The New Morning Part 8

But I've decided (you'll decide) That there is room for song on Monday.

I've seen the new sn.o.b on his way, The intellectual sn.o.b I mean, sir, The artist sn.o.b, in book and play, Kicking his mother round the scene, sir.

I've heard the Tories talk like fools; And the rich fool that apes the Tory.

I've seen the shopmen break your rules And die like Christ, in Christ's own glory.

But, as for you, that liberal sneer Reminds me of the poor old Kaiser.

He was a "socialist," my dear.

Well, I'm your grandson. You'll grow wiser.

MEMORIES OF THE PACIFIC COAST

I know a land, I, too, Where warm keen incense on the sea-wind blows, And all the winter long the skies are blue, And the brown deserts blossom with the rose.

Deserts of all delight, Cactus and palm and earth of thirsty gold, Dark purple blooms round eaves of sun-washed white, And that Hesperian fruit men sought of old.

O, to be wandering there, Under the palm-trees, on that sunset sh.o.r.e, Where the waves break in song, and the bright air Is crystal clean; and peace is ours, once more.

There Beauty dwells, Beauty, re-born in whiteness from the foam; And Youth returns with all its magic spells, And the heart finds its long-forgotten home,--

Home--home! Where is that land?

For, when I dream it found, the old hungering cry Aches in the soul, drives me from all I planned, And sets my sail to seek another sky.

NIPPON

Last night, I dreamed of Nippon....

I saw a cloud of white Drifting before the sunset On seas of opal light.

Beyond the wide Pacific I saw its mounded snow Miraculously changing In that deep evening glow,

To rosy rifts and hillocks, To orchards that I knew, To snows of peach and cherry, And feathers of bamboo.

I saw, on twisted bridges, In blue and crimson gleams, The lanterns of the fishers, Along the brook of dreams.

I saw the wreaths of incense Like little ghosts arise, From temples under Fuji, From Fuji to the skies.

I saw that fairy mountain....

I watched it form and fade.

No doubt the G.o.ds were singing, When Nippon isle was made.

THE HUMMING BIRDS

Green wing and ruby throat, What s.h.i.+ning spell, what exquisite sorcery, Lured you to float And fight with bees round this one flowering tree?

Petulant imps of light, What whisper or gleam or elfin-wild perfumes Thrilled through the night And drew you to this hive of rosy bloom?

One tree, and one alone, Of all that load this magic air with spice, Claims for its own Your brave migration out of Paradise;

Claims you, and guides you, too, Three thousand miles across the summer's waste Of blooms ye knew Less finely fit for your ethereal taste.

To poets' youthful hearts, Even so the quivering April thoughts will fly,-- Those irised darts, Those winged and tiny denizens of the sky.

Through beaks as needle-fine, They suck a redder honey than bees know.

Unearthly wine Sleeps in this bloom; and, when it falls, they go.

LINES FOR A SUN-DIAL

With shadowy pen I write, Till time be done, Good news of some strange light, Some far off sun.

THE REALMS OF GOLD

(Written after hearing a line of Keats repeated by a pa.s.sing stranger under the palms of Southern California.)

Under the palms of San Diego Where gold-skinned Mexicans loll at ease, And the red half-moons of their black-pipped melons Drop from their hands in the sunset seas, And an incense, out of the old brown missions, Blows through the orange trees;

I wished that a poet who died in Europe Had found his way to this rose-red West; That Keats had walked by the wide Pacific And cradled his head on its healing breast, And made new songs of the sun-burned sea-folk, New poems, perhaps his best.

I thought of him, under the ripe pomegranates At the desert's edge, where the grape-vines grow, In a sun-kissed ranch between grey-green sage-brush And amethyst mountains, peaked with snow, Or watching the lights of the City of Angels Glitter like stars below.

He should walk, at dawn, by the lemon orchards, And breathe at ease in that dry bright air; And the Spanish bells in their crumbling cloisters Of brown adobe would sing to him there; And the old Franciscans would bring him their baskets Of apple and olive and pear.

And the mandolins, in the deep blue twilight, Under that palm with the lion's mane, Would pluck, once more, at his golden heart-strings, And tell him the old sea-tales of Spain; And there should the daughters of Hesperus teach him Their mystical songs again.

Then, the dusk blew sweet over seas of peach-bloom; The moon sailed white in the cloudless blue; The tree-toads purred, and the crickets chirruped; And better than anything dreamed came true; For, under the murmuring palms, a shadow Pa.s.sed, with the eyes I knew;

A shadow, perhaps, of the tall green fountains That rustled their fronds on that glittering sky, A hungering shadow, a lean dark shadow, A dreaming shadow that drifted by; But I heard him whisper the strange dark music That found it so "rich to die."

And the murmuring palms of San Diego Shook with stars as he pa.s.sed beneath.

The Paradise palms, and the wild white orchards, The night, and its roses, were all one breath, Bearing the song of a nightingale seaward, A song that had out-soared death.