American Poetry, 1922 Part 7

Many cats were tame again, Many ponies tame again, Many pigs were tame again, Many canaries tame again; And the real frontier was his sun-burnt breast.

From the fiery core of that apple, the earth, Sprang apple-amaranths divine.

Love's orchards climbed to the heavens of the West, And snowed the earthly sod with flowers.

Farm hands from the terraces of the blest Danced on the mists with their ladies fine; And Johnny Appleseed laughed with his dreams, And swam once more the ice-cold streams.

And the doves of the spirit swept through the hours, With doom-calls, love-calls, death-calls, dream-calls; And Johnny Appleseed, all that year, Lifted his hands to the farm-filled sky, To the apple-harvesters busy on high; And so once more his youth began, And so for us he made great medicine-- Johnny Appleseed, medicine-man.

Then The sun was his turned-up broken barrel, Out of which his juicy apples rolled, Down the repeated terraces, Thumping across the gold, An angel in each apple that touched the forest mold, A ballot-box in each apple, A state capital in each apple, Great high schools, great colleges, All America in each apple, Each red, rich, round, and bouncing moon That touched the forest mold.

Like scrolls and rolled-up flags of silk, He saw the fruits unfold, And all our expectations in one wild-flower-written dream, Confusion and death sweetness, and a thicket of crab-thorns, Heart of a hundred midnights, heart of the merciful morns.

Heaven's boughs bent down with their alchemy, Perfumed airs, and thoughts of wonder.

And the dew on the gra.s.s and his own cold tears Were one in brooding mystery, Though death's loud thunder came upon him, Though death's loud thunder struck him down-- The boughs and the proud thoughts swept through the thunder, Till he saw our wide nation, each State a flower, Each petal a park for holy feet, With wild fawns merry on every street, With wild fawns merry on every street, The vista of ten thousand years, flower-lighted and complete.

Hear the lazy weeds murmuring, bays and rivers whispering, From Michigan to Texas, California to Maine; Listen to the eagles, screaming, calling, "Johnny Appleseed, Johnny Appleseed,"

There by the doors of old Fort Wayne.

In the four-poster bed Johnny Appleseed built, Autumn rains were the curtains, autumn leaves were the quilt.

He laid him down sweetly, and slept through the night, Like a b.u.mp on a log, like a stone washed white, There by the doors of old Fort Wayne.

I KNOW ALL THIS WHEN GIPSY FIDDLES CRY

Oh, gipsies, proud and stiff-necked and perverse, Saying: "We tell the fortunes of the nations, And revel in the deep palm of the world.

The head-line is the road we choose for trade.

The love-line is the lane wherein we camp.

The life-line is the road we wander on.

Mount Venus, Jupiter, and all the rest Are finger-tips of ranges clasping round And holding up the Romany's wide sky."

Oh, gipsies, proud and stiff-necked and perverse, Saying: "We will swap horses till the doom, And mend the pots and kettles of mankind, And lend our sons to big-time vaudeville, Or to the race-track, or the learned world.

But India's Brahma waits within their b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

They will return to us with gipsy grins, And chatter Romany, and shake their curls And hug the dirtiest babies in the camp.

They will return to the moving pillar of smoke, The whitest toothed, the merriest laughers known, The blackest haired of all the tribes of men.

What trap can hold such cats? The Romany Has crossed such delicate palms with lead or gold, Wheedling in sun and rain, through perilous years, All coins now look alike. The palm is all.

Our greasy pack of cards is still the book Most read of men. The heart's librarians, We tell all lovers what they want to know.

So, out of the famed Chicago Library, Out of the great Chicago orchestras, Out of the skysc.r.a.per, the Fine Arts Building, Our sons will come with fiddles and with loot, Dressed, as of old, like turkey-c.o.c.ks and zebras, Like tiger-lilies and chameleons, Go west with us to California, Telling the fortunes of the bleeding world, And kiss the sunset, ere their day is done."

Oh, gipsies, proud and stiff-necked and perverse, Picking the brains and pockets of mankind, You will go westward for one-half hour yet.

You will turn eastward in a little while.

You will go back, as men turn to Kentucky, Land of their fathers, dark and b.l.o.o.d.y ground.

When all the Jews go home to Syria, When Chinese cooks go back to Canton, China, When j.a.panese photographers return With their black cameras to Tokio, And Irish patriots to Donegal, And Scotch accountants back to Edinburgh, You will go back to India, whence you came.

When you have reached the borders of your quest, Homesick at last, by many a devious way, Winding the wonderlands circuitous, By foot and horse will trace the long way back!

Fiddling for ocean liners, while the dance Sweeps through the decks, your brown tribes all will go!

Those east-bound s.h.i.+ps will hear your long farewell On fiddle, piccolo, and flute and timbrel.

I know all this, when gipsy fiddles cry.

That hour of their homesickness, I myself Will turn, will say farewell to Illinois, To old Kentucky and Virginia, And go with them to India, whence they came.

For they have heard a singing from the Ganges, And cries of orioles,--from the temple caves,-- And Bengal's oldest, humblest villages.

They smell the supper smokes of Amritsar.

Green monkeys cry in Sanskrit to their souls From lofty bamboo trees of hot Madras.

They think of towns to ease their feverish eyes, And make them stand and meditate forever, Domes of astonishment, to heal the mind.

I know all this, when gipsy fiddles cry.

What music will be blended with the wind When gipsy fiddlers, nearing that old land, Bring tunes from all the world to Brahma's house?

Pa.s.sing the Indus, winding poisonous forests, Blowing soft flutes at scandalous temple girls, Filling the highways with their magpie loot, What bra.s.s from my Chicago will they heap, What gems from Walla Walla, Omaha, Will they pile near the Bodhi Tree, and laugh?

They will dance near such temples as best suit them, Though they will not quite enter, or adore, Looking on roofs, as poets look on lilies, Looking at towers, as boys at forest vines, That leap to tree-tops through the dizzy air.

I know all this, when gipsy fiddles cry.

And with the gipsies there will be a king And a thousand desperadoes just his style, With all their rags dyed in the blood of roses, Splashed with the blood of angels, and of demons.

And he will boss them with an awful voice.

And with a red whip he will beat his wife.

He will be wicked on that sacred sh.o.r.e, And rattle cruel spurs against the rocks, And shake Calcutta's walls with circus bugles.

He will kill Brahmins there, in Kali's name, And please the thugs, and blood-drunk of the earth.

I know all this, when gipsy fiddles cry.

Oh, sweating thieves, and hard-boiled scalawags, That still will boast your pride until the doom, Smas.h.i.+ng every caste rule of the world, Reaching at last your Hindu goal to smash The caste rules of old India, and shout: "Down with the Brahmins, let the Romany reign."

When gipsy girls look deep within my hand They always speak so tenderly and say That I am one of those star-crossed to wed A princess in a forest fairy-tale.

So there will be a tender gipsy princess, My Juliet, s.h.i.+ning through this clan.

And I would sing you of her beauty now.

And I will fight with knives the gipsy man Who tries to steal her wild young heart away.

And I will kiss her in the waterfalls, And at the rainbow's end, and in the incense That curls about the feet of sleeping G.o.ds, And sing with her in canebrakes and in rice fields, In Romany, eternal Romany.

We will sow secret herbs, and plant old roses, And fumble through dark, snaky palaces, Stable our ponies in the Taj Mahal, And sleep out-doors ourselves.

In her strange fairy mill-wheel eyes will wait All windings and unwindings of the highways, From India, across America,-- All windings and unwindings of my fancy, All windings and unwindings of all souls, All windings and unwindings of the heavens.

I know all this, when gipsy fiddles cry.

We gipsies, proud and stiff-necked and perverse, Standing upon the white Himalayas, Will think of far divine Yosemite.

We will heal Hindu hermits there with oil Brought from California's tall sequoias.

And we will be like G.o.ds that heap the thunders, And start young redwood trees on Time's own mountains.

We will swap horses with the rising moon, And mend that funny skillet called Orion, Color the stars like San Francisco's street-lights, And paint our sign and signature on high In planets like a bed of crimson pansies; While a million fiddles shake all listening hearts, Crying good fortune to the Universe, Whispering adventure to the Ganges waves, And to the spirits, and all winds and G.o.ds.

Till mighty Brahma puts his golden palm Within the gipsy king's great striped tent, And asks his fortune told by that great love-line That winds across his palm in splendid flame.

Only the hearthstone of old India Will end the endless march of gipsy feet.

I will go back to India with them When they go back to India whence they came.

I know all this, when gipsy fiddles cry.

JAMES OPPENHEIM

HEBREWS

I come of a mighty race.... I come of a very mighty race....

Adam was a mighty man, and Noah a captain of the moving waters, Moses was a stern and splendid king, yea, so was Moses....

Give me more songs like David's to shake my throat to the pit of the belly, And let me roll in the Isaiah thunder....