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Ebook has 198 lines and 14330 words, and 4 pages

Rain--and the lights of the city, Blurred by the mist on the pane. A thing without passion or pity-- This is the rain.

It beats on the roof with derision, It howls at the doors of the cab-- Phantoms go by in a vision, Distorted and drab.

Torpor and dreariness greet me; All of the things I abhor Rise to confront and defeat me, As I ride to your door...

At last you have come; you have banished The gloom of each rain-haunted street-- The tawdry surroundings have vanished; The evening is sweet.

Now the whole city is dreamlike; The rain plays the lightest of tunes; The lamps through the mist make it seem like A city of moons.

No longer my fancies run riot; I hold the most magic of charms-- You smile at me, warm and unquiet, Here in my arms.

I do not wonder or witness Whether it rains or is fair; I only can think of your sweetness, And the scent of your hair.

I am deaf to the clatter and drumming, And life is a thing to ignore... Alas, my beloved, we are coming Once more to your door!...

You have gone; it is listless and lonely; The evening is empty again; The world is a blank--there is only The desolate rain.

SUMMER NIGHT--BROADWAY

Night is the city's disease. The streets and the people one sees Glow with a light that is strangely inhuman; A fever that never grows cold. Heaven completes the disgrace; For now, with her star-pitted face, Night has the leer of a dissolute woman, Cynical, moon-scarred and old.

And I think of the country roads; Of the quiet, sleeping abodes, Where every tree is a silent brother And the hearth is a thing to cling to. And I sicken and long for it now-- To feel clean winds on my brow, Where Night bends low, like an all-wise mother Looking for children to sing to.

HAUNTED

Between the moss and stone The lonely lilies rise; Wasted and overgrown The tangled garden lies. Weeds climb about the stoop And clutch the crumbling walls; The drowsy grasses droop-- The night wind falls.

The place is like a wood; No sign is there to tell Where rose and iris stood That once she loved so well. Where phlox and asters grew, A leafless thornbush stands, And shrubs that never knew Her tender hands...

Over the broken fence The moonbeams trail their shrouds; Their tattered cerements Cling to the gauzy clouds, In ribbons frayed and thin-- And startled by the light, Silence shrinks deeper in The depths of night.

Useless lie spades and rakes; Rust's on the garden-tools. Yet, where the moonlight makes Nebulous silver pools, A ghostly shape is cast-- Something unseen has stirred. Was it a breeze that passed? Was it a bird?

ISADORA DUNCAN DANCING

"IPHIGENIA IN AULIS"

Fling the stones and let them all Lie; Take a breath, and toss the ball High-- And before it strikes the floor Of the hoar and aged shore, Sweep them up, though there should be Even more than two or three.

Add a pebble, then once more Fling the stones and let them all Lie; Take a breath, and toss the ball High....

Rises now the sound of ancient chants And the circling figure moves more slowly. Thus the stately gods themselves must dance While the world grows rapturous and holy. Thus the gods might weave a great Romance Singing to the sighs of flute and psalter; Till the last of all the many chants, And the priestess sinks before the altar.

Cease, oh cease the murmured singing; Hush the numbers brave or blithe, For she enters gravely swinging, Lowering and lithe-- Dark and vengeful as the ringing Scythe meets scythe.

While the flame is fiercely sweeping All her virgin airs depart; She is, without smiles and weeping Or a maiden's art, Stern and savage as the leaping Heart meets heart!

Now the tune grows frantic, Now the torches flare-- Wild and corybantic Echoes fill the air. With a sudden sally All the voices shout; And the bacchic rally Turns into a rout.

Here is life that surges Through each burning vein; Here is joy that purges Every creeping pain. Even sober Sadness Casts aside her pall, Till with buoyant madness She must swoon and fall...

CHOPIN

Faint preludings on a flute And she swims before us; Shadows follow in pursuit, Like a phantom chorus. Sense and sound are intertwined Through her necromancy, Till our dreaming souls are blind To all things but fancy.

Haunted woods and perfumed nights, Swift and soft desires, Roses, violet-colored lights, And the sound of lyres, Vague chromatics on a flute-- All are subtly blended, Till the instrument grows mute And the dance is ended.

SONGS AND THE POET

Sing of the rose or of the mire; sing strife Or rising moons; the silence or the throng... Poet, it matters not, if Life Is in the song.

If Life rekindles it, and if the rhymes Bear Beauty as their eloquent refrain, Though it were sung a thousand times, Sing it again!

Thrill us with song--let others preach or rage; Make us so thirst for Beauty that we cease These struggles, and this strident age Grows sweet with peace.

THE HERETIC

BLASPHEMY

I do not envy God-- There is no thing in all the skies or under To startle and awaken Him to wonder; No marvel can appear To stir His placid soul with terrible thunder-- He was not born with awe nor blessed with fear.

I do not envy God-- He is not burned with Spring and April madness; The rush of Life--its rash, impetuous gladness He cannot hope to know. He cannot feel the fever and the sadness The leaping fire, the insupportable glow.

I do not envy God-- Forever He must watch the planets crawling To flaming goals where sun and star are falling; He cannot wander free. For He must face, through centuries appalling, A vast and infinite monotony.

I do not envy God-- He cannot die, He dare not even slumber. Though He be God and free from care and cumber, I would not share His place; For He must live when years have lost their number And Time sinks crumbling into shattered Space.

I do not envy God-- Nay more, I pity Him His lonely heaven; I pity Him each lonely morn and even, His splendid lonely throne: For He must sit and wait till all is riven Alone--through all eternity--alone.

IRONY

Why are the things that have no death The ones with neither sight nor breath. Eternity is thrust upon A bit of earth, a senseless stone. A grain of dust, a casual clod Receives the greatest gift of God. A pebble in the roadway lies-- It never dies.

The grass our fathers cut away Is growing on their graves to-day; The tiniest brooks that scarcely flow Eternally will come and go. There is no kind of death to kill The sands that lie so meek and still... But Man is great and strong and wise-- And so he dies.

MOCKERY

God, I return to you on April days When along country-roads you walk with me; And my faith blossoms like the earliest tree That shames the bleak world with its yellow sprays. My faith revives when, through a rosy haze, The clover-sprinkled hills smile quietly; Young winds uplift a bird's clean ecstacy... For this, oh God, my joyousness and praise.

But now--the crowded streets and choking airs, The huddled thousands bruised and tossed about-- These, or the over-brilliant thoroughfares, The too-loud laughter and the empty shout; The mirth-mad city, tragic with its cares... For this, oh God, my silence--and my doubt.

HUMILITY

Oh God, if I have ever been So filled with ignorance and sin That I have dared to use Thy name In blasphemy, in jest, in shame; If ever I have dared to flout Thy works, and mock Thy deeds with doubt, Thou must forgive me as Thou art divine For, God, the fault was Thine as well as mine.

Oh, I have used Thee, time on time, To fill a phrase, to round a rhyme; But was this wrong? Nay, in Thy heart Thou knowest the noble theme Thou art... Was it my fault that as I sung The daring speech was on my tongue? Nay; if my singing, God, gave Thee offense, Thou wouldst have robbed me of the lyric sense.

But dignity hath made Thee dumb, And so Thou biddest me to come And be a sonant part of Thee; To sing Thy praise in blasphemy, To be the life within the clod That points the paradox of God. To chant, beneath a loud and lyric grief, A faith that flaunts its very disbelief.

FIFTH AVENUE--SPRING AFTERNOON

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