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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Chimneysmoke, by Christopher Morley
+
+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: Chimneysmoke
+
+Author: Christopher Morley
+
+Illustrator: Thomas Fogarty
+
+Release Date: October 26, 2011 [EBook #37852]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHIMNEYSMOKE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Steven Brown and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+  Transcribers Notes:
+
+  Bold faced text shown as: =abcde=
+  Italics text shown as: _abcde_
+  Unusual fonts shown as: _abcde_
+
+  [Illustrations:] have been moved to end of poem in all cases.
+
+  There are two instances of Greek in the text - π has been used.
+
+
+  *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: Cover Page]
+
+
+
+
+  _Chimneysmoke_
+
+
+  [Illustration: Chimneysmoke]
+
+
+
+
+  _By Christopher Morley_
+
+
+  CHIMNEYSMOKE
+  HIDE AND SEEK
+  THE ROCKING HORSE
+  SONGS FOR A LITTLE HOUSE
+  MINCE PIE
+
+
+  _New York: George H. Doran Company_
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _This hearth was built for thy delight,_
+  _For thee the logs were sawn,_
+  _For thee the largest chair, at night,_
+  _Is to the chimney drawn._
+
+  _For thee, dear lass, the match was lit,_
+  _To yield the ruddy blaze--_
+  _May Jack Frost give us joy of it_
+  _For many, many days._]
+
+
+
+
+  =_Chimneysmoke_=
+
+  _by_
+
+  _Christopher Morley_
+
+
+  [Illustration: Fireside Chair]
+
+
+  _Illustrated by_
+  _Thomas Fogarty_
+
+
+  _Garden City New York_
+  _Doubleday, Page & Co._
+  _1927_
+
+
+
+
+    COPYRIGHT, 1917, 1919, 1920, 1921
+    BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY.
+    ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN
+    THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY
+    LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y.
+
+
+
+
+  _"How can I turn from any fire_
+    _On any man's hearthstone?_
+  _I know the wonder and desire_
+    _That went to build my own."_
+
+
+  --RUDYARD KIPLING, "_The Fires_"
+
+
+
+
+  _Author's Note_
+
+There are a number of poems in this collection that have not previously
+appeared in book form. But, as a few readers may discern, many of the
+verses are reprinted from _Songs for a Little House_(1917),
+_The Rocking Horse_ (1919) and _Hide and Seek_ (1920). There is
+also one piece revived from the judicious obscurity of an early escapade,
+_The Eighth Sin_, published in Oxford in 1912. It is on Mr. Thomas
+Fogarty's delightful and sympathetic drawings that this book rests its
+real claim to be considered a new venture. To Mr. Fogarty, and to
+Mr. George H. Doran, whose constant kindness and generosity contradict
+all the traditions about publishers and minor poets, the author expresses
+his permanent gratitude.
+
+  _Roslyn, Long Island._
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: Boat on Lake]
+
+
+  _Contents_
+
+                                                                   PAGE
+
+  TO THE LITTLE HOUSE                                                19
+
+  A GRACE BEFORE WRITING                                             20
+
+  DEDICATION FOR A FIREPLACE                                         21
+
+  TAKING TITLE                                                       22
+
+  THE SECRET                                                         25
+
+  ONLY A MATTER OF TIME                                              26
+
+  AT THE MERMAID CAFETERIA                                           28
+
+  OUR HOUSE                                                          29
+
+  ON NAMING A HOUSE                                                  31
+
+  A HALLOWE'EN MEMORY                                                32
+
+  REFUSING YOU IMMORTALITY                                           35
+
+  BAYBERRY CANDLES                                                   36
+
+  SECRET LAUGHTER                                                    37
+
+  SIX WEEKS OLD                                                      38
+
+  A CHARM                                                            41
+
+  MY PIPE                                                            42
+
+  THE 5:42                                                           44
+
+  PETER PAN                                                          48
+
+  IN HONOR OF TAFFY TOPAZ                                            49
+
+  THE CEDAR CHEST                                                    50
+
+  READING ALOUD                                                      51
+
+  ANIMAL CRACKERS                                                    52
+
+  THE MILKMAN                                                        55
+
+  LIGHT VERSE                                                        56
+
+  THE FURNACE                                                        57
+
+  WASHING THE DISHES                                                 58
+
+  THE CHURCH OF UNBENT KNEES                                         61
+
+  ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY COAL-BIN                                62
+
+  THE OLD SWIMMER                                                    66
+
+  THE MOON-SHEEP                                                     70
+
+  SMELLS                                                             71
+
+  SMELLS (JUNIOR)                                                    72
+
+  MAR QUONG, CHINESE LAUNDRYMAN                                      75
+
+  THE FAT LITTLE PURSE                                               76
+
+  THE REFLECTION                                                     80
+
+  THE BALLOON PEDDLER                                                82
+
+  LINES FOR AN ECCENTRIC'S BOOK PLATE                                86
+
+  TO A POST-OFFICE INKWELL                                           89
+
+  THE CRIB                                                           90
+
+  THE POET                                                           94
+
+  TO A DISCARDED MIRROR                                              97
+
+  TO A CHILD                                                         98
+
+  TO A VERY YOUNG GENTLEMAN                                         100
+
+  TO AN OLD-FASHIONED POET                                          104
+
+  BURNING LEAVES IN SPRING                                          105
+
+  BURNING LEAVES, NOVEMBER                                          106
+
+  A VALENTINE GAME                                                  107
+
+  FOR A BIRTHDAY                                                    108
+
+  KEATS                                                             111
+
+  TO H. F. M., A SONNET IN SUNLIGHT                                 113
+
+  QUICKENING                                                        114
+
+  AT A WINDOW SILL                                                  115
+
+  THE RIVER OF LIGHT                                                116
+
+  OF HER GLORIOUS MADNESS                                           118
+
+  IN AN AUCTION ROOM                                                119
+
+  EPITAPH FOR A POET WHO WROTE NO POETRY                            120
+
+  SONNET BY A GEOMETER                                              121
+
+  TO A VAUDEVILLE TERRIER                                           122
+
+  TO AN OLD FRIEND                                                  125
+
+  TO A BURLESQUE SOUBRETTE                                          126
+
+  THOUGHTS WHILE PACKING A TRUNK                                    129
+
+  STREETS                                                           130
+
+  TO THE ONLY BEGETTER                                              131
+
+  PEDOMETER                                                         133
+
+  HOSTAGES                                                          134
+
+  ARS DURA                                                          137
+
+  O. HENRY--APOTHECARY                                              138
+
+  FOR THE CENTENARY OF KEATS'S SONNET                               139
+
+  TWO O'CLOCK                                                       140
+
+  THE COMMERCIAL TRAVELLER                                          141
+
+  THE WEDDED LOVER                                                  142
+
+  TO YOU, REMEMBERING THE PAST                                      143
+
+  CHARLES AND MARY                                                  144
+
+  TO A GRANDMOTHER                                                  145
+
+  DIARISTS                                                          146
+
+  THE LAST SONNET                                                   147
+
+  THE SAVAGE                                                        148
+
+  ST. PAUL'S AND WOOLWORTH                                          149
+
+  ADVICE TO A CITY                                                  150
+
+  THE TELEPHONE DIRECTORY                                           151
+
+  GREEN ESCAPE                                                      153
+
+  VESPER SONG FOR COMMUTERS                                         157
+
+  THE ICE WAGON                                                     158
+
+  AT A MOVIE THEATRE                                                161
+
+  SONNETS IN A LODGING HOUSE                                        163
+
+  THE MAN WITH THE HOE (PRESS)                                      167
+
+  DO YOU EVER FEEL LIKE GOD?                                        168
+
+  RAPID TRANSIT                                                     170
+
+  CAUGHT IN THE UNDERTOW                                            171
+
+  TO HIS BROWN-EYED MISTRESS                                        172
+
+  PEACE                                                             173
+
+  SONG, IN DEPRECATION OF PULCHRITUDE                               175
+
+  MOUNTED POLICE                                                    176
+
+  TO HIS MISTRESS, DEPLORING THAT HE IS
+  NOT AN ELIZABETHAN GALAXY                                         179
+
+  THE INTRUDER                                                      181
+
+  TIT FOR TAT                                                       182
+
+  SONG FOR A LITTLE HOUSE                                           185
+
+  THE PLUMPUPPETS                                                   186
+
+  DANDY DANDELION                                                   190
+
+  THE HIGH CHAIR                                                    192
+
+  LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT                                               193
+
+  AUTUMN COLORS                                                     197
+
+  THE LAST CRICKET                                                  198
+
+  TO LOUISE                                                         199
+
+  CHRISTMAS EVE                                                     203
+
+  EPITAPH ON THE PROOFREADER OF THE
+  ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA                                           204
+
+  THE MUSIC BOX                                                     205
+
+  TO LUATH                                                          209
+
+  THOUGHTS ON REACHING LAND                                         212
+
+  A SYMPOSIUM                                                       214
+
+  TO A TELEPHONE OPERATOR WHO HAS A
+  BAD COLD                                                          218
+
+  NURSERY RHYMES FOR THE TENDER-HEARTED                             219
+
+  THE TWINS                                                         227
+
+  A PRINTER'S MADRIGAL                                              228
+
+  THE POET ON THE HEARTH                                            230
+
+  O PRAISE ME NOT THE COUNTRY                                       231
+
+  A STONE IN ST. PAUL'S GRAVEYARD                                   235
+
+  THE MADONNA OF THE CURB                                           236
+
+  THE ISLAND                                                        240
+
+  SUNDAY NIGHT                                                      242
+
+  ENGLAND, JULY, 1913                                               246
+
+  CASUALTY                                                          250
+
+  A GRUB STREET RECESSIONAL                                         251
+
+  PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTIONS FOR A FUNERAL
+  SERVICE                                                           253
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: Girl on Stool]
+
+
+  _Illustrations_
+
+                                                                   PAGE
+
+  _This hearth was built for thy delight_--               _Frontispiece_
+
+  _And by a friend's bright gift of wine,_
+  _I dedicate this house of mine_                                    23
+
+  _And of all man's felicities_--                                    33
+
+  _A little world he feels and sees:_
+  _His mother's arms, his mother's knees_--                          39
+
+  _The 5:42_                                                         45
+
+  _And Daddy once said he would like to be me_
+  _Having cocoa and animals once more for tea!_                      53
+
+  _But heavy feeding complicates_
+  _The task by soiling many plates_                                  59
+
+  _How ill avail, on such a frosty night_                            63
+
+  _The old swimmer_                                                  67
+
+  _But Katie, the cook, is more splendid than all_--                 73
+
+  _Perhaps it's a ragged child crying_                               77
+
+  _The Balloon Peddler_                                              83
+
+  _If you appreciate it more_
+  _Than I--why don't return it!_                                     87
+
+  _And then one night_--                                             91
+
+  _The human cadence and the subtle chime_
+  _Of little laughters_--                                            95
+
+  _What years of youthful ills and pangs and bumps_--               101
+
+  _A Birthday_                                                      109
+
+  _You must be rigid servant of your art!_                          123
+
+  _You came, and impudent and deuce-may-care_
+  _Danced where the gutter flamed with footlight fire_              127
+
+  _Hostages_                                                        135
+
+  _My eyes still pine for the comely line_
+  _Of an outbound vessel's hull_                                    155
+
+  _A man ain't so secretive, never cares_
+  _What kind of private papers he leaves lay_--                     165
+
+  _Mounted Police_                                                  177
+
+  _Courtesy_                                                        183
+
+  _The Plumpuppets_                                                 187
+
+  ... _It's hard to have to tell_
+  _How unresponsive I have found her_                               195
+
+  ... _When you see, this Great First Time,_
+  _Lit candles on a Christmas Tree!_                                201
+
+  _The music box_                                                   207
+
+  _Solugubrious_                                                    215
+
+  _In the midnight, like yourself,_
+  _I explore the pantry shelf!_                                     221
+
+  _The Twins_                                                       227
+
+  _O praise me not the country_                                     233
+
+  _The wail of sickly children_--                                   237
+
+  _Ah, does the butcher--heartless clown--_
+  _Beget that shadow on her brow?_                                  243
+
+
+
+
+  _Chimneysmoke_
+
+
+  [Illustration: Girl by Gate]
+
+
+
+
+  _=Chimneysmoke=_
+
+
+  TO THE LITTLE HOUSE
+
+
+  Dear little house, dear shabby street,
+  Dear books and beds and food to eat!
+  How feeble words are to express
+  The facets of your tenderness.
+
+  How white the sun comes through the pane!
+  In tinkling music drips the rain!
+  How burning bright the furnace glows!
+  What paths to shovel when it snows!
+
+  O dearly loved Long Island trains!
+  O well remembered joys and pains....
+  How near the housetops Beauty leans
+  Along that little street in Queens!
+
+  Let these poor rhymes abide for proof
+  Joy dwells beneath a humble roof;
+  Heaven is not built of country seats
+  But little queer suburban streets!
+
+    March, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+  A GRACE BEFORE WRITING
+
+
+  This is a sacrament, I think!
+    Holding the bottle toward the light,
+  As blue as lupin gleams the ink;
+    May Truth be with me as I write!
+
+  That small dark cistern may afford
+    Reunion with some vanished friend,--
+  And with this ink I have just poured
+    May none but honest words be penned!
+
+
+
+
+  DEDICATION FOR A FIREPLACE
+
+
+  This hearth was built for thy delight,
+    For thee the logs were sawn,
+  For thee the largest chair, at night,
+    Is to the chimney drawn.
+
+  For thee, dear lass, the match was lit
+    To yield the ruddy blaze--
+  May Jack Frost give us joy of it
+    For many, many days.
+
+
+
+
+  TAKING TITLE
+
+
+  To make this house my very own
+  Could not be done by law alone.
+  Though covenant and deed convey
+  Absolute fee, as lawyers say,
+  There are domestic rites beside
+  By which this house is sanctified.
+
+  By kindled fire upon the hearth,
+  By planted pansies in the garth,
+  By food, and by the quiet rest
+  Of those brown eyes that I love best,
+  And by a friend's bright gift of wine,
+  I dedicate this house of mine.
+
+  When all but I are soft abed
+  I trail about my quiet stead
+  A wreath of blue tobacco smoke
+  (A charm that evil never broke)
+  And bring my ritual to an end
+  By giving shelter to a friend.
+
+  These done, O dwelling, you become
+  Not just a house, but truly Home!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _And by a friend's bright gift of wine,_
+  _I dedicate this house of mine_]
+
+
+
+
+  THE SECRET
+
+
+  It was the House of Quietness
+    To which I came at dusk;
+  The garth was lit with roses
+    And heavy with their musk.
+
+  The tremulous tall poplar trees
+    Stood whispering around,
+  The gentle flicker of their plumes
+    More quiet than no sound.
+
+  And as I wondered at the door
+    What magic might be there,
+  The Lady of Sweet Silences
+    Came softly down the stair.
+
+
+
+
+  ONLY A MATTER OF TIME
+
+
+  Down-slipping Time, sweet, swift, and shallow stream,
+  Here, like a boulder, lies this afternoon
+  Across your eager flow. So you shall stay,
+  Deepened and dammed, to let me breathe and be.
+  Your troubled fluency, your running gleam
+  Shall pause, and circle idly, still and clear:
+  The while I lie and search your glassy pool
+  Where, gently coiling in their lazy round,
+  Unseparable minutes drift and swim,
+  Eddy and rise and brim. And I will see
+  How many crystal bubbles of slack Time
+  The mind can hold and cherish in one _Now_!
+
+  Now, for one conscious vacancy of sense,
+  The stream is gathered in a deepening pond,
+  Not a mere moving mirror. Through the sharp
+  Correct reflection of the standing scene
+  The mind can dip, and cleanse itself with rest,
+  And see, slow spinning in the lucid gold,
+  Your liquid motes, imperishable Time.
+
+  It cannot be. The runnel slips away:
+  The clear smooth downward sluice begins again,
+  More brightly slanting for that trembling pause,
+  Leaving the sense its conscious vague unease
+  As when a sonnet flashes on the mind,
+  Trembles and burns an instant, and is gone.
+
+
+
+
+  AT THE MERMAID CAFETERIA
+
+
+  Truth is enough for prose:
+  Calmly it goes
+  To tell just what it knows.
+
+  For verse, skill will suffice--
+  Delicate, nice
+  Casting of verbal dice.
+
+  Poetry, men attain
+  By subtler pain
+  More flagrant in the brain--
+
+  An honesty unfeigned,
+  A heart unchained,
+  A madness well restrained.
+
+
+
+
+  OUR HOUSE
+
+
+  It should be yours, if I could build
+  The quaint old dwelling I desire,
+  With books and pictures bravely filled
+  And chairs beside an open fire,
+  White-panelled rooms with candles lit--
+  I lie awake to think of it!
+
+  A dial for the sunny hours,
+  A garden of old-fashioned flowers--
+  Say marigolds and lavender
+  And mignonette and fever-few,
+  And Judas-tree and maidenhair
+  And candytuft and thyme and rue--
+  All these for you to wander in.
+
+  A Chinese carp (called _Mandarin_)
+  Waving a sluggish silver fin
+  Deep in the moat: so tame he comes
+  To lip your fingers offering crumbs.
+  Tall chimneys, like long listening ears,
+  White shutters, ivy green and thick,
+  And walls of ruddy Tudor brick
+  Grown mellow with the passing years.
+
+  And windows with small leaded panes,
+  Broad window-seats for when it rains;
+  A big blue bowl of pot pourri
+  And--yes, a Spanish chestnut tree
+  To coin the autumn's minted gold.
+  A summer house for drinking tea--
+  All these (just think!) for you and me.
+
+  A staircase of the old black wood
+  Cut in the days of Robin Hood,
+  And banisters worn smooth as glass
+  Down which your hand will lightly pass;
+  A piano with pale yellow keys
+  For wistful twilight melodies,
+  And dusty bottles in a bin--
+  All these for you to revel in!
+
+  But when? Ah well, until that time
+  We'll habit in this house of rhyme.
+
+    1912
+
+
+
+
+  ON NAMING A HOUSE
+
+
+  When I a householder became
+    I had to give my house a name.
+
+  I thought I'd call it "Poplar Trees,"
+  Or "Widdershins" or "Velvet Bees,"
+    Or "Just Beneath a Star."
+  I thought of "House Where Plumbings Freeze,"
+  Or "As You Like it," "If You Please,"
+  Or "Nicotine" or "Bread and Cheese,"
+    "Full Moon" or "Doors Ajar."
+
+  But still I sought some subtle charm,
+  Some rune to guard my roof from harm
+    And keep the devil far;
+  I thought of this, and I was saved!
+  I had my letter-heads engraved
+    _The House Where Brown Eyes Are._
+
+
+
+
+  A HALLOWE'EN MEMORY
+
+
+  Do you remember, Heart's Desire,
+    The night when Hallowe'en first came?
+  The newly dedicated fire,
+    The hearth unsanctified by flame?
+
+  How anxiously we swept the bricks
+    (How tragic, were the draught not right!)
+  And then the blaze enwrapped the sticks
+    And filled the room with dancing light.
+
+  We could not speak, but only gaze,
+    Nor half believe what we had seen--
+  _Our_ home, _our_ hearth, _our_ golden blaze,
+    _Our_ cider mugs, _our_ Hallowe'en!
+
+  And then a thought occurred to me--
+    We ran outside with sudden shout
+  And looked up at the roof, to see
+    Our own dear smoke come drifting out.
+
+  And of all man's felicities
+    The very subtlest one, say I,
+  Is when, for the first time, he sees
+    His hearthfire smoke against the sky.
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _And of all man's felicities_
+    _The very subtlest one, say I,_
+  _Is when, for the first time, he sees_
+    _His hearthfire smoke against the sky._]
+
+
+
+
+  REFUSING YOU IMMORTALITY
+
+
+  If I should tell, unstinted,
+    Your beauty and your grace,
+  All future lads would whisper
+    Traditions of your face;
+  If I made public tumult
+    Your mirth, your queenly state,
+  Posterity would grumble
+    That it was born too late.
+
+  I will not frame your beauty
+    In bright undying phrase,
+  Nor blaze it as a legend
+    For unborn men to praise--
+  For why should future lovers
+    Be saddened and depressed?
+  Deluded, let them fancy
+    Their own girls loveliest!
+
+
+
+
+  BAYBERRY CANDLES
+
+
+  Dear sweet, when dusk comes up the hill,
+    The fire leaps high with golden prongs;
+  I place along the chimneysill
+    The tiny candles of my songs.
+
+  And though unsteadily they burn,
+    As evening shades from gray to blue
+  Like candles they will surely learn
+    To shine more clear, for love of you.
+
+
+
+
+  SECRET LAUGHTER
+
+
+  "I had a secret laughter."
+               --Walter de la Mare.
+
+
+  There is a secret laughter
+  That often comes to me,
+  And though I go about my work
+  As humble as can be,
+  There is no prince or prelate
+    I envy--no, not one.
+  No evil can befall me--
+    By God, I have a son!
+
+
+
+
+  SIX WEEKS OLD
+
+
+  He is so small, he does not know
+  The summer sun, the winter snow;
+  The spring that ebbs and comes again,
+  All this is far beyond his ken.
+
+  A little world he feels and sees:
+  His mother's arms, his mother's knees;
+  He hides his face against her breast,
+  And does not care to learn the rest.
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _A little world he feels and sees:_
+  _His mother's arms, his mother's knees_--]
+
+
+
+
+  A CHARM
+
+
+  For Our New Fireplace,
+    To Stop Its Smoking
+
+
+  O wood, burn bright; O flame, be quick;
+  O smoke, draw cleanly up the flue--
+  My lady chose your every brick
+  And sets her dearest hopes on you!
+
+  Logs cannot burn, nor tea be sweet,
+  Nor white bread turn to crispy toast,
+  Until the charm be made complete
+  By love, to lay the sooty ghost.
+
+  And then, dear books, dear waiting chairs,
+  Dear china and mahogany,
+  Draw close, for on the happy stairs
+  My brown-eyed girl comes down for tea!
+
+
+
+
+  MY PIPE
+
+
+  My pipe is old
+  And caked with soot;
+  My wife remarks:
+  "How can you put
+  That horrid relic,
+  So unclean,
+  Inside your mouth?
+  The nicotine
+  Is strong enough
+  To stupefy
+  A Swedish plumber."
+  I reply:
+
+  "This is the kind
+  Of pipe I like:
+  I fill it full
+  Of Happy Strike,
+  Or Barking Cat
+  Or Cabman's Puff,
+  Or Brooklyn Bridge
+  (That potent stuff)
+  Or Chaste Embraces,
+  Knacker's Twist,
+  Old Honeycomb
+  Or Niggerfist.
+
+  I clamp my teeth
+  Upon its stem--
+  It is my bliss,
+  My diadem.
+  Whatever Fate
+  May do to me,
+  This is my favorite
+   B
+  B B.
+  For this dear pipe
+  You feign to scorn
+  I smoked the night
+  The boy was born."
+
+
+
+
+  THE 5:42
+
+
+  Lilac, violet, and rose
+  Ardently the city glows;
+  Sunset glory, purely sweet,
+  Gilds the dreaming byway-street,
+  And, above the Avenue,
+  Winter dusk is deepening blue.
+
+   (Then, across Long Island meadows,
+    Darker, darker, grow the shadows:
+    Patience, little waiting lass!
+    Laggard minutes slowly pass;
+    Patience, laughs the yellow fire:
+    Homeward bound is heart's desire!)
+
+  Hark, adown the canyon street
+  Flows the merry tide of feet;
+  High the golden buildings loom
+  Blazing in the purple gloom;
+  All the town is set with stars,
+  _Homeward_ chant the Broadway cars!
+
+    All down Thirty-second Street
+    _Homeward, Homeward_, say the feet!
+    Tramping men, uncouth to view,
+    Footsore, weary, thrill anew;
+    Gone the ringing telephones,
+    Blessed nightfall now atones,
+    Casting brightness on the snow
+    Golden the train windows go.
+
+  Then (how long it seems) at last
+  All the way is overpast.
+  Heart that beats your muffled drum,
+  Lo, your venturer is come!
+  Wide the door! Leap high, O fire!
+  Home at length is heart's desire!
+  Gone is weariness and fret,
+  At the sill warm lips are met.
+  Once again may be renewed
+  The conjoined beatitude.
+
+
+  [Illustration: _The 5:42_]
+
+
+
+
+  PETER PAN
+
+
+  "The boy for whom Barrie wrote Peter Pan--the original of
+  Peter Pan--has died in battle."
+
+    --New York Times.
+
+
+  And Peter Pan is dead? Not so!
+  When mothers turn the lights down low
+  And tuck their little sons in bed,
+  They know that Peter is not dead....
+
+  That little rounded blanket-hill;
+  Those prayer-time eyes, so deep and still--
+  However wise and great a man
+  He grows, he still is Peter Pan.
+
+  And mothers' ways are often queer:
+  They pause in doorways, just to hear
+  A tiny breathing; think a prayer;
+  And then go tiptoe down the stair.
+
+
+
+
+  IN HONOR OF TAFFY TOPAZ
+
+
+  Taffy, the topaz-colored cat,
+  Thinks now of this and now of that,
+  But chiefly of his meals.
+  Asparagus, and cream, and fish,
+  Are objects of his Freudian wish;
+  What you don't give, he steals.
+
+  His gallant heart is strongly stirred
+  By clink of plate or flight of bird,
+  He has a plumy tail;
+  At night he treads on stealthy pad
+  As merry as Sir Galahad
+  A-seeking of the Grail.
+
+  His amiable amber eyes
+  Are very friendly, very wise;
+  Like Buddha, grave and fat,
+  He sits, regardless of applause,
+  And thinking, as he kneads his paws,
+  What fun to be a cat!
+
+
+
+
+  THE CEDAR CHEST
+
+
+  Her mind is like her cedar chest
+  Wherein in quietness do rest
+  The wistful dreamings of her heart
+  In fragrant folds all laid apart.
+
+  There, put away in sprigs of rhyme
+  Until her life's full blossom-time,
+  Flutter (like tremulous little birds)
+  Her small and sweet maternal words.
+
+
+
+
+  READING ALOUD
+
+
+  Once we read Tennyson aloud
+    In our great fireside chair;
+  Between the lines, my lips could touch
+    Her April-scented hair.
+
+  How very fond I was, to think
+    The printed poems fair,
+  When close within my arms I held
+    A living lyric there!
+
+
+
+
+  ANIMAL CRACKERS
+
+
+  Animal crackers, and cocoa to drink,
+  That is the finest of suppers, I think;
+  When I'm grown up and can have what I please
+  I think I shall always insist upon these.
+
+  What do _you_ choose when you're offered a treat?
+  When Mother says, "What would you like best to eat?"
+  Is it waffles and syrup, or cinnamon toast?
+  It's cocoa and animals that _I_ love most!
+
+  The kitchen's the cosiest place that I know:
+  The kettle is singing, the stove is aglow,
+  And there in the twilight, how jolly to see
+  The cocoa and animals waiting for me.
+
+  Daddy and Mother dine later in state,
+  With Mary to cook for them, Susan to wait;
+  But they don't have nearly as much fun as I
+  Who eat in the kitchen with Nurse standing by;
+  And Daddy once said, he would like to be me
+  Having cocoa and animals once more for tea!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _And Daddy once said he would like to be me_
+  _Having cocoa and animals once more for tea!_]
+
+
+
+
+  THE MILKMAN
+
+
+  Early in the morning, when the dawn is on the roofs,
+  You hear his wheels come rolling, you hear his horse's hoofs;
+  You hear the bottles clinking, and then he drives away:
+  You yawn in bed, turn over, and begin another day!
+
+  The old-time dairy maids are dear to every poet's heart--
+  I'd rather be the dairy _man_ and drive a little cart,
+  And bustle round the village in the early morning blue,
+  And hang my reins upon a hook, as I've seen Casey do.
+
+
+
+
+  LIGHT VERSE
+
+
+  At night the gas lamps light our street,
+    Electric bulbs our homes;
+  The gas is billed in cubic feet,
+    Electric light in ohms.
+
+  But one illumination still
+    Is brighter far, and sweeter;
+  It is not figured in a bill,
+    Nor measured by a meter.
+
+  More bright than lights that money buys,
+    More pleasing to discerners,
+  The shining lamps of Helen's eyes,
+    Those lovely double burners!
+
+
+
+
+  THE FURNACE
+
+
+  At night I opened
+    The furnace door:
+  The warm glow brightened
+    The cellar floor.
+
+  The fire that sparkled
+    Blue and red,
+  Kept small toes cosy
+    In their bed.
+
+  As up the stair
+    So late I stole,
+  I said my prayer:
+    _Thank God for coal!_
+
+
+
+
+  WASHING THE DISHES
+
+
+  When we on simple rations sup
+  How easy is the washing up!
+  But heavy feeding complicates
+  The task by soiling many plates.
+
+  And though I grant that I have prayed
+  That we might find a serving-maid,
+  I'd scullion all my days, I think,
+  To see Her smile across the sink!
+
+  I wash, She wipes. In water hot
+  I souse each dish and pan and pot;
+  While Taffy mutters, purrs, and begs,
+  And rubs himself against my legs.
+
+  The man who never in his life
+  Has washed the dishes with his wife
+  Or polished up the silver plate--
+  He still is largely celibate.
+
+  One warning: there is certain ware
+  That must be handled with all care:
+  The Lord Himself will give you up
+  If you should drop a willow cup!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _But heavy feeding complicates_
+  _The task by soiling many plates._]
+
+
+
+
+  THE CHURCH OF UNBENT KNEES
+
+
+  As I went by the church to-day
+    I heard the organ cry;
+  And goodly folk were on their knees,
+    But I went striding by.
+
+  My minster hath a roof more vast:
+    My aisles are oak trees high;
+  My altar-cloth is on the hills,
+    My organ is the sky.
+
+  I see my rood upon the clouds,
+    The winds, my chanted choir;
+  My crystal windows, heaven-glazed,
+    Are stained with sunset fire.
+
+  The stars, the thunder, and the rain,
+    White sands and purple seas--
+  These are His pulpit and His pew,
+    My God of Unbent Knees!
+
+
+
+
+  ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY COAL-BIN
+
+
+  The furnace tolls the knell of falling steam,
+    The coal supply is virtually done,
+  And at this price, indeed it does not seem
+    As though we could afford another ton.
+
+  Now fades the glossy, cherished anthracite;
+    The radiators lose their temperature:
+  How ill avail, on such a frosty night,
+    The "short and simple flannels of the poor."
+
+  Though in the icebox, fresh and newly laid,
+    The rude forefathers of the omelet sleep,
+  No eggs for breakfast till the bill is paid:
+    We cannot cook again till coal is cheap.
+
+  Can Morris-chair or papier-mâché bust
+    Revivify the failing pressure-gauge?
+  Chop up the grand piano if you must,
+    And burn the East Aurora parrot-cage!
+
+  Full many a can of purest kerosene
+    The dark unfathomed tanks of Standard Oil
+  Shall furnish me, and with their aid I mean
+    To bring my morning coffee to a boil.
+
+
+  [Illustration: _How ill avail, on such a frosty night_....]
+
+
+
+
+  THE OLD SWIMMER
+
+
+  I often wander on the beach
+  Where once, so brown of limb,
+  The biting air, the roaring surf
+  Summoned me to swim.
+
+  I see my old abundant youth
+  Where combers lean and spill,
+  And though I taste the foam no more
+  Other swimmers will.
+
+  Oh, good exultant strength to meet
+  The arching wall of green,
+  To break the crystal, swirl, emerge
+  Dripping, taut, and clean.
+
+  To climb the moving hilly blue,
+  To dive in ecstasy
+  And feel the salty chill embrace
+  Arm and rib and knee.
+
+  What brave and vanished laughter then
+  And tingling thighs to run,
+  What warm and comfortable sands
+  Dreaming in the sun.
+
+  The crumbling water spreads in snow,
+  The surf is hissing still,
+  And though I kiss the salt no more
+  Other swimmers will.
+
+
+  [Illustration: The Old Swimmer]
+
+
+
+
+  THE MOON-SHEEP
+
+
+  The moon seems like a docile sheep,
+  She pastures while all people sleep;
+  But sometimes, when she goes astray,
+  She wanders all alone by day.
+
+  Up in the clear blue morning air
+  We are surprised to see her there,
+  Grazing in her woolly white,
+  Waiting the return of night.
+
+  When dusk lets down the meadow bars
+  She greets again her lambs, the stars!
+
+
+
+
+  SMELLS
+
+
+  Why is it that the poets tell
+  So little of the sense of smell?
+  These are the odors I love well:
+
+  The smell of coffee freshly ground;
+  Or rich plum pudding, holly crowned;
+  Or onions fried and deeply browned.
+
+  The fragrance of a fumy pipe;
+  The smell of apples, newly ripe;
+  And printers' ink on leaden type.
+
+  Woods by moonlight in September
+  Breathe most sweet; and I remember
+  Many a smoky camp-fire ember.
+
+  Camphor, turpentine, and tea,
+  The balsam of a Christmas tree,
+  These are whiffs of gramarye ...
+  _A ship smells best of all to me!_
+
+
+
+
+  SMELLS (JUNIOR)
+
+
+  My Daddy smells like tobacco and books,
+    Mother, like lavender and listerine;
+  Uncle John carries a whiff of cigars,
+    Nannie smells starchy and soapy and clean.
+
+  Shandy, my dog, has a smell of his own
+    (When he's been out in the rain he smells most);
+  But Katie, the cook, is more splendid than all--
+    She smells exactly like hot buttered toast!
+
+
+  [Illustration: _But Katie, the cook, is more splendid than all_--]
+
+
+
+
+  MAR QUONG, CHINESE LAUNDRYMAN
+
+
+  I like the Chinese laundryman:
+  He smokes a pipe that bubbles,
+  And seems, as far as I can tell,
+  A man with but few troubles.
+  He has much to do, no doubt,
+  But also much to think about.
+
+  Most men (for instance I myself)
+  Are spending, at all times,
+  All our hard-earned quarters,
+  Our nickels and our dimes:
+  With Mar Quong it's the other way--
+  He takes in small change every day.
+
+  Next time you call for collars
+  In his steamy little shop,
+  Observe how tight his pigtail
+  Is coiled and piled on top.
+  But late at night he lets it hang
+  And thinks of the Yang-tse-kiang.
+
+
+
+
+  THE FAT LITTLE PURSE
+
+
+  On Saturdays, after the baby
+    Is bathed, fed, and sleeping serene,
+  His mother, as quickly as may be,
+    Arranges the household routine.
+  She rapidly makes herself pretty
+    And leaves the young limb with his nurse,
+  Then gaily she starts for the city,
+    And with her the fat little purse.
+
+  She trips through the crowd at the station,
+    To the rendezvous spot where we meet,
+  And keeping her eyes from temptation,
+    She avoids the most windowy street!
+  She is off for the Weekly Adventure;
+    To her comrade for better and worse
+  She says, "Never mind, when you've spent your
+    Last bit, here's the fat little purse."
+
+  Apart, in her thrifty exchequer,
+    She has hidden what must not be spent:
+  Enough for the butcher and baker,
+    Katie's wages, and milkman, and rent;
+  But the rest of her brave little treasure
+    She is gleeful and prompt to disburse--
+  What a richness of innocent pleasure
+    Can come from her fat little purse!
+
+  But either by giving or buying,
+    The little purse does not stay fat--
+  Perhaps it's a ragged child crying,
+    Perhaps it's a "pert little hat."
+  And the bonny brown eyes that were brightened
+    By pleasures so quaint and diverse,
+  Look up at me, wistful and frightened,
+    To see such a thin little purse.
+
+  The wisest of all financiering
+    Is that which is done by our wives:
+  By some little known profiteering
+    They add twos and twos and make fives;
+  And, husband, if you would be learning
+    The secret of thrift, it is terse:
+  Invest the great part of your earning
+    In her little, fat little purse.
+
+
+  [Illustration: _Perhaps it's a ragged child crying_]
+
+
+
+
+  THE REFLECTION
+  (To N. B. D.)
+
+
+  I have not heard her voice, nor seen her face,
+    Nor touched her hand;
+  And yet some echo of her woman's grace
+    I understand.
+
+  I have no picture of her lovelihood,
+    Her smile, her tint;
+  But that she is both beautiful and good
+    I have true hint.
+
+  In all that my friend thinks and says, I see
+    Her mirror true;
+  His thought of her is gentle; she must be
+    All gentle too.
+
+  In all his grief or laughter, work or play,
+    Each mood and whim,
+  How brave and tender, day by common day,
+    She speaks through him!
+
+  Therefore I say I know her, be her face
+    Or dark or fair--
+  For when he shows his heart's most secret place
+    I see her there!
+
+
+
+
+  THE BALLOON PEDDLER
+
+
+  Who is the man on Chestnut street
+    With colored toy balloons?
+  I see him with his airy freight
+    On sunny afternoons--
+  A peddler of such lovely goods!
+    The heart leaps to behold
+  His mass of bubbles, red and green
+    And blue and pink and gold.
+
+  For sure that noble peddler man
+    Hath antic merchandise:
+  His toys that float and swim in air
+    Attract my eager eyes.
+  Perhaps he is a changeling prince
+    Bewitched through magic moons
+  To tempt us solemn busy folk
+    With meaningless balloons.
+
+  Beware, oh, valiant merchantman,
+    Tread cautious on the pave!
+  Lest some day come some realist,
+    Some haggard soul and grave,
+  A puritan efficientist
+    Who deems thy toys a sin--
+  He'll stalk thee madly from behind
+    And prick them with a pin!
+
+
+  [Illustration: _The Balloon Peddler_]
+
+
+
+
+  LINES FOR AN ECCENTRIC'S
+  BOOK PLATE
+
+
+  To use my books all friends are bid:
+    My shelves are open for 'em;
+  And in each one, as Grolier did,
+    I write _Et Amicorum_.
+
+  All lovely things in truth belong
+    To him who best employs them;
+  The house, the picture and the song
+    Are his who most enjoys them.
+
+  Perhaps this book holds precious lore,
+    And you may best discern it.
+  If you appreciate it more
+    Than I--why don't return it!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _If you appreciate it more_
+  _Than I--why don't return it!_]
+
+
+
+
+  TO A POST-OFFICE INKWELL
+
+
+  How many humble hearts have dipped
+  In you, and scrawled their manuscript!
+  Have shared their secrets, told their cares,
+  Their curious and quaint affairs!
+
+  Your pool of ink, your scratchy pen,
+  Have moved the lives of unborn men,
+  And watched young people, breathing hard,
+  Put Heaven on a postal card.
+
+
+
+
+  THE CRIB
+
+
+  I sought immortality
+    Here and there--
+  I sent my rockets
+    Into the air:
+  I gave my name
+    A hostage to ink;
+  I dined a critic
+    And bought him drink.
+
+  I spurned the weariness
+    Of the flesh;
+  Denied fatigue
+    And began afresh--
+  If men knew all,
+    How they would laugh!
+  I even planned
+    My epitaph....
+
+  And then one night
+    When the dusk was thin
+  I heard the nursery
+    Rites begin:
+
+  I heard the tender
+    Soothings said
+  Over a crib, and
+    A small sweet head.
+
+  Then in a flash
+    It came to me
+  That there was my
+    Immortality!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _And then one night_
+    _When the dusk was thin_
+  _I heard the nursery_
+    _Rites begin--_]
+
+
+
+
+  THE POET
+
+
+  The barren music of a word or phrase,
+    The futile arts of syllable and stress,
+  He sought. The poetry of common days
+    He did not guess.
+
+  The simplest, sweetest rhythms life affords--
+    Unselfish love, true effort truly done,
+  The tender themes that underlie all words--
+    He knew not one.
+
+  The human cadence and the subtle chime
+    Of little laughters, home and child and wife,
+  He knew not. Artist merely in his rhyme,
+    Not in his life.
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _The human cadence and the subtle chime_
+  _Of little laughters_--]
+
+
+
+
+  TO A DISCARDED MIRROR
+
+  [Transcriber's Note: The text below was in mirrored
+image in the original text].
+
+  Dear glass, before your silver pane
+    My lady used to tend her hair;
+  And yet I search your disc in vain
+    To find some shadow of her there.
+
+  I thought your magic, deep and bright,
+    Might still some dear reflection hold:
+  Some glint of eyes or shoulders white,
+    Some flash of gowns she wore of old.
+
+  Your polished round must still recall
+    The laughing face, the neck like snow--
+  Remember, on your lonely wall,
+    That Helen used you long ago!
+
+
+
+
+  TO A CHILD
+
+
+  The greatest poem ever known
+  Is one all poets have outgrown:
+  The poetry, innate, untold,
+  Of being only four years old.
+
+  Still young enough to be a part
+  Of Nature's great impulsive heart,
+  Born comrade of bird, beast and tree
+  And unselfconscious as the bee--
+
+  And yet with lovely reason skilled
+  Each day new paradise to build;
+  Elate explorer of each sense,
+  Without dismay, without pretence!
+
+  In your unstained transparent eyes
+  There is no conscience, no surprise:
+  Life's queer conundrums you accept,
+  Your strange divinity still kept.
+
+  Being, that now absorbs you, all
+  Harmonious, unit, integral,
+  Will shred into perplexing bits,--
+  Oh, contradictions of the wits!
+
+  And Life, that sets all things in rhyme,
+  May make you poet, too, in time--
+  But there were days, O tender elf,
+  When you were Poetry itself!
+
+
+
+
+  TO A VERY YOUNG GENTLEMAN
+
+
+  My child, what painful vistas are before you!
+    What years of youthful ills and pangs and bumps--
+  Indignities from aunts who "just adore" you,
+    And chicken-pox and measles, croup and mumps!
+  I don't wish to dismay you,--it's not fair to,
+    Promoted now from bassinet to crib,--
+  But, O my babe, what troubles flesh is heir to
+    Since God first made so free with Adam's rib!
+
+  Laboriously you will proceed with teething;
+    When teeth are here, you'll meet the dentist's chair;
+  They'll teach you ways of walking, eating, breathing,
+    That stoves are hot, and how to brush your hair;
+  And so, my poor, undaunted little stripling,
+    By bruises, tears, and trousers you will grow,
+  And, borrowing a leaf from Mr. Kipling,
+    I'll wish you luck, and moralize you so:
+
+  If you can think up seven thousand methods
+    Of giving cooks and parents heart disease;
+  Can rifle pantry-shelves, and then give death odds
+    By water, fire, and falling out of trees;
+  If you can fill your every boyish minute
+    With sixty seconds' worth of mischief done,
+  Yours is the house and everything that's in it,
+    And, which is more, you'll be your father's son!
+
+
+  [Illustration: _What years of youthful ills and pangs and bumps_--]
+
+
+
+
+  TO AN OLD-FASHIONED POET
+
+  (Lizette Woodworth Reese)
+
+
+  Most tender poet, when the gods confer
+    They save your gracile songs a nook apart,
+  And bless with Time's untainted lavender
+    The ageless April of your singing heart.
+
+  You, in an age unbridled, ne'er declined
+    The appointed patience that the Muse decrees,
+  Until, deep in the flower of the mind
+    The hovering words alight, like bridegroom bees.
+
+  By casual praise or casual blame unstirred
+    The placid gods grant gifts where they belong:
+  To you, who understand, the perfect word,
+    The recompensed necessities of song.
+
+
+
+
+  BURNING LEAVES IN SPRING
+
+
+  When withered leaves are lost in flame
+    Their eddying ghosts, a thin blue haze,
+  Blow through the thickets whence they came
+    On amberlucent autumn days.
+
+  The cool green woodland heart receives
+    Their dim, dissolving, phantom breath;
+  In young hereditary leaves
+    They see their happy life-in-death.
+
+  My minutes perish as they glow--
+    Time burns my crazy bonfire through;
+  But ghosts of blackened hours still blow,
+    Eternal Beauty, back to you!
+
+
+
+
+  BURNING LEAVES, NOVEMBER
+
+
+  These are folios of April,
+    All the library of spring,
+  Missals gilt and rubricated
+    With the frost's illumining.
+
+  Ruthless, we destroy these treasures,
+    Set the torch with hand profane--
+  Gone, like Alexandrian vellums,
+    Like the books of burnt Louvain!
+
+  Yet these classics are immortal:
+    O collectors, have no fear,
+  For the publisher will issue
+    New editions every year.
+
+
+
+
+  A VALENTINE GAME
+
+  (_For Two Players_)
+
+
+  They have a game, thus played:
+  He says unto his maid
+      _What are those shining things_
+      _So brown, so golden brown?_
+  And she, in doubt, replies
+      _How now, what shining things_
+      _So brown?_
+
+  But then, she coming near,
+  To see more clear,
+  He looks again, and cries
+  (All startled with surprise)
+      _Sweet wretch, they are your eyes,_
+      _So brown, so brown!_
+
+  The climax and the end consist
+  In kissing, and in being kissed.
+
+
+
+
+  FOR A BIRTHDAY
+
+
+  At two years old the world he sees
+    Must seem expressly made to please!
+  Such new-found words and games to try,
+  Such sudden mirth, he knows not why,
+    So many curiosities!
+
+  As life about him, by degrees
+  Discloses all its pageantries
+  He watches with approval shy
+    At two years old.
+
+  With wonders tired he takes his ease
+  At dusk, upon his mother's knees:
+  A little laugh, a little cry,
+  Put toys to bed, then "seepy-bye"--
+  The world is made of such as these
+    At two years old.
+
+
+  [Illustration: _A Birthday_]
+
+
+
+
+  KEATS
+
+  (1821-1921)
+
+
+  When sometimes, on a moony night, I've passed
+    A street-lamp, seen my doubled shadow flee,
+  I've noticed how much darker, clearer cast,
+    The full moon poured her silhouette of me.
+
+  Just so of spirits. Beauty's silver light
+    Limns with a ray more pure, and tenderer too:
+  Men's clumsy gestures, to unearthly sight,
+    Surpass the shapes they show by human view.
+
+  On this brave world, where few such meteors fell,
+    Her youngest son, to save us, Beauty flung.
+  He suffered and descended into hell--
+    And comforts yet the ardent and the young.
+
+  Drunken of moonlight, dazed by draughts of sky,
+    Dizzy with stars, his mortal fever ran:
+  His utterance a moon-enchanted cry
+    Not free from folly--for he too was man.
+
+  And now and here, a hundred years away,
+    Where topless towers shadow golden streets,
+  The young men sit, nooked in a cheap café,
+    Perfectly happy ... talking about Keats.
+
+
+
+
+  TO H. F. M.
+
+  A SONNET IN SUNLIGHT
+
+
+  This is a day for sonnets: Oh how clear
+    Our splendid cliffs and summits lift the gaze--
+  If all the perfect moments of the year
+    Were poured and gathered in one sudden blaze,
+    Then, then perhaps, in some endowered phrase
+  My flat strewn words would rise and come more near
+    To tell of you. Your beauty and your praise
+  Would fall like sunlight on this paper here.
+
+  Then I would build a sonnet that would stand
+    Proud and perennial on this pale bright sky;
+  So tall, so steep, that it might stay the hand
+    Of Time, the dusty wrecker. He would sigh
+  To tear my strong words down. And he would say:
+  "That song he built for her, one summer day."
+
+
+
+
+  QUICKENING
+
+
+  Such little, puny things are words in rhyme:
+    Poor feeble loops and strokes as frail as hairs;
+  You see them printed here, and mark their chime,
+    And turn to your more durable affairs.
+    Yet on such petty tools the poet dares
+  To run his race with mortar, bricks and lime,
+    And draws his frail stick to the point, and stares
+  To aim his arrow at the heart of Time.
+
+  Intangible, yet pressing, hemming in,
+    This measured emptiness engulfs us all,
+  And yet he points his paper javelin
+    And sees it eddy, waver, turn, and fall,
+  And feels, between delight and trouble torn,
+  The stirring of a sonnet still unborn.
+
+
+
+
+  AT A WINDOW SILL
+
+
+  _To write a sonnet needs a quiet mind...._
+  I paused and pondered, tried again. _To write...._
+
+  Raising the sash, I breathed the winter night:
+  Papers and small hot room were left behind.
+  Against the gusty purple, ribbed and spined
+  With golden slots and vertebræ of light
+  Men's cages loomed. Down sliding from a height
+  An elevator winked as it declined.
+
+  Coward! There is no quiet in the brain--
+  If pity burns it not, then beauty will:
+  Tinder it is for every blowing spark.
+  Uncertain whether this is bliss or pain
+  The unresting mind will gaze across the sill
+  From high apartment windows, in the dark.
+
+
+
+
+  THE RIVER OF LIGHT
+
+  I. Broadway, 103rd to 96th.
+
+
+  Lights foam and bubble down the gentle grade:
+  Bright shine chop sueys and rôtisseries;
+  In pink translucence glowingly displayed
+  See camisole and stocking and chemise.
+  Delicatessen windows full of cheese--
+  Above, the chimes of church-bells toll and fade--
+  And then, from off some distant Palisade
+  That gluey savor on the Jersey breeze!
+
+  The burning bulbs, in green and white and red,
+  Spell out a _Change of Program Sun., Wed., Fri._,
+  A clicking taxi spins with ruby spark.
+  There is a sense of poising near the head
+  Of some great flume of brightness, flowing by
+  To pour in gathering torrent through the dark.
+
+
+
+
+  THE RIVER OF LIGHT
+
+  II. Below 96th
+
+
+  The current quickens, and in golden flow
+  Hurries its flotsam downward through the night--
+  Here are the rapids where the undertow
+  Whirls endless motors in a gleaming flight.
+  From blazing tributaries, left and right,
+  Influent streams of blue and amber grow.
+  Columbus Circle eddies: all below
+  Is pouring flame, a gorge of broken light.
+
+  See how the burning river boils in spate,
+  Channeled by cliffs of insane jewelry,
+  Painting a rosy roof on cloudy air--
+  And just about ten minutes after eight,
+  Tossing a surf of color to the sky
+  It bursts in cataracts upon Times Square!
+
+
+
+
+  OF HER GLORIOUS MADNESS
+
+
+  The city's mad: through her prodigious veins
+  What errant, strange, eccentric humors thrill:
+  Day, when her cataracts of sunlight spill--
+  Night, golden-panelled with her window panes;
+  The toss of wind-blown skirts; and who can drill
+  Forever his fierce heart with checking reins?
+  Cruel and mad, my statisticians say--
+  Ah, but she raves in such a gallant way!
+
+  Brave madness, built for beauty and the sun--
+  In such a town who can be sane? Not I.
+  Of clashing colors all her moods are spun--
+  A scarlet anger and a golden cry.
+  This frantic town where madcap mischiefs run
+  They ask to take the veil, and be a nun!
+
+
+
+
+  IN AN AUCTION ROOM
+
+  (_Letter of John Keats to Fanny Browne, Anderson Galleries,_
+  _March 15, 1920._)
+
+  To Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach.
+
+
+  _How about this lot?_ said the auctioneer;
+  _One hundred, may I say, just for a start?_
+  Between the plum-red curtains, drawn apart,
+  A written sheet was held.... And strange to hear
+  (Dealer, would I were steadfast as thou art)
+  The cold quick bids. (_Against you in the rear!_)
+  The crimson salon, in a glow more clear
+  Burned bloodlike purple as the poet's heart.
+
+  Song that outgrew the singer! Bitter Love
+  That broke the proud hot heart it held in thrall;
+  Poor script, where still those tragic passions move--
+  _Eight hundred bid: fair warning: the last call:_
+  The soul of Adonais, like a star....
+  _Sold for eight hundred dollars--Doctor R.!_
+
+
+
+
+  EPITAPH FOR A POET WHO WROTE NO POETRY
+
+  "It is said that a poet has died young in the breast
+of the most stolid."--Robert Louis Stevenson.
+
+
+  What was the service of this poet? He
+  Who blinked the blinding dazzle-rays that run
+  Where life profiles its edges to the sun,
+  And still suspected much he could not see.
+  Clay-stopped, yet in his taciturnity
+  There lay the vein of glory, known to none;
+  And moods of secret smiling, only won
+  When peace and passion, time and sense, agree.
+
+  Fighting the world he loved for chance to brood,
+  Ignorant when to embrace, when to avoid
+  His loves that held him in their vital clutch--
+  This was his service, his beatitude;
+  This was the inward trouble he enjoyed
+  Who knew so little, and who felt so much.
+
+
+
+
+  SONNET BY A GEOMETER
+
+  THE CIRCLE
+
+
+  Few things are perfect: we bear Eden's scar;
+  Yet faulty man was godlike in design
+  That day when first, with stick and length of twine,
+  He drew me on the sand. Then what could mar
+  His joy in that obedient mystic line;
+  And then, computing with a zeal divine,
+  He called π 3-point-14159
+  And knew my lovely circuit 2 π r!
+
+  A circle is a happy thing to be--
+  Think how the joyful perpendicular
+  Erected at the kiss of tangency
+  Must meet my central point, my avatar!
+  They talk of 14 points: yet only 3
+  Determine every circle: =Q. E. D.=
+
+
+
+
+  TO A VAUDEVILLE TERRIER SEEN ON A LEASH, IN THE PARK
+
+
+  Three times a day--at two, at seven, at nine--
+  O terrier, you play your little part:
+  Absurd in coat and skirt you push a cart,
+  With inner anguish walk a tight-rope line.
+  Up there, before the hot and dazzling shine
+  You must be rigid servant of your art,
+  Nor watch those fluffy cats--your doggish heart
+  Might leap and then betray you with a whine!
+
+  But sometimes, when you've faithfully rehearsed,
+  Your trainer takes you walking in the park,
+  Straining to sniff the grass, to chase a frog.
+  The leash is slipped, and then your joy will burst--
+  Adorable it is to run and bark,
+  To be--alas, how seldom--just a dog!
+
+
+  [Illustration: _You must be rigid servant of your art!_]
+
+
+
+
+  TO AN OLD FRIEND
+
+  (For Lloyd Williams.)
+
+
+  I like to dream of some established spot
+  Where you and I, old friend, an evening through
+  Under tobacco's fog, streaked gray and blue,
+  Might reconsider laughters unforgot.
+  Beside a hearth-glow, golden-clear and hot,
+  I'd hear you tell the oddities men do.
+  The clock would tick, and we would sit, we two--
+  Life holds such meetings for us, does it not?
+
+  Happy are men when they have learned to prize
+  The sure unvarnished virtue of their friends,
+  The unchanged kindness of a well-known face:
+  On old fidelities our world depends,
+  And runs a simple course in honest wise,
+  Not a mere taxicab shot wild through space!
+
+
+
+
+  TO A BURLESQUE SOUBRETTE
+
+
+  Upstage the great high-shafted beefy choir
+    Squawked in 2000 watts of orange glare--
+    You came, and impudent and deuce-may-care
+  Danced where the gutter flamed with footlight fire.
+
+  Flung from the roof, spots red and yellow burned
+    And followed you. The blatant brassy clang
+    Of instruments drowned out the words you sang,
+  But goldenly you capered, twirled and turned.
+
+  Boyish and slender, child-limbed, quick and proud,
+    A sprite of irresistible disdain,
+    Fair as a jonquil in an April rain,
+  You seemed too sweet an imp for that dull crowd....
+
+  And then, behind the scenes, I heard you say,
+  "_O Gawd, I got a hellish cold to-day!_"
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _You came, and impudent and deuce-may-care_
+  _Danced where the gutter flamed with footlight fire._]
+
+
+
+
+  THOUGHTS WHILE PACKING A TRUNK
+
+
+  The sonnet is a trunk, and you must pack
+    With care, to ship frail baggage far away;
+    The octet is the trunk; sestet, the tray;
+  Tight, but not overloaded, is the knack.
+  First, at the bottom, heavy thoughts you stack,
+    And in the chinks your adjectives you lay--
+    Your phrases, folded neatly as you may,
+  Stowing a syllable in every crack.
+
+  Then, in the tray, your daintier stuff is hid:
+    The tender quatrain where your moral sings--
+  Be careful, though, lest as you close the lid
+    You crush and crumple all these fragile things.
+  Your couplet snaps the hasps and turns the key--
+  Ship to The Editor, marked C. O. D.
+
+
+
+
+  STREETS
+
+
+  I have seen streets where strange enchantment broods:
+  Old ruddy houses where the morning shone
+  In seemly quiet on their tranquil moods,
+  Across the sills white curtains outward blown.
+  Their marble steps were scoured as white as bone
+  Where scrubbing housemaids toiled on wounded knee--
+  And yet, among all streets that I have known
+  These placid byways give least peace to me.
+
+  In such a house, where green light shining through
+  (From some back garden) framed her silhouette
+  I saw a girl, heard music blithely sung.
+  She stood there laughing, in a dress of blue,
+  And as I went on, slowly, there I met
+  An old, old woman, who had once been young.
+
+
+
+
+  TO THE ONLY BEGETTER
+
+  I
+
+
+  I have no hope to make you live in rhyme
+  Or with your beauty to enrich the years--
+  Enough for me this now, this present time;
+  The greater claim for greater sonneteers.
+  But O how covetous I am of NOW--
+  Dear human minutes, marred by human pains--
+  I want to know your lips, your cheek, your brow,
+  And all the miracles your heart contains,
+  I wish to study all your changing face,
+  Your eyes, divinely hurt with tenderness;
+  I hope to win your dear unstinted grace
+  For these blunt rhymes and what they would express.
+  Then may you say, when others better prove:--
+  "_Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love._"
+
+
+
+
+  TO THE ONLY BEGETTER
+
+  II
+
+
+  When all my trivial rhymes are blotted out,
+  Vanished our days, so precious and so few,
+  If some should wonder what we were about
+  And what the little happenings we knew:
+  I wish that they might know how, night by night,
+  My pencil, heavy in the sleepy hours,
+  Sought vainly for some gracious way to write
+  How much this love is ours, and only ours.
+  How many evenings, as you drowsed to sleep,
+  I read to you by tawny candle-glow,
+  And watched you down the valley dim and deep
+  Where poppies and the April flowers grow.
+  Then knelt beside your pillow with a prayer,
+  And loved the breath of pansies in your hair.
+
+
+
+
+  PEDOMETER
+
+
+  My thoughts beat out in sonnets while I walk,
+  And every evening on the homeward street
+  I find the rhythm of my marching feet
+  Throbs into verses (though the rhyme may balk).
+  I think the sonneteers were walking men:
+  The form is dour and rigid, like a clamp,
+  But with the swing of legs the tramp, tramp, tramp
+  Of syllables begins to thud, and then--
+  Lo! while you seek a rhyme for _hook_ or _crook_
+  Vanished your shabby coat, and you are kith
+  To all great walk-and-singers--Meredith,
+  And Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, and Rupert Brooke!
+  Free verse is poor for walking, but a sonnet--
+  O marvellous to stride and brood upon it!
+
+
+
+
+  HOSTAGES
+
+  "He that hath wife and children hath given
+hostages to fortune."--BACON.
+
+
+  Aye, Fortune, thou hast hostage of my best!
+  I, that was once so heedless of thy frown,
+    Have armed thee cap-à-pie to strike me down,
+  Have given thee blades to hold against my breast.
+  My virtue, that was once all self-possessed,
+    Is parceled out in little hands, and brown
+    Bright eyes, and in a sleeping baby's gown:
+  To threaten these will put me to the test.
+
+  Sure, since there are these pitiful poor chinks
+    Upon the makeshift armor of my heart,
+      For thee no honor lies in such a fight!
+  And thou wouldst shame to vanquish one, me-thinks,
+    Who came awake with such a painful start
+      To hear the coughing of a child at night.
+
+
+  [Illustration: _Hostages._]
+
+
+
+
+  ARS DURA
+
+
+  How many evenings, walking soberly
+  Along our street all dappled with rich sun,
+  I please myself with words, and happily
+  Time rhymes to footfalls, planning how they run;
+  And yet, when midnight comes, and paper lies
+  Clean, white, receptive, all that one can ask,
+  Alas for drowsy spirit, weary eyes
+  And traitor hand that fails the well loved task!
+
+  Who ever learned the sonnet's bitter craft
+  But he had put away his sleep, his ease,
+  The wine he loved, the men with whom he laughed
+  To brood upon such thankless tricks as these?
+  And yet, such joy does in that craft abide
+  He greets the paper as the groom the bride!
+
+
+
+
+  O. HENRY--APOTHECARY
+
+  ("O. Henry" once worked in a drug-store in Greensboro, N.C.)
+
+
+  Where once he measured camphor, glycerine,
+  Quinine and potash, peppermint in bars,
+  And all the oils and essences so keen
+  That druggists keep in rows of stoppered jars--
+  Now, blender of strange drugs more volatile,
+  The master pharmacist of joy and pain
+  Dispenses sadness tinctured with a smile
+  And laughter that dissolves in tears again.
+
+  O brave apothecary! You who knew
+  What dark and acid doses life prefers
+  And yet with friendly face resolved to brew
+  These sparkling potions for your customers--
+  In each prescription your Physician writ
+  You poured your rich compassion and your wit!
+
+
+
+
+  FOR THE CENTENARY OF KEATS'S SONNET (1816)
+
+  "On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer."
+
+
+  I knew a scientist, an engineer,
+  Student of tensile strengths and calculus,
+  A man who loved a cantilever truss
+  And always wore a pencil on his ear.
+  My friend believed that poets all were queer,
+  And literary folk ridiculous;
+  But one night, when it chanced that three of us
+  Were reading Keats aloud, he stopped to hear.
+
+  Lo, a new planet swam into his ken!
+  His eager mind reached for it and took hold.
+  Ten years are by: I see him now and then,
+  And at alumni dinners, if cajoled,
+  He mumbles gravely, to the cheering men:--
+  _Much have I travelled in the realms of gold._
+
+
+
+
+  TWO O'CLOCK
+
+
+  Night after night goes by: and clocks still chime
+    And stars are changing patterns in the dark,
+  And watches tick, and over-puissant Time
+    Benumbs the eager brain. The dogs that bark,
+  The trains that roar and rattle in the night,
+    The very cats that prowl, all quiet find
+  And leave the darkness empty, silent quite:
+    Sleep comes to chloroform the fretting mind.
+
+  So all things end: and what is left at last?
+    Some scribbled sonnets tossed upon the floor,
+  A memory of easy days gone past,
+    A run-down watch, a pipe, some clothes we wore--
+  And in the darkened room I lean to know
+    How warm her dreamless breath does pause and flow.
+
+
+
+
+  THE COMMERCIAL TRAVELLER
+
+
+  Ah very sweet! If news should come to you
+  Some afternoon, while waiting for our eve,
+  That the great Manager had made me leave
+  To travel on some territory new;
+  And that, whatever homeward winds there blew,
+  I could not touch your hand again, nor heave
+  The logs upon our hearth and bid you weave
+  Some wistful tale before the flames that grew....
+
+  Then, when the sudden tears had ceased to blind
+  Your pansied eyes, I wonder if you could
+  Remember rightly, and forget aright?
+  Remember just your lad, uncouthly good,
+  Forgetting when he failed in spleen or spite?
+  Could you remember him as always kind?
+
+
+
+
+  THE WEDDED LOVER
+
+
+  I read in our old journals of the days
+  When our first love was April-sweet and new,
+  How fair it blossomed and deep-rooted grew
+  Despite the adverse time; and our amaze
+  At moon and stars and beauty beyond praise
+  That burgeoned all about us: gold and blue
+  The heaven arched us in, and all we knew
+  Was gentleness. We walked on happy ways.
+
+  They said by now the path would be more steep,
+  The sunsets paler and less mild the air;
+  Rightly we heeded not: it was not true.
+  We will not tell the secret--let it keep.
+  I know not how I thought those days so fair
+  These being so much fairer, spent with you.
+
+
+
+
+  TO YOU, REMEMBERING THE PAST
+
+
+  When we were parted, sweet, and darkness came,
+  I used to strike a match, and hold the flame
+  Before your picture and would breathless mark
+  The answering glimmer of the tiny spark
+  That brought to life the magic of your eyes,
+  Their wistful tenderness, their glad surprise.
+
+  Holding that mimic torch before your shrine
+  I used to light your eyes and make them mine;
+  Watch them like stars set in a lonely sky,
+  Whisper my heart out, yearning for reply;
+  Summon your lips from far across the sea
+  Bidding them live a twilight hour with me.
+
+  Then, when the match was shrivelled into gloom,
+  Lo--you were with me in the darkened room.
+
+
+
+
+  CHARLES AND MARY
+
+  (December 27, 1834.)
+
+
+  Lamb died just before I left town, and Mr. Ryle of
+the E. India House, one of his extors., notified it to me....
+He said Miss L. was resigned and composed at the
+event, but it was from her malady, then in mild type, so
+that when she saw her brother dead, she observed on his
+beauty when asleep and apprehended nothing further.
+
+  --Letter of John Rickman, 24 January, 1835.
+
+
+  I hear their voices still: the stammering one
+  Struggling with some absurdity of jest;
+  Her quiet words that puzzle and protest
+  Against the latest outrage of his fun.
+  So wise, so simple--has she never guessed
+  That through his laughter, love and terror run?
+  For when her trouble came, and darkness pressed,
+  He smiled, and fought her madness with a pun.
+
+  Through all those years it was his task to keep
+  Her gentle heart serenely mystified.
+  If Fate's an artist, this should be his pride--
+  When, in that Christmas season, he lay dead,
+  She innocently looked. "I always said
+  That Charles is really handsome when asleep."
+
+
+
+
+  TO A GRANDMOTHER
+
+
+  At six o'clock in the evening,
+    The time for lullabies,
+  My son lay on my mother's lap
+    With sleepy, sleepy eyes!
+  (_O drowsy little manny boy,_
+   _With sleepy, sleepy eyes!_)
+
+  I heard her sing, and rock him,
+    And the creak of the swaying chair,
+  And the old dear cadence of the words
+    Came softly down the stair.
+
+  And all the years had vanished,
+    All folly, greed, and stain--
+  The old, old song, the creaking chair,
+    The dearest arms again!
+  (_O lucky little manny boy,_
+   _To feel those arms again!_)
+
+
+
+
+  DIARISTS
+
+
+  They catalogue their minutes: Now, now, now,
+    Is Actual, amid the fugitive;
+  Take ink and pen (they say) for that is how
+    We snare this flying life, and make it live.
+  So to their little pictures, and they sieve
+    Their happinesses: fields turned by the plough,
+  The afterglow that summer sunsets give,
+    The razor concave of a great ship's bow.
+
+  O gallant instinct, folly for men's mirth!
+    Type cannot burn and sparkle on the page.
+  No glittering ink can make this written word
+    Shine clear enough to speak the noble rage
+  And instancy of life. All sonnets blurred
+    The sudden mood of truth that gave them birth.
+
+
+
+
+ THE LAST SONNET
+
+
+  Suppose one knew that never more might one
+  Put pen to sonnet, well loved task; that now
+  These fourteen lines were all he could allow
+  To say his message, be forever done;
+  How he would scan the word, the line, the rhyme,
+  Intent to sum in dearly chosen phrase
+  The windy trees, the beauty of his days,
+  Life's pride and pathos in one verse sublime.
+  How bitter then would be regret and pang
+  For former rhymes he dallied to refine,
+  For every verse that was not crystalline....
+  And if belike this last one feebly rang,
+  Honor and pride would cast it to the floor
+  Facing the judge with what was done before.
+
+
+
+
+  THE SAVAGE
+
+
+  Civilization causes me
+  Alternate fits: disgust and glee.
+
+  Buried in piles of glass and stone
+  My private spirit moves alone,
+
+  Where every day from eight to six
+  I keep alive by hasty tricks.
+
+  But I am simple in my soul;
+  My mind is sullen to control.
+
+  At dusk I smell the scent of earth,
+  And I am dumb--too glad for mirth.
+
+  I know the savors night can give,
+  And then, and then, I live, I live!
+
+  No man is wholly pure and free,
+  For that is not his destiny,
+
+  But though I bend, I will not break:
+  And still be savage, for Truth's sake.
+
+  God damns the easily convinced
+  (Like Pilate, when his hands he rinsed).
+
+
+
+
+  ST. PAUL'S AND WOOLWORTH
+
+
+  I stood on the pavement
+    Where I could admire
+  Behind the brown chapel
+    The cream and gold spire.
+
+  Above, gilded Lightning
+    Swam high on his ball--
+  I saw the noon shadow
+    The church of St. Paul.
+
+  And was there a meaning?
+    (My fancy would run),
+  Saint Paul in the shadow,
+    Saint Frank in the sun!
+
+
+
+
+  ADVICE TO A CITY
+
+
+  O city, cage your poets! Hem them in
+    And roof them over from the April sky--
+  Clatter them round with babble, ceaseless din,
+    And drown their voices with your thunder cry.
+
+  Forbid their free feet on the windy hills,
+    And harness them to daily ruts of stone--
+  (In florists' windows lock the daffodils)
+    And never, never let them be alone!
+
+  For they are curst, said poets, curst and lewd,
+    And freedom gives their tongues uncanny wit,
+  And granted silence, thought and solitude
+    They (_absit omen!_) might make Song of it.
+
+  So cage them in, and stand about them thick,
+    And keep them busy with their daily bread;
+  And should their eyes seem strange, ah, then be quick
+    To interrupt them ere the word be said....
+
+  For, if their hearts burn with sufficient rage,
+    With wasted sunsets and frustrated youth,
+  Some day they'll cry, on some disturbing page,
+    The savage, sweet, unpalatable truth!
+
+
+
+
+  THE TELEPHONE DIRECTORY
+
+
+  No Malory of old romance,
+    No Crusoe tale, it seems to me,
+  Can equal in rich circumstance
+    This telephone directory.
+
+  No ballad of fair ladies' eyes,
+    No legend of proud knights and dames,
+  Can fill me with such bright surmise
+    As this great book of numbered names!
+
+  How many hearts and lives unknown,
+    Rare damsels pining for a squire,
+  Are waiting for the telephone
+    To ring, and call them to the wire.
+
+  Some wait to hear a loved voice say
+    The news they will rejoice to know
+  At Rome 2637 J
+    Or Marathon 1450!
+
+  And some, perhaps, are stung with fear
+    And answer with reluctant tread:
+  The message they expect to hear
+    Means life or death or daily bread.
+
+  A million hearts here wait our call,
+    All naked to our distant speech--
+  I wish that I could ring them all
+    And have some welcome news for each!
+
+
+
+
+  GREEN ESCAPE
+
+
+  At three o'clock in the afternoon
+    On a hot September day,
+  I began to dream of a highland stream
+    And a frostbit russet tree;
+  Of the swashing dip of a clipper ship
+    (White canvas wet with spray)
+  And the swirling green and milk-foam clean
+    Along her canted lee.
+
+  I heard the quick staccato click
+    Of the typist's pounding keys,
+  And I had to brood of a wind more rude
+    Than that by a motor fanned--
+  And I lay inert in a flannel shirt
+    To watch the rhyming seas
+  Deploy and fall in a silver sprawl
+    On a beach of sun-blanched sand.
+
+  There is no desk shall tame my lust
+    For hills and windy skies;
+  My secret hope of the sea's blue slope
+    No clerkly task shall dull;
+
+  And though I print no echoed hint
+    Of adventures I devise,
+  My eyes still pine for the comely line
+    Of an outbound vessel's hull.
+
+  When I elope with an autumn day
+    And make my green escape,
+  I'll leave my pen to tamer men
+    Who have more docile souls;
+  For forest aisles and office files
+    Have a very different shape,
+  And it's hard to woo the ocean blue
+    In a row of pigeon holes!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _My eyes still pine for the comely line_
+  _Of an outbound vessel's hull._]
+
+
+
+
+  VESPER SONG FOR COMMUTERS
+
+  (_Instead of "Marathon" the commuter may substitute_
+  _the name of his favorite suburb_)
+
+
+  The stars are kind to Marathon,
+  How low, how close, they lean!
+  They jostle one another
+  And do their best to please--
+  Indeed, they are so neighborly
+  That in the twilight green
+  One reaches out to pick them
+  Behind the poplar trees.
+
+  The stars are kind to Marathon,
+  And one particular
+  Bright planet (which is Vesper)
+  Most lucid and serene,
+  Is waiting by the railway bridge,
+  The Good Commuter's Star,
+  The Star of Wise Men coming home
+  On time, at 6:15!
+
+
+
+
+  THE ICE WAGON
+
+
+  I'd like to split the sky that roofs us down,
+  Break through the crystal lid of upper air,
+  And tap the cool still reservoirs of heaven.
+  I'd empty all those unseen lakes of freshness
+  Down some vast funnel, through our stifled streets.
+
+  I'd like to pump away the grit, the dust,
+  Raw dazzle of the sun on garbage piles,
+  The droning troops of flies, sharp bitter smells,
+  And gush that bright sweet flood of unused air
+  Down every alley where the children gasp.
+
+  And then I'd take a fleet of ice wagons--
+  Big yellow creaking carts, drawn by wet horses,--
+  And drive them rumbling through the blazing slums.
+  In every wagon would be blocks of coldness,
+  Pale, gleaming cubes of ice, all green and silver,
+  With inner veins and patterns, white and frosty;
+  Great lumps of chill would drip and steam and shimmer,
+  And spark like rainbows in their little fractures.
+
+  And where my wagons stood there would be puddles,
+  A wetness and a sparkle and a coolness.
+  My friends and I would chop and splinter open
+  The blocks of ice. Bare feet would soon come pattering,
+  And some would wrap it up in Sunday papers,
+  And some would stagger home with it in baskets,
+  And some would be too gay for aught but sucking,
+  Licking, crunching those fast melting pebbles,
+  Gulping as they slipped down unexpected--
+  Laughing to perceive that secret numbness
+  Amid their small hot persons!
+
+  At every stop would be at least one urchin
+  Would take a piece to cool the sweating horses
+  And hold it up against their silky noses--
+  And they would start, and then decide they liked it.
+
+  Down all the sun-cursed byways of the town
+  Our wagons would be trailed by grimy tots,
+  Their ragged shirts half off them with excitement!
+  Dabbling toes and fingers in our leakage,
+  A lucky few up sitting with the driver,
+  All clambering and stretching grey-pink palms.
+
+  And by the time the wagons were all empty
+  Our arms and shoulders would be lame with chopping,
+  Our backs and thighs pain-shot, our fingers frozen.
+  But how we would recall those eager faces,
+  Red thirsty tongues with ice-chips sliding on them,
+  The pinched white cheeks, and their pathetic gladness.
+  Then we would know that arms were made for aching--
+
+  I wish to God that I could go tomorrow!
+
+
+
+
+  AT A MOVIE THEATRE
+
+
+  How well he spoke who coined the phrase
+    _The picture palace!_ Aye, in sooth
+  A palace, where men's weary days
+    Are crowned with kingliness of youth.
+
+  Strange palace! Crowded, airless, dim,
+    Where toes are trod and strained eyes smart,
+  We watch a wand of brightness limn
+    The old heroics of the heart.
+
+  Romance again hath us in thrall
+    And Love is sweet and always true,
+  And in the darkness of the hall
+    Hands clasp--as they were meant to do.
+
+  Remote from peevish joys and ills
+    Our souls, _pro tem_, are purged and free:
+  We see the sun on western hills,
+    The crumbling tumult of the sea.
+
+  We are the blond that maidens crave,
+    Well balanced at a dozen banks;
+  By sleight of hand we haste to save
+    A brown-eyed life, nor stay for thanks!
+
+  Alas, perhaps our instinct feels
+    Life is not all it might have been,
+  So we applaud fantastic reels
+    Of shadow, cast upon a screen!
+
+
+
+
+  SONNETS IN A LODGING HOUSE
+
+
+  I
+
+  Each morn she crackles upward, tread by tread,
+    All apprehensive of some hideous sight:
+  Perhaps the Fourth Floor Back, who reads in bed,
+    Forgot his gas and let it burn all night--
+  The Sweet Young Thing who has the middle room,
+    She much suspects: for once some ink was spilled,
+  And then the plumber, in an hour of gloom,
+    Found all the bathroom pipes with tea-leaves filled.
+
+  No League of Nations scheme can make her gay--
+    She knows the rank duplicity of man;
+  Some folks expect clean towels every day,
+    They'll get away with murder if they can!
+  She tacks a card (alas, few roomers mind it)
+  _Please leave the tub as you would wish to find it!_
+
+
+  II
+
+
+  Men lodgers are the best, the Mrs. said:
+  They don't use my gas jets to fry sardines,
+  They don't leave red-hot irons on the spread,
+  They're out all morning, when a body cleans.
+  A man ain't so secretive, never cares
+  What kind of private papers he leaves lay,
+  So I can get a line on his affairs
+  And dope out whether he is likely pay.
+  But women! Say, they surely get my bug!
+  They stop their keyholes up with chewing gum,
+  Spill grease, and hide the damage with the rug,
+  And fry marshmallows when their callers come.
+  They always are behindhand with their rents--
+  Take my advice and let your rooms to gents!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _A man ain't so secretive, never cares_
+  _What kind of private papers he leaves lay_--]
+
+
+
+
+  THE MAN WITH THE HOE (PRESS)
+
+
+  About these roaring cylinders
+    Where leaping words and paper mate,
+  A sudden glory moves and stirs--
+    An inky cataract in spate!
+
+  What voice for falsehood or for truth,
+    What hearts attentive to be stirred--
+  How dimly understood, in sooth,
+    The power of the printed word!
+
+  These flashing webs and cogs of steel
+    Have shaken empires, routed kings,
+  Yet never turn too fast to feel
+    The tragedies of humble things.
+
+  O words, be strict in honesty,
+    Be just and simple and serene;
+  O rhymes, sing true, or you will be
+    Unworthy of this great machine!
+
+
+
+
+  DO YOU EVER FEEL LIKE GOD?
+
+
+  Across the court there rises the back wall
+  Of the Magna Carta Apartments.
+  The other evening the people in the apartment opposite
+  Had forgotten to draw their curtains.
+  I could see them dining: the well-blanched cloth,
+  The silver and glass, the crystal water jug,
+  The meat and vegetables; and their clean pink hands
+  Outstretched in busy gesture.
+
+  It was pleasant to watch them, they were so human;
+  So gay, innocent, unconscious of scrutiny.
+  They were four: an elderly couple,
+  A young man, and a girl--with lovely shoulders
+  Mellow in the glow of the lamp.
+  They were sitting over coffee, and I could see their hands talking.
+
+  At last the older two left the room.
+  The boy and girl looked at each other....
+  Like a flash, they leaned and kissed.
+
+  Good old human race that keeps on multiplying!
+  A little later I went down the street to the movies,
+  And there I saw all four, laughing and joking together.
+  And as I watched them I felt like God--
+  Benevolent, all-knowing, and tender.
+
+
+
+
+  RAPID TRANSIT
+
+  (To Stephen Vincent Benét.)
+
+
+  Climbing is easy and swift on Parnassus!
+  Knocking my pipe out, I entered a bookshop;
+  There found a book of verse by a young poet.
+  Comrades at once, how I saw his mind glowing!
+  Saw in his soul its magnificent rioting--
+  Then I ran with him on hills that were windy,
+  Basked and laughed with him on sun-dazzled beaches,
+  Glutted myself on his green and blue twilights,
+  Watched him disposing his planets in patterns,
+  Tumbling his colors and toys all before him.
+  I questioned life with him, his pulses my pulses;
+  Doubted his doubts, too, and grieved for his anguishes.
+  Salted long kinship and knew him from boy-hood--
+  Pulled out my own sun and stars from my knapsack,
+  Trying my trinkets with those of his finding--
+  _And as I left the bookshop_
+  _My pipe was still warm in my hand._
+
+
+
+
+  CAUGHT IN THE UNDERTOW
+
+
+  Colin, worshipping some frail,
+    By self-deprecation sways her:
+  Calls himself unworthy male,
+    Hardly even fit to praise her.
+
+  But this tactic insincere
+    In the upshot greatly grieves him
+  When he finds the lovely dear
+    Quite implicitly believes him.
+
+
+
+
+  TO HIS BROWN-EYED MISTRESS
+
+  _Who Rallied Him for Praising Blue Eyes in His Verses_
+
+
+  If sometimes, in a random phrase
+    (For variation in my ditty),
+  I chance blue eyes, or gray, to praise
+    And seem to intimate them pretty--
+
+  It is because I do not dare
+    With too unmixed reiteration
+  To sing the browner eyes and hair
+    That are my true intoxication.
+
+  Know, then, that I consider brown
+    For ladies' eyes, the only color;
+  And deem all other orbs in town
+    (Compared to yours), opaquer, duller.
+
+  I pray, perpend, my dearest dear;
+    While blue-eyed maids the praise were drinking,
+  How insubstantial was their cheer--
+    It was of yours that I was thinking!
+
+
+
+
+  PEACE
+
+
+  What is this Peace
+    That statesmen sign?
+  How I have sought
+    To make it mine.
+
+  Where groaning cities
+    Clang and glow
+  I hunted, hunted,
+    Peace to know.
+
+  And still I saw
+    Where I passed by
+  Discarded hearts,--
+    Heard children cry.
+
+  By willowed waters
+    Brimmed with rain
+  I thought to capture
+    Peace again.
+
+  I sat me down
+    My Peace to hoard,
+  But Beauty pricked me
+    With a sword.
+
+  For in the stillness
+    Something stirred,
+  And I was crippled
+    For a word.
+
+  There is no peace
+    A man can find;
+  The anguish sits
+    His heart behind.
+
+  The eyes he loves,
+    The perfect breast,
+  Too exquisite
+    To give him rest.
+
+  This is his curse
+    Since brain began.
+  His penalty
+    For being man.
+
+    May, 1919
+
+
+
+
+  SONG, IN DEPRECATION
+  OF PULCHRITUDE
+
+
+
+  Beauty (so the poets say),
+    Thou art joy and solace great;
+  Long ago, and far away
+    Thou art safe to contemplate,
+
+  Beauty. But when now and here,
+    Visible and close to touch,
+  All too perilously near,
+    Thou tormentest us too much!
+
+  In a picture, in a song,
+    In a novel's conjured scenes,
+  Beauty, that's where you belong,
+    Where perspective intervenes.
+
+  But, my dear, in rosy fact
+    Your appeal I have to shirk--
+  You disturb me, and distract
+    My attention from my work!
+
+
+
+
+  MOUNTED POLICE
+
+
+  Watchful, grave, he sits astride his horse,
+    Draped with his rubber poncho, in the rain;
+  He speaks the pungent lingo of "The Force,"
+    And those who try to bluff him, try in vain.
+
+  Inured to every mood of fool and crank,
+    Shrewdly and sternly all the crowd he cons:
+  The rain drips down his horse's shining flank,
+    A figure nobly fit for sculptor's bronze.
+
+  O knight commander of our city stress,
+    Little you know how picturesque you are!
+  We hear you cry to drivers who transgress:
+    "_Say, that's a helva place to park your car!_"
+
+
+  [Illustration: _Mounted Police._]
+
+
+
+
+  TO HIS MISTRESS, DEPLORING THAT
+  HE IS NOT AN ELIZABETHAN GALAXY
+
+
+  Why did not Fate to me bequeath an Utterance Elizabethan?
+  It would have been delight to me
+  If _natus ante_ 1603.
+
+  My stuff would not be soon forgotten
+  If I could write like Harry Wotton.
+
+  I wish that I could wield the pen
+  Like William Drummond of Hawthornden.
+
+  I would not fear the ticking clock
+  If I were Browne of Tavistock.
+
+  For blithe conceits I would not worry
+  If I were Raleigh, or the Earl of Surrey.
+
+  I wish (I hope I am not silly?)
+  That I could juggle words like Lyly.
+
+  I envy many a lyric champion,
+  I. e., viz., e. g., Thomas Campion.
+
+  I creak my rhymes up like a derrick,
+  I ne'er will be a Robin Herrick.
+
+  My wits are dull as an old Barlow--
+  I wish that I were Christopher Marlowe.
+
+  In short, I'd like to be Philip Sidney,
+  Or some one else of that same kidney.
+
+  For if I were, my lady's looks
+    And all my lyric special pleading
+  Would be in all the future books,
+    And called, at college, _Required Reading_.
+
+
+
+
+  THE INTRUDER
+
+
+  As I sat, to sift my dreaming
+    To the meet and needed word,
+  Came a merry Interruption
+    With insistence to be heard.
+
+  Smiling stood a maid beside me,
+    Half alluring and half shy;
+  Soft the white hint of her bosom--
+    Escapade was in her eye.
+
+  "I must not be so invaded,"
+    (In an anger then I cried)--
+  "Can't you see that I am busy?
+    Tempting creature, stay outside!
+
+  "Pearly rascal, I am writing:
+    I am now composing verse--
+  Fie on antic invitation:
+    Wanton, vanish--fly--disperse!
+
+  "Baggage, in my godlike moment
+    What have I to do with thee?"
+  And she laughed as she departed--
+    "I am Poetry," said she.
+
+
+
+
+  TIT FOR TAT
+
+
+  I often pass a gracious tree
+    Whose name I can't identify,
+  But still I bow, in courtesy
+    It waves a bough, in kind reply.
+
+  I do not know your name, O tree
+    (Are you a hemlock or a pine?)
+  But why should that embarrass me?
+    Quite probably you don't know mine.
+
+
+  [Illustration: _Courtesy_]
+
+
+
+
+  SONG FOR A LITTLE HOUSE
+
+
+  I'm glad our house is a little house,
+    Not too tall nor too wide:
+  I'm glad the hovering butterflies
+    Feel free to come inside.
+
+  Our little house is a friendly house.
+    It is not shy or vain;
+  It gossips with the talking trees,
+    And makes friends with the rain.
+
+  And quick leaves cast a shimmer of green
+    Against our whited walls,
+  And in the phlox, the courteous bees
+    Are paying duty calls.
+
+
+
+
+  THE PLUMPUPPETS
+
+
+  When little heads weary have gone to their bed,
+  When all the good nights and the prayers have been said,
+  Of all the good fairies that send bairns to rest
+  The little Plumpuppets are those I love best.
+
+  _If your pillow is lumpy, or hot, thin and flat,_
+  _The little Plumpuppets know just what they're at;_
+  _They plump up the pillow, all soft, cool and fat--_
+    _The little Plumpuppets plump-up it!_
+
+  The little Plumpuppets are fairies of beds:
+  They have nothing to do but to watch sleepy heads;
+  They turn down the sheets and they tuck you in tight,
+  And they dance on your pillow to wish you good night!
+
+  No matter what troubles have bothered the day,
+  Though your doll broke her arm or the pup ran away;
+  Though your handies are black with the ink that was spilt--
+  Plumpuppets are waiting in blanket and quilt.
+
+  _If your pillow is lumpy, or hot, thin and flat,
+  The little Plumpuppets know just what they're at;
+  They plump up the pillow, all soft, cool and fat--
+  The little Plumpuppets plump-up it!_
+
+
+  [Illustration: _The Plumpuppets_]
+
+
+
+
+  DANDY DANDELION
+
+
+  When Dandy Dandelion wakes
+    And combs his yellow hair,
+  The ant his cup of dewdrop takes
+    And sets his bed to air;
+  The worm hides in a quilt of dirt
+    To keep the thrush away,
+  The beetle dons his pansy shirt--
+    They know that it is day!
+
+  And caterpillars haste to milk
+    The cowslips in the grass;
+  The spider, in his web of silk,
+    Looks out for flies that pass.
+  These humble people leap from bed,
+    They know the night is done:
+  When Dandy spreads his golden head
+    They think he is the sun!
+
+  Dear Dandy truly does not smell
+    As sweet as some bouquets;
+  No florist gathers him to sell,
+    He withers in a vase;
+  Yet in the grass he's emperor,
+    And lord of high renown;
+  And grateful little folk adore
+    His bright and shining crown.
+
+
+
+
+  THE HIGH CHAIR
+
+
+  Grimly the parent matches wit and will:
+  Now, Weesy, three more spoons! See Tom the cat,
+  _He'd_ drink it. You want to be big and fat
+  Like Daddy, don't you? (Careful now, don't spill!)
+  Yes, Daddy'll dance, and blow smoke through his nose,
+  But you must finish first. Come, drink it up--
+  (_Splash_!) Oh, you _must_ keep both hands on the cup.
+  All gone? Now for the prunes....
+                               And so it goes.
+
+  This is the battlefield that parents know,
+  Where one small splinter of old Adam's rib
+  Withstands an entire household offering spoons.
+  No use to gnash your teeth. For she will go
+  Radiant to bed, glossy from crown to bib
+  With milk and cereal and a surf of prunes.
+
+
+
+
+  LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
+
+
+  Not long ago I fell in love,
+    But unreturned is my affection--
+  The girl that I'm enamored of
+    Pays little heed in my direction.
+
+  I thought I knew her fairly well:
+    In fact, I'd had my arm around her;
+  And so it's hard to have to tell
+    How unresponsive I have found her.
+
+  For, though she is not frankly rude,
+    Her manners quite the wrong way rub me:
+  It seems to me ingratitude
+    To let me love her--and then snub me!
+
+  Though I'm considerate and fond,
+    She shows no gladness when she spies me--
+  She gazes off somewhere beyond
+    And doesn't even recognize me.
+
+  Her eyes, so candid, calm and blue,
+    Seem asking if I can support her
+  In the style appropriate to
+    A lady like her father's daughter.
+
+  Well, if I can't then no one can--
+    And let me add that I intend to:
+  She'll never know another man
+    So fit for her to be a friend to.
+
+  Not love me, eh? She better had!
+    By Jove, I'll make her love me one day;
+  For, don't you see, I am her Dad,
+    And she'll be three weeks old on Sunday!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _ ... It's hard to have to tell_
+  _How unresponsive I have found her._]
+
+
+
+
+  AUTUMN COLORS
+
+
+  The chestnut trees turned yellow,
+  The oak like sherry browned,
+  The fir, the stubborn fellow,
+  Stayed green the whole year round.
+
+  But O the bonny maple
+  How richly he does shine!
+  He glows against the sunset
+  Like ruddy old port wine.
+
+
+
+
+  THE LAST CRICKET
+
+
+  When the bulb of the moon with white fire fills
+    And dead leaves crackle under the feet,
+  When men roll kegs to the cider mills
+    And chestnuts roast on every street;
+
+  When the night sky glows like a hollow shell
+    Of lustered emerald and pearl,
+  The kilted cricket knows too well
+    His doom. His tiny bagpipes skirl.
+
+  Quavering under the polished stars
+    In stubble, thicket, and frosty copse
+  The cricket blows a few choked bars,
+    And puts away his pipe--and stops.
+
+
+
+
+  TO LOUISE
+
+  (A Christmas Baby, Now One Year Old.)
+
+
+  Undaunted by a world of grief
+  You came upon perplexing days,
+  And cynics doubt their disbelief
+  To see the sky-stains in your gaze.
+
+  Your sudden and inclusive smile
+  And your emphatic tears, admit
+  That you must find this life worth while,
+  So eagerly you clutch at it!
+
+  Your face of triumph says, brave mite,
+  That life is full of love and luck--
+  Of blankets to kick off at night,
+  And two soft rose-pink thumbs to suck.
+
+  O loveliest of pioneers
+  Upon this trail of long surprise,
+  May all the stages of the years
+  Show such enchantment in your eyes!
+
+  By parents' patient buttonings,
+  And endless safety pins, you'll grow
+  To ribbons, garters, hooks and things,
+  Up to the Ultimate Trousseau--
+
+  But never, in your dainty prime,
+  Will you be more adored by me
+  Than when you see, this Great First Time,
+  Lit candles on a Christmas Tree!
+
+    December, 1919.
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _... When you see, this Great First Time,_
+  _Lit candles on a Christmas Tree!_]
+
+
+
+
+  CHRISTMAS EVE
+
+
+  Our hearts to-night are open wide,
+  The grudge, the grief, are laid aside:
+    The path and porch are swept of snow,
+    The doors unlatched; the hearthstones glow--
+  No visitor can be denied.
+
+  All tender human homes must hide
+  Some wistfulness beneath their pride:
+    Compassionate and humble grow
+      Our hearts to-night.
+
+  Let empty chair and cup abide!
+  Who knows? Some well-remembered stride
+    May come as once so long ago--
+    Then welcome, be it friend or foe!
+  There is no anger can divide
+      Our hearts to-night.
+
+
+
+
+  EPITAPH ON THE PROOFREADER OF
+  THE ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA
+
+
+  Majestic tomes, you are the tomb
+  Of Aristides Edward Bloom,
+  Who labored, from the world aloof,
+  In reading every page of proof.
+
+  From A to And, from Aus to Bis
+  Enthusiasm still was his;
+  From Cal to Cha, from Cha to Con
+  His soft-lead pencil still went on.
+
+  But reaching volume Fra to Gib,
+  He knew at length that he was sib
+  To Satan; and he sold his soul
+  To reach the section Pay to Pol.
+
+  Then Pol to Ree, and Shu to Sub
+  He staggered on, and sought a pub.
+  And just completing Vet to Zym,
+  The motor hearse came round for him.
+
+  He perished, obstinately brave:
+  They laid the Index on his grave.
+
+
+
+
+  THE MUSIC BOX
+
+
+  At six--long ere the wintry dawn--
+    There sounded through the silent hall
+  To where I lay, with blankets drawn
+    Above my ears, a plaintive call.
+
+  The Urchin, in the eagerness
+    Of three years old, could not refrain;
+  Awake, he straightway yearned to dress
+    And frolic with his clockwork train.
+
+  I heard him with a sullen shock.
+    His sister, by her usual plan,
+  Had piped us aft at 3 o'clock--
+    I vowed to quench the little man.
+
+  I leaned above him, somewhat stern,
+    And spoke, I fear, with emphasis--
+  Ah, how much better, parents learn,
+    To seal one's censure with a kiss!
+
+  Again the house was dark and still,
+    Again I lay in slumber's snare,
+  When down the hall I heard a trill,
+    A tiny, tinkling, tuneful air--
+
+  His music-box! His best-loved toy,
+    His crib companion every night;
+  And now he turned to it for joy
+    While waiting for the lagging light.
+
+  How clear, and how absurdly sad
+    Those tingling pricks of sound unrolled;
+  They chirped and quavered, as the lad
+    His lonely little heart consoled.
+
+  _Columbia, the Ocean's Gem_--
+    (Its only tune) shrilled sweet and faint.
+  He cranked the chimes, admiring them
+    In vigil gay, without complaint.
+
+  The treble music piped and stirred,
+    The leaping air that was his bliss;
+  And, as I most contritely heard,
+    I thanked the all-unconscious Swiss!
+
+  The needled jets of melody
+    Rang slowlier and died away--
+  The Urchin slept; and it was I
+    Who lay and waited for the day.
+
+
+  [Illustration: _The Music Box_]
+
+
+
+
+  TO LUATH
+
+  (_Robert Burns's Dog_)
+
+
+  _"Darling Jean" was Jean Armour, a "comely country lass" whom Burns
+met at a penny wedding at Mauchline. They chanced to be dancing in the
+same quadrille when the poet's dog sprang to his master and almost
+upset some of the dancers. Burns remarked that he wished he could get
+any of the lasses to like him as well as his dog did.
+
+  Some days afterward, Jean, seeing him pass as she was bleaching clothes
+on the village green, called to him and asked him if he had yet got any
+of the lasses to like him as well as his dog did.
+
+  That was the beginning of an acquaintance that coloured all of
+Burns's life._
+
+  --NATHAN HASKELL DOLE.
+
+
+  Well, Luath, man, when you came prancing
+    All glee to see your Robin dancing,
+  His partner's muslin gown mischancing
+    You leaped for joy!
+  And little guessed what sweet romancing
+    You caused, my boy!
+
+  With happy bark, that moment jolly,
+  You frisked and frolicked, faithful collie;
+  His other dog, old melancholy,
+    Was put to flight--
+  But what a tale of grief and folly
+    You wagged that night!
+
+  Ah, Luath, tyke, your bonny master
+  Whose lyric pulse beat ever faster
+  Each time he saw a lass and passed her
+    His breast went bang!
+  In many a woful heart's disaster
+    He felt the pang!
+
+  Poor Robin's heart, forever burning,
+  Forever roving, ranting, yearning,
+  From you that heart might have been learning
+    To be less fickle!
+  Might have been spared so many a turning
+    And grievous prickle!
+
+  Your collie heart held but one notion--
+  When Robbie jigged in sprightly motion
+  You ran to show your own devotion
+    And gambolled too,
+  And so that tempest on love's ocean
+    Was due to you!
+
+  Well, it is ower late for preaching
+  And hearts are aye too hot for teaching!
+  When Robin with his eye beseeching
+    By greenside came,
+  Jeanie--poor lass--forgot her bleaching
+    And yours the blame!
+
+
+
+
+  THOUGHTS ON REACHING LAND
+
+
+  I had a friend whose path was pain--
+    Oppressed by all the cares of earth
+  Life gave him little chance to drain
+    His secret cisterns of rich mirth.
+
+  His work was hasty, harassed, vexed:
+    His dreams were laid aside, perforce,
+  Until--in this world, or the next....
+    (His trade? Newspaper man, of course!)
+
+  What funded wealth of tenderness,
+    What ingots of the heart and mind
+  He must uneasily repress
+    Beneath the rasping daily grind.
+
+  But now and then, and with my aid,
+    For fear his soul be wholly lost,
+  His devoir to the grape he paid
+    To call soul back, at any cost!
+
+  Then, liberate from discipline,
+    Undrugged by caution and control,
+  Through all his veins came flooding in
+    The virtued passion of his soul!
+
+  His spirit bared, and felt no shame:
+    With holy light his eyes would shine--
+  See Truth her acolyte reclaim
+    After the second glass of wine!
+
+  The self that life had trodden hard
+    Aspired, was generous and free:
+  The glowing heart that care had charred
+    Grew flame, as it was meant to be.
+
+  A pox upon the canting lot
+    Who call the glass the Devil's shape--
+  A greater pox where'er some sot
+    Defiles the honor of the grape.
+
+  Then look with reverence on wine
+    That kindles human brains uncouth--
+  There must be something part divine
+    In aught that brings us nearer Truth!
+
+  So--continently skull your fumes
+    (Here let our little sermon end)
+  And bless this X-ray that illumes
+    The secret bosom of your friend!
+
+
+
+
+  A SYMPOSIUM
+
+
+  There was a Russian novelist
+    Whose name was Solugubrious,
+  The reading circles took him up,
+    (They'd heard he was salubrious.)
+
+  The women's club of Cripple Creek
+    Soon held a kind of seminar
+  To learn just what his message was--
+    You know what bookworms women are.
+
+  The tea went round. After five cups
+    (You should have seen them bury tea)
+  Dear Mrs. Brown said what she liked
+    Was the great man's _sincerity_.
+
+  Sweet Mrs. Jones (how free she was
+    From all besetting vanity)
+  Declared that she loved even more
+    His broad and deep _humanity_.
+
+  Good Mrs. Smith, though she disclaimed
+    All thought of being critical,
+  Protested that she found his work
+    A wee bit _analytical_.
+
+  But Mrs. Black, the President,
+    Of wisdom found the pinnacle:
+  She said, "Dear me, I always think
+    Those Russians are so _cynical_."
+
+  Well, poor old Solugubrious,
+    It's true that they had heard of him;
+  But neither Brown, Jones, Smith, nor Black
+    Had ever read a word of him!
+
+
+  [Illustration: _Solugubrious_]
+
+
+
+
+  TO A TELEPHONE OPERATOR WHO
+  HAS A BAD COLD
+
+
+  How hoarse and husky in my ear
+    Your usually cheerful chirrup:
+  You have an awful cold, my dear--
+    Try aspirin or bronchial syrup.
+
+  When I put in a call to-day
+    Compassion stirred my humane blood red
+  To hear you faintly, sadly, say
+    The number: _Burray Hill dide hudred!_
+
+  I felt (I say) quick sympathy
+    To hear you croak in the receiver--
+  Will you be sorry too for me
+    A month hence, when I have hay fever?
+
+
+
+
+  NURSERY RHYMES FOR THE
+  TENDER-HEARTED
+
+  (Dedicated to Don Marquis.)
+
+
+  I
+
+
+  Scuttle, scuttle, little roach--
+  How you run when I approach:
+  Up above the pantry shelf.
+  Hastening to secrete yourself.
+
+  Most adventurous of vermin,
+  How I wish I could determine
+  How you spend your hours of ease,
+  Perhaps reclining on the cheese.
+
+  Cook has gone, and all is dark--
+  Then the kitchen is your park:
+  In the garbage heap that she leaves
+  Do you browse among the tea leaves?
+
+  How delightful to suspect
+  All the places you have trekked:
+  Does your long antenna whisk its
+  Gentle tip across the biscuits?
+
+  Do you linger, little soul,
+  Drowsing in our sugar bowl?
+  Or, abandonment most utter,
+  Shake a shimmy on the butter?
+
+  Do you chant your simple tunes
+  Swimming in the baby's prunes?
+  Then, when dawn comes, do you slink
+  Homeward to the kitchen sink?
+
+  Timid roach, why be so shy?
+  We are brothers, thou and I.
+  In the midnight, like yourself,
+  I explore the pantry shelf!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _In the midnight, like yourself,_
+  _I explore the pantry shelf!_]
+
+
+
+
+  NURSERY RHYMES FOR THE
+  TENDER-HEARTED
+
+
+  II
+
+
+  Rockabye, insect, lie low in thy den,
+  Father's a cockroach, mother's a hen.
+  And Betty, the maid, doesn't clean up the sink,
+  So you shall have plenty to eat and to drink.
+
+  Hushabye, insect, behind the mince pies:
+  If the cook sees you her anger will rise;
+  She'll scatter poison, as bitter as gall,
+  Death to poor cockroach, hen, baby and all.
+
+
+
+
+  NURSERY RHYMES FOR THE
+  TENDER-HEARTED
+
+
+  III
+
+
+  There was a gay henroach, and what do you think,
+  She lived in a cranny behind the old sink--
+  Eggshells and grease were the chief of her diet;
+  She went for a stroll when the kitchen was quiet.
+
+  She walked in the pantry and sampled the bread,
+  But when she came back her old husband was dead:
+  Long had he lived, for his legs they were fast,
+  But the kitchen maid caught him and squashed him at last.
+
+
+
+
+  NURSERY RHYMES FOR THE
+  TENDER-HEARTED
+
+
+  IV
+
+
+  I knew a black beetle, who lived down a drain,
+  And friendly he was though his manners were plain;
+  When I took a bath he would come up the pipe,
+  And together we'd wash and together we'd wipe.
+
+  Though mother would sometimes protest with a sneer
+  That my choice of a tub-mate was wanton and queer,
+  A nicer companion I never have seen:
+  He bathed every night, so he must have been clean.
+
+  Whenever he heard the tap splash in the tub
+  He'd dash up the drain-pipe and wait for a scrub,
+  And often, so fond of ablution was he,
+  I'd find him there floating and waiting for me.
+
+  But nurse has done something that seems a great shame:
+  She saw him there, waiting, prepared for a game:
+  She turned on the hot and she scalded him sore
+  And he'll never come bathing with me any more.
+
+
+
+
+  THE TWINS
+
+
+  Con was a thorn to brother Pro--
+    On Pro we often sicked him:
+  Whatever Pro would claim to know
+    Old Con would contradict him!
+
+
+  [Illustration: _The Twins_]
+
+
+
+
+  A PRINTER'S MADRIGAL
+
+  (_Extremely technical_)
+
+
+  I'd like to have you meet my wife!
+    I simply cannot keep from hinting
+  I've never seen, in all my life,
+    So fine a specimen of printing.
+
+  Her type is not some =bold-face= font,
+    Set solid. Nay! And I will say out
+  That no typographer could want
+    To see a better balanced layout.
+
+  A nice proportion of white space
+    There is for brown eyes to look large in,
+  And not a feature in her face
+    Comes anywhere too near the margin.
+
+  Locked up with all her sweet display
+    Her form will never pi. She's like a
+  Corrected proof marked _stet, O. K._--
+    And yet she loves me, fatface =Pica!=
+
+  She has a fine one-column head,
+    And like a comma curves each eyebrow--
+  Her forehead has an extra lead
+    Which makes her seem a trifle highbrow.
+
+  Her nose, _italicized brevier_,
+    Too lovely to describe by penpoint;
+  Her mouth is set in _pearl_: her ear
+    And chin are comely Caslon ten-point.
+
+  Her cheeks (a pink parenthesis)
+    Make my pulse beat 14-em measure,
+  And such typography as this
+    Would make =De Vinne= scream with pleasure.
+
+  And so, of all typefounder chaps
+    Her father's best, in my opinion;
+  She is my NONPAREIL (IN CAPS)
+    And I (in lower case) her _minion_.
+
+  I hope you will not stand aloof
+    Because my metaphors are shoppy;
+  Of her devotion I've a proof--
+    I tell the urchin, _Follow Copy_!
+
+
+
+
+  THE POET ON THE HEARTH
+
+
+  When fire is kindled on the dogs,
+    But still the stubborn oak delays,
+  Small embers laid above the logs
+    Will draw them into sudden blaze.
+
+  Just so the minor poet's part:
+    (A greater he need not desire)
+  The charcoals of his burning heart
+    May light some Master into fire!
+
+
+
+
+  O PRAISE ME NOT THE COUNTRY
+
+
+  O praise me not the country--
+  The meadows green and cool,
+  The solemn glow of sunsets, the hidden silver pool!
+      The city for my craving,
+      Her lordship and her slaving,
+      The hot stones of her paving
+          For me, a city fool!
+
+  O praise me not the leisure
+  Of gardened country seats,
+  The fountains on the terrace against the summer heats--
+      The city for my yearning,
+      My spending and my earning.
+      Her winding ways for learning,
+          Sing hey! the city streets!
+
+  O praise me not the country,
+  Her sycamores and bees,
+  I had my youthful plenty of sour apple trees!
+      The city for my wooing,
+      My dreaming and my doing;
+      Her beauty for pursuing,
+          Her deathless mysteries.
+
+  O praise me not the country,
+  Her evenings full of stars,
+  Her yachts upon the water with the wind among their spars--
+      The city for my wonder,
+      Her glory and her blunder,
+      And O the haunting thunder
+          Of the Elevated cars!
+
+
+  [Illustration: Seascape]
+
+
+
+
+  A STONE IN ST. PAUL'S GRAVEYARD
+
+  (New York)
+
+
+    _Here Lyes the Body of_
+    _Iohn Jones the Son of_
+    _Iohn Jones Who Departed_
+    _This Life December the 13_
+    _1768 Aged 4 Years & 4 Months & 2 Days_
+
+  Here, where enormous shadows creep,
+    He casts his childish shadow too:
+  How small he seems, beneath the steep
+    Great walls; his tender days, so few,
+  Lovingly numbered, every one--
+  John Jones, John Jones's little son.
+
+  O sunlight on the Lightning's wings!
+    Yet though our buildings skyward climb
+  Our heartbreaks are but little things
+    In the equality of Time.
+  The sum of life, for all men's stones:
+  He was John Jones, son of John Jones.
+
+
+
+
+  THE MADONNA OF THE CURB
+
+
+  On the curb of a city pavement,
+    By the ash and garbage cans,
+  In the stench and rolling thunder
+    Of motor trucks and vans,
+  There sits my little lady,
+    With brave but troubled eyes,
+  And in her arms a baby
+    That cries and cries and cries.
+
+  She cannot be more than seven;
+    But years go fast in the slums,
+  And hard on the pains of winter
+    The pitiless summer comes.
+  The wail of sickly children
+    She knows; she understands
+  The pangs of puny bodies,
+    The clutch of small hot hands.
+
+  In the deadly blaze of August,
+    That turns men faint and mad,
+  She quiets the peevish urchins
+
+    By telling a dream she had--
+  A heaven with marble counters,
+    And ice, and a singing fan;
+  And a God in white, so friendly,
+    Just like the drug-store man.
+
+  Her ragged dress is dearer
+    Than the perfect robe of a queen!
+  Poor little lass, who knows not
+    The blessing of being clean.
+  And when you are giving millions
+    To Belgian, Pole and Serb,
+  Remember my pitiful lady--
+    Madonna of the Curb!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _The wail of sickly children_
+    _She knows; she understands_
+  _The pangs of puny bodies,_
+    _The clutch of small hot hands._]
+
+
+
+
+  THE ISLAND
+
+
+  _A song for England?_
+    _Nay, what is a song for England?_
+
+  Our hearts go by green-cliffed Kinsale
+    Among the gulls' white wings,
+  Or where, on Kentish forelands pale
+    The lighthouse beacon swings:
+  Our hearts go up the Mersey's tide,
+    Come in on Suffolk foam--
+  The blood that will not be denied
+    Moves fast, and calls us home!
+
+  Our hearts now walk a secret round
+    On many a Cotswold hill,
+  For we are mixed of island ground,
+    The island draws us still:
+  Our hearts may pace a windy turn
+    Where Sussex downs are high,
+  Or watch the lights of London burn,
+    A bonfire in the sky!
+
+  What is the virtue of that soil
+    That flings her strength so wide?
+  Her ancient courage, patient toil,
+    Her stubborn wordless pride?
+  A little land, yet loved therein
+    As any land may be,
+  Rejoicing in her discipline,
+    The salt stress of the sea.
+
+  Our hearts shall walk a Sherwood track,
+    Our lips taste English rain,
+  We thrill to see the Union Jack
+    Across some deep-sea lane;
+  Though all the world be of rich cost
+    And marvellous with worth,
+  Yet if that island ground were lost
+    How empty were the earth!
+
+  _A song for England?_
+  _Lo, every word we speak's a song for England._
+
+
+
+
+  SUNDAY NIGHT
+
+
+  Two grave brown eyes, severely bent
+    Upon a memorandum book--
+  A sparkling face, on which are blent
+    A hopeful and a pensive look;
+  A pencil, purse, and book of checks
+    With stubs for varying amounts--
+  Elaine, the shrewdest of her sex,
+    Is busy balancing accounts.
+
+  Sedately, in the big armchair,
+    She, all engrossed, the audit scans--
+  Her pencil hovers here and there
+    The while she calculates and plans;
+  What's this? A faintly pensive frown
+    Upon her forehead gathers now--
+  Ah, does the butcher--heartless clown--
+    Beget that shadow on her brow?
+
+
+  A murrain on the tradesman churl
+    Who caused this fair accountant's gloom!
+  Just then--a baby's cry--my girl
+    Arose and swiftly left the room.
+  Then in her purse by stratagem
+    I thrust some bills of small amounts--
+  She'll think she had forgotten them,
+    And smile again at her accounts!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _Ah, does the butcher--heartless clown--_
+    _Beget that shadow on her brow?_]
+
+
+
+  ENGLAND, JULY 1913
+
+  To Rupert Brooke
+
+
+  O England, England ... that July
+  How placidly the days went by!
+
+  Two years ago (how long it seems)
+  In that dear England of my dreams
+  I loved and smoked and laughed amain
+  And rode to Cambridge in the rain.
+  A careless godlike life was there!
+  To spin the roads with _Shotover_,
+  To dream while punting on the Cam,
+  To lie, and never give a damn
+  For anything but comradeship
+  And books to read and ale to sip,
+  And shandygaff at every inn
+  When _The Gorilla_ rode to Lynn!
+  O world of wheel and pipe and oar
+  In those old days before the War.
+
+  O poignant echoes of that time!
+  I hear the Oxford towers chime,
+  The throbbing of those mellow bells
+  And all the sweet old English smells--
+
+  The Deben water, quick with salt,
+  The Woodbridge brew-house and the malt;
+  The Suffolk villages, serene
+  With lads at cricket on the green,
+  And Wytham strawberries, so ripe,
+  And _Murray's Mixture_ in my pipe!
+
+  In those dear days, in those dear days,
+  All pleasant lay the country ways;
+  The echoes of our stalwart mirth
+  Went echoing wide around the earth
+  And in an endless bliss of sun
+  We lay and watched the river run.
+  And you by Cam and I by Isis
+  Were happy with our own devices.
+
+  Ah, can we ever know again
+  Such friends as were those chosen men,
+  Such men to drink, to bike, to smoke with,
+  To worship with, or lie and joke with?
+  Never again, my lads, we'll see
+  The life we led at twenty-three.
+  Never again, perhaps, shall I
+  Go flashing bravely down the High
+  To see, in that transcendent hour,
+  The sunset glow on Magdalen Tower.
+
+  Dear Rupert Brooke, your words recall
+  Those endless afternoons, and all
+  Your Cambridge--which I loved as one
+  Who was her grandson, not her son.
+  O ripples where the river slacks
+  In greening eddies round the "backs";
+  Where men have dreamed such gallant things
+  Under the old stone bridge at _King's_.
+  Or leaned to feed the silver swans
+  By the tennis meads at _John's_.
+  O Granta's water, cold and fresh,
+  Kissing the warm and eager flesh
+  Under the willow's breathing stir--
+  The bathing pool at _Grantchester_....
+  What words can tell, what words can praise
+  The burly savor of those days!
+
+  Dear singing lad, those days are dead
+  And gone for aye your golden head;
+  And many other well-loved men
+  Will never dine in Hall again.
+  I too have lived remembered hours
+  In Cambridge; heard the summer showers
+  Make music on old _Heffer's_ pane
+  While I was reading Pepys or Taine.
+  Through _Trumpington_ and _Grantchester_
+
+  I used to roll on _Shotover_;
+  At _Hauxton Bridge_ my lamp would light
+  And sleep in _Royston_ for the night.
+  Or to _Five Miles from Anywhere_
+  I used to scull; and sit and swear
+  While wasps attacked my bread and jam
+  Those summer evenings on the Cam.
+  (O crispy English cottage-loaves
+  Baked in ovens, not in stoves!
+  O white unsalted English butter
+  O satisfaction none can utter!)...
+
+  To think that while those joys I knew
+  In Cambridge, I did not know you.
+
+    July, 1915.
+
+
+
+
+ CASUALTY
+
+
+  A well-sharp'd pencil leads one on to write:
+  When guns are cocked, the shot is guaranteed;
+  The primed occasion puts the deed in sight:
+  Who steals a book who knows not how to read?
+
+  Seeing a pulpit, who can silence keep?
+  A maid, who would not dream her ta'en to wife?
+  Men looking down from some sheer dizzy steep
+  Have (quite impromptu) leapt, and ended life.
+
+
+
+
+  A GRUB STREET RECESSIONAL
+
+
+  O noble gracious English tongue
+  Whose fibers we so sadly twist,
+  For caitiff measures he has sung
+  Have pardon on the journalist.
+
+  For mumbled meter, leaden pun,
+  For slipshod rhyme, and lazy word,
+  Have pity on this graceless one--
+  Thy mercy on Thy servant, Lord!
+
+  The metaphors and tropes depart,
+  Our little clippings fade and bleach:
+  There is no virtue and no art
+  Save in straightforward Saxon speech.
+
+  Yet not in ignorance or spite,
+  Nor with Thy noble past forgot
+  We sinned: indeed we had to write
+  To keep a fire beneath the pot.
+
+  Then grant that in the coming time,
+  With inky hand and polished sleeve,
+  In lucid prose or honest rhyme
+  Some worthy task we may achieve--
+
+  Some pinnacled and marbled phrase,
+  Some lyric, breaking like the sea,
+  That we may learn, not hoping praise,
+  The gift of Thy simplicity.
+
+
+
+
+  PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTIONS FOR A
+  FUNERAL SERVICE: BEING A
+  POEM IN FOUR STANZAS
+
+
+  Say this poor fool misfeatured all his days,
+  And could not mend his ways;
+  And say he trod
+  Most heavily upon the corns of God.
+
+  But also say that in his clabbered brain
+  There was the essential pain--
+  The idiot's vow
+  To tell his troubled Truth, no matter how.
+
+  Unhappy fool, you say, with pitiful air:
+  Who was he, then, and where?
+  Ah, you divine
+  He lives in your heart, as he lives in mine.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: To bed]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Chimneysmoke, by Christopher Morley
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHIMNEYSMOKE ***
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diff --git a/old/37852-8.zip b/old/37852-8.zip
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Chimneysmoke, by Christopher Morley
+
+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: Chimneysmoke
+
+Author: Christopher Morley
+
+Illustrator: Thomas Fogarty
+
+Release Date: October 26, 2011 [EBook #37852]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHIMNEYSMOKE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Steven Brown and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+  Transcribers Notes:
+
+  Bold faced text shown as: =abcde=
+  Italics text shown as: _abcde_
+  Unusual fonts shown as: _abcde_
+
+  [Illustrations:] have been moved to end of poem in all cases.
+
+  There are two instances of Greek in the text - IEuro has been used.
+
+
+  *   *   *   *   *
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: Cover Page]
+
+
+
+
+  _Chimneysmoke_
+
+
+  [Illustration: Chimneysmoke]
+
+
+
+
+  _By Christopher Morley_
+
+
+  CHIMNEYSMOKE
+  HIDE AND SEEK
+  THE ROCKING HORSE
+  SONGS FOR A LITTLE HOUSE
+  MINCE PIE
+
+
+  _New York: George H. Doran Company_
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _This hearth was built for thy delight,_
+  _For thee the logs were sawn,_
+  _For thee the largest chair, at night,_
+  _Is to the chimney drawn._
+
+  _For thee, dear lass, the match was lit,_
+  _To yield the ruddy blaze--_
+  _May Jack Frost give us joy of it_
+  _For many, many days._]
+
+
+
+
+  =_Chimneysmoke_=
+
+  _by_
+
+  _Christopher Morley_
+
+
+  [Illustration: Fireside Chair]
+
+
+  _Illustrated by_
+  _Thomas Fogarty_
+
+
+  _Garden City New York_
+  _Doubleday, Page & Co._
+  _1927_
+
+
+
+
+    COPYRIGHT, 1917, 1919, 1920, 1921
+    BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY.
+    ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN
+    THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY
+    LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y.
+
+
+
+
+  _"How can I turn from any fire_
+    _On any man's hearthstone?_
+  _I know the wonder and desire_
+    _That went to build my own."_
+
+
+  --RUDYARD KIPLING, "_The Fires_"
+
+
+
+
+  _Author's Note_
+
+There are a number of poems in this collection that have not previously
+appeared in book form. But, as a few readers may discern, many of the
+verses are reprinted from _Songs for a Little House_(1917),
+_The Rocking Horse_ (1919) and _Hide and Seek_ (1920). There is
+also one piece revived from the judicious obscurity of an early escapade,
+_The Eighth Sin_, published in Oxford in 1912. It is on Mr. Thomas
+Fogarty's delightful and sympathetic drawings that this book rests its
+real claim to be considered a new venture. To Mr. Fogarty, and to
+Mr. George H. Doran, whose constant kindness and generosity contradict
+all the traditions about publishers and minor poets, the author expresses
+his permanent gratitude.
+
+  _Roslyn, Long Island._
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: Boat on Lake]
+
+
+  _Contents_
+
+                                                                   PAGE
+
+  TO THE LITTLE HOUSE                                                19
+
+  A GRACE BEFORE WRITING                                             20
+
+  DEDICATION FOR A FIREPLACE                                         21
+
+  TAKING TITLE                                                       22
+
+  THE SECRET                                                         25
+
+  ONLY A MATTER OF TIME                                              26
+
+  AT THE MERMAID CAFETERIA                                           28
+
+  OUR HOUSE                                                          29
+
+  ON NAMING A HOUSE                                                  31
+
+  A HALLOWE'EN MEMORY                                                32
+
+  REFUSING YOU IMMORTALITY                                           35
+
+  BAYBERRY CANDLES                                                   36
+
+  SECRET LAUGHTER                                                    37
+
+  SIX WEEKS OLD                                                      38
+
+  A CHARM                                                            41
+
+  MY PIPE                                                            42
+
+  THE 5:42                                                           44
+
+  PETER PAN                                                          48
+
+  IN HONOR OF TAFFY TOPAZ                                            49
+
+  THE CEDAR CHEST                                                    50
+
+  READING ALOUD                                                      51
+
+  ANIMAL CRACKERS                                                    52
+
+  THE MILKMAN                                                        55
+
+  LIGHT VERSE                                                        56
+
+  THE FURNACE                                                        57
+
+  WASHING THE DISHES                                                 58
+
+  THE CHURCH OF UNBENT KNEES                                         61
+
+  ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY COAL-BIN                                62
+
+  THE OLD SWIMMER                                                    66
+
+  THE MOON-SHEEP                                                     70
+
+  SMELLS                                                             71
+
+  SMELLS (JUNIOR)                                                    72
+
+  MAR QUONG, CHINESE LAUNDRYMAN                                      75
+
+  THE FAT LITTLE PURSE                                               76
+
+  THE REFLECTION                                                     80
+
+  THE BALLOON PEDDLER                                                82
+
+  LINES FOR AN ECCENTRIC'S BOOK PLATE                                86
+
+  TO A POST-OFFICE INKWELL                                           89
+
+  THE CRIB                                                           90
+
+  THE POET                                                           94
+
+  TO A DISCARDED MIRROR                                              97
+
+  TO A CHILD                                                         98
+
+  TO A VERY YOUNG GENTLEMAN                                         100
+
+  TO AN OLD-FASHIONED POET                                          104
+
+  BURNING LEAVES IN SPRING                                          105
+
+  BURNING LEAVES, NOVEMBER                                          106
+
+  A VALENTINE GAME                                                  107
+
+  FOR A BIRTHDAY                                                    108
+
+  KEATS                                                             111
+
+  TO H. F. M., A SONNET IN SUNLIGHT                                 113
+
+  QUICKENING                                                        114
+
+  AT A WINDOW SILL                                                  115
+
+  THE RIVER OF LIGHT                                                116
+
+  OF HER GLORIOUS MADNESS                                           118
+
+  IN AN AUCTION ROOM                                                119
+
+  EPITAPH FOR A POET WHO WROTE NO POETRY                            120
+
+  SONNET BY A GEOMETER                                              121
+
+  TO A VAUDEVILLE TERRIER                                           122
+
+  TO AN OLD FRIEND                                                  125
+
+  TO A BURLESQUE SOUBRETTE                                          126
+
+  THOUGHTS WHILE PACKING A TRUNK                                    129
+
+  STREETS                                                           130
+
+  TO THE ONLY BEGETTER                                              131
+
+  PEDOMETER                                                         133
+
+  HOSTAGES                                                          134
+
+  ARS DURA                                                          137
+
+  O. HENRY--APOTHECARY                                              138
+
+  FOR THE CENTENARY OF KEATS'S SONNET                               139
+
+  TWO O'CLOCK                                                       140
+
+  THE COMMERCIAL TRAVELLER                                          141
+
+  THE WEDDED LOVER                                                  142
+
+  TO YOU, REMEMBERING THE PAST                                      143
+
+  CHARLES AND MARY                                                  144
+
+  TO A GRANDMOTHER                                                  145
+
+  DIARISTS                                                          146
+
+  THE LAST SONNET                                                   147
+
+  THE SAVAGE                                                        148
+
+  ST. PAUL'S AND WOOLWORTH                                          149
+
+  ADVICE TO A CITY                                                  150
+
+  THE TELEPHONE DIRECTORY                                           151
+
+  GREEN ESCAPE                                                      153
+
+  VESPER SONG FOR COMMUTERS                                         157
+
+  THE ICE WAGON                                                     158
+
+  AT A MOVIE THEATRE                                                161
+
+  SONNETS IN A LODGING HOUSE                                        163
+
+  THE MAN WITH THE HOE (PRESS)                                      167
+
+  DO YOU EVER FEEL LIKE GOD?                                        168
+
+  RAPID TRANSIT                                                     170
+
+  CAUGHT IN THE UNDERTOW                                            171
+
+  TO HIS BROWN-EYED MISTRESS                                        172
+
+  PEACE                                                             173
+
+  SONG, IN DEPRECATION OF PULCHRITUDE                               175
+
+  MOUNTED POLICE                                                    176
+
+  TO HIS MISTRESS, DEPLORING THAT HE IS
+  NOT AN ELIZABETHAN GALAXY                                         179
+
+  THE INTRUDER                                                      181
+
+  TIT FOR TAT                                                       182
+
+  SONG FOR A LITTLE HOUSE                                           185
+
+  THE PLUMPUPPETS                                                   186
+
+  DANDY DANDELION                                                   190
+
+  THE HIGH CHAIR                                                    192
+
+  LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT                                               193
+
+  AUTUMN COLORS                                                     197
+
+  THE LAST CRICKET                                                  198
+
+  TO LOUISE                                                         199
+
+  CHRISTMAS EVE                                                     203
+
+  EPITAPH ON THE PROOFREADER OF THE
+  ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA                                           204
+
+  THE MUSIC BOX                                                     205
+
+  TO LUATH                                                          209
+
+  THOUGHTS ON REACHING LAND                                         212
+
+  A SYMPOSIUM                                                       214
+
+  TO A TELEPHONE OPERATOR WHO HAS A
+  BAD COLD                                                          218
+
+  NURSERY RHYMES FOR THE TENDER-HEARTED                             219
+
+  THE TWINS                                                         227
+
+  A PRINTER'S MADRIGAL                                              228
+
+  THE POET ON THE HEARTH                                            230
+
+  O PRAISE ME NOT THE COUNTRY                                       231
+
+  A STONE IN ST. PAUL'S GRAVEYARD                                   235
+
+  THE MADONNA OF THE CURB                                           236
+
+  THE ISLAND                                                        240
+
+  SUNDAY NIGHT                                                      242
+
+  ENGLAND, JULY, 1913                                               246
+
+  CASUALTY                                                          250
+
+  A GRUB STREET RECESSIONAL                                         251
+
+  PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTIONS FOR A FUNERAL
+  SERVICE                                                           253
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: Girl on Stool]
+
+
+  _Illustrations_
+
+                                                                   PAGE
+
+  _This hearth was built for thy delight_--               _Frontispiece_
+
+  _And by a friend's bright gift of wine,_
+  _I dedicate this house of mine_                                    23
+
+  _And of all man's felicities_--                                    33
+
+  _A little world he feels and sees:_
+  _His mother's arms, his mother's knees_--                          39
+
+  _The 5:42_                                                         45
+
+  _And Daddy once said he would like to be me_
+  _Having cocoa and animals once more for tea!_                      53
+
+  _But heavy feeding complicates_
+  _The task by soiling many plates_                                  59
+
+  _How ill avail, on such a frosty night_                            63
+
+  _The old swimmer_                                                  67
+
+  _But Katie, the cook, is more splendid than all_--                 73
+
+  _Perhaps it's a ragged child crying_                               77
+
+  _The Balloon Peddler_                                              83
+
+  _If you appreciate it more_
+  _Than I--why don't return it!_                                     87
+
+  _And then one night_--                                             91
+
+  _The human cadence and the subtle chime_
+  _Of little laughters_--                                            95
+
+  _What years of youthful ills and pangs and bumps_--               101
+
+  _A Birthday_                                                      109
+
+  _You must be rigid servant of your art!_                          123
+
+  _You came, and impudent and deuce-may-care_
+  _Danced where the gutter flamed with footlight fire_              127
+
+  _Hostages_                                                        135
+
+  _My eyes still pine for the comely line_
+  _Of an outbound vessel's hull_                                    155
+
+  _A man ain't so secretive, never cares_
+  _What kind of private papers he leaves lay_--                     165
+
+  _Mounted Police_                                                  177
+
+  _Courtesy_                                                        183
+
+  _The Plumpuppets_                                                 187
+
+  ... _It's hard to have to tell_
+  _How unresponsive I have found her_                               195
+
+  ... _When you see, this Great First Time,_
+  _Lit candles on a Christmas Tree!_                                201
+
+  _The music box_                                                   207
+
+  _Solugubrious_                                                    215
+
+  _In the midnight, like yourself,_
+  _I explore the pantry shelf!_                                     221
+
+  _The Twins_                                                       227
+
+  _O praise me not the country_                                     233
+
+  _The wail of sickly children_--                                   237
+
+  _Ah, does the butcher--heartless clown--_
+  _Beget that shadow on her brow?_                                  243
+
+
+
+
+  _Chimneysmoke_
+
+
+  [Illustration: Girl by Gate]
+
+
+
+
+  _=Chimneysmoke=_
+
+
+  TO THE LITTLE HOUSE
+
+
+  Dear little house, dear shabby street,
+  Dear books and beds and food to eat!
+  How feeble words are to express
+  The facets of your tenderness.
+
+  How white the sun comes through the pane!
+  In tinkling music drips the rain!
+  How burning bright the furnace glows!
+  What paths to shovel when it snows!
+
+  O dearly loved Long Island trains!
+  O well remembered joys and pains....
+  How near the housetops Beauty leans
+  Along that little street in Queens!
+
+  Let these poor rhymes abide for proof
+  Joy dwells beneath a humble roof;
+  Heaven is not built of country seats
+  But little queer suburban streets!
+
+    March, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+  A GRACE BEFORE WRITING
+
+
+  This is a sacrament, I think!
+    Holding the bottle toward the light,
+  As blue as lupin gleams the ink;
+    May Truth be with me as I write!
+
+  That small dark cistern may afford
+    Reunion with some vanished friend,--
+  And with this ink I have just poured
+    May none but honest words be penned!
+
+
+
+
+  DEDICATION FOR A FIREPLACE
+
+
+  This hearth was built for thy delight,
+    For thee the logs were sawn,
+  For thee the largest chair, at night,
+    Is to the chimney drawn.
+
+  For thee, dear lass, the match was lit
+    To yield the ruddy blaze--
+  May Jack Frost give us joy of it
+    For many, many days.
+
+
+
+
+  TAKING TITLE
+
+
+  To make this house my very own
+  Could not be done by law alone.
+  Though covenant and deed convey
+  Absolute fee, as lawyers say,
+  There are domestic rites beside
+  By which this house is sanctified.
+
+  By kindled fire upon the hearth,
+  By planted pansies in the garth,
+  By food, and by the quiet rest
+  Of those brown eyes that I love best,
+  And by a friend's bright gift of wine,
+  I dedicate this house of mine.
+
+  When all but I are soft abed
+  I trail about my quiet stead
+  A wreath of blue tobacco smoke
+  (A charm that evil never broke)
+  And bring my ritual to an end
+  By giving shelter to a friend.
+
+  These done, O dwelling, you become
+  Not just a house, but truly Home!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _And by a friend's bright gift of wine,_
+  _I dedicate this house of mine_]
+
+
+
+
+  THE SECRET
+
+
+  It was the House of Quietness
+    To which I came at dusk;
+  The garth was lit with roses
+    And heavy with their musk.
+
+  The tremulous tall poplar trees
+    Stood whispering around,
+  The gentle flicker of their plumes
+    More quiet than no sound.
+
+  And as I wondered at the door
+    What magic might be there,
+  The Lady of Sweet Silences
+    Came softly down the stair.
+
+
+
+
+  ONLY A MATTER OF TIME
+
+
+  Down-slipping Time, sweet, swift, and shallow stream,
+  Here, like a boulder, lies this afternoon
+  Across your eager flow. So you shall stay,
+  Deepened and dammed, to let me breathe and be.
+  Your troubled fluency, your running gleam
+  Shall pause, and circle idly, still and clear:
+  The while I lie and search your glassy pool
+  Where, gently coiling in their lazy round,
+  Unseparable minutes drift and swim,
+  Eddy and rise and brim. And I will see
+  How many crystal bubbles of slack Time
+  The mind can hold and cherish in one _Now_!
+
+  Now, for one conscious vacancy of sense,
+  The stream is gathered in a deepening pond,
+  Not a mere moving mirror. Through the sharp
+  Correct reflection of the standing scene
+  The mind can dip, and cleanse itself with rest,
+  And see, slow spinning in the lucid gold,
+  Your liquid motes, imperishable Time.
+
+  It cannot be. The runnel slips away:
+  The clear smooth downward sluice begins again,
+  More brightly slanting for that trembling pause,
+  Leaving the sense its conscious vague unease
+  As when a sonnet flashes on the mind,
+  Trembles and burns an instant, and is gone.
+
+
+
+
+  AT THE MERMAID CAFETERIA
+
+
+  Truth is enough for prose:
+  Calmly it goes
+  To tell just what it knows.
+
+  For verse, skill will suffice--
+  Delicate, nice
+  Casting of verbal dice.
+
+  Poetry, men attain
+  By subtler pain
+  More flagrant in the brain--
+
+  An honesty unfeigned,
+  A heart unchained,
+  A madness well restrained.
+
+
+
+
+  OUR HOUSE
+
+
+  It should be yours, if I could build
+  The quaint old dwelling I desire,
+  With books and pictures bravely filled
+  And chairs beside an open fire,
+  White-panelled rooms with candles lit--
+  I lie awake to think of it!
+
+  A dial for the sunny hours,
+  A garden of old-fashioned flowers--
+  Say marigolds and lavender
+  And mignonette and fever-few,
+  And Judas-tree and maidenhair
+  And candytuft and thyme and rue--
+  All these for you to wander in.
+
+  A Chinese carp (called _Mandarin_)
+  Waving a sluggish silver fin
+  Deep in the moat: so tame he comes
+  To lip your fingers offering crumbs.
+  Tall chimneys, like long listening ears,
+  White shutters, ivy green and thick,
+  And walls of ruddy Tudor brick
+  Grown mellow with the passing years.
+
+  And windows with small leaded panes,
+  Broad window-seats for when it rains;
+  A big blue bowl of pot pourri
+  And--yes, a Spanish chestnut tree
+  To coin the autumn's minted gold.
+  A summer house for drinking tea--
+  All these (just think!) for you and me.
+
+  A staircase of the old black wood
+  Cut in the days of Robin Hood,
+  And banisters worn smooth as glass
+  Down which your hand will lightly pass;
+  A piano with pale yellow keys
+  For wistful twilight melodies,
+  And dusty bottles in a bin--
+  All these for you to revel in!
+
+  But when? Ah well, until that time
+  We'll habit in this house of rhyme.
+
+    1912
+
+
+
+
+  ON NAMING A HOUSE
+
+
+  When I a householder became
+    I had to give my house a name.
+
+  I thought I'd call it "Poplar Trees,"
+  Or "Widdershins" or "Velvet Bees,"
+    Or "Just Beneath a Star."
+  I thought of "House Where Plumbings Freeze,"
+  Or "As You Like it," "If You Please,"
+  Or "Nicotine" or "Bread and Cheese,"
+    "Full Moon" or "Doors Ajar."
+
+  But still I sought some subtle charm,
+  Some rune to guard my roof from harm
+    And keep the devil far;
+  I thought of this, and I was saved!
+  I had my letter-heads engraved
+    _The House Where Brown Eyes Are._
+
+
+
+
+  A HALLOWE'EN MEMORY
+
+
+  Do you remember, Heart's Desire,
+    The night when Hallowe'en first came?
+  The newly dedicated fire,
+    The hearth unsanctified by flame?
+
+  How anxiously we swept the bricks
+    (How tragic, were the draught not right!)
+  And then the blaze enwrapped the sticks
+    And filled the room with dancing light.
+
+  We could not speak, but only gaze,
+    Nor half believe what we had seen--
+  _Our_ home, _our_ hearth, _our_ golden blaze,
+    _Our_ cider mugs, _our_ Hallowe'en!
+
+  And then a thought occurred to me--
+    We ran outside with sudden shout
+  And looked up at the roof, to see
+    Our own dear smoke come drifting out.
+
+  And of all man's felicities
+    The very subtlest one, say I,
+  Is when, for the first time, he sees
+    His hearthfire smoke against the sky.
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _And of all man's felicities_
+    _The very subtlest one, say I,_
+  _Is when, for the first time, he sees_
+    _His hearthfire smoke against the sky._]
+
+
+
+
+  REFUSING YOU IMMORTALITY
+
+
+  If I should tell, unstinted,
+    Your beauty and your grace,
+  All future lads would whisper
+    Traditions of your face;
+  If I made public tumult
+    Your mirth, your queenly state,
+  Posterity would grumble
+    That it was born too late.
+
+  I will not frame your beauty
+    In bright undying phrase,
+  Nor blaze it as a legend
+    For unborn men to praise--
+  For why should future lovers
+    Be saddened and depressed?
+  Deluded, let them fancy
+    Their own girls loveliest!
+
+
+
+
+  BAYBERRY CANDLES
+
+
+  Dear sweet, when dusk comes up the hill,
+    The fire leaps high with golden prongs;
+  I place along the chimneysill
+    The tiny candles of my songs.
+
+  And though unsteadily they burn,
+    As evening shades from gray to blue
+  Like candles they will surely learn
+    To shine more clear, for love of you.
+
+
+
+
+  SECRET LAUGHTER
+
+
+  "I had a secret laughter."
+               --Walter de la Mare.
+
+
+  There is a secret laughter
+  That often comes to me,
+  And though I go about my work
+  As humble as can be,
+  There is no prince or prelate
+    I envy--no, not one.
+  No evil can befall me--
+    By God, I have a son!
+
+
+
+
+  SIX WEEKS OLD
+
+
+  He is so small, he does not know
+  The summer sun, the winter snow;
+  The spring that ebbs and comes again,
+  All this is far beyond his ken.
+
+  A little world he feels and sees:
+  His mother's arms, his mother's knees;
+  He hides his face against her breast,
+  And does not care to learn the rest.
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _A little world he feels and sees:_
+  _His mother's arms, his mother's knees_--]
+
+
+
+
+  A CHARM
+
+
+  For Our New Fireplace,
+    To Stop Its Smoking
+
+
+  O wood, burn bright; O flame, be quick;
+  O smoke, draw cleanly up the flue--
+  My lady chose your every brick
+  And sets her dearest hopes on you!
+
+  Logs cannot burn, nor tea be sweet,
+  Nor white bread turn to crispy toast,
+  Until the charm be made complete
+  By love, to lay the sooty ghost.
+
+  And then, dear books, dear waiting chairs,
+  Dear china and mahogany,
+  Draw close, for on the happy stairs
+  My brown-eyed girl comes down for tea!
+
+
+
+
+  MY PIPE
+
+
+  My pipe is old
+  And caked with soot;
+  My wife remarks:
+  "How can you put
+  That horrid relic,
+  So unclean,
+  Inside your mouth?
+  The nicotine
+  Is strong enough
+  To stupefy
+  A Swedish plumber."
+  I reply:
+
+  "This is the kind
+  Of pipe I like:
+  I fill it full
+  Of Happy Strike,
+  Or Barking Cat
+  Or Cabman's Puff,
+  Or Brooklyn Bridge
+  (That potent stuff)
+  Or Chaste Embraces,
+  Knacker's Twist,
+  Old Honeycomb
+  Or Niggerfist.
+
+  I clamp my teeth
+  Upon its stem--
+  It is my bliss,
+  My diadem.
+  Whatever Fate
+  May do to me,
+  This is my favorite
+   B
+  B B.
+  For this dear pipe
+  You feign to scorn
+  I smoked the night
+  The boy was born."
+
+
+
+
+  THE 5:42
+
+
+  Lilac, violet, and rose
+  Ardently the city glows;
+  Sunset glory, purely sweet,
+  Gilds the dreaming byway-street,
+  And, above the Avenue,
+  Winter dusk is deepening blue.
+
+   (Then, across Long Island meadows,
+    Darker, darker, grow the shadows:
+    Patience, little waiting lass!
+    Laggard minutes slowly pass;
+    Patience, laughs the yellow fire:
+    Homeward bound is heart's desire!)
+
+  Hark, adown the canyon street
+  Flows the merry tide of feet;
+  High the golden buildings loom
+  Blazing in the purple gloom;
+  All the town is set with stars,
+  _Homeward_ chant the Broadway cars!
+
+    All down Thirty-second Street
+    _Homeward, Homeward_, say the feet!
+    Tramping men, uncouth to view,
+    Footsore, weary, thrill anew;
+    Gone the ringing telephones,
+    Blessed nightfall now atones,
+    Casting brightness on the snow
+    Golden the train windows go.
+
+  Then (how long it seems) at last
+  All the way is overpast.
+  Heart that beats your muffled drum,
+  Lo, your venturer is come!
+  Wide the door! Leap high, O fire!
+  Home at length is heart's desire!
+  Gone is weariness and fret,
+  At the sill warm lips are met.
+  Once again may be renewed
+  The conjoined beatitude.
+
+
+  [Illustration: _The 5:42_]
+
+
+
+
+  PETER PAN
+
+
+  "The boy for whom Barrie wrote Peter Pan--the original of
+  Peter Pan--has died in battle."
+
+    --New York Times.
+
+
+  And Peter Pan is dead? Not so!
+  When mothers turn the lights down low
+  And tuck their little sons in bed,
+  They know that Peter is not dead....
+
+  That little rounded blanket-hill;
+  Those prayer-time eyes, so deep and still--
+  However wise and great a man
+  He grows, he still is Peter Pan.
+
+  And mothers' ways are often queer:
+  They pause in doorways, just to hear
+  A tiny breathing; think a prayer;
+  And then go tiptoe down the stair.
+
+
+
+
+  IN HONOR OF TAFFY TOPAZ
+
+
+  Taffy, the topaz-colored cat,
+  Thinks now of this and now of that,
+  But chiefly of his meals.
+  Asparagus, and cream, and fish,
+  Are objects of his Freudian wish;
+  What you don't give, he steals.
+
+  His gallant heart is strongly stirred
+  By clink of plate or flight of bird,
+  He has a plumy tail;
+  At night he treads on stealthy pad
+  As merry as Sir Galahad
+  A-seeking of the Grail.
+
+  His amiable amber eyes
+  Are very friendly, very wise;
+  Like Buddha, grave and fat,
+  He sits, regardless of applause,
+  And thinking, as he kneads his paws,
+  What fun to be a cat!
+
+
+
+
+  THE CEDAR CHEST
+
+
+  Her mind is like her cedar chest
+  Wherein in quietness do rest
+  The wistful dreamings of her heart
+  In fragrant folds all laid apart.
+
+  There, put away in sprigs of rhyme
+  Until her life's full blossom-time,
+  Flutter (like tremulous little birds)
+  Her small and sweet maternal words.
+
+
+
+
+  READING ALOUD
+
+
+  Once we read Tennyson aloud
+    In our great fireside chair;
+  Between the lines, my lips could touch
+    Her April-scented hair.
+
+  How very fond I was, to think
+    The printed poems fair,
+  When close within my arms I held
+    A living lyric there!
+
+
+
+
+  ANIMAL CRACKERS
+
+
+  Animal crackers, and cocoa to drink,
+  That is the finest of suppers, I think;
+  When I'm grown up and can have what I please
+  I think I shall always insist upon these.
+
+  What do _you_ choose when you're offered a treat?
+  When Mother says, "What would you like best to eat?"
+  Is it waffles and syrup, or cinnamon toast?
+  It's cocoa and animals that _I_ love most!
+
+  The kitchen's the cosiest place that I know:
+  The kettle is singing, the stove is aglow,
+  And there in the twilight, how jolly to see
+  The cocoa and animals waiting for me.
+
+  Daddy and Mother dine later in state,
+  With Mary to cook for them, Susan to wait;
+  But they don't have nearly as much fun as I
+  Who eat in the kitchen with Nurse standing by;
+  And Daddy once said, he would like to be me
+  Having cocoa and animals once more for tea!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _And Daddy once said he would like to be me_
+  _Having cocoa and animals once more for tea!_]
+
+
+
+
+  THE MILKMAN
+
+
+  Early in the morning, when the dawn is on the roofs,
+  You hear his wheels come rolling, you hear his horse's hoofs;
+  You hear the bottles clinking, and then he drives away:
+  You yawn in bed, turn over, and begin another day!
+
+  The old-time dairy maids are dear to every poet's heart--
+  I'd rather be the dairy _man_ and drive a little cart,
+  And bustle round the village in the early morning blue,
+  And hang my reins upon a hook, as I've seen Casey do.
+
+
+
+
+  LIGHT VERSE
+
+
+  At night the gas lamps light our street,
+    Electric bulbs our homes;
+  The gas is billed in cubic feet,
+    Electric light in ohms.
+
+  But one illumination still
+    Is brighter far, and sweeter;
+  It is not figured in a bill,
+    Nor measured by a meter.
+
+  More bright than lights that money buys,
+    More pleasing to discerners,
+  The shining lamps of Helen's eyes,
+    Those lovely double burners!
+
+
+
+
+  THE FURNACE
+
+
+  At night I opened
+    The furnace door:
+  The warm glow brightened
+    The cellar floor.
+
+  The fire that sparkled
+    Blue and red,
+  Kept small toes cosy
+    In their bed.
+
+  As up the stair
+    So late I stole,
+  I said my prayer:
+    _Thank God for coal!_
+
+
+
+
+  WASHING THE DISHES
+
+
+  When we on simple rations sup
+  How easy is the washing up!
+  But heavy feeding complicates
+  The task by soiling many plates.
+
+  And though I grant that I have prayed
+  That we might find a serving-maid,
+  I'd scullion all my days, I think,
+  To see Her smile across the sink!
+
+  I wash, She wipes. In water hot
+  I souse each dish and pan and pot;
+  While Taffy mutters, purrs, and begs,
+  And rubs himself against my legs.
+
+  The man who never in his life
+  Has washed the dishes with his wife
+  Or polished up the silver plate--
+  He still is largely celibate.
+
+  One warning: there is certain ware
+  That must be handled with all care:
+  The Lord Himself will give you up
+  If you should drop a willow cup!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _But heavy feeding complicates_
+  _The task by soiling many plates._]
+
+
+
+
+  THE CHURCH OF UNBENT KNEES
+
+
+  As I went by the church to-day
+    I heard the organ cry;
+  And goodly folk were on their knees,
+    But I went striding by.
+
+  My minster hath a roof more vast:
+    My aisles are oak trees high;
+  My altar-cloth is on the hills,
+    My organ is the sky.
+
+  I see my rood upon the clouds,
+    The winds, my chanted choir;
+  My crystal windows, heaven-glazed,
+    Are stained with sunset fire.
+
+  The stars, the thunder, and the rain,
+    White sands and purple seas--
+  These are His pulpit and His pew,
+    My God of Unbent Knees!
+
+
+
+
+  ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY COAL-BIN
+
+
+  The furnace tolls the knell of falling steam,
+    The coal supply is virtually done,
+  And at this price, indeed it does not seem
+    As though we could afford another ton.
+
+  Now fades the glossy, cherished anthracite;
+    The radiators lose their temperature:
+  How ill avail, on such a frosty night,
+    The "short and simple flannels of the poor."
+
+  Though in the icebox, fresh and newly laid,
+    The rude forefathers of the omelet sleep,
+  No eggs for breakfast till the bill is paid:
+    We cannot cook again till coal is cheap.
+
+  Can Morris-chair or papier-mAcchA(C) bust
+    Revivify the failing pressure-gauge?
+  Chop up the grand piano if you must,
+    And burn the East Aurora parrot-cage!
+
+  Full many a can of purest kerosene
+    The dark unfathomed tanks of Standard Oil
+  Shall furnish me, and with their aid I mean
+    To bring my morning coffee to a boil.
+
+
+  [Illustration: _How ill avail, on such a frosty night_....]
+
+
+
+
+  THE OLD SWIMMER
+
+
+  I often wander on the beach
+  Where once, so brown of limb,
+  The biting air, the roaring surf
+  Summoned me to swim.
+
+  I see my old abundant youth
+  Where combers lean and spill,
+  And though I taste the foam no more
+  Other swimmers will.
+
+  Oh, good exultant strength to meet
+  The arching wall of green,
+  To break the crystal, swirl, emerge
+  Dripping, taut, and clean.
+
+  To climb the moving hilly blue,
+  To dive in ecstasy
+  And feel the salty chill embrace
+  Arm and rib and knee.
+
+  What brave and vanished laughter then
+  And tingling thighs to run,
+  What warm and comfortable sands
+  Dreaming in the sun.
+
+  The crumbling water spreads in snow,
+  The surf is hissing still,
+  And though I kiss the salt no more
+  Other swimmers will.
+
+
+  [Illustration: The Old Swimmer]
+
+
+
+
+  THE MOON-SHEEP
+
+
+  The moon seems like a docile sheep,
+  She pastures while all people sleep;
+  But sometimes, when she goes astray,
+  She wanders all alone by day.
+
+  Up in the clear blue morning air
+  We are surprised to see her there,
+  Grazing in her woolly white,
+  Waiting the return of night.
+
+  When dusk lets down the meadow bars
+  She greets again her lambs, the stars!
+
+
+
+
+  SMELLS
+
+
+  Why is it that the poets tell
+  So little of the sense of smell?
+  These are the odors I love well:
+
+  The smell of coffee freshly ground;
+  Or rich plum pudding, holly crowned;
+  Or onions fried and deeply browned.
+
+  The fragrance of a fumy pipe;
+  The smell of apples, newly ripe;
+  And printers' ink on leaden type.
+
+  Woods by moonlight in September
+  Breathe most sweet; and I remember
+  Many a smoky camp-fire ember.
+
+  Camphor, turpentine, and tea,
+  The balsam of a Christmas tree,
+  These are whiffs of gramarye ...
+  _A ship smells best of all to me!_
+
+
+
+
+  SMELLS (JUNIOR)
+
+
+  My Daddy smells like tobacco and books,
+    Mother, like lavender and listerine;
+  Uncle John carries a whiff of cigars,
+    Nannie smells starchy and soapy and clean.
+
+  Shandy, my dog, has a smell of his own
+    (When he's been out in the rain he smells most);
+  But Katie, the cook, is more splendid than all--
+    She smells exactly like hot buttered toast!
+
+
+  [Illustration: _But Katie, the cook, is more splendid than all_--]
+
+
+
+
+  MAR QUONG, CHINESE LAUNDRYMAN
+
+
+  I like the Chinese laundryman:
+  He smokes a pipe that bubbles,
+  And seems, as far as I can tell,
+  A man with but few troubles.
+  He has much to do, no doubt,
+  But also much to think about.
+
+  Most men (for instance I myself)
+  Are spending, at all times,
+  All our hard-earned quarters,
+  Our nickels and our dimes:
+  With Mar Quong it's the other way--
+  He takes in small change every day.
+
+  Next time you call for collars
+  In his steamy little shop,
+  Observe how tight his pigtail
+  Is coiled and piled on top.
+  But late at night he lets it hang
+  And thinks of the Yang-tse-kiang.
+
+
+
+
+  THE FAT LITTLE PURSE
+
+
+  On Saturdays, after the baby
+    Is bathed, fed, and sleeping serene,
+  His mother, as quickly as may be,
+    Arranges the household routine.
+  She rapidly makes herself pretty
+    And leaves the young limb with his nurse,
+  Then gaily she starts for the city,
+    And with her the fat little purse.
+
+  She trips through the crowd at the station,
+    To the rendezvous spot where we meet,
+  And keeping her eyes from temptation,
+    She avoids the most windowy street!
+  She is off for the Weekly Adventure;
+    To her comrade for better and worse
+  She says, "Never mind, when you've spent your
+    Last bit, here's the fat little purse."
+
+  Apart, in her thrifty exchequer,
+    She has hidden what must not be spent:
+  Enough for the butcher and baker,
+    Katie's wages, and milkman, and rent;
+  But the rest of her brave little treasure
+    She is gleeful and prompt to disburse--
+  What a richness of innocent pleasure
+    Can come from her fat little purse!
+
+  But either by giving or buying,
+    The little purse does not stay fat--
+  Perhaps it's a ragged child crying,
+    Perhaps it's a "pert little hat."
+  And the bonny brown eyes that were brightened
+    By pleasures so quaint and diverse,
+  Look up at me, wistful and frightened,
+    To see such a thin little purse.
+
+  The wisest of all financiering
+    Is that which is done by our wives:
+  By some little known profiteering
+    They add twos and twos and make fives;
+  And, husband, if you would be learning
+    The secret of thrift, it is terse:
+  Invest the great part of your earning
+    In her little, fat little purse.
+
+
+  [Illustration: _Perhaps it's a ragged child crying_]
+
+
+
+
+  THE REFLECTION
+  (To N. B. D.)
+
+
+  I have not heard her voice, nor seen her face,
+    Nor touched her hand;
+  And yet some echo of her woman's grace
+    I understand.
+
+  I have no picture of her lovelihood,
+    Her smile, her tint;
+  But that she is both beautiful and good
+    I have true hint.
+
+  In all that my friend thinks and says, I see
+    Her mirror true;
+  His thought of her is gentle; she must be
+    All gentle too.
+
+  In all his grief or laughter, work or play,
+    Each mood and whim,
+  How brave and tender, day by common day,
+    She speaks through him!
+
+  Therefore I say I know her, be her face
+    Or dark or fair--
+  For when he shows his heart's most secret place
+    I see her there!
+
+
+
+
+  THE BALLOON PEDDLER
+
+
+  Who is the man on Chestnut street
+    With colored toy balloons?
+  I see him with his airy freight
+    On sunny afternoons--
+  A peddler of such lovely goods!
+    The heart leaps to behold
+  His mass of bubbles, red and green
+    And blue and pink and gold.
+
+  For sure that noble peddler man
+    Hath antic merchandise:
+  His toys that float and swim in air
+    Attract my eager eyes.
+  Perhaps he is a changeling prince
+    Bewitched through magic moons
+  To tempt us solemn busy folk
+    With meaningless balloons.
+
+  Beware, oh, valiant merchantman,
+    Tread cautious on the pave!
+  Lest some day come some realist,
+    Some haggard soul and grave,
+  A puritan efficientist
+    Who deems thy toys a sin--
+  He'll stalk thee madly from behind
+    And prick them with a pin!
+
+
+  [Illustration: _The Balloon Peddler_]
+
+
+
+
+  LINES FOR AN ECCENTRIC'S
+  BOOK PLATE
+
+
+  To use my books all friends are bid:
+    My shelves are open for 'em;
+  And in each one, as Grolier did,
+    I write _Et Amicorum_.
+
+  All lovely things in truth belong
+    To him who best employs them;
+  The house, the picture and the song
+    Are his who most enjoys them.
+
+  Perhaps this book holds precious lore,
+    And you may best discern it.
+  If you appreciate it more
+    Than I--why don't return it!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _If you appreciate it more_
+  _Than I--why don't return it!_]
+
+
+
+
+  TO A POST-OFFICE INKWELL
+
+
+  How many humble hearts have dipped
+  In you, and scrawled their manuscript!
+  Have shared their secrets, told their cares,
+  Their curious and quaint affairs!
+
+  Your pool of ink, your scratchy pen,
+  Have moved the lives of unborn men,
+  And watched young people, breathing hard,
+  Put Heaven on a postal card.
+
+
+
+
+  THE CRIB
+
+
+  I sought immortality
+    Here and there--
+  I sent my rockets
+    Into the air:
+  I gave my name
+    A hostage to ink;
+  I dined a critic
+    And bought him drink.
+
+  I spurned the weariness
+    Of the flesh;
+  Denied fatigue
+    And began afresh--
+  If men knew all,
+    How they would laugh!
+  I even planned
+    My epitaph....
+
+  And then one night
+    When the dusk was thin
+  I heard the nursery
+    Rites begin:
+
+  I heard the tender
+    Soothings said
+  Over a crib, and
+    A small sweet head.
+
+  Then in a flash
+    It came to me
+  That there was my
+    Immortality!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _And then one night_
+    _When the dusk was thin_
+  _I heard the nursery_
+    _Rites begin--_]
+
+
+
+
+  THE POET
+
+
+  The barren music of a word or phrase,
+    The futile arts of syllable and stress,
+  He sought. The poetry of common days
+    He did not guess.
+
+  The simplest, sweetest rhythms life affords--
+    Unselfish love, true effort truly done,
+  The tender themes that underlie all words--
+    He knew not one.
+
+  The human cadence and the subtle chime
+    Of little laughters, home and child and wife,
+  He knew not. Artist merely in his rhyme,
+    Not in his life.
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _The human cadence and the subtle chime_
+  _Of little laughters_--]
+
+
+
+
+  TO A DISCARDED MIRROR
+
+  [Transcriber's Note: The text below was in mirrored
+image in the original text].
+
+  Dear glass, before your silver pane
+    My lady used to tend her hair;
+  And yet I search your disc in vain
+    To find some shadow of her there.
+
+  I thought your magic, deep and bright,
+    Might still some dear reflection hold:
+  Some glint of eyes or shoulders white,
+    Some flash of gowns she wore of old.
+
+  Your polished round must still recall
+    The laughing face, the neck like snow--
+  Remember, on your lonely wall,
+    That Helen used you long ago!
+
+
+
+
+  TO A CHILD
+
+
+  The greatest poem ever known
+  Is one all poets have outgrown:
+  The poetry, innate, untold,
+  Of being only four years old.
+
+  Still young enough to be a part
+  Of Nature's great impulsive heart,
+  Born comrade of bird, beast and tree
+  And unselfconscious as the bee--
+
+  And yet with lovely reason skilled
+  Each day new paradise to build;
+  Elate explorer of each sense,
+  Without dismay, without pretence!
+
+  In your unstained transparent eyes
+  There is no conscience, no surprise:
+  Life's queer conundrums you accept,
+  Your strange divinity still kept.
+
+  Being, that now absorbs you, all
+  Harmonious, unit, integral,
+  Will shred into perplexing bits,--
+  Oh, contradictions of the wits!
+
+  And Life, that sets all things in rhyme,
+  May make you poet, too, in time--
+  But there were days, O tender elf,
+  When you were Poetry itself!
+
+
+
+
+  TO A VERY YOUNG GENTLEMAN
+
+
+  My child, what painful vistas are before you!
+    What years of youthful ills and pangs and bumps--
+  Indignities from aunts who "just adore" you,
+    And chicken-pox and measles, croup and mumps!
+  I don't wish to dismay you,--it's not fair to,
+    Promoted now from bassinet to crib,--
+  But, O my babe, what troubles flesh is heir to
+    Since God first made so free with Adam's rib!
+
+  Laboriously you will proceed with teething;
+    When teeth are here, you'll meet the dentist's chair;
+  They'll teach you ways of walking, eating, breathing,
+    That stoves are hot, and how to brush your hair;
+  And so, my poor, undaunted little stripling,
+    By bruises, tears, and trousers you will grow,
+  And, borrowing a leaf from Mr. Kipling,
+    I'll wish you luck, and moralize you so:
+
+  If you can think up seven thousand methods
+    Of giving cooks and parents heart disease;
+  Can rifle pantry-shelves, and then give death odds
+    By water, fire, and falling out of trees;
+  If you can fill your every boyish minute
+    With sixty seconds' worth of mischief done,
+  Yours is the house and everything that's in it,
+    And, which is more, you'll be your father's son!
+
+
+  [Illustration: _What years of youthful ills and pangs and bumps_--]
+
+
+
+
+  TO AN OLD-FASHIONED POET
+
+  (Lizette Woodworth Reese)
+
+
+  Most tender poet, when the gods confer
+    They save your gracile songs a nook apart,
+  And bless with Time's untainted lavender
+    The ageless April of your singing heart.
+
+  You, in an age unbridled, ne'er declined
+    The appointed patience that the Muse decrees,
+  Until, deep in the flower of the mind
+    The hovering words alight, like bridegroom bees.
+
+  By casual praise or casual blame unstirred
+    The placid gods grant gifts where they belong:
+  To you, who understand, the perfect word,
+    The recompensed necessities of song.
+
+
+
+
+  BURNING LEAVES IN SPRING
+
+
+  When withered leaves are lost in flame
+    Their eddying ghosts, a thin blue haze,
+  Blow through the thickets whence they came
+    On amberlucent autumn days.
+
+  The cool green woodland heart receives
+    Their dim, dissolving, phantom breath;
+  In young hereditary leaves
+    They see their happy life-in-death.
+
+  My minutes perish as they glow--
+    Time burns my crazy bonfire through;
+  But ghosts of blackened hours still blow,
+    Eternal Beauty, back to you!
+
+
+
+
+  BURNING LEAVES, NOVEMBER
+
+
+  These are folios of April,
+    All the library of spring,
+  Missals gilt and rubricated
+    With the frost's illumining.
+
+  Ruthless, we destroy these treasures,
+    Set the torch with hand profane--
+  Gone, like Alexandrian vellums,
+    Like the books of burnt Louvain!
+
+  Yet these classics are immortal:
+    O collectors, have no fear,
+  For the publisher will issue
+    New editions every year.
+
+
+
+
+  A VALENTINE GAME
+
+  (_For Two Players_)
+
+
+  They have a game, thus played:
+  He says unto his maid
+      _What are those shining things_
+      _So brown, so golden brown?_
+  And she, in doubt, replies
+      _How now, what shining things_
+      _So brown?_
+
+  But then, she coming near,
+  To see more clear,
+  He looks again, and cries
+  (All startled with surprise)
+      _Sweet wretch, they are your eyes,_
+      _So brown, so brown!_
+
+  The climax and the end consist
+  In kissing, and in being kissed.
+
+
+
+
+  FOR A BIRTHDAY
+
+
+  At two years old the world he sees
+    Must seem expressly made to please!
+  Such new-found words and games to try,
+  Such sudden mirth, he knows not why,
+    So many curiosities!
+
+  As life about him, by degrees
+  Discloses all its pageantries
+  He watches with approval shy
+    At two years old.
+
+  With wonders tired he takes his ease
+  At dusk, upon his mother's knees:
+  A little laugh, a little cry,
+  Put toys to bed, then "seepy-bye"--
+  The world is made of such as these
+    At two years old.
+
+
+  [Illustration: _A Birthday_]
+
+
+
+
+  KEATS
+
+  (1821-1921)
+
+
+  When sometimes, on a moony night, I've passed
+    A street-lamp, seen my doubled shadow flee,
+  I've noticed how much darker, clearer cast,
+    The full moon poured her silhouette of me.
+
+  Just so of spirits. Beauty's silver light
+    Limns with a ray more pure, and tenderer too:
+  Men's clumsy gestures, to unearthly sight,
+    Surpass the shapes they show by human view.
+
+  On this brave world, where few such meteors fell,
+    Her youngest son, to save us, Beauty flung.
+  He suffered and descended into hell--
+    And comforts yet the ardent and the young.
+
+  Drunken of moonlight, dazed by draughts of sky,
+    Dizzy with stars, his mortal fever ran:
+  His utterance a moon-enchanted cry
+    Not free from folly--for he too was man.
+
+  And now and here, a hundred years away,
+    Where topless towers shadow golden streets,
+  The young men sit, nooked in a cheap cafA(C),
+    Perfectly happy ... talking about Keats.
+
+
+
+
+  TO H. F. M.
+
+  A SONNET IN SUNLIGHT
+
+
+  This is a day for sonnets: Oh how clear
+    Our splendid cliffs and summits lift the gaze--
+  If all the perfect moments of the year
+    Were poured and gathered in one sudden blaze,
+    Then, then perhaps, in some endowered phrase
+  My flat strewn words would rise and come more near
+    To tell of you. Your beauty and your praise
+  Would fall like sunlight on this paper here.
+
+  Then I would build a sonnet that would stand
+    Proud and perennial on this pale bright sky;
+  So tall, so steep, that it might stay the hand
+    Of Time, the dusty wrecker. He would sigh
+  To tear my strong words down. And he would say:
+  "That song he built for her, one summer day."
+
+
+
+
+  QUICKENING
+
+
+  Such little, puny things are words in rhyme:
+    Poor feeble loops and strokes as frail as hairs;
+  You see them printed here, and mark their chime,
+    And turn to your more durable affairs.
+    Yet on such petty tools the poet dares
+  To run his race with mortar, bricks and lime,
+    And draws his frail stick to the point, and stares
+  To aim his arrow at the heart of Time.
+
+  Intangible, yet pressing, hemming in,
+    This measured emptiness engulfs us all,
+  And yet he points his paper javelin
+    And sees it eddy, waver, turn, and fall,
+  And feels, between delight and trouble torn,
+  The stirring of a sonnet still unborn.
+
+
+
+
+  AT A WINDOW SILL
+
+
+  _To write a sonnet needs a quiet mind...._
+  I paused and pondered, tried again. _To write...._
+
+  Raising the sash, I breathed the winter night:
+  Papers and small hot room were left behind.
+  Against the gusty purple, ribbed and spined
+  With golden slots and vertebrA| of light
+  Men's cages loomed. Down sliding from a height
+  An elevator winked as it declined.
+
+  Coward! There is no quiet in the brain--
+  If pity burns it not, then beauty will:
+  Tinder it is for every blowing spark.
+  Uncertain whether this is bliss or pain
+  The unresting mind will gaze across the sill
+  From high apartment windows, in the dark.
+
+
+
+
+  THE RIVER OF LIGHT
+
+  I. Broadway, 103rd to 96th.
+
+
+  Lights foam and bubble down the gentle grade:
+  Bright shine chop sueys and rA'tisseries;
+  In pink translucence glowingly displayed
+  See camisole and stocking and chemise.
+  Delicatessen windows full of cheese--
+  Above, the chimes of church-bells toll and fade--
+  And then, from off some distant Palisade
+  That gluey savor on the Jersey breeze!
+
+  The burning bulbs, in green and white and red,
+  Spell out a _Change of Program Sun., Wed., Fri._,
+  A clicking taxi spins with ruby spark.
+  There is a sense of poising near the head
+  Of some great flume of brightness, flowing by
+  To pour in gathering torrent through the dark.
+
+
+
+
+  THE RIVER OF LIGHT
+
+  II. Below 96th
+
+
+  The current quickens, and in golden flow
+  Hurries its flotsam downward through the night--
+  Here are the rapids where the undertow
+  Whirls endless motors in a gleaming flight.
+  From blazing tributaries, left and right,
+  Influent streams of blue and amber grow.
+  Columbus Circle eddies: all below
+  Is pouring flame, a gorge of broken light.
+
+  See how the burning river boils in spate,
+  Channeled by cliffs of insane jewelry,
+  Painting a rosy roof on cloudy air--
+  And just about ten minutes after eight,
+  Tossing a surf of color to the sky
+  It bursts in cataracts upon Times Square!
+
+
+
+
+  OF HER GLORIOUS MADNESS
+
+
+  The city's mad: through her prodigious veins
+  What errant, strange, eccentric humors thrill:
+  Day, when her cataracts of sunlight spill--
+  Night, golden-panelled with her window panes;
+  The toss of wind-blown skirts; and who can drill
+  Forever his fierce heart with checking reins?
+  Cruel and mad, my statisticians say--
+  Ah, but she raves in such a gallant way!
+
+  Brave madness, built for beauty and the sun--
+  In such a town who can be sane? Not I.
+  Of clashing colors all her moods are spun--
+  A scarlet anger and a golden cry.
+  This frantic town where madcap mischiefs run
+  They ask to take the veil, and be a nun!
+
+
+
+
+  IN AN AUCTION ROOM
+
+  (_Letter of John Keats to Fanny Browne, Anderson Galleries,_
+  _March 15, 1920._)
+
+  To Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach.
+
+
+  _How about this lot?_ said the auctioneer;
+  _One hundred, may I say, just for a start?_
+  Between the plum-red curtains, drawn apart,
+  A written sheet was held.... And strange to hear
+  (Dealer, would I were steadfast as thou art)
+  The cold quick bids. (_Against you in the rear!_)
+  The crimson salon, in a glow more clear
+  Burned bloodlike purple as the poet's heart.
+
+  Song that outgrew the singer! Bitter Love
+  That broke the proud hot heart it held in thrall;
+  Poor script, where still those tragic passions move--
+  _Eight hundred bid: fair warning: the last call:_
+  The soul of Adonais, like a star....
+  _Sold for eight hundred dollars--Doctor R.!_
+
+
+
+
+  EPITAPH FOR A POET WHO WROTE NO POETRY
+
+  "It is said that a poet has died young in the breast
+of the most stolid."--Robert Louis Stevenson.
+
+
+  What was the service of this poet? He
+  Who blinked the blinding dazzle-rays that run
+  Where life profiles its edges to the sun,
+  And still suspected much he could not see.
+  Clay-stopped, yet in his taciturnity
+  There lay the vein of glory, known to none;
+  And moods of secret smiling, only won
+  When peace and passion, time and sense, agree.
+
+  Fighting the world he loved for chance to brood,
+  Ignorant when to embrace, when to avoid
+  His loves that held him in their vital clutch--
+  This was his service, his beatitude;
+  This was the inward trouble he enjoyed
+  Who knew so little, and who felt so much.
+
+
+
+
+  SONNET BY A GEOMETER
+
+  THE CIRCLE
+
+
+  Few things are perfect: we bear Eden's scar;
+  Yet faulty man was godlike in design
+  That day when first, with stick and length of twine,
+  He drew me on the sand. Then what could mar
+  His joy in that obedient mystic line;
+  And then, computing with a zeal divine,
+  He called IEuro 3-point-14159
+  And knew my lovely circuit 2 IEuro r!
+
+  A circle is a happy thing to be--
+  Think how the joyful perpendicular
+  Erected at the kiss of tangency
+  Must meet my central point, my avatar!
+  They talk of 14 points: yet only 3
+  Determine every circle: =Q. E. D.=
+
+
+
+
+  TO A VAUDEVILLE TERRIER SEEN ON A LEASH, IN THE PARK
+
+
+  Three times a day--at two, at seven, at nine--
+  O terrier, you play your little part:
+  Absurd in coat and skirt you push a cart,
+  With inner anguish walk a tight-rope line.
+  Up there, before the hot and dazzling shine
+  You must be rigid servant of your art,
+  Nor watch those fluffy cats--your doggish heart
+  Might leap and then betray you with a whine!
+
+  But sometimes, when you've faithfully rehearsed,
+  Your trainer takes you walking in the park,
+  Straining to sniff the grass, to chase a frog.
+  The leash is slipped, and then your joy will burst--
+  Adorable it is to run and bark,
+  To be--alas, how seldom--just a dog!
+
+
+  [Illustration: _You must be rigid servant of your art!_]
+
+
+
+
+  TO AN OLD FRIEND
+
+  (For Lloyd Williams.)
+
+
+  I like to dream of some established spot
+  Where you and I, old friend, an evening through
+  Under tobacco's fog, streaked gray and blue,
+  Might reconsider laughters unforgot.
+  Beside a hearth-glow, golden-clear and hot,
+  I'd hear you tell the oddities men do.
+  The clock would tick, and we would sit, we two--
+  Life holds such meetings for us, does it not?
+
+  Happy are men when they have learned to prize
+  The sure unvarnished virtue of their friends,
+  The unchanged kindness of a well-known face:
+  On old fidelities our world depends,
+  And runs a simple course in honest wise,
+  Not a mere taxicab shot wild through space!
+
+
+
+
+  TO A BURLESQUE SOUBRETTE
+
+
+  Upstage the great high-shafted beefy choir
+    Squawked in 2000 watts of orange glare--
+    You came, and impudent and deuce-may-care
+  Danced where the gutter flamed with footlight fire.
+
+  Flung from the roof, spots red and yellow burned
+    And followed you. The blatant brassy clang
+    Of instruments drowned out the words you sang,
+  But goldenly you capered, twirled and turned.
+
+  Boyish and slender, child-limbed, quick and proud,
+    A sprite of irresistible disdain,
+    Fair as a jonquil in an April rain,
+  You seemed too sweet an imp for that dull crowd....
+
+  And then, behind the scenes, I heard you say,
+  "_O Gawd, I got a hellish cold to-day!_"
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _You came, and impudent and deuce-may-care_
+  _Danced where the gutter flamed with footlight fire._]
+
+
+
+
+  THOUGHTS WHILE PACKING A TRUNK
+
+
+  The sonnet is a trunk, and you must pack
+    With care, to ship frail baggage far away;
+    The octet is the trunk; sestet, the tray;
+  Tight, but not overloaded, is the knack.
+  First, at the bottom, heavy thoughts you stack,
+    And in the chinks your adjectives you lay--
+    Your phrases, folded neatly as you may,
+  Stowing a syllable in every crack.
+
+  Then, in the tray, your daintier stuff is hid:
+    The tender quatrain where your moral sings--
+  Be careful, though, lest as you close the lid
+    You crush and crumple all these fragile things.
+  Your couplet snaps the hasps and turns the key--
+  Ship to The Editor, marked C. O. D.
+
+
+
+
+  STREETS
+
+
+  I have seen streets where strange enchantment broods:
+  Old ruddy houses where the morning shone
+  In seemly quiet on their tranquil moods,
+  Across the sills white curtains outward blown.
+  Their marble steps were scoured as white as bone
+  Where scrubbing housemaids toiled on wounded knee--
+  And yet, among all streets that I have known
+  These placid byways give least peace to me.
+
+  In such a house, where green light shining through
+  (From some back garden) framed her silhouette
+  I saw a girl, heard music blithely sung.
+  She stood there laughing, in a dress of blue,
+  And as I went on, slowly, there I met
+  An old, old woman, who had once been young.
+
+
+
+
+  TO THE ONLY BEGETTER
+
+  I
+
+
+  I have no hope to make you live in rhyme
+  Or with your beauty to enrich the years--
+  Enough for me this now, this present time;
+  The greater claim for greater sonneteers.
+  But O how covetous I am of NOW--
+  Dear human minutes, marred by human pains--
+  I want to know your lips, your cheek, your brow,
+  And all the miracles your heart contains,
+  I wish to study all your changing face,
+  Your eyes, divinely hurt with tenderness;
+  I hope to win your dear unstinted grace
+  For these blunt rhymes and what they would express.
+  Then may you say, when others better prove:--
+  "_Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love._"
+
+
+
+
+  TO THE ONLY BEGETTER
+
+  II
+
+
+  When all my trivial rhymes are blotted out,
+  Vanished our days, so precious and so few,
+  If some should wonder what we were about
+  And what the little happenings we knew:
+  I wish that they might know how, night by night,
+  My pencil, heavy in the sleepy hours,
+  Sought vainly for some gracious way to write
+  How much this love is ours, and only ours.
+  How many evenings, as you drowsed to sleep,
+  I read to you by tawny candle-glow,
+  And watched you down the valley dim and deep
+  Where poppies and the April flowers grow.
+  Then knelt beside your pillow with a prayer,
+  And loved the breath of pansies in your hair.
+
+
+
+
+  PEDOMETER
+
+
+  My thoughts beat out in sonnets while I walk,
+  And every evening on the homeward street
+  I find the rhythm of my marching feet
+  Throbs into verses (though the rhyme may balk).
+  I think the sonneteers were walking men:
+  The form is dour and rigid, like a clamp,
+  But with the swing of legs the tramp, tramp, tramp
+  Of syllables begins to thud, and then--
+  Lo! while you seek a rhyme for _hook_ or _crook_
+  Vanished your shabby coat, and you are kith
+  To all great walk-and-singers--Meredith,
+  And Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, and Rupert Brooke!
+  Free verse is poor for walking, but a sonnet--
+  O marvellous to stride and brood upon it!
+
+
+
+
+  HOSTAGES
+
+  "He that hath wife and children hath given
+hostages to fortune."--BACON.
+
+
+  Aye, Fortune, thou hast hostage of my best!
+  I, that was once so heedless of thy frown,
+    Have armed thee cap-A -pie to strike me down,
+  Have given thee blades to hold against my breast.
+  My virtue, that was once all self-possessed,
+    Is parceled out in little hands, and brown
+    Bright eyes, and in a sleeping baby's gown:
+  To threaten these will put me to the test.
+
+  Sure, since there are these pitiful poor chinks
+    Upon the makeshift armor of my heart,
+      For thee no honor lies in such a fight!
+  And thou wouldst shame to vanquish one, me-thinks,
+    Who came awake with such a painful start
+      To hear the coughing of a child at night.
+
+
+  [Illustration: _Hostages._]
+
+
+
+
+  ARS DURA
+
+
+  How many evenings, walking soberly
+  Along our street all dappled with rich sun,
+  I please myself with words, and happily
+  Time rhymes to footfalls, planning how they run;
+  And yet, when midnight comes, and paper lies
+  Clean, white, receptive, all that one can ask,
+  Alas for drowsy spirit, weary eyes
+  And traitor hand that fails the well loved task!
+
+  Who ever learned the sonnet's bitter craft
+  But he had put away his sleep, his ease,
+  The wine he loved, the men with whom he laughed
+  To brood upon such thankless tricks as these?
+  And yet, such joy does in that craft abide
+  He greets the paper as the groom the bride!
+
+
+
+
+  O. HENRY--APOTHECARY
+
+  ("O. Henry" once worked in a drug-store in Greensboro, N.C.)
+
+
+  Where once he measured camphor, glycerine,
+  Quinine and potash, peppermint in bars,
+  And all the oils and essences so keen
+  That druggists keep in rows of stoppered jars--
+  Now, blender of strange drugs more volatile,
+  The master pharmacist of joy and pain
+  Dispenses sadness tinctured with a smile
+  And laughter that dissolves in tears again.
+
+  O brave apothecary! You who knew
+  What dark and acid doses life prefers
+  And yet with friendly face resolved to brew
+  These sparkling potions for your customers--
+  In each prescription your Physician writ
+  You poured your rich compassion and your wit!
+
+
+
+
+  FOR THE CENTENARY OF KEATS'S SONNET (1816)
+
+  "On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer."
+
+
+  I knew a scientist, an engineer,
+  Student of tensile strengths and calculus,
+  A man who loved a cantilever truss
+  And always wore a pencil on his ear.
+  My friend believed that poets all were queer,
+  And literary folk ridiculous;
+  But one night, when it chanced that three of us
+  Were reading Keats aloud, he stopped to hear.
+
+  Lo, a new planet swam into his ken!
+  His eager mind reached for it and took hold.
+  Ten years are by: I see him now and then,
+  And at alumni dinners, if cajoled,
+  He mumbles gravely, to the cheering men:--
+  _Much have I travelled in the realms of gold._
+
+
+
+
+  TWO O'CLOCK
+
+
+  Night after night goes by: and clocks still chime
+    And stars are changing patterns in the dark,
+  And watches tick, and over-puissant Time
+    Benumbs the eager brain. The dogs that bark,
+  The trains that roar and rattle in the night,
+    The very cats that prowl, all quiet find
+  And leave the darkness empty, silent quite:
+    Sleep comes to chloroform the fretting mind.
+
+  So all things end: and what is left at last?
+    Some scribbled sonnets tossed upon the floor,
+  A memory of easy days gone past,
+    A run-down watch, a pipe, some clothes we wore--
+  And in the darkened room I lean to know
+    How warm her dreamless breath does pause and flow.
+
+
+
+
+  THE COMMERCIAL TRAVELLER
+
+
+  Ah very sweet! If news should come to you
+  Some afternoon, while waiting for our eve,
+  That the great Manager had made me leave
+  To travel on some territory new;
+  And that, whatever homeward winds there blew,
+  I could not touch your hand again, nor heave
+  The logs upon our hearth and bid you weave
+  Some wistful tale before the flames that grew....
+
+  Then, when the sudden tears had ceased to blind
+  Your pansied eyes, I wonder if you could
+  Remember rightly, and forget aright?
+  Remember just your lad, uncouthly good,
+  Forgetting when he failed in spleen or spite?
+  Could you remember him as always kind?
+
+
+
+
+  THE WEDDED LOVER
+
+
+  I read in our old journals of the days
+  When our first love was April-sweet and new,
+  How fair it blossomed and deep-rooted grew
+  Despite the adverse time; and our amaze
+  At moon and stars and beauty beyond praise
+  That burgeoned all about us: gold and blue
+  The heaven arched us in, and all we knew
+  Was gentleness. We walked on happy ways.
+
+  They said by now the path would be more steep,
+  The sunsets paler and less mild the air;
+  Rightly we heeded not: it was not true.
+  We will not tell the secret--let it keep.
+  I know not how I thought those days so fair
+  These being so much fairer, spent with you.
+
+
+
+
+  TO YOU, REMEMBERING THE PAST
+
+
+  When we were parted, sweet, and darkness came,
+  I used to strike a match, and hold the flame
+  Before your picture and would breathless mark
+  The answering glimmer of the tiny spark
+  That brought to life the magic of your eyes,
+  Their wistful tenderness, their glad surprise.
+
+  Holding that mimic torch before your shrine
+  I used to light your eyes and make them mine;
+  Watch them like stars set in a lonely sky,
+  Whisper my heart out, yearning for reply;
+  Summon your lips from far across the sea
+  Bidding them live a twilight hour with me.
+
+  Then, when the match was shrivelled into gloom,
+  Lo--you were with me in the darkened room.
+
+
+
+
+  CHARLES AND MARY
+
+  (December 27, 1834.)
+
+
+  Lamb died just before I left town, and Mr. Ryle of
+the E. India House, one of his extors., notified it to me....
+He said Miss L. was resigned and composed at the
+event, but it was from her malady, then in mild type, so
+that when she saw her brother dead, she observed on his
+beauty when asleep and apprehended nothing further.
+
+  --Letter of John Rickman, 24 January, 1835.
+
+
+  I hear their voices still: the stammering one
+  Struggling with some absurdity of jest;
+  Her quiet words that puzzle and protest
+  Against the latest outrage of his fun.
+  So wise, so simple--has she never guessed
+  That through his laughter, love and terror run?
+  For when her trouble came, and darkness pressed,
+  He smiled, and fought her madness with a pun.
+
+  Through all those years it was his task to keep
+  Her gentle heart serenely mystified.
+  If Fate's an artist, this should be his pride--
+  When, in that Christmas season, he lay dead,
+  She innocently looked. "I always said
+  That Charles is really handsome when asleep."
+
+
+
+
+  TO A GRANDMOTHER
+
+
+  At six o'clock in the evening,
+    The time for lullabies,
+  My son lay on my mother's lap
+    With sleepy, sleepy eyes!
+  (_O drowsy little manny boy,_
+   _With sleepy, sleepy eyes!_)
+
+  I heard her sing, and rock him,
+    And the creak of the swaying chair,
+  And the old dear cadence of the words
+    Came softly down the stair.
+
+  And all the years had vanished,
+    All folly, greed, and stain--
+  The old, old song, the creaking chair,
+    The dearest arms again!
+  (_O lucky little manny boy,_
+   _To feel those arms again!_)
+
+
+
+
+  DIARISTS
+
+
+  They catalogue their minutes: Now, now, now,
+    Is Actual, amid the fugitive;
+  Take ink and pen (they say) for that is how
+    We snare this flying life, and make it live.
+  So to their little pictures, and they sieve
+    Their happinesses: fields turned by the plough,
+  The afterglow that summer sunsets give,
+    The razor concave of a great ship's bow.
+
+  O gallant instinct, folly for men's mirth!
+    Type cannot burn and sparkle on the page.
+  No glittering ink can make this written word
+    Shine clear enough to speak the noble rage
+  And instancy of life. All sonnets blurred
+    The sudden mood of truth that gave them birth.
+
+
+
+
+ THE LAST SONNET
+
+
+  Suppose one knew that never more might one
+  Put pen to sonnet, well loved task; that now
+  These fourteen lines were all he could allow
+  To say his message, be forever done;
+  How he would scan the word, the line, the rhyme,
+  Intent to sum in dearly chosen phrase
+  The windy trees, the beauty of his days,
+  Life's pride and pathos in one verse sublime.
+  How bitter then would be regret and pang
+  For former rhymes he dallied to refine,
+  For every verse that was not crystalline....
+  And if belike this last one feebly rang,
+  Honor and pride would cast it to the floor
+  Facing the judge with what was done before.
+
+
+
+
+  THE SAVAGE
+
+
+  Civilization causes me
+  Alternate fits: disgust and glee.
+
+  Buried in piles of glass and stone
+  My private spirit moves alone,
+
+  Where every day from eight to six
+  I keep alive by hasty tricks.
+
+  But I am simple in my soul;
+  My mind is sullen to control.
+
+  At dusk I smell the scent of earth,
+  And I am dumb--too glad for mirth.
+
+  I know the savors night can give,
+  And then, and then, I live, I live!
+
+  No man is wholly pure and free,
+  For that is not his destiny,
+
+  But though I bend, I will not break:
+  And still be savage, for Truth's sake.
+
+  God damns the easily convinced
+  (Like Pilate, when his hands he rinsed).
+
+
+
+
+  ST. PAUL'S AND WOOLWORTH
+
+
+  I stood on the pavement
+    Where I could admire
+  Behind the brown chapel
+    The cream and gold spire.
+
+  Above, gilded Lightning
+    Swam high on his ball--
+  I saw the noon shadow
+    The church of St. Paul.
+
+  And was there a meaning?
+    (My fancy would run),
+  Saint Paul in the shadow,
+    Saint Frank in the sun!
+
+
+
+
+  ADVICE TO A CITY
+
+
+  O city, cage your poets! Hem them in
+    And roof them over from the April sky--
+  Clatter them round with babble, ceaseless din,
+    And drown their voices with your thunder cry.
+
+  Forbid their free feet on the windy hills,
+    And harness them to daily ruts of stone--
+  (In florists' windows lock the daffodils)
+    And never, never let them be alone!
+
+  For they are curst, said poets, curst and lewd,
+    And freedom gives their tongues uncanny wit,
+  And granted silence, thought and solitude
+    They (_absit omen!_) might make Song of it.
+
+  So cage them in, and stand about them thick,
+    And keep them busy with their daily bread;
+  And should their eyes seem strange, ah, then be quick
+    To interrupt them ere the word be said....
+
+  For, if their hearts burn with sufficient rage,
+    With wasted sunsets and frustrated youth,
+  Some day they'll cry, on some disturbing page,
+    The savage, sweet, unpalatable truth!
+
+
+
+
+  THE TELEPHONE DIRECTORY
+
+
+  No Malory of old romance,
+    No Crusoe tale, it seems to me,
+  Can equal in rich circumstance
+    This telephone directory.
+
+  No ballad of fair ladies' eyes,
+    No legend of proud knights and dames,
+  Can fill me with such bright surmise
+    As this great book of numbered names!
+
+  How many hearts and lives unknown,
+    Rare damsels pining for a squire,
+  Are waiting for the telephone
+    To ring, and call them to the wire.
+
+  Some wait to hear a loved voice say
+    The news they will rejoice to know
+  At Rome 2637 J
+    Or Marathon 1450!
+
+  And some, perhaps, are stung with fear
+    And answer with reluctant tread:
+  The message they expect to hear
+    Means life or death or daily bread.
+
+  A million hearts here wait our call,
+    All naked to our distant speech--
+  I wish that I could ring them all
+    And have some welcome news for each!
+
+
+
+
+  GREEN ESCAPE
+
+
+  At three o'clock in the afternoon
+    On a hot September day,
+  I began to dream of a highland stream
+    And a frostbit russet tree;
+  Of the swashing dip of a clipper ship
+    (White canvas wet with spray)
+  And the swirling green and milk-foam clean
+    Along her canted lee.
+
+  I heard the quick staccato click
+    Of the typist's pounding keys,
+  And I had to brood of a wind more rude
+    Than that by a motor fanned--
+  And I lay inert in a flannel shirt
+    To watch the rhyming seas
+  Deploy and fall in a silver sprawl
+    On a beach of sun-blanched sand.
+
+  There is no desk shall tame my lust
+    For hills and windy skies;
+  My secret hope of the sea's blue slope
+    No clerkly task shall dull;
+
+  And though I print no echoed hint
+    Of adventures I devise,
+  My eyes still pine for the comely line
+    Of an outbound vessel's hull.
+
+  When I elope with an autumn day
+    And make my green escape,
+  I'll leave my pen to tamer men
+    Who have more docile souls;
+  For forest aisles and office files
+    Have a very different shape,
+  And it's hard to woo the ocean blue
+    In a row of pigeon holes!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _My eyes still pine for the comely line_
+  _Of an outbound vessel's hull._]
+
+
+
+
+  VESPER SONG FOR COMMUTERS
+
+  (_Instead of "Marathon" the commuter may substitute_
+  _the name of his favorite suburb_)
+
+
+  The stars are kind to Marathon,
+  How low, how close, they lean!
+  They jostle one another
+  And do their best to please--
+  Indeed, they are so neighborly
+  That in the twilight green
+  One reaches out to pick them
+  Behind the poplar trees.
+
+  The stars are kind to Marathon,
+  And one particular
+  Bright planet (which is Vesper)
+  Most lucid and serene,
+  Is waiting by the railway bridge,
+  The Good Commuter's Star,
+  The Star of Wise Men coming home
+  On time, at 6:15!
+
+
+
+
+  THE ICE WAGON
+
+
+  I'd like to split the sky that roofs us down,
+  Break through the crystal lid of upper air,
+  And tap the cool still reservoirs of heaven.
+  I'd empty all those unseen lakes of freshness
+  Down some vast funnel, through our stifled streets.
+
+  I'd like to pump away the grit, the dust,
+  Raw dazzle of the sun on garbage piles,
+  The droning troops of flies, sharp bitter smells,
+  And gush that bright sweet flood of unused air
+  Down every alley where the children gasp.
+
+  And then I'd take a fleet of ice wagons--
+  Big yellow creaking carts, drawn by wet horses,--
+  And drive them rumbling through the blazing slums.
+  In every wagon would be blocks of coldness,
+  Pale, gleaming cubes of ice, all green and silver,
+  With inner veins and patterns, white and frosty;
+  Great lumps of chill would drip and steam and shimmer,
+  And spark like rainbows in their little fractures.
+
+  And where my wagons stood there would be puddles,
+  A wetness and a sparkle and a coolness.
+  My friends and I would chop and splinter open
+  The blocks of ice. Bare feet would soon come pattering,
+  And some would wrap it up in Sunday papers,
+  And some would stagger home with it in baskets,
+  And some would be too gay for aught but sucking,
+  Licking, crunching those fast melting pebbles,
+  Gulping as they slipped down unexpected--
+  Laughing to perceive that secret numbness
+  Amid their small hot persons!
+
+  At every stop would be at least one urchin
+  Would take a piece to cool the sweating horses
+  And hold it up against their silky noses--
+  And they would start, and then decide they liked it.
+
+  Down all the sun-cursed byways of the town
+  Our wagons would be trailed by grimy tots,
+  Their ragged shirts half off them with excitement!
+  Dabbling toes and fingers in our leakage,
+  A lucky few up sitting with the driver,
+  All clambering and stretching grey-pink palms.
+
+  And by the time the wagons were all empty
+  Our arms and shoulders would be lame with chopping,
+  Our backs and thighs pain-shot, our fingers frozen.
+  But how we would recall those eager faces,
+  Red thirsty tongues with ice-chips sliding on them,
+  The pinched white cheeks, and their pathetic gladness.
+  Then we would know that arms were made for aching--
+
+  I wish to God that I could go tomorrow!
+
+
+
+
+  AT A MOVIE THEATRE
+
+
+  How well he spoke who coined the phrase
+    _The picture palace!_ Aye, in sooth
+  A palace, where men's weary days
+    Are crowned with kingliness of youth.
+
+  Strange palace! Crowded, airless, dim,
+    Where toes are trod and strained eyes smart,
+  We watch a wand of brightness limn
+    The old heroics of the heart.
+
+  Romance again hath us in thrall
+    And Love is sweet and always true,
+  And in the darkness of the hall
+    Hands clasp--as they were meant to do.
+
+  Remote from peevish joys and ills
+    Our souls, _pro tem_, are purged and free:
+  We see the sun on western hills,
+    The crumbling tumult of the sea.
+
+  We are the blond that maidens crave,
+    Well balanced at a dozen banks;
+  By sleight of hand we haste to save
+    A brown-eyed life, nor stay for thanks!
+
+  Alas, perhaps our instinct feels
+    Life is not all it might have been,
+  So we applaud fantastic reels
+    Of shadow, cast upon a screen!
+
+
+
+
+  SONNETS IN A LODGING HOUSE
+
+
+  I
+
+  Each morn she crackles upward, tread by tread,
+    All apprehensive of some hideous sight:
+  Perhaps the Fourth Floor Back, who reads in bed,
+    Forgot his gas and let it burn all night--
+  The Sweet Young Thing who has the middle room,
+    She much suspects: for once some ink was spilled,
+  And then the plumber, in an hour of gloom,
+    Found all the bathroom pipes with tea-leaves filled.
+
+  No League of Nations scheme can make her gay--
+    She knows the rank duplicity of man;
+  Some folks expect clean towels every day,
+    They'll get away with murder if they can!
+  She tacks a card (alas, few roomers mind it)
+  _Please leave the tub as you would wish to find it!_
+
+
+  II
+
+
+  Men lodgers are the best, the Mrs. said:
+  They don't use my gas jets to fry sardines,
+  They don't leave red-hot irons on the spread,
+  They're out all morning, when a body cleans.
+  A man ain't so secretive, never cares
+  What kind of private papers he leaves lay,
+  So I can get a line on his affairs
+  And dope out whether he is likely pay.
+  But women! Say, they surely get my bug!
+  They stop their keyholes up with chewing gum,
+  Spill grease, and hide the damage with the rug,
+  And fry marshmallows when their callers come.
+  They always are behindhand with their rents--
+  Take my advice and let your rooms to gents!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _A man ain't so secretive, never cares_
+  _What kind of private papers he leaves lay_--]
+
+
+
+
+  THE MAN WITH THE HOE (PRESS)
+
+
+  About these roaring cylinders
+    Where leaping words and paper mate,
+  A sudden glory moves and stirs--
+    An inky cataract in spate!
+
+  What voice for falsehood or for truth,
+    What hearts attentive to be stirred--
+  How dimly understood, in sooth,
+    The power of the printed word!
+
+  These flashing webs and cogs of steel
+    Have shaken empires, routed kings,
+  Yet never turn too fast to feel
+    The tragedies of humble things.
+
+  O words, be strict in honesty,
+    Be just and simple and serene;
+  O rhymes, sing true, or you will be
+    Unworthy of this great machine!
+
+
+
+
+  DO YOU EVER FEEL LIKE GOD?
+
+
+  Across the court there rises the back wall
+  Of the Magna Carta Apartments.
+  The other evening the people in the apartment opposite
+  Had forgotten to draw their curtains.
+  I could see them dining: the well-blanched cloth,
+  The silver and glass, the crystal water jug,
+  The meat and vegetables; and their clean pink hands
+  Outstretched in busy gesture.
+
+  It was pleasant to watch them, they were so human;
+  So gay, innocent, unconscious of scrutiny.
+  They were four: an elderly couple,
+  A young man, and a girl--with lovely shoulders
+  Mellow in the glow of the lamp.
+  They were sitting over coffee, and I could see their hands talking.
+
+  At last the older two left the room.
+  The boy and girl looked at each other....
+  Like a flash, they leaned and kissed.
+
+  Good old human race that keeps on multiplying!
+  A little later I went down the street to the movies,
+  And there I saw all four, laughing and joking together.
+  And as I watched them I felt like God--
+  Benevolent, all-knowing, and tender.
+
+
+
+
+  RAPID TRANSIT
+
+  (To Stephen Vincent BenA(C)t.)
+
+
+  Climbing is easy and swift on Parnassus!
+  Knocking my pipe out, I entered a bookshop;
+  There found a book of verse by a young poet.
+  Comrades at once, how I saw his mind glowing!
+  Saw in his soul its magnificent rioting--
+  Then I ran with him on hills that were windy,
+  Basked and laughed with him on sun-dazzled beaches,
+  Glutted myself on his green and blue twilights,
+  Watched him disposing his planets in patterns,
+  Tumbling his colors and toys all before him.
+  I questioned life with him, his pulses my pulses;
+  Doubted his doubts, too, and grieved for his anguishes.
+  Salted long kinship and knew him from boy-hood--
+  Pulled out my own sun and stars from my knapsack,
+  Trying my trinkets with those of his finding--
+  _And as I left the bookshop_
+  _My pipe was still warm in my hand._
+
+
+
+
+  CAUGHT IN THE UNDERTOW
+
+
+  Colin, worshipping some frail,
+    By self-deprecation sways her:
+  Calls himself unworthy male,
+    Hardly even fit to praise her.
+
+  But this tactic insincere
+    In the upshot greatly grieves him
+  When he finds the lovely dear
+    Quite implicitly believes him.
+
+
+
+
+  TO HIS BROWN-EYED MISTRESS
+
+  _Who Rallied Him for Praising Blue Eyes in His Verses_
+
+
+  If sometimes, in a random phrase
+    (For variation in my ditty),
+  I chance blue eyes, or gray, to praise
+    And seem to intimate them pretty--
+
+  It is because I do not dare
+    With too unmixed reiteration
+  To sing the browner eyes and hair
+    That are my true intoxication.
+
+  Know, then, that I consider brown
+    For ladies' eyes, the only color;
+  And deem all other orbs in town
+    (Compared to yours), opaquer, duller.
+
+  I pray, perpend, my dearest dear;
+    While blue-eyed maids the praise were drinking,
+  How insubstantial was their cheer--
+    It was of yours that I was thinking!
+
+
+
+
+  PEACE
+
+
+  What is this Peace
+    That statesmen sign?
+  How I have sought
+    To make it mine.
+
+  Where groaning cities
+    Clang and glow
+  I hunted, hunted,
+    Peace to know.
+
+  And still I saw
+    Where I passed by
+  Discarded hearts,--
+    Heard children cry.
+
+  By willowed waters
+    Brimmed with rain
+  I thought to capture
+    Peace again.
+
+  I sat me down
+    My Peace to hoard,
+  But Beauty pricked me
+    With a sword.
+
+  For in the stillness
+    Something stirred,
+  And I was crippled
+    For a word.
+
+  There is no peace
+    A man can find;
+  The anguish sits
+    His heart behind.
+
+  The eyes he loves,
+    The perfect breast,
+  Too exquisite
+    To give him rest.
+
+  This is his curse
+    Since brain began.
+  His penalty
+    For being man.
+
+    May, 1919
+
+
+
+
+  SONG, IN DEPRECATION
+  OF PULCHRITUDE
+
+
+
+  Beauty (so the poets say),
+    Thou art joy and solace great;
+  Long ago, and far away
+    Thou art safe to contemplate,
+
+  Beauty. But when now and here,
+    Visible and close to touch,
+  All too perilously near,
+    Thou tormentest us too much!
+
+  In a picture, in a song,
+    In a novel's conjured scenes,
+  Beauty, that's where you belong,
+    Where perspective intervenes.
+
+  But, my dear, in rosy fact
+    Your appeal I have to shirk--
+  You disturb me, and distract
+    My attention from my work!
+
+
+
+
+  MOUNTED POLICE
+
+
+  Watchful, grave, he sits astride his horse,
+    Draped with his rubber poncho, in the rain;
+  He speaks the pungent lingo of "The Force,"
+    And those who try to bluff him, try in vain.
+
+  Inured to every mood of fool and crank,
+    Shrewdly and sternly all the crowd he cons:
+  The rain drips down his horse's shining flank,
+    A figure nobly fit for sculptor's bronze.
+
+  O knight commander of our city stress,
+    Little you know how picturesque you are!
+  We hear you cry to drivers who transgress:
+    "_Say, that's a helva place to park your car!_"
+
+
+  [Illustration: _Mounted Police._]
+
+
+
+
+  TO HIS MISTRESS, DEPLORING THAT
+  HE IS NOT AN ELIZABETHAN GALAXY
+
+
+  Why did not Fate to me bequeath an Utterance Elizabethan?
+  It would have been delight to me
+  If _natus ante_ 1603.
+
+  My stuff would not be soon forgotten
+  If I could write like Harry Wotton.
+
+  I wish that I could wield the pen
+  Like William Drummond of Hawthornden.
+
+  I would not fear the ticking clock
+  If I were Browne of Tavistock.
+
+  For blithe conceits I would not worry
+  If I were Raleigh, or the Earl of Surrey.
+
+  I wish (I hope I am not silly?)
+  That I could juggle words like Lyly.
+
+  I envy many a lyric champion,
+  I. e., viz., e. g., Thomas Campion.
+
+  I creak my rhymes up like a derrick,
+  I ne'er will be a Robin Herrick.
+
+  My wits are dull as an old Barlow--
+  I wish that I were Christopher Marlowe.
+
+  In short, I'd like to be Philip Sidney,
+  Or some one else of that same kidney.
+
+  For if I were, my lady's looks
+    And all my lyric special pleading
+  Would be in all the future books,
+    And called, at college, _Required Reading_.
+
+
+
+
+  THE INTRUDER
+
+
+  As I sat, to sift my dreaming
+    To the meet and needed word,
+  Came a merry Interruption
+    With insistence to be heard.
+
+  Smiling stood a maid beside me,
+    Half alluring and half shy;
+  Soft the white hint of her bosom--
+    Escapade was in her eye.
+
+  "I must not be so invaded,"
+    (In an anger then I cried)--
+  "Can't you see that I am busy?
+    Tempting creature, stay outside!
+
+  "Pearly rascal, I am writing:
+    I am now composing verse--
+  Fie on antic invitation:
+    Wanton, vanish--fly--disperse!
+
+  "Baggage, in my godlike moment
+    What have I to do with thee?"
+  And she laughed as she departed--
+    "I am Poetry," said she.
+
+
+
+
+  TIT FOR TAT
+
+
+  I often pass a gracious tree
+    Whose name I can't identify,
+  But still I bow, in courtesy
+    It waves a bough, in kind reply.
+
+  I do not know your name, O tree
+    (Are you a hemlock or a pine?)
+  But why should that embarrass me?
+    Quite probably you don't know mine.
+
+
+  [Illustration: _Courtesy_]
+
+
+
+
+  SONG FOR A LITTLE HOUSE
+
+
+  I'm glad our house is a little house,
+    Not too tall nor too wide:
+  I'm glad the hovering butterflies
+    Feel free to come inside.
+
+  Our little house is a friendly house.
+    It is not shy or vain;
+  It gossips with the talking trees,
+    And makes friends with the rain.
+
+  And quick leaves cast a shimmer of green
+    Against our whited walls,
+  And in the phlox, the courteous bees
+    Are paying duty calls.
+
+
+
+
+  THE PLUMPUPPETS
+
+
+  When little heads weary have gone to their bed,
+  When all the good nights and the prayers have been said,
+  Of all the good fairies that send bairns to rest
+  The little Plumpuppets are those I love best.
+
+  _If your pillow is lumpy, or hot, thin and flat,_
+  _The little Plumpuppets know just what they're at;_
+  _They plump up the pillow, all soft, cool and fat--_
+    _The little Plumpuppets plump-up it!_
+
+  The little Plumpuppets are fairies of beds:
+  They have nothing to do but to watch sleepy heads;
+  They turn down the sheets and they tuck you in tight,
+  And they dance on your pillow to wish you good night!
+
+  No matter what troubles have bothered the day,
+  Though your doll broke her arm or the pup ran away;
+  Though your handies are black with the ink that was spilt--
+  Plumpuppets are waiting in blanket and quilt.
+
+  _If your pillow is lumpy, or hot, thin and flat,
+  The little Plumpuppets know just what they're at;
+  They plump up the pillow, all soft, cool and fat--
+  The little Plumpuppets plump-up it!_
+
+
+  [Illustration: _The Plumpuppets_]
+
+
+
+
+  DANDY DANDELION
+
+
+  When Dandy Dandelion wakes
+    And combs his yellow hair,
+  The ant his cup of dewdrop takes
+    And sets his bed to air;
+  The worm hides in a quilt of dirt
+    To keep the thrush away,
+  The beetle dons his pansy shirt--
+    They know that it is day!
+
+  And caterpillars haste to milk
+    The cowslips in the grass;
+  The spider, in his web of silk,
+    Looks out for flies that pass.
+  These humble people leap from bed,
+    They know the night is done:
+  When Dandy spreads his golden head
+    They think he is the sun!
+
+  Dear Dandy truly does not smell
+    As sweet as some bouquets;
+  No florist gathers him to sell,
+    He withers in a vase;
+  Yet in the grass he's emperor,
+    And lord of high renown;
+  And grateful little folk adore
+    His bright and shining crown.
+
+
+
+
+  THE HIGH CHAIR
+
+
+  Grimly the parent matches wit and will:
+  Now, Weesy, three more spoons! See Tom the cat,
+  _He'd_ drink it. You want to be big and fat
+  Like Daddy, don't you? (Careful now, don't spill!)
+  Yes, Daddy'll dance, and blow smoke through his nose,
+  But you must finish first. Come, drink it up--
+  (_Splash_!) Oh, you _must_ keep both hands on the cup.
+  All gone? Now for the prunes....
+                               And so it goes.
+
+  This is the battlefield that parents know,
+  Where one small splinter of old Adam's rib
+  Withstands an entire household offering spoons.
+  No use to gnash your teeth. For she will go
+  Radiant to bed, glossy from crown to bib
+  With milk and cereal and a surf of prunes.
+
+
+
+
+  LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT
+
+
+  Not long ago I fell in love,
+    But unreturned is my affection--
+  The girl that I'm enamored of
+    Pays little heed in my direction.
+
+  I thought I knew her fairly well:
+    In fact, I'd had my arm around her;
+  And so it's hard to have to tell
+    How unresponsive I have found her.
+
+  For, though she is not frankly rude,
+    Her manners quite the wrong way rub me:
+  It seems to me ingratitude
+    To let me love her--and then snub me!
+
+  Though I'm considerate and fond,
+    She shows no gladness when she spies me--
+  She gazes off somewhere beyond
+    And doesn't even recognize me.
+
+  Her eyes, so candid, calm and blue,
+    Seem asking if I can support her
+  In the style appropriate to
+    A lady like her father's daughter.
+
+  Well, if I can't then no one can--
+    And let me add that I intend to:
+  She'll never know another man
+    So fit for her to be a friend to.
+
+  Not love me, eh? She better had!
+    By Jove, I'll make her love me one day;
+  For, don't you see, I am her Dad,
+    And she'll be three weeks old on Sunday!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _ ... It's hard to have to tell_
+  _How unresponsive I have found her._]
+
+
+
+
+  AUTUMN COLORS
+
+
+  The chestnut trees turned yellow,
+  The oak like sherry browned,
+  The fir, the stubborn fellow,
+  Stayed green the whole year round.
+
+  But O the bonny maple
+  How richly he does shine!
+  He glows against the sunset
+  Like ruddy old port wine.
+
+
+
+
+  THE LAST CRICKET
+
+
+  When the bulb of the moon with white fire fills
+    And dead leaves crackle under the feet,
+  When men roll kegs to the cider mills
+    And chestnuts roast on every street;
+
+  When the night sky glows like a hollow shell
+    Of lustered emerald and pearl,
+  The kilted cricket knows too well
+    His doom. His tiny bagpipes skirl.
+
+  Quavering under the polished stars
+    In stubble, thicket, and frosty copse
+  The cricket blows a few choked bars,
+    And puts away his pipe--and stops.
+
+
+
+
+  TO LOUISE
+
+  (A Christmas Baby, Now One Year Old.)
+
+
+  Undaunted by a world of grief
+  You came upon perplexing days,
+  And cynics doubt their disbelief
+  To see the sky-stains in your gaze.
+
+  Your sudden and inclusive smile
+  And your emphatic tears, admit
+  That you must find this life worth while,
+  So eagerly you clutch at it!
+
+  Your face of triumph says, brave mite,
+  That life is full of love and luck--
+  Of blankets to kick off at night,
+  And two soft rose-pink thumbs to suck.
+
+  O loveliest of pioneers
+  Upon this trail of long surprise,
+  May all the stages of the years
+  Show such enchantment in your eyes!
+
+  By parents' patient buttonings,
+  And endless safety pins, you'll grow
+  To ribbons, garters, hooks and things,
+  Up to the Ultimate Trousseau--
+
+  But never, in your dainty prime,
+  Will you be more adored by me
+  Than when you see, this Great First Time,
+  Lit candles on a Christmas Tree!
+
+    December, 1919.
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _... When you see, this Great First Time,_
+  _Lit candles on a Christmas Tree!_]
+
+
+
+
+  CHRISTMAS EVE
+
+
+  Our hearts to-night are open wide,
+  The grudge, the grief, are laid aside:
+    The path and porch are swept of snow,
+    The doors unlatched; the hearthstones glow--
+  No visitor can be denied.
+
+  All tender human homes must hide
+  Some wistfulness beneath their pride:
+    Compassionate and humble grow
+      Our hearts to-night.
+
+  Let empty chair and cup abide!
+  Who knows? Some well-remembered stride
+    May come as once so long ago--
+    Then welcome, be it friend or foe!
+  There is no anger can divide
+      Our hearts to-night.
+
+
+
+
+  EPITAPH ON THE PROOFREADER OF
+  THE ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA
+
+
+  Majestic tomes, you are the tomb
+  Of Aristides Edward Bloom,
+  Who labored, from the world aloof,
+  In reading every page of proof.
+
+  From A to And, from Aus to Bis
+  Enthusiasm still was his;
+  From Cal to Cha, from Cha to Con
+  His soft-lead pencil still went on.
+
+  But reaching volume Fra to Gib,
+  He knew at length that he was sib
+  To Satan; and he sold his soul
+  To reach the section Pay to Pol.
+
+  Then Pol to Ree, and Shu to Sub
+  He staggered on, and sought a pub.
+  And just completing Vet to Zym,
+  The motor hearse came round for him.
+
+  He perished, obstinately brave:
+  They laid the Index on his grave.
+
+
+
+
+  THE MUSIC BOX
+
+
+  At six--long ere the wintry dawn--
+    There sounded through the silent hall
+  To where I lay, with blankets drawn
+    Above my ears, a plaintive call.
+
+  The Urchin, in the eagerness
+    Of three years old, could not refrain;
+  Awake, he straightway yearned to dress
+    And frolic with his clockwork train.
+
+  I heard him with a sullen shock.
+    His sister, by her usual plan,
+  Had piped us aft at 3 o'clock--
+    I vowed to quench the little man.
+
+  I leaned above him, somewhat stern,
+    And spoke, I fear, with emphasis--
+  Ah, how much better, parents learn,
+    To seal one's censure with a kiss!
+
+  Again the house was dark and still,
+    Again I lay in slumber's snare,
+  When down the hall I heard a trill,
+    A tiny, tinkling, tuneful air--
+
+  His music-box! His best-loved toy,
+    His crib companion every night;
+  And now he turned to it for joy
+    While waiting for the lagging light.
+
+  How clear, and how absurdly sad
+    Those tingling pricks of sound unrolled;
+  They chirped and quavered, as the lad
+    His lonely little heart consoled.
+
+  _Columbia, the Ocean's Gem_--
+    (Its only tune) shrilled sweet and faint.
+  He cranked the chimes, admiring them
+    In vigil gay, without complaint.
+
+  The treble music piped and stirred,
+    The leaping air that was his bliss;
+  And, as I most contritely heard,
+    I thanked the all-unconscious Swiss!
+
+  The needled jets of melody
+    Rang slowlier and died away--
+  The Urchin slept; and it was I
+    Who lay and waited for the day.
+
+
+  [Illustration: _The Music Box_]
+
+
+
+
+  TO LUATH
+
+  (_Robert Burns's Dog_)
+
+
+  _"Darling Jean" was Jean Armour, a "comely country lass" whom Burns
+met at a penny wedding at Mauchline. They chanced to be dancing in the
+same quadrille when the poet's dog sprang to his master and almost
+upset some of the dancers. Burns remarked that he wished he could get
+any of the lasses to like him as well as his dog did.
+
+  Some days afterward, Jean, seeing him pass as she was bleaching clothes
+on the village green, called to him and asked him if he had yet got any
+of the lasses to like him as well as his dog did.
+
+  That was the beginning of an acquaintance that coloured all of
+Burns's life._
+
+  --NATHAN HASKELL DOLE.
+
+
+  Well, Luath, man, when you came prancing
+    All glee to see your Robin dancing,
+  His partner's muslin gown mischancing
+    You leaped for joy!
+  And little guessed what sweet romancing
+    You caused, my boy!
+
+  With happy bark, that moment jolly,
+  You frisked and frolicked, faithful collie;
+  His other dog, old melancholy,
+    Was put to flight--
+  But what a tale of grief and folly
+    You wagged that night!
+
+  Ah, Luath, tyke, your bonny master
+  Whose lyric pulse beat ever faster
+  Each time he saw a lass and passed her
+    His breast went bang!
+  In many a woful heart's disaster
+    He felt the pang!
+
+  Poor Robin's heart, forever burning,
+  Forever roving, ranting, yearning,
+  From you that heart might have been learning
+    To be less fickle!
+  Might have been spared so many a turning
+    And grievous prickle!
+
+  Your collie heart held but one notion--
+  When Robbie jigged in sprightly motion
+  You ran to show your own devotion
+    And gambolled too,
+  And so that tempest on love's ocean
+    Was due to you!
+
+  Well, it is ower late for preaching
+  And hearts are aye too hot for teaching!
+  When Robin with his eye beseeching
+    By greenside came,
+  Jeanie--poor lass--forgot her bleaching
+    And yours the blame!
+
+
+
+
+  THOUGHTS ON REACHING LAND
+
+
+  I had a friend whose path was pain--
+    Oppressed by all the cares of earth
+  Life gave him little chance to drain
+    His secret cisterns of rich mirth.
+
+  His work was hasty, harassed, vexed:
+    His dreams were laid aside, perforce,
+  Until--in this world, or the next....
+    (His trade? Newspaper man, of course!)
+
+  What funded wealth of tenderness,
+    What ingots of the heart and mind
+  He must uneasily repress
+    Beneath the rasping daily grind.
+
+  But now and then, and with my aid,
+    For fear his soul be wholly lost,
+  His devoir to the grape he paid
+    To call soul back, at any cost!
+
+  Then, liberate from discipline,
+    Undrugged by caution and control,
+  Through all his veins came flooding in
+    The virtued passion of his soul!
+
+  His spirit bared, and felt no shame:
+    With holy light his eyes would shine--
+  See Truth her acolyte reclaim
+    After the second glass of wine!
+
+  The self that life had trodden hard
+    Aspired, was generous and free:
+  The glowing heart that care had charred
+    Grew flame, as it was meant to be.
+
+  A pox upon the canting lot
+    Who call the glass the Devil's shape--
+  A greater pox where'er some sot
+    Defiles the honor of the grape.
+
+  Then look with reverence on wine
+    That kindles human brains uncouth--
+  There must be something part divine
+    In aught that brings us nearer Truth!
+
+  So--continently skull your fumes
+    (Here let our little sermon end)
+  And bless this X-ray that illumes
+    The secret bosom of your friend!
+
+
+
+
+  A SYMPOSIUM
+
+
+  There was a Russian novelist
+    Whose name was Solugubrious,
+  The reading circles took him up,
+    (They'd heard he was salubrious.)
+
+  The women's club of Cripple Creek
+    Soon held a kind of seminar
+  To learn just what his message was--
+    You know what bookworms women are.
+
+  The tea went round. After five cups
+    (You should have seen them bury tea)
+  Dear Mrs. Brown said what she liked
+    Was the great man's _sincerity_.
+
+  Sweet Mrs. Jones (how free she was
+    From all besetting vanity)
+  Declared that she loved even more
+    His broad and deep _humanity_.
+
+  Good Mrs. Smith, though she disclaimed
+    All thought of being critical,
+  Protested that she found his work
+    A wee bit _analytical_.
+
+  But Mrs. Black, the President,
+    Of wisdom found the pinnacle:
+  She said, "Dear me, I always think
+    Those Russians are so _cynical_."
+
+  Well, poor old Solugubrious,
+    It's true that they had heard of him;
+  But neither Brown, Jones, Smith, nor Black
+    Had ever read a word of him!
+
+
+  [Illustration: _Solugubrious_]
+
+
+
+
+  TO A TELEPHONE OPERATOR WHO
+  HAS A BAD COLD
+
+
+  How hoarse and husky in my ear
+    Your usually cheerful chirrup:
+  You have an awful cold, my dear--
+    Try aspirin or bronchial syrup.
+
+  When I put in a call to-day
+    Compassion stirred my humane blood red
+  To hear you faintly, sadly, say
+    The number: _Burray Hill dide hudred!_
+
+  I felt (I say) quick sympathy
+    To hear you croak in the receiver--
+  Will you be sorry too for me
+    A month hence, when I have hay fever?
+
+
+
+
+  NURSERY RHYMES FOR THE
+  TENDER-HEARTED
+
+  (Dedicated to Don Marquis.)
+
+
+  I
+
+
+  Scuttle, scuttle, little roach--
+  How you run when I approach:
+  Up above the pantry shelf.
+  Hastening to secrete yourself.
+
+  Most adventurous of vermin,
+  How I wish I could determine
+  How you spend your hours of ease,
+  Perhaps reclining on the cheese.
+
+  Cook has gone, and all is dark--
+  Then the kitchen is your park:
+  In the garbage heap that she leaves
+  Do you browse among the tea leaves?
+
+  How delightful to suspect
+  All the places you have trekked:
+  Does your long antenna whisk its
+  Gentle tip across the biscuits?
+
+  Do you linger, little soul,
+  Drowsing in our sugar bowl?
+  Or, abandonment most utter,
+  Shake a shimmy on the butter?
+
+  Do you chant your simple tunes
+  Swimming in the baby's prunes?
+  Then, when dawn comes, do you slink
+  Homeward to the kitchen sink?
+
+  Timid roach, why be so shy?
+  We are brothers, thou and I.
+  In the midnight, like yourself,
+  I explore the pantry shelf!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _In the midnight, like yourself,_
+  _I explore the pantry shelf!_]
+
+
+
+
+  NURSERY RHYMES FOR THE
+  TENDER-HEARTED
+
+
+  II
+
+
+  Rockabye, insect, lie low in thy den,
+  Father's a cockroach, mother's a hen.
+  And Betty, the maid, doesn't clean up the sink,
+  So you shall have plenty to eat and to drink.
+
+  Hushabye, insect, behind the mince pies:
+  If the cook sees you her anger will rise;
+  She'll scatter poison, as bitter as gall,
+  Death to poor cockroach, hen, baby and all.
+
+
+
+
+  NURSERY RHYMES FOR THE
+  TENDER-HEARTED
+
+
+  III
+
+
+  There was a gay henroach, and what do you think,
+  She lived in a cranny behind the old sink--
+  Eggshells and grease were the chief of her diet;
+  She went for a stroll when the kitchen was quiet.
+
+  She walked in the pantry and sampled the bread,
+  But when she came back her old husband was dead:
+  Long had he lived, for his legs they were fast,
+  But the kitchen maid caught him and squashed him at last.
+
+
+
+
+  NURSERY RHYMES FOR THE
+  TENDER-HEARTED
+
+
+  IV
+
+
+  I knew a black beetle, who lived down a drain,
+  And friendly he was though his manners were plain;
+  When I took a bath he would come up the pipe,
+  And together we'd wash and together we'd wipe.
+
+  Though mother would sometimes protest with a sneer
+  That my choice of a tub-mate was wanton and queer,
+  A nicer companion I never have seen:
+  He bathed every night, so he must have been clean.
+
+  Whenever he heard the tap splash in the tub
+  He'd dash up the drain-pipe and wait for a scrub,
+  And often, so fond of ablution was he,
+  I'd find him there floating and waiting for me.
+
+  But nurse has done something that seems a great shame:
+  She saw him there, waiting, prepared for a game:
+  She turned on the hot and she scalded him sore
+  And he'll never come bathing with me any more.
+
+
+
+
+  THE TWINS
+
+
+  Con was a thorn to brother Pro--
+    On Pro we often sicked him:
+  Whatever Pro would claim to know
+    Old Con would contradict him!
+
+
+  [Illustration: _The Twins_]
+
+
+
+
+  A PRINTER'S MADRIGAL
+
+  (_Extremely technical_)
+
+
+  I'd like to have you meet my wife!
+    I simply cannot keep from hinting
+  I've never seen, in all my life,
+    So fine a specimen of printing.
+
+  Her type is not some =bold-face= font,
+    Set solid. Nay! And I will say out
+  That no typographer could want
+    To see a better balanced layout.
+
+  A nice proportion of white space
+    There is for brown eyes to look large in,
+  And not a feature in her face
+    Comes anywhere too near the margin.
+
+  Locked up with all her sweet display
+    Her form will never pi. She's like a
+  Corrected proof marked _stet, O. K._--
+    And yet she loves me, fatface =Pica!=
+
+  She has a fine one-column head,
+    And like a comma curves each eyebrow--
+  Her forehead has an extra lead
+    Which makes her seem a trifle highbrow.
+
+  Her nose, _italicized brevier_,
+    Too lovely to describe by penpoint;
+  Her mouth is set in _pearl_: her ear
+    And chin are comely Caslon ten-point.
+
+  Her cheeks (a pink parenthesis)
+    Make my pulse beat 14-em measure,
+  And such typography as this
+    Would make =De Vinne= scream with pleasure.
+
+  And so, of all typefounder chaps
+    Her father's best, in my opinion;
+  She is my NONPAREIL (IN CAPS)
+    And I (in lower case) her _minion_.
+
+  I hope you will not stand aloof
+    Because my metaphors are shoppy;
+  Of her devotion I've a proof--
+    I tell the urchin, _Follow Copy_!
+
+
+
+
+  THE POET ON THE HEARTH
+
+
+  When fire is kindled on the dogs,
+    But still the stubborn oak delays,
+  Small embers laid above the logs
+    Will draw them into sudden blaze.
+
+  Just so the minor poet's part:
+    (A greater he need not desire)
+  The charcoals of his burning heart
+    May light some Master into fire!
+
+
+
+
+  O PRAISE ME NOT THE COUNTRY
+
+
+  O praise me not the country--
+  The meadows green and cool,
+  The solemn glow of sunsets, the hidden silver pool!
+      The city for my craving,
+      Her lordship and her slaving,
+      The hot stones of her paving
+          For me, a city fool!
+
+  O praise me not the leisure
+  Of gardened country seats,
+  The fountains on the terrace against the summer heats--
+      The city for my yearning,
+      My spending and my earning.
+      Her winding ways for learning,
+          Sing hey! the city streets!
+
+  O praise me not the country,
+  Her sycamores and bees,
+  I had my youthful plenty of sour apple trees!
+      The city for my wooing,
+      My dreaming and my doing;
+      Her beauty for pursuing,
+          Her deathless mysteries.
+
+  O praise me not the country,
+  Her evenings full of stars,
+  Her yachts upon the water with the wind among their spars--
+      The city for my wonder,
+      Her glory and her blunder,
+      And O the haunting thunder
+          Of the Elevated cars!
+
+
+  [Illustration: Seascape]
+
+
+
+
+  A STONE IN ST. PAUL'S GRAVEYARD
+
+  (New York)
+
+
+    _Here Lyes the Body of_
+    _Iohn Jones the Son of_
+    _Iohn Jones Who Departed_
+    _This Life December the 13_
+    _1768 Aged 4 Years & 4 Months & 2 Days_
+
+  Here, where enormous shadows creep,
+    He casts his childish shadow too:
+  How small he seems, beneath the steep
+    Great walls; his tender days, so few,
+  Lovingly numbered, every one--
+  John Jones, John Jones's little son.
+
+  O sunlight on the Lightning's wings!
+    Yet though our buildings skyward climb
+  Our heartbreaks are but little things
+    In the equality of Time.
+  The sum of life, for all men's stones:
+  He was John Jones, son of John Jones.
+
+
+
+
+  THE MADONNA OF THE CURB
+
+
+  On the curb of a city pavement,
+    By the ash and garbage cans,
+  In the stench and rolling thunder
+    Of motor trucks and vans,
+  There sits my little lady,
+    With brave but troubled eyes,
+  And in her arms a baby
+    That cries and cries and cries.
+
+  She cannot be more than seven;
+    But years go fast in the slums,
+  And hard on the pains of winter
+    The pitiless summer comes.
+  The wail of sickly children
+    She knows; she understands
+  The pangs of puny bodies,
+    The clutch of small hot hands.
+
+  In the deadly blaze of August,
+    That turns men faint and mad,
+  She quiets the peevish urchins
+
+    By telling a dream she had--
+  A heaven with marble counters,
+    And ice, and a singing fan;
+  And a God in white, so friendly,
+    Just like the drug-store man.
+
+  Her ragged dress is dearer
+    Than the perfect robe of a queen!
+  Poor little lass, who knows not
+    The blessing of being clean.
+  And when you are giving millions
+    To Belgian, Pole and Serb,
+  Remember my pitiful lady--
+    Madonna of the Curb!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _The wail of sickly children_
+    _She knows; she understands_
+  _The pangs of puny bodies,_
+    _The clutch of small hot hands._]
+
+
+
+
+  THE ISLAND
+
+
+  _A song for England?_
+    _Nay, what is a song for England?_
+
+  Our hearts go by green-cliffed Kinsale
+    Among the gulls' white wings,
+  Or where, on Kentish forelands pale
+    The lighthouse beacon swings:
+  Our hearts go up the Mersey's tide,
+    Come in on Suffolk foam--
+  The blood that will not be denied
+    Moves fast, and calls us home!
+
+  Our hearts now walk a secret round
+    On many a Cotswold hill,
+  For we are mixed of island ground,
+    The island draws us still:
+  Our hearts may pace a windy turn
+    Where Sussex downs are high,
+  Or watch the lights of London burn,
+    A bonfire in the sky!
+
+  What is the virtue of that soil
+    That flings her strength so wide?
+  Her ancient courage, patient toil,
+    Her stubborn wordless pride?
+  A little land, yet loved therein
+    As any land may be,
+  Rejoicing in her discipline,
+    The salt stress of the sea.
+
+  Our hearts shall walk a Sherwood track,
+    Our lips taste English rain,
+  We thrill to see the Union Jack
+    Across some deep-sea lane;
+  Though all the world be of rich cost
+    And marvellous with worth,
+  Yet if that island ground were lost
+    How empty were the earth!
+
+  _A song for England?_
+  _Lo, every word we speak's a song for England._
+
+
+
+
+  SUNDAY NIGHT
+
+
+  Two grave brown eyes, severely bent
+    Upon a memorandum book--
+  A sparkling face, on which are blent
+    A hopeful and a pensive look;
+  A pencil, purse, and book of checks
+    With stubs for varying amounts--
+  Elaine, the shrewdest of her sex,
+    Is busy balancing accounts.
+
+  Sedately, in the big armchair,
+    She, all engrossed, the audit scans--
+  Her pencil hovers here and there
+    The while she calculates and plans;
+  What's this? A faintly pensive frown
+    Upon her forehead gathers now--
+  Ah, does the butcher--heartless clown--
+    Beget that shadow on her brow?
+
+
+  A murrain on the tradesman churl
+    Who caused this fair accountant's gloom!
+  Just then--a baby's cry--my girl
+    Arose and swiftly left the room.
+  Then in her purse by stratagem
+    I thrust some bills of small amounts--
+  She'll think she had forgotten them,
+    And smile again at her accounts!
+
+
+  [Illustration:
+
+  _Ah, does the butcher--heartless clown--_
+    _Beget that shadow on her brow?_]
+
+
+
+  ENGLAND, JULY 1913
+
+  To Rupert Brooke
+
+
+  O England, England ... that July
+  How placidly the days went by!
+
+  Two years ago (how long it seems)
+  In that dear England of my dreams
+  I loved and smoked and laughed amain
+  And rode to Cambridge in the rain.
+  A careless godlike life was there!
+  To spin the roads with _Shotover_,
+  To dream while punting on the Cam,
+  To lie, and never give a damn
+  For anything but comradeship
+  And books to read and ale to sip,
+  And shandygaff at every inn
+  When _The Gorilla_ rode to Lynn!
+  O world of wheel and pipe and oar
+  In those old days before the War.
+
+  O poignant echoes of that time!
+  I hear the Oxford towers chime,
+  The throbbing of those mellow bells
+  And all the sweet old English smells--
+
+  The Deben water, quick with salt,
+  The Woodbridge brew-house and the malt;
+  The Suffolk villages, serene
+  With lads at cricket on the green,
+  And Wytham strawberries, so ripe,
+  And _Murray's Mixture_ in my pipe!
+
+  In those dear days, in those dear days,
+  All pleasant lay the country ways;
+  The echoes of our stalwart mirth
+  Went echoing wide around the earth
+  And in an endless bliss of sun
+  We lay and watched the river run.
+  And you by Cam and I by Isis
+  Were happy with our own devices.
+
+  Ah, can we ever know again
+  Such friends as were those chosen men,
+  Such men to drink, to bike, to smoke with,
+  To worship with, or lie and joke with?
+  Never again, my lads, we'll see
+  The life we led at twenty-three.
+  Never again, perhaps, shall I
+  Go flashing bravely down the High
+  To see, in that transcendent hour,
+  The sunset glow on Magdalen Tower.
+
+  Dear Rupert Brooke, your words recall
+  Those endless afternoons, and all
+  Your Cambridge--which I loved as one
+  Who was her grandson, not her son.
+  O ripples where the river slacks
+  In greening eddies round the "backs";
+  Where men have dreamed such gallant things
+  Under the old stone bridge at _King's_.
+  Or leaned to feed the silver swans
+  By the tennis meads at _John's_.
+  O Granta's water, cold and fresh,
+  Kissing the warm and eager flesh
+  Under the willow's breathing stir--
+  The bathing pool at _Grantchester_....
+  What words can tell, what words can praise
+  The burly savor of those days!
+
+  Dear singing lad, those days are dead
+  And gone for aye your golden head;
+  And many other well-loved men
+  Will never dine in Hall again.
+  I too have lived remembered hours
+  In Cambridge; heard the summer showers
+  Make music on old _Heffer's_ pane
+  While I was reading Pepys or Taine.
+  Through _Trumpington_ and _Grantchester_
+
+  I used to roll on _Shotover_;
+  At _Hauxton Bridge_ my lamp would light
+  And sleep in _Royston_ for the night.
+  Or to _Five Miles from Anywhere_
+  I used to scull; and sit and swear
+  While wasps attacked my bread and jam
+  Those summer evenings on the Cam.
+  (O crispy English cottage-loaves
+  Baked in ovens, not in stoves!
+  O white unsalted English butter
+  O satisfaction none can utter!)...
+
+  To think that while those joys I knew
+  In Cambridge, I did not know you.
+
+    July, 1915.
+
+
+
+
+ CASUALTY
+
+
+  A well-sharp'd pencil leads one on to write:
+  When guns are cocked, the shot is guaranteed;
+  The primed occasion puts the deed in sight:
+  Who steals a book who knows not how to read?
+
+  Seeing a pulpit, who can silence keep?
+  A maid, who would not dream her ta'en to wife?
+  Men looking down from some sheer dizzy steep
+  Have (quite impromptu) leapt, and ended life.
+
+
+
+
+  A GRUB STREET RECESSIONAL
+
+
+  O noble gracious English tongue
+  Whose fibers we so sadly twist,
+  For caitiff measures he has sung
+  Have pardon on the journalist.
+
+  For mumbled meter, leaden pun,
+  For slipshod rhyme, and lazy word,
+  Have pity on this graceless one--
+  Thy mercy on Thy servant, Lord!
+
+  The metaphors and tropes depart,
+  Our little clippings fade and bleach:
+  There is no virtue and no art
+  Save in straightforward Saxon speech.
+
+  Yet not in ignorance or spite,
+  Nor with Thy noble past forgot
+  We sinned: indeed we had to write
+  To keep a fire beneath the pot.
+
+  Then grant that in the coming time,
+  With inky hand and polished sleeve,
+  In lucid prose or honest rhyme
+  Some worthy task we may achieve--
+
+  Some pinnacled and marbled phrase,
+  Some lyric, breaking like the sea,
+  That we may learn, not hoping praise,
+  The gift of Thy simplicity.
+
+
+
+
+  PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTIONS FOR A
+  FUNERAL SERVICE: BEING A
+  POEM IN FOUR STANZAS
+
+
+  Say this poor fool misfeatured all his days,
+  And could not mend his ways;
+  And say he trod
+  Most heavily upon the corns of God.
+
+  But also say that in his clabbered brain
+  There was the essential pain--
+  The idiot's vow
+  To tell his troubled Truth, no matter how.
+
+  Unhappy fool, you say, with pitiful air:
+  Who was he, then, and where?
+  Ah, you divine
+  He lives in your heart, as he lives in mine.
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: To bed]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Chimneysmoke, by Christopher Morley
+
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