THE CRY OF YOUTH By Harry Kemp JUDAS, A PLAY THE CRY OF YOUTH By HARRY KEMP NEW YORK MITCHELL KENNERLEY MCMXIV COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY MITCHELL KENNERLEY To Gaylord Wilshire 3C0409 PAGE I 2 CONTENTS JOSEPH S LAMENT CARRYING THE BANNER NICODEMUS LYNCH-LAW g THE RIDE JOSES, BROTHER OF JESUS BATHSHEBA ^ THE SCAPEGOAT THE CONFLICT WHY BID LOVE STAY? BLACK DEATH HASTEN, CLASP MAIDEN LIFE THE LIVE CONSCIENCE THE PAGAN SAINT PEACE, PEACE THE PAINTED LADY THE CONTRAST 32 QUICK AND DEAD LOVE IN OLD MEXICO SHE CAME FROM HER NARROW BED THE SONG OF RED REILLY PRITHEE, STRIVE NOT 30 39 4 MY LADY S BATH JO FICKLENESS MY GYPSY MAID THE DECEIT KANSAS THE LITTLE BROOK OVER THE HILL vii viii Contents PAGE THE STAMPEDE 46 AH, SWEET THE BIRDS 48 WINTER 49 IN A STORM 50 INSOUCIANCE IN STORM 51 EVENING ON LAKE SUPERIOR 53 WEIN, WEIB ! 54 A SAILOR CHANTEY 55 BOB 57 THE BOXCAR 58 A TRAMP S CONFESSION 60 BREAD LINES 63 A BED 66 THE OPEN WORLD 68 REVOLT 69 THE HARVEST FLY S COMPLAINT 70 WHITE SHEETS 73 CASHING IN 74 THE CATTLEMAN S BURIAL 76 AWAY FROM TOWN 78 THE CATTLE TRAIN 80 GOD, THE ARCHITECT 8l I SAW A NAKED SOUL 82 THE POLTERGEIST 83 HYMN OF THE STAR-FOLK TO GOD . 84 THE STILLBORN IN HEAVEN 87 THE SONG OF THE PYRAMID-BUILDERS 89 SONG OF A FAIRY WIFE QI LILITH 93 THE SONG OF ISRAFEL 98 SUSPICION 101 IMPENITENCE 102 IN A CHOP-SUEY JOINT 104 LONELINESS 106 Contents ix PAGE THE BIRD OF PARADISE 107 FISHERMEN I08 A PRAYER 109 THE STAR OF GOD S MALISON III HELL S RESURRECTION 112 I SING THE BATTLE 115 THE CONQUERORS 117 GEOLOGY I IQ VIEWPOINT 120 IN DEBT 121 LOVELY CHILD 122 PAUL AND OMAR 123 MT. RANIER 124 THE VOICE OF CHRISTMAS 127 THE MOTH S SONG 129 THIS PALTRY "l" I3O PREDESTINATION 131 SIGHT BEYOND SIGHT 132 I DEEMED I DWELT ALONE 133 THE THRESHING MACHINE 134 THE CABLES AND THE WIRELESS 136 THE CRY OF YOUTH I4O POEMS BY HARRY KEMP JOSEPH S LAMENT TV/1" Y boy, my boy, and art thou dead? 1V1 \Vould they had stretched these limbs instead Upon this bitter leafless tree! But thou wouldst pay small heed to me! Yet hadst thou given me heed, my boy, Thou dst known a workman s quiet joy: To sit in the declining sun At peace when the day s stint is done A wife had sat at thy right hand: A cot, a little space of land With one gray olive tree before, And a seat by a vine-clad door Had blessed thee, happy at thy trade, And a small son had climbed and played With broken prattle on thy knee But, son, thy soul was deaf to me ... And so thou hang st where all may see ... O shameful death! O shameless tree! My murdered boy! . . . Woe, woe is me! Harry Kemp CARRYING THE BANNER [Which is tramp-argot for walking the street all night] T HAD no bed to go to and I had to walk the street. I passed a lone policeman going up and down his beat. A solitary cab whirled by and made a hollow sound. I stamped my feet to keep them warm and tramped around and round. A strangling icy fog dropped down and draped the town in white As one would shroud a maiden perished ere her wedding night. I moved as in a land of ghosts. The wind went thro my hair Like the fingers of a demon searching for some stigma there. The moon hung watery and thin. The stars had faded out. Carrying the Banner Amid a labyrinth of night I groped and groped about. I moved along the water-front. I felt so small and lone As I heard the great ships at the docks strain at their ropes and groan. I footed it thro Chatham Square and up along Broadway. I prayed the Lord to take the night and give me back the day, The warm kind day, the cheery day that kissed one s eyes with light, For it seemed to me the world at last had found its endless night . . . But suffice to say I saw the East stir and grow pale apace As a coward loses color when he looks in Mur der s face, And then the City stirred and stretched and drew a quickened breath And struggled out of nightmare sleep like Laz arus from death. . . . And then I walked alone no more . . . The streets grew thronged with men And I said Thank God with all my heart, for it was day again! Harry Kemp NICODEMUS There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; the same came to Jesus by night. John 3:1-2. And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night. John 19:39. A ND Nicodemus came by night * * When none might hear or see He came by night to shun men s sight And away by night slunk he. He dared not come by light of day To move where sinners trod: He must hold apart from the common heart, For he was a Mai of God. . . . But the honest Christ, he walked with men Nor held his ways apart With publicans talked, with harlots walked, And loved them all in his heart. Nic ode mus Came Nicodemus to Christ by night; And long they reasoned, alone, Till the Old man saw the sham of the Law That turned his being to stone: He tore the formal husks from his life; He was born again, though gray. And, erect with the youth of a Living Truth, He dared the world by day! Harry Kemp LYNCH-LAW ^T^HE deed he had done was a terrible one, * And the wrath-roused countryside, Pale silent groups of resolute men, Scoured every wood and swamp and glen Where a desperate man might hide. And at last they struck his straggling trail By the shores of a reedy lake. They followed with bloodhounds all night long. They ran him down like a snake And dragged him forth, when the dawn was red, From the tangled canes of a brake. They pinioned his hands behind his back, With buffets his head was bowed, And the mob rushed roaring at his side Like a storm-blown thunder-cloud. And the victim shook like grass in a brook - His soul was shaken with dread . . . For his was a deed for which men swing, And swing by the neck till dead. Lynch-Law They hurried him on in a farmer s cart Where the road wound rough and brown And silence fell, like a hush in hell, Over the outraged town, As the people thronged the paven streets In dreadful holiday To behold a mob of maddened men Take another man s life away. They dragged the victim across the park; They threw him down in the square; They noosed the halter about his neck Muscular, swart, and bare And a hundred men rushed back with the rope, And he shot straight up in the air. All day IT swung from the telegraph pole In the eyes of the sullen town As tho the body still held the soul All day it swayed from the telegraph pole But at even they cut it down . . . Yes, they let it swing, the horrible thing, In the eyes of the sullen town, Till the sheriff came with tardy shame, At eve, and cut it down. Harry Kemp THE RIDE T STRUCK him down in sudden wrath Over a trivial word . . . I shook him twice. ... I shook him thrice He neither spake nor stirred . . . Then forth into the night I fled And spurred my flying steed; In faith a lucky man was I, For none had seen the deed. All night I rode among the hills. The sky arched deep and wide. . . . Ah ! like the presence of the wind I felt him at my side. At dawn I passed men on the road: They spake with friendly tone; One proffered me companionship He thought I rode alone. The Ride "Right gladly will I ride with you," I answered; but, unseen, The man that I had done to death Slipped fearfully between. "I swear you are a gloomy man," My fleshly fellow said He knew not my companionship Was wholly with the dead. . . . I stayed for neither food nor rest; My horse with staggering pace Strove time on time to pause our flight At brook or grassy place, And still, when fell the second night, That thing of shadowy fear Kept riding near me like the wind And whispered in my ear . . . Aha! I saw him . . . now! . . . at last I With murder still engrossed I struck . . . He parted like a mist. . . . I could not slay his ghost. I mantled up my face in dread And let my horse run on ; io Harry Kemp HE too had seen, nor needed now The whip to urge him on ... Ere day we fell, my horse and I, Where cactus sprawled in sand "Let s play at cards," the shadow said; I rose at his command; I dealt the cards at his command, (My steed lay dead thereby), "And if YOU win, you live!" he said, "And if I win you die!" We played: "I win! I win!" he cried The dawn rose, vast and still . . . Behold, the sheriff and his men Come riding o er the hill! Joses, Brother of Jesus 1 1 JOSES, BROTHER OF JESUS TOSES, the brother of Jesus, plodded from ^ day to day, With never a vision within him to glorify his clay; Joses, the brother of Jesus, was one with the heavy clod, But Christ was the soul of rapture, and soared, like a lark, with God. Joses, the brother of Jesus, was only a worker in wood, And he never could see the glory that Jesus, his brother, could. "Why stays he not in the workshop?" he often used to complain, "Sawing the Lebanon cedar, imparting to woods their stain? Why must he go thus roaming, forsaking my father s trade, While hammers are busily sounding, and there is gain to be made?" 1 2 Harry Kemp Thus ran the mind of Joses, apt with plummet and rule, And deeming whoever surpassed him either a knave or a fool, For he never walked with the prophets in God s great garden of bliss And of all the mistakes of the ages, the saddest, methinks, was this : To have such a brother as Jesus, to speak with him day by day, But never to catch the vision which glorified his clay. Bathsheba 13 BATHSHEBA 17" ING DAVID, from his house-top "*** Saw One whose only dress Was the exceeding glory Of her own loveliness, While down the water sparkled Like star-dust powdered fine, And lightly, brightly followed Her body s shapely line; Then, thrall unto the splendor Of marble-contoured limb, The great King s trumpet languished, His voice forsook the hymn . . . Now Uriah s sworded hand Was swift with the naked knife, And David feared his wrath But he lusted after his wife. . . . 14 Harry Kemp But, though he felt as a thief, In his secret soul he laughed, u Ha ! Ha ! the strongest men Are flies, in the web of craft !" And over the vineyards green, And beyond the mountains gray, Before the Ammonite town The Hebrew army lay: So he sent Uriah forth With his own death writ, in his hand: "See that the Bearer die Tis David thy King s command!" And they gave him an hundred men And stationed him nighest the wall And many and brave were slain, But Uriah the first of all. . . . When a messenger running came In his heart King David laughed: "Ha! Ha! The wisest men Are flies, in the web of craft!" The Scapegoat 15 THE SCAPEGOAT T^HEY bore me away from the happy flock And away from the hill slopes green, Away from the midday shade of trees And waters cool and clean. And here, where the Mounts of Moab close The East with a purple rim And the sky is a bowl of spilling fire, Mine eyes in death wax dim. They led me forth with austere joy And the psalter s solemn sound, And about my newly-budded horns A scarlet fillet wound; And they say that I pay for a People s sins, Who burn with thirst and die But whether the tale be true or no, God only knows, not I. 1 6 Harry Kemp But, however it be, I wonder why They led me forth, accurst, Who, of all the hillside-clamb ring flock, Was neither best nor worst; And was it really the Will of God That brought me here to die Where the Salt Sea stinks, and the salt marsh reeks, And the dead reeds rustle dry? Yes, why should they lead me, me, of all, To the desert sick with drought? . . . I have dreamed, three nights, neath fiery stars, That green grass filled my mouth, Where the Salt Sea stinks, and the salt marsh reeks, And the dead reeds rustle dry, I have dreamed, three nights, of a stream that sweeps In a sheet of silver by. . . . O, I wonder if it be true or no That the good Lord did decree That the sins of a People could be cleansed By the death of one like me ! ... The Scapegoat 17 For why should I, who have done no wrong, For the sins of others die With a scarlet fillet about my horns ?-^ God only knows, not 1 1 1 8 Harry Kemp THE CONFLICT T ISTEN, listen to the blowing bugles ! ^"^ I am young . . . The voice of them is sweet. Arm you well, O Youth, tis you they re call ing. That s the cry that never sounds retreat. Once entangled in those plunging squadrons, Carried as the foam is on the wave You can never cease the breaking battle Till you fall into an open grave. Why Bid Love Stay? 19 WHY BID LOVE STAY? TI7"HY bid love stay beyond the day Or dure beyond the morrow? There s naught can stay with yea or nay This joy that touches sorrow. But he who gives love with both hands May, ere he part, discover One who doth wend a passing friend Turn everlasting lover. 2O Harry Kemp BLACK DEATH TLTE gave her neither rest nor peace * Until his lips drew her sweet breath, But while she drooped against his breast A Third stood at their side, Black Death. And when the lover went his way, Invisible and hollow-eyed Into his castle followed him That Shape, and brought to naught his pride. The castle lights shone pale and dim. They bore the lover on his bier The peasant maiden kissed his eyes And the Black Angel followed her. The Lord sent down a Form of Light To ask Death why he smote unbid. . . . Death answered the eight-winged messenger, His face in his black mantle hid Black Death 21 "True love bound prince and peasant maid; Yet Rank forbade the marriage-tie . . . But now they can be happy both : The Grave knows neither Low nor Highl" 22 Harry Kemp HASTEN, CLASP MAIDEN LIFE TLTASTEN, clasp Maiden Life round her * white waist, And drink in, loverlike, her perfumed breath, For in the night death waits us we must taste The bony and the lipless kiss of Death! The Live Conscience 23 THE LIVE CONSCIENCE T^HE dead man lay beneath the mold, * But still his spirit knew The soft stir of each blade of grass As toward the sun it grew; He heard the far-flung church bells ring, He heard the joyous sound Of children s voices, as they played Above, on April ground; And he felt the little, red-tipped worm Go nosing round and round. He felt the winter rain drip down; It ached against his bones And his was not a plight where one Might ease oneself with groans, For he had to lie forever dumb There in the dreadful tomb 24 Harry Kemp Till all the graves gaped open wide At the crashing Trump of Doom, Till interminable time had flown And the universe grew gray, Ere the finger of Eternity Would touch his eyes with day. He could not move, he could not weep, Nor might one finger strive To lift itself; he could not sleep, For his conscience kept alive; His dreadful conscience kept alive, (Oblivion held no term) And it preyed upon his spirit worse Than midnight or the worm: O, if this be what men call "death," I do not wish to die Till the sun goes out like an unfilled lamp, And God folds up the sky ! The Pagan Saint 25 THE PAGAN SAINT T^ROM this rock-girdled hight These twenty barren years Hav r e I beheld the sun Drop like a golden bird Adown the smould ring West, Have I beheld the stars In their blue paths o erhead Resume their solemn march Thro concaves vast of sky Have watched the glowing East, A hollow shell of fire, Suffuse with gradual pearl And burst to flower of day: And, dawn on radiant dawn, And, eve on roseal eve, The melody of birds Has mounted up to me From coverts close of green; And fragrances of flowers, And scents of field and wood, Have oft assailed my sense 26 Harry Kemp With mem ries of that Time When Pagan ways I walked, Before the White-souled Christ Redeemed me from the World. And, pity me, O God! Last night, just ere the stars Faded to ghosts of light At the first touch of Dawn, Methought Apollo stood Bright with eternal youth, And golden, as of yore, Midmost a cloven cloud Of oblique-billowing fleece "Awake ! Awake I" he cried, "Lo ! where Olympus looms Athwart the azure space Of heaven, as of old! Still Jove s ambrosial locks Shake thunder thro the world And my immortal hand Plucks music from the lyre ; And hamadryads, still, And dryads of the wood, And fountain-dwelling nymphs Inhabit grove and flood But Blindness and a Night Have fallen upon men!" . . . The Pagan Saint 27 Ah, pity me, Lord God, At those crag-echoed words My penance seemed a shame Thrust on me gainst my will, And, for purpureal robes, And rose-crowned bowls of wine, And all of Youth s glad things That I for Thee flung by, My Soul yearned, hungering! . . . Ah, and it seemed that all That I had deemed a Rock Dropt from beneath my feet, And, like a crumbling mist Of fading pearl and gold, Thy Heaven fell to naught, And I was left with Naught I . . . Have mercy on my Soul, For I am weak, O God, Thou Triune God in One! . . . When fled that evil dream And, wakening, I beheld These twilit crags about, I, meager-fleshed and wan, I fain had ta en my staff With purpose to descend And leave this desolate life 2 8 Harry Kemp (Desolate but for Thee) To knock with palsied hand At the shut Door of Youth, And beg a Miracle: That I might enter in And live Life s Bloom again. But now my rose is dust And, ah, it may not be ! ... Peace, Peace 29 PEACE, PEACE DEACE, peace, broken heart, peace! * All these grievous things must cease, They will drop off one by one Like ripe fruit in a quiet sun. Thine enemies shall be no more, Thy mockers will forget their lore, The flowers from the mead will die And God s great hands will break the sky. Nothing that s evil but will cease Under His whisper of Peace, Peace. All shall drop off one by one Like ripe fruit in a quiet sun . . . Yea, e en thy cruel Love will lie A dead thing beneath a dead sky. 30 Harry Kemp THE PAINTED LADY T AM sick of lust," the Painted Lady said, "Of the perfumed sheets of a barren bed, Of the passion I feign tho I feel it not, Of the outward bloom and the inward rot." The Harlot laughed a hungry laugh "Never the joys of a mother I quaff, For my love is a thing that is not of love, And bitter the wine as the lees thereof. Though the touch of my lips be heavenly sweet, Hell s dragons coil about my feet, And the seventy curses of hell I give, For I ve got to live, I ve got to live ! I am the cowboy s passing bride, Am mistress of him who masters the tide, Am the dear delight of the workman s life Whose wages can never support a wife. I slake men s ravening desire As I burn thro mankind as a fire Yet I stand in God s eyes censure-free For the selfsame flame consumeth me. I am the obverse face of love The Painted Lady 31 With marriage the other side thereof, And I and the Bride together join In the sexual mold of a single coin, For the full-leaved bulk of the marriage-tree Roots in the dung and mulch of me. . . . And, maidens who boast the purest white, Tis I who save you from Lust s despite, Tis I preserve you without a flaw Till you go and lie with a man by law . . . But I m sick of LIFE," the Painted Lady said, "And I would to God that I were deadl" 3 2 Harry Kemp THE CONTRAST ripples of blinding fire all Broadway wavered ashine, And taxicabs streamed by like great black beetles in line, When into my being she stepped, she, like a goddess, aglow In an exquisite clinging gown, I, in my rags and woe ! Was she the mate of the thing brutish, bloated and old? I opened the taxi for them and into the night they rolled. She touched my heart like a flower and made the world grow sweet: He tossed me a silver coin ... I let it lie in the street . Quick and Dead 33 QUICK AND DEAD FROM the trouble and strife of life set free, He lay in the grave. "Thank God," thought he. Just then two lovers murmured o erhead . . . "Would that I were alive!" he said. 34 Harry Kemp LOVE IN OLD MEXICO T DREAMED of ships sailing across the sun * Cargoed with allspice and with cinnamon, Of trogons flaming forth from tropic groves, Of moist airs breathing sandalwood and cloves, Of black-mawed caverns gulfing bristling seas, And winds a-whisper with strange melodies, Quetzals of gold and green and purple stain, Colossal cities strewn along the plain, Of haunted forests full of twilight sheen Where print of mortal foot hath never been, Where black despairs the dreamer ever woo And thro them all there gleamed the face of you. She Came from Her Narrow Bed 35 SHE CAME FROM HER NARROW BED came from her narrow bed: "As cold as stones are my feet, And, Love, there is no lustihead In a wormy winding-sheet." Twas thus she coaxed his spirit forth. They mixed like clouds in a storm, And for the space of a passing dream He fostered her chill form. 36 Harry Kemp THE SONG OF RED RILEY T HAVE a girl in the East, A A Girl in the West, And between the two, God wot, I know not which is best. I have a girl in the North, And one in the South But the sweetest lass of all, She bit blood from my mouth. Prithee, Strive Not 37 PRITHEE, STRIVE NOT T)RITHEE, strive not to remember * Ancient love burnt out and dead; Blow not on the blackened ember, Ash will ne er again give red. Lift the latch another lover Waits upon thy kiss without: All the old things have gone over That the heart went mad about. 38 Harry Kemp MY LADY S BATH THE sky hung dark and shaded And the winds were ill at rest, And the slow black clouds paraded Heavily from east to west When my Lady s whim did strip her Pure and soft as she was born, Off she drew each small gold slipper By a bare bush harsh with thorn. Then the sun his eyes unclouded With the right arm of a gale And a rainbow arched and prouded Like a peacock s spreading tail. (See! The questing wind reposes, Boughs to green-leaved bourgeon stir, And the thorn-bush blushes roses At the pearl-white glimpse of her.) Fickleness 39 1 FICKLENESS T LOVED ... I lost . . . "The very 1 world, 1 Thought I, "must cease to be; June, find no pleasure in her rose, Since She no more loves me!" But when I saw the world still glad With sun and flower and rain, That June had not forgot her rose . I straightway loved again. 40 Harry Kemp MY GYPSY MAID T KNOW a gypsy maiden and she travels in a van: I think she loves me better than the shiftless gypsy man. She reads cards with the best of them, she pierces with her eyes. Her voice is low and very sweet and quick with love-replies. She has a touch of starlight and she knows the sun and moon. Her breasts are full and ample as red roses late in June. And I ve told her that I love her . . . And I guess she understands (Her red lips drooped a-quiver, there was trembling in her hands, This little Gypsy maiden that travels in a van) That I ll make a better husband than a loafing Gypsy Man. The Deceit 41 THE DECEIT the way to Istral where the sea sweeps in I met and kissed a maiden irresistible as sin; Her breasts were tipped like coral and her un bound hair Hung thick across her bosom, and her face was fair. I lay with her a night-space in the white moon shine And wakened in the morning like a drunkard after wine . . . I wakened in the morning with a lover s greed For renewal of embracement . . . and em braced a weed And a length of blackened driftwood. . . . Then I rose afraid, For a witch, God wot, had snared me in the semblance of a maid! 42 Harry Kemp KANSAS GIVE me the land where miles of wheat Ripple beneath the wind s light feet, Where the green armies of the corn Sway in the first sweet breath of morn; Give me the large and liberal land Of the open heart and the generous hand. Under the widespread Kansas sky Let me live and let me die. The Little Brook Over the Hill 43 THE LITTLE BROOK OVER THE HILL / ~pHE little brook over the hill that my child- * hood knew Where fragrant mint and slender willows grew Like vanishing flashes of light the minnows swam In its rippled shallows. I mind me the drip ping dam Builded of logs and stones and sod breast-high, Where the brimming waters stole a patch of the sky And we splashed mid clouds and parted watery trees, And shouted and leaped, and raced at naked ease. I believe in dryads and nymphs and satyrs still Because of the little brook at the foot of the hill. 44 Harry Kemp How it flashed a thousand bickering gleams in one When it caught the full effulgence of the sun. How it teemed with life : for a thousand tribes dwelt there, Curious, delicate, purple, and argent-fair The dragon fly that poised on a rippling blade Of grass, unnumbered creatures of sun and shade, Wee lives that throve under stones and scur ried away When a wanton hand let in a storm of the day Claw, and fin, and scale, and shell, and gill, There was life a-swarm in the little brook over the hill. The little brook over the hill I wandered away, And then, grown taller of life, came back one day, And I found they had taken my little brook over the hill To turn the roaring wheels of a smoky mill; Blue-bursting bubbles, circle-wise swimming, had slain The Little Brook Over the Hill 45 The teeming lives of which my heart had been fain Only belligerent crayfish here and there Fought on for being; and willows draggled and bare Strove for the sun; the trees were shrunken and wried And all the beautiful little lives had died. . . . And I cursed the greedy world and the ruthless mill That had swept with death the little brook over the hill. 46 Harry Kemp THE STAMPEDE / T" A HE lightning tossed its tangled boughs And great winds ran about: At midnight all the cattle rose And took to sudden rout. And, whirled in seething floods of rain, We followed in their wake, While ebbed and surged the driving storm Like waves which lift and break. Mad was the night and mad the flight; We prayed beneath our breath For, mid that sea of tossing horns, Beneath those hoofs, lay death. Then in the same mysterious way They paused as they began . . . And down our backs the trickling drops In ceaseless rivulets ran, The Stampede 47 As round and round the herd we rode For hour on hour of rain, Singing them songs of lusty cheer Lest they should rise again. 48 Harry Kemp AH, SWEET THE BIRDS A H, sweet the birds are singing, and mead * * and shaw are green; The sky shines like a mirror, by winds and rain washed clean; The flocks are out to pasture, the world wends two by two ; The sheety mill-pond captures high noon s re motest blue, And even in the city I wot that sparrows sing, And sickly shoots of leafage take color of th. spring And universal gladness in every heart doth call And laughs, and knows no reason. . . . God, how I hate it all 1 Winter 49 WINTER The Jersey Coast ALONG the river s level sheet of ice Gray sea-gulls gather, lift, and light again; Shining and hard with solid glaze of sleet Lie marsh and meadow; here and there a bird, Deceived by three days sunshine, pecks in vain For sustenance, or droops on icy bough. And blank with boarded window, by the shore, Mid dreary waste of rime-encrusted dune Loom hostelries whose summer guests have flown. 50 Harry Kemp IN A STORM [On the Bark "Pestallozi"] T TPON this great ship s tilted deck ^ I stand, an undiscerned speck, And, where the vast, wave-whitened sea Leaps at the moon enormously In green-ridged tides, the ship s expanse Dwindles to insignificance. Thro ether, perilously hurled, Thunders the huge bulk of the world, Which, in the eyes of other spheres, Itself a sunlit mote appears. In turn, all suns and stars in sight Lessen to needle-pricks of light, Flung helpless thro an awful void Where measures fail, and Time s destroyed . And still dost see when sparrows die? O God, where art Thou? . . . Here am I! Insouciance in Storm 5 1 INSOUCIANCE IN STORM [On the Ore-Boat "Howe"] DEEP in an ore-boat s hold Where great-bulked boilers loom And yawning mouths of fire Irradiate the gloom, I saw half-naked men Made thralls to flame and steam, Whose bodies, dripping sweat, Shone with an oily gleam. There, all the sullen night, While waves boomed overhead And smote the lurching ship, The ravenous fires they fed; They did not think it brave : They even dared to joke! . . . I saw them light their pipes And puff calm rings of smoke! . . , 52 Harry Kemp I saw a Passer sprawl Over his load of coal At which a Fireman laughed Until it shook his soul : All this in a hollow shell Whose half -submerged form On Lake Superior tossed Mid rushing hills of storm! Evening on Lake Superior 53 EVENING ON LAKE SUPERIOR LIKE to a molten globe which workers turn, Of crimson-heated steel, the sinking sun Dropped to the far blue level of the lake And laid a burning causeway o er the waves. Then in the russet twilight sable clouds Sat here and there, sprinkled with little stars Thus darkness came, and, a red light to port, A green to starboard, at the cable s end Our shadowy tow-boat followed in our wake. 54 Harry Kemp WEIN, WEIB ! [The Complaint of the Old Lakeman] * I A OO old em I to sail eny more * (He glanced at his wasted thews) But I might uv been on the Lakes to-day Were the whistles talks an the fog hangs gray If it hadunt a been fer booze. If it hadunt a been fer booze an whores (By rights this is my Prime) O, the road is broad but it don t go far, Fer, no matter how good a man you are, They ll git you every time! A Sailor Chantey 55 A SAILOR CHANTEY [On Bark "Pestallozi," of Tristan D Acunha Islands ] OIX hearty husky lads were we, ^ Able to cope with storm and sea. O, the deck reeled drunken beneath our feet, And the sky and ocean seemed to meet. Hear, landsmen meek, who thrive and wive, We climbed up, six, and we came down, five! For the grim wind thro the ratlines roared And hurled our comrade overboard. He fell headlong to the maniac sea, Tumbling and grappling vacantly. The black horizon seemed to grin, And a high wave rose to welcome him in. The next day, when the storm was o er, The sea was as smooth as a dance-hall floor For days our comrade floated about, And the sea-gulls pecked his blue eyes out; 56 Harry Kemp For days he floated with eyeless stare, And the small fish nibbled his white bones bare, Then he bubbled down thro the surgeless deep To sleep where the cuttlefish sprawl and creep. We vowed when we reached the land, why then, We d never go to sea again But we blew in all our cash ashore, And here we are to sea once more! Bob 57 BOB "DOB had a nigger woman ^ That kicked and bit like a horse More jungle-wild than human . . . She knifed him in due course . . . Bob had a nigger woman: She knifed him till he died . . . For six whole days she wouldn t eat . For seven more she cried! . . . 5 8 Harry Kemp THE BOXCAR T SING the boxcar rumbling and rolling afar, *- Rocking o er prairies, clacking thro popu lous towns, Laboring up long grades, griding down valleys, Marked for repairs, groaning with merchan dise, Side-tracked, bumped about, loaded, reloaded again, Dusty and serviceable, the greatest traveler of all, Habitat of hoboes, chalked with their marks and scrawls I sing the side-door Pullman, the changing vis tas, The shifting panoramas of countryside, The waving fields, the farms, the villages. Away with your cushioned seats, your palace cars And the highfalutin names they wear on their sides ! The Boxcar 59 Give me the boxcar, having no name at all, Only a number and give me a true-blue pal To dare the ups and downs of the Road with me. 60 Harry Kemp A TRAMP S CONFESSION huddled in the mission Per it was cold outside, An listened to the preacher Tell of the Crucified; Without, a sleety drizzle Cut deep each ragged form, An so we stood the talkin Fer shelter from the storm. They sang of God an angels, An heaven s eternal joy, An things I stopped believin When I was still a boy; They spoke of good an evil, An offered savin grace An some showed love fer mankin A-shinin in their face, A Tramp s Confession 6 1 An some their graft was workin The same as me an you: But most was urgin on us Wot they believed was true. We sang an dozed an listened, But only feared, us men, The time when, service over, We d have to mooch again An walk the icy pavements An breast the snowstorm gray Till the saloons was opened An there was hints of day. So, when they called out "Sinners, Won t you come!" I came . . . But in my face was pallor An in my heart was shame . . . An so fergive me, Jesus, Fer mockin of thy name Fer I was cold an hungry! They gave me grub an bed After I kneeled there with them An many prayers was said. Harry Kemp An so fergive me, Jesus, I didn t mean no harm An outside it was zero, An inside it was warm . . Yes, I was cold an 1 hungry,- An , O Thou Crucified, Thou friend of all the Lowly, Fergive the lie I lied I Bread Lines 63 BREAD LINES God! What keeps men up so late upon this dripping night When every rain-wet paving stone shines with its blur of light Caught from the white electric arc? The wind is blowing chill, No human foot would wend abroad save at some master s will . . . And these men have a master terribler than mortal lord, Whose pity might be wakened and whose mercy be implored; The lord of them is Hunger fell who whips them as they go, With dreadful scourge of famine he insults them, blow on blow. They turn and twist in silent line and shuffle hopeless feet In solemn drear procession down the shadow- haunted street 64 Harry Kemp They tramp along while other folk are safe and warm in bed; They move in line for half a night to gain their dole of bread, And hunger makes them patient of the cold, the sleet, the rain, But every weary step they take finds echo in the brain, And the heart becomes the pavement, and it spirts with jets of pain. Ye masters, why must this thing be? Is this the exacted price (This sordidness and misery and poverty and vice) For every upward step Man takes along the sunlit way? Why must these edges of the night still fringe the rear of day? The masters answer nothing: they will neither hear nor see; They play, with men as checkers, at their game of usury; They reap where they have never toiled, they sell the unsown grain, They make the worker moil for them nor heed his cry of pain. Bread Lines 65 Their tasks are busy idleness which sow no good for men, They spread their nets and catch their fish and spread their nets again But shadowy bread lines throng my heart and whisper, stern and low, "Some day they ll have to answer us, whether they will or no I" 66 Harry Kemp A BED T M glad I have a good warm bed to snuggle -*- in to-night For the winds are in the alleys and the stars are cold and bright. I m glad I do not have to tramp along the paven street, A-tremble with the bitter blasts which numb and freeze the feet. But I m sorry for the others that must wander to and fro And suffer as I had to do not many months ago; I think of them, the thousands, in the bitter, bitter dark Who move alone along the street with none but God to mark, For tho inured to many shames my heart can ne er endure The misery and hardship of the ever-patient Poor. A Bed 67 I ve dozed by dying camp-fires and waked shud dering in the night, Have seen the shining Zodiac depart, ere dawn, from sight, Full oft I ve slept in city jails where Vice was gathered in And each man hugged the nightmare of his own peculiar sin; And I ve slept in side-tracked boxcars while the heartless winter lay By my side, a cold companion, till a storm begot the day. . . . So I m glad I have a good warm bed to snuggle in to-night, For the winds are in the alleys and the stars are cold and bright. 68 Harry Kemp THE OPEN WORLD T AM swept with the storm of life, " I shake and sway like a tree For all the winds of all the world Sweep over me. I toss my boughs to the clouds That drive high over my head. Right glad am I for the open sky Where tempests are bred. Revolt 69 REVOLT A CCEPT, and the world moves with you, *^ Revolt, and you walk alone, But sweet it is both night and day To know that your soul s your own That the open sky is above you, That your ways are free and bold, That you re not one of the timid sheep That cower in the fold. r o Harry Kemp THE HARVEST FLY S COMPLAINT TTTHEN the sun stares hot, unsparing, like a lidless golden eye, I labor, dusty, sweating, whom they call the harvest fly. The header-box runs up and down and fills with slippery wheat. I leap about and ply the fork, all arms and hands, and feet. I m up before the dawn, nor rest before the moon rides high And they couldn t do without me, tho they call me harvest fly. The farmers and the papers send out lying calls for me : Where they say they need a hundred they have work for two or three. Then I flit in, brown and mothlike, and for gather with my kind The Harvest Fly s Complaint 71 In some little town far Westward open to each prairie wind: And the farmers come to hire me; but by that time park and street Teem with hundreds who have listened to the siren call of Wheat, So they beat me down in wages, give as little as they can, And if I get indignant they go hire another man. But the harvest doesn t last for long the stub ble bristles brown, The wheat s all cut and stacked, and then I hike on back to town, And try to catch a freight and leave, but find they ve closed down tight On letting hoboes beat their way, and jug them left and right. They were glad enough to get me here, but, now the work is done, The Law must steal what I have earned be neath the broiling sun, The Court must have its share in fines (I tell a common tale), And they haul me off for vagrancy and clap me into jail. 72 Harry Kemp And, Pard, I m getting sick of it the way they treat us men, And, sometimes, I make up my mind I won t go back again But then I get a vision of those rolling miles of grain, Of the lines of marching trees that make a wind-break on the plain, And I m off before I know it, peering from a boxcar door: Though I know that I am in for being done as heretofore! White Sheets 73 WHITE SHEETS that white sheets have held me For many a wakeful night Convention s bonds have spelled me, And slain is my delight. . . . But several nights by camp-fire And several dawns by dew Will make another creature, My shrivelled soul, of you. 74 Harry Kemp CASHING IN T CAUGHT a glimpse of his frightened face as he fell between the cars, And I made a jump for the cinder path and I saw all kinds of stars. I rolled like a log in a cataract, then, stagger ing to my feet, I sat me down on a railroad tie and my nerve was gone complete. The two red lights of the little caboose shrank into the gulfing night, And I thanked the Dark for covering up the Terror from my sight. Dim woodlands haunted the high-banked track like black clouds dropped from the sky, And over my head a screech owl wheeled with a wild and dismal cry. Twas a five-mile drill to the nearest town, and I hit a nervous gait, And said to the operator there, "A bum fell under a freight. * Cashing In 75 O, my chum cashed in like a feeble match quenched by a gust of wind, Or as a flickering fire goes out which hoboes leave behind. No more he ll stretch across the rods or ride the cramped brake-beam, A thrall to the lure of the unseen land and the fascination of steam, For they ve laid him away in a rough pine box on the slope of a barren hill But out across the universe his spirit wanders still: He has mooched it on from star to star, and from sun to flaming sun, He has taken the planets like strings of beads and slipped them, one by one, Along the cord of memory, for he who knew the earth Must learn the universe as well on the eve of his second birth . . . And when he kneels before the Throne, his hunger for seeing filled, And the grand antiphonies of the sky to hear his doom are stilled Prone there between the avenues of the flaming cherubim I know that the One who pardoned the Thief will be merciful to him ! 76 Harry Kemp THE CATTLEMAN S BURIAL [S. S. Maori King, South Seas] \T7*E bore our comrade from his bunk, we kept him overnight, In a fold of heavy canvas we sewed him good and tight With stitch on stitch we sewed him in and hid him from the sight . . . We laid him on a tilted plank, and solemn- souled were we. . . . Behind us whirled the troubled wake, around us spread the sea And then each man removed his hat and stood with down-sunk head As the dapper little captain read the service for the dead. Said the Boss of all the cattlemen, "I m glad it isn t me Wot as to lie so lonesome at the bottom o* the sea." The Cattleman s Burial 77 And / looked out across the waves which ran in crests of foam, And longed for fields, and running brooks, and all my friends, and home. 78 Harry Kemp AWAY FROM TOWN 1LTIGH-PERCHED upon a boxcar, I speed, ** I speed, to-day: I leave the gaunt gray city some good green miles away, A terrible dream in granite, a riot of streets and brick, A frantic nightmare of people until the soul grows sick Such is the high gray city with the live green waters round Oozing up from the ocean, slipping in from the Sound. I d put up down in the Bowery for nights in a ten-cent bed Where the dinky U L" trains thunder and rattle overhead; I d traipsed the barren pavements with the pain of frost in my feet; I d sidled to hotel kitchens and asked for some thing to eat. Away From Town 79 But when the snow went dripping and the young spring came as one Who weeps because of the winter, laughs be cause of the sun, I thought of a limpid brooklet that bickers thro reeds all day, And made a streak for the ferry, and rode across in a dray, And, dodging into the Erie where they bunt the boxcars round, I peeled my eye for detectives, and boarded an outward bound. For you know when a man s been cabined in walls for part of the year, He longs for a place to stretch in, he hankers for country cheer. 80 Harry Kemp THE CATTLE TRAIN / HpHEY drive the helpless cattle in -*- With oaths and cries and blows . . . The train draws eastward while the dusk Is all a dying rose. Behind, our little waycar rides, Twin-lighted, while ahead The engine fires the gulfing gloom With burst on burst of red. Strange is the cargo that we bear: We ve gleaned from pen and byre Leg-sprawling calfs and huddled sheep And swine that reek of mire, Wild, frightened steers from Western plains, That bellow, push, and lower A Stockyard leaping through the night At forty miles an hour. God, the Architect 81 GOD, THE ARCHITECT TITHO thou art I know not, But this much I know : Thou hast set the Pleiades In a silver row; Thou hast sent the trackless winds Loose upon their way; Thou hast reared a colored wall Twixt the night and day ; Thou hast made the flowers to blow, And the stars to shine, Hid rare gems and richest ore In the tunneled mine But, chief of all thy wondrous work s, Supreme of all thy plan, Thou hast put an upward reach In the heart of Man! 82 Harry Kemp I SAW A NAKED SOUL T SAW a naked soul A Crying in the dark. Its little outstretched hands Reached dumbly at my heart. "Who artthou?" I asked. "Knowest thou not?" it said, "Thy little unborn son 1" And then I woke, alone, And hungered after her, Its mother yet to be Whom I had never seen. The Poltergeist 83 THE POLTERGEIST A WEAK, diaphanous spirit wavered in ^ * Like blue columnar incense mounting thin "There is no comfort in our Way," it cried, "We are as naught; would God I had not died! For now, a bodiless thing, I wander lone, Divorced from vigorous thew and bracing bone. O, that firm flesh once more this mist might seal, O, that I might the warm blood coursing feel That I might call some body T again, And, locked within five senses, walk with men, Potent to love, to hate, resent, forgive, To live the brief, sweet life I once did live, Not forced to borrow, in a ghost s despair, The Medium s strength with which to tip a chair, Talk through a horn, or lift a table high !" "Ah, Spirit, how I tremble ! Say, must I After this life know like futility?" 84 Harry Kemp HYMN OF THE STAR-FOLK TO GOD "T^HERE is no need for thy mercy, for mercy is ours, not thine; Thou art as impartial as suns that burn or as stars that shine, In all infinity dwelling, with star-seas a-wash at thy feet While the tides of the systems in storm round the bounds of eternity beat. As deep as from zenith to nadir are thy ways and the glory thereof Though we call thee Father and Love, thou art greater than fathers and love. All the gods we have fashioned to limn thee, all the fine-threaded logic weVe spun Do no more measure thy glory than darkness measures the sun While we lurk and lie in the night-time lapped round in the silence of sleep, A hint of thy power is given by Deep beyond star-sprinkled Deep, And a mote of thy infinite glory our pitiful selfhood stuns Hymn of the Star-Folk to God 85 When we find that the suns in our eyesight are a grain of sand to thy suns, Thy millions and billions and trillions of sys tems where mayhap abide More God-seeking beings, by whom, as by us, thou art deified. When our last day sickens in dusking crimson and crumbling gold Our night will be as thy morning (Thou ART, nor canst thou wax old) So sunset is ever as sunrise to nations which gaze from afar So sunrise and sunset are single if eyes could look down from a star. Thou hast lived through a million judgments, seen a million systems die, And still, like to young roses blushing, thy new suns redden the sky, Thy new suns redden the sky while thine Old go ruinous way Yea, somewhere, ever, in heaven, some world has its judgment day, And, somewhere, ever, in heaven, some new world blooms in thy sight And there is no end to creation, as there is no end to thy might. 86 Harry Kemp O God beyond effort of language, O God be yond reach of the tongue! O God who canst only be felt in the soul s sanctuary, not sung! We know thou art better than best and wiser than wisest, we trust Thee, and worship unto thee, who art as in wind is the dust! We earth-peoples, star-peoples, dwelling in populous spaces of sky We, strangely living and loving, seek thee in spirit and die! Yet we know that not for naught, since thou art thou, are we here ! With thy more-than-love above us, about us, we never need fear! The Stillborn in Heaven 87 THE STILLBORN IN HEAVEN TN the beautiful garden of paradise, where * the souls of the blessed go, I saw in dream a multitude which wended to and fro, And their mouths were filled with heavenly speech beyond all mortal phrase As they walked where the crystal fount of life in gleaming column plays: But One I saw who fared alone and bore a flame for his heart, Like a stranger in a foreign land who lives and moves apart; And yet the face of the radiant Soul was bright as a noonday sun, And I drew a-nigh to question it, the Lonely and Lovely One. "Oh, wherefore, pray," I asked of It, "Do you not join yonder throng Whom the healing touch of eternity has wak ened into song?" 88 Harry Kemp "I am neither of Heaven, nor, yet, of earth," The Shining Spirit said, "With pangs and cries I was born last night, and died in my mother s bedl" The Song of the Pyramid-Builders 89 THE SONG OF THE PYRAMID- BUILDERS lived below the Elephantine In a papyrus-wattled village, And swung aloof the long shadoof Above our shelves of tillage. But Pharaoh came with swords and spears, To sound of flute and tabor: For many slaves had sought their graves, And he was short of labor. They marched us over leagues of sand, Away from wife and chattel, And grew we faint or made complaint They pricked us on like cattle. Then, neath the overseer s eye, And to the lashes crackle, We heaved away from day to day With bar, and block, and tackle, 90 Harry Kemp And from our ears the blood gushed out, And cheeks grew ashen-hollow, And if we lagged or the taut ropes sagged The lash was sure to follow, And some of us fell with twitching loins And died of our endeavor And the lash forbore; we could no more If they beat on forever. So week by week they dragged us off, And bore us in a lighter Adown the Nile, poor carrion-pile; They soaked us well in nitre, And tossed us in the mummy-pit, Bones cased in skin like leather . . . But, some great day, the prophets say, We ll all rise up together, And meet our slayers face to face Before the God who made us Then woe to him who crushed the limb, And woe to him who flayed us ! Song of a Fairy Wtft 91 SONG OF A FAIRY WIFE r THRIVE on moonbeams dipt in dew; * My drink is clover wine; My dress I sew of morning gauze With needles from the pine. My husband is a robber bold, He waylays lab ring bees And robs them of the golden store They carry down the breeze; He lurks amid the moving grass, A wasp s sting is his sword; . The scrambling beetle s burnished back He valiantly doth board, And breaks him to the webbed rein . . . We have a garden, too, Where blossom flowerets so small That they escape man s view. 9 2 Harry Kemp Above our little cottage roof There bends a blade of grass, And by our door ant caravans In long brown columns pass. Nor do we envy gods, or men, Or purple pomp of kings ; Enough the glory and the joy We find in little things. Lilith 93 LILITH THE fiercest Demon-Shape in hell Was Lilith fell, Was Lilith fell, Which rose a sudden dream to tell the dusk Lord Lucifer. "I saw" ( twas said) "From heaven late In golden state Thro* star-hinged gate The servants of the God I hate Down into Chaos stir. I deem that He would make a world, Another world, (His millionth world) (Red lips in demon-laughter curled) Thus at our Fall He planned. "Then give me Form again" ( twas prayed) "Wherewith to invade Its garden-shade Then leaped the demon to a maid Beneath satanic wand! 94 Harry Kemp So Lilith once more went the ways, The rose-red ways, The golden ways . . . She scorned like Eve to drop her days full ripe in Adam s hand. Her every laugh was Adam s snare, And, unaware, Her whims he bare . . . In a gold fowling net of hair She caught him, strand on strand. Like to the ligure were her eyes, Her prescient eyes, Her subtle eyes, Which, young for ten eternities, on former worlds had wooed. Adam she taught forbidden lore And what of yore In love she bore On many a weird world before And Eden-solitude. And so God made Eve to be born (First woman born, And strangely born From a man s writhen body torn) Lilith 95 He said, "Now it shall be That Eve will Adam save from her Whose dropping myrrh Of speech doth stir His soul within him to defer In that which pleaseth me." (Already had the war begun, Dread war begun, Dire war begun Between the Serpent and the Son, for other worlds afar Had felt the dreadful thing creep in And ancient sin Had set its gin To trap Edenic souls therein On many a passed star. And as the night pursues the day, The orient day, The risen day, The Hosts of Hell for aye and aye followed the feet of God . . . Where He world-specked the Infinite As locusts flit In swarms they lit And bit, and cankered where they bit, And shore of herb his sod. 96 Harry Kemp And to each world the Christ came down, From heaven came down, From God came down, With miracles of great renown to disconcert the Wise Ten thousand times was crucified, And groaned and died, With spear-pierced side, To ope the gates of heaven wide And thwart the Prince of Lies) So, tho that Eve were white and fair, Most lily fair, Most starry-fair, Adam yet dreamed of Lilith s hair, yea, being Sire of men, He yearned for her small kissed face, And her embrace Of elder days Made all that leafy garden-place Seem now a noisome fen. Still . . . God s great soul-faith doth not fail! . . . (Tho old the tale It did not fail) . . . Lilith 97 His seraphs thro the starry hail again Christ s galleon oar, And once more must the God-Man die, Must leave the sky, Be nailed on high, Must know afresh old agony To save a world once more 1 98 Harry Kemp THE SONG OF ISRAFEL poet-seraph Israfel, chief player on the lyre I dreamed he came to me last night with words like leaping fire, Then Time became Eternity, then grew my vision whole: I took His hand; He led me forth to God, a naked soul! I saw a boundless universe where worlds of souls do find Freedom to bend and guide their growth as after God s own mind; The frightful night flashed full of suns as thick as sparks, when fall A city s roofs in, beam on beam, wall upon crashing wall Around them little jeweled worlds like emer ald insects drove Which spread and close in phalanx small within some shady grove. From heaven s awful parapets I viewed the mighty scene The Song of Israfel 99 While rose the Seraph s silver voice majestic and serene: "God s eye, alone, can count these suns (He knows nor space nor bound), And tributary worlds, alive with beings, gird them round; And thro all space, from Deep to Deep, above the blinded throng, Great poets coin their labored thought into golden song, And sculptors chip the stubborn stone, and art ists dream, and dare To give the Inner Vision birth with colors rich and rare; Musicians woo the Infinite half into finite clasp, As children reach for butterflies just poised be yond the grasp. . . . Five peep-holes for the soul has earth . . . And other worlds have more, Or not as many . . . Mayhap two, or three . . . Or half a score. . . . Some stellar eyes more colors see where larger spectrums thrill; On some world s Music s silver sighs a wider gamut fill : And thus unnumbered worlds build souls, a million earths are trod ioo Harry Kemp By other souls, which, in their way, have their dim dreams of God. Nor reach ye aught beyond their grasp: your eyes, too, vague and dim, Clutch at the rainbow of his face and hanker after Him. Strange bodies souls inhabit, sure, round Algol s sullen suns Where thro tremendous-arched skies the light ning skips and runs, And Alpha of the Centaur thralls what worlds bizarre and fair? And who can limn the hidden life that circles round Altair? And earths have perished on which God has builded up the soul, While more worlds, thro eternity, must seek the selfsame goal!" No more I heard! The crystal globe of speech unuttered broke, The vision faded from my dream, and in the night I woke; Yet not in vain the Wonder came God wot, my soul had heard The Song that soars, the Song that leaps, be yond the Written Word ! Suspicion 10.1 SUSPICION T SEE no good in anything, but aye the ^ shadow of an ill, And behind every windy copse I fear an am bush lurking still. Beneath each simple word well-meant I burrow for the deep design. My feet are wary of the springe. I fear the under-flaming mine. Nothing there is, as erst of old, that takes my being sweet and whole. . . . Nay, this is death instead of life. May God have mercy on my soul ! IO2 Harry Kemp IMPENITENCE T REJOICE that I have sinned, * I am glad that ONCE I cast All my scruples to the wind Thus I gathered life at last I am glad that I have gone Where no honest thing is seen, Dared the night to feel the dawn Wash about me large and clean, All the mystery of ill Gathered into force in me, Of all evil I took skill And it taught me purity. Nay, there lingers no regret: I have looked thro other eyes, Loosing folly without let That I might wax folly-wise. Impenitence 103 Now with charity I scan Those who lurk where I have been, For HIS lips condemn no man, Who has suffered, who has seen. IO4 Harry Kemp IN A CHOP-SUEY JOINT up a flight of darkly-winding stair, Push through a swinging door, and you are there. The ceiling lowers low with strange design Where fire-mouthed dragons coil and inter twine. The joss-sticks thin blue vapor creeps about Like prisoned spirit seeking some way out, And slipshod waiters shuffle silent by With rustling garments and quaint-slanted eye. If you but fold your sight you are away In some quaint yellow corner of Cathay, Lost in a garden of hand-monstered trees And exquisite uncouth barbarities Where threats a eunuch one-eyed like a star Towering malignant with a scimitar. Now the sun-smitten highway, where there plies His trade the beggar with self-blinded eyes. In a Chop-Suey Joint 105 Now, drowning pastoral matin, woodland song, From a great temple booms a brazen gong. . . . The streets with chattering hordes are over- sped Like swarming vermin in a beggar s head; And, here and there, amongst the long-cued horde, A coolie-borne palanquin speaks a Lord. . . . The spell is broken . . . Here s some tea to quaff . . . Hark! from behind yon flower-damasked screen There breaks a coarse, loud-mouthed, salacious laugh Pregnant with goatish lusts and deeds ob scene . . . It is some tawdry prostitute, I guess, Whose voice betrays her painted wantonness. 106 Harry Kemp LONELINESS TN my breast a lonely heart * Echoes like a drum of doom, And one feeble, dim-lit lamp Glimmers in this gloomy room; In the topmost of the sky Shines a solitary star O, how separate and lone All of God s creations are. The Bird of Paradise 107 THE BIRD OF PARADISE T A HOU art perfected splendor without the peacock s feet, And only the manna-dew of heaven thou dost eat, Bird of many colors, kinsman to the dawn, Richer in rare hues than the iris heaven-drawn! But sad it is to think that any ruthless clown With the cunning of a blow-pipe may bring thy beauty down. io8 Harry Kemp FISHERMEN [The Jersey Coast] HPHEY stand as still as shapes in bronze, great-bodied, pipe in mouth; A slant-stacked steamer trails the sky with smoke, against the South; Far out they watch the toiling tides that lift in crests of foam, Alert to glimpse the rippled stir where schools of bluefish roam; They seldom move, they seldom break the fancy of the eye That makes them seem a common part of earth and sea and sky. . . . A space beyond, the bathing folk along a sand- strip run, And pasty-visaged city groups slouch shaded from the sun, And, of a sudden, as in dream, on either hand I see The crush and roar of modern life and Christ in Galilee! A Prayer 109 A PRAYER T KNEEL not now to pray that thou Make white one single sin, I only kneel to thank thee, Lord, For what I have not been; For deeds which sprouted in my heart But ne er to bloom were brought, For monstrous vices which I slew In the shambles of my thought Dark seeds the world has never guessed By hell and passion bred, Which never grew beyond the bud That cankered in my head. Some said I was a righteous man- Poor fools ! The gallow s tree (If thou hadst let one foot to slip) Had grown a limb for me. no Harry Kemp So for the Man I might have been My heart must cease to mourn Twere best to praise the living Lord For monsters never born, To bend the spiritual knee (Knowing myself within) And thank the kind, benignant God For what I have not been. The Star of God s Malison III THE STAR OF GOD S MALISON TTANGING leprous and white in the wide universe Was a star done to death by the hand of God s curse. Each mount was an island suspended in air, And petrified hurricanes hung here and there In impotent menace; whole forests inclined Were frozen one way by a visible wind; Like death-shrouded lava the face of the Deep Paused in green convolutions, in masses did stand Along the dread hush of a desolate land. 112 Harry Kemp HELL S RESURRECTION saffron-colored stars of Hell Diminished one by one; Their lustres into grayness fell The New Age had begun; And Satan s yellow gonfalons Like baleful meteors broke (Above his seething myrmidons) Thro heaving bulks of smoke, As at the Gates of Bliss they clung In this last hopeless war, Ere Hell sloped down the void, far-flung, Like some dismembered star; At that same moment every rose Forsook its spiked thorn; The North put warmth into its snows, Nor pushed with boreal horn; Hell s Resurrection 113 The spider laddered patterns wove Across the cannon s mouth, And frankincense and myrrh and clove Breathed each wind full of South; The serpent-sinuous wiles of Sin Assailed the sense no more, And wine, with bubbling demons in, To snare the soul forbore. Mankind was first to cry complaint: Art lost all hues but white; Song found no subject but the saint And dropped its wings ere flight. There grew no need for Book and Bell, And churches tumbled in; From her high honor Virtue fell, For GOD had vanquished Sin. A sadness touched e en Heaven, then, And shadows of despair; No worship mounted up from men, And angels live on prayer H4 Harry Kemp "Ah, bring back Sin!" The Seraphim In mystic cadence cried. "Ah, once more make our sunshine dim With Death!" Creation sighed. So Death and Sin took up their way Among mankind once more, And Hell burst into dreadful day As it had flamed of yore 1 / Sing the Battle 115 I SING THE BATTLE T SING the song of the great clean guns that ^ belch forth death at will. Ah, but the wailing mothers, the lifeless forms and still! I sing the song of the billowing flags, the bugles that cry before. Ah, but the skeletons flapping rags, the lips that speak no more ! I sing the clash of bayonets and sabers that flash and cleave. And wilt thou sing the maimed ones, too, that go with pinned-up sleeve? I sing acclaimed generals that bring the victory home. Ah, but the broken bodies that drip like honey comb! 1 1 6 Harry Kemp I sing of hosts triumphant, long ranks of marching men. And wilt thou sing the shadowy hosts that never march again? The Conquerors 117 THE CONQUERORS T SAW the Conquerors riding by * With trampling feet of horse and men Empire on empire like the tide Flooded the world and ebbed again; A thousand banners caught the sun, And cities smoked along the plain, And laden down with silk and gold And heaped-up pillage groaned the wain. I saw the Conquerors riding by, Splashing through loathsome floods of war The Crescent leaning o er its hosts, And the barbaric scimitar, And continents of moving spears, And storms of arrows in the sky, And all the instruments sought out By cunning men that men may die ! n8 Harry Kemp I saw the Conquerors riding by With cruel lips and faces wan: Musing on kingdoms sacked and burned There rode the Mongol Ghengis Khan; And Alexander, like a god, Who sought to weld the world in one ; And Caesar with his laurel wreath; And like a thing from Hell the Hun ; And, leading like a star the van, Heedless of upstretched arm and groan, Inscrutable Napoleon went Dreaming of empire, and alone . . . Then all they perished from the earth As fleeting sliadows from a glass, And, conquering down the centuries, Came Christ, the Swordless, on an ass! Geology 119 TTTHAT matter if my life be passed * In laughter or in tears and groans? Some day, compressed within a rock, They ll find the lime that made my bones. I2O Harry Kemp VIEWPOINT TIT HEN Dante in old Florence walked the * * street (The same whom Beatrice in heaven did greet) Full many a member of the pygmy clan Whispered with laughter, "Yon s a crazy manl" In Debt 121 IN DEBT T^ACH man a general debt to mankind owes *^ For all he is, all he enjoys, and knows, And he who dares the least of men to ban Is just so many stages less a man. 122 Harry Kemp LOVELY CHILD T OVELY child, make haste to play "-^ While the dew is on your day Half a score of years ahead You will labor for your bread. Paul and Omar 123 PAUL AND OMAR [They were both tent-makers by trade] / T A WO tent-makers in different ages born " One played a lute, one blew an iron horn. One cried that flesh was weak and life was wrong, The other, "Only wine and love are strong." Omar, I share not all thy brimming bowl, Nor, Paul, would I, like thee, be naught but soul . . . Player of careless lute, blower of horn, I pluck the rose, nor shrink I from the thorn. 124 Harry Kemp MT. RANTER ONOW-GARMENTED, immense, ^ And holding audience With subject clouds, he seems to poise in air, And at his mighty base An hundred towns find place And two great cities rival-thewed and fair. Above him, without bound, The heavens arch profound, As loverlike he greets the risen sun. His diamond-scattered snows Reflect the golden glows And purple glooms of eve as day is done. There mile on mile he shines Above his ragged pines, An empire tributary to his view: Ten thousand wealthy farms, The blue Sound s gleaming arms, The distant ocean s wavering edge of blue. Mt. Rattier There all the star-hushed night, Like a great ghost in white, He communes with the Spirit of the Dark, While murmuring below Life s tides of being flow And cities gleam like shards which flash a spark. How many thousand years Of human hopes and fears He s known the sun and stars, no voice may tell- But long ere humankind Groped slowly into mind He hushed primeval forests with his spell. How many thousand years Of human hopes and fears He yet shall tower 1 till his slaughtered trees Have risen far and wide As homes where folk may bide In many smoky cities at his knees. And then when man is dust Still with His shoulders thrust 126 Harry Kemp The black cloud-tumult of the storm in twain ! When Life shall cease to be He still will greet the sea Far-flashing monarch of a dead domain. The Voice of Christmas 127 THE VOICE OF CHRISTMAS T CANNOT put the Presence by, of Him, the * Crucified, Who moves men s spirits with His Love as doth the moon the tide; Again I see the Life He lived, the godlike Death He died. Again I see upon the cross that great Soul- battle fought, Into the texture of the world the tale of which is wrought Until it hath become the woof of human deed and thought, And, joining with the cadenced bells that all the morning fill, His cry of agony doth yet my inmost being thrill, Like some fresh grief from yesterday that tears the heart-strings still. 128 Harry Kemp I cannot put His Presence by, I meet Him everywhere; I meet Him in the country town, the busy mar ket-square; The Mansion and the Tenement attest His Presence there. Upon the funneled ships at sea He sets His shining feet; The Distant Ends of Empire not in vain His Name repeat, And, like the presence of a rose, He makes the whole world sweet. He comes to break the barriers down raised up by barren creeds; About the globe from zone to zone like sun light He proceeds; He comes to give the World s starved heart the perfect love it needs, The Christ Whose friends have played Him false, Whom Dogmas have belied, Still speaking to the hearts of men Tho shamed and crucified, The Master of the Centuries Who will not be denied I The Moth s Song 129 THE MOTH S SONG good to be the moth that seeks the flame, To rush in on it, sudden, from the night What tho I, blackened, perish at the same Do I not find the glory of the Light! 130 Harry Kemp THIS PALTRY "I" AT times I sicken of this paltry "I," At times it seems oblivion would be good. . . . Tis hard to know the truth and live the lie, Caught in the maelstrom of the multitude, And, in the common cloth of fools endued, To think like God and like an insect die. To give up what I have not were not vain. Call you this Life I drag from day to day? My dreams have wings of fire, but crawl in clay. I see the heights, yet cannot leave the plain. . . . O, He is cruel who makes known the way And gives not strength the summit to attain ! Prt destination 131 PREDESTINATION is no peace for the blowing leaf, The end of his journey he never knows: He lifts from the ground with an upward heave Or settles, as lulls the wind or blows. And he ever pretends to his traveling friends Mottled with crimson, dappled with fire, That he knows the country to which he wends, That he shapes his ways to his own desire. 132 Harry Kemp SIGHT BEYOND SIGHT TF the good Lord had but restored * My sight, that were unkind To wend abroad and stare and nod And yet within be blind! But with that hand and that command That filled the eye with light He gave to me the gift to see Beyond the reach of sight. / Deemed I Dwelt Alone 133 I DEEMED I DWELT ALONE T DEEMED I dwelt alone. * I felt my life beat single in my breast. And then I looked about: The myriad lives that murmur in the grass, The million dwellers neath Each moss-enchased and lichen-spotted stone Called, "Friend, take thought of us We too aspire and dream our insect dreams!" 134 Harty Kemp THE THRESHING MACHINE T^HE green, fresh jackets of eared corn looked cool amid the vibrant heat As we trod the stacks, and flung, day-long, the yellow bundles of corded wheat Into the maw of the threshing machine, while the curved knives glinted in the sun As they swept with a periodic whirr and clove the bundles, one by one. The ever-recurring coil of the belt in a black ellipse sped round and round, And the chuff and snort of the engine s breath the lowing of pastured cattle drowned. . . . Stack after stack our sturdy arms fed into the jaws of the toothed machine While the blowing-funnel heaped behind the threshed straw separate and clean, And the farmers backed their wagons up and held brown bags to a magic spout The Threshing Machine 135 From which, in intermittent streams, the yellow grain came rushing out. When amber twilight softly laid its shadows on the rustling corn, We stacked our forks, untrussed the belts, and gladly answered the supper-horn And, said the foreman, as we sat at board, with hunger whetted keen, "Let poets sing of flails and such But 7 thank God for the threshing machine 1" 136 Harry Kemp THE CABLES AND THE WIRELESS / T A HE cable-operators swore because they -* had lost a word, And the wireless-workers wondered why a break in the code occurred. . . . The plaint of the Deep-sea Cables as they lie "in their sunless bed While liners flit like wind-blown clouds through the watery vast o erhead; Couched soft in ever-dripping ooze, and cov ered with living shells Alive with innumerable things and inquisitive tentacles, O er ridges of tide-washed mountains, thro fish-haunted valleys they go ; Above them the ponderous waters swing and the crashing tempests blow, And many a night the Milky Way bends its magnificent bow Along the vault of the star-vast sky, its glory reflected below; The Cables and the Wireless 137 Its smoke s blue hint on the heaven s edge the lone tramp steamer trails, And day by day great ships sweep by with flash and glimmer of sails, While deep in watery empires dim where silence brims to the shores The lightning-footed messages leap along the ocean-floors . . . The plaint of the Deep-sea Cables beholding their empire done, Of every office stripped to clothe the Newly- Anointed One : "For many a year, alone, obscure, we ve toiled unceasing for Man And added as suburbs to London the cities of teeming Japan; We ve dragged our lengths laboriously from Deep to profounder Deep, And harnessed our souls to the will of Him and, lo, the reward we reap ! For He has discovered a feminine thing that runs with the great winds free Over the leagues of the steadfast land and the shifting acres of sea; She steals the warm live words from our mouths, and now they will let us lie 138 Harry Kemp Abandoned amid the ooze and shells, to drop to pieces and die, Here with the rotten hulks of ships and the bones of mariners, No more to throb with the rapid tide of human passions and fears." Now the sensitive heart of the Wireless by the grief of her forbears was stirred, And, bending above them, she sent them the balm of a soothing word: u Be silent, ye Deep-sea Cables! Your echoing voices arouse The sleep and the sloth of the ocean and the things which inhabit his house; Chide not, for I too am the vassal, like you, of the effort of Man To push further back the horizon toward the verge of the Infinite Plan. And perhaps in the widening ages and the mani fold days which ensue I too must step down from my conquest, and render my wand to a new And swifter-footed Invention, which, leaping the chasm to Mars, Will link all the planets together in a common code of the stars, The Cables and the Wireless 139 And a large and unthought-of communion will tie on its sandals and run Its errands from planet to planet from the flaming hills of the sun To the swing of the outermost orbit twill flash on its messages, free, As I thro the wide air-ocean, as you thro the deeps of the sea." Then the Wireless resumed her travail, and peace reigned again as of yore, And the Cables gave over their clamor and bickered and fretted no more. . . . But the Cable Operators swore because they had lost a word, And the Wireless-Workers wondered why a break in the code occurred. 14 Harry Kemp THE CRY OF YOUTH T HEARD Youth crying in the night: "Gone is my former world-delight; For there is naught my feet may stay; The morn suffuses into day, It dare not stand a moment still But must the world with light fulfil. More evanescent than the rose, My sudden rainbow comes and goes Plunging bright ends across the sky Yea, I am Youth because I die! * REC.CIR JW. 1 MAY 2 8 1937 LD 21-50m.l, 33 YB 768C9 , u. c 3G0409 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY