The Little Book of Modern Verse
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Jessie B. Rittenhouse >> The Little Book of Modern Verse
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11 This etext was prepared by Alan R. Light (alight@vnet.net, formerly
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The Little Book of Modern Verse
ed. Jessie B. Rittenhouse
[Note on text: Italicized lines or stanzas are marked by tildes (~).
Other italicized words have capitalized. Lines longer than 78 characters
are broken and the continuation is indented two spaces. Some obvious errors
may have been corrected.]
The Little Book of Modern Verse
A Selection from the work of contemporaneous American poets
Edited by Jessie B. Rittenhouse
[Selections made in 1913.]
Foreword
"The Little Book of Modern Verse", as its name implies,
is not a formal anthology. The pageant of American poetry
has been so often presented that no necessity exists
for another exhaustive review of the art. Nearly all anthologies, however,
stop short of the present group of poets, or represent them so inadequately
that only those in close touch with the trend of American literature
know what the poet of to-day is contributing to it.
It is strictly, then, as a reflection of our own period,
to show what is being done by the successors of our earlier poets,
what new interpretation they are giving to life, what new beauty
they have apprehended, what new art they have evolved,
that this little book has taken form. A few of the poets included
have been writing for a quarter of a century, and were, therefore,
among the immediate successors of the New England group,
but many have done their work within the past decade and the volume as a whole
represents the twentieth-century spirit.
From the scheme of the book, that of a small, intimate collection,
representative rather than exhaustive, it has been impossible
to include all of the poets who would naturally be included
in a more ambitious anthology. In certain instances, also,
matters of copyright have deterred me from including those
whom I had originally intended to represent, but with isolated exceptions
the little book covers the work of our later poets and gives a hint
of what they are doing.
I have attempted, as far as possible, to unify the collection by arranging
the poems so that each should set the keynote to the next, or at least
bear some relation to it in mood or theme. While it is impossible,
with so varied a mass of material, that such a sequence should be exact,
and in one or two instances the arrangement has been disturbed
by the late addition or elimination of poems, the idea has been
to differentiate the little volume from the typical anthology
by giving it a unity impossible to a larger collection.
Jessie B. Rittenhouse.
Contents
Across the Fields to Anne. [Richard Burton]
After a Dolmetsch Concert. [Arthur Upson]
Agamede's Song. [Arthur Upson]
As I came down from Lebanon. [Clinton Scollard]
As in the Midst of Battle there is Room. [George Santayana]
The Ashes in the Sea. [George Sterling]
At Gibraltar. [George Edward Woodberry]
At the End of the Day. [Richard Hovey]
The Automobile. [Percy MacKaye]
Azrael. [Robert Gilbert Welsh]
Bacchus. [Frank Dempster Sherman]
Bag-Pipes at Sea. [Clinton Scollard]
Ballade of my Lady's Beauty. [Joyce Kilmer]
Be still. The Hanging Gardens were a dream. [Trumbull Stickney]
Black Sheep. [Richard Burton]
The Black Vulture. [George Sterling]
Da Boy from Rome. [Thomas Augustine Daly]
The Buried City. [George Sylvester Viereck]
Calverly's. [Edwin Arlington Robinson]
The Candle and the Flame. [George Sylvester Viereck]
Candlemas. [Alice Brown]
A Caravan from China comes. [Richard Le Gallienne]
Chavez. [Mildred McNeal Sweeney]
The Cloud. [Josephine Preston Peabody]
Comrades. [Richard Hovey]
Comrades. [George Edward Woodberry]
The Daguerreotype. [William Vaughn Moody]
Departure. [Hermann Hagedorn]
The Dreamer. [Nicholas Vachel Lindsay]
The Dust Dethroned. [George Sterling]
The Eagle that is forgotten. [Nicholas Vachel Lindsay]
Euchenor Chorus. [Arthur Upson]
Evensong. [Ridgely Torrence]
Ex Libris. [Arthur Upson]
Exordium. [George Cabot Lodge]
A Faun in Wall Street. [John Myers O'Hara]
Fiat Lux. [Lloyd Mifflin]
The Flight. [Lloyd Mifflin]
Four Winds. [Sara Teasdale]
"Frost To-Night". [Edith M. Thomas]
The Frozen Grail. [Elsa Barker]
The Fugitives. [Florence Wilkinson]
Gloucester Moors. [William Vaughn Moody]
Golden Pulse. [John Myers O'Hara]
"Grandmither, think not I forget". [Willa Sibert Cather]
Grey Rocks, and Greyer Sea. [Charles G. D. Roberts]
Grieve not, Ladies. [Anna Hempstead Branch]
The Happiest Heart. [John Vance Cheney]
Harps hung up in Babylon. [Arthur Colton]
He whom a Dream hath possessed. [Shaemas O Sheel]
The Heart's Country. [Florence Wilkinson]
Here is the Place where Loveliness keeps House. [Madison Cawein]
Hora Christi. [Alice Brown]
The House and the Road. [Josephine Preston Peabody]
I know not why. [Morris Rosenfeld]
I shall not care. [Sara Teasdale]
I would I might forget that I am I. [George Santayana]
The Inverted Torch. [Edith M. Thomas]
The Invisible Bride. [Edwin Markham]
Irish Peasant Song. [Louise Imogen Guiney]
The Joy of the Hills. [Edwin Markham]
Joyous-Gard. [Thomas S. Jones, Jr.]
Kinchinjunga. [Cale Young Rice]
The Kings. [Louise Imogen Guiney]
Da Leetla Boy. [Thomas Augustine Daly]
The Lesser Children. [Ridgely Torrence]
Let me no more a Mendicant. [Arthur Colton]
Life. [John Hall Wheelock]
Lincoln, the Man of the People. [Edwin Markham]
Little Gray Songs from St. Joseph's. [Grace Fallow Norton]
Live blindly. [Trumbull Stickney]
Lord of my Heart's Elation. [Bliss Carman]
Love came back at Fall o' Dew. [Lizette Woodworth Reese]
Love knocks at the Door. [John Hall Wheelock]
Love Triumphant. [Frederic Lawrence Knowles]
Love's Ritual. [Charles Hanson Towne]
Love's Springtide. [Frank Dempster Sherman]
The Man with the Hoe. [Edwin Markham]
Martin. [Joyce Kilmer]
De Massa ob de Sheepfol'. [Sarah Pratt McLean Greene]
The Master. [Edwin Arlington Robinson]
May is building her House. [Richard Le Gallienne]
A Memorial Tablet. [Florence Wilkinson]
Miniver Cheevy. [Edwin Arlington Robinson]
Mockery. [Louis Untermeyer]
Mother. [Theresa Helburn]
The Mystic. [Witter Bynner]
The Mystic. [Cale Young Rice]
The New Life. [Witter Bynner]
The Nightingale unheard. [Josephine Preston Peabody]
Night's Mardi Gras. [Edward J. Wheeler]
An Ode in Time of Hesitation. [William Vaughn Moody]
Of Joan's Youth. [Louise Imogen Guiney]
On a Fly-Leaf of Burns' Songs. [Frederic Lawrence Knowles]
On a Subway Express. [Chester Firkins]
On the Building of Springfield. [Nicholas Vachel Lindsay]
Once. [Trumbull Stickney]
Only of thee and me. [Louis Untermeyer]
The Only Way. [Louis V. Ledoux]
The Outer Gate. [Nora May French]
A Parting Guest. [James Whitcomb Riley]
The Path to the Woods. [Madison Cawein]
The Poet. [Mildred McNeal Sweeney]
The Poet's Town. [John G. Neihardt]
The Prince. [Josephine Dodge Daskam]
The Quiet Singer. [Charles Hanson Towne]
The Recessional. [Charles G. D. Roberts]
Renascence. [Edna St. Vincent Millay]
A Rhyme of Death's Inn. [Lizette Woodworth Reese]
The Ride to the Lady. [Helen Gray Cone]
The Rival. [James Whitcomb Riley]
The Rosary. [Robert Cameron Rogers]
Sappho. [Sara Teasdale]
Scum o' the Earth. [Robert Haven Schauffler]
The Sea Gypsy. [Richard Hovey]
The Sea-Lands. [Orrick Johns]
The Secret. [George Edward Woodberry]
Sentence. [Witter Bynner]
Sic Vita. [William Stanley Braithwaite]
Sometimes. [Thomas S. Jones, Jr.]
Somewhere. [John Vance Cheney]
Song. "For me the jasmine buds unfold". [Florence Earle Coates]
Song. "If love were but a little thing --". [Florence Earle Coates]
Song. [Richard Le Gallienne]
A Song in Spring. [Thomas S. Jones, Jr.]
Song is so old. [Hermann Hagedorn]
The Song of the Unsuccessful. [Richard Burton]
Songs for my Mother. [Anna Hempstead Branch]
Souls. [Fannie Stearns Davis]
Stains. [Theodosia Garrison]
Tears. [Lizette Woodworth Reese]
The Tears of Harlequin. [Theodosia Garrison]
That Day you came. [Lizette Woodworth Reese]
There's Rosemary. [Olive Tilford Dargan]
They went forth to Battle, but they always fell. [Shaemas O Sheel]
The Thought of her. [Richard Hovey]
To a New York Shop-Girl dressed for Sunday. [Anna Hempstead Branch]
To William Sharp. [Clinton Scollard]
To-Day. [Helen Gray Cone]
Trumbull Stickney. [George Cabot Lodge]
Tryste Noel. [Louise Imogen Guiney]
The Unconquered Air. [Florence Earle Coates]
Under Arcturus. [Madison Cawein]
The Unreturning. [Bliss Carman]
Uriel. [Percy MacKaye]
A Vagabond Song. [Bliss Carman]
Wanderers. [George Sylvester Viereck]
Water Fantasy. [Fannie Stearns Davis]
We needs must be divided in the Tomb. [George Santayana]
A West-Country Lover. [Alice Brown]
When I am dead and Sister to the Dust. [Elsa Barker]
When I have gone Weird Ways. [John G. Neihardt]
When the Wind is low. [Cale Young Rice]
Why. [Bliss Carman]
The Wife from Fairyland. [Richard Le Gallienne]
A Winter Ride. [Amy Lowell]
Winter Sleep. [Edith M. Thomas]
Witchery. [Frank Dempster Sherman]
Biographical Notes
Sincere thanks are due to my friend Thomas S. Jones, Jr.,
who, during my absence in Europe, has kindly taken charge of all details
incident to putting "The Little Book of Modern Verse" through the press.
The Little Book of Modern Verse
Lord of my Heart's Elation. [Bliss Carman]
Lord of my heart's elation,
Spirit of things unseen,
Be thou my aspiration
Consuming and serene!
Bear up, bear out, bear onward,
This mortal soul alone,
To selfhood or oblivion,
Incredibly thine own, --
As the foamheads are loosened
And blown along the sea,
Or sink and merge forever
In that which bids them be.
I, too, must climb in wonder,
Uplift at thy command, --
Be one with my frail fellows
Beneath the wind's strong hand,
A fleet and shadowy column
Of dust or mountain rain,
To walk the earth a moment
And be dissolved again.
Be thou my exaltation
Or fortitude of mien,
Lord of the world's elation,
Thou breath of things unseen!
Gloucester Moors. [William Vaughn Moody]
A mile behind is Gloucester town
Where the fishing fleets put in,
A mile ahead the land dips down
And the woods and farms begin.
Here, where the moors stretch free
In the high blue afternoon,
Are the marching sun and talking sea,
And the racing winds that wheel and flee
On the flying heels of June.
Jill-o'er-the-ground is purple blue,
Blue is the quaker-maid,
The wild geranium holds its dew
Long in the boulder's shade.
Wax-red hangs the cup
From the huckleberry boughs,
In barberry bells the grey moths sup
Or where the choke-cherry lifts high up
Sweet bowls for their carouse.
Over the shelf of the sandy cove
Beach-peas blossom late.
By copse and cliff the swallows rove
Each calling to his mate.
Seaward the sea-gulls go,
And the land-birds all are here;
That green-gold flash was a vireo,
And yonder flame where the marsh-flags grow
Was a scarlet tanager.
This earth is not the steadfast place
We landsmen build upon;
From deep to deep she varies pace,
And while she comes is gone.
Beneath my feet I feel
Her smooth bulk heave and dip;
With velvet plunge and soft upreel
She swings and steadies to her keel
Like a gallant, gallant ship.
These summer clouds she sets for sail,
The sun is her masthead light,
She tows the moon like a pinnace frail
Where her phosphor wake churns bright.
Now hid, now looming clear,
On the face of the dangerous blue
The star fleets tack and wheel and veer,
But on, but on does the old earth steer
As if her port she knew.
God, dear God! Does she know her port,
Though she goes so far about?
Or blind astray, does she make her sport
To brazen and chance it out?
I watched when her captains passed:
She were better captainless.
Men in the cabin, before the mast,
But some were reckless and some aghast,
And some sat gorged at mess.
By her battened hatch I leaned and caught
Sounds from the noisome hold, --
Cursing and sighing of souls distraught
And cries too sad to be told.
Then I strove to go down and see;
But they said, "Thou art not of us!"
I turned to those on the deck with me
And cried, "Give help!" But they said, "Let be:
Our ship sails faster thus."
Jill-o'er-the-ground is purple blue,
Blue is the quaker-maid,
The alder-clump where the brook comes through
Breeds cresses in its shade.
To be out of the moiling street
With its swelter and its sin!
Who has given to me this sweet,
And given my brother dust to eat?
And when will his wage come in?
Scattering wide or blown in ranks,
Yellow and white and brown,
Boats and boats from the fishing banks
Come home to Gloucester town.
There is cash to purse and spend,
There are wives to be embraced,
Hearts to borrow and hearts to lend,
And hearts to take and keep to the end, --
O little sails, make haste!
But thou, vast outbound ship of souls,
What harbor town for thee?
What shapes, when thy arriving tolls,
Shall crowd the banks to see?
Shall all the happy shipmates then
Stand singing brotherly?
Or shall a haggard ruthless few
Warp her over and bring her to,
While the many broken souls of men
Fester down in the slaver's pen,
And nothing to say or do?
On a Subway Express. [Chester Firkins]
I, who have lost the stars, the sod,
For chilling pave and cheerless light,
Have made my meeting-place with God
A new and nether Night --
Have found a fane where thunder fills
Loud caverns, tremulous; -- and these
Atone me for my reverend hills
And moonlit silences.
A figment in the crowded dark,
Where men sit muted by the roar,
I ride upon the whirring Spark
Beneath the city's floor.
In this dim firmament, the stars
Whirl by in blazing files and tiers;
Kin meteors graze our flying bars,
Amid the spinning spheres.
Speed! speed! until the quivering rails
Flash silver where the head-light gleams,
As when on lakes the Moon impales
The waves upon its beams.
Life throbs about me, yet I stand
Outgazing on majestic Power;
Death rides with me, on either hand,
In my communion hour.
You that 'neath country skies can pray,
Scoff not at me -- the city clod; --
My only respite of the Day
Is this wild ride -- with God.
The Automobile. [Percy MacKaye]
Fluid the world flowed under us: the hills
Billow on billow of umbrageous green
Heaved us, aghast, to fresh horizons, seen
One rapturous instant, blind with flash of rills
And silver-rising storms and dewy stills
Of dripping boulders, till the dim ravine
Drowned us again in leafage, whose serene
Coverts grew loud with our tumultuous wills.
Then all of Nature's old amazement seemed
Sudden to ask us: "Is this also Man?
This plunging, volant, land-amphibian
What Plato mused and Paracelsus dreamed?
Reply!" And piercing us with ancient scan,
The shrill, primeval hawk gazed down -- and screamed.
The Black Vulture. [George Sterling]
Aloof upon the day's immeasured dome,
He holds unshared the silence of the sky.
Far down his bleak, relentless eyes descry
The eagle's empire and the falcon's home --
Far down, the galleons of sunset roam;
His hazards on the sea of morning lie;
Serene, he hears the broken tempest sigh
Where cold sierras gleam like scattered foam.
And least of all he holds the human swarm --
Unwitting now that envious men prepare
To make their dream and its fulfillment one,
When, poised above the caldrons of the storm,
Their hearts, contemptuous of death, shall dare
His roads between the thunder and the sun.
Chavez. [Mildred McNeal Sweeney]
So hath he fallen, the Endymion of the air,
And so lies down in slumber lapped for aye.
Diana, passing, found his youth too fair,
His soul too fleet and willing to obey.
She swung her golden moon before his eyes --
Dreaming, he rose to follow -- and ran -- and was away.
His foot was winged as the mounting sun.
Earth he disdained -- the dusty ways of men
Not yet had learned. His spirit longed to run
With the bright clouds, his brothers, to answer when
The airs were fleetest and could give him hand
Into the starry fields beyond our plodding ken.
All wittingly that glorious way he chose,
And loved the peril when it was most bright.
He tried anew the long-forbidden snows
And like an eagle topped the dropping height
Of Nagenhorn, and still toward Italy
Past peak and cliff pressed on, in glad, unerring flight.
Oh, when the bird lies low with golden wing
Bruised past healing by some bitter chance,
Still must its tireless spirit mount and sing
Of meadows green with morning, of the dance
On windy trees, the darting flight away,
And of that last, most blue, triumphant downward glance.
So murmuring of the snow: "THE SNOW, AND MORE,
O GOD, MORE SNOW!" on that last field he lay.
Despair and wonder spent their passionate store
In his great heart, through heaven gone astray,
And early lost. Too far the golden moon
Had swung upon that bright, that long, untraversed way.
Now to lie ended on the murmuring plain --
Ah, this for his bold heart was not the loss,
But that those windy fields he ne'er again
Might try, nor fleet and shimmering mountains cross,
Unfollowed, by a path none other knew:
His bitter woe had here its deep and piteous cause.
Dear toils of youth unfinished! And songs unwritten, left
By young and passionate hearts! O melodies
Unheard, whereof we ever stand bereft!
Clear-singing Schubert, boyish Keats -- with these
He roams henceforth, one with the starry band,
Still paying to fairy call and far command
His spirit heed, still winged with golden prophecies.
The Sea Gypsy. [Richard Hovey]
I am fevered with the sunset,
I am fretful with the bay,
For the wander-thirst is on me
And my soul is in Cathay.
There's a schooner in the offing,
With her topsails shot with fire,
And my heart has gone aboard her
For the Islands of Desire.
I must forth again to-morrow!
With the sunset I must be
Hull down on the trail of rapture
In the wonder of the sea.
At Gibraltar. [George Edward Woodberry]
I
England, I stand on thy imperial ground,
Not all a stranger; as thy bugles blow,
I feel within my blood old battles flow --
The blood whose ancient founts in thee are found
Still surging dark against the Christian bound
Wide Islam presses; well its peoples know
Thy heights that watch them wandering below;
I think how Lucknow heard their gathering sound.
I turn, and meet the cruel, turbaned face.
England, 't is sweet to be so much thy son!
I feel the conqueror in my blood and race;
Last night Trafalgar awed me, and to-day
Gibraltar wakened; hark, thy evening gun
Startles the desert over Africa!
II
Thou art the rock of empire, set mid-seas
Between the East and West, that God has built;
Advance thy Roman borders where thou wilt,
While run thy armies true with His decrees.
Law, justice, liberty -- great gifts are these;
Watch that they spread where English blood is spilt,
Lest, mixed and sullied with his country's guilt,
The soldier's life-stream flow, and Heaven displease!
Two swords there are: one naked, apt to smite,
Thy blade of war; and, battle-storied, one
Rejoices in the sheath, and hides from light.
American I am; would wars were done!
Now westward, look, my country bids good-night --
Peace to the world from ports without a gun!
Euchenor Chorus. [Arthur Upson]
(From "The City")
Of old it went forth to Euchenor, pronounced of his sire --
Reluctant, impelled by the god's unescapable fire --
To choose for his doom or to perish at home of disease
Or be slain of his foes, among men, where Troy surges down to the seas.
Polyides, the soothsayer, spake it, inflamed by the god.
Of his son whom the fates singled out did he bruit it abroad;
And Euchenor went down to the ships with his armor and men
And straightway, grown dim on the gulf, passed the isles
he passed never again.
Why weep ye, O women of Corinth? The doom ye have heard
Is it strange to your ears that ye make it so mournful a word?
Is he who so fair in your eyes to his manhood upgrew,
Alone in his doom of pale death -- are of mortals the beaten so few?
O weep not, companions and lovers! Turn back to your joys:
The defeat was not his which he chose, nor the victory Troy's.
Him a conqueror, beauteous in youth, o'er the flood his fleet brought,
And the swift spear of Paris that slew completed the conquest he sought.
Not the falling proclaims the defeat, but the place of the fall;
And the fate that decrees and the god that impels through it all
Regard not blind mortals' divisions of slayer and slain,
But invisible glories dispense wide over the war-gleaming plain.
He whom a Dream hath possessed. [Shaemas O Sheel]
He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no more of doubting,
For mist and the blowing of winds and the mouthing of words he scorns;
Not the sinuous speech of schools he hears, but a knightly shouting,
And never comes darkness down, yet he greeteth a million morns.
He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no more of roaming;
All roads and the flowing of waves and the speediest flight he knows,
But wherever his feet are set, his soul is forever homing,
And going, he comes, and coming he heareth a call and goes.
He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no more of sorrow,
At death and the dropping of leaves and the fading of suns he smiles,
For a dream remembers no past and scorns the desire of a morrow,
And a dream in a sea of doom sets surely the ultimate isles.
He whom a dream hath possessed treads the impalpable marches,
From the dust of the day's long road he leaps to a laughing star,
And the ruin of worlds that fall he views from eternal arches,
And rides God's battlefield in a flashing and golden car.
The Kings. [Louise Imogen Guiney]
A man said unto his Angel:
"My spirits are fallen low,
And I cannot carry this battle:
O brother! where might I go?
"The terrible Kings are on me
With spears that are deadly bright;
Against me so from the cradle
Do fate and my fathers fight."
Then said to the man his Angel:
"Thou wavering, witless soul,
Back to the ranks! What matter
To win or to lose the whole,
"As judged by the little judges
Who hearken not well, nor see?
Not thus, by the outer issue,
The Wise shall interpret thee.
"Thy will is the sovereign measure
And only events of things:
The puniest heart, defying,
Were stronger than all these Kings.
"Though out of the past they gather,
Mind's Doubt, and Bodily Pain,
And pallid Thirst of the Spirit
That is kin to the other twain,
"And Grief, in a cloud of banners,
And ringletted Vain Desires,
And Vice, with the spoils upon him
Of thee and thy beaten sires, --
"While Kings of eternal evil
Yet darken the hills about,
Thy part is with broken sabre
To rise on the last redoubt;
"To fear not sensible failure,
Nor covet the game at all,
But fighting, fighting, fighting,
Die, driven against the wall."
Mockery. [Louis Untermeyer]
God, I return to You on April days
When along country roads You walk with me,
And my faith blossoms like the earliest tree
That shames the bleak world with its yellow sprays --
My faith revives, when through a rosy haze
The clover-sprinkled hills smile quietly,
Young winds uplift a bird's clean ecstasy . . .
For this, O God, my joyousness and praise!
But now -- the crowded streets and choking airs,
The squalid people, bruised and tossed about;
These, or the over-brilliant thoroughfares,
The too-loud laughter and the empty shout,
The mirth-mad city, tragic with its cares . . .
For this, O God, my silence -- and my doubt.
An Ode in Time of Hesitation. [William Vaughn Moody]
I
Before the solemn bronze Saint Gaudens made
To thrill the heedless passer's heart with awe,
And set here in the city's talk and trade
To the good memory of Robert Shaw,
This bright March morn I stand,
And hear the distant spring come up the land;
Knowing that what I hear is not unheard
Of this boy soldier and his Negro band,
For all their gaze is fixed so stern ahead,
For all the fatal rhythm of their tread.
The land they died to save from death and shame
Trembles and waits, hearing the spring's great name,
And by her pangs these resolute ghosts are stirred.
II
Through street and mall the tides of people go
Heedless; the trees upon the Common show
No hint of green; but to my listening heart
The still earth doth impart
Assurance of her jubilant emprise,
And it is clear to my long-searching eyes
That love at last has might upon the skies.
The ice is runneled on the little pond;
A telltale patter drips from off the trees;
The air is touched with Southland spiceries,
As if but yesterday it tossed the frond
Of pendant mosses where the live-oaks grow
Beyond Virginia and the Carolines,
Or had its will among the fruits and vines
Of aromatic isles asleep beyond
Florida and the Gulf of Mexico.
III
Soon shall the Cape Ann children shout in glee,
Spying the arbutus, spring's dear recluse;
Hill lads at dawn shall hearken the wild goose
Go honking northward over Tennessee;
West from Oswego to Sault Sainte-Marie,
And on to where the Pictured Rocks are hung,
And yonder where, gigantic, wilful, young,
Chicago sitteth at the northwest gates,
With restless violent hands and casual tongue
Moulding her mighty fates,
The Lakes shall robe them in ethereal sheen;
And like a larger sea, the vital green
Of springing wheat shall vastly be outflung
Over Dakota and the prairie states.
By desert people immemorial
On Arizonan mesas shall be done
Dim rites unto the thunder and the sun;
Nor shall the primal gods lack sacrifice
More splendid, when the white Sierras call
Unto the Rockies straightway to arise
And dance before the unveiled ark of the year
Sounding their windy cedars as for shawms,
Unrolling rivers clear
For flutter of broad phylacteries;
While Shasta signals to Alaskan seas
That watch old sluggish glaciers downward creep
To fling their icebergs thundering from the steep,
And Mariposa through the purple calms
Gazes at far Hawaii crowned with palms
Where East and West are met, --
A rich seal on the ocean's bosom set
To say that East and West are twain,
With different loss and gain:
The Lord hath sundered them; let them be sundered yet.
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