Christopher Morley

“ I feel a light, airy, prurient, menacing tickling,
Dainty as the pattering toes of nautch girls
On a polished cabaret floor.
Suddenly,
With a crescendo like an approaching express train,
The fury bursts upon me....
My brain explodes.
Pinwheels of violet fire
Whirl and spin before my bloodshot eyes—
Violet, puce, ochre, nacre, euchre ... all the other
Colours,
Including jade, umber and sienna.
My ears ring, my soul reels.
I tingle with agony.
Who invented goldenrod?
I wish I were dead. ”

“ You yawn in bed, turn over, and begin another day!
The old-time dairy maids are dear to every poet's heart—
I'd rather be the dairy man and drive a little cart,
And bustle round the village in the early morning blue,
And hang my reins upon a hook, as I've seen Casey do. ”

“ The harsh, stern spirit passed without a pang,
And freed of mortal clogs his message rang.
In every wakeful mind the challenge cried:
Think not of me: one servant less or more
Means nothing now: hold fast the greater thing—
Strike hard, love truth, serve England and the King! ”

“ Lo! while you seek a rhyme for hook or crook
Vanished your shabby coat, and you are kith
To all great walk-and-singers—Meredith,
And Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, and Rupert Brooke!
Free verse is poor for walking, but a sonnet—
O marvellous to stride and brood upon it!
ARS DURA How many evenings, walking soberly
Along our street all dappled with rich sun,
I please myself with words, and happily
Time rhymes to footfalls, planning how they run ”

“ And stars are changing patterns in the dark,
And watches tick, and over-puissant Time
Benumbs the eager brain. The dogs that bark,
The trains that roar and rattle in the night,
The very cats that prowl, all quiet find
And leave the darkness empty, silent quite:
Sleep comes to chloroform the fretting mind.
So all things end: and what is left at last?
Some scribbled sonnets tossed upon the floor,
A memory of easy days gone past,
A run-down watch, a pipe, some clothes we wore—
And in the darkened room I lean to know
How warm her dreamless breath does pause and flow. ”

“ And loved the breath of pansies in your hair.
PEDOMETER My thoughts beat out in sonnets while I walk,
And every evening on the homeward street
I find the rhythm of my marching feet
Throbs into verses (though the rhyme may balk.) ”

“ We are not ready writers, with the trick
Of rhyming just to see our words in print.
Nor are we fast forgetters: there remain
Bitter and shameful in our memory
Old murders that made horrible the sea
And tinged clean water with a red, red stain.
Titanic: she went down for love of speed;
The Eastland—curse her!—just for dirty greed;
But there are ships whose names are yet more rank.
The years have passed, but still our hearts are sick
To think of the cool cruelty that sank
The Lusitania and the Arabic.
ENGLAND, JULY 1913
To Rupert Brooke
O England, England ... ”

“ Blessed nightfall now atones.
Casting brightness on the snow
Golden the train windows go.
Then (how long it seems) at last
All the way is overpast.
Heart that beats your muffled drum,
Lo, your venturer is come!
Wide the door! Leap high, O fire!
Home at length is heart's desire! ”

“ Where cradles will not rock again.
AFTER HEARING GERMAN MUSIC What pang of beauty is in all these songs,
Flooding the heart with painful bliss within—
Was this the folk to which Von Kluck belongs,
The land of poison gas and Zeppelin?
Most gifted race the world has ever known,
Now bleeding in the dust of rank despairs,—
Was it for this men builded at Cologne,
Kant wrote at midnight, Schumann dreamed his airs? ”

“ Sometimes at night in Bowling Green
There comes a rumbling sound,
Which literal minds are wont to think
The Subway. But I found
That still the Dutchmen ease their souls
By playing ghostly games of bowls!
CASUALTY A well-sharp'd pencil leads one on to write:
When guns are cocked, the shot is guaranteed;
The primed occasion puts the deed in sight:
Who steals a book who knows not how to read?
Seeing a pulpit, who can silence keep?
A maid, who would not dream her ta'en to wife?
Men looking down from some sheer dizzy steep
Have (quite impromptu) leapt, and ended life. ”

“ I saw the solid street before me rise
And men and trolleys leap into the air.
I gazed into the pit with doubtful eyes,
Silent upon a peak in Herald Square.
BALLAD OF NEW AMSTERDAM There are no bowls on Bowling Green,
No maids in Maiden lane ”

“ In blessed singleness of heart,
What heed has she for nations' wrath?
She sings a little peaceful hymn
As she prepares the baby's bath.
As in a dream, she hears the talk
Of mine, torpedo, bomb and gun—
She shudders, but her thoughts are all
Encradled with her little son.
PETER PAN "The boy for whom Barrie wrote Peter Pan—the
original of Peter Pan—has died in battle." —New York Times.
And Peter Pan is dead? not so!
When mothers turn the lights down low
And tuck their little sons in bed,
They know that Peter is not dead.... ”

“ Heaven is not built of country seats
But little queer suburban streets! ”

“ Through his big house, the World, householderwise,
Does also quietly set things aright,
Gives sleep to sleepless wives in Germany
And gently smooths the battlefields of France?
Dear Father God, the children in their play
Have tossed their toys in saddest disarray—
Wilt Thou not, like a kindly nurse at dusk,
Pass through the playroom, make it neat again?
September, 1914.
LIGHT VERSE At night the gas lamps light our street,
Electric bulbs our homes ”

“ Dunraven Dulcet, the gifted poet, reads some of his verses to an audience of two hundred ladies and one man. After Mr. Dulcet has been introduced, and after he has expressed his mortification (or is it gratification?) at Madam Chairman's kind remarks, he proceeds as follows. The comments of his audience are indicated in italics. Romance abides in humble things:—
How commonplace the precious ore!
The shining vision sometimes springs The one man: From too much cheese the night before! ”

“ Having cocoa and animals once more for tea!
THE WAKEFUL HUSBAND How blue the moonlight and how still the night.
Silent I ramble through the whole dear house
Setting aright in happy ownership
Whatever may lie out of its due place. ”