Edith Wharton - Poems 02
Uncollected Poems.
Contents
The Parting Day.
I.
II.
Aeropagus.
Patience.
A Failure.
Wants.
The Last Giustianini.
Euryalus.
Happiness.
Botticelli’s Madonna in the Louvre.
The Tomb of Ilaria Giunigi.
The Sonnet.
Experience.
I.
II.
Chartres.
I.
II.
Jade.
Phaedra.
The One Grief .
Mould and Vase.
Uses.
The Bread of Angels.
Moonrise over Tyringham.
Ogrin the Hermit.
The Comrade.
Summer Afternoon (Bodiam Castle, Sussex).
Pomegranate Seed.
The Hymn of the Lusitania.
The Great Blue Tent.
Battle Sleep.
On Active Service.
You and You.
With the Tide.
Belgium.
Terminus.
The
Parting Day.
Some
busy hands have brought to light,
And
laid beneath my eye,
The
dress I wore that afternoon
You
came to say good-by.
About
it still there seems to cling
Some
fragrance unexpressed,
The
ghostly odor of the rose
I
wore upon my breast;
And,
subtler than all flower-scent,
The
sacred garment holds
The
memory of that parting day
Close hidden in its folds.
The
rose is dead, and you are gone,
But
to the dress I wore
The
rose’s smell, the thought of you,
Are wed forevermore.
II.
That
day you came to say good-by
(A month ago! It seems a year!)
How
calm I was! I met your eye,
And
in my own you saw no tear.
You
heard me laugh and talk and jest,
And
lightly grieve that you should go;
You
saw the rose upon my breast,
But not the breaking heart below.
And
when you came and took my hand,
It
scarcely fluttered in your hold.
Alas,
you did not understand!
For you were blind, and I was cold.
And
now you cannot see my tears,
And
now you cannot hear my cry.
A month ago? Nay, years and years
Have aged my heart since that good-by.
(Atlantic Monthly 45, Feb 1880)
Aeropagus.
Where
suns chase suns in rhythmic dance,
Where
seeds are springing from the dust,
Where
mind sways mind with spirit-glance,
High
court is held, and law is just.
No
hill alone, a sovereign bar;
Through
space the fiery sparks are whirled
That
draw and cling, and shape a star,—
That
burn and cool, and form a world
Whose
hidden forces hear a voice
That
leads them by a perfect plan:
“Obey,”
it cries, “with steadfast choice,
Law
shall complete what law began.
“Refuse,—behold
the broken arc,
The
sky of all its stars despoiled;
The
new germ smothered in the dark,
The
snow-pure soul with sin assoiled.”
The
voice still saith, “While atoms weave
Both
world and soul for utmost joy,
Who
sins must suffer,—no reprieve;
The
law that quickens must destroy.”
(Atlantic Monthly 45, March 1880)
Patience.
Patience
and I have traveled hand in hand
So
many days that I have grown to trace
The
lines of sad, sweet beauty in her face,
And all its veiled depths to understand.
Not
beautiful is she to eyes profane;
Silent
and unrevealed her holy charms;
But,
like a mother’s, her serene, strong arms
Uphold
my footsteps on the path of pain.
I
long to cry,—her soft voice whispers, “Nay!”
I
seek to fly, but she restrains my feet;
In
wisdom stern, yet in compassion sweet,
She
guides my helpless wanderings, day by day.
O
my Beloved, life’s golden visions fade,
And
one by one life’s phantom joys depart;
They
leave a sudden darkness in the heart,
And
patience fills their empty place instead.
(Atlantic Monthly 45, April 1880)
A
Failure.
(She
Speaks.)
I
meant to be so strong and true!
The
world may smile and question, When?
But
what I might have been to you
I
cannot be to other men.
Just
one in twenty to the rest,
And
all in all to you alone,—
This
was my dream; perchance ’tis best
That this, like other dreams, is flown.
For
you I should have been so kind,
So
prompt my spirit to control,
To
win fresh vigor for my mind,
And
purer beauties for my soul;
Beneath
your eye I might have grown
To
that divine, ideal height,
Which,
mating wholly with your own,
Our
equal spirits should unite.
To
others I am less than naught;
To
you I might have been so much,
Could
but your calm, discerning thought
Have
put my powers to the touch!
Your
love had made me doubly fair;
Your
wisdom made me thrice as wise,
Lent
clearer lustre to my hair,
And
read new meanings in my eyes.
Ah,
yes, to you I might have been
That
happy being, past recall,
The
slave, the helpmeet, and the queen,—
All these in one, and one in all.
But
that which I had dreamed to do
I
learned too late was dreamed in vain,
For
what I might have been to you
I
cannot be to other men.
(Atlantic Monthly 45, April 1880)
Wants.
We
women want to many things;
And
first we call for happiness,—
The
careless boon the hour brings,
The smile, the song, and the caress.
And
when the fancy fades, we cry,
Nay,
give us one on whom to spend
Our
heart’s desire! When Love goes by
With
folded wings, we seek a friend.
And
then our children come, to prove
Our
hearts but slumbered, and can wake;
And
when they go, we’re fain to love
Some
other woman’s for their sake.
But
when both love and friendship fail,
We
cry for duty, work to do;
Some
end to gain beyond the pale
Of self, some height to journey to.
And
then, before our task is done,
With
sudden weariness oppressed,
We
leave the shining goal unwon
And
only ask for rest.
(Atlantic Monthly 45, May 1880)
The
Last Giustianini.
O
wife, wife, wife! As if the sacred name
Could
weary one with saying! Once again
Laying
against my brow your lips’ soft flame,
Join
with me, Sweetest, in love’s new refrain,
Since
the whole music of my late-found life
Is
that we call each other “husband—wife.”
And
yet, stand back, and let your cloth of gold
Straighten
its sumptuous lines from waist to knee,
And,
flowing firmly outward, fold on fold,
Invest
your slim young form with majesty
As
when, in those calm bridal robes arrayed,
You
stood beside me, and I was afraid.
I
was afraid—O sweetness, whiteness, youth,
Best
gift of God, I feared you! I, indeed,
For
whom all womanhood has been, forsooth,
Summed
up in the sole Virgin of the Creed,
I
thought that day our Lady’s self stood there
And
bound herself to me with vow and prayer.
Ah,
yes, that day. I sat, remember well,
Half-crook’d
above a missal, and laid in
The
gold-leaf slowly; silence in my cell;
The
picture, Satan tempting Christ to sin
Upon
the mount’s blue, pointed pinnacle,
The
world outspread beneath as fair as hell—
When suddenly they summoned me. I stood
Abashed
before the Abbot, who reclined
Full-bellied
in his chair beneath the rood,
And
roseate with having lately dined;
And
then—I standing there abashed—he said:
“The
house of Giustiniani all lie dead.”
It
scarcely seemed to touch me (I had led
A
grated life so long) that oversea
My
kinsmen in their knighthood should lie dead,
Nor
that this sudden death should set me free,
Me,
the last Giustiniani—well, what then?
A
monk!—The Giustiniani had been men.
So
when the Abbot said: “The state decrees
That
you, the latest scion of the house
Which died in vain for Venice overseas,
Should
be exempted from your sacred vows,
And
straightway, when you leave this cloistered place,
Take
wife, and add new honors to the race,”
I
hardly heard him—would have crept again
To
the warped missal—but he snatched a sword
And
girded me, and all the heart of men
Rushed
through me, as he laughed and hailed me lord,
And,
with my hand upon the hilt, I cried,
“Viva
San Marco!” like my kin who died.
But,
straightway, when, a new-made knight, I stood
Beneath
the bridal arch, and saw you come,
A
certain monkish warping of the blood
Ran
up and struck the man’s heart in me dumb;
I
breathed an Ave to our Lady’s grace,
And did not dare to look upon your face.
And
when we swept the waters side by side,
With
timbrelled gladness clashing on the air,
I
trembled at your image in the tide,
And
warded off the devil with a prayer,
Still
seeming in a golden dream to move
Through fiendish labyrinths of forbidden love.
But
when they left us, and we stood alone,
I,
the last Giustiniani, face to face
With
your unvisioned beauty, made my own
In
this, the last strange bridal of our race,
And,
looking up at last to meet your eyes,
Saw
in their depths the star of love arise,
Ah,
then the monk’s garb shrivelled from my heart,
And left me man to face your womanhood.
Without
a prayer to keep our lips apart
I
turned about and kissed you where you stood,
And
gathering all the gladness of my life
Into
a new-found word, I called you “wife!”
(Scribner’s Magazine 6, Oct 1889)
Euryalus.
Upward
we went by fields of asphodel,
Leaving
Ortygia’s moat-bound walls below;
By
orchards, where the wind-flowers’ drifted snow
Lay
lightly heaped upon the turf’s light swell;
By
gardens, whence upon the wayside fell
Jasmine
and rose in April’s overflow;
Till,
winding up in Epipolae’s wide brow,
We
reached at last the lonely citadel.
There,
on the ruined rampart climbing high,
We
sat and dreamed among the browsing sheep,
Until
we heard the trumpet’s startled cry
Waking
a clang of arms about the keep,
And
seaward saw, with rapt foreboding eye,
The
sails of Athens whiten on the deep.
(Atlantic Monthly 64, Dec. 1889)
Happiness.
This
perfect love can find no words to say.
What
words are left, still sacred for our use,
That have not suffered the sad world’s abuse,
And
figure forth a gladness dimmed and gray?
Let
us be silent still, since words convey
But
shadowed images, wherein we lose
The
fulness of love’s light; our lips refuse
The fluent commonplace of yesterday.
Then
shall we hear beneath the brooding wing
Of
silence what abiding voices sleep,
The
primal notes of nature, that outring
Man’s
little noises, warble he or weep,
The
song the morning stars together sing,
The sound of deep that calleth unto deep.
(Scribner’s Magazine 6, Dec 1889)
Botticelli’s
Madonna in the Louvre.
What
strange presentiment, O Mother, lies
On
thy waste brow and sadly-folded lips,
Forefeeling
the Light’s terrible eclipse
On
Calvary, as if love made thee wise,
And
thou couldst read in those dear infant eyes
The
sorrow that beneath their smiling sleeps,
And
guess what bitter tears a mother weeps
When
the cross darkens her unclouded skies?
Sad
Lady, if some mother, passing thee,
Should
feel a throb of thy foreboding pain,
And
think—”My child at home clings so to me,
With
the same smile … and yet in vain, in vain,
Since
even this Jesus died on Calvary”—
Say
to her then: “He also rose again.”
(Scribner’s Magazine 9, Jan. 1891)
The
Tomb of Ilaria Giunigi.
Ilaria,
thou that wert so fair and dear
That
death would fain disown thee, grief made wise
With
prophecy thy husband’s widowed eyes
And
bade him call the master’s art to rear
Thy
perfect image on the sculptured bier,
With
dreaming lids, hands laid in peaceful guise
Beneath
the breast that seems to fall and rise,
And
lips that at love’s call should answer, “Here!”
First-born
of the Renascence, when thy soul
Cast
the sweet robing of the flesh aside,
Into
these lovelier marble limbs it stole,
Regenerate
in art’s sunrise clear and wide
As
saints who, having kept faith’s raiment whole,
Change
it above for garments glorified.
(Scribner’s Magazine 9, Feb 1891)
The
Sonnet.
Pure
form, that like some chalice of old time
Contain’st
the liquid of the poet’s thought
Within
thy curving hollow, gem-enwrought
With
interwoven traceries of rhyme,
While
o’er thy brim the bubbling fancies climb,
What
thing am I, that undismayed have sought
To
pour my verse with trembling hand untaught
Into a shape so small yet so sublime?
Because
perfection haunts the hearts of men,
Because
thy sacred chalice gathered up
The
wine of Petrarch, Shakspere, Shelley—then
Receive
these tears of failure as they drop
(Sole
vintage of my life), since I am fain
To pour them in a consecrated cup.
(Century Magazine 43, Nov 1891)
Experience.
Like
Crusoe with the bootless gold we stand
Upon
the desert verge of death, and say:
“What
shall avail the woes of yesterday
To
buy to-morrow’s wisdom, in the land
Whose
currency is strange unto our hand?
In
life’s small market they have served to pay
Some
late-found rapture, could we but delay
Till Time hath matched our means to our demand.”
But
otherwise Fate wills it, for, behold,
Our
gathered strength of individual pain,
When
Time’s long alchemy hath made it gold,
Dies
with us—hoarded all these years in vain,
Since
those that might be heir to it the mould
Renew,
and coin themselves new griefs again.
II.
O,
Death, we come full-handed to thy gate,
Rich
with strange burden of the mingled years,
Gains
and renunciations, mirth and tears,
And
love’s oblivion, and remembering hate,
Nor
know we what compulsion laid such freight
Upon
our souls—and shall our hopes and fears
Buy
nothing of thee, Death? Behold our wares,
And
sell us the one joy for which we wait.
Had
we lived longer, life had such for sale,
With
the last coin of sorrow purchased cheap,
But
now we stand before thy shadowy pale,
And
all our longings lie within thy keep—
Death,
can it be the years shall naught avail?
“Not
so,” Death answered, “they shall purchase sleep.”
(Scribner’s Magazine 13, Jan 1893)
Chartres.
Immense,
august, like some Titanic bloom,
The
mighty choir unfolds its lithic core,
Petalled
with panes of azure, gules and or,
Splendidly
lambent in the Gothic gloom,
And
stamened with keen flamelets that illume
The pale high-altar. On the prayer-worn floor,
By
surging worshippers thick-thronged of yore,
A
few brown crones, familiars of the tomb,
The
stranded driftwood of Faith’s ebbing sea—
For
these alone the finials fret the skies,
The
topmost bosses shake their blossoms free,
While
from the triple portals, with grave eyes,
Tranquil,
and fixed upon eternity,
The
cloud of witnesses still testifies.
II.
The
crimson panes like blood-drops stigmatize
The western floor. The aisles are mute and cold.
A
rigid fetich in her robe of gold
The
Virgin of the Pillar, with blank eyes,
Enthroned
beneath her votive canopies,
Gathers a meagre remnant to her fold.
The
rest is solitude; the church, grown old,
Stands stark and gray beneath the burning skies.
Wellnigh
again its mighty frame-work grows
To
be a part of nature’s self, withdrawn
From
hot humanity’s impatient woes;
The
floor is ridged like some rude mountain lawn,
And
in the east one giant window shows
The roseate coldness of an Alp at dawn.
(Scribner’s Magazine 14, Sept. 1893)
The
patient craftsman of the East who made
His
undulant dragons of the veined jade,
And
wound their sinuous volutes round the whole
Pellucid
green redundance of the bowl,
Chiseled
his subtle traceries with the same
Keen
stone he wrought them in.
Nor
praise, nor blame,
Nor
gifts the years relinquish or refuse,
But
only a grief commensurate with thy soul,
Shall carve it in a shape for gods to use.
(Century Magazine 49, Jan 1895)
Not
that on me the Cyprian fury fell,
Last
martyr of my love-ensanguined race;
Not
that my children drop the averted face
When
my name shames the silence; not that hell
Holds
me where nevermore his glance shall dwell
Nightlong
between my lids, my pulses race
Through
flying pines the tempest of the chase,
Nor
my heart rest with him beside the well.
Not
that he hates me; not, O baffled gods—
Not
that I slew him!—yet, because your goal
Is
always reached, nor your rejoicing rods
Fell
ever yet upon insensate clods,
Know,
the one pang that makes your triumph whole
Is,
that he knows the baseness of my soul.
(Scribner’s Magazine 23, Jan 1898)
One
grief there is, the helpmeet of my heart,
That
shall not from me till my days be sped,
That
walks beside me in sunshine and shade,
And hath in all my fortunes equal part.
At
first I feared it, and would often start
Aghast
to find it bending o’er my bed,
Till
usage slowly dulled the edge of dread,
And
one cold night I cried: How warm thou art!
Since
then we two have travelled hand in hand,
And,
lo, my grief has been interpreter
For
me in many a fierce and alien land
Whose
speech young Joy had failed to understand,
Plucking
me tribute of red gold and myrrh
From desolate whirlings of the desert sand.
(Scribner’s Magazine 24, July 1898)
Mould
and Vase.
Greek Pottery of Arezzo.
Here
in the jealous hollow of the mould,
Faint,
light-eluding, as templed in the breast
Of
some rose-vaulted lotus, see the best
The
artist had—the vision that unrolled
Its flying sequence till completion’s hold
Caught
the wild round and bade the dancers rest—
The
mortal lip on the immortal pressed
One instant, ere the blindness and the cold.
And
there the vase: immobile, exiled, tame,
The
captives of fulfillment link their round,
Foot-heavy
on the inelastic ground,
How
different, yet how enviously the same!
Dishonoring
the kinship that they claim,
As
here the written word the inner sound.
(Atlantic Monthly 88, Sept 1901)
Uses.
Ah,
from the niggard tree of Time
How
quickly fall the hours!
It
needs no touch of wind or rime
To loose such facile flowers.
Drift
of the dead year’s harvesting,
They
clog to-morrow’s way,
Yet
serve to shelter growths of Spring
Beneath their warm decay.
Or,
blent by pious hands with rare
Sweet
savors of content,
Surprise
the soul’s December air
With June’s forgotten scent.
(Scribner’s Magazine 31, Feb 1902)
The
Bread of Angels.
At
that lost hour disowned of day and night,
The
after-birth of midnight,
when life’s face
Turns
to the wall and the last lamp goes out
Before
the incipient irony of dawn—
In
that obliterate interval of time
Between
the oil’s last flicker and the first
Reluctant
shudder of averted day,
Threading
the city’s streets (like mine own ghost
Wakening
the echoes of dispeopled dreams),
I
smiled to see how the last light that fought
Extinction
was the old familiar glare
Of
supper tables under gas-lit ceilings,
The
same old stale monotonous carouse
Of
greed and surfeit nodding face to face
O’er the picked bones of pleasure …
So
that the city seemed, at that waste hour,
Like
some expiring planet from whose face
All
nobler life had perished—love and hate,
And
labor and the ecstasy of thought—
Leaving
the eyeless creatures of the ooze,
Dull
offspring of its first inchoate birth,
The last to cling to its exhausted breast.
And
threading thus the aimless streets that strayed
Conjectural
through a labyrinth of death,
Strangely
I came upon two hooded nuns,
Hands
in their sleeves, heads bent as if beneath
Some
weight of benediction, gliding by
Punctual
as shadows that perform their round
Upon
the inveterate bidding of the sun
Again
and yet again their ordered course
At
the same hour crossed mine: obedient shades
Cast
by some high-orbed pity on the waste
Of
midnight evil! and my
wondering thoughts
Tracked
them from the hushed convent where there kin
Lay
hived in sweetness of their prayer built cells.
What
wind of fate had loosed them from the lee
Of
that dear anchorage where their sisters slept?
On
what emprise of heavenly piracy
Did
such frail craft put forth upon this world;
In
what incalculable currents caught
And
swept beyond the signal-lights of home
Did
their white coifs set sail against the night?
At
last, upon my wonder drawn, I followed
The
secret wanderers till I saw them pause
Before
the dying glare of those tall panes
Where
greed and surfeit nodded face to face
O’er the picked bones of pleasure …
And
the door opened and the nuns went in.
Again
I met them, followed them again.
Straight
as a thought of mercy to its goal
To
the same door they sped. I stood alone.
And
suddenly the silent city shook
With
inarticulate clamor of gagged lips,
As
in Jerusalem when the veil was rent
And
the dead drove the living from the streets.
And
all about me stalked the shrouded dead,
Dead
hopes, dead efforts, loves and sorrows dead,
With
empty orbits groping for their dead
In that blind mustering of murdered faiths …
And
the door opened and the nuns came out.
I
turned and followed. Once again we came
To
such a threshold, such a door received them,
They
vanished, and I waited. The grim round
Ceased
only when the festal panes grew dark
And
the last door had shot its tardy bolt.
“Too late!” I heard one murmur; and “Too late!”
The other, in unholy antiphon.
And
with dejected steps they turned away.
They
turned, and still I tracked them, till they bent
Under
the lee of a calm convent wall
Bounding a quiet street. I knew the street,
One
of those village byways strangely trapped
In
the city’s meshes, where at loudest noon
The
silence spreads like moss beneath the foot,
And
all the tumult of the town becomes
Idle
as Ocean’s fury in a shell.
Silent
at noon—but
now, at this void hour,
When
the blank sky hung over the blank streets
Clear
as a mirror held above dead lips,
Came
footfalls, and a thronging of dim shapes
About
the convent door: a suppliant line
Of
pallid figures, ghosts of happier folk,
Moving
in some gray underworld of want
On
which the sun of plenty never dawns.
And
as the nuns approached I saw the throng
Pale
emanation of that outcast hour,
Divide
like vapor when the sun breaks through
And
take the glory on its tattered edge.
For
so a brightness ran from face to face,
Faint
as a diver’s light beneath the sea
And
as a wave draws up the beach, the crowd
Drew to the nuns.
I
waited. Then those two
Strange
pilgrims of the sanctuaries of sin
Brought
from beneath their large conniving cloaks
Two
hidden baskets brimming with rich store
Of
broken viands—pasties, jellies, meats,
Crumbs
of Belshazzar’s table, evil waste
Of
that interminable nightly feast
Of
greed and surfeit, nodding face to face
O’er the picked bones of pleasure …
And
piteous hands were stretched to take the bread
Of
this strange sacrament—this manna brought
Out of the antique wilderness of sin.
Each
seized a portion, turning comforted
From
this new breaking of the elements;
And
while I watched the mystery of renewal
Whereby
the dead bones of old sins become
The
living body of the love of God,
It
seemed to me that a like change transformed
The
city’s self … a little wandering air
Ruffled
the ivy on the convent wall;
A
bird piped doubtfully; the dawn replied;
And
in that ancient gray necropolis
Somewhere
a child awoke and took the breast.
(Harper’s Magazine 105, Sept. 1902)
Moonrise
over Tyringham.
Now
the high holocaust of hours is done,
And
all the west empurpled with their death,
How
swift oblivion drinks the fallen sun,
How
little while the dusk remembereth!
Though
some there were, proud hours that marched in mail,
And
took the morning on auspicious crest,
Crying to Fortune, “Back! For I prevail!”—
Yet
now they lie disfeatured with the rest;
And
some that stole so soft on Destiny
Methought
they had surprised her to a smile;
But
these fled frozen when she turned to see,
And
moaned and muttered through my heart awhile.
But
now the day is emptied of them all,
And
night absorbs their life-blood at a draught;
And
so my life lies, as the gods let fall
An empty cup from which their lips have quaffed.
Yet
see—night is not: by translucent ways,
Up
the gray void of autumn afternoon
Steals
a mild crescent, charioted in haze,
And
all the air is merciful as June.
The
lake is a forgotten streak of day
That
trembles through the hemlocks’ darkling bars,
And
still, my heart, still some divine delay
Upon
the threshold holds the earliest stars.
O
pale equivocal hour, whose suppliant feet
Haunt
the mute reaches of the sleeping wind,
Art
thou a watcher stealing to entreat
Prayer and sepulture for thy fallen kind?
Poor
plaintive waif of a predestined race,
Their
ruin gapes for thee. Why linger here?
Go
hence in silence. Veil thine orphaned face,
Lest I should look on it and call it dear.
For
if I love thee thou wilt sooner die;
Some
sudden ruin will plunge upon thy head,
Midnight will fall from the revengeful sky
And
hurl thee down among thy shuddering dead.
Avert
thine eyes. Lapse softly from my sight,
Call
not my name, nor heed if thine I crave;
So
shalt thou sink through mitigated night
And
bathe thee in the all-effacing wave.
But
upward still thy perilous footsteps fare
Along
a high-hung heaven drenched in light,
Dilating
on a tide of crystal air
That
floods the dark hills to their utmost height.
Strange
hour, is this thy waning face that leans
Out
of mid-heaven and makes my soul its glass?
What
victory is imaged there? What means
Thy tarrying smile? Oh, veil thy lips and pass!
Nay—pause
and let me name thee! For I see,
Oh,
with what flooding ecstasy of light,
Strange
hour that wilt not loose thy hold on me,
Thou’rt
not day’s latest, but the first of night!
And
after thee the gold-foot stars come thick;
From
hand to hand they toss the flying fire,
Till
all the zenith with their dance is quick,
About the wheeling music of the Lyre.
Dread
hour that leadst the immemorial round,
With
lifted torch revealing one by one
The
thronging splendors that the day held bound,
And
how each blue abyss enshrines its sun—
Be
thou the image of a thought that fares
Forth
from itself, and flings its ray ahead,
Leaping
the barriers of ephemeral cares,
To
where our lives are but the ages’ tread,
And
let this year be, not the last of youth,
But
first—like thee!—of some new train of hours,
If
more remote from hope yet nearer truth,
And kin to the unfathomable powers.
(Century Magazine 76, July 1908)
Ogrin
the Hermit.
Vous qui nous jugez, savez-vous quel boivre nous avons bu sur la
mer?
Ogrin
the Hermit in old age set forth
This
tale to them that sought him in the extreme
Ancient
grey wood where he and silence housed:
Long
years ago, when yet my sight was keen,
My
hearing knew the word of wind in bough,
And
all the low fore-runners of the storm,
There
reached me, where I sat beneath my thatch,
A
crash as of tracked quarry in the brake,
And
storm-flecked, fugitive, with straining breasts
And
backward eyes and hands inseparable,
Tristan
and Iseult, swooning at my feet,
Sought
hiding from their hunters. Here they lay.
For
pity of their great extremity,
Their
sin abhorring, yet not them with it,
I
nourished, hid, and suffered them to build
Their
branched hut in sight of this grey cross,
That
haply, falling on their guilty sleep,
Its
shadow should part them like the blade of God,
And
they should shudder at each other’s eyes.
So
dwelt they in this solitude with me,
And
daily, Tristan forth upon the chase,
The
tender Iseult sought my door and heard
The words of holiness. Abashed she heard,
Like
one in wisdom nurtured from a child,
Yet
in whose ears an alien language dwells
Of
some far country whence the traveller brings
Magical
treasure, and still images
Of
gods forgotten, and the scent of groves
That sleep by painted rivers. As I have seen
Oft-times
returning pilgrims with the spell
Of
these lost lands upon their lids, she moved
Among
familiar truths, accustomed sights,
As
she to them were strange, not they to her.
And
often, reasoning with her, have I felt
Some
ancient lore was in her, dimly drawn
>From
springs of life beyond the four-fold stream
That
makes a silver pale to Paradise;
For
she was calm as some forsaken god
Who
knows not that his power is passed from him,
But
sees with tranced eyes rich pilgrim-trains
In
sands the desert blows about his feet.
Abhorring
first, I heard her; yet her speech
Warred
not with pity, or the contrite heart,
Or
hatred of things evil: rather seemed
The
utterance of some world where these are not,
And
the heart lives in heathen innocence
With earth’s innocuous creatures. For she said:
“Love
is not, as the shallow adage goes,
A
witch’s filter, brewed to trick the blood.
The
cup we drank of on the flying deck
Was
the blue vault of air, the round world’s lip,
Brimmed
with life’s hydromel, and pressed to ours
By myriad hands of wind and sun and sea.
For
these are all the cup-bearers of youth,
That bend above it at the board of life,
Solicitous
accomplices: there’s not
A
leaf on bough, a foam-flash on the wave,
So
brief and glancing but it serves them too;
No
scent the pale rose spends upon the night,
Nor
sky-lark’s rapture trusted to the blue,
But
these, from the remotest tides of air
Brought
in mysterious salvage, breathe and sing
In
lovers’ lips and eyes; and two that drink
Thus
onely of the strange commingled cup
Of
mortal fortune shall into their blood
Take
magic gifts. Upon each others’ hearts
They
shall surprise the heart-beat of the world,
And
feel a sense of life in things inert;
For
as love’s touch upon the yielded body
Is
a diviner’s wand, and where it falls
A
hidden treasure trembles: so their eyes,
Falling
upon the world of clod and brute,
And
cold hearts plotting evil, shall discern
The
inextinguishable flame of life
That
girdles the remotest frame of things
With influences older than the stars.”
So
spake Iseult; and thus her passion found
Far-flying
words, like birds against the sunset
That
look on lands we see not. Yet I know
It
was not any argument she found,
But
that she was, the colour that life took
About
her, that thus reasoned in her stead,
Making
her like a lifted lantern borne
Through
midnight thickets, where the flitting ray
Momently
from inscrutable darkness draws
A
myriad-veined branch, and its shy nest
Quivering with startled life: so moved Iseult.
And
all about her this deep solitude
Stirred with responsive motions. Oft I knelt
In
night-long vigil while the lovers slept
Under
their outlawed thatch, and with long prayers
Sought
to disarm the indignant heavens; but lo,
Thus
kneeling in the intertidal hour
’Twixt
dark and dawning, have mine eyes beheld
How
the old gods that hide in these hoar woods,
And
were to me but shapings of the air,
And
flit and murmur of the breathing trees,
Or
slant of moon on pools—how these stole forth,
Grown
living presences, yet not of bale,
But
innocent-eyed as fawns that come to drink,
Thronging
the threshold where the lovers lay,
In
service of the great god housed within
Who
hides in his breast, beneath his mighty plumes,
The purposes and penalties of life.
Or
in yet deeper hours, when all was still,
And
the hushed air bowed over them alone,
Such
music of the heart as lovers hear,
When
close as lips lean, lean the thoughts between—
When
the cold world, no more a lonely orb
Circling
the unimagined track of Time,
Is
like a beating heart within their hands,
A
numb bird that they warm, and feel its wings—
Such
music have I heard; and through the prayers
Wherewith
I sought to shackle their desires,
And
bring them humbled to the feet of God,
Caught
the loud quiring of the fruitful year,
The
leap of springs, the throb of loosened earth,
And the sound of all the streams that seek the sea.
So
fell it, that when pity moved their hearts,
And
those high lovers, one unto the end,
Bowed
to the sundering will, and each his way
Went
through a world that could not make them twain,
Knowing
that a great vision, passing by,
Had
swept mine eye-lids with its fringe of fire,
I,
with the wonder of it on my head,
And
with the silence of it in my heart,
Forth
to Tintagel went by secret ways,
A
long lone journey; and from them that loose
Their
spiced bales upon the wharves, and shake
Strange
silks to the sun, or covertly unbosom
Rich
hoard of pearls and amber, or let drip
Through
swarthy fingers links of sinuous gold,
Chose their most delicate treasures. Though I knew
No
touch more silken than this knotted gown,
My
hands, grown tender with the sense of her,
Discerned
the airiest tissues, light to cling
As
shower-loosed petals, veils like meadow-smoke,
Fur
soft as snow, amber like sun congealed,
Pearls
pink as may-buds in an orb of dew;
And
laden with these wonders, that to her
Were
natural as the vesture of a flower,
Fared home to lay my booty at her feet.
And
she, consenting, nor with useless words
Proving
my purpose, robed herself therein
To
meet her lawful lord; but while she thus
Prisoned
the wandering glory of her hair,
Dimmed
her bright breast with jewels, and subdued
Her
light to those dull splendours, well she knew
The
lord that I adorned her thus to meet
Was
not Tintagel’s shadowy King, but he,
That
other lord beneath whose plumy feet
The
currents of the seas of life run gold
As
from eternal sunrise; well she knew
That
when I laid my hands upon her head,
Saying,
“Fare forth forgiven,” the words I spoke
Were
the breathings of his pity, who beholds
How,
swept on his inexorable wings
Too
far beyond the planetary fires
On
the last coasts of darkness, plunged too deep
In
light ineffable, the heart amazed
Swoons
of its glory, and dropping back to earth
Craves
the dim shelter of familiar sounds,
The
rain on the roof, the noise of flocks that pass,
And the slow world waking to its daily round….
And
thus, as one who speeds a banished queen,
I
set her on my mule, and hung about
With
royal ornament she went her way;
For
meet it was that this great Queen should pass
Crowned
and forgiven from the face of Love.
(Atlantic Monthly 104, Dec 1909)
The
Comrade.
Wild
winged thing, O brought I know not whence
To
beat your life out in my life’s low cage;
You
strange familiar, nearer than my flesh
Yet
distant as a star, that were at first
A
child with me a child, yet elfin-far,
And
visibly of some unearthly breed;
Mirthfullest
mate of all my mortal games,
Yet
shedding on them some evasive gleam
Of
Latmian loneliness—O seven then
Expert
to lift the latch of our low door
And
profit by the hours when, dusked about
By
human misintelligence, our first
Weak
fledgling flights were safeliest essayed;
Divine
accomplice of those perilous-sweet
Low
moth-flights of the unadventured soul
Above
the world’s dim garden!—now we sit,
After
what stretch of years, what stretch of wings,
In
the same cage together—still as near
And
still as strange!
Only
I know at last
That
we are fellows till the last night falls,
And
that I shall not miss your comrade hands
Till
they have closed my lids, and by them set
A
taper that—who knows!—may yet shine through.
Sister,
my comrade, I have ached for you,
Sometimes,
to see you curb your pace to mine,
And
bow your Maenad crest to the dull forms
Of
human usage; I have loosed your hand
And
whispered: ‘Go! Since I am tethered here;’
And
you have turned, and breathing for reply,
‘I
too am pinioned, as you too are free,’
Have
caught me to such undreamed distances
As
the last planets see, when they look forth,
To
the sentinel pacings of the outmost stars—
Nor
these alone,
Comrade, my sister, were your gifts. More oft
Has
your impalpable wing-brush bared for me
The
heart of wonder in familiar things,
Unroofed
dull rooms, and hung above my head
The
cloudy glimpses of a vernal moon,
Or
all the autumn heaven ripe with stars.
And
you have made a secret pact with Sleep,
And
when she comes not, or her feet delay,
Toiled
in low meadows of gray asphodel
Under
a pale sky where no shadows fall,
Then,
hooded like her, to my side you steal,
And
the night grows like a great rumouring sea,
And
you a boat, and I your passenger,
And
the tide lifts us with an indrawn breath
Out,
out upon the murmurs and the scents,
Through
spray of splintered star-beams, or white rage
Of
desperate moon-drawn waters—on and on
To
some blue ocean immarcescible
That ever like a slow-swung mirror rocks
The balanced breasts of sea-birds motionless.
Yet
other nights, my sister, you have been
The
storm, and I the leaf that fled on it
Terrifically
down voids that never knew
The
pity of creation—or have felt
The
immitigable anguish of a soul
Left
last in a long-ruined world alone;
And
then your touch has drawn me back to earth,
As
in the night, upon an unknown road,
A
scent of lilac breathing from the hedge
Bespeaks
the hidden farm, the bedded cows,
And safety, and the sense of human kind …
And
I have climbed with you by hidden ways
To
meet the dews of morning, and have seen
The
shy gods like retreating shadows fade,
Or
on the thymy reaches have surprised
Old
Chiron sleeping, and have waked him not …
Yet
farther have I fared with you, and known
Love
and his sacred tremors, and the rites
Of
his most inward temple; and beyond
His
temple lights, have seen the long gray waste
Where
lonely thoughts, like creatures of the night,
Listen
and wander where a city stood.
And
creeping down by waterless defiles
Under
an iron midnight,
have I kept
My
vigil in the waste till dawn began
To
move among the ruins, and I saw
A
sapling rooted in a fissured plinth,
And
a wren’s nest in the thunder-threatening hand
Of some old god of granite in the dust …
(Atlantic Monthly 106, Dec. 1910)
Summer
Afternoon (Bodiam
Castle, Sussex).
Thou
couldst not look on me and live: so runs
The
mortal legend—thou that couldst not live
Nor
look on me (so the divine decree)!
That
sawst me in the cloud, the wave, the bough,
The
clod commoved with April, and the shapes
Lurking ’twixt lid and eye-ball in the dark.
Mocked
I thee not in every guise of life,
Hid
in girls’ eyes, a naiad in her well,
Wooed
through their laughter, and like echo fled,
Luring
thee down the primal silences
Where
the heart hushes and the flesh is dumb?
Nay,
was not I the tide that drew thee out
Relentlessly
from the detaining shore,
Forth from the home-lights and the hailing
voices,
Forth from the last faint headland’s failing
line,
Till
I enveloped thee from verge to verge
And
hid thee in the hollow of my being?
And
still, because between us hung the veil,
The
myriad-tinted veil of sense, thy feet
Refused
their rest, thy hands the gifts of life,
Thy
heart its losses, lest some lesser face
Should
blur mine image in thine upturned soul
Ere death had stamped it there. This was thy thought.
And
mine?
The
gods, they say, have all: not so!
This have they—flocks on every hill, the blue
Spirals
of incense and the amber drip
Of
lucid honey-comb on sylvan shrines,
First-chosen
weanlings, doves immaculate,
Twin-cooing
in the osier-plaited cage,
And
ivy-garlands glaucous with the dew:
Man’s
wealth, man’s servitude, but not himself!
And
so they pale, for lack of warmth they wane,
Freeze
to the marble of their images,
And,
pinnacled on man’s subserviency,
Through
the thick sacrificial haze discern
Unheeding
lives and loves, as some cold peak
Through
icy mists may enviously descry
Warm
vales unzoned to the all-fruitful sun.
So
they along an immortality
Of
endless-vistaed homage strain their gaze,
If
haply some rash votary, empty-urned,
But
light of foot, with all-adventuring hand,
Break
rank, fling past the people and the priest,
Up
the last step, on to the inmost shrine,
And
there, the sacred curtain in his clutch,
Drop
dead of seeing—while the others prayed!
Yea,
this we wait for, this renews us, this
Incarnates
us, pale people of your dreams,
Who
are but what you make us, wood or stone,
Or
cold chryselephantine hung with gems,
Or
else the beating purpose of your life,
Your
sword, your clay, the note your pipe pursues,
The
face that haunts your pillow, or the light
Scarce
visible over leagues of laboring sea!
O
thus through use to reign again, to drink
The
cup of peradventure to the lees,
For
one dear instant disimmortalized
In
giving immortality!
So
dream the gods upon their listless thrones.
Yet
sometimes, when the votary appears,
With
death-affronting forehead and glad eyes,
Too
young, they rather muse, too frail thou art,
And
shall we rob some girl of saffron veil
And nuptial garland for so slight a thing?
And
so to their incurious loves return.
Not
so with thee; for some indeed there are
Who
would behold the truth and then return
To
pine among the semblances—but I
Divined
in thee the questing foot that never
Revisits
the cold hearth of yesterday
Or calls achievement home. I from afar
Beheld
thee fashioned for one hour’s high use,
Nor meant to slake oblivion drop by drop.
Long,
long hadst thou inhabited my dreams,
Surprising
me as harts surprise a pool,
Stealing
to drink at midnight; I
divined
Thee
rash to reach the heart of life, and lie
Bosom
to bosom in occasion’s arms,
And
said: Because I love thee thou shalt die!
For
immortality is not to range
Unlimited
through vast Olympian days,
Or
sit in dull dominion over time;
But
this—to drink fate’s utmost at a draught,
Nor
feel the wine grow stale upon the lip,
To
scale the summit of some soaring moment,
Nor
know the dulness of the long descent,
To
snatch the crown of life and seal it up
Secure
forever in the vaults of death!
And
this was thine: to lose thyself in me,
Relive
in my renewal, and become
The
light of other lives, a quenchless torch
Passed
on from hand to hand, till men are dust
And
the last garland withers from my shrine.
(Scribner’s Magazine 49, Mar 1911)
Pomegranate
Seed.
Characters:
Demeter
Persephone
Hecate
Hermes
In
the vale of Elusis
Demeter
Hail,
goddess, from the midmost caverned vale
Of
Samothracia, where with darksome rites
Unnameable, and sacrificial lambs,
Pale
priests salute thy triple-headed form,
Borne
hither by swift Hermes o’er the sea:
Hail,HECATE, what word soe’er thou bring
To me, undaughtered, of my vanished child.
Hecate
Word
have I, but no Samothracian wild
Last
saw me, and mine aged footsteps pine
For
the bleak vale, my dusky-pillared house,
And
the cold murmur of incessant rites
Forever
falling down mine altar-steps
Into
black pools of fear … for I am come
Even
now from that blue-cinctured westward isle,
Trinacria,
where, till thou withheldst thy face,
Yearly
three harvests yellowed to the sun,
And
vines deep-laden yoked the heavier boughs—
Trinacria, that last saw Persephone.
Demeter
Now,
triune goddess, may the black ewe-lambs
Pour
a red river down thine altar-steps,
Fruit,
loaves and honey, at the cross-roads laid,
With
each young moon by pious hands renewed,
Appease
thee, and the Thracian vale resound
With
awful homage to thine oracle!
What
bring’st thou of Persephone, my child?
Hecate
Thy
daughter lives, yet never sees the sun.
Demeter
Blind
am I in her blindness. Tell no more.
Hecate
Blind
is she not, and yet beholds no light.
Demeter
Dark
as her doom is, are thy words to me.
Hecate
When
the wild chariot of the flying sea
Bore
me to Etna, ‘neath his silver slope
Herding
their father’s flocks three maids I found,
The
daughters of the god whose golden house
Rears in the east its cloudy peristyle.
“Helios,
our father,” to my quest they cried,
“Was
last to see Persephone on earth.”
Demeter
On earth? What nameless region holds her now?
Hecate
Even
as I put thy question to the three,
Etna
became as one who knows a god,
And
wondrously, across the waiting deep,
Wave
after wave the golden portent bore,
Till Helios rose before us.
Demeter
O,
I need
Thy
words as the parched valleys need my rain!
Hecate
May
the draught slake thee! Thus the god replied:
When
the first suns of March with verdant flame
Relume
the fig-trees in the crannied hills,
And
the pale myrtle scents the rain-washed air—
Ere
oleanders down the mountain stream
Pass
the wild torch of summer, and my kine
Breathe
of gold gorse and honey-laden sage;
Between
the first white flowering of the bay
And
the last almond’s fading from the hill,
Along
the fields of Enna came a maid
Who
seemed among her mates to move alone,
As
the full moon will mow the sky of stars,
And
whom, by that transcendence, I divined
Of
breed Olympian, and Demeter’s child.
Demeter
All-seeing
god! So walks she in my dreams.
Hecate
Persephone
(so spake the god of day)
Ran
here and there with footsteps that out-shone
The
daffodils she gathered, while her maids,
Like
shadows of herself by noon fore-shortened,
On
every side her laughing task prolonged;
When
suddenly the warm and trusted earth
Widened
black jaws beneath them, and therefrom
Rose
Aides, whom with averted head
Pale
mortals worship, as the poplar turns,
Whitening, her fearful foliage from the gale.
Like
thunder rolling up against the wind
He
dusked the sky with midnight ere he came,
Whirling
his cloak of subterraneous cloud
In
awful coils about the fated maid,
Till
nothing marked the place where she had stood
But
her dropped flowers—a garland on a grave.
Demeter
Where
is that grave? There will I lay me down,
And
know no more the change of night to day.
Hecate
Such
is the cry that mortal mothers make;
But
the sun rises, and their task goes on.
Demeter
Yet
happier they, that make an end at last.
Hecate
Behold,
along the Eleusinian vale
A
god approaches, by his feathered tread
Arcadian Hermes. Wait upon his word.
Demeter
I
am a god. What do the gods avail?
Hecate
Oft
have I heard that cry—but not the answer.
Hermes
Demeter,
from Olympus am I come,
By
laurelled Tempe and Thessalian ways,
Charged with grave words of aegis-bearing Zeus.
Demeter
(as if she has not heard him)
If
there be any grief I have not borne,
Go,
bring it here, and I will give it suck …
Hermes
Thou
art a god, and speakest mortal words?
Demeter
Even
the gods grow greater when they love.
Hermes
It
is the Life-giver who speaks by me.
Demeter
I
want no words but those my child shall speak.
Hermes
His
words are winged seeds that carry hope
To root and ripen in long-barren hearts.
Demeter
Deeds,
and not words, alone can quicken me.
Hermes
His
words are fruitfuller than deeds of men.
Why
hast thou left Olympus, and thy kind?
Demeter
Because
my kind are they that walk the earth
For
numbered days, and lay them down in graves.
My
sisters are the miserable women
Who
seek their children up and down the world,
Who
feel a babe’s hand at the faded breast,
And
live upon the words of lips gone dumb.
Sorrow
no footing on Olympus finds,
And
the gods are gods because their hearts forget.
Hermes
Why
then, since thou hast cast thy lot with those
Who
painfully endure vain days on earth,
Hast
thou, harsh arbitress of fruit and flower,
Cut
off the natural increase of the fields?
The
baffled herds, tongues lolling, eyes agape,
Range
wretchedly from sullen spring to spring,
A
million sun-blades lacerate the ground,
And
the shrunk fruits untimely drop, like tears
That
Earth at her own desolation sheds.
These
are the words Zeus bids me bring to thee.
Demeter
To
whom reply: No pasture longs for rain
As
for Persephone I thirst and hunger.
Give
me my child, and all the earth shall laugh
Like
Rhodian rose-fields in the eye of June.
Hermes
What
if such might were mine? What if, indeed,
The
exorable god, thy pledge confirmed,
Should
yield thee back the daughter of thy tears?
Demeter
Such
might is thine?
Beyond
Cithaeron, see
The footsteps of the rain upon the hills.
Hermes
Tell
me whence thy daughter must be led.
Hecate
So
much at least it shall be mine to do.
If
ever urgency hath plumed thy heels,
By
Psyttaleia and the outer isles
Westward
still winging thine ethereal way,
Beyond
the moon-swayed reaches of the deep,
And
that unvestiged midnight
that confines
The
verge of being, succourable god,
Haste
to the river by whose sunless brim
Dark
Aides leads forth his languid flocks.
There
shalt thou find Persephone enthroned.
Beside
the ruler of the dead she sits,
And
shares, unwilling, his long sovereignty.
Thence
lead her to Demeter and these groves.
Demeter
Round
thy returning feet the earth shall laugh
As
I, when of my body she was born!
Hecate
Lo,
thy last word is as a tardy shaft
Lost in his silver furrow. Ere thou speed
Its
fellow, we shall see his face again
And not alone. The gods are justified.
Demeter
Ah,
how impetuous are the wings of joy!
Swift
comes she, as impatient to be gone!
Swifter
than yonder rain moves down the pass
I
see the wonder run along the deep.
The
light draws nearer…. Speak to me, my child!
Hecate
I
feel the first slow rain-drop on my hand …
She
fades. Persephone comes, led by Hermes.
Persephone
How
sweet the hawthorn smells along the hedge …
And,
mother, mother, sweeter are these tears.
Demeter
Pale
art thou, daughter, and upon thy brow
Sits an estranging darkness like a crown.
Look
up, look up! Drink in the light’s new wine.
Feelest
thou not beneath thine alien feet
Earth’s old endearment, O Persephone?
Persephone
Dear
is the earth’s warm pressure under foot,
And
dear, my mother, is thy hand in mine.
As
one who, prisoned in some Asian wild,
After
long days of cheated wandering
Climbing
a sudden cliff, at last beholds
The
boundless reassurance of the sea,
And
on it one small sail that sets for home,
So
look I on the daylight, and thine eyes.
Demeter
Thy
voice is paler than the lips it leaves.
Thou
wilt not stay with me! I know my doom.
Persephone
Ah,
the sweet rain! The clouds compassionate!
Hide
me, O mother, hide me from the day!
Demeter
What
are these words? It is my love thou fearest.
Persephone
I
fear the light. I fear the sound of life
That
thunders in mine unaccustomed ears.
Demeter
Here
is no sound but the soft-falling rain.
Persephone
Dost
thou not hear the noise of birth and being,
The
roar of sap in boughs impregnated,
And
all the deafening rumour of the grass?
Demeter
Love hear I, at his endless task of life.
Persephone
The
awful immortality of life!
The
white path winding deathlessly to death!
Why
didst thou call the rain from out her caves
To draw a dying earth back to the day?
Why
fatten flocks for our dark feast, who sit
Beside
the gate, and know where the path ends?
O
pitiless gods—that I am one of you!
Demeter
They
are not pitiless, since thou art here.
Persephone
Who
am I, that they give me, or withhold?
Think’st
thou I am that same Persephone
They
took from thee?
Demeter
Within
thine eyes I see
Some
dreadful thing—
Persephone
At
first I deemed it so.
Demeter
Loving
thy doom, more dark thou mak’st it seem.
Persephone
Love? What is love? This long time I’ve unlearned
Those old unquiet words. There where we sit,
By
the sad river of the end, still are
The
poplars, still the shaken hearts of men,
Or
if they stir, it is as when in sleep
Dogs
sob upon a phantom quarry’s trail.
And
ever through their listlessness there runs
The
lust of some old anguish; never yet
Hath
any asked for happiness: that gift
They
fear too much! But they would sweat and strive,
And
clear a field, or kill a man, or even
Wait
on some long slow vengeance all their days.
Demeter
Since
I have sat upon the stone of sorrow,
Think’st
thou I know not how the dead may feel?
But
thou, look up; for thou shalt learn from me,
Under
the sweet day, in the paths of men,
All
the dear human offices that make
Their brief hour longer than the years of death.
Thou
shalt behold me wake the sleeping seed,
And
wing the flails upon the threshing-floor,
Among
young men and maidens; or at dawn,
Under
the low thatch, in the winnowing-creel,
Lay
the new infant, seedling of some warm
Noon dalliance in the golden granary,
Who
shall in turn rise, walk, and drive the plough,
And
in the mortal furrow leave his seed.
Persephone
Execrable
offices are theirs and thine!
Mine
only nurslings are the waxen-pale
Dead
babes, so small that they are hard to tell
From
the little images their mothers lay
Beside them, that they may not sleep alone.
Demeter
Yet
other nurslings to those mothers come,
And
live and love—
Persephone
Thou
hast not seen them meet,
Ghosts
of dead babes and ghosts of tired men,
Or
thou wouldst veil thy face, and curse the sun!
Demeter
Thou
wilt forget the things that thou hast seen.
Persephone
More
dreadful are the things thou hast to show.
Demeter
Art
thou so certain? Hard is it for men
To
know a god, and it has come to me
That
we, we also, may be blind to men.
Persephone
O
mother, thou hast spoken! But for me,
I, that have eaten of the seed of death,
And
with my dead die daily, am become
Of
their undying kindred, and no more
Can
sit within the doorway of the gods
And
laughing spin new souls along the years.
Demeter
Daughter,
speak low. Since I have walked with men
Olympus is a little hill, no more.
Stay
with me on the dear and ample earth.
Persephone
The
kingdom of the dead is wider still,
And
there I heal the wounds that thou hast made.
Demeter
And
yet I send thee beautiful ghosts and griefs!
Dispeopling
earth, I leave thee none to rule.
Persephone
O
that, mine office ended, I might end!
Demeter
Stand
off from me. Thou knowest more than I,
Who
am but the servant of some lonely will.
Persephone
Perchance the same. But me it calls from hence.
Demeter
On
earth, on earth, thou wouldst have wounds to heal!
Persephone
Free
me. I hear the voices of my dead.
She
goes.
Demeter
( after a long silence)
I
hear the secret whisper of the wheat.
(Scribner’s Magazine 51, Mar 1912)
The
Hymn of the Lusitania.
In
an article on “Peace Insurance by Preparedness Against
War,” appearing in the Metropolitan Magazine for August, Theodore Roosevelt
wrote: “Mrs. Wharton has sent me the following German poem on the sinking of
the Lusitania, with her translation”:
The
swift sea sucks her death-shriek under
As the great ship reels and leaps asunder.
Crammed taffrail-high with her murderous freight.
Like
a straw on the tide she whirls to her fate.
A
warship she, though she lacked its coat,
And
lustful for lives as none afloat,
A
warship, and one of the foe’s best workers.
Not
penned with her rusting harbor-shirkers.
Now
the Flanders guns lack their daily bread,
And
shipper and buyer are sick with dread.
For
neutral as Uncle Sam may be
Your
surest neutral’s the deep green sea.
Just
one ship sunk, with lives and shell,
And
thousands of German gray-coats well!
And
for each of her gray-coats, German hate
Would have sunk ten ships with all their freight.
Yea,
ten such ships are a paltry fine
For one good life in our fighting line.
Let
England ponder the crimson text:
TORPEDO,
STRIKE! AND HURRAH FOR THE NEXT!
(New York Herald, 7 May 1915)
The
Great Blue Tent.
Special Cable to The
New York Times. Paris, Aug. 24.—Edith Wharton has written the following poem for The New York
Times:
Come
unto me, said the Flag,
Ye
weary and sore opprest;
For
I am no shot-riddled rag,
But
a great blue tent of rest.
Ye
heavy laden, come
On
the aching feet of dread,
From
ravaged town, from murdered home,
From your tortured and your dead.
All
they that beat at my crimson bars
Shall enter without demur.
Though
the round earth rock with the
wind of wars,
Not
one of my folds shall stir.
See,
here is warmth and sleep,
And
a table largely spread.
I
give garments to them that weep,
And
for gravestones I give bread.
But
what, through my inmost fold,
Is
this cry on the winds of war?
Are
you grown so old, are you grown so
cold,
O
Flag that was once our star?
Where
did you learn that bread is life,
And
where that fire is warm—
You,
that took the van of a world-wide
strife,
As
an eagle takes the storm?
Where
did you learn that men are bred
Where
hucksters bargain and gorge;
And
where that down makes a softer bed
Than the snows of Valley Forge?
Come
up, come up to the stormy sky,
Where
our fierce folds rattle and hum,
For
Lexington taught us how to fly,
And
we dance to Concord’s drum.
O
flags of freedom, said the Flag,
Brothers
of wind and sky;
I
too was once a tattered rag,
And
I wake and shake at your cry.
I
tug and tug at the anchoring place,
Where
my drowsy folds are caught;
I
strain to be off on the old fierce chase
Of
the foe we have always fought.
O
People I made, said the Flag,
And
welded from sea to sea,
I
am still the shot-riddled rag,
That
shrieks to be free, to be free.
Oh,
cut my silken ties
From
the roof of the palace of peace;
Give
back my stars to the skies,
My
stripes to the storm-striped seas!
Or
else, if you bid me yield,
Then
down with my crimson bars,
And
o’er all my azure field
Sow
poppies instead of stars.
(New York Times, 25 Aug.
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