Mark Van Doren

“ Those hundred, as if Glendy still were here—
Old Glendy, whose thin throat still mastered them.
Yet Daniel saw how Dora, dropping her eyes,
Sat silent, deathly silent; and how Bruce,
Guardian to her, looked only down—
Looked everywhere save at the singer, singing:
Take your Dora by the hand.
There is life within her waist.
And there is woe, unless you stand
And love with bravery is graced.
[34]
So all the world will know her wed,
And all the people call it yours—
The life within her, small and red ”

“ Michael only folded his broad wings
As Gabriel did, as Raphael.
Yet that last one, [26]
Mournful of face and long, had ears for Artemis,
Nurse to all things aborning, as she mused:
“The young one when he comes—in what men call
The fall of their brief year—the roofless infant—
It was for him we planned. And still we do—”
She dared the glittering goddess—“still we seek
Safe birth for the small mother, and for him
The wailing, the unwanted.”
Crooked Hephaestus,
Clearing his mild throat, remarked in modesty:
“The man works well and silently. He loves,
In solitude, the comfort of my fire. ”

“ Already, in mid June, high long days
Hovered the world, and change, like ripening fruit,
Hung ever, ever plainer. Yet no man,
No god distinguished more in this green time
Than purposes that crossed; and ever tighter.
In Daniel’s house the woman who was resting—
Daily, in scorn, Berrien spoke the word—
Still did not spare the beautiful dream body
She sent to him by dark, when Dora too
Lived by his side and loved him: standing there
In the shed radiance of one who smiled
And smiled, and burned his reticence away. ”

“ And only Berrien’s boarder, the gold woman
Who stood so close by Daniel—only that one
Kindled. Then she blazed, and Daniel, blushing,
Knew she had found his thought.
So I have lost her—
This was his thought—have lost her. Then my love
Must die, and no man know it. He was true, [35]
That singer. It is not my life she carries—
Dora, who was mine for that cold minute;
Dora, whom I never can forget.
The eyes of the theater woman burned so fiercely,
Punishing his own, that Daniel shook. ”

“ Daniel. Who but Daniel was the father
Of a whole world’s confusion?
And his anger, [24]
Running before him, took him from this place,
This glade where three, left thoughtful, were as figures
Molded of shadow. Dora was gone with Bruce,
Gasping and crying “Wait!”
But the three tall ones
Listened to nothing human. Hermes came.
IV
Hermes came, and hailing his three peers,
Spoke Aphrodite’s name; whose beautiful laughter
Answered as she glistened in their midst—
No woman now, but goddess. So Hephaestus
Hove into their view, and all of the others,
Manifest together. ”

“ And as the pain returned; while Artemis
Looked gravely, out of eyes she kept in shadow,
At the small face whereon the truth had fallen;
Looked, and wondered fearfully. Had Hermes,
Had Gabriel heard the horses? Found the man?
But Aphrodite was there first—an ancient
Gypsy, rising out of the dim road
And shrilling between wheels:
“Doctor, Doctor!
Come to the dead church—the one they don’t
Sing songs in any more. A poverty fellow [53]
And his sick queen—not my people, but I pity,
Pity them—they lie in the carriage shed.
Or she does, the queen. In all the world
No friend, and both afraid. ”

“ Of the newborn things whose nurture saves the world.
The farmer would have let the maiden go—
Sadly, yet Apollo made it sure.
Or so we said who listened. Yet that one,
That laughing one, pursues him now and sings,
And sings—oh, what low song, what tale of the flesh,
What burden that may topple his intention?
Hephaestus, our contriver, you could seal
His ears, his sleeping eyelids, if you would;
Even tonight you could.”
Hephaestus, pacing
Oddly the smooth floor, rested his leg,
The shortened leg Zeus long ago had crippled.
“The farmer—he works well, and loves the fire
I gave him. Let him be.” ”

“ A star stood still above a stable once,
And a weak infant wept. And there He left us.”
“Our sire,” said Hermes, “—he too sleeps away
Our centuries. We have the selfsame fortune.
Sail westward with us then.” And Gabriel nodded.
The steel that sliced the water swung at length,
And in three days they nosed between the Pillars;
Past which—and the ten all shuddered—monsters once
Made chaos of the world’s end. ”

“ More beautiful than truth was; while Hephaestus,
Curious, near-sighted, fingered those wing-joints
Athene only studied where she stood.
“Whoever you are,” said Hermes, “and whatever—
Pardon this—you were, sail now as we do,
And be the gods of strangers far to west.
If only as in dream the vessel draws us,
Zeus our sire consenting. Your own sire—” [13]
But the three stared so sadly over the waves
That Hermes paused, and beckoning to Gabriel
Whispered with him alone while dolphins played
As lambs do on dry land, and fishes scattered. ”

“ Daniel was mending fence, for it was May,
And early rains had painted the drear pastures.
He walked, testing the wire, and wished again
For his old pipe. He missed it, and grew moody.
Berrien would never notice it on the shelf;
Berrien would never bring it. A good wife,
But scornful of the comforts. A good woman,
Who never guessed the outrage he had done her.
New Year’s Eve, and Dora. ”

“ Arrogant bright daughter of the dolphins,
Is endless as waves are, or serpent segments
The impotent keen knife divides. Have mercy,
Goddess.” And he waited. But her lips,
Unmoving, only teased him; and tormented
Artemis.
“The man was free of longing,
And the dark maid of him,” the huntress said,
“Till this one wantoned, wooing him with dreams.
Then Ares—common soldier—fanned the fire
In those you call his minions.” Hermes nodded.
“And so our plan’s perplexed before it ripens.
Athene, Michael—tell them how we stood,
Just here, and heard the boy refuse his function.” ”

“ There Zeus, there Hera sat, the feasted prisoners
Of a still greater person, one who changed
The world while there they mourned, remembering Ida.
Some day they too would sleep, but now weak thunder
Witnessed their remnant glory; which appalled
As ever the proud seven, until Hermes
Listened and leaned, then spoke.
“It was the king
Our father. He has willed that we should wander,
Even as in a dream, and be the gods
Of strangers. ”

“ Bruce Hanna, that poor boy. Was he suspicious?
He had been born for Dora, she for him;
And then last New Year’s Eve, when the sleigh bells rang
So slyly, writing ruin in cold air!
Daniel, wiping his hand again, looked back
At the wild barb that bit him.
Who was that?
For a quizzical, small stranger stood by the fence,
Feeling its rust, its toughness. He was swarthy
And lame, and had bright eyes. And in his hand
A pipe—for all the township Daniel’s own!
“Here, have you need of this? I’m on my way
Northeast awhile, repairing peoples’ ranges. ”

“ Mind’s darkness,” Ares muttered; and Hephaestus
Laughed—at Aphrodite he could laugh,
Now that his limbs were free.
“Was there a song?
Even a musty music? Where a god is,
Surely the air will sound.” Apollo hummed,
Remembering the barn dance and the moon. [62]
“Did you hear anything to prove a presence?”
Artemis, her green robe gilded suddenly
By the first beams of sun, was angry still.
“She heard but her own hatefulness, that plotted
Death.” ”

“ Bruce and Dora,
Heeled by their elders, one of whom still wept, [45]
Went home another way; and the inaudible
Deities went home—to the green hilltop,
The high glade where Ares, though he heard,
Sent down no shout of welcome. Aphrodite,
Following to where the mountains forked,
Deserted there; dipping away and flying,
Like one of her own doves, to Daniel’s house.
But Daniel stood with someone in the barn
By the new anvil he had bought, considering
Hot and cold; and how a hammer’s blow
Can bend the iron, not break it. ”

“ In tulip and oak shade, they pleased to meet,
To sit sometimes and say how the world went,
Mortal and immortal.
“You of the golden
Shoulders,” Hermes said, “bring dreams to one
Who lived in peace without them.”
“Lived in hate,
In loathing of those very limbs he fondled—
Poor, poor limbs, so lonely!” And her insolent
Laughter shook the listening green leaves. [25]
“Yet he would have forgotten, and his only
Danger been from Ares”—who was there,
Swelling his thick chest, as Hermes spoke—
“From the two minions, old and young, of Ares.
Such danger can dissolve, for it is wind
And fury ”

“ Pedlar; like the soldier; like that lightfoot
Traveller, the one with pointed ears,
The one with cropped hair and a twisted staff,
Who wandered in the crowd, watching and watched.
The shepherd of the strangers? Yet no word
Between them, and no look, Darius said—
Darius, who had eyes for everything;
And ears, when music started.
“One more couple!
One more couple!” Glendy the clear-caller
Shouted while harmonicas, like locusts,
Shrilled, and while Young Gus tuned his guitar. ”

“ For someone did—Daniel could not distinguish—
From the far border of the field. The small
Stranger was gone, and all that Daniel held
Was a filled pipe bowl, comforting his palm.
He must ask Berrien, he said at noon,
If a lame dwarf had come to mend the cook stove.
He must ask Berrien, who wouldn’t listen,
How a man’s pipe could vanish from its shelf.
For so it had, into his very pocket.
“Berrien!” he called. But she was busy
With her own bother.
“Daniel, a woman’s here—
Wants to stay and board all summer—wants
To rest. A theater woman. ”

“ She counted the big wings. And said the nurse
Was queen above all others.”
“Nurse? What nurse?”
The doctor in the doorway shook his head,
Frowning, as if to free it from the cobweb
Sound of that false word. “There was no such—”
But the small mother never would believe—
He knew it—and Bruce never would believe.
Who had this tall impostor woman been?
And why? And who the other one? Bruce had said:
“A teacher, too—her friend.” There was no such—
The doctor shook his head. ”

“ Daniel, with that artificial woman;
Berrien, with her boarder. What a household!
None of them looked happy. Three old-fashioned
People going home. The actress, too—
An old, old timer, powdered up to kill,
And painted. You could see it—Indian summer
Everywhere. Yet once a pretty world.
They could not see how beautiful she was.
Only for Daniel was she beautiful,
And for those others, strangers here with her,
Who from the border of MacPherson’s grove, [40]
In their own forms, were watching. ”

“ Catch up with their coarse hands, and cleanse the world
Of meddlers on the march? For they were somewhere
Still, the doctor knew; and looked at Bruce
Bent dumbly over Dora. In good time
The boy would feel. He was so quiet now—
An animal, playing dead.
Then Daniel stood there—
Daniel, with Darius at his heels: [59]
An old hound whom giant grief had gentled. ”

“ Wearily, yet smiling as in a dream.
[64] C O L OP H O N This book has been designed and printed by Carroll Coleman
at The Prairie Press in Iowa City, Iowa. The types are Caslon and
Frye’s Ornamented and the paper is Linweave Early American. ”