SMOKY ROSES 
 
 LYMAN BRYSON 
 
SMOKY ROSES 
 
 BY 
 
 LYMAN BRYSON 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM S SONS 
 
 NEW YORK LONDON 
 
 Gbe "Knickerbocker press 
 
 1916 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1916 
 
 BY 
 LYMAN BRYSON 
 
 ttbe ftntcfcerbocker prew, flew l. orfc 
 
So 
 
 MY FATHER AND MOTHER 
 
 35797x 
 
For permission to reprint some of the following poems 
 thanks are due to the publishers of The Forum, The 
 Independent, The Poetry Journal, The Anthology of Maga 
 zine Verse, 1914, The Colonnade, The Survey, The Boston 
 Transcript, The Midland, The New Republic, and Poetry. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SMOKY ROSES i 
 
 CONDEMNED 2 
 
 THE GARMENT 4 
 
 WHISPERS ....... 5 
 
 OLD MAN LAKS 7 
 
 GRATITUDE .10 
 
 THE STREET CLEANER n 
 
 MY TOWN ....... 12 
 
 SUMMER IN THE TENEMENTS . . . .13 
 
 THE FLOOD 15 
 
 THE PROPHET 17 
 
 INVOCATION 18 
 
 FOR ME THE TEARS 19 
 
 SOME EVENING ....... 20 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF PAIN 21 
 
 DEDICATION 22 
 
 PHANTOMS 23 
 
 LOST 23 
 
 TRIUMPH 25 
 
 THE BUILDERS 26 
 
 vii 
 
viii Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FINGER TIPS 27 
 
 THE STIRRING 28 
 
 MOONWRAITH 30 
 
 THE GUEST 31 
 
 VENGEANCE 32 
 
 THE CHILD IN SUMMER 33 
 
 SONG OF THE ROAD 34 
 
 A NAMELESS BIRD ...... 35 
 
 WET JUNE DAYS ...... 36 
 
 SONG 37 
 
 To A CERTAIN PAIR LADY . . . . .38 
 
 GOLDENROD . . . . . . 39 
 
 MOTHER OF A SON 40 
 
 MORNING 41 
 
 BALLAD ........ 42 
 
 WINTER . 44 
 
 MRS. COBURN IN THE "ELEKTRA" ... 45 
 
 RULERS 46 
 
 HYMN TO BAAL (1914) 47 
 
 CATALPAS .49 
 
 THE POPPY 50 
 
 A PORTRAIT 51 
 
 THE LOVE-WROUGHT WORD .... 52 
 
 EVERY PILGRIM 53 
 
 THE EXILE 55 
 
Contents ix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ANDREA S MORNING 58 
 
 MIST 62 
 
 THE PATRIARCH 67 
 
 THE CARDINAL DANCES 74 
 
 THE WRECKER 90 
 
Smoky Roses 
 
SMOKY ROSES 
 
 THE "mogul" rides the east wind, 
 Cleaving the dust and heat, 
 Speeding from dawn to twilight 
 With thunder and lightning feet. 
 
 The smoky roses wither 
 Breathing the dust and sand 
 Where the old man guards a crossing 
 With a red flag in his hand. 
 
 He coaxes from the waste heaps 
 A meagre garden space, 
 And brushes the tearing cinders 
 From the rose s tender face. 
 
 His smoky roses wither 
 Under the cinder and ash, 
 And the red rose dims to greyness 
 In the joy of her first red flash. 
 
 The long days are contentless, 
 The yards are a small, tight world; 
 He watches trains for Frisco 
 That over the plains are hurled. 
 
 i 
 
CONDEMNED 
 
 FROM dawning the joy of your spirit 
 
 Was touched with the dread 
 Of the wan hidden hand stretching near it, 
 
 The hand of the dead 
 From those who have struggled before you 
 
 And sinned for their bread. 
 
 Behind the high piles of fine raiment 
 
 In the luxury mart, 
 You dream of your own limbs adornment, 
 
 And guiltily smart 
 With the first growth of infamy s planting 
 
 Taking root in your heart. 
 
 When your sweet body, spent and pain-broken, 
 
 Is weary past rest, 
 And the words of your soul, yet unspoken, 
 
 Shall die unexpressed, 
 And the heart that God gave you for loving 
 
 Is iron in your breast, 
 
 Then they that have kissed you shall curse you, 
 
 And invoke from their lair 
 Their own sheltered women, who loathe you, 
 
 Who see snakes in your hair, 
 Who shall drive you to hide with Medusas 
 
 And imprison you there. 
 
 2 
 
Condemned 
 
 Your brothers, who boast of their city, 
 
 For you have no name. 
 Too busy with progress for pity, 
 
 Too careful for blame, 
 They weave your red shroud out of silence: 
 
 Their cost and their shame. 
 
THE GARMENT 
 
 Tis I who ask forgiveness, I, who bought 
 The garment when I did not know 
 
 That its maker hungered as he wrought 
 
 And patterned it with sweat marks in a row 
 And fought 
 
 The little mists of red, that come and go. 
 
 Little mists of red in blistered eyes, 
 
 That never close for rest or sleep, 
 Save when despair with heavy menace lies 
 And palsies of exhaustion onward creep, 
 
 And dies 
 The haggard will that this last watch would keep. 
 
 No bitter word of mine, no burning deed 
 Had ever helped him face this woe. 
 
 I had been all oblivious of his need, 
 
 I had not seen his weary hands move slow, 
 And bleed 
 
 With needle stabs as they sagged to and fro. 
 
 And still I wore as decent Sunday best 
 
 My brother s handiwork of pain; 
 While his wan soul a stranger was to rest, 
 And his heart s blood a futile sop for gain. 
 
 Confessed 
 My late repentance shall not be in vain. 
 
WHISPERS 
 
 SOFT black against the sky, whose evening green 
 
 Is sharp and pale with autumn chill, the towers 
 
 Go swinging up with many yellow eyes. 
 
 One star shows at the skyline, facet-keen, 
 
 And in the close of their enslaved hours 
 
 The crowds creep on the pavements, insect-wise. 
 
 Out over moving workers, whispers go 
 
 Like the insistent, quiet, secret, tone 
 
 Of thought to thought, across wide silence heard. 
 
 Why is there never one, of those who know, 
 
 To catch the heavy meaning of that moan 
 
 And feel the godhead in his spirit stirred? 
 
 Have we not asked you the secret, 
 You, who are high and serene? 
 Venturing toward your far wisdom, 
 Falling in chasms between? 
 
 Have we not sent up our prayers, 
 Inarticulate begging for speech ? 
 What have you done to bring beauty, 
 Or love of it, nearer our reach? 
 
 Out of the whirl we are clamorous, 
 What have we heard that was sweet? 
 What fire is brought to our spirit? 
 What torch is set for our feet? 
 5 
 
6 Whispers 
 
 Guideless and hopeless we follow 
 Why should you wince from our fall? 
 You have not beckoned above us; 
 Can it be Heaven is small? 
 
 These faces move like bubbles on a tide, 
 Breaking upon eager trolley cars, 
 And vanishing like bubbles on a beach. 
 But may there not in these film bubbles ride 
 Strange ancient greatness in dim avatars, 
 Struggling in such whispers for its speech? 
 
OLD MAN LAKS 
 
 THEY tell me Old Man Laks is dead ! 
 Old man Laks burned in his bed; 
 Dropped a lighted cigarette; 
 Now his neighbours can t forget 
 How, after midnight beer discussion, 
 They had drunk and rolled and chattered, 
 How their stupid doze was shattered 
 By his screaming oaths in Russian. 
 I d been in his unkempt store, 
 Went to try his cigarette. 
 When I slammed the loose-hung door 
 I heard an old voice thinly fret, 
 "Well, what would you?" from the dark. 
 He told me where his wares were kept 
 But to serve me did not deign, 
 So I explored his musty ark. 
 When no buyers came he slept 
 Or lay silent, with his pain. 
 Through the curtained door was seen 
 His red table and his lamp. 
 It smelled of fish and kerosene 
 And the outer room was damp, 
 But when buyers were so few 
 There was scarce enough to eat ; 
 He could not buy comfort, too. 
 7 
 
8 Old Man Laks 
 
 And he seldom left his cot, 
 
 And was never on the street, 
 
 Lay there silent and forgot 
 
 With a rug across his feet. 
 
 But I never saw him read 
 
 Though he seemed to know by heart 
 
 All the heavy Hebrew tomes 
 
 That were heaped in those two rooms; 
 
 And he knew each subtle part 
 
 Of his strict and ancient creed. 
 
 He had cigarettes for sale 
 
 Were they smuggled? That s a pale, 
 
 Weak transgression, if you please. 
 
 Every stranger can t be taught 
 
 That to break a law in Kiev 
 
 May be virtue, but deceive 
 
 On this side the swarming seas 
 
 And it s deadly sin if caught. 
 
 So his life was sordid, yet 
 
 He deserved a nobler death 
 
 Than to choke in flaming breath 
 
 From a burning cigarette. 
 
 Once I looked at his white hair 
 
 Out upon his dingy bed, 
 
 And I saw the shadow there 
 
 Of some blessing on his head. 
 
 There was something, some denial, 
 
 Some great thought he locked within, 
 
 Or some undiscovered passion, 
 
 Ghost of some long-conquered sin, 
 
Old Man Laks 
 
 That had given him his trial 
 
 In no overt, common fashion 
 
 But in secret. Or some power 
 
 Lay forever unaroused 
 
 And the breast where it was housed 
 
 Never throbbed in one great hour. 
 
 That was all. But it was there 
 
 In that face and outflung hair. 
 
 But he lived and burned. God mocks 
 
 Greatness, in such men as Laks. 
 
 My soul with searching has grown lean 
 
 But this moment has been mine 
 
 To see the smudge of fire divine 
 
 In life so pitifully mean. 
 
GRATITUDE 
 
 MIST has hung for chilling hours; 
 Mud is cold upon the street ; 
 And the daylight slinks away 
 In defeat. 
 
 By the dripping, bricky walls 
 An old woman weakly drags, 
 With no comfort but her scant 
 Clammy rags. 
 
 Greeted by a bleary light 
 Through, a green door, left ajar, 
 In she totters, half afraid, 
 To the bar. 
 
 When they fill her flask for pence, 
 Back she goes to her damp hole, 
 Where the gin will sink and burn 
 To her soul. 
 
 But when one is very old, 
 And rag blankets get so thin, 
 There is heartfelt thanks for drink- 
 Hot as gin ! 
 
 10 
 
THE STREET CLEANER 
 
 THERE you go with your broad shovel 
 Heaping them in gutter-sheaves, 
 Though a heart that ached for beauty 
 Thanked his God for scattered leaves. 
 
 Let them follow whispering journeys, 
 Droop and rest in tan decay, 
 Swirl and rustle on the pavement, 
 Hide the road of asphalt grey. 
 
 Let them huddle through the winter, 
 Patient under snow and rain, 
 Till their chemistry of wood-mould 
 Turns the road to earth again. 
 
 Then some poet of the grass stems, 
 Strong and brave through winter night, 
 May wake and thrust a green blade upward 
 Through the pavement into light. 
 
 ii 
 
MY TOWN 
 
 MY town is freckled green and gold 
 In the pleasant summer-shine, 
 When the day is jewel-bright 
 Over elm and ivy vine 
 
 But the streets are grey and cold, 
 When the snow blows, swift and fine- 
 How the shanties, gaunt and old, 
 Cower along the river line ! 
 
 12 
 
SUMMER IN THE TENEMENTS 
 
 They have cried war on sunlight. Their fair 
 
 fields 
 
 Are builded over with dark alley sheds. 
 Once fertile earth now nothing living yields, 
 And sweats beneath the tenement s hot weight. 
 Grey ash-heaps have usurped the violet beds. 
 These people hold the sun from earth. Their fate 
 For this unkindness is that every breath 
 Is a weariness and burning taste of death. 
 
 For these were green fields once. These trodden 
 
 stones, 
 
 These cluttered hives are over ancient graves 
 Of apple trees and roses. Dully drones 
 Life now among these smothered little rooms. 
 They have cried war on sunlight; nothing saves 
 Them from his searing wrath. His hot gaze 
 
 dooms 
 
 Their children to the torture of this heat. 
 They balked the sunlight and they know defeat. 
 
 The sunlight loved the fields but cannot love 
 These sullen walls and streets. He blazes down 
 In deathful protest. From a sweep above 
 He strikes some men to death and some go mad, 
 13 
 
14 Summer in the Tenements 
 
 Suffering for the sin of their grim town, 
 Which robs the sun of sweet fields he once had. 
 But men who built these sheds to insult the eye 
 Of the sun, are not the men who pay and die. 
 
THE FLOOD 
 
 THE cold black water lapping at her face, 
 
 That I remember. There were others too, 
 
 Many others, but most died in fear, 
 
 And muddy waters choked them in their prayers, 
 
 Curseful, unholy prayers for their mean lives. 
 
 Some died in fury, some in pain, none prayed 
 
 As she did, for another, as she felt 
 
 The cold black water lapping at her face. 
 
 My friends were out of danger. At the foot 
 
 Of the little hill we stood on water swirled 
 
 Full of foul broken things. We searched and 
 
 searched 
 
 To find some floating help to send to those 
 Who cried across to us. We swam for two 
 And pulled them, sodden, up to where we 
 
 breathed. 
 
 We could have done no more, but if my eyes 
 Had wandered sooner over that black tide 
 And seen her white face as she held on high 
 Her baby, I d have jumped, chance or no 
 
 chance. 
 
 When I first got the shock of grief that was 
 Her distant face, I saw her clinging close 
 To a swaying wall and holding by one hand, 
 15 
 
1 6 The Flood 
 
 As the water, breast-high, rocked her on her 
 
 perch, 
 
 To a little raft, some drawer or table top, 
 Enough to float her baby. As her lips 
 Moved in the very anguish of her prayer 
 The water reached her throat. She set the 
 
 raft, 
 
 Frail tipping bit of wreckage, on its way. 
 Without a farewell kiss, or touch, she gave 
 Her baby to the flood and as she watched 
 The raft careened, as if afraid to bear 
 Its dear freight over such a deadly road. 
 The cold black water lapping at her face 
 It was no more than half a moment s time 
 She clung there, swaying, but I saw the hope 
 That filled the moment, saw how unafraid 
 She tasted death, and how she thought her 
 
 prayers 
 For the baby s life were answered. 
 
 Then she sank, 
 
 Not as the others died, not in despair, 
 Nor fear, nor fury, but with sweet content 
 Austere and holy on her face. The flood, 
 Black hideous moving death, rose up and 
 
 crushed 
 
 The baby s raft before the moving light, 
 Where her white happy face had been, was gone. 
 
THE PROPHET 
 
 JEREMIAH, will you come? 
 
 Will you gather up the multitudes and wake 
 
 them with a drum? 
 Will you dare anoint the chosen ones from all 
 
 the cattle-kind? 
 And threaten with the fire of God the foolish 
 
 and the blind? 
 
 Jeremiah, Jeremiah, we have waited for you 
 
 long 
 To see the flaming fury of your hate against the 
 
 wrong, 
 For we dally in the Temple and we flee the eye of 
 
 Truth, 
 And we waste along the Wilderness the glory of 
 
 our youth. 
 
 Jeremiah, Jeremiah, here the lying prophets 
 
 speak, 
 Here they flatter in their feebleness the gilded 
 
 and the sleek; 
 But languid pipings die in shame when trumpet 
 
 cries are heard. 
 Are you coming? Are you coming? Prophet 
 
 of the Word? 
 
INVOCATION 
 
 GIVE me no guerdon until I have won it 
 
 In love and labour and pain. 
 
 Grant me no peace till my spirit has sung itself 
 
 Out into freedom again. 
 
 In days that are full of this slothful distemper, 
 Nights that are weary of rest, 
 Months sliding by in this vacant monotony, 
 I am forgetting my quest. 
 
 The candle is guttered before my fond altar; 
 I should have leaped to the flame 
 And burned up my life as a torch to the angel, 
 Whose face turns away from this shame. 
 
 Give me no comfort in bitter repentance 
 For days that are empty of dream ; 
 Give me no comfort until my dim vision 
 Has wakened again to the gleam. 
 
 18 
 
FOR ME THE TEARS 
 
 IF God will not decree that you and I 
 Shall go, thus hand in hand, unto the end, 
 If there must come a time when one alone 
 Must, shuddering, walk to the darkest brink, 
 May that be peace for you for me the tears. 
 
 If it be so, and one of us must turn 
 
 Back into common daylight from the grave, 
 
 Go on with living when there is no life, 
 
 Forlorn of joy in spring, and sun, and night, 
 
 Because of springs remembered and nights gone, 
 
 Uplifting weary eyes with decent calm 
 
 And hearing neighbours say how well tis borne, 
 
 That is the bitter portion death is peace. 
 
 If you who go ahead shall find a place 
 All filled with calmness, passionless, and sweet, 
 And making it more human with yourself, 
 Wait there the glad day of my second death, 
 All purged of my unworthiness by grief, 
 I ll come to you in that eternal place. 
 I pray that I may drink the deeper cup; 
 Death may be peace for you for me the tears. 
 
SOME EVENING 
 
 SOME April evening, when the sky 
 With a blue and silver fringe 
 Lies upon the earth so nigh 
 That far hills take on its tinge, 
 Under elm trees, black and tall, 
 You will stand in this same place 
 And a few cool drops may fall 
 Soft, upon your upturned face. 
 
 If you call them only rain, 
 Thinking I am gone past tears, 
 Then their falling shall be vain, 
 And I ll be gone with my dead years. 
 For they shall be tokens sent, 
 By a ghostly, fond device, 
 From one who finds his heaven spent 
 And weeps alone in Paradise. 
 
 20 
 
IN THE HOUSE OF PAIN 
 
 FOR grave I choose a green and sunny slope 
 Where apple trees, full fruited, bloom the hill. 
 Then may the strength that holds in my still 
 
 heart 
 
 Grow healthily into the sturdy trees, 
 And may the apples be as sweet and kind 
 As is my grateful farewell to my life. 
 If ever friendly plough shall turn my mould 
 Into the open sunlight, may the wind 
 Scatter the dust across the window-sill 
 Of some contented cottage, where a child 
 May trace the foolish pattern of a man 
 In my forgotten, ancient dust and smile. 
 
DEDICATION 
 
 BECAUSE I remember that day in March, 
 
 We stood alone in our secret place, 
 
 The winds that wrestled in elm and larch 
 
 Were helping the sun s keen ray efface 
 
 The lingering snow, the last spent trace 
 
 Of winter s beauty ; because your face 
 
 With hair blown back and eyes sprung free 
 
 Illumined the world and compassed me 
 
 With the glory that none but you could see; 
 
 Because I have found for my soul s emprise, 
 
 Holding on vision in dawn and night, 
 
 No other sanction than faith which lies 
 
 Like an unfed flame in your face, the light 
 
 On my face lifted up to your height, 
 
 Making me worthier in your sight; 
 
 Though my heart learn iron as the world is 
 
 shod 
 
 I know that my one faith cannot nod. 
 I give to you what I have from God. 
 
 22 
 
PHANTOMS 
 
 LOST 
 
 THE mist came up and choked the street; 
 
 I could not flee through there, 
 For an iron lamp post grinned at me 
 
 And waved its yellow glare. 
 A woman sobbed and almost saw 
 
 When I hurried through her hair. 
 
 I could not go the way I came 
 
 That door was bolted fast; 
 And those who threw me out from home 
 
 Set heel against the past, 
 Not knowing I had heard them count 
 
 My breathing till the last. 
 
 How could a phantom face the dawn? 
 
 My grey limbs shrank in fright. 
 I could not find the way, there was 
 
 So little left of night. 
 Terror strangled me, I smelled 
 
 The coming of the light. 
 
 There was no time ! There was no time ! 
 Why was I born so late? 
 23 
 
24 Phantoms 
 
 I looked in through a door and saw 
 
 A banquet set in state; 
 A man with thick and greasy smile 
 
 Worshipped at each plate. 
 
 I drew the breeze in through my heart 
 And laughed no flesh was there ! 
 
 My hands were clasped before my face 
 But each of them held air. 
 
 Terror stopped my eerie laugh 
 I was not anywhere. 
 
 I knew no way, I knew no way, 
 Let loose too near the morn, 
 
 There was no time to find the way; 
 I wound about forlorn, 
 
 Wondering at my weariness, 
 For I was yet new-born. 
 
 I saw the light cut through the mist, 
 The dawn, blood-thirsty, broke. 
 
 Too late I d lost the way for those 
 Whose souls are made of smoke, 
 
 And I was mist and in my throat 
 The misty air did choke. 
 
 I saw my own thin hands dissolve 
 And turned me to the wall; 
 
 The sneering sun seared out my face, 
 There was nought left to fall. 
 
 Only this wailing memory 
 Floats and remembers all. 
 
Phantoms 25 
 
 TRIUMPH 
 
 At my first touch his head fell back, 
 
 I saw his eyeballs shine. 
 I froze the warm blood at his heart, 
 
 The marrow in his spine, 
 And put him in the fear of death, 
 
 To tell him he was mine. 
 
 I came upon him in the night 
 
 And knew him for my own. 
 I saw the everlasting soul, 
 
 That through his body shone; 
 And knew that when all else was mist 
 
 He d cling to me alone. 
 
 Mine for aeons yet unborn. 
 
 The love he knows on earth 
 Shall seem a joyless, puny, thing 
 
 When I, with solemn mirth, 
 Welcome him among the stars, 
 
 When his dead self has birth. 
 
 Then he will feel no bitter trace 
 
 Of wife-things left behind, 
 Nor see the shadow of a face, 
 
 When we ride on the wind. 
 And he will give me fleshless love, 
 
 But I will not be kind. 
 
26 Phantoms 
 
 THE BUILDERS 
 
 Close to the earth he is building his towers, 
 Towers of vapours that shift and surge, 
 Vapours of damp, poor ghosts of showers, 
 Materials meet for the intricate powers 
 Of one who is master, not mere demiurge. 
 
 Out of the trimmings that fall from his planing, 
 Trimmings of vapour that fall in the street, 
 I have been fashioning eagerly, feigning 
 That my vapours weren t what the Builder, 
 
 disdaining, 
 Had dropped from his work and spurned out 
 
 withjhis feet. 
 
 I have been fashioning halos for lanterns, 
 And veils for the gas-lamps. I almost believe 
 There are hearts in the flickering women my 
 
 hand turns 
 
 Out of the mist ; but the step of a man turns 
 Them chilly with fear they congeal on his 
 
 sleeve. 
 
 But the Builder he sees me at work with the 
 
 vapours 
 
 And gathers the rubbish before I have done. 
 He stirs up the morning and snuffs the star 
 
 tapers, - 
 
 Awaking the world to go on with its capers, 
 And fills up my streets with the wind and the 
 
 sun. 
 
FINGER TIPS 
 
 OUT on the rim of the mist of my soul 
 
 Linger thy finger tips; 
 And I, in the shadows that whirl and roll, 
 Am trying to reach to the rim of my soul 
 
 And bless them with my lips. 
 
 Words cannot go to them, but the unspoken, 
 
 Echoless, vague, and murmurously sweet, 
 Wait in a silence forever unbroken, 
 Wait, and wistfully long to be spoken, 
 Thy name to repeat. 
 
 Friend out there on that misty sea, 
 
 Lost where my vision dips, 
 Seal one touch to the heart of me ; 
 Reach, ah, reach, through the misty sea, 
 
 Just with thy finger tips. 
 
THE STIRRING 
 
 SEE yonder little, fleecy, summer s cloud 
 That lazily blows in the passing breeze 
 Across horizons of a hundred hills 
 In aimless travel on the vapour seas, 
 The sport of every breath of wind that blows, 
 As if it could but sail and cared not where; 
 Think you that in some mystic way it knows 
 That it must wander in the lower air? 
 Think you that ever, nebulous and faint, 
 In that dim shadow soul of skyey things, 
 It does not long with longing half conceived, 
 To mount into the height with billowy wings, 
 Into the blue blue azure deep as life 
 Far, far immensities of open sky? 
 Would it not soar in that ethereal 
 That never-ending space, and never die, 
 If but the strength of an unknown desire 
 Could work in deeds as does the grosser fire; 
 Think you it may thus, impotent, aspire? 
 
 When life throbs slow, and slower still, and faint, 
 And like a watchful sentinel Death waits 
 To strike the spirit groping in the dark, 
 Think you the captive Essence never hates 
 The struggle to remain ill-housed and bound, 
 28 
 
The Stirring 29 
 
 When far above, and deep below, and vast, 
 A Chaos, limitless and ever new, 
 Stretches ahead when once the door is passed? 
 Think you that e er the warm full life returns, 
 Bringing back the mortal cloak that clings, 
 And life s too fair illusions place regain 
 And lull the dormant call of final things, 
 Think you that in the moment s glimpse beyond, 
 The soul unfettered does not stir from sleep 
 And wake to longing for the far, far, flight 
 When loosed from earthy bonds across the deep, 
 From sphere to sphere it wings a tireless way ? 
 Does it not long to go before it may, 
 And dread the sordid dawning of a day? 
 
MOONWRAITH 
 
 MOONWRAITH lies along the floor; 
 Swooning shadows in the street 
 Tremble as they pass the door, 
 For the white print of her feet, 
 On the steps and ancient floor, 
 Left Perfume sweet. 
 
 And the very air she breathes, 
 Through the quiet of the room, 
 In its silent moving wreathes 
 Odorous sweetness in the gloom, 
 As in springtime when she breathes 
 Orchard bloom. 
 
 Moonwraith lies so still and pale 
 That I hold my lips in pain, 
 Lest the silver vision fail, 
 And my eyes with sorrow vain 
 Gaze on stones where, lily-pale, 
 She hath lain. 
 
THE GUEST 
 
 NIGHT came, and wind 
 And after that the rain, 
 Falling like the memory 
 Of long-worn pain. 
 
 Open was the door, 
 And open wide my heart, 
 Eager for the guest from whom 
 I shall not part. 
 
 All the sound I heard 
 In all the dripping pain, 
 Was never eager footsteps 
 But sad, cool rain. 
 
VENGEANCE 
 
 I SENT my enemy to Hell 
 And, for the evil he had done 
 To me and everyone 
 Who came within his cruel clutch, 
 They made him suffer overmuch. 
 
 Then, after he had burned a while, 
 
 I went to visit Hell again, 
 
 To smile at him in pain. 
 
 He made me see his face all singed. 
 
 I ll not forget now he s revenged. 
 
THE CHILD IN SUMMER 
 
 I WONDER why the wind runs on the hedge 
 In just the way I d have it run, 
 And why it moves among the friendly trees 
 As if it had no one but me to please. 
 Everything I see the breezes do 
 Seems always just the way I want it done. 
 
 Whenever all the flowers droop and die 
 
 And I make blossoms of my own, 
 
 I ll make them just like these a-growing now; 
 
 I love them so, I will remember how. 
 
 And if there s no one else to call them sweet 
 They ll still keep growing sweet for me alone. 
 
 33 
 
SONG OF THE ROAD 
 
 How shall I know what lies beyond 
 Where the long road turns to blue 
 Save that I travel that way myself 
 And follow the long road through? 
 
 For I was born on the broad highway, 
 And the moving wind is kin. 
 What is a house but a prison wall 
 To keep my heart shut in? 
 
 And I have a house at the end of the road, 
 Where my secret way doth lie, 
 And there I shall go when I quit my song 
 And cover my face to die. 
 
 But how shall I know why over there 
 The long road meets the sky 
 Save that I travel that way myself 
 And ask the last hill why? 
 
 34 
 
A NAMELESS BIRD 
 
 I HAVE no name to call one loveliest bird, 
 Which at my sunlit morning window sings 
 His first fresh carolling, though I have heard 
 Each song with grateful rapture as it brings 
 Day and dew and breezes to my eyes, 
 And bids me go forth to accept the earth 
 When Summer offers it for my surprise. 
 He celebrates our wonder in sweet mirth 
 While we look out together on the green. 
 For this I call him Brother, and I praise 
 Him, nameless, for the exquisite and keen 
 Bright beauty of his greeting to my days. 
 If he had any name he d be but one 
 Of many like him, and not mine alone. 
 
 35 
 
WET JUNE DAYS 
 
 WHAT strange god s weeping makes our June 
 
 so sad ? 
 
 Whose tears must overflow so fast, 
 Like misty traces of all Aprils past, 
 Long since forgotten? Once we had 
 A radiant brother Sun, who made us glad 
 With cheerly given greeting. Hills 
 Which now the grey-green vapour hides and 
 
 chills 
 
 Danced in the flaming sunbeams, mad 
 With beauty, as of old danced the Maenad. 
 
 But now the skies are all dissolved in rain. 
 
 The river has grown hostile ; black, 
 
 It hurries like a serpent, and its track 
 
 Will mark its banks with serpent stain. 
 
 One lonesome bird, wet-feathered, tries with pain 
 
 Just to remember how he thrilled 
 
 His friends, the leaves, before spring-song was 
 
 killed, 
 
 Drowned all in fog. He tries in vain, 
 And young trees shake with agues in the lane. 
 
SONG 
 
 MAIDEN, thou and this bright day 
 
 Would make me wish that I 
 
 Might here my wayward hours spend 
 
 And rest me, till I die, 
 
 For here I ve found my journey s end, 
 
 Where beauty sweet doth lie. 
 
 Oh, give me not an idle smile 
 
 That vanishes with day, 
 
 And kiss me not, or I shall weep 
 
 When kisses pass away, 
 
 But bless me with one kindling glance 
 
 And at thy feet I ll stay. 
 
 37 
 
t/ 
 
 TO A CERTAIN FAIR LADY 
 
 YOUR heart is like a poplar tree, 
 Full of sunlit greenery, 
 A thin lace pattern on the sky 
 That trembles when the winds go by. 
 
 And every zephyr, every day, 
 That comes adventuring its way, 
 Feels it as tremulously waken 
 As if it never had been shaken. 
 
GOLDEN ROD 
 
 "HAS the wide green plain been fruitful?" 
 
 Ask the gods of wind and rain. 
 "Has the bounty of maize been all fulfilled? 
 "Is labour repaid for them that piled?" 
 "We bear witness!" answers the grain. 
 
 "The bursting sod has yielded, 
 
 11 And wherever the green stalks nod, 
 "With dim new glory of dusty gold, 
 "The plain is fringed with a glow Behold! 
 "The blessing of Golden Rod!" 
 
MOTHER OF A SON 
 
 O WOMEN who mourn in the cities above me, 
 
 On the farms, in the towns, by the lakes, 
 
 Wherever the folly of man sows wind 
 
 And the heart breaks, 
 
 This is my son! 
 
 This is my sacrifice unto your sorrows ! 
 
 His sinews are born of the nights of my weeping, 
 
 They are strong for unnumbered and mist- 
 laden morrows. 
 
 Entrust all your secret tears into his keeping 
 
 As his mother has done. 
 
 My love shall be soul of his love and shall heal 
 you, 
 
 In your pain, or in shame, or in pride, 
 
 For in him the heart of my heart lived on 
 
 When my youth died. 
 
 O women who mourn in the dawn glow or twi 
 light, 
 
 By the hearth, at the well, in the field, 
 
 Whenever the stir of your grief moans, pray 
 
 That my faith yield 
 
 Blessing the rack of God s tear-stricken plan 
 
 From manchild a man ! 
 
 40 
 
MORNING 
 
 THE bright-vestured morning comes singing, 
 singing 
 
 Into the world of sleep. 
 Its song of sweet silence is bringing 
 
 A spirit of joyousness into the hills, 
 
 A fresh wakened sparkle into the rills, 
 An open sky for the things that fly, 
 
 And day for the things that creep. 
 
 The song of the morning is ringing, ringing 
 In the bells of a thousand flowers. 
 
 The dew that is mistily clinging 
 
 Is shaken and shines in the new gold sun, 
 While into the day, hours lustily run, 
 
 And over the down the waking town 
 Sits smiling among her towers. 
 
BALLAD 
 
 THEY stirred me from my bed at morn; 
 The sword they brought was red. 
 They hissed of where my father lay, 
 Stricken dead. 
 
 I fought the damp mist in my soul; 
 My heart was small and cold. 
 Though blood was reeking on the blade, 
 Revenge was old. 
 
 I fingered with shut eyes the nicks 
 Where foes had left their mark, 
 Like features on a dead man s face, 
 Touched in the dark. 
 
 I found the lonely, lonely room 
 And touched the silent thing; 
 I had not known how much like gall 
 Cold lips can sting. 
 
 Then forth into the stranger world, 
 Bold in a sudden breath, 
 I went to find my foe and make 
 Another death. 
 
 42 
 
Ballad 43 
 
 There is no hatred in my breast 
 And wan sick is my eye; 
 But cold steel must be warmed again. 
 A man must die. 
 
WINTER 
 
 THE wide white hill is cold and far, 
 
 Why must I go ? 
 
 Daylight pales to the ice-point star; 
 When thin lone winds that whistle weird 
 Come after, I shall be afeard 
 
 Of the snow. 
 
 You never will find me on that white hill 
 
 Though you search till day, 
 And the sun come over when I am still; 
 Though my heart take courage and start to beat, 
 Winter will turn your friendly feet 
 
 Away. 
 
 You never have told me why I must go, 
 
 And you do not see 
 
 Where the path is lost in the waste of snow; 
 You know not the winds that haunt my fear, 
 Nor the friend that searches that wide, white bier 
 
 For me. 
 
 44 
 
MRS. COBURN IN THE "ELEKTRA" 
 
 O FRAGILE woman, shaken with the heart 
 That was a stricken Titan, how earnest thou 
 Within the glory of the antique art 
 That faded to its twilight, long ere now? 
 There lies a Greek sereneness on thy brow 
 Though all the meaning of thy mouth is woe, 
 A woe begun before thy murderous vow, 
 E en when thy rude gods struck thee, blow on 
 
 blow 
 
 Around thee, slowly, Argive shadows go 
 But for thy bruised soul no comfort hold. 
 Now he who hears thy living voice can know 
 The deathless tears that pity wept, of old; 
 And in the strength of thy pale passion sees 
 The ancient fire that burned Euripides. 
 
 45 
 
RULERS 
 
 So have you walked in sorrow, 
 So have you walked apart, 
 For the first word of creation 
 Stirs in your brooding heart. 
 
 The power-stained hands of rulers 
 By sword, or voice, or votes, 
 Tear at the law s confusion 
 With prayers that burn their throats. 
 
 But the ancient faith of the spirit 
 In your soul was planted deep; 
 The thrill and thrall of the lasting flesh 
 Were given your hands to keep. 
 
 Men-children talked of ruling 
 And fought for the futile rod, 
 While you lay beyond their knowing 
 Discussing my birth with God. 
 
 So shall you walk in sorrow, 
 So may you walk apart, 
 For the whisper of creation 
 Stirs in your brooding heart. 
 
 46 
 
HYMN TO BAAL (1914) 
 
 OH, Baal, God of battles, God of blood, 
 Have we not sacrificed unto Thy name? 
 Have we not given tithe of all things good 
 And worshipped Thee in everlasting shame? 
 
 Have not high greed and lust been honoured 
 
 arts? 
 
 Do we not make for hate unhindered room? 
 Have we not given little children s hearts, 
 Worn out in torture at the clucking loom? 
 
 Have we not driven woman souls, distraught, 
 
 Hating them for beauty and for pain, 
 
 To death? See what our righteousness has 
 
 wrought 
 Such bloody immolation at Thy fane. 
 
 Give ear, oh Baal, unto Thy worshippers, 
 They who have prated other Gods than Thee, 
 Still labouring beneath Thy potent curse, 
 Their deeds have helped Thy various Hells to be. 
 
 Withhold Thy hand, must we give all all all 
 Our youth unto Thy holy murder rites? 
 Must they be bayoneted as they crawl 
 To rot in alien trenches for the kites? 
 47 
 
48 Hymn to Baal (1914) 
 
 We bow at Thy command. Too long our days 
 Were given to the seed of this despair 
 For us to shudder, loathing Thy dark ways. 
 We bow but lift our purpled hands in prayer. 
 
 Grant us that in the greatest of Thy feasts, 
 When half the earth is shambles, the black doors 
 Of Thy fell heaven shall open for Thy priests, 
 Thy czars and bloody-fingered emperors. 
 
 Take to Thyself, oh Baal, in Thy red hour, 
 Thy chosen children, high-put priests of war, 
 With escort of our young sons, slain in flower 
 And keep them in Thy bosom evermore. 
 
 Take to Thyself Thy kings. The peoples yet 
 Will worship in Thy temples. Now they reel 
 For they have seen Thy face. Let them forget 
 This cataclysmic fury of their zeal. 
 
 Thy kings can do no more to honour Thee, 
 For now as men stalk over desolate lands 
 Their dark, blood-shot imaginations see 
 Christ, with a levelled carbine in his hands. 
 
CATALPAS 
 
 CATALPA blooms, that are always dying, 
 Falling leprous on the lawn, 
 Were you stirred at my secret crying 
 When I walked before the dawn? 
 
 Catalpa blooms, that live for an hour, 
 Was my sigh but a windy breath, 
 Blowing down one more cold flower, 
 Wan and white and fain of death? 
 
 How could you know your life is but giving 
 One faint scent as a day goes by 
 That some buds flame with the glory of living 
 And blaze their hearts to the open sky? 
 
 Catalpa blooms, that no graves are kept for, 
 Lying leprous on the lawn, 
 How could you know what flowers I wept for 
 When I shuddered at the dawn? 
 
 49 
 
THE POPPY 
 
 ASTARTE S face in the blood-red moon astare. 
 No breath all silence in the heated gloom. 
 Shuddering in a swoon the passionate air 
 Holds in the garden as a narrow room; 
 And down the path, the bending poppy-bloom 
 Burns through the velvet dusk a crimson flare. 
 
 The poppy has no words, but potent fire, 
 Bold in the darkness, rises in her heart, 
 Makes throbbing anguish of her soul, entire; 
 Sears the thin petals of her face apart. 
 Her slight stem, shrinking from the unseen dart, 
 Betrays the ardour of her vain desire. 
 
 An alien wind is questing on the path; 
 The swinging, swaying poppy petals hold 
 A languor that no other love-flower hath. 
 The stranger wind knows how the tale is told, 
 Scatters the poppy suddenly, with cold 
 Astarte bleeds the moon in futile wrath. 
 
A PORTRAIT 
 
 HE S one of those on whom the Muses smile, 
 
 But never shall make mad. His discontent 
 
 Awaits him at the corners of the day. 
 
 We never hear him whimper, but he scolds 
 
 At sterner friends, or for a broken gleam 
 
 Of beauty, half-achieved, mourns fretfully. 
 
 So faintly touched with grace that fineness bears 
 
 The calumny of weakness, but too fond. 
 
 He thinks the Muses smile will give him fame. 
 
THE LOVE-WROUGHT WORD 
 
 THEY say that where the Titan condor swings 
 Above the bleakest Andes misty blue, 
 Gazing down the valleys of Peru, 
 Alone, returning from far wanderings, 
 Sometimes a humming bird, mere moth which 
 
 brings 
 
 A breath of flowers and a taste of dew, 
 Comes fluttering up the ice on webbed wings. 
 So into pale austerity of mind, 
 Where logic conquers as a taloned bird, 
 A poet s gossamer device may find 
 A perilled way when, with ambition stirred, 
 It mounts to mirror in the ice behind 
 The flashing beauty of a love- wrought word. 
 
EVERY. PILGRIM 
 
 WITH eyes that strain for morrows 
 And for searching sin and woe, 
 With a mouth that sweetness borrows 
 From the smile that greets a blow, 
 With hands too light for toiling, 
 And feet too swift for soiling, 
 With no dread of despoiling, 
 With no staff shall he go. 
 
 Into the heat and sweating 
 And clinging grime of day, 
 Into the heat, forgetting 
 The clean morn as he may; 
 With uncertain brows that tighten 
 When the first load will not lighten, 
 And a gaze that cannot brighten 
 On a goal too far away. 
 
 Though the fresh dew on his shoulders 
 Will soon vanish in the sun, 
 He must smell the dust that moulders 
 On the graves, ere he is done. 
 The West hoots his desires, 
 And the East must mend her Fires, 
 And the North and South are liars; 
 Nowhither may he run. 
 53 
 
54 Every Pilgrim 
 
 But it is not useless going 
 That the gods would fain forget, 
 Nor the false seed of his sowing, 
 Nor the tears his eyes shall wet; 
 For they must know in their musing 
 That he loves, and fears not losing, 
 That he dreads no death in choosing, 
 And laughs at sure regret. 
 
 There is no need for weeping 
 Because life will grow stale, 
 There is no need for keeping 
 Young lips from growing pale; 
 But sadder than all sadness, 
 And wearier than madness, 
 Seems youth who laughs with gladness 
 Though knowing he must fail. 
 
THE EXILE 
 
 A LONG low shaking wind ran through the grass, 
 And overhead the all -but-silent leaves 
 Touched one another gently as afraid 
 Of the unwonted silence in the wood. 
 Then slow across the edge of open land, 
 Forspent with wanderings and still alone, 
 Lifting his bright feet through the meadow 
 
 blooms 
 
 And scenting with tired joy the evening air, 
 There came the god Apollo, shut from Heaven, 
 And cast upon a wonder-hating world. 
 Very sad and strange as was his sigh, 
 His voice a promise seemed of all delight. 
 The ancient tree he leaned on conscious grew 
 Of his divinity but trembled not, 
 Just bending on the radiance of his head 
 Its listening branches as he paused and spoke: 
 
 "I have not loved these shaded hills in vain 
 Nor ever have returned to this dim wood 
 Without remembrance and a kindlier welcome; 
 This green earth woos me freshly to my rest; 
 So were the earth and hills in ancient summers. 
 But an unwelcome change is in my brothers, 
 These weary sons of women who, in toil, 
 55 
 
56 The Exile 
 
 Forget their kinship. My own song has come 
 
 Like a sweet whisper and their clanging ears 
 
 Have never heeded it. So loud they shout 
 
 Their need of corn and wine, and clamour long 
 
 Within the markets, music knows them not. 
 
 Pan s pipes are fallen unto bastard satyrs, 
 
 And careless Bacchus sleeps, his dull-eyed crew 
 
 Drinks and drinks and drinks, but still is dumb. 
 
 A god may weary in such weary days 
 
 And I am weary with their misery. 
 
 They have not loved Olympus; all the gods 
 
 That once ranged over Heaven from that hill 
 
 Are wandering forlorn and not a shrine 
 
 But pilfered ruins on Athenian hills 
 
 Is open to them, and no worshippers 
 
 Wait there to keep a sacrificial flame. 
 
 How can they know that nectar does not bide 
 
 Within the cup they never dare to lift? 
 
 Though dryad trees go screaming through the 
 
 mills 
 
 Their spirit, breathless, broods in every wall 
 That men have raised against the muse of 
 
 song. 
 
 Still Triton s hair entangles in the whirl 
 Of their great ships that lash a heavy way 
 Over seas, still Neptune s own dominion. 
 Exiled in immortality we wait 
 Until the face of man be lifted up 
 And from his lips, pain-scarred of laboured days, 
 Breaks forth again the glory of his song." 
 
The Exile 57 
 
 The god ceased speaking as his chariot sun 
 In slow diminished radiance on the sky 
 Proclaimed his greatness to the dark-hushed 
 
 world. 
 
 But from the city whose irreverent towers 
 Were glimmering with futile glow-worm stars 
 Came surging heavy smoke, a thick oblivion, 
 That dulled and then obscured the sun s farewell. 
 It stalked into the wood where Apollo rested 
 And as the little leaves shrank and upcurled, 
 And tainted was the sweet breath of the wood 
 He fled to find a holier resting place. 
 
ANDREA S MORNING 
 ("Andrea del Sarto" by Robert Browning.) 
 
 LAST night, perhaps, I may have been more 
 
 kind. 
 
 Musing in the evening s sober quiet, 
 A peaceful melancholy cradled me 
 And soothed self-questioning. Now, my love, 
 The brackish dregs of old desires, astir, 
 Taste bitter, when the morning brings a pale 
 And virgin day, which I must soil and mar. 
 Sit here; let the fresh day-beams illume you. 
 They may light new beauty in your eyes, 
 Your tired indifferent eyes, I call my stars. 
 No, I am not pettish, tis my mood. 
 My eyes are tired, too, my body s eyes, 
 And so my soul s eyes smart with too much 
 
 seeing. 
 
 Last night, I gazed upon a twilight piece, 
 "Silvered," I think I called it, well content. 
 This morning all seems like a tinsel screen 
 Whose charms are sick and tawdry, seen by day. 
 Last night I mused; this morning a harsh truth 
 Bids me to see. Ah, love, look not so wan 
 You should not waste your beauty on those 
 
 friends. 
 
 58 
 
Andrea s Morning 59 
 
 Sometimes, Lucrezia, they ask too much 
 
 And yet you will content them. Guard yourself. 
 
 You are my model, now, as well as wife. 
 
 Do you remember that I wondered why 
 
 A beauty such as yours could not have soul? 
 
 I thought your sweet perfection lacked a mind. 
 
 I blamed you, since in such half-thinking, blame 
 
 And praise are shades of the same melancholy 
 
 It mattered not. But now my thinking s clear. 
 
 The lack is in myself; the fault is mine. 
 
 Not art my service in her name is great 
 
 In being only what they call it, "faultless," 
 
 Though it were soulless still, which it is not 
 
 To those who see. The soul is in a hand 
 
 That draws aright, whatever it may draw, 
 
 And I have drawn aright. Too well I know 
 
 There is soul in the struggle not the deed. 
 
 My fight has been to live, not to paint. 
 
 Painting was too easy, but the soul 
 
 Has had a sorry battle in my life. 
 
 Aye, they will sneer at what I call my fight, 
 
 They for whom we do not care will think 
 
 Losing was so simple; and winning, hard. 
 
 But the thing I ve lost is not my art. 
 
 You, my love, I ve lost. That is my sin. 
 
 You do not care. Even now your head, 
 
 Turned aside with a forgotten smile, 
 
 Proves we do not love. Proves I have failed. 
 
 Those who can do the godlike deed, who feel 
 
 In their own hands the power to execute, 
 
60 Andrea s Morning 
 
 Know, as I know, that what they do is naught : 
 
 Know that when their work falls, finished, done, 
 
 To them it is indifferent. Within, 
 
 Within their own breasts is the loss~and gain. 
 
 The execution of our hands is naught 
 
 When tis complete. In it there is meaning 
 
 Only when it stops, midway to truth. 
 
 So I have lost, not what I might have done 
 
 Which were too much but what I might have 
 
 been. 
 
 There must be some unknowing lack in me 
 Else you would love me. Though I choose to 
 
 hold 
 
 You dearer than all else, I cannot gain 
 More favour than is given any cousin. 
 Forgive me if my words are plain. But there, 
 You were not listening to them. Better so. 
 The glory you must fail to understand, 
 Royal favour, praise, and ease for work, 
 All these are worthless to me, for I know 
 How my hands could gain them if my heart 
 Thus could be satisfied. But no, the dream 
 That sometimes I have dared to look upon, 
 Knowing how wistful far it was from truth, 
 Has had no king, nor king s gold only you. 
 If but once, Lucrezia, you could come 
 Unbidden to my arms, if your soft voice 
 Could call me, losing softness in desire, 
 If passion could but once flame in your eyes 
 And circle us with fire, and burn me through, 
 
Andrea s Morning 61 
 
 Then in that searing baptism of love 
 I might be once divine and reach my height. 
 Yes, many men have this, who have no art. 
 I fail, because a being formed as I, 
 Tuned to a higher key, gifted with clearer sight, 
 Should feel it more and feel it not at all. 
 Such little gifts as deeds are paltry cheap 
 To God, who gave us souls, souls to feel. 
 And such as I who might have felt His breath 
 Once in my life, ecstatic in my being, 
 Would fill His purpose if I knew His touch, 
 And like a harp, when struck, gave true response. 
 I would not thus have failed if my desire 
 For your love could but once be all fulfilled. 
 Here, you see, the lack and fault is mine, 
 For somewhere in your heart must be a chord 
 I might have touched and won you. Failing 
 
 here, 
 
 I paint the perfect pictures men will buy. 
 Last night the quietude of twilight peace 
 Made all seem just, and I was sad content. 
 But now my fancies shrivel in the sun; 
 The guilt is mine and mine the punishment ; 
 But punishment is not my "soulless" art. 
 If you would give yourself, all, all, but once, 
 That were enough, and end of earth s desire 
 The painting I could do in Paradise. 
 
MIST 
 
 IT was a vaporous midnight, and the dark 
 Unfriendly street forbade my journey home, 
 Put out grey questioning fingers, wet and cold, 
 That touched my face and scattered in my breath 
 Like filmy outposts of retreating gloom. 
 Beleaguered lights, with feeble yellow shine 
 Were brave, then craven, cheering as I came, 
 But shrinking from me, faithless, as I passed. 
 
 Then out of that white darkness came a shape, 
 Not stranger to me, yet not one I knew, 
 And seemed to lag before me as if loth 
 To turn and greet me openwise, but held 
 Unwillingly from flight. There was a sway 
 Of woman garments and small drops like dew 
 Shone on them, silverly. I saw no face; 
 My pace had eagerness, but not a step 
 Was gained in my pursuit, for still beyond 
 My reach and ken she moved. A yellow lamp 
 Glowed dimly on her though the darkness took 
 Her shadow gluttonously. She was was not 
 Was not and was until I tired of chase 
 And called aloud. My words came back to me 
 In little echoes and the night was still; 
 It was more chilly silent for my noise. 
 62 
 
Mist 6 3 
 
 She turned then, pausing, searching me with eyes 
 I felt the gaze of but could not discern 
 Except as living shadows in damp gloom. 
 I feared to lose her utterly in the dark. 
 "Who are you, oh, who are you?" So my lips 
 Spoke out my question ere I knew. 
 
 "lam 
 " One whom you seek, and have sought, many 
 
 years," 
 
 She answered, but I could not see her face. 
 Her voice was sweet and like a fountain fallen 
 From such a height that there is scarcely sound 
 But only vapours, rainbow-struck, to fall. 
 It came, heart-reaching, but no memory 
 Awoke to tell me who had such a voice. 
 
 I was still groping. "Did I know you once?" 
 Boldly I spoke. "And did I lose the grace 
 
 " Of your forgotten presence which now comes 
 "Disquieting?" 
 
 "You have not known me yet; - 
 
 II Although you seek me. I am but the shade 
 " Of long desires, your own; a prophecy; 
 
 " A portent, and fulfilment. I have come 
 " To tell you that the end of fevered prayers 
 " Will soon be granted you, for even now 
 " Your soul is on the brink of your delight. 
 " One hour is given. For one hour the depth 
 " And height of all your destined joy shall be 
 " Before you. In that hour be bravely glad, 
 " For after it come other hours." 
 
64 Mist 
 
 The night 
 Which had been chill and cloud-enveloped, 
 
 glowed 
 
 Now with a sudden splendour, for was born 
 A fire in my own eyes, dispelling dark. 
 So bright my eager vision was that moist 
 Uncertain flickering was trustworthy light 
 To judge a messenger of heaven by. 
 My soul believed. 
 
 "Bring me that hour," I cried. 
 "Bring me that single hour of all. Hold back 
 " No moment from fulfillment. Let all joy 
 11 That I am heir to drown me in a flood." 
 She swayed and swept a hand out toward me. 
 
 "Wait; 
 
 " Remember that your all comes in that hour, 
 " All you shall ever know of love, of peace, 
 " Belief in heaven s kindness, recompense 
 " For all that is thereafter, or before." 
 And there was some far warning, but my soul 
 Surged upward in a clamour of desire 
 To know my all, to gather in one hour 
 My fruit of laughter. Never could my soul 
 Be braver than it was that moment, brave 
 To spend my greatest hour. But the un 
 known 
 
 Who waited, silent, shrinking, turned away 
 And sadness faintly touched me. 
 
 "I am she 
 " Unhappy who shall bring you in that hour 
 
Mist 65 
 
 " The taste of love, the one breath you may know 
 " Of passion without shadow, taint, or pain." 
 The vapours moving as she spoke brought chill 
 Rebuke to my fierce eagerness. There grew 
 A slow distrust of the moment and of her. 
 " I have not chosen fate for you, " she said, 
 "But tears of mine are futile as your own." 
 "Give what is mine," I begged. "I have not 
 
 feared. 
 
 " Give me my own; be it bitter, I can drink 
 " The bitterness with a smile; or if that hour 
 11 Shall come when all of joy " 
 
 "Not all, "she broke 
 
 My speech. "Not all of joy, but all that you 
 " May ever know." Again the dark drew down. 
 I saw her bending toward the yellow lamp 
 As if to keep within the light, as if 
 The night dragged at her garments ; and I strode, 
 Though fear was on me, with an arm outheld 
 To clutch at her and keep her. "When will 
 
 come 
 "This hour? How shall I know it?" But my 
 
 hand 
 Struck hard the wet iron post beneath the 
 
 lamp. 
 
 "When comes this hour?" My cry was an 
 guished. Slow 
 She drew aside from me. "When comes this 
 
 hour?" 
 The heavy fog grew heavier and the lamp, 
 
66 Mist 
 
 As if affrighted by the chill advance, 
 Gave up its guttered life. An answer came 
 From somewhere to my echoed "When the 
 hour? 1 
 
 "Now! Now!" her voice sobbed, and she fled 
 
 away, 
 And there were cold wet kisses on my mouth. 
 
THE PATRIARCH 
 
 A COTTAGE in the dulness of mean streets, 
 
 By pavements flint and dusty, is a home 
 
 Of patriarchal dignity, and peace 
 
 Has rested on its dingy eaves. A Jew 
 
 Whose spirit still by far Siloam dwells 
 
 With stalwart sons keeps here his ancient faith; 
 
 And deep content abode with faith, but now 
 
 Grim sorrow is the steward of his house. 
 
 It was a shingled tabernacle set 
 
 With houses faced the same in outward look 
 
 But lacking in this hidden holiness. 
 
 Not in the eastern city s fetid slum 
 
 But in a street, a street where wagons passed 
 
 And hucksters cried and some few children ran; 
 
 But still it was a desert and no soul 
 
 Of fellowship was there, no kindly shade, 
 
 No welcome neighbour friendships and no love. 
 
 Into the patriarchal house, a boy 
 Came out of deepest Russia, ignorant. 
 In his own race he knew no straight-eyed pride, 
 And things he knew of Western life and ways 
 Were half imaginary; still unlearned 
 He boasted knowledge. Feverish for trade, 
 Thin money sounds made all his music. Here 
 67 
 
68 The Patriarch 
 
 He found the quietness of antique pride 
 
 For in this arid meanness was upheld 
 
 The sanctity and consciousness of race. 
 
 The sons were seven and to fill a purse 
 
 Lean-sprung and empty, all did heavy toil, 
 
 Save only little Aaron still in school. 
 
 They held each penny with more painful care 
 
 Than Anglo-Saxon stature would allow 
 
 But paid to every bargainer his due. 
 
 And often when some sordid, shrewish wife 
 
 Called their dealings false in loud complaint 
 
 They quietly gave up the profit small 
 
 To save the name of Jew from one more curse. 
 
 Patiently the Patriarch would teach 
 
 His sons to mould their lives unto his own ; 
 
 And often when they gathered to their home, 
 
 Too weary of their merchandise, he read 
 
 Talmudic lore and conned the ancient law. 
 
 The small house, burdened with so many lives 
 
 Was never ordered but no fretfulness 
 
 Broke its contentment and the mother s face 
 
 Was full of quiet smiles and austere love. 
 
 By zeal the wayward stranger might have 
 
 reached 
 
 Their kindly calmness but he heeded not. 
 When Irish lads of alien faith were by 
 He mocked the rabbi with them, and of nights, 
 He dipped in vice half understanding it. 
 So recklessness was gathered. Some few months 
 He dwelt within the house, but still a stranger, 
 
The Patriarch 69 
 
 Not sensing its one common well-based thought 
 To lead a life as pleased the Patriarch. 
 To him the old Jew was a kinsman, poor 
 Like himself, and gilded with no glitter 
 That could attract his eye. The seven sons 
 Regarded him as one who tarried not, 
 A guest but for a day. 
 
 Once returned 
 
 From some late vigil in the city streets 
 The boy came home aflame and eager deeds 
 Leaped, all chaotic, in his heart. He stole 
 Into the bedroom where the eldest son 
 Lay reading on his cot. "Jacob, " he called, 
 And poured in Jacob s patient ear the tales 
 Of lurid dramas seen in nickel shows. 
 The boy would reproduce each deed as done 
 And in description of a murder scene 
 Snatched from a shelf a weapon long unused, 
 The relic of a noisy festal day. 
 He flourished it in mad recital, sprung 
 The rusty trigger, and sent heavy death 
 Into drowsy Jacob s heart. 
 
 That sound, 
 
 Reverberating in the little house, 
 Burst like thunder in the Patriarch s dreams; 
 Roused the other sons to fear; the mother, 
 Knowing disaster in its first footstep, 
 With face gone grey, lay on her bed and waited. 
 Into the room, heart-hesitant in speed, 
 Came all the brothers who set up a cry 
 
70 The Patriarch 
 
 Over Jacob gasping in his pain. 
 In hurried dignity the father came, 
 Stumbled, heart-stricken, in the door and cried 
 One cry of anguish. There was then no need 
 To tell how had this sudden reckless death 
 Come with devastation to his house. 
 The boy, still pointing with his murderous hands, 
 In silence waited for the wrath to break, 
 But storm came not, and silent were they all. 
 Suddenly the sons would have put hands 
 Upon the interloper and one went 
 Screaming to the doorway, but a word 
 Checked him and he stood. The Patriarch 
 Knelt down and cast his arms about his son 
 And tears fell in his beard. Nothing moved 
 But sobbing grief. At last he turned to him 
 Who stood with blood upon his thankless hands. 
 "Go now," he said. "Go far from here. I 
 
 would 
 
 That never should I see your face again. 
 Go now go quickly, no one holds you go." 
 But as he went by in the gas-lit hall 
 The stranger shrank before the Patriarch 
 Fearing the dark menace of his eyes, 
 Not knowing how they blazed of other fires. 
 "Father," Jacob called. The stranger passed. 
 Then quietly, but with fear-sickened haste, 
 The father sent for doctors who might wrest 
 Young Jacob back from death, and while he 
 
 prayed 
 
The Patriarch 71 
 
 They ministered. A thin grey morning broke 
 
 And in a van they took the son from home 
 
 To that grey, silent, pain-soaked pile, where 
 
 tears 
 
 Make everlasting mist, the hospital. 
 The Patriarch and his six sons went on 
 Day after day, with drudging toil and grief 
 Fit heartmates. But no word was ever spoke 
 To any stranger or to any friend 
 Of Jacob or the lodger who had gone. 
 
 Two weeks lay Jacob in the house of pain 
 Communing with his torture. At his door 
 He saw the silent trundle carts go by 
 With white- wrapped bodies to the ether pit, 
 Where surgeons, garbed like bakers, warmed 
 
 their knives 
 And scattered wounds like dice to play with 
 
 death. 
 When Jacob went into the pit, death won. 
 
 Then when faith tottered in the father s heart, 
 They came, the flies of city carrion, 
 Reporters, undertakers, crass police 
 And buzzed about him. There they pressed his 
 
 grief 
 
 To tell the story o er and o er until 
 His brain was mad to bursting and his heart 
 Was crushed and sodden with his agony. 
 
72 The Patriarch 
 
 "You must tell who has done this thing," they 
 
 said, 
 
 "You must put into motion all the powers 
 Of coroners, police, publicity, 
 To find the man and fix the lasting stain 
 Of crime upon his head." 
 
 The Patriarch 
 
 Sat with his sons and answered not. He gave 
 Old funeral wines and funeral cakes and fed 
 The other bearded Jews who came to him. 
 But to their questions and the hectic quiz 
 Of small officials he gave one reply, 
 In saying, "Vengeance is Mine, sailh the Lord." 
 That was the antique mercy of his race 
 And in that he was fixed. These alien powers 
 Who whirled their speedy city round his home, 
 And moved in countless ways he did not sense, 
 And fought for prizes he would still have scorned, 
 Serving many other gods than Yahwe, 
 He despised, and would not traffic with them. 
 "Thus saith the Lord, Vengeance is Mine," he 
 
 said 
 In his own speech, and turned to his own 
 
 prayers. 
 
 One of Hebraic blood had done him wrong; 
 Between them should that score remain. His 
 
 race, 
 
 Close interlocked, close blooded, shut the town 
 From gazing on this cruel dishonour. Bowed 
 To grief his head was low, but lifted up 
 
The Patriarch 73 
 
 To breathe a slow defiance to the law 
 
 Of aliens who would help avenge his wrong. 
 
 These had not cost him any thought before 
 
 Nor should they come to sanctuary now, 
 
 Nor move the vestments of despair. His silence 
 
 Brought on his head their pettiness but left 
 
 Them no resource but anger. Unhurt, unmoved, 
 
 He wrapped himself in grief and held his peace. 
 
 He stood secure and in defeat went by 
 
 The whole machinery of pettiness. 
 
 None knew the far-fled boy. None could 
 
 disturb 
 
 The peace of Jacob s soul with clumsy justice. 
 Serene in the confusion of small gods 
 The Patriarch feared One and kept the Word. 
 
 Bred in lowly trafficking and trained 
 In ancient miseries of hate, the line 
 Of Moses lives from Nebo to a day 
 When city streets are deserts of despair. 
 
THE CARDINAL DANCES 
 
 LIFE at the court of France was stiff brocade, 
 And Louis revelled in its banal sheen. 
 Basking in his smiles, his gallants played 
 For hearts or jewels. The king s eye was keen 
 At prizing trifles, but this pomp was mean 
 While Louis walked alone and knew no pride 
 Of sharing glory with a glorious queen. 
 So ministers into great kingdoms hied 
 To seek one, young, and fair enough to walk 
 beside. 
 
 But many grievous plans of state held back 
 The consummation of the king s desire 
 And kept him waiting till he filled the lack 
 Of queenly counsel with a giddy choir 
 Of chirping mistresses. None could aspire 
 To sit co-regent on his carven throne, 
 So each one gave her loveliness entire 
 (He told himself) for his love s sake alone. 
 He laughed at queens and said his fancy needed 
 none. 
 
 Too nimble in these follies was the king, 
 And if sometimes his mood grew slow and cold, 
 74 
 
The Cardinal Dances 75 
 
 His counsellor could whisper hints to bring 
 His blood up, and his nymphs were always bold. 
 His counsellor, red-hatted, white, and old, 
 Dried up with scheming for imperious France, 
 Kept Louis blind, lest he might fear the hold 
 Of the cardinal s rule, and by an evil chance 
 See more than pleased him in one swift and kingly 
 glance. 
 
 The queen came on from Austria in spring, 
 And like the spring she was, like some young tree 
 Which feels a bursting gladness and the fling 
 Of sap that hastens upward. She could be 
 Like tear-wet April apple trees and she 
 Was young as a slim sapling to the core. 
 Into her changing days she could not see, 
 And gave, unthrifty, from her beauty s store 
 As if the spring and sun could shine for evermore. 
 
 You would have thought no hard magnificence 
 Could ever waste her freshness, and no cirque 
 Of gold could bind such brows in the intense 
 Unlovely lines of majesty. The smirk 
 Of painted courtiers would be fruitless work 
 To change a girl so wholesomely athrill 
 With sunlight, and no shadow things could lurk 
 About her feet, who lived with dauntless will 
 And a soft smile on the Fates who shatter or 
 fulfil. 
 
76 The Cardinal Dances 
 
 Caparisoned to greet the Austrian queen 
 
 The court and town were restless till she came. 
 
 And when her beauty bloomed there and was 
 
 seen, 
 The wide streets gladdened with her shouted 
 
 name. 
 
 Her car was followed by a wild acclaim 
 And on their silken easy knees to fall 
 All court-bred Frenchmen filed. The shallow 
 
 game 
 
 Was played to win her smiles. One last of all 
 To pay his loyal homage stalked the cardinal. 
 
 He was no more than any red-robed priest ; 
 There was no friend to whisper her, "Be kind." 
 And so before her cool hand was released 
 She drew it sharp away, and from her mind 
 Put memory of the tense, drawn face whose 
 
 lined 
 
 And sinister remembrance was a fear 
 To those who begged his pity and resigned 
 Their feeble faith in God, saw ruin near, 
 When he condemned them silently with solemn 
 
 sneer. 
 
 The cardinal rose up from his thin knees. 
 The colour scarcely flickered in his cheek; 
 His flush of shame went deeper. But with ease 
 He turned and chose one from the gallants 
 sleek 
 
The Cardinal Dances 77 
 
 As if he might of some state matter speak, 
 But told him nothing, until, with a start 
 Dismissed him in excuses almost meek. 
 And ever eyed the queen and stood apart 
 Because her beauty stirred the beating of his 
 heart. 
 
 The cardinal s youth had withered: it had not 
 
 died, 
 
 And he was prey of sudden passions. The queen 
 Was in his dreams from that first night. He tried 
 To free himself, but her young face, once seen, 
 Was a provoking memory and a keen 
 Suggestion of desire. He filled his days 
 With enterprises mighty but between 
 His eye and France her face arose. A haze 
 Of thoughts too mad for thinking hung on his 
 
 austere ways. 
 
 He spied the queen from angles in the halls, 
 When she went by and her high laughter rang 
 To waken echoes from the dull gilt walls. 
 He listened, hidden, when she trilled and sang 
 Among the garden hedges, and a pang 
 Of jealous envy struck him when to each 
 Pert courtier who at her sweet bidding sprang 
 She gave a smile. Though priest he could not 
 
 preach 
 To his own passion which would some day find 
 
 its speech. 
 
78 The Cardinal Dances 
 
 She never cared to know how Louis power 
 Was gathered in the hands of this one 
 
 priest, 
 This gaunt red shadow whose thin brows could 
 
 lower 
 
 With such a tragic hatred, and whose least 
 Disdain could ruin lives. His love increased 
 Into a desperate tenderness, too like 
 The fawning of a silent scarlet beast, 
 Or like the intent slow whirring of a shrike, 
 Poised, with its talons loosened, ere they curl 
 
 and strike. 
 
 One day the queen walked, thoughtful, and 
 
 her maids 
 
 Chattered unheard behind her. She had caught 
 A mood of homesick longing for the glades 
 And green-lit woods she once knew, and she 
 
 thought 
 
 Unhappily of old days. This court had taught 
 Her heart that bravest smiling may not gain 
 The love and honour of a king, for nought 
 Of all her loveliness could end the reign 
 Of favourites who d have scorned to spare her 
 
 any pain. 
 
 Silently, from behind the maidens, came 
 The cardinal, and in his deep eyes shone 
 The unearthly faggots of his soul in flame. 
 He signalled maids to go. He was alone, 
 
The Cardinal Dances 79 
 
 Alone with his sad queen, and in a tone 
 Which made her turn and stare, he asked her 
 
 leave 
 
 To speak of enterprises, not his own, 
 But of great import. She could not believe 
 That any man might dare thus pluck her by the 
 
 sleeve. 
 
 He spoke with haggard gentleness of mien 
 But his hot gaze was searching for her eyes. 
 Her dignity was held up as a screen, 
 And when she deigned to give him brief replies 
 She looked across the garden absent-wise. 
 She knew he trembled but she never turned, 
 Nor cared to know if he spoke truth or lies. 
 She had not listened and she had not learned 
 That there were dangers in this man, yet 
 undiscerned. 
 
 But, growing incoherent, he looked away 
 And lips which had been eloquent before 
 Were stiffened harshly. They were used to 
 
 sway 
 
 And were not schooled to plead or to implore. 
 He stammered in embarrassment and tore 
 His sleeve with nervous fingers. In his rage 
 He cursed in whispers his poor lack of lore 
 Of such speech as was known to any page 
 And cursed in bitterness the stigma of his age. 
 
8o The Cardinal Dances 
 
 He left the queen, amazed at his despair, 
 
 And sought release to cool his stammering 
 
 wrath, 
 
 Thinking thereafter, for his peace, to share 
 A place with her familiars, haunt her path 
 And then as if to save her from the scath 
 Of Louis coldness (though she was above 
 Mere admiration or the aftermath 
 Of jealousy-awakened spouse s love) 
 To offer his devotion ask her to be the glove 
 
 In which his hand ruled France. Thus by 
 
 degrees 
 
 He put himself within her reach. The sight 
 Of his gaunt eager face ceased to displease 
 The lonely young queen. His uncleric might 
 She carelessly leaned on as royal right, 
 And swayed grim cruelty with unthinking grace. 
 Then his hot hopes grew up again from blight; 
 Serene indifference left her sweet face, 
 He saw a haughty friendship growing in its 
 
 place. 
 
 There came a day when some affair of state 
 Had caught the Austrian s fancy and they 
 
 spoke 
 
 Secretly together on the fate 
 Of a noble who grew impudent. Then broke 
 The cardinal s control. She saw him choke 
 
The Cardinal Dances 81 
 
 With a fierceness of entreaty, saw him fall 
 And push his white face in her broidered cloak. 
 But, seeing pain, she pitied not at all 
 And her light laugh went chiming coolly through 
 the hall. 
 
 A month before she might have called the 
 
 guard, 
 
 Nor doubted that her word would stronger be. 
 But now although her sweet young eyes were 
 
 hard 
 
 She listened when he stammered love, and she 
 Rested her hands in his, nor pulled them free. 
 "Be gracious, let me end deceit, " he said, 
 "Give me but leave to ease my heart to thee. 
 "Be gracious." Then his fear and shame were 
 
 fled; 
 He towered compelling in his priestly robes of red. 
 
 "I am not one who could love any queen, 
 "For I have all of France to take my heart. 
 "But you are that one different who has seen 
 "Me anguished, with sweet eyes which melt 
 
 apart 
 
 "The red veil on my soul. Bid me depart 
 "Or bid me hope, you cannot wipe away 
 "This honour for your glorious self. No art 
 "Of praising have I, but my deeds can say 
 "The speeches for me, and make great your 
 
 royal day. 
 
82 The Cardinal Dances 
 
 "Bid me serve France for you as I have served 
 "Her for herself. For your sake bid me turn 
 " Her kingdoms into empires. My arm, nerved 
 " With thinking on you, can make beacons burn 
 "On a thousand mountains so the world may 
 
 learn 
 
 "That Anne is empress!" With a distant smile 
 Anne heard his sounding speech. She did not 
 
 spurn 
 
 His importunate fierce hands but for a while 
 Looked slowly on him, with a face too sweet for 
 
 guile. 
 
 "But, my lord cardinal," she spoke at last, 
 
 "I am too young. My heart and loves are 
 
 swift. 
 
 "In council with you I am grave; once past 
 "The council door, I am a child. The gift 
 "Of my love must be given one who ll lift 
 "My heaviness of sorrow. Can you dance? 
 "Make merrier sport with me? Can your eyes 
 
 shift 
 
 "This solemn pleading for a happier glance? 
 I have not seen you laugh. You do, sometimes, 
 
 perchance?" 
 
 "Aye, I might laugh again, if the queen would 
 
 smile." 
 
 "Laugh then and she might smile to see you lose 
 "The grimmest visage in her empire. While 
 "A lover frowns so thickly, she could choose 
 
The Cardinal Dances 83 
 
 "No answer but her scorn. She d not refuse 
 "To think on you, lord cardinal, as her friend 
 "If you would aid her weary days to amuse. 
 "Make sport for her and fate will kindness send. 
 "Her love? Who knows what may reward 
 you in the end?" 
 
 The quick grey light leaped in the cardinal s 
 
 eye. 
 
 "To win your favour, I d play harlequin," 
 He jested. "Play it then," was her reply. 
 He raised the query with his eyebrows thin, 
 But she was earnest. "She may see you in 
 "Her chamber at the stroke of ten. The door 
 "Will open only to Pierrot. Sin 
 "May please a queen with laughter. Then no 
 
 more 
 " Of frowns, my lord. Let us hear your laughter 
 
 That night before the stroke of ten o clock 
 A bony jester, white clad, left the suite 
 Of the mighty cardinal and slipped the lock 
 Behind him cautiously. As he might meet 
 The warders, he was masked. Some vision sweet 
 Made him a grinning ghost. His soft footfalls 
 Were stealthy and unheard as his thin feet 
 Went shuffling on the stone floor of the halls, 
 And his gaunt spindle shadow danced upon the 
 walls. 
 
84 The Cardinal Dances 
 
 Before the perfumed doorway to his queen," 
 He paused and tentatively bent a knee, 
 Looked back, askance, to know if he d been 
 
 seen, 
 
 Tried his old joints as if he meant to be 
 Impetuous and airy. She should see 
 His capering would not lack fire. The gloom 
 Behind him shadowed his thin-jowled glee. 
 The clock began the stroke of ten to boom ; 
 He tapped. The door swung inward on an 
 
 empty room. 
 
 He bowed and there was laughter, a light sound 
 
 From some sweet throat behind the arras hid. 
 
 Its echoes faintly chiming sped around 
 
 The windy curtains. Scented tapers did 
 
 A flickering obeisance, as if bid 
 
 To laugh because a queen could laugh. The 
 
 space 
 
 Of half a heart-beat waited he, then slid 
 Like a contorted wraith to find the place 
 Whence came the queen s bright greeting, cried 
 
 he d see her face. 
 
 "Hold back, Pierrot. Rein thy eager heart. 
 "Before the royal innocence be killed 
 "Pierrot must cavort and play his part. 
 "Or else a bargain may not be fulfilled. 
 Dance now, lord cardinal." Her voice was 
 stilled 
 
The Cardinal Dances 85 
 
 And he shook in an ague of delight 
 For all the shadows of the room were thrilled 
 With the seduction of a lover s night. 
 His queen was fairer even hidden from his 
 sight. 
 
 In a servile bow his stern old back was bent 
 Such a salute as he would give no king. 
 There came the music of some instrument, 
 A thin picked tune which tinkled on a string. 
 And he began his angled limbs to fling 
 About him in a grotesque mirthfulness. 
 He made a trial, rashly inspired, to sing. 
 A crooked whiteness in a jester s dress, 
 His dancing seemed the throes of some uncouth 
 distress. 
 
 He tried to whirl upon his wavering toes. 
 His arms went round like an unsteady wheel, 
 White-spoked and spinning on its hub. He rose 
 In spirals like a dervish, but one heel 
 Caught and he stumbled. He began to reel 
 But saved him from disaster by a fall 
 On his old knees; pretended then to kneel 
 And on his sovereign lady wildly call 
 To come if she could ever pity him at all. 
 
 He heard no answer but the curtain s sigh. 
 Her silence urged his fever like a lash. 
 He rose again and cast a desperate eye 
 At the deluding arras. In one dash 
 
86 The Cardinal Dances 
 
 Across the room he made a gesture rash 
 And struck a vase, one of the royal toys, 
 Knocking it from its table with a crash. 
 He stopped and strove to gain his happy poise, 
 Most disconcerted by that sharp unhappy noise. 
 
 One would have thought it was not love but rage 
 Which gave his sallow cheek a flaming hue. 
 He sneered as if the vase had been a gage 
 From some unworthy foe. The fragments flew 
 Across the floor as he spurned them with his 
 
 shoe. 
 
 The giddy tune began again; he stood 
 Sullen a moment, then more crafty grew, 
 Willing to dance on gaily if he could. 
 His aching legs were slow and stiff as ancient 
 
 wood. 
 
 He made a few more awkward steps. His ear 
 Was straining to discover where she lay. 
 He circled and approached and felt her near. 
 The hand which picked his tune out ceased to 
 
 play. 
 
 "I have been mad. We love ndw as we may," 
 He said and put his lean hand on his side, 
 Was fit to sob or curse his pride away. 
 He knew he was abased, but took one stride 
 And with a gasp of passion tore the curtains 
 
 wide. 
 
The Cardinal Dances 87 
 
 There was a laughing roar, hysterical, 
 
 Long pent, from many throats. It smote his 
 
 face 
 
 With the scorn of Austrian courtiers, for all 
 The queen s own countrymen stood in that 
 
 place. 
 
 And they upon his foolish lack of grace 
 Had grinned and winked, behind the arras nook, 
 Spied on his fell lust, traitorous and base. 
 But the queen with her light laughing no more 
 
 shook. 
 She paused and shrank and blanched in the horror 
 
 of his look. 
 
 They were all reckless Austrians, no French, 
 Knowing the eager fury of his hate, 
 Would ever mock the cardinal nor entrench 
 Upon his secret passions. And their fate 
 Lay now before them, pitiless and straight. 
 So shuddering they slunk away; the while 
 Queen Anne tried to assume her regal state, 
 But flushed and trembled in a peasant style, 
 And the cardinal looked on her with a worm 
 wood smile. 
 
 Once more the jester bowed, and left the room. 
 And a warder, come on suddenly, screaming fled, 
 Before the stalking ghastly face of doom 
 Pierrot wore to sanctuary. Dread 
 
88 The Cardinal Dances 
 
 Lay on the stricken queen. His love was dead, 
 Was shame and ashes to him, and his power 
 Began that night in plots upon her head 
 To bring unnamed disasters and the glower 
 Of his red evil spite was on her from that hour. 
 
 King Louis lush affections never turned 
 To Anne s surpassing loveliness, and nights 
 Of weeping took her bloom, and her eyes burned 
 Red and affrighted, gazing on grim sights. 
 Her thinking withered up her youth as blights 
 A febrile summer wind upon the field. 
 The king bestowed on many maids the rites 
 Of love which to his spouse he d never yield. 
 Anne was afraid. Her secret never was revealed. 
 
 She never dared defy her fear and tell 
 Whence rumours of wild faithless revels came. 
 The cardinal s cold hate was like a spell 
 And she stood silent under lies and shame. 
 All enterprise was balked that bore her name, 
 For Louis gulped the lies and gave an ear 
 To all traducers, cast on her the blame 
 For his own sins. And the cardinal was near 
 To stir king s lechery and mock the queen s pale 
 fear. 
 
 He watched her heart-beats. When some 
 
 recompense, 
 
 Some comfort for her sorrowing hovered by, 
 And she reached piteous hands, he scattered hence 
 
The Cardinal Dances 89 
 
 The beckoning occasion. His grey eye 
 Stalked her desires; he struck and watched 
 
 them die. 
 
 Her loneliness was like a desert ; friends 
 Held to her bravely but a curse hung nigh 
 To tear them off. She sought to make amends 
 For scorn, but all her kind deeds came to bitter 
 
 ends. 
 
 So Anne the queen played harlequin. Dull 
 
 years 
 
 Went by in waiting on the cardinal s word. 
 Red hats ran in her nightmares and with tears 
 She stormed his heart, which never once was 
 
 stirred 
 
 With any weakening pity. Long deferred, 
 Choked with despair her hopes died, one by one. 
 Her queenly name was jested with and slurred. 
 Thus in one penance for the insult done 
 Her days in endless, futile weariness were spun. 
 
THE WRECKER 
 
 THE sun rose slow and could not shake 
 A dull thick mist that veiled the lake 
 Nor warm the pale and chilling day; 
 For all night long the waves had clomb 
 Up the shoreways, spitting foam; 
 And on each wave the wind s white hand 
 Had lashed the water-beast to land. 
 Long thunders dinned and the Titan s spark 
 Split blinding caverns in the dark. 
 But now repentant for the night 
 Water and sky in one grey light 
 Shivered in dawn breath, misty cold. 
 The wave-lapped sands were wan and old. 
 At morn Raoul, the habitant, 
 Came out to loose his boat 
 And felt the dawn s reluctant breath 
 As a shudder in his throat. 
 Never before had harsh wind stirred 
 His sleep. Their rage went by unheard. 
 His boat was chained above the reach 
 Of clutching flow along the beach 
 And never rain sheets, lashing fierce 
 Against his cabin s side, could pierce 
 The chink-filled logs. So he had slept 
 With wife and son until dawn crept 
 90 
 
The Wrecker 91 
 
 Behind the mist and slowly paled 
 
 To find the earth so coldly veiled. 
 
 But, strangely, while this storm had torn 
 
 The bosomed lake, his sleep had borne 
 
 Dark terrors and he faced the air, 
 
 The spray-fresh air, as if to find 
 
 Some riddle-reading clearness there 
 
 And shake the phantoms from his mind. 
 
 Within the hut, his wife, Collette, 
 
 Began with breakfast fires to fret. 
 
 She clattered bowls and coughed in smoke 
 
 Till little Rene*, too, awoke 
 
 And came half -clad to see the sun; 
 
 His day with wonder was begun. 
 
 "Oh, Mother, did you hear the wind?" 
 
 He shouted. "Did you see 
 
 "The big clouds in the thunder-light 
 
 "Come swooping after me? 
 
 "I hid my face, and held my breath 
 
 "When thunder-guns were fired. 
 
 "This morning I am brave again. 
 
 "See how the lake seems tired." 
 
 "No, no, my child," said vain Collette, 
 
 "The waves are feeble here. 
 
 "When I was young in Brittany 
 
 "We waked to silent fear 
 
 "When scattered wrecks rolled up the sands 
 
 "In the springtime of the year. 
 
 "Scattered wrecks rolled up the sands 
 
 "My little sisters went 
 
92 The Wrecker 
 
 "Out upon those treasure fields 
 
 "With sodden glory sprent. 
 
 "Treasures fell of silken robes 
 
 "And garments, smooth and fine, 
 
 "Jewels set in braces bright, 
 
 "And casks of yellow wine. 
 
 "No great ships go by this place, 
 
 "Only winds go by." 
 
 She sighed and watched the wide grey lake 
 
 With an old dream in her eye. 
 
 "But then you saved the people, too. 
 
 "Did they give all their gold to you 
 
 "Because you saved them?" 
 
 "No, Rend, 
 
 "The poor folk always drowned. 
 "They lay among their splintered boats 
 "Tide-scattered on the ground. 
 "And sometimes when the fearful night 
 "Had held us locked indoors for fright, 
 "At morn we found their corpses wet 
 "With eyeballs rolled in terror yet. 
 "We wept to think that shrieking wild 
 "Which we had called the storm 
 "Had been the anguish of a child 
 "While we were safe and warm." 
 And Rend smiled "But there was gold " 
 "Aye, there was gold and wine." 
 His mother heaped up memories 
 To see his wide eyes shine. 
 The dream was old ere she was born 
 
The Wrecker 93 
 
 And lived in all her line. 
 
 But as his mother told the tale 
 
 With childish conning o er, 
 
 As her own sire had told to her, 
 
 And his own sire before, 
 
 The boy looked out, his eyes at strain, 
 
 As if he saw a wreck-strewn main 
 
 And knew his treasures by their gleam 
 
 Beside the dipping spar and beam. 
 
 Athwart the shingle as he gazed 
 
 He saw his father s form upraised 
 
 And turning toward the door. The boy 
 
 Shrilled to Collette excited joy 
 
 And felt a thrill in his young soul. 
 
 His father bore a silken roll. 
 
 He carried it across his breast, 
 
 But the misted light was dim, 
 
 And the boy saw only muddy silks 
 
 That trailed on after him. 
 
 "There s treasure treasure from the lake." 
 
 He ran, all eagerness, to take 
 
 His first touch of the dripping prize 
 
 He did not see his father s eyes. 
 
 But as Collette flung wide the door 
 
 She shuddered for the wind before 
 
 Raoul, who entered, filled the room 
 
 With the clinging damp chill of a tomb. 
 
 Raoul stooped to his straight hewn chair 
 
 And sighed, but nothing said. 
 
 His hands were twined with dripping hair, 
 
94 The Wrecker 
 
 He bore a woman dead. 
 
 Slow drops slid from her drowned black hair 
 
 To the floor in a reptile pool 
 
 That writhed and ran on the ragged boards. 
 
 "The lake sends gifts," said Raoul. 
 
 His wife cried, "Drowned?" with a sign of fear. 
 
 "There are no ships how came she here?" 
 
 And as his father pulled a fold 
 
 Of silk across the eyes to hold 
 
 The last dark secret from their gaze, 
 
 And Collette stood in awed amaze, 
 
 The boy spoke out with impious lips, 
 
 "Where is the treasure from the ships? 
 
 "There were great ships that broke last night; 
 
 "Where are the jewels in braces bright? 
 
 Where are the casks ? Where are the ? 
 
 "Hush!" 
 
 His mother clipped his speech. 
 The boy crept stealthy, as they stood, 
 And vanished down the beach. 
 Collette broke stillness with a laugh, 
 "Come, eat. Here s breakfast set. 
 "I can t wait all the day for you 
 "Because her eyes are wet." 
 But Raoul held his peace, nor spoke, 
 And watched the dripping silken cloak, 
 And saw the pitiful smooth line 
 Of limbs beneath the silk entwine, 
 Wondering, patient but doubt-tossed, 
 From what far bourne this life was lost. 
 
The Wrecker 95 
 
 He knew too well there were no ships; 
 
 He turned to speak once but his lips 
 
 Were too aghast to breathe a sound 
 
 Before the presence of this veiled 
 
 And silent being who was drowned 
 
 In a lake where no ships sailed. 
 
 And Collette laughed again, her fear 
 
 Had left her giddy. " Come, my dear, 
 
 "What care you for women dead? 
 
 "Come to your morning s food, " she said. 
 
 Her laugh was mirthless and her face 
 
 Was empty as a desert place. 
 
 Raoul turned toward her his gaunt head 
 
 And answered her, "Vex not the dead." 
 
 His lips were stiffened then with grief 
 
 As if the lake had been the thief 
 
 Of one he treasured. "Wife, " he said, 
 
 "Last night when rain was scourging earth 
 
 "And we were dreaming in our bed, 
 
 "There were long screams of death and birth. 
 
 "I heard them and I tried to wake, 
 
 "I prayed them cease for Jesus sake, 
 
 "I groped to find you, but I dreamed 
 
 "And your place cold and empty seemed. 
 
 "Then when the dawn stir came to me 
 
 "I saw upon your eyes 
 
 "The shadow of some fearful loss. 
 
 "I thought those hideous cries 
 
 "Had been the death pang of your soul; 
 
 "I did not hope to find you whole. 
 
96 The Wrecker 
 
 "Even now I" Collette s fear 
 
 Came back upon her in his stare 
 
 And she felt the horror sweat 
 
 Stirring underneath her hair. 
 
 "Raoul, my husband, turn your eyes 
 
 "From off that cursed body. See 
 
 "I am not changed from what I was. 
 
 "The night brought no such dreams to me. 
 
 "Give over sick thoughts." But Raoul 
 
 Held his eyes still upon the pool, 
 
 Distraught and helpless to declare 
 
 The meaning of his strange despair. 
 
 He too had thoughts of Brittany 
 
 And the storms of that remembered sea; 
 
 The winds and wreckage and the heave 
 
 Of fathom-stirring waves that leave 
 
 A thin caress along the sand 
 
 Cruel as a treacherous hand; 
 
 Where gaunt cliffs, endlessly attacked 
 
 By the long coil and splash impact, 
 
 Imperishably stand; where men 
 
 Build up each shattered hope again 
 
 From endless devastation, hold 
 
 To ancient dreams of too much gold 
 
 And seek among their iron days 
 
 Brief bitter gleams of princelier ways. 
 
 From there Raoul had sundered faith 
 
 And gone, unhindered, to find breath 
 
 In wildernesses, and Collette 
 
 Had followed querulous, but met 
 
The Wrecker 97 
 
 The wave and wilderness unhurt 
 
 With wifely resolution girt. 
 
 Deep in the stillness of the wood 
 
 And in the wideness of the lake 
 
 Raoul had found the reach and space 
 
 He had sought for his soul s sake. 
 
 He homed him by an inland sea 
 
 With a fruitful wooded shore 
 
 Where man had never ploughed before. 
 
 But as poison lurks concealed 
 
 After wounds are over-healed, 
 
 After leeches draw and go, 
 
 And no red scars the blemish show, 
 
 When a swift convulsive stab 
 
 Betrays corruption working deep; 
 
 So old avarice may keep 
 
 Even after many days, 
 
 Though over-glossed, its venomous ways. 
 
 Raoul knew not what nameless deed 
 
 The night had done, nor what vile seed 
 
 Long planted in his destiny 
 
 Had of a sudden dared to be; 
 
 But hideous nightmares wracked his brain. 
 
 He thought that in the whirl of rain 
 
 The soul that he had brought to life 
 
 Within the child mind of his wife 
 
 Had slipped beyond his grasp, had drowned, 
 
 With dripping silk was lying wound. 
 
 "Perhaps there are ships then," a light 
 
 Gleamed in Collette s eye, fever bright. 
 
 7 
 
98 The Wrecker 
 
 A sudden sweeping soul-sprung thought 
 Made all her awe-struck silence nought. 
 "Perhaps there are ships then, and she 
 "Is one of many who may be 
 "Washing ghastly on our shore. 
 "Though they have never sailed before 
 "There may be tall ships sailing now, 
 "And tempest-struck, one drove her prow 
 "Shuddering, helpless into doom " 
 She paused, her mind outran her speech. 
 But Raoul gazed across the room 
 With eyes, like fingers, set to reach 
 And all the formless wishes find 
 That stirred a hot mist in her mind. 
 So ere she knew her hopefulness 
 He knew. It was not vague distress 
 In shattered galleons she saw, 
 But sodden gain; no pious awe 
 For storming fury; no regret 
 For piteous faces stark and wet, 
 But finery with anguish wreathed 
 And wealth by slimy death bequeathed. 
 Collette was dizzy with desire, 
 Forgotten now was breakfast fire, 
 Forgotten was her silent guest, 
 Raoul s deep question, half expressed, 
 She stepped once toward the sandy shore. 
 Her husband stood up in the door. 
 "There are no ships," he whispered, rent 
 With passioned questioning still pent 
 
The Wrecker 99 
 
 Behind the barrier of his words. 
 
 "The wide grey lake is bare 
 
 "And sleeps, unrippled by a keel. 
 
 "There are no ships out there, 
 
 "No sailing ships." From Collette s heart 
 
 She felt an angry torrent start 
 
 And hate-sped words of old complaint 
 
 Now crowding broke their long restraint. 
 
 "Why must we live outside of life? 
 
 Why must we see but lake and sky ? 
 
 "I d rather never have been wife 
 
 " If in this wilderness I die. 
 
 "My mother and my sisters sit 
 
 "Beside the shore in Brittany, 
 
 "And wonder when the storms drive on 
 
 "What far lone wood is housing me. 
 
 "They wonder why you never come 
 
 "Heavy with riches to your home. 
 
 "They think we seek in this harsh land 
 
 "Some hoard of comfort, but your hand 
 
 Is never turned to any gain 
 
 "And all our wandering has been vain." 
 
 Raoul was silent. "Speak," she cried, 
 
 We have found labour what beside ? 
 
 "My hands break with the tasks I do 
 
 "To make hell habitable for you." 
 
 Raoul knew pity. "I have worked 
 
 "To ease the heavy toil that irked 
 
 "Your woman s strength. I did not see 
 
 "How weary you were, spite of me. 
 
ioo The Wrecker 
 
 " And I have loved you." He had spoken 
 
 As if his hopes had now been broken. 
 
 Collette mistook his final tone, 
 
 Thought his decision was her own, 
 
 And looked at him in still surprise, 
 
 A wan hope struggling in her eyes. 
 
 "We will go back to Brittany? 
 
 "Where my poor mother weeps for me, 
 
 "Where my beloved big seas clamour, 
 
 "And all my childhood s love puts glamour 
 
 "Over granite, sand, and coast?" 
 
 But she saw his eyes turn cold 
 
 And she knew her plea was lost. 
 
 "Then we linger here till old, 
 
 "Feeble, broken, in despair, 
 
 "We creep back to pity there!" 
 
 Raoul spoke gently, "We have found 
 
 " Peace and freedom here. Around 
 
 "The fruited lake shore lives there none 
 
 "Who has not left as we have done 
 
 "All desire of gain behind, 
 
 "Content with space for soul and mind." 
 
 Collette impatiently replied 
 
 And sneered, "Aye space, and what beside?" 
 
 Raoul turned to the sodden roll 
 
 And thought again of that calm soul 
 
 He d hoped to wake in Collette s breast 
 
 While she was sharing his long quest. 
 
 All trace of understanding gone, 
 
 Collette raged like a pettish child 
 
The Wrecker 
 
 And all his stern desires reviled 
 
 In fury. Raoul was alone. 
 
 Then came Rene*, with noisy speed, 
 
 Home to his mother in his need 
 
 Of comfort for his broken hope 
 
 "I searched the long beach and the slope, 
 
 "I walked as far as I could go 
 
 "And still see home. There was no gold, 
 
 "There was no treasure. Mother told 
 
 "Me how the wrecks lay in a row 
 
 "With all their jewels and treasures thrown 
 
 "Where I could get them for my own." 
 
 Then Raoul seized his son and turned 
 
 The boy s face to his own and burned 
 
 A long, long question into eyes 
 
 Where he saw tears of anger rise, 
 
 But through the mist of childish tears 
 
 Shone deadly answer to the fears 
 
 Of the dark father. There was nought 
 
 Of Raoul s soul in this boy s soul. 
 
 All his hue of life had caught 
 
 From his fond mother old-world taint. 
 
 Raoul spoke out with edged constraint 
 
 To his harsh wife, "I thought our child, 
 
 "Nurtured, rooted in the wild, 
 
 "Would be unsmirched and fancy whole 
 
 "From any poison of desire. 
 
 "The fevered stories that you told 
 
 "To your Rene* were falsehoods old 
 
 "Learned in Brittany from your sire. 
 
The Wrecker 
 
 "There are no ships. There never were 
 
 "On these clean shores, nor over there 
 
 "No treasure ships. The foolish myth 
 
 "You ve nursed and filled his young mind with 
 
 "Was festering in your father s thought. 
 
 "It stains my son; and you have wrought 
 
 "Unending restless misery 
 
 "In him, for greed has even now 
 
 "Set her dull mark upon his brow 
 
 "And her hot groveller must he be." 
 
 Collette raged on and would not hark, 
 
 And Raoul s face set grim and stark 
 
 And stony. Over all the three 
 
 There fell a silence. Fury spent, 
 
 Collette sank down and Rend went 
 
 To hide his hot face in her skirt, 
 
 To hide his terror and his hurt. 
 
 The woman, wearied now but still 
 
 Uneased and pettish, spoke in shrill 
 
 Tired fretfulness, " Take from my sight 
 
 "That stranger s dripping body. Free 
 
 "Your house of this dissension. Blight 
 
 "And fierce suspicions did not lurk 
 
 "Within your door before the murk 
 
 "Of death and drowning troubled you, 
 
 "When you found this corpse. Go strew 
 
 "The pine boughs over her and deep 
 
 "Dig her a grave and let her sleep." 
 
 Raoul took kindly from the floor 
 
 The silken sodden one. 
 
The Wrecker 103 
 
 He set his flint face toward the shore 
 
 But for reply gave none. 
 
 And still Collette saw puzzled pain 
 
 Burn heavy in his eyes, but vain 
 
 Repentant pity. He passed on 
 
 And as she called him he was gone. 
 
 She saw him near the beach as if 
 
 To take his burden in the skiff 
 
 To some far burial. But he passed 
 
 The long boat s mooring and the last 
 
 Extending point of land. Collette 
 
 Saw that he splashed unheeding yet 
 
 Could not believe. Then sudden dread 
 
 Came down upon her and she sped 
 
 Screaming after and Rend 
 
 Came stumbling. Out upon the grey 
 
 Face of the lake they saw Raoul 
 
 Swim on unheeding and the cool 
 
 Wind blew their shouts back in their faces 
 
 And echoes came from wooded spaces. 
 
 He never turned. Collette took strength 
 
 From terror and the long boat s length 
 
 Went grating over sand. The sail 
 
 Went rattling out and like a pale 
 
 Bird, stiff with cold, the boat swung round. 
 
 Wind-shaken, standing in the stern 
 
 Collette, with eyes set to discern 
 
 The speck her husband had become, 
 
 Held hard the rudder and Rend 
 
 Knelt in the bow beneath the spray 
 
104 The Wrecker 
 
 Crouching, staring, scared, and dumb. 
 Collette had ceased to call. The sound 
 Of parted waters rippling by 
 Filled up the silence. 
 
 One tense cry 
 
 Came from the woman, then she sank 
 Inert beside her rudder. Blank 
 And empty was the water s face. 
 The speck was gone. And Rene* shrank 
 Whimpering in his lookout place. 
 The sail flapped and the boat swung. Back 
 It pointed to the shore. A track 
 Of sunlight sifted through the clouds; 
 The wind stirred restless in the shrouds. 
 The sun broke through and up the lake 
 The dull grey mist was thinned; 
 But Raoul s hut, with breakfast set, 
 Was tenanted by wind. 
 
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