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Janitor's Boy and Other Poems

<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" /></div> <hr class="chap" /> <h1>THE JANITOR’S BOY<br/> AND OTHER POEMS</h1> <hr class="chap" /> <div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/i_frontispiece.jpg" alt="" /></div> <p class="caption"><span class="illright">Marceau</span><br/> <i>Nathalia Clara Ruth Crane</i></p> <hr class="chap" /> <div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/i_title.jpg" alt="" /></div> <hr class="tb" /> <div class="titlepage"> <p><span class="xxlarge">THE JANITOR’S BOY</span><br/> <span class="large">AND OTHER POEMS</span></p> <p><span class="xlarge">By NATHALIA CRANE</span></p> <div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src="images/i_titlelogo.jpg" alt="" /></div> <p>NEW YORK<br/> <span class="large">THOMAS SELTZER</span><br/> 1924</p> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <p class="center"> Copyright, 1924, by<br/> THOMAS SELTZER, <span class="smcap">Inc.</span><br/> <br/> <i>All Rights Reserved</i><br/> <br/> First Printing, May, 1924<br/> Second Printing, May, 1924</p> <p class="center">PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p> <hr class="chap" /> <p class="center"> <i>Foreword, by</i><br/> WILLIAM ROSE BENET<br/> <br/> <i>Nathalia at Ten, by</i><br/> NUNNALLY JOHNSON<br/> <br/> <i>Afterword, by</i><br/> EDMUND LEAMY</p> <hr class="chap" /> <p class="center">TO<br/> MY MOTHER</p> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_XI" id="Page_XI">[XI]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak"> CONTENTS</h2></div> <table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" summary="table"> <tr><td> </td><td class="tdr"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> <tr><td>FOREWORD, <i>by William Rose Benét</i></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_XIII"> XIII</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>NATHALIA AT TEN, <i>by Nunnally Johnson</i>     </td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_XVII"> XVII</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE JANITOR’S BOY</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_23"> 23</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>OH, ROGER JONES</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_24"> 24</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE FLATHOUSE ROOF</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_25"> 25</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>JOHN PAUL JONES</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_26"> 26</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE ROVERS</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_27"> 27</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE VACANT LOT</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_29"> 29</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE SWINGING STAIR</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_31"> 31</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE VESTAL</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_32"> 32</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE BLIND GIRL</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_33"> 33</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>PRESCIENCE</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_34"> 34</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>LOVE</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_35"> 35</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>WHAT EVERY GIRL KNOWS</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_36"> 36</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>JEALOUSY</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_37"> 37</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>MOTHER’S BONNET</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_38"> 38</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE RAG BAG</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_39"> 39</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE FIRST SNOW STORM</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_40"> 40</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>SUFFERING</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_41"> 41</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE MAP MAKERS</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_42"> 42</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>DIANA</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_43"> 43</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE READING BOY</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_44"> 44</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE BATTLE ON THE FLOOR</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_45"> 45</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>MID-DAY AT TRINITY</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_47"> 47</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>CASTLE “BILL”</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_48"> 48</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>CASTLE WILLIAM</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_49"> 49</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE ROLL OF THE ROSES</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_50"> 50</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE GOSSIPS</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_51"> 51</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>TO-MORROW</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_52"> 52</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE ROSE OF REST</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_53"> 53</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE SYMBOLS</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_54"> 54</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE SALAMANDER ISLES</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_55"> 55</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE CHESS GAME</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_56"> 56</SPAN><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_XII" id="Page_XII">[XII]</SPAN></span></td></tr> <tr><td>THE DINOSAURS’ EGGS</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_58"> 58</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE FIRST STORY</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_59"> 59</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE THREE-CORNERED LOT</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_60"> 60</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE HISTORY OF HONEY</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_61"> 61</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE HISTORY OF PAINTING</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_63"> 63</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE ROAD TO ROSLYN</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_65"> 65</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE ARMY LAUNDRESS</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_67"> 67</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>REGINA MENDOSENA</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_68"> 68</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE GIRL FROM SOAPSUDS ROW</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_69"> 69</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>EVA</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_72"> 72</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>OLD MAID’S REVERIE</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_73"> 73</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE COMMONPLACE</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_74"> 74</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>BERKLEY COMMON</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_75"> 75</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>CHOICE</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_76"> 76</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>THE FIRE VASE</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_77"> 77</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>MY HUSBANDS</td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_78"> 78</SPAN></td></tr> <tr><td>AFTERWORD, <i>by Edmund Leamy</i></td><td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_81"> 81</SPAN></td></tr> </table> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_XIII" id="Page_XIII">[XIII]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">FOREWORD</h2></div> <p><span class="smcap">When</span> I took the two poems from Nathalia’s mother, and promised to read them, I had seen none of the press notices of Miss Crane’s talent. Being only a quasi-journalist I seldom read the newspapers. I am extremely skeptical of infant prodigies, and the poems of Nathalia’s that I have since seen most quoted in newspaper articles about her are just what you would expect. They prove nothing except that she is a little girl with a lively fancy. Certain poems in this first collection, however, seem to me to prove something more.</p> <p>Some long time ago in Scotland there was a little girl named Marjorie Fleming, and to-day a twelve-year-old, Helen Douglas Adam, the daughter of a Scotch parson and his wife of Dundee, is her successor overseas to the juvenile purple. Miss Adam has now been published both in England and America. Yet the best poems of hers that I have read do not seem to me to possess such individuality or such maturity of melody and diction as Miss Crane’s best poems. Then there is our own Hilda Conkling, whose mother is a distinguished American poet, and who writes in free verse and has published several volumes of poems. Hilda is a real poet. But she has never grappled with and conquered certain problems of poetic structure from which Miss Crane, by sheer instinct, seems to have wrested occasional victory.</p> <p>I took the two poems from Nathalia’s mother; and first I read <i>The Blind Girl</i>. I came upon the two verses:</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">In the darkness who would answer for the color of a rose,</div> <div class="verse">Or the vestments of the May moth and the pilgrimage it goes.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <hr class="tb" /></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Oh, night, thy soothing prophecies companion all our ways,</div> <div class="verse">Until releasing hands let fall the catalogue of days.</div> </div></div> </div> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_XIV" id="Page_XIV">[XIV]</SPAN></span>These lines and the meditation from which they spring were the spontaneous phrasing and the natural meditation of—a child of ten. That in itself, I think, is sufficiently remarkable.</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse">In the darkness who would cavil at the question of a line,</div> <div class="verse">Since the darkness holds all loveliness beyond the mere design.</div> </div></div> <p>Strange insight for a comparative infant!</p> <p>In her lighter moments—and, naturally, there are a great many—Nathalia’s “heart is all a-flutter like the washing on the line”; she “could not stain romance with monetary fee”; and, when she has sat upon a bumble-bee, she knows “the tenseness of humiliating pain.” Many a grown humorist might envy the freshness of such amusing phrase.</p> <p>There is much laughter and nonsense in this book—that of a rather romantic little girl with a quick eye and ear and a pert fancy. But there is, as I have intimated, more than that.</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Cloud-made mountains towered</div> <div class="indent">Beckoning to me;</div> <div class="verse">Visionary triremes</div> <div class="indent">Talked about the sea.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">There were strings of camels</div> <div class="indent">On the Tunis sands.</div> <div class="verse">There were certain cities</div> <div class="indent">Holding out their hands.</div> </div></div> </div> <p>Here the thing we call poetry asserts itself. The instinct for remarkable phrase and striking figurative expression is either inborn or it is not. Facility with rhyme and metre is not nearly so remarkable. But when a child can write, as in the poem <i>My Husbands</i>,</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse">I hear in soft recession</div> <div class="indent">The praise they give to me;</div> <div class="verse">I hear them chant my titles</div> <div class="indent">From all antiquity.</div> </div></div> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_XV" id="Page_XV">[XV]</SPAN></span>it is almost uncanny. Here is, if you like, a somewhat derivative diction, but here also is true poetry by every test.</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse">He showed me like a master</div> <div class="indent">That one rose makes a gown:</div> <div class="verse">That looking up to Heaven</div> <div class="indent">Is merely looking down.</div> </div></div> <p>Well, I not only wonder how she has learned simple finality of phrase so quickly; I also wonder whether she can possibly realize the philosophical implications of her best poems.</p> <p>As for imagery, Nathalia’s angels hearing “the hurdy-gurdies in the Candle-Maker’s Row” is an example of her fancy that quickens into imagination. She sees the Oriental bees flying “in golden convoys to the mountains of the moon,” she quizzically presents the pathos of <i>The Dinosaurs’ Eggs</i>; she has “steered by stars that sorrowed, with the moonlight in our wake”; she sees Berkley Common</p> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="verse">Like a manuscript, all yellow, and with many things deleted,</div> <div class="verse">Yet a manuscript completed, with embellishments most rare,</div> <div class="verse">Berkley Common lies forgotten, with its fields of everlasting,</div> <div class="verse">And the sunlight on the windows of the empty houses there.</div> </div></div> <p>As to exactly what she is trying to say in <i>The Symbols</i>, I am in doubt, but it is hard to forget the Talmud stalking like a rabbi in a gown.</p> <p>On the one hand, with Nathalia, we have simply a rhyming gift turned to amusing descriptions of certain fairly ordinary episodes and characteristics of life that interest every healthily alert young lady. On the other hand, we have the beginnings of a poet with a true ear for rhythm, an eye for the color of words, and a fancy that often rises into the realm of imagination. I only hope that the young lady will continue to enjoy all the ordinary incidents of her existence as much as she has heretofore, and to perfect her technique in her spare moments. It needs perfecting. It is hardly to be wondered<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_XVI" id="Page_XVI">[XVI]</SPAN></span> at that her work is still in the experimental stage. She is not yet “the youngest of the seers,” nor yet “released from fetters of ancestral pose,” but there is undoubtedly conquest of poetic beauty “waiting down the years” for her—“revisions of the ruby and the rose,” as she puts it. Read the first two verses of <i>The Vestal</i> and marvel that a young lady of Nathalia’s age should be able to master without effort such a perfectly Emily Dickinsonian idiom. This is no copy; it is something that even Emily Dickinson would not have been at all ashamed to have written. And that is a good deal to say.</p> <p>Now as to prophecies, who can make them? Frankly, I have not the slightest idea how Miss Crane’s gift may develop. I only know that she has given signs of astonishing precocity as a young poet. Her parents have wisdom and they will see that she is not spoiled. Her gifts will simply develop according to her experience of literature and her experience of life. It is a very ticklish thing to endeavor in any way to direct so young a gift. It will find by instinct its own nourishment; that is my belief.</p> <p>Meanwhile, to Nathalia, good luck on the difficult road!</p> <blockquote> <p class="right"><span class="smcap">William Rose Benet</span></p> <p><i>New York City, May, 1924.</i></p> </blockquote> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_XVII" id="Page_XVII">[XVII]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak"> NATHALIA AT TEN</h2></div> <p><span class="smcap">Nathalia’s</span> day is today. All of Time that is past, from the birth of those odd old folk, the troglodytes, about which she has ruminated so pleasantly, up to and through the final scene of the latest Broadway moving picture is, to her, a harvested crop—important in its way but no longer interesting. And as for tomorrow and the next year, they will have their turn presently. It is today....</p> <p>This extract from Nathalia’s as yet unarticulated philosophy is offered by way of information for those who are instinctively inclined to be harsh, on general principles, with a talent that springs, a little too boldly perhaps, ahead of its years.</p> <p>Nathalia had been writing her verse for several months before Mr. and Mrs. Crane came across it, writing it without fuss or excitement and storing it in a small and private album, content apparently with the reward of whatever pleasure the rereading of it gave her. If she had, even secretly, any concern with such a vanity as applause, she certainly did not betray it. And when shortly before Christmas of 1922, the little girl mailed some of her poems to a Brooklyn newspaper and received immediate acknowledgment from the editor, her parents were as much astonished as, later on, was the editor of a newspaper when, after having accepted a number of poems signed Nathalia Crane, the author herself walked into the office and proved to be a mite of a human being.</p> <p>I was one of the file of reporters that trailed into Nathalia’s home the morning after her first publication, bent less on nourishing and encouraging a young artist than on getting a human-interest story. It was a file that eventually included generous, vociferous, and indiscriminate<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_XVIII" id="Page_XVIII">[XVIII]</SPAN></span> eulogists, a file that threatened to demoralize or spoil whatever young talents Nathalia had.</p> <p>Those kind-hearted newspaper folks showered her with a shocking amount of almost unqualified praise, some of it accurately placed but most of it merely blank fire. This would have been very bad for her but for one thing—Nathalia never read any of it.</p> <p>And so, unaffected, she maintained the same tenor of her young days, playing with her dolls when she pleased and retiring to her boudoir to make rhythms when she pleased. She has always written, and still does write, only when the fancy prompts her.</p> <p>What Nathalia has written is the kind of thing that she can write, whatever its merits or demerits. She has measured it against no other verse, youthful or adult. The inspiration for most of it comes from books she has read, which are mainly romantic in character. As for the rest, it happens that she is an extraordinarily articulate little girl, and if in some cases the conceits and fancies which she crystallizes are no rarer than those that, in all probability, throng the mysterious mind of every imaginative child, the explanation is simply that she is able to utter and clarify them, and these other children are, for the most part, normally unable to do that. That also they have, in Nathalia’s case, taken the form of mature work, as evidenced, in one way, by the fact that editors published her contributions for several months before learning that she was so much below the accepted age for serious consideration, is, I believe, another mark of her high singularity.</p> <p>Others, unfortunately, will be less easily satisfied. A cynicism concerning the future careers of precocious children is one of the rigid fundamentals of nearly every mind. It has, no doubt, a valid basis. But, for that reason, Nathalia’s future, probably very dark in popular prospect, threatens to shade her present. That is why I offered at the outset, as a point of information, the comment on Nathalia’s general attitude toward life. Nathalia,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_XIX" id="Page_XIX">[XIX]</SPAN></span> I am sure, sees no reason why anybody else should read these poems with an eye any further ahead in time than this afternoon’s sunset. She is content to leave the verdict, so far as posterity is concerned, to her own grandchildren.</p> <blockquote> <p class="right"><span class="smcap">Nunnally Johnson</span></p> <p><i>Brooklyn, N. Y., May, 1924.</i></p> </blockquote> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_XX" id="Page_XX">[XX]</SPAN></span></p> <hr class="chap" /> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_XXI" id="Page_XXI">[XXI]</SPAN></span></p> <p class="center"><span class="xxlarge"><b>THE JANITOR’S BOY</b></span><br/> <span class="large"><b>AND OTHER POEMS</b></span></p> </div> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_XXII" id="Page_XXII">[XXII]</SPAN></span></p> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak"> THE JANITOR’S BOY</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Oh</span> I’m in love with the janitor’s boy,</div> <div class="indent">And the janitor’s boy loves me;</div> <div class="verse">He’s going to hunt for a desert isle</div> <div class="indent">In our geography.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">A desert isle with spicy trees</div> <div class="indent">Somewhere near Sheepshead Bay;</div> <div class="verse">A right nice place, just fit for two</div> <div class="indent">Where we can live alway.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Oh I’m in love with the janitor’s boy,</div> <div class="indent">He’s busy as he can be;</div> <div class="verse">And down in the cellar he’s making a raft</div> <div class="indent">Out of an old settee.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">He’ll carry me off, I know that he will,</div> <div class="indent">For his hair is exceedingly red;</div> <div class="verse">And the only thing that occurs to me</div> <div class="indent">Is to dutifully shiver in bed.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The day that we sail, I shall leave this brief note,</div> <div class="indent">For my parents I hate to annoy:</div> <div class="verse">“I have flown away to an isle in the bay</div> <div class="indent">With the janitor’s red-haired boy.”</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">OH, ROGER JONES</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Oh,</span> Roger Jones! Oh, Roger Jones!</div> <div class="indent">Oh, Prince! O, Knight! Ah me!</div> <div class="verse">We used to play at keeping house,</div> <div class="indent">Beneath an old oak tree.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Your hair was red, your eyes were brown,</div> <div class="indent">You had a freckled nose;</div> <div class="verse">You were the father of my dolls,</div> <div class="indent">My husband—I suppose.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Oh, Roger! You were only nine,</div> <div class="indent">And I was half-past eight;</div> <div class="verse">It really was romantic, or</div> <div class="indent">As good, at any rate.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE FLATHOUSE ROOF</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">I linger</span> on the flathouse roof, the moonlight is divine.</div> <div class="verse">But my heart is all a-flutter like the washing on the line.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I long to be a heroine, I long to be serene,</div> <div class="verse">But my feet, they dance in answer to a distant tambourine.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And, oh! the dreams of ecstasy. Oh! Babylon and Troy.</div> <div class="verse">I’ve a hero in the basement, he’s the janitor’s red-haired boy.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">There’s the music of his mallet and the jigging of his saw;</div> <div class="verse">I wonder what he’s making on that lovely cellar floor?</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">He loves me, for he said it when we met upon the stair,</div> <div class="verse">And that is why I’m on the roof to get a breath of air.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">He said it! Oh! He said it! And the only thing I said</div> <div class="verse">Was, “Roger Jones, I like you, for your hair is very red.”</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We parted when intruders came a-tramping through the hall;</div> <div class="verse">He’s got my pocket handkerchief and I have got his ball.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And so it is I’m on the roof. Oh! Babylon and Troy!</div> <div class="verse">I’m very sure that I’m in love with someone else’s boy.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Alone, upon the starry heights, I’m dancing on a green,</div> <div class="verse">To the jingling and the jangling of a distant tambourine.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">To the stamping of a hammer and the jigging of a saw,</div> <div class="verse">And the secret sort of feeling I’m in love forever more.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Do you think it’s any wonder, with the moonlight so divine,</div> <div class="verse">That my heart is all a-flutter, like the washing on the line?</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">JOHN PAUL JONES</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">’Tis</span> John Paul Jones—the janitor’s boy,</div> <div class="indent">He lives on the gun-deck floor,</div> <div class="verse">Where all of the windows are action ports,</div> <div class="indent">And the dumbwaiters rattle and roar.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The old trash tins are our hand grenades</div> <div class="indent">And the rugs on the backyard lines—</div> <div class="verse">Are the mains of the Britisher Serapis</div> <div class="indent">That we fight with our bursting “Nines.”</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">’Tis John Paul Jones—my Admiral;</div> <div class="indent">His hair is a glorious red;</div> <div class="verse">And I am the maiden who serves as the mate</div> <div class="indent">To see that the sawdust is spread.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">He leans on the rail of the laundry tubs</div> <div class="indent">As the Serapis lifts on our lee;</div> <div class="verse">Our gun crews chant by the carronades</div> <div class="indent">And the powder boys yell in their glee.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">For he who stands in Colonial rags,</div> <div class="indent">Is born to the gift of the game—</div> <div class="verse">Of shaking the dust from a Serapis,</div> <div class="indent">Or the dust from the halls of fame.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I whirl the wheel of the wash machine</div> <div class="indent">In the spray of a soap-suds sea;</div> <div class="verse">But I know in my heart that the daring Jones</div> <div class="indent">Is winning the fight for me.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And I think it is sweet of John Paul Jones,</div> <div class="indent">In playing the good old game,</div> <div class="verse">To do all the fighting just for love—</div> <div class="indent">With never a thought of fame.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE ROVERS</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">“Oh,</span> wilt thou go a-sailing,” said the janitor’s boy to me:</div> <div class="verse">“It’s raining, but I’ve got a raft rigged with a canopy.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">“We carry boisterous batteries, our cannon balls are stones,</div> <div class="verse">But I’ll wager all your loveliness you’re safe with John Paul Jones.”</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I asked him very faintly was he competent to steer?</div> <div class="verse">He said he was authority on rafts and running gear.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Then suddenly his voice sank low to slow and gentle tones,</div> <div class="verse">And off I went a-sailing with my captain, John Paul Jones.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We drifted down the avenue that was our sweep of sea.</div> <div class="verse">And never man or mermaid any happier than we.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We paused beside a paradise depicted on a sign;</div> <div class="verse">We moored fast to the margin of its crimson border line.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We slipped our surf-filled sandals off, we waded to the knee,</div> <div class="verse">And when I felt like swooning John Paul Jones supported me.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The darkness hesitated, fearing we might lose our way;</div> <div class="verse">We counted all the street lamps ’ere we homeward sought to stray.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We counted corner lanterns, and the understanding stars</div> <div class="verse">Saw we were linked by longings for the shining shell-strewn bars.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">For the realms reserved for rovers, for the rafts and painted signs,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</SPAN></span></div> <div class="verse">And the right to moor to ring-heads in the far-off border lines.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE VACANT LOT</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">They’re</span> going to build a flathouse on the lot next door to me;</div> <div class="verse">And Roger Jones, the janitor’s boy, is mad as he can be.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">That lot was like a tropic isle, with weeds and rubbish fair,</div> <div class="verse">The rusty cans and coffee pots, that looked like Roger’s hair.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">’Twas oft we strolled among the weeds, we were in love, you see,</div> <div class="verse">And Roger Jones was going to build a bungalow for me.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We used to rest upon a rock just where the weeds were tall;</div> <div class="verse">We were engaged, I think, until the builders spoiled it all.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">But now they’ve ruined Roger’s plans, they’ve dug up all the lot;</div> <div class="verse">With all the brick and mortar round, you’d never know the spot.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">They came with carts and horses; tore our wilderness apart;</div> <div class="verse">No wonder Roger Jones was wild; it nearly broke <i>my</i> heart.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We could have done some wondrous things if time were not so slow;</div> <div class="verse">The weeds, they might have grown to trees, fit for a bungalow.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">With rusty cans and broken glass, we’d planned a home so nice;</div> <div class="verse">But they dumped their brick and mortar in our little paradise.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</SPAN></span></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">They dumped their brick and mortar ’mid the smoky lakes of lime,</div> <div class="verse">Yet we won’t forget, ’twas Eden—Eden, once upon a time.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Eden, where we dreamed supremely—rusty can and coffee pot;</div> <div class="verse">Eden, with the weeds and rubbish, in a vacant city lot.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And now, we’re simply waiting, oh, that janitor’s boy and me,</div> <div class="verse">Until the janitor’s boy grows up and finds himself quite free</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">To just discover areas where builders never go,</div> <div class="verse">Where we may live forever in a little bungalow.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE SWINGING STAIR</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">From</span> the flotsam of a city street we built the Swinging Stair,</div> <div class="verse">And latitude, or longitude, the least of all our care.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">A tilting board—an orange crate—the sparrows screamed with glee,</div> <div class="verse">As we swung to port and starboard like a lugger on the sea.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We cruised without a compass, but with merchandise of worth,</div> <div class="verse">To barter pins and needles at the portals of the Earth.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The helmsman was my hero brave, his hair as red could be;</div> <div class="verse">Perhaps he was the janitor’s boy, but he belonged to me;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">He was mine because I made him master of the Swinging Stair,</div> <div class="verse">And because I liked the color of his very auburn hair.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The surf upon the sandbars called the price of sugar cane;</div> <div class="verse">It was mounting every moment down upon the Spanish Main.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The trades were in the topsails, in the scuppers raced the foam,</div> <div class="verse">But never did we get beyond the gateway of our home.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We have notions that the motions of a lugger ’neath a tree</div> <div class="verse">Do not exactly tally with the leagues she makes at sea;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Yet the glory of the ocean lies in no far distant goal,</div> <div class="verse">But reflections in the water, and the port to starboard roll.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE VESTAL</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Once</span> a pallid vestal</div> <div class="indent">Doubted truth in blue;</div> <div class="verse">Listed red as ruin,</div> <div class="indent">Harried every hue;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Barricaded vision,</div> <div class="indent">Garbed herself in sighs;</div> <div class="verse">Ridiculed the birth marks</div> <div class="indent">Of the butterflies.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Dormant and disdainful,</div> <div class="indent">Never could she see</div> <div class="verse">Why the golden powder</div> <div class="indent">Decorates the bee;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Why a summer pasture</div> <div class="indent">Lends itself to paint;</div> <div class="verse">Why love unappareled</div> <div class="indent">Still remains the saint.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Finally she faltered;</div> <div class="indent">Saw at last, forsooth,</div> <div class="verse">Every gaudy color</div> <div class="indent">Is a bit of truth.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Then the gates were opened;</div> <div class="indent">Miracles were seen;</div> <div class="verse">That instructed damsel</div> <div class="indent">Donned a gown of green;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Wore it in a churchyard,</div> <div class="indent">All arrayed with care;</div> <div class="verse">And a painted rainbow</div> <div class="indent">Shone above her there.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE BLIND GIRL</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">In</span> the darkness, who would answer for the color of a rose,</div> <div class="verse">Or the vestments of the May moth and the pilgrimage it goes.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">In the darkness who would answer, in the darkness who would care,</div> <div class="verse">If the odor of the roses and the winged things were there.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">In the darkness who would cavil o’er the question of a line.</div> <div class="verse">Since the darkness holds all loveliness, beyond the mere design.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Oh night, thy soothing prophecies companion all our ways,</div> <div class="verse">Until releasing hands let fall the catalogue of days.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">In the darkness, who would answer for the color of a rose,</div> <div class="verse">Or the vestments of the May moth and the pilgrimage it goes.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">In the darkness who would answer, in the darkness who would care,</div> <div class="verse">If the odor of the roses and the better things were there.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">PRESCIENCE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">A precious</span> place is Paradise and none may know its worth,</div> <div class="verse">But Eden ever longeth for the knickknacks of the earth.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The angels grow quite wistful over worldly things below;</div> <div class="verse">They hear the hurdy-gurdies in the Candle Maker’s Row.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">They listen for the laughter from the attics of the earth;</div> <div class="verse">They lower pails from heaven’s walls to catch the milkmaids’ mirth.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">By turns they scan the shadow of the dial on the wall;</div> <div class="verse">The rams’ heads of that drawbridge never lowered since the fall.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">They sway with sweet misgivings, that on rising somewhat late</div> <div class="verse">They may hear unusual noises by the battlemented gate.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">See warders at each windlass, every rusty chain a-cry;</div> <div class="verse">See a ponderous portcullis rise, a drawbridge downward fly.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Perchance some summer morning and with no one on the wall,</div> <div class="verse">The warders may get orders and the drawbridge swiftly fall.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">A wingless one may be the first to stumble on the scene</div> <div class="verse">And vision earth and heaven, with a rustic bridge between.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">LOVE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Now</span> Marjory is seven years,</div> <div class="indent">And I am nine and more.</div> <div class="verse">We went a-strolling after cream</div> <div class="indent">Into a Flatbush store.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The handsome clerk said “Ladies, yes,</div> <div class="indent">I’ll serve you with a rush.”</div> <div class="verse">He looked so very scrumptious that</div> <div class="indent">We both began to blush.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">He smiled at us, we smiled at him.</div> <div class="indent">And then we went away:</div> <div class="verse">We were so captivated, yes,</div> <div class="indent">That we forgot to pay.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Of course we could have sauntered back,</div> <div class="indent">And settled, don’t you see,</div> <div class="verse">But oh, we could not stain romance</div> <div class="indent">With monetary fee.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">WHAT EVERY GIRL KNOWS</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">In</span> my bedroom, in my boudoir,</div> <div class="indent">There’s a box I ope no more;</div> <div class="verse">It is packed with all my treasures</div> <div class="indent">From the ten cent store.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Saturday, a longing seizes—</div> <div class="indent">Grips me so I scarce can speak,</div> <div class="verse">And I ask for my allowance,</div> <div class="indent">Mostly thirty cents a week.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Then I call on Margie Lynam,</div> <div class="indent">And we hasten from the door;</div> <div class="verse">And we go inspecting counters</div> <div class="indent">In the ten cent store.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We get flushed most every visit</div> <div class="indent">When we lay our money down;</div> <div class="verse">There are no expert advisors—</div> <div class="indent">Mr. Woolworth’s out of town.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Homeward, purchases we carry,</div> <div class="indent">And examine them with care;</div> <div class="verse">Then we pile them in the play-box,</div> <div class="indent">And we always leave them there.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Riches never will be ours,</div> <div class="indent">We have said it o’er and o’er,</div> <div class="verse">Till they make things all “One Dollar”</div> <div class="indent">In the ten cent store.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">JEALOUSY</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="indent2"><span class="smcap">Flatbush!</span> Flatbush! Rah! Rah! Rah!</div> <div class="indent2">See the bobbed-head riding</div> <div class="indent2">On the bob-tailed car.</div> <div class="indent2">Flatbush! Flatbush! Rah! Rah! Rah!</div> <div class="indent2">I saw a big girl staring at my Pa.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">She was standing in the corner, she was turning in her toes.</div> <div class="verse">She must have been a senior—by the powder on her nose.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Her hair was bobbed and blond-like and she was someone’s pet,</div> <div class="verse">But I went into action with the battlefield all set.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Rah! Rah! Flatbush! my mother wasn’t there,</div> <div class="verse">But some papas are rather young and need a daughter’s care.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And that is why in Flatbush we have organized a guard,</div> <div class="verse">Made up of little daughters of the men who work so hard.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Some day, of course, I will mature and know a little more,</div> <div class="verse">But now I am content to be my mother’s Signal Corps.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And mother knows when I go out with Pa, things are O. K.,</div> <div class="verse">For I belong to the Flatbush Guards—we don’t let father stray.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="indent2">Flatbush! Flatbush! Rah! Rah! Rah!</div> <div class="indent2">I hold on to father’s hand</div> <div class="indent2">When we go very far.</div> <div class="indent2">Flatbush! Flatbush! Rah! Rah! Rah!</div> <div class="indent2">See the bobbed-head riding on the bob-tailed car.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">MOTHER’S BONNET</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">This</span> is her bonnet, with ribbons arrayed,</div> <div class="verse">Clearly a calico ambuscade;</div> <div class="verse">It dates from the days of the bricks of straw—</div> <div class="verse">This is the bonnet my mother wore.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">This is the bonnet my mother donned</div> <div class="verse">When she walked with a youth by Plymouth Pond;</div> <div class="verse">’Twas the night she wore her beads of jade,</div> <div class="verse">And father fell into the ambuscade.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">This is the bonnet I found in a chest,</div> <div class="verse">Daisies and bows in a lavender nest;</div> <div class="verse">It looks like the plumes the Persians wore,</div> <div class="verse">But it must have had wonderful power to draw.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE RAG BAG</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">When</span> we went down to grandma’s</div> <div class="indent">To visit our dearest kin,</div> <div class="verse">We asked for grandma’s rag bag</div> <div class="indent">That hangs in the garret bin.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Oh, grandma’s frugal minded</div> <div class="indent">From an old New England day,</div> <div class="verse">But you ought to see that rag bag</div> <div class="indent">And the things she threw away.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">There were gloves that had no fingers,</div> <div class="indent">And hose of Highland clans;</div> <div class="verse">There were petticoats from Paris</div> <div class="indent">And Pekin’s painted fans.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Our fingers flew at random</div> <div class="indent">Like bees at a flower stall,</div> <div class="verse">And we found that gown of grandma’s</div> <div class="indent">That she wore at the governor’s ball.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We carried it down from the garret,</div> <div class="indent">The Florentine flounces set;</div> <div class="verse">And we made our grandma show us</div> <div class="indent">How she danced the minuet.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Oh, grandma’s frugal minded,</div> <div class="indent">And sometimes her foot goes down,</div> <div class="verse">But her riches she puts in the rag bag</div> <div class="indent">When we are coming to town.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE FIRST SNOW STORM</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">The</span> very first snow of the year, Mama,</div> <div class="indent">And the drifts must be ten feet high;</div> <div class="verse">So I’ve come home to get dry, Mama,</div> <div class="indent">And this is the reason why:</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We were on our way from school, Mama,</div> <div class="indent">Betty and Margie and Nan,</div> <div class="verse">When someone gave us a terrible push</div> <div class="indent">And into a drift we ran.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And we sat down in the snow, Mama,</div> <div class="indent">It wasn’t as cold as you’d think;</div> <div class="verse">And we thought we would sit for a while, Mama.</div> <div class="indent">And we did, till we grew quite pink.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I feel that my shoes are wet, Mama,</div> <div class="indent">And I fear the same for my hose:</div> <div class="verse">And I fancy I’m rather damp, Mama,</div> <div class="indent">Around in my underclothes.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">SUFFERING</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">I sat</span> down on a bumble bee</div> <div class="indent">In Mrs. Jackson’s yard:</div> <div class="verse">I sat down on a bumble bee:</div> <div class="indent">The bee stung good and hard.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I sat down on a bumble bee,</div> <div class="indent">For just the briefest spell,</div> <div class="verse">And I had only muslin on,</div> <div class="indent">As any one could tell.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I sat down on a bumble bee,</div> <div class="indent">But I arose again;</div> <div class="verse">And now I know the tenseness of</div> <div class="indent">Humiliating pain.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE MAP MAKERS</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">There</span> was a man who made a map</div> <div class="indent">Of all you see at night;</div> <div class="verse">He made the moon and all the stars</div> <div class="indent">And comets in their flight.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">He worked for twenty years or more</div> <div class="indent">And extra ink he bought,</div> <div class="verse">And then he mapped the Milky Way</div> <div class="indent">As sort of an afterthought.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I read the story to Margaret,</div> <div class="indent">She said that it must be true,</div> <div class="verse">For she herself could draw a map</div> <div class="indent">Of Ocean avenue.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">She made a dot for Prospect Park,</div> <div class="indent">A blot for Sheepshead Bay,</div> <div class="verse">And then she ruled a line between</div> <div class="indent">To show the right of way.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">It took her just five minutes just,</div> <div class="indent">But I have my private fears,</div> <div class="verse">That it isn’t quite up to the moon-man’s map,</div> <div class="indent">For it never took twenty years.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">DIANA</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Diana,</span> out of Italy, my sister’s protégée,</div> <div class="verse">She came to us, with letters, for a little summer stay.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Diana, she was beautiful, and yet she made me laugh—</div> <div class="verse">Forever and forever taking one eternal bath.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">She had lost her bow and arrow, she had lost her lingerie,</div> <div class="verse">But she was far from Venice and my sister’s protégée.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And because of her distinction, and the wonder of design,</div> <div class="verse">Her color and her contour, surpassing any line,</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I braved a frowning family, I offered her my best,</div> <div class="verse">And worshipped her in silence as my sister’s chosen guest.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">As the flowers seek the sunlight, as the birds adore the air,</div> <div class="verse">So Diana loved the water, loved to comb her Titian hair.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The neighbors talked of nothing but my sister Mary’s taste—</div> <div class="verse">Of vagaries and vanities, and time that went to waste.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">But when my sister came at last to claim our protégée,</div> <div class="verse">I was her only confidante, and comfort’s only ray;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I was her only confidante in all the good old town,</div> <div class="verse">And she whispered: “Our Diana never owned a dressing gown;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">“Never owned a beaded bodice, never owned a veil of tulle;</div> <div class="verse">“Her gowns are made from sparkles of the waters of a pool;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">“And those who cry for draperies, arouse the gods of wrath,</div> <div class="verse">“For the gods possess their copies of ‘Diana at the Bath!’”</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE READING BOY</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">He</span> is carved in alabaster, he is called the Reading Boy,</div> <div class="verse">A cross-legged little pagan, pondering o’er the Siege of Troy;</div> <div class="verse">He’s a miniature Adonis, with a bandeau round his head,</div> <div class="verse">And he’s reading late and early when he ought to be in bed.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">He cons an ancient manuscript, he scanneth as a sage,</div> <div class="verse">But with all his mighty reading, never yet hath turned a page;</div> <div class="verse">Never alabaster side glance at the turtle in the bowl,</div> <div class="verse">Never alabaster wiggle, ’though I know he has a soul.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I have watched him late and early, just an image out of Rome,</div> <div class="verse">And politely offered bookmarks to divert him from that tome;</div> <div class="verse">Yea, with aggravating gestures sought to turn aside his face,</div> <div class="verse">But not for pots of honey could you make him lose his place.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">There he sits in sweet perfection that the chisel did unveil,</div> <div class="verse">With the rapture of an angel up against a lively tale.</div> <div class="verse">But I’d give an old maid’s ransom, just to see that little wretch,</div> <div class="verse">Discard that Trojan magazine, and give a real good stretch.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE BATTLE ON THE FLOOR</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">My</span> father was a soldier, so</div> <div class="indent">Some nights he talks of war;</div> <div class="verse">He tells of guns at “action right,”—</div> <div class="indent">The battlefield’s the floor.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">He says: “My little daughter Nan,</div> <div class="indent">“There’s art in every fight,</div> <div class="verse">“So push the chairs and rugs around</div> <div class="indent">“And set the battle right.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">“Put down the vase and candlesticks,</div> <div class="indent">“And throw the books around—</div> <div class="verse">“We want to show a town in France,</div> <div class="indent">“With shell-holes in the ground.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">“Here’s infantry and batteries,</div> <div class="indent">“And outposts, out before;</div> <div class="verse">“That piece of string will do for wires</div> <div class="indent">“Laid by the Signal Corps.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">“The enemy’s upon the rug,</div> <div class="indent">“We’ve fathomed their design;</div> <div class="verse">“So now we’ll bring the doughboys up</div> <div class="indent">“And charge the whole darn line.”</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The captains, on the carpet, shout—</div> <div class="indent">“Reserves are back too far”—</div> <div class="verse">But the guns go into action with</div> <div class="indent">The smoke of Pa’s cigar.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Then Ma gets mad, and says that Pa</div> <div class="indent">Was shell-shocked once in War,</div> <div class="verse">Or else he wouldn’t want to play</div> <div class="indent">At battles on the floor.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">She says that war is bad enough,</div> <div class="indent">And pretty rough, to boot,</div> <div class="verse">Without a battlefield at home,</div> <div class="indent">Or teaching girls to shoot.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Then Pa, he stops the battle, and</div> <div class="indent">We put things in their place;</div> <div class="verse">We know when we have fought enough,</div> <div class="indent">By the look on Mother’s face.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">But I’d just as soon be shell-shocked some,</div> <div class="indent">To know what father knows;</div> <div class="verse">I’d just as soon stay out at night—</div> <div class="indent">In France—and wet my clothes,</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">For I’d like to see a battle fierce,</div> <div class="indent">With star shells up at night,</div> <div class="verse">With regiments upon the move,</div> <div class="indent">And guns at “action right.”</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">With cunning ammunition mules</div> <div class="indent">A-trotting to and fro,</div> <div class="verse">And personal friends a-shouting in</div> <div class="indent">The dark, “Let’s Go.”</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I think that Father’s quite correct</div> <div class="indent">Describing things to me,</div> <div class="verse">And all that war in rainy France</div> <div class="indent">That lies across the sea;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">For Father feels that every girl</div> <div class="indent">Should have some nerve and tone,</div> <div class="verse">And know just how to manage in</div> <div class="indent">A battle all her own.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">MID-DAY AT TRINITY</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">The</span> pigeons perch on Trinity,</div> <div class="indent">From cowls of saints they croon;</div> <div class="verse">In pious patience preen their wings</div> <div class="indent">Till Trinity strikes noon.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">They make their vows to visions fair,</div> <div class="indent">The maids with mid-day smiles;</div> <div class="verse">They wait their own communion sweet—</div> <div class="indent">The crumbs along the aisles.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And presently from Wall Street strolls</div> <div class="indent">A princess past a gate;</div> <div class="verse">She pries apart a paper box</div> <div class="indent">As if she scarce could wait.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">She sinks upon an old settee,</div> <div class="indent">Her luncheon in her lap;</div> <div class="verse">And other maidens follow her—</div> <div class="indent">A score or more, mayhap.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The pigeons peer from pinnacles,</div> <div class="indent">They see their tables spread;</div> <div class="verse">The sugar and the spices strewn,</div> <div class="indent">The crusts of creamy bread.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The saints upon the walls maintain</div> <div class="indent">Their attitudes benign;</div> <div class="verse">But conquered by confusing quests,</div> <div class="indent">The doves drift down to dine.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">CASTLE “BILL”</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Down</span> on Gov’nors Island,</div> <div class="indent">Ivy etched and chill,</div> <div class="verse">Hollow as a halo,</div> <div class="indent">There is Castle “Bill.”</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Once the pride of outfits—</div> <div class="indent">Prisoners under guard,</div> <div class="verse">Form for evening roll-call</div> <div class="indent">In the castle yard.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Sentries with their side arms,</div> <div class="indent">Counting, one by one,</div> <div class="verse">While the twilight tarries</div> <div class="indent">For the sunset gun.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Miles away the music</div> <div class="indent">Soundeth at parade</div> <div class="verse">Chanting of Cochita,</div> <div class="indent">Filipino maid;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Chanting of Cochita</div> <div class="indent">Of Corregidor;</div> <div class="verse">Piping of the palm trees</div> <div class="indent">’Long Lunetta shore.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Dusty gunners listen,</div> <div class="indent">Lead and chain and wheel;</div> <div class="verse">Long ago Manila</div> <div class="indent">Held them all to heel;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Boys from all battalions,</div> <div class="indent">Saberless and still,</div> <div class="verse">Waiting on a sunset—</div> <div class="indent">Down in Castle “Bill.”</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">CASTLE WILLIAM</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Where</span> Buttermilk Channel doth seek to beguile</div> <div class="verse">Diffident margins of Governor’s Isle,</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">There is a fortress all bastioned and chill,</div> <div class="verse">Known to the army as old “Castle Bill.”</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">There are occasions when soldiers may smile;</div> <div class="verse">Not in that castle on Governor’s Isle;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Not in the cloisters where sentries abound;</div> <div class="verse">Not where a gun butt leaps up from the ground.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Oh! There are many—the old cannoneers,</div> <div class="verse">Infantry sergeants and grave grenadiers;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">They have gone onward to zones of desire,</div> <div class="verse">Scorning all theories of musketry fire;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">They have advanced to civilian vales,</div> <div class="verse">Building new barracks for sweet nightingales.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Yet they revert in their leisure sedate,</div> <div class="verse">Seeing in visions that old castle gate;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Still they remember their days in the mill—</div> <div class="verse">Down in the casemates of old “Castle Bill.”</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE ROLL OF THE ROSES</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">We</span> called the roll of the roses</div> <div class="indent">And all of the front rank red,</div> <div class="verse">Were present and ready for duty,</div> <div class="indent">To serve with the living or dead.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We called the roll of the roses,</div> <div class="indent">But where were the yellow and white?</div> <div class="verse">With the troubadours on a terrace—</div> <div class="indent">Somewhere secure in the night.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We break no pledge to the poppies</div> <div class="indent">Or the culls of a country lane;</div> <div class="verse">Our own were alone in denying</div> <div class="indent">The levies we sought in vain.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Now who shall match us a color</div> <div class="indent">In the talk of a kinship fair,</div> <div class="verse">When none of the white or the yellow,</div> <div class="indent">But only the red were there.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We called the roll of the roses</div> <div class="indent">On the field where the roses fell;</div> <div class="verse">And a distant down made answer</div> <div class="indent">With a troubadour tolling a bell.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE GOSSIPS</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">The</span> rose bud that grew by the settle,</div> <div class="indent">Bowed low to the gossiping thrusts;</div> <div class="verse">The poet was praising the nettle,</div> <div class="indent">The nettle that nobody trusts.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The pansies were painted in postures,</div> <div class="indent">The poppies have stood on their toes;</div> <div class="verse">But long before mention of Moses</div> <div class="indent">Her rivals have flouted the rose.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Oh! Sweetness a-sway by the settle,</div> <div class="indent">Be still on thy beautiful stem;</div> <div class="verse">For love never clung to the nettle—</div> <div class="indent">The nettle that burns to condemn.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Fear not for a moment’s defection,</div> <div class="indent">Though pansies and poppies may pose;</div> <div class="verse">For after a bit of reflection</div> <div class="indent">The rover returns to the rose.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">TO-MORROW</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">The</span> sun shall shine in ages yet to be,</div> <div class="indent">The musing moon illumine pastures dim,</div> <div class="verse">And afterward a new nativity</div> <div class="indent">For all who slept the dreamless interim.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The starry brocade of the summer night</div> <div class="indent">Is linked to us as part of our estate;</div> <div class="verse">And every bee that wings its sidelong flight</div> <div class="indent">Assurance of a sweeter, fairer fate.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The blazoned humming-bird hath made it plain—</div> <div class="indent">It seeks ravines where wildings wreathe each wall;</div> <div class="verse">And there succeeding broods are marked again</div> <div class="indent">By rainbows o’er a rambling waterfall.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">When you return, the youngest of the seers,</div> <div class="indent">Released from fetters of ancestral pose,</div> <div class="verse">There will be beauty waiting down the years—</div> <div class="indent">Revisions of the ruby and the rose.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE ROSE OF REST</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">From</span> the water-gate of Pekin, where the latticed lanterns glow,</div> <div class="verse">Eastward to the Cherry Gardens in the heart of Tokio,</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">There is none who may outrank her, none who answers love’s behest,</div> <div class="verse">None of all my seven daughters like the little Rose of Rest.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Her eyes are questing colors, matchless mirrors of delight,</div> <div class="verse">The turquoise dawn of China and the duskiness of night.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Her lips are pouting poppies by love’s tender tempests blown,</div> <div class="verse">They tremble with the secrets only Buddha could have known.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">She cometh in the twilight with the tamarinds and tea;</div> <div class="verse">She kneeleth near to serve me in the sweet obscurity.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">She sayeth not a single word, but ever I am blest,</div> <div class="verse">And I fall asleep caressing her, the little Rose of Rest.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE SYMBOLS</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">The</span> sign work of the Orient it runneth up and down,</div> <div class="verse">The Talmud stalks from right to left, a rabbi in a gown;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The Roman rolls from left to right from Maytime unto May,</div> <div class="verse">But the gods shake up their symbols in an absent-minded way.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Their language runs to circles like the language of the eyes,</div> <div class="verse">Emphasized by strange dilations and with little panting sighs.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">There are symbols set as signals for unbarricaded lips,</div> <div class="verse">Emblems manifesting merits thrilling to the finger tips.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The very serpents bite their tails; the bees forget to sting,</div> <div class="verse">For a language so celestial setteth up a wondering.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And the touch of absent-mindedness is more than any line,</div> <div class="verse">Since direction counts as nothing when the gods set up a sign.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE SALAMANDER ISLES</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Snaring</span> lights surmount the sand-dunes of the Salamander Isles;</div> <div class="verse">The chime buoys chant new tunes each tide, false soundings run for miles.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And yet, for lures like these we set such sail as we could make;</div> <div class="verse">We steered by stars that sorrowed, with the moonlight in our wake.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We dipped or rose supremely as we shook our freeboard clear;</div> <div class="verse">We clung, but smiled serenely when the head seas swept our gear.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We were captives of the currents, we were harried by the flaw,</div> <div class="verse">Or the red mists from the marshes mocked the navigator’s law.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Glimpsed we evanescent channels, marked by flares upon a wreck,</div> <div class="verse">But the channels shoaled to shallows ere the tops could hail the deck.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Yet we won to realization that the ports long sought in vain,</div> <div class="verse">Were illusive as the May moths or the madrigals of Spain;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And that only charts from China, drawn by wizards full of wiles,</div> <div class="verse">Would give the proper bearings for the Salamander Isles.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE CHESS GAME</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">My</span> king, my queen, the castle twain, each bishop, pawn and knight,</div> <div class="verse">I led them into battle by the flick’ring candle light.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I led them into combat ’gainst a genius at the game,</div> <div class="verse">And the candles all were laughing as I sought to hide my shame.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">But the little silver chessmen that were wrought in Samarcand</div> <div class="verse">Caught the spirit of crusaders there upon the teakwood stand.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The warriors all murmured, while the monarch moved to lean</div> <div class="verse">And voice his plan of action to his understanding queen:</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">“For the sake of all the trumpeters who had to sound retreat—</div> <div class="verse">For the sake of all beginners who have gone down to defeat;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">“We will fight, no human guiding, for a lovely lady’s fame,</div> <div class="verse">And we’ll run our counter-gambit to a checkmate in the game.”</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Oh, the glory of that battle, thunder marching in the ranks;</div> <div class="verse">The castles staunchly standing, and the proud pawns on the flanks.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The queen with her litter and the king upon the right</div> <div class="verse">Spurred on each knight and bishop in the fury of the fight</div> </div> <div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">’Mid the stone piles of his slingers surged my men of Samarcand,</div> <div class="verse">And we conquered our opponent on that polished teakwood stand.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Thus reality was riven by the wisdom of a wraith,</div> <div class="verse">By the images inanimate that fought for love and faith;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">By the images inanimate that came from Samarcand</div> <div class="verse">To show their knightly courtesy upon a teakwood stand.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE DINOSAURS’ EGGS</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">One</span> morn in old Mongolia,</div> <div class="indent">In Asia’s arid lands,</div> <div class="verse">Men found the eggs of dinosaurs</div> <div class="indent">Upon the Gobi sands.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The one-time myths in miniature,</div> <div class="indent">The seeds that turned to stone;</div> <div class="verse">The mirage of forgotten things</div> <div class="indent">Upon the sands were strown.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Fate left them to strange lassitudes,</div> <div class="indent">The lonely and the still,</div> <div class="verse">That could have tusked creation’s flanks</div> <div class="indent">But for some sudden chill.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The roses pined in weary wastes</div> <div class="indent">Yet won to garden wall;</div> <div class="verse">The honey-loving humming-birds</div> <div class="indent">Outlived a waterfall;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The does a-down the centuries</div> <div class="indent">Soft nosed each little fawn;</div> <div class="verse">The robin’s breast was o’er her brood,</div> <div class="indent">All gentle things were born.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">With sweet significance the bowers</div> <div class="indent">Gave beckonings and smiles,</div> <div class="verse">And then came Eden’s wistful mates</div> <div class="indent">To walk in Eden’s aisles.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">But in the Gobi solitudes,</div> <div class="indent">The tombs time left unlatched—</div> <div class="verse">There lay in wind-blown shrouds of sand</div> <div class="indent">The eggs that never hatched.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE FIRST STORY</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Mid</span> seaweed on a sultry strand, ten thousand years ago,</div> <div class="verse">A sun-burned baby sprawling lay, a-playing with his toe.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The babe was dreaming of the day that he might swing a club,</div> <div class="verse">When lo! He saw a fishy thing, a-squirming in the mud.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The creature was an octopus, and dangerous to pat,</div> <div class="verse">But the prehistoric infant never stopped to think of that.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The baby’s fingernails were sharp, his appetite was prime,</div> <div class="verse">He clutched that deep-sea monster, for ’twas nearing supper-time,</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Oh! Suddenly, from out the pulp a fluid black did flow,</div> <div class="verse">’Twas flavored like a barberry wine and gave a sort of glow;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">It squirted in the baby’s eyes; it made him gasp and blink,</div> <div class="verse">But to that octopus he held, and drank up all the ink.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The ink was in the baby—he was bound to write a tale;</div> <div class="verse">So he wrote the first of stories with his little fingernail.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE THREE-CORNERED LOT</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Said</span> the farmer to his daughter: “When I die, as like as not,</div> <div class="verse">I’ll leave to you the title to the old three-cornered lot.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">“’Tis the vale beyond the pastures, never any good to me,</div> <div class="verse">With the huckleberry bushes and the silver maple-tree.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">“Fair scenery for song birds, but too small to cultivate;</div> <div class="verse">Yet there’s a wall around it, like a foolish man’s estate.”</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Fell a blight upon the corn fields; stood an empty barn and cot;</div> <div class="verse">The farmer’s holdings dwindled to the old three-cornered lot.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">He saw his home dismantled; learned that permanence, alas,</div> <div class="verse">Is the portrait of a swallow painted on the shadow grass.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Came his daughter as a seeress, and she said: “As like as not,</div> <div class="verse">I’m giving back the title to the old three-cornered lot.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">“’Tis just a bit of scenery too sweet to cultivate,</div> <div class="verse">Yet there’s a wall around it, like a nobleman’s estate;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">“There are huckleberry bushes and a length of garden loam,</div> <div class="verse">And the stone walls of the foolish man wherewith to build a home.”</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE HISTORY OF HONEY</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">“The</span> History of Honey”—by an aged mandarin,</div> <div class="verse">And I bought it for the pictures of the burnished bees therein.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">For the dainty revelations, masquerading up and down,</div> <div class="verse">For the odor of the sandalwood that talked of China-town.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">According to the mandarin, the Oriental bees</div> <div class="verse">Were the first to hoard their honey in the mountain cavities.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">In the ages of antiquity, each summer afternoon,</div> <div class="verse">They flew in golden convoys to the mountains of the moon.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And there, in caves by cataracts, where nothing could annoy,</div> <div class="verse">Poured gallons in the caverns when Confucius was a boy.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Many mountains bulged with honey stored before the days of Ming,</div> <div class="verse">From each crevice dripped the essence of a very precious thing.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Imprisoned in this honey, aging as the æons wane,</div> <div class="verse">Are the souls of all the flowers, waiting to be born again.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Every lotus, every poppy, every tulip, every rose,</div> <div class="verse">And those who sip the honey slip beyond all human woes.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">Dream again of youth’s digressions, index misty ways of joy,</div> <div class="verse">Turn unto the pagan pastimes of Confucius—as a boy.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Doubtless there are yet secreted some divine distilleries</div> <div class="verse">Overflowing with the wonder worth a dozen dynasties.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">But the mandarin, he made no map, contented in old age</div> <div class="verse">To draw the clinging love scenes of the bees on every page.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">There he found an inspiration antedating all the Mings,</div> <div class="verse">And he got the ancient essence of the very sweetest things.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE HISTORY OF PAINTING</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">A shadow</span> and reflection quarelled once upon a time,</div> <div class="verse">Disputing o’er the setting for a woodland pantomime.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">One claimed that color dominates and waved to heaven’s blue;</div> <div class="verse">The other held that outline makes an angel worth the view.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The tumult shook the thrushes’ nests, the fledglings joined their cries;</div> <div class="verse">Forth came the fauns from forest gloom with wistful enterprise.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Reflection flung her florid robes o’er gneiss and dolomite;</div> <div class="verse">The shadow bowed to everything that stood within the light.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">But color lacked the candor and the certainty divine;</div> <div class="verse">The shadow clung forever to the flatness of a line.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Spake suddenly an oracle, gray-feathered, blindly wise:</div> <div class="verse">“The absence of the sunlight worketh wonders in the eyes;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">“For light and shades are synonyms of things that stand apart</div> <div class="verse">Till love creates a question and a longing in each heart.”</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The fledglings caught the utterance, the fauns were there to see;</div> <div class="verse">They stayed to watch a shadow kiss a rose light recklessly.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Thereafter there was artistry, the brooks began to paint;</div> <div class="verse">The ferns were willing models and the lilacs lost restraint;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">The lakes were filled with sunsets and the birth-marked butterflies</div> <div class="verse">On balanced wings were cruising ’cross the mirrors of the skies.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The granite learned to glisten and the rocks that held the rain</div> <div class="verse">Awoke to truer technique, tempting visions back again.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Thus from a bickering were born the painter’s art and lore</div> <div class="verse">That beauty might be glorified by love forever more.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE ROAD TO ROSLYN</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Upon</span> the road to Roslyn Town,</div> <div class="indent">The road that skirts the bay;</div> <div class="verse">Upon the road to Roslyn Town,</div> <div class="indent">Upon a summer’s day;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I met a dark-haired Gypsy girl,</div> <div class="indent">’Twas afternoon, and late;</div> <div class="verse">With haunting eyes she halted me</div> <div class="indent">By Thomas Clapham’s gate.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">She was bent upon the business of</div> <div class="indent">A very ancient race;</div> <div class="verse">But no mercenary motive marred</div> <div class="indent">That sombre Gypsy face.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">“Oh, maiden beautiful,” she said,</div> <div class="indent">“Let’s tarry on the green—</div> <div class="verse">What luck upon the Roslyn Road</div> <div class="indent">To meet a Gypsy queen.”</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">With amber eyes she read my palm,</div> <div class="indent">Then raised them to a stare,</div> <div class="verse">“You wed for love, for wealth, for power,</div> <div class="indent">And thrice three sons will bear.”</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">She asked me for a silver piece,</div> <div class="indent">The amber eyeballs glowed;</div> <div class="verse">I gave her all the change I had,</div> <div class="indent">Upon the Roslyn Road.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">She begged from me my hosiery,</div> <div class="indent">My gloves, and named my beau;</div> <div class="verse">She slipped the Solway sandals from</div> <div class="indent">The infantry below;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">She got from me my garnet ring,</div> <div class="indent">She cozened off my gown;</div> <div class="verse">She left me like Godiva on</div> <div class="indent">The Road to Roslyn Town.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Oh, I went home across the lots</div> <div class="indent">In the gloaming and in tears,</div> <div class="verse">But she didn’t get my earrings, for</div> <div class="indent">The bobbed hair hid my ears.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE ARMY LAUNDRESS</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Beside</span> a somber sally port upon a bastioned isle</div> <div class="verse">There dwells a bare-armed laundry girl to serve the rank and file.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Her name is Sheila Shanahan, she reigns in Soap Suds Row,</div> <div class="verse">The lane that won to luster in the army long ago.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">She bendeth o’er a wash tub while the sentries walk the walls,</div> <div class="verse">And pyramids are builded from the brooding cannon balls.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">She elevates an army post without the least design,</div> <div class="verse">The belle of all the barracks hanging clothes upon a line.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Fate ransacked ancient reveries to dower youth’s desire,</div> <div class="verse">Unrolled the scrolls of Sidon and the tapestries of Tyre;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">She pilfered from Parnassus till the gods ran to and fro,</div> <div class="verse">Then gave her golden gleanings to the girl in Soap Suds Row.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Oh, there are many lovers of sweet Sheila Shanahan,</div> <div class="verse">The seagulls and the sundown breeze upon the barbican;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">The pigeons on the parapets, the disappearing guns,</div> <div class="verse">The sign-boards on the magazines, the Colonel’s rompered sons,</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And while the sunset tarrieth and while an army waits,</div> <div class="verse">The children from the post school storm the dusty barrack gates;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">They wander into Soap Suds Row with laughter in the van</div> <div class="verse">The bravest of the cavaliers of Sheila Shanahan.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">REGINA MENDOSENA</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">I’m</span> Regina Mendosena, queen of all of Shanty Town;</div> <div class="verse">Just behold me in me sport dress with me stockings hanging down;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Just behold me with me sceptre, Mither Grady’s washing stick,</div> <div class="verse">A sunflower for a coronet—me foot upon a brick.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I’m Regina Mendosena, and I’m Irish if you please,</div> <div class="verse">Me mither was an actress and me faither sailed the seas;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And for culture and for travel, it was hard to beat the pair—</div> <div class="verse">I’m Regina Mendosena and ’tis me that is their heir.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">They made me Queen of Ireland when mither flew the town;</div> <div class="verse">They gave me Madden’s old shebang when faither’s ship went down;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">They gave me Crazy Mary’s goats when Crazy Mary died,</div> <div class="verse">And they’re going to kape me going till I gits to be a bride.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I’m Regina Mendosena, queen of all of Shanty Town,</div> <div class="verse">Me pus’nal friends admiring all the contour of me gown;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Me pus’nal friends remarking on the browness of me eyes,</div> <div class="verse">I’m Regina Mendosena—but I wonder if they lies?</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I’m Regina Mendosena, and ’tis when to Mass I go,</div> <div class="verse">I gown meself discreetly with me braidings in a bow;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I’m Regina Mendosena, I’m the same and not the same,</div> <div class="verse">For I lay aside me titles and me very ancient name.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE GIRL FROM SOAP SUDS ROW</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Oh!</span> Mistress Margaret Esther Snow,</div> <div class="indent">She lived way down in Soap Suds Row;</div> <div class="verse">She came to school in a gingham frock,</div> <div class="indent">With breakfast stains upon her smock.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Oh! Mistress Margaret Esther Snow</div> <div class="indent">Is rather poor as we all know;</div> <div class="verse">Her socks are a most unusual sight,</div> <div class="indent">And her shoes are never quite watertight.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">She missed her lessons most every day;</div> <div class="indent">She seemed too sad to want to play;</div> <div class="verse">So Miss McHugh, our teacher grave,</div> <div class="indent">Said she was meeker than any slave.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">She so admonished poor Mistress Snow,</div> <div class="indent">That the little girl longed for Soap Suds Row;</div> <div class="verse">And lastly, the teacher, to make her bright,</div> <div class="indent">Gave her a piece to learn to recite.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">For three whole days we didn’t know</div> <div class="indent">The piece she had given to Mistress Snow;</div> <div class="verse">But on Monday morning Miss McHugh</div> <div class="indent">Said: “Margaret will speak for the 2-A-2.”</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Then Mistress Margaret Esther wailed,</div> <div class="indent">And all of us girls in sympathy paled;</div> <div class="verse">But all of a sudden she walked right out,</div> <div class="indent">She tossed her head as she turned about.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">She made a most wonderful Grecian bow</div> <div class="indent">That someone had taught her in Soap Suds Row;</div> <div class="verse">Her eyes were shining—she wasn’t afraid,</div> <div class="indent">And she spoke “The Charge of the Light Brigade.”</div> </div> <div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">Did she speak that piece? Well, I guess she did.</div> <div class="indent">’Twas a fight to a finish—she took off the lid;</div> <div class="verse">The up-stairs classes—they heard her shout,</div> <div class="indent">And the principal came to see what ’twas about.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">But Mistress Margaret—she never stayed—</div> <div class="indent">She gave us the whole of “The Light Brigade.”</div> <div class="verse">You could smell the smoke, you could see each gun;</div> <div class="indent">You could hear the galloping horses run.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And we sat stunned in the 2-A-2.</div> <div class="indent">When we saw what Soap Suds Row could do;</div> <div class="verse">For she told of the battle and everything done,</div> <div class="indent">With everyone dead and the glory won.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Sometimes her voice was like sugar plums,</div> <div class="indent">And then it shook with the noise of drums;</div> <div class="verse">And the girls upstairs, they thought ’twas true</div> <div class="indent">That there was a fight in the 2-A-2.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Well, when it was over, so sweet was her face</div> <div class="indent">That she seemed as if dressed in velvet and lace;</div> <div class="verse">And she made that wonderful bow once more,</div> <div class="indent">Till her rather scant petticoat touched the floor.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">We clapped our hands, and we made them smart,</div> <div class="indent">And we were happy around the heart,</div> <div class="verse">For the way that the teachers crowded in</div> <div class="indent">Added a lot to the lovely din.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Poor Miss McHugh was pleased till she cried,</div> <div class="indent">While the 2-A-2 just swelled with pride;</div> <div class="verse">And so excited was Miss McHugh</div> <div class="indent">That she didn’t know just the thing to do.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">But she kissed our beauty of Soap Suds Row,</div> <div class="indent">Till Margaret’s face was all aglow;</div> <div class="verse">She mentioned that Marge was a human lute—</div> <div class="indent">She was glad that her bread was bearing fruit.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Then the principal said in his stately way</div> <div class="indent">That for 1-3-9 ’twas a very proud day,</div> <div class="verse">And that close alignment to classroom rules</div> <div class="indent">Made genius flourish in public schools.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">But somehow the girls in the 2-A-2,</div> <div class="indent">They get things just a bit askew;</div> <div class="verse">And they surmise that Mistress Snow</div> <div class="indent">Found most of her genius in Soap Suds Row.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">EVA</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Eva,</span> the first of the fair ones,</div> <div class="indent">Taught all her daughters to paint;</div> <div class="verse">Using indelible colors,</div> <div class="indent">Seeress and siren and saint.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Banished them all to the brook brims,</div> <div class="indent">There in benign ambuscade,</div> <div class="verse">Taught them the art of portraying</div> <div class="indent">Beauty that never may fade.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Voiced she the values of the shadows</div> <div class="indent">Moored to the moss-mantled crags;</div> <div class="verse">Primed them to pose by the dwarf palms</div> <div class="indent">And mid the cat-tails and flags.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Thus by each crevice and cavern,</div> <div class="indent">Thus in the lunettes and glades,</div> <div class="verse">There are depicted all damsels,</div> <div class="indent">Eva’s most wonderful maids.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Traceries tender and dimpled,</div> <div class="indent">Intricate art of design;</div> <div class="verse">Shadowy ideals of Eden,</div> <div class="indent">Even of Eva, divine.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Breathe but a name in the bowers,</div> <div class="indent">Pour out her praise as a prayer;</div> <div class="verse">Forth from the fronds floats a presence,</div> <div class="indent">Vestured in loveliness rare.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Thus, since the first of the fair ones,</div> <div class="indent">All of the daughters of Eve,</div> <div class="verse">Portray in permanent colors,</div> <div class="indent">Making men see and believe.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">OLD MAID’S REVERIE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">I’m</span> tired of mirthless mirrors and their hostile heresies,</div> <div class="verse">Of musing in a mansion hung with mildewed memories;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Of the silence of the stairways, of the statuary wan,</div> <div class="verse">Of the alabaster angel riding on the fountain swan;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I’m irked by isolation and the lawns kept so and so—</div> <div class="verse">I’d trade an old maid’s theories for a rood of Soap Suds Row;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">For the sunflowers and the shanties where the shadows sit at ease,</div> <div class="verse">For the horde of baby banshees and the swing-scarred apple-trees;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Therefore methinks I’ll venture to a disarrayed domain,</div> <div class="verse">And shoonless dance the saraband in some assuaging lane.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">No sandals wrought in Sybaris, or girdle bossed with gold,</div> <div class="verse">But beauty in a barefoot mood, revising edicts old.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">There cupids turn the calendars to Michael Angelo,</div> <div class="verse">The goya needs no gabardine, the rose no kimono;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And me, a maiden mendicant may ask an alms, forsooth,</div> <div class="verse">As one who missed the rubrics in the litanies of youth.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE COMMONPLACE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">By</span> the steps of the paper-box factory,</div> <div class="indent">Or the gates where the Seraphim nod,</div> <div class="verse">In the time and the place that’s appointed,</div> <div class="indent">You will meet with your commonplace god.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And then you’ll be glad and forever,</div> <div class="indent">For the queens of the East and the West,</div> <div class="verse">With the sets of the Garden of Eden</div> <div class="indent">Have failed in a commonplace quest.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">So to you who have dreamed in the starlight,</div> <div class="indent">And to you who have drudged in the town,</div> <div class="verse">And to you of the commonplace vision,</div> <div class="indent">With the beauty the Greeks handed down,</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Doubt not that the time is appointed,</div> <div class="indent">That the chart with a quester is girt,</div> <div class="verse">But remember that star-dust is star-dust</div> <div class="indent">And ranks not the commonest dirt;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">That the gods of Olympus were beggars</div> <div class="indent">Or ever they burned to create,</div> <div class="verse">And that rags ripple down into samite</div> <div class="indent">For a Venus who swings on a gate;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">That the steps of the paper-box factory,</div> <div class="indent">As well as the gardens of kings,</div> <div class="verse">Are only the blue-print devices</div> <div class="indent">Of love, and the commonplace things.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">BERKLEY COMMON</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Summer</span> broods o’er Berkley Common, o’er the fields of everlasting,</div> <div class="indent">And around the common cluster homes no one would ever rent;</div> <div class="verse">The people that once lived there, long have gone to other places,</div> <div class="indent">Dusty heirlooms in the garrets give a clue to where they went.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Like a manuscript, all yellow, and with many things deleted,</div> <div class="indent">Yet a manuscript completed, with embellishments most rare,</div> <div class="verse">Berkley Common lies forgotten, with its fields of everlasting,</div> <div class="indent">And the sunlight on the windows of the empty houses there.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">It is off the line of travel; to the present unrelated;</div> <div class="indent">Only peddlers down from Dighton go that way to Taunton Weir;</div> <div class="verse">They haste by Berkley Common, by the fields of everlasting,</div> <div class="indent">For the empty houses fill them with a feeling like to fear.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">CHOICE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Cloud-made</span> mountains towered,</div> <div class="indent">Beckoning to me;</div> <div class="verse">Visionary triremes</div> <div class="indent">Talked about the sea....</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">There were strings of camels</div> <div class="indent">On the Tunis sands....</div> <div class="verse">There were certain cities</div> <div class="indent">Holding out their hands....</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Mine the choice that fettered</div> <div class="indent">Lips to fountain brim;</div> <div class="verse">Timed the droning transits—</div> <div class="indent">Bees in gardens dim.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Thus I pay no tribute,</div> <div class="indent">Heed no tallier’s call;</div> <div class="verse">Only sound of kisses</div> <div class="indent">From a waterfall.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Only honey dripping</div> <div class="indent">In a hollow tree;</div> <div class="verse">First of hour glasses</div> <div class="indent">Keeping time for me.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Only broken whispers,</div> <div class="indent">Tracing themes unsaid;</div> <div class="verse">Soft as tread of visions</div> <div class="indent">O’er a poppy bed....</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">THE FIRE VASE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">Said</span> the potter to the flower pots: “It’s a question of design—</div> <div class="verse">Must I hold my hands forever from the images divine?”</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">He ran a royal pattern and he shaped a wondrous vase,</div> <div class="verse">From the peach-bloom drew his color, from the rose-blend drew his glaze.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Came collectors of ceramics, connoisseurs who stayed to yearn;</div> <div class="verse">Something wonderful was hidden ’neath the cover of that urn.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Some said ’twas filled with roses, others wagered it was wine,</div> <div class="verse">One said it might be empty as a part of the design.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">Nearly all of the appraisers for the outside made their bid,</div> <div class="verse">But the one who bought the beauty dreamed of what was ’neath the lid.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">He set it on his cottage hearth, the vase beside the fire,</div> <div class="verse">And the cover rose in answer to a very old desire,</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">And through the peach-bloom color and the rose-blend of the glaze,</div> <div class="verse">He saw love’s lost illusions safe within the potter’s vase.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">MY HUSBANDS</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse"><span class="smcap">I hear</span> my husbands marching</div> <div class="verse">The æons all adown:</div> <div class="verse">The shepherd boys and princes—</div> <div class="verse">From cavern unto crown.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I hear in soft recession</div> <div class="verse">The praise they give to me;</div> <div class="verse">I hear them chant my titles</div> <div class="verse">From all antiquity.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">But never do I answer,</div> <div class="verse">I might be overheard;</div> <div class="verse">Lose Love’s revised illusions</div> <div class="verse">By one unhappy word.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">I sit, a silent siren,</div> <div class="verse">And count my cavaliers;</div> <div class="verse">The men I wed in wisdom,</div> <div class="verse">The boys who taught me tears.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">To some I gave devotion,</div> <div class="verse">To some I kinked the knee;</div> <div class="verse">But there was one old wizard</div> <div class="verse">Who laid his spells on me.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">He showed me like a master</div> <div class="verse">That one rose makes a gown;</div> <div class="verse">That looking up to Heaven</div> <div class="verse">Is merely looking down.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse">He marked me for the circle,</div> <div class="verse">Made magic in my eyes;</div> <div class="verse">He won me by revealing</div> <div class="verse">The truth in all his lies.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</SPAN></span> <div class="verse">So, when I see that wizard</div> <div class="verse">Among the marchers dim,</div> <div class="verse">I make the full court curtsy</div> <div class="verse">In fealty to him.</div> </div></div> </div> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</SPAN></span></p> <hr class="chap" /> <span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</SPAN></span> <h2 class="nobreak">AFTERWORD</h2></div> <p><span class="smcap">In</span> a maze of contributions such as the poetry editor of a large metropolitan newspaper printing daily two or three poems receives there came to me unheralded one morning in the mail a little poem which bore the name of an author of whom I had never heard—Nathalia Crane. It was a whimsical piece of verse such as an editor rarely receives, a rhythmical, lilting production that would gladden the heart of any one. It was called <i>The History of Honey</i>. Needless to say it was accepted for publication. Subsequently others submitted by Nathalia Crane also found a place in <i>The Sun</i>.</p> <p>Then followed some correspondence in regard to various other poems but a call at the office made by the author in answer to a letter about the poem <i>The Army Laundress</i> disclosed to my amazement that the writer was none other than a little girl—a shy, unassuming youngster who was as embarrassed during the interview as I was myself. For I must admit I was embarrassed—or rather taken aback.</p> <p>My surprise is excusable. So many times I had received “poems” from youngsters who were careful to give their ages in addition to their names; so often I had received visits from doting parents or relatives requesting publication of verses by their children or sisters or cousins that I had never dreamed any child would ever submit any work from his or her pen without adding the words “Aged — years.” But little Nathalia was the exception—and there was nothing in her poems that I received to indicate her age.</p> <p>The poems bought were accepted on their merits and on their merits alone, and many a poet of greater years<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</SPAN></span> and of recognized standing would not despise being known as the author of <i>The Reading Boy</i>, <i>The Three Cornered Lot</i> and <i>The Commonplace</i>.</p> <p>Nathalia Crane is a little girl who plays with dolls and toys and Roger Jones, whom she has glorified in some of her poems, when she is not busy at a typewriter giving expression to dreams and visions. She is also an author of delightful verse who obtained wide recognition of her work not because it was written by a child but because it was in itself worth while reading. For this alone, if for nothing else, she deserves all the success that is hers, all the laurels with which her friends and readers are glad to crown her and none more than the writer of this “Afterword” who came to know Nathalia Crane through her poetry which did not disclose her years.</p> <blockquote> <p class="right"><span class="smcap">Edmund Leamy.</span></p> <p><i>New York, May, 1924.</i></p> </blockquote> <hr class="chap" /> <div class="transnote"> <p class="ph1">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:</p> <p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.</p> <p>Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.</p> </div> <SPAN name="endofbook"></SPAN> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />

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