Dreams and Dust Part 6

We're grown so fond of paradox Perverseness holds us thrall, So what each jester loves the best He mocks the most of all; But as the jest and laugh go round, Each in his neighbor's eyes Reads, while he flouts his heart's desire, The knowledge that he lies.

Not one of us but had some pearls And flung them to the swine, Not one of us but had some gift-- Some spark of fire divine-- Each might have been G.o.d's minister In the temple of some art-- Each feels his gift perverted move Wormlike through his dry heart.

If G.o.d called Azrael to Him now And bade Death bend the bow Against the saddest heart that beats Here on this earth below, Not any sobbing breast would gain The guerdon of that barb--

The saddest ones are those that wear The jester's motley garb.

Whose shout aye loudest rings, and whose The maddest cranks and quips-- Who mints his soul to laughter's coin And wastes it with his lips-- Has grown too sad for sighs and seeks To cheat himself with mirth; We fools self-doomed to motley are The weariest wights on earth!

But yet, for us whose brains and hearts Strove aye in paths perverse, Doomed still to know the better things And still to do the worse,-- What else is there remains for us But make a jest of care And set the rafters ringing, in Our Tavern of Despair?

COLORS AND SURFACES

A GOLDEN LAD

(D. V. M.)

"Golden lads and la.s.ses must Like chimney-sweepers come to dust."

--SHAKESPEARE.

So young, but already the splendor Of genius robed him about-- Already the dangerous, tender Regard of the G.o.ds marked him out--

(On whom the burden and duty They bind, at his earliest breath, Of showing their own grave beauty, They love and they crown with death.)

We were of one blood, but the olden Rapt poets spake out in his tone; We were of one blood, but the golden Rathe promise was his, his alone.

And ever his great eye glistened With visions I could not see, Ever he thrilled and listened To voices withholden from me.

Young lord of the realms of fancy, The bright dreams flocked to his call Like sprites that the necromancy Of a Prospero holds in thrall--

Quick visions that served and attended, Elusive and hovering things, With a quiver of joy in the splendid Wild sweep of their luminous wings;

He dwelt in an alien glamor, He wrought of its gleams a crown,-- But the world, with its cruelty and clamor, Broke him and beat him down;

So he pa.s.sed; he was worn, he was weary, He was slain at the touch of life;-- With a smile that was wistful and eerie He pa.s.sed from the senseless strife;--

So he ceased (is their humor satiric, These G.o.ds that make perfect and blight?)-- He ceased like an exquisite lyric That dies on the breast of night.

THE SAGE AND THE WOMAN

'TWIXT ancient Beersheba and Dan Another such a caravan Dazed Palestine had never seen As that which bore Sabea's queen Up from the fain and flaming South To slake her yearning spirit's drouth At wisdom's pools, with Solomon.

With gifts of scented sandalwood, And labdanum, and ca.s.sia-bud, With spicy spoils of Araby And camel-loads of ivory And heavy cloths that glanced and shone With inwrought pearl and beryl-stone She came, a bold Sabean girl.

And did she find him grave, or gay?

Perchance his palace breathed that day With psalters sounding solemnly-- Or cymbals' merrier minstrelsy-- Perchance the wearied monarch heard Some loose-tongued prophet's meddling word;-- None knows, no one--but Solomon!

She looked--with eyne wherein were blent All ardors of the Orient; She spake--all magics of the South Were compa.s.sed in the witch's mouth;-- He thought the scarlet lips of her More precious than En Gedi's myrrh, The lips of that Sabean girl;

By many an amorous sun caressed, From lifted brow to amber breast She gleamed in vivid loveliness-- And lithe as any leopardess-- And verily, one blames thee not If thine own proverbs were forgot, O Solomon, wise Solomon!

She danced for him, and surely she Learnt dancing from some moonlit sea

Where elfin vapors swirled and swayed While the wild pipes of witchcraft played Such clutching music 'twould impel A prophet's self to dance to h.e.l.l-- So spun the light Sabean girl.

He swore her laughter had the lilt Of chiming waters that are spilt In sprays of spurted melody From founts of carven porphyry, And in the billowy turbulence Of her dusk hair drowned soul and sense-- Dark tides and deep, O Solomon!

Perchance unto her day belongs His poem called the Song of Songs, Each little lyric interval Timed to her pulse's rise and fall;-- Or when he cried out wearily That all things end in vanity Did he mean that Sabean girl?

The bright barbaric opulence, The sun-kist Temple, Kedar's tents,--

How many a careless caravan 'Twixt Beersheba and ruined Dan, Within these forty centuries, Has flung their dust to many a breeze, With dust that was King Solomon!

But still the lesson holds as true, O King, as when she lessoned you: _That very wise men are not wise Until they read in Folly's eyes The wisdom that escapes the schools, That bids the sage revise his rules By light of some Sabean girl!_

NEWS FROM BABYLON

"Archaeologists have discovered a love-letter among the ruins of Babylon." --Newspaper report.

_The world hath just one tale to tell, and it is very old, A little tale--a simple tale--a tale that's easy told: "There was a youth in Babylon who greatly loved a maid!"

The world hath just one song to sing, but sings it unafraid, A little song--a foolish song--the only song it hath: "There was a youth in Ascalon who loved a girl in Gath!"_

Homer clanged it, Omar tw.a.n.ged it, Greece and Persia knew!-- Nimrod's reivers, Hiram's weavers, Hindu, Kurd, and Jew-- Crowning Tyre, Troy afire, they have dreamed the dream; Tiber-side and Nilus-tide brightened with the gleam--

Oh, the suing, sighing, wooing, sad and merry hours, Blisses tasted, kisses wasted, building Babel's towers!

Hearts were aching, hearts were breaking, lashes wet with dew, When the ships touched the lips of islands Sappho knew; Yearning b.r.e.a.s.t.s and burning b.r.e.a.s.t.s, cold at last, are hid Amid the glooms of carven tombs in Khufu's pyramid-- Though the sages, down the ages, smile their cynic doubt, Man and maid, unafraid, put the schools to rout; Seek to chain love and retain love in the bonds of breath, Vow to hold love, bind and fold love even unto death!

_The dust of forty centuries has buried Babylon, And out of all her lovers dead rises only one; Rises with a song to sing and laughter in his eyes, The old song--the only song--for all the rest are lies!_

_For, oh, the world has just one dream, and it is very old-- 'Tis youth's dream--a silly dream--but it is flushed with gold!_

A RHYME OF THE ROADS

PEARL-SLASHED and purple and crimson and fringed with gray mist of the hills, The pennons of morning advance to the music of rock-fretted rills, The dumb forest quickens to song, and the little gusts shout as they fling A floor-cloth of orchard bloom down for the flashing, quick feet of the Spring.

To the road, gipsy-heart, thou and I! 'Tis the mad piper, Spring, who is leading; 'Tis the pulse of his piping that throbs through the brain, irresistibly pleading; Full-blossomed, deep-bosomed, fain woman, light-footed, lute-throated and fleet, We have drunk of the wine of this Wanderer's song; let us follow his feet!

Like raveled red girdles flung down by some hoidenish G.o.ddess in mirth The tangled roads reach from rim unto utter-most rim of the earth-- We will weave of these strands a strong net, we will snare the bright wings of delight,-- We will make of these strings a sweet lute that will shame the low wind-harps of night.