The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems Part 6

I wonder if they ever heard The silver scream, in some grey morn, High in a lit and listening tower, Because a man-child then was born.

I wonder if they ever saw A woman's hair, or in her eye Read the eternal mystery-- Or ever saw a woman die.

I wonder, when all friends had gone,-- The gay companions, the brave men-- If in some fragile girl they found Their only stay and comrade then.

She who thus went through flaming h.e.l.l To make us, put into our clay All that there is of heaven, shall she-- Mother and sister, wife and fay,--

Have no part in the world she made-- Serf of the rainbow, va.s.sal flower-- Save knitting in the afternoon, And rocking cradles, hour by hour!

AN EASTER HYMN

Spake the Lord Christ--"I will arise."

It seemed a saying void and vain-- How shall a dead man rise again!-- Vain as our tears, vain as our cries.

Not one of all the little band That loved Him this might understand.

"I will arise"--Lord Jesus said.

Hearken, amid the morning dew, Mary, a voice that calleth you,-- Then Mary turned her golden head, And lo! all s.h.i.+ning at her side Her Master they had crucified.

At dawn to his dim sepulchre, Mary, remembering that far day, When at his feet the spikenard lay, Came, bringing balm and spice and myrrh; To her the grave had made reply: "He is not here--He cannot die."

Praetor and priest in vain conspire, Jerusalem and Rome in vain Torture the G.o.d with mortal pain, To quench that seed of living fire; But light that had in heaven its birth Can never be put out oh earth.

"I will arise"--across the years, Even as to Mary that grey morn, To us that gentle voice is borne-- "I will arise." He that hath ears O hearken well this mystic word, Let not the Master speak unheard.

No soul descended deep in h.e.l.l, The child of sorrow, sin and death, The immortal spirit suffereth To see corruption; though it fell From loftiest station in the skies, It still to heaven again must rise.

No dream of faith, no seed of love, No lonely action n.o.bly done, But is as stable as the sun, And fed and watered from above; From nether base to starry cope Nature's two laws are Faith and Hope.

Safe in the care of heavenly powers, The good we dreamed but might not do, Lost beauty magically new, Shall spring as surely as the flowers, When, 'mid the sobbing of the rain, The heart of April beats again.

Celestial spirit that doth roll The heart's sepulchral stone away, Be this our resurrection day, The singing Easter of the soul: O Gentle Master of the Wise Teach us to say, "I will arise."

BALLAD OF THE SEVEN O'CLOCK WHISTLE

The daisied dawn is in the sky, And the young day still dew and dream, When on the innocent morning air There comes a terrifying scream;

And the four ends of the sad earth Repeat the h.e.l.lish dreadful call; Soft ladies murmur in soft beds-- "The morning whistle--that is all!"

And I too turn to sleep once more, A haunted sleep all filled with pain; For in my sleep I see the men, The victims of colossal Gain,

Troop in the doors of servitude; I see the children weary-eyed, I see the time-clock, and I see The endless day that glooms inside.

It is the Moloch of the dawn, Capital calling for its prey-- Men, women and little boys and girls, It's human sacrifice each day.

And, as I hear that dreadful scream, High in the dawn all filled with song,-- I pray within my aching heart--"O Lord!

O Lord! How long! How long!"

MORALITY

Give me the lifted skirt, And the brave ways of wrong, The fist, the dagger and the sword, And the out-spoken song.

Ah! bring me not the love That bargains, bids and buys: For so much loving I will give So much in lips and eyes;

But love with bosom bared, Sweet as a bird and wild, That in her savage maidenhood Cries for a little child.

VI

FOR THE BIRTHDAY OF EDGAR ALLAN POE

(January 19, 1909)

Poet of doom, dementia, and death, Of beauty singing in a charnel house, Like the lost soul of a poor moon-mad maid, With too much loving of some lord of h.e.l.l; Doomed and disastrous spirit, to what sh.o.r.e Of what dark gulf infernal art thou strayed, Or to what spectral star of topless heaven Art lifted and enthroned?

The winter dark, And the drear winter cold that welcomed thee To a world all winter, gird with ice and storm Thy January day--yea! the same world Of winter and the wintry hearts of men; And still, for all thy s.h.i.+ning, the same swarm That mocked thy song gather about thy fame, With the small murmur of the undying worm, And whisper, blind and foul, amid thy dust.

TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Poet, whose words are like the tight-packed seed Sealed in the capsule of a silver flower, Still at your art we wonder as we read, The art dynamic charging each word with power.

Seeds of the silver flower of Emerson: One, on the winds to Scotland brought, did sink In Carlyle's heart; and one was lately blown To Belgium, and flowered in--Maeterlinck.

RICHARD WATSON GILDER (Obiit Nov. 18, 1909)

America grows poorer day by day-- Richer and richer, I have heard some say: They thought of a poor wealth I do not heed-- For, one by one, the men who dreamed the dream That was America, and is now no more, Have gone in flame through that mysterious door, And scarcely one remains, in all our need.

The dream goes with the dreamer--ah! beware, Country of facile silver and of gold, To slight the gentle strength of a pure prayer; America, all made out of a dream-- A dream of good men in the days of old; What if the dream should fade and none remain To tell your children the old dream again!

Therefore, with laurel and with tears and rue, Stand by his grave this sad November day, Sadder that he untimely goes away, Who sang and wrought so well for that high dream We call America--the world made new, New with clean hope and faith and purpose true.

Gilder, your name, with each return of Spring, Shall write itself in the soft April flowers, And, when you hear the murmur of bright showers Over your sleep, and little lives that sing Come back once more, know that the rainbowed rain Is but our tears, saying: "Come back again."

IN A COPY OF FITZGERALD'S "OMAR"

A little book, this grim November day, Wherein, O tired heart, to creep away,-- Come drink this wine and wear this fadeless rose, Nor heed the world, nor what the world shall say.

A thousand gardens--yet to-day there blows In all their wintry walks no single rose, But here with Omar you shall find the Spring That fears no Autumn and eternal glows.

So on the song-soft petals of his rhyme Pillow your head, as in some golden clime, And let the beauty of eternity Smooth from your brow the little frets of time.