UC-NRLF OUT O ByPANNY HODGES CO vD MESSRS. PAUL ELDER &?COMPANY DESIRE TO ANNOUNCE THE PUB LICATION of "OUT OF BONDAGE" A VOLUME OF POEMS BY FANNY HODGES NEWMAN, Ojficier dXcad emie AUTHOR offetip VENTURERS AND OTHER P0EMS," TO APPEAR ON THE FIRSt OF DECEMBER IN A BEAUTIFUL LIMITED EDITION- */ . MRS. NEWMAN S verse is distin guished by exceptional artistry and restraint and evinces genuine poetic thought. In writing of it to the author, Hamilton Wright Mabie says: "There is no reason whatever why you should not send your verse to any publication which desires the best articles. Tripoli .is good, vigorous verse and The Ques tion* is unhackneyed and free from the commonplace. . . It is not the usual verse." And Bertha F. Gordon writes: CC I must drop everything long enough to tell you how wonderful your poems seem to me. . . I find that my feeling about them is quite beyond words. Your point of view is refreshingly new and your philos ophy of the heartsome kind. You owe it to the reading public to put your book into the book market." And from Herbert R. Gibbs, Editorial Rooms, Houghton, Mifflin Company, comes the following appreciation: "Mrs. Newman s work in Adventurers is re freshingly unusual. . . It has individu ality of thought, feeling and form, more than can be attributed to most of the present day verse makers whose work I see in magazine, book or manuscript. . . I IV t find evidence of real poetic gift in Adventurers. * * The author hat ideas. Witness the following poem and title. Paleolithic Man. Current Literature, The Nation uset as an example of the adaptation of mod ern rhythms to modern thought the lines to Paleolithic Man from Mrs. Newman s "Ad- ! The -writer hat em bodied the lateit religious and scien tific thought in the most artittic and musical verse ever emanating from California. Bertha Monroe Rickojf. note the echo of the older poets, Brown ing for instance, in <A Confession/ Two things that please me are the compactness and restraint of pieces like At Bed-Time and Language/ and the successful use of the quatrain." Among tht special gems marked are : " Anointed," " The Water Hya cinth," "Lan guage" " Mortal ity, "etc. Eli-zabeth A. Reed. PREFACE. "I, painting from my self and * tO myself, knOW What I do" Andre* del Sarto. To make a fresco, a symphony, an epic at the command of kings is the task of gen ius; it is the privilege of the unchapleted singer to turn aside from labor now and then and make what music he can. Such an one is seldom wise, but always he would be kind and if any comrade ask him: "Sing us of your songs again," he gladly gathers of his best and makes a writing of them that they may be heard once more by those who will. He gives them all because he loves them and each one is a meaning of himself. Nor would the counsel of friends help him in choos ing, for there are as many likings and dis- likings as there are folk to hear. He, singing from himself and to himself is happy. In the repetition he can give no less than all that made him so. m deckle j,, genune Lo b " 1l> " , Lombard,. FLEUR-DE-LIS EDITION THIS EDITION, DONE ON ITAL IAN HAND -MADE PAPER, IS LIMITED TO TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY COPIES, OF WHICH THIS IS ND. V 7 OUT OF BONDAGE BY FANNY HODGES NEWMAN Officier d Academic AUTHOR OF "AD VENTURERS" AND OTHER POEMS PAUL ELDER AND COMPANY PUBLISHERS SAN FRANCISCO Copyright, 1913 by Paul Elder ff Company SALUTATION IF ANY MEET ME IN THE WAY, I GREET HIM SINGING! 270560 "I, painting from myself and to myself, know what I do." Andrea del Sarto. PREFACE make a symphony, an ode, an epic, at the command of kings, is the task of genius; it is the privi- lege of the unchapleted singer to turn aside from labor now and then and make what music he can. Such an one is seldom wise, but always he would be kind and if any comrade ask him: "Sing us those songs once more, " he gladly gathers of his best and makes a writing of them that they may be heard again by those who would listen. He gives them all because he loves them, all, and each one is a meaning of him" self. Nor would the counsel of his friends help him in the choosing, for there are as many likings and dislikings as there are folk to hear. He, singing from himself and to himself, is happy. In the repetition he can give no less than all that made him. so. V CONTENTS Preface . Out of Bondage . Enthusiasm . Fog .... Martyrs . Cause Celebre Survival The Question Purveyance . Futility . Haven . The Long Time . Commerce . A Seashore Fancy Certainty The Leader . Tyranny Morning . Change . Petition . Out of The Harbor In Exile . Highland Hunger Hazard . Mortality The Field Singer. Csesar . City Bygone . A Meditation Wild Mustard The Shadow Limitations . War . v To Paleolithic Man . .50 3 Abelard to Heloise . .52 4 The Ring .... 53 5 Edict Royal . . . .54 6 Burial 55 8 Antoinette and Her Gaolers 5 6 11 The Western Sea . . 58 12 Heimweh . . . .59 14 Found 60 15 The Wave .... 62 16 Treasure Trove ... 63 18 Repudiation. . .64 19 Idealists 66 20 The Hermit. ... 67 22 Babylon 70 24 The Fig Tree ... 72 26 San Francisco . . .73 27 The Enemy. ... 74 28 Mirage 76 29 The Harvest ... 77 30 Audience 78 32 A Toast to Spring . . 80 33 The Riders .... 82 36 The Hour .... 83 37 The Sea My Brother . . 84 38 Little Fields O Summer. 86 40 The Summit . . . , 87 41 Language .... 88 44 Fare On! 89 <r5 Monotony . 90 46 Humiliation . . . .91 48 The Runner . . .92 49 VII OUT OF BONDAGE OUT OF BONDAGE X STAND on the outermost brink, As far as the path may be trod, Where mortal brain must cease to think And the heart cries out for God. His temple gateway is here Where I see but the void abyss; But I know I am His and I need not fear, And I tell my Maker this: I am not afraid to be Man; To be atom where Thou art Whole; To take my place in the august plan That circles Thee and my soul. ENTHUSIASM T T were better for man to climb the steep, Though he risk misstep and fall; It were better, climbing, to sweat his blood Than to feel no urge at all. It were oetter for him to seek the heights, Though he leave the world behind, Than to plow all day in the sodden fields And sleep as sleeps the hind. It were better for him to travel on And faint on the lonesome road, Than never to suffer the thrall of dreams Nor the prick of passion s goad. It were better for man to be scarred bone-deep, Than never to feel the fire; To be seared, than never be warmed at all At the flame of his soul s desire. FOG I SAW the farmer guide his lagging steed, All in a mist across the fallow field, The while he mused upon the winter s need And reckoned on the summer harvest yield, As far as eye could see the skies were gray; I thought, "This is a boundless plain he tills;" Then came the sun and drank the fog away; I trembled at the glory of the hills. MARTYRS have been broken on the wheel; Sing hey, a merry roundelay, We are the waking folk who feel; We are the dreaming folk who kneel; Sing ho, the world that said us nay! We had a faith and gave it place; Sing ho, for hearts schismatical, The kings they made of it disgrace And brought us to a bitter case; Sing hey, a lilting madrigal! They stretched us on the creaking rack; Sing brother love and hardihood, They grinned to hear our shoulders crack And bent theirs to the twisting-jack; Sing ho, for torture twice withstood! They did God service, so they said; Sing matins, all, and vesper song, And poured Him potions when we bled; We nigh believed our gods were dead; Sing hey, sing ho, the time was long! The wheel that wrenched us turns no more; Sing canticles of jubilee, The rack is bleached of stains it bore, But in our limbs the scars are sore; Sing Christus on the gallows tree! Oh, kings live long, though kings be dead; Sing ho, ye Sons of Liberty, When Common Right shall come instead And staunch the wounds now spurting red, Sing hey, the world for such as wet CAUSE CELEBRE ASTERS and Moulders of the Things-that-be, High Jury of Creation, hear all ye The ancient quarrel twixt the gods and me! t^JL JL V^ V^l * CD And first I give due thanks where thanks are due; For worlds that whirl upon their stems for you; For stars that pink out patterns in the blue; For wide gray seas that flow upon the deep, And that which is committed to them keep, Far down the caverns and the glooms of sleep; For towering, purple shouldered hills, that lift Cloud circled heads to the empyreal drift And down their flanks prolific ashes sift; For all fair gardens and the outstretched plain; For pasture lands and fallow fields and grain And pools that give refreshment after rain; For that primeval Samson, underneath The groined arches of his house of death, Whereof we feel the struggles and whose breath Breaks forth in fury at the geyser-seams, Times when he wakes and, ravening at earth s beams, Would realize his cataclysmal dreams; 8 Thanks for the glory of these many gifts And for the unleashed wind, besides, that lifts The old leaves from my soul and thereon sifts What all he gathers, in his wanderings, Of fresh and sweet: perfume of growing things, Rose pollen, star dust and the spoor of kings. Yet is my least thanksgiving for all these. Remains what gives delight its high degrees; Man in the mass, and man by twos and threes! Man, that so lately got him to his feet, Disputing with the beasts his bed and meat, Lifting scarred hands the stolid skies to greet; Contriving cities in the waste moraine At last, and shrines whereof yourselves were fain, (Reward him for his patience and his pain!) And men, my brothers, standing by my side, Launching their ships with mine upon the tide That shall bring bread or bounty back, or bride. Their comradeship is as my soul to me; Their faith, my foothold; my felicity, Their good; our manifold identity, That tense and tenuous tissue in whose mesh Are held the issues of the soul-in-flesh; Its flax, the gods from our heart-harvests thresh. Something it is to have been counted worth A share in the moot heritage of birth, At all to be among the sons of earth; To tread the foot-worn highway in the stir That marks Life s journey to the sepulchre; To meet Love s lady there and walk with her. Now is my cause, O ye that safely dwell Beyond this tottering, finite citadel, That ye should weary in your doing well; That ye should fill such wells of wonder up And give me for my draught so small a cup. Ye drive me from the inn before I sup And draw the curtain while there yet is light. To live, ye give me till the noon is bright; To love, the phantom passage of a night Once had my unassembled atoms place In the vast leisure of prenatal space. Then was no haste; then had an hour no grace. Giving all else with lavishness sublime, Why portion me so brief my manhood s prime? Ye Gods, why be so niggardly with time? 10 SURVIVAL IO VE is a storm that first with rosy lights And little breathless airs, comes down the sky; Then with swift fury of the tempest, blights The garden of the heart and passes by. Evenings return and mornings come again And shed soft dews upon the ruined place; Noons bring bright ardors and the toil of men, And lo, a new succeeds the ancient grace! From ravaged roots springs up a hardier green; The songs of nesting birds bestir the trees, And where the vivid orchid flamed, are seen Blossoms of heartsease; Comrade, look at these! Exotics and frail annuals are gone, Yet, in their place, are rose and cyclamen; O Heart, such brave renewals we have won, Shall we not bid Love visit us again? 11 THE QUESTION if there be, Beyond our tides and times, Past the day s outposts and the night s frontier, After this mortal play of masks and mimes, When we are spent, no greeting and no cheer For you and me? What if there dawn No morrow on to-day; No hour worth waiting for in toil and tears, When Hope shall find her guerdon, Love her way; Shall we take up the burden of the years And still go on? What if there fall, Out of the vaster blue In which our little sky is hung, no word That is your name for me and mine for you, That always faith-enchanted ears have heard; Life s nuptial call? What if no God, Nor gods of good and ill, Laid out this pattern that we weave so fast, But nomad Nothing, roving without will, Chanced on that mould where earth-phantasms are cast And spilled abroad 12 Stardust of gold, Rainbows of blue and red, Circean incense and cerulean air And beauty for a halo round your head, And sunbeams like these fillets of your hair; And warmth and cold, And death and spring? And say He never meant To gather up again His scattered stuff, And question our poor souls which way they went, And heal our hurts and pour us wine enough; Still shall we sing? 13 PURVEYANCE e> HIS myrtle mound that sucks up all my tears, It is my flesh its roots are matted in; Its beauty thrives on mine that disappears; For I am in the ground deep as have been The sweets of all my children buried there. O Earth, O Life, what bounty dost thou think To barter for such matchless meat and drink, And what art thou, to batten on such fare? 14 FUTILITY E thunder of colliding spheres, The song of yonder star, I hear not with my dullard ears That are from heaven so far. And all the searching of these eyes Will not suffice to see A ray beyond the few that rise On day and night for me. Yet eons, as they circle round Unmindful of the earth, Concern me as I till the ground For burying and birth. The sun in his gigantic hour, Fixed and foretold of God, Feels inly pulsing just the power Wherewith I turn the sod. Perchance as vainly he demands Why suns must quench so soon, As I who lift two mortal hands And clamor for the moon. 15 HAVEN /N earth s rude travail has outwearied me, And world endeavors all have lost their zest, Then will I take the highroad to the sea And lie upon the sands daylong and rest. There will not be, as far as eye can reach, A shadow, but for mine, upon that place; The very gulls that fish along the beach Will wheel away in friendliness a space. The sun will pour his glitter on my knees, And I will shake my hair and bend my head, And empty out my thoughts and be at ease, Foretasting silence as one lying dead. Voices of shoreward waves and distant swell Will gather dimly in my muted ear, Which will contain them as the empty shell The soft sea-sounds it holds but cannot hear. At full high-tide, the waters at my feet Will curl white fingers in a cool caress, And spread a shimmer for a winding sheet, In pity of my harried humanness. Yet, though I dip deep fathoms into death, I still will lie upon the edge of life So high, that the frail tissue of my breath Shall not be broken in the plashing strife. 16 L? envoi When heavy tasks have over-burdened me, And toil and travail have outworn my hands, Along the highroad will I, to the sea, And take my rest upon the shining sands. 17 THE LONG TIME OUGH years pass by and fortune does not come, Let us not question why is joy so late; While birds are singing we may well be dumb; While roses blossom, Dearest, we can wait. The fields of life are wide and full of grain; Let us turn back from peering through the gate, And help to load the common harvest wain; If we are helping others, we can wait. The earth is dreary and its paths are rough; Crooked they are; fall to and make them straight And point out pitfalls! There is time enough; The while we serve we can forget we wait. Then when the noontide comes, and afternoon, And we look up and see it growing late, Behind the sunset hangs the little moon; Till the night comes, Beloved, we can wait. 18 COMMERCE HEY all have dealings with the sun, Blind roots beneath the sod, As have dull mortals every one, Somewhat to do with God. 19 A SEASHORE FANCY I CHOOSE to make my bed beside the sea. A restless bedfellow, he is, and rough, But I can trust him, and the earth can be, For all her stillness, ominous enough. He does not let me sleep the long night through, But wakes me often, grumbling at his bed, And saves me sometimes from a dream s ado Or gives me respite from pursuing dread. Ill is it, in the peopled, inland night, To lie time-weary in a niche of walls That shut out distances and stars from sight, That turn away the Westwind when he calls. They batten out the forest s friendly din, While in the street the slayer finds his prey, And money-changers count the gains of sin In stealthy silence, between day and day. The tears that fall upon the midnight pave And mingle with the morning s honest dust, From noiseless fountains fall and noiseless lave The muddy footprints of the feet of lust. The stillness of the city is her crime: Her sirens sing in whispering undertones; Her malefactors work in pantomime; You do not hear her pick her victim s bones. 20 I choose the sea, that murmurs all night long. I call to him and laugh and reach my hands Toward his that are so boisterously strong And yet so clumsy, clawing at the sands. The town could turn upon me in my sleep And wreak her evils on my pillowed head, But this great bedfellow of mine will keep His watch beside me till the night be sped. 21 CERTAINTY H oriole and mocking-bird ^ t home in all the trees, Once more the voice of Spring is heard, A-trill with April glees. And robin-red and nightingale And bobolink and lark, They twit me sore for sitting, pale And doubting, in the dark. "Come out into the sun," they say, "Come comrade us and sing; Prepare a welcome for the May And greet her on the wing." Ah, better than my downcast soul And wiser than my fears, Are finch and thrush and oriole That never doubt the years. They know tonight will bring the moon, Tomorrow dawn, the sun; They know the brood is coming soon Because the nest is done. They know that daily bread is sure, Because the earth is there With grains and grits and honey-lure, A sweet and ample fare. 22 They do not ask the reason why; They know that life is good, So steadfast hangs the azure sky, So stable stands the wood. Enough, I too will soar and preen And tune my heart and sing, Because I see God s woods are green And know it is the spring. 23 THE LEADER E brought me here and he bids me go; He set my feet in the way, And I must follow him, fain or no, For I may not stop nor stay. His face, who leads, have I never seen, Nor rightly have heard his name, But here in this path his feet have been And out of his house I came. Sometimes I am fearing to cross his will, When I strive against the storm; Or I feel his love, serene and still, When the skies are safe and warm. Oh, my very soul yearns after him And I call him, Yea, I call; But neither mortals nor seraphim Make answer to me at all. How comes it then, that I name him good, That I say his road is straight, When it leads me elsewhere than I would And ends at the awesome gate? And why do I more time sing and smile Than furrow my cheek with tears, When pitfalls many my steps beguile And fantasies stalk my fears? 24 God wot; but who is that God, I say; My leader? Ah, who can know, And I will not ask, nor, where away? But gird up my heart and gol 25 TYRANNY ROMETHEUS, take away thy lurid gift; From man s rude hands thy flint and tinder take; Else will this earth be smothered with the drift Of ashes from the foundry and the stake! 26 MORNING OH, let me find the morning on the hill That slopes down tenderly to meet the sea, Its dewy silver grasses all a-thrill With little breezes blown from tree to tree. Oh, let me hear the birds that wake and call Their shadowy neighbors from the early bough, Warning too eager fledglings lest they fall, Or chanting matins, let me hear them now! Let me escape this noisy, noisome town, With all its pestilential glooms and mires, Now, when the sun s new beams strike vainly down Into the murk that reeks of sooty fires. In all my dreams I see the rose-roofed cot That still clings warmly to the seaward slope, Where such a recreant rover was begot, As came down here, poor fool, to grind and grope. Then give me back the country in the dawn, When earth turns like a Parsee to her god; Today, before I stumble and am gone, Borne back too late to that beloved sod. 27 CHANGE HAT the first oriole built him for a nest, The last will find complete for his desires; Alas, for cave and cottage, with such zest Humans discard the dwellings of their sires! **^JL -.-*. --. V. ffi 28 PETITION HET me not be the decorative leaf That, veined and vivid, flutters on the wall, But that taut tendril, sinewy and brief, Which holds the vine but is not seen at all. Let me not be the rose to flaunt and flare, But rather the uncomely thorn that squires Defenceless Beauty, bidding him beware Who rates her cheaper than his rash desires. Let me not be the lark that soars and sings, Scorning earth levels for the lofty sky, But that unhonored bird whose summons rings To wake repentance-would himself were I! Some humblest avocation give me, Life; In thy vast husbandry to walk apart And glean up waste after thy pruning knife, So Pride forget me that would break my heart. 29 OUT OF THE HARBOR ffi HEN the great white ship that took you from me Slipped anchor and sailed, Of her parting signals I heard but three, Then sound failed; But sight held, and I watched her far on her way. Tier on tier, Her decks showed to the line of the bay, Stood out clear, Till she came to the place where the sea turns Round the edge of the world, And was gone, where the sun in the west burns,- Till just her smoke curled And spun back thinly, a long sweet thread Woven of the fires Beneath you, and it seemed, while the reek of it spread, As vapor expires, Woven too of your breath and your thoughts that turned home. 30 Then the sky cleared And the sea, but for one in-washing comb Where your wake sheared. And I who was watching stood vigil alone, At war with my tears, Sound of you, sight of you, breath of you gone For a measure of years. But I laughed in my heart for the thing that I knew, Knowing this: beyond sound, Beyond sight, past all region of sense, dear, for you And for me, the world round, There s a subtile, tenacious, ineffable bond, Tried and sure, Will hold us together through life and beyond; Will endure The tension of aosence, the burden of years; Will outlast The fretting of silence, corrosion of tears. Dearest, love will hold fast. 31 IN EXILE iY lie somewhere twixt west and east, The fields of Far-away, Where once we made Love s harvest feast In moons of yesterday, Beside the paths that turn and wind Among the hills of Youth; And there, alas, are left behind The maiden wells of Truth. And there are Memory and Hope And, God be thanked, Regret; And on beyond the farthest slope The sin we must forget. There is the Joy that would not stay And Love that is forby, And on dear graves in Griefs array The tangled grass is dry. No doubt the fertile fields we plow Outyield the ancient loam, But Oh, to walk those furrows now, For nowhere else is Home! 32 HIGHLAND HUNGER OH, I long for the hills and the highlands, I that am lowland born, That live my life in the islands That are farther east than the morn, With level waters about me And never a raised plateau. Brown and yellow and madder, Are the listless hues of day, And the moon, like a blown white bladder, Drifts over night s pallid way, And it s all of a piece to flout me That may not arise and go. I watch for a ship in the offing, With my number on her sails, But the captains all come scoffing When each enchantment fails. The spells I weave on the water And the charms I say for the wind. "Turn back, good waves," I tell them, "Bring me the ship delayed," But neither can I compel them And neither will they be prayed; And my ship, has the typhoon caught her, Or her pilot fallen blind? 33 Ho, there, what s that you are saying, Young sailor that passed and laughed? "It s a case of man s betraying And my captain holds the craft In the sedgy sea of the sirens, Where the under rocks are shoal?" Do you say my seamen languish Upon the drifting decks, While of them and their homesick anguish Little my captain recks, Or of me in these waste environs That are wearing out my soul? What then! I can bear your laughter, Fishers and mariners all, Seeing that joy comes after; For I know that my ship will call Some day when the mermaids weary Of captains blowsy and old, And then I shall reach the mountains, As in my heart I dream, And bathe in the drip of fountains That fall from stream to stream, From haunt of elf and peri On the upper cliffs and bold. 34 I shall bind my hair with laurel, The gift of mountain men, And gather red wood-sorrel That is stranger to the fen, And climb and climb till climbing Turn this thin blood to wine, With the high sweet wind s fermenting At work in all my veins, Till columned clouds are tenting Between me and the plains And stars are chiming, chiming, The love songs of langsyne. They are my songs ancestral, Those sky-sung melodies, And not these deep, orchestral Descantings of the seas, Of the waters all about me Whose songs I do not know. For my fathers died in the highlands Though I was lowland born, Among the folk of the islands That laugh my tears to scorn. I trow they will laugh without me When I find my ship and go. 35 HAZARD OOR wingless insect, crippled and astray, Behold him, as across my path he plods! He gropes toward blind disaster in my way As I, upon the highway of the gods. 36 MORTALITY )NS rolled on; earth s restless morning dawned; By world commotions undisturbed, I slept. Lacking the bitter sweet of consciousness, I nothing lacked, desired not nor wept. But now, by need of Law or Love, I am. Witless I reap and sow life s grain, and then? Prophets and seers, what then? O years to come, Come softly that ye wake me not again! 37 THE FIELD SINGER HE sang this song under the weeping May, All as she went a-grieving, that wan maid Whose careless gallant lingers leagues away, Where, stone to stone, the city s squares are laid: "Sweetheart, I would be with you in the rain, When in the gentle night the darkness drips Like tears that give soft easement after pain, Brimming an April cup for lovers lips. "I would be with you in some garden close, You who are city-bound and know not well Those comely blooms that no town huckster shows, Rue and rose-mallow and bright asphodel. "I would be with you in the deepest wood, That aisled cathedral of my holiest days, To show you where my childhood altars stood, Where thrushes taught me how to sing God s praise. "I would be with you in that stifling place Pale city men call home, if you must lie With niggard shreds of moonlight on your face That should be bare to this imperial sky. "I would be with you in the trafficked street, If it be so you cannot come away In the next harvest time and sink your feet, Deep after mine, into the new mown hay. 38 "I, in God s hinterland of open moor; You, somewhere lost between the city gates; Apart, I in this wilderness am poor, And you, will no one tell you where love waits? 39 CAESAR N all the halls of the city, In all the streets of the town, They shall sing my name for a ditty, As men go up and down. They shall build me altars many; They shall chant me songs of grace, And grave the votive penny In the likeness of my face. Yet not the earth and not the sky, Nor bird nor beast nor leafy tree, Will be the wiser when I die, For all the fame of me. 40 CITY BYGONE OSES over the old town wall, And myrtle rank on the hill, And never a tower more to fall At a foeman s hardy will ! For peace has come to the weary streets And the old, grim gates are down, Where hordes from buccaneering fleets Once swarmed against the town. A score of years and twenty more, The warfare waxed and waned, And what was lost on the open shore, On the sheltered hill was gained. Rude hearts of men beat quick and red, In hut and castle hall; The knight went armed to the marriage bed, While his henchmen stood in call; And the bride sprang up at the warder s shout, At the watchman s summons shrill; She bound her husband s sword about And kissed him forth with a will. And kissed him home when he came again, In his dripping battle gear, And said: "Had you come alive with your men I had loved you less, my dear." 41 She dipped her finger-end in the blood Of his cloven cheek, and the sweat, And wrote on the chest of sandalwood Wherein was the babe s layette. She wrote: "I vow that my son s right hand Shall hold the sword of his sire, Till cowards conquer our ancient land And her men ride forth for hire." But Trade came piping into the town And the children followed, all, Nor marked when old men laid them down, With their visored fronts to the wall, And died for shame of the trafficked streets, Of port and bastion gone, That once stood fast when storming fleets Cast up their hybrid spawn. Oh, the castle is board of trade and bank, And the belfry calls to school; The clink of spear is the hammer s clank And the sword is a farming tool. Oh, the eyes of the younger men are dim With the reading of many books, And the maids are pale and soft and slim, And they go with trifling looks. They have mingled saffron with good red blood, And starved the sturdy veins; They have thinned the crimson warrior-flood With the rinsings of their gains. 42 L envoi Roses cover the ruined wall And myrtle crowns the hill, But the king s own men lie under all, In their splendid armor, still! 43 A MEDITATION E grave was never yet a lovely thing, For all its yuletide snows and summer grass, For all the nightingales that round it sing, For all the lilies growing there, alas ! The little winds, that weaving out and in, Catch up the scents of asphodel and rue Out of the chalices where tears have been, They know not what it was that here befell. The cypress and the willow and the yew, Whose gentle roots creep tenderly beneath And nourish them on unexampled dew, They cannot read the runes on stone and wreath. But all rejoice with Life, as in that place She brings her offspring to propitious birth, And smiles on Death, her comrade, for his grace That spreads so kind a feast for avid earth. Only for us, who love and longing know, While all our treasures thitherward we bring To lap in summer grass and yuletide snow, The grave was never yet a lovely thing. 44 WILD MUSTARD X*^^ YEZ, oyez, comes Man into the court And hales his ample mother to the bar, Proclaiming her a shameless, Cyprian sort; Ho, but the fool s indictment is bizarre: "Earth for a wanton do I here arraign, Who flaunts abroad her elemental need; Who gives her sweets alike to gallant grain And every graceless, poor philandering weed." 45 THE SHADOW Y shadow ran along the path that day; Accoutred, helmeted, it followed me As I my captain, marching to the fray, To battle for a cause, to die, may be. So bright the sun, so very blue the sky, How could my shining country dream of blood? Yet there were all my mates and there was I, Eager to open veins to start the flood. I clattered out of town that was my home, That I had loved so well, and swinging fast I sang: "Good-by, a soldier needs must roam." I hope I kissed my mother as I passed. Full many a league I traveled for the king, To save the country that was his and mine; I clanked my sword and made the scabbard ring And always, when the sun came out to shine, There was my shadow pacing at my side To beat of drum and lilt of battle tune. Sometimes I laughed to see his gallant stride; Sometimes I cursed him in the heat of noon And then, a long, long time, forgot him quite; Hell came so hot I could not stay nor stand; No gaunt familiar shared my gory plight Under the foe that lost me name and land. 46 Yet now, today, he skulks along the wall I stand against fronting the morning sun; They will not shoot me blindfold. When I fall, Behind what alien will my shadow run? 47 LIMITATIONS E Y have quenched my lighted eyes, But I can feel the sun, And I have learned how touch is wise From my treasures, one by one. They have bound my groping hands That got me right of way, But stars themselves are girt with bands; Do they stop for that, or stay? With gyves they have held my feet. Well, hyssop comes and goes While earth is warm and sun is sweet, But the oak stands still, and grows. 48 WAR ORETIME, in an Eden new and sweet, In such a field as this, man walked with God And pressed the herbage light with peaceful feet; Whence these torn footprints in a crimson sod? 49 TO PALEOLITHIC MAN RESTORED IN A MUSEUM Y Father! Lo, thy hundred thousand years Are but as yesterday when it is past. Today thy very voice is in mine ears; On mine own mirror is thy likeness cast. Thy sap it is in these my veins runs green; Thine are these knitted thews of bone and skin; This cushioned width lay once thy ribs between, As my heart did with thine its work begin. Be it however contoured, this frail cup That holds the stuff and substance of my brain, From thy prognathic skull was moulded up; Do I not share with thee the mark of Cain? Not I should shudder at the thickened neck, Full from thy shoulders to thy sloping head; It bore the brunt of many a rout and wreck That spared the slender loins whence I was bred. Nor should I blush, my Father, seeing how Thy furry jowl is kindred to my cheek; It shuts upon a tongue, I mind me now, Which stuttering spent itself that I might speak. I and my brothers roam this rich Today Unhindered, unafraid, because thy feet, Stone-bruised and heavy with primordial clay, God s winepress trod to make our vintage sweet. 50 What then, Progenitor? Shall we repay Such debt in any coin but filial love? Leave thy defenceless carcase on display With fossil horse and pterodactyl dove? For thee no epic and no monument! For lesser hero, meaner pioneer, Our bays and honors; shall thy sons consent To leave thee standing naked, nameless, here? 51 ABELARD TO HELOISE Life is old and barren, Heloise, k ve s * ts s ^ ent mourning days like these; When Earth confronts her moon, dead white to white, And paupered Nature, laggard Day and Night, Go dumbly grieving for what used to be; I will ask God (for deathless love of thee And for repentance of the body s sin), To let me, from the pit I suffer in, Return and make atoning pilgrimage. I will not fear the stillness, but engage, Searching the waste on penitential knees, Through Time s defacement, through Eternity s, To find this path where now, forbid, we meet, And lip the stones where once I kissed thy feet! 52 THE RING PIRIT to spirit, from the far-away I summon you to take this signet, blue As when you kissed it on the hand that lay Content in yours, since I belonged to you. You said: "Dear Heart, I love this curious stone, Carved by some long-forgotten artisan, With love words, likely, though the tongue s unknown; Another lover s gift, a talisman. Wear it for me in life, and when you die Send it to me across the empty land." Do you forget how long it is that I Have worn your kiss, and will you understand? 53 EDICT ROYAL HE rose curled all her petals over And answered to the bee: From dallying with thyme and clover Come not again to me. Patrons of every tavern s brewing, Not of my sweets may sup; Who comes my heart s deep honey suing, Must quaff no other cup." 54 BURIAL NDER the sea s cool edges lay me down, With stones of blue-white beryl on my breast, Glassing the azure heavens where stars are sown, Those icy dregs of Time s old wine and zest. Lap me in gelid seaweed, head and feet, And leave me when the summer moon is old, Else will the lees of all my red and sweet, Never, in all the years to come, be cold. 55 ANTOINETTE AND HER GAOLERS the vaults of the Conciergerie It echoes still: "What ho, Marie! Do you weep for the king or the dauphin child?" v ^ -^ I I <^- m ^ "With gaolers quartered, of them reviled, I taste of the bitter pain ye knew, Madonna Mother, and thou, Jesu!" Her head, that was gallant red before, Bowed down till the white hair curled to the floor, Frost on its foulness. "Up, Marie! The crown will fall from your Majesty." "Before I came to this drear mischance God s grace and glory fell from France." She turns to the casement, faint for air Nor recks if the day be dark or fair. " Would you ride, my lady? That you shall, Though your coach wait long in the rue Roy ale." "Messieurs, some thread to mend my dress, For shame of a queen in her nakedness." "Paris kept you in gowns and hats, And drove the poor to their holes like rats." "Not one of them but had better state Than I since ye brought me in at this gate. I pray you a morsel of seemly food; I cannot stomach yon ration rude." 56 "Since the palace table is bare, tis well Ye starve in the fashion of gaunt Michel." "If I must stop at this loathly inn Long, on my way to the guillotine, An your heart beat ever in human kind, Hang me a curtain to pray behind." "Today all Paris shall see you kneel Where the fiat of heaven descends in steel." "Now farewell, Paris; France, farewell; God bring you as quickly out of hell!" Then forth she fared in her widowhood, Sport of women one half as good. "Marie has back her tresses red," They laughed, and lifted her sodden head. Uenvoi Marie Jeanne Josephe Antoinette, The lustful city it lingers yet, An empire lost and none to get. Today mayhap you had kept your crown, Malgre pride and an ill renown; Glitter of gems and a purfled gown; A wasteful board and an empty purse; For men are better though life be worse. And still in the Conciergerie The Voices wait: "What ho, Marie!" 57 THE WESTERN SEA HY beauty is the splendid sapphire draught Jove poured to Venus out of chaliced gold, And vowed, because so radiantly she laughed, For love s sake not to let the world grow old. 58 HEIMWEH o H, I followed the lure of loving Through open fields and town, And it left me sighing, sighing, For I never found my own. Oh, I whirled me after pleasure, The moth with death s-head wings, But she kept on flying, flying, Till now remembrance stings. And I hurled me after profit, So fast I never turned Where the poor were crying, crying, For the bread I had not earned. Oh, I followed the lust of roving To the seven far hills of Rome, And here I am dying, dying, With my heart turned vainly home. 59 FOUND ERE, where they lie forgotten and forgetting, I found her, my beloved, in this place! Her pearly body stained with bruise and wetting, Her young hair torn and heavy on her face. This curled small hand that once, with facile fingers, Crept up and down the hollows of my cheek And made a writing that in anguish lingers, Has dabbled in Oblivion a week. And though they wash it free from mire and rushes, I, I can show you how my soul s strong thews Are tangled in its grasp that tears and crushes And from my heart wrings down blood-salted dews. Let me not look upon that mouth s distortion, Whose utmost beauty formed upon my name, Whose first kiss and the last have been my portion, Mine, who have come to judgment for my blame. Nor show me how those supple feet are broken, That folded once like rose leaves in my palm; That came the long path bringing me love s token; That took my kisses to their ache for balm. She has forgotten, may not tell, what drove her To hide beneath the seaweed and the ooze; To sink herself in deeps that billowed over, Then swept her up for rocks to break and bruise. 60 She has forgotten our moon-silvered bowers, How still they were, and how the gathered grass Made all a pillow for the gallant hours We shared, this that was she, and I, alas! She has forgotten where, by river shallows, We sat and chanted all our happy vows, The while she fed me flag root and sweet mallows And let me kiss between her fragrant brows. She has forgotten how we leaned and lingered To hear the nightingale s alluring lay, Till azure evening came, with starry fingers, And brought a new enchantment to the day. She has forgotten, can it be? those mountains That circled us as once, beyond the sea, We wandered seeking joy s eternal fountains, We two, Celeste! have you forgotten me? 61 THE WAVE Wind my master is, I am his slave. Is he aweary of his zephyring, He leaves the garden or the green low grave, Where late he sighed or pleasured wantoning, And straightway hurls him to the midmost sea And lays about him with his nine-tailed whip, Bidding me rise (the while he scourges me) And from my bosom dash the helpless ship; Litter the good deep sea, the bountiful, With flotsam of her broken masts and men; Rouse up the shark, summon the screaming gull, To come and glean behind the hurricane. His lash is on my shoulder; I must leap Servile before him, knowing, where I pass, That isles and sunny shoals are smothered deep, And lifted hands of those that drown. Alas, So is it, till the mad wind cries: No more! Then penitent I turn and creep away, Spread my spent fingers on some sunlit shore, And smooth the sands where little children play. 62 TREASURE TROVE o N his first honey quest, the errant bee Left the known hive-paths of his native air And gaily, flight on flight, came humming where Lone lilies lay upon a small sweet sea. "Here will I quench my maiden thirst," he quoth, Dipping from meagre chalices a taste, But those cool flowers had only kept them chaste At cost of treasure and of sweetness both. Forthwith on wiser wing the insect goes Back to the lawless hillsides, where between Close-sprinkled rocks, bright heads bayed round with green, The nectared buckwheat of the desert grows. 63 REPUDIATION BROKE a pathway through the stars, I smote them left and right, And on, past Jupiter and Mars, I sped in bitter flight. Twas Life her promise had forsworn, Had looked me in the eyes, The jade, and said: "I can no more; Betake you to the skies To prate of constancy. The earth Is here my realm and place, Where all sweet bodies come to birth. I give no other grace Than meat and drink and fleshly joy. Perchance, beyond my ken, Some Liege is throned who grants employ To voided souls of men. For me, I loved you in your prime; What then I asked, you gave. But now I bid my servant Time Be quick about your grave. There sit my harpies in a ring; My vultures wait their fill; And while I go to meet the spring, They also do my will." 64 Tears could not move her, no, nor wrath, The sorry light-o -love, So up along the starward path, Among the shining drove, I come, an exile from the sod, Mounting with mortal strife To seek upon the knees of God, A recompense for life. 65 IDEALISTS IG hearts and open minds and splendid souls! (God, did You make them, knowing what You did?) Balked in the way and frustrate of the goal, Or dragged to battle in a cause that s hid; Around them conflict, blood on every hand, Twice-sickened with the sight of mortal pain, Against the evil of the world they stand, Or fall among the wounded and the slain. A song they have, and have no place to sing; A word, nor theater in which to speak, The tumult deafens in the noisy ring Of sotted souls that know not what they seek, Carousing onward, dull convoying dull, Jostling each other in the press of strife; Miser and libertine and rogue and trull, That thing they like they make of this one life; But what of these near angels among men, Whose eyes keep steadfast to the farthest star, Diviner Daniels in the human den? (God, did You make them, knowing what they are?) 66 THE HERMIT HALT ye and hear, Philosopher and Sage And Little Ones that cower in the night! To me, a-musing in my hermitage, Has come the certain vision and the light. In the beginning, ere beginning was, Was That which is and without end shall be. (The world attests it with anathemas; Or vows it chanting in an ecstasy.) But What was That, or Who was That, and Why, Though saints may supplicate and pagans rage, There comes no answer from the baffled sky; No oracle from sorcerer or mage. (There, up and down, the long procession goes; Logicians peering sidewise through the night; Mourners and travailers, they all are those Who seek a vision and who grope for light.) "But what was there the vast all-void to fill?" There is no speech nor language tells you that. " Timeless Desire and thereto boundless Will?" Enquire and speculate and die thereat. In the beginning when man s seasons came And all that should be his began to be, The embryonic earth, the solar flame, The vast unrest that stilled and was the sea, 67 Something there was which willed and was aware, Inclusive Consciousness, of life and us And the illimitable all we may not share; Unuttered word that yet was: Be it thus! And nothing of that Cause we know nor can; We have no thoughts deriving from that Mind; The Primal Alien is no kin to man; Not in that Image mortals were designed. But whatsoever called this universe Out of the was not, to the now and is, It was no whimsy of a will perverse, Could conjure man to wreck him with a kiss; Could model eyes to see and ears to hear Enticing them with color and with sound; Make sense to feel and soul to know sense dear, And give no wings to lift us from the ground; Make teeming brain to guess and speculate And heart to languish after living truth, And give no truth that might with reason mate, Us to deliver from our doubt and ruth. But lo, coincident with finitude, In precedent response to human need, God was with man in man s similitude. (The vision and the light are in this creed.) He who is Love, we say, and Righteousness, The God the ages alter and amend, More with our more, and less when we are less, With man beginning had, with man shall end. 68 If there be angels also, let there be, He is enough. He is so much, it seems He hath the measure of infinity, The perfectness we plain for in our dreams. Be He nor Daysman nor Interpreter Perchance He guesses somewhat of the plan Of the Unknowable Artificer Who made Him, for His vassals, God and Man. " Was God for us; were we for Him designed? What profit in such futile questioning 1 Ours hold the content of eternal mind? The Potter to the clay His secret bring? The circle east and west that hems us round, Horizons Time and Immortality. The vaster view would our small wits confound, That hardly can discern what now they see. Our God is all sufficient for our day. In the beginning with the morn He came And with the night and us shall pass away. Yet are we happy who have named His Name! 69 BABYLON ^-^^HERE now is barren silence, hoary calm, m if Once echoed from proud arch and propylon 1 I W The voice of Life in serenade and psalm; ^<MS The air was vibrant with the spoken word. Where now he sings thy requiem, this brave bird Once sang thy glory fadeless, Babylon! Thy merchants chaffered as they bought and sold Treasure of caravan and galleon; All we adventure they essayed for gold, For heart s desire, for fame, for victory; And bravely wrought thy troops on land and sea, Triumphed or died, it was for Babylon. God of the earth, we are no more than they! They rose up eager with the morn begun, And weary laid them down at close of day; Spread tables with the varied bread of toil; They threshed and vinted harvests from the soil; Built storehouses and barns, in Babylon; Built palaces; built temples on the hill, Where women hardly their salvation won, Hushing their souls beneath the god s rude will. We call their blazoned virtue infamy; The incense from our altars, it may be, Shall rise no nearer heaven, Babylon! 70 Where outcast hyssop trails her slattern foot, Waste hostelry whose board the wild bees shun, Where never wandering rose will pause and root, A queen once walked and found her garden fair And smiled upon her king in suppliance there; Just as we love, they loved in Babylon. O Present, hang thy harps upon the trees, The willow trees that girt Oblivion. There wail Time s captives still upon their knees, Still importuning skies of brass, as then They knelt and agonized, forgotten men, Who passed, nor dreamed of thee, in Babylon. 71 THE FIG-TREE DO bloom attends thy fecund burgeoning, Thou denizen of deserts round the world; No fertile pollen, here and yonder whirled, Carries thy colors on adventurous wing; Yet wert thou there, ablaze with pristine spring, A shelter and a sweet, when man was hurled Out of that valley where Euphrates curled. Love s nightingales learned first in thee to sing. I stand beneath thee as those culprits stood, Who had of thee green veils for primal shame And blessed thee for that gift and thought it good, Till God into His altered garden came And all His anger seared thy blossomy bower. Shall never spring renew thy ruddy flower? 72 SAN FRANCISCO LONG the selfsame flags the footsteps fall, The sturdy stones are here that used to be, Across the same swift spaces voices call; The change you bear, my City, few can see. Like fabled mother of some hero s brood Who had not time to weep her glory gone, Nor sit in ashes where her idols stood, But, gathering her children, struggled on; So, open-eyed, and sweeter for your woe, You smother back your sighs into your breast, And cover up the ragged scars that show Where Death tore at your beauty s loveliest. Yet this know I, that hear your noontime song, There s many a night you beat against the sky And shudder for that April, gone so long, That broke your heart but would not let you die. 73 THE ENEMY Y so, Sir Death, about my door again! Come then, old Enemy, and talk of truce. Tis not clean warfare, this of thine with men, Entrapping them with ambuscade and ruse. Not against challenge fair we go in arms: The stealth, the sudden onslaught, the surprise, Our woes at dawn, our fearful night alarms; Against these coward tactics we uprise; We who have not a blade thou canst not turn Upon itself, to pierce the stoutest heart; Whom no maneuver we are deft to learn Can fend from thine inexorable dart. This is not warfare; out into the field! We ask not quarter, but to know thy place. Give us to see the strength to which we yield; Set us a time to parley face to face. Now then, let me be spokesman for my kind: I say thou wilt not, if thou be true knight, Creep on a sleeping foe nor, from behind, Deal him the blow, thou keeping out of sight. Thou wilt not leave him lingering on the ground, Broken and bruised, with silence all about, Knowing not why he bleeds nor from what wound His soul s red ardor seeps and trickles out. 74 Thou wilt not stalk him in the groves of May, Hid with his darling in the perfumed dark; Nor steal his little cradled child away And mock his weeping when he folds it stark. Thou wilt not meanly hector him and plague With whispered threats and flashings of thy sword, Nor give his gallant "When?" rejoinder vague, But stand unvisored and pronounce the word. I say thou art no henchman of the gods, To harry thus their kingdom and their kin; I think they cannot know what hopeless odds We strive against between thyself and sin. Man from his makers came, no pale poltroon; In his first clay was mixed Olympian stuff; But Life s advance beset him oversoon And gave him for his courage use enough. Labor s vicissitudes and Love s demands, They keep him plying sword and shield and spear, Yet would he best them, battered as he stands, But for the tremor of untimely fear. Then truce! thou premier of antagonists, While thy brave foe recovers in that strife, And grant him, e er thou drag him from the lists, But time to finish gallantly with Life! 75 MIRAGE OD, I forgive thee for the common death, The slighted promise and the end of dreaming, But not that one, parched with the desert s breath, Should break his heart to find the pool a seeming. 76 THE HARVEST ITTLE feet of my Will-o -the-wisp, of my child, that vanished as fireflies do, I follow you, bent to the burdened earth, my footsteps sodden and slow, And only the Angel that beckoned you hence knows surely the way that I go. Through tulip and daffodil gardens, Sweet, your springtime journey lay, But I have not rid me of murk and mire since you danced farewell and away, And over the unhealed sore in my heart breaks always the salt sea spray. The frock that I wove you was white, was white as the lilies I dare not touch, And I know, and the whole world knows it well, there s a Kingdom of Heaven for such; Will the fact that I fashioned so fair a thing atone for my garment s smutch? Oh, little winged feet that went your way in the dawn-time long ago, I follow, in spite of the mire and mist of the only road I know; For I hold that somewhere mothers all shall gather the seed they sow. 77 AUDIENCE H-O! Thou Arbiter of Times and Spaces Where naught transpires but gives account to Thee, Art Thou with Buddha in the musing places? Ah-o, I call Thee, turn and answer me 1 Nay, I am not afraid to bear Thine anger, For I have seen Thy children in their woe; They pass all day with shouts and noisy clangor; I know what road they take and where they go. Nay, I am not afraid of Thee, for listen! That was the cry of maidenhood oppressed, And see! beneath those trinkets gaudy glisten, There hangs a broken, tear-bedraggled breast. Nay! could I rouse Thee from Thy too long sleeping, And tell Thee of the youths and make Thee look How they are sowing and for what a reaping, Thou mightest blot my name out of Thy book. I will not ask for me that Thou be gracious, But only wake and save the children, God, That crowd red hells while Heaven leans blue and spacious; Sathanas at his work with lure and prod. Thy voice would save them. Nay? Then go Thou after. Be there to find Thy fallen where they lie. Mayhap, between dull curse and ribald laughter, Will sound an echo of Love s natal cry. 78 But Oh, be quick! My heart is up and breaking To meet and have swift audience with Thee, About these little ones Thou art forsaking; Ah-o, I call Thee; turn and answer me! 79 A TOAST TO SPRING GOME, carouse with the May, tread a measure and sing! The year is full long from the spring to the spring, And may be tis the last gentle Fortune shall bring Here , s to Springl The season of frost-bloom and snow-flower is gone; Now mating and nesting begin with the dawn; The yeoman s a lover and boasts of his brawn- Here s to Spring! And She in her garden and You in your field, With that in your two hearts must soon be revealed, Are glad with the young hope of love s maiden yield - Here , g tQ Spring , And though the lone hollow behind the green hill Is empty of birds and of laughter is still; By the spring may we know the dead rise if God will,- Here s to Spring! 80 Then riot and revel, come trip it and sing! Full long is the year from the spring to the spring, And what if this last be the last Time shall brin Here s to Spring! 81 THE RIDERS ESE drag the bridle, dullards, lifting up Eyelids opaque to the illumined skies; Turning deaf ears to earth s fine minstrelsie? Their lips unquickened from Love s wassail cup. They ride unnerved, with Terror at the crup. Let pass; here come Faith s brave allies, Defying ambush, fearless of surprise; At Life s most frugal inns they gladly sup. Nathless, their bodies, soft beneath the mail, Could feel the prick of sword, the scathe of fire; Partake with appetite Joy s trencher-cheer; Pay tribute sweet to beauty and desire. Yet shall they never be unhorsed by Fear; It is God s secret, why they may not fail! 82 THE HOUR OT among fevered pillows let me lie, While slowly Life departs and Death draws nigh; My limbs contorted with last agonies, My face a mirror of the dread it sees. Being so loved, I would not be alone, With only silence to receive my moan, Yet would it make my tortures infinite To see Grief bowed beside me day and night. Courage, Thou Weaver of this mortal dress, Give me, when I resume my nakedness. Grant me an hour and name me such a place As shall allow me with a gallant grace, Return to Thee this garment, clean and whole. A gift it was; I thank Thee for the dole. Take it not from me, Donor, rag by rag, While at the hands of Fear I clutch and drag. Seek me not in my chamber, but away, Climbing some hill at dawn, or hard at play With butterflies and beauties of the field; Then would I kiss Thy courteous hand and yield. Or follow me into the storm s ado, And with Thy lightnings rive my heart in two; No lovers there, no strangers watching me, But in my mortal need, alone with Thee! 83 THE SEA MY BROTHER HE sea, contending with the morning tide, Surges and tumbles in a wild unrest. Meanwhile he hails me: "Brother, keep aside Lest I should hurt you, being sore possessed. "This is my plague, this madness of the moon, That racks me day by day and night by night. Each tide I pray the witch may end it soon Or mingle mercy with her cruel might. "But there she hangs, smiling her thin white smile, And tugging like a vampire at my breast; Watching convulsions shatter me the while. My anguish is the savor of her zest. "In all her long pursuing after me, I give her nothing, though in weariness, For torment, I would void me utterly If she would leave me to my emptiness. "I know not if it be myself she seeks, Or wishes evil to my brother, man, Poor oaf, who reckons by her months and weeks, Is gay or sad as she may bless or ban. "He does not know that I would be his friend, Bland and inert in this abyssal cup; That were my long affliction at an end, I would lie quiet till he dip me up. 84 "The vexing winds that have me for their prey, Would cease to buffet if the tides were still; Would help me bear good ships upon their way If only to outdo me in good-will. "I would not harm a hair of man s poor head That has so much to bear from ruthless Earth, Who makes him suffer, even in his bed, From cold and heat and storm and drouth and dearth. "But though I am this moon-mad, driven thing, (Blame that ill mistress for the harm I do;) There is but one destruction I can bring; For all her evil lure my sins are few. "Earth has her myriad deaths, the sea but one; Beside her many, my sole way is best: A swirling dream before the pang is done; A little smother of the breath, and rest." 85 LITTLE FIELDS O SUMMER o LITTLE fields o summer, Summer s gone! The Wind came by, twas yesterday, post haste, And found her with her kirtle strings undone, And whipped her tattered smock about her waist And bit her cheek for being overbold, And bade her seek another trysting place, Since all the year turned from her and was cold; But still she went with smiles upon her face. O fields betrayed, and had you never heard What light-o -love she was that hither came And tricked you with her magic? Every bird And bloom she was so false to knows her name. When once they trusted her and gave their best, She took and used them for her dalliance, Then strewed the flowers and emptied out the nest, Laughing that Love had lost his puissance. O little fields, I grieve that there you lie, Uncovered and unkissed, where swoops the blast And taunts you with his tidings: " Summer s by, That vowed betimes and left you lorn at last." And I that love each wimpling weed of you, Because of one that strayed from moon till dawn Along your paths, I weep my mistress too. O little fields o summer, Summer s gone! 86 THE SUMMIT HDDENLY, calm in the tumult; Suddenly, lull in the storm; And the bitter clouds have parted And Oh, but the sun shines warm! There are golden reaches round me Of a world that s well worth while, And, singing, I tell my Leader: "I will go on now and smile. I will leave my tears behind me With the dew on gardens past; For I stand knee-deep in gladness And my hands are full at last. Oh, on!" But you do not beckon, And this is the end for me? Why, Friend, You are Death, Come nearer; Nay, I know you, Victory! 87 LANGUAGE e> HERE was no path to his place in the air, The oriole swinging and singing his prayer To his distant lady to meet him there; But this I heard him say, I swear: "Come two flights south and three flights west, The palm is here that will suit thee best.-" How else had she found them, love and a nest? 88 FARE ON! O EAR Heart, the burning ploughshares have not cooled Since first they flayed the naked foot of man; Through all the years the wilful soul is schooled, As when in Eden the long task began. But make no outcry; you are not alone Upon the Highway of the Thousand Fires. With griefs like these are all the hedgerows sown, And every pit is brimmed with lost desires. 89 MONOTONY 90 WAY with the old, bring the new, sing the new!" They cry, the importunate children of men; Yet God bids the nightingale: "When you are through Sing the same lovely canticle over again." HUMILIATION WALKED with Pride along the wind-blown height, Baying the sun by day, the stars by night. Brave was my road-fellow and full of song And ever sang of me, the way along. We gazed Narcissus-wise in all the dew And said: "How like we image, I and you!" Then raged the storm round our incautious feet And I fell fathoms downward from Conceit, To where abysses of lost tears embowl, And in that tarn envisaged, saw my soul! 91 THE RUNNER high-road calls and are you stumbling, then? Bind up your sandals; yonder come the men Grouped to outrun you! Never mind the sun; Twill set. On, with the news from Marathon! 92 HERE, THEN, ARE THOSE SONGS WHICH HAVE BEEN SUNG FROM TIME TO TIME BY ONE FANNY HODGES NEWMAN, WHO IS RIGHT WELL PLEASED TO FIND THEM MADE INTO THIS BOOK AT THE PLACE OF THE WELL-BE-SPOKEN PUBLISHERS, PAUL ELDER d* COM- PANY,IN THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO; THE MAKING OF THE BOOK, THE PRINTING OF IT IN THE TOMOYE PRESS, AND THEREAFTER THE BINDING, BEING DONE UNDER THE MOST EXCELLENT DIRECTION AND WITH THE GOOD WILL OF JOHN BERNHARDT SWART; ALL BEING BEGUN AND FINISHED SHORTLY BEFORE THE FIRST DAY OF THE MONTH OF DECEMBER IN THE YEAR NINETEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, BERKELEY THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW Books not returned on time are subject to a fine of 50c per volume after the third day overdue, increasing to $1.00 per volume after the sixth day. Books not in demand may be renewed if application is made before expiration of loan period. AUG 11 20?n-l, 22 YC 1 4463 270560 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY