The Little Book of Modern Verse Part 32

The Joy of the Hills. [Edwin Markham]

I ride on the mountain tops, I ride; I have found my life and am satisfied.

Onward I ride in the blowing oats, Checking the field-lark's rippling notes -- Lightly I sweep From steep to steep: Over my head through the branches high Come glimpses of a rus.h.i.+ng sky; The tall oats brush my horse's flanks; Wild poppies crowd on the sunny banks; A bee booms out of the scented gra.s.s; A jay laughs with me as I pa.s.s.

I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forget Life's h.o.a.rd of regret -- All the terror and pain Of the chafing chain.

Grind on, O cities, grind: I leave you a blur behind.

I am lifted elate -- the skies expand: Here the world's heaped gold is a pile of sand.

Let them weary and work in their narrow walls: I ride with the voices of waterfalls!

I swing on as one in a dream -- I swing Down the airy hollows, I shout, I sing!

The world is gone like an empty word: My body's a bough in the wind, my heart a bird!

The Lesser Children. [Ridgely Torrence]

A Threnody at the Hunting Season

In the middle of August when the southwest wind Blows after sunset through the leisuring air, And on the sky nightly the mythic hind Leads down the sullen dog star to his lair, After the feverous vigil of July, When the loud pageant of the year's high noon Pa.s.sed up the ways of time to sing and part, Grief also wandered by From out the lovers and the leaves of June, And by the wizard spices of his hair I knew his heart was very Love's own heart.

Deep within dreams he led me out of doors As from the upper vault the night outpours, And when I saw that to him all the skies Yearned as a sea asleep yearns to its sh.o.r.es, He took a little clay and touched my eyes.

What saw I then, what heard?

Mult.i.tudes, mult.i.tudes, under the moon they stirred!

The weaker brothers of our earthly breed; Watchmen of whom our safety takes no heed; Swift helpers of the wind that sowed the seed Before the first field was or any fruit; Warriors against the bivouac of the weed; Earth's earliest ploughmen for the tender root, All came about my head and at my feet A thousand, thousand sweet, With starry eyes not even raised to plead; Bewildered, driven, hiding, fluttering, mute!

And I beheld and saw them one by one Pa.s.s and become as nothing in the night.

Clothed on with red they were who once were white; Drooping, who once led armies to the sun, Of whom the lowly gra.s.s now topped the flight: In scarlet faint, who once were brave in brown; Climbers and builders of the silent town, Creepers and burrowers all in crimson dye, Winged mysteries of song that from the sky Once dashed long music down.

O who would take away music from the earth?

Have we so much? Or love upon the hearth?

No more -- they faded; The great trees bending between birth and birth Sighed for them, and the night wind's hoa.r.s.e rebuff Shouted the shame of which I was persuaded.

Shall Nature's only pausing be by men invaded?

Or shall we lay grief's f.a.gots on her shoulders bare?

Has she not borne enough?

Soon will the mirroring woodland pools begin to con her, And her sad immemorial pa.s.sion come upon her; Lo, would you add despair unto despair?

Shall not the Spring be answer to her prayer?

Must her uncomforted heavens overhead, Weeping, look down on tears and still behold Only wings broken or a fledgling dead, Or underfoot the meadows that wore gold Die, and the leaves go mourning to the mould Beneath poor dead and desperate feet Of folk who in next summer's meadows shall not meet?

Who has not seen in the high gulf of light What, lower, was a bird, but now Is moored and altered quite Into an island of unshaded joy?

To whom the mate below upon the bough Shouts once and brings him from his high employ.

Yet speeding he forgot not of the cloud Where he from glory sprang and burned aloud, But took a little of the day, A little of the colored sky, And of the joy that would not stay He wove a song that cannot die.

Then, then -- the unfathomable shame; The one last wrong arose from out the flame, The ravening hate that hated not was hurled Bidding the radiant love once more beware, Bringing one more loneliness on the world, And one more blindness in the unseen air.

Nor may the smooth regret, the pitying oath Shed on such utter bitter any leaven.

Only the pleading flowers that knew them both Hold all their b.l.o.o.d.y petals up to heaven.

Winds of the fall that all year to and fro Somewhere upon the earth go wandering, You saw, you moaned, you know: Withhold not then unto all time to tell Lest unborn others of us see this thing.

Bring our sleek, comfortable reason low: Recount how souls grown tremulous as a bell Came forth each other and the day to greet In morning air all Indian-Summer sweet, And crept upstream, through wood or field or brake, Most tremblingly to take What crumbs that from the Master's table fell.

Cry with what thronging thunders they were met, And hide not how the least leaf was made wet.

Cry till no watcher says that all is well With raucous discord through the leaning spheres.

But tell With tears, with tears How the last man is harmed even as they Who on these dawns are fire, at dusk are clay.

Record the dumb and wise, No less than those who lived in singing guise, Whose choric hearts lit each wild green arcade.

Make men to see their eyes, Forced to suspect behind each reed or rose The thorn of lurking foes.

And O, before the daylight goes, After the deed against the skies, After the last belief and longing dies, Make men again to see their eyes Whose piteous cas.e.m.e.nts now all unafraid Peer out to that far verge where evermore, Beyond all woe for which a tear atones, The likeness of our own dishonor moans, A sea that has no bottom and no sh.o.r.e.

What shall be done By you, shy folk who cease thus heart by heart?

You for whose fate such fate forever hovers?

O little lovers, If you would still have nests beneath the sun Gather your broods about you and depart, Before the stony forward-pressing faces Into the lands bereft of any sound; The solemn and compa.s.sionate desert places.

Give unto men no more the strong delight To know that underneath the frozen ground Dwells the warm life and all the quick, pure lore.

Take from our eyes the glory of great flight.

Let us behold no more People untroubled by a Fate's veiled eyes, Leave us upon an earth of faith forlorn.

No more wild tidings from the sweet far skies Of love's long utmost heavenward endeavor.

So shall the silence pour on us forever The streaming arrows of unutterable scorn.

Nor shall the cry of famine be a s.h.i.+eld The altar of a brutish mood to hide.

Stains, stains, upon the lintels of our doors Wail to be justified.

Shall there be mutterings at the seasons' yield?

Has eye of man seen bared the granary floors?

Are the fields wasted? Spilled the oil and wine?

Is the fat seed under the clod decayed?

Does ever the fig tree languish or the vine?

Who has beheld the harvest promise fade?

Or any orchard heavy with fruit asway Withered away?

No, not these things, but grosser things than these Are the dim parents of a guilt not dim; Ancestral urges out of old caves blowing, When Fear watched at our coming and our going The horror of the chattering face of Whim.

Hates, cruelties new fallen from the trees Whereto we clung with impulse sad for love, Shames we have had all time to rid us of, Disgraces cold and sorrows long bewept, Recalled, revived, and kept, Unmeaning quarrels, blood-compelling l.u.s.t, And snarling woes from our old home, the dust.

Yet even of these one saving shape may rise; Fear may unveil our eyes.

For know you not what curse of blight would fall Upon a land lorn of the sweet sky races Who day and night keep ward and seneschal Upon the treasury of the planted s.p.a.ces?

Then would the locust have his fill, And the blind worm lay t.i.the, The unfed stones rot in the listless mill, The sound of grinding cease.

No yearning gold would whisper to the scythe, Hunger at last would prove us of one blood, The sh.o.r.es of dream be drowned in tides of need, Horribly would the whole earth be at peace.

The burden of the gra.s.shopper indeed Weigh down the green corn and the tender bud, The plague of Egypt fall upon the wheat, And the shrill nit would batten in the heat.

But you, O poor of deeds and rich of breath, Whose eyes have made our eyes a hue abhorred, Red, eager aids of aid-unneeding Death, Hunters before the Lord, If on the flinted marge about your souls In vain the heaving tide of mourning rolls, If from your trails unto the crimson goals The weeper and the weeping must depart, If l.u.s.t of blood come on you like a fiery dart And darken all the dark autumnal air, Then, then -- be fair.

Pluck a young ash tree or a sapling yew And at the root end fix an iron thorn, Then forth with rocking laughter of the horn And pa.s.sing, with no belling retinue, All timorous, lesser sippers of the dew, Seek out some burly guardian of the hills And set your urgent thew against his thew.

Then shall the hidden wisdoms and the wills Strive, and bear witness to the trees and clods How one has dumb lore of the rocks and swales And one has reason like unto the G.o.ds.

Then shall the lagging righteousness ensue, The powers at last be equal in the scales, And the man's club and the beast's claw be flails To winnow the unworthy of the two.

Then on the earth, in the sky and the heavenly court That broods behind it, Justice shall be awakened and aware, Then those who go forth greatly, seeking sport, Shall doubtless find it, And all things be fair.

A Vagabond Song. [Bliss Carman]

There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood -- Touch of manner, hint of mood; And my heart is like a rhyme, With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.