Fifty years & Other Poems

I HEAR THE STARS STILL SINGING

I hear the stars still singingTo the beautiful, silent night,As they speed with noiseless wingingTheir ever westward flight.I hear the waves still fallingOn the stretch of lonely shore,But the sound of a sweet voice callingI shall hear, alas! no more.

GIRL OF FIFTEEN

Girl of fifteen,I see you each morning from my windowAs you pass on your way to school.I do more than see, I watch you.I furtively draw the curtain aside.And my heart leaps through my eyesAnd follows you down the street;Leaving me behind, half-hidAnd wholly ashamed.What holds me back,Half-hid behind the curtains and wholly ashamed,But my forty years beyond your fifteen?Girl of fifteen, as you passThere passes, too, a lightning flash of timeIn which you lift those forty summers off my head,And take those forty winters out of my heart.

THE SUICIDE

For fifty years,Cruel, insatiable Old World,You have punched me over the heartTill you made me cough blood.The few paltry things I gatheredYou snatched out of my hands.You have knocked the cup from my thirsty lips.You have laughed at my hunger of body and soul.You look at me now and think,"He is still strong,There ought to be twenty more years of good punching there.At the end of that time he will be old and broken,Not able to strike back,But cringing and crying for leaveTo live a little longer."Those twenty, pitiful, extra yearsWould please you more than the fifty past,Would they not, Old World?Well, I hold them up before your greedy eyes,And snatch them away as I laugh in your face,Ha! Ha!Bang—!

DOWN BY THE CARIB SEA

I

Sunrise in the Tropics

Sol, Sol, mighty lord of the tropic zone,Here I wait with the trembling starsTo see thee once more take thy throne.There the patient palm tree watchingWaits to say, "Good morn" to thee,And a throb of expectationPulses through the earth and me.Now, o'er nature falls a hush,Look! the East is all a-blush;And a growing crimson crestDims the late stars in the west;Now, a flood of golden lightSweeps across the silver night,Swift the pale moon fades awayBefore the light-girt King of Day,See! the miracle is done!Once more behold! The Sun!

II

Los Cigarillos

This is the land of the dark-eyed gente,Of the dolce far niente,Where we dream awayBoth the night and day,At night-time in sleep our dreams we invoke,Our dreams come by day through the redolent smoke,As it lazily curls,And slowly unfurlsFrom our lips,And the tipsOf our fragrant cigarillos.For life in the tropics is only a joke,So we pass it in dreams, and we pass it in smoke,Smoke—smoke—smoke.Tropical constitutionsCall for occasional revolutions;But after that's through,Why there's nothing to doBut smoke—smoke;For life in the tropics is only a joke,So we pass it in dreams, and we pass it in smoke,Smoke—smoke—smoke.

III

Teestay

Of tropic sensations, the worstIs, sin duda, the tropical thirst.When it starts in your throat and constantly grows,Till you feel that it reaches down to your toes,When your mouth tastes like furAnd your tongue turns to dust,There's but one thing to do,And do it you must,Drink teestay.Teestay, a drink with a history,A delicious, delectable mystery,"Cinco centavos el vaso, señor,"If you take one, you will surely want more.Teestay, teestay,The national drink on a feast day;How it coolingly tickles,As downward it trickles,Teestay, teestay.And you wish, as you take it down at a quaff,That your neck was constructed à la giraffe.Teestay, teestay.

IV

The Lottery Girl

"Lottery, lottery,Take a chance at the lottery?Take a ticket,Or, better, take two;Who knows what the futureMay hold for you?Lottery, lottery,Take a chance at the lottery?"Oh, limpid-eyed girl,I would take every chance,If only the prizeWere a love-flashing glanceFrom your fathomless eyes."Lottery, lottery,Try your luck at the lottery?Consider the sizeOf the capital prize,And take ticketsFor the lottery.Tickets, señor? Tickets, señor?Take a chance at the lottery?"Oh, crimson-lipped girl,With the magical smile,I would count that the gambleWere well worth the while,Not a chance would I miss,If only the prizeWere a honey-bee kissGathered in sipsFrom those full-ripened lips,And a love-flashing glanceFrom your eyes.

V

The Dancing Girl

Do you know what it is to dance?Perhaps, you do know, in a fashion;But by dancing I mean,Not what's generally seen,But dancing of fire and passion,Of fire and delirious passion.With a dusky-haired señorita,Her dark, misty eyes near your own,And her scarlet-red mouth,Like a rose of the south,The reddest that ever was grown,So close that you catchHer quick-panting breathAs across your own face it is blown,With a sigh, and a moan.Ah! that is dancing,As here by the Carib it's known.Now, whirling and twirlingLike furies we go;Now, soft and caressingAnd sinuously slow;With an undulating motion,Like waves on a breeze-kissed ocean:—And the scarlet-red mouthIs nearer your own,And the dark, misty eyesStill softer have grown.Ah! that is dancing, that is loving,As here by the Carib they're known.

VI

Sunset in the Tropics

A silver flash from the sinking sun,Then a shot of crimson across the skyThat, bursting, lets a thousand colors flyAnd riot among the clouds; they run,Deepening in purple, flaming in gold,Changing, and opening fold after fold,Then fading through all of the tints of the rose into gray,Till, taking quick fright at the coming night,They rush out down the west,In hurried questOf the fleeing day.Now above where the tardiest color flares a moment yet,One point of light, now two, now three are setTo form the starry stairs,—And, in her fire-fly crown,Queen Night, on velvet slippered feet, comes softly down.

AND THE GREATEST OF THESE IS WAR

Around the council-board of Hell, with Satan at their head,The Three Great Scourges of humanity sat.Gaunt Famine, with hollow cheek and voice, arose and spoke,—"O, Prince, I have stalked the earth,And my victims by ten thousands I have slain,I have smitten old and young.Mouths of the helpless old moaning for bread, I have filled with dust;And I have laughed to see a crying babe tug at the shriveling breastOf its mother, dead and cold.I have heard the cries and prayers of men go up to a tearless sky,And fall back upon an earth of ashes;But, heedless, I have gone on with my work.'Tis thus, O, Prince, that I have scourged mankind."And Satan nodded his head.Pale Pestilence, with stenchful breath, then spoke and said,—"Great Prince, my brother, Famine, attacks the poor.He is most terrible against the helpless and the old.But I have made a charnel-house of the mightiest cities of men.When I strike, neither their stores of gold or of grain avail.With a breath I lay low their strongest, and wither up their fairest.I come upon them without warning, lancing invisible death.From me they flee with eyes and mouths distended;I poison the air for which they gasp, and I strike them down fleeing.'Tis thus, great Prince, that I have scourged mankind."And Satan nodded his head.Then the red monster, War, rose up and spoke,—His blood-shot eyes glared 'round him, and his thundering voiceEchoed through the murky vaults of Hell.—"O, mighty Prince, my brothers, Famine and Pestilence,Have slain their thousands and ten thousands,—true;But the greater their victories have been,The more have they wakened in Man's breastThe God-like attributes of sympathy, of brotherhood and loveAnd made of him a searcher after wisdom.But I arouse in Man the demon and the brute,I plant black hatred in his heart and red revenge.From the summit of fifty thousand years of upward climbI haul him down to the level of the start, back to the wolf.I give him claws.I set his teeth into his brother's throat.I make him drunk with his brother's blood.And I laugh ho! ho! while he destroys himself.O, mighty Prince, not only do I slay,But I draw Man hellward."And Satan smiled, stretched out his hand, and said,—"O War, of all the scourges of humanity, I crown you chief."And Hell rang with the acclamation of the Fiends.

A MID-DAY DREAMER

I love to sit alone, and dream,And dream, and dream;In fancy's boat to softly glideAlong some streamWhere fairy palaces of goldAnd crystal brightStand all along the glistening shore:A wondrous sight.My craft is built of ivory,With silver oars,The sails are spun of golden threads,And priceless storesOf precious gems adorn its prow,And 'round its mastAn hundred silken cords are setTo hold it fast.My galley-slaves are sprightly elvesWho, as they row,And as their shining oars they swingThem to and fro,Keep time to music wafted onThe scented air,Made by the mermaids as they combTheir golden hair.And I the while lie idly back,And dream, and dream,And let them row me where they willAdown the stream.

THE TEMPTRESS

Old Devil, when you come with horns and tail,With diabolic grin and crafty leer;I say, such bogey-man devices wholly failTo waken in my heart a single fear.But when you wear a form I know so well,A form so human, yet so near divine;'Tis then I fall beneath the magic of your spell,'Tis then I know the vantage is not mine.Ah! when you take your horns from off your head,And soft and fragrant hair is in their place;I must admit I fear the tangled path I treadWhen that dear head is laid against my face.And at what time you change your baleful eyesFor stars that melt into the gloom of night,All of my courage, my dear fellow, quickly flies;I know my chance is slim to win the fight.And when, instead of charging down to wreckMe on a red-hot pitchfork in your hand,You throw a pair of slender arms about my neck,I dare not trust the ground on which I stand.Whene'er in place of using patent wile,Or trying to frighten me with horrid grin,You tempt me with two crimson lips curved in a smile;Old Devil, I must really own, you win.

GHOSTS OF THE OLD YEAR

The snow has ceased its fluttering flight,The wind sunk to a whisper light,An ominous stillness fills the night,A pause—a hush.At last, a sound that breaks the spell,Loud, clanging mouthings of a bell,That through the silence peal and swell,And roll, and rush.What does this brazen tongue declare,That falling on the midnight airBrings to my heart a sense of careAkin to fright?'Tis telling that the year is dead,The New Year come, the Old Year fled,Another leaf before me spreadOn which to write.It tells the deeds that were not done,It tells of races never run,Of victories that were not won,Barriers unleaped.It tells of many a squandered day,Of slighted gems and treasured clay,Of precious stores not laid away,Of fields unreaped.And so the years go swiftly by,Each, coming, brings ambitions high,And each, departing, leaves a sighLinked to the past.Large resolutions, little deeds;Thus, filled with aims unreached, life speedsUntil the blotted record reads,"Failure!" at last.

THE GHOST OF DEACON BROWN

In a backwoods townLived Deacon Brown,And he was a miser old;He would trust no bank,So he dug, and sankIn the ground a box of gold,Down deep in the ground a box of gold.He hid his gold,As has been told,He remembered that he did it;But sad to say,On the very next day,He forgot just where he hid it:To find his gold he tried and triedTill he grew faint and sick, and died.Then on each dark and gloomy nightA form in phosphorescent white,A genuine hair-raising sight,Would wander through the town.And as it slowly roamed around,With a spade it dug each foot of ground;So the folks aboutSaid there was no doubt'Twas the ghost of Deacon Brown.Around the churchThis Ghost would search,And whenever it would seeThe passers-byTake wings and flyIt would laugh in ghostly glee,Hee, hee!—it would laugh in ghostly glee.And so the townWent quickly down,For they said that it was haunted;And doors and gates,So the story states,Bore a notice, "Tenants wanted."And the town is now for let,But the ghost is digging yet.

"LAZY"

Some men enjoy the constant strifeOf days with work and worry rife,But that is not my dream of life:I think such men are crazy.For me, a life with worries few,A job of nothing much to do,Just pelf enough to see me through:I fear that I am lazy.On winter mornings cold and drear,When six o'clock alarms I hear,'Tis then I love to shift my ear,And hug my downy pillows.When in the shade it's ninety-three,No job in town looks good to me,I'd rather loaf down by the sea,And watch the foaming billows.Some people think the world's a school,Where labor is the only rule;But I'll not make myself a mule,And don't you ever doubt it.I know that work may have its use,But still I feel that's no excuseFor turning it into abuse;What do you think about it?Let others fume and sweat and boil,And scratch and dig for golden spoil,And live the life of work and toil,Their lives to labor giving.But what is gold when life is sped,And life is short, as has been said,And we are such a long time dead,I'll spend my life in living.

OMAR

Old Omar, jolly sceptic, it may beThat, after all, you found the magic keyTo life and all its mystery, and IMust own you have almost persuaded me.

DEEP IN THE QUIET WOOD

Are you bowed down in heart?Do you but hear the clashing discords and the din of life?Then come away, come to the peaceful wood,Here bathe your soul in silence. Listen! Now,From out the palpitating solitudeDo you not catch, yet faint, elusive strains?They are above, around, within you, everywhere.Silently listen! Clear, and still more clear, they come.They bubble up in rippling notes, and swell in singing tones.Now let your soul run the whole gamut of the wondrous scaleUntil, responsive to the tonic chord,It touches the diapason of God's grand cathedral organ,Filling earth for you with heavenly peaceAnd holy harmonies.

VOLUPTAS

To chase a never-reached mirageAcross the hot, white sand,And choke and die, while gazing onIts green and watered strand.

THE WORD OF AN ENGINEER

"She's built of steelFrom deck to keel,And bolted strong and tight;In scorn she'll sailThe fiercest gale,And pierce the darkest night."The builder's artHas proved each partThroughout her breadth and length;Deep in the hulk,Of her mighty bulk,Ten thousand Titans' strength."The tempest howls,The Ice Wolf prowls,The winds they shift and veer,But calm I sleep,And faith I keepIn the word of an engineer.Along the trailOf the slender railThe train, like a nightmare, fliesAnd dashes onThrough the black-mouthed yawnWhere the cavernous tunnel lies.Over the ridge,Across the bridge,Swung twixt the sky and hell,On an iron threadSpun from the headOf the man in a draughtsman's cell.And so we rideOver land and tide,Without a thought of fear—Man never hadThe faith in GodThat he has in an engineer!

LIFE

Out of the infinite sea of eternityTo climb, and for an instant standUpon an island speck of time.From the impassible peace of the darknessTo wake, and blink at the garish lightThrough one short hour of fretfulness.

SLEEP

O Sleep, thou kindest minister to man,Silent distiller of the balm of rest,How wonderful thy power, when naught else can,To soothe the torn and sorrow-laden breast!When bleeding hearts no comforter can find,When burdened souls droop under weight of woe,When thought is torture to the troubled mind,When grief-relieving tears refuse to flow;'Tis then thou comest on soft-beating wings,And sweet oblivion's peace from them is shed;But ah, the old pain that the waking brings!That lives again so soon as thou art fled!Man, why should thought of death cause thee to weep;Since death be but an endless, dreamless sleep?

PRAYER AT SUNRISE

O mighty, powerful, dark-dispelling sun,Now thou art risen, and thy day begun.How shrink the shrouding mists before thy face,As up thou spring'st to thy diurnal race!How darkness chases darkness to the west,As shades of light on light rise radiant from thy crest!For thee, great source of strength, emblem of might,In hours of darkest gloom there is no night.Thou shinest on though clouds hide thee from sight,And through each break thou sendest down thy light.O greater Maker of this Thy great sun,Give me the strength this one day's race to run,Fill me with light, fill me with sun-like strength,Fill me with joy to rob the day its length.Light from within, light that will outward shine,Strength to make strong some weaker heart than mine,Joy to make glad each soul that feels its touch;Great Father of the sun, I ask this much.

THE GIFT TO SING

Sometimes the mist overhangs my path,And blackening clouds about me cling;But, oh, I have a magic wayTo turn the gloom to cheerful day—I softly sing.And if the way grows darker still,Shadowed by Sorrow's somber wing,With glad defiance in my throat,I pierce the darkness with a note,And sing, and sing.I brood not over the broken past,Nor dread whatever time may bring;No nights are dark, no days are long,While in my heart there swells a song,And I can sing.

MORNING, NOON AND NIGHT

When morning shows her first faint flush,I think of the tender blushThat crept so gently to your cheekWhen first my love I dared to speak;How, in your glance, a dawning rayGave promise of love's perfect day.When, in the ardent breath of noon,The roses with passion swoon;There steals upon me from the airThe scent that lurked within your hair;I touch your hand, I clasp your form—Again your lips are close and warm.When comes the night with beauteous skies,I think of your tear-dimmed eyes,Their mute entreaty that I stay,Although your lips sent me away;And then falls memory's bitter blight,And dark—so dark becomes the night.

HER EYES TWIN POOLS

Her eyes, twin pools of mystic light,The blend of star-sheen and black night;O'er which, to sound their glamouring haze,A man might bend, and vainly gaze.Her eyes, twin pools so dark and deep,In which life's ancient mysteries sleep;Wherein, to seek the quested goal,A man might plunge, and lose his soul.

THE AWAKENING

I dreamed that I was a roseThat grew beside a lonely way,Close by a path none ever chose,And there I lingered day by day.Beneath the sunshine and the show'rI grew and waited there apart,Gathering perfume hour by hour,And storing it within my heart,Yet, never knew,Just why I waited there and grew.I dreamed that you were a beeThat one day gaily flew along,You came across the hedge to me,And sang a soft, love-burdened song.You brushed my petals with a kiss,I woke to gladness with a start,And yielded up to you in blissThe treasured fragrance of my heart;And then I knewThat I had waited there for you.

BEAUTY THAT IS NEVER OLD

When buffeted and beaten by life's storms,When by the bitter cares of life oppressed,I want no surer haven than your arms,I want no sweeter heaven than your breast.When over my life's way there falls the blightOf sunless days, and nights of starless skies;Enough for me, the calm and steadfast lightThat softly shines within your loving eyes.The world, for me, and all the world can holdIs circled by your arms; for me there lies,Within the lights and shadows of your eyes,The only beauty that is never old.

VENUS IN A GARDEN

'Twas at early morning,The dawn was blushing in her purple bed,When in a sweet, embowered gardenShe, the fairest of the goddesses,The lovely Venus,Roamed amongst the roses white and red.She sought for flowersTo make a garlandFor her golden head.Snow-white roses, blood-red roses,In that sweet garden close,Offered incense to the goddess:Both the white and the crimson rose.White roses, red roses, blossoming:But the fair Venus knewThe crimson roses had gained their hueFrom the hearts that for love had bled;And the goddess made a garlandGathered from the roses red.

VASHTI

I sometimes take you in my dreams to a far-off land I used to know,Back in the ages long ago; a land of palms and languid streams.A land, by night, of jeweled skies, by day, of shores that glistened bright,Within whose arms, outstretched and white, a sapphire sea lay crescent-wise.Where twilight fell like silver floss, where rose the golden moon half-hidBehind a shadowy pyramid; a land beneath the Southern Cross.And there the days dreamed in their flight, each one a poem chanted through,Which at its close was merged into the muted music of the night.And you were a princess in those days. And I—I was your serving lad.But who ever served with heart so glad, or lived so for a word of praise?And if that word you chanced to speak, how all my senses swayed and reeled,Till low beside your feet I kneeled, with happiness o'erwrought and weak.If, when your golden cup I bore, you deigned to lower your eyes to mine,Eyes cold, yet fervid, like the wine, I knew not how to wish for more.I trembled at the thought to dare to gaze upon, to scrutinizeThe deep-sea mystery of your eyes, the sun-lit splendor of your hair.To let my timid glances rest upon you long enough to noteHow fair and slender was your throat, how white the promise of your breast.But though I did not dare to chance a lingering look, an open gazeUpon your beauty's blinding rays, I ventured many a stolen glance.I fancy, too, (but could not state what trick of mind the fancy caused)At times your eyes upon me paused, and marked my figure lithe and straight.Once when my eyes met yours it seemed that in your cheek, despite your pride,A flush arose and swiftly died; or was it something that I dreamed?Within your radiance like the star of morning, there I stood and served,Close by, unheeded, unobserved. You were so near, and, yet, so far.Ah! just to stretch my hand and touch the musky sandals on your feet!—My breaking heart! of rapture sweet it never could have held so much.Oh, beauty-haunted memory! Your face so proud, your eyes so calm,Your body like a slim young palm, and sinuous as a willow tree.Caught up beneath your slender arms, and girdled 'round your supple waist,A robe of curious silk that graced, but only scarce concealed your charms.A golden band about your head, a crimson jewel at your throatWhich, when the sunlight on it smote, turned to a living heart and bled.But, oh, that mystic bleeding stone, that work of Nature's magic art,Which mimicked so a wounded heart, could never bleed as did my own!Now after ages long and sad, in this stern land we meet anew;No more a princess proud are you, and I—I am no serving lad.And yet, dividing us, I meet a wider gulf than that which stoodBetween a princess of the blood and him who served low at her feet.

THE REWARD

No greater earthly boon than this I crave,That those who some day gather 'round my grave,In place of tears, may whisper of me then,"He sang a song that reached the hearts of men."

JINGLES & CROONS

SENCE YOU WENT AWAY

Seems lak to me de stars don't shine so bright,Seems lak to me de sun done loss his light,Seems lak to me der's nothin' goin' right,Sence you went away.Seems lak to me de sky ain't half so blue,Seems lak to me dat ev'ything wants you,Seems lak to me I don't know what to do,Sence you went away.Seems lak to me dat ev'ything is wrong,Seems lak to me de day's jes twice as long,Seems lak to me de bird's forgot his song,Sence you went away.Seems lak to me I jes can't he'p but sigh,Seems lak to me ma th'oat keeps gittin' dry,Seems lak to me a tear stays in ma eye,Sence you went away.

MA LADY'S LIPS AM LIKE DE HONEY

(Negro Love Song)Breeze a-sighin' and a-blowin',Southern summer night.Stars a-gleamin' and a-glowin',Moon jes shinin' right.Strollin', like all lovers do,Down de lane wid Lindy Lou;Honey on her lips to waste;'Speck I'm gwine to steal a taste.Oh, ma lady's lips am like de honey,Ma lady's lips am like de rose;An' I'm jes like de little bee a-buzzin''Round de flower wha' de nectah grows.Ma lady's lips dey smile so temptin',Ma lady's teeth so white dey shine,Oh, ma lady's lips so tantalizin',Ma lady's lips so close to mine.Bird a-whistlin' and a-swayin'In de live-oak tree;Seems to me he keeps a-sayin',"Kiss dat gal fo' me."Look heah, Mister Mockin' Bird,Gwine to take you at yo' word;If I meets ma Waterloo,Gwine to blame it all on you.Oh, ma lady's lips am like de honey,Ma lady's lips am like de rose;An' I'm jes like de little bee a-buzzin''Round de flower wha' de nectah grows.Ma lady's lips dey smile so temptin',Ma lady's teeth so white dey shine,Oh, ma lady's lips so tantalizin',Ma lady's lips so close to mine.Honey in de rose, I spose, isPut der fo' de bee;Honey on her lips, I knows, isPut der jes fo' me.Seen a sparkle in her eye,Heard her heave a little sigh;Felt her kinder squeeze ma han','Nuff to make me understan'.