Anthology of Massachusetts Poets Part 1

Anthology of Ma.s.sachusetts Poets.

by Various.

Editor: William Stanley Braithwaite.

HOME-BOUND

THE moon is a wavering rim where one fish slips, The water makes a quietness of sound; Night is an anchoring of many s.h.i.+ps Home-bound.

There are strange tunnelers in the dark, and whirs Of wings that die, and hairy spiders spin The silence into nets, and tenanters Move softly in.

I step on shadows riding through the gra.s.s, And feel the night lean cool against my face; And challenged by the sentinel of s.p.a.ce, I pa.s.s.

JOSEPH AUSLANDE

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

O BEAUTIFUL for s.p.a.cious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain!

America! America!

G.o.d shed His grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to s.h.i.+ning sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet, Those stern, impa.s.sioned stress A thoroughfare for freedom beat Across the wilderness!

America! America!

G.o.d mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law!

O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife Who more than self their country loved, And mercy more than life!

America! America!

May G.o.d thy gold refine, Till all success be n.o.bleness, And every gain divine.

O beautiful for patriot dream That sees beyond the years Thine alabaster cities gleam

Undimmed by human tears!

America! America!

G.o.d shed His grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to s.h.i.+ning sea!

KATHERINE LEE BATES

YELLOW CLOVER

MUST I, who walk alone, come on it still, This Puck of plants The wise would do away with, The suns.h.i.+ne slants To play with, Our wee, gold-dusty flower, the yellow clover, Which once in Parting for a time That then seemed long, Ere time for you was over, We sealed our own?

Do you remember yet, O Soul beyond the stars, Beyond the uttermost dim bars Of s.p.a.ce, Dear Soul, who found earth sweet, Remember by love's grace, In dreamy hushes of the heavenly song, How suddenly we halted in our climb, Lingering, reluctant, up that farthest hill, Stooped for the blossoms closest to our feet, And gave them as a token Each to Each, In lieu of speech, In lieu of words too grievous to be spoken, Those little, gypsy, wondering blossoms wet With a strange dew of tears?

So it began, This vagabond, unvalued yellow clover, To be our tenderest language. All the years It lent a new zest to the summer hours, As each of us went scheming to surprise The other with our homely, laureate flowers.

Sonnets and odes Fringing our daily roads.

Can amaranth and asphodel Bring merrier laughter to your eyes?

Oh, if the Blest, in their serene abodes, Keep any wistful consciousness of earth, Not grandeurs, but the childish ways of love, Simplicities of mirth, Must follow them above With touches of vague homesickness that pa.s.s Like shadows of swift birds across the gra.s.s.

Beneath some foreign arch of sky, How many a time the rover You or I, For life oft sundered look from look, And voice from voice, the transient dearth Schooling my soul to brook This distance that no messages may span, Would chance Upon our wilding by a lonely well, Or drowsy watermill, Or swaying to the chime of convent bell, Or where the nightingales of old romance With tragical contraltos fill Dim solitudes of infinite desire; And once I joyed to meet Our peasant gadabout A trespa.s.ser on trim, seigniorial seat, Twinkling a saucy eye As potentates paced by.

Our golden cord! our soft, pursuing flame From friends.h.i.+p's altar fire!

How proudly we would pluck and tame

The dimpling cl.u.s.ters, mutinously gay!

How swiftly they were sent Far, far away On journeys wide, By sea and continent, Green miles and blue leagues over, From each of us to each, That so our hearts might reach, And touch within the yellow clover,

Love's letter to be glad about Like suns.h.i.+ne when it came!

My sorrow asks no healing; it is love; Let love then make me brave To bear the keen hurts of This careless summertide, Ay, of our own poor flower, Changed with our fatal hour, For all its suns.h.i.+ne vanished when you died; Only white clover blossoms on your grave.

KATHERINE LEE BATES

THE RETURNING

We long for her, we yearn for her-- Yes, ardently we yearn For her return.

Recalling those beloved days (Days intimate with ways Of friends so near to us And life so dear to us), We yearn unspeakably for her return.

And come she must... Yet while we trust We soon may see the pa.s.sing of this agony Which makes intrusive years still seem A fearsome dream, We know that when she comes She really comes not back again.

She'll come in other guise And under fairer skies-- And yet to bitter pain!

That day she went away Our homes with laughing youth were filled.

Where then was happiness Is now distress, The laughter stilled; For when she left Youth followed her-- We stay bereft.

So all our golden joy For what she brings Must carry gray alloy: The sorrow that she can not lay, The mysery that she can not stay-- While all the gladsome songs she sings Must bear for undertones Old sighs and echoed moans.

As they who go away In flush of youth May come quite worn and gray And bringing naught but ruth-- So, when the strife shall cease, And when she comes at last, When all the armies vast Shall at her feet Kneel down to greet Thrice welcome Peace, This world will be so changed (So many dear ones dead, So many friends estranged, So many blessings fled, So many wonted ways forever barred, So many coming days forever marred) That then She truly comes not back again-- She, the Peace we knew.

Yet how we long for her!

How ardently we yearn For her return!

SYLVESTER BAXTER

TWO MOODS FROM THE HILL

I.

YOUTH

I LOVE to watch the world from here, for all The numberless living portraits that are drawn Upon the mind. Far over is the sea, Fronting the sand, a few great yellow dunes, A salt marsh stumbling after, rank and green, With brackish gullies wandering in between, All this from the hill.

And more: a clump of dwarfed and twisted cedars, Sentinels over the marsh, and bright with the sun A field of daises wandering in the wind As though a hidden serpent glided through, A broken wall, a new-plowed field, and then The dusty road and the abodes of men Surrounding the hill.

How small the enclosure is wherein there lives Each phase and pa.s.sion of life, the distant sail Dips in the limpid bosom of the sea, From that far place to where in state the turf Raises a throne for me upon the hill, Each little love and l.u.s.t of a living thing Can thus be compa.s.sed in a rainbow ring And seen from the hill.

II.

AGE