The Chinese Nightingale | Page 7

Tree reeking with red.
IV
This is the tale of the Tiger Tree
A hundred times the height of a man,

Lord of the race since the world began.
We marched to the mammoths,
We pledged them our steel,
And
scorning you, sang: --
"We are men,
We are men."
We mounted
their necks,
And they stamped a wide reel.
We sang:
"We are
fighting the hell-cats again,
We are mound-builder men,
We are
elephant men."
We left you there, lonely,
Beauty your power,

Wisdom your watchman,
To hold the clay tower.
While the
black-mammoths boomed --
"You are elephant men,
Men,
Men,

Elephant men."

The dawn-winds prophesied battles untold.

While the Tiger Trees roared of the glories of old,
Of the masterful
spirits and hard.
The drunken cats came in their joy
In the sunrise, a glittering wave.

"We are tigers, are tigers," they yowled.
"Down,
Down,
Go the
swine to the grave."
But we tramp
Tramp
Trampled them there,

Then charged with our sabres and spears.
The swish of the sabre,


The swish of the sabre,
Was a marvellous tune in our ears.
We
yelled "We are men,
We are men."
As we bled to death in the
sun. . . .
Then staunched our horrible wounds
With the cry that the
battle was won. . . .
And at last,
When the black-mammoth legion

Split the night with their song: --
"Right is braver than wrong,
Right
is stronger than wrong,"
The buzzards came taunting:
"Down from
the north
Tiger-nations are sweeping along."
. . . . .
Then we ate of the ravening Leaf
As our savage fathers of old.
No
longer our wounds made us weak,
No longer our pulses were cold.

Though half of my troops were afoot,
(For the great who had borne
them were slain)
We dreamed we were tigers, and leaped
And
foamed with that vision insane.
We cried "We are soldiers of doom,

Doom,
Sabres of glory and doom."
We wreathed the king of the
mammoths
In the tiger-leaves' terrible bloom.
We flattered the king
of the mammoths,
Loud-rattling sabres and spears.
The swish of the
sabre,
The swish of the sabre,
Was a marvellous tune in his ears.
V
This was the end of the battle.
The tigers poured by in a tide
Over
us all with their caterwaul call,
"We are the tigers,"
They cried.

"We are the sabres,"
They cried.
But we laughed while our blades
swept wide,
While the dawn-rays stabbed through the gloom.
"We
are suns on fire" was our yell --
"Suns on fire." . . .

But man-child
and mastodon fell,
Mammoth and elephant fell.
The fangs of the
devil-cats closed on the world,
Plunged it to blackness and doom.

The desolate red-clay wall
Echoed the parrots' call: --
"Immortal is
the inner peace, free to beasts and men.
Beginning in the darkness,
the mystery will conquer,
And now it comforts every heart that seeks
for love again.
And now the mammoth bows the knee,
We hew
down every Tiger Tree,
We send each tiger bound in love and glory

to his den,
Bound in love . . . and wisdom . . . and glory, . . . to his
den."
A peacock screamed of his beauty
On that broken wall by the trees,

Chiding his little mate,
Spreading his fans in the breeze . . .
And
you, with eyes of a bride,
Knelt on the wall at my side,
The
deathless song in your mouth . . .
A million new tigers swept south . . .

As we laughed at the peacock, and died.
This is my vision in Springfield:
Three times as high as the dome,

Tiger-striped trees encircle the town,
Golden geysers of foam; --

Though giant white parrots sail past, giving voice,
Though I walk
with Peace-of-the-Heart and rejoice.
The Merciful Hand
Written to Miss Alice L. F. Fitzgerald, Edith Cavell memorial nurse,
going to the front.
Your fine white hand is Heaven's gift
To cure the wide world,
stricken sore,
Bleeding at the breast and head,
Tearing at its wounds
once more.
Your white hand is a prophecy,
A living hope that Christ shall come

And make the nations merciful,
Hating the bayonet and drum.
Each desperate burning brain you soothe,
Or ghastly broken frame
you bind,
Brings one day nearer our bright goal,
The love-alliance
of mankind.
Wellesley.
February, 1916.
Third Section
America at War with Germany, Beginning April, 1917
Our Mother Pocahontas
(Note: -- Pocahontas is buried at Gravesend, England.)

"Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in November
or a pawpaw in May -- did she wonder? does she remember --
in the
dust -- in the cool tombs?"
Carl Sandburg.
I
Powhatan was conqueror,
Powhatan was emperor.
He was akin to
wolf and bee,
Brother of the hickory tree.
Son of the red lightning
stroke
And the lightning-shivered oak.
His panther-grace bloomed
in the maid
Who laughed among the winds and played
In
excellence of savage pride,
Wooing the forest, open-eyed,
In the
springtime,
In Virginia,
Our Mother, Pocahontas.
Her skin was rosy copper-red.
And high she held her beauteous head.

Her step was like a rustling leaf:
Her heart a