THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
A VOLUME OF POEMS
BY
HERBERT S. GORMAN
0
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
tlbe 'Kniclterbocftet pcees
1922
Copyright, 1922
by
Herbert S. Gorman
Made in the United States of America
« Ti :. •
Acknowledgments and thanks are due The Outlook, The Freeman, The Poetry Journal, The Literary Review , The Sun ''Books and the Book World,'' The Sun, The New York Evening Post and The Boston Evening Transcript for printing a niimber of these poems. Several of them appeared in a pamphlet entitled The Fool of Love, now out of print.
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2007 with funding from
IVIicrosoft Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/barcaroleofjamesOOgormrich
CONTENTS
|
Candace |
3 |
|
The Melody of Patrick Murphy |
5 |
|
Einstein Practices |
8 |
|
The History of Egypt |
9 |
|
Iacchos |
10 |
|
The Mandrake Root . |
II |
|
The Intolerable Procession |
. 13 |
|
To A False Friend |
15 |
|
Mycerinus |
i6 |
|
The Warning .... |
i8 |
|
Roses |
20 |
|
LiLiTH, Lilith .... |
21 |
|
Rainy Night |
22 |
|
The Paper Rose |
24 |
|
Lese Majeste |
26 |
CONTENTS
The Burning Bush
Brief Outline .
*'LooK Here, upon This Picture '
Jean
Ninon Plucks the Last Rose
Lovers Fanatic .
**0 Passionless and Pale'' .
The Last Sunset
The White Beast
The White Bones of This Lady
The Son of Dawn
The Barcarole of James Smith
Intermezzo between two Griefs
Morgan Sulks
Pale Hands
Indifference
The Last Fire
Green Banks
The Dark Ocean of Love vi
|
CONTENTS |
|||
|
PAGB |
|||
|
KA.LEIDOSCOPE: Subway Hour . . 99 |
|||
|
Midnight .... |
100 |
||
|
Sick Days . |
. 102 |
||
|
The Fatalist |
. 103 |
||
|
The Locked Door |
104 |
||
|
The Riders |
. 105 |
||
|
Nightmare . |
. 106 |
||
|
In the Dark, in the Night |
. 108 |
||
|
The Lonely Cabin |
. 109 |
||
|
Jewels |
III |
||
|
After Love |
113 |
||
|
Masterbrook |
114 |
||
|
The Satyrs and the Moon |
. 1x6 |
||
|
The Deserted House . |
118 |
||
|
Two Sonnets at Cornwall |
120 |
||
|
To My Wife, Jean |
122 |
Vll
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
CANDACE
IN Ethiopia the sun
Shines forever. Cinnamon And aromatics spice the air, And Candace is black and rare.
The Troglodytes in caverns dwell ; The Macrobii with long years swell ; The Ichthyophagi eat fish ; But Candace is all my wish.
Bring ivory and scented myrrh
To lay before the feet of her
Who, carved of black basalt and Night,
Shall find in me a neophyte.
These women whiter than the sun Are pale with ardors left undone; 3
THJi): BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
Their veins are filled with snow and ice And timidly they ponder twice.
But Candace, but Candace
Has blood as black as ebony
That roars through veins that ache and
yearn And for her sultry breasts I burn.
The morning bursts in twisted fire Before the birth of my desire, But noonday heat brings back to me The swarthy limbs of Candace.
Heap sandalwood upon the flame And smite the cymbals at her name And beat the drums while blood throbs free For Candace, for Candace.
THE MELODY OF PATRICK MURPHY
T^HE twilight lopes along the street,
A lithe grey beast with padded feet That make no sound. . . . A slow moon slips Above dark trees, and starshine drips About the worn and splintered stoop Where Patrick Murphy sits, adroop With sweaty labor. . . . Patrick sees The Night and shapes his melodies.
''A million stars have fallen down
Upon the Babylonian waste, And guttered moons have scorched the crown
Of Janus* hill, the double-faced.
"And masons, such a brown-limbed rabble, Have builded shafts beyond compare
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
From Taj Mahal to ancient Babel And Ninus* Hanging Gardens rare.
''But all their building is a dream
And all those masons long ago Have rotted : they went out like steam
Or frosty air or melting snow.
"And all the bricks that I have laid The Great House Wrecker lists upon
His Domesday Book. ... A sorry trade, As insubstantial as the dawn.
**So build no more, say I, with bricks: They vanish, but the twilight stays,
And twilight has a million tricks That will outlast my building days.
**Come, smoke of twilight, to my hand: I'll shape you to a dusky dome,
A place where all the gods may stand, Outlasting Nineveh and Rome.
*'My back is broken with the weight Of trowelling these wretched houses, 6
THE MELODY OF PATRICK MURPHY
So let me build a mansion great
Where nothing but the wind carouses.
"The moon shall hang above the door To glow on subterranean nights,
And all the stars flash on the floor Like glittering electric lights."
Now Night, the black behemoth, goes With lurching stagger through the rows Of dark astonished houses stunned To sickly trances, moribund With rotten shibboleths, denials And compromises and vain trials. And Patrick Murphy seems to hear New voices as he drinks his beer, And, after Night's abysmal span, Awaits the white Leviathan Of nascent day that swims along To his uncomprehended song.
EINSTEIN PRACTICES
P INSTEIN on the violin
Drew long notes with quivering zeal. The music, rising sharp and thin, Caught him taut from wrist to heel.
Einstein carved a commonplace Upon the Night's black ivory
And lifted up his rabbit-face To smirk upon the mockery.
Einstein's bow obeyed the wrist
And Einstein loomed for all to know,
When, with uncomprehended twist, The wrist turned victim to the bow.
And Einstein in a lonely place
Ran like a rabbit out and in, Surprise upon his meager face,
And hatred for his violin. 8
THE HISTORY OF EGYPT
DALD-HEADED Egyptians with chin-
beards that thrust At rakish angles made slaves eat the dust, Lashed their backs in quarries of hard stone, Tore dark flesh and sweetened their pride
with bone. The Pyramids, the Sphinx rose in the air, And Cheops is buried under the painted
stair Somewhere, somewhere; And now the dream of the slave is one with
Time; He strolls with Sphinxes and Hawks through
beds of lime; With Berenice he loiters, laughs and lingers, While Pyramids shine like jewels on horny
fingers.
9
lACCHOS
r^ARK figure of lacchos
Sprawled across the sill of the Night, Stertorous breathing, gigantic limbs in throes Of nightmare. The moon shines white
And spatters with silver flakes the heavy loins.
Dark blood in the veins that thunder; Night with day in ecstasy joins
And Time stands still with wonder.
Time stands still and observes the body ; The winds like hounds worry the skirts of Night. . . Morning breaks, and chambermaids clad in shoddy Dresses air the sheets in the broad daylight.
ID
THE MANDRAKE ROOT
'T'HE mandrake root ! Your face is grey as iron; Your eyes are chilled with something dead and bleak ; You have the pride in sorrow that Lord Byron Enchanted London with. And for a week
YouVe fumbled through the leaves and touched the quick Of this despairing plant and felt it crack Between your nervous fingers. Are you sick? — For mandrakes are an aphrodisiac.
O, come. This will not do. The feeble note You play is like a drop within a cup II
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
No louder than the pulses in your throat That bid you now to pull this damned thing up.
One root is in your heart ; the other, in The heart you filled and emptied with a curse. . . .
A sturdy pull and everything that's been Will merely echo that it might be worse.
The mandrake root ! O pull it up forever And flings its bleeding leaves upon the ground, And understand that Time is like a river That washes hollow wounds without a sound.
12
THE INTOLERABLE PROCESSION
A PROCESSION of pall-bearers carry the ^ body With measured steps from his heart to his
brain. Through the rivers of blood he hears them
marching To an old refrain.
Slow and indefinite thunder of footsteps From six naked bearers who carry the body High on their shoulders. The bier is
stained And dripping and bloody.
All night as he lies with his eyes staked
open And torn apart by the chains of thought, 13
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
The steady thud of the feet come toward
him Till he has no doubt.
The swaying bier and the white still body Are borne in the night from his heart to his
brain, With the horrible even sound of footsteps Beating an old refrain.
H
TO A FALSE FRIEND
DECAUSE the steel was brittle And snapt before the thrust, And something fine, grown little,
Resolved itself to dust. We have no mode of greeting,
No pleasure to afford, Who see between our meeting
A silence like a sword.
We cannot count the measure
Of secret suicide And Time will have no leisure
To tell which of us died When with your twisted laughter
You struck beneath a cloak And silence followed after
And no one living spoke. 15
M
MYCERINUS
YCERINUS held the key To modern mutabihty.
With torches spouting ruddy flame He held the Night beyond the door,
And all the day he hunted game, The yellow lion and the boar.
The dark fell down upon his roof And shouted at the iron gate.
But Mycerinus held aloof And drained an empty glass to Fate.
Six years of life had he to live;
He turned the night to day with fire And doubled Time, a fugitive
Who dodged the shadow of desire. i6
MYCERINUS
And Night and Day the torch and hunt Held wide the hollow eyes to life
That Mycerinus might confront Auspiciously the threatened knife.
17
THE WARNING
W/HERE is that music ? Run through the ^^ long grass now With deUcate white feet and I will follow you, Listening to music. You have taught me how.
What is colder against your feet than the
dew? Little icy fingers like needles pricking
in; And if you stand too long your flesh will turn
blue.
We will go back before that music so thin Stops its vague delirium. Step, and hold your breath While cold little fingers tap your fragile skin. i8
THE WARNING
Here is the door. I beg for the twentieth Time that you come. The music plays. It will not stop, And the icy fingers of dew are like death.
See, you are shivering now. You are like to drop.
19
ROSES
X TOW close your great white eyelids. . . -^^ Do not let
Your heart be troubled by this icy wind That blows against you bitter with the fret
Of dying roses, roses torn and thinned.
What have you now to do with roses ? See, The day is tarnished and the dark wings fall. Forget the roses and their mystery :
Remember only that you plucked them all.
20
LILITH, LILITH
¥ ILITH, Lilith wept for the moon: •^^ Its icy beauty troubled her sleep, Stirred and thrilled her breast with a tune
Of crystal notes that fluttered the deep. Climbing up the tower of light,
She sought the sound and followed the flame : Cold as snow, implacably white,
The moon spun high and muttered her name.
White as Adam's body of yore
And like that flesh she never could thrill, Far and pale as Paradise door,
The vision flooded meadow and hill. . . . She, the flame, the passionate flower,
Awoke and cried for waking so soon. . . . In a glimmering scented sleepless bower,
Lilith, Lilith wept for the moon.
21
RAINY NIGHT
TVyilDNIGHT falls: the rain spins through
* the streets: Desolate arc-lights stare like the eyes of
fishes Seen through walls of glass, and the cold wind
slaps Heavily, like a wet rag, against our faces.
A long procession of dark umbrellas lumber Up the Avenue like a string of turtles. . . . Automobiles bark like husky dogs As they whirr along through pools of watery jewels.
Where shall we walk now, you with the Trojan eyes?
You with the desolate face from the rain- soaked plains
22
RAINY NIGHT
About Skamander, where shall we turn in the
dark? Heavily shouts the wind like the sullen voices Of rushing spearmen: heavily sound the
shields Smitten together across the night with a noise
like thunder.
We two, here.
Spun along with the wind and the rain
together, Where are the tall bleak Trojan towers of our
dream?
Midnight falls :
We whirl and whirl with the rain : We change and change with the wind and the slow bell tolls. . . .
You with the Trojan eyes,
How the towers rush down upon us. . . .
How the world is blown like a mist through
our dream. Blown through the flaming white feet of the
terrible rain.
23
THE PAPER ROSE
T^HE building sag to right and left
And shake upon the wires of Time Their sceneries. Bereft
Of reason I observe the chime
Of bells that ring the slow hours out.
The sun goes walking down the street With slothful steps. A doubt
Of sun and moon and stars complete
Is like a crawling snake within The hollow cavern of my mind.
The daylight blows so thin
That soul and eyes are almost blind.
The tattered world begins to fade And puppets oozing sawdust strut
With painted mouths. Afraid I walk and keep my eyelids shut. 24
THE PAPER ROSE
The world swings like a tarnished rose Of paper drooping from the hand
Of some mad child who goes
By roads he does not understand.
In what sad marsh where lizards crawl Will his indifferent feet sink down,
Till child and rose and all
In pismires suffocate and drown ?
25
LESE MAJESTE
'T'HE idle chatter, rising like a fountain In slender gushes, sinks in silver mist Upon white shoulders. Higgins, from his mountain Of watchful inattention, seems to list.
Colossus of wise butlers, for a minute
He sways in clouds of conversation, turns His face against small flocks of words, and in it I catch a lightning flash that twists and bums.
Now imperturbable he sees the lady
Depart in warm chinchilla, thinks of her
As something set apart and is afraid he Might comprehend her motor's feline purr. 26
THE BURNING BUSH
f TE talks of kings and in his eyes at times
I catch parading banners tossing by- He puts to rout my gathering cloud of rhymes By smiling suddenly and lifting high His weather-beaten forehead to the sky. With speculative twists he throws the ball
Of chatter with agility most spry And keeps the thread, nor loses it at all.
His face is like old oak the sun has burned
To mellow beauty, and his eye is such That if it suddenly on me is turned
I am aware of things that matter much In analysing why the common touch Of sight to sight means more than words may say,
27
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
And why the earth may sometimes seem a smutch Of soot upon the Untel of the day.
He grows in greatness to his words and I Diminish in their magic to an ear
Existing solely for the thoughts that fly In colored ardency from him so near And I so far, thoughts longer than a year
With wisdom heaped on wisdom, yet they pass As swiftly as a half -unconscious tear
Dropped suddenly upon a heated glass.
He hitches up his one suspender, chews
Tobacco with a ruminating air, Dissects with equanimity the news
Of warring nations, with a word lays bare The white nerve-centers of some great affair And solves the riddle that a statesman died
28
THE BURNING BUSH
To find the key to, turns a knowing stare Upon humanity — and once he sighed.
He sits upon this battered hulk, the earth,
And plays with thqory as men with dice. He knows the nations from their feeble birth
In prehistoric fields of sliding ice.
Through age and age he traces each device That man perfected for the sake of Man,
And has no need to brood upon them twice, But places each within its proper plan.
Incompetent he may be for a world
Too eager of delight to know a seer Who reads the heavens as a sign unfurled And finds philosophy a spinning drear. But there are times I feel that gods are near And through the windows of his eyes a light. Auspicious, awful and divinely clear, Glows like the burning bush across the night. 29
BRIEF OUTLINE
fllS eyes were hollow moons burnt out and
^ dead,
White distances that seemed to tilt and reel Through skies forgotten, and his daily meal
Was dim extinguished things that men had said
Before the world fell in upon his head. He could not ever hope to gravely deal With common things upon which Time's dark seal
Hung heavy with the soulessness of lead.
And if at times his thoughts would wander far Beyond the tight embraces of his glen Be very sure he called them home in fright.
30
BRIEF OUTLINE
His background was the memory of a star Seen once by him but cloaked to other men In something that their weakness called the night.
31
*^LOOK HERE, UPON THIS PICTURE" For Elinor Wylie
V/'OUR'S is a delicate hunger * For delicate things ; You are a glittering monger Of glittering rings. ,
You would be happy in Hellas
And violet-crowned, Cold, with an art to compel us
To bow to the ground.
You would be ice to the many
And fire to the few, Innocent, adamant, canny,
Unfaithful and true.
Palaces, chariots, battle Would leave you unstirred ;
Wonder would start at the rattle Some infant had whirred. 32
''LOOK HERE, UPON THIS PICTURE'^
You would escape to a mountain
That shone in a bay, Fashioning songs by a fountain
And dreaming all day.
You would be hard as the agate
That glows in your verse. Ready to stand on the fagot,
A martyr perverse.
You would be sudden and tender
And weep for a while Stirred by a daffodil slender
And hurt by a smile.
You are a shield that is broken,
A spear that is split, A hunger, a pride that has spoken
And sorry for it.
Your's is a cloak of white magic
That covers a child Proudly defiant, half -tragic
And always half -wild.
3 33
JEAN
T^HOUGH you have air and sunlight and ^ the gift Of glowing moons and stars in skies that sorrow Has never travelled over, still regret Enfolds you in his delicate grey net, And over all the world your eyelids lift Expectant to horizons of tomorrow.
34
NINON PLUCKS THE LAST ROSE
VV/HEN Lais turned her face against the ^^ wind For that last time she let the mirror fall From hands grown cold with terror, having
seen That Time's disastrous feet had tracked
strange journeys Upon her snow.
That red and white that was Love's history- Grew dumb and featureless and like the
moon, A cold and sinister betrayal. Fright, That whelmed the once-so-perfect eyes and
mouth, Sucked all the face within and disappeared On noiseless feet with hope. She did not
stir
35
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
When loudly on the tessellated floor
The mirror crashed, its fragments darting
up Like angry sparks of fire. She did not
stir, But watched the twilight with reluctant
feet And stealthy movements creep across the
room. And all this took a moment, took the time It takes a rose to fall upon the ground. And in that moment all her years flashed
by Like water rushing through a weir; then
darkness, And silence, and the ending of all songs.
And that's the ending of the tale, Dorine,
And the beginning of another story
That was not quite the same. No story
ends But it begins another for no thing Is ever finished and our joy and grief 36
NINON PLUCKS THE LAST ROSE
Are ineluctably bound up in that. Time only puts one period to tales And that is generally carved in stone.
Frangois, my shawl. Dorine, well walk a
while Between the rose-bushes and let the wind Blow amorously on your eyelids. See ! A petal in your hair ! In mine the snows Of all the faded roses in the world Begin to settle. . . . And I smile, you see; But sadly, somewhat. . . . somewhat sadly,
yes. . . . You see my roses whiter than the bosom That once above them trembled, redder
than The lips that laughed at Time but yesterday And yet in this young twilight are so grave. And all those roses are gone now, they say. These are new roses, yet they look the
same; They carry on the tale. And Beauty goes; It goes forever and it stays forever, 37
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
But not the same. How MoliSre would
laugh To catch his Ninon a philosopher ! He'd look so gravely at me, purse his lips, Assault me with the name — Anaximander, And beg my views on Plato having witnessed I led a circumspect Platonic life. The rogue! And yet behind his laughter
lay The tragedy of all eternal puppets Who pull against the wires and pull in vain. Poor Moliere ! So tragic and so tired And so betrayed! Scarron was better
play. . . . Scarron or Fontenelle. . . . Ah, I remember, And when a woman starts remembering The snows of Time are falling heavily. They hiss about me in the air unseen, Cold flakes that bite my face and arms and
bosom. The cloak of Beauty wears a little thin; I am uncovered somewhat. Dorine, turn Your eyes away and look upon the roses 38
NINON PLUCKS THE LAST ROSE
Nor heed the sentimentalizing strain Of one quite old enough for better sense. Ah, roses, roses! They are lamps for you; They burn like tiny torches in the dimness Of all this green. My lutist, do you follow? Then play me some quaint air by Raimon
LuUy With many pauses where faint notes
descend Like petals on a windless summer day. . . . My summer day is windless now; it blows No longer to the Isle of Heart's Desire.
Dear child, I had a hungry thought of you When your bright face and clear, untroubled
eyes Were toward me then. Forgive me, but I
thought If I could tear her beauty with my nails I should be somewhat eased. Ah, do not
start. . . . The thought was madness. See, it is quite
gone.
39
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
The tiger in the blood snarls only once
When women look upon the face of Time.
In that disastrous mirror they behold
The shadow of the great finality.
I would not harm you, you nor anyone.
And even if I did I should not change;
I should be quite the same. . . or nearly
so. Your pink and white is yours and shall be
stolen By grimmer hands than mine will ever be, Although, God knows, my palms are hot with
wishing. What is he playing now, my long-faced lutist?
Oh rose, depart, depart; The summer of the heart Waits not upon the rose But with the first frost goes. He'll bury me before my blood is cold. I have a chilling tragic vein. . . . The twi- light Is medicine to this. ... I wonder now 40
NINON PLUCKS THE LAST ROSE
If twilight is not after all the best For broken beauty. . . . Shadows are so gracious. . . .
If I could tell you all my dates and facts, Mistakes, imbroglios, and silly triumphs It would not aid you in the years you walk The yet unmeasured road to what will be. We go our way and Fate provides the
issue. I have been lauded; men have been my
gnats. My buzzing servitors that served them- selves At heart, and Time has found me smiling
back In gentle irony at comprehending The chilled hypocrisy of lustful hearts. These silken shapes called men are known to
me, Infinitesimal tadpoles of Time Who flutter tiny fins and feel themselves Portentous frogs. And all success is this: 41
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
To make them think you know them for great
frogs. These impecunious inheritors Of newly minted days that strangely bear The old eternal fading stamp of Time, Are children, cruel children, in their
hearts. They will tear up your dream without a
word And stamp upon your heart with muddy
feet. I know it all so well. Do you not think That I have conned the lesson set for me? My salon was a gesture made by wit Against a dull and oxlike world. I sought The glittering creators of my time, Sought Moliere, Scarron and Fontenelle, St. Evremonde, La Rochefoucauld. . . .
They came. . . . And all those hours of talk have gone for
nothing. Scarron would read romances, always listen To sage advice from me because he loved 42
NINON PLUCKS THE LAST ROSE
The swaying of my throat whenas I talked. And it was so with others. All would
come, Not for the intellect but for the woman. And if I thought this poem was ill-made, Or brought suggestions to that dialog, Why, they would smile and cry, *' Ninon is
witty!'' ''Ninon, Ninon, Ninon!" and all the time I wanted so to give them of my brain. To cry, ''I understand," to talk of life, Philosophy and letters, not of love. I ached to match my brain against their
brains Not in the idle game of fleeting wit But in the great essential things of life. They would not let me think ! They would
not let Me be another thing but what I was In their diseased malicious fancies. No ! I was Ninon the courtesan of Paris, The new Aspasia of contemptuous Time ! And so they forced me down into the mould 43
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
That cold malignant Beauty shaped for me,
And as they saw me so I am today.
The gold is tarnished and the colors
faded. . . . I tell you now that Beauty is a curse, That if I had my days to live again I should be sure to hang myself tomorrow. My whole life has been shaped by other
souls; The time has made me. I have been the
sport Of all the gods who shake us out like dice.
I was so beautiful and yet so far
From all that world of Beauty that I felt
About me surging like a mighty sea.
I stood so close to clear immortal things
And yet I could not pass that lovely daemon
Of longing eyes and luring hair that stood
Between me and my dream and was myself.
The night is growing on us. Twilight shifts From veil to veil of shadow. I have reached
44
NINON PLUCKS THE LAST ROSE
An icy pinnacle and I will turn Away at last from all this emptiness, And, vexed with trivialities of Time, Shut fast the door nor mind the consequences And so prepare me for eternal gestures. My rose blows thin : a devastating wind Makes memories of the petals. I must
think No more of roses but what made the rose And you and me and hate and love and
Time.
The dew is falling ; we must go away From these sad flowers and their memories. Here is one rose that's higher than the
rest, And fuller blown, its petals slightly
scorched With gazing all the day upon the sun. I pluck it here for you. I place it here Upon your breast where it may die in
peace. And when the petals are quite faded know 45
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
That Ninon fades not so. . . . She fades, but
stays; And, midst the haughty march of hostile
hours, Not wholly unregarded in the wrack Of fickle Beauty, makes an age her own. And poises it — a brazen dome that stands In majesty against the sliding years. Nay, take the rose and keep it for my sake And know me in it, and, in other days Pluck other roses, finding me again. For I have builded me a monument That overthrows all time. I rise and laugh In all the roses of this shifting world Until all worlds and roses are no more.
46
LOVE'S FANATIC
TV/ELL, here it is: you call for me: I ^^ come, But with an eagerness not quite my own, Propelled by that decisive martyrdom
That pleased the saints upon their faggot- throne.
You see them smiling in the cruel flame That exquisitely licks their willing limbs.
And finding some sad pleasure in the game Not quite embodied in their lusty hymns.
And so I come : and though I go, be sure That I will come again tomorrow, too.
And, Love's fanatic, hasten to endure That littleness that is so great in you. 47
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
I am the weakling of that helpless strength That throws this broken body you despise
Before your carelessness, to find at length The faith that sleeps behind your faithless eyes.
48
"O PASSIONLESS AND PALE"
r\ PASSIONLESS and pale, ^^ Yet vibrant with white lust, The agonies that fail
Before this house of dust Grow into me and come To passion's martyrdom.
O made of snow that burns
With such an icy flame. Desire within me turns
To something not the same But stranger than desire, Of mingled ice and fire.
49
THE LAST SUNSET
¥ REMEMBER
A sunset that was apple-green and threw The pallor of dead women on your face So sadly that I ached, I ached and knew.
I remember
That you were silent in that ghastly light, The silence of dead women on your mouth,
And I was frightened at the coming night.
I remember How still the trees were as we went our way, How terribly they poised and would not stir, And how the leaves were old and torn and grey.
50
THE LAST SUNSET
I remember
These things today and would not quite forget, Although their meaning is as stale as love
And quite as empty as your brief regret.
51
THE WHITE BEAST
V/OUR beauty is a delicate white beast * That runs forever through the midnight
trees Of all the world, and I who follow, least Of all the hounds who harry with the breeze.
In dark disastrous woods some time be- neath
A corpse-like moon and in beslavered mud You will crash down, a victim to the teeth
That know no beauty but the taste of blood.
And I who follow baying at the night, Arriving late as ever when the morn Turns sickly yellow in the sun*s sad light. Will crouch beside the shape I would have torn.
52
THE WHITE BONES OF THIS LADY
\ Y/E suflFer from thin nerves that line our ^^ bodies
Like rivers on a map : we shrink and turn Like leaves against a fire that know the anguish Of flame and lean most eagerly to bum.
Your lifted face spins whitely in a shadow : My eyes daze: into ashes flakes the mask:
And always underneath your restless body I feel the bones that weary of their task.
White bones, most awful in your hidden places, You carry this white flesh a few short days,
And then turn deathward with vague recol- lections And shed the beauty I was mad to praise, 53
THE SON OF DAWN
IN St. Paul's Churchyard walked the yellow * fog
And yellow candles threw a broken light, A fleeting, vague, discolored hint of dawn, Upon two faces in a silent room. The watchman's rattle ripped its sudden
way Through tattered rags of mist and shouting
ran The link-boys with their feeble wands of
flame (Those smoky, half-choked roses of the
night) Before slow coaches. London moved and
groaned, A giant in a devastating ague. And in the silent room the oldest man, 54
THE SON OF DAWN
His hair a glimmering crown of fine-spun
silver, Turned to the younger with grave thoughtful
speech :
''If you could look through every crooked street
You could not find a straight man, straight in soul
And straight in spirit, too. Each has his kink.
Some devilish twist of else-untangled threads.
But when Fate with her rusty shears begins
The snipping — all's a matter of no moment.
The scissors cut and all our threads blow out.
Unraveling upon the reckless air.
And you who sit and smoke my best to- bacco,
Virginian, brought from a land so new
That we must dream it half a dream as yet,
A phantom from beyond the vext Atlantic, 55
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
Have your kink, great or small. . . . And
I have mine. . . . And that disastrous music called Kit Marlowe Had his as well. The swift years run and
melt Into our evening and yet they run Not quite so far but Marlowe overtakes
them. He rides upon a chanting wind of music Blown from young England and our El
Dorado Of fog and rain, dark London; rides and
sings Eternally upon eternal winds That never may abate although they ruffle The golden apples of Hesperides And round the vague capes of the Happy
Isles. Here where we sit tonight in such a magic Of fulfilled prophecies Kit Marlowe sat Not more than half a hundred years ago And cursed his God, the most religious man Who ever cried out for a God to curse. 56
THE SON OF DAWN
He saw this London like a golden mine, A bright Golconda of the heart, and dug His fitful way to immortality. These eyes that peer so dimly at you now Looked into his (great hazel ones, they were) And saw the bruised, deplorable desire That harried him. These rheumy hollows
saw His white eternal face at rest amidst The broken mugs that strewed the Deptf ord
Tavern On that last day when in him fell a world Of thunder and great flame to little ashes.'*
The listener caught his breath and strained
his hands For what should follow while the old man
watched The climbing spirals of tobacco smoke. Outside the watchman swung his heavy
rattle So like the bubbling in a dying throat, And down on London closer edged the fog. 57
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
The old man*s wrinkled face so like a snake's
skin Shone with strange ardor as he muttered on:
**Kit Marlowe wrote his plays. . . . You
have them there, Unfading words set down in fading ink, And there's the man . . . but there was more
of him Unwritten then and now forever lost. Although in darkness somewhere sounding
words That once were his pass like bejeweled
queens On lurching elephants across the swart Arabias of our diminished minds. He opened wide the doors for our young
sunrise That others might step in and warm their
hearts Before the measureless immortal flame, And out upon the darkness went he, seeing No friends but scoffers and two naked swords 58
THE SON OF DAWN
Like gilded fingers beckoning to Fate.
I sat just at his elbow that last time
And heard him crying in his agony,
And saw the tears in his bewildered eyes.
No single word of his escaped me there,
I heard it all — the swift delirium,
The rapt and broken attitude, the words
That fluid-flame and loneliness wrenched
forth. He cried on Love and on that harlot
Fame ; He cried on poetry ; he cried on death. And only death gave answer, swift and
strange. Kit Marlowe sitting in the Deptford
Tavern With one slim bony hand upon my arm Stared at me through the smoke and wagged
his head Like one possessed by divers fiends and
laughed : *A11 Cheap's astir with things fantastical A spinning gnat of bright unreason bites 59
THE BARCAROLE OP JAMES SMITH
And swells me with the madness of myself. Although, observe you, that the moon's not
fallen. At least, not yet and there's a breathing
space For all contemptible remonstrances Against the splendor of all falling moons. And what should be so strange if it should fall For stranger birds fly through our London
now Than any falling moon that slips from
heaven. It will creep out tonight and with its flare Set all us motes adance in silver mist. We are such brave, mad, happy motes that
dancing To certain tunes will move us like old sack. Ah, but this heathenish bright city, London, Is compact with strange fantasies, a swarm Of fiercely swaggering desirous things. Some magic like old wine works in the
blood And we are all unbearable with youth. 60
THE SON OF DAWN
The city*s bursting with rare essence, ringing
To indescribably delicious harps
And the long silver cries of slender
trumpets And loud staccato drumming. London
shakes In the great dawn like some white-blossomed
bush And flings its multitudinous buds abroad And over all the world they drift and settle. The city aches with youth and exploration And virgin continents float in the skies For all our mariners — of seas and souls.'
He saw it all, how London would unfold
Beneath the spirit of the unexplored.
For he, the first into those shadowy
wastes, Could hear the footsteps beating at his
heels. And then his mind went blank; his tortured
face Turned to the empty chair beside him; there 6i
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
His mad imagination summoned up The shape of Richard Bame, his enemy, That Richard who had flattered him with
hate. The low hoarse voice of Marlowe swept
along In vague, ironic, pitiful confession : *Now, Richard Bame, must I confess to you, Slice open what I am that you may see The bitter seeds that make me fertile,
stirring This somewhat rotten rind. Mortality, To some dim greenness that may have a
meaning? It is a thankless task, as I must think, For if there be a worthy seed in me (One prescient with desirous prophecies) You will be sure to find it with reluctance. Am I not Faustus in your mind who sold His vext immortal soul to Lucifer For too much loving of red gold and musics And for the clipping of white Helen's thighs? The coil confounds you and you must protect
62
THE SON OF DAWN
Your ears against my vileness? Richard,
Time Will take you out and trounce you
thoroughly Because of this jade Helen that I drew By divers devilish arts out of the sink We call the world. If you could find a
Helen Or some outlandish phoenix of like fame And draw her from the darkness — but you
couldn't: And if you could you would not be the
man That I must still confess my errors to And then be scurrilously damned at last. Confession is a medicine that stales The freshness of our pain. Here am I,
Richard, Quite naked as our Father Adam was For you to peer into and draw the rule That you must draw to yet be Richard
Bame. Look in and know me ; never hesitate,
63
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
Or long for torches to set off the darkness. I am but man and nothing more, and you Are man but just a trifle less. You look And clear your throat and still say nothing?
Hoh! And likewise, Perdy ! Do you hope to know The man I was and am by peering in And finding the sad wreckage that my soul Has strenuously scattered on the floors, Those floors unswept, undecorated, vile? You could not, Richard, no ! I speak for you. You must have seen the blind whose filmy
eyes Stare out like smoky windows on the day And find it night, who cry, ''The grass is
green,'' With countless quaverings, because a myth Has taught them so. The same is true of
you Whose vacant eyes are glassed with smoky
faith That has grown bigotry, whose heart has
dried
64
THE SON OF DAWN
Into a shrivelled thing that knows not
youth And all the dear perplexing urges that Consume the heart of youth. Now am I
ranting In quite the proper strain? What do you
say About my ** damnable opinions'* and my
''scorn" Of God's commands? What are the tunes
you set The ballad-mongers hawking? What the
shame You crown this vagrant poet of poor plays ? Now, Richard, I am loathe to straightly
speak Of these things seeing that your mind is
set Sword-edge against me, but the years will
know And bear me out in my defense. I have A still unceasing confidence in Time Who travels not to right nor left but goes s 65
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
The same inexorable middle path With certain grim abandonments that hurt, But what is to be carried down the ages Will not be left behind. Time takes me,
too, With dearer things, and, Richard, I'm
afraid That if you land somewhere within To- morrow It will be through a journey on my back. You say I have no faith in God . . . The
faith You say I have not were a thing to lose If in its mould it turns out men like you. And that's a bitter thing, but I am bitter With too much wormwood — for my cup is
filled Too many times a day. What is it,
Richard ? You tax me that upon a time I said Religion was a code that Man developed To keep brute men in awe. Well, was it
not?
66
THE SON OF DAWN
But, Richard, now I do retract the state- ment. For you are such a sturdy man of faith, So infinitely swollen with your God, And yet you are a brute when all is said. Religion never kept your soul in awe, That soul that constitutes itself a judge Of other souls and apes the very Christus. And as for brutishness you come at me A. blinded bull with eager will to gore. Where is that ''Christian charity" you
boast ? Is it about the loins of Leicester's whore? And that ''divine forgiveness" that you
sing? Is it a mantle for the trulls at Court ? I'll change the simile. You come at me Like some lean eager dog upon the track Of one poor limping hare that has no
burrow, Fangs anxious and dull eyes surmising meat. This "righteous wrath" of yours becomes a thing
67
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
That plagues me somewhat for it shows me
man Not as I dreamt him. Would you know my
soul? Come, Richard, from the darkness . . . Let
us talk Here in the Deptf ord Tavern of my soul. A tavern is conducive to ideals And temples always worried me. Sit here Before this stoup of wine and hear me talk, Here in the Deptford Tavern, of my soul. You will not read me in my work, not quite, But make my music posture to such shapes As would reveal the thing you'd have me be. In fairness now you must enlarge your
hearing Until it overtakes me. ... Sit and listen.'
Then turning to the dull-wits who bestirred Themselves to laugh at one whose laughter
echoes Tonight among the spheres, he frowned and
cried :
68
THE SON OF DAWN
'Less noise, an't please you, gentlemen. I
have A very reverend guest on knowledge bent, A black crow of some parts that caws
'^Laudate'^ With any boy that chirps. There's no one
there? Now, Richard, hear this landlord! What a
bear For uncivility ! Good landlord, listen : You cannot see with my eyes, I am sure; But if you could you would not own an
Inn. Have I not charmed such shapes out of the
air As to perplex the best of you, Barabbas, And warlike Tamburlaine and Doctor
Faustus? Why may I not then conjure Richard Bame Out of the Nothingness that is the world Into the Nothingness that is my mind? Come hither, wench. They tell me I am
drunken,
69
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
And yet my only drink has been your lips, A stray sip made in passing as I came Into this tavern for confessional. But such a drink that could make devils
pale And dancing saints throw off their smocks
for joy.' O, broken mind shot through with endless
flashes Of that divinity that knows no end ! I sat by him and heard him cry on Nothing As though it were a man as he had cried On Nothing all his helpless shattered days. He cried upon a vacant chair and yet Behind the vacancy stood Something there That listened and gave heed and let slow
tears Drop on the flooring of the Deptford
Tavern. And through those soundless tears came
Marlowe's voice: *Your pardon, Richard Bame. This inter- lude
70
THE SON OF DAWN
Was not of my own choosing. I ' ve a mind To talk to any shadow that I meet Albeit madness be the dull conjecture Of these lost drippings from Time's gravy- platter. They sit and laugh and say you are not
there? Ah, Richard, if they only had my eyes! I will confess to you what Life is, Richard. And that's a brave confession for a man Who has endured the hardness of the world. It is a darkness, as I take it, where Our voices tremble back most strangely,
finding No answer to their endless questionings. We are deluded with extravagances And unconsidered echoes that beguile Our passing days with empty promises. What, said I empty? Nay, not that, not
that! For I have found no emptiness except Within myself, and I have filled that self
71
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
With such discordant tunes and monstrous
lumber Of unimaginable mightinesses That I have sickened with the surfeit of
it. And yet I have been empty all the time ! If you can read this riddle, Richard Bame, You are a most divine philosopher. How can I best express me? Draw my
soul As one would draw a landscape with black
chalk? It is not easy, and mere words are such That it is not the things we care for most That are the easiest expressed. I think (Now mark you that I only think this thing) I am a man grown hungry with much life. My appetite is satiate with things I could not well digest for knowing them Not fondly but too well. Like as a man Who, ship-wrecked on a foreign isle, would
find A multitude of melons in a wood 72
THE SON OF DAWN
And so subsist on them for many days. This simile is pleasing, Richard Bame; I will enlarge upon it for your sake. The melons would be pleasant at the first, But as life crept along and all his view Became obscured with melons he would rage And gnash his teeth in fury at the thought Of nauseous melons. In his dreams at night Huge melons would rise grinning and by
day The passing wind would waft their choking
smell. So he would rage and finally succumb To cold inertness, drowned in melon juice. And finally would come a day at last When he would starve and gladly rather than Be tomb to one more melon. And, indeed, He could not touch them out of sickness. I, Fond sir, am such a man and Life a thing . Like melons to me. I am hungry, yes, But cannot eat for very weariness And satiation of the thing I need. With Life around me calling do I starve 73
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
For want of Life. A pleasant vapor, this! It is not plain ? It does not bear a reason ? Well, am I plain or do I bear a reason ? I am the eater and I am the eaten : I'm Nothing and I'm Something and I sit And make my faces at a doubting world That does not know I am the greater doubt. I have my dream and lose it and that's
all That Life is, just a dream that's found and
lost. With plucking of the roses of the world I bruised myself and you must do the same If ever, Richard, you intend to live. I have seen cities in my dreams at night Spangled with cressets, full of sounding
horns ; And I have seen triumphant kings go down On roads of roses, driving chariots Drawn by barbarian queens. The lashes
bit Into their lustrous flesh and moaning rose. My soul has been a city, Richard Bame, 74
THE SON OF DAWN
Full of loud sounds and swaying lights. My
soul Has been a warlike king and driven down Resounding avenues to pealing horns. And, Richard, here's a secret for your ears : My soul has been a captive queen and bent In agony, chained to the gilded pole Of some gold chariot of my desires. And here's a deeper mystery than all: My soul has been the city, king and slave All at the same time. I have laughed and
wept And moaned with agony in one same cry. You understand me not? Then, Richard,
learn To dip your tender nose into the wine And it will furnish you your lacking wits. What have I seen in drink? Why, Richard,
things I dreamt about when sober, Pergamon And unicorns and kings and Trasymene And she whose beauty * ' launched a thousand
ships."
75
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
But I'll not speak of that lest I be wroth With such remembering.
Come hither, wench, And kiss me on the mouth. Your little
breasts Should have such gilding as Queen Egypt's
had When she would make a golden pillow for Her lover, Antony. Your breath is wine. . . . What do they say of Francis Archer? Wait Until he finds you on my knee ? I have A morbid curiosity for Fate And Francis Archer may be Azrael.' He laughed at that ; he laughed and held his
head As though he heard the winnowing of wings Above him in the smoky air, and turned A casual eye back to the empty chair And bowed the irony of his regret.
*Again your pardon, Richard. Wenches take My mind away from other paltry things, 76
THE SON OF DAWN
From horses trampling down from Babylon
To find their mangers in Jerusalem,
And trumpets crying out of Nineveh
To ring their echoes back in London Town.
Now tell me, Richard, knew you Thomas
Nashe? A golden lad and yet he hated me More than Bob Greene because my eagle- muse Out-soared his lark. A mortal, Thomas
Nashe ! Of all the Mermaid birds a mortal man ! But I'd a baiter of vile bears and cocks Who taught me more by saying slightly less. And then there was our rapt-eyed musing
Will Come out of Stratford Town, not long to
hold The horses of our Aldermanic wind-bags. He troubled me at times. He caught my
heart In silver-netted secrecies of dreams That are to be. An eagle-plume — his pen, 77
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
And dipped into the whole world's straining
heart. Well, he may find the height I dreamt of
so, But hardly without using me to climb. All heathen, Richard? Fie! they were not
so, But prophets out of Helicon who spoke The words the world will dance to evermore. * * Come live with me and be my love — ' ' Why,
wench, I must have dreamt of you when writing
that And there's an end of all philosophy. Go, Richard Bame, back into shadowland And write your ballads and your curses,
do. I'll have no more of you. . . . Confession's
over. Here is a wench that is more fair than you And I will speak of fairy-tales no more. Now he is gone. . . . What, he was never
there?
78
THE SON OF DAWN
Ah, wench, you have not looked through my
eyes yet. They see such things ! The lids are wrinkled
with The burning visions they have faced upon. Come, little mouth, and lay upon them. . . .
So . . . Your lips are like damp petals and my
eyes, My burning eyes, are cooling with their
touch. More drink! Another tankard! Let me
live For IVe been dead a grievous, grievous
time. Why is your throat so white? I saw a man By Tyburn once — but well not speak of
that. Why, throats and throats are in this world
. . . Some few To cut but most to kiss, and yours is one Was carved for kissing. Ah, why do you
start?
79
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
Who? Francis Archer? Well, why should I fear?'
I saw the long swords, heard the tables
rumble Apocalyptic thunders in my ears, As Archer rushed upon him.
'Ho,' he cried, My bright, mad poet of young England's
dawn, *Your sword is long, my friend, but mine is
longer. It reaches all the way to a man's heart. Here is a game for Sathanas to watch!' And then the flaming bite of steel on steel. The thud of feet, the clattering of benches, The sucked-in breath, the gasping in the
throat. And then that sudden cry that all my days Will still be ringing in my deafened ears. Some say it was despair but I say laughter, A loud and sudden laugh as Marlowe
stepped
80
THE SON OF DAWN
Across the threshold of this hopeless world To make his debonair amends to God. Who knows what happened next? Alone I
knelt Beside that slender body, saw the face Upon the floor in pale serenity Turned upward to the still eternal stars/'
Then silence crept about the shadowy room Wherein the candles flickered and winked
out. The old man listened to the night and heard Somewhere behind the fog the morning stars Singing together. ... But the young man
turned And listened to the watchman's heavy rattle So like the bubbling in a dying throat That reassured dark London all was well.
8i
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
\ Y/ITH willing arms I row and row ^^ So dear a freight that I must know The moment is the point of time When James Smith changes, grows sublime, And hurries to the flaming tryst Of Love, that ancient alchemist, And grows into his thoughts and comes To half awaked millenniums.
I could imagine madrigals With curiously dying falls To creep into your little ears And lift you with me through the years, But you would barely understand Why you were lifted, long for land, And tell me to row back again From heaven to the Vast Inane. 82
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
Meanwhile I sit and row the boat
And catch your laughter, watch your throat
And mouth sway perilously near
And burn away the atmosphere.
The sunset shakes me almost free
From river, boat, and lunacy.
You say it's rather like a fish
Of crimson on a golden dish?
It may be so. It may be I Have other thoughts that signify A closer meaning for us two. . . . But I must row and what's to do? If you could see yourself and be The rower, look through eyes of me Not knowing what was hid inside Your little head — but that's denied.
You'll be the freight until the end : I'll be the rower — and the friend. And you will never know the thought That makes you curiously wrought In other substance than you are : And I will steer by some vague star 83
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
That is not even lit for you, And I daresay the star will do.
If I were not James Smith but one
Not haunted by the desert sun
Of too excessive visioning
Perhaps you'd be a different thing
And quite unusual, but that
At most is but conjectured at. . . .
So willingly I row and row
And let you wonder while I know.
84
INTERMEZZO BETWEEN TWO GRIEFS BY JAMES SMITH
n^HE slender flute! . . , Ah, now the dying ^ Jail
And delicate andantes of slow grief .... But surely now it well was worth it all?
He wonders and observes a falling leaf.
The smoke above the city marches In swelling domes, in twisting arches, And James Smith turns a dubious eye Upon those monsters in the sky. Those black behemoths ! Such a herd Of elephants absurdly stirred By every little mouse of wind Brings wonderment to James Smith's mind. 85
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
Crepuscular, the evening falls
To sleep behind the black atolls
Of smoke, and James, his vision doused,
Sits in the darkness quite unhoused,
Sits in the dark without a roof
While quaint stars wink their proud reproof
To one whose thoughts are quite as cold
As any dead man in the mould.
3
*'The heart when it expends its fund Of passion lies quite moribund ; The brain when it is sucked of thought In cozy comfort then may rot ; The eye when it has seen too much May turn it to the worm's wet touch; The mouth when it has said it all May fill with dust and cease to call/'
4
So far James Smith ... You will observe The rather fatalistic verve 86
TWO GRIEFS
Not quite so neatly wondered out But James may yet be stung by doubt. By day — the smoke ; by night — the fire Of idiot stars in senseless choir, And night and day — the worn-out shield Reflecting a lost battle-field.
He walks between the dark and dark, And all the while sits in the Park Unhoused, unfriended, undeterred From any swift ambitious word. But James is wise and silence suits His darkness. . . . Playing slender flutes Until the moon from heaven drops Requires a knowledge of the stops.
The thing that was cannot return To fret a heart that's ceased to burn The thing that was is on its way With Carthage, Zeus and Yesterday 87
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
But James Smith, emptied of his grief, Amazedly feels no relief And learns from Time, his senseless friend, That Memory pays a dividend.
Meanwhile the flute. . , , Its silver music swells
In delicate andantes of slow grief. But is itwise to fret one's self with spells? ....
At which Time drops a torn ironic leaf.
88
MORGAN SULKS
T^HE lady turned and quite declined '*' The chase, so Morgan, ill-resigned To such a futile victory. Grew sullen, scowled, and would not see The end was quite the same as though He'd run a hundred miles or so.
Whereat the lady, quite upset Began to pout, began to fret; And Morgan fiddled with his cup And drank the tasteless mixture up. Outside the twilight spun aloof, Then squatted down upon the roof.
And long whips on the darkness rang; The evening stars together sprang ; Their crystal hooves slashed through the dark ; A far world spurted like a spark; And Morgan, sulking in the house, Would even chase a useless mouse! 89
PALE HANDS
AT times I am engulphed in shadowy ^^ trees
And haunted by your pale cerebral hands That steal out of the dark in agonies
Of undecipherably vague demands.
They touch me on the mouth and on the eyes And through my hair they pass like dancing flame ; They come between me and the iron skies, Intolerable prophecies of shame.
What mad complexities of hidden things Are lurking in these tiny palms that float
About me through the dark in lustrous rings So amorously reaching for my throat? 90
INDIFFERENCE
A ND if you cared would I sing better? -^ This
Is quite the mockery of all my grief, — That Life's at best a sadly colored leaf, And touched to crimson with an autumn
kiss. That I may find a most unworthy bliss In darkening the background for the
flare Of one quick shade upon the changeless air May show the gods have made me quite amiss.
But there it is ... . Through pain and pain I go With just the eagerness you will not see 91
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
To taste the bitter pleasures I must know .... Be quite indifferent if you would be The crimson in my grey : and do not let Your heart be troubled lest my heart forget.
92
THE LAST FIRE
V/'OU saw the last fires burning on the hill In that far autumn twilight when we took The future by the hand through woods as still As your heart is today, and crossed the brook.
The brook that gurgled through the quietude
Was just a slender stream that sauntered
on.
How were we two to know the thing we
should—
That we had crossed our narrow Rubicon?
And after, in the shadow of the leaves, When your great eyes grew with the grow- ing night
93
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
They left the hollows where the twilight grieves And mirrored back the bonfire on the height.
And what quick flame was in your eyes I knew ; And how the moment caught us on our way Is Time's own story written for a few In dust of ashes in your eyes today.
94
GREEN BANKS
TTHE pale green banks that kneel beside the stream Where yellow waters flow serenely on Know something of the swiftness of our dream, For there we loved before the flood of dawn
Burst through the dykes of night and flung us two On sadly separate uneven ways — And to what rock of chance your arms upthrew Is something I must guess at all my days.
There came an ending and I know it now
And what it was you know but will not tell : And now there are but pale green banks that bow Above new waters that serenely swell. 95
THE DARK OCEAN OF LOVE
A ND even now when certain things make ^^ way
And I am stifled by vague contradictions, I hardly think my mood will last a day
Or that these all-too-conscious male- dictions Will stir a hair on your dark lovely head
Or give you one sad sleepless hour for me, For in that inner self that is not dead
You hold and fold me for eternity.
Long after what we both were is forgotten
And all my helpless love a thing for jeers, And your white body as my own is rotten, These moods will be a lesser thing than tears.
96
THE DARK OCEAN OF LOVE
In these frail bodies that enfold our passion So pallidly aware of love and lust,
We have reached something in some hidden fashion That will outlast the aching of our dust.
And you must know the secret of this wonder
Although it is not conscious in your mind. . . . Beyond the pain of spiritual blunder
I could see something if I were not blind. So, helpless in my rage, I storm and curse
And build you out of clay and knock you down, Yet run to you between each halting verse
With eagerness to wear my thorny crown.
2 By me unnamed yet spoken in each act That marks me individual and makes My sole defense for being, you enact
In every gesture of my sad mistakes A purpose blind to their condition. When I least of all am worthy to be set 7 97
THE BARCAROLE OP JAMES SMITH
Among your passionate disciples, then You stir about me like a vast regret.
Impalpably, like many waves you roll
Above me and around me and beyond; I cannot seek but you will be the goal, Though traveling beside me, strangely fond. I draw your life in every slightest breath : Through me you live in wise and foolish ways: You are my birth, my life, my endless death, My sleepless nights and half-determined days.
There is no magic that shall ever turn
You into something I may comprehend : Beyond the flesh you glitter and you burn
And in the flesh you find the promised end. . . . And I must live and die in you till Time
Becomes a distant pulse and nothing new When I shall lose myself in my last rhyme
And drown in that dark ocean that is you, 98
KALEIDOSCOPE: SUBWAY HOUR
\ V/HERE faces, whirling like a sea, ^^ Spin into blackened yawning pits And sweep down grinning toothless maws
To iron dragons rattling bits, Where bells explode with brassy crash
And sudden shouts flare out of sight, Fireworks of sound, I take my place
Upon the lintel of the Night.
Black waves of people foamed with cheeks
That bear the meager stamp of haste, Dead faces with their smitten eyes.
By hurry torn and half defaced. Smashed by the decade's aimless pile.
They swirl about me at the gate, Rub elbows with the shadow. Death,
And jostle with contemptuous Fate. 99
MIDNIGHT
T^HE arc-light winks in irony ■*• Across the dark deserted street
And silence, like a sullen beast, Stands motionless on frozen feet.
The hungry cat slinks slowly by With craning neck and yellow eyes,
And stops beyond the pool of light That on the broken pavement lies.
He stretches forth a groping tongue
To drink the light .... The round arc winks.
And in the swift eclipse the cat.
Bewildered, hisses, turns and blinks.
The moon between the chimneys peers And glistens on the garbage cans
IOC
MIDNIGHT
And melts to silver mist the panes Of glass in yawning window-spans.
The buildings stand like crowded tombs With sleepers resting from carouse.
And nothing lives and moves except The shadows in a vacant house.
lOI
SICK DAYS
\ Y/^ come upon sick days : ^ The little room That viewed your endless ways Is like a tomb.
Lie still and do not move And hold your breath
And be in life, poor love, A hint of death.
102
THE FATALIST
POR hours and hours we twist and turn
Upon a bed that seems to burn ; And then, for hours and hours, we sleep Engulphed in caverns cold and deep.
And when we wake the shaken sun Spills in our room oblivion, And we are one with Time and place. With body's ache and beauty's face.
103
THE LOCKED DOOR
IF you should open the door ^ What would you find outside? Only the rains that pour, Only the wind that cried?
What is the reason you wait?
Why do you lock the door? Who is it there at the gate
Knocking forevermore?
** Nothing/' you answer, ''be still Better to nail the door ....
Now you have had your will I will go out no more.''
104
THE RIDERS
•yHE stallions of the Night •■■ Ride down the sky With thunder of far hooves And whinnied cry.
The naked riders pause
Outside our door, And, strangely gossiping,
Ride on once more.
I long to rise but feel
Your body cling To me like cold, damp leaves
Slow-withering.
105
NIGHTMARE
A ND by the quick spurt of a match I see ^^ Your cold face etched against the
startled dark That leaps sideways with terror at the flare And then slinks back with velvet eyes that
mark The horrible conjecture on my face .... You lie so like the dead ! The shadows play Such tricks upon your eyelids, making them Seem open with mad eyes that stare my
way. Alone in darkness, straining for the sound Of your faint breath I stand and after years I hear that sound and breathe again and
live And with relief burst into bitter tears. O, you are living ! See, you are not dead ! And glad and sorry I turn to my bed. io6
NIGHTMARE
My eyes spring open. Starting from my
sleep I rise and light the candle that must throw Its feeble reassurance on your face, Setting the hollow brow and eyes aglow. And as with stealthy steps I creep along, The light before me like a thin spear veering, Strange beasts of darkness scramble from your
bed, Lifting their frightened snouts and dis- appearing Into the nothingness of Night. You turn With muttered words but do not waken. I, With sleepless eyes, stand by you till the
last Dark furry beast pads out. You shudder,
sigh, And so the long night eats itself away Into the pale discomfiture of day.
107
IN THE DARK, IN THE NIGHT
IN the dark, in the night, I went down To a street that I knew in the town. To a street I had last seen through tears And had lost in a jungle of years.
And the wind in the alley began To revolve up and down like a man, Like a man who could not find a door That he knew had been there long before.
And the moon with a slow sullen stare Bowed his heavy face over me there, As I stood for a moment dry-eyed By the houses that shuddered and sighed.
1 08
THE LONELY CABIN
YY/HERE the branches lift their cones ^^ against a pale sky- Silence comes as ever on her furtive feet. Creeping through the dark road that we knew in springtime Round the lonely cabin where the shadows meet.
Now I go no more there : rotting is the door- way: Overgrown with brambles is the little path: Grey and dank with dead leaves flows the tiny streamlet Where our dreams went sailing to the ocean's wrath.
109
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
Scarlet was your young mouth, luminous your white arms ; Darker than the forest was your loosened hair. Now there is a silence where the cabin mourns you, Crumbling in the stillness of the days that were.
no
JEWELS
TTHE jewelry you wore is gleaming
Upon my hands in such a light That Time himself seems rapt and dreaming Of you and me and one short night.
The days that pass, the nights that leave us
Such memories that will not go Are only changing hues that grieve us,
Returning to perplex us so.
The jewelry you wore is brighter Than my poor thoughts can ever be.
Remembering the bosom whiter Than drifting moonlight on the sea.
These jewels lit your slender fingers And deep between your breasts they shone ;
Your brief caress upon them lingers And stirs me in the night alone. Ill
THE BARCAROLE OF JAMES SMITH
You gleam for me somewhere, a jewel Between the gates of day and night :
And all you leave me are these cruel Embittered stones of red and white.
112
AFTER LOVE
\ Y/E who have Hved our Yesterdays ^^ So fully, so completely, pause at last And find, with startled eyes that view the past And all its mad ambiguous ways,
That we have lived all our Tomorrows,
too: And there is nothing left to say or do.
No summer suns that greatly set
On unforgotten days and crowded hours Will rise again for us . . . Ironic powers
Take up the love we would forget And hold it as a mirror where we see
How madly once we lived .... and foolishly.
113
MASTERBROOK
N TOW this was Masterbrook. He had a way Of lending such enlargement to his thought By puffed up speech that he outshone the day Before the lesser fry which knew him not.
But wiser thinkers pricked the huge balloons Of colored speech he soared so cleverly,
With needles of plain logic, and his tunes From subtlety turned sheer banality.
And he was laughed at as such men are, jeered For their conspicuous affected airs ; And called a wind-bag, nothing to be feared In this brief world of tangled vague affairs. 114
MASTERBROOK
So Masterbrook would talk down Time to laughter While wiser men would talk it up to grief, And when he died, to thousands who came after He stood a symbol and departed chief.
115
THE SATYRS AND THE MOON
VyriTHIN the wood behind the hill
^^ The moon got tangled in the trees. Her splendor made the branches thrill And thrilled the breeze.
The satyrs in the grotto bent
Their heads to see the wondrous sight. ''It is a god in banishment
Who stirs the night!''
The little satyr looked and guessed :
''It is an apple that one sees, Brought from that garden of the West,
Hesperides.''
"It is a Cyclops' glaring eye." "A temple dome from Babylon."
"A Titan's cup of ivory." "A little sun."
ii6
THE SATYRS AND THE MOON
The tiny satyr jumped for joy
And kicked his hoofs in utmost glee.
* ' It is a wondrous silver toy — Bring it to me!'*
A great wind whistled through the blue And caught the moon and tossed it high ;
A bubble of pale fire it flew Across the sky.
The satyrs gasped and looked and smiled, And wagged their heads from side to side
Except their shaggy little child, Who cried and cried.
117
THE DESERTED HOUSE
\Y/HEN houses were the fashion this one ^^ reared
Its cool, contemplative serenity Of pillared porch for all about to see And ponder how its calmness rather steered The mind into wide oceans where Time feared No devastating storms. . . . Sincerity Spread its grave cloak on mutability And toward this dwelling place the House
Gods veered. All that was when small children spun their note And transient mortals laughed and wept and sang Within the pleasant rooms; but now, alas,
ii8
THE DESERTED HOUSE
The very silence has an iron throat
And where the swift desirous voices rang Eternal stillness tells how all things pass.
119
TWO SONNETS AT CORNWALL
A CROSS the valley weaving sunlight ^^ throws
Her thin transparent cloth of gold where
trees Lie piled like Oriental jewelries In heaps of shifting green. The river
flows A subtly rippled blade of silver, glows Like an enchanted sword upon the knees Of some bright-mantled desert-prince who sees The summer and is still at what he knows.
The tawny hills like lions lift their heads Into the curdling smoke of evening
And snuff the twilight . . . Over us the reds And lavenders of sunset drift and fling
120
TWO SONNETS AT CORNWALL
Their old eternal veils. . . . From where we lie We look away into the night and sigh.
The last log of the sunset falls and flares To gold and hot vermilion ere it turns To crumbling ashes and a lone star burns High up in heaven. Breaking through the
snares Of net-like clouds, the slender moon now dares Adventure forth like some pale deer who
yearns For scented fields of dark immortal ferns And lifts his golden horns and proudly stares.
The night is on us. . . . You and I must rise And journey downward to the quiet fires Of little homes that lift against the skies Their slender gonfalons of smoke. . . . Desires Are futile now. . . . Among our books and
friends The vague interminable highway ends.
121
TO MY WIFE, JEAN
TTHE third Spring since our first goes flam-
ing down The dolorous tideways of the iron town, And Life, grown perfect in your perfect
eyes, Lifts me again into the ardent skies.
With gradual strength renewed, with vision
clear, I mount the golden stairway of the year A.nd from the summit far as eye may scan Behold the march of Time's bright caravan.
Across the deserts of dark sleep they go In gold and silver and vermilion glow, With high horns shattering the cloven night With drums and daemons, dancers, men of might.
122
TO MY WIFE, JEAN
Outward our way. The caravan awaits. We must depart through Time's unclosing
gates. The music shakes the night : the camel-bells Ring magic in our blood that throbs and
swells.
The trappings glitter on the ochre sands With gold and colors from barbaric lands; In royal purple and unfading rose We fare upon the way that Caesar goes.
123
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.
ir
/
YB 76476
598295
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
m