Poems by Alan Seeger Part 10

Through enigmatic doors voluptuous accents breathed, And having Youth I had their Open Sesame.

I paused where shadowy walls were hung with cloths of gold, And tinted twilight streamed through storied panes above.

In lamplit alcoves deep as flowers when they unfold Soft cushions called to rest and fragrant fumes to love.

I hungered; at my hand delicious dainties teemed -- Fair pyramids of fruit; pastry in sugared piles.

I thirsted; in cool cups inviting vintage beamed -- Sweet syrups from the South; brown muscat from the isles.

I yearned for pa.s.sionate Love; faint gauzes fell away.

Pillowed in rosy light I found my heart's desire.

Over the silks and down her florid beauty lay, As over orient clouds the sunset's coral fire.

Joys that had smiled afar, a visionary form, Behind the ranges hid, remote and rainbow-dyed, Drew near unto my heart, a wonder soft and warm, To touch, to stroke, to clasp, to sleep and wake beside.

Joy, that where summer seas and hot horizons shone Had been the outspread arms I gave my youth to seek, Drew near; awhile its pulse strove sweetly with my own, Awhile I felt its breath astir upon my cheek.

I was so happy there; so fleeting was my stay, -- What wonder if, a.s.sailed with vistas so divine, I only lived to search and sample them the day When between dawn and dusk the sultan's courts were mine!

Speak not of other worlds of happiness to be, As though in any fond imaginary sphere Lay more to tempt man's soul to immortality Than ripens for his bliss abundant now and here!

Flowerlike I hope to die as flowerlike was my birth.

Rooted in Nature's just benignant law like them, I want no better joys than those that from green Earth My spirit's blossom drew through the sweet body's stem.

I see no dread in death, no horror to abhor.

I never thought it else than but to cease to dwell Spectator, and resolve most naturally once more Into the dearly loved eternal spectacle.

Unto the fields and flowers this flesh I found so fair I yield; do you, dear friend, over your rose-crowned wine, Murmur my name some day as though my lips were there, And frame your mouth as though its blushing kiss were mine.

Yea, where the banquet-hall is brilliant with young men, You whose bright youth it might have thrilled my breast to know, Drink . . . and perhaps my lips, insatiate even then Of lips to hang upon, may find their loved ones so.

Unto the flush of dawn and evening I commend This immaterial self and flamelike part of me, -- Unto the azure haze that hangs at the world's end, The sunshine on the hills, the starlight on the sea, --

Unto angelic Earth, whereof the lives of those Who love and dream great dreams and deeply feel may be The elemental cells and nervules that compose Its divine consciousness and joy and harmony.

Fragments

I

In that fair capital where Pleasure, crowned Amidst her myriad courtiers, riots and rules, I too have been a suitor. Radiant eyes Were my life's warmth and sunshine, outspread arms My gilded deep horizons. I rejoiced In yielding to all amorous influence And multiple impulsion of the flesh, To feel within my being surge and sway The force that all the stars acknowledge too.

Amid the nebulous humanity Where I an atom crawled and cleaved and sundered, I saw a million motions, but one law; And from the city's splendor to my eyes The vapors pa.s.sed and there was nought but Love, A ferment turbulent, intensely fair, Where Beauty beckoned and where Strength pursued.

II

There was a time when I thought much of Fame, And laid the golden edifice to be That in the clear light of eternity Should fitly house the glory of my name.

But swifter than my fingers pushed their plan, Over the fair foundation scarce begun, While I with lovers dallied in the sun, The ivy clambered and the rose-vine ran.

And now, too late to see my vision, rise, In place of golden pinnacles and towers, Only some sunny mounds of leaves and flowers, Only beloved of birds and b.u.t.terflies.

My friends were duped, my favorers deceived; But sometimes, musing sorrowfully there, That flowered wreck has seemed to me so fair I scarce regret the temple unachieved.

III

For there were nights . . . my love to him whose brow Has glistened with the spoils of nights like those, Home turning as a conqueror turns home, What time green dawn down every street uprears Arches of triumph! He has drained as well Joy's perfumed bowl and cried as I have cried: Be Fame their mistress whom Love pa.s.ses by.

This only matters: from some flowery bed, Laden with sweetness like a homing bee, If one have known what bliss it is to come, Bearing on hands and breast and laughing lips The fragrance of his youth's dear rose. To him The hills have bared their treasure, the far clouds Unveiled the vision that o'er summer seas Drew on his thirsting arms. This last thing known, He can court danger, laugh at perilous odds, And, pillowed on a memory so sweet, Unto oblivious eternity Without regret yield his victorious soul, The blessed pilgrim of a vow fulfilled.

IV

What is Success? Out of the endless ore Of deep desire to coin the utmost gold Of pa.s.sionate memory; to have lived so well That the fifth moon, when it swims up once more Through orchard boughs where mating orioles build And apple flowers unfold, Find not of that dear need that all things tell The heart unburdened nor the arms unfilled.

O Love, whereof my boyhood was the dream, My youth the beautiful novitiate, Life was so slight a thing and thou so great, How could I make thee less than all-supreme!

In thy sweet transports not alone I thought Mingled the twain that panted breast to breast.

The sun and stars throbbed with them; they were caught Into the pulse of Nature and possessed By the same light that consecrates it so.

Love!--'tis the payment of the debt we owe The beauty of the world, and whensoe'er In silks and perfume and unloosened hair The loveliness of lovers, face to face, Lies folded in the adorable embrace, Doubt not as of a perfect sacrifice That soul partakes whose inspiration fills The springtime and the depth of summer skies, The rainbow and the clouds behind the hills, That excellence in earth and air and sea That makes things as they are the real divinity.

Thirty Sonnets:

Sonnet I

Down the strait vistas where a city street Fades in pale dust and vaporous distances, Stained with far fumes the light grows less and less And the sky reddens round the day's retreat.

Now out of orient chambers, cool and sweet, Like Nature's pure l.u.s.tration, Dusk comes down.

Now the lamps brighten and the quickening town Rings with the trample of returning feet.

And Pleasure, risen from her own warm mould Sunk all the drowsy and unloved daylight In layers of odorous softness, Paphian girls Cover with gauze, with satin, and with pearls, Crown, and about her spangly vestments fold The ermine of the empire of the Night.

Sonnet II

Her courts are by the flux of flaming ways, Between the rivers and the illumined sky Whose fervid depths reverberate from on high Fierce l.u.s.tres mingled in a fiery haze.

They mark it inland; blithe and fair of face Her suitors follow, guessing by the glare Beyond the hilltops in the evening air How bright the cressets at her portals blaze.

On the pure fronts Defeat ere many a day Falls like the soot and dirt on city-snow; There hopes deferred lie sunk in piteous seams.

Her paths are disillusion and decay, With ruins piled and unapparent woe, The graves of Beauty and the wreck of dreams.