The Chinese Nightingale | Page 8

nest, untouched of
grief.
She dreamed of sons like Powhatan,
And through her blood
the lightning ran.
Love-cries with the birds she sung,
Birdlike
In
the grape-vine swung.
The Forest, arching low and wide
Gloried in
its Indian bride.
Rolfe, that dim adventurer
Had not come a courtier.

John Rolfe is not our ancestor.
We rise from out the soul of her

Held in native wonderland,
While the sun's rays kissed her hand,
In
the springtime,
In Virginia,
Our Mother, Pocahontas.
II
She heard the forest talking,
Across the sea came walking,
And
traced the paths of Daniel Boone,
Then westward chased the painted
moon.
She passed with wild young feet
On to Kansas wheat,
On
to the miners' west,
The echoing canyons' guest,

Then the Pacific
sand,
Waking,
Thrilling,
The midnight land. . . .
On Adams street and Jefferson --
Flames coming up from the ground!

On Jackson street and Washington --
Flames coming up from the

ground!
And why, until the dawning sun
Are flames coming up
from the ground?
Because, through drowsy Springfield sped
This
red-skin queen, with feathered head,
With winds and stars, that pay
her court
And leaping beasts, that make her sport;
Because, gray
Europe's rags august
She tramples in the dust;
Because we are her
fields of corn;
Because our fires are all reborn
From her bosom's
deathless embers,
Flaming
As she remembers
The springtime

And Virginia,
Our Mother, Pocahontas.
III
We here renounce our Saxon blood.
Tomorrow's hopes, an April
flood
Come roaring in. The newest race
Is born of her resilient
grace.
We here renounce our Teuton pride:
Our Norse and Slavic
boasts have died:
Italian dreams are swept away,
And Celtic feuds
are lost today. . . .
She sings of lilacs, maples, wheat,
Her own soil sings beneath her
feet,
Of springtime
And Virginia,
Our Mother, Pocahontas.
Concerning Emperors
I. God Send the Regicide
Would that the lying rulers of the world
Were brought to block for
tyrannies abhorred.
Would that the sword of Cromwell and the Lord,

The sword of Joshua and Gideon,
Hewed hip and thigh the hosts of
Midian.
God send that ironside ere tomorrow's sun;
Let Gabriel and
Michael with him ride.
God send the Regicide.
II. A Colloquial Reply: To Any Newsboy
If you lay for Iago at the stage door with a brick
You have missed the
moral of the play.
He will have a midnight supper with Othello and
his wife.
They will chirp together and be gay.

But the things Iago

stands for must go down into the dust:
Lying and suspicion and
conspiracy and lust.
And I cannot hate the Kaiser (I hope you
understand.)
Yet I chase the thing he stands for with a brickbat in my
hand.
Niagara
I
Within the town of Buffalo
Are prosy men with leaden eyes.
Like
ants they worry to and fro,
(Important men, in Buffalo.)
But only
twenty miles away
A deathless glory is at play:
Niagara, Niagara.
The women buy their lace and cry: --
"O such a delicate design,"

And over ostrich feathers sigh,
By counters there, in Buffalo.
The
children haunt the trinket shops,
They buy false-faces, bells, and tops,

Forgetting great Niagara.
Within the town of Buffalo
Are stores with garnets, sapphires, pearls,

Rubies, emeralds aglow, --
Opal chains in Buffalo,
Cherished
symbols of success.
They value not your rainbow dress: --
Niagara,
Niagara.
The shaggy meaning of her name
This Buffalo, this recreant town,

Sharps and lawyers prune and tame:
Few pioneers in Buffalo;

Except young lovers flushed and fleet
And winds hallooing down the
street:
"Niagara, Niagara."
The journalists are sick of ink:
Boy prodigals are lost in wine,
By
night where white and red lights blink,
The eyes of Death, in Buffalo.

And only twenty miles away
Are starlit rocks and healing spray: --

Niagara, Niagara.
Above the town a tiny bird,
A shining speck at sleepy dawn,

Forgets the ant-hill so absurd,
This self-important Buffalo.


Descending twenty miles away
He bathes his wings at break of day --

Niagara, Niagara.
II
What marching men of Buffalo
Flood the streets in rash crusade?

Fools-to-free-the-world, they go,
Primeval hearts from Buffalo.
Red
cataracts of France today
Awake, three thousand miles away
An
echo of Niagara,
The cataract Niagara.
Mark Twain and Joan of Arc
When Yankee soldiers reach the barricade
Then Joan of Arc gives
each the accolade.
For she is there in armor clad, today,
All the young poets of the wide
world say.
Which of our freemen did she greet the first,
Seeing him come
against the fires accurst?
Mark Twain, our Chief, with neither smile nor jest,
Leading to war
our youngest and our best.
The Yankee to King Arthur's court returns.
The sacred flag of Joan
above him burns.
For she has called his soul from out the tomb.
And where she stands,
there he will stand till doom.
. . . . .
But I, I can but mourn, and mourn again
At bloodshed caused by
angels, saints, and men.
The Bankrupt Peace Maker

I opened the ink-well and smoke filled the room.
The smoke formed
the giant frog-cat of my doom.
His web feet left dreadful slime tracks
on the floor.
He had hammer and nails that he laid by the door.
He
sprawled on the table, claw-hands in my hair.
He looked through my
heart to the mud that was there.
Like a black-mailer hating his victim
he spoke:
"When I see all your squirming I laugh till I choke

Singing of peace. Railing at battle.
Soothing a handful with
saccharine