The Little Book of Modern Verse | Page 5

shelf of the sandy cove
Beach-peas blossom late.
By copse
and cliff the swallows rove
Each calling to his mate.
Seaward the
sea-gulls go,
And the land-birds all are here;
That green-gold flash
was a vireo,
And yonder flame where the marsh-flags grow
Was a
scarlet tanager.
This earth is not the steadfast place
We landsmen build upon;
From
deep to deep she varies pace,

And while she comes is gone.

Beneath my feet I feel
Her smooth bulk heave and dip;
With velvet

plunge and soft upreel
She swings and steadies to her keel
Like a
gallant, gallant ship.
These summer clouds she sets for sail,
The sun is her masthead light,

She tows the moon like a pinnace frail
Where her phosphor wake
churns bright.
Now hid, now looming clear,
On the face of the
dangerous blue
The star fleets tack and wheel and veer,
But on, but
on does the old earth steer
As if her port she knew.
God, dear God! Does she know her port,
Though she goes so far
about?
Or blind astray, does she make her sport
To brazen and
chance it out?
I watched when her captains passed:
She were better
captainless.
Men in the cabin, before the mast,
But some were
reckless and some aghast,
And some sat gorged at mess.
By her battened hatch I leaned and caught
Sounds from the noisome
hold, --
Cursing and sighing of souls distraught
And cries too sad to
be told.
Then I strove to go down and see;
But they said, "Thou art
not of us!"
I turned to those on the deck with me
And cried, "Give
help!" But they said, "Let be:
Our ship sails faster thus."
Jill-o'er-the-ground is purple blue,
Blue is the quaker-maid,
The
alder-clump where the brook comes through
Breeds cresses in its
shade.
To be out of the moiling street
With its swelter and its sin!

Who has given to me this sweet,
And given my brother dust to eat?

And when will his wage come in?
Scattering wide or blown in ranks,
Yellow and white and brown,

Boats and boats from the fishing banks
Come home to Gloucester
town.
There is cash to purse and spend,
There are wives to be
embraced,

Hearts to borrow and hearts to lend,
And hearts to take
and keep to the end, --
O little sails, make haste!
But thou, vast outbound ship of souls,
What harbor town for thee?


What shapes, when thy arriving tolls,
Shall crowd the banks to see?

Shall all the happy shipmates then
Stand singing brotherly?
Or shall
a haggard ruthless few
Warp her over and bring her to,
While the
many broken souls of men
Fester down in the slaver's pen,
And
nothing to say or do?
On a Subway Express. [Chester Firkins]
I, who have lost the stars, the sod,
For chilling pave and cheerless
light,
Have made my meeting-place with God
A new and nether
Night --
Have found a fane where thunder fills
Loud caverns, tremulous; --
and these
Atone me for my reverend hills
And moonlit silences.
A figment in the crowded dark,
Where men sit muted by the roar,
I
ride upon the whirring Spark
Beneath the city's floor.
In this dim firmament, the stars
Whirl by in blazing files and tiers;

Kin meteors graze our flying bars,
Amid the spinning spheres.
Speed! speed! until the quivering rails
Flash silver where the
head-light gleams,
As when on lakes the Moon impales
The waves
upon its beams.
Life throbs about me, yet I stand
Outgazing on majestic Power;

Death rides with me, on either hand,
In my communion hour.
You that 'neath country skies can pray,
Scoff not at me -- the city clod;
--
My only respite of the Day
Is this wild ride -- with God.
The Automobile. [Percy MacKaye]
Fluid the world flowed under us: the hills
Billow on billow of umbrageous green
Heaved us, aghast, to fresh

horizons, seen
One rapturous instant, blind with flash of rills
And
silver-rising storms and dewy stills
Of dripping boulders, till the dim ravine
Drowned us again in leafage,
whose serene
Coverts grew loud with our tumultuous wills.
Then all of Nature's old amazement seemed
Sudden to ask us: "Is this also Man?
This plunging, volant,
land-amphibian
What Plato mused and Paracelsus dreamed?
Reply!" And piercing us with ancient scan,
The shrill, primeval hawk
gazed down -- and screamed.
The Black Vulture. [George Sterling]
Aloof upon the day's immeasured dome,
He holds unshared the silence of the sky.
Far down his bleak,
relentless eyes descry
The eagle's empire and the falcon's home --

Far down, the galleons of sunset roam;
His hazards on the sea of morning lie;
Serene, he hears the broken
tempest sigh
Where cold sierras gleam like scattered foam.
And least of all he holds the human swarm --
Unwitting now that
envious men prepare
To make their dream and its fulfillment one,

When, poised above the caldrons of the storm,
Their hearts,
contemptuous of death, shall dare
His roads between the thunder and
the sun.
Chavez. [Mildred McNeal Sweeney]
So hath he fallen, the Endymion of the air,
And so lies down in
slumber lapped for aye.
Diana, passing, found his youth too fair,

His soul too fleet and willing to obey.
She swung her golden moon

before his eyes --
Dreaming, he rose to follow -- and ran -- and was
away.
His foot was winged as the