The Chinese Nightingale and Other Poems Part 8

Journeyman-printer, lamb with ferret eyes, In life's skullduggery he takes the prize-- Yet stands at twilight wrapped in Hamlet dreams.

Into his eyes the Mississippi gleams.

The sandbar sings in moonlit veils of foam.

A candle s.h.i.+nes from one lone cabin home.

The waves reflect it like a drunken star.

A banjo and a hymn are heard afar.

No solace on the lazy sh.o.r.e excels The Duke's blue castle with its steamer-bells.

The floor is running water, and the roof The stars' brocade with cloudy warp and woof.

And on past sorghum fields the current swings.

To Christian Jim the Mississippi sings.

This prankish wave-swept barque has won its place, A s.h.i.+p of jesting for the human race.

But do you laugh when Jim bows down forlorn His babe, his deaf Elizabeth to mourn?

And do you laugh, when Jim, from Huck apart Gropes through the rain and night with breaking heart?

But now that imp is here and we can smile, Jim's child and guardian this long-drawn while.

With knife and heavy gun, a hunter keen, He stops for squirrel-meat in islands green.

The eternal gamin, sleeping half the day, Then stripped and sleek, a river-fish at play.

And then well-dressed, ash.o.r.e, he sees life spilt.

The river-bank is one bright crazy-quilt Of patch-work dream, of wrath more red than l.u.s.t, Where long-haired feudist Hotspurs bite the dust ...

This Huckleberry Finn is but the race, America, still lovely in disgrace, New childhood of the world, that blunders on And wonders at the darkness and the dawn, The poor d.a.m.ned human race, still unimpressed With its d.a.m.nation, all its gamin breast Chorteling at dukes and kings with n.i.g.g.e.r Jim, Then plotting for their fall, with jestings grim.

Behold a Republic Where a river speaks to men And cries to those that love its ways, Answering again When in the heart's extravagance The rascals bend to say "O singing Mississippi s.h.i.+ne, sing for us today."

But who is this in sweeping Oxford gown Who steers the raft, or ambles up and down, Or throws his gown aside, and there in white Stands gleaming like a pillar of the night?

The lion of high courts, with h.o.a.ry mane, Fierce jester that this boyish court will gain-- Mark Twain!

The bad world's idol: Old Mark Twain!

He takes his turn as watchman with the rest, With secret transports to the stars addressed, With nightlong broodings upon cosmic law, With daylong laughter at this world so raw.

All praise to Emerson and Whitman, yet The best they have to say, their sons forget.

But who can dodge this genius of the stream, The Mississippi Valley's laughing dream?

He is the artery that finds the sea In this the land of slaves, and boys still free.

He is the river, and they one and all Sail on his breast, and to each other call.

Come let us disgrace ourselves, Knock the stuffed G.o.ds from their shelves, And cinders at the schoolhouse fling.

Come let us disgrace ourselves, And live on a raft with gray Mark Twain And Huck and Jim And the Duke and the King.

The Ghosts of the Buffaloes

Last night at black midnight I woke with a cry, The windows were shaking, there was thunder on high, The floor was a-tremble, the door was a-jar, White fires, crimson fires, shone from afar.

I rushed to the door yard. The city was gone.

My home was a hut without orchard or lawn.

It was mud-smear and logs near a whispering stream, Nothing else built by man could I see in my dream ...

Then ...

Ghost-kings came headlong, row upon row, G.o.ds of the Indians, torches aglow.

They mounted the bear and the elk and the deer, And eagles gigantic, aged and sere, They rode long-horn cattle, they cried "A-la-la."

They lifted the knife, the bow, and the spear, They lifted ghost-torches from dead fires below, The midnight made grand with the cry "A-la-la."

The midnight made grand with a red-G.o.d charge, A red-G.o.d show, A red-G.o.d show, "A-la-la, a-la-la, a-la-la, a-la-la."

With bodies like bronze, and terrible eyes Came the rank and the file, with catamount cries, Gibbering, yipping, with hollow-skull clacks, Riding white bronchos with skeleton backs, Scalp-hunters, beaded and spangled and bad, Naked and l.u.s.tful and foaming and mad, Flas.h.i.+ng primeval demoniac scorn, Blood-thirst and pomp amid darkness reborn, Power and glory that sleep in the gra.s.s While the winds and the snows and the great rains pa.s.s.

They crossed the gray river, thousands abreast, They rode in infinite lines to the west, Tide upon tide of strange fury and foam, Spirits and wraiths, the blue was their home, The sky was their goal where the star-flags are furled, And on past those far golden splendors they whirled.

They burned to dim meteors, lost in the deep.

And I turned in dazed wonder, thinking of sleep.

And the wind crept by Alone, unkempt, unsatisfied, The wind cried and cried-- Muttered of ma.s.sacres long past, Buffaloes in shambles vast ...

An owl said: "Hark, what is a-wing?"

I heard a cricket carolling, I heard a cricket carolling, I heard a cricket carolling.

Then ...

Snuffing the lightning that crashed from on high Rose royal old buffaloes, row upon row.

The lords of the prairie came galloping by.

And I cried in my heart "A-la-la, a-la-la, A red-G.o.d show, A red-G.o.d show, A-la-la, a-la-la, a-la-la, a-la-la."

Buffaloes, buffaloes, thousands abreast, A scourge and amazement, they swept to the west.

With black bobbing noses, with red rolling tongues, Coughing forth steam from their leather-wrapped lungs, Cows with their calves, bulls big and vain, Goring the laggards, shaking the mane, Stamping flint feet, flas.h.i.+ng moon eyes, Pompous and owlish, s.h.a.ggy and wise.

Like sea-cliffs and caves resounded their ranks With shoulders like waves, and undulant flanks.

Tide upon tide of strange fury and foam, Spirits and wraiths, the blue was their home, The sky was their goal where the star-flags are furled, And on past those far golden splendors they whirled.

They burned to dim meteors, lost in the deep, And I turned in dazed wonder, thinking of sleep.

I heard a cricket's cymbals play, A scarecrow lightly flapped his rags, And a pan that hung by his shoulder rang, Rattled and thumped in a listless way, And now the wind in the chimney sang, The wind in the chimney, The wind in the chimney, The wind in the chimney, Seemed to say:-- "Dream, boy, dream, If you anywise can.

To dream is the work Of beast or man.

Life is the west-going dream-storm's breath, Life is a dream, the sigh of the skies, The breath of the stars, that nod on their pillows With their golden hair mussed over their eyes."

The locust played on his musical wing, Sang to his mate of love's delight.

I heard the whippoorwill's soft fret.

I heard a cricket carolling, I heard a cricket carolling, I heard a cricket say: "Good-night, good-night, Good-night, good-night, ... good-night."

The Broncho that Would Not Be Broken

A little colt--broncho, loaned to the farm To be broken in time without fury or harm, Yet black crows flew past you, shouting alarm, Calling "Beware," with lugubrious singing ...

The b.u.t.terflies there in the bush were romancing, The smell of the gra.s.s caught your soul in a trance, So why be a-fearing the spurs and the traces, O broncho that would not be broken of dancing?

You were born with the pride of the lords great and olden Who danced, through the ages, in corridors golden.

In all the wide farm-place the person most human.

You spoke out so plainly with squealing and capering, With whinnying, snorting, contorting and prancing, As you dodged your pursuers, looking askance, With Greek-footed figures, and Parthenon paces, O broncho that would not be broken of dancing.

The gra.s.shoppers cheered. "Keep whirling," they said.

The insolent sparrows called from the shed "If men will not laugh, make them wish they were dead."

But arch were your thoughts, all malice displacing, Though the horse-killers came, with snake-whips advancing.