The New Morning | Page 5

nigh,
Or if 'twas but the summer bees that blundered to and fro.
And then, across the breathless wood, a Bell began to sound, The only
Bell that wakes the dead,
And Stockton Signer raised his head,
And
called to all the deacons in the ancient burial-ground.
"The Bell, the Bell is ringing! Give me back my rusty sword. Though I
thought the wars were done,
Though I thought our peace was won,

Yet I signed the Declaration, and the dead must keep their word.
"There's only one great ghost I know could make that 'larum ring. It's
the captain that we knew
In the ancient buff and blue,
It's our
Englishman, George Washington, who fought the German king!"
So the sunset saw them mustering beneath their brooding boughs,
Ancient shadows of our sires,
Kindling with the ancient fires,
While
the old cracked Bell to southward shook the ancient meeting house.
PRINCETON
(_1917_)

The first four lines of this poem were written for inscription on the first
joint memorial to the American and British soldiers who fell in the
Revolutionary War. This memorial was recently dedicated at Princeton.
I.
_Here Freedom stood, by slaughtered friend and foe,
And ere the
wrath paled or that sunset died,
Looked through the ages: then, with
eyes aglow,
Laid them, to wait that future, side by side._
II.
Now lamp-lit gardens in the blue dusk shine
Through dog-wood red
and white,
And round the gray quadrangles, line by line,
The
windows fill with light,
Where Princeton calls to Magdalen, tower to
tower,
Twin lanthorns of the law,
And those cream-white magnolia
boughs embower
The halls of old Nassau.
III.
The dark bronze tigers crouch on either side
Where red-coats used to
pass,
And round the bird-loved house where Mercer died
And
violets dusk the grass,
By Stony Brook that ran so red of old,
But
sings of friendship now,
To feed the old enemy's harvest fifty-fold

The green earth takes the plough.
IV.
Through this May night if one great ghost should stray
With deep
remembering eyes,
Where that old meadow of battle smiles away

Its blood-stained memories,
If Washington should walk, where friend
and foe
Sleep and forget the past,
Be sure his unquenched heart
would leap to know
Their hosts are joined at last.
V.

Be sure he walks, in shadowy buff and blue,
Where those dim lilacs
wave,
He bends his head to bless, as dreams come true,
The
promise of that grave,
Then with a vaster hope than thought can scan,

Touching his ancient sword,
Prays for that mightier realm of God
in man,
"Hasten Thy Kingdom, Lord."
VI.
"Land of new hope, land of the singing stars,
Type of the world to be,

The vision of a world set free from wars
Takes life, takes form,
from thee,
Where all the jarring nations of this earth,
Beneath the
all-blessing sun,
Bring the new music of mankind to birth,
And
make the whole world one."
VII.
And those old comrades rise around him there,
Old foemen, side by
side,
With eyes like stars upon the brave night-air,
And young as
when they died,
To hear your bells, O beautiful Princeton towers,

Ring for the world's release.
They see you, piercing like gray swords
through flowers,
And smile from hearts at peace.
BEETHOVEN IN CENTRAL PARK
(After a glimpse of a certain monument in New York, during the
Victory Celebration)
The thousand-windowed towers were all alight.
Throngs of all
nations filled that glittering way;
And, rich with dreams of the
approaching day,
Flags of all nations trampled down the night.
No
clouds, at sunset, die in airs as bright.
No clouds, at dawn, awake in
winds as gay;
For Freedom rose in that august array,
Crowned with
the stars and weaponed for the right.
Then, in a place of whispering leaves and gloom,
I saw, too dark, too

dumb for bronze or stone,
One tragic head that bowed against the sky;

O, in a hush too deep for any tomb
I saw Beethoven, dreadfully
alone
With his own grief, and his own majesty.
SONGS OF THE TRAWLERS AND SEA POEMS
THE PEOPLE'S FLEET
Out of her darkened fishing-ports they go,
A fleet of little ships,
whose every name--
_Daffodil_, _Sea-lark_, _Rose_ and _Surf_ and
_Snow_,
Burns in this blackness like an altar-flame;
Out of her past they sail, three thousand strong,
The people's fleet that
never knew its worth,
And every name is a broken phrase of song

To some remembered loveliness on earth.
There's _Barbara Cowie_, _Comely Bank_ and _May_,
Christened, at
home, in worlds of dawn and dew:
There's _Ruth_ and _Kindly
Light_ and _Robin Gray_
With _Mizpah_. (May that simple prayer
come true!)
Out of old England's inmost heart they sail,
A fleet of memories that
can never fail.
KILMENY
Dark, dark lay the drifters against the red West,
As they shot their
long meshes of steel overside;
And the oily green waters were
rocking to rest
When Kilmeny went out, at the turn of the tide;
And
nobody knew where that lassie would roam,
For the magic that called
her was tapping unseen.
It was well-nigh a week ere Kilmeny came
home,
And nobody knew where Kilmeny had been.
She'd a gun at her bow that was Newcastle's best,
And a gun at her
stern