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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/incolorsofwestOOdres 
 
IN COLORS OF THE WEST 
 
IN COLORS 
 OF THE WEST 
 
 BY 
 
 GLENN WARD DRESBACH 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1922 
 
s# 
 
 
 Copyright, 1922, 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 JUL I i 1922 
 
 A677471 
 
 v ft 
 
TO MARY 
 
Many of the poems included in this volume have appeared 
 in Poetry, A Magazine of Verse, The Midland, The Smart Set, 
 Contemporary Verse, The Measure, All's Well, Everybody 's, 
 Romance, The Lyric West, Ainslee's, Munsey's, and Life and 
 the author thanks them for permission to republish. 
 
CONTENTS 
 IN WESTERN MOUNTAINS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 In Western Mountains 13 
 
 SONGS AND LYRICS 
 
 Broken Music 19 
 
 An Old Wood in Spring 20 
 
 A Road Song 21 
 
 A Desert Willow 22 
 
 August Noon 23 
 
 The Leaves on the Scrub Oak 24 
 
 Mirage 25 
 
 I Gave You Moods 27 
 
 I Have Always Said I Would Go 28 
 
 An Autumn Wood 29 
 
 Meadow Brook 30 
 
 Which Shall I Pity Most Today 32 
 
 Summer to Autumn 33 
 
 An Autumn Road 34 
 
 Wise Gamblers 35 
 
 The Fruit That Grew in Eden 36 
 
 OF PLACES AND SEASONS 
 
 In the Desert 39 
 
 Desert Shadow Songs 42 
 
 River Songs 44 
 
 In an Old Woodland 46 
 
 In Porto Bello Bay 49 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 While the Pollen Drifts 51 
 
 The Game — Panama 55 
 
 The Hill Road 56 
 
 While the Prairie Whispers 57 
 
 In t:ie Dark of the Moon 59 
 
 SONNETS 
 
 A Mountain Lake 63 
 
 The Chronicle of Dust 64 
 
 Hazy Weather 65 
 
 Frosty Meadows 66 
 
 Cutting Weeds 67 
 
 An April Moon 68 
 
 Beauty in the Ruins 69 
 
 Moths and Lights 70 
 
 The Process 71 
 
 VIGNETTES FROM LIFE 
 
 The Feel of Silk 75 
 
 The Needle's Eye .77 
 
 A Deeper Spring 79 
 
 New Walls 81 
 
 Gifts 83 
 
 The Crow's Nest 85 
 
 LONGER POEMS 
 
 Wild Apples 89 
 
 A Night at Taboga 101 
 
 The Wall of the Stars 109 
 
 The Three Days 115 
 
IN WESTERN MOUNTAINS 
 
IN WESTERN MOUNTAINS 
 
 I ' 
 
 He stood a moment at the edge 
 
 Of that cliff, looking out with me 
 
 Upon great valleys ending in the haze, 
 
 And mountains that from hazes drove a wedge 
 
 Of snow in skies of lapis lazuli. 
 
 Then something of the littleness of days 
 
 His life could span came to him dizzily 
 
 And he, who boasted of his might with men, 
 
 Turned back and grasped a little cedar tree 
 
 Nearby, for safety and he shut his eyes, 
 
 Shaken, and would not turn to look again. . . . 
 
 Back from that cliff -edge jutting out to skies 
 
 He climbed and spoke at last with heavy breath, 
 
 "God, what a place! What is it? Life or Death?" 
 
 II 
 
 Our words seemed much in vain. 
 
 How many Ages helped those heights attain 
 
 Such silence in the sun, 
 
 O silent One? . . . 
 
 He threw a stone, upon the crest, 
 At some dwarfed bush he made his mark. 
 A gray bird fluttered from her nest 
 With startled cries, 
 
 13 
 
IN WESTERN MOUNTAINS 
 
 A lizard from the sun flashed to the dark 
 Of veins in rock then turned its beady eyes 
 To look at us as if it wondered why 
 A fool should mar such comfort near the sky. 
 
 The stone was cast as small boys throw 
 White pebbles on smooth pools as if to see 
 In troubled surface where faint circles go 
 Some action that to alien minds may show 
 More kinship to their own reality. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Faint jingle of little bells 
 
 And the half-heard shuffle of feet, 
 
 High up on the mountain side, 
 
 Crept down through the waves of heat, 
 
 And a gray thread wove through the wide 
 
 Tapestry of the mountain side. 
 
 The burro train came down 
 
 With the ores men take apart 
 As the treasure they love the best 
 
 From the multitudinous heart 
 Of mountain — but all I could see 
 Was a gray thread through a tapestry. 
 
 IV 
 
 From a deep couch of sun 
 I raised myself and, blinking, lay 
 Watching the colors melt and run 
 From golds and purples to the wan 
 Fantastic streets of Babylon. 
 Pale flowers in hanging gardens swayed 
 14 
 
IN WESTERN MOUNTAINS 
 
 Out to a haze of amethyst — 
 
 Ah, God, what vows of hearts were made? 
 
 What lips were kissed? 
 
 Near me a stir — and one by one 
 
 The lizards crept back to the sun. 
 
 I felt a sudden touch 
 
 Of creeping chill — 
 
 A lizard crawled upon my hand, no more 
 
 Afraid of it because it was so still 
 
 And warm in sun, as much 
 
 A part of things as stones although it bore, 
 
 Unknown to lizards, power to crush and kill. . . 
 
 What warmth and power am I, too, resting on! 
 Be kind, Hand, that crushed mad Babylon ! 
 
 Up there I wondered if but yesterday 
 
 I cursed the little things that barred my way 
 
 To quick desires . . . 
 
 There, through years of fires 
 
 From summer suns and ashes blown 
 
 From burned-out winter moons, that cedar clings 
 
 To sheer rock — alone — 
 
 Groping here with a root and there with one, 
 
 Asserting its right to stand up in the sun 
 
 Or face the storm's hurled shock . . . 
 
 And, since it was not left to grow where run 
 
 Sweet juices of rich earth, it grows — in rock! 
 
 15 
 
SONGS AND LYRICS 
 
BROKEN MUSIC 
 
 There come so many strains of broken music 
 From lives that dreamed to make a symphony, 
 
 But something in them makes my heart remember 
 The music of the restless, troubled sea. 
 
 There come to me so many half-heard whispers 
 From loves that now the last great word have said, 
 
 But something in them makes my heart grow troubled 
 As in a woodland when the leaves are dead. 
 
 19 
 
AN OLD WOOD IN SPRING 
 
 The wood was so old that I thought 
 To hear it saying its prayers 
 
 In its aisles like cloisters wrought, 
 But I came on it, unawares, 
 
 Chuckling like old men mellow grown 
 
 Talking of Youth on a hill alone. 
 
 20 
 
A ROAD SONG 
 
 "Good morning," I said to the woman, 
 
 And her weary voice replied, 
 "Good morning," as if to the flowers 
 
 In the basket at her side — 
 I said to her, "Sell me some flowers." 
 
 She said, "They're for one who died." 
 
 And I met a small boy followed 
 
 By a dog that seemed content 
 To wag his tail like a banner 
 
 Wherever the small boy went. 
 "Sell me the dog?" I questioned. 
 
 Said the boy, "He's not worth a cent." 
 
 And far on the road this morning 
 
 If any one may try 
 To buy my dreams I will answer, 
 
 "There were things I could not buy." 
 There's a wind in the new leaves stirring, 
 
 There's a call and a faint reply. 
 
 And out on the road that's only 
 
 A road because men went 
 Over a path so often, 
 
 If any one comes intent 
 To buy my dreams I will answer, 
 
 "To you they're not worth a cent!" 
 
 21 
 
A DESERT WILLOW 
 
 The smallest breeze can waken 
 
 A rapture in these leaves, 
 A few bright raindrops seem a shower, 
 
 As if this tree believes 
 So much in things it wants to be 
 It works its will mysteriously. 
 
 And here no brooklet's mirror 
 
 Can show the tree how fair 
 It stands. At roots the hidden waters 
 
 Moisten sands and there 
 The whispers quicken musically 
 From waters dreaming toward the sea. 
 
 The farthest star can brighten 
 These branches, half a moon 
 
 Give glory, and this little willow 
 Makes a desert's June — 
 
 As if it knew such things should be 
 
 No greater than its imagery. 
 
 22 
 
AUGUST NOON 
 
 Lost fairy ships at anchor 
 On streams of daytime sleep 
 
 Are all the water-lilies 
 Where weary waters creep. 
 
 Even a thrush sits silent 
 
 Where reeds begin to die. . . . 
 A hawk seems caged, uncaring, 
 
 In one hot bit of sky. 
 
 Oh, what has gone from summer 
 Here where I walk alone? . . , 
 
 Something that goes from loving 
 When all of Love is known. 
 
 23 
 
THE LEAVES ON THE SCRUB OAK 
 
 The leaves on the scrub oak are dying 
 
 And flocks of birds are flying farther south. 
 
 A purple haze is heavy in the distance . . . 
 
 The frost will kill what lasts beyond the drouth. 
 
 So many words were said, yet still unanswered 
 Are all the deeper questions — put aside — 
 
 How fit it is that, in this weary season 
 
 My dreams have flown from you, my love has died! 
 
 I shall not stay to hear the oak leaves rattle 
 Across the gray sand — reaches now so dry — 
 
 Ah, I shall turn to you and break my silence 
 With futile words, and smile and say good-by. 
 
 24 
 
MIRAGE 
 
 Above the heat-waves breaking 
 On hazy shores that seem 
 
 To grow from faded purple 
 And golds all spent of gleam 
 Is spread a desert's dream. 
 
 Above the sands and ridges 
 Barren and hard and dry, 
 
 A haunting beauty fashions 
 Its magic in the sky 
 Where no birds now go by. 
 
 A little lake is rippled 
 
 By winds not reaching here, 
 
 And trees of slender beauty 
 On low shores linger near 
 The waters strangely clear . 
 
 Unreal, a thing of vision, 
 Empty as is the air! 
 
 Beauty bred of delusion, 
 Mirage, but oh, how fair 
 Above sands old and bare! 
 
 Above the barren places 
 
 Of days when nothing seems 
 
 Sure of the quest it follows — 
 Of far-off trees and streams 
 Send Mirage, my Dreams! 
 25 
 
I GAVE YOU MOODS 
 
 I gave you moods of white sails passing 
 
 From vision on a lonely sea — 
 Then, touched with longing for a moment, 
 
 Your hands reached out and clung to me. 
 Can you be content with nearness 
 
 When the distance still must be? . . . 
 
 I gave you whispers from the longing 
 
 Of the winds in desert lands, 
 Then, afraid of something spoken 
 
 Over shadow-patterned sands, 
 How you groped to me in twilight 
 
 With your ineffectual hands! 
 
 I gave you songs of mountain waters, 
 Of moonlight on an empty plain, 
 
 Of rain on roofs forever haunted, 
 Of undersongs in driven rain — 
 
 Your eyes grew troubled and, in silence 
 You crept into my arms again. 
 
 26 
 
I HAVE ALWAYS SAID I WOULD GO 
 
 I have always said I would go sometime in the autumn 
 Away from the bare boughs and the fallen leaves, 
 
 Away from the lonely sounds and the faded colors, 
 And all the ancient sorrow, and change that grieves. 
 
 I have always said I would go — and now it's autumn — 
 To an island where the wild hibiscus grows 
 
 And parakeets flock to the groves at twilight 
 
 And fragrance drifts from bays where moonlight glows. 
 
 But there would be the vasty sound of breakers 
 Come in to toss their pearls upon the sand. 
 
 All through the night — a longing of great waters 
 Trying to make the vastness understand. 
 
 I have always said I would go sometime in the autumn 
 Away from the lonely sounds and change that grieves — 
 
 But here in my heart is the sound of a distant ocean 
 
 And here in my heart is the sound of these falling leaves. 
 
 27 
 
AN AUTUMN WOOD 
 
 An autumn wood upon a hill 
 
 Against the sunset stands so still 
 
 In distance that I only guess 
 
 How leaves drift down and softly press 
 
 Against the fragrant earth in sleep, 
 
 How voices of the wood grow deep 
 
 With some new meaning in that flare 
 
 Of beauty fading, drifting there. 
 
 The mingled golds and crimsons run 
 
 From woodland into setting sun. 
 
 The wood's hazed grays and jaspers fuse 
 
 With sunset's vaster pinks and blues. 
 
 A gold leaf blown a little way 
 
 Sees gold cloud-ships drift down a bay 
 
 Of rainbow fires that very soon 
 
 Will turn to pale seas of the moon — 
 
 And past cloud-ships with ghostly spars 
 
 The frosted spray will turn to stars . . . 
 
 Oh, could I meet death so at last 
 
 With beauty answering a vast 
 
 Of beauty, I would then be still 
 
 In autumn wood upon a hill. 
 
 28 
 
MEADOW BROOK 
 
 Sway of the young corn growing, growing, 
 
 Smell of the wind from the pastures blowing, 
 
 Then willows listening to a song 
 
 Of a meadow brook between them flowing ! 
 
 I shall not stay to listen long 
 
 For fear I get the wistful air 
 
 Of willows listening, and care 
 
 Too much for what the brook is saying 
 
 Down through water-lilies playing 
 
 Like fairies dangling pearly toes 
 
 While the water comes and goes. 
 
 I shall turn and look on grasses 
 
 Swaying in the wind, and trees, 
 
 Stones and grains, for soon with these, 
 
 While the water sings and passes, 
 
 I shall always have to stay — 
 
 No matter what the brook would say . . . 
 
 Why do I still linger, waiting, 
 
 Touching fingers with the brook, 
 
 Looking as the willows look — 
 
 While the water through my fingers 
 
 Gleams and slips away? 
 
 29 
 
WHICH SHALL I PITY MOST TO-DAY 
 
 Which shall I pity most to-day 
 
 Of olden April loves? 
 The one I saw go out to feed 
 
 A flock of snowy doves 
 Beyond her lonely garden-place 
 With but lost Aprils in her face? 
 
 Or shall I pity most the one 
 
 I met where crowds went by, 
 With flash of gems upon her breast 
 
 And winter in her eye, 
 And Master Poodle walking, proud 
 In place of Love, through April's crowd? 
 
 Or shall I pity most the dear, 
 Strange one who went with Death, 
 
 To lose the earth-born rapture gone 
 As in a rose's breath? . . . 
 
 That body gone to dust again 
 
 Answer with violets the rain. 
 
 30 
 
SUMMER TO AUTUMN 
 
 My leaves of green you will turn to gold and crimson, 
 My ripened fruits you will give their fullest hue, 
 
 And my scattered birds will flock to you at parting — 
 But all I give in turn will be taken from you. 
 
 Your gold and crimson leaves will be banners fallen, 
 Your flushed fruits will be scattered on the ground, 
 
 And, at the last, the birds will hasten southward 
 And leave you winds and many a lonely sound. 
 
 We dream the dream and never reach completion 
 Within ourselves, then pass in things we give . . . 
 
 Always the void of winter wraps in silence 
 Things that in spite of winter wait and live. 
 
 31 
 
AN AUTUMN ROAD 
 
 Down a hill, then up a hill 
 And then a vast of sea! 
 
 A wedge of wild geese crying 
 Passes over me — 
 
 And now my dreams are flying 
 Where I may never be. . . . 
 
 Down a hill and up a hill, 
 Then level lands again! 
 
 Far off the sea is speaking 
 A longing that is pain — 
 
 My eyes are weary seeking 
 For my lost ship from Spain. 
 
 Down a hill and up a hill, 
 
 Oh, so long ago, 
 There was a princess singing — 
 
 Where, I do not know. . . 
 There were arms that, clinging, 
 
 Would not let me go. 
 
 32 
 
WISE GAMBLERS 
 
 Four old trees stand tall on a hill. 
 Wind swirls around them, never still, 
 And their heads together bow and sway 
 As if in talk of a game they play. 
 Sometimes they laugh and sometimes sigh, 
 And there beneath a low gray sky 
 I've seen them drop their leaves when thins 
 The gold and crimson, as near dawn 
 Wise gamblers drop their cards upon 
 The table, saying kindly, "Why 
 Quarrel with a game that no one wins!" 
 
 33 
 
THE FRUIT THAT GREW IN EDEN 
 
 The fruit that grew in Eden 
 
 A later time may be 
 The sorrow of a dreamer 
 
 Who bowed on Calvary. 
 For trees that grew in Eden 
 
 He bowed beneath a tree. . . . 
 
 I cannot build an Eden 
 Of such long-rotted leaves, 
 
 I cannot dream the beauty 
 Of faith that yet believes 
 
 In hands that thrust the lances 
 In One between the thieves. 
 
 I build a place of fancy 
 
 Of such things as I see, 
 I keep a faith in something 
 
 Till it has lied to me — 
 The thing that vanquished Eden 
 
 Wears down bare Calvary. 
 
 34 
 
OF PLACES AND SEASONS 
 
IN THE DESERT 
 I 
 
 Tumults of silence thunder in my ears. 
 
 What land is this with such immensity, 
 Which keeps lost glory-cities in its skies 
 
 Half seen through heat-waves surging dizzily? 
 
 Here are the Hanging Gardens in their bloom, 
 And here the domes of Nineveh and Tyre, 
 
 And in this cloud above the glare of sands 
 Is Rome that sends its glory up in fire. 
 
 My eyes ache and I turn them to the ground. 
 
 Here is a busy ant hill at my feet; 
 The ants have worn thin trails through burning sand . . 
 
 They bring their bits of green things through the heat. 
 
 And Time that trod the olden cities down 
 
 And scattered stones turned dust with dust of kings, 
 
 May send a careless foot to ant hills here 
 And crush the work even of humble things. 
 
 II 
 
 There's no hiding here in the glare of the desert — 
 If your coat is sham the sun shines through . . . 
 
 Here with the lovely things and the silence 
 There is no crowd for saving you. 
 37 
 
IN THE DESERT 
 
 When hearts love here the love lasts longer, 
 
 And hate here leaves a heavy scar. 
 But we, with the desert's beauty of distance, 
 
 Are always dreaming of places far. 
 
 The tropic seas and the throb of cities, 
 
 And harbors filled with the ships we knew. 
 
 We keep, with the sun and the stars and silence, 
 Life — and a promise glimmers through. 
 
 If you have come to start a kingdom — 
 Our eyes looked on Rome and Tyre. 
 
 But if you come with dreams for baggage 
 Sit with us by the cedar fire! 
 
 Ill 
 
 When first the love-moon rose above the desert 
 Lifted from the slime of slow-drained inland seas, 
 
 What shape first moved from hillsides to the magic 
 Of strange lands whispering in symphonies? 
 
 Was it a cave-man hungering for beauty, 
 
 Wanting his mate? And did he find her soon? 
 
 Or was it but a wolf that sitting fearless 
 
 Cried out a world-old longing to the moon? 
 
 IV 
 
 Some day a river may be put in chains, 
 
 And held from rendezvous with passionate seas, 
 
 To fill these lands with sounds of dancing rains 
 And songs of ripening grain and flowering trees. 
 
 38 
 
IN THE DESERT 
 
 And homes may scatter on these sunbaked sands' 
 Where now long purple shadows spread and fill 
 
 Strange empty places . . . One with empty hands 
 May stand here then and see a desert still. 
 
 And one with heart where Love has sent no stream 
 Of starlight, in some house built then, may bow 
 
 Before long purple shadows, lost in dream, 
 Even as I do now! 
 
 V 
 
 In the hills to the north of the desert 
 
 A little river flows, 
 But when it comes to the desert 
 
 No one sees where it goes — 
 It creeps into sands and passes 
 
 From places sunlight knows. 
 
 The fevered skies of the desert 
 
 Would drain it thirstily 
 If it stayed for a year of splendor 
 
 Where ages still must be — 
 But alone it creeps to the darkness 
 
 To find the light of the sea. 
 
 39 
 
DESERT SHADOW SONGS 
 I 
 
 The shadow of a cloud moves on the grass 
 
 Parched with the fever of the thirsting day, 
 
 A filmy coolness drifted from afar 
 
 And drifted soon away — 
 
 Promise of rain that fails, how soon to pass 
 
 Where deeper shadows are. 
 
 So on my brow what shadow-hands have passed 
 
 And left an olden fever to the last. . . . 
 
 O land of hot winds and dwarfed, wistful tree 
 And all veiled mysteries of amethyst and blue, 
 My shadow falls on you, 
 Your shadows fall on me. 
 
 II 
 
 I would not have my Love be here 
 
 In shadowed silence lest she see 
 My shadow more than me and fear 
 
 Within my arms again to be — 
 For fear her son and mine at birth 
 
 Would keep such shadows in his eyes, 
 Too much a part of long gray earth, 
 
 God, too hurt, too quickly wise ! 
 40 
 
DESERT SHADOW SONGS 
 
 III 
 
 Across the heated level of the sand 
 
 Pale shadows reach from jutting hills 
 
 To touch the trees in narrow valley land, 
 
 As I have seen 
 
 The thin white hands at grimy window sills 
 
 Reach out to touch some precious sprig of green 
 
 As if the sight of it was not enough — 
 
 It was so full of magic stuff — 
 
 And only touch could understand. 
 
 IV 
 
 A trickle of water goes between 
 Gnashed ridges, in a sandy bed 
 Wide as a river might have been. . . . 
 What waters down this course had sped 
 To distance (and how long ago!) 
 That this thin stream a lure might know 
 Out to that vast of shadow-sea 
 Waving in hazes mockingly. 
 
 So from what springs in me must creep 
 What streams unto what phantom-deep! 
 
 41 
 
RIVER SONGS 
 I 
 
 Here, where the wide, slow-moving river 
 
 Shines through the willows winds make songs about, 
 I hear faint music moving on the waters 
 
 Close to the shore, with silence farther out. 
 
 I feel there is a deep orchestral music 
 
 In that wide brightness always surely bound 
 
 Upon its journey — as when in the starlight 
 I feel star-rhythms, miss celestial sound. 
 
 Of all great things and lovely moving onward, 
 Rivers and dreams that ages long may love, 
 
 I tell my heart and yet it still must wonder 
 
 How great the urge, how faint the songs thereof! 
 
 II 
 
 Who knows this river's longing for the sea? 
 
 What proud ships and what drifting wrecks it bore? 
 It sings not of its fevered days of drouth 
 
 Or floods whose scars are gray upon the shore. 
 
 Yet had you seen the narrow waters crawl 
 
 Between the sand-bars when the drouth was here, 
 
 Then you would know — and had you seen the floods 
 
 Rip down this channel you would think of fear. 
 
 42 
 
RIVER SONGS 
 
 Who knows my longing? Who would care to know? 
 
 What of the drouth- times and the times of love? 
 I know not all myself — but I may know 
 
 How great the urge, how faint the songs thereof! 
 
 43 
 
IN AN OLD WOODLAND 
 
 Once I walked this woodland in the springtime 
 
 And the musk of grasses drifted on the air; 
 Scents of early flowers and a dewy freshness 
 
 Of the leaves then met me roaming everywhere . . . 
 
 Beauty-haunted, passion-wakened, 
 Then I looked into my heart and found old longing there. 
 
 Longing that must linger when the slender beauty 
 And the lure of passion in things no hands may hold 
 
 Lift from earth that, too, is in the body, 
 
 Here I felt in springtime . . . Now the leaves are gold. 
 Wistful-voiced and music-haunted 
 
 Winds and trees have whispered things a springtime left un- 
 told. 
 
 Once I walked this woodland in the springtime, 
 
 Looked through it to distance smiling in the sky . . . 
 
 Everything seemed happy, sure of fair completion — 
 Not a single bloom or leaf but had more joy than I. 
 Love-awakened, beauty-chastened, 
 
 Now I hold you close and tell of love that shall not die! 
 
 Now I know what thrushes in this woodland 
 
 Sang above the whispers of the leaves that stirred, 
 
 Now, when leaves are dying and the blooms are faded, 
 
 Leaves and blooms are in my heart grown wise as any bird. 
 
 44 
 
IN AN OLD WOODLAND 
 
 Lyric-throated, fearless-eyed, 
 Love has spoken something now that only gods have heard ! 
 
 II 
 
 I am one who has seen 
 
 The leaves dying, the leaves falling . . . 
 
 In the nights I have heard 
 
 The trees sighing, the winds calling . . . 
 
 I know my life must be 
 
 Kin to the life of a tree. 
 
 I know my dreams 1 of green 
 
 And silver, quickly stirred, 
 
 Must fall as leaves. 
 
 I know not how . . . 
 
 I am young now, 
 
 But in my youth there is an age that grieves — 
 
 I am one who has seen 
 
 The leaves falling, the leaves blowing . . . 
 
 What after Love and Dream? 
 
 Nothing worth knowing — 
 
 Save my strength from the grass, 
 
 Greeting new loves and dreams that pass, 
 
 In tingling roots and flowers growing. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Restless, through the woodland where the breath of summer 
 Left a passing fragrance, with the winds we go 
 Haunted by the whispers 
 Of a glory fading, 
 Seeking for an answer we may never know, 
 Fever-eyed and wistful-hearted in the afterglow. . . . 
 
 45 
 
IN AN OLD WOODLAND 
 
 Passing where my love-songs in violets were written, 
 Where your youthful passion, with unbroken will, 
 Silver leaves had spoken 
 With an olden music, 
 Now we find the violets gone, and leaves are never still — 
 Broken music, beauty-haunted, whispers on the hill. 
 
 Lingering in the woodland where the gold is fading, 
 
 Where the leaves are dancing, in death, to wind's commands, 
 Lift your eyes, Beloved, 
 That the skies be brighter, 
 Laugh again, that music thrill these stricken lands — 
 Why this silent groping and these clinging hands? 
 
 46 
 
IN PORTO BELLO BAY 
 
 The ghost-ships waken with the moon 
 
 In Porto Bello Bay, 
 And many an olden pirate tune, 
 Still drunken with remembered June, 
 
 Trails through the mist away. 
 The sails are spread, the faint lights gleam, 
 
 The ships move to the seas 
 As if they seek the ports of dream 
 
 Beyond the Caribbees. 
 
 The moon has spilled upon the bay 
 
 Her cup of silver wine. 
 The galleons turn against the tide 
 Their shadow-prows; their ancient pride 
 
 Speaks in each shadow-line. 
 The glamor of their time returns; 
 
 Purged of their sin they seem — 
 Each seeks the port for which it yearns, 
 
 Borne on the winds of dream. 
 
 And in the hold of each is gold 
 
 And down in every one 
 Are gems that came from jungles deep 
 Where flowers flame and ages keep 
 
 The rituals of the sun. 
 And every sailor-shape that stirs 
 
 Looks yearning out to sea 
 Beyond the mist, and no mist blurs 
 
 His eyes of memory. 
 47 
 
IN PORTO BELLO BAY 
 
 One sees a running girl come down 
 
 A street where flowers grow, 
 One sees a little laughing lad, 
 In colors of the rainbow clad, 
 
 Wave welcome, all aglow. 
 All see the gladness they had seen 
 
 Before there came a day 
 When anchors held from what had been- 
 
 In Porto Bello Bay. . . . 
 
 Before the moon creeps down to sleep 
 
 She calls the ghost-ships home 
 To harbors deep the years have made 
 Of purple silence and of jade 
 
 And flecks of silver foam, 
 And with their memories they ride 
 
 The daylight hours away, 
 Unseen, unmoved by any tide, 
 
 In Porto Bello Bay. 
 
 48 
 
WHILE THE POLLEN DRIFTS 
 I 
 
 A bee has groped from the heart of a flower. 
 
 The bloom is faded, the sweets are thinned, 
 But the bee is drunk with its wine and passion 
 
 And his wings move dreamily on the wind. 
 
 His wings are laden with dust that's golden, 
 And so, unknowing, he plays a part — 
 
 For his want helps work the will of the pollen 
 As he creeps to another flower's heart. 
 
 There is a power luring and urging 
 
 All through the dream and growth of things 
 
 There's failure and fading — and still a glory 
 Dusting its pollen on restless wings. 
 
 II 
 
 Old Simon's drunk on cider. 
 
 He's buzzing like the bees, 
 Swaying down into the town 
 
 Grinning at the trees — 
 
 Caring not who sees. 
 
 For hours he was sitting 
 
 Beside the cider mill — 
 Tried to sleep, then had to weep 
 49 
 
WHILE THE POLLEN DRIFTS 
 
 Much against his will, 
 On the swaying hill. 
 
 He felt the Autumn turning 
 
 Her saddened eyes his way . . . 
 
 Alone and old and strangely cold 
 He had no words to say — 
 Ragged now and gray. 
 
 Now Simon's drunk on cider, 
 
 As busy as a bee — 
 He'll tell in town how he marched down 
 
 With Sherman to the sea, 
 
 And so made men be free. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Old Miranda sees him 
 
 Swaying into town — 
 Poor gray ancient lover 
 
 Silly as a clown, 
 Turned away because she thought 
 
 Jason wore a crown. 
 
 Old Miranda snivels, 
 
 Lonely as can be, 
 Watching Simon passing 
 
 Bowing to each tree, 
 Longs to give a home to him, 
 
 And end their misery. 
 
 Pollen, drifting, drifting, 
 Lost on barren ground! 
 Old Miranda shivers 
 50 
 
WHILE THE POLLEN DRIFTS 
 
 Looking all around . . . 
 Faded asters in the wind 
 Make a ghostly sound. 
 
 IV 
 
 There'll be a moon to-night 
 And winds across the grass 
 
 And many crickets chirping shrill 
 Along the way we pass. 
 
 And where the pollen went 
 
 All day we may not know — 
 
 For there will be our clinging arms . . 
 We shall not turn and go ! 
 
 We shall not look again 
 
 Into each other's eyes 
 As often we have looked before 
 
 With an alert surprise. 
 
 I come from the fields and wooded places 
 
 And roads that started where dawn began, 
 And ended in colors that left but traces 
 
 Where molten golds of sunset ran . . . 
 And I have looked in the quiet faces 
 Of flowers, when summer was nearly done, 
 Lifting still in the wind and the sun . . . 
 There are many words that I would say 
 But only these shall I speak to-day — 
 Here in the twilight under the eaves: 
 When shadows were longer and pastures shorn, 
 And corn-stalks were stronger to hold the corn, 
 51 
 
WHILE THE POLLEN DRIFTS 
 
 And Beauty was hardened and colors were thinned 
 And blooms were worn, and dulled were the leaves, 
 I have seen the pollen drift on the wind — 
 And kept a thought that my heart believes ! 
 
 52 
 
THE GAME-PANAMA 
 
 "Senor, you win — but we have broken laws 
 
 Of this fair city by the sea, 
 
 And since you win it's fair you lose because 
 
 I, as a guardian of the Law, must be 
 
 No longer gamester but Alcalde sworn 
 
 To duty . . . Let me see, Senor — 
 
 A thousand pesos! It had seemed much more 
 
 Piled on the table there across from me — 
 
 And gaming time so near the smile of Morn! 
 
 You are a stranger here, you say, 
 
 And I shall be as lenient as I may — 
 
 A thousand pesos — that your fine will be!" 
 
 "But, say- — Alcalde — you invited me — 
 
 And you have broken, too, 
 
 The rules of this your city . . . Who will place 
 
 A fine on you?" 
 
 "Ah, there are gowns of lace 
 And silk that I must buy to win her smile, 
 And little silver slippers for the dance, 
 And rings that she'll grow tired of afterwhile . . 
 She'll stab my heart with coldness of her glance! 
 It's all a game, Senor . . . Your fine 
 Is easy since it is so quickly made, 
 But mine, ah, mine 
 How long it must be paid!" 
 
 53 
 
THE HILL ROAD 
 
 "Ah, Senorita, tell me where you go 
 With orchid and hibiscus in your hand 
 And all the morning in your face aglow." 
 
 "Seiior, I go 
 
 Along this path to that hushed bit of land 
 Where is my first love's grave, and flowers grow 
 By trees that stir with winds strayed in from sea 
 And in the winds the sweet lush grasses blow 
 Their whispers gracefully." 
 
 "But why your smiles and flowers in your hair?" 
 "But, ah, Senor, another lover there 
 Waits now to weep with me!" 
 
 54 
 
WHILE THE PRAIRIE WHISPERS 
 
 I 
 
 The maple leaves are golden ; 
 
 They are falling one by one, 
 And down blue-misted hollows 
 There is the flight of swallows 
 
 Glinting toward the sun. 
 
 Along the lane where wild grapes 
 Hang purple in the morn, 
 
 A farmer asks his neighbor 
 
 Upon their way to labor, 
 "What's the price of corn?" 
 
 And leaves about me whisper, 
 "The price one has to pay ! " 
 And winds toss leaves asunder 
 Down lanes I walk and wonder 
 The price of dreams to-day. 
 
 II 
 
 Her white dress glimmered in the rising moon . 
 The orchard wall seemed very cruel and cold 
 As she leaned there one lonely night in June — 
 Sixteen years old! 
 
 55 
 
WHILE THE PRAIRIE WHISPERS 
 
 She dreamed of cities that she had not seen 
 
 And had them rather changed from what they are, 
 Until she thought she hated shadowy green 
 And staring star. 
 
 Then suddenly the cities faded out — 
 
 It was not them she wanted after all . . . 
 Her first real lover, coming as in doubt, 
 Paused at the wall. 
 
 The boldness of her dreams so quickly dead, 
 
 She lost the glamour of the things she knew 
 In cities far. . . . She blushed a bit, and said, 
 Why, howdy do!" 
 
 56 
 
IN THE DARK OF THE MOON 
 I 
 
 They said, "Death is a sleep and a forgetting, 
 A rest and dream after Life's songs and sighs." 
 
 I only know Death touched her lips to silence 
 And took sunlight and starlight from her eyes. 
 
 I only know Death chilled her lovely body, 
 And that we laid it in the earth one day. 
 
 Was that the end? Only dreams hear her singing, 
 Only dreams hear her footsteps far away. 
 
 Oh, once I felt that I had learned the secret — 
 A rose grew from the earth where she was laid, 
 
 And in the dark I knew it by its fragrance — 
 
 Strange longings and old dreams within me strayed. 
 
 But now the rose has died. The spell is broken. 
 
 To-night the sky, without a moon, is blind . . . 
 Only the tall soft grasses nod and whisper, 
 
 Whisper and nod here in the restless wind. 
 
 II 
 
 The road is dark. No hills, no trees 
 Lift from the levels of the dark. 
 The high things and the low things are 
 As one, and each familiar mark 
 
 57 
 
IN THE DARK OF THE MOON 
 
 That I have known to guide my way 
 Is hidden. I alone remain 
 Upon the road, and shall not stay 
 To meet the coming dash of rain. . . . 
 But do I move, or does my will, 
 Heavy with dark and mysteries 
 Stand leveled with the hills and trees, 
 While Darkness moves and I am still? 
 
 Ill 
 
 To-night in cities glare the lights — 
 There morning comes too soon. 
 
 The people there at work or play 
 Forget about the moon! 
 
 Oh, I shall leave these desert hills 
 Where darkness levels things, 
 
 And walk again the streets and give 
 My heart some tinsel wings. 
 
 And I shall look in lovely eyes, 
 And dance to many a tune — 
 
 Till on a night my heart shall ache 
 For silence and the moon! 
 
 58 
 
SONNETS 
 
A MOUNTAIN LAKE 
 
 Mirror of skies whose cloud-ships on your breast 
 
 Arrive at havens of the mirrored trees, 
 
 About you lift the splendors of the West, 
 
 Across you move the olden mysteries 
 
 Of light and shadow. Fed by melted snows 
 
 Forever flashing on the changeless range 
 
 Haloed by fleecy clouds, you find repose 
 
 In beauty living changeless through the change 
 
 Of seasons and of ages. One by one 
 
 They see reflected growth and slow decline 
 
 Upon your surface, chronicles of sun, 
 
 Of shadow and of moon. Cedar and pine 
 
 And mountain flower look on you as I — 
 
 Meeting in you at last with peaks and sky. 
 
 61 
 
THE CHRONICLE OF DUST 
 
 There is a chronicle of dust that keeps 
 
 Such things as often crowded day forgets — 
 
 Here is a page written in violets, 
 
 And here a page where the arbutus creeps. 
 
 Out of long silence and the hidden deeps 
 
 What love, what beauty, without vain regrets, 
 
 Lifts to the spring again when dust begets 
 
 New forms for them while earth their magic reaps? 
 
 Such love as gave new meaning to the moon, 
 Such beauty as made spring come back again! 
 They are not lost in the tempestuous years. . . . 
 dust, that saves to give immortal June, 
 What fragrances from Heloi'se remain? 
 And to what glory blossomed Juliet's tears? 
 
 62 
 
HAZY WEATHER 
 
 The circle is contracted and the sky 
 Draws down to earth. Far hills are shut away 
 In hazy silence and the dried leaves play 
 A restless melody as winds go by. 
 A smoky fragrance drifts, as if the dry 
 And broken blooms of summer on this day 
 Again have flamed — but now on pyres grown gray- 
 To speak in perfumes till they, too, must die. 
 
 What shall the spring remember of this time, 
 When from the earth the offspring of these blooms 
 Lift to the dancing magic of the rain? 
 Bright leaves once more will scrawl a silver rhyme 
 Upon blue distance — while from hidden tombs 
 Come lives I live again and yet again! 
 
 63 
 
FROSTY MEADOWS 
 
 For me, there is a mood of friendliness 
 
 In frosty meadows in the early sun. 
 
 The sense of things frost-killed cannot repress 
 
 An exultation that awakes to run 
 
 Along still brightness spreading out for me 
 
 Like softly fallen dust of stars, akin 
 
 Somehow to magic on a morning sea 
 
 Or distances from hills when mists grow thin. 
 
 So it may be when I look out across 
 Death-widened distance and may see no more 
 Life's flaming colors and no more feel loss 
 Of things that once a warmer radiance bore. 
 And see, like frosty meadows through clear air, 
 Dear lands — forget I ever suffered there! 
 
 64 
 
CUTTING WEEDS 
 
 When he was twelve years old he cut the weeds 
 Along the fences where the cornfields swayed 
 In hot, slow-moving winds and, working, played 
 His scythe was turned a sword for mighty deeds. 
 He felt the might of conflict; met his needs 
 For great adventures with the thoughts that strayed 
 Like pageants through his mind, and he was made 
 The hero loved of ladies, knights, and steeds. 
 
 What ill winds blew that mist of dreams away? . . 
 Grown into manhood now he swings his blade 
 With dogged, steady strokes along the fence. 
 He thinks, perhaps, of gold the corn will pay — 
 Is restless, vaguely troubled, half afraid 
 Of wishes haunting him with imminence. 
 
 65 
 
AN APRIL MOON 
 
 Such laughter awakens, in the leaves to-night, 
 As stirs like music in a heart that hears 
 Despite all sounds of long-defeated years. 
 And not a ghost from memory has might 
 To hush one leaf or dull one path of light 
 In this revival of earth's dream that nears 
 Completion in reality . . . Appears 
 The ancient wonder that is still our right. 
 
 What branch was broken in the wintry blow? 
 The new leaves wave their banners in its stead. 
 What flower-seeds were prisoned by a stone? 
 The frail stalks lift a senseless weight, to grow. 
 And here vines creep to one tree scarred and dead 
 And but for them how bare, how much alone! 
 
 66 
 
BEAUTY IN THE RUINS 
 
 A beauty speaks from ruins of old walls, 
 
 Once high and beautiful, in some design 
 
 Yet lifting from the dust, some lovely line 
 
 Unbroken where a flood of sunlight falls. 
 
 The structural splendors past, each stone recalls 
 
 Some glory of the whole, and we divine 
 
 In it a touch of mastery where twine 
 
 The vines of ivy and slow shadow crawls. 
 
 Because of what it was before it fell 
 
 To ruin we may see in ruin still 
 
 A certain grandeur long in balance hung 
 
 Above the dust, and come to know how well 
 
 Romance and wonder have again their will 
 
 When some old men begin, "When I was young!" 
 
 67 
 
MOTHS AND LIGHTS 
 
 What puzzles me, regarding moths and lights, 
 Is that no moth, in forests threshed or stilled, 
 Is crushed of wing or by insistence killed 
 For seeking starlight in the lovely nights, 
 But starts toward death the instant that it sights 
 A lantern's flame, and for a moment thrilled 
 Must die with some desire unfulfilled, 
 A symbol scorned by other futile flights. 
 
 And I am sad for things that cannot choose 
 Between the starlight and a lantern's flame, 
 And sad for choice of sorrows as they are: 
 To gain the lantern's flame and then to lose 
 The life from which desire for it came, 
 To seek the star — and never reach the star! 
 
 68 
 
THE PROCESS 
 
 I know a slope-bound valley held between 
 
 Two hillsides in a semi-desert land, 
 
 And rains, that seldom come, had washed the sand 
 
 Of those gray hills upon the bit of green 
 
 The valley lifted when I first had seen 
 
 Its wistfulness. I saw its grasses stand 
 
 Half-buried, as if for a reprimand 
 
 From those stern slopes where weathered boulders lean. 
 
 An old man looked upon the place with me. 
 
 "First, sand," he said, "is washed from hills like these, 
 
 Then richer stuff goes down there soon or late; 
 
 Then gulches open and some earth will be 
 
 Washed farther on — but all the finest trees 
 
 Grow in such places, though it's long to wait." 
 
 69 
 
VIGNETTES FROM LIFE 
 
THE FEEL OF SILK 
 
 "At last I have it," whispered Kate, "at last," 
 And spread the dark blue silk upon her knees, 
 Touched it with loving fingers as she bowed 
 Above its brightness . . . 
 
 From another room 
 A weak voice called her and Kate placed the silk 
 Gently upon the table and replied, 
 "Coming, my dear." 
 
 "What is it, Jane?" she asked 
 As she went in and stood beside the bed. 
 "My lungs hurt, Kate," then coughing shook the girl 
 So thin and white upon the bed. Blood showed 
 Upon her lips, then rushed from them, and Kate 
 Ran for the doctor, sobbing as she went. 
 
 "This is the third in three days, and the worst," 
 The doctor said when he had come. "Perhaps 
 She may pull through this time . . . Her heart is weak 
 She may not last till morning." 
 
 From the sleep 
 In which Jane fell she did not wake again. 
 
 Five years had passed since Kate had brought the girl 
 To this small mountain town, and Kate had taught 
 The school and worked alone with hopefulness 
 Upon her plain face. Just a month before 
 Jane died they found that they had saved enough 
 
 73 
 
THE FEEL OF SILK 
 
 That Kate could buy a new dress. 
 
 "Jane," she cried, 
 "I love the feel of silk. At last I'll get 
 A silk dress and if you don't care I'll go 
 To Jason's dance next month." 
 
 Her sister's eyes 
 Were very wistful, but she said, "Of course 
 You must go, Kate. You'll look so fine in silk." 
 And later on she said, "If Jason King 
 Could see you dressed right, not another girl 
 About this place would have a chance with him." 
 And Kate had laughed . . . "You silly child!" she said. 
 
 Then came the silk dress — and that very night 
 Jane died, and when they buried her the few 
 Who came remarked how pretty she had been 
 In that blue silk . . . 
 
 74 
 
THE NEEDLE'S EYE 
 
 Neither a woman nor a man long poor 
 
 And humble, used to taking things that come, 
 
 With wealth thrust quickly in worn hands, can pass 
 
 Into the Kingdom of the Rich — no more 
 
 Than camels can pass through the needle's eye . . . 
 
 Josiah had been told, with doubting eyes, 
 That he was worth a million dollars. Then 
 He put away his hammer and his saw 
 And went to see the oil well on his land 
 That had been worthless for so many years 
 Of aching toil, and with him went his wife 
 In bright new calico, too awed to speak. 
 
 They saw the source of this strange wealth that came 
 From ground that failed to give good crops, but still 
 They could not understand all that it meant . . . 
 Upon the way home through the heated dust 
 Josiah told his wife that she could have 
 What she had wanted, and they talked about 
 The fine hotel that they would build in town 
 When they had sold the plain board rooming-house 
 That for a year had driven want away, 
 When men rushed to the little town to drill 
 For oil . . . 
 
 Now in that little town it's told 
 How old Josiah laid his tools away 
 75 
 
THE NEEDLE'S EYE 
 
 And took no care for odd jobs waiting him, 
 And then grew restless when a crew of men 
 Began to build his fine hotel — and charmed 
 With wages higher than his dreams had known, 
 He went to work upon his own hotel 
 For day's pay and, while working overtime 
 For further profit, died . . . 
 
 And it is told 
 How his old wife, with eyes that hid their tears, 
 When the hotel was finished took a room 
 That was the cheapest, and kept on at work 
 About the place in utter loneliness. 
 With only one extravagance in all 
 The years she lived : Josiah's picture there, 
 Enlarged and framed in gold, beside her bed. 
 
 76 
 
A DEEPER SPRING 
 
 The curtains of the haze, like amethyst 
 Long faded in the glare of sun, were hung 
 On all sides in the distance. Two men moved 
 Among the heat-waves surging low across 
 Pale yellow sands ... At last one fell and clutched 
 The hot sand, while the other turned to look 
 And sagged there like a half -filled sack of grain 
 Left stand alone. He helped the other rise 
 And blood came from the movement of his lips 
 Burned in the glare. He mumbled, "There's a spring 
 Among the rocks — before us — half a mile." 
 Again they stumbled on across the sands. . . . 
 
 Two weeks before the older man, it's said, 
 Had boasted of a worthless mine he found 
 To sell the young man lately from the East 
 With much more money than was good for him. 
 The deal half closed, they started out to see 
 The mine that huddled in a nest of rocks 
 Across a stretch of bad lands, and prepared 
 For comfort on the way. Their burro train 
 Was loaded well with food and water-bags. 
 The older man had winked before he left 
 And told his friends he took along a drop 
 To help his scheme . . . 
 
 From ridges and scrub oaks 
 Their journey led them down upon a waste 
 
 77 
 
A DEEPER SPRING 
 
 Of sand where cactus grew and hot winds hurled 
 Themselves in fevered haste across the flats. 
 Then came the sandstorm snarling in the dark. 
 The burros lost, the two men started out, 
 When winds had quieted, to find a spring. 
 
 Now slow as shadows on the yellow sands 
 
 They crept to that low ridge of rocks that held 
 
 The hope of water. Nearly dead from thirst 
 
 They crawled about when they had reached the place. 
 
 The tepid water came in drops between 
 
 Rusi colored rocks. 
 
 "There's not enough for one," 
 The older man was mumbling, "Drink . . . I'll go 
 To find a deeper spring." 
 
 The one who stayed 
 To drink has told it since with troubled eyes. 
 
 78 
 
NEW WALLS 
 
 Stooped after years of leaning over books 
 
 Where long neat columns showed another's gain, 
 
 And with the look of some old ledger piled 
 
 Upon a shelf for future reference, 
 
 Old John went shuffling home in wistful haste 
 
 To tell his wife that he had bought the land 
 
 Where they would build their cottage — out beyond 
 
 The shadow of high walls . . . And they could build 
 
 The little house they planned and, from a life 
 
 Of saving, still have left enough to keep 
 
 Them safe if he could work a few more years — 
 
 And now he was but sixty years of age 
 
 And she was fifty nine . . . 
 
 That night they sat 
 Upon the small porch of their rented house 
 Walled in by higher houses that shut out 
 The view and kept away the stir of breeze 
 To bless a sultry night. Said John to her, 
 "It seems we've always been walled in . . . Out there 
 We'll have the open and a bit of breeze." 
 His small pale wife smiled, wistful as a child . . . 
 
 They built the plain white cottage on the lot 
 Beyond the shadow of the city's walls, 
 And lived in it a year before again 
 The shadows of the walls fell over them. 
 Upon the right a high apartment house 
 
 79 
 
NEW WALLS 
 
 Shut out the view of willows by a stream. 
 
 Said John, "We still can see the green fields there 
 
 Upon our left." 
 
 The old ones looked and sighed . . . 
 Another month and on the left grew up 
 A great stone house. The city had begun 
 To spread, in earnest, to the open spot. 
 Walled in on both sides soon, the cottage stood 
 With view shut off and breezes turned from it. 
 The view in front was street and little trees 
 That had not quite decided how to grow. 
 The bit of romance that the open gave 
 The little place was gone . . . 
 
 Said John one night, 
 "I, feel more natural now, walled in. New walls 
 Have found us here . . . Just walls and walls and walls 
 Since I remember!" 
 
 And he would have wept 
 But that he knew his wife would weep with him. 
 
 80 
 
GIFTS 
 
 A Poorhouse is just that and little more — 
 And people in glass houses would forget 
 Such irritating evidences left 
 Of Man's decline and fall, but such a place 
 May sometimes house some beauty of its own. 
 
 In Compton on a hillside stilled with snow 
 Old John, so deaf he heard but shouted words, 
 And gray old Henry, stone-blind, lived to greet 
 Another Christmas Eve, and in a room 
 Old John was reading from the only book 
 He had — a tale of knights and ladies fair, 
 While Henry played an old forgotten tune 
 On his mouth-organ treasured very long — 
 So long it squeaked with age in many keys. 
 
 A sour-faced old woman passed them there 
 And snarled, "A Merry Christmas." 
 
 Henry stopped 
 His tune and John looked up but did not hear. 
 
 "What say?" said John. Then Henry shouted out, 
 "She said 'A Merry Christmas,' to us, John." 
 
 And for awhile the old men said no more. 
 
 They had been close friends for a year, and now 
 Each thought what he could give the other one. 
 81 
 
GIFTS 
 
 Thought John, "This book is all I have to give. 
 I'd like to keep it, too. It's good to read." 
 And Henry thought, '"I've not a gift for John 
 But this mouth-organ, and I'd miss it so." 
 
 At last John said, "I have a book for you, 
 And, Henry, since you cannot see I'll read 
 Your book to you to-morrow. That is all 
 That X can give you — since I've nothing else." 
 
 And Henry said, "John, all I have to give 
 
 Is this mouth-organ and it's old as sin, 
 
 But when to-morrow comes I'll play it close 
 
 Beside your ear so you can catch the tune. 
 
 I know you'll like it. . . . Let me feel the book." 
 
 And John said, "Henry, play a bit — close up." 
 
 Next day the old men had a merry time 
 Together with their gifts — each having his 
 And that he gave and something else beside 
 Although they could not put it into words. 
 
 82 
 
THE CROW'S NEST 
 
 The crow's nest is not built to please the wren. 
 And Luke's rough house stood high upon a hill 
 Where pines in distance were like bristling hairs 
 Upon a giant's head grown nearly bald. 
 It was not liked by Sarah in her house 
 So small and trim near birches where the lands 
 Sloped to the valley. When she saw the hill 
 Each day she saw Luke's house and frowned at it 
 And said, '"It's like a crow's nest," to herself. . . . 
 These two were married there two years before 
 And parted — and were stubborn as the hills. 
 
 It is a lonely land among the hills — 
 The crows flew over and the circling hawks 
 And stirred the place as unexpected crowds 
 May rouse a country store. . . . Luke lived alone 
 With his great dog, because his folks had lived 
 In that same place before him, tilled the land 
 And took what grew. And Sarah lived alone 
 In her prim house because her folks had lived 
 In it before her. . . . Then one windy night, 
 For all her stubborn pride, the loneliness 
 Was more than she could bear. She would not go 
 To Luke and ask forgiveness, would not leave 
 Her house for his without a good excuse. 
 So desperate was her love, so much in need, 
 She thought, "I'll burn this place. No other's near 
 He cannot turn me out into the hills." 
 
 83 
 
THE CROW'S NEST 
 
 And so she fired the house she loved — and Luke 
 Came down to help her fight the flames. No house 
 But his was near, and so, at last, they went 
 Into the crow's nest. Luke pushed back a door 
 And went ahead of her. He kicked aside 
 A pile of grass and rags that he had placed 
 Along a wall, and Sarah asked, "What's that?" 
 He growled, "A place I meant the dog to sleep." 
 And Sarah laughed, "That grass burns fine. I know!" 
 And Luke, though shame-faced, laughed with her at last, 
 Although she said, "We might have had the sense 
 To keep the better house since one's enough!" 
 
LONGER POEMS 
 
WILD APPLES 
 
 The frost, still heavy on the lowlands, won 
 A radiance soon melted in the sun 
 That gave it, and the river took the lost 
 Quick splendor that had faded with the frost. 
 Then Malcolm looked a moment as in doubt 
 Across the river and the fields about 
 Touched with the glory that would be the death 
 Of their rich season, then with quicker breath 
 He left the road and followed down a lane 
 Leading to uplands bright above the plain. 
 His free stride rustled dead leaves as he went 
 Along the hill-path ... To him came the scent 
 Of wild grapes heavy with their sweetness still 
 Ungathered in the brambles on the hill 
 Except by birds in flocks that now and then 
 Arose near him and settled down again. 
 In one place opened eastward on the slope 
 He looked far back and saw the hazes grope 
 Above the city he had left behind, 
 Like ghosts arising from a troubled mind. 
 And as he watched he thought how he had seen 
 Long columns moving while shells burst between 
 Scarred ridges and the stricken woods, how smoke 
 Thickened and thinned and thickened there to choke 
 Parched throats of men, and all seemed near him still. 
 Frowning, he turned and hastened up the hill, 
 And on its crest looked down with eyes half blind 
 
 87 
 
WILD APPLES 
 
 With tears upon the place he came to find . . . 
 Below him stood the cabin in the trees. 
 The orchard, sweet with its old mysteries 
 Of blooms that faded, fruit that came to pass 
 Ungathered always in the matted grass, 
 Now greeted him with but one definite sound 
 Of ripened apples falling to the ground. 
 
 II 
 
 The moods of war, a feeling of defeat 
 
 In victory has sent him back to meet 
 
 The conquest of a city and its stress 
 
 Of endless mimic wars, and bitterness 
 
 And sense of some great nameless loss had grown 
 
 Until he felt he fought the world alone 
 
 For something that could never quite repay 
 
 The hopes it killed, the youth it took away. 
 
 And Malcolm's wife, a woman made of stuff 
 
 Of strange confusions, did not care enough 
 
 For more than superficial things to give 
 
 An understanding that his love might live. 
 
 Her early gifts on careless comers spent, 
 
 She gave her later gifts of discontent, 
 
 And he grew disillusioned of the one 
 
 Who gave so little and so soon was done . . . 
 
 First, her unbounded youth had lit the fire 
 
 Of his quick love and passionate desire, 
 
 And, seeing then in her no other thing 
 
 To love, he loved that near to worshiping 
 
 As was his nature ... He who sought a mate 
 
 Was still unmated, hurt, insatiate, 
 
 Through years of work to meet a definite end 
 
 For dreams that lingered with him to befriend, 
 
WILD APPLES 
 
 For his desires, hoping vainly still 
 To shape life and a woman to his will 
 Of beauty and true art, and failing that 
 He grew less lover and more diplomat. 
 His wife, resentful that he grew away 
 From her while she was with him day by day, 
 As some tree grows in sun and leaves a vine 
 Still at its trunk and lower boughs to twine, 
 Gave up the arts that made his love commence 
 Its conquest, and by dull indifference 
 Defeated her own ends, and soon or late 
 Found each new turn a new doubt could create. 
 Malcolm at last sought what she could not give 
 And sometimes found it, but he came to live 
 Between a sense of duties and desires, 
 Torn in two strifes and burned between two fires, 
 And, overwrought and weary, came to blame 
 His wife more than for causes he could name. 
 And she insisted he was wrong, she right, 
 Keeping in hateful words a keen delight. 
 
 By day he worked, by night he wrote to find 
 If life's expression eased a troubled mind, 
 And saw his art in competition win 
 The notice virtue gains where there is sin. 
 And still at night his wife could fill a need 
 Of his much-hungered heart, and strangely freed 
 From strange misgivings and the old unrest 
 He kissed her still lips, crushed her to his breast 
 With such a passion as would leave her cold 
 And weary later like a woman old — 
 Then he would sense her mood and turn away 
 Resenting it, with nothing more to say. 
 And so it was when War cried loud for men 
 
 89 
 
WILD APPLES 
 
 He gave his savings of hard years and then 
 Left her in comfort while he went, half glad, 
 To join the conflict of a world gone mad . . . 
 The moods of war, a feeling of defeat 
 In victory had sent him back to meet 
 Vain conquest of the life, again, with her 
 To whom his duty bound him ... In the blur 
 Of maddened colors Life spread out for him 
 A vast that sickened, awed, while still was dim 
 The vision that he followed — and it kept 
 So little that was beautiful. He wept 
 'Alone sometimes while in another room 
 His wife was sleeping soundly ... In the gloom 
 Another's lips seemed near, another's hands 
 Seemed touching him — one loved in other lands 
 And more his mate than one who held him still 
 Against his love, against his better will. 
 Between a sense of duties and desires, 
 Torn in two strifes and burned between two fires, 
 He tossed at night and toiled by day to save 
 Himself and one who took and nothing gave. 
 
 Ill 
 
 One night he dreamed of winds in orchard trees, 
 Of fragrance from ripe fruit, and sound of bees 
 Among the grasses. He remembered then 
 A place he left and had not seen again 
 Since one sweet summer, now so long ago, 
 He tramped the uplands. There awoke a glow 
 And magic in all things he visioned there — 
 Spun bright in contrast to his dull despair. 
 "I'll go to find that place again and rest," 
 He told himself . . . Much longer than he guessed 
 
 90 
 
WILD APPLES 
 
 The habit of his work held like a chain, 
 Misgivings walked like ghosts and hurt his brain 
 And heart in shadowed places where his wife 
 Now hurled the darts of her embittered life. 
 
 Men called him genius and she called him fool 
 
 Because she could not understand the rule 
 
 Of Life in him, his vision of the whole 
 
 Beyond her vision of a little soul 
 
 In things that groped in darkness. But she made 
 
 The most of his success and in it played 
 
 A part of splendor while he paid the cost . . . 
 
 She took it as her right for things she lost! . . . 
 
 Discouraged past endurance he could see 
 No further cause for bearing misery 
 Of life with her and work that seemed in vain 
 For all he most desired to attain, 
 And so he gave her most he wrung from years, 
 No more held back by blame or by her tears, 
 And left her to her own devices . . . Then 
 He started out to heal his heart again 
 In that old orchard place a grandsire won 
 From woodland years ago and left the sun 
 To care for it when richer ventures led 
 Away from it . . . Now Malcolm saw the red 
 And gold of ripened fruit upon the trees, 
 And from the crest went down among the bees 
 In waving grasses. Smaller trees had grown 
 Beside the old trees left so long alone. 
 He pulled an apple from a bending bough 
 And ate of it . . . There was a tartness now 
 And winey richness in this fruit that grew 
 Smaller and brighter than the fruit he knew 
 
 91 
 
WILD APPLES 
 
 When in his boyhood there he ate his fill. 
 
 "These are wild apples now," he said ... A still 
 
 Strange mood came over him as all around 
 
 He heard the apples falling to the ground, 
 
 Visioned the changing seasons there, the range 
 
 Of growth and slow decay in all the change. 
 
 A longing came to find a woman there 
 
 With sun-kissed cheeks and fragrance in her hair 
 
 Like ripe wild apples, with a warmth and glow 
 
 Upon her lips and in her eyes. The slow 
 
 Soft shadows started creeping from the wood 
 
 Beyond the orchard land while Malcolm stood 
 
 In thought ... He hastened to the cabin door 
 
 And opened it and laid aside his store 
 
 Of things his knapsack held. A smell of mold 
 
 Was in the room and, feeling worn and cold, 
 
 He gathered wood to fill the fireplace, 
 
 And settled back with warm glow on his face 
 
 As twigs were lighted. Mice crept out to see 
 
 And, spell-bound, sat in corners silently. 
 
 Late in the night while Malcolm read beside 
 The fireplace a storm came up and cried 
 Among the branches and the leaves were blown 
 About the cabin and chill rains were thrown 
 In gusts along the woodlands . . . Still the sound 
 Of ripened apples falling to the ground 
 Came in hushed moments of the storm. He tried 
 To read for comfort . . . Suddenly outside 
 He heard the sound of running feet come near. 
 Some one had reached the door and he could hear 
 The heavy breathing and the fumbling hand — 
 And, while he was at loss to understand 
 A presence there, he opened wide the door. 
 
 92 
 
WILD APPLES 
 
 Chilled winds rushed in with rain across the floor, 
 
 Blew out his lantern's light and left the place 
 
 In firelight — and so he saw her face. 
 
 Her drenched hair hung jet-black, about her brow 
 
 Like white blooms touched with starlight on a bough. 
 
 Her eyes were dark, her lips were full and red 
 
 As ripe wild apples, and she raised her head 
 
 And looked at Malcolm in the firelight, 
 
 Smiling a little even in her fright. 
 
 She tried to rearrange her clinging dress 
 
 That showed the lithe curves of her loveliness . . . 
 
 "I'm glad to see you," Malcolm said. "I guess 
 
 You're some lost angel of the wilderness." 
 
 "You're kind," she said. Her young voice held the tone 
 
 Of slender trees winds will not leave alone 
 
 On stormy hillsides. "But the truth is less 
 
 Than kindness," she went on. A bitterness 
 
 Was in the words and Malcolm wondered all 
 
 That troubled her, and watched the rise and fall 
 
 Of her full breast still chilled with driven rain. 
 
 She said, "A year in college is not good 
 
 For one whose days are shadowed in the wood, 
 
 But worse for one in empty glare. A plain 
 
 Is past this hill-land, and I've crept away 
 
 From farms sometimes by night, sometimes by day 
 
 And wandering, I cared not where, I found 
 
 This old deserted orchard with its sound 
 
 Of mysteries and bees, and lingered here 
 
 For hours to dream ... To me the place is dear — 
 
 And so to-night I fled to it to save 
 
 Myself from bondage and a life that gave 
 
 Only despair." 
 
 Said Malcolm, "Such a cause 
 93 
 
WILD APPLES 
 
 Has sent me here before you." 
 
 In the pause 
 That followed he reached out his arms. She went 
 Half shyly, and with eyes of wonderment 
 Looked up into his face, then pressed the warm 
 Full sweetness of her lips to his . . . The storm 
 Howled over them ... A beating at the door 
 Hurled them apart. Then she went as before 
 And stood beside the fireplace. She said, 
 "He's followed me." 
 
 And then she bowed her head 
 Upon her arms. 
 
 "Who?" whispered Malcolm then. 
 "A man I hate," she answered . . . Came again 
 The rain of blows upon the door. 
 
 "Who's there?" 
 Cried Malcolm standing with the fading glare 
 Of firelight upon his clenched hands. 
 
 "Me 
 That has a right to be here where I be," 
 A loud voice answered. "Open this here lock 
 (Again the panels trembled with the shock) 
 And leave me in." 
 
 And Malcolm opened wide 
 The door and met the rush of one outside, 
 Closing the door behind him with a crash 
 As he struck out. The other in a dash 
 Of fury came at him, and Malcolm sent 
 Him reeling with a lucky blow that went 
 Straight to the jaw. The heavy form then sprawled 
 In mud and dead leaves and with effort crawled 
 On hands and knees a moment as he tried 
 To rise again. 
 
 "Damn you," the hoarse voice cried, 
 94 
 
WILD APPLES 
 
 "I'll kill you now." 
 
 Said Malcolm standing near 
 With fists in readiness and vision clear, 
 "Get up and start. I'm waiting." 
 
 And the man 
 Lunged up at him. They grappled and a span 
 Of grass and mud was milled by heavy feet. 
 Panting, they struggled grimly in the beat 
 Of chilling storm, and sweat ran with the rain 
 Upon their faces twisted with the strain 
 Of their tense bodies . . . Malcolm found a hold 
 To his advantage as at last they rolled 
 Upon the sod, with tangled legs. He drew 
 The other's head back in a hold he knew 
 In college days and heard the heavy rasp 
 Of breath . . . The form grew limp then in his grasp 
 And Malcolm saw the man had fainted, rose 
 And, breathing hard, scraped mud from off his clothes. 
 "Is that enough?" he asked his unknown foe 
 Who stirred about at last. 
 
 "No, damn you, no!" 
 The other panted. "I'll go home and get 
 A gun fer you." 
 
 Said Malcolm, "Not just yet." 
 And madder than before he rained his blows 
 Upon that stubborn head, that fatted nose 
 And swinish cheek that rubbed against his own 
 While they had grappled. Heavy as a stone 
 The head fell back upon the sod once more 
 And Malcolm dragged the man, pushed back the door 
 And took him in and bound him with a strap 
 From off his knapsack. 
 
 "Now then, take a nap," 
 He growled, and turned to see the girl's wide eyes 
 
 95 
 
WILD APPLES 
 
 Full of the firelight and strangely wise, 
 
 Upon him as she huddled by the fire. 
 
 He turned to her with quickened wild desire 
 
 To crush her lips and breast to him, and hold 
 
 Her captive in the night now grown so old. 
 
 She did not shrink from him as he went near 
 
 But raised her arms to him and he could hear 
 
 Her quick intake of breath, half sigh, half moan, 
 
 As his hot lips were pressed upon her own. 
 
 Forgetful of all else they clung there so. . . . 
 
 The dark form on the floor threshed to and fro 
 
 For freedom, and at last the fire died 
 
 So low that only shadows side by side 
 
 Clung past his reach, beyond his woe that kept 
 
 Its vigil, straining, till, worn out, he wept. 
 
 IV 
 
 The storm had passed. The dawn came through the trees 
 
 With rainbow-colors, and the sound of bees 
 
 Was near the cabin. Sunlight crossed the floor 
 
 From one wet window. Malcolm stiff and sore 
 
 From fighting stretched his aching arms and woke. 
 
 The girl beside him smiled. The bound man broke 
 
 The silence then. 
 
 "Unstrap me and I'll go," 
 He panted out. "I didn't have no show 
 With her I guess. She's wild as hell." 
 
 "All right," 
 Said Malcolm. "Hope you had a pleasant night. 
 But don't come back . . . Who are you, anyway?" 
 "What's that to you?" the other said. 
 
 "I'll say 
 I,t isn't much," said Malcolm as he took 
 
 96 
 
WILD APPLES 
 
 The strap from off the other with a look 
 
 Of loathing. Then the other's stiff legs stirred 
 
 Out of the door ... He left without a word. 
 
 The girl came up to Malcolm. 
 
 "I'll go, too," 
 She said, "I am not good enough for you. 
 I want for something different than I know 
 But might not keep it if I had a show. 
 I thought it out last night. I'd only be 
 More trouble for you . . . He has only me. 
 I pity him sometimes ... I'd better go 
 Before I change my mind. I love you so — 
 But you would like me just a little while 
 Like these wild apples here." A weary smile 
 Came on her face and, running from the door, 
 She followed him who limped away before. 
 And Malcolm, watching, heard no more the sound 
 Of ripened apples falling to the ground. 
 All fallen in the storm they ended there 
 The season's offering . . . An old despair 
 Came over Malcolm, and he gathered things 
 Into his knapsack . . . 
 
 "Something always brings 
 An end to something else," he mumbled. Then 
 He slammed the door and started out again 
 Across the slopes. He saw once more the haze 
 Above the city and he thought of days 
 So long to haunt him, and to offer still 
 The visions sometimes fashioned to his will. 
 
 "Life is not well defined," he thought. "It goes 
 In crazy circles . . . Beauty like the rose 
 Flashes from it. Wild apples grow and fall 
 
 97 
 
WILD APPLES 
 
 In each new Eden ... I would taste them all — 
 Forbidden fruit. For I have heard the sound 
 Of ripened apples falling to the ground. . . ." 
 
 Between a sense of duties and desires, 
 
 Torn in two strifes and burned between two fires, 
 
 He hastened back to Life that could not give 
 
 Sure answers to his will to love and live, 
 
 Keeping a sense of some futility 
 
 In all but visions that his eyes might see. 
 
 98 
 
A NIGHT AT TABOGA 
 
 (To Mary) 
 
 Carlos was old as Taboga Town 
 
 His curio shop was wearing down 
 
 In winds and rains that for ages beat 
 
 On gray stone walls that touched the street, 
 
 On weathered red of the ancient tile 
 
 That palm leaves touched, perhaps, for awhile 
 
 Before the palm tree grew too tall 
 
 Trying to reach the stars that fall . . . 
 
 And the stars fall near in the sleepy town 
 
 When restless Trades their songs begin 
 
 And there's only the sound of the seas come in, 
 
 And whispers of one brook going down 
 
 To meet the seas, and the monotone 
 
 Of palm trees up in the night alone . . . 
 
 Carlos said trade could never pay 
 In Taboga Town, and he slept all day 
 And talked all night when the moon was bright 
 If only a stranger cared to stay 
 Listening there in the candlelight . . . 
 Elephants carved from ivory, 
 And things of jade, and artistry 
 In ebony were in the case, 
 And a smell like myrrh was in the place. 
 And a serpent skin and a leopard skin 
 Hung on the wall in a gorgeous span, 
 99 
 
A NIGHT AT TABOGA 
 
 Back of Carlos, alert and thin, 
 
 By shawls all blossomy with Japan 
 
 And scarfs where golden dragons ran. 
 
 And a pirate cutlass hung beside 
 
 An Indian shawl meant for a bride. 
 
 An image of Buddha, shadowy green, 
 
 Stood in the candlelight between 
 
 The window opened toward the bay 
 
 And the head of Carlos, shadowy-gray . . . 
 
 The folk in Taboga had said to me, 
 "Carlos is mad as mad can be. 
 With heathen idol he talks at night 
 Of pirate ships and jungle-blight, 
 And living here a useless life, 
 He scorns the priest and has no wife. 
 Even a stranger here can see 
 Carlos is mad as mad can be." 
 
 Carlos brought wine in a flagon old 
 And from its mouth ran a stream of gold 
 Into the goblets . . . What Carlos said 
 (Or was it the wine?) went to my head. 
 And was it his voice there, after all, 
 Or words from the palm tree lonely and tall, 
 Or only the sound of the seas come in, 
 There in the season when Trades begin, 
 Or whispers from one brook going down 
 To meet the seas by the sleepy town? 
 
 Carlos sighed, then he said to me, 
 "You may not think such things can be . . . 
 I am not the man that here you know, 
 And one you see not lives with me . . . 
 100 
 
A NIGHT AT TABOGA 
 
 A life I lived so long ago 
 
 Is clearer than dawn that comes to glow 
 
 Upon the sea . . . 
 
 There is a fragrance in this room? 
 
 It is her garments stirred in gloom, 
 
 It is her hands that reach to me. 
 
 "Once I was king on a pirate ship 
 In the Caribbees, on the other side 
 Of that thread of land a Hand let slip 
 From looms of Chaos flashing wide. 
 We took the gold, from many a hold 
 Of galleons bound for Spain, 
 And silver bars and gems like stars 
 For which some men were slain. 
 One twilight, oh, so long ago, 
 We won a galleon lumbering slow 
 In the shadow-seas, and there I found 
 The life whose circle keeps me bound . 
 I saw her eyes — the stars came then 
 As they shall never come again. 
 I saw her hair — the twilight bore 
 Beauty that I shall see no more. 
 I saw her breast — the world became 
 Before my eyes an altar's flame. 
 I saw her hands — my heart remains 
 As when I had torn off her chains . . . 
 She was an Indian princess, won 
 By crime, from gardens of the Sun. 
 Beyond her walls the beasts grew still 
 To hear her voice that seemed to fill 
 The airs with music. That I know . . . 
 Tigers crouching long and low 
 101 
 
A NIGHT AT TABOGA 
 
 In the grasses could not stir 
 Out for prey when near to her. 
 
 "And I took her, let my men 
 Take their treasures, and again 
 Over waters starry-blue 
 We sailed into our rendezvous, 
 Miles of shouting winds away, 
 Now called Porto Bello Bay. 
 Not a word that I could know 
 Did my Indian princess say — 
 But Love sees and understands . . . 
 There was thanks in touch of hands, 
 There was faith in eyes that grew 
 Brave and let her love shine through 
 At last — so very long ago, 
 Yet it seems as just to-day. 
 She was free, yet bound to me 
 Then by love, but far away 
 Olden glories, palace rooms, 
 Gave her longing in the glooms. 
 And she clung when I would go 
 Seaward for a golden foe, 
 Clung and wept and pointed west, 
 With an idol from her breast 
 Lifted for my eyes to see. 
 Then my pirates turned on me, 
 Took the ship, and sailed away, 
 Left us to the jungle-night, 
 And the flaming jungle-day, 
 Left us there with suns and moons — 
 And my belt of bright doubloons! 
 There I had new foes to fight: 
 102 
 
A NIGHT AT TABOGA 
 
 Crawling vines and twisted things, 
 Much that grapples, much that clings, 
 Much that chokes and claws and stings. 
 
 "Onward to the shores, but guessed 
 Through the jungle, to the west 
 We made progress as a fly- 
 In a spider's web, and why 
 The web was broken who can say? 
 We struggled on and found the way . . . 
 For the stings the jungle gave 
 It gave food and drink to save. 
 Weary, and with garments torn 
 Into rags, we smiled at morn. 
 With our flesh pierced there with spears 
 Jungle-grown, we scorned our fears. 
 Fever-dew that hung in damps 
 Was made bright by firefly lamps. 
 Serpents thick as jungle trees 
 Looked, and only one of these 
 Barred our way. My cutlass fell 
 On the coils of black and green 
 That, when severed, writhed so well 
 Yards of jungle were worn clean. 
 Crimson flower, crystal moon 
 In the passionate jungle's June, 
 And the heavy, throbbing rain — 
 There was j oy and there was pain. 
 Over fifty miles we passed, 
 Some by pathways, pirate-made, 
 Till, upon a hill, at last 
 We saw the ocean's blue and jade, 
 And Panama, an ancient town, 
 Dreaming where the hill sloped down 
 103 
 
A NIGHT AT TABOGA 
 
 To a bay where sails were bright. 
 Under roof we slept that night, 
 For my belt filled with doubloons, 
 Bright as early jungle moons, 
 Bought our way — and no one cared 
 From what land to land we fared . . 
 And next day my bright doubloons 
 Bought my princess silks the moons 
 Spun for her, and sandals bright 
 With some dreamer's lost delight. 
 And I bought her rings of jade, 
 Necklaces of sapphires made. 
 Then, to match her regal air, 
 Bought myself things men call fair. 
 Oh, that day of squandering 
 When I, truly, was a king! 
 
 "But no kingdom there was ours — 
 That old town with flaming flowers 
 And its palms against the skies, 
 And its little pomp and pride 
 Fearing jungle-blight outside 
 Was not ours . . . My restless eyes 
 Saw an island past the bay, 
 But a few bright miles away. 
 Now it's called Taboga . . . Here 
 Grew that kingdom for my dear. 
 Here there grew in jungle-space 
 Walls of beauty and of grace 
 And a garden went around. 
 One brook made a lovely sound 
 Over stones as smooth as glass. 
 Long I toiled. Inspired hands 
 Made my dream — How quickly pass 
 104 
 
A NIGHT AT TABOGA 
 
 Days the dreamer understands! 
 And, as if the beauty known 
 Was too much for two, there came, 
 In a night of starry flame 
 Aching with my darling's moan, 
 One — of our firm flesh and bone, 
 One — of our great love and dream — 
 Grew and laughed and in the stream 
 After golden fishes ran. 
 Widened circles then began ... 
 
 "Three years, four, (or was it more?) 
 Passed, and in a breathless night 
 Came a heaving of the might 
 In great shoulders underground, 
 And our island writhed, the sea 
 Heaved and tossed in agony. 
 From our falling walls we sped, 
 Fell upon the shaking land, 
 Three of us, all hand in hand . . . 
 Trees crashed down, and overhead 
 Swords of lightning slashed the sky. 
 So we waited there to die . . . 
 From the turmoil rose the sea 
 Like a wall, and up the beach 
 Came with madness, hungrily 
 Took all things within its reach — 
 But before our bodies passed, 
 Clinging close until the last, 
 I saw a great white ship at sea 
 Sail in as if no storm could be, 
 And Indian music drifted far 
 Above its mastlight like a star . . . 
 I saw three white forms, hers and mine 
 105 
 
A NIGHT AT TABOGA 
 
 And our small son's, walk on the brine — 
 Out to that ship ! 
 
 Our mortal hands 
 Still clung together, in death, on the sands . . .' 
 
 The voice of Carlos did I hear? 
 
 The candlelight grew strangely clear . . . 
 
 It hurt my eyes and I stumbled down 
 
 From the haunted room to the haunted town. 
 
 And as I walked the street by the sea, 
 
 What soft footsteps passed so near? 
 
 What thrilled whispers came to me? 
 
 106 
 
THE WALL OF THE STARS 
 I 
 
 The walls that once protected me 
 Turned prison walls when I would see 
 Beyond them, and when I had seen 
 Something was not as it had seemed . . . 
 My years were marked with walls between 
 The things I knew and things I dreamed. 
 And I shall never quite forget 
 The first wall where my feet were set 
 That I might look on something new. 
 It was a garden wall where grew 
 The vines that climbed to give their bloom 
 A vantage ground to spread perfume. 
 And then at last I found a way 
 To climb the wall. I watched the play 
 Of sunlight over it, and thought 
 How long my childish dreams had spent 
 My efforts there, that came to naught, 
 To see forbidden wonderment. 
 And I was sure that on the side 
 I had not seen, the lawns were wide 
 And peacocks strutted in the sun 
 And fairies danced when day was done. 
 And then, at last, I climbed and there, 
 Beyond the wall, was nothing fair 
 As I had dreamed. There was no sound 
 Except the murmurings of bees. 
 107 
 
THE WALL OF THE STARS 
 
 An old man walking through the trees, 
 With bowed head, did not look around. 
 With vague distrust and hurt surprise 
 I left the wall to play a game 
 That lost its gladness, and my eyes 
 Could never see the wall the same 
 As it had been when wonder-wide 
 They looked — and lost the other side! 
 
 II 
 
 The wall of green slopes, in a spring 
 When first I learned how birds could sing, 
 Next barred me from something I sought. 
 And I grew troubled then with thought — 
 Saw violets creep through the wall, 
 Saw earth-things great and earth-things small 
 Creep through where fingers of the rain 
 Had stirred the dust to life again. 
 I felt the green slopes were a wall 
 Behind which worked in wonderment 
 The forces that I could not call 
 By any name, and discontent 
 With what I knew of things so fair 
 Came to me, as in watching there, 
 I saw stones moved aside by things 
 So frail it seemed they could not hold 
 More force than any moth's white wings. 
 And so the tale of spring was told 
 Upon the slopes, and summer came 
 With fuller passion, brighter flame, 
 And all things found completion, fed 
 Behind the wall, whereon my head 
 Had rested, while I heard in trees 
 108 
 
THE WALL OF THE STARS 
 
 The talk of winds and under these 
 Whispers that came incessantly, 
 As if the wall would speak to me 
 And I could never understand. 
 Then autumn came upon the land 
 And scattered on the wall the bloom 
 And leaf, and in the restless gloom 
 All lovely things crept back again 
 Into the wall ... In chilling rain 
 I walked the slopes grown gray and bare 
 And olden sadness in the air 
 Crept into me. I could not name 
 The sadness, yet a sadness came. 
 The dust of things that made me be 
 Marked seasons of the earth in me ! 
 And still I could not join the things 
 That crept into the wall, till death 
 Should still the eagerness of breath 
 And take the olden sense of wings 
 And weights from me, then not again 
 Could I creep out to sun or rain . . . 
 The earth-wall had, for me, one side — 
 One while I lived, one when I died ! 
 
 in 
 
 The gray walls housing learning rose 
 Before me, and the doors were wide — 
 And strange fear came that they might close 
 And keep me in a world outside 
 While others entered there to find 
 What golden ages left behind . . . 
 And when I entered there it seemed 
 I went to hear from men who dreamed 
 109 
 
THE WALL OF THE STARS 
 
 And sent their dreams in words of fire 
 
 To hearts' awakening desire. 
 
 I saw worn eyes that looked on youth — 
 
 Puzzled with life, men talked of truth! 
 
 I knew some souls in travail there 
 
 Preached brave desire from despair, 
 
 And all who taught, by any rule, 
 
 Had yet their own desires to school. 
 
 And some who listened caught the flame 
 
 Of urges that they could not name, 
 
 And some who did not hear a word 
 
 To half-unguessed vibrations stirred. 
 
 Men told me what had been, not why, 
 
 They gave me laws of earth and sky 
 
 And atoms free in endless strife — 
 
 All that begins and ends in life 
 
 That moved like thunder through my dreams. 
 
 And then life called to me, it seems, 
 
 Above all sounds, and growing less 
 
 Wise voices thinned to nothingness, 
 
 And turning from vain lore and prided 
 
 I left those walls — for walls outside! 
 
 IV 
 
 The dust-stained walls the city kept 
 Behind me did not open soon. 
 I came to disregard the moon. 
 Mad nights the olden dreams had slept. 
 I found a world that seemed to care 
 Only for things that one may wear 
 Or store in places walled with stone. 
 And so I lived a life alone 
 With life, and many dreams I sold 
 110 
 
THE WALL OF THE STARS 
 
 For gold — and men were mad for gold! 
 
 Men hated men, not that one knew 
 
 More ways to gladness or could do 
 
 Some miracle no bank could hold, 
 
 But that there was a store of gold; 
 
 And women hated, with a smile, 
 
 For what gold bought; and afterwhile 
 
 I fought with others for the thing 
 
 I saw the city worshiping. 
 
 That was a first impression . . . Then 
 
 I saw the hungry dreams of men 
 
 And women squandering their gold 
 
 To keep their hearts from growing old. 
 
 And, afterwhile, I saw it all — 
 
 The hearts that faced some lofty wall, 
 
 The rich, the poor, forever one 
 
 Facing the walls till life was done. 
 
 And, as I left the city's walls' 
 
 For land where fresher sunlight falls, 
 
 I found a tiller of the soil, 
 
 With sweets of earth to breath at toil, 
 
 Cursing his fate and all his gods 
 
 That hid his wealth among the clods . . . 
 
 Over his wall his dreams had told 
 
 Of vaster harvests turned to gold! 
 
 Somehow, I felt that there would be 
 More glory in the victory! 
 The walls of mangled earth are there 
 Before me! In the poisoned air 
 The shells scream as they carry death. 
 The fitful wind brings up a breath 
 111 
 
THE WALL OF THE STARS 
 
 Of rotting pools where blood has dried. 
 
 The shattered trees long since have died, 
 
 And homes are splinters for the wind. 
 
 For miles ahead and miles behind 
 
 Are wastes of mud, and hills torn deep 
 
 With steel, and wounded woods that heap 
 
 Their losses up in twisted piles. 
 
 Death plods ahead for tortured miles — 
 
 And through it all I lived to face 
 
 The mangled earth another place, 
 
 Then climbed that wall, and with the rest 
 
 Advanced, and when the fight was won 
 
 The misted rays of setting sun, 
 
 Along the red rim of the west, 
 
 Showed still another wall ahead 
 
 Grotesque with sprawled shapes of the dead 
 
 Somehow, I felt that I would see 
 
 More glory in the v victory! 
 
 VI 
 
 And then — when I had looked across 
 A wall of mountains to the sea 
 I lost myself, and felt no loss 
 A moment with immensity . . . 
 And then my vision cleared to see 
 Vast waters, past all harbor bars, 
 Break on the last wall of the stars! 
 
 112 
 
THE THREE DAYS 
 
 No matter if the sun is bright 
 Or if the rain that came at night 
 Still falls at morning, I arise 
 From sleep and hardly see the skies 
 Through windows, for I wake intent 
 On things that I must do and things 
 That I have done or hope to do . . . 
 I feel, sometimes, the lift of wings, 
 Sometimes the drag of chains, as you 
 Have felt, perhaps, and to the day 
 I go, in much the same old way 
 As I have gone before, to meet 
 Adventure — victory or defeat. 
 And for each day that comes to me, 
 With sun or rain, I live in three — 
 In yesterday I live to gain 
 Wisdom to shun what caused me pain, 
 To seek what caused me joy, and then 
 See if it may give joy again. 
 And in to-day I live to do 
 Things that I must and just a few 
 Things that I love, perhaps as you! 
 And in to-morrow, I, live 
 For all that dreams and life may give — 
 Or take away — Or take away? 
 Then.is to-morrow as to-day? 
 And are the days in circle cast? . . . 
 Perhaps that's so, perhaps that's why 
 113 
 
THE THREE DAYS 
 
 When time is slow and dreams delay 
 Beside the spring till it runs dry, 
 Some hearts creep back to yesterday 
 To live the only joy they found 
 In the pattern hard and round . . . 
 Perhaps that's why some hearts that came 
 From nowhere yesterday must claim 
 To-day alone, with the exclusion 
 Of to-morrow, a delusion . . . 
 
 In the circle, round by round, 
 Laughter echoes, and the sound 
 Of all sorrows near and far; 
 Comes the roar and wail of war, 
 Comes the voice of love, and strife, 
 Wail of infants finding life, 
 Come the sound of bits of gold, 
 Cries for all things bought and sold, 
 Comes the singing voice of dream, 
 Noise of wheels and hiss of steam, 
 Comes the last quick gasp of breath 
 At the old surprise of death, 
 Comes the whisper of the leaves 
 Growing, falling, while there weaves, 
 Through the pattern green and gray, 
 Wind that speaks and sighs away . . . 
 Where the circling ages pass, 
 Where the new age dreams to be, 
 Come the whispers of the grass, 
 Come the voices of the sea . . . 
 In some yesterday I came 
 From the flesh that felt the flame 
 Of my waking, ached with pain 
 For the world I was to gain, 
 114 
 
THE THREE DAYS 
 
 Loved me, feeling then in me 
 
 A blood-bond's immortality . . . 
 
 The flesh is made by God as much 
 
 As any white wood of a tree! 
 
 I love that flesh that had the touch 
 
 Of sun ... I love my body, much 
 
 The same as other mortal forms — 
 
 In it the moonlight gropes and fills 
 
 Strange places, and the sudden storms 
 
 Come in from oceans and from hills, 
 
 Come voices that I seem to know 
 
 And had forgotten long ago, 
 
 Come voices that I f had not known 
 
 Yet feel somehow they are my own, 
 
 Come lives in which I had no part 
 
 Until they echoed in my heart, 
 
 Comes love, and yearning, and the sense 
 
 Of things about, and imminence 
 
 Of things I may not touch or see . . . 
 
 In each day now I live in three ! 
 
 I know the language of my kind — 
 Words from the heart, words from the mind. 
 These words give everything to me — 
 From violets to immensity ... 
 
 I know the language of a stream 
 And the voices of a tree, 
 Of the half-articulate sea 
 Mumbling always at its dream. 
 They are overheard by me, 
 Talking things of mystery 
 And of beauty and delight. 
 Often in the crooning night, 
 115 
 
THE THREE DAYS 
 
 Sitting lonely near the sky 
 I have spoken. No reply 
 Came for me . . . Forever pass 
 Voices, and the whispering grass 
 Speaks of things indifferently — 
 Temples fallen, dust to be, 
 Bodies stilled for all their trust, 
 King and wise man in the dust, 
 Harlot, virgin in the ground, 
 Thief and dreamer wrapped from sound 
 Through their dust the roots of things 
 Grope and feed something that sings — 
 Leaf or grass — and naught is said 
 If the flesh be comforted. 
 
 Dust, indifferent and cold 
 
 To the touch of mortal hands, 
 
 But delusion understands 
 
 Any rapture you may hold 
 
 For the body that must pass. 
 
 You are kind to bloom and grass, 
 
 You are mother to the tree — 
 
 You will be a grave for me! 
 
 Only coward, fool or knave 
 
 Touched with virtue calls the grave 
 
 By such names as I would speak 
 
 To my love when on her cheek 
 
 Warm blood gives the flesh a bloom 
 
 For my kisses ... In the tomb 
 
 Who would bless the earth's perfume? 
 
 While I live I'll love the thing 
 Called the flesh, and flowering 
 Of the flesh that may be soul 
 116 
 
THE THREE DAYS 
 
 Or be dream that will not pass 
 Where the empty seasons roll — 
 While men move above the grass . . . 
 From the flesh may come to be 
 Beauty's immortality 
 In a new life or a song 
 That a season sends along 
 With the new leaves for a tree. 
 
 Dust, indifferent and cold, 
 Take me — spent of dreams and old — 
 As you will, but I shall be 
 Indifferent and cold as you, 
 Chilled in silence through and through 
 I shall not be in love with you! 
 While the roots of grass and tree 
 Shall grope down and take from me 
 Something for the things that sing, 
 Something for things whispering, 
 In the winds above the ground — 
 In the circle, round by round! 
 
 117 
 

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