You flaunted the fragrance of your blossoms
Through the wide doors of Custom Houses--
You, and sandal-wood, and tea,
Charging the noses of quill-driving clerks
When a ship was in from China.
Through the wide doors of Custom Houses--
You, and sandal-wood, and tea,
Charging the noses of quill-driving clerks
When a ship was in from China.
American Poetry - 1922 - A Miscellany
The poems that follow are new.
They are new not only in the
sense that (with two exceptions) they cannot be found in book form, but
most of them have never previously been published. Certain of the
selections have appeared in recent magazines and these are reprinted by
permission of _The Century_, _The Yale Review_, _Poetry: A Magazine of
Verse_, _The New Republic_, _Harper's_, _Scribner's_, _The Bookman_,
_The Freeman_, _Broom_, _The Dial_, _The Atlantic Monthly_, _Farm and
Fireside_, _The Measure_, and _The Literary Review_. Vachel Lindsay's "I
Know All This When Gipsy Fiddles Cry" is a revised version of the poem
of that name which was printed in _The Enchanted Years_.
CONTENTS
_A Foreword_ _III_
AMY LOWELL
Lilacs _3_
Twenty-four Hokku on a Modern Theme _8_
The Swans _13_
Prime _16_
Vespers _17_
In Excelsis _18_
La Ronde du Diable _20_
ROBERT FROST
Fire and Ice _25_
The Grindstone _26_
The Witch of Coos _29_
A Brook in the City _37_
Design _38_
CARL SANDBURG
And So To-day _41_
California City Landscape _49_
Upstream _51_
Windflower Leaf _52_
VACHEL LINDSAY
In Praise of Johnny Appleseed _55_
I Know All This When Gipsy Fiddles Cry _66_
JAMES OPPENHEIM
Hebrews _75_
ALFRED KREYMBORG
Adagio: A Duet _79_
Die Kuche _80_
Rain _81_
Peasant _83_
Bubbles _85_
Dirge _87_
Colophon _88_
SARA TEASDALE
Wisdom _91_
Places _92_
_Twilight_ (Tucson)
_Full Moon_ (Santa Barbara)
_Winter Sun_ (Lenox)
_Evening_ (Nahant)
Words for an Old Air _97_
Those Who Love _98_
Two Songs for Solitude _99_
_The Crystal Gazer_
_The Solitary_
LOUIS UNTERMEYER
Monolog from a Mattress _103_
Waters of Babylon _110_
The Flaming Circle _112_
Portrait of a Machine _114_
Roast Leviathan _115_
JOHN GOULD FLETCHER
A Rebel _127_
The Rock _128_
Blue Water _129_
Prayers for Wind _130_
Impromptu _131_
Chinese Poet Among Barbarians _132_
Snowy Mountains _133_
The Future _134_
Upon the Hill _136_
The Enduring _137_
JEAN STARR UNTERMEYER
Old Man _141_
Tone Picture _142_
They Say-- _143_
Rescue _144_
Mater in Extremis _146_
Self-Rejected _147_
H. D.
Holy Satyr _151_
Lais _153_
Heliodora _156_
Toward the Piraeus _161_
_Slay with your eyes, Greek_
_You would have broken my wings_
_I loved you_
_What had you done_
_If I had been a boy_
_It was not chastity that made me cold_
CONRAD AIKEN
Seven Twilights _171_
_The ragged pilgrim on the road to nowhere_
_Now by the wall of the ancient town_
_When the tree bares, the music of it changes_
_"This is the hour," she says, "of transmutation"_
_Now the great wheel of darkness and low clouds_
_Heaven, you say, will be a field in April_
_In the long silence of the sea_
Tetelestai _184_
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Eight Sonnets _193_
_When you, that at this moment are to me_
_What's this of death, from you who never will die_
_I know I am but summer to your heart_
_Here is a wound that never will heal, I know_
_What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why_
_Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare_
_Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word! _
_Say what you will, and scratch my heart to find_
BIBLIOGRAPHY _201_
AMY LOWELL
LILACS
Lilacs,
False blue,
White,
Purple,
Color of lilac,
Your great puffs of flowers
Are everywhere in this my New England.
Among your heart-shaped leaves
Orange orioles hop like music-box birds and sing
Their little weak soft songs;
In the crooks of your branches
The bright eyes of song sparrows sitting on spotted eggs
Peer restlessly through the light and shadow
Of all Springs.
Lilacs in dooryards
Holding quiet conversations with an early moon;
Lilacs watching a deserted house
Settling sideways into the grass of an old road;
Lilacs, wind-beaten, staggering under a lopsided shock of bloom
Above a cellar dug into a hill.
You are everywhere.
You were everywhere.
You tapped the window when the preacher preached his sermon,
And ran along the road beside the boy going to school.
You stood by pasture-bars to give the cows good milking,
You persuaded the housewife that her dish-pan was of silver
And her husband an image of pure gold.
You flaunted the fragrance of your blossoms
Through the wide doors of Custom Houses--
You, and sandal-wood, and tea,
Charging the noses of quill-driving clerks
When a ship was in from China.
You called to them: "Goose-quill men, goose-quill men,
May is a month for flitting,"
Until they writhed on their high stools
And wrote poetry on their letter-sheets behind the propped-up
ledgers.
Paradoxical New England clerks,
Writing inventories in ledgers, reading the "Song of Solomon" at
night,
So many verses before bedtime,
Because it was the Bible.
The dead fed you
Amid the slant stones of graveyards.
Pale ghosts who planted you
Came in the night time
And let their thin hair blow through your clustered stems.
You are of the green sea,
And of the stone hills which reach a long distance.
You are of elm-shaded streets with little shops where they sell
kites and marbles,
You are of great parks where every one walks and nobody is at home.
You cover the blind sides of greenhouses
And lean over the top to say a hurry-word through the glass
To your friends, the grapes, inside.
Lilacs,
False blue,
White,
Purple,
Color of lilac,
You have forgotten your Eastern origin,
The veiled women with eyes like panthers,
The swollen, aggressive turbans of jeweled Pashas.
Now you are a very decent flower,
A reticent flower,
A curiously clear-cut, candid flower,
Standing beside clean doorways,
Friendly to a house-cat and a pair of spectacles,
Making poetry out of a bit of moonlight
And a hundred or two sharp blossoms.
Maine knows you,
Has for years and years;
New Hampshire knows you,
And Massachusetts
And Vermont.
Cape Cod starts you along the beaches to Rhode Island;
Connecticut takes you from a river to the sea.
You are brighter than apples,
Sweeter than tulips,
You are the great flood of our souls
Bursting above the leaf-shapes of our hearts,
You are the smell of all Summers,
The love of wives and children,
The recollection of the gardens of little children,
You are State Houses and Charters
And the familiar treading of the foot to and fro on a road it knows.
May is lilac here in New England,
May is a thrush singing "Sun up! " on a tip-top ash-tree,
May is white clouds behind pine-trees
Puffed out and marching upon a blue sky.
May is a green as no other,
May is much sun through small leaves,
May is soft earth,
And apple-blossoms,
And windows open to a South wind.
sense that (with two exceptions) they cannot be found in book form, but
most of them have never previously been published. Certain of the
selections have appeared in recent magazines and these are reprinted by
permission of _The Century_, _The Yale Review_, _Poetry: A Magazine of
Verse_, _The New Republic_, _Harper's_, _Scribner's_, _The Bookman_,
_The Freeman_, _Broom_, _The Dial_, _The Atlantic Monthly_, _Farm and
Fireside_, _The Measure_, and _The Literary Review_. Vachel Lindsay's "I
Know All This When Gipsy Fiddles Cry" is a revised version of the poem
of that name which was printed in _The Enchanted Years_.
CONTENTS
_A Foreword_ _III_
AMY LOWELL
Lilacs _3_
Twenty-four Hokku on a Modern Theme _8_
The Swans _13_
Prime _16_
Vespers _17_
In Excelsis _18_
La Ronde du Diable _20_
ROBERT FROST
Fire and Ice _25_
The Grindstone _26_
The Witch of Coos _29_
A Brook in the City _37_
Design _38_
CARL SANDBURG
And So To-day _41_
California City Landscape _49_
Upstream _51_
Windflower Leaf _52_
VACHEL LINDSAY
In Praise of Johnny Appleseed _55_
I Know All This When Gipsy Fiddles Cry _66_
JAMES OPPENHEIM
Hebrews _75_
ALFRED KREYMBORG
Adagio: A Duet _79_
Die Kuche _80_
Rain _81_
Peasant _83_
Bubbles _85_
Dirge _87_
Colophon _88_
SARA TEASDALE
Wisdom _91_
Places _92_
_Twilight_ (Tucson)
_Full Moon_ (Santa Barbara)
_Winter Sun_ (Lenox)
_Evening_ (Nahant)
Words for an Old Air _97_
Those Who Love _98_
Two Songs for Solitude _99_
_The Crystal Gazer_
_The Solitary_
LOUIS UNTERMEYER
Monolog from a Mattress _103_
Waters of Babylon _110_
The Flaming Circle _112_
Portrait of a Machine _114_
Roast Leviathan _115_
JOHN GOULD FLETCHER
A Rebel _127_
The Rock _128_
Blue Water _129_
Prayers for Wind _130_
Impromptu _131_
Chinese Poet Among Barbarians _132_
Snowy Mountains _133_
The Future _134_
Upon the Hill _136_
The Enduring _137_
JEAN STARR UNTERMEYER
Old Man _141_
Tone Picture _142_
They Say-- _143_
Rescue _144_
Mater in Extremis _146_
Self-Rejected _147_
H. D.
Holy Satyr _151_
Lais _153_
Heliodora _156_
Toward the Piraeus _161_
_Slay with your eyes, Greek_
_You would have broken my wings_
_I loved you_
_What had you done_
_If I had been a boy_
_It was not chastity that made me cold_
CONRAD AIKEN
Seven Twilights _171_
_The ragged pilgrim on the road to nowhere_
_Now by the wall of the ancient town_
_When the tree bares, the music of it changes_
_"This is the hour," she says, "of transmutation"_
_Now the great wheel of darkness and low clouds_
_Heaven, you say, will be a field in April_
_In the long silence of the sea_
Tetelestai _184_
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
Eight Sonnets _193_
_When you, that at this moment are to me_
_What's this of death, from you who never will die_
_I know I am but summer to your heart_
_Here is a wound that never will heal, I know_
_What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why_
_Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare_
_Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word! _
_Say what you will, and scratch my heart to find_
BIBLIOGRAPHY _201_
AMY LOWELL
LILACS
Lilacs,
False blue,
White,
Purple,
Color of lilac,
Your great puffs of flowers
Are everywhere in this my New England.
Among your heart-shaped leaves
Orange orioles hop like music-box birds and sing
Their little weak soft songs;
In the crooks of your branches
The bright eyes of song sparrows sitting on spotted eggs
Peer restlessly through the light and shadow
Of all Springs.
Lilacs in dooryards
Holding quiet conversations with an early moon;
Lilacs watching a deserted house
Settling sideways into the grass of an old road;
Lilacs, wind-beaten, staggering under a lopsided shock of bloom
Above a cellar dug into a hill.
You are everywhere.
You were everywhere.
You tapped the window when the preacher preached his sermon,
And ran along the road beside the boy going to school.
You stood by pasture-bars to give the cows good milking,
You persuaded the housewife that her dish-pan was of silver
And her husband an image of pure gold.
You flaunted the fragrance of your blossoms
Through the wide doors of Custom Houses--
You, and sandal-wood, and tea,
Charging the noses of quill-driving clerks
When a ship was in from China.
You called to them: "Goose-quill men, goose-quill men,
May is a month for flitting,"
Until they writhed on their high stools
And wrote poetry on their letter-sheets behind the propped-up
ledgers.
Paradoxical New England clerks,
Writing inventories in ledgers, reading the "Song of Solomon" at
night,
So many verses before bedtime,
Because it was the Bible.
The dead fed you
Amid the slant stones of graveyards.
Pale ghosts who planted you
Came in the night time
And let their thin hair blow through your clustered stems.
You are of the green sea,
And of the stone hills which reach a long distance.
You are of elm-shaded streets with little shops where they sell
kites and marbles,
You are of great parks where every one walks and nobody is at home.
You cover the blind sides of greenhouses
And lean over the top to say a hurry-word through the glass
To your friends, the grapes, inside.
Lilacs,
False blue,
White,
Purple,
Color of lilac,
You have forgotten your Eastern origin,
The veiled women with eyes like panthers,
The swollen, aggressive turbans of jeweled Pashas.
Now you are a very decent flower,
A reticent flower,
A curiously clear-cut, candid flower,
Standing beside clean doorways,
Friendly to a house-cat and a pair of spectacles,
Making poetry out of a bit of moonlight
And a hundred or two sharp blossoms.
Maine knows you,
Has for years and years;
New Hampshire knows you,
And Massachusetts
And Vermont.
Cape Cod starts you along the beaches to Rhode Island;
Connecticut takes you from a river to the sea.
You are brighter than apples,
Sweeter than tulips,
You are the great flood of our souls
Bursting above the leaf-shapes of our hearts,
You are the smell of all Summers,
The love of wives and children,
The recollection of the gardens of little children,
You are State Houses and Charters
And the familiar treading of the foot to and fro on a road it knows.
May is lilac here in New England,
May is a thrush singing "Sun up! " on a tip-top ash-tree,
May is white clouds behind pine-trees
Puffed out and marching upon a blue sky.
May is a green as no other,
May is much sun through small leaves,
May is soft earth,
And apple-blossoms,
And windows open to a South wind.
