American Poetry, 1922 Part 17

TETeLESTAI

I

How shall we praise the magnificence of the dead, The great man humbled, the haughty brought to dust?

Is there a horn we should not blow as proudly For the meanest of us all, who creeps his days, Guarding his heart from blows, to die obscurely?

I am no king, have laid no kingdoms waste, Taken no princes captive, led no triumphs Of weeping women through long walls of trumpets; Say rather I am no one, or an atom; Say rather, two great G.o.ds in a vault of starlight Play ponderingly at chess; and at the game's end One of the pieces, shaken, falls to the floor And runs to the darkest corner; and that piece Forgotten there, left motionless, is I....

Say that I have no name, no gifts, no power, Am only one of millions, mostly silent; One who came with lips and hands and a heart, Looked on beauty, and loved it, and then left it.

Say that the fates of time and s.p.a.ce obscured me, Led me a thousand ways to pain, bemused me, Wrapped me in ugliness; and like great spiders Dispatched me at their leisure.... Well, what then?

Should I not hear, as I lie down in dust, The horns of glory blowing above my burial?

II

Morning and evening opened and closed above me: Houses were built above me; trees let fall Yellowing leaves upon me, hands of ghosts, Rain has showered its arrows of silver upon me Seeking my heart; winds have roared and tossed me; Music in long blue waves of sound has borne me A helpless weed to sh.o.r.es of unthought silence; Time, above me, within me, crashed its gongs Of terrible warning, sifting the dust of death; And here I lie. Blow now your horns of glory Harshly over my flesh, you trees, you waters!

You stars and suns, Canopus, Deneb, Rigel, Let me, as I lie down, here in this dust, Hear, far off, your whispered salutation!

Roar now above my decaying flesh, you winds, Whirl out your earth-scents over this body, tell me Of ferns and stagnant pools, wild roses, hillsides!

Anoint me, rain, let crash your silver arrows On this hard flesh! I am the one who named you, I lived in you, and now I die in you.

I, your son, your daughter, treader of music, Lie broken, conquered.... Let me not fall in silence.

III

I, the restless one; the circler of circles; Herdsman and roper of stars, who could not capture The secret of self; I who was tyrant to weaklings, Striker of children; destroyer of women; corrupter Of innocent dreamers, and laugher at beauty; I, Too easily brought to tears and weakness by music, Baffled and broken by love, the helpless beholder Of the war in my heart of desire with desire, the struggle Of hatred with love, terror with hunger; I Who laughed without knowing the cause of my laughter, who grew Without wishing to grow, a servant to my own body; Loved without reason the laughter and flesh of a woman, Enduring such torments to find her! I who at last Grow weaker, struggle more feebly, relent in my purpose, Choose for my triumph an easier end, look backward At earlier conquests; or, caught in the web, cry out In a sudden and empty despair, "Tetelestai!"

Pity me, now! I, who was arrogant, beg you!

Tell me, as I lie down, that I was courageous.

Blow horns of victory now, as I reel and am vanquished.

Shatter the sky with trumpets above my grave.

IV

... Look! this flesh how it crumbles to dust and is blown!

These bones, how they grind in the granite of frost and are nothing!

This skull, how it yawns for a flicker of time in the darkness Yet laughs not and sees not! It is crushed by a hammer of sunlight, And the hands are destroyed.... Press down through the leaves of the jasmine, Dig through the interlaced roots--nevermore will you find me; I was no better than dust, yet you cannot replace me....

Take the soft dust in your hand--does it stir: does it sing?

Has it lips and a heart? Does it open its eyes to the sun?

Does it run, does it dream, does it burn with a secret, or tremble In terror of death? Or ache with tremendous decisions?...

Listen!... It says: "I lean by the river. The willows Are yellowed with bud. White clouds roar up from the south And darken the ripples; but they cannot darken my heart, Nor the face like a star in my heart!... Rain falls on the water And pelts it, and rings it with silver. The willow trees glisten, The sparrows chirp under the eaves; but the face in my heart Is a secret of music.... I wait in the rain and am silent."

Listen again!... It says: "I have worked, I am tired, The pencil dulls in my hand: I see through the window Walls upon walls of windows with faces behind them, Smoke floating up to the sky, an ascension of seagulls.

I am tired. I have struggled in vain, my decision was fruitless, Why then do I wait? with darkness, so easy, at hand!...

But to-morrow, perhaps.... I will wait and endure till to-morrow!..."

Or again: "It is dark. The decision is made. I am vanquished By terror of life. The walls mount slowly about me In coldness. I had not the courage. I was forsaken.

I cried out, was answered by silence.... Tetelestai!..."

V

Hear how it babbles!--Blow the dust out of your hand, With its voices and visions, tread on it, forget it, turn homeward With dreams in your brain.... This, then, is the humble, the nameless,-- The lover, the husband and father, the struggler with shadows, The one who went down under shoutings of chaos! The weakling Who cried his "forsaken!" like Christ on the darkening hilltop!...

This, then, is the one who implores, as he dwindles to silence, A fanfare of glory.... And which of us dares to deny him!

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

EIGHT SONNETS

I

When you, that at this moment are to me Dearer than words on paper, shall depart, And be no more the warder of my heart, Whereof again myself shall hold the key; And be no more, what now you seem to be, The sun, from which all excellencies start In a round nimbus, nor a broken dart Of moonlight, even, splintered on the sea;

I shall remember only of this hour-- And weep somewhat, as now you see me weep-- The pathos of your love, that, like a flower, Fearful of death yet amorous of sleep, Droops for a moment and beholds, dismayed, The wind whereon its petals shall be laid.

II

What's this of death, from you who never will die?

Think you the wrist that fashioned you in clay, The thumb that set the hollow just that way In your full throat and lidded the long eye So roundly from the forehead, will let lie Broken, forgotten, under foot some day Your unimpeachable body, and so slay The work he most had been remembered by?

I tell you this: whatever of dust to dust Goes down, whatever of ashes may return To its essential self in its own season, Loveliness such as yours will not be lost, But, cast in bronze upon his very urn, Make known him Master, and for what good reason.

III

I know I am but summer to your heart, And not the full four seasons of the year; And you must welcome from another part Such n.o.ble moods as are not mine, my dear.

No gracious weight of golden fruits to sell Have I, nor any wise and wintry thing; And I have loved you all too long and well To carry still the high sweet breast of spring.

Wherefore I say: O love, as summer goes, I must be gone, steal forth with silent drums, That you may hail anew the bird and rose When I come back to you, as summer comes.

Else will you seek, at some not distant time, Even your summer in another clime.

IV

Here is a wound that never will heal, I know, Being wrought not of a dearness and a death But of a love turned ashes and the breath Gone out of beauty; never again will grow The gra.s.s on that scarred acre, though I sow Young seed there yearly and the sky bequeath Its friendly weathers down, far underneath Shall be such bitterness of an old woe.

That April should be shattered by a gust, That August should be leveled by a rain, I can endure, and that the lifted dust Of man should settle to the earth again; But that a dream can die, will be a thrust Between my ribs forever of hot pain.

V

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning; but the rain Is full of ghosts to-night, that tap and sigh Upon the gla.s.s and listen for reply; And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain, For unremembered lads that not again Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.