The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Lonely Flute This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: A Lonely Flute Author: Odell Shepard Release date: November 7, 2010 [eBook #34234] Most recently updated: January 7, 2021 Language: English Credits: Produced by Al Haines *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LONELY FLUTE *** Produced by Al Haines A LONELY FLUTE BY ODELL SHEPARD BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY _The Riverside Press Cambridge_ 1917 COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY ODELL SHEPARD ALL RIGHTS RESERVED _Published April 1917_ TO M. F. S. _And now 't was like all instruments, Now like a lonely flute; And now it is an angel's song That makes the Heavens be mute._ COLERIDGE. CONTENTS PROEM LAUS MARIÆ RECOLLECTION NIGHTFALL A BALLAD OF LOVE AND DEATH BIRDS OF PASSAGE WASTE THE WATCHER IN THE SKY HOUSEMATES POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE THE HIDDEN WEAVER VANITAS SPENSER'S "FAËRIE QUEENE" MORNING ROAD SONG EVENING ROAD SONG WINDY MORNING THE GRAVE OF THOREAU EARTH-BORN "WHENCE COMETH MY HELP" UNITY VISTAS A NUN LOVE AMONG THE CLOVER CERTAIN AMERICAN POETS THE SINGER'S QUEST DEAD MAGDALEN THE ADVENTURER THE GOLDFINCH ORIOLES BY A MOUNTAIN STREAM APRIL A CHAPEL BY THE SEA EPHEMEROS WANDERLUST THE IDEAL THE FIRST CHRISTIAN A LONELY FLUTE PROEM Beyond the pearly portal, Beyond the last dim star, Pale, perfect, and immortal, The eternal visions are, That never any rapture Of sorrow or of mirth Of any song shall capture To dwell with men on earth. Many a strange and tragic Old sorrow still is mute And melodies of magic Still slumber in the flute, Many a mighty vision Has caught my yearning eye And swept with calm derision In robes of splendor by. The rushing susurration Of some eternal wing Beats mighty variation Through all the song I sing; The vague, deep-mouthed commotion From its ancestral home Booms like the shout of ocean Across the crumbling foam; And these low lyric whispers Make answer wistfully As sea-shells ... dreaming lispers Beside the eternal sea. LAUS MARIÆ There is a name like some deep melody Hallowed by sundown, delicate as the plash Of lonely waves on solitary lakes And rounded as the sudden-bursting bloom Of bold, deep-throated notes in a midnight cloud When shadowy belfries far away roll out Across the dark their avalanche of sound. It is a wild voice lost in the wail of the wind; The silvery-twinkling plectrum of the rain Plays in the poplar tree no other tune And pines intone it softly as a prayer In leafy litanies. The name is raised Even to God's ear from ancient arches dim With caverned twilight and dull altar smoke Where tapers weave athwart the azure haze Innumerable pageantries of dusk. Low-voiced and soft-eyed women must they live Who bear that holy name. And now for one Time has no other honor than to be The meaning of an unremembered rhyme, The breath of a forgotten singer's song. (_October_, 1903) RECOLLECTION I must forget awhile the mellow flutes And all the lyric wizardry of strings; The fragile clarinet, Tremulous over meadows rich with dawn, Must knock against my vagrant heart And throb and cry no more. For I am shaken by the loveliness And lights and laughter and beguiling song Of all this siren world; The regal beauty of women, round on round, The swift, lithe slenderness of girls, And children's loyal eyes, Hill rivers and the lilac fringe of seas Lazily plunging, glow of city nights And faces in the glow-- These things have stolen my heart away, I lie Parcelled abroad in sound and hue, Dispersed through all I love. I must go far away to a still place And draw the shadows down across my eyes And wait and listen there For wings vibrating from beyond the stars, Wide-ranging, swiftly winnowing wings Bearing me back mine own. So soon, now, I shall lie deep hidden away From sound or sight, with hearing strangely dull And heavy-lidded eyes,-- 'T is time, O passionate soul, for me to go Some far, hill-folded road apart And learn the ways of peace. NIGHTFALL In a crumbling glory sets The unhastening sun; The fishers draw their shining nets; The day is done. Across the ruddy wine That brims the sea Black boats drag shoreward through the brine Dreamily, And dark against the glow Firing the west, By three and two the great gulls go Seaward to rest. Beneath the gradual host Of heaven, pale And glimmering, rides a dim sea-ghost, A large slow sail. Slowly she cometh on Day's last faint breath, Drifting across the water, wan And gray as death. From what far-lying land Swimmeth thy keel, Dim ship? And what mysterious hand Is at thy wheel? What far-borne news for me? What vast release? Quiet is in my heart, and on the sea Peace. (_Balboa, California_) A BALLAD OF LOVE AND DEATH She winded on the castle horn, She clamored long and bold, For she was way-spent and forlorn And she was sore a-cold. And she stood lonely in the snow. Vague quiet filled the air.... From heaven's roof looked down aloof The stars, with steady stare. She heard the droning drift of snow And the wolf-wind on the hill.... No other sound.... For leagues around The night was very still. She cried aloud in sudden fright, "Open! Warder ho! Here is a pilgrim guest to-night Who can no farther go." The steady beat of mailed feet In angry answer rang Along the floor. The castle door Gave in with iron clang And the warder strode into his tower And saw her standing there Weary, like a storm-tossed flower, And, like an angel, fair. "Here is no lodging for the night, No bread and wine for thee, No ingle bright, no warm firelight, No cheerful company. "Here is no inn nor any kin Of thine to harbor guest, Nor thee to house will any rouse Out of his ancient rest." Unearthly, dark, nocturnal things With faint and furtive stir Hovered on feather-muffled wings Round the fair face of her As she made answer wearily: "Ah! open now the gate. Though I was fleet with willing feet, I have come very late. "Yea, though I came through flood and flame, Through tempest, flood, and fire, And left the wind to trail behind The wings of my desire, "And though I prayed the stars for aid And seas for wind and tide, And though God gave me goodly pave And ran, Himself, beside... "Aye, though my feet have been thus fleet, Unto one heart, I know, Whose sleep is still beneath the hill, My coming has been slow." And he bent gently down above, A soft light in his eye... "Is not the holy name of Love The name men call thee by? "Ah, Love, I know thee, for thy face Is other-worldly fair; A great light of some heavenly place Is on thy shining hair. "But thou, Love, who canst tread the stars, Whose seat is by God's throne, Why wilt thou bend thee to the dust And walk the dark alone? "Thy ways are not our mortal ways. Hast thou nought else to do Than wander with thy dream-lit face Our glimmering darkness through?" But Love made answer, and her voice Was as God's voice to him; As tall and fair she towered there As heavenly seraphim... "Open the gate! for Love shall dwell Even among the dead And in the darkest deeps of hell! Open! For God hath said!" BIRDS OF PASSAGE Dropping round and clear across the still miles, Ringing down the midnight's marble stair, A bird's cry is falling through the darkness, Falling from the fields of upper air. Through the rainy fragrance of the April night Slow it falls, circling in the fall, And all the sheeted lake of sleeping silences Is troubled by the solitary call. Each human heart awake knows the loneliness Of that strange voice clear and far, That lost voice searching through the midnight, That lonely star calling to a star. Old memories are thronging through the darkness... Slow tears are blinding sleepless eyes... O lonely hearts remembering in the midnight! O dark and empty skies! WASTE Reluctant, groping fog crept gray and cold Up from the fields where now the guns were still; Far off the thundering surge of battle rolled And darkness brooded on the quiet hill; Clearly, across the listening night, the shrill And rhythmic cry of a lonely cricket fell On ears long deafened by the scream of shot and shell. And there were two who listened wistfully To that glad voice, that sad last voice of all, Who on the morrow after reveille Would make no answer to the muster call; Others would eat their mess, others would fall When the lines formed again into their places, And soon their marching comrades would forget their faces. One moaned a little and the other turned Painfully sidewise, peering up the bare Shell-furrowed slope. Then, while his deep wound burned, He crawled, slow inch by weary inch, to where The boy lay,--young, he thought, and strangely fair. "You see, I came," he said. "It was a wrench. I thought I'd die. Let's have a light here. What! You're French! "No matter ... we'll be going pretty soon... Dying 's a lonesome business at the best, And when there's nothing but a ghastly moon And fog for company, I lose my zest. There's a girl somewhere ... well... you know the rest. I'm glad I came. It's hand in hand now, brother. I think I laid you here. I wish 't had been another. "I never meant it, and you did n't mean For me this ugly gash along my side. Something has pushed us on. Our slate is clean. And long and long after we two have died Some learnedest of doctors will decide What thing it was. But we ... we'll never know. Our business now 's to help make next year's harvest grow. "You've been at school? College de France! You know Next year I should have heard your Bergson there,-- Greatest since Hegel. Think of Haeckel, though, At my own Jena! Mighty men they were. Not mighty enough for what they had to bear. They read and wrote and taught, but you and I, How have we profited at last? Well, here we lie. "If I had known you by the silver Rhine, That dreamy country where I had my birth, The land of golden corn and golden wine And surely, I think, the world's most lovely earth,-- I should have loved you, brother, and known your worth. But you were born beside the racing Rhone. Ah, yes, that made the difference. That thing alone. "We might have fronted this world's stormy weather Hand clasped in hand and seeing eye to eye. What was there we could not have done together? Who dares to say we should have feared to die, Shoulder to shoulder standing, you and I? But now you are slain by me, your unknown friend. I die by your unknowing hand. This ... this is the end! "And all the love that might have been is blown Far off like clouds that fade across the blue; The game is over and the night shuts down, Blotting the little dreams of me and you And all our hope of all we longed to do. But courage, comrade! It's not hard to die. It's not so lonely now. If only we know why!" The fog-damp folded closer round the hill And stillness deepened, but the cricket's song Tore at the heavy hem of silence still-- One small voice left of love in a world of wrong. A few dim stars looked down. The yelling throng Of guns had passed beyond the mountain's brow When once again he spoke, but slowly, faintlier now. "Something discovered that it didn't need us-- Me in the Fatherland and you in France. We were less worth than what it took to feed us, And so life gave us only a little glance. It's true to say we never had a chance. It's like this fog, around, above, below. Reach out your hand to me. Good-night. We'll never know." And then they lay so still they seemed asleep, For death was near and they had little pain. The midnight did not hear them moan or weep For life and love and gladness lost in vain And faces they would never see again,-- Old friends, old lovers. All seemed at a distance. The minutes crept and crept. They made no strong resistance. They only lay and looked up at the stars, Feeling they had not known how fair they were. I think their hearts were far from those loud wars As they lay listening to the cricket's chirr Until it faded to a drowsy blur, Dwindled, and died, lost in the distant roar Of waves that plunged and broke on some eternal shore. THE WATCHER IN THE SKY She has grown pale and spectral with our wounds And she is worn with memories of woe Older than Karnak. Multitudinous feet Of all the phantom armies of the world Resounding down the hollow halls of time, Have kept their far-off rumor in her ear. For she was old when Nineveh and Tyre And Baalbec of the waste went down in blood; Pompey and Tamburlaine and Genghis Khan Are dreams of only yesternight to her. And still she keeps, chained to a loathsome thing, Her straining, distant paces up and down The vaulted cell, but wistful of an end When all our swarm of shuddering life shall drop Like some dead cooling cinder down the void, Leaving her clean, in blessed barrenness. (_August_, 1914) HOUSEMATES This little flickering planet Is such a lonely spark Among the million mighty fires That blaze in the outer dark, The homeless waste about us Leaves such a narrow span To this dim lodging for a night, This bivouac of man, That all the heavens wonder In all their alien stars To see us wreck our fellowship In mad fraternal wars. POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE With a shout of trumpets and roll of drums, Down the road the music comes And all my heart leaps up to greet The steady tread of the marching feet. Blare of bugle and shriek of fife... This is the triumphing wine of life! My senses reel and my glad heart sings, My spirit soars on jubilant wings. Fluttering banners and gonfalons Cover with beauty the murderous guns; 'T is sweet to live, 't were great to die With this vast music marching by. For all my heart leaps up to greet The steady tread of the marching feet When down the road the music comes With a shout of trumpets and roll of drums. THE HIDDEN WEAVER There where he sits in the cold, in the gloom, Of his far-away place by his thundering loom, He weaves on the shuttles of day and of night The shades of our sorrow and shapes of delight. He has wrought him a glimmering garment to fling Over the sweet swift limbs of the Spring, He has woven a fabric of wonder to be For a blue and a billowy robe to the sea, He has fashioned in sombre funereal dyes A tissue of gold for the midnight skies. But sudden the woof turns all to red. Has he lost his craft? Has he snapped his thread? Sudden the web all sanguine runs. Does he hear the yell of the thirsting guns? While the scarlet crimes and the crimson sins Grow from the dizzying outs and ins Of the shuttle that spins, does he see it and feel? Or is he the slave of a tyrannous wheel? Inscrutable faces, mysterious eyes, Are watching him out of the drifting skies; Exiles of chaos crowd through the gloom Of the uttermost cold to that thundering room And whisper and peer through the dusk to mark What thing he is weaving there in the dark. Will he leave the loom that he won from them And rend his fabric from hem to hem? Is he weaving with daring and skill sublime A wonderful winding-sheet for time? Ah, but he sits in a darkling place, Hiding his hands, hiding his face, Hiding his art behind the shine Of the web that he weaves so long and fine. Loudly the great wheel hums and rings And we hear not even the song that he sings. Over the whirr of the shuttles and all The roar and the rush, does he hear when we call? Only the colors that grow and glow Swift as the hurrying shuttles go, Only the figures vivid or dim That flow from the hastening hands of him, Only the fugitive shapes are we, Wrought in the web of eternity. VANITAS Three queens of old in Yemen Beside forgotten streams, Three tall and stately women, Dreamt three great stately dreams Of love and power and pleasure and conquering quinqueremes. They dreamt of love that squandered All Egypt for a kiss, They dreamt of fame and pondered On proud Persepolis, But most they yearned for the wild delights of pale Semiramis. They had for lords and lovers Dark kings of Araby, Corsairs and wild sea-rovers From many an alien lea,-- Black-bearded men who loved and fought and won them cruelly. They reared a dreamlike palace Stately and white and tall As a lily's ivory chalice Where every echoing hall Was rumorous with rustling leaves and plashing water's fall. There to the tinkling zither And passionate guitars They footed hence and hither Beneath the breathless stars, From bare round breast and shoulder waved their glimmering cymars. Theirs was an empire's treasure Of gems and rich attire, Love had they beyond measure And wine that burnt like fire; Each stately queen in Yemen found verily her desire. But beauty waned and smouldered, Love languished into lust, The centuries have mouldered Their raven hair to rust, The desert sand is over them, their darkling eyes are dust. Their bosoms' pride is sunken Beneath the purple pall, Their smooth round limbs are shrunken, Through clasp and anklet crawl Lithe little snakes, upon their tombs lean lizards twitch and sprawl. SPENSER'S "FAËRIE QUEENE" Like some clear well of water in the waste, Some magic well beside the weary miles, This beauty is. I turn aside and taste The cool Lethean drink. Suddenly smiles A leafy world upon me,--peristyles Of flickering shade! The hush is only stirred Where silver runlets brighten down the aisles, From pool to pool rehearsing one low word Answered at drowsy intervals by a lonely bird. Along the rustling arches and through vast Dim caverns of green solitude are rolled The wintry leaves of all the withered past, One confraternity of common mould. From summers perished, autumn's tarnished gold Long blown to dust in many a fallen glade Is reared this rumorous temple million-boled, This shrine of peace, this whispering colonnade Trembling from court to court with restless sun and shade. And here a while may weary Fancy turn And loiter by the rote of guttural streams. Brushing the skirts of silence, the stirred fern Breathes softly "hush" and "hush"--a sound that seems Only the fluttering sigh of deepest dreams. Here comes no sound or sight of fevered things... No sight or sound. Green-gold the daylight beams, And deep in the heart of dusk a far bird sings Faint as the feathered beat of her own wavering wings. * * * * * Calm singer in the chambers of the dawn, Our hearts are weary singing in the heat When all thy dewy matin hopes are gone And all thy raptures, prophesyings sweet, And fair, false dreams are flying in defeat. O thou, the poet's poet, from thy sky Of ancient morning look thou down and greet Thy brothers of the noon with gentle eye. Lift them from out the dust. Forlorn and low they lie! Heart-easing poet, sing to us like bells Across wide waters paven by the stains Of sunset; like a vagrant breeze that swells And rises lingering, fails and grows and wanes Along a listening wood; like April rains In which the anemones of dream are born. And though you cannot save us from the pains Of life,--the heat, the insensate noise, the scorn,-- Here may we find our rose, forget a while the thorn. MORNING ROAD SONG Let me have my fill of the wide blue air And the emerald cup of the sea And a wandering road blown bright and bare And it is enough for me. The love of a man is a goodly thing And the love of a woman is true, But give me a rollicking song to sing And a love that is always new. For I am a rover and cannot stay And blithe at heart am I When free and afoot on a winding way Beneath the great blue sky. EVENING ROAD SONG It's a long road and a steep road And a weary road to climb. The air bites chill on the windy hill. At home it is firelight time. The sunset pales ... along the vales The cottage candles shine And twinkle through the early dew. Thank God that one is mine! And dark and late she'll watch and wait Beyond the last long mile For the weary beat of homing feet With her wise and patient smile. WINDY MORNING Dawn with a jubilant shout Leaps on the shivering sea And puffs the last pale planet out And scatters the flame-bright clouds about Like the leaves of a frost-bitten tree. Does a gold seed split the rosy husk? Nay, a sword ... a shield ... a spear! The kindler of all fires that burn Deep in the day's cerulean urn Rides up across the clear And tramples down the cowering dusk Like a strong-browed charioteer. Blow out and far away The dim, the dull, the dun; Prosper the crimson, blight the gray, And blow us clean of yesterday, Stern morning fair begun, Till the earth is an opal bathed in dew, Flashing with emerald, gold, and blue, Held where the skies wash through and through High up against the sun. (_Catalina Island_, 1913) THE GRAVE OF THOREAU Brown earth, blue sky, and solitude,-- Three things he loved, three things he wooed Lifelong; and now no rhyme can tell How ultimately all is well With his wild heart that worshipped God's Epiphany in crumbling sods And like an oak brought all its worth Back to the kindly mother earth. But something starry, something bold, Eludes the clutch of dark and mould,-- Something that will not wholly die Out of the old familiar sky. No spell in all the lore of graves Can still the plash of Walden waves Or wash away the azure stain Of Concord skies from heart and brain. Clear psalteries and faint citoles Only recall the orioles Fluting reveille to the morn Across the acres of the corn He wanders somewhere lonely still Along a solitary hill And sits by ever lonelier fires Remote from heaven's bright rampires, A hermit in the blue Beyond Beside some dim celestial pond With beans to hoe and wood to hew And halcyon days to loiter through And angel visitors, no doubt, Who shut the air and sunlight out. But he who scoffed at human ways And, finding us unworthy of praise, Sang misanthropic pæans to The muskrat and the feverfew, Will droop those archangelic wings With praise of how we manage things, Prefer his Walden tupelo To even the Tree of Life, and grow A little wistful looking down Across the fields of Concord town. EARTH-BORN No lapidary's heaven, no brazier's hell for me, For I am made of dust and dew and stream and plant and tree; I'm close akin to boulders, I am cousin to the mud, And all the winds of all the skies make music in my blood. I want a brook and pine trees, I want a storm to blow Loud-lunged across the looming hills with rain and sleet and snow; Don't put me off with diadems and thrones of chrysoprase,-- I want the winds of northern nights and wild March days. My blood runs red with sunset, my body is white with rain, And on my heart auroral skies have set their scarlet stain, My thoughts are green with spring time, among the meadow rue I think my very soul is growing green and gold and blue. What will be left, I wonder, when Death has washed me clean Of dust and dew and sundown and April's virgin green? If there's enough to make a ghost, I'll bring it back again To the little lovely earth that bore me, body, soul, and brain. "WHENCE COMETH MY HELP" Let me sleep among the shadows of the mountains when I die, In the murmur of the pines and sliding streams, Where the long day loiters by Like a cloud across the sky And the moon-drenched night is musical with dreams. Lay me down within a canyon of the mountains, far away, In a valley filled with dim and rosy light, Where the flashing rivers play Out across the golden day And a noise of many waters brims the night. Let me lie where glinting rivers ramble down the slanted glade Under bending alders garrulous and cool, Where they gather in the shade To the dazzling, sheer cascade, Where they plunge and sleep within the pebbled pool. All the wisdom, all the beauty, I have lived for unaware Came upon me by the rote of highland rills; I have seen God walking there In the solemn soundless air When the morning wakened wonder in the hills. I am what the mountains made me of their green and gold and gray, Of the dawnlight and the moonlight and the foam. Mighty mothers far away, Ye who washed my soul in spray, I am coming, mother mountains, coming home. When I draw my dreams about me, when I leave the darkling plain Where my soul forgets to soar and learns to plod, I shall go back home again To the kingdoms of the rain, To the blue purlieus of heaven, nearer God. Where the rose of dawn blooms earlier across the miles of mist, Between the tides of sundown and moonrise, I shall keep a lover's tryst With the gold and amethyst, With the stars for my companions in the skies. UNITY Where the long valley slopes away Five miles across the dreaming day A maple sends a scarlet prayer Into the still autumnal air, Three golden-smouldering hickories Are fanned to flame beneath the breeze And one great crimson oak tree fires The sky-line over the Concord spires. In worship mystically sweet The rimy asters at my feet And spiring gentian bells that burn Blue incense in an azure urn Breathe softly from the aspiring sod: "This is our utmost. Take it, God,-- This chant of green, this prayer of blue. This is the best thy clay can do." * * * * * O lonely heart and widowed brain Sick with philosophies that strain Body from spirit, flesh from soul,-- Worship with asters and be whole; Live simply as still water flows Till soul shall border brain so close No blade of wit can thrust between And hearts are pure as grass is green; Pray with the maple tree and trust The ancient ritual of the dust. VISTAS As I walked through the rumorous streets Of the wind-rustled, elm-shaded city Where all of the houses were friends And the trees were all lovers of her, The spell of its old enchantment Was woven again to subdue me With magic of flickering shadows, Blown branches and leafy stir. Street after street, as I passed, Lured me and beckoned me onward With memories frail as the odor Of lilac adrift on the air. At the end of each breeze-blurred vista She seemed to be watching and waiting, With leaf shadows over her gown And sunshine gilding her hair. For there was a dream that the kind God Withheld, while granting us many-- But surely, I think, we shall come Sometime, at the end, she and I, To the heaven He keeps for all tired souls, The quiet suburban gardens Where He Himself walks in the evening Beneath the rose-dropping sky And watches the balancing elm trees Sway in the early starshine When high in their murmurous arches The night breeze ruffles by. A NUN One glance and I had lost her in the riot Of tangled cries. She trod the clamor with a cloistral quiet Deep in her eyes As though she heard the muted music only That silence makes Among dim mountain summits and on lonely Deserted lakes. There is some broken song her heart remembers From long ago, Some love lies buried deep, some passion's embers Smothered in snow, Far voices of a joy that sought and missed her Fail now, and cease.... And this has given the deep eyes of God's sister Their dreadful peace. LOVE AMONG THE CLOVER "If you dare," she said, And oh, her breath was clover-sweet! Clover nodded over her, Her lips were clover red. Blackbirds fluted down the wind, The bobolinks were mad with joy, The wind was playing in her hair, And "If you dare," she said. Clover billowed down the wind Far across the happy fields, Clover on the breezy hills Leaned along the skies And all the nodding clover heads And little clouds with silver sails And all the heaven's dreamy blue Were mirrored in her eyes. Her laughing lips were clover-red When long ago I kissed her there And made for one swift moment all My heaven and earth complete. I've loved among the roses since And love among the lilies now, But love among the clover... Her breath was clover-sweet. O wise, wise-hearted boy and girl Who played among the clover bloom! I think I was far wiser then Than now I dare to be. For I have lost that Eden now, I cannot find my Eden now, And even should I find it now, I've thrown away the key. CERTAIN AMERICAN POETS They cowered inert before the study fire While mighty winds were ranging wide and free, Urging their torpid fancies to aspire With "Euhoe! Bacchus! Have a cup of tea." They tripped demure from church to lecture-hall, Shunning the snare of farthingales and curls. Woman they thought half angel and half doll, The Muses' temple a boarding-school for girls. Quaffing Pierian draughts from Boston pump, They toiled to prove their homiletic art Could match with nasal twang and pulpit thump In maxims glib of meeting-house and mart. Serenely their ovine admirers graze. Apollo wears frock-coats, the Muses stays. THE SINGER'S QUEST I've been wandering, listening for a song, Dreaming of a melody, all my life long ... The lilting tune that God sang to rock the tides asleep And crooned above the cradled stars before they learned to creep. O, there was laughter in it and many a merry chime Before He had turned moralist, grown old before His time, And He was happy, trolling out His great blithe-hearted tune, Before He slung the little earth beneath the sun and moon. But I know that somewhere that song is rolling on, Like flutes along the midnight, like trumpets in the dawn; It throbs across the sunset and stirs the poplar tree And rumbles in the long low thunder of the sea. * * * * * First-love sang me one note and heart-break taught me two, A child has told me three notes, and soon I'll know it through; And when I stand before the Throne I'll hum it low and sly, Watching for a great light of welcome in His eye... "Put a white raiment on him and a harp into his hand And golden sandals on his feet and tell the saints to stand A little farther off unless they wish to hear the truth, For this blessed lucky sinner is going to sing about my youth!" DEAD MAGDALEN Cover her over with pallid white roses, Her who had none but red roses to wear; All that her last grim lover bestows is Virginal white for her bosom and hair. Cover the folds of the glimmering sheet Clear from her eyelids weary and sweet Down to her nevermore wayward feet. Then They may find her fair. Lovingly, tenderly, let us array her Fair as a bride for the way she must go, Leaving no lingering stain to betray her, Letting them see we have sullied her so. Over the curve of the fair young breast Leave we this maidenly lily to rest White as the snow in its snow-soft nest. Now They will never know. THE ADVENTURER He came not in the red dawn Nor in the blaze of noon, And all the long bright highway Lay lonely to the moon, And nevermore, we know now, Will he come wandering down The breezy hollows of the hills That gird the quiet town. For he has heard a voice cry A starry-faint "Ahoy!" Far up the wind, and followed Unquestioning after joy. But we are long forgetting The quiet way he went, With looks of love and gentle scorn So sweetly, subtly blent. We cannot cease to wonder, We who have loved him, how He fares along the windy ways His feet must travel now. But we must draw the curtain And fasten bolts and bars And talk here in the firelight Of him beneath the stars. THE GOLDFINCH Down from the sky on a sudden he drops Into the mullein and juniper tops, Flushed from his bath in the midsummer shine Flooding the meadowland, drunk with the wine Spilled from the urns of the blue, like a bold Sky-buccaneer in his sable and gold. Lightly he sways on the pendulous stem, Vividly restless, a fluttering gem, Then with a flash of bewildering wings Dazzles away up and down, and he sings Clear as a bell at each dip as he flies Bounding along on the wave of the skies. Sunlight and laughter, a winged desire, Motion and melody married to fire, Lighter than thistle-tuft borne on the wind, Frailer than violets, how shall we find Words that will match him, discover a name Meet for this marvel, this lyrical flame? How shall we fashion a rhythm to wing with him, Find us a wonderful music to sing with him Fine as his rapture is, free as the rollicking Song that the harlequin drops in his frolicking Dance through the summer sky, singing so merrily High in the burning blue, winging so airily? (_ Mount Vernon, New Hampshire_) ORIOLES Wings in a blur of gold High in the elm trees, Looping like tawny flame Through the green shadows, Now at an airy height Pausing a heart beat Quite at the twig's tip, Pendulous, bending. Golden against the blue, Gold in an azure cup, Golden wine bubbling Out of blue goblets... Cool, smooth and reedy notes Fly low across the noon While through the drowsy heat Drums the cicada. Tropical wing and song Bound from Bolivia... All the blue Amazon Sings to New England.... Flute-noted orioles, Flame-coated orioles, Gold-throated orioles, Spirits of summer. BY A MOUNTAIN STREAM Where the rivulet swept by a sycamore root With a turbulent voice and a hurrying foot, I bent by the water and spoke in my dream To the wavering, restless, unlingering stream: "Oh, turbulent rivulet hastening past, For what wonderful goal do you hope at the last That never you pause in the shimmering green Of the undulant shade where the sycamores lean Or rest in the moss-curtained, cool dripping halls Hidden under the veils of your musical falls Or loiter at peace by the tremulous fern-- White wandering waters that never return?" And I dreamed by the rivulet's wavering side That a myriad ripple of voices replied: "Aloft on the mountain, afar on the steep, A voice that we knew cried aloud in our sleep, 'Come, hasten ye down to the vale and to me, Your begetter, destroyer, preserver, the Sea!' We must carry our feebleness down to the Strong, We must mingle us deep in the Whole, and ere long All the numberless host of the heaven shall ride With the pale Lady Moon on our slumbering tide." The voices swept out and away through the door Of the canyon, and on to the infinite shore. Oh, vast in thy destiny, slender of span, Wild rivulet, how thou art like to a man! (_Cold Brook, California_, 1912) APRIL (_To Bliss Carman_) There's a murmur in the patient forest alleys, There's an elfin echo whispering through the trees, Lonely pipes are lifted softly in the valleys... All the air is filled with waking melodies. From the crucibles of Erebus and Endor, Flame of emerald has fallen by the rills, And it flashes up the slope and sits in splendor In the glory of the beauty of the hills. Now my heart will yearn again to voice its wonder And my song must sing again between the words With a mutter of unutterable thunder And a twitter of inimitable birds. (_April_, 1903) A CHAPEL BY THE SEA (_To Paul Dowling_) There's a mouldering mountain chapel gazing out across the sea From beneath the lisping shelter of a eucalyptus tree That has drawn the ancient silence from the mountain's heart and fills And subdues a fevered spirit with the quiet of the hills. For silvery in the morning the chimes go dropping down Across the vales of purple mist that gird the island town And golden in the evening the vesper bells again Call back the weary fishing folk along the leafy lane. I'd like to be the father priest and call the folk to prayer Up through the winding dewy ways that climb the morning air, And send them down at even-song with all the silent sky Of early starshine teaching them far deeper truth than I. I'd like to lie at rest there beneath a mossy stone Above the crooning sea's low distant monotone, Lulled by the lisping whisper of the eucalyptus tree That shades my mountain chapel gazing out across the sea. (_Avalon, Christmas Day_, 1913) EPHEMEROS A firefly cried across the night: "O lofty star, O streaming light, Clear eye of heaven, immortal lamp Set high above the dew and damp, Thou great high-priest to heaven's King And chief of all the choirs that sing Their golden, endless antiphons Of praise before the eternal thrones-- Hear thou my prayer of worship! Thine The glory, all the dimness mine. I am a feeble glimmering spark Vagrant along the lower dark." The star called down from heaven's roof With a humble heart and mild reproof: "The Power that made, the Breath that blew My fire aglow has kindled you With equal love and equal pain And equal toil of heart and brain. For I am only a wandering light, Your elder comrade in the night. We are two sisters, you and I, And when we two burn out and die It will be hardly known from far Which was the firefly, which the star." WANDERLUST (_To Willard_) The birds were beating north again with faint and starry cries Along their ancient highway that spans the midnight skies, And out across the rush of wings my heart went crying too, Straight for the morning's windy walls and lakes of misted blue. They gave me place among them, for well they understood The magic wine of April working madness in my blood, And we were kin in thought and dream as league by league together We kept that pace of straining wings across the starry weather. The dim blue tides of Fundy, green slopes of Labrador Slid under us ... our course was set for earth's remotest shore; But tingling through the ether and searching star by star A lonely voice went crying that drew me down from far. Farewell, farewell, my brothers! I see you far away Go drifting down the sunset across the last green bay, But I have found the haven of this lonely heart and wild-- My falconer has called me--I am prisoned by a child. (_Easter Day_, 1916) THE IDEAL Serenely, from her mountain height sublime, She mocks my hopeless labor as I creep Each day a day's strength farther from the deep And nearer to her side for which I climb. So may she mock when for the sad last time I fall, my face still upward, upon sleep, With faithful hands still yearning up the steep In patient and pathetic pantomime. I am content, O ancient, young-eyed child Of love and longing. Pity not our wars Of frail-spun flesh, and keep thee undefiled By all our strife that only breaks and mars. But let us see from far thy footing, wild And wayward still against the eternal stars! THE FIRST CHRISTIAN A little wandering wind went up the hill. It had a lonely voice as though it knew What it should find before it came to where The broken body of him that had been Christ Hung in the ruddy glow. A bowshot down The bleak rock-shouldered hill the soldiery Had piled a fire, and when the searching wind Came stronger from the distant sea and dashed The shadows and the gleam together, songs Of battle and lust were blown along the slope Mingled with clash of swords on cuisse and shield. But of the women sitting by the cross Even she whose life had been as gravely sweet And sheltered as a lily's did not flinch. Her face was buried in her shrouding cloak. And she who knew too sorrowfully well The cruelty and bitterness of life Heard not. She sat erect, her shadowy hair Blown back along the darkness and her eyes That searched the distant spaces of the night Splendid and glowing with an inward joy. And at the darkest hour came three or four From round the fire and would have driven them thence; But one who knew them, gazing in their eyes, Said: "Nay. It is his mother and his love, The scarlet Magdalena. Let them be." So, in the gloom beside that glimmering cross, Beneath the broken body of him they loved, They wept and watched--the lily and the rose. At last the deep, low voice of Magdalen, Toned like a distant bell, broke on the hush: "We are so weak! What can poor women do? So pitifully frail! God pity us! How he did pity us! He understood... Out of his own great strength he understood How it might feel to be so very weak... To be a tender lily of the field, To be a lamb lost in the windy hills Far from the fold and from the shepherd's voice, To be a child with no strength, only love. And ah, he knew, if ever a man can know, What 't is to be a woman and to live, Strive how she may to out-soar and overcome, Tied to this too frail body of too fair earth! "Oh, had I been a man to shield him then In his great need with loving strong right arm! One of the twelve--ha!--of that noble twelve That ran away, and two made mock of him Or else betrayed him ere they ran? Ah no! And yet, a man's strength with a woman's love... That might have served him somewhat ere the end." Then with a weary voice the mother said: "What can we do but only watch and weep, Sit with weak hands and watch while strong men rend And break and ruin, bringing all to nought The beauty we have nearly died to make? "It is not true to say that he was strong. He did not claim the kingdom that was his, He did not even seek for wealth and power, He did not win a woman's love and get Strong children to live after him, and all That strong men strive for he passed heedless by. Because that he was weak I loved him so... For that and for his soft and gentle ways, The tender patient calling of his voice And that dear trick of smiling with his eyes. Ah no! I have had dreams--a mother's dreams-- But now I cannot dream them any more. "I sorrowed little as the happy days Sped by and by that still the fair-haired lad Who lay at first beside me in the stall, The cattle stall outside Jerusalem, Found no great throne to dazzle his mother's eye. He was so good a workman ... axe and saw Did surely suit him better than a sword. I was content if only he would wed Some village girl of little Nazareth And get me children with his own slow smile, Deep thoughtful eyes and golden kingly brow. "It seems but yesterday he played among The shavings strewn on Joseph's work-shop floor. The sunlight of the morning slanted through The window--'t was in springtime--and across The bench where Joseph sat, and then it lay In golden glory on the boy's bright hair And on the shavings that were golden too. I saw him through the open door. I thought, 'My little king has found his golden crown.' But unto Joseph I said nought at all. "But now, ah me! he won no woman's love, Nor loved one either as most men call love, And so he had no child and he is gone And I am left without him and alone." So by her son's pale broken body mourned The mother, dreaming on departed days. And as with one who looks into the west, Watching the embers of the outburned day Crumble and cool and slowly droop and fade, And will not take the darkling eastward path Where lies his way until the last faint glow Has left the sky and the early stars shine forth, So did her dream cling to the ruined past And all the joy they had in Nazareth Before the years of doubt and trouble came. Then, while loud laughter sounded up the hill Where yet that ribald crew sang o'er the wine, She bowed her head above her cradling arms And softly sang, as to herself, the songs Of Israel that once had served her well To soothe the wakeful child. But Magdalen Arose upon her feet and tossed her cloak Back from the midnight of her wind-blown hair And lifted up her eyes into the dark As though, beyond this circle of all our woe, To read a hidden meaning in the stars. "Aye, it is dark," she said. "The night comes on. He was the sunshine of our little day. The clouds unsettled softly and we saw Ladders of glory climbing into light Unspeakable, with dazzling interchange Of Majesties and Powers. But suddenly The tides of darkness whelm us round again And this drear dwindled earth becomes once more What it has ever been--a core of shade And steaming vapor spinning in the dark, A deeper clot of blackness in the void! "The night comes on. 'T is hard to pierce the dark. And if to me who loved him, whom he loved-- Though well thou sayest, 'Not as most men call love'-- Far harder will it be for those who hold In memory no gesture of his hand, No haunting echo of his patient voice, Nor that dear trick of smiling with his eyes. "O ceaseless tramp of armies down the years! O maddened cries of 'Christ' and 'Son of Mary!' While o'er the crying screams the hurtling death.... Thou gentle shepherd of the quiet fold, Mild man of sorrows, hast thou done this thing, Who camest not to bring peace but a sword? Ah no, not thou, but only our childishness, The pitifully childish heart of man That cannot learn and know beyond a little. "The priests and captains and the little kings Will tear each other at the throat and cry: 'Thus said he, lived he; swear it or thou diest!' But these shall pass and perish in the dark While the lorn strays and outcasts of the world, The souls whose pain has seared their pride to dust And burned a way for love to enter in-- These only know his meaning and shall live. "So is it as with one whose feet have trod The valley of the shadow, who has seen His dearest lowered into endless night. All music holds for him a deeper strain Of nobler meaning, and the flush of dawn, High wind at noonday, crumbling sunset gold, And the dear pathetic look of children's eyes-- All beauty pierces closer to his heart. "Yea, thou thyself, pale youth upon the cross-- The godlike strength of thee was rooted deep In human weakness. Even she who bore thee, Seeing the man too nearly, missed the God, Erring as fits the mother. Some will say In coming years, I feel it in my heart, That thou didst face thy death a conscious God, Knowing almighty hands were stretched to snatch And lift thee from the greedy clutching grave. Falsely! Forgetting dark Gethsemane,-- Not knowing, as I know, what doubt assailed Thy human heart until the latest breath. Ah, what a trumpery death, what mockery And mere theatric mimicry of pain, If thou didst surely know thou couldst not die! Thou didst not know. And whether even now Thy straying ghost, like some great moth of night Blown seaward through the shadow, flies and drifts Along dim coasts and headlands of the dark, A homeless wanderer up and down the void, Or whether indeed thou art enthroned above In light and life, I know not. This I know-- That in the moment of sheer certainty My soul will die. "No! On thy spirit lay All the dark weight and mystery of pain And all our human doubt and flickering hope, Deathless despairs and treasuries of tears, Gropings of spirit blindfold by the flesh And grapplings with the fiend. Else were thy death Less like a God's than even mine may be. "Thou broken mother who canst see in him Only the quiet man, the needful child, And most of all the Babe of Bethlehem, Let it suffice thee. Thy reward is great. Who loveth God that never hath loved man? Who knoweth man but cometh to know God? Thou sacred, sorrowing mother, canst thou learn-- Thou who hast gone so softly in God's sight-- Of me, the scarlet woman of old days? Come, let us talk together, thou and I. Apart, we see him darkly, through a glass; Together, we shall surely see aright. Bring thou thine innocence, thy stainless soul, And I will bring deep lore of suffering, My dear-bought wisdom of defeat and pain. For out of these may come, believe it thou, Sanctities not like thine, but fit to bear The bitter storms and whirlwinds of this world. Aye, out of evil often springeth good, And sweetest honey from the lion's mouth. And that he knew. That very thing he meant When he withdrew me from the pits of shame. 'T is I who see God shining through the man. I see the deity, the godlike strength In his supreme capacity for pain. Nor have I known the cruel love of men These many years to err when now I say This man loved not like men but like a God. Thou broken mother, weep not for the child, Mourn not the man. Acclaim the risen Christ!" She turned and touched the other lovingly, Then stooped and peered into her darkened face. The mother slept, forspent and overborne By weariness and woe too great to bear. She gently smiled. "So it is best," she said. Tall and elate she stood, her shadowy hair Blown back along the darkness and her eyes That searched the distant spaces of the night Splendid and glowing with an inward joy. And over that dark hill of tragedy And triumph, victory and dull despair, Over the sleeping Roman soldiery, Over the three stark crosses and the two Who loved Him most, the lily and the rose, Shone still and clear the great compassionate stars. THE END NOTE Some of these poems have been published before in _The Sunset Magazine, The Smart Set, Munsey's Magazine, The Bellman, The International, The Overland Monthly, The Youth's Companion, Poetry--A Magazine of Verse, The Harvard Graduates' Magazine, The Book News Monthly, Current Opinion, The Literary Digest, The Boston Transcript_, and the _Anthologies of Magazine Verse_ for 1915 and 1916. I wish to thank the editors of those publications in which they originally appeared for permission to reprint. The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . A *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LONELY FLUTE *** Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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