The BLUE CRANE 
 and Shore Songs 
 
 Ihj - i VAN SWIFT 
 
 
University of California Berkeley 
 
 Gift of 
 THOR LILJENCRANTZ 
 
TfiK CA^TLJJ 
 
 .Lruj W-* 
 
 u- m 
 

THE BLUE CRANE 
 and SHORE SONGS 
 
THE BLUE CRANE 
 
 and SHORE SONGS 
 
 By 
 
 IVAN SWIFT 
 
 Author of ' 'Fagots of Cedar' 1 ' 
 
 NEW YORK CITY 
 
 JAMES T. WHITE & COMPANY 
 
 1918 
 
For the privilege of printing these verses 
 in book form acknowledgment is due 
 The Independent, The Outlook, The 
 Smart Set, Recreation, Field and 
 Stream, The Midland, American Lum- 
 berman, Boston Transcript and Chicago 
 American, also to Fagots of Cedar by 
 the author of this volume. 
 
 COPYRIGHTED 1818 BY 
 JAMBS T. WHITE ft CO 
 
DEDICATED TO THE HOSPITALITY OP OUR CITY 
 
 HOMES SIGNIFICANT TO DWELLERS IN A PLACE 
 
 OF SHORE SONGS. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 BLUE CRANE . . . . . . . . n 
 
 HOME . . ... .**..*-*... 14 
 
 ALONG THE HARBOR SHORE . . . . 15 
 
 To A GROSBEAK IN THE GARDEN . . . . 16 
 
 THE HUMMING BIRD . . . . ' 17 
 
 IF I WERE PAN . , . . . . . i 
 
 VENICE .. . . ,. . .. : . ' . , 19* 
 
 ASSOCIATION . . ..... . . 20 
 
 BUT WHERE THY PORT . ... * . 22 
 
 THE NURSE . . . ' . . . . 24 
 
 A VISION OF SLEEP . . .... . . 26 
 
 THE GIFTS OF THE SHIPS ...... 28 
 
 SEAL OF THE NORTH . . . /. . . . 29 
 
 I WOULD NOT BRING You TEARS . . . 30 
 
 THEN SHOULD You KNOW * . , * * . 32 
 
 I CANNOT COURT YOUR FICKLE SPRING . . . 33 
 
 COULD I LOVE ANOTHER You? .... 34 
 
CONTENTS ( Continued) 
 
 I'LL LIFT MY HEAD A KING. .... 36 
 
 THE SAVING . 37 
 
 OUTSIDE THE GATE . 38 
 
 THE POET'S SHIFT 39 
 
 THE ODALISK . * 40 
 
 GATES OF BRASS . .... . . . 42 
 
 MY TAPER'S RECOMPENSE 44 
 
 THE INVENTOR 45 
 
 THE PEASANT'S PRAYER 46 
 
 THE POET VAGRANT 48 
 
 JAPAN THE BEAUTAFUL 49 
 
 MY BIRTHDAY .50 
 
 THE CALL OF THE WINDS . . , . . . 52 
 
 LOUISIANA . 54 
 
 THE DRAGON CITY . . . . 56 
 
 A SWALLOW ON THE TELEGRAPH WIRE . . . 58 
 
 IN MICHIGAN . . . . . . . 59 
 
 THE SANDPIPER . . . ... . . 60 
 
 THE WAR GARDENS . ^ . . . . 62 
 
 To A SEA-GULL *;: * - ..- ' , . 63 
 
THE BLUE CRANE 
 and SHORE SONGS 
 
In the half-light of my hearth fire 
 
 I look up through my dormer to the night 
 
 And see the balsam rafters of my loft reflected, 
 
 Like a firm structure for the frail sky / 
 
 And I see, this side of them, the stars 
 
 The Big Bear and the Pole-star, 
 
 Swung like little lanterns from my rafters. 
 
 That house is not too small, 1 think, nor ill-conceived 
 That shelters him who built it and roofs in 
 A few stars like the Pleiades. 
 
THE BLUE CRANE 
 
 ACROSS nine miles of calm water 
 Water yet stained by the bleeding hoofs 
 Of the hour-gone sun 
 Skillagalee Light burns like a spot-welder 
 Riveting a purple island to the rim of the world. 
 From my heavy Dutch-door pane, 
 When my back is to the candles and the green globe 
 Of my orbit-lamp, I can make out the little eye 
 Shining like a moored star 
 Warning from my coast 
 All but mariners gone mad. 
 
 Two tallow dips are on my mantel, 
 
 Serving their little utmost to my fathers 
 
 Who command me to save this landmark. 
 
 How much larger is the light of Skillagalee, 
 
 Ruilded by engineers of the new time! 
 
 Yet the candles are at hand and of more comfort, 
 
 As the moths testify 
 
 Though my shrine is often their burial-place. 
 
 11 
 
This house, now in the making, is of old timber 
 
 from the beaches, 
 
 Old-weather with green hangings and a Navajo 
 And symbols of eternal things 
 No longer reckoned so. 
 
 It is a quiet place full of eloquent whispers 
 In summer, and cedar trees perfume the lofts. 
 The white birch stands a trim sentry 
 Against the boulder patterns, 
 And a blue crane is at peace with the night, 
 On the furthermost rock along shore. 
 
 After my years of unquietness 
 
 This house is as a candle in the dark; 
 
 But it seems a burial-place of something I have 
 
 known, 
 
 Or something that has been a part of me in cities, 
 Or something I have sensed among romping children 
 And the reminiscences of kinsfolk 
 Who pass time in homely converse. 
 
 I have prepared my house to my liking, 
 And it lights a corner of the wilderness; 
 But moth-men find this a burial-place 
 Of a life to their liking, 
 
 And seek the larger light on the runway of the 
 loud ships 
 
 12 
 
The light that shines like Skillagalee 
 Across the bleeding foot-prints of the sun. 
 
 At times I seem the blue crane 
 
 On the furthermost rock; 
 
 Yet the spirits of my fathers 
 
 Have aided in the laying of these stones 
 
 And the framing of these rafters, 
 
 And the Indians upon whose graves its corners are 
 
 builded 
 
 Have signed these plans 
 And are my silent and wise company. 
 
 Let me be the man, on the rough coast, 
 
 My house of seasoned timber; 
 
 Though I seem at times like the blue crane 
 
 On the furthermost rock. 
 
 Somewhere, on other shores, in peace with night, 
 
 Are my fellows, content with little candles 
 
 In quietness, keeping the landmarks 
 
 Content with a strong house of clean faith 
 
 And removed from the light of Skillagalee 
 
 Nine miles across the water. 
 
 13 
 
HOME 
 
 IN the evening after the rain, 
 At home with the North and the trees, 
 I turn from the world again 
 
 And find me a world in these. 
 
 I searched for a joy in the lands 
 Of castle and kopje and sun, 
 
 And found what I sought in the sands 
 
 Where the journey was lightly begun. 
 
 The glories of continents seen 
 
 And all that my ears have heard, 
 
 Are lost in a garden's green 
 
 And the chirp of a nested bird. 
 
ALONG THE HARBOR SHORE 
 
 I LIKE the days of northern Spring 
 When leaves emerge the bud, 
 The birches turn a tender green 
 And maple-blossoms blood. 
 
 A sail is golden in the sun, 
 
 Against the purple hill; 
 A gull is high on silent wing, 
 
 The swallows never still. 
 
 Where westing sun and fog are met, 
 
 Along the harbor-shore, 
 An aged fisher reels a net 
 
 And mutters primal lore. 
 
 He is not of the Spring of life, 
 
 Yet find we equal cheer; 
 He, that the old ship weathered through, 
 
 I, that the new may clear. 
 
 15 
 
TO A GROSBEAK IN THE GARDEN 
 
 WHEN through the heaviness and clamouring 
 throng 
 
 Of mortal ways I hear the mellow song 
 Of birds, the birds seem sent to me. 
 If this be my insanity, 
 As men will measure it so let it be! 
 
 When shadows that no will can drive away 
 Entomb me then no sermon blesseth day, 
 More true and sweet than that pure note 
 My ear hath caught afloat, 
 Aflame from the rose-breast's fervent throat. 
 
 Thou, crimson-caped messenger of God, 
 Seem'st not to feel the thorned and bruising rod 
 Of Life thy hours are joyously beguiled 
 With melody so mild, 
 
 So wild! as winds in the heart of some slip-trammel 
 child! 
 
 Full knowing that thy living days are brief 
 Thou grudgest even a breath for sober grief; 
 Thy poems are scattered free, without a name, 
 Nor hast thou thought of fame 
 Neither from the eagle taken shame! 
 Is my unpaid aspiring yet my blame? 
 
 16 
 
The world is wide 'twixt man and worlds divine, 
 And hearts are dull to such a song as thine; 
 But / have heard. Sing on, from tree to tree, 
 As thou hast sung to me 
 And more shall find the God that guideth thee! 
 
 THE HUMMING-BIRD 
 
 WHEN languorous noons entreat the summer 
 sky, 
 
 And restive spirits vex the ways of men 
 In vain emprise; within my garden then 
 Will I elect to let the world go by, 
 And watch the humming-bird. Not seen to fly, 
 He comes and vanishes and comes again 
 And sips the sweets of honeysuckles when 
 Their lips are frail but leaves them not to die. 
 
 So I have thought how good it were to be 
 This ruthful corsair, bent on such pursuit, 
 
 Against the wear of my foreplanning hours; 
 How good it were to live thus liegelessly 
 
 Upon the world's unreckoned blossom-loot 
 Yet spare from any harm its guarded flowers! 
 
 17 
 
IF I WERE PAN 
 
 DEEP in the wood across the way, 
 I dreamed that I was Pan today, 
 And tuned me joyous pipes to play. 
 The fronds came out to me, 
 The nymphs and graces three 
 The world was Arcady! 
 For I was Pan and this was Spring! 
 
 I played the part of Pan today 
 
 And laughed at mortals on the way, 
 
 But no man heard and none would stay. 
 
 Their ears were sorely dull, 
 
 And sad their eyes and full 
 
 Of pelf and pride and mull; 
 
 And spring to them is never Spring! 
 
 I know that I was Pan a day, 
 
 But would that I were Pan alway, 
 
 With ears like his and eyes of May, 
 
 To hear and feel and see! 
 
 Pipe tunes to bird and bee 
 
 And set the world's heart free 
 
 With laughter, love and light of Spring! 
 
 I would if I were Pan. 
 
 18 
 
VENICE 
 
 IT has been mine to know, in younger days, 
 That love, in fullness, finds no utterance; 
 No mortal word can serve, much less enhance 
 A perfect thing. The wondrous Nippon vase 
 Desponds my tongue; the while to ruder clays 
 Of dull unpromising the Muses dance 
 And wake with hearts of wild exuberance! 
 So Fancy weaves on umber warp her praise. 
 
 No song of mine confirms that I have seen 
 San Marco's opal dome and wept before 
 The Campanile's fall. I have not sung 
 Ca d'Oro's grace nor of the light serene 
 That never was on other seas, Maggior 
 Venezia! to me thy bells have rung. 
 
 19 
 
ASSOCIATION 
 
 BEYOND the shore-guard pines the beach of sand 
 Stretched off as warm and yielding as your hand 
 That northern summers past had laid in mine. 
 And yet the place had set no moving sign 
 Within my heart too full of you for words, 
 Too glad for tears, too wrapt to hear the chords 
 Of Nature's playing. So I said no spell 
 Attached to this of import to compel 
 My song; though we had lived a thousand days 
 And grown to comradship and mutual ways 
 Within its keeping. Thus when love was young 
 And you were by my side no song was sung. 
 In joy and fulsome praise I had not thought 
 Upon the frequent scene I had not caught 
 Its inward meaning, as when oft alone 
 I found some mystic message in a stone. 
 The silent shade and your sweet gladness 
 These were enough. Somehow the poet-madness 
 Comes not of soft content and troths unbroken, 
 And of such perfect peace no words are spoken. 
 
 Today I am alone, for my offense 
 Alone and penitent and wondering whence 
 This golden light and gold-green of the lake, 
 The waves 1 * dull symphony and dunes awake 
 With laughing spirits of the happy dead 
 
 20 
 
Whose cast-off pains our birth inherited. 
 
 The dancing trees lean down with precious gifts 
 
 Of perfume, every tiny plant uplifts 
 
 Its tendrils to my touch and points to skies 
 
 Of essent opal where the free gull flies 
 
 To meet his mate beyond some blessed isle. 
 
 Would I, as he, to mine might fly the while, 
 Or she to me yea, thou to me, and here, 
 Where days that are departed are twice dear 
 And every leaf and twig bears memories 
 Like faint, far bells across the midnight seas! 
 
 Alone I wait I know not what strange word; 
 Alone I pray I know not what vague sign! 
 But where we met and your sweet voice was heard 
 Has been God's temple and shall be my shrine! 
 
BUT WHERE THY PORT? 
 
 E bay is white with sail 
 - Uncertain bound 
 Vain ships that seek no grail, 
 Proud ships that bear no bale, 
 And ships aground. 
 
 Like moths they dot the day, 
 Nor heed the chart; 
 At dusk they pale away, 
 Unlit in the evening gray, 
 And so depart. 
 
 O, ships of changing hue 
 
 And shallow court, 
 
 Ye wing across the blue 
 
 And swing the season through 
 
 But where thy port? 
 
 I wait here on the shore 
 To sail, afar, 
 The wider sea that bore 
 And bears for evermore 
 The steadfast star. 
 
 And soon, I pray, shall come, 
 As comes the Dawn, 
 
 22 
 
With muffled oar and drum, 
 Unfaltering and by some 
 Sea-mystery drawn 
 
 The ship that sails from where 
 The autumn moon 
 Hath sailed; and I shall fare 
 With her my heart's corsair, 
 To ports of Noon! 
 
 23 
 
THE NURSE 
 
 I KNEW a maid of Devon Town 
 Who wore upon her sleeve 
 A red, red cross to which a crown 
 Were scarce a make-believe. 
 
 White was her cap, as early snow, 
 
 Upon her auburn hair; 
 And Devon's dreaming gardens know 
 
 The grace their daughters wear. 
 
 Her voice was like a camel-bell 
 Across the wastes of Dawn; 
 
 Her liquid eyes a fabled well 
 Of all delusion drawn. 
 
 She stepped as lightly as the hern 
 That guards a tender brood; 
 
 And such a heart! it seemed to burn, 
 A torch of angelhood. 
 
 Her brow was as a marble thing; 
 
 Her breasts alone as fair 
 And Martha's kin are wondering 
 
 No child was mothered there. 
 
 24 
 
But who can know the mother-loss 
 And pangs of birth she bore? 
 
 Who reckons not the red, red cross 
 That on her sleeve she wore! 
 
 A thousand brides of broken weft 
 
 Have shared their grief with her; 
 A thousand dying men had left 
 Their love as lief with her. 
 
 And all the loves of all the men 
 Who die across the sea 
 
 Will meet again and greet her when 
 She homes her heart with me! 
 
 25 
 
A VISION OF SLEEP 
 (Tone Picture) 
 
 I WALKED in a verdureless park 
 The morn of a night of cold rain. 
 The sky was a desolate gray 
 As sadly I stood by the way, 
 Beset of unnameable pain 
 From the past and the oncoming dark. 
 
 Then magical came through the wet 
 
 A silvery car and more slow 
 
 And silent than seraphim feet 
 
 So led by a spirit to meet 
 
 The soul of the humble below, 
 
 As a queen and a vagrant have met. 
 
 Your wonderful face and a veil, 
 Your delicate hand at the gear, 
 And gowned as the Dawn as a bride 
 You seemed but to be and to glide 
 Like a wraith in the mist of the year 
 So silent and searching and pale. 
 
 You seemed not to see or to know 
 My presence nor answer my call, 
 But you paused for the touch of a tear 
 And turned half away as to hear 
 
 26 
 
A voice from the place of the fall 
 Of the race in the longer ago. 
 
 You saw not and heard not but knew 
 
 That the soul that your soul sought was near; 
 
 You spoke not nor smiled but were glad. 
 
 I woke not, to know I was sad, 
 
 Till a bird-note came tenderly clear 
 
 And into the dawn you withdrew. 
 
THE GIFT OF THE SHIPS 
 
 RESTIVE and unconquered are the little seas 
 That Holland from her green bowl fills 
 With wine of tulips. In the everlasting breeze 
 A hundred lug-sails whip a challenge to the whirring 
 mills. 
 
 Sweet and real and glad is every day 
 
 To its good people all as ruddy as the clover 
 
 Knee-deep to the mottled cows, and gay 
 
 As the swift cloud that sweeps cool shadows over. 
 
 I have not understood what vague unrest 
 Misleads so blessed a folk to our unhappy shore; 
 But I must think, as always, God plans best 
 For you and I have met and ask no more. 
 
 I ask no more, for that long-cherished and most 
 
 dear 
 
 The lovliness of hyacinths, is in your hair! 
 You ask no more has not your ancient prayer 
 To be a queen been answered when I crown you 
 
 here? 
 
 To a Nftu Amsterdam Maid. 
 
SEAL OF THE NORTH 
 
 AGES ago when the Dawn first lifted, 
 Audrey, you lay in the far lake-land 
 Lnder the pines where the sands were sifted, 
 And touched my untouched hand. 
 
 Your hair was there as the beach-grass blowing; 
 Your eyes and the sea-wet stones were those; 
 Your flesh was one with the soft surf flowing, 
 Your blush with the frail wild-rose. 
 
 Your blood was drained from the sun's red setting 
 Your grace from the virgin-white birch tree; 
 You breathe with the pure, cool breeze begetting 
 The Spring's young ecstasy! 
 
 Your lyric laugh and the tears, all tender, 
 Keep to the deeps of a nature-heart 
 Long reft in the snow-land's still cold splendor 
 You in the moons apart. 
 
 29 
 
I WOULD NOT BRING YOU TEARS 
 
 WHEN Nature grieves 
 In some unwonted pain, 
 And feels her leaves 
 Droop under blighting stain, 
 Her kindly curtain falls 
 Against our view, 
 And lone in her gray walls 
 She broods the dark day through. 
 
 Bereft of joys 
 
 The painter takes her mood 
 
 His brush employs, 
 
 Upon a solemn wood 
 
 At dusk, the sombre hue. 
 
 When glad and young 
 
 He paints the morning dew 
 
 And skies where larks have sung. 
 
 So bear with me 
 
 If I seem far today. 
 
 May it not be 
 
 That well am I away? 
 
 My canvas tells the pain 
 
 Of loss and fears 
 
 My hour is cold, gray rain. 
 
 I would not bring you tears. 
 
 30 
 
You knew me, dear, 
 
 When Fortune played me fair; 
 
 Then was I near 
 
 And gladness kissed your hair. 
 
 So might I come again 
 
 When golden light 
 
 Conies through the cold, gray rain, 
 
 And morn comes through the night. 
 
 31 
 
THEN SHOULD YOU KNOW 
 
 ON shores beneath the green flare of the north. 
 For weary days the elements have crossed 
 The peaceful seasons and the low skies tossed 
 With melancholy gray. It seemed henceforth 
 There could be no more sun nor laughing flowers, 
 No golden morn and no glad birds afield. 
 Such time man's faith is frail and strong hearts yield 
 The truce of hope against the sullen powers. 
 
 If so the light of day should no more shine 
 
 Upon green islands and the purple sea, 
 
 And moon and stars should fail and cease to be, 
 
 Even as candles spent in some dark mine 
 
 Then should you know the deeps of my despair, 
 
 The Hagar heart and thirst uncomforted, 
 
 When we have quarreled the fault upon my head 
 
 And alien lovers stroke your weeping hair. 
 
 If you could be some sad-souled Eskimo, 
 Pent in his lodge of ice through endless years 
 Of starless night, when quick upon his spears 
 The flowering noon should break then you would 
 
 know 
 
 How sweet is your returning grace to me, 
 How holier than heaven your guileless eyes 
 And grateful your forgiveness! So replies 
 God to the lovelorn in Eternity. 
 
 32 
 
I CANNOT COURT YOUR FICKLE SPRING 
 
 I MAY not stay in this roof-place, 
 And yet I would. 
 
 Your Spring, is teasing to embrace 
 My solitude, 
 
 And like to win. The memory of her grace 
 Is light upon dark ways 
 
 And fills a little room with singing gladness 
 When worlds abroad are dumb in winter sadness. 
 
 Yet I must doubt I could be true 
 
 And yield to follow. 
 
 My heart's own Spring I still pursue 
 
 And its wild swallow. 
 
 I cannot court your fickle Spring, now due 
 
 On lanes of hill and hollow: 
 
 Her carpetings of moss and yellow flowers 
 
 But lead to summer heat and slothful hours. 
 
 No, lock me in these narrow walls and leave 
 I yet could sing. 
 A lovely little maid of Kiev 
 Hath been my Spring! 
 Your winter scarce intended to forebring 
 The gift of days I grieve 
 To part from, but only summer sadness 
 Attends your briefer Spring to vex my year of 
 gladness. 
 
 33 
 
COULD I LOVE ANOTHER YOU? 
 
 MY Love hath locks of hazel hair 
 And eyes of tender blue; 
 She's little, lithe and debonair 
 
 And wears a tiny shoe. 
 O Curly Locks, of lovely hair 
 
 And laughing tear as clear as dew! 
 O Cherry Lips and Bonny Fair 
 
 I wish you would be true! 
 But could I love another You 
 
 As once I loved the You I knew 
 The truant eye and taunting air, 
 
 The elfish laugh and lips of rue? 
 
 My Love hath banks of beauty-locks 
 
 And ears of rose-of-dawn; 
 Her tongue's a hundred silver clocks, 
 
 Her movements like the fawn. 
 She makes and mends her tiny frocks 
 
 Of wool and dainty lawn, 
 And feeds her father's hungry flocks 
 
 And sings at early morn. 
 O, would I had not lingered on 
 
 Her wistful waiting at the docks! 
 But lassies and a laughing Faun 
 
 Are lithe as love and lightly gone! 
 
 34 
 
All day my Love's a busy bee, 
 
 At dawn a lark, a flower at noon; 
 At eve a drooping willow tree 
 
 And sleeping moth-of-moon. 
 I weave my tributes into tune, 
 
 But sigh in secrecy 
 The lily and the clair-de-lune 
 
 Are fair but ever faded soon 
 And never true to me! 
 
 The morn hath passed; and now the noon 
 The night will be a thankless boon 
 
 But sweet is Memory! 
 
 35 
 
I'LL LIFT MY HEAD A KING 
 
 THY people's veins have known a royal blood 
 Kosciuszko and great lovers of high deeds, 
 Dawn singing, nightly toasts to grief, prayer 
 
 beads 
 
 To Liberty. Chopin hath understood, 
 And kin was that proud princess who had wooed 
 To Poland victories the war-spent breeds 
 Of Bonaparte and mourned the broken reeds 
 Of his weak pledge to lesser womanhood. 
 
 When battle fields deprive me of my games 
 Of hazzard and old aspirations lie 
 
 Heaped on the rocks of some far St. Helene 
 I'll lift my head a king, who then reclaims 
 His holier legions, and to foes reply: 
 Reap dust! A throne will stand where Love hath 
 been! 
 
 36 
 
THE SAVING 
 
 THE rose that bloomed but yesterday 
 And gathered to its lips the dews 
 Of heaven, is strewn upon the way 
 That men profane and storms abuse. 
 
 Its heart and yours cannot but choose 
 The blight the evil seasons set; 
 And as their gladness gardens lose, 
 Your tender cheeks with tears are wet. 
 
 Mayhap the flowers fade with pain 
 And fall from vine and life alike; 
 But come the Spring and deeper rain 
 To quicken grief and withered spike. 
 
 The winds that burn across the heart 
 Are keen but kinder than we know 
 They rend the bloom and branch apart, 
 But seeds to farther sands will blow. 
 
 The vainer symbols come and go, 
 But nobler gifts shall vie with chance; 
 A lonely soul in faith may grow 
 And Love outlive earth's circumstance. 
 
 37 
 
OUTSIDE THE GATE 
 
 AGAIN this hour, this memorable hour when you, 
 Half-faltering, pleaded on bended knees and knew 
 My mercy frail this hour again did God instate 
 His angels and their swords across the Eastern Gate, 
 For that I broke a woman's heart and closed the door 
 Against her bleeding. Beaten, penitent and poor 
 I went into the outer dark and fell in prayer 
 To turn again and kiss, more holily, your hair 
 Kiss but your unresponsive hair and weep 
 My wretchedness upon Love's grave. So beg you 
 
 keep, 
 
 Though I come not again, throw not away 
 The treasured rose-leaves of that older day 
 When hope and youth gave their elusive sign 
 That soon ah, futile pledge! thou shouldst be 
 
 mine. 
 
 I cry the sad, unanswered cry of Cain, and yet, 
 May I not know, O woman pitiful, that wet 
 With thy forgiving tears is that same fallen hair 
 I prayed of God to kiss in my despair? 
 
 38 
 
THE POET'S SHIFT 
 
 T SAW them there behind the glass 
 
 Red rose, sweet-pea and violet, 
 Lily and pink and mignonette 
 Persuading me; but I must pass. 
 
 What would she give if she could know 
 It hurt my heart to pass them so? 
 When she loves rose and mignonette 
 And dotes upon the violet! 
 
 What would I give if these could grow 
 Along the wayside as I pass! 
 And not behind a window-glass 
 For profiting or idle shpw! 
 
 But summer comes and some day yet 
 We'll gather worlds of mignonette, 
 Where flowers are free and summers long! 
 Till then my love must live in song! 
 
 39 
 
THE ODALISK 
 
 OFT'TIMES in these our passion-resting hours, 
 When the light-mist of early twilight 
 Veils the spectral mosque-tips, 
 And all the silver bells in still suspense 
 Await the towered muezzin's call 
 To prayer the soft dew-gathering time 
 When rose-perfumes from our seraglio* garden 
 Float low and deep upon my idle sense 
 Then have I dreamed a dream, 
 Though it be all a fancy-fabric, 
 Makes for peace to you and me, Fatima. 
 
 I have dreamed of other times and lands, 
 
 Of far-called women freely born 
 
 Free to choose and free of any master 
 
 And of Moslem power all save Christian creeds. 
 
 In these, my reveries, the winds 
 
 From over seas will bear the sobs 
 
 Of childless wives, and then the cries 
 
 Of many children left of mothers 
 
 Weeping for the fathers strange! 
 
 I hear of marriage-beds of brides unloved 
 
 And maidens solitary all their days 
 
 In pining for some heart they move not; 
 
 And it has come to me ah, truly false 
 
 That those most virtuous are most bereft, 
 
 40 
 
Without abode or any resting place 
 
 Or sympathy's caress to bless their sleep 
 
 And this because of goodness and the hope 
 
 Of some out-lying, loveless Paradise to come! 
 
 So, I am told that in that country ruled 
 
 Without a king, the ways of freedom 
 
 Are not free, and woman's liberty 
 
 Is woman's reigning woe. 
 
 Her fickle fury toys unsavingly, 
 
 And, being free, men turn unscathed 
 
 Away, weary of play, to be the masters 
 
 Men can be! And woman 
 
 Worn of trifling, stale of beauty lies 
 
 Remembered in her obloquy, or, worse, forgot !- 
 
 A slave abject to self-invented custom! 
 
 And you and I, Fatima we would not, 
 
 From our sweet certainty and guardian walls, 
 
 Go in those ways of freedom-woe 
 
 An hour's apart but we should rend 
 
 Our matted hair, to be forgiven our dalliance, 
 
 And would turn our troubled faces back 
 
 To him, the Radiant One, our master! 
 
 41 
 
GATES OF BRASS 
 
 A SINGLE taper, flaming dim and low, 
 Played fitfully on relic altar-gold; 
 Thru windows wrought with miracles of old 
 Fell faint the saffron of the afterglow. 
 
 Before the penance-bench Sir Hardistan, 
 
 Scarce more than youth, of sturdy limb and fair. 
 Knelt down as under longer years' despair 
 
 That marked his brow with age ere age began. 
 
 Within the shadow stooped the solemn priest, 
 In patience with the sorrows of the years 
 His cup of life o'erfilled of other's tears, 
 
 Had spilled his tragedy as theirs increased. 
 
 "Sir Knight, I keep the refuge of the poor 
 Here knees of plaintive misery are bent 
 When worldly wares and light of life are spent. 
 
 Thou'rt not of these, but yet in strength secure." 
 
 "Father, I wander thru the endless night, 
 
 And the pale moon to me appears but rare. 
 I seek, the last, they famed candle-flare 
 
 To light my steps and stumbling steed aright." 
 
 42 
 
"What meanest thou, Sir Knight? Hast naught oi 
 
 home?" 
 
 "Aye, Father, home such home as all men seek, 
 And wife and child, and stables of the sheik, 
 
 And gold to grace a triumphry of Rome." 
 
 "Grieve not, Sir Knight, if erst thy jousting failed." 
 "No conflict but a conquest, holy one; 
 The bravest have engaged me and are done 
 
 With tournaments, whilst I am victor hailed." 
 
 "Find'st thou no weal in neighbor, friend or kin?" 
 "Thy pardon, sire thou speak'st in language 
 
 worn. 
 Can mortal fellowship be bred of scorn? 
 
 The wolf am I; the whimpering folds are men." 
 
 "Mayhap thy alms are sown to thankless soil." 
 
 "Alms? Alms? Wouldst fling thy beads to 
 
 craven oaves? 
 My gift is steady steel, outlasting loaves! 
 
 But haste! the serpent Night doth loose her coil!" 
 
 "Haste romps, Sir Knight, without the cloister 
 
 gates 
 
 With such as thou on worldly roads it runs, 
 In vain pursuit of far retreating suns! 
 
 My humble lairn will serve but him who waits. 
 
 43 
 
"The Sangreal lay not the wanton's way! 
 
 God's love for love; His mercy for thine own! 
 
 Turn back whence thou hast come unarmed, 
 
 alone! 
 Beyond the east awaits the dawn of day!" 
 
 MY TAPER'S RECOMPENSE 
 
 MY candle burned for long to those fair days 
 When chivalry and modest worth held true 
 The scale of life; and then would I pursue 
 In fancy backward up those older ways, 
 To peace! The modern fabric wants the grays 
 
 And love-care that our mother's sampler knew; 
 The world takes on a false, fantastic hue, 
 And hearts and homes are wrought of sordid clays. 
 
 But here are truth and sweetness of the old, 
 Set with the art and splendor of the new, 
 Like strands of silver thread among the gold; 
 
 That silence-charm, the heritage of few, 
 Frail beauty and the purity of tears 
 All saved in thee to pay my waiting years! 
 
THE INVENTOR 
 
 A SAD man lived in the years of dark 
 And numbered the pains of dearth. 
 He prayed of the gods a sign and spark 
 To lift the burden and light the ark 
 For the sons of his weary earth. 
 
 He took for his tithe the tangled thorn 
 That falls to our foretime dreams 
 The hate of the loved and the loaner's scorn. 
 For the sake of the millions yet unborn 
 And the goal of the right that seems. 
 
 His kinsmen saw but the waste of dower 
 And warned of the wretched gain. 
 The forge and book and the midnight hour, 
 That knew the man in the secret tower, 
 Could marvel the mortal brain. 
 
 From a drop of rain and a quoin of steel, 
 A coal and a grain of sand, 
 He fashioned a lamp for a kingdom's weal, 
 And laid man's work on the arc of a wheel 
 And watered a wasted land. 
 
 45 
 
THE PEASANT'S PRAYER 
 
 THE roan cow rests content under the trees 
 That shade the lane's end. Nearer, bumble-bees 
 With golden thighs grip the sweet flowers 
 Of the sun-lighted bridal-wreath. No showers 
 Have laid the dry loam, and dust veils 
 The dragman's team as wearily it trails 
 The warping frame over the ochre ground 
 Sloping to the blue marsh-edge. The main sound 
 A fitful creaking of the half-shadowed mill 
 That rests from labor, like a true bard, until 
 Some god's good wind comes on to bid it move. 
 No song but the faint cooing of a dove 
 Lonely on the barn-ridge, mourning a mate. 
 
 Here, in my tired heart, early and late, 
 Shadows, dim lights, sounds of forgotten years, 
 Old sorrow-songs from memory of tears. 
 I have not known great love the less to grieve 
 Nor hated ought but to its course must cleave. 
 To books of wisdom, mirth and things of beauty 
 I could not give the hour forepledged to Duty 
 Calling on busy hands. Ill fares the soul! 
 
 Around my life of labor scroll on scroll 
 Of wonders I cannot read, music unheard 
 By my dull ears. How understand the word 
 
 46 
 
The night-stars speak and language of the winds? 
 Grass is pasture; wheat, bread. To other minds 
 Symbols of God mystery divinely sweet. 
 To us man, cow or bee but straw and meat. 
 
 Mine the gray toil; all fair illusion yours. 
 O, grant me, yet, one dream one that secures 
 My childish hope of comfort in the grave 
 And love beyond! This gone, what do we peasants 
 save? 
 
 47 
 
THE POET VAGRANT 
 
 WERE I to die this hour or some near day 
 Be stricken quick upon the way I've trod, 
 Say not 'tis sad the youth has passed away 
 So reft of fortune and so far from God. 
 
 Say not in pity that I might have had 
 The gift and favor of the rich and great 
 But that mischosen insolence forbade 
 My fellows' warning of a hapless fate. 
 
 Grieve not that I have spent my years in dream, 
 And drifted listless as the vagrant brook 
 Have sought me substance in the things that seem, 
 And left to earth the semblance of a book. 
 
 What though I have not where to lay my head, 
 Nor marble weight upon my body's grave? 
 Of this I make no moan when I am dead 
 And you possess the worth I failed to save. 
 
 So be it I am soon forgot of men 
 And laid in alien soil by stranger hands; 
 The pines above my head will mourn me then, 
 And waves intone my requiem on the sands. 
 
 48 
 
Say rather, this: "He chose to make his friends 
 In wood and field, with bird and flower and tree; 
 Began his labor where our labor ends, 
 And saved the faith in immortality." 
 
 JAPAN THE BEAUTIFUL 
 
 THE ghost of grace through heathen tides and 
 times, 
 
 Hath kept her vigil 'neath thy trembling stars! 
 Thy cherry-blossom cheeks, in peace or wars, 
 Beam in rapport with all thy sweetest chimes! 
 
 New states may grow where fallen states have 
 
 been; 
 
 The pulse of Beauty, dead, shall beat no more! 
 Thine not the cause of wall and tower and 
 
 store; 
 Thy citadels are laid in hearts of men! 
 
 49 
 
MY BIRTHDAY 
 
 FULL sure this day would find me older, 
 The late weeks were gray with fear 
 To feel at once my life-fire smoulder 
 In ashes of the year. 
 
 I heard the impatient mace of Duty 
 Beat the post of my outer door> 
 And saw the ghosts of indignant Beauty 
 And spent Hours count my store. 
 
 I thought to keep the day unvaunted, 
 Sealed in tasks until forgot 
 Avoid the friendly feast so haunted 
 Of Youth that now was not. 
 
 Then came a perfume from the mountains, 
 A message heart-warm from the west; 
 Singers with songs like lyric fountains. 
 A book of verse, a guest. 
 
 A great white steamer crossed the water, 
 Bride-proud in the summer blue; 
 Moving like some Olympian daughter, 
 On cycles ever new. 
 
 50 
 
And then I woke new-born to living 
 And learned my Soul is ever young- 
 As a life of love and self-forgiving, 
 A song forever sung. 
 
 I fear the waiting wrath no longer, 
 I count the measured years no loss; 
 I take the road before me stronger 
 Shouldering my cross. 
 
 51 
 
THE CALL OF THE WINDS 
 
 I FAIN would laugh with all the laughing world, 
 And let the relic memories be furled 
 With banners of crusades and laid away 
 With tomes and trumpery of the older day; 
 With crooning history, Time's romance, be done 
 Let ages die, and wake the "On and on!" 
 
 And yet in dreaming hours, despite my will, 
 Past friends and fading pictures linger still. 
 Old wars with all their wrongs, caesars and kings 
 With all their crimes and ancient clamorings, 
 And troubadours, and pirates of the sea 
 Seem still to mock our lauded Liberty. 
 Somehow when I would tempt the tuneful strings 
 I find them fraught with hymns of buried things 
 I hear the cadence of the awkward flail, 
 And Indians moaning on the bison-trail. 
 
 The clanking enginery of modern strife 
 Profanes the obsequies of sweeter life. 
 There's grandeur in the press of steam and steel, 
 But heart-beats in the throb of oaken keel! 
 And on the winds a runic wail of doom 
 Pursues the tattered sail and trembling boom 
 Of one-time stately ships. The hulks, all mute, 
 Swing off in funeral pomp; and in pursuit 
 
 52 
 
The squadron hounds of fretful Commerce bay 
 Their greed of wealth and ruthless pride of prey! 
 
 A golden glory filled the sea and air 
 
 When Turner saw the failing Temeraire! 
 
 No harmonies contest the sunset fire, 
 
 The fondest fancies haunt the Autumn pyre; 
 
 So, when the Muses seek the tender theme, 
 
 They find the treasure passing toward a dream! 
 
 53 
 
LOUISIANA 
 
 OUT of the ash of Ages 
 Damp with the tide of Time, 
 Over the reeking pages 
 Red with the Heathen Crime 
 Here hath the Forest Fable 
 Fought with the corpse of Fear, 
 Building a barracked gable 
 Learned of a Savage leer. 
 
 Spite of the mountain and torrent, 
 Huron and hunger and bear; 
 Praying in plagues abhorrent, 
 Minding of Midasan blare 
 Jesuit, knight and trader, 
 Crozier and steel and skin, 
 Fool-of-the-Fountain and raider, 
 Founders of Faith and Sin 
 Chanted their cryptical Aves 
 On through the wilds .of the Years, 
 Laying their laws as lavas 
 Hot with the blood and the tears. 
 
 In mounds of a memory faded, 
 The Kingdoms planted their feet; 
 The stream where the bittern waded 
 Thronged of a throbbing fleet, 
 
 54 
 
Mine and Timber and Meadow 
 Meet their debt to the Dead, 
 And over the shame and the shadow 
 The Sachem of Peace is led! 
 
 Hewer and digger and tinker, 
 Hammer and hoe and shear; 
 Leaner and lover and thinker, 
 Poet and painter and seer 
 Shoveled the sand to building, 
 Tethered the river to power, 
 Pounded the rock to gilding 
 And looked on Temple and Tower 1 
 
THE DRAGON CITY 
 
 IN this unchanging shaft-light hour by hour, 
 Pent in and comfortless, the city's power 
 Goes grinding on around me; and the sky, 
 A somber square the empty winds go by, 
 Scarce marks the transit of the night or day. 
 A million unfixt spirits take their way 
 Beneath my keep, nor seem to reckon why 
 They tempt a dragon, follow far, and die! 
 
 I marvel I could quit the peace of fields 
 For this, where all our fervent sowing yields 
 But mortal thorns to weave us penal crowns! 
 I have not learned the tenets of the towns: 
 I seem disarmed where every man contends, 
 Denying virtue and rejecting friends! 
 
 Where I have wandered, on the northern hills, 
 
 A Presence full of power and promise fills 
 
 Our hearts with common joy; and there we learn 
 
 How comradship and simple trust will turn 
 
 The fear of beast and enmity of men. 
 
 But what avails the code I gathered then? 
 
 The God of farther places here they scorn, 
 
 And flout the solemn faiths that / have sworn! 
 
 56 
 
Were men but rude, like some unlettered breed, 
 Then might I stand, as one who knew the creed; 
 But here are sinuous ways and sultan smiles, 
 Soft insolence, diplomacies and wiles. 
 These subtler crafts plain men can never know; 
 And fall as falls the unresisting snow! 
 
 From this most pitiless of human mills 
 
 I wonder I am not among the hills, 
 
 Whose faithful benediction followed me! 
 
 And I am pained of infidelity 
 
 At parting from the pines and golden sands 
 
 And old-time friends the warm and rugged hands 
 
 Of long-true friends! I wonder I should roam 
 
 This way! My heart is there and there is home! 
 
 57 
 
A SWALLOW ON A TELEGRAPH WIRE 
 
 BATHED in red sun and gladdened by the wind 
 A swallow sat upon a span of wire. 
 He chirped the hours away with idle mind 
 And preened the feathers of his staid attire. 
 
 The news of all the world ran through his feet 
 The word of birth and sound of wedding-bells; 
 The cry of pain and laughter of the street, 
 Earth's sorrow and the sin that life compels. 
 
 Whether the message were of ill or good, 
 A moment's joy or grieving bitter-long; 
 Of blatant clamouring or solitude 
 The swallow shot to earth the one glad song. 
 
 So might I share the swallow's faithful heart, 
 And know the shadow and the light of life 
 I'd go on singing through the busy mart, 
 And find a symphony in mortal strife. 
 
 58 
 
IN MICHIGAN 
 
 SLOW-YIELDING Nymphs 
 Evade unpandered Satyrs here, 
 
 And sands unconquered laugh at man's invention 
 Bright clouds drive darker shadows, 
 And the bay-breeze bears heavy odors 
 Odor-offerings of ragged pine 
 And spruce. 
 
 The white-birch single on the hillside, 
 The hemlock, and I 
 Are friends 
 In Michigan. 
 
 Nature's fingers 
 
 Seem to play upon my strings 
 
 In minor harmonies up here 
 
 Where shells of convents shelter 
 
 Echoes only, 
 
 And the last Indian has laid 
 
 His flints and legends 
 
 On the grave-mound of the older time 
 
 In Michigan. 
 
 59 
 
THE SANDPIPER 
 
 1T)RIME indignity of solitude 
 
 * To smile! But smiles intrude 
 
 When thou, so tipsy bi-ped, 
 
 Teetering on twine-legs and toes of thread 
 
 Through .fcke- thin surf-lace, 
 
 Cry thy very name and place 
 
 In uncompanioned fear alarmed 
 
 Of man, of me, unarmed 
 
 With any weapon worse 
 
 Than irony or any curse 
 
 But Titan-laughter. Even thy grace 
 
 Would scarce invite my greed, , 
 
 So much as win my sympathy 
 
 As one with thee! 
 
 Scant wonder that thy hammer-head 
 
 Cannot look up with such a bodkin tail 
 
 And crop of indescribable wet feed! 
 
 Silence would avail 
 
 More than thy frantic piping, much 
 
 With that quaint running-gear and such 
 
 An insufficient wing to clutch 
 
 The air that lends the sea-gull speed. 
 
 Scarcely risen from your tracks before 
 
 You falter and dip down, 
 
 Like a vellum toy 
 
 Cast on the wind by a coolie boy, 
 
 60 
 
Or like some wing-trousered clown 
 Ascending gloriously to the floor 
 Whence he but started 
 And returned ere he departed. 
 
 But the Maker, fashioning the eagle, 
 
 Fashioned thee, dear little wader, 
 
 To the perfect pattern of His hand! 
 
 Perfect in thy way, as regal 
 
 As a king-seal, and man's persuader 
 
 Of his own futility in slipping sand! 
 
 The Carpenter of thy splint frame 
 
 And that unreasoning child-cry 
 
 Matched thy tenderness in every poet's eye 
 
 To guard thy innocence and praise thy name. 
 
 +* ******** +? 
 
 61 
 
THE WAR GARDENS 
 
 IN the North's brief recessional of snows 
 These long, green garden-rows, 
 Shot with red-in-shadow and occasional 
 Mottlings of yellow leaves that fall 
 In prophecy of autumn and the frost 
 These quiet gardens, flourishing a day, are host 
 To armies of democracy. And those drab ranks 
 Are touched of red likewise, and yellow death flanks 
 Their columns as with the blight of leaves 
 Anticipating higher tasks, or the slow decay of 
 
 sheaves 
 
 Ungarnered and regretful of the thresher's negli- 
 gence. 
 
 But for these loyal acres and plaid hills of Provi- 
 dence, 
 
 And the strong lads, singing of love, to cultivate 
 Surely the eager purposes must wait 
 And Winds convene, distraught of dumb 
 Casualties, to wither what of earth 
 Held tardy promise and a pledge of worth 
 For planting. Then were the loud year come 
 Lean to unending winter and the grief 
 Of yon untimely-yellowed leaf. 
 
 62 
 
TO A SEA-GULL 
 
 SEEING you, through the pleasant June, 
 Fixed on a shore-rock, like an iyory thing, 
 Or some, more animate, buffoon 
 Changing foot with foot's locality 
 To keep place in the noon 
 Loth to move 
 And unconcerned to see 
 
 Even thy perfect image in the pale-green cove: 
 One would scarce surmise 
 What winds were in your wing 
 Waiting a larger enterprise. 
 
 How will the indifference depart, 
 
 And what mad pranks 
 
 From the nursery of thy brave heart, 
 
 Come to the fore 
 
 When storms bend down to sweep 
 
 The sea-floor, 
 
 And stir the dead that sleep 
 
 In the green weeds under the jetsam planks! 
 
 It is man's lamenting wonder 
 
 How that the bellowing thunder 
 
 And wild lightning and slant rain 
 
 Make you to laugh, tho' with a note of pain; 
 
 And cry, mockingly, with glad laughter. 
 
 63 
 
Is it that your care foretells a peace hereafter i 
 
 t. 4 
 
 Or that tli^ natural hour hatfi come at length 
 
 Against long waiting 
 
 Or idle incident of mating 
 
 %1 Irfctf^ 
 
 With new tasks matched to feky great strength? 
 
 But yesterday 
 
 One of tfty kinsmen lay 
 
 Quiet in my trembling hand. 
 
 Blinded by death, it was, and the wet sand. 
 
 He seemed not less than tily own image, 
 
 In the shore-surf; and not once ill at ease 
 
 Had this white body been, nor worse for damage 
 
 Nor purturbed by struggle with calamities. 
 
 Thou, bird of more than grace and beauty 
 
 Sleek house-ward of the rooms of bight and bay; 
 
 Friend of man and sexton in thy casual duty 
 
 Take me to brotherhood this day! 
 
 My morning and the warm sun have stood me long, 
 
 And I am weary of the rest 
 
 And the old monotony of mating-song; 
 
 And I am tired of my own nest 
 
 And my own image in the still pools of the west. 
 
 Teach me thy fearlessness of thunder 
 
 And the wind and the red rain that is 
 
 Over the nations! Failing this 
 
 Teach me, O bird-god, faith and calm wonder! 
 
 64 
 
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