The Little Book of Modern Verse Part 28

VII

And yet not all: though darkly alien Those uncompleted worlds of work to be Are waned; still, touched by them, the memory Gives afterglow; and now that comes again The mellow season when Our eyes last met, his kindling currents run Quickening within me gladness and new ken Of life, that I have shared his prime with one Who wrought large-minded for the love of men.

VIII

But not alone to share that large estate Of work and interchange of communings -- The little human paths to heavenly things Were also ours: the casual, intimate Vistas, which consecrate -- With laughter and quick tears -- the dusty noon Of days, and by moist beams irradiate Our plodding minds with courage, and attune The fellows.h.i.+p that bites its thumb at fate.

IX

Where art thou now, mine host Guffanti? -- where The iridescence of thy motley troop!

Ah, where the merry, animated group That snuggled elbows for an extra chair, When s.p.a.ce was none to spare, To pour the votive Chianti for a toast To dramas dark and lyrics debonair, The while, to 'Bella Napoli', mine host Exhaled his Parmazan, Parna.s.san air!

X

Thy Parmazan, immortal laird of ease, Can never mold, thy caviare is blest, While still our glowing Uriel greets the rest Around thy royal board of memories, Where sit, the salt of these, He of the laughter of a Hundred Lights, Blithe Eldorado of high poesies, And he -- of enigmatic gentle knights The kindly keen -- who sings of 'Calverly's'.

XI

Because he never wore his sentient heart For crows and jays to peck, ofttimes to such He seemed a silent fellow, who o'ermuch Held from the general gossip-ground apart, Or tersely spoke, and tart: How should they guess what eagle tore, within, His quick of sympathy for humblest smart Of human wretchedness, or probed his spleen Of scorn against the hypocritic mart!

XII

Sometimes insufferable seemed to come That wrath of sympathy: One windy night We watched through squalid panes, forlornly white, -- Amid immense machines' incessant hum -- Frail figures, gaunt and dumb, Of overlabored girls and children, bowed Above their slavish toil: "O G.o.d! -- A bomb, A bomb!" he cried, "and with one fiery cloud Expunge the horrible Caesars of this slum!"

XIII

Another night dreams on the Cornish hills: Trembling within the low moon's pallid fires, The tall corn-ta.s.sels lift their fragrant spires; From filmy spheres, a liquid starlight fills -- Like dew of daffodils -- The fragile dark, where mult.i.tudinous The rhythmic, intermittent silence thrills, Like song, the valleys. -- "Hark!" he murmurs, "Thus May bards from crickets learn their canticles!"

XIV

Now Morning, not less lavish of her sweets, Leads us along the woodpaths -- in whose hush The quivering alchemy of the pure thrush Cools from above the balsam-dripping heats -- To find, in green retreats, 'Mid men of clay, the great, quick-hearted man Whose subtle art our human age secretes, Or him whose brush, tinct with cerulean, Blooms with soft castle-towers and cloud-capped fleets.

XV

Still to the sorcery of August skies In frilled crimson flaunt the hollyhocks, Where, lithely poised along the garden walks, His little maid enamoured blithe outvies The dipping b.u.t.terflies In motion -- ah, in grace how grown the while, Since he was wont to render to her eyes His knightly court, or touch with flitting smile Her father's heart by his true flatteries!

XVI

But summer's golden pastures boast no trail So splendid as our fretted snowshoes blaze Where, sharp across the amethystine ways, Iron Ascutney looms in azure mail, And, like a frozen grail, The frore sun sets, intolerably fair; Mute, in our homebound snow-tracks, we exhale The silvery cold, and soon -- where bright logs flare -- Talk the long indoor hours, till embers fail.

XVII

Ah, with the smoke what smouldering desires Waft to the starlight up the swirling flue! -- Thoughts that may never, as the swallows do, Nest circling homeward to their native fires!

Ardors the soul suspires The extinct stars drink with the dreamer's breath; The morning-song of Eden's early choirs Grows dim with Adam; close at the ear of death Relentless angels tune our earthly lyres!

XVIII

Let it be so: More sweet it is to be A listener of love's ephemeral song, And live with beauty though it be not long, And die enamoured of eternity, Though in the apogee Of time there sit no individual G.o.dhead of life, than to reject the plea Of pa.s.sionate beauty: loveliness is all, And love is more divine than memory.

Azrael. [Robert Gilbert Welsh]

The angels in high places Who minister to us, Reflect G.o.d's smile, -- their faces Are luminous; Save one, whose face is hidden, (The Prophet saith), The unwelcome, the unbidden, Azrael, Angel of Death.

And yet that veiled face, I know Is lit with pitying eyes, Like those faint stars, the first to glow Through cloudy winter skies.

That they may never tire, Angels, by G.o.d's decree, Bear wings of snow and fire, -- Pa.s.sion and purity; Save one, all unavailing, (The Prophet saith), His wings are gray and trailing, Azrael, Angel of Death.

And yet the souls that Azrael brings Across the dark and cold, Look up beneath those folded wings, And find them lined with gold.

The Flight. [Lloyd Mifflin]

Upon a cloud among the stars we stood.

The angel raised his hand and looked and said, "Which world, of all yon starry myriad, Shall we make wing to?" The still solitude Became a harp whereon his voice and mood Made spheral music round his haloed head.

I spake -- for then I had not long been dead -- "Let me look round upon the vasts, and brood A moment on these orbs ere I decide . . .

What is yon lower star that beauteous s.h.i.+nes And with soft splendour now incarnadines Our wings? -- THERE would I go and there abide."

Then he as one who some child's thought divines: "That is the world where yesternight you died."

The Rival. [James Whitcomb Riley]

I so loved once, when Death came by I hid Away my face, And all my sweetheart's tresses she undid To make my hiding-place.

The dread shade pa.s.sed me thus unheeding; and I turned me then To calm my love -- kiss down her s.h.i.+elding hand And comfort her again.

And lo! she answered not: and she did sit All fixedly, With her fair face and the sweet smile of it, In love with Death, not me.