The Congo and Other Poems Part 11

VI. The Spider and the Ghost of the Fly

Once I loved a spider When I was born a fly, A velvet-footed spider With a gown of rainbow-dye.

She ate my wings and gloated.

She bound me with a hair.

She drove me to her parlor Above her winding stair.

To educate young spiders She took me all apart.

My ghost came back to haunt her.

I saw her eat my heart.

VII. Crickets on a Strike

The foolish queen of fairyland From her milk-white throne in a lily-bell, Gave command to her cricket-band To play for her when the dew-drops fell.

But the cold dew spoiled their instruments And they play for the foolish queen no more.

Instead those st.u.r.dy malcontents Play sharps and flats in my kitchen floor.

How a Little Girl Danced

Dedicated to Lucy Bates

(Being a reminiscence of certain private theatricals.)

Oh, cabaret dancer, _I_ know a dancer, Whose eyes have not looked on the feasts that are vain.

_I_ know a dancer, _I_ know a dancer, Whose soul has no bond with the beasts of the plain: Judith the dancer, Judith the dancer, With foot like the snow, and with step like the rain.

Oh, thrice-painted dancer, vaudeville dancer, Sad in your spangles, with soul all astrain, _I_ know a dancer, _I_ know a dancer, Whose laughter and weeping are spiritual gain, A pure-hearted, high-hearted maiden evangel, With strength the dark cynical earth to disdain.

Flowers of bright Broadway, you of the chorus, Who sing in the hope of forgetting your pain: I turn to a sister of Sainted Cecilia, A white bird escaping the earth's tangled skein:-- The music of G.o.d is her innermost brooding, The whispering angels her footsteps sustain.

Oh, proud Russian dancer: praise for your dancing.

No clean human pa.s.sion my rhyme would arraign.

You dance for Apollo with n.o.ble devotion, A high cleansing revel to make the heart sane.

But Judith the dancer prays to a spirit More white than Apollo and all of his train.

I know a dancer who finds the true G.o.dhead, Who bends o'er a brazier in Heaven's clear plain.

I know a dancer, I know a dancer, Who lifts us toward peace, from this earth that is vain: Judith the dancer, Judith the dancer, With foot like the snow, and with step like the rain.

In Praise of Songs that Die

After having read a Great Deal of Good Current Poetry in the Magazines and Newspapers

Ah, they are pa.s.sing, pa.s.sing by, Wonderful songs, but born to die!

Cries from the infinite human seas, Waves thrice-winged with harmonies.

Here I stand on a pier in the foam Seeing the songs to the beach go home, Dying in sand while the tide flows back, As it flowed of old in its fated track.

Oh, hurrying tide that will not hear Your own foam-children dying near: Is there no refuge-house of song, No home, no haven where songs belong?

Oh, precious hymns that come and go!

You perish, and I love you so!

Factory Windows are always Broken

Factory windows are always broken.

Somebody's always throwing bricks, Somebody's always heaving cinders, Playing ugly Yahoo tricks.

Factory windows are always broken.

Other windows are let alone.

No one throws through the chapel-window The bitter, snarling, derisive stone.

Factory windows are always broken.

Something or other is going wrong.

Something is rotten--I think, in Denmark.

_End of the factory-window song_.

To Mary Pickford

Moving-picture Actress

(On hearing she was leaving the moving-pictures for the stage.)

Mary Pickford, doll divine, Year by year, and every day At the moving-picture play, You have been my valentine.

Once a free-limbed page in hose, Baby-Rosalind in flower, Cloakless, shrinking, in that hour How our reverent pa.s.sion rose, How our fine desire you won.

Kitchen-wench another day, Shapeless, wooden every way.

Next, a fairy from the sun.