Part 1

Chapter 13,561 wordsPublic domain

Dream Tapestries

by Louise Morey Bowman Author of “Moonlight and Common Day”

“Reason has moons, but moons not hers Lie mirrored in her sea, Confounding her astronomers But, oh! delighting me.”

(Ralph Hodgson)

TORONTO: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA LIMITED, AT ST. MARTIN’S HOUSE MCMXXIV

Printed in Canada

TO ARCHIBALD ABERCROMBY BOWMAN

I wish to acknowledge the courtesy of the editors of _Poetry_ (Chicago), _The Bookman_ (New York), _The Canadian Forum_, and _The Canadian Magazine_, in permitting me to reprint “Cold Tragedy,” “Bread and Fire,” “Moment Musical,” “Blue Moon,” and “Oranges.”

CONTENTS

PAGE THE WINGÉD CLOAK 11

DREAM TAPESTRIES

HYACINTH 15

ENCHANTED WOOD 16

GREEN APPLES 19

ORANGES

ORANGES 25

THE MOUNTAIN THAT WATCHED

THE MOUNTAIN THAT WATCHED 33

THE OLD FRUIT GARDEN 40

SONGS OF WOMEN

BLUE MOON 45

MISTRESS MARY 46

DAFFY-DOWN-DILLY 47

THE BIRTH-NIGHT 48

A PORTRAIT 50

THE SONG OF THE WILLOW WAND 52

THE DEAD VIOLIN 54

A SKETCH 57

CINQUAINS

CITY CHILD’S EASTER 61

DEEP SNOW 62

TWELVE HOKKU ON A CANADIAN THEME 64

LIFE SEQUENCE (In the Hokku Manner) 66

PRAYER IN SCARLET AND WHITE PAINT 67

COLD TRAGEDY

COLD TRAGEDY 71

HOMESPUN

TWINS 75

BOB COONING 80

SYMPATHY 84

FALSE DAWN 85

THE WITCH 86

THE POST BOX 88

SONG 89

BREAD AND FIRE 90

“MOMENT MUSICAL” 91

THE WINGÉD CLOAK

_I draw my cloak about me ... Tattered and gray To others it may be. It seems to me Of golden hue, Broidered with mystic blue, Woven each dawn anew, And light as dew-ringed cobweb On the grass. Unscathed and joyously In it I pass Through drenching torrent, wind, Fierce pitiless sun, Till day is done._

Dream Tapestries

(1)

HYACINTH

Hyacinth dreams in the arbour ... Just a crumpled mass of gray ... Soft ashen hair and colourless skin, Small, delicate hands blue-veined and thin ... Hyacinth dreams in the arbour And who shall say What Hyacinth dreams to-day?

Hyacinth dreams in the arbour And the stealthy pussy-cat creeps To her silken lap in the soft green gloom. Room for the pussy-cat, Hyacinth ... room! Hyacinth dreams, in the arbour, Of Life ... that steals and leaps Like a panther out of the shadows ... Hyacinth sleeps.

Hyacinth! Hyacinth! Open your eyes! Your blue blue eyes like the Grecian seas! Or Life will spring on your silken knees And waken you with a wild surprise Where you dream ... just a crumpled mass of gray. Hyacinth dreams in the arbour. Ah who shall say What Hyacinth dreams to-day?

(2)

ENCHANTED WOOD

Through the great glowing forest, Green and dusky gold and ruddy brown, Where sunbeams filter down In showers of vibrant gold ... Through the old, old wood Passes the funeral pomp of the young, dead king. Choristers sing Strange, wailing, shuddering songs ... Old chants, so old, So desolate, drear. Heavy, deep, purple velvet drapes the bier ... Purple ... deep, passionate purple ... A regal pall Over the cold, young limbs, while the gold leaves fall On the velvet pall. On through the old wood moves The great procession; Deep, passionate purple draping the young, dead king; And the choristers sing ... And a small brown hare, Startled, in quivering panic, scurries ahead Leading the way for the king ... The king who is dead.

In a bright green dell Where they can see well, Wait the butcher, the baker, The candlestick maker. “No more bread for he!” Says the baker. “No more meat for he!” Says the butcher. But the candlestick maker slaps his knee. “Not such a bad day this for me! No more meat and no more bread, But candles to burn at his feet and his head. Nor the living nor dead Can’t get on without me! And very very soon they’ll summon us three!” “For the Feast!” grins the butcher Wagging his head. “For the Feast!” says the baker, “They’ll soon need bread!” “Men can’t do without we!” They say, all three. So the butcher, the baker, The candlestick maker, Watch the procession from the small green dell Where they can all three see Exceedingly well.

So the procession Passed through the wood to the blue sea shore, And they buried the king Where the blue waves sing ... And the young king rules no more. But late that night through the lonely wood Came a slim brown maid who had understood, And mated her soul with the young, dead king, With never a priest or mass or ring ... And she carried a dagger with poisoned tip, And pressed its point to her soft red lip ... And she lay on the grave, and died.

Still at the turn of the year, men say, Through the old, old forest in ghostly pageant The funeral procession passes Of the young, young king Who is dead: And the gold leaves fall On his passionate purple pall, And the small brown hare still scurries ahead As if she were leading them all.

(3)

GREEN APPLES

The garden lies spattered with wet green moonlight Spilled from the night’s dark goblet; And the wraith in the garden huddles mournfully Silently watching, Upon the broad marble seat, Where white lilies and roses bloom. Wine of pale silver-green drenches the garden. The little gray wraith huddles mournfully, Silently watching.

* * * * *

On that broad marble seat to-day Sat a beautiful lady ... Through the hot golden hours of the long afternoon ... Oh a beautiful lady! With a warm wicked beauty of white, and of rose, And of ebony. Over her white breasts a long green scarf falling ... Wet, bright, apple-green. Out in the orchard, laughing With clear, evil laughter ... Ice laughter ... She had gathered some little green apples And bit them with strong white teeth. “I am Eve! I am Eve in the garden ... Come! Adam!” And he followed ... poor, passionate lover ... To the seat by the heavy white lilies and roses. (Oh far far away lie the wise castle windows Behind the rose gardens and lime trees!) But after the lovers ... after them, swiftly, swiftly, Like a fleeting gray shadow, Speeds the little gray wraith ... With feeble weak fingers of dampness Pulling with tremulous touch at his heart-strings ... Pricking like impotent tiny thorns; Nipping, and pinching, and pricking The shrivelled, black conscience of the rosy and beautiful lady. See! from the shrivelled black conscience One drop of bright, red blood, As from prick of a rose thorn ... And his heart-strings are drawn tight and knotted With tiny, weak, slipping knots Tied by feeble, damp fingers ... Slipping ... slipping ... oh slipping! But what does that matter? For Time has come to the help of the gray wraith ... Grave, gray Father Time with a handful of moments-- Dust? Ashes?... He has set the rose-shrouded sundial in shadow.

* * * * *

Now the broad marble seat is empty Except where gray wraith has sunk down in the moonlight Victorious. Ah! ... the lady had dropped her bright, apple-green scarf, And it stirs like a sinuous, long snake. Is it only that one pointed corner is lifted By the stealthy, stealing, night wind? Slowly, slowly ... so feebly ... The snake lifts itself with the wind’s help, Revealing A little green apple, With some black dents where strong white teeth Have bitten it. And the small, gray wraith noiselessly moans and shudders. But what matter? For the long night passes. Only the green scarf lies harmlessly, softly, On the empty marble seat where the little gray wraith sits And watches, Victorious ... Though the green wine of moonlight is drenching The perilous garden.

Oranges

ORANGES

A small New England village in the hills: ... The date? Oh, many, many years ago ... the season very late ... November! The conquering colours that a year must always hold Have vanished. Pale Northern Spring in tints of lilac, softest green and rose; The short hot Summer’s purple and dark green and yellow gold; The tawny richness of the harvest’s close ... All past and vanquished in this sullen cold, By sombre grays and browns, dead white and black. The tall-spired meeting-house, the school, The stiff white houses built by rigid rule, Even the village store, With hospitable, easily-opened door; And their human owners reared in godly fear, Austere, repressed, Severe ... How it all lies, before our modern eyes, So grim. Dressed in that rigid livery of nature’s gloom that suits it best. Hear their stern hymn ... Dignified, slow, Sung in proud, solemn majesty of menace and woe. “Our days as grass ... all earth is but a tomb” ... What unfathomed gloom ... Smouldering!

(2)

Keen bitter winds have stripped the great elm trees, And swept the one long street Ruthlessly neat; Quite bare of all the withered, dead, brown leaves, Except for small dry heaps that meet, Trembling and mournfully rustling, Caught In the corners of the neat, white, picket fences; Or drifting Behind the pillars in the porch of the white meeting-house, Unused through the long week Except for Death. How the winds shriek about the meeting-house! (But wait before you shudder and turn away!) With the keen, icy breath of the New England hills Sharp in your nostrils, Step over the threshold of the village store, With its easily-opened door. Breathe this different air, Heavy with curiously mingled odours As if another wind had blown in there Heaps of rare Drifted salvage ... Some wild, rich wind from wild rich worlds beyond, That folk cannot entirely withhold, Even from a Puritan village long ago. Beware ... ye righteous folk of old ... Beware!

(3)

Here are great foreign boxes, wisely and deftly made, That hold teas from the Orient, compactly laid; And coffee beans. Here spices, pungent and hot; Tall, blue-wrapped cones of sugar; fine and coarse salt; And finest quality of figured delaine; Dark, serviceable calico dotted and plain; Sheer delicate muslin, white as milk, And thick black silk; And broadcloth heavy and black; And much, much more ... Of quantity and quality no lack-- For this is the “general store,” of a prosperous man Old and wealthy and wise, In the village eyes. Oh, Puritan New England would be clothed fittingly; And Puritan palates know, Both high and low The wholesome savour of good food When in the mood; As well as very fine Flavours in sermons by some “great divine;” Or savour of ethics proved and tried, And flavours in doctrines never very wide ... But high and pure ... (That you’ll acknowledge!) God ... but they were sure ... Those grim fine people of ours! ... another hymn ... “Only such things as are godly and pure, Saved from consuming wrath they shall endure.”... Is that the echo of the bell From the tall-spired white meeting-house? Its bell is silent through the week, except for Death ... Hear the wind shriek about the meeting-house! But this small bell Fastened above the door Of the old village store, Tinkles continually, where through the week, They barter and buy and sell.

(4)

(In this short passing hour we shall see more ...) He is a man of vision and breadth of mind ... This storekeeper. Back in the dusky depths of the old store Are rows of books in sober black and brown; Books for his town That are not all volumes of sermons or hymns, Or a “Garland of Sacred Poetry from Friend to Friend.” (Does not some stern voice ask “Where will this end?”) For here are books of perilous voyages, tales of human ways, And human lives, and of the great, historic, coloured days Of far-off empires ... Ah ... here are William Shakespeare’s mighty plays! (But we must not stop to read more titles now ... the hour is almost past) Daylight is fading fast ... And heaped on the dark, well-rubbed old counter lies his last And latest venture on seas of commerce ... Oranges!

(5)

Oranges ... oranges ... Great balls of golden wonder ... round, perishable globes ... Here a ripe pyramid most carefully laid Beside sad-toned materials for matrons’ robes, And piles of iron-gray wool for their men’s winter stockings ... Plain comfortable sight ... proof against sharp frost bite Of the Northern Winters. See how the oranges have caught up all the light! What joyous tones they hold Of vivid, bold, Hot colour! They glow like balls moulded of molten gold. Above them from the rafters hang thin strings and strings, Innumerable strings Of dull, dried apples! Nothing is here akin to the oranges at all ... Nothing in all This colourless, inanimate hoard ... nothing’s akin Except that vague, enduring richness, so alluring, That we smell, When the small bell, Over the door tinkles ... and we come in ... Out of the keen, pure coldness of the wind.

(6)

So ... the scene is set ... for good and ill. Over the highest hill New winds blow wild and shrill: For “the old order changeth” still. Who now is sure what shall endure? The street is empty ... in the dusky store, Holding the eye with a voluptuous lure, The oranges burn through the smouldering gloom.

The Mountain That Watched

THE MOUNTAIN THAT WATCHED

“In the beginning” ... “The heavens and the earth” ... “Let there be light” ... After all we can’t improve on Genesis After all we can’t improve on Genesis For the condensed beginning of a tale! But earth is much more earth, and heaven much more heaven When it’s our own old Mountain, touching sky Like this, right up in the middle of the island, Than when it’s a mountain range across the oceans. That’s to my way of thinking anyhow. Mountain and city ... Edinburgh now ... but that’s another’s story ... Sonnet form! And now ... to mine, to-day. To-day! To-day is written in curling smoke Before the Mountain, dumb above the city ... Our Mountain ... trying to make us understand, By secret code, sign language ... what you will.

_Rustling of leaves-- Pale green, dark amber, scarlet, crimsoning brown-- Deep coloured sighs and long deep breaths of earth-- Rustling of leaves--_

“In the beginning”-- The river, the island, and the rustling leaves, Arrows and mating and life and birth and death, Silence and solitude; But always the Mountain, touching cold blue sky When the white men landed in their little boats, When holy dreaming men and women came, And built their funny little forts and towers, And sacred shrines, And made a new-world city. And all the while the Mountain watched and watched.

Dirt? Well you certainly can’t expect a city’s docks, or a great station at an entrance port, to be like a Quaker meeting-house on a seventh-day noon.

Docks! There’s a magical word! Not unpoetical let me tell you, if you’ll only close your eyes and use that “inward eye” your Wordsworth used for daffodils. My God! you’d think he had secured that “eye” to be hereafter used for “daffodils,” and “solitude” and “thrills,” exclusively! Come now! Just try it on for once to-day with river docks filled with the motley throng ... old world and new. Deep searching eyes that seek the “golden West”-- wild eyes that hold the primal hunger lure, young eyes that hold the secrets of the dawn, sad eyes that hold the fury of the night-- We’ll have to stand the dirty docks I think, and the crowded station-- holding a daffodil to your nose to smell you’ll soon forget the nose and the daffodil! What’s that you’re murmuring? “It’s all like a magic casement opening out on perilous seas....” Bless you for those kind words! Though that’s John Keats that sees our docks--not you! Wait just a moment--here is something now that’s well worth watching! It’s the Jewish New Year, and those are orthodox Jews who have come down to cast their sins away in running water. Mumbling in their beards ... from books, and some from memory ... punctilious enough they are ... shaking their overcoats ... (those two men, look!) Into deep river ... old Father St. Lawrence running to the sea. Old men, believers--and a few young ones too. You see? Turn round and look at the motor cars. Look at that old old woman from the slums-- Grandmother of Isaac and Jacob and Abraham-- Look at her! Carefully shake, shake, shake, old Mother! Strong, wrinkled, kindly face--those toil-worn hands-- Come, let us try the “inward eye” again.... Verily--see! Her sins do drop and float away from her on the dirty oily water--little sins that float like tiny, bright-red maple leaves cast from a lusty old tree in the Fall. She’s known the life of the full ripe seasons through ... carefully and punctiliously shake, shake, shake! Let us go too from the docks with lightened hearts, groping our way on upward through the slums. Listen to the lilt and whimsical chattering of alien tongues. “And have not charity”--“Through a glass darkly” ... see? We’ve dropped our classic daffodils and trod upon them! But we’ve really seen--something. To-day. What else does the Mountain see? Churches! Hotels! Domes, palaces and towers, Steep hilly streets, shops, hovels, factories. Limestone tradition! Romance! Romance! Raw gold! Merry-men, jesters, in a surging crowd mingling with Holy Folk-- Miracles, shrines, and glorious, honest doubts-- raw gold, black, red,-- new thoughts breed sacraments-- white dreams and tawny sins-- the half-good, the half-bad--Humanity! Groping humanity-- Who judges? How? Or why? The Mountain watches.

Snow-dusted silent streets. The midnight mass-- with quiet thronging worshippers that pass from darkness into glimmering ecstasies.-- Another mood ... The blizzard-- The swirling wall-like drifts, while through the streets the snow-ploughs move like huge primeval beasts glutted with power; wallowing through the mists of drifting powdery particles, ploughing the snow. The Mountain watches and possesses now a festival afternoon of sparkling white, pierced by the thrilling flights of vivid glancing skis-- pierced by the shooting downward in death-like dive, of flat toboggans on the mountain slide. Impertinence the Mountain tolerates!

The flashing facets of an ice palace reared in a square beside a towering church of massive stone, for half a continent to gaze upon if it so desires, and feast between whiles. (“H-mmm--Good advertising this-- Hush! Watch your step! Deliver the goods!”) Ah well--Mount Royal, graven on a “souvenir!” The Mountain watches. “Truly an ice palace is a beautiful thing--a fairy tale!” “You poets are so fantastic!” “You should worry!” “My word I’m nearly dead for tea!” “Do hurry!” “Ice plants for making artificial ice”--“Efficiency”-- “Gold seal--good jazz” “The cafeterias are the thing to-day-- take up your tray and walk!” “What blasphemy!” “Ice plants for making artificial ice” “Fine bargain furs there if you’ve got the price” “Gods! what a day!” Then much the same in French--the rapid glancing tongue. “Day uttereth speech” indeed. “Night sheweth knowledge.” The Mountain watches. Night! Zero night-- like a dense black velvet skin drawn tightly over the city; and lights pricking, pricking, pricking-- like fiery pin-points in a million eyes behind black skins, blazing with jungle light ... a gay old city is sinister at night.

_Rustling and creaking of black naked branches On the old Mountain-- Stark twisted branches black against the snow Snapping and crackling of frost-tortured trees-- Rustling--_

Something has happened! The Mountain almost seems to tremble. Down its sides rush the melting snows in torrents; tumbling, tumultuous, most untidy rivers through icy blackened parapets that still stand. Washing day for the Mountain! Ah but wait!-- Silver-green city in a rosy mist--Spring dawn!-- As Life has waked with a soft stirring Of pouting leafy lips And curling velvet finger-tips, Through all the ages while the Mountain watched.

_Rustling of leaves-- Silver-green, rose-red, amber, scarlet, brown-- Deep coloured sighs and long deep breaths of earth-- Rustling of leaves_--

Against my hand a little crumbling dust Is softly blown-- Before my eyes a glory--sunset? Dawn? And in my ears a great triumphant song-- Is it a song? Or but the quiet breathing of a child Who holds its coloured toys and drifts to sleep?

The Mountain watches and is very still.

THE OLD FRUIT GARDEN

MEMORY

Through tortured weeks of hospital surgery The old fruit garden of my childhood days Grew close about me. Through black storms of pain Swayed joyous boughs of rosy apple-bloom; White blossomed branches of an old plum-tree; Old grape-vines clinging to a sunny wall; Great bushes of red currants and raspberries. Through hours of torturing thirst I found again That old fruit garden--as if body and soul Clutched at cool juicy fruits--remembering-- Devouring them through a parched mouth of the brain.

GRAPES

Grandfather was so courtly, wise and calm: At times a sweet old wordling, dealing balm Through business phrase or words of ancient psalm, Justice and whimsical kindliness to all. As he watched mankind, so in early Fall, He watched his grape-vines on the stable wall. In old Quebec the season is too brief To ripen grapes well ... sometimes scarlet leaf Becomes a herald swift beyond belief. The few big clusters with pale purple bloom So slowly deepening, often met their doom When rich October caught November’s gloom. He never lost his interest ... every Fall He saw his grape-vines as he’d dreamed them, all Weighed down with purple riches, growing tall Over the stable windows. On the way To the rose garden where he walked each day ... “These grapes are riper than last year” he’d say. In spite of all the travelling he’d done He sought no changes now and thought “no sun Could be much brighter than a Canadian one!” Yet I knew well his grapes brought visions fair Of mellow summer lands with temperate air. “Grapes are like men--can’t ripen everywhere.... Men all need sun, and right loam I suppose; But if one strikes deep roots ... as a rule ... he grows!” He smiled his smile and cut a late white rose.

RED CURRANTS