The Congo and Other Poems | Page 8

the horns?Sings amid a hedge of thorns: --?"Love and life,?Eternal youth --?Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet,?Dew and glory,?Love and truth,?Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet."
# Louder and louder, faster and faster. # WHILE SMOKE-BLACK FREIGHTS ON THE DOUBLE-TRACKED RAILROAD,?DRIVEN AS THOUGH BY THE FOUL-FIEND'S OX-GOAD,?SCREAMING TO THE WEST COAST, SCREAMING TO THE EAST,?CARRY OFF A HARVEST, BRING BACK A FEAST,?HARVESTING MACHINERY AND HARNESS FOR THE BEAST.?THE HAND-CARS WHIZ, AND RATTLE ON THE RAILS,?THE SUNLIGHT FLASHES ON THE TIN DINNER-PAILS.
# In a rolling bass, with increasing deliberation. # And then, in an instant,?Ye modern men,?Behold the procession once again,
# With a snapping explosiveness. #?Listen to the iron-horns, ripping, racking,?Listen to the *wise*-horn, desperate-to-*advise*-horn,?Listen to the *fast*-horn, *kill*-horn, *blast*-horn. . . .
# To be sung or read well-nigh in a whisper. # Far away the Rachel-Jane?Not defeated by the horns?Sings amid a hedge of thorns: --?Love and life,?Eternal youth,?Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet,?Dew and glory,?Love and truth.?Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.
# To be brawled in the beginning with a
snapping explosiveness, ending in a languorous chant. #
The mufflers open on a score of cars?With wonderful thunder,?CRACK, CRACK, CRACK,?CRACK-CRACK, CRACK-CRACK,?CRACK-CRACK-CRACK, . . .?Listen to the gold-horn . . .?Old-horn . . .?Cold-horn . . .?And all of the tunes, till the night comes down?On hay-stack, and ant-hill, and wind-bitten town.
# To be sung to exactly the same whispered tune
as the first five lines. #
Then far in the west, as in the beginning,?Dim in the distance, sweet in retreating,?Hark to the faint-horn, quaint-horn, saint-horn,?Hark to the calm-horn, balm-horn, psalm-horn. . . .
# This section beginning sonorously,
ending in a languorous whisper. #
They are hunting the goals that they understand: --?San Francisco and the brown sea-sand.?My goal is the mystery the beggars win.?I am caught in the web the night-winds spin.?The edge of the wheat-ridge speaks to me.?I talk with the leaves of the mulberry tree.?And now I hear, as I sit all alone?In the dusk, by another big Santa Fe stone,?The souls of the tall corn gathering round?And the gay little souls of the grass in the ground.?Listen to the tale the cotton-wood tells.?Listen to the wind-mills, singing o'er the wells.?Listen to the whistling flutes without price?Of myriad prophets out of paradise.?Harken to the wonder?That the night-air carries. . . .?Listen . . . to . . . the . . . whisper . . .?Of . . . the . . . prairie . . . fairies
Singing o'er the fairy plain: --
# To the same whispered tune as the Rachel-Jane song --
but very slowly. #
"Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.?Love and glory,?Stars and rain,?Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet. . . ."
The Firemen's Ball
Section One
"Give the engines room,?Give the engines room."?Louder, faster?The little band-master?Whips up the fluting,?Hurries up the tooting.?He thinks that he stands,
# To be read, or chanted, with the heavy buzzing bass
of fire-engines pumping. #
The reins in his hands,?In the fire-chief's place?In the night alarm chase.?The cymbals whang,?The kettledrums bang: --
# In this passage the reading or chanting
is shriller and higher. #
"Clear the street,?Clear the street,?Clear the street -- Boom, boom.?In the evening gloom,?In the evening gloom,?Give the engines room,?Give the engines room,?Lest souls be trapped?In a terrible tomb."?The sparks and the pine-brands?Whirl on high?From the black and reeking alleys?To the wide red sky.?Hear the hot glass crashing,?Hear the stone steps hissing.?Coal black streams?Down the gutters pour.?There are cries for