Spoon River Anthology Part 18

THE idea danced before us as a flag; The sound of martial music; The thrill of carrying a gun; Advancement in the world on coming home; A glint of glory, wrath for foes; A dream of duty to country or to G.o.d.

But these were things in ourselves, s.h.i.+ning before us, They were not the power behind us, Which was the Almighty hand of Life, Like fire at earth's center making mountains, Or pent up waters that cut them through.

Do you remember the iron band The blacksmith, Shack Dye, welded Around the oak on Bennet's lawn, From which to swing a hammock, That daughter Janet might repose in, reading On summer afternoons?

And that the growing tree at last Sundered the iron band?

But not a cell in all the tree Knew aught save that it thrilled with life, Nor cared because the hammock fell In the dust with Milton's Poems.

G.o.dwin James

HARRY WILMANS! You who fell in a swamp Near Manila, following the flag You were not wounded by the greatness of a dream, Or destroyed by ineffectual work, Or driven to madness by Satanic snags; You were not torn by aching nerves, Nor did you carry great wounds to your old age.

You did not starve, for the government fed you.

You did not suffer yet cry "forward"

To an army which you led Against a foe with mocking smiles, Sharper than bayonets.

You were not smitten down By invisible bombs.

You were not rejected By those for whom you were defeated.

You did not eat the savorless bread Which a poor alchemy had made from ideals.

You went to Manila, Harry Wilmans, While I enlisted in the bedraggled army Of bright-eyed, divine youths, Who surged forward, who were driven back and fell Sick, broken, crying, shorn of faith, Following the flag of the Kingdom of Heaven.

You and I, Harry Wilmans, have fallen In our several ways, not knowing Good from bad, defeat from victory, Nor what face it is that smiles Behind the demoniac mask.

Lyman King

YOU may think, pa.s.ser-by, that Fate Is a pit-fall outside of yourself, Around which you may walk by the use of foresight And wisdom.

Thus you believe, viewing the lives of other men, As one who in G.o.d-like fas.h.i.+on bends over an anthill, Seeing how their difficulties could be avoided.

But pa.s.s on into life: In time you shall see Fate approach you In the shape of your own image in the mirror; Or you shall sit alone by your own hearth, And suddenly the chair by you shall hold a guest, And you shall know that guest And read the authentic message of his eyes.

Caroline Branson

WITH our hearts like drifting suns, had we but walked, As often before, the April fields till star--light Silkened over with viewless gauze the darkness Under the cliff, our trysting place in the wood, Where the brook turns! Had we but pa.s.sed from wooing Like notes of music that run together, into winning, In the inspired improvisation of love!

But to put back of us as a canticle ended The rapt enchantment of the flesh, In which our souls swooned, down, down, Where time was not, nor s.p.a.ce, nor ourselves-- Annihilated in love!

To leave these behind for a room with lamps: And to stand with our Secret mocking itself, And hiding itself amid flowers and mandolins, Stared at by all between salad and coffee.

And to see him tremble, and feel myself Prescient, as one who signs a bond-- Not flaming with gifts and pledges heaped With rosy hands over his brow.

And then, O night! deliberate! unlovely!

With all of our wooing blotted out by the winning, In a chosen room in an hour that was known to all!

Next day he sat so listless, almost cold So strangely changed, wondering why I wept, Till a kind of sick despair and voluptuous madness Seized us to make the pact of death.

A stalk of the earth-sphere, Frail as star-light; Waiting to be drawn once again Into creation's stream.

But next time to be given birth Gazed at by Raphael and St. Francis Sometimes as they pa.s.s.

For I am their little brother, To be known clearly face to face Through a cycle of birth hereafter run.

You may know the seed and the soil; You may feel the cold rain fall, But only the earth--sphere, only heaven Knows the secret of the seed In the nuptial chamber under the soil.

Throw me into the stream again, Give me another trial-- Save me, Sh.e.l.ley!

Anne Rutledge

OUT of me unworthy and unknown The vibrations of deathless music; "With malice toward none, with charity for all.', Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions, And the beneficent face of a nation s.h.i.+ning with justice and truth.

I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds, Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln, Wedded to him, not through union, But through separation.

Bloom forever, O Republic, From the dust of my bosom!

Hamlet Micure

IN a lingering fever many visions come to you: I was in the little house again With its great yard of clover Running down to the board-fence, Shadowed by the oak tree, Where we children had our swing.

Yet the little house was a manor hall Set in a lawn, and by the lawn was the sea.

I was in the room where little Paul Strangled from diphtheria, But yet it was not this room-- It was a sunny verandah enclosed With mullioned windows And in a chair sat a man in a dark cloak With a face like Euripides.

He had come to visit me, or I had gone to visit him--I could not tell.

We could hear the beat of the sea, the clover nodded Under a summer wind, and little Paul came With clover blossoms to the window and smiled.

Then I said: "What is "divine despair" Alfred?"

"Have you read 'Tears, Idle Tears'?" he asked.

"Yes, but you do not there express divine despair."

"My poor friend," he answered, "that was why the despair Was divine."

Mabel Osborne

YOUR red blossoms amid green leaves Are drooping, beautiful geranium!

But you do not ask for water.

You cannot speak!

You do not need to speak-- Everyone knows that you are dying of thirst, Yet they do not bring water!

They pa.s.s on, saying: "The geranium wants water."

And I, who had happiness to share And longed to share your happiness; I who loved you, Spoon River, And craved your love, Withered before your eyes, Spoon River-- Thirsting, thirsting, Voiceless from chasteness of soul to ask you for love, You who knew and saw me perish before you, Like this geranium which someone has planted over me, And left to die.

William H. Herndon

THERE by the window in the old house Perched on the bluff, overlooking miles of valley, My days of labor closed, sitting out life's decline, Day by day did I look in my memory, As one who gazes in an enchantress' crystal globe, And I saw the figures of the past As if in a pageant gla.s.sed by a s.h.i.+ning dream, Move through the incredible sphere of time.

And I saw a man arise from the soil like a fabled giant And throw himself over a deathless destiny, Master of great armies, head of the republic, Bringing together into a dithyramb of recreative song The epic hopes of a people; At the same time Vulcan of sovereign fires, Where imperishable s.h.i.+elds and swords were beaten out From spirits tempered in heaven.

Look in the crystal!

See how he hastens on To the place where his path comes up to the path Of a child of Plutarch and Shakespeare.

O Lincoln, actor indeed, playing well your part And Booth, who strode in a mimic play within the play, Often and often I saw you, As the cawing crows winged their way to the wood Over my house--top at solemn sunsets, There by my window, Alone.

Rutherford McDowell

THEY brought me ambrotypes Of the old pioneers to enlarge.

And sometimes one sat for me-- Some one who was in being When giant hands from the womb of the world Tore the republic.

What was it in their eyes?-- For I could never fathom That mystical pathos of drooped eyelids, And the serene sorrow of their eyes.

It was like a pool of water, Amid oak trees at the edge of a forest, Where the leaves fall, As you hear the crow of a c.o.c.k From a far--off farm house, seen near the hills Where the third generation lives, and the strong men And the strong women are gone and forgotten.

And these grand--children and great grand-children Of the pioneers!

Truly did my camera record their faces, too, With so much of the old strength gone, And the old faith gone, And the old mastery of life gone, And the old courage gone, Which labors and loves and suffers and sings Under the sun!