Toward the Gulf Part 13

You saw through and laughed at--you saw above all That a soul must make end with a groan, or a curse, or a laugh.

So you smiled till the lines of your mouth A crescent became with dimples for horns, so expressing To centuries after who see you in marble: Behold me, I lived, I loved, I laughed, I toiled without ceasing Through eighty-four years for realities--O let them pa.s.s, Let life go by. Would you rise over death like a G.o.d?

Front the ages with a smile!

POOR PIERROT

Here far away from the city, here by the yellow dunes I will lie and soothe my heart where the sea croons.

For what can I do with strife, or what can I do with hate?

Or the city, or life, or fame, or love or fate?

Or the struggle since time began of the rich and poor?

Or the law that drives the weak from the temple's door?

Bury me under the sand so that my sorrow shall lie Hidden under the dunes from the world's eye.

I have learned the secret of silence, silence long and deep: The dead knew all that I know, that is why they sleep.

They could do nothing with fate, or love, or fame, or strife-- When life fills full the soul then life kills life.

I would glide under the earth as a shadow over a dune, Into the soul of silence, under the sun and moon.

And forever as long as the world stands or the stars flee Be one with the sands of the sh.o.r.e and one with the sea.

MIRAGE OF THE DESERT

Well, there's the brazier set by the temple door: Blue flames run over the coals and flicker through.

There are cool s.p.a.ces of sky between white clouds-- But what are flames and s.p.a.ces but eyes of blue?

And there's the harp on which great fingers play Of G.o.ds who touch the wires, dreaming infinite things; And there's a soul that wanders out when called By a voice afar from the answering strings.

And there's the wish of the deep fulfillment of tears, Till the vision, the mad music are wept away.

One cannot have them and live, but if one die It might be better than living--who can say?

Why do we thirst for urns beyond urns who know How sweet they are, yet bitter, not enough?

Eternity will quench your thirst, O soul-- But never the Desert's spectre, cup of love!

DAHLIAS

The mad wind is the warden, And the smiling dahlias nod To the dahlias across the garden, And the wastes of the golden rod.

They never pray for pardon, Nor ask his way nor forego, Nor close their hearts nor harden Nor stay his hand, nor bestow

Their hearts filched out of their bosoms, Nor plan for dahlias to be.

For the wind blows over the garden And sets the dahlias free.

They drift to the song of the warden, Heedless they give him heed.

And he walks and blows through the garden Blossom and leaf and seed.

THE GRAND RIVER MARSHES

Silvers and purples breathing in a sky Of fiery mid-days, like a watching tiger, Of the restrained but pa.s.sionate July Upon the marshes of the river lie, Like the filmed pinions of the dragon fly.

A whole horizon's waste of rushes bend Under the flapping of the breeze's wing, Departing and revisiting The haunts of the river twisting without end.

The torsions of the river make long miles Of the waters of the river which remain Coiled by the village, tortuous aisles Of water between the rushes, which restrain The bewildered currents in returning files, Twisting between the greens like a blue racer, Too hurt to leap with body or uplift Its head while gliding, neither slow nor swift

Against the s.h.a.ggy yellows of the dunes The iron bridge's reticules Are seen by fishermen from the Damascened lagoons.

But from the bridge, watching the little steamer Paddling against the current up to Eastmanville, The river loosened from the abandoned spools Of earth and heaven wanders without will, Between the rushes, like a silken streamer.

And two old men who turn the bridge For pa.s.sing boats sit in the sun all day, Toothless and sleepy, ancient river dogs, And smoke and talk of a glory pa.s.sed away.

And of the ruthless sacrilege Which mowed away the pines, And cast them in the current here as logs, To be devoured by the mills to the last sliver, Making for a little hour heroes and heroines, Dancing and laughter at Grand Haven, When the great saws sent screeches up and whines, And cries for more and more Slaughter of forests up and down the river And along the lake's sh.o.r.e.

But all is quiet on the river now As when the snow lay windless in the wood, And the last Indian stood And looked to find the broken bough That told the path under the snow.

All is as silent as the spiral lights Of purple and of gold that from the marshes rise, Like the wings of swarming dragon flies, Far up toward Eastmanville, where the enclosing skies Quiver with heat; as silent as the flights Of the crow like smoke from shops against the glare Of dunes and purple air, There where Grand Haven against the sand hill lies.

The forests and the mills are gone!

All is as silent as the voice I heard On a summer dawn When we two fished among the river reeds.

As silent as the pain In a heart that feeds A sorrow, but does not complain.

As silent as above the bridge in this July, Noiseless, far up in this mirror-lighted sky Wheels aimlessly a hydroplane: A man-bestridden dragon fly!