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diff --git a/old/1035-h.zip b/old/1035-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..acd3e4d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1035-h.zip diff --git a/old/1035-h/1035-h.htm b/old/1035-h/1035-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a013496 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1035-h/1035-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3287 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + The Man Against the Sky, by Edwin Arlington Robinson + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +Project Gutenberg's The Man Against the Sky, by Edwin Arlington Robinson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Man Against the Sky + +Author: Edwin Arlington Robinson + +Release Date: August 5, 2008 [EBook #1035] +Last Updated: February 7, 2013 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN AGAINST THE SKY *** + + + + +Produced by Alan R. Light, and Gary M. Johnson + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE MAN AGAINST THE SKY + </h1> + <h2> + A Book of Poems + </h2> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + by Edwin Arlington Robinson + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + To + the memory of + WILLIAM EDWARD BUTLER +</pre> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <div class="mynote"> + <p> + [Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are capitalized. Lines longer + than 78 characters are broken and the continuation is indented two + spaces. Some obvious errors may have been corrected.] + </p> + <br /> + <p> + Several of the poems included in this book are reprinted from American + periodicals, as follows: "The Gift of God", "Old King Cole", "Another + Dark Lady", and "The Unforgiven"; "Flammonde" and "The Poor Relation"; + "The Clinging Vine"; "Eros Turannos" and "Bokardo"; "The Voice of Age"; + "Cassandra"; "The Burning Book"; "Theophilus"; "Ben Jonson Entertains a + Man from Stratford". + </p> + <br /> + </div> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="toc"> + <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <big><b>THE MAN AGAINST THE SKY</b></big> </a> + </p> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> Flammonde </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> The Gift of God </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> The Clinging Vine </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> Cassandra </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> John Gorham </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> Stafford's Cabin </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> Hillcrest </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> Old King Cole </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford + </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> Eros Turannos </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> Old Trails </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> The Unforgiven </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> Theophilus </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> Veteran Sirens </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> Siege Perilous </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> Another Dark Lady </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> The Voice of Age </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> The Dark House </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0021"> The Poor Relation </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> The Burning Book </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> Fragment </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> Lisette and Eileen </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> Llewellyn and the Tree </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0026"> Bewick Finzer </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0027"> Bokardo </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> The Man against the Sky </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_NOTE"> Notes on the etext: </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0032"> About the author: Edwin Arlington Robinson, + 1869-1935. </a> + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h1> + THE MAN AGAINST THE SKY + </h1> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Flammonde + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The man Flammonde, from God knows where, + With firm address and foreign air, + With news of nations in his talk + And something royal in his walk, + With glint of iron in his eyes, + But never doubt, nor yet surprise, + Appeared, and stayed, and held his head + As one by kings accredited. + + Erect, with his alert repose + About him, and about his clothes, + He pictured all tradition hears + Of what we owe to fifty years. + His cleansing heritage of taste + Paraded neither want nor waste; + And what he needed for his fee + To live, he borrowed graciously. + + He never told us what he was, + Or what mischance, or other cause, + Had banished him from better days + To play the Prince of Castaways. + Meanwhile he played surpassing well + A part, for most, unplayable; + In fine, one pauses, half afraid + To say for certain that he played. + + For that, one may as well forego + Conviction as to yes or no; + Nor can I say just how intense + Would then have been the difference + To several, who, having striven + In vain to get what he was given, + Would see the stranger taken on + By friends not easy to be won. + + Moreover, many a malcontent + He soothed and found munificent; + His courtesy beguiled and foiled + Suspicion that his years were soiled; + His mien distinguished any crowd, + His credit strengthened when he bowed; + And women, young and old, were fond + Of looking at the man Flammonde. + + There was a woman in our town + On whom the fashion was to frown; + But while our talk renewed the tinge + Of a long-faded scarlet fringe, + The man Flammonde saw none of that, + And what he saw we wondered at— + That none of us, in her distress, + Could hide or find our littleness. + + There was a boy that all agreed + Had shut within him the rare seed + Of learning. We could understand, + But none of us could lift a hand. + The man Flammonde appraised the youth, + And told a few of us the truth; + And thereby, for a little gold, + A flowered future was unrolled. + + There were two citizens who fought + For years and years, and over nought; + They made life awkward for their friends, + And shortened their own dividends. + The man Flammonde said what was wrong + Should be made right; nor was it long + Before they were again in line, + And had each other in to dine. + + And these I mention are but four + Of many out of many more. + So much for them. But what of him— + So firm in every look and limb? + What small satanic sort of kink + Was in his brain? What broken link + Withheld him from the destinies + That came so near to being his? + + What was he, when we came to sift + His meaning, and to note the drift + Of incommunicable ways + That make us ponder while we praise? + Why was it that his charm revealed + Somehow the surface of a shield? + What was it that we never caught? + What was he, and what was he not? + + How much it was of him we met + We cannot ever know; nor yet + Shall all he gave us quite atone + For what was his, and his alone; + Nor need we now, since he knew best, + Nourish an ethical unrest: + Rarely at once will nature give + The power to be Flammonde and live. + + We cannot know how much we learn + From those who never will return, + Until a flash of unforeseen + Remembrance falls on what has been. + We've each a darkening hill to climb; + And this is why, from time to time + In Tilbury Town, we look beyond + Horizons for the man Flammonde. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Gift of God + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Blessed with a joy that only she + Of all alive shall ever know, + She wears a proud humility + For what it was that willed it so,— + That her degree should be so great + Among the favored of the Lord + That she may scarcely bear the weight + Of her bewildering reward. + + As one apart, immune, alone, + Or featured for the shining ones, + And like to none that she has known + Of other women's other sons,— + The firm fruition of her need, + He shines anointed; and he blurs + Her vision, till it seems indeed + A sacrilege to call him hers. + + She fears a little for so much + Of what is best, and hardly dares + To think of him as one to touch + With aches, indignities, and cares; + She sees him rather at the goal, + Still shining; and her dream foretells + The proper shining of a soul + Where nothing ordinary dwells. + + Perchance a canvass of the town + Would find him far from flags and shouts, + And leave him only the renown + Of many smiles and many doubts; + Perchance the crude and common tongue + Would havoc strangely with his worth; + But she, with innocence unwrung, + Would read his name around the earth. + + And others, knowing how this youth + Would shine, if love could make him great, + When caught and tortured for the truth + Would only writhe and hesitate; + While she, arranging for his days + What centuries could not fulfill, + Transmutes him with her faith and praise, + And has him shining where she will. + + She crowns him with her gratefulness, + And says again that life is good; + And should the gift of God be less + In him than in her motherhood, + His fame, though vague, will not be small, + As upward through her dream he fares, + Half clouded with a crimson fall + Of roses thrown on marble stairs. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Clinging Vine + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Be calm? And was I frantic? + You'll have me laughing soon. + I'm calm as this Atlantic, + And quiet as the moon; + I may have spoken faster + Than once, in other days; + For I've no more a master, + And now—'Be calm,' he says. + + "Fear not, fear no commotion,— + I'll be as rocks and sand; + The moon and stars and ocean + Will envy my command; + No creature could be stiller + In any kind of place + Than I... No, I'll not kill her; + Her death is in her face. + + "Be happy while she has it, + For she'll not have it long; + A year, and then you'll pass it, + Preparing a new song. + And I'm a fool for prating + Of what a year may bring, + When more like her are waiting + For more like you to sing. + + "You mock me with denial, + You mean to call me hard? + You see no room for trial + When all my doors are barred? + You say, and you'd say dying, + That I dream what I know; + And sighing, and denying, + You'd hold my hand and go. + + "You scowl—and I don't wonder; + I spoke too fast again; + But you'll forgive one blunder, + For you are like most men: + You are,—or so you've told me, + So many mortal times, + That heaven ought not to hold me + Accountable for crimes. + + "Be calm? Was I unpleasant? + Then I'll be more discreet, + And grant you, for the present, + The balm of my defeat: + What she, with all her striving, + Could not have brought about, + You've done. Your own contriving + Has put the last light out. + + "If she were the whole story, + If worse were not behind, + I'd creep with you to glory, + Believing I was blind; + I'd creep, and go on seeming + To be what I despise. + You laugh, and say I'm dreaming, + And all your laughs are lies. + + "Are women mad? A few are, + And if it's true you say— + If most men are as you are— + We'll all be mad some day. + Be calm—and let me finish; + There's more for you to know. + I'll talk while you diminish, + And listen while you grow. + + "There was a man who married + Because he couldn't see; + And all his days he carried + The mark of his degree. + But you—you came clear-sighted, + And found truth in my eyes; + And all my wrongs you've righted + With lies, and lies, and lies. + + "You've killed the last assurance + That once would have me strive + To rouse an old endurance + That is no more alive. + It makes two people chilly + To say what we have said, + But you—you'll not be silly + And wrangle for the dead. + + "You don't? You never wrangle? + Why scold then,—or complain? + More words will only mangle + What you've already slain. + Your pride you can't surrender? + My name—for that you fear? + Since when were men so tender, + And honor so severe? + + "No more—I'll never bear it. + I'm going. I'm like ice. + My burden? You would share it? + Forbid the sacrifice! + Forget so quaint a notion, + And let no more be told; + For moon and stars and ocean + And you and I are cold." +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Cassandra + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I heard one who said: "Verily, + What word have I for children here? + Your Dollar is your only Word, + The wrath of it your only fear. + + "You build it altars tall enough + To make you see, but you are blind; + You cannot leave it long enough + To look before you or behind. + + "When Reason beckons you to pause, + You laugh and say that you know best; + But what it is you know, you keep + As dark as ingots in a chest. + + "You laugh and answer, 'We are young; + O leave us now, and let us grow.'— + Not asking how much more of this + Will Time endure or Fate bestow. + + "Because a few complacent years + Have made your peril of your pride, + Think you that you are to go on + Forever pampered and untried? + + "What lost eclipse of history, + What bivouac of the marching stars, + Has given the sign for you to see + Millenniums and last great wars? + + "What unrecorded overthrow + Of all the world has ever known, + Or ever been, has made itself + So plain to you, and you alone? + + "Your Dollar, Dove and Eagle make + A Trinity that even you + Rate higher than you rate yourselves; + It pays, it flatters, and it's new. + + "And though your very flesh and blood + Be what your Eagle eats and drinks, + You'll praise him for the best of birds, + Not knowing what the Eagle thinks. + + "The power is yours, but not the sight; + You see not upon what you tread; + You have the ages for your guide, + But not the wisdom to be led. + + "Think you to tread forever down + The merciless old verities? + And are you never to have eyes + To see the world for what it is? + + "Are you to pay for what you have + With all you are?"—No other word + We caught, but with a laughing crowd + Moved on. None heeded, and few heard. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + John Gorham + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "Tell me what you're doing over here, John Gorham, + Sighing hard and seeming to be sorry when you're not; + Make me laugh or let me go now, for long faces in the moonlight + Are a sign for me to say again a word that you forgot."— + + "I'm over here to tell you what the moon already + May have said or maybe shouted ever since a year ago; + I'm over here to tell you what you are, Jane Wayland, + And to make you rather sorry, I should say, for being so."— + + "Tell me what you're saying to me now, John Gorham, + Or you'll never see as much of me as ribbons any more; + I'll vanish in as many ways as I have toes and fingers, + And you'll not follow far for one where flocks have been before."— + + "I'm sorry now you never saw the flocks, Jane Wayland, + But you're the one to make of them as many as you need. + And then about the vanishing. It's I who mean to vanish; + And when I'm here no longer you'll be done with me indeed."— + + "That's a way to tell me what I am, John Gorham! + How am I to know myself until I make you smile? + Try to look as if the moon were making faces at you, + And a little more as if you meant to stay a little while."— + + "You are what it is that over rose-blown gardens + Makes a pretty flutter for a season in the sun; + You are what it is that with a mouse, Jane Wayland, + Catches him and lets him go and eats him up for fun."— + + "Sure I never took you for a mouse, John Gorham; + All you say is easy, but so far from being true + That I wish you wouldn't ever be again the one to think so; + For it isn't cats and butterflies that I would be to you."— + + "All your little animals are in one picture— + One I've had before me since a year ago to-night; + And the picture where they live will be of you, Jane Wayland, + Till you find a way to kill them or to keep them out of sight."— + + "Won't you ever see me as I am, John Gorham, + Leaving out the foolishness and all I never meant? + Somewhere in me there's a woman, if you know the way to find her. + Will you like me any better if I prove it and repent?" + + "I doubt if I shall ever have the time, Jane Wayland; + And I dare say all this moonlight lying round us might as well + Fall for nothing on the shards of broken urns that are forgotten, + As on two that have no longer much of anything to tell." +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Stafford's Cabin + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Once there was a cabin here, and once there was a man; + And something happened here before my memory began. + Time has made the two of them the fuel of one flame + And all we have of them is now a legend and a name. + + All I have to say is what an old man said to me, + And that would seem to be as much as there will ever be. + "Fifty years ago it was we found it where it sat."— + And forty years ago it was old Archibald said that. + + "An apple tree that's yet alive saw something, I suppose, + Of what it was that happened there, and what no mortal knows. + Some one on the mountain heard far off a master shriek, + And then there was a light that showed the way for men to seek. + + "We found it in the morning with an iron bar behind, + And there were chains around it; but no search could ever find, + Either in the ashes that were left, or anywhere, + A sign to tell of who or what had been with Stafford there. + + "Stafford was a likely man with ideas of his own— + Though I could never like the kind that likes to live alone; + And when you met, you found his eyes were always on your shoes, + As if they did the talking when he asked you for the news. + + "That's all, my son. Were I to talk for half a hundred years + I'd never clear away from there the cloud that never clears. + We buried what was left of it,—the bar, too, and the chains; + And only for the apple tree there's nothing that remains." + + Forty years ago it was I heard the old man say, + "That's all, my son."—And here again I find the place to-day, + Deserted and told only by the tree that knows the most, + And overgrown with golden-rod as if there were no ghost. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Hillcrest + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + (To Mrs. Edward MacDowell) +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + No sound of any storm that shakes + Old island walls with older seas + Comes here where now September makes + An island in a sea of trees. + + Between the sunlight and the shade + A man may learn till he forgets + The roaring of a world remade, + And all his ruins and regrets; + + And if he still remembers here + Poor fights he may have won or lost,— + If he be ridden with the fear + Of what some other fight may cost,— + + If, eager to confuse too soon, + What he has known with what may be, + He reads a planet out of tune + For cause of his jarred harmony,— + + If here he venture to unroll + His index of adagios, + And he be given to console + Humanity with what he knows,— + + He may by contemplation learn + A little more than what he knew, + And even see great oaks return + To acorns out of which they grew. + + He may, if he but listen well, + Through twilight and the silence here, + Be told what there are none may tell + To vanity's impatient ear; + + And he may never dare again + Say what awaits him, or be sure + What sunlit labyrinth of pain + He may not enter and endure. + + Who knows to-day from yesterday + May learn to count no thing too strange: + Love builds of what Time takes away, + Till Death itself is less than Change. + + Who sees enough in his duress + May go as far as dreams have gone; + Who sees a little may do less + Than many who are blind have done; + + Who sees unchastened here the soul + Triumphant has no other sight + Than has a child who sees the whole + World radiant with his own delight. + + Far journeys and hard wandering + Await him in whose crude surmise + Peace, like a mask, hides everything + That is and has been from his eyes; + + And all his wisdom is unfound, + Or like a web that error weaves + On airy looms that have a sound + No louder now than falling leaves. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Old King Cole + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + In Tilbury Town did Old King Cole + A wise old age anticipate, + Desiring, with his pipe and bowl, + No Khan's extravagant estate. + No crown annoyed his honest head, + No fiddlers three were called or needed; + For two disastrous heirs instead + Made music more than ever three did. + + Bereft of her with whom his life + Was harmony without a flaw, + He took no other for a wife, + Nor sighed for any that he saw; + And if he doubted his two sons, + And heirs, Alexis and Evander, + He might have been as doubtful once + Of Robert Burns and Alexander. + + Alexis, in his early youth, + Began to steal—from old and young. + Likewise Evander, and the truth + Was like a bad taste on his tongue. + Born thieves and liars, their affair + Seemed only to be tarred with evil— + The most insufferable pair + Of scamps that ever cheered the devil. + + The world went on, their fame went on, + And they went on—from bad to worse; + Till, goaded hot with nothing done, + And each accoutred with a curse, + The friends of Old King Cole, by twos, + And fours, and sevens, and elevens, + Pronounced unalterable views + Of doings that were not of heaven's. + + And having learned again whereby + Their baleful zeal had come about, + King Cole met many a wrathful eye + So kindly that its wrath went out— + Or partly out. Say what they would, + He seemed the more to court their candor; + But never told what kind of good + Was in Alexis and Evander. + + And Old King Cole, with many a puff + That haloed his urbanity, + Would smoke till he had smoked enough, + And listen most attentively. + He beamed as with an inward light + That had the Lord's assurance in it; + And once a man was there all night, + Expecting something every minute. + + But whether from too little thought, + Or too much fealty to the bowl, + A dim reward was all he got + For sitting up with Old King Cole. + "Though mine," the father mused aloud, + "Are not the sons I would have chosen, + Shall I, less evilly endowed, + By their infirmity be frozen? + + "They'll have a bad end, I'll agree, + But I was never born to groan; + For I can see what I can see, + And I'm accordingly alone. + With open heart and open door, + I love my friends, I like my neighbors; + But if I try to tell you more, + Your doubts will overmatch my labors. + + "This pipe would never make me calm, + This bowl my grief would never drown. + For grief like mine there is no balm + In Gilead, or in Tilbury Town. + And if I see what I can see, + I know not any way to blind it; + Nor more if any way may be + For you to grope or fly to find it. + + "There may be room for ruin yet, + And ashes for a wasted love; + Or, like One whom you may forget, + I may have meat you know not of. + And if I'd rather live than weep + Meanwhile, do you find that surprising? + Why, bless my soul, the man's asleep! + That's good. The sun will soon be rising." +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + You are a friend then, as I make it out, + Of our man Shakespeare, who alone of us + Will put an ass's head in Fairyland + As he would add a shilling to more shillings, + All most harmonious,—and out of his + Miraculous inviolable increase + Fills Ilion, Rome, or any town you like + Of olden time with timeless Englishmen; + And I must wonder what you think of him— + All you down there where your small Avon flows + By Stratford, and where you're an Alderman. + Some, for a guess, would have him riding back + To be a farrier there, or say a dyer; + Or maybe one of your adept surveyors; + Or like enough the wizard of all tanners. + Not you—no fear of that; for I discern + In you a kindling of the flame that saves— + The nimble element, the true phlogiston; + I see it, and was told of it, moreover, + By our discriminate friend himself, no other. + Had you been one of the sad average, + As he would have it,—meaning, as I take it, + The sinew and the solvent of our Island, + You'd not be buying beer for this Terpander's + Approved and estimated friend Ben Jonson; + He'd never foist it as a part of his + Contingent entertainment of a townsman + While he goes off rehearsing, as he must, + If he shall ever be the Duke of Stratford. + And my words are no shadow on your town— + Far from it; for one town's as like another + As all are unlike London. Oh, he knows it,— + And there's the Stratford in him; he denies it, + And there's the Shakespeare in him. So, God help him! + I tell him he needs Greek; but neither God + Nor Greek will help him. Nothing will help that man. + You see the fates have given him so much, + He must have all or perish,—or look out + Of London, where he sees too many lords; + They're part of half what ails him: I suppose + There's nothing fouler down among the demons + Than what it is he feels when he remembers + The dust and sweat and ointment of his calling + With his lords looking on and laughing at him. + King as he is, he can't be king de facto, + And that's as well, because he wouldn't like it; + He'd frame a lower rating of men then + Than he has now; and after that would come + An abdication or an apoplexy. + He can't be king, not even king of Stratford,— + Though half the world, if not the whole of it, + May crown him with a crown that fits no king + Save Lord Apollo's homesick emissary: + Not there on Avon, or on any stream + Where Naiads and their white arms are no more, + Shall he find home again. It's all too bad. + But there's a comfort, for he'll have that House— + The best you ever saw; and he'll be there + Anon, as you're an Alderman. Good God! + He makes me lie awake o' nights and laugh. + And you have known him from his origin, + You tell me; and a most uncommon urchin + He must have been to the few seeing ones— + A trifle terrifying, I dare say, + Discovering a world with his man's eyes, + Quite as another lad might see some finches, + If he looked hard and had an eye for nature. + But this one had his eyes and their foretelling, + And he had you to fare with, and what else? + He must have had a father and a mother— + In fact I've heard him say so—and a dog, + As a boy should, I venture; and the dog, + Most likely, was the only man who knew him. + A dog, for all I know, is what he needs + As much as anything right here to-day, + To counsel him about his disillusions, + Old aches, and parturitions of what's coming,— + A dog of orders, an emeritus, + To wag his tail at him when he comes home, + And then to put his paws up on his knees + And say, "For God's sake, what's it all about?" + + I don't know whether he needs a dog or not— + Or what he needs. I tell him he needs Greek; + I'll talk of rules and Aristotle with him, + And if his tongue's at home he'll say to that, + "I have your word that Aristotle knows, + And you mine that I don't know Aristotle." + He's all at odds with all the unities, + And what's yet worse, it doesn't seem to matter; + He treads along through Time's old wilderness + As if the tramp of all the centuries + Had left no roads—and there are none, for him; + He doesn't see them, even with those eyes,— + And that's a pity, or I say it is. + Accordingly we have him as we have him— + Going his way, the way that he goes best, + A pleasant animal with no great noise + Or nonsense anywhere to set him off— + Save only divers and inclement devils + Have made of late his heart their dwelling place. + A flame half ready to fly out sometimes + At some annoyance may be fanned up in him, + But soon it falls, and when it falls goes out; + He knows how little room there is in there + For crude and futile animosities, + And how much for the joy of being whole, + And how much for long sorrow and old pain. + On our side there are some who may be given + To grow old wondering what he thinks of us + And some above us, who are, in his eyes, + Above himself,—and that's quite right and English. + Yet here we smile, or disappoint the gods + Who made it so: the gods have always eyes + To see men scratch; and they see one down here + Who itches, manor-bitten to the bone, + Albeit he knows himself—yes, yes, he knows— + The lord of more than England and of more + Than all the seas of England in all time + Shall ever wash. D'ye wonder that I laugh? + He sees me, and he doesn't seem to care; + And why the devil should he? I can't tell you. + + I'll meet him out alone of a bright Sunday, + Trim, rather spruce, and quite the gentleman. + "What ho, my lord!" say I. He doesn't hear me; + Wherefore I have to pause and look at him. + He's not enormous, but one looks at him. + A little on the round if you insist, + For now, God save the mark, he's growing old; + He's five and forty, and to hear him talk + These days you'd call him eighty; then you'd add + More years to that. He's old enough to be + The father of a world, and so he is. + "Ben, you're a scholar, what's the time of day?" + Says he; and there shines out of him again + An aged light that has no age or station— + The mystery that's his—a mischievous + Half-mad serenity that laughs at fame + For being won so easy, and at friends + Who laugh at him for what he wants the most, + And for his dukedom down in Warwickshire;— + By which you see we're all a little jealous.... + Poor Greene! I fear the color of his name + Was even as that of his ascending soul; + And he was one where there are many others,— + Some scrivening to the end against their fate, + Their puppets all in ink and all to die there; + And some with hands that once would shade an eye + That scanned Euripides and Aeschylus + Will reach by this time for a pot-house mop + To slush their first and last of royalties. + Poor devils! and they all play to his hand; + For so it was in Athens and old Rome. + But that's not here or there; I've wandered off. + Greene does it, or I'm careful. Where's that boy? + + Yes, he'll go back to Stratford. And we'll miss him? + Dear sir, there'll be no London here without him. + We'll all be riding, one of these fine days, + Down there to see him—and his wife won't like us; + And then we'll think of what he never said + Of women—which, if taken all in all + With what he did say, would buy many horses. + Though nowadays he's not so much for women: + "So few of them," he says, "are worth the guessing." + But there's a work at work when he says that, + And while he says it one feels in the air + A deal of circumambient hocus-pocus. + They've had him dancing till his toes were tender, + And he can feel 'em now, come chilly rains. + There's no long cry for going into it, + However, and we don't know much about it. + The Fitton thing was worst of all, I fancy; + And you in Stratford, like most here in London, + Have more now in the 'Sonnets' than you paid for; + He's put her there with all her poison on, + To make a singing fiction of a shadow + That's in his life a fact, and always will be. + But she's no care of ours, though Time, I fear, + Will have a more reverberant ado + About her than about another one + Who seems to have decoyed him, married him, + And sent him scuttling on his way to London,— + With much already learned, and more to learn, + And more to follow. Lord! how I see him now, + Pretending, maybe trying, to be like us. + Whatever he may have meant, we never had him; + He failed us, or escaped, or what you will,— + And there was that about him (God knows what,— + We'd flayed another had he tried it on us) + That made as many of us as had wits + More fond of all his easy distances + Than one another's noise and clap-your-shoulder. + But think you not, my friend, he'd never talk! + Talk? He was eldritch at it; and we listened— + Thereby acquiring much we knew before + About ourselves, and hitherto had held + Irrelevant, or not prime to the purpose. + And there were some, of course, and there be now, + Disordered and reduced amazedly + To resignation by the mystic seal + Of young finality the gods had laid + On everything that made him a young demon; + And one or two shot looks at him already + As he had been their executioner; + And once or twice he was, not knowing it,— + Or knowing, being sorry for poor clay + And saying nothing.... Yet, for all his engines, + You'll meet a thousand of an afternoon + Who strut and sun themselves and see around 'em + A world made out of more that has a reason + Than his, I swear, that he sees here to-day; + Though he may scarcely give a Fool an exit + But we mark how he sees in everything + A law that, given we flout it once too often, + Brings fire and iron down on our naked heads. + To me it looks as if the power that made him, + For fear of giving all things to one creature, + Left out the first,—faith, innocence, illusion, + Whatever 'tis that keeps us out o' Bedlam,— + And thereby, for his too consuming vision, + Empowered him out of nature; though to see him, + You'd never guess what's going on inside him. + He'll break out some day like a keg of ale + With too much independent frenzy in it; + And all for cellaring what he knows won't keep, + And what he'd best forget—but that he can't. + You'll have it, and have more than I'm foretelling; + And there'll be such a roaring at the Globe + As never stunned the bleeding gladiators. + He'll have to change the color of its hair + A bit, for now he calls it Cleopatra. + Black hair would never do for Cleopatra. + + But you and I are not yet two old women, + And you're a man of office. What he does + Is more to you than how it is he does it,— + And that's what the Lord God has never told him. + They work together, and the Devil helps 'em; + They do it of a morning, or if not, + They do it of a night; in which event + He's peevish of a morning. He seems old; + He's not the proper stomach or the sleep— + And they're two sovran agents to conserve him + Against the fiery art that has no mercy + But what's in that prodigious grand new House. + I gather something happening in his boyhood + Fulfilled him with a boy's determination + To make all Stratford 'ware of him. Well, well, + I hope at last he'll have his joy of it, + And all his pigs and sheep and bellowing beeves, + And frogs and owls and unicorns, moreover, + Be less than hell to his attendant ears. + Oh, past a doubt we'll all go down to see him. + + He may be wise. With London two days off, + Down there some wind of heaven may yet revive him; + But there's no quickening breath from anywhere + Shall make of him again the poised young faun + From Warwickshire, who'd made, it seems, already + A legend of himself before I came + To blink before the last of his first lightning. + Whatever there be, they'll be no more of that; + The coming on of his old monster Time + Has made him a still man; and he has dreams + Were fair to think on once, and all found hollow. + He knows how much of what men paint themselves + Would blister in the light of what they are; + He sees how much of what was great now shares + An eminence transformed and ordinary; + He knows too much of what the world has hushed + In others, to be loud now for himself; + He knows now at what height low enemies + May reach his heart, and high friends let him fall; + But what not even such as he may know + Bedevils him the worst: his lark may sing + At heaven's gate how he will, and for as long + As joy may listen; but HE sees no gate, + Save one whereat the spent clay waits a little + Before the churchyard has it, and the worm. + Not long ago, late in an afternoon, + I came on him unseen down Lambeth way, + And on my life I was afear'd of him: + He gloomed and mumbled like a soul from Tophet, + His hands behind him and his head bent solemn. + "What is it now," said I,—"another woman?" + That made him sorry for me, and he smiled. + "No, Ben," he mused; "it's Nothing. It's all Nothing. + We come, we go; and when we're done, we're done; + Spiders and flies—we're mostly one or t'other— + We come, we go; and when we're done, we're done." + "By God, you sing that song as if you knew it!" + Said I, by way of cheering him; "what ails ye?" + "I think I must have come down here to think," + Says he to that, and pulls his little beard; + "Your fly will serve as well as anybody, + And what's his hour? He flies, and flies, and flies, + And in his fly's mind has a brave appearance; + And then your spider gets him in her net, + And eats him out, and hangs him up to dry. + That's Nature, the kind mother of us all. + And then your slattern housemaid swings her broom, + And where's your spider? And that's Nature, also. + It's Nature, and it's Nothing. It's all Nothing. + It's all a world where bugs and emperors + Go singularly back to the same dust, + Each in his time; and the old, ordered stars + That sang together, Ben, will sing the same + Old stave to-morrow." + + When he talks like that, + There's nothing for a human man to do + But lead him to some grateful nook like this + Where we be now, and there to make him drink. + He'll drink, for love of me, and then be sick; + A sad sign always in a man of parts, + And always very ominous. The great + Should be as large in liquor as in love,— + And our great friend is not so large in either: + One disaffects him, and the other fails him; + Whatso he drinks that has an antic in it, + He's wondering what's to pay in his insides; + And while his eyes are on the Cyprian + He's fribbling all the time with that damned House. + We laugh here at his thrift, but after all + It may be thrift that saves him from the devil; + God gave it, anyhow,—and we'll suppose + He knew the compound of his handiwork. + To-day the clouds are with him, but anon + He'll out of 'em enough to shake the tree + Of life itself and bring down fruit unheard-of,— + And, throwing in the bruised and whole together, + Prepare a wine to make us drunk with wonder; + And if he live, there'll be a sunset spell + Thrown over him as over a glassed lake + That yesterday was all a black wild water. + + God send he live to give us, if no more, + What now's a-rampage in him, and exhibit, + With a decent half-allegiance to the ages + An earnest of at least a casual eye + Turned once on what he owes to Gutenberg, + And to the fealty of more centuries + Than are as yet a picture in our vision. + "There's time enough,—I'll do it when I'm old, + And we're immortal men," he says to that; + And then he says to me, "Ben, what's 'immortal'? + Think you by any force of ordination + It may be nothing of a sort more noisy + Than a small oblivion of component ashes + That of a dream-addicted world was once + A moving atomy much like your friend here?" + Nothing will help that man. To make him laugh, + I said then he was a mad mountebank,— + And by the Lord I nearer made him cry. + I could have eat an eft then, on my knees, + Tail, claws, and all of him; for I had stung + The king of men, who had no sting for me, + And I had hurt him in his memories; + And I say now, as I shall say again, + I love the man this side idolatry. + + He'll do it when he's old, he says. I wonder. + He may not be so ancient as all that. + For such as he, the thing that is to do + Will do itself,—but there's a reckoning; + The sessions that are now too much his own, + The roiling inward of a stilled outside, + The churning out of all those blood-fed lines, + The nights of many schemes and little sleep, + The full brain hammered hot with too much thinking, + The vexed heart over-worn with too much aching,— + This weary jangling of conjoined affairs + Made out of elements that have no end, + And all confused at once, I understand, + Is not what makes a man to live forever. + O no, not now! He'll not be going now: + There'll be time yet for God knows what explosions + Before he goes. He'll stay awhile. Just wait: + Just wait a year or two for Cleopatra, + For she's to be a balsam and a comfort; + And that's not all a jape of mine now, either. + For granted once the old way of Apollo + Sings in a man, he may then, if he's able, + Strike unafraid whatever strings he will + Upon the last and wildest of new lyres; + Nor out of his new magic, though it hymn + The shrieks of dungeoned hell, shall he create + A madness or a gloom to shut quite out + A cleaving daylight, and a last great calm + Triumphant over shipwreck and all storms. + He might have given Aristotle creeps, + But surely would have given him his 'katharsis'. + + He'll not be going yet. There's too much yet + Unsung within the man. But when he goes, + I'd stake ye coin o' the realm his only care + For a phantom world he sounded and found wanting + Will be a portion here, a portion there, + Of this or that thing or some other thing + That has a patent and intrinsical + Equivalence in those egregious shillings. + And yet he knows, God help him! Tell me, now, + If ever there was anything let loose + On earth by gods or devils heretofore + Like this mad, careful, proud, indifferent Shakespeare! + Where was it, if it ever was? By heaven, + 'Twas never yet in Rhodes or Pergamon— + In Thebes or Nineveh, a thing like this! + No thing like this was ever out of England; + And that he knows. I wonder if he cares. + Perhaps he does.... O Lord, that House in Stratford! +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Eros Turannos + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + She fears him, and will always ask + What fated her to choose him; + She meets in his engaging mask + All reasons to refuse him; + But what she meets and what she fears + Are less than are the downward years, + Drawn slowly to the foamless weirs + Of age, were she to lose him. + + Between a blurred sagacity + That once had power to sound him, + And Love, that will not let him be + The Judas that she found him, + Her pride assuages her almost, + As if it were alone the cost.— + He sees that he will not be lost, + And waits and looks around him. + + A sense of ocean and old trees + Envelops and allures him; + Tradition, touching all he sees, + Beguiles and reassures him; + And all her doubts of what he says + Are dimmed of what she knows of days— + Till even prejudice delays + And fades, and she secures him. + + The falling leaf inaugurates + The reign of her confusion; + The pounding wave reverberates + The dirge of her illusion; + And home, where passion lived and died, + Becomes a place where she can hide, + While all the town and harbor side + Vibrate with her seclusion. + + We tell you, tapping on our brows, + The story as it should be,— + As if the story of a house + Were told, or ever could be; + We'll have no kindly veil between + Her visions and those we have seen,— + As if we guessed what hers have been, + Or what they are or would be. + + Meanwhile we do no harm; for they + That with a god have striven, + Not hearing much of what we say, + Take what the god has given; + Though like waves breaking it may be, + Or like a changed familiar tree, + Or like a stairway to the sea + Where down the blind are driven. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Old Trails + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + (Washington Square) +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + I met him, as one meets a ghost or two, + Between the gray Arch and the old Hotel. + "King Solomon was right, there's nothing new," + Said he. "Behold a ruin who meant well." + + He led me down familiar steps again, + Appealingly, and set me in a chair. + "My dreams have all come true to other men," + Said he; "God lives, however, and why care? + + "An hour among the ghosts will do no harm." + He laughed, and something glad within me sank. + I may have eyed him with a faint alarm, + For now his laugh was lost in what he drank. + + "They chill things here with ice from hell," he said; + "I might have known it." And he made a face + That showed again how much of him was dead, + And how much was alive and out of place, + + And out of reach. He knew as well as I + That all the words of wise men who are skilled + In using them are not much to defy + What comes when memory meets the unfulfilled. + + What evil and infirm perversity + Had been at work with him to bring him back? + Never among the ghosts, assuredly, + Would he originate a new attack; + + Never among the ghosts, or anywhere, + Till what was dead of him was put away, + Would he attain to his offended share + Of honor among others of his day. + + "You ponder like an owl," he said at last; + "You always did, and here you have a cause. + For I'm a confirmation of the past, + A vengeance, and a flowering of what was. + + "Sorry? Of course you are, though you compress, + With even your most impenetrable fears, + A placid and a proper consciousness + Of anxious angels over my arrears. + + "I see them there against me in a book + As large as hope, in ink that shines by night. + For sure I see; but now I'd rather look + At you, and you are not a pleasant sight. + + "Forbear, forgive. Ten years are on my soul, + And on my conscience. I've an incubus: + My one distinction, and a parlous toll + To glory; but hope lives on clamorous. + + "'Twas hope, though heaven I grant you knows of what— + The kind that blinks and rises when it falls, + Whether it sees a reason why or not— + That heard Broadway's hard-throated siren-calls; + + "'Twas hope that brought me through December storms, + To shores again where I'll not have to be + A lonely man with only foreign worms + To cheer him in his last obscurity. + + "But what it was that hurried me down here + To be among the ghosts, I leave to you. + My thanks are yours, no less, for one thing clear: + Though you are silent, what you say is true. + + "There may have been the devil in my feet, + For down I blundered, like a fugitive, + To find the old room in Eleventh Street. + God save us!—I came here again to live." + + We rose at that, and all the ghosts rose then, + And followed us unseen to his old room. + No longer a good place for living men + We found it, and we shivered in the gloom. + + The goods he took away from there were few, + And soon we found ourselves outside once more, + Where now the lamps along the Avenue + Bloomed white for miles above an iron floor. + + "Now lead me to the newest of hotels," + He said, "and let your spleen be undeceived: + This ruin is not myself, but some one else; + I haven't failed; I've merely not achieved." + + Whether he knew or not, he laughed and dined + With more of an immune regardlessness + Of pits before him and of sands behind + Than many a child at forty would confess; + + And after, when the bells in 'Boris' rang + Their tumult at the Metropolitan, + He rocked himself, and I believe he sang. + "God lives," he crooned aloud, "and I'm the man!" + + He was. And even though the creature spoiled + All prophecies, I cherish his acclaim. + Three weeks he fattened; and five years he toiled + In Yonkers,—and then sauntered into fame. + + And he may go now to what streets he will— + Eleventh, or the last, and little care; + But he would find the old room very still + Of evenings, and the ghosts would all be there. + + I doubt if he goes after them; I doubt + If many of them ever come to him. + His memories are like lamps, and they go out; + Or if they burn, they flicker and are dim. + + A light of other gleams he has to-day + And adulations of applauding hosts; + A famous danger, but a safer way + Than growing old alone among the ghosts. + + But we may still be glad that we were wrong: + He fooled us, and we'd shrivel to deny it; + Though sometimes when old echoes ring too long, + I wish the bells in 'Boris' would be quiet. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Unforgiven + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + When he, who is the unforgiven, + Beheld her first, he found her fair: + No promise ever dreamt in heaven + Could then have lured him anywhere + That would have been away from there; + And all his wits had lightly striven, + Foiled with her voice, and eyes, and hair. + + There's nothing in the saints and sages + To meet the shafts her glances had, + Or such as hers have had for ages + To blind a man till he be glad, + And humble him till he be mad. + The story would have many pages, + And would be neither good nor bad. + + And, having followed, you would find him + Where properly the play begins; + But look for no red light behind him— + No fumes of many-colored sins, + Fanned high by screaming violins. + God knows what good it was to blind him, + Or whether man or woman wins. + + And by the same eternal token, + Who knows just how it will all end?— + This drama of hard words unspoken, + This fireside farce, without a friend + Or enemy to comprehend + What augurs when two lives are broken, + And fear finds nothing left to mend. + + He stares in vain for what awaits him, + And sees in Love a coin to toss; + He smiles, and her cold hush berates him + Beneath his hard half of the cross; + They wonder why it ever was; + And she, the unforgiving, hates him + More for her lack than for her loss. + + He feeds with pride his indecision, + And shrinks from what will not occur, + Bequeathing with infirm derision + His ashes to the days that were, + Before she made him prisoner; + And labors to retrieve the vision + That he must once have had of her. + + He waits, and there awaits an ending, + And he knows neither what nor when; + But no magicians are attending + To make him see as he saw then, + And he will never find again + The face that once had been the rending + Of all his purpose among men. + + He blames her not, nor does he chide her, + And she has nothing new to say; + If he were Bluebeard he could hide her, + But that's not written in the play, + And there will be no change to-day; + Although, to the serene outsider, + There still would seem to be a way. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Theophilus + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + By what serene malevolence of names + Had you the gift of yours, Theophilus? + Not even a smeared young Cyclops at his games + Would have you long,—and you are one of us. + + Told of your deeds I shudder for your dreams, + And they, no doubt, are few and innocent. + Meanwhile, I marvel; for in you, it seems, + Heredity outshines environment. + + What lingering bit of Belial, unforeseen, + Survives and amplifies itself in you? + What manner of devilry has ever been + That your obliquity may never do? + + Humility befits a father's eyes, + But not a friend of us would have him weep. + Admiring everything that lives and dies, + Theophilus, we like you best asleep. + + Sleep—sleep; and let us find another man + To lend another name less hazardous: + Caligula, maybe, or Caliban, + Or Cain,—but surely not Theophilus. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Veteran Sirens + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + The ghost of Ninon would be sorry now + To laugh at them, were she to see them here, + So brave and so alert for learning how + To fence with reason for another year. + + Age offers a far comelier diadem + Than theirs; but anguish has no eye for grace, + When time's malicious mercy cautions them + To think a while of number and of space. + + The burning hope, the worn expectancy, + The martyred humor, and the maimed allure, + Cry out for time to end his levity, + And age to soften its investiture; + + But they, though others fade and are still fair, + Defy their fairness and are unsubdued; + Although they suffer, they may not forswear + The patient ardor of the unpursued. + + Poor flesh, to fight the calendar so long; + Poor vanity, so quaint and yet so brave; + Poor folly, so deceived and yet so strong, + So far from Ninon and so near the grave. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Siege Perilous + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Long warned of many terrors more severe + To scorch him than hell's engines could awaken, + He scanned again, too far to be so near, + The fearful seat no man had ever taken. + + So many other men with older eyes + Than his to see with older sight behind them + Had known so long their one way to be wise,— + Was any other thing to do than mind them? + + So many a blasting parallel had seared + Confusion on his faith,—could he but wonder + If he were mad and right, or if he feared + God's fury told in shafted flame and thunder? + + There fell one day upon his eyes a light + Ethereal, and he heard no more men speaking; + He saw their shaken heads, but no long sight + Was his but for the end that he went seeking. + + The end he sought was not the end; the crown + He won shall unto many still be given. + Moreover, there was reason here to frown: + No fury thundered, no flame fell from heaven. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Another Dark Lady + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Think not, because I wonder where you fled, + That I would lift a pin to see you there; + You may, for me, be prowling anywhere, + So long as you show not your little head: + No dark and evil story of the dead + Would leave you less pernicious or less fair— + Not even Lilith, with her famous hair; + And Lilith was the devil, I have read. + I cannot hate you, for I loved you then. + The woods were golden then. There was a road + Through beeches; and I said their smooth feet showed + Like yours. Truth must have heard me from afar, + For I shall never have to learn again + That yours are cloven as no beech's are. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Voice of Age + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + She'd look upon us, if she could, + As hard as Rhadamanthus would; + Yet one may see,—who sees her face, + Her crown of silver and of lace, + Her mystical serene address + Of age alloyed with loveliness,— + That she would not annihilate + The frailest of things animate. + + She has opinions of our ways, + And if we're not all mad, she says,— + If our ways are not wholly worse + Than others, for not being hers,— + There might somehow be found a few + Less insane things for us to do, + And we might have a little heed + Of what Belshazzar couldn't read. + + She feels, with all our furniture, + Room yet for something more secure + Than our self-kindled aureoles + To guide our poor forgotten souls; + But when we have explained that grace + Dwells now in doing for the race, + She nods—as if she were relieved; + Almost as if she were deceived. + + She frowns at much of what she hears, + And shakes her head, and has her fears; + Though none may know, by any chance, + What rose-leaf ashes of romance + Are faintly stirred by later days + That would be well enough, she says, + If only people were more wise, + And grown-up children used their eyes. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Dark House + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Where a faint light shines alone, + Dwells a Demon I have known. + Most of you had better say + "The Dark House", and go your way. + Do not wonder if I stay. + + For I know the Demon's eyes, + And their lure that never dies. + Banish all your fond alarms, + For I know the foiling charms + Of her eyes and of her arms, + + And I know that in one room + Burns a lamp as in a tomb; + And I see the shadow glide, + Back and forth, of one denied + Power to find himself outside. + + There he is who is my friend, + Damned, he fancies, to the end— + Vanquished, ever since a door + Closed, he thought, for evermore + On the life that was before. + + And the friend who knows him best + Sees him as he sees the rest + Who are striving to be wise + While a Demon's arms and eyes + Hold them as a web would flies. + + All the words of all the world, + Aimed together and then hurled, + Would be stiller in his ears + Than a closing of still shears + On a thread made out of years. + + But there lives another sound, + More compelling, more profound; + There's a music, so it seems, + That assuages and redeems, + More than reason, more than dreams. + + There's a music yet unheard + By the creature of the word, + Though it matters little more + Than a wave-wash on a shore— + Till a Demon shuts a door. + + So, if he be very still + With his Demon, and one will, + Murmurs of it may be blown + To my friend who is alone + In a room that I have known. + + After that from everywhere + Singing life will find him there; + Then the door will open wide, + And my friend, again outside, + Will be living, having died. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Poor Relation + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + No longer torn by what she knows + And sees within the eyes of others, + Her doubts are when the daylight goes, + Her fears are for the few she bothers. + She tells them it is wholly wrong + Of her to stay alive so long; + And when she smiles her forehead shows + A crinkle that had been her mother's. + + Beneath her beauty, blanched with pain, + And wistful yet for being cheated, + A child would seem to ask again + A question many times repeated; + But no rebellion has betrayed + Her wonder at what she has paid + For memories that have no stain, + For triumph born to be defeated. + + To those who come for what she was— + The few left who know where to find her— + She clings, for they are all she has; + And she may smile when they remind her, + As heretofore, of what they know + Of roses that are still to blow + By ways where not so much as grass + Remains of what she sees behind her. + + They stay a while, and having done + What penance or the past requires, + They go, and leave her there alone + To count her chimneys and her spires. + Her lip shakes when they go away, + And yet she would not have them stay; + She knows as well as anyone + That Pity, having played, soon tires. + + But one friend always reappears, + A good ghost, not to be forsaken; + Whereat she laughs and has no fears + Of what a ghost may reawaken, + But welcomes, while she wears and mends + The poor relation's odds and ends, + Her truant from a tomb of years— + Her power of youth so early taken. + + Poor laugh, more slender than her song + It seems; and there are none to hear it + With even the stopped ears of the strong + For breaking heart or broken spirit. + The friends who clamored for her place, + And would have scratched her for her face, + Have lost her laughter for so long + That none would care enough to fear it. + + None live who need fear anything + From her, whose losses are their pleasure; + The plover with a wounded wing + Stays not the flight that others measure; + So there she waits, and while she lives, + And death forgets, and faith forgives, + Her memories go foraging + For bits of childhood song they treasure. + + And like a giant harp that hums + On always, and is always blending + The coming of what never comes + With what has past and had an ending, + The City trembles, throbs, and pounds + Outside, and through a thousand sounds + The small intolerable drums + Of Time are like slow drops descending. + + Bereft enough to shame a sage + And given little to long sighing, + With no illusion to assuage + The lonely changelessness of dying,— + Unsought, unthought-of, and unheard, + She sings and watches like a bird, + Safe in a comfortable cage + From which there will be no more flying. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Burning Book + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Or the Contented Metaphysician +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + To the lore of no manner of men + Would his vision have yielded + When he found what will never again + From his vision be shielded,— + Though he paid with as much of his life + As a nun could have given, + And to-night would have been as a knife, + Devil-drawn, devil-driven. + + For to-night, with his flame-weary eyes + On the work he is doing, + He considers the tinder that flies + And the quick flame pursuing. + In the leaves that are crinkled and curled + Are his ashes of glory, + And what once were an end of the world + Is an end of a story. + + But he smiles, for no more shall his days + Be a toil and a calling + For a way to make others to gaze + On God's face without falling. + He has come to the end of his words, + And alone he rejoices + In the choiring that silence affords + Of ineffable voices. + + To a realm that his words may not reach + He may lead none to find him; + An adept, and with nothing to teach, + He leaves nothing behind him. + For the rest, he will have his release, + And his embers, attended + By the large and unclamoring peace + Of a dream that is ended. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Fragment + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Faint white pillars that seem to fade + As you look from here are the first one sees + Of his house where it hides and dies in a shade + Of beeches and oaks and hickory trees. + Now many a man, given woods like these, + And a house like that, and the Briony gold, + Would have said, "There are still some gods to please, + And houses are built without hands, we're told." + + There are the pillars, and all gone gray. + Briony's hair went white. You may see + Where the garden was if you come this way. + That sun-dial scared him, he said to me; + "Sooner or later they strike," said he, + And he never got that from the books he read. + Others are flourishing, worse than he, + But he knew too much for the life he led. + + And who knows all knows everything + That a patient ghost at last retrieves; + There's more to be known of his harvesting + When Time the thresher unbinds the sheaves; + And there's more to be heard than a wind that grieves + For Briony now in this ageless oak, + Driving the first of its withered leaves + Over the stones where the fountain broke. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Lisette and Eileen + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + "When he was here alive, Eileen, + There was a word you might have said; + So never mind what I have been, + Or anything,—for you are dead. + + "And after this when I am there + Where he is, you'll be dying still. + Your eyes are dead, and your black hair,— + The rest of you be what it will. + + "'Twas all to save him? Never mind, + Eileen. You saved him. You are strong. + I'd hardly wonder if your kind + Paid everything, for you live long. + + "You last, I mean. That's what I mean. + I mean you last as long as lies. + You might have said that word, Eileen,— + And you might have your hair and eyes. + + "And what you see might be Lisette, + Instead of this that has no name. + Your silence—I can feel it yet, + Alive and in me, like a flame. + + "Where might I be with him to-day, + Could he have known before he heard? + But no—your silence had its way, + Without a weapon or a word. + + "Because a word was never told, + I'm going as a worn toy goes. + And you are dead; and you'll be old; + And I forgive you, I suppose. + + "I'll soon be changing as all do, + To something we have always been; + And you'll be old... He liked you, too. + I might have killed you then, Eileen. + + "I think he liked as much of you + As had a reason to be seen,— + As much as God made black and blue. + He liked your hair and eyes, Eileen." +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Llewellyn and the Tree + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Could he have made Priscilla share + The paradise that he had planned, + Llewellyn would have loved his wife + As well as any in the land. + + Could he have made Priscilla cease + To goad him for what God left out, + Llewellyn would have been as mild + As any we have read about. + + Could all have been as all was not, + Llewellyn would have had no story; + He would have stayed a quiet man + And gone his quiet way to glory. + + But howsoever mild he was + Priscilla was implacable; + And whatsoever timid hopes + He built—she found them, and they fell. + + And this went on, with intervals + Of labored harmony between + Resounding discords, till at last + Llewellyn turned—as will be seen. + + Priscilla, warmer than her name, + And shriller than the sound of saws, + Pursued Llewellyn once too far, + Not knowing quite the man he was. + + The more she said, the fiercer clung + The stinging garment of his wrath; + And this was all before the day + When Time tossed roses in his path. + + Before the roses ever came + Llewellyn had already risen. + The roses may have ruined him, + They may have kept him out of prison. + + And she who brought them, being Fate, + Made roses do the work of spears,— + Though many made no more of her + Than civet, coral, rouge, and years. + + You ask us what Llewellyn saw, + But why ask what may not be given? + To some will come a time when change + Itself is beauty, if not heaven. + + One afternoon Priscilla spoke, + And her shrill history was done; + At any rate, she never spoke + Like that again to anyone. + + One gold October afternoon + Great fury smote the silent air; + And then Llewellyn leapt and fled + Like one with hornets in his hair. + + Llewellyn left us, and he said + Forever, leaving few to doubt him; + And so, through frost and clicking leaves, + The Tilbury way went on without him. + + And slowly, through the Tilbury mist, + The stillness of October gold + Went out like beauty from a face. + Priscilla watched it, and grew old. + + He fled, still clutching in his flight + The roses that had been his fall; + The Scarlet One, as you surmise, + Fled with him, coral, rouge, and all. + + Priscilla, waiting, saw the change + Of twenty slow October moons; + And then she vanished, in her turn + To be forgotten, like old tunes. + + So they were gone—all three of them, + I should have said, and said no more, + Had not a face once on Broadway + Been one that I had seen before. + + The face and hands and hair were old, + But neither time nor penury + Could quench within Llewellyn's eyes + The shine of his one victory. + + The roses, faded and gone by, + Left ruin where they once had reigned; + But on the wreck, as on old shells, + The color of the rose remained. + + His fictive merchandise I bought + For him to keep and show again, + Then led him slowly from the crush + Of his cold-shouldered fellow men. + + "And so, Llewellyn," I began— + "Not so," he said; "not so, at all: + I've tried the world, and found it good, + For more than twenty years this fall. + + "And what the world has left of me + Will go now in a little while." + And what the world had left of him + Was partly an unholy guile. + + "That I have paid for being calm + Is what you see, if you have eyes; + For let a man be calm too long, + He pays for much before he dies. + + "Be calm when you are growing old + And you have nothing else to do; + Pour not the wine of life too thin + If water means the death of you. + + "You say I might have learned at home + The truth in season to be strong? + Not so; I took the wine of life + Too thin, and I was calm too long. + + "Like others who are strong too late, + For me there was no going back; + For I had found another speed, + And I was on the other track. + + "God knows how far I might have gone + Or what there might have been to see; + But my speed had a sudden end, + And here you have the end of me." + + The end or not, it may be now + But little farther from the truth + To say those worn satiric eyes + Had something of immortal youth. + + He may among the millions here + Be one; or he may, quite as well, + Be gone to find again the Tree + Of Knowledge, out of which he fell. + + He may be near us, dreaming yet + Of unrepented rouge and coral; + Or in a grave without a name + May be as far off as a moral. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Bewick Finzer + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Time was when his half million drew + The breath of six per cent; + But soon the worm of what-was-not + Fed hard on his content; + And something crumbled in his brain + When his half million went. + + Time passed, and filled along with his + The place of many more; + Time came, and hardly one of us + Had credence to restore, + From what appeared one day, the man + Whom we had known before. + + The broken voice, the withered neck, + The coat worn out with care, + The cleanliness of indigence, + The brilliance of despair, + The fond imponderable dreams + Of affluence,—all were there. + + Poor Finzer, with his dreams and schemes, + Fares hard now in the race, + With heart and eye that have a task + When he looks in the face + Of one who might so easily + Have been in Finzer's place. + + He comes unfailing for the loan + We give and then forget; + He comes, and probably for years + Will he be coming yet,— + Familiar as an old mistake, + And futile as regret. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Bokardo + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Well, Bokardo, here we are; + Make yourself at home. + Look around—you haven't far + To look—and why be dumb? + Not the place that used to be, + Not so many things to see; + But there's room for you and me. + And you—you've come. + + Talk a little; or, if not, + Show me with a sign + Why it was that you forgot + What was yours and mine. + Friends, I gather, are small things + In an age when coins are kings; + Even at that, one hardly flings + Friends before swine. + + Rather strong? I knew as much, + For it made you speak. + No offense to swine, as such, + But why this hide-and-seek? + You have something on your side, + And you wish you might have died, + So you tell me. And you tried + One night last week? + + You tried hard? And even then + Found a time to pause? + When you try as hard again, + You'll have another cause. + When you find yourself at odds + With all dreamers of all gods, + You may smite yourself with rods— + But not the laws. + + Though they seem to show a spite + Rather devilish, + They move on as with a might + Stronger than your wish. + Still, however strong they be, + They bide man's authority: + Xerxes, when he flogged the sea, + May've scared a fish. + + It's a comfort, if you like, + To keep honor warm, + But as often as you strike + The laws, you do no harm. + To the laws, I mean. To you— + That's another point of view, + One you may as well indue + With some alarm. + + Not the most heroic face + To present, I grant; + Nor will you insure disgrace + By fearing what you want. + Freedom has a world of sides, + And if reason once derides + Courage, then your courage hides + A deal of cant. + + Learn a little to forget + Life was once a feast; + You aren't fit for dying yet, + So don't be a beast. + Few men with a mind will say, + Thinking twice, that they can pay + Half their debts of yesterday, + Or be released. + + There's a debt now on your mind + More than any gold? + And there's nothing you can find + Out there in the cold? + Only—what's his name?—Remorse? + And Death riding on his horse? + Well, be glad there's nothing worse + Than you have told. + + Leave Remorse to warm his hands + Outside in the rain. + As for Death, he understands, + And he will come again. + Therefore, till your wits are clear, + Flourish and be quiet—here. + But a devil at each ear + Will be a strain? + + Past a doubt they will indeed, + More than you have earned. + I say that because you need + Ablution, being burned? + Well, if you must have it so, + Your last flight went rather low. + Better say you had to know + What you have learned. + + And that's over. Here you are, + Battered by the past. + Time will have his little scar, + But the wound won't last. + Nor shall harrowing surprise + Find a world without its eyes + If a star fades when the skies + Are overcast. + + God knows there are lives enough, + Crushed, and too far gone + Longer to make sermons of, + And those we leave alone. + Others, if they will, may rend + The worn patience of a friend + Who, though smiling, sees the end, + With nothing done. + + But your fervor to be free + Fled the faith it scorned; + Death demands a decency + Of you, and you are warned. + But for all we give we get + Mostly blows? Don't be upset; + You, Bokardo, are not yet + Consumed or mourned. + + There'll be falling into view + Much to rearrange; + And there'll be a time for you + To marvel at the change. + They that have the least to fear + Question hardest what is here; + When long-hidden skies are clear, + The stars look strange. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + The Man against the Sky + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Between me and the sunset, like a dome + Against the glory of a world on fire, + Now burned a sudden hill, + Bleak, round, and high, by flame-lit height made higher, + With nothing on it for the flame to kill + Save one who moved and was alone up there + To loom before the chaos and the glare + As if he were the last god going home + Unto his last desire. + Dark, marvelous, and inscrutable he moved on + Till down the fiery distance he was gone,— + Like one of those eternal, remote things + That range across a man's imaginings + When a sure music fills him and he knows + What he may say thereafter to few men,— + The touch of ages having wrought + An echo and a glimpse of what he thought + A phantom or a legend until then; + For whether lighted over ways that save, + Or lured from all repose, + If he go on too far to find a grave, + Mostly alone he goes. + + Even he, who stood where I had found him, + On high with fire all round him,— + Who moved along the molten west, + And over the round hill's crest + That seemed half ready with him to go down, + Flame-bitten and flame-cleft,— + As if there were to be no last thing left + Of a nameless unimaginable town,— + Even he who climbed and vanished may have taken + Down to the perils of a depth not known, + From death defended though by men forsaken, + The bread that every man must eat alone; + He may have walked while others hardly dared + Look on to see him stand where many fell; + And upward out of that, as out of hell, + He may have sung and striven + To mount where more of him shall yet be given, + Bereft of all retreat, + To sevenfold heat,— + As on a day when three in Dura shared + The furnace, and were spared + For glory by that king of Babylon + Who made himself so great that God, who heard, + Covered him with long feathers, like a bird. + + Again, he may have gone down easily, + By comfortable altitudes, and found, + As always, underneath him solid ground + Whereon to be sufficient and to stand + Possessed already of the promised land, + Far stretched and fair to see: + A good sight, verily, + And one to make the eyes of her who bore him + Shine glad with hidden tears. + Why question of his ease of who before him, + In one place or another where they left + Their names as far behind them as their bones, + And yet by dint of slaughter toil and theft, + And shrewdly sharpened stones, + Carved hard the way for his ascendency + Through deserts of lost years? + Why trouble him now who sees and hears + No more than what his innocence requires, + And therefore to no other height aspires + Than one at which he neither quails nor tires? + He may do more by seeing what he sees + Than others eager for iniquities; + He may, by seeing all things for the best, + Incite futurity to do the rest. + + Or with an even likelihood, + He may have met with atrabilious eyes + The fires of time on equal terms and passed + Indifferently down, until at last + His only kind of grandeur would have been, + Apparently, in being seen. + He may have had for evil or for good + No argument; he may have had no care + For what without himself went anywhere + To failure or to glory, and least of all + For such a stale, flamboyant miracle; + He may have been the prophet of an art + Immovable to old idolatries; + He may have been a player without a part, + Annoyed that even the sun should have the skies + For such a flaming way to advertise; + He may have been a painter sick at heart + With Nature's toiling for a new surprise; + He may have been a cynic, who now, for all + Of anything divine that his effete + Negation may have tasted, + Saw truth in his own image, rather small, + Forbore to fever the ephemeral, + Found any barren height a good retreat + From any swarming street, + And in the sun saw power superbly wasted; + And when the primitive old-fashioned stars + Came out again to shine on joys and wars + More primitive, and all arrayed for doom, + He may have proved a world a sorry thing + In his imagining, + And life a lighted highway to the tomb. + + Or, mounting with infirm unsearching tread, + His hopes to chaos led, + He may have stumbled up there from the past, + And with an aching strangeness viewed the last + Abysmal conflagration of his dreams,— + A flame where nothing seems + To burn but flame itself, by nothing fed; + And while it all went out, + Not even the faint anodyne of doubt + May then have eased a painful going down + From pictured heights of power and lost renown, + Revealed at length to his outlived endeavor + Remote and unapproachable forever; + And at his heart there may have gnawed + Sick memories of a dead faith foiled and flawed + And long dishonored by the living death + Assigned alike by chance + To brutes and hierophants; + And anguish fallen on those he loved around him + May once have dealt the last blow to confound him, + And so have left him as death leaves a child, + Who sees it all too near; + And he who knows no young way to forget + May struggle to the tomb unreconciled. + Whatever suns may rise or set + There may be nothing kinder for him here + Than shafts and agonies; + And under these + He may cry out and stay on horribly; + Or, seeing in death too small a thing to fear, + He may go forward like a stoic Roman + Where pangs and terrors in his pathway lie,— + Or, seizing the swift logic of a woman, + Curse God and die. + + Or maybe there, like many another one + Who might have stood aloft and looked ahead, + Black-drawn against wild red, + He may have built, unawed by fiery gules + That in him no commotion stirred, + A living reason out of molecules + Why molecules occurred, + And one for smiling when he might have sighed + Had he seen far enough, + And in the same inevitable stuff + Discovered an odd reason too for pride + In being what he must have been by laws + Infrangible and for no kind of cause. + Deterred by no confusion or surprise + He may have seen with his mechanic eyes + A world without a meaning, and had room, + Alone amid magnificence and doom, + To build himself an airy monument + That should, or fail him in his vague intent, + Outlast an accidental universe— + To call it nothing worse— + Or, by the burrowing guile + Of Time disintegrated and effaced, + Like once-remembered mighty trees go down + To ruin, of which by man may now be traced + No part sufficient even to be rotten, + And in the book of things that are forgotten + Is entered as a thing not quite worth while. + He may have been so great + That satraps would have shivered at his frown, + And all he prized alive may rule a state + No larger than a grave that holds a clown; + He may have been a master of his fate, + And of his atoms,—ready as another + In his emergence to exonerate + His father and his mother; + He may have been a captain of a host, + Self-eloquent and ripe for prodigies, + Doomed here to swell by dangerous degrees, + And then give up the ghost. + Nahum's great grasshoppers were such as these, + Sun-scattered and soon lost. + + Whatever the dark road he may have taken, + This man who stood on high + And faced alone the sky, + Whatever drove or lured or guided him,— + A vision answering a faith unshaken, + An easy trust assumed of easy trials, + A sick negation born of weak denials, + A crazed abhorrence of an old condition, + A blind attendance on a brief ambition,— + Whatever stayed him or derided him, + His way was even as ours; + And we, with all our wounds and all our powers, + Must each await alone at his own height + Another darkness or another light; + And there, of our poor self dominion reft, + If inference and reason shun + Hell, Heaven, and Oblivion, + May thwarted will (perforce precarious, + But for our conservation better thus) + Have no misgiving left + Of doing yet what here we leave undone? + Or if unto the last of these we cleave, + Believing or protesting we believe + In such an idle and ephemeral + Florescence of the diabolical,— + If, robbed of two fond old enormities, + Our being had no onward auguries, + What then were this great love of ours to say + For launching other lives to voyage again + A little farther into time and pain, + A little faster in a futile chase + For a kingdom and a power and a Race + That would have still in sight + A manifest end of ashes and eternal night? + Is this the music of the toys we shake + So loud,—as if there might be no mistake + Somewhere in our indomitable will? + Are we no greater than the noise we make + Along one blind atomic pilgrimage + Whereon by crass chance billeted we go + Because our brains and bones and cartilage + Will have it so? + If this we say, then let us all be still + About our share in it, and live and die + More quietly thereby. + + Where was he going, this man against the sky? + You know not, nor do I. + But this we know, if we know anything: + That we may laugh and fight and sing + And of our transience here make offering + To an orient Word that will not be erased, + Or, save in incommunicable gleams + Too permanent for dreams, + Be found or known. + No tonic and ambitious irritant + Of increase or of want + Has made an otherwise insensate waste + Of ages overthrown + A ruthless, veiled, implacable foretaste + Of other ages that are still to be + Depleted and rewarded variously + Because a few, by fate's economy, + Shall seem to move the world the way it goes; + No soft evangel of equality, + Safe cradled in a communal repose + That huddles into death and may at last + Be covered well with equatorial snows— + And all for what, the devil only knows— + Will aggregate an inkling to confirm + The credit of a sage or of a worm, + Or tell us why one man in five + Should have a care to stay alive + While in his heart he feels no violence + Laid on his humor and intelligence + When infant Science makes a pleasant face + And waves again that hollow toy, the Race; + No planetary trap where souls are wrought + For nothing but the sake of being caught + And sent again to nothing will attune + Itself to any key of any reason + Why man should hunger through another season + To find out why 'twere better late than soon + To go away and let the sun and moon + And all the silly stars illuminate + A place for creeping things, + And those that root and trumpet and have wings, + And herd and ruminate, + Or dive and flash and poise in rivers and seas, + Or by their loyal tails in lofty trees + Hang screeching lewd victorious derision + Of man's immortal vision. + + Shall we, because Eternity records + Too vast an answer for the time-born words + We spell, whereof so many are dead that once + In our capricious lexicons + Were so alive and final, hear no more + The Word itself, the living word no man + Has ever spelt, + And few have ever felt + Without the fears and old surrenderings + And terrors that began + When Death let fall a feather from his wings + And humbled the first man? + Because the weight of our humility, + Wherefrom we gain + A little wisdom and much pain, + Falls here too sore and there too tedious, + Are we in anguish or complacency, + Not looking far enough ahead + To see by what mad couriers we are led + Along the roads of the ridiculous, + To pity ourselves and laugh at faith + And while we curse life bear it? + And if we see the soul's dead end in death, + Are we to fear it? + What folly is here that has not yet a name + Unless we say outright that we are liars? + What have we seen beyond our sunset fires + That lights again the way by which we came? + Why pay we such a price, and one we give + So clamoringly, for each racked empty day + That leads one more last human hope away, + As quiet fiends would lead past our crazed eyes + Our children to an unseen sacrifice? + If after all that we have lived and thought, + All comes to Nought,— + If there be nothing after Now, + And we be nothing anyhow, + And we know that,—why live? + 'Twere sure but weaklings' vain distress + To suffer dungeons where so many doors + Will open on the cold eternal shores + That look sheer down + To the dark tideless floods of Nothingness + Where all who know may drown. +</pre> + <p> + [End of text.] + </p> + <p> + From the original advertisements: + </p> + <p> + By the same author + </p> + <p> + Captain Craig, A Book of Poems + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Revised edition with additional poems, 12mo, cloth, $1.25 +</pre> + <p> + "There are few poets writing in English to-day whose work is so permeated + by individual charm as is Mr. Robinson's. Always one feels the presence of + a man behind the poet—a man who knows life and people and things and + writes of them clearly, with a subtle poetic insight that is not visible + in the work of any other living writer."—'Brooklyn Daily Eagle'. + </p> + <p> + "The 'Book of Annandale', a splendid poem included in this collection, is + one of the most moving emotional narratives found in modern poetry." + —'Review of Reviews'. + </p> + <p> + "... His handling of Greek themes reveals him as a lyrical poet of + inimitable charm and skill."—'Reedy's Mirror'. + </p> + <p> + "A poem that must endure; if things that deserve long life get it."— + 'N. Y. Evening Sun'. + </p> + <p> + "Wherever you hear people who know speak of American poets... they assume + that you take the genius and place of Edwin Arlington Robinson as + granted.... A man with something to say that has value and beauty. His + thought is deep and his ideas are high and stimulating."—'Boston + Transcript'. + </p> + <p> + By the same author——————— <br /> + <br /> The Porcupine: A Drama in Three Acts + </p> + <p> + Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 + </p> + <p> + Edwin Arlington Robinson's comedy "Van Zorn" proved him to be one of the + most accomplished of the younger generation of American dramatists. Of + this play the 'Boston Transcript' said, "It is an effective presentation + of modern life in New York City, in which a poet shows his skill of + playwrighting... he brings to the American drama to-day a thing it sadly + lacks, and that is character." In manner and technique Mr. Robinson's new + play, "The Porcupine", recalls some of the work of Ibsen. Written adroitly + and with the literary cleverness exhibited in "Van Zorn", it tells a story + of a domestic entanglement in a dramatic fashion well calculated to hold + the reader's attention. + </p> + <p> + "Contains all of the qualities that are said to be conspicuously lacking + in American Drama."—'N. Y. Evening Sun'. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + Van Zorn: A Comedy in Three Acts <br /> <br /> Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 + </p> + <p> + Mr. Robinson is known as the leader of present-day American poets. In this + delightful play he tells with a biting humor the story of the salvation of + a soul. By clever arrangement of incident and skillful characterization he + arouses strongly the reader's curiosity, and the suspense is admirably + sustained. The dialogue is bright, and the construction of the plot shows + the work of one well versed in the technique of the drama. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_NOTE" id="link2H_NOTE"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + Notes on the etext: + </h2> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + John Gorham: + + Catches him and let's him go and eats him up for fun."— + changed to: + Catches him and lets him go and eats him up for fun."— +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford: + + Whatever there be, they'll be no more of that; + not changed, but noted as possibly incorrect—should it be?: + Whatever there be, there'll be no more of that; + + Then are as yet a picture in our vision. + changed to: + Than are as yet a picture in our vision. +</pre> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + About the author: Edwin Arlington Robinson, 1869-1935. + </h2> + <p> + From the Biographical Notes of "The Second Book of Modern Verse" (1919, + 1920), edited by Jessie B. Rittenhouse: + </p> + <p> + Robinson, Edwin Arlington. Born at Head Tide, Maine, Dec. 22, 1869. + Educated at Harvard University. Mr. Robinson is a psychological poet of + great subtlety; his poems are usually studies of types and he has given us + a remarkable series of portraits. He is recognized as one of the finest + and most distinguished poets of our time. His successive volumes are: + "Children of the Night", 1897; "Captain Craig", 1902; "The Town Down the + River", 1910; "The Man against the Sky", 1916; "Merlin", 1917; and + "Launcelot", 1920. The last-named volume was awarded a prize of five + hundred dollars, given by The Lyric Society for the best book manuscript + offered to it in 1919. In addition to his work in poetry, Mr. Robinson has + written two prose plays, "Van Zorn", and "The Porcupine". + </p> + <p> + In "American Poetry Since 1900", Louis Untermeyer notes, "his name was + known only to a few of the literati until Theodore Roosevelt... acclaimed + and aided him." Rittenhouse's Biographical Notes (above quoted) contain + this entry immediately before Edwin Arlington Robinson's: "Robinson, + Corinne Roosevelt.... Mrs. Robinson, who is a sister to Col. Theodore + Roosevelt,... has written several volumes of verse...." It is always + interesting to see the coincidence of events in history, and it is worth + asking if this was not even a causal relationship.—A. L. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man Against the Sky, by +Edwin Arlington Robinson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN AGAINST THE SKY *** + +***** This file should be named 1035-h.htm or 1035-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/1035/ + +Produced by Alan R. Light, and Gary M. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Man Against the Sky + +Author: Edwin Arlington Robinson + +Release Date: August 5, 2008 [EBook #1035] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN AGAINST THE SKY *** + + + + +Produced by Alan R. Light, and Gary M. Johnson + + + + + +THE MAN AGAINST THE SKY + +A Book of Poems + +by Edwin Arlington Robinson + + + +[Note on text: Italicized words or phrases are capitalized. +Lines longer than 78 characters are broken and the continuation +is indented two spaces. Some obvious errors may have been corrected.] + + + + To + the memory of + WILLIAM EDWARD BUTLER + + + + + +Several of the poems included in this book are reprinted +from American periodicals, as follows: "The Gift of God", +"Old King Cole", "Another Dark Lady", and "The Unforgiven"; +"Flammonde" and "The Poor Relation"; "The Clinging Vine"; +"Eros Turannos" and "Bokardo"; "The Voice of Age"; "Cassandra"; +"The Burning Book"; "Theophilus"; "Ben Jonson Entertains +a Man from Stratford". + + + + +Contents + + + + Flammonde + The Gift of God + The Clinging Vine + Cassandra + John Gorham + Stafford's Cabin + Hillcrest + Old King Cole + Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford + Eros Turannos + Old Trails + The Unforgiven + Theophilus + Veteran Sirens + Siege Perilous + Another Dark Lady + The Voice of Age + The Dark House + The Poor Relation + The Burning Book + Fragment + Lisette and Eileen + Llewellyn and the Tree + Bewick Finzer + Bokardo + The Man against the Sky + + + + + +THE MAN AGAINST THE SKY + + + + + +Flammonde + + + + The man Flammonde, from God knows where, + With firm address and foreign air, + With news of nations in his talk + And something royal in his walk, + With glint of iron in his eyes, + But never doubt, nor yet surprise, + Appeared, and stayed, and held his head + As one by kings accredited. + + Erect, with his alert repose + About him, and about his clothes, + He pictured all tradition hears + Of what we owe to fifty years. + His cleansing heritage of taste + Paraded neither want nor waste; + And what he needed for his fee + To live, he borrowed graciously. + + He never told us what he was, + Or what mischance, or other cause, + Had banished him from better days + To play the Prince of Castaways. + Meanwhile he played surpassing well + A part, for most, unplayable; + In fine, one pauses, half afraid + To say for certain that he played. + + For that, one may as well forego + Conviction as to yes or no; + Nor can I say just how intense + Would then have been the difference + To several, who, having striven + In vain to get what he was given, + Would see the stranger taken on + By friends not easy to be won. + + Moreover, many a malcontent + He soothed and found munificent; + His courtesy beguiled and foiled + Suspicion that his years were soiled; + His mien distinguished any crowd, + His credit strengthened when he bowed; + And women, young and old, were fond + Of looking at the man Flammonde. + + There was a woman in our town + On whom the fashion was to frown; + But while our talk renewed the tinge + Of a long-faded scarlet fringe, + The man Flammonde saw none of that, + And what he saw we wondered at-- + That none of us, in her distress, + Could hide or find our littleness. + + There was a boy that all agreed + Had shut within him the rare seed + Of learning. We could understand, + But none of us could lift a hand. + The man Flammonde appraised the youth, + And told a few of us the truth; + And thereby, for a little gold, + A flowered future was unrolled. + + There were two citizens who fought + For years and years, and over nought; + They made life awkward for their friends, + And shortened their own dividends. + The man Flammonde said what was wrong + Should be made right; nor was it long + Before they were again in line, + And had each other in to dine. + + And these I mention are but four + Of many out of many more. + So much for them. But what of him-- + So firm in every look and limb? + What small satanic sort of kink + Was in his brain? What broken link + Withheld him from the destinies + That came so near to being his? + + What was he, when we came to sift + His meaning, and to note the drift + Of incommunicable ways + That make us ponder while we praise? + Why was it that his charm revealed + Somehow the surface of a shield? + What was it that we never caught? + What was he, and what was he not? + + How much it was of him we met + We cannot ever know; nor yet + Shall all he gave us quite atone + For what was his, and his alone; + Nor need we now, since he knew best, + Nourish an ethical unrest: + Rarely at once will nature give + The power to be Flammonde and live. + + We cannot know how much we learn + From those who never will return, + Until a flash of unforeseen + Remembrance falls on what has been. + We've each a darkening hill to climb; + And this is why, from time to time + In Tilbury Town, we look beyond + Horizons for the man Flammonde. + + + + +The Gift of God + + + + Blessed with a joy that only she + Of all alive shall ever know, + She wears a proud humility + For what it was that willed it so,-- + That her degree should be so great + Among the favored of the Lord + That she may scarcely bear the weight + Of her bewildering reward. + + As one apart, immune, alone, + Or featured for the shining ones, + And like to none that she has known + Of other women's other sons,-- + The firm fruition of her need, + He shines anointed; and he blurs + Her vision, till it seems indeed + A sacrilege to call him hers. + + She fears a little for so much + Of what is best, and hardly dares + To think of him as one to touch + With aches, indignities, and cares; + She sees him rather at the goal, + Still shining; and her dream foretells + The proper shining of a soul + Where nothing ordinary dwells. + + Perchance a canvass of the town + Would find him far from flags and shouts, + And leave him only the renown + Of many smiles and many doubts; + Perchance the crude and common tongue + Would havoc strangely with his worth; + But she, with innocence unwrung, + Would read his name around the earth. + + And others, knowing how this youth + Would shine, if love could make him great, + When caught and tortured for the truth + Would only writhe and hesitate; + While she, arranging for his days + What centuries could not fulfill, + Transmutes him with her faith and praise, + And has him shining where she will. + + She crowns him with her gratefulness, + And says again that life is good; + And should the gift of God be less + In him than in her motherhood, + His fame, though vague, will not be small, + As upward through her dream he fares, + Half clouded with a crimson fall + Of roses thrown on marble stairs. + + + + +The Clinging Vine + + + + "Be calm? And was I frantic? + You'll have me laughing soon. + I'm calm as this Atlantic, + And quiet as the moon; + I may have spoken faster + Than once, in other days; + For I've no more a master, + And now--'Be calm,' he says. + + "Fear not, fear no commotion,-- + I'll be as rocks and sand; + The moon and stars and ocean + Will envy my command; + No creature could be stiller + In any kind of place + Than I... No, I'll not kill her; + Her death is in her face. + + "Be happy while she has it, + For she'll not have it long; + A year, and then you'll pass it, + Preparing a new song. + And I'm a fool for prating + Of what a year may bring, + When more like her are waiting + For more like you to sing. + + "You mock me with denial, + You mean to call me hard? + You see no room for trial + When all my doors are barred? + You say, and you'd say dying, + That I dream what I know; + And sighing, and denying, + You'd hold my hand and go. + + "You scowl--and I don't wonder; + I spoke too fast again; + But you'll forgive one blunder, + For you are like most men: + You are,--or so you've told me, + So many mortal times, + That heaven ought not to hold me + Accountable for crimes. + + "Be calm? Was I unpleasant? + Then I'll be more discreet, + And grant you, for the present, + The balm of my defeat: + What she, with all her striving, + Could not have brought about, + You've done. Your own contriving + Has put the last light out. + + "If she were the whole story, + If worse were not behind, + I'd creep with you to glory, + Believing I was blind; + I'd creep, and go on seeming + To be what I despise. + You laugh, and say I'm dreaming, + And all your laughs are lies. + + "Are women mad? A few are, + And if it's true you say-- + If most men are as you are-- + We'll all be mad some day. + Be calm--and let me finish; + There's more for you to know. + I'll talk while you diminish, + And listen while you grow. + + "There was a man who married + Because he couldn't see; + And all his days he carried + The mark of his degree. + But you--you came clear-sighted, + And found truth in my eyes; + And all my wrongs you've righted + With lies, and lies, and lies. + + "You've killed the last assurance + That once would have me strive + To rouse an old endurance + That is no more alive. + It makes two people chilly + To say what we have said, + But you--you'll not be silly + And wrangle for the dead. + + "You don't? You never wrangle? + Why scold then,--or complain? + More words will only mangle + What you've already slain. + Your pride you can't surrender? + My name--for that you fear? + Since when were men so tender, + And honor so severe? + + "No more--I'll never bear it. + I'm going. I'm like ice. + My burden? You would share it? + Forbid the sacrifice! + Forget so quaint a notion, + And let no more be told; + For moon and stars and ocean + And you and I are cold." + + + + +Cassandra + + + + I heard one who said: "Verily, + What word have I for children here? + Your Dollar is your only Word, + The wrath of it your only fear. + + "You build it altars tall enough + To make you see, but you are blind; + You cannot leave it long enough + To look before you or behind. + + "When Reason beckons you to pause, + You laugh and say that you know best; + But what it is you know, you keep + As dark as ingots in a chest. + + "You laugh and answer, 'We are young; + O leave us now, and let us grow.'-- + Not asking how much more of this + Will Time endure or Fate bestow. + + "Because a few complacent years + Have made your peril of your pride, + Think you that you are to go on + Forever pampered and untried? + + "What lost eclipse of history, + What bivouac of the marching stars, + Has given the sign for you to see + Millenniums and last great wars? + + "What unrecorded overthrow + Of all the world has ever known, + Or ever been, has made itself + So plain to you, and you alone? + + "Your Dollar, Dove and Eagle make + A Trinity that even you + Rate higher than you rate yourselves; + It pays, it flatters, and it's new. + + "And though your very flesh and blood + Be what your Eagle eats and drinks, + You'll praise him for the best of birds, + Not knowing what the Eagle thinks. + + "The power is yours, but not the sight; + You see not upon what you tread; + You have the ages for your guide, + But not the wisdom to be led. + + "Think you to tread forever down + The merciless old verities? + And are you never to have eyes + To see the world for what it is? + + "Are you to pay for what you have + With all you are?"--No other word + We caught, but with a laughing crowd + Moved on. None heeded, and few heard. + + + + +John Gorham + + + + "Tell me what you're doing over here, John Gorham, + Sighing hard and seeming to be sorry when you're not; + Make me laugh or let me go now, for long faces in the moonlight + Are a sign for me to say again a word that you forgot."-- + + "I'm over here to tell you what the moon already + May have said or maybe shouted ever since a year ago; + I'm over here to tell you what you are, Jane Wayland, + And to make you rather sorry, I should say, for being so."-- + + "Tell me what you're saying to me now, John Gorham, + Or you'll never see as much of me as ribbons any more; + I'll vanish in as many ways as I have toes and fingers, + And you'll not follow far for one where flocks have been before."-- + + "I'm sorry now you never saw the flocks, Jane Wayland, + But you're the one to make of them as many as you need. + And then about the vanishing. It's I who mean to vanish; + And when I'm here no longer you'll be done with me indeed."-- + + "That's a way to tell me what I am, John Gorham! + How am I to know myself until I make you smile? + Try to look as if the moon were making faces at you, + And a little more as if you meant to stay a little while."-- + + "You are what it is that over rose-blown gardens + Makes a pretty flutter for a season in the sun; + You are what it is that with a mouse, Jane Wayland, + Catches him and lets him go and eats him up for fun."-- + + "Sure I never took you for a mouse, John Gorham; + All you say is easy, but so far from being true + That I wish you wouldn't ever be again the one to think so; + For it isn't cats and butterflies that I would be to you."-- + + "All your little animals are in one picture-- + One I've had before me since a year ago to-night; + And the picture where they live will be of you, Jane Wayland, + Till you find a way to kill them or to keep them out of sight."-- + + "Won't you ever see me as I am, John Gorham, + Leaving out the foolishness and all I never meant? + Somewhere in me there's a woman, if you know the way to find her. + Will you like me any better if I prove it and repent?" + + "I doubt if I shall ever have the time, Jane Wayland; + And I dare say all this moonlight lying round us might as well + Fall for nothing on the shards of broken urns that are forgotten, + As on two that have no longer much of anything to tell." + + + + +Stafford's Cabin + + + + Once there was a cabin here, and once there was a man; + And something happened here before my memory began. + Time has made the two of them the fuel of one flame + And all we have of them is now a legend and a name. + + All I have to say is what an old man said to me, + And that would seem to be as much as there will ever be. + "Fifty years ago it was we found it where it sat."-- + And forty years ago it was old Archibald said that. + + "An apple tree that's yet alive saw something, I suppose, + Of what it was that happened there, and what no mortal knows. + Some one on the mountain heard far off a master shriek, + And then there was a light that showed the way for men to seek. + + "We found it in the morning with an iron bar behind, + And there were chains around it; but no search could ever find, + Either in the ashes that were left, or anywhere, + A sign to tell of who or what had been with Stafford there. + + "Stafford was a likely man with ideas of his own-- + Though I could never like the kind that likes to live alone; + And when you met, you found his eyes were always on your shoes, + As if they did the talking when he asked you for the news. + + "That's all, my son. Were I to talk for half a hundred years + I'd never clear away from there the cloud that never clears. + We buried what was left of it,--the bar, too, and the chains; + And only for the apple tree there's nothing that remains." + + Forty years ago it was I heard the old man say, + "That's all, my son."--And here again I find the place to-day, + Deserted and told only by the tree that knows the most, + And overgrown with golden-rod as if there were no ghost. + + + + +Hillcrest + + (To Mrs. Edward MacDowell) + + + + No sound of any storm that shakes + Old island walls with older seas + Comes here where now September makes + An island in a sea of trees. + + Between the sunlight and the shade + A man may learn till he forgets + The roaring of a world remade, + And all his ruins and regrets; + + And if he still remembers here + Poor fights he may have won or lost,-- + If he be ridden with the fear + Of what some other fight may cost,-- + + If, eager to confuse too soon, + What he has known with what may be, + He reads a planet out of tune + For cause of his jarred harmony,-- + + If here he venture to unroll + His index of adagios, + And he be given to console + Humanity with what he knows,-- + + He may by contemplation learn + A little more than what he knew, + And even see great oaks return + To acorns out of which they grew. + + He may, if he but listen well, + Through twilight and the silence here, + Be told what there are none may tell + To vanity's impatient ear; + + And he may never dare again + Say what awaits him, or be sure + What sunlit labyrinth of pain + He may not enter and endure. + + Who knows to-day from yesterday + May learn to count no thing too strange: + Love builds of what Time takes away, + Till Death itself is less than Change. + + Who sees enough in his duress + May go as far as dreams have gone; + Who sees a little may do less + Than many who are blind have done; + + Who sees unchastened here the soul + Triumphant has no other sight + Than has a child who sees the whole + World radiant with his own delight. + + Far journeys and hard wandering + Await him in whose crude surmise + Peace, like a mask, hides everything + That is and has been from his eyes; + + And all his wisdom is unfound, + Or like a web that error weaves + On airy looms that have a sound + No louder now than falling leaves. + + + + +Old King Cole + + + + In Tilbury Town did Old King Cole + A wise old age anticipate, + Desiring, with his pipe and bowl, + No Khan's extravagant estate. + No crown annoyed his honest head, + No fiddlers three were called or needed; + For two disastrous heirs instead + Made music more than ever three did. + + Bereft of her with whom his life + Was harmony without a flaw, + He took no other for a wife, + Nor sighed for any that he saw; + And if he doubted his two sons, + And heirs, Alexis and Evander, + He might have been as doubtful once + Of Robert Burns and Alexander. + + Alexis, in his early youth, + Began to steal--from old and young. + Likewise Evander, and the truth + Was like a bad taste on his tongue. + Born thieves and liars, their affair + Seemed only to be tarred with evil-- + The most insufferable pair + Of scamps that ever cheered the devil. + + The world went on, their fame went on, + And they went on--from bad to worse; + Till, goaded hot with nothing done, + And each accoutred with a curse, + The friends of Old King Cole, by twos, + And fours, and sevens, and elevens, + Pronounced unalterable views + Of doings that were not of heaven's. + + And having learned again whereby + Their baleful zeal had come about, + King Cole met many a wrathful eye + So kindly that its wrath went out-- + Or partly out. Say what they would, + He seemed the more to court their candor; + But never told what kind of good + Was in Alexis and Evander. + + And Old King Cole, with many a puff + That haloed his urbanity, + Would smoke till he had smoked enough, + And listen most attentively. + He beamed as with an inward light + That had the Lord's assurance in it; + And once a man was there all night, + Expecting something every minute. + + But whether from too little thought, + Or too much fealty to the bowl, + A dim reward was all he got + For sitting up with Old King Cole. + "Though mine," the father mused aloud, + "Are not the sons I would have chosen, + Shall I, less evilly endowed, + By their infirmity be frozen? + + "They'll have a bad end, I'll agree, + But I was never born to groan; + For I can see what I can see, + And I'm accordingly alone. + With open heart and open door, + I love my friends, I like my neighbors; + But if I try to tell you more, + Your doubts will overmatch my labors. + + "This pipe would never make me calm, + This bowl my grief would never drown. + For grief like mine there is no balm + In Gilead, or in Tilbury Town. + And if I see what I can see, + I know not any way to blind it; + Nor more if any way may be + For you to grope or fly to find it. + + "There may be room for ruin yet, + And ashes for a wasted love; + Or, like One whom you may forget, + I may have meat you know not of. + And if I'd rather live than weep + Meanwhile, do you find that surprising? + Why, bless my soul, the man's asleep! + That's good. The sun will soon be rising." + + + + +Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford + + + + You are a friend then, as I make it out, + Of our man Shakespeare, who alone of us + Will put an ass's head in Fairyland + As he would add a shilling to more shillings, + All most harmonious,--and out of his + Miraculous inviolable increase + Fills Ilion, Rome, or any town you like + Of olden time with timeless Englishmen; + And I must wonder what you think of him-- + All you down there where your small Avon flows + By Stratford, and where you're an Alderman. + Some, for a guess, would have him riding back + To be a farrier there, or say a dyer; + Or maybe one of your adept surveyors; + Or like enough the wizard of all tanners. + Not you--no fear of that; for I discern + In you a kindling of the flame that saves-- + The nimble element, the true phlogiston; + I see it, and was told of it, moreover, + By our discriminate friend himself, no other. + Had you been one of the sad average, + As he would have it,--meaning, as I take it, + The sinew and the solvent of our Island, + You'd not be buying beer for this Terpander's + Approved and estimated friend Ben Jonson; + He'd never foist it as a part of his + Contingent entertainment of a townsman + While he goes off rehearsing, as he must, + If he shall ever be the Duke of Stratford. + And my words are no shadow on your town-- + Far from it; for one town's as like another + As all are unlike London. Oh, he knows it,-- + And there's the Stratford in him; he denies it, + And there's the Shakespeare in him. So, God help him! + I tell him he needs Greek; but neither God + Nor Greek will help him. Nothing will help that man. + You see the fates have given him so much, + He must have all or perish,--or look out + Of London, where he sees too many lords; + They're part of half what ails him: I suppose + There's nothing fouler down among the demons + Than what it is he feels when he remembers + The dust and sweat and ointment of his calling + With his lords looking on and laughing at him. + King as he is, he can't be king de facto, + And that's as well, because he wouldn't like it; + He'd frame a lower rating of men then + Than he has now; and after that would come + An abdication or an apoplexy. + He can't be king, not even king of Stratford,-- + Though half the world, if not the whole of it, + May crown him with a crown that fits no king + Save Lord Apollo's homesick emissary: + Not there on Avon, or on any stream + Where Naiads and their white arms are no more, + Shall he find home again. It's all too bad. + But there's a comfort, for he'll have that House-- + The best you ever saw; and he'll be there + Anon, as you're an Alderman. Good God! + He makes me lie awake o' nights and laugh. + And you have known him from his origin, + You tell me; and a most uncommon urchin + He must have been to the few seeing ones-- + A trifle terrifying, I dare say, + Discovering a world with his man's eyes, + Quite as another lad might see some finches, + If he looked hard and had an eye for nature. + But this one had his eyes and their foretelling, + And he had you to fare with, and what else? + He must have had a father and a mother-- + In fact I've heard him say so--and a dog, + As a boy should, I venture; and the dog, + Most likely, was the only man who knew him. + A dog, for all I know, is what he needs + As much as anything right here to-day, + To counsel him about his disillusions, + Old aches, and parturitions of what's coming,-- + A dog of orders, an emeritus, + To wag his tail at him when he comes home, + And then to put his paws up on his knees + And say, "For God's sake, what's it all about?" + + I don't know whether he needs a dog or not-- + Or what he needs. I tell him he needs Greek; + I'll talk of rules and Aristotle with him, + And if his tongue's at home he'll say to that, + "I have your word that Aristotle knows, + And you mine that I don't know Aristotle." + He's all at odds with all the unities, + And what's yet worse, it doesn't seem to matter; + He treads along through Time's old wilderness + As if the tramp of all the centuries + Had left no roads--and there are none, for him; + He doesn't see them, even with those eyes,-- + And that's a pity, or I say it is. + Accordingly we have him as we have him-- + Going his way, the way that he goes best, + A pleasant animal with no great noise + Or nonsense anywhere to set him off-- + Save only divers and inclement devils + Have made of late his heart their dwelling place. + A flame half ready to fly out sometimes + At some annoyance may be fanned up in him, + But soon it falls, and when it falls goes out; + He knows how little room there is in there + For crude and futile animosities, + And how much for the joy of being whole, + And how much for long sorrow and old pain. + On our side there are some who may be given + To grow old wondering what he thinks of us + And some above us, who are, in his eyes, + Above himself,--and that's quite right and English. + Yet here we smile, or disappoint the gods + Who made it so: the gods have always eyes + To see men scratch; and they see one down here + Who itches, manor-bitten to the bone, + Albeit he knows himself--yes, yes, he knows-- + The lord of more than England and of more + Than all the seas of England in all time + Shall ever wash. D'ye wonder that I laugh? + He sees me, and he doesn't seem to care; + And why the devil should he? I can't tell you. + + I'll meet him out alone of a bright Sunday, + Trim, rather spruce, and quite the gentleman. + "What ho, my lord!" say I. He doesn't hear me; + Wherefore I have to pause and look at him. + He's not enormous, but one looks at him. + A little on the round if you insist, + For now, God save the mark, he's growing old; + He's five and forty, and to hear him talk + These days you'd call him eighty; then you'd add + More years to that. He's old enough to be + The father of a world, and so he is. + "Ben, you're a scholar, what's the time of day?" + Says he; and there shines out of him again + An aged light that has no age or station-- + The mystery that's his--a mischievous + Half-mad serenity that laughs at fame + For being won so easy, and at friends + Who laugh at him for what he wants the most, + And for his dukedom down in Warwickshire;-- + By which you see we're all a little jealous.... + Poor Greene! I fear the color of his name + Was even as that of his ascending soul; + And he was one where there are many others,-- + Some scrivening to the end against their fate, + Their puppets all in ink and all to die there; + And some with hands that once would shade an eye + That scanned Euripides and Aeschylus + Will reach by this time for a pot-house mop + To slush their first and last of royalties. + Poor devils! and they all play to his hand; + For so it was in Athens and old Rome. + But that's not here or there; I've wandered off. + Greene does it, or I'm careful. Where's that boy? + + Yes, he'll go back to Stratford. And we'll miss him? + Dear sir, there'll be no London here without him. + We'll all be riding, one of these fine days, + Down there to see him--and his wife won't like us; + And then we'll think of what he never said + Of women--which, if taken all in all + With what he did say, would buy many horses. + Though nowadays he's not so much for women: + "So few of them," he says, "are worth the guessing." + But there's a work at work when he says that, + And while he says it one feels in the air + A deal of circumambient hocus-pocus. + They've had him dancing till his toes were tender, + And he can feel 'em now, come chilly rains. + There's no long cry for going into it, + However, and we don't know much about it. + The Fitton thing was worst of all, I fancy; + And you in Stratford, like most here in London, + Have more now in the 'Sonnets' than you paid for; + He's put her there with all her poison on, + To make a singing fiction of a shadow + That's in his life a fact, and always will be. + But she's no care of ours, though Time, I fear, + Will have a more reverberant ado + About her than about another one + Who seems to have decoyed him, married him, + And sent him scuttling on his way to London,-- + With much already learned, and more to learn, + And more to follow. Lord! how I see him now, + Pretending, maybe trying, to be like us. + Whatever he may have meant, we never had him; + He failed us, or escaped, or what you will,-- + And there was that about him (God knows what,-- + We'd flayed another had he tried it on us) + That made as many of us as had wits + More fond of all his easy distances + Than one another's noise and clap-your-shoulder. + But think you not, my friend, he'd never talk! + Talk? He was eldritch at it; and we listened-- + Thereby acquiring much we knew before + About ourselves, and hitherto had held + Irrelevant, or not prime to the purpose. + And there were some, of course, and there be now, + Disordered and reduced amazedly + To resignation by the mystic seal + Of young finality the gods had laid + On everything that made him a young demon; + And one or two shot looks at him already + As he had been their executioner; + And once or twice he was, not knowing it,-- + Or knowing, being sorry for poor clay + And saying nothing.... Yet, for all his engines, + You'll meet a thousand of an afternoon + Who strut and sun themselves and see around 'em + A world made out of more that has a reason + Than his, I swear, that he sees here to-day; + Though he may scarcely give a Fool an exit + But we mark how he sees in everything + A law that, given we flout it once too often, + Brings fire and iron down on our naked heads. + To me it looks as if the power that made him, + For fear of giving all things to one creature, + Left out the first,--faith, innocence, illusion, + Whatever 'tis that keeps us out o' Bedlam,-- + And thereby, for his too consuming vision, + Empowered him out of nature; though to see him, + You'd never guess what's going on inside him. + He'll break out some day like a keg of ale + With too much independent frenzy in it; + And all for cellaring what he knows won't keep, + And what he'd best forget--but that he can't. + You'll have it, and have more than I'm foretelling; + And there'll be such a roaring at the Globe + As never stunned the bleeding gladiators. + He'll have to change the color of its hair + A bit, for now he calls it Cleopatra. + Black hair would never do for Cleopatra. + + But you and I are not yet two old women, + And you're a man of office. What he does + Is more to you than how it is he does it,-- + And that's what the Lord God has never told him. + They work together, and the Devil helps 'em; + They do it of a morning, or if not, + They do it of a night; in which event + He's peevish of a morning. He seems old; + He's not the proper stomach or the sleep-- + And they're two sovran agents to conserve him + Against the fiery art that has no mercy + But what's in that prodigious grand new House. + I gather something happening in his boyhood + Fulfilled him with a boy's determination + To make all Stratford 'ware of him. Well, well, + I hope at last he'll have his joy of it, + And all his pigs and sheep and bellowing beeves, + And frogs and owls and unicorns, moreover, + Be less than hell to his attendant ears. + Oh, past a doubt we'll all go down to see him. + + He may be wise. With London two days off, + Down there some wind of heaven may yet revive him; + But there's no quickening breath from anywhere + Shall make of him again the poised young faun + From Warwickshire, who'd made, it seems, already + A legend of himself before I came + To blink before the last of his first lightning. + Whatever there be, they'll be no more of that; + The coming on of his old monster Time + Has made him a still man; and he has dreams + Were fair to think on once, and all found hollow. + He knows how much of what men paint themselves + Would blister in the light of what they are; + He sees how much of what was great now shares + An eminence transformed and ordinary; + He knows too much of what the world has hushed + In others, to be loud now for himself; + He knows now at what height low enemies + May reach his heart, and high friends let him fall; + But what not even such as he may know + Bedevils him the worst: his lark may sing + At heaven's gate how he will, and for as long + As joy may listen; but HE sees no gate, + Save one whereat the spent clay waits a little + Before the churchyard has it, and the worm. + Not long ago, late in an afternoon, + I came on him unseen down Lambeth way, + And on my life I was afear'd of him: + He gloomed and mumbled like a soul from Tophet, + His hands behind him and his head bent solemn. + "What is it now," said I,--"another woman?" + That made him sorry for me, and he smiled. + "No, Ben," he mused; "it's Nothing. It's all Nothing. + We come, we go; and when we're done, we're done; + Spiders and flies--we're mostly one or t'other-- + We come, we go; and when we're done, we're done." + "By God, you sing that song as if you knew it!" + Said I, by way of cheering him; "what ails ye?" + "I think I must have come down here to think," + Says he to that, and pulls his little beard; + "Your fly will serve as well as anybody, + And what's his hour? He flies, and flies, and flies, + And in his fly's mind has a brave appearance; + And then your spider gets him in her net, + And eats him out, and hangs him up to dry. + That's Nature, the kind mother of us all. + And then your slattern housemaid swings her broom, + And where's your spider? And that's Nature, also. + It's Nature, and it's Nothing. It's all Nothing. + It's all a world where bugs and emperors + Go singularly back to the same dust, + Each in his time; and the old, ordered stars + That sang together, Ben, will sing the same + Old stave to-morrow." + + When he talks like that, + There's nothing for a human man to do + But lead him to some grateful nook like this + Where we be now, and there to make him drink. + He'll drink, for love of me, and then be sick; + A sad sign always in a man of parts, + And always very ominous. The great + Should be as large in liquor as in love,-- + And our great friend is not so large in either: + One disaffects him, and the other fails him; + Whatso he drinks that has an antic in it, + He's wondering what's to pay in his insides; + And while his eyes are on the Cyprian + He's fribbling all the time with that damned House. + We laugh here at his thrift, but after all + It may be thrift that saves him from the devil; + God gave it, anyhow,--and we'll suppose + He knew the compound of his handiwork. + To-day the clouds are with him, but anon + He'll out of 'em enough to shake the tree + Of life itself and bring down fruit unheard-of,-- + And, throwing in the bruised and whole together, + Prepare a wine to make us drunk with wonder; + And if he live, there'll be a sunset spell + Thrown over him as over a glassed lake + That yesterday was all a black wild water. + + God send he live to give us, if no more, + What now's a-rampage in him, and exhibit, + With a decent half-allegiance to the ages + An earnest of at least a casual eye + Turned once on what he owes to Gutenberg, + And to the fealty of more centuries + Than are as yet a picture in our vision. + "There's time enough,--I'll do it when I'm old, + And we're immortal men," he says to that; + And then he says to me, "Ben, what's 'immortal'? + Think you by any force of ordination + It may be nothing of a sort more noisy + Than a small oblivion of component ashes + That of a dream-addicted world was once + A moving atomy much like your friend here?" + Nothing will help that man. To make him laugh, + I said then he was a mad mountebank,-- + And by the Lord I nearer made him cry. + I could have eat an eft then, on my knees, + Tail, claws, and all of him; for I had stung + The king of men, who had no sting for me, + And I had hurt him in his memories; + And I say now, as I shall say again, + I love the man this side idolatry. + + He'll do it when he's old, he says. I wonder. + He may not be so ancient as all that. + For such as he, the thing that is to do + Will do itself,--but there's a reckoning; + The sessions that are now too much his own, + The roiling inward of a stilled outside, + The churning out of all those blood-fed lines, + The nights of many schemes and little sleep, + The full brain hammered hot with too much thinking, + The vexed heart over-worn with too much aching,-- + This weary jangling of conjoined affairs + Made out of elements that have no end, + And all confused at once, I understand, + Is not what makes a man to live forever. + O no, not now! He'll not be going now: + There'll be time yet for God knows what explosions + Before he goes. He'll stay awhile. Just wait: + Just wait a year or two for Cleopatra, + For she's to be a balsam and a comfort; + And that's not all a jape of mine now, either. + For granted once the old way of Apollo + Sings in a man, he may then, if he's able, + Strike unafraid whatever strings he will + Upon the last and wildest of new lyres; + Nor out of his new magic, though it hymn + The shrieks of dungeoned hell, shall he create + A madness or a gloom to shut quite out + A cleaving daylight, and a last great calm + Triumphant over shipwreck and all storms. + He might have given Aristotle creeps, + But surely would have given him his 'katharsis'. + + He'll not be going yet. There's too much yet + Unsung within the man. But when he goes, + I'd stake ye coin o' the realm his only care + For a phantom world he sounded and found wanting + Will be a portion here, a portion there, + Of this or that thing or some other thing + That has a patent and intrinsical + Equivalence in those egregious shillings. + And yet he knows, God help him! Tell me, now, + If ever there was anything let loose + On earth by gods or devils heretofore + Like this mad, careful, proud, indifferent Shakespeare! + Where was it, if it ever was? By heaven, + 'Twas never yet in Rhodes or Pergamon-- + In Thebes or Nineveh, a thing like this! + No thing like this was ever out of England; + And that he knows. I wonder if he cares. + Perhaps he does.... O Lord, that House in Stratford! + + + + +Eros Turannos + + + + She fears him, and will always ask + What fated her to choose him; + She meets in his engaging mask + All reasons to refuse him; + But what she meets and what she fears + Are less than are the downward years, + Drawn slowly to the foamless weirs + Of age, were she to lose him. + + Between a blurred sagacity + That once had power to sound him, + And Love, that will not let him be + The Judas that she found him, + Her pride assuages her almost, + As if it were alone the cost.-- + He sees that he will not be lost, + And waits and looks around him. + + A sense of ocean and old trees + Envelops and allures him; + Tradition, touching all he sees, + Beguiles and reassures him; + And all her doubts of what he says + Are dimmed of what she knows of days-- + Till even prejudice delays + And fades, and she secures him. + + The falling leaf inaugurates + The reign of her confusion; + The pounding wave reverberates + The dirge of her illusion; + And home, where passion lived and died, + Becomes a place where she can hide, + While all the town and harbor side + Vibrate with her seclusion. + + We tell you, tapping on our brows, + The story as it should be,-- + As if the story of a house + Were told, or ever could be; + We'll have no kindly veil between + Her visions and those we have seen,-- + As if we guessed what hers have been, + Or what they are or would be. + + Meanwhile we do no harm; for they + That with a god have striven, + Not hearing much of what we say, + Take what the god has given; + Though like waves breaking it may be, + Or like a changed familiar tree, + Or like a stairway to the sea + Where down the blind are driven. + + + + +Old Trails + + (Washington Square) + + + + I met him, as one meets a ghost or two, + Between the gray Arch and the old Hotel. + "King Solomon was right, there's nothing new," + Said he. "Behold a ruin who meant well." + + He led me down familiar steps again, + Appealingly, and set me in a chair. + "My dreams have all come true to other men," + Said he; "God lives, however, and why care? + + "An hour among the ghosts will do no harm." + He laughed, and something glad within me sank. + I may have eyed him with a faint alarm, + For now his laugh was lost in what he drank. + + "They chill things here with ice from hell," he said; + "I might have known it." And he made a face + That showed again how much of him was dead, + And how much was alive and out of place, + + And out of reach. He knew as well as I + That all the words of wise men who are skilled + In using them are not much to defy + What comes when memory meets the unfulfilled. + + What evil and infirm perversity + Had been at work with him to bring him back? + Never among the ghosts, assuredly, + Would he originate a new attack; + + Never among the ghosts, or anywhere, + Till what was dead of him was put away, + Would he attain to his offended share + Of honor among others of his day. + + "You ponder like an owl," he said at last; + "You always did, and here you have a cause. + For I'm a confirmation of the past, + A vengeance, and a flowering of what was. + + "Sorry? Of course you are, though you compress, + With even your most impenetrable fears, + A placid and a proper consciousness + Of anxious angels over my arrears. + + "I see them there against me in a book + As large as hope, in ink that shines by night. + For sure I see; but now I'd rather look + At you, and you are not a pleasant sight. + + "Forbear, forgive. Ten years are on my soul, + And on my conscience. I've an incubus: + My one distinction, and a parlous toll + To glory; but hope lives on clamorous. + + "'Twas hope, though heaven I grant you knows of what-- + The kind that blinks and rises when it falls, + Whether it sees a reason why or not-- + That heard Broadway's hard-throated siren-calls; + + "'Twas hope that brought me through December storms, + To shores again where I'll not have to be + A lonely man with only foreign worms + To cheer him in his last obscurity. + + "But what it was that hurried me down here + To be among the ghosts, I leave to you. + My thanks are yours, no less, for one thing clear: + Though you are silent, what you say is true. + + "There may have been the devil in my feet, + For down I blundered, like a fugitive, + To find the old room in Eleventh Street. + God save us!--I came here again to live." + + We rose at that, and all the ghosts rose then, + And followed us unseen to his old room. + No longer a good place for living men + We found it, and we shivered in the gloom. + + The goods he took away from there were few, + And soon we found ourselves outside once more, + Where now the lamps along the Avenue + Bloomed white for miles above an iron floor. + + "Now lead me to the newest of hotels," + He said, "and let your spleen be undeceived: + This ruin is not myself, but some one else; + I haven't failed; I've merely not achieved." + + Whether he knew or not, he laughed and dined + With more of an immune regardlessness + Of pits before him and of sands behind + Than many a child at forty would confess; + + And after, when the bells in 'Boris' rang + Their tumult at the Metropolitan, + He rocked himself, and I believe he sang. + "God lives," he crooned aloud, "and I'm the man!" + + He was. And even though the creature spoiled + All prophecies, I cherish his acclaim. + Three weeks he fattened; and five years he toiled + In Yonkers,--and then sauntered into fame. + + And he may go now to what streets he will-- + Eleventh, or the last, and little care; + But he would find the old room very still + Of evenings, and the ghosts would all be there. + + I doubt if he goes after them; I doubt + If many of them ever come to him. + His memories are like lamps, and they go out; + Or if they burn, they flicker and are dim. + + A light of other gleams he has to-day + And adulations of applauding hosts; + A famous danger, but a safer way + Than growing old alone among the ghosts. + + But we may still be glad that we were wrong: + He fooled us, and we'd shrivel to deny it; + Though sometimes when old echoes ring too long, + I wish the bells in 'Boris' would be quiet. + + + + +The Unforgiven + + + + When he, who is the unforgiven, + Beheld her first, he found her fair: + No promise ever dreamt in heaven + Could then have lured him anywhere + That would have been away from there; + And all his wits had lightly striven, + Foiled with her voice, and eyes, and hair. + + There's nothing in the saints and sages + To meet the shafts her glances had, + Or such as hers have had for ages + To blind a man till he be glad, + And humble him till he be mad. + The story would have many pages, + And would be neither good nor bad. + + And, having followed, you would find him + Where properly the play begins; + But look for no red light behind him-- + No fumes of many-colored sins, + Fanned high by screaming violins. + God knows what good it was to blind him, + Or whether man or woman wins. + + And by the same eternal token, + Who knows just how it will all end?-- + This drama of hard words unspoken, + This fireside farce, without a friend + Or enemy to comprehend + What augurs when two lives are broken, + And fear finds nothing left to mend. + + He stares in vain for what awaits him, + And sees in Love a coin to toss; + He smiles, and her cold hush berates him + Beneath his hard half of the cross; + They wonder why it ever was; + And she, the unforgiving, hates him + More for her lack than for her loss. + + He feeds with pride his indecision, + And shrinks from what will not occur, + Bequeathing with infirm derision + His ashes to the days that were, + Before she made him prisoner; + And labors to retrieve the vision + That he must once have had of her. + + He waits, and there awaits an ending, + And he knows neither what nor when; + But no magicians are attending + To make him see as he saw then, + And he will never find again + The face that once had been the rending + Of all his purpose among men. + + He blames her not, nor does he chide her, + And she has nothing new to say; + If he were Bluebeard he could hide her, + But that's not written in the play, + And there will be no change to-day; + Although, to the serene outsider, + There still would seem to be a way. + + + + +Theophilus + + + + By what serene malevolence of names + Had you the gift of yours, Theophilus? + Not even a smeared young Cyclops at his games + Would have you long,--and you are one of us. + + Told of your deeds I shudder for your dreams, + And they, no doubt, are few and innocent. + Meanwhile, I marvel; for in you, it seems, + Heredity outshines environment. + + What lingering bit of Belial, unforeseen, + Survives and amplifies itself in you? + What manner of devilry has ever been + That your obliquity may never do? + + Humility befits a father's eyes, + But not a friend of us would have him weep. + Admiring everything that lives and dies, + Theophilus, we like you best asleep. + + Sleep--sleep; and let us find another man + To lend another name less hazardous: + Caligula, maybe, or Caliban, + Or Cain,--but surely not Theophilus. + + + + +Veteran Sirens + + + + The ghost of Ninon would be sorry now + To laugh at them, were she to see them here, + So brave and so alert for learning how + To fence with reason for another year. + + Age offers a far comelier diadem + Than theirs; but anguish has no eye for grace, + When time's malicious mercy cautions them + To think a while of number and of space. + + The burning hope, the worn expectancy, + The martyred humor, and the maimed allure, + Cry out for time to end his levity, + And age to soften its investiture; + + But they, though others fade and are still fair, + Defy their fairness and are unsubdued; + Although they suffer, they may not forswear + The patient ardor of the unpursued. + + Poor flesh, to fight the calendar so long; + Poor vanity, so quaint and yet so brave; + Poor folly, so deceived and yet so strong, + So far from Ninon and so near the grave. + + + + +Siege Perilous + + + + Long warned of many terrors more severe + To scorch him than hell's engines could awaken, + He scanned again, too far to be so near, + The fearful seat no man had ever taken. + + So many other men with older eyes + Than his to see with older sight behind them + Had known so long their one way to be wise,-- + Was any other thing to do than mind them? + + So many a blasting parallel had seared + Confusion on his faith,--could he but wonder + If he were mad and right, or if he feared + God's fury told in shafted flame and thunder? + + There fell one day upon his eyes a light + Ethereal, and he heard no more men speaking; + He saw their shaken heads, but no long sight + Was his but for the end that he went seeking. + + The end he sought was not the end; the crown + He won shall unto many still be given. + Moreover, there was reason here to frown: + No fury thundered, no flame fell from heaven. + + + + +Another Dark Lady + + + + Think not, because I wonder where you fled, + That I would lift a pin to see you there; + You may, for me, be prowling anywhere, + So long as you show not your little head: + No dark and evil story of the dead + Would leave you less pernicious or less fair-- + Not even Lilith, with her famous hair; + And Lilith was the devil, I have read. + I cannot hate you, for I loved you then. + The woods were golden then. There was a road + Through beeches; and I said their smooth feet showed + Like yours. Truth must have heard me from afar, + For I shall never have to learn again + That yours are cloven as no beech's are. + + + + +The Voice of Age + + + + She'd look upon us, if she could, + As hard as Rhadamanthus would; + Yet one may see,--who sees her face, + Her crown of silver and of lace, + Her mystical serene address + Of age alloyed with loveliness,-- + That she would not annihilate + The frailest of things animate. + + She has opinions of our ways, + And if we're not all mad, she says,-- + If our ways are not wholly worse + Than others, for not being hers,-- + There might somehow be found a few + Less insane things for us to do, + And we might have a little heed + Of what Belshazzar couldn't read. + + She feels, with all our furniture, + Room yet for something more secure + Than our self-kindled aureoles + To guide our poor forgotten souls; + But when we have explained that grace + Dwells now in doing for the race, + She nods--as if she were relieved; + Almost as if she were deceived. + + She frowns at much of what she hears, + And shakes her head, and has her fears; + Though none may know, by any chance, + What rose-leaf ashes of romance + Are faintly stirred by later days + That would be well enough, she says, + If only people were more wise, + And grown-up children used their eyes. + + + + +The Dark House + + + + Where a faint light shines alone, + Dwells a Demon I have known. + Most of you had better say + "The Dark House", and go your way. + Do not wonder if I stay. + + For I know the Demon's eyes, + And their lure that never dies. + Banish all your fond alarms, + For I know the foiling charms + Of her eyes and of her arms, + + And I know that in one room + Burns a lamp as in a tomb; + And I see the shadow glide, + Back and forth, of one denied + Power to find himself outside. + + There he is who is my friend, + Damned, he fancies, to the end-- + Vanquished, ever since a door + Closed, he thought, for evermore + On the life that was before. + + And the friend who knows him best + Sees him as he sees the rest + Who are striving to be wise + While a Demon's arms and eyes + Hold them as a web would flies. + + All the words of all the world, + Aimed together and then hurled, + Would be stiller in his ears + Than a closing of still shears + On a thread made out of years. + + But there lives another sound, + More compelling, more profound; + There's a music, so it seems, + That assuages and redeems, + More than reason, more than dreams. + + There's a music yet unheard + By the creature of the word, + Though it matters little more + Than a wave-wash on a shore-- + Till a Demon shuts a door. + + So, if he be very still + With his Demon, and one will, + Murmurs of it may be blown + To my friend who is alone + In a room that I have known. + + After that from everywhere + Singing life will find him there; + Then the door will open wide, + And my friend, again outside, + Will be living, having died. + + + + +The Poor Relation + + + + No longer torn by what she knows + And sees within the eyes of others, + Her doubts are when the daylight goes, + Her fears are for the few she bothers. + She tells them it is wholly wrong + Of her to stay alive so long; + And when she smiles her forehead shows + A crinkle that had been her mother's. + + Beneath her beauty, blanched with pain, + And wistful yet for being cheated, + A child would seem to ask again + A question many times repeated; + But no rebellion has betrayed + Her wonder at what she has paid + For memories that have no stain, + For triumph born to be defeated. + + To those who come for what she was-- + The few left who know where to find her-- + She clings, for they are all she has; + And she may smile when they remind her, + As heretofore, of what they know + Of roses that are still to blow + By ways where not so much as grass + Remains of what she sees behind her. + + They stay a while, and having done + What penance or the past requires, + They go, and leave her there alone + To count her chimneys and her spires. + Her lip shakes when they go away, + And yet she would not have them stay; + She knows as well as anyone + That Pity, having played, soon tires. + + But one friend always reappears, + A good ghost, not to be forsaken; + Whereat she laughs and has no fears + Of what a ghost may reawaken, + But welcomes, while she wears and mends + The poor relation's odds and ends, + Her truant from a tomb of years-- + Her power of youth so early taken. + + Poor laugh, more slender than her song + It seems; and there are none to hear it + With even the stopped ears of the strong + For breaking heart or broken spirit. + The friends who clamored for her place, + And would have scratched her for her face, + Have lost her laughter for so long + That none would care enough to fear it. + + None live who need fear anything + From her, whose losses are their pleasure; + The plover with a wounded wing + Stays not the flight that others measure; + So there she waits, and while she lives, + And death forgets, and faith forgives, + Her memories go foraging + For bits of childhood song they treasure. + + And like a giant harp that hums + On always, and is always blending + The coming of what never comes + With what has past and had an ending, + The City trembles, throbs, and pounds + Outside, and through a thousand sounds + The small intolerable drums + Of Time are like slow drops descending. + + Bereft enough to shame a sage + And given little to long sighing, + With no illusion to assuage + The lonely changelessness of dying,-- + Unsought, unthought-of, and unheard, + She sings and watches like a bird, + Safe in a comfortable cage + From which there will be no more flying. + + + + +The Burning Book + + Or the Contented Metaphysician + + + + To the lore of no manner of men + Would his vision have yielded + When he found what will never again + From his vision be shielded,-- + Though he paid with as much of his life + As a nun could have given, + And to-night would have been as a knife, + Devil-drawn, devil-driven. + + For to-night, with his flame-weary eyes + On the work he is doing, + He considers the tinder that flies + And the quick flame pursuing. + In the leaves that are crinkled and curled + Are his ashes of glory, + And what once were an end of the world + Is an end of a story. + + But he smiles, for no more shall his days + Be a toil and a calling + For a way to make others to gaze + On God's face without falling. + He has come to the end of his words, + And alone he rejoices + In the choiring that silence affords + Of ineffable voices. + + To a realm that his words may not reach + He may lead none to find him; + An adept, and with nothing to teach, + He leaves nothing behind him. + For the rest, he will have his release, + And his embers, attended + By the large and unclamoring peace + Of a dream that is ended. + + + + +Fragment + + + + Faint white pillars that seem to fade + As you look from here are the first one sees + Of his house where it hides and dies in a shade + Of beeches and oaks and hickory trees. + Now many a man, given woods like these, + And a house like that, and the Briony gold, + Would have said, "There are still some gods to please, + And houses are built without hands, we're told." + + There are the pillars, and all gone gray. + Briony's hair went white. You may see + Where the garden was if you come this way. + That sun-dial scared him, he said to me; + "Sooner or later they strike," said he, + And he never got that from the books he read. + Others are flourishing, worse than he, + But he knew too much for the life he led. + + And who knows all knows everything + That a patient ghost at last retrieves; + There's more to be known of his harvesting + When Time the thresher unbinds the sheaves; + And there's more to be heard than a wind that grieves + For Briony now in this ageless oak, + Driving the first of its withered leaves + Over the stones where the fountain broke. + + + + +Lisette and Eileen + + + + "When he was here alive, Eileen, + There was a word you might have said; + So never mind what I have been, + Or anything,--for you are dead. + + "And after this when I am there + Where he is, you'll be dying still. + Your eyes are dead, and your black hair,-- + The rest of you be what it will. + + "'Twas all to save him? Never mind, + Eileen. You saved him. You are strong. + I'd hardly wonder if your kind + Paid everything, for you live long. + + "You last, I mean. That's what I mean. + I mean you last as long as lies. + You might have said that word, Eileen,-- + And you might have your hair and eyes. + + "And what you see might be Lisette, + Instead of this that has no name. + Your silence--I can feel it yet, + Alive and in me, like a flame. + + "Where might I be with him to-day, + Could he have known before he heard? + But no--your silence had its way, + Without a weapon or a word. + + "Because a word was never told, + I'm going as a worn toy goes. + And you are dead; and you'll be old; + And I forgive you, I suppose. + + "I'll soon be changing as all do, + To something we have always been; + And you'll be old... He liked you, too. + I might have killed you then, Eileen. + + "I think he liked as much of you + As had a reason to be seen,-- + As much as God made black and blue. + He liked your hair and eyes, Eileen." + + + + +Llewellyn and the Tree + + + + Could he have made Priscilla share + The paradise that he had planned, + Llewellyn would have loved his wife + As well as any in the land. + + Could he have made Priscilla cease + To goad him for what God left out, + Llewellyn would have been as mild + As any we have read about. + + Could all have been as all was not, + Llewellyn would have had no story; + He would have stayed a quiet man + And gone his quiet way to glory. + + But howsoever mild he was + Priscilla was implacable; + And whatsoever timid hopes + He built--she found them, and they fell. + + And this went on, with intervals + Of labored harmony between + Resounding discords, till at last + Llewellyn turned--as will be seen. + + Priscilla, warmer than her name, + And shriller than the sound of saws, + Pursued Llewellyn once too far, + Not knowing quite the man he was. + + The more she said, the fiercer clung + The stinging garment of his wrath; + And this was all before the day + When Time tossed roses in his path. + + Before the roses ever came + Llewellyn had already risen. + The roses may have ruined him, + They may have kept him out of prison. + + And she who brought them, being Fate, + Made roses do the work of spears,-- + Though many made no more of her + Than civet, coral, rouge, and years. + + You ask us what Llewellyn saw, + But why ask what may not be given? + To some will come a time when change + Itself is beauty, if not heaven. + + One afternoon Priscilla spoke, + And her shrill history was done; + At any rate, she never spoke + Like that again to anyone. + + One gold October afternoon + Great fury smote the silent air; + And then Llewellyn leapt and fled + Like one with hornets in his hair. + + Llewellyn left us, and he said + Forever, leaving few to doubt him; + And so, through frost and clicking leaves, + The Tilbury way went on without him. + + And slowly, through the Tilbury mist, + The stillness of October gold + Went out like beauty from a face. + Priscilla watched it, and grew old. + + He fled, still clutching in his flight + The roses that had been his fall; + The Scarlet One, as you surmise, + Fled with him, coral, rouge, and all. + + Priscilla, waiting, saw the change + Of twenty slow October moons; + And then she vanished, in her turn + To be forgotten, like old tunes. + + So they were gone--all three of them, + I should have said, and said no more, + Had not a face once on Broadway + Been one that I had seen before. + + The face and hands and hair were old, + But neither time nor penury + Could quench within Llewellyn's eyes + The shine of his one victory. + + The roses, faded and gone by, + Left ruin where they once had reigned; + But on the wreck, as on old shells, + The color of the rose remained. + + His fictive merchandise I bought + For him to keep and show again, + Then led him slowly from the crush + Of his cold-shouldered fellow men. + + "And so, Llewellyn," I began-- + "Not so," he said; "not so, at all: + I've tried the world, and found it good, + For more than twenty years this fall. + + "And what the world has left of me + Will go now in a little while." + And what the world had left of him + Was partly an unholy guile. + + "That I have paid for being calm + Is what you see, if you have eyes; + For let a man be calm too long, + He pays for much before he dies. + + "Be calm when you are growing old + And you have nothing else to do; + Pour not the wine of life too thin + If water means the death of you. + + "You say I might have learned at home + The truth in season to be strong? + Not so; I took the wine of life + Too thin, and I was calm too long. + + "Like others who are strong too late, + For me there was no going back; + For I had found another speed, + And I was on the other track. + + "God knows how far I might have gone + Or what there might have been to see; + But my speed had a sudden end, + And here you have the end of me." + + The end or not, it may be now + But little farther from the truth + To say those worn satiric eyes + Had something of immortal youth. + + He may among the millions here + Be one; or he may, quite as well, + Be gone to find again the Tree + Of Knowledge, out of which he fell. + + He may be near us, dreaming yet + Of unrepented rouge and coral; + Or in a grave without a name + May be as far off as a moral. + + + + +Bewick Finzer + + + + Time was when his half million drew + The breath of six per cent; + But soon the worm of what-was-not + Fed hard on his content; + And something crumbled in his brain + When his half million went. + + Time passed, and filled along with his + The place of many more; + Time came, and hardly one of us + Had credence to restore, + From what appeared one day, the man + Whom we had known before. + + The broken voice, the withered neck, + The coat worn out with care, + The cleanliness of indigence, + The brilliance of despair, + The fond imponderable dreams + Of affluence,--all were there. + + Poor Finzer, with his dreams and schemes, + Fares hard now in the race, + With heart and eye that have a task + When he looks in the face + Of one who might so easily + Have been in Finzer's place. + + He comes unfailing for the loan + We give and then forget; + He comes, and probably for years + Will he be coming yet,-- + Familiar as an old mistake, + And futile as regret. + + + + +Bokardo + + + + Well, Bokardo, here we are; + Make yourself at home. + Look around--you haven't far + To look--and why be dumb? + Not the place that used to be, + Not so many things to see; + But there's room for you and me. + And you--you've come. + + Talk a little; or, if not, + Show me with a sign + Why it was that you forgot + What was yours and mine. + Friends, I gather, are small things + In an age when coins are kings; + Even at that, one hardly flings + Friends before swine. + + Rather strong? I knew as much, + For it made you speak. + No offense to swine, as such, + But why this hide-and-seek? + You have something on your side, + And you wish you might have died, + So you tell me. And you tried + One night last week? + + You tried hard? And even then + Found a time to pause? + When you try as hard again, + You'll have another cause. + When you find yourself at odds + With all dreamers of all gods, + You may smite yourself with rods-- + But not the laws. + + Though they seem to show a spite + Rather devilish, + They move on as with a might + Stronger than your wish. + Still, however strong they be, + They bide man's authority: + Xerxes, when he flogged the sea, + May've scared a fish. + + It's a comfort, if you like, + To keep honor warm, + But as often as you strike + The laws, you do no harm. + To the laws, I mean. To you-- + That's another point of view, + One you may as well indue + With some alarm. + + Not the most heroic face + To present, I grant; + Nor will you insure disgrace + By fearing what you want. + Freedom has a world of sides, + And if reason once derides + Courage, then your courage hides + A deal of cant. + + Learn a little to forget + Life was once a feast; + You aren't fit for dying yet, + So don't be a beast. + Few men with a mind will say, + Thinking twice, that they can pay + Half their debts of yesterday, + Or be released. + + There's a debt now on your mind + More than any gold? + And there's nothing you can find + Out there in the cold? + Only--what's his name?--Remorse? + And Death riding on his horse? + Well, be glad there's nothing worse + Than you have told. + + Leave Remorse to warm his hands + Outside in the rain. + As for Death, he understands, + And he will come again. + Therefore, till your wits are clear, + Flourish and be quiet--here. + But a devil at each ear + Will be a strain? + + Past a doubt they will indeed, + More than you have earned. + I say that because you need + Ablution, being burned? + Well, if you must have it so, + Your last flight went rather low. + Better say you had to know + What you have learned. + + And that's over. Here you are, + Battered by the past. + Time will have his little scar, + But the wound won't last. + Nor shall harrowing surprise + Find a world without its eyes + If a star fades when the skies + Are overcast. + + God knows there are lives enough, + Crushed, and too far gone + Longer to make sermons of, + And those we leave alone. + Others, if they will, may rend + The worn patience of a friend + Who, though smiling, sees the end, + With nothing done. + + But your fervor to be free + Fled the faith it scorned; + Death demands a decency + Of you, and you are warned. + But for all we give we get + Mostly blows? Don't be upset; + You, Bokardo, are not yet + Consumed or mourned. + + There'll be falling into view + Much to rearrange; + And there'll be a time for you + To marvel at the change. + They that have the least to fear + Question hardest what is here; + When long-hidden skies are clear, + The stars look strange. + + + + +The Man against the Sky + + + + Between me and the sunset, like a dome + Against the glory of a world on fire, + Now burned a sudden hill, + Bleak, round, and high, by flame-lit height made higher, + With nothing on it for the flame to kill + Save one who moved and was alone up there + To loom before the chaos and the glare + As if he were the last god going home + Unto his last desire. + Dark, marvelous, and inscrutable he moved on + Till down the fiery distance he was gone,-- + Like one of those eternal, remote things + That range across a man's imaginings + When a sure music fills him and he knows + What he may say thereafter to few men,-- + The touch of ages having wrought + An echo and a glimpse of what he thought + A phantom or a legend until then; + For whether lighted over ways that save, + Or lured from all repose, + If he go on too far to find a grave, + Mostly alone he goes. + + Even he, who stood where I had found him, + On high with fire all round him,-- + Who moved along the molten west, + And over the round hill's crest + That seemed half ready with him to go down, + Flame-bitten and flame-cleft,-- + As if there were to be no last thing left + Of a nameless unimaginable town,-- + Even he who climbed and vanished may have taken + Down to the perils of a depth not known, + From death defended though by men forsaken, + The bread that every man must eat alone; + He may have walked while others hardly dared + Look on to see him stand where many fell; + And upward out of that, as out of hell, + He may have sung and striven + To mount where more of him shall yet be given, + Bereft of all retreat, + To sevenfold heat,-- + As on a day when three in Dura shared + The furnace, and were spared + For glory by that king of Babylon + Who made himself so great that God, who heard, + Covered him with long feathers, like a bird. + + Again, he may have gone down easily, + By comfortable altitudes, and found, + As always, underneath him solid ground + Whereon to be sufficient and to stand + Possessed already of the promised land, + Far stretched and fair to see: + A good sight, verily, + And one to make the eyes of her who bore him + Shine glad with hidden tears. + Why question of his ease of who before him, + In one place or another where they left + Their names as far behind them as their bones, + And yet by dint of slaughter toil and theft, + And shrewdly sharpened stones, + Carved hard the way for his ascendency + Through deserts of lost years? + Why trouble him now who sees and hears + No more than what his innocence requires, + And therefore to no other height aspires + Than one at which he neither quails nor tires? + He may do more by seeing what he sees + Than others eager for iniquities; + He may, by seeing all things for the best, + Incite futurity to do the rest. + + Or with an even likelihood, + He may have met with atrabilious eyes + The fires of time on equal terms and passed + Indifferently down, until at last + His only kind of grandeur would have been, + Apparently, in being seen. + He may have had for evil or for good + No argument; he may have had no care + For what without himself went anywhere + To failure or to glory, and least of all + For such a stale, flamboyant miracle; + He may have been the prophet of an art + Immovable to old idolatries; + He may have been a player without a part, + Annoyed that even the sun should have the skies + For such a flaming way to advertise; + He may have been a painter sick at heart + With Nature's toiling for a new surprise; + He may have been a cynic, who now, for all + Of anything divine that his effete + Negation may have tasted, + Saw truth in his own image, rather small, + Forbore to fever the ephemeral, + Found any barren height a good retreat + From any swarming street, + And in the sun saw power superbly wasted; + And when the primitive old-fashioned stars + Came out again to shine on joys and wars + More primitive, and all arrayed for doom, + He may have proved a world a sorry thing + In his imagining, + And life a lighted highway to the tomb. + + Or, mounting with infirm unsearching tread, + His hopes to chaos led, + He may have stumbled up there from the past, + And with an aching strangeness viewed the last + Abysmal conflagration of his dreams,-- + A flame where nothing seems + To burn but flame itself, by nothing fed; + And while it all went out, + Not even the faint anodyne of doubt + May then have eased a painful going down + From pictured heights of power and lost renown, + Revealed at length to his outlived endeavor + Remote and unapproachable forever; + And at his heart there may have gnawed + Sick memories of a dead faith foiled and flawed + And long dishonored by the living death + Assigned alike by chance + To brutes and hierophants; + And anguish fallen on those he loved around him + May once have dealt the last blow to confound him, + And so have left him as death leaves a child, + Who sees it all too near; + And he who knows no young way to forget + May struggle to the tomb unreconciled. + Whatever suns may rise or set + There may be nothing kinder for him here + Than shafts and agonies; + And under these + He may cry out and stay on horribly; + Or, seeing in death too small a thing to fear, + He may go forward like a stoic Roman + Where pangs and terrors in his pathway lie,-- + Or, seizing the swift logic of a woman, + Curse God and die. + + Or maybe there, like many another one + Who might have stood aloft and looked ahead, + Black-drawn against wild red, + He may have built, unawed by fiery gules + That in him no commotion stirred, + A living reason out of molecules + Why molecules occurred, + And one for smiling when he might have sighed + Had he seen far enough, + And in the same inevitable stuff + Discovered an odd reason too for pride + In being what he must have been by laws + Infrangible and for no kind of cause. + Deterred by no confusion or surprise + He may have seen with his mechanic eyes + A world without a meaning, and had room, + Alone amid magnificence and doom, + To build himself an airy monument + That should, or fail him in his vague intent, + Outlast an accidental universe-- + To call it nothing worse-- + Or, by the burrowing guile + Of Time disintegrated and effaced, + Like once-remembered mighty trees go down + To ruin, of which by man may now be traced + No part sufficient even to be rotten, + And in the book of things that are forgotten + Is entered as a thing not quite worth while. + He may have been so great + That satraps would have shivered at his frown, + And all he prized alive may rule a state + No larger than a grave that holds a clown; + He may have been a master of his fate, + And of his atoms,--ready as another + In his emergence to exonerate + His father and his mother; + He may have been a captain of a host, + Self-eloquent and ripe for prodigies, + Doomed here to swell by dangerous degrees, + And then give up the ghost. + Nahum's great grasshoppers were such as these, + Sun-scattered and soon lost. + + Whatever the dark road he may have taken, + This man who stood on high + And faced alone the sky, + Whatever drove or lured or guided him,-- + A vision answering a faith unshaken, + An easy trust assumed of easy trials, + A sick negation born of weak denials, + A crazed abhorrence of an old condition, + A blind attendance on a brief ambition,-- + Whatever stayed him or derided him, + His way was even as ours; + And we, with all our wounds and all our powers, + Must each await alone at his own height + Another darkness or another light; + And there, of our poor self dominion reft, + If inference and reason shun + Hell, Heaven, and Oblivion, + May thwarted will (perforce precarious, + But for our conservation better thus) + Have no misgiving left + Of doing yet what here we leave undone? + Or if unto the last of these we cleave, + Believing or protesting we believe + In such an idle and ephemeral + Florescence of the diabolical,-- + If, robbed of two fond old enormities, + Our being had no onward auguries, + What then were this great love of ours to say + For launching other lives to voyage again + A little farther into time and pain, + A little faster in a futile chase + For a kingdom and a power and a Race + That would have still in sight + A manifest end of ashes and eternal night? + Is this the music of the toys we shake + So loud,--as if there might be no mistake + Somewhere in our indomitable will? + Are we no greater than the noise we make + Along one blind atomic pilgrimage + Whereon by crass chance billeted we go + Because our brains and bones and cartilage + Will have it so? + If this we say, then let us all be still + About our share in it, and live and die + More quietly thereby. + + Where was he going, this man against the sky? + You know not, nor do I. + But this we know, if we know anything: + That we may laugh and fight and sing + And of our transience here make offering + To an orient Word that will not be erased, + Or, save in incommunicable gleams + Too permanent for dreams, + Be found or known. + No tonic and ambitious irritant + Of increase or of want + Has made an otherwise insensate waste + Of ages overthrown + A ruthless, veiled, implacable foretaste + Of other ages that are still to be + Depleted and rewarded variously + Because a few, by fate's economy, + Shall seem to move the world the way it goes; + No soft evangel of equality, + Safe cradled in a communal repose + That huddles into death and may at last + Be covered well with equatorial snows-- + And all for what, the devil only knows-- + Will aggregate an inkling to confirm + The credit of a sage or of a worm, + Or tell us why one man in five + Should have a care to stay alive + While in his heart he feels no violence + Laid on his humor and intelligence + When infant Science makes a pleasant face + And waves again that hollow toy, the Race; + No planetary trap where souls are wrought + For nothing but the sake of being caught + And sent again to nothing will attune + Itself to any key of any reason + Why man should hunger through another season + To find out why 'twere better late than soon + To go away and let the sun and moon + And all the silly stars illuminate + A place for creeping things, + And those that root and trumpet and have wings, + And herd and ruminate, + Or dive and flash and poise in rivers and seas, + Or by their loyal tails in lofty trees + Hang screeching lewd victorious derision + Of man's immortal vision. + + Shall we, because Eternity records + Too vast an answer for the time-born words + We spell, whereof so many are dead that once + In our capricious lexicons + Were so alive and final, hear no more + The Word itself, the living word no man + Has ever spelt, + And few have ever felt + Without the fears and old surrenderings + And terrors that began + When Death let fall a feather from his wings + And humbled the first man? + Because the weight of our humility, + Wherefrom we gain + A little wisdom and much pain, + Falls here too sore and there too tedious, + Are we in anguish or complacency, + Not looking far enough ahead + To see by what mad couriers we are led + Along the roads of the ridiculous, + To pity ourselves and laugh at faith + And while we curse life bear it? + And if we see the soul's dead end in death, + Are we to fear it? + What folly is here that has not yet a name + Unless we say outright that we are liars? + What have we seen beyond our sunset fires + That lights again the way by which we came? + Why pay we such a price, and one we give + So clamoringly, for each racked empty day + That leads one more last human hope away, + As quiet fiends would lead past our crazed eyes + Our children to an unseen sacrifice? + If after all that we have lived and thought, + All comes to Nought,-- + If there be nothing after Now, + And we be nothing anyhow, + And we know that,--why live? + 'Twere sure but weaklings' vain distress + To suffer dungeons where so many doors + Will open on the cold eternal shores + That look sheer down + To the dark tideless floods of Nothingness + Where all who know may drown. + +[End of text.] + +From the original advertisements: + +By the same author + + +Captain Craig, A Book of Poems + + Revised edition with additional poems, 12mo, cloth, $1.25 + + + +"There are few poets writing in English to-day whose work is so +permeated by individual charm as is Mr. Robinson's. Always one feels the +presence of a man behind the poet--a man who knows life and people and +things and writes of them clearly, with a subtle poetic insight that is +not visible in the work of any other living writer."--'Brooklyn Daily +Eagle'. + +"The 'Book of Annandale', a splendid poem included in this collection, +is one of the most moving emotional narratives found in modern poetry." +--'Review of Reviews'. + +"... His handling of Greek themes reveals him as a lyrical poet of +inimitable charm and skill."--'Reedy's Mirror'. + +"A poem that must endure; if things that deserve long life get it."-- +'N. Y. Evening Sun'. + +"Wherever you hear people who know speak of American poets... they +assume that you take the genius and place of Edwin Arlington Robinson as +granted.... A man with something to say that has value and beauty. +His thought is deep and his ideas are high and stimulating."--'Boston +Transcript'. + + + + +By the same author-------------- + +The Porcupine: A Drama in Three Acts + +Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 + + + +Edwin Arlington Robinson's comedy "Van Zorn" proved him to be one of the +most accomplished of the younger generation of American dramatists. Of +this play the 'Boston Transcript' said, "It is an effective presentation +of modern life in New York City, in which a poet shows his skill of +playwrighting... he brings to the American drama to-day a thing it +sadly lacks, and that is character." In manner and technique Mr. +Robinson's new play, "The Porcupine", recalls some of the work of Ibsen. +Written adroitly and with the literary cleverness exhibited in "Van +Zorn", it tells a story of a domestic entanglement in a dramatic fashion +well calculated to hold the reader's attention. + +"Contains all of the qualities that are said to be conspicuously lacking +in American Drama."--'N. Y. Evening Sun'. + + + + +Van Zorn: A Comedy in Three Acts + +Cloth, 12mo, $1.25 + + + +Mr. Robinson is known as the leader of present-day American poets. In +this delightful play he tells with a biting humor the story of the +salvation of a soul. By clever arrangement of incident and skillful +characterization he arouses strongly the reader's curiosity, and the +suspense is admirably sustained. The dialogue is bright, and the +construction of the plot shows the work of one well versed in the +technique of the drama. + + + + + +Notes on the etext: + + + + John Gorham: + + Catches him and let's him go and eats him up for fun."-- + changed to: + Catches him and lets him go and eats him up for fun."-- + + + Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford: + + Whatever there be, they'll be no more of that; + not changed, but noted as possibly incorrect--should it be?: + Whatever there be, there'll be no more of that; + + Then are as yet a picture in our vision. + changed to: + Than are as yet a picture in our vision. + + + + + +About the author: Edwin Arlington Robinson, 1869-1935. + + + +From the Biographical Notes of "The Second Book of Modern Verse" (1919, +1920), edited by Jessie B. Rittenhouse: + +Robinson, Edwin Arlington. Born at Head Tide, Maine, Dec. 22, 1869. +Educated at Harvard University. Mr. Robinson is a psychological poet of +great subtlety; his poems are usually studies of types and he has given +us a remarkable series of portraits. He is recognized as one of the +finest and most distinguished poets of our time. His successive volumes +are: "Children of the Night", 1897; "Captain Craig", 1902; "The Town +Down the River", 1910; "The Man against the Sky", 1916; "Merlin", 1917; +and "Launcelot", 1920. The last-named volume was awarded a prize of five +hundred dollars, given by The Lyric Society for the best book manuscript +offered to it in 1919. In addition to his work in poetry, Mr. Robinson +has written two prose plays, "Van Zorn", and "The Porcupine". + + + +In "American Poetry Since 1900", Louis Untermeyer notes, "his name was +known only to a few of the literati until Theodore Roosevelt... +acclaimed and aided him." Rittenhouse's Biographical Notes (above +quoted) contain this entry immediately before Edwin Arlington +Robinson's: "Robinson, Corinne Roosevelt.... Mrs. Robinson, who is a +sister to Col. Theodore Roosevelt,... has written several volumes of +verse...." It is always interesting to see the coincidence of events +in history, and it is worth asking if this was not even a causal +relationship.--A. L. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man Against the Sky, by +Edwin Arlington Robinson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN AGAINST THE SKY *** + +***** This file should be named 1035.txt or 1035.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/1035/ + +Produced by Alan R. Light, and Gary M. Johnson + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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