Eight Harvard Poets Part 3

The hoa.r.s.e whistle shrieked for a landing; Bells jangled.... You were standing A slim blue figure amid the wharf's crowd; The little steamer creaked against the side, loud Screamed the whistle again....

Monotonously the solemn reeds Waved to our pa.s.sing; Ahead the ca.n.a.l shimmered, blotched green by the water-weeds.

With a grinding swing And see-saw of sound, The steamer slunk down the ca.n.a.l.

I never even knew your name....

That night from a dingy hotel room, I saw the moon, like a golden gong, Redly loom Across the lake; like a golden gong In a temple, which a priest ere long Will strike into throbbing song, To wake some silent twinkling city to prayer.

The lake waves were flakes of red gold, Burnished to copper, Gold, red as the tangled gleam Of sunlight in your hair.

SATURNALIA

In earth's womb the old G.o.ds stir, Fierce chthonian dieties of old time.

With cymbals and rattle of castanets, And shriek of slug-horns, the North Wind Bows the oak and the moaning fir, On russet hills and by roadsides stiff with rime.

In nature, dead, the life G.o.ds stir, From Rhadamanthus and the Isles, Where Saturn rules the Age of Gold, Come old, old ghosts of bygone G.o.ds; While dim mists earth's outlines blur, And drip all night from lichen-greened roof-tiles.

In men's hearts the mad G.o.ds rise And fill the streets with revelling, With torchlight that glances on frozen pools, With tapers starring the thick-fogged night, A-dance, like strayed fireflies, 'Mid dim mad throngs who Saturn's orisons sing.

In driven clouds the old G.o.ds come, When fogs the face of Apollo have veiled; A fear of things, unhallowed, strange, And a fierce free joy flares in the land.

Men mutter runes in language dead, By night, with rumbling drum, In quaking groves where the woodland spirits are hailed.

To earth's brood of souls of old, With covered heads and aspen wands, Mist-shrouded priests do ancient rites; The black ram's fleece is stained with blood, That steams, dull red on the frozen ground; And pale votaries shiver with the cold, That numbs the earth, and etches patterned mirrors on the ponds.

"WHAN THAT APRILLE ..."

Is it the song of a meadow lark Off the brown, sere salt marshes, Or the eager patches in dooryards Of yellow and pale lilac crocuses; Or else the suburban street golden with sunlight, And the bare branches of elm trees Twined in the delicate sky?

Or is it the merry piping Of a distant hurdy-gurdy?-- That makes me so weary and faint with desire For strange lands and new scents; For the rough-rhythmed clank Of train couplings at night, And the stormy, gay-tinted sunrises That shade with purple the contours Of far-off, unfamiliar hills.

NIGHT PIECE

A silver web has the moon spun, A silver web upon all the sky, Where the frail stars quiver, every one Like tangled gnats that hum and die.

The moon has tangled the dull night In her silver skein and set alight Each dew-damp branch with milky flame.

And huge the moon broods on the night.

My soul is caught in the web of the moon, Like a shrilling gnat in a spider's web.

Importunate memories shrill in my ears Like the gnats that die in the spider web.

Lovely as death, in the moon's shroud, Were town streets, grey houses, dim, Full of strange peace in the silent night.

As we walked our footsteps clattered loud.

We felt the night as a troubled song ...

Oh, the triumphing sense of life a-throb.

Behind those walls, in those dark streets, Like the sound of a river, swift, unseen, Flowing in darkness. Oh, the hoa.r.s.e Half-heard murmur swirling beneath The snowy beauty of moonlight....

And that other night, When the river rippled with faint spears Of street lights vaguely reflected. Grey The evening, like an opal; low, A grey moon shrouded in sea fog: Air pregnant with spring; rasp of my steps Beside the lapping water; within The dark. Down the worn out years a sob Of broken loves; old pain Of dead farewells; and one face Fading into grey....

A silver web has the moon spun, A silver web over all the sky.

In her flooding glory, one by one, Like gnats in a web the stars die.

ROBERT HILLYER

FOUR SONNETS FROM A SONNET-SEQUENCE

I

Quickly and pleasantly the seasons blow Over the meadows of eternity, As wave on wave the pulsings of the sea Merge and are lost, each in the other's flow.

Time is no lover; it is only he That is the one unconquerable foe, He is the sudden tempest none can know, Winged with swift winds the none may hope to flee.

Fair child of loveliness, these endless fears Are nought to us; let us be G.o.ds of stone, And set our images beyond the years On some high mount where we can be alone.

And thou shalt ever be as now thou art, And I shall watch thee with untroubled heart.

II

Then judge me as thou wilt, I cannot flee, I cannot turn away from thee forever, For there are bonds that wisdom cannot sever And slaves with souls far freer than the free.

Such strong desires the universal Giver With unknown plan has buried deep in me That the exquisite joy of watching thee Has dominated all my life's endeavor.

Thou weariest of having me so near, I feel the scorn thou hast within thy heart, And yet thy face has never seemed so dear As now, when I am minded to depart.

Though thou shouldst drive me hence, I love thee so That I would watch thee when thou dost not know.

III

Fly, joyous wind, through all the wakened earth Now when the portals of the dawn outpour A myriad wonders from the radiant store Of spring's deep pa.s.sion and loud-ringing mirth.

Cry to the world that I despair no more, Heart greets my heart and hope has proved its worth; Fly where the legions of the sun have birth, Chant everywhere and everywhere adore.

Circle the basking hills in fragrant flight, Shout Rapture! Rapture! if sweet sorrow pa.s.ses, And whisper low in intimate delight My love-song to the undulating gra.s.ses.