
Soldier, soldier, look—and then
Laugh at us poor fighting-men,
Struggling on, though every street
Is the scene of our defeat.
Laugh at us, who, day by day
Come back beaten from the fray;
We, who find our work undone—
We, whose wars are never won.
Gay flags flying down the street;
Comes the drum's insistent beat
Like a fierce, gigantic pulse—
And the screaming fife exults!
(The Fisheries dispute having been amicably compromised, the world is at peace again. .... News Despatch.)
'At peace'? The world has never been at peace—
Its wars are never-ending; there is naught
In all its battles like these overwrought
And storming hours with their dark increase.
The cities roar; in every street one sees
Women and children, battle-wounded, caught.—
No slaves, no shattered hosts have ever fought
So bitterly, so hopeless of release...
Well, if it must be war, take up the sword,
Facing the world with grim and savage glee;
And, with the courage of a Faith restored,
Strike till the darkness falters, and we see
That liberty is no mere gaudy word,
And peace no slothful, placid mockery.
And when the evening came he fell asleep,
And dreamed a dream of pallid loveliness:
He wandered in a forest dark and deep,
Where phantoms passed him with a soft caress;
Where shadows moved and ghostly spirits stood
Sphinxes of silence, wraiths of mystery;
A magic wood, a strange and scented wood
Where roses sprang from every withered tree.
A wood that woke his wonder and his fear,
A wood of whispered spells and shameful lore,
Beyond whose furthest rim he seemed to hear
A lonely sea upon a lonelier shore.
Visions swept by him with a chanted spell,
Crouched at his feet and murmured at his side—
And like a dim refrain there rose and fell
The restless minor of an ebbing tide...
Then, amidst broken sighs and wafts of song,
Borne on the breezes blowing from the west,
He saw one figure dancing in the throng
More wan and wonderful than all the rest.
The singing grew and nearer still she came,
A being made of rose and fire and mist;
Her deep eyes burning like the purple flame
Hid in the heart of every amethyst.
And, with the crooning of the distant sea,
She sang to charm his soul and still his fear:
"Oh, come, my love that wanders wearily;
Oh, come, for you have called, and I am here...
Oh, I have waited long to bring you there,
Beyond the border of the things that are,
Where all is terrible and strange and fair,
As were your dreams that reached my favorite star...
For you shall live and set the suns to rhyme;
You shall escape a mortal's petty fate;
You shall behold the birth and death of Time...
Oh come, my love, for you these wonders wait.
"Moonlight and music and the sound of waves,
Sea-spells incanted by a mermaid-muse,
And women's voices breathing slumb'rous staves,
These shall you have whenever you may choose.
And you shall know the maidens of the moon,
Lying on lilies shall you see them dance;
And you shall fling red roses to the tune,
Great roses while the magic scene enchants.
Wantons and queens shall take your heart to play
And lose it in a mesh of tangled hair;
And you shall always give your heart away,
And find a new one every hour there.
Here are the notes of every nightingale
Like rare pearls dropping in a golden pan;
And you shall hear white music in each dale,
Sweet silver sounds that are not heard by man.
And I shall show you all the world's delight,
The unknown passion of each flaming star;
Your eyes shall be endowed with keener sight
Beyond the border of the things that are.
Oh come, they wait you on the further strand—
Your drab and mournful mood they will exchange
For joy's resplendent purple in the land
Where all is rhythmical and fair and strange...
Oh come and learn the songs unborn, unsung,
And I shall give you all your longing craves,
That you may live in ecstasy among
Moonlight and music and the sound of waves."
Entranced he stood—so exquisite the art
That charmed him he could scarcely whisper low:
"And who are you that comes to stir my heart
With fragments of the songs I used to know——
You speak of wild and yet familiar things,
Exotic passions and uncanny bliss;
A thousand dreams your voice recalls and brings;
And who are you that shows me all of this?"
"I am the soul and spirit of your songs;
I am your ballad's grief, your lyric's fire.
I am the light for which your yearning longs;
Your curious rapture and your sick desire.
I am the burden that your lays beseech;
The one refrain that flows through all your themes.
I am the eerie glamor of your speech,
I am the mystic radiance of your dreams.
Come then with me, where all men's dreams are born,
Where winds shall lift your perfumed thoughts aloft;
Where there is never night or noon or morn,
Only a twilight, sensuous and soft.
And you shall know the wonder of each year,
The fiery secrets of a myriad Springs...
Lying on lilies shall you see them here;
And you shall live and touch immortal things."
She paused and sighed. Slowly he shook his head
As one who sees a guarded flame go out;
"Never to die? Nay that alone," he said,
"Were worse than all this wandering in doubt.
Nor would I go if Death himself should come
To crown Life's blessing with a greater gift;
In such a perfect world I would be dumb—
What could I long for when my fancies drift?...
And more than this, I do not choose to go;
For I am sick of strange and subtle sounds,
Of fevered phrases, tinted words that glow,
And all the twisting art that but astounds.
I do not long for tortured harmonies;
No more my languid soul is racked and tossed
With yearning for strange shores and stranger seas—
I seek the visions I have long since lost.
I seek the ways of simple love and hate,
Once more I long to join the virile race;
For I was blind till now, and now too late
I see the wonder of the commonplace.
"I long to hear men's voices, coarse and wild,
That never knew a poet's wan desire;
I long to hear them, as a little child
Listens to elders grouped about the fire...
To hear them as they mingle grave and gay—
The prudent planning for the week, and then
Amid the tritest gossip of the day,
Quaint, petty talk of merchandise and men.
I crave the usual and homely themes;
The everyday of which no mermaid sings....
These are the fairest fragments of my dreams;
These are the conquering and deathless things."
He ceased; a sudden radiance round him shone,
And all things melted like a phantom wrack.
And as he swept his hands and stood alone
He heard hoarse thunders and the dusk grew black.
Vast tremors shook the world from side to side—
The earth and sky became a monstrous blot...
And then it seems he woke, and waking, died;
Calling on things that he had long forgot.
When Life's gay courage fails at last,
And I grow worse than old—
Though Death puts out my fiery heart,
I never shall grow cold.
For warm is earth's green covering,
And warmly I shall lie,
Wrapped in the winding-sheets of air
And the great, blue folds of sky!
Something impelled her from the hearth;
Whispers and winds drew her along;
But still, unconscious of the earth,
She read her book of golden Song.
Old legends stirred her as she read
Of life victoriously unfurled,
Of glories gone but never dead,
And Beauty that redeemed the world.
"Oh Songs," she sighed, "your world was fair;
My own holds no such lovely things;
No glow, no magic anywhere—"
And then, a start—a flash of wings...
And, with the rush of surging seas,
Over her swept the world's replies:
The lyric hills, the buoyant breeze
And all the sudden singing skies!