SONGS AND SATIRES
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
SONGS AND SATIRES By EDGAR LEE MASTERS AUTHOR OF "SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY" New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1916 All rights reserved
Copyright, 1916, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1916. Reprinted March, June, 1916. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A
For permission to print in book form certain of these poems I wish to acknowledge an indebtedness to Poetry, The Smart Set, The Little Review, The Cosmopolitan Magazine, and William Marion Reedy, Editor of Reedy's Mirror.
CONTENTS | | PAGE | | Silence | 1 | | St. Francis and Lady Clare | 4 | | The Cocked Hat | 10 | | The Vision | 18 | | So We Grew Together | 21 | | Rain in My Heart | 31 | | The Loop | 32 | | When Under the Icy Eaves | 40 | | In the Car | 41 | | Simon Surnamed Peter | 43 | | All Life in a Life | 47 | | What You Will | 56 | | The City | 57 | | The Idiot | 65 | | Helen of Troy | 68 | | O Glorious France | 71 | | For a Dance | 74 | | When Life is Real | 76 | | The Question | 78 | | The Answer | 79 | | The Sign | 80 | | William Marion Reedy | 82 | | A Study | 85 | | Portrait of a Woman | 88 | | In the Cage | 91 | | | Saving a Woman: One Phase | 95 | | Love is a Madness | 97 | | On a Bust | 98 | | Arabel | 101 | | Jim and Arabel's Sister | 108 | | The Sorrow of Dead Faces | 116 | | The Cry | 119 | | The Helping Hand | 120 | | The Door | 121 | | Supplication | 122 | | The Conversation | 125 | | Terminus | 130 | | Madeline | 132 | | Marcia | 134 | | The Altar | 135 | | Soul's Desire | 137 | | Ballad of Launcelot and Elaine | 140 | | The Death of Launcelot | 149 | | In Michigan | 156 | | The Star | 166 |
SONGS AND SATIRES
SONGS AND SATIRES
SILENCE
I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea,
And the silence of the city when it pauses,
And the silence of a man and a maid,
And the silence for which music alone finds the word,
And the silence of the woods before the winds of spring begin,
And the silence of the sick
When their eyes roam about the room.
And I ask: For the depths
Of what use is language?
A beast of the field moans a few times
When death takes its young:
And we are voiceless in the presence of realities—
We cannot speak.
A curious boy asks an old soldier
Sitting in front of the grocery store,
"How did you lose your leg?"
And the old soldier is struck with silence,
Or his mind flies away,
Because he cannot concentrate it on Gettysburg.
It comes back jocosely
And he says, "A bear bit it off."
And the boy wonders, while the old soldier
Dumbly, feebly lives over
The flashes of guns, the thunder of cannon,
The shrieks of the slain,
And himself lying on the ground,
And the hospital surgeons, the knives,
And the long days in bed.
But if he could describe it all
He would be an artist.
But if he were an artist there would be deeper wounds
Which he could not describe.
There is the silence of a great hatred,
And the silence of a great love,
And the silence of a deep peace of mind,
And the silence of an embittered friendship.
There is the silence of a spiritual crisis,
Through which your soul, exquisitely tortured,
Comes with visions not to be uttered
Into a realm of higher life.
And the silence of the gods who understand each other without speech.
There is the silence of defeat.
There is the silence of those unjustly punished;
And the silence of the dying whose hand
Suddenly grips yours.
There is the silence between father and son,
When the father cannot explain his life,
Even though he be misunderstood for it.
There is the silence that comes between husband and wife.
There is the silence of those who have failed;
And the vast silence that covers
Broken nations and vanquished leaders.
There is the silence of Lincoln,
Thinking of the poverty of his youth.
And the silence of Napoleon
After Waterloo.
And the silence of Jeanne d'Arc
Saying amid the flames, "Blessed Jesus"—
Revealing in two words all sorrow, all hope.
And there is the silence of age,
Too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it
In words intelligible to those who have not lived
The great range of life.
And there is the silence of the dead.
If we who are in life cannot speak
Of profound experiences,
Why do you marvel that the dead
Do not tell you of death?
Their silence shall be interpreted
As we approach them.
|
ST. FRANCIS AND LADY CLARE
Antonio loved the Lady Clare.
He caught her to him on the stair
And pressed her breasts and kissed her hair,
And drew her lips in his, and drew
Her soul out like a torch's flare.
Her breath came quick, her blood swirled round;
Her senses in a vortex swound.
She tore him loose and turned around,
And reached her chamber in a bound
Her cheeks turned to a poppy's hue.
She closed the door and turned the lock,
Her breasts and flesh were turned to rock.
She reeled as drunken from the shock.
Before her eyes the devils skipped,
She thought she heard the devils mock.
For had her soul not been as pure
As sifted snow, could she endure
Antonio's passion and be sure
Against his passion's strength and lure?
Lean fears along her wonder slipped.
Outside she heard a drunkard call,
She heard a beggar against the wall
Shaking his cup, a harlot's squall
Struck through the riot like a sword,
And gashed the midnight's festival.
She watched the city through the pane,
The old Silenus half insane,
The idiot crowd that drags its chain—
And then she heard the bells again,
And heard the voices with the word:
Ecco il santo! Up the street
There was the sound of running feet
From closing door and window seat,
And all the crowd turned on its way
The Saint of Poverty to greet.
He passed. And then a circling thrill,
As water troubled which was still,
Went through her body like a chill,
Who of Antonio thought until
She heard the Saint begin to pray.
And then she turned into the room
Her soul was cloven through with doom,
Treading the softness and the gloom
Of Asia's silk and Persia's wool,
And China's magical perfume.
She sickened from the vases hued
In corals, yellows, greens, the lewd
Twined dragon shapes and figures nude,
And tapestries that showed a brood
Of leopards by a pool!
Candles of wax she lit before
A pier glass standing from the floor;
Up to the ceiling, off she tore
With eager hands her jewels, then
The silken vesture which she wore.
Her little breasts so round to see
Were budded like the peony.
Her arms were white as ivory,
And all her sunny hair lay free
As marigold or celandine.
Her blue eyes sparkled like a vase
Of crackled turquoise, in her face
Was memory of the mad embrace
Antonio gave her on the stair,
And on her cheeks a salt tear's trace.
Like pigeon blood her lips were red.
She clasped her bands above her head.
Under her arms the waxlight shed
Delicate halos where was spread
The downy growth of hair.
Such sudden sin the virgin knew
She quenched the tapers as she blew
Puff! puff! upon them, then she threw
Herself in tears upon her knees,
And round her couch the curtain drew.
She called upon St. Francis' name,
Feeling Antonio's passion maim
Her body with his passion's flame
To save her, save her from the shame
Of fancies such as these!
"Go by mad life and old pursuits,
The wine cup and the golden fruits,
The gilded mirrors, rosewood flutes,
I would praise God forevermore
With harps of gold and silver lutes."
She stripped the velvet from her couch
Her broken spirit to avouch.
She saw the devils slink and slouch,
And passion like a leopard crouch
Half mirrored on the polished floor.
Next day she found the saint and said:
I would be God's bride, I would wed
Poverty and I would eat the bread
That you for anchorites prepare,
For my soul's sake I am in dread.
Go then, said Francis, nothing loth,
Put off this gown of green snake cloth,
Put on one somber as a moth,
Then come to me and make your troth
And I will clip your golden hair.
She went and came. But still there lay,
A gem she did not put away,
A locket twixt her breasts, all gay
In shimmering pearls and tints of blue,
And inlay work of fruit and spray.
St. Francis felt it as he slipped
His hand across her breast and whipped
Her golden tresses ere he clipped—
He closed his eyes then as he gripped
The shears, plunged the shears through.
The waterfall of living gold.
The locks fell to the floor and rolled,
And curled like serpents which unfold.
And there sat Lady Clare despoiled.
Of worldly glory manifold.
She thrilled to feel him take and hide
The locket from her breast, a tide
Of passion caught them side by side.
He was the bridegroom, she the bride—
Their flesh but not their spirits foiled.
Thus was the Lady Clare debased
To sack cloth and around her waist
A rope the jeweled belt replaced.
Her feet made free of silken hose
Naked in wooden sandals cased
Went bruised to Bastia's chapel, then
They housed her in St. Damian
And here she prayed for poor women
And here St. Francis sought her when
His faith sank under earthly woes.
Antonio cursed St. Clare in rhyme
And took to wine and got the lime
Of hatred on his soul, in time
Grew healed though left a little lame,
And laughed about it in his prime;
When he could see with crystal eyes
That love is a winged thing which flies;
Some break the wings, some let them rise
From earth like God's dove to the skies
Diffused in heavenly flame.
|
THE COCKED HAT Would that someone would knock Mr. Bryan into a cocked hat.—Woodrow Wilson.
It ain't really a hat at all, Ed:
You know that, don't you?
When you bowl over six out of the nine pins,
And the three that are standing
Are the triangular three in front,
You've knocked the nine into a cocked hat.
If it was really a hat, he would be knocked in, too.
Which he hardly is. For a man with money,
And a man who can draw a crowd to listen
To what he says, ain't all-in yet....
Oh yes, defeated
And killed off a dozen times, but still
He's one of the three nine pins that's standing ...
Eh? Why, the other is Teddy, the other
Wilson, we'll say. We'll see, perhaps.
But six are down to make the cocked hat—
That's me and thousands of others like me,
And the first-rate men who were cuffed about
After the Civil War,
And most of the more than six million men
Who followed this fellow into the ditch,
While he walked down the ditch and stepped to the level—
Following an ideal!
**** Do you remember how slim he was,
And trim he was,
With black hair and pale brow,
And the hawk-like nose and flashing eyes,
Not turning slowly like an owl
But with a sudden eagle motion?...
One time, in '96, he came here
And we had just a dollar and sixty cents
In the treasury of the organization.
So I stuck his lithograph on a pole
And started out for the station.
By the time we got back here to Clark street
Four thousand men were marching in line,
And a band that was playing for an opening
Of a restaurant on Franklin street
Had left the job and was following his carriage.
Why, it took all the money Mark Hanna could raise
To beat me, with nothing but a pole
And a lithograph.
And it wasn't because he was one of the prophets
Come back to earth again.
It shows how human hearts are hungry
How wonderfully true they are—
And how they will rise and follow a man
Who seems to see the truth!
Well, these fellows who marched are the cocked hat,
And I am the cocked hat and the six millions,
And more are the cocked hat,
Who got themselves despised or suspected
Of ignorance or something for being with him.
But still, he's one of the pins that's standing.
He got the money that he went after,
And he has a place in history, perhaps—
Because we took the blow and fell down
When the ripping ball went wild on the alley.
**** For we were radicals,
And he wasn't a radical.
Eh? Why, a radical stands for freedom,
And for truth—which he never finds
But always looks for.
A radical is not a moralist.
A radical doesn't say:
"This is true and you must believe it;
This is good and you must accept it,
And if you don't believe it and accept it
We'll get a law and make you,
And if you don't obey the law, we'll kill you—"
Oh no! A radical stands for freedom.
**** Do you remember that banquet at the Tremont
In '97 on Jackson's day?
Bryan and Altgeld walked together
Out to the banquet room.
That's the time he said the bolters must
Bring fruits meet for repentance—ha! ha! Oh, Gawd!—
They never did it and they didn't have to,
For they had made friends of the mammon of unrighteousness,
Even as he did, a little later, in his own way.
Well, Darrow was there that night.
I thought it was terribly raw in him,
But he said to Bryan, there, in a group:
"You'd better go back to Lincoln and study
Science, history, philosophy,
And read Flaubert's Madam something-or-other,
And quit this village religious stuff.
You're head of the party before you are ready
And a leader should lead with thought."
And Bryan turned to the others and said:
"Darrow's the only man in the world
Who looks down on me for believing in God."
"Your kind of a God," snapped Darrow.
Honest, Ed, I didn't see this religious business
In Bryan in '96 or 1900.
Oh well, I knew he went to Church,
And talked as statesmen do of God—
But McKinley did it, and I used to laugh:
"We've got a man to match McKinley,
And it's good for us, in a squeeze like this,
We didn't nominate some fellow
Ethical culture or Unitarian."
You see, the newspapers and preachers then
Were raising such a hullabaloo
About irreligion and dishonesty,
And calling old Altgeld an anarchist,
And comparing us to Robespierre
And the guillotine boys in France.
And a little of this religion came in handy.
The same as if you saw a Mason button on me,
You'd know, you see—but Gee!
He was 24-carat religious,
A cover-to-cover man....
He was a trained collie,
And he looked like a lion,
There in the convention of '96—What do you know about that?
**** But right here, I tell you he ain't a hypocrite,
This ain't a pose. But I'll tell you:
In '96 when they knocked him out,
I know what he said to himself as well
As if I heard him say it ...
I'll tell you in a minute.
But suppose you were giving a lecture on the constitution,
And you got mixed on your dates,
And the audience rotten-egged you,
And some one in the confusion
Stole the door receipts,
And there you were, disgraced and broke!
But suppose you could just change your clothes,
And lecture to the same audience
On the religious nature of Washington,
And be applauded and make money—
You'd do it, wouldn't you?
Well, this is what Bill said to himself:
"I'm naturally regular and religious.
I'm a moral man and I can prove it
By any one in Marion County,
Or Jacksonville or Lincoln, Nebraska.
I'm a radical, but a radical
Alone can be religious.
I belong to the church, if not to the bank,
Of the people who defeated me.
And I'll prove to religious people
That I'm a man to be trusted—
And just what a radical is.
And I'll make some money while winning the votes
Of the churches over the country."...
That's it—it ain't hypocrisy,
It's using what you are for ends,
When you find yourself in trouble.
And this accounts for "The Prince of Peace"—
Except no one but him could write it—
And "The Value of an Ideal"—
(Which is money in bank and several farms) ...
His place in history?
One time my grandfather, who was nearly blind,
Went out to sow some grass seed.
They had two sacks in the barn,
One with grass seed, one with fertilizer,
And he got the sack with fertilizer,
And scattered it over the ground,
Thinking he was sowing grass.
And as he was finishing up, a grandchild,
Dorothy, eight years old,
Followed him, dropping flower seeds.
Well, after a time
That was the greatest patch of weeds
You ever saw! And the old man sat,
Half blind, on the porch, and said:
"Good land, that grass is growing!"
And there was nothing but weeds except
A few nasturtiums here and there
That Dorothy had sown....
Well, I forgot.
There was a sunflower in one corner
That looked like a man with a golden beard
And a mass of tangled, curly hair—
And a pumpkin growing near it....
**** Say, Ed! lend me eighty dollars
To pay my life insurance.
|
THE VISION
Of that dear vale where you and I have lain
Scanning the mysteries of life and death
I dreamed, though how impassable the space
Of time between the present and the past!
This was the vision that possessed my mind;
I thought the weird and gusty days of March
Had eased themselves in melody and peace.
Pale lights, swift shadows, lucent stalks, clear streams,
Cool, rosy eves behind the penciled mesh
Of hazel thickets, and the huge feathered boughs
Of walnut trees stretched singing to the blast;
And the first pleasantries of sheep and kine;
The cautioned twitterings of hidden birds;
The flight of geese among the scattered clouds;
Night's weeping stars and all the pageantries
Of awakened life had blossomed into May,
Whilst she with trailing violets in her hair
Blew music from the stops of watery stems,
And swept the grasses with her viewless robes,
Which dreaming men thought voices, dreaming still.
Now as I lay in vision by the stream
That flows amidst our well beloved vale,
I looked throughout the vista stretched between
Two ranging hills; one meadowed rich in grass;
The other wooded, thick and quite obscure
With overgrowth, rank in the luxury
Of all wild places, but ever growing sparse
Of trees or saplings on the sudden slope
That met the grassy level of the vale;—
But still within the shadow of those woods,
Which sprinkled all beneath with fragrant dew,
There grew all flowers, which tempted little paths
Between them, up and on into the wood.
Here, as the sun had left his midday peak
The incommunicable blue of heaven blent
With his fierce splendor, filling all the air
With softened glory, while the pasturage
Trembled with color of the poppy blooms
Shook by the steps of the swift-sandaled wind.
Nor any sound beside disturbed the dream
Of Silence slumbering on the drowsy flowers.
Then as I looked upon the widest space
Of open meadow where the sunlight fell
In veils of tempered radiance, I saw
The form of one who had escaped the care
And equal dullness of our common day.
For like a bright mist rising from the earth
He made appearance, growing more distinct
Until I saw the stole, likewise the lyre
Grasped by the fingers of the modeled hand.
Yea, I did see the glory of his hair
Against the deep green bay-leaves filleting
The ungathered locks. And so throughout the vale
His figure stood distinct and his own shade
Was the sole shadow. Deeming this approach
Augur of good, as if in hidden ways
Of loveliness the gods do still appear
The counselors of men, and even where
Wonder and meditation wooed us oft,
I cried, "Apollo"—and his form dissolved,
As if the nymphs of echo, who took up
The voice and bore it to the hollow wood,
By that same flight had startled the great god
To vanishment. And thereupon I woke
And disarrayed the figment of my thought.
For of the very air, magic with hues,
Blent with the distant objects, I had formed
The splendid apparition, and so knew
It was, alas! a dream within a dream!
|
"SO WE GREW TOGETHER"
Reading over your letters I find you wrote me
"My dear boy," or at times "dear boy," and the envelope
Said "master"—all as I had been your very son,
And not the orphan whom you adopted.
Well, you were father to me! And I can recall
The things you did for me or gave me:
One time we rode in a box car to Springfield
To see the greatest show on earth;
And one time you gave me redtop boots,
And one time a watch, and one time a gun.
Well, I grew to gawkiness with a voice
Like a rooster trying to crow in August
Hatched in April, we'll say.
And you went about wrapped up in silence
With eyes aflame, and I heard little rumors
Of what they were doing to you, and how
They wronged you—and we were poor—so poor!
And I could not understand why you failed,
And why if you did good things for the people
The people did not sustain you.
And why you loved another woman than Aunt Susan,
So it was whispered at school, and what could be baser,
Or so little to be forgiven?...
They crowded you hard in those days.
But you fought like a wounded lion
For yourself I know, but for us, for me.
At last you fell ill, and for months you tottered
Around the streets as thin as death,
Trying to earn our bread, your great eyes glowing
And the silence around you like a shawl!
But something in you kept you up.
You grew well again and rosy with cheeks
Like an Indian peach almost, and eyes
Full of moonlight and sunlight, and a voice
That sang, and a humor that warded
The arrows off. But still between us
There was reticence; you kept me away
With a glittering hardness; perhaps you thought
I kept you away—for I was moving
In spheres you knew not, living through
Beliefs you believed in no more, and ideals
That were just mirrors of unrealities.
As a boy can be I was critical of you.
And reasons for your failures began to arise
In my mind—I saw specific facts here and there
With no philosophy at hand to weld them
And synthesize them into one truth—
And a rush of the strength of youth
Deluded me into thinking the world
Was something so easily understood and managed
While I knew it not at all in truth.
And an adolescent egotism
Made me feel you did not know me
Or comprehend the all that I was.
All this you divined....
So it went. And when I left you and passed
To the world, the city—still I see you
With eyes averted, and feel your hand
Limp with sorrow—you could not speak.
You thought of what I might be, and where
Life would take me, and how it would end—
There was longer silence. A year or two
Brought me closer to you. I saw the play now
And the game somewhat and understood your fights
And enmities, and hardnesses and silences,
And wild humor that had kept you whole—
For your soul had made it as an antitoxin
To the world's infections. And you swung to me
Closer than before—and a chumship began
Between us....
What vital power was yours!
You never tired, or needed sleep, or had a pain,
Or refused a delight. I loved the things now
You had always loved, a winning horse,
A roulette wheel, a contest of skill
In games or sports ... long talks on the corner
With men who have lived and tell you
Things with a rich flavor of old wisdom or humor;
A woman, a glass of whisky at a table
Where the fatigue of life falls, and our reserves
That wait for happiness come up in smiles,
Laughter, gentle confidences. Here you were
A man with youth, and I a youth was a man,
Exulting in your braveries and delight in life.
How you knocked that scamp over at Harry Varnell's
When he tried to take your chips! And how I,
Who had thought the devil in cards as a boy,
Loved to play with you now and watch you play;
And watch the subtle mathematics of your mind
Prophecy, divine the plays. Who was it
In your ancestry that you harked back to
And reproduced with such various gifts
Of flesh and spirit, Anglo-Saxon, Celt?—
You with such rapid wit and powerful skill
For catching illogic and whipping Error's
FangÉd head from the body?...
I was really ahead of you
At this stage, with more self-consciousness
Of what man is, and what life is at last,
And how the spirit works, and by what laws,
With what inevitable force. But still I was
Behind you in that strength which in our youth,
If ever we have it, squeezes all the nectar
From the grapes. It seemed you'd never lose
This power and sense of joy, but yet at times
I saw another phase of you....
There was the day
We rode together north of the old town,
Past the old farm houses that I knew—
Past maple groves, and fields of corn in the shock,
And fields of wheat with the fall green.
It was October, but the clouds were summer's,
Lazily floating in a sky of June;
And a few crows flying here and there,
And a quail's call, and around us a great silence
That held at its core old memories
Of pioneers, and dead days, forgotten things!
I'll never forget how you looked that day. Your hair
Was turning silver now, but still your eyes
Burned as of old, and the rich olive glow
In your cheeks shone, with not a line or wrinkle!—
You seemed to me perfection—a youth, a man!
And now you talked of the world with the old wit,
And now of the soul—how such a man went down
Through folly or wrong done by him, and how
Man's death cannot end all,
There must be life hereafter!...
As you were that day, as you looked and spoke,
As the earth was, I hear as the soul of it all
Godard's Dawn, DvorÁk's Humoresque,
The Morris Dances, Mendelssohn's Barcarole,
And old Scotch songs, When the Kye Come Hame,
And The Moon Had Climbed the Highest Hill,
The Musseta Waltz and Rudolph's Narrative;
Your great brow seemed Beethoven's
And the lust of life in your face Cellini's,
And your riotous fancy like Dumas.
I was nearer you now than ever before,
And finding each other thus I see to-day
How the human soul seeks the human soul
And finds the one it seeks at last.
For you know you can open a window
That looks upon embowered darkness,
When the flowers sleep and the trees are still
At Midnight, and no light burns in the room;
And you can hide your butterfly
Somewhere in the room, but soon you will see
A host of butterfly mates
Fluttering through the window to join
Your butterfly hid in the room.
It is somehow thus with souls....
This day then I understood it all:
Your vital democracy and love of men
And tolerance of life; and how the excess of these
Had wrought your sorrows in the days
When we were so poor, and the small of mind
Spoke of your sins and your connivance
With sinful men. You had lived it down,
Had triumphed over them, and you had grown.
Prosperous in the world and had passed
Into an easy mastery of life and beyond the thought
Of further conquests for things.
As the Brahmins say, no more you worshiped matter,
Or scarcely ghosts, or even the gods
With singleness of heart.
This day you worshiped Eternal Peace
Or Eternal Flame, with scarce a laugh or jest
To hide your worship; and I understood,
Seeing so many facets to you, why it was
Blind Condon always smiled to hear your voice,
And why it was in a greenroom years ago
Booth turned to you, marking your face
From all the rest, and said, "There is a man
Who might play Hamlet—better still Othello";
And why it was the women loved you; and the priest
Could feed his body and soul together drinking
A glass of beer and visiting with you....
Then something happened:
Your face grew smaller, your brow more narrow,
Dull fires burned in your eyes,
Your body shriveled, you walked with a cynical shuffle,
Your hands mixed the keys of life,
You had become a discord.
A monstrous hatred consumed you—
You had suffered the greatest wrong of all,
I knew and granted the wrong.
You had mounted up to sixty years, now breathing hard,
And just at the time that honor belonged to you
You were dishonored at the hands of a friend.
I wept for you, and still I wondered
If all I had grown to see in you and find in you
And love in you was just a fond illusion—
If after all I had not seen you aright as a boy:
Barbaric, hard, suspicious, cruel, redeemed
Alone by bubbling animal spirits—
Even these gone now, all of you smoke
Laden with stinging gas and lethal vapor....
Then you came forth again like the sun after storm—
The deadly uric acid driven out at last
Which had poisoned you and dwarfed your soul—
So much for soul!
The last time I saw you
Your face was full of golden light,
Something between flame and the richness of flesh.
You were yourself again, wholly yourself.
And oh, to find you again and resume
Our understanding we had worked so long to reach—
You calm and luminant and rich in thought!
This time it seemed we said but "yes" or "no"—
That was enough; we smoked together
And drank a glass of wine and watched
The leaves fall sitting on the porch....
Then life whirled me away like a leaf,
And I went about the crowded ways of New York.
And one night Alberta and I took dinner
At a place near Fourteenth Street where the music
Was like the sun on a breeze-swept lake
When every wave is a patine of fire,
And I thought of you not at all
Looking at Alberta and watching her white teeth
Bite off bits of Italian bread,
And watching her smile and the wide pupils
Of her eyes, electrified by wine
And music and the touch of our hands
Now and then across the table.
We went to her house at last.
And through a languorous evening.
Where no light was but a single candle,
We circled about and about a pending theme
Till at last we solved it suddenly in rapture
Almost by chance; and when I left
She followed me to the hall and leaned above
The railing about the stair for the farewell kiss—
And I went into the open air ecstatically,
With the stars in the spaces of sky between
The towering buildings, and the rush
Of wheels and clang of bells,
Still with the fragrance of her lips and cheeks
And glinting hair about me, delicate
And keen in spite of the open air.
And just as I entered the brilliant car
Something said to me you are dead—
I had not thought of you, was not thinking of you.
But I knew it was true, as it was,
For the telegram waited me at my room....
I didn't come back.
I could not bear to see the breathless breath
Over your brow—nor look at your face—
However you fared or where
To what victories soever—
Vanquished or seemingly vanquished!
|
RAIN IN MY HEART There is a quiet in my heart
Like one who rests from days of pain.
Outside, the sparrows on the roof
Are chirping in the dripping rain.
Rain in my heart; rain on the roof;
And memory sleeps beneath the gray
And windless sky and brings no dreams
Of any well remembered day.
I would not have the heavens fair,
Nor golden clouds, nor breezes mild,
But days like this, until my heart
To loss of you is reconciled.
I would not see you. Every hope
To know you as you were has ranged.
I, who am altered, would not find
The face I loved so greatly changed.
|
THE LOOP From State street bridge a snow-white glimpse of sea
Beyond the river walled in by red buildings,
O'ertopped by masts that take the sunset's gildings,
Roped to the wharf till spring shall set them free.
Great floes make known how swift the river's current.
Out of the north sky blows a cutting wind.
Smoke from the stacks and engines in a torrent
Whirls downward, by the eddying breezes thinned.
Enskyed are sign boards advertising soap,
Tobacco, coal, transcontinental trains.
A tug is whistling, straining at a rope,
Fixed to a dredge with derricks, scoops and cranes.
Down in the loop the blue-gray air enshrouds,
As with a cyclops' cape, the man-made hills
And towers of granite where the city crowds.
Above the din a copper's whistle shrills.
There is a smell of coffee and of spices.
We near the market place of trade's devices.
Blue smoke from out a roasting room is pouring.
A rooster crows, geese cackle, men are bawling.
Whips crack, trucks creak, it is the place of storing,
And drawing out and loading up and hauling
Fruit, vegetables and fowls and steaks and hams,
Oysters and lobsters, fish and crabs and clams.
And near at hand are restaurants and bars,
Hotels with rooms at fifty cents a day,
Beer tunnels, pool rooms, places where cigars
And cigarettes their window signs display;
Mixed in with letterings of printed tags,
Twine, boxes, cartels, sacks and leather bags,
Wigs, telescopes, eyeglasses, ladies' tresses,
Or those who manicure or fashion dresses,
Or sell us putters, tennis balls or brassies,
Make shoes, pull teeth, or fit the eye with glasses.
And now the rows of windows showing laces,
Silks, draperies and furs and costly vases,
Watches and mirrors, silver cups and mugs,
Emeralds, diamonds, Indian, Persian rugs,
Hats, velvets, silver buckles, ostrich-plumes,
Drugs, violet water, powder and perfumes.
Here is a monstrous winking eye—beneath
A showcase by an entrance full of teeth.
Here rubber coats, umbrellas, mackintoshes,
Hoods, rubber boots and arctics and galoshes.
Here is half a block of overcoats,
In this bleak time of snow and slender throats.
Then windows of fine linen, snakewood canes,
Scarfs, opera hats, in use where fashion reigns.
As when the hive swarms, so the crowded street
Roars to the shuffling of innumerable feet.
Skyscrapers soar above them; they go by
As bees crawl, little scales upon the skin
Of a great dragon winding out and in.
Above them hangs a tangled tree of signs,
Suspended or uplifted like dÆdalian
Hieroglyphics when the saturnalian
Night commences, and their racing lines
Run fire of blue and yellow in a puzzle,
Bewildering to the eyes of those who guzzle,
And gourmandize and stroll and seek the bubble
Of happiness to put away their trouble.
Around the loop the elevated crawls,
And giant shadows sink against the walls
Where ten to twenty stories strive to hold
The pale refraction of the sunset's gold.
Slop underfoot, we pass beneath the loop.
The crowd is uglier, poorer; there are smells
As from the depths of unsuspected hells,
And from a groggery where beer and soup
Are sold for five cents to the thieves and bums.
Here now are huge cartoons in red and blue
Of obese women and of skeleton men,
Egyptian dancers, twined with monstrous snakes,
Before the door a turbaned lithe Hindoo,
A bagpipe shrilling, underneath a den
Of opium, whence a man with hand that shakes,
Rolling a cigarette, so palely comes.
The clang of car bells and the beat of drums.
Draft horses clamping with their steel-shod hoofs.
The buildings have grown small and black and worn;
The sky is more beholden; o'er the roofs
A flock of pigeons soars; with dresses torn
And yellow faces, labor women pass
Some Chinese gabbling; and there, buying fruit,
Stands a fair girl who is a late recruit
To those poor women slain each year by lust.
'Tis evening now and trade will soon begin.
The family entrance beckons for a glass
Of hopeful mockery, the piano's din
Into the street with sounds of rasping wires
Filters, and near a pawner's window shows
Pistols, accordions; and, luring buyers,
A Jew stands mumbling to the passer-by
Of jewelry and watches and old clothes.
A limousine gleams quickly—with a cry
A legless man fastened upon a board
With casters 'neath it by a sudden shove
Darts out of danger. And upon the corner
A lassie tells a man that God is love,
Holding a tambourine with its copper hoard
To be augmented by the drunken scorner.
A woman with no eyeballs in her sockets
Plays "Rock of Ages" on a wheezy organ.
A newsboy with cold hands thrust in his pockets
Cries, "All about the will of Pierpont Morgan!"
The roofline of the street now sinks and dwindles.
The windows are begrimed with dust and beer.
A child half clothed, with legs as thin as spindles,
Carries a basket with some bits of coal.
Between lace curtains eyes of yellow leer,
The cheeks splotched with white places like the skin
Inside an eggshell—destitute of soul.
One sees a brass lamp oozing kerosene
Upon a stand whereon her elbows lean;
Lighted, it soon will welcome negroes in.
The railroad tracks are near. We almost choke
From filth whirled from the street and stinging vapors.
Great engines vomit gas and heavy smoke
Upon a north wind driving tattered papers,
Dry dung and dust and refuse down the street.
A circumambient roar as of a wheel
Whirring far off—a monster's heart whose beat
Is full of murmurs, comes as we retreat
Towards Twenty-second. And a man with jaw
Set like a tiger's, with a dirty beard,
Skulks toward the loop, with heavy wrists red-raw
Glowing above his pockets where his hands
Pushed tensely round his hips the coat tails draw,
And show what seems a slender piece of metal
In his hip pocket. On these barren strands
He waits for midnight for old scores to settle
Against his ancient foe society,
Who keeps the soup house and who builds the jails.
Switchmen and firemen with their dinner pails
Go by him homeward, and he wonders if
These fellows know a hundred thousand workers
Walk up and down the city's highways, stiff
From cold and hunger, doomed to poverty,
As wretched as the thieves and crooks and shirkers.
He scurries to the lake front, loiters past
The windows of wax lights with scarlet shades,
Where smiling diners back of ambuscades
Of silk and velvet hear not winter's blast
Blowing across the lake. He has a thought
Of Michigan, where once at picking berries
He spent a summer—then his eye is caught
At Randolph street by written light which tarries,
Then like a film runs into sentences.
He sees it all as from a black abyss.
Taxis with skid chains rattle, limousines
Draw up to awnings; for a space he catches
A scent of musk or violets, sees the patches
On powdered cheeks of furred and jeweled queens.
The color round his cruel mouth grows whiter,
He thrusts his coarse hands in his pockets tighter:
He is a thief, he knows he is a thief,
He is a thief found out, and, as he knows,
The whole loop is a kingdom held in fief
By men who work with laws instead of blows
From sling shots, so he curses under breath
The money and the invisible hand that owns
From year to year, in spite of change and death,
The wires for the lights and telephones,
The railways on the streets, and overhead
The railways, and beneath the winding tunnel
Which crooks stole from the city for a runnel
To drain her nickels; and the pipes of lead
Which carry gas, wrapped round us like a snake,
And round the courts, whose grip no court can break.
He curses bitterly all those who rise,
And rule by just the spirit which he plies
Coarsely against the world's great store of wealth;
Bankers and usurers and cliques whose stealth
Works witchcraft through the market and the press,
And hires editors, or owns the stock
Controlling papers, playing with finesse
The city's thinking, that they may unlock
Treasures and powers like burglars in the dark.
And thinking thus and cursing, through a flurry
Of sudden snow he hastens on to Clark.
In a cheap room there is an eye to mark
His coming and be glad. His footsteps hurry.
She will have money, earned this afternoon
Through men who took her from a near saloon
Wherein she sits at table to dragoon
Roughnecks or simpletons upon a lark.
Within a little hall a fierce-eyed youth
Rants of the burdens on the people's backs—
He would cure all things with the single tax.
A clergyman demands more gospel truth,
Speaking to Christians at a weekly dinner.
A parlor Marxian, for a beginner
Would take the railways. And amid applause
Where lawyers dine, a judge says all will be
Well if we hand down to posterity
Respect for courts and judges and the laws.
An anarchist would fight. Upon the whole,
Another thinks, to cultivate one's soul
Is most important—let the passing show
Go where it wills, and where it wills to go.
Outside the stars look down. Stars are content
To be so quiet and indifferent.
|
WHEN UNDER THE ICY EAVES When under the icy eaves
The swallow heralds the sun,
And the dove for its lost mate grieves
And the young lambs play and run;
When the sea is a plane of glass,
And the blustering winds are still,
And the strength of the thin snows pass
In mists o'er the tawny hill—
The spirit of life awakes
In the fresh flags by the lakes.
When the sick man seeks the air,
And the graves of the dead grow green,
Where the children play unaware
Of the faces no longer seen;
When all we have felt or can feel,
And all we are or have been,
And all the heart can hide or reveal,
Knocks gently, and enters in:—
The spirit of life awakes,
In the fresh flags by the lakes.
|
IN THE CAR We paused to say good-by,
As we thought for a little while,
Alone in the car, in the corner
Around the turn of the aisle.
A quiver came in your voice,
Your eyes were sorrowful too;
'Twas over—I strode to the doorway,
Then turned to wave an adieu.
But you had not come from the corner,
And though I had gone so far,
I retraced, and faced you coming
Into the aisle of the car.
You stopped as one who was caught
In an evil mood by surprise.—
I want to forget, I am trying
To forget the look in your eyes.
Your face was blank and cold,
Like Lot's wife turned to salt.
I suddenly trapped and discovered
Your soul in a hidden fault.
Your eyes were tearless and wide,
And your wide eyes looked on me
Like a MÆnad musing murder,
Or the mask of Melpomene.
And there in a flash of lightning
I learned what I never could prove:
That your heart contained no sorrow,
And your heart contained no love.
And my heart is light and heavy,
And this is the reason why:
I am glad we parted forever,
And sad for the last good-by.
|
SIMON SURNAMED PETER Time that has lifted you over them all—
O'er John and o'er Paul;
Writ you in capitals, made you the chief
Word on the leaf—
How did you, Peter, when ne'er on His breast
You leaned and were blest—
And none except Judas and you broke the faith
To the day of His death,—
You, Peter, the fisherman, worthy of blame,
Arise to this fame?
'Twas you in the garden who fell into sleep
And the watch failed to keep,
When Jesus was praying and pressed with the weight
Of the oncoming fate.
'Twas you in the court of the palace who warmed
Your hands as you stormed
At the damsel, denying Him thrice, when she cried:
"He walked at his side!"
You, Peter, a wave, a star among clouds, a reed in the wind,
A guide of the blind,
Both smiter and flyer, but human alway, I protest,
Beyond all the rest.
When at night by the boat on the sea He appeared
Did you wait till he neared?
You leaped in the water, not dreading the worst
In your joy to be first
To greet Him and tell Him of all that had passed
Since you saw Him the last.
You had slept while He watched, but fierce were you, fierce and awake
When they sought Him to take,
And cursing, no doubt, as you smote off, as one of the least,
The ear of the priest.
Then Andrew and all of them fled, but you followed Him, hoping for strength
To save him at length
Till you lied to the damsel, oh penitent Peter, and crept,
Into hiding and wept.
Oh well! But he asked all the twelve, "Who am I?"
And who made reply?
As you leaped in the sea, so you spoke as you smote with the sword;
"Thou art Christ, even Lord!"
John leaned on His breast, but he asked you, your strength to foresee,
"Nay, lovest thou me?"
Thrice over, as thrice you denied Him, and chose you to lead
His sheep and to feed;
And gave you, He said, the keys of the den and the fold
To have and to hold.
You were a poor jailer, oh Peter, the dreamer, who saw
The death of the law
In the dream of the vessel that held all the four-footed beasts,
Unclean for the priests;
And heard in the vision a trumpet that all men are worth
The peace of the earth
And rapture of heaven hereafter,—oh Peter, what power
Was yours in that hour:
You warder and jailer and sealer of fates and decrees,
To use the big keys
With which to reveal and fling wide all the soul and the scheme
Of the Galilee dream,
When you flashed in a trice, as later you smote with the sword:
"Thou art Christ, even Lord!"
We men, Simon Peter, we men also give you the crown
O'er Paul and o'er John.
We write you in capitals, make you the chief
Word on the leaf.
We know you as one of our flesh, and 'tis well
You are warder of hell,
And heaven's gatekeeper forever to bind and to loose—
Keep the keys if you choose.
Not rock of you, fire of you make you sublime
In the annals of time.
You were called by Him, Peter, a rock, but we give you the name
Of Peter the Flame.
For you struck a spark, as the spark from the shock
Of steel upon rock.
The rock has his use but the flame gives the light
In the way in the night:—
Oh Peter, the dreamer, impetuous, human, divine,
Gnarled branch of the vine!
|
ALL LIFE IN A LIFE His father had a large family
Of girls and boys and he was born and bred
In a barn or kind of cattle shed.
But he was a hardy youngster and grew to be
A boy with eyes that sparkled like a rod
Of white hot iron in the blacksmith shop.
His face was ruddy like a rising moon,
And his hair was black as sheep's wool that is black.
And he had rugged arms and legs and a strong back.
And he had a voice half flute and half bassoon.
And from his toes up to his head's top
He was a man, simple but intricate.
And most men differ who try to delineate
His life and fate.
He never seemed ashamed
Of poverty or of his origin. He was a wayward child,
Nevertheless though wise and mild,
And thoughtful but when angered then he flamed
As fire does in a forge.
When he was ten years old he ran away
To be alone and watch the sea, and the stars
At midnight from a mountain gorge.
When he returned his parents scolded him
And threatened him with bolts and bars.
Then they grew soft for his return and gay
And with their love would have enfolded him.
But even at ten years old he had a way
Of gazing at you with a look austere
Which gave his kinfolk fear.
He had no childlike love for father or mother,
Sister or brother,
They were the same to him as any other.
He was a little cold, a little queer.
His father was a laborer and now
They made the boy work for his daily bread.
They say he read
A book or two during these years of work.
But if there was a secret prone to lurk
Between the pages under the light of his brow
It came forth. And if he had a woman
In love or out of love, or a companion or a chum,
History is dumb.
So far as we know he dreamed and worked with hands
And learned to know his genius' commands
Or what is called one's dÆmon.
And this became at last the city's call.
He had now reached the age of thirty years,
And found a Dream of Life and a solution
For slavery of soul and even all
Miseries that flow from things material.
To free the world was his soul's resolution.
But his family had great fears
For him, knowing the evil
Which might befall him, seeing that the light
Of his own dream had blinded his mind's eyes.
They could not tell but what he had a devil.
But still in their tears despite,
And warnings he departed with replies
That when a man's genius calls him
He must obey no matter what befalls him.
What he had in his mind was growth
Of soul by watching,
And the creation of eyes
Over your mind's eyes to supervise
A clear activity and to ward off sloth.
What he had in his mind was scotching
And killing the snake of Hatred and stripping the glove
From the hand of Hypocrisy and quenching the fire
Of Falsehood and Unbrotherly Desire.—
What he had in his mind was simply Love.
And it was strange he preached the sword and force
To establish Love, but it was not strange,
Since he did this, his life took on a change.
And what he taught seems muddled at its source
With moralizing and with moral strife.
For morals are merely the Truth diluted
And sweetened up and suited
To the business and bread of Life.
And now this City was just what you'd find
A city anywhere,
A turmoil and a Vanity Fair,
A sort of heaven and a sort of Tophet.
There were so many leaders of his kind
The city didn't care
For one additional prophet.
He said some extravagant things
And planted a few stings
Under the rich man's hide.
And one of the sensational newspapers
Gave him a line or two for cutting capers
In front of the Palace of Justice and the Church.
But all of the first grade people took the other side
Of the street when they saw him coming
With a rag tag crowd singing and humming,
And curious boys and men up in a perch
Of a tree or window taking the spectacle in,
And the Corybantic din
Of a Salvation Army as it were.
And whatever he dreamed when he lived in a little town
The intelligent people ignored him, and this is the stir
And the only stir he made in the city.
But there was a certain sinister
Fellow who came to him hearing of his renown
And said "You can be Mayor of this city,
We need a man like you for Mayor."
And others said "You'd make a lawyer or a politician,
Look how the people follow you;
Why don't you hire out as a special writer,
You could become a business man, a rhetorician,
You could become a player,
You can grow rich. There's nothing for a fighter,
Fighting as you are, but to end in ruin."
But he turned from them on his way pursuing
The dream he had in view.
He had a rich man or two
Who took up with him against the powerful frown
Which looked him down.
For you'll always find a rich man or two
To take up with anything.
There are those who can't get into society or bring
Their riches to a social recognition;
Or ill-formed souls who lack the real patrician
Spirit for life.
But as for him he didn't care, he passed
Where the richness of living was rife.
And like wise Goethe talking to the last
With cabmen rather than with lords
He sat about the markets and the fountains,
He walked about the country and the mountains,
Took trips upon the lakes and waded fords
Barefooted, laughing as a young animal
Disports itself amid the festival
Of warm winds, sunshine, summer's carnival—
With laborers, carpenters, seamen
And some loose women.
And certain notable sinners
Gave him dinners.
And he went to weddings and to places where youth slakes
Its thirst for happiness, and they served him cakes
And wine wherever he went.
And he ate and drank and spent
His time in feasting and in telling stories,
And singing poems of lilies and of trees,
With crowds of people crowded around his knees
That searched with lightning secrets hidden
Of life and of life's glories,
Of death and of the soul's way after death.
Time makes amends usually for scandal's breath,
Which touched him to his earthly ruination.
But this city had a Civic Federation,
And a certain social order which intrigues
Through churches, courts, with an endless ramification
Of money and morals to save itself.
And this city had a Bar Association,
Also its Public Efficiency Leagues
For laying honest men upon the shelf
While making private pelf
Secure and free to increase.
And this city had illustrious Pharisees
And this city had a legion
Of men who make a business of religion,
With eyes one inch apart,
Dark and narrow of heart,
Who give themselves and give the city no peace,
And who are everywhere the best police
For Life as business.
And when they saw this youth
Was telling the truth,
And that his followers were multiplying,
And were going about rejoicing and defying
The social order and were stirring up
The dregs of discontent in the cup
With the hand of their own happiness,
They saw dynamic mysteries
In the poems of lilies and trees,
Therefore they held him for a felony.
If you will take a kernel of wheat
And first make free
The outer flake and then pare off the meat
Of edible starch you'll find at the kernel's core
The life germ. And this young man's words were dim
With blasphemy, sedition at the rim,
Which fired the heads of dreamers like new wine.
But this was just the outward force of him.
For this young man's philosophy was more
Than such external ferment, being divine
With secrets so profound no plummet line
Can altogether sound it. It means growth
Of soul by watching,
And the creation of eyes
Over your mind's eyes to supervise
A clear activity and to ward off sloth.
What he had in mind was scotching
And killing the snake of Hatred and stripping the glove
From the hand of Hypocrisy and quenching the fire
Of falsehood and unbrotherly Desire.
What he had in mind was simply Love.
But he was prosecuted
As a rebel and as a rebel executed
Right in a public place where all could see.
And his mother watched him hang for the felony.
He hated to die being but thirty-three,
And fearing that his poems might be lost.
And certain members of the Bar Association,
And of the Civic Federation,
And of the League of Public Efficiency,
And a legion
Of men devoted to religion,
With policemen, soldiers, roughs,
Loose women, thieves and toughs,
Came out to see him die,
And hooted at him giving up the ghost
In great despair and with a fearful cry!
And after him there was a man named Paul
Who almost spoiled it all.
And protozoan things like hypocrites,
And parasitic things who make a food
Of the mysteries of God for earthly power
Must wonder how before this young man's hour
They lived without his blood,
Shed on that day, and which
In red cells is so rich.
|
WHAT YOU WILL April rain, delicious weeping,
Washes white bones from the grave,
Long enough have they been sleeping.
They are cleansed, and now they crave
Once more on the earth to gather
Pleasure from the springtime weather.
The pine trees and the long dark grass
Feed on what is placed below.
Think you not that there doth pass
In them something we did know?
This spell—well, friends, I greet ye once again
With joy—but with a most unuttered pain.
|
THE CITY The Sun hung like a red balloon
As if he would not rise;
For listless Helios drowsed and yawned.
He cared not whether the morning dawned,
The brother of Eos and the Moon
Stretched him and rubbed his eyes.
He would have dreamed the dream again
That found him under sea:
He saw Zeus sit by Hera's side,
He saw HÆphestos with his bride;
He traced from Enna's flowery plain
The child Persephone.
There was a time when heaven's vault
Cracked like a temple's roof.
A new hierarchy burst its shell,
And as the sapphire ceiling fell,
From stern Jehovah's mad assault,
Vast spaces stretched aloof:
Great blue black depths of frozen air
Engulfed the soul of Zeus.
And then Jehovah reigned instead.
For Judah was living and Greece was dead.
And Hope was born to nurse Despair,
And the Devil was let loose.
**** Far off in the waste empyrean
The world was a golden mote.
And the Sun hung like a red balloon,
Or a bomb afire o'er a barracoon.
And the sea was drab, and the sea was green
Like a many colored coat.
The sea was pink like cyclamen,
And red as a blushing rose.
It shook anon like the sensitive plant,
Under the golden light aslant.
The little waves patted the shore again
Where the restless river flows.
And thus it has been for ages gone—
For a hundred thousand years;
Ere Buddha lived or Jesus came,
Or ever the city had place or name,
The sea thrilled through at the kiss of dawn
Like a soul of smiles and tears.
When the city's seat was a waste of sand,
And the hydra lived alone,
The sound of the sea was here to be heard,
And the moon rose up like a great white bird,
Sailing aloft from the yellow strand
To her silent midnight throne.
Now Helios eyes the universe,
And he knows the world is small.
Of old he walked through pagan Tyre,
Babylon, Sodom destroyed by fire,
And sought to unriddle the primal curse
That holds the race in thrall.
So he stepped from the Sun in robes of flame
As the city woke from sleep.
He walked the markets, walked the squares,
He walked the places of sweets and snares,
Where men buy honor and barter shame,
And the weak are killed as sheep.
He saw the city is one great mart
Where life is bought and sold.
Men rise to get them meat and bread
To barter for drugs or coffin the dead.
And dawn is but a plucked-up heart
For the dreary game of gold.
"Ho! ho!" said Helios, "father Zeus
Would never botch it so.
If he had stolen Joseph's bride,
And let his son be crucified
The son's blood had been put to use
To ease the people's woe."
"He of the pest and the burning bush,
Of locusts, lice, and frogs,
Who made me stand, veiling my light,
While Joshua slaughtered the Amorite,
Who blacked the skin of the sons of Cush,
And builded the synagogues."
"And Jehovah the great is omnipotent,
While Zeus was bound by Fate.
But Athens fell when Peter took Rome,
And Chicago is made His hecatomb.
And since from the hour His son was sent
The hypocrite holds the state."
Helios traversed the city streets
And this is what he saw:
Some sold their honor, some their skill,
The soldier hired himself to kill,
The judges bartered the judgment seats
And trafficked in the law.
The starving artist sold his youth,
The writer sold his pen;
The lawyer sharpened up his wits
Like a burglar filing auger bits,
And Jesus' vicar sold the truth
To the famished sons of men.
In every heart flamed cruelty
Like a little emerald snake.
And each one knew if he should stand
In another's way the dagger-hand
Would make the stronger the feofee
Of the coveted wapentake.
There's not a thing men will not do
For honor, gold, or power.
We smile and call the city fair,
We call life lovely and debonair,
But Proserpina never grew
So deadly a passion flower.
Go live for an hour in a tropic land
Hid near a sinking pool:
The lion and tiger come to drink,
The boa crawls to the water's brink,
The elephant bull kneels down in the sand
And drinks till his throat is cool.
Jehovah will keep you awhile unseen
As you lie behind the rocks.
But go, if you dare, to slake your thirst,
Though Jesus died for our life accursed
Your bones by the tiger will be licked clean
As he licks the bones of an ox.
And the sky may be blue as fleur de lis,
And the earth be tulip red;
And God in heaven, and life all good
While you lie hid in the underwood:
And the city may leave you sorrow free
If you ask it not for bread.
One day Achilles lost a horse
While the pest at Troy was rife,
And a million maggots fought and ate
Like soldiers storming a city's gate,
And Thersites said, as he looked at the corse,
"Achilles, that is life." **** Day fades and from a million cells
The office people pour.
Like bees that crawl on the honeycomb
The workers scurry to what is home,
And trains and traffic and clanging bells
Make the caÑon highways roar.
Helios walked the city's ways
Till the lights began to shine.
Then the janitor women start to scrub
And the Pharisees up and enter the club,
And the harlot wakes, and the music plays
And the glasses glow with wine.
Now we're good fellows one and all,
And the buffet storms with talk.
"The market's closed and trade's at end
We had our battle, now I'm your friend."
And thanks to the spirit of alcohol
Men go for a ride or walk.
Oh but traffic is not all done
Nor everything yet sold.
There's woman to win, and plots to weave,
There's a heart to hurt, or one to deceive,
And bargains to bind ere rise of Sun
To garner the morrow's gold.
The market at night is as full of fraud
As the market kept by day.
The courtesan buys a soul with a look,
A dinner tempers the truth in a book,
And love is sold till love is a bawd,
And falsehood froths in the play.
And men and women sell their smiles
For friendship's lifeless dregs.
For fear of the morrow we bend and bow
To moneybags with the slanting brow.
For the heart that knows life's little wiles
Seldom or never begs.
"Poor men," sighed Helios, "how they long
For the ultimate fire of love.
They yearn, through life, like the peacock moth,
And die worn out in search of the troth.
For love in the soul is the siren song
That wrecks the peace thereof." **** Helios turned from the world and fled
As the convent bell tolled six.
For he caught a glimpse of an agÉd crone
Who knelt beside a coffin alone;
She had sold her cloak to shrive the dead
And buy a crucifix!
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