Chimneysmoke

By Christopher Morley

CHIMNEYSMOKE
HIDE AND SEEK
THE ROCKING HORSE
SONGS FOR A LITTLE HOUSE
MINCE PIE

New York: George H. Doran Company

Chimneysmoke

by

Christopher Morley

Illustrated by

Thomas Fogarty

COPYRIGHT, 1917, 1919, 1920, 1921
BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN
THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY
LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

Author's Note

There are a number of poems in this collection that have not previously appeared in book form. But, as a few readers may discern, many of the verses are reprinted from Songs for a Little House (1917), The Rocking Horse (1919) and Hide and Seek (1920). There is also one piece revived from the judicious obscurity of an early escapade, The Eighth Sin, published in Oxford in 1912. It is on Mr. Thomas Fogarty's delightful and sympathetic drawings that this book rests its real claim to be considered a new venture. To Mr. Fogarty, and to Mr. George H. Doran, whose constant kindness and generosity contradict all the traditions about publishers and minor poets, the author expresses his permanent gratitude.

Roslyn, Long Island.

Contents

Chimneysmoke

Chimneysmoke

TO THE LITTLE HOUSE

Dear little house, dear shabby street,
Dear books and beds and food to eat!
How feeble words are to express
The facets of your tenderness.
How white the sun comes through the pane!
In tinkling music drips the rain!
How burning bright the furnace glows!
What paths to shovel when it snows!
O dearly loved Long Island trains!
O well remembered joys and pains....
How near the housetops Beauty leans
Along that little street in Queens!
Let these poor rhymes abide for proof
Joy dwells beneath a humble roof;
Heaven is not built of country seats
But little queer suburban streets!
March, 1917.

A GRACE BEFORE WRITING

This is a sacrament, I think!

Holding the bottle toward the light,

May Truth be with me as I write!

Reunion with some vanished friend,—

May none but honest words be penned!

DEDICATION FOR A FIREPLACE

This hearth was built for thy delight,

For thee the logs were sawn,

Is to the chimney drawn.

To yield the ruddy blaze—

For many, many days

TAKING TITLE

To make this house my very own
Could not be done by law alone.
Though covenant and deed convey
Absolute fee, as lawyers say,
There are domestic rites beside
By which this house is sanctified.
By kindled fire upon the hearth,
By planted pansies in the garth,
By food, and by the quiet rest
Of those brown eyes that I love best,
And by a friend's bright gift of wine,
I dedicate this house of mine.
When all but I are soft abed
I trail about my quiet stead
A wreath of blue tobacco smoke
(A charm that evil never broke)
And bring my ritual to an end
By giving shelter to a friend.
These done, O dwelling, you become
Not just a house, but truly Home!

And by a friend's bright gift of wine,
I dedicate this house of mine

THE SECRET

It was the House of Quietness

To which I came at dusk;

And heavy with their musk.

Stood whispering around,

More quiet than no sound.

What magic might be there,

Came softly down the stair.

ONLY A MATTER OF TIME

Down-slipping Time, sweet, swift, and shallow stream,
Here, like a boulder, lies this afternoon
Across your eager flow. So you shall stay,
Deepened and dammed, to let me breathe and be.
Your troubled fluency, your running gleam
Shall pause, and circle idly, still and clear:
The while I lie and search your glassy pool
Where, gently coiling in their lazy round,
Unseparable minutes drift and swim,
Eddy and rise and brim. And I will see
How many crystal bubbles of slack Time
The mind can hold and cherish in one Now!
Now, for one conscious vacancy of sense,
The stream is gathered in a deepening pond,
Not a mere moving mirror. Through the sharp
Correct reflection of the standing scene
The mind can dip, and cleanse itself with rest,
And see, slow spinning in the lucid gold,
Your liquid motes, imperishable Time.

AT THE MERMAID CAFETERIA

Truth is enough for prose:
Calmly it goes
To tell just what it knows.
For verse, skill will suffice—
Delicate, nice
Casting of verbal dice.
Poetry, men attain
By subtler pain
More flagrant in the brain—
An honesty unfeigned,
A heart unchained,
A madness well restrained.

OUR HOUSE

It should be yours, if I could build
The quaint old dwelling I desire,
With books and pictures bravely filled
And chairs beside an open fire,
White-panelled rooms with candles lit—
I lie awake to think of it!
A dial for the sunny hours,
A garden of old-fashioned flowers—
Say marigolds and lavender
And mignonette and fever-few,
And Judas-tree and maidenhair
And candytuft and thyme and rue—
All these for you to wander in.
A Chinese carp (called Mandarin)
Waving a sluggish silver fin
Deep in the moat: so tame he comes
To lip your fingers offering crumbs.
Tall chimneys, like long listening ears,
White shutters, ivy green and thick,
And walls of ruddy Tudor brick
Grown mellow with the passing years.
And windows with small leaded panes,
Broad window-seats for when it rains;
A big blue bowl of pot pourri
And—yes, a Spanish chestnut tree
To coin the autumn's minted gold.
A summer house for drinking tea—
All these (just think!) for you and me.
A staircase of the old black wood
Cut in the days of Robin Hood,
And banisters worn smooth as glass
Down which your hand will lightly pass;
A piano with pale yellow keys
For wistful twilight melodies,
And dusty bottles in a bin—
All these for you to revel in!
But when? Ah well, until that time
We'll habit in this house of rhyme.
1912

ON NAMING A HOUSE

When I a householder became

I had to give my house a name.

Or "Just Beneath a Star."

"Full Moon" or "Doors Ajar."

And keep the devil far;

The House Where Brown Eyes Are.

A HALLOWE'EN MEMORY

Do you remember, Heart's Desire,

The night when Hallowe'en first came?

The hearth unsanctified by flame?

(How tragic, were the draught not right!)

And filled the room with dancing light.

Nor half believe what we had seen—

Our cider mugs, our Hallowe'en!

We ran outside with sudden shout

Our own dear smoke come drifting out.

The very subtlest one, say I,

His hearthfire smoke against the sky.

And of all man's felicities
The very subtlest one, say I,
Is when, for the first time, he sees
His hearthfire smoke against the sky.

REFUSING YOU IMMORTALITY

If I should tell, unstinted,

Your beauty and your grace,

Traditions of your face;

Your mirth, your queenly state,

That it was born too late.

In bright undying phrase,

For unborn men to praise—

Be saddened and depressed?

Their own girls loveliest!

BAYBERRY CANDLES

Dear sweet, when dusk comes up the hill,

The fire leaps high with golden prongs;

The tiny candles of my songs.

And though unsteadily they burn,

As evening shades from gray to blue

To shine more clear, for love of you.

SECRET LAUGHTER

"I had a secret laughter."
—Walter de la Mare.

There is a secret laughter

That often comes to me,

I envy—no, not one.

By God, I have a son!

SIX WEEKS OLD

He is so small, he does not know
The summer sun, the winter snow;
The spring that ebbs and comes again,
All this is far beyond his ken.
A little world he feels and sees:
His mother's arms, his mother's knees;
He hides his face against her breast,
And does not care to learn the rest.

A little world he feels and sees:
His mother's arms, his mother's knees—

A CHARM

For Our New Fireplace,
To Stop Its Smoking

O wood, burn bright; O flame, be quick;
O smoke, draw cleanly up the flue—
My lady chose your every brick
And sets her dearest hopes on you!
Logs cannot burn, nor tea be sweet,
Nor white bread turn to crispy toast,
Until the charm be made complete
By love, to lay the sooty ghost.
And then, dear books, dear waiting chairs,
Dear china and mahogany,
Draw close, for on the happy stairs
My brown-eyed girl comes down for tea!

MY PIPE

My pipe is old
And caked with soot;
My wife remarks:
"How can you put
That horrid relic,
So unclean,
Inside your mouth?
The nicotine
Is strong enough
To stupefy
A Swedish plumber."
I reply:
"This is the kind
Of pipe I like:
I fill it full
Of Happy Strike,
Or Barking Cat
Or Cabman's Puff,
Or Brooklyn Bridge
(That potent stuff)
Or Chaste Embraces,
Knacker's Twist,
Old Honeycomb
Or Niggerfist.

B

THE 5:42

Lilac, violet, and rose
Ardently the city glows;
Sunset glory, purely sweet,
Gilds the dreaming byway-street,
And, above the Avenue,
Winter dusk is deepening blue.

(Then, across Long Island meadows,
Darker, darker, grow the shadows:
Patience, little waiting lass!
Laggard minutes slowly pass;
Patience, laughs the yellow fire:
Homeward bound is heart's desire!)

All down Thirty-second Street
Homeward, Homeward, say the feet!
Tramping men, uncouth to view,
Footsore, weary, thrill anew;
Gone the ringing telephones,
Blessed nightfall now atones,
Casting brightness on the snow
Golden the train windows go.

Then (how long it seems) at last
All the way is overpast.
Heart that beats your muffled drum,
Lo, your venturer is come!
Wide the door! Leap high, O fire!
Home at length is heart's desire!
Gone is weariness and fret,
At the sill warm lips are met.
Once again may be renewed
The conjoined beatitude.

The 5:42

PETER PAN

"The boy for whom Barrie wrote Peter Pan—the original of Peter Pan—has died in battle."

—New York Times.

And Peter Pan is dead? Not so!
When mothers turn the lights down low
And tuck their little sons in bed,
They know that Peter is not dead....
That little rounded blanket-hill;
Those prayer-time eyes, so deep and still—
However wise and great a man
He grows, he still is Peter Pan.
And mothers' ways are often queer:
They pause in doorways, just to hear
A tiny breathing; think a prayer;
And then go tiptoe down the stair.

IN HONOR OF TAFFY TOPAZ

Taffy, the topaz-colored cat,
Thinks now of this and now of that,
But chiefly of his meals.
Asparagus, and cream, and fish,
Are objects of his Freudian wish;
What you don't give, he steals.
His gallant heart is strongly stirred
By clink of plate or flight of bird,
He has a plumy tail;
At night he treads on stealthy pad
As merry as Sir Galahad
A-seeking of the Grail.
His amiable amber eyes
Are very friendly, very wise;
Like Buddha, grave and fat,
He sits, regardless of applause,
And thinking, as he kneads his paws,
What fun to be a cat!

THE CEDAR CHEST

Her mind is like her cedar chest
Wherein in quietness do rest
The wistful dreamings of her heart
In fragrant folds all laid apart.
There, put away in sprigs of rhyme
Until her life's full blossom-time,
Flutter (like tremulous little birds)
Her small and sweet maternal words.

READING ALOUD

Once we read Tennyson aloud

In our great fireside chair;

Her April-scented hair.

The printed poems fair,

A living lyric there!

ANIMAL CRACKERS

Animal crackers, and cocoa to drink,
That is the finest of suppers, I think;
When I'm grown up and can have what I please
I think I shall always insist upon these.
What do you choose when you're offered a treat?
When Mother says, "What would you like best to eat?"
Is it waffles and syrup, or cinnamon toast?
It's cocoa and animals that I love most!
The kitchen's the cosiest place that I know:
The kettle is singing, the stove is aglow,
And there in the twilight, how jolly to see
The cocoa and animals waiting for me.
Daddy and Mother dine later in state,
With Mary to cook for them, Susan to wait;
But they don't have nearly as much fun as I
Who eat in the kitchen with Nurse standing by;
And Daddy once said, he would like to be me
Having cocoa and animals once more for tea!

And Daddy once said he would like to be me
Having cocoa and animals once more for tea!

THE MILKMAN

Early in the morning, when the dawn is on the roofs,
You hear his wheels come rolling, you hear his horse's hoofs;
You hear the bottles clinking, and then he drives away:
You yawn in bed, turn over, and begin another day!
The old-time dairy maids are dear to every poet's heart—
I'd rather be the dairy man and drive a little cart,
And bustle round the village in the early morning blue,
And hang my reins upon a hook, as I've seen Casey do.

LIGHT VERSE

At night the gas lamps light our street,

Electric bulbs our homes;

Electric light in ohms.

Is brighter far, and sweeter;

Nor measured by a meter.

More pleasing to discerners,

Those lovely double burners!

THE FURNACE

At night I opened

The furnace door:

The cellar floor.

Blue and red,

In their bed.

So late I stole,

Thank God for coal!

WASHING THE DISHES

When we on simple rations sup
How easy is the washing up!
But heavy feeding complicates
The task by soiling many plates.
And though I grant that I have prayed
That we might find a serving-maid,
I'd scullion all my days, I think,
To see Her smile across the sink!
I wash, She wipes. In water hot
I souse each dish and pan and pot;
While Taffy mutters, purrs, and begs,
And rubs himself against my legs.
The man who never in his life
Has washed the dishes with his wife
Or polished up the silver plate—
He still is largely celibate.
One warning: there is certain ware
That must be handled with all care:
The Lord Himself will give you up
If you should drop a willow cup!

But heavy feeding complicates
The task by soiling many plates.

THE CHURCH OF UNBENT KNEES

As I went by the church to-day

I heard the organ cry;

But I went striding by.

My aisles are oak trees high;

My organ is the sky.

The winds, my chanted choir;

Are stained with sunset fire.

White sands and purple seas—

My God of Unbent Knees!

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY COAL-BIN

The furnace tolls the knell of falling steam,

The coal supply is virtually done,

As though we could afford another ton.

The radiators lose their temperature:

The "short and simple flannels of the poor."

The rude forefathers of the omelet sleep,

We cannot cook again till coal is cheap.

Revivify the failing pressure-gauge?

And burn the East Aurora parrot-cage!

Full many a can of purest kerosene

The dark unfathomed tanks of Standard Oil

To bring my morning coffee to a boil.

How ill avail, on such a frosty night....

THE OLD SWIMMER

I often wander on the beach
Where once, so brown of limb,
The biting air, the roaring surf
Summoned me to swim.
I see my old abundant youth
Where combers lean and spill,
And though I taste the foam no more
Other swimmers will.
Oh, good exultant strength to meet
The arching wall of green,
To break the crystal, swirl, emerge
Dripping, taut, and clean.
To climb the moving hilly blue,
To dive in ecstasy
And feel the salty chill embrace
Arm and rib and knee.
What brave and vanished laughter then
And tingling thighs to run,
What warm and comfortable sands
Dreaming in the sun.
The crumbling water spreads in snow,
The surf is hissing still,
And though I kiss the salt no more
Other swimmers will.

The Old Swimmer

THE MOON-SHEEP

The moon seems like a docile sheep,
She pastures while all people sleep;
But sometimes, when she goes astray,
She wanders all alone by day.
Up in the clear blue morning air
We are surprised to see her there,
Grazing in her woolly white,
Waiting the return of night.
When dusk lets down the meadow bars
She greets again her lambs, the stars!

SMELLS

Why is it that the poets tell
So little of the sense of smell?
These are the odors I love well:
The smell of coffee freshly ground;
Or rich plum pudding, holly crowned;
Or onions fried and deeply browned.
The fragrance of a fumy pipe;
The smell of apples, newly ripe;
And printers' ink on leaden type.
Woods by moonlight in September
Breathe most sweet; and I remember
Many a smoky camp-fire ember.
Camphor, turpentine, and tea,
The balsam of a Christmas tree,
These are whiffs of gramarye ...
A ship smells best of all to me!

SMELLS (JUNIOR)

My Daddy smells like tobacco and books,

Mother, like lavender and listerine;

Nannie smells starchy and soapy and clean.

(When he's been out in the rain he smells most);

She smells exactly like hot buttered toast!

But Katie, the cook, is more splendid than all—

MAR QUONG, CHINESE LAUNDRYMAN

I like the Chinese laundryman:
He smokes a pipe that bubbles,
And seems, as far as I can tell,
A man with but few troubles.
He has much to do, no doubt,
But also much to think about.
Most men (for instance I myself)
Are spending, at all times,
All our hard-earned quarters,
Our nickels and our dimes:
With Mar Quong it's the other way—
He takes in small change every day.
Next time you call for collars
In his steamy little shop,
Observe how tight his pigtail
Is coiled and piled on top.
But late at night he lets it hang
And thinks of the Yang-tse-kiang.

THE FAT LITTLE PURSE

On Saturdays, after the baby

Is bathed, fed, and sleeping serene,

Arranges the household routine.

And leaves the young limb with his nurse,

And with her the fat little purse.

To the rendezvous spot where we meet,

She avoids the most windowy street!

To her comrade for better and worse

Last bit, here's the fat little purse."

She has hidden what must not be spent:

Katie's wages, and milkman, and rent;

She is gleeful and prompt to disburse—

Can come from her fat little purse!

But either by giving or buying,

The little purse does not stay fat—

Perhaps it's a "pert little hat."

By pleasures so quaint and diverse,

To see such a thin little purse.

Is that which is done by our wives:

They add twos and twos and make fives;

The secret of thrift, it is terse:

In her little, fat little purse.

Perhaps it's a ragged child crying

THE REFLECTION
(To N. B. D.)

I have not heard her voice, nor seen her face,

Nor touched her hand;

I understand.

Her smile, her tint;

I have true hint.

Her mirror true;

All gentle too.

Each mood and whim,

She speaks through him!

Or dark or fair—

I see her there!

THE BALLOON PEDDLER

Who is the man on Chestnut street

With colored toy balloons?

On sunny afternoons—

The heart leaps to behold

And blue and pink and gold.

Hath antic merchandise:

Attract my eager eyes.

Bewitched through magic moons

With meaningless balloons.

Tread cautious on the pave!

Some haggard soul and grave,

A puritan efficientist

Who deems thy toys a sin—

And prick them with a pin!

The Balloon Peddler

LINES FOR AN ECCENTRIC'S BOOK PLATE

To use my books all friends are bid:

My shelves are open for 'em;

I write Et Amicorum.

To him who best employs them;

Are his who most enjoys them.

And you may best discern it.

Than I—why don't return it!

If you appreciate it more Than I—why don't return it!

TO A POST-OFFICE INKWELL

How many humble hearts have dipped
In you, and scrawled their manuscript!
Have shared their secrets, told their cares,
Their curious and quaint affairs!
Your pool of ink, your scratchy pen,
Have moved the lives of unborn men,
And watched young people, breathing hard,
Put Heaven on a postal card.

THE CRIB

I sought immortality

Here and there—

Into the air:

A hostage to ink;

And bought him drink.

Of the flesh;

And began afresh—

How they would laugh!

My epitaph....

When the dusk was thin

Rites begin:

I heard the tender

Soothings said

A small sweet head.

It came to me

Immortality!

And then one night
When the dusk was thin
I heard the nursery
Rites begin—

THE POET

The barren music of a word or phrase,

The futile arts of syllable and stress,

He did not guess.

Unselfish love, true effort truly done,

He knew not one.

Of little laughters, home and child and wife,

Not in his life.

The human cadence and the subtle chime
Of little laughters—

TO A DISCARDED MIRROR

[TN: Mirror Image Translated below.]

Dear glass, before your silver pane

My lady used to tend her hair;

To find some shadow of her there.

Might still some dear reflection hold:

Some flash of gowns she wore of old.

The laughing face, the neck like snow—

That Helen used you long ago!

TO A CHILD

The greatest poem ever known
Is one all poets have outgrown:
The poetry, innate, untold,
Of being only four years old.
Still young enough to be a part
Of Nature's great impulsive heart,
Born comrade of bird, beast and tree
And unselfconscious as the bee—
And yet with lovely reason skilled
Each day new paradise to build;
Elate explorer of each sense,
Without dismay, without pretence!
In your unstained transparent eyes
There is no conscience, no surprise:
Life's queer conundrums you accept,
Your strange divinity still kept.
Being, that now absorbs you, all
Harmonious, unit, integral,
Will shred into perplexing bits,—
Oh, contradictions of the wits!
And Life, that sets all things in rhyme,
May make you poet, too, in time—
But there were days, O tender elf,
When you were Poetry itself!

TO A VERY YOUNG GENTLEMAN

My child, what painful vistas are before you!

What years of youthful ills and pangs and bumps—

And chicken-pox and measles, croup and mumps!

Promoted now from bassinet to crib,—

Since God first made so free with Adam's rib!

When teeth are here, you'll meet the dentist's chair;

That stoves are hot, and how to brush your hair;

By bruises, tears, and trousers you will grow,

I'll wish you luck, and moralize you so:

If you can think up seven thousand methods

Of giving cooks and parents heart disease;

By water, fire, and falling out of trees;

With sixty seconds' worth of mischief done,

And, which is more, you'll be your father's son!

What years of youthful ills and pangs and bumps—

TO AN OLD-FASHIONED POET

(Lizette Woodworth Reese)

Most tender poet, when the gods confer

They save your gracile songs a nook apart,

The ageless April of your singing heart.

The appointed patience that the Muse decrees,

The hovering words alight, like bridegroom bees.

The placid gods grant gifts where they belong:

The recompensed necessities of song.

BURNING LEAVES IN SPRING

When withered leaves are lost in flame

Their eddying ghosts, a thin blue haze,

On amberlucent autumn days.

Their dim, dissolving, phantom breath;

They see their happy life-in-death.

Time burns my crazy bonfire through;

Eternal Beauty, back to you!

BURNING LEAVES, NOVEMBER

These are folios of April,

All the library of spring,

With the frost's illumining.

Set the torch with hand profane—

Like the books of burnt Louvain!

O collectors, have no fear,

New editions every year.

A VALENTINE GAME

(For Two Players)

They have a game, thus played:
He says unto his maid

What are those shining things
So brown, so golden brown?

How now, what shining things
So brown?

Sweet wretch, they are your eyes,
So brown, so brown!

FOR A BIRTHDAY

At two years old the world he sees
Must seem expressly made to please!
Such new-found words and games to try,
Such sudden mirth, he knows not why,

So many curiosities!

At two years old.

At two years old.

A Birthday

KEATS

(1821-1921)

When sometimes, on a moony night, I've passed

A street-lamp, seen my doubled shadow flee,

The full moon poured her silhouette of me.

Limns with a ray more pure, and tenderer too:

Surpass the shapes they show by human view.

Her youngest son, to save us, Beauty flung.

And comforts yet the ardent and the young.

Dizzy with stars, his mortal fever ran:

Not free from folly—for he too was man.

Where topless towers shadow golden streets,

Perfectly happy ... talking about Keats.

TO H. F. M.
a sonnet in sunlight

This is a day for sonnets: Oh how clear

Our splendid cliffs and summits lift the gaze—

Were poured and gathered in one sudden blaze,
Then, then perhaps, in some endowered phrase

To tell of you. Your beauty and your praise

Proud and perennial on this pale bright sky;

Of Time, the dusty wrecker. He would sigh

QUICKENING

Such little, puny things are words in rhyme:

Poor feeble loops and strokes as frail as hairs;

And turn to your more durable affairs.
Yet on such petty tools the poet dares

And draws his frail stick to the point, and stares

This measured emptiness engulfs us all,

And sees it eddy, waver, turn, and fall,

AT A WINDOW SILL

To write a sonnet needs a quiet mind....
I paused and pondered, tried again. To write....
Raising the sash, I breathed the winter night:
Papers and small hot room were left behind.
Against the gusty purple, ribbed and spined
With golden slots and vertebræ of light
Men's cages loomed. Down sliding from a height
An elevator winked as it declined.
Coward! There is no quiet in the brain—
If pity burns it not, then beauty will:
Tinder it is for every blowing spark.
Uncertain whether this is bliss or pain
The unresting mind will gaze across the sill
From high apartment windows, in the dark.

THE RIVER OF LIGHT

I. Broadway, 103rd to 96th.

Lights foam and bubble down the gentle grade:
Bright shine chop sueys and rôtisseries;
In pink translucence glowingly displayed
See camisole and stocking and chemise.
Delicatessen windows full of cheese—
Above, the chimes of church-bells toll and fade—
And then, from off some distant Palisade
That gluey savor on the Jersey breeze!
The burning bulbs, in green and white and red,
Spell out a Change of Program Sun., Wed., Fri.,
A clicking taxi spins with ruby spark.
There is a sense of poising near the head
Of some great flume of brightness, flowing by
To pour in gathering torrent through the dark.

II. Below 96th

The current quickens, and in golden flow
Hurries its flotsam downward through the night—
Here are the rapids where the undertow
Whirls endless motors in a gleaming flight.
From blazing tributaries, left and right,
Influent streams of blue and amber grow.
Columbus Circle eddies: all below
Is pouring flame, a gorge of broken light.
See how the burning river boils in spate,
Channeled by cliffs of insane jewelry,
Painting a rosy roof on cloudy air—
And just about ten minutes after eight,
Tossing a surf of color to the sky
It bursts in cataracts upon Times Square!

OF HER GLORIOUS MADNESS

The city's mad: through her prodigious veins
What errant, strange, eccentric humors thrill:
Day, when her cataracts of sunlight spill—
Night, golden-panelled with her window panes;
The toss of wind-blown skirts; and who can drill
Forever his fierce heart with checking reins?
Cruel and mad, my statisticians say—
Ah, but she raves in such a gallant way!
Brave madness, built for beauty and the sun—
In such a town who can be sane? Not I.
Of clashing colors all her moods are spun—
A scarlet anger and a golden cry.
This frantic town where madcap mischiefs run
They ask to take the veil, and be a nun!

IN AN AUCTION ROOM

(Letter of John Keats to Fanny Browne, Anderson Galleries, March 15, 1920.)

To Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach.

H ow about this lot? said the auctioneer;
One hundred, may I say, just for a start?
Between the plum-red curtains, drawn apart,
A written sheet was held.... And strange to hear
(Dealer, would I were steadfast as thou art)
The cold quick bids. (Against you in the rear!)
The crimson salon, in a glow more clear
Burned bloodlike purple as the poet's heart.
Song that outgrew the singer! Bitter Love
That broke the proud hot heart it held in thrall;
Poor script, where still those tragic passions move—
Eight hundred bid: fair warning: the last call:
The soul of Adonais, like a star....
Sold for eight hundred dollars—Doctor R.!

EPITAPH FOR A POET WHO WROTE NO POETRY

"It is said that a poet has died young in the breast of the most stolid."—Robert Louis Stevenson.

What was the service of this poet? He Who blinked the blinding dazzle-rays that run
Where life profiles its edges to the sun,
And still suspected much he could not see.
Clay-stopped, yet in his taciturnity
There lay the vein of glory, known to none;
And moods of secret smiling, only won
When peace and passion, time and sense, agree.
Fighting the world he loved for chance to brood,
Ignorant when to embrace, when to avoid
His loves that held him in their vital clutch—
This was his service, his beatitude;
This was the inward trouble he enjoyed
Who knew so little, and who felt so much.

SONNET BY A GEOMETER

the circle

Few things are perfect: we bear Eden's scar;
Yet faulty man was godlike in design
That day when first, with stick and length of twine,
He drew me on the sand. Then what could mar
His joy in that obedient mystic line;
And then, computing with a zeal divine,
He called π 3-point-14159
And knew my lovely circuit 2 π r!
A circle is a happy thing to be—
Think how the joyful perpendicular
Erected at the kiss of tangency
Must meet my central point, my avatar!
They talk of 14 points: yet only 3
Determine every circle: Q. E. D.

TO A VAUDEVILLE TERRIER SEEN ON A LEASH, IN THE PARK

Three times a day—at two, at seven, at nine—
O terrier, you play your little part:
Absurd in coat and skirt you push a cart,
With inner anguish walk a tight-rope line.
Up there, before the hot and dazzling shine
You must be rigid servant of your art,
Nor watch those fluffy cats—your doggish heart
Might leap and then betray you with a whine!
But sometimes, when you've faithfully rehearsed,
Your trainer takes you walking in the park,
Straining to sniff the grass, to chase a frog.
The leash is slipped, and then your joy will burst—
Adorable it is to run and bark,
To be—alas, how seldom—just a dog!

You must be rigid servant of your art!

TO AN OLD FRIEND

(For Lloyd Williams.)

I like to dream of some established spot
Where you and I, old friend, an evening through
Under tobacco's fog, streaked gray and blue,
Might reconsider laughters unforgot.
Beside a hearth-glow, golden-clear and hot,
I'd hear you tell the oddities men do.
The clock would tick, and we would sit, we two—
Life holds such meetings for us, does it not?
Happy are men when they have learned to prize
The sure unvarnished virtue of their friends,
The unchanged kindness of a well-known face:
On old fidelities our world depends,
And runs a simple course in honest wise,
Not a mere taxicab shot wild through space!

TO A BURLESQUE SOUBRETTE

Upstage the great high-shafted beefy choir

Squawked in 2000 watts of orange glare—
You came, and impudent and deuce-may-care

And followed you. The blatant brassy clang
Of instruments drowned out the words you sang,

A sprite of irresistible disdain,
Fair as a jonquil in an April rain,

You came, and impudent and deuce-may-care
Danced where the gutter flamed with footlight fire.

THOUGHTS WHILE PACKING A TRUNK

The sonnet is a trunk, and you must pack

With care, to ship frail baggage far away;
The octet is the trunk; sestet, the tray;

And in the chinks your adjectives you lay—
Your phrases, folded neatly as you may,

The tender quatrain where your moral sings—

You crush and crumple all these fragile things.

STREETS

I have seen streets where strange enchantment broods:
Old ruddy houses where the morning shone
In seemly quiet on their tranquil moods,
Across the sills white curtains outward blown.
Their marble steps were scoured as white as bone
Where scrubbing housemaids toiled on wounded knee—
And yet, among all streets that I have known
These placid byways give least peace to me.
In such a house, where green light shining through
(From some back garden) framed her silhouette
I saw a girl, heard music blithely sung.
She stood there laughing, in a dress of blue,
And as I went on, slowly, there I met
An old, old woman, who had once been young.

TO THE ONLY BEGETTER

i

I have no hope to make you live in rhyme
Or with your beauty to enrich the years—
Enough for me this now, this present time;
The greater claim for greater sonneteers.
But O how covetous I am of NOW—
Dear human minutes, marred by human pains—
I want to know your lips, your cheek, your brow,
And all the miracles your heart contains,
I wish to study all your changing face,
Your eyes, divinely hurt with tenderness;
I hope to win your dear unstinted grace
For these blunt rhymes and what they would express.
Then may you say, when others better prove:—
"Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love."

ii

When all my trivial rhymes are blotted out,
Vanished our days, so precious and so few,
If some should wonder what we were about
And what the little happenings we knew:
I wish that they might know how, night by night,
My pencil, heavy in the sleepy hours,
Sought vainly for some gracious way to write
How much this love is ours, and only ours.
How many evenings, as you drowsed to sleep,
I read to you by tawny candle-glow,
And watched you down the valley dim and deep
Where poppies and the April flowers grow.
Then knelt beside your pillow with a prayer,
And loved the breath of pansies in your hair.

PEDOMETER

My thoughts beat out in sonnets while I walk,
And every evening on the homeward street
I find the rhythm of my marching feet
Throbs into verses (though the rhyme may balk).
I think the sonneteers were walking men:
The form is dour and rigid, like a clamp,
But with the swing of legs the tramp, tramp, tramp
Of syllables begins to thud, and then—
Lo! while you seek a rhyme for hook or crook
shed your shabby coat, and you are kith
To all great walk-and-singers—Meredith,
And Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Keats, and Rupert Brooke!
Free verse is poor for walking, but a sonnet—
O marvellous to stride and brood upon it!

HOSTAGES

"He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune."—Bacon.

Aye, Fortune, thou hast hostage of my best!

I, that was once so heedless of thy frown,
Have armed thee cap-à-pie to strike me down,

Is parceled out in little hands, and brown
Bright eyes, and in a sleeping baby's gown:

Upon the makeshift armor of my heart,

For thee no honor lies in such a fight!

Who came awake with such a painful start

To hear the coughing of a child at night.

Hostages.

ARS DURA

How many evenings, walking soberly
Along our street all dappled with rich sun,
I please myself with words, and happily
Time rhymes to footfalls, planning how they run;
And yet, when midnight comes, and paper lies
Clean, white, receptive, all that one can ask,
Alas for drowsy spirit, weary eyes
And traitor hand that fails the well loved task!
Who ever learned the sonnet's bitter craft
But he had put away his sleep, his ease,
The wine he loved, the men with whom he laughed
To brood upon such thankless tricks as these?
And yet, such joy does in that craft abide
He greets the paper as the groom the bride!

O. HENRY—APOTHECARY

("O. Henry" once worked in a drug-store in Greensboro, N. C.)

Where once he measured camphor, glycerine,
Quinine and potash, peppermint in bars,
And all the oils and essences so keen
That druggists keep in rows of stoppered jars—
Now, blender of strange drugs more volatile,
The master pharmacist of joy and pain
Dispenses sadness tinctured with a smile
And laughter that dissolves in tears again.
O brave apothecary! You who knew
What dark and acid doses life prefers
And yet with friendly face resolved to brew
These sparkling potions for your customers—
In each prescription your Physician writ
You poured your rich compassion and your wit!

FOR THE CENTENARY OF KEATS'S SONNET

(1816)

"On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer."

I knew a scientist, an engineer,
Student of tensile strengths and calculus,
A man who loved a cantilever truss
And always wore a pencil on his ear.
My friend believed that poets all were queer,
And literary folk ridiculous;
But one night, when it chanced that three of us
Were reading Keats aloud, he stopped to hear.
Lo, a new planet swam into his ken!
His eager mind reached for it and took hold.
Ten years are by: I see him now and then,
And at alumni dinners, if cajoled,
He mumbles gravely, to the cheering men:—
Much have I travelled in the realms of gold.

TWO O'CLOCK

Night after night goes by: and clocks still chime

And stars are changing patterns in the dark,

Benumbs the eager brain. The dogs that bark,

The very cats that prowl, all quiet find

Sleep comes to chloroform the fretting mind.

Some scribbled sonnets tossed upon the floor,

A run-down watch, a pipe, some clothes we wore—

How warm her dreamless breath does pause and flow.

THE COMMERCIAL TRAVELLER

Ah very sweet! If news should come to you
Some afternoon, while waiting for our eve,
That the great Manager had made me leave
To travel on some territory new;
And that, whatever homeward winds there blew,
I could not touch your hand again, nor heave
The logs upon our hearth and bid you weave
Some wistful tale before the flames that grew....
Then, when the sudden tears had ceased to blind
Your pansied eyes, I wonder if you could
Remember rightly, and forget aright?
Remember just your lad, uncouthly good,
Forgetting when he failed in spleen or spite?
Could you remember him as always kind?

THE WEDDED LOVER

I read in our old journals of the days
When our first love was April-sweet and new,
How fair it blossomed and deep-rooted grew
Despite the adverse time; and our amaze
At moon and stars and beauty beyond praise
That burgeoned all about us: gold and blue
The heaven arched us in, and all we knew
Was gentleness. We walked on happy ways.
They said by now the path would be more steep,
The sunsets paler and less mild the air;
Rightly we heeded not: it was not true.
We will not tell the secret—let it keep.
I know not how I thought those days so fair
These being so much fairer, spent with you.

TO YOU, REMEMBERING THE PAST

When we were parted, sweet, and darkness came,
I used to strike a match, and hold the flame
Before your picture and would breathless mark
The answering glimmer of the tiny spark
That brought to life the magic of your eyes,
Their wistful tenderness, their glad surprise.
Holding that mimic torch before your shrine
I used to light your eyes and make them mine;
Watch them like stars set in a lonely sky,
Whisper my heart out, yearning for reply;
Summon your lips from far across the sea
Bidding them live a twilight hour with me.
Then, when the match was shrivelled into gloom,
Lo—you were with me in the darkened room.

CHARLES AND MARY

(December 27, 1834.)

Lamb died just before I left town, and Mr. Ryle of the E. India House, one of his extors., notified it to me.... He said Miss L. was resigned and composed at the event, but it was from her malady, then in mild type, so that when she saw her brother dead, she observed on his beauty when asleep and apprehended nothing further.

—Letter of John Rickman, 24 January, 1835.

I hear their voices still: the stammering one
Struggling with some absurdity of jest;
Her quiet words that puzzle and protest
Against the latest outrage of his fun.
So wise, so simple—has she never guessed
That through his laughter, love and terror run?
For when her trouble came, and darkness pressed,
He smiled, and fought her madness with a pun.
Through all those years it was his task to keep
Her gentle heart serenely mystified.
If Fate's an artist, this should be his pride—
When, in that Christmas season, he lay dead,
She innocently looked. "I always said
That Charles is really handsome when asleep."

TO A GRANDMOTHER

At six o'clock in the evening,

The time for lullabies,

With sleepy, sleepy eyes!

With sleepy, sleepy eyes!)

And the creak of the swaying chair,

Came softly down the stair.

All folly, greed, and stain—

The dearest arms again!

To feel those arms again!)

DIARISTS

They catalogue their minutes: Now, now, now,

Is Actual, amid the fugitive;

We snare this flying life, and make it live.

Their happinesses: fields turned by the plough,

The razor concave of a great ship's bow.

Type cannot burn and sparkle on the page.

Shine clear enough to speak the noble rage

The sudden mood of truth that gave them birth.

THE LAST SONNET

Suppose one knew that never more might one
Put pen to sonnet, well loved task; that now
These fourteen lines were all he could allow
To say his message, be forever done;
How he would scan the word, the line, the rhyme,
Intent to sum in dearly chosen phrase
The windy trees, the beauty of his days,
Life's pride and pathos in one verse sublime.
How bitter then would be regret and pang
For former rhymes he dallied to refine,
For every verse that was not crystalline....
And if belike this last one feebly rang,
Honor and pride would cast it to the floor
Facing the judge with what was done before.

THE SAVAGE

Civilization causes me
Alternate fits: disgust and glee.
Buried in piles of glass and stone
My private spirit moves alone,
Where every day from eight to six
I keep alive by hasty tricks.
But I am simple in my soul;
My mind is sullen to control.
At dusk I smell the scent of earth,
And I am dumb—too glad for mirth.
I know the savors night can give,
And then, and then, I live, I live!
No man is wholly pure and free,
For that is not his destiny,
But though I bend, I will not break:
And still be savage, for Truth's sake.
God damns the easily convinced
(Like Pilate, when his hands he rinsed).

ST. PAUL'S AND WOOLWORTH

I stood on the pavement

Where I could admire

The cream and gold spire.

Swam high on his ball—

The church of St. Paul.

(My fancy would run),

Saint Frank in the sun!

ADVICE TO A CITY

O city, cage your poets! Hem them in

And roof them over from the April sky—

And drown their voices with your thunder cry.

And harness them to daily ruts of stone—

And never, never let them be alone!

And freedom gives their tongues uncanny wit,

They (absit omen!) might make Song of it.

And keep them busy with their daily bread;

To interrupt them ere the word be said....

With wasted sunsets and frustrated youth,

The savage, sweet, unpalatable truth!

THE TELEPHONE DIRECTORY

No Malory of old romance,

No Crusoe tale, it seems to me,

This telephone directory.

No legend of proud knights and dames,

As this great book of numbered names!

Rare damsels pining for a squire,

To ring, and call them to the wire.

The news they will rejoice to know

Or Marathon 1450!

And answer with reluctant tread:

Means life or death or daily bread.

All naked to our distant speech—

And have some welcome news for each!

GREEN ESCAPE

At three o'clock in the afternoon

On a hot September day,

And a frostbit russet tree;

(White canvas wet with spray)

Along her canted lee.

Of the typist's pounding keys,

Than that by a motor fanned—

To watch the rhyming seas

On a beach of sun-blanched sand.

For hills and windy skies;

No clerkly task shall dull;

Of adventures I devise,

Of an outbound vessel's hull.

And make my green escape,

Who have more docile souls;

Have a very different shape,

In a row of pigeon holes!

My eyes still pine for the comely line
Of an outbound vessel's hull.

VESPER SONG FOR COMMUTERS

(Instead of "Marathon" the commuter may substitute the name of his favorite suburb)

The stars are kind to Marathon,
How low, how close, they lean!
They jostle one another
And do their best to please—
Indeed, they are so neighborly
That in the twilight green
One reaches out to pick them
Behind the poplar trees.
The stars are kind to Marathon,
And one particular
Bright planet (which is Vesper)
Most lucid and serene,
Is waiting by the railway bridge,
The Good Commuter's Star,
The Star of Wise Men coming home
On time, at 6:15!

THE ICE WAGON

I'd like to split the sky that roofs us down,
Break through the crystal lid of upper air,
And tap the cool still reservoirs of heaven.
I'd empty all those unseen lakes of freshness
Down some vast funnel, through our stifled streets.
I'd like to pump away the grit, the dust,
Raw dazzle of the sun on garbage piles,
The droning troops of flies, sharp bitter smells,
And gush that bright sweet flood of unused air
Down every alley where the children gasp.
And then I'd take a fleet of ice wagons—
Big yellow creaking carts, drawn by wet horses,—
And drive them rumbling through the blazing slums.
In every wagon would be blocks of coldness,
Pale, gleaming cubes of ice, all green and silver,
With inner veins and patterns, white and frosty;
Great lumps of chill would drip and steam and shimmer,
And spark like rainbows in their little fractures.
And where my wagons stood there would be puddles,
A wetness and a sparkle and a coolness.
My friends and I would chop and splinter open
The blocks of ice. Bare feet would soon come pattering,
And some would wrap it up in Sunday papers,
And some would stagger home with it in baskets,
And some would be too gay for aught but sucking,
Licking, crunching those fast melting pebbles,
Gulping as they slipped down unexpected—
Laughing to perceive that secret numbness
Amid their small hot persons!
At every stop would be at least one urchin
Would take a piece to cool the sweating horses
And hold it up against their silky noses—
And they would start, and then decide they liked it.
Down all the sun-cursed byways of the town
Our wagons would be trailed by grimy tots,
Their ragged shirts half off them with excitement!
Dabbling toes and fingers in our leakage,
A lucky few up sitting with the driver,
All clambering and stretching grey-pink palms.
And by the time the wagons were all empty
Our arms and shoulders would be lame with chopping,
Our backs and thighs pain-shot, our fingers frozen.
But how we would recall those eager faces,
Red thirsty tongues with ice-chips sliding on them,
The pinched white cheeks, and their pathetic gladness.
Then we would know that arms were made for aching—
I wish to God that I could go tomorrow!

AT A MOVIE THEATRE

How well he spoke who coined the phrase

The picture palace! Aye, in sooth

Are crowned with kingliness of youth.

Where toes are trod and strained eyes smart,

The old heroics of the heart.

And Love is sweet and always true,

Hands clasp—as they were meant to do.

Our souls, pro tem, are purged and free:

The crumbling tumult of the sea.

Well balanced at a dozen banks;

A brown-eyed life, nor stay for thanks!

Life is not all it might have been,

Of shadow, cast upon a screen!

SONNETS IN A LODGING HOUSE

i

Each morn she crackles upward, tread by tread,

All apprehensive of some hideous sight:

Forgot his gas and let it burn all night—

She much suspects: for once some ink was spilled,

Found all the bathroom pipes with tea-leaves filled.

ii

She knows the rank duplicity of man;

They'll get away with murder if they can!

iii

A man ain't so secretive, never cares
What kind of private papers he leaves lay—

THE MAN WITH THE HOE (PRESS)

About these roaring cylinders

Where leaping words and paper mate,

An inky cataract in spate!

What hearts attentive to be stirred—

The power of the printed word!

Have shaken empires, routed kings,

The tragedies of humble things.

Be just and simple and serene;

Unworthy of this great machine!

DO YOU EVER FEEL LIKE GOD?

Across the court there rises the back wall
Of the Magna Carta Apartments.
The other evening the people in the apartment opposite
Had forgotten to draw their curtains.
I could see them dining: the well-blanched cloth,
The silver and glass, the crystal water jug,
The meat and vegetables; and their clean pink hands
Outstretched in busy gesture.
It was pleasant to watch them, they were so human;
So gay, innocent, unconscious of scrutiny.
They were four: an elderly couple,
A young man, and a girl—with lovely shoulders
Mellow in the glow of the lamp.
They were sitting over coffee, and I could see their hands talking.
At last the older two left the room.
The boy and girl looked at each other....
Like a flash, they leaned and kissed.
Good old human race that keeps on multiplying!
A little later I went down the street to the movies,
And there I saw all four, laughing and joking together.
And as I watched them I felt like God—
Benevolent, all-knowing, and tender.

RAPID TRANSIT

(To Stephen Vincent Benét.)

Climbing is easy and swift on Parnassus!
Knocking my pipe out, I entered a bookshop;
There found a book of verse by a young poet.
Comrades at once, how I saw his mind glowing!
Saw in his soul its magnificent rioting—
Then I ran with him on hills that were windy,
Basked and laughed with him on sun-dazzled beaches,
Glutted myself on his green and blue twilights,
Watched him disposing his planets in patterns,
Tumbling his colors and toys all before him.
I questioned life with him, his pulses my pulses;
Doubted his doubts, too, and grieved for his anguishes.

CAUGHT IN THE UNDERTOW

Colin, worshipping some frail,

By self-deprecation sways her:

Hardly even fit to praise her.

In the upshot greatly grieves him

Quite implicitly believes him.

TO HIS BROWN-EYED MISTRESS

Who Rallied Him for Praising Blue Eyes in His Verses

If sometimes, in a random phrase

(For variation in my ditty),

And seem to intimate them pretty—

With too unmixed reiteration

That are my true intoxication.

For ladies' eyes, the only color;

(Compared to yours), opaquer, duller.

While blue-eyed maids the praise were drinking,

It was of yours that I was thinking!

PEACE

What is this Peace

That statesmen sign?

To make it mine.

Clang and glow

Peace to know.

Where I passed by

Heard children cry.

Brimmed with rain

Peace again.

My Peace to hoard,

With a sword.

Something stirred,

For a word.

A man can find;

His heart behind.

The perfect breast,

To give him rest.

Since brain began.

For being man.

May, 1919

SONG, IN DEPRECATION OF PULCHRITUDE

Beauty (so the poets say),

Thou art joy and solace great;

Thou art safe to contemplate,

Visible and close to touch,

Thou tormentest us too much!

In a novel's conjured scenes,

Where perspective intervenes.

Your appeal I have to shirk—

My attention from my work!

MOUNTED POLICE

Watchful, grave, he sits astride his horse,

Draped with his rubber poncho, in the rain;

And those who try to bluff him, try in vain.

Shrewdly and sternly all the crowd he cons:

A figure nobly fit for sculptor's bronze.

Little you know how picturesque you are!

"Say, that's a helva place to park your car!"

Mounted Police.

TO HIS MISTRESS, DEPLORING THAT HE IS NOT AN ELIZABETHAN GALAXY

Why did not Fate to me bequeath an Utterance Elizabethan?
It would have been delight to me
If natus ante 1603.
My stuff would not be soon forgotten
If I could write like Harry Wotton.
I wish that I could wield the pen
Like William Drummond of Hawthornden.
I would not fear the ticking clock
If I were Browne of Tavistock.
For blithe conceits I would not worry
If I were Raleigh, or the Earl of Surrey.
I wish (I hope I am not silly?)
That I could juggle words like Lyly.
I envy many a lyric champion,
I. e., viz., e. g., Thomas Campion.
I creak my rhymes up like a derrick,
I ne'er will be a Robin Herrick.
My wits are dull as an old Barlow—
I wish that I were Christopher Marlowe.
In short, I'd like to be Philip Sidney,
Or some one else of that same kidney.
For if I were, my lady's looks

And all my lyric special pleading

And called, at college, Required Reading.

THE INTRUDER

As I sat, to sift my dreaming

To the meet and needed word,

With insistence to be heard.

Half alluring and half shy;

Escapade was in her eye.

(In an anger then I cried)—

Tempting creature, stay outside!

I am now composing verse—

Wanton, vanish—fly—disperse!

What have I to do with thee?"

"I am Poetry," said she.

TIT FOR TAT

I often pass a gracious tree

Whose name I can't identify,

It waves a bough, in kind reply.

(Are you a hemlock or a pine?)

Quite probably you don't know mine.

Courtesy

SONG FOR A LITTLE HOUSE

I'm glad our house is a little house,

Not too tall nor too wide:

Feel free to come inside.

It is not shy or vain;

And makes friends with the rain.

Against our whited walls,

Are paying duty calls.

THE PLUMPUPPETS

When little heads weary have gone to their bed,
When all the good nights and the prayers have been said,
Of all the good fairies that send bairns to rest
The little Plumpuppets are those I love best.
If your pillow is lumpy, or hot, thin and flat,
The little Plumpuppets know just what they're at;
They plump up the pillow, all soft, cool and fat—

The little Plumpuppets plump-up it!

No matter what troubles have bothered the day,
Though your doll broke her arm or the pup ran away;
Though your handies are black with the ink that was spilt—
Plumpuppets are waiting in blanket and quilt.
If your pillow is lumpy, or hot, thin and flat,
The little Plumpuppets know just what they're at;
They plump up the pillow, all soft, cool and fat—

The little Plumpuppets plump-up it!

The Plumpuppets

DANDY DANDELION

When Dandy Dandelion wakes

And combs his yellow hair,

And sets his bed to air;

To keep the thrush away,

They know that it is day!

The cowslips in the grass;

Looks out for flies that pass.

They know the night is done:

They think he is the sun!

As sweet as some bouquets;

He withers in a vase;

And lord of high renown;

His bright and shining crown.

THE HIGH CHAIR

Grimly the parent matches wit and will:
Now, Weesy, three more spoons! See Tom the cat,
He'd drink it. You want to be big and fat
Like Daddy, don't you? (Careful now, don't spill!)
Yes, Daddy'll dance, and blow smoke through his nose,
But you must finish first. Come, drink it up—
(Splash!) Oh, you must keep both hands on the cup.
All gone? Now for the prunes....

And so it goes.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

Not long ago I fell in love,

But unreturned is my affection—

Pays little heed in my direction.

In fact, I'd had my arm around her;

How unresponsive I have found her.

Her manners quite the wrong way rub me:

To let me love her—and then snub me!

She shows no gladness when she spies me—

And doesn't even recognize me.

Seem asking if I can support her

A lady like her father's daughter.

And let me add that I intend to:

So fit for her to be a friend to.

By Jove, I'll make her love me one day;

And she'll be three weeks old on Sunday!

... It's hard to have to tell
How unresponsive I have found her.

AUTUMN COLORS

The chestnut trees turned yellow,
The oak like sherry browned,
The fir, the stubborn fellow,
Stayed green the whole year round.
But O the bonny maple
How richly he does shine!
He glows against the sunset
Like ruddy old port wine.

THE LAST CRICKET

When the bulb of the moon with white fire fills

And dead leaves crackle under the feet,

And chestnuts roast on every street;

Of lustered emerald and pearl,

His doom. His tiny bagpipes skirl.

In stubble, thicket, and frosty copse

And puts away his pipe—and stops.

TO LOUISE

(A Christmas Baby, Now One Year Old.)

Undaunted by a world of grief
You came upon perplexing days,
And cynics doubt their disbelief
To see the sky-stains in your gaze.
Your sudden and inclusive smile
And your emphatic tears, admit
That you must find this life worth while,
So eagerly you clutch at it!
Your face of triumph says, brave mite,
That life is full of love and luck—
Of blankets to kick off at night,
And two soft rose-pink thumbs to suck.
O loveliest of pioneers
Upon this trail of long surprise,
May all the stages of the years
Show such enchantment in your eyes!
By parents' patient buttonings,
And endless safety pins, you'll grow
To ribbons, garters, hooks and things,
Up to the Ultimate Trousseau—
But never, in your dainty prime,
Will you be more adored by me
Than when you see, this Great First Time,
Lit candles on a Christmas Tree!
December, 1919.

... When you see, this Great First Time,
Lit candles on a Christmas Tree!

CHRISTMAS EVE

Our hearts to-night are open wide,
The grudge, the grief, are laid aside:

The path and porch are swept of snow,
The doors unlatched; the hearthstones glow—

Compassionate and humble grow

Our hearts to-night.

May come as once so long ago—
Then welcome, be it friend or foe!

Our hearts to-night.

EPITAPH ON THE PROOFREADER OF THE ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA

Majestic tomes, you are the tomb
Of Aristides Edward Bloom,
Who labored, from the world aloof,
In reading every page of proof.
From A to And, from Aus to Bis
Enthusiasm still was his;
From Cal to Cha, from Cha to Con
His soft-lead pencil still went on.
But reaching volume Fra to Gib,
He knew at length that he was sib
To Satan; and he sold his soul
To reach the section Pay to Pol.
Then Pol to Ree, and Shu to Sub
He staggered on, and sought a pub.
And just completing Vet to Zym,
The motor hearse came round for him.
He perished, obstinately brave:
They laid the Index on his grave.

THE MUSIC BOX

At six—long ere the wintry dawn—

There sounded through the silent hall

Above my ears, a plaintive call.

Of three years old, could not refrain;

And frolic with his clockwork train.

His sister, by her usual plan,

I vowed to quench the little man.

And spoke, I fear, with emphasis—

To seal one's censure with a kiss!

Again I lay in slumber's snare,

A tiny, tinkling, tuneful air—

His crib companion every night;

While waiting for the lagging light.

Those tingling pricks of sound unrolled;

His lonely little heart consoled.

(Its only tune) shrilled sweet and faint.

In vigil gay, without complaint.

The leaping air that was his bliss;

I thanked the all-unconscious Swiss!

Rang slowlier and died away—

Who lay and waited for the day.

The Music Box

TO LUATH

(Robert Burns's Dog)

"Darling Jean" was Jean Armour, a "comely country lass" whom Burns met at a penny wedding at Mauchline. They chanced to be dancing in the same quadrille when the poet's dog sprang to his master and almost upset some of the dancers. Burns remarked that he wished he could get any of the lasses to like him as well as his dog did.

Some days afterward, Jean, seeing him pass as she was bleaching clothes on the village green, called to him and asked him if he had yet got any of the lasses to like him as well as his dog did.

That was the beginning of an acquaintance that coloured all of Burns's life. —Nathan Haskell Dole.

Well, Luath, man, when you came prancing
All glee to see your Robin dancing,
His partner's muslin gown mischancing

You leaped for joy!

You caused, my boy!

Was put to flight—

You wagged that night!

His breast went bang!

He felt the pang!

To be less fickle!

And grievous prickle!

And gambolled too,

Was due to you!

By greenside came,

And yours the blame!

THOUGHTS ON REACHING LAND

I had a friend whose path was pain—

Oppressed by all the cares of earth

His secret cisterns of rich mirth.

His dreams were laid aside, perforce,

(His trade? Newspaper man, of course!)

What ingots of the heart and mind

Beneath the rasping daily grind.

For fear his soul be wholly lost,

To call soul back, at any cost!

Undrugged by caution and control,

The virtued passion of his soul!

With holy light his eyes would shine—

After the second glass of wine!

Aspired, was generous and free:

Grew flame, as it was meant to be.

Who call the glass the Devil's shape—

Defiles the honor of the grape.

That kindles human brains uncouth—

In aught that brings us nearer Truth!

(Here let our little sermon end)

The secret bosom of your friend!

A SYMPOSIUM

There was a Russian novelist

Whose name was Solugubrious,

(They'd heard he was salubrious.)

Soon held a kind of seminar

You know what bookworms women are.

(You should have seen them bury tea)

Was the great man's sincerity.

From all besetting vanity)

His broad and deep humanity.

All thought of being critical,

A wee bit analytical.

But Mrs. Black, the President,

Of wisdom found the pinnacle:

Those Russians are so cynical."

It's true that they had heard of him;

Had ever read a word of him!

Solugubrious

TO A TELEPHONE OPERATOR WHO HAS A BAD COLD

How hoarse and husky in my ear

Your usually cheerful chirrup:

Try aspirin or bronchial syrup.

Compassion stirred my humane blood red

The number: Burray Hill dide hudred!

To hear you croak in the receiver—

A month hence, when I have hay fever?

NURSERY RHYMES FOR THE TENDER-HEARTED

(Dedicated to Don Marquis.)

I

Scuttle, scuttle, little roach—
How you run when I approach:
Up above the pantry shelf.
Hastening to secrete yourself.
Most adventurous of vermin,
How I wish I could determine
How you spend your hours of ease,
Perhaps reclining on the cheese.
Cook has gone, and all is dark—
Then the kitchen is your park:
In the garbage heap that she leaves
Do you browse among the tea leaves?
How delightful to suspect
All the places you have trekked:
Does your long antenna whisk its
Gentle tip across the biscuits?
Do you linger, little soul,
Drowsing in our sugar bowl?
Or, abandonment most utter,
Shake a shimmy on the butter?
Do you chant your simple tunes
Swimming in the baby's prunes?
Then, when dawn comes, do you slink
Homeward to the kitchen sink?
Timid roach, why be so shy?
We are brothers, thou and I.
In the midnight, like yourself,
I explore the pantry shelf!

In the midnight, like yourself,
I explore the pantry shelf!

II

Rockabye, insect, lie low in thy den,
Father's a cockroach, mother's a hen.
And Betty, the maid, doesn't clean up the sink,
So you shall have plenty to eat and to drink.
Hushabye, insect, behind the mince pies:
If the cook sees you her anger will rise;
She'll scatter poison, as bitter as gall,
Death to poor cockroach, hen, baby and all.

III

There was a gay henroach, and what do you think,
She lived in a cranny behind the old sink—
Eggshells and grease were the chief of her diet;
She went for a stroll when the kitchen was quiet.
She walked in the pantry and sampled the bread,
But when she came back her old husband was dead:
Long had he lived, for his legs they were fast,
But the kitchen maid caught him and squashed him at last.

IV

I knew a black beetle, who lived down a drain,
And friendly he was though his manners were plain;
When I took a bath he would come up the pipe,
And together we'd wash and together we'd wipe.
Though mother would sometimes protest with a sneer
That my choice of a tub-mate was wanton and queer,
A nicer companion I never have seen:
He bathed every night, so he must have been clean.
Whenever he heard the tap splash in the tub
He'd dash up the drain-pipe and wait for a scrub,
And often, so fond of ablution was he,
I'd find him there floating and waiting for me.
But nurse has done something that seems a great shame:
She saw him there, waiting, prepared for a game:
She turned on the hot and she scalded him sore
And he'll never come bathing with me any more.

THE TWINS

C on was a thorn to brother Pro—

On Pro we often sicked him:

Old Con would contradict him!

The Twins

A PRINTER'S MADRIGAL

(Extremely technical)

I'd like to have you meet my wife!

I simply cannot keep from hinting

So fine a specimen of printing.

Set solid. Nay! And I will say out

To see a better balanced layout.

There is for brown eyes to look large in,

Comes anywhere too near the margin.

Her form will never pi. She's like a

And yet she loves me, fatface Pica!

And like a comma curves each eyebrow—

Which makes her seem a trifle highbrow.

Too lovely to describe by penpoint;

And chin are comely Caslon ten-point.

Make my pulse beat 14-em measure,

Would make De Vinne scream with pleasure.

Her father's best, in my opinion;

And I (in lower case) her minion.

Because my metaphors are shoppy;

I tell the urchin, Follow Copy!

THE POET ON THE HEARTH

When fire is kindled on the dogs,

But still the stubborn oak delays,

Will draw them into sudden blaze.

(A greater he need not desire)

May light some Master into fire!

O PRAISE ME NOT THE COUNTRY

O praise me not the country—
The meadows green and cool,
The solemn glow of sunsets, the hidden silver pool!

The city for my craving,
Her lordship and her slaving,
The hot stones of her paving

For me, a city fool!

The city for my yearning,
My spending and my earning.
Her winding ways for learning,

Sing hey! the city streets!

The city for my wooing,
My dreaming and my doing;
Her beauty for pursuing,

Her deathless mysteries.

The city for my wonder,
Her glory and her blunder,
And O the haunting thunder

Of the Elevated cars!

O praise me not the country

A STONE IN ST. PAUL'S GRAVEYARD

(New York)

Here Lyes the Body of
Iohn Jones the Son of
Iohn Jones Who Departed
This Life December the 13
1768 Aged 4 Years & 4 Months & 2 Days

Here, where enormous shadows creep,

He casts his childish shadow too:

Great walls; his tender days, so few,

Yet though our buildings skyward climb

In the equality of Time.

THE MADONNA OF THE CURB

On the curb of a city pavement,

By the ash and garbage cans,

Of motor trucks and vans,

With brave but troubled eyes,

That cries and cries and cries.

But years go fast in the slums,

The pitiless summer comes.

She knows; she understands

The clutch of small hot hands.

That turns men faint and mad,

By telling a dream she had—

And ice, and a singing fan;

Just like the drug-store man.

Than the perfect robe of a queen!

The blessing of being clean.

To Belgian, Pole and Serb,

Madonna of the Curb!

The wail of sickly children
She knows; she understands
The pangs of puny bodies,
The clutch of small hot hands.

THE ISLAND

A song for England?

Nay, what is a song for England?

Among the gulls' white wings,

The lighthouse beacon swings:

Come in on Suffolk foam—

Moves fast, and calls us home!

On many a Cotswold hill,

The island draws us still:

Where Sussex downs are high,

A bonfire in the sky!

That flings her strength so wide?

Her stubborn wordless pride?

As any land may be,

The salt stress of the sea.

Our lips taste English rain,

Across some deep-sea lane;

And marvellous with worth,

How empty were the earth!

SUNDAY NIGHT

Two grave brown eyes, severely bent

Upon a memorandum book—

A hopeful and a pensive look;

With stubs for varying amounts—

Is busy balancing accounts.

She, all engrossed, the audit scans—

The while she calculates and plans;

Upon her forehead gathers now—

Beget that shadow on her brow?

A murrain on the tradesman churl

Who caused this fair accountant's gloom!

Arose and swiftly left the room.

I thrust some bills of small amounts—

And smile again at her accounts!

Ah, does the butcher—heartless clown—
Beget that shadow on her brow?

ENGLAND, JULY 1913

To Rupert Brooke

O England, England ... that July
How placidly the days went by!
Two years ago (how long it seems)
In that dear England of my dreams
I loved and smoked and laughed amain
And rode to Cambridge in the rain.
A careless godlike life was there!
To spin the roads with Shotover,
To dream while punting on the Cam,
To lie, and never give a damn
For anything but comradeship
And books to read and ale to sip,
And shandygaff at every inn
When The Gorilla rode to Lynn!
O world of wheel and pipe and oar
In those old days before the War.
O poignant echoes of that time!
I hear the Oxford towers chime,
The throbbing of those mellow bells
And all the sweet old English smells—
The Deben water, quick with salt,
The Woodbridge brew-house and the malt;
The Suffolk villages, serene
With lads at cricket on the green,
And Wytham strawberries, so ripe,
And Murray's Mixture in my pipe!
In those dear days, in those dear days,
All pleasant lay the country ways;
The echoes of our stalwart mirth
Went echoing wide around the earth
And in an endless bliss of sun
We lay and watched the river run.
And you by Cam and I by Isis
Were happy with our own devices.
Ah, can we ever know again
Such friends as were those chosen men,
Such men to drink, to bike, to smoke with,
To worship with, or lie and joke with?
Never again, my lads, we'll see
The life we led at twenty-three.
Never again, perhaps, shall I
Go flashing bravely down the High
To see, in that transcendent hour,
The sunset glow on Magdalen Tower.
Dear Rupert Brooke, your words recall
Those endless afternoons, and all
Your Cambridge—which I loved as one
Who was her grandson, not her son.
O ripples where the river slacks
In greening eddies round the "backs";
Where men have dreamed such gallant things
Under the old stone bridge at King's.
Or leaned to feed the silver swans
By the tennis meads at John's.
O Granta's water, cold and fresh,
Kissing the warm and eager flesh
Under the willow's breathing stir—
The bathing pool at Grantchester....
What words can tell, what words can praise
The burly savor of those days!
Dear singing lad, those days are dead
And gone for aye your golden head;
And many other well-loved men
Will never dine in Hall again.
I too have lived remembered hours
In Cambridge; heard the summer showers
Make music on old Heffer's pane
While I was reading Pepys or Taine.
Through Trumpington and Grantchester
I used to roll on Shotover;
At Hauxton Bridge my lamp would light
And sleep in Royston for the night.
Or to Five Miles from Anywhere
I used to scull; and sit and swear
While wasps attacked my bread and jam
Those summer evenings on the Cam.
(O crispy English cottage-loaves
Baked in ovens, not in stoves!
O white unsalted English butter
O satisfaction none can utter!)...
To think that while those joys I knew
In Cambridge, I did not know you.

July, 1915.

CASUALTY

A well-sharp'd pencil leads one on to write:
When guns are cocked, the shot is guaranteed;
The primed occasion puts the deed in sight:
Who steals a book who knows not how to read?
Seeing a pulpit, who can silence keep?
A maid, who would not dream her ta'en to wife?
Men looking down from some sheer dizzy steep
Have (quite impromptu) leapt, and ended life.

A GRUB STREET RECESSIONAL

O noble gracious English tongue
Whose fibers we so sadly twist,
For caitiff measures he has sung
Have pardon on the journalist.
For mumbled meter, leaden pun,
For slipshod rhyme, and lazy word,
Have pity on this graceless one—
Thy mercy on Thy servant, Lord!
The metaphors and tropes depart,
Our little clippings fade and bleach:
There is no virtue and no art
Save in straightforward Saxon speech.
Yet not in ignorance or spite,
Nor with Thy noble past forgot
We sinned: indeed we had to write
To keep a fire beneath the pot.
Then grant that in the coming time,
With inky hand and polished sleeve,
In lucid prose or honest rhyme
Some worthy task we may achieve—
Some pinnacled and marbled phrase,
Some lyric, breaking like the sea,
That we may learn, not hoping praise,
The gift of Thy simplicity.

PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTIONS FOR A FUNERAL SERVICE: BEING A POEM IN FOUR STANZAS

Say this poor fool misfeatured all his days,
And could not mend his ways;
And say he trod
Most heavily upon the corns of God.
But also say that in his clabbered brain
There was the essential pain—
The idiot's vow
To tell his troubled Truth, no matter how.
Unhappy fool, you say, with pitiful air:
Who was he, then, and where?
Ah, you divine
He lives in your heart, as he lives in mine.

Transcribers notes

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