PS 
 
 ■3537 
 
 '''^' IGDRASIL 
 
 By ROYALL SNOW 
 
 THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY 
 
Pass P^ &S 7S 7 
 Rnnic . H t. -- r -V 
 Qjpght N" 
 
 CDRfRIGHT DEPOSm 
 
IGDRASIL 
 
 BY 
 
 ROYALL SNOW 
 
 Boston 
 
 The Four Seas Company 
 1921 
 
Copyright, 1921, by .\A ^ ^ t ^ 
 The Four Seas Company \ 
 
 For permission to reprint many of these poems, thanks are due 
 to the editors of "The Stratford Journal," "Pagan," "Queen's 
 Quarterly," "Youtli: Poetry of Today," "Contemporary Verse," 
 "Slate" and "Art and Archaeology." 
 
 0£C \9 W2> 
 
 5CU654597 
 
 The Four Seas Press 
 Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 
 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Poetry, like the tree Igdrasil, has deep, down-thrust- 
 ing roots in the underlying kingdoms of the world, — 
 roots that are watered by the Norn of the Past as well 
 as by the Norns of the Present and the Future. In 
 the long run this holds true of both the manner and 
 substance of poetry, and it is a consciousness of that 
 fact which has dictated the form of many of the poems 
 in this volume, — even of those which may seem the 
 most radical technically: the sonnets in free verse. 
 Free verse, which has by now established itself as a 
 legitimate form, has broken up the rhythms of English 
 poetry which were becoming crystallized and mechan- 
 ical. It has given a new vitality and a new flexibiUty. 
 But, for the present, experiment has been pushed as 
 far as it safely may be. It is time now to consolidate 
 the gains. 
 
 The rhythmical flexibility of free verse was pur- 
 chased at the cost of melody (not a fundamental but 
 certainly an embellishment of poetry) but there is no 
 reason why, now that the liberty of rhythm has been 
 attained, some of the old Tennysonian melody should 
 not be restored. Rhyme, the most effective of the mel- 
 odic devices, has never been forbidden by the theory 
 
 [3] 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 of free verse but in practice it has been very rare, and 
 the recent use of it by more than one poet represents 
 unadmitted, though wise, reaction. In certain poems 
 of this volume, such as "Reverie at TwiHght" and 
 "Passersby", the attempt to reconcile the elasticity of 
 the nev^ and the melody of the old poetry is both 
 conscious and confessed. 
 
 The sonnets in free verse to which I previously 
 alluded are another effort in the same direction. To 
 those people who believe it is the fourteen pentameter 
 lines following a certain rhyme scheme which make 
 the sonnet, these poems will not be sonnets at all. To 
 others who feel that a balancing of thought between 
 the octave and sextet is the essence of the sonnet, 
 they will seem legitimate. They may be explained as 
 an attempt to retain the melodic value of the original 
 while following out the free verse principle of flexible, 
 rather than crystallized and meaningless form. 
 
 RoYALL Snow 
 
 [4] 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 SONGS OF THE GOLD-TIPPED ARROW 
 
 Cycle 9 
 
 Evensong 10 
 
 For One Girl 11 
 
 Nightfall 12 
 
 Cyprienne 13 
 
 The Girl Gives Her First Kiss . . .14 
 
 Rhapsody for a Girl 15 
 
 The Same Place: Later 16 
 
 Tragic Nocturne 17 
 
 Reverie at Twilight 18 
 
 FANTASTICA AND FACT 
 
 An Old Old Story 23 
 
 He Left Harvard for the War .... 25 
 
 Concerning the Ego 26 
 
 Beacon 27 
 
 Summer Phantasy 28 
 
 Concerning the Pyrotechnics of Emotion 29 
 
 For the Madonna di Santa Chiara . . 30 
 
 [5] 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Celibacy 31 
 
 Truth 32 
 
 Humourists 33 
 
 Existence 34 
 
 The Adventurer 35 
 
 The Street Singer 36 
 
 Humanity 37 
 
 City Sketches 38 
 
 Passersby 40 
 
 In a Secluded Study 41 
 
 Metamorphosis: City at Twilight . . 42 
 
 Mellow Weather 43 
 
 After the Storm : Early Evening ... 44 
 
 November Night 45 
 
 Quiet After Snowfall 46 
 
 Night Rain 47 
 
 City Streets 48 
 
 Dead Fountains 49 
 
 A Vision of Dead Ladies 50 
 
 Salome and Herod 52 
 
 Krishna's Flute 54 
 
 Omar's Grave 56 
 
 BEYOND REALITY 
 
 The Journal of a Spiritual Pilgrimage . 59 
 [6] 
 
SONGS OF THE GOLD-TIPPED ARROW 
 
CYCLE 
 
 Twas centuries ago as twilight fell 
 
 Like gauze across the pool 
 
 That Radha bathed, 
 
 With cool water clinging to her thighs 
 
 And silver ripples murmuring. 
 
 Twas centuries ago that Krishna watched 
 
 Her draw her hair across her curving shoulder 
 
 And wring it till there flowed 
 
 A river of pearls. 
 
 And ages long before 
 
 Had Eve, with white body unclothed, 
 
 Pressed through the woodbine 
 
 Seeking out Adam in the mellowed shadows of the 
 
 birch-groves 
 To whisper of a new mysterious urging. 
 
 Twas centuries ago . . . 
 
 [9] 
 
EVENSONG 
 
 Twilight is drooping like a veil 
 
 Upon the curving breast of earth 
 
 And beyond the trees is hanging, pale, 
 
 A single star as liquid as a tear. 
 
 The dusk is heavy with a melancholy 
 
 Half-subdued, 
 
 But sorrow cannot cloak me wholly- 
 
 With you so near 
 
 And both our far hearts dreaming . . . 
 
 Our worded silence is unbroken 
 
 As from out the saddened shadows 
 
 Come the drifting ghosts of thoughts we might have 
 
 spoken 
 Had we dared, 
 
 Of kisses that our lips have never shared. 
 And so we sit with melancholy near 
 But take pleasure in the touching of our hands. 
 And the mingling of our breathing — soft and even — 
 And the giving of a smile that understands ; 
 And so we sit and so we watch the star 
 That is hanging like a tear 
 Against the cheek of heaven, 
 And we wonder if behind her twilight veil 
 Earth, too, is dreaming of some untold tale. 
 
 [10] 
 
FOR ONE GIRL 
 
 Old Love 
 
 I shall twist a wreath 
 
 Out of the wind-washed songs you sang 
 
 And place it over the grave 
 
 Where your memory lies buried. 
 
 And then I shall go out into the world 
 
 Pretending that all memory of you is gone, 
 
 Shivered off into nothingness like a brittle moonbeam 
 
 Shattered against a dark rock; 
 
 But it will not avail 
 
 For I shall still feel 
 
 Little ghost-fingers clutching at my heart. 
 
 Spoiliation 
 
 I let you shake my soul 
 (Like a flowering cherry tree) 
 Scattering pink blossoms about you, 
 And still I try to shade you 
 
 With gaunt boughs. 
 Now that you have taken all my flowers 
 Can yoti not stop and smile 
 
 Only a moment, — 
 Instead of passing on so quickly to the next tree that 
 blooms ? 
 
 [u] 
 
NIGHTFALL 
 
 On an emerald evening let me die 
 With a single sapphire in the sky 
 To mark the coming of the night. 
 
 Then, from across enchanted water, 
 Let the song of a prince's daughter 
 Call my spirit from its flight 
 
 To watch her comb her sunbeam hair 
 With a comb of carven jade in the flare 
 Of a wavering orange candlelight. 
 
 Then shall I change to a breeze that lingers, 
 Touching her lips with fragile fingers. 
 As I pass content to the shadowed night. 
 
 [12] 
 
CYPRIENNE 
 
 Save for one clear thought of you 
 
 My memory has been 
 
 All blurred and shadow-tangled: 
 
 Like some Chinese vale the evening dims 
 
 Where only a lonely pagoda 
 
 Glitters in the moonlight. 
 
 And silence blew its lilied breath 
 
 Upon the place for three whole years 
 
 Until one night I heard the temple gong ring ou» 
 
 With the pent melody of my desire; 
 
 And then I knew I must go silently 
 
 To worship in that flower-haunted place. 
 
 [13] 
 
THE GIRL GIVES HER FIRST KISS 
 
 They wandered up a lane 
 
 Between the Hlacs in the twilight 
 
 And at a white-paled gate she offered him her hand. 
 
 Surprised, she found his arms about her 
 
 And the dusk turned swiftly luminous. 
 
 In her eyes was wonderment, 
 
 Even as Eve, plucking the first flower, 
 
 Marvelled at sweetness. 
 
 [14] 
 
RHAPSODY FOR A GIRL 
 
 Words, foamy-crested and plunging with passion, 
 
 Flatten as wind-beaten waves 
 
 Into a hurry of smooth silent water. 
 
 Your kisses are the winds 
 
 Beating down the crests of passionate words. 
 
 They leave us rocking upon the slow swells of silence. 
 
 Your eyes are caverns untroubled with sound: 
 
 Caverns where reflections of stars 
 
 Creep in to shiver against dark pools. 
 
 In the hovering shapes that curl within them 
 
 I see the phantom deeds of my future portrayed. 
 
 We have journeyed beyond words; 
 
 Yet I would murmur 
 
 Of the peony- fragrance of your breasts. 
 
 Of other things . . . 
 
 Words flatten as wind-beaten waves 
 
 Under the kisses of your lips. 
 
 [IS] 
 
THE SAME PLACE: LATER 
 
 {Sonnet in Free Verse) 
 
 Upon the sharp sea rocks our pledge 
 
 That love should never end was made, 
 
 And then at our feet the swift winds played 
 
 A thunderous music on the fanged reef-edge. 
 
 And as we picked, that night, 
 
 One steady star for symbol of a love that could not die. 
 
 The wet cliffs back to the studded sky 
 
 Shot a white flare of triumphant light. 
 
 And now, alone and silent, I have come 
 Here where we together used to lie : 
 The ocean has no word for me, 
 The granite rocks are dumb. 
 Only a heavy star slides down the sky 
 To vanish in the sea. 
 
 Ii6] 
 
A TRAGIC NOCTURNE 
 
 It is terrible 
 
 Out in some moonlit garden 
 
 To tread with dainty steps across red petals, 
 
 Crushing their stains into the green grass. 
 
 The suave grace 
 
 Of winds is on the place : 
 
 Slenderly indifferent over the trodden petals. 
 
 But still more terrible it is 
 
 To watch the moonlight on the face 
 
 Of one you might have loved, 
 
 And (studied in your carelessness) 
 
 To laugh back flippant words 
 
 Like those that kept yourself from loving . . . 
 
 Then to take her arm, 
 
 Stepping up a marble stair 
 
 Into a flare of Chinese lanterns, music, and of pain! 
 
 You would turn back ... 
 And yet behind there He 
 Only the trodden petals 
 And the suave grace 
 Of winds about the place. 
 
 [17] 
 
REVERIE AT TWILIGHT 
 
 The past is shadowy with mist 
 
 And mellowed recollections fade; 
 
 Memories may hauntingly persist 
 
 As candles in the dusk, only to gutter out 
 
 Finished as a melody that's played 
 
 And the last chord echoed out . . . 
 
 Echoed out till only hollow emptiness is left about ! 
 
 Vivid sunlight and crimson ivy leaf 
 In a flood of scarlet on gray stone chapel walls : 
 With a gust of autumn wind the ivy falls 
 And the dusk is frosted delicately with grief. 
 
 And there are old desires like cold fires dying, 
 
 The embers fade, no man remembers . . . 
 
 In spring the moon-drenched wind goes sighing 
 
 Past the lilac-scented trysting places 
 
 Emptied of the old lovers, lo, these many years. 
 
 The air is heavy with the sadness of forgotten faces 
 
 And the wind seems moist with tears. 
 
 And then the sounds of laughter come 
 And a murmuring of words. 
 Arm in arm two lovers pass : 
 
 A moment of tinkling laughter, emptiness afterwards. 
 Save for the idle shadows on the grass 
 And the unseen ghosts that are dumb. 
 
 [i8] 
 
Who can speak the names that chime 
 
 Like the echos of a bell 
 
 Recurring from an ancient time 
 
 To break the wizard years slow spell ? 
 
 What magic bring to these mellow places 
 
 The long- forgotten faces? 
 
 The heavy wind goes weeping 
 
 Off to distant skies 
 
 And the dark comes slowly creeping 
 
 Around each deserted nest, 
 
 Each colored autumn leaf. 
 
 The twilight dies 
 
 As unseen ghosts stir in a long unrest, 
 
 And the night is frosted deUcately with grief. 
 
 [19] 
 
FANTASTICA AND FACT 
 
AN OLD OLD STORY 
 
 Pierre was lonely 
 
 As the heart of some stone god 
 
 Buried in a spulchral vault. 
 
 He looked at the sun, mouldering 
 
 In the grey mud of the skies 
 
 And felt his own heart mouldering. 
 
 La Patrie had called and he was answering 
 
 With a mouldering heart ! 
 
 With sick blood that dripped through his veins 
 
 Like rain! 
 
 At the station were sweethearts 
 
 Saying good-bye, — and he was alone, 
 
 Alone and drifting through a dreary slough of faces. 
 
 Someone touched him; he turned. 
 
 "Pierre!" she said ... 
 
 And now he was riding north 
 Through fields that stretched out 
 Like the petals of a sun-flower. 
 And there was a flower hidden near his heart: 
 A flower he had stolen from her hair 
 To be the mate of the kiss he had from her lips. 
 There were flowers sprung 
 Oiit of the mould in his heart: 
 Flowers that stroked his soul with cool 
 Petal-fingers. 
 Pierre was glad; 
 
 Smoke flowers burst out of the engine 
 And wreathed the train 
 
 [23] 
 
That swept him to the battle field. 
 The road over which he marched 
 Was the stem to a red flower 
 
 That hummed with the distant roar of many bees. 
 Pierre was glad 
 And so with fierce joy- 
 He tossed at the enemy, bouquets 
 Of little flame flowers that vanished quickly 
 From their smoking stem. 
 Pierre carried her flower over his heart 
 So that he was glad when the keen tongues 
 Of the trumpets, 
 Like the stamen of brazen lilies, 
 Sounded, "Charge!'* . . . 
 
 And Pierre still wore a smile, 
 A little frozen-flower smile, 
 As the sun sank like a wilting poppy. 
 And the moon came up: a great white lily. 
 
 [24] 
 
HE LEFT HARVARD FOR THE WAR 
 
 Two autumns he had seen the ivy blush 
 Against the gray stone chapel walls 
 
 And twice in spring had watched the lilacs brush 
 The red-brick college halls. 
 
 Carelessly he loitered with the rest 
 On Seaver's steps before the gong, 
 
 Mingling with talk of lectures or a test 
 Stray comment on a dance or song. 
 
 And thus his final moment there was spent 
 
 For Harvard taught his heart 
 How it might always seem indifferent. 
 
 Yet how might do its part; 
 
 And Harvard still, with ever-open doors, 
 As she has always done, will teach 
 
 New men to chat of games and go to wars 
 With the same old smile for each. 
 
 [25] 
 
CONCERNING THE EGO 
 
 I. The Pearl-Diver 
 
 I plunge, 
 
 A sharp streak of bronze, 
 
 Through the sea-green chaos of my mind 
 
 To discover deep-drowned pearls. 
 
 II. On a Train 
 
 My heart is a tiger lily 
 
 Of fire blossoming; 
 
 It holds up the wavering cup 
 
 Of its golden eagerness 
 
 To the stars 
 
 Of an opening future. 
 
 And yet I am burned with it ; 
 
 Years will pass before I see again 
 
 The tasselled cornfields of my native state. 
 
 [26J 
 
BEACON 
 
 Fierce night, white night, 
 
 Burn like a beacon 
 
 On the grey hills of memory ! 
 
 Twist up the oaken boughs 
 
 Of wrath. 
 
 Feed the flames with them. 
 
 Let the wind of new thoughts 
 
 Beat the fire to brilliance, 
 
 The edge of new friendship 
 
 Slice the darkness with light. 
 
 Fierce night, white night. 
 
 Burn like a beacon 
 
 On the grey hills of memory! 
 
 [27] 
 
SUMMER PHANTASY 
 
 Up over the rim of a world 
 
 Heavy-lidded with heat 
 
 In crystalline days by the seashore 
 
 I walk arcaded verandahs 
 
 And watch children playing below. 
 
 A tanned little girl in pink and a boy in brown, 
 
 Fresh from the foam-edged sands and glittering water, 
 
 Play now with balloons 
 
 On lawns about creamy hydrangeas; 
 
 Down the curved street under the shade-trees 
 
 The singing of a vender's horn trickles gladly, 
 
 Calling a musical farewell 
 
 To the gay-colored balloons left behind: 
 
 Even as some day this song 
 
 Shall wind back clearly to crystalline days 
 
 When I am down over the rim of the world 
 
 Heavy-lidded with heat. 
 
 [28] 
 
CONCERNING THE PYROTECHNICS OF 
 EMOTION 
 
 (Sonnet in Free Verse) 
 
 We have too much of dramatics 
 
 And paraded passions that are lusty; 
 
 Those old emotions are as dusty 
 
 As long-deserted attics. 
 
 And Melisandes with flowing hair 
 
 Cascading from a balcony 
 
 Seem all false to me, — 
 
 Let us have healthy hearts and fresher air! 
 
 You'll find your true emotion like a nun 
 
 Walking somberly in gray; 
 
 There will be no fine speeches spun, 
 
 No grandiose display. 
 
 A lad will press a young girl's hand 
 
 And simplicity will make them grand. 
 
 [29] 
 
FOR THE MADONNA DI SANTA CHIARA 
 
 {Sonnet in Free Verse) 
 
 Your girlish face is somberly impressed 
 
 With an apocalyptic glory; 
 
 It is enriched by faith in that great story 
 
 Of God within your child made manifest. 
 
 And yet the word religion cannot embrace 
 
 All the loveliness that hangs about 
 
 Your countenance devout 
 
 For your beauty has a subtly human grace. 
 
 Gentle Mary, on your face 
 
 There is a lovely lingering light of wonderment 
 
 For the child against your breast, 
 
 And yet your cool, cool eyes bear not the trace 
 
 Of kisses fierce and turbulent : 
 
 They have the unplumbed cleanness of the uncaressed. 
 
 [30] 
 
CELIBACY 
 
 He had lived a life 
 
 Virtuous as the coldness 
 
 Of marble statues; 
 
 Yet he went mad, 
 
 Crying that he saw the ghost of a child 
 
 Dancing upon the sword-points 
 
 Of the fir-tree tops. 
 
 [31] 
 
TRUTH 
 
 She had told him that she did not love him. 
 
 The laugh which he dropped scornfully at her feet 
 
 Was brittle 
 
 So that it snapped and cracked 
 
 In many places. 
 
 If she had lied, saying 
 
 That her life was a broken flute without him, 
 
 He would have kissed her. 
 
 And believed. 
 
 [32] 
 
HUMOURISTS 
 
 Stalking down stone corridors, 
 
 Armored as old knights 
 
 Walking on crenelated walls 
 
 In safety, 
 
 Come the old gods 
 
 Blurred in misty ages 
 
 Of whispered talk ; 
 
 And come also the new spectres : 
 
 Evolution, Heredity, Fatalistic Psychology. 
 
 Walking in safety on crenelated battlements 
 
 They scatter laughter, crisp 
 
 As the shatter of icicles, 
 
 Over humanity. 
 
 And the unwise wisemen 
 
 Besiege the walls unavailingly. 
 
 But somewhere on a country road a small boy 
 
 Snubs his bare toes in the powdery dust, 
 
 And watches a robin 
 
 Pull worms from the fresh loam of a ploughed field. 
 
 He grins too: 
 
 So on whom is the joke? 
 
 [33] 
 
EXISTENCE 
 
 The notes 
 
 Of the distant 
 
 Piano 
 Were as butterflies in a far field: 
 One I caught 
 As a thousand drifted palely away. 
 
 And so with the world that whirls past : 
 Rich lips in a subway ; a laugh 
 That trickles through a dark theater; 
 Black hair loose on white shoulders 
 While a shade is being drawn. 
 
 Meanwhile the dust rubs from the wings 
 Of the butterfly I have caught 
 And the others are flown. 
 
 [34] 
 
THE ADVENTURER 
 
 (And the rest of mankind) 
 
 A flock of swallows whirl 
 And swoop 
 
 Hunting for their food 
 In a dusk that gathers fast. 
 
 While high above, 
 
 To reach the island of a cloud, 
 
 A hawk 
 
 Goes swimming up the scarlet waters 
 
 Of the setting sun. 
 
 [35] 
 
THE STREET SINGER 
 
 You have stumbled upon the edge of happiness 
 
 And not been wise enough to see it, 
 
 For your eyes are clouded 
 
 And hunger undertones with bitterness your song. 
 
 Only but watch yourself 
 
 And the secret dreamers long have sought 
 
 Is yours : 
 
 The keeping of a song upon the lips 
 
 In the search for bread. 
 
 [36] 
 
HUMANITY 
 
 An infinitely good-natured newfoundland puppy 
 
 Perpetually stepping with clumsy feet 
 
 On the edges of academic saucers 
 
 And upsetting the milk over neat carpets ! 
 
 A puppy continually circUng after its own tail 
 
 And snapping at sunlight, 
 
 Basking in hot streets, 
 
 And getting its paw run over 
 
 By elemental motor trucks. 
 
 A poor devil of a puppy 
 Staring, half -intelligent. 
 Out of great hungry eyes. 
 
 [37] 
 
CITY SKETCHES 
 
 I. Flirtation 
 
 Sluggishly the city 
 
 Draws her head back of a fan of night mists 
 
 To hide her yawns, while with her thousand eyes 
 
 She coquettes lazily with the river. 
 
 II. Lese Majeste 
 
 Somewhere off in the distance 
 
 A playful church spire sticks the full moon in the ribs, 
 And sends it spluttering indignantly across the sky 
 Like a stout burgher. 
 
 III. Gossip 
 
 One tall building. 
 
 Its base entangled in a cluster of squatty ones 
 Like a pencil stuck in a jar of peas, 
 Stares superciliously about; 
 The short buildings pretend scorn 
 And whisper catty things with their rattling window- 
 panes. 
 
 IV. Vista 
 
 Across the river 
 
 The city makes a purple bas relief 
 
 Against an orange west. 
 
 [38] 
 
V. Grotesque 
 
 They built that house of orange stucco 
 
 And gave it greenish bhnds for eyeUds 
 
 Either side the nose-like door. 
 
 It's a hobgoblin, halloween face 
 
 And it winks over the street at a church. 
 
 Heigh-ho, but the spinster church 
 
 Is very proper ! 
 
 See her gather the trees 
 
 Like skirts about her. 
 
 And pretend to see only the stars ! 
 
 VI. Corner Romance 
 
 His soul was like a trolley car : 
 
 Jolly, rumbling, 
 
 And eminently practical. 
 
 Hers was a httle pool of water that reflected the stars. 
 
 And then one day his soul came clattering down the 
 
 street 
 And ran over hers. 
 Now hers reflects the stars no more 
 For his stirred up all the mud beneath. 
 
 [39] 
 
PASSERSBY 
 
 I saw Helen of Troy 
 
 Walking along a dirty street. 
 
 She wore shoddy clothes 
 
 And broken shoes were on her feet 
 
 While with her walked a sallow boy. 
 
 The lyric seems to die in prose 
 
 When, in place of Helen, Paris, and their noble kind, 
 
 Simply a pimpled youth in dirty linen 
 
 Goes with a girl to find 
 
 A furnished room to sin in. 
 
 And yet I still profess, 
 
 However base this woman is, 
 
 There was something of Helen with the other 
 
 Hidden in that shoddy dress, 
 
 For I saw this girl's dark eyes burn luminous 
 
 With looking on her lover. 
 
 [40] 
 
IN A SECLUDED STUDY 
 
 The log fire 
 
 Is infinitely tender. 
 
 It combs the dark with smooth fingers of light, 
 
 It tries to warm the cold night 
 
 With soft kisses, 
 
 And when the night does not respond 
 
 It dies. 
 
 [41] 
 
METAMORPHOSIS: CITY AT TWILIGHT 
 
 Lethargic in the dusk the city lies 
 
 As languid as a late and melting snow; 
 
 Tired it is from varied enterprise 
 
 And like a sleeping child is resting now. 
 
 Its angles in the honied, hazy glow 
 
 Are softened sweetly and the twilight's gray 
 
 Comes as a lullaby to soothe it so 
 
 To quiet from the uproar of the day. 
 
 For metamorphosis has worked its way 
 
 And changed, as half-lights mystically reveal. 
 
 From noisy wrath and dirty disarray 
 
 This giant, granite-fleshed and ribbed with steel 
 
 It is, with hills to pillow its unrest. 
 
 Become a waif asleep against a kindly breast. 
 
 [42] 
 
MELLOW WEATHER 
 
 The day is sweet 
 
 As pears grown ripe in August sun 
 
 And the Hght sHps honey-warm 
 
 And fluid through the leaves. 
 
 The mellowness of things long-done 
 
 Through every gleam and shadow breathes, — 
 
 That calmness of a world complete 
 
 And full endowed with loveliness before 
 
 Man's feet had crossed the threshold of Creation's 
 
 door. 
 And so all stir sinks down to rest 
 In quiet at the touch of things 
 Whose beauty, immemorial, has blest 
 The kingdoms of a thousand kings. 
 And trouble has no edge of pain 
 For us, exiled from the eternal plane, 
 Who now can glimpse its calm again. 
 
 [43] 
 
AFTER THE STORM : EARLY EVENING 
 
 (Sonnet in Free Verse) 
 
 The storm past, I walk through the leaves 
 
 That cling damply to my feet, 
 
 And rejoice that nature is complete 
 
 Without a mind that grieves 
 
 For spring thus faded to an autumn's end. 
 
 Nature is dead, and yet it seems 
 
 Alive as vividly as many dreams: 
 
 I vi^onder, is it a symbol or a friend? 
 
 The trees are sharp black 
 
 In the luminous air 
 
 That follows after rain. 
 
 Hearts too, I know, may sometimes after pain 
 
 Find that a numbed quiet creeps back — 
 
 Satin against a wound left bare. 
 
 [44] 
 
NOVEMBER NIGHT 
 
 (Sonnet in Free Verse) 
 
 The night is ill at ease 
 
 Spangled with its stars of flaky steel, 
 
 Astir with winds that break and wheel 
 
 Like flocks of birds above the trees. 
 
 Then quiet brings a restless pause 
 
 To brood, sullenly disturbed. 
 
 Over an earth for ages curbed 
 
 With the ponderous weight of ancient laws. 
 
 The facile wind, the tinsel of the stars 
 
 Are as the smile that covereth 
 
 A sad heart at festivities. 
 
 They are the glitter of the thin guitars 
 
 Above the heavy orchestra of death, 
 
 Above the frozen earth, the naked trees. 
 
 [45] 
 
QUIET AFTER SNOWFALL 
 
 The trees like spectre birds of paradise 
 
 Pose in a world of gray and white, 
 
 And the ghosts of faded shadows 
 
 Lie upon the ground. 
 
 Come, let us climb a hill together 
 
 With the moon for lanthom 
 
 And from the crest behold the world, 
 
 A white illusion at our feet. 
 
 [46] 
 
NIGHT RAIN 
 
 Down comes the rain, creeping, afraid: 
 Not with the shatter of lances 
 Storms bring 
 But only a long slinking. 
 
 Under the wind trees bow down in fear 
 And rows of beaten houses huddle together. 
 
 Now they stand proud in undefeated courage; 
 Off the slate roofs arc-Hght rays glance 
 As from steel helmets. 
 
 And trees shake proudly, indolently as the manes of 
 coursers. 
 
 » 
 The rain creeps along slinking. 
 
 [47] 
 
CITY STREETS 
 
 Oh, I have kissed emptiness 
 
 And loved this shadow that has lost its soul! 
 
 I am sick with the despair of it. 
 
 From resonance my heart has suddenly gone dead 
 Like an echoing gong 
 Touched by a cold finger. 
 
 From this place are my friends gone, 
 
 From this place I loved; 
 
 And I see now that I loved its soul, 
 
 Not the beautiful body . . . 
 
 Like a woman this city stands 
 
 Beautiful still, tangling 
 
 The gems of stars in her elm-tresses 
 
 And girdled with her jewelled streets. 
 
 But now at the sight of her I sicken, 
 I, who hunger for her lost soul. 
 
 [48] 
 
DEAD FOUNTAINS 
 
 Moonstains on a leafstrewn cloister walk 
 
 And through the colonnades, dead fountains, rain-filled, 
 
 Cast upward hollow echos of the stars. 
 
 Moonlight tinselling a girl's black hair 
 
 As a light step crinkles through the leaves: 
 
 "Paolo? Paolo?" 
 
 The dry rustlings of the leaves 
 
 Blur out the whisperings of two, 
 
 Wrap silk around the sound of kisses. 
 
 Moonlight streaming in silver 
 Along rapier blades . . . 
 Heavy feet scatter leaves 
 Into frightened leaps. 
 Twice a curse! 
 Then the moan of a man 
 Lying, pale head in the light, 
 Body in shadow. 
 
 "Paolo, Paolo! Help!" 
 
 The cry of a girl totters against the colonnades 
 
 And falls across dead fountains 
 
 That cast upward hollow echoes of the stars. 
 
 [49] 
 
A VISION OF DEAD LADIES 
 
 I rested on an evening, murmurous 
 
 And heavy with the scent of heat-enshrouded flowers: 
 
 A full rose broke and streamed 
 
 Its petals, white across the grass, 
 
 And gold-fish stirred beside me as I lay; 
 
 To my eyes grown drowsy in the dark 
 
 The touches of soft gold their moving made 
 
 Seemed as flicks of light on rich brocade; 
 
 The water whispers turned to voices murmuring. 
 
 Helen came, 
 
 And Cleopatra 
 
 Hot summer-lipped and without shame, 
 
 And white girls snowy as their native north, 
 
 And earth brown maidens that the East brought forth 
 
 In far Lahore, in Burma, or Sumatra. 
 
 Each passed alone and each was singing 
 A melody that softly swinging came to me. 
 
 "Our vanished lips have found rebirth 
 In the cur^dng of a rose. 
 Our breasts have mellowed in the earth 
 To clover feeding slender does. 
 
 "But yet against our curving breasts 
 
 We feel no baby's mouth; 
 
 Our eager lips, all uncaressed 
 
 By lovers, parch in a long love-drouth. 
 
 [50] 
 
"Vain is the glory of the rose 
 And vain the sweetness of the clover 
 To her who dead no longer knows 
 The sweetness of her lover." 
 
 Brief glimpse of women glorious 
 
 And then a couple passed 
 
 Unconscious of me lying there. 
 
 The silent singing was overcast 
 
 By the murmur of their voices on the evening air; 
 
 Dead queens slipped back into the dark abyss 
 
 To the music of a living lover's kiss . . . 
 
 Dead Guinevere and passion-pained Iseult, 
 
 Sleep well within your grave! 
 
 Your lovers came, your lovers gave 
 
 Kisses to your red lips, 
 
 Kisses to make your proud hearts exult 
 
 In the starred nights of the dead years. 
 
 Sleep well within your grave 
 
 And leave the earth to those who follow after. 
 
 To maidens bringing their red lips 
 
 And soft laughter, 
 
 Their kisses and their love-born tears 
 
 To young men who await them in the moonlight. 
 
 Eager as poised hawks, tender as the Angelus bell. 
 
 Dead Guinevere, O Iseult of Ireland, 
 I pay you homage. 
 And say farewell. 
 
 [51] 
 
SALOME AND HEROD 
 
 A wavering flash of fire 
 
 In heavy eyes, somber and dark, — 
 
 Like to a spark 
 
 In black forests 
 
 Is that light in her eyes. 
 
 The forest is kindled, the fire 
 
 Weaves in a passionate bacchanal 
 
 Around the black boles of the trees. 
 
 Lips sultry with passion, cheeks pale, 
 
 Salome dances. 
 
 Through the mist of her hair and the veils 
 
 Arms shift and glide 
 
 As serpents of silver through water. 
 
 Her body is rose seen through amber ; 
 
 Her feet in their golden sandals 
 
 Are white birds in the ripening wheat. 
 
 Swift on the feast table Salome dances. 
 Wine stains her feet ; 
 Her ankles are tangled with orchids ; 
 Cascading in jet on ruby-flushed shoulders 
 Falls Salome's hair as she dances. 
 
 A trumpet screams ; 
 Salome leaps, then pauses 
 Erect in the wreck of the feast : 
 An ivory demon, triumphant. 
 Awaiting her reward. 
 
 [52] 
 
Blood upon silver, they bear it! 
 Shaggy locks tangled, thick lips closed, 
 In a pool of blood on a silver platter, 
 The head of the prophet! 
 
 From the coldness of death 
 
 Lips that had cursed her in life 
 
 Grow warm with Salome's kisses. 
 
 Head flung back, hair like a thunder-cloud tumbling, 
 
 She kisses the lips of the dead 
 
 Blood wets her lips; it drops on her breast, 
 
 A spatter of red on lilies. 
 
 Then Herod cries out in his wrath and his shame. 
 
 And his warriors come. 
 
 And tumult breaks like a flame: 
 
 A crash of shields, a cry of pain. 
 
 Orchids and girl and blood and wine 
 
 Are crushed together in a stain 
 
 On the great white marble stair. 
 
 Herod flees, the torches flare, 
 
 Only the moon is left to stare. 
 
 [53] 
 
KRISHNA'S FLUTE 
 
 "Krishna bewilders and beguiles all hearts by the playing of 
 his magic flute . . . He is the Pied Piper of the soul and the 
 children of men who hear his piping follow him through the 
 forests and away to perfect freedom." —AnandaK.Coomaraswamy. 
 
 Beneath the moon there floats a tune 
 
 Restless with immortal fire. 
 
 Faded is the sound of laughter 
 
 And the lips of men are mute 
 
 For the night is mellow with a sung desire 
 
 As Krishna passes with his flute . . . 
 
 Some are wise and follow after. 
 
 But haughty princes lie, indifferent 
 
 In gardens fragrant with the scent 
 
 Of flowers and of ripened fruit. 
 
 The sound of Krishna's flute 
 
 Is drowned in tambourines' swift ringing 
 
 And girls shift as fire 
 
 In a dance 
 
 At which the princes, numb with satiate desire, 
 
 Indolently glance. 
 
 They grow weary of the singing; 
 
 Their very jewels turn to flame 
 
 And sear their flesh with pain . . . 
 
 But the madness of immortal melodies 
 Quivers like light about the trees 
 
 [54] 
 
In those dim forests of the soul 
 Where Krishna passes piping. 
 The terror of the forest dies 
 Beneath the song-Ht skies, 
 And pilgrims find their feet are Hght 
 On the pathways of the night. 
 
 [55] 
 
OMAR'S GRAVE 
 
 "My tomb shall be in a spot where the North wind may scatter 
 roses over it." — Omar Khayyam. 
 
 Omar, sick with melancholia 
 
 And fumes of rose-drugged wine, 
 
 Saw glory in the earth and prayed the grave 
 
 Might have its chill made warm 
 
 By broken roses. 
 
 And the years dimmed as red reflections 
 
 In a wine cup pale 
 
 When candles gutter out, 
 
 And scholars mourned at destiny 
 
 In Omar dead. 
 
 From Cairo far across Arabia to Nishapur 
 There came one man in loneliness to grieve. 
 And found the cool-handed wind of Persia shook 
 Loose roses in a wreck of white and red 
 Across the grill work of a garden wall 
 On Omar's grave. 
 
 "And lo," the old man said, 
 "The rose of song has faded. 
 The roses of the earth still fade." 
 
 [56] 
 
BEYOND REALITY 
 
THE JOURNAL 
 OF A SPIRITUAL PILGRIMAGE 
 
 Brooding the impalpable great things 
 Of life this Milo Venus stands, serene where kings 
 Would tremble, and peering with her quiet eyes 
 Into the hidden realm where true life lies. 
 The empery of beauty and of thought. 
 And so the wars which emperors have fought 
 Have been but phantom to her eye that sees 
 Beyond the flesh to the realities. 
 Greece fell and Rome decayed; new nations built 
 Upon their ruin as upon the silt 
 Of deltaed rivers and of washing tides 
 Grow to a vigorous life new countrysides. 
 And all this time, amidst a world's decay, 
 That Venus stood, aloof from all dismay 
 As some cathedral spire which lifts its high 
 And still unsullied beauty to the sky- 
 While wars gut out the city down below, 
 Its people perish, buildings fall, and the slow 
 But universal grasses creep again 
 Along the streets once trod to rock by men. 
 
 And now I ask you why we write. Is Art, 
 
 Abstracted, still so fine a thing our heart 
 
 Torn burning out, is suited sacrifice 
 
 To lay upon its altar? Is it for this, 
 
 A word which we make God, that we shall tell 
 
 Our intimate desires or plunge in Hell 
 
 Tempering our souls to make more fine 
 
 [59] 
 
The thought that beats pulsating through each line? 
 
 It is not for that I write. I am afraid 
 
 Of the great fingers of the dark which made 
 
 This earth and blackly compass it. To die 
 
 And then sweep out into the hollow sky 
 
 On gusty winds and be engulfed in space 
 
 Is terrible! I have not strength to face 
 
 The empty distances of death alone 
 
 And were I dead my soul, turned chill as stone, 
 
 Would tremble back from them and linger here 
 
 Enchained to earth by the bondage of its fear: 
 
 A thing afraid of heaven and not of the earth. 
 
 And so I seek in a remembered name rebirth — 
 
 A life within my poems, for the spoken breath 
 
 That brings one line to life will conquer death. 
 
 Alas, like bronze in strength and rich as gold 
 
 Must be that poem which can hope to hold 
 
 Its lustre brilliant through the acid years. 
 
 A test impossible! I see my fears 
 
 Cloud around me like the ghosts that form in smoke : 
 
 What hand that ever carved, what voice that spoke, 
 
 Can so endure ! What madness is this in me 
 
 To trust to verse like mine ! 
 
 And then I turn and see 
 This ageless Venus ! And I ask what is known 
 Of the man that brought this woman from the stone 
 To outlast empires. In Salamis he lived, 
 Or on the isle where Ariadne grieved 
 Her faithless Theseus perhaps, or else 
 
 [60] 
 
Where crumbling Syracuse still melts 
 Reflections in the blue Sicilian sea. 
 Imperial Athens or some colony 
 It may be cradled him and trained his eyes 
 To beauty under clear Ionian skies. 
 
 He must have loved some woman in those days 
 He walked an earth all luminous with that haze 
 Of gold which hangs above the hills in spring. 
 And in the moonlight he would come and sing 
 Outside her window. Burning with her kiss 
 He would turn with sublimated artifice 
 To work its magic in the virgin stone. 
 So it must have been and yet no one 
 Remembers it and not a book records 
 His actions even in a few small words. 
 His life is forgotten and his very name 
 Is gone into that Time from which it came. 
 
 And here am I who scribble lines and strive 
 
 By them to keep my memory alive; 
 
 And here (more subtly wrought, more nobly planned 
 
 Than any work to which I have dared set hand) 
 
 There stands this woman with her eyes that see 
 
 Beyond my struggles to eternity. 
 
 Serenity is hers, the calm that broods 
 
 Austerely beautiful through sacramental moods; 
 
 Yet he who touched her limbs with life is dead, 
 
 Forgotten utterly in the long years that are fled. 
 
 Oh thought as bitter to the lips as ashes are! 
 That even he is gone, engulfed, a fallen star! 
 
 [6i] 
 
Does life but blossom that a winter gale 
 May come ironically and shake its frail 
 Dead petals down upon the frosty ground? 
 Is it for nothing philosophers propound 
 Their truths and scientists make war upon 
 The dark unknown battalions that surround 
 Our living? For nothing saints have undergone 
 Affliction? Great and small alike, all must 
 Irrevocably be forgotten dust? 
 
 Better to die at once and thus go out. 
 To stand defiant on a cliff and shout 
 Derision at those ancient gods who make 
 Of life but a flame and tortured martyr-stake, 
 Fling scorn to scorn, then leap into the foam 
 And in the ocean find an endless home ! 
 
 But there is still this Venus here to say 
 With wordless lips that there may be today 
 A world which seems a meaningless confusion, 
 And yet tomorrow only the illusion 
 Of her beauty lives. For she is not 
 A thing of marble but illusion wrought 
 In marble, and it is that which lives in her; 
 All things but this have found a sepulchre. 
 Dynasties may fall but beauty reigns 
 In an eternal kingdom. And she retains 
 Her beauty; — mangled, she is still serene 
 For all the cataclysms she has seen. 
 
 Then in this flux of life and death and chance 
 There is at least in beauty permanence, 
 
 [62] 
 
Secure although the tides flow in or out 
 
 Eddying with the currents of our doubt. 
 
 It is true we are forgotten and the shell 
 
 Of us is swept to sea on a tidal swell, 
 
 But what we have built of beauty in our heart 
 
 May still endure and still exist apart. 
 
 That is not us and yet it is the best 
 
 Of us, and brings the wonder: can the rest 
 
 (That sum of our peculiarities) 
 
 Be nothing after all but a disease 
 
 And breeder of unrest? Then better blend 
 
 Outside of life with that which can transcend 
 
 The hungry treachery of time, and merge, 
 
 With self abandoned, in the palpitant surge 
 
 Of that Beauty which to human eyes is known 
 
 But by its symbols, like this Venus carved in stone. 
 
 How near this Venus grows! She stood withdrawn 
 
 Before from all my pettiness and on 
 
 Serener things she looked, but now instead 
 
 With quiet friendliness she bends her head 
 
 To smile at me. What comfort there would be 
 
 To creep up and rest against her knee 
 
 Contented as a tired child at last 
 
 Come home. Changed, this goddess of the past 
 
 Is turned to woman and the one to lull 
 
 Asleep the frightened child, as beautiful, 
 
 She stands beside him for his surety 
 
 That he may sleep but beauty will not cease to be. 
 
 [63] 
 
Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proce 
 Neutralizing agent; Magnesium Oxide 
 Treatment Date: Oct. 2009 
 
 PreservationTechnologie 
 
 A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVAT 
 
 111 Thomson Park Drive 
 Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
 (724)779-2111