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Pelham Grenville Wodehouse - "Something New"

Henry Lawson - "On the Track"

Booth Tarkington - "Penrod and Sam"

KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN - "THE STORY OF WAITSTILL BAXTER"

The Second Book of Modern Verse

J >> Jessie B. Rittenhouse >> The Second Book of Modern Verse




My brother, man, builds for a span:
His life is a moment's breath.
But I have hewn for a million years,
Nor a moment dreamt of death.
By moons and stars I have measured my task --
And some from the skies have perished:
But ever I cut and flashed and foamed,
As ever my aim I cherished:
My aim to quarry the heart of earth,
Till, in the rock's red rise,
Its age and birth, through an awful girth
Of strata, should show the wonder-worth
Of patience to all eyes.

My brother, man, builds as he can,
And beauty he adds for his joy,
But all the hues of sublimity
My pinnacled walls employ.
Slow shadows iris them all day long,
And silvery veils, soul-stilling,
The moon drops down their precipices,
Soft with a spectral thrilling.
For all immutable dreams that sway
With beauty the earth and air,
Are ever at play, by night and day,
My house of eternity to array
In visions ever fair.




The Water Ouzel. [Harriet Monroe]



Little brown surf-bather of the mountains!
Spirit of foam, lover of cataracts, shaking your wings in falling waters!
Have you no fear of the roar and rush when Nevada plunges --
Nevada, the shapely dancer, feeling her way with slim white fingers?
How dare you dash at Yosemite the mighty --
Tall, white limbed Yosemite, leaping down, down over the cliff?
Is it not enough to lean on the blue air of mountains?
Is it not enough to rest with your mate at timberline, in bushes that hug
the rocks?
Must you fly through mad waters where the heaped-up granite breaks them?
Must you batter your wings in the torrent?
Must you plunge for life and death through the foam?




Old Manuscript. [Alfred Kreymborg]



The sky
Is that beautiful old parchment
In which the sun
And the moon
Keep their diary.
To read it all,
One must be a linguist
More learned than Father Wisdom;
And a visionary
More clairvoyant than Mother Dream.
But to feel it,
One must be an apostle:
One who is more than intimate
In having been, always,
The only confidant --
Like the earth
Or the sky.




The Runner in the Skies. [James Oppenheim]



Who is the runner in the skies,
With her blowing scarf of stars,
And our Earth and sun hovering like bees about her blossoming heart?
Her feet are on the winds, where space is deep,
Her eyes are nebulous and veiled,
She hurries through the night to a far lover.




Evening Song of Senlin. [Conrad Aiken]



It is moonlight. Alone in the silence
I ascend my stairs once more,
While waves, remote in a pale blue starlight,
Crash on a white sand shore.
It is moonlight. The garden is silent.
I stand in my room alone.
Across my wall, from the far-off moon,
A rain of fire is thrown . . .

There are houses hanging above the stars,
And stars hung under a sea:
And a wind from the long blue vault of time
Waves my curtains for me . . .

I wait in the dark once more,
Swung between space and space:
Before my mirror I lift my hands
And face my remembered face.
Is it I who stand in a question here,
Asking to know my name? . . .
It is I, yet I know not whither I go,
Nor why, nor whence I came.

It is I, who awoke at dawn
And arose and descended the stair,
Conceiving a god in the eye of the sun, --
In a woman's hands and hair.
It is I whose flesh is grey with the stones
I builded into a wall:
With a mournful melody in my brain
Of a tune I cannot recall . . .

There are roses to kiss: and mouths to kiss;
And the sharp-pained shadow of death.
I remember a rain-drop on my cheek, --
A wind like a fragrant breath . . .
And the star I laugh on tilts through heaven;
And the heavens are dark and steep . . .
I will forget these things once more
In the silence of sleep.




A Thrush in the Moonlight. [Witter Bynner]



In came the moon and covered me with wonder,
Touched me and was near me and made me very still.
In came a rush of song, like rain after thunder,
Pouring importunate on my window-sill.

I lowered my head, I hid it, I would not see nor hear,
The birdsong had stricken me, had brought the moon too near.
But when I dared to lift my head, night began to fill
With singing in the darkness. And then the thrush grew still.
And the moon came in, and silence, on my window-sill.




Orchard. [H. D.]



I saw the first pear
As it fell --
The honey-seeking, golden-banded,
The yellow swarm
Was not more fleet than I,
(Spare us from loveliness)
And I fell prostrate
Crying:
You have flayed us
With your blossoms,
Spare us the beauty
Of fruit-trees.

The honey-seeking
Paused not,
The air thundered their song,
And I alone was prostrate.

O rough-hewn
God of the orchard,
I bring you an offering --
Do you, alone unbeautiful,
Son of the god,
Spare us from loveliness:

These fallen hazel-nuts,
Stripped late of their green sheaths,
Grapes, red-purple,
Their berries
Dripping with wine,
Pomegranates already broken,
And shrunken figs
And quinces untouched,
I bring you as offering.




Heat. [H. D.]



O wind, rend open the heat,
Cut apart the heat,
Rend it to tatters.

Fruit cannot drop
Through this thick air --
Fruit cannot fall into heat
That presses up and blunts
The points of pears
And rounds the grapes.

Cut the heat --
Plough through it,
Turning it on either side
Of your path.




Madonna of the Evening Flowers. [Amy Lowell]



All day long I have been working,
Now I am tired.
I call: "Where are you?"
But there is only the oak tree rustling in the wind.
The house is very quiet,
The sun shines in on your books,
On your scissors and thimble just put down,
But you are not there.
Suddenly I am lonely:
Where are you?
I go about searching.

Then I see you,
Standing under a spire of pale blue larkspur,
With a basket of roses on your arm.
You are cool, like silver,
And you smile.
I think the Canterbury bells are playing little tunes.

You tell me that the peonies need spraying,
That the columbines have overrun all bounds,
That the pyrus japonica should be cut back and rounded.
You tell me these things.
But I look at you, heart of silver,
White heart-flame of polished silver,
Burning beneath the blue steeples of the larkspur.
And I long to kneel instantly at your feet,
While all about us peal the loud, sweet `Te Deums' of the Canterbury bells.




The New God. [James Oppenheim]



Ye morning-glories, ring in the gale your bells,
And with dew water the walk's dust for the burden-bearing ants:
Ye swinging spears of the larkspur, open your wells of gold
And pay your honey-tax to the hummingbird . . .

O now I see by the opening of blossoms,
And of bills of the hungry fledglings,
And the bright travel of sun-drunk insects,
Morning's business is afoot: Earth is busied with a million mouths!

Where goes eaten grass and thrush-snapped dragonfly?
Creation eats itself, to spawn in swarming sun-rays . . .
Bull and cricket go to it: life lives on life . . .
But O, ye flame-daubed irises, and ye hosts of gnats,
Like a well of light moving in morning's light,
What is this garmented animal that comes eating and drinking among you?
What is this upright one, with spade and with shears?

He is the visible and the invisible,
Behind his mouth and his eyes are other mouth and eyes . . .
Thirster after visions
He sees the flowers to their roots and the Earth back through its silent ages:
He parts the sky with his gaze:
He flings a magic on the hills, clothing them with Upanishad music,
Peopling the valley with dreamed images that vanished in Greece
millenniums back;
And in the actual morning, out of longing, shapes on the hills
To-morrow's golden grandeur . . .

O ye million hungerers and ye sun-rays
Ye are the many mothers of this invisible god,
This Earth's star and sun that rises singing and toiling among you,
This that is I, in joy, in the garden,
Singing to you, ye morning-glories,
Calling to you, ye swinging spears of the larkspur.




Patterns. [Amy Lowell]



I walk down the garden paths,
And all the daffodils
Are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
I walk down the patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
With my powdered hair and jewelled fan,
I too am a rare
Pattern. As I wander down
The garden paths.

My dress is richly figured,
And the train
Makes a pink and silver stain
On the gravel, and the thrift
Of the borders.
Just a plate of current fashion,
Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes.
Not a softness anywhere about me,
Only whalebone and brocade.
And I sink on a seat in the shade
Of a lime tree. For my passion
Wars against the stiff brocade.
The daffodils and squills
Flutter in the breeze
As they please.
And I weep;
For the lime tree is in blossom
And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom.

And the plashing of waterdrops
In the marble fountain
Comes down the garden-paths.
The dripping never stops.
Underneath my stiffened gown
Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin,
A basin in the midst of hedges grown
So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding,
But she guesses he is near,
And the sliding of the water
Seems the stroking of a dear
Hand upon her.
What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown!
I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground.
All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground.

I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths,
And he would stumble after,
Bewildered by my laughter.
I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the buckles
on his shoes.
I would choose
To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths,
A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover,
Till he caught me in the shade,
And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he clasped me,
Aching, melting, unafraid.
With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops,
And the plopping of the waterdrops,
All about us in the open afternoon --
I am very like to swoon
With the weight of this brocade,
For the sun sifts through the shade.

Underneath the fallen blossom
In my bosom,
Is a letter I have hid.
It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the Duke.
"Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell
Died in action Thursday se'nnight."
As I read it in the white, morning sunlight,
The letters squirmed like snakes.
"Any answer, Madam," said my footman.
"No," I told him.
"See that the messenger takes some refreshment.
No, no answer."
And I walked into the garden,
Up and down the patterned paths,
In my stiff, correct brocade.
The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun,
Each one.
I stood upright too,
Held rigid to the pattern
By the stiffness of my gown.
Up and down I walked,
Up and down.

In a month he would have been my husband.
In a month, here, underneath this lime,
We would have broke the pattern;
He for me, and I for him,
He as Colonel, I as Lady,
On this shady seat.
He had a whim
That sunlight carried blessing.
And I answered, "It shall be as you have said."
Now he is dead.

In Summer and in Winter I shall walk
Up and down
The patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
The squills and daffodils
Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow.
I shall go
Up and down
In my gown.
Gorgeously arrayed,
Boned and stayed.
And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace
By each button, hook, and lace.
For the man who should loose me is dead,
Fighting with the Duke in Flanders,
In a pattern called a war.
Christ! What are patterns for?




Richard Cory. [Edwin Arlington Robinson]



Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich, -- yes, richer than a king, --
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.




Of One Self-Slain. [Charles Hanson Towne]



When he went blundering back to God,
His songs half written, his work half done,
Who knows what paths his bruised feet trod,
What hills of peace or pain he won?

I hope God smiled and took his hand,
And said, "Poor truant, passionate fool!
Life's book is hard to understand:
Why couldst thou not remain at school?"




The Silent Folk. [Charles Wharton Stork]



Oh, praise me not the silent folk;
To me they only seem
Like leafless, bird-abandoned oak
And muffled, frozen stream.

I want the leaves to talk and tell
The joy that's in the tree,
And water-nymphs to weave a spell
Of pixie melody.

Your silent folk may be sincere,
But still, when all is said,
We have to grant they're rather drear, --
And maybe, too, they're dead.




Convention. [Agnes Lee]



The snow is lying very deep.
My house is sheltered from the blast.
I hear each muffled step outside,
I hear each voice go past.

But I'll not venture in the drift
Out of this bright security,
Till enough footsteps come and go
To make a path for me.




Mad Blake. [William Rose Benet]



Blake saw a treeful of angels at Peckham Rye,
And his hands could lay hold on the tiger's terrible heart.
Blake knew how deep is Hell, and Heaven how high,
And could build the universe from one tiny part.
Blake heard the asides of God, as with furrowed brow
He sifts the star-streams between the Then and the Now,
In vast infant sagacity brooding, an infant's grace
Shining serene on his simple, benignant face.

Blake was mad, they say, -- and Space's Pandora-box
Loosed its wonders upon him -- devils, but angels indeed.
I, they say, am sane, but no key of mine unlocks
One lock of one gate wherethrough Heaven's glory is freed.
And I stand and I hold my breath, daylong, yearlong,
Out of comfort and easy dreaming evermore starting awake, --
Yearning beyond all sanity for some echo of that Song
Of Songs that was sung to the soul of the madman, Blake!




The Name. [Anna Hempstead Branch]



When I come back from secret dreams
In gardens deep and fair,
How very curious it seems --
This mortal name I bear.

For by this name I make their bread
And trim the household light
And sun the linen for the bed
And close the door at night.

I wonder who myself may be,
And whence it was I came --
Before the Church had laid on me
This frail and earthly name.

My sponsors spake unto the Lord
And three things promised they,
Upon my soul with one accord
Their easy vows did lay.

My ancient spirit heard them not.
I think it was not there.
But in a place they had forgot
It drank a starrier air.

Yes, in a silent place and deep --
There did it dance and run,
And sometimes it lay down to sleep
Or sprang into the sun.

The Priest saw not my aureole shine!
My sweet wings saw not he!
He graved me with a solemn sign
And laid a name on me.

Now by this name I stitch and mend,
The daughter of my home,
By this name do I save and spend
And when they call, I come.

But oh, that Name, that other Name,
More secret and more mine!
It burns as does the angelic flame
Before the midmost shrine.

Before my soul to earth was brought
Into God's heart it came,
He wrote a meaning in my thought
And gave to me a Name.

By this Name do I ride the air
And dance from star to star,
And I behold all things are fair,
For I see them as they are.

I plunge into the deepest seas,
In flames I, laughing, burn.
In roseate clouds I take my ease
Nor to the earth return.

It is my beauteous Name -- my own --
That I have never heard.
God keeps it for Himself alone,
That strange and lovely word.

God keeps it for Himself -- but yet
You are His voice, and so
In your heart He is calling me,
And unto you I go.

Love, by this Name I sing, and breathe
A fresh, mysterious air.
By this I innocently wreathe
New garlands for my hair.

By this Name I am born anew
More beautiful, more bright.
More roseate than angelic dew,
Apparelled in delight.

I'll sing and stitch and make the bread
In the wonder of my Name,
And sun the linen for the bed
And tend the fireside flame.

By this Name do I answer yes --
Word beautiful and true.
By this I'll sew the bridal dress
I shall put on for you.




Songs of an Empty House. [Marguerite Wilkinson]



Vista


Before I die I may be great,
The chanting guest of kings,
A queen in wonderlands of song
Where every blossom sings.
I may put on a golden gown
And walk in sunny light,
Carrying in my hair the day,
And in my eyes the night.

It may be men will honor me --
The wistful ones and wise,
Who know the ruth of victory,
The joy of sacrifice.
I may be rich, I may be gay,
But all the crowns grow old --
The laurel withers and the bay
And dully rusts the gold.

Before I die I may break bread
With many queens and kings --
Oh, take the golden gown away,
For there are other things --
And I shall miss the love of babes
With flesh of rose and pearl,
The dewy eyes, the budded lips --
A boy, a little girl.



The End


My father got me strong and straight and slim,
And I give thanks to him;
My mother bore me glad and sound and sweet, --
I kiss her feet.

But now, with me, their generation fails,
And nevermore avails
To cast through me the ancient mould again,
Such women and men.

I have no son, whose life of flesh and fire
Sprang from my splendid sire,
No daughter for whose soul my mother's flesh
Wrought raiment fresh.

Life's venerable rhythms like a flood
Beat in my brain and blood,
Crying from all the generations past,
"Is this the last?"

And I make answer to my haughty dead,
Who made me, heart and head,
"Even the sunbeams falter, flicker and bend --
I am the end."




The Hill Wife. [Robert Frost]



Loneliness

(Her Word)


One ought not to have to care
So much as you and I
Care when the birds come round the house
To seem to say good-bye;

Or care so much when they come back
With whatever it is they sing;
The truth being we are as much
Too glad for the one thing

As we are too sad for the other here --
With birds that fill their breasts
But with each other and themselves
And their built or driven nests.



House Fear


Always -- I tell you this they learned --
Always at night when they returned
To the lonely house from far away,
To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray,
They learned to rattle the lock and key
To give whatever might chance to be
Warning and time to be off in flight:
And preferring the out- to the in-door night,
They learned to leave the house-door wide
Until they had lit the lamp inside.



The Oft-Repeated Dream


She had no saying dark enough
For the dark pine that kept
Forever trying the window-latch
Of the room where they slept.

The tireless but ineffectual hands
That with every futile pass
Made the great tree seem as a little bird
Before the mystery of glass!

It never had been inside the room,
And only one of the two
Was afraid in an oft-repeated dream
Of what the tree might do.



The Impulse


It was too lonely for her there,
And too wild,
And since there were but two of them,
And no child,

And work was little in the house,
She was free,
And followed where he furrowed field,
Or felled tree.

She rested on a log and tossed
The fresh chips,
With a song only to herself
On her lips.

And once she went to break a bough
Of black alder.
She strayed so far she scarcely heard
When he called her --

And didn't answer -- didn't speak --
Or return.
She stood, and then she ran and hid
In the fern.

He never found her, though he looked
Everywhere,
And he asked at her mother's house
Was she there.

Sudden and swift and light as that
The ties gave,
And he learned of finalities
Besides the grave.




A Love Song. [Theodosia Garrison]



My love it should be silent, being deep --
And being very peaceful should be still --
Still as the utmost depths of ocean keep --
Serenely silent as some mighty hill.

Yet is my love so great it needs must fill
With very joy the inmost heart of me,
The joy of dancing branches on the hill
The joy of leaping waves upon the sea.




Envoi. [Josephine Preston Peabody]



Beloved, till the day break,
Leave wide the little door;
And bless, to lack and longing,
Our brimming more-and-more.

Is love a scanted portion,
That we should hoard thereof? --
Oh, call unto the deserts,
Beloved and my Love!




Our Little House. [Thomas Walsh]



Our little house upon the hill
In winter time is strangely still;
The roof tree, bare of leaves, stands high,
A candelabrum for the sky,
And down below the lamplights glow,
And ours makes answer o'er the snow.

Our little house upon the hill
In summer time strange voices fill;
With ceaseless rustle of the leaves,
And birds that twitter in the eaves,
And all the vines entangled so
The village lights no longer show.

Our little house upon the hill
Is just the house of Jack and Jill,
And whether showing or unseen,
Hid behind its leafy screen;
There's a star that points it out
When the lamp lights are in doubt.




The Homeland. [Dana Burnet]



My land was the west land; my home was on the hill,
I never think of my land but it makes my heart to thrill;
I never smell the west wind that blows the golden skies,
But old desire is in my feet and dreams are in my eyes.

My home crowned the high land; it had a stately grace.
I never think of my land but I see my mother's face;
I never smell the west wind that blows the silver ships
But old delight is in my heart and mirth is on my lips.

My land was a high land; my home was near the skies.
I never think of my land but a light is in my eyes;
I never smell the west wind that blows the summer rain --
But I am at my mother's knee, a little lad again.




Cradle Song. [Josephine Preston Peabody]



I

Lord Gabriel, wilt thou not rejoice
When at last a little boy's
Cheek lies heavy as a rose
And his eyelids close?

Gabriel, when that hush may be,
This sweet hand all heedfully
I'll undo for thee alone,
From his mother's own.

Then the far blue highway paven
With the burning stars of heaven,
He shall gladden with the sweet
Hasting of his feet: --

Feet so brightly bare and cool,
Leaping, as from pool to pool;
From a little laughing boy
Splashing rainbow joy!

Gabriel, wilt thou understand
How to keep this hovering hand? --
Never shut, as in a bond,
From the bright beyond? --

Nay, but though it cling and close
Tightly as a climbing rose,
Clasp it only so, -- aright,
Lest his heart take fright.

(~Dormi, dormi, tu.
The dusk is hung with blue.~)


II

Lord Michael, wilt not thou rejoice
When at last a little boy's
Heart, a shut-in murmuring bee,
Turns him unto thee?

Wilt thou heed thine armor well, --
To take his hand from Gabriel,
So his radiant cup of dream
May not spill a gleam?

He will take thy heart in thrall,
Telling o'er thy breastplate, all
Colors, in his bubbling speech,
With his hand to each.

(~Dormi, dormi, tu.
Sapphire is the blue,
Pearl and beryl, they are called,
Crysoprase and emerald,
Sard and amethyst
Numbered so, and kissed.~)

Ah, but find some angel-word
For thy sharp, subduing sword!
Yea, Lord Michael, make no doubt
He will find it out:

(~Dormi, dormi, tu!
His eyes will look at you.~)


III

Last, a little morning space,
Lead him to that leafy place
Where Our Lady sits awake,
For all mothers' sake.

Bosomed with the Blessed One,
He shall mind her of her Son,
Once so folded from all harms
In her shrining arms.

(~In her veil of blue,
Dormi, dormi, tu.~)

So; -- and fare thee well.
Softly, -- Gabriel . . .
When the first faint red shall come,
Bid the Day-star lead him home,
For the bright world's sake,
To my heart, awake.




Slumber Song. [Louis V. Ledoux]



Drowsily come the sheep
From the place where the pastures be,
By a dusty lane
To the fold again,
First one, and then two, and three:
First one, then two, by the paths of sleep
Drowsily come the sheep.

Drowsily come the sheep,
And the shepherd is singing low:
After eight comes nine
In the endless line,
They come, and then in they go.
First eight, then nine, by the paths of sleep
Drowsily come the sheep.

Drowsily come the sheep
And they pass through the sheepfold door;
After one comes two,
After one comes two,
Comes two and then three and four.
First one, then two, by the paths of sleep,
Drowsily come the sheep.




Ballad of a Child. [John G. Neihardt]



Yearly thrilled the plum tree
With the mother-mood;
Every June the rose stock
Bore her wonder-child:
Every year the wheatlands
Reared a golden brood:
World of praying Rachaels,
Heard and reconciled!

"Poet," said the plum tree's
Singing white and green,
"What avails your mooning,
Can you fashion plums?"
"Dreamer," crooned the wheatland's
Rippling vocal sheen,
"See my golden children
Marching as with drums!"

"By a god begotten,"
Hymned the sunning vine,
"In my lyric children
Purple music flows!"
"Singer," breathed the rose bush,
"Are they not divine?"
"Have you any daughters
Mighty as a rose?"

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