Carolina Chansons | Page 5

Planter
"Nothing moves there but the night wind,

Blowing the mosses like smoke;
All would be silent as moonlight

But for the owl in the oak--
Stairways that lead up to nothing--

Windows like terrible scars--
Snakes on a log in the cistern
Peering
at stars...."
Spirit of Prophecy
"Dawn with its childish colors

Stipples the
solemn vault of night;
Behind the horizon the sun shakes a bloody fist;

Mysteries stand naked by the lakes of mist;

Spirits take flight,
The medicine man,
The voodoo doctor--

Witches mount brooms.
The day looms.
Faster it comes,
Bringing
young giants
Who hate solitude,
And march with drums--

Beat--beat--beat,
Down every ancient street,
The young giants!
Minded like boys:
Action for action's sake they love
And noise for
noise."
Voice of a Poet
"The fire of the sunset
Is remembered at midnight,

But forgotten at dawn.
While the old stars set,
Let us speak of
their glory
Before they are gone."
H.A.
SILENCES[1]
You who have known my city for a day
And heard the music of her
steepled bells,
Then laughed, and passed along your vagrant way,

Carrying only what the city tells
To those who listen solely with their
ears;
You know St. Matthew's swinging harmonies,
And old St.
Michael's tale of golden years
Far less like bells than chanted
memories.
Yet there is something wanting in the song
Of lyric youth with voice
unschooled by pain.
And there are breathing stillnesses that throng

Dim corners, and that only stir again
When bells are dumb. Not even
bronze that beats
Our heart-throbs back can tell of old defeats.
But you who take the city for your own,
Come with me when the
night flows deep and kind
Along these narrow ways of troubled stone,

And floods the wide savannas of the mind
With tides that cool the
fever of the day:
One with the dark, companioned by the stars,

We'll seek St. Philip's, nebulous and gray,
Holding its throbbing
beacon to the bars,
A prisoned spirit vibrant in the stone
That knew
its empire of forgotten things.
Then will the city know you for her
own,
And feel you meet to share her sufferings;
While down a swirl

of poignant memories,
Herself shall find you in her silences.
Once coaches waited row on shining row
Before this door; and where
the thirsty street
Drank the deep shadow of the portico
The Sunday
hush was stirred by happy feet,
Low greetings, and the rustle of
brocade,
The organ throb, and warmth of sunny eyes
That flashed
and smiled beneath a bonnet shade;
Life with the lure of all its swift
disguise.
Then from the soaring lyric of the spire,
Like the composite voice of
all the town,
The bells burst swiftly into singing fire
That wrapped
the building, and which showered down
Bright cadences to flash
along the ways
Loud with the splendid gladness of the days.
War took the city, and the laughter died
From lips that pain had
kissed. One after one
All lovely things went down the sanguine tide,

While death made moaning answer to the gun.
Then, as a golden
voice dies in the throat
Of one who lives, but whose glad heart is
dead,
The bells were taken; and a sterner note
Rang from their
bronze where Lee and Jackson led.
The rhythmic seasons chill and burn and chill,
Cooling old angers,
warming hearts again.
The ancient building quickens to the thrill
Of
lilting feet; but only singing rain
Flutters old echoes in the portico;

Those who can still remember love it so.
D.H.
[1] See the note on the chimes at back of book.
PRESENCES
Despise the garish presences that flaunt
The obvious possession of
today,
To wear with me the spectacles that haunt
The optic sense
with wraiths of yesterday--
These cobbled shores through which the

traffic streams
Have been the stage-set of successive towns,
Where
coffined actors postured out their dreams,
And harlot Folly changed
her thousand gowns.
This corner-shop was Bull's Head Tavern,

When names now dead on marble lived in clay;
Its rooms were like a
sanded cavern,
Where candles made a sallow jest of day,
And
drovers' boots came grinding like a quern,
While merchants drank
their steaming cups of "tay."
Here pock-marked Black Beard covenanted Bonnet
To slit the Dons'
throats at St. Augustine,
And bussed light ladies, unknown to this
sonnet,
Whose names, no doubt, would rime with Magdalene.
And
English parsons, who had lost their fames,
Sat tippling wine as spicy
as their joke,
Larding bald texts with bets on cocking mains,
And
whiffing pipes churchwardens used to smoke.
Here macaronis, hands
a-droop with laces,
Dealt knave to knave in picquet_ or écarté_,
In
coats no whit less scarlet than their faces,
While bullies hiccuped
healths to King and Party,
And Yankee slavers, in from Barbadoes,

Drove flinty bargains with keen Huguenots.
Then Meeting Street first knew St. Michael's steeple,
When redcoats
marched with royal drums a-banging,
Or merchants stopped gowned
tutors to inquire
Why school let out to see a pirate hanging;
And
gentlemen took supper in the street,
When candle-shine from tables
guled the dark,
While others passing by would be discreet
And take
the farther side without remark,
Pausing perhaps to snuff the balmy
savor
Of turtle-soup mulled with the bay-leaves' flavor:
These walls
beheld them, and these lingering trees
That still preempt the middle
of the gutter;
They are the backdrops for old comedies--
If leaves
were tongues--what stories they might utter!
H.A.
THE PIRATES[2]

I stood