Poems – Page 18 – Poetry Out Loud

Where have you been the long day through,

Little brothers of mine?

For soon the world shall belong to you,

Yours to mar or to build anew—

Have you been to learn what the world shall do,

Little brothers going home?

We have been to learn through the weary day

Where the great looms echo and crash and sway—

The world has willed it, and we obey,

Elder brother.

What did you learn till set of sun,

Little brothers of mine,

Down where the great looms wove and spun,

You who are many where we are one

(We whose day is so nearly done),

Little brothers toiling home?

We have learned the things that the mill-folk said,

How Man is cruel and God is dead…

And how to spin with an even thread,

Elder brother.

What did you win with the thing they taught,

Little brothers of mine,

You whose sons shall have strength you brought,

Fashion their lives of the faith you bought,

Follow afar the ways you sought,

Little brothers stealing home?

Shattered body and stunted brain,

Hearts made hard with the need of gain,

These we won and must give again,

Elder brother.

How shall the world fare in your hand,

Little brothers of mine,

When you shall stand where now we stand?

Will you lift a light in the darkened land

Or fire its ways with a burning brand,

Little brothers creeping home?

What of the way the world shall fare?

What the world has given the world must bear…

We are tired—ah, tired—and we cannot care,

Elder brother!

All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.

These perturbations, this perpetual jar
Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star
An undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o’er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,—

So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.

What does he plant who plants a tree?
   He plants a friend of sun and sky;
He plants the flag of breezes free;
   The shaft of beauty, towering high;
   He plants a home to heaven anigh;
      For song and mother-croon of bird
      In hushed and happy twilight heard—
The treble of heaven’s harmony—
These things he plants who plants a tree.

What does he plant who plants a tree?
   He plants cool shade and tender rain,
And seed and bud of days to be,
   And years that fade and flush again;
      He plants the glory of the plain;
      He plants the forest’s heritage;
      The harvest of a coming age;
The joy that unborn eyes shall see—
These things he plants who plants a tree.

What does he plant who plants a tree?
   He plants, in sap and leaf and wood,
In love of home and loyalty
   And far-cast thought of civic good—
   His blessings on the neighborhood,
      Who in the hollow of His hand
      Holds all the growth of all our land—
A nation’s growth from sea to sea
Stirs in his heart who plants a tree.

This evening, as the twilight fell,

My younger children watched for me;

Like cherubs in the window framed,

I saw the smiling group of three.

While round and round the house I trudged,

Intent to walk a weary mile,

Oft as I passed within their range,

The little things would beck and smile.

They watched me, as Astronomers

Whose business lies in heaven afar,

Await, beside the slanting glass,

The re-appearance of a star.

Not so, not so, my pretty ones,

Seek stars in yonder cloudless sky;

But mark no steadfast path for me,

A comet dire and strange am I.

Now to the inmost spheres of light

Lifted, my wondering soul dilates,

Now dropped in endless depth of night,

My hope God’s slow recall awaits.

Among the shining I have shone,

Among the blessing, have been blest,

Then wearying years have held me bound

Where darkness deadness gives, not rest.

Between extremes distraught and rent,

I question not the way I go;

Who made me, gave it me, I deem,

Thus to aspire, to languish so.

But Comets too have holy laws,

Their fiery sinews to restrain,

And from their outmost wanderings

Are drawn to heaven’s dear heart again.

And ye, beloved ones, when ye know

What wild, erratic natures are,

Pray that the laws of heavenly force

Would hold and guide the Mother star.

Celestial choir! enthron’d in realms of light,
Columbia’s scenes of glorious toils I write.
While freedom’s cause her anxious breast alarms,
She flashes dreadful in refulgent arms.
See mother earth her offspring’s fate bemoan,
And nations gaze at scenes before unknown!
See the bright beams of heaven’s revolving light
Involved in sorrows and the veil of night!

The Goddess comes, she moves divinely fair,
Olive and laurel binds Her golden hair:
Wherever shines this native of the skies,
Unnumber’d charms and recent graces rise.

Muse! Bow propitious while my pen relates
How pour her armies through a thousand gates,
As when Eolus heaven’s fair face deforms,
Enwrapp’d in tempest and a night of storms;
Astonish’d ocean feels the wild uproar,
The refluent surges beat the sounding shore;
Or think as leaves in Autumn’s golden reign,
Such, and so many, moves the warrior’s train.
In bright array they seek the work of war,
Where high unfurl’d the ensign waves in air.
Shall I to Washington their praise recite?
Enough thou know’st them in the fields of fight.
Thee, first in peace and honors—we demand
The grace and glory of thy martial band.
Fam’d for thy valour, for thy virtues more,
Hear every tongue thy guardian aid implore!

One century scarce perform’d its destined round,
When Gallic powers Columbia’s fury found;
And so may you, whoever dares disgrace
The land of freedom’s heaven-defended race!
Fix’d are the eyes of nations on the scales,
For in their hopes Columbia’s arm prevails.
Anon Britannia droops the pensive head,
While round increase the rising hills of dead.
Ah! Cruel blindness to Columbia’s state!
Lament thy thirst of boundless power too late.

Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side,
Thy ev’ry action let the Goddess guide.
A crown, a mansion, and a throne that shine,
With gold unfading, WASHINGTON! Be thine.

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.

     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!

If I had a million dollars I don’t know what I’d do,
But I sometimes think I’d stroll around and squander a few;
Or, maybe I’d steel away to the country’s quietude
And spend the rest of life among the simple and the rude.

I hardly think with the fashionable I’d be imbued,
And the society woman I swear I would elude;
Nor should the bosoms of my Sunday shirts be immaculate––
Even a million, I don’t think, my cranium would inflate.

Because I’d like to slip a cog and go it with a bit,
With my soul aglow of passion for my brother in the pit;
Proud to be with the commoners, I’d rusticate awhile,
Nor would I care a cursed thing about the latest style.

“Brogan shoes and homespun socks?” The very things I need,
For too much dress and fashion would my lithe step impede;
A single gallus, friend, would hold my breeches on to me,
And I’d not care a snap about their bagging at the knee.

The doctrine of the broad-brimmed hat I’m sure I would not heed.
I believe in reducing things to what we really need;
Besides I’ve always been content under a brimless cap,
To go it with the urchins a-frolicking, jolly chap.

With them I’d like to take just now a little bit of ease,
A lounging where I used to, out under the apple trees,
A whittling and swapping jokes with Bill and Tom and Ned.
And let our mem’ries flit around the lore of the trundle-bed.

Aye, over and above it all, this is the simple truth:
If I’d it, and could, I would spend a million for my youth!
Then with my true love I would go a sparking it again,
And look the love upon her my tongue could never explain.

To lead her once again, my friend, through the old Virginia reel:
To salute her, to balance all; again, to fondly feel
The same old bliss I used to while swinging corners all
And stepping to the. Music of the jocund country ball.

Were worth millions of yellow pelf to a maimed old chap like me,
And I’d give it, if I could, with a zest of childish glee.
Oh! If I could but put away my gout and rhumatis’,
And take an old-time outing from the pressure of my “biz,”

With a bonny girl and youth I’d go to the fair old sunny clime,
Down the sylvan haunts of Dixie, where the jessamines ever twine;
Where the lilies faint of sweetness, and ever blows the thyme;
Where the seasons all are summer and the climate is sublime!

Where the rose aflame of beauty, drops its petals on the sward,
Geraniums blush to scarlet; the passion flowers nod
And the breezy sweep of zephyrs brings on the metric chime
Of the winged minstrelsy in in the glory of their prime…

If you could take the silver from this old pate of mine,
Call back my youth a-gambling down yon vista way sublime,
And bring me back my true love, my long-lost love again,
Up from among the daisies where she so long hath lain,
The million dollars you might have and millions o’er and o’er
Again I’d take my love and youth and ask for nothing more.

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.