Part 2

Then I call on Margie Lynam, And we hasten from the door; And we go inspecting counters In the ten cent store.

We get flushed most every visit When we lay our money down; There are no expert advisors-- Mr. Woolworth’s out of town.

Homeward, purchases we carry, And examine them with care; Then we pile them in the play-box, And we always leave them there.

Riches never will be ours, We have said it o’er and o’er, Till they make things all “One Dollar” In the ten cent store.

JEALOUSY

Flatbush! Flatbush! Rah! Rah! Rah! See the bobbed-head riding On the bob-tailed car. Flatbush! Flatbush! Rah! Rah! Rah! I saw a big girl staring at my Pa.

She was standing in the corner, she was turning in her toes. She must have been a senior--by the powder on her nose.

Her hair was bobbed and blond-like and she was someone’s pet, But I went into action with the battlefield all set.

Rah! Rah! Flatbush! my mother wasn’t there, But some papas are rather young and need a daughter’s care.

And that is why in Flatbush we have organized a guard, Made up of little daughters of the men who work so hard.

Some day, of course, I will mature and know a little more, But now I am content to be my mother’s Signal Corps.

And mother knows when I go out with Pa, things are O. K., For I belong to the Flatbush Guards--we don’t let father stray.

Flatbush! Flatbush! Rah! Rah! Rah! I hold on to father’s hand When we go very far. Flatbush! Flatbush! Rah! Rah! Rah! See the bobbed-head riding on the bob-tailed car.

MOTHER’S BONNET

This is her bonnet, with ribbons arrayed, Clearly a calico ambuscade; It dates from the days of the bricks of straw-- This is the bonnet my mother wore.

This is the bonnet my mother donned When she walked with a youth by Plymouth Pond; ’Twas the night she wore her beads of jade, And father fell into the ambuscade.

This is the bonnet I found in a chest, Daisies and bows in a lavender nest; It looks like the plumes the Persians wore, But it must have had wonderful power to draw.

THE RAG BAG

When we went down to grandma’s To visit our dearest kin, We asked for grandma’s rag bag That hangs in the garret bin.

Oh, grandma’s frugal minded From an old New England day, But you ought to see that rag bag And the things she threw away.

There were gloves that had no fingers, And hose of Highland clans; There were petticoats from Paris And Pekin’s painted fans.

Our fingers flew at random Like bees at a flower stall, And we found that gown of grandma’s That she wore at the governor’s ball.

We carried it down from the garret, The Florentine flounces set; And we made our grandma show us How she danced the minuet.

Oh, grandma’s frugal minded, And sometimes her foot goes down, But her riches she puts in the rag bag When we are coming to town.

THE FIRST SNOW STORM

The very first snow of the year, Mama, And the drifts must be ten feet high; So I’ve come home to get dry, Mama, And this is the reason why:

We were on our way from school, Mama, Betty and Margie and Nan, When someone gave us a terrible push And into a drift we ran.

And we sat down in the snow, Mama, It wasn’t as cold as you’d think; And we thought we would sit for a while, Mama. And we did, till we grew quite pink.

I feel that my shoes are wet, Mama, And I fear the same for my hose: And I fancy I’m rather damp, Mama, Around in my underclothes.

SUFFERING

I sat down on a bumble bee In Mrs. Jackson’s yard: I sat down on a bumble bee: The bee stung good and hard.

I sat down on a bumble bee, For just the briefest spell, And I had only muslin on, As any one could tell.

I sat down on a bumble bee, But I arose again; And now I know the tenseness of Humiliating pain.

THE MAP MAKERS

There was a man who made a map Of all you see at night; He made the moon and all the stars And comets in their flight.

He worked for twenty years or more And extra ink he bought, And then he mapped the Milky Way As sort of an afterthought.

I read the story to Margaret, She said that it must be true, For she herself could draw a map Of Ocean avenue.

She made a dot for Prospect Park, A blot for Sheepshead Bay, And then she ruled a line between To show the right of way.

It took her just five minutes just, But I have my private fears, That it isn’t quite up to the moon-man’s map, For it never took twenty years.

DIANA

Diana, out of Italy, my sister’s protégée, She came to us, with letters, for a little summer stay.

Diana, she was beautiful, and yet she made me laugh-- Forever and forever taking one eternal bath.

She had lost her bow and arrow, she had lost her lingerie, But she was far from Venice and my sister’s protégée.

And because of her distinction, and the wonder of design, Her color and her contour, surpassing any line,

I braved a frowning family, I offered her my best, And worshipped her in silence as my sister’s chosen guest.

As the flowers seek the sunlight, as the birds adore the air, So Diana loved the water, loved to comb her Titian hair.

The neighbors talked of nothing but my sister Mary’s taste-- Of vagaries and vanities, and time that went to waste.

But when my sister came at last to claim our protégée, I was her only confidante, and comfort’s only ray;

I was her only confidante in all the good old town, And she whispered: “Our Diana never owned a dressing gown;

“Never owned a beaded bodice, never owned a veil of tulle; “Her gowns are made from sparkles of the waters of a pool;

“And those who cry for draperies, arouse the gods of wrath, “For the gods possess their copies of ‘Diana at the Bath!’”

THE READING BOY

He is carved in alabaster, he is called the Reading Boy, A cross-legged little pagan, pondering o’er the Siege of Troy; He’s a miniature Adonis, with a bandeau round his head, And he’s reading late and early when he ought to be in bed.

He cons an ancient manuscript, he scanneth as a sage, But with all his mighty reading, never yet hath turned a page; Never alabaster side glance at the turtle in the bowl, Never alabaster wiggle, ’though I know he has a soul.

I have watched him late and early, just an image out of Rome, And politely offered bookmarks to divert him from that tome; Yea, with aggravating gestures sought to turn aside his face, But not for pots of honey could you make him lose his place.

There he sits in sweet perfection that the chisel did unveil, With the rapture of an angel up against a lively tale. But I’d give an old maid’s ransom, just to see that little wretch, Discard that Trojan magazine, and give a real good stretch.

THE BATTLE ON THE FLOOR

My father was a soldier, so Some nights he talks of war; He tells of guns at “action right,”-- The battlefield’s the floor.

He says: “My little daughter Nan, “There’s art in every fight, “So push the chairs and rugs around “And set the battle right.

“Put down the vase and candlesticks, “And throw the books around-- “We want to show a town in France, “With shell-holes in the ground.

“Here’s infantry and batteries, “And outposts, out before; “That piece of string will do for wires “Laid by the Signal Corps.

“The enemy’s upon the rug, “We’ve fathomed their design; “So now we’ll bring the doughboys up “And charge the whole darn line.”

The captains, on the carpet, shout-- “Reserves are back too far”-- But the guns go into action with The smoke of Pa’s cigar.

Then Ma gets mad, and says that Pa Was shell-shocked once in War, Or else he wouldn’t want to play At battles on the floor.

She says that war is bad enough, And pretty rough, to boot, Without a battlefield at home, Or teaching girls to shoot.

Then Pa, he stops the battle, and We put things in their place; We know when we have fought enough, By the look on Mother’s face.

But I’d just as soon be shell-shocked some, To know what father knows; I’d just as soon stay out at night-- In France--and wet my clothes,

For I’d like to see a battle fierce, With star shells up at night, With regiments upon the move, And guns at “action right.”

With cunning ammunition mules A-trotting to and fro, And personal friends a-shouting in The dark, “Let’s Go.”

I think that Father’s quite correct Describing things to me, And all that war in rainy France That lies across the sea;

For Father feels that every girl Should have some nerve and tone, And know just how to manage in A battle all her own.

MID-DAY AT TRINITY

The pigeons perch on Trinity, From cowls of saints they croon; In pious patience preen their wings Till Trinity strikes noon.

They make their vows to visions fair, The maids with mid-day smiles; They wait their own communion sweet-- The crumbs along the aisles.

And presently from Wall Street strolls A princess past a gate; She pries apart a paper box As if she scarce could wait.

She sinks upon an old settee, Her luncheon in her lap; And other maidens follow her-- A score or more, mayhap.

The pigeons peer from pinnacles, They see their tables spread; The sugar and the spices strewn, The crusts of creamy bread.

The saints upon the walls maintain Their attitudes benign; But conquered by confusing quests, The doves drift down to dine.

CASTLE “BILL”

Down on Gov’nors Island, Ivy etched and chill, Hollow as a halo, There is Castle “Bill.”

Once the pride of outfits-- Prisoners under guard, Form for evening roll-call In the castle yard.

Sentries with their side arms, Counting, one by one, While the twilight tarries For the sunset gun.

Miles away the music Soundeth at parade Chanting of Cochita, Filipino maid;

Chanting of Cochita Of Corregidor; Piping of the palm trees ’Long Lunetta shore.

Dusty gunners listen, Lead and chain and wheel; Long ago Manila Held them all to heel;

Boys from all battalions, Saberless and still, Waiting on a sunset-- Down in Castle “Bill.”

CASTLE WILLIAM

Where Buttermilk Channel doth seek to beguile Diffident margins of Governor’s Isle,

There is a fortress all bastioned and chill, Known to the army as old “Castle Bill.”

There are occasions when soldiers may smile; Not in that castle on Governor’s Isle;

Not in the cloisters where sentries abound; Not where a gun butt leaps up from the ground.

Oh! There are many--the old cannoneers, Infantry sergeants and grave grenadiers;

They have gone onward to zones of desire, Scorning all theories of musketry fire;

They have advanced to civilian vales, Building new barracks for sweet nightingales.

Yet they revert in their leisure sedate, Seeing in visions that old castle gate;

Still they remember their days in the mill-- Down in the casemates of old “Castle Bill.”

THE ROLL OF THE ROSES

We called the roll of the roses And all of the front rank red, Were present and ready for duty, To serve with the living or dead.

We called the roll of the roses, But where were the yellow and white? With the troubadours on a terrace-- Somewhere secure in the night.

We break no pledge to the poppies Or the culls of a country lane; Our own were alone in denying The levies we sought in vain.

Now who shall match us a color In the talk of a kinship fair, When none of the white or the yellow, But only the red were there.

We called the roll of the roses On the field where the roses fell; And a distant down made answer With a troubadour tolling a bell.

THE GOSSIPS

The rose bud that grew by the settle, Bowed low to the gossiping thrusts; The poet was praising the nettle, The nettle that nobody trusts.

The pansies were painted in postures, The poppies have stood on their toes; But long before mention of Moses Her rivals have flouted the rose.

Oh! Sweetness a-sway by the settle, Be still on thy beautiful stem; For love never clung to the nettle-- The nettle that burns to condemn.

Fear not for a moment’s defection, Though pansies and poppies may pose; For after a bit of reflection The rover returns to the rose.

TO-MORROW

The sun shall shine in ages yet to be, The musing moon illumine pastures dim, And afterward a new nativity For all who slept the dreamless interim.

The starry brocade of the summer night Is linked to us as part of our estate; And every bee that wings its sidelong flight Assurance of a sweeter, fairer fate.

The blazoned humming-bird hath made it plain-- It seeks ravines where wildings wreathe each wall; And there succeeding broods are marked again By rainbows o’er a rambling waterfall.

When you return, the youngest of the seers, Released from fetters of ancestral pose, There will be beauty waiting down the years-- Revisions of the ruby and the rose.

THE ROSE OF REST

From the water-gate of Pekin, where the latticed lanterns glow, Eastward to the Cherry Gardens in the heart of Tokio,

There is none who may outrank her, none who answers love’s behest, None of all my seven daughters like the little Rose of Rest.

Her eyes are questing colors, matchless mirrors of delight, The turquoise dawn of China and the duskiness of night.

Her lips are pouting poppies by love’s tender tempests blown, They tremble with the secrets only Buddha could have known.

She cometh in the twilight with the tamarinds and tea; She kneeleth near to serve me in the sweet obscurity.

She sayeth not a single word, but ever I am blest, And I fall asleep caressing her, the little Rose of Rest.

THE SYMBOLS

The sign work of the Orient it runneth up and down, The Talmud stalks from right to left, a rabbi in a gown;

The Roman rolls from left to right from Maytime unto May, But the gods shake up their symbols in an absent-minded way.

Their language runs to circles like the language of the eyes, Emphasized by strange dilations and with little panting sighs.

There are symbols set as signals for unbarricaded lips, Emblems manifesting merits thrilling to the finger tips.

The very serpents bite their tails; the bees forget to sting, For a language so celestial setteth up a wondering.

And the touch of absent-mindedness is more than any line, Since direction counts as nothing when the gods set up a sign.

THE SALAMANDER ISLES

Snaring lights surmount the sand-dunes of the Salamander Isles; The chime buoys chant new tunes each tide, false soundings run for miles.

And yet, for lures like these we set such sail as we could make; We steered by stars that sorrowed, with the moonlight in our wake.

We dipped or rose supremely as we shook our freeboard clear; We clung, but smiled serenely when the head seas swept our gear.

We were captives of the currents, we were harried by the flaw, Or the red mists from the marshes mocked the navigator’s law.

Glimpsed we evanescent channels, marked by flares upon a wreck, But the channels shoaled to shallows ere the tops could hail the deck.

Yet we won to realization that the ports long sought in vain, Were illusive as the May moths or the madrigals of Spain;

And that only charts from China, drawn by wizards full of wiles, Would give the proper bearings for the Salamander Isles.

THE CHESS GAME

My king, my queen, the castle twain, each bishop, pawn and knight, I led them into battle by the flick’ring candle light.

I led them into combat ’gainst a genius at the game, And the candles all were laughing as I sought to hide my shame.

But the little silver chessmen that were wrought in Samarcand Caught the spirit of crusaders there upon the teakwood stand.

The warriors all murmured, while the monarch moved to lean And voice his plan of action to his understanding queen:

“For the sake of all the trumpeters who had to sound retreat-- For the sake of all beginners who have gone down to defeat;

“We will fight, no human guiding, for a lovely lady’s fame, And we’ll run our counter-gambit to a checkmate in the game.”

Oh, the glory of that battle, thunder marching in the ranks; The castles staunchly standing, and the proud pawns on the flanks.

The queen with her litter and the king upon the right Spurred on each knight and bishop in the fury of the fight

’Mid the stone piles of his slingers surged my men of Samarcand, And we conquered our opponent on that polished teakwood stand.

Thus reality was riven by the wisdom of a wraith, By the images inanimate that fought for love and faith;

By the images inanimate that came from Samarcand To show their knightly courtesy upon a teakwood stand.

THE DINOSAURS’ EGGS

One morn in old Mongolia, In Asia’s arid lands, Men found the eggs of dinosaurs Upon the Gobi sands.

The one-time myths in miniature, The seeds that turned to stone; The mirage of forgotten things Upon the sands were strown.

Fate left them to strange lassitudes, The lonely and the still, That could have tusked creation’s flanks But for some sudden chill.

The roses pined in weary wastes Yet won to garden wall; The honey-loving humming-birds Outlived a waterfall;

The does a-down the centuries Soft nosed each little fawn; The robin’s breast was o’er her brood, All gentle things were born.

With sweet significance the bowers Gave beckonings and smiles, And then came Eden’s wistful mates To walk in Eden’s aisles.

But in the Gobi solitudes, The tombs time left unlatched-- There lay in wind-blown shrouds of sand The eggs that never hatched.

THE FIRST STORY

Mid seaweed on a sultry strand, ten thousand years ago, A sun-burned baby sprawling lay, a-playing with his toe.

The babe was dreaming of the day that he might swing a club, When lo! He saw a fishy thing, a-squirming in the mud.

The creature was an octopus, and dangerous to pat, But the prehistoric infant never stopped to think of that.

The baby’s fingernails were sharp, his appetite was prime, He clutched that deep-sea monster, for ’twas nearing supper-time,

Oh! Suddenly, from out the pulp a fluid black did flow, ’Twas flavored like a barberry wine and gave a sort of glow;

It squirted in the baby’s eyes; it made him gasp and blink, But to that octopus he held, and drank up all the ink.

The ink was in the baby--he was bound to write a tale; So he wrote the first of stories with his little fingernail.

THE THREE-CORNERED LOT

Said the farmer to his daughter: “When I die, as like as not, I’ll leave to you the title to the old three-cornered lot.

“’Tis the vale beyond the pastures, never any good to me, With the huckleberry bushes and the silver maple-tree.

“Fair scenery for song birds, but too small to cultivate; Yet there’s a wall around it, like a foolish man’s estate.”

Fell a blight upon the corn fields; stood an empty barn and cot; The farmer’s holdings dwindled to the old three-cornered lot.

He saw his home dismantled; learned that permanence, alas, Is the portrait of a swallow painted on the shadow grass.

Came his daughter as a seeress, and she said: “As like as not, I’m giving back the title to the old three-cornered lot.

“’Tis just a bit of scenery too sweet to cultivate, Yet there’s a wall around it, like a nobleman’s estate;

“There are huckleberry bushes and a length of garden loam, And the stone walls of the foolish man wherewith to build a home.”

THE HISTORY OF HONEY

“The History of Honey”--by an aged mandarin, And I bought it for the pictures of the burnished bees therein.

For the dainty revelations, masquerading up and down, For the odor of the sandalwood that talked of China-town.

According to the mandarin, the Oriental bees Were the first to hoard their honey in the mountain cavities.

In the ages of antiquity, each summer afternoon, They flew in golden convoys to the mountains of the moon.

And there, in caves by cataracts, where nothing could annoy, Poured gallons in the caverns when Confucius was a boy.

Many mountains bulged with honey stored before the days of Ming, From each crevice dripped the essence of a very precious thing.

Imprisoned in this honey, aging as the æons wane, Are the souls of all the flowers, waiting to be born again.

Every lotus, every poppy, every tulip, every rose, And those who sip the honey slip beyond all human woes.

Dream again of youth’s digressions, index misty ways of joy, Turn unto the pagan pastimes of Confucius--as a boy.

Doubtless there are yet secreted some divine distilleries Overflowing with the wonder worth a dozen dynasties.

But the mandarin, he made no map, contented in old age To draw the clinging love scenes of the bees on every page.

There he found an inspiration antedating all the Mings, And he got the ancient essence of the very sweetest things.

THE HISTORY OF PAINTING

A shadow and reflection quarelled once upon a time, Disputing o’er the setting for a woodland pantomime.

One claimed that color dominates and waved to heaven’s blue; The other held that outline makes an angel worth the view.

The tumult shook the thrushes’ nests, the fledglings joined their cries; Forth came the fauns from forest gloom with wistful enterprise.

Reflection flung her florid robes o’er gneiss and dolomite; The shadow bowed to everything that stood within the light.

But color lacked the candor and the certainty divine; The shadow clung forever to the flatness of a line.

Spake suddenly an oracle, gray-feathered, blindly wise: “The absence of the sunlight worketh wonders in the eyes;

“For light and shades are synonyms of things that stand apart Till love creates a question and a longing in each heart.”

The fledglings caught the utterance, the fauns were there to see; They stayed to watch a shadow kiss a rose light recklessly.

Thereafter there was artistry, the brooks began to paint; The ferns were willing models and the lilacs lost restraint;

The lakes were filled with sunsets and the birth-marked butterflies On balanced wings were cruising ’cross the mirrors of the skies.

The granite learned to glisten and the rocks that held the rain Awoke to truer technique, tempting visions back again.

Thus from a bickering were born the painter’s art and lore That beauty might be glorified by love forever more.

THE ROAD TO ROSLYN

Upon the road to Roslyn Town, The road that skirts the bay; Upon the road to Roslyn Town, Upon a summer’s day;

I met a dark-haired Gypsy girl, ’Twas afternoon, and late; With haunting eyes she halted me By Thomas Clapham’s gate.

She was bent upon the business of A very ancient race; But no mercenary motive marred That sombre Gypsy face.

“Oh, maiden beautiful,” she said, “Let’s tarry on the green-- What luck upon the Roslyn Road To meet a Gypsy queen.”

With amber eyes she read my palm, Then raised them to a stare, “You wed for love, for wealth, for power, And thrice three sons will bear.”

She asked me for a silver piece, The amber eyeballs glowed; I gave her all the change I had, Upon the Roslyn Road.

She begged from me my hosiery, My gloves, and named my beau; She slipped the Solway sandals from The infantry below;

She got from me my garnet ring, She cozened off my gown; She left me like Godiva on The Road to Roslyn Town.

Oh, I went home across the lots In the gloaming and in tears, But she didn’t get my earrings, for The bobbed hair hid my ears.

THE ARMY LAUNDRESS

Beside a somber sally port upon a bastioned isle There dwells a bare-armed laundry girl to serve the rank and file.