Chapter 2

Star of my heart, I follow from afar. Sweet Love on high, lead on where shepherds are, Where Time is not, and only dreamers are. Star from of old, the Magi-Kings are dead And a foolish Saxon seeks the manger-bed. O lead me to Jehovah's child Across this dreamland lone and wild, Then will I speak this prayer unsaid, And kiss his little haloed head-- "My star and I, we love thee, little child."

Except the Christ be born again to-night In dreams of all men, saints and sons of shame, The world will never see his kingdom bright. Stars of all hearts, lead onward thro' the night Past death-black deserts, doubts without a name, Past hills of pain and mountains of new sin To that far sky where mystic births begin, Where dreaming ears the angel-song shall win. Our Christmas shall be rare at dawning there, And each shall find his brother fair, Like a little child within: All hearts of the earth shall find new birth And wake, no more to sin.

Look You, I'll Go Pray

Look you, I'll go pray, My shame is crying, My soul is gray and faint, My faith is dying. Look you, I'll go pray-- "Sweet Mary, make me clean, Thou rainstorm of the soul, Thou wine from worlds unseen."

At Mass

No doubt to-morrow I will hide My face from you, my King. Let me rejoice this Sunday noon, And kneel while gray priests sing.

It is not wisdom to forget. But since it is my fate Fill thou my soul with hidden wine To make this white hour great.

My God, my God, this marvelous hour I am your son I know. Once in a thousand days your voice Has laid temptation low.

Heart of God

O great heart of God, Once vague and lost to me, Why do I throb with your throb to-night, In this land, eternity?

O little heart of God, Sweet intruding stranger, You are laughing in my human breast, A Christ-child in a manger.

Heart, dear heart of God, Beside you now I kneel, Strong heart of faith. O heart not mine, Where God has set His seal.

Wild thundering heart of God Out of my doubt I come, And my foolish feet with prophets' feet, March with the prophets' drum.

The Empty Boats

Why do I see these empty boats, sailing on airy seas? One haunted me the whole night long, swaying with every breeze, Returning always near the eaves, or by the skylight glass: There it will wait me many weeks, and then, at last, will pass. Each soul is haunted by a ship in which that soul might ride And climb the glorious mysteries of Heaven's silent tide In voyages that change the very metes and bounds of Fate-- O empty boats, we all refuse, that by our windows wait!

With a Bouquet of Twelve Roses

I saw Lord Buddha towering by my gate Saying: "Once more, good youth, I stand and wait." Saying: "I bring you my fair Law of Peace And from your withering passion full release; Release from that white hand that stabbed you so. The road is calling. With the wind you go, Forgetting her imperious disdain-- Quenching all memory in the sun and rain."

"Excellent Lord, I come. But first," I said, "Grant that I bring her these twelve roses red. Yea, twelve flower kisses for her rose-leaf mouth, And then indeed I go in bitter drouth To that far valley where your river flows In Peace, that once I found in every rose."

St. Francis of Assisi

Would I might wake St. Francis in you all, Brother of birds and trees, God's Troubadour, Blinded with weeping for the sad and poor; Our wealth undone, all strict Franciscan men, Come, let us chant the canticle again Of mother earth and the enduring sun. God make each soul the lonely leper's slave; God make us saints, and brave.

Buddha

Would that by Hindu magic we became Dark monks of jeweled India long ago, Sitting at Prince Siddartha's feet to know The foolishness of gold and love and station, The gospel of the Great Renunciation, The ragged cloak, the staff, the rain and sun, The beggar's life, with far Nirvana gleaming: Lord, make us Buddhas, dreaming.

A Prayer to All the Dead Among Mine Own People

Are these your presences, my clan from Heaven? Are these your hands upon my wounded soul? Mine own, mine own, blood of my blood be with me, Fly by my path till you have made me whole!

To Reformers in Despair

'Tis not too late to build our young land right, Cleaner than Holland, courtlier than Japan, Devout like early Rome, with hearths like hers, Hearths that will recreate the breed called man.

Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket

I am unjust, but I can strive for justice. My life's unkind, but I can vote for kindness. I, the unloving, say life should be lovely. I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.

Man is a curious brute--he pets his fancies-- Fighting mankind, to win sweet luxury. So he will be, tho' law be clear as crystal, Tho' all men plan to live in harmony.

Come, let us vote against our human nature, Crying to God in all the polling places To heal our everlasting sinfulness And make us sages with transfigured faces.

The following verses were written on the evening of March the first, nineteen hundred and eleven, and printed next morning in the Illinois State Register.

They celebrate the arrival of the news that the United States Senate had declared the election of William Lorimer good and valid, by a vote of forty-six to forty.

To the United States Senate

[Revelation 16: Verses 16-19]

And must the Senator from Illinois Be this squat thing, with blinking, half-closed eyes? This brazen gutter idol, reared to power Upon a leering pyramid of lies?

And must the Senator from Illinois Be the world's proverb of successful shame, Dazzling all State house flies that steal and steal, Who, when the sad State spares them, count it fame?

If once or twice within his new won hall His vote had counted for the broken men; If in his early days he wrought some good-- We might a great soul's sins forgive him then.

But must the Senator from Illinois Be vindicated by fat kings of gold? And must he be belauded by the smirched, The sleek, uncanny chiefs in lies grown old?

Be warned, O wanton ones, who shielded him-- Black wrath awaits. You all shall eat the dust. You dare not say: "To-morrow will bring peace; Let us make merry, and go forth in lust."

What will you trading frogs do on a day When Armageddon thunders thro' the land; When each sad patriot rises, mad with shame, His ballot or his musket in his hand?

In the distracted states from which you came The day is big with war hopes fierce and strange; Our iron Chicagos and our grimy mines Rumble with hate and love and solemn change.

Too many weary men shed honest tears, Ground by machines that give the Senate ease. Too many little babes with bleeding hands Have heaped the fruits of empire on your knees.

And swine within the Senate in this day, When all the smothering by-streets weep and wail; When wisdom breaks the hearts of her best sons; When kingly men, voting for truth, may fail:--

These are a portent and a call to arms. Our protest turns into a battle cry: "Our shame must end, our States be free and clean; And in this war we choose to live and die."

[So far as the writer knows this is the first use of the popular term Armageddon in present day politics.]

The Knight in Disguise

[Concerning O. Henry (Sidney Porter)]

"He could not forget that he was a Sidney."

Is this Sir Philip Sidney, this loud clown, The darling of the glad and gaping town?

This is that dubious hero of the press Whose slangy tongue and insolent address Were spiced to rouse on Sunday afternoon The man with yellow journals round him strewn. We laughed and dozed, then roused and read again, And vowed O. Henry funniest of men. He always worked a triple-hinged surprise To end the scene and make one rub his eyes.

He comes with vaudeville, with stare and leer. He comes with megaphone and specious cheer. His troupe, too fat or short or long or lean, Step from the pages of the magazine With slapstick or sombrero or with cane: The rube, the cowboy or the masher vain. They over-act each part. But at the height Of banter and of canter and delight The masks fall off for one queer instant there And show real faces: faces full of care And desperate longing: love that's hot or cold; And subtle thoughts, and countenances bold. The masks go back. 'Tis one more joke. Laugh on! The goodly grown-up company is gone.

No doubt had he occasion to address The brilliant court of purple-clad Queen Bess, He would have wrought for them the best he knew And led more loftily his actor-crew. How coolly he misquoted. 'Twas his art-- Slave-scholar, who misquoted--from the heart. So when we slapped his back with friendly roar Aesop awaited him without the door,-- Aesop the Greek, who made dull masters laugh With little tales of FOX and DOG and CALF. And be it said, mid these his pranks so odd With something nigh to chivalry he trod And oft the drear and driven would defend-- The little shopgirls' knight unto the end. Yea, he had passed, ere we could understand The blade of Sidney glimmered in his hand. Yea, ere we knew, Sir Philip's sword was drawn With valiant cut and thrust, and he was gone.

The Wizard in the Street

[Concerning Edgar Allan Poe]

Who now will praise the Wizard in the street With loyal songs, with humors grave and sweet-- This Jingle-man, of strolling players born, Whom holy folk have hurried by in scorn, This threadbare jester, neither wise nor good, With melancholy bells upon his hood?

The hurrying great ones scorn his Raven's croak, And well may mock his mystifying cloak Inscribed with runes from tongues he has not read To make the ignoramus turn his head. The artificial glitter of his eyes Has captured half-grown boys. They think him wise. Some shallow player-folk esteem him deep, Soothed by his steady wand's mesmeric sweep. The little lacquered boxes in his hands Somehow suggest old times and reverenced lands. From them doll-monsters come, we know not how: Puppets, with Cain's black rubric on the brow. Some passing jugglers, smiling, now concede That his best cabinet-work is made, indeed By bleeding his right arm, day after day, Triumphantly to seal and to inlay. They praise his little act of shedding tears; A trick, well learned, with patience, thro' the years.

I love him in this blatant, well-fed place. Of all the faces, his the only face Beautiful, tho' painted for the stage, Lit up with song, then torn with cold, small rage, Shames that are living, loves and hopes long dead, Consuming pride, and hunger, real, for bread.

Here by the curb, ye Prophets thunder deep: "What Nations sow, they must expect to reap," Or haste to clothe the race with truth and power, With hymns and shouts increasing every hour. Useful are you. There stands the useless one Who builds the Haunted Palace in the sun. Good tailors, can you dress a doll for me With silks that whisper of the sounding sea? One moment, citizens,--the weary tramp Unveileth Psyche with the agate lamp. Which one of you can spread a spotted cloak And raise an unaccounted incense smoke Until within the twilight of the day Stands dark Ligeia in her disarray, Witchcraft and desperate passion in her breath And battling will, that conquers even death?

And now the evening goes. No man has thrown The weary dog his well-earned crust or bone. We grin and hie us home and go to sleep, Or feast like kings till midnight, drinking deep. He drank alone, for sorrow, and then slept, And few there were that watched him, few that wept. He found the gutter, lost to love and man. Too slowly came the good Samaritan.

The Eagle that is Forgotten

[John P. Altgeld. Born Dec. 30, 1847; died March 12, 1902]

Sleep softly * * * eagle forgotten * * * under the stone. Time has its way with you there, and the clay has its own.

"We have buried him now," thought your foes, and in secret rejoiced. They made a brave show of their mourning, their hatred unvoiced. They had snarled at you, barked at you, foamed at you day after day, Now you were ended. They praised you, * * * and laid you away.

The others that mourned you in silence and terror and truth, The widow bereft of her crust, and the boy without youth, The mocked and the scorned and the wounded, the lame and the poor That should have remembered forever, * * * remember no more.

Where are those lovers of yours, on what name do they call The lost, that in armies wept over your funeral pall? They call on the names of a hundred high-valiant ones, A hundred white eagles have risen the sons of your sons, The zeal in their wings is a zeal that your dreaming began The valor that wore out your soul in the service of man.

Sleep softly, * * * eagle forgotten, * * * under the stone, Time has its way with you there and the clay has its own. Sleep on, O brave hearted, O wise man, that kindled the flame-- To live in mankind is far more than to live in a name, To live in mankind, far, far more * * * than to live in a name.

Shakespeare

Would that in body and spirit Shakespeare came Visible emperor of the deeds of Time, With Justice still the genius of his rhyme, Giving each man his due, each passion grace, Impartial as the rain from Heaven's face Or sunshine from the heaven-enthroned sun. Sweet Swan of Avon, come to us again. Teach us to write, and writing, to be men.

Michelangelo

Would I might wake in you the whirl-wind soul Of Michelangelo, who hewed the stone And Night and Day revealed, whose arm alone Could draw the face of God, the titan high Whose genius smote like lightning from the sky-- And shall he mold like dead leaves in the grave? Nay he is in us! Let us dare and dare. God help us to be brave.

Titian

Would that such hills and cities round us sang, Such vistas of the actual earth and man As kindled Titian when his life began; Would that this latter Greek could put his gold, Wisdom and splendor in our brushes bold Till Greece and Venice, children of the sun, Become our every-day, and we aspire To colors fairer far, and glories higher.

Lincoln

Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all, That which is gendered in the wilderness From lonely prairies and God's tenderness. Imperial soul, star of a weedy stream, Born where the ghosts of buffaloes still dream, Whose spirit hoof-beats storm above his grave, Above that breast of earth and prairie-fire-- Fire that freed the slave.

The Cornfields

The cornfields rise above mankind, Lifting white torches to the blue, Each season not ashamed to be Magnificently decked for you.

What right have you to call them yours, And in brute lust of riches burn Without some radiant penance wrought, Some beautiful, devout return?

Sweet Briars of the Stairways

We are happy all the time Even when we fight: Sweet briars of the stairways, Gay fairies of the grime; WE, WHO ARE PLAYING TO-NIGHT.

"Our feet are in the gutters, Our eyes are sore with dust, But still our eyes are bright. The wide street roars and mutters-- We know it works because it must-- WE, WHO ARE PLAYING TO-NIGHT!

"Dirt is everlasting.-- We never, never fear it. Toil is never ceasing.-- We will play until we near it. Tears are never ending.-- When once real tears have come;

"When we see our people as they are-- Our fathers--broken, dumb-- Our mothers--broken, dumb-- The weariest of women and of men; Ah--then our eyes will lose their light-- Then we will never play again-- WE, WHO ARE PLAYING TO-NIGHT."

Fantasies and Whims:--

The Fairy Bridal Hymn

[This is the hymn to Eleanor, daughter of Mab and a golden drone, sung by the Locust choir when the fairy child marries her God, the yellow rose]

This is a song to the white-armed one Cold in the breast as the frost-wrapped Spring, Whose feet are slow on the hills of life, Whose round mouth rules by whispering.

This is a song to the white-armed one Whose breast shall burn as a Summer field, Whose wings shall rise to the doors of gold, Whose poppy lips to the God shall yield.

This is a song to the white-armed one When the closing rose shall bind her fast, And a song of the song their blood shall sing, When the Rose-God drinks her soul at last.

The Potato's Dance

"Down cellar," said the cricket, "I saw a ball last night In honor of a lady Whose wings were pearly-white. The breath of bitter weather Had smashed the cellar pane: We entertained a drift of leaves And then of snow and rain. But we were dressed for winter, And loved to hear it blow In honor of the lady Who makes potatoes grow-- Our guest, the Irish lady, The tiny Irish lady, The fairy Irish lady That makes potatoes grow.

"Potatoes were the waiters, Potatoes were the band, Potatoes were the dancers Kicking up the sand: Their legs were old burnt matches, Their arms were just the same, They jigged and whirled and scrambled In honor of the dame: The noble Irish lady Who makes potatoes dance, The witty Irish lady, The saucy Irish lady, The laughing Irish lady Who makes potatoes prance.

"There was just one sweet potato. He was golden-brown and slim: The lady loved his figure. She danced all night with him. Alas, he wasn't Irish. So when she flew away, They threw him in the coal-bin And there he is to-day, Where they cannot hear his sighs-- His weeping for the lady, The beauteous Irish lady, The radiant Irish lady Who gives potatoes eyes."

How a Little Girl Sang

Ah, she was music in herself, A symphony of joyousness. She sang, she sang from finger tips, From every tremble of her dress. I saw sweet haunting harmony, An ecstasy, an ecstasy, In that strange curling of her lips, That happy curling of her lips. And quivering with melody Those eyes I saw, that tossing head.

And so I saw what music was, Tho' still accursed with ears of lead.

Ghosts in Love

"Tell me, where do ghosts in love Find their bridal veils?"

"If you and I were ghosts in love We'd climb the cliffs of Mystery, Above the sea of Wails. I'd trim your gray and streaming hair With veils of Fantasy From the tree of Memory. 'Tis there the ghosts that fall in love Find their bridal veils."

The Queen of Bubbles

[Written for a picture]

The Youth speaks:-- "Why do you seek the sun In your bubble-crown ascending? Your chariot will melt to mist. Your crown will have an ending."

The Goddess replies:-- "Nay, sun is but a bubble, Earth is a whiff of foam-- To my caves on the coast of Thule Each night I call them home. Thence Faiths blow forth to angels And loves blow forth to men-- They break and turn to nothing And I make them whole again. On the crested waves of chaos I ride them back reborn: New stars I bring at evening For those that burst at morn: My soul is the wind of Thule And evening is the sign-- The sun is but a bubble, A fragile child of mine."

The Tree of Laughing Bells, or The Wings of the Morning

[A Poem for Aviators]

How the Wings Were Made

From many morning-glories That in an hour will fade, From many pansy buds Gathered in the shade, From lily of the valley And dandelion buds, From fiery poppy-buds Are the Wings of the Morning made.

The Indian Girl Who Made Them

These, the Wings of the Morning, An Indian Maiden wove, Intertwining subtilely Wands from a willow grove Beside the Sangamon-- Rude stream of Dreamland Town. She bound them to my shoulders With fingers golden-brown. The wings were part of me; The willow-wands were hot. Pulses from my heart Healed each bruise and spot Of the morning-glory buds, Beginning to unfold Beneath her burning song of suns untold.

The Indian Girl Tells the Hero Where to Go to Get the Laughing Bell

"To the farthest star of all, Go, make a moment's raid. To the west--escape the earth Before your pennons fade! West! west! o'ertake the night That flees the morning sun. There's a path between the stars-- A black and silent one. O tremble when you near The smallest star that sings: Only the farthest star Is cool for willow wings.

"There's a sky within the west-- There's a sky beyond the skies Where only one star shines-- The Star of Laughing Bells-- In Chaos-land it lies; Cold as morning-dew, A gray and tiny boat Moored on Chaos-shore, Where nothing else can float But the Wings of the Morning strong And the lilt of laughing song From many a ruddy throat:

"For the Tree of Laughing Bells Grew from a bleeding seed Planted mid enchantment Played on a harp and reed: Darkness was the harp-- Chaos-wind the reed; The fruit of the tree is a bell, blood-red-- The seed was the heart of a fairy, dead. Part of the bells of the Laughing Tree Fell to-day at a blast from the reed. Bring a fallen bell to me. Go!" the maiden said. "For the bell will quench our memory, Our hope, Our borrowed sorrow; We will have no thirst for yesterday, No thought for to-morrow."

The Journey Starts Swiftly

A thousand times ten thousand times More swift than the sun's swift light Were the Morning Wings in their flight On-- On-- West of the Universe, Thro' the West To Chaos-night.

He Nears the Goal

How the red bells rang As I neared the Chaos-shore! As I flew across to the end of the West The young bells rang and rang Above the Chaos roar, And the Wings of the Morning Beat in tune And bore me like a bird along-- And the nearing star turned to a moon-- Gray moon, with a brow of red-- Gray moon with a golden song. Like a diver after pearls I plunged to that stifling floor. It was wide as a giant's wheat-field An icy, wind-washed shore. O laughing, proud, but trembling star! O wind that wounded sore!

He Climbs the Hill Where the Tree Grows

On-- Thro' the gleaming gray I ran to the storm and clang-- To the red, red hill where the great tree swayed-- And scattered bells like autumn leaves. How the red bells rang! My breath within my breast Was held like a diver's breath-- The leaves were tangled locks of gray-- The boughs of the tree were white and gray, Shaped like scythes of Death. The boughs of the tree would sweep and sway-- Sway like scythes of Death. But it was beautiful! I knew that all was well. A thousand bells from a thousand boughs Each moment bloomed and fell. On the hill of the wind-swept tree There were no bells asleep; They sang beneath my trailing wings Like rivers sweet and steep. Deep rock-clefts before my feet Mighty chimes did keep And little choirs did keep.

He Receives the Bells

Honeyed, small and fair, Like flowers, in flowery lands-- Like little maidens' hands-- Two bells fell in my hair, Two bells caressed my hair. I pressed them to my purple lips In the strangling Chaos-air.

He Starts on the Return Journey