Anthology of Massachusetts Poets | Page 8

to the light.
O changeless guardians! 0 ye wizard first!
What strenuous philter
feeds your potency.
That thus ye rest, in sweet wood-hardiness,

Ready to learn of all and utter naught?
What breath may move ye, or
what breeze invite
To odorous hot lendings of the heart?
What
wind-but all the winds are yet afar,
And e'en the little tricksy zephyr
sprites,
That fleet before them, like their elfin locks,
Have lagged in
sleep, nor stir nor waken yet
To pluck the robe of patient majesty.
Too still for dreaming, too divine for sleep,
So range the firs, the
constant, fearless ones.
Warders of mountain secrets, there they wait,

Each with his cloak about him, breathless, calm.
And yet expectant,
as who knows the dawn,
And all night thrills with memory and desire,
Searching in what has

been for what shall be:
The marvel of the ne'er familiar day,
Sacred investiture of life
renewed,
The chrism of dew, the coronal of flame.
Low in the
valley lies the conquered rout
Of man's poor, trivial turmoil, lost and
drowned
Under the mist, in gleaming rivers rolled,
Where oozy
marsh contends with frothing main.
And rounding all, springs one
full, ambient arch,
One great good limpid world--so still, so still!

For no sound echoes from its crystal curve
Save four clear notes, the
song of that lone bird
Who, brave but trembling, tries his morning
hymn,
And has no heart to finish, for the awe
And wonder of this
pearling globe of dawn.
Light, light eternal! veiling-place of stars!
Light, the revealer of dread
beauty's face!
Weaving whereof the hills are lambent clad!
Mighty
libation to the Unknown God!
Cup whereat pine-trees slake their
giant thirst
And little leaves drink sweet delirium!
Being and breath
and potion! living soul
And all-informing heart of all that lives!

How can we magnify thine awful name
Save by its chanting: Light!
and Light! and Light!
An exhalation from far sky retreats,
It grows
in silence, as 'twere self-create,
Suffusing all the dusky web of night.

But one lone corner it invades not yet,
Where low above a black
and rimy crag
Hangs the old moon, thin as a battered shield,
The
holy, useless shield of long-past wars,
Dinted and frosty, on the
crystal dark.
But lo! the east,--let none forget the east,
Pathway
ordained of old where He should tread.
Through some sweet magic
common in the skies,
The rosy banners are with saffron tinct;
The
saffron grows to gold, the gold is fire,
And led by silence more
majestical
Than clash of conquering arms, He comes! He comes!

He holds His spear benignant, sceptrewise,

And strikes out flame
from the adoring hills.
ALICE BROWN

BURNT ARE THE PETALS OF LIFE
BURNT are the petals of life as a rose fallen and
crumbled to dust.
Blackened the heart of the past is, ashes that must
Forever be sifted,
more precious than sunbeams that
open the budding to-morrow.

Once was a passion completed,-too perfect, the
Gods have not broken
to borrowBlackened
the heart of the past is, ashes that must
Forever
be sifted. O, loving to-morrow
The rose of the past is, Life-Eternity's
dust.
ELSIE PUMPELLY CABOT
FOUR FOUNTAINS AFTER RESPIGHI
FRESH mists of Roman dawn;
For water search the cattle;
Faintly
on damp air sounds the shepherd's horn
Above fountain Giulia's
prattle.
Triton, joyous and loud
Of Naiads summons troops;
A frenziedly
leaping and mingling crowd,
Dancing, pursuing groups.
At high noon the trumpets peal,
Neptune's chariot passes by;
Trains
of sirens, tritons, Trevi's jets heal
Then trumpets' echoes sigh.
Tolling bell and sunset,
Twittering birds and calm;
Medici's
fountain, shimmering net,
Into the night brings balm.
JESSICA CARR
IN THE TROLLEY CAR
THE swart Italian in the trolley car,
Hoarded his children in his arms
and breast;
The mother, all unheeding, sat afar,
Her splendid eyes
were vague, her lips compressed.

One Raphael-boy slipped from his father's knee,
Climbed to her side,
and gently stroked her cheek,
She turned away, and would not hear
his plea,
She turned away, and would not even speak.
With trembling lips the child crept back again
To the warm shelter of
his father's breast;
We looked indignant pity, for till then
We
thought that mother-love bore every test.
We rose to go, the father-mother said,
In deep, low tones, "Don't
t'inka hard you bet
The younges' was too-seeck, and he is dead,
She
will be alla right, when she forget."
When she forgets! "Great-Heart," hold closer yet
Thy precious brood
and let it feel no lack!
Until her soul shall wake, but not forget,

When the warm tides of love come surging back.
RUTH BALDWIN CHENERY
IN IRISH RAIN
THE great world stretched its arms to me and held me to its breast,
They say I've song-birds in my throat, and give me of their best; But
sure, not all their gold can buy, can take me back again To little Mag o'
Monagan's a-singing in the rain.
The silver-slanting Irish rain, all warm and sweet that fills The little
brackened lowland pools, and drifts across the hills; That turns the
hill-grass cool and wet to dusty childish feet, And hangs above the
valley-roofs, filmed blue with burning peat.
And oh the kindly neighbor-folk that called the young ones in, Down
fragrant yellow-tapered paths that thread the prickly whin; The