P S

3537

A78
D8
1917

MAIN

>REAMS

AND

GIBES

EDWARD SAP1R

ALVMNVS BOOK FVND

Dreams and Gibes

BY

EDWARD SAPIR

BOSTON
THE POET LORE COMPANY
THE GORHAM PRESS

COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY
All Rights

EDWARD SAPIR

Reserved

iph of a Philosopher appeared in Tke Roycroft Anthology

The Moth in The Minaret. They are here reproduced
through the courtesy of these magazines.

The Gorham

Press, Boston,

U. S. A.

TO

MY WIFE

470161

Aw

CONTENTS
THE MISLABELED MENAGERIE
MONKS IN OTTAWA
THE BUILDERS
THE BLIND MAN
THE OLD MAN
THE MAN OF LETTERS
THE PROFESSOR
THE METAPHYSICIAN

PAGE

.......

n
12
13

14
15

16

16

EPITAPH OF A PHILOSOPHER

17
18

THE CLERGYMAN
THE LEARNED JEW
THE WOMAN ON THE BRIDGE
To A MAIDEN SWEET AND PURE
THE STENOGRAPHER
To A RECRUITING GIRL
PROFESSORS IN WAR-TIME
How DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR

20
22
23

24
26
27
28

EPITAPH OF A SOLDIER
THE OLD MAID AND THE PRIVATE
DELILAH
THE REPORTER CONGRATULATES THE ORATOR
THE PAINTING
THE DAINTY AND THE HUNGRY MAN
.

30

...

3*

34

34
.

35

THE WATER NYMPH

38

CURTAINS

43

MY

45

BOY

DANDELIONS

46

THE OTHER SIDE

MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING

47

49

CONVERSATION

THE DREAMER

50

FAILS OF SUCCESS

50

CONTENTS
PAGE
DISCORDS

53

LOVE

54

OUR LOVE

DANGLING CORPSES
To DEBUSSY
DIRTY SPRING
AN EASTER DAY
SUMMER IN THE WOODS
BEFORE THE STORM
A MOONLESS NIGHT
THE RAIN

55

56
57

.58
59
60

62
62
63

WATER
THE MOTH

64

HELPLESS REVOLT

64

LIBERTY

65
66

.....

DUST
WINGS
LONELINESS

VEXATION
SNARED
THE SOUL
A PRAYER FOR PRESERVATION

63

66

67
68

69

70
72

DREAMS AND GIBES

THE MISLABELED MENAGERI

I

took a trip to the menagerie

see the bear, opossum, kangaroo,

To

Rhinoceros and elephant, and

My

other friends

Behind

whom

oft

They

their bars.

all

d wondered

at

re fascinating things

To

gaze upon each seems a perfect symbol

Incarnate of human virtue or of vice

Or

oftenest of mirth-compelling foible.

That

s why I look at them as medicine.

Just think your social-climbing friend
Who leaves you in the lurch as nimbly he jumps

From eminence

eminence until
you down in the valley,
Just think him carcassed in a kangaroo
Are you revenged or not? and would you change

He

With him?

That

worth one

Is

Hold

To
Of

to

loses sight of

why

serious while

think zoology
it soothes the nerves.

getting off the track; I started

I went to see my friends
the menagerie.
And first the bear
on, I

tell

you

I visited,

how

but

in his den,

if

den

You d call it, I beheld a monkey frisk

And scamper round as though the label, Ursus,
Were meant for him, so much at home he seemed.
moved on

to the ostrich cage and saw

camel gravely chew the cud and squint
At me as though to say, "Too bad, my friend,
I

that ostrich label.

Were he you,
d stick his head in the sand, thus deftly
Annihilate the label, and his peace
Of ostrich mind regain." An Orient look

About

He

Of wisdom

spread along the camel

face.

And when J came to where I d always seen

The tiger nobly lash his tail and found

A
I

fox ignobly point his tail to earth,

I d come to Topsyturvydom.

knew

The elephant was labeled ass, the ass

Had grown a mane and pair of lion s ears
Or so the label gravely said, the lion
Had shrunk, it seemed, into a porcupine.
"A

fussing pedagogue, no doubt, has tried

His

hand,"

thought,

"on

some new labeling

scheme."

Just then I met a keeper.

"What s

the trouble,

wrong."

"Oh,

friend?"

I asked,

"these

labels are all

well,"

moved the animals

This morning, and we ve not got round as yet
To move the labels. We ll attend to that."
Said he,

only

"we

Discomfited,

Upon my way.

turned to go, and mused

I ran my human friends

All through the label gauntlet and a flash

Like Archimedes famed Eureka flamed
Across my mind. Why, yes, mislabeled
Mislabeled all! The grocer was he not

all!

sturdy disputant in politics?

label should have "statesman" been, no
The mayor hard to say, but I ve no doubt

His

less.

have served. Of clergymen

"grocer" would
know, two should have "broker" called themselves

That
I

And

one just "simpleton." "Philanthropist"

word, or should be, for the soul
That comes each month to buy my rags and bottles,
A starving tender-hearted wretch. And so
Is just the

With

all

the rest of

them
10

mislabeled all!

MONKS

OTTAWA

IN

Right on the busy street I saw them

big fat hulking plodding forms,

Two

Strangely stuck in the hurly-burly

Like creeping flies in seething amber.
They jostled the present
-

Clank of trolley-cars,
Lumbering whir of autos skidding past,
Mincing French-heeled girls with brown porous
stockings

Coquettishly ribboned between petticoat and shoes,

Newsboys,
crowd seeking fulfilment of hope from the news

bulletin,

Catastrophic pictures stuck in front of the movie

theatres
jostled the present,
smelt of the past,

They
They

Plodding on imperturbably.

And when my
"Mother

of

first

eye

God!"

caught them,

said something within me,

Bosh perhaps, but holy!

"Holy, holy!
Ascetic purity and mystic contemplation,
Prayer, flagellation
Francis of Assisi,
!

St.

God, Church, Pope,

I came up

And when

candles,

faith!"

close

They looked like pregnant women

Wrapped in heavy brown robes,
Wearing sandals,

And

got a glimpse of a heavy silver crucifix

Tortured with crude suffering

I heard them mumbling in their rumbling voices
Aux champignons I fancied I could disentangle
And they were munching peanuts.
II

THE BUILDERS
With confident smile, robust,
Of soul, you see the world as

Of

millions of

little

clean-limbed
a

jumble

blocks that have tumbled from

their places

Or have not tumbled

And you, and others

into

them

clean-limbed like yourself,

Roll up your sleeves and spade them up in heaps
And disentangle them one by one,
Then carefully you place each block square to its

neighbor

And

rear up palaces.

They

re never finished, for the

wind and

hail

and

rain

Will mock

at them.

You do your best to keep them

What little time you have left

in repair,

over from the spad

ing of more blocks.

I

A
I

your ruined palaces

angular perhaps
cannot but like them when
like

little

I see

you,

Confidently smiling, robust, clean-limbed of soul,

Bending in pride over them.

And

yet my eyes rebel

Short-sighted am I or else you suffer from illusions,

which ?
I

do not seem to see these blocks

(I see your geometric palaces)

But only finely powdered stuff

That lends itself to shifting forms and
I,

fancies.

build palaces
say they re formless?

too,

You

Palaces of gracious curve and shifting color.

12

The wind and

hail and rain cannot harm them,

For they shift of themselves chameleon-like.
It s as you will
I d rather work in powder than in blocks.

THE BLIND MAN

That s why they could not fool him.
they talked to him, he heard the words,
And, more than words, he heard the heart that
pulsed beneath.
As he sat in his lonely hall of eternal night,
His soul was quick to catch each fleeting nuance
Stone blind.

When

Of

the voice, each tell-tale accent lost to seeing ears.

hypocrisy, like as two peas, he held apart

Candor and

as easily

As

grain from chaff,

For he was stone blind, and could not be deceived.

THE OLD MAN

am
am

My

sons are grown and wed,

alone to end my days
In peace and dull content. I ve had my fill
Of life and pleasure, too of love and joy

Yes,

And

old.

left

Of strife and
Or two have

fruits of

bathed

combat

my

daily

In misty gold that interposed

and a dream
round in gold,
itself

Between me and the

chilly air of fact

else drag out his days and keep

How

can one
His heart unseared? But now that age has clung
To me with gently mocking smile (as though
To say, "You cannot shake me off"), I need
No golden mist to shield me. I can see
Unruffled what in younger days might well
Have chilled my ardor, dulled the edge of life,
For now I know that such is naught but sauce

To

flavor

with

Of

life.

The

(And hence

in

irony the dish

vinegar that poisons youth
self-defence they dub it wine)

its

welcome with the sweet. They call me

The young ones, knowingly contend that
I

Have

And

lost

my

step

and fallen out of

old,
I

line,

say I ve not the faculty to taste

Their vintages. I say their vintages

Are just the same old liquid (sourish

stuff)

We

used to sip, but dished in bottles new.

They smile contempt, I answer back with grin
Of "Wait and see." They say I m way behind
The times I chuckle "That may be, but you
;

Run

hard! catch up with

me and

Father

Time."

THE MAN OF LETTERS

He

had a stock of pretty heirlooms,

Left him by his aunts and grandames, grandames of

his aunts, and aunts of grandames.
All his life he played with them and sorted them
And built up pretty patterns out of them,

Graceful and shiny;

Circles, crosses, diamonds, and swastikas he made,
And toyed with shapes refreshingly irregular,
As when he d dent a kink into a rigid square
And talk of a wayward frolicking Gypsy-like
rhythm.
He grew to be exquisitely expert with dainty shapes.
But when he wished to make a solid masterpiece,

He

filched a coat or waistcoat

his trinkets

Strung
and swastikas

And

lo! the thing

on

from

his neighbor,

in circles, crosses,

had mass and

glitter, too.

"

the people said,

with subtle art,"

"Sublime!"

Decked

tis

diamonds,

solid

matter

And

lauded most the noble garment underneath.

His right eye slyly winked his left:
"Stick your pretty baubles on your neighbor s coat,

They

ll

call it

yours."

gave my literary friend a thought.

He made a volume out of it
And now, they say, he sits with Chesterton
I

Shaw.

and

THE PROFESSOR
I doubt if you know how wise I am.
Last year I published a heavy tome

Of well-nigh
The subject?

eight-hundred pages.
It matters not;

But this I know, that only two men

Understood (or partly understood)

in the
its

world

learned

One was a spectacled privat-docent in Bonn,

The other was myself.
And yet some Philistines begrudge my salary!

THE METAPHYSICIAN
I

watched the dog

As he

chased his tail

Merrily, merrily round.
Once he thought he had it,
Then he yelped with glee
But no, he found he was in error,
So had to chase his tail once more
Merrily, merrily round.
;

if he s at it yet
as busy as ever.

cannot say

I left

him

16

fill.

EPITAPH OF A PHILOSOPHER
I had a perfect system when I lived,
Flawless, water-proof to fallacy;
The world but seemed a string of episodes

Each born to prove my system.

Nature and Man and God were each assigned

And

comfortable niche
Art and Law both

But ever

fitted like a glove.

dug a hole

for me,
meditate in till the further reach of time,
I ve thought out many systems more
One a day s about my average
And lo! each system fits more perfectly than any
since they

To

other.

Of

late I ve tried to find a

system
Unsusceptible of flawless demonstration;
Alas! I have not found one yet.

gentle tombstone-visitor, have you?

THE CLERGYMAN
I

met him
man.

At

in the

first his

smoker of a Montreal-bound Pull

uncleft collar, separated from a pair of

shrewdly twinkling eyes

By energetic chin and Roman nose,

Kept me distant, for I m not a cleric-fancier.

were alone, he studying his railroad folder
times of leaving and arriving
I yawning as I looked for pretty faces in a theatre

We

We

magazine.
could not keep

it

up

The silence hurt, it dinned so in our ears.

The weather ran the gauntlet first,
The crops and prospects for a ready flow of money
Seemed

to occupy us gravely next,

for entree brought us to the anec

little politics

dotal stage.
got quite chummy, he and I
Three hours or so we had to let each know
clever t other was.
He told some good ones oh, most proper ones,

We

How

But good

ones.

My

wares he sampled like a connoisseur

Shrieking with laughter when twas safe,
Rocking back and forth,
Slapping his hands down on his knees;
And when twas safe, but not so safe,
He laughed again but did without the shrieking,
rocking, slapping;

And when you

could not call

the parlor code),

18

it

safe (according to

He

smiled an angel

He

lightning-rod,
told one of his

smile and, in the

manner

of a

own,
good one O, most proper,
But still a good one.
He had an endless stock, but I soon tired

And

turned the talk to church.

too, his fund was inexhaustible:
Statistics, Red Cross benefits, a hundred shifts to

There,

interest

Amateur

the young,

theatricals

much

All these and

We
The

We

and lectures on the Eskimo,

besides he spoke of with au

thority.

passed the time most entertainingly.

train pulled into town;
parted friends, exchanging cards and club ad
dresses.

hurried to the

"Good

sort/

As human
Leaves
a

his

office,

mused,

thinking him over.

"a

human

chap,

make them;
religious dope at home when up

as they

against

man."

And

then I wondered for a second

reached the office building, had no time to
bother thinking),
"Does he leave religious dope at home
(I d

When

up against

his

crowd

in

church?"

THE LEARNED JEW

His learning was a many-chambered treasure-house.
the Sabbath and the week-day rituals by

He knew
And

heart
in a trice could

mumble

off in

prayer a dozen

pages

Of

the closest printed type, while thinking of his

slender weekly gains.

He knew

the Pentateuch by heart and freely used

its

wordy commentators

To

salt the

bon-mots of

Did you dare

to

his daily life.

quote a passage from the sacred

book
to Chronicles (the Hebrew
version has them last)
And slur a vowel or misplace a prefixed article,
Beware he d pounce upon you, smile contempt, and
make you feel a fumbling school-boy;
He d clean forget the reverence due a well-filled

Anywhere from Genesis

pocket-book
s a thing of earth, philology

Money

thing of

God!

The Talmud was

his favorite picnic-ground;

Give him a heavy tome (one of the Babylonian set)

Wherein the cryptic Aramaic text is swallowed
In the enormous welter of the Hebrew glosses,
exegesis, disputatious hairier-splitting,
this and three or four long-bearded dis

Give him

putants
wrestle with him for the uttermost possession
of the law divine
(By aid of frenzied gestures and an intonation slid
ing recklessly from roof to cellar),

To

20

Give him this and let him split a split hair finer yet
(Sometimes he d catch the Rabbi napping, bowl him
over with an exegetic point)

And he was happier than any hobby-riding child.

The Talmud was his dreamland refuge from the
world.

What was

his

outward

shell

What met

the

Gen

tile s

Why,

eye?
merely this

he kept a peanut stand on Hester

Street.

21

THE WOMAN ON THE BRIDGE

her on the bridge;

I passed

Her image

And
The
I

is

with

me

yet,

not soon forget

sadness of her face.

I shall

shall not soon forget

Her pinched and haggard

would

The

could erase
memory of her eyes,

Her

eyes that

Into an empty

Her

To

face;

empty stared
air,

eyes that did not dare

look at what they saw.

And
And

her thin and bony frame

But her

That

narrow chest

the
I

so flat

her eyes,
cannot forget.
eyes,

twas that

Lord, her eyes have bored

Themselves

The ve
Into

into

my

soul,

bored themselves a hole

my

aching heart.

have not seen her since,

do not know her tale,
But this I know without fail,
1

Her

life

is

misery.

22

TO A MAIDEN SWEET AND PURE

Yes, you are sweet and pure;
Your eyes are calm and open,

Looking straight

Your

hair

Your

teeth

at

me

without a blink.

is

neatly parted,
Neatly braided and beribboned.
Your lips are parted daintily,

Were not
And your

d call them pearls,

the praise so hackneyed.

smile is very pleasant to behold,

Bright and sunny.

all about you floats an air of purity
So fresh, it were most base to blow the wind of

And

passion.

Ah me, you re charming, girl, and very sweet,

And yet there s want in you of still more charm.
And shall I tell you why?
But then you must not look at me so open-eyed,
So straight at me without a blink.
I

would your eyes were stormier,

would they gave a hint of ruffled waters under

would about your head there rayed

neath

silky aureole of saucy straying hair,

quite so neatly prisoned;

Not
I

would your pearly

Not

teeth

were strung

quite so motionless between your daintily parted

lips;

And most of all I would your smile

Were sunny warmth instead of sunny
I
I

Not merely

grace a perfect calm;

would, you maiden sweet and pure,
I would some hidden yearning
Were mirrored well nigh imperceptibly
Jn our sweet countenance.
I

light alone.

would not have your purity less fresh and pure,

would but have it crown a glowing maidenhood,

THE STENOGRAPHER
The

minutes lengthen into hours, the hours stretch

out to days,
follows day, day follows day.

Day
Hour

And

after hour I click the typewriter

grind out words and words and yet more
words.

Sometimes

And

cramp

my

fingers

set it racing o er the

round a pencil

pad

In swift obedience to my boss s voice,

I let it dance a headlong dance of splashing drib
bling strokes

These, too, are words and words and yet more

words.

Sometimes I m all alone,

Sometimes the fingers droop, forgetful of their task,
Leaving my thoughts to roam unfettered in a garden,
To climb a hillock and to spy the distant land.
The land is covered with a mist,
Warm and palpitating;
And from its bosom floats to me a fragrance that
intoxicates,

And
Aud
And

flames leap forth,

luring sounds are wafted to me
sometimes I catch a syllable or

two

That make me
But

blush with pleasure and with shame.

sometimes from the bosom of the mist

Come

cooling breezes, honey-laden,

play about my head and brush caresses on my
hair
leave their honey on my lips and on my drowsy

That

And

eyes.

24

"O

land of mist,

O land of hope, O land of wild de

sire!

What

in store for

have you, blessed flaming land,

me?"

Sometimes
roam,

Yet not

my

unfettered

in

garden

to tarry long.
at
jolts me back to stare
letter still unfinished;

moment

the
there s

Then

"As

the rest of

it

keyboard and

per your order of the

7th"

and

all

to do.

click the typewriter,

see, I do not always
do not always dash the pencil on its dancing

You
I

thoughts

course.

TO A RECRUITING GIRL
Silly girl!

Urge him not on

to slaughter

and

to sacrifice of

self

With your
With your

reproachful eyes,
scornful beauty.
Let him wrestle with himself
And see the light

As

To
To

given him to see

or spare,
die or live.
tis

kill

Silly girl!

Why
Why

desecrate his struggle,

pour into his agony of soul

The fiery drop of sex
To goad him on?
Let him crucify himself!
Nail him not to the cross!

And you?
Tremble

Cast your eyes downward to the earth

In awe that men their own destruction will.
Look not at him brazenly
Like a wanton.

PROFESSORS IN WAR-TIME
professors, lend a

Ho,

hand!

Stand not aloof

And

wisely smile
all the world

While

is

soaked in blood and groans

with pain.

You know

Do

the reasons for

it all

you?

The
Till

web

of cause and effect

and pulls and tightens
has the world caught in its hellish

tangled

That

strains
it

grip,

Fly-fashion in a spider s web;

You know the why and how.

Perchance you can

quisitions,

distil

from

all

the histories, dis

encyclopaedias

That you have writ and read

Some kindly counsel or ray of hope

To

loose the web.

Let your owlish smile thaw out

Into the

Ho,

And

human

glance of

human

professors, lend a hand

help us out of hell!

27

kind.

HOW
Have you

DIPLOMATS MAKE WAR

ever seen a picture of an ancient

House on

piles deep-driven in a lake ?

used to live in them in old Helvetia

They
For

safety s sake

at

least

told

as

much by

archaeologists.
I saw one used myself
it s now a bit more
than two years ago
men and
great big house all full of people

Well,

women
And young ones, too.
My, you d think they

never knew they had but

Rotten timbers twixt them and death
They seemed so gay and unconcerned and safe!

And

then I saw a crowd of boys amuse themselves

on land

At throwing

stones

Great big stones they threw in rivalry.

At first it seemed to me they pelted one the other,
But no! they aimed their shots
Straight at the piles that held the house,
all the while they laughed and cried with glee
Such sport it was.

And
The
And

dwellers in the house looked on

and cried with

were strong no need to

they, too, laughed

For the

piles

glee,
fear.

And

by and by the boys to the uttermost

Strained themselves.

They

yelled

and cried with fury, for none would

be outdone ;

28

They hurled

great boulders they could barely

at the piles.

lift,

Hurled them headlong

dwellers in the house looked on

The
And

they,

too, yelled

For each one bet on

They

Who

and cried with fury,

his favorite boy.

of the house egged on the throwers of stones,

lashed themselves to greater fury, for none

would be outdone.
went whirling

The

stones

thick,

So thick they nearly hid the piles,

One could not see the budging of the piles,
One could not hear them bend and creak.
In a trice the piles gave way,
I saw the house tip and come with a splash.
It spilled the people.

They sprawled and fought

And many drowned.
But

for

life,

the boys kept up their heated yells

And
They

quarreled bravely
quarreled bravely on dry land.

29

EPITAPH OF A SOLDIER
I
I

died for king and native land,

died for justice and the right,

But most

of all

Just caught

And

me

finished

died because a shell

in the nick of time

me.

THE OLD MAID AND THE PRIVATE

He

had come home on a furlough,

Left hand in a sling, his right leg cut away;

He d seen some bayonet work at Neuve Chapelle,
His mutilated self, astir on crutch, bore witness to
the music he had heard.

They

called

him

hero.

His maiden aunts and a whole bevy of maiden

friends of maiden aunts
Lionized him to their hearts content,
Lionized him till he yawned with boredom.
Now one old maid addressed herself to him
With ardent patriotism.
In accents stern and threatening
She spewed her venom on the hated Boches,
She burned their wicked bodies in a Hell
That made th Inferno of Alighieri look like Para
dise.

Oh
Oh
Oh

the Germans,
the dastard sons of Beelzebub,
fiendish hosts of evil!

Where

is

mercy

Where

the
to

cruel

death

that

would not be

them,

the torture smacking not of

ness?

30

meek

forgive

No

quarter! no quarter!

And her eyes blazed a

One saw she had been
The

thousand lights
beautiful in days gone by.

private listened dutifully,

little cough and fidgeted about.

This atmosphere was very tense, he thought.
"Oh well," after a bit he meekly interposed,
"The Kaiser, he s a bad one, sure enough.

Coughed a

But

common chaps,
much the same

these here
re pretty
rest of us

They

as

me and

all

the

Pretty decent chaps, you know,

That

kill

and

die,

Just do as they are told.

I wouldn t stick a bayonet into one
If I could help it, that s a fact;
Some prisoners I ve known

Are

jolly fine,

"Impossible!"

Her
"I

eyes

"No

now

them

"Maybe,"

On

till

he

s another."

she snapped,
quarter!" blazed.

d crush them

Stick

that

all like

vermin,

they bleed to death like

said,

"but,

then,

got us beat
ve no such
spunk.

We

hogs!"

you women-folk have

bravery."

DELILAH
Did you say you re strong?
Did you say your will is free to loose and break?
Did you vaunt your precious brain,
Cunning weaver of a gossamer web of beautiful
dreams,

Cunning weaver
But

am

Your

of an intricate

stronger than you.

and break

will to loose

maze

is

of truth

fettered

when

will.

Your

precious brain is slave to me,

beautiful dreams

For than your

am

And

than your maze of truth more true

treacherous

For you are the

And

am

am

is

my

self.

ice,

the sun that melts the

For you are the

And

more beautiful

I,

ice.

cold,

the heat that kills the cold.

For you are the colorless glass,

And I am the glow that suffuses the

colorless glass

with a radiant hue.

For you are mind,

And

am

the passion that burns the mind.

have but to pour the light of my beautiful eyes

your starving face,
And you are my slave.
I have but to dazzle your eyes
With the dazzling light and the clinging warmth
I

On

of

my

And you

beautiful smiles,

are

my

slave.

32

have but to shower

my

glistening knee-long tresses

of black

On

your hungering face,

you are my slave.
I have but to clasp my shining arms about you,
And I have but to press my bosom against your

And

throbbing heart,

And I have but to press my lips on

And you are my utter slave.

your thirsty

lips,

For you are the

stone,
the fire that cracks the stone.
For you are the tree,
And I am the flame that chars the tree.
For you are longing,

And

And

am

am

resses

the laughing maiden that lures and ca

and

For you are

And

am

tortures.

desire,

the love that meets desire.

33

THE REPORTER CONGRATULATES THE

ORATOR
Yes,

sir,

heard your speech.

Twas wonderful to sail along the sunlit flow

Of words that gently streamed into my ear,

To
You

Two
And

to

eddy

in

held us captive for an hour

hours, no doubt, you might have platformchained our eyes and ears
generated our thoughts and sentiments to march

with yours.
did you do

How
I

from swirl

glide like passive twig

the current.

ask because

In summary.

Or more

my
I

it?

paper wants a column of report

ve struggled hard this hour

what you

to get the gist of

on paper;
can t do better,

said

Just gist

Bah

sir,

than three poor miserable

lines.

THE PAINTING
He wove
That

a color-fabric out of paint

warmed the heart,

He poured out light upon his canvas

Till the eye was drunk with delight.
Spots and streaks he dealt out recklessly,
And when he d finished
See! a perfect vision sunned itself before you.
They looked at it and asked,
"What does it mean?"
He mumbled
"A

little

in reply,

louder, please.

cannot hear;
ears are not as long as

My

34

yours."

THE DAINTY AND THE HUNGRY MAN

The Dainty

Man

you sweet cakes, a thousand

your palate.
Eat and rejoice.
I

offer

To

tasty morsels

tickle

The

H unary

Man

Your sweets disgust me.

crave a rougher fare.
ll try my teeth on coarse bread

No.
I
I
I

want

that life

is

let

me show you my

all.

the stuff

Man

The Dainty

And

husks and

brawn and muscle,

made of.

the stuff of

flower garden of languor

ous, intoxicating perfumes.

Each breath shall be to you a sheer delight.
You shall inhale the haunting violet, the enervating
rose, the teasing

mint.

The Hungry

Man

No. Your perfumes choke me.

Give me the salt-laden tang of the ocean, the scent

And
I

of horses dung,
the odor of smouldering leaves.

would not shun the stench

is life.

35

of the slums, for there

Man

The Dainty

And

I shall fill with splendid sonorities,

the liquid warblings of flutes and the gentle
boomings of kettle-drums.

your ears

With

The harmonious hum

of happy voices shall

fill

your

ears.

The Hungry
I
I

Man

would not be lulled.

want my ears to tingle with shouts and with
shrieks.

The

and the creaking of ungreased

thunderbolt
axles

Must

thrill

And my

me.

ears strain to catch the whispers of the

night.

Man

The Dainty

see the rainbow arched o er the earth,

See the glowing tints merge.
Would not your eyes feast on the setting sun,

Come,

And

flutter at the fluttering

wings of the humming

bird?

The Hungry

Man

Rather the tangled green and gray of ths forest,

Rather the tangled motley crowds in the street.
My eye roams through the thick of life;
My eye seeks the dancing feet and the rows of tene
ments,

The

sunlight peeping

bathed

into

in fog.

36

alleys

and the palace

Man

The Dainty

bring you many joys, subtle and rare;

soothe your troubled heart with lovely images
And with thoughts serene.
I

I shall

The world

shall

make

you into a lovely and

for

serene abode.

Man

The Hungry
But

is as death to me.
than thoughts serene are the striv
ings and turmoils of the heart,
more to me than lovely images is the wayward
current of life.

the joy

And more
And

unmingled with pain

to

me

seek no abode;

desire to thread life s

mazes

Man

The Dainty

Then

Or

in the open.

take to yourself a faith,

you will

lose

your way.

Man

The Hungry

want no leading strings.

Here and there, and then and now,
I must be equally at home on the earth.
I

Man

The Dainty
I

from the crassness of

distil

What
Take

matters alone
it.

The Hungry

What
The

life

Beauty.

matters alone to

crassness of

me

life.

37

Man
it

is

Life,

THE WATER NYMPH

She

When

did you love

me

first?

He
When

first I

saw you,

dear.

She

year ago in June

Out

at the

farm?

Had

Your

not been set on

Before.

eyes

me

He

yes, they had.

d seen your beauty clear
As morning dew. I d seen
Your golden locks unloosed
Caressing your white breasts;
I d seen them fall to kiss
I

Your

body, dear.

38

She

No!

He
Yes,

You

cannot know, but shall

I tell you how it was?
I d gone to seek, one morn
In early spring, a still
Retreat far out from town
the river s bank,
fav rite nook of mine,

Along

Where bittern s cry and splash

Of wild ducks scarce could break
The peaceful calm. I d gone

To

laze

around and read

In quiet

it s

Of mine when

way

tired of folks

Perhaps to throw a line

And

pull a fish or two

Besides.
The spot is down

By Hunter

s Bend, right close

swirling cataracts,
But there s a pool this side
That s off the channel, safe

To

And

deep

splendid spot
I ve tried

For swim or dive;

It

once or twice myself.

She

Down

by the alder clump

Between the narrow beach

And

grassy swale?

39

He
Just where
d dozed away, when splash
"Some one s just jumped to dive,"
I thought, awakened.

She

Oh!

To
To

think

d come miles out

have my little plunge

In freedom, just to fall
prey to prying eyes

He
Sh! don

My

call

it

that,

thought at first
To hail the diver, but
Before I d time to rise,
He d come out from the pool.
was you. So dazed
The
Was I, I stared and took
love.

"he"

You
And

for a

so

water-nymph
you are.
She

For shame!

Why

could not you have left?

40

He

How

could

Dead

leaves that Fall

I,

Had crackled
And whipped

The

dear?
if

dry,

had strewn

stirred,

a flood of red

I could
Into your face.
lie and hold my breath

But

And

you would not know.

trust

She

You

could have looked away.

He
And so I could. But, Oh,
You were too beautiful,
My love; you were my nymph,

My

lovely

water-nymph

So fair. Your golden hair

Caressed your bosom white
And played with sunbeams bright.
You were so beautiful and pure,
So like a goddess free,
I could have worshipped you

And

kissed

your

little feet

A-glist ning in the sun.

And ever since you ve been

To me

the water-nymph.

She

And
And

that

was why you blushed

stared so stupidly

When
When

first

first

you met me
I met you?
41

no!

He
Yes,

For you were not a

girl

Of human kind to me;

You were my water-nymph
So beautiful and

free,

Whose golden hair caressed

Your bosom white, the nymph
Whose little pearl-shod feet,
A-glist ning in the sun,
I

could have kissed.

She

And

so

gave myself to you

Before I knew you

He
No,

My

love, say rather I

Was yours before I learned

To know your human form.
And
It

if

was

I ll

you ask
I

say I

me when

loved you
loved you

first,

first

In early spring, the time

I

met the water-nymph.

CURTAINS
I

Chinaman

enter the

And

the

laundry;

merry queer-voiced gabbing,

That hops about while

the flat-irons slide

on the

wash,

The

Ceases.

three are as

mum

as shining

door

knobs,
And rock as they stand in their places,
Clattering their slippers on the floor

And

pressing

and sliding

their

flat-irons

on the

\vash.

My ringers fumble in my pocket for the ticket,

And my nostrils breathe the steamy air,
And the Chinaman that shines most like a darkly
burnished door-knob
the counter.
Patiently he stares a nascent smile.
I find the black-daubed scrap of red and give it him.
He shuffles to the rows of creamy parcels,
Buttoned each with black-daubed scrap of red,
Shuffles to

And

runs

my

ticket right to left

and

left to right

and up and down

To
Ah

find

its

scraps of red mate happily,

black daubs torn apart by the
cree

The

Now

kiss

Must

be

"Fi

jagged edge a match.

two

Chinaman

de

reunion for a moment.

parcel! Romance has its uses.
ty sick!" says he and shoves the creamy bundle

my

on the counter.
"Fifty-six?"

"Fi

ty

sick!"

Two

quarters and a dime clink on the counter,

Four coppers take their exit from a coin-filled box.
While pocketing my change, I look at him,

43

And

patiently he stares a nascent smile,

the others clatter their slippers on the floor

While

And

To

on the wash.

slide the flat-irons

"Nice

"Yeh,

day."

the tune of

But when

belly

waum!"

ty sick!"
I ve closed the door,
"Fi

hear their queer-voiced gabbing

Burst forth merrily and hop in the

For when

air.

enter, the curtain falls

and the play

halts,

And when

I leave,

the curtain rises and the play

resumes.

Lucy and

I pass honeyed nothings back and forth

the balcony
And weave the ancient ageless web of romance,

On

Each wrapped in each.

But when he comes to join

The

honeyed nothings

For when we

The

curtain

re two,

up and the play

But when we

re three,

The

down and

curtain

us,

flee.

is

the play

44

on,
is

hushed.

MY BOY
There! way

Of

off

yonder near the farther end

the vacant lot

See the little bobbing patch of brown

Surmounted by a darkish speck?

That

s my little boy, brown-jerseyed

capped with sailor blue.
Look! his little legs rock side to side

And

As, chased by reddish patch

That s Jack, his little friend that lives across the
way from us

He

runs and shrieks with laughter.

His voice is higher-pitched than Jack
Ripples merrier and brighter (don t you think?).
Oh, there he trips and sprawls
Not quite as steady on his pins as might be,
But, then, he s only four. And now
He s rolling in the sand yelling splitting peals,

Hear him?

s,

While Jack bombards him with more sand.

She

ll have a job to-night, his mother,

oust the sand-grains from his curly hair,
And I shall threaten him with barber s shears
For making such a nuisance of himself.

To

Yes, that

Well,

my

we must

boy.
be going to the office

Can

t stand forever gaping at the youngster.

have enough to do in the evening
When, home again, I do his bidding.
I ll have to sw ing him, lift him to the ceiling,
Tell him the story of the bear and wolf

I ll

(I ve told

But

it s

From

He ll

him that

his favorite

hundred times at least,

and if I stray in my recital

the version he has fixed as orthodox,

shout a protest), and, worst of all,

45

I ll

have to

And what

tell

him why is this, and what is that,

mean when he said "Oh, cut it

did Jack

out!"

"Don t

use such words,

my

boy,"

ve told him time

and time again,

But what

(I do

the use?

it

more

To make his mother think I m educating

He had the laugh on me the other day
He was as mulish as could be at table
And when

him.)

out of patience, yelled at him,

he gravely turned to me
And asked, "Can daddies say such words?
Why can they? tell me," but I changed the subject
I,

all

"Now,

cut that

While

out!"

helped him to a piece of cake.

easy, Bob, to do the right thing
With an urchin quite a strain.
Yes, that was he out in the lot,
It

far

from

My little

boy.

I bet

he

s all

one sandy mess

DANDELIONS
He

stood upon the porch, my little boy,

proudly held aloft the dandelions

And

That he had gathered

all himself.

"Put

these

In water, keep them in a glass," he said.

(Behind him, mellowed to a golden sparkle,
Lazy stirred the pond beneath the wind s
Caress. Two ducks quacked answer to a crow
That, lighting on a maple, cawed a Sunday
Yawn.) The wind drove silky threads of hair
Do\vn on his face they seemed the little stems

That held his golden smile

Merged into one. I took

dangling flowers

for the other flower, I thanked

for his gift, while off he ran for more,

And, thankful

Him

like

the dandelions

46

THE OTHER

SIDE

In childhood days I often hearkened

to bugle call of postman
at golden dusk
In his parcel-laden wagon to the open court

Admiringly
Rushing in

Whereon

the post-house gave.

lived right next the post-house,

That to my childish eyes
I

Reared itself up proudly and impregnably

Like thick-walled castle turreted in rugged strength.

No

unimportant part the post-house

my world of romance,

Seemed of

Scarce second to the storks,

Grave

emissaries

from a mystic land.

One day the little town was all agog

With an elbowing crowd to see a fire.
The stir and strange alarums frightened me,
But most

On

of all that day has fixed itself for ever

my mind because the castellated

the tablet of

post-house

Transformed

itself

into a longish

windowed thing

of brick.

The maid

that minded me,

Lured like the rest by the magic of a burning house,
Held me by the hand and led me to the crowd,
Led me to a street I ne er had tramped.
It seemed another world, had not the kindly look
Of street and alley known to me;
And yet twas but a mere stone s throw from where
I lived

And

gazed upon the post-house walls.

She took me through the post-house gate
Into the court and then

47

I held my breath as we adventured boldly

Right through the mighty building

Out to the other entrance leading to the street

The crowd was on, the street I ne er had seen.
I

Strange!

d never thought the post-house had two

sides,

And

as

it

now

betrayed

itself

an unfamiliar longish

windowed brick,
My heart was troubled.
So might a friend you d known for years
In a moment of ill-considered act or word
bit of

Of
I

a sudden reveal himself a stranger.

could not reconcile myself to think this
line of red

unknown

Hearkened with me to the bugle call at golden dusk

I would not let it share in the romance I had built

Out

of the side I

Tis well

The
The

knew

we know

my

side.

but one side of our souls,

on the open court of self,

side that looks out

side that s glamor-tinted.

we cannot call our own the other side,

The bit of brick that fronts the world
And marks us for our neighbors.
I thank God that I cannot penetrate the walls of the
Tis well

soul

And

see the

me

that

seen by you.

MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING
My dog and I, we get on very well
Oh, very well, indeed. We understand
Each other perfectly, you see. Each swish
Of his stubby tail, each upward pleading look,
Each choppy yelp or squirmy growl, is clear
To me as any word of man; it needs
No

speech confirmatory of its meaning.

Delight and hunger, shame, repentance,
The joys and pains and mental conflicts

Of man my dog makes dumbly

all

known

clear to me.

read him like a book no, like a man.

I bother not with dog psychology,
But treat him like a man of doggish look
And habits. Works well, anyhow.
ve not
quarrel had as yet (far more than I
Can say of any man or woman known
To me). I think he treats me just the same
Mutatis mutandis, I mean he seems to look
I

We

On me

as psychologically dog,

Just outwardly a man ; and

brow or read a book, I

My
I m busied

when

wrinkle

sure he thinks
with some doggishly correct
at least
Intelligible act or thought
His look is all approval. So the moral
By misinterpreting each other wholly

And

scorning speech, two souls can easiest

In mutual understanding live.
How lucky
I have no knowledge of the barking code
Or cut of doggish soul! How lucky, too,
He s never learned to talk nor studied James
Psychology! For then I doubt if we

Could

quite so sympathetically

49

chum.

A CONVERSATION
You

sit before me and we

Calmly and unafraid.
Calmly and unafraid

I sink

my

talk

net into your soul,

That flows before me like a limpid stream.

I draw forth many lovely things
That you had thought were hid;
I draw forth many ugly things
That you had thought were pure,
That you had never thought to hide.

THE DREAMER
You and
Clad

FAILS

I started off for the

OF SUCCESS

mountain top

snow, standing out

Clear and strong in the light,
Clear and bold o er the land.
in

You went
Over

straight to the mark,

the fields and across the brooks and past the

bushes and all,

never strayed from the road
Lengthening straight over hill and plain,
You never halted nor rested to gladden your eyes
With the sunbeam s play or the butterfly s merry-go-

You

round,

But on you

pressed, tireless,

Intent, strung,

Until you reached the mountain top

Clad in snow. But you were too spent
To stand out clear and strong in the light
And look about you.

50

But as for me, I could not stick to the road

That led to the white-clad mountain top.
Once I threw me down on the grass,
Face

to the sky,

And gazed on

the heavy-sailing clouds,

Pondering their fantastic forms

And giving them names

And wondering whence

they came and whither they

went
Unerringly, like sail-boats

Languidly gliding along on a calm blue sea

And

saw the tops of the

Gently nodding back and
I

And

suddenly

it

fir

trees high above

me

forth,

seemed

were camel

they

s-hair

brushes
signs on the sky,
the signs that they wrote were
Heavy-sailing clouds in fantastic forms;

Writing a language of

And

And

as I

that

gazed

was

in the sky

and

lost the

hang

of all

near,

seemed to float on air and I seemed somehow

bend the firs to my will and to make them
write my dreams
On the sky, and the dreams that they wrote were
I

To

Heavy-sailing clouds in fantastic forms.

Once

I strayed

from the road and came

to a great

salt lake.

Twixt
There

the lake and the sky

circled

many

gulls

Cleaving paths for themselves with wing-flaps strong

and sure;
Once in a while a gull would soar aloft and make
for the sky,
to fall to a lower track in the air,

Only

51

And

once in a while a gull would

fly

out of sight,

swift and low,

to circle

Only

And

back to

its

starting point;

lengthened and

as the aerial tracks of the gulls

shortened

And
It

and

criss-crossed back

seemed

to

me

forth,

that the gulls were quickly sailing

kites

Moored

And

to strings that lengthened and shortened;

gazed in the air and lost the hang of all

as I

that
I

was

near,

seemed

to hold the strings in

the kites as I willed,

For the

That

And
Only

kites

were

my

my

hands and

fly

thoughts and desires

circled restlessly
aspired to heights

and

to fall again in their

far-off distances,

wonted

tracks.

And so I lazed along the road and

And made the whole world mine.

off

never reached the mountain top

Clad in snow. Yet I would not change with you,
For what can one see from the mountain top
That I have not seen on the road and off?
I

DISCORDS
Dearest friend, I pray you for silence.
I know you mean to banish sorrow from my mind,
Exorcising with your cheery voice, recounting cheer
ful things.

friend,

You

have mercy!

cannot annihilate the stream that winds through

my

soul,

Mournful and

You

sluggish under the brooding willows;

can but force your rippling torrent, racing gar

rulously,

Into the middle channel of my stream,

But the waters mingle not,
And my soul is tortured by the flowing side by side
Of incommensurable rhythms.
You cannot hush the sombre-tinted line of music,
Harmonized in minor chords,
That drifts on the current of my soul ;
You can but lay upon my strand your garish line
of music,

Harmonized in major chords,

But these two strands refuse to

spin themselves into

a weft,

But each drifts hostile on the current of my soul.

(You know that mingled major chord and minor
Torture the ear with a dissonance
Excruciating like the sawing of a nail.)
Silence, friend,

pray you dearest friend

In the friendly silence perhaps the sluggish stream

will seep

away
53

In time, leaving the willows high and dry

thirsting for your rippling torrent.
In the friendly silence perhaps the sombre-tinted

And

strains will die into inaudible mist

In time, leaving the current of my soul
Free to float your garish strand.

But meanwhile
Silence, silence,

Dearest friend, I pray you

For it is not merry in my soul.

LOVE
Fd read of it and dreamt of it
And longed for it;
Fd thought it must be chivalrous and vast
And nobly heaven-storming,
The word had set my thoughts on knights
And valiant combat, humble worship,
Lily smiles received in ecstasy.
But now I know it s more than

this, far

more,

And
It

A
It

you have taught me, love.

means that when your little feet come tripping,

symphony floods in my ears;

means that when I run my fingers through your
hair,

cannot see for happiness.

54

OUR LOVE
Our

love is singing, dear,

Full-throated,

Rising drunk with joyous passion,

And

carolling, carolling

Madly

in its

abandoned

flight

Upward, ever upward,

Cloudward, my beloved,
Skyward, my radiant blessed

Our

love

is

love.

trembling, dear,

Deep-glowing
Like golden sunbeam darkened

And warming, warming

Our hearts like golden light

in red wine,

that

warms our

hair,

Illumining our eyes with passion,

Warming, my
Burning,

my

Our

is

love

beloved,
radiant blessed love.

trembling, dear,

Deep-throbbing
In

its

And

ecstasy of happiness,

weeping, weeping

Shyly, blissfully,

Overcome with
Trembling,
Trembling,

my
my

the choking fulness of

beloved,
radiant blessed love.

55

its

joy,

DANGLING CORPSES
I

know

Shakes

that
in

which

the

livelier

wind

Than the noisy shutters down

I know that which merrier
Swings

in the

the street.

wind

Than the flaming banners down

I know a monstrous presence

O ershadowing

the street.

the life

That simmers on

the street.

I see the corpse erect

That dangles from the gallows head,

That shakes and swings in the wind

And

casts a

shadow.

the laughter and the bustle of your soul

domain
There falls no shadow of a corpse
Dangling from a grinning past?
Thrice blessed!

Upon

TO DEBUSSY
"La

Cathedrale

Engloutie"

Like a faint mist, murkily illumined,

That

rises imperceptibly, floating its

way nowhence,

nowhither,
Now curling into some momentary shape, now seem
ing poised in space
Like a faint mist that rises and fills before me

And

passes;

Like a vague dream,

That wanders

fitfully illumined,

irresponsibly,

unbid

flowing

no

whence, nowhither,

Now

flashing into a lurid flame-lit scene,

now seem

ing lost in haze

Like a vague dream that lights up and drifts within

me
And

passes;

So passes through

my

ear the

memory

of the misty

strain,

So passes through

dreamy

my mind

strain.

57

the

memory

of

the

DIRTY SPRING
The

streets are filled

with muck,
snow and mud,

dirty mess of melting

Splashing recklessly
heavy-footed horses trot along.
Down from the snow-encrusted roofs

As

An

icy dirty trickle pelts the pavement,

Little splashes mid the universal splash.
And the sky is blotched with dirty-gray cloudlets

Speeding under the sun.

porches dribble with wet
steam

The

Where

and

they

gently

the sun, piercing the dirty cloudlets,

Can cook them.

An

irritated wind blows intermittently,

Banging doors, scattering wisps, napping capes and
skirts.

The
The

snow-locked beauty of winter

rigors are loosening up;
Clean summer s not here yet.

The

city moves from cleanly cold

Immersed in dirt.

Therefore,

my

is

gone,

to cleanly

warmth

friends, take heart!

You must

not despair
When the passage from old to new is dirty
When you ve left the old realm of glittering cold
And have not yet reached the new realm of glisten
;

ing

When
When
And

warmth;

back of you,
is off ahead of you,
and
in a welter of mud.
splash
struggle
you

dead tradition

is

the new-born promise

58

AN EASTER DAY
Tis Easter day to-day!

And what a day for rendering

To him who made the day!
The snow has melted off the
That now smile in the sun,
Dry and clean.

jubilant thanks

streets,

How

pure they seem in the sun and the rugged

wind,
How pure they seem under the purer sky!
The sky is but a rind of blue
Set o er a vast and gleaming world of light,
a blue-surmounted temple

The world

Shouting joy and thundering thankfulness

him who made the day;
And in this thundering thankfulness
I hear a thousand voices vibrant with joy.

To
I

hear the peeping sparrows as they fidget

About

the leafless trees;

hear the rugged wind blow lustily;

I hear the timid blades of grass recite their matins,
Promising to cloak the earth, with green
And most of all I hear the blazing light
I

Poured earthward by the sun,

Trumpet back a thundering

To him who made the day.
I,

too,

would drown

my

thankfulness

voice

among

the thousand

voices

Thundering thankfulness, vibrant with

And

so I let

my

joy,

steps ring out

Triumphant on the blue-surmounted temple

And mount in thankfulness
59

floor

To

him who made the

And
I

as I

met

as bird and wind,

hurried with a book;

who

a friend

I tried

day.

wandered, free

to hold

him on

To sing with me a
To him who made

the temple s floor

song of jubilant thanks

the day.

Perhaps the blazing light too loudly trumpeted for

him

He

scurried,

rabbit-fashion,

off

into

cross-sur

mounted house

Where

thanks, he said, were offered up to

SUMMER
The

lazy day

It

drowned

is

is

IN

God.

THE WOODS

humming,

in a

languid drone,

And I, stretched out in drowsy indolence

Upon the grass, shaded but blotched with sun,
Can feel its lazy heart beat slow and warm
In sympathy with mine.
is a thickish, honeyed feeling in the

There

air that

lulls.

An

image vaguely, sluggishly half dream, half

thought
Begins to separate from out the formless, bundled
mass of sense

That veils my soul

Gone! the wasp has caught

And
That

Now
Now

turned
floats

in

biting thick into my ear,

thinning out into a distant

its

buzzing

flight

hum.

but melted into the drowsy

gilds the encompassing silence,

It s all

That

it

to a

droning revery
off there before me,
it

60

murmur

When

it

lives again as a shy rustling

That has gently stolen on me;

And when I close my eyes, it seems

my
In lazy

the rustle of

soul
flight and shy,
I peer through eyes

And when

half-opened at the

sky,
It

seems the whispered confidences of the clouds

among themselves

As

they dally by,

But when I look in

Then

What

is

Timidly

know

it

is

mid

that faintly lapping sound off yonder?

it

seems to wash something.

trees huddled darkly

At first I see but

Then a ribboned

little

Crushed between the

The

air,

the leaves fidgeting in the wind.

patch of silver
and the darker earth.

trees

river!

61

BEFORE THE STORM

Evil

in the air.

I feel it

throbbing, sighing, twisting

heart

all

about

me

And it presses dull against my

And makes my eyes to stare.

Evil whines in the sickening wind

(Like a Chinese stringed bow

Whining out

a plangent strangled jejune tune),

the trees

The loathsome wind that drops from

And shivers down my spine.
Evil sits in the gaunt bare forks
the dead old oaks

Of

That sway
Evil

in lazy apathy.

through the air

As the greedy crows caw and croak
In their lumbering flight from oak to oak,
In their offal-dropping flight.
And the leaden sky is laden with evil,
sails

With the filthy dirty-moist clouds

That smudge the atmosphere
And dome the smothered earth.

Lord! crack the

And

let

me

air

with a thunderbolt

breathe!

A MOONLESS NIGHT
m

swallowed up in night,
That, flapping noiselessly
I

his giant batwings, hovers motionless.

The blackness penetrates me slowly, slowly,
Till I vanish and am night;

The

silence

gnaws

into

me

Till I hear the noiseless flapping of the

giant wings of night.
Up above the stars are not of night
;

They do but

timorously peep at the void

And, frightened, huddle

62

close

and

shiver.

THE RAIN
life-giving rain!

Quickening

Drench my loosened

hair with thy

tempestuous flood,
Trickling down rivulets that earthward
plunge,

my

to kiss

Eager

thirsty feet.

rain, beneficent clinging rain

That

splashest headlong
gray vault,

Embrace
Cool

its

down from

my naked body,
fevered yearning.

Streaming life-giving rain!

Beat strongly on my shoulders,
Burdened with care,
Free them with your cleansing.

rain, beneficent,

That

whipping rain

drivest storm-tossed against me,

Play upon

Happy

my

laughing breasts,
to kiss thee, rain.

4VATER
Rain and snow and

The
The

hail

and

ice,

river rolling to the sea,

ocean rolling to the shore

think that Nature takes a deal

of time and space
To have her little say.
I

Man

is

artist.

See him put his soul into a drop

of

it

And make

a tear!

63

THE MOTH
Fluttering, fluttering,

mad

white winged speck,

Flitting across

my

vision

In quick little angular spurts

All jointed into a noiseless flash,

Drab-white

like the ghost of a fire-fly

(Should not ghosts of fire-flies flicker by

day?).
The merest ghost of irritation,
Absent-minded I,
Makes me clap my hands smartly,

And

the little moth,

in a vise.

Powdered

Clings, nondescript
First the silence of

The bang
Then the

fluff, to

my

palm.

life,

of fate,
silence of death.

Nothing to me.
Anything to God ?

HELPLESS REVOLT
have no respect for what is.
can not mend and patch,
I can not bend my soul to the twist
That will make it fit with the brutal
I

That

My

make

fact,

yield to the tyrant world.

soul stands firm.

will

it

It would annihilate all in its rage and build anew,

Rather than bend.
Therefore it breaks, and the brutal fact remains
And the tyrant world wags on.

LIBERTY
No, Liberty, they

shall not

shall not squeeze

They

your

With

all

life

make you

you

die.

to the wall

and choke

out

their throttling collectivities

and dismal

efficiency-mongering.
Or even so, will you not slip into the hearts of many,
When the few have thought to down you,

And

To

build in each a fortress bidding defiance

throttling collectivities?

all their

But should they banish you

Come

We
We
And

We
We
But

ll

take

my

in

very truth,

hand,

off into the

woods and

live

on

roots,

climb the inaccessible mountain peaks

melt the snow for drink.

ll

leave the hogs to fatten in their troughs

starve to death, perhaps,
not before we ve breathed some air.

ll

ll

DUST
Dust everywhere!
cannot see things for the dust-forms

Draped about and over them.

I see a

A
I

sudden gleam leap here,

flash of steel leap there;

catch a fleeting hint of rounded forms,

dust again
clouds on clouds.

Then

I struggle through, like vessel

But then

in a fog.

ploughing

see!

Off there a

fire

has burnt a circle in the enveloping

dust

And

set your beautiful countenance, my love,

In glowing light that tints the encircling dust
To a luminous halo.

But

the farther dust

Where

is

still

a thicket

things are turbulently hid.

WINGS
had wings to lift me to the moon,
d fold them snugly about me and walk

If I
I

my

garden

plot.

My wings

are barely strong

enough

to lift

hillock s crest;

That

is

why

they flutter towards the sun.

66

me

to the

LONELINESS
Vaguely fretful, up and down the lonely streets I
walk
And walk with neither aim nor thought, but like a
shadow stalk
Along, a sullen restless shadow, lifeless and yet alive,
Not with the life of vigor live, nor life of such as
strive.

Fitting comrade of my moody self where er I go,

lifeless rain keeps drizzling on drop after drop,

The

And

and low
lower hang the sullen clouds,

as

were they

fain to crush

Utterly the starveling

Love,

think

if

life

beneath and make

you were here,

it

hush.

think the streets

would ring

With

mirth, the shadow d take a tripping gait and

sing

And

laugh, and then the rain, the cheerless drizzling

would beat

rain,

Merrily down, the while the clouds hang lower us

to greet.

VEXATION
Vexation rules my soul.
I d take a keen delight in giving pain,
In stepping on your toes and pinching you and
tweaking you,
In lashing you with venomed tongue.
How hard to keep from slapping your face!

How

good to see the whole world scowl and squint

and sneer!

In passing quickly by a shop,

I glimpsed a silly maiden on the cover of a

maga

zine

Her

parent thought to make her sweetly smile, no

doubt,
She only leered a sickly smirk.

looked up at the moon.

smiling man in the moon they talk about
Is all a myth, I saw.
He looked at me and scowled as though to split his
I

The

crinkled face,
a mouth,
spit on the earth, I know.

And if he d had
He would have

What

a jaded air the houses have!

The

snarling dogs and ugly

Slink in the shadows;

yawning

cats

Had

I the time to stop and fool with them,

d pull their tails and kick them hard.
And what a miserable stew
I

Of scowling, squinting, sneering men

And leering, simpering women
This aimless crowd

I jostle

68

through!

Tis good

to live,

you say?
good to live to
a sorry mess of living.
Show me a happy man!
I ll box his ears.

Why,
Make

yes,

tis

see

them

SNARED
Ensnared on earth,

The
It

soul in pain did tumble restlessly

place to place.

from

found no peace.

They would

not let it rest and contemplate

In longing calm the home it strayed from,
They would not let it skyward gaze.

And when

it

sought a

moment

solace

mountain peak
Beyond the din of matter,
Unseen powers pulled it down and choked

on a

it

In a fume-filled pit.
It tumbled cheerlessly from place to place;
It would have skyward flown
But that they held it snared on earth.
It gasped for breath, yet could not die.
And so it tumbled, tumbled, tumbled on the
earth.

THE SOUL
Lo! I am many.
There are many chambers in my soul
With windows looking out from one to

You

other.

cannot hold me.

you seize me here,

Lo! I am fled and laugh
If

at

you from

there.

I sit in a room of state,

Severely girt with pillars high and marble-white;
Herein I muse on principles, ideals, morals,
Herein I plan to build the starward way

Sometimes

That leads to God.

But if you knock, thinking
Lo!
Off

am

to find

me

in,

gone,

chamber of stormy

to the

desires,

Where passions rule,

Where I can gorge myself with appetites and lusts.
You knock and enter in the room begirt with pil
lars

And

high
converse hold with a shadow left behind to

mock

at you.

My

poor deluded friend,

Can you not hear your discourse grave
Answered with derisive peals from the seat
revelry

Perhaps
I

it s

of

just as well

you re deaf.

have a room where angels

Where many

sing,

instruments make melody;

Here all the air is vibrant with celestial harmonies.
Here sorrow turns to joy,

Here joy

serenity.

70

have a room where hammers ring,

all is stir and bustle;
Sometimes it pleases me to make a racket,
I

Where

Nailing planks.
I

have a room that

And maps and

Sometimes

And

it

set to

There

is

When,

littered o er

with books

measuring rods;

pleases

me

to ask a question here or

work

to find

room

I often fancy,

two

an answer.

tired of star-quest, lusts, reposeful melody,

Tired of labor and inquiry,

I sink in easy-chair and feel a joyous life-force course
Within my veins and long for what?
I

cannot

tell.

Accepting all, rejecting all, I long for the unknown,

I long for realms never traversed,
For realms that shall ne er be traversed.

And many
I

do not

other chambers in

know them

my soul

There are some dungeons too

You
I

there are

all.

that frighten

ve thrown the keys away.

my odd ramshackle house with

I like

rooms

its

countless

I like to flit

about, an Ariel, from

room

to

And

fool you.
If you seize me here,

Lo

For

me;

cannot enter these

am fled and
am many.

laugh at you from there.

room

A PRAYER FOR PRESERVATION

Lord, preserve

Teach me
And make

my

soul

to glory in its flight.

it

strong,

Like the flaming red of the western sky

That stares triumphant at the murky east,
Like the storm-cloud that flashes and dins

And make
That

it

it

wing

aloft

And shake itself free of the

Of other souls;
And make it unafraid,
That

it

pressing weight

fear not the tortures of Hell

Or the thrills of dizzy heights

Or the choking mud of the depths
And make it indifferent,
That

it

That

Who

it

hear not flattery

And laugh at hate

And amuse itself mightily
Of other souls;
And make it proud,

And

light,

with the taunts

despise itself

scorn the bribes of the blaspheming ones

call themselves thy priests.

Lord, preserve my soul;

Let it not perish in the cuddling warmth

That kills all souls

But those that have

thy blessing, Lord.

RETURN

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