JC-NRLF 131 Tomorrow's Yesterday A Book of Poems By ERNEST BENSHIMOL r -\ - TOMORROW'S YESTERDAY TOMORROW'S YESTERDAY A BOOK OF POEMS BY ERNEST BENSHIMOL BOSTON SMALL, MAYNAED & COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1920 BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY (INCORPORATED) A little rhyme To set the world in harmony With itself A little elf To cast it spinning through the sea Of Time. CONTENTS Page Marsh Dreams 3 The Passing of a Shadow 14 Morning and Evening 17 Before the Oracle . . 19 Chaos 21 Among Thieves 23 Spirit of Ages 25 Anton 27 Sanctity 29 Gold .30 The Valley of the Shadow 31 Dragon 33 The Eternal 34 Confession of Hope 36 Atonement 38 What is Thine Answer? , . 39 ^Spring 42 Disdain 43 Dream and Love 44 Foam of Deep and Cloud of Sky 46 Woman 47 Page In the Wilderness 50 Redemption 51 I Cannot Hide You 52 Turn to My Arms 54 ' I Sent Her Forth 56 Unbind Thy Hair 58 .Good Bye . . . . 59 The Last Morning 61 Regret 62 VTheCry 63 Scarlet Wife 64 -Consolation 65 .The Tale of the Grey Wolf 67 *The Return 74 The Moon on the Palisades 78 Song of a Suicide 80 The Weeper . 81 At Dusk 83 Evening 85 The End of the Trail 86 %The Story of the Judge 88 My Faith 92 As I Pray (Two little drops of poison, etc.) ... 94 The Pestilence 95 In a Glass of Red Wine , 97 TOMORROW'S YESTERDAY TOMORROW'S YESTERDAY MARSH DREAMS The moon was over the silver marsh And a flood of light on the grasses lay That like a sea from the distant surf In shadowy ripples across a bay Of unreality in the night Beckoned the brooding soul away. This is a story of self and self, With trial and judgment and love of life; No death too swift to eternal rest, The depth that fathoms the end of strife, When soul hath unto the soul confessed. [3] I I was alone in the wildwood and the fen, I was the child of the salt marsh and the tide, Grown so, nor born to the deal nor death was mine Deep in the soft breast, deep in the silencing arms Of sand. I care not that your carrion eyed Me so, your stalwart keepers of the law, I am no beast to strike with beak or claw, Not I the reed-toothed viper of the glen To fang you low yet nearer to your heart Than whisp of steel: my passing heeds, not harms, Your own. Begone, and let me so depart Like to the foam white whispering in the brine. If I but lie, if I but hold the thread That twists across its own sad path and leaves No grain of truth to stand among the sheaves Of imaging, And if I sing Like some poor madman that I seem, of life Deep drawn and shadowed, then there is no wife Of mine that sleeps among the murdered dead. [4] II Love you the mist-swept moor And the dreaming sea? Love you the pale moonlight And the stars that linger Like a last note that whispers at the finger, Love you the desolate solitude of life? Then you love me. Have I said desolate, night, When a god I am grown with the gust? Oh, drown the lie at my lips And the sea will I take to my breast And the mist for a shroud! I have loved thee and scorned thee together, I have withered the wave at its crest, I have banished the moon with a cloud, When I loved I was strong with thy strength, In my scorn I was poorer than dust. [5] Ill If you convict or grant me withering pain Of life, you are but judges of the slain, Not me, I know myself. You cannot find One judgment other, for the shifting mind Is door and threshold to the soul. A glance Of love makes glade of desert circumstance, A kiss turns silver moonlight into wine, A sin is gift of heaven flung to hell, That reels and slinks and feints and will not tell; Judge now if that be mine! And we are followers of the day, not night, Not night beneath whose awesome breast I pitch My tent; between whose firefly expanse And death lives but the firefly. I knew The wild cloud and the rain; I felt the switch Of summer torrent on my cheek; I smote A kiss into life and still it would not float Far from the lips that banished it to flight. Oh, thought of life is dross of life and all [6] Dies like a senseless flower in the dew; I cannot rise so high I shall not fall Nor dream to climb eternity with a glance. IV I will breathe me a scarlet fire into the dust, I will strew a measure of pearls upon the flame And let the smoke rise wreathing to the stars! Oh, burn thy time and neither wait nor trust If thou hast taken life and wilt no blame, Take thou thine own and leave no coward trace To come when thou art gone and haunt the place. He was a man of strength, to cast the stone Pebblewise out above the surf until The eye was lost upon the wave. Alone Befriended of the cataract of men Who seek to balance wisdom on the tip Of the seagull's wing or splurge it from the pen He did not ponder with the fool, nor slip Into the calyx of the snow-white death. [7] He saw the torrent rushing to the main, He saw the sun that drew it into rain, The wind that flung it as a kiss is flung, The earth that held it deep its veins among, And laughed, for to the bosom whence it sprung Turned it forever back again. V Lamp of the dark night, Lamp of love, In her eyes I saw the gleaming, Moon of the whippoorwill, Moon of the sea, In my realm of far above On thy face is dreaming Smile to comfort me? Leave thy waters, leave thy forests, Let the vision of thy face Dance among the little planets In the loneliness of space. [8] In my soul I wish, I want thee, All the majesty and peace, Let my pain that cannot haunt thee Fall asunder, writhe and cease. VI He was the cunning sort, that gathered men To feed his intellect upon, in den Of feathery silk, a spider-weaver, yet Perverse and hideous to his kind. Forget The haggard, beaten thing I am and see The parchment of forbidden years with me. I am so far from Time I know not whence Dancing the flight of perfidy I came : I nourish soul and body with a flame And deem it recompense. We walked the melody of space together, We drew a life from death and bade it tether Vein to the vein of dust, and voice and pulse To make the living still, the dead convulse, And when experiment demanded pain [9] We laughed and charactered the house as vain, Draining desire, lest the flesh commit The soul to death's interminable length, And we, the strong men prostitute our strength For glance of reeling wit. VII Oh, the house of my soul is a house of clay And the site is a shifting sand, Tomorrow the tide may come and all, Tomorrow, forever, my house may fall, But the sun is warm at the door today And I live as long as my house shall stand. Thrice did I pass my window love, And thrice did I see thee smile, For the wind was sweet And the soul was mad And the trees in a rhythmic sway the while Bade the disconsolate heart to beat, So I rose from the pansy bed at thy feet And leaned on thy breast and was glad. [10] VIII Oh, he left me his home and his garden and thee, And he left, at his gate, with a laugh; As yonder marsh hen mocks at the sea With a swoop and a shiver of ribaldry, He mocked as he killed what he gave to me And I swooned as he flung me the lifeless half. Oh, gather thy strength and lash thy steed For the quarry is over the mountains gone And call the countryside as you go For the hand of a friend is the heart of a foe, Nor tell of remorse till tomorrow nor heed The nauseate madness, and hasten on. IX Unleash the hounds of bitterness and regret, Fierce to the scented trail of nostril, let The blood-sown wind sweep them upon me, blow The eager breath and fangs as white as snow Here close to my throat, the burning eyes [11] Reflecting death in desire. Let me rise Unto the moon and sever will from truth. In swiftness they unto the endless chase As summer clouds that whisper into space And are gone. Then call it truth? I wish the moon at morn, the sun at eve, I wish the terror of the night to slay Itself and be its counterpart for the day, Laughing forever, and the hate to weave Its hissing strands into the garland love, The last to fascinate, and twine above My temples; Time dream to decay. X Had'st thou but waited when the tide was flood, There in the deep white offering of the moon, Had'st thou not flung a spray across the boat And drowned the passage of our souls too soon, There were no wanton stirring in the blood, Nor gleam of hatred on the sea afloat. [12] Reality is centered in the past, Tonight is dreaming what the day has done; Thy pride was like a bat above the mast, Unbanishable, evil, as the sun That lurks in the high heavens when the land is parched, Yet when I smote 'twas not on thee that fell The judgment scorned of paradise, that marched In a chain of bright red lightning o'er thy brow, 'Twas here upon this breast that wanders now The long, interminable path to hell. [13] THE PASSING OF A SHADOW I know a nook in utmost solitude, Covered with moss; beneath a silver rock Flows forth the crystal silence of a spring. There in the sorrow of the eve I steal, Bathed in the moonlight; and the world, asleep, Knows not nor wonders. There is an art forgotten, Mystic, I breathe the spirit of the earth. "Thou art thyself, yet of the whole a part, Life were as nothing if thou wert not here, Bearing like column through the turbid night, Sturdy, the structure of Humanity. " Hours and hours, or if time be long, Ages and ages I have waited there, Knowing the voice would come again, and now: [14] "Men, in the great world dwelling, myriads; men Rounding the whole into a mighty mass And shapeful, over the surface of the earth; Tillers of fertile plains, of swaying leas; Herdsmen where stern-eyed mountains frown upon The golden bend of the seashore! Everywhere Incarnate soul, innumerable lives, Incarnate soul, yet all no more than one. Ye are interpreters of thy mother, child, Formed but to sing with the sea, and with the wind To run and tussle, shriek and laugh and be still: As sun loves planet, so ye love, so bless, Then pass to everlasting destiny. But play with thy delicate fingers on the reed, Then cast the reed away: the sound is gone, The music lingers yet so lingers life. " [15] And then the ghostliness of the screech-owl breaks The ecstasy of that unknown, lipless cry, With curious quavering, trembling through the dark. But as the dawn awakens, then, at last, Before the splendor of a day of hope: "Oh thou, with mind too small to understand, Living through ages helpless and alone, Take to thy breast the love that is not flown, Mankind, thou art incomparably grand. U6] MORNING AND EVEN Morning is dust and even is ash, Only the day is the fire between, Only the white waves sweeping low, Only the eddying winds that blow Under the sunlight of heaven, are true, And the love that burns at my heart, and you. Springtime is faithless and winter responds As soulless stone to the infant touch, Give me the summer and drown the rest As a dross that only supports the best, And summer wine or a winter's night And a summer's glow in the anthracite. Birth is a passion and death is a pain: I wonder that seekers of wisdom go [17] To the entrance and exit, and borrow strife When they dwell in the very house of life; When the wisdom of summer and love and day Is theirs, why will they throw it away? [18] BEFORE THE ORACLE Intemperance shall not quarrel with the will But give it sway till rich be riper yet, For who would draw the clusters from the vine Until they yearned to sparkle into wine, To dance among the veins and sing, "Forget." The plain shall be the solace of the hill For him who climbs, but on the towering shelf He must not turn to contemplate the slope, He must not ask the wind to grant him hope Nor waste his labor pitying himself. The world will lift the strong and crush the weak, The road of life is cluttered all its length With stoneless graves and tombs unwrit for shame, Nor shalt thou cry, "I stumbled as I came," For in the frailest will is mightiest strength. [19] The dark will not inspire them that seek The day is but the masking of the eyes, Tonight depart, tomorrow is thy choice, Ask thou from Time the golden gift: a voice That fades into the sunken vale and dies. [20] CHAOS The truth is master of the lie, The fool is lost, the man is shaken, A breath of wind has crossed the sky To flame and burn, and merry waken Light is the deep lake and the stars, Or draw the pulsate heart of earth Closer and closer. The night must wane into the birth Of dawn, and death give way to dreaming, Thence into life, for dancing mirth That finds no rest in sigh or seeming Strikes with a hissing bolt and mars The dream of the followers of dust Deeper and deeper. [21] Then rise and live, for rise ye must, Rise and rejoice for Time is driven Back to the kingdom of dewy lust, Death to the keeping of Death is given, And dark new flung from the breast of days Shatters to bits like an earthen vase, Broken forever. [22] AMONG THIEVES Open, open, ere the sunset slink Below the marshes, open unto me; Open, open, ere the nighthawk drink One silent draught from out the brackish pool, Ere mist in shrouding horror risen from the sea Envelop, open, open to the fool! Hearken, hearken, hearken to the pledge In hollow echo sounding o'er the waste: Hearken, hearken; from each rugged ledge That sloping down slips out into the main It calls: nor wilder than my heart in trembling haste Beats out the reeling vision of my brain. Honor, honor, was it thus before To slay the best ye sought the strongest out? [23] Ere I was gone was bolt upon the door Or hate but hidden in your hearts away? Hell sets the whole world spinning in a fiendish rout, In yonder mist I die before the day. [24] SPIRIT OF AGES What is the government, what is the law, What is the strength that holds a people so? As one would strew the air with seeds And bid them grow So are we strewn across the night, in awe, Like swallows underneath the moon. Conscious of power, glad in a world's distress, Proud of the strength to crush, and brook no ill, A voice cries out in passioned note And wild to kill, "Long have I led and now I bid aggress! Ye sin that yet ye have not bled. " What is the government, what is the right, What is the strength that holds a people so? [25] Are we yet dreamers of the dark Who cannot know, Or shall we rise with all a hidden might And strike the mask from off our eyes! [26] ANTON Anton, sprung of the wolf-hound, Would a'wooing go, Fair or foul to win or slay, Fleeting love and fly away, Bore his dagger on departing But I took a bow. Anton, sprung of the wolf-hound, Slunk beyond the stream, Like a skulking beast he crept Where the forest lily slept, Bent above her half uncertain, Would not break her dream. Anton, sprung of the wolf-hound, Beat upon his brow, [27] Stood a moment sad and still, Humbled passion to his will, Turned and fled into the forest, Faithful to his vow. Anton, sprung of the wolf-hound, Does not know the rest; Did not see her as she woke, Did not hear the name she spoke, Dreaming? Nay! there lies adreaming Arrow in her breast. [28] SANCTITY Evergreens and snow, Calm and a forest solitude. The hidden brooklets flow Under the shielding ice, and strange Pool witches softly blow Through dark weeds swaying to and fro, In restless change. Place thy lips to mine, Here in the wilderness of God, That like a golden wine Swift may the hidden current bear The fleeting heart's design: Deep under snowwhite brows divine His presence there. [29] GOLD Gold, gold, that giveth everything, A little grain within the eye a-glistening, To set the blood aglow the ear a-listening, Gold, gold that giveth everything. Not as the wine to make men dance and sing, To tread the earth as cloud on misty wing, But in the helpless heart alone To make it grand or barren as thine own, Gold, gold that giveth everything. Not as the filmy soul to make men pray for, In weary pilgrimage to search the day for, Thine is a little strand the whole world compassing, A little rainbow strand to which they cling, And when they have thee, lo, thy grace is flown, Gold, gold that giveth everything. [30] THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW Youth dreams and age regrets, Youth's dream is of a day Unknown and of a hidden reckoning; Youth dreams and age regrets, And trembling age regrets But of the past and lost youth beckoning. Youth gazes forward, age behind, Youth sees the rising of the golden sun Youth sees the day in all its splendor light; Youth gazes forward, age behind, And trembling age behind As crimson sunset whispers of the night. [31] Youth fears, but age is strong, Youth's fear is of a Time That taketh all and giveth naught in stead; Youth fears, but age is strong, Yea, trembling age is strong And laughs though on the morrow it be dead. [32] DRAGON I fear him where the long grass waves, I fear him in the limpid, silent pool; Where deep the sensuous shadows of the glen Enveil me, there the form I know Uprises at my feet. Dull eyes that fascinate and greet, A saffron throat whereon the sun may glow In vain, but for the life pulse now and then. I fear him, hear him, yet the fool Takes ever what he craves. [33] THE ETERNAL i The long day comes After the dawn, And the murmur of drums Rolling and beating, hushed and repeating. 2 The white mist steals Over the land And a dark vulture wheels High in the graven clouds like a craven. 3 The death guns boom Into the light With a fiery doom Belched from each swelling throat and repelling. [34] 4 Thou, it is Thou Come with the day, Let a kiss on my brow Still the discerning life and the burning. 5 Take Thou the pain Out of mine eyes And the vision of slain Held in each greening flash and careening. [35] CONFESSION OF HOPE A stirring in my veins, The wind in the poplar trees, A whisper on my brow: As quivering prayer the thunderbolt restrains. As shore is impotent to the seas Life sweeps me onward now. My cast is with the breath Of multitudes; with the waves My hope is; with the whole, With all this little world of worlds: who saith, "Seek him and him alone who saves Himself, " he hath no soul. And if I pledge this clay Unto the eternal night, [36] And if I wish for rest, Still is the burning of the summer's day To claim its mockery of light And me? And is it best? Up through the shadow loft Of murmuring pines and tall, Unto the stars my prayer Shall go, and though the winged cry be soft And unto earth again it fall Must it not find Thee there? [37; ATONEMENT I fear the quiet treachery of things, I steal away from over-golden day And in some somber cavern hide myself, Time moves, day goes, not I I cannot die. I watch the panther and the fluttering wings Of some wild-throated, pinioned bird of prey, I shrink at death, draw back, and hide myself, Like flows and ebbs, not I I cannot die. God gave the enormous harmony of light, Yet what is God and what am I to see Aught else but that I list and flee, Baring my breast and shrieking in the flight. Dead, dead, he lies, not I I will not die. [38] WHAT IS THINE ANSWER? This is the land where the shadows move, Stealthily, softly, coming and going, This is the land where the cymbals crash, The quivering drums and the tramp of feet, The voice of thunder and serpent lash, Where all things opposite stumble and meet And steel springs up from the early sowing, Terror and love. Summer is lost and the fields are white, Life from the heather and plain is leading All that remains of her pillaged fold, Back from the frozen brook and the stealth Of the white-armed lover of death, the cold, The scorner that mocks at her hoarded wealth, [39] The wolf that comes when her breast is bleeding, Out of the night. This is the land of the glistening throne, Gifted with life, and reviler of living, This is the temple of sunken hope, The candle-hung garden of dreamless sleep Where blind and visioned together grope, Where night-blown shadows their vigils keep Over the tomb of recalcitrant giving, Graven in stone. The white arm droops from the golden lute, The strings re-echo the burst of playing, A silence hangs on the ruddy lips Where dies the fountain of song at its source, But far through a shadowy vale there slips A river of pain in a turbulent course, Its waters red with the wine of slaying, Writhing and mute. [401 Perhaps if the dawn shall come again, , Or night bind up her sable tresses, Closing her eyes, and faint away, Blown from the morning as dreams are blown, Flinging her heritage to the day Nor life remember the visions flown And blush to a crimson with new caresses, Has it been vain? [41] SPRING Bright robes and brightly flowing, Fair tresses, violet eyes, Soft dimples, coming, going Like wanton butterflies! Who cares that time is fleeting, Who weeps that all must fade; When mad the heart is beating Who loves and is afraid? Come closer, closer, tell me The secret of thy call; Down to thy lips compel me One moment, that is all. [42] DISDAIN Love is a mistress of the wine of night, For in the breeze no passion lives, the spray That flings a million harmonies to the wave Is free. And love is drowsy, sensuous, of the clay, The harbinger of birth, A listlessness, a lesion of the sense, A dream hallucination, to deprave Affinity of soul and earth. High in a flurry of golden fleece A wing dips out of the endless blue, And quivering down the morning sky, Loud and sweet and swift and true, I the courier of caprice Hark to the consonance of a cry: If love he scorned of beauty, love must die! [43] DREAM AND LOVE Tomorrow was the palace where I dwelt, Tomorrow was the temple of my dreams, Till I met you. I knew no morn of wakening but I felt The fancied murmur of far distant streams That fell into the blue. The spring spoke myriad tongues of coming life, Each summer came and fled into the past With all the rest. Each autumn, weary of the unequal strife, Hid her bright features in the winter's blast. Said I, "Tomorrow's best." But when I saw you smile, and felt your warm Sweet lips steal closer unto mine, away [44] The vision sped. You banished dreams in one great, withering storm Of truth: This is Tomorrow's Yesterday, Awake ere you be dead. [45] FOAM OF DEEP AND CLOUD OF SKY Foam of deep and cloud of sky, Lovely, sea-blown butterfly, Soft outspread and floating far Down the whisper of a blast, Flash of moons and murky things Fainting on thy velvet wings. Yet I tremble lest it be Our dear love that's blown to sea, Sweetheart. [46] WOMAN Wake softly, softly As the rose unfoldeth, Pale red bud and perfume breathing, Wake softly, softly; Earth no longer holdeth In her cup of emerald, wreathing Night, wake, awake. Rise gently, gently, O'er thy stirring bosom Velvet lies the sunlight golden, Rise gently, gently, Blushing like a blossom By the virgin morn beholden, Gently rise, arise. [47] Sing lightly, lightly In the day's devotion, Free thy hair from binding sorrow, Sing lightly, lightly; With a fearless motion Fling it far into the morrow, Lightly sing, sing. Love, maiden, maiden, Life is like a flower, Let thine heart untutored teach thee; Love, maiden, maiden, In thy golden hour And no sullied lips shall reach thee, Maiden, love love. Prate, nodding, nodding, In the day's declining Life must wear a dark complexion, Prate, nodding, nodding; In the shadows twining [48] Present speech is past reflection; Nodding, prate, prate. Sleep ever, ever, Far thy brand is burning O'er the stream of darkest flowing, Sleep, ever, ever; To the night returning, Painless, dreamless is thy going; Sleep, forever sleep. [49] IN THE WILDERNESS Within thy cheek the faintest rose reborn: Perhaps we shall divide the night and thine Be one part and the other mine, or call Across the wasteland where the torrents fall In foaming resonance o'er the dark incline. My part thy trust, my trust thy bending low To measure evening as the waters go Dreaming into the snowwhite breast of morn; Thy part to sleep, my part k> watch thee so! [501 REDEMPTION I came, last night, so close to death, That, rising to the last request I forced his jaws apart and gazed, Twixt fang and fang, twixt opiate breath And sleep, into the rose-pink throat. "I sail the far ways of the sea," I cried, and swooned upon his breast. The fancied hours whirled about Like sunlight dancing in the wine Till soon, with senses more amazed Than true, the spirit wandered out Into the past. I heard the note Of whippoorwill in the apple tree And woke to find your hand in mine. [51] I CANNOT HIDE YOU I cannot hide you in my heart Because my eyes disclose Through distant gazing, or a sudden start Of light, yourself: Away my secret goes! I cannot screen you in a mind That dreams the days, between Our meeting, dreams, and seeks in vain to find Repose therein, and tears away the screen. I come before the drowsy moon Awakes in the purple sky. And we shall know the eternal secret soon Of dusk and love and summer, you and I. [52] Thus I can hide you, in my arms, Thus witch the pain away Till dawn comes stealing in across the farms And life rejoices in a golden day. [63] TURN TO MY ARMS Turn to the east, and turn to the west, Turn to the south and the north, and then Smiling at sorrow and seeking afar, Turn to my arms again. The gleam in your eyes is the beacon of fame. That burns to an endless goal From mountain to mountain across the years Till desire dies in a valley of tears, Till the red fades out of the beacon flame And love fades out of the soul. Rustle of dead leaves, groan of bough Tossing to no avail Under the turquoise winter sky Jewelled and distant and cold and high. [54] Your strength would follow the tempest now And rustle dead things and fail. Turn to the wisdom of other days, Question the seekers that wandered in vain, Think of the love you will find at my heart And turn to my arms again. [55] I SENT HER FORTH I sent her forth, For men spurn most the things they love the best, And, blinding vision to her higher worth, I cast her out to battle with the rest That snarl and surge around law's prudent door. She comes no more. She cannot win. No soul of flesh won any battle yet, That blustered out to tournament with sin. Always they come and plead that we forget. With lowered eyes and cheeks that flame and burn She will return. Mine is the shame. For I have lost the blessing of a heart [56] That beat for me, that I might hold the name Of master from some distant dream I start And in the darkness struggle to define Two lips at mine. [57] UNBIND THY HAIR Unfold the beauty of a whispering night, Sweep magically over me again The restless sable robe that with a flight Of stars floods all my soul. Oh, let me wake, Casting into the torrent of the rain The dreams I dream, forever, and partake, Of love long lost, long hidden under pain. Oh drench me in a shower of the dark And drown me in a whirlpool of despair, But save me from the relentless hours that mark The grains of sand swift slipping from the cup. When all that quivers in the cup is care, Oh fill the olden, golden goblet up With misty night, mine own unbind thy hair! [58] GOOD BYE Whisper thy secret, love, Time will not stay, Hold me yet closer, love, Just for today. Long will thy paradise Fade in dispair, Founded on structure, love Frailer than air. Vast is the ocean, love, Silent and blue, Vast thine emotion, love, Deeper and true. [59] Find me tomorrow, love, Dead on the plain, Broken with sorrow, love, Striven in vain. Stars and a wilderness, Light that has flown, Life has forgotten, love, We are alone. 160] THE LAST MORNING I seat myself upon a crystal throne, I swathe my temples in a golden band And smile as through the arras, softly blown, Sweeps the wide beauty of the sunlit land. Oh God, why hast Thou made the world so sweet; Oh barren heart what hast thou left to give, That like the poppy blushing in the wheat Thou findest joy in loneliness to live? Long have I sought as doth a feeble spark Borne on the night wind cast its light of pain; I will no longer juggle with the dark, Soul of my soul I come to thee again! [61 REGRET I never knew the summer till it passed, I never knew the sunlight till it fled, I never knew the day but with the last Bright star of eve to comfort me instead. Oft when the tide stood hesitant and still And when I laughed and dreamed it was mine own It drew its waters to a sterner will And left me wondering on the beach alone. Now thou art gone the veil is flung apart, Now thou art gone! but in my soul there lies The wind of yesterday, close to my heart Low whispering, and the dark sea of thine eyes. [62; CRY Thou wert so fair that night I thought not death But sleep possessed thee ; moonbeams played as breath Over thy lips that wronged love fancied red: Then closer, closer to my heart I pressed thee, Scornful of life that marked thy spirit dead. They say I crept like craven from the room And ran wild-shrieking through the night, as doom Swept low the feeble structures of a mind: But in my soul I heard thine accents speaking, Speaking like dead rose to the autumn wind. [63] SCARLET WIFE How canst thou breathe so sweet a sleep The while, How can thy cheeks glow with a tender red, Thy breast so even rise and fall When wild my heart is into swiftness fled, My temples throbbing to the trumpet call Of madness knocking loudly at my head: How canst thou breathe so sweet a sleep And smile? [64] CONSOLATION Whisper to me they called me fool, wild, madman; Charlatans they, who mocked in symmetry Of heartless ignorance; chaffed in weight of chaff; Laughed in their own fool-laughter, whilst I sought By every vestige, every living clue, To know the truth e'er life had sped away. Whisper to me I know thine anguish well; Broken, alone and helpless, on and on I struggled: on and on, and nowhere. Bonds That life had riveted to me clinked, as death Scattered the lights of knowledge in the dust: Teeth of a dragon ne'er to reawake. And men will strive as I have striven, ever, Die as I died, wasted, mind and limb; [65] For, fearing we might understand herself, Life has turned torturess: given sight enough That we must see, as tottering into dark, Each individual life; ourselves and all we love. Move not away, but place thy gentle lips On the white stone that marks a ruined end, Thus I receive thy blessing, and thou mine: Pass on, we shall not meet again, my friend. [66] THE TALE OF THE GREY WOLF i Boldly I spoke, and trembled at the words, "For you will tell me ere the night departing Steal thee away a dream before the morn. Come ope those glistening jaws wherein the fangs Give back the livid tincture of the moon! Come move that tongue more wont within the race To loll and drip, than in the subtleties Of speech to spin the intricate to fashion! I know thee well, grey wolf: a single sweep And this sharp blade will tell if red thy blood Or green. Speak! for I tarry not. The way Is long, afar the lamp is hung above The darkened lintel of the tavern door: There shall thy tale be told, and maid and master [67] Wonder at me for that I feared thee not: There shall thy tale be told or else the spit Turned by the potboy o'er the roaring blaze, Hiss with the last faint quiverings of thy heart. " As first I spoke, quite unafraid he looked Not at my lips as men do; but my eyes Gauged the intent for him. Then slow he turned And on the moon fixed his intensive gaze, Long puzzling at its bright placidity. Slow up he rose, and yawned and stretched his legs, Then like the wind fled out among the pines Where endless lay the darkened avenues Of night; and I was after him alone. Silent I sped, and swifter than the hound, Silent away and truer to the trail, Guided by instinct. One by one the trees Told out the varied swingings of my sword That smote their sturdy sides and rang away. Now came the moon perhaps, or now was lost [68] Where monstrous boughs in monstrous shadows hung, Frighting the soul, but yet the heart within Beat to the maddening fervor of the hunt And I must on behind the fleeing thing. At last I fell : a heavy, twisted root, Sprung from the earth as some loud-thundering wind Beat low the noble posture of the trunk, Quick held, then flung me headlong to the ground. A growling rush, a shadow overhead, The snap of empty jaws; and then a long Low snarl of pain. So had the grey wolf leapt, So leapt, then fled like coward where the trail Descended. Trembling I stood and down my face The blood streamed copiously; each gasping breath Discovered pains new-seated in my bosom: Onward I strove, half knowing where I went. [69] II High risen, like the river's ghost to flow Where ages past the stronger river went, Soft and uncertain in its fashioning The moonlight played upon the canyon mist. Thrice down the echoing incline I hurled The resonant defiance of a hate. "Who calls?" a woman's voice, and strangely rich And clear, "Who calls the grey wolf from the heights?" Perhaps the tale, though pledged above the glass, Perhaps, though told in partial drunkenness, Were true! "Come, stranger, nor in rage descend, Nor fear. " I felt a sapling quiver now, Under my hand: My eyes in dizziness Revolved the world about me; moon and stars Went swimming down amid the senseless void And high above, between the glowering walls The river mist went creeping on and on. Now down the hill I stumbled, breathing slow, While heart and brain beat wild in one accord: [70] "I come/' I cried, "Though troubled be the way I come, I come; thy voice like silken thread Leads me afar through interwoven glades, Yet nearer, nearer, downward to thy feet. " Alone she knelt, and o'er a swirling pool, Far in mid-river, dipped a goblet low. Then I like a fountain from the sylvan sward, Enrobed in silk, ensilvered by the moon She rose, and saw me, smiling. Through the stream, As comes a moonbeam through the night, she came, Bearing the goblet high above her head. Before a rock encroaching on the way, A rock of awful massiveness and strength, Rising, a dark head in the vast ravine, We stood. Then of the goblet's potion drank I Deeply, and cried to her that stood beside To bid and I would do whatever she willed. No task it seemed as I would lift a hand Today and wonder not that it obeyed. [71] So did I heave the boulder from its sheath Of crumbling rock and stubborn mountain brush And cast it crashing downward through the night. "Behold," she said, and as I turned from harking Unto the fall of that which I had thrown, A light of gold, in magic soft and low Enthralled me. On the threshold of a cave The grey wolf, bristling, bared his fangs and snarled: But oh, beyond, a hideous spectre sat, A frightful skeleton that lived and grinned In mockery of the gold, mosaic walls. Then stealthily from out a glittering heap, Two coins it plucked and held them to the light, Clacking its knees and swaying to and fro. Aloud I shrieked for there before my eyes The coins turned human faces; one that smiled And one that wept, in likeness of my own; Then back to the table fell they and were coins. [72] "This," said the maid, "the grey wolfs secret is; And this is God's" three kisses on my lips, Three kisses like the ocean's kiss in May And with the third I swooned into the dawn. [73] THE RETURN I "Why are the whistles booming so, Why is the hum of the turbines low? Is it land? What land? Where's France? Where's France? And Joe, my bunkey, where is Joe? He would not leave me for the sight Of land. I asked for him last night: Your face it says you do not know. Oh God, it's true, he's dead. Dance, dance Ye lights and shrapnel, ye that kill And put to sleep, nor maim the sense As that vile lotus-breath : Intense But sweet, insidious Yes, I will be still!" [74] II "Who are these people by my bed? Yes, I know you you're mother dead, I thought oh no, not you, sometimes I think I've jugglers in my head. It's Joe that's gone in a flash of light, Lost as a firefly in the night, And I've a living death instead. Joe, that was luck! Your face, and chimes, And orange blossoms! till it seems You are the bride I knew, my Ruth, I wish to call this vision truth; Oh, say I'm dreaming life, not living dreams!" [75] Ill "Each night, my love, you prayed and wept, Each night caressed me as I slept, And stole back to your single bed, While I waxed stronger, grew adept At linking thoughts together late Into darkness but you could not wait Last night in the joy of strength I crept To your room and saw and would have fled But for the flame in my veins. I fell, Like the wreck I was, in the sombre hall, You found me when you heard the fall. The dead return to life to find earth hell!" [76] IV "I speed to France from whence I came. A girl of the wheat fields to my name Alone, if I should not return, Swore an eternal truth the same Your false lips whispered a year ago. Oh yes, in health and strength and flow Of wealth and friends you wish the blame To rest on me Why do they burn, Those crimson cheeks? Why do your eyes Fear looking into mine, the true? The love I had was all for you, Take his love now who perjured paradise." |77l THE MOON ON THE PALISADES I I follow the moon to the Palisades Where the dead brush blows on the rocky walls, And streams are frozen in white cascades And torrents steal to the silent falls Like Ghosts, on the Palisades. II I follow the moon to the Palisades For the call of my heart is to be alone. The forest merges to darkness and fades In the shadows hiding the steeps of stone From the moon, on the Palisades. 178] Ill I follow the moon to the Palisades To merge myself and my secret so, Till the morning conies and the dark evades The cliff to hide in the caves below At dawn, on the Palisades. IV I follow the moon to the Palisades Where solitude whispers that Death is free From pain; that a fantasy soul degrades The living to sense servility. There is peace on the Palisades. V I follow the moon to the Palisades And a spirit rises over the waste As battle-smoke over the gleaming blades And I know that the spirit of death is chaste As the moon on the Palisades. [79] SONG OF A SUICIDE Last golden eve I watched a quivering star Fall the long firmament to the hush of space, Last eve I rose against the giant face Of night and cried my sorrowing afar. Last golden eve I knelt upon the strand, I tasted of the brine and laughed and wept. I felt the pulse of Time and thought it slept And held it close and found it was the sand. Last golden eve my memories of thee Like startled bird into the dark I flung And watched them flutter where the moonbeams hung: Last golden eve I stumbled in the sea [80] THE WEEPER He who so stood beneath the willow's shade, Thigh-deep in the river, and with brimming eyes Noted the constant coursing of the tide That flowed, now swift, now slow, yet ever flowed; There seeing the hidden truth, life's parallel, Time changeth all, the river never is The selfsame river yet no more he saw Found consolation in a woman's arms; Drowned his poor sorrow in a vinous glow. Oh now, long years forgotten, he is gone, And others dwell as he dwelt, through the land, The crystal waters sweep the same bright banks, The wind-song in the willows still is young. Life though it changeth must forever be [81] The same Life unto death, yet ere it dies New life bursts forth from out the strength of youth As long as sun and earth shall sway as now Death cannot conquer change is only change. Oh fool, why must thou ever seek divinity beyond, Knowing each life must yield, then yield itself at last, And, fearing, blind thyself unto the truth of all : Thine immortality takes birth with every child? [82] AT DUSK I fear the Soft glow of the evening lamps And the imperceptible passing of things From truth of vision to shadow being, The sycophant presence of him that clings To the coming of darkness in sable wings. I fear the remorseless terror that stamps The pallor death to the brow of seeing, That leaves the clay in its strange desire Hearts of jet in souls of fire. Out of the even the mists of light Flung in a suppliant moon-appeal Stream to exhaustion in void of ebon, Sanctioning gifts of the dust that steal Eternal being from earthen seal. [83] And bodies fall from the spirit's flight For spiderous silence to fashion a web on. Torn from the earth and the surge of the main We sink to the bosom of earth again. [84] EVENING I will not know, for yet I think thee near In this last silence: o'er my brow thy hand Steals like a summer wind; the chaliced ear Holds whisperings from a ne'er forgotten land. How dark my soul, and like an endless wood That knows no light upon its shadowy face Save when the moon comes with her silver flood To sweep foreboding terror from the place. I feel thy lily breath upon my hair, I struggle up, I raise my lips to bless Thy presence, but the void, unhallowed air Cries down upon me in my loneliness: Then with a fluttering heart and with the fright Of death, I ope mine eyes and gaze into the night! [85] THE END OF THE TRAIL Hand upon brow, and in fearlessness Scanning the heavens, Conscious and proud of the youth of him, Tall and stately and handsome, Bares he to sunset the sacred strength of his bosom; Prays in the hopefulness of a day of grace To the Great Spirit. Soft as the purr of the puma, Deep in the heart of the valley, Murmurs the bowstring. Slender and swift, Like to the hiss of the adder Whispers the arrow. [86] Silent the crest is, alone; and the darkness O'er the abysses Draws her keep mantle, relentless. Oh, but Thy hand o'er a brow Wilder than death, where it rests on the rocks of the canyon Sootheth unseen the last of a noble race: Thou, the Great Spirit! [87] THE STORY OF THE JUDGE ; Tis bosomed deep in utmost secrecy, Fearful of nothing, for the seal is death: And I can laugh the whole world in the face, Humor its sorrows or cajole its cares, A favored child. Mayhap its brimming fold Will give a yearling for new sacrifice, Life for a life: most carefully will the noose Be played until some lamb, unwary, feed Within the precinct of the evidence And all is silent. Now the joyful blood Careers through my veins in orgiastic life! The dark clouds of remorse are trembling now Before the strength of this wild, wind-swept heaven And unlulled breezes singing of success. [88] I am no more a man, but tempered high, Sprung to an element through a blessed act; Sacred my path shall be o'er all the earth, Man must acknowledge me as strong of will, As pure of heart, and scatter roses low, Bowing to me, for I am innocent: Crime undiscovered is a guiltless crime! What ails thee, world? Though I be obdurate Yet am I not a fool. Thy pity knows The living, cowering yonder, but as judge I see a countenance unredeemable. Hush thy rude voices! Though 'twas done unseen, No man becomes a sinner till he sins, And then is more the sinner for his past. A wondrous chance has thrown into our hands The chain that links the doer with the deed, Each pulse that stirs within a murderer's heart Is venom bubbling through the well of life: Death is the sentence! [89] Now the court is still, Freed the long session of its loud unrest: Quiet, quiet speaks of the coming night. Yet would I hold thee, day, as love unfaithful, Knowing thy long departure, slow return, Yet read from thine eyes that all regret is vain; Oh stay with me, I fear the dark, oh stay! For with her own white fingers have I torn The lily breast of Truth: Oh stay with me! The risen moon is like a thread of gold, Virgin, as thou wert, and as soon to pass; Dim in its bending cup thy face is dreaming, Closed are thine eyes, and o'er a pallid brow The languid moonbeams wave thy molten hair. Speak to me, speak! Oh God, am I so low? So low! What cares the universe for me, A maddened fool who in the way of dreams Governed the living in the force of law, Masking his hideous self unwittingly! [90] A poison draught to end a poisoned life, And then I climb that vast stairway beyond, Upward and upward to eternity: Over the shadowy steps thy light will come, Whispering endless time, unbroken faith. Sail on forever till the night shall hide thee, Fled from a world whose cares are not thine own, Dream into darkness till the star beside thee Mourn his lost lover, in the sky alone! [91] MY FAITH I hear no call of bird, no drone of bee, I hear no murmur of the hastening stream, This is a barren waste that was the sea, Things that havel>een live now but in a dream. Long shadows hover in the dim midday, Spectres that leer at noon's low-flaming sun, Motionless sentinels of the dark that say, "Thy reign is o'er nor ours is yet begun." What is this life so given, so returned, What is this soul so free to rise and soar, That when the flickering, paltry flame be burned Dies into vastness and is known no more? [92] Forever the dawn may come, the cold of death Stills not my heart. Throughout the wandering sphere Life cannot be destroyed: a sun's last breath Means but the winter of a faltering year. What is must always be, the past yet live, For Time is but the measurement of today, Dies not the tree that swift its leaves must give, Spring blows reborn what autumn sweeps away. False rest, I know thee now; life ever takes From out the night the soul that would be free, Thou'rt but a sleep that morning re-awakes: Almighty GOD, there is no Death but Thee. [93] AS I PRAY Two little drops of poison on the velvet throne That glisten in the dark lamp's ghostliness, Two little drops that fluttered from thy cup; And didst thou tremble so Or was it pain that far thy lips below Flung out the glass all shattered and alone. Wouldn't thou in death confess? Lies in thy palm half lifted up No plaintive line of sorrowing for me To still the burn of infidelity, Or are these drops to eyes of demon grown? [94] THE PESTILENCE I have come in the dark, I have come in the day, I have come in the dusk and the dawn, I have won the mad race with the ships on the sea, And none shall escape me and none shall be free, The pleading of age nor the boasting of youth, Nor the power of wisdom and brawn. No question is asked and no answer desired, If bidden to enter and ride Why the past is a fancy and only a gleam Through the rust of a sword that is swung in a dream, You speed a swift honeymoon out of the world And you travel with death as a bride. Oh, hate and aggression and falsehood and scorn Are crushed by the wheels as I go, [95] For the fear of the scourge that I hold in my hand, The terror that knows the resistless command Makes living the only distinction of life From the rest that lies dead in the snow. IN A GLASS OF RED WINE Droop low thine arms that hover o'er me now, In subtle, easy curve, like temple arch Mosiac hung and soft in the sunset spell. Bend down thy perfumed head, on lips that parch For a breath of unselfish love, and on my brow Rest thine, dark maid, nor heed the mosque-hour bell. Far north the paramour white winter lies, As false as one I loved. Luxuriate The rising sun flings diamonds to the snow, And she dwells in that land; yet passing the gate To our home some friend may turn away his eyes Where footsteps enter though they do not go. So fold me closer, hold me nearer, steal With thy great, limpid eyes forgotten flame [97] From mine, let blind devotion call to those Who see naught else and bow till they be lame Let Allah speak what breast and bosom feel And limb on limb, and lips that meet and close. THE END [98] UNIVERSITY OP CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW ' IS '920 NOV 291920 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY '.**