Chapter 5

Roused from his unconcern, Behemot burns with anger. Dripping sleep and languor from his heavy haunches, He turns from deep disdain and launches Himself upon the thickening air, And, with weird cries of sickening despair, Flies at Leviathan. None can surmise the struggle that ensues-- The eyes lose sight of it and words refuse To tell the story in its gory might. Night passes after night, And still the fight continues, still the sparks Fly from the iron sinews, ... till the marks Of fire and belching thunder fill the dark And, almost torn asunder, one falls stark, Hammering upon the other!... What clamor now is born, what crashings rise! Hot lightnings lash the skies and frightening cries Clash with the hymns of saints and seraphim. The bloody limbs thrash through a ruddy dusk, Till one great tusk of Behemot has gored Leviathan, restored to his full strength, Who, dealing fiercer blows in those last throes, Closes on reeling Behemot at length-- Piercing him with steel-pointed claws, Straight through the jaws to his disjointed head. And both lie dead.

_Then_ come the angels! With hoists and levers, joists and poles, With knives and cleavers, ropes and saws, Down the long slopes to the gaping maws, The angels hasten; hacking and carving, So nought will be lacking for the starving Chosen of God, who in frozen wonderment Realize now what the terrible thunder meant. How their mouths water while they are looking At miles of slaughter and sniffing the cooking! Whiffs of delectable fragrance swim by; Spice-laden vagrants that float and entice, Tickling the throat and brimming the eye. Ah! what rejoicing and crackling and roasting! Ah! How the boys sing as, cackling and boasting, The angels' old wives and their nervous assistants Run in to serve us....

And while we are toasting The Fairest of All, they call from the distance The rare ones of Time, they share our enjoyment; Their only employment to bear jars of wine And shine like the stars in a circle of glory. Here sways Rebekah accompanied by Zilpah; Miriam plays to the singing of Bilhah; Hagar has tales for us, Judith her story; Esther exhales bright romances and musk. There, in the dusky light, Salome dances. Sara and Rachel and Leah and Ruth, Fairer than ever and all in their youth, Come at our call and go by our leave. And, from her bower of beauty, walks Eve While, with the voice of a flower, she sings Of Eden, young earth and the birth of all things....

Peace without end. Peace will descend on us, discord will cease; And we, now so wretched, will lie stretched out Free of old doubt, on our cushions of ease. And, like a gold canopy over our bed, The skin of Leviathan, tail-tip to head, Soon will be spread till it covers the skies. Light will still rise from it; millions of bright Facets of brilliance, shaming the white Glass of the moon, inflaming the night.

So Time shall pass and rest and pass again, Burn with an endless zest and then return, Walk at our side and tide us to new joys; God's voice to guide us, beauty as our staff. Thus shall Life be when Death has disappeared....

_Jeered at? Well, let them laugh._

JOHN GOULD FLETCHER

A REBEL

Tie a bandage over his eyes, And at his feet Let rifles drearily patter Their death-prayers of defeat.

Throw a blanket over his body, It need no longer stir; Truth will but stand the stronger For all who died for her.

Now he has broken through To his own secret place; Which, if we dared to do, We would have no more power left to look on that dead face.

THE ROCK

This rock, too, was a word; A word of flame and force when that which hurled The stars into their places in the night First stirred.

And, in the summer's heat, Lay not your hand on it, for while the iron hours beat Gray anvils in the sky, it glows again With unfulfilled desire.

Touch it not; let it stand Ragged, forlorn, still looking at the land; The dry blue chaos of mountains in the distance, The slender blades of grass it shelters are Its own dark thoughts of what is near and far. Your thoughts are yours, too; naked let them stand.

BLUE WATER

Sea-violins are playing on the sands; Curved bows of blue and white are flying over the pebbles, See them attack the chords--dark basses, glinting trebles. Dimly and faint they croon, blue violins. "Suffer without regret," they seem to cry, "Though dark your suffering is, it may be music, Waves of blue heat that wash midsummer sky; Sea-violins that play along the sands."

PRAYERS FOR WIND

Let the winds come, And bury our feet in the sands of seven deserts; Let strong breezes rise, Washing our ears with the far-off sounds of the foam. Let there be between our faces Green turf and a branch or two of back-tossed trees; Set firmly over questioning hearts The deep unquenchable answer of the wind.

IMPROMPTU

My mind is a puddle in the street reflecting green Sirius; In thick dark groves trees huddle lifting their branches like beckoning hands. We eat the grain, the grain is death, all goes back to the earth's dark mass, All but a song which moves across the plain like the wind's deep-muttering breath. Bowed down upon the earth, man sets his plants and watches for the seed, Though he be part of the tragic pageant of the sky, no heaven will aid his mortal need. I find flame in the dust, a word once uttered that will stir again, And a wine-cup reflecting Sirius in the water held in my hands.

CHINESE POET AMONG BARBARIANS

The rain drives, drives endlessly, Heavy threads of rain; The wind beats at the shutters, The surf drums on the shore; Drunken telegraph poles lean sideways; Dank summer cottages gloom hopelessly; Bleak factory-chimneys are etched on the filmy distance, Tepid with rain. It seems I have lived for a hundred years Among these things; And it is useless for me now to make complaint against them. For I know I shall never escape from this dull barbarian country, Where there is none now left to lift a cool jade winecup, Or share with me a single human thought.

SNOWY MOUNTAINS

Higher and still more high, Palaces made for cloud, Above the dingy city-roofs Blue-white like angels with broad wings, Pillars of the sky at rest The mountains from the great plateau Uprise.

But the world heeds them not; They have been here now for too long a time. The world makes war on them, Tunnels their granite cliffs, Splits down their shining sides, Plasters their cliffs with soap-advertisements, Destroys the lonely fragments of their peace.

Vaster and still more vast, Peak after peak, pile after pile, Wilderness still untamed, To which the future is as was the past, Barrier spread by Gods, Sunning their shining foreheads, Barrier broken down by those who do not need The joy of time-resisting storm-worn stone, The mountains swing along The south horizon of the sky; Welcoming with wide floors of blue-green ice The mists that dance and drive before the sun.

THE FUTURE

After ten thousand centuries have gone, Man will ascend the last long pass to know That all the summits which he saw at dawn Are buried deep in everlasting snow.

Below him endless gloomy valleys, chill, Will wreathe and whirl with fighting cloud, driven by the wind's fierce breath; But on the summit, wind and cloud are still:-- Only the sunlight, and death.

And staggering up to the brink of the gulf man will look down And painfully strive with weak sight to explore The silent gulfs below which the long shadows drown; Through every one of these he passed before.

Then since he has no further heights to climb, And naught to witness he has come this endless way, On the wind-bitten ice cap he will wait for the last of time, And watch the crimson sunrays fading of the world's latest day:

And blazing stars will burst upon him there, Dumb in the midnight of his hope and pain, Speeding no answer back to his last prayer, And, if akin to him, akin in vain.

UPON THE HILL

A hundred miles of landscape spread before me like a fan; Hills behind naked hills, bronze light of evening on them shed; How many thousand ages have these summits spied on man? How many thousand times shall I look on them ere this fire in me is dead?

THE ENDURING

If the autumn ended Ere the birds flew southward, If in the cold with weary throats They vainly strove to sing, Winter would be eternal; Leaf and bush and blossom Would never once more riot In the spring.

If remembrance ended When life and love are gathered, If the world were not living Long after one is gone, Song would not ring, nor sorrow Stand at the door in evening; Life would vanish and slacken, Men would be changed to stone.

But there will be autumn's bounty Dropping upon our weariness, There will be hopes unspoken And joys to haunt us still; There will be dawn and sunset Though we have cast the world away, And the leaves dancing Over the hill.

JEAN STARR UNTERMEYER

OLD MAN

When an old man walks with lowered head And eyes that do not seem to see, I wonder does he ponder on The worm he was or is to be.

Or has he turned his gaze within, Lost to his own vicinity; Erecting in a doubtful dream Frail bridges to Infinity.

TONE PICTURE

(Malipiero: _Impressioni Dal Vero_)

Across the hot square, where the barbaric sun Pours coarse laughter on the crowds, Trumpets throw their loud nooses From corner to corner. Elephants, whose indifferent backs Heave with red lambrequins, Tigers with golden muzzles, Negresses, greased and turbaned in green and yellow, Weave and interweave in the merciless glare of noon. The sun flicks here and there like a throned tyrant, Snapping his whip. From amber platters, the smells ascend Of overripe peaches mingled with dust and heated oils. Pages in purple run madly about, Rolling their eyes and grinning with huge, frightened mouths.

And from a high window--a square of black velvet-- A haughty figure stands back in the shadow, Aloof and silent.

THEY SAY--

They say I have a constant heart, who know Not anything of how it turns and yields First here, first there; nor how in separate fields It runs to reap and then remains to sow; How, with quick worship, it will bend and glow Before a line of song, an antique vase, Evening at sea; or in a well-loved face Seek and find all that Beauty can bestow.

Yet they do well who name it with a name, For all its rash surrenders call it true. Though many lamps be lit, yet flame is flame; The sun can show the way, a candle too. The tribute to each fragment is the same Service to all of Beauty--and her due.

RESCUE

Wind and wave and the swinging rope Were calling me last night; None to save and little hope, No inner light.

Each snarling lash of the stormy sea Curled like a hungry tongue. One desperate splash--and no use to me The noose that swung!

Death reached out three crooked claws To still my clamoring pain. I wheeled about, and Life's gray jaws Grinned once again.

To sea I gazed, and then I turned Stricken toward the shore, Praying half-crazed to a moon that burned Above your door.

And at your door, you discovered me; And at your heart, I sobbed ... And if there be more of eternity Let me be robbed.

Let me be clipped of that heritage And burned for ages through; Freed and stripped of my fear and rage-- But not of you.

MATER IN EXTREMIS

I stand between them and the outer winds, But I am a crumbling wall. They told me they could bear the blast alone, They told me: that was all. But I must wedge myself between Them and the first snowfall.

Riddled am I by onslaughts and attacks I thought I could forestall; I reared and braced myself to shelter them Before I heard them call. I cry them, God, a better shield! I am about to fall.

SELF-REJECTED

Plow not nor plant this arid mound. Here is no sap for seed, No ferment for your need-- Ungrateful ground!

No sun can warm this spot God has forgot; No rain can penetrate Its barren slate.

Demonic winds blow last year's stubble From its hard slope. Go, leave the hopeless without hope; Spare your trouble.

H. D.

HOLY SATYR

Most holy Satyr, like a goat, with horns and hooves to match thy coat of russet brown, I make leaf-circlets and a crown of honey-flowers for thy throat; where the amber petals drip to ivory, I cut and slip each stiffened petal in the rift of carven petal: honey horn has wed the bright virgin petal of the white flower cluster: lip to lip let them whisper, let them lilt, quivering:

Most holy Satyr, like a goat, hear this our song, accept our leaves, love-offering, return our hymn; like echo fling a sweet song, answering note for note.

LAIS

Let her who walks in Paphos take the glass, let Paphos take the mirror and the work of frosted fruit, gold apples set with silver apple-leaf, white leaf of silver wrought with vein of gilt.

Let Paphos lift the mirror; let her look into the polished center of the disk.

Let Paphos take the mirror: did she press flowerlet of flame-flower to the lustrous white of the white forehead? did the dark veins beat a deeper purple than the wine-deep tint of the dark flower?

Did she deck black hair, one evening, with the winter-white flower of the winter-berry? Did she look (reft of her lover) at a face gone white under the chaplet of white virgin-breath?

Lais, exultant, tyrannizing Greece, Lais who kept her lovers in the porch, lover on lover waiting (but to creep where the robe brushed the threshold where still sleeps Lais), so she creeps, Lais, to lay her mirror at the feet of her who reigns in Paphos.

Lais has left her mirror, for she sees no longer in its depth the Lais' self that laughed exultant, tyrannizing Greece.

Lais has left her mirror, for she weeps no longer, finding in its depth a face, but other than dark flame and white feature of perfect marble.

_Lais has left her mirror_ (so one wrote) _to her who reigns in Paphos; Lais who laughed a tyrant over Greece, Lais who turned the lovers from the porch, that swarm for whom now Lais has no use; Lais is now no lover of the glass, seeing no more the face as once it was, wishing to see that face and finding this._

HELIODORA

He and I sought together, over the spattered table, rhymes and flowers, gifts for a name.

He said, among others, I will bring (and the phrase was just and good, but not as good as mine) "the narcissus that loves the rain."

We strove for a name, while the light of the lamps burnt thin and the outer dawn came in, a ghost, the last at the feast or the first, to sit within with the two that remained to quibble in flowers and verse over a girl's name.

He said, "the rain loving," I said, "the narcissus, drunk, drunk with the rain."

Yet I had lost for he said, "the rose, the lover's gift, is loved of love," he said it, "loved of love;" I waited, even as he spoke, to see the room filled with a light, as when in winter the embers catch in a wind when a room is dank: so it would be filled, I thought, our room with a light when he said (and he said it first) "the rose, the lover's delight, is loved of love," but the light was the same.

Then he caught, seeing the fire in my eyes, my fire, my fever, perhaps, for he leaned with the purple wine stained in his sleeve, and said this: "Did you ever think a girl's mouth caught in a kiss is a lily that laughs?"

I had not. I saw it now as men must see it forever afterwards; no poet could write again, "the red-lily, a girl's laugh caught in a kiss;" it was his to pour in the vat from which all poets dip and quaff, for poets are brothers in this.

So I saw the fire in his eyes, it was almost my fire (he was younger) I saw the face so white; my heart beat, it was almost my phrase, I said, "surprise the muses, take them by surprise; it is late, rather it is dawn-rise, those ladies sleep, the nine, our own king's mistresses."

A name to rhyme, flowers to bring to a name, what was one girl faint and shy, with eyes like the myrtle (I said: "her underlids are rather like myrtle"), to vie with the nine?

Let him take the name, he had the rhymes, "the rose, loved of love," "the lily, a mouth that laughs," he had the gift, "the scented crocus, the purple hyacinth," what was one girl to the nine?

He said: "I will make her a wreath;" he said: "I will write it thus: _'I will bring you the lily that laughs, I will twine with soft narcissus, the myrtle, sweet crocus, white violet, the purple hyacinth and, last, the rose, loved of love, that these may drip on your hair the less soft flowers, may mingle sweet with the sweet of Heliodora's locks, myrrh-curled.'_"

(He wrote myrrh-curled, I think, the first.)

I said: "they sleep, the nine," when he shouted swift and passionate: "_that_ for the nine! Above the mountains the sun is about to wake, _and to-day white violets shine beside white lilies adrift on the mountain side; to-day the narcissus opens that loves the rain_."

I watched him to the door, catching his robe as the wine-bowl crashed to the floor, spilling a few wet lees (ah, his purple hyacinth!); I saw him out of the door, I thought: there will never be a poet, in all the centuries after this, who will dare write, after my friend's verse, "a girl's mouth is a lily kissed."

TOWARD THE PIRÆUS

_Slay with your eyes, Greek, men over the face of the earth, slay with your eyes, the host, puny, passionless, weak._

_Break, as the ranks of steel broke of the Persian host: craven, we hated them then: now we would count them Gods beside these, spawn of the earth._

_Grant us your mantle, Greek; grant us but one to fright (as your eyes) with a sword, men, craven and weak, grant us but one to strike one blow for you, passionate Greek._

I

You would have broken my wings, but the very fact that you knew I had wings, set some seal on my bitter heart, my heart broke and fluttered and sang.

You would have snared me, and scattered the strands of my nest; but the very fact that you saw, sheltered me, claimed me, set me apart from the rest.

Of men--of _men_ made you a god, and me, claimed me, set me apart and the song in my breast, yours, yours forever-- if I escape your evil heart.

II

I loved you: men have writ and women have said they loved, but as the Pythoness stands by the altar, intense and may not move;

till the fumes pass over; and may not falter nor break, till the priest has caught the words that mar or make a deme or a ravaged town;

so I, though my knees tremble, my heart break, must note the rumbling, heed only the shuddering down in the fissure beneath the rock of the temple floor;

must wait and watch and may not turn nor move, nor break from my trance to speak so slight, so sweet, so simple a word as love.

III

What had you done had you been true, I can not think, I may not know.

What could we do were I not wise, what play invent, what joy devise?

What could we do if you were great? (Yet were you lost, who were there, then, to circumvent the tricks of men?)

What can we do, for curious lies have filled your heart, and in my eyes sorrow has writ that I am wise.

IV

If I had been a boy, I would have worshiped your grace, I would have flung my worship before your feet, I would have followed apart, glad, rent with an ecstasy to watch you turn your great head, set on the throat, thick, dark with its sinews, burned and wrought like the olive stalk, and the noble chin and the throat.

I would have stood, and watched and watched and burned, and when in the night, from the many hosts, your slaves, and warriors and serving men you had turned to the purple couch and the flame of the woman, tall like cypress tree that flames sudden and swift and free as with crackle of golden resin and cones and the locks flung free like the cypress limbs, bound, caught and shaken and loosed, bound, caught and riven and bound and loosened again, as in rain of a kingly storm or wind full from a desert plain.

So, when you had risen from all the lethargy of love and its heat, you would have summoned me, me alone, and found my hands, beyond all the hands in the world, cold, cold, cold, intolerably cold and sweet.

V

It was not chastity that made me cold nor fear, only I knew that you, like myself, were sick of the puny race that crawls and quibbles and lisps of love and love and lovers and love's deceit.

It was not chastity that made me wild but fear that my weapon, tempered in different heat, was over-matched by yours, and your hand skilled to yield death-blows, might break.

With the slightest turn--no ill-will meant-- my own lesser, yet still somewhat fine-wrought fiery-tempered, delicate, over-passionate steel.

CONRAD AIKEN

SEVEN TWILIGHTS

I

The ragged pilgrim, on the road to nowhere, Waits at the granite milestone. It grows dark. Willows lean by the water. Pleas of water Cry through the trees. And on the boles and boughs Green water-lights make rings, already paling. Leaves speak everywhere. The willow leaves Silverly stir on the breath of moving water, Birch-leaves, beyond them, twinkle, and there on the hill, And the hills beyond again, and the highest hill, Serrated pines, in the dusk, grow almost black. By the eighth milestone on the road to nowhere He drops his sack, and lights once more the pipe There often lighted. In the dusk-sharpened sky A pair of night-hawks windily sweep, or fall, Booming, toward the trees. Thus had it been Last year, and the year before, and many years: Ever the same. "Thus turns the human track Backward upon itself, I stand once more By this small stream..." Now the rich sound of leaves, Turning in air to sway their heavy boughs, Burns in his heart, sings in his veins, as spring Flowers in veins of trees; bringing such peace As comes to seamen when they dream of seas. "O trees! exquisite dancers in gray twilight! Witches! fairies! elves! who wait for the moon To thrust her golden horn, like a golden snail, Above that mountain--arch your green benediction Once more over my heart. Muffle the sound of bells, Mournfully human, that cries from the darkening valley; Close, with your leaves, about the sound of water: Take me among your hearts as you take the mist Among your boughs!" ... Now by the granite milestone, On the ancient human road that winds to nowhere, The pilgrim listens, as the night air brings The murmured echo, perpetual, from the gorge Of barren rock far down the valley. Now, Though twilight here, it may be starlight there; Mist makes elfin lakes in the hollow fields; The dark wood stands in the mist like a somber island With one red star above it.... "This I should see, Should I go on, follow the falling road,-- This I have often seen.... But I shall stay Here, where the ancient milestone, like a watchman, Lifts up its figure eight, its one gray knowledge, Into the twilight; as a watchman lifts A lantern, which he does not know is out."

II