The Second Book of Modern Verse Part 17

It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning Should I not pause in the light to remember G.o.d?

Upright and firm I stand on a star unstable, He is immense and lonely as a cloud.

I will dedicate this moment before my mirror To him alone, for him I will comb my hair.

Accept these humble offerings, cloud of silence!

I will think of you as I descend the stair.

Vine leaves tap my window, The snail-track s.h.i.+nes on the stones, Dew-drops flash from the chinaberry tree Repeating two clear tones.

It is morning, I awake from a bed of silence, s.h.i.+ning I rise from the starless waters of sleep.

The walls are about me still as in the evening, I am the same, and the same name still I keep.

The earth revolves with me, yet makes no motion, The stars pale silently in a coral sky.

In a whistling void I stand before my mirror, Unconcerned, and tie my tie.

There are horses neighing on far-off hills Tossing their long white manes, And mountains flash in the rose-white dusk, Their shoulders black with rains . . .

It is morning. I stand by the mirror And surprise my soul once more; The blue air rushes above my ceiling, There are suns beneath my floor . . .

. . . It is morning, Senlin says, I ascend from darkness And depart on the winds of s.p.a.ce for I know not where, My watch is wound, a key is in my pocket, And the sky is darkened as I descend the stair.

There are shadows across the windows, clouds in heaven, And a G.o.d among the stars; and I will go Thinking of him as I might think of daybreak And humming a tune I know . . .

Vine-leaves tap at the window, Dew-drops sing to the garden stones, The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree Repeating three clear tones.

Good Company. [Karle Wilson Baker]

To-day I have grown taller from walking with the trees, The seven sister-poplars who go softly in a line; And I think my heart is whiter for its parley with a star That trembled out at nightfall and hung above the pine.

The call-note of a redbird from the cedars in the dusk Woke his happy mate within me to an answer free and fine; And a sudden angel beckoned from a column of blue smoke -- ~Lord, who am I that they should stoop -- these holy folk of thine?~

"Feuerzauber". [Louis Untermeyer]

I never knew the earth had so much gold -- The fields run over with it, and this hill, h.o.a.ry and old, Is young with buoyant blooms that flame and thrill.

Such golden fires, such yellow -- lo, how good This spendthrift world, and what a lavish G.o.d -- This fringe of wood, Blazing with b.u.t.tercup and goldenrod.

You too, beloved, are changed. Again I see Your face grow mystical, as on that night You turned to me, And all the trembling world -- and you -- were white.

Aye, you are touched; your singing lips grow dumb; The fields absorb you, color you entire . . .

And you become A G.o.ddess standing in a world of fire!

Birches. [Robert Frost]

When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them.

But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.

Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal sh.e.l.ls, Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust -- Such heaps of broken gla.s.s to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.

They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.

But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm (Now am I free to be poetical?) I should prefer to have some boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch the cows -- Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, Whose only play was what he found himself, Summer or winter, and could play alone.

One by one he subdued his father's trees By riding them down over and over again Until he took the stiffness out of them, And not one but hung limp, not one was left For him to conquer. He learned all there was To learn about not launching out too soon And so not carrying the tree away Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise To the top branches, climbing carefully With the same pains you use to fill a cup Up to the brim, and even above the brim.

Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.

And so I dream of going back to be.

It's when I'm weary of considerations, And life is too much like a pathless wood Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs Broken across it, and one eye is weeping From a twig's having lashed across it open.

I'd like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over.

May no fate willfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and s.n.a.t.c.h me away Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: I don't know where it's likely to go better.

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk TOWARD heaven, till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Fifty Years Spent. [Maxwell Struthers Burt]

Fifty years spent before I found me, Wind on my mouth and the taste of the rain, Where the great hills circled and swept around me And the torrents leapt to the mist-drenched plain; Ah, it was long this coming of me Back to the hills and the sounding sea.

Ye who can go when so it tideth To fallow fields when the Spring is new, Finding the spirit that there abideth, Taking fill of the sun and the dew; Little ye know of the cross of the town And the small pale folk who go up and down.

Fifty years spent before I found me A bank knee-deep with climbing rose, Saw, or had s.p.a.ce to look around me, Knew how the apple buds and blows; And all the while that I thought me wise I walked as one with blinded eyes.

Scarcely a lad who pa.s.ses twenty But finds him a girl to balm his heart; Only I, who had work so plenty, Bade this loving keep apart: Once I saw a girl in a crowd, But I hushed my heart when it cried out aloud.

City courts in January, -- City courts in wilted June, Often ye will catch and carry Echoes of some straying tune; Ah, but underneath the feet Echo stifles in a street.

Fifty years spent, and what do they bring me?

Now I can buy the meadow and hill: Where is the heart of the boy to sing thee?

Where is the life for thy living to fill?

And thirty years back in a city crowd I pa.s.sed a girl when my heart cried loud!

The City. [Charles Hanson Towne]