Like a gondola of green scented fruits
Drifting along the dank canals at Venice,
You, O exquisite one,
Have entered my desolate city.
The blue smoke leaps
Like swirling clouds of birds vanishing.
So my love leaps forth towards you,
Vanishes and is renewed.
A rose-yellow moon in a pale sky
When the sunset is faint vermilion
In the mist among the tree-boughs,
Art thou to me.
As a young beech-tree on the edge of a forest
Stands still in the evening,
Yet shudders through all its leaves in the light air
And seems to fear the stars —
So are you still and so tremble.
The red deer are high on the mountain,
They are beyond the last pine trees.
And my desires have run with them.
The flower which the wind has shaken
Is soon filled again with rain;
So does my mind fill slowly with misgiving
Until you return.
The white church on the hill
Looks over the little bay —
A beautiful thing on the hill
When the mist is gray;
When the hill looks old, and the air turns cold
With the dying day!
The white church on the hill —
A Greek in a Puritan town —
Was built on the brow of the hill
For John Wesley's God's renown,
And a conscience old set a steeple cold
On its Grecian crown.
In a storm of faith on the hill
Hands raised it over the bay.
When the night is clear on the hill,
It stands up strong and gray;
But its door is old, and the tower points cold
To the Milky Way.
The white church on the hill
Looks lonely over the town.
Dim to them under the hill
Is its God's renown,
And its Bible old, and its creed grown cold,
And the letters brown.
Hung in the parlors of the town
Are many pictures of tall ships,
White-billowy to their pennon-tips,
And painted black or shining brown.
And, seeing them, the wild thought slips
Back to those wild and white sea-trips
When Round Pond shared the sea's renown;
And all her captains sailed a fleet,
Long-keeled and deep, around the Horn,
Where Del Fuego lies forlorn
In cloudy rack or scudding sleet.
On other seas of Capricorn
Old voyagers knew their house-flags, borne
Where Indian and Pacific meet.
Strong oils and wool from Boston bar,
Bright silks from busy blue Hong Kong —
And many a little mellow gong
On the shore wind, cleared for Samar
And all the isles of Orient song.
Oh, how the wind-clipt sails would throng!
Great ships—who knows now where they are?
The captains leave their white-walled homes
Built out of earnings from far lands,
But not to take their old commands
Into the wind where water foams!
The captains leave; to helmless hands
Are fallen their houses on these sands;
Their old wives wither in the rooms.
Their children pause, with vision spent—
Dear folk! they dabble, and put away
The majesties of yesterday.
No vital pulse, no strong event,
Sweeps in to break their life's delay;
The steam-boat lands, leaves them each day
Contented with their discontent.
Where is the blood that loved the sea!
Though old sea-commerce be no more,
Shall children of the sea on shore
Sink dull with careless industry?
Those painted ships bold purpose bore,
And what great glorious sails they wore —
Pictures that shame posterity!
There is no sword in my hand
Where I watch oversea.
Father's land, mother's land,
What will you say of me,
Who am blood of your German blood,
Through and through,
Yet would not, if I could,
Slaughter for you?
What will you say of one
Who has no heart
Even to cheer you on?
No heavens part,
No guiding God appears
To my strained eyes.
Athwart the fog of fears
And hates and lies,
I see no goal, I mark
No ringing message flying;
Only a brawl in the dark
And death and the groans of the dying.
For you, your men of dreams
And your strong men of deeds
Crumble, and die with screams,
And under hoofs like weeds
Are trampled; for you,
In city and on hill
Voices you knew
And needed are still.
And roundabout
Harbor and shoal
The lights of your soul
Go out.
To what end, O Fatherland?
I see your legions sweep
Like waves up the gray strand.
I hear your women weep.
And the sound is as the groaning
Swish of the ebbing wave —
A nation's pitiful moaning
Beside an open grave.
Ah, Fatherland, not all
Who love you most,
Armed to triumph or fall,
March with your mighty host.
Some there are yet, as I,
Who stand apart,
And with aching heart
Ponder the Whither and Why
Of the tragic story,
Asking with bated breath,
Which way lies glory,
And which way, death?
I have heard them in the night —
The cry of their fear,
Because there is no light,
Because they do not hear
Familiar sounds and feel the familiar arm,
And they awake alone.
Yet they have never known
Danger or harm.
What is their dread? —
This dark about their bed?
But they are so lately come
Out of the dark womb
Where they were safely kept.
That blackness was good;
And the silence of that solitude
Wherein they slept
Was kind.
Where did they find
Knowledge of death?
Caution of darkness and cold?
These — of the little, new breath —
Have they a prudence so old?
What has bent you,
Warped and twisted you,
Torn and crippled you?
What has embittered you,
O lonely tree?
You search the rocks for a footing,
dragging scrawny roots
You bare your thin breast to the storms,
and fling out wild arms behind you;
You throw back your witch-like head,
with wisps of hair stringing the wind.
You fight with the snows,
You rail and shriek at the tempests.
Old before your time, you challenge the cold stars.
Be still, be satisfied!
Stand straight like your brothers in the valley,
The soft green valley of summer down below.
Why front the endless winter of the peak?
Why seize the lightning in your riven hands?
Why cut the driven wind and shriek aloud?
They always said the moon was far away,
A hundred miles or more up on the skies;
They said he never could come down to play;
They said a lot of things that sounded wise:
But they were lies.
So when they said the moon is dead
I did not even shake my head;
I only laughed because I know
It isn't so.
Only the other night
I watched and saw how light
He leaped down from the skies.
And then, with crinkling eyes,
That seemed to say, "I'm coming,"
He danced and started humming
So gaily and so brightly
That Wendy, who sleeps lightly,
She's our canary, woke
And scolded when she spoke.
But on he came — so near
That he could almost peer
Into my room and see
Wendy, the toys and me.
Closer he came, until
His hands were on the sill —
They stretched and tried to get
My pail, my soldier set,
And, as he touched my broom,
He jumped into the room.
I knew then right away
He had come down to play —
And so without a word,
For mother might have heard,
Making no talk or noise,
We played with all my toys.
I never had such fun
Before with anyone.
After awhile he had to go —
I tired him, I'm afraid;
And then I knew why I liked him so
When he played.
For his face — as fat as a face could be —
Was jolly, and powdered white;
And I knew why the stars had to wink when he
Laughed all night.
I saw him dancing along a wall,
And jumping lightly down —
And I knew he wasn't a moon at all,
But a clown!
So when they tell me corn-starch makes you strong,
And sitting still is good for tired eyes;
I think that very likely they are wrong;
And lots of other things that sound so wise
Are only lies.
I think about the way they said
The moon was far away — and dead;
And then I laugh because I know
What isn't so!
Well, Heaven's hard to understand —
But it's a kind of great big land
All full of gold and glory;
With rivers green and pink and red,
And houses made of gingerbread
Like in the fairy story.
The floors they use are made of clouds;
And there are crowds and crowds and crowds
Who sing and dance till seven.
But then they must all keep still because
God and the Dream-man and Santa Claus
Sleep in the big House of Heaven.
God, he sleeps on the first two floors,
And the Dream-man sleeps above him and snores,
A tired out story-teller;
And Santa Claus, who hates the noise,
He sleeps on the roof with all of his toys;
And the angels live in the cellar.
Now, the angels never sleep a wink;
They're much too busy to stop to think
Or play on harps and guitars.
They're always cleaning the sun at night,
And all day long, to keep it bright,
They polish the moon and the stars.
They clean the streets and they tidy the rooms,
And they sweep out heaven with a million brooms,
And they hurry each other when they nod.
And they work so fast that they almost fall —
But God just sits and never works at all;
And that's because he's God!
Like nets of brown, by fisher folk
Spread out to dry in wind and sun,
While in the harbor idly wait
The boats for schools of fish to run:
So lie the ripened cotton fields
Along the slopes. The sun has browned
And curled their leaves; the rows stretch out
Enlaced with knots along the ground.
Above the rough red field of earth
Soft flecks of white droop from the bolls.
Far of the groups of pickers loom
Like burdened, disembodied souls —
Detached but not released, who haunt
The fields and hover near the soil:
Gray gleaners in the weary rows,
Entangled in an endless toil.
O brother tree! O brother tree! Tell to me, thy brother,
The secret of thy life,
The wonder of thy being.
My brother tree, my brother tree,
My heart is open to thee —
Reveal me all thy secrets.
Beloved tree, beloved tree,
I have shattered all my pride.
I love thee, brother, as myself.
Oh, explain to me thy wonders.
Beloved one, adored one,
I will not babble of it among fools —
I will tell it only to the unspoiled:
Reveal to me thy being.
I have watched thy leaves in sunshine,
I have heard them in the storm.
My heart drank a droplet of thy holy joy and wonder,
One drop from the ocean of thy wonder.
I am thy humble brother — I am thine own.
Reveal thy life to me,
Reveal thy calm joy to me,
Reveal to me thy serene knowledge.
I have seen an old street weeping —
Narrow, dark, ascending;
Water o'er the spires
Of a church descending;
The church thrice veiled — in rain,
In the shadow of the years,
In the grace of old design;
Dim dwellings, blind with tears,
Rotting either side
The winding passage way,
To where the river crosses
Weeping, under gray
And limpid heavens weeping.
Gardens I have seen
Through archéd doors, whose gratings
Ever cry the keen
Dim melodies of lace
Long used and rare, gardens
With an old-time grace
Vibrating, dimly trembling
In the music of the rain.
Roses I have seen drip a faint
Perfume, and lilacs train
A quivering loveliness
From door to archéd door,
Passing by in flower carts;
While waters ever pour
O'er the white stones of the fountain,
Melting icily away
Half way up the mountain;
Where to mingle tears with tears,
Their clothes misshapen, sobbing,
Two or three old women,
In wooden sabots hobbling,
Meet to fill their pitchers,
From the stream of water leaping
Through the lips, a long time parted,
Of a face grotesquely weeping —
A carven face forever weeping.
blakekathryn
2087
annaxmalina
jacobvanloon
turnnoffyourmind
pixelskylines