The Man Against the Sky Part 2

Forty years ago it was I heard the old man say, "That's all, my son."--And here again I find the place to-day, Deserted and told only by the tree that knows the most, And overgrown with golden-rod as if there were no ghost.

Hillcrest

(To Mrs. Edward MacDowell)

No sound of any storm that shakes Old island walls with older seas Comes here where now September makes An island in a sea of trees.

Between the sunlight and the shade A man may learn till he forgets The roaring of a world remade, And all his ruins and regrets;

And if he still remembers here Poor fights he may have won or lost,-- If he be ridden with the fear Of what some other fight may cost,--

If, eager to confuse too soon, What he has known with what may be, He reads a planet out of tune For cause of his jarred harmony,--

If here he venture to unroll His index of adagios, And he be given to console Humanity with what he knows,--

He may by contemplation learn A little more than what he knew, And even see great oaks return To acorns out of which they grew.

He may, if he but listen well, Through twilight and the silence here, Be told what there are none may tell To vanity's impatient ear;

And he may never dare again Say what awaits him, or be sure What sunlit labyrinth of pain He may not enter and endure.

Who knows to-day from yesterday May learn to count no thing too strange: Love builds of what Time takes away, Till Death itself is less than Change.

Who sees enough in his duress May go as far as dreams have gone; Who sees a little may do less Than many who are blind have done;

Who sees unchastened here the soul Triumphant has no other sight Than has a child who sees the whole World radiant with his own delight.

Far journeys and hard wandering Await him in whose crude surmise Peace, like a mask, hides everything That is and has been from his eyes;

And all his wisdom is unfound, Or like a web that error weaves On airy looms that have a sound No louder now than falling leaves.

Old King Cole

In Tilbury Town did Old King Cole A wise old age antic.i.p.ate, Desiring, with his pipe and bowl, No Khan's extravagant estate.

No crown annoyed his honest head, No fiddlers three were called or needed; For two disastrous heirs instead Made music more than ever three did.

Bereft of her with whom his life Was harmony without a flaw, He took no other for a wife, Nor sighed for any that he saw; And if he doubted his two sons, And heirs, Alexis and Evander, He might have been as doubtful once Of Robert Burns and Alexander.

Alexis, in his early youth, Began to steal--from old and young.

Likewise Evander, and the truth Was like a bad taste on his tongue.

Born thieves and liars, their affair Seemed only to be tarred with evil-- The most insufferable pair Of scamps that ever cheered the devil.

The world went on, their fame went on, And they went on--from bad to worse; Till, goaded hot with nothing done, And each accoutred with a curse, The friends of Old King Cole, by twos, And fours, and sevens, and elevens, p.r.o.nounced unalterable views Of doings that were not of heaven's.

And having learned again whereby Their baleful zeal had come about, King Cole met many a wrathful eye So kindly that its wrath went out-- Or partly out. Say what they would, He seemed the more to court their candor; But never told what kind of good Was in Alexis and Evander.

And Old King Cole, with many a puff That haloed his urbanity, Would smoke till he had smoked enough, And listen most attentively.

He beamed as with an inward light That had the Lord's a.s.surance in it; And once a man was there all night, Expecting something every minute.

But whether from too little thought, Or too much fealty to the bowl, A dim reward was all he got For sitting up with Old King Cole.

"Though mine," the father mused aloud, "Are not the sons I would have chosen, Shall I, less evilly endowed, By their infirmity be frozen?

"They'll have a bad end, I'll agree, But I was never born to groan; For I can see what I can see, And I'm accordingly alone.

With open heart and open door, I love my friends, I like my neighbors; But if I try to tell you more, Your doubts will overmatch my labors.

"This pipe would never make me calm, This bowl my grief would never drown.

For grief like mine there is no balm In Gilead, or in Tilbury Town.

And if I see what I can see, I know not any way to blind it; Nor more if any way may be For you to grope or fly to find it.

"There may be room for ruin yet, And ashes for a wasted love; Or, like One whom you may forget, I may have meat you know not of.

And if I'd rather live than weep Meanwhile, do you find that surprising?

Why, bless my soul, the man's asleep!

That's good. The sun will soon be rising."

Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford

You are a friend then, as I make it out, Of our man Shakespeare, who alone of us Will put an a.s.s's head in Fairyland As he would add a s.h.i.+lling to more s.h.i.+llings, All most harmonious,--and out of his Miraculous inviolable increase Fills Ilion, Rome, or any town you like Of olden time with timeless Englishmen; And I must wonder what you think of him-- All you down there where your small Avon flows By Stratford, and where you're an Alderman.

Some, for a guess, would have him riding back To be a farrier there, or say a dyer; Or maybe one of your adept surveyors; Or like enough the wizard of all tanners.

Not you--no fear of that; for I discern In you a kindling of the flame that saves-- The nimble element, the true phlogiston; I see it, and was told of it, moreover, By our discriminate friend himself, no other.

Had you been one of the sad average, As he would have it,--meaning, as I take it, The sinew and the solvent of our Island, You'd not be buying beer for this Terpander's Approved and estimated friend Ben Jonson; He'd never foist it as a part of his Contingent entertainment of a townsman While he goes off rehearsing, as he must, If he shall ever be the Duke of Stratford.

And my words are no shadow on your town-- Far from it; for one town's as like another As all are unlike London. Oh, he knows it,-- And there's the Stratford in him; he denies it, And there's the Shakespeare in him. So, G.o.d help him!

I tell him he needs Greek; but neither G.o.d Nor Greek will help him. Nothing will help that man.

You see the fates have given him so much, He must have all or perish,--or look out Of London, where he sees too many lords; They're part of half what ails him: I suppose There's nothing fouler down among the demons Than what it is he feels when he remembers The dust and sweat and ointment of his calling With his lords looking on and laughing at him.

King as he is, he can't be king de facto, And that's as well, because he wouldn't like it; He'd frame a lower rating of men then Than he has now; and after that would come An abdication or an apoplexy.

He can't be king, not even king of Stratford,-- Though half the world, if not the whole of it, May crown him with a crown that fits no king Save Lord Apollo's homesick emissary: Not there on Avon, or on any stream Where Naiads and their white arms are no more, Shall he find home again. It's all too bad.

But there's a comfort, for he'll have that House-- The best you ever saw; and he'll be there Anon, as you're an Alderman. Good G.o.d!

He makes me lie awake o' nights and laugh.

And you have known him from his origin, You tell me; and a most uncommon urchin He must have been to the few seeing ones-- A trifle terrifying, I dare say, Discovering a world with his man's eyes, Quite as another lad might see some finches, If he looked hard and had an eye for nature.

But this one had his eyes and their foretelling, And he had you to fare with, and what else?

He must have had a father and a mother-- In fact I've heard him say so--and a dog, As a boy should, I venture; and the dog, Most likely, was the only man who knew him.

A dog, for all I know, is what he needs As much as anything right here to-day, To counsel him about his disillusions, Old aches, and parturitions of what's coming,-- A dog of orders, an emeritus, To wag his tail at him when he comes home, And then to put his paws up on his knees And say, "For G.o.d's sake, what's it all about?"

I don't know whether he needs a dog or not-- Or what he needs. I tell him he needs Greek; I'll talk of rules and Aristotle with him, And if his tongue's at home he'll say to that, "I have your word that Aristotle knows, And you mine that I don't know Aristotle."