Harriet Monroe: Verses about Passion

WHEN sunshine met the wave,
Then love was born;
Then Venus rose to save
A world forlorn.

For light a thousand wings
Of joy unfurled,
And bound with golden rings
The icy world.

And color flamed the earth
With glad desire,
Till life sprang to the birth,
Fire answering fire,

And so the world awoke,
And all was done,
When first the ocean spoke
Unto the sun.

I love my life, but not too well
To give it to thee like a flower,
So it may pleasure thee to dwell
Deep in its perfume but an hour.
I love my life, but not too well.

I love my life, but not too well
To sing it note by note away,
So to thy soul the song may tell
The beauty of the desolate day.
I love my life, but not too well.

I love my life, but not too well
To cast it like a cloak on thine,
Against the storms that sound and swell
Between thy lonely heart and mine.
I love my life, but not too well.

Prairie child,
Brief as dew,
What winds of wonder
Nourished you?

Rolling plains
Of billowy green,
Far horizons,
Blue, serene;

Lofty skies
The slow clouds climb,
Where burning stars
Beat out the time:

These, and the dreams
Of fathers bold,
Baffled longings,
Hopes untold,

Gave to you
A heart of fire,
Love like deep waters,
Brave desire.

Ah, when youth's rapture
Went out in pain,
And all seemed over,
Was all in vain?

O soul obscure,
Whose wings life bound,
And soft death folded
Under the ground;

Wilding lady,
Still and true,
Who gave us Lincoln
And never knew:

To you at last
Our praise, our tears,
Love and a song
Through The nation’s years!

Mother of Lincoln,
Our tears, our praise;
A battle-flag
And the victor's bays!

I
I LOVE my life, but not too well
To give it to thee like a flower,
So it may pleasure thee to dwell
Deep in its perfume but an hour.
I love my life, but not too well.

I love my life, but not too well
To sing it note by note away,
So to thy soul the song may tell
The beauty of the desolate day.
I love my life, but not too well.

I love my life, but not too well
To cast it like a cloak on thine,
Against the storms that sound and swell
Between thy lonely heart and mine.
I love my life, but not too well.

II
Your love is like a blue, blue wave
The little rainbows play in.
Your love is like a mountain cave
Cool shadows darkly stay in.

It thrills me like great gales at war,
It soothes like softest singing.
It bears me where clear rivers are,
With reeds and rushes swinging;
Or out to pearly shores afar
Where temple bells are ringing.

III
And is it pain to you
That we must love and part?
Ah, if you only knew
The gladness in my heart!

Love is enough. Each day
I look upon the sun,
He loves me! I shall say,
Now is my life begun.

He loves me! Every night,
On the dark verge of sleep,
The rapture will alight
And to my bosom creep.

Peace, for I should not dare
A keener joy implore.
My soul shall feel no care—
Until you love no more.

A Live-oak grows by the shallow sea.
Rest under its boughs, I pray,
And hear of the pirate—bold was he—
And the lady he stole away.

He was a black-browed buccaneer,
And she like a snow-drop white.
From a scuttled ship he bore her clear
As it sunk in the haggard night.

And with bell and book he wedded her.
And shaped her to his will.
Yet though her body could not stir
Her soul escaped him still.

Though we be wed and vows be said,
Though beaten sore I be,
I'm naught of thine, thou'rt naught of mine,
God loose these bonds from me!

On through long days and nights of woe
The black ship held its way.
It faced the iceberg topped with snow,
It scoured the tropic bay.

Through nights and days of wrath and dread
The ship sped darkly on.
Behind it like a trail of red
Its path glared to the sun.

And fiercer rose the skipper's pride,
And black his anger grew,
That he who man and God defied
One soul could not subdue.

Ah, many a pain and many a stain
We women bear for men;
Yet blest is she whose soul is free
Even in the dragon’s den.

And when he knew nor time nor fate
Could bring him his desire,
He held dark converse with his hate
To find a vengeance dire.

And many an oath to hell he cast
While, in the devil's name,
He bound his lady to the mast
And set the ship aflame.

Long hast thou hated me, he cried,
Now laugh aloud in glee!
Though thou shouldst call me o'er the tide,
I come not back to thee.

The sea is deep, and I shall sleep
Softly beneath the wave.
Faith, thou canst kill; now do thy will,
And bless me with a grave.

Swiftly the royal sun dropped down
Deep in his purple bed.
And swiftly, at the skipper's frown,
His oarsmen shoreward sped.

The sudden night fell soft and dark
On lonely sea and shore
Before back at the fated bark
Its captain gazed once more.

I know not if the thing he hailed
From hell or heaven came—
A livid ship that sailless sailed,
Lit up by song and flame.

Far out to sea I flee, I flee—
Oh, heaven is far away!
My days are done under the sun—
Why must I longer stay!

Row fast; row fast; yet shall he hear
Naught but that wailing now.
Yet shall he see, through nights of fear,
That figure at the prow.

Long years, under this live-oak tree,
Naught else he saw and heard.
At last once more he put to sea,
By a strange passion stirred.

The loud storm roared and flashed that night
And never night nor day
Saw the old pirate's shallop white
Drift back across the bay.

Now we, who wait one night a year
Under these branches long,
May see a flaming ship, and hear
The echo of a song.

WASHINGTON

WHEN dreaming kings, at odds with swift paced time,
Would strike that banner down,
A nobler knight than ever writ or rhyme
With fame’s bright wreath did crown
Through armed hosts bore it till it floated high
Beyond the clouds, a light that cannot die!
Ah, hero of our younger race!
Great builder of a temple new!
Ruler, who sought no lordly place!
Warrior, who sheathed the sword he drew!
Lover of men, who saw afar
A world unmarred by want or war,
Who knew the path, and yet forbore
To tread, till all men should implore;
Who saw the light, and led the way
Where the gray would might greet the day;
Father and leader, prophet sure,
Whose will in vast works shall endure,
How shall we praise him on this day of days,
Great son of fame who has no need of praise?

How shall we praise him? Open wide the doors
Of the fair temple whose broad base he laid.
Through its white halls a shadowy cavalcade
Of heroes moves o’er unresounding floors—
Men whose brawned arms upraised these columns high,
And reared the towers that vanish in the sky,—
The strong who, having wrought, can never die.

LINCOLN

AND, lo! leading a blessed host comes one
Who held a warring nation in his heart;
Who knew love’s agony, but had no part
In love’s delight; whose mightly task was done
Through blood and tears that we might walk in joy,
And this day’s rapture own no sad alloy.
Around him heirs of bliss, whose bright brows wear
Palm-leaves amid their laurels ever fair.
Gaily they come, as though the drum
Beat out the call their glad hearts knew so well:
Brothers once more, dear as of yore,
Who in a noble conflict nobly fell.
Their blood washed pure you banner in the sky,
And quenched the brands laid ’neath these arches high—
The brave who, having fought, can never die.

Then surging through the vastness rise once more
The aureoled heirs of light, who onward bore
Through darksome times and trackless realms of ruth
The flag of beauty and the torch of truth.
They tore the mask from the foul face of wrong;
Even to God’s mysteries they dared aspire;
High in the choir they built yon altar-fire,
And filled these aisles with color and with song:
The ever-young, the unfallen, wreathing for time
Fresh garlands of the seeming-vanished years;
Faces long luminous, remote, sublime,
And shining brows still dewy with our tears.
Back with the old glad smile comes one we knew—
We bade him rear our house of joy today.
But Beauty opened wide her starry way,
And he passed on. Bright champions of the true,
Soldiers of peace, seers, singers ever blest,—
From the wide ether of a loftier quest
Their winged souls throng our rites to glorify,—
The wise who, having known, can never die.

DEMOCRACY

FOR, lo! the living God doth bare his arm.
No more he makes his house of clouds and gloom.
Lightly the shuttles move within his loom;
Unveiled his thunder leaps to meet the storm.
From God’s right hand man takes the powers that sway
A universe of stars.
He bows them down; he bids them go or stay;
He tames them for his wars.
He scans the burning paces of the sun,
And names the invisible orbs whose courses run
Through the dim deeps of space.
He sees in dew upon a rose impearled
The swarming legions of a monad world
Begin life’s upward race.
Voices of hope he hears
Long dumb to his despair,
And dreams of golden years
Meet for a world so fair.
For now Democracy doth wake and rise
From the sweet sloth of youth.
By storms made strong, by many dreams made wise,
He clasps the hand of Truth.
Through the armed nations lies his path of peace,
The open book of knowledge in his hand.
Food to the starving, to the oppressed release,
And love to all he bears from land to land.
Before his march the barriers fall,
The laws grow gentle at his call.
His glowing breath blows far away
The fogs that veil the coming day,—
That wondrous day
When earth shall sing as through the blue she rolls
Laden with joy for all her thronging souls.
Then shall want’s call to sin resound no more
Across her teeming fields. And pain shall sleep,
Soothed by brave science with her magic lore;
And war no more shall bid the nations weep.
Then the worn chains shall slip from man’s desire,
And ever higher and higher
His swift foot shall aspire;
Still deeper and more deep
His soul its watch shall keep,
Till love shall make the world a holy place,
Where knowledge dare unveil God’s very face.

Not yet the angels hear life’s last sweet song.
Music unutterably pure and strong
From earth shall rise to haunt the peopled skies,
When the long march of time,
Patient in birth and death, in growth and blight,
Shall lead man up through happy realms of light
Unto his goal sublime.

Art thou he?—
The seer and sage, the hero and lover—yea,
The man of men, then away from the haughty
day
Come with me!

Ho—ho! to the night—
The spangled night that would the noon outstare.
Her skirts are fringed with light,
She is girdled and crowned with gems of fire that flare.
The city is dizzy with the thrill of her—
Her shining eyes and shadowy floating hair;
And curious winds her nebulous garments blur,
Blowing her moon-white limbs and bosom bare.

She beckons me—
Down the deep street she goes to keep her tryst.
Come—come—oh follow! oh see

The many-windowed walls uprear so high
They dim and quiver and float away in mist
Tangling the earth and sky.
And the pale stars go by
Like spirits masterful and still and strong,
Dragging the heavy nets of life along.

Down in the deep
Lightly the nets enmesh us with the swarm
Of huddled human things that, soft and warm,
Beat out so close the pulses of their lives.
We crowd and creep,
We jostle and push out of our halls and hives,
We chatter and laugh and weep.
Ah, do you hear
The choral of voices, each the secret hiding?
Do you see the warren of souls, each one abiding
In separate solitude, remote, austere?

Here in the glare of the street we cling together
Against the warning darkness, the still height Of the awful night.
We blow like a feather
From hope to hope along the winds of fate
Importunate.
The lettered lights that twinkle in and out
Lure us and laugh at us, beckon and flout,
Flashing their slangy symbols in our eyes,
Blurting their gaudy lies.
The bold shop-windows flaunt their empty wares—
Jewelled or tinselled shows of things,
The fripperies and furnishings
Wherein stark life will stifle her shiverings
Ere forth in the dawn she fares.

Ah, tyranny perilous!
Vain shows that master us!
See the gay girls fluttering wistfully,
Where waxen dummies grin in gowns of lace.
Watch yonder woman in black, whose dimmed eyes see
Soft baby things folded with tender grace.
And look at the children crowding and shouting there
Where dancing dolls jiggle and jerk and stare.
They hover and cling
Possessed by signs and shadows of the thing.
They moor their bark
Close to the shore and fathom not the dark—
The dark that glooms afar
Beyond the invisible star,
Beyond faith's boundaries,
The plausible was and is.

Come, ye adventurous,
Open your hearts to us!
You tiny newsboy, calling extras there,
Pitiful burden-bearer, pale with blight,
What of the night?—
The sullen night that brings you, little one,
So heavy a load of care,
While happier children sleep from sun to sun?
And you, wan youth, haggard and spent,
By mad thirst driven and rent—
Thirst of the body, thirst of the soul—
To what dark goal
Does reeling night lead you, her listless prey,
To gorge you and slay,
And hide forever from the searching day?
And you, furtive and flaunting girl,
Whose heavy-lidded eyes unfurl
Red signal fires, the while, demure,
Your brooding lips deny their lure—
Ah, does the lewd night lash you to her cave,
And will you never her ribald rage out-brave,
And rise no more forlorn
To greet the morn?

The street grows insolent.
With cries of dark delight
And gestures impudent
It rends the robe of night.
Up to the silent sky
It shouts the human cry.

The crowds push in and out
By all the open ways,
Eager to stare and shout
At vaudeville waifs of plays.
They drop their coins and laugh
At the wheezy phonograph,
They hush for the noisy drone
Of the croaking megaphone.
That litters life with jest
They pause that they may not go
On life's eternal quest.
They stifle truth with speech,
They mimic love with lust,
For the glitter of gilt they reach
And cover the gold with dust.
They stoop to the din and glare
Who have the lofty night for comrade rare.
They grope along the ground
Whose stature like the night with stars is crowned.

Oh piteous!
Oh struggle vain!
Of puppets emulous,
We strive and strain
To forge for our limbs a chain.
Come, thou deep-hearted Night, so dark and bright !
Come, holy Night, come, lawless, dissolute Night!
Come, human Night, hushing thy dreams divine!
Give me thy dreams, O Night—they shall be mine!—
Mine and this beggar's, though we lie to thee!
Mine and this harlot's, though from thee we
flee! Mine and this worldling's, though with might and right
We hide them from our sight.
Thy shadowed eyes the truth behold, and we—
We too shall know the truth, and so be free!
Even now—yea, now
Through lies and vanities we pry and peer.
Even now we bow
At little shrines where pale fires flicker and fleer.
Hark! in the echoing street
The drums that bang and beat,
Where the curb-stone preachers tell
The way to heaven and hell.
Look! in yon window there
A man through a glass astare
At atoms and embryos,
The source whence all life flows.
Search the beginning and end.
We may not choose but follow—
Yes, you and I and these—
The fume of the noisome hollow,
The gleam of the Pleiades.
Wherever one goes in quest
With his quest we are cursed or blest.
And the street, with its blazing mockery of
noon, Leads on to the quiet stars, to the lofty moon.

The little lights go out now row on row,
The dim crowds glide away.
The shadowed street
Pillars the vaulted sky.
And Night, proud Night,
Rapt in her dreams, with stately tread and slow
Patrols the drowsy world. O friend complete,
How may we read her deep delight aright?

Art thou he—
The seer and sage, the hero and lover—yea,
The man of men, then even to the gates of day
Lead thou me!

October I5th, 1910.
My friend, dear friend, why should I hear your voice
Over the Babel of voices, suddenly
Calling as from the new world to the old?
Hush!—are you weary? would you follow me?
Would you make dark the house, and shut the door,
Summon steam-pacing trains, wave-racing ships,
To bear you past the high assembled nations—
Past the loud cries, the plucking hands of the age—
Even to the East that drowses on her throne?

Come then—it's good to be alive today;
For yesterday is dead, and dim tomorrow
Flits like a ghost before us, threatening
Our peering eyes with mistily flapping wings.
Grandly the streets loom upward; huge skyscrapers
Catch at the glory of the sunrise, wear
The morning like a mantle, bare their heads
In praise and prayer. And with us on the pavement,
Above us in the air there, and below,
Under our feet, by train and tram and subway,
The people bear the burden of the age—
Each to his work, each to his love, his dream,
The little secret vision of his soul,
Veiled, muffled, trampled, baffled, but agleam:
Our people, eager to work, eager to laugh,
Eager to love—if but to love were easy,
Pausing not for the slow and difficult thing
As they push past their neighbors to the goal.

Now to the ship—down the long crowded wharves,
The tangle of souls and voices threading thinly
Through the slight gangway. Do you see her there—
Huge, black, incredible, fortress-walled in steel,
Hiding her heart of fire? She has no fear;
The fierce waves leap at her, the arrogant storms
Tease at her flying heels, the boastful winds
Front her in vain. Superb, invincible,
From world to world, over the ravenous ocean
Grandly she bears the fruitage of the time:
Rich fields of corn, mill-yields of goods, long train-loads
Of strong machines, man's hope and love and power
Sealed in a million letters, and at last
Even us, the little human mustard seeds—
Dark earth-specks with the kingdom of heaven within.

Gaily we tread the deck, softly we sleep,
Lightly we chatter away the idle days,
While strong hands, from dark hold to sunny mast,
Do our enormous tasks. And now at last
The world again, low chalky cliffs, the shore,
Parked England silvery green, her viny casements
And dewy lawns, her iron towns of toil
Smoke-bound, unfree. And London, stony London,
Gray storehouse of the heaped-up centuries,
Of hidden sins and valors, locked-in joys;
London the empire-hearted, grave with cares
Under her tawny sky that dulls the sun.

We linger not—swiftly the new age runs
And he must haste who takes her by the hand.
Over the Channel! Come! the little houses
And patchwork fields of France. Paris fullblown,
The red red rose of the world, whose golden heart
Lies bare to the greedy sun, whose petals droop
Ever so softly to the falling time,
Most lovely at the signal hour of change.
Germany then, the little patterned cities
Of the old time swept, garnished for the new;
The ancient halls hung with the ancient art,
And musical with high-stringed orchestras
Playing melodious prophecies; gay Berlin,
Garish, unmellowed, pale, but full of hope,
And proud desire.

Ah whither do they march,
These nations with the sweat upon their brows,
Huge burden-bearers, panoplied in steel,
Facing bleak mists of doubt? Will they cast
down Their heavy fears and bathe their brows in light
And freely run across the fields of dawn—
Children of joy, blood brothers born in love,
Valiant for peace as once for murderous war?
Nearer they draw, trimly the sharp rails cut
Their boundaries—twin scissor-blades of fate.
Swift steamers tie their ports together, bring
Tourist ambassadors from state to state.
Bold man-birds fly through the unsentineled air,
And cobweb wires invisible, more strong
Than chains of steel, are spun from tower to tower,
Bridging the oceans, linking capitals,
Binding men's hearts. O kings of the peopled earth,
O men, rulers of kings, dare you resist
Warriors of science, who are blazing trails
Your statesmenship must travel to new goals?
Laggards, beware lest the advancing myriads,
Bound for the promised land, trample you down!

Dark Russia, standing at the Asian gate,
Questions us with her eastward-peering eyes.
Proud Moscow from her hundred towers looks out—
Moscow, bejeweled with domes, magnificent,
Out of her past barbaric gazes far
Into the future, swings her Kremlin portal
To show the sad Siberian wilderness,
And bids us follow through the autumnal days.
Softly we slip along the garnered fields,
Past clustered villages, low-thatched and brown,
Each with a gay church gilded; shimmer down
The shining Urals, and salute at last
Great Asia where in solitude she waits
Under the northern star.

Her forest then,
Level and low; dark little pines, thin birches
Their leaves all golden on the silver stems.
And square-faced peasants crowding to the train,
Slow, sleepy-eyed, thick-bearded. Onward still
Through the stark plains; Baikal blue in its mountains,
The home of wheeling birds that dive and soar.
And by and by a dragon-guarded roof
With gay beasts perched along its tips, that lift
Like the slim corner of a pale new moon
Poised in the sky at sunset.

We have come
To the first gate of the world. The still Pacific
Glitters between the hills. Dark crowds astare
Greet us with chatter and laughter—beardless men
With shaven brows and long thin tasseled braids,
Clad in dim blue under the darkening sun.
The obliterating night curtains our eyes,
And when at last the red dawn draws the veil
A heavy wall looms over us gray and stern
With towered gates fortress-guarded. And our engine,
Steaming and shrieking past the caravans—
The shaggy ponies, little loaded asses,
The slow process camels pacing down—
Scatters the dust of time, pierces the wall,
And pauses under the shadow of yellow roofs
Where the Forbidden City, wide and still,
Lies dreaming in her sunrise-slanted woods.

Peking! She faces us with marble eyes
Inscrutable. She hearkens to our noise
And guards her secret. Shall we win her over—
We with our guns, our dark machines, our mansions
High piled over her lowly curving roofs;
We with our loud commands? Will she arise,
Weary of silence, wave her yellow flag,
Summon her myriads for the modern race,
The huge new tasks, the war for love and light?
Hush! If we wait and listen, will she speak,
Wise woman or child, veiled queen of the dragon throne?

Softly! No steamer, elbowing storms aside,
No engine nosing through the ancient wall,
No hurrying foot, no soul worn or at war,
Shall penetrate the Circle and the Square,
Set with sweet woods, the green wall and the blue,
And touch the three rings of the Temple of Heaven,
The terraced marble seat, cloud-carved and fair,
Where, at the Centre of the Earth, in peace,
The tranquil East, contemplative, serene,
Dwells with the sun and moon.

Hush—bare your head
And strip your spirit free. When you have won
The ultimate Wisdom, seek the wingèd portal
Once more. Then she, the sage, may rise to you,
Hold converse with you, pilgrim of the age,
And take you to her heart and bless your gifts,
And be as one with you forevermore.

Go sleep, my sweetie—rest—rest!
Oh soft little hand on mother's breast!
Oh soft little lips—the din's mos' gone-
Over and done, my dearie one!

What do I think, my brother? Look at me!
You make me laugh, sitting there solemneyed,
Full of opinions, theories!—asking me—
Look—with my baby at my breast—to tell you,
Blessed big uncle!—what I think—heaven help me!—
Of this and that. How could you think, I wonder,
If baby lips were tugging at your flesh,
Draining your life to flower the world?
Dear brother,
It's beautiful, that masculine pride of yours,
That runs the universe—oh yes, I know,
And longs to run it well. You travel, observe,
Experiment, make laws and governments,
Build strange machines and masterfully summon
The elemental powers to do your work—
Why?—so my girl here, darling hope of the race,
May pillow her round head in a softer bed,
And dance more lightly by and by—God bless her—.
Into her lover's arms.

Ah precious!—hungry still, my bird?
Coo, coo—yes, darling, mother heard.
Coo, coo—and is it true?—
Ever so true?

What do I think?
If I were arrogant, extravagant—
As men have never been!—what would I think,
Now in this hour of pride, with all the future
Safe in my arms? Almost I might dare whisper
That it's a woman's world—do they not say it
In the great book of science, the new song,
Epic of truth? Let me but hear the word
In reverence—almost a woman's world!
We hold the race within us, we enfold
Life in our arms, we do great nature's work;
So nature hoards and wastes for us, they say,
Contrives our essence from her richer store,
And makes the haughty male out of the rest—
You among others, with your politics,
Your grand reforms, your dreams ! Hush ! do you dare
Follow from seedling sea-drift up to man
Life's long procession, noting everywhere
How the encompassing mother mothers us,
And leaves your kind to shiver and drone and die?
Or else, in pity, the less vital tasks
She gives you—bids you serve us, fight for us,
Even sing for us; and cunningly contrive
Is heavy with strange erections, and the air
Is noisy with ideas.

Oh yes, I know—
You've got the upper hand, you run the world,
Think so at least; at many an icy hearth
You do your will with us; and we—poor chattels—
Meekly we take our fortune at your hands,
With never a royal word to prove us women,
Not slaves. Why do we yield, abase ourselves,
If we are nature's favorites, till even
The mighty mother who made us in her image
Rejects us, winnows her worthless chaff away:
Poor drudges, eating the heart of the race for bread;
Poor puppets, wilfully idle, wilfully barren,
Teasers of men—riff-raff and refuse all!

Why should we suffer this in a woman's world?
Good God, I wonder sometimes, hang my head
For our surrender. Ah, we clasp too close

The burden on our hearts, nor look abroad
Through our long windy night of passion and pain.
And still at dawn we rub our sleepy eyes,
Here at the hearth with morning in our arms—
Pink-dimpled baby morning, look at her!—
Waiting for you, our powerful delegates,
To chase the night away.

But is it strange?
Think but a moment, ask yourself, my brother—
You who tell me to think—what is our life,
Our woman's life? Out of delicious youth,
Murmurous, odorous, vague, full of delights
Half won, half apprehended, suddenly,
Like a still stream seized by the ruthless ocean,
We are drawn to the deeps. Love, marriage, motherhood—
We are drowned in the physical, sensual; washed over
With tide on tide of feeling warm and red—
The heart's-blood of the world. Little pitiless
Grip us within, throttle us, hold us down
Through the long moons of feebleness and pain.
Little souls adrift, gathering out of the void;
Bring us their nebulous dreams, vague, incoherent,
Far lightning-flashes caught from flaming stars.
No longer free, no more our own, or yours,
No longer of this world, but of all worlds,
We are borne by the vast tide, the tide of storms,
Life irresistible, universal, deep,
Out of that no-man's-land, that isle of pain,
Where birth and death fight in the dark together
For the new soul, the new little infant world, ,
Bearer of tidings, saviour of the race—
The child.

Then, wonder of wonders, comes
The change. All glowing, from his great white throne
God stoops to us; we see the splendor, we hear
The thronging harps, we feel here in our arms
His presence forming softly, clasping close
Into a little tender human thing—
Our own, ours, ours. Then suddenly for a moment
We are swept away by joy magnificent,
And from high heaven watch the brave world go by.

Read the old story—it's our Bethlehem.
We couch in a manger, bring forth young like beasts
In blood and shame and agony, and then
Rise with the living God safe in our arms.
Well, after that what are your grand affairs,
Your brave ideas, your dreams? We scarcely heed
Your world-building, we leave you to your work,
Praising your strength, your imperious leadership,
Your craft that skims the sea and wings the
And sends love-words all round the girdled world
Before these blue eyes, almost locked in sleep,
Open to make the dawn. Oh wonderful
Your power and cunning! Should we envy you
The triumph, the high renown, when in our arms
We hold all life—even you, the doer, the present,
And this, the ultimate future of our dreams?

Look—she's asleep. Isn't she a drop of dew
Mirroring moonlight? Or a velvet petal
Dropped from the almond tree all pearly pink
That grows in Sahuaro Valley? Or a spring,
Cool, still, where all the birds of the air shall drink
Before it flows through the wide fields of the world,
The thick dark woods, to wander who knows where,
Love-led, love-nourished? Oh, be wise for her,
My brother! Smooth her flowery-scented ways—
We give you this to do.

But if you falter,
If, blinded by the dust and smothered in spoils,
You strive for trophies and forget the goal,
Must I not rise out of my sheltered seat
At last? When I can empty my arms of her,
Turn from the happy garden where I dwell
And look over the world, what do I see
Under the cloud-capped towers and pinnacles?
Cities I see where little children drudge
The strength of the race away; gaunt factories
Where girls and boys are withered at the loom,
The wheel, the furnace; festering tenements
Where babies—tiny tender things like mine—
Are born in filth and darkness, to endure
Starved little wretched lives, or die like rats
While their pale mothers earn a pitiful dole
By day and night in the one huddled room.
In sulphurous mines, in roaring steam-driven mills
Where human hearts are broken on the
wheel; In jails where law wreaks a self-righteous vengeance
On the less masterful crimes; in gaudy brothels,
Where daughters of the race—yes, mine and yours,
Once dewy in their mothers' arms like this—
Rot into slaves of lust; in all dark places,
Unaware of love, unvisited of the sun,
I count the agonies of our lorded world.
I see that delicate lovely thing called life—
My charge, my woman's business, God forgive me!—
Crushed into clay, mortared with blood and tears,
For modern civilization, huge sky-scraper,
To tower its many-windowed stories on.
And through those glaring windows I behold
A riot of waste, a sickening glut, an orgy—
Life turned once more to loathing and despair.
So, though I bear my baby in my arms,
Now must I tread the crowded ways of the world.
Help me to rise, give me your powerful hand,
My brother; lead me forth to do my part,
Too long content to rest here in my garden
Love-sheltered. Mea culpa—I have sinned.
Vast is the world, our steel-blown, power-driven world;
Too huge a grand machine for half the race
To build, and run, and guard from rust and filth,
While we, the other half, cling to the hearth,
Selfishly guard our own, and give no aid
Through the long heat and burden of the day.
Now we are summoned, for the hour is struck.
We have over-strained your strength, we have over-trusted
Your zeal. Now must we take our burden back—
The burden of life you bear but fitfully—
And nourish on warm breasts the suffering

Come, curly pearly one, my bird,
My primrose folding up at night/
Sleep warm and tight!
Never a word
Till it is light!
Softly, softly, down in your bed,
Round little toes to round little head,
Sleep, sleep, my weary one,
Mother's dearie one!

I—Spring

Allegro
Wake ! wake !
Out of the snow and the mist,
In rain-wet wind-blown gauze
Of amber and amethyst,
Cometh Spring like a girl.
Trembling and timorous
She peers through the thin white thaws,
Afraid of the winds that whirl
Down paths all perilous
Where her so tender feet are softly going,
Where the rich earth is awaiting her lavish sowing
Of green and purple and white
In the gardens of day and night.

Hither she comes—
Oh lightly she wavers and lingers!
The chill gray storm benumbs
Her lifted rose-petal fingers,
And looses her hair from its fillet of pearl.
Her soft, dew-fringed eyes—
The virginal eyes of a girl—
Gaze at the foam-veiled skies,
Search for the sun who is hiding
His amorous glowing face,
For the spirit of life now gliding
Unseen through every place.

Blown! blown—
Hither and yon,
Dashed by the winds that groan,
Lashed by the frost-elves wan,
Whipped by the envious ghosts of old years long gone,
That chatter and sigh
Of the ruin nigh,
Of death and darkness and sorrow that come anon.
Yet bold and brave
She dares—the young Spring—to dance on that ancient grave,
To dance with delicate feet
On the world's despair and defeat,
On the Winter's ashen pall
That covers all.

Look! she lifts the cover—
A corner of that frost-film pall she lifts.
Now Earth, great-hearted lover,
Smiles upward through the dew-bespangled rifts.
And shining sunbeams, pages of the day,
Roll up the mantle, bear it far away.
Then the Earth laughs with pleasure,
And tosses from her treasure
Store of blue crocuses and snow-drops white,
Glad trilliums that make the woodland bright,
Rich arbutus and shadowy violets:
Till, caught in webs of bloom,
Light-footed Spring her stormy woe forgets,
Forgets the cold, the gloom,
Blesses with errant grace
Each dim forgotten place,
Of drooping leaves, muffles the maples bare
In lilac veils, covers with tenderness
The harsh brown world; and then, when all is won,
Trails languorous dreams, dreams exquisite and rare,
And shrinking from the bold, too-fervid sun,
Shyly gives over
Her royal lover,
Like one afraid of love, who will not stay
Love's perfect day;
Lightly gives over—
Inconstant rover—
Her glad fresh-garlanded world, and like the dew
Sleeps in the blue.
She tosses down
Her flowery crown
Into the lap of Summer—
Glad newcomer!—
Smiling adorns her with treasure of growing things,
And softly sings,
Even while she fades in light—
A wraith, a mist
Of amethyst;
A spirit, a dream that goes,
But whither—who knows?


II—Summer

Andante
Hus h! hush! Wake not the drowsy Summer—she would dream,
Heavy with growing things.
Dance lightly where her beauty lies agleam
Under languidly folded wings.
Over the delicate grasses
A breath, a spirit passes,
A song, and the odor of bloom—
Give way! make room!
The Summer has met her lover
By day, by night;
He has brought from the stars—bright rover—
Heaven's fire, heaven's light!
He has filled her with life that sleepeth,
That waits for birth,
As a jewel its bright fire keepeth
In the rock-bound earth.

Softly, slowly
Dance and sway,
While Summer dreameth
The moons away.
Full weary she seemeth
Of love's deep bliss,
But holy, holy
Love's memories.

The idle day is rich with budding things
Whereon the bold sun glares.
Dance lightly, lest you tread on folded wings,
Of flight still unawares.
Ah, delicate your footfall be, while ever
The seed grows in the corn,
The bird in the egg, the deed in the endeavor,
The day in the morn.
Deep in the pool the spawning fishes play;
High in the air the bees buzz out their way.
Everywhere

The children of Summer come crowding in lustrous array—
The myriad children of Summer, beloved of the sun,
Through the long hot noons they are glad of the world they have won.
Bright and fair
They throng in the meadows and shake out the dew from their hair;
They sing in the tree-tops, they dip in the slow-flowing stream;
They nod from the hills, in the valleys their swift feet gleam;
They kneel in the moonlight, the bright stars hear their prayer.
Everywhere
The high sun blesses them,
The moon confesses them,
Old Time with patient smile
Harks to their hope awhile.
They are born, they awake, they arise—now they dance in their bloom;
For their revels of love and of wonder the earth makes room.
Oh, she harks to their song for a season, she kisses their feet;
She gives them her all for their hour—be its joy complete!

The fecund Summer then
Covers her eyes again—
Lies dreaming, at rest:
Young mother of life who is feeding
The world at her breast;
Rich bride of the year, ever needing
But love and light
To give, and give more, and give all
In her great love's might.
Tread softly, give heed to her call—
Oh be still! be fleet!
Hush—hush the sweet sound of your singing;
Pause—pause, ye feet!
Sink down! she bids you rest
Close on her breast.
Down! down ! your rapture flinging
Where all her dreams are winging.
Ah, cease your quest!
Peace!—be blest !
Be blest!


III—Autumn

Scherzo
Co me with me—
All that live!
Dance with me—
Love—and give !
Give me your love, ye souls of the corn and the vine!
Dance with me! laugh with me! crowd me! be mine—be mine!
Up from the earth in your splendor of scarlet and gold—
Haste, oh make haste ere the warm rich year grow old!
Ye throngs that gaily rise
Multitudinous
As the red red leaves that flutter
All tremulous
When the wind rides down from the skies;
Ye spirits that shout and mutter
In laughter, in pain,
When the year of her sowing and reaping
Would waste again,
Come spend of your treasure, full heaping,
Be lavish, be bold!
Cast your hope on the winds, from your feet shake the dark damp mould;
Come dancing, come shouting, come leaping,
Ere the earth grow cold!

Come, wings of the air; come, feet that trample the grasses!
Come, tree-top spirits that kindle the leaves to flame!
Come, sprites of the sea that shout when the gray storm passes !
Come, wraiths of the desert whom sorrow nor death may tame!
Come eat of the rich ripe fruit, come drink of the vine!
Come dance till your revels are drunken with joy, with wine.
For the labor is over and done,
The spoil of the battle is won!
Ah trample it, scatter it,
Cast it afar!
The tempests will batter it—
On with the war!
Let your bright robes float, let them whirl with the rush of your feet—
The gauzes of crimson and gold!
Give your will to the winds—they are chasing, they haste, they are fleet,
They are eager and ruthless and bold.
On ! on! till you circle the earth with the rush of your dancing,
With the shout and the song;
Till your choral of crowds, like a river in flood-time advancing,
Bears all things along!
Dance! dance! for the end comes soon—
Do you feel the chill?
White winds of the Winter croon
From their cave in the hill.
Yes, death and the end come soon—
Spread your gaudy robes!
Haste! haste! for the leaves are falling.
Shout! shout! for the storms are calling.
Give all, for the year grows old.
And the world grows cold.


IV—Winter

Finale
Fly! fly!
Gather your white robes close—
Scuttle away!
Look! in the sky
The bleak winds mutter morose
To the swift dark day.
They gather and threaten and scold,
They shiver and shriek in their rage.
They are ashen and icy and old—
Ah, bitter the passion of age!
Flee from them! haste—haste
Through the vengeful weather!
Lest your red blood chill
And your hearts stop still,
Crowd close together
And flee o'er the drear dead waste!

Down! down!
Out of a sky all brown
The dark storm stoops to shrivel the world away.
With ribald wind he strips her,
With stinging sleet he whips her,
With envious frost he withers her green to gray.
Because she was gay and glad,
Beloved of many lovers, fruitful mother
Of many children crowding and killing each other;
Because she was wasteful mad,
Scattering and trampling her riches for death to smother,
Now shall she starve and freeze
And pray on her stiffened knees.
Now shall she helpless lie
And the powers of the air will mock her;
The spirits she dared defy
Will rend her and blind her and shock her.
With white white snow they will bury her passion deep
Till it's dumb, till it's cold.
They will whistle and roar in their triumph
Till her heart grows old.
They will put out her love-lit sun like the torch at a feast,
And with haughty carousals make wanton his court in the east.
They will brush down the stars like white feathers far blown on dark waves,
And the night will be black as they dance on the ghost-thronged graves.

Haste! haste!
Your garments are torn, they are sheeted with ice,
In your wind-loosed hair
The sharp sleet rattles.
You are hurled, chased
To the Winter's lair—
You have paid the price,
You have bled in her battles.
Now shelter your woe
And be still, be still!
Let the night-winds go
To their cave in the hill!
Let the dark clouds flee
Through the gates of the west,
Till the earth rides free
Who was sore oppressed.
For weary of orgies that ravage
Is Winter now.
From the heel of a tyrant savage
She lifts her brow.
See—the wrath of the storm is over,
And under a moon-white cover
Lies the world asleep.
So still, so pale—
Dance bravely, lest you quail
And pause to weep.
Over the flower-soft snow
Still as the lost wind go
To open the gates of day.
Where watches yon lone pale star
Crimson and golden are
The curtains that shake and sway.
Ah, lift them! look, through the rift
Comes the sun adrift!
He kindles the snow to fire,
He bids the dead earth aspire.
Oh dance! From the year’s white grave
New blooms will blow.
Dance lightly, wistfully! save
The life below!
Softly! the world is still—
Hush your errant will!
No longer the dream pursue!
Rest—rest, till the dream come true!
Wait! hope! be still !