The Little Book of Modern Verse Part 30

The low-voiced girls that go In gardens of the Lord, Like flowers of the field they grow In sisterly accord.

Their whispering feet are white Along the leafy ways; They go in whirls of light Too beautiful for praise.

And in their band forsooth Is one to set me free -- The one that touched my youth -- The one G.o.d gave to me.

She kindles the desire Whereby the G.o.ds survive -- The white ideal fire That keeps my soul alive.

Now at the wondrous hour, She leaves her star supreme, And comes in the night's still power, To touch me with a dream.

Sibyl of mystery On roads unknown to men, Softly she comes to me, And goes to G.o.d again.

The Inverted Torch. [Edith M. Thomas]

Threading a darksome pa.s.sage all alone, The taper's flame, by envious current blown, Crouched low, and eddied round, as in affright, So challenged by the vast and hostile night, Then down I held the taper; -- swift and fain Up climbed the lovely flower of light again!

Thou Kindler of the spark of life divine, Be henceforth the Inverted Torch a sign That, though the flame beloved thou dost depress, Thou wilt not speed it into nothingness; But out of nether gloom wilt reinspire, And homeward lift the keen empyreal fire!

Night's Mardi Gras. [Edward J. Wheeler]

Night is the true democracy. When day Like some great monarch with his train has pa.s.sed, In regal pomp and splendor to the last, The stars troop forth along the Milky Way, A jostling crowd, in radiant disarray, On heaven's broad boulevard in pageants vast, And things of earth, the hunted and outcast, Come from their haunts and hiding-places; yea, Even from the nooks and crannies of the mind Visions uncouth and vagrant fancies start, And specters of dead joy, that shun the light, And impotent regrets and terrors blind, Each one, in form grotesque, playing its part In the fantastic Mardi Gras of Night.

The Mystic. [Cale Young Rice]

There is a quest that calls me, In nights when I am lone, The need to ride where the ways divide The Known from the Unknown.

I mount what thought is near me And soon I reach the place, The tenuous rim where the Seen grows dim And the Sightless hides its face.

~I have ridden the wind, I have ridden the sea, I have ridden the moon and stars.

I have set my feet in the stirrup seat Of a comet coursing Mars.

And everywhere Thro' the earth and air My thought speeds, lightning-shod, It comes to a place where checking pace It cries, "Beyond lies G.o.d!"~

It calls me out of the darkness, It calls me out of sleep, "Ride! ride! for you must, to the end of Dust!"

It bids -- and on I sweep To the wide outposts of Being, Where there is Gulf alone -- And thro' a Vast that was never pa.s.sed I listen for Life's tone.

~I have ridden the wind, I have ridden the night, I have ridden the ghosts that flee From the vaults of death like a chilling breath Over eternity.

And everywhere Is the world laid bare -- Ether and star and clod -- Until I wind to its brink and find But the cry, "Beyond lies G.o.d!"~

It calls me and ever calls me!

And vainly I reply, "Fools only ride where the ways divide What Is from the Whence and Why"!

I'm lifted into the saddle Of thoughts too strong to tame And down the deeps and over the steeps I find -- ever the same.

~I have ridden the wind, I have ridden the stars, I have ridden the force that flies With far intent thro' the firmament And each to each allies.

And everywhere That a thought may dare To gallop, mine has trod -- Only to stand at last on the strand Where just beyond lies G.o.d.~

I would I might forget that I am I. [George Santayana]

I would I might forget that I am I, And break the heavy chain that binds me fast, Whose links about myself my deeds have cast.

What in the body's tomb doth buried lie Is boundless; 't is the spirit of the sky, Lord of the future, guardian of the past, And soon must forth, to know his own at last.

In his large life to live, I fain would die.

Happy the dumb beast, hungering for food, But calling not his suffering his own; Blessed the angel, gazing on all good, But knowing not he sits upon a throne; Wretched the mortal, pondering his mood, And doomed to know his aching heart alone.

To William Sharp. [Clinton Scollard]

(Fiona Macleod)

The waves about Iona dirge, The wild winds trumpet over Skye; Shrill around Arran's cliff-bound verge The gray gulls cry.

Spring wraps its transient scarf of green, Its heathery robe, round slope and scar; And night, the scudding wrack between, Lights its lone star.

But you who loved these outland isles, Their gleams, their glooms, their mysteries, Their eldritch lures, their druid wiles, Their tragic seas,

Will heed no more, in mortal guise, The potent witchery of their call, If dawn be regnant in the skies, Or evenfall.

Yet, though where suns Sicilian beam The loving earth enfolds your form, I can but deem these coasts of dream And hovering storm

Still thrall your spirit -- that it bides By far Iona's kelp-strewn sh.o.r.e, There lingering till time and tides Shall surge no more.

The Quiet Singer. [Charles Hanson Towne]