The Five Books of Youth | Page 3

note,
Some fainter voice, rhapsodic and remote,

Or shaken out in melodies that dive
Clear into fathoms of profounder
things,
Then suddenly again on rising wings,
Burst into sun and
hover overhead.
Incarnate music flashing into form
Fled from the vineyards of
melodious Greece,
Feet that have flown before the gathering storm

Or glanced in gardens of the Golden Fleece,
Face atune to all the

songs that mass
Their gusts of passion on the sunlit grass,
Image of
lyric hope and veiled despair,
Like them, thou shalt unutterably pass

Into the silence and the shadowed air.
POMFRET, 1919
VI - HUNTERS
A vase red-wrought in Athens long ago....
The hunter and his gay
companion ride
Through the young fields of life; on every side

Frail and fantastic the tall lilies grow.
Her head thrown back, her eyes
afraid and wide,
Flies like a phantom the grey spectral doe,
Her
light feet scarcely bend the grass below,
Gloriously flying into
eventide.
Ahead there lies the shadow, then the dark,
And safety in the thick
forestial night,
But nearer still she hears the bloodhounds bark,
And
horses panting in impetuous flight,
And hunters without pity for the
slain,
Halloing shrilly over the windy plain.
Sombre become the skies, the winds of fall
Sing dangerously through
the hissing grass;
Sunlight and clouds in slow procession pass
Over
the tress, then comes an interval
Of utter calm, the air is a morass

Of humid breathlessness. A dreadful call
Rings suddenly from the
onrushing squall,
And the storm closes in a whirling mass.
And still the doe eludes the raging hounds,
And still the youths press
onward toward the woods,
Though the world shudders with diluvian
sounds
And the rain streams in undulating floods.
Sharp lightning
splits the sky; the doe is gone.
O follow! follow! if it be till dawn.
The hunted flees, the boyish hunters follow
Into the forest's dripping
everglades,
The wind goes wailing through the swaying shades,

And violent rain gushes in every hollow.
The doe runs free,
triumphantly evades
Those straining eyes; the ghastly shadows

swallow
Her flying form; the frightened horses wallow
Deep in the
mire. Then the last daylight fades.
O Youths, turn back! the year is getting late,
And autumn has no pity
for the slain.
Twining like serpents, the lean arms of fate
Grope
toward you through the blackness and the rain,
Then Death, and the
obliterating snow....
A vase, red-wrought in Athens long ago.
Tours, 1918
VII - A WRECK
Survivor of an unknown past,
On this wild shore cast
By the sad
desolate tides;
In a warm harbour long ago
They waited you, and
waited long,
And guessed and feared at last,
But could not know.

Now in a language strange the waves make song,
And the flood
surges round your broken sides,
And the ebb leaves you to the
burning sun.
But when the voyage of my life is done,
And my soul
puts forth no more,
Then may I sleep
Beneath the fathoms of the
tideless deep,
And not be cast deserted on some dark alien shore.
Cape Cod, 1916
VIII - GRAVE STONES IN A FRONT YARD
Lest the swift world forget their names and pass
Unthinking, they
have set this cold dead slate
Above their slumbers in the living grass

To warn all comers of impending fate;
Where friends made merry once at their behest,
Where young feet
strolled about the shady lawn,
They welcome none but one unfailing
guest,
And all the revellers but Death are gone.
Edgartown, 1916
IX - VIGIL

This is the hour when all substantial foes
Are exorcised and taunt the
soul no more;
Now thinner grows the veil between the shore
Of
vaster worlds and our calm garden close.
Through the small exit of
the open door
We pass, and seem to feel the eyes of those
We knew
upon us; almost we suppose
The advent of the face we tremble for.
O that through this profound serenity
Might sound the answer to the
heart's deep cry;
If all those gracious presences might see
That,
though we hurt them once, they shall not die
Until we also wither, we
who keep
Vigil on these sweet meadows where they sleep.
Pomfret, 1919
X - WHEN THE DOOR WAS OPEN
Lonely as music from afar,
Hung the new moon and one white star,

Above the poplars black and tall
That sentineled the garden wall;

Four black poplars beyond the wall,
Two on each side of the garden
gate,
In silhouette against the wide
Pale sky of the late eventide.

Close was the garden and serene.
The leaning reeds in quiet state

About the pool, merged in the green
Of misty leaves and hanging
vines.
The fireflies spun their silver lines
Across the deeper
atmosphere,
And through the silence came the clear
Persistent
tuning of the frogs
From dank recesses of the bogs.
Beyond the garden I could see
The glimmer of uncertain meadows,

Framed by the open doorway, wreathing
Sarabands of ghostly
shadows,
Slowly turning, slowly breathing,
Largely and unhastily,--

But the garden held its breath.
Peace as profound as death, if death
Be visited by stealthy dreams;

A vagrant note from soundless themes
That ring the comet-paths of
space,
Seemed vibrant in the windless air
That trembled with its
presence there.

Out beyond the nameless place
Where neither fields

nor clouds exist,
Grey from the background of the mist,
I saw three
vague forms drawing near.
My sense recoiled acute with fear;
I