“ Like one by day o’ertaken, whose sick desire is night.
And as I rode I saw a lean coyote lying
All perfect as in life upon a silver dune,
Save that his feet no more could flee the harsh light’s spying,
Save that no more his shadow would cleave the sinking moon.
O cruel land, where form endures, the spirit fled!
You chill the sun for me with your gray sphinx’s smile,
Brooding in the bright silence above your captive dead,
Where beat the heart of life so brief, so brief a while! ”

“ Thou hast come upon us.
And of all the ancient songs
Passing to the swallow-blue halls
By the dark streams of Persephone,
This only remains:
That in the end we turn to thee,
9Death,
That we turn to thee, singing
One last song.
O Death,
Thou art an healing wind
That blowest over white flowers
A-tremble with dew;
Thou art a wind flowing
Over long leagues of lonely sea;
Thou art the dusk and the fragrance;
Thou art the lips of love mournfully smiling;
Thou art the pale peace of one
Satiate with old desires;
Thou art the silence of beauty,
And we look no more for the morning ”

“ Foully bereaves me?
From the land whose forgotten name
Man shall not find,
Blowest thou, wind? A VIVID GIRL
Her face is fair and smooth and fine,
Childlike, with secret laughter lit,
Drooping in pity, bright with wit,
A flower, a flame—God fashioned it.
Who sees her tastes the sacred wine.
302 INVOCATION
O glass-blower of time,
Hast blown all shapes at thy fire?
Canst thou no lovelier bell,
No clearer bubble, clear as delight, inflate me—
Worthy to hold such wine
As was never yet trod from the grape,
Since the stars shed their light, since the moon
Troubled the night with her beauty? ”

“ Invisibly the shadows grow, empurpling in a rising tide
The walks where light-gowned women go, white curb, gray asphalt iris-dyed.
A jolting trolley shrills afar; nasturtiums blow, and ivy vines;
Wet scents of turf and black-smoothed tar float down the rooftrees’ vergent lines.
Where will you go, my afternoon, that glints so still and swift away,
Blue-shaded like a ship of light bound outward from a wimpled bay?
Oh—thrilling, pulsing, dark and bright, shall you, your work, your pain, your mirth,
Fly into the immortal night and silence of our mother earth? ”

“ Night or day, whate’er befall,
I must walk that desert land,
Until I can dare to call
The lion out to lick my hand.
II
As a naked man I tread
The gloomy forests, ring on ring,
Where the sun that’s overhead
Cannot see what’s happening.
There I go: the deepest shade,
The deepest silence pressing me;
And my heart is more afraid
Than a maiden’s heart would be.
Every day I have to run
Underneath the demon tree,
Where the ancient wrong is done
While I shrink in agony. ”

“ But we may be sure that the movement is toward greater freedom of spirit and form, and a more enlightened recognition of the international scope, the cosmopolitanism, of the great art of poetry, of which the English language, proud as its record is, offers but a single phase. As part of such a movement, even the most extravagant experiments, the most radical innovations, are valuable, for the moment at least, as an assault against prejudice. And some of the radicals of to-day will be, no doubt, the masters of to-morrow—a phenomenon common in the history of the arts. ”

“ When the wind works against us in the dark,
And pelts with snow
The lower chamber window on the east,
And whispers with a sort of stifled bark,
The beast,
114“Come out! Come out!”—
It costs no inward struggle not to go,
Ah, no!
I count our strength,
Two and a child,
Those of us not asleep subdued to mark
How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length—
How drifts are piled,
Dooryard and road ungraded,
Till even the comforting barn grows far away,
And my heart owns a doubt
Whether ’tis in us to arise with day
And save ourselves unaided. ”

“ And the armor and the mask of these fall from me, after long.
I would go where the islands sleep, or where the sea-dawns rise,
And lose my bitter wisdom in the wisdom of a song.
There are magics in melodies, unknown of the sages;
The powers of purest wonder on secret wings go by.
Doubtless out of the silence of dumb preceding ages
Song woke the chaos-world—and light swept the sky.
All that we know is idle; idle is all we cherish;
Idle the will that takes loads that proclaim it strong. ”

“ I am thy son and lover. ON WAKING
Sleep, gray brother of death,
Has touched me,
And passed on.
I arise, facing the east—
Pearl-doored sanctuary
From which light,
Hand-linked with dew and fire,
Dances.
37Hail, essence, hail!
Fill the windows of my soul
With beauty:
Pierce and renew my bones:
Pour knowledge into my heart
As wine.
Cualann is bright before thee.
Its rocks melt and swim:
The secret they have kept
From the ancient nights of darkness
Flies like a bird. ”

“ Nor shall we longer disagree
On what it is to be sublime,
But flourish in our perigee
And have one Titan at a time. JOHN GORHAM
“Tell me what you’re doing over here, John Gorham—
Sighing hard and seeming to be sorry when you’re not.
Make me laugh or let me go now, for long faces in the moonlight
Are a sign for me to say again a word that you forgot.”
“I’m over here to tell you what the moon already
May have said or maybe shouted ever since a year ago;
I’m over here to tell you what you are, Jane Wayland,
And to make you rather sorry, I should say, for being so.” ”

“ His austerity, like an irresistible sledge-hammer, drove them lower and lower:
They dwindled while he soared. THE MINER
Those on the top say they know you, Earth—they are liars.
You are my father, and the silence I work in is my mother.
Only the son knows his father.
We are alike—sweaty, inarticulate of soul, bending under thick knowledge.
I drink and shout with my brothers when above you—
Like most children we soon forget the parents of our souls.
But you avidly grip us again—we pay for the little noise of life we steal. TO AN ENEMY
I despise my friends more than you. ”

“ I will spread myself out at your feet and lie still. Under this clouded sky I will meet silence with silence. I will become one with the night clasping the earth in my breast.
Make my life glad with nothing.
The rains sweep the sky from end to end. Jasmines in the wet untamable wind revel in their own perfume. The cloud-hidden stars thrill in secret. Let me fill to the full of my heart with nothing but my own depth of joy.
III
My soul is alight with your infinitude of stars. ”

“ Just the color of a barberry,
But it comes from my heart.
Do you love barberries?
In the autumn
When the sun’s desire
Touches them to a glory of crimson and gold?
I love them best then.
There is something splendid about them:
They are not afraid
Of being warm and glad and bold;
They flush joyously,
Like a cheek under a lover’s kiss;
They bleed cruelly
Like a dagger wound in the breast;
They flame up madly for their little hour,
Knowing they must die. ”

“ Who that has drunken wine will keep the lees?
Who that has slain a man will wait for revenge?
Who that has had his desire of a woman will stay?
Farewell, O Curithir, let thy soul be saved!
I have not found a thing that is dearer to thee.
In the eyes of God is it priceless? Who can say!
108My soul is a thing of little worth unto God:
Of less worth unto thee, O Curithir, than my love.
And unto me so small I flung it beneath thy feet.
IV
If the dark earth hold a Power that is not God
I pray It to bind up memory lest I die.
There was a day when Curithir loved me, now it is gone. ”

“ That go where wind and ranks of thunder
Dive the wild processionals of rain.
The dust of the travelled road
Shall touch my hands and face. KILLERS
I am singing to you
Soft as a man with a dead child speaks;
Hard as a man in handcuffs,
Held where he can not move:
Under the sun
Are sixteen million men,
Chosen for shining teeth,
Sharp eyes, hard legs,
And a running of young warm blood in their wrists.
And a red juice runs on the green grass;
And a red juice soaks the dark soil.
And the sixteen million are killing ... and killing and killing. ”

“ Digged from beneath the black seas,
New-gathered dew from the heavens
Dripped down from heaven’s sweet trees,
Cups from the angels’ pale tables
That will make me both handsome and wise;
For I have beheld her, the Princess—
Firelight and starlight her eyes!
Pauper I am—I would woo her.
175And ... let me drink wine to begin,
Though the Koran expressly forbids it.”
“I am your slave,” said the Jinn.
“Plan me a dome,” said Aladdin,
“That is drawn like the dawn of the moon,
When the sphere seems to rest on the mountains
Half-hidden, yet full-risen soon. ”

“ Let not your anklets be loud, and your steps be too hurried to meet him.
Leave off your works, bride; the guest has come, in the evening.
331No, it is not the wind, bride. Do not be frightened.
It is the full-moon night of April, shadows are pale in the courtyard, the sky overhead is bright.
Draw your veil over your face if you must, take the lamp from your room if you fear.
No, it is not the wind, bride; do not be frightened.
Have no word with him if you are shy, stand aside by the door when you meet him.
If he asks you questions, lower your eyes in silence, if you wish. ”

“ Magic that once thrilled through me to the bone;
But all men praise some beauty, tell some tale,
Vent a high mood which makes the rest seem pale,
Pour their heart’s blood to flourish one green leaf,
Follow some Helen for her gift of grief,
And fail in what they mean, whate’er they do:
You should have seen, man cannot tell to you
The beauty of the ships of that my city.
That beauty now is spoiled by the sea’s pity ”

“ So unfamiliar in the white moon-gleam,
So old and ghostly like a house of dream
It stood, that over us there stole the dread
That even as we watched it, side by side,
The ghosts of lovers, who had lived and died
Within its walls, were sleeping in our bed.
122 GOLD
All day the mallet thudded far below
My garret, in an old ramshackle shed
Where ceaselessly, with stiffly nodding head
And rigid motions ever to and fro
A figure like a puppet in a show
Before the window moved till day was dead,
Beating out gold to earn his daily bread,
Beating out thin fine gold-leaf blow on blow. ”

“ The poets of to-day do not discard tradition because they follow the speech of to-day rather than that of Shakespeare’s time, or strive for organic rhythm rather than use a mold which has been perfected by others. On the contrary, they follow the great tradition when they seek a vehicle suited to their own epoch and their own creative mood, and resolutely reject all others.
Great poetry has always been written in the language of contemporary speech, and its theme, even when legendary, has always borne a direct relation with contemporary thought, contemporary imaginative and spiritual life. ”

“ Dumbly, feebly lives over
The flashes of guns, the thunder of cannon,
The shrieks of the slain,
And himself lying on the ground,
And the hospital surgeons, the knives,
And the long days in bed.
But if he could describe it all
He would be an artist.
But if he were an artist there would be deeper wounds
Which he could not describe.
There is the silence of a great hatred,
And the silence of a great love,
220And the silence of an embittered friendship. ”

“ I know, I know your art;
You never walk the path you would.
Your claim is more than others; that is why you are silent.
With a playful carelessness you avoid my gifts.
I know, I know your art;
You never accept what you would.
333VII
Amidst the rush and roar of life, O beauty, carved in stone, you stand mute and still, alone and aloof.
Great Time sits enamoured at your feet and repeats to you:
“Speak, speak to me, my love; speak, my mute bride!”
But your speech is shut up in stone, O you immovably fair!
VIII
Tell me if this is all true, my lover? ”

“ Chaucer, great genius that he was, an aristocrat by birth and breeding, and a democrat by feeling and sympathy—Chaucer may have had it in his power to turn the whole stream of English poetry into either the French or the Anglo-Saxon channel. Knowing and loving the old French epics better than the Norse sagas, he naturally chose the French channel, and he was so great and so beloved that his world followed him. Thus there was no longer any question—the iambic measure and rhyme, both dear to the French-trained ears of England’s Norman masters, became fixed as the standard type of poetic form. ”

“ Unfold for men, O God, love’s true, creative day,
To flower our barren souls by mellow sun and noon:
The glory of old thought is still, and cold, and gray,
Like gardens unrenewed beneath the sterile moon. LOVERS
Whate’er our joy compelled, men’s praise and blame fall hollow,
A voice upon the winds that drown it as they blow:
So fair a vision led, our thought was all to follow ”

“ The others that mourned you in silence and terror and truth,
The widow bereft of her crust, and the boy without youth,
The mocked and the scorned and the wounded, the lame and the poor,
That should have remembered forever ... remember no more.
169Where are those lovers of yours, on what name do they call—
The lost, that in armies wept over your funeral pall?
They call on the names of a hundred high-valiant ones;
A hundred white eagles have risen, the sons of your sons.
The zeal in their wings is a zeal that your dreaming began,
The valor that wore out your soul in the service of man. ”

“ So there she sits,
Mounted on all the ages, at the peak
Of time. The first man dreamed of light, and dug
The sodden ignorance away, and cursed
The darkness; young primeval races dragged
Foundation stones, and piled into the void
Rage and desire; the Greek mounted and sang
Promethean songs and lit a signal fire:
The Roman bent his iron will to forge
Deep furnaces; slow epochs riveted
With hope the secret chambers: till at last
We, you and I, this living age of ours,
A new-winged Mercury, out of the skies
Filch the wild spirit of light, and chain him there
To do her will forever. ”

“ They shall know well the heavenly fellowship
Of men that perish and of summer morn—
And whence they came and whither they shall go,
The dew upon their feet shall manifest.
Ajan Syrian THE SYRIAN LOVER IN EXILE REMEMBERS THEE, LIGHT OF MY LAND
Rose and amber was the sunset on the river,
Red-rose the hills about Bingariz.
High upon their brows, the black tree-branches
Spread wide across the turquoise sky.
I saw the parrots fly—
A cloud of rising green from the long green grasses,
A mist of gold and green winging fast
Into the gray shadow-silence of the tamarisks. ”

“ Hollyhocks are seneschals by the little buff-walled houses.
Over grassy swale and alley have you ever seen it so—
Up the Santa Clara Valley, riding on the Great Plateau?
Past the ladder-walled Pueblos, past the orchards, pear and quince,
Where the trenchèd waters’ ebb flows, miles and miles the valley glints,
Shining backwards, singing downwards towards horizons blue and bay.
All the haunts the bluffs ensconce so breathe of visions far away,
As you ride near Ildefonso back again to Santa Fé. ”

“ Silvern and chill, the moon’s phantasmal ark,
I heard the sea, and far away could mark
Where that unalterable waste expands
In sevenfold sapphire from the mournful sands,
And saw beyond the deep a vibrant spark.
There sank the sun Arcturus, and I thought:
Star, by an ocean on a world of thine,
May not a being, born like me to die,
Confront a little the eternal Naught
And watch our isolated sun decline—
Sad for his evanescence, even as I? OMNIA EXEUNT IN MYSTERIUM
The stranger in my gates—lo! ”

“ MOWING
There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound—
And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,
Or easy cold at the hand of fay or elf:
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows—
Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers
(Pale orchises) —and scared a bright green snake. ”

“ And when I’m here no longer you’ll be done with me indeed.”
“That’s a way to tell me what I am, John Gorham!
How am I to know myself until I make you smile?
Try to look as if the moon were making faces at you,
And a little more as if you meant to stay a little while.”
“You are what it is that over rose-blown gardens
Makes a pretty flutter for a season in the sun.
You are what it is that with a mouse, Jane Wayland,
Catches him and let’s him go and eats him up for fun.”
“Sure I never took you for a mouse, John Gorham. ”

“ Kindling my fire against the night.
The bitter hail shall flower the peak,
The icy wind shall dry my tears.
Strong shall I be, who am but weak,
When bright Orion spears my fears.
Under the horned moon I shall rise
Up-swinging on the scarf of dawn. ”