Poems, 1914-1919

And far away on the ocean’s blazing rim,
The phantom ship that brought Ulysses home.

RUSSIA

What can the secret link between us be?
Why does your song’s unresting ebb and flow
Speak to me in a language that I know?
Why does the burden of your mystery
Come like the message of a friend to me?
Why do I love your vasts of corn or snow,
The tears and laughter of your sleepless woe,
The murmur of your brown immensity?

I cannot say, I only know that when
I hear your soldiers singing in the street,
I know it is with you that I would dwell;
And when I see your peasants reaping wheat,
Your children playing on the road, your men
At prayer before a shrine, I wish them well.

A JUNE NIGHT IN RUSSIA

A concert. Hark to the prelude’s opening bar!
Played by the sheep bells tinkling on the hill;
Dogs bark and frogs are croaking near the mill,
The watchman’s rattle beats the time afar.
Like water bubbling in a magic jar,
The nightingale begins a liquid trill,
Another answers; and the world’s so still,
You’d think that you could hear that falling star.

I scarcely see for light the stars that swim
Aloof in skies not dark but only dim.
The women’s voices echo far away.
And on the road two lovers sing a song:
They sing the joy of love that lasts a day:
The sorrow of love that lasts a whole life long.

HARVEST IN RUSSIA

The breeze has come at last. The day was long;
And in the lustrous air the dark bats fly;
And Hark! It is the reapers passing by,
I hear the burden of their peaceful song.
A voice intones; and swift the answering throng
Take up the theme and build the harmony;
The music swells and soars into the sky
And dies away intense, and clear and strong.

Now through the trees the stately shapes I see
Of women with the attributes of toil,
Calm in their sacerdotal majesty;
And backward, through the drifting mist of years,
I see the festal rites that blessed the soil,
As old as the first drop of mortal tears.

DOSTOYEVSKY

You healed the sore, you made the fearful brave,
They bless you for your lasting legacy;
The balm, the tears, the fragrant charity
You sought and treasured in your living grave.
The gifts you humbly took you greatly gave,
For solace of the soul in agony,
When through the bars the brutal passions pry,
And mock the bonds of the celestial slave.

You wandered in the uttermost abyss;
And there, amidst the ashes and the dust,
You spoke no word of anger or of pride;
You found the prints of steps divine to kiss;
You looked right upwards to the stars, you cried:
“Hosanna to the Lord, for He is just.”

BEETHOVEN

More mighty than the hosts of mortal kings,
I hear the legions gathering to their goal;
The tramping millions drifting from one pole,
The march, the counter-march, the flank that swings.
I hear the beating of tremendous wings,
The shock of battle and the drums that roll;
And far away the solemn belfries toll,
And in the field the careless shepherd sings.

There is an end unto the longest day.
The echoes of the fighting die away.
The evening breathes a benediction mild.
The sunset fades. There is no need to weep,
For night has come, and with the night is sleep,
And now the fiercest foes are reconciled.

MOZART

The sunshine, and the grace of falling rain,
The fluttering daffodil, the lilt of bees,
The blossom on the boughs of almond trees,
The waving of the wheat upon the plain —
And all that knows not effort, strife or strain,