The Little Book of Modern Verse Part 26

A fleck of sunlight in the street, A horse, a book, a girl who smiled, -- Such visions made each moment sweet For this receptive, ancient child.

Because it was old Martin's lot To be, not make, a decoration, Shall we then scorn him, having not His genius of appreciation?

Rich joy and love he got and gave; His heart was merry as his dress.

Pile laurel wreaths upon his grave Who did not gain, but was, success.

As in the Midst of Battle there is Room. [George Santayana]

As in the midst of battle there is room For thoughts of love, and in foul sin for mirth; As gossips whisper of a trinket's worth Spied by the death-bed's flickering candle-gloom; As in the crevices of Caesar's tomb The sweet herbs flourish on a little earth: So in this great disaster of our birth We can be happy, and forget our doom.

For morning, with a ray of tenderest joy Gilding the iron heaven, hides the truth, And evening gently woos us to employ Our grief in idle catches. Such is youth; Till from that summer's trance we wake, to find Despair before us, vanity behind.

Ex Libris. [Arthur Upson]

In an old book at even as I read Fast fading words adown my shadowy page, I crossed a tale of how, in other age, At Arqua, with his books around him, sped The word to Petrarch; and with n.o.ble head Bowed gently o'er his volume that sweet sage To Silence paid his willing seigniorage.

And they who found him whispered, "He is dead!"

Thus timely from old comrades.h.i.+ps would I To Silence also rise. Let there be night, Stillness, and only these staid watchers by, And no light s.h.i.+ne save my low study light -- Lest of his kind intent some human cry Interpret not the Messenger aright.

The Poet. [Mildred McNeal Sweeney]

Himself is least afraid When the singing lips in the dust With all mute lips are laid.

For thither all men must.

Nor is the end long stayed.

But he, having cast his song Upon the faithful air And given it speed -- is strong That last strange hour to dare, Nor wills to tarry long.

Adown immortal time That greater self shall pa.s.s, And wear its eager prime And lend the youth it has Like one far blowing chime.

He has made sure the quest And now -- his word gone forth -- May have his perfect rest Low in the tender earth, The wind across his breast.

When I have gone Weird Ways. [John G. Neihardt]

When I have finished with this episode, Left the hard, uphill road, And gone weird ways to seek another load, Oh, friends, regret me not, nor weep for me, Child of Infinity!

Nor dig a grave, nor rear for me a tomb To say with lying writ: "Here in the gloom He who loved bigness takes a narrow room, Content to pillow here his weary head, For he is dead."

But give my body to the funeral pyre, And bid the laughing fire, Eager and strong and swift, like my desire, Scatter my subtle essence into s.p.a.ce, Free me of time and place.

And sweep the bitter ashes from the hearth, Fling back the dust I borrowed from the earth Into the chemic broil of death and birth, The vast alembic of the cryptic scheme, Warm with the master-dream.

And thus, O little house that sheltered me, Dissolve again in wind and rain, to be Part of the cosmic weird economy.

And, Oh, how oft with new life shalt thou lift Out of the atom-drift!

Trumbull Stickney. [George Cabot Lodge]

I

In silence, solitude and stern surmise His faith was tried and proved commensurate With life and death. The stone-blind eyes of Fate Perpetually stared into his eyes, Yet to the hazard of the enterprise He brought his soul, expectant and elate, And challenged, like a champion at the Gate, Death's undissuadable austerities.

And thus, full-armed in all that Truth reprieves From dissolution, he beheld the breath Of daybreak flush his thought's exalted ways, While, like Dodona's sad, prophetic leaves, Round him the scant, supreme, momentous days Trembled and murmured in the wind of Death.

II

There moved a Presence always by his side, With eyes of pleasure and pa.s.sion and wild tears, And on her lips the murmur of many years, And in her hair the chaplets of a bride; And with him, hour by hour, came one beside, Scatheless of Time and Time's vicissitude, Whose lips, perforce of endless solitude, Were silent and whose eyes were blind and wide.

But when he died came One who wore a wreath Of star-light, and with fingers calm and bland Smoothed from his brows the trace of mortal pain; And of the two who stood on either hand, "This one is Life," he said, "And this is Death, And I am Love and Lord over these twain!"

Sentence. [Witter Bynner]

Shall I say that what heaven gave Earth has taken? -- Or that sleepers in the grave Reawaken?

One sole sentence can I know, Can I say: You, my comrade, had to go, I to stay.

Comrades. [George Edward Woodberry]