The Second Book of Modern Verse Part 18

When, sick of all the sorrow and distress That flourished in the City like foul weeds, I sought blue rivers and green, opulent meads, And leagues of unregarded loneliness Whereon no foot of man had seemed to press, I did not know how great had been my needs, How wise the woodland's gospels and her creeds, How good her faith to one long comfortless.

But in the silence came a Voice to me; In every wind it murmured, and I knew It would not cease though far my heart might roam.

It called me in the sunrise and the dew, At noon and twilight, sadly, hungrily, The jealous City, whispering always -- "Home!"

The Most-Sacred Mountain. [Eunice Tietjens]

s.p.a.ce, and the twelve clean winds of heaven, And this sharp exultation, like a cry, after the slow six thousand steps of climbing!

This is Tai Shan, the beautiful, the most holy.

Below my feet the foot-hills nestle, brown with flecks of green; and lower down the flat brown plain, the floor of earth, stretches away to blue infinity.

Beside me in this airy s.p.a.ce the temple roofs cut their slow curves against the sky, And one black bird circles above the void.

s.p.a.ce, and the twelve clean winds are here; And with them broods eternity -- a swift, white peace, a presence manifest.

The rhythm ceases here. Time has no place. This is the end that has no end.

Here, when Confucius came, a half a thousand years before the Nazarene, he stepped, with me, thus into timelessness.

The stone beside us waxes old, the carven stone that says: "On this spot once Confucius stood and felt the smallness of the world below."

The stone grows old: Eternity is not for stones.

But I shall go down from this airy place, this swift white peace, this stinging exultation.

And time will close about me, and my soul stir to the rhythm of the daily round.

Yet, having known, life will not press so close, and always I shall feel time ravel thin about me; For once I stood In the white windy presence of eternity.

The Chant of the Colorado. [Cale Young Rice]

(At the Grand Canyon)

My brother, man, shapes him a plan And builds him a house in a day, But I have toiled through a million years For a home to last alway.

I have flooded the sands and washed them down, I have cut through gneiss and granite.

No toiler of earth has wrought as I, Since G.o.d's first breath began it.

High mountain-b.u.t.tes I have chiselled, to shade My wanderings to the sea.

With the wind's aid, and the cloud's aid, Unweary and mighty and unafraid, I have bodied eternity.

My brother, man, builds for a span: His life is a moment's breath.

But I have hewn for a million years, Nor a moment dreamt of death.

By moons and stars I have measured my task -- And some from the skies have perished: But ever I cut and flashed and foamed, As ever my aim I cherished: My aim to quarry the heart of earth, Till, in the rock's red rise, Its age and birth, through an awful girth Of strata, should show the wonder-worth Of patience to all eyes.

My brother, man, builds as he can, And beauty he adds for his joy, But all the hues of sublimity My pinnacled walls employ.

Slow shadows iris them all day long, And silvery veils, soul-stilling, The moon drops down their precipices, Soft with a spectral thrilling.

For all immutable dreams that sway With beauty the earth and air, Are ever at play, by night and day, My house of eternity to array In visions ever fair.

The Water Ouzel. [Harriet Monroe]

Little brown surf-bather of the mountains!

Spirit of foam, lover of cataracts, shaking your wings in falling waters!

Have you no fear of the roar and rush when Nevada plunges -- Nevada, the shapely dancer, feeling her way with slim white fingers?

How dare you dash at Yosemite the mighty -- Tall, white limbed Yosemite, leaping down, down over the cliff?

Is it not enough to lean on the blue air of mountains?

Is it not enough to rest with your mate at timberline, in bushes that hug the rocks?

Must you fly through mad waters where the heaped-up granite breaks them?

Must you batter your wings in the torrent?

Must you plunge for life and death through the foam?

Old Ma.n.u.script. [Alfred Kreymborg]

The sky Is that beautiful old parchment In which the sun And the moon Keep their diary.

To read it all, One must be a linguist More learned than Father Wisdom; And a visionary More clairvoyant than Mother Dream.

But to feel it, One must be an apostle: One who is more than intimate In having been, always, The only confidant -- Like the earth Or the sky.

The Runner in the Skies. [James Oppenheim]

Who is the runner in the skies, With her blowing scarf of stars, And our Earth and sun hovering like bees about her blossoming heart?

Her feet are on the winds, where s.p.a.ce is deep, Her eyes are nebulous and veiled, She hurries through the night to a far lover.

Evening Song of Senlin. [Conrad Aiken]

It is moonlight. Alone in the silence I ascend my stairs once more, While waves, remote in a pale blue starlight, Crash on a white sand sh.o.r.e.

It is moonlight. The garden is silent.

I stand in my room alone.