Chimneysmoke Part 12

I stood on the pavement Where I could admire Behind the brown chapel The cream and gold spire.

Above, gilded Lightning Swam high on his ball-- I saw the noon shadow The church of St. Paul.

And was there a meaning?

(My fancy would run), Saint Paul in the shadow, Saint Frank in the sun!

ADVICE TO A CITY

O city, cage your poets! Hem them in And roof them over from the April sky-- Clatter them round with babble, ceaseless din, And drown their voices with your thunder cry.

Forbid their free feet on the windy hills, And harness them to daily ruts of stone-- (In florists' windows lock the daffodils) And never, never let them be alone!

For they are curst, said poets, curst and lewd, And freedom gives their tongues uncanny wit, And granted silence, thought and solitude They (_absit omen!_) might make Song of it.

So cage them in, and stand about them thick, And keep them busy with their daily bread; And should their eyes seem strange, ah, then be quick To interrupt them ere the word be said....

For, if their hearts burn with sufficient rage, With wasted sunsets and frustrated youth, Some day they'll cry, on some disturbing page, The savage, sweet, unpalatable truth!

THE TELEPHONE DIRECTORY

No Malory of old romance, No Crusoe tale, it seems to me, Can equal in rich circ.u.mstance This telephone directory.

No ballad of fair ladies' eyes, No legend of proud knights and dames, Can fill me with such bright surmise As this great book of numbered names!

How many hearts and lives unknown, Rare damsels pining for a squire, Are waiting for the telephone To ring, and call them to the wire.

Some wait to hear a loved voice say The news they will rejoice to know At Rome 2637 J Or Marathon 1450!

And some, perhaps, are stung with fear And answer with reluctant tread: The message they expect to hear Means life or death or daily bread.

A million hearts here wait our call, All naked to our distant speech-- I wish that I could ring them all And have some welcome news for each!

GREEN ESCAPE

At three o'clock in the afternoon On a hot September day, I began to dream of a highland stream And a frostbit russet tree; Of the swashing dip of a clipper ship (White canvas wet with spray) And the swirling green and milk-foam clean Along her canted lee.

I heard the quick staccato click Of the typist's pounding keys, And I had to brood of a wind more rude Than that by a motor fanned-- And I lay inert in a flannel shirt To watch the rhyming seas Deploy and fall in a silver sprawl On a beach of sun-blanched sand.

There is no desk shall tame my l.u.s.t For hills and windy skies; My secret hope of the sea's blue slope No clerkly task shall dull;

And though I print no echoed hint Of adventures I devise, My eyes still pine for the comely line Of an outbound vessel's hull.

When I elope with an autumn day And make my green escape, I'll leave my pen to tamer men Who have more docile souls; For forest aisles and office files Have a very different shape, And it's hard to woo the ocean blue In a row of pigeon holes!

[Ill.u.s.tration:

_My eyes still pine for the comely line_ _Of an outbound vessel's hull._]

VESPER SONG FOR COMMUTERS

(_Instead of "Marathon" the commuter may subst.i.tute_ _the name of his favorite suburb_)

The stars are kind to Marathon, How low, how close, they lean!

They jostle one another And do their best to please-- Indeed, they are so neighborly That in the twilight green One reaches out to pick them Behind the poplar trees.

The stars are kind to Marathon, And one particular Bright planet (which is Vesper) Most lucid and serene, Is waiting by the railway bridge, The Good Commuter's Star, The Star of Wise Men coming home On time, at 6:15!

THE ICE WAGON

I'd like to split the sky that roofs us down, Break through the crystal lid of upper air, And tap the cool still reservoirs of heaven.

I'd empty all those unseen lakes of freshness Down some vast funnel, through our stifled streets.

I'd like to pump away the grit, the dust, Raw dazzle of the sun on garbage piles, The droning troops of flies, sharp bitter smells, And gush that bright sweet flood of unused air Down every alley where the children gasp.

And then I'd take a fleet of ice wagons-- Big yellow creaking carts, drawn by wet horses,-- And drive them rumbling through the blazing slums.

In every wagon would be blocks of coldness, Pale, gleaming cubes of ice, all green and silver, With inner veins and patterns, white and frosty; Great lumps of chill would drip and steam and shimmer, And spark like rainbows in their little fractures.

And where my wagons stood there would be puddles, A wetness and a sparkle and a coolness.

My friends and I would chop and splinter open The blocks of ice. Bare feet would soon come pattering, And some would wrap it up in Sunday papers, And some would stagger home with it in baskets, And some would be too gay for aught but sucking, Licking, crunching those fast melting pebbles, Gulping as they slipped down unexpected-- Laughing to perceive that secret numbness Amid their small hot persons!

At every stop would be at least one urchin Would take a piece to cool the sweating horses And hold it up against their silky noses-- And they would start, and then decide they liked it.

Down all the sun-cursed byways of the town Our wagons would be trailed by grimy tots, Their ragged shirts half off them with excitement!

Dabbling toes and fingers in our leakage, A lucky few up sitting with the driver, All clambering and stretching grey-pink palms.

And by the time the wagons were all empty Our arms and shoulders would be lame with chopping, Our backs and thighs pain-shot, our fingers frozen.

But how we would recall those eager faces, Red thirsty tongues with ice-chips sliding on them, The pinched white cheeks, and their pathetic gladness.