Chapter 2
Barney McGee, when you're sober you scintillate, But when you're in drink you're the pride of the intellect; Divil a one of us ever came in till late, Once at the bar where you happened to be-- Every eye there like a spoke in you centering, You with your eloquence, blarney, and bantering-- All Vagabondia shouts at your entering, King of the Tenderloin, Barney McGee! There's no satiety In your society With the variety Of your _esprit_. Here's a long purse to you, And a great thirst to you! Fate be no worse to you, Barney McGee!
Och, and the girls whose poor hearts you deracinate, Whirl and bewilder and flutter and fascinate! Faith, it's so killing you are, you assassinate,-- Murder's the word for you, Barney McGee! Bold when they're sunny and smooth when they're showery,-- Oh, but the style of you, fluent and flowery! Chesterfield's way, with a touch of the Bowery! How would they silence you, Barney _machree_? Naught can your gab allay, Learned as Rabelais (You in his abbey lay Once on the spree). Here's to the smile of you, (Oh, but the guile of you!) And a long while of you, Barney McGee!
Facile with phrases of length and Latinity, Like _honorificabilitudinity_, Where is the maid could resist your vicinity, Wiled by the impudent grace of your plea? Then your vivacity and pertinacity Carry the day with the divil's audacity; No mere veracity robs your sagacity Of perspicacity, Barney McGee. When all is new to them, What will you do to them? Will you be true to them? Who shall decree? Here's a fair strife to you! Health and long life to you! And a great wife to you, Barney McGee!
Barney McGee, you're the pick of gentility; Nothing can phase you, you've such a facility; Nobody ever yet found your utility,-- That is the charm of you, Barney McGee; Under conditions that others would stammer in, Still unperturbed as a cat or a Cameron, Polished as somebody in the Decameron, Putting the glamour on prince or Pawnee! In your meanderin', Love, and philanderin', Calm as a mandarin Sipping his tea! Under the art of you, Parcel and part of you, Here's to the heart of you, Barney McGee!
You who were ever alert to befriend a man, You who were ever the first to defend a man, You who had always the money to lend a man, Down on his luck and hard up for a V! Sure, you'll be playing a harp in beatitude (And a quare sight you will be in that attitude)-- Some day, where gratitude seems but a platitude, You'll find your latitude, Barney McGee. That's no flim-flam at all, Frivol or sham at all, Just the plain--Damn it all, Have one with me! Here's luck and more to you! Friends by the score to you, True to the core to you, Barney McGee!
THE SEA GYPSY.
I am fevered with the sunset, I am fretful with the bay, For the wander-thirst is on me And my soul is in Cathay.
There's a schooner in the offing, With her topsails shot with fire, And my heart has gone aboard her For the Islands of Desire.
I must forth again to-morrow! With the sunset I must be Hull down on the trail of rapture In the wonder of the sea.
SPEECH AND SILENCE.
The words that pass from lip to lip For souls still out of reach! A friend for that companionship That's deeper than all speech!
SECRETS.
Three secrets that never were said: The stir of the sap in the spring, The desire of a man to a maid, The urge of a poet to sing.
THE FIRST JULEP.
I love the lazy Southern spring, The way she melts around a chap And lets the great magnolias fling Their languid petals in his lap.
I love to travel down half-way And meet her coming up the earth, With hurdy-gurdy men who play And make the children dance for mirth.
But best of all I love to steer For quiet corners not too far, Where the first juleps reappear With fresh green mint behind the bar.
P. S. Perhaps you'll think it queer, But I do not dislike a hint To let the juleps disappear And stick my nose into the mint.
A STEIN SONG.
Give a rouse, then, in the Maytime For a life that knows no fear! Turn night-time into daytime With the sunlight of good cheer! For it's always fair weather When good fellows get together, With a stein on the table and a good song ringing clear.
When the wind comes up from Cuba And the birds are on the wing, And our hearts are patting juba To the banjo of the spring, Then it's no wonder whether The boys will get together, With a stein on the table and a cheer for everything.
For we're all frank-and-twenty When the spring is in the air; And we've faith and hope a-plenty, And we've life and love to spare; And it's birds of a feather When we all get together, With a stein on the table and a heart without a care.
For we know the world is glorious, And the goal a golden thing, And that God is not censorious When his children have their fling; And life slips its tether When the boys get together, With a stein on the table in the fellowship of spring.
THE UNSAINTING OF KAVIN.
Saint Kavin was a gentleman, He came from Tipperary; And woman was the only thing That ever made him scary.
For Kavin was a tender youth, And he was very simple; He feared the wiles of maiden smiles, And fainted at a dimple.
But when Kathleen at seventeen Came down the street one morning, The luck of man came over him And took him without warning.
Afraid to meet a foolish fate By green sea or by dry land, He fled away without delay And sought a desert island.
But even there he felt despair; For happiness is only The hope of doing something else; And he was very lonely.
He vowed to lead a life of prayer Because that he had lost her; And every time he thought of her He said a _Pater noster_.
Yet hard it is for man to change The less love for the greater; And every time he reached _Amen_, He must go back to _Pater_.
And so he grew a year or two Disconsolate and holy, While friends he'd known long since had grown Papas and roly-poly.
Until one day, one blessed day, A-moping like a Hindoo, He saw Kathleen in mournful mien A-passing by his window.
He threw away his rosary, His _Paters_ and his _Aves_; For love is stronger than the wind That wafts a thousand navies.
The holy man went forth to war, But not against the devil. He led the maid within for shade, And treated her most civil.
He gave her cakes, he gave her wine, He set his best before her; And then invited her to dine-- Thenceforth--with her adorer.
Her little head went round for joy; She tried to kick the rafter: So Kavin was a saint no more, And happy ever after.
IN THE WAYLAND WILLOWS.
Once I met a soncy maid, Soncy maid, soncy maid, Once I met a soncy maid In the Wayland willows.
All her hair was goldy brown, Goldy brown, goldy brown, In the sun a single braid To her waist hung down.
Honey bees, honey bees, You are roving fellows! Idly went the doxy wind In the Wayland willows.
There I caught her eye a-dance, Through the catkins downy. "Heigho, Brownie-pate," said I; "Heigho," said my Brownie.
Then I kissed my soncy maid, Soncy maid, soncy maid, Kissed and kissed my soncy maid In the Wayland willows.
Goldy eyes and goldy hair, And little gypsy bosom, Chin and lip and shoulder tip, Blossom after blossom!
Hand in hand and cheek by cheek All the morning weather! How the yellow butterflies Danced and winked together!
Till the day went down the hill Where the shadows waded. "Heigho, Soncy!" "Heigho, me!" Then I did as day did.
All her tousled beauty bright And teasing as before, I left her there in sweet despair, A soncy maid no more.
WHEN I WAS TWENTY.
_It was June, and I was twenty. All my wisdom, poor but plenty, Never learned_ Festina lente. _Youth is gone, but whither went he?_
Madeline came down the orchard With a mischief in her eye, Half demure and half inviting, Melting, wayward, wistful, shy.
Four bright eyes that found life lovely, And forgot to wonder why; Four warm lips at one love-lesson, Learned by heart so easily.
We gained something of that knowledge No man ever yet put by, But his after days of sorrow Left him nothing but to die.
Madeline went up the orchard, Down the hurrying world went I; Now I know love has no morrow, Happiness no by-and-by.
_Youth is gone, but whither went he? All my wisdom, poor but plenty, Never learned_ Festina lente. _It was June, and I was twenty._
IN A SILENCE
Heart to heart! And the stillness of night and the moonlight, like hushed breathing Silently, stealthily moving across thy hair!
O womanly face! Tender and strong and lucent with infinite feeling, Shrinking with startled joy, like wind-struck water, And yet so frank, so unashamed of love!
Ay, for there it is, love--that's the deepest. Love's not love in the dark. Light loves wither i' the sun, but Love endureth, Clothing himself with the light as with a robe.
I would bare my soul to thy sight-- Leave not a secret deep unsearched, Unrevealing its shame or its glory. Love without Truth shall die as a soul without God. A lying love is the love of a day But the brave and true shall love forever.
Build Love a house; Let the walls be thick; Shut him in from the sight of men; But hide not Love from himself.
Ah, the summer night! The wind in the trees and the moonlight! And my kisses on thy throat And thy breathing in my hair!
Silent, lips to lips! But our souls have held speech, thought answering echoing thought, Though the only words were kisses.
THE BATHER.
I saw him go down to the water to bathe; He stood naked upon the bank.
His breast was like a white cloud in the heaven, that catches the sun; It swelled with the sharp joy of the air.
His legs rose with the spring and curve of young birches; The hollow of his back caught the blue shadows:
With his head thrown up to the lips of the wind; And the curls of his forehead astir with the wind.
I would that I were a man, they are so beautiful; Their bodies are like the bows of the Indians; They have the spring and the grace of bows of hickory.
I know that women are beautiful, and that I am beautiful; But the beauty of a man is so lithe and alive and triumphant, Swift as the night of a swallow and sure as the pounce of the eagle.
NOCTURNE: IN ANJOU.
I dreamed of Sappho on a summer night. Her nightingales were singing in the trees Beside the castled river; and the wind Fell like a woman's fingers on my cheek. And then I slept and dreamed and marked no change; The night went on with me into my dream. This only I remember, that I cried: "O Sappho! ere I leave this paradise, Sing me one song of those lost books of yours For which we poets still go sorrowing; That when I meet my fellows on the earth I may rejoice them more than many pearls;" And she, the sweetly smiling, answered me, As one who dreams, "I have forgotten them."
NOCTURNE: IN PROVENCE.
The blue night, like an angel, came into the room,-- Came through the open window from the silent sky Down trellised stairs of moonlight into the dear room As if a whisper breathed of some divine one nigh. The nightingales, like brooks of song in Paradise, Gurgled their serene rapture to the silent sky-- Like springs of laughter bubbling up in Paradise, The serene nightingales along the riverside Purled low in every tree their star-cool melodies Of joy--in every tree along the riverside.
Did the vain garments melt in music from your side? Did you rise from them as a lily flowers i' the air? --But you were there before me like the Night's own bride-- I dared not call you mine. So still and tall you were, I never dreamed that you were mine--I never dreamed I loved you--I forgot I loved you. You were air And music, and the shadows that you stood in, seemed Like priests that keep their sombre vigil round a shrine-- Like sombre priests that watch about a glorious shrine.
And then you stepped into the moonlight and laid bare The wonder of your body to the night, and stood With all the stars of heaven looking at you there, As simply as a saint might bare her soul to God-- As simply as a saint might bathe in lakes of prayer-- Stood with the holy moonlight falling on you there Until I thought that in a glory unaware I had seen a soul stand forth and bare itself to God-- A saintly soul lay bare its innocence to God.
JUNE NIGHT IN WASHINGTON.
The scent of honeysuckle, Drugging the twilight With its sweet opiate of lovers' dreams! The last red glow of the setting sun On the red brick wall Of the neighboring house, And the scramble of red roses over it!
Slowly, slowly The night smokes up from the city to the stars, The faint foreshadowed stars; The smouldering night Breathes upward like the breath Of a woman asleep With dim breast rising and falling And a smile of delicate dreams.
Softly, softly The wind comes into the garden, Like a lover that fears lest he waken his love, And his hands drip with the scent of the roses And his locks weep with the opiate odor of honeysuckle. Sighing, sighing As a lover that yearns for the lips of his love, In a torment of bliss, In a passionate dreaming of bliss, The wind in the trees of the garden!
How intimate are the trees,-- Rustling like the secret darkness of the soul! How still is the starlight,-- Aloof in the placidity of dream!
Outside the garden A group of negroes passing in the street Sing with ripe lush voices, Sing with voices that swim Like great slow gliding fishes Through the scent of the honeysuckle:
_My love's waitin', Waitin' by the river, Waitin' till I come along! Wait there, child; I'm comin'.
Jay-bird tol' me, Tol' me in the mornin', Tol' me she'd be there to-night. Wait there, child; I'm comin'._
Waves of dream! Spell of the summer night! Will of the grass that stirs in its sleep! Desire of the honeysuckle! And further away, Like the plash of far-off waves in the fluid night, The negroes, singing:
_Whip-po'-will tol' me, Tol' me in the evenin', "Down by the bend where the cat-tails grow." Wait there, child; I'm comin'._
Lo, the moon, Like a galleon sailing the night; And the wash of the moonlight over the roofs and the trees!
Oh, my bride, Come down from yonder lattice where you bide Like a charmed princess in a Persian song! I look up at your yellow window-panes, Set in the night with far-off wizardry. Come down, come down; the night is fain of you, The garden waits your footstep on its walks.
Lo, the moon, Like a galleon sailing the night; And the wash of the moonlight over the red brick wall and the roses!
A gleam of lamplight through an open door! A footfall like the wind's upon the grass! A rustle like the wind's among the leaves!... Dim as a dream of pale peach blooms of light, Blue in the blue soft pallor of the moon, She comes between the trees as a faint tune Falls from a flute far off into the night.... So Death might come to one who knew him Love.
A SONG FOR MARNA.
Dame of the night of hair Like blue smoke blown! World yet undreamed-of there Lurks to be known.
Dame of the dizzy eyes, Lure of dim quests! World of what midnights lies Under thy breasts!
Dame of the quench of love, Give me to quaff! There's all the world's made of Under thy laugh.
Dame of the dare of gods, Let the sky lower! Time, give the world for odds,-- I choose this hour.
SEPTEMBER WOODLANDS.
This is not sadness in the wood; The yellowbird Flits joying through the solitude, By no thought stirred Save of his little duskier mate And rompings jolly.
If there's a Dryad in the wood, She is not sad. Too wise the spirits are to brood; Divinely glad, They dream with countenance sedate Not melancholy.
NANCIBEL.
The ghost of a wind came over the hill, While day for a moment forgot to die, And stirred the sheaves Of the millet leaves, As Nancibel went by.
Out of the lands of Long Ago, Into the land of By and By, Faded the gleam Of a journeying dream, As Nancibel went by.
A VAGABOND SONG.
There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood-- Touch of manner, hint of mood; And my heart is like a rhyme, With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.
The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry Of bugles going by. And my lonely spirit thrills To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.
There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir; We must rise and follow her, When from every hill of flame She calls and calls each vagabond by name.
THREE OF A KIND.
Three of us without a care In the red September Tramping down the roads of Maine, Making merry with the rain, With the fellow winds a-fare Where the winds remember.
Three of us with shocking hats, Tattered and unbarbered, Happy with the splash of mud, With the highways in our blood, Bearing down on Deacon Platt's Where last year we harbored.
We've come down from Kennebec, Tramping since last Sunday, Loping down the coast of Maine, With the sea for a refrain, And the maples neck and neck All the way to Fundy.
Sometimes lodging in an inn, Cosey as a dormouse-- Sometimes sleeping on a knoll With no rooftree but the Pole-- Sometimes halely welcomed in At an old-time farmhouse.
Loafing under ledge and tree, Leaping over boulders, Sitting on the pasture bars, Hail-fellow with storm or stars-- Three of us alive and free, With unburdened shoulders!
Three of us with hearts like pine That the lightnings splinter, Clean of cleave and white of grain-- Three of us afoot again, With a rapture fresh and fine As a spring in winter!
All the hills are red and gold; And the horns of vision Call across the crackling air Till we shout back to them there, Taken captive in the hold Of their bluff derision.
Spray-salt gusts of ocean blow From the rocky headlands; Overhead the wild geese fly, Honking in the autumn sky; Black sinister flocks of crow Settle on the dead lands.
Three of us in love with life, Roaming like wild cattle, With the stinging air a-reel As a warrior might feel The swift orgasm of the knife Slay him in mid-battle.
Three of us to march abreast Down the hills of morrow! With a clean heart and a few Friends to clench the spirit to!-- Leave the gods to rule the rest, And good-by, sorrow!
WOOD-FOLK LORE. To T. B. M.
For every one Beneath the sun, Where Autumn walks with quiet eyes, There is a word, Just overheard When hill to purple hill replies.
This afternoon, As warm as June, With the red apples on the bough, I set my ear To hark and hear The wood-folk talking, you know how.
There comes a "Hush!" And then a "Tush," As tree to scarlet tree responds, "Babble away! He'll not betray The secrets of us vagabonds.
"Are we not all, Both great and small, Cousins and kindred in a joy No school can teach, No worldling reach, Nor any wreck of chance destroy?"
And so we are, However far We journey ere the journey ends, One brotherhood With leaf and bud And everything that wakes or wends.
The wind that blows My autumn rose Where Grand Pré looks to Blomidon,-- How great must be The company Of roses he has leaned upon,
Since first he shed Their petals red Through Persian gardens long ago, When Omar heard His muttered word Rumoring things we may not know!
Our brother ghost, He is a most Incorrigible wanderer; And still to-day He takes his way About my hills of spruce and fir;
Will neither bide By the great tide, In apple lands of Acadie, Nor in the leaves About your eaves, Where Scituate looks out to sea.
AT MICHAELMAS.
About the time of Michael's feast And all his angels, There comes a word to man and beast By dark evangels.
Then hearing what the wild things say To one another, Those creatures first born of our gray Mysterious Mother,
The greatness of the world's unrest Steals through our pulses; Our own life takes a meaning guessed From the torn dulse's.
The draft and set of deep sea-tides Swirling and flowing, Bears every filmy flake that rides, Grandly unknowing.
The sunlight listens; thin and fine The crickets whistle; And floating midges fill the shine Like a seeding thistle.
The hawkbit flies his golden flag From rocky pasture, Bidding his legions never lag Through morning's vasture.
Soon we shall see the red vines ramp Through forest borders, And Indian summer breaking camp To silent orders.
The glossy chestnuts swell and burst Their prickly houses Agog at news which reached them first In sap's carouses.
The long noons turn the ribstons red, The pippins yellow; The wild duck from his reedy bed Summons his fellow.
The robins keep the underbrush Songless and wary, As though they feared some frostier hush Might bid them tarry;
Perhaps in the great North they heard Of silence falling Upon the world without a word, White and appalling.
The ash-tree and the lady-fern, In russet frondage, Proclaim 'tis time for our return To vagabondage.
All summer idle have we kept; But on a morning, Where the blue hazy mountains slept, A scarlet warning
Disturbs our day-dream with a start; A leaf turns over; And every earthling is at heart Once more a rover.
All winter we shall toil and plod, Eating and drinking; But now's the little time when God Sets folk to thinking.
"Consider," says the quiet sun, "How far I wander; Yet when had I not time on one More flower to squander?"
"Consider," says the restless tide, "My endless labor; Yet when was I content beside My nearest neighbor?"
So wander-lust to wander-lure, As seed to season, Must rise and wend, possessed and sure In sweet unreason.
For doorstone and repose are good, And kind is duty; But joy is in the solitude With shy-heart beauty.
And Truth is one whose ways are meek Beyond foretelling; And far his journey who would seek Her lowly dwelling.
She leads him by a thousand heights, Lonelily faring, With sunrise and with eagle flights To mate his daring.
For her he fronts a vaster fog Than Leif of yore did, Voyaging for continents no log Has yet recorded.
He travels by a polar star, Now bright, now hidden, For a free land, though rest be far And roads forbidden,
Till on a day with sweet coarse bread And wine she stays him, Then in a cool and narrow bed To slumber lays him.
So we are hers. And, fellows mine Of fin and feather, By shady wood and shadowy brine, When comes the weather
For migrants to be moving on, By lost indenture You flock and gather and are gone: The old adventure!
I too have my unwritten date, My gypsy presage; And on the brink of fall I wait The darkling message.
The sign, from prying eyes concealed, Is yet how flagrant! Here's ragged-robin in the field, A simple vagrant.
THE MOTHER OF POETS. To H. F. H.
The typewriter ticketh no more in the twilight; The mother of poets is sitting alone; Only the katydid teases the noonday; Where are the good-for-naught wanderbirds flown?
Tom's in the North with his purple impressions; Dickon's in London a-building his fame; Fred's in the mountains a-minding his cattle; Kavanagh's teaching and preaching and game.
Over in Kingscroft a toiler is writing, The boyish Old Man whom no fate ever floored; Karl's in New York with his briefs and his logic, That subtile mind like a velvet-sheathed sword.
Blomidon welcomes his brother in silence; Grand Pré is luring him back to her breast; Faint and far off are the cries of the city, There in the country of infinite rest.
All of them turn in their wide vagabondage, Halt and remember a place they have known, Where the typewriter ticketh no more in the twilight, And the mother of poets is sitting alone.
There they will surely some April forgather, Drink once together before they depart, One by one over the threshold of silence, On the long trail of the wandering heart.
Fear not, little mother, there may be a region Where poets have only to smile and keep still. The tick of the typewriter there will be useless, But there will be need of a motherkin still.
A GOOD-BY.
For love of the roving foot And joy of the roving eye, God send you store of morrows fair And a good rest by and by!
IN A COPY OF BROWNING.
Browning, old fellow, Your leaves grow yellow, Beginning to mellow As seasons pass. Your cover is wrinkled, And stained and sprinkled, And warped and crinkled From sleep on the grass.