Poems by Alan Seeger Part 8

Draped in the rainbow on the summer hills, Hidden in sea-mist down the hot coast-line, Couched on the clouds that fiery sunset fills, Blessed, remote, impersonal, divine;

The gold all color and grace are folded o'er, The warmth all beauty and tenderness embower, -- Thou quiverest at Nature's perfumed core, The pistil of a myriad-petalled flower.

Round thee revolves, illimitably wide, The world's desire, as stars around their pole.

Round thee all earthly loveliness beside Is but the radiate, infinite aureole.

Thou art the poem on the cosmic page -- In rubric written on its golden ground -- That Nature paints her flowers and foliage And rich-illumined commentary round.

Thou art the rose that the world's smiles and tears Hover about like b.u.t.terflies and bees.

Thou art the theme the music of the spheres Echoes in endless, variant harmonies.

Thou art the idol in the altar-niche Faced by Love's congregated worshippers, Thou art the holy sacrament round which The vast cathedral is the universe.

Thou art the secret in the crystal where, For the last light upon the mystery Man, In his lone tower and ultimate despair, Searched the gray-bearded Zoroastrian.

And soft and warm as in the magic sphere, Deep-orbed as in its erubescent fire, So in my heart thine image would appear, Curled round with the red flames of my desire.

All That's Not Love . . .

All that's not love is the dearth of my days, The leaves of the volume with rubric unwrit, The temple in times without prayer, without praise, The altar unset and the candle unlit.

Let me survive not the lovable sway Of early desire, nor see when it goes The courts of Life's abbey in ivied decay, Whence sometime sweet anthems and incense arose.

The delicate hues of its sevenfold rings The rainbow outlives not; their yellow and blue The b.u.t.terfly sees not dissolve from his wings, But even with their beauty life fades from them too.

No more would I linger past Love's ardent bounds Nor live for aught else but the joy that it craves, That, burden and essence of all that surrounds, Is the song in the wind and the smile on the waves.

Paris

I

First, London, for its myriads; for its height, Manhattan heaped in towering stalagmite; But Paris for the smoothness of the paths That lead the heart unto the heart's delight. . . .

Fair loiterer on the threshold of those days When there's no lovelier prize the world displays Than, having beauty and your twenty years, You have the means to conquer and the ways,

And coming where the crossroads separate And down each vista glories and wonders wait, Crowning each path with pinnacles so fair You know not which to choose, and hesitate --

Oh, go to Paris. . . . In the midday gloom Of some old quarter take a little room That looks off over Paris and its towers From Saint Gervais round to the Emperor's Tomb, --

So high that you can hear a mating dove Croon down the chimney from the roof above, See Notre Dame and know how sweet it is To wake between Our Lady and our love.

And have a little balcony to bring Fair plants to fill with verdure and blossoming, That sparrows seek, to feed from pretty hands, And swallows circle over in the Spring.

There of an evening you shall sit at ease In the sweet month of flowering chestnut-trees, There with your little darling in your arms, Your pretty dark-eyed Manon or Louise.

And looking out over the domes and towers That chime the fleeting quarters and the hours, While the bright clouds banked eastward back of them Blush in the sunset, pink as hawthorn flowers,

You cannot fail to think, as I have done, Some of life's ends attained, so you be one Who measures life's attainment by the hours That Joy has rescued from oblivion.

II

Come out into the evening streets. The green light lessens in the west.

The city laughs and liveliest her fervid pulse of pleasure beats.

The belfry on Saint Severin strikes eight across the smoking eaves: Come out under the lights and leaves to the Reine Blanche on Saint Germain. . . .

Now crowded diners fill the floor of bra.s.serie and restaurant.

Shrill voices cry "L'Intransigeant," and corners echo "Paris-Sport."

Where rows of tables from the street are screened with shoots of box and bay, The ragged minstrels sing and play and gather sous from those that eat.

And old men stand with menu-cards, inviting pa.s.sers-by to dine On the bright terraces that line the Latin Quarter boulevards. . . .

But, having drunk and eaten well, 'tis pleasant then to stroll along And mingle with the merry throng that promenades on Saint Michel.

Here saunter types of every sort. The shoddy jostle with the chic: Turk and Roumanian and Greek; student and officer and sport;

Slavs with their peasant, Christ-like heads, and courtezans like powdered moths, And peddlers from Algiers, with cloths bright-hued and st.i.tched with golden threads;

And painters with big, serious eyes go rapt in dreams, fantastic shapes In corduroys and Spanish capes and locks uncut and flowing ties;

And lovers wander two by two, oblivious among the press, And making one of them no less, all lovers shall be dear to you:

All laughing lips you move among, all happy hearts that, knowing what Makes life worth while, have wasted not the sweet reprieve of being young.

"Comment ca va!" "Mon vieux!" "Mon cher!"

Friends greet and banter as they pa.s.s.

'Tis sweet to see among the ma.s.s comrades and lovers everywhere,

A law that's sane, a Love that's free, and men of every birth and blood Allied in one great brotherhood of Art and Joy and Poverty. . . .

The open cafe-windows frame loungers at their liqueurs and beer, And walking past them one can hear fragments of Tosca and Boheme.

And in the brilliant-lighted door of cinemas the barker calls, And lurid posters paint the walls with scenes of Love and crime and war.

But follow past the flaming lights, borne onward with the stream of feet, Where Bullier's further up the street is marvellous on Thursday nights.

Here all Bohemia flocks apace; you could not often find elsewhere So many happy heads and fair a.s.sembled in one time and place.