The flying parliament, and other poems

LET us keep home safe for them—
Fires, laughter and song,
The curtains close, the beds all smooth and white,
The leisure long.

Let us make good things for them—
Sweet meats and bright conserves,
Nourishing breads and all the dear delights
Hunger deserves.

Let us lift high God for them,
And like tall candles hold
The straight white lights that in the trench they knew—
Were more than gold.

Let us grow up for them,
And hold us to impassioned lofty thought—
So they shall never come to be ashamed
Of that for which they fought.

Let us all work hard for them—
For such as live and come to us once more;
To those that do not come. Ah! for those men—
Passionate love and honor, evermore!

WORLD FLOWER

ON the Stem of the World
A flower hangs blighted,
Flower that plighted
Its scarlet, uncurled,
To Pageant of Kings
And war-garlandings
And banners unfurled.

On the Stalk of the World
That flower hangs broken,
Gold pollen-token,
Nothingward hurled,
Withered its fineness
Its perfumed divineness,
Petals far whirled!

On the Branch of the World,
Bud of tomorrow,
Watered by sorrow,
Holds, all impearled,
Blossom increase,
Petals of peace
In sunlight whorled.

Ye, who walk doubting,
Care for this Flower!
Not yet its hour,
In all the shouting....
Only, soft hid in the stamens, is lying
Pollen of souls that dared all the dying.
They gave the seed. Wet from our crying
Blooms the New World.

EPOCH, 1914

MORNING broke on Fécamp shore.
The sun rose from the sea.
Along the stone digue, wooden shoes
Clattered busily,
And one glad, little Norman voice
Carolled, “Sans Souci.”
“No care! no care! Tra-lal-la-la!”
The child’s glad voice sang on;
A red-capped figure crossed the digue
To where the great boats swung
At peaceful anchor, with their nets
Spread azure in the sun.

Evening came to the little town
Where white cliffs wall the sea.
A dark bell rang, “To arms! To arms!”
The women on the quay
Choked back the tears, when Jean and Pierre
Marched forth gallantly.

And then no lift of little voice
Singing, “Sans Souci.”
“Black care, Black care for home and hearth!”
For children needing bread!
Oh! the men’s faces! Oh! their eyes,
That would be cold and dead
Ere the new moon, all pitiless
And smiling at her dreams,
Took her strange way of battlefields
And bloody battle-streams.

The ripe grain dies on Fécamp hills.
Sails wither at the quay.
Old people totter to the digue,
And shiver ceaselessly,
And in the pallid Gothic church
The dead and wounded see
To it that no Norman voice
Carols “Sans Souci.”
Deep care, deep care, for us who try
To save and clothe and feed!
Men taunt us for our dream of Peace
Our hope of better breed!
Courage! Let faith fight down the years
Oh! let our battle be,
That the world’s children some day sing
Another, “Sans Souci!”

TO AMERICANS

SOOTH, Citizens! there are few hours to dawn
Of a red day and black gun-horrored night.
The cities sleep not soundly mid, their spawn
Of golden-balled and silver-webbed light.
Tomorrow breaks the rancor and the spite—
To try our souls and test our bodies’ brawn.

Americans! How stand we? Does the Dream
Still hold? Once more the robust States declare
Against the Wrong, their Right. Where millions teem,
Curious, thoughtful, fateful, do we share
The same proud purpose to defend the Scheme,
Under the flag our lofty standards bear?

Americans! Look we with fearless eyes
Loyalty? Truth? Self-sacrifice? For Her,
Our Country, now enringed by foreign spies,
Will our set faces prove our calibre—
Our Destiny all penalties incur,
So that we show us pledged and patriot-wise.

Countrymen! Rise, and let your ranks be formed
For War, or Peace in solid moveless Race!
We are not aliens, who for plunder swarmed
To cover neath the glorious Freedom-Face.
We are Souls, standing in our rightful place,
Impregnable, unswerving, unalarmed.

Brothers! defend the gates! Upon us lowers
Portentously the brooding Europe pall.
Until it comes, the fateful hour of hours,
When our World-Dream must either stand or fall—
Arm ye with Loyalty!—Hark, hear the call!
Democracy still trumpets on the towers!

PENMARCH—BRITTANY

At the time of the “Pardon,” 1914.

THE Penmarch roads are sandy white;
By the old church the blue nets dry,
Stretched to the sea. The poppies bright,
Tremulous scarlet splashes high
On tawny dunes. Small wooden shoes,
Stiff snowy caps and ribbon hues
Go clattering to the market place.
’Tis Pardon-day by Maries’ Grace,
(And little Bretons form a ring,
And pause to hear a Lady sing.)

What does she sing, this Lady, who
Is like embodied song, her eyes,
Clear with the light of faith where through
Looks sweetness of her soul’s surmise?
What are the words she sings, her smile
So Mother-merry? What the wile
That draws the small coifs nearer, near,
And charms away the peasant fear
(Shy little Bretons keep their ring,
And stay to hear the Lady sing.)

Blue sky is part, blue sea is part;
Flax, wheat, and poppies fill the strain;
Her wide eyes deepen with her art
Like gentian flowers after rain.
’Tis World-Dream in her simple lay—
Adventure, Faith, and Love and Play.
No wonder wooden shoes keep time
To magic of her lilting rhythm.
(Gay little Bretons hold their ring,
Shouting the Stranger-Lady, “Sing!”)

That was one summer. Now a dirge
Breaks on that coast in bitter wail,
And news told by the ocean surge
Makes Breton-maids and mothers quail.
O holy Fires of fisher-lights.
Gleam out no more on Pardon nights!
The great red sails hang listless, torn
The empty blue nets trail forlorn.
And yet I think that little feet
Sometimes on Penmarch beaches meet,
And Penmarch children cease their play
To talk of how She sang that day,
And that once more a happy ring
Is formed to hear a Lady sing!

TO AN AMERICAN SOLDIER GOING INTO ACTION

France, August, 1918.

TODAY’S your turn to take the road of fire;
Your turn to rally at the gates of hell;
Your turn for steel and gas and blood and mire,
In shell-holes and through mazes of barbed wire,
Where men before you fought and bled and fell.

And we go with you, we, who know your face—
Its dear and merry shining, and intent;
Follow you blindly to this testing place.
Breathless, with you at this, the ultimate pace
Your fleet strong spirit takes for its ascent.

Whatever agony is yours is ours,
Whatever thing the soul of you endures;
We are the witness of your manhood’s powers;
Not one of us who has your measure cowers—
What we know of you all our thought insures.

Go you, then, to the Front! May God be good!
Whatever face you raise to Him will be
The face of one, who for our Hope has stood,
Manly and resolute, whose spirit would
Be at the Front, and elsewhere could not be!

RESURGENCE

To C. L. B.

DOWN the glad morning lane a lucent veil
Of dogwood wavers like a windblown screen
Revealing vistas lit by golden trail
Of netted water-brooks that intervene
Where ferns their dewy plumage spread and preen;
Soft, myriad breaths of budding boughs exhale
On the spring world; a buoyant path of green
Makes sign by leaf and foliate flower-grail
Of exquisite re-capture of the frail
Fresh renascence of all that fair has been.
Nature survives. Lift then the haggard eyes
That watch Life on its dark death-shuttled loom!
Are ours the only forms that may not rise
Out of the Dark to unfrustrated bloom?
Nay—burst we forth out of the moment’s doom,
Instinct toward suns of flowering destinies,
Lifting glad lips to deep full-breasted skies,
Branching like stars where radiant dreams resume.

GARDEN ADVENTURES

No. 1—Aerial.

DOWN the long garden path the message came,
Borne by the breeze in a soft, wayward speed;
“My petals spread, soft burns my blossom-flame,
Yet do I know defeat and barren shame;
Dost thou then fail me in my flower-need?”

A lily-bell hung in her curving spire;
Sweet peas on pools of morning air set sail;
Womanly roses opened; did this fire,
This wordless furthering of deep desire
Waft from their midst down to the meadow-rail?

Who took the message? Did the iris there,
Masculine, bold, defy the grasses’ thralls.
Mid the white lamps of daisies did one flare
Concentrate light? Did a coarse mallow dare
To think that it might answer to the call?

Up the blue garden air a wingèd ship,
Humming with hurry, takes its zig-zag way,
Hangs for a second where the poppies’ tip
Shoots to the hare-bells, larkspurs, but to slip
Impatiently from honeyed bud and spray.

Then ardent pansies warmer purple glow;
Then poppies sigh for languor. Do they see
The yellow tulip near them suddenly grow
Quivering, tremulous? Does the tulip know
What meadow-flower sent the pollen-bee?

No. 2—Invasion.

In wooded depths the lilies grew,
Nunlike in canopies of green.
Hanging white bells of paladin
In Gothic ferns beneath the yew—
A sanctuary, with the dew
Telling its beads by leafy screen.

And where the dandelion ranks,
Ranged Persian bright each blazing shield,
Was far away in sedgy field—
Too dense with spears of thistle hordes
To menace distant lily chords,
Or chapel treasure all unsealed;

And all day nettle airships sail,
And on the moonlight thistle swords
Leap from their scabbards, flashing towards
The priestly yew that guards the vale;
Till haughty casquéd snowdrops quail,
And violets rush borderwards.

Alas! By stealth th’ invader came,
Intrenched near lily convents, where
A startled fragrance fills the air.
Green cells are pierced by nettle spike,
And dandelions, shield and pike
Ravish white bells that rang to prayer!

No. 3—Diplomats

Archippus, ambassador
To the poppy emperor,
Enters with his wings extended,
Orange, black and samite blended,
Bows o’er cups of columbines,
And at taste of royal wines
Flashes spangled semaphore
Message—“To the end of the war.”

Philemon, black, green and pearl
Wavers to syringa whirl;
Lightly shod, his errant feet
Win the white pavilions sweet;
As he flits to salvia cells,
Dipping into ruby wells
His antennae, as he goes
Wig-wag—“Beauty has no foes.”

Then bold Turnus, amber-fanned,
Flutters to the brilliant band;
He confers with larkspur sages,
Loiters with the pansy pages,
Tells his heraldry and crest
To the rose’s burning breast;
Soon doth Turnus flutter free,
Wing-endorsing “Liberty.”

Protoparce, grey and blunt,
Enters on his stealthy hunt;
Tongue protuding from his head,
Heavy wings and brutal tread,
Bulging eyes and savage thirst,
Crime’s nocturnal deed he durst;
See him prowling, full of schemes,
Subtle midst the flower-dreams!
Valiant tulips, trust no more!
Close your helmets. This is war!

No. 4—Spies

Ask me no questions. Fireflies last night
Went over all the ground with searching light,
And only found that, where the peony-head
Hung erstwhile white, ’tis now disguised in red.

Tell me not why. I only know that since
I paused at gaze beneath the flowering quince,
A group of tents, some warlike grey, some white
Cover the ground, pitched in a single night.

No explanation gives me peace of mind,
When long battalioned caravans I find
Crossing my garden walk; and when I see
Under-ground trenches grow unceasingly.

Give me no reasons for squat forms that pass
Lurking at twilight near the ribbon grass.
Only the owl and I our vigil keep,
With, “Who goes there?” While flower kingdoms sleep.

No 5—Rendezvous

Like a sea-flower, seen through waves of night,
She spreads illumined petals, and her white
Mystical raying disk spills frankincense
From her stored sweet and balmy opulence.

Perfume of honey-flowers and purpled vines,
Odors of Eastern wood and Tuscan wines,
Sweetness compressed, smell of all blossoms blent,
Breath of all lilies in one lily’s scent.

What secret doth she hold? What visions stir
At the slow calm awakening of her?
Lo! To the night is all her beauty spread,
And to the encircling dark she leans her head.

Then, who can tell what fragrant message strays
O’er dreaming trees and sleeping, leafy ways?
To what green tent her sighing languors steal?
What thrilled suspense of waiting she doth feel?

Till—Soft! A Spirit of dim-waving wings
Floats from his moonlit forest wanderings,
And by enchantment led, there plights his troth
To the night’s Queen, a dew-crowned, milk-white Moth.

Now, while the garden drowses, and the cool
Of passing midnight deepens in the pool,
While all the flowers hang their heads, asleep—
Mysterious tryst two royal lovers keep.

The world rolls on; its load of hearts grown old;
And all the simple forms and feasts are cold.
But though men mock Love’s slowly fading wraith,
The Forest knows,—the flowers keep their Faith.

CAMOUFLAGE

HERE is the waving river line, and here
A rail-road made
(And here float lilies white as those that were
Where Marsyas played.)

The thrilling sky is wild with wingéd planes
For air ship raid
(Yet—still steals up the hidden cirrus lanes
The Huntress Maid!)

The country road is gashed with lurid signs
Of commerce-gods:
(Yet bitter-sweet and seeding eglantines
Hang votive pods!)

The man who walks in front of me to work
Has pointed ears
(He speaks with modern emphasis and jerk
So it appears)—

But where he toils the chimneys range their pipes
In Syrinx form
(Who knows what midnight Dancing? or what types
Of dancers swarm?)

Ah! life is practical, the Moderns say
“No one escapes—— ”
(Ye Gods, Who is that smiling such a way
Among the grapes?)

HOME-SICK

HE sees the white moon climb the city skies,
Far over rank, black roofs and balconies,
And with her spectral radiance anoint
The slender lance of every steeple point.

Beneath his gaze, the brilliant streets converge,
And through the avenues the people surge.
Behind him are his walls where, numb and old
His books and pictures seem aloof and cold.

Below, he hears the gong and shout and call;
Sees the blank grief of many a plastered wall,
And bows himself upon the window sill,
In a communion motionless and still.

He leaves the temples where the merchants trade,
Leaves bright bazaar and marble collanade,
And hand and hand with the white moon he strays
Away to leafy lanes and country ways.

He vizualizes green of plashy mead
Of kneedeep grass, where lowing cattle feed,
Of orchard slope, scalloped with rosy bloom
And purple lilacs bursting into plume.

Electric beads may dot the cities plain,
But in his heart old candles flare again;
Old doors stand open, and beside old stiles
He leans, and listens as in other whiles.

So dreams; so wanders back to youth and home,
To swelling farms, to rich hill-breasted loam;
So hand in hand with the young moon he strays
Out of the city gates to the old days.

THE INTERPRETER

LAST night I heard Masefield,
Heard that voice cold as a moonlit tomb
Reading old plays and masques
And gipsy drama of old England.

I saw strange eyes flickering—sad,
Set in a face recording vigils,
Moody, unfellowed prowlings
Vague contemplations and wanderings.

I saw his face, dream-magnetic,
Pale, withheld, until he told
Stories as odd as coins in a sailor’s chest;
Then mischief, like leaves danced on his brow,
And a smile like water shook on his face.

I heard the grind of creaking anchor chains
Felt ropes bruise, and felt the capstan pull,
Saw driven slanting masts, and saw the hoops
Slink as some halliard parted, and was caught.

I heard dead seamen’s lips
Recounting heaps of gold in sunken ships;
I saw the dumb eyes of pathetic women,
Horribly treated by wine-frenzied brutes.

Then as the lonely, chanting, stifled voice
Droned on, I saw heart-breaking Peace,
Green happy hedges, dreaming crofts and farms,
England—before the War!

Last night I heard Masefield.
He stood downcast on a little platform,
While I careened, helm up, full canvassed
Close-hauled on happy seas.

He stood limply on a little platform
World-blind before the rows of set, still, faces,
Absorbed in his faith of one maternal word
“Beauty.”

KLEPHTIC

“It would be strange if with such ample survival of the ancient polytheism in modern law there were no reminiscence of the Fauns, the Satyrs, the Pans of the olden world."—Rennell Rodd.

FAR in the mountains,
The mountains of Greece,
The cone fires burn.
Mid the pines and rocks,
And the tall shepherds wear
The curly white fleece,
And a man, with a beard,
Like a horse’s mane,
Plays a small pipe,
A carvéd pipe,
Till the goats come straggling in,
And the bees come drowsing by,
And the olives come dropping down;
And he will be playing like that,
And they will be coming like that,
Long after our solemn mummings cease
In the mountains, the mountains of Greece.

Far in the mountains,
The mountains of Greece,
The values are strange —
The worth of a tree,
The strength of a rock,
The health of a sheep,
The length of a brook,
The dip of a bird,
The wisdom of mules.
They will offer you grapes,
Or a horn-spoon of curd,
Or wine in a cup,
Or honey and bread;
And they will keep all these values,
These dear simple values
Long after our silly values cease,
In the mountains, the mountains of Greece.

In the mountains, the mountains of Greece
They lie in a cave,
And hark to wood-sounds,
Perhaps cross themselves,
Saying, aghast!
“There be wild things,
Hidden things, dread things.
Strange things, weird things, great things.”
(They quake, and are not very brave,)
But when they sleep and dream,
They dream as far as they please.
As grand and great as they please—
Of miles of red-fezzed Turks
Done to death by one Greek,
Of clouds that turn into men,
Of fountains with golden rain,
Of seas and golden ships,
Of reveling women and maids,
And hosts of little boys
Dressed in skins of fur,
Dancing and playing pipes;

And of Someone very strange,
With horns perhaps, but a smile,
A smile like hot sweet fire—
And they will be dreaming like that,
And thinking like that,
Long after our stupid teachings are dead.
Yea—Yea—Yea—
Long after we are dead,
In the mountains,
The mountains of Greece.

AT THE FEAST OF LIFE

YOU, who sit opposite and move your lips,
And toy with silver dish and graceful spoon,
And touch your wine-glass with reluctant sips—
Why do you pause, for it is afternoon.
What are your thoughts, that they should draw a mist
Before your sweet eyes, as the hours creep?
While others sing, and laugh and keep the feast,
A fast you keep.

Where dwells who now should come and feast with you?
Where fares he, years off—leagues off? Thirsts and prays
For the one sign to make his life come true?
For the one clue to lead him to your ways?
Will the feast last till he shall gain the halls?
Will fruits and wines still glow, will roses wait?
What if, in vain your tender name he calls—
Entering late?

If he should fail, I see you still serene,
Leaving the tables where the garlands die,
Passing the fountained courts that intervene
To the bright halls to bid the guests good-bye.
O, Proud! O, Pure! Where weary stairs ascend
I see you toil; your pallid candle shakes;
The wan rose at your bosom, as you bend,
Drops—faded flakes.

DEATH WITHIN DEATH

THOU wilt not smite him, Israfel?
Prone on his little couch he lies,
With the death-shadow in his eyes.
He thirsts, for what, I cannot tell.
Thou wilt not smite him, Israfel?

Thou must not smite him, Israfel.
For all his race throbs in his fame,
The sole hope of a noble name;
That small hand like a tinted shell
Holds high tradition, Israfel.

Thou canst not smite him, Israfel.
He turns his asking eyes on me.
I am his sun and moon and sea;
My life tides in his life-tides swell.
Thou canst not smite him, Israfel.

Since thou hast smitten, Israfel,
Know this, thy sword so bitter keen
Destroys a thing that might have been;
Yet, smiting him, it was as well
To kill my Soul, thou Israfel!

AT THE FLOWER-SHOW

A ROSY haze misted the air, perfume
Of flower-flesh, like flesh of white younglings,
Fresh from a cool brook-bathing; gorse and broom,
Spotted hibiscus, purple cyclamen-wings.
Nimbus and halo floated in dewy gloom;
Quirled chaliced orchids, jasmine’s jewelled strings
Sprayed in warm aisles, in odorous room on room.

So quietly the human throng moved by,
It had seemed tranced, and even the dullest face
Was wistful, pensive, reverent of eye
Wandering the trellised paths with dreamy pace;
And there were soft communings, whispers shy—
Lovers at ease, seeing the leaves embrace.
Thus was it that I witnessed rivalry,
And rose-lipped envy in this blossom place.

“We are the most like you,” the young girls said.
“Our bodies satin smooth have vernal dowers;
Our hair gleams gold, our cheeks are sunshine fed;
Like bud and calyx are our hidden powers.”
Then was I, listening, rare astonished,
Hearing disclaimer from the iris towers,
Seeing demure, bright rose and lily head.
“You are not very like us,” sighed the flowers.

Then there came women made of night and stars,
Women of dusky eye and cirrus tress
From whom men rush to wreckage and to wars,
Frenzied of their inscrutable caress.
“We are like you,” they said, “competitors
For admiration; yea, in perfumed bowers”
Negation from green-hooded councilors,
“You are not like us,” soft condemned the flowers.

And then there drifted by hard graceless forms,
Dull, rayless eyes, that looked, yet had no sense
Of umbelled mysteries, of disks, and norms
Of myriad seed-cells, witherings recompense;
Unapprehending, they, of shining swarms,
Of pollen flight from downcast petal showers,
Nor guessed the Spell in seed-pod multiforms.
“These surely are not like us” breathed the flowers.

Then came an old woman, worn and sorrow-wise.
Creeping in slow persistance like a vine;
And there were wells of light within her eyes;
Her hair was milk-weed white. By every sign
Of age, dried stalk of past fecundities.
She was the silvern wraith of fair Design.
“Yea, richly did I spend Life’s vivid hours;
Mine has been Love and many children mine.”
“Verily, Sweet, thou’rt like us,” smiled the flowers!