The Death of the Scharnhorst, and Other Poems

If you’ve a dream at heart, lad,
Some wilfull, noble plan,
Then cherish it within, lad,
And tell it to no man.

To friend and foe alike be dumb
On what you plan to do,
And keep that secret chamber locked
Until the work is through.

For I had dreams at heart, boy,
But talked them all away,
And now I needs must start, boy,
To dream anew today.

THE BUGLES CALLED

We lay together, he and I,
Upon a little hill,
Beneath a tree that sheltered us,
As trees so often will.

I touched his hand and felt him stir,
Expectancy of love!
And then my lips poured out my heart,
The things I told him of.

But when his heart began to speak
The bugles called to war
And he arose and left me there.
I never saw him more.

MORNING GUARD

Where the old road meets the new road
I stand the guard at morn,
Where one comes winding down the hill,
The other, through it torn.

October’s friendly fingers dipped
In every mellow shade
Have touched the leaves on all the trees
That stand within the glade.

In distant treetops I behold,
As I have seen in clouds,
The faces of my heroes
Or dead men in their shrouds.

The marching columns pass me by,
All sailor lads in blue.
And some will wink, and some will smile,
The way young fellows do.

And overhead the deepening sky
More bright and bluer flows,
While one lone fleecy, sheeplike cloud
Before the dog-wind goes.

The restless leaves like pounding surf
Sound breakers through the trees.
I strip of all reality
And drown myself in these.

WHEN KILMER WROTE OF TREES

When Kilmer wrote of trees he must have seen
The flowering catalpas all a-bloom,
And though about him guns spoke quick of death
And distant cannon thundered oaths of doom
He did not harken. What were all of these
To where beyond the trenches stood the trees?

WILD GEESE

Geese in the night flying low,
I hear the beat of their wings.
I wish that I could know
If they are calling to me.

Rain and a wintry wind
And trees that have shed their leaf.
If man at first had not sinned
Then Christ had not been born.

I WRITE TO YOU IN RED

I write to you in red, though not in blood,
For scarlet all my memories are dyed
With deep imaginings of what the past,
The past, the past—the unforgotten gone.
Ah, what it might have been designed upon!

I write to you in red because the flood
Of scarlet passion prisoned, long denied
Your love, yet in your bondage bonded fast,
Is freed to flow again, to stream,
And if it can, another love esteem.

But all too long your chains upon my heart
Have left a scar which testifies me dead
To all frivolity. I have no part
With lightsome love.
I write to you in red!

’TIS WINTER NOW

When spring again revisits earth,
And in the dark there comes a stirreth
Of seedlings bursting with the birth
Of summer’s future flowers,
Then will I sing you songs of love
And apple blossoms branched above
Shall know the dear devotion of
My poor poetic powers.

But wait till then—’tis winter now.
My thoughts in solitude are claimed.
Yet every wind shall hear my vow
Repeated through the hours,
It’s you alone I love,
And unashamed.

SONNET

Like solitary mountain peaks that list
And seem to sink in seas of restless grain
My love for you goes drowning through a mist
Of unrequited, unrecorded pain.

Oh, while there’s breath of life and passion still,
While yet remains a warmth, a failing flame
Within the fallen fortress of my will,
Give me a moment of your love to claim.

Come let me hold you close in hushed embrace
And crush you with the force of fierce desire,
Yet by that love no future plan to trace,
But just to love that moment to conspire.

I will not chain you, though enchained by thee;
The memory of your love will prison me.

THE TROPIC DAWN

The tropic dawn is beautiful at sea,
The clouds respond so readily to light.
Though overhead the stars continue bright
And scattered like a broken string of beads,
The eastward doors of night are opened wide
And light floods all the ocean floor inside.

The sun gets up, a painter out of bed,
To work again his canvas of the world,
To change black water into blue instead,
To tint what little frantic foam gets hurled
From two waves’ temperaments with ruby fire,
And make the sea a thing for man’s desire.

The day comes gently, working through the clouds,
Which light and burn with brilliance many-hued.
A sailor somewhere singing in the shrouds
With naked chest and feet and arms tatooed,
His sailor hat at angle on his head,
Salutes the day with thoughts of home and bed.

Oh, take me back, away from dawn and sea,
Oh, take me where the heart of me would be,
And in some blessed meadow set me free!

TWILIGHT

A little while ago that sky was gold,
And green that hill,
And blue the white-capped sea,
And I stood watching through these vines a ship
That moved, hull down, beyond,
Beneath the point.

I wonder now, before the stars are out
And long black clouds have filled the sunset sky,
Will I remember this at midnight hour:
How much I longed to be aboard that ship!

ECHO

Oh, weary heart, dependent for a song
On whether someone smiles or not at thee.
Oh, weary life, the loveless years are long
Yet deathless are the thoughts of him to me.

Within an ancient castle on the coast,
Where all the sea-dead sailor lads make moan,
I hear a melancholy cello sing
Its mad and mournful music to the moon,
A dirge of febrile beauty and despair
That fills the night with phantom, frantic song.

And phrase to phrase with sexual life responds
While fierce satyriasis, orchestrally,
Like nine symphonic horns unharmonized
Calls wildly through the hollows of my heart.

STAR COURSE

Into the darkening east we ride,
Wave upon wave we thrust aside,
White and defiant they seethe around.
What do we care! We’re homeward bound!

The sea beneath and the sky above,
These are the things a man can love,
Not when he leaves his native shore,
But when, far out of the sight of land,
He takes the wheel with a steady hand
To guide him home once more.

Then homeward, homeward be my course,
And constant be my star,
For I have wandered east and west
And I have wandered far,
Yet home and joy can only be
Where love and friendship are.

I’ve searched among the isles of men
The love I left behind,
Explored for friendships in the waste
Of broken, humankind,
And sought for beauty, sought for wit,
With naught of all to find.

In dens of laughter when I laughed
There came a hollow sound,
Yet every night I went again
To join the merry round,
And every night I knew that there
My heart would not be found.

Then homeward, homeward be my course,
And constant be my star,
And may I not have changed too much
Because I’ve wandered far.
Their love and laughter now I need
Who home and friendship are.

MEMORANDUM

Quick are the sands that bury a man
When he lays him down to die,
And quick are the hands if there be no sands
Of such fellows as you and I.

THE LITANY OF PEARL HARBOR

Harbor of morning,
Day has begun.
Hills of Oahu
Are waiting the sun.

Harbor of reveille,
Hammocks away.
Sailors are stirring
On ships in the bay.

Harbor of happiness,
Green and complete.
Day from the summit
Has smiled on the fleet.

Harbor deceived,
Death in the sky
Plummets to earth
Before colors shall fly.

Harbor surprised,
Torpedo and shell
Tear through the living,
Harbor of Hell!

Harbor of terror,
Harbor of death,
Harbor where fellows
Are choking for breath.

Harbor of drownings,
Thunderous sound.
Flooded compartments
Harbor the drowned.

Harbor of fire,
Harbor of flame,
Steel and humanity
Crumble the same.

Harbor determined,
Stations are manned.
Against the aggresor
The Harbor will stand.

Harbor of courage,
Gunners and guns
Speak of the worth
Of America’s sons.

Harbor of shipmates,
Sanctified flood,
Dying together,
Harbor of blood!

Harbor of wounds,
Beneath the attack,
Fighting the enemy,
Driving him back.

Harbor of smoke,
Blinding the sun.
Harbor contested,
Yet to be won.

Harbor of roaring,
Harbor ablaze,
Harbor of horror,
Harbor of praise.

Harbor resurgent,
Out of the gloom,
Self-resurrected
Out of the tomb.

Glorious Harbor,
Harbor of woe,
Harbor of vengeance
Blasting the foe.

Harbor of hours,
Endless, intense,
Harbor victorious,
Epic defense.

Dedicate Harbor,
Shipmates are there
Sleeping forever.
Harbor of prayer.

WE WERE WAITING THAT MORNING FOR COLORS

We were waiting that morning for colors,
And the bands were ready to play,
And a motor launch crossing the harbor
Was making its peaceful way,
But to war and the roar of its thunder
Old Glory went up that day.

The firmament split, and our gunners,
The bravest and handsomest crew,
Mid fiery bomb and shrapnel,
Oh, how to their stations they flew!

They fought like a legion of angels
Against the corruption of Hell,
In the blaze of a sacred vengeance
For shipmate lads who fell.

They fought off the vicious invader,
They cut him out of the air,
And he dropped through the smoke of the combat
To death and destruction there.

And our flag through the hours of battle
Flew on till the fighting was won.
Oh, beautiful, dedicate banner,
Our victory has only begun.

With such gunners as ours to defend you,
So bright and beloved in the sky,
While devotion and manhood attend you,
Brave standard, continue on high.
We were waiting that morning for colors.
Old Glory forever shall fly!

THE MOTOR LAUNCH CREW

Crossing the harbor, four lads in a motor launch
Saw the invader host drop from the sky,
Saw a torpedo’s white wake through the water
Make for the stern of a vessel nearby.

“Jump!” cried the coxswain, “Here is my duty,
Here is the logic for which I was born,
One life asunder to stop the torpedo
Ere from their bodies a hundred are torn!”

“Nay,” cried the bowman. “We’re in this together.
Glory to God and such men as ye are!”
Seizing a boat hook he jumped to the gunwhale,
As mad as old Ahab, as fixed as a star.

Oh, the wild race in the harbor that morning!
Prayed to his Diesel the kid engineer,
“Fail me not now, O my beautiful engine!”
Swiftly the launch and torpedo drew near.

Wake upon wake, the two masses converging,
Never a word by the sternman was said.
Oh, there was death in the harbor that morning!
Under the keel the torpedo shaft fled.

Then with the force of a mighty harpooner,
Melville’s dread hero, such bowman was he,
Then from his arm the long boat hook went plunging
Faster than death and destruction could flee.

Into the blades of the whirling propeller,
Following after, the iron hook sank,
Changing the mark where the war head exploded,
Tumbling the rocks and a tree from the bank.

Then all around them the harbor was seething,
Concussion and fire and shouting and fear,
And they, too, are dead. Dead that motor launch coxswain,
That bowman, and sternman and kid engineer!

TO THE GARRISON AT WAKE

A little while, O sacramental dead,
Unvisited a little while yet be.
You shall not lie forgotten nor alone
While ships there are, and planes, and guns, and men.
For now, more adamant, more fierce, more keen,
In permanence and purpose fixed as stars,
To finite manhood hereby we annex
The infinite almightiness of God,
And we shall be His judgment! Woe to that
Ambitious offal sprung from Hell’s abyss
Which catastrophically we shall destroy,
Annihilate, forever make extinct.

No evil feet, where from your chaliced hearts
The precious blood has spilled, shall tread that earth,
That holy, transubstantiated isle
Whose very soil is body, soul, and blood
Of restless lads who loved America!
On who so tread shall light and darkness pounce,
Vast winged horrors plummeting, destroy,
Consuming brilliance, glut-engulfing night,
Like twin devourers, feed there on them!

Ye ancient dead, who fell with Greece or Rome,
Or in the name of Allah and his prophet,
Who fell through all the cycled years of war,
Through plague, disaster, fell in civil strife,
Through revolution, famine, flood and fire,
Apocalyptic woe or freezing night,
Ye ancient dead, to whom heroic stance
And unsurrendered dignity still cling,
Receive who come among you now like gods,
Four hundred splendid, handsome, golden lads.
To them extend that comradship of men
Who live the rugged military life,
Who smile that full, good-natured kind of smile,
Most boyishly unstudied, most beloved,
Who know each other’s thoughts and wants and hopes,
Who know what prayers are said and what forgot,
Who know that greatest, crucifying love
Where friends for friends on strange new crosses die!

And you, O Seraph Outpost Garrison,
Who side by side heroically made stand,
No quarter given, none received, none asked,
Who fought those vicious legions in the three
Old elemental spheres, and of the fourth,
Almost invincible to flame and death,
Stood firmly placed before, beneath the attack
Like Milton’s epic host against all Hell,
New rest, brave lads, in consecrated sleep,
While lonely trumpets sing through muffled drums
A requiem and threnody of grief.

Ah, great Cecilia, Bach, and Handel blind,
Those last full-throated notes to swell from earth,
That trumpet song of loneliness and night,
Give it a contrapuntal theme beneath,
Whose pedal harmonies orchestrally
Shall hint of resurrection, while the pipes
And organ-pillar’d flutes resound the mode
To which the ancient dead have matched and sung.

Then light the strings until they burn as bright
And numberless as candles round a shrine,
Then start the rolling drums, and set the brass
Cannonically recalling one another,
And let the reeds’ ancestral wisdom speak,
What though at first the grave bassoons must weep
Their melancholy, febrile lamentation.
Unsheathe the horns and cut the harmonic knot.
Let full grand orchestra astound the void
With soaring fugue and metric tympani.

And in this last, let herald trumpets sing
While bright kid-trumpeteers who fell at Pearl
Resound a call to quarters there beyond!

CORREGIDOR AND CALVARY

Corregidor and Calvary,
And Christ again is crucified,
And all the lovely lads who died
Are His this day in Paradise.

They hung upon a wretched cross,
We watched them day by day,
And wondered how such men could live
Who hung in such a way,
Who hung in thorns of screeching steel
And had no time to pray.

We knew that soon the lads must die,
And yet they battled death
Unmindful of his awful wings
And black, consuming breath,
Unmindful when he roared at them
Or whispered what he saith.

For shattered men will die in pain,
And shaken men will weep,
And there are things which blast the blood
And through the body creep,
And men will not lie down at night
Afeared that they will sleep.

Afeared they would too deeply sleep,
That battered hearts would burst;
And though each knew that he must die,
The dawn must beckon first,
And each must feel again the grip
Of loneliness and thirst.

For none would die alone, apart,
By twos and twelves they fell,
And if a man could walk he worked,
He loaded shot and shell,
For none would die alone, apart,
Within a narrow cell.

Within a narrow cell at last
All men someday must lie,
But while their blood was in the heart
And light within the eye,
They would not leave the stand they took
Beneath the open sky.

They would not leave us, watching them,
Examples of defeat,
That when we come to look on death,
And though our ranks deplete,
Somehow we must think back to them,
The way they met it, meet!

Alas, Love, I would thou couldst as well
defende thy selfe as thou canst offende others
—SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

When he and I had met I knew
The way he smiled at me
That we’d become the best of pals
Two guys could ever be.

For night and day he filled my thoughts,
I talked of only him,
But there were eyes which watched us both,
Suspicious, cold, and dim.

Suspicious eyes and little mouths
That each reporting made
Of all the times we went to swim
Or rested in the shade.

They told of how we’d taken horse
To ride about the lea,
And how two lonely mounts were seen
Beneath a rugged tree.

They gossiped how instead of church
We went to watch the sun
Come charging over purple hills
To see the day begun,
And how we came not home again
Until that day was done.

And he and I went off to war,
Yet still their evil fed.
He never knew, not ever will,
The wretched things they said,
For he was on Corregidor,
And now the lad is dead.

TO THE MARINES

There’s only one banner says “Semper Fidelis!”
There’s only one flag we defend,
There’s only one heart and one mind and one body
In all of our battles we send.

We fought and we bled on Bataan and Corregidor,
Oh, how we held them at Wake!
And waited in vain for more men and munitions
With all the Pacific at stake.

The sleepers were many, but we were the few
Who wakened the quickest and fought,
And while readjustment and training were planned,
We did what we could, what we ought.

Our dead are at Henderson. Think you they rest?
They fight even now at our side,
Refusing to enter the realms of the blest
Until we have beaten the tide!