Transcriber’s Note:

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

HEAVENS AND EARTH
A BOOK OF POEMS

BY

STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1920

Copyright, 1920

BY

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

TO

GEORGE THEODORE ACHELIS

1897–1920

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Ainslie’s Magazine, The Bowling Green, Books and the Book World, The Dial, The New Republic, Romance, Sun, The Sun Dial, The Yale Review and The Yale Literary Magazine for permission to reprint poems included in this volume.

CONTENTS

TWO VISIONS OF HELEN

THE FIRST VISION OF HELEN

Argument—Itys, nurtured by centaurs, meets and falls in love with Helen of Troy, before her marriage with Menelaus. What befell therefrom.

Slowly blanch-handed Dawn, eyes half-awake,

Upraised magnificent the silver urn,

Heaped with white roses at the trembling lip,

Flowers that burn with crystalline accord

And die not ever. Like a pulsing heart

Beat from within against the fire-loud verge

A milky vast transparency of light

Heavy with drowning stars; a swimming void Morning.

Of august ether, formless as the cloud,

And light made absolute. The mountains sighed,

Turning in sleep. Dawn held the frozen flame

An instant high above the shaggy world,

Then, to the crowing of a thousand cocks,

Poured out on earth the unconquerable sun!

The centaurs awoke! they aroused from their beds of pine,

Their long flanks hoary with dew, and their eyes, deep-drowned

In the primal slumber of stones, stirred bright to the shine!

And they stamped with their hooves and their gallop abased the ground!

Swifter than arrowy birds in an eager sky, The

White-browed kings of the hills where old Titans feast, Running

—Cheiron ordered the charge with a neighing cry, of the

And the thousand hunters tramped like a single beast! Centaurs.

Beautiful monstrous dreams they seemed as they ran,

Trees come alive at the nod of a god grown mute!

Their eyes looked up to the sun like a valiant man;

Their bows clashed shrill on the loins and limbs of the brute!

Laughing, rejoicing, white as a naked birch,

Slim as a spear in a torrent of moving towers,

Itys, the prince, ran gay in the storm of their search,

Silverly shod on feet that outstripped the Hours!

Over by Sparta bays a horn!

Ohé, Helena!

Over by Sparta bays a horn!

And the black hound grins to his milk-teeth torn;

And the tall stag wishes he’d never been born!

Helena hunts on the hills!

Past the Eurotas the chase sweeps hot!

Ohé, Helena!

Past the Eurotas the chase sweeps hot!

And the pack has nosed at a royal slot!

And a white-armed girl has a magic lot!

Helena hunts on the hills!

Echoed at Elis the dogs give tongue!

Ohé, Helena!

Echoed at Elis the dogs give tongue!

The stag flees on but his mort is sung! The Hunting

And the world and Helen are very young! of

Helena hunts on the hills! Helen.

Down by Argos the flight is stayed!

Ohé, Helena!

Down by Argos the flight is stayed!

And proud blood stifles the reeking blade!

And they cut the tongue for the golden maid!

Helena hunts on the hills!

Over in Troy by a kingly door,

Ohé, Helena!

Over in Troy by a kingly door,

Hector’s sword is asleep from war!

“Wait!” whines the bitter steel, “Two years more!”

Helena hunts on the hills!

So the two molten clamors fused a space

As silver marries brass to make a bell,

Then thrust apart and vanished, save for some

Faint interlocking tentacles of sound

That chimed to Itys. Something halted him

From the swift gallop and the embracing air,

Put in him troubling languor, drove him out

To rest beside a round coin of a pool,

Casually flung among a cloud of pines.

He dreamed as a dog dreams, uneasily.

The dreams blow North and South.

Pitiless-bright they gleam.

Send, Zeus, a flower across my mouth!

The wing of a silver dream!

The visions smoke from the deep, Itys

Bannering East and West. Dreams

Guide, Zeus, the stumbling old feet of Sleep,

That bring a dream to my breast!

I have gazed in immaculate eyes!

My soul is a flame astream!

Zeus, strike swift from the raging skies,

That I may die with my dream!

He waked and saw two hounds, tugging their leash,

Burst through the covert, and heard laughter bell

Like a clear stream as Helen followed them.

They drank, were quiet. Itys stood at gaze; Itys

Seeing in all things one miraculous face, Beholds

And how her tunic left one bright breast bare, Helen

And how she smoothed her hair back with one hand....

But very presently he was aware

That some one not himself possessed his voice

And used it now to talk with—babbling words

Foolish and laughable to that still Beauty.

Tempest from the valiant sky,

Music of the shaken reed,

Can a thousand kisses buy

You and April, mine indeed?

Fling the dice and let them lie!

Not a joy from all your mind

Will you toss me, beggar’s dole,

And you never would be kind Itys’

Though I kissed your very soul! Song

Race the coursers up the wind!

Queen of desperate alarms,

Though Destruction be the priest

That must bring me to your arms,

He shall wed our bones at least!

Life was vintage, borage-crowned,

Pour the cup upon the ground!

Vines grow in my garden;

Blossoms a snake in size.

Sun warms and knife-winds harden,

Till the silk-stained globes arise;

And men peer over the hedges

With fury come in their eyes.

Pears grow in my garden;

Honey a wild bee clips. Helen’s

Robbers afraid of pardon, Song

The princes steal from their ships,

And pluck the fruit of iniquity

And take it not from their lips.

Fate grows in my garden;

Black as a cypress shoot.

Sleepily smiles the warden,

Guarding the gorgeous loot,

Seeing the Tree, Deliciousness,

And the tall lords dead at its root!

Their lips broke from the kiss. Helena sighed,

Then started up, afraid. Straight toward the pool

Rending the brake with hounds, shouting aloud,

Crashed like a cast spear the returning chase. The Death

“Itys!” she said, “My brothers. They will kill.” of Itys

He looked down at his hands that held no sword.

Helena’s hounds belled answer to their pack.

Swift as a closing hand, unreal as dream,

Danger shut down around them.

“Dear” he said.

Pollux, the shining-speared, burst through the leaves.

After the slaying, wide-eyed Helen paused

To clasp the dead hands loosely, and unhook

A swaying torque of gold from the white neck

That it might burn, a sun, between her breasts.

—The chase passed with hot noon, and in the cool

A straying centaur came, snuffed the new blood

And, seeing Itys dead, neighed in loud fear;

Calling the hairy tramplers of the woods

To mourn their friend with strange solemnities.

Close his eyes with the coins; bind his chin with the shroud;

Carry this clay along, in the time of the westing cloud;

Lay you the cakes beside, for the three-mouthed dog of Hell; Death-

Slain on the grass in fight, surely his end is well. Chant of The Centaurs

Love was the wind he sought, ignorant whence it went;

Now he has clasped it close, silent and eloquent;

Slow as the stream and strong, answering knee to knee,

Carry this clay along—it is more wise than we.

The chanting died away upon the hills,

Sobbingly low.

And Night reversed the urn; Night

Drawing all sunlight back to the hot deeps,

And leaving the high heavens full of stars.

THE LAST VISION OF HELEN

Argument—Helen, after the fall of Troy, departs to Egypt with ghostly companions, as in the old tale. She encounters the Sphinx and a marvel is wrought upon her.

Measureless sand ... interminable sand....

The smooth hide of that yellow lion, Earth,

Ruffled a little and was dark again

Beneath the descending torrents of the night,

Plunging like cobalt from the cliffs of the sky,

Blotting the stiff wedge of each pyramid

With the slow gurgle of a rising wave,

A wave burning with stars....

The Sphinx alone

Couched on her forepaws like a sleepy hound

Under the weight of a caress of rock

And smiled her woman’s and chimera’s smile

Inexorably, drowned with the savage dark.

The black tide filled the heavens up and ceased,

A little tongueing flame ran on the sand

Bright as a fire of paper, swift and light

As a bird’s restless eyes. It rose. It bloomed,

An angry dream before the Sphinx’s feet,

The exhalation of a furious thought,

Tall as the ghosts of Heaven’s battlements,

The apparition that had once been Troy!

A girl went out in the summer skies,

(The dice lie white for the throwing!)

A girl went out in the summer skies

And the sunlight laughed as it kissed her eyes!

(And the wind of Fate is blowing!) Song of the City Troy

She was ruddy and gold as a changing leaf

When gilded Autumn gathers the sheaf.

She was lily and pale as a sleeping moth

When the full moon bleaches the skies like cloth.

The grass was glad to be under her shoe,

The poppy proud to be floor unto

The silvering dance of her feet like dew!

... But her lord walks chill as a cloud of snow

Where the kings of the earth are bending the bow.

They are roaring the fame of the flying dart,

But he whispers low, in a place apart,

With the evil ice of his freezing heart.

“Helena, Helena, mouth of wine,

Two more days for your sun to shine!

Helena, Helena, mouth of musk.

Two more days and I make you dusk.

Two more nights on your silky bed,

And your lover over it, bloody and dead,

And your body broken as I break bread!”

His lips are writhing, sucking and cold,

His hands are twitching like trees grown old,

He shivers as if he had trod on mold.

The Golden Queen at her anchor strains.

(Sails on the sapphire, snowing)

Paris walks on the deck like a man in chains.

(And the wind of Fate is blowing.)

He wastes in his love like leaves in a flame,

But his mind is a spear in a dauntless game,

And the face of his doom has a girl’s soft name.

The fifty sailors are whetting their swords.

The brown sun beats on the tarry boards.

And Helena skims by the rolling sand

And waves with the fleck of a foam-white hand.

And the blood of Youth pounds hot in the throat

As the long oars lash from the lunging boat.

Richly she came through the leaping green,

Like the shrine of a god, like a sun first seen,

And they cried “Hurrah for the Golden Queen!”

The white sails soar like a rising gull,

The water spins by the speeding hull.

She smiles with her chin cupped into her hand

At the drowning shadow of fading land

—And Paris shakes like a torching brand.

And Paris crushes her, breath to breath,

And she gives him her honey of love and death.

But chill Menelaus a Fury hath,

He has thawed his hate to a roaring wrath!

He is loosing his hounds on the ocean-path!

The blooms of the years are withered and fall.

(Dawn—and a red flame crowing)

And Time’s cracked fingers number them all.

(And the wind of Fate is blowing.)

And a wooden horse is trampling Troy

As a hoof-thrust crushes a crumpling toy.

Ruddy and gold where the torches stare

Helena sits in her carven chair.

Lovely and strange as a moonlit cloud—

But her head droops down like a petal bowed.

Beneath her the blood and the wine run deep

—But her eyes are seas more quiet than sleep.

The drunkards brawl and the cup goes round;

But she gives no sign and she makes no sound.

Red Menelaus has poured her drink;

And she does not sip and she does not shrink.

And her mouth is a flower that says “Depart!”

And the hilt of a knife is under her heart.

The kings of the world have finished their chase,

They dash their wine in the glorious face.

And Paris is dead in a sickly land;

And they wrench the rings from the plume-white hand.

They dice for her rings and the game is sweet

And lean Menelaus is smiling sleet.

And the captains chuckle, counting their scars,

For the hosts of the earth have finished their wars

And Helen and Troy are cold as the stars.

Waves in the dusk with a sound like tears

(And the deep tide foaming and flowing)

Saying one name for a thousand years!

(And the wind of Fate is blowing!)

Like air beaten by swords, like the long cry

Of an old trumpet harsh with rust and gold

The ballad rose assaulting, struck and died

Into a clamorous echo.

The Sphinx stirred,

Shaking the drifted moonlight from her coat

As a dog shakes water, rising mountainously;

Then from that drum of terrible stone, her throat,

Rolled back her answer at the enormous sky.

The arrow of Eros flies The Song

In the dark, in the trembling dark; of the

Piercing and sweet is the song it cries Sphinx

And the cup of the heart its mark!

And the cup of the heart is dust,

And the wine of the heart is spilled.

And the barb flings whimpering back to Lust

With “Master, see—I have killed!”

It was thus and thus that you were begot!

I am Death’s bright arrow! Forgive me not!

The ribbon of Fate unreels

In the road of the days and nights;

There are flute-voiced airs for the dancing heels,

But over them hang the kites!

And the path grows dark as the laws

And the kites drop down in a ring,

Till a blind stag torn by the slashing claws

Is the end of the trumpeting!

It is there and there that your fathers rot!

I am Destiny’s halter! Unloose me not!

The mirror of Wisdom shines

Like a face in a troubled pool.

Like the eyes of a snake are its weaving signs

To the eyes of the anxious fool.

For the secret form of the soul

Is there in its terror shown

—And it rends the sight like a crumbling coal

Till the eyes of the fool are stone!

It was this and this that your ardor sought!

I am Wisdom’s mirror! Behold me not!

Then, like a forgotten tumult of the heart,

The multitude of men who died for Helen,

Vague, terrible, wounded forms began to chant.

Glance at us once from your sacred tower,

Helen divine!

The cutworm crawls in the almond-flower,

The rats are eating the thrones of power, Song of

Yet glance at us once and the clouds will shower the Men

Our lips with wine! of Helen

Loosen your hair to the storm again,

To the whistling brine!

We are very desperate men,

Reeds when fire goes over the fen,

Lighten our dark with your marvel then,

Helen divine!

Give us drink for our bitter thirst,

Helen divine!

Bless you the thieves that each priest has cursed,

Queen of us, queen of us, last and first,

Flame we followed and child we nursed,

Star at trine!

Open the heaven of your embrace,

Oh burning sign!

This is the end of the bloody race,

Whispering sea and the stars like lace,

You gather our souls to your shining place,

Helen divine!

The thunder ebbed away into a sigh,

Died into sand, was calm.

And suddenly

Helen of anguish, Helen of the song,

Helen the victory on the lips of Zeus,

Helen the princely word, the proud despair,

The voiceless cry of the ecstatic dream,

Shone with the radiance of a consuming wish

Upon the desert, and stretched out her arms

As if to take that whole great ghost of Troy,

Pennon and panoply, champion and car,

Back to its home, her breast.

Would there ever be a bud Helen’s

If the sap considered storm? Song

It would stay in happy mud,

Damned and sleepy, safe and warm!

Who would want to be a rose

If its petals thought of snows?

Why I lived I never knew.

Life—I took it like a toy,

Something like a worship, too,

To adore and to enjoy.

Then the gods began to play

—And the toy was put away.

Like a perfume made intense,

Like the planet of a dark,

I became magnificence

For my hour, in my spark,

There is rapture in my ghost,

Telling all my least and most.

Fate and Wisdom, judging loud,

These are shadows I can mock

With the thoughtlessness of cloud,

With the indolence of rock.

Let them air the inn they keep!

I am tired. I would sleep.

So, with the pause, all earth and sky were still

As if they had just been made—and the Sphinx lay

Silent, engulfed in silence.

Then she moved

Uneasily, and settled back again,

And in a low harshness of diminished sound

Spoke out her final judgment.

Zeus of the silver dawning took the scarf of a cloud,

He quickened the wraith with fire till the life cried out aloud,

He called Desire from his lightning, Despair from her weaving old,

And they fashioned the shape to a woman that men might die to behold!

Golden Zeus of the sunbeam slapped his hand on his thigh The Last

As the swords ran out of their scabbards and the arrows sang in the sky, Song of the

And the woman like leafy April was the chant that an archer sings Sphinx

Over sands grown bloody with purple that has come from the hearts of kings!

Zeus of the brazen twilight, nodding his eyes awake,

Armed him a doom for Helen lest Earth burn up for her sake;

Chill on the heart of incense, the hands that desired so much,

Fell the snow-like veil of his wisdom, till the flesh was still at its touch!

Iron Zeus of the night-time, watching the chariot moon

Trample the skies to whiteness, turns like a moving dune

To gaze at the shade of Helen. His eyes as the skies are vast;

Seeing her sleep like a swallow in Death’s wide bed at last.

Helen stood

Within the tremendous circle of the paws,

Moving like light towards the dark secret heart.

The Sphinx cried terribly with a wordless sound

Of birth and anguish struggling to be heard ...

And the light vanished ...

And Helen and the Sphinx

Were one forever, stone and ghost and dream—

And Troy was gone like vapor in the dark.

So the dawn came, and toiling caravans,

Whose princes halted, arrogant as hawks,

To stare but once into the Sphinx’s eyes

... And so were staring till Death breathed on them

With the slant feathers of his ruffling wing,

Seeking within the rock, the stubborn rock.

The gaze and burning of their Lost Desire.

CHARIOTS AND HORSEMEN

THE RETORT DISCOURTEOUS

(Italy—16th Century)

But what, by the fur on your satin sleeves,

The rain that drags at my feather

And the great Mercurius, god of thieves,

Are we thieves doing together?

Last night your blades bit deep for their hire,

And we were the sickled barley.

To-night, atoast by the common fire,

You ask me to join your parley.

Your spears are shining like Iceland spar,

The blood-grapes drip for your drinking;

For you folk follow the rising star,

I follow the star that’s sinking!

My queen is old as the frosted whins,

Nay, how could her wrinkles charm me?

And the starving bones are bursting the skins

In the ranks of her ancient army.

You marshal a steel-and-silken troop,

Your cressets are fed with spices,

And you batter the world like a rolling hoop

To the goal of your proud devices.

I have rocked your thrones—but your fight is won.

To-night, as the highest bidder,

You offer a share of your brigand-sun,

Consider, old bull, consider!

Ahead, red Death and the Fear of Death,

Your vultures, stoop to the slaughter!

But I shall fight you, body and breath,

Till my life runs out like water!

My queen is wan as the Polar snows.

Her host is a rout of specters.

But I gave her Youth like a burning rose,

And her age shall not lack protectors!

I would not turn for the thunderclap

Or the face of the woman who bore me,

With her battered badge still scarring my cap,

And the drums of defeat before me!

Roll your hands in the honey of life!

Kneel to your white-necked strumpets!

You came to your crowns with a squealing fife

But I shall go out with trumpets!

Poison the steel of the plunging dart!

Holloa your hounds to their station!

I march to my ruin with such a heart

As a king to his coronation!

Your poets roar of your golden feats—

I have herded the stars like cattle.

And you may die in the perfumed sheets,

But I shall die in the battle!

TWO AT THE CROSSROADS

The knight of battered and unblazoned arms

Reined up before the haster from the South

Whose red shield bore the crookt beast Glatysaunt,

(Also a scroll with “Pray for me!” entwined

With flowers and poison-leaves and Iseult’s name)

And cried “Where lies the sea-road?”; but the other

Seeming as mad as his own crest, replied

“Has the beast quested past you? have its dogs

Given sharp tongue along these drooping woods?

For I must follow them until I fall

Dead in some cleft of rock, and let the crabs

Hack at my armor till the Judgement Day!”

The first—“Whence come you, and for what your quest?”

“Palomides am I from Camelot,

Wretched Palomides whom dreams torment

Forever—of a cold proud little head,

A friendly hand that gives me the same love

It would to a familiar dog, a body

For which Sir Tristram and King Mark contend,

Wolves over a spilled bone ... and yet this name,

This “Iseult” is a good thing for the sword,

And makes it cut through many helms and makes

Death very visible to heathen men ...

... And I could sit with her on a green cliff

And watch the world die—if she were but tired

And soon would rest her head against my heart;

Not caring for the roughness of my mail

Not aught at all save that I held her close

And she and her child’s love at last had peace....

So, Lord, what need were Heaven, Hell or quest?

No! I must follow winter! She will be

Doubtless betrayed and hurt—and I not there

To comfort her in any measure—well

Pray God some ax beat through my warding soon!—

I beg your grace, sir Knight—my dreams—you said?—

“I heard the quarrel and loud noise of hounds

More to the westward, by a little inn

That’s badged with a dry bush.”

“I must ride on!

Your road lies thither!”

Like a pawing storm

His horse beat down the valley and was gone

The stranger’s face within the vizor wore

The look of one who, having had a gem

Some twelvemonth, finds it out of fashion, dulled

By others’ praise perhaps—at any rate

Its turn gone past—a new stone to be found,

New tiger-hues....

Palomides was far.

And, settling well his harp upon his back,

With something of amusement in his mouth,

Tristram rode southward to the Breton ships.

SIR JOHN RIMBECK TO THE PRINCESS OF ACRE

Death comes like a glimpse of thin blue sky through the fog of fight,

And the trident-flame of the mind fails, and the soul drinks night.

But on shores unknown it arises! it is white of its ancient scars.

Arrayed with stars as a garment, beneath night’s thick stars!

And now I must have died I think—and had this grace,

To look with new eyes for a moment, and to see one face

That fills my heart like a feasting where mailed kings break bread,

You are kind as a poor man’s alms, Lord, if I take this to the dead!

Slowly the lights, the noise return, but they touch not me.

I, who knew not my chains at all, stand here free!

Sound the assay, white bugles! Shields, clash loud!

Fate and one face I follow, through a gate grown proud!

THREE DAYS’ RIDE

“From Belton castle to Solway side,

Hard by the bridge, is three days’ ride.”

We had fled full fast from her father’s keep,

And the time was come that we must sleep.

The first day was an ecstasy,

A golden mist, a burgeoning tree;

We rode like gods through a world new-made,

The hawthorn scented hill and glade,

A faint, still sweetness in the air—

And, oh, her face and the wind in her hair!

And the steady beat of our good steeds’ hooves,

Bearing us northward, strong and fast,

To my high black tower, stark to the blast,

Like a swimmer stripped where the Solway moves!

And ever, riding, we chanted a song,

Challenging Fortune, loud and long,

“From Belton Castle to Solway side,

Strive as you may, is three days’ ride!”

She slept for an hour, wrapped in my cloak,

And I watched her till the morning broke;

The second day—and a harsher land,

And gray bare hills on either hand;

A surly land and a sullen folk,

And a fog that came like bitter smoke.

The road wound on like a twisted snake,

And our horses sobbed as they topped the brake.

Till we sprang to earth at Wyvern Fen,

Where fresh steeds stamped, and were off again.

Weary and sleepless, bruised and worn,

We still had strength for laughter and scorn;

Love held us up through the mire and mist,

Love fed us, while we clasped and kissed,

And still we sang as the night closed in,

Stealthy and slow as a hidden sin,

“From Belton Castle to Solway side,

Ride how you will, is three days’ ride.”

My love drooped low on the black mare’s back,

Drowned in her hair ... the reins went slack ...

Yet she could not sleep, save to dream bad dreams,

And wake all trembling, till at last

Her golden head lay on my breast.

At last we saw the first faint gleams

Of day. Dawn broke. A sickly light

Came from the withered sun—a blight

Was on the land, and poisonous mist

Shrouded the rotting trees, unkissed

By any wind, and black crags glared

Like sightless, awful faces, spared

From death to live accursed for ay.

Dragging slow chains the hours went by.

We rode on, drunk and drugged with sleep,

Too deadly weary now to say

Whether our horses kept the way

Or no—like slaves stretched on a heap

Of poisoned arrows. Every limb

Shot with sharp pain; pain seemed to swim

Like a red cloud before our eyes....

The mist broke, and a moment showed,

Pricked clear against a splash of woad,

The spear-points where the hot chase rode.

Idly I watched them dance and rise

Till white wreaths wiped them out again ...

My love jerked at the bridle rein;

The black mare, dying, broke her heart

In one swift gallop; for my part

I dozed; and ever in my brain,

Four hoofs of fire beat out refrain,

A dirge to light us down to death,

A silly rhyme that saith and saith,

“From Belton Castle to Solway side,

Though great hearts break, is three days’ ride!”

The black mare staggered, reeled and fell,

Bearing my love down ... a great bell

Began to toll ... and sudden fire

Flared at me from the road, a pyre

It seemed, to burn our bodies in ...

And I fell down, far down, within

The pit’s mouth ... and my brain went blind....

I woke—a cold sun rose behind

Black evil hills—my love knelt near

Beside a stream, her golden hair

Streaming across the grass—below

The Solway eddied to and fro,

White with fierce whirlpools ... my love turned....

Thank God, some hours of joy are burned

Into the mind, and will remain,

Fierce-blazing still, in spite of pain!

They came behind us as we kissed,

Stealthily from the dripping mist,

Her brothers and their evil band.

They bound me fast and made me stand.

They forced her down upon her knees.

She did not strive or cry or call,

But knelt there dumb before them all—

I could not turn away my eyes—

There was no fear upon her face,

Although they slew her in that place.

The daggers rent and tore her breast

Like dogs that snarl above a kill,

Her proud face gazed above them still,

Seeking rest—Oh, seeking rest!

The blood swept like a crimson dress

Over her bosom’s nakedness,

A curtain for her weary eyes,

A muffling-cloth to stop her sighs ...

And she was gone—and a red thing lay

Silent, on the trampled clay.

Beneath my horse my feet are bound,

My hands are bound behind my back,

I feel the sinews start and crack—

And ever to the hoof-beats’ sound,

As we draw near the gallows-tree,

Where I shall hang right speedily,

A crazy tune rings in my brain,

Four hoofs of fire tramp the refrain,

Crashing clear o’er the roaring crowd,

Steadily galloping, strong and loud,

“From Belton Castle to Solway side,

Hard by the bridge, is three days’ ride!”

THE PLOW

(A New England Tragedy)

I

Habberton’s plow!

John made it,

William stayed it,

Sharp the blade it bears till now!

Wind shadowed billows of rippling grass,

Under a sky as clear as glass.

And a road that wound like a crooked arm

Over a hill to Habberton’s Farm!

Two stone posts and a gate between,

A well sweep, dripping and cool and green.

And a girl who strained in the August sun

For the thud of hoofs where the path lay dun;

For a cloud that grew in a moment’s course

To the sweat and speed of a flying horse.

Though the dust lay white upon spur and shoe,

On the steaming flanks, and the trooper’s blue,

When the ride was done and the reins hung slack,

And he swung her up to the bay’s wet back

And kissed her brows in an arch of black!

Clung together, she heard him say,

“Three months more till our wedding day!

“Three months more and this purse’ll buy

The next two farms by the Mill Brook dry.

“And then long years of the kindly sun,

Children and work and the wild times done;

—And an end in peace that our hands have won.

“Here I’ll bide till the morning comes,

Then go back for the last of the drums.”

... The wind whined round them like a ghoul.

Into the doorway, still and cool,

They sank, a stone in a plumbless pool.

II

William Habberton drank his ale;

An iron man! An iron man!

—Without the first stars, cold and pale,

Streaked heaven with radiance milky-wan.

William Habberton sat at meat;

He frowned an oaken frown and stark.

The lovers cursed at Time, the fleet,

And stumbled, kissing, towards the dark.

And as they went the purse chinked thrice,

In chiming notes like clinking ice.

William Habberton eyed his guest;

Like stubborn flint was grown his stare.

He drew a parchment from his breast,

And looked, and saw his ruin there.

His fields beneath another’s plow,

Another’s seal stamped on his brow.

Black hound, Disaster, at his heel ...

Hand crept to sheath and found the steel.

Out of the night the lovers came,

Their cheeks on fire, their lips like flame.

And twined once more, mouth fused to mouth,

Before the bitter three months’ drouth.

She passed. Her candle shot with flares

The creaking mystery of the stairs.

The trooper watched each darling tread.

“A good night’s rest!” the farmer said.

“And where sleep I?” his guest spoke free,

Oh white was William Habberton!

“Soft, soft and deep your bed shall be!

And you shall wake when day’s begun!”

“Rest in the Blue Room as you may;

I’ll light you on your lonely way.”

The lantern like a secret fear,

Whispered and guttered at his ear.

The shadows mouthed at him to stay,

He staggered upward on his way.

Below, the house grew black and still,

As listening stood Habberton.

The moonlight’s daggers stabbed the sill.

The dark wind rustled and was gone.

Then slowly, slowly, up the stair

One trod as if he trod on air.

The wavering silence closed around

A ghost that shook at every sound.

Up to the Blue Room’s door he passed,

Gripping the blade unsheathed at last.

· · · · ·

Dawn filled the air with fire and foam

When William Habberton came home.

But sun had warmed the drowsy flies

Before he met his daughter’s eyes.

A new-got purse knocked at his side;

Oh rich was William Habberton!

“You’ve mounted roses like a bride.

Take heed they be not withered soon.”

· · · · ·

The dry leaves whirled in yellow and brown

Like the tattered rags of a beauty’s gown.

And a chattering wind piped loud of snows

As the year went out as a sunset goes.

But Habberton’s farm was heavy with dread,

And Elsie Habberton lay in bed,

And fought for breath with the gloom o’erhead.

For fever came, and a shadow came;

Her hot lips writhed to speak its name;

Till the sick fit passed and left her lame.

Bent as a windblown tree and weak,

But her soul was steel and her eyes were bleak.

“Wait you no more for hoofs to near?”

Thus mockingly spoke Habberton,

“And where’s the picture of your dear

That kissed you in the August sun?”

Her breast her shaking hands did feel,

Where something stung them like a weal,

—She ground the picture under heel.

And the glad wind, and the loud rain

Beat at the shuttering eaves in vain,

And the aching summer comes again.

The grain stands high in the meadow now,

Save for one spot untouched by plow

Where two rocks meet on the hillside’s brow.

“Habberton, lend me your powder horn!

For barren rocks I’ll promise you corn!”

Answered Habberton, heavy of hand,

“I do as I please with my own land!”

And he strikes the stones with his oaken stick,

And a strange sound rings—and his smile turns sick.

III

The new years pass like a quick-turned page,

And Habberton’s daughter links hands with Age.

Dusk and dawn, and new tasks are hers,

And the hot thoughts fade and remembrance blurs,

And her hate is starving and scarcely stirs.

For after the dust of twenty years

Her eyes have begun to remember tears.

The air was heavy with rain and Spring,

Still strong was William Habberton,

The black steeds made the coulters ring,

Plowing beneath a watery sun.

And at sunset Habberton stands alone,

And strains at the weight of a buried stone.

“Corn shall sprout from the stubborn clay,

For the rest has moldered with years away.”

The stones are rolled to the edge of the fen.

He turns to the stilts of the plow again.

His daughter nears where the earth lies red,

And swiftly the furrow drives ahead.

Till the sharp blade crashes through crunching bone.

And a white thing rolls where the clods are thrown.

And crackling under the leader’s shoe

Is a tarnished button, a scrap of blue.

Like icy wind his daughter spoke,

“Your plow is chained to a deadly yoke!”

Her fingers clawed within his coat.

His own knife gripped him at the throat.

“Rusty and dull, drive true, drive true!

You shall drink long for the work you do!”

She flung him at the horses’ feet.

“Lie there who dared to touch my sweet!”

The whip slashed down as she whispered low,

“And now the plow, and now the plow!”

And over him, struggling, mad and seared,

The horrible mace of the plow upreared.

... Dumb she drove to the western gate.

“Fate and the furrow have cloven straight.”

“Long to wait for the sheriff’s men.

I will go back to my youth again.”

Up to the curb she reeled and sank.

And the red knife nuzzled and tore and drank.

... A sallow moon swam over the rise ...

And the horses stamped and rolled their eyes

At the coming and going of the flies.

Habberton’s plow.

John made it

William stayed it.

Sharp the blade it bears till now!

THE TALL TOWN

COLLOQUY OF THE STATUES

(The Avenue. Night Before Pershing’s Parade)

Goddess, goddess, dream you or drowse you?

Horned Diana of Madison Square,

Bending your bow at the stars that house you

Hunt you the Hyades, way up there?

Over my chase curves the moon-ship, cruising,

Flapping the skies like a cloud-white drake;

Cellarer Mars and his stars are bousing

Glories of light at her cruddled wake.

Sherman, Sherman, where are you riding?

Winds atoss in your brazen hair,

Down where the buildings are giants striding,

Where are you riding, away down there?

Ride? I would stir not for twenty stallions.

Yet, when your braggarts of planets fade,

I shall march with the young battalions,

Leading the van of the long parade!

Steed of the Pentecost what are you thinking?

Golden charger whose eyeballs glare.

Snuffing the smoke that is wine for your drinking

What are you thinking, away down there?

Musing, I wait till the torrented forces

Shake the black crowd to a crash of cheers

At the measured trample of Liberty’s horses,

The iron eyes of her cannoneers!

Whose is your guerdon now, bright palm-bearer?

Courier of Valor none gainsayeth,

For the old great cause, or a new cause fairer,

Angel of Courage and Love and Death?

Freedom’s my guerdon. Her least word spoken

Is a wind to shuffle the kings to sand,

And the chains of oppression are utterly broken

When she smites men’s hearts with her fiery hand!

Her old cause sleeps. To her new cause splendid

I carry my palm like a flag unfurled;

To the march that ends and is never ended!

To Freedom’s drums in the blood of the world!

So was it once when my Father thundered.

So shall it be until Man is grass.

Peace, old friends, for the night is sundered,

And with morn the leaping bayonets pass!

LUNCH-TIME ALONG BROADWAY

Twelve-thirty bells from a thousand clocks, the typewriter tacks and stops,

Gorged elevators slam and fall through the floors like waterdrops,

From offices hung like sea-gulls’ nests on a cliff the whirlwinds beat,

The octopus-crowd comes rolling out, his tentacles crawl for meat.

He snuffles his way by restaurants where lily-voiced women feast,

He pokes his muzzle through white-tiled caves, and gulps like a hungry beast,

He roots into subterranean holes, he sweeps hell’s tables bare,

His suckers settle and fix and drink like wasps on a bursting pear.

The wildcat quarrel of traffic soothes to a smooth rolling of tires

And the waterflow sound of the feeding brute as he pads by the cooking-fires,

His body shoulders the canyoned streets, his gluttonous mouths expand

And he laps the fat and flesh of the earth as a cat laps milk from a hand.

Slowly the greedy claws curl back, the feelers recoil and close,

The flood is setting the other way with the avalanche pound of snows,

Heavy and hot as a sated bee, enormous, slower than oil,

The beast comes shuffling to lair again, his lips still wet with his spoil.

THE WALKERS

(Strike Pickets—Lower Fifth Ave.)

It is past day and its brilliance, it is not yet sumptuous night

For the moon to shine on gardened roofs like a white nut peeled of its husk,

The march of the ant-hill crowds below is like sand falling from a height,

And the lost horns of the taxis cry hooting through the dusk.

Gray as rain in an autumn wood when the skies are pale with cloud

Are the light and the street and the faces where the elephant busses roll,

Dark motors shine like a seal’s wet skin, and they and their rich are proud,

But the walkers are dim and aimless on a dolorous way of the soul.

I watch, and my soft, pleased body cries for the rooms with lights like flowers,

For the delicate talk of women, and music’s deep-perfumed smart,

And I sweat at the walkers crushed by machining, implacable hours,

And in torment I turn away—but their march is over my heart.

They are helpless as drifting weed, they are stung with insane impatience

At themselves and their lords and their hunger no toil can feed till it sleeps.

They are racked earth hating the plow, they are dung at the roots of the nations,

They are wheat that will not be bread and burns at the scythe that reaps.

Ensigns of honor they bear not, their songs are ignorant clamors.

I hate their joy and their fear. I am bitter afraid of pain.

But the pitiful tune of their feet is trampling my soul with hammers,

And I must follow them out in the desolate face of the rain.

From the silken-furnitured halls, from the golden and pleasant places

To the lurching and crippled march that an idiot voice proclaims!

To Man’s face suddenly made from a million poor men’s faces!

And each walker arrayed with suns that are burning celestial flames!

Ask not watchword nor sign—there is neither tocsin nor clarion;

Only the strength of the flood, the might of the falling snow,

The cry of the bitter clay to the God who devised it carrion,

The purblind silence of sleep, as night to the night we flow.

8:30 A. M. ON 32ND STREET

The wind sniffed like a happy cat

At scuttling beetle-people,

The sunshine would have roused a flat

To try and be a steeple.

My breakfast in me warm and staunch,

Your letter in my pocket,

The world’s a coon that’s climbed a branch

And I am David Crockett.

Time hoards our lives with griping care

And barren is his bursary,

But he’ll make diamonds of the air

Upon one anniversary!

Five years ago I saw you first

And knew in every part

The flagrant and immortal thirst

Love salts into the heart.

Five years ago the Pleiad crew

Sang in their starry hive,

Because a miracle like you

Could dare to be alive!

Five years, and still, through earth’s degrees

You, like a pageant, pass;

Courageous as invading seas

And careless as the grass.

Pauper poets of rimes grown thin

Mutter their madhouse wrongs.

I have aeons to love you in,

Ages to make you songs!

Pour your rain on the bitter tree!

Harrow the soil with spears!

I shall grow you Felicity,

After a million years!

The street-signs winked like smiles at me,

The wind pawed by enchanted!

The sun swung high for all to see

I’d stop him if I wanted!

CHANSON AT MADISON SQUARE

You live in the Terminal Building, I

In the Metropolitan Tower.

This is what I send you every night,

A flash of red and a flash of white,

The red for our hearts and their pulse that is Delight,

The white for power.

You have hung your home with crimson lamps,

Apples swinging on a tree,

They band like a ring round that tall stone thumb,

They ladder up its sides like the spillings of a plum,

I must climb and pick them all ere our double kingdom come

Where the motors roar like sea.

You have crowned your hall with granite thorns,

Mine stands huge as steam.

It carries all Time like a watch upon its side,

And the slow hands sway like the cautious feet of Pride,

Doling out mortality to Moloch and his bride,

And to us the clear Edens of our dream.

The city lies at ease and her lazy paws of light

Claw idly up and down the sky,

She strikes peacock-Night on his phosphorescent fans,

And he shudders into jewels and his eyed and blinking vans

Shake their ocean-nurtured purple on the turrets that are Man’s,

And I love you and we cannot die.

Shut your eyes—you are tired—let the blue bed of air

Be your pillow through the hot short night.

We are children lost together in a wood turned rock.

We are gods whose eyes are Wisdom, and Olympus is our mock.

Drowse into your Paradise! I say above the clock

“White—red—white—red—white!”

HYMN IN COLUMBUS CIRCLE

(After Seeing a Certain Window Display)

Man in his secret shrine

Hallows a wealth of gods,

Black little basalt Baals