Poetry content
Little scavenger away,
touch not the door,
beat not the portal down,
cross not the sill,
silent until
my song, bright and shrill,
breathes out its lay.
Little scavenger avaunt,
tempt me with jeer and taunt,
yet you will wait to-day;
for it were surely ill
to mock and shout and revel;
it were more fit to tell
with flutes and calathes,
your mother’s praise.
My father is a quiet man
With sober, steady ways;
For simile, a folded fan;
His nights are like his days.
My mother’s life is puritan,
No hint of cavalier,
A pool so calm you’re sure it can
Have little depth to fear.
And yet my father’s eyes can boast
How full his life has been;
There haunts them yet the languid ghost
Of some still sacred sin.
And though my mother chants of God,
And of the mystic river,
I’ve seen a bit of checkered sod
Set all her flesh aquiver.
Why should he deem it pure mischance
A son of his is fain
To do a naked tribal dance
Each time he hears the rain?
Why should she think it devil’s art
That all my songs should be
Of love and lovers, broken heart,
And wild sweet agony?
Who plants a seed begets a bud,
Extract of that same root;
Why marvel at the hectic blood
That flushes this wild fruit?
You were too kind to come at all.
The door closed on you, and my hall
Shivered in sudden naked shame.
I whispered it was not to blame
And followed you within, to where
You were awaited by my chair.
It was so small, and you sat down
With a so gracious smile—a frown
Would have gone better with that wall;
You were too kind to smile at all.
You stretched a hand toward the grate;
Its welcome was inadequate.
You looked about you and pretended
The carpet and the picture blended.
I looked—and all my furnishings
Had turned their heads: the sorry things!
You said you felt at home—a lie
My misery was finished by.
Even your guilelessness was gall.
You were too kind to come at all.
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!
As I lie in bed,
Flat on my back;
There passes across my ceiling
An endless panorama of things—
Quick steps of gay-voiced children,
Adolescence in its wondering silences,
Maid and man on moonlit summer’s eve,
Women in the holy glow of Motherhood,
Old men gazing silently thru the twilight
Into the beyond.
O God, give me words to make my dream-children live.
Rosh-Hashanah, 5643
Not while the snow-shroud round dead earth is rolled,
And naked branches point to frozen skies.—
When orchards burn their lamps of fiery gold,
The grape glows like a jewel, and the corn
A sea of beauty and abundance lies,
Then the new year is born.
Look where the mother of the months uplifts
In the green clearness of the unsunned West,
Her ivory horn of plenty, dropping gifts,
Cool, harvest-feeding dews, fine-winnowed light;
Tired labor with fruition, joy and rest
Profusely to requite.
Blow, Israel, the sacred cornet! Call
Back to thy courts whatever faint heart throb
With thine ancestral blood, thy need craves all.
The red, dark year is dead, the year just born
Leads on from anguish wrought by priest and mob,
To what undreamed-of morn?
For never yet, since on the holy height,
The Temple’s marble walls of white and green
Carved like the sea-waves, fell, and the world’s light
Went out in darkness,—never was the year
Greater with portent and with promise seen,
Than this eve now and here.
Even as the Prophet promised, so your tent
Hath been enlarged unto earth’s farthest rim.
To snow-capped Sierras from vast steppes ye went,
Through fire and blood and tempest-tossing wave,
For freedom to proclaim and worship Him,
Mighty to slay and save.
High above flood and fire ye held the scroll,
Out of the depths ye published still the Word.
No bodily pang had power to swerve your soul:
Ye, in a cynic age of crumbling faiths,
Lived to bear witness to the living Lord,
Or died a thousand deaths.
In two divided streams the exiles part,
One rolling homeward to its ancient source,
One rushing sunward with fresh will, new heart.
By each the truth is spread, the law unfurled,
Each separate soul contains the nation’s force,
And both embrace the world.
Kindle the silver candle’s seven rays,
Offer the first fruits of the clustered bowers,
The garnered spoil of bees. With prayer and praise
Rejoice that once more tried, once more we prove
How strength of supreme suffering still is ours
For Truth and Law and Love.
The moon has left the sky, love,
The stars are hiding now,
And frowning on the world, love,
Night bares her sable brow.
The snow is on the ground, love,
And cold and keen the air is.
I’m singing here to you, love;
You’re dreaming there in Paris.
But this is Nature’s law, love,
Though just it may not seem,
That men should wake to sing, love;
While maidens sleep and dream.
Them care may not molest, love,
Nor stir them from their slumbers,
Though midnight find the swain, love.
Still halting o’er his numbers.
I watch the rosy dawn, love,
Come stealing up the east,
While all things round rejoice, love,
That Night her reign has ceased.
The lark will soon be heard, love,
And on his way be winging;
When Nature’s poets wake, love,
Why should a man be singing?
We say he is dead; ah, the word is too
somber;
’Tis the touch of God, on the weary
eyes,
That has caused them to close, in peace-
ful slumber,
To open with joy, in the upper skies.
We say he is gone; we have lost him for-
ever;
His face and his form we will cherish no
more;
While happy and safe, just over the river,
He is waiting for us, where partings
are o’er.
Ah, sad are our hearts, as we gaze on
him sleeping,
And bitter and sad are the tears gush-
ing down;
And yet,— but we cannot see, for the
weeping,—
He has only exchanged the cross, for
the crown.
And though the dark mists of grief may
surround us,
Obscuring the face of the Father above,
And blindly we grope, still His arms are
around us,
To guide and sustain with His pitying
love.
And he whom we love, is safe in His
keeping,
Yes, safe and secure, whatever may
come;
But ne’er will we know how sweetly he’s
sleeping.
Till God, in His mercy, shall gather us
home.
Not they who soar, but they who plod
Their rugged way, unhelped, to God
Are heroes; they who higher fare,
And, flying, fan the upper air,
Miss all the toil that hugs the sod.
‘Tis they whose backs have felt the rod,
Whose feet have pressed the path unshod,
May smile upon defeated care,
Not they who soar.
High up there are no thorns to prod,
Nor boulders lurking ‘neath the clod
To turn the keenness of the share,
For flight is ever free and rare;
But heroes they the soil who’ve trod,
Not they who soar!
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up- for you the flag is flung- for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths- for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.