The Sisters Tragedy | Page 5

of London faintly throbs,
And one by one the
stars in heaven pale!
ALEC YEATON'S SON
GLOUCESTER, AUGUST, 1720
The wind it wailed, the wind it moaned,
And the white caps flecked the sea;
"An' I would to God," the skipper
groaned,
"I had not my boy with me!"
Snug in the stern-sheets, little John
Laughed as the scud swept by;
But the skipper's sunburnt cheek grew

wan
As he watched the wicked sky.
"Would he were at his mother's side!"
And the skipper's eyes were dim.
"Good Lord in heaven, if ill betide,
What would become of him!
"For me--my muscles are as steel,
For me let hap what may;
I might make shift upon the keel
Until the break o' day.
"But he, he is so weak and small,
So young, scarce learned to stand--
O pitying Father of us all,
I trust him in Thy hand!
"For Thou, who markest from on high
A sparrow's fall--each one!--
Surely, O Lord, thou'lt have an eye
On Alec Yeaton's son!"
Then, helm hard-port; right straight he sailed
Towards the headland light:
The wind it moaned, the wind it wailed,
And black, black fell the night.
Then burst a storm to make one quail
Though housed from winds and waves--
They who could tell about
that gale

Must rise from watery graves!
Sudden it came, as sudden went;
Ere half the night was sped,
The winds were hushed, the waves were
spent,
And the stars shone overhead.
Now, as the morning mist grew thin,
The folk on Gloucester shore
Saw a little figure floating in
Secure, on a broken oar!
Up rose the cry, "A wreck! a wreck!
Pull, mates, and waste no breath!"--
They knew it, though 'twas but a
speck
Upon the edge of death!
Long did they marvel in the town
At God his strange decree,
That let the stalwart skipper drown
And the little child go free!
AT THE FUNERAL OF A MINOR POET
[One of the Bearers soliloquizes:]
. . . Room in your heart for him, O Mother Earth,
Who loved each
flower and leaf that made you fair,
And sang your praise in verses
manifold
And delicate, with here and there a line
From end to end
in blossom like a bough
The May breathes on, so rich it was. Some
thought
The workmanship more costly than the thing
Moulded or
carved, as in those ornaments
Found at Mycaene. And yet Nature's

self
Works in this wise; upon a blade of grass,
Or what small note
she lends the woodland thrush,
Lavishing endless patience. He was
born
Artist, not artisan, which some few saw
And many dreamed
not. As he wrote no odes
When Croesus wedded or Maecenas died,

And gave no breath to civic feasts and shows,
He missed the glare
that gilds more facile men--
A twilight poet, groping quite alone,

Belated, in a sphere where every nest
Is emptied of its music and its
wings.
Not great his gift; yet we can poorly spare
Even his slight
perfection in an age
Of limping triolets and tame rondeaux.
He had
at least ideals, though unreached,
And heard, far off, immortal
harmonies,
Such as fall coldly on our ear to-day.
The mighty
Zolaistic Movement now
Engrosses us--a miasmatic breath
Blown
from the slums. We paint life as it is,
The hideous side of it, with
careful pains,
Making a god of the dull Commonplace.
For have we
not the old gods overthrown
And set up strangest idols? We could
clip
Imagination's wing and kill delight,
Our sole art being to leave
nothing out
That renders art offensive. Not for us
Madonnas
leaning from their starry thrones
Ineffable, nor any heaven-wrought
dream
Of sculptor or of poet; we prefer
Such nightmare visions as
in morbid brains
Take shape and substance, thoughts that taint the air

And make all life unlovely. Will it last?
Beauty alone endures from
age to age,
From age to age endures, handmaid of God.
Poets who
walk with her on earth go hence
Bearing a talisman. You bury one,

With his hushed music, in some Potter's Field;
The snows and rains
blot out his very name,
As he from life seems blotted: through Time's
glass
Slip the invisible and magic sands
That mark the century, then
falls a day
The world is suddenly conscious of a flower,

Imperishable, ever to be prized,
Sprung from the mould of a forgotten
grave.
'Tis said the seeds wrapt up among the balms
And
hieroglyphics of Egyptian kings
Hold strange vitality, and, planted,
grow
After the lapse of thrice a thousand years.
Some day,
perchance, some unregarded note
Of our poor friend here--some
sweet minor chord
That failed to lure our more accustomed ear--


May witch the fancy of an unborn age.
Who knows, since seeds have
such tenacity?
Meanwhile he's dead, with scantiest laurel won
And
little of our Nineteenth Century gold.
So, take him, Earth, and this his
mortal part,
With that shrewd alchemy thou hast, transmute
To
flower and leaf in thine unending Springs!
BATUSCHKA.<1>
From yonder gilded minaret
Beside the steel-blue Neva set,
I faintly
catch, from time to time,
The sweet, aerial midnight chime--
"God save the Tsar!"
Above the ravelins and the moats
Of the white citadel it floats;
And
men in dungeons far beneath
Listen,