Part 5

Long on the bare screen grieves the “Butterfly.” Then, as her Oriental sorrows die, Forth doth the “Earl King” ride; The Schumann “Warum” drops its pensive leaves, Macdowell’s “Sea” its toppling billow heaves, Chaminades, “Dancing Fay” Trips, as you play.

But ere your noble hands have given their gift Down on the town, the bells of Curfew drift, The candle gutters at the low-hung door. Yet, see; from this low window where I muse, All Lily Street doth spectrally suffuse, Glimmers each tiny pane. You call it “moonlight,” but I think that they The old Nantucketers, long passed away Peer forth to hear you play!

THE “BLIND” ROAD, NANTUCKET

If you would find Peace, and a lightened load, And wells of delicate, salt, sweet-fern air, And tranquil lines around you every where, Follow the “blind” Rut Road.

It leads to liberties of yellow gorse, To secret heather and to banks of bay; It winds along the ocean, and its course Is wet with wild sea-spray. It leads along the swamps, where honey-ball Hangs scented globes, where clethra scatters sweet, By holly hedge, where pheasants thread the tall Indigo plant, or flying sea-gulls meet.

It leads away from every fret and jar, From everything that hurts and stings and tries; Through green dwarf-pines, and hills of cinnebar, Marshaling grasses up to windswept skies.

If you would find Rest and forgetfulness and all things new, Take the Rut Road, and it will bring to you All dear forgotten things, things you see through, But that this road holds sacred, being “blind.”

THE END OF THE SEASON--NANTUCKET

The hotel building sees its doom, aghast, And all its windows fix in sullen stare, For no girl-voices ring on sunset air, And no bright-breasted youth goes speeding past. The latticed roses and the phlox have cast Their petals upon paths where lovers dreamed, And grey old streets, where gauzy figures streamed, Settle to lamp-lit quietness at last.

Yet there is endless romance on the moor; The hawks o’er wine-red hollows stretch their wings, Wild ducks loop Autumnward in ranging strings, And swallows balance round time-silvered door; High looms the bluff in castle like contour, And wear the beach the full white breasts of dunes Nourish sky-silence, while the sea communes With shells, a-quiver to the foam’s allure.

MOVING MILESTONES--NANTUCKET

Midnight, Black, and a wild sea of stars, A gold-white surf of stars whose sparkling foam Breaks into waves on occult ether bars, Where star-tides have their deep eternal home. All night the solemn Wonder sweeps me by; Arcturus, Vega, Spica cross the sky On one fixed path, by laws that do not change, Unfailing while all other laws derange.

Midnight, black; and a wild horde of fears, The brains half-knowledge and the hearts fierce pride Questions me cold and distant to my tears; Yet on my thought the old true Visions glide-- Tenderness, Truth, Unselfishness; their lights Travel the wastes and glimmer on the heights. So may I keep my way, whose avatars Gave me a path that leads beyond the Stars.

SOURCE

“If Beauty grows old, share it before it be gone, and if it abides, why fear to give away what thou dost keep?”

By the Alpheus, where the reeds are blown Aslant by winds that flick the tawny current, There runs a path that is all overgrown With low dwarf oaks and many a vine deterrent, Which leads past grain and broad mulberry trees To soft Olympia’s cool sanctities.

There, where the cypress makes a trancelike shade, White pillars gleam, and floors of old mosaic, Hold gemmy moss and tender bud and blade, In hints of bygone Pyrrhic and Trochic-- In those fresh petal rhythms which Nature keeps Like poems living where the poet sleeps.

And all about the place the Games go on. The buoyant clouds fly swift to wingéd races; One tall fir gives an Ode to Marathon, And down the temple paths young sunlight paces; And that strange rare Perfection, that is Greece, Here holds its happy spell of calm and Peace.

Dreaming Olympia, whose footpaths take Their secret way to temple and by column, Thou art so far away. The blue daybreak Is all war-reddened now, and the Vow solemn; Yet, incandescent in those aisles of pines, Thy same still tranquil beauty grayly shines.

And this is well, for after all the pain, And all the hate, and all the human blunder, How we shall need to bathe us once again In baths of pure Greek beauty! Ah! the wonder Hellas has ever held! Shall we not need That wonder to rebuke our shame and greed?

Sylvan Olympia, keep the untouched dream For years to come and for a noble future! Bind all thy classic pathways to one Theme Of Soaring Youth and starward high adventure! So shall thy dusks, when wistful feet come roaming; Mean always--world-pain healed, and spirits homing.

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

Marks and the Palazzo Guistizia=> Marks and the Palazzo Giustizia {pg 13}

Giutsizia=> Giustizia {pg 19}

a wierd insistence=> a weird insistence {pg 20}

seista-hour=> siesta-hour {pg 22}

Wecome forestiere=> Welcome forestiere {pg 26}

war corrspondent=> war correspondent {pg 28}

scientic ways=> scientific ways {pg 47}

sends ship and men=> sends ships and men {pg 47}

fluttering Guidecca=> fluttering Giudecca {pg 60}

And gobules=> And globules {pg 76}

habors of the sky=> harbors of the sky {pg 76}

lilting rythm=> lilting rhythm {pg 99}

snowdorps quail=> snowdrops quail {pg 103}

Much lonlier=> Much lonelier {pg 119}