Anthology of Massachusetts Poets | Page 6

Lord exist,
And call
Him by imposing names,
A venerable list.
But nerve and muscle
only count,
Gray matter of the brain,
And an astonishing amount

Of inconvenient pain.
I sometimes wish that God were back
In this dark world and wide;

For though sonic virtues He might lack,
He had his pleasant side.
GAMALIEL BRADFORD
ROUSSEAU
THAT odd, fantastic ass, Rousseau,
Declared himself unique.
How
men persist in doing so,
Puzzles me more than Greek.
The sins that tarnish whore and thief
Beset me every day.
My most
ethereal belief
Inhabits common clay.
GAMALIEL BRADFORD
JOHN MASEFIELD
I
MASEFIELD (HIMSELF)
GOD said, and frowned, as He looked on
Shropshire clay:
"Alone,
'twont do; composite, would I make
This man-child rare; 'twere well,
methinks, to take
A handful from the Stratford tomb, and weigh
A
few of Shelley's ashes; Bunyan may
Contribute, too, and, for my
sweet Son's sake,
I'll visit Avalon; then, let me slake
The whole

with Wyclif-water from the Bay.
A sailor, he! Too godly, though, I fear;
Offset it with tobacco! Next,
I'll find
Hedge-roses, star-dust, and a vagrant's mind;
His mother's
heart now let me breathe upon;
When west winds blow, I'll whisper in
her ear:
"Apocalypse awaits him; call him John!"
II
HIS PORTRAIT
A Man of Sorrows! with such haunted eyes,
I trow, the Master looked
across the lake,--
Looked from the Judas-heart, so soon to make
Of
Him the world's historic sacrifice;
Moreover, as I gaze, do more arise;

Great souls, great pallid ghosts of pain, who wake
And wander yet;
all, weary men who brake
Their hearts; all hemlock-drunk, with
growing
wise:
Hudson adrift; Defoe; the Wandering Jew;

Tannhauser; Faust; Andrea; phantoms, all,
In Masefield's eyes you
lodge; and to the wall
I turn you,--hand a-tremble,--lest you make

Of mine own stricken eyes a mirror, too.
Wherein the sad world's
sadder for your sake.
III
HIS "DAUBER"
O Masefield's "Dauber!" You, who being dead,
Yet speak: heroic,
dauntless, flaming soul,
Too suddenly snuffed out! Here take fresh
toll
Of cognizance, and, in your ocean bed,
Serenely rest, assured
that who has read
What you would fain have pictured of the Pole

Would gladly match your part against the whole
Of many a modern
artist, Paris-bred.
And more than this: if you, indeed, are his,
Then, by a dual truth, he,
too, is yours;
For, marked and credited by what endures,
Were it the

only thing, which bears his name,
(O deathless Soul, I speak you true
in this!)
"The Dauber" has brought Masefield to his fame.
IV
HIS "GALLIPOLI"
"Small wonder," speaks my pensive self, "that he
Whose passion 'tis
to sing of men who fail,--
(Belabored, broken by The Unseen Flail)

Small wonder that be makes Gallipoli
His fervent text, for could there be
A costlier failure in Earth's
shuddering tale?
Think of heroic Sulva's bloody swale;
Of Anzac's
tortured thirst and agony!"
But as I read, protesting voices cry: "Not
we,
Not we, who fell among the daffodils,
Who conquered Death
among those blistered hills,
And found our glory after mortal pain;

Not we, who failed and lost Gallipoli;
The sad, strange failure theirs
who mourn in vain!"
V
HIS MEAD
So, Masefield, have your royal words once more
Called forth the
praise of men, where praise is due;
Your great elegiac, tragically true,

Must leave all Britain prouder than before;
And, in spite of all that
breaking hearts deplore,
And all that anguished consciences must rue,

One arrowed gladness surely pierces through
From London's
centre to Canadian shore:
When England, sobbing, mourns Gallipoli,
When warm tears flow for
Rupert Brooke
And all the splendid Youth her error took
As
hostage from the fields of daffodils,
Let this a present, living solace
be:
You are not sleeping in those cruel hills!
AMY BRIDGEMAN

1620-1920
BEFORE him rolls the dark, relentless ocean;
Behind him stretch the
cold and barren sands;
Wrapt in the mantle of his deep devotion

The Pilgrim kneels, and clasps his lifted hands;
"God of our fathers, who hast safely brought us
Through seas and
sorrows, famine, fire, and
sword;
Who, in Thy mercies manifold
hast taught us
To trust in Thee, our leader and our Lord;
"God, who hast send Thy truth to shine before us,
A fiery pillar,
beaconing on the sea;
God, who hast spread thy wings of mercy o'er
us;
God, who hast set our children's children free,
"Freedom Thy new-born nation here shall cherish;
Grant us Thy
covenant, changing, sure:
Earth shall decay; the firmament shall
perish;
Freedom and Truth, immortal shall endure."
Face to the Indian arrows.
Face to the Prussian guns,
From then till
now the Pilgrim's vow
Has held the Pilgrim's sons.
He braved the red man's ambush,
He loosed the black man's chain;

His spirit broke King George's yoke
And the battleships of Spain.
He crossed the seething ocean;
He dared the death-strewn track;
He
charged in the hell of Saint Mihiel
And hurled the tyrant back.
For the voice of the lonely Pilgram
Who knelt upon the strand
A
people hears three hundred years
In the conscience of the land.
Daughter of Truth and mother of Courage,
Conscience, all hail!

Heart of New England, strength of the Pilgrims,
Thou shalt prevail.

Look how the empires rise and fall!
Athens robed in her learning and
beauty,
Rome in her royal lust for powerEach
has flourished for her
little hour,
Risen and fallen and ceased to be.
What of her by the

Western Sea,
Born and