.U55 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H 1920 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H Copy ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^M i U^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^l ip::' 'i i^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H |jifj;7!:; ■ 1 ^' I'll .||;^ » "HII^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H 'liilll^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^l Ifli' ; ^ k. (I 111 ii:ii f 111 ^ CQBQRIGHT D£POSm MOODS OF MANHATTAN Manhattan, O City, You I sing — This song, for you! MOODS OF MANHATTAN BY LOUISE MALLINCKRODT KUEFFNER n ILLUSTRATED BY THOMAS FURLONG THE MODERNIST PRESS NEW YORK CITY 1920 Copyright, 1920, by Louise Mallinckrodt Kueffner. A Continent's Outpost, The Citadel, and Midsummer Storm, ar» adapted translations from a poem, Manhattan, by Kmil Reeck. §)CU604353 NOV 1 1 1920 ^Ki» I 3 CONTENTS Page A Continent's Outpost 7 The Citadel 9 The Island's Round 10 Strolls 14 The Village 22 Learning's Hill 25 With the Obelisk at Sunrise 29 Night Hunger 32 Autumn's Hope 34 Welcoming the Young Year 36 Flowerday Before Easter 39 Sunday Escape 41 Summer's Green Refuge 43 Midsummer Storm 46 SUMMERMOON SyMPHONICS 48 Crowds and Faces 53 Our Tower's Beckoning Signal 57 My Song's Farewell 59 A CONTINENT'S OUTPOST Manhattan, City— A lynx, crouched forward, You lie at watch on the threshold Of the new world. You stretch out grasping claws Around bulged flanks Of nearing ships, And the flanks quiver; Thus you gather in your proud cargoes. You are the portal Through which they go Who are dead to the old world. In your building-mazes Frost-nipped blood congeals. Yet sometimes, bursting, It flares up in grotesque madness. Wills life. 8 MOODS OF MANHATTAN But then sinks back into night, Is docile again. November-pale are men Within your reaches, Manhattan, For you are Fear, millionfold, immeasurable Fear! Ever bolder You throw steel arches, stone beams Across yawning clefts; fear not: The continent lets not go of you! No ! never will he leave you to the seas ; His hungry clutch holds you Close ; He needs you! So vault your bridges Over his rivers, With tunnels gird yourself to the mainland, Calmly, Manhattan O City! MOODS OF MANHATTAN THE CITADEL Manhattan, Closeknotted knob of gaping valleys, waterways, park! Deep into dark earth Your teeming life You send down; And into high air ;- Towers you lift Carrying up life. Dizzy-deep abysses are the streets of your citadel, Island, Where a sunblind world Knows only lucre, braying, and haste! Here barter Masters men; Usury, Hard outbargaining. And a whole land bows to you. City, Keen-witted outbargainer, O Manhattan ! 10 MOODS OF MANHATTAN THE ISLAND'S ROUND Manhattan, Vibrating City, Who have begun to disclose to me your million- foldness, Now I stagger. Where is your unity, Monstrous City? I know your great buildings, each is a town self- centred, where you spend workheavy days high up in the air, and down, down in earth's darkness ; Your slums and Riversides and universities are worlds sundered, what bridge will ever con- nect these ? You wreck palaces for a whim, and preserve tumble- down tenements reeking, renting them out to men; your transcendent wealth eludes all but a few, city of greed! (The misery of your poor, how stupendous, the happiness of your rich, how uncertain!) City, amorphous city, 1 am lost in your maze. You terrify me, O monstrous City ! How can I believe in you, Manhattan ? MOODS OF MANHATTAN 11 But, City, I will not let you master me : And see, now in a few hours I have sailed all around you; You are not so ungraspable after all — Now I have seen the whole of your long narrow body, held round by your rivers; your eager towns close-clustering about you, bridges and tubes holding you fast to them; and I have followed from end to end the sweeping lines of your ridges. The vague mass of you no longer eludes me. Your eastern side is your back yard; here are end- less dumping-barges where men handle the City's ill-smelling refuse day after day, un- loading it out of wagons, shoveling it into the water. Here, too, are the buildings where your broken ones come to you sick in body and soul; (And now we pass the islands where you hide from us your criminals and your maddened ones, O I will not look at these islands, surely, O city, some day your life will become free of these!) Here, also, are your many begrimed coal-barges, where white men work themselves black, (but see, on the cabin's roof there, a pink geranium is blooming.) 12 MOODS OF MANHATTAN (O must It be, this underworld Hell? That some of us may live, Praising glad skies with uplifted face, While we forget, forget?) But now at last we have turned into your smaller River and into the Canal that leads us to the f ree-souled River of your front side, O City, O Joy— Green hillsides refresh us, and on a reef sprawling into your coolness, broad-breasted River, white-limbed bathers exult. And now the ridge-line of your apartment-blocks and towers billows in unbroken sweep toward your citadel, and descends abruptly into the sea. The separated buildings have grouped themselves together, and out of your bluish-gray vapor that thins upward into clear sky, Your solid Reality, O City, Transformed, Dreams itself into our blood Sun-quivering Yet haze-softened, A vision of delicate Joy ! A unity now, nature's work — though man's — Her dream, her transcendent flower, MOODS OF MANHATTAN 13 ACity of Souls! City, never can I deny your evil — And yet, and yet, 1 believe forever In your Beauty And in you, O social City. 14 MOODS OF MANHATTAN STROLLS Joy is in my heart, Manhattan, When I stroll From Plaza to Washington Square Down your proud Avenue. Palaces Bring dreams, fleeting. Of Moorish night, of Italian days; But soon shops With bright windows Offer feasts To my eyes My hungry, happy eyes. Flowers from far climes greet me, Flowers from the country. And flowers grown large and rare Through man's cherishing. Here the Orient's treasures Of rugs and vases, carvings and jewels call. And now confections beckon: Overgarments curiously fashioned into ever different shapes ; Undergarments delicate dreams of silks and laces and frills; And fabrics, just fabrics, MOODS OF MANHATTAN 15 Velvets and silks, all textures and shades, Yellows and blues, oranges, purples, greens, and reds — O happy happy eyes That can turn away from the drab of streets To this world of desire, My City! But now I come to a gray wedge-tower That stands where your rival crosses you, Avenue, And there, where another fairer tower Looks down on a green space. Soap-box speakers declaim. Treasure them. City, speak they foul or fair: For here is the germ and promise Of your Freedom, City! Yet I follow you on. Avenue, To where you pass under the arch To your fountain In Washington Square. O fountain Symbol forever Of your freshness of life Your circulating life Dear City! But When I come O City 16 MOODS OF MANHATTAN To where your furrowed steel tracks tremble along the ground; And the bold brutal bray of autos breaks into one*s soul; Where stairways climb up, dig down To trains, trains bellowing, shrieking. Trains incessant, filled ever, spewing out men, swallowing men. Here O City My laughter Dies always; And when I pass through the streets of your slums, Streets sombre and sordid, between tenements crum- bling, reeking; Streets teeming, Where pushcarts offer unbeautiful cargoes. Stockings, cravats, and shoestrings; tidies, ribbons, and laces; candies, pickles, dried fish: Things tawdry, or crude, or unwholesome ; And O when I pass the room light-glaring, bare, Where men and women sit homeless, packed close, through the long night's hours, Sprawling on chairs, on the floor, Dozing Head-heavy — When I hear this, When I see this, MOODS OF MANHATTAN 17 Sad City Hard City— Within me My laughter Dies — O strange City — Down from your uptowering Pride, City, 1 look, at sunny noon, upon the wriggling Whitespecked black mass Nervous with life, each little life, So far below. Then I plunge into Broadway's swirl myself. I am drawn into Liberty Street's narrow cleft, into the cool shaded darkness there; I cross black streams that rush madly toward the nation's gambling-whirl ; And I emerge suddenly out of the dark, the citadel's dark, the dark of the last sky-seeking sen- tinels — For here, where two streets flow eastward together, are breadth, and openness, and time — Low tumbledown houses of long ago loiter down to the River's docks: And would you believe it? Here, where the win- dows are grimiest, a windowbox sends up green to the sky! 18 MOODS OF MANHATTAN A big ship's lure has brought me to the River. O different world! Where are hurry and roar? A man's world : the women you meet you can count on one hand. Here is the seaman's easy unhurried swing and his friendly surfeit of time. He sees you stop and look about; at once his bored eyes brighten. Which car is it you want? will you not come and finish your walk with him? have something to eat, come to a picture-show — he tries all his lures, and the clustered loiterers look on interested — he's a Socialist, off to-morrow for Italy, don't you want to have a talk with a seaman ? But, since you really will leave him, he'll go for a sleep in the seamen's home — (O hunger, great is your hunger, lonely City. ) In a moment I am back in Broadway's rumbling un- sociable swirl — But there, O see the gay fruit-stands — And that man selling toy canaries, whistling their shrill trill into the roar — Not even here, O busiest City, Has man forgotten his play. - " And his dream's song! When Nig^i^ MOODS OF MANHATTAN 19 Hoping to still your blood's tingling, Falls upon you, City, You flash forth defiance. Before you can say : Let there be light ! — Light is! Light, light! Dazed, forgetting the traffic, Heeding not, hearing not Policemen's whistles, I stumble forward Into your golden Circle of magic Times Square! There, high up, a kitten plays with a spool of red silk, Entangles itself, lands on its back, wiggles its tail. Gets on its feet; and no wiser, begins again The same sport, hour after hour, night after night. Here light-sprites brighten into life. Swing and bend arms and legs, salute, vanish ; While the fountains on either side pearl into light- drops Unceasingly. O, there — Golden cupids hold high A redrose garland With silver swing — A silver lady, tossing long silver hair, 20 MOODS OF MANHATTAN Swings Up — down-up, down-up — O glad Lady Life — Swing on ! O lusty Lady Life, So I too Swing Forever — Up- Down — up — Down — Back up— Forever Up! But ah, where the deathless butterfly hovers over its pink rose, Drinking light-honey, sated never — here I linger, With this image of life-lovers, poets, In your fairyland world, Poet-City! Theatres are over, even the midnight frolics, and cafes are closed. 1 pass through the great park. The City's jewel-bespangled dress still flashes, But the gems blink dimly through the softcnin.rr h.ize. Then sleep kisses them into darkness. MOODS OF MANHATTAN 21 The haze weaves its spell upon the C/ty: Her unharmonized contrasts Have found their healer. She takes her brief rest. ' .Z' But the lights above '{ , In the deep sky Shine on. The world has found them again: They glisten While you sleep Dream-City! 22 MOODS OF MANHATTAN THE VILLAGE Manhattan, City of Death, and of Life, Of fear and of faith — Of tongues, of creeds, Of worlds within worlds — \ Tolerant, social, intense, aspiring, I love you, eager City! Down here in your lowland. In your Village, the oldest of your worlds, Sappocanican, (Gitche Manitou's outpost Of his continent's Happy Hunting-grounds) , I, your lover, your singer. In my Cavern's long corridor close to the teeming soil, held round by walls and walls, gloat gleefully : Pulsing your life, Your millionf old bloodbeat of man to man ! The Village is you in small. Here are worlds within worlds. MOODS OP MANHATTAN 23 This IS no rectangular city ; Single names follow streets around corners, And streets, once parallel, run right into one another. High clean modern apartment buildings look down On cosy old brick houses of few stories, And on besmutched walkup tenements Where hordes of rough children Play and brawl on the dirty street. Along the Great River, opposite docks and piers, saloons call at every step; Men and women loaf their souls away, they heed not The beckoning freedom of the river's wide view. Your Italian world teems exuberant — Dirt, children, vendors, musicians ; But close to a playground once a cemetery A Library offers refuge from too much life. And here in your heart, Mushroom cafes gay and grotesque Offer light, offer life, And discussion, To youth that has not found itself. To dreamers, To the homeless, the restless, the eager, the seeking — Men are happy in soft collars and bright ties; 24 MOODS OF MANHATTAN Women are happy in loose tunics and hair bobbed- They talk and dream and dance and love — Village of unharmonized contrasts, Thus sounds your slogan : Live, and let live! MOODS OF MANHATTAN 25 LEARNING'S HILL Glad and free beats my uplifted heart When out of the subway's dark brutal roar I find myself before your fountains, Columbia, gra- cious mother, Mother gracious to those who come to you for learning's life! Freed is my soul of hardness and soil As I step up the broad approach to your pillar- fronted dome. Stately, serene is this dome that harbors your books of men. Though it is lower than the study-buildings, cluster- ing about it amid the green, And lower far than the upscraping apartment-build- ings beyond these — Yet it is vaster than they. Set on the hill with its soul-freeing view, the pillars and dome bring dreams to us here of old Greek and Roman dreams, Dreams that we need, of breadth, and detachment, and harmony's calm, and our Mind's undy- ing joys. Surely serenity dwells here, and devotion to learn- ing's cause. 26 MOODS OF MANHATTAN Yet is it so? I wonder — I look at the men and women that I see here, and I listen to the words they speak. These men and women I see do not look soiled or untidy or over-colored ; Fresh young men ; girls neatly dressed ; no one is boisterous or loud. And yes, there are older faces, men, and women, many women, lined faces, and heads not up- raised. Well-mannered, quiet-voiced, they loiter or hasten by, intent. No, this is not buoyancy ; eyes do not sparkle ; voices do not ring with enthusiasm, enthusiasm — why not? why not? For here are those who are free to study, free to explore and to dream with the world's earn- est prophets. Hunger is not their scourge, and the day's long drudgery not their dulling master. But listen to these two women, gentle, attractive, one young, and one older — ''points," "points," this is the word that strikes the ear; all their words cluster around this one, spoken again and again; (curious, are ''points" the spur and reward for study, here?) MOODS OF MANHATTAN 27 Over there are two men and a woman on a bench; I linger here, too, pretending to read a book. She: "He was the most illuminating and honest Professor I ever had. It's a pity he had to leave." The younger man: ''Well, I guess he shattered too many hometown illu- sions. Of course the other Professors aren't so interesting, but one has to have a degree. So we keep on coming, don't we?" She: *'Well, when I have ?ny degree I shall study for pure joy anywhere." The older man: "O pshaw, what's the use of working oneself tired over those old facts anyway. I am tired of it all. I wonder whether I shall really get a better salary when I have my degree." I continue my walk. Here is a group of young men. **Hurrah," one shouts, tosses a book up in the air and catches it; "I passed my exam, boys; goodbye old book, I'm glad I'm through with you." And now I catch up with a young man and a young girl who look interested in each other, I hear her warm voice, *'You must read Hegel's Philosophy of History and Croce's book on Hegel. That Hegelian solution of opposites is great. What he says about the antithesis of good and evil, and the higher synthesis, is wonderful. It connects with life, 28 MOODS OF MANHATTAN too, and makes one understand things better." He: ''Which Professor recommended the books? Is his course interesting?'' She: "O, I found them when I was browsing about in the Library. But our history Professor did mention Hegel, and he had the books put on the reserve shelf. O, I just love to browse in the Library." I pass on. After all, gracious mother, Columbia, learning's mother, you are Life's mother in truth, for those that seek! And when I find myself again by your fountains, and step down your hill back to the subway's roaring dark, I carry within me the vision of your dome, stately, serene, this dome that harbors the records of men's throbbing minds, Records electric to those who are electric; and who know That Learning and Life are not foes, but bosom friends, Forever! MOODS OF MANHATTAN 29 WITH THE OBELISK AT SUNRISE Manhattan, City of the Present, Who reach so avidly For the future, and the new. Yet you do not forget The old: In your Park your great Museum is full of things vital, once, to ages that have passed: Here you connect with the dead and make their dreams vital again for yourself. You have loved above all, I think, the world's old wonderland of the Nile, its riddle, the lore of its temples and tombs; Rich are your Egyptian rooms; but the greatest of all its symbols of life You have placed outside your walls, in the free air, where it belongs. Here it stands alone, the brown obelisk, on its stone platform raised, this greeting from the old old world to the new, This greeting from Egypt to you, America, through your City, Manhattan! Here in this land of fogs it is touched by the rising sun's rays 30 MOODS OF MANHATTAN Even as it was touched so long ago in that brown desert-land with its unfailing sun, Man's ever-returning god ! Here by the obelisk I stand, it is Spring; I am wait- ing with the obelisk to greet you, my Beloved, O my father Sun! The city's roar is asleep; and in the stillness your infinite golden hands reach up into the gray, and you come, golden ball: You touch gladdened leaves all over the park; you touch the robin that hops about on the plat- form, and he chirps up; and you touch me; But first of all you have touched the obelisk where it stands slender and straight, this symbol of your creating Life. O Sun, are you indeed the reviving sun? but what, what are you : a beetle rolling his golden egg from the East — A falcon with wide wings outspread — a bull, or a hawk? or an all-seeing Eye? A god sailing fleetly in your golden barque? Or just a great disk with myriad loving hands to lay upon men, all men? Or are you the goldglowing Rose of the World ? O, you are all these — one sun — yet different for each dreamer — -HB MOODS OF MANHATTAN 31 But life for all! So I greet you Sun, and I greet you, City, Beginning anew, O Sun, And O Sun-gladdened City, Your cycles ever-recurrent, Of life, of life! For, listen: The Day*s young Hunger has opened its mouth. It is whistling, braying for its food, its more than food. Demanding its dues, (why not?) Of you, O mother City ! 32 MOODS OF MANHATTAN NIGHT HUNGER The day's occupations done, Thousands and thousands Of workers, Of loafers, Turn themselves loose upon life. Has any city more eating-places? Does anyone eat at home? Dignified hotel restaurant, light-dimmed cabaret with music and dancing, basement table d'hote, cafeteria, automat, Which will you have? And which cookery calls you to-night? French or Italian, Chinese, Turkish, Hungarian? or just plain American? Eat and enjoy ! Having eaten, which show will you choose? Theatre, opera, movie, vaudeville, concert? Does cosmopolitan Broadway entice you? or Four- teenth Street, the humbler man's wonder- land? or the never-weary Yiddish world, Second Avenue? MOODS OF MANHATTAN 33 Or will you go to a lecture? a mass-meeting, a studio-talk ? What city has more lectures, more night-schools? Hither ever more thousands, Hunger-driven, by body-hunger, by soul-hunger, Come for the wisdom That is magic! Or shall we go to the Library's great reading-room ? Here the living, silent, eager, learn from those That are dead; but the dead are not dead. And with the living their spirits go forth Into your life, O sociable City! City of wealth, Triumphant you lure us all; Untiringly you pour gifts Out of your great cornucopia, Prodigal City; And we worship you. City of Promise. 34 MOODS OF MANHATTAN AUTUMN^S HOPE Grayness has held us round, yet the City's life throbs ; Its year has begun! Autumn's red world, without, we have left. O gray birds that haunch yourselves upon the gray tower there^ — You are my souFs birds haunched here amid hun- ger and pain, Forgetting the dream of southlands — and flight — For richer than cloversweet fields are men's hopeful hearts, And this is the City's Season of hope ! See how the young of the land flock hither, fled from small town's thraldom or family's over- close care! Schools open, lectures and concerts begin, the pub- lic forums in Churches discuss problems of the day, painting and sculpture exhibit dreams of color and form, nevv magazines plan to reform the world — - And poets find poetry Everywhere — Everywhere they live it^ MOODS OF MANHATTAN 35 The City's new work, new freedom, new life! And these are the moving-days — Happiness-seeking multitudes feather new nests — surely here it will come to us, they dream, Let us forget the trial, the failure, the gloom we have known in the old — Let us sing! O see the swinging arms, the buoyant walk In the crisp air— The City's hope is aflame, Its year has begun. 36 MOODS OF MANHATTAN WELCOMING THE YOUNG YEAR City, how old and gray you look during these last days! Your gray trees reach bare branches up into a gray sky, And your lights hide blinking behind gray veils. Why do you not wear your white winter dress? Snow, have you decided to scorn the City that treads you into slush, and dumps you av/ay? Only a few tantalizing flurries you have sent us, a moment's brightening of the city's drab, a moment's whirling into frolic and joy. Drab and heavy have been these last days; but now, once more the million-hearted City has been expectant like a little child ; For at midnight it is going to shed its old husk, and come forth renewed! Tonight the Old Year grows young again! For hours the bands have been playing in the Squares; the million-hearted streets have throbbed ; And now the magic moment has come : The newborn lusty-lunged giant-child whistles forth her long-sustained shrill notes and deep MOODS OF MANHATTAN 37 notes — For an instant lights go out, and shine forth again exuberant ; Then the million-souled throng throws confetti and toots horns braying and roaring, And they call out to one another the old glad hope, Happy New Year, Happy New Year! For each this is a word of might ; O Joy, to begin all over again, Our plans, our resolutions, our hopes! ( Happiness, O this year you will surely come to me ; Success — this year I will certainly show you what I can do ; O this year I will unfailingly rid myself of my faults!) Even the homeless throb with your joy tonight, City renewed! Nor is the air now heavy and gray, For the snov/ has begun to fall in great soft madly- whirling flakes. Like children the happy crowds shout, catch the flakes in their hands and in their mouths, and let them melt on cheeks and eyes; Faster and merrier they push themselves down the long streets. Ah City, you are going to have your white winter 38 MOODS OF MANHATTAN dress; The Snow, your godmother, has brought you a token For your new Lifers beginning — White Purity's birthday gift ! ^ MOODS OF MANHATTAN 39 FLOWERDAY BEFORE EASTER The heralds have come; High-traveling sunball, white-fleecy blue, clear-lam- bent air! They have lured the crowds to the streets. O, the Spring is everybody's lover. City or country, what does he care? He's bound to make everything blossom, flowers and men. For he loves them! He smiles upon them, caresses them, warms them — And they unfold ! The preoccupied city crowds forget business And sun themselves into smiles. Huge several-tiered wagons unload upon the Square The countryside's Easter gift to you, City; And the gray Square changes its hue. Hyacinths white, blue, and pink — tulips aflame — goldbright daffodils — And roses, roses, roses. Wide-open large-petaled roses on sturdy stalks — Closefolded little pink climbing roses — And lovely rambler running up a high pole, shower- ing tiny-petaled red blossoms upon a wire- 40 MOODS OF MANHATTAN work disk, dropping through it delicate danc- ing shadows down upon the sidewalk — And there, O the ever-appealing tender pansy-faces ! Gay-blossoming Square, to you also The Magician has come. The city crowds loaf gaping. Some carry away with them, proudly, a token, a gift-plant ; Others just gaze; (why do they not buy, I wonder?) And did they ever watch them grow, do you think, in country gardens, around homes? But see, one of the men who sell the flowers, has picked up a skyblue lilac-spike; He looks around and gives it, no not to me, but to the girl standing there ; Not a beautiful girl, not a girl with dreams in her eyes — But now she smiles — ah. Spring is her lover too ! I wonder what made the flowerman give the flower to her? MOODS OF MANHATTAN 41 SUNDAY ESCAPE The subways to the Bronx are full, even early; I too have come out of sunblue day into cavernous dark, and am brain-jolted into noddiness — And I too, at last, go forth again ; Reborn into sunblue day, into sungreen day. Here is the garden of animals. I see monkeys swing one another by their long tails, or scratch thoughtful brows ; I receive from gay birds brilliant brightness brought from all the world ; And I smile at the drab, heavy elephant, who has grown his questing nose downward, into a ground-groveling trunk; I smile also at the giraffe, whose sky-reaching neck lifts his little head into disdainful upper air — (O material- ist, O phantast, can you be friends, I won- der?) Now I cross a road where autos wheel and wheel and wheel, out for their giddying mile upon mile ; O how glad I am, not to be off with them — O how glad I am That I may stand here rapt. As now, 42 MOODS OF MANHATTAN B)^ the dark pointed junipertree, Bathing my eyes in the swan-pond's, the frog-pond's Opalescene, While the trees, doubling themselves, dip leafy heads into coolness, And the swans, snowy sailers, strike forth tracks that widen and widen- As my thoughts widen, lost, lost In life's widening richness. I wander on till I come to the Japanese cherrytrees ; here a young Japanese father is photograph- ing a dainty wife with baby-son, white- haloed amid downlooking blossomcups. Now, near sunset, I am back at the subway, among crowds of gay children glad of golden and red balloons, of bright-whirling paper wind- mills, and of icecream cones. How good taste my fried frankfurter and crisp beer, my doughnuts and coffee! But see, over there a green parrot picks out envelope- fortunes for love-eager girls, and young men — Life, joy-promising witch, unweary, 1 bow before you, O generous All-Giver! MOODS OF MANHATTAN 43 SUMMER^S GREEN REFUGE Stone-city men have called you, Manhattan? But I, your lover, I do not see you thus; And now, for your sun-stagnant Reeling Everbright days, Let me sing my song Of your refuge, O green-tufted City! And first I will celebrate your great Park, your Riv- erside, your smaller parks, and your tree- grown Squares ; They are ever-ready playgrounds for all, and they throw greetings to us as we race down busy streets. Some of your little parks, aristocratic city, you keep locked up for a few, yet they give gay-green joy to us ; While other spots, O careful city, you have barred to all that none may be barred: you give them not to feet, but to eyes where eyes need them most. When I least expect it, oldfashioned city, you give glimpses of gardens, of green old graveyards 44 MOODS OF MANHATTAN shut in between sky-eager dwellings; And then you open up visions of fountains and flow- ers in courts, and on roof-gardens, yowi dreams of romance, newfashioned city. Your florists' windows, your displays of fresh vege- tables, your f ruitstands — let me not forget these: do they not cheer us everywhere? And always, O inexhaustible city, I can see grass- plots on sidewalks, or trees, or tufts of deter- mined green life sprouting up along curbs, or betVi^een stones, anywhere! Or I can see land of the landless, a windowbox, a flowerpot, a tincan ! There I saw, once, pan- sies abloom and a golden canary trilling forth his exuberance; and once I saw morning- glories open pink chalices to the sun, where houses are grimiest, climbing skywards from window to window. Can the country give joy like this? For into these flowers has gone man's heart-nourisned need Of that world which he feels — O far off — was his mother, once! And some day his upspringing love will bring her back to him more and more, back to his City of Souls! MOODS OF MANHATTAN 45 So let them not call my city stone-city ; Let them open their eyes, and their hearts — And let them find your green refuge Everywhere, O my sun-radiant City! 46 MOODS OF MANHATTAN MIDSUMMER STORM Behind the gates, the ridged cliffs Of the Great River's palisades, Glares and glowers Gitche Manitou, The Great Spirit Of a continent's Happy hunting-grounds. The White Man From his cloud-reaching residences On the Island Along the River's shore, Smiles back Scornfully, calmly. But Gitche Manitou Blazes down upon the White Island Fortress, From which the White Man Drove the green forest, The Red Man. And now vapor. Heavy, scorched. Smudges from the stone boxes, MOODS OF MANHATTAN 47 Wilts to the ground The bold white invaders. Smoke-black, Sulphur-yellow, Clouds Ball themselves Fearfully. The Great Spirit flashes and growls And sends down torrents of wild tears. Driving before him The mad White Men. But soon his strength Passes from him. And the skyscrapers, uptowering. Cut clean into the blue sky. The White Man Smiles Calmly, — Thanking — The Great Spirit (O helpless Spirit!) For the cleared fresh air, And for life Renewed. 48 MOODS OF MANHATTAN SUMMERMOON SYMPHONICS Tonight the full moon will rise upon the City. O moon, how often I have watched you lift yourself above hills, above the sea, changing from dusky red to gold, and to silver's keen calm! But O moon, held round and round by the city's high walls, how can I follow, tonight, from plane to plane, Your triumphant uprising. Your struggle away From haze-heavy earth To ether-clear sky? Dreamer, dreamer! Even now j^ou are jostled and stopped by throngs congested and brutal; For the masters* greed and t*he workers' need are struggling Fist to fist, While traction's traffic is stopped. Hunger is Master, He pulls the strings of man's Fate — O, the brute in us, • . The lust in us. The weariness in us, ' The unbelief in us, -. MOODS OF MANHATTAN 49 Are heavy, heavy. O man*s grim fight — The dull overpowering need, The external, the material, Are heavy, heavy. But listen — A faint sweet piping Arises from out of the din: A street musician Dreams Love — O so faintly! j Love, music, spirit — O the strife eternal Between man's Body And man's Spirit ! (Music, music is love: is it not Reconciliation Of separateness, Of dissonance? Then give me more Of music's harmonies.) Now I have come to the stadium and sit with a listening crowd on the stone steps of the theatre's open half-round: Above us the sky, and opposite — ah, the dusky red 50 MOODS OF MANHATTAN moon rising above the city's lights ! Beethoven's symphony: Insistent, the deep slow notes throw out The eternal theme Of Fate- Man's unescapable fate, the struggle of body and* soul Against the powers, the powers — without and within ! And ever the tender pleading for rest, for love, for joy! How beautiful life is, sings the master, how beau- tiful life is, If only we can forget its misery, if only we can use its pain — Fate, you cannot master me : Your hate I will turn into love! Brother-love, World-love! Come, I will dance with you, wildly, wildly ! I'll tussle you about, you helpless old bogey! 1 mold you to my use forever. O life is joy, joy forever! f Joy triumphant, Joy! The symphony is over, and now we hear the uprightly turbulence of Weber's invitation to MOODS OF MANHATTAN 51 dance, and the ecstatic abandon of a waltz by Strauss — Man's spirit has grown light ; he dances into rhythm his life's blitheness. And opposite, see: the dusky red moon, rising, has turned to gold, and rising higher, has grown ' into silvery joy. Through earth's haze-heaviness it has struggled tri- umphant; It pours down upon earth, upon men, Life's silvery blitheness, Love's silvery peace* MOODS OF MANHATTAN 53 CROWDS AND FACES The song of your crowds and faces, O Manhattan, Now I sing, The song of your eyes! Your eyes, are they not the gauge of your Life triumphant, Your joy, your love, and your hunger? The night has ended, and a bright early hour sees me swinging along full of the work I am going to do today ; it is my Joy ! But suddenly my soul has gone from me, for I am caught in the crowds shuttling themselves over from subway to subway; O the mad zigzagging, darting, bumping pushing, whirling! Is this your preparation for your day*s work, Manhattan? This motion-madness, and then the dumb inertness, the stifling huddled patience of the train- traveling millions? Faces wearied, worried ; eyes unvisioned, unsparklinj^ — is this your gift to morning's joy. City unhuman, too human ? Those black streams rushing toward the nation's gambling-whirl down town, all day they keep 54 MOODS OF MANHATTAN moving. Here gain and greed are gods. O men, and women, I try to read your faces; but they are blank; your pale intentness is with- out soul, it does not move me, and quickly I leave you. Now I am on First Avenue, where cart upon cart spreads out vegetables and fruits under yellow-and-gray umbrellas ; Here are ample women, bareheaded, aproned; and many many children; and bearded old men. They jostle along slowly: admiring, testing, buying, gossiping, eating! When the Tower in Madison Square sings out noon's fulness, the Avenue sends forth its sweatshop for an hour's freshness. Pushcarts with bright fruit have wheeled up, while blind and crippled musicians pipe up strange airs on strange instruments. From the sidewalks the crowds surge over onto the streets. Yet the current that moves them is leisurely: they joke, or talk earnestly, or flirt, or eat, or just sun themselves. Girls brightly dressed and painted giggle in groups. Other groups collect about speakers, they listen intently, or ask questions, or discuss ardently. MOODS OF MANHATTAN 55 This is an hour of unstrenuous sociable eyes : always it is true, Manhattan, that your poorest pluck gladness out of mere air ! For each this hour is fruitful. Now it is night, and joy overflowing lights up Broadway's theatre-blocks. The day's strain has relaxed its hold. Bright and radiant we rush for the show that is waiting to add more joy to our evening: faces are fond and glad, and eyes sparkle. But, Broadway, your sparkling joy pales when I remember the children I have seen in Cen- tral Park on Sunday afternoons! Gay won- dering flowers they dotted the great green, jumped and danced, flew kites, and sailed toy ships on the pond ! What joy is like the joy of their eyes, the promise of their eyes, the confidence of their eyes, The love of their eyes? O City, this is indeed the quintessence of your life ! But no, City, now in a moment I see before me the crowds of your mass meetings; and lighted eyes more wonderful than sweet children's eyes. When speakers, here, dream for hours of a new 56 MOODS OF MANHATTAN world's freedom, of love, of justice and joy for all- Then voices ring out approval; and I see in these eyes, these patient eyes, A fervor, a faith That reveals, O Manhattan, Your true Soul, City of Hope! i^\ MOODS OF MANHATTAN 57 OUR TOWER'S BECKONING SIGNAL O Night, black night, almighty night, Without moon, without stars, Lying so low and so dark upon the City, Do you wish to strangle its life? But no, you are not almighty Now the City is your conqueror ; For see, its lights sparkle up— stars created by man*s might more countless than the countless stars you are hiding from us; They throw their brightness upon your breast and take from us our dark terror. And far up, beyond the more than fifty unlighted stories, the gleaming tip of the City's high Tower, the quintessence of its electric life, its passionate will. Has throbbed into shining whiteness, a resplendent jewel for your black robe's adornment, a triumphant signal to seas and lands, O beckoning heart of my City ! Night, you cannot frighten me, for I myself am this Light ; Man's Light of body and soul. The electric Centre of your dark Womb. And now I am not down in the street, I am up there, myself our City's signal to the World ! 58 MOODS OF MANHATTAN Beneath me the lights — O, the beautiful dance of these fireflies! (we all, we all, are such fire- flies)— Ah no, dark Mother, I do not fear you, For I and my City are your Soul, your Soul's dream of Life, Life opalescent, and free, and glad ! And O sparkling City of Souls, of electric Souls, Down there — •—So many lights ; yet one Light — Our joy it is, to worship the Light, And our joy it is, To liberate light, more light. And to send forth undimmed, O my City, Our farbeckoning signal To the World! MOODS OF MANHATTAN 59 MY SONG'S FAREWELL Manhattan City of Life, To you I drink! City, O receiver of the hungry who are dead to old worlds, to unfreedom's constraint, City, great sea where souls are but drops, glad drops in your Life: free drops converging you for themselves ; glad drops merging themselves in your Life-of-All; City who are conflict, and conquest, keen former of men — Yourself your Centre, your own law, yet sending feelers Into every part of our World And into the Unscanned — - O be our Dream-Desire, Our City of Love! AFTERWORD O Reader — When you peruse these moods, Do not ask, I beg — Is it prose? is it verse? Realism — or idealism ? Description, narration, or lyric abandon : which is it, I wonder? O, where are the rules, the rules, Of beat, of pause, Of pointing? Of capitals? Friend Let me sing to you, merely. My joy — My joy in these moods These manifold moods Of our Mother Manhattan ! O Reader, Farewell — Until I hail you anew ! " Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: Sept. 2009 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATIOM 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111