Chapter 6

Now by the wall of the ancient town I lean Myself, like ancient wall and dust and sky, And the purple dusk, grown old, grown old in heart. Shadows of clouds flow inward from the sea. The mottled fields grow dark. The golden wall Grows gray again, turns stone again, the tower, No longer kindled, darkens against a cloud. Old is the world, old as the world am I; The cries of sheep rise upward from the fields, Forlorn and strange; and wake an ancient echo In fields my heart has known, but has not seen. "These fields"--an unknown voice beyond the wall Murmurs--"were once the province of the sea. Where now the sheep graze, mermaids were at play, Sea-horses galloped, and the great jeweled tortoise Walked slowly, looking upward at the waves, Bearing upon his back a thousand barnacles, A white acropolis ..." The ancient tower Sends out, above the houses and the trees, And the wide fields below the ancient walls, A measured phrase of bells. And in the silence I hear a woman's voice make answer then: "Well, they are green, although no ship can sail them.... Sky-larks rest in the grass, and start up singing Before the girl who stoops to pick sea-poppies. Spiny, the poppies are, and oh how yellow! And the brown clay is runneled by the rain...." A moment since, the sheep that crop the grass Had long blue shadows, and the grass-tips sparkled: Now all grows old.... O voices strangely speaking, Voices of man and woman, voices of bells, Diversely making comment on our time Which flows and bears us with it into dusk, Repeat the things you say! Repeat them slowly Upon this air, make them an incantation For ancient tower, old wall, the purple twilight, This dust, and me. But all I hear is silence, And something that may be leaves or may be sea.

III

When the tree bares, the music of it changes: Hard and keen is the sound, long and mournful; Pale are the poplar boughs in the evening light Above my house, against a slate-cold cloud. When the house ages and the tenants leave it, Cricket sings in the tall grass by the threshold; Spider, by the cold mantel, hangs his web. Here, in a hundred years from that clear season When first I came here, bearing lights and music, To this old ghostly house my ghost will come,-- Pause in the half-light, turn by the poplar, glide Above tall grasses through the broken door. Who will say that he saw--or the dusk deceived him-- A mist with hands of mist blow down from the tree And open the door and enter and close it after? Who will say that he saw, as midnight struck Its tremulous golden twelve, a light in the window, And first heard music, as of an old piano, Music remote, as if it came from the earth, Far down; and then, in the quiet, eager voices? "... Houses grow old and die, houses have ghosts-- Once in a hundred years we return, old house, And live once more." ... And then the ancient answer, In a voice not human, but more like creak of boards Or rattle of panes in the wind--"Not as the owner, But as a guest you come, to fires not lit By hands of yours.... Through these long-silent chambers Move slowly, turn, return, and bring once more Your lights and music. It will be good to talk."

IV

"This is the hour," she said, "of transmutation: It is the eucharist of the evening, changing All things to beauty. Now the ancient river, That all day under the arch was polished jade, Becomes the ghost of a river, thinly gleaming Under a silver cloud.... It is not water: It is that azure stream in which the stars Bathe at the daybreak, and become immortal...." "And the moon," said I--not thus to be outdone-- "What of the moon? Over the dusty plane-trees Which crouch in the dusk above their feeble lanterns, Each coldly lighted by his tiny faith; The moon, the waxen moon, now almost full, Creeps whitely up.... Westward the waves of cloud, Vermilion, crimson, violet, stream on the air, Shatter to golden flakes in the icy green Translucency of twilight.... And the moon Drinks up their light, and as they fade or darken, Brightens.... O monstrous miracle of the twilight, That one should live because the others die!" "Strange too," she answered, "that upon this azure Pale-gleaming ghostly stream, impalpable-- So faint, so fine that scarcely it bears up The petals that the lantern strews upon it,-- These great black barges float like apparitions, Loom in the silver of it, beat upon it, Moving upon it as dragons move on air." "Thus always," then I answered,--looking never Toward her face, so beautiful and strange It grew, with feeding on the evening light,-- "The gross is given, by inscrutable God, Power to beat wide wings upon the subtle. Thus we ourselves, so fleshly, fallible, mortal, Stand here, for all our foolishness, transfigured: Hung over nothing in an arch of light While one more evening like a wave of silence Gathers the stars together and goes out."

V

Now the great wheel of darkness and low clouds Whirs and whirls in the heavens with dipping rim; Against the ice-white wall of light in the west Skeleton trees bow down in a stream of air. Leaves, black leaves and smoke, are blown on the wind; Mount upward past my window; swoop again; In a sharp silence, loudly, loudly falls The first cold drop, striking a shriveled leaf.... Doom and dusk for the earth! Upward I reach To draw chill curtains and shut out the dark, Pausing an instant, with uplifted hand, To watch, between black ruined portals of cloud, One star,--the tottering portals fall and crush it. Here are a thousand books! here is the wisdom Alembicked out of dust, or out of nothing; Choose now the weightiest word, most golden page, Most somberly musicked line; hold up these lanterns,-- These paltry lanterns, wisdoms, philosophies,-- Above your eyes, against this wall of darkness; And you'll see--what? One hanging strand of cobweb, A window-sill a half-inch deep in dust ... Speak out, old wise-men! Now, if ever, we need you. Cry loudly, lift shrill voices like magicians Against this baleful dusk, this wail of rain.... But you are nothing! Your pages turn to water Under my fingers: cold, cold and gleaming, Arrowy in the darkness, rippling, dripping-- All things are rain.... Myself, this lighted room, What are we but a murmurous pool of rain?... The slow arpeggios of it, liquid, sibilant, Thrill and thrill in the dark. World-deep I lie Under a sky of rain. Thus lies the sea-shell Under the rustling twilight of the sea; No gods remember it, no understanding Cleaves the long darkness with a sword of light.

VI

Heaven, you say, will be a field in April, A friendly field, a long green wave of earth, With one domed cloud above it. There you'll lie In noon's delight, with bees to flash above you, Drown amid buttercups that blaze in the wind, Forgetting all save beauty. There you'll see With sun-filled eyes your one great dome of cloud Adding fantastic towers and spires of light, Ascending, like a ghost, to melt in the blue. Heaven enough, in truth, if you were there! Could I be with you I would choose your noon, Drown amid buttercups, laugh with the intimate grass, Dream there forever.... But, being older, sadder, Having not you, nor aught save thought of you, It is not spring I'll choose, but fading summer; Not noon I'll choose, but the charmed hour of dusk. Poppies? A few! And a moon almost as red.... But most I'll choose that subtler dusk that comes Into the mind--into the heart, you say-- When, as we look bewildered at lovely things, Striving to give their loveliness a name, They are forgotten; and other things, remembered, Flower in the heart with the fragrance we call grief.

VII

In the long silence of the sea, the seaman Strikes twice his bell of bronze. The short note wavers And loses itself in the blue realm of water. One sea-gull, paired with a shadow, wheels, wheels; Circles the lonely ship by wave and trough; Lets down his feet, strikes at the breaking water, Draws up his golden feet, beats wings, and rises Over the mast.... Light from a crimson cloud Crimsons the sluggishly creeping foams of waves; The seaman, poised in the bow, rises and falls As the deep forefoot finds a way through waves; And there below him, steadily gazing westward, Facing the wind, the sunset, the long cloud, The goddess of the ship, proud figurehead, Smiles inscrutably, plunges to crying waters, Emerges streaming, gleaming, with jewels falling Fierily from carved wings and golden breasts; Steadily glides a moment, then swoops again. Carved by the hand of man, grieved by the wind; Worn by the tumult of all the tragic seas, Yet smiling still, unchanging, smiling still Inscrutably, with calm eyes and golden brow-- What is it that she sees and follows always, Beyond the molten and ruined west, beyond The light-rimmed sea, the sky itself? What secret Gives wisdom to her purpose? Now the cloud In final conflagration pales and crumbles Into the darkening waters. Now the stars Burn softly through the dusk. The seaman strikes His small lost bell again, watching the west As she below him watches.... O pale goddess Whom not the darkness, even, or rain or storm, Changes; whose great wings are bright with foam, Whose breasts are cold as the sea, whose eyes forever Inscrutably take that light whereon they look-- Speak to us! Make us certain, as you are, That somewhere, beyond wave and wave and wave, That dreamed-of harbor lies which we would find.

TETÉLESTAI

I

How shall we praise the magnificence of the dead, The great man humbled, the haughty brought to dust? Is there a horn we should not blow as proudly For the meanest of us all, who creeps his days, Guarding his heart from blows, to die obscurely? I am no king, have laid no kingdoms waste, Taken no princes captive, led no triumphs Of weeping women through long walls of trumpets; Say rather I am no one, or an atom; Say rather, two great gods in a vault of starlight Play ponderingly at chess; and at the game's end One of the pieces, shaken, falls to the floor And runs to the darkest corner; and that piece Forgotten there, left motionless, is I.... Say that I have no name, no gifts, no power, Am only one of millions, mostly silent; One who came with lips and hands and a heart, Looked on beauty, and loved it, and then left it. Say that the fates of time and space obscured me, Led me a thousand ways to pain, bemused me, Wrapped me in ugliness; and like great spiders Dispatched me at their leisure.... Well, what then? Should I not hear, as I lie down in dust, The horns of glory blowing above my burial?

II

Morning and evening opened and closed above me: Houses were built above me; trees let fall Yellowing leaves upon me, hands of ghosts, Rain has showered its arrows of silver upon me Seeking my heart; winds have roared and tossed me; Music in long blue waves of sound has borne me A helpless weed to shores of unthought silence; Time, above me, within me, crashed its gongs Of terrible warning, sifting the dust of death; And here I lie. Blow now your horns of glory Harshly over my flesh, you trees, you waters! You stars and suns, Canopus, Deneb, Rigel, Let me, as I lie down, here in this dust, Hear, far off, your whispered salutation! Roar now above my decaying flesh, you winds, Whirl out your earth-scents over this body, tell me Of ferns and stagnant pools, wild roses, hillsides! Anoint me, rain, let crash your silver arrows On this hard flesh! I am the one who named you, I lived in you, and now I die in you. I, your son, your daughter, treader of music, Lie broken, conquered.... Let me not fall in silence.

III

I, the restless one; the circler of circles; Herdsman and roper of stars, who could not capture The secret of self; I who was tyrant to weaklings, Striker of children; destroyer of women; corrupter Of innocent dreamers, and laugher at beauty; I, Too easily brought to tears and weakness by music, Baffled and broken by love, the helpless beholder Of the war in my heart of desire with desire, the struggle Of hatred with love, terror with hunger; I Who laughed without knowing the cause of my laughter, who grew Without wishing to grow, a servant to my own body; Loved without reason the laughter and flesh of a woman, Enduring such torments to find her! I who at last Grow weaker, struggle more feebly, relent in my purpose, Choose for my triumph an easier end, look backward At earlier conquests; or, caught in the web, cry out In a sudden and empty despair, "Tetélestai!" Pity me, now! I, who was arrogant, beg you! Tell me, as I lie down, that I was courageous. Blow horns of victory now, as I reel and am vanquished. Shatter the sky with trumpets above my grave.

IV

... Look! this flesh how it crumbles to dust and is blown! These bones, how they grind in the granite of frost and are nothing! This skull, how it yawns for a flicker of time in the darkness Yet laughs not and sees not! It is crushed by a hammer of sunlight, And the hands are destroyed.... Press down through the leaves of the jasmine, Dig through the interlaced roots--nevermore will you find me; I was no better than dust, yet you cannot replace me.... Take the soft dust in your hand--does it stir: does it sing? Has it lips and a heart? Does it open its eyes to the sun? Does it run, does it dream, does it burn with a secret, or tremble In terror of death? Or ache with tremendous decisions?... Listen!... It says: "I lean by the river. The willows Are yellowed with bud. White clouds roar up from the south And darken the ripples; but they cannot darken my heart, Nor the face like a star in my heart!... Rain falls on the water And pelts it, and rings it with silver. The willow trees glisten, The sparrows chirp under the eaves; but the face in my heart Is a secret of music.... I wait in the rain and am silent." Listen again!... It says: "I have worked, I am tired, The pencil dulls in my hand: I see through the window Walls upon walls of windows with faces behind them, Smoke floating up to the sky, an ascension of seagulls. I am tired. I have struggled in vain, my decision was fruitless, Why then do I wait? with darkness, so easy, at hand!... But to-morrow, perhaps.... I will wait and endure till to-morrow!..." Or again: "It is dark. The decision is made. I am vanquished By terror of life. The walls mount slowly about me In coldness. I had not the courage. I was forsaken. I cried out, was answered by silence.... Tetélestai!..."

V

Hear how it babbles!--Blow the dust out of your hand, With its voices and visions, tread on it, forget it, turn homeward With dreams in your brain.... This, then, is the humble, the nameless,-- The lover, the husband and father, the struggler with shadows, The one who went down under shoutings of chaos! The weakling Who cried his "forsaken!" like Christ on the darkening hilltop!... This, then, is the one who implores, as he dwindles to silence, A fanfare of glory.... And which of us dares to deny him!

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

EIGHT SONNETS

I

When you, that at this moment are to me Dearer than words on paper, shall depart, And be no more the warder of my heart, Whereof again myself shall hold the key; And be no more, what now you seem to be, The sun, from which all excellencies start In a round nimbus, nor a broken dart Of moonlight, even, splintered on the sea;

I shall remember only of this hour-- And weep somewhat, as now you see me weep-- The pathos of your love, that, like a flower, Fearful of death yet amorous of sleep, Droops for a moment and beholds, dismayed, The wind whereon its petals shall be laid.

II

What's this of death, from you who never will die? Think you the wrist that fashioned you in clay, The thumb that set the hollow just that way In your full throat and lidded the long eye So roundly from the forehead, will let lie Broken, forgotten, under foot some day Your unimpeachable body, and so slay The work he most had been remembered by?

I tell you this: whatever of dust to dust Goes down, whatever of ashes may return To its essential self in its own season, Loveliness such as yours will not be lost, But, cast in bronze upon his very urn, Make known him Master, and for what good reason.

III

I know I am but summer to your heart, And not the full four seasons of the year; And you must welcome from another part Such noble moods as are not mine, my dear. No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing; And I have loved you all too long and well To carry still the high sweet breast of spring.

Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes, I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums, That you may hail anew the bird and rose When I come back to you, as summer comes. Else will you seek, at some not distant time, Even your summer in another clime.

IV

Here is a wound that never will heal, I know, Being wrought not of a dearness and a death But of a love turned ashes and the breath Gone out of beauty; never again will grow The grass on that scarred acre, though I sow Young seed there yearly and the sky bequeath Its friendly weathers down, far underneath Shall be such bitterness of an old woe.

That April should be shattered by a gust, That August should be leveled by a rain, I can endure, and that the lifted dust Of man should settle to the earth again; But that a dream can die, will be a thrust Between my ribs forever of hot pain.

V

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning; but the rain Is full of ghosts to-night, that tap and sigh Upon the glass and listen for reply; And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain, For unremembered lads that not again Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: I cannot say what loves have come and gone; I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more.

VI

Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare. Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace, And lay them prone upon the earth and cease To ponder on themselves, the while they stare At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release From dusty bondage into luminous air.

O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day, When first the shaft into his vision shone Of light anatomized! Euclid alone Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they Who, though once only and then but far away, Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.

VII

Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word! Give back my book and take my kiss instead. Was it my enemy or my friend I heard?-- "What a big book for such a little head!" Come, I will show you now my newest hat, And you may watch me purse my mouth and prink. Oh, I shall love you still and all of that. I never again shall tell you what I think.

I shall be sweet and crafty, soft and sly; You will not catch me reading any more; I shall be called a wife to pattern by; And some day when you knock and push the door, Some sane day, not too bright and not too stormy, I shall be gone, and you may whistle for me.

VIII

Say what you will, and scratch my heart to find The roots of last year's roses in my breast; I am as surely riper in my mind As if the fruit stood in the stalls confessed. Laugh at the unshed leaf, say what you will, Call me in all things what I was before, A flutterer in the wind, a woman still; I tell you I am what I was and more.

My branches weigh me down, frost cleans the air, My sky is black with small birds bearing south; Say what you will, confuse me with fine care, Put by my word as but an April truth,-- Autumn is no less on me that a rose Hugs the brown bough and sighs before it goes.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

(The following lists include poetical works only)

AMY LOWELL

A Dome of Many-Colored Glass Houghton Mifflin Co. 1912

Sword Blades and Poppy Seed The Macmillan Company 1914

Men, Women and Ghosts The Macmillan Company 1916

Can Grande's Castle The Macmillan Company 1918

Pictures of the Floating World The Macmillan Company 1919

Legends Houghton Mifflin Co. 1921

Fir-Flower Tablets Houghton Mifflin Co. 1921

ROBERT FROST

A Boy's Will Henry Holt and Company 1914

North of Boston Henry Holt and Company 1915

Mountain Interval Henry Holt and Company 1916

CARL SANDBURG

Chicago Poems Henry Holt and Company 1916

Cornhuskers Henry Holt and Company 1918

Smoke and Steel Harcourt, Brace and Co. 1930

Slabs of the Sunburnt West Harcourt, Brace and Co. 1922

VACHEL LINDSAY

Rhymes to be Traded for Bread Privately Printed; 1912 Springfield, Ill.

General William Booth Enters Into Mitchell Kennerley 1913 Heaven

The Congo and Other Poems The Macmillan Company 1915

The Chinese Nightingale The Macmillan Company 1917

The Golden Whales of California The Macmillan Company 1920

JAMES OPPENHEIM

Monday Morning and Other Poems Sturgis & Walton Co. 1909

Songs for the New Age The Century Company 1914

War and Laughter The Century Company 1915

The Book of Self Alfred A. Knopf 1917

The Solitary B. W. Huebsch 1919

The Mystic Warrior Alfred A. Knopf 1921

ALFRED KREYMBORG

Mushrooms Alfred A. Knopf 1916

Plays for Poem-Mimes The Others Press 1918

Plays for Merry Andrews The Sunwise Turn 1920

Blood of Things Nicholas L. Brown 1921

SARA TEASDALE

Sonnets to Duse The Poet Lore Co. 1907

Helen of Troy G. P. Putnam's Sons 1911

Rivers to the Sea The Macmillan Company 1915

Love Songs The Macmillan Company 1917

Flame and Shadow The Macmillan Company 1920

LOUIS UNTERMEYER

The Younger Quire Moods Publishing Co. 1911

First Love Sherman French & Co. 1911

Challenge The Century Company 1914

"--and Other Poets" Henry Holt and Company 1916

The Poems of Heinrich Heine Henry Holt and Company 1917

These Times Henry Holt and Company 1917

Including Horace Harcourt, Brace and Co. 1919

The New Adam Harcourt, Brace and Co. 1920

Heavens Harcourt, Brace and Co. 1922

JOHN GOULD FLETCHER

Fire and Wine Grant Richards (London) 1913