Ten Grotesques

Thanks, belovèd; here’s your pay. Now get you quickly out of the way. For there are many more things to do; And all my pictures can’t image you.

I dreamed a song of a wild, wild love And purposed to follow her flying hair, Singing my music, through vale and grove, Till dusk met the hills—and I clasped her there. But—mumbling ancient I have become!— I sang two staves, and then gave o’er; And carried my song with prudence home; And nailed it as motto above my door. Now, the angels in heaven will crown me with bays; And give me a golden trumpet to blow When at last I die, full of virtuous days ... But my wild, wild love—will she ever know?

Fronting a Dear Child and an Infamy You sat; and watched, with dusk-on-the-mountain eyes, The marching river of the beer go by, Alert in vain for a band-crash of surprise. I also! Dawn, that in respectful way Entered a-liveried, could no lightnings rouse For which I watched; the calling-card of day Flushed with no guilt your Hebridean brows. Wherefore the Infamy and I went down Into a street of windows high and blind. His face, his tongue, his words, his soul, were brown. But from a window lofty and left behind, Like a silver trumpet over the gutter-dirt, You waved!—(I know not what; perhaps a shirt.)

O piece of garbage rotting on a rug,— To what a final ending hast thou come! Art thou predestined fodder of a bug? Shalt thou no more behold thy Dresden home? When green disintegration works its last Ruin, and all thy atoms writhe and start, Shall no frilled-paper memories from the past Drift spectral down the gravy of thy heart? Can the cold grease from off the dirty plate Make thee forget the ice-box of thy prime, And soon, among the refuse-cans, thy fate Blot out the gay fork-music of old time? Ah well! all music has its awkward flats— And after all, there are the alley-cats!

When first the rebel hosts were hurled From heaven,—and as they downward sped Flashed by them world on glimmering world Like mileposts on that road of dread,— One ruined angel by strange chance On earth lit stranded with spent wing. There, when revived, he took his stance In slightly battered triumphing. And still he stands; though lightning-riven, More riotous than ere he fell,— Upon his brow the lights of heaven Mixed with a foregleam out of hell.

God forgive you, O my friend! For, be sure, men never will. Their most righteous wrath shall bend Toward you all the strokes of ill. You are outcast—Who could bear, Laboring dully, to behold That glad carelessness you wear, Dancing down the sunlight’s gold? Who, a self-discovered slave, As the burdens on him press, Could but curse you, arrant knave, For your crime of happiness? All the dogmas of our life Are confuted by your fling,— Taking dullness not to wife, But with wonder wantoning. All the good and great of earth, Prophecying your bad end, Sourly watch you dance in mirth Up the rainbow, O my friend!

Across the polished board, wet and ashine, Appalling incantations late have passed.— For some, the mercy of dull anodyne; For others, hope destined an hour to last. Here has been sold courage to lift the weak That they embrace a great and noble doom. Here some have bought a clue they did not seek Into the wastes of an engulfing gloom. And amorous tears, and high indignant hate, Laughter, desires, passions, and hopes, and rest,— The drunkard’s sleep, the poet’s shout to fate,— All from these bottles filled a human breast! Magician of the apron! Let us see— What is that draught you are shaking now for me?

They groaned—“His aims are not as ours.” He mused—“What end to mortal powers?” They urged—“Your fair ideals have fled.” He smiled.—“The living tramp the dead!” They told him—“You have done a wrong!” He asked—“Which is my faulty song?” They cried—“Your life lies wrecked and vain!” He laughed.—“That shell? Pray, look again!” They shrieked—“Go forth! An outcast be!” He answered—“Thanks. You make me free!”

Through his sick brain the shrieking bullet stormed, Wrecking the chambers of his spirit’s state. The gleam that brightened and the glow that warmed Those arrassed halls sank quenched and desolate. Out of the balefully enfolding mesh, Life he would free from dominance of evil; And purpose deeper than the weak-willed flesh Bade him renounce the world, the flesh, the devil. And as I looked upon his shattered face Hideously fronting me in that dark room, I saw the Prophets of the Church take place Beside him,—they who dared the nether gloom For worlds of life or silence far away, So hated they the evil of their day.

He who looks in golden state Down from ramparts of high heaven, Knows he any turn of fate, It must be of evil given— He perhaps shall wander late Downward through the luminous gate. He who makes himself a gay Dear familiar of things evil,— In some deepest tarn astray, Close-companioned of the Devil,— He can nowhere turn his way Save up brighter slopes of day. Plight it is, yet clear to see. Hence take solace of your sinning. As ye sink unfathomably, Heaven grows ever easier winning. Therefore ye who saved would be, Come and shake a leg with me!