  EDITORIAL COMMENT A PERFECT RETURN I EDITORIAL COMMENT STATUS RERUM EDITORIAL COMMENT THE SERVIAN EPIC P The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain. POETRY--A Magazine of Verse VOLUME I.October~March, 1912-13 Harriet Monroe ~ Editor Scroll and Quill Reprinted with the permission A. M. S. REPRINT CO. Copyright
POETRY I I It is a little isle amid bleak seas— An isolate realm of garden, circled round By importunity of stress and sound, Devoid of empery to master these. At most, the memory of its streams and bees, Borne to the toiling mariner outward-bound, Recalls his soul to that delightful ground; But serves no beacon toward his destinies.It is a refuge from the stormy days, Breathing the peace of a remoter world Where beauty, like the musing dusk of even, Enfolds the spirit in its silver haze; While far away, with glittering banners furled, The west lights fade, and stars come out in heaven. It is a sea-gate, trembling with the blast Of powers that from the infinite sea-plain roll, A whelming tide. Upon the waiting soul As on a fronting rock, thunders the vast Groundswell; its spray bursts heavenward, and drives past In fume and sound articulate of the whole Of ocean's heart, else voiceless; on the shoal Silent; upon the headland clear at last. From darkened sea-coasts without stars or sun, Like trumpet-voices in a holy war, Utter the heralds tidings of the deep. And where men slumber, weary and undone, Visions shall come, incredible hopes from far,— And with high passion shatter the bonds of sleep. Arthur Davison Ficke I AM THE WOMAN I am the Woman, ark of the law and its breaker, Who chastened her steps and taught her knees to be meek, Bridled and bitted her heart and humbled her cheek, Parcelled her will, and cried "Take more!" to the taker, Shunned what they told her to shun, sought what they bade her seek, Locked up her mouth from scornful speaking: now it is open to speak. I am she that is terribly fashioned, the creature Wrought in God's perilous mood, in His unsafe hour. The morning star was mute, beholding my feature, Seeing the rapture I was, the shame, and the power, Scared at my manifold meaning; he heard me call "O fairest among ten thousand, acceptable brother!" And he answered not, for doubt; till he saw me crawl And whisper down to the secret worm, "O mother, Be not wroth in the ancient house; thy daughter forgets not at all!" I am the Woman, fleËr away, Soft withdrawer back from the maddened mate, Lurer inward and down to the gates of day And crier there in the gate, "What shall I give for thee, wild one, say! The long, slow rapture and patient anguish of life, Or art thou minded a swifter way? Ask if thou canst, the gold, but oh if thou must, Good is the shining dross, lovely the dust! Look at me, I am the Woman, harlot and heavenly wife; Tell me thy price, be unashamed; I will assuredly pay!" I am also the Mother: of two that I bore I comfort and feed the slayer, feed and comfort the slain. Did they number my daughters and sons? I am mother of more! Many a head they marked not, here in my bosom has lain, Babbling with unborn lips in a tongue to be, Far, incredible matters, all familiar to me. Still would the man come whispering, "Wife!" but many a time my breast Took him not as a husband: I soothed him and laid him to rest Even as the babe of my body, and knew him for such. My mouth is open to speak, that was dumb too much! I say to you I am the Mother; and under the sword Which flamed each way to harry us forth from the Lord, I saw Him young at the portal, weeping and staying the rod, And I, even I was His mother, and I yearned as the mother of God. I am also the Spirit. The Sisters laughed When I sat with them dumb in the portals, over my lamp, Half asleep in the doors: for my gown was raught Off at the shoulder to shield from the wind and the rain The wick I tended against the mysterious hour When the Silent City of Being should ring with song, As the Lord came in with Life to the marriage bower. "Look!" laughed the elder Sisters; and crimson with shame I hid my breast away from the rosy flame. "Ah!" cried the leaning Sisters, pointing, doing me wrong, "Do you see?" laughed the wanton Sisters, "She will get her lover ere long!" And it was but a little while till unto my need He was given indeed, And we walked where waxing world after world went by; And I said to my lover, "Let us begone, "Oh, let us begone, and try "Which of them all the fairest to dwell in is, "Which is the place for us, our desirable clime!" But he said, "They are only the huts and the little villages, Pleasant to go and lodge in rudely over the vintage-time!" Scornfully spake he, being unwise, Being flushed at heart because of our walking together. But I was mute with passionate prophecies; My heart went veiled and faint in the golden weather, While universe drifted by after still universe. Then I cried, "Alas, we must hasten and lodge therein, One after one, and in every star that they shed! A dark and a weary thing is come on our head— To search obedience out in the bosom of sin, To listen deep for love when thunders the curse; For O my love, behold where the Lord hath planted In every star in the midst His dangerous Tree! Still I must pluck thereof and bring unto thee, Saying, "The coolness for which all night we have panted; Taste of the goodly thing, I have tasted first!" Bringing us noway coolness, but burning thirst, Giving us noway peace, but implacable strife, Loosing upon us the wounding joy and the wasting sorrow of life! I am the Woman, ark of the Law and sacred arm to upbear it, Heathen trumpet to overthrow and idolatrous sword to shear it: Yea, she whose arm was round the neck of the morning star at song, Is she who kneeleth now in the dust and cries at the secret door, "Open to me, O sleeping mother! The gate is heavy and strong. "Open to me, I am come at last; be wroth with thy child no more. "Let me lie down with thee there in the dark, and be slothful with thee as before!" William Vaughan Moody TO WHISTLER, AMERICAN On the loan exhibit of his paintings at the Tate Gallery. You also, our first great, Had tried all ways; Tested and pried and worked in many fashions, And this much gives me heart to play the game. Here is a part that's slight, and part gone wrong, And much of little moment, and some few Perfect as DÜrer! "In the Studio" and these two portraits, [A] if I had my choice! And then these sketches in the mood of Greece? You had your searches, your uncertainties, And this is good to know—for us, I mean, Who bear the brunt of our America And try to wrench her impulse into art. You were not always sure, not always set To hiding night or tuning "symphonies"; Had not one style from birth, but tried and pried And stretched and tampered with the media. You and Abe Lincoln from that mass of dolts Show us there's chance at least of winning through. Ezra Pound MIDDLE-AGED A STUDY IN AN EMOTION "'Tis but a vague, invarious delight As gold that rains about some buried king. As the fine flakes, When tourists frolicking Stamp on his roof or in the glazing light Try photographs, wolf down their ale and cakes And start to inspect some further pyramid; As the fine dust, in the hid cell beneath Their transitory step and merriment, Drifts through the air, and the sarcophagus Gains yet another crust Of useless riches for the occupant, So I, the fires that lit once dreams Now over and spent, Lie dead within four walls And so now love Rains down and so enriches some stiff case, And strews a mind with precious metaphors, And so the space Of my still consciousness Is full of gilded snow, The which, no cat has eyes enough To see the brightness of." Ezra Pound FISH OF THE FLOOD Fish of the flood, on the bankÈd billow Thou layest thy head in dreams; Sliding as slides thy shifting pillow, One with the streams Of the sea is thy spirit. Gean-tree, thou spreadest thy foaming flourish Abroad in the sky so grey; It not heeding if it thee nourish, Thou dost obey, Happy, its moving. So, God, thy love it not needeth me, Only thy life, that I blessÈd be. Emilia Stuart Lorimer TO ONE UNKNOWN I have seen the proudest stars That wander on through space, Even the sun and moon, But not your face. I have heard the violin, The winds and waves rejoice In endless minstrelsy, Yet not your voice. I have touched the trillium, Pale flower of the land, Coral, anemone, And not your hand. I have kissed the shining feet Of Twilight lover-wise, Opened the gates of Dawn— Oh not your eyes! I have dreamed unwonted things, Visions that witches brew, Spoken with images, Never with you. Helen Dudley SYMPHONY OF A MEXICAN GARDEN
TO MOZART What junipers are these, inlaid With flame of the pomegranate tree? The god of gardens must have made This still unrumored place for thee To rest from immortality, And dream within the splendid shade Some more elusive symphony Than orchestra has ever played. I In A major Poco sostenuto The laving tide of inarticulate air Breaks here in flowers as the sea in foam, But with no satin lisp of failing wave: The odor-laden winds are very still. An unimagined music here exhales In upcurled petal, dreamy bud half-furled, And variations of thin vivid leaf: Symphonic beauty that some god forgot. If form could waken into lyric sound, This flock of irises like poising birds Would feel song at their slender feathered throats, And pour into a grey-winged aria Their wrinkled silver fingermarked with pearl; That flight of ivory roses high along The airy azure of the larkspur spires Would be a fugue to puzzle nightingales With too-evasive rapture, phrase on phrase. Where the hibiscus flares would cymbals clash, And the black cypress like a deep bassoon Would hum a clouded amber melody. But all across the trudging ragged chords That are the tangled grasses in the heat, The mariposa lilies fluttering Like trills upon some archangelic flute, The roses and carnations and divine Small violets that voice the vanished god, There is a lure of passion-poignant tone Not flower-of-pomegranate—that finds the heart As stubborn oboes do—can breathe in air, Nor poppies, nor keen lime, nor orange-bloom. What zone of wonder in the ardent dusk Of trees that yearn and cannot understand, Vibrates as to the golden shepherd horn That stirs some great adagio with its cry And will not let it rest? O tender trees, Your orchid, like a shepherdess of dreams, Calls home her whitest dream from following Elusive laughter of the unmindful god! Vivace The iris people dance Like any nimble faun: To rhythmic radiance They foot it in the dawn. They dance and have no need Of crystal-dripping flute Or chuckling river-reed,— Their music hovers mute. The dawn-lights flutter by All noiseless, but they know! Such children of the sky Can hear the darkness go. But does the morning play Whatever they demand— Or amber-barred bourrÉe Or silver saraband? THE POOL II In A minor Allegretto Cool-hearted dim familiar of the doves, Thou coiled sweet water where they come to tell Their mellow legends and rehearse their loves, As what in April or in June befell And thou must hear of,—friend of Dryades Who lean to see where flower should be set To star the dusk of wreathed ivy braids, They have not left thy trees, Nor do tired fauns thy crystal kiss forget, Nor forest-nymphs astray from distant glades. Thou feelest with delight their showery feet Along thy mossy margin myrtle-starred, And thine the heart of wildness quick to beat At imprint of shy hoof upon thy sward: Yet who could know thee wild who art so cool, So heavenly-minded, templed in thy grove Of plumy cedar, larch and juniper? O strange ecstatic Pool, What unknown country art thou dreaming of, Or temple than this garden lovelier? Who made thy sky the silver side of leaves, And poised its orchid like a swan-white moon Whose disc of perfect pallor half deceives The mirror of thy limpid green lagoon, He loveth well thy ripple-feathered moods, Thy whims at dusk, thy rainbow look at dawn! Dream thou no more of vales Olympian: Where pale Olympus broods There were no orchid white as moon or swan, No sky of leaves, no garden-haunting Pan! THE BIRDS III In F major Presto I keep a frequent tryst With whirr and shower of wings: Some inward melodist Interpreting all things Appoints the place, the hours. Dazzle and sense of flowers, Though not the least leaf stir, May mean a tanager: How rich the silence is until he sings! The smoke-tree's cloudy white Has fire within its breast. What winged mere delight There hides as in a nest And fashions of its flame Music without a name? So might an opal sing If given thrilling wing, And voice for lyric wildness unexpressed. In grassy dimness thatched With tangled growing things, A troubadour rose-patched, With velvet-shadowed wings, Seeks a sustaining fly. Who else unseen goes by Quick-pattering through the hush? Some twilight-footed thrush Or finch intent on small adventurings? THE ORANGE TREE In D Major Presto meno assai The blossom-powdered orange tree, For all her royal speechlessness, Out of a heart of ecstasy Is singing, singing, none the less! Light as a springing fountain, she Is spray above the wind-sleek turf: Dream-daughter of the moon's white sea And sister to its showered surf! TO THE MOON IV In A major Allegro con brio Moon that shone on Babylon, Searching out the gardens there, Could you find a fairer one Than this garden, anywhere? Did Damascus at her best Hide such beauty in her breast? When you flood with creamy light Vines that net the sombre pine, Turn the shadowed iris white, Summon cactus stars to shine, Do you free in silvered air Wistful spirits everywhere? Here they linger, there they pass, And forget their native heaven: Flit along the dewy grass Rare Vittoria, Sappho, even! And the hushed magnolia burns Incense in her gleaming urns. When the nightingale demands Word with Keats who answers him, Shakespeare listens—understands— Mindful of the cherubim; And the South Wind dreads to know Mozart gone as seraphs go. Moon of poets dead and gone, Moon to gods of music dear, Gardens they have looked upon Let them re-discover here: Rest—and dream a little space Of some heart-remembered place! Grace Hazard Conkling |
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