THE
COAT WITHOUT A SEAM And Other Poems

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

A CHANT OF LOVE FOR ENGLAND AND OTHER POEMS

A volume of miscellaneous poems containing as its title poem a reply to the German “Hymn of Hate.”

“Firmly and finely fashioned, and unaffectedly sincere.”—The New York Times.

“Miss Cone’s verse shows a delicacy of imagination which is deserving of high praise.”—The Outlook.

$1.50 net

NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 Fifth Avenue

THE
COAT WITHOUT A SEAM
And Other Poems

BY
HELEN GRAY CONE
Author of “A Chant of Love for England,
and Other Poems”

NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 Fifth Avenue

Copyright 1919, by
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

All Rights Reserved

Printed in the United States of America

Grateful acknowledgment is made, for permission to reprint some of the poems in this book, to Scribner’s Magazine, The Outlook, The Sonnet, The New York Evening Post, The New York Times, The Boston Evening Transcript, and The Association Monthly.

CONTENTS

THE COAT WITHOUT A
SEAM

THE COAT WITHOUT A SEAM

There was a web, ere Time began,

Woven on the loom of God,

Woven for the need of Man.

Through the web two colors ran,

Blue that is the sky of God,

Red that is the blood of Man.

The web was woven, the web was one:

The stars sang when the work was done.

God had willed it to be worn—

Fit garment for the heavenly feast—

By Man, that was to be His son.

Only God could dream that dream!

When Time began, and Man was born,

He clothed himself in the skin of the beast,

And under it beat the heart of the beast.

Not till Man be born God’s son

Shall he wear the Coat without a Seam!

(Ah, the dream, the wondrous dream

Of a World without a Seam,

Man being one, as God is one,

Brother’s brother and Father’s son,

All earth, all Heaven, without a seam!)

The Roman strode through field and flood,

Blind as Fate with battle-blood;

Victory glittered in his hand;

And when he laid him down at night

Under the stars of some strange land,

Weary of the march or fight,

He wrapped his heart in the vast dream

Of a World without a Seam;

Yet the dream was not divine;

The fierce heart beat like marching feet:

“The World is one—the World is mine!”

That was the dream of states foregone,

Of Babylon, of Macedon;

Sleeked by whatsoever art,

It is the dream of the beast’s heart.

Massive-treading Rome paced on

(As Macedon, as Babylon,)

Into the dusk of states foregone:

She left her mantle still astream

Along the wind, her purple dream—

Not the Coat without a Seam!

The eyes of emperors see it float,

They hail it for the sacred Coat:

Men follow on through field and flood,

Blind as Fate with battle-blood.

See the sworded sceptred train,

Out of the dusk they all advance:

Iron-crownéd Charlemagne,

Barbarossa flaming past,

Sombre majesties of Spain,

Pomps of old monarchic France—

Supreme Napoleon last,

Sweeping his ermine-bordered robe

And gripping fast the globe.

(Nay, who is this that follows him,

A vision helmeted and grim,

A countenance pallid and aghast?)

—Into the dusk they all are gone,

As Babylon, as Macedon.

Not till Man shall dream God’s dream

Shall he wear the Coat without a Seam!

(Ah, the dream, the wondrous dream

Of a World without a Seam!

Man being one, as God is one,

Brother’s brother and Father’s son,

All earth, all Heaven without a seam!)

“What shall we do, we simple folk

Who walk as cattle in the yoke?

Surely the vision of this Coat—

Fit garment for the heavenly feast—

Is for prophet and for priest,

Not for men of little note!

Surely the quest to find this Coat—

Woven of empyrean thread

Heaven-blue and heart-red—

This is for Kings and Chancellors,

Parliaments and Emperors,

Not for men of little note!”

—Nay, this do ye every one:

All your days to dream God’s dream,

That Man, who is to be His son,

Shall wear the Coat without a Seam!

SONNETS OF THE GREAT PEACE

“Incertainties now crown themselves assured

And peace proclaims olives of endless age.”

—Shakespeare’s Sonnet CVII.

I

What boon is this, this fresh and crystal thing,

Perfect as snow, dropped from the deep of the sky—

This healing, shed as from the soft swift wing

Of some great mystical bird low-sweeping by?

This music suddenly thrilling through the mind

Angelic unimagined ecstasy,

As when warm fingers of the Spring unbind

Young brooks that laugh and leap, at last being free?

By what white magic, what unfathomed art,

Was this best gift secretly perfected,

This amulet, that laid against the heart

Melts all the icy weight that held it dead?

This is that Peace we had and did not know;

This is that Peace we lost—how long ago!

II

Shall we not now work wonders with this charm,

To the vext heart of the world benignly laid,

Fending all future golden lads from harm,

And all gray mothers, and every starry maid?

Yea, all kind beasts that ask with patient eyes

Our wisdom to forestall bewildering pain:

Yea, all kind fields, trees rippling to the skies,

Brown earth sweet-breathing under natural rain.

Shall we not now, being freed, being healed of Peace,

Retrieve all days to be from blot and blight,

Give to the chained goodwill of Man release,

And a new deed of manumission write

On a new page, made by this marvellous boon

Pure as unfooted snow under the moon?

III

How did we cast away our careless days

In that old time before we knew their worth,

Wandering with chance, even as a child that strays,

Spilling their unprized splendors on the earth!

But now we have eaten War as daily bread,

Borne it upon our souls a weary weight,

Made it the pillow to a restless head,

Breathed it as air, sick with the reek of hate:

And Peace is come a stranger, and grave-eyed,

Like a young maid turned woman; on our knees

We do her reverence as a spirit enskyed;

How should we spend such shining days as these?

They have cost great pain: needs must we hold them dear,

Counting our jewels with a heavenly fear.

IV

Ghosts of great flags that billowed in the sun

With glorious colors above the crowded street,

Lifting our hearts to know the rent world one,

Teaching the march of Man to hurrying feet,

Shall ye not haunt those skyward spaces still

With memory of your sun-illumined streaming,

Bright brother-angels heralding goodwill,

Beckoners of sordid spirits to noble dreaming?

Or shall your many beauteous blazonries

Fade out from the dulled sense and be forgot,

And intimations so august as these

Lapse into silence even as they were not,

Comrades turn rivals, and heart-fast allies

Weavers of schemes, peering with insect eyes?

V

What shame were this to those who lie asleep

Under the scarlet poppies, having bought

A clean new world with blood! Shall we not keep

Faith with our dead, and give them what they sought?

Is not a world the measure of our debt

To those whose young lives sadly we inherit,

Living them out, making them fruitful yet?

What lesser meed fits their transcendent merit?

The future was their sacrificial gift,

And joy unborn, and beauty uncreate,

And little children that should racing lift

Their torch of life, laughing at death and fate:

Shall we not make, mindful of all they gave,

A star of this old earth which is their grave?

MOODS OF WAR

THE SWORD

One of the seventy had a sword

The day that Christ was crucified:

He followed where they led his Lord,

The man that could not stand aside.

When that first hammer-stroke rang loud,

And left and right the rabble swayed,

He flashed from out the staring crowd,

He died upon the Roman blade.

His fruitless deed, his noteless name,

By careless Rome were never told.

Now shall we give him praise or blame?

Account him base, acclaim him bold?

Was he the traitor to his Lord,

Deeper than Peter that denied,

The loving soul that took the sword,

The man that would not stand aside?

Or did the glorious company

Of Michael’s sworded seraphim

With chivalrous high courtesy

Rise up to make a place for him?

ALIGNED

Why do you leap in the wind so wild,

O Star-Flag, O Sky-Flag?

And why do you ripple as if you smiled,

Flag of my heart’s delight?

“I laugh because I am loosed at last,

Free of the cords that bound me fast

Mute as a mummy, furled on the mast,

Far from the beckoning fight!

“I joy because I am aligned—

The Star-Flag, the Sky-Flag—

With these the noblest of my kind,

Flags of the soul’s desire!

And where the blended Crosses blaze,

And where the Tricolor lifts and sways

To the marching pulse of the Marseillaise,

I may be tried in the fire!”

Yea, not for gold and not for ease,

My Star-Flag, my Sky-Flag,

The Fathers launched you on the breeze,

Flag of man’s best emprise!

Yea, not for power and not for greed,

But to fly forever, follow or lead,

For the world’s hope and the world’s need,

Flower of all seas and all skies!

And better you were a riddled rag,

My Star-Flag, my Sky-Flag,

The faded ghost of a fighting-flag,

Shredded, and scorched with flame,

Than that you should now be satisfied

Over splendid cities and waters wide

To flutter and float in an idle pride,

To flaunt in a silken shame!

Then well may you leap in the wind so wild,

O Star-Flag, O Sky-Flag!

And well may you ripple as if you smiled,

Flag of our hearts’ delight!

We joy because you are aligned

With these the noblest of your kind:

We are yours and theirs with a single mind—

Let us on to the beckoning fight!

EARTH-BROWN ARMIES

Earth-brown armies, on the brown earth whither,

Ant-like swarming, rush ye in your wrath?

—We wrestle and we tug and we pull all together

To shift the giant Dead Thing that lies across the path.

Earth-brown armies, but should it roll and smother,

Log-like topple, and crush you in the clod?

—Earth would pour new armies, one behind another,

To shift the giant Dead Thing that blocks the way of God!

THE IMPERATIVE

Whether we lose the light

Of love or of the sun,

With body and blood and mind and might

Must this sole thing be done:

The world is a broken ball,

Stained red because it fell

Out of bounds, in a game of kings,

Over the wall of hell:

And now must the spirit of man

Arise and adventure all—

Leap the wall sheer down into hell

And bring up the broken ball.

Worth well, to lose the light

Of love or of the sun,

Worth endless fire or endless night,

So this sole thing were done!

WAR-SACRIFICE

On a rock-altar stern

In sacrificial fires,

A man goes up to burn

His memories and desires.

Sweet savors of the earth,

All innocence and ease,

All pleasantness and mirth,

He offers on his knees.

His trembling, star-white dreams;

His body’s secret fear;

His life—how dear it seems,

How knit with lives more dear!

Last offering, and most dread—

With blind arms thrust above

His bowed and suffering head,

He burns his brother-love:

Yet from that altar springs,

Magnificently bright,

A Love with fiery wings

To fill the world with light.

THE YOUTH AND WAR

She said, “I will hide all the brave books away from him,

With their scarlet letters that burn into the heart;

I will lock their spell and their sovereign sway from him;