Chapter 2

EACH nation as it draws the sword And flings its standard to the air Petitions piously the Lord-- Vexing the void abyss with prayer.

O irony too deep for mirth! O posturing apes that rant, and dare This antic attitude! O Earth, With your wild jest of wicked prayer!

I dare not laugh ... a rising swell Of laughter breaks in shrieks somewhere-- No doubt they relish it in Hell, This cosmic jest of Earth at prayer!

SHADOWS

HAUNTED

(THE GHOST SPEAKS)

A GHOST is the freak of a sick man's brain? Then why do ye start and shiver so? That's the sob and drip of a leaky drain? But it sounds like another noise we know! The heavy drops drummed red and slow, The drops ran down as slow as fate-- Do ye hear them still?--it was long ago!-- But here in the shadows I wait, I wait!

Spirits there be that pass in peace; Mine passed in a whorl of wrath and dole; And the hour that your choking breath shall cease I will get my grip on your naked soul-- Nor pity may stay nor prayer cajole-- I would drag ye whining from Hell's own gate: To me, to me, ye must pay the toll! And here in the shadows I wait, I wait!

The dead they are dead, they are out of the way? And a ghost is the whim of an ailing mind? Then why did ye whiten with fear to-day When ye heard a voice in the calling wind? Why did ye falter and look behind At the creeping mists when the hour grew late? Ye would see my face were ye stricken blind! And here in the shadows I wait, I wait!

Drink and forget, make merry and boast, But the boast rings false and the jest is thin-- In the hour that I meet ye ghost to ghost, Stripped of the flesh that ye skulk within, Stripped to the coward soul 'ware of its sin, Ye shall learn, ye shall learn, whether dead men hate! Ah, a weary time has the waiting been, But here in the shadows I wait, I wait!

A NIGHTMARE

LEAGUES before me, leagues behind, Clamor warring wastes of flood, All the streams of all the worlds Flung together, mad of mood; Through the canon beats a sound, Regular of interval, Distant, drumming, muffled, dull, Thunderously rhythmical;

Crafts slip by my startled soul-- Soul that cowers, a thing apart-- They are corpuscles of blood! That's the throbbing of a heart! God of terrors!--am I mad?-- Through my body, mine own soul, Shrunken to an atom's size, Voyages toward an unguessed goal!

THE MOTHER

THE mother by the gallows-tree, The gallows-tree, the gallows-tree, (While the twitching body mocked the sun) Lifted to Heaven her broken heart And called for sympathy.

Then Mother Mary bent to her, Bent from her place by God's left side, And whispered: "Peace--do I not know?-- My son was crucified!"

"O Mother Mary," answered she, "You cannot, cannot enter in To my soul's woe--you cannot know-- For your son wrought no sin!"

(And men whose work compelled them there, Their hearts were stricken dead;

They heard the rope creak on the beam; I thought I heard the frightened ghost Whimpering overhead.)

The mother by the gallows-tree, The gallows-tree, the gallows-tree, Lifted to Christ her broken heart And called in agony.

Then Lord Christ bent to her and said: "Be comforted, be comforted; I know your grief; the whole world's woe I bore upon my head."

"But O Lord Christ, you cannot know, No one can know," she said, "no one"-- (While the quivering corpse swayed in the wind)-- "Lord Christ, no one can understand Who never had a son!"

IN THE BAYOU

LAZY and slow, through the snags and trees Move the sluggish currents, half asleep; Around and between the cypress knees, Like black, slow snakes the dark tides creep-- How deep is the bayou beneath the trees? "Knee-deep, Knee-deep, Knee-deep, Knee-deep!" Croaks the big bullfrog of Reelfoot Lake From his hiding-place in the draggled brake.

What is the secret the slim reeds know That makes them to shake and to shiver so, And the scared flags quiver from plume to foot?-- The frogs pipe solemnly, deep and slow: "Look under the root! Look under the root!"

The hoarse frog croaks and the stark owl hoots Of a mystery moored in the cypress roots.

Was it love turned hate? Was it friend turned foe? Only the frogs and the gray owl know, For the white moon shrouded her face in a mist At the spurt of a pistol, red and bright-- At the sound of a shriek that stabbed the night-- And the little reeds were frightened and whist; But always the eddies whimper and choke, And the frogs would tell if they could, for they croak: "Deep, deep! Death-deep! Deep, deep! Death-deep!" And the dark tide slides and glisters and glides Snakelike over the secret it hides.

THE SAILOR'S WIFE SPEAKS

YE are dead, they say, but ye swore, ye swore, Ye would come to me back from the sea! From out of the sea and the night, ye cried, Nor the crawling weed nor the dragging tide Could hold ye fast from me:-- Come, ah, come to me!

Three spells I have laid on the rising sun And three on the waning moon-- Are ye held in the bonds of the night or the day Ye must loosen your bonds and away, away! Ye must come where I wait ye, soon-- Ah, soon! soon! soon!

Three times I have cast my words to the wind, And thrice to the climbing sea; If ye drift or dream with the clouds or foam Ye must drift again home, ye must drift again home--

Wraith, ye are free, ye are free; Ghost, ye are free, ye are free!

Are the coasts of death so fair, so fair? But I wait ye here on the shore! It is I that ye hear in the calling wind-- I have stared through the dark till my soul is blind! O lover of mine, ye swore, Lover of mine, ye swore!

HUNTED

_Oh, why do they hunt so hard, so hard, who have no need of food? Do they hunt for sport, do they hunt for hate, do they hunt for the lust of blood?_

. . . . . .

If I were a god I would get me a spear, I would get me horse and dog, And merrily, merrily I would ride through covert and brake and bog,

With hound and horn and laughter loud, over the hills and away-- For there is no sport like that of a god with a man that stands at bay!

Ho! but the morning is fresh and fair, and oh! but the sun is bright, And yonder the quarry breaks from the brush and heads for the hills in flight;

A minute's law for the harried thing--then follow him, follow him fast, With the bellow of dogs and the beat of hoofs and the mellow bugle's blast.

. . . . . .

_Hillo! Halloo! they have marked a man! there is sport in the world to-day-- And a clamor swells from the heart of the wood that tells of a soul at bay!

A DREAM CHILD

WHERE tides of tossed wistaria bloom Foam up in purple turbulence, Where twining boughs have built a room And wing'd winds pause to garner scents And scattered sunlight flecks the gloom, She broods in pensive indolence.

What is the thought that holds her thrall, That dims her sight with unshed tears? What songs of sorrow droop and fall In broken music for her ears? What voices thrill her and recall The poignant joy of happier years?

She dreams 'tis not the winds which pass That whisper through the shaken vine; Whose footstep stirs the rustling grass None else that listened might divine; She sees her child that never was Look up with longing in his eyne.

Unkissed, his lifted forehead gains A grace not earthly, but more rare-- For since her heart but only feigns, Wherefore should love not feign him fair? Put blood of roses in his veins, Weave yellow sunshines for his hair?

All ghosts of little children dead That wander wistful, uncaressed, Their seeking lips by love unfed, She fain would cradle on her breast For his sweet sake whose lonely head Has never known that tender rest.

And thus she sits, and thus she broods, Where drifted blossoms freak the grass; The winds that move across her moods Pulse with low whispers as they pass, And in their eerier interludes She hears a voice that never was.

ACROSS THE NIGHT

MUCH listening through the silences, Much staring through the night, And lo! the dumb blind distances Are bridged with speech and sight!

Magician Thought, informed of Love, Hath fixed her on the air-- Oh, Love and I laughed down the fates And clasped her, here as there!

Across the eerie silences She came in headlong flight, She stormed the serried distances, She trampled space and night!

Oh, foolish scientists might give This miracle a name-- But Love and I care but to know That when we called she came.

And since I find the distances Subservient to my thought, And of the sentient silences More vital speech have wrought,

Then she and I will mock Death's self, For all his vaunted might-- There are no gulfs we dare not leap, As she leapt through the night!

SEA CHANGES

I

MORNING

WE stood among the boats and nets; We saw the swift clouds fall, We watched the schooners scamper in Before the sudden squall;-- The jolly squall strove lustily To whelm the sheltered street-- The merry squall that piled the seas About the patient headland's knees And chased the fishing fleet.

She laughed; as if with wings her mirth Arose and left the wingless earth And all tame things behind; Rose like a bird, wild with delight Whose briny pinions flash in flight Through storm and sun and wind.

Her laughter sought those skies because Their mood and hers were one, For she and I were drunk with love And life and storm and sun!

And while she laughed, the Sun himself Leapt laughing through the rain And struck his harper hand along The ringing coast; and that wind-song Whose joy is mixed with pain Forgot the undertone of grief And joined the jocund strain, And over every hidden reef Whereon the waves broke merrily Rose jets and sprays of melody And leapt and laughed again.

II

MOONLIGHT

We stood among the boats and nets ... We marked the risen moon Walk swaying o'er the trembling seas As one sways in a swoon;

The little stars, the lonely stars, Stole through the hollow sky, And every sucking eddy where The waves lapped wharf or rotten stair Moaned like some stricken thing hid there And strangled with its own despair As the shuddering tide crept by.

I loved her, and I hated her-- Or did I hate myself because, Bound by obscure, strong, silken laws, I felt myself the worshiper Of beauty never wholly mine? With lures most apt to snare, entwine, With bonds too subtle to define, Her lighter nature mastered mine; Herself half given, half withheld, Her lesser spirit still compelled Its tribute from my franker soul: So--rebel, slave, and worshiper!-- I loved her and I hated her.

I gazed upon her, I, her thrall, And musing, murmured, _What if death_

_Were just the answer to it all?-- Suppose some dainty dagger quaffed Her life in one deep eager draught?-- Suppose some amorous knife caressed The lovely hollow of her breast?"_-- She turned a mocking look to mine: She read the thought within my eyne, She held me with her look--and laughed!

Now who may tell what stirs, controls, And shapes mad fancies into facts? What trivial things may quicken souls To irrevocable, swift acts? Now who has known, who understood, Wherefore some idle thing May stab with deadlier sting Than well-considered insult could?-- May spur the languor of a mood And rouse a tiger in the blood?--

Ah, Christ!--had she not laughed just when That fancy came! ... for then ... and then ... A sudden mist dropped from the sky,

A mist swept in across the sea ... A mist that hid her face from me ... A weeping mist all tinged with red, A dripping mist that smelt like blood ... It choked my throat, it burnt my brain ... And through it peered one sallow star, And through it rang one shriek of pain ... And when it passed my hands were red, My soul was dabbled with her blood; And when it passed my love was dead And tossed upon the troubled flood.

III

MOONSET

But see! ... the body does not sink; It rides upon the tide (A starbeam on the dagger's haft), With staring eyes and wide ... And now, up from the darkling sea, Down from the failing moon, Are come strange shapes to mock at me ... All pallid from the star-pale sea, White from the paling moon ...

Or whirling fast or wheeling slow Around, around the corpse they go, All bloodless o'er the sickened sea Beneath the ailing moon!

And are they only wisps of fog That dance along the waves? Only shapes of mist the wind Drives along the waves? Or are they spirits that the sea Has cheated of their graves? The ghosts of them that died at sea, Of murdered men flung in the sea, Whose bodies had no graves?-- Lost souls that haunt for evermore The sobbing reef and hollowed shore And always-murmuring caves?

Ah, surely something more than fog, More than starlit mist! For starlight never makes a sound And fogs are ever whist-- But hearken, hearken, hearken, now, For these sing as they dance!

As airily, as eerily, They wheel about and whirl, They jeer at me, they fleer at me, They flout me as they swirl! As whirling fast or swaying slow, Reeling, wheeling, to and fro, Around, around the corpse they go, They chill me with their chants! These be neither men nor mists-- Hearken to their chants:

_Ever, ever, ever, Drifting like a blossom Seaward, with the starlight Wan upon her bosom-- Ever when the quickened Heart of night is throbbing, Ever when the trembling Tide sets seaward, sobbing, Shall you see this burden Borne upon its ebbing: See her drifting seaward Like a broken blossom,_

_Ever see the starlight Kiss her bruised bosom.

Flight availeth nothing ... Still the subtle beaches Draw you back where Horror Walks their shingled reaches ... Ever shall your spirit Hear the surf resounding, Evermore the ocean Thwarting you and bounding; Vainly struggle inland! Lashing you and hounding, Still the vision hales you From the upland reaches, Goading you and gripping, Binds you to the beaches!

Ever, ever, ever, Ever shall her laughter, Hunting you and haunting, Mock and follow after; Rising where the buoy-bell Clangs across the shallows,_

_Leaping where the spindrift Hurtles o'er the hollows, Ringing where the moonlight Gleams along the billows, Ever, ever, ever, Ever shall her laughter, Hounding you and haunting, Whip and follow after!_

IV

SUNSET

I stood among the boats The sinking sun, the angry sun, Across the sullen wave Laid the sudden strength of his red wrath Like to a shaken glaive:-- Or did the sun pause in the west To lift a sword at me, Or was it she, or was it she, Rose for an instant on some crest And plucked the red blade from her breast And brandished it at me?

THE TAVERN OF DESPAIR

THE wraiths of murdered hopes and loves Come whispering at the door, Come creeping through the weeping mist That drapes the barren moor; But we within have turned the key 'Gainst Hope and Love and Care, Where Wit keeps tryst with Folly, at The Tavern of Despair.

And we have come by divers ways To keep this merry tryst, But few of us have kept within The Narrow Way, I wist; For we are those whose ampler wits And hearts have proved our curse-- Foredoomed to ken the better things And aye to do the worse!

Long since we learned to mock ourselves; And from self-mockery fell

To heedless laughter in the face Of Heaven, Earth, and Hell. We quiver 'neath, and mock, God's rod; We feel, and mock, His wrath; We mock our own blood on the thorns That rim the "Primrose Path."

We mock the eerie glimmering shapes That range the outer wold, We mock our own cold hearts because They are so dead and cold; We flout the things we might have been Had self to self proved true, We mock the roses flung away, We mock the garnered rue;

The fates that gibe have lessoned us; There sups to-night on earth No madder crew of wastrels than This fellowship of mirth.... (Of mirth ... drink, fools!--nor let it flag Lest from the outer mist Creep in that other company Unbidden to the tryst.

We're grown so fond of paradox Perverseness holds us thrall, So what each jester loves the best He mocks the most of all; But as the jest and laugh go round, Each in his neighbor's eyes Reads, while he flouts his heart's desire, The knowledge that he lies.

Not one of us but had some pearls And flung them to the swine, Not one of us but had some gift-- Some spark of fire divine-- Each might have been God's minister In the temple of some art-- Each feels his gift perverted move Wormlike through his dry heart.

If God called Azrael to Him now And bade Death bend the bow Against the saddest heart that beats Here on this earth below, Not any sobbing breast would gain The guerdon of that barb--

The saddest ones are those that wear The jester's motley garb.

Whose shout aye loudest rings, and whose The maddest cranks and quips-- Who mints his soul to laughter's coin And wastes it with his lips-- Has grown too sad for sighs and seeks To cheat himself with mirth; We fools self-doomed to motley are The weariest wights on earth!

But yet, for us whose brains and hearts Strove aye in paths perverse, Doomed still to know the better things And still to do the worse,-- What else is there remains for us But make a jest of care And set the rafters ringing, in Our Tavern of Despair?

COLORS AND SURFACES

A GOLDEN LAD

(D. V. M.)

"Golden lads and lasses must Like chimney-sweepers come to dust." --SHAKESPEARE.

So young, but already the splendor Of genius robed him about-- Already the dangerous, tender Regard of the gods marked him out--

(On whom the burden and duty They bind, at his earliest breath, Of showing their own grave beauty, They love and they crown with death.)

We were of one blood, but the olden Rapt poets spake out in his tone; We were of one blood, but the golden Rathe promise was his, his alone.

And ever his great eye glistened With visions I could not see, Ever he thrilled and listened To voices withholden from me.

Young lord of the realms of fancy, The bright dreams flocked to his call Like sprites that the necromancy Of a Prospero holds in thrall--

Quick visions that served and attended, Elusive and hovering things, With a quiver of joy in the splendid Wild sweep of their luminous wings;

He dwelt in an alien glamor, He wrought of its gleams a crown,-- But the world, with its cruelty and clamor, Broke him and beat him down;

So he passed; he was worn, he was weary, He was slain at the touch of life;-- With a smile that was wistful and eerie He passed from the senseless strife;--

So he ceased (is their humor satiric, These gods that make perfect and blight?)-- He ceased like an exquisite lyric That dies on the breast of night.

THE SAGE AND THE WOMAN

'TWIXT ancient Beersheba and Dan Another such a caravan Dazed Palestine had never seen As that which bore Sabea's queen Up from the fain and flaming South To slake her yearning spirit's drouth At wisdom's pools, with Solomon.

With gifts of scented sandalwood, And labdanum, and cassia-bud, With spicy spoils of Araby And camel-loads of ivory And heavy cloths that glanced and shone With inwrought pearl and beryl-stone She came, a bold Sabean girl.

And did she find him grave, or gay? Perchance his palace breathed that day With psalters sounding solemnly-- Or cymbals' merrier minstrelsy-- Perchance the wearied monarch heard Some loose-tongued prophet's meddling word;-- None knows, no one--but Solomon!

She looked--with eyne wherein were blent All ardors of the Orient; She spake--all magics of the South Were compassed in the witch's mouth;-- He thought the scarlet lips of her More precious than En Gedi's myrrh, The lips of that Sabean girl;

By many an amorous sun caressed, From lifted brow to amber breast She gleamed in vivid loveliness-- And lithe as any leopardess-- And verily, one blames thee not If thine own proverbs were forgot, O Solomon, wise Solomon!

She danced for him, and surely she Learnt dancing from some moonlit sea

Where elfin vapors swirled and swayed While the wild pipes of witchcraft played Such clutching music 'twould impel A prophet's self to dance to hell-- So spun the light Sabean girl.

He swore her laughter had the lilt Of chiming waters that are spilt In sprays of spurted melody From founts of carven porphyry, And in the billowy turbulence Of her dusk hair drowned soul and sense-- Dark tides and deep, O Solomon!

Perchance unto her day belongs His poem called the Song of Songs, Each little lyric interval Timed to her pulse's rise and fall;-- Or when he cried out wearily That all things end in vanity Did he mean that Sabean girl?

The bright barbaric opulence, The sun-kist Temple, Kedar's tents,--

How many a careless caravan 'Twixt Beersheba and ruined Dan, Within these forty centuries, Has flung their dust to many a breeze, With dust that was King Solomon!

But still the lesson holds as true, O King, as when she lessoned you: _That very wise men are not wise Until they read in Folly's eyes The wisdom that escapes the schools, That bids the sage revise his rules By light of some Sabean girl!_

NEWS FROM BABYLON

"Archaeologists have discovered a love-letter among the ruins of Babylon." --Newspaper report.

_The world hath just one tale to tell, and it is very old, A little tale--a simple tale--a tale that's easy told: "There was a youth in Babylon who greatly loved a maid!" The world hath just one song to sing, but sings it unafraid, A little song--a foolish song--the only song it hath: "There was a youth in Ascalon who loved a girl in Gath!"_

Homer clanged it, Omar twanged it, Greece and Persia knew!-- Nimrod's reivers, Hiram's weavers, Hindu, Kurd, and Jew-- Crowning Tyre, Troy afire, they have dreamed the dream; Tiber-side and Nilus-tide brightened with the gleam--

Oh, the suing, sighing, wooing, sad and merry hours, Blisses tasted, kisses wasted, building Babel's towers! Hearts were aching, hearts were breaking, lashes wet with dew, When the ships touched the lips of islands Sappho knew; Yearning breasts and burning breasts, cold at last, are hid Amid the glooms of carven tombs in Khufu's pyramid-- Though the sages, down the ages, smile their cynic doubt, Man and maid, unafraid, put the schools to rout; Seek to chain love and retain love in the bonds of breath, Vow to hold love, bind and fold love even unto death!