The Little Book of Modern Verse | Page 9

wader where the swamps are fat?
Some
gorger in the sun? Some prowler with the bat?

IX
Ah, no!
We have not fallen so.
We are our fathers' sons: let those
who lead us know!
'T was only yesterday sick Cuba's cry
Came up
the tropic wind, "Now help us, for we die!"
Then Alabama heard,

And rising, pale, to Maine and Idaho
Shouted a burning word.

Proud state with proud impassioned state conferred,
And at the lifting
of a hand sprang forth,
East, west, and south, and north,
Beautiful
armies. Oh, by the sweet blood and young
Shed on the awful hill
slope at San Juan,
By the unforgotten names of eager boys
Who
might have tasted girl's love and been stung
With the old mystic joys

And starry griefs, now the spring nights come on,
But that the heart
of youth is generous, --
We charge you, ye who lead us,
Breathe on
their chivalry no hint of stain!
Turn not their new-world victories to
gain!
One least leaf plucked for chaffer from the bays
Of their dear
praise,
One jot of their pure conquest put to hire,
The implacable
republic will require;
With clamor, in the glare and gaze of noon,

Or subtly, coming as a thief at night,
But surely, very surely, slow or
soon
That insult deep we deeply will requite.
Tempt not our
weakness, our cupidity!
For save we let the island men go free,

Those baffled and dislaureled ghosts
Will curse us from the
lamentable coasts
Where walk the frustrate dead.
The cup of
trembling shall be drained quite,
Eaten the sour bread of astonishment,

With ashes of the hearth shall be made white
Our hair, and wailing
shall be in the tent;
Then on your guiltier head
Shall our intolerable
self-disdain
Wreak suddenly its anger and its pain;
For manifest in
that disastrous light
We shall discern the right
And do it, tardily. --
O ye who lead,
Take heed!
Blindness we may forgive, but baseness
we will smite.
Candlemas. [Alice Brown]
O hearken, all ye little weeds
That lie beneath the snow,
(So low,
dear hearts, in poverty so low!)

The sun hath risen for royal deeds,
A valiant wind the vanguard leads;

Now quicken ye, lest unborn seeds
Before ye rise and blow.
O furry living things, adream
On winter's drowsy breast,
(How rest
ye there, how softly, safely rest!)
Arise and follow where a gleam
Of wizard gold unbinds the stream,

And all the woodland windings seem
With sweet expectance blest.
My birds, come back! the hollow sky
Is weary for your note.

(Sweet-throat, come back! O liquid, mellow throat!)
Ere May's soft minions hereward fly,
Shame on ye, laggards, to deny

The brooding breast, the sun-bright eye,
The tawny, shining coat!
The Unreturning. [Bliss Carman]
The old eternal spring once more
Comes back the sad eternal way,

With tender rosy light before
The going-out of day.
The great white moon across my door
A shadow in the twilight stirs;

But now forever comes no more
That wondrous look of Hers.
A Song in Spring. [Thomas S. Jones, Jr.]
O little buds all bourgeoning with Spring,
You hold my winter in
forgetfulness;
Without my window lilac branches swing,
Within my
gate I hear a robin sing --
O little laughing blooms that lift and bless!
So blow the breezes in a soft caress,
Blowing my dreams upon a
swallow's wing;
O little merry buds in dappled dress,
You fill my
heart with very wantonness --
O little buds all bourgeoning with
Spring!
May is building her House. [Richard Le Gallienne]

May is building her house. With apple blooms
She is roofing over the glimmering rooms;
Of the oak and the beech
hath she builded its beams,
And, spinning all day at her secret looms,
With arras of leaves each
wind-swayed wall
She pictureth over, and peopleth it all
With echoes and dreams,
And singing of streams.
May is building her house. Of petal and blade,
Of the roots of the oak,
is the flooring made,
With a carpet of mosses and lichen and clover,
Each small miracle
over and over,
And tender, traveling green things strayed.
Her windows, the morning and evening star,
And her rustling
doorways, ever ajar
With the coming and going
Of fair things blowing,
The thresholds
of the four winds are.
May is building her house. From the dust of things
She is making the
songs and the flowers and the wings;
From October's tossed and trodden gold
She is making the young
year out of the old;
Yea: out of winter's flying sleet
She is making
all the summer sweet,
And the brown leaves spurned of November's
feet
She is changing back again to spring's.
Here is the Place where Loveliness keeps House. [Madison Cawein]
Here is the place where Loveliness keeps house,
Between the river
and the wooded hills,
Within a valley where the Springtime spills

Her firstling wind-flowers under blossoming boughs:
Where Summer
sits braiding her warm, white brows
With bramble-roses; and where

Autumn fills
Her lap with asters; and old Winter frills
With crimson
haw and hip his snowy blouse.
Here you may meet with Beauty. Here
she sits
Gazing upon the moon, or all the day
Tuning a wood-thrush
flute, remote, unseen:
Or when the storm is out, 't is she who flits

From rock to rock, a form of flying spray,
Shouting, beneath the
leaves' tumultuous green.