THE DOOR OF DREAMS THE DOOR OF DREAMS BY JESSIE B. RITTENHOUSE AUTHOR OF "THE YOUNGER AMERICAN POETS 1 EDITOR OF "THE LITTLE BOOK OF MODERN VERSE" AND "THE LITTLE BOOK OF AMERICAN POETS" BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY JESSIE B. RITTENHOUSK ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published February iqi8 I of ten passed the Door of Dreams But never stepped inside, Tliough sometimes, with surprise, I Ttie door was open -wide. I might have gone forever by, As I had done before, But one day, ivhen I passed, I saw You standing in the door. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS THANKS are due the editors of Harper s Magazine, Scribner } s Magazine, McClure *s Magazine, The Poetry Journal, Contemporary Verse, Good Housekeeping, The Lyric, and the New York Times for permission to re print poems which originally appeared in their pages. CONTENTS SECTION I DEBT 3 APART 4 SILENCE 5 WORDS 6 LOSS 7 FROST IN SPRING 8 PARADOX 9 RETURN 10 DEFEAT 11 THE HOUR 12 WITH SONG-BIRDS 13 THE RIVER 14 EMBERS 15 SECTION II THE GHOST 19 SEA-BIRDS 20 THE BELL-BUOY 21 A SKIFF 22 INLAND WATERS 24 MY WAGE 25 ix CONTENTS WINDOWS 26 MYSELF 27 THE DOME OF ST. LUKE^S HOSPITAL 28 CALVARY 30 ANN TO DE QUINCEY 31 THE FUNERAL BARGE 32 WHITE PEACOCKS 33 SECTION III THE DESERT ROSE 37 FREEDOM 38 JOY 39 WHEN YOU GO 4O A SEA-CHANGE 41 THE END 42 THE ANGEL OF THE SWORD 43 THE AVOWAL 44 RELEASE 45 INTERLUDE 46 VALUES 47 THE GHOSTLY GALLEY 48 SECTION IV THE COAT OF MAIL 51 TO ONE DYING IN WAR-TIME 52 SONGS TO ONE PASSING 53 X CONTENTS SECTION V A NIGHTINGALE AT FRESNOY 59 TO POETS WHO FALL IN BATTLE 61 U I HAVE NO LOVER ON THE BATTLEFIELD" 62 PATRINS 63 THE DOOR OF DREAMS [I] THE DOOR OF DREAMS DEBT MY debt to you, Beloved, Is one I cannot pay In any coin of any realm On any reckoning day ; For where is he shall figure The debt, when all is said, To one who makes you dream again When all the dreams were dead ? Or where is the appraiser Who shall the claim compute, Of one who makes you sing again When all the songs were mute ? APART AH, now that I have loved you, I can no longer go Across the wide, eternal sea When spring winds blow; I cannot look on Como When the moon drifts through the air And all the rapt, still mountains Stand by, as if aware; I cannot watch the fishermen, Home in the early day, Spread all their dripping nets to dry By blue Salerno Bay, I cannot look on Italy For, if we are apart, The pang of all her loveliness Would break my heart ! SILENCE O MANY and vain, Beloved, The words I spoke to you In those first wondering hours When love was new ! Now we have wandered together Into a mystic land, Now we are silent, Beloved, Because we understand. WORDS I WEAVE you, dear, when you are far, Words fairer than all things that are : Words fairer than the light that falls At night in Rome on ruined walls; Words fairer than an Alpine Spring When all the dawn is glistening ; Words fairer than the petals shed From the pomegranate s blossom red. And all these words, in dreams apart, Keep a still wonder in my heart, And every night they carry me Out on a tide of ecstasy, And every day they bring me back Along the same enchanted track, Until that one day when you come, And our eyes meet and I am dumb ! 6 LOSS ONCE was the need of you A pain too great to bear, And all my heart went calling you In work and song and prayer. But now dull time has brought A sadder, stranger lot That I should look upon the day And find I need you not. FROST IN SPRING OH, had it been in Autumn, when all is spent and sere, That the first numb chill crept on us, with its ghostly hint of fear, I had borne to see love go, with things detached and frail, Swept outward with the blowing leaf on the un resting gale. But when day is a magic thing, when Time begins anew, When every clod is parted by Beauty breaking through, How can it be that you and I bring Love no offer ing, How can it be that frost should fall upon us in the Spring ! 8 PARADOX I WENT out to the woods to-day To hide away from you, From you a thousand miles away But you came, too. And yet the old dull thought would stay, And all my heart benumb If you were but a mile away You would not come. RETURN You came again, but silence Had fallen on your heart, And in your eyes were visions That held us still apart. And now I go on hearing The words you did not say, And the kiss you did not give me Burns on my lips to-day. 10 DEFEAT ALL the gifts I did not ask, Life came and brought to me, Until I stood amazed before Such prodigality. And yet I failed in my one task, In my one enterprise, I could not keep the fire alight Within your eyes. 11 THE HOUR You loved me for an hour Of all your careless days And then you went forgetting Down your own ways. How could you know that Time would work A magic deed for me And fix that single hour For my eternity ! 12 WITH SONG-BIRDS LOVE came to me so many times It grew a common thing, I thought that it would always come With song-birds in the Spring; And so I dreamed and wondered What next year s love would be, Until one Spring there came no bird To any blossoming tree. 13 THE RIVER ONE sultry night a year ago You came and sat with me Where in the river breeze might blow The salt breath of the sea. You never sought my hands or lips, There in the summer night, We only sat and watched the ships Shine with their double light; And spoke the careless words, we knew Would hide the memory Of all that I had been to you And you had been to me. Then home from the dark river, swept By searchlights on the shore, And all that wakeful night I wept For you I loved no more. 14 EMBERS WHAT was once so quick and glowing, Leaping high in flame, Like a fire in night-wind blowing When you spoke my name, Smoulders now and scarce remembers How it burned but mark, If you stir the whitening embers Still outleaps the spark ! 15 [II] THE GHOST A SCORE of years you had been lying In this spot, Yet I, to whom you were the dearest, Had seen it not. And when to-day, by time emboldened, I looked upon the stone, T was not your ghost that stood beside me, But my own. 19 SEA-BIRDS BIRDS that float upon a wave, Resting from the tiring air, Be the hopes that I would save From despair ! Menaced by the sky above, Menaced by the deep below, You rock as on the breast of Love, To and fro. If immensities like these Cannot fright a thing so frail, I will keep my heart at ease In the gale! 20 THE BELL-BUOY THE far-off bell-buoy in the fog Keeps ringing momently, It does not sound to me at all Like wave-rung bells at sea; I only hear as it drifts in, Softened by spaces wide, The church-bells of my childhood ring Across the countryside. 21 A SKIFF A SKIFF upon the inland streams, And not a frigate on the sea, Is this, my heart, that drifts and dreams In sweet, alluring vagrancy. Out there upon the main, I know, Brave galleons of thought set sail, And there the winds of fortune blow, And there the master hopes prevail ; And oft insistently a tide Sets seaward in my restless heart, And I upon the deep would ride And in the traffic bear a part. And yet what stays me, that I lie At morning by some green-fringed marge. And smile to see the schooner high, And smile to see the barge. 22 A SKIFF And know that they will reach the main League-lengths ahead of me, And bear their cargo home again, Ere I have dared the sea ? INLAND WATERS INLAND waters by the sea, Sad in your tranquillity, How good if you could share the shock Of breakers beating on the rock ; How good if you could fly in spray On your rainbow wings away ; How good if sea-gulls on your breast, With wide wings dipping, came to rest ! How dull it is that you should stay Locked within your hills alway ; How sad it is you cannot know Great ships passing to and fro ; How calm the winds that bring no breath Of terror, danger, pain, and death ! And yet how many lives must be Like inland waters by the sea. 24 MY WAGE I BARGAINED with Life for a penny, And Life would pay no more, However I begged at evening When I counted my scanty store ; For Life is a just employer, He gives you what you ask, But once you have set the wages, Why, you must bear the task. I worked for a menial s hire, Only to learn, dismayed, That any wage I had asked of Life, Life would have paid. MM. 25 WINDOWS I LOOKED through others windows On an enchanted earth, But out of my own window Solitude and dearth. And yet there is a mystery I cannot understand That others through my window See an enchanted land. 26 MYSELF THEY look at me as if they knew me, All these people whom I meet, But to myself I am a stranger Passing in the street. I meet the stranger s eyes with question Looking into mine, And with a sudden recognition We give a sign. Then we are lost again, we mingle In the effacing crowd, And I forget those eyes that called me As though one spoke aloud, Until another signal moment Flashes identity, And in the maze of life, arrested, My soul looks out at me. THE DOME OF ST. LUKE S HOSPITAL ACROSS the street from me St. Luke s Towers gray and high, And my two windows frame the dome Lifting against the sky. From Morningside the rising sun First lights the cross for me, And from Riverside the setting sun Lingers that I may see ; While all day long a sculptured saint, Holding a mystic book, Turns from it to my window pane As straight as he can look. The doves that house in every niche, Circle about his head, And on the hands that hold the book, Rest and are comforted. 28 THE DOME OF ST. LUKE^S HOSPITAL Now every week within those walls They tell me many die, And yet I only see the dome Lifting against the sky. CALVARY I WALKED alone to my calvary, And no man carried the cross for me. Carried the cross ? Nay, no man knew The fearful load that I bent unto, But each as we met upon the way Spoke me fair of the journey I walked that day. I came alone to my calvary, And high was the hill and bleak to see, But lo, as I scaled its flinty side, A thousand went up to be crucified ! A thousand kept the way with me, But never a cross my eyes could see. ANN TO DE QUINCEY You questioned, all the restless years, Why I, who went from you with tears, Should not have come again to share Your nights of wandering vigil there. You sought my face in every face In London streets, but found no trace Of her who gave you wine and bread And pillowed on her breast your head. O blinded eyes, did you not see Because I loved I left you free ? For Oxford Street to one outcast Must be stepmother to the last. 31 THE FUNERAL BARGE IN Venice once I saw a funeral barge, I had not dreamed death could so lovely be, Nor that one might in peace so utter calm Float to infinity. Under a black-plumed canopy he lay, Upon a velvet dais, flower-sweet, Two boatmen rowed in silence at his head, Two boatmen at his feet. And softer than a breast of feathered bird The great swan barge moved downward to the sea, While singers following made all the air Sweet with a threnody. I watched them bear him seaward with a song, To rest at last his island bed upon, And in my heart, entranced with Death, I knew That isle was Avalon ! 32 WHITE PEACOCKS To SARA TEASDALE ONCE at Isola Bella, With sunset in the sky, We stood on the topmost terrace You and I. Around us Lago Maggiore, Incomparably fair, Gave back the hues of heaven To the Italian air. Then up the marble terrace, Below the cypress trees, Came a flock of milk-white peacocks With fans spread to the breeze. Rose-pink on each outspread feather, Rose-pink upon the crest Never were birds in plumage So ravishingly drest ! 33 THE DOOR OF DREAMS Wherever we walked, they followed, Stately at our feet; No picture so enchanting Will any hour repeat. And here in the murky city Those milk-white peacocks seem To follow and follow me ever, Like ghosts of a haunting dream. [Ill] THE DESERT ROSE Who, passing through the valley of Baca, make it a well." I THOUGHT, dear heart, that we had gone Too far beneath the desert sun To breathe again that flower of flowers, That bloom of blooms in one. But now I see oh, miracle Of Very Love that cannot fail ! That two who through the desert pass Shall make of it a well ; And on its brink shall flowers spring For their eternal comforting, And from parched skies a singing bird Shall light and dip its wing ! 37 FREEDOM BE free of me as any bird That circles in the air, Be free of me as any cloud That mountain summits wear; Be free as any wandering wind That blows across the sea, Be free as any restless wave That moves continually For freest things must tire of flight, And restless things must rest, And all the lonesome winds will drive You to my breast 4 38 JOY Now I can sing of happy things And let the sad world go its way, Since you have spoken words that turn The night to day. Now I can sow beside all streams And care not if another reap, Since all that I would garner here Is mine to keep. Now I can scatter joy about Like green young leaves that fall in spring, Because the tree is all too rich In bourgeoning ! 39 WHEN YOU GO WHEN you go, a hush falls Over all my heart, And in a trance of my own dreams I move apart. When you go, the street grows Like a vacant place What if a million faces pass If not your face ? When you go, my life stops Like ships becalmed at sea, And waits the breath from heaven that blows You back to me. 40 A SEA-CHANGE ONCE in a year of wonder I brought to you a dream, And all your waves gave back to me Only its gleam. But now I come again, O Sea, Under a changing sky, And all your waves lie gray and still As dreams that die. 41 THE END LET us cease now ; it is too late to wonder That love should prove a mortal thing at last, Or that corrosive Time at length should sunder That which was bound so fast. Let us cease now ; it is too late for weeping, It is too late to stay what would be gone. Sometime the caged thing will escape its keeping And leave but emptiness to ponder on. Let us cease now, and without indecision. That all is lost, there is no room for doubt We were not great enough for Love, the Vision, And love, the flame, has swept us and burnt out ! THE ANGEL OF THE SWORD THE angel with the flaming sword Has shut me out from heaven s gate, And I may not reenter there, Though long I wait; And yet, O Angel of the Sword, I do not grudge the thrust you deal, For still the keenest pain of wounds Is that wounds heal ! 43 THE AVOWAL IF I had told you not, Then might you still to me Be my soul s secret fane, My dream, my mystery. But now a word has rent The temple veil apart, And shown me that the secret fane Is empty as my heart. 44 RELEASE WHAT can you care, forgetful Time, Who drop all sweet things by the way, How long this voice within my heart Should call to me, and stay ? So loose me, Time, and let me go, No longer to old dreams a thrall Yet with what dream shall I replace That sweetest dream of all ? 45 INTERLUDE OFTEN in fear, Beloved, I think that it is gone, This love that made our days and nights A hope to dream upon. And then in some wonderful moment It springs again to flower, And you and I are re-living That first great hour ! 46 VALUES O LOVE, could I but take the hours That once I spent with thee, And coin them all in minted gold, What should I purchase that would hold Their worth in joy to me ? Ah, Love, another hour with thee ! 47 THE GHOSTLY GALLEY WHEN comes the ghostly galley Whose rowers dip the oar Without a sound to startle us, Unheeding on the shore, If they should beckon you aboard Before they beckon me, How could I bear the waiting time Till I should put to sea ! 48 [IV] THE COAT OF MAIL TO-DAY came word incredible That one whom I love passing well, One dear as my own soul to me, Must meet the dark extremity, And weeks alone might keep alight That spirit battling with the night. What can I say to one who goes Foredoomed to fall before his foes ? Mock him with hope that he may be More valiant than his enemy ? Commend to him the shield of trust, Invulnerable to every thrust ? No, in these days supreme and few Leave him to forge an armor new; For he alone, by day, by night, Can weld the burnished links aright Till at the last he shall prevail, Clad in his spirit s coat of mail. 51 TO ONE DYING IN WAR-TIME You hear the marching of their feet, You know your comrades go to war, You know that you will never march To music, more. You lie and dream through waning hours Of soldiers splendid in array, And how the bugles must be calling At break of day. You think how gladly you would go To where the fight is heaviest, But weariness is on you now, And you must rest. Yet do not grieve, O stricken heart, A keener bugle yet shall blow, And in the march of nobler hosts Your feet shall go ! 52 SONGS TO ONE PASSING i YOUR wistful eyes that day you left, They haunt me all the night, I never saw in any eyes So mystical a light. I knew the day you went from me That you would come no more, And yet I said the casual words That I had said before. If only then I had been true And held you in my arms, And shielded you a moment s space From death s alarms ! ii The world of careless people It will not even know 53 THE DOOR OF DREAMS The day your lonely spirit Is called to go; Nor all the months of exile, Lying on your bed, That you have heard the wings of death Hovering overhead. To all the careless people Who hurry to and fro That day will be as other days But I shall know. in I cannot sing, words mock me so. I cannot sing, I only know That you are lying far from me, Almost within the Mystery. I only wonder what you think As you draw nearer to the brink, I only wonder whose the hand Will welcome you to that strange land. 54 SONGS TO ONE PASSING IV I send no message to you now, There are no words to say, I would not grieve you by a thought Before you go away; But thoughts of mine already fledge Themselves for farther flight, And they will meet you when you come Within The Light! [V] A NIGHTINGALE AT FRESNOY NEVER, they say, were guns so loud, Never were flames so bright, As those that made at Fresnoy Inferno of the night ; And when the searchlight fires lit The slender, new-green trees, They could be seen to tremble As never in a breeze. At Fresnoy in the little wood Just greening with the spring, A nightingale, undaunted, Lifted his voice to sing; And in each moment s silence When torn earth held her breath, Before the fearful guns again Uttered their Song of Death, 59 THE DOOR OF DREAMS The nightingale, oblivious Of all the ghastly strife, Was heard within the little wood To sing the Song of Life ! TO POETS WHO FALL IN BATTLE You who go to battle, Careless of eclipse, And quaff Death like a beaker Brimming to the lips, You who seek in battle Things that cannot fail, And raise this brimming beaker As if it were the Grail, Thanks to you who show me What the soul can be ! God speed to you, brothers, And a glad eternity ! 61 "I HAVE NO LOVER ON THE BATTLEFIELD" I HAVE no lover on the battlefield, I do not go with sickening fear at heart, And when the crier calls the latest horror I do not start. I have no lover on the battlefield, I am exempt from terror of the night, I can lie down, serene and unregarding, Until the light. But on the battlefield had I a lover, How life would purge itself of petty pain, And what would matter all the petty losses, The petty gain ? I should be one with those who suffer greatly, With pain all pain above, And I should know then, beyond peradventure, The heart of Love ! 62 PA TXINS You know, dear, that the gipsies strew Some broken boughs along the -way To mark the trail for one -who comes, A tardy pilgrim of the day. And so my songs, that have no -worth Save that best -worth of being true, Are but as patrins strewn to show The way I came in loving you. CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . 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