The Chinese Nightingale and Other Poems Part 9

You bantered and cantered away your last chance.

And they scourged you, with h.e.l.l in their speech and their faces, O broncho that would not be broken of dancing.

"n.o.body cares for you," rattled the crows, As you dragged the whole reaper, next day, down the rows.

The three mules held back, yet you danced on your toes.

You pulled like a racer, and kept the mules chasing.

You tangled the harness with bright eyes side-glancing, While the drunk driver bled you--a pole for a lance-- And the giant mules bit at you--keeping their places.

O broncho that would not be broken of dancing.

In that last afternoon your boyish heart broke.

The hot wind came down like a sledge-hammer stroke.

The blood-sucking flies to a rare feast awoke.

And they searched out your wounds, your death-warrant tracing.

And the merciful men, their religion enhancing, Stopped the red reaper, to give you a chance.

Then you died on the prairie, and scorned all disgraces, O broncho that would not be broken of dancing.

Souvenir of Great Bend, Kansas.

The Prairie Battlements

(To Edgar Lee Masters, with great respect.)

Here upon the prairie Is our ancestral hall.

Agate is the dome, Cornelian the wall.

Ghouls are in the cellar, But fays upon the stairs.

And here lived old King Silver Dreams, Always at his prayers.

Here lived grey Queen Silver Dreams, Always singing psalms, And haughty Grandma Silver Dreams, Throned with folded palms.

Here played cousin Alice.

Her soul was best of all.

And every fairy loved her, In our ancestral hall.

Alice has a prairie grave.

The King and Queen lie low, And aged Grandma Silver Dreams, Four tombstones in a row.

But still in snow and sunshine Stands our ancestral hall.

Agate is the dome, Cornelian the wall.

And legends walk about, And proverbs, with proud airs.

Ghouls are in the cellar, But fays upon the stairs.

The Flower of Mending

(To Eudora, after I had had certain dire adventures.)

When Dragon-fly would fix his wings, When Snail would patch his house, When moths have marred the overcoat Of tender Mister Mouse,

The pretty creatures go with haste To the sunlit blue-gra.s.s hills Where the Flower of Mending yields the wax And webs to help their ills.

The hour the coats are waxed and webbed They fall into a dream, And when they wake the ragged robes Are joined without a seam.

My heart is but a dragon-fly, My heart is but a mouse, My heart is but a haughty snail In a little stony house.

Your hand was honey-comb to heal, Your voice a web to bind.

You were a Mending Flower to me To cure my heart and mind.

Alone in the Wind, on the Prairie

I know a seraph who has golden eyes, And hair of gold, and body like the snow.

Here in the wind I dream her unbound hair Is blowing round me, that desire's sweet glow Has touched her pale keen face, and willful mien.

And though she steps as one in manner born To tread the forests of fair Paradise, Dark memory's wood she chooses to adorn.

Here with bowed head, bashful with half-desire She glides into my yesterday's deep dream, All glowing by the misty ferny cliff Beside the far forbidden thundering stream.

Within my dream I shake with the old flood.

I fear its going, ere the spring days go.

Yet pray the glory may have deathless years, And kiss her hair, and sweet throat like the snow.

To Lady Jane

Romance was always young.

You come today Just eight years old With marvellous dark hair.

Younger than Dante found you When you turned His heart into the way That found the heavenly stair.

Perhaps we must be strangers.

I confess My soul this hour is Dante's, And your care Should be for dolls Whose painted hands caress Your marvellous dark hair.

Romance, with moonflower face And morning eyes, And lips whose thread of scarlet prophesies The canticles of a coming king unknown, Remember, when you join him On his throne, Even me, your far off troubadour, And wear For me some trifling rose Beneath your veil, Dying a royal death, Happy and pale, Choked by the pa.s.sion, The wonder and the snare, The glory and despair That still will haunt and own Your marvellous dark hair.

How I Walked Alone in the Jungles of Heaven