Works

(To a Man who maintained that the Mausoleum is the Stateliest Possible Manner of Interment)



I would be one with the dark, dark earth: -
Follow the plough with a yokel tread....

[A Poem for Aviators]


How the Wings Were Made

From many morning-glories
That in an hour will fade,
From many pansy buds
Gathered in the shade,
From lily of the valley...

This is the sin against the Holy Ghost: -
To speak of bloody power as right divine,
And call on God to guard each vile chief's house,
And for such chiefs, turn men to wolves and swine: -
...

The wide Pacific waters
And the Atlantic meet.
With cries of joy they mingle,
In tides of love they greet.
Above the drowned ages
A wind of wooing blows: -
The red rose woos the lotos,...

[Concerning Edgar Allan Poe]


Who now will praise the Wizard in the street
With loyal songs, with humors grave and sweet -
This Jingle-man, of strolling players born,...

(Being a Chant of the American Soap-Box and the Russian Revolution.)



O market square, O slattern place,
Is glory in your slack disgrace?
Plump quack doctors sell their pills,...

This section is a Christmas tree:
Loaded with pretty toys for you.
Behold the blocks, the Noah's arks,
The popguns painted red and blue.
No solemn pine-cone forest-fruit,...

Would that such hills and cities round us sang,
Such vistas of the actual earth and man
As kindled Titian when his life began;
Would that this latter Greek could put his gold,...

Awake again in Asia, Lord of Peace,
Awake and preach, for her far swordsmen rise.
And would they sheathe the sword before you, friend,
Or scorn your way, while looking in your eyes?
...

Two Poems, written on the Sinking of the Lusitania.
Appearing in the Chicago 'Herald', May 11, 1915.


I. Speak Now for Peace

Lady of Light, and our best woman, and queen,...

Romance was always young.
You come today
Just eight years old
With marvellous dark hair.
Younger than Dante found you
When you turned
His heart into the way
That found the heavenly stair....

(On hearing she was leaving the moving-pictures for the stage.)



Mary Pickford, doll divine,
Year by year, and every day
At the moving-picture play,
You have been my valentine.
...

'Tis not too late to build our young land right,
Cleaner than Holland, courtlier than Japan,
Devout like early Rome, with hearths like hers,
Hearths that will recreate the breed called man.

[Revelation 16: Verses 16-19]


And must the Senator from Illinois
Be this squat thing, with blinking, half-closed eyes?
This brazen gutter idol, reared to power
Upon a leering pyramid of lies?...

Two old crows sat on a fence rail,
Two old crows sat on a fence rail,
Thinking of effect and cause,
Of weeds and flowers,
And nature's laws.
One of them muttered, one of them stuttered,...

Even the shrewd and bitter,
Gnarled by the old world's greed,
Cherished the stranger softly
Seeing his utter need.
Shelter and patient hearing,
These were their gifts to him,...

Though better men may fear that trumpet's warning,
I meet you, lady, on the Judgment morning,
With golden hope my spirit still adorning.

Our God who made you all so fair and sweet...

The moon's a holy owl-queen.
She keeps them in a jar
Under her arm till evening,
Then sallies forth to war.

She pours the owls upon us.
They hoot with horrid noise...

(Moon Poems for the Children/Fairy-tales for the Children)

The moon's a steaming chalice
Of honey and venom-wine.
A little of it sipped by night
Makes the long hours divine....

(Moon Poems for the Children/Fairy-tales for the Children)

The moon's an open furnace door
Where all can see the blast,
We shovel in our blackest griefs,
Upon that grate are cast...