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GHOSTS
By Samuel Roth
She stood half leaning in the dark doorway, Light kindling softly in her anxious eyes:
"I tire," she pleaded, "tire of all that's wise And witty.
GHOSTS
By Samuel Roth
She stood half leaning in the dark doorway, Light kindling softly in her anxious eyes:
"I tire," she pleaded, "tire of all that's wise And witty.
Contemporary Verse - v01-02
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Out of my mother's arms into your own!
Hold me, O love, serene against your breast The sun takes up the wave and gives the rain. Over the dead the grass is green again.
The lark is singing on the ruined wall.
ON BEING ASKED FOR A POEM By "A. G. H. S. "
Oh friend, oh comrade of the radiant days
Of love, of hope, of passionate surmise
When beauty throbbed like heat before the eyes And even sorrow wore a golden haze!
Can you not let them rest, those sacred ghosts
Of our dead selves—yes, yours and mine and theirs Who knew not life, yet wept its utmost cares And laughed more joys than all creation boasts?
Then was my spirit vibrant with the spheres;
Its strings across the ringing vault lay hot
Where passed to God the laughter and the tears And all the million prayers He heeded not.
But now, dear friend, chilled by the wind of years My heart is mute and all its song forgot.
»3
GHOSTS
By Samuel Roth
She stood half leaning in the dark doorway, Light kindling softly in her anxious eyes:
"I tire," she pleaded, "tire of all that's wise And witty. Is there nothing you can say"
Of love, our love, that is not of the day?
It lingered in my heart but could not rise
The word that would have wrought the sweet surmise Which turns to godliness the common clay.
Ah many days have passed and she and I
Never since crossed the green of sea or grass Together. Now I know what silenced me.
The world of shadows, ghosts that will not die, Guarded Love's Gate and would not let me pass,
And we are patient as the dead can be!
SHELLEY By Samuel Roth
Our poet, says a simple tale of him,
Held with a stubborn reverence the faith
That babes are born in heaven, and, so saith
This tale, perhaps spurred by a sudden whim,
With one new born held converse lengthy. "Oh, Pray, sir, "the lady " spake all laughter riven,
"What means this? "I but ask for news of heaven. " "Surely," —the lady smiling —"he can't know. "
And then, so runs this tale, our singer prince,
His soft eyes darkling brightly, and his lips
Widening like the child's: "O say it not.
It is but thirty dawns and twilights since
He left his playmates back of the eclipse,
It cannot be he has so soon forgot. "
34
MORIENS PROFECTUS By John Orth Cook
The silver bugle blows across the meer,
Rising and falling in the evening air;
And we, who all our lives have walked in fear,
Go through the thickening darkness, following where The music leads us, —be it far or near !
And no man pauses. For we are of those Whom Time has worsted in his mimic close: —But we have no despair, no grief, no woes.
The silver bugle blows across the meer,
And some will hear it early, others late;
But each will lay himself upon his bier
And hold thereon a moment's solemn state:
And there will be the brief funereal rites Whence all shall pass into the utter drear Where sunless, moonless, days succeed to nights, And no wind stirs the surface of the meer.
Hold me, O love, serene against your breast The sun takes up the wave and gives the rain. Over the dead the grass is green again.
The lark is singing on the ruined wall.
ON BEING ASKED FOR A POEM By "A. G. H. S. "
Oh friend, oh comrade of the radiant days
Of love, of hope, of passionate surmise
When beauty throbbed like heat before the eyes And even sorrow wore a golden haze!
Can you not let them rest, those sacred ghosts
Of our dead selves—yes, yours and mine and theirs Who knew not life, yet wept its utmost cares And laughed more joys than all creation boasts?
Then was my spirit vibrant with the spheres;
Its strings across the ringing vault lay hot
Where passed to God the laughter and the tears And all the million prayers He heeded not.
But now, dear friend, chilled by the wind of years My heart is mute and all its song forgot.
»3
GHOSTS
By Samuel Roth
She stood half leaning in the dark doorway, Light kindling softly in her anxious eyes:
"I tire," she pleaded, "tire of all that's wise And witty. Is there nothing you can say"
Of love, our love, that is not of the day?
It lingered in my heart but could not rise
The word that would have wrought the sweet surmise Which turns to godliness the common clay.
Ah many days have passed and she and I
Never since crossed the green of sea or grass Together. Now I know what silenced me.
The world of shadows, ghosts that will not die, Guarded Love's Gate and would not let me pass,
And we are patient as the dead can be!
SHELLEY By Samuel Roth
Our poet, says a simple tale of him,
Held with a stubborn reverence the faith
That babes are born in heaven, and, so saith
This tale, perhaps spurred by a sudden whim,
With one new born held converse lengthy. "Oh, Pray, sir, "the lady " spake all laughter riven,
"What means this? "I but ask for news of heaven. " "Surely," —the lady smiling —"he can't know. "
And then, so runs this tale, our singer prince,
His soft eyes darkling brightly, and his lips
Widening like the child's: "O say it not.
It is but thirty dawns and twilights since
He left his playmates back of the eclipse,
It cannot be he has so soon forgot. "
34
MORIENS PROFECTUS By John Orth Cook
The silver bugle blows across the meer,
Rising and falling in the evening air;
And we, who all our lives have walked in fear,
Go through the thickening darkness, following where The music leads us, —be it far or near !
And no man pauses. For we are of those Whom Time has worsted in his mimic close: —But we have no despair, no grief, no woes.
The silver bugle blows across the meer,
And some will hear it early, others late;
But each will lay himself upon his bier
And hold thereon a moment's solemn state:
And there will be the brief funereal rites Whence all shall pass into the utter drear Where sunless, moonless, days succeed to nights, And no wind stirs the surface of the meer.
