Toward the Gulf Part 19

THE LETTER

What does one gain by living? What by dying Is lost worth having? What the daily things Lived through together make them worth the while For their sakes or for life's? Where's the denying Of souls through separation? There's your smile!

And your hands' touch! And the long day that brings Half uttered nothings of delight! But then Now that I see you not, and shall again Touch you no more--memory can possess Your soul's essential self, and none the less You live with me. I therefore write to you This letter just as if you were away Upon a journey, or a holiday; And so I'll put down everything that's new In this secluded village, since you left. ...

Now let me think! Well, then, as I remember, After ten days the lilacs burst in bloom.

We had spring all at once--the long December Gave way to suns.h.i.+ne. Then we swept your room, And laid your things away. And then one morning I saw the mother robin giving warning To little bills stuck just above the rim Of that nest which you watched while being built, Near where she sat, upon a leafless limb, With folded wings against an April rain.

On June the tenth Edward and Julia married, I did not go for fear of an old pain.

I was out on the porch as they drove by, Coming from church. I think I never scanned A girl's face with such sunny smiles upon it Showing beneath the roses on her bonnet-- I went into the house to have a cry.

A few days later Kimbrough lost his wife.

Between housework and hoeing in the garden I read Sir Thomas More and Goethe's life.

My heart was numb and still I had to harden All memory or die. And just the same As when you sat beside the window, pa.s.sed Larson, the cobbler, hollow-chested, lamed.

He did not die till late November came.

Things did not come as Doctor Jones forecast, 'Twas June when Mary Morgan had her child.

Her husband was in Monmouth at the time.

She had no milk, the baby is not well.

The Baptist Church has got a fine new bell.

And after harvest Joseph Clifford tiled His bottom land. Then Judy Heaton's crime Has shocked the village, for the monster killed Glendora Wilson's father at his door-- A daughter's name was why the blood was spilled.

I could go on, but wherefore tell you more?

The world of men has gone its olden way With war in Europe and the same routine Of life among us that you knew when here.

This gossip is not idle, since I say By means of it what I would tell you, dear: I have been near you, dear, for I have been Not with you through these things, but in despite Of living them without you, therefore near In spirit and in memory with you.

Do you remember that delightful Inn At Chester and the Roman wall, and how We walked from Avon clear to Kenilworth?

And afterward when you and I came down To London, I forsook the murky town, And left you to quaint ways and crowded places, While I went on to Putney just to see Old Swinburne and to look into his face's Changeable lights and shadows and to seize on A finer thing than any verse he wrote?

(Oh beautiful illusions of our youth!) He did not see me gladly. Talked of treason To England's greatness. What was Camden like?

Did old Walt Whitman smoke or did he drink?

And Longfellow was sweet, but couldn't think.

His mood was crusty. Lowell made him laugh!

Meantime Watts-Dunton came and broke in half My visit, so I left.

The thing was this: None of this talk was Swinburne any more Than some child of his loins would take his hair, Eyes, skin, from him in some pangenesis,-- His flesh was nothing but a poor affair, A channel for the eternal stream--his flesh Gave nothing closer, mind you, than his book, But rather blurred it; even his eyes' look Confused "Madonna Mia" from its fresh And liquid meaning. So I knew at last His real immortal self is in his verse.

Since you have gone I've thought of this so much.

I cannot lose you in this universe-- I first must lose myself. The essential touch Of soul possession lies not in the walk Of daily life on earth, nor in the talk Of daily things, nor in the sight of eyes Looking in other eyes, nor daily bread Broken together, nor the hour of love When flesh surrenders depths of things divine Beyond all vision, as they were the dream Of other planets, but without these even In death and separation, there is heaven: By just that unison and its memory Which brought our lips together. To be free From accidents of being, to be freeing The soul from trammels on essential being, Is to possess the loved one. I have strayed Into the only heaven G.o.d has made: That's where we know each other as we are, In the bright ether of some quiet star, Communing as two memories with each other.

CANTICLE OF THE RACE

SONG OF MEN

How beautiful are the bodies of men-- The agonists!

Their hearts beat deep as a brazen gong For their strength's behests.

Their arms are lithe as a seasoned thong In games or tests When they run or box or swim the long Sea-waves crests With their slender legs, and their hips so strong, And their rounded chests.

I know a youth who raises his arms Over his head.

He laughs and stretches and flouts alarms Of flood or fire.

He springs renewed from a l.u.s.ty bed To his youth's desire.

He drowses, for April flames outspread In his soul's attire.

The strength of men is for husbandry Of woman's flesh: Worker, soldier, magistrate Of city or realm; Artist, builder, wrestling Fate Lest it overwhelm The brood or the race, or the cherished state.

They sing at the helm When the waters roar and the waves are great, And the gale is fresh.

There are two miracles, women and men-- Yea, four there be: A woman's flesh, and the strength of a man, And G.o.d's decree.

And a babe from the womb in a little span Ere the month be ten.

Their rapturous arms entwine and cling In the depths of night; He hunts for her face for his wondering, And her eyes are bright.

A woman's flesh is soil, but the spring Is man's delight.

SONG OF WOMEN

How beautiful is the flesh of women-- Their throats, their b.r.e.a.s.t.s!

My wonder is a flame which burns, A flame which rests; It is a flame which no wind turns, And a flame which quests.

I know a woman who has red lips, Like coals which are fanned.

Her throat is tied narcissus, it dips From her white-rose chin.

Her throat curves like a cloud to the land Where her b.r.e.a.s.t.s begin.

I close my eyes when I put my hand On her breast's white skin.

The flesh of women is like the sky When bare is the moon: Rhythm of backs, hollow of necks, And sea-sh.e.l.l loins.

I know a woman whose splendors vex Where the flesh joins-- A slope of light and a circ.u.mflex Of clefts and coigns.

She thrills like the air when silence wrecks An ended tune.

These are the things not made by hands in the earth: Water and fire, The air of heaven, and springs afresh, And love's desire.

And a thing not made is a woman's flesh, Sorrow and mirth!

She tightens the strings on the lyric lyre, And she drips the wine.

Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s bud out as pink and nesh As buds on the vine: For fire and water and air are flesh, And love is the shrine.

SONG OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT

How beautiful is the human spirit In its vase of clay!

It takes no thought of the chary dole Of the light of day.

It labors and loves, as it were a soul Whom the G.o.ds repay With length of life, and a golden goal At the end of the way.

There are souls I know who arch a dome, And tunnel a hill.

They chisel in marble and fas.h.i.+on in chrome, And measure the sky.

They find the good and destroy the ill, And they bend and ply The laws of nature out of a will While the fates deny.

I wonder and wors.h.i.+p the human spirit When I behold Numbers and symbols, and how they reach Through steel and gold; A harp, a battle-s.h.i.+p, thought and speech, And an hour foretold.

It ponders its nature to turn and teach, And itself to mould.

The human spirit is G.o.d, no doubt, Is flesh made the word: Jesus, Beethoven and Raphael, And the souls who heard Beyond the rim of the world the swell Of an ocean stirred By a Power on the waters inscrutable.