Part 2

Once in his youth, While his new ears could yet distinguish truth, He heard a listless bell clang langorously, A liquid, languid clamor, The talking tone of iron struck by the hammer, A sound that blew like smoke across the sea, Low, slow and trembling dreamfully From the high, horn-shaped cape; For there a hermit lived And tended the wild grape, Where white, campaniform, small lilies teem, And there he died beside his cell, Lost in his dream of heaven and of hell; And the bell was the voice of that old dream. One Lusitanian summer, long ago, Upon a hot and azure afternoon, While the oars trailed And with the tide they sailed, And tenor zithers an ivory tune-- Along cerulean coasts, With islands like blue ghosts, Rang the lone hermit's bell, "_Alone-lin-lang-alone_," Clear as a wounded angel's voice, Soft as a death spell that old women croon-- The harbor gulf lay placid, And in the west there hung a half a moon.

[Sidenote: Through all his life the bell never ceases to lure him. Weak from wounds, he sees a vision of the peace of death in life in the hermit's garden on the cape.]

Never again in laughter or in tears, Or in titantic days of crashing shields, In triumphs with blue light upon the spears, Or when he rivaled God upon his throne Never had the bell's voice died; In all his purple, blood-bought pride It seemed to toll for him an overtone, After the battle with his veins' blood spent, Disheartened by the metal light of day, Between the crisscross threads that made his tent, The fear of life came on him as he lay; "Outside the world is garish," thought the king, And then--and then he heard the lone bell ring And saw the peace and green light of a wood; It was a very vision of escape, A high-walled garden on the crescent cape, Fair as an evil thing but good.

The cape is luniform Whereon the hermit's form Lies bony white and still Beside the chapel on the hill; The long grass waves as if he breathes At every breeze that weaves; The birds have nests among old votive wreaths And there the snake sheds in the rustling leaves. There are faint flower sounds Around, for spider hands have rung The lily with its yellow clapper tongue, All day the mists take shape And the high hawks slant drifting down the cape-- By night the heavenly hunter leads his hounds, Wandering the zodiacal bounds, And all the white stars march, Flaming in the unalterable arch, While the wind swings the listless bell That rings the hermit's knell-- _Sleep well, sleep well!_

III.

[Sidenote: By his art the king casts four new bells that blend in perfect harmony with the hermit's. When they ring together the five bells charm all the senses.]

Three years the king has dwelt within a cell That he might dream his garden first to build it well, His ministers are black with wrath And the stone floor is hollowed to a path, But still he hears the bell, A frozen sound clear as a cold, deep well. The king is melancholy mad, I guess. At nights The tower windows flash with lights And many an artisan Comes after midnight with the garden's plan Of walls and towers And terraces and flowers, And spreads them wondering upon the floor; The queen comes seldom now and least Of all the priest; There is no priest alive That can the king's soul shrive; The dead hermit from his cell Has lured him close to heaven with his bell, A strange, a mad, a melancholy spell.

The master of campanology Has cast four lovely voices for the king, Four godlike metal throats that sing In towers at the corners of the wall; And all the garden hears them call, Four miracles of tone, Of sound that flows to nothingness Like water lines upon a river stone.

Gracious as a good gift given freely, Comes from each campanile At each corner of the wall, The keen voice of a bell, "_Lan-up, lan-up_," they ring, And call and call the king With the voice of the old spell That they inherit from the hermit's bell-- Five times as strong,-- The king must go ere long-- He has the key to the garden gates, He only waits In courtesy to say the queen farewell.

Alas! Alas! The king is mad! The people throng to see him pass, And he has heard a mass.

[Sidenote: All the world is convinced of his madness, especially lovers.]

It was an eery thing to see The king go merrily And all the world forgo-- At dawn when little birds sing charmingly, There was a ringing sound of horses' feet And lovers in their upper rooms stopped clinging, To hear go down the street The minstrelsy And little foolscap bells a-ringing.

IV.

[Sidenote: Having heard a mass the king takes leave of this world's shore and the queen.]

Down at the river ford Beside the ferry, Dances a little wherry, To every wave that blows in from the sea It dances merrily; To every wave it dips it And to the wind it tips it. This merry little boat the king will take, The pale queen waits with outstretched hands, And now he bends above the oars, And now before the garden gates he stands-- It was an eery thing to see Him leave so merrily-- The music played him to the shore Where he will walk no more. The king is mad to be so lonely glad, And mad to throw the key into the sea.

[Sidenote: In the perfect harmony of his garden the king is married by the power of art and nature to the beauty of the earth.]

And now he dwells within his hermitage of bells Upon the cape shaped like a hunter's horn, The five bells strike a unitone, The wind comes fooling like an ape And the strange boy-breasted sea things mourn. The rock pools seep and creep, Laugh like a mad child in a moonstruck sleep, And then flow onward like an easy dream, Talking among the rocks, Into one valley stream, That ticks and drips and strikes like distant clocks Till with a snaky motion It curves three times And glides into the ocean. Marry! The king now is a lover! The bridegroom of his mother earth, no other, It goes unholily that he should be Enamored of the earth that gave him birth And of the sea, But now he has his will And he is husband to the sea and hill And to the wind a brother.

[Sidenote: But the world still thinks the king mad.]

At sunset all the garden swoons with bells, Rolling across the sea and fells. The demon sound stumbles along the ground. Withering for miles around And then is still-- All but one bell that dins on from the hill, That strikes to ten, While all the peasants pray And cross themselves and say, "Christ pity us! It is the mad king's angelus, Amen."

THE SEASONS.

Spring's Pilgrimage.

When Spring is born of Winter Then there comes a day In early April with the warmth of May, The clouds go gadding and the winds turn mild, And Spring is born in sunlight, Merry child! Her nurse is April with the misty eyes; The birds sing round her cradle Where she lies In green-streaked woodlands by the mantled ponds, Where the young ferns unfurl their snaky fronds.

She comes up from the South With a bird whistle on her pouting mouth, And sits upon some hill Her mother, Winter, has kept cold and still, Till her Sun-lover melts the snow-- Then out the strong floods go. Leaping like horses to the sea, And the green frogs go mad with glee. Ah! When that child is on her way The trees make ready, in the North The robins herald her And the buds put forth. Puss Willow's little catkins are a-stir, And it is all, is all for her!

But for a little while She lingers in the South. Wandering the moss-draped aisle, Brushing the shiest flowers with her mouth. Tuning her swanny throat To the lush warble of the swamp-bird's note, Beneath the lamp-hung jasmine's vine tent Her warm, delicious childhood soon is spent.

Then forth she fares, About the middle of the month of May, A young girl, wild-eyed, gay; The mountains are her stairs, The birds her harbingers, With merry song The peewit pipes her as she trips along-- The trumpet flowers blow fanfares. Even the sea caves know her And deep down The mermen chime the bells In some dim town, Where wrecks lie rotten and forgotten; The shark's fin glides More avidly among the sea-isle tides-- The whole glad earth Hails her with gales of mirth. The frantic midges dance; There is tumultuous lowing from the cattle. When Spring fares northward from the South, The young sun hungers for her cherry mouth And the black stallions scream as if in battle.

Summer.

Now come the Dog Days When the fat-faced sun Like Falstaff pours hot jest On Prince and thieves; The earth at morning smokes And at high noon Straight downward point the listless hanging leaves.

_Come, love, come, come away with me, Beneath the arbor tree, Where is sweet greenery and shade within; Shall we not take our ease in love's own inn?_

Come to that elfin place Where fawns feed on the tender grass And slim, shy shepherds come To see their sunburnt face Upon a water glass, Miraculously still-- Ah! Magic pool! They let the lead-sheep's bell Grow fainter, fainter down the winding dell, Until the only tone That comes is the far "_lina-lina-lone_" Of strayed sheep wandering on a windy hill.

_Come, love, come, come away with me; Drink from the coldest spring, Where little frogs make Attic melody, Tonight, perhaps, some moon-fooled bird will sing._

Dog Days, I wish my love Would come and live with me, Beneath a tented tree, The lush catalpa that in summer flowers, Sol, I could laugh at thee! If dalliance and sweet kisses sped the hours.

Autumn Portents.

The amber foam creams from the cider flagons, Backward the shadow of the ground-hog shrinks, The lanes creak with the laden harvest wagons, And the fur thickens on the owl-eyed lynx, The hunter sees cold mist about the moon, And in the bottom lands at morn, The print of tiny, thievish, fairy hands Where the raccoon last night went stealing corn.

Autumn Invocation.

"The seasons wait their turn among the stars."

Come from the blinding sun fields where you are, Come from the interspace of star and star, Summer lies sleeping in her dusty tomb, The owlets mourn her through the woodland's gloom Where all the night birds are.

_Autumn, come down!_

Into the columned forests cast your torches, Light all their shadowed aisles like temple porches, Stop at the Dog Star first and snatch his fire, Bold sun-hot yellow and the red that scorches To light dead summer's funeral pyre.

_Autumn, come down!_

Lean down, High Lady, from your starry arch, Over the maples and the fragrant larch, Stoop down some frosty night, Like a proud maiden from an old, walled town Tossing a rainbow favor to her knight.

_Lean down, lean down!_

Come take our northern forests for your palace, Dance in the witch fires of the borealis, Stand misty-eyed upon the mountain tops Or sit and gaze, With wind-twitched cloak and merry, cast-back hood, Down valleys purpled by the grape-blue haze, Beside some flaming wood. Come throw your mad _flambeaux_ Till all the motley, fire-streaked woodlands glow!

_Autumn, come down!_

Lady, how often must I ask it? Proud plenty, if you will, with vine-wreathed basket Shall bring you offerings of damasked plums-- For you in orchards mellow peaches plash All night. The lichens whiten on the lonely ash, The clover blackens and the last bee hums.

_Autumn, come down,_

You brown-skinned sorceress, And witch the leaves, for harvest home, And bear the nodding sheaves Into the red barns by the little town,

_Autumn, come down, come down!_

DREAM FRAGMENT.

I walked last night in southern Brittany, In deep, warm meadows where the _rouge-gorge_ sang, A land cliff-bordered, by an azure sea, Far off, far down, the muffled buoy bells rang In bays that stretched into a land of indolence, It seemed the peasants, in a fit of folly, Had fled and left me in sweet impotence To range blue uplands, tinged with melancholy, In amethystine pastures, smooth and lone, Charmed by a tepid ocean's magic moan.

WHEN SHADY AVENUE WAS SHADY LANE.

When Shady avenue was Shady lane, Before the city fathers changed the name, And cows stood switching flies beneath the trees, And old-time gardens hummed with dusty bees, And white ducks paddled in the summer rain; Then everybody drove to church, And Shady avenue was Shady lane. We lived on Arabella street, that too Is changed--Kentucky avenue-- And where the tollgate stood beside the spring, The phlox and hollyhocks Once flourished by the box Where the gatekeeper sat with key and ring. A wiser looking man there never was, In contemplative mood he smoked and spat, There by the gate he sat In an old dog-eared hat And listened to the yellow jackets' buzz.

All this is gone-- Gone glimmering down the ways Of old, loved things of our lost yesterdays, After the little tollgate by the spring. And the gatekeeper odd Rests in the quiet sod, Safe in the arms of God Where thrushes sing. Even the spring has gone, for long ago They walled that in, And its dark waters flow A sunless way along; And no one stops to wonder where they go, For no one hears their song.

Only a few old hearts Of these much changed parts, Whose time will soon run out on all the clocks, Catching the scent of clover, Live all the old days over When Shady avenue was Shady lane.

Δ'S VERSUS ⵙ'S.

Do you not see, you American people, What the triangle means? Mind, soul, body. Man is to live and die In a little metaphysical, three-roomed apartment, Office, chapel, and kitchenette.

As I sat and listened to the words of the wise man, I looked out of the window And suddenly a feeling of great well-being came on me. I saw that I was made of the same stuff as the hillside And that tomorrow I would be flowers, Or dance in the dust motes in the sun And that all things are one.

Then two laughing children came And threw a stone into a fountain And the ring widened till it was lost in the pool. Behold a sign! And I awoke and the wise man babbled like a fool.

And yet, O Great Republic, The symbol of your state church Is a triangle, blood red, Pointing downward.

THE OLD JUDGE.

Around the courthouse corner from the square, Where Poet Timrod's bust stands in the glare, There is an ancient office shuttered tight, With fluted pillars and the paint worn bare. Seldom, if ever now, do passing feet Disturb that little, cobbled _cul-de-sac_ Or rouse dull echoes in the quiet street Where time has eddied back. Only the old judge comes, With quivering hands and thin, With palsied scraping at the rusty lock And enters in.

He is the last of all the courtly men, Those lion-hearts who knew their Montesquieu, And fought for what he taught them, too, The STATE was something then-- But now--but now--he seems a very ghost That haunts the little office off the square, A Rip Van Winkle of the place at most At which to stare. Only on Saturdays he goes, And no one knows, And enters by the dusty, blinded door, And sits and sits While the long sunlight streams between the slits And the rats scurry underneath the floor. And there he stays all afternoon; The wagons rumble in the square, And the cracked, plaster bust of grim Calhoun Frowns with its classic stare. What dreams are these, old judge, of the old days, When cotton bales made mountains on the ways, When clipper ships were loading at the quays-- Or statelier, courtlier times of ease And manners without flaw, When _Smythe & Pringle_, The name is all but weathered from the shingle, Were the state's foremost firm at law.

Aye! Those were times! They leap to life among the steeple chimes, A passion and a white tone in the bells Flatters his sleep until he dreams of bout And rapier thrust at law-- Of frosty marches, Camp fires and faces of dead men, The War, And old Virginia's academic arches-- And he is young again! Oh! Life! Oh! Glory! He leaps up from his seat-- Ah! Judge, the old, old story; The blood can scarcely creep Back to the icy feet As the old man startles from his sleep, The last bell hums and then-- _Memento mori!_

Dream, dream, old judge, May quiet bring you ease, Among the Wedgwood phantoms of old Greece, Dream while the carved lambs in the frieze Trot to the voiceless sound Of Pan-pipes in the Georgian mantelpiece, Summon the forms of men you used to know; Till dead men's footfalls creak across the floor-- Is it your partner's who once long ago Planted the brick court with _rêve d'or_? Ah! He is gone now with his roses, Gone these thirty years and more.

And now the new South quickens, in the square The huge trucks thunder and the motors blare. The park oaks droop with Spanish moss and age, The _jedge_ no longer now is _marss_ but _boss_, And all the old things suffer change and loss But still he makes his weekly pilgrimage. Some day, some waif will look in through the pane And see him sitting with his gold-head cane With wide unseeing eyes a-stare-- Then there will be an end of dreams and care, A courtesy will pass we cannot spare, And humor, sparkling, dry as old champagne.

BEWITCHED.

A little lad was he Who loved a fisher maid in Brittany, Where sands stretch flat and wide When ebbs the tide, Smooth as a threshing floor, And there they played, young Véronique and Pierre, Along the shore. Often they used to walk Hand fast in hand, And laughed and kissed, Lost in such heavenly talk That spirits there, Who dwelt in sunny places in the mist, Drew very near to Véronique and Pierre, And the shrill curlews cried, And there were rainbow castles in the foam Where seawites died.

Mornings, dear Véronique brought shells And laid them on the stone beside Pierre's door, Sea-shapes of beauty, magic as the stars, Washed from old ocean's dragon-haunted floor, And Pierre would dream that she was sitting there And hoped that he would find her when he woke; And so he did--and she would look at Pierre And he at her--and neither of them spoke. So passed July, whose molten hours flow, The sun laughed hot and high, And then they said good-bye, For Pierre must go. He left her standing dumbly in the lane, Her lips a-tremble with his parting kiss, And had her farewell gift, a twisted shell, _Bewitched! Bewitched!_ With melancholy spell, For in that shell it was that little Pierre First heard love's secret whispered thus, "De-ssspairr."

THE WINGLESS VICTORY.

Nike of Samothrace, Thy godlike wings Cleft windy space Above the ships of kings, Fain of thy lips, By hope made glorious, Time kissed thy grand, Greek face Away from us.

Our Nike has no wings; She has not known Clean heights, and from her lips Comes starvèd moan. Mints lie that coin her grace, And Time will hate her face, For it has turned the world's hope Into stone.

POEMS WRITTEN IN FRANCE AT THE FRONT

1918

THE BLINDMAN.

A Ballad of Nogent l'Artaud.

At Nogent, on the river Marne, I passed a burning house and barn. I went into the public square Where pigeons fluttered in the air And empty windows gaped a-stare.

There crouched a blindman by the wall A-shivering in a ragged shawl, Who gave a hopeless parrot screech And felt the wall with halting reach. He went around as in a trap. He had a stick to feel and rap. _A-rap-a-tap, a-rap-a-tap_.

I strode across the public square. I stopped and spoke him full and fair. I asked him what he searched for there. There came a look upon his face That made me want to leave the place. He could not answer for a space. He moved his trembling hands about And in-and-out, and in-and-out.

"Kind sir," he said, "I scarcely know-- A week ago there fell a blow-- I think it was a week ago. I sent my little girl to school, With kisses and her book and rule, A week ago she went to school." The pigeons all began to coo, "_A-cock-a-loo, a-cock-a-loo._"

"O God! to be a blinded fool; I cannot find the children's school-- The gate, the court about the pool-- But, sir, if you will guide my feet Across the square and down the street, I think I know then where it lies. _O Jesu! Give me back my eyes! O Jesu! Give me back my eyes!_"

I led him down the littered street, He seemed to know it with his feet, For suddenly he turned aside And entered through a gateway wide. It was the court about the pool. Long shadows slept there deep and cool. No sound was there of beast or bird; It was the silence that we heard.

"And this," he said, "might be the place," An eager look came on his face. He raised his voice and gave a call; An echo mewed along the wall, And then it rose, and then it fell, Like children talking down a well. "Go in," he said, "see what you see, And then come back again for me."

Like one who bears a weight of sin And walks with fear, I entered in-- A turn--and halfway up the stair There was a sight to raise your hair; A dusty litter, books and toys, Three bundles that were little boys, White faces like an ivory gem; A statue stood and looked at them.

So thick the silence where I stood, I thought I wore a woolen hood; The blood went whispering through my ears, Like secrets that one overhears. I looked upon the dead a while; I saw the glimmering statue smile. The children slept so sweetly there, I scarce believed the tainted air.

And then I heard the blindman's stick, As rhythmic as a watch's tick, _A step--a click, a step--a click--_ As slow as days grow to a year, So long it seemed while he drew near, But sure and blind as death or fate, He came and said, "I dared not wait. It was too silent at the gate."

"And tell me now, sir, what you see That keeps you here so silently." "Three harmless things," I said, "I fear, Three things I see but cannot hear, Three shadows of what was before, Cast by no light are on the floor." "Sir," said the blindman, "lead me round, Lest I should tread on holy ground."

Like men they lead at dawn to doom, We slowly climbed the stairway's gloom And came into a sunlit room. The ceiling lay upon the floor, And slates, and books, and something more-- The master with a glassy stare, Sat gory in his shivered chair And gazed upon his pupils there.

The blindman grasped me eagerly. "And tell me now, sir, what you see? This is the place where she should be-- My Eleanor, who used to wear Short socks that left her brown legs bare. She had a crown of golden hair." I saw his blind eyes peer and stare. _Now there and here, now here and there_.

"Blindman," I cried, "these things I see: Time here has turned eternity. The clock hands point but only mock, For it is always three o'clock. I see the shadows on the wall; I see the crumbling plaster fall." "Oh! sir," he said, "I crave your eyes-- Be not so kindly with your lies."

I drew the blindman to my side; I told the truth I wished to hide. I said, "I see your Eleanor And she is dead upon the floor. And something fumbles with her hair; I guess the wind is playing there. And I see gray rats sleek and stout That dart about and dart about."

"Now, sir," he said, "I love your lies And Christ be thanked that took my eyes! But lead me, lead me to my dead! And let me touch her once," he said. I placed his hand upon her head.