Identity

The tall carnations down the garden walks
Bowed on their stalks.

Said Jock-a-dreams to John-a-nods,
"What are the odds
That we shall wake up here within the sun,
When time is done,
And pick up all the treasures one by one
Our hands let fall in sleep?" "You have begun
To mutter in your dreams,"
Said John-a-nods to Jock-a-dreams,
And they both slept again.

The tall carnations in the sunset glow
Burned row on row.

Said John-a-nods to Jock-a-dreams,
"To me it seems
A thousand years since last you stirred and spoke,
And I awoke.
Was that the wind then trying to provoke
His brothers in their blessed sleep?" "They choke,
Who mutter in their nods,"
Said Jock-a-dreams to John-a-nods.
And they both slept again.

The t...

We walked along, while bright and red
Uprose the morning sun;
And Matthew stopped, he looked, and said
`The will of God be done!'

A village schoolmaster was he,
With hair of glittering grey;
As blithe a man as you could see
On a spring holiday.

And on that morning, through the grass
And by the steaming rills
We travelled merrily, to pass
A day among the hills.

`Our work,' said I, `was well begun;
Then, from thy breast what thought,
Beneath so beautiful a sun,
So sad a sigh has brought?'

A second time did Matthew stop;
And fixing still his eye
Upon the eastern mountain-top,
To me he made reply:

`Yon cloud with that long purple cleft
Brings fresh into my mind
A day like this, which I have left
Full...

Above where I am sitting, o'er these stones,
The ocean waves once heaved their mighty forms;
And vengeful tempests and appalling storms
Wrung from the stricken sea portentous moans,
That rent stupendous icebergs, whose huge heights
Crashed down in fragments through the startled nights.
Change, change, eternal change in all but God!
Mysterious nature! thrice mysterious state
Of body, soul, and spirit! Man is awed,
But triumphs in his littleness. A mote,
He specks the eye of the age and turns to dust,
And is the sport of centuries. We note
More surely nature's ever-changing fate;
Her fossil records tell how she performs her trust.

Down comes the winter rain -
Spoils my hat and bow -
Runs into the poll of me;
But mother won't know.

We've been out and caught a cold,
Knee-deep in snow;
Such a lucky thing it is
That mother won't know!

Rosy lost herself last night -
Couldn't tell where to go.
Yes - it rather frightened her,
But mother didn't know.

Somebody made Willy drunk
At the Christmas show:
O 'twas fun! It's well for him
That mother won't know!

Howsoever wild we are,
Late at school or slow,
Mother won't be cross with us,
Mother won't know.

How we cried the day she died!
Neighbours whispering low . . .
But we now do what we will -
Mother won't know.

    Out at Woodruff Place - afar
    From the city's glare and jar,
    With the leafy trees, instead
    Of the awnings, overhead;
    With the shadows cool and sweet,
    For the fever of the street;
    With the silence, like a prayer,
    Breathing round us everywhere.

    Gracious anchorage, at last,
    From the billows of the vast
    Tide of life that comes and goes,
    Whence and where nobody knows -
    Moving, like a skeptic's thought,
    Out of nowhere into naught.
    Touch and tame us with thy grace,
    Placid calm of Woodruff Place!

    Weave a wreath of beechen leaves
    For the brow that throbs and grieves
    O'er the ledger, bloody-lined,
    'Neath the sun-struck window-blind!
    Send the breath of woodl...

Alas, whence came this change of lookes? If I
Haue chang'd desert, let mine owne conscience be
A still-felt plague to selfe-condemning mee;
Let woe gripe on my heart, shame loade mine eye:
But if all faith, like spotlesse Ermine, ly
Safe in my soule, which only doth to thee,
As his sole obiect of felicitie,
With wings of loue in aire of wonder flie,
O ease your hand, treate not so hard your slaue;
In iustice paines come not till faults do call:
Or if I needs, sweet Iudge, must torments haue,
Vse something else to chasten me withall
Then those blest eyes, where all my hopes do dwell:
No doome should make ones Heau'n become his Hell.

Montparnasse,

April 1914.

All day the sun has shone into my little attic, a bitter sunshine that brightened yet did not warm. And so as I toiled and toiled doggedly enough, many were the looks I cast at the three faggots I had saved to cook my evening meal. Now, however, my supper is over, my pipe alight, and as I stretch my legs before the embers I have at last a glow of comfort, a glimpse of peace.




My Garret



Here is my Garret up five flights of stairs;
Here's where I deal in dreams and ply in fancies,
Here is the wonder-shop of all my wares,
My sounding sonnets and my red romances.
Here's where I challenge Fate and ring my rhymes,
And grope at glory - aye, and starve at times.

Here is my Stronghold: stout of heart am I,
Gre...

“The poets pour us wine”
Said the dearest poet I ever knew,
Dearest and greatest and best to me.
You clamor athirst for poetry
We pour. “But when shall a vintage be”
You cry, “strong grape, squeezed gold from screw.
Yet sweet juice, flavored flowery-fine?
That were indeed the wine!”

One pours your cup, stark strength,
Meat for a man; and you eye the pulp
Strained, turbid still, from the viscous blood
Of the snaky bough: and you grumble “Good!
For it swells resolve, breeds hardihood;
Dispatch it, then, in a single gulp!”
So, down, with a wry face, goes at length
The liquor: stuff for strength.

One pours your cup, sheer sweet,
The fragrant fumes of a year condensed:
Suspicion of all that’s ripe or rathe,
From the bud on branch to the g...

Not in scorn do I reprove thee,
Not in pride thy vows I waive,
But, believe, I could not love thee,
Wert thou prince, and I a slave.
These, then, are thine oaths of passion?
This, thy tenderness for me?
Judged, even, by thine own confession,
Thou art steeped in perfidy.
Having vanquished, thou wouldst leave me!
Thus I read thee long ago;
Therefore, dared I not deceive thee,
Even with friendship's gentle show.
Therefore, with impassive coldness
Have I ever met thy gaze;
Though, full oft, with daring boldness,
Thou thine eyes to mine didst raise.
Why that smile? Thou now art deeming
This my coldness all untrue,
But a mask of frozen seeming,
Hiding secret fires from view.
Touch my hand, thou self-deceiver;
Nay-be calm, for I am so:
D...

    After a long day of work in my hot - houses
    Sleep was sweet, but if you sleep on your left side
    Your dreams may be abruptly ended.
    I was among my flowers where some one
    Seemed to be raising them on trial,
    As if after-while to be transplanted
    To a larger garden of freer air.
    And I was disembodied vision
    Amid a light, as it were the sun
    Had floated in and touched the roof of glass
    Like a toy balloon and softly bursted,
    And etherealized in golden air.
    And all was silence, except the splendor
    Was immanent with thought as clear
    As a speaking voice, and I, as thought,
    Could hear a
    Presence think as he walked
    Between the boxes pinching off leaves,
    Looking for bugs and noting values,...

What crowd is this? what have we here! we must not pass it by;
A Telescope upon its frame, and pointed to the sky:
Long is it as a barber's pole, or mast of little boat,
Some little pleasure-skiff, that doth on Thames's waters float.

The Showman chooses well his place, 'tis Leicester's busy Square;
And is as happy in his night, for the heavens are blue and fair;
Calm, though impatient, is the crowd; each stands ready with the fee,
And envies him that's looking; what an insight must it be!

Yet, Showman, where can lie the cause? Shall thy Implement haveblame,
A boaster, that when he is tried, fails, and is put to shame?
Or is it good as others are, and be their eyes in fault?
Their eyes, or minds? or, finally, is yon resplendent vault?

Is nothing of that radiant p...

Out of the night you burn, Manhattan,
In a vesture of gold -
Span of innumerable arcs,
Flaring and multiplying -
Gold at the uttermost circles fading
Into the tenderest hint of jade,
Or fusing in tremulous twilight blues,
Robing the far-flung offices,
Scintillant-storied, forking flame,
Or soaring to luminous amethyst
Over the steeples aureoled -

Diaphanous gold,
Veiling the Woolworth, argently
Rising slender and stark
Mellifluous-shrill as a vender's cry,
And towers squatting graven and cold
On the velvet bales of the dark,
And the Singer's appraising
Indolent idol's eye,
And night like a purple cloth unrolled -

Nebulous gold
Throwing an ephemeral glory about life's vanishing points,
Wherein you burn...
You of un...

You invaded my sorrowful heart
Like the sudden stroke of a blade;
Bold as a lunatic troupe
Of demons in drunken parade,

You in my mortified soul
Made your bed and your domain;
Abhorrence, to whom 1 am bound
As the convict is to the chain,

As the drunkard is to the jug,
As the gambler to the game,
As to the vermin the corpse,
I damn you, out of my shame!

And I prayed to the eager sword
To win my deliverance,
And have asked the perfidious vial
To redeem my cowardice.

Alas! the vial and the sword
Disdainfully said to me;
'You are not worthy to lift
From your wretched slavery,

You fool! if from her command
Our efforts delivered you forth,
Your kisses would waken again
Your vampire lover's corpse!'

Bright summer comes, all bloom and flowers,
To garland o'er her faded bowers;
There's balm and sunshine on her wing,
But where's the friend she used to bring?
One heart is sad 'mid all the glee,
And only asks, "Oh, where is he?"

He comes not now, he comes not now,
To chase the gloom from off my brow,
He comes not with his wonted smile
The weary moments to beguile.
There's joy in every look I see,
But mine is sad, for "Where is he?"

Closed is the book we used to read;
There's none to smile, there's none to heed;
Our 'customed walk's deserted, too;
It charms not as it used to do;
The fav'rite path, the well-known tree,
All, all are whispering, "Where is he?"

This faithful heart is now a shrine
For each dear look and...

"Ye have robbed," said he, "ye have slaughtered and made an end,
    Take your ill-got plunder, and bury the dead:
What will ye more of your guest and sometime friend?"
    "Blood for our blood," they said.

He laughed: "If one may settle the score for five,
    I am ready; but let the reckoning stand til day:
I have loved the sunlight as dearly as any alive."
    "You shall die at dawn," said they.

He flung his empty revolver down the slope,
    He climbed alone to the Eastward edge of the trees;
All night long in a dream untroubled of hope
    He brooded, clasping his knees.

He did not hear the monotonous roar that fills
    The ravine where the Yassin river sullenly flows;
He did not see the starlight on the Laspur hills,
    Or the far Afghan s...

    I have a puppet-jointed child,
    She's but three half-years old;
    Through lawless hair her eyes gleam wild
    With looks both shy and bold.

    Like little imps, her tiny hands
    Dart out and push and take;
    Chide her--a trembling thing she stands,
    And like two leaves they shake.

    But to her mind a minute gone
    Is like a year ago;
    And when you lift your eyes anon,
    Anon you must say No!

    Sometimes, though not oppressed with care,
    She has her sleepless fits;
    Then, blanket-swathed, in that round chair
    The elfish mortal sits;--

    Where, if by chance in mood more grave,
    A hermit she appears
    Propped in the opening of his cave,
    Mummied almost with years;
<...

Thank God for rest, where none molest,
And none can make afraid;
For Peace that sits as Plenty's guest
Beneath the homestead shade!
Bring pike and gun, the sword's red scourge,
The negro's broken chains,
And beat them at the blacksmith's forge
To ploughshares for our plains.
Alike henceforth our hills of snow,
And vales where cotton flowers;
All streams that flow, all winds that blow,
Are Freedom's motive-powers.
Henceforth to Labor's chivalry
Be knightly honors paid;
For nobler than the sword's shall be
The sickle's accolade.
Build up an altar to the Lord,
O grateful hearts of ours!
And shape it of the greenest sward
That ever drank the showers.
Lay all the bloom of gardens there,
And there the orchard fruits;
Bring golden grain ...

What pale and bleeding youth, whilst the fell blast
Howls o'er the wreck, and fainter sinks the cry
Of struggling wretches ere, o'erwhelmed, they die,
Yet floats upborne upon the driving mast!
O poor Arion! has thy sweetest strain,
That charmed old ocean's wildest solitude,
At this dread hour his waves' dark might subdued!
Let sea-maids thy reclining head sustain,
And wipe the blood and briny drops that soil
Thy features; give once more the wreathed shell
To ring with melody! Ah, fruitless toil!
O'er thy devoted head the tempests swell,
More loud relentless ocean claims his spoil:
Peace! and may weeping sea-maids sing thy knell!