A line-o'-verse or two

PANDEAN PIPEDREAMS

(Induced by smoking “Pagan Pickings.”)IThis is something that I heard,As the fluting of a bird,On a certain drowsy day,When my pipe was under way.I was weary of the town,And the going up and down;Sick of streets and sick of noise, —And I pined for Pagan joys.Daphne, here it is July!Just the month, my love, to flyTo a sylvan solitudeIn the green and ancient wood.We will trip it as we goOn the neo-Pagan toe,Sunny days and starry nights,Savoring the wild delightsOf a turbulent desireThat may set the wood on fire.We will play at hunt-the-fawn,In the neo-Dorian dawn.You will scamper through the brake,And I’ll follow in your wake —As the young Apollo ranIn the piping days of Pan.You’ll escape me, without doubt,For I’m just a trifle stout;But, when I have lagged behind,Waiting for my second wynde,From some pretty hiding-placeWill emerge your laughing face;I shall glimpse your eyes of blue,Hear your merry “Peek-a-boo!”What to wear? The Pagan planContemplates a coat of tan;But I fear we shall requireJust a trifle more attire.Bushes scratch and brambles sting;Insect myriads are a-wing; —Heavens, how mosquitoes swarmWhen the woodland air is warm.(Mem: To take, when we elope,Tanglewood Mosquito Dope.)Do you like the picture, dear?Have you aught of doubt or fear?Have you any criticismOf my neo-Paganism?If not, dearie, let us flyTo that passion-ripening sky,Where our souls may have their fling,And our every care take wing.So the bird song fluted by,Like a vagrant summer sigh —Came, and passed, and was no more;And my pleasant dream was o’er.For arose the wraith of Doubt;And I knew my pipe was out.IIThis is something that befellWhen my pipe was drawing well —Something, rather, that I heardAs the fluting of a bird.Daphne, come and live with meIn a Pagan greenery.Life will then be naught but play,One long Pagan holiday.We will play at hide and seekIn the alders by the creek;Sport amid the cascade’s smother.Splashing water at each other; —Every moment pleasure wooing,Every moment something doing.If we talk, we’ll talk of Love:All its arguments we’ll prove.Such a mental rest you’ll find.Leave your intellect behind.Night will come, (for come it will,’Spite the fluting on the hill,)And we’ll pitch a cozy campWhere it isn’t quite so damp.While you dry your hair and lazeBy the campfire’s violet blaze,I will rob a balsam treeTo construct a house for thee.What so dear as to be wooedIn a sylvan solitude?What so sweet as Pagan vowsWhispered in a house of boughs?Pagan love’s without alloy.Pagan kisses never cloy.Arms that cling in Pagan fashionNever tire. A Pagan passionIs the only kind I knowThat outlives a winter’s snow.Daphne, Daphne, let us fly!You’re a Pagan – so am I.So the fluting on the hillPassed and died, and all was still.So the Pagan Pickings died,And I laid the pipe aside.

THE LAUNDRY OF LIFE

(An Adventure in Sentiment.)Life is a laundry in which weAre ironed out, or soon or late.Who has not known the ironyOf fate?We enter it when we are born,Our colors bright. Full soon they fade.We leave it “done up,” old and worn,And frayed;Frayed round the edges, worn and thin —Life is a rough old linen slinger.Who has not lost a button inLife’s wringer?With other linen we are tubbed,With other linen often tangled;In open court we then are scrubbed,And mangled.Some take a gloss of happinessThe hardest wear can not diminish;Others, alas! get a “domes-Tic finish.”

WISDOM IN A CAPSULE

“If she be not so to me.What care I how fair she be?”– The Shepherd’s Resolution.Here we have in this truismMr. James’s pragmatism.Test your troubles day by dayWith it, and they fly away.Is the weather boiling hot,Hot enough to boil a pot —If it be not so to me,What care I how hot it be?Take a pudding made of bread;Much against it has been said;But it does not lack defense —Many say it is immense.Be it damned or be it blessed,Let us make the acid test —If it be not so to me,What care I how good it be?So with every blooming thingThat has power to soothe or sting;Ships or shoes or sealing wax,Carrots, comets, carpet tacks.Every philosophic needCovered by this capsule creed:If it be not so to me,What care I how

it be?

THE LAND OF RAINBOW’S-END

Young Faintheart lay on a wayside bank,Full prey to doubts and fears,When he did espy come trudging byA Pilgrim bent with years.His back was bowed and his step was slow,But his faith no years could bend,As he eagerly pressed to the rose-lit westAnd the Land of Rainbow’s-End.“It’s ho, for a pack!” sang the Pilgrim gray,“And a stout oak staff for friend,And it’s over the hills and far awayTo the Land of Rainbow’s-End!”“Thou’rt old,” young Faintheart cried, “thou’rt old,And there’s many a league to go;And still thou seekest the pot of goldAt the farther end of the bow.”“I am old, I am old,” said the Pilgrim gray,“But ever my way I’ll wendTo the rose-lit hills of the dying dayAnd the Land of Rainbow’s-End.”“Come, rest thee, rest thee by my side;Give o’er thy doomsday quest.”“Have done, have done!” the Pilgrim cried:“The light wanes in the west.The road is long, but I shall not tire;I will lay my bones, God send,By the beautiful City of Heart’s Desire,In the Land of Rainbow’s-End.”“Then it’s ho, for a pack!” sang the Pilgrim gray,“And a stout oak staff for friend,And it’s over the hills and far awayTo the Land of Rainbow’s-End.”

A BALLADE OF A BORE

When the weather is warm and the glass running highAnd the odors of Araby tincture the air;When the sun is aloft in a white and blue sky,And the morrow holds promise of falling as fair; —In spring or in summer I’m free to declare,And the same I am equally free to maintain,One person has power my peace to impair:The man who tells limericks gives me a pain.When the foliage flushes and summer is by,And russet and red are the popular wear;When the song of the woodland is changed to a sighAnd the horn of the hunter is heard by the hare; —In the season of autumn I’m free to declare,And my language is lucid and simple and plain,One person’s acquaintance I freely forswear:The man with the limerick gives me a pain.When the landscape is iced and the snow feathers fly,When the fields are all bald and the trees are all bare,And the prospect which nature presents to the eyeIs chiefly distinguished by glitter and glare; —In the season of winter I’m free to declareThat the limerick person is flat and inane.This person, I think, we could easily spare:The man who tells limericks gives me a pain.L’EnvoiFrom New Year to Christmas I’m free to declareThat, for ways that are dull and for verse that is vain,One bore is peculiar – and not at all rare:The man with the limerick gives me a pain.

THE POLE

(Tune: “Carcassonne.”)

I’m an old man, I’m eighty-three,I seldom get away;My work, it keeps me close at home —I have no time for play.If it were not for the journey back,That so fatigues a soul,I’d like to take a little trip —I never have seen the Pole.’Tis said that in that favored placeThere is no heat or drouth;And that, whichever way you turn,You’re looking south-by-south.Some say there is a flagstaff there,Some say there is a hole.Think of the years that I have livedAnd never have seen the Pole!The parson a hundred times is right —We ought to stay at home.I’m an old man, I’m eighty-three,I have no call to roam.And yet if I could somehow findThe time – God bless my soul! —I think that I would die contentIf I only could see the Pole!My brother has seen Baraboo,If so he speak the truth;My wife and son they both have beenAs far as to Duluth;My cousin cruised to Eastport, Maine,On a ship that carried coal;I’ve been as far as Mackinac —But I never have seen the Pole!

SH-H-H-H!

“Mr. Mabie is now reading the summer books.”

– The Ladies’ Home Journal.What shall we buy for a summer’s day?What is good reading and what is not?Mabie will tell us – we wait his say;For Mabie alone can know what’s what.Meanwhile the world is as still as death;Mute inquiry is in men’s looks;Everybody is holding his breath —Mabie is reading the summer books.The suns are at pause in the cosmic race;The mills of the gods have ceased to grind;The only sound that is heard in spaceIs the rhythmic clicking of Mabie’s mind.Elsewhere silence, or near or far —Chattering Pleiads or babbling brooks;For the whisper has passed from star to star:“Mabie is reading the summer books.”

THE VANISHED FAY

Tell me, whither do they go,All the Little Ones we know?They “grow up” before our eyes,And the fairy spirit flies.Time the Piper, pied and gay —Does he lure them all away?Do they follow after him,Over the horizon’s brim?Daughter’s growing fair to see,Slim and straight as popple tree.Still a child in heart and head,But – the fairy spirit’s fled.As a fay at break of day,Little One has flown away,On the stroke of fairy bell —When and whither, who can tell?Still her childish fancies weaveIn the Land of Make Believe;And her love of magic loreIs as avid as before.Dollies big and dollies smallStill are at her beck and call.But for all this pleasant play,Little One has gone away.Whither, whither have they flown,All the fays we all have known?To what “faery lands forlorn”On the sound of elfin horn?As she were a woodland sprite,Little One has vanished quite.Waves the wand of Oberon:Cock has crowed – the fay is gone!

AUTUMN REVERY

When the leaves are falling crimsonAnd the worm is off its feed,When the rag weed and the jimsonHave agreed to go to seed,When the air in forest bowersHas a tang like Rhenish wine,And to breathe it for two hoursMakes you feel you’d like to dine,When the frost is on the pumpkinAnd the corn is in the shock,And the cheek of country bumpkinCity faces seems to mock, —When you come across a ditty(Like this one) of Autumn’s charm,Then it’s pleasant in the city,Where they keep the houses warm.

THE RECOIL

I met a friend of lofty brow —As lofty as the laws allow.I said to him, “You’ll know, I’m sure —What’s doing now in litrychoor?”Said he: “I hate the very name;I’m weary of the blooming game.I read, whenever I have time,Something by Phillips Oppenheim.”“Cheer up!” said I. “What’s new in Art? —You drift around the picture mart.What do you think of Mr. Blum? —Some say he’s great, some say he’s bum.”“I’m strong for Blum,” my friend replied;“His pictures are so queer and pied.I wouldn’t change them if I could;I’d rather have things queer than good.”I spoke of this, I spoke of that,But everything was stale and flat.Said I, “You once adored the chaste,You used to have such perfect taste.”“Good taste,” he wailed, “brings but distress,’Tis an affliction, nothing less;While those whose taste is punk and vileAre happy all the blessed while.”“Oh, take a brace, old man!” said I.“Let me prescribe a nip of rye,And then we’ll go to see a play;I’ve two for Barrymore to-day.”“No, no,” he groaned; “’twould be a bore,With all respect to Barrymore.”Said I: “Then whither shall we go?”Said he: “A moving picture show.”

THE CORONATION

Lang Syne.

Twas a holy mysteryIn the days of chivalry.More than pageant was the RiteIn the sight of clod and knight.Sword and Scepter, Orb and Rod,Faith in self and faith in God;Oaths of Homage fiercely flung,Faith in heart and faith in tongue; —Gone the things that meaning gave“With the old world to the grave.”1911Knightly faith was born to fade:Now the Rite is masquerade.Now a cockney paladinWinds a penny horn of tin.Where in reverence heads were bowedSurges now a careless crowd;“Muddied oafs” and “flanneled fools”Jostle “Yanks” with camping stools; —Gone the things that meaning gave“With the old world to the grave.”

SONS OF BATTLE

Let us have peace, and Thy blessing,Lord of the Wind and the Rain,When we shall cease from oppressing,From all injustice refrain;When we hate falsehood and spurn it;When we are men among men.Let us have peace when we earn it —Never an hour till then.Let us have rest in Thy garden,Lord of the Rock and the Green,When there is nothing to pardon,When we are whitened and clean.Purge us of skulking and treason,Help us to put them away.We shall have rest in Thy season;Till then the heat of the fray.Let us have peace in Thy pleasure,Lord of the Cloud and the Sun;Grant to us æons of leisureWhen the long battle is done.Now we have only begun it;Stead us! – we ask nothing more.Peace – rest – but not till we’ve won it —Never an hour before.

MY LADY NEW YORK

O siren of tresses peroxide,And heart that is hard as a flint,Blue orbs of complacency ox-eyed,That light at the mark of the mint,Ears only for jingle of joybells,A conscience as light as a cork —You are wedded to follies and foibles,My Lady New York.True, you have (not enough, tho’, to hurt you)Your moods and your manners austere;You have visions and vapors of virtue,And “reform” for a time has your ear;But of chaste Puritanic embracesYou soon have enough and to spare,And then you kick over the traces,And virtue forswear.So go it, milady! Foot fleetlyThe paths that are primrose and gay;Abandon your fancy completelyTo follies and fads of the day.“Reform” is a something that throttlesThe joys of the pace that’s intense —Smash hearts, reputations, and bottles,And ding the expense!

BALLADE OF THE PIPESMOKE CARRY

The Ancient Wood is white and still,Over the pines the bleak wind blows,Voiceless the brook and mute the rill,Silence too where the river flows.Still I catch the scent of the roseAnd hear the white-throat’s roundelay,Footing the trail that Memory knows,Over the hills and far away.I have only a pipe to fill:Weaving, wreathing rings discloseA trail that flings straight up the hill,Straight as an arrow’s flight. For thoseWho fare by night the pole star glowsAbove the mountain top. By dayA blasted pine the pathway showsOver the hills and far away.The Ancient Wood is white and chill,But what know I of wintry woes?The Pipesmoke Trail is mine at will —Naught may hinder and none oppose.Such the power the pipe bestows,When the wilderness calls I mayTramping go, as I smoke and doze,Over the hills and far away.L’EnvoiDeep in the canyons lie the snows:They shall vanish if I but say —If my fancy a-roving goesOver the hills and far away.

POST-VACATIONAL

You have heard that mildewed story,That tradition horned and hoary,That it wearies one to roam,Past a doubt;That one vainly on vacationTries to find recuperation,Till he hunts his happy homeTuckered out.That abroad there is no comfort,That a man must journey home for ’t —You have heard that whiskered wheeze,Have you not?’Tis a commonplace to cavilAt the “luxuries of travel,”For in travel lack of easeIs your lot.You have heard that gag historic;It was often sprung by Yorick;It’s as old as Noah’s arkAnd its crew.It’s the commonest (at basis)Of all common commonplaces; —So I merely would remarkThat – it’s true.

THE BARDS WE QUOTE

Whene’er I quote I seldom takeFrom bards whom angel hosts environ;But usually some damned rakeLike Byron.Of Whittier I think a lot,My fancy to him often turns;But when I quote ’tis some such sotAs Burns.I’m very fond of Bryant, too,He brings to me the woodland smelly;Why should I quote that “village roo,”P. Shelley?I think Felicia Hemans great,I dote upon Jean Ingelow;Yet quote from such a reprobateAs Poe.To quote from drunkard or from rakeIs not a proper thing to do.I find the habit hard to break,Don’t you?

THE PERSISTENT POET

“I remember, I remember” —Something special? Not a bit.But, you see, this is November,And Remember rimes with it.

HENCE THESE RIMES

Tho’ my verse is exact,Tho’ it flawlessly flows,As a matter of factI would rather write prose.While my harp is in tune,And I sing like the birds,I would really as soonWrite in straightaway words.Tho’ my songs are as sweetAs Apollo e’er piped,And my lines are as neatAs have ever been typed,I would rather write prose —I prefer it to rime;It’s less hard to compose,And it takes me less time.“Well, if that be the case,”You are moved to inquire,“Why appropriate spaceFor extolling your lyre?”I can only replyThat this form I elect’Cause it pleases the eye,And I like the effect.

THE OLD ROLLER TOWEL

How dear to this heart is the old roller towelWhich fond recollection presents to my view.It hung like a pall on the wall of the washroom,And gathered the grime of the linotype crew.The sink and the soap and the lye that stood by itRemain; but the towel is gone past recall.O tempora! Also, O mores! Sic transitThe time-honored towel that creaked on the wall.The grimy old towel, the slimy old towel,The tacky old towel that hung on the wall.Now hangs in the washroom a huge roll of paper —The old printer’s towel we’ll never see more.The new (see directions) is “used like a blotter,”And crumpled and scattered in wads on the floor.And often, when drying my hands in this fashion,The tears of remembrance will gather and fall,And I sigh (though I’m not what you’d call sentimental)For the classic old towel that propped up the wall.The sainted old towel, the tainted old towel,The gooey old towel that hung on the wall.

UP CULTURE’S HILL

(The confession of a club lady.)

The path up Culture’s Hill is steep,And weary is the way,With very little time for sleepAnd none at all for play.She that this toilsome task essaysMust never bat an eye,But keep her firm, unwavering gazeForever fixed on high.For should she ever careless grow,And let her glances strayDown to the shallow vale below,Where Pleasure’s Court holds sway —Lured by the thrice forbidden fruit,She’d lose her equipoise,And like a wayward Pleiad shootDown to forbidden joys.I’ve been but short time on the road,My courage still is strong;Yet often have I felt the goadThat hurries me along.I’ve fallen over Maeterlinck,And bumped myself to tears,Burne-Jones’s pictures made me blink,And Wagner hurts my ears.I’ve stumbled over Ibsen humpsAnd over Rembrandt rocks,I’ve got some fierce Debussy bumps,Some awful Nietsche knocks.I’m wearied by the ceaseless quest,I’m wayworn and footsore.I’ve Culture till I cannot rest —Yet still I climb for more.But oh, when all is done and said,Upon some manly breastI’d like to lay my tired headAnd take a good long rest.

THE PASSIONAL NOTE

“The erotic motive is almost entirely absent from American poetry. Even our younger American poets are more profoundly interested in the why and wherefore of things than in the girdle of Helen or the gleaming limbs of ‘the white implacable Aphrodite.’”

– Mr. Sylvester Viereck.In the years of my season erotic,When Eros was lord of my days,And I loved, with a love idiotic,The Mabels and Madges and Mays;When a purple and passionate lyricWould sing all the night in my head, —I yearned, like the young Mr. Viereck,For everything red.I doted on poems of passion,And put my own pantings in rime,To celebrate, after a fashion,The damsels who took up my time.I fed upon Swinburne, believe me,I feasted on Byron and Burns,And couplets from Sappho would give meMost exquisite turns.How apparent it was that our songbirds —Our Emerson, Lowell, and Payne,And Bryant and Drake – were the wrong birdsTo pipe to the passional strain.There was, in a word, nothing doingIn all of the rimes that they wrote;They seemed to be always pursuingThe ethical note.What truth, I inquired, was so mighty,What ethical thing was so rare,As the limbs of the white AphroditeOr a strand of her heaven-kissed hair!The girdle of red-headed HelenOutweighed all the wherefores and whys,And Wisdom elected to dwell inA pair of blue eyes.Now lyrical sizzlers and scorchersFail somehow to set me ablaze;No longer are exquisite torturesProvoked by these passionate lays.I’ve tinned – and I can’t say I’ve missed ’em —The poems of passion and sin.Some things one gets out of one’s system,And other things in.

L’ENVOI

“Go, little book,” as Poet Southey said;You might be better and you might be worse.With just one word of warning you are sped:Remember, you’re not Poetry – you’re Verse.