path: root/63399-0.txt

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 63399 ***

                                  THE
                                 GLEBE

                                VOLUME 2
                                NUMBER 2

                               SEPTEMBER
                                  1914

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                                 POEMS

                             George Cronyn


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                                 Editor
                            ALFRED KREYMBORG

                              Published by
                        ALBERT AND CHARLES BONI
                            96 FIFTH AVENUE
                             New York City


                                 POEMS




                                 POEMS


                            GEORGE W. CRONYN


                                NEW YORK
                        ALBERT AND CHARLES BONI
                            96 FIFTH AVENUE
                                  1914


                            Copyright, 1914
                                   By
                        Albert and Charles Boni






   To touch the sleeping lids of Beauty
   Drawing thru finger-tips her dream--a birth
   Of hell and heaven for a nobler earth;
         This is the poet's duty.

   To sleep with stars, to dream a flower,
   From passing shadows pluck profound relation,
   With a divine wonder at its emanation;
         This is the poet's power.




                          DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS


                               THE PRAYER

   Like a cat beside a pool
   More than half afraid of it,
   Fishing gingerly I sit
   Here beside this pool of wit--
   Dumb as any fool!
   Chirrups humor in the grass;
   Winds of tickling laughter pass,
   And the world grows wise forsooth,
   Lets gleam amused tooth
   Seeing in this water-glass
   Jests that swim the depths of truth,
   And like fins of fishes shiver
   It to fretful quirk and quiver.
   Ripples break and bubbles rise
   Catching smiles from out the skies
   In their globed eyes.
   Surely, surely there was never
   Such a pleasant river!
   Only I am out of tune
   Like an icicle in June,
   Or a monster from the moon.

   Dionysus, hear my prayer!
   Spreading arms to the mute air,
   I entreat thee, fashion me
   One with this gay company,
   One in mirth and one in song
   Dartling their minds among.
   Loosener of lips and heart,
   Draw my sullen mouth apart.
   Give a gleam to guide me by
   As a phare in a night-sky--
   Grace of tongue and warmth of eye;
   Give me of thy fire and dew;
   Give me flash of mimic art--
   Spice of Godhead in this brew
   To pierce my fellows thru and thru.

   Oh, thou vintal Deity,
   Loose my limbs that they may fly
   With this reckless revelry!
   Sick of sober ways am I;
   In this tumult I alone
   Am a satyr turned to stone;
   Satyr--satyr--not a man!
   Gifts I ask not of Apollo--
   Wine is good and grief is hollow;
   I would follow after Pan;
   I would follow, follow, follow
   After Pan!
   Or if he wander ways too quiet,
   Shepherd ways of warmth and ease,
   Let me taste a wilder riot
   In thy mysteries--
   Let me quaff it, laugh it, cry it!
   Give me, give me, give me these--
   Fleet foot after those that flee,
   Hot veins amorous to seize
   Maenads maddened by the wine,
   Wound with hair and wreathed with vine,
   Maenads stained with purple lees--
   Give me, give me, give me these.
   Only this I ask of thee
   Dionysus, Dionysus, son of Semele!


                               THE ANSWER

   Lo! the God of purple pleasure
   Heard and hearkened to his prayer,
   Reft the swathed bands that bound him,
   From his cloak of Self unwound him,
   Filled him with supernal seizure
   That his humor's jewelled treasure
   Leaped and sparkled in the air--
   Till the night was bright around him.
   Never such a jestful fit
   Dreamt he in his wildest wishes!
   Never from the pool of wit
   Had he drawn such shining fishes!
   Humid flame glowed in each eye
   And his face had changed its vesture,
   And his arms moved with strange gesture
   Apt in every mimicry.
   With the spell of Fire and Dew
   He pierced his fellows thru and thru.
   Surely Dithyrambus pressed him!

   Surely the Great God possessed him!
   And the mystic sisters too,
   Oeno, Spermo, and Elais,
   (Who knoweth what their way is?)
   Surely they caressed him!
   He whose tongue of old was frozen--
   As he quaffs, with this potation
   Deep and deeper inspiration
   Seems to grow a Prophet--chosen,
   For he speaks by divination!
   Never were such fancies woven
   From the carded thoughts of mortal.
   Some are mazed, and some deride him,
   "Lo, his wits have gone astray,
   What a fool he is!" they say.
   Others whisper (those beside him)
   "He hath crossed another portal--
   He is one whose foot is cloven.
   Do ye hear wild creatures beat
   Lifted hoof and naked feet
   On the quiet woodland sod?
   Do ye mark what mood that strain is?
   Hints it not the Shepherd God
   With his pipings shrill and sweet--
   Snubnose, Sweetwine, old Silenus,
   All his creatures shy and fleet?"

   Deeper, deeper, Fire and Dew
   Drains he of the Wine-God's brew
   Craving furthest essence--thus
   Heareth now another voice
   Terrible and new,
   Luring--appalling,
   "Iachus! Iachus! Iachus!
   Wine! Wine! Wine! Rejoice!"
   Thru the forest calling.
   And the sky is red and golden
   And the red, red stars are falling,
   Falling to the earth in showers.
   And the fresh blood-scents embolden
   Gold and sable leopards, sleeping,
   To come crawling, writhing, leaping,
   Over gold and purple flowers.
   And the autumn sun is swollen
   With the sweetness he has stolen
   From the wine, and he is wine, wine-red.
   Come ye now with wreathed head,
   Come ye now
   With ivy bound on your white brow,
   And forgotten, forgotten be the hours!

   Forgotten and forgotten! Ah the night has fled away,
   And the wine is spilt, and the stars are gray,
   For the old cold dawn abashes
   All the torches turned to ashes,
   But the feasters--where are they?
   Fled, the sound of pipes at last;
   Fled, the panting, goat-shank'd clan,
   And the maenad rout have passed,
   And the echoes caught and cast
   Died where they began.
   Never, never, never
   A more sombre river
   From such springs of laughter ran!
   And the lucid pool of wit--
   What a scum has clouded it!
   Past each stately Parian column
   Day comes, gaunt and pale and shrunken
   And her step is very solemn.
   On the veined marble sunken,
   Reft of breath of Deity,
   Prone there, lies the Priest--the Chosen,
   Huddled, bestial, bleared and drunken--
   Like a body that is frozen
   (That such things should be!)
   Shape of shapeless mockery
   He had tasted all one can;
   He had heard the pipes of Pan;
   He had followed in thy van
   Dionysus, Dionysus, son of Semele--
   Satyr?--not a satyr he--a man!




                           THE TRAIL BY NIGHT


   No human foot-print here before my own!
   And it is strange to come so far--alone--
   So far into this frozen forest world
   Of moonlight and of shadow and deep snow,
   And things I do not know,
   That strike the civil vestments from my soul--
   As if all law-born years were backward hurled
   Toward some dim and other pole--
   Some brute primordial reign
   Whose voice was terror and whose life was pain.

   On--up the trail I go;
   Beneath my feet cold streams of moonlight glow,
   And in the silver-sifted dark strange, naked fancies grow,
   While the vast pines in vista, round by round,
   Move with an unearthly sound,
   And every tree with its white hair is crowned.

   On--up--I go,
   And as thru ancient Gothic arches seen
   I glimpse the valley far below
   That glistens with a fine fantastic sheen.

   On--up--I pass,
   Nor reck the night-wrought spells about me thrown,
   Heedless--sucked dry of thought or will
   Save to peer curious into this magician's glass,
   And see the forest dreams thru forest moonlight blown.
   On--up I plunge--until
   Bending, discern before me, with a thrill
   The signs where some wild beast has gone.

   Who knows but that within the silence here
   The cedar shadows gloom about a deer,
   That stands with body lithe and slim
   Struck to a statue by surprise?
   Who knows but that, upon some snowy limb
   A lynx, lean-bellied, pricks his tufted ear
   And watches me with evil, amber eyes?

                   *       *       *       *       *

   Surely beyond the stars my man-world lies--
   For close to me unhallowed mountains rise
   And fill my heart with fear!




                             SONG IN WINTER


   Burning stars in a frosty sky,
   Thread-bare winds from the hollow west,
   "Give us a garment of beauty!" they cry,
   "For the waters of truth our throats are dry,
   And phantoms of chaos uncover the bones of our breast,
   Leaving us little rest."

   Bitter stars in a frozen sky,
   Tattered winds from the lonely west,
   Haggard beggars of hours that die--
   (Begging the gift of a golden lie!)
   Is it with you as with us, no rest, no rest--
   Is it with you no rest?






   The lacy chequer of aerial boughs
   That winter weaves with delicate wizardry.

                   *       *       *       *       *

   Far away--who knows how far?--
   Against the flaming calm of winter twilight,
   I hear the voice of speed--muffled and hoarse,
   Sounding across the hills.

                   *       *       *       *       *

   Locomotive, locomotive,
   Over the hills at night,
   Running on your far-away groove
   With the husky pant of things that move
   And cannot turn to left or right,
   Of things that toil and things that pass
   In the murk of smoke and the stench of gas,
   Serf of the monstrous city,
   What pity--oh what pity
   For the dearth of your delight,
   Locomotive, locomotive,
   Over the hills at night!




                                 CLOUDS


   Whence do you come, oh silken shapes,
   Across the silver sky?
   We come from where the wind blows
   And the young stars die.

   Why do you move so fast, so fast
   Across the white moon's breast?
   The cruel wind is at our heels
   And we may not rest.

   Are you not weary, fleeing shapes,
   That never cease to flee?
   The forkéd trees' chained shadows are
   Less weary than we.

   Whither do you go, O shadow-shapes
   Across the ghastly sky?
   We go to where the wind blows
   And the old stars die.

   My head is circl'd with fire--
   And I think of the failing of one's desire--
   And I hear outside the pitiful dropping of rain;
   Which is the greater pain?

   I yearn for the birth of the brain--
   Be it child of blood and pain,
   (I pray to endure the pain)--
   My heart--lo! my heart is afire
   With hue as of purple or Tyre--
   With hope of Promethean fire--
   And oh God! God! God! the desire
   For what only the Gods attain!

         In the white moonlight stand
   With every finger on a star, and feel
   Infinity as an engulfing wave.




                                  JOY


   The cañons are covered with snow,
   But the sky doth over them lean
   With eyes that are warm and keen
   As if he could never know
   The gray despair of the snow;
   And snow and sky join hands together
   To dance a dance of wonderful weather!




                                A VOICE


   A woman spoke to me in the street--
       I do not remember how or why--
   But a breath blew over the winter sky
   And spring came in with silver feet!




                                ANOTHER


   A creature plucked at me in the street
       But well I knew the reason why
   The red stars sickened in the sky
   And Hell gaped open at my feet!




                              IMPRESSIONS


   This is the Gate of the Gray City--wrought
   With piled roofs and steeples dimly seen
   Thru the gray dusk--pale, wistful flakes of fire
   Kindled about its lower fringe--vast murk--
   A snuffling monster with an evil eye
   That surly pants to work some will unknown,
   Blowing white breaths--a semaphore
   With lifted arm--a form that swings a light
   In arcs, against infinitude of gray,
   Uneasy sounds, the clink and clank and groan;
   Of things inanimate--the curves of rails
   In rhythmical convergence gathered up--
   (And gathering up what burdens from afar!)
   Monotony--monotony--despair!
   This is the Gate of the Gray City.






   Whatever our immitigable end,
   The earth's our home and prison thru whose windows
   Our wistful scrutinizing minds traverse
   The sky's dissolving continents, exult
   In melancholy mountains or, shackled,
   Envy the inconstant sea that seems
   An uncontaminated god, alone, complete
   In mighty passion and the scorn of time.

                   *       *       *       *       *

   I love the skyward-spiring tree
   For its supreme unconsciousness of me.






   So let us seek the lands that the Gods love,
   The soil unsown, the isles of sumptuous store;
   Where fallow fields yield yearly fee of grain,
   And vines unpruned produce perennial bloom,
   And olive slips engender faithfully,
   And dark figs deck their trees; the cavernous oaks
   Bleed honey'd drops, and from high hills descend
   The nimble waters with melodious feet.




                         PRELUDE TO A PHANTASY


   I will tell thee of Far-Away, of Far-Away, of Far-Away,
   I will tell thee of Far-Away
   The home of wandering dreams;
   For they come out of Far-Away
   To show us how to love and play,
   And when they've wandered for a day
   Must return, it seems.

   There's more than gold in Far-Away, in Far-Away, in Far-Away,
   There's more than gold in Far-Away,
   There's more than jewelled gleams.
   There's more than smiles in Far-Away,
   And coronals of laughter gay;
   There's crystal tears that bloom alway
   Beside forgotten streams.

   We'll gather gold from Far-Away, from Far-Away, from Far-Away,
   We'll gather gold from Far-Away,
   We'll steal the jewelled gleams.
   We'll hunt for smiles from Far-Away;
   Following laughter by the way,
   But we must for another day
   Leave the tears it seems.

   We'll find the road to Far-Away, to Far-Away, to Far-Away,
   We'll know the road to Far-Away
   By the feet of dreams;
   For they come out of Far-Away
   To love a little and to play,
   And when they've wandered for a day
   Must return it seems.




                             RUNNING WATER


   Oh you who stand by the river in a gown of willow-green,
   I will make you an eager song of my heart to-night;
   I will find me a feather of a singing bird that has seen
   And touched the blue targe of the sky in its flight.
   I will make me a quill of it, and dip in my heart and write!

   I would not make you a threnody of sorrow that has been,
   For you are no more than an eager child who demand
   Magical tales of me, of lacquered Arabian sheen;
   I will speak very softly then with your hand
   In mine, a rose petal, the things that you understand.

   On the waxen and beautiful tablet that is your heart
   With a singing quill and the stain of my heart I will write;
   I will write with the simplest words and the simplest art
   All the splendors that glow so by night--
   Of the Genie and the Bottle, and carpets of orient flight.

   And you who are more than a princess in your gown of yellow-green
   With your bird-like and trembling heart will understand
   All the luxurious sorrows and loves that have been
   Written on parchment at a king's demand--
   And the simple words of them will flutter like birds in your hand.




                              EPITHALAMION


   The pale dawn went down unto the sea,
   Past the gray ships in the offing.
   The salt wind found her blowing hair
   And closed his wings and nested there,
   And the salt sea hungered for her rare
   Sweet body and forgot his scoffing.

   The pale dawn went down unto the sea
   When all the world was sleeping;
   She lifted veils and veils of air
   Until her eager limbs were bare,
   And the salt sea shook his manéd hair,
   And the curl'd waves came to her, leaping.




                              MARSH-LANDS


   Sure in this spongy and luxuriant retreat--
   This lovely lyric little marsh
   Which nothing hath of fierce or harsh,
   Unhappy fancies to evoke,
   Where all life is most delicately attuned to sweet
   Melodious living, here we'll meet
   Naiads dainty and discreet
   With other watery folk
   And watch the twinkle of their iridescent feet.

   Upon a reed's high silver point
   Which early dews anoint,
   The Red-wing lights and poises, swaying,
   With throaty and delicious whistle playing
   Pan-music in the mellow morning light.
   It is like running water's flow
   A bit unearthly, and celestial quite--
   A golden tremolo;
   And satin robes of air half veil him from our sight.

   The gay marsh-marigold
   Delights its small sun to unfold;
   And many a bulbous goblin thing,
   Ugly and grave,
   Into the dull mud burrowing
   Draws from some secret treasure-cave
   And to the sunlight heaves
   Green breadth--great leaves
   To build a vessel floating on an inland wave.

   We'll be as busy as the clouds, with naught to do,
   And we will wonder at the curious striping,
   In saffron glimpses, of more distant pools
   Which the wind cools
   With deep reflected blue.
   And we will listen now to Hyla's piping--
   A thin small sprite
   That one may never see
   Calling to the sky his clear delight
   Filled with insatiate and unbounded ecstasy.




                              SPRING FANCY


   There is an orchard, old and rare,
   (I cannot tell you where!)
   With green doors opening to the sun;
   And the sky-children gather there
   To watch the blossoms, one by one,
   Falling wistfully thru the air
   From the trees' dishevelled hair.

   The sky-children shake their wings
   With flutterings and gurglings--
   And love the light and kiss the sun,
   Nor heed the blossoms that have blown
   From the fruit-wives' ancient hair
   Earthward thru the glowing air,
   Wistfully--one by one.




                                  SONG


   A Flicker, a Robin, a Song-sparrow
   Have come from Arcady.
   The Flicker was an imp that shouted in a tree;
   The Robin was a winged laugh that Spring set free;
   The Song-sparrow was a liquid arrow
   That pierced to the heart of me.




                                PLAYING


   Three little girls and one little boy
   Out in the first warm sunshine;
   The wind blows in and the wind blows out
   Voices cool as moonshine.

   Six tin cans and a pile of dirt
   And the air smiles like a mother--
   The wind blows in and the wind blows out
   As they play with each other.

   Sparrows on the fence and clothes on the line
   And somewhere someone's laughter--
   The wind blows in and the wind blows out
   And it could not blow much softer!

   Three little girls and one little boy
   Out in the first warm weather--
   The wind blows in and the wind blows out
   While they play together.




                                  SONG


   Hi! hi! hi!
   On this green morning
   My soul is as taut as a greenwood-bow,
   Feeling the sap in it mounting so,
   Needs but a jog to loose without warning
   An arrow into the infinite sky--
   Hi! hi! hi!
   On this green morning!




                    A BUST BY RODIN, KNOWN AS CERES


   With rhythmic feet and garments flowing free
   Draw near, draw near, bring largesse in full hand;
   Move as to music of the saraband
   Stately, before this Woman-deity.

   Woman's--these billows of thick hair that roll
   Down the billowing breasts of her, and close
   Shadows of pain and mirth in firm repose--
   This delicate mask drawn tight across a soul!

   A Goddess--Ultima Thule in her eye;
   For the sad wisdom of its steady gaze,
   Fixed on far, wintry fields and frozen ways,
   Goes out to larger things than you or I:

   The Titan-sap makes gods of the spring hours,
   And Earth renews its children and its flowers!




                            THE FLOWER'S WAY


   I have stood long in the night
   Under a star;
   I have stood still with shadowy head
   And arrowy leaves outspread
   Under its trembling light
   Where green things are.

   I have crept close to the grass
   Where the beetles dart,
   And the humming-bird and the dragon-fly
   Were visions in the sky,
   And the mendicant bees that pass
   Rifled my heart.

   I have lain long in the day
   Under the sun,
   With my burning face in the arms of the wind,
   And my petals unconfin'd
   And my virginal robes a-sway--
   Thus joy is won!




                             THE TREE'S WAY


   The high trees are honest folk;
   They do not stand so much aloof
   Up under heaven's roof,
   Altho they are earth's fairest cloak.
   Their lives are very calm and slow;
   They wait for coming things to come,
   They wait, they rest, they ponder some
   Purpose forgotten long ago
   Like quiet folk;
   And sometimes I am moved to stroke
   Hand-greeting as I pass them near,
   And often I am sure I hear
   An answer from these stately folk!




                                CHILDREN


   What a garden of surprise
   Out beyond my window lies!
   Fancy, when the night is there
   Gentle trees with drooping hair
   Rocking, rocking cradle-wise
   Little stars with yellow eyes!




                        VERSES TO A LITTLE CHILD

                          (From Hofmannsthal)


   Your feet have been fashioned as roses
   To seek the lands of the rainbow--
   The rainbow-kingdoms are open.
   There, haunting the taciturn tree-tops
   Millennial prophecies linger,
   The inexhaustible waters
   Abide there forever and aye.
   Beside the immeasurable forest
   From wooden bowl brimming will you then
   Apportion your milk with a hop-toad?
   So festive a banqueting almost
   Entices the stars to their fall!
   By borders of measureless waters
   Soon you will discover a playmate,
   A dolphin engaging and kind.
   He'll leap to dry-land at your bidding,
   And if he shall fail you sometimes
   The tender, innumerable zephyrs
   Will still your tempestuous sobbing.
   You'll find in the rainbow-kingdom
   The ancient exalted traditions
   Forever and ever unchanged.
   The sun with mysterious power
   Has fashioned your feet as the roses
   To enter his measureless kingdom.




                             NIGHT-FLOWERS


   This night hath no disease;
   It knows not wrecks nor wars
   Nor deaths of human minds.
   The feet of the sweet winds
   Break all the river's peace
   Into marmoreal bars.
   The tops of moonlit trees
   Have blossomed with white stars,
   And perfumes that one finds
   In old Arabian jars
   Had never blooms like these!




                               THE NIGHT


   Sorrows confide their secrets; joys lead lives
   Of lonely splendor. Mankind tells all things
   To me, knowing I will not ever speak.




                              DISILLUSION


   The night was like a jewell'd crown--
   (Could jewels be so soft a thing!)
   For stars and wind were in the town
   And by the highways entering,
   Plucked there as on a viol string,
   Until--somewhere--a woman's scream--
   Sharply shattered the dream!






         Silence within
   The upper twilight of a temple lies
   Asleep, with pendant plumes--a dreaming god--
   And dreams the pageantry of things--and dreams
   The gifts that he has given with his hands--
   The gifts that he has taken with his hands--
   And dreams his own eternity.

                   *       *       *       *       *

         I am one that loves
   The stars of labyrinthine night whom the shrill dawn
   Devours, the quietude of ultimate slopes
   Thoughtful of twilight, peering moons that shed
   Unrisen glamours thru the umbrageous wood
   With gnome and goblin rife, and the light spray
   Of gray spring rains enveloping the hills.




                                  SONG


   Would I were a bird
   To nest in a cover
   Of leaves that hover
   'Twixt earth and heaven
   Where no sound is heard--
   Only the uneven
   Brush of winds that slumber
   With no thought to cumber;
   Would I were a bird!

   Would I were a wave
   To rise for a moment
   From the ocean's foment,
   To puff my lips asunder
   Blowing bubbles brave,
   To dream and to wonder
   Of the depths below me
   And the winds that blow me--
   Would I were a wave!

   Bird, canst thou fashion
   Song of things that grieve thee?
   Wave hast thou passion
   For things that will deceive thee?
   Bird and wave I leave ye!




                                RONDEAU


   A Sunday-calm, ornate, profound,
   Enchanting sense, subduing sound,
   Enjoins its ritual to prepare;
   The day is bland with unctuous prayer
   That leaps to heaven at a bound.

   And bells ope throats in mellow round
   Of sweet antiphonal resound,
   And virtue glistens everywhere--
             A Sunday-calm.

   Draw breath! Away to virgin ground!
   But where the fields are flower-crowned
   The cattle with self-conscious stare
   Chide my undeprecative air,--
   Good heavens! Can they too have found
             A Sunday-calm?




                             SUNSET BURIAL


   The trees upheaven filigrane fingers of desire
   To touch a ruby-throated cloud-face fanned
   By a bronze breath and globous mouth of fire;
   Beneath, the rigid gravestones stand,
   Each one a cadaver that cannot close its hand.




                               FAIRY SONG


   I can live in a golden fruit
   Whose core is hung with honey;
   I can swing on golden wing
   In elfin ceremony--
   But oh! for the power
   To open as a flower
   When the air is sunny!




                          A YOUNG GIRL'S LOVE


   The season is less stubborn now;
   Over the youngling world we see
   A white sky full of scudding blue,
   A white wind that runneth as a child
   Touching most delicately the new
   Sweet buds, and having touched and smiled,
   Goes to seek out some pale anemone,
   And wreathe with maiden flowers her fragile brow.




                           A YOUNG MAN'S LOVE


   If I were your sister I'd lie with you the night-long
   To feel your bosom's beating;
   If I were your brother I'd wake you with a day-song
   And give a kiss as greeting;
   If I were your mother I'd hold you as a shut flower
   When the dark comes creeping;
   If I were your father I'd enter at the dawn-hour
   To look upon you, sleeping.
   What is there left over
   For me, who am your lover?




                                  SONG


   A cup full of star-shine
   That glowed as an ember,
   (Oh, star of my delight!)
   With smiles I do remember
   And words forgotten quite,
   A cup full of star-shine
   I drank with you to-night.

   A cup full of sea-sound
   That was as summer thunder--
   (Oh sea of my delight!)
   With love that lay under
   Seven heavens bright,
   A cup full of sea-sound
   I drank with you to-night.




                                  SONG

                     (_After an old English tune_)


   I will bring thee a silver crown.
   I will bring thee an ell of vair,
   Cloth of gold and ermine rare
   To make thee a gown.

   Thou hast brought me a marble frown.
   Thou hast brought me a cold, cold stare,
   Heart of lead and wry despair,
   And a mad-man's swown.

   I will bring thee a leaden crown,
   Cloth of Raines in thirty-fold!
   I will bring thee a bed on the wold
   To lay thee down.

   Thou hast brought me out of the town
   To the earth upturned where the bell is tolled--
   Fires of hell and the river's cold
   My sorrows drown!




                           TRISTAN AND ISOLDE


   The sea is here, it hath not any shore,
   Nor moves with moving of wind-driven waves
   Which, undulant and writhing--naked slaves
   To the uneasy wanderer of heaven's floor,
   Bow sullen backs beneath their master's store
   He brought with viewless hands from broken graves--
   The sea is here, and in its silent caves
   Moves not, tho the wind clamors more and more.

   The sea is here, an infinite undertone;
   But lo! upon its surface I descry
   Two floating bubbles, wonderfully blown
   Toward each other, flame-like from the sky--
   Meet--melt with lyric splendor into one--
   Then, wind-prick'd, vanish--o'er the Sea, a cry!




                               PALINURUS


   Starlight: with deep and quiet breathing slept
   The southern sea. The white-wing'd ship that bore
   The good Aeneas from his Dido's shore
   Ghostlike, with rippling furrows, onward crept,
   And only faithful Palinurus kept
   The midnight watch--but ah, the magic bough,
   The opiate dew that dript upon his brow,
   The vacant post, the friends who waking wept.

   The gods demand their victims; who shall know
   What failures Time and Circumstance compel?
   Yet, if such doom were mine, I would 'twere so
   That they would mark my absence thus: "How well
   Even unto the last he struggled, lo!
   He tore the rudder with him when he fell!"




                              THE DERELICT


   I cannot remember whither I was bound--
   I cannot remember why I was found
   Moving without a sound
   Moving in mystery--
   Derelict, derelict,
   Over the sea!

   I too carry a cargo in my hold,
   Underneath sea-water and green with mold--
   I cannot remember how old!
   For terrible it is to be
   Derelict, derelict,
   Over the sea!

   Feebler ships weather bravely into port;
   Running a course that is safe and short--
   My voyage is another sort;
   No master guideth me--
   Derelict, derelict,
   Over the sea!

   Nights have shadow'd me with phantom stride--
   Stars have peer'd at me, eerie-eyed--
   Goblin lights and magic tide
   Keep me company,
   Derelict, derelict,
   Over the sea!

   Setting suns have rowell'd me with crimson'd heel--
   Winds have flung laughter, peal after peal--
   But they shall not know that I feel
   Mute in my agony--
   Derelict, derelict,
   Over the sea!

   Rudderless, by ways uncharted blown--
   Some day shall waken to find me gone--
   What matter? I have drifted alone
   Ever--alone--yet free--
   Derelict, derelict,
   Over the sea!




                    THE SQUIRE OF DAMES TO HIS LADY


   Why should our meeting borrow
   A sense of shame or sorrow
   That each must go his way?
   Love liketh no fetter
   Therefore our roads were better
   If you go yours to-morrow,
   And I go mine to-day.

   I hold you for a minute--
   You'd catch the hour and pin it--
   But if I held you longer
   Would you have more assurance
   In days of richer durance,
   Life with more rapture in it,
   Passion more wise and stronger?

   The Daughter of Illusion
   Hath made our love seem fusion
   Of two strange things in one--
   But loving hath not taught her
   That strange as fire to water,
   Love becomes bleak intrusion
   When all the glamor's gone.

   You say I've brought you sorrow
   And pay not debts I borrow--
   But mirth is what's to pay!
   So part our paths in laughter,
   And, since your heart is softer,
   You go your way to-morrow--
   And I'll go mine to-day.




                           GAS-LIGHT HEROICS


   With this night's carousal
   We will close the portal
   On our poor espousal--
   Sacrament and housel
   For a love too mortal!

   With this gay delaying
   We'll delay yet longer--
   Care not what the saying
   Of the World--that braying
   Evil tattle-monger!

   Pleasure has as thunder
   Scorched and jangled thru me;
   Now I'll sit and wonder
   At the day-star yonder
   And your face, grown gloomy.

   You are known as "Lily"
   And they mock your gender;
   Is it but a silly
   Fancy, you seem stilly
   Lily-souled and tender?

   Underneath the bitter
   Mockery of color,
   Underneath the titter
   Is there something fitter?
   Something finer, fuller?

   Something (can I hear it
   In your secret eyes?)
   When I come too near it
   Like a frightened spirit
   Running from the skies?

   Girl, you know that glow meant
   Dawn's thin lips of scarlet--
   Bubble of life's foment
   Stay your soul a moment!

                   *       *       *       *       *

   Bah! You're drunk, you harlot!




                                 MISTS


                                   I

   I am most weary of this fatuous me
   That doth obtrude a niddering death's head
   At a blithe feast of Springtide jollity,
   Of revelling buds and flowers unsurfeited.
   I am most weary of this chained thought
   That hath forgotten where its mansions are--
   And lost the dew its seven-spher'd courses caught
   Wandering in plunged dark from star to star.
   I am most weary of my stagnant soul
   That neither thirsts, nor hungers, nor is stirred
   By the gigantic thunders that have rolled
   From the white, hurtling lightning of a word.

   I am most weary, love; so let thy face--
   The sponge that sops my gaze, myself erase.


                                   II

   Oft in the groping night I am afraid,
   For this, mine opaque organism, seems
   A glass, a mere reflex of trooping dreams--
   A polished boss where images parade.
   And to see these doth make my senses cold--
   This globe become a visionary face--
   This little spinning soul of me--in space--
   I dare not think of what that space may hold!
   Such thoughts are as the charnel mists that rise
   From feverish and mortuary ground
   Thru which one sees the country all around--
   Yet near, the dead--and far away, the skies.

   But at the thought of you my life expands
   Until it holds all life within its hands!




                                SCEPTIC


                                   I

   This hour has shut us like a tent
   From all but night; we two, alone,
   So close, so poignantly alert, have grown,
   That trivial speech, from silence rent,
   Breaks off--a useless instrument.

   For all the opening world is ours,
   And you, tho scarce a woman yet,
   Your eyes with feasts of lights and vintage set,
   Hold all the dewy wealth of flowers,
   And gold of Babylonian towers.

   Our lives will alter if we move--
   It were so easy now to rise
   And tell my unimpassioned soul it lies--
   And claim youth's heritage of love,
   Let bald life prove what it may prove!

   It were so easy to conceive
   Your lack my lack would compensate--
   And by one stroke undo the knot of fate;
   It were so easy to believe
   The lies that such a thing could weave!

   Or shall I stumble through the night
   Biting my lips to hold the tears
   Because your incommunicable years
   Must spend their summer of delight
   Without my reach--beyond my sight?

   The house is still; the midnight seems
   Inscrutable--no answer there.
   Oh God!--to break this tension of despair.
   Between us the calm lamplight streams--
   "Good night!" and "Pleasant dreams!"--yes--dreams.


                                   II

   I would I had lain with my love to-night;
   Her eyes trembled for her body said,
   "I have smoothed a pillow and made a bed"--
   But I smiled against it
   And turned away my head
   To come into the cold starlight.

   I would I had lain with my love to-night,
   For I know how flowers are shed,
   And the cynical scintillant stars are dead--
   Dead, dead utterly!
   Yet I turned away my head
   To come into the cold starlight.

   I would I had lain with my love to-night!
   Oh, indolent Gods, we too can tread
   On the silent spirits, the uncomforted!
   She did not reproach me,
   Tho I turned away my head
   And came into the starlight.


                                  III

   Love (as a cloud on the sea
   Hung between poles of blue)
   Hangs in the heart of me
   Between the eyes of you.
   Love, as a cloud on the sea,
   Claims the tears of two.

   Love (as a wind in a tree
   Shaking its tower of green)
   Shakes all the heart of me
   And leaves no peace between.
   Love, as the wind the tree
   Tears with hands unseen.

   Love (as a storm on the sea
   Shatters the sleep of the wave)
   Shatters the heart of me
   With desires that grope and crave.
   Love, as the storm the sea,
   Boasts not me his slave.


                                   IV

   You, flower-named, and as a flower arrayed,
   Open to all the wandering airs that pass,
   Opened to me--yet I drew back afraid,
   Craven to the blood that would have preyed
   And the sly viper coiling in the grass.


                                   V

   Love, when you smiled and beckoned
   My cold thought stood aloof and reckoned
   Some heights above you.
   But now you have turned and gone
   Smiling, fugitive as dawn,
   I know (oh fool!) I love you.


                                   VI

   Love, with her queen's face and child lips
   Walked at my side; her hair about her head
   Streamed, with riotous and exuberant spread
   Like sails and cordage of sea-breasting ships,
   And as the tides, her mirthful glints and dips
   Tugged at my anchor'd calmness--then she said,
   Chilling to gravity, "You are lead."
   It was as when the bright blade cruelly slips,
   For in my soul that hid its vain desires
   Under closed hatch, I knew the stifled fires
   Devoured in silence, as stealthy serpents writhe
   Their folds about their prey; and seemed to hear
   The passing of some irrevocable year,
   And faint for whistle of a monstrous scythe.


                                  VII

   Pain of widest range--
   The intimate grown strange.




                           ARMA VIRUMQUE CANO


     And so the good Aeneas went away.
     It was not dawn, and yet the sleepless sea
     Felt as a mother, the still unborn day.
     The stars were brighter than they ought to be.
     A milky foam curled from the vessel's breast
     Whose long blades lifted to each lifting crest.

   Happy were the sailors to be aboard once more,
   And the laughing sea answered to their shouts afar off shore.

     Dido the Queen
     Knew he was gone.
     No need to have seen
     From the casement withdrawn;
     No need to be told;
     Her heart had guessed
     By the aching unrest
     And empty breast--
     Empty and cold.

   Oh, plain her Maidens at their spinning,
   Love has end that had beginning.

     As the course was traced Aeneas paced,
     His thoughts uprising like a flock of birds;
     And one flew west, to the new the unknown nest,
     And one that was wing'd with flaming words--
     Something the Queen had uttered, tender--sweet,--
     Fluttered back and died--just at her feet.

   Ho! chants a Rower, straining at the sweep,
   Leave the landsman to his pillow, the sailor to the deep.

     All night the Queen
     In fever burned;
     A dream returned
     Long ago seen:
     A dream of ships,
     Of one who came
     Out of a flame
     And cried her name
     And kissed her lips.

   Somewhere in the dawn Someone's singing:
   "Lo! what gifts love's hands are bringing!"

     Jet-black, the palms like sculptured fountains loomed
     Above the lovers; one star blazed all night.
     Beyond the river was the sea that boomed.
     Their barge was lit with lightnings of delight.
     Of this, the good Aeneas too had dreamed
     While the unshaken towers of Ilium gleamed.

   Ah! cry the sailors, "whom we loved must wait.
     There's no turning back from the open track to the gates of fate."

     The cicadas drone;
     Desert winds blow
     As oarsmen row
     Their Queen alone
     Down the river.
     Alone, she cried
     Alone! to the tide.
     And the sea replied
     Forever!

   La, croon the Women, nimbly weaving,
   "Whose heart do we hear grieving?"

     Months bring all wanderings to a close.
   The fleet years flee; Aeneas wisely wed,
     Often, when wind and sea strike mighty blows,
     Wakening from dreams half ecstasy, half dread,
     That come upon him from another life,
     Touches the calm breast of his sleeping wife.

   Hum, the Night Watch mutters, leaning on his spear,
   "'Tis a strange world to be in and to have no fear."

     The sea at last
     Brings pain to end.
     The desert vast
     Becomes her friend.
     Her people fear it:
     "The Queen," they say,
     "Grows day by day
     Paler, but still gay--
     As a spirit."

   Oh, they murmur, "Queen Dido goes away
   To where the dark river runs, sunless and gray."




                      A HYMN TO DIONYSUS IN SPRING


   Yellow the sands of the shores of Elis, and over the creaming
   Foam-flakes that flutter and curl on the edge of the dreaming
   Mediterranean, Jupiter arches his azure dome.
   Here to the somnolent sands the Aeolian women have come,
   The dreamers, all languid with silence of spring-tide dreaming,
   And they stand with their hair unbound and their feet in the foam.

   The heart of the morning beats with a swooning, amorous beating,
   And the nymph-cool waters and brazen sunshine meeting,
   Mingle where indolent spring-tide ripples shimmer and burn;
   Out to the dim horizon the eyes of the dreamers yearn,
   And like flutes are the low, soft voices that chant thus, entreating
   The God, Dionysus, to rise from the sea and return.

   "Bitter thy roving hath been, O Hunter, and stricken with madness,
   And thy winter frenzy hath torn us with torment of sadness--
   Horror of blood in the mouth and of murderous lusts that bring
   Shadows a-couch in the forest from under us shuddering.
   We are sick of the feverish nights that have stolen our gladness--
   Ah! we are weary of winter and fain of the Spring!"

   "Thy foes, O Hunter, have goaded thy soul, but their goading is
      over,
   For every unfolding leaf is a shield for thy cover
   And every grass-blade upraises a spear that is scimitar-keen,
   Gladly the flowers will weave thee a mantle to wander unseen.
   Slim as a willow-wand, Ariadne awaits thee, her lover,
   And her heart is full of the dreams that are cool and green."

   "Hyé, the Dew, thy mother, sorrows because of thy going,
   And the film-pale, rain-sweet Hyades fleeing and flowing,
   Dissolved from the rainbow and river to rise in the sap of the tree,
   Leave never their dolorous grieving, lamenting in quest of thee.
   And the succulent vine and the spirit of all things growing
   Cry 'Dionysus, return! Oh, return from the sea!'"

   "Wilt thou forsake us forever, unheeding our sedulous plaining?
   See'st not the clusters of pale green globes, crescent and straining
   Sunwards, that long for thy hand to engarb them with royal attire?
   Hear us, O Wine-God; return to us! Kindle once more Desire!"
   So chant the Aeolian women till the light be waning
   While the foam breaks over their feet in soft folds of fire.

   The robes of the sun are red, and close to the earth he dozes;
   The long day lingers, then slowly and silently closes
   The shadowy orient gates, climbing upward stair by stair,
   Raising her evening face to the stars in the spring-tide air.
   Lo! the sea is aglow and aflame with the odor of roses!
   Lo! a glimpse of the God with the sun in his yellow hair!


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                          Transcriber's Notes


The original spelling was mostly preserved. A few obvious typographical
errors were silently corrected. All other changes are listed here
(before/after):

   [p. 10]:
   ... Fled, the panting, goat-shankid clan, ...
   ... Fled, the panting, goat-shank'd clan, ...

   [p. 32]:
   ... The wind blows in and the wind blows out. ...
   ... The wind blows in and the wind blows out ...






End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Glebe 1914/09 (Vol. 2, No. 2):
Poems, by George W. Cronyn

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 63399 ***