COLORS AND SURFACES

A GOLDEN LAD

(D. V. M.)

  "Golden lads and lasses must
   Like chimney-sweepers come to dust."
  —SHAKESPEARE.

  So young, but already the splendor
    Of genius robed him about—
  Already the dangerous, tender
    Regard of the gods marked him out—

  (On whom the burden and duty
    They bind, at his earliest breath,
  Of showing their own grave beauty,
    They love and they crown with death.)

  We were of one blood, but the olden
    Rapt poets spake out in his tone;
  We were of one blood, but the golden
    Rathe promise was his, his alone.

  And ever his great eye glistened
    With visions I could not see,
  Ever he thrilled and listened
    To voices withholden from me.

  Young lord of the realms of fancy,
    The bright dreams flocked to his call
  Like sprites that the necromancy
    Of a Prospero holds in thrall—

  Quick visions that served and attended,
    Elusive and hovering things,
  With a quiver of joy in the splendid
    Wild sweep of their luminous wings;

  He dwelt in an alien glamor,
    He wrought of its gleams a crown,—
  But the world, with its cruelty and clamor,
    Broke him and beat him down;

  So he passed; he was worn, he was weary,
    He was slain at the touch of life;—
  With a smile that was wistful and eerie
    He passed from the senseless strife;—

  So he ceased (is their humor satiric,
    These gods that make perfect and blight?)—
  He ceased like an exquisite lyric
    That dies on the breast of night.

THE SAGE AND THE WOMAN

  'TWIXT ancient Beersheba and Dan
  Another such a caravan
  Dazed Palestine had never seen
  As that which bore Sabea's queen
  Up from the fain and flaming South
  To slake her yearning spirit's drouth
    At wisdom's pools, with Solomon.

  With gifts of scented sandalwood,
  And labdanum, and cassia-bud,
  With spicy spoils of Araby
  And camel-loads of ivory
  And heavy cloths that glanced and shone
  With inwrought pearl and beryl-stone
    She came, a bold Sabean girl.

  And did she find him grave, or gay?
    Perchance his palace breathed that day
  With psalters sounding solemnly—
  Or cymbals' merrier minstrelsy—
  Perchance the wearied monarch heard
  Some loose-tongued prophet's meddling word;—
    None knows, no one—but Solomon!

  She looked—with eyne wherein were blent
  All ardors of the Orient;
  She spake—all magics of the South
  Were compassed in the witch's mouth;—
  He thought the scarlet lips of her
  More precious than En Gedi's myrrh,
    The lips of that Sabean girl;

  By many an amorous sun caressed,
  From lifted brow to amber breast
  She gleamed in vivid loveliness—
  And lithe as any leopardess—
  And verily, one blames thee not
  If thine own proverbs were forgot,
    O Solomon, wise Solomon!

  She danced for him, and surely she
  Learnt dancing from some moonlit sea

  Where elfin vapors swirled and swayed
  While the wild pipes of witchcraft played
  Such clutching music 'twould impel
  A prophet's self to dance to hell—
    So spun the light Sabean girl.

  He swore her laughter had the lilt
  Of chiming waters that are spilt
  In sprays of spurted melody
  From founts of carven porphyry,
  And in the billowy turbulence
  Of her dusk hair drowned soul and sense—
    Dark tides and deep, O Solomon!

  Perchance unto her day belongs
  His poem called the Song of Songs,
  Each little lyric interval
  Timed to her pulse's rise and fall;—
  Or when he cried out wearily
  That all things end in vanity
    Did he mean that Sabean girl?

  The bright barbaric opulence,
  The sun-kist Temple, Kedar's tents,—

  How many a careless caravan
  'Twixt Beersheba and ruined Dan,
  Within these forty centuries,
  Has flung their dust to many a breeze,
    With dust that was King Solomon!

  But still the lesson holds as true,
  O King, as when she lessoned you:
  That very wise men are not wise
  Until they read in Folly's eyes
  The wisdom that escapes the schools,
  That bids the sage revise his rules
    By light of some Sabean girl!

NEWS FROM BABYLON

    "Archaeologists have discovered a love-letter among the ruins
  of Babylon." —Newspaper report.

  The world hath just one tale to tell, and it is very old,
  A little tale—a simple tale—a tale that's easy told:
  "There was a youth in Babylon who greatly loved a
      maid!"
  The world hath just one song to sing, but sings it
      unafraid,
  A little song—a foolish song—the only song it hath:
  "There was a youth in Ascalon who loved a girl in
      Gath!"

  Homer clanged it, Omar twanged it, Greece and
      Persia knew!—
  Nimrod's reivers, Hiram's weavers, Hindu, Kurd,
      and Jew—
  Crowning Tyre, Troy afire, they have dreamed
      the dream;
  Tiber-side and Nilus-tide brightened with the
      gleam—

  Oh, the suing, sighing, wooing, sad and merry
      hours,
  Blisses tasted, kisses wasted, building Babel's
      towers!
  Hearts were aching, hearts were breaking, lashes
      wet with dew,
  When the ships touched the lips of islands Sappho
      knew;
  Yearning breasts and burning breasts, cold at last,
      are hid
  Amid the glooms of carven tombs in Khufu's
      pyramid—
  Though the sages, down the ages, smile their cynic
      doubt,
  Man and maid, unafraid, put the schools to rout;
  Seek to chain love and retain love in the bonds of
      breath,
  Vow to hold love, bind and fold love even unto
      death!

  The dust of forty centuries has buried Babylon,
  And out of all her lovers dead rises only one;
  Rises with a song to sing and laughter in his eyes,
  The old song—the only song—for all the rest are lies!

  For, oh, the world has just one dream, and it is very
      old—
  'Tis youth's dream—a silly dream—but it is flushed
      with gold!

A RHYME OF THE ROADS

  PEARL-SLASHED and purple and crimson and
      fringed with gray mist of the hills,
  The pennons of morning advance to the music of
      rock-fretted rills,
  The dumb forest quickens to song, and the little
      gusts shout as they fling
  A floor-cloth of orchard bloom down for the flashing,
quick feet of the Spring.

  To the road, gipsy-heart, thou and I! 'Tis the
      mad piper, Spring, who is leading;
  'Tis the pulse of his piping that throbs through
      the brain, irresistibly pleading;
  Full-blossomed, deep-bosomed, fain woman,
      light-footed, lute-throated and fleet,
  We have drunk of the wine of this Wanderer's song;
      let us follow his feet!

  Like raveled red girdles flung down by some
      hoidenish goddess in mirth
  The tangled roads reach from rim unto utter-most
      rim of the earth—
  We will weave of these strands a strong net, we
      will snare the bright wings of delight,—
  We will make of these strings a sweet lute that
      will shame the low wind-harps of night.

  The clamor of tongues and the clangor of trades
      in the peevish packed street,
  The arrogant, jangling Nothings, with iterant,
      dissonant beat,
  The clattering, senseless endeavor with dross of
      mere gold for its goal,
  These have sickened the senses and wearied the
      brain and straitened the soul.

  "Come forth and be cleansed of the folly of strife
      for things worthless of strife,
  Come forth and gain life and grasp God by foregoing
      gains worthless of life"—

  It was thus spake the wizard wildwood, low-voiced
      to the hearkening heart,
  It was thus sang the jovial hills, and the harper
      sun bore part.

  O woman, whose blood as my blood with the fire
      of the Spring is aflame,
  We did well, when the red roads called, that we
      heeded the call and came—
  Came forth to the sweet wise silence where soul
      may speak sooth unto soul,
  Vine-wreathed and vagabond Love, with the goal
      of Nowhere for our goal!

  What planet-crowned Dusk that wanders the
      steeps of our firmament there
  Hath gems that may match with the dew-opals
      meshed in thine opulent hair?
  What wind-witch that skims the curled billows
      with feet they are fain to caress
  Hath sandals so wing'd as thine art with a
      god-like carelessness?

  And dare we not dream this is heaven?—to wander
      thus on, ever on.
  Through the hush-heavy valleys of space, up the
      flushing red slopes of the dawn?—
  For none that seeks rest shall find rest till he
      ceaseth his striving for rest,
  And the gain of the quest is the joy of the road
      that allures to the quest.

THE LAND OF YESTERDAY

  AND I would seek the country town
  Amid green meadows nestled down
  If I could only find the way
  Back to the Land of Yesterday!

  How I would thrust the miles aside,
    Rush up the quiet lane, and then,
  Just where her roses laughed in pride,
    Find her among the flowers again.
  I'd slip in silently and wait
  Until she saw me by the gate,
  And then … read through a blur of tears
  Quick pardon for the selfish years.

  This time, this time, I would not wait
  For that brief wire that said, Too late!—
  If I could only find the way
  Into the Land of Yesterday.

  I wonder if her roses yet
    Lift up their heads and laugh with pride,
  And if her phlox and mignonette
    Have heart to blossom by their side;
  I wonder if the dear old lane
  Still chirps with robins after rain,
  And if the birds and banded bees
  Still rob her early cherry-trees….

  I wonder, if I went there now,
  How everything would seem, and how—
  But no! not now; there is no way
  Back to the Land of Yesterday.

OCTOBER

  CEASE to call him sad and sober,
  Merriest of months, October!
  Patron of the bursting bins,
  Reveler in wayside inns,
  I can nowhere find a trace
  Of the pensive in his face;
  There is mingled wit and folly,
  But the madcap lacks the grace
  Of a thoughtful melancholy.
  Spendthrift of the seasons' gold,
  How he flings and scatters out
  Treasure filched from summer-time!—
  Never ruffling squire of old
  Better loved a tavern bout
  When Prince Hal was in his prime.
  Doublet slashed with gold and green;
  Cloak of crimson; changeful sheen,
  Of the dews that gem his breast;
  Frosty lace about his throat;

  Scarlet plumes that flaunt and float
  Backward in a gay unrest—
  Where's another gallant drest
  With such tricksy gaiety,
  Such unlessoned vanity?
  With his amber afternoons
  And his pendant poets' moons—
  With his twilights dashed with rose
  From the red-lipped afterglows—
  With his vocal airs at dawn
  Breathing hints of Helicon—
  Bacchanalian bees that sip
  Where his cider-presses drip—
  With the winding of the horn
  Where his huntsmen meet the morn—
  With his every piping breeze
  Shaking from familiar trees
  Apples of Hesperides—
  With the chuckle, chirp, and trill
  Of his jolly brooks that spill
  Mirth in tangled madrigals
  Down pebble-dappled waterfalls—
  (Brooks that laugh and make escape
  Through wild arbors where the grape

  Purples with a promise of
  Racy vintage rare as love)—
  With his merry, wanton air,
  Mirth and vanity and folly
  Why should he be made to bear
  Burden of some melancholy
  Song that swoons and sinks with care?
  Cease to call him sad or sober,—
  He's a jolly dog, October!

CHANT OF THE CHANGING HOURS

  THE Hours passed by, a fleet, confused crowd;
    With wafture of blown garments bright as fire,
  Light, light of foot and laughing, morning-browed,
    And where they trod the jonquil and the briar
  Thrilled into jocund life, the dreaming dells
  Waked to a morrice chime of jostled bells;—
  They danced! they danced! to piping such as
        flings
  The garnered music of a million Springs
    Into one single, keener ecstasy;—
  One paused and shouted to my questionings:
    "Lo, I am Youth; I bid thee follow me!"

  The Hours passed by; they paced, great lords and
        proud,
    Crowned on with sunlight, robed in rich attire;
  Before their conquering word the brute deed
        bowed,
    And Ariel fancies served their large desire;

  They spake, and roused the mused soul that dwells
  In dust, or, smiling, shaped new heavens and
        hells,
  Dethroned old gods and made blind beggars kings:
  "And what art thou," I cried to one, "that brings
    His mistress, for a brooch, the Galaxy?"—
  "I am the plumed Thought that soars and sings:
    Lo, I am Song; I bid thee follow me!"

  The Hours passed by, with veiled eyes endowed
    Of dream, and parted lips that scarce suspire,
  To breathing dusk and arrowy moonlight vowed,
    South wind and shadowy grove and murmuring
        lyre;—
  Swaying they moved, as drows'd of wizard spells
  Or tranc'd with sight of recent miracles,
  And yet they trembled, down their folded wings
  Quivered the hint of sweet withholden things,
    Ah, bitter-sweet in their intensity!
  One paused and said unto my wonderings:
    "Lo, I am Love; I bid thee follow me!"

  The Hours passed by, through huddled cities loud
    With witless hate and stale with stinking mire:

  So cowled monks might march with bier and shroud
    Down streets plague-spotted toward some cleansing pyre;—
  Yet, lo! strange lilies bloomed in lightless cells,
  And passionate spirits burst their clayey shells
  And sang the stricken hope that bleeds and clings:
  Earth's bruised heart beat in the throbbing strings,
    And joy still struggled through the threnody!
  One stern Hour said unto my marvelings:
    "Lo, I am Life; I bid thee follow me!"

  The Hours passed by, the stumbling hours and
        cowed,
    Uncertain, prone to tears and childish ire,—
  The wavering hours that drift like any cloud
    At whim of winds or fortunate or dire,—
  The feeble shapes that any chance expells;
  Their wisdom useless, lacking the blood that swells
  The tensed vein: the hot, swift tide that stings
  With life. Ah, wise! but naked to the slings
    Of fate, and plagued of youthful memory!
  A cracked voice broke upon my pityings:
    "Lo, I am Age; I bid thee follow me!"

  Ah, Youth! we dallied by the babbling wells
  Where April all her lyric secret tells;—
  Ah, Song! we sped our bold imaginings
  As far as yon red planet's triple rings;—
    O Life! O Love! I followed, followed thee!
  There waits one word to end my journeyings:
    "Lo, I am Death; I bid thee follow me!"