Chimneysmoke Part 7

TO AN OLD-FASHIONED POET

(Lizette Woodworth Reese)

Most tender poet, when the G.o.ds confer They save your gracile songs a nook apart, And bless with Time's untainted lavender The ageless April of your singing heart.

You, in an age unbridled, ne'er declined The appointed patience that the Muse decrees, Until, deep in the flower of the mind The hovering words alight, like bridegroom bees.

By casual praise or casual blame unstirred The placid G.o.ds grant gifts where they belong: To you, who understand, the perfect word, The recompensed necessities of song.

BURNING LEAVES IN SPRING

When withered leaves are lost in flame Their eddying ghosts, a thin blue haze, Blow through the thickets whence they came On amberlucent autumn days.

The cool green woodland heart receives Their dim, dissolving, phantom breath; In young hereditary leaves They see their happy life-in-death.

My minutes perish as they glow-- Time burns my crazy bonfire through; But ghosts of blackened hours still blow, Eternal Beauty, back to you!

BURNING LEAVES, NOVEMBER

These are folios of April, All the library of spring, Missals gilt and rubricated With the frost's illumining.

Ruthless, we destroy these treasures, Set the torch with hand profane-- Gone, like Alexandrian vellums, Like the books of burnt Louvain!

Yet these cla.s.sics are immortal: O collectors, have no fear, For the publisher will issue New editions every year.

A VALENTINE GAME

(_For Two Players_)

They have a game, thus played: He says unto his maid _What are those shining things_ _So brown, so golden brown?_ And she, in doubt, replies _How now, what shining things_ _So brown?_

But then, she coming near, To see more clear, He looks again, and cries (All startled with surprise) _Sweet wretch, they are your eyes,_ _So brown, so brown!_

The climax and the end consist In kissing, and in being kissed.

FOR A BIRTHDAY

At two years old the world he sees Must seem expressly made to please!

Such new-found words and games to try, Such sudden mirth, he knows not why, So many curiosities!

As life about him, by degrees Discloses all its pageantries He watches with approval shy At two years old.

With wonders tired he takes his ease At dusk, upon his mother's knees: A little laugh, a little cry, Put toys to bed, then "seepy-bye"-- The world is made of such as these At two years old.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _A Birthday_]

KEATS

(1821-1921)

When sometimes, on a moony night, I've pa.s.sed A street-lamp, seen my doubled shadow flee, I've noticed how much darker, clearer cast, The full moon poured her silhouette of me.

Just so of spirits. Beauty's silver light Limns with a ray more pure, and tenderer too: Men's clumsy gestures, to unearthly sight, Surpa.s.s the shapes they show by human view.

On this brave world, where few such meteors fell, Her youngest son, to save us, Beauty flung.

He suffered and descended into h.e.l.l-- And comforts yet the ardent and the young.

Drunken of moonlight, dazed by draughts of sky, Dizzy with stars, his mortal fever ran: His utterance a moon-enchanted cry Not free from folly--for he too was man.

And now and here, a hundred years away, Where topless towers shadow golden streets, The young men sit, nooked in a cheap cafe, Perfectly happy ... talking about Keats.

TO H. F. M.

A SONNET IN SUNLIGHT

This is a day for sonnets: Oh how clear Our splendid cliffs and summits lift the gaze-- If all the perfect moments of the year Were poured and gathered in one sudden blaze, Then, then perhaps, in some endowered phrase My flat strewn words would rise and come more near To tell of you. Your beauty and your praise Would fall like sunlight on this paper here.

Then I would build a sonnet that would stand Proud and perennial on this pale bright sky; So tall, so steep, that it might stay the hand Of Time, the dusty wrecker. He would sigh To tear my strong words down. And he would say: "That song he built for her, one summer day."