_God's deathless
plaything
rolls an eye
Five hundred thousand cubits high.
Five hundred thousand cubits high.
American Poetry - 1922
.
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What, I have often mused, did Goethe mean?
So many years ago at Weimar, Goethe said
"Heine has all the poet's gifts but love. "
Good God! But that is all I ever had.
More than enough! So much of love to give
That no one gave me any in return.
And so I flashed and snapped in my own fires
Until I stood, with nothing left to burn,
A twisted trunk, in chilly isolation.
_Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam_--you recall?
I was that Northern tree and, in the South,
Amalia. . . . So I turned to scornful cries,
Hot iron songs to save the rest of me;
Plunging the brand in my own misery.
Crouching behind my pointed wall of words,
Ramparts I built of moons and loreleys,
Enchanted roses, sphinxes, love-sick birds,
Giants, dead lads who left their graves to dance,
Fairies and phoenixes and friendly gods--
A curious frieze, half Renaissance, half Greek,
Behind which, in revulsion of romance,
I lay and laughed--and wept--till I was weak.
Words were my shelter, words my one escape,
Words were my weapons against everything.
Was I not once the son of Revolution?
Give me the lyre, I said, and let me sing
My song of battle: Words like flaming stars
Shot down with power to burn the palaces;
Words like bright javelins to fly with fierce
Hate of the oily Philistines and glide
Through all the seven heavens till they pierce
The pious hypocrites who dare to creep
Into the Holy Places. "Then," I cried,
"I am a fire to rend and roar and leap;
I am all joy and song, all sword and flame! "
Ha--you observe me passionate. I aim
To curb these wild emotions lest they soar
Or drive against my will. (So I have said
These many years--and still they are not tame. )
Scraps of a song keep rumbling in my head . . .
Listen--you never heard me sing before.
When a false world betrays your trust
And stamps upon your fire,
When what seemed blood is only rust,
Take up the lyre!
How quickly the heroic mood
Responds to its own ringing;
The scornful heart, the angry blood
Leap upward, singing!
Ah, that was how it used to be. But now,
_Du schoner Todesengel_, it is odd
How more than calm I am. Franz said it shows
Power of religion, and it does, perhaps--
Religion or morphine or poultices--God knows.
I sometimes have a sentimental lapse
And long for saviours and a physical God.
When health is all used up, when money goes,
When courage cracks and leaves a shattered will,
Then Christianity begins. For a sick Jew,
It is a very good religion . . . Still,
I fear that I will die as I have lived,
A long-nosed heathen playing with his scars,
A pagan killed by weltschmerz . . . I remember,
Once when I stood with Hegel at a window,
I, being full of bubbling youth and coffee,
Spoke in symbolic tropes about the stars.
Something I said about "those high
Abodes of all the blest" provoked his temper.
"Abodes? The stars? " He froze me with a sneer,
"A light eruption on the firmament. "
"But," cried romantic I, "is there no sphere
Where virtue is rewarded when we die? "
And Hegel mocked, "A very pleasant whim.
So you demand a bonus since you spent
One lifetime and refrained from poisoning
Your testy grandmother! " . . . How much of him
Remains in me--even when I am caught
In dreams of death and immortality.
To be eternal--what a brilliant thought!
It must have been conceived and coddled first
By some old shopkeeper in Nuremberg,
His slippers warm, his children amply nursed,
Who, with his lighted meerschaum in his hand,
His nightcap on his head, one summer night
Sat drowsing at his door. And mused, how grand
If all of this could last beyond a doubt--
This placid moon, this plump _gemuthlichkeit_;
Pipe, breath and summer never going out--
To vegetate through all eternity . . .
But no such everlastingness for me!
God, if he can, keep me from such a blight.
_Death, it is but the long, cool night,
And Life's a dull and sultry day.
It darkens; I grow sleepy;
I am weary of the light. _
_Over my bed a strange tree gleams
And there a nightingale is loud.
She sings of love, love only . . .
I hear it, even in dreams. _
My Mouche, the other day as I lay here,
Slightly propped up upon this mattress-grave
In which I've been interred these few eight years,
I saw a dog, a little pampered slave,
Running about and barking. I would have given
Heaven could I have been that dog; to thrive
Like him, so senseless--and so much alive!
And once I called myself a blithe Hellene,
Who am too much in love with life to live.
(The shrug is pure Hebraic) . . . For what I've been,
A lenient Lord will tax me--and forgive.
_Dieu me pardonnera--c'est son metier. _
But this is jesting. There are other scandals
You haven't heard . . . Can it be dusk so soon?
Or is this deeper darkness . . . ? Is that you,
Mother? How did you come? Where are the candles? . . .
_Over my bed a strange tree gleams_--half filled
With stars and birds whose white notes glimmer through
Its seven branches now that all is stilled.
What? Friday night again and all my songs
Forgotten? Wait . . . I still can sing--
_Sh'ma Yisroel Adonai Elohenu,
Adonai Echod . . . _
Mouche--Mathilde! . . .
WATERS OF BABYLON
What presses about us here in the evening
As you open a window and stare at a stone-gray sky,
And the streets give back the jangle of meaningless movement
That is tired of life and almost too tired to die.
Night comes on, and even the night is wounded;
There, on its breast, it carries a curved, white scar.
What will you find out there that is not torn and anguished?
Can God be less distressed than the least of His creatures are?
Below are the blatant lights in a huddled squalor;
Above are futile fires in freezing space.
What can they give that you should look to them for compassion
Though you bare your heart and lift an imploring face?
They have seen, by countless waters and windows,
The women of your race facing a stony sky;
They have heard, for thousands of years, the voices of women
Asking them: "Why . . . ? "
Let the night be; it has neither knowledge nor pity.
One thing alone can hope to answer your fear;
It is that which struggles and blinds us and burns between us. . . .
Let the night be. Close the window, beloved. . . . Come here.
THE FLAMING CIRCLE
Though for fifteen years you have chaffed me across the table,
Slept in my arms and fingered my plunging heart,
I scarcely know you; we have not known each other.
For all the fierce and casual contacts, something keeps us apart.
Are you struggling, perhaps, in a world that I see only dimly,
Except as it sweeps toward the star on which I stand alone?
Are we swung like two planets, compelled in our separate orbits,
Yet held in a flaming circle far greater than our own?
Last night we were single, a radiant core of completion,
Surrounded by flames that embraced us but left no burns,
To-day we are only ourselves; we have plans and pretensions;
We move in dividing streets with our small and different concerns.
Merging and rending, we wait for the miracle. Meanwhile
The fire runs deeper, consuming these selves in its growth.
Can this be the mystical marriage--this clash and communion;
This pain of possession that frees and encircles us both?
PORTRAIT OF A MACHINE
What nudity is beautiful as this
Obedient monster purring at its toil;
These naked iron muscles dripping oil
And the sure-fingered rods that never miss.
This long and shining flank of metal is
Magic that greasy labor cannot spoil;
While this vast engine that could rend the soil
Conceals its fury with a gentle hiss.
It does not vent its loathing, does not turn
Upon its makers with destroying hate.
It bears a deeper malice; lives to earn
Its master's bread and laughs to see this great
Lord of the earth, who rules but cannot learn,
Become the slave of what his slaves create.
ROAST LEVIATHAN
"_Old Jews! _" Well, David, aren't we?
What news is that to make you see so red,
To swear and almost tear your beard in half?
Jeered at? Well, let them laugh.
You can laugh longer when you're dead.
What? Are you still too blind to see?
Have you forgot your Midrash! . . . They were right,
The little _goyim_, with their angry stones.
You should be buried in the desert out of sight
And not a dog should howl miscarried moans
Over your foul bones. . . .
Have you forgotten what is promised us,
Because of stinking days and rotting nights?
Eternal feasting, drinking, blazing lights
With endless leisure, periods of play!
Supernal pleasures, myriads of gay
Discussions, great debates with prophet-kings!
And rings of riddling scholars all surrounding
God who sits in the very middle, expounding
The Torah. . . . _Now_ your dull eyes glisten!
Listen:
It is the final Day.
A blast of Gabriel's horn has torn away
The last haze from our eyes, and we can see
Past the three hundred skies and gaze upon
The Ineffable Name engraved deep in the sun.
Now one by one, the pious and the just
Are seated by us, radiantly risen
From their dull prison in the dust.
And then the festival begins!
A sudden music spins great webs of sound
Spanning the ground, the stars and their companions;
While from the cliffs and canons of blue air,
Prayers of all colors, cries of exultation
Rise into choruses of singing gold.
And at the height of this bright consecration,
The whole Creation's rolled before us.
The seven burning heavens unfold. . . .
We see the first (the only one we know)
Dispersed and, shining through,
The other six declining: Those that hold
The stars and moons, together with all those
Containing rain and fire and sullen weather;
Cellars of dew-fall higher than the brim;
Huge arsenals with centuries of snows;
Infinite rows of storms and swarms of seraphim. . . .
* * * * *
Divided now are winds and waters. Sea and land,
Tohu and Bohu, light and darkness, stand
Upright on either hand.
And down this terrible aisle,
While heaven's ranges roar aghast,
Pours a vast file of strange and hidden things:
Forbidden monsters, crocodiles with wings
And perfumed flesh that sings and glows
With more fresh colors than the rainbow knows. . . .
The _reem_, those great beasts with eighteen horns,
Who mate but once in seventy years and die
In their own tears which flow ten stadia high.
The _shamir_, made by God on the sixth morn,
No longer than a grain of barley corn
But stronger than the bull of Bashan and so hard
It cuts through diamonds. Meshed and starred
With precious stones, there struts the shattering _ziz_
Whose groans are wrinkled thunder. . . .
For thrice three hundred years the full parade
Files past, a cavalcade of fear and wonder.
And then the vast aisle clears.
Now comes our constantly increased reward.
The Lord commands that monstrous beast,
Leviathan, to be our feast.
What cheers ascend from horde on ravenous horde!
One hears the towering creature rend the seas,
Frustrated, cowering, and his pleas ignored.
In vain his great, belated tears are poured--
For this he was created, kept and nursed.
Cries burst from all the millions that attend:
_"Ascend, Leviathan, it is the end!
We hunger and we thirst! Ascend! " . . . _
Observe him first, my friend.
_God's deathless plaything rolls an eye
Five hundred thousand cubits high.
The smallest scale upon his tail
Could hide six dolphins and a whale.
His nostrils breathe--and on the spot
The churning waves turn seething hot.
If he be hungry, one huge fin
Drives seven thousand fishes in;
And when he drinks what he may need,
The rivers of the earth recede.
Yet he is more than huge and strong--
Twelve brilliant colors play along
His sides until, compared to him,
The naked, burning sun seems dim.
New scintillating rays extend
Through endless singing space and rise
Into an ecstasy that cries:
"Ascend, Leviathan, ascend! "_
God now commands the multi-colored bands
Of angels to intrude and slay the beast
That His good sons may have a feast of food.
But as they come, Leviathan sneezes twice . . .
And, numb with sudden pangs, each arm hangs slack.
Black terror seizes them; blood freezes into ice
And every angel flees from the attack!
God, with a look that spells eternal law,
Compels them back.
But, though they fight and smite him tail and jaw,
Nothing avails; upon his scales their swords
Break like frayed cords or, like a blade of straw,
Bend towards the hilt and wilt like faded grass.
Defeat and fresh retreat. . . . But once again
God's murmurs pass among them and they mass
With firmer steps upon the crowded plain.
Vast clouds of spears and stones rise from the ground;
But every dart flies past and rocks rebound
To the disheartened angels falling around.
A pause.
The angel host withdraws
With empty boasts throughout its sullen files.
Suddenly God smiles. . . .
On the walls of heaven a tumble of light is caught.
Low thunder rumbles like an afterthought;
And God's slow laughter calls:
"Behemot! "
_Behemot, sweating blood,
Uses for his daily food
All the fodder, flesh and juice
That twelve tall mountains can produce. _
_Jordan, flooded to the brim,
Is a single gulp to him;
Two great streams from Paradise
Cool his lips and scarce suffice. _
_When he shifts from side to side
Earthquakes gape and open wide;_
_When a nightmare makes him snore,
All the dead volcanoes roar. _
_In the space between each toe,
Kingdoms rise and saviours go;
Epochs fall and causes die
In the lifting of his eye. _
_Wars and justice, love and death,
These are but his wasted breath;
Chews a planet for his cud--
Behemot sweating blood. _
Roused from his unconcern,
Behemot burns with anger.
Dripping sleep and languor from his heavy haunches,
He turns from deep disdain and launches
Himself upon the thickening air,
And, with weird cries of sickening despair,
Flies at Leviathan.
None can surmise the struggle that ensues--
The eyes lose sight of it and words refuse
To tell the story in its gory might.
Night passes after night,
And still the fight continues, still the sparks
Fly from the iron sinews, . . . till the marks
Of fire and belching thunder fill the dark
And, almost torn asunder, one falls stark,
Hammering upon the other! . . .
What clamor now is born, what crashings rise!
Hot lightnings lash the skies and frightening cries
Clash with the hymns of saints and seraphim.
The bloody limbs thrash through a ruddy dusk,
Till one great tusk of Behemot has gored
Leviathan, restored to his full strength,
Who, dealing fiercer blows in those last throes,
Closes on reeling Behemot at length--
Piercing him with steel-pointed claws,
Straight through the jaws to his disjointed head.
And both lie dead.
_Then_ come the angels!
With hoists and levers, joists and poles,
With knives and cleavers, ropes and saws,
Down the long slopes to the gaping maws,
The angels hasten; hacking and carving,
So nought will be lacking for the starving
Chosen of God, who in frozen wonderment
Realize now what the terrible thunder meant.
How their mouths water while they are looking
At miles of slaughter and sniffing the cooking!
Whiffs of delectable fragrance swim by;
Spice-laden vagrants that float and entice,
Tickling the throat and brimming the eye.
Ah! what rejoicing and crackling and roasting!
Ah! How the boys sing as, cackling and boasting,
The angels' old wives and their nervous assistants
Run in to serve us. . . .
And while we are toasting
The Fairest of All, they call from the distance
The rare ones of Time, they share our enjoyment;
Their only employment to bear jars of wine
And shine like the stars in a circle of glory.
Here sways Rebekah accompanied by Zilpah;
Miriam plays to the singing of Bilhah;
Hagar has tales for us, Judith her story;
Esther exhales bright romances and musk.
There, in the dusky light, Salome dances.
Sara and Rachel and Leah and Ruth,
Fairer than ever and all in their youth,
Come at our call and go by our leave.
And, from her bower of beauty, walks Eve
While, with the voice of a flower, she sings
Of Eden, young earth and the birth of all things. . . .
Peace without end.
Peace will descend on us, discord will cease;
And we, now so wretched, will lie stretched out
Free of old doubt, on our cushions of ease.
And, like a gold canopy over our bed,
The skin of Leviathan, tail-tip to head,
Soon will be spread till it covers the skies.
Light will still rise from it; millions of bright
Facets of brilliance, shaming the white
Glass of the moon, inflaming the night.
So Time shall pass and rest and pass again,
Burn with an endless zest and then return,
Walk at our side and tide us to new joys;
God's voice to guide us, beauty as our staff.
Thus shall Life be when Death has disappeared. . . .
_Jeered at? Well, let them laugh. _
JOHN GOULD FLETCHER
A REBEL
Tie a bandage over his eyes,
And at his feet
Let rifles drearily patter
Their death-prayers of defeat.
Throw a blanket over his body,
It need no longer stir;
Truth will but stand the stronger
For all who died for her.
Now he has broken through
To his own secret place;
Which, if we dared to do,
We would have no more power left to look on that dead face.
THE ROCK
This rock, too, was a word;
A word of flame and force when that which hurled
The stars into their places in the night
First stirred.
And, in the summer's heat,
Lay not your hand on it, for while the iron hours beat
Gray anvils in the sky, it glows again
With unfulfilled desire.
Touch it not; let it stand
Ragged, forlorn, still looking at the land;
The dry blue chaos of mountains in the distance,
The slender blades of grass it shelters are
Its own dark thoughts of what is near and far.
Your thoughts are yours, too; naked let them stand.
BLUE WATER
Sea-violins are playing on the sands;
Curved bows of blue and white are flying over the pebbles,
See them attack the chords--dark basses, glinting trebles.
Dimly and faint they croon, blue violins.
"Suffer without regret," they seem to cry,
"Though dark your suffering is, it may be music,
Waves of blue heat that wash midsummer sky;
Sea-violins that play along the sands. "
PRAYERS FOR WIND
Let the winds come,
And bury our feet in the sands of seven deserts;
Let strong breezes rise,
Washing our ears with the far-off sounds of the foam.
Let there be between our faces
Green turf and a branch or two of back-tossed trees;
Set firmly over questioning hearts
The deep unquenchable answer of the wind.
IMPROMPTU
My mind is a puddle in the street reflecting green Sirius;
In thick dark groves trees huddle lifting their branches like
beckoning hands.
We eat the grain, the grain is death, all goes back to the earth's
dark mass,
All but a song which moves across the plain like the wind's
deep-muttering breath.
Bowed down upon the earth, man sets his plants and watches for the
seed,
Though he be part of the tragic pageant of the sky, no heaven will
aid his mortal need.
I find flame in the dust, a word once uttered that will stir again,
And a wine-cup reflecting Sirius in the water held in my hands.
CHINESE POET AMONG BARBARIANS
The rain drives, drives endlessly,
Heavy threads of rain;
The wind beats at the shutters,
The surf drums on the shore;
Drunken telegraph poles lean sideways;
Dank summer cottages gloom hopelessly;
Bleak factory-chimneys are etched on the filmy distance,
Tepid with rain.
It seems I have lived for a hundred years
Among these things;
And it is useless for me now to make complaint against them.
For I know I shall never escape from this dull barbarian country,
Where there is none now left to lift a cool jade winecup,
Or share with me a single human thought.
SNOWY MOUNTAINS
Higher and still more high,
Palaces made for cloud,
Above the dingy city-roofs
Blue-white like angels with broad wings,
Pillars of the sky at rest
The mountains from the great plateau
Uprise.
But the world heeds them not;
They have been here now for too long a time.
The world makes war on them,
Tunnels their granite cliffs,
Splits down their shining sides,
Plasters their cliffs with soap-advertisements,
Destroys the lonely fragments of their peace.
Vaster and still more vast,
Peak after peak, pile after pile,
Wilderness still untamed,
To which the future is as was the past,
Barrier spread by Gods,
Sunning their shining foreheads,
Barrier broken down by those who do not need
The joy of time-resisting storm-worn stone,
The mountains swing along
The south horizon of the sky;
Welcoming with wide floors of blue-green ice
The mists that dance and drive before the sun.
THE FUTURE
After ten thousand centuries have gone,
Man will ascend the last long pass to know
That all the summits which he saw at dawn
Are buried deep in everlasting snow.
Below him endless gloomy valleys, chill,
Will wreathe and whirl with fighting cloud, driven by the wind's
fierce breath;
But on the summit, wind and cloud are still:--
Only the sunlight, and death.
And staggering up to the brink of the gulf man will look down
And painfully strive with weak sight to explore
The silent gulfs below which the long shadows drown;
Through every one of these he passed before.
Then since he has no further heights to climb,
And naught to witness he has come this endless way,
On the wind-bitten ice cap he will wait for the last of time,
And watch the crimson sunrays fading of the world's latest day:
And blazing stars will burst upon him there,
Dumb in the midnight of his hope and pain,
Speeding no answer back to his last prayer,
And, if akin to him, akin in vain.
UPON THE HILL
A hundred miles of landscape spread before me like a fan;
Hills behind naked hills, bronze light of evening on them shed;
How many thousand ages have these summits spied on man?
How many thousand times shall I look on them ere this fire in me is
dead?
THE ENDURING
If the autumn ended
Ere the birds flew southward,
If in the cold with weary throats
They vainly strove to sing,
Winter would be eternal;
Leaf and bush and blossom
Would never once more riot
In the spring.
If remembrance ended
When life and love are gathered,
If the world were not living
Long after one is gone,
Song would not ring, nor sorrow
Stand at the door in evening;
Life would vanish and slacken,
Men would be changed to stone.
But there will be autumn's bounty
Dropping upon our weariness,
There will be hopes unspoken
And joys to haunt us still;
There will be dawn and sunset
Though we have cast the world away,
And the leaves dancing
Over the hill.
JEAN STARR UNTERMEYER
OLD MAN
When an old man walks with lowered head
And eyes that do not seem to see,
I wonder does he ponder on
The worm he was or is to be.
Or has he turned his gaze within,
Lost to his own vicinity;
Erecting in a doubtful dream
Frail bridges to Infinity.
TONE PICTURE
(Malipiero: _Impressioni Dal Vero_)
Across the hot square, where the barbaric sun
Pours coarse laughter on the crowds,
Trumpets throw their loud nooses
From corner to corner.
Elephants, whose indifferent backs
Heave with red lambrequins,
Tigers with golden muzzles,
Negresses, greased and turbaned in green and yellow,
Weave and interweave in the merciless glare of noon.
The sun flicks here and there like a throned tyrant,
Snapping his whip.
From amber platters, the smells ascend
Of overripe peaches mingled with dust and heated oils.
Pages in purple run madly about,
Rolling their eyes and grinning with huge, frightened mouths.
And from a high window--a square of black velvet--
A haughty figure stands back in the shadow,
Aloof and silent.
THEY SAY--
They say I have a constant heart, who know
Not anything of how it turns and yields
First here, first there; nor how in separate fields
It runs to reap and then remains to sow;
How, with quick worship, it will bend and glow
Before a line of song, an antique vase,
Evening at sea; or in a well-loved face
Seek and find all that Beauty can bestow.
Yet they do well who name it with a name,
For all its rash surrenders call it true.
Though many lamps be lit, yet flame is flame;
The sun can show the way, a candle too.
The tribute to each fragment is the same
Service to all of Beauty--and her due.
RESCUE
Wind and wave and the swinging rope
Were calling me last night;
None to save and little hope,
No inner light.
Each snarling lash of the stormy sea
Curled like a hungry tongue.
One desperate splash--and no use to me
The noose that swung!
Death reached out three crooked claws
To still my clamoring pain.
I wheeled about, and Life's gray jaws
Grinned once again.
To sea I gazed, and then I turned
Stricken toward the shore,
Praying half-crazed to a moon that burned
Above your door.
And at your door, you discovered me;
And at your heart, I sobbed . . .
And if there be more of eternity
Let me be robbed.
Let me be clipped of that heritage
And burned for ages through;
Freed and stripped of my fear and rage--
But not of you.
MATER IN EXTREMIS
I stand between them and the outer winds,
But I am a crumbling wall.
They told me they could bear the blast alone,
They told me: that was all.
But I must wedge myself between
Them and the first snowfall.
Riddled am I by onslaughts and attacks
I thought I could forestall;
I reared and braced myself to shelter them
Before I heard them call.
I cry them, God, a better shield!
I am about to fall.
SELF-REJECTED
Plow not nor plant this arid mound.
Here is no sap for seed,
No ferment for your need--
Ungrateful ground!
No sun can warm this spot
God has forgot;
No rain can penetrate
Its barren slate.
Demonic winds blow last year's stubble
From its hard slope.
Go, leave the hopeless without hope;
Spare your trouble.
H. D.
HOLY SATYR
Most holy Satyr,
like a goat,
with horns and hooves
to match thy coat
of russet brown,
I make leaf-circlets
and a crown of honey-flowers
for thy throat;
where the amber petals
drip to ivory,
I cut and slip
each stiffened petal
in the rift
of carven petal:
honey horn
has wed the bright
virgin petal of the white
flower cluster: lip to lip
let them whisper,
let them lilt, quivering:
Most holy Satyr,
like a goat,
hear this our song,
accept our leaves,
love-offering,
return our hymn;
like echo fling
a sweet song,
answering note for note.
LAIS
Let her who walks in Paphos
take the glass,
let Paphos take the mirror
and the work of frosted fruit,
gold apples set
with silver apple-leaf,
white leaf of silver
wrought with vein of gilt.
Let Paphos lift the mirror;
let her look
into the polished center of the disk.
Let Paphos take the mirror:
did she press
flowerlet of flame-flower
to the lustrous white
of the white forehead?
did the dark veins beat
a deeper purple
than the wine-deep tint
of the dark flower?
Did she deck black hair,
one evening, with the winter-white
flower of the winter-berry?
Did she look (reft of her lover)
at a face gone white
under the chaplet
of white virgin-breath?
Lais, exultant, tyrannizing Greece,
Lais who kept her lovers in the porch,
lover on lover waiting
(but to creep
where the robe brushed the threshold
where still sleeps Lais),
so she creeps, Lais,
to lay her mirror at the feet
of her who reigns in Paphos.
Lais has left her mirror,
for she sees no longer in its depth
the Lais' self
that laughed exultant,
tyrannizing Greece.
Lais has left her mirror,
for she weeps no longer,
finding in its depth
a face, but other
than dark flame and white
feature of perfect marble.
_Lais has left her mirror_
(so one wrote)
_to her who reigns in Paphos;
Lais who laughed a tyrant over Greece,
Lais who turned the lovers from the porch,
that swarm for whom now
Lais has no use;
Lais is now no lover of the glass,
seeing no more the face as once it was,
wishing to see that face and finding this. _
HELIODORA
He and I sought together,
over the spattered table,
rhymes and flowers,
gifts for a name.
He said, among others,
I will bring
(and the phrase was just and good,
but not as good as mine)
"the narcissus that loves the rain. "
We strove for a name,
while the light of the lamps burnt thin
and the outer dawn came in,
a ghost, the last at the feast
or the first,
to sit within
with the two that remained
to quibble in flowers and verse
over a girl's name.
He said, "the rain loving,"
I said, "the narcissus, drunk,
drunk with the rain. "
Yet I had lost
for he said,
"the rose, the lover's gift,
is loved of love,"
he said it,
"loved of love;"
I waited, even as he spoke,
to see the room filled with a light,
as when in winter
the embers catch in a wind
when a room is dank:
so it would be filled, I thought,
our room with a light
when he said
(and he said it first)
"the rose, the lover's delight,
is loved of love,"
but the light was the same.
Then he caught,
seeing the fire in my eyes,
my fire, my fever, perhaps,
for he leaned
with the purple wine
stained in his sleeve,
and said this:
"Did you ever think
a girl's mouth
caught in a kiss
is a lily that laughs? "
I had not.
I saw it now
as men must see it forever afterwards;
no poet could write again,
"the red-lily,
a girl's laugh caught in a kiss;"
it was his to pour in the vat
from which all poets dip and quaff,
for poets are brothers in this.
So I saw the fire in his eyes,
it was almost my fire
(he was younger)
I saw the face so white;
my heart beat,
it was almost my phrase,
I said, "surprise the muses,
take them by surprise;
it is late,
rather it is dawn-rise,
those ladies sleep, the nine,
our own king's mistresses. "
A name to rhyme,
flowers to bring to a name,
what was one girl faint and shy,
with eyes like the myrtle
(I said: "her underlids
are rather like myrtle"),
to vie with the nine?
Let him take the name,
he had the rhymes,
"the rose, loved of love,"
"the lily, a mouth that laughs,"
he had the gift,
"the scented crocus,
the purple hyacinth,"
what was one girl to the nine?
He said:
"I will make her a wreath;"
he said:
"I will write it thus:
_'I will bring you the lily that laughs,
I will twine
with soft narcissus, the myrtle,
sweet crocus, white violet,
the purple hyacinth and, last,
the rose, loved of love,
that these may drip on your hair
the less soft flowers,
may mingle sweet with the sweet
of Heliodora's locks,
myrrh-curled. '_"
(He wrote myrrh-curled,
I think, the first. )
I said:
"they sleep, the nine,"
when he shouted swift and passionate:
"_that_ for the nine!
Above the mountains
the sun is about to wake,
_and to-day white violets
shine beside white lilies
adrift on the mountain side;
to-day the narcissus opens
that loves the rain_. "
I watched him to the door,
catching his robe
as the wine-bowl crashed to the floor,
spilling a few wet lees
(ah, his purple hyacinth! );
I saw him out of the door,
I thought:
there will never be a poet,
in all the centuries after this,
who will dare write,
after my friend's verse,
"a girl's mouth
is a lily kissed. "
TOWARD THE PIRAEUS
_Slay with your eyes, Greek,
men over the face of the earth,
slay with your eyes, the host,
puny, passionless, weak. _
_Break, as the ranks of steel
broke of the Persian host:
craven, we hated them then:
now we would count them Gods
beside these, spawn of the earth. _
_Grant us your mantle, Greek;
grant us but one
to fright (as your eyes) with a sword,
men, craven and weak,
grant us but one to strike
one blow for you, passionate Greek. _
I
You would have broken my wings,
but the very fact that you knew
I had wings, set some seal
on my bitter heart, my heart
broke and fluttered and sang.
You would have snared me,
and scattered the strands of my nest;
but the very fact that you saw,
sheltered me, claimed me,
set me apart from the rest.
Of men--of _men_ made you a god,
and me, claimed me, set me apart
and the song in my breast, yours, yours forever--
if I escape your evil heart.
II
I loved you:
men have writ and women have said
they loved,
but as the Pythoness stands by the altar,
intense and may not move;
till the fumes pass over;
and may not falter nor break,
till the priest has caught the words
that mar or make
a deme or a ravaged town;
so I, though my knees tremble,
my heart break,
must note the rumbling,
heed only the shuddering
down in the fissure beneath the rock
of the temple floor;
must wait and watch
and may not turn nor move,
nor break from my trance to speak
so slight, so sweet,
so simple a word as love.
III
What had you done
had you been true,
I can not think,
I may not know.
What could we do
were I not wise,
what play invent,
what joy devise?
What could we do
if you were great?
(Yet were you lost,
who were there, then,
to circumvent
the tricks of men? )
What can we do,
for curious lies
have filled your heart,
and in my eyes
sorrow has writ
that I am wise.
IV
If I had been a boy,
I would have worshiped your grace,
I would have flung my worship
before your feet,
I would have followed apart,
glad, rent with an ecstasy
to watch you turn
your great head, set on the throat,
thick, dark with its sinews,
burned and wrought
like the olive stalk,
and the noble chin
and the throat.
I would have stood,
and watched and watched
and burned,
and when in the night,
from the many hosts, your slaves,
and warriors and serving men
you had turned
to the purple couch and the flame
of the woman, tall like cypress tree
that flames sudden and swift and free
as with crackle of golden resin
and cones and the locks flung free
like the cypress limbs,
bound, caught and shaken and loosed,
bound, caught and riven and bound
and loosened again,
as in rain of a kingly storm
or wind full from a desert plain.
So, when you had risen
from all the lethargy of love and its heat,
you would have summoned me, me alone,
and found my hands,
beyond all the hands in the world,
cold, cold, cold,
intolerably cold and sweet.
V
It was not chastity that made me cold nor fear,
only I knew that you, like myself, were sick
of the puny race that crawls and quibbles and lisps
of love and love and lovers and love's deceit.
It was not chastity that made me wild but fear
that my weapon, tempered in different heat,
was over-matched by yours, and your hand
skilled to yield death-blows, might break.
With the slightest turn--no ill-will meant--
my own lesser, yet still somewhat fine-wrought
fiery-tempered, delicate, over-passionate steel.
CONRAD AIKEN
SEVEN TWILIGHTS
I
The ragged pilgrim, on the road to nowhere,
Waits at the granite milestone. It grows dark.
Willows lean by the water. Pleas of water
Cry through the trees. And on the boles and boughs
Green water-lights make rings, already paling.
Leaves speak everywhere. The willow leaves
Silverly stir on the breath of moving water,
Birch-leaves, beyond them, twinkle, and there on the hill,
And the hills beyond again, and the highest hill,
Serrated pines, in the dusk, grow almost black.
By the eighth milestone on the road to nowhere
He drops his sack, and lights once more the pipe
There often lighted. In the dusk-sharpened sky
A pair of night-hawks windily sweep, or fall,
Booming, toward the trees. Thus had it been
Last year, and the year before, and many years:
Ever the same.
What, I have often mused, did Goethe mean?
So many years ago at Weimar, Goethe said
"Heine has all the poet's gifts but love. "
Good God! But that is all I ever had.
More than enough! So much of love to give
That no one gave me any in return.
And so I flashed and snapped in my own fires
Until I stood, with nothing left to burn,
A twisted trunk, in chilly isolation.
_Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam_--you recall?
I was that Northern tree and, in the South,
Amalia. . . . So I turned to scornful cries,
Hot iron songs to save the rest of me;
Plunging the brand in my own misery.
Crouching behind my pointed wall of words,
Ramparts I built of moons and loreleys,
Enchanted roses, sphinxes, love-sick birds,
Giants, dead lads who left their graves to dance,
Fairies and phoenixes and friendly gods--
A curious frieze, half Renaissance, half Greek,
Behind which, in revulsion of romance,
I lay and laughed--and wept--till I was weak.
Words were my shelter, words my one escape,
Words were my weapons against everything.
Was I not once the son of Revolution?
Give me the lyre, I said, and let me sing
My song of battle: Words like flaming stars
Shot down with power to burn the palaces;
Words like bright javelins to fly with fierce
Hate of the oily Philistines and glide
Through all the seven heavens till they pierce
The pious hypocrites who dare to creep
Into the Holy Places. "Then," I cried,
"I am a fire to rend and roar and leap;
I am all joy and song, all sword and flame! "
Ha--you observe me passionate. I aim
To curb these wild emotions lest they soar
Or drive against my will. (So I have said
These many years--and still they are not tame. )
Scraps of a song keep rumbling in my head . . .
Listen--you never heard me sing before.
When a false world betrays your trust
And stamps upon your fire,
When what seemed blood is only rust,
Take up the lyre!
How quickly the heroic mood
Responds to its own ringing;
The scornful heart, the angry blood
Leap upward, singing!
Ah, that was how it used to be. But now,
_Du schoner Todesengel_, it is odd
How more than calm I am. Franz said it shows
Power of religion, and it does, perhaps--
Religion or morphine or poultices--God knows.
I sometimes have a sentimental lapse
And long for saviours and a physical God.
When health is all used up, when money goes,
When courage cracks and leaves a shattered will,
Then Christianity begins. For a sick Jew,
It is a very good religion . . . Still,
I fear that I will die as I have lived,
A long-nosed heathen playing with his scars,
A pagan killed by weltschmerz . . . I remember,
Once when I stood with Hegel at a window,
I, being full of bubbling youth and coffee,
Spoke in symbolic tropes about the stars.
Something I said about "those high
Abodes of all the blest" provoked his temper.
"Abodes? The stars? " He froze me with a sneer,
"A light eruption on the firmament. "
"But," cried romantic I, "is there no sphere
Where virtue is rewarded when we die? "
And Hegel mocked, "A very pleasant whim.
So you demand a bonus since you spent
One lifetime and refrained from poisoning
Your testy grandmother! " . . . How much of him
Remains in me--even when I am caught
In dreams of death and immortality.
To be eternal--what a brilliant thought!
It must have been conceived and coddled first
By some old shopkeeper in Nuremberg,
His slippers warm, his children amply nursed,
Who, with his lighted meerschaum in his hand,
His nightcap on his head, one summer night
Sat drowsing at his door. And mused, how grand
If all of this could last beyond a doubt--
This placid moon, this plump _gemuthlichkeit_;
Pipe, breath and summer never going out--
To vegetate through all eternity . . .
But no such everlastingness for me!
God, if he can, keep me from such a blight.
_Death, it is but the long, cool night,
And Life's a dull and sultry day.
It darkens; I grow sleepy;
I am weary of the light. _
_Over my bed a strange tree gleams
And there a nightingale is loud.
She sings of love, love only . . .
I hear it, even in dreams. _
My Mouche, the other day as I lay here,
Slightly propped up upon this mattress-grave
In which I've been interred these few eight years,
I saw a dog, a little pampered slave,
Running about and barking. I would have given
Heaven could I have been that dog; to thrive
Like him, so senseless--and so much alive!
And once I called myself a blithe Hellene,
Who am too much in love with life to live.
(The shrug is pure Hebraic) . . . For what I've been,
A lenient Lord will tax me--and forgive.
_Dieu me pardonnera--c'est son metier. _
But this is jesting. There are other scandals
You haven't heard . . . Can it be dusk so soon?
Or is this deeper darkness . . . ? Is that you,
Mother? How did you come? Where are the candles? . . .
_Over my bed a strange tree gleams_--half filled
With stars and birds whose white notes glimmer through
Its seven branches now that all is stilled.
What? Friday night again and all my songs
Forgotten? Wait . . . I still can sing--
_Sh'ma Yisroel Adonai Elohenu,
Adonai Echod . . . _
Mouche--Mathilde! . . .
WATERS OF BABYLON
What presses about us here in the evening
As you open a window and stare at a stone-gray sky,
And the streets give back the jangle of meaningless movement
That is tired of life and almost too tired to die.
Night comes on, and even the night is wounded;
There, on its breast, it carries a curved, white scar.
What will you find out there that is not torn and anguished?
Can God be less distressed than the least of His creatures are?
Below are the blatant lights in a huddled squalor;
Above are futile fires in freezing space.
What can they give that you should look to them for compassion
Though you bare your heart and lift an imploring face?
They have seen, by countless waters and windows,
The women of your race facing a stony sky;
They have heard, for thousands of years, the voices of women
Asking them: "Why . . . ? "
Let the night be; it has neither knowledge nor pity.
One thing alone can hope to answer your fear;
It is that which struggles and blinds us and burns between us. . . .
Let the night be. Close the window, beloved. . . . Come here.
THE FLAMING CIRCLE
Though for fifteen years you have chaffed me across the table,
Slept in my arms and fingered my plunging heart,
I scarcely know you; we have not known each other.
For all the fierce and casual contacts, something keeps us apart.
Are you struggling, perhaps, in a world that I see only dimly,
Except as it sweeps toward the star on which I stand alone?
Are we swung like two planets, compelled in our separate orbits,
Yet held in a flaming circle far greater than our own?
Last night we were single, a radiant core of completion,
Surrounded by flames that embraced us but left no burns,
To-day we are only ourselves; we have plans and pretensions;
We move in dividing streets with our small and different concerns.
Merging and rending, we wait for the miracle. Meanwhile
The fire runs deeper, consuming these selves in its growth.
Can this be the mystical marriage--this clash and communion;
This pain of possession that frees and encircles us both?
PORTRAIT OF A MACHINE
What nudity is beautiful as this
Obedient monster purring at its toil;
These naked iron muscles dripping oil
And the sure-fingered rods that never miss.
This long and shining flank of metal is
Magic that greasy labor cannot spoil;
While this vast engine that could rend the soil
Conceals its fury with a gentle hiss.
It does not vent its loathing, does not turn
Upon its makers with destroying hate.
It bears a deeper malice; lives to earn
Its master's bread and laughs to see this great
Lord of the earth, who rules but cannot learn,
Become the slave of what his slaves create.
ROAST LEVIATHAN
"_Old Jews! _" Well, David, aren't we?
What news is that to make you see so red,
To swear and almost tear your beard in half?
Jeered at? Well, let them laugh.
You can laugh longer when you're dead.
What? Are you still too blind to see?
Have you forgot your Midrash! . . . They were right,
The little _goyim_, with their angry stones.
You should be buried in the desert out of sight
And not a dog should howl miscarried moans
Over your foul bones. . . .
Have you forgotten what is promised us,
Because of stinking days and rotting nights?
Eternal feasting, drinking, blazing lights
With endless leisure, periods of play!
Supernal pleasures, myriads of gay
Discussions, great debates with prophet-kings!
And rings of riddling scholars all surrounding
God who sits in the very middle, expounding
The Torah. . . . _Now_ your dull eyes glisten!
Listen:
It is the final Day.
A blast of Gabriel's horn has torn away
The last haze from our eyes, and we can see
Past the three hundred skies and gaze upon
The Ineffable Name engraved deep in the sun.
Now one by one, the pious and the just
Are seated by us, radiantly risen
From their dull prison in the dust.
And then the festival begins!
A sudden music spins great webs of sound
Spanning the ground, the stars and their companions;
While from the cliffs and canons of blue air,
Prayers of all colors, cries of exultation
Rise into choruses of singing gold.
And at the height of this bright consecration,
The whole Creation's rolled before us.
The seven burning heavens unfold. . . .
We see the first (the only one we know)
Dispersed and, shining through,
The other six declining: Those that hold
The stars and moons, together with all those
Containing rain and fire and sullen weather;
Cellars of dew-fall higher than the brim;
Huge arsenals with centuries of snows;
Infinite rows of storms and swarms of seraphim. . . .
* * * * *
Divided now are winds and waters. Sea and land,
Tohu and Bohu, light and darkness, stand
Upright on either hand.
And down this terrible aisle,
While heaven's ranges roar aghast,
Pours a vast file of strange and hidden things:
Forbidden monsters, crocodiles with wings
And perfumed flesh that sings and glows
With more fresh colors than the rainbow knows. . . .
The _reem_, those great beasts with eighteen horns,
Who mate but once in seventy years and die
In their own tears which flow ten stadia high.
The _shamir_, made by God on the sixth morn,
No longer than a grain of barley corn
But stronger than the bull of Bashan and so hard
It cuts through diamonds. Meshed and starred
With precious stones, there struts the shattering _ziz_
Whose groans are wrinkled thunder. . . .
For thrice three hundred years the full parade
Files past, a cavalcade of fear and wonder.
And then the vast aisle clears.
Now comes our constantly increased reward.
The Lord commands that monstrous beast,
Leviathan, to be our feast.
What cheers ascend from horde on ravenous horde!
One hears the towering creature rend the seas,
Frustrated, cowering, and his pleas ignored.
In vain his great, belated tears are poured--
For this he was created, kept and nursed.
Cries burst from all the millions that attend:
_"Ascend, Leviathan, it is the end!
We hunger and we thirst! Ascend! " . . . _
Observe him first, my friend.
_God's deathless plaything rolls an eye
Five hundred thousand cubits high.
The smallest scale upon his tail
Could hide six dolphins and a whale.
His nostrils breathe--and on the spot
The churning waves turn seething hot.
If he be hungry, one huge fin
Drives seven thousand fishes in;
And when he drinks what he may need,
The rivers of the earth recede.
Yet he is more than huge and strong--
Twelve brilliant colors play along
His sides until, compared to him,
The naked, burning sun seems dim.
New scintillating rays extend
Through endless singing space and rise
Into an ecstasy that cries:
"Ascend, Leviathan, ascend! "_
God now commands the multi-colored bands
Of angels to intrude and slay the beast
That His good sons may have a feast of food.
But as they come, Leviathan sneezes twice . . .
And, numb with sudden pangs, each arm hangs slack.
Black terror seizes them; blood freezes into ice
And every angel flees from the attack!
God, with a look that spells eternal law,
Compels them back.
But, though they fight and smite him tail and jaw,
Nothing avails; upon his scales their swords
Break like frayed cords or, like a blade of straw,
Bend towards the hilt and wilt like faded grass.
Defeat and fresh retreat. . . . But once again
God's murmurs pass among them and they mass
With firmer steps upon the crowded plain.
Vast clouds of spears and stones rise from the ground;
But every dart flies past and rocks rebound
To the disheartened angels falling around.
A pause.
The angel host withdraws
With empty boasts throughout its sullen files.
Suddenly God smiles. . . .
On the walls of heaven a tumble of light is caught.
Low thunder rumbles like an afterthought;
And God's slow laughter calls:
"Behemot! "
_Behemot, sweating blood,
Uses for his daily food
All the fodder, flesh and juice
That twelve tall mountains can produce. _
_Jordan, flooded to the brim,
Is a single gulp to him;
Two great streams from Paradise
Cool his lips and scarce suffice. _
_When he shifts from side to side
Earthquakes gape and open wide;_
_When a nightmare makes him snore,
All the dead volcanoes roar. _
_In the space between each toe,
Kingdoms rise and saviours go;
Epochs fall and causes die
In the lifting of his eye. _
_Wars and justice, love and death,
These are but his wasted breath;
Chews a planet for his cud--
Behemot sweating blood. _
Roused from his unconcern,
Behemot burns with anger.
Dripping sleep and languor from his heavy haunches,
He turns from deep disdain and launches
Himself upon the thickening air,
And, with weird cries of sickening despair,
Flies at Leviathan.
None can surmise the struggle that ensues--
The eyes lose sight of it and words refuse
To tell the story in its gory might.
Night passes after night,
And still the fight continues, still the sparks
Fly from the iron sinews, . . . till the marks
Of fire and belching thunder fill the dark
And, almost torn asunder, one falls stark,
Hammering upon the other! . . .
What clamor now is born, what crashings rise!
Hot lightnings lash the skies and frightening cries
Clash with the hymns of saints and seraphim.
The bloody limbs thrash through a ruddy dusk,
Till one great tusk of Behemot has gored
Leviathan, restored to his full strength,
Who, dealing fiercer blows in those last throes,
Closes on reeling Behemot at length--
Piercing him with steel-pointed claws,
Straight through the jaws to his disjointed head.
And both lie dead.
_Then_ come the angels!
With hoists and levers, joists and poles,
With knives and cleavers, ropes and saws,
Down the long slopes to the gaping maws,
The angels hasten; hacking and carving,
So nought will be lacking for the starving
Chosen of God, who in frozen wonderment
Realize now what the terrible thunder meant.
How their mouths water while they are looking
At miles of slaughter and sniffing the cooking!
Whiffs of delectable fragrance swim by;
Spice-laden vagrants that float and entice,
Tickling the throat and brimming the eye.
Ah! what rejoicing and crackling and roasting!
Ah! How the boys sing as, cackling and boasting,
The angels' old wives and their nervous assistants
Run in to serve us. . . .
And while we are toasting
The Fairest of All, they call from the distance
The rare ones of Time, they share our enjoyment;
Their only employment to bear jars of wine
And shine like the stars in a circle of glory.
Here sways Rebekah accompanied by Zilpah;
Miriam plays to the singing of Bilhah;
Hagar has tales for us, Judith her story;
Esther exhales bright romances and musk.
There, in the dusky light, Salome dances.
Sara and Rachel and Leah and Ruth,
Fairer than ever and all in their youth,
Come at our call and go by our leave.
And, from her bower of beauty, walks Eve
While, with the voice of a flower, she sings
Of Eden, young earth and the birth of all things. . . .
Peace without end.
Peace will descend on us, discord will cease;
And we, now so wretched, will lie stretched out
Free of old doubt, on our cushions of ease.
And, like a gold canopy over our bed,
The skin of Leviathan, tail-tip to head,
Soon will be spread till it covers the skies.
Light will still rise from it; millions of bright
Facets of brilliance, shaming the white
Glass of the moon, inflaming the night.
So Time shall pass and rest and pass again,
Burn with an endless zest and then return,
Walk at our side and tide us to new joys;
God's voice to guide us, beauty as our staff.
Thus shall Life be when Death has disappeared. . . .
_Jeered at? Well, let them laugh. _
JOHN GOULD FLETCHER
A REBEL
Tie a bandage over his eyes,
And at his feet
Let rifles drearily patter
Their death-prayers of defeat.
Throw a blanket over his body,
It need no longer stir;
Truth will but stand the stronger
For all who died for her.
Now he has broken through
To his own secret place;
Which, if we dared to do,
We would have no more power left to look on that dead face.
THE ROCK
This rock, too, was a word;
A word of flame and force when that which hurled
The stars into their places in the night
First stirred.
And, in the summer's heat,
Lay not your hand on it, for while the iron hours beat
Gray anvils in the sky, it glows again
With unfulfilled desire.
Touch it not; let it stand
Ragged, forlorn, still looking at the land;
The dry blue chaos of mountains in the distance,
The slender blades of grass it shelters are
Its own dark thoughts of what is near and far.
Your thoughts are yours, too; naked let them stand.
BLUE WATER
Sea-violins are playing on the sands;
Curved bows of blue and white are flying over the pebbles,
See them attack the chords--dark basses, glinting trebles.
Dimly and faint they croon, blue violins.
"Suffer without regret," they seem to cry,
"Though dark your suffering is, it may be music,
Waves of blue heat that wash midsummer sky;
Sea-violins that play along the sands. "
PRAYERS FOR WIND
Let the winds come,
And bury our feet in the sands of seven deserts;
Let strong breezes rise,
Washing our ears with the far-off sounds of the foam.
Let there be between our faces
Green turf and a branch or two of back-tossed trees;
Set firmly over questioning hearts
The deep unquenchable answer of the wind.
IMPROMPTU
My mind is a puddle in the street reflecting green Sirius;
In thick dark groves trees huddle lifting their branches like
beckoning hands.
We eat the grain, the grain is death, all goes back to the earth's
dark mass,
All but a song which moves across the plain like the wind's
deep-muttering breath.
Bowed down upon the earth, man sets his plants and watches for the
seed,
Though he be part of the tragic pageant of the sky, no heaven will
aid his mortal need.
I find flame in the dust, a word once uttered that will stir again,
And a wine-cup reflecting Sirius in the water held in my hands.
CHINESE POET AMONG BARBARIANS
The rain drives, drives endlessly,
Heavy threads of rain;
The wind beats at the shutters,
The surf drums on the shore;
Drunken telegraph poles lean sideways;
Dank summer cottages gloom hopelessly;
Bleak factory-chimneys are etched on the filmy distance,
Tepid with rain.
It seems I have lived for a hundred years
Among these things;
And it is useless for me now to make complaint against them.
For I know I shall never escape from this dull barbarian country,
Where there is none now left to lift a cool jade winecup,
Or share with me a single human thought.
SNOWY MOUNTAINS
Higher and still more high,
Palaces made for cloud,
Above the dingy city-roofs
Blue-white like angels with broad wings,
Pillars of the sky at rest
The mountains from the great plateau
Uprise.
But the world heeds them not;
They have been here now for too long a time.
The world makes war on them,
Tunnels their granite cliffs,
Splits down their shining sides,
Plasters their cliffs with soap-advertisements,
Destroys the lonely fragments of their peace.
Vaster and still more vast,
Peak after peak, pile after pile,
Wilderness still untamed,
To which the future is as was the past,
Barrier spread by Gods,
Sunning their shining foreheads,
Barrier broken down by those who do not need
The joy of time-resisting storm-worn stone,
The mountains swing along
The south horizon of the sky;
Welcoming with wide floors of blue-green ice
The mists that dance and drive before the sun.
THE FUTURE
After ten thousand centuries have gone,
Man will ascend the last long pass to know
That all the summits which he saw at dawn
Are buried deep in everlasting snow.
Below him endless gloomy valleys, chill,
Will wreathe and whirl with fighting cloud, driven by the wind's
fierce breath;
But on the summit, wind and cloud are still:--
Only the sunlight, and death.
And staggering up to the brink of the gulf man will look down
And painfully strive with weak sight to explore
The silent gulfs below which the long shadows drown;
Through every one of these he passed before.
Then since he has no further heights to climb,
And naught to witness he has come this endless way,
On the wind-bitten ice cap he will wait for the last of time,
And watch the crimson sunrays fading of the world's latest day:
And blazing stars will burst upon him there,
Dumb in the midnight of his hope and pain,
Speeding no answer back to his last prayer,
And, if akin to him, akin in vain.
UPON THE HILL
A hundred miles of landscape spread before me like a fan;
Hills behind naked hills, bronze light of evening on them shed;
How many thousand ages have these summits spied on man?
How many thousand times shall I look on them ere this fire in me is
dead?
THE ENDURING
If the autumn ended
Ere the birds flew southward,
If in the cold with weary throats
They vainly strove to sing,
Winter would be eternal;
Leaf and bush and blossom
Would never once more riot
In the spring.
If remembrance ended
When life and love are gathered,
If the world were not living
Long after one is gone,
Song would not ring, nor sorrow
Stand at the door in evening;
Life would vanish and slacken,
Men would be changed to stone.
But there will be autumn's bounty
Dropping upon our weariness,
There will be hopes unspoken
And joys to haunt us still;
There will be dawn and sunset
Though we have cast the world away,
And the leaves dancing
Over the hill.
JEAN STARR UNTERMEYER
OLD MAN
When an old man walks with lowered head
And eyes that do not seem to see,
I wonder does he ponder on
The worm he was or is to be.
Or has he turned his gaze within,
Lost to his own vicinity;
Erecting in a doubtful dream
Frail bridges to Infinity.
TONE PICTURE
(Malipiero: _Impressioni Dal Vero_)
Across the hot square, where the barbaric sun
Pours coarse laughter on the crowds,
Trumpets throw their loud nooses
From corner to corner.
Elephants, whose indifferent backs
Heave with red lambrequins,
Tigers with golden muzzles,
Negresses, greased and turbaned in green and yellow,
Weave and interweave in the merciless glare of noon.
The sun flicks here and there like a throned tyrant,
Snapping his whip.
From amber platters, the smells ascend
Of overripe peaches mingled with dust and heated oils.
Pages in purple run madly about,
Rolling their eyes and grinning with huge, frightened mouths.
And from a high window--a square of black velvet--
A haughty figure stands back in the shadow,
Aloof and silent.
THEY SAY--
They say I have a constant heart, who know
Not anything of how it turns and yields
First here, first there; nor how in separate fields
It runs to reap and then remains to sow;
How, with quick worship, it will bend and glow
Before a line of song, an antique vase,
Evening at sea; or in a well-loved face
Seek and find all that Beauty can bestow.
Yet they do well who name it with a name,
For all its rash surrenders call it true.
Though many lamps be lit, yet flame is flame;
The sun can show the way, a candle too.
The tribute to each fragment is the same
Service to all of Beauty--and her due.
RESCUE
Wind and wave and the swinging rope
Were calling me last night;
None to save and little hope,
No inner light.
Each snarling lash of the stormy sea
Curled like a hungry tongue.
One desperate splash--and no use to me
The noose that swung!
Death reached out three crooked claws
To still my clamoring pain.
I wheeled about, and Life's gray jaws
Grinned once again.
To sea I gazed, and then I turned
Stricken toward the shore,
Praying half-crazed to a moon that burned
Above your door.
And at your door, you discovered me;
And at your heart, I sobbed . . .
And if there be more of eternity
Let me be robbed.
Let me be clipped of that heritage
And burned for ages through;
Freed and stripped of my fear and rage--
But not of you.
MATER IN EXTREMIS
I stand between them and the outer winds,
But I am a crumbling wall.
They told me they could bear the blast alone,
They told me: that was all.
But I must wedge myself between
Them and the first snowfall.
Riddled am I by onslaughts and attacks
I thought I could forestall;
I reared and braced myself to shelter them
Before I heard them call.
I cry them, God, a better shield!
I am about to fall.
SELF-REJECTED
Plow not nor plant this arid mound.
Here is no sap for seed,
No ferment for your need--
Ungrateful ground!
No sun can warm this spot
God has forgot;
No rain can penetrate
Its barren slate.
Demonic winds blow last year's stubble
From its hard slope.
Go, leave the hopeless without hope;
Spare your trouble.
H. D.
HOLY SATYR
Most holy Satyr,
like a goat,
with horns and hooves
to match thy coat
of russet brown,
I make leaf-circlets
and a crown of honey-flowers
for thy throat;
where the amber petals
drip to ivory,
I cut and slip
each stiffened petal
in the rift
of carven petal:
honey horn
has wed the bright
virgin petal of the white
flower cluster: lip to lip
let them whisper,
let them lilt, quivering:
Most holy Satyr,
like a goat,
hear this our song,
accept our leaves,
love-offering,
return our hymn;
like echo fling
a sweet song,
answering note for note.
LAIS
Let her who walks in Paphos
take the glass,
let Paphos take the mirror
and the work of frosted fruit,
gold apples set
with silver apple-leaf,
white leaf of silver
wrought with vein of gilt.
Let Paphos lift the mirror;
let her look
into the polished center of the disk.
Let Paphos take the mirror:
did she press
flowerlet of flame-flower
to the lustrous white
of the white forehead?
did the dark veins beat
a deeper purple
than the wine-deep tint
of the dark flower?
Did she deck black hair,
one evening, with the winter-white
flower of the winter-berry?
Did she look (reft of her lover)
at a face gone white
under the chaplet
of white virgin-breath?
Lais, exultant, tyrannizing Greece,
Lais who kept her lovers in the porch,
lover on lover waiting
(but to creep
where the robe brushed the threshold
where still sleeps Lais),
so she creeps, Lais,
to lay her mirror at the feet
of her who reigns in Paphos.
Lais has left her mirror,
for she sees no longer in its depth
the Lais' self
that laughed exultant,
tyrannizing Greece.
Lais has left her mirror,
for she weeps no longer,
finding in its depth
a face, but other
than dark flame and white
feature of perfect marble.
_Lais has left her mirror_
(so one wrote)
_to her who reigns in Paphos;
Lais who laughed a tyrant over Greece,
Lais who turned the lovers from the porch,
that swarm for whom now
Lais has no use;
Lais is now no lover of the glass,
seeing no more the face as once it was,
wishing to see that face and finding this. _
HELIODORA
He and I sought together,
over the spattered table,
rhymes and flowers,
gifts for a name.
He said, among others,
I will bring
(and the phrase was just and good,
but not as good as mine)
"the narcissus that loves the rain. "
We strove for a name,
while the light of the lamps burnt thin
and the outer dawn came in,
a ghost, the last at the feast
or the first,
to sit within
with the two that remained
to quibble in flowers and verse
over a girl's name.
He said, "the rain loving,"
I said, "the narcissus, drunk,
drunk with the rain. "
Yet I had lost
for he said,
"the rose, the lover's gift,
is loved of love,"
he said it,
"loved of love;"
I waited, even as he spoke,
to see the room filled with a light,
as when in winter
the embers catch in a wind
when a room is dank:
so it would be filled, I thought,
our room with a light
when he said
(and he said it first)
"the rose, the lover's delight,
is loved of love,"
but the light was the same.
Then he caught,
seeing the fire in my eyes,
my fire, my fever, perhaps,
for he leaned
with the purple wine
stained in his sleeve,
and said this:
"Did you ever think
a girl's mouth
caught in a kiss
is a lily that laughs? "
I had not.
I saw it now
as men must see it forever afterwards;
no poet could write again,
"the red-lily,
a girl's laugh caught in a kiss;"
it was his to pour in the vat
from which all poets dip and quaff,
for poets are brothers in this.
So I saw the fire in his eyes,
it was almost my fire
(he was younger)
I saw the face so white;
my heart beat,
it was almost my phrase,
I said, "surprise the muses,
take them by surprise;
it is late,
rather it is dawn-rise,
those ladies sleep, the nine,
our own king's mistresses. "
A name to rhyme,
flowers to bring to a name,
what was one girl faint and shy,
with eyes like the myrtle
(I said: "her underlids
are rather like myrtle"),
to vie with the nine?
Let him take the name,
he had the rhymes,
"the rose, loved of love,"
"the lily, a mouth that laughs,"
he had the gift,
"the scented crocus,
the purple hyacinth,"
what was one girl to the nine?
He said:
"I will make her a wreath;"
he said:
"I will write it thus:
_'I will bring you the lily that laughs,
I will twine
with soft narcissus, the myrtle,
sweet crocus, white violet,
the purple hyacinth and, last,
the rose, loved of love,
that these may drip on your hair
the less soft flowers,
may mingle sweet with the sweet
of Heliodora's locks,
myrrh-curled. '_"
(He wrote myrrh-curled,
I think, the first. )
I said:
"they sleep, the nine,"
when he shouted swift and passionate:
"_that_ for the nine!
Above the mountains
the sun is about to wake,
_and to-day white violets
shine beside white lilies
adrift on the mountain side;
to-day the narcissus opens
that loves the rain_. "
I watched him to the door,
catching his robe
as the wine-bowl crashed to the floor,
spilling a few wet lees
(ah, his purple hyacinth! );
I saw him out of the door,
I thought:
there will never be a poet,
in all the centuries after this,
who will dare write,
after my friend's verse,
"a girl's mouth
is a lily kissed. "
TOWARD THE PIRAEUS
_Slay with your eyes, Greek,
men over the face of the earth,
slay with your eyes, the host,
puny, passionless, weak. _
_Break, as the ranks of steel
broke of the Persian host:
craven, we hated them then:
now we would count them Gods
beside these, spawn of the earth. _
_Grant us your mantle, Greek;
grant us but one
to fright (as your eyes) with a sword,
men, craven and weak,
grant us but one to strike
one blow for you, passionate Greek. _
I
You would have broken my wings,
but the very fact that you knew
I had wings, set some seal
on my bitter heart, my heart
broke and fluttered and sang.
You would have snared me,
and scattered the strands of my nest;
but the very fact that you saw,
sheltered me, claimed me,
set me apart from the rest.
Of men--of _men_ made you a god,
and me, claimed me, set me apart
and the song in my breast, yours, yours forever--
if I escape your evil heart.
II
I loved you:
men have writ and women have said
they loved,
but as the Pythoness stands by the altar,
intense and may not move;
till the fumes pass over;
and may not falter nor break,
till the priest has caught the words
that mar or make
a deme or a ravaged town;
so I, though my knees tremble,
my heart break,
must note the rumbling,
heed only the shuddering
down in the fissure beneath the rock
of the temple floor;
must wait and watch
and may not turn nor move,
nor break from my trance to speak
so slight, so sweet,
so simple a word as love.
III
What had you done
had you been true,
I can not think,
I may not know.
What could we do
were I not wise,
what play invent,
what joy devise?
What could we do
if you were great?
(Yet were you lost,
who were there, then,
to circumvent
the tricks of men? )
What can we do,
for curious lies
have filled your heart,
and in my eyes
sorrow has writ
that I am wise.
IV
If I had been a boy,
I would have worshiped your grace,
I would have flung my worship
before your feet,
I would have followed apart,
glad, rent with an ecstasy
to watch you turn
your great head, set on the throat,
thick, dark with its sinews,
burned and wrought
like the olive stalk,
and the noble chin
and the throat.
I would have stood,
and watched and watched
and burned,
and when in the night,
from the many hosts, your slaves,
and warriors and serving men
you had turned
to the purple couch and the flame
of the woman, tall like cypress tree
that flames sudden and swift and free
as with crackle of golden resin
and cones and the locks flung free
like the cypress limbs,
bound, caught and shaken and loosed,
bound, caught and riven and bound
and loosened again,
as in rain of a kingly storm
or wind full from a desert plain.
So, when you had risen
from all the lethargy of love and its heat,
you would have summoned me, me alone,
and found my hands,
beyond all the hands in the world,
cold, cold, cold,
intolerably cold and sweet.
V
It was not chastity that made me cold nor fear,
only I knew that you, like myself, were sick
of the puny race that crawls and quibbles and lisps
of love and love and lovers and love's deceit.
It was not chastity that made me wild but fear
that my weapon, tempered in different heat,
was over-matched by yours, and your hand
skilled to yield death-blows, might break.
With the slightest turn--no ill-will meant--
my own lesser, yet still somewhat fine-wrought
fiery-tempered, delicate, over-passionate steel.
CONRAD AIKEN
SEVEN TWILIGHTS
I
The ragged pilgrim, on the road to nowhere,
Waits at the granite milestone. It grows dark.
Willows lean by the water. Pleas of water
Cry through the trees. And on the boles and boughs
Green water-lights make rings, already paling.
Leaves speak everywhere. The willow leaves
Silverly stir on the breath of moving water,
Birch-leaves, beyond them, twinkle, and there on the hill,
And the hills beyond again, and the highest hill,
Serrated pines, in the dusk, grow almost black.
By the eighth milestone on the road to nowhere
He drops his sack, and lights once more the pipe
There often lighted. In the dusk-sharpened sky
A pair of night-hawks windily sweep, or fall,
Booming, toward the trees. Thus had it been
Last year, and the year before, and many years:
Ever the same.
