Works

(It is supposed that Shadow-of-a-Leaf uses the word "clear" in a more ancient sense of "beautiful.")


As along a dark pine-bough, in slender white mystery
The moon lay to listen, above the thick fern,...

O what is that whimpering there in the darkness?
"Let him lie in my arms. He is breathing, I know.
Look. I'll wrap all my hair round his neck."--"The sea's rising,...

(After a glimpse of a certain monument in New York, during the Victory Celebration)


The thousand-windowed towers were all alight.
Throngs of all nations filled that glittering way;...

They are buffeting out in the bitter grey weather,
Blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down!
Sea-lark singing to Golden Feather,
And burly blue waters all swelling aroun'....

Not with a flash that rends the blue
Shall fall the avenging sword.
Gently as the evening dew
Descends the mighty Lord.

His dreadful balances are made
To move with moon and tide;...

The neighbours gossiped idly at the door.
Copernicus lay dying overhead.
His little throng of friends, with startled eyes,
Whispered together, in that dark house of dreams,...

Shun the brush and shun the pen,
Shun the ways of clever men,
When they prove that black is white,
Whey they swear that wrong is right,
When they roast the singing stars...

There came a crowder to the Mermaid Inn,
One dark May night,
Fiddling a tune that quelled our motley din,
With quaint delight,
It haunts me yet, as old lost airs will do,
A phantom strain:...

I.

Steadfast as any soldier of the line
He served his England, with the imminent death
Poised at his heart. Nor could the world divine
The constant peril of each burdened breath.
...

Fashion on fashion on fashion,
(With only the truth growing old!)
And here's the new purple of passion,
(And love waiting out in the cold)
Who'll buy?

They are crying new lamps for Aladdin,...

Long, long ago He said,
He who could wake the dead,
And walk upon the sea--
"Come, follow Me.

"Leave your brown nets and bring
Only your hearts to sing,
Only your souls to pray,...

I.

(On many recent novels by the conventional unconventionalists.)

Old Pantaloon, lean-witted, dour and rich,
After grim years of soul-destroying greed,
Weds Columbine, that April-blooded witch...

(On a certain goddess, acclaimed as "new" but known in Babylon.)

I saw the assembled artists of our day
Waiting for light, for music and for song.
A woman stood before them, fresh as May...

(On Certain of the Bolsheviki "Idealists.")

With half the force and thought you waste in rage
Over your neighbor's house, or heart of stone,
You might have built your own new heritage,...

(On Certain Realists.)

You with the quick sardonic eye
For all the mockeries of life,
Beware, in this dark masque of things that seem,
Lest even that tragic irony,...

(An Answer)
...

I


(Celeste, in the Convent at Arcetri, writes to her old lover at Rome.)

My friend, my dearest friend, my own dear love,
I, who am dead to love, and see around me...

"There are no ghosts in America."


There are no ghosts, you say,
To haunt her blaze of light;
No shadows in her day,
No phantoms in her night.
Columbus' tattered sail...

Now, in a breath, we'll burst those gates of gold,
And ransack heaven before our moment fails.
Now, in a breath, before we, too, grow old,
We'll mount and sing and spread immortal sails.
...

John Kepler, from the chimney corner, watched
His wife Susannah, with her sleeves rolled back
Making a salad in a big blue bowl.
The thick tufts of his black rebellious hair...