Chapter 3

Some, like the tiny red one there, He never lets go far; And some he has sent to the roof of the tent To swim without a jar.

So white and still they seem to hang, You wonder if he forgot To reckon the time of their return And measure their golden lot.

Can it be that, hurried or tired out, The hand of the juggler shook? O never you fear, his eye is clear, He knows them all like a book.

And they will home to his hand at last, For he pulls them by a cord Finer than silk and strong as fate, That is just the bid of his word.

Was ever there such a sight in the world? Like a wonderful winding skein,-- The way he tangles them up together And ravels them out again!

He has so many moving now, You can hardly believe your eyes; And yet they say he can handle twice The number when he tries.

You take your choice and give me mine, I know the one for me, It's that great bluish one low down Like a ship's light out at sea.

It has not moved for a minute or more. The marvel that it can keep As if it had been set there to spin For a thousand years asleep!

If I could have him at the inn All by myself some night,-- Inquire his country, and where in the world He came by that cunning sleight!

Where do you guess he learned the trick To hold us gaping here, Till our minds in the spell of his maze almost Have forgotten the time of year?

One never could have the least idea. Yet why be disposed to twit A fellow who does such wonderful things With the merest lack of wit?

Likely enough, when the show is done And the balls all back in his hand, He'll tell us why he is smiling so, And we shall understand.

_Hack and Hew_

Hack and Hew were the sons of God In the earlier earth than now; One at his right hand, one at his left, To obey as he taught them how.

And Hack was blind and Hew was dumb, But both had the wild, wild heart; And God's calm will was their burning will, And the gist of their toil was art.

They made the moon and the belted stars, They set the sun to ride; They loosed the girdle and veil of the sea, The wind and the purple tide.

Both flower and beast beneath their hands To beauty and speed outgrew,-- The furious fumbling hand of Hack, And the glorying hand of Hew.

Then, fire and clay, they fashioned a man, And painted him rosy brown; And God himself blew hard in his eyes: "Let them burn till they smoulder down!"

And "There!" said Hack, and "There!" thought Hew, "We'll rest, for our toil is done." But "Nay," the Master Workman said, "For your toil is just begun.

"And ye who served me of old as God Shall serve me anew as man, Till I compass the dream that is in my heart, And perfect the vaster plan."

And still the craftsman over his craft, In the vague white light of dawn, With God's calm will for his burning will, While the mounting day comes on.

Yearning, wind-swift, indolent, wild, Toils with those shadowy two,-- The faltering restless hand of Hack, And the tireless hand of Hew.

_The Night Express_

Out through the hills of midnight, Hurtling and thundering on, The night express from the outer world Speeds for the open of dawn.

Out of the past and gloom-wrack, Out of the dim and yore, Freighted as train or caravan Was never freighted before;

Built when the Sphinx's query Was new on the lips of peace; Hurled through the aching and hollow years Till time shall have release;

Stealing and swift as a shadow, Sinuous, urging, and blind, Unpent as a joy or the flight of a bird, With oblivion behind;

Down to the morrow country Into the unknown land! And the Driver grips the throttle-bar; Our lives are in his hand.

The sleeping hills awake; A tremor, a dread, a roar; The terror is flying, is come, is past; The hills can sleep once more.

A moment the silence throbs, The dark has a pulse of fire; And then the wonder of time is gone, A wraith and a desire.

Demonish, toiling, grim, In the ruddy furnace flare, While the Driver fingers the throttle-bar, Who stands at his elbow there?

Can it be, this thing like a shred Of the firmament torn away, Is a boarded train that Death and his crew Consorted to waylay?

His wreckers, grinning and lean, Are lurking at every curve; But the Driver plays with the throttle-bar; He has the iron nerve.

We are travelling safe and warm, With our little baggage of cares; Why tease the peril that yet would come Unbidden and unawares?

The lonely are lonely still; And the friend has another friend; Only the idle heart inquires The distance and the end.

We pant up the climbing grade, And coast on the tangent mile, While the Driver toys with the throttle-bar, And gathers the track in his smile.

The dreamer weary of dreams, The lover by love released, Stricken and whole, and eager and sad, Beauty and waif and priest,

All these adventure forth, Strangers though side by side, With the tramp of time in the roaring wheels, And haste in their shadowy stride.

The star that races the hills Shows yet the night is deep; But the Driver humors the throttle-bar; So, you and I may sleep.

For He of the sleepless hand Will drive till the night is done-- Will watch till morning springs from the sea, And the rails stand gold in the sun;

Then he will slow to a stop The tread of the driving-rod, When the night express rolls into the dawn; For the Driver's name is God.

_The Dustman_

"Dustman, dustman!" Through the deserted square he cries, And babies put their rosy fists Into their eyes.

There's nothing out of No-man's-land So drowsy since the world began, As "Dustman, dustman, Dustman."

He goes his village round at dusk From door to door, from day to day; And when the children hear his step They stop their play.

"Dustman, dustman!" Far up the street he is descried, And soberly the twilight games Are laid aside.

"Dustman, dustman!" There, Drowsyhead, the old refrain, "Dustman, dustman!" It goes again.

Dustman, dustman, Hurry by and let me sleep. When most I wish for you to come, You always creep.

Dustman, dustman, And when I want to play some more, You never then are further off Than the next door.

"Dustman, dustman!" He heckles down the echoing curb, A step that neither hopes nor hates Ever disturb.

"Dustman, dustman!" He never varies from one pace, And the monotony of time Is in his face.

And some day, with more potent dust, Brought from his home beyond the deep, And gently scattered on our eyes, We, too, shall sleep,--

Hearing the call we know so well Fade softly out as it began, "Dustman, dustman, Dustman!"

_The Sleepers_

The tall carnations down the garden walks Bowed on their stalks.

Said Jock-a-dreams to John-a-nods, "What are the odds That we shall wake up here within the sun, When time is done, And pick up all the treasures one by one Our hands let fall in sleep?" "You have begun To mutter in your dreams," Said John-a-nods to Jock-a-dreams, And they both slept again.

The tall carnations in the sunset glow Burned row on row.

Said John-a-nods to Jock-a-dreams, "To me it seems A thousand years since last you stirred and spoke, And I awoke. Was that the wind then trying to provoke His brothers in their blessed sleep?" "They choke, Who mutter in their nods," Said Jock-a-dreams to John-a-nods. And they both slept again.

The tall carnations only heard a sigh Of dusk go by.

_At the Granite Gate_

There paused to shut the door A fellow called the Wind. With mystery before, And reticence behind,

A portal waits me too In the glad house of spring, One day I shall pass through And leave you wondering.

It lies beyond the marge Of evening or of prime, Silent and dim and large, The gateway of all time.

There troop by night and day My brothers of the field; And I shall know the way Their woodsongs have revealed.

The dusk will hold some trace Of all my radiant crew Who vanished to that place, Ephemeral as dew.

Into the twilight dun, Blue moth and dragon-fly Adventuring alone,-- Shall be more brave than I?

There innocents shall bloom And the white cherry tree, With birch and willow plume To strew the road for me.

The wilding orioles then Shall make the golden air Heavy with joy again, And the dark heart shall dare

Resume the old desire, The exigence of spring To be the orange fire That tips the world's gray wing.

And the lone wood-bird--Hark, The whippoorwill night long Threshing the summer dark With his dim flail of song!--

Shall be the lyric lift, When all my senses creep, To bear me through the rift In the blue range of sleep.

And so I pass beyond The solace of your hand. But ah, so brave and fond! Within that morrow land,

Where deed and daring fail, But joy forevermore Shall tremble and prevail Against the narrow door,

Where sorrow knocks too late, And grief is overdue, Beyond the granite gate There will be thoughts of you.

_Exit Anima_

"Hospes comesque corporis, Quae nunc abitis in loca?"

Cease, Wind, to blow And drive the peopled snow, And move the haunted arras to and fro, And moan of things I fear to know Yet would rend from thee, Wind, before I go On the blind pilgrimage. Cease, Wind, to blow.

Thy brother too, I leave no print of shoe In all these vasty rooms I rummage through, No word at threshold, and no clue Of whence I come and whither I pursue The search of treasures lost When time was new.

Thou janitor Of the dim curtained door, Stir thy old bones along the dusty floor Of this unlighted corridor. Open! I have been this dark way before; Thy hollow face shall peer In mine no more. . . . .

Sky, the dear sky! Ah, ghostly house, good-by! I leave thee as the gauzy dragon-fly Leaves the green pool to try His vast ambition on the vaster sky,-- Such valor against death Is deity.

What, thou too here, Thou haunting whisperer? Spirit of beauty immanent and sheer, Art thou that crooked servitor, Done with disguise, from whose malignant leer Out of the ghostly house I fled in fear?

O Beauty, how I do repent me now, Of all the doubt I ever could allow To shake me like the aspen bough; Nor once imagine that unsullied brow Could wear the evil mask And still be thou!

Bone of thy bone, Breath of thy breath alone, I dare resume the silence of a stone, Or explore still the vast unknown, Like a bright sea-bird through the morning blown, With all his heart one joy, From zone to zone.

Scituate, June, 1895.

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Transcriber's Note:

One block of ten lines from the title poem was printed without break:

Yet while they last how actual they seem! Their faces beam; I give them all their names, Bertram and Gilbert, Louis, Frank and James, Each with his aims; One thinks he is a poet, and writes verse His friends rehearse; Another is full of law; A third sees pictures which his hand can draw Without a flaw.

This may be a typographical error.