s: And the 'orse was meditatin', an' I was standin' near,


s: When master 'e touched somethin'--what it was we'll never know -


s: But it sort o' spurred the boiler up and made the engine go.


s: ''Old 'ard, old gal!' says master, and 'Gently then!' says I,


s: But an engine won't 'eed coaxin' an' it ain't no use to try;


s: So first 'e pulled a lever, an' then 'e turned a screw,


s: And first it went quite slowly and the 'orse went also slow,


s: But 'e 'ad to buck up faster when the wheels began to go;


s: For the car kept crowdin' on 'im and buttin' 'im along,


s: And in less than 'alf a minute, sir, that 'orse was goin' strong.


s: At first 'e walked quite dignified, an' then 'e 'ad to trot,


s: And then 'e tried a canter when the pace became too 'ot.


s: 'E looked 'is very 'aughtiest, as if 'e didn't 'e mind,


s: And all the time the motor-car was pushin' 'im be'ind.


s: Now, master lost 'is 'ead when 'e found 'e couldn't stop,


s: And 'e pulled a valve or somethin' an' somethin' else went pop,


s: An' somethin' else went fizzywiz, and in a flash, or less,


s: That blessed car was goin' like a limited express.


s: Master 'eld the steerin' gear, an' kept the road all right,


s: And away they whizzed and clattered--my aunt! it was a sight.


s: 'E seemed the finest draught 'orse as ever lived by far,


s: For all the country Juggins thought 'twas 'im wot pulled the car.


s: 'E was stretchin' like a grey'ound, 'e was goin' all 'e knew;


s: But it bumped an' shoved be'ind 'im, for all that 'e could do;


s: It butted 'im an' boosted 'im an' spanked 'im on a'ead,


s: Till 'e broke the ten-mile record, same as I already said.


s: Ten mile in twenty minutes!  'E done it, sir.  That's true.


s: The only time we ever found what that 'ere 'orse could do.


s: Some say it wasn't 'ardly fair, and the papers made a fuss,


s: But 'e broke the ten-mile record, and that's good enough for us.


s: You see that 'orse's tail, sir?  You don't!  No more do we,


s: Which really ain't surprisin', for 'e 'as no tail to see;


s: That engine wore it off 'im before master made it stop,


s: And all the road was littered like a bloomin' barber's shop.


s: And master?  Well, it cured 'im.  'E altered from that day,


s: And come back to 'is 'orses in the good old-fashioned way.


s: And if you wants to git the sack, the quickest way by far


s: Is to 'int as 'ow you think 'e ought to keep a motor-car.


s: When the farmer comes to count them in the morning.


s: And the woodlands smell so sweetly in the morning.


s: For the scent is lying strongly in the morning.


s: For the horse is stretched and straining,


s: When the Chiddingfolds are running in the morning.


s: As we race through Thursley Common in the morning.


s: For it's roughish, toughish going in the morning.


s: 'Ware the branch that's drooping o'er you!


s: As you gallop through the woodland in the morning.


s: And we hear the shrill whoo-ooping in the morning.


s: If we chose to go a-hunting in the morning.


s: But Squire said 'Shame!  The beast was game!


s: There weren't a person as 'e knew there;


s: ''Ware 'oles!' says 'e, an' with the word,


s: ''Ware 'oles!' says 'e, an' saves all three.


s: Up with the royals that top the white spread of her!


s: Press her and dress her, and drive through the foam;


s: The Island's to port, and the mainland ahead of her,


s: Bo'sun, O Bo'sun, just look at the green of it!


s: Look at the red cattle down by the hedge!


s: Look at the farmsteading--all that is seen of it,


s: 'Lord! the tongues of them clattering, clattering,


s: All growing wild at a peep of the Wight;


s: Aye, sir, aye, it has set them all chattering,


s: Thinking of home and their mothers to-night.'


s: Spread the topgallants--oh, lay them out lustily!


s: What though it darken o'er Netherby Combe?


s: 'Tis but the valley wind, puffing so gustily -


s: 'Bo'sun, O Bo'sun, just see the long slope of it!


s: Culver is there, with the cliff and the light.


s: Tell us, oh tell us, now is there a hope of it?


s: Shall we have leave for our homes for to-night?'


s: 'Tut, the clack of them!  Steadily!  Steadily!


s: Aye, as you say, sir, they're little ones still;


s: 'The Spit and the Nab are the gates of the promise,


s: Their mothers to them--and to us it's our wives.


s: I've sailed forty years, and--By God it's upon us!


s: Down royals, Down top'sles, down, down, for your lives!'


s: A grey swirl of snow with the squall at the back of it,


s: Heeling her, reeling her, beating her down!


s: A gleam of her bends in the thick of the wrack of it,


s: A flutter of white in the eddies of brown.


s: It broke in one moment of blizzard and blindness;


s: The next, like a foul bat, it flapped on its way.


s: But our ship and our boys!  Gracious Lord, in your kindness,


s: Give help to the mothers who need it to-day!


s: Give help to the women who wait by the water,


s: Who stand on the Hard with their eyes past the Wight.


s: Ah! whisper it gently, you sister or daughter,


s: 'Our boys are all gathered at home for to-night.'


s: Little boy Love drew his bow at a chance,


s: He hit an old chaperone watching the dance,


s: For the little boy's busy, and how could he stay?


s: Little boy Love drew a shaft just for sport


s: He winged an old veteran drinking his port,


s: But it's no use to argue, for Love's out of sight.


s: A sad-faced young clerk in a cell all apart


s: But the boy's random arrow has sunk in his heart,


s: 'But I AM his duty,' quoth Love as he flew.


s: The king sought a bride, and the nation had hoped


s: But the little boy shot, and the king has eloped


s: 'But I'M a king also,' cried Love on the wing.


s: 'I'll pack both my bow and my quiver away,


s: But we can't do without you, you dear little tease!'


s: The cheese-mites asked how the cheese got there,


s: The Orthodox said that it came from the air,


s: They argued it long and they argued it strong,


s: But of all the choice spirits who lived in the cheese,


s: And I cannot see them clearly on the hill.


s: For the shadow lies so darkly on the hill.


s: But there's something that is lying on the hill.


s: His dress was rich, his words were fair.


s: His purse was light, his jerkin frayed -


s: Oh, some have laughed and some have cried,


s: But off they ride through wood and glade,


s: When wind blows Celia's gown up off her legs


s: You don't believe he has gone away and left his great coat...


s: so you pretend... you see his face up in the ceiling.


s: When you clap your hands and cry, grandpa, grandpa, grandpa,


s: on the stained glass window of St. Joseph.


s: The girl with the black eyes holds you tight,


s: and trees in the gardens tugging at their feet


s: crying... and crying... because no one stops...


s: you spin like a penny thrown out in the street.


s: Then the man clutches her by the hair....


s: and you scream at her face, that is white as a stone on a grave


s: till the night draws backward... the night that walks alone


s: Mama says, I am cold, Betty, and shivers.


s: wind in the masts... like Celia crying....


s: but though you rub your cheek against mama's hand


s: the candle is all dressed up in a new frill.


s: And stars nod to you through the hole in the curtain,


s: You feel sorry for the poor wooden chair


s: and the little babies getting drowned....


s: and she held it against her black bodice


s: But next day we boiled and ate it with salt.


s: to put in the hole where the whistle was


s: it were to drop out of the string of white faces


s: they all run away from the farmer's wife


s: way you blow in a bag before you burst it.


s: that lies all over you without any weight


s: till they look like dead people's faces....


s: Jimmie's hair is white as a white mouse.


s: His lashes are gold as mama's wedding ring


s: You wouldn't believe Jimmie was different...


s: ... Mabel pulls you in the gate and shakes you


s: that look at you with a grave, great look.


s: When she sings, O for the light of thine eyes Dolores,


s: the way flowers do when they are drowned.


s: the stars seem to shine through her voice


s: till it is only as big as a tiny silver bird


s: You can see the sandhills from our new room.


s: when they will creep over the false prophets


s: they come out at dark when the young snakes play


s: and because Only Ones have to live alone


s: to climb up... and up... and up... into the wet sky


s: so your feet just whisper in the grass--


s: not even mama says what you are thinking about stars.


s: You have to be still when they look at you.


s: They push your song inside of you with their song.


s: and her body is like a tub with feet on it.


s: When I have kissed all the paint off her body


s: so I scratched her between the eyes with a pin.


s: and poured sugar in the hole at the back of her head.


s: Wind must be lying down with its tail under it--


s: when they flew through the cedars of Lebanon


s: perhaps it lives down in a dark, dark cave


s: for the little girls sit stiff as stones


s: with their backs to the mouth of the cave


s: as they pass under openings made by dropped leaves.


s: wouldn't change places with the great cross


s: and follow you about like cats and dogs.


s: There's a shadow in the corner of the shed,


s: as I'd tread on a worm that I didn't see.


s: Are you surprised I'd put my arms around you?


s: When you scoop a sunbeam up on your palm


s: not even of the ones that have eyes in them.


s: The sun gets angry when you stare at him.


s: and tremble like a drop of rain upon a flower


s: You hold on to a wall that whirls around


s: When you pass by the ditch where Janie is


s: and never, never, never forgive them....


s: so we poked a stick in the bottle-green water.


s: and an old top with the paint washed off.


s: to cut off dandelion-heads at one swing....


s: He was the kind of boy you knew when you had Celia....


s: he mightn't have trod on your garden and said:


s: Get out of my field you dirty little beggar...


s: he mightn't have struck you with his whip....


s: Hot road... silly wind playing with your hair....


s: because the grass didn't fall down under his feet....


s: as life grapples in a million avid points,


s: will make covert of a crevice in the night,


s: Singing a hot sweet song to the super-stars


s: Fog-horns sentimentalizing on the river...


s: Purring lights... red and green and golden-whiskered...


s: Digging daintily pointed claws in the soft mud...


s: How my heart kept racing out along the rails,


s: As water, cleared of the reflection of a bird


s: Yet trembles with the beating of its wings,


s: So my soul... emptied of the known you... utterly...


s: Is yet vibrant with the cadence of the song


s: A word the waters of the world have washed,


s: A world that rattles well in emptiness: Good-by.


s: over Sydney, smoke-pale, rising out of the bay....)


s: that has shaken off its dust in low valleys


s: is as the remote hunger of droning things,


s: Through a fissure of brick canyon shutting out stars,


s: Spigoting two high windows over the West river....


s: Your eyes are two red-glowing arcs shifting with my vision....


s: Light as the withered pod of a sweet pea,


s: But if... away off... on a fork of grassed earth


s: socketing an inlet reach of blue water...


s: if canaries (do they sing out of cages?)


s: housed in the soul as a seed in the earth...


s: to break forth at spring with the crocuses into young smiles


s: And only the wind scandal-mongers with gum trees,


s: Playing virgin after all her encounters,


s: But I'd rather... like the cats in the alley... count time


s: Falling between my stoop-shouldered walls,


s: Aren't there bigger things to talk about


s: Like little puce poems out of a sick soul?


s: As to whom--it can't be Mars! put the moon--that way....


s: I know your secrets... better than all the policemen


s: Long vast shapes... cooled and flushed through with darkness....


s: From some little pert cafe chirping up like a sparrow.


s: Throwing gray spatter of light... pale without heat...


s: Lights mad with creating in a river... turning its sullen back...


s: Vomit back into the darkness your spawn of light....


s: The wind has nestled down among the corn....


s: mad-tossing golden mane on the neck of the wind...


s: that fling their beauty up in long white sheaves


s: did you enter my wound from another wound


s: as a bird flying through cobwebbed trees at sun-up


s: Where Canal Street saunters off by herself among quiet trees?


s: Scatter me in shining petals over the passers-by....


s: Joyously I reunite... sway and gather to myself....


s: Sedately I walk by the dancing feet of children--


s: Not knowing I too dance over the cobbled spring.


s: And we both look askance at the snowed-in people


s: evanescent as the reflection of a white swan


s: Lying on your back, eyes open, sucking down stars,


s: Or you kissing and picking over fresh deaths...


s: And smiled... and shaken off the dust...


s: From off the bruised brown of your eyes.


s: We plucked her hands from off the door....


s: (Feet running before the sleuth-light...


s: under sun burning down through a sky-light like a glass lid.


s: and the air a bloated presence pressing on the walls


s: Electric... piercing... shrill as a fife


s: Another voice rises... another and another


s: And life--surging, clamorous, swarming like a rabble


s: gurgles, rushes, gouges her blocked pipes.


s: The band... accoutered and neatly caparisoned...


s: And I think of a wild stallion... newly caught...


s: Let the iron spill out, out of the troughs--


s: Leave the mill and the foundry and the mine


s: Leave the desk and the shuttle and the loom--


s: Come, in your irresistible unspent force


s: They think they have tamed you, workers--


s: But out of the passion of the red frontiers


s: A great flower trembles and burns and glows


s: As our forefathers stood on the prairies


s: Till the birds shall fly to the mountains


s: A tentacle of the vast dawn is resting on your face


s: though I know how warmly yours would close about them.


s: bearing strange symbols to the new dawn.


s: If I stay... projected, trembling against these bars filtering


s: will your eyes... that bore their lonely way through mine...


s: ... but I cannot stay... for the smell...


s: battened under with its twisting green...


s: and the silence shuffles heavy dice of feet in iron corridors...


s: until the day... that has soiled herself in this black hole


s: shall measure your circumference and height.


s: And body shrunken into half its space...


s: Well-used as some cracked paving-stone...


s: Is it you I see go by the window, Jim Larkin--you not looking


s: And your shadow swaying from East to West?


s: They do not see you go by their windows, Jim Larkin,


s: My spirit lifts in you like a banner streaming free of hot walls.


s: There is hope in you... not sweet... acrid as blood in the mouth.


s: Will you feast with me, American People?


s: But what have I that shall seem good to you!


s: Is floating in velvety blackness shot with steel-blue lights,


s: Leaning its ponderous bulk upon the Ghetto


s: Like a beast pressing its great steaming belly close,


s: Herring-yellow faces, spotted as with a mold,


s: And infants' faces with open parched mouths that suck at the air


s: Converging to the forums and meeting halls,


s: And they call to the young men and to one another


s: Only their eyes are ancient and alone...


s: Did they vision--with those eyes darkly clear,


s: That looked the sun in the face and were not blinded--


s: (And the scorpions tick-ticking on the sand...)


s: I room at Sodos'--in the little green room that was Bennie's--


s: Who is not so old and wears her own hair.


s: He has forgotten most things--even Bennie who stays away


s: Whose young pagan breath puts out the light--


s: On the blotched-paper whiteness of his face,


s: She has black-wet hair full of cold lights


s: Then--when needles move more slowly on the cloth


s: And hair falls in damp wisps over the eyes--


s: She--who stabs the piece-work with her bitter eye


s: Held in place by the fierce pressure all about--


s: Those books that have most unset thought,


s: Or spits her fire out in some dim manger of a hall,


s: That all night long has beat about a light.


s: The Gentile lover, that she charms and shrews,


s: Better than Bennie with his Christian woman...


s: And the soft babble of their talk comes to her


s: Till the keen draught blowing up the empty hall


s: And she hears his foot on the first stairs.


s: --Yet where else... tousled and collar awry at her olive throat.


s: With English... and everything... there is so little time.


s: Psychology, plays, science, philosophies--


s: One is always aware of Anna, and the young men turn their heads


s: And her cheap clothes are always in rhythm.


s: When the strike was on she gave half her pay.


s: She would give anything--save the praise that is hers


s: But Sarah's desire covets nothing apart.


s: I take her little cold hand and try to draw her to me,


s: Away from the terror of oncoming feet...


s: And drums rattling like curses in red roaring mouths...


s: And lights that nose out hiding-places...


s: That has outlived beauty and knows the ways of fear--


s: The night--wide-opening crooked and comforting arms,


s: Like an ancient tapestry of motley weave


s: With a tall black lamb's wool cap upon his head...


s: The meager cotton with its dismal flower--


s: Who have no backward vision in their eyes--


s: They find no peg to hang their taunts upon.


s: And, unperturbed, he keeps his bitter peace.


s: What if a rigid arm and stuffed blue shape,


s: Taking his proud patience for humility...


s: As when to hold, withdraw, persuade, advance...


s: Or clean-all or the newest thing in tags,


s: Demand goes to him as the bee to flower.


s: And nature balanced like the scales at nought--


s: Looks Westward where the trade-lights glow,


s: As I sit in my little fifth-floor room--


s: Out of the gray church at Rutgers street,


s: Holding its high-flung cross above the Ghetto,


s: With that uneven droopiness that women know


s: Yet I have seen no other than the parrot there.


s: I watch her mornings as she shakes her rugs


s: Everything is faded, shabby, colorless, old...


s: Young life and young thought are alike barred,


s: And no unheralded noises jolt old nerves,


s: And there is no divergence and no friction


s: Because life is flattened and ground as by many mills.


s: The insolent, young, enthusiastic, undiscriminating Committee,


s: They are gentle and torpid and busy with eating.


s: There is a dull fury in his eyes, like little rusty grates.


s: Trembling in his many swathings like an awakened mummy,


s: --And the Committee flings him a waste glance,


s: The warped shrunken body straightens like a tree.


s: With uplifted arms and perished fingers,


s: When they, prophetic, heard upon their sepulchres


s: Those feet that may not halt nor turn aside for ancient things.


s: Avid alike for the flower or the dung...


s: (Having no dainty antennae for the touch and withdrawal--


s: Little squat tailors with unkempt faces,


s: And bodies yet vibrant with the momentum of long runs,


s: A welter of maimed face bashed in from some old wound,


s: His words knock each other like little wooden blocks.


s: Egos yearning with the world-old want in their eyes--


s: Hurt hot eyes that do not sleep enough...


s: Trailing her dissolving glory over each hard-won barricade--


s: At the secret meeting in this shut-in room,


s: Like little potted flowers closed under the stars.


s: Tearing and rending asunder its living cells...


s: Wars, arts, discoveries, rebellions, travails, immolations,


s: And the young men twist on their beds in languor and dizziness


s: With dust of long oblivions in the gray pulp behind--


s: And they gaze at the moon--throwing off a faint heat--


s: The moon, blond and burning, creeping to their cots


s: Lolling on the coverlet... like a woman offering her white body.


s: And their ears are filled as with a delirious rhapsody,


s: That grow tender and comforting like the eyes of comrades;


s: Like a word molten out of the mouth of God.


s: Mauves, exquisite, tremulous, and luminous purples


s: Now all have gone save an old man with mirrors--


s: Softly as when lovers close street doors.


s: Trails over a boat's side in dalliance--


s: Rippling the smooth dead surface of the heat,


s: Turns on her trampled bed to meet the day.


s: And baffles me when I try to examine it,


s: Leaving my ego ruffled and preening itself.


s: Or out of the black and clotted gutters,


s: Out of the bloody stills of the world...


s: And night like a purple cloth unrolled--


s: Throwing an ephemeral glory about life's vanishing points,


s: On bevies of little lithe twinkling feet,


s: Captive light in the goblets quivering...


s: Behind the blinding gold of eunuch lights


s: Or like a huge serpent, iridescent-scaled,


s: Reserving nought for some adventurous night.


s: Crass rays streaming from the vestibules;


s: Tustle with the wind--the wind like a scythe


s: Arcs shimmering through a greenish haze--


s: With no more rustle than a dropped leaf settling--


s: Her jaws sagging as on loosened hinges...


s: That dances above her its dance of dry bones.


s: And the old man lifts a shaking palsied hand,


s: Tucking the displaced paper about his knees.


s: And agitating the gutters, that eject little spirals of vapor


s: Bare-legged children stamp in the puddles, splashing each other,


s: People sniff the air with an upward look--


s: Or dusty unaired rooms where someone died--


s: But the delicate gossamer breaks at his contact


s: And recoils to her in strands of shattered rose.


s: Smoky and fly-blown glass of lunch-rooms,


s: On gems half weary of their glittering...


s: Out of the lamp-bestarred and clouded dusk--


s: Knowing no impediment of its sure advance--


s: With cold white fists upon the tenements--


s: Or spill out of the black pockets of alleys,


s: And the snow with its devilish and silken whisper...


s: Blowing shrill blasts over the Bread Line


s: Silent as though accouched of the darkness,


s: Together we shall make the last grand charge


s: And you shall rush on exultant as I fall--


s: Scattering a brief fire about your feet...


s: Than like a taper forgotten in the dawn,


s: Whose strings are under the mountains...


s: In the triumphant roaring of the steam and pistons pounding--


s: And the blood leaps in my arteries, unreproved,


s: For now I know I too am of Thy Chosen...


s: That faints in the grip of Thy gauntlet.


s: Sending faint thrills along the leads...


s: Fire is running along the roots of the mountains...


s: (Dawn is aglow in the light of the Iron...)


s: Here ye, Dictators--late Lords of the Iron,


s: Shut in your council rooms, palsied, depowered--


s: Not whispered in cloture, one to the other,


s: (Brother in fear of the fear of his brother...)


s: On the brazen, articulate tongues of the Iron


s: Sung to the rhythm of prisons dismantled,


s: (Hearts death-anointed yet hearing life calling...)


s: Ankle chains bursting and gallows unbraced...


s: Sung to the rhythm of arsenals burning...


s: Of mail-sided monsters shattered asunder...


s: Hulks of black turbines all mangled and roaring,


s: Battering egress through ramparted walls...


s: Mouthing of engines, made rabid with power,


s: Into the holocaust snorting and plunging...


s: Jumbled in white-heaten masses disshapen...


s: Writhing in flame-tortured levers of iron...


s: Gnashing of steel serpents twisting and dying...


s: Screeching of steam-glutted cauldrons rending...


s: Shock of leviathans prone on each other...


s: Scaled flanks touching, ore entering ore...


s: Steel haunches closing and grappling and swaying


s: In the waltz of the mating locked mammoths of iron,


s: Crash of devastating hammers despoiling..


s: Structures of steel welded, subtily tempered,


s: Marvelous wrought of the wizards of ore,


s: Torn into octaves discordantly clashing,


s: Chords never final but onward progressing


s: In monstrous fusion of sound ever smiting on sound


s: Till the ear, tortured, shrieks for cessation


s: Of the raving inharmonies hatefully mingling...


s: The fierce obligato the steel pipes are screaming...


s: The blare of the rude molten music of Iron...


s: He summoned his mates from the pit's mouth


s: And they, who were the Lords of the Hill,


s: When they heard out of the silence of wheels


s: And when night--that has connived at so much--


s: I know there was a silence in his heart,


s: And that life signaled back, transcending space,


s: So that he missed no gesture of the wind


s: So that he saw the light on comrades' faces


s: Quiescent, with her great flanks on the globe,


s: And once at the skies whirling above him...


s: Hills gliding like hands out of a slipping hold...)


s: Streaming in tenuous rays down the black gullets of the Hill...


s: (The copper, insensate, sleeping in the buried lode.)


s: Forcing the clogged windows of arsenals...


s: Probing with long sentient fingers in the copper chips...


s: Light over the trestles and the iron clips


s: Of the black bridge--poised like a gigantic spider motionless--


s: Sweet inquisition of light, like a child's wonder...


s: Light in the slow fumbling summer leaves,


s: Waking the early flies, keen to the scent...


s: The young day sprays with indiscriminate gold...


s: They pass through the great iron gates--


s: Skilled to appraise the tunnage of cranes


s: Like steel that has cooled in the trough;


s: Silent of purpose, inflexible, set to fulfilment--


s: Who hold the earth so careless in the crook of their arms?


s: And the lights guttering out like candles in a wind...


s: And idle men chaffing across the trenches...


s: And the clamor for grain shut in the mills of the world?


s: Leaving the ground encumbered with dead wire


s: A mildewed hulk above the nations squatting?


s: What dreams have these to hide from death!


s: But the Hunted--the world's bitter leaven--


s: As a thing that your souls are in pawn to,


s: That were trapped in the lusts he created,


s: They are crushed in the coils of your halters;


s: 'Twere well--by the creeds ye have nursed--


s: They who died for the millions of toilers--


s: It is dark... so dark, I remember the sun on Chios...


s: Rise like a thin white virgin out of the waters


s: For thrice ten moons we had touched no flesh


s: That was black and bitter and salt and scaled by the sea.


s: His hair was yellow as corn steeped in wine...


s: And on my right was Phildar the Carthaginian,


s: But when a big wind came up he screamed with it.


s: Or spat across me at the Greek boy, whose mouth was red and apart


s: We had rowed from dawn and the green galley hard at our stern.


s: She was green and squat and skulked close to the sea.


s: All day the tish of their paddles had tickled our ears,


s: And little naked stars dabbled in the water


s: Slid over the silver belly of the sea thick-scaled with light,


s: When he looked at me I cursed him again,


s: How long... since their last shell gouged our batteries?


s: How long... since we rose at aim with a sleuth moon astern?


s: (It was the damned green moon that nosed us out...


s: And amazed and bloodied we reared half up


s: And fought askew with the left hand shackled...


s: On the dimpled face of the water fathoms above...


s: It was still... so still... we three that were left alive


s: But three make bitter company at one man's bread...


s: One grinned with his mouth awry from the long gapped teeth...


s: Only the dead men's oars that flapped in the sea...


s: It is still... so still, with the jargon of engines quiet.


s: Reach our hands in the dark and touch each other's faces...


s: We three sheathing hate in our hearts...


s: But when hate shall have made its circuit,


s: For I am the pyre their memories burn on...


s: Our fiery gestures light the walled-in darkness of the sea...


s: Why should you seek a plateau walled about,


s: That day, in the slipping of torsos and straining flanks


s: on the bloodied ooze of fields plowed by the iron,


s: And the smoke bluish near earth and bronze in the sunshine


s: And that strange vibration at the roots of us...


s: Heaving like a gaunt pelvis to the sun...


s: Not mere tongues dividing, but soul from soul,


s: To fashion one infinite, towering whole.


s: In tented boughs leaf-drawn before the stars,


s: Why do you blow on my thoughts--like cut flowers


s: Gathered and laid to dry on this paper, rolled out of dead wood?


s: Shaking that flower at me with soft invitation


s: So you fluttered the curtains about my cradle,


s: Did I stir on my pillow, making to follow you, Fleet One?


s: I--swaddled, unwinged, like a bird in the egg.


s: My dreams that crackle under your breath...


s: You have the dust of the world to blow on...


s: Do not tag me and dance away, looking back...


s: Or hurling the sea backward from the grinning sand.


s: As we whirl about the circle of the globe...


s: As we tear at the pillars of the world...


s: The wind that is battering at your gates.


s: (There's a shout at the door an' a big red light...)


s: Han's that hold yuh are steady an' white...


s: Lickin' up the roof an' the sticks of home--


s: --Cain't yuh sleep, mah bit-of-honey-comb?


s: Bright red cherries spilled on the groun'--


s: Hush, mah lil' black-bug--doan yuh weep.


s: By her own fron' door in the blazin' heat


s: Outah the shacks like warts on the street...


s: An' the singin' flame an' the gleeful crowd


s: Circlin' aroun'... won't mammy be proud!


s: With a stone at her hade an' a stone on her heart,


s: An' her mouth like a red plum, broken apart...


s: About the big bonfire white folks make--


s: Such gran' doin's fo' a lil' coon's sake!


s: Hear all the eagah feet runnin' in town--


s: See all the willin' han's reach outah night--


s: Han's that are wonderful, steady an' white!


s: To toss up a lil' babe, blinkin' an' brown...


s: Mammy is sleepin' an' daddy's run lame...


s: (Soun' may yuh sleep in yo' cradle o' fire!)


s: Accouched and comforted and sleeping warm,


s: Diamonds gush from her ear-lobes over the goitrous throat.


s: like a flower that has been pressed apart...


s: Why does she come alone to this obscure basement--


s: She who should have a litter and hand-maidens to support her


s: She ascends the stairway, and the waiters turn to look at her,


s: That quiver incessantly, emitting trillions of fiery rays...


s: All that is submerged, encased, unfolded,


s: However deep the pit and heaped the clay--


s: Hooding a sacred rose under the ice cap of the world--


s: The old men of the world have made a fire


s: They catch him and bind him and throw him again to the flames.


s: And the smoke of the young men's torment


s: Rises round and sheer as the trunk of a pillared oak,


s: And the darkness thereof spreads over the sky....


s: And the old men of the world sit round the fire


s: But the smoke of the young men's torment


s: Over the mooned white roofs of the town...


s: As we sat... a little apart... in the close-pressing night.


s: The moon hung above us like a golden mango,


s: Warm and fragrant as the open mouth of a child


s: Rolling to the purple edge of the world,


s: And I lay quietly on the drawn knees of the mountain,


s: I could not count the hours, they ran so fast


s: Like little bare-foot urchins--shaking my hands away...


s: Somewhere water trickled like a thin severed vein...


s: Touching me gently, tentatively, like a paw.


s: The gray cloud that had covered the sky like sackcloth


s: Like hooded virgins, pulling their cloaks about them...


s: For the Tall One's veil held a shimmer of silver...


s: Broke into a sudden wonder of peaks, stemming clear and cold,


s: It seemed a wind might blow it from the snow.


s: I smelled the raw sweet essences of things,


s: As tiny creatures came out of their doors


s: To see God pouring light into his star...


s: And I too got up stiffly from the earth,


s: I might have stemmed them in a narrow vase


s: I might have held them so--mechanically--


s: Where none may see--not even ye who gave--


s: Close to her white flesh housed an hour,


s: The ore in the crucible is pungent, smelling like acrid wine,


s: It is dusky red, like the ebb of poppies,


s: And purple, like the blood of elderberries.


s: Surely it is a strong wine--juice distilled of the fierce iron.


s: So that I turn aside from the goodly board,


s: So that I look askance upon the common cup,


s: I watched a star fall like a great pearl into the sea,


s: Till my ego expanding encompassed sea and star,


s: They are fighting to-night in Sackville Street,


s: Because I believe that many do not understand the verse of


s: I want to wander far behind the hills of the earth.


s: My blind dream watches far from earthly wishes.


s: Examples: The Athlete: in the background is a demonstration of a


s: The earliest poetry forms a second group:


s: In this case the unity of time is necessary to a certain degree.


s: The unity of space is not required, therefore not observed.  In


s: twelve lines the twilight is represented on a pond, tree, field,


s: mindless confusion of strange performances.  Others believe,


s: incorrectly, that these kinds of "ideal" pictures are possible in


s: The intention, furthermore, to grasp the reflex of things


s: baby-carriage cries.  It would have been untrue lyrically had he


s: By chance, it is conceptually also not untrue: a boy plays with a


s: That Twilight and other poems take things strangely (The comic is


s: Proof is: Lichtenstein writes poems in which the "grotesque"


s: disappears, without notice, behind the "ungrotesque."


s: Other differences between older poems (for example, Twilight) and


s: The third group consists of the poems of Kuno Kohn.


s: A man walked back and forth in his torn slippers


s: About which he was informed by the evening paper.


s: And sadly yawned, the way only that man yawns


s: Like a timid person who gets gooseflesh,


s: And the way the person who stuffs himself


s: When he was stark naked, he lifted something.


s: In the evening I gladly walk in rubbers,


s: But also when the streets are clean and spotless.


s: And all one hundred pounds of my body skips.


s: The poet thought: ah, I have enough trash!


s: The dress-shirts, the streets, and smells,


s: The nights and the coaches and the windows,


s: The laughter, the street-lights and murders--


s: I'm really fed up now with all the crap,


s: Whatever will be will be--it's all the same to me:


s: The patent leather shoe Hurts me.  And I take it off--


s: Only it's a shame about my silk socks...


s: Which the wind tossed, so that they popped,


s: The roofs made their crooked mouths grimace,


s: They had a completely drunken good time--


s: Ah, but who wouldn't want to drive a car forever--


s: We burrow our way through high-stemmed woods,


s: We pass through the wind and attack the towns, which speed up.


s: But the odors of the sluggish cities are hateful to us--


s: Ah, we are flying!  Always alongside death...


s: How we despise and scorn him who sits on our lives!


s: Who lays out graves for us and makes all streets crooked--ha, we


s: Thus we shall auto our way through the whole world...


s: We find a violent ending against a sturdy tree.


s: I am after all this time weary of the waiters,


s: Who scornfully bring us, with their smug grimaces,


s: Ah, I shall find out the meaning of existence.


s: And in the evening I shall do some roller skating


s: But you can no longer detect the imprint of the clouds


s: Which up there cover the sky in soft silk.


s: Over the piled up houses, where streetlights,


s: And high above thousands of stars are flying,


s: And sunken, I watch very seriously, somewhat pale,


s: But rather thoughtful about the refined, heavenly blue legs of a


s: While an auto cuts me to pieces, so that my head rolls like a red


s: She is surprised.  And swears like a lady.  And kicks it


s: A totally perverse Turk bought for himself,


s: From his white-slaver, two former mannequins, in quite good


s: When he had them, he sang, in celebration of himself:


s: As well as very small, black silk shoes.


s: They sleep limply.  And others read again


s: As though they had sucked everything dry.


s: Still others open the red cracks of their mouths wide


s: For my part, I smile courteously.  Ah, I hide


s: Deep under these smiles, as though in a coffin,


s: The terrible, repressed, wise complaints


s: About the fact that we are forced into this existence,


s: Jammed in, firmly and inescapably trapped


s: Confusing, hard, that we do not understand.


s: And the fact that each man is distant and estranged from himself


s: As though from a neighbor whom he does not know at all,


s: And whose house he has always only seen from the outside.


s: A slice too deep, cuts off the round, cheerful head


s: That lies before me (he is thinking of a woman,


s: As though it were a loose button on a vest--


s: I am overcome.  Then the feeling came over me... this animal.


s: Is there.  The animal... both my knees knock.


s: When they tear the wings of captured flies,


s: To make a scratch with my knife on such a chin.


s: I would too gladly watch the red stream of blood spray.


s: Whether it's healthy is very questionable.


s: It's enough to make me throw the chair through the panes of the


s: Isn't that strange... isn't that enough to make you puke,,,


s: The damned jerks--the miserable phonies--


s: Damn It all... why is my bar the only empty one...


s: Grumpy, reproachful waiters standing around--


s: Not one damned person comes to the door--


s: Cramped in a corner I sit with a hopeful face.


s: It's certainly late.  I must earn something.


s: They don't want to give me a single good-luck penny.


s: There is hardly anyone on the street any more.


s: I move around here like a piece of meat.


s: He's also quite older. (they have more money,


s: The John is certainly standing over there.


s: He is staring.  He winks.  Now I'll go right by him...


s: I think: he will give me a big piece of gold.


s: Then I get drunk in secret on expensive liquor,


s: I won't have to go around in mended socks--


s: Or... sometime I won't go out walking the streets.


s: Or...  I'm already looking forward to this...


s: One must guard oneself ever so carefully against


s: Howling, without any reason, like an animal.


s: Against pouring beer over the faces of all the waiters,


s: Tearing the clothes off a well-fed body.


s: Against hurling into any old beloved woman's


s: I have attained what is humanly possible.


s: Important people and chiefs of regiments


s: Turns up her nose at the world for the last time,


s: As quickly as they could, out of the place.


s: Walked in silk socks and wore underpants,


s: Sometimes had ten marks to spare, in order


s: Night after night I sat in the coffeehouse.


s: And chatting, two cripples creep across the field.


s: Sleepy policemen waddle under streetlights.


s: Broken beggars grumble when they sense people.


s: On some corners powerful streetcars stutter.


s: Much sky lies broken in these dried-out things...


s: Whiny cats painfully shriek bright songs.


s: The sweaty heads of waiters tower above the room


s: And shining girls give painfully beautiful looks.


s: And distant women are so very excited...


s: Placed around their high, motley bellies.


s: Grocers, their cigarettes burning, gape.


s: On the corners wheelbarrows with bananas squat.


s: Just a bit of shit makes a tough kid happy.


s: The human beasts glide along, completely lost


s: As though on a street, miserably gray and shrill.


s: A weary person moves quietly in a round tower.


s: A hearse crawls along the street, two steeds out front,


s: Out of crooked clouds priceless things grow.


s: Very tiny things suddenly become important.


s: Tattered trees stagger into the distance.


s: And all the surfaces become gray and wise...


s: Only villages crouch glowingly: red stars--


s: A large space--half dark... deadly... completely confused...


s: Provocative!... delicate... dream-like... recesses, heavy doors


s: And broad shadows, which lead to blue corners...


s: And somewhere a sound that clinks like a Champagne glass.


s: On a fragile rug lies a wide picture book,


s: Distorted and exaggerated by a green ceiling light.


s: How--soft little cats--piously white girls make love!


s: In the background an old man and a silk handkerchief.


s: ...  And all the streets lie smooth and shining there.


s: Only occasionally does a solid citizen hurry along them.


s: A swell girl argues violently with Papa.


s: A baker happens to be looking at the lovely sky.


s: The dead sun, wide and thick, hangs on the houses.


s: Four fat wives screech in front of a bar.


s: A carriage driver falls and breaks his neck.


s: And everything is boringly bright, healthy and clear.


s: A gentleman with wise eyes hovers, confused, in the dark,


s: A failing god... in this picture, that he forgot,


s: With all its branches a slender tree casts


s: The shine of darkness around poor crosses.


s: The earth stretches out painfully black and broad.


s: And next to it strange, unapproachable, huge


s: Sinners filled with longing look up, with belief


s: Alarming and quiet, as though there were some danger.


s: And the boots are disgustingly encrusted.


s: A sound comes from an old man's open mouth.


s: A boy plays with the button on his trousers.


s: To the rhythm of its serious instrument.


s: To heaven... which stands like old gray stone


s: Made of tar, a dead river lies on the snow.


s: Three trees, black frozen flames, make threats


s: In which a scrap of bird hangs all alone.


s: A few street lights wade towards the city,


s: Extinguished candles for a corpse.  And a smear


s: In the sunlight doctors tear a woman apart.


s: Here the open red body gapes.  And heavy blood


s: Flows, dark wine, into a white bowl.  One sees


s: Very clearly the rose-red cyst.  Lead gray,


s: The limp head hangs down.  The hollow mouth


s: Rattles.  The sharp yellow chin points upward.


s: The room shines, cool and friendly.  A nurse


s: Savors quite a bit of sausage in the background.


s: The sky is swollen with tears and melancholy.


s: Only far off, where its foul vapors burst,


s: Gray grimaces, are fiendishly bloated with mist.


s: Yellowish lights are beginning to gleam.


s: A stout father with wife and children dozes.


s: Painted women are practicing their dances.


s: Grotesque mimes strut towards the theater.


s: Jokers shriek, foul connoisseurs of men:


s: Packs of houses squat along rotten streets,


s: On the horizon a train moves through windy meadows:


s: Like typewriters hackney hooves clatter.


s: A dust-covered, noisy athletic club comes along.


s: Brutal shouts stream from bars for coachmen.


s: On the fairgrounds where athletes wrestle,


s: A barrel organ howls and scullery maids sing.


s: From the sacred heights the green sky spills


s: People in the street, astonished, stride


s: A little girl crouches with her little brother


s: In rags, a beast of a person lies gulping food


s: Like a cigarette butt on the yellow sun.


s: Two skinny goats stand in broad green spaces


s: On pegs, and their ropes sometimes tighten.


s: Unbelievably at peace the huge horror approaches.


s: A tree leans against the sky--burned and bent.


s: Yes... the family sits at a large table,


s: Where they peck with their forks from the plates.


s: Gradually they become sleepy, heavy and silent.


s: The sun licks the ground with its hot, poisonous,


s: Voracious mouth, like a dog--a filthy enemy.


s: What do I care about the swift newspaper boys.


s: The approach of the late auto-beasts does not frighten me.


s: Drops of water crack on thousands of walls.


s: Close behind me the burning night is ruined...


s: Moth, which crawled over the last houses.


s: It has already buried the city and half the sky.


s: On the horizon an apparition like a shriek


s: We sit at the window and drop out of it,


s: Far off day still squints at a gray house.


s: A fog has destroyed the world so gently.


s: And shadows hover where shrieks are heard.


s: And each flickers, still attempting to escape.


s: But to one side, high in the distance, the poisonous moon,


s: The fat fog-spider, lies in wait, smoldering.


s: We, however, loathsome, suited for death,


s: Trample along, crunching this desert splendor.


s: And silently stab the white eyes of misery


s: In a street a crazed man groans: You, oh, you--


s: A crowd around him is surprised and grins derisively.


s: Three little people play blind man's bluff--


s: A gentle tear-stained god lays the grey powdery hands


s: Thunderstorms come crashing down.  Forest winds darken.


s: A shred of moonlight shimmers in the sewers.


s: Readers of books crouch quietly on their bodies.


s: The trunk of a body floats in a windshield.


s: Everything meets its own disgusting end.


s: Behind yellow windows shadows drink hot tea.


s: Glowing blue snows cast a howling darkness.


s: On high poles a scarecrow, implored, hangs.


s: Stores flicker dimly through frosted windows,


s: In front of which human bodies move like ghosts.


s: How lovely, the crystalline winter evening burning!


s: A platinum moon now streams through a gap in the houses.


s: They cannot stand their rooms in the evening.


s: They creep out into deep starry streets.


s: How gentle is the world in the streetlights' wind!


s: How strangely buzzing life melts away...


s: As though very far off there might be a light,


s: Night creeps into the cellars, musty and dull.


s: Tuxedos totter through the rubble of the street.


s: The blue morning burns coolly in the city.


s: How quickly music and dance and greed melted...


s: Dull daily labor cloaks the people in dust.


s: At times a hall still vibrates through a skull,


s: I would like to go arm and arm with you.


s: On which the sun sticks--a spot of butter.


s: Everywhere night lies like a blue cloth.


s: There is no question that I am sucking air.


s: Houses capture dreams of motley sleepers


s: The air is gray.  Who knows something good for soot?


s: Stands an astonished deeply serious mountaineer.


s: Soon there is a powerful downpour of rain.


s: Observes for himself the orderly flow of traffic


s: And rejoices about sky, field, and dung.


s: Ah, and he takes careful notice of everything.


s: How lovely was this dreaming into distance.


s: This absolute nothingness as bright air and wind


s: Far off the fabled iron snake whistled--


s: And all around are fields, rolling meadows--


s: Would that I might finally escape from you..  O if I had wings--


s: One plays dice.  Guzzles.  Chatters about future countries.


s: If only there were a wind... that ripped


s: The gentle world with iron claws.  That would amuse me.


s: The lovely blue eternal sky into a thousand pieces.


s: I can no longer find a place for my eyes.


s: My heart is hollow.  My head is going to burst.


s: Mushiness all around.  Nothing wants to take shape.


s: In my skull there is neither pleasure nor goal.


s: Of chopped up light lie around and reveal


s: A glimpse of streets, a few clumps of houses.


s: Crumbles like rubble in the grip--thick--gray--


s: As though the whole contaminated darkness


s: Along out of wet shadows--tubercular toads.


s: There goes one creeping by.  Over there a pig is being stabbed.


s: The gushing rain wants to wipe out everything.


s: But you are wandering through the waste lands.


s: Your dress hangs heavy.  Your shoes are soaked.


s: Your eye is mad with greed and screaming.


s: And this urges you on--and you have no peace:


s: The devil himself appears in the form of a pig.


s: The deserted streets flow in gleaming light


s: I clearly feel that I shall soon slip away--


s: Thorny roses of my skin, don't prick like that.


s: The night grows moldy.  The poison light of the lampposts


s: My heart is like a bag.  My blood freezes.


s: Without horror you devour dead flesh every day.


s: And dead blood is a sweet syrup for you.


s: Crammed thousands of the dead into your body.


s: However, how deeply frightened must the first person who killed


s: Because, when he saw that what roamed about,


s: What could jump and cry out and in the moment of death


s: Many sick people are walking in the garden


s: Back and forth and lying in the porches.


s: Those who are the sickest burn with fever


s: Yesterday someone died.  Today another can die.


s: In the city Fasching is being celebrated.


s: I would like to be able to play the difference


s: The frightened dog keeps its mouth shut.


s: Like a white fungus, a lump of wind covers


s: Which holds together the rotten remains.


s: Slanted on the body, the black penitential bench.


s: My steps are tiny, like those of a woman.


s: The folds of the sea crash like whips on my skin.


s: The evening of the sea is one of screaming wounds for the lonely,


s: Be there soon, you with pain in your eye, the sea hurts.


s: Be there soon, you who suffer in love, the sea is killing me.


s: Your hands are cool saints.  Cover me with them,


s: But why don't you help me!  But help!...  Cover me.  Save me.


s: You don't love me...  I have never appealed to you...


s: And my hard eyes annoy you, my darling...


s: And my white teeth have such a brutal shine


s: And my bloody lips are so terribly like sickles.


s: Yes you are really right.  I set you... free.


s: ...  And early in the morning I am going to an ocean


s: And play with a smile on my face, until a death grabs me,


s: In your smile I rest as though in bobbing boats.


s: Longing tears the weeping body to pieces.


s: Houses stand stiffly next to their fences.


s: Don't you, Kuno, feel the eternal mills--


s: The unfeeling one bores holes in your head.


s: In gardens, rooms, cities and mountains,


s: In sick beds and in the rooms of mad people,


s: In kitchen maids, screaming, celebrations of spring,


s: In every kind of weather and every kind of day,


s: I did not find you in bars, motion pictures,


s: Music-cafes, excursions into the summer mist...


s: Who knows the agony, when I, in the night on the streets,


s: He who looks for you in this way, Mary, becomes quite gray.


s: He who looks for you in this way, Mary, loses his face and legs.


s: The heart crumbles.  Blood and dream escape.


s: If I could rest... if I were in your hands...


s: Oh, if you would take me up in your eyes...


s: I felt about you... my heavy head sinks--


s: Sea only and moon--sea-moon and wind and world--


s: White sand encircling your white skin, Mary--


s: Your hair... your smile--all around is sea and distress


s: And shouts and longing and a gentle happiness--


s: All this singing, that makes for such weariness...


s: Doesn't heaven come to us slowly like a mother's song


s: To the forehead of her child again and again--


s: Now I go once again among days, animals,


s: Rocks and thousands of eyes and sounds--


s: The most foreign one.  I had to lose you...


s: Now I once again in vain look among days, animals,


s: I did not find you--it was only your name--


s: Only come, my rain... fall against my face


s: Yellow street lamps... overturn the houses--


s: Now it is lovely... only in the light of street lamps...


s: This is the way it should be.  I would like to be with you.


s: What are mountains and the flat land to me--


s: What are cities to me and colorful hypnotic nights--


s: Back to the ocean... back to the starry shore.


s: You are not entirely Mary, whom I sought.


s: Beloved... a fool... cursed with longing...


s: Today of all days a miracle will take place:


s: Evening comes with moonshine and silky darkness.


s: The roads become weary.  The narrow world widens.


s: Winds of opium move in and out of the field.


s: I feel as though my body were the whole earth.


s: The city lights up: thousands of street lamps sway.


s: Now the sky also piously enkindles its candlelight.


s: ...  Huge above everything my human face wanders--


s: Yesterday I still went powdered and addicted


s: Today everything has long since drowned.


s: Hand wringing room, a bleeding chirping twit.


s: It's good and beautiful to be a soldier for a year.


s: You live longer that way.  And one is certainly pleased


s: With each scrap of time that one snatches from death.


s: This poor brain, shredded by longing for the city,


s: Inconsolably sad and filled with every sin,


s: Three quarters destroyed already--can only,


s: Standing at attention and marching on parade,


s: Oh, speed-marching across a lovely land in the spring.


s: And I must do extra drills as punishment,


s: Because, while the others, in accordance with orders,


s: Looked steadily at the caps of those in front of them,


s: I squinted carefully at the little pilot


s: In front of the assembled troops a man begins


s: Endlessly long.  And always legs swinging...


s: The whole lovely day spent molding bodies


s: To have to forget the world... that in the evening


s: One is still senseless, drinking beer, when one goes to sleep


s: One still feels the heavy helmet on his forehead--


s: Completely empty and listless I move about,


s: I am completely glassy-eyed, play with dogs for fun,


s: Weary, without a thought, drag myself through the streets.


s: At loose ends; should I just hang out at the local bar


s: Miserable hours in flickering movie houses


s: Look for willing girls: or should I merely


s: I, who ran through the nights like a fool,


s: Shrieking to the sky, sought a thousand miracles.


s: O you Berlin, you colorful stone, you beast.


s: You cast me with street lamps like briars.


s: Ah, when one flows in the night through your lamps


s: The head still glows, a red Chinese lantern.


s: Must again travel into the desolate cities.


s: Soon I shall sit on the distant hill tops.


s: Farewell, your streets full of adventures.


s: Who has known as much as I have of your pain.


s: Cheerful people may glide along gleefully.


s: We, however, rotten and poisoned long ago,


s: Would deceive ourselves with this stepping into heaven


s: In strange cities I move about without direction.


s: The strange days are hollow and like chalk.


s: Only he who knows longing knows what I suffer.


s: The heat sticks closely to the gun and to the hand.


s: It pricks the eyes.  Nothing remained forgotten.


s: The troops stepped, half drunk, into the fire.


s: Nothing stirs.  No one drops down.  No streaked sky flies.


s: Only rarely a hoarse barking tears apart the blue sow


s: Who still pays attention to me.  They got used


s: But war comes.  There was peace too long.


s: Deep into your heart.  And all the nights are burning.


s: You freeze in tents.  You're hot.  You're hungry.


s: You drown.  Explode.  Bleed to death.  Fields rattle noisily.


s: Church towers fall.  Flames in the distance.


s: Around the hill tops a white vapor rises,


s: How the world glows!  I look up piously,


s: If the morning drives me home with screams and stones,


s: Yet I'm ready for the night!  I shall soon be happy!


s: Street lamps blaze.  Kitchen maids screech!


s: Lightly summerhouse rests against summerhouse.


s: From a distance the wind carries a child's shout.


s: And in front of the villa of a duke stands,


s: In a brightly colored scarf, red as a poppy,


s: It sure was fine to be a soldier for a year.


s: Lighthearted, I leave the city and capitol.


s: Kuno is leaving, Kuno is never coming back.


s: I am not tugging on my jacket from now on.


s: A wind is starting up.  Locomotives roar.


s: (Shortly before departing for the theater of war)


s: We are going off to war.  Death is our cement.


s: If only my beloved did not shed these tears for me.


s: Mother is crying.  One must be made of iron.


s: Soon I shall be tossed into a gentle mass grave.


s: In the sky the fine red of evening is burning.


s: Thousands of stars twinkle in the gentle sky.


s: The landscape glows.  From the distant meadow


s: Only once a young Lieutenant, a page boy in love,


s: The baggage train waddles along at the rear.


s: The moon makes everything much stranger.


s: High up on the shakiest munitions truck,


s: Out of black wood, hands gently clenched,


s: --He had pressed drops of valerian on his heart--


s: The troops are singing fervently, each for himself:


s: Then suddenly in the distance smoke and a fall,


s: In the sky the howitzers no longer explode,


s: On yellow fields in red trousers, the French are ablaze,


s: Field kitchens steam.  Towns are put to the torch.


s: Panting cyclists, hot and tanned, loiter


s: Electric sparks crackle and whimper all around,


s: In the rattling front line of defenders.


s: Thanks are due to the editors of Ainslie's, The Dial, Pearson's


s: This edition of "A Few Figs from Thistles" contains several poems


s: Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:


s: Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!


s: We were very tired, we were very merry--


s: We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.


s: It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable--


s: But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,


s: We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;


s: And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.


s: We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;


s: From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;


s: And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,


s: And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.


s: We hailed, "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,


s: And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;


s: And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and pears,


s: And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.


s: As I went walking up and down to take the evening air,


s: (Sweet to meet upon the street, why must I be so shy?)


s: I saw him lay his hand upon her torn black hair;


s: ("Little dirty Latin child, let the lady by!")


s: The women squatting on the stoops were slovenly and fat,


s: (Lay me out in organdie, lay me out in lawn!)


s: And everywhere I stepped there was a baby or a cat;


s: (Lord God in Heaven, will it never be dawn?)


s: The fruit-carts and clam-carts were ribald as a fair,


s: (Pink nets and wet shells trodden under heel)


s: She had haggled from the fruit-man of his rotting ware;


s: (I shall never get to sleep, the way I feel!)


s: He walked like a king through the filth and the clutter,


s: (Sweet to meet upon the street, why did you glance me by?)


s: He laid his darling hand upon her little black head,


s: (I wish I were a ragged child with ear-rings in my ears!)


s: And he said she was a baggage to have said what she had said;


s: (Truly I shall be ill unless I stop these tears!)


s: What should I be but a prophet and a liar,


s: Whose mother was a leprechaun, whose father was a friar?


s: Teethed on a crucifix and cradled under water,


s: What should I be but the fiend's god-daughter?


s: And who should be my playmates but the adder and the frog,


s: That was got beneath a furze-bush and born in a bog?


s: And what should be my singing, that was christened at an altar,


s: You will see such webs on the wet grass, maybe,


s: You will find such flame at the wave's weedy ebb


s: As flashes in the meshes of a mer-mother's web,


s: But there comes to birth no common spawn


s: From the love of a priest for a leprechaun,


s: And you never have seen and you never will see


s: Such things as the things that swaddled me!


s: What should I be but a harlot and a nun?


s: In through the bushes, on any foggy day,


s: My Da would come a-swishing of the drops away,


s: With a prayer for my death and a groan for my birth,


s: A-mumbling of his beads for all that he was worth.


s: And there'd sit my Ma, with her knees beneath her chin,


s: A-looking in his face and a-drinking of it in,


s: And a-marking in the moss some funny little saying


s: That would mean just the opposite of all that he was praying!


s: He taught me the holy-talk of Vesper and of Matin,


s: He heard me my Greek and he heard me my Latin,


s: He blessed me and crossed me to keep my soul from evil,


s: And we watched him out of sight, and we conjured up the devil!


s: Oh, the things I haven't seen and the things I haven't known.


s: What with hedges and ditches till after I was grown,


s: And yanked both ways by my mother and my father,


s: With a "Which would you better?" and a "Which would you rather?"


s: And Agatha's Arth' is a hug-the-hearth,--


s: Sue tells her love what he's thinking of,--


s: They bite their threads and shake their heads


s: But they all would give the life they live


s: Though he'd slip me clean for a nun, or a queen,


s: And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,


s: Cut if you will, with Sleep's dull knife,


s: Each day to half its length, my friend,--


s: The years that Time takes off _my_ life,


s: Such things as flowers and song and you;


s: Love, though for this you riddle me with darts,


s: And drag me at your chariot till I die,--


s: Oh, heavy prince! Oh, panderer of hearts!--


s: Yet hear me tell how in their throats they lie


s: Who shout you mighty: thick about my hair


s: Day in, day out, your ominous arrows purr


s: Who still am free, unto no querulous care


s: I, that have bared me to your quiver's fire,


s: (Now will the god, for blasphemy so brave,


s: Punish me, surely, with the shaft I crave!)


s: I think I should have loved you presently,


s: And given in earnest words I flung in jest;


s: And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;


s: That won you to me, and beneath your gaze,


s: Spread like a chart my little wicked ways.


s: I, that had been to you, had you remained,


s: But one more waking from a recurrent dream,


s: Cherish no less the certain stakes I gained,


s: And walk your memory's halls, austere, supreme,


s: Who would have loved you in a day or two.


s: Faithless am I save to love's self alone.


s: Were you not lovely I would leave you now;


s: Were you not still my hunger's rarest food,


s: I would desert you--think not but I would!--


s: And all your charms more changeful than the tide,


s: So wanton, light and false, my love, are you,


s: I am most faithless when I most am true.


s: So make the most of this, your little day,


s: Your little month, your little half a year,


s: If you entreat me with your loveliest lie


s: I will protest you with my favorite vow.


s: I would indeed that love were longer-lived,


s: And oaths were not so brittle as they are,


s: To struggle on without a break thus far,--


s: Whether or not we find what we are seeking


s: There's things, I know, as won't be lost,


s: What medicine's good for sores and sprains,


s: What charms will cure your different pains,


s: You kept the things straight in my head,


s: He might say, "You're worth more, My son,


s: Take good with bad--here's something done--


s: You needn't pray for me, old lady, I don't want no one's prayer,


s: I'm fit and jolly as ever I was--you needn't think I care.


s: If I pass her house a dozen times, or fifty times a day,


s: She needn't think I think of her, my work lies out that way.


s: And if they say I'm off my feed I still can tip a can;


s: If I get drunk what's that to her? I am not her young man.


s: I know I've had a lucky let-off--she ain't no class, she ain't,


s: I never give a thought to her. Don't worry your old head,


s: I've quite forgot her pretty ways and the cruel things she said,


s: There's lots of other gals to be had as any chap can see,


s: So you cheer up, you've got no call to go and pray for me.


s: SINCE Faith is a veil that has nothing behind it,


s: And Hope wanders lost where no mortal can find it,


s: Since Love is a mirror we break in a minute


s: In snatching the image our soul has cast in it,


s: The wave of the woods and the waft of the wings--


s: Since all means nothing, and good things and ill


s: Make madness,--a mirage tormenting us still?


s: Since all the fighting, the ardent endeavour,


s: The heart cast bleeding to feed the Ideal,


s: Are vain, vain, vain, and the one thing real


s: Why then, be a man and stand back from the strife,


s: Fall by the sword, but keep out of the snare;


s: All that the gods may lay on your of life!


s: In the far East, where light ever dawns first,


s: There has man learned how the Fates may be cheated,


s: How by our craft may their strength be defeated,


s: Though all our best be no match for their worst!


s: Kill the desire that they set in your bosom,


s: Long not for fruit when you gaze on the blossom,


s: Dream not of flowers when you gaze on the bud,


s: Kill all the rebels that shout in your blood.


s: Sorrow and sickness, disease and decay--


s: These toll the hours of Life's desolate day;


s: These are the dreams of Life's treacherous night.


s: Touched with no joy but the ease of release.


s: Keeping, in change for this man's soul of me,


s: Casting the robe of the soul that you wore


s: Just as the soul casts the body's robe down.


s: This is man's destiny, this is man's crown.


s: This is the splendour, the end of the feast;


s: This is the light of the Star in the East.


s: So, Silence reconciles Life's jarring phrases


s: Meanwhile, the buds of the poplars are falling,


s: Spring's on the lawn, and a little voice calling:


s: "Daddy, come out! Daddy darling, you must!


s: Daddy come out and help Molly pick daisies!"


s: And, since one's here, and the Spring's in the garden


s: (How many lives hence will that thought earn pardon?)


s: Since one's a man and man's heart is insistent,


s: And, since Nirvana is doubtful and distant,


s: Though life's a hard road and thorny to travel--


s: Stones in the borders and grass on the gravel,


s: Still there's the wisdom that wise men call folly,


s: Still one can go and pick daisies with Molly!


s: And I dare to say that no heaven can pay


s: LAID close to Death, these many thousand years,


s: In this small seed Life hid herself and smiled;


s: So well she hid, Death was at least beguiled,


s: Set free the grain--and lo! the sevenfold ears!


s: Warmed by the sun, wooed by the wind's soft word,


s: Under blue canopy they hold their state:


s: For this, ah, was it not worth while to wait


s: Through all the centuries of hope deferred?


s: What could they know who laid the seed with Death


s: Of this Divine fruition fixed and planned?


s: Love--since Life parts us--lend my hand your hand


s: And look with me into the eyes of faith.


s: For here between your hand and mine there lies


s: Until the day when Life shall bid it rise.


s: Our harvest waits us. Who knows where or how,


s: What worlds away, wrapped in what coil of pain?


s: But Life shall bid us pluck gold sevenfold grain


s: Grown from the love she bids us bury now.


s: MY beautiful beech, your smooth grey coat is trimmed


s: With letters. Once, each stood for all things dear


s: To foolish lovers, dead this many a year,


s: Whose lamp of lighted love so soon was dimmed.


s: Have seen them part; to meet, and to return, no more!


s: And in old winters, through your branches bare,


s: The north wind drove the blue home-scented smoke


s: That on the glowing Christmas hearth awoke


s: Where the old logs, with eager flicker and flare,


s: And the bright faces dimmed and covered up with clay.


s: The ordered pleasance with the clipped box-hedge,


s: The drooping lilac by the old moat's edge,


s: The roses, that throw you kisses from below,


s: All these return to revel round your feet.


s: The nightingale still sings, the jasmine still is sweet.


s: My beautiful beech, I carve upon you here


s: Through whom, to me, the royal summer came,


s: And nightingale and rose, and all things dear.


s: I will remember this summer in all its prime


s: Thank God, the Giver, an unforgotten day,


s: WAKE, do you wake in the dark in the strange far place,


s: Window and door not set like the ones we knew,


s: Leaning your face through the dark for another face,


s: Stretching your arms to the arms that are far from you,


s: Even as I, through the depth of this darkness, do?


s: Sleep, do you sleep in the house in the lonely land?


s: In the lonely room do you hear no steps draw near?


s: Do you miss in the darkness the hand that implores your hand,


s: See through the darkness your last dream disappear,


s: And weep, as I weep, in the outer darkness here?


s: Dream, do you dream? Nay, never a dream will stay,


s: Never a phantom is fond, or a vision kind.


s: Your dreams elude you and fly through the dark my way,


s: My dreams fly forth to you whom they may not find;


s: And we in the darkness weep, we weep and are left behind.


s: "Here, but for fate, were thou and she--"


s: Through which the moon peers tired and pale.


s: Soft, pleasant, filled with every pretty thought;


s: Of all my life's most radiant fancies wrought,


s: Your sleep, your steps should know how much I love you.


s: But--as life goes, to the old sorry tune--


s: I stand apart, I see thorns wound your feet,


s: Your sleeping eyes resenting sun and moon,


s: Your head lie restless on a breast unmeet--


s: And say no word, and suffer without moan,


s: Lest you should guess how much you are alone.


s: After the first remembered whispered vow


s: Which sings for ever and ever in my ears--


s: The vow which God among His Angels hears--


s: A new strange garden to blossom for your sake,


s: In the old garden that was once our own?


s: Our garden's pleasant ways and pleasant air,


s: Her flowers, her fruits, her lily, her rose and thorn,


s: These, once alive, and always over-dear?


s: Ah--think again: the rose you used to wear


s: The flower of flowers. Ah, pity, pity me!


s: And make the desert blossom like the rose;


s: If I have loved its ways and walks and kept


s: The garden watered, and the pleasance swept.


s: Go, with my blessing filling both your hands,


s: Which life drifts deep round every garden wall,


s: Of bud and blossom--red rose and green leaf.


s: Shall touch your garden, love; but my heart's prayer


s: Shall draw down blessings on you from the air,


s: And all we learned of leaf and plant and tree


s: Shall serve you when you walk no more with me


s: In garden ways; and when with her you tread


s: The pleasant ways with blossoms overhead


s: And when she asks, "How did you come to know


s: The secrets of the ways these green things grow?"


s: Then you will answer--and I, please God, hear,


s: That calls for sunshine, dear, as my soul calls for thee.


s: "Bright love of yesterday, return to-morrow,


s: Oh sea, thy love will come again, but what of mine?


s: Thou can'st not know how sweet thou art,


s: From marshlights how the great fires burn?


s: And flower on flower blooms there and dies


s: ALL the flight of thoughts here, shy, bold, scared, intrusive,


s: Fluttering in the sun, between the green and blue,


s: Wheeling, whirling, poising, lovely and elusive,


s: How to cage the flying thoughts, my winged delight, for you?


s: Set a springe of rhyme, and hope to catch them in it?


s: Strew my love as grain to lure them to the snare?


s: Watch the hours built up, slow minute piled on minute?


s: Gleam of hovering feathers, brushing me to flout me!


s: Wings, be weary! Rest! Who loves you more than I?


s: Caught? Oh fluttering pinions whitening air about me!


s: Rustling wings, and distant flight, and empty cage and sky!


s: SPRING, pretty Spring, what treasure do you bring to me?


s: Green grass and buttercups, cherry-bloom and may?


s: Sunshine to be glad with me, and little birds to sing to me?


s: Warm nests to call me along the woodland way?


s: Spring, happy Spring, what wonder will you do for me?


s: Light the tulip lanterns, and set the furze a-fire?


s: Fill your sky with sails of cloud on waves of living blue for me?


s: Spring, darling Spring, my days will not return to me,


s: You who see them fleeting, you, all time above,


s: --Twin seed-leaves breaking holy ground.


s: We dropped life's joys, a garnered sheaf,


s: And spell-bound watched, still hour by hour,


s: The unfolding of our love's white flower.


s: Your ill-trained soul full false has played me--


s: He said--oh, faithless gown, you listened


s: While on your sheen two tear drops glistened--


s: "No, no!" I cried, I tried to save you--


s: False gown, you showed the tears I gave you!


s: You looked discreet when first I found you.


s: You darling dress--I'll smooth your creases,


s: Dear gown--I hope you won't feel lonely!


s: Of your most secret flower-sweet thought:


s: Your hands to hold mine through the night.


s: Webs of lies lest truth should grieve me?


s: GOOD-NIGHT, my Heart, my Heart, good-night--


s: And Love, that once such bright songs gave,


s: AS a little child whom his mother has chidden,


s: Wrecked in the dark in a storm of weeping,


s: Sleeps with his tear-stained eyes closed hidden


s: And, with fists clenched, sobs still in his sleeping,


s: So in my breast sleeps Love, O white lady,


s: What does he care though the rest are playing,


s: With rattles and drums in the woodlands shady,


s: Ah, do not wake him, lest you should hear him


s: Scolding the others, breaking their rattles,


s: Smashing their drums, when their play comes near him--


s: In answer to those who have said that English Poets


s: ENGLAND, my country, austere in the clamorous council of nations,


s: Have we but sung of your glory, firm in eternal foundations?


s: Oaks and young larches awaking, wind-flowers and violets blowing,


s: Are not your poets' meadows starred with the English daisies?


s: Have not your poets loved you? England, are you not dear?


s: Shoulders of upland brown laid dark to the sunset's bosom,


s: Living amber of wheat, and copper of new-ploughed loam,


s: Downs where the white sheep wander, little gardens in blossom,


s: Roads that wind through the twilight up to the lights of home.


s: Are they not more, by worlds, than the whole of the world can be?


s: Is there a corner of land, a furze-fringed rag of a by-way,


s: But in our hearts is sacred, dear as our cradles, our graves?


s: Singing your pasture and cornfield, fen and valley and mountain,


s: England, desire of my heart, England, delight of mine eyes!


s: Take my song too, my country: many a son and debtor


s: Pays you in praise and homage out of your gifts' full store;


s: Life of my life, my England, many will praise you better,


s: None, by the God that made you, ever can love you more!


s: THERE are white moon daisies in the mist of the meadow


s: Where the flowered grass scatters its seeds like spray,


s: There are purple orchis by the wood-ways' shadow,


s: There are pale dog-roses by the white highway;


s: And the grass, the grass is tall, the grass is up for hay,


s: With daisies white like silver and buttercups like gold,


s: And it's oh! for once to play thro' the long, the lovely day,


s: There is silver moonlight on the breast of the river


s: Where the willows tremble to the kiss of night,


s: Where the nine tall aspens in the meadow shiver,


s: Shiver in the night wind that turns them white.


s: And the lamps, the lamps are lit, the lamps are glow-worms light,


s: And it's oh! to drink delight in the lovely lonely night,


s: Wet your dear wings in the tears that are Spring's


s: Preen your bright wings, little happy live things;


s: Sing to the sound of the rain on green ground--


s: Deep in her heart, where the little leaves part,


s: No creeping sorrow could writhe through,


s: Where all your griefs lie closely curled,


s: Rough paths will tire your darling feet,


s: The fairies have been busy while you slept;


s: They have been laughing where the sad rain wept,


s: They have taught Beauty to the ignorant flowers,


s: Set tasks of hope to weary wind-torn bowers,


s: And heard the lessons learned in school-rooms cold


s: At dawn, while still you slept, I grew aware


s: How good the fairies are, how many and fair.


s: And, where her flying raiment fluttered past,


s: Paeonies gorgeous in their summer pride,


s: Shower down their crimson petals over all.


s: Then she whose gown is gold, and gold her hair,


s: Swept down the golden steep straight sunbeam-stair,


s: She lit the tulip-lamps, she lit the torch


s: She dressed the honeysuckle in fringe of gold,


s: She gave the king-cups fairy wealth to hold,


s: She kissed St. John's wort till it opened wide,


s: Then came the lady all whose robes are white:


s: She made the pale buds blossom in delight,


s: Set silver stars upon the jasmine's hair,


s: And gave the stream white lily-buds to wear.


s: She painted lilies white, and pearl-white phlox,


s: White poppies, passion-flowers and gray-leaved stocks.


s: Her pure kind touch redeemed the most forlorn,


s: And even the vile petunia smiled, new-born.


s: The dearest fairy of all--green is her gown--


s: She kissed the plane-trees in the tiresome town,


s: She smoothed the pastures and the lawn's pale sheen,


s: She decked the boughs with hangings fresh and green,


s: She showed each flower the one and only way


s: Its beauty of shape and colour to display;


s: Of changing leaf and blade, for tired eyes.


s: Then, one and all, they came where you were laid


s: In your strait bed, my little lovely maid;


s: The red-robed fairy kissed your lips, your face,


s: The white-robed made your heart her dwelling-place.


s: Into your eyes the green robed fairy smiled;


s: The golden fairy touched your dreams, my child,


s: And one, not named, but mightiest, made my Dear


s: The innermost rose of the re-flowered year.


s: To speed your ship of dreams to the enchanted land.


s: From that cold sea wherein my argosy is lost.


s: WHEN in the west the red sun sank in glory,


s: The cypress trees stood up like gold, fine gold;


s: The mother told her little child the story


s: Of the gold trees the heavenly gardens hold.


s: In golden dreams the child sees golden rivers,


s: Gold trees, gold blossoms, golden boughs and leaves,


s: Without, the cypress in the night wind shivers,


s: Weeps with the rain and with the darkness grieves.


s: Full of soft foldings, of downy enwrapments--


s: And the next, finer and softer, is love again;


s: More folds and more folds and more folds would unroll


s: Deep in the nest, in the soft-packed nest,


s: One last fold, turned back, would disclose


s: Not knowing where you lie, nor how softly,


s: Warm, safe and soft as this body of yours,


s: This dear kissed body of yours that lies


s: Here in my arms and sucks the strength from my breast,


s: The strength you will break my heart with one of these days.


s: DOES the wind sing in your ears at night, in the town,


s: Rattling the windows and doors of the cheap-built place?


s: Do you hear its song as it flies over marsh and down?


s: Do you feel the kiss that the wind leaves here on my face?


s: Or, wrapt in a lamplit quiet, do you restrain


s: Thoughts that would take the wind's way hither to me,


s: And bid them rest safe-anchored, nor tempt again


s: The tumult, and torment, and passion that live in the sea?


s: I, for my part, when the wind sings loud in its might,


s: I bid it hush--nor awaken again the storm


s: That swept my heart out to sea on a moonless night,


s: And dashed it ashore on an island wondrous and warm


s: Where all things fair and forbidden for ever flower,


s: Where the worst of life is a dream, and the best comes true,


s: When the harvest of years was reaped in a single hour


s: And the gods, for once, were honest with me and you.


s: I will not hear when the wind and the sea cry out,


s: I will not trust again to the hurrying wind,


s: I will not swim again in a sea of doubt,


s: And reach that shore with the world left well behind;


s: But you,--I would have you listen to every call


s: Of the changing wind, as it blows over marsh and main,


s: And heap life's joys in your hands, and offer them all,


s: If only your feet might touch that island again!


s: That night the wind blew from the North,


s: The laugh of a god on his lips lay light--


s: His lips victorious that mocked my pain,


s: And I mourned in the cold and the outer night,


s: My brows are crowned, I ascend the throne,


s: I have taken the sceptre and orb to hold.


s: The invading army marched in splendid might


s: Scattered, defeated, hidden in the night.


s: My fields were green, their hedges white with May,


s: With gold of buttercups made bright and fair,


s: The careless conquerors did not even stay


s: To gather one of all the blossoms there.


s: Only when they had passed, the fields were brown,


s: The grass and blossoms trampled in the mud:


s: The flowering hedges withered and torn down,


s: Each, from far shores by wild winds brought,


s: Each when the dark tide drowns their star,


s: One flesh we seemed when eyes could see,


s: Till light spring from their meeting eyes?


s: But when, through the noon's blind heat,


s: OH, what a garden it was, living gold, living green,


s: Full of enchantments like spices embalming the air,


s: There, where you fled and I followed--you ever unseen,


s: Yet each glad pulse of me cried to my heart, "She is there!"


s: Roses and lilies and lilies and roses again,


s: Tangle of leaves and white magic of blossoming trees,


s: Sunlight that lay where, last moment, your footstep had lain--


s: Was not the garden enchanted that proffered me these?


s: Ah, what a garden it is since I caught you at last--


s: Scattered the magic and shattered the spell with a kiss:


s: Wintry and dreary and cold with the wind of the past,


s: Ah that a garden enchanted should wither to this!


s: Low laughed my guest: "Kind friend!" said he,


s: What shells and seaweed grace the shore,


s: Those amber halls, those stairs of pearl.


s: Where all the world's lost treasure lies.


s: NOW the far waves roll nearer and more near,


s: The wind's awake, the pitiless wind's awake,


s: It shrieks the menace that I dare not hear,


s: Soon at my feet the angry waves will break


s: Helpless my house is built upon the sand.


s: Laugh, safe and sure, at threatening wave and wind.


s: You chose the better part and yet--and yet,


s: There was no other ground that I could find,


s: A house to guard my shivering nights and days.


s: And it was pleasant in the house I made,


s: While still the floods and winds were held asleep.


s: I blessed it at the dawn, at night I prayed


s: As though its dear foundations had been deep


s: Sunk in the rock. I whispered in surmise,


s: "What if winds never wake, floods never rise?"


s: And now the waves are near and very near,


s: The wave in which my house will disappear,


s: My little house that loved and sheltered me,


s: Where joy still sings, her garland in her hand,


s: Built on the sand, oh God, built on the sand!


s: I HAD a star to sing by, a beautiful star that led,


s: But when I sang of its splendour the world in its wisdom said:


s: "Sweet are your songs, yet the singer sings but in madness when


s: He hymns but stars unbeholden of us his fellows of men;


s: Glow-worms we see and marshlights; sing us sweet songs of those


s: For the guerdons we have to give you, laurel and gold and rose;


s: Or if you must sing of stars, unseen of your brother man,


s: So I said, "If I starve and die I never again shall see


s: The glory, the high white radiance that hallows the world for me;


s: COME home, come home, for your eyes are sore


s: You have played your match, and ridden your race,


s: You have fought in your fight--and lost;


s: And life has set its claws in your face,


s: Come out of the press of the stranger crowd


s: You have known the worst, come home to the best--


s: You will pay the price of the days in the South


s: SMILE on me, mouth of red--so much too red,


s: Shine on me, eyes which darkened lashes shade,


s: Turn, turn my way, oh glorious golden head,


s: My soul is lost, then let the price be paid!


s: Amid rich flowers your rosy lamplight gleams,


s: Amid rich hangings pass your scented hours,


s: And woods and fields are green but in my dreams,


s: And only in my dreams grow meadow-flowers.


s: The apple orchard where the whitethroat sings,


s: The quiet fields, the moonlight, and the dew,


s: The virgin's bower that in wet hedgerow clings.


s: I have forgotten how the cool grass waves


s: Where clean winds blow, and where good women pray


s: For happy, honest men, safe in their graves;


s: And--oh, my God! I would I were as they!


s: YOU bring your love too late, dear, I have no love to buy it,


s: I spent my love on worthless toys, at fairs you do not know;


s: I am a bankrupt trader--dear eyes, do not deny it,


s: I could have bought your love, dear, but that was long ago.


s: My soul has left me widowed, my heart has made me orphan,


s: Leave me--all good things, dear, have left me--leave me too!


s: For here is ice no tears of yours, no smiles of yours can soften:


s: I have no flowers to give you, they grow not in my garden;


s: I have no songs to sing you, my songs have all been sung;


s: I have no hope of heaven, no faith in any pardon,


s: I might have loved you once, dear, when I was good and young.


s: I will not steal, nor cheat you; take back the heart you lent me.


s: That love come never again so near me to torment me,


s: Lest I be found less faithful than, by Thy grace, to-day.


s: Such folly of cloud, such blue depths wise,


s: And since, to slake his thirst, man must,


s: The goat-cup, straight, drew down the skies


s: Green and clear-gemmed with dews of dawn.


s: From the writhing, loathsome, ceaseless stir of it,


s: The venomous whispers of curling, clasping Death,


s: And reaching with my soul to where Thou art


s: Though a thousand serpent heads were raised to slay,


s: A thousand twisting coils writhed where it lay,


s: There lies the beast, there let it lie for me


s: For Thou has raised my soul, Thy soul, to Thee!


s: Thy soul, dear Lord, Thou hast been strong to save!


s: As virgin vows, reached up white hands to Heaven;


s: The walls, to guard the hidden heart of prayer,


s: Were strong as sin, and white as sin forgiven;


s: And there came holy men, by world's woe driven;


s: And all about the gold-green meadows lay


s: Flower-decked, like children dear that keep May-holiday.


s: "Here," said the Abbot, "let us spend our days,


s: Days sweetened by the lilies of pure prayer,


s: Hung with white garlands of the rose of praise;


s: And, lest the World should enter with her snare--


s: With her red rose, her purple and her gold--


s: Choose we a stranger's hand the porter's keys to hold."


s: They chose a beggar from the world outside


s: To keep their worldward door for them, and he,


s: And the poor, foolish, humble folk who came


s: To ask for love and care, in the dear Saviour's name.


s: For when the poor crept to the guarded gate


s: To ask for succour, when the tired asked rest,


s: Craved comfort, when the murmur of the oppressed


s: Surged round the grove where prayer had made her nest,


s: The porter bade such take their griefs away,


s: And at some other door their bane and burden lay.


s: "For this," he said, "is the white house of prayer,


s: Where day and night the holy voices rise


s: Through the chill trouble of our earthly air,


s: Trample no more our flower-fields in such wise,


s: Nor crave the alms of our deep-laden bough;


s: The prayers of holy men are alms enough, I trow."


s: So, seeing that no sick or sorrowing folk


s: "God has accepted our poor prayers," he said;


s: "Over our land His answering smile is spread.


s: He has put forth His strong and loving hand,


s: And sorrow and sin and pain have ceased in all the land.


s: "So make we yet more rich our hymns of praise,


s: Warm we our prayers against our happy heart.


s: Since God hath taken the gift of all our days


s: To make a spell that bids all wrong depart,


s: Has turned our praise to balm for the world's smart,


s: Fulfilled of prayer and praise be every hour,


s: For God transfigures praise, and transmutes prayer, to power."


s: So went the years. The flowers blossomed now


s: Unbroken hung the green and golden bough,


s: For none came now to ask for fruit or meat,


s: For ghostly food, or common bread to eat;


s: And dreaming, praying, the monks were satisfied,


s: Till, God remembering him, the beggar-porter died.


s: When they had covered up the foolish head,


s: And on the foolish loving heart heaped clay,


s: "Which of us, brothers, now," the Abbot said,


s: "Will face the world, to keep the world away?"


s: But all their hearts were hard with prayer, and "Nay,"


s: They cried, "ah, bid us not our prayers to leave;


s: Ah, father, not to-day, for this is Easter Eve".


s: And, while they murmured, to their midst there came


s: A beggar saying, "Brothers, peace, be still!


s: I am your Brother, in our Father's name,


s: Guarding your gate with what I have of skill".


s: So all they welcomed him and closed the door,


s: And gat them gladly back unto their prayers once more.


s: But, lo! no sooner did the prayer arise,


s: Then came the porter crying, "Haste, arise!


s: A sick old man waits you to tend on him;


s: And many wait--a knight whose wound gapes grim,


s: A red-stained man, with red sins to confess,


s: A mother pale, who brings her child for you to bless".


s: The brothers hastened to the gate, and there


s: With unaccustomed hand and voice they tried


s: To ease the body's pain, the spirit's care;


s: But ere the task was done, the porter cried:


s: "Behold, the Lord sets your gate open wide,


s: For here be starving folk who must be fed,


s: And little ones that cry for love and daily bread!"


s: And, with each slow-foot hour, came ever a throng


s: Of piteous wanderers, sinful folk and sad,


s: And still the brothers ministered, but long


s: The day seemed, with no prayer to make them glad;


s: No moment's brooding-place could poor prayer find,


s: Mid all those heart to heal and all those wounds to bind.


s: And when the crowded, sunlit day at last


s: Left the field lonely with its trampled flowers,


s: Into the chapel's peace the brothers passed


s: To quell the memory of those hurrying hours.


s: "Our holy time," they said, "once more is ours!


s: Come, let us pay our debt of prayer and praise,


s: Forgetting in God's light the darkness of man's ways!"


s: But, ere their voices reached the first psalm's end,


s: They heard a new, strange rustling round their house;


s: Then came the porter: "Here comes many a friend,


s: Pushing aside your budding orchard boughs;


s: Here be God's patient, poor, four-footed things


s: Seek healing at God's well, whence loving-kindness springs."


s: "Our brethren we must aid, if 'tis God's will;


s: But the wild creatures of the forest ways


s: Himself God heals with His Almighty skill.


s: And charity is good, and love--but still


s: God shall not look in vain for the white prayers


s: We send on silver feet to climb the starry stairs;


s: "For, of all worthy things, prayer has most worth,


s: It rises like sweet incense up to heaven,


s: And from God's hand falls back upon the earth,


s: Being of heavenly bread the accepted leaven.


s: Through prayer is virtue saved and sin forgiven;


s: In prayer the impulse and the force are found


s: That bring in purple and gold the fruitful seasons round.


s: "For prayer comes down from heaven in the sun


s: That giveth life and joy to all things made;


s: Prayer falls in rain to make broad rivers run


s: And quickens the seeds in earth's brown bosom laid;


s: By prayer the red-hung branch is earthward weighed,


s: By prayer the barn grows full, and full the fold,


s: For by man's prayer God works his wonders manifold."


s: The porter seemed to bow to the reproof;


s: But when the echo of the night's last prayer


s: Died in the mystery of the vaulted roof,


s: The Abbot turned to find him standing there.


s: "Brother," he said, "I have healed the woodland things


s: And they go happy and whole--blessing Love's ministerings,


s: "And, having healed them, I shall crave your leave


s: To leave you--for to-night I journey far.


s: But I have kept your gate this Easter Eve,


s: And now your house to heaven shines like a star


s: To show the Angels where God's children are;


s: And in this day your house has served God more


s: Than in the praise and prayer of all its years before.


s: "Yet I must leave you, though I fain would stay,


s: Of houses round whose walls, long day by day,


s: Shut out of hope and love, poor sinners weep--


s: Barred folds that keep out God's poor wandering sheep--


s: I must teach these that gates where God comes in


s: Must not be shut at all to pain, or want, or sin.


s: "The voice of prayer is very soft and weak,


s: And sorrow and sin have voices very strong;


s: Prayer is not heard in heaven when those twain speak,


s: The voice of prayer faints in the voice of wrong


s: By the just man endured--oh, Lord, how long?--


s: If ye would have your prayers in heaven be heard,


s: Look that wrong clamour not with too intense a word.


s: "But when true love is shed on want and sin,


s: Their cry is changed, and grows to such a voice


s: As clamours sweetly at heaven to be let in--


s: Such sound as makes the saints in heaven rejoice;


s: Pure gold of prayer, purged of the vain alloys


s: Of idleness--that is the sound most dear


s: Of all the earthly sounds God leans from heaven to hear.


s: "Oh, brother, I must leave thee, and for me


s: The work is heavy, and the burden great.


s: Thine be this charge I lay upon thee: See


s: That never again stands barred thy abbey gate;


s: Look that God's poor be not left desolate;


s: Ah me! that chidden my shepherds needs must be


s: When my poor wandering sheep have so great need of me.


s: "Brother, forgive thy Brother if he chide,


s: Thy Brother loves thee--and has loved--for see


s: The nails are in my hands, and in my side


s: The spear-wound; and the thorns weigh heavily


s: Upon my brow--brother, I died for thee--


s: For thee, and for my sheep that are astray,


s: And rose to live for thee, and them, on Easter Day!"


s: "My Master and my Lord!" the Abbot cried.


s: But, where that face had been, shone the new day;


s: Where those dear feet had stood, a lily lay--


s: He sought the gate--no sorrow clamoured there--


s: And, not till then, he dared to sink his soul in prayer.


s: And from that day himself he kept the gate


s: Wide open; and the poor from far and wide,


s: The weary, and wicked, and disconsolate,


s: Came there for succour and were not denied;


s: The sick were healed, the repentant sanctified;


s: And from their hearts rises more prayer and praise


s: Than ever the abbey knew in all its prayer-filled days.


s: And there the Heavenly vision comes no more,


s: Lies white and dewy on the chancel floor


s: Where once had stood the beloved wounded feet;


s: And the old Abbot feels the nearing beat


s: Of wings that bring him leave at last to go


s: And meet his Master, where the immortal lilies grow.


s: This tremor of longing that invades my breast:


s: For Love is in his grave this many a year,


s: He will not rise--I do not wish him here.


s: It is not memory, for your face and eyes


s: Are not reflected where that dark pool lies:


s: It is not hope, for life makes no amends,


s: And hope and I are long no longer friends:


s: It needs but little for its comforting--


s: That I should hold your hand and see your face


s: Where, through the silence, I can hear you sigh


s: And know my thought has in your thought begot


s: Sadness, its child, and that you know it not.


s: If this were Love, if all this bitter pain


s: Were but the birth-pang of Love born again,


s: If through the doubts and dreams resolved, smiled


s: The prophetic promise of the holy child,


s: What should I gain? The Love whose dream-lips smiled


s: But to Love's birth would come, with the last pain,


s: If this were Love why should I turn away?


s: I can refuse the capricious gift of Fate,


s: The sudden glory, the unhoped-for flowers,


s: The transfiguration of my earthly hours?


s: Come, Love! the house is garnished and is swept,


s: Washed clean with all the tears that I have wept,


s: Washed from the stain of my unworthy fears,


s: Hung with the splendid spoils of wasted years,


s: Lighted with lamps of hope, and curtained fast


s: Against the gathered darkness of the past.


s: I draw the bolts! I throw the portals wide,


s: The darkness rushes shivering to my side,


s: Love is not here--the darkness creeps about


s: My house wherein the lamps of hope die out.


s: Ah Love! it was not then your hand that came


s: Beating my door? your voice that called my name?


s: "It is not Love, it is not Love," I said,


s: And bowed in fearful hope my trembling head.


s: "It is not Love, for Love could never rise


s: Out of the rock-hewn grave wherein he lies."


s: But as I spake, the heavenly form drew near


s: Where close I clasped a hope grown keen as fear,


s: And whispered, "It is I, be not afraid!"


s: And this is Love, no rose-crowned laughing guest


s: By whom my passionate heart should be caressed,


s: But one re-risen from the grave; austere,


s: To follow whom I lay the whole world down,


s: Take up the cross, bind on the thorny crown;


s: And, following whom, my bleeding pilgrim feet


s: Find the rough pathway sure and very sweet.


s: For by my side, crowned with Love's death-white rose,


s: "REFUSE, refrain: for this is not the love


s: It burns, but will not warm, unhappy one!"


s: "But ah! suppose the sun should never shine,


s: Then what an anguish of regret were mine


s: To know that even from this I turned away!


s: Candles may serve, if there should be no day."


s: "Nay, better to go cold your whole life long


s: Than do the sun, than do your soul such wrong:


s: And if the sun shine not, be life's the blame


s: And yours the pride, who scorned the meaner flame."


s: And spring has given love a flower to hold,


s: And love lays blindness on the eyes of pain.


s: Within are still, chill aisles and blazoned panes


s: And carven tombs where memory weeps no more.


s: One saint beside the long-closed western door.