Dreams Dust | Page 5

. . .
"They had no poet, and
they died."
NEW YORK
SHE is hot to the sea that crouches beside,
Human and hot to the cool
stars peering down,
My passionate city, my quivering town,
And
her dark blood, tide upon purple tide,
With throbs as of thunder beats,

With leaping rhythms and vast, is swirled
Through the shaken
lengths of her veined streets...
She pulses, the heart of a world!

I have thrilled with her ecstasy, agony, woe--
Hath she a mood that I
do not know?
The winds of her music tumultuous have seized
me and swayed me,
Have lifted, have swung me around
In their
whorls as of cyclonic sound;
Her passions have torn me and tossed
me and
brayed me;
Drunken and tranced and dazzled with visions
and gleams,
I have spun with her dervish priests;
I have searched to the souls of
her hunted beasts
And found love sleeping there;
I have soared on
the wings of her flashing dreams;
I have sunk with her dull despair;
I have sweat with her travails and
cursed with
her pains;
I have swelled with her foolish pride;
I have raged
through a thick red mist at one
with her branded Cains,
With her broken Christs have died.
O beautiful half-god city of visions and love!
O hideous half-brute
city of hate!
O wholly human and baffled and passionate town!
The
throes of thy burgeoning, stress of thy fight,
Thy bitter, blind struggle
to gain for thy body a
soul,
I have known, I have felt, and been shaken
thereby!
Wakened and shaken and broken,
For I hear in thy
thunders terrific that throb
through thy rapid veins
The beat of the heart of a world.
A HYMN

(1914)
CLOTHED on with thunder and with steel
And black against the
dawn
The whirling armies clash and reel. . . .
A wind, and they are
gone
Like mists withdrawn,
Like mists withdrawn!
Like clouds withdrawn, like driven sands,
Earth's body vanisheth:

One solid thing unconquered stands,
The ghost that humbles death.

All else is breath,
All else is breath!
Man rose from out the stinging slime,
Half brute, and sought a soul,

And up the starrier ways of time,
Half god, unto his goal,
He still must climb,
He still must climb!
What though worlds stagger, and the suns
Seem shaken in their place,

Trust thou the leaping love that runs
Creative over space:
Take
heart of grace,
Take heart of grace!
What though great kingdoms fall on death
Before the stabbing blade,

Their brazen might was only breath,
Their substance but a shade--

Be not dismayed,
Be not dismayed!
Man's dream which conquered brute and clod
Shall fail not, but
endure,
Shall rise, though beaten to the sod,
Shall hold its vantage
sure--
As sure as God,
As sure as God!
THE SINGER
A LITTLE while, with love and youth,
He wandered, singing:--
He
felt life's pulses hot and strong
Beat all his rapid veins along;
He
wrought life's rhythms into song:
He laughed, he sang the Dawn!

So close, so close to life he dwelt
That at rare times and rapt he felt

The fleshly barriers yield and melt;
He trembled, looking on

Creation at her miracles;
His soul-sight pierced the earthly shells


And saw the spirit weave its spells,
The veil of clay withdrawn;--
A
little while, with love and youth,
He wandered, singing!
A little while, with age and death,
He wanders, dreaming;--
No more the thunder and the urge
Of earth's full tides that storm the
verge
Of heaven with their sweep and surge
Shall lift, shall bear
him on;
Where is the golden hope that led
Him comrade with the
mighty dead?
The love that aureoled his head?--
The glory is
withdrawn!
How shall one soar with broken wings?
The leagued
might of futile things
Wars with the heart that dares and sings;--
It
is not always Dawn!
A little while, with age and death,
He wanders,
dreaming.
WORDS ARE NOT GUNS
Put by the sword (a dreamer saith),
The years of peace
draw nigh!
Already the millennial dawn
Makes red the eastern
sky!
Be not deceived. It comes not yet!
The ancient passions keep
Alive
beneath their changing masks.
They are not dead. They sleep.
Surely peace comes. As sure as Man
Rose from primeval slime.

That was not yesterday. There's still
A weary height to climb!
And we can dwell too long with dreams
And play too much with
words,
Forgetting our inheritance
Was bought and held with
swords.
But Truth (you say) makes tyrants quail--
Beats down
embattled Wrong?
If truth be armed! Be not deceived.
The
strife is to the strong.
Words are not guns. Words are not ships.
And ships and guns prevail.


Our liberties, that blood has gained,
Are guarded, or they fail.
Truth does not triumph without blows,
Error not tamely yields.
But
falsehood closes with quick faith,
Fierce, on a thousand fields.
And surely, somewhat of that faith
Our fathers fought for clings!

Which called this freedom's hemisphere,
Despite Earth's leagued
kings.
Great creeds grow thews, or else they die.
Thought clothed in deed is
lord.
What are thy gods? Thy gods brought love?
They also brought
a sword.
Unchallenged, shall we always stand,
Secure, apart, aloof?
Be not
deceived. That hour shall come
Which puts us to the proof.
Then, that we hold the trust we have
Safeguarded for our sons,
Let
us cease dreaming! Let us have
More ships, more troops, more guns!