Varia

I AM the seed The Sower sowed; I am the deed His hand bestowed Upon the world. Censure me not If a rank weed flood The garden plot, Instead of a bud To be unfurled. Bridle your blame If the deed prove less Than the bruited fame With which it came From nothingness. The seed of a weed Cannot be flowered, Nor a hero’s deed Spring from a coward. Pull up the weed; Bring plow and mower; Then fetch new seed For the hand of the Sower.

“AND what would I do in heaven, pray, Me with my dancing feet, And limbs like apple boughs that sway When the gusty rain winds beat? And how would I thrive in a perfect place Where dancing would be sin, With not a man to love my face, Nor an arm to hold me in? The seraphs and the cherubim Would be too proud to bend To sing the faery tunes that brim My heart from end to end. The wistful angels down in hell Will smile to see my face, And understand, because they fell From that all-perfect place.”

I THINK when Judas’ mother heard His first faint cry the night That he was born, that worship stirred Her at the sound and sight. She thought his was as fair a frame As flesh and blood had worn; I think she made this lovely name For him—“Star of my morn.” As any mother’s son he grew From spring to crimson spring; I think his eyes were black, or blue, His hair curled like a ring. His mother’s heart-strings were a lute Whereon he all day played; She listened rapt, abandoned, mute, To every note he made. I think he knew the growing Christ, And played with Mary’s son, And where mere mortal craft sufficed, There Judas may have won. Perhaps he little cared or knew, So folly-wise is youth, That He whose hand his hand clung to Was flesh-embodied Truth; Until one day he heard young Christ, With far-off eyes agleam, Tell of a mystic, solemn tryst Between Him and a dream. And Judas listened, wonder-eyed, Until the Christ was through, Then said, “And I, though good betide, Or ill, will go with you.” And so he followed, heard Christ preach, Saw how by miracle The blind man saw, the dumb got speech, The leper found him well. And Judas in those holy hours Loved Christ, and loved Him much, And in his heart he sensed dead flowers Bloom at the Master’s touch. And when Christ felt the death hour creep With sullen, drunken lurch, He said to Peter, “Feed my sheep, And build my holy church.” He gave to each the special task That should be his to do, But reaching one, I hear him ask, “What shall I give to you?” Then Judas in his hot desire Said, “Give me what you will.” Christ spoke to him with words of fire, “Then, Judas, you must kill One whom you love, One who loves you As only God’s son can: This is the work for you to do To save the creature man.” “And men to come will curse your name, And hold you up to scorn; In all the world will be no shame Like yours; this is love’s thorn. It takes strong will of heart and soul, But man is under ban. Think, Judas, can you play this role In heaven’s mystic plan?” So Judas took the sorry part, Went out and spoke the word, And gave the kiss that broke his heart, But no one knew or heard. And no one knew what poison ate Into his palm that day, Where, bright and damned, the monstrous weight Of thirty white coins lay. It was not death that Judas found Upon a kindly tree; The man was dead long ere he bound His throat as final fee. And who can say if on that day When gates of pearl swung wide, Christ did not go His honored way With Judas by His side? I think somewhere a table round Owns Jesus as its head, And there the saintly twelve are found Who followed where He led. And Judas sits down with the rest, And none shrinks from His hand, For there the worst is as the best, And there they understand. And you may think of Judas, friend, As one who broke his word, Whose neck came to a bitter end For giving up his Lord. But I would rather think of him As the little Jewish lad Who gave young Christ heart, soul, and limb, And all the love he had.

DEAD men are wisest, for they know How far the roots of flowers go, How long a seed must rot to grow. Dead men alone bear frost and rain On throbless heart and heatless brain, And feel no stir of joy or pain. Dead men alone are satiate; They sleep and dream and have no weight, To curb their rest, of love or hate. Strange, men should flee their company, Or think me strange who long to be Wrapped in their cool immunity.

THAT night she felt those searching hands Grip deep upon her breast, She laughed and sang a silly tune To lull her babe to rest; That night she kissed his coral lips How could she know the rest?

Soul: THERE is no stronger thing than song; In sun and rain and leafy trees It wafts the timid soul along On crested waves of melodies. Body: But leaves the body bare to feed Its hunger with its very need. Soul: Although the frenzied belly writhes, Yet render up in song your tithes; Song is the weakling’s oaken rod, His Jacob’s ladder dropped from God. Body: Song is not drink; song is not meat, Nor strong, thick shoes for naked feet. Soul: Who sings by unseen hands is fed With honeyed milk and warm, white bread; His ways in pastures green are led, And perfumed oil illumes his head; His cup with wine is surfeited, And when the last low note is read, He sings among the lipless dead With singing stars to crown his head. Body: But will song buy a wooden box The length of me from toe to crown, To keep me safe from carrion flocks When singing’s done and lyre laid down?

ALONG the shore the tall, thin grass That fringes that dark river, While sinuously soft feet pass, Begins to bleed and quiver. The great dark voice breaks with a sob Across the womb of night; Above your grave the tom-toms throb, And the hills are weird with light. The great dark heart is like a well Drained bitter by the sky, And all the honeyed lies they tell Come there to thirst and die. No lie is strong enough to kill The roots that work below; From your rich dust and slaughtered will A tree with tongues will grow.

YOU feeble few that hold me somewhat more Than all I am; base clay and spittle joined To shape an aimless whim substantial; coined Amiss one idle hour, this heart, though poor,— O golden host I count upon the ends Of one bare hand, with fingers still to spare,— Is rich enough for this: to harbor there In opulence its frugal meed of friends. Let neither lose his faith, lest by such loss Each find insufferable his daily cross. And be not less immovable to me, Not less love-leal and staunch, than my heart is. In brief, these fine heroics come to this, My friends: if you are true, I needs must be.

I FAST and pray and go to church, And put my penny in, But God’s not fooled by such slight tricks, And I’m not saved from sin. I cannot hide from Him the gods That revel in my heart, Nor can I find an easy word To tell them to depart: God’s alabaster turrets gleam Too high for me to win, Unless He turns His face and lets Me bring my own gods in.

I CANNOT hold my peace, John Keats; There never was a spring like this; It is an echo, that repeats My last year’s song and next year’s bliss. I know, in spite of all men say Of Beauty, you have felt her most. Yea, even in your grave her way Is laid. Poor, troubled, lyric ghost, Spring never was so fair and dear As Beauty makes her seem this year. I cannot hold my peace, John Keats, I am as helpless in the toil Of Spring as any lamb that bleats To feel the solid earth recoil Beneath his puny legs. Spring beats Her tocsin call to those who love her, And lo! the dogwood petals cover Her breast with drifts of snow, and sleek White gulls fly screaming to her, and hover About her shoulders, and kiss her cheek, While white and purple lilacs muster A strength that bears them to a cluster Of color and odor; for her sake All things that slept are now awake. And you and I, shall we lie still, John Keats, while Beauty summons us? Somehow I feel your sensitive will Is pulsing up some tremulous Sap road of a maple tree, whose leaves Grow music as they grow, since your Wild voice is in them, a harp that grieves For life that opens death’s dark door. Though dust, your fingers still can push The Vision Splendid to a birth, Though now they work as grass in the hush Of the night on the broad sweet page of the earth. “John Keats is dead,” they say, but I Who hear your full insistent cry In bud and blossom, leaf and tree, Know John Keats still writes poetry. And while my head is earthward bowed To read new life sprung from your shroud, Folks seeing me must think it strange That merely spring should so derange My mind. They do not know that you, John Keats, keep revel with me, too.

A GRAVE is all too weak a thing To hold my fancy long; I’ll bear a blossom with the spring, Or be a blackbird’s song, I think that I shall fade with ease, Melt into earth like snow, Be food for hungry, growing trees, Or help the lilies blow. And if my love should lonely walk, Quite of my nearness fain, I may come back to her, and talk In liquid words of rain.

HARSH World that lashest me each day, Dub me not cowardly because I seem to find no sudden way To throttle you or clip your claws. No force compels me to the wound Whereof my body bears the scar; Although my feet are on the ground, Doubt not my eyes are on a star. You cannot keep me captive, World, Entrammeled, chained, spit on, and spurned. More free than all your flags unfurled, I give my body to be burned. I mount my cross because I will, I drink the hemlock which you give For wine which you withhold—and still, Because I will not die, I live. I live because an ember in Me smoulders to regain its fire, Because what is and what has been Not yet have conquered my desire. I live to prove the groping clod Is surely more than simple dust; I live to see the breath of God Beatify the carnal crust. But when I will, World, I can go, Though triple bronze should wall me round, Slip past your guard as swift as snow, Translated without pain or sound. Within myself is lodged the key To that vast room of couches laid For those too proud to live and see Their dreams of light eclipsed in shade.

I AM for sleeping and forgetting All that has gone before; I am for lying still and letting Who will beat at my door; I would my life’s cold sun were setting To rise for me no more.