A Lonely Flute Part 2

HOUSEMATES

This little flickering planet Is such a lonely spark Among the million mighty fires That blaze in the outer dark,

The homeless waste about us Leaves such a narrow span To this dim lodging for a night, This bivouac of man,

That all the heavens wonder In all their alien stars To see us wreck our fellows.h.i.+p In mad fraternal wars.

POMP AND CIRc.u.mSTANCE

With a shout of trumpets and roll of drums, Down the road the music comes And all my heart leaps up to greet The steady tread of the marching feet.

Blare of bugle and shriek of fife...

This is the triumphing wine of life!

My senses reel and my glad heart sings, My spirit soars on jubilant wings.

Fluttering banners and gonfalons Cover with beauty the murderous guns; 'T is sweet to live, 't were great to die With this vast music marching by.

For all my heart leaps up to greet The steady tread of the marching feet When down the road the music comes With a shout of trumpets and roll of drums.

THE HIDDEN WEAVER

There where he sits in the cold, in the gloom, Of his far-away place by his thundering loom, He weaves on the shuttles of day and of night The shades of our sorrow and shapes of delight.

He has wrought him a glimmering garment to fling Over the sweet swift limbs of the Spring, He has woven a fabric of wonder to be For a blue and a billowy robe to the sea, He has fas.h.i.+oned in sombre funereal dyes A tissue of gold for the midnight skies.

But sudden the woof turns all to red.

Has he lost his craft? Has he snapped his thread?

Sudden the web all sanguine runs.

Does he hear the yell of the thirsting guns?

While the scarlet crimes and the crimson sins Grow from the dizzying outs and ins Of the shuttle that spins, does he see it and feel?

Or is he the slave of a tyrannous wheel?

Inscrutable faces, mysterious eyes, Are watching him out of the drifting skies; Exiles of chaos crowd through the gloom Of the uttermost cold to that thundering room And whisper and peer through the dusk to mark What thing he is weaving there in the dark.

Will he leave the loom that he won from them And rend his fabric from hem to hem?

Is he weaving with daring and skill sublime A wonderful winding-sheet for time?

Ah, but he sits in a darkling place, Hiding his hands, hiding his face, Hiding his art behind the s.h.i.+ne Of the web that he weaves so long and fine.

Loudly the great wheel hums and rings And we hear not even the song that he sings.

Over the whirr of the shuttles and all The roar and the rush, does he hear when we call?

Only the colors that grow and glow Swift as the hurrying shuttles go, Only the figures vivid or dim That flow from the hastening hands of him, Only the fugitive shapes are we, Wrought in the web of eternity.

VANITAS

Three queens of old in Yemen Beside forgotten streams, Three tall and stately women, Dreamt three great stately dreams Of love and power and pleasure and conquering quinqueremes.

They dreamt of love that squandered All Egypt for a kiss, They dreamt of fame and pondered On proud Persepolis, But most they yearned for the wild delights of pale Semiramis.

They had for lords and lovers Dark kings of Araby, Corsairs and wild sea-rovers From many an alien lea,-- Black-bearded men who loved and fought and won them cruelly.

They reared a dreamlike palace Stately and white and tall As a lily's ivory chalice Where every echoing hall Was rumorous with rustling leaves and plas.h.i.+ng water's fall.

There to the tinkling zither And pa.s.sionate guitars They footed hence and hither Beneath the breathless stars, From bare round breast and shoulder waved their glimmering cymars.

Theirs was an empire's treasure Of gems and rich attire, Love had they beyond measure And wine that burnt like fire; Each stately queen in Yemen found verily her desire.

But beauty waned and smouldered, Love languished into l.u.s.t, The centuries have mouldered Their raven hair to rust, The desert sand is over them, their darkling eyes are dust.

Their bosoms' pride is sunken Beneath the purple pall, Their smooth round limbs are shrunken, Through clasp and anklet crawl Lithe little snakes, upon their tombs lean lizards twitch and sprawl.

SPENSER'S "FAeRIE QUEENE"

Like some clear well of water in the waste, Some magic well beside the weary miles, This beauty is. I turn aside and taste The cool Lethean drink. Suddenly smiles A leafy world upon me,--peristyles Of flickering shade! The hush is only stirred Where silver runlets brighten down the aisles, From pool to pool rehearsing one low word Answered at drowsy intervals by a lonely bird.

Along the rustling arches and through vast Dim caverns of green solitude are rolled The wintry leaves of all the withered past, One confraternity of common mould.

From summers perished, autumn's tarnished gold Long blown to dust in many a fallen glade Is reared this rumorous temple million-boled, This shrine of peace, this whispering colonnade Trembling from court to court with restless sun and shade.

And here a while may weary Fancy turn And loiter by the rote of guttural streams.

Brus.h.i.+ng the skirts of silence, the stirred fern Breathes softly "hush" and "hush"--a sound that seems Only the fluttering sigh of deepest dreams.

Here comes no sound or sight of fevered things...

No sight or sound. Green-gold the daylight beams, And deep in the heart of dusk a far bird sings Faint as the feathered beat of her own wavering wings.

Calm singer in the chambers of the dawn, Our hearts are weary singing in the heat When all thy dewy matin hopes are gone And all thy raptures, prophesyings sweet, And fair, false dreams are flying in defeat.

O thou, the poet's poet, from thy sky Of ancient morning look thou down and greet Thy brothers of the noon with gentle eye.

Lift them from out the dust. Forlorn and low they lie!

Heart-easing poet, sing to us like bells Across wide waters paven by the stains Of sunset; like a vagrant breeze that swells And rises lingering, fails and grows and wanes Along a listening wood; like April rains In which the anemones of dream are born.

And though you cannot save us from the pains Of life,--the heat, the insensate noise, the scorn,-- Here may we find our rose, forget a while the thorn.