Poems – Page 14 – Poetry Out Loud

Under a spreading chestnut-tree
  ⁠The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
  With large and sinewy hands,
And the muscles of his brawny arms
  Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long;
  His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
  He earns whate’er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
  For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,
  You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
  With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
  When the evening sun is low.

And children coming home from school
  Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
  And hear the bellows roar,
And catch the burning sparks that fly
  Like chaff from a threshing-floor.

He goes on Sunday to the church,
  And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,
  He hears his daughter’s voice
Singing in the village choir,
  And it makes his heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like her mother’s voice
  Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
  How in the grave she lies;
And with his hard, rough hand he wipes
  A tear out of his eyes.

Toiling,—rejoicing,—sorrowing,
  Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
  Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
  Has earned a night’s repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
  For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
  Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
  Each burning deed and thought.

Ah, not this marble, dead and cold:

Far from its base and shaft expanding—the round zones circling, comprehending,

Thou, Washington, art all the world’s, the continents’ entire—not yours alone, America,

Europe’s as well, in every part, castle of lord or laborer’s cot,

Or frozen North, or sultry South—the African’s—the Arab’s in his tent,

Old Asia’s there with venerable smile, seated amid her ruins;

(Greets the antique the hero new? ’tis but the same—the heir legitimate, continued ever,

The indomitable heart and arm—proofs of the never-broken line,

Courage, alertness, patience, faith, the same—e’en in defeat defeated not, the same:)

Wherever sails a ship, or house is built on land, or day or night,

Through teeming cities’ streets, indoors or out, factories or farms,

Now, or to come, or past—where patriot wills existed or exist,

Wherever Freedom, pois’d by Toleration, sway’d by Law,

Stands or is rising thy true monument.

Sharers of a common country,

They had met in deadly strife;

Men who should have been as brothers

Madly sought each other’s life.

In the silence of the even,

When the cannon’s lips were dumb,

Thoughts of home and all its loved ones

To the soldier’s heart would come.

On the margin of a river,

‘Mid the evening’s dews and damps,

Could be heard the sounds of music

Rising from two hostile camps.

One was singing of its section

Down in Dixie, Dixie’s land,

And the other of the banner

Waved too long from strand to strand.

In the lawn where Dixie’s ensign

Floated o’er the hopeful slave,

Rose the song that freedom’s banner,

Starry-lighted, long might wave.

From the fields of strife and carnage,

Gentle thoughts began to roam,

And a tender strain of music

Rose with words of “Home, Sweet Home.”

Then the hearts of strong men melted,

For amid our grief and sin

Still remains that “touch of nature,”

Telling us we all are kin.

In one grand but gentle chorus,

Floating to the starry dome,

Came the words that brought them nearer,

Words that told of “Home, Sweet Home.”

For awhile, all strife forgotten,

They were only brothers then,

Joining in the sweet old chorus,

Not as soldiers, but as men.

Men whose hearts would flow together,

Though apart their feet might roam,

Found a tie they could not sever,

In the mem’ry of each home.

Never may the steps of carnage

Shake our land from shore to shore,

But may mother, home and Heaven,

Be our watchwords evermore.

Then a mason came forth and said, Speak to us of Houses.
     And he answered and said:
     Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness ere you build a house within the city walls.
     For even as you have home-comings in your twilight, so has the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone.
     Your house is your larger body.
     It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night; and it is not dreamless.
Does not your house dream? and dreaming, leave the city for a grove or hill-top?

     Would that I could gather your houses into my hand, and like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow.
     Would the valleys were your streets, and the green paths your alleys, that you might seek one another through vineyards, and come
with the fragrance of the earth in your garments.
     But these things are not yet to be.
     In their fear your forefathers gathered you too near together. And that fear shall endure a little longer. A little longer shall your city
walls separate your hearths from your fields.

     And tell me, people of Orphalese, what have you in these houses? And what is it you guard with fastened doors?
     Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals your power?
     Have you rememberances, the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind?
     Have you beauty, that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain?
     Tell me, have you these in your houses?
     Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and
then a master?

     Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires.
     Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron.
     It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh.
     It makes mock of your sound senses, and lays them in thistledown like fragile vessels.
     Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.

     But you, children of space, you restless in rest, you shall not be trapped nor tamed.
     Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast.
     It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye.
     You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors, nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling, nor fear
to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down.
     You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.
     And though of magnificence and splendour, your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing.
     For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the
songs and the silences of night.

Ah broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
Let the bell toll!–a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;
And, Guy De Vere, hast thou no tear?–weep now or never more!
See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!
Come! let the burial rite be read–the funeral song be sung!–
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young–
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.

“Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,
“And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her–that she died!
“How shall the ritual, then, be read?–the requiem how be sung
“By you–by yours, the evil eye,–by yours, the slanderous tongue
“That did to death the innocent that died, and died so young?”

Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song
Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel so wrong!
The sweet Lenore hath “gone before,” with Hope, that flew beside
Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride–
For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies,
The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes–
The life still there, upon her hair–the death upon her eyes.

“Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,
“But waft the angel on her flight with a Pæan of old days!
“Let no bell toll!–lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
“Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damnéd Earth.
“To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven–
“From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven–
“From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven.”

My Savior, let me hear Thy voice tonight,
   I’ll follow Thee, I’ll follow Thee;
The clouds that overhang my way, obscure
  the light,
   And all is dark to me.

I’d hear Thy voice above the tempest’s shriek;
I’ll follow Thee, I’ll follow Thee;
And though my sight be dim, my spirit weak,
I’ll trust, though naught I see.

I’d feel Thy arm, supporting in the dark;
   I’ll follow Thee, I’ll follow Thee;
For Thou canst fan to flame, faith’s sinking
  spark,
   And seal my loyalty.

I shall not sink, dear Lord, when Thou’rt my
   guide,
   I’ll follow Thee; I’ll follow Thee;
Though lashed by heavy waves, on ev’ry side,
   I’m safe, when Thou’rt with me.

^{For Marye’s Heights, Fredericksburg}

To them who crossed the flood
And climbed the hill, with eyes
Upon the heavenly flag intent,
And through the deathful tumult went
Even unto death: to them this Stone—
Erect, where they were overthrown—
Of more than victory the monument.

     Aspasie, trillistos.

I heard the trailing garments of the Night
     Sweep through her marble halls!
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
     From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might,
     Stoop o’er me from above;
The calm, majestic presence of the Night,
     As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,
     The manifold, soft chimes,
That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,
     Like some old poet’s rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air
     My spirit drank repose;
The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,—
     From those deep cisterns flows.

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear
     What man has borne before!
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care
     And they complain no more.

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!
     Descend with broad-winged flight,
The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,
     The best-beloved Night!

^{(For Carl Van Vechten)}

I cannot hold my peace, John Keats;
There never was a spring like this;
It is an echo, that repeats
My last year’s song and next year’s bliss.
I know, in spite of all men say
Of Beauty, you have felt her most.
Yea, even in your grave her way
Is laid. Poor, troubled, lyric ghost,
Spring never was so fair and dear
As Beauty makes her seem this year.

I cannot hold my peace, John Keats,
I am as helpless in the toil
Of Spring as any lamb that bleats
To feel the solid earth recoil
Beneath his puny legs. Spring beats
Her tocsin call to those who love her,
And lo! the dogwood petals cover

Her breast with drifts of snow, and sleek
White gulls fly screaming to her, and hover
About her shoulders, and kiss her cheek,
While white and purple lilacs muster
A strength that bears them to a cluster
Of color and odor; for her sake
All things that slept are now awake.

And you and I, shall we lie still,
John Keats, while Beauty summons us?
Somehow I feel your sensitive will
Is pulsing up some tremulous
Sap road of a maple tree, whose leaves
Grow music as they grow, since your
Wild voice is in them, a harp that grieves
For life that opens death’s dark door.
Though dust, your fingers still can push
The Vision Splendid to a birth,
Though now they work as grass in the hush
Of the night on the broad sweet page of the earth.

“John Keats is dead,” they say, but I
Who hear your full insistent cry
In bud and blossom, leaf and tree,
Know John Keats still writes poetry.

And while my head is earthward bowed
To read new life sprung from your shroud,
Folks seeing me must think it strange
That merely spring should so derange
My mind. They do not know that you,
John Keats, keep revel with me, too.

^{*Spring, 1924}

When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.

And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;

And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.

I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.