Read Ebook: American Poetry 1922: A Miscellany by Aiken Conrad Contributor Fletcher John Gould Contributor Frost Robert Contributor H D Hilda Doolittle Contributor Kreymborg Alfred Contributor Lindsay Vachel Contributor Lowell Amy Contributor Millay Edna St Vincent Contributor Oppenheim James Contributor

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Ebook has 269 lines and 37012 words, and 6 pages

Staying in my room, I thought of the new Spring leaves. That day was happy.

THE SWANS

The swans float and float Along the moat Around the Bishop's garden, And the white clouds push Across a blue sky With edges that seem to draw in and harden.

Two slim men of white bronze Beat each with a hammer on the end of a rod The hours of God. Striking a bell, They do it well. And the echoes jump, and tinkle, and swell In the Cathedral's carved stone polygons.

The swans float About the moat, And another swan sits still in the air Above the old inn. He gazes into the street And swims the cold and the heat, He has always been there, At least so say the cobbles in the square. They listen to the beat Of the hammered bell, And think of the feet Which beat upon their tops; But what they think they do not tell.

And the swans who float Up and down the moat Gobble the bread the Bishop feeds them. The slim bronze men beat the hour again, But only the gargoyles up in the hard blue air heed them.

When the Bishop says a prayer, And the choir sing "Amen," The hammers break in on them there: Clang! Clang! Beware! Beware! The carved swan looks down at the passing men, And the cobbles wink: "An hour has gone again." But the people kneeling before the Bishop's chair Forget the passing over the cobbles in the square.

An hour of day and an hour of night, And the clouds float away in a red-splashed light. The sun, quotha? or white, white Smoke with fire all alight.

An old roof crashing on a Bishop's tomb, Swarms of men with a thirst for room, And the footsteps blur to a shower, shower, shower, Of men passing--passing--every hour, With arms of power, and legs of power, And power in their strong, hard minds. No need then For the slim bronze men Who beat God's hours: Prime, Tierce, None. Who wants to hear? No one. We will melt them, and mold them, And make them a stem For a banner gorged with blood, For a blue-mouthed torch. So the men rush like clouds, They strike their iron edges on the Bishop's chair And fling down the lanterns by the tower stair. They rip the Bishop out of his tomb And break the mitre off of his head. "See," say they, "the man is dead; He cannot shiver or sing. We'll toss for his ring."

The cobbles see this all along the street Coming--coming--on countless feet. And the clockmen mark the hours as they go. But slow--slow-- The swans float In the Bishop's moat. And the inn swan Sits on and on, Staring before him with cold glass eyes. Only the Bishop walks serene, Pleased with his church, pleased with his house, Pleased with the sound of the hammered bell, Beating his doom. Saying "Boom! Boom! Room! Room!" He is old, and kind, and deaf, and blind, And very, very pleased with his charming moat And the swans which float.

PRIME

Your voice is like bells over roofs at dawn When a bird flies And the sky changes to a fresher color.

Speak, speak, Beloved. Say little things For my ears to catch And run with them to my heart.

VESPERS

Last night, at sunset, The foxgloves were like tall altar candles. Could I have lifted you to the roof of the greenhouse, my Dear, I should have understood their burning.

IN EXCELSIS

You--you-- Your shadow is sunlight on a plate of silver; Your footsteps, the seeding-place of lilies; Your hands moving, a chime of bells across a windless air.

The movement of your hands is the long, golden running of light from a rising sun; It is the hopping of birds upon a garden-path.

As the perfume of jonquils, you come forth in the morning. Young horses are not more sudden than your thoughts, Your words are bees about a pear-tree, Your fancies are the gold-and-black striped wasps buzzing among red apples. I drink your lips, I eat the whiteness of your hands and feet. My mouth is open, As a new jar I am empty and open. Like white water are you who fill the cup of my mouth, Like a brook of water thronged with lilies.

You are frozen as the clouds, You are far and sweet as the high clouds. I dare reach to you, I dare touch the rim of your brightness. I leap beyond the winds, I cry and shout, For my throat is keen as a sword Sharpened on a hone of ivory. My throat sings the joy of my eyes, The rushing gladness of my love.

How has the rainbow fallen upon my heart? How have I snared the seas to lie in my fingers And caught the sky to be a cover for my head? How have you come to dwell with me, Compassing me with the four circles of your mystic lightness, So that I say "Glory! Glory!" and bow before you As to a shrine?

Do I tease myself that morning is morning and a day after? Do I think the air a condescension, The earth a politeness, Heaven a boon deserving thanks? So you--air--earth--heaven-- I do not thank you, I take you, I live. And those things which I say in consequence Are rubies mortised in a gate of stone.

LA RONDE DU DIABLE

"Here we go round the ivy-bush," And that's a tune we all dance to. Little poet people snatching ivy, Trying to prevent one another from snatching ivy. If you get a leaf, there's another for me; Look at the bush. But I want your leaf, Brother, and you mine, Therefore, of course, we push.

"Here we go round the laurel-tree." Do we want laurels for ourselves most, Or most that no one else shall have any? We cannot stop to discuss the question. We cannot stop to plait them into crowns Or notice whether they become us. We scarcely see the laurel-tree, The crowd about us is all we see, And there's no room in it for you and me. Therefore, Sisters, it's my belief We've none of us very much chance at a leaf.

"Here we go round the barberry-bush." It's a bitter, blood-red fruit at best, Which puckers the mouth and burns the heart. To tell the truth, only one or two Want the berries enough to strive For more than he has, more than she. An acid berry for you and me. Abundance of berries for all who will eat, But an aching meat. That's poetry. And who wants to swallow a mouthful of sorrow? The world is old and our century Must be well along, and we've no time to waste. Make haste, Brothers and Sisters, push With might and main round the ivy-bush, Struggle and pull at the laurel-tree, And leave the barberries be For poor lost lunatics like me, Who set them so high They overtop the sun in the sky. Does it matter at all that we don't know why?

ROBERT FROST

FIRE AND ICE

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To know that for destruction ice Is also great, And would suffice.

THE GRINDSTONE

Having a wheel and four legs of its own Has never availed the cumbersome grindstone To get it anywhere that I can see. These hands have helped it go and even race; Not all the motion, though, they ever lent, Not all the miles it may have thought it went, Have got it one step from the starting place. It stands beside the same old apple tree. The shadow of the apple tree is thin Upon it now; its feet are fast in snow. All other farm machinery's gone in, And some of it on no more legs and wheel Than the grindstone can boast to stand or go. For months it hasn't known the taste of steel, Washed down with rusty water in a tin. But standing outdoors, hungry, in the cold, Except in towns, at night, is not a sin. And, anyway, its standing in the yard Under a ruinous live apple tree Has nothing any more to do with me, Except that I remember how of old, One summer day, all day I drove it hard, And some one mounted on it rode it hard, And he and I between us ground a blade.

I gave it the preliminary spin, And poured on water ; And when it almost gayly jumped and flowed, A Father-Time-like man got on and rode, Armed with a scythe and spectacles that glowed. He turned on will-power to increase the load And slow me down--and I abruptly slowed, Like coming to a sudden railroad station. I changed from hand to hand in desperation.

I wondered what machine of ages gone This represented an improvement on. For all I knew it may have sharpened spears And arrowheads itself. Much use for years Had gradually worn it an oblate Spheroid that kicked and struggled in its gait, Appearing to return me hate for hate. I wondered who it was the man thought ground-- The one who held the wheel back or the one Who gave his life to keep it going round? I wondered if he really thought it fair For him to have the say when we were done. Such were the bitter thoughts to which I turned.

Not for myself was I so much concerned. Oh, no!--although, of course, I could have found A better way to pass the afternoon Than grinding discord out of a grindstone, And beating insects at their gritty tune. Nor was I for the man so much concerned. Once when the grindstone almost jumped its bearing It looked as if he might be badly thrown And wounded on his blade. So far from caring, I laughed inside, and only cranked the faster, ; I welcomed any moderate disaster That might be calculated to postpone What evidently nothing could conclude.

The thing that made me more and more afraid Was that we'd ground it sharp and hadn't known, And now were only wasting precious blade. And when he raised it dripping once and tried The creepy edge of it with wary touch, And viewed it over his glasses funny-eyed, Only disinterestedly to decide It needed a turn more, I could have cried Wasn't there danger of a turn too much? Mightn't we make it worse instead of better? I was for leaving something to the whetter. What if it wasn't all it should be? I'd Be satisfied if he'd be satisfied.

THE WITCH OF CO?S

I staid the night for shelter at a farm Behind the mountain, with a mother and son, Two old-believers. They did all the talking.

She hadn't found the finger-bone she wanted Among the buttons poured out in her lap.

I verified the name next morning: Toffile; The rural letter-box said Toffile Lajway.

A BROOK IN THE CITY

The farm house lingers, though averse to square With the new city street it has to wear A number in. But what about the brook That held the house as in an elbow-crook? I ask as one who knew the brook, its strength And impulse, having dipped a finger-length And made it leap my knuckle, having tossed A flower to try its currents where they crossed. The meadow grass could be cemented down From growing under pavements of a town; The apple trees be sent to hearth-stone flame. Is water wood to serve a brook the same? How else dispose of an immortal force No longer needed? Staunch it at its source With cinder loads dumped down? The brook was thrown Deep in a sewer dungeon under stone In fetid darkness still to live and run-- And all for nothing it had ever done Except forget to go in fear perhaps. No one would know except for ancient maps That such a brook ran water. But I wonder If, from its being kept forever under, These thoughts may not have risen that so keep This new-built city from both work and sleep.

DESIGN

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white, On a white heal-all, holding up a moth Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth-- Assorted characters of death and blight Mixed ready to begin the morning right, Like the ingredients of a witches' broth-- A snow-drop spider, a flower like froth, And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white, The wayside blue and innocent heal-all? What brought the kindred spider to that height, Then steered the white moth thither in the night? What but design of darkness to appal?-- If design govern in a thing so small.

CARL SANDBURG

AND SO TO-DAY

And so to-day--they lay him away-- the boy nobody knows the name of-- the buck private--the unknown soldier-- the doughboy who dug under and died when they told him to--that's him.

Down Pennsylvania Avenue to-day the riders go, men and boys riding horses, roses in their teeth, stems of roses, rose leaf stalks, rose dark leaves-- the line of the green ends in a red rose flash.

Skeleton men and boys riding skeleton horses, the rib bones shine, the rib bones curve, shine with savage, elegant curves-- a jawbone runs with a long white slant, a skull dome runs with a long white arch, bone triangles click and rattle, elbows, ankles, white line slants-- shining in the sun, past the White House, past the Treasury Building, Army and Navy Buildings, on to the mystic white Capitol Dome-- so they go down Pennsylvania Avenue to-day, skeleton men and boys riding skeleton horses, stems of roses in their teeth, rose dark leaves at their white jaw slants-- and a horse laugh question nickers and whinnies, moans with a whistle out of horse head teeth: why? who? where?

And so to-day--they lay him away-- the boy nobody knows the name of-- the buck private--the unknown soldier-- the doughboy who dug under and died when they told him to--that's him.

If he picked himself and said, "I am ready to die," if he gave his name and said, "My country, take me," then the baskets of roses to-day are for the Boy, the flowers, the songs, the steamboat whistles, the proclamations of the honorable orators, they are all for the Boy--that's him.

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