Part 3
Enshrined as on a magic page A clasp knife for his only aid, Still fondly lingers age by age The love a sailor bore a maid. His name, nor hers, no one can say, No evidence besides, endures, But silent eloquence like yours Immortalizes H and J!
THE CREEPING FOG
Rolling in from the sea, rolling on Ghostly floods chill as death, in the dawn Swallow up all the world in their sweep As the grey currents stealthily creep Over marshland and dune, while the sun Dripping mist, scarce proclaims day begun To a landscape all eerie and wan Drowned in fog, rolling in, rolling on!
Trees by oceans of droplets bedimmed Loom like shapes that our fancy has limned; Beacons set where the weird torrents range Through invisible channels and change All the loved, olden landmarks we know, Till dissolved in that strange overflow Earth and sky seem to blend and begin In the fog’s swelling tide, rolling in!
WOODEN SAILOR
Wooden sailor swinging war clubs On my lawn with furious tempo, Like the Don of Spanish legend He of old, who braved the windmills Looming up like giants, charged them Splintering his lance and bruising His frail bones on mad illusions; You resemble him - bold warrior, Struggling with the summer breezes, Lunging at the clouds above you.
But your ludicrous gyrations In my yard, your droll gymnastics Point a world of deeper meaning, For we too, are often harried By imaginary perils; Spend the years in aimless striving Wearying the heart and sinews On fantastic undertakings; Cursed by impotent endeavor Unproductive, never-ending.
If we smile at your contortions Toiling furiously for - nothing It is less in mirth than sadness. For I fear we fail to equal Your stout heart and resolution Wigwagging your bold defiance. Yes, while we are battling shadows, Wasting life in futile effort, Can we wonder that the angels Grieve in Heaven at our folly?
THE DREAMER
He lounges on the wharf and whittles pegs While his pathetic gaze drifts out to sea, Around him fishnets, anchors, empty kegs And coils of rope are stored. His revery Though deep, is sometimes broken by a sigh As strange lights kindle in his faded eye.
A shapeless hat seems floating on his hair Of wavy white. His clothes are patched and worn His fingers palsy shaken, and an air Of pathos and of helplessness forlorn Enfolds him, as he lays his pipe aside And gazes sadly at the ebbing tide.
His vision seems athirst to drink its fill Of ocean’s mystery that he loves so well, For he has lived adventure, lives it still, Though age, long since, has yielded to the spell Of brooding calm. No idle dreamer he, His thoughts are busied on some far off sea.
Stern old Magellan and Sir Francis Drake Heard tales from just such ancient sailor men, Tales that inspired a zeal to undertake Those stirring voyages beyond the ken Of their small world. Discoverers bold, - and yet They steered the course some unknown dreamer set!
THE CHANT OF THE NIGHT WIND
O the wind in the chimney place thrums a wild strain A chant that no mortal has known, And my soul deeply stirs at its eerie refrain In my dim lighted chamber, - alone.
For strange lifting cadences mark its sweet song With gladness and beauty and fear, Till chords, long forgotten, in memory throng Like a shell that I press to my ear.
O where have you wandered, melodious breeze That sounds such a magical note, Have you winged on your journey, o’er limitless seas From some Ultima Thule remote?
A region no mortal may ever explore Whose legended boundaries lie On foam whitened beaches and sinister shore And crags that are gnashing the sky!
Where ice fields aglow in the dark of the moon Reflect the volcano’s red glare - We may ponder and doubt - but our souls are in tune To the verve of that uncanny air!
For the spirits of night strum their wild elfin lyres And they harp on invisible strings, While a music, unearthly, floats down from those wires Like the tremulous flutter of wings.
For those notes so elusive, so mystically sweet, We may sense but their vague undertone, For they baffle our hearing, so faintly they beat On the verge of the audible zone.
O restless and fitful, those wandering airs, As the sad breezes sigh to the rain, Then dying, evasively mock at our prayers, For silent, we hear them again!
’Tis the music of elfland that rings in our ears With its haunting notes witching and low, Like the voices of friends that have gone with the years Or the echoes of songs long ago.
MIDNIGHT
In the dead watches of the night As time drifts by on endless flight, Drowsing upon our couch we hear A distant clock sound faint but clear, And chiming from its lonely tower Ring out the solemn midnight hour.
That warning stirs the unquiet air A golden day has flown - but where? Another burns to greet the dawn But one day has forever gone - And pendulum and iron tongue Their mournful requiem have sung.
Aghast the present moment flies Midway between eternities, As, winging on without a stay Tomorrow flees from yesterday, And vanished moments that have been Will never come to us again!
THE GOLDEN ROD
What dazzling shape is this that seems to rise At the command Of some magician, till it glorifies The barren sand?
A stately canopy for some proud elve! And that rich sheen The grand creation of the gnomes that delve Grotesque, unseen,
In caverns dim. There while the forges ring To blow on blow Those humble artisans are burnishing That wondrous glow!
How gorgeously the molten yellow gleams As they combine The sand’s bright ore with sunlight’s minted beams In rare design.
Until the wealth that jade green leaves disguise And buds enfold! Wells upward with resplendent ecstasies In jets of gold!
Fountains that o’er the sterile desert play Erect and tall With pendent droplets from their golden spray That never fall.
Oases of enchantment where the bees And beetles come, To mingle with the murmur of the seas Their drowsy hum.
Such splendor glitters in each regal nod Of gilded bloom We pause in doubt; is this the golden rod, Or seraph’s plume?
A scepter, or perchance a magic wand For elfin kings? Our fancy pictures in each jewelled frond Fantastic things.
And still our wonder grows, and a vague fear Of regions banned Steals o’er us--lest our footsteps draw too near To fairyland!
WILD ROSES
Whence comes that swooning fragrance on the air That riot of rich color on the hill Like smouldering embers? red, deep red, and fair They are, beyond our groping words. We thrill To inner surgings of unuttered things When we behold, strewn o’er this alien lea Exotic bloom that to our spirit sings In perfume sweet as lifting melody, Fresh from immortal Eden’s radiant bowers Where angels coveted our earthly flowers.
Like elfin torches tipped with odorous fire Raining their ashen petals on the grass, These flowering censers rouse a wild desire For beauty yet unseen, in those who pass This solitary way. O incense sweet! The bees are drunken with it, the wild bees And dragon flies that hunt this still retreat Far from the world of men. Is it for these That Nature lavishes her perfume rare To scent this moorland waste and wandering air?
Wild roses, O but they were meant to be More than the sweet companions of an hour; Theirs is a loftier role, their destiny In this sad world, to glorify the power Of beauty welling up beyond the range Of mortal view. Strange ecstasies concealed Aforetime from our blighting frost and change Aurora’s swinging gates have here revealed; Such perfect beauty as the seraph knows Hid in that floral miracle - a rose.
THE COAST GUARD STATION
Stout fortress on the battle line Of shrieking winds and thunderous surge, A barbican against the brine, A challenge to the breakers’ dirge; Not all the wild Atlantic’s wrath Can bar your men from life boats frail, Nor all the fury of the gale Can swerve them from their destined path!
The churning foam may pelt and freeze, The stinging sleet cut to the bone, They venture forth on perilous seas, They venture forth, unsung, alone. Like knights of olden time arrayed In oilskin armor, theirs the role To battle with the raging shoal And beard the tempest unafraid!
No martial strains ring in their ears, No banners blaze their desperate way; Only a wife or mother peers From distant sand dunes through the spray. And yet no crown that fame may give Can e’re transcend the solemn pride Of men, whatever may betide, Who risk their lives that men may live.
KEEPER OF THE LIGHT
Aloft within the beacon tower alone She trims the lamps that send their luminous beams Far out into the night. The eerie moan Of the wild shoal is smothered by the screams Of winds that make the thrumming walls resound With deafening din. She listens, mute with dread, To voices mingling vaguely in the sound Of the storm maddened waves, and shakes her head. “Is it the waves?” she mutters. Bent and old Her fingers tremble so,--but not from cold!
Her husband tosses on his cot below Burning with fever, often calls her name. But she must stand his watch though none may know Of her long vigil. Vestal of a flame Whose warning beams guide mariners aright Mid perilous reefs, through all engulfing gloom Though unclean spirits rage throughout the night Riding the furious winds in rain and spume, No matter if she shivers and turns pale, Her courage, like her light, endures the gale.
But what drives hard like spray against the glass Hurtling from out the dark? a tiny form With battered wings, a tern which flees, alas, Like some lost soul from the pursuing storm Dashed to the rocks below. “Dear God!” she cries “Why must my light that points great ships the way “Be blooded by his piteous sacrifice? “Life saving beams, who gave them power to slay? “How hopelessly must good and evil blend “When harmless birds meet such a cruel end.”
ON CHATHAM BARS
On Chatham bars the surges moan And sea birds cry; A gull goes winging stark and lone Across the sky; While on the shore, with menace low, Mutters the seething undertow.
O’er Chatham bars a frighted cloud Goes driven fast; The shoals are answering hoarse and loud The roaring blast, And joining that wild revelry Of frenzied winds and raging sea.
Through blinding sands with bended head The coast guard goes By Chatham bars, in silent dread For well he knows, That surf may leave, on its retreat, Some ghastly trophy at his feet!
On Easter morn the mourners stand On Chatham hill, To chant again His high command, Of - “Peace be still” And scatter flowers upon the wave To drift above some nameless grave.
For Chatham bars are silent now On Easter Day, Before that solemn group who bow Their heads and pray To Him, the Risen One, Who said, “Then shall the sea give up its dead.”
THE OLD TIMER’S LAMENT
O where is the Cape that I used to know In the quaint old days of the long ago? The weathered house with its friendly smoke From the looming background of silver oak; And the huge brick oven that flanked the grate Where the fireplace yawned like the flaming gate Of a fairy world to my childish gaze While the russets sputtered before the blaze-- Was there ever such comfort and homey cheer As the Cape that my memory holds so dear?
There were braided rugs on the sanded floor And that queer round cellar--what bounteous store Of pickle and relish and sweet preserve Seemed overflowing each ample curve! What jars of berries and stewed beach plum And jugs--half hidden--of cherry rum-- And jugs that frothed with potato yeast, And the dainties saved for Thanksgiving’s feast I think of them often and sigh--“Heigh-ho” O where is the Cape that I used to know?
And that open chamber and corded bed Where I listened to pattering rain overhead. Rope handled sea chests and leathern trunks And models of clippers and Chinese junks, And apples drying in clustered strings With numberless other wonderful things. No cave from the storied Arabian Nights Was filled with more treasures and marvelous sights Than our storehouse under the eaves could show-- O where is the Cape that I used to know?
And the fragrant gardens that memory links With the olden days--O those sweet Cape pinks, And the hollyhocks and the columbine, And the savory herbs by the ivy vine, With the fish nets drying along the slope Mid tangles of buoys and fresh tarred rope-- Yes the modern gardens are trim and neat But I often think--“Do they smell as sweet “As those beds where the roses loved to grow?” O where is the Cape that I used to know?
The captains turned from the seven seas To end their days in such homes as these; And the tales they spun for my youthful ear I have waited a lifetime their like to hear. But they sleep where the mournful willows bend O’er that silent city where voyages end; Though their memory lingers in many a page Of log books crumbling with salt and age, And many a rare old curio-- O where is the Cape that I used to know?
But time flows on like the ceaseless tide And cabins clutter the country side Like nesting gulls. Where the horse, hock deep, Once plodded the sands the autos sweep Before my eyes in a dizzy blur Of mad confusion and noise and stir. For peace and quiet have never a place In this modern world with its feverish pace
With its movie glare and its radio-- O where is the Cape that I used to know?
REVERY
Sweet angel of the backward look And trailing wings, We wander by Time’s restless brook Of transient things That from some far off, unseen nook Forever springs.
Old Time may lay aside his glass For just a day, Let not the jewelled moments pass But bid them stay, The while we stretch upon the grass In revery.
[Illustration]
THE OLD HULK
Moored to the decaying piling Of a ruined wharf, and whiling Endless hours away in dreams of days gone by, Lies a battered hulk, dismasted, Broken backed and tempest blasted, Like a dolphin fast aground and left to die.
Deck awash and planking slanted Like a broken lily planted In the mud, where every tide the eddies swirl, Years have gone since last it floated And the sea growths all unnoted, Underneath its rotting timbers twine and curl.
Often when my footsteps tended To that lonely shore that ended All its voyagings there sounded in my ear, What the shrilling sea birds uttered And the voiceless current muttered Solemn messages it meant for me to hear;
“Far off seas no more beguile me “But their memories reconcile me “To the shelter of this silver mirrored cove “Where my outline seems engraven “Like an etching. Safe in haven “I am home at last, and nevermore shall rove.”
THE MODERNISTS
Bam, wham! Clangor of cymbals and shriek of a fife, That stabs like a knife. Zam, slam! Bang on the tambourine, beat on the drums, Symphony comes! Greet her with tom-toms while savages dance, Let any discord the riot enhance, Down with all melody, harmony, poise, Give us more noise! Tonal inebriates, drunken with sound, Pound, brothers, pound! Furiously, frenziedly, round and around Whirls the mad medley of ear splitting notes, Like the yelling of demons with flame blackened throats.
Music is stricken, is dying, ’tis said, Over her head, Set all the boiler works off on a spree! Jazz and more jazz in a mad jamboree, Music is dead!
But still in the morning the song sparrow sings And blithely she wings, And from her gay throat a sweet melody springs, Old as the Pyramids, new as the dawn, Music will live when this madness has gone.
Blah, blurb! Pronoun and verb. For poetry give us a barbaric yawp Slop, Stop! The stuff that some long haired Bohemian raves Would make Keats and Tennyson turn in their graves Miscalled free verse, And trash that is worse. Nothing too banal or trite or absurd, Such is the artistic triumph preferred, To melodies sung When old Homer was young. Out with the rhyming brook, limpid and pure, Open a sewer!
Let the nymph Poesy cover her face, Downcast and blushing at such a disgrace. Garbage of words and cesspool of thought Columns and pages of rubbish and rot, Only a blot!
This is not Poesy spawned in the mire, High on Olympus she still sounds her lyre With the immortals. Her rapt, vibrant fire Blasts like a flame All the abortions brought forth in her name.
Smear, daub! Plaster on canvas an unsightly gob Yellow and scarlet and purple and pink, Looks like a mess that has spilled in the sink. But call it a sunset o’er Harlem, in truth Or a beautiful woman enamoured with youth. Just a name, any name that you think of will do, And if you insert a poor outline or two, Be sure that you violate all the known rules. The masters were fools! For painting is only a sleep walker’s trance. Walpurgis is with us so on with the dance! For the forms that great Phidias carved out of stone Misshapen monstrosities, muscle and bone Now simper and leer, At vapid admirers who openly jeer At beauty of tinting or outline or form And foment a storm, Of sickly approval at each newest fright That clutters our galleries, angers our sight. For art is a blight!
O that some genius great hearted and sane Would banish such trash of a disordered brain! For beauty will ever be noble and fine And speaking through music or color or line Her voice is divine!
WHEN THE LOCUSTS ARE IN BLOOM
When the locusts are in bloom Every bud - a riven tomb Yields a spirit form, emerging pure as snow, Dancing lightly on the breeze Like the foam on fairy seas, Swinging like enchanted censers to and fro.
And the moonbeams, white and chaste, Through the branches interlaced, How they seem to drip into each ivory cup, Where anon, the summer heats Mingle all those honeyed sweets That the bee, with nectar drunken, loves to sup.
Wondrous pendants set with gems Clinging to the swaying stems How each chalice overflows into the stream Of the scented hours that glide Down a timeless, golden tide To the islands where the lotus eaters dream.
So we idly float along On the bluebird’s lilting song To a region where the blossoms never die. For through all the cloying hours In the thralldom of the flowers Fancy roams in far off cloudlands of the sky.
THE HARVEST OF THE SEA
It is harvest time in the teeming sea And the surges labor tirelessly Like toil bent reapers with sickles of foam They garner the harvest and carry it home, Till the beaches throb to the rhythmic beat As they strew it in windrows at our feet.
Slender strands like a whip lash, tear At the cowering sands - ’tis the Dead-Man’s Hair And the rockweed bulges with bulbous lumps All yellow and brown, with the jagged stumps Of kelp stalks wrenched by the undertow From sunken glens where the sea things grow.
Eel grass rolled by the waves at play In fresh cut swaths like the new mown hay; Lettuce that glints with a fragile sheen: And Irish moss with its mottled green And cream and purple and pink and brown From the matted gulfs where sailors drown!
Algae dyed like a fresh blown rose Red is their telltale hue that glows On the white sands edging the brooding sea. A network of delicate imagery Like the thin fine lines of an etching traced That the blundering surges have not erased.
Harvest from tide tilled fields that bloom Deep down where the sunlight fades in gloom. Gardens of sinister mystery Under the waves of the heaving sea. Gardens the living may never know Where dead men drift in the ebb and flow!
Jungles where fishes and creatures strange Through the lush profusion may freely range. Not for the living but for the dead Are those fields submerged that we may not tread, But their harvest is scattered within our reach By the wild waves mourning along the beach.
BEACH GRASS
Tremulous as elfin lances Are the thin shafts of the beach grass, Blades and tufted points that quiver Eerily to winds of midnight; Magic strings on lyres enchanted, Strings that strum a lilting cadence Played upon by fairy fingers.
Beach grass blades that whirl and struggle In the clutch of boisterous breezes. Needle tips that mark strange circles In the cowering sands beneath them, Tracings of a fairy stylus, Runic etchings vague and ghostlike.
Tenuous roots, like bamboo jointed Delving, burrowing neath the surface Of the rough hewn sand dunes moulded By great Nature’s groping fingers; (Waves and tempests are her fingers) With their living network binding Crumbling sands that melt and vanish - In a woven web of fibre. Threading with tenacious purpose Mantles lovely and protective, Till the battered landscape brightens Smiles through scars and cruel gashes Smiles in glossy, rippling beach grass Undulating in the breezes Like a field of ripened barley.
Beach grass, desperate, clinging, gripping Braving wrath of winter tempests, Scourged by sands that sting like nettles, Blinding clouds that lash and smother, Wet with driven spume and frosted, With the salt and oft half buried, As the tortured dunes roll landward, Uncouth monsters, struggling, straining By the rage of Neptune driven Stumbling, sprawling, lurching onward.
But the beach grass, fragile, yielding Like a seine whose mesh entangles, Binds their heaving bulks together - In a fibrous web of rootlets; Gripping fiercely for each foothold Yielding grudgingly and battling Till the storm winds howl in fury, And the baffled ocean smothers Futile wrath in foam and roaring, Till the lowly beach grass triumphs; Holds in magic chains the forces Of ungovernable chaos.
Beach grass drawing life and nurture From the sterile sands, a living Energy from out the desert. Hardy warrior, silent tamer Of primeval urgings rampant, Barrier to the clamorous ocean, Staunch preserver of the landscape, Not content with curbing surges Or restraining restless sand dunes, How you bless that sterile desert With your wild and pensive beauty; Cover o’er its savage harshness With the mantle of your verdure Till your patient, steadfast purpose Glorifies the vanquished sea shore.
THE SWAMP HERON
“Quawk”, comes that harshly guttural note In the night stillness, hear it? “Quawk”. A hoarse “good hunting” from the throat Of a night heron, feathered gawk, Ungainly, droll, the awkward child And threadbare outcast of the wild.
’Tis not his custom to intrude Where others are, while on his way To his beloved solitude Nor has he overmuch to say; His only greeting is a squawk But filled with cheer, a friendly “Quawk”.
Thanks, humble neighbor of the moors For such philosophy is rare; Though neither grace nor charm are yours You envy no one, nor compare Their lissome poise - your stilt like walk! Their lilting song - your throaty “Quawk”.
He knows, illfavored bird of night The finest feathers in the dark Are little worth, nor pleasing flight Nor beauty’s form with none to mark; Contented but to nightly stalk His supper like a wise old quawk.
THE THROES OF CREATION