The Five Books of Youth Part 2

Between two clouds a sullen flame Expands, and lo, the crescent moon Rides like a warrior through the sky.

Thus long ago the warning came When midnight towns lay all in swoon, That the great G.o.ds were coming nigh To crush the rebellious earth.

Now beneath the crescent moon No spirits stir, no wind makes mirth, Only a rhythmic monotone Of waters dropping in a well....

But who is this so broken with distress That steals like mist into my loneliness?

Why art thou weeping there, disconsolate child?

Thy tears fall like the waters of a well, And drip in silver notes upon the sands.

What is thy sorrow? Ah, what man can tell The shapeless fancies that unwelcome dwell Within thy brain, the spectres, dark and wild That haunt the spirit of a child?

Mayhap thou weepest for the embattled lands, The b.l.o.o.d.y ruin of decaying realms That a war overwhelms And buries deep in the dust of history?

He raises his wet eyes and looks at me, His boyish face full of a yearning, An ancient pain, As of a ghost long dead who yearns to live again, And answers, "In myself, thy thoughts returning To other times shall slumber in the past, And be a child again, and die at last In the protecting arms of our great Mother Who bore us both, O well-beloved brother.

Thou in thy sorry dreams, I in my childish grief, Thy heart in tears, mine eyes amazed with tears, Thy sorrow rich with the repining years, My sorrow frail as childhood, and as brief."

Who art thou, haunting boy, nocturnal elf?

"I am the Dead; the Dead that was thyself."

Then falls a darkness on that starless sh.o.r.e.

Afar I hear the closing of a door....

I see on a sharp hill above the Styx, The bruised Christ upon his crucifix, And racked in anguish on his either side Hang Buddha and Mohammed crucified.

Their heavy blood falls in a monotone Like deep well-water dropping on a stone.

None moves, none breaks the silence; on those roods Eternal suffering triumphant broods.

Prometheus from his cliff of wild unrest Mocks them and draws the vulture to his breast.

Each year upon a darker Calvary Are hung the pallid victims of the tree, And none will watch with them, for none can see As I once saw, unending agony, Save where Prometheus from his dizzy place Regards those sufferers with scornful face, And his loud laughter rings through empty s.p.a.ce....

I can see nothing now, and only hear Through the thick atmosphere A deep perpetual well, that sad and slow, Intones the knell of ages long ago, And ages that no man can tell or know, Whose shadows roll before them on the sky, Black with forebodings of futurity.

Sweet sounds through midnight, liquid interlude, Voice of the lonely souls that yearn and brood, Voice of the unseen Life, the unsubdued, What wonder that He draweth nigh to taste Of your cool waters. Hail thou nameless One, Fair stranger from a realm beyond the Sun, Knowing that thou art G.o.d I do not fear,-- Speak to me, raise me from my life's long dream.

"The whole night through thou liest here Beside the well that waters Lethe's stream, And still thou dost not drink; O Man make haste; Ere long the dawn will pour adown the waste, And show thee, reft from the embrace of night, The barren world, barren of revelry.

Happy art thou, O Man, happily free, Who wilt never see A thousand ages shed their life and light As petals fall at eventide.

Thou shalt not see the radiant stars subside Into the frozen ocean of the Vast, Nor see thy world absorbed at last Into a nothingness, an airless void, Nor see the thoughts that Man has glorified Swept from the world, and with the world destroyed.

This have I seen a thousand times repeated, Unhappy as I am, unhappy G.o.d!

As many times as thou hast greeted The rising sun against the broad And tranquil clouds, so many times have I Greeted the dawn of a new Universe, And seen the molten stars rehea.r.s.e The lives and pa.s.sions of the stars gone by.

When worlds are growing old, and there draw nigh The shadows that shall cover them for ever, (Shadows like these which doom your ancient sky) Then to the well that feeds the sacred river I come, and as the liquid music drips Far in the ground, I plunge my lips Deep in forgetfulness, and wash away All the stains of the old griefs and joys, That with His lips as smiling as a boy's, G.o.d may rejoice in His created day."

He stoops and drinks; a moment the cool bell Pauses its ringing in the well: A mist flies up against the dawn; the young winds weep; Is it too late? I too would drink, drink deep, But weariness is on me and I sleep.

Cambridge, 1915

XIII - EPILOGUE

Dawn has come.

Faint hazes quiver with the faltering light; Some airy skein draws in the shadows from The broken forest where the war has pa.s.sed, The Forest Terrible, the grey despair, The forest broken in the withering blight Of the lean years,--the blight, the years, have pa.s.sed, Leaving a solitary watcher there, Silence at last.

She watches by the dead, Her deep white shadow overspreads their faces.

Here in the outland places, She watches by the dead.

How many dawns have driven her afar With the loosed thunder of tempestuous wrong!

Today she will remain.

Silence familiar to the morning star, Standing, her finger to her lips, Hus.h.i.+ng the battle-cry, the victor's song, Standing inviolate above the slain.

The fugitive sunlight slips Over the fragment of a cloud, And the sky opens wide, Behold the dawn!

Where is the nightmare now? the angry-browed?

The lowering imminence--the b.l.o.o.d.y eyed?

Fled, as the threat of midnight, fled away, Gone, after four dark timeless ages, gone.

Hail the day!

Silence, robed in the morning's golden fleece, Folding the world's torn wings to stillness, giving Peace to the dead, and to the living, Peace.

Tours, 1918

XIV - THERMOPYLAE

Men lied to them and so they went to die.

Some fell, unknowing that they were deceived, And some escaped, and bitterly bereaved, Beheld the truth they loved shrink to a lie.

And those there were that never had believed, But from afar had read the gathering sky, And darkly wrapt in that dread prophecy, Died trusting that their truth might be retrieved.

It matters not. For life deals thus with Man; To die alone deceived or with the ma.s.s, Or disillusioned to complete his span.

Thermopylae or Golgotha, all one, The young dead legions in the narrow pa.s.s; The stark black cross against the setting sun.

Pomfret, 1919

BOOK II DAYS AND SEASONS

I

Winds blowing over the white-capped bay, Winds wet with the eager breath of spray, Warm and sweet from the oceans we have dreamed of; From gardens of Cathay.

The empty factory windows, row on row, Warm sullenly beneath the afterglow, Burn topaz out of dust and dim the flare Of the street-lamps below.

In the smoky park the dingy plane-trees stir, Green branches in the twilight fade and blur; A lonely girl walks slowly through the square And the wind speaks to her.

Speaks of the sunset scattered on the sea, And the spring blowing northward radiantly; Flaming in lightning from cyclonic dark, Dreams of delights to be.

Tomorrow there will be orchards filled with fruit, And song of meadow lark and song of flute; Far from the city there are lover's fields, Lips eloquent and mute.

Warm are the winds out of the ebbing day, Blowing the s.h.i.+ps and the spring into the bay, I smell the cherry blossoms falling gaily In gardens of Cathay.

Paris, 1919

II

Like children on a sunny sh.o.r.e The rhododendrons thrive Which never any spring before Have been so much alive.

Each metal bough benignly lit With yellow candle flames; The tree is holy, hallow it With sacramental names.