Part 3
CLARA SHANAFELT: To Thee 301 Caprice 301 A Vivid Girl 301 Invocation 302 Pastel 302 A Gallant Woman 302 Scherzo 303
FRANCES SHAW: Who Loves the Rain 304 The Harp of the Wind 304 The Ragpicker 305 Cologne Cathedral 305 Star Thought 305 The Child’s Quest 306 Little Pagan Rain Song 306
CONSTANCE LINDSAY SKINNER: Songs of the Coast-Dwellers: The Chief’s Prayer after the Salmon Catch 307 Song of Whip-Plaiting 308 No Answer is Given 309
JAMES STEPHENS: What Tomas An Buile said in a Pub 312 Bessie Bobtail 313 Hate 313 The Waste Places, I-II 314 Hawks 316 Dark Wings 317
GEORGE STERLING: A Legend of the Dove 317 Kindred 318 Omnia Exeunt in Mysterium 318 The Last Days 319
WALLACE STEVENS: Peter Quince at the Clavier, I-IV 320 In Battle 322 Sunday Morning, I-V 323
AJAN SYRIAN: The Syrian Lover in Exile Remembers Thee, Light of my Land 325
RABINDRANATH TAGORE: From “Gitanjali,” I-VI 327 From “The Gardener,” I-IX 329
SARA TEASDALE: Leaves 334 Morning 334 The Flight 335 Over the Roofs 335 Debt 336 Songs in a Hospital: The Broken Field 336 Open Windows 336 After Death 337 In Memoriam F. O. S. 337 Swallow Flight 338 The Answer 338
EUNICE TIETJENS: The Bacchante to Her Babe 339 The Steam Shovel 341 The Great Man 343
RIDGELY TORRENCE: The Bird and the Tree 344 The Son 345
CHARLES HANSON TOWNE: Beyond the Stars 346
LOUIS UNTERMEYER: Landscapes 348 Feuerzauber 350 On the Birth of a Child 351 Irony 352
ALLEN UPWARD: Scented Leaves from a Chinese Jar: The Acacia Leaves 352 The Bitter Purple Willows 352 The Coral Fisher 353 The Diamond 353 The Estuary 353 The Intoxicated Poet 353 The Jonquils 353 The Marigold 353 The Mermaid 354 The Middle Kingdom 354 The Milky Way 354 The Onion 354 The Sea-Shell 354 The Stupid Kite 354 The Windmill 355 The Word 355
JOHN HALL WHEELOCK: Sunday Evening in the Common 355 Spring 356 Like Music 356 The Thunder-Shower 357 Song 357 Alone 358 Nirvana 358 Triumph of the Singer 358
HERVEY WHITE: Last Night 359 I Saw the Clouds 360
MARGARET WIDDEMER: The Beggars 361 Teresina’s Face 362 Greek Folk Song 362
FLORENCE WILKINSON: Our Lady of Idleness 363 Students 365
MARGUERITE WILKINSON: A Woman’s Beloved—A Psalm 367 An Incantation 368
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS: Sicilian Emigrant’s Song 369 Peace on Earth 370 The Shadow 371 Metric Figure 371 Sub Terra 372 Slow Movement 373 Postlude 374
CHARLES ERSKINE SCOTT WOOD: “The Poet in the Desert”—Extracts from the Prologue 375
EDITH WYATT: On the Great Plateau 377 Summer Hail 379 To F. W. 380 A City Afternoon 382
THE NEW POETRY
Conrad Aiken
MUSIC I HEARD
Music I heard with you was more than music, And bread I broke with you was more than bread. Now that I am without you, all is desolate, All that was once so beautiful is dead.
Your hands once touched this table and this silver, And I have seen your fingers hold this glass. These things do not remember you, beloved: And yet your touch upon them will not pass.
For it was in my heart you moved among them, And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes. And in my heart they will remember always: They knew you once, O beautiful and wise!
DEAD CLEOPATRA
Dead Cleopatra lies in a crystal casket, Wrapped and spiced by the cunningest of hands. Around her neck they have put a golden necklace Her tatbebs, it is said, are worn with sands.
Dead Cleopatra was once revered in Egypt— Warm-eyed she was, this princess of the south. Now she is very old and dry and faded, With black bitumen they have sealed up her mouth.
Grave-robbers pulled the gold rings from her fingers, Despite the holy symbols across her breast; They scared the bats that quietly whirled above her. Poor lady! she would have been long since at rest
If she had not been wrapped and spiced so shrewdly, Preserved, obscene, to mock black flights of years. What would her lover have said, had he foreseen it? Had he been moved to ecstasy, or tears?
O sweet clean earth from whom the green blade cometh!— When we are dead, my best-beloved and I, Close well above us that we may rest forever, Sending up grass and blossoms to the sky.
DANCING ADAIRS
Behold me, in my chiffon, gauze and tinsel, Flitting out of the shadow into the spotlight, And into the shadow again, without a whisper!— Firefly’s my name, I am evanescent.
Firefly’s your name. You are evanescent. But I follow you as remorselessly as darkness, And shut you in and enclose you, at last, and always, Till you are lost, as a voice is lost in silence.
Till I am lost, as a voice is lost in silence.... Are you the one who would close so cool about me? My fire sheds into and through you and beyond you: How can your fingers hold me? I am elusive.
How can my fingers hold you? You are elusive? Yes, you are flame; but I surround and love you, Always extend beyond you, cool, eternal, To take you into my heart’s great void of silence.
You shut me into your heart’s great void of silence.... O sweet and soothing end for a life of whirling! Now I am still, whose life was mazed with motion. Now I sink into you, for love of sleep.
Zoë Akins
THE TRAGEDIENNE
A storm is riding on the tide; Grey is the day and grey the tide, Far-off the sea-gulls wheel and cry— A storm draws near upon the tide;
A city lifts its minarets To winds that from the desert sweep, And prisoned Arab women weep Below the domes and minarets;
Upon a hill in Thessaly Stand broken columns in a line About a cold forgotten shrine, Beneath a moon in Thessaly:
But in the world there is no place So desolate as your tragic face.
I AM THE WIND
I am the wind that wavers, You are the certain land; I am the shadow that passes Over the sand.
I am the leaf that quivers, You the unshaken tree; You are the stars that are steadfast, I am the sea.
You are the light eternal— Like a torch I shall die; You are the surge of deep music, I but a cry!
CONQUERED
O pale! O vivid! dear! O disillusioned eyes Forever near! O Dream, arise!
I will not turn away From the face I loved again; Your beauty may sway My life with pain.
I will drink the wine you pour, I will seek to put asunder Our ways no more— O Love! O Wonder!
THE WANDERER
The ships are lying in the bay, The gulls are swinging round their spars; My soul as eagerly as they Desires the margin of the stars.
So much do I love wandering, So much I love the sea and sky, That it will be a piteous thing In one small grave to lie.
Richard Aldington
THE POPLAR
Why do you always stand there shivering Between the white stream and the road?
The people pass through the dust On bicycles, in carts, in motor-cars; The wagoners go by at dawn; The lovers walk on the grass path at night.
Stir from your roots, walk, poplar! You are more beautiful than they are.
I know that the white wind loves you, Is always kissing you and turning up The white lining of your green petticoat. The sky darts through you like blue rain, And the grey rain drips on your flanks And loves you. And I have seen the moon Slip his silver penny into your pocket As you straightened your hair; And the white mist curling and hesitating Like a bashful lover about your knees.
I know you, poplar; I have watched you since I was ten. But if you had a little real love, A little strength, You would leave your nonchalant idle lovers And go walking down the white road Behind the wagoners.
There are beautiful beeches Down beyond the hill. Will you always stand there shivering?
LESBIA
Grow weary if you will, let me be sad. Use no more speech now; Let the silence spread gold hair above us, Fold on delicate fold. Use no more speech; You had the ivory of my life to carve....
And Picus of Mirandola is dead; And all the gods they dreamed and fabled of, Hermes, and Thoth and Bêl are rotten now, Rotten and dank.
And through it all I see your pale Greek face; Tenderness Makes me eager as a little child to love you, You morsel left half-cold on Cæsar’s plate.
IMAGES
I
Like a gondola of green scented fruits Drifting along the dank canals at Venice, You, O exquisite one, Have entered my desolate city.
II
The blue smoke leaps Like swirling clouds of birds vanishing. So my love leaps forth towards you, Vanishes and is renewed.
III
A rose-yellow moon in a pale sky When the sunset is faint vermilion In the mist among the tree-boughs, Art thou to me.
IV
As a young beech-tree on the edge of a forest Stands still in the evening, Yet shudders through all its leaves in the light air And seems to fear the stars— So are you still and so tremble.
V
The red deer are high on the mountain, They are beyond the last pine trees. And my desires have run with them.
VI
The flower which the wind has shaken Is soon filled again with rain; So does my mind fill slowly with misgiving Until you return.
CHORICOS
The ancient songs Pass deathward mournfully.
Cold lips that sing no more, and withered wreaths, Regretful eyes and drooping breasts and wings— Symbols of ancient songs Mournfully passing Down to the great white surges, Watched of none Save the frail sea-birds And the lithe pale girls, Daughters of Okeanos.
And the songs pass From the green land Which lies upon the waves as a leaf On the flowers of hyacinth; And they pass from the waters, The manifold winds and the dim moon, And they come, Silently winging through soft Kimmerian dusk, To the quiet level lands That she keeps for us all, That she wrought for us all for sleep In the silver days of the earth’s dawning— Prosperine, daughter of Zeus.
And we turn from the Kuprian’s breasts, And we turn from thee, Phoibos Apollon, And we turn from the music of old And the hills that we loved and the meads, And we turn from the fiery day, And the lips that were over-sweet; For silently Brushing the fields with red-shod feet, With purple robe Searing the flowers as with a sudden flame, Death, Thou hast come upon us.
And of all the ancient songs Passing to the swallow-blue halls By the dark streams of Persephone, This only remains: That in the end we turn to thee, Death, That we turn to thee, singing One last song.
O Death, Thou art an healing wind That blowest over white flowers A-tremble with dew; Thou art a wind flowing Over long leagues of lonely sea; Thou art the dusk and the fragrance; Thou art the lips of love mournfully smiling; Thou art the pale peace of one Satiate with old desires; Thou art the silence of beauty, And we look no more for the morning; We yearn no more for the sun, Since with thy white hands, Death, Thou crownest us with the pallid chaplets, The slim colorless poppies Which in thy garden alone Softly thou gatherest.
And silently; And with slow feet approaching; And with bowed head and unlit eyes, We kneel before thee. And thou, leaning towards us, Caressingly layest upon us Flowers from thy thin cold hands, And, smiling as a chaste woman Knowing love in her heart, Thou sealest our eyes And the illimitable quietude Comes gently upon us.
Mary Aldis
BARBERRIES
You say I touch the barberries As a lover his mistress? What a curious fancy! One must be delicate, you know— They have bitter thorns. You say my hand is hurt? Oh no, it was my breast, It was crushed and pressed. I mean—why yes, of course, of course— There is a bright drop—isn’t there?— Right on my finger; Just the color of a barberry, But it comes from my heart.
Do you love barberries? In the autumn When the sun’s desire Touches them to a glory of crimson and gold? I love them best then. There is something splendid about them: They are not afraid Of being warm and glad and bold; They flush joyously, Like a cheek under a lover’s kiss; They bleed cruelly Like a dagger wound in the breast; They flame up madly for their little hour, Knowing they must die. Do you love barberries?
WHEN YOU COME
“_There was a girl with him for a time. She took him to her room when he was desolate and warmed him and took care of him. One day he could not find her. For many weeks he walked constantly in that locality in search of her._”—From _Life of Francis Thompson_.
When you come tonight To our small room You will look and listen— I shall not be there.
You will cry out your dismay To the unheeding gods; You will wait and look and listen— I shall not be there.
There is a part of you I love More than your hands in mine at rest; There is a part of you I love More than your lips upon my breast.
There is a part of you I wound Even in my caress; There is a part of you withheld I may not possess.
There is a part of you I hate— Your need of me When you would be alone, Alone and free.
When you come tonight To our small room You will look and listen— I shall not be there.
FLASH-LIGHTS
I
Candles toppling sideways in tomato cans Sputter and sizzle at head and foot. The gaudy patterns of a patch-work quilt Lie smooth and straight Save where upswelling over a silent shape. A man in high boots stirs something on a rusty stove Round and round and round, As a new cry like a bleating lamb’s Pierces his brain. After a time the man busies himself With hammer and nails and rough-hewn lumber, But fears to strike a blow. Outside the moonlight sleeps white upon the plain And the bark of a coyote shrills across the night.
II
A smell of musk Comes to him pungently through the darkness. On the screen Scenes from foreign lands, Released by the censor, Shimmer in cool black and white Historic information. He shifts his seat sideways, sideways— A seeking hand creeps to another hand, And a leaping flame Illuminates the historic information.
III
Within the room, sounds of weeping Low and hushed: Without, a man, beautiful with the beauty Of young strength, Holds pitifully to the handle of the door. He hiccoughs and turns away, While a hand-organ plays, “The hours I spend with thee, dear heart.”
Walter Conrad Arensberg
VOYAGE À L’INFINI
The swan existing Is like a song with an accompaniment Imaginary.
Across the grassy lake, Across the lake to the shadow of the willows, It is accompanied by an image— As by Debussy’s “_Reflets dans l’eau_.”
The swan that is Reflects Upon the solitary water—breast to breast With the duplicity: “_The other one!_”
And breast to breast it is confused. O visionary wedding! O stateliness of the procession! It is accompanied by the image of itself Alone.
At night The lake is a wide silence, Without imagination.
AT DAYBREAK
I had a dream and I awoke with it— Poor little thing that I had not unclasped After the kiss good-by.
And at the surface how it gasped— This thing that I had loved in the unlit Depth of the drowsy sea.... Ah me! This thing with which I drifted toward the sky.
Driftwood upon a wave— Senseless the motion that it gave.
TO HASEKAWA