Fifty years & Other Poems Part 4

BEFORE A PAINTING

I knew not who had wrought with skill so fine What I beheld; nor by what laws of art He had created life and love and heart On canvas, from mere color, curve and line.

Silent I stood and made no move or sign; Not with the crowd, but reverently apart; Nor felt the power my rooted limbs to start, But mutely gazed upon that face divine.

And over me the sense of beauty fell, As music over a raptured listener to The deep-voiced organ breathing out a hymn; Or as on one who kneels, his beads to tell, There falls the aureate glory filtered through The windows in some old cathedral dim.

I HEAR THE STARS STILL SINGING

I hear the stars still singing To the beautiful, silent night, As they speed with noiseless winging Their ever westward flight.

I hear the waves still falling On the stretch of lonely sh.o.r.e, But the sound of a sweet voice calling I shall hear, alas! no more.

GIRL OF FIFTEEN

Girl of fifteen, I see you each morning from my window As you pa.s.s on your way to school.

I do more than see, I watch you.

I furtively draw the curtain aside.

And my heart leaps through my eyes And follows you down the street; Leaving me behind, half-hid And wholly ashamed.

What holds me back, Half-hid behind the curtains and wholly ashamed, But my forty years beyond your fifteen?

Girl of fifteen, as you pa.s.s There pa.s.ses, too, a lightning flash of time In which you lift those forty summers off my head, And take those forty winters out of my heart.

THE SUICIDE

For fifty years, Cruel, insatiable Old World, You have punched me over the heart Till you made me cough blood.

The few paltry things I gathered You s.n.a.t.c.hed out of my hands.

You have knocked the cup from my thirsty lips.

You have laughed at my hunger of body and soul.

You look at me now and think, "He is still strong, There ought to be twenty more years of good punching there.

At the end of that time he will be old and broken, Not able to strike back, But cringing and crying for leave To live a little longer."

Those twenty, pitiful, extra years Would please you more than the fifty past, Would they not, Old World?

Well, I hold them up before your greedy eyes, And s.n.a.t.c.h them away as I laugh in your face, Ha! Ha!

Bang--!

DOWN BY THE CARIB SEA

I

_Sunrise in the Tropics_

Sol, Sol, mighty lord of the tropic zone, Here I wait with the trembling stars To see thee once more take thy throne.

There the patient palm tree watching Waits to say, "Good morn" to thee, And a throb of expectation Pulses through the earth and me.

Now, o'er nature falls a hush, Look! the East is all a-blush; And a growing crimson crest Dims the late stars in the west; Now, a flood of golden light Sweeps across the silver night, Swift the pale moon fades away Before the light-girt King of Day, See! the miracle is done!

Once more behold! The Sun!

II

_Los Cigarillos_

This is the land of the dark-eyed _gente_, Of the _dolce far niente_, Where we dream away Both the night and day, At night-time in sleep our dreams we invoke, Our dreams come by day through the redolent smoke, As it lazily curls, And slowly unfurls From our lips, And the tips Of our fragrant _cigarillos_.

For life in the tropics is only a joke, So we pa.s.s it in dreams, and we pa.s.s it in smoke, Smoke--smoke--smoke.

Tropical const.i.tutions Call for occasional revolutions; But after that's through, Why there's nothing to do But smoke--smoke;

For life in the tropics is only a joke, So we pa.s.s it in dreams, and we pa.s.s it in smoke, Smoke--smoke--smoke.

III

_Teestay_

Of tropic sensations, the worst Is, _sin duda_, the tropical thirst.

When it starts in your throat and constantly grows, Till you feel that it reaches down to your toes, When your mouth tastes like fur And your tongue turns to dust, There's but one thing to do, And do it you must, Drink _teestay_.

_Teestay_, a drink with a history, A delicious, delectable mystery, "_Cinco centavos el vaso, senor_,"

If you take one, you will surely want more.

_Teestay, teestay_, The national drink on a feast day; How it coolingly tickles, As downward it trickles, _Teestay, teestay_.

And you wish, as you take it down at a quaff, That your neck was constructed a la giraffe.

_Teestay, teestay_.

IV