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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c521196 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #60606 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/60606) diff --git a/old/60606-8.txt b/old/60606-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index bb08981..0000000 --- a/old/60606-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2392 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Glebe 1913/09 (Vol. 1, No. 1): Songs, -Sighs and Curses, by Adolf Wolff - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: The Glebe 1913/09 (Vol. 1, No. 1): Songs, Sighs and Curses - -Author: Adolf Wolff - -Editor: Alfred Kreymborg - Man Ray - -Release Date: November 1, 2019 [EBook #60606] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GLEBE 1913/09 (VOL. 1 *** - - - - -Produced by Jens Sadowski and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. This book was -produced from images made available by the Blue Mountain -Project, Princeton University. - - - - - - - Songs, Sighs and Curses - - THE - GLEBE - - VOLUME 1 - NUMBER 1 - - SEPTEMBER - 1913 - - PRICE OF THIS - ISSUE 60 CENTS - - By Adolf Wolff - - - - - Songs, Sighs and Curses - - - By - Adolf Wolff - - SEPTEMBER 1913 - - - Published by THE GLEBE at Ridgefield, - New Jersey - - - Copyright, 1913 - By - Adolf Wolff. - - - TO LEONARD D. ABBOTT. - - Dear Friend:--To whom else than to you can I - dedicate this little wreath of poems? Weeds - or flowers, without you, they would not have - been. Your interest, your sympathy, your - appreciation were the sunshine and rain that - brought them forth--to blossom for a moment - or forever. - - ADOLF WOLFF. - - -NOTE.--All the poems in this volume were written in the year 1912-13. -When asked in what sequence he would arrange his poems, Wolff threw the -manuscripts in the air, saying, "Let Fate decide." They now appear in -the order in which they were picked up from the floor. This is true of -all except the proem and those comprising the group under the heading -"To One Who Could Not Love," which appear towards the end of the volume. - - - - - THE PROEM - - - I sing and sigh and also curse, - Thus only can I give expression - To that which will not brook repression; - I am alive, I have a voice, - And so I sing and sigh and curse-- - All life doth sing and sigh and curse. - - The joy of love is in my song, - I sigh for pleasures yet untasted-- - For things I dream--o'er moments wasted - And sometimes interrupt my song - With clenched fist to curse a wrong-- - It is a joy to curse a wrong. - - And so I sing and sigh and curse-- - All life doth sing and sigh and curse. - - - - - CAPTIVES - - - I visited the Zoo one dreary day, - And in the lion's house I watched a lion, - A great Numidian lion in his cage, - With eyes three-quarters closed, with haughty gait, - Pace up and down the limits of his cage. - - Was he oblivious of the tyrant bars, - The gaze of human eyes, his captive state, - And did he blink but better thus to see - The jungle's vast expanse? - - He suddenly stood still; and, face to face, - We stood and stared into each other's eyes, - And we each saw in one another's eyes - A royal captive in a wretched cage. - - - - - IF I WERE GOD - - - If I were God--the first thing I would do - Would be to make all women beautiful.-- - All women beautiful--and all men strong. - Then I'd resign--and make myself a man. - That's just what I would do--if I were God. - - - - - OPTIMISM - - - On that cold table, where shameless, without blushing - They spread their nakedness, - I see what yesterday had been a living beauty - And is to-day a corpse-- - A flimsy mass of tissues and of juices, - The prey of autopsy to-day, - To-morrow prey of worms and dissolution. - And whilst the perfume of this lifeless flower, - Concoction made of chemicals and death, - Inflicts an outrage on my sense of odor, - Does disenchantment fill me with disgust? - Does Death's black wing engulf me in its shadow? - And being face to face with life's fragility - Am I made sick of life? - I am not sick of life. - I prize life more knowing how brief it is, - How insecure, how fragile and how fleeting. - I love the eyes bright with the spark of life, - I love them more knowing they'll soon be dimmed. - I love the lips aglow with warmth of life, - I love them more because they'll soon be cold. - I love all flesh that palpitates with life, - I love it more knowing it soon shall be - An inert, flimsy mass of fetid tissue. - I love the voice that rings with sounds of life, - I love it more knowing 'twill soon be silent. - I love the mind pregnant with living thought, - I love it more knowing that soon 'twill be - The tomb of thought. - I therefore let the dead bury their dead, - And like a buzzing bee in quest of flowers - I seek the flowers of life that gladly yield - The sap that love distills to joy--that joy - That is much sweeter than the sweetest honey. - - - - - THE CLOUD - - - There hovers over me a muddy cloud, - Enveloping me in its gloomy shadow, - That dims the native sunshine of my heart, - That dulls the keen perception of the mind, - That stunts the latent powers of the soul, - That smothers all the rising flames of hope, - That cowes the wings of genius that would soar. - - I am forever followed by this cloud, - I can't escape, I cannot flee this cloud, - This muddy, gloomy, hell-begotten cloud-- - The dollar sign is traced upon this cloud! - - - - - QUESTIONINGS - - - Is it because the sun caresses me - And makes me warm with its delightful rays - That it is mine? That it is only mine? - - Is it because I frolic in the sea, - The sea that hugs me with a thousand waves, - That it is mine? That it is only mine? - - Is it because I hold you in my arms - And madly kiss you, calling you my love, - That you are mine? That you are only mine? - - - - - THE LIBERTY I LOATHE - - - I am at large, can go this way and that, - No dungeon walls, no prison bars say halt, - When roving fancies seize upon my feet. - - But am I free? Can I be truly free - When that which lives within me is repressed, - When my true self in vain from deep within - Doth clamor for the right of self-expression? - - What hideous mockery of freedom this! - Put me in jail, put me in jail for life, - Let bread and water be my only fare, - Make rats and spiders my associates. - - But have the light into my dungeon pour - From overhead and give me clay, - Oh, give me lots of clay--the tender flesh, - The oily, tender flesh of mother earth, - - Responsive as a mistress to the touch, - And I will have a feast no king e'er knew, - And taste of pleasures that the gods would envy. - And I will make unto myself a world, - - A world of which myself would be the God, - A world in which my every dream and thought, - My every feeling and my every passion - Would find embodiment in plastic form. - - Oh, for a prison where I could be free! - - - - - ON SEEING THE GARMENT STRIKERS MARCH - - - I see a hundred thousand marching by. - I also see as many, many millions - That are in spirit also marching by. - And lo! methinks this is but a rehearsal - - For the Exodus from the Land of Bondage-- - And I behold with my prophetic eyes - God's chosen people crossing the Red Sea; - The workers of the world, God's chosen people, - Are crossing the Red Sea of Revolution. - And I behold the Industrial Commonwealth, - The Promised Land of plenty and of peace, - Where each one, under his own fig-tree seated, - Shall sing his praises to the Lord of Life. - - - - - THE TOILERS - - - Crouching they cling like vermin to the earth - And with their bleeding fingers scrape the earth - But for a little dust, their sustenance, - A little dust mixed with the sweat of brow, - The blood of fingers and the tears of pain. - - 'Tis not for them the sun shines gloriously, - The flowers bloom, the fruit hangs on the tree, - 'Tis not for them the birds and poets sing, - Or lovely women smile. - - They have to crouch and cling and sweat and scrape - But for a little dust--their sustenance. - - - - - PANEROTICISM - - - I love all women's smiling eyes, - I love all women's tempting lips, - I love all women's loving hearts, - I love all women's tender skin, - I love all women's glowing flesh, - I love all women's weakness, - I love all women's strength. - I love! I love! I love! - - - - - APHRODITE - - - I've seen a Venus not of marble carved - By some great sculptor's hand in ancient Greece, - Unearthed in a mutilated state - By archaeologists in quest of ruins - And pedestaled in temple of fine art. - - The Venus I have seen was made of flesh, - Of ordinary, living, human flesh, - More beautiful than statue e'er could be. - She stands behind a counter in a store - From morning until night dispensing wares-- - A living Venus at five dollars per. - - - - - THE TYRANNY OF RHYME - - - Inane coquette, depart from me, - Thou siren known as Muse of rhyme, - Thou fain wouldst make thy slave of me, - To give thee all my thought, my time, - And all the love that's in my heart, - I know thee well, depart! depart! - - I love a nobler Muse than thee, - She's simple, free, intense, sublime, - Her rhythm has sweeter melody - Than e'er could have thy wanton rhyme. - I gave to Rhythm my soul, my heart, - O Muse of Rhyme, depart! depart! - - - - - LINES INSPIRED ON MEETING A LADY - - To A. L. - - - I look at life as an astronomer - Looks at the star-filled sky. - - Life seems a sky to me, all human beings - Rotating in their orbits are as stars. - Some are obscure and some are luminous, - Some give the light and warmth to solar systems, - Some shed on lovers' heads soft lunar light. - Some, like the comets, cosmic vagabonds, - Are ever tramping the sidereal roads, - And others, myriad-massed in endless stretches, - Compose the glory of the Milky Way. - - I look at life as an astrologer - Believing in the influence of stars, - Their influences evil, beneficial. - Perplexed I ponder o'er the laws mysterious - That govern all the movements of the stars. - And I am troubled in my inmost being - At the appearance of a new-found star - As on the threshold of a mystery. - There hove into my sphere a new-found star - Of primal magnitude, magnificent, - Whose magnetism most irrestistibly - Attracts me to itself. - - Am I to be the happy satellite - Of this fair human sun whose smile or frown - Could make me be a fertile Earth or Moon, - A fertile Earth or frozen, barren Moon? - Oh, will it just continue in its course, - Rotating in its orbit and recede, - Recede, recede, and leave me far behind - Obscure and cold and sad and all alone?... - - - - - OSCAR WILDE - - - The work was done. - The spirit-moulders of immortal souls - Wiped from their brows the sweat and washed their hands, - And standing by, in full contentment gazed - Upon their wondrous work. - - A masterpiece! it was a masterpiece! - A genius to be born unto the world, - One more to swell that galaxy of stars - That makes the cosmic bosom swell with pride. - Another inextinguishable star - To scintillate throughout eternity. - - The angels stood, heads bowed in reverence - Before what was to be the poet Wilde, - And as they stood, these proud progenitors, - In blissful contemplation of their child, - There fell upon them, as a shadow cast - By purple clouds upon a limpid lake, - A sadness that no human voice could tell. - - Forebodings of the suffering of Wilde - Depressed them so that, kneeling down, they wept. - They wept over the dire humiliation - Awaiting him who is the pride of God, - And over man's stupidity they wept-- - The colossal stupidity of man. - - - - - IMPERIALISM - - - With one great gesture of my love-mad arms - Would that I could embrace the entire world, - The entire world of love-inspiring women. - - With one unending pressure of my lips - I wish that I could kiss the entire world, - The entire world of love-inspiring women. - - With one great spasm of ecstasy supreme - Would that I could possess the entire world, - The entire world of love-inspiring women. - - - - - THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR - - - The children of the poor are little plants - That grow in sandy soil midst rocks and weeds - And rusty cans of tin, and other junk - Within the gloomy shadow of a wall, - The gloomy shadow of a mildewed wall; - Poor little plants! poor children of the poor. - - - - - THE CALL OF SEX - - - Know you that bottomless and boundless sea, - Each heaving billow whereof is a woman? - Oh, how my love-parched body craves to plunge - Into the soothing substance of this sea!... - - Oh, for the joy of absolute abandon - To the caressing furore of this sea; - The frantic joy of breaking all restrictions, - Of daring all the dangers of this sea! - - The ecstatic and the harrowing sensation - Of rising, ever rising on a wave, - A giant wave that rises, ever rises, - And then to be replunged into the deep! - - The all-absorbing, all-inclusive deep. - - What if the mouth doth swallow liquid bitter; - What if the heinous sharks men call disease - Snap at my flesh, infecting me with poison, - And even what if that mysterious mermaid, - That moon-pale Undine claim me as her own - And seal our union with the kiss of death? - - What of it? Does not all life end in death? - Give me the death of Tristan and Isolde: - I die for life and love,--I fear not death. - - - - - IMMORTALITY - - - At dawn of day the stars die one by one. - They only seem to die, but do not die. - - There is no death for humans, or for stars. - What we call life and death is only rhythm. - It is all cadence, measure, rest, inflection, - The poetry, the music of the spheres. - - The universe is one stupendous poem - Whereof the suns and stars are words and letters, - And we frail humans, punctuation marks. - - - - - TO LIVE OR NOT TO LIVE - - - To be or not to be is not the question; - The question is, to live or not to live. - Alive or dead or only vegetating, - One thing is sure, we cannot help but being. - - To live! to be alive; to live intensely! - To live with every fibre of the frame, - With every sinew, every nerve and muscle; - To live like this, or not to live at all. - - But we are cowards, we are fools and misers, - Afraid to live--afraid to pay the price-- - The price of youth,--the price of youth is age; - The price--the price of joy is pain. - - And disenchantment is the price of love. - And Life--the price of Life is Death. - - Come, let us live, and let us live intensely. - Life! Life! more Life! more Life at any cost. - - - - - MY RICHES - - - Behold in me one richer than a king, - Richer than Croesus was or Solomon, - Aye, richer even than a Rockefeller. - And lo! the gilded portals of my palace - Are thrown wide open, and the spacious vaults, - Staked full of treasures even to o'erflowing - Remain unguarded, and I welcome thee - To enter and partake of all my riches. - - My palace is my heart; my wealth, my treasure - Is love, immeasurable, boundless love. - - - - - DEPRIVATION - - - The world is like a tapestry to me, - Immense and wonderful, where interwoven - With art most consummate by masterhand - I see a maze of beings and of things. - - I can but see a little at a time, - My sight is limited, the view is vast, - The picture disconcertingly complex. - But often, here and there, a brilliant spot, - A woman's figure in life's tapestry - Attracts my gaze and holds me in its spell. - - And, like a child that's crying for the moon, - My hands would grasp that which delights mine eye, - To press it fondly to my happy heart. - Alas, the world, as tapestry and tomb, - Will not give up its own. - - - - - A SPHINX - - - I like to see a woman wearing furs, - Long-haired and dark and vicious looking furs, - Strong smelling, soft, exotic looking furs, - Contrasting strongly with her brilliant flesh, - Her tender, warm and angel-tinted flesh. - I love the angel and the beast in women. - That's why I like a woman wearing furs. - - - - - EXCUSE ME, MUSE - - - 'Tis not the hour to sing of pink-hued vapors - So softly sailing under azure skies; - Nor of the shadow warm and so mysterious - Cast by the lashes of a woman's eyes. - - 'Tis not the time for soft euphonious sighing - And holding converse with pale lunar light. - 'Tis not the hour for musing and for dreaming, - Excuse me, Muse, I must go out and fight. - - And I will fight as long as infants suckle - In vain at parched breasts devoid of milk; - As long as my poor sisters sell their bodies - For bread and rags, while parasites wear silk. - - As long as slave and master, thief and pauper - Remain such terms as may to man apply, - So long, I say, my lyre shall be a weapon, - My song shall be the rebel's battle cry. - - - - - NOEL - - - Tormented Galilean who art Lord - Of those that crucify thee every day - And every hour and minute of the day - And every hour and minute of the night: - With pious glee they celebrate the night - That witnessed thine appearance upon earth, - That night when angels chanted "peace on earth." - - They chanted "Peace on earth, good will to men," - And thou wert crowned with thorns by hands of men - And thou wert spat upon by mouths of men - And thou hast been betrayed by kiss of men; - Condemned by men and crucified by men, - Aye, crucified and deified by men. - - And every year for many centuries, - On Christmas eve for many centuries, - In churches and cathedrals Christians sing - Their gladness of the coming of the Lord. - The organ's thunder glorifies the Lord, - The priests and ministers exalt the Lord, - The infant Lord the virgin Mary bore; - On Christmas eve it was in Bethlehem: - And whilst they fete the babe of Bethlehem, - Ten thousand babes on earth die painful deaths - And millions live to live lives worse than death - And still the massacre of innocents - Goes on relentlessly. Poor innocents! - - - - - LINES TO THE WOOLWORTH BUILDING - - - Imposing pile of pale and polished stone, - Cathedral-like in thy solemnity, - Thy rectilinear grandeur awes my soul, - And makes me shudder! - Monstrous sacrilege, O when before - Has thing so big been made for end so small? - - Unholy Temple of the priests of lucre, - How most appropriate thy pallor is, - So like in color to the tint of bones-- - Thy slender, upright lines so much like bones-- - So much like children's bones. - - How like unto the pyramids thou art; - The tyrants' tombs, built by a million slaves. - And like the pyramids, ere long - Thou'lt be the relic of an age gone by. - - - - - THE ARTISTS - - - They have been born to model and to mould - The shapeless clay into expressive form - Even as gods! to seize the fleeting shades, - The subtle hues of things that pass or stay - And make them live and glow intensely. - - They have been born to tell their wondrous dreams - In rhythmic stanzas full of strength and grace, - To plunge into the very depths of things, - To seek the precious essence that is fit - For distillation to symphonic strain. - - Require them not to leave their sacred sphere, - To mix with common vendors in the mart, - To traffic their creations and to throw - The priceless pearls of genius to the swine - For but a bowl of vinegar and gall. - - O bring to them the little bread and milk - Which they must have to live, and if you can - Rejoice to give them honey. Be to them - What ravens were unto a prophet once. - - Does not the beauty they create or dream - Atone for all our ugly deeds or thoughts, - Even as the saints who pray for those that sin - Sustain the equilibrium that must be - In order that the world may not be doomed? - - Eternal malediction fall on those - Who mock or crucify these chosen ones - And let them be thrice blessed who help to clear - Life's rugged road of thorns for those who pass - And passing, leave this world more beautiful. - - - - - CAIN REFORMED - - - Am I my brother's keeper? Yes, indeed, - I keep him, aye, I keep him hard at work. - I also keep the fruit of all his work - And of his children's work I keep the fruit. - - And when he does not keep the laws I make - That give me power to keep him hard at work, - I am his keeper, keeping him in jail. - Am I my brother's keeper? Yes, indeed. - - - - - GOLGOTHA - - - On the Golgotha of mine inmost being - There stands a crucifix, - And in the deepest recess of my being - In perpetuity Good Friday reigns. - - And always in the stillness of the night, - The endless night within mine inmost being, - I hear the moaning and the supplications - Of him that's crucified within my being. - - I see the wounds of side and hands and feet, - The wounds that glow like rubies in the night, - That cast a lurid glare upon the night, - Those mystic wounds in number like the senses. - - Four horrid wounds upon the hands and feet, - One on the side, thus making five in all, - Just as the senses, making five in all. - - And in the endless night within my being - I hear the moaning and the supplications. - - "Oh, tear me from my cross," entreats the Christ, - "For I am Joy, thy God, the son of Life. - Oh, tear me from my cross," entreats the Christ. - - That cursed instrument of agony, - Is conscience; human conscience is the cross-- - The cross whereon our Joy is crucified. - - My Lord, I will redeem thee from thy cross, - And give thee burial in mine aching heart, - Whence thou shalt rise and henceforth ever reign - Over the Kingdom of the blessed flesh. - - - - - IDOLATRY - - - I stood before a leg in the museum, - A marble leg, a mutilated leg, - Supported by a rod of polished bronze. - This leg of some hermaphroditic god - Was carved in Greece, when ancient Greece was young. - - In deepest reverence I stood and gazed - Upon this relic of an absent god. - And as I stood I wondered if perchance - Idolatry is not this very act, - That thus enshrines an ancient piece of stone, - Whilst living sculptors are compelled to waste - In fruitless idleness that precious power - Which carves the Victories of Samothrace. - - Idolators, ye worship graven stones - But are indifferent to the gods that carve them. - - - - - TO ARTURO GIOVANNITTI - - - Arturo Giovannitti, fellow worker - In song and in revolt, sing on! sing on! - The battling warriors in the war of classes - Have need of your inspired, inspiring voice, - You are the rebel, leader, poet, prophet, - You have already worn the martyr's crown. - - If there be in me just one spark of envy, - It is that I was not like you in gaol. - I envied you that most supreme distinction - Of living in the shadow of the cross - With all the sacred shades of martyred rebels, - A fellow worker of departed Christs. - - - - - NIGHTMARE - - - I had a dream, I had a horrid dream. - I dreamt that Byron travels for a house - That handles wines from Portugal and Spain, - That Shelley is a cashier of a bank, - That Keats is valet to a wealthy Jew, - That Oscar Wilde lays bricks, that Edgar Poe - Is selling silks and satins on the road, - And that Walt Whitman, he of noble height, - Is manager of a department store. - And I would have dreamed on, had not disgust, - A flood of dire disgust, awakened me, - And I myself was forced to rush downtown - To live the life I shudder at in dream. - - - - - LINES WRITTEN ON SEEING HENRI'S PAINTING OF THE LADY IN BLACK VELVET - - - The Lady in black velvet is the night, - The deep, uncanny, weird, mysterious night, - The witching, troubling, awe-inspiring night, - Serene and silent, sweet and subtle night, - Tempestuous, tragic, black and feverish night. - - The Lady in black velvet is the night, - Her robe of black as black as blackest night, - Enfolds a world--a world of sleepless night, - A world of sighs, of cravings and of crimes, - Of maddening joys, of languors that consume, - Of pains unbearable, of livid fears, - Of nightmares and of dreams. - - Then there's the sombre gray of shifting clouds - Whose masses rent asunder now reveal - The radiant luminary of the night, - Her silv'ry, radiant face is Queen of night. - The Lady in black velvet is the night. - - - - - THE BABE - - - Fruit of a moment of supremest bliss, - A passionate embrace, a long drawn kiss, - Soft, pink and warm and chubby little thing, - Most helpless being, despotic as a king. - - Third cousin to the gold-fish, the kitten and the chick, - As free from care as they are, as shame-free and as quick - To feel that life means living and living must be joy, - That nothing is of value unless it be a toy. - - - - - A SCENARIO - - - Scene I. - - The time--a glorious summer afternoon. - The place--somewhere along the Palisades. - Rocks here and there; some trees and many bushes. - - A youthful artist, seated on a rock, - With great strokes paints the sun-illumined Hudson. - - A fair young woman enters on the scene, - Absorbed in picking many kinds of flowers. - - The youthful artist, catching sight of her, - Stands up and drops his palette and his brushes. - And when she sees the youth she drops the flowers. - - They stand in silence looking at each other. - He then approaches her to raise her flowers-- - And then she smiles, and he says foolish things, - Deliciously absurd and foolish things. - - The insects are abuzzing, and the leaves-- - The foliage of the bushes and the trees - Are whispering--are gossiping in whispers. - - He takes her by the hand and kisses her, - He kisses her and takes her in his arms, - And carries her behind a clump of bushes. - - - Scene II. - - The time and place and scene just as before. - From left to right there enters on the scene - Quite simultaneously a man and woman. - Each reads a book while walking, so absorbed - That they well-nigh collide with one another. - He begs her pardon which, of course, she grants. - He asks her if they have not met before, - Her face seems so familiar, and she says: - Perhaps he saw her somewhere at a lecture. - And so they start to talk about their books, - About their lectures and about their books. - They seat themselves upon a rock and talk, - And talk and talk and talk and talk and talk. - The insects are abuzzing and the leaves-- - The foliage of the bushes and the trees - Are whispering, are gossiping in whispers. - And from behind the softly swaying bushes - Escape the sounds of kisses and of sighs, - The kisses and the sighs of youthful lovers. - And all the time the woman and the man - Sit arguing, discussing and discussing - Psychology, sociology and ethics. - So different it is behind the bushes. - And while some hug and kiss and others argue, - A sudden gloom spreads over everything. - The azure sky is now a sky of ink, - The lightning flashes and the thunder claps, - The shower is terrific'ly intense. - Both couples find an overhanging rock, - A scanty shelter 'gainst a raging storm. - A blinding lightning flash, a thunder clap, - All four lie dead. - Is there a moral? - Guess! - - - - - THE TEMPLE - - - Round, full and fertile is her abdomen, - Even as Mother Earth. - O! tree of life bearing the fruit of love, - O! precious shell a precious pearl enclosing, - O! wondrous instrument whereon love plays - A fiery rhapsody, - The echo whereof is a human life. - O! blessed mother of the child of man. - - Ye fools, detach your gaze from godless heavens, - God is right here if you would worship God, - The mystery of life and love is God, - And every pregnant woman is God's temple. - - - - - SHELLEY - - - Lucifer! dripping with celestial splendour, - All aglow with cosmic rebellion, - Thundering forth pious blasphemies, - Chanting sacrilegious hymns, - Thy voice is like unto the trumpet sounds - Of the Archangels of the Apocalypse - Calling the dead to life. - Meteor fallen from the bosom of infinitude - Into the common clay, - Strange visitant from another orb, - Permeated with the music of the spheres, - Replete and radiant with rarest gems, - Perplexing, exciting, soothing, betwitching. - Lucifer! Prometheus! Dionysos! Shelley! - - - - - THE SCULPTOR AND THE CLAY - - - The sculptor, man, in woman mostly sees - The clay of which to model gods of love. - Some, cunning little cupids only are, - The little rascal gods of light flirtation, - Who like the fire-flies on a summer night - Are luminous a moment--and that's all. - - While others are the serious gods of love, - Majestic and intense as life itself, - Mysterious and perplexing as the Sphinx, - Relentless as the furies or as death, - As maddening as poison of the snake, - As soothing as is balm upon a wound, - And sweet as that which passeth understanding. - As sweet as that and sometimes just as bitter. - - Such are the statues man, the sculptor, moulds - Of woman--clay. - - - - - CONTEMPT - - - I spit upon the laws that thieves have made - To give the crooked strength to rob the weak. - - I spit upon a country full of wealth - Where millions live in squalor and in want. - - I spit upon a flag that waves above - A nation made of masters and of slaves. - - I spit upon religions that defend - A hell on earth, and preach a life to come. - - I spit upon all morals that contend - That joy of life is not life's highest end. - - I spit upon the education that - Makes pygmies out of what might have been men. - - Upon this whole damned system do I spit, - And while I spit--I weep. - - - - - WILLIAM MORRIS - - - Dreamer of dreams--dreamer of golden dreams, - Explorer of the rainbow-lands of yore, - Columbus of Arcadian Continents, - Poetic founder of Utopian states. - - Dreamer of dreams? Dreamer of only dreams? - A master worker with the mind and hand - Who made the beautiful and useful wed, - An alchemist who turned all work to art. - - Dreamer of dreams? Maker of wondrous things? - A knight in mortal combat for a cause, - A sower of emancipation's seed, - A master builder of a better world. - - - - - DON JUAN'S SONG - - - From maids yet in their spring-time teens - To full blown thirty summer queens, - I love them all! - - From golden blondes and deep brunettes - To Titian-locked one ne'er forgets-- - I love them all! - - From fairies frail or plump or slender - To women built with queenly splendor, - I love them all! - - From damsels pale and melancholy - To matrons gay and widows jolly, - I love them all! - - From maidens unsophisticated - To syrens well initiated, - I love them all! I love them all! - - - - - EASTER ON FIFTH AVENUE - - - Capital best qualifies the weather - That Easter Sunday donned for the occasion - And the parade was also capital, - It was indeed a capital parade. - - The gorgeous gowns, the stunning Easter hats - Were capital and those hand-made complexions - Down to the escorts groomed with perfect style - Down to the sermons that the preachers preached - In fashionable churches were most capital. - - Indeed the sight I saw that Easter morn - Along Fifth Avenue was capital, - Upon the sidewalks silently and slow - The grand cortège of capital marched on. - - And whilst I was enjoying this grand sight - There rose before my mind another sight: - I saw the street between the sidewalks filled - In compact mass with wan and worn spectators - Who were in silence viewing the parade, - It was a mob of children, men and women - Whose pallid faces and whose piteous rags - Gave to the spectacle a capital contrast, - 'Twas Easter, Easter, lo! The Christ has risen! - Upon the whole the show was capital. - - - - - CONTEMPLATION - - - I went into a house of many lofts, - And in each loft I saw a thousand men, - And women, too, and children, too, I saw. - And all around arose a deaf'ning roar-- - The roaring of machines o'er which were bent - The toilers toiling at their tiresome task. - And as I stood and gazed upon this scene - I wondered why it was--I wondered why.... - - I went into a house of gilded halls, - And in each hall there shone a thousand lights, - And many men and women also shone. - Delightful music mingled with perfume. - Around luxurious tables, diners sat - Enjoying luscious viands, mellow wines. - And as I stood and gazed upon this scene, - I thought of toilers and I understood. - - - - - CONFIDENCES - - - I have to go to work to win my bread, - When oft upon my way the Muse of song, - Espying me from far approaches me - And takes me by the hand as tenderly - As would a sister take her little brother. - She whispers words as sparkling as champagne, - As warm as blood, as pure as morning dew, - And so enchants me that I cannot help - But yield unto the tempting muse of song. - She takes me from the world's drear, dusty road - And leads me into that mysterious park - Where lies the limpid lake of inspiration. - The flowers of life and death grow in this park-- - Of love and hate, the flowers of joy and pain, - Of smiles and sighs, of laughter and of tears, - The blooms of hope and those of disillusion. - All, all these flowers grow in this wondrous park. - I drink some water from the Muse's palm, - The water of the lake of inspiration. - And then in silence do I wend my way - Through rows of silent and mysterious flowers, - Inhaling all the odors of the flowers, - The sweet and bitter odors of the flowers. - And like the bee, I also make some honey, - Alas! my honey is not always sweet. - Perhaps because the flowers of life are bitter. - Then I am harshly driven from this Eden - By the compulsion of a god I hate, - And I must go to work to win my bread. - The honey of the poet has no market. - Tempt me no more, dear Muse, or else I'll starve. - - - - - IN THE LIBRARY - - - As she sat facing me the other day - Reading a book, while I was writing verses, - Or rather trying to, for I could not - Detach my gaze from her bewitching visage, - Nor could my mind in rhythmic furrows flow, - Pursuing thoughts to her all unrelated, - When like the heaving billows that are yielding - To the attracting powers of the moon, - My every thought by her has been attracted. - I thus bethought me: "Wherefore write I poems, - When here, before me, breathes a living poem, - Compared to whom, all poems are as dust - Besides a sweetly smelling, blooming flower." - So I lay down my pen and gazed at her. - - - - - BYRON - - - The thought of Byron wakens in my mind - The vision of a solitary tree - Titanic and contorted on a cliff - That overhangs a wild abysmal sea. - Its mighty root, a maze of tentacles, - Has put a lasting clutch-hold on the rock, - Much like the miser's fingers on his gold. - Within its arteries the sap of life, - The procreative juice in torrents flows, - And gushes forth luxurious vegetation. - The foliage-covered head is always raised - In bold defiance of the elements. - Undaunted by the tempest's fiendish rage, - Calm under the concerted stare of stars, - The fickle lover of a fickle moon. - On balmy days or peaceful summer eves - The rendezvous of master-singer birds. - Perennial, rich, melodious and sad, - Passionate and desolate and wild - And beautiful and always beautiful. - - - - - CHIAROSCURO - - - I met a plum-hued Venus late one night, - Live specimen of pure Egyptian art. - The regal amplitude of tropic zones, - Their rich luxuriance breathed on her face - And radiated from her clothed form. - - Her eyes shone with that lustful brilliancy - Of eyes of jungle prowlers who at night - A-sniffling and a-growling hunt for mates. - - Her mellow, soft and sing-song voice was whisp'ring - Enticing promises of untold joys - To taste of in this paradise of jet. - - Alas! the curse of value, price and profit - Indelibly was branded on her brow, - The brow that ages past was of a savage. - Oh! thou hast conquered glorious Christian progress. - - - - - DESPONDENCY - - - I sadly watch the hours go by, - The hours, the days, the months, the years, - And what's called life shall soon go by, - And helpless and with fruitless rage - I watch the hours of life go by. - - And I must curse when I would bless, - And I who am all love, must hate, - And I who have been born to sing - Must spend myself in moans and tears. - - And must I perish on this rock - A cruel God has bound me to? - Will not some Hercules ere come - And make me free? - - - - - IN MEMORIAM - - - Within the mansion of my memory - There is a sumptuous chapel, where at times - I kneel in deep devotion at the shrines - Of all the blessed women I have loved. - I burn for them the incense of my thoughts; - Before their sacred images I lay - The flowers of my purest sentiments, - And on their altars piously I light - The pallid candles of my vain regrets. - - I oft hold retrospective rendezvous - Within the chapel of the loves of yore. - - - - - SPRING SONG - - - I too shall sing thy glory, Spring, - Oh, season in thyself a song; - In every tongue thy name doth ring - With music we remember long. - Fruehling! Primavera! Spring! - Thy name to whisper is to sing. - - Why should I seek sweet melody - And softly sounding words to say - All that the spring-time means to me? - Why should I make an effort, pray, - When Fruehling! primavera! spring! - To whisper only is to sing. - - - - - TO A FRIEND - - - You sigh because you are not loved. - You only think you are not loved. - I also sighed as you now sigh, - Because I thought I was not loved. - But I was loved--how I was loved! - She lay awake at night and dreamed - Of me, who thought I was not loved. - Some loves like blooms that blush unseen, - Remain unknown and unconfessed, - And we oftimes are best beloved - When loved with love in silence shrined. - So be not sad, dear friend, nor sigh, - But feel assured there is a heart - In this wide world that beats for you. - - - - - I SAW THREE NUNS - - - I saw three nuns go by the other day: - Three upright coffins slowly gliding by. - - Funereal, black and chilling to behold, - The ghastly shadows of a defunct past. - The worms of ignorance and superstition - Give to these dead, the semblances of life. - The past has not yet buried all its dead. - - I saw three nuns go by the other day: - Three upright coffins slowly gliding by. - - - - - A WOMAN LOVES ME - - - A woman loves me! - 'Tis not of her I sing whose womb has been - The primal cradle of my tender self; - I mean not mother-love. - - A woman loves me! - 'Tis not of her I sing who also sprang - From that same source whence also I have sprung; - I mean not sister-love. - - A woman loves me! - I sing of her who "from the mobs of life" - Has chosen me as him to whom alone - She will unlock her body and her soul - To welcome all my love. - - - - - ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN - - (The Workers' Jeanne d'Arc) - - - She too a vision had and voices heard: - She heard the groans of slaving, starving workers: - She had a vision of their liberation. - - She also mounted steed and armor donned. - The soap-box or the platform is her steed. - Her coat of mail defiance of the powers. - - She too to victory an army leads. - Her army is the risen proletariat, - In arms against their pitiless exploiters. - - She too is hated by the church and state. - They'd burn her at the stake if they but dared, - Condemned for witchcraft or some other crime. - - She too shall live an ever-shining glory, - In human history, in human hearts-- - An even brighter glory than Jeanne d'Arc. - - The Maid of Orleans routed but the English, - And to a worthless king restored a throne, - To sway a sceptre o'er a land of serfs. - - Lead by Elizabeth we'll rout the masters - And to the workers of the world restore - The earth itself and all its joys and riches. - - Let all men rally round her blood-red banner - Which bears the motto of the revolution: - "Death to all masters! Freedom to all slaves!" - - - - - JEALOUSY - - - As you peruse those heavy, dusty volumes - With tense attention hour after hour, - Whilst totally indifferent to me,-- - To me, who sees in you the book of books, - To whom the very cover of this book, - Your outward aspect, is more interesting - Than the contents of all books ever printed. - - Is it a wonder I would like to build - A mammoth pile of all the books there are - And let the raging fire consume them all? - - - - - MISERS - - - I know of misers meaner than are those - Who lay awake at night to guard their treasure, - Which is in their possession only dust, - A sordid, useless heap of gilded dust - That might have given peace and bread to many. - - The misers whom I mean are fair to see, - Delightful to converse with and to kiss; - They fascinate us with their wondrous eyes - As serpents fascinate the little birds. - They draw us closer to them, ever closer, - Then suddenly like serpents they coil up - And put beyond our grasp their queenly treasures, - Alas! in their possession to remain, - But useless, vain and perishable things - That might have given ecstasy to many. - - - - - SWINBURNE - - - Algernon Swinburne, is there not in thee - Something akin to bells that ring at sea? - In their sound so clear - There is little cheer, - When their knell I hear - I recoil with fear. - Though thy voice be clear as the day's light, - It is pregnant with mystery, death, and night. - - - - - OUR LADY OF INFINITE MERCY - - - I often think of a mysterious woman-- - There must be somewhere a mysterious woman, - Mysterious and most marvelous of beauty, - Most beautiful,--miraculously kind, - Indeed a kindness passing understanding, - So great a kindness that it seemeth madness. - It seemeth madness, for she sallies forth - At dead of night into the dismal streets, - Into the dismal and deserted streets, - Monotously criss-crossing the city, - The monstrous, lightless, heartless, sleeping city, - Where prowling as the vermin shunning light, - Or derelicts adrift on dreary seas, - She seeks the disinherited of joy - She seeks the stunted, the disfigured children, - The starved, diseased and the discouraged children - Of stepmother society, seeks them out, - Whom everybody shuns and no one loves. - She seeks them out and gives herself to them, - This queenly woman, marvelous of beauty, - Entirely gives herself to those of whom - The thought alone makes shudder with disgust. - She gives herself even as the twilight enters - A fetid, vermin-ridden, mildewed dungeon, - A whiff of heaven in a life of hell. - Oh, have you, have you ever seen that woman, - That beautiful, that kind, mysterious woman? - She is our Lady of Infinite Mercy. - Blessed be our Lady of Infinite Mercy! - - - - - A PAGAN'S PRAYER - - - I sought the shrine of Eros and I prayed:-- - O God omnipotent, O God supreme, - O God of love who art the God of Gods, - Behold thy worshipper upon his knees - Prostrated in the dust. - Let not my supplications rise in vain - From depths iniquitous to heights sublime. - O grant me my request, good God of love. - Unlock for me thy secret treasure house - And make me master of the arts of love. - My heart conceives great symphonies of love - That my poor body cannot execute. - I am a Beethoven, I am a Wagner, - My orchestration needs a thousand pieces, - But am restricted to a shepherd's reed. - Reveal to me the secrets of the ancients, - Instruct me in the art of love long lost; - That love of time when Gods and humans mingled. - In love I am a God, in love expression - I am alas! a frail, a weakling human. - O Eros! Eros! Eros! God of love, - Give me the power to love as Gods can love. - - - - - NIETZSCHE - - - A sombre silhouette - Against a sun-rise sky - In solemn solitude, - The wanderer goes by. - - The shadow that he casts - Upon the plains below - Strikes terror to the hearts - Of those that do not know. - - O messenger sublime - Who hailest from that land - Where joy and beauty reign; - If they could understand!... - - If they could understand - The message that you bring, - They'd strew your path with palms; - Hosannahs would they sing. - - Strength superceding faith, - Joy superceding fear: - The Super-Christ has come; - The Superman is near.... - - - - - TO A NEGRO BELLE - - - You make me dream of distant tropic climes, - Luxurious vegetation; nights serene - By burning passion made tempestuous, - The witching scent of rare exotic flowers - That sooth and render sweetly languorous, - Of music soft and weird, whose savage rhythm - Compels each fibre of the frame to dance. - - I see you as the princess of an isle - Whose jungles are replete with beasts of prey, - And whose vast forests ever are alive - With cries and frolickings of birds and apes; - Whose villages of bamboo huts are full - Of dusky-hued and happy naked people. - - Your simple hearted subjects pay you homage; - Prostrated in the dust, they weirdly chant - Thy praises, even as in my own way, - I sing your praises, sweet, exotic princess. - Oh, let me enter your enchanted realm, - And make of me your happy, humble slave. - - - - - WALT WHITMAN - - - Mountain-like he towers, a Matterhorn - Midst many minor peaks; - And like a mountain, mighty, vast and wild; - A finger pointing into boundless space, - A head raised high above the shifting clouds, - A heart that beats in unison with all, - An eye that first beholds the rising sun - And is the last to see her parting glory, - A clarion-call to freedom, - A gesture of revolt, - A world-encircling brotherhood embrace, - An exaltation of the lowly, - A vindication of the truth, - A glorification of the human body, - A declaration of the right of all - To live, to love, to dare and to do, - A hymn to life, a rhapsody of joy! - - - - - LIFE-LUST - - - My mouth--the mouth of my whole being waters - For all the fruit upon the lap of Life; - The luscious fruit of Life, (delicious fruit, - All running over with the juice of joy.) - - Life seems a banquet and my gourmand senses - Would gorge themselves with all good things thereof. - My taste, my touch, my smell, my sight, my hearing - Would drink the seasoned vintages of Life, - And relish all Life's rarest fruits and viands. - - Content to go whene'er the feast is over - Content, the feast was not prepared in vain. - - - - - ON A TALK OF SPINOZA - - - Durant spoke of Spinoza yesterday - And I sat list'ning, feeling, meditating. - And now and ever afterwards will feel - And live and think more deeply than before, - For having heard Durant speak of Spinoza. - - Spinoza! what a mighty, mighty name! - All Alexanders, Caesars and Napoleons-- - Mere specks of dust upon a polished lense, - Compared to that poor polisher of lenses. - - He polished lenses for myopic eyes, - The world's myopic eyes hath need of them-- - And long will need them,--poor myopic world. - My own sight seems improved since I have heard - Durant speak of Spinoza yesterday. - - - - - THE REVOLT OF THE RAGGED - - - We who have but rags to wear, - Let us go out on strike - And face the robber-master class - In all our naked might. - - Do they not hold that man is made - In the image of his God? - So we refuse to desecrate - The image of their God. - - No longer will we soil our limbs, - These beautiful, these wondrous limbs - With filthy, fetid rags. - - Where is the beast so wild, - The reptile or the worm so base in kind, - Would not disdain the rags "creation's kings" - Disgrace their bodies with? - - Oh be not shocked at our forced nakedness, - Ye masters who refuse to clothe your slaves. - Do you not steal the wool that we have shorn, - The cloth we weave, the garments that we made? - You stole our clothes, behold us naked now. - - Let us arise and from our bodies tear - The fetid uniform that brands us slaves. - In countless masses let us rally forth - And through each pore of our free body shout - Our right to life, to liberty, and joy. - - - - - I'VE SEEN A PRINCESS - - - I've read of princesses in fairy tales - And I have sometimes dreamed of princesses - But not until to-day have I beheld, - Beheld or ever spoken to a princess. - Yes, I have seen and spoken to a princess - In body and in mind; in thought and gesture, - Indeed, in every way a perfect princess. - - Since I am not some mighty potentate - In whom it would not seem as sheer presumption - To lay his heart and domains at her feet, - Would I at least could be a humble page - Forever in attendance on his princess, - To serve her and to worship her in silence, - And be allowed as wages for his hire - To breathe within the shadow of her charms. - - But though my princess be reality, - My hopes, my aspirations, my desires, - Alas, are dreams, mere dreams, alas, mere dreams. - - - - - THE GREAT DISCARD - - - I see a mighty junk-heap rising high, - Old bibles, crosses, crescents, six-point stars - And other symbols, idol's fetiches-- - The bloody tools of greed and superstition, - That have tormented man for centuries, - Disfiguring his body and his mind. - I see the flags of all the various nations, - In whose defense men slaughtered one another - Upon this junk-heap also; and the books - Wherein the laws are writ, that give to man - The power over man; - And all the institutions that have helped - To make of man an abject slave or tyrant, - These, too, are on this junk-heap. - - - - - THE SCULPTOR'S RHAPSODY - - - I am a God! - I am drunk with the joy of creating. - At my touch form comes out of chaos. - With a handful of clay I build monuments, - Vaster than the pyramids, - More mysterious than the Sphinx, - As startling as the Colossus of Rhodes. - My statues are austere as ancient cathedrals, - Their silhouette effaces the sky, - Their shadows engulf entire cities. - I am a God! - I am drunk with the joy of creating. - - - - - ATAVISM - - - O, have you ever heard the gutter's call? - E'er felt the strange attraction of the sewer? - Or ceded to the urge from underneath, - To wallow in the mire, to plunge, to sink - Into the frightful abyss of perdition? - Were you e'er tempted from some siren's lips, - To cull the bliss, you know, is venomous? - Or did you feel the satanic desire, - To soil and mutilate the sacred image - Of that ideal you worshiped all your life? - It is the atavistic voice that's waking, - The dormant beast in you. Beware! Beware! - - - - - TO ONE WHO COULD NOT LOVE - - - I - - You told me that you love the water, - The cascades' roaring, rushing water, - The rivers' gently flowing water, - The pools' mysterious silent water, - The erring brooklets' whisp'ring water, - The oceans' moaning, hissing water, - The oceans' seething, sighing water, - It's thundering, caressing water. - My love for you is also as the water, - The roaring, rushing, silent, whisp'ring water. - The thundering, the seething, sighing water. - - Oh, love me, for my love is like the water, - Did you not tell me that you love the water? - - - II - - I've been a profligate till now, - Have squandered of the treasures of my heart - In reckless fashion. - Henceforth my beloved, - Each precious scrap of love, - Each feeling, thought or passion, - Is yours alone. - My very life is yours. - - - III - - You sometime make me dream of fair Granada, - Of olden days of Moorish reign and glory; - At other times you make me feel the gloom - Of Christian Spain, sepulchral and morose. - - You are as the Alhambra when you smile, - Gold-tinted, graceful, radiating joy. - But when you frown or are indifferent, - Then like to the Escurial you are, - Depressing, full of sombreness and chill. - - - IV - - I strolled through lonely by-paths in the park, - It was the hour, it was the mystic hour, - When 'tis no longer day, nor yet is night. - When o'er all nature hangs a solemn hush, - And everything is peaceful and serene. - And thus I strolled along and thought of her-- - And then I sat upon a rustic bench - And thought of her,--and only thought of her. - And o'ver all nature hung a solemn hush; - And I was sad, and it was growing dark. - And as I sat there on the rustic bench - Close by to me I heard two voices speak. - They spoke Italian. Softly did they speak, - And there was sadness in their voices too. - One spoke of Beatrice as angel might - Have spoken of the queen of all the heavens; - The other spoke of Laura as a bard - Would speak of her who might have been the queen,-- - The queen of every kingdom of the earth. - I turned my head and seated by my side - I saw the sad, illustrious Tuscan bards, - The requiem of whose unrequited love - Reverberates throughout eternity. - I did not rise and go, but kept my place. - Is not my love as great as was their love? - And is not she as beautiful, as cold, - As hopelessly indifferent and cold, - As ever Beatrice and Laura were? - And so I also spoke about my love, - Then we were silent sitting side by side. - Upon that rustic bench in Central Park, - Along a lonesome by-path in the park. - It was the hour, it was that mystic hour - When 'tis no longer day nor yet is night; - And o'er all nature hangs a solemn hush, - And everything is peaceful and serene. - Then they both went away so quietly - That I was unaware that they had gone - Until I turned my head and saw them not. - - - V - - My heart is like a man condemned to death, - Who in the corner of his gloomy cell - Hugs one last spark of hope. - - Bright as a diamond in the dark of night, - And as a diamond difficult to crush, - Is this last spark of hope. - - - VI - - Since Orpheus with the magic of his music, - Could charm the wildest beast, why could not I - Enthrall you with the music of my love? - Is not love's music magical enough, - Or is your heart stone deaf? - Even if so! - I will perform a miracle and cause - Your heart to hear love's music. - - - VII - - And even if you loved me not, - If you but knew the pain I feel - When you but breathe a word that's harsh, - When you betray the faintest frown; - And when you mock me for my love, - Or chide me for the least caress, - If you but knew the pain I feel. - - Aye, even if you loved me not, - You ne'er would frown at me or mock - My love for you, or harshly speak, - Or bid me not to kiss your hand; - Instead you'd treat me as a child, - You'd treat me as a child that's sick, - And patiently you would submit - To my caress; you would allow - My feverish hands to stroke your hair, - My quivering lips to kiss your brow, - My famished eyes to feast on you, - And my delirious heart to spin: - To spin a spider's web of love, - To make your heart its captive fly. - - Aye, even if you loved me not, - If you but knew the pain I feel, - Whene'er I think you love me not, - You'd treat me as a little child; - You'd tell me love's sweet fairy tale, - I will believe love's fairy tale. - Please tell me love's sweet fairy tale, - Aye, even if you love me not. - - - VIII - - The sun is warm and bright, - All nature sings; - The song of love and life is in the air, - The flowing waters and the rolling hills, - The grass we tread upon, the birds that fly, - The humming insects, aye, all men, all beasts, - All things are happy in the sun's caress. - - But in my heart, in my unhappy heart, - The icy blast of winter still persists, - And desolation reigns. - Your frown obliterates the sun for me, - And your indifference is worse than death. - And in my heart, in my unhappy heart, - Dire desolation reigns. - - - IX - - This is the tale of an unhappy sculptor, - A shaft of marble radiantly white, - Whose adamantine substance would not yield - To the impassioned efforts of the sculptor. - The chisel struck the irresponsive rock - Again, again, again, but all in vain - Until at last discouraged and exhausted - He sinks down at the foot of this cold stone. - - That might have been a living Galathea, - But is alas the tombstone of Pygmalion. - - - X - - It was a sepulchre I have been wooing: - Fair to behold was she and seeming warm, - But deep within as cold as death itself, - And to love's fervent pleadings irresponsive; - Aye, even as the tomb. - Deaf to the voice of poetry and love, - Alas! she's doubly deaf. - It was a sepulchre I have been wooing. - - - The October issue of THE - GLEBE will present "The - Azure Adder," a one-act - comedy by Charles Demuth. - - Subscription price per year, $3.00 - - - - - Transcriber's Notes - - -The original spelling was mostly preserved. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: The Glebe 1913/09 (Vol. 1, No. 1): Songs, Sighs and Curses - -Author: Adolf Wolff - -Editor: Alfred Kreymborg - Man Ray - -Release Date: November 1, 2019 [EBook #60606] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GLEBE 1913/09 (VOL. 1 *** - - - - -Produced by Jens Sadowski and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. This book was -produced from images made available by the Blue Mountain -Project, Princeton University. - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="centerpic"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<div class="coverpage"> -<p class="tit"> -Songs, Sighs and Curses -</p> - -<p class="journal"> -THE<br /> -GLEBE -</p> - -<p class="issue"> -VOLUME 1<br /> -NUMBER 1 -</p> - -<p class="issue"> -SEPTEMBER<br /> -1913 -</p> - -<p class="price"> -PRICE OF THIS<br /> -ISSUE 60 CENTS -</p> - -<p class="aut"> -<span class="line1">By Adolf Wolff</span> -</p> - -</div> - -<div class="frontmatter chapter"> -<h1 class="title"> -Songs, Sighs and Curses -</h1> - -<p class="aut"> -<span class="line1">By</span><br /> -<span class="line2">Adolf Wolff</span> -</p> - -<p class="date"> -<span class="box">SEPTEMBER 1913</span> -</p> - -<p class="pub"> -Published by THE GLEBE at Ridgefield,<br /> -New Jersey -</p> - -</div> - -<div class="frontmatter chapter"> -<p class="cop"> -Copyright, 1913<br /> -By<br /> -Adolf Wolff. -</p> - -</div> - -<div class="frontmatter chapter"> - <div class="dedication"> -<p class="ded"> -TO LEONARD D. ABBOTT. -</p> - -<p> -Dear Friend:—To whom else than to you -can I dedicate this little wreath of poems? -Weeds or flowers, without you, they would -not have been. Your interest, your sympathy, -your appreciation were the sunshine and rain -that brought them forth—to blossom for a -moment or forever. -</p> - -<p class="sign"> -ADOLF WOLFF. -</p> - - </div> -</div> - -<div class="frontmatter chapter"> - <div class="note"> -<p> -NOTE.—All the poems in this volume were written in the year 1912-13. -When asked in what sequence he would arrange his poems, Wolff threw -the manuscripts in the air, saying, “Let Fate decide.” They now appear -in the order in which they were picked up from the floor. This is true -of all except the proem and those comprising the group under the heading -“To One Who Could Not Love,” which appear towards the end of -the volume. -</p> - - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-1"> -<a id="page-5" class="pagenum" title="5"></a> -<span class="line1">THE PROEM</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I sing and sigh and also curse,</p> - <p class="verse">Thus only can I give expression</p> - <p class="verse">To that which will not brook repression;</p> - <p class="verse">I am alive, I have a voice,</p> - <p class="verse">And so I sing and sigh and curse—</p> - <p class="verse">All life doth sing and sigh and curse.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The joy of love is in my song,</p> - <p class="verse">I sigh for pleasures yet untasted—</p> - <p class="verse">For things I dream—o’er moments wasted</p> - <p class="verse">And sometimes interrupt my song</p> - <p class="verse">With clenched fist to curse a wrong—</p> - <p class="verse">It is a joy to curse a wrong.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">And so I sing and sigh and curse—</p> - <p class="verse">All life doth sing and sigh and curse.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-2"> -<a id="page-6" class="pagenum" title="6"></a> -<span class="line1">CAPTIVES</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I visited the Zoo one dreary day,</p> - <p class="verse">And in the lion’s house I watched a lion,</p> - <p class="verse">A great Numidian lion in his cage,</p> - <p class="verse">With eyes three-quarters closed, with haughty gait,</p> - <p class="verse">Pace up and down the limits of his cage.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Was he oblivious of the tyrant bars,</p> - <p class="verse">The gaze of human eyes, his captive state,</p> - <p class="verse">And did he blink but better thus to see</p> - <p class="verse">The jungle’s vast expanse?</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">He suddenly stood still; and, face to face,</p> - <p class="verse">We stood and stared into each other’s eyes,</p> - <p class="verse">And we each saw in one another’s eyes</p> - <p class="verse">A royal captive in a wretched cage.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-3"> -<a id="page-7" class="pagenum" title="7"></a> -<span class="line1">IF I WERE GOD</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">If I were God—the first thing I would do</p> - <p class="verse">Would be to make all women beautiful.—</p> - <p class="verse">All women beautiful—and all men strong.</p> - <p class="verse">Then I’d resign—and make myself a man.</p> - <p class="verse">That’s just what I would do—if I were God.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-4"> -<a id="page-8" class="pagenum" title="8"></a> -<span class="line1">OPTIMISM</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">On that cold table, where shameless, without blushing</p> - <p class="verse">They spread their nakedness,</p> - <p class="verse">I see what yesterday had been a living beauty</p> - <p class="verse">And is to-day a corpse—</p> - <p class="verse">A flimsy mass of tissues and of juices,</p> - <p class="verse">The prey of autopsy to-day,</p> - <p class="verse">To-morrow prey of worms and dissolution.</p> - <p class="verse">And whilst the perfume of this lifeless flower,</p> - <p class="verse">Concoction made of chemicals and death,</p> - <p class="verse">Inflicts an outrage on my sense of odor,</p> - <p class="verse">Does disenchantment fill me with disgust?</p> - <p class="verse">Does Death’s black wing engulf me in its shadow?</p> - <p class="verse">And being face to face with life’s fragility</p> - <p class="verse">Am I made sick of life?</p> - <p class="verse">I am not sick of life.</p> - <p class="verse">I prize life more knowing how brief it is,</p> - <p class="verse">How insecure, how fragile and how fleeting.</p> - <p class="verse">I love the eyes bright with the spark of life,</p> - <p class="verse">I love them more knowing they’ll soon be dimmed.</p> - <p class="verse">I love the lips aglow with warmth of life,</p> - <p class="verse">I love them more because they’ll soon be cold.</p> - <p class="verse">I love all flesh that palpitates with life,</p> - <p class="verse">I love it more knowing it soon shall be</p> - <p class="verse">An inert, flimsy mass of fetid tissue.</p> - <p class="verse">I love the voice that rings with sounds of life,</p> - <p class="verse">I love it more knowing ’twill soon be silent.</p> - <p class="verse">I love the mind pregnant with living thought,</p> - <p class="verse">I love it more knowing that soon ’twill be</p> - <p class="verse">The tomb of thought.</p> - <p class="verse">I therefore let the dead bury their dead,</p> - <p class="verse">And like a buzzing bee in quest of flowers</p> - <p class="verse">I seek the flowers of life that gladly yield</p> - <p class="verse">The sap that love distills to joy—that joy</p> - <p class="verse">That is much sweeter than the sweetest honey.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-5"> -<a id="page-9" class="pagenum" title="9"></a> -<span class="line1">THE CLOUD</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">There hovers over me a muddy cloud,</p> - <p class="verse">Enveloping me in its gloomy shadow,</p> - <p class="verse">That dims the native sunshine of my heart,</p> - <p class="verse">That dulls the keen perception of the mind,</p> - <p class="verse">That stunts the latent powers of the soul,</p> - <p class="verse">That smothers all the rising flames of hope,</p> - <p class="verse">That cowes the wings of genius that would soar.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I am forever followed by this cloud,</p> - <p class="verse">I can’t escape, I cannot flee this cloud,</p> - <p class="verse">This muddy, gloomy, hell-begotten cloud—</p> - <p class="verse">The dollar sign is traced upon this cloud!</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-6"> -<a id="page-10" class="pagenum" title="10"></a> -<span class="line1">QUESTIONINGS</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Is it because the sun caresses me</p> - <p class="verse">And makes me warm with its delightful rays</p> - <p class="verse">That it is mine? That it is only mine?</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Is it because I frolic in the sea,</p> - <p class="verse">The sea that hugs me with a thousand waves,</p> - <p class="verse">That it is mine? That it is only mine?</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Is it because I hold you in my arms</p> - <p class="verse">And madly kiss you, calling you my love,</p> - <p class="verse">That you are mine? That you are only mine?</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-7"> -<a id="page-11" class="pagenum" title="11"></a> -<span class="line1">THE LIBERTY I LOATHE</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I am at large, can go this way and that,</p> - <p class="verse">No dungeon walls, no prison bars say halt,</p> - <p class="verse">When roving fancies seize upon my feet.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">But am I free? Can I be truly free</p> - <p class="verse">When that which lives within me is repressed,</p> - <p class="verse">When my true self in vain from deep within</p> - <p class="verse">Doth clamor for the right of self-expression?</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">What hideous mockery of freedom this!</p> - <p class="verse">Put me in jail, put me in jail for life,</p> - <p class="verse">Let bread and water be my only fare,</p> - <p class="verse">Make rats and spiders my associates.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">But have the light into my dungeon pour</p> - <p class="verse">From overhead and give me clay,</p> - <p class="verse">Oh, give me lots of clay—the tender flesh,</p> - <p class="verse">The oily, tender flesh of mother earth,</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Responsive as a mistress to the touch,</p> - <p class="verse">And I will have a feast no king e’er knew,</p> - <p class="verse">And taste of pleasures that the gods would envy.</p> - <p class="verse">And I will make unto myself a world,</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">A world of which myself would be the God,</p> - <p class="verse">A world in which my every dream and thought,</p> - <p class="verse">My every feeling and my every passion</p> - <p class="verse">Would find embodiment in plastic form.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Oh, for a prison where I could be free!</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-8"> -<a id="page-12" class="pagenum" title="12"></a> -<span class="line1">ON SEEING THE GARMENT STRIKERS MARCH</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I see a hundred thousand marching by.</p> - <p class="verse">I also see as many, many millions</p> - <p class="verse">That are in spirit also marching by.</p> - <p class="verse">And lo! methinks this is but a rehearsal</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">For the Exodus from the Land of Bondage—</p> - <p class="verse">And I behold with my prophetic eyes</p> - <p class="verse">God’s chosen people crossing the Red Sea;</p> - <p class="verse">The workers of the world, God’s chosen people,</p> - <p class="verse">Are crossing the Red Sea of Revolution.</p> - <p class="verse">And I behold the Industrial Commonwealth,</p> - <p class="verse">The Promised Land of plenty and of peace,</p> - <p class="verse">Where each one, under his own fig-tree seated,</p> - <p class="verse">Shall sing his praises to the Lord of Life.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-9"> -<a id="page-13" class="pagenum" title="13"></a> -<span class="line1">THE TOILERS</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Crouching they cling like vermin to the earth</p> - <p class="verse">And with their bleeding fingers scrape the earth</p> - <p class="verse">But for a little dust, their sustenance,</p> - <p class="verse">A little dust mixed with the sweat of brow,</p> - <p class="verse">The blood of fingers and the tears of pain.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">’Tis not for them the sun shines gloriously,</p> - <p class="verse">The flowers bloom, the fruit hangs on the tree,</p> - <p class="verse">’Tis not for them the birds and poets sing,</p> - <p class="verse">Or lovely women smile.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">They have to crouch and cling and sweat and scrape</p> - <p class="verse">But for a little dust—their sustenance.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-10"> -<a id="page-14" class="pagenum" title="14"></a> -<span class="line1">PANEROTICISM</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I love all women’s smiling eyes,</p> - <p class="verse">I love all women’s tempting lips,</p> - <p class="verse">I love all women’s loving hearts,</p> - <p class="verse">I love all women’s tender skin,</p> - <p class="verse">I love all women’s glowing flesh,</p> - <p class="verse">I love all women’s weakness,</p> - <p class="verse">I love all women’s strength.</p> - <p class="verse">I love! I love! I love!</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-11"> -<a id="page-15" class="pagenum" title="15"></a> -<span class="line1">APHRODITE</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I’ve seen a Venus not of marble carved</p> - <p class="verse">By some great sculptor’s hand in ancient Greece,</p> - <p class="verse">Unearthed in a mutilated state</p> - <p class="verse">By archaeologists in quest of ruins</p> - <p class="verse">And pedestaled in temple of fine art.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The Venus I have seen was made of flesh,</p> - <p class="verse">Of ordinary, living, human flesh,</p> - <p class="verse">More beautiful than statue e’er could be.</p> - <p class="verse">She stands behind a counter in a store</p> - <p class="verse">From morning until night dispensing wares—</p> - <p class="verse">A living Venus at five dollars per.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-12"> -<a id="page-16" class="pagenum" title="16"></a> -<span class="line1">THE TYRANNY OF RHYME</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Inane coquette, depart from me,</p> - <p class="verse">Thou siren known as Muse of rhyme,</p> - <p class="verse">Thou fain wouldst make thy slave of me,</p> - <p class="verse">To give thee all my thought, my time,</p> - <p class="verse">And all the love that’s in my heart,</p> - <p class="verse">I know thee well, depart! depart!</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I love a nobler Muse than thee,</p> - <p class="verse">She’s simple, free, intense, sublime,</p> - <p class="verse">Her rhythm has sweeter melody</p> - <p class="verse">Than e’er could have thy wanton rhyme.</p> - <p class="verse">I gave to Rhythm my soul, my heart,</p> - <p class="verse">O Muse of Rhyme, depart! depart!</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-13"> -<a id="page-17" class="pagenum" title="17"></a> -<span class="line1">LINES INSPIRED ON MEETING A LADY</span><br /> -<span class="line2">To A. L.</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I look at life as an astronomer</p> - <p class="verse">Looks at the star-filled sky.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Life seems a sky to me, all human beings</p> - <p class="verse">Rotating in their orbits are as stars.</p> - <p class="verse">Some are obscure and some are luminous,</p> - <p class="verse">Some give the light and warmth to solar systems,</p> - <p class="verse">Some shed on lovers’ heads soft lunar light.</p> - <p class="verse">Some, like the comets, cosmic vagabonds,</p> - <p class="verse">Are ever tramping the sidereal roads,</p> - <p class="verse">And others, myriad-massed in endless stretches,</p> - <p class="verse">Compose the glory of the Milky Way.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I look at life as an astrologer</p> - <p class="verse">Believing in the influence of stars,</p> - <p class="verse">Their influences evil, beneficial.</p> - <p class="verse">Perplexed I ponder o’er the laws mysterious</p> - <p class="verse">That govern all the movements of the stars.</p> - <p class="verse">And I am troubled in my inmost being</p> - <p class="verse">At the appearance of a new-found star</p> - <p class="verse">As on the threshold of a mystery.</p> - <p class="verse">There hove into my sphere a new-found star</p> - <p class="verse">Of primal magnitude, magnificent,</p> - <p class="verse">Whose magnetism most irrestistibly</p> - <p class="verse">Attracts me to itself.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Am I to be the happy satellite</p> - <p class="verse">Of this fair human sun whose smile or frown</p> - <p class="verse">Could make me be a fertile Earth or Moon,</p> - <p class="verse">A fertile Earth or frozen, barren Moon?</p> - <p class="verse">Oh, will it just continue in its course,</p> - <p class="verse">Rotating in its orbit and recede,</p> - <p class="verse">Recede, recede, and leave me far behind</p> - <p class="verse">Obscure and cold and sad and all alone?...</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-14"> -<a id="page-18" class="pagenum" title="18"></a> -<span class="line1">OSCAR WILDE</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The work was done.</p> - <p class="verse">The spirit-moulders of immortal souls</p> - <p class="verse">Wiped from their brows the sweat and washed their hands,</p> - <p class="verse">And standing by, in full contentment gazed</p> - <p class="verse">Upon their wondrous work.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">A masterpiece! it was a masterpiece!</p> - <p class="verse">A genius to be born unto the world,</p> - <p class="verse">One more to swell that galaxy of stars</p> - <p class="verse">That makes the cosmic bosom swell with pride.</p> - <p class="verse">Another inextinguishable star</p> - <p class="verse">To scintillate throughout eternity.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The angels stood, heads bowed in reverence</p> - <p class="verse">Before what was to be the poet Wilde,</p> - <p class="verse">And as they stood, these proud progenitors,</p> - <p class="verse">In blissful contemplation of their child,</p> - <p class="verse">There fell upon them, as a shadow cast</p> - <p class="verse">By purple clouds upon a limpid lake,</p> - <p class="verse">A sadness that no human voice could tell.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Forebodings of the suffering of Wilde</p> - <p class="verse">Depressed them so that, kneeling down, they wept.</p> - <p class="verse">They wept over the dire humiliation</p> - <p class="verse">Awaiting him who is the pride of God,</p> - <p class="verse">And over man’s stupidity they wept—</p> - <p class="verse">The colossal stupidity of man.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-15"> -<a id="page-19" class="pagenum" title="19"></a> -<span class="line1">IMPERIALISM</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">With one great gesture of my love-mad arms</p> - <p class="verse">Would that I could embrace the entire world,</p> - <p class="verse">The entire world of love-inspiring women.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">With one unending pressure of my lips</p> - <p class="verse">I wish that I could kiss the entire world,</p> - <p class="verse">The entire world of love-inspiring women.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">With one great spasm of ecstasy supreme</p> - <p class="verse">Would that I could possess the entire world,</p> - <p class="verse">The entire world of love-inspiring women.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-16"> -<a id="page-20" class="pagenum" title="20"></a> -<span class="line1">THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The children of the poor are little plants</p> - <p class="verse">That grow in sandy soil midst rocks and weeds</p> - <p class="verse">And rusty cans of tin, and other junk</p> - <p class="verse">Within the gloomy shadow of a wall,</p> - <p class="verse">The gloomy shadow of a mildewed wall;</p> - <p class="verse">Poor little plants! poor children of the poor.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-17"> -<a id="page-21" class="pagenum" title="21"></a> -<span class="line1">THE CALL OF SEX</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Know you that bottomless and boundless sea,</p> - <p class="verse">Each heaving billow whereof is a woman?</p> - <p class="verse">Oh, how my love-parched body craves to plunge</p> - <p class="verse">Into the soothing substance of this sea!...</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Oh, for the joy of absolute abandon</p> - <p class="verse">To the caressing furore of this sea;</p> - <p class="verse">The frantic joy of breaking all restrictions,</p> - <p class="verse">Of daring all the dangers of this sea!</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The ecstatic and the harrowing sensation</p> - <p class="verse">Of rising, ever rising on a wave,</p> - <p class="verse">A giant wave that rises, ever rises,</p> - <p class="verse">And then to be replunged into the deep!</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The all-absorbing, all-inclusive deep.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">What if the mouth doth swallow liquid bitter;</p> - <p class="verse">What if the heinous sharks men call disease</p> - <p class="verse">Snap at my flesh, infecting me with poison,</p> - <p class="verse">And even what if that mysterious mermaid,</p> - <p class="verse">That moon-pale Undine claim me as her own</p> - <p class="verse">And seal our union with the kiss of death?</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">What of it? Does not all life end in death?</p> - <p class="verse">Give me the death of Tristan and Isolde:</p> - <p class="verse">I die for life and love,—I fear not death.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-18"> -<a id="page-22" class="pagenum" title="22"></a> -<span class="line1">IMMORTALITY</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">At dawn of day the stars die one by one.</p> - <p class="verse">They only seem to die, but do not die.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">There is no death for humans, or for stars.</p> - <p class="verse">What we call life and death is only rhythm.</p> - <p class="verse">It is all cadence, measure, rest, inflection,</p> - <p class="verse">The poetry, the music of the spheres.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The universe is one stupendous poem</p> - <p class="verse">Whereof the suns and stars are words and letters,</p> - <p class="verse">And we frail humans, punctuation marks.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-19"> -<a id="page-23" class="pagenum" title="23"></a> -<span class="line1">TO LIVE OR NOT TO LIVE</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">To be or not to be is not the question;</p> - <p class="verse">The question is, to live or not to live.</p> - <p class="verse">Alive or dead or only vegetating,</p> - <p class="verse">One thing is sure, we cannot help but being.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">To live! to be alive; to live intensely!</p> - <p class="verse">To live with every fibre of the frame,</p> - <p class="verse">With every sinew, every nerve and muscle;</p> - <p class="verse">To live like this, or not to live at all.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">But we are cowards, we are fools and misers,</p> - <p class="verse">Afraid to live—afraid to pay the price—</p> - <p class="verse">The price of youth,—the price of youth is age;</p> - <p class="verse">The price—the price of joy is pain.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">And disenchantment is the price of love.</p> - <p class="verse">And Life—the price of Life is Death.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Come, let us live, and let us live intensely.</p> - <p class="verse">Life! Life! more Life! more Life at any cost.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-20"> -<a id="page-24" class="pagenum" title="24"></a> -<span class="line1">MY RICHES</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Behold in me one richer than a king,</p> - <p class="verse">Richer than Croesus was or Solomon,</p> - <p class="verse">Aye, richer even than a Rockefeller.</p> - <p class="verse">And lo! the gilded portals of my palace</p> - <p class="verse">Are thrown wide open, and the spacious vaults,</p> - <p class="verse">Staked full of treasures even to o’erflowing</p> - <p class="verse">Remain unguarded, and I welcome thee</p> - <p class="verse">To enter and partake of all my riches.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">My palace is my heart; my wealth, my treasure</p> - <p class="verse">Is love, immeasurable, boundless love.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-21"> -<a id="page-25" class="pagenum" title="25"></a> -<span class="line1">DEPRIVATION</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The world is like a tapestry to me,</p> - <p class="verse">Immense and wonderful, where interwoven</p> - <p class="verse">With art most consummate by masterhand</p> - <p class="verse">I see a maze of beings and of things.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I can but see a little at a time,</p> - <p class="verse">My sight is limited, the view is vast,</p> - <p class="verse">The picture disconcertingly complex.</p> - <p class="verse">But often, here and there, a brilliant spot,</p> - <p class="verse">A woman’s figure in life’s tapestry</p> - <p class="verse">Attracts my gaze and holds me in its spell.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">And, like a child that’s crying for the moon,</p> - <p class="verse">My hands would grasp that which delights mine eye,</p> - <p class="verse">To press it fondly to my happy heart.</p> - <p class="verse">Alas, the world, as tapestry and tomb,</p> - <p class="verse">Will not give up its own.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-22"> -<a id="page-26" class="pagenum" title="26"></a> -<span class="line1">A SPHINX</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I like to see a woman wearing furs,</p> - <p class="verse">Long-haired and dark and vicious looking furs,</p> - <p class="verse">Strong smelling, soft, exotic looking furs,</p> - <p class="verse">Contrasting strongly with her brilliant flesh,</p> - <p class="verse">Her tender, warm and angel-tinted flesh.</p> - <p class="verse">I love the angel and the beast in women.</p> - <p class="verse">That’s why I like a woman wearing furs.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-23"> -<a id="page-27" class="pagenum" title="27"></a> -<span class="line1">EXCUSE ME, MUSE</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">’Tis not the hour to sing of pink-hued vapors</p> - <p class="verse">So softly sailing under azure skies;</p> - <p class="verse">Nor of the shadow warm and so mysterious</p> - <p class="verse">Cast by the lashes of a woman’s eyes.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">’Tis not the time for soft euphonious sighing</p> - <p class="verse">And holding converse with pale lunar light.</p> - <p class="verse">’Tis not the hour for musing and for dreaming,</p> - <p class="verse">Excuse me, Muse, I must go out and fight.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">And I will fight as long as infants suckle</p> - <p class="verse">In vain at parched breasts devoid of milk;</p> - <p class="verse">As long as my poor sisters sell their bodies</p> - <p class="verse">For bread and rags, while parasites wear silk.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">As long as slave and master, thief and pauper</p> - <p class="verse">Remain such terms as may to man apply,</p> - <p class="verse">So long, I say, my lyre shall be a weapon,</p> - <p class="verse">My song shall be the rebel’s battle cry.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-24"> -<a id="page-28" class="pagenum" title="28"></a> -<span class="line1">NOEL</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Tormented Galilean who art Lord</p> - <p class="verse">Of those that crucify thee every day</p> - <p class="verse">And every hour and minute of the day</p> - <p class="verse">And every hour and minute of the night:</p> - <p class="verse">With pious glee they celebrate the night</p> - <p class="verse">That witnessed thine appearance upon earth,</p> - <p class="verse">That night when angels chanted “peace on earth.”</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">They chanted “Peace on earth, good will to men,”</p> - <p class="verse">And thou wert crowned with thorns by hands of men</p> - <p class="verse">And thou wert spat upon by mouths of men</p> - <p class="verse">And thou hast been betrayed by kiss of men;</p> - <p class="verse">Condemned by men and crucified by men,</p> - <p class="verse">Aye, crucified and deified by men.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">And every year for many centuries,</p> - <p class="verse">On Christmas eve for many centuries,</p> - <p class="verse">In churches and cathedrals Christians sing</p> - <p class="verse">Their gladness of the coming of the Lord.</p> - <p class="verse">The organ’s thunder glorifies the Lord,</p> - <p class="verse">The priests and ministers exalt the Lord,</p> - <p class="verse">The infant Lord the virgin Mary bore;</p> - <p class="verse">On Christmas eve it was in Bethlehem:</p> - <p class="verse">And whilst they fete the babe of Bethlehem,</p> - <p class="verse">Ten thousand babes on earth die painful deaths</p> - <p class="verse">And millions live to live lives worse than death</p> - <p class="verse">And still the massacre of innocents</p> - <p class="verse">Goes on relentlessly. Poor innocents!</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-25"> -<a id="page-29" class="pagenum" title="29"></a> -<span class="line1">LINES TO THE WOOLWORTH BUILDING</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Imposing pile of pale and polished stone,</p> - <p class="verse">Cathedral-like in thy solemnity,</p> - <p class="verse">Thy rectilinear grandeur awes my soul,</p> - <p class="verse">And makes me shudder!</p> - <p class="verse">Monstrous sacrilege, O when before</p> - <p class="verse">Has thing so big been made for end so small?</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Unholy Temple of the priests of lucre,</p> - <p class="verse">How most appropriate thy pallor is,</p> - <p class="verse">So like in color to the tint of bones—</p> - <p class="verse">Thy slender, upright lines so much like bones—</p> - <p class="verse">So much like children’s bones.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">How like unto the pyramids thou art;</p> - <p class="verse">The tyrants’ tombs, built by a million slaves.</p> - <p class="verse">And like the pyramids, ere long</p> - <p class="verse">Thou’lt be the relic of an age gone by.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-26"> -<a id="page-30" class="pagenum" title="30"></a> -<span class="line1">THE ARTISTS</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">They have been born to model and to mould</p> - <p class="verse">The shapeless clay into expressive form</p> - <p class="verse">Even as gods! to seize the fleeting shades,</p> - <p class="verse">The subtle hues of things that pass or stay</p> - <p class="verse">And make them live and glow intensely.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">They have been born to tell their wondrous dreams</p> - <p class="verse">In rhythmic stanzas full of strength and grace,</p> - <p class="verse">To plunge into the very depths of things,</p> - <p class="verse">To seek the precious essence that is fit</p> - <p class="verse">For distillation to symphonic strain.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Require them not to leave their sacred sphere,</p> - <p class="verse">To mix with common vendors in the mart,</p> - <p class="verse">To traffic their creations and to throw</p> - <p class="verse">The priceless pearls of genius to the swine</p> - <p class="verse">For but a bowl of vinegar and gall.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">O bring to them the little bread and milk</p> - <p class="verse">Which they must have to live, and if you can</p> - <p class="verse">Rejoice to give them honey. Be to them</p> - <p class="verse">What ravens were unto a prophet once.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Does not the beauty they create or dream</p> - <p class="verse">Atone for all our ugly deeds or thoughts,</p> - <p class="verse">Even as the saints who pray for those that sin</p> - <p class="verse">Sustain the equilibrium that must be</p> - <p class="verse">In order that the world may not be doomed?</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Eternal malediction fall on those</p> - <p class="verse">Who mock or crucify these chosen ones</p> - <p class="verse">And let them be thrice blessed who help to clear</p> - <p class="verse">Life’s rugged road of thorns for those who pass</p> - <p class="verse">And passing, leave this world more beautiful.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-27"> -<a id="page-31" class="pagenum" title="31"></a> -<span class="line1">CAIN REFORMED</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Am I my brother’s keeper? Yes, indeed,</p> - <p class="verse">I keep him, aye, I keep him hard at work.</p> - <p class="verse">I also keep the fruit of all his work</p> - <p class="verse">And of his children’s work I keep the fruit.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">And when he does not keep the laws I make</p> - <p class="verse">That give me power to keep him hard at work,</p> - <p class="verse">I am his keeper, keeping him in jail.</p> - <p class="verse">Am I my brother’s keeper? Yes, indeed.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-28"> -<a id="page-32" class="pagenum" title="32"></a> -<span class="line1">GOLGOTHA</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">On the Golgotha of mine inmost being</p> - <p class="verse">There stands a crucifix,</p> - <p class="verse">And in the deepest recess of my being</p> - <p class="verse">In perpetuity Good Friday reigns.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">And always in the stillness of the night,</p> - <p class="verse">The endless night within mine inmost being,</p> - <p class="verse">I hear the moaning and the supplications</p> - <p class="verse">Of him that’s crucified within my being.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I see the wounds of side and hands and feet,</p> - <p class="verse">The wounds that glow like rubies in the night,</p> - <p class="verse">That cast a lurid glare upon the night,</p> - <p class="verse">Those mystic wounds in number like the senses.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Four horrid wounds upon the hands and feet,</p> - <p class="verse">One on the side, thus making five in all,</p> - <p class="verse">Just as the senses, making five in all.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">And in the endless night within my being</p> - <p class="verse">I hear the moaning and the supplications.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">“Oh, tear me from my cross,” entreats the Christ,</p> - <p class="verse">“For I am Joy, thy God, the son of Life.</p> - <p class="verse">Oh, tear me from my cross,” entreats the Christ.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">That cursed instrument of agony,</p> - <p class="verse">Is conscience; human conscience is the cross—</p> - <p class="verse">The cross whereon our Joy is crucified.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">My Lord, I will redeem thee from thy cross,</p> - <p class="verse">And give thee burial in mine aching heart,</p> - <p class="verse">Whence thou shalt rise and henceforth ever reign</p> - <p class="verse">Over the Kingdom of the blessed flesh.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-29"> -<a id="page-33" class="pagenum" title="33"></a> -<span class="line1">IDOLATRY</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I stood before a leg in the museum,</p> - <p class="verse">A marble leg, a mutilated leg,</p> - <p class="verse">Supported by a rod of polished bronze.</p> - <p class="verse">This leg of some hermaphroditic god</p> - <p class="verse">Was carved in Greece, when ancient Greece was young.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">In deepest reverence I stood and gazed</p> - <p class="verse">Upon this relic of an absent god.</p> - <p class="verse">And as I stood I wondered if perchance</p> - <p class="verse">Idolatry is not this very act,</p> - <p class="verse">That thus enshrines an ancient piece of stone,</p> - <p class="verse">Whilst living sculptors are compelled to waste</p> - <p class="verse">In fruitless idleness that precious power</p> - <p class="verse">Which carves the Victories of Samothrace.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Idolators, ye worship graven stones</p> - <p class="verse">But are indifferent to the gods that carve them.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-30"> -<a id="page-34" class="pagenum" title="34"></a> -<span class="line1">TO ARTURO GIOVANNITTI</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Arturo Giovannitti, fellow worker</p> - <p class="verse">In song and in revolt, sing on! sing on!</p> - <p class="verse">The battling warriors in the war of classes</p> - <p class="verse">Have need of your inspired, inspiring voice,</p> - <p class="verse">You are the rebel, leader, poet, prophet,</p> - <p class="verse">You have already worn the martyr’s crown.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">If there be in me just one spark of envy,</p> - <p class="verse">It is that I was not like you in gaol.</p> - <p class="verse">I envied you that most supreme distinction</p> - <p class="verse">Of living in the shadow of the cross</p> - <p class="verse">With all the sacred shades of martyred rebels,</p> - <p class="verse">A fellow worker of departed Christs.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-31"> -<a id="page-35" class="pagenum" title="35"></a> -<span class="line1">NIGHTMARE</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I had a dream, I had a horrid dream.</p> - <p class="verse">I dreamt that Byron travels for a house</p> - <p class="verse">That handles wines from Portugal and Spain,</p> - <p class="verse">That Shelley is a cashier of a bank,</p> - <p class="verse">That Keats is valet to a wealthy Jew,</p> - <p class="verse">That Oscar Wilde lays bricks, that Edgar Poe</p> - <p class="verse">Is selling silks and satins on the road,</p> - <p class="verse">And that Walt Whitman, he of noble height,</p> - <p class="verse">Is manager of a department store.</p> - <p class="verse">And I would have dreamed on, had not disgust,</p> - <p class="verse">A flood of dire disgust, awakened me,</p> - <p class="verse">And I myself was forced to rush downtown</p> - <p class="verse">To live the life I shudder at in dream.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-32"> -<a id="page-36" class="pagenum" title="36"></a> -<span class="line1">LINES WRITTEN ON SEEING HENRI’S PAINTING OF THE LADY IN BLACK VELVET</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The Lady in black velvet is the night,</p> - <p class="verse">The deep, uncanny, weird, mysterious night,</p> - <p class="verse">The witching, troubling, awe-inspiring night,</p> - <p class="verse">Serene and silent, sweet and subtle night,</p> - <p class="verse">Tempestuous, tragic, black and feverish night.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The Lady in black velvet is the night,</p> - <p class="verse">Her robe of black as black as blackest night,</p> - <p class="verse">Enfolds a world—a world of sleepless night,</p> - <p class="verse">A world of sighs, of cravings and of crimes,</p> - <p class="verse">Of maddening joys, of languors that consume,</p> - <p class="verse">Of pains unbearable, of livid fears,</p> - <p class="verse">Of nightmares and of dreams.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Then there’s the sombre gray of shifting clouds</p> - <p class="verse">Whose masses rent asunder now reveal</p> - <p class="verse">The radiant luminary of the night,</p> - <p class="verse">Her silv’ry, radiant face is Queen of night.</p> - <p class="verse">The Lady in black velvet is the night.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-33"> -<a id="page-37" class="pagenum" title="37"></a> -<span class="line1">THE BABE</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Fruit of a moment of supremest bliss,</p> - <p class="verse">A passionate embrace, a long drawn kiss,</p> - <p class="verse">Soft, pink and warm and chubby little thing,</p> - <p class="verse">Most helpless being, despotic as a king.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Third cousin to the gold-fish, the kitten and the chick,</p> - <p class="verse">As free from care as they are, as shame-free and as quick</p> - <p class="verse">To feel that life means living and living must be joy,</p> - <p class="verse">That nothing is of value unless it be a toy.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-34"> -<a id="page-38" class="pagenum" title="38"></a> -<span class="line1">A SCENARIO</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-34-1"> -Scene I. -</h3> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The time—a glorious summer afternoon.</p> - <p class="verse">The place—somewhere along the Palisades.</p> - <p class="verse">Rocks here and there; some trees and many bushes.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">A youthful artist, seated on a rock,</p> - <p class="verse">With great strokes paints the sun-illumined Hudson.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">A fair young woman enters on the scene,</p> - <p class="verse">Absorbed in picking many kinds of flowers.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The youthful artist, catching sight of her,</p> - <p class="verse">Stands up and drops his palette and his brushes.</p> - <p class="verse">And when she sees the youth she drops the flowers.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">They stand in silence looking at each other.</p> - <p class="verse">He then approaches her to raise her flowers—</p> - <p class="verse">And then she smiles, and he says foolish things,</p> - <p class="verse">Deliciously absurd and foolish things.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The insects are abuzzing, and the leaves—</p> - <p class="verse">The foliage of the bushes and the trees</p> - <p class="verse">Are whispering—are gossiping in whispers.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">He takes her by the hand and kisses her,</p> - <p class="verse">He kisses her and takes her in his arms,</p> - <p class="verse">And carries her behind a clump of bushes.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-34-2"> -<a id="page-39" class="pagenum" title="39"></a> -Scene II. -</h3> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The time and place and scene just as before.</p> - <p class="verse">From left to right there enters on the scene</p> - <p class="verse">Quite simultaneously a man and woman.</p> - <p class="verse">Each reads a book while walking, so absorbed</p> - <p class="verse">That they well-nigh collide with one another.</p> - <p class="verse">He begs her pardon which, of course, she grants.</p> - <p class="verse">He asks her if they have not met before,</p> - <p class="verse">Her face seems so familiar, and she says:</p> - <p class="verse">Perhaps he saw her somewhere at a lecture.</p> - <p class="verse">And so they start to talk about their books,</p> - <p class="verse">About their lectures and about their books.</p> - <p class="verse">They seat themselves upon a rock and talk,</p> - <p class="verse">And talk and talk and talk and talk and talk.</p> - <p class="verse">The insects are abuzzing and the leaves—</p> - <p class="verse">The foliage of the bushes and the trees</p> - <p class="verse">Are whispering, are gossiping in whispers.</p> - <p class="verse">And from behind the softly swaying bushes</p> - <p class="verse">Escape the sounds of kisses and of sighs,</p> - <p class="verse">The kisses and the sighs of youthful lovers.</p> - <p class="verse">And all the time the woman and the man</p> - <p class="verse">Sit arguing, discussing and discussing</p> - <p class="verse">Psychology, sociology and ethics.</p> - <p class="verse">So different it is behind the bushes.</p> - <p class="verse">And while some hug and kiss and others argue,</p> - <p class="verse">A sudden gloom spreads over everything.</p> - <p class="verse">The azure sky is now a sky of ink,</p> - <p class="verse">The lightning flashes and the thunder claps,</p> - <p class="verse">The shower is terrific’ly intense.</p> - <p class="verse">Both couples find an overhanging rock,</p> - <p class="verse">A scanty shelter ’gainst a raging storm.</p> - <p class="verse">A blinding lightning flash, a thunder clap,</p> - <p class="verse">All four lie dead.</p> - <p class="verse">Is there a moral?</p> - <p class="verse">Guess!</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-35"> -<a id="page-40" class="pagenum" title="40"></a> -<span class="line1">THE TEMPLE</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Round, full and fertile is her abdomen,</p> - <p class="verse">Even as Mother Earth.</p> - <p class="verse">O! tree of life bearing the fruit of love,</p> - <p class="verse">O! precious shell a precious pearl enclosing,</p> - <p class="verse">O! wondrous instrument whereon love plays</p> - <p class="verse">A fiery rhapsody,</p> - <p class="verse">The echo whereof is a human life.</p> - <p class="verse">O! blessed mother of the child of man.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Ye fools, detach your gaze from godless heavens,</p> - <p class="verse">God is right here if you would worship God,</p> - <p class="verse">The mystery of life and love is God,</p> - <p class="verse">And every pregnant woman is God’s temple.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-36"> -<a id="page-41" class="pagenum" title="41"></a> -<span class="line1">SHELLEY</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Lucifer! dripping with celestial splendour,</p> - <p class="verse">All aglow with cosmic rebellion,</p> - <p class="verse">Thundering forth pious blasphemies,</p> - <p class="verse">Chanting sacrilegious hymns,</p> - <p class="verse">Thy voice is like unto the trumpet sounds</p> - <p class="verse">Of the Archangels of the Apocalypse</p> - <p class="verse">Calling the dead to life.</p> - <p class="verse">Meteor fallen from the bosom of infinitude</p> - <p class="verse">Into the common clay,</p> - <p class="verse">Strange visitant from another orb,</p> - <p class="verse">Permeated with the music of the spheres,</p> - <p class="verse">Replete and radiant with rarest gems,</p> - <p class="verse">Perplexing, exciting, soothing, betwitching.</p> - <p class="verse">Lucifer! Prometheus! Dionysos! Shelley!</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-37"> -<a id="page-42" class="pagenum" title="42"></a> -<span class="line1">THE SCULPTOR AND THE CLAY</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The sculptor, man, in woman mostly sees</p> - <p class="verse">The clay of which to model gods of love.</p> - <p class="verse">Some, cunning little cupids only are,</p> - <p class="verse">The little rascal gods of light flirtation,</p> - <p class="verse">Who like the fire-flies on a summer night</p> - <p class="verse">Are luminous a moment—and that’s all.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">While others are the serious gods of love,</p> - <p class="verse">Majestic and intense as life itself,</p> - <p class="verse">Mysterious and perplexing as the Sphinx,</p> - <p class="verse">Relentless as the furies or as death,</p> - <p class="verse">As maddening as poison of the snake,</p> - <p class="verse">As soothing as is balm upon a wound,</p> - <p class="verse">And sweet as that which passeth understanding.</p> - <p class="verse">As sweet as that and sometimes just as bitter.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Such are the statues man, the sculptor, moulds</p> - <p class="verse">Of woman—clay.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-38"> -<a id="page-43" class="pagenum" title="43"></a> -<span class="line1">CONTEMPT</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I spit upon the laws that thieves have made</p> - <p class="verse">To give the crooked strength to rob the weak.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I spit upon a country full of wealth</p> - <p class="verse">Where millions live in squalor and in want.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I spit upon a flag that waves above</p> - <p class="verse">A nation made of masters and of slaves.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I spit upon religions that defend</p> - <p class="verse">A hell on earth, and preach a life to come.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I spit upon all morals that contend</p> - <p class="verse">That joy of life is not life’s highest end.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I spit upon the education that</p> - <p class="verse">Makes pygmies out of what might have been men.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Upon this whole damned system do I spit,</p> - <p class="verse">And while I spit—I weep.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-39"> -<a id="page-44" class="pagenum" title="44"></a> -<span class="line1">WILLIAM MORRIS</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Dreamer of dreams—dreamer of golden dreams,</p> - <p class="verse">Explorer of the rainbow-lands of yore,</p> - <p class="verse">Columbus of Arcadian Continents,</p> - <p class="verse">Poetic founder of Utopian states.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Dreamer of dreams? Dreamer of only dreams?</p> - <p class="verse">A master worker with the mind and hand</p> - <p class="verse">Who made the beautiful and useful wed,</p> - <p class="verse">An alchemist who turned all work to art.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Dreamer of dreams? Maker of wondrous things?</p> - <p class="verse">A knight in mortal combat for a cause,</p> - <p class="verse">A sower of emancipation’s seed,</p> - <p class="verse">A master builder of a better world.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-40"> -<a id="page-45" class="pagenum" title="45"></a> -<span class="line1">DON JUAN’S SONG</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">From maids yet in their spring-time teens</p> - <p class="verse">To full blown thirty summer queens,</p> - <p class="verse2">I love them all!</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">From golden blondes and deep brunettes</p> - <p class="verse">To Titian-locked one ne’er forgets—</p> - <p class="verse2">I love them all!</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">From fairies frail or plump or slender</p> - <p class="verse">To women built with queenly splendor,</p> - <p class="verse2">I love them all!</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">From damsels pale and melancholy</p> - <p class="verse">To matrons gay and widows jolly,</p> - <p class="verse2">I love them all!</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">From maidens unsophisticated</p> - <p class="verse">To syrens well initiated,</p> - <p class="verse2">I love them all! I love them all!</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-41"> -<a id="page-46" class="pagenum" title="46"></a> -<span class="line1">EASTER ON FIFTH AVENUE</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Capital best qualifies the weather</p> - <p class="verse">That Easter Sunday donned for the occasion</p> - <p class="verse">And the parade was also capital,</p> - <p class="verse">It was indeed a capital parade.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The gorgeous gowns, the stunning Easter hats</p> - <p class="verse">Were capital and those hand-made complexions</p> - <p class="verse">Down to the escorts groomed with perfect style</p> - <p class="verse">Down to the sermons that the preachers preached</p> - <p class="verse">In fashionable churches were most capital.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Indeed the sight I saw that Easter morn</p> - <p class="verse">Along Fifth Avenue was capital,</p> - <p class="verse">Upon the sidewalks silently and slow</p> - <p class="verse">The grand cortège of capital marched on.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">And whilst I was enjoying this grand sight</p> - <p class="verse">There rose before my mind another sight:</p> - <p class="verse">I saw the street between the sidewalks filled</p> - <p class="verse">In compact mass with wan and worn spectators</p> - <p class="verse">Who were in silence viewing the parade,</p> - <p class="verse">It was a mob of children, men and women</p> - <p class="verse">Whose pallid faces and whose piteous rags</p> - <p class="verse">Gave to the spectacle a capital contrast,</p> - <p class="verse">’Twas Easter, Easter, lo! The Christ has risen!</p> - <p class="verse">Upon the whole the show was capital.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-42"> -<a id="page-47" class="pagenum" title="47"></a> -<span class="line1">CONTEMPLATION</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I went into a house of many lofts,</p> - <p class="verse">And in each loft I saw a thousand men,</p> - <p class="verse">And women, too, and children, too, I saw.</p> - <p class="verse">And all around arose a deaf’ning roar—</p> - <p class="verse">The roaring of machines o’er which were bent</p> - <p class="verse">The toilers toiling at their tiresome task.</p> - <p class="verse">And as I stood and gazed upon this scene</p> - <p class="verse">I wondered why it was—I wondered why....</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I went into a house of gilded halls,</p> - <p class="verse">And in each hall there shone a thousand lights,</p> - <p class="verse">And many men and women also shone.</p> - <p class="verse">Delightful music mingled with perfume.</p> - <p class="verse">Around luxurious tables, diners sat</p> - <p class="verse">Enjoying luscious viands, mellow wines.</p> - <p class="verse">And as I stood and gazed upon this scene,</p> - <p class="verse">I thought of toilers and I understood.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-43"> -<a id="page-48" class="pagenum" title="48"></a> -<span class="line1">CONFIDENCES</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I have to go to work to win my bread,</p> - <p class="verse">When oft upon my way the Muse of song,</p> - <p class="verse">Espying me from far approaches me</p> - <p class="verse">And takes me by the hand as tenderly</p> - <p class="verse">As would a sister take her little brother.</p> - <p class="verse">She whispers words as sparkling as champagne,</p> - <p class="verse">As warm as blood, as pure as morning dew,</p> - <p class="verse">And so enchants me that I cannot help</p> - <p class="verse">But yield unto the tempting muse of song.</p> - <p class="verse">She takes me from the world’s drear, dusty road</p> - <p class="verse">And leads me into that mysterious park</p> - <p class="verse">Where lies the limpid lake of inspiration.</p> - <p class="verse">The flowers of life and death grow in this park—</p> - <p class="verse">Of love and hate, the flowers of joy and pain,</p> - <p class="verse">Of smiles and sighs, of laughter and of tears,</p> - <p class="verse">The blooms of hope and those of disillusion.</p> - <p class="verse">All, all these flowers grow in this wondrous park.</p> - <p class="verse">I drink some water from the Muse’s palm,</p> - <p class="verse">The water of the lake of inspiration.</p> - <p class="verse">And then in silence do I wend my way</p> - <p class="verse">Through rows of silent and mysterious flowers,</p> - <p class="verse">Inhaling all the odors of the flowers,</p> - <p class="verse">The sweet and bitter odors of the flowers.</p> - <p class="verse">And like the bee, I also make some honey,</p> - <p class="verse">Alas! my honey is not always sweet.</p> - <p class="verse">Perhaps because the flowers of life are bitter.</p> - <p class="verse">Then I am harshly driven from this Eden</p> - <p class="verse">By the compulsion of a god I hate,</p> - <p class="verse">And I must go to work to win my bread.</p> - <p class="verse">The honey of the poet has no market.</p> - <p class="verse">Tempt me no more, dear Muse, or else I’ll starve.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-44"> -<a id="page-49" class="pagenum" title="49"></a> -<span class="line1">IN THE LIBRARY</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">As she sat facing me the other day</p> - <p class="verse">Reading a book, while I was writing verses,</p> - <p class="verse">Or rather trying to, for I could not</p> - <p class="verse">Detach my gaze from her bewitching visage,</p> - <p class="verse">Nor could my mind in rhythmic furrows flow,</p> - <p class="verse">Pursuing thoughts to her all unrelated,</p> - <p class="verse">When like the heaving billows that are yielding</p> - <p class="verse">To the attracting powers of the moon,</p> - <p class="verse">My every thought by her has been attracted.</p> - <p class="verse">I thus bethought me: “Wherefore write I poems,</p> - <p class="verse">When here, before me, breathes a living poem,</p> - <p class="verse">Compared to whom, all poems are as dust</p> - <p class="verse">Besides a sweetly smelling, blooming flower.”</p> - <p class="verse">So I lay down my pen and gazed at her.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-45"> -<a id="page-50" class="pagenum" title="50"></a> -<span class="line1">BYRON</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The thought of Byron wakens in my mind</p> - <p class="verse">The vision of a solitary tree</p> - <p class="verse">Titanic and contorted on a cliff</p> - <p class="verse">That overhangs a wild abysmal sea.</p> - <p class="verse">Its mighty root, a maze of tentacles,</p> - <p class="verse">Has put a lasting clutch-hold on the rock,</p> - <p class="verse">Much like the miser’s fingers on his gold.</p> - <p class="verse">Within its arteries the sap of life,</p> - <p class="verse">The procreative juice in torrents flows,</p> - <p class="verse">And gushes forth luxurious vegetation.</p> - <p class="verse">The foliage-covered head is always raised</p> - <p class="verse">In bold defiance of the elements.</p> - <p class="verse">Undaunted by the tempest’s fiendish rage,</p> - <p class="verse">Calm under the concerted stare of stars,</p> - <p class="verse">The fickle lover of a fickle moon.</p> - <p class="verse">On balmy days or peaceful summer eves</p> - <p class="verse">The rendezvous of master-singer birds.</p> - <p class="verse">Perennial, rich, melodious and sad,</p> - <p class="verse">Passionate and desolate and wild</p> - <p class="verse">And beautiful and always beautiful.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-46"> -<a id="page-51" class="pagenum" title="51"></a> -<span class="line1">CHIAROSCURO</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I met a plum-hued Venus late one night,</p> - <p class="verse">Live specimen of pure Egyptian art.</p> - <p class="verse">The regal amplitude of tropic zones,</p> - <p class="verse">Their rich luxuriance breathed on her face</p> - <p class="verse">And radiated from her clothed form.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Her eyes shone with that lustful brilliancy</p> - <p class="verse">Of eyes of jungle prowlers who at night</p> - <p class="verse">A-sniffling and a-growling hunt for mates.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Her mellow, soft and sing-song voice was whisp’ring</p> - <p class="verse">Enticing promises of untold joys</p> - <p class="verse">To taste of in this paradise of jet.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Alas! the curse of value, price and profit</p> - <p class="verse">Indelibly was branded on her brow,</p> - <p class="verse">The brow that ages past was of a savage.</p> - <p class="verse">Oh! thou hast conquered glorious Christian progress.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-47"> -<a id="page-52" class="pagenum" title="52"></a> -<span class="line1">DESPONDENCY</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I sadly watch the hours go by,</p> - <p class="verse">The hours, the days, the months, the years,</p> - <p class="verse">And what’s called life shall soon go by,</p> - <p class="verse">And helpless and with fruitless rage</p> - <p class="verse">I watch the hours of life go by.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">And I must curse when I would bless,</p> - <p class="verse">And I who am all love, must hate,</p> - <p class="verse">And I who have been born to sing</p> - <p class="verse">Must spend myself in moans and tears.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">And must I perish on this rock</p> - <p class="verse">A cruel God has bound me to?</p> - <p class="verse">Will not some Hercules ere come</p> - <p class="verse">And make me free?</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-48"> -<a id="page-53" class="pagenum" title="53"></a> -<span class="line1">IN MEMORIAM</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Within the mansion of my memory</p> - <p class="verse">There is a sumptuous chapel, where at times</p> - <p class="verse">I kneel in deep devotion at the shrines</p> - <p class="verse">Of all the blessed women I have loved.</p> - <p class="verse">I burn for them the incense of my thoughts;</p> - <p class="verse">Before their sacred images I lay</p> - <p class="verse">The flowers of my purest sentiments,</p> - <p class="verse">And on their altars piously I light</p> - <p class="verse">The pallid candles of my vain regrets.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I oft hold retrospective rendezvous</p> - <p class="verse">Within the chapel of the loves of yore.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-49"> -<a id="page-54" class="pagenum" title="54"></a> -<span class="line1">SPRING SONG</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I too shall sing thy glory, Spring,</p> - <p class="verse">Oh, season in thyself a song;</p> - <p class="verse">In every tongue thy name doth ring</p> - <p class="verse">With music we remember long.</p> - <p class="verse">Fruehling! Primavera! Spring!</p> - <p class="verse">Thy name to whisper is to sing.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Why should I seek sweet melody</p> - <p class="verse">And softly sounding words to say</p> - <p class="verse">All that the spring-time means to me?</p> - <p class="verse">Why should I make an effort, pray,</p> - <p class="verse">When Fruehling! primavera! spring!</p> - <p class="verse">To whisper only is to sing.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-50"> -<a id="page-55" class="pagenum" title="55"></a> -<span class="line1">TO A FRIEND</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">You sigh because you are not loved.</p> - <p class="verse">You only think you are not loved.</p> - <p class="verse">I also sighed as you now sigh,</p> - <p class="verse">Because I thought I was not loved.</p> - <p class="verse">But I was loved—how I was loved!</p> - <p class="verse">She lay awake at night and dreamed</p> - <p class="verse">Of me, who thought I was not loved.</p> - <p class="verse">Some loves like blooms that blush unseen,</p> - <p class="verse">Remain unknown and unconfessed,</p> - <p class="verse">And we oftimes are best beloved</p> - <p class="verse">When loved with love in silence shrined.</p> - <p class="verse">So be not sad, dear friend, nor sigh,</p> - <p class="verse">But feel assured there is a heart</p> - <p class="verse">In this wide world that beats for you.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-51"> -<a id="page-56" class="pagenum" title="56"></a> -<span class="line1">I SAW THREE NUNS</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I saw three nuns go by the other day:</p> - <p class="verse">Three upright coffins slowly gliding by.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Funereal, black and chilling to behold,</p> - <p class="verse">The ghastly shadows of a defunct past.</p> - <p class="verse">The worms of ignorance and superstition</p> - <p class="verse">Give to these dead, the semblances of life.</p> - <p class="verse">The past has not yet buried all its dead.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I saw three nuns go by the other day:</p> - <p class="verse">Three upright coffins slowly gliding by.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-52"> -<a id="page-57" class="pagenum" title="57"></a> -<span class="line1">A WOMAN LOVES ME</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">A woman loves me!</p> - <p class="verse">’Tis not of her I sing whose womb has been</p> - <p class="verse">The primal cradle of my tender self;</p> - <p class="verse2">I mean not mother-love.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">A woman loves me!</p> - <p class="verse">’Tis not of her I sing who also sprang</p> - <p class="verse">From that same source whence also I have sprung;</p> - <p class="verse2">I mean not sister-love.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">A woman loves me!</p> - <p class="verse">I sing of her who “from the mobs of life”</p> - <p class="verse">Has chosen me as him to whom alone</p> - <p class="verse">She will unlock her body and her soul</p> - <p class="verse2">To welcome all my love.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-53"> -<a id="page-58" class="pagenum" title="58"></a> -<span class="line1">ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN</span><br /> -<span class="line2">(The Workers’ Jeanne d’Arc)</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">She too a vision had and voices heard:</p> - <p class="verse">She heard the groans of slaving, starving workers:</p> - <p class="verse">She had a vision of their liberation.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">She also mounted steed and armor donned.</p> - <p class="verse">The soap-box or the platform is her steed.</p> - <p class="verse">Her coat of mail defiance of the powers.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">She too to victory an army leads.</p> - <p class="verse">Her army is the risen proletariat,</p> - <p class="verse">In arms against their pitiless exploiters.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">She too is hated by the church and state.</p> - <p class="verse">They’d burn her at the stake if they but dared,</p> - <p class="verse">Condemned for witchcraft or some other crime.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">She too shall live an ever-shining glory,</p> - <p class="verse">In human history, in human hearts—</p> - <p class="verse">An even brighter glory than Jeanne d’Arc.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The Maid of Orleans routed but the English,</p> - <p class="verse">And to a worthless king restored a throne,</p> - <p class="verse">To sway a sceptre o’er a land of serfs.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Lead by Elizabeth we’ll rout the masters</p> - <p class="verse">And to the workers of the world restore</p> - <p class="verse">The earth itself and all its joys and riches.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Let all men rally round her blood-red banner</p> - <p class="verse">Which bears the motto of the revolution:</p> - <p class="verse">“Death to all masters! Freedom to all slaves!”</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-54"> -<a id="page-59" class="pagenum" title="59"></a> -<span class="line1">JEALOUSY</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">As you peruse those heavy, dusty volumes</p> - <p class="verse">With tense attention hour after hour,</p> - <p class="verse">Whilst totally indifferent to me,—</p> - <p class="verse">To me, who sees in you the book of books,</p> - <p class="verse">To whom the very cover of this book,</p> - <p class="verse">Your outward aspect, is more interesting</p> - <p class="verse">Than the contents of all books ever printed.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Is it a wonder I would like to build</p> - <p class="verse">A mammoth pile of all the books there are</p> - <p class="verse">And let the raging fire consume them all?</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-55"> -<a id="page-60" class="pagenum" title="60"></a> -<span class="line1">MISERS</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I know of misers meaner than are those</p> - <p class="verse">Who lay awake at night to guard their treasure,</p> - <p class="verse">Which is in their possession only dust,</p> - <p class="verse">A sordid, useless heap of gilded dust</p> - <p class="verse">That might have given peace and bread to many.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The misers whom I mean are fair to see,</p> - <p class="verse">Delightful to converse with and to kiss;</p> - <p class="verse">They fascinate us with their wondrous eyes</p> - <p class="verse">As serpents fascinate the little birds.</p> - <p class="verse">They draw us closer to them, ever closer,</p> - <p class="verse">Then suddenly like serpents they coil up</p> - <p class="verse">And put beyond our grasp their queenly treasures,</p> - <p class="verse">Alas! in their possession to remain,</p> - <p class="verse">But useless, vain and perishable things</p> - <p class="verse">That might have given ecstasy to many.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-56"> -<a id="page-61" class="pagenum" title="61"></a> -<span class="line1">SWINBURNE</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Algernon Swinburne, is there not in thee</p> - <p class="verse">Something akin to bells that ring at sea?</p> - <p class="verse3">In their sound so clear</p> - <p class="verse3">There is little cheer,</p> - <p class="verse3">When their knell I hear</p> - <p class="verse3">I recoil with fear.</p> - <p class="verse">Though thy voice be clear as the day’s light,</p> - <p class="verse">It is pregnant with mystery, death, and night.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-57"> -<a id="page-62" class="pagenum" title="62"></a> -<span class="line1">OUR LADY OF INFINITE MERCY</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I often think of a mysterious woman—</p> - <p class="verse">There must be somewhere a mysterious woman,</p> - <p class="verse">Mysterious and most marvelous of beauty,</p> - <p class="verse">Most beautiful,—miraculously kind,</p> - <p class="verse">Indeed a kindness passing understanding,</p> - <p class="verse">So great a kindness that it seemeth madness.</p> - <p class="verse">It seemeth madness, for she sallies forth</p> - <p class="verse">At dead of night into the dismal streets,</p> - <p class="verse">Into the dismal and deserted streets,</p> - <p class="verse">Monotously criss-crossing the city,</p> - <p class="verse">The monstrous, lightless, heartless, sleeping city,</p> - <p class="verse">Where prowling as the vermin shunning light,</p> - <p class="verse">Or derelicts adrift on dreary seas,</p> - <p class="verse">She seeks the disinherited of joy</p> - <p class="verse">She seeks the stunted, the disfigured children,</p> - <p class="verse">The starved, diseased and the discouraged children</p> - <p class="verse">Of stepmother society, seeks them out,</p> - <p class="verse">Whom everybody shuns and no one loves.</p> - <p class="verse">She seeks them out and gives herself to them,</p> - <p class="verse">This queenly woman, marvelous of beauty,</p> - <p class="verse">Entirely gives herself to those of whom</p> - <p class="verse">The thought alone makes shudder with disgust.</p> - <p class="verse">She gives herself even as the twilight enters</p> - <p class="verse">A fetid, vermin-ridden, mildewed dungeon,</p> - <p class="verse">A whiff of heaven in a life of hell.</p> - <p class="verse">Oh, have you, have you ever seen that woman,</p> - <p class="verse">That beautiful, that kind, mysterious woman?</p> - <p class="verse">She is our Lady of Infinite Mercy.</p> - <p class="verse">Blessed be our Lady of Infinite Mercy!</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-58"> -<a id="page-63" class="pagenum" title="63"></a> -<span class="line1">A PAGAN’S PRAYER</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I sought the shrine of Eros and I prayed:—</p> - <p class="verse">O God omnipotent, O God supreme,</p> - <p class="verse">O God of love who art the God of Gods,</p> - <p class="verse">Behold thy worshipper upon his knees</p> - <p class="verse">Prostrated in the dust.</p> - <p class="verse">Let not my supplications rise in vain</p> - <p class="verse">From depths iniquitous to heights sublime.</p> - <p class="verse">O grant me my request, good God of love.</p> - <p class="verse">Unlock for me thy secret treasure house</p> - <p class="verse">And make me master of the arts of love.</p> - <p class="verse">My heart conceives great symphonies of love</p> - <p class="verse">That my poor body cannot execute.</p> - <p class="verse">I am a Beethoven, I am a Wagner,</p> - <p class="verse">My orchestration needs a thousand pieces,</p> - <p class="verse">But am restricted to a shepherd’s reed.</p> - <p class="verse">Reveal to me the secrets of the ancients,</p> - <p class="verse">Instruct me in the art of love long lost;</p> - <p class="verse">That love of time when Gods and humans mingled.</p> - <p class="verse">In love I am a God, in love expression</p> - <p class="verse">I am alas! a frail, a weakling human.</p> - <p class="verse">O Eros! Eros! Eros! God of love,</p> - <p class="verse">Give me the power to love as Gods can love.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-59"> -<a id="page-64" class="pagenum" title="64"></a> -<span class="line1">NIETZSCHE</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">A sombre silhouette</p> - <p class="verse">Against a sun-rise sky</p> - <p class="verse">In solemn solitude,</p> - <p class="verse">The wanderer goes by.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The shadow that he casts</p> - <p class="verse">Upon the plains below</p> - <p class="verse">Strikes terror to the hearts</p> - <p class="verse">Of those that do not know.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">O messenger sublime</p> - <p class="verse">Who hailest from that land</p> - <p class="verse">Where joy and beauty reign;</p> - <p class="verse">If they could understand!...</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">If they could understand</p> - <p class="verse">The message that you bring,</p> - <p class="verse">They’d strew your path with palms;</p> - <p class="verse">Hosannahs would they sing.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Strength superceding faith,</p> - <p class="verse">Joy superceding fear:</p> - <p class="verse">The Super-Christ has come;</p> - <p class="verse">The Superman is near....</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-60"> -<a id="page-65" class="pagenum" title="65"></a> -<span class="line1">TO A NEGRO BELLE</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">You make me dream of distant tropic climes,</p> - <p class="verse">Luxurious vegetation; nights serene</p> - <p class="verse">By burning passion made tempestuous,</p> - <p class="verse">The witching scent of rare exotic flowers</p> - <p class="verse">That sooth and render sweetly languorous,</p> - <p class="verse">Of music soft and weird, whose savage rhythm</p> - <p class="verse">Compels each fibre of the frame to dance.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I see you as the princess of an isle</p> - <p class="verse">Whose jungles are replete with beasts of prey,</p> - <p class="verse">And whose vast forests ever are alive</p> - <p class="verse">With cries and frolickings of birds and apes;</p> - <p class="verse">Whose villages of bamboo huts are full</p> - <p class="verse">Of dusky-hued and happy naked people.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Your simple hearted subjects pay you homage;</p> - <p class="verse">Prostrated in the dust, they weirdly chant</p> - <p class="verse">Thy praises, even as in my own way,</p> - <p class="verse">I sing your praises, sweet, exotic princess.</p> - <p class="verse">Oh, let me enter your enchanted realm,</p> - <p class="verse">And make of me your happy, humble slave.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-61"> -<a id="page-66" class="pagenum" title="66"></a> -<span class="line1">WALT WHITMAN</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Mountain-like he towers, a Matterhorn</p> - <p class="verse">Midst many minor peaks;</p> - <p class="verse">And like a mountain, mighty, vast and wild;</p> - <p class="verse">A finger pointing into boundless space,</p> - <p class="verse">A head raised high above the shifting clouds,</p> - <p class="verse">A heart that beats in unison with all,</p> - <p class="verse">An eye that first beholds the rising sun</p> - <p class="verse">And is the last to see her parting glory,</p> - <p class="verse">A clarion-call to freedom,</p> - <p class="verse">A gesture of revolt,</p> - <p class="verse">A world-encircling brotherhood embrace,</p> - <p class="verse">An exaltation of the lowly,</p> - <p class="verse">A vindication of the truth,</p> - <p class="verse">A glorification of the human body,</p> - <p class="verse">A declaration of the right of all</p> - <p class="verse">To live, to love, to dare and to do,</p> - <p class="verse">A hymn to life, a rhapsody of joy!</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-62"> -<a id="page-67" class="pagenum" title="67"></a> -<span class="line1">LIFE-LUST</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">My mouth—the mouth of my whole being waters</p> - <p class="verse">For all the fruit upon the lap of Life;</p> - <p class="verse">The luscious fruit of Life, (delicious fruit,</p> - <p class="verse">All running over with the juice of joy.)</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Life seems a banquet and my gourmand senses</p> - <p class="verse">Would gorge themselves with all good things thereof.</p> - <p class="verse">My taste, my touch, my smell, my sight, my hearing</p> - <p class="verse">Would drink the seasoned vintages of Life,</p> - <p class="verse">And relish all Life’s rarest fruits and viands.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Content to go whene’er the feast is over</p> - <p class="verse">Content, the feast was not prepared in vain.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-63"> -<a id="page-68" class="pagenum" title="68"></a> -<span class="line1">ON A TALK OF SPINOZA</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Durant spoke of Spinoza yesterday</p> - <p class="verse">And I sat list’ning, feeling, meditating.</p> - <p class="verse">And now and ever afterwards will feel</p> - <p class="verse">And live and think more deeply than before,</p> - <p class="verse">For having heard Durant speak of Spinoza.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Spinoza! what a mighty, mighty name!</p> - <p class="verse">All Alexanders, Caesars and Napoleons—</p> - <p class="verse">Mere specks of dust upon a polished lense,</p> - <p class="verse">Compared to that poor polisher of lenses.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">He polished lenses for myopic eyes,</p> - <p class="verse">The world’s myopic eyes hath need of them—</p> - <p class="verse">And long will need them,—poor myopic world.</p> - <p class="verse">My own sight seems improved since I have heard</p> - <p class="verse">Durant speak of Spinoza yesterday.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-64"> -<a id="page-69" class="pagenum" title="69"></a> -<span class="line1">THE REVOLT OF THE RAGGED</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">We who have but rags to wear,</p> - <p class="verse">Let us go out on strike</p> - <p class="verse">And face the robber-master class</p> - <p class="verse">In all our naked might.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Do they not hold that man is made</p> - <p class="verse">In the image of his God?</p> - <p class="verse">So we refuse to desecrate</p> - <p class="verse">The image of their God.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">No longer will we soil our limbs,</p> - <p class="verse">These beautiful, these wondrous limbs</p> - <p class="verse">With filthy, fetid rags.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Where is the beast so wild,</p> - <p class="verse">The reptile or the worm so base in kind,</p> - <p class="verse">Would not disdain the rags “creation’s kings”</p> - <p class="verse">Disgrace their bodies with?</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Oh be not shocked at our forced nakedness,</p> - <p class="verse">Ye masters who refuse to clothe your slaves.</p> - <p class="verse">Do you not steal the wool that we have shorn,</p> - <p class="verse">The cloth we weave, the garments that we made?</p> - <p class="verse">You stole our clothes, behold us naked now.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Let us arise and from our bodies tear</p> - <p class="verse">The fetid uniform that brands us slaves.</p> - <p class="verse">In countless masses let us rally forth</p> - <p class="verse">And through each pore of our free body shout</p> - <p class="verse">Our right to life, to liberty, and joy.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-65"> -<a id="page-70" class="pagenum" title="70"></a> -<span class="line1">I’VE SEEN A PRINCESS</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I’ve read of princesses in fairy tales</p> - <p class="verse">And I have sometimes dreamed of princesses</p> - <p class="verse">But not until to-day have I beheld,</p> - <p class="verse">Beheld or ever spoken to a princess.</p> - <p class="verse">Yes, I have seen and spoken to a princess</p> - <p class="verse">In body and in mind; in thought and gesture,</p> - <p class="verse">Indeed, in every way a perfect princess.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Since I am not some mighty potentate</p> - <p class="verse">In whom it would not seem as sheer presumption</p> - <p class="verse">To lay his heart and domains at her feet,</p> - <p class="verse">Would I at least could be a humble page</p> - <p class="verse">Forever in attendance on his princess,</p> - <p class="verse">To serve her and to worship her in silence,</p> - <p class="verse">And be allowed as wages for his hire</p> - <p class="verse">To breathe within the shadow of her charms.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">But though my princess be reality,</p> - <p class="verse">My hopes, my aspirations, my desires,</p> - <p class="verse">Alas, are dreams, mere dreams, alas, mere dreams.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-66"> -<a id="page-71" class="pagenum" title="71"></a> -<span class="line1">THE GREAT DISCARD</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I see a mighty junk-heap rising high,</p> - <p class="verse">Old bibles, crosses, crescents, six-point stars</p> - <p class="verse">And other symbols, idol’s fetiches—</p> - <p class="verse">The bloody tools of greed and superstition,</p> - <p class="verse">That have tormented man for centuries,</p> - <p class="verse">Disfiguring his body and his mind.</p> - <p class="verse">I see the flags of all the various nations,</p> - <p class="verse">In whose defense men slaughtered one another</p> - <p class="verse">Upon this junk-heap also; and the books</p> - <p class="verse">Wherein the laws are writ, that give to man</p> - <p class="verse">The power over man;</p> - <p class="verse">And all the institutions that have helped</p> - <p class="verse">To make of man an abject slave or tyrant,</p> - <p class="verse">These, too, are on this junk-heap.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-67"> -<a id="page-72" class="pagenum" title="72"></a> -<span class="line1">THE SCULPTOR’S RHAPSODY</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I am a God!</p> - <p class="verse">I am drunk with the joy of creating.</p> - <p class="verse">At my touch form comes out of chaos.</p> - <p class="verse">With a handful of clay I build monuments,</p> - <p class="verse">Vaster than the pyramids,</p> - <p class="verse">More mysterious than the Sphinx,</p> - <p class="verse">As startling as the Colossus of Rhodes.</p> - <p class="verse">My statues are austere as ancient cathedrals,</p> - <p class="verse">Their silhouette effaces the sky,</p> - <p class="verse">Their shadows engulf entire cities.</p> - <p class="verse">I am a God!</p> - <p class="verse">I am drunk with the joy of creating.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-68"> -<a id="page-73" class="pagenum" title="73"></a> -<span class="line1">ATAVISM</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">O, have you ever heard the gutter’s call?</p> - <p class="verse">E’er felt the strange attraction of the sewer?</p> - <p class="verse">Or ceded to the urge from underneath,</p> - <p class="verse">To wallow in the mire, to plunge, to sink</p> - <p class="verse">Into the frightful abyss of perdition?</p> - <p class="verse">Were you e’er tempted from some siren’s lips,</p> - <p class="verse">To cull the bliss, you know, is venomous?</p> - <p class="verse">Or did you feel the satanic desire,</p> - <p class="verse">To soil and mutilate the sacred image</p> - <p class="verse">Of that ideal you worshiped all your life?</p> - <p class="verse">It is the atavistic voice that’s waking,</p> - <p class="verse">The dormant beast in you. Beware! Beware!</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="heading" id="chapter-0-69"> -<a id="page-74" class="pagenum" title="74"></a> -<span class="line1">TO ONE WHO COULD NOT LOVE</span> -</h2> - -</div> - -<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-69-1"> -I -</h3> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">You told me that you love the water,</p> - <p class="verse">The cascades’ roaring, rushing water,</p> - <p class="verse">The rivers’ gently flowing water,</p> - <p class="verse">The pools’ mysterious silent water,</p> - <p class="verse">The erring brooklets’ whisp’ring water,</p> - <p class="verse">The oceans’ moaning, hissing water,</p> - <p class="verse">The oceans’ seething, sighing water,</p> - <p class="verse">It’s thundering, caressing water.</p> - <p class="verse">My love for you is also as the water,</p> - <p class="verse">The roaring, rushing, silent, whisp’ring water.</p> - <p class="verse">The thundering, the seething, sighing water.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Oh, love me, for my love is like the water,</p> - <p class="verse">Did you not tell me that you love the water?</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-69-2"> -<a id="page-75" class="pagenum" title="75"></a> -II -</h3> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I’ve been a profligate till now,</p> - <p class="verse">Have squandered of the treasures of my heart</p> - <p class="verse">In reckless fashion.</p> - <p class="verse">Henceforth my beloved,</p> - <p class="verse">Each precious scrap of love,</p> - <p class="verse">Each feeling, thought or passion,</p> - <p class="verse">Is yours alone.</p> - <p class="verse">My very life is yours.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-69-3"> -<a id="page-76" class="pagenum" title="76"></a> -III -</h3> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">You sometime make me dream of fair Granada,</p> - <p class="verse">Of olden days of Moorish reign and glory;</p> - <p class="verse">At other times you make me feel the gloom</p> - <p class="verse">Of Christian Spain, sepulchral and morose.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">You are as the Alhambra when you smile,</p> - <p class="verse">Gold-tinted, graceful, radiating joy.</p> - <p class="verse">But when you frown or are indifferent,</p> - <p class="verse">Then like to the Escurial you are,</p> - <p class="verse">Depressing, full of sombreness and chill.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-69-4"> -<a id="page-77" class="pagenum" title="77"></a> -IV -</h3> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">I strolled through lonely by-paths in the park,</p> - <p class="verse">It was the hour, it was the mystic hour,</p> - <p class="verse">When ’tis no longer day, nor yet is night.</p> - <p class="verse">When o’er all nature hangs a solemn hush,</p> - <p class="verse">And everything is peaceful and serene.</p> - <p class="verse">And thus I strolled along and thought of her—</p> - <p class="verse">And then I sat upon a rustic bench</p> - <p class="verse">And thought of her,—and only thought of her.</p> - <p class="verse">And o’ver all nature hung a solemn hush;</p> - <p class="verse">And I was sad, and it was growing dark.</p> - <p class="verse">And as I sat there on the rustic bench</p> - <p class="verse">Close by to me I heard two voices speak.</p> - <p class="verse">They spoke Italian. Softly did they speak,</p> - <p class="verse">And there was sadness in their voices too.</p> - <p class="verse">One spoke of Beatrice as angel might</p> - <p class="verse">Have spoken of the queen of all the heavens;</p> - <p class="verse">The other spoke of Laura as a bard</p> - <p class="verse">Would speak of her who might have been the queen,—</p> - <p class="verse">The queen of every kingdom of the earth.</p> - <p class="verse">I turned my head and seated by my side</p> - <p class="verse">I saw the sad, illustrious Tuscan bards,</p> - <p class="verse">The requiem of whose unrequited love</p> - <p class="verse">Reverberates throughout eternity.</p> - <p class="verse">I did not rise and go, but kept my place.</p> - <p class="verse">Is not my love as great as was their love?</p> - <p class="verse">And is not she as beautiful, as cold,</p> - <p class="verse">As hopelessly indifferent and cold,</p> - <p class="verse">As ever Beatrice and Laura were?</p> - <p class="verse">And so I also spoke about my love,</p> - <p class="verse">Then we were silent sitting side by side.</p> - <p class="verse">Upon that rustic bench in Central Park,</p> - <p class="verse">Along a lonesome by-path in the park.</p> -<a id="page-78" class="pagenum" title="78"></a> - <p class="verse">It was the hour, it was that mystic hour</p> - <p class="verse">When ’tis no longer day nor yet is night;</p> - <p class="verse">And o’er all nature hangs a solemn hush,</p> - <p class="verse">And everything is peaceful and serene.</p> - <p class="verse">Then they both went away so quietly</p> - <p class="verse">That I was unaware that they had gone</p> - <p class="verse">Until I turned my head and saw them not.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-69-5"> -<a id="page-79" class="pagenum" title="79"></a> -V -</h3> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">My heart is like a man condemned to death,</p> - <p class="verse">Who in the corner of his gloomy cell</p> - <p class="verse">Hugs one last spark of hope.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Bright as a diamond in the dark of night,</p> - <p class="verse">And as a diamond difficult to crush,</p> - <p class="verse">Is this last spark of hope.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-69-6"> -<a id="page-80" class="pagenum" title="80"></a> -VI -</h3> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Since Orpheus with the magic of his music,</p> - <p class="verse">Could charm the wildest beast, why could not I</p> - <p class="verse">Enthrall you with the music of my love?</p> - <p class="verse">Is not love’s music magical enough,</p> - <p class="verse">Or is your heart stone deaf?</p> - <p class="verse">Even if so!</p> - <p class="verse">I will perform a miracle and cause</p> - <p class="verse">Your heart to hear love’s music.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-69-7"> -<a id="page-81" class="pagenum" title="81"></a> -VII -</h3> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">And even if you loved me not,</p> - <p class="verse">If you but knew the pain I feel</p> - <p class="verse">When you but breathe a word that’s harsh,</p> - <p class="verse">When you betray the faintest frown;</p> - <p class="verse">And when you mock me for my love,</p> - <p class="verse">Or chide me for the least caress,</p> - <p class="verse">If you but knew the pain I feel.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Aye, even if you loved me not,</p> - <p class="verse">You ne’er would frown at me or mock</p> - <p class="verse">My love for you, or harshly speak,</p> - <p class="verse">Or bid me not to kiss your hand;</p> - <p class="verse">Instead you’d treat me as a child,</p> - <p class="verse">You’d treat me as a child that’s sick,</p> - <p class="verse">And patiently you would submit</p> - <p class="verse">To my caress; you would allow</p> - <p class="verse">My feverish hands to stroke your hair,</p> - <p class="verse">My quivering lips to kiss your brow,</p> - <p class="verse">My famished eyes to feast on you,</p> - <p class="verse">And my delirious heart to spin:</p> - <p class="verse">To spin a spider’s web of love,</p> - <p class="verse">To make your heart its captive fly.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">Aye, even if you loved me not,</p> - <p class="verse">If you but knew the pain I feel,</p> - <p class="verse">Whene’er I think you love me not,</p> - <p class="verse">You’d treat me as a little child;</p> - <p class="verse">You’d tell me love’s sweet fairy tale,</p> - <p class="verse">I will believe love’s fairy tale.</p> - <p class="verse">Please tell me love’s sweet fairy tale,</p> - <p class="verse">Aye, even if you love me not.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-69-8"> -<a id="page-82" class="pagenum" title="82"></a> -VIII -</h3> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">The sun is warm and bright,</p> - <p class="verse">All nature sings;</p> - <p class="verse">The song of love and life is in the air,</p> - <p class="verse">The flowing waters and the rolling hills,</p> - <p class="verse">The grass we tread upon, the birds that fly,</p> - <p class="verse">The humming insects, aye, all men, all beasts,</p> - <p class="verse">All things are happy in the sun’s caress.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">But in my heart, in my unhappy heart,</p> - <p class="verse">The icy blast of winter still persists,</p> - <p class="verse">And desolation reigns.</p> - <p class="verse">Your frown obliterates the sun for me,</p> - <p class="verse">And your indifference is worse than death.</p> - <p class="verse">And in my heart, in my unhappy heart,</p> - <p class="verse">Dire desolation reigns.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-69-9"> -<a id="page-83" class="pagenum" title="83"></a> -IX -</h3> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">This is the tale of an unhappy sculptor,</p> - <p class="verse">A shaft of marble radiantly white,</p> - <p class="verse">Whose adamantine substance would not yield</p> - <p class="verse">To the impassioned efforts of the sculptor.</p> - <p class="verse">The chisel struck the irresponsive rock</p> - <p class="verse">Again, again, again, but all in vain</p> - <p class="verse">Until at last discouraged and exhausted</p> - <p class="verse">He sinks down at the foot of this cold stone.</p> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">That might have been a living Galathea,</p> - <p class="verse">But is alas the tombstone of Pygmalion.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<h3 class="section" id="subchap-0-69-10"> -<a id="page-84" class="pagenum" title="84"></a> -X -</h3> - -<div class="poem-container"> - <div class="poem"> - <div class="stanza"> - <p class="verse">It was a sepulchre I have been wooing:</p> - <p class="verse">Fair to behold was she and seeming warm,</p> - <p class="verse">But deep within as cold as death itself,</p> - <p class="verse">And to love’s fervent pleadings irresponsive;</p> - <p class="verse">Aye, even as the tomb.</p> - <p class="verse">Deaf to the voice of poetry and love,</p> - <p class="verse">Alas! she’s doubly deaf.</p> - <p class="verse">It was a sepulchre I have been wooing.</p> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class="backmatter chapter"> -<p class="next"> -<a id="page-85" class="pagenum" title="85"></a> -The October issue of THE -GLEBE will present “The -Azure Adder,” a one-act comedy -by Charles Demuth. -</p> - -<p class="price"> -Subscription price per year, $3.00 -</p> - -</div> - -<div class="trnote chapter"> -<p class="transnote"> -Transcriber’s Notes -</p> - -<p> -The original spelling was mostly preserved. A few obvious typographical errors -were silently corrected. -</p> - -</div> - - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Glebe 1913/09 (Vol. 1, No. 1): -Songs, Sighs and Curses, by Adolf Wolff - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GLEBE 1913/09 (VOL. 1 *** - -***** This file should be named 60606-h.htm or 60606-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/6/0/60606/ - -Produced by Jens Sadowski and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. 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