Part 3

In freedom gliding, gloating, Through the haunts their children claim The swollen ghosts of the wicked Grow fat on new-wrought shame.

The old, sweet evil lingers, The demon of uncontrol, And madness creeps and crouches In every haggard soul.

And he who held moon revels In Salem forests deep, Well loves his hypocrite servants Nor seeks to spoil their sleep.

They call you cold New England-- But surely even your snow Is drift not of ice but of ashes, To guard the flames below!

_Smart Set_ _Marguerite Mooers Marshall_

ST. JOHN AND THE FAUN

I

O blest Imagination! Bright power beneath man’s lid, That in apparent beauty Unveils the beauty hid! In the gleaming of the instant Abides the immortal thing; Our souls that voyage unspeaking Press forward, wing and wing; From every passing object A brighter radiance pours; The Lethe of our daily lives Sweeps by eternal shores.

II

On the deep below Amalfi, Where the long roll of the wave Slowly breathed, and slipped beneath me To gray cliff and sounding cave, Came a boat-load of dark fishers, Passed, and on the bright sea shone; There, the vision of a moment, I beheld the young St. John.

At the stern the boy stood bending Full his dreaming gaze on me; Inexorably spread between us Flashed the blue strait of the sea; Slow receding,--distant,--distant,-- While my bosom scarce drew breath,-- Dreaming eyes on my eyes dreaming Holy beauty without death.

III

In the cloudland o’er Amalfi, Where with mists the deep ravine Like a cauldron smoked, and, clearing, Showed, far down, the pictured scene, Capes and bays and peaks and ocean, And the city, like a gem, Set in circlets of pale azure That her beauty ring and hem,-- Once, returning from the chasm By the mountain’s woodland way, Underneath the oak and chestnut Where I loved to make delay, (And dark boys and girls with faggots Would pass near on that wild lawn, And at times they brought me rosebuds), There one day I saw a faun.

The wood was still with noontide, The very trees seemed lone, When from a neighboring thicket His moon-eyes on me shone, Motionless, and bright, and staring, And with a startled grace; As nature, wildly magical Was the beauty of his face;

And as some gentle creature That, curious, has fear, Dumb he stood and gazed upon me, But did not venture near; And I moved not, nor motioned, Nor gave him any sign, Nor broke the momentary spell Of the old world divine.

IV

Love, with no other agent Save communion by the eye, Evoked from those bright creatures Our secret unity; There, flowering from old ages, Hung on time’s blossoming stem All that fairest was in me Or loveliest in them; And truly it was happiness Unto a poet’s heart To find that living in his breast Which is immortal art.

_The Forum_ _George Edward Woodberry_

SCHOOL

I

Old Hezekiah leaned hard on his hoe And squinted long at Eben, his lank son. The silence shrilled with crickets. Day was done, And, row on dusky row, Tall bean poles ribbed with dark the gold-bright afterglow. Eben stood staring: ever, one by one, The tendril tops turned ashen as they flared. Still Eben stared.

O, there is wonder on New Hampshire hills, Hoeing the warm, bright furrows of brown earth, And there is grandeur in the stone wall’s birth, And in the sweat that spills From rugged toil its sweetness; yet for wild young wills There is no dew of wonder, but stark dearth, In one old man who hoes his long bean rows, And only hoes.

Old Hezekiah turned slow on his heel. He touched his son. Thro’ all the carking day There are so many littlish cares to weigh Large natures down, and steel The heart of understanding. “Son, how is’t ye feel? What are ye starin’ on--a gal?” A ray Flushed Eben from the fading afterglow: He dropped his hoe.

He dropped his hoe, but sudden stooped again And raised it where it fell. Nothing he spoke, But bent his knee and--crack! the handle broke, Splintering. With glare of pain, He flung the pieces down, and stamped upon them; then-- Like one who leaps out naked from his cloak-- Ran. “Here, come back! Where are ye bound--you fool?” He cried--“To school!”

II

Now on the mountain morning laughed with light-- With light and all the future in her face, For there she looked on many a far-off place And wild adventurous sight, For which the mad young autumn wind hallooed with might And dared the roaring mill-brook to the race, Where blue-jays screamed beyond the pine-dark pool-- “To school!--To school!”

Blackcoated, Eben took the barefoot trail, Holding with wary hand his Sunday boots; Harsh catbirds mocked his whistling with their hoots; Under his swallowtail Against his hip-strap bumping, clinked his dinner pail; Frost maples flamed, lone thrushes touched their lutes; Gray squirrels bobbed, with tails stiff curved to backs, To eye his tracks.

Soon at the lonely crossroads he passed by The little one-room schoolhouse. He peered in. There stood the bench where he had often been Admonished flagrantly To drone his numbers: now to this he said good-bye For mightier lure of more romantic scene: Good-bye to childish rule and homely chore Forevermore!

All day he hastened like the flying cloud Breathless above him, big with dreams, yet dumb. With tightened jaw he chewed the tart spruce gum, And muttered half aloud Huge oracles. At last, where thro’ the pine-tops bowed The sun, it rose!--His heart beat like a drum. There, there it rose--his tower of prophecy: The Academy!

III

They learn to live who learn to contemplate, For contemplation is the unconfined God who creates us. To the growing mind Freedom to think is fate, And all that age and after-knowledge augurate Lies in a little dream of youth enshrined: That dream to nourish with the skilful rule Of love--is school.

Eben, in mystic tumult of his teens, Stood bursting--like a ripe seed--into soul. All his life long he had watched the great hills roll Their shadows, tints and sheens By sun- and moonrise; yet the bane of hoeing beans, And round of joyless chores, his father’s toll, Blotted their beauty; nature was as naught: He had never _thought_.

But now he climbed his boyhood’s castle tower And knocked. Ah, well then for his after-fate That one of nature’s masters opened the gate, Where like an April shower Live influence quickened all his earth-blind seed to power. Strangely his sense of truth grew passionate, And like a young bull, led in yoke to drink, He bowed to think.

There also bowed their heads with him to quaff-- The snorting herd! And many a wholesome grip He had of rivalry and fellowship. Often the game was rough, But Eben tossed his horns and never balked the cuff; For still through play and task his Dream would slip-- A radiant Herdsman, guiding destiny To his degree.

IV

Once more old Hezekiah stayed his hoe To squint at Eben. Silent, Eben scanned A little roll of sheepskin in his hand, While, row on dusky row, Tall bean poles ribbed with dark the gold-pale afterglow. The boy looked up: here was another land! Mountain and farm with mystic beauty flared Where Eben stared.

Stooping, he lifted with a furtive smile Two splintered sticks, and spliced them. Nevermore His spirit would go beastwise to his chore Blinded, for even while He stooped to the old task, sudden in the sunset’s pile His radiant Herdsman swung a fiery door, Thro’ which came forth with far-borne trumpetings Poets and kings,

His fellow conquerors: there Virgil dreamed, There Cæsar fought and won the barbarous tribes, There Darwin, pensive, bore the ignorant gibes, And One with thorns redeemed From malice the wild hearts of men: there surged and streamed With chemic fire the forges of old scribes Testing anew the crucibles of toil To save God’s soil.

So Eben turned again to hoe his beans, But now, to ballads which his Herdsman sung, Henceforth he hoed the dream in with the dung, And for his ancient spleens Planting new joys, imagination found him means. At last old Hezekiah loosed his tongue: “Well, boy, this school--what has it learned ye to know?” He said: “To hoe.”

_The Forum_ _Percy MacKaye_

THE MARVELOUS MUNCHAUSEN

The snug little room with its brazier fire aglow, And Piet and Sachs and Vroom--all in the long ago,-- Oh, the very long ago!--o’er their pipes and hollands seen; And on the wall the man-o’-war, and firelight on the screen!

Their flowered, bulging waistcoats that wrinkle when they chuckle; The baron, much-mustachioed, and gay with star and buckle, And bristling in a uniform as scarlet as his cheeks, With choker lace beneath his chin, and splendid, yellow breeks!

The smoke drifts blue, and bluer through that window, all abreeze, Are glinting sky and glistening sea beyond the Holland quays. Blue tiles, red bricks, the bustling wharves, with color’s oriflamme; Starched caps and rosy-posy cheeks--the girls of Amsterdam!

The snug little room with its brazier fire aglow! Oh, listen, will he tell them, as he told them long ago,-- Oh, very long ago, a-laughing in his sleeve!-- The marvelous Munchausen, with the fables _I_ believe?

* * * * *

“When I had sown the Turkey beans that reachéd to the moon, And lifted all Westminster in the sling from my balloon (Swung over the Atlantic, They peered from windows, frantic), When, eagle-back, I’d scanned the pole in broad, eternal noon,

“In Queen Mab’s chariot I ventured on the sea. ’Twas like a mammoth hazelnut, with matchless orrery A-sparkle on its ceiling, With planet systems wheeling And giddy comets sizzling all about the head o’ me.

“The nine bulls drew it, as stout as those of Crete, And all were shod with horrid skulls that clattered on their feet. Rich banners waved behind ’em, While on their backs, to mind ’em, Postilion crickets chirruped them, all chirping loud and sweet.

“Ghost of the Cape I warn you of, for he is bottle-blue. We split his Table Mountain. He gibbered and he flew. The bulls straight showed disfeature With gazing on the creature, Stampeding in their harness when I gave the view-halloo.

“Though wrecked on Egypt’s obelisks, disaster I defied, And harnessed Sphinx, the emperor’s gift, to tow an ark as wide As great Westminster; With beau and bell and spinster, And cleric, clerk, and coronet all tête-à-tête inside.

“‘Good folk, we sail for Africa,’ said I to all my train. ‘When bold Munchausen leads you forth, what laggard dares remain In slippered ease, uncaring To share my deeds of daring?’ Their cheers amazed my modesty, and more had made me vain.

“‘The sultan’s bees I’ve shepherded. I’ve hornpiped at Marseilles, Where gulped me down, well nigh to drown, the liveliest of whales. I’m riskiest of riskers, But, blow my grizzled whiskers!’ I cried, ‘May jackals gnaw my bones if now Munchausen fails!’

“By night the lions roared at us. By day the simoons came And swept across our caravan in sandy clouds of flame; But naught dismayed our temper, or The genial Afric emperor Had missed my handsome greeting, to his long-abiding shame.

“The people of the Mountains of the Moon I wined and dined. I reigned at Gristariska when His Majesty declined. Reforms I wrought untiring, With Gog and Magog squiring, And Frosticos, my bosom friend, who lent a legal mind.

“For last superb achievement,--bright tears may Envy shed!-- I built a bridge, from Africa to distant England spread: No edifice of fable, Nay, not the Tower of Babel, Surpassed its mammoth glory in the heavens overhead.

“So back across its noble arch my retinue and I Advanced with blaring trumpets through the regions of the sky. Clouds lingered to enwreathe us, Earth’s kingdoms far beneath us, And martial music cheered our march from all the birds that fly.”

* * * * *

The snug little room with its brazier fire aglow, And Piet and Sachs and Vroom all sleeping long ago,-- Oh, so very long ago!--and, chuckling in his sleeve, Still, o’er the slumbering table, Drone-droning on his fable, The marvelous Munchausen, with the stories _I_ believe!

_Century_ _William Rose Benét_

TRAIN-MATES

Outside hove Shasta, snowy height on height, A glory; but a negligible sight, For you had often seen a mountain-peak But not my paper. So we came to speak. A smoke, a smile,--a good way to commence The comfortable exchange of difference!-- You a young engineer, five feet eleven, Forty-five chest, with football in your heaven, Liking a road-bed newly built and clean, Your fingers hot to cut away the green Of brush and flowers that bring beside a track The kind of beauty steel lines ought to lack,-- And I a poet, wistful of my betters, Reading George Meredith’s high-hearted Letters, Joining betweenwhile in the mingled speech Of a drummer, circus-man, and parson, each Absorbing to himself--as I to me And you to you--a glad identity! After a while when the others went away, A curious kinship made us want to stay, Which I could tell you now; but at the time You thought of baseball teams and I of rhyme, Until we found that we were college men And smoked more easily and smiled again; And I from Cambridge cried, the poet still: “I know your fine Greek Theatre on the hill At Berkeley!” With your happy Grecian head Upraised, “I never saw the place,” you said. “Once I was free of class, I always went Out to the field.” Young engineer, You meant as fair a tribute to the better part As ever I did. Beauty of the heart Is evident in temples. But it breathes Alive where athletes quicken airy wreaths, Which are the lovelier because they die. You are a poet quite as much as I, Though differences appear in what we do, And I an athlete quite as much as you. Because you half-surmised my quarter-mile And I your quatrain, we could greet and smile. Who knows but we shall look again and find The circus-man and drummer, not behind But leading in our visible estate, As discus-thrower and as laureate?

_Yale Review_ _Witter Bynner_

THE KALLYOPE YELL

[_Loudly and rapidly with a leader, College yell fashion_]

I

Proud men Eternally Go about, Slander me, Call me the “Calliope.” Sizz . . . . . Fizz . . . . .

II

I am the Gutter Dream, Tune-maker, born of steam, Tooting joy, tooting hope. I am the Kallyope, Car called the Kallyope. Willy willy willy wah HOO! See the flags: snow-white tent, See the bear and elephant, See the monkey jump the rope, Listen to the Kallyope, Kallyope, Kallyope! Soul of the rhinoceros And the hippopotamus (Listen to the lion roar!) Jaguar, cockatoot, Loons, owls, Hoot, Hoot. Listen to the lion roar, Listen to the lion roar, Listen to the lion R-O-A-R! Hear the leopard cry for gore, Willy willy willy wah HOO! Hail the bloody Indian band, Hail, all hail the popcorn stand, Hail to Barnum’s picture there, People’s idol everywhere, Whoop, whoop, whoop, WHOOP! Music of the mob am I, Circus day’s tremendous cry:-- I am the Kallyope, Kallyope, Kallyope! Hoot toot, hoot toot, hoot toot, hoot toot, Willy willy willy wah HOO! Sizz, fizz . . . . .

III

Born of mobs, born of steam, Listen to my golden dream, Listen to my golden dream, Listen to my G-O-L-D-E-N D-R-E-A-M! Whoop whoop whoop whoop WHOOP! I will blow the proud folk low, Humanize the dour and slow, I will shake the proud folk down, (Listen to the lion roar!) Popcorn crowds shall rule the town-- Willy willy willy wah HOO! Steam shall work melodiously, Brotherhood increase. You’ll see the world and all it holds For fifty cents apiece. Willy willy willy wah HOO! Every day a circus day.

_What?_

Well, _almost_ every day. Nevermore the sweater’s den, Nevermore the prison pen. Gone the war on land and sea That aforetime troubled men. Nations all in amity, Happy in their plumes arrayed In the long bright street parade. Bands a-playing every day.

_What?_

Well, _almost_ every day. I am the Kallyope, Kallyope, Kallyope! Willy willy willy wah HOO! Hoot, toot, hoot, toot, Whoop whoop whoop whoop, Willy willy willy wah HOO! Sizz, fizz . . . . .

IV

Every soul Resident In the earth’s one circus tent! Every man a trapeze king Then a pleased spectator there. On the benches! In the ring! While the neighbors gawk and stare And the cheering rolls along. Almost every day a race When the merry starting gong Rings, each chariot on the line, Every driver fit and fine With the steel-spring Roman grace. Almost every day a dream, Almost every day a dream. Every girl, Maid or wife, Wild with music, Eyes a-gleam With that marvel called desire: Actress, princess, fit for life, Armed with honor like a knife, Jumping thro’ the hoops of fire. (Listen to the lion roar!) Making all the children shout Clowns shall tumble all about, Painted high and full of song While the cheering rolls along, Tho’ they scream, Tho’ they rage, Every beast In his cage, Every beast In his den That aforetime troubled men.

V

I am the Kallyope, Kallyope, Kallyope, Tooting hope, tooting hope, tooting hope, tooting hope; Shaking window-pane and door With a crashing cosmic tune, With the war-cry of the spheres, Rhythm of the roar of noon, Rhythm of Niagara’s roar, Voicing planet, star and moon, SHRIEKING of the better years. Prophet-singers will arise, Prophets coming after me, Sing my song in softer guise With more delicate surprise; I am but the pioneer Voice of the Democracy; I am the gutter-dream, I am the golden dream, Singing science, singing steam. I will blow the proud folk down, (Listen to the lion roar!) I am the Kallyope, Kallyope, Kallyope, Tooting hope, tooting hope, tooting hope, tooting hope, Willy willy willy wah HOO! Hoot toot, hoot toot, hoot toot, hoot toot, Whoop whoop, whoop whoop, Whoop whoop, whoop whoop, Willy willy willy wah HOO! Sizz ..... Fizz .....

_The Forum_ _Nicholas Vachel Lindsay_

THANKSGIVING FOR OUR TASK

The sickle is dulled of the reaping and the threshing-floor is bare; The dust of night’s in the air. The peace of the weary is ours: All day we have taken the fruit and the grain and the seeds of the flowers.

The ev’ning is chill, It is good now to gather in peace by the flames of the fire. We have done now the deed that we did for our need and desire: We have wrought our will.

And now for the boon of abundance and golden increase, And immurèd peace, Shall we thank our God? Bethink us, amid His indulgence, His terrible rod?

Shall we be as the maple and oak, Strew the earth with our gold, giving only bare boughs to the sky? Nay, the pine stayeth green while the Winter growls sullenly by, And doth not revoke

For soft days or stern days the pledge of its constancy. Shall we not be Also the same through all days, Giving thanks when the battle breaks on us, in toil giving praise?

O Father who saw at the dawn, That the folly of Pride would be the lush weed of our sin, There is better than that in our hearts, O enter therein, A light burneth, though wan

And weak be the flame, yet it gloweth, our Humility! Ah, how can it be Trimmed o’ the wick, And replenished with oil to burn brightly and golden and quick?

For deep in our hearts We wish to be thankful through lean years and fat without change, Knowing that here Thou hast set for the spirit a range: We would play well our parts,

Making America throb with the building of souls and the glory of good; Yea, and we would, And before the last Autumn we will Build a temple from ocean to ocean where deeds never still

Melodiously shall proclaim Thanksgiving forever that Thou hast set here to our hand So wondrous a mystical harvest, that Thou dost demand Sheaves bound in Thy name,

Yea, supersubstantial sheaves of strong souls that have grown Fain to be known As the corn of Thine occident field: O Yielder of All, can America worthily thank Thee till such be her yield?

In the mellowing light Of the goldenest days that precede the gray days of the year, We sing Thee our harvesting song and we pray Thee to hear, In the midst of Thy might:

Labor is given to us, Let us give thanks! Power worketh through us, Let us give thanks! Not for what we have (So might speak a slave), Not for the garnering, Gratefully we sing, But for the mighty thing We must do, travailing! For our task and for our strength; For the journey and its length; For our dauntless eagerness; For our humbling weariness; For these, for these, O Father, Let us give thanks! For these, O Mighty Father, Take Thou our thanks!

_The Forum_ _Shaemas OSheel_

A LIKENESS

PORTRAIT BUST OF AN UNKNOWN, CAPITOL, ROME

In every line a supple beauty-- The restless head a little bent-- Disgust of pleasure, scorn of duty, The unseeing eyes of discontent. I often come to sit beside him, This youth who passed and left no trace Of good or ill that did betide him, Save the disdain upon his face.

The hope of all his House, the brother Adored, the golden-hearted son, Whom Fortune pampered like a mother; And then--a shadow on the sun. Whether he followed Cæsar’s trumpet, Or chanced the riskier game at home To find how favor played the strumpet In fickle politics at Rome;

Whether he dreamed a dream in Asia He never could forget by day, Or gave his youth to some Aspasia, Or gamed his heritage away; Once lost, across the Empire’s border This man would seek his peace in vain; His look arraigns a social order Somehow entrammelled with his pain.

“The dice of gods are always loaded”; One gambler, arrogant as they, Fierce, and by fierce injustice goaded, Left both his hazard and the play. Incapable of compromises, Unable to forgive or spare, The strange awarding of the prizes He had no fortitude to bear.

Tricked by the forms of things material-- The solid-seeming arch and stone, The noise of war, the pomp imperial, The heights and depths about a throne-- He missed, among the shapes diurnal, The old, deep-travelled road from pain, The thoughts of men which are eternal, In which, eternal, men remain.

Ritratto d’ignoto; defying Things unsubstantial as a dream-- An Empire, long in ashes lying-- His face still set against the stream. Yes, so he looked, that gifted brother I loved, who passed and left no trace, Not even--luckier than this other-- His sorrow in a marble face.

_Scribner’s_ _Willa Sibert Cather_

THE FIELD OF GLORY

War shook the land where Levi dwelt, And fired the dismal wrath he felt, That such a doom was ever wrought As his, to toil while others fought; To toil, to dream--and still to dream, With one day barren as another; To consummate, as it would seem, The dry despair of his old mother.

Far off one afternoon began The sound of man destroying man; And Levi, sick with nameless rage, Condemned again his heritage, And sighed for scars that might have come, And would, if once he could have sundered Those harsh, inhering claims of home That held him while he cursed and wondered.