Part 1

THE FLYING PARLIAMENT AND OTHER POEMS

_The_ Flying Parliament _and_ Other Poems

By

EDWINA STANTON BABCOCK

[Illustration: colophon]

NEW YORK JAMES T. WHITE & CO. 1918

COPYRIGHTED 1918 BY JAMES T. WHITE & CO

DEDICATED TO

CAROLINE LEXOW BABCOCK

1914-1918

CONTENTS

THE FLYING PARLIAMENT

THE SACRED SHIPS 12

THE FLYING PARLIAMENT 13

“GONE WEST” 63

OTHER POEMS

THE HAPPY PEOPLE 71

FROM TREE CLOISTER 72

FROM A WINDOW 73

BIRTHRIGHT 74

TO A LONELY STAR 75

THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 75

THE TRAMP 78

IN THE STRANGE COUNTRY 80

RAIN PICTURES 81

WAR POEMS

“WE MUST MAKE THE WORLD SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY, 1917” 87

THE MEANING 88

THE MARCHING FAITH 89

HOME COMING 91

FOR OUR MEN 93

WORLD FLOWER 94

EPOCH, 1914 95

TO AMERICANS 97

PENMARCH--BRITTANY 98

TO AN AMERICAN SOLDIER GOING INTO ACTION 100

RESURGENCE--TO C. L. B. 101

GARDEN ADVENTURES 101

CAMOUFLAGE 107

HOME-SICK 108

THE INTERPRETER 109

KLEPHTIC 111

AT THE FEAST OF LIFE 114

DEATH WITHIN DEATH 115

AT THE FLOWER-SHOW 116

TALISMANS 118

SUBLIMINAL 119

THE WALLED CITY 120

ON LILY STREET, NANTUCKET 122

THE “BLIND” ROAD, NANTUCKET 124

THE END OF THE SEASON--NANTUCKET 125

MOVING MILESTONES--NANTUCKET 126

SOURCE 127

THE FLYING PARLIAMENT

_THE SACRED SHIPS_

_Out past the Highlands’ smoke and Autumn gold, The great gray ships on secret orders steam; Battalioned boys their dawn-lit land behold Drifting astern, like towers in a dream; They watch the havened harbor lights that gleam Speechless farewell, too tender to be told-- Until within their breasts austere and bold, The former days remote and alien seem, And they, the fathers of a Day supreme. Thus, visioning their service--to a man-- They grim in their stern blitheness, sail to War. Yea, while we sleep, in one night’s star-lit span-- Youth leaves our shores--to face the Minotaur._

THE FLYING PARLIAMENT

_Scene. Venice, November, 1917. The piazza of San Marco._

A chill air emphasizes the weather stains on arcade and collonade. Now and then the pale sunlight glitters faintly on a bit of mosaic, but the lacy fretwork of St. Marks and the Palazzo Giustizia are nearly covered by sandbags and scaffoldings. The statues are all removed from their pedestals. The four famous bronze horses are once more removed; also the giants on the famous clock tower. The winged lion of St. Mark and the little St. Theodore and his crocodile have been carried to places of safety. From the bronze flagstaffs in the Piazza of St. Marks the Italian flags are flying. From afar off there comes the slow booming of guns. Suddenly the piazza is a whirl with pigeons. The guns sound like huge bass chords; the pigeon wings beat a curious suggestion of delicate pastoral themes. The canals are deserted except for one gondola slowly approaching a bridge. An American war correspondent wields the great oar unaccustomedly. The American steps out at a bridge; he makes fast the gondola; he walks slowly into the deserted piazza. Near the bronze base of the flagstaffs is a single child standing among the whirling pigeons. The child has a small bit of black bread in his hand; now and then he breaks off a tiny bit of the bread and throws it to the birds who come eagerly to him.

Child looking at pigeons circling in the sky speaks as though to them:

_Fly--Fly! Where? In the unlibertied air! Wings of gray instinct, All opal tinct, Pulses of pleasure, Feathery measure-- Wings of delicate vibrant life, Cutting blue air with halcyon knife; Sky-strewn garlands of pleasant days, No more your turret and tower ways! Nowhere--nowhere Do hearers your sweet counsels share! Nowhere--nowhere Is your place in the militant air!_

The American advances slowly; he is clad in khaki, and carries field glasses; his broad brimmed hat is worn down low over his eyes which, burned out and weary, are fixed on the Duomo of St. Marks.

As he notices the Italian flags, his lips close firmly together, and he looks down at the little American flag set in his button-hole. He stares around the deserted piazza and shivers. Taking out his notebook he sits down on the steps of the Duomo and commences writing:

(American, writing) Here in the Piazza Where the colonnades Dripped with globules Of colored beads, Where delicate shapes Of Venetian glass Expanded like flowers In cavelike booths; Here where the band played strains, Wild and rich and forlorn, Till the very stars dropped down, Like gold tears on the night; And the moon, like an orbèd lyre, Tried to echo the strain Through strings of fine-drawn cloud.... Here where the musing crowds Sat in the coffee stalls Of Florian’s and drank Tiny glasses of green Or golden yellow Chartreuse; In a sweet dazed waking dream-- Here is emptiness now, Emptiness like a curse, Emptiness like a house With the light and life all gone; All the loving turned to dread, The children statues of Fear, The windows closed and stark, And the pictures turned to the wall, The people are fled away To Padua and the plains, Because the Prussian comes. All the men are on the lagoons, With Latin passion and pride Fighting the Prussians back; But here in this empty place, Thronged once by a brilliant world, Stands a little Venetian child Feeding the hungry doves.

Child, moving over near the American, curiously watches him at his writing. At last the little one sits soberly down beside the war correspondent, who smiles at him but goes on rapidly scribbling his notes:

While up from the Lido’s calm, Where the yellow sails once sank Into gold dusted sky; Where the great green waves crashed on The lilac shadowed sands, Grey tides move like a dirge. Young waters that once lapped The dream-lanes of canals, Where marble faces smiled In shadows green as moss, Now are wrinkled and old; The morning-tinted shores Are now brittle and old; And here, where on festa days The banners clasped the breeze, And the tapestries rolled down Over the galleries, And the air-ships, like great beads, Buoyed them on the sun Floating over the roofs, Those days, fanning with sails And fairy trails of boats, And somnolent dip of oars-- Those nights, fruited with lights Spattered with gleam and gold-- All are ended and gone, Blasted before the guns. Venetian people are gone, Fled to Bologna’s plains, Away from Piave’s floods To Padua’s pallid walls. The decadent boom of guns-- Sullen, brutish guns-- Tired, moody guns-- Sick, disillusioned guns-- Is all that comes to the ear.

The child, sitting placidly near the war correspondent, keeps on throwing the tiny crumbs of bread to the pigeons; the American looks at him absently, and then bends again to his writing:

Glutted are all the guns, Glutted with fiendish drink Of hot young human blood; Brutal ennuyeux! Fat With soft delicious food Brought them from every land. Now the very guns are shamed; The hideous tanks are shamed; The fields and mountains are shamed; The Zeppelins are shamed; The submarines are shamed; Men’s faces are set and stern With an solemn awful shame. The world turns from its trough, And knows its swinishness; The guns are glutted now, Yet, if the flood be passed On Piave’s fertile plains, Venice shall come to their maw; All the delicate high-bred bones Of the Bride of the Seas will come To be crunched by the wild-boar guns Venice the fragile, grey Queen of the lamped lagoons-- Of slender lily tower-- Of rich dustcovered bronze-- Of history-crusted stone-- Of luminous Christs and saints And Gods of golden lands-- Of dreaming palace and port-- Of wingèd winy glass And vine-hung water-gate-- Venice must go to the guns.

The war correspondent closes his book; getting wearily to his feet he walks around the corner of the Palazzo Giustizia and gazes out on the Grand Canal toward the lagoons. He turns and looks sorrowfully toward the Bridge of Sighs, to the restored Campanile and the Procurate Nuova. The grey pigeons whirl around him; the child follows him.

Child looking earnestly at the American, points to the doves:

(_Child, singing_:)

_There go the doves, the flowers of the water-- Leaves of the steeples and seed of the sea; They know never our commerce nor barter, Yet the doves are no longer free. All of their flight among starry steeples Fanning of wings over militant peoples, Brings us no harmony. Yet the work of the pigeons is not done, For the work of wings is never done._

American looking down at the child wonderingly:

The work of wings is never done. That, me-thinks, is a wise small song. Who gave it you to sing?

The child stands gazing up at the American; he keeps mysterious dark eyes fixed upon him answering solemnly:

The Woodcarver,--he sings A song of many lines And all about the doves. “Pigeons,” he sings, “are wise They know their way so well, For they mark it out by stars And spiral paths of air; They know their way so well, And their way is always home To quietness and peace--”

The child, keeping his eyes gravely fastened on the war correspondent, chants with a weird insistence:

_The Woodcarver, he knows The meaning of everything; What makes the flowers grow, What makes the bright stars fall, What makes the echoes stay After the priests’ intoning, And boom around the walls Of our cathedral there. He says to keep on watching The doves with soaring wings, The peaceful, happy doves, For they have a message for men-- Feverish, stupid men Who are caught in a tangling net Of their own imaginings._

The American looks puzzled, he puts his hand on the child’s head and searches the large mournful eyes; he mutters something under his breath, and shakes his head sadly.

American caressing the child’s hair:

Your city is lonely, Child. Are you the only thing That lives--comes out to the sun? Do the Venetians hide In cellars and in tombs-- They who were made of sun? The palaces are closed, The gondolas are gone, But your people--all the play Of their merry liquid eyes, The white of their perfect teeth, The olive glow of their skins, And their saucy ragged ways; The dark faced coral women, The laughing lacemakers, The choruses clamoring Under the bobbing lanterns At night on the canals-- Are they sleeping a happy sleep? A long siesta-hour? (Ah! that siesta-hour, It has grown very long For many Italian youths.) Where have the people gone?

The child, slipping from under the war correspondent’s hand, looks away from him up to the pigeons that stream in circles around them, saying simply:

There is no one left here now But the Woodcarver and me. The Woodcarver makes saints And angels young and sweet; They poise all over his shop, They smile at us from the walls, We sit with the angels there And eat the bitter bread The Woodcarver has saved; Though the guns go snarling on, We are not much afraid; We stay to guard the doves. The Woodcarver has said They watch over Venice, So we watch over them.

American to himself:

A child and an old Italian Who carves his dreams in wood And “is not much afraid,” All that is left in Venice, To stay and guard the doves.

The child regarding the war correspondent curiously:

Stranger, why do you come? Venice is ugly now; The strangers come no more-- Only the officers come With charts and clanging boots; Their talk is swift and stern, Their eyes are burned like yours, And no-one ever smiles. Signori used to come; My father rowed them around; They laughed and sang and threw Money in the canal, As the Doges once threw rings. The kind merry strangers! They loved the bobbing lanterns, The songs on the water-ways, And the black gondolas swaying.... They were Americans And English; yes, and French-- But always Americans, Always feeding the doves, Always caressing the doves, Always protecting the doves!

War correspondent sombrely:

Yes--we used to feed the doves; Now we are feeding guns.

The child, his eyes fixed upon the birds, breaks again into song:

_All on the sunset evening, In the cortile’s peace, The soft grey doves came streaming In ecstasied release; Doves on my mother’s head As she walked abroad with her laces, Doves near the baby’s bed, Doves in the window places, Doves fanning the cornices there, Doves flooding, rippling the square, Cooing and preening and circling where The fountain sprayed on its Graces-- Purple breasted graylings that fly Into the blue tranquillity. Now it seems they have no sky. Bombs and smoke and horrors hover.... The day of wings and soaring is over._

The American, half smiling at the child’s fantastic quality--half angry at his pathos:

Why! Look you, the peace of a dove Were a witless, silly thing! Your doves there have their quarrels. Notice that down-charged wing! Hear that fretting and quarreling cooing Trouble among the pigeons brewing!

The war correspondent laughs at his own impatience, then takes the child’s hand, stroking it tenderly and saying:

Now the peace of a dove Is sent into the world On stronger enduring wings-- The peace of a mighty world, Rises on sturdier wings. The doves must rest awhile; The sky is filling now With wings of a mightier make. What of the flying planes, The noble charging planes, The squadrons of flying planes, Sweeping the fields of sky, Hovering over the earth? That is the new Parliament. The wingèd Parliament, The true Parliament, Which comes to bring us peace. Watch in the vault of heaven Where soaring birdmen fly-- On a splendid errantry, The Parliament of Peace!

The child smiles doubtfully; but the tenderness in the war correspondent’s voice gains his confidence; he slips his hand into the stranger’s, saying almost gayly:

You talk like the Woodcarver, A wonderful talk of wings. Oh! come and see the Woodcarver, And hear his wonderful things, The way he reads the message This dreadful war-time brings.

The two cross the deserted piazza toward the cálles where there are many little shops and booths now all boarded up; one, however, remains open. It is a small, dark, dingy cave, with small wooden angels, beautifully carved, festooned over the doorway. As one peers into the dimness of the interior, one has the sense of the fluttering of delicate carved wings. The Woodcarver comes to the door; he has in one hand his chisel, in the other a shapeless block of olive wood. The Woodcarver is old and bowed, but as he lifts his cavernous, dark eyes he smiles, and his whole face is irradiated with a look of the genius of simplicity.

Woodcarver to the war correspondent:

Bon Giorno. Ah, Signore! Welcome forestiere! Strangers are good to see. It is like those other days, When they drifted over the square Like scattered, unstrung beads, Or corn flung to the doves-- Or stood in the twilight churches, Staring through the incense, Hearing the organ roll, And priests voice imploring The Virgin’s intercession.

American, placing his hand on the old man’s arm;

’Tis good to find someone here, Only officials greet me Along the shivering streets. Where are the people of Venice? The lazy and happy and motley? The vendors and hawkers and idlers? The shop keepers and glass blowers? The courtly bankers and merchants? Ah! it is lonely in Venice.

Woodcarver, his cracked voice faltering:

All fled to ancient Padua, To the Good St. Anthony. And we--we only stay To watch the doves--and pray.

American, looking wistfully about him:

And when the doves fly off-- Rather than meet Teutons, In their compelling drive?

Woodcarver fiercely:

The doves will never leave; St. Mark has willed it so. ’Tis they who must not leave; If they leave Venice will fall. ’Tis for that I stay behind, I and the little child, To feed and sooth the doves. And you--how come you here? You must have been in the field--

Glancing up eagerly at the war correspondent:

Tell us--how fare our armies?

American solemnly and reluctantly:

Cadorna has retreated Before the Teutonic drive. They have unloosed the Piave; The Germans cannot cross, But the sacrifice was dear. They have unloosed the Piave To keep the Prussian back. Cadorna has been routed; Italians have retreated.

The Woodcarver stand there, looks at the war correspondent for a dazed moment, then jumps suddenly at him snarling into his very face:

Retreat--that is a lie!

The old man looks wildly about him, grasping at the American’s shoulder, and slightly shaking him, sobbing querelously:

What a silly childish tale To tell a Venetian ear! The Colleoni armed, Astride his savage horse In the Campello there-- A Mercenary, yet, Filled with Italian pride, Would fling you back on your words-- Your coward, lying words. For Italy, retreat? For Latin blood--retreat? Was any retreat for France? For Belgium any retreat? Another stand perhaps, Another flash of the eyes, Another gritting of teeth, Another steeling of heart, Another bracing of flesh, Another surge of the blood, Another smell of the fray, Then hell to the weltering hog That plunges forth on our land, Gnashing his filthy tusks! Gas and fire and cold, Water and steel and smoke, Roaring fires of hell, Vermin, disease and wounds Against them--Latin blood! Oh! that I had wells of it, I, a bloodless man, Faltering--old, and weak, But I mind me how once it burned-- Fire, blazing and quick-- Floods, scarlet and hot-- Flowers, passionate sweet-- Spirit, dauntless and bold-- Instinct, sure and keen-- Supremest Latin blood!

The old man paused, breathless and trembling; his hand drops weakly from the war correspondent’s shoulder; he draws himself up, saying with gentle dignity:

I lose my manners, Sir; But you will see the truth. Our life lies in the folds Of the sweeping allied flags. We are made of Latin blood, Blood on whose rising tide Rides the ark of ideals, Instincts of Liberty-- Freedom’s flowering stars. Yea--I have Latin blood; For me there is no retreat.

The American, silent and touched, looks quietly at him; there is sympathy and understanding in his face, yet he remains coolly reflective. The old Woodcarver staggers to his stool, and begins fiercely cutting at the shapeless block of wood. All about the small cavelike shop the sun strikes the smooth glistening bodies of wooden angels, the golden brown nakedness of little cherubs.

The American also sitting down rolls and lights a cigarette, the child collecting shavings and bits of wood from the floor, sits in the doorway sorting them and arranging them in patterns.

The American quietly inhaling his cigarette:

Your city is very drear. The houses closed and blind; The opal waters grown dun With the muddied silt that comes From the Piave’s plains. You carve while the cannon booms; Under your knife there grows A figure, supple-soft, Springing from uncouth wood, And you give it branching wings, And fashion its gentle face As though there were angels still.... You go on making angels. Do the angels know, think you, Of all the passion and hate, And waste and cursing and lies, And pride and fierce world-strife, Back of the making of wars? These angels, do they preen Their wings over it all, And smile upon us men?

The old Woodcarver for a moment drops his head; he passes his hand across anguished eyes; then he points to the child sitting in the doorstep, and puts his finger on his lip.

Woodcarver, fiercely:

Hush! It is to calm His timid, childish thought. The poor Bambino believes These angels will keep him safe. It is to keep serene The thoughts ’neath his innocent curls, That I go on carving angels.

American, bitterly:

Yes--only I have been Down in Servia, On Armenian plains. In blasted fields of France, In England’s wooded ways. Seeing many little forms, The angels forgot to save.

The Woodcarver stops carving; he drops his head into his hand; the American bites his lips, and curses himself. With sombre eyes he stares at the floor. Suddenly he notices a bit of wood lying in the shavings at his feet. It is a half-carved cross. The war correspondent, picking it up holds it loosely in his hand, ruminating. At last he puts it very gently on the table near the Woodcarver’s listless arm, and turns to the door, staring out to the grey vistas of the empty calles. As he smokes in silence the far-off guns boom steadily, and the whirl of grey pigeons comes once more past the little shop into the piazza.

The child, looking up at them, chants dreamily:

_Laws of humanity hold them Safe for the sunlit feeding, Protected always, and heeding Laws of the place that enrolled them; Spiral their flights, midst the steeples Pinnacles and Campanile; Silver fanfare of wings, Soothing the thoughts of the peoples. They spell Humanity, Love, Tenderness, Peace--But the air Is rent with wild thunder--Despair.... Where is the end of it? Where?_

The Woodcarver, lifting his face from his hands, looks anxiously at the child; he passes his rough hand swiftly over his eyes and smiles. Rising he pats the little shoulder of the child sitting in the doorway, saying laughingly:

Why their’s is a small Parliament. Peace to their soaring counsels! Weaving strange laws, Making a Cause For the new born nations. Note how they fly, Tieing the sky, Looping the heavens, Wreathing the square, Binding blue air Into golden-garlanded sheaves! There are the glad manoeuvres, The shiftings and the shaping, The mist and the cloud-escaping. Higher they fly and higher, Looping their winged desire, While we stand down here gaping.

The Woodcarver stands by the child, tapping his shoulder gently, and with the other hand pointing out the difference in pigeon flight.

Woodcarver explaining whimsically:

There are the Ones, the Twos and the Threes, The ablest, sagest counsellors, these.... The Threes soar higher than most, The Twos have a most responsible post, And the Ones--Oh! the separate lonely Ones-- Dreamers and Hopers and Prayers, the Ones! Stretching their wings over the world, Wavering over Humanity, hurled Man against man, gun against gun, Waiting until the madness be done.... Further and Further away from dust, Higher and Higher and Higher and Higher, Every separate, keen-eyed flier, Their’s is the flight of trust!

The Woodcarver turns shamefacedly back to the American, who smiles understanding his little diversion.

American--You speak quaintly, in childish parlance; but I like the fancy. What was your drollery about those who fly singly?

The Woodcarver, his dark eyes lighting with imagination, stands before the stranger arms akimbo, explaining,--

Woodcarver shyly:

Why! Look you! I am a man Without kith nor kin; No wife, nor any child But this adopted one, Whose parents fled away, And left him homeless here. And it seems to me that I dwell Closer to mine own heart, Where many counsels come, Than if a woman plunged Her fingers in my brain, And mixed my reason up.

The war correspondent laughs heartily at this, but the Woodcarver is quite serious. The old man stands slightly bent in the centre of the little place, regarding the stranger intently, and says slowly and gravely:

The lonely people know Much that is shut away From those that go in crowds, Companioned all the time. And look you--when the mass Of human beings act, ’Tis on the thought of those Who sit high up, alone, Studying the Stars; Or sit low down, alone, Studying the Sands; Or middle way, alone Studying the Times.

The American, drawing on the last bit of his cigarette, looks through the light cloud of smoke, and nods smiling.

The Woodcarver: