Class ^P_2L2fc£5^ Copyrigh COEXRIGHT DEPOSm THE SONG OF LIFE BY JOHN J. LANIER Fredericksburg, Va. f ^^ x'^ A Copyright, 1919 By John J. Laxier All rights reserved MAY ;-P !^^^ 5CI.A515773 ^ -A. -5 I CONTENTS PAGE Pboem 7 The Pipes of Pan 9 The Bibth of Manhood 27 Manhood 35 My Soul and the Sea 39 The Menagerie 47 The Stoic 52 The Mystic 56 The Light Burns Down 59 The Choir Invisible 62 INTEODUCTION One day my friend. Lieutenant Edward E. Piatt, saw The Song of Life, which I had bound into a little book, lying on my desk and asked me to let him read it. After reading it he returned it to me with the following note : My dear Lanier: I see the good thing that you have sought to do; and I perceive that your argosies have returned with the Golden Fleece. Where all are good, comparison were invidious, but The Menagerie, The Stoic, and The Mystic have the magic of true music; while The Light Burns Down is as exquisite as a cameo. My richest wish for you, dear Poet, is that you shall follow the Pipes o' Pan until they shall lead you to stand within the empyrean and wear the amaranth of the victor. Faithfully yours, Platt. It is this commendation by my friend, in whose ability as a judge of poetry I have con- fidence, that has decided me to publish this little book of verses. The Author, John J. Lanier. Fredericksburg, Va. Feb. 15, 1919. THE SOJS^G OF LIFE The Song of Life is not a miscellaneous collections of poems but an organic unity. No poem, therefore, should be judged save in connection with the whole, which is a poetic and symbolic interpretation of life. PROEM The soDg of life I sing ! The glory of our youth When love is king ! The war the soul doth wage To live eternal truth ! And make The discord and the strife A harmony of life ! II This is the song I sing ! For poets know and feel all things That we have ever felt before, Or dream in our imaginings ! They lead to distant lands, Oe'r stormy seas and desert sands,* In search of hidden lore. Onward ! where they have gone before, They lead us on forevermore ! YOUTH The songs of Pan I sing ! Who makes the glories of our youth When love is king, And breathes the spirit that uplifts The souls of those who loves his gifts And his commands ! THE PIPES OF PAN I. THE COMING OF PAN In this enchanted hour ! Lend ye, moon and stars, The magic of your power To the conspiracy of Pan ! For now the Sun god comes In every glade and glen To kiss The Spring to life again ! And bring the great god Pan Who soon will piping come To waken love In heart of maid and man Since time began ! 9 II The Sun god banishes The Winter into nothingness ! And as it vanishes The Spring enthralls the world By her eternal grace and Loveliness, But not more fair than maid I For then, ^tis said, There comes the Pipes of Pan Sounding through wood and vale, That never fail To snare the heart of youth, By the sweet magic of the maid. Whose hand in hers is laid ! Then hail! All hail to Pan! Who piping comes to wake Love in the heart of man and maid, And make Her love answer the love of man And then — ! 10 moon ! stars ! gentle wind ! nature splendor robed and Glorified ! And man and maiden deified By Pan, Lip answering lip with love divine Since time began ! 11 III. A GIFT FOB YOU, MY LOVE While in my heart I was divining A gift for you, my love, to-night, I saw in heaven's airs reclining Some angels fairer than the light. In dark eyes much deep love expressing. Uprose the tallest and began: " This gift from heaven goes confessing The love the angels bear to man. " Since love's the secret power moving The soul of all things here above. With all your kind and sweet approving. We make the heart of this of love.'^ 12 A soft robed angel spake, revealing More her thought with eye than word, And naught her thought with word concealing, What with applause the others heard. ''As love is sweetest love when bounded With links that make it ever sure, The heart of this must be surrounded With meetest emblem of the pure." Then said another angel rising, Possessed of youth forever young. The words to suit her thoughts devising In softest accents of her tongue: ^'SiQce love's that pure must live forever, As doth her fair twin sister, truth. From this our gift we must not sever The emblem of eternal youth.'' 13 Love, youth, and purity expressing In one gift passing fair, they boast. Which puts beyond all doubt and guessing That which the angels love the most. " This gift,'^ said they, " shall be a flower. Soft pillowed on the level mere. Its head above green leaves shall tower. And lily will we call it here. Its heart of gold shall be exposing. Its calyx leaves the richest green. Its petals to the earth disclosing The purest white that e'er was seen/' The snow tint from their bosoms taking. So white and pure in heaven's air. They to the petals gave while making. Creating thus the lily fair. 14 " The white and gold and green combining,' Said they, " bear this blest emblem true, Of pure young love in one entwining The lives and loves and hearts of two." And when I see the lily blowing, The angels* fair created gift, I feel my heart within me glowing, And to my love my eyes I lift! And to her gaze the lily showing, Its sheen of white and gold and green. When in her eyes comes love's light flowing. Of angels all I crown you queen ! IV. THE SERENADE For you and me The glowing twilight throws Her beauty o'er the earth and sea. And clasps in her fair arms My soul filled with the sweet alarms Of all your charms ! 15 come, my love ! For heaven is with stars abloom, And mingles with her shining light The rose's blushed perfume For you and me tonight ! come, my love! For soon the moon will rise And veil the starlight eyes That shine in heaven blue, But not dim thine For when they shine There is no night for you And me ! ministering spirits of the night ! Steal round our path with flowers strown. From meadow green and mountain height Trooping your forms with graceful zone. 16 But let tliem come with harp in hand, Prepared with nature's tuned sound, To sing and peal with joyous band The beauty of the world around. see, my love! from far-off land Of orange, lemon, cocoa tree. The shining spirits round us stand And tune their lutes for you and me ! From misty ocean's bluest wave They come with dancings airy light. From silent island, grot, and cave They stand mysteriously bright. They come from moonlit shore Of tropic isle low rocked in blue — love! such forms of radiant hue Were never seen before I first saw you! 17 VI Now in the circling ring The Dew begins to sing; Her arms are bare. Draped with her golden hair. Her swift light fingering Plies on from string to string; listen, love, the minstrelsy She sings for you and me. As the lengthening shadows Creep, I bring on the soft blown wings Of sleep New life for everything: For the shrivelled blade of Grass That would wither and fade away Alas! At close of day ; 18 For the leaves that shimmer in Their shining sheen Of purple and gold and green They glimmer in; The rose I wake with a kiss. And open The beautiful eyes men miss In the soul that is hidden In everything. VII Ah, love, her song hath ceased ! And now the spirit of the flowers Glides from the snowy breasted band. And charms the swiftly passing hours With airs known only to her land. And thus she softly sings : My realm, undiscovered by Telescope, More beautiful far than on Poets ope A bright world of inspired Thought, 19 Doth swing far beyond the Pleiades, A star-lighted world that Seer ne'er sees In his rapt lone visions Wrought. I reign there in state and Perfumes make The fair fashioned flowers Thirst to slake With the richest scented Draught. And thus in the light, and thus In the gloom, The air is all filled with rich Perfume By the distillations of my Craft. 20 And oh ! a great wonder it is To see The myriad bright hues there Made by me In a low wind's changeful Rhyme, For the decking of the flowers Born Just at the blest time before The dawn. Ere the morning light begins To chime. VIII Blest spirit of the flowers, How swiftly pass the golden hours Your sweet enchantments bring! But see, my love, in yonder ring Come dancing nymphs from leafy shade, In rainbow gossamer arrayed. To hear the South Wind sing. 21 Her dark eyes flash and shine Like thine, Her voice grows sweet and strong As swells the music of her song. I bring the velvet greens And purple sheens Out of the southern seas! And then I spring on bounding wing Away! Away! All day! And dance and play Among the grass and trees And over the waters low! And gently trip The blushing rose's lip To kiss! 22 The red, red rose I kiss! Ah, bliss! For when her lips I kiss All lovely thoughts come Everywhere I roam the rounded sphere Among the scented vines! The music of the whispering pines ! The starlight and the flowers With honeyed nectar For sweet bees in fairy bowers ! O! everywhere The earth enchanting spreads To where A youth for love a maiden weds ! Ah there My softest pinions veer I 23 And spreading wide them find! Ah them I find ! Their lives I bind With love and flowers twined ! On this glad night! Pour out, moon and stars, The glory of your light! And blow, forever blow, ye winds The love that sends The youthful heart which sings The everlasting beauty of These things ! The glory of the waving sea For you and me! The music of the blowing wind For you and me! The stars from heaven bend For you and me! 24 The mountains and the vales. With hidden ferns in mossy dales, For you and me! The grassy plains and diamond dew With shining suns shot through Por you and me! When God made these for you and me He placed the titles in our hands Of more than royal sceptered thrones Endowed with richest lands ! love ! poor is the crowned king Of vastest realm, Though boasting armies and the mind Which could the world overwhelm, To those who find That nature's God to them hath flung The poet's soul, harp strung, Which makes the things we see A glory and a melody For you and me 1 25 THE BIRTH OF MANHOOD 27 THE BIETH OF MANHOOD From sleep, or more than sleep, we wake. If sleep or dreams we call those times In which we know ourselves as that Which most resembles shadow things, As through the mist of years we plunge. The rising sun awakes new life, From death of youth to manhood's strife ! Ah ! we can ne'er forget the day When all our dreams took wing and fled! The scales from off our eyes were dropped. And we saw others as they are — Eed-handed, heartless, demon things! How life has changed to us since then: The past is past, the future stings I 29 To learn this early is not well — A child in years, a man in thought, Means sleepless nights and shipwreck oft. But think of gifted Chatterton, The poet boy who died a youth! The curse of knowledge cradled him, Some never wake and learn the truth! Thus, with the dawn of manhood's life, We see with sorrow's eye tear dim. Dark something of a future grim ! We see our days of pleasure fled. The joyous, buoyant, boyish days That make of life a carnival — No more are these when youth is dead ! 30 ^Tis then we wake as from a dream, And peer into the future years With longings wild and deepest fears ! We see in them both joy and pain. Such joy as we have known before ? The coming years whisper : " No more Lost joys come back to us again." But youth cries, '^ Let them go, new joys Will come as these have done before.*' High hopes, illusions, fire the hearts Now of this eager restless throng. Each some vain phantom will pursue Which he will worship as a god, But worshipped now to curse erelong ! 31 In vain the prayers of all the saints To all the powers throned on high! Sweet innocence appeals in vain, Still rends the air its piteous cry! Ah what avail for man to rave? Alas! Herculean efforts fail. And heroes sink into oblivion's grave! false, thrice false, mirage of life! It holds enchantments to the eyes, It cheats the ears with siren songs. It spreads delusions out to man That fool and cheat and mock and lie ! How they rejoice with demon laugh To damn us long before we die ! 32 Our youth is dead to-day ! To arms ! Our manhood calls for greater things Than we have ever dreamed before ! It shall not call in vain ! Away With false alarms and demon charms! The world is old but we are young, The world shall be as young as we! Then drink we to eternal youth, To youth renewed from age to age ! Which wars against all ancient wrongs. All hoary blood red tyrannies. And modern vested infamies I God make us one of every tongue, Our manhood keep forever young ! 33 MANHOOD The war the soul doth wage To make The discord and the strife A harmony of life. 34 MANHOOD I A man must mark his course in life And hold it ever 'gainst all odds! Gaunt poverty and ice-eyed death And ignorance and heartlessness Are but the goads that urge us on ! A man, that is a man manlike. Must love the strife and want to fight The fight that nature deals his soul ! And if we conquer, it is well; And if we conquer not, 'tis well. We live the life a man should live ! Success is not the goal of life. To play the game for what it's worth Is all the great Jehovah asks ! II And when I think of those heroic souls Who yield allegiance only to the right. 35 But still must feel the venom of the world, I hear their mighty hearts and voices chant : We thank thee, God, that thou hast made us so That neither fate, nor man, nor demon damned Can take all happiness from out our hearts, For thou hast planted in our inmost souls A castled citadel to which we fly. And there defy the armies of the world To make us what we have not made ourselves ! Ill They find the secret of all life who learn From pomp of wealth and folly's pride to turn, For happiness that hangs on outward things Is but the tinsel life from her lap flings. They lose the joy of life and sorrow reap Who think that happiness is what we keep. Give us this day our daily bread, we pray. And find our joy in what we give away. 36 IV They say that pity is akin to love ! Away with such kinship! They are no kin! No more than earth bound ostrich is To eagle soaring in swift majesty, Lone breasting the thin air where never leaps The forked lightning^s wild red winged play ! Thus ever soareth love, bom of the sun, Despot of hearts, grand architect of life! Nor hath life labors we would not endure To quaff, love, thy heaven nectared sweets ! But is defied the power of all men. Or fickle fate, or brutal circumstance. To make our hearts cry out for pity's tear. Nay more ! that e'er could make endurable The pity of the angels bright as stars ! 37 MY SOUL AND THE SEA 39 MY SOUL AND THE SEA I match my soul, Sea, With all the wonder and the mystery There is in thee ! For the winds blow and waves do roar With all their power, My ship sails to its destined shore Of England, France, or Singapore At its appointed hour! I match my soul, sea. With all the majesty of thee ! ForO! When storms o'er thee do sweep. And the fierce lightning flashing! Ah then it is I love thee most As all the fury of thy waves come Lashing ! 41 For tho they rush and roar And stir so vast a seething That their convulsive thundering Is like offended deity fierce Breathing ! I match my soul, sea, With all the might there is in thee, And sail my ship To its predestined shore Of England, France, or Singapore At its appointed hour ! I love thy mighty soul, sea. Thou hast revealed to me In all its wonder and sublimity ! For drinking in thy turbulency Eoaring ! Thy surging spirit's giant force Into my heart comes wildly Pouring ! 42 Then most thy power in me stirs Its deepest mysteries, And fills me with such ecstasies And blest infinities. That my soul, too, a boundless Ocean is ! Ah then it is I match my soul, sea. With all the might there is in thee ! For tho winds blow and waves do roar With all their power. My ship sails to its destined shore Of England, France, or Singapore At its appointed hour ! 43 PHILOSOPHIES OF LIFE THE MENAGEEIE The silence of the nigtt now reigns Throughout the vast menagerie's wide walls. Oft have I seen it by fierce daylight gleams When life and appetite and restlessness Shine in the eyes of creatures iron barred. But blessed sleep, in easeful lap of dreams. The Ostrich hath afar transported home Upon the burning desert's scorching sands. The Eagle screams, his Alpine home regained. Bathes his gold plumage in his native realm. And, glory crowned, amidst the snows he reigns. The sun's fierce splendor mirrored in his eye. 47 The Hyena's prison bars are loosed, He roams his native haunts all dank with gloom, The grave-yard's silent haunted homes of death He prowls among, and feasts on dead men's bones. 'Tis well, some men best serve their end when dead. And these nocturnal feasts hyenas hold. The seal no more in mimic ocean swims. The fish doled out by tantalizing hand; The ocean's wide expanse he roams in peace. Exulting in his new born freedom found; On every finny tribe he whets his taste. And arctic icebergs know him as of yore. Far roams the lion the Algerian plain In all his untamed strength and lordly mien. And while the majesty of heaven falls Upon the soul with all the vastness of 48 The stars, the desert, and the coming night, The dreaming lion leaps upon his prey. But iron bars his headlong spring soon stopped — The lion roared in baffled pain and rage ! How like that baffled, caged, roaring lion. Waked in wild pursuit of falsest dreams, And then in frenzied fury beats himself ^Gainst iron bars that iron still will be. There lives another caged creature — man! Down ! down ! wild thoughts that fill the brain ! Out ! out ! unholy passions of the heart ! Cry, down and out, as much as we may please. But passion caged creatures are we still ! In wildest flight that genius e'er has known, I hear the cries of great men iron caged ! I hear the throbbing of their white heat thoughts Seethe in the cauldron of their flaming souls That blaze the way through trackless wastes To larger life for which we dream, alas, 49 To wake in chains of caged captivity Forged, in the crucible of destiny, By time and fate and brutal circumstance. 'Tis then the venomed demon of despair Comes measuring the might of crushing folds With high born souls of gifted men and great ! The moguls, monarch ones of thought and deed, Who with the lightning of their radiant minds Flash meteoric splendor o'er the earth. And show what image God intended man to be! Thou dost disdain to snare the common ones Of earth, with foreheads low and soulless eyes, For their despair is but despair of men. But searchest through all ages and all climes For victims worthy of thy cunning guile, And hurlest them into thy dungeon keeps. The horrors, fits, and pangs thou givest them Is all despair, the agony of gods! 50 But snakey sorceress, despair, Thy forked tongue and glaring eyes of hate Cannot forever hold, with damned spell, The giant ones; for they will pull thy fangs. And blind thy eyes, and crush thee dead in dust. And roam the green orbed earth in triumph free. But oh ! the gifted weaker sons of earth. Death poisoned by thy cobra venomed fangs, weep, ye cycled ages, o'er their graves ! Weep o'er them, weep! ye cycled ages weep! 51 THE STOIC Beneath the shade of venerable oaks An aged stoic lived ; alone he dwelt, And gazed unmoved on ever changing sky, And mountain scenery that round him smiled With myriad tint and swaying loveliness. Laughing childhood, youth with purpose high. And toil worn man with age drawn nigh to close. Passed him unheeded with the slightest glance. His only occupation was to muse O'er ancient sage's hoarded wealth of lore. Or, when the fancy seized him, wander out And half the night in aimless wanderings spend. Nor joy nor sorrow seemed to know his breast; He lived from day to day and year to year To feeling too unknown to care to die. 62 stoic of the doubly icy heart, 1 see thee yet, as on that awful night. When howling storm on wintry blast Did fright both man and beast to terror dumb. In thy library sat I listening to The wondrous dreams of poets born. And naught knew I till thee, the storm, and night Together came: Hwas then I heard thy tale. " Aye, those, who knew me in life's early mom, Saw in my face the home of brightest smiles. My laughter born of purest springs within, My soul formed when the stars their power lent To recreate a human thinking man In the heroic mould of ancient days. ^'The ardent, yearning, godlike qualities. That Light the soul with fires caught on high, 63 Burned in the secret chambers of my heart. And voiced themselves in kindling flashing eye, The heaving breast and nervous quivering frame, Which constitute the true masonic signs That do reveal the starry child of light To kindred souls — for him none others know. " Then youthful dreams of highest hopes, In giant strength, seized all my eager soul That burned to plummet to life's secret depths, To seize her gems of purest truth and worth, And set them blazing in the shining world. " I plunged into the herd of heatless men With full as sensitive and loving heart As ever wept another mortal's woe; The springs that open wide the gates of joy, And flood the soul with her emotions deep. Oft opened as I viewed my smiling kind. I knew them not, and happy never known ! 54 " Por aye, I was a fond and dreaming fool To hope for joy in such a cursed world Where men on others' ruin build their fame ! " Too soon, alas too soon, I learned to know ^Tis sharpest pain to deeply feel and know. And saddest souls are those who truest know. The very things that give us highest joy They bring our hearts the deepest pangs of woe, And he who would not suffer torturing racks Must on the realm of bliss bar well the gates. " To steer between these sirens of the soul. And fix a middle flight from either reft, Denotes a mind of godlike grasp and strength. For years and time and knowledge of my kind Have made the marble statue of the grave, Unchanged save with the knowledge of the right. The true ideal of my ripest thought. For such an one can battle with the world And move a martyred king unto his grave. And peaceful fold his robes for silent sleep." 55 THE MYSTIC Down in the deep blue dark nnfathomed sea, A wondrous pearl lay fair, lost long ago. Eemembrance of that pearl still lived with men, Of golden ages that had blessed the earth Before the pearl was lost in the deep sea. A sybil old had said : " Who seeks this pearl Must never yield to doubt or fear or pain ; Tor if he backward turn or yield to these, The sea will yawn and gulp him fathoms down, The food for grim eyed monsters of her caves. And he must brave the terrors of the deep In such frail skiff as sails the placid wave Where ever blows the wind her softest gales.'' Amid the mountain vales there grew a youth As pure as a snow plant that blooms in spring. Whereon none but the angels ever gazed. 56 And when he heard the sybil's prophecy, " That fate is mine/' he said, " I sail the sea." In darkness and at midnight's holy time. When elves and fairies hold high carnival And seaward gently blows the rising wind, His skiff with silken sail slid from the shore. No food took he, no water and no wine: The great invisible did nourish him. He sailed the seas where warm winds ever blow, And shining pearls beneath blue waves are hid ; He cleaved the wind and wave and storm and cold Swift as a disembodied spirit does. His hair grew white as snow, his frosted beard Did drape him as a silver cloud of mist. Soft flew his bark o'er wreathed curled frothy waves, Five hundred leagues he left the sea behind. From out the vasty deep strange voices called — A meteor shot through the northern skies! 57 A savage rumbling sound rolled o'er the waves From men v^ho agonized by their deep woe, Had vowed as offering to the salt sea The mariner first coming to their shore: And then would be restored the priceless pearl, The pearl long lost in darkest deepest sea. The sea cried, give me back the pearl ! the pearl ! But inland, distant on the mountain tops, He heard the h3rmns of all that are to be Singing in gladness of deliverance. Then to the wind he gave his silken sail. And shoreward clove the sunlit tinted waves, And flung the shining pearl far through the crowd. The multitude was rent this way and that. Some cried the pearl ! the pearl ! and some the sea ! Some say the sharks leapt forth with glist'ning fangs. And some that angel wings flashed through the air. 68 THE LIGHT BURNS DOWN They hear the whirring of soft wings, The hush of lovely silent things That softly float In dreamland's boat From sun-kissed shores of memory ! THE CHOIR INVISIBLE At his death all the nations of the earth mourned but the choirs of heaven rejoiced. — Epitaph of a musician. I. THE LIGHT BURNS DOWN Before a soul that's dead we stand ! It follows us through every land, But nowhere can be found When — the light — burns — down. Then comes that dread first time When we do feel deep sorrow's iron hand, A laugh then pains with jarring sound When — the light — burns — down. The soul fades as a frosty rime, While we do roam, alas, in every clime For that which nowhere can be found When — the light — burns — down . 61 II THE CHOIR INVISIBLE Ah ! he, who would thy blessed music hear, Must wake in stillest night and steal anear ! For thou no more in light of day doth sing Though worshippers bring richest offering. But seated on thy waving throne in air, Fanned by etherial winds, without a care, Thou singest in the choirs of the sky, TJnheedful of a mortal standing nigh. Who hears the magic of thy wondrous song That echoes of high heaven's court prolong ! 62 Drawn by thy music's witchery of sound. The spirits of the air with me draw round. Imploring thee, with radiant seraph glance. To softly sing the angel heaven dance ! thy wayward, changeful, and elusive art! It soothes the aching pain and charms the heart! It makes us scorn the jibes of every fate ! And with a heart triumphant and elate. Unfaltering! we welcome any thing The darkest night of life to us can bring ! No more! no more! can terrors of the night. Nor cringing fears of day the soul affright 63 That hears the magic of the mystic song Thou singest to the trans- Jordanic throng! Thy message down the ringing ages send Till all the worlds to thy great power bend; Breathe thy transforming spell upon the earth, Thy song sing on from nation's birth to birth! THE END 64