The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dyak Chief, and other verses, by
Erwin Clarkson Garrett
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Title: The Dyak Chief, and other verses
Author: Erwin Clarkson Garrett
Release Date: September 26, 2016 [EBook #53149]
Language: English
Character set encoding: UTF-8
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THE DYAK CHIEF
{1}
AND OTHER VERSES
{2}
{3}
The Dyak Chief
and Other Verses
BY
ERWIN CLARKSON GARRETT
Author of
“My Bunkie and Other Ballads”
![[Image of the colophon unavailable.]](images/colophon.jpg)
NEW YORK
BARSE & HOPKINS
PUBLISHERS
{4}
Copyright, 1914
By BARSE & HOPKINS
{5}
To My Mother
Some Ye bid to teach us, Lord,
And some Ye bid to learn;
And some Ye bid to triumph—
And some to yearn and yearn:
And some Ye bid to conquer
In blood by land and sea;
And some Ye bid to tarry here—
To prove the love of Thee.
{6}
{7}
PREFACE
Neither desiring to plagiarize Cæsar nor to compare my book to Gaul, I
wish to mention briefly that this volume as a whole is divided into
three parts, of which one is occupied by the single poem, “The Dyak
Chief,” the verses that give title to the book; another, the second, is
occupied by American army ballads, and yet another, the third, is
occupied by various verses on miscellaneous subjects.
However, if recollections of my personal campaigns against Cæsar—armed
only with a Latin vocabulary and grammar—serve me rightly, the old
Roman was not merely a worthy foe, but one who might well be held up as
a worthy example; who dealt with his chronicles as he dealt with his
enemies on the field, in a simple, direct, forcible manner, bare of
circumlocution, tautology or ambiguity—that he who runs may read—and
reading, know his Gaul and Gallic chieftains, his Cæsar and his Cæsar’s
legionaries, even as Cæsar knew them.
The initial poem, “The Dyak Chief,” forming Part One, is a romance of
Central Borneo, that I visited in July, 1908, during a little trip
around the World.{8}
Coming over from Java, which I had just finished touring, I arrived at
Bandjermasin, in southeastern Borneo, near the coast, and from whence I
took a small steamer up the Barito River to Poeroek Tjahoe, pronounced
“Poorook Jow,” deep in the interior of the island.
Poeroek Tjahoe was the last white (Dutch) settlement, and from there I
went with three Malay coolies five days tramp on foot through the
jungle, northwest, penetrating the very heart of Borneo, sleeping the
first three nights in the houses of the Dyaks, some nomadic tribes of
whom still roam the jungle as head-hunters, and the last two nights upon
improvised platforms out in the open, till I reached Batoe Paoe, a town
or kampong in the geographical center of the island.
I also visited a nearby village, Olong Liko, afterwards returning by the
Moeroeng and Barito Rivers to Poeroek Tjahoe, and from thence back to
Bandjermasin on the little river-steamer and then by boat to Singapore,
which was the radiating headquarters for my trips to Sumatra, Java,
Borneo and Siam.
Having thus reached the very center of Borneo on foot, I had an
excellent opportunity to study the country, the people and the general
conditions, so that the reader of “The Dyak Chief” need feel no
hesitancy in accepting as accurate and authentic, all descriptions,
details and touches of{9} “local color” or “atmosphere” contained in the
poem.
Full notes on “The Dyak Chief” will be found at the end of the volume.
Part Two contains a number of new American army ballads, gathered mostly
as a result of my personal observations and experiences when serving as
a private in Companies “L” and “G,” 23rd U. S. Infantry (Regulars) and
Troop “I,” 5th U. S. Cavalry (Regulars), during the Philippine
Insurrection of 1899-1902.
As I have just mentioned, the army verses are all new ones, and
consequently not to be found among those contained in my previous
volume, “My Bunkie and Other Ballads.”
Part Three consists of individual poems on various subjects without any
interrelation.
It is sincerely hoped that the reader will make full use of the notes
appended at the end of the book, which addenda I have endeavored to
treat with as much brevity as may be compatible with succinctness.
E. C. G.
Philadelphia, February 1st, 1914.
CONTENTS
{10}
{11}
PART ONE
THE DYAK CHIEF
{12}
{13}
THE DYAK CHIEF
Hear ye a tale from the deepest depths of the heart of Borneo,
Where the Moeroeng leaps in wild cascades,
And the endless green of the jungle fades,
And night shuts down on the fern-choked glades
Where the kampong hearth-fires glow.
Listen, Oh White Man, that ye hear
The words of a Dyak chief,
Till ye learn the weight of the Dyak hate
And the depth of the Dyak grief.
Once in the days of my strength and pride
I loved a kampong maid,
And very old was the tale I told
’Neath the lace of the jungle shade.
And very old was the tale I told,
Though born year by year;
Till I thought of the headless waist I bore—
And I drew the maiden near:{14}
And I pledged her there by the tree-banked stream
Where the rippling shadows flee,
“None but the skull of a kampong chief
Shall hang at my belt for thee.”
II
When over the palm-topped endless hills
First broke the golden day,
The taintless breeze in the highest trees
Laughed as I swung away.
Laughed as I climbed the mountain path
Or skirted the river’s bank,
And the great lianes sung to me
As on my knees I drank.
And the great lianes softly swayed
And twisted in snake-like guise,
Till I lost their sight in the leafy height
Where peeped the purple skies.
And down through the dank morasses
I leapt from clod to clod,
O’er fallen trunk and lifted root
And the ooze of the sunken sod—
{15}
Where the tiny trees stand tall and straight,
A mass of mossy green,
And lighting all like a fairy hall
The sunlight sifts between.
Day by day through stress and strain
I pressed my marches through;
Day by day through strain and stress
The weary hours flew.
And silent, from the dank brown leaves
As swept my hurrying tread,
The little waiting leeches rose
And caught me as I sped.
Till my feet and ankles bled in streams—
But I let them clinging stay,
And they swelled to seven times their size
And glutted and fell away.
For never time had I to stop,
And so they sucked their fill,
As I splashed through the knee-deep rivers
And clambered the jungle hill.
And only night could halt me,
And the stars in their proud parade,
They bade me look to the fray before,
And back to the kampong maid.
{16}
III
Weary at last I reached a height
That showed a fertile glade,
Where the bending trees of the river brink
Leaned out o’er a wild cascade.
And white above the waving banks
The towering giants rose high,
And tossed their heads in hauteur,
Full-plumed across the sky.
And waved their long lianes
A hundred feet in air,
And shook their clinging vine-leaves
As a Dyak maid her hair.
And down by the Moeroeng’s turning
The river rock rose sheer,
And out of the cracks the tasseled palms
Like mighty plumes hung clear.
While still, behind a boulder,
Where the little ripples gleam,
A fisher sat in his sunken proa
In the midst of the gliding stream.{17}
Only the crash of the underbrush
Told where a hunter sped,
And I caught the glint of the morning sun
On the blow-spear’s glittering head.
Only the crack of a mandauw
Felling the little trees,
And the murmuring call of a water-fall
That echoed the jungle breeze.
But more to me than the hunter—
The fisher and stream and hill—
Was the kampong deep in the hollow,
Nestling dark and still.
Dark and still in the valley,
A single house and strong;
Perched on piles two warriors high
And a hundred paces long.
And straight before the tall-stepped door
The mighty chief poles rose,
And seemed to shake their tasseled tops
In warning to their foes—
As they who slept beneath them
Once did, when in their might—
With shining steel and sinews—
Full-armed they sprang to fight.{18}
Long from the hill-side trees I watched
The water women go
Back and forth to the river bank,
Chattering to and fro.
Long from the hill-side trees I watched
Till—straight as the windless flame—
With spear and shield and mandauw,
The kampong chieftain came.
Full well I knew the waist-cloth blue
Where hung each shriveled head.
Full well I saw the eyes of awe
That followed in his tread.
Full well I heard the spoken word—
The quick obedience fanned—
And I felt the trance of the royal glance
Of the Lord of the Jungle-land.
Lightly he scorned the proffered guard
As he strode the upland grade,
And softly I drew my mandauw
And fingered the sharpened blade.
Was it for game or a head he came
To the hills in the golden morn?
But little I cared as the heavens stared
On the day that my hope was born.{19}
For over and over I muttered—
As I slunk from tree to tree—
“None but the head of a kampong chief
Shall hang at my belt for thee.”
(None but the head of a kampong chief
For you my belt shall grace,
Taken by right in fairest fight—
Full-fronted—face to face.)
And I found a leafy clearing
That lay across his path,
And I stood to wait his coming—
The chieftain in his wrath.
As the moan before the wind-storm
That breaks across the night,
Were the rhythmic, muffled foot falls
Of the war-lord come to fight.
The crack of little branches—
The branches pushed away—
And the Scourge of the Moeroeng Valley
Sprang straight to the waiting fray.
’Twas then I knew the stories true
They told of his fearful fame,
As through my shield a hand’s-length
His hurtling spearhead came.{20}
Stunned I reeled and a moment kneeled
To the shock of the blinding blow,
But I rose again at the stinging pain
And the wet of the warm blood’s flow.
And I staggered straight and I scorned to wait
And I swept my mandauw high—
But ere my stroke descended
He smote me athwart the thigh.
As the lean rattan at the workman’s knife—
As the stricken game in the dell—
As a bird on the wing at the blow-spear’s sting,
To the reddened earth I fell.
And merrily with fiendish glee
He knelt and held me fast;
And I looked on high at the fleecy sky—
And I thought the look was the last.
But by the will that knows no law
I wrenched my right hand free,
And I drove my mandauw’s gleaming point
A hand’s-breadth in his knee.
Stung by the pain he loosened,
And a moment bared his breast,
And like the dash of the lightning flash
My weapon sought its rest.{21}
As a log in the Moeroeng rapids
The mighty chieftain rolled,
And I pinned him fast for the head-stroke,
In the reek of the blood-stained mold.
And I pinned him fast for the head-stroke—
But the glare of the dying eyes
Gleamed forth to show the worthy foe
And the heart that never dies.
. . . . . . . . . .
A moment toward a kampong,
And toward a kampong maid,
I looked ... and a head rolled helpless
To the crash of a falling blade.
IV
With strips from my torn jacket
I bound my arm and thigh,
And I headed back o’er the leafy track
With hope and spirits high.
And as I sped with leaping heart
All Nature seemed to sing;
And my legs ran red where trickling bled
The head of the Jungle King.{22}
The purring tree-tops called me—
The fleecy clouds rolled by—
And the forest green was a sun-shot sheen,
And the sky was a laughing sky.
And only night could halt me,
And the stars in their proud parade,
They bade me look to the path before
That led to the kampong maid.
Bleeding and torn, spent and worn,
At last I reached the hill,
Whence each hearth-light in the falling night
Was a welcome bright and still.
For each hearth-light in the falling night
Cut clear through the growing gloam—
Of all brave things the best that brings
The weary Wanderer home.
But the waiting watchers spied me,
And met me as I ran;
And they saw the head of the chieftain,
And they hailed me man and man.
But through the heart-whole greetings
I felt the anxious gaze,
And over my brain like a pall was lain
The weight of the Doubter’s craze.{23}
And I begged them to tell me quickly—
For I quailed at the story stayed—
And I asked them if aught had happened
To the head of the kampong maid.
And there in the leafy gloaming—
Where the stars lit one by one,
They told me the tale at my homing—
And I felt the passions run—
Hate as the white-hot flame jet—
Shame as the burning bar—
Grief as the poisoned arrow—
Revenge as the salted scar:
Rankling—roaring—blinding—
Rising and ebbing low;
Till overhead the skies burst red,
And I tottered beneath the blow.
For they told of a White Man’s coming,
And the weapon that carries far;
And his love for the Maid—but over it laid
The hush of the falling star.
Faithlessness—treachery—cunning—
Weakness and love and fear—
Oh very old was the tale they told,
Though born year by year.{24}
And I drew my blade and I leapt away—
But they sprang and held me fast:
And they promised me there by the dead chief’s hair,
My hate should be filled to the last.
And they showed me him bound and knotted
To the base of a splintered tree,
Stripped to the sun and spat upon
And taunted—awaiting me.
And I saw her in the shadows—
But ... I might not know her, then—
A sneer for the kampong women—
And a jest for the kampong men.
. . . . . . . . . .
And thus in the days of my strength and pride,
From over the distant sea,
The White Man came in his open shame
And stole my love from me.
V
The next morn at the rising sun
The tom-toms roared their fill,
And echoed like rolling thunder
From hill to farthest hill.{25}
And the birds of the jungle fluttered
And lifted and soared away,
And we dragged the fettered prisoner forth
To blink at the blinding day.
Full length and naked on the ground
We staked him foot and hand,
And we laughed in glee as we watched to see
The pest of the jungle-land.
Oh we laughed in glee as we watched to see
The little leeches swing,
End on end till they reached the flesh
Of the prostrate, struggling Thing.
Like river flies in the summer rains
They covered the White Man o’er—
Body and legs and arms and face,
Till the whole was a bleeding sore.
And the red streams ran from the crusted pools
And crimsoned the leafy ground,
And the scent of gore but brought the more
As the smell of game to the hound.
Hour by hour I watched him die,
Slowly day by day,
Hour by hour I watched the flesh
Sinking and turning gray:{26}
Hour by hour I heard him shriek
To the skies and the White Man’s God—
But only the gluttons came again
And reddened the reeking sod.
Weeping, writhing, groaning—
Paled to an ashen dun—
And the clotted blood turned black as mud
And stunk in the midday sun.
(Bones where stretched the tautening flesh—
A shining, yellow sheen—
And the flies that helped the leeches work
In the stagnant pools between.)
. . . . . . . . . .
Till the fourth day broke in a blaze of gold—
And I knew the end was nigh—
And I called the tribes from near and far,
To watch the White Man die.
From every kampong of the south
Where the broad Barito winds—
From every kampong of the east
The murmuring hill-wind finds—
From every kampong of the west
Where the Djoeloi falls and leaps—
From every kampong of the north
Where the great Mohakkam sweeps—{27}
From east and west and south and north
The mighty warriors came,
To prove the weight of the Dyak hate
And the shame of the naked shame.
In noiseless scorn and wonder
They scanned the victim there,
Except that when an Elder spake
To mock at his despair.
Or when from out the long-house—
Where loosened footboards creaked—
A woman leaned in frenzy
And tore her hair and shrieked.
And from the wooded hill-tops
The answering echoes came,
Till all our far-flung wilderness
Stooped down to curse his name.
In sullen, savage silence
They watched the streamlets flow:
In savage, sullen silence—
The war-lords—row on row—
Ranged around by rank and years,
Oh goodly was the sight,
Square shouldered—spare—with muscles bare
Coiled in their knotted might—{28}
And little serpent eyes that gleamed
In glittering, primal hate,
Like adders, that beneath the leaves
The coming foot falls wait.
The shrunken heads about their belts
Stared with senseless grin,
As though in voiceless mummery
They mocked him in his sin.
As though in sightless greeting—
To make his entry good
To th’ lost and leering legion
Of the martyred brotherhood.
. . . . . . . . . .
We rubbed his lips with costly salt—
(You know how far it comes)—
And when he called for drink—we laughed—
And rolled the Sick-man’s Drums.
. . . . . . . . . .
They beckoned me unto his side—
The blood-stench filled the dell—
They asked me—“Ye are satisfied?”
And I answered—“It is well.”
The final glaze was settling fast—
The weary struggles ceased—
And on his breath was the moan of death
That prayed for life released.{29}
So we propped his mouth wide open
With a knob of rotten vine,
And the leeches entered greedily
As white men to their wine.
Palate and roof and tongue and gums,
They gushed in rivers gay—
And gasping—his own blood choked him—
And his Spirit passed away.
This is the tale the old chief tells
When the western gold-belt dies,
And the jungle trees in the evening breeze
Tower against the skies,
And the good-wife bakes the greasy cakes
Where the kampong hearth-fires rise.
{31}
{30}
PART TWO
AMERICAN ARMY BALLADS
{33}
{32}
ON THE WATER-WAGON
Pay-day’s done and I’ve had my little fun—
I’ve had my monthly row—
And they put me in “the mill” and they told me, “Peace be still,”
And—I am on the Water-wagon now.
Oh I’m on the Water-wagon and the time is surely draggin’
And I’m thirsty as I can be;
And I’m nursing of an eye that I got for being fly,
And I’m bunking back o’ bars exclusively.
Now wouldn’t it upset you—now wouldn’t it afret you
If they jugged you ’cause you got a little tight,
And a zig-zag course you laid when doing Dress Parade,
And you really thought Guide Right was Column Right.
Oh I’m on the Water-wagon but the trial is surely laggin’
And I’m dryer than the Arizona dust,{34}
And my throat is full o’ hay and I’m choppin’ wood all day
‘Cause the Sergeant of the Guard, he says I must.
The Jug is rank and slummy and I’m sitting like a dummy
Looking over at the barracks where I hear the mess-tins clang:
And the fool I am comes o’er me, as I chant the same old story,
The Ballad of the Guard-house—until I go and hang:—
“Oh I’m on the Water-wagon, you’ll never see me saggin’,
I am glued and tied and fastened to the seat ...”
And I hear the fellers snicker where the two lone candles flicker,
And I shut-up like a soldier—with the Ballad incomplete.
{35}
ARMY OF PACIFICATION
Cuba 1907
I’ve hiked a trail where the last marks fail
And the vine-choked jungles yawn,
I’ve doubled-out on a dirty scout
Two hours before the dawn,
I’ve done my drill when the palms hung still
And the rations nearly gone.
I’ve soldier’d in Pinar del Rio—
In ’Frisco and Aparri—
I’ve lifted their lights through the tropic nights
O’er the breast of a golden sea,
But this is surely the craziest puzzle
That ever has puzzled me.
It’s this. I’m here in Cuba
Where the royal palms swing high,
And the White Man’s plantations of all o’ the Nations
Are scattered ahither and nigh
And the native galoot who must revolute
Though no one can tell you just why.{36}
And when I go mapping the mountain and vale
Or a practice-march happens my way,
Each planter I meet is lovely and sweet
And setteth them up right away,
“And won’t I come in and how’ve I been?”
And—“How long do I think the troops stay?”
They never besprinkled my bosom
When I soldier’d over home,
Nor clasped me in glee when I came from the sea
Where the Seal Rock breakers comb,
Or stamped on a strike and scattered them wide
Like the scud of the back-set foam.
When I saved ’em their stinking Islands
They cursed me for being rough:
(They wouldn’t dare to have soldier’d there
But they called me brutal and tough.
I had done their work and the land was theirs,
Which I reckon was nearly enough).
They never enthuse over khaki or “blues”
Anywhere else I’ve been.
They never go wild and bless the child
And say “Oh Willie come in.”{37}
Though on my soul, I’m damned if I see
Just where is the Cardinal Sin.
I’m only a buck o’ the rank and file
As stupid as I can be,
So this is the craziest puzzle
That ever has puzzled me.
(I’m perfectly dry but I must bat an eye,
For you think that I cannot see.)
{38}
SOLITARY
We’re walking our post like a little tin soldier,
Backward and forward we go,
By the Solitary’s cell, which assuredly is hell—
It’s five foot square you know.
The boy was all right but he would get tight
When pay-day came around;
And the non-com he hated was thereupon slated
To measure 5-10 on the ground.
Oh yes, we’ve been in the calaboose,
We’ve done our turn in the jug;
’Cause the fellow we lick must go raise a kick—
The dirty, cowardly mug.
His heart was all right and his arm was all right,
But it’s fearful what drink will do:
And the corporal he hit with the butt of a gun
And nigh put the corporal through.
It’s way against orders, it’s awful, I know,
They’d jug me myself—what’s more—
But I must slip the beggar a chew and a smoke
Just under the jamb of the door.{39}
He’s bound to get Ten and a Bob for sure
Abreaking stone on the Isle,
So they fastened ’im fair in a five foot square
Till the day that they give ’im a trial.
Oh the Corporal o’ the Guard is a wakeful man—
My duty is written plain,
But the Solitary there in his cramped and lonely lair,
It’s enough to drive a man insane.
He’s time to repent for the money that he spent
And the temper that cursed him too,
When he’s breaking rock all day by the shores o’ ’Frisco Bay
Where he sees the happy homeward-bounds come through.
Shall we risk it—shall we risk it—heart o’ mine?
Oh damn the Corporal of the Guard.
While we slip “the makings” under to the Solitary’s wonder,
And the whispered thanks come back—“God bless you, pard.”{40}
THE SULTAN COMES TO TOWN
A Philippine Reminiscence of 1900
The Sultan of Jolo has come to town—
Do tell!
The Sultan of Jolo has come to town—
The Sultan of Jolo of great renown—
And he’s dressed like a general and walks like a clown
As well.
The Sultan of Jolo’s a mighty chief—
My word!
The Sultan of Jolo’s a mighty chief—
(Don’t call ’im a grafter or chicken-thief,
For you’ll surely come to your grief,
If heard).
The Sultan of Jolo’s such a stride,
And style!
The Sultan of Jolo’s such a stride,
And his skin’s the color of rhino hide,
And he cheweth betel-nut beside:
(Oh vile!){41}
The Sultan of Jolo’s a swell galoot—
You bet.
The Sultan of Jolo’s a swell galoot,
So we line the scorching streets and salute,
(“Presenting Arms” to the royal boot),
And sweat.
The Sultan of Jolo’s a full-fledged king—
I say
The Sultan of Jolo’s a full-fledged king
As down the regiment’s front they swing,
He and his Escort—wing and wing:
Hurray!
The Sultan of Jolo feels his weight,
In truth.
The Sultan of Jolo feels his weight
As he marches by in regal state
With Major Sour and all The Great,
Forsooth.
The Sultan proudly treads the earth
With “cuz.”
The Sultan proudly treads the earth
O’ershadowed by the Major’s girth,
But he knows just what the Major’s worth:
He does.{42}
The Sultan of Jolo’s a haughty bun—
(Don’t quiz).
The Sultan of Jolo’s a haughty bun—
An honest, virtuous gentleman—
And he’s rated high in Washington—
He is.
The Sultan of Jolo’s a splendid bird—
Whoopee!
The Sultan of Jolo’s a splendid bird,
But we in our ignorance pledge our word
His asinine plumage is absurd
To see.
The Sultan and Major Sour are
Such chums:
The Sultan and Major Sour are
So wrapped in love exceeding par,
That war shall never war-time mar—
—what comes.
(The Sultan of Jolo guesseth right—
Yo ho!
The Sultan of Jolo guesseth right,
As sure as daytime follows night,
That Major Sour wouldn’t fight:
Lord—no!){43}
The Sultan of Jolo is pretty wise—
(And weeds).
The Sultan of Jolo is pretty wise,
In spite of innocent, bovine eyes,
And the soothing tongue o’ the Eastern skies
And creeds.
The Sultan of Jolo passeth by—
Oh Lor’!
The Sultan of Jolo passeth by,
But we in the ranks can’t wink an eye,
Though we think we know the Reasons Why,
And more.
The Sultan of Jolo walketh flat—
(Have a care!)
The Sultan of Jolo walketh flat,
But Nature’s surely the cause of that;
And he’s salaried high—and sleek and fat—
So there!
The Sultan of Jolo laughs in glee—
Why not?
The Sultan of Jolo laughs in glee
As his wages come across the sea
From those who hate polygamy—
God wot!{44}
Oh the Sultan of Jolo’s gold and gilt—
He is.
Oh the Sultan of Jolo’s gold and gilt,
His chest and his sleeves and his good sword hilt,
And he knows the lines on which are built—
His biz.
{45}
PHILIPPINE RANKERS
Clear down the thin-thatched barrack-room
The varying voices rise—
The shrill New England teacher’s—
(The wisest of the wise)—
And the Cowboy cleaning cartridges
And telling fearful lies.
The Bowery Boy is fast asleep
Performing Bunk-fatigue,
The Kid who simply can’t keep still
Is pounding through a jig,
And a plain darn fool just sits and sings
And sneaks another swig.
A bouncing bargain-counter clerk
Dilates to Private Brown,
The lordly top-notch swell he is
When he is back in town,
And the scion of an ancient name
Just yawns and hides a frown.
The mountain-riding Parson talks
T’ his Y. M. C. A. band,
And mine Professor’s turning Keats
With hard and grimy hand,{46}
And Johnny’s reading football news
When baseball fills the land.
And some they pull together—
And some won’t gee at all—
And some are looking for a fight
And riding for a fall—
And some, they ran from prison bars;
And some, just heard The Call.
And some are simply “rotters”—
And some the Country’s best:
And some are from the cultured East—
And some the sculptured West:
And some they never heard of Burke—
And some they sport a crest.
(“The Backbone of the Army”—
“The Chosen of the Lord”—
The Faithful of the Fathers—
The Wielders of the Sword—
The hired of the helpless—
The bruisers and the bored.)
The east-sides of the cities
Are aye foregathered here;
The best sides of the cities
Are come from far and near,{47}
To mix their books and Bibles
With oaths and rotten beer.
. . . . . . . . . .
Clear down the mud-browed, blood-plowed ranks
The thin, tanned faces lift;
The long, lean line that hears the whine
Of the bamboo’s silken sift,
And the sudden rush and the chug and the hush
Where the careless bullets drift.
The Parson’s up and shooting
And cursing like a fool;
The Bowery Boy is bleeding fast
In a red and ragged pool;
And mine Professor gags the wound—
(Which he didn’t learn in school).
. . . . . . . . . .
Nor creed nor sign nor order—
Nor clan nor clique nor class:
Never a mark to brand him
As he chokes in the paddy grass:
Only the tide of Bunker Hill,
That ebbs, but may not pass.
{48}
DOBIE ITCH
Tell about the fever
And all y’ tropic ills,
Tell about the cholera camp
Over ’mong the hills;
Tell about the small-pox
Where the bamboos switch,
But close y’ face and let me tell
About the Dobie Itch.
It isn’t erysipelas—
It isn’t nettle-rash;
It isn’t got from eating pork,
Or drinking native trash.
You smear your toes with ointment,
And think you’re getting well,
And then the damn thing comes again
And simply raises hell.
You’ve hiked all day in sun and rain
Through hills and paddy mire,
Abaft the slippery googoos
Who shoot—and then retire:{49}
And now you’ve taken off your shoes
And settled for a rest,
When suddenly your feet they start
To itch like all possessed.
(Better take your socks off
And then see how it goes....
“Ouch! m’ bloody stockin’s
Stickin’ to m’ toes.”)
Scratching, scratching, scratching,
Burning scab and sore,
(“Stop, you fool, you’ll poison ’em!”
Hear your bunkie roar).
Never mind the poison—
Ease the maddening pain,
Till your poor old tired feet
Start to bleed again.
Tell about the fever
And all y’ tropic ills,
Tell about the cholera camp
Over ’mong the hills;
Tell about the small-pox
Where the bamboos switch,
But close y’ face and let me tell
About the Dobie Itch.
{50}
THE SERVICE ARMS
Clear from clotted Bunker Hill
And frozen Valley Forge,
To the Luzon trenches
And the fern-choked gorge:
All the Service—all the Arms—
Horse and Foot and Guns—
East and West who gave your best—
Stand and pledge your Sons!
The Infantry:
As the Juggernaut slow rolls
Ringing red with reeking tolls,
Crushing out its Hindu souls
In Vishnu’s name:
As the unrelenting tide
Sweeps the weary wreckage wide,
Bidding all men stand aside
Or rue the game:
Meeting front and flank and rear,
Charge on charge with cheer on cheer,{51}
Where the senseless corpses leer
Against the sun:
Sure as fate and faith and sign
I o’erwhelm them—they are mine;
And I pause where weeps the wine
Of battle won.
The Artillery:
As the slumbering craters wake,
And the neighboring foot hills shake,
As in shotted flame they break
Athwart the sky:
As the swollen streams of Spring
Meet their river wing and wing,
Till it sweeps a monstrous thing
Where cities die:
With a cold sardonic smile,
At a range of half a mile,
I—I lop them off in style
By six and eights:
As they come—their Country’s best—
Like a roaring, seething crest,
And I knock them Galley West
Where Glory Waits.
{52}
The Cavalry:
As the tidal wave in spate
Batters down the great flood gate
Where the huddled children wait
Behind the doors:
As the eagle in its flight
Sweeps the plain to left and right,
Strewing carnage, wreck and blight
And homeward soars:
As the raging, wild typhoon,
’Neath a white and callous moon,
Lifts the listless low lagoon
Into the sea:
In my tyranny and power
I have swept them where they cower,
I have turned the battle-hour
To the cry of Victory!
{53}
PART THREE
OTHER VERSES
{55}
{54}
SHAH JEHAN
BUILDER OF THE TAJ MAHAL.
They have carried my couch to the window
Up over the river high,
That a Great Mogul may have his wish
Ere he lay him down to die.
And the wish was ever this, and is,
Ere the last least shadows flee,
To gaze at the end o’er the river’s bend
On the shrine that I raised for thee.
And the plans I wrought from the plans they brought,
And I watched it slowly rise,
A vision of snow forever aglow
In the blue of the northern skies.
For I built it of purest marble,
That all the World might see
The depth of thy matchless beauty
And the light that ye were to me.{56}
The silver Jumna broadens—
The day is growing dark,
And only the peacock’s calling
Comes over the rose-rimmed park.
And soon thy sunset marble
Will glow as the amethyst,
And moonlit skies shall make thee rise
A vision of pearly mist.
A vision of light and wonder
For the hordes in the covered wains,
From the snow-peaked north where the tides burst forth
To the Ghauts and the Rajput plains.
From the sapphire lakes in the Kashmir hills,
Whence crystal rivers rise,
To the jungles where the tiger’s lair
Lies bare to the Deccan skies.
And the proud Mahratta chieftains
And the Afghan lords shall see
The tender gleam of thy living dream,
Through all Eternity.
The black is bending lower—
Ah wife—the day-star nears—
And I see you come with calling arms
As ye came in the yester-years.{57}
And the joy is mine that ne’er was mine
By Palace and Peacock Throne—
By marble and gold where the World grows cold
In the seed that It has sown.
More bright than the Rajputana stars
Thine eyes shone out to me—
More gay thy laugh than the rainbow chaff
That lifts from the Southern Sea.
More fair thy hair than any silk
In Delhi’s proud bazaars—
More true thy heart than the tulwar’s start—
Blood-wet in a hundred wars.
More red thy lips than the Flaming Trees
That brighten the Punjab plains—
More soft thy tread than the winds that spread
The last of the summer rains.
No blush of the dawning heavens—
No rose by the garden wall,
May ever seek to match thy cheek—
Oh fairest rose of all.
Above the bending river
The midday sun is gone,{58}
But the glow of thy tomb dispels the gloom
Where doubting shadows yawn.
And the glow of thy tomb shall break the gloom
Through the march of the marching years,
Where, builded and bound from the dome to the ground
It was wrought of a monarch’s tears.
The silver Jumna broadens
Like a moonlit summer sea,
But bank and bower and town and tower
Have bidden farewell to me:
And only the tall white minarets,
And the matchless dome shine through—
The silver Jumna broadens and—
It bears me—love—to you.
{59}
THE OMNIPOTENT
The Lord looked down on the nether Earth
He had made so fair and green,
Fertile valleys and snow-capped hills
And the oceans that lie between.
The Lord looked down on Man and Maid,
Through the birth of the crystal air:
And the Lord leaned back in His well-earned rest—
And He knew that the sight was fair.
The eons crept and the eons swept
And His children multiplied,
And ever they lived in simple faith,
And in simple faith they died.
They blessed the earth that gave them birth—
They wept to the midnight star—
And they stood in awe where the tides off-shore
Rose leaping across the bar.{60}
They blessed the earth that gave them birth—
But passed all time and tide,
They blessed their Lord-Creator—
Nor knew Him mystified.
They came and went—the little men—
The men of a primal breed—
And the Lord He gathered them as they lived,
Each in his simple creed.
And the Lord He gathered them as they came—
Ere the Earth had time to cool
And the horde of Cain had clouted the brain
’Neath the lash of a monstrous school.
II
The Lord looked down on the nether Earth
He had made so fair and green—
Fertile valleys and snow-capped hills
And the oceans that lie between.
And He saw the strife of the thousand sects—
And ever anew they came—
Torture and farce and infamy
Committed in His name.{61}
Figure and form and fetich—
Councils of hate and greed—
Prophet on prophet warring,
Each to his separate need.
Symbol and sign and surplice
And ostentatious prayer,
And the hollow mock of the chanceled dark
Flung back through the raftered air.
. . . . . . . . . .
And the Lord He gazèd wistfully
Through the track of a falling star;
And He turned His sight from the homes of men,
Where the ranting cabals are.
{62}
THE OUTBOUND TRAIL
The Outbound Trail—The Outbound Trail—
We hear it calling still:
Coralline bight where the waves churn white—
Ocean and plain and hill:
Jungle and palm—where the starlit calm
The Wanderer’s loves fulfil.
Where the bleak, black blizzards blinding sweep
Across the crumpled floe,
And the Living Light makes white the night
Above the boundless snow,
And the sentinel penguins watch the waste
Where the whale and the walrus go:
Where the phosphor fires flash and flare
Along the bellowing bow,
And the soft salt breeze of the Southern Seas
Is sifting across the prow,
And the glittering Cross in the blue-black sky,
The Watcher of Then and Now:
We’ll lift again the lineless plain
Where the deep-cut rivers run—{63}
And the pallid peaks as the eagle seeks
His crag when the day is done:
And the rose-red glaciers glance and gleam
In the glow of the setting sun.
We’ll go once more to a farther shore—
We’ll track the outbound trail;
Harbor and hill where the World stands still—
Where the strange-rigged fishers sail—
And only the tune of the tasseled fronds,
Like the moan of a distant gale.
We’ll tramp anew the jungle through
Where ferned Pitcairnias rise,
And the softly fanned Tjemaras stand
Green lace against the skies,
And the last red ray of the tropic day
Flickers and flares and dies.
Across the full-swung, shifting seas
There comes a beck’ing gleam,
Strong as the iron hand of Fate—
Sweet as a lover’s dream.
What can bind us—what can keep us—
Who shall tell us nay?
When the Outbound Trail is calling us—
Is calling us away.
{64}
THE FOOL
In the first gray dawn of history
A Paleolithic man
Observed an irate mammoth—
Observed how his neighbors ran:
And he sat on a naked boulder
Where the plains stretched out to the sun,
And jowl in hand he frowned and planned
As none before had done.
Next day his neighbors passed him,
And still he sat and thought,
And the next day and the next day,
But never a deed was wrought.
Till the fifth sun saw him flaking
Some flint where the rocks fall free—
And the sixth sun saw him shaping
A shaft from a fallen tree.
Enak and Oonak and Anak
And their children and kith and kin,
They paused where they watched him working,
And they smiled and they raised the chin,{65}
And they tapped their foreheads knowingly—
As you and I have done—
But he—he had never a moment
To mark their mocking fun.
And Enak passed on to bury
His brother the mammoth slew.
And Oonak, to stay his starving,
With his fingers grubbed anew.
And Anak, he thought of his tender spouse
An ichthyosaurus ate—
Because in seeking the nearest tree
She had reached it a trifle late.
. . . . . . . . . .
Around the Council fire,
More beast and ape than man,
The hairy hosts assembled,
And their talk to the crazed one ran.
And they said, “It is best that we kill him
Ere he strangle us in the night,
Or brings on our head the curse of the dead
When the thundering heavens light.
“It is best that we rid our caverns
Of neighbors such as these—
It is best—” but the Council shuddered
At the rustle of parting leaves.{66}
Out of the primal forest
Straight to their midst he strode—
Weathered and gaunt—but they gave no taunt—
As he flung to the ground his load.
They eyed them with suspicion—
The long smooth shafts and lean:
They felt of the thong-bound flint barbs—
They saw that the work was clean.
Like children with a plaything,
When first it is understood,
They leapt to their feet and hurled them—
And they knew that the act was good.
They pictured the mighty mammoth
As the hurtling spear shafts sank,
They pictured the unsuspecting game
Down by the river’s bank;
They pictured their safe-defended homes—
They pictured the fallen foe....
And the Fool they led to the highest seat,
Where the Council fires glow.
{67}
THE SHIPS
The White Ship lifts the horizon—
The masts are shot with gold—
And I know by the shining canvas
The cargo in the hold.
And now they’ve warped and fastened her,
Where I impatient wait—
To find a hollow mockery,
Or a rank and rotted freight.
. . . . . . . . . .
The Black Ship shows against the storm—
Her hull is low and lean—
And a flag of gore at the stern and fore,
And the skull and bones between.
I shun the wharf where she bears down
And her desperate crew make fast,
But manifold from the darkest hold
Come forth my dreams at last.
The White Ships and the Black Ships
They loom across the sea—
But I may not know until they dock—
The wares they bring to me.
{68}
THE FIRST POET
In the days of prose ere a bard arose
There came from a Northern Land,
A man with tales of the spouting whales
And the Lights that the ice-winds fanned.
And they sat them ’round on the barren ground,
And they clicked their spears to the time,
And they lingered each on the golden speech
Of the man with the words that rhyme.
With the words that rhyme like the rolling chime
Of the tread of the rhythmic sea,
And silent they listened with eyes that glistened
In savage ecstasy.
Over the plain as a pall was lain
The hand of the primal heart,
Till slowly there rose through the rock-bound close
The first faint glimmering Start.
As a ray of light in the storm-lashed night,
O’er the virgin forests swept
From the star-staked sea the Symbols Three—
And the cave-men softly wept.{69}
Softly wept as slowly crept
To the depth of the savage brain,
Honor, forsooth, and Faith and Truth—
And they rose from the rock-rimmed plain—
And in twos and threes ’neath the mammoth trees
They whispered as children do:
And the Great World sprang from the Bard that sang,
And the First of the Men that Knew.
{70}
THE TEST
The Lord He scanned His children,
His good, well-meaning children,
And He murmured as He saw them
Where they came and paused and passed;
“I will drag them I will drive them
Through the fourfold Hells of Torture,
And—I will test the product
That comes back to me at last.”
His children came—His children paused—
His children slowly passed Him—
And for the sweat upon the brow
And scar upon the cheek,
He heaped the burdens higher—
He cut and smote and lashed them—
And as they swayed and tottered
He hurled them spent and weak.
They cast an eye, a gleaming eye,
Above to where they sought Him—
But blank the empty skies gave back,
And blank the heavens stared.{71}
And even they with riven heart,
Who strove to hide the hiding,
He drove the scalpel deeper,
That the inmost core lay bared.
At last He took the Test-Tubes
And the Acids of the Ages,
And he lit the Mighty Forges
With the Fires of the Years,
And He turned and smote and hammered,
And He poured and paused and pondered,
Till a clear precipitate formed ’neath
A residue of tears.
Across the outer spaces—
Beyond the last least sun-path,
He called them gently homeward
And He murmured as they passed,
“I have driven ye and dragged ye
Through the fourfold Hells of Torture,
And—I will keep the product
That comes back to me at last.”{72}
THE PORT O’ LOST DELIGHT
Some call it Fame or Honor—
Some call it Love or Power—
Whence running rails and bellied sails
The four-banked galleons tower.
To each the separate vision—
To each the guiding light—
Where, ’bove the dim horizon lifts
The Port o’ Lost Delight.
’Mid mighty cheers and the hope of years
They swung the good Ship free,
And with laughter brave she took the wave
Of the wonderful, whispering sea.
Over the scud of the white-capped flood—
Over the strong, young days—
Over the lift of the chaff-churned drift
And the mist of the moonlit haze—
Running the lights o’ the Ports-o’-Call,
Where the beckoning beacons shine;
But she passed them by with callous eye,
Nor saw the luring sign.{73}
Piercing the glow of the ocean’s dawn,
As slow the seas unfold;
Scudding again across the plain
Of rippling, sunset gold.
Joyous and fair in the brine-wet air,
Where the phosphor bow-wave slips,
And the Wraiths of the Deep their secrets keep
Of the tale o’ the passing ships.
II
Till there lifted a wondrous Haven
Across the swinging main,
As ne’er before had lifted—
Nor e’er might lift again.
Clear it shone, each gleaming stone,
Mystic, white and far,
Castle and tree above the sea
Where the lilac combers are.
And over all there came a call,
As a Siren’s soft refrain—
Nor ever a helm to guide her,
The Good Ship turned again.{74}
Swift o’er the back-set breakers
She plunged against the wind,
And never a look to left or right,
And never a thought behind:
Swinging, swaying, singing,
With all her canvas spread,
And bending spars and laughter
She fast and faster sped.
A little space—a little space—
A little nearer, then—
The Haven sank from the sunset sea,
And the sea was a waste again.
III
As the quivering stag at the bullet’s sting,
Who knew not harm was nigh,
So shook the Ship by seam and seam
In the death that may not die.
And though it sailed o’er every wave,
By reef and barrier bar,
’Neath the glare of the South Seas’ scorching sun
And the gleam of the lone North Star.{75}
Though it lifted the lights o’ the Ports-o’-Call,
By green and crimson beam,
It never lifted the Light again—
The Light that fled as a dream.
Over a blue-black endless sea—
Over a timeless void—
Callous and careless plunged the Ship
That never a storm destroyed.
Skimming the foaming coral reef—
Daring the mid-deep wind—
Clipping the roar of the white lee shore
Where the Gods of Chance run blind.
Full belly sail before the gale—
With scuppers churning green—
And eyes set dead in a figure-head
That dipped in the troughs between:
That rose and fell and cut the swell—
Or knew the day or night;
That rose and fell to the soundless bell
Of the Port o’ Lost Delight.
{76}
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
O’er the rock of all eternal—
Over sacred soil ye’ve trod;
Whither king and priest and people
Make their mockery of God.
Like the rolling of an organ
Down the mighty nave of Time,
In the hush of Things Supernal
Ye have sung of Things Sublime.
Living lilt beyond the starlight—
Living light beyond the spheres—
With a calm majestic cadence
Came the call of all the years.
As a pause across the storm-path—
As the swaying starlit sea—
As the faith of little children—
Ye have writ ETERNITY.
{77}
KING BAMBOO
A BALLAD OF THE EAST INDIES
I build them boats and houses—
I check their mountain roads—
I bear their double burdens—
The squeaking, creaking loads.
Adown the broken hill sides
My long, high pipings run,
To bring their water to them
Adripping ’neath the sun.
And when from spring and river
The weary climbers strain,
’Tis I who hold the nectar
To bring them life again.
I am the quivering bridges
That span the deep ravine—
I am the matted fences
That twist and wind between.
When ye sing of the lace Tjemara tree—
When ye speak of the swaying Palm—
When ye talk of the ferned Pitcairnia,
And the monkey’s wild alarm:{78}
When ye tell of the blazing sunsets—
When ye know ye are nearly through—
Bend ye a knee to a Sovereign Lord—
As my flat-nosed children do.
{79}
MARK TWAIN
Died, April 21st, 1910
Fresh as the break o’ the dawning—
Clear as the sunlit pool;
Ye came on a World of weariness—
Lord of a kingly school.
Shuttle and lathe and hammer—
Mill and mine and mart—
They paused awhile to linger and smile—
Children again in heart.
And a World of work and trouble
Bent to their tasks anew,
With strength reborn of the joyous morn
Made manifest by you.
. . . . . . . . . .
Again the marts are silenced—
There’s a hush o’er land and sea—
With only the sobs of a Nation,
That loved and honored thee.
{80}
THE SUMMIT
Out of the murky valleys
By the sweat of brow and brain;
Out of the dank morasses—
On to the spreading plain:
Climbing the broken ranges—
Falling and driving through,
While the toil and tears of the countless years
Bid ye back to the task anew.
Glory and fame and honor
Perched on the distant peak—
Beckoning over land and sea
To the gaze of the men who seek.
Lifting the faltering footstep—
Bathing the tired brow,
Till out of the lanes of the sunken plains
Ye come to the golden Now.
Far spread the gleaming foot hills,
And the deep, green vales between;
Fair lift the distant coast-lines
And the water’s shifting sheen—
And weary, ye pause on the Summit
For the first victorious breath,
When a hand at your elbow beckons—
And ye know that the hand is Death.
{81}
THE LITTLE BRONZE CROSS
THE VICTORIA CROSS IN THE CROWN JEWELS ROOM OF THE TOWER OF LONDON
Glittering—glaring—glistening—
In pompous, proud array;
Maces and crowns and sceptres—
Orders and ribbons gay:
Bright in the white electric light;
Caged and guarded there;
Symbol and sign that the luck of line
A king or a cad might wear.
Blinking—blinding—blazing—
The crown-topped hillock shone,
And the gaping crowd in voices loud
Coveted gilt and stone.
Coveted idle gilt and stone,
Though never stopped to stare
At a little cross on the other side,
Half hid in the alcove there.
But slowly into the Tower
Through the narrow windows crept,
The Winds of the Outer Marches—
The Winds that had seen and wept{82}
At Ladysmith—Trafalgar—
Sebastopol—Lahore;
Khartoum—Seringapatam—
Kabul and Gwalior.
The breath of the red Sirocco
That sweeps from the white Soudan:
The winds that beat through the Kyber Pass
Where the blood of England ran:
The winds that lift o’er the Great South Drift—
O’er the veldt and the frozen plain—
They stooped and kissed the little bronze cross,
And went on their way again.
And the blaze of crowns and sceptres—
The power and pomp of kings;
And the glare of the glittering Orders—
The tinsel of Little Things,
Paled in the ancient Tower—
Faded and died alone,
And only a cross—For Valour—
With mystic brightness shone.
{83}
KEATS
Who, in a spirit of supersensitive self-abnegation, had placed upon
his tombstone that here lay “one whose name is writ in water.”
If your name is writ in water,
As your humble tombstone saith,
Then it forms a crystal fountain
Born to mock at mortal death.
If your name is writ in water,
’Tis the water of the stream
Where the wise of all the nations
Stoop to drink and stay to dream.
If your name is writ in water,
It has flowed into the sea
Of the ages past and present—
And of Immortality.
{84}
CHRISTMAS
Childish prattle and merry laugh
And the joy of Christmas-tide,
And the old are young as the gay bells fling
Their messages far and wide.
Steaming pudding and lighted tree
And the litter of scattered toys,
We’re all of us children again to-day
Along o’ the girls and boys.
(Back behind the happy faces
Lifts another looking through?
Drop your merry mask and tell me
What does Christmas mean to you?)
Laughter long of the joyous throng,
Festival, fun and feast,
And there’s never a care in the echoing air
In the joy of a year released.
There’s never a care in the echoing air—
There’s never a break in the song—
And we rise with the rest when the children are blessed
And the hours have galloped along.
{85}
TUCK AWAY—LITTLE DREAMS
His nose was pressed to the grindstone—
His shoulders bent to the wheel,
One of the numbered millions
That bore no right to feel.
Child of a callous calling—
Waif of a wilful day;
I heard him murmur beneath his breath—
“Tuck away—little dreams—tuck away.”
The loom and lathe and ledger—
Pencil and square and drill—
They saw his pain and they laughed again
As hardened headsmen will.
While ’neath their chains and chiding,
Through the gloom of the endless day,
I heard him murmur beneath his breath—
“Tuck away—little dreams—tuck away.”
I saw him going down the hill—
I saw him pause, and start,
And bend again to the grinding grain—
Lord of a broken heart.{86}
The sunset shadows lengthened—
The earth was turning gray,
As I caught the breath of the living death—
“Tuck away—little dreams—tuck away.”{87}
BLOODY ANGLE
July 3, 1863; July 3, 1913
THE SPIRIT OF BLOODY ANGLE SPEAKS.
I saw them charge across the field
The Stars and Bars above them,
I saw them fall in hundreds—
I heard the rebel yell.
Behind me, ’neath the Stars and Stripes,
I watched the blue coats pouring
Into the men of Pickett
The flaming vials of Hell.
I thought of Yorktown—Bunker Hill—
Of Valley Forge and Monmouth.
Again the Elders signed our birth—
The great Bell tolled anew.
And I closed my eyes and shuddered—
And I looked to the Lord of Battle—
And I prayed, “Forgive them Father,
For they know not what they do.”
I saw them striding o’er the field—
A gray-clad, aged remnant;
I heard again across the plain
The piercing rebel call.{88}
Behind me, ’neath a peaceful sky,
I saw the blue coats standing—
I saw the columns meet—clasped hands—
Above my battered wall.
I knew my blood-stained conscience—
My reeking rowels were whitened.
I saw the line of Sections
Fade dim and die away.
And Phœnix-like, from fire and hate,
A reunited nation
Rose up to bless her children,
Forever and for aye.
{89}
THE MICROBE
The Microbe said—“There is no Man—
I know there may not be:
I cannot hear his voice that sings—
I cannot see his arm that swings—
I cannot feel his mind that flings
My earth-born destiny.”
The Man-Child said—“There is no God—
I know there may not be:
I cannot pause and meet His eye—
I cannot see His form on high—
I only know an empty sky
Stares mocking back at me.”{90}
THE SEAS
Purple seas and garnet seas, emerald seas and blue,
Foaming seas and frothing seas spraying rainbow dew:
Laughing seas and chaffing seas, gay in the morning light,
Endless seas and bendless seas ayawn in the starless night.
Seas that reach o’er the long white beach
Where the clean-washed pebbles roll,
And the nodding groves and the coral coves
And the deep-toned voices toll.
Seas that lift the broken drift
And crash through the crag-lined fjord—
Seas that cut the channel’s rut
With the thrust of a mighty sword.
Seas that brood in silent mood
When the midnight stars are set—
Seas that roar as a charging boar
Till the rails of the bridge run wet.{91}
Seas that foam where the porpoise roam
And the spouting whale rolls high—
Seas that use in the sunset hues
Till all is a blended sky.
Seas that reek with the golden streak
And the flash of phosphor fire—
Seas that glance in a moonlit dance
With feet that never tire.
Seas that melt in the mist-hung belt
When sky and waters close—
Seas that meet the day’s retreat,
Amber and gold and rose.
Purple seas and garnet seas, emerald seas and blue,
Foaming seas and frothing seas spraying rainbow dew:
Laughing seas and chaffing seas, gay in the morning light,
Endless seas and bendless seas ayawn in the starless night.
{92}
GOD’S ACRE
I’m drivin’ backward to the farm—
The harvest day is done,
And I’m passing by God’s Acre
At the setting o’ the Sun:
And I slow the homing horses—
For I must soliloquize
On that white crop standin’ silent
Against the crimson skies.
I guess there’s tares aplenty—
And I guess there’s lots o’ chaff,
And I guess there’s many stories that
Ed make a feller laugh.
And I guess there’s mebbe stories
Ed make a feller weep,
And the Angels kind o’ whisper
As around the stones they creep.
Well, the Lord He up and planted—
And the Harvest’s come to head;
(And He shore is most particular
When all is done and said).{93}
But I reckon when it’s sifted,
And the Crop is in the bin,
It’ll be a durned hard sinner
As the Lord ain’t gathered in.
{94}
GOLD
From the green Cycadeæn ages,
From the gloom of the Cambrian fen,
From the days of the mighty mammoth
And the years of the dog-toothed men,
I’ve lifted ye clear to the summits—
A toy of the upper air—
I’ve dashed ye down to the pits again
To laugh at your despair.
I beckoned across the chasm
To watch ye stumble in,
And never a light to left or right
On the crags of shame and sin.
I called ye over mountains—
I called ye over seas—
And ye came in hosts from all the coasts
To taste of the tainted breeze.
Honor and King and Country—
Sire and Seed and God—
Ye have given all to the Siren’s call
When I but chose to nod.
Ye have given all to the Siren’s call—
To the mock of the Siren’s strain—
Ye have made a choice and never a voice
May bid ye back again.
{95}
THE LEGION
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA REUNION ODE
Across the hill I saw them come—
A deep-ranked serried legion.
Across the hill I saw them come—
The faithful cohorts there.
Bank, bar and bench—mine, mart and trench—
From every clime and region,
In manly might and majesty—
And I knew the sight was fair.
I saw them halt against the hill
In loyal lines unbroken;
I heard them answer to the Roll,
Nor ever missed a name;
For they foregathered past recall
Were there by every token,
As, ’cross the valley to a man
The thundering echoes came.
I saw them passing o’er the hill
In serried ranks unbroken;
’Twas stirrup touching stirrup
In the sunshine and the rain.{96}
And good the pride to see them ride
With strength renewed and spoken,
Till love of Pennsylvania
Should call them home again.
{97}
THE ALTAR
UPON THE APENNINE HILL OF ROME
’Neath the gardens of the Emperors
Unnoticed you may pass
A little altar nestling
In the poppies and the grass.
No gorgeous columns flank it,
Where priest or Vestal trod—
Only the carven words that sing—
“To the Unknown God.”
The haughty praetor scanned it
With humble, thoughtful air—
The base-born slave espied it
With sullen, frightened stare:
The Roman matron touched it,
And went upon her way—
The gladiator saw it,
And paused awhile to pray.
Even the passing Cæsar
Bowed the imperial head,
With faltering eyes that swept the skies
In reverent fear and dread.{98}
The arching heavens domed it
With royal lapis blue—
The soft Campania’s whisper
Brought the sunshine and the dew:
The candles of the firmament
Bent down their brightest rays,
Where, midst their Pagan Pantheon
A People paused to gaze.
{99}
THE SONG OF THE AEROPLANE
I scan your mighty fortresses—
I scorn your splendid fleets—
I chart your chosen cities—
Trenches and lanes and streets.
No secret ’neath the heavens,
No tale of land or sea,
But bares the breast at my behest
To stand revealed to me.
I pierce the rainbow’s bending,
Uncovering fold on fold,
Till I come to the arch’s ending
Where lies the pot of gold.
I romp in the crimson sunset—
I mount the wings o’ the dawn—
I glide o’er the brakes and marshes
To laugh at the startled fawn.
Never a mark may scorn me,
From the noise of the rising quail
To the topmost peak where the eagles seek
Their home in the driving gale.{100}
Where lies the last least wilderness
Man may not dare to know—
Where stands the unscaled mountain,
Fair crowned with virgin snow:
Where hide the hidden ages—
Where flow the golden streams—
Where lurks the land of Crœsus
Or the Lotus-land o dreams:
Up through the rushing firmament,
With never halt or toll,
I bear ye far till ye come where are
The gates of the cherished goal.
. . . . . . . . . .
On the wonderful things I show you
Lucullus-like ye dine—
For the wonderful thoughts I bring you
Ye love and are wholly mine.
{101}
PACK YOUR TRUNK AND GO
If you meet a little fräulein
As pretty as a rosebud,
And eyes that make your silly heart-strings
Thump and bump and glow—
Don’t stand and linger dawdlin’
When you know you’re getting maudlin,
But call yourself a bally fool
And pack your trunk and go.
If the mocking, hollow laughter,
Like the creaking of a rafter,
Greets you—standing watching after
At the Chance you didn’t know:
Sneering in its craven power
Comes to seek you by the hour,
Try the palm-grove, veldt or paddy—
Pack your trunk and go.
If the skies are rent asunder
O’er some hasty little blunder,
And you start to really wonder
How wise some people grow:
Let the empty carp-heads haggle—
Let the teacup headwear waggle—{102}
Just tell ’em all to run along—
And pack your trunk and go.
If the silent blades are dipping
And the green canoes are slipping
By the birches white and dripping
In the crimson after-glow:
And the harvest-moon is rising
With a fullness most surprising—
It’s summer on the northern lakes
So pack your trunk and go.
If the Faith your Fathers taught you
And the Land your Fathers wrought you,
(The Land their blood has bought you),
Shall hear the bugles blow—
Don’t watch in doubt and waiting,
Don’t stand procrastinating,
But say good-bye with laughing eye
And pack your trunk and go.
Where the coral turns to cactus,
And the cactus turns to harvest,
And the harvest turns to hemlock,
And the hemlock turns to snow:
By the phosphor-bordered beaches—
By the endless, bendless reaches—
You will find him where the Whisper bade him
Pack his trunk and go.
{103}
WOMAN
A REPLY TO RUDYARD KIPLING
“A woman is only a woman”—
These are the words you spoke.
And you deemed they were bright and caustic—
And you thought you had made us a joke.
Well, we who have been in the Tropics,
Who’ve noted the Eastern “way,”
’May be we should half forgive you
For some of the things you say.
When the Cave-man spat on his neighbor
And smote him hip and thigh—
When the Bronze-man slivered the boulders
Where the tin and the copper lie—
When the Iron-man reared him bridges
And engines of steam and steel—
What was the Light that lifted them,
And bade them to live and to feel?
When the sunshine turns to shadow—
And the shadow turns to night;
When faith and fair intention
Have fought them a failing fight;{104}
When Hell has drawn nearest—
And God is very far—
Mayhap ye then can tell us who
The Ministering Angels are?
A rose is only a flower—
Can ye bring us the bud more rare?
“A woman is only a woman”—
Can ye show us the work more fair?
Harrie ye all Creation—
Look ye without surcease,
And when ye are weary and broken, kneel—
To your Master’s masterpiece.
{105}
NIPPON
Trust ye the Nations of the Earth
From sea to farthest sea—
But trust ye not, Oh trust ye not
The wily Japanee.
Truth? A jest o’ the High and Low—
A juggler’s tossing toy—
A two-faced guile and a child-like smile—
(Oh Innocence sans alloy!)
Honor? An empty mockery
Beneath the Sunrise Sky;
A hollow, vain, fanatic strain
That lifts with the loud “Banzai!”
Virtue? Not even a figurehead,
So scarce indeed thou art.
Rank to the core a shameless sore
In a yet more shameless heart.
Faith? A faithless phantom
That knows no law or creed.
To flare and wane for the moment’s gain,
And serve the moment’s need.{106}
Trust ye the Nations of the Earth
From sea to farthest sea—
But trust ye not, Oh trust ye not
The wily Japanee.
{107}
THE NEW BARD
They had sung the song how very long
Of Love and Faith and Truth:
And they polished fine till it ran as wine,
With never a spot uncouth.
Mellow it spread with softened tread
To the beat of the perfect time—
Chastened and blest and colorless
In stilted, vapid rhyme.
Songs of love that the angels above
Laughed as they bended near—
Songs of fight that the men of might
Sneered as they stopped to hear—
Till a stronger people rising—
They cast the cant aside,
And they lifted free for the open sea
Where the plunging porpoise ride.
For there lifted free from the open sea
The voice of a bard who knew,
And he brought them tales from the spouting whales
Where only the lean gulls flew.{108}
And he brought them tales from the coral bight
Where the lilac waters spend,
And the ceaseless sift of the phosphor drift
Where the palm-lined beaches bend.
But better than all through the endless pall
His clear-shot wordings ran,
And the tale he bore by peace and war
Was the heart of his fellow-man.
Under the ragged raiment—
Under the silken sheen—
They caught the worth of the spinning Earth,
And the black and the gold between.
For ’neath a coat of roughest hide,
And ’neath the rugged brink,
He covered whole the yearning Soul—
The Soul of the Men Who Think.
The Little Things with mystic wings
That flitting merrily,
Bind West and East and best and least,
From sea to outer sea.
The Little Things with mystic wings,
Hidden the eons through—
From his Children’s gaze he swept the haze,
And his Children seeing—knew{109}
Each throbbing lane of pulse and brain—
The far-flung Brotherhood:
The thoughts untold and the hopes unrolled—
And they answered him where they stood:
“In measures strong we’ve heard your song,
And the warm blood mounts again;
And we scorn the beat of the stifled street
And strike for the open main.
“Far back—far back—we leave the plains
To the little hurrying hosts,
And over the seas in the scud-wet breeze
We lift for the Land o’ Ghosts.
“For the Land o’ Ghosts and the laughing coasts
And the goal we hope to win—
Though ne’er we reach the beckoning beach,
Ye have let us look within.
. . . . . . . . . .
“Though ne’er we reach the beckoning beach—
Though it fades ere we leap to land,
Ye have made us rife with the strength of life—
{110} Ye have spoke ... and we understand.”
FATHER TIME
When your doctors fail to render—
When your lotions fail to heal—
When the salted scar is burning—
When aturtle turns the keel:
When the lights are lost to leeward—
When the last least hope is gone—
Then I call ye—Oh my children—
As a Mother calls her spawn.
By no magic may I do it—
By no sudden quick surcease:
Slow, so slow, ye cannot know it
Do I bring ye your release.
As the blackened heavens soften
To the morning’s growing gray,
And the gray spreads gold and crimson
Till in splendor breaks the day:
So by little and by little,
That ye may not know or see,
Do I soothe the salted searing—
Do I bid the shadows flee—{111}
Do I weld the torn heart-cord
No surgeon art may heal,
Till ye lift the fastened latchet
And go forth in laughing weal.
From Eastward and from Westward
I call my broken clan;
We may not meet in lane or street
Or greet us man and man:
But slowly spread my wide-leagued wings—
And falling tenderly,
I wrap my troubled Earth-spawn
Unto the heart of me.
{112}
MY LOVES
Oh do you wish to know my Loves?
Then you must come with me
To every land of all the lands
And the waves of every sea.
My love she nestles to my side,
Nor careth who discern,
For she’s the breeze o’ the Southern Seas
Where the egg-spume waters turn.
My love she wraps me in her arms
With a crushing grasp and wild,
For she was born o’ the six-months morn,
A strong, tumultuous child.
My love needs throw a kiss to me,
And the kiss is the rainbow spray,
Then laughing in glee, coquettishly,
She lightly trips away.
My love she comes with open arms,
A dazzling beauty bold—
Lilac and rose and amber,
Scarlet and blazing gold.{113}
My love she gently beckons me
And folds me nearer yet,
A blushing maid with crown of jade
Where the first pale stars are set.
Oh do you wish to know my Loves?
Then you must come with me
To every land of all the lands
And the waves of every sea.
{114}
THE FORUM
Here strode triumphant Cæsars
Returning honored home:
Here rose the gorgeous temples
Of proud imperial Rome.
Here burned the Vestal Fire
The endless seasons through:
Here reared the haughty Arches
The far-flung Nations knew.
Lord of the last least horizon—
King of the Outer Seas—
Where beat a heart, where stood a mart,
There bended suppliant knees—
To Thee—Resplendent Sovereign—
Cradled among the hills,
Who still through the countless centuries
The wondering watcher thrills.
Only a Tale of the Ages—
Power and Pride and Death—
And the afterlight of an Empire’s might—
And the soft Campania’s breath.{115}
Only the crumbled marble,
And Memory’s lingering wine,
And the grass and the scarlet poppies
And clover and dandelion.
{116}
THE MASTERPIECE
“Des Sohnes letzter Gruss” (“The Son’s last Salutation”). A modern
painting by Karl Hoff in the Royal Picture Gallery, Dresden.
We tramped the stretching galleries—
We gazed each priceless gem—
Jordäens—Rubens—Raphael—
We paused and pondered them.
The famous, same Madonnas—
The fatuous forms at ease—
And the Wedding Feast with Cavaliers—
And a drunken Hercules.
We saw the Sistine Mother,
The farthest Nations know—
Till room on room of light and gloom
Swept row on outer row.
And some we knew and reverenced—
Whose praise the wide World sings;
And some we fled with callous dread
For flat and flaccid things.{117}
Till at last at the gallery’s ending
In the room with the roof-let door,
We saw a young man standing—
The Lone Son bid to War.
Lithe and strong and supple,
Clean-limbed, clear-eyed and tall—
And the parting gaze of the parting ways
When the battered trumpets call.
And we saw the widowed Mother—
And the prostrate, sobless grief;
And the pitying priest beside her,
And the gentle, vain relief.
And the Sister—standing—watching—
’Twixt love, reproach and tears—
The tender light of the summer night
Where brood the unfathomed years.
The Maiden—standing, watching—
Fair as the first, faint star:
A dainty symbol sent to prove
How near the angels are.
. . . . . . . . . .
We gleaned the gallery’s gorgeous wealth—
But lost its wondrous worth,
As we bowed a head in silence
To the Good of all the Earth.
{118}
THE HERITAGE
Full well they tilled the barren soil—
Full well they sowed the seed—
Full well they held by life and life
The seal of the title deed.
From Bunker Hill to Yorktown
They waged a sacred fray:
Oh Sons of Iron Men give ye not
Your heritage away.
By commerce, mart and culture
Ye’ve raised a mighty state;
But ’ware the pampered spirit,
Ere ye ’ware the worst too late.
By commerce, mart and culture
Thrive ye forevermore,
But hold ye to the Iron Age—
The Iron Age of War.
With rugged heart and sinew—
With spirit stern and high,
Keep ye the ways o’ warrior days—
The days that may not die.{119}
Keep ye the ways o’ warrior days,
Maintain the armor bright,
For where ye’ve raised your fathers blazed—
Hold ye their honor white.
That through the unborn years to come—
Unpampered, age on age—
Shall guarded stand their promised land—
Our Sacred Heritage.
{120}
THE ADJUSTING HOUR
Just the Adjusting Hour,
With nobody else around,
And you sort o’ straighten things a bit,
Beginning right down at the ground.
Just the Adjusting Hour,
When plans have gone askew,
And you stand with your back to the fire—
And only your God and you.
Just the Adjusting Hour,
Pondering very slow,
And you lay the firm foundations
And you pray that they will grow—
Tall and strong and splendid—
That they who run may see,
What the Adjusting Hour
Has given to you and me.
{121}
THE OUTPOSTERS
We’ve tête-à-têted here and there
Whence all the breezes fan,
From Cuba clear to Tokio
And back to Hindustan.
We’ve journeyed out of Agra
To see the Taj Mahal
Rise mystic white in the moonlit night
Above the Jumna wall.
Along the plains of Java
We shook you by the hand,
And watched among Tosari’s hills
The lace Tjemaras stand:
Or Aden’s great cathedral rocks—
High—majestic—bare—
Or Karnak’s columns rising sheer
Through the clear Egyptian air.
We’ve laughed with you in Poeroek Tjahoe,[A]
In the heart of Borneo,{122}
Ere we hit the trail to northward
Where the lesser rivers flow:
Where the angry Moeroeng cuts the hills
And the endless jungles rise,
And the Dyak kampongs nestle ’neath
The speckless, fleckless skies.
By the myriad ship-lights stretching through
The Roads of Singapore,
By the crooked, winding, white-walled streets
Of burning Bangalore:
By the mighty, gilded Shwe Dagon
Aglitter above the trees,
Where the tiny ti bells tinkle
In the sough of the sunset breeze:
From where the terrace-sculptured gates
Of the great Sri Rangam rise,
To Bangkok’s triple temple roofs,
Red-gold against the skies:
By crowded, sewerless Canton—
By Hong Kong’s towering lights—
By the gorgeous Rajputana stars
That blazon the blue-black nights:{123}
We’ve met you, Men of the Millionth Mark—
Outposters—far—alone—
Beyond the glut of the cities’ rut,
And we claim you for our own.
(Beyond the glut of the cities’ rut
And the roar of the rolling cart,
Beyond the blind of the stifled mind
And the hawking, haggling mart.)
And some of you were “rotters”—
And some were “18 fine”—
But on the whole—we saw your soul—
Oh outbound kin of mine.
So stand we pledged and hand in hand
By every ocean, gulf and land,
Stout hearts and humble knees:
Oh men of the Outer Reaches—
Oh men of the palm-lined beaches—
Oh men where the ice-pack bleaches—
Oh Brethren o’ the far-flung seas.
[A] Pronounced Poorook Jow.
{124}
WONDERING
Leaning on the midnight rail,
Looking o’er the sea,
Winking at the little stars,
While they wink at me.
Wondering how it happened
Ages long ago,
Wondering why I’m here to night—
Wondering where I’ll go.
Wondering how the Scorpion
Bends his mighty tail,
Wondering if the Archer’s aim
Makes Antares quail:
Wondering why Australia’s Crown
Happened to be made,
Wondering if I really ought
Not to be afraid.
Wondering if the blackened sea
Ever has a bend,
Wondering if the Milky Way
Ever has an end,
Wondering why the Southern Cross
Has an arm askew,{125}
Wondering lots o’ funny things,
(I wonder, wouldn’t you?)
Wondering where He’s watching from—
Wondering if He’d see
Anything so very small
Just as you or me?
Wondering and wondering—
But still the echoes fail—
And so I’m left awondering
Over the silent rail.
{126}
LINES TO AN ELDERLY FRIEND
Written in a presentation copy of “My Bunkie and Other Ballads”
given to A. Van Vleck, Esq., of New York City.
Where the sails hang limp and lifeless
In the doldrums’ deadly pause,
Where the lights above the Polar capes
Spread out in a golden gauze:
Where lilac tints are listing
O’er purple tropic seas—
Where the Arctic winds are whistling
And the north-flung rivers freeze—
We’ve met the men the Maker made
To dwell ’neath fir and palm—
And, we salute thee, friend and man—
M’sieur—le gentilhomme.
{127}
BATTLESHIPS
Addressed to “little-navy” Congressmen.
Fools there lived when the Nations sprang newborn from the arms of God—
Fools there’ll live when the Nations melt in the mold of the markless sod.
Fools there are and fools there were and fools there’ll ever be—
But none like the fools whom the ages teach, and then refuse to see.
With Other Peoples building them in squadrons—
The Other Peoples laden down with debt—
In the richest of the Nations you’ll cut appropriations,
But the Day of Reckoning—have ye counted yet?
Oh be careful, Oh be meager, Oh My Brothers;
Weigh the cost, and gasp, and pare it down again;
Till the twelve-inch children roar and the troop-ships grate the shore
And you hear the coming tread of marching men.{128}
Then My Brothers, Oh my wise far-seeing Brothers,
Build a Fleet and build it swiftly overnight;
Ah truly ye who knew it all these years can surely do it,
For ye and only ye alone are right.
Go gaze across your growing, waving acres—
Go gaze adown the peaceful, busy street;
May the prestige of your town be your all-in-all renown,
And scorn the men who bid you, “BUILD THE FLEET.”
Or whine about your irrigation ditches—
Much they’ll help a scarred and battle-riven land.
Oh they’ll do a monstrous earning when the crops they grow are burning—
Because you would not hear the clear command.
With the jealous nations standing to the east-ward—
And the Sneaking Cur that watches on the west—
You’ll bargain, skimp and whine till the gray hulls lift the line,
And your children stand betrayèd and confessed.{129}
For the sake of saving five or fifty millions—
For the sake of “politics” or local greed—
Will you brand yourselves arch traitors to the Nation—
You, the sons of men who served us in our need?
Will you risk a land your Sires died to bring you—
A land our faithful Fathers fell to save,
By the bleaching bones of Valley Forge and Monmouth
Or the crimson flood the Bloody Angle gave?
Will you see one half the Nation raped and burning—
Will you learn War’s callous, lurid, livid wrath
By the wailing ’long the wayside, by the ashes of the cities,
Ere your gathered army flings across their path?
You may strut and boast our boundless might and power—
You may call our race the Chosen of the Lord—
But if your town they raze—and if your home’s ablaze
You will wake and learn the Kingdom of the Sword.{130}
You will wake and learn the word your Fathers taught you—
You will wake and learn the truth—but all too late:
By the shrieking shrapnel’s crying—by the homeless, wronged and dying—
You shall count what, you begrudged to Guard the Gate.
{131}
THE AMERICAN FLAG
It should be needless to note that the persons here addressed do
not comprise the whole American people but a certain distinctive
type.
Oh little men and sheltered—
Oh fatted pigs of a sty,
Through the Star Spangled Banner ye calmly sit,
Nor see the wrong, nor the why,
And ye stand with your hats on your thoughtless heads,
When the Flag of the Nation goes by.
Has the lust of the dollar gripped you
Till the fetid brain’s grown cold,
Till ye forget the days that are set
And the glorious deeds of old—
And the Song and the Passing Colors
Are drowned in a flood of gold?
Awake from your listless lethargy—
Arise and understand
The battle-hymn of your fathers—
And the Flag of your Fatherland—{132}
As it rose to the hum of the feet that come
To the drum and the bugle’s call;
As it tasted the dregs of raw reverse—
As it rushed through the breach in the wall:
As it fell again on the gore-wet plain
Till new hands swung it high—
As it dipped in rest to East and West
Where it watched its Children die:
As it swept anew o’er the shotted blue,
And the great gulls reeled in fright;
As it bore the brave ’neath the whispering wave
To the Squadron’s hushed Goodnight:
As it mounted sheer ’mid cheer on cheer,
Till, far o’er land and sea,
It gave each fold to the sunlight’s gold—
And the name of Victory.
Then on your feet when the first proud strain
Of the Anthem rolls on high—
And see that ye stand uncovered
To the Colors passing by
And pray to your God for strength to guard
The Flag ye glorify.
{133}
THE GREAT DOCTORS
Chiefs of all the Conquerors—
Kings above the Kings—
Fame beyond all earthly fame
Where the censer swings.
Brave and strong and silent—
Patient, cautious, calm—
E’en as the ministering angels—
Even as Gilead’s Balm—
They come; the quiet god-men,
Where hope has fled apace,
And the Reaper’s scythe is swaying
Across the ashen face.
No miracle proclaims them—
No thundering cheer and drum—
As creeps the light of the starlit night
God’s Emissaries come.
A touch to the raveled life-cord
Or ever it snaps in twain;
And as the light of the starlit night
They silently pass again.
{134}
THE DREAMER AND THE DOER
The Dreamer saw a vision
High in th’ empyrean blue,
And slowly it passed until at last
He called to the Man he knew—
“Look, thou Dolt of the Blinded Heart—
Slave of Rod and Rule—
And drink of the wine of my sight divine—
Oh churl of a plodding school!”
The Doer he checked and plotted
And hammered and pieced again,
But his eyes they were on the things that he saw—
The Things of the Earth-bound Men:
And he called to the Dreamer passing—
“Oh stop, thou fool, and see
On water and land the work of my hand,
For the service of such as thee.”
“Dolt,” said the Dreamer, “ye stole my dream
I showed where the lightnings ran ...”
“Fool,” said the Doer, “but for my toil—
Ye’d still be a Stone-age Man.”{135}
SPAIN
Might and far-flung power
And we call the vision Rome,
Where the close-locked legions trample
And the triremes cut the foam.
Grace and regal beauty—
And Athena’s temples rise
Above the fertile Attic plains
And blue Ægean skies.
But when, in wanton whispers
Creeps o’er the tired brain
The word Romance, there falls the trance—
The spell of olden Spain.
. . . . . . . . . .
The humdrum of the city
The workshop and the street,
They gently slip behind us—
As glide our tired feet
O’er the pavements of Sevilla,
Where the Grandees pass again
To ogle in the balconies
The matchless eyes of Spain.{136}
Once more the somersaulting bells
In the great square tower ring—
Once more the sword and cowl draw back—
“The King—make way—The King!”
Sevilla—Mother of a world
Of pride and golden gain,
And greed and love and laughter
Of Periclean Spain.
Once more o’er purple ocean
Or coral-locked lagoon,
We watch the bowsprit cutting
The pathway of the moon.
The long white beach, the swaying palms’
Shifting silver sheen—
And the flickering flares of the flimsy fleet
Where the spear-poised fishers lean.
The low-hung, skimming scuppers—
The flaunting skull and bones—
The buccaneer on his poop-deck
Roaring in thunder tones
To a swarthy, ill-begotten crew—
As slow the daylight dies,
And he lifts with a smile the chartless isle
Where the buried treasure lies.{137}
The lilt of living music
Caressing heart and brain:
Harp, guitar and mandolin
In languorous, limpid strain.
The fluttering fan—the furtive glance—
The black mantilla’s reign—
And the Captains bold who drop their gold
To bask in the eyes of Spain.
The towering galleons plunging
Thrice-tiered above the foam:
The ringing round-shot roaring,
And the crash of the hit gone home:
The yard-arms staggering under,
Where, scorning the iron rain
And showing its fangs to a parting world,
Goes down the Lion of Spain.
. . . . . . . . . .
When the clattering city cloys you
With the stress of its strident call—
When practical, calculating Things
Are domineering all—
When your clamped mind in its weariness
To Romance turns again,
Seek ye the Andalusian crags—
The flare of the gold and crimson flags—
And the scented breath where the night wind drags
Through the Isles of the Spanish Main.
{138}
C. Q. D.
THE PRESENT-DAY “S. O. S.”
Cities and kings and nations
Hush at my outer breath,
As sightless I glide o’er the wind-lashed tide
In my race with the deep-sea death.
War and Trade and the Laws ye made
Halt at the Letters Three,
Bound on my errand of mercy—I—
The ultimate C.Q.D.
No wave may intercept me,
Though it tower a hundred feet;
No storm shall ever stay me,
Though sky and waters meet.
Piercing the howling heavens—
Skimming the churning sea—
Through blast and gale I bring the tale—
I—the pitying C.Q.D.
And when through the white-toothed combers
The helping hull looms high,
And when the small-boats leap aside
Through the glare of the red-shot sky,{139}
Out, out across the ocean’s dawn
The final flashes flee—
“All saved!” And the circling shores ring back—
“Thank God—and the C.Q.D!”{140}
THE LIGHTS
The fair-weather lights are gleaming
Across a tranquil main,
By beam and beam so bright they seem
A laughing, endless chain.
The foul-weather lights are few and far—
Nor flash nor leap nor fail—
But slowly burn where the billows churn
In the teeth of the driving gale.
Oh the fair-weather lights o’er the sheltered bights
Are welcome sights to see—
But the foul-weather lights o’ the stormy nights,
Are the Lamps of the Years to be.
{141}
THE CHOSEN
And the Guiding One he pointed me
To each and each the deed,
And never a word was ever heard
Of Prophet or Saint or Creed.
And never a word was ever heard
But the path that each had run,
Till the purple mist stooped down and kissed
And said that the work was done.
And there stood he of the iron will
Nor gold could bend or buy:
And there stood she of the Mother Love
That never asketh why.
And there stood he who striving lost,
But striving, gained the Crest:
And there stood she who nursed them back
With bullet-ridden breast.
And there stood he whose right hand gave,
But the left—it never knew:
And there stood she who held him fast
When the Beckoning Whispers blew.{142}
And there stood he who saved a life
By fire, sea or sword:
And these were Chiefs of the Upper Hosts
And first before the Lord.
But high o’er the great Arch-angels,
Higher than any stand,
I saw the chosen of the King
At the right of the Master’s hand.
And I questioning gazed in the deep-lit eyes
And the silent face aglow,
Till the Guiding One It answered me
The word that I wished to know—
“Out of the crash of battle,
Where the shrieking bullet sings,
The roaring front lines reel and rock
As a wounded vulture swings.
“As a wounded vulture halting swings
The quivering squadrons break,
Till the shattered herds catch up the words,
‘Back, back for your Country’s sake!’”
(Back, back to follow after
The light of fearless eyes,
And the sound of a voice that knows no choice
Where the love of a Nation lies.){143}
And the Guiding One it paused apace,
And then I heard it say—
“And he?—He died in leading
The charge that won the day.”{144}
THE FAIREST MOON
Oh ye who tell of the harvest moon
Above the waving grain,
Oh ye who tell of the silent moon
That glitters across the plain.
Oh ye who tell of the mountain moon
That lifts each peak and crag,
Oh ye who tell of the ocean moon
Where the long, black shadows drag.
Oh ye who tell of the silver moon
In wanton ecstasy,
Ye never tell of the fairest moon—
The fairest moon to me.
’Tis well the tale of the crescent moon
Above the lake-side pine,
And good is your song of the circling moon
Where snowy meadows shine.
And fair’s the lilt of the gleaming moon
Where dazzling rapids leap:
For wondrous bright is the fairy sight
Of the soul of a World asleep.{145}
But a waning moon, just half a moon,
With a rough and ragged rim,
And a mystic light that makes the night
All bright but doubly dim....
Low down, low down in a starry sky,
O’er the shift of a swinging sea
With a mellow fold o’ silver gold,
Reveals my moon to me.
{146}
THE STRIVER
The trumpets bore his name afar
By East and West anew,
Where, roaring through the riven tape
The sweeping Conqueror drew.
And East and West they rose and blest
With laurel wreath and cheers,
As they had done ’neath every sun
Adorn the countless years.
The trumpets echoed far ahead—
A faltering footfall trailed,
Till broken flesh that called on flesh
Stumbled and rocked and failed.
A well run dry—a sightless sky—
Where mind and matter part:
A quivering frame—a nameless name—
Wrapped in a lion’s heart.
The nearer stars they winded him—
The farther planets heard;
The outer spheres of all the spheres
Took up the Master’s word.{147}
They lifted him and bouyed him
And bore him gently in
To the Goal of Lost Endeavor—
In the Land of Might-have-been.
{148}
THE OLD MEN
Ye sing a song of the young men
In the pride of an early strength,
Ye sing a song of the young men
And ye give it goodly length;
I sing a song of the old men—
Of the men on a homeward tack
And a steady wheel and an even keel
That never a wind may rack.
Ye sing a song of the strong men
In the birth of a splendid youth,
Ye sing a song of the strong men
And ye sing mayhap in truth;
But I—I sing of the old men
Who’ve weathered the outer seas,
And lifting the bark through the growing dark,
Bear back in the sunset breeze.
Ye sing a song of the young men
Ere they reach the second stake,
And a name to choose and a name to lose
In the scruff of the rudder’s wake;{149}
But I—I sing of the old men
In the glow of the tempered days,
Whose chartings show the paths to go
Through the mesh of a million ways.
Ye sing a song of the strong men
In the flush of the first fair blow,
Ye sing a song of the strong men
Or ever the end ye know;
But I—I sing of the old men—
Time-tested—weathered brown—
Who unafraid the port have made,
Where all brave ships go down.
{150}
THE FOUR-ROADS POST
They had come at the Spirit’s bidding—
Who bore the right to seek—
And the hungry he brake and gave them bread,
And strength he gave to the weak.
Honor and Gold and Triumph—
Love and Land and Fame—
As they deserved to each he served—
And they left and blessed his name.
And only one was waiting
Before the Giver’s knee,
And He said, “Oh spawn of a troubled Earth—
What may I do for thee?”
And the suppliant cried, “Good Master
I asked nor fame nor gold—
I only seek the bygone peak
Where I saw the lands unfold.{151}
“I only seek the bygone peak
Where every pathway sung,
And every sea had a ship for me,
And all the World was young.
“Oh let me know the place once more,
The parting of the lane—
Oh give me back the Four-Roads Post,
That I may choose again.”
. . . . . . . . . .
The Spirit gazed across the vale
And his eyes had a tender glow,
And his voice ran mild as ye speak to a child,
Wondrous soft and low:
“Little Waif of a Later Day,
Where the unthought hours flee,
The only treasure I have not.
Is the boon that ye ask of me.
“I can give you balms and riches—
I can ease you of your pain—
But I cannot give the Four-Roads Post—
That ye may choose again.”{152}
THE DAYS OF CHIVALRY
Sing me a song of Chivalry,
The little Man-child said.
Of days of old when knights were bold
And fields of honor red.
Take me far to a maiden’s tower
And the black traducer slain;
To Honor and Truth and Faith forsooth—
Oh carry me back again.
So the Waif of Chance be wafted him
And set him down apace,
But never a field of tourney,
And never a knight of grace.
He set him down where the whipping flames
Leap red athwart the sky,
And the crashing wall that forms a pall
Where the fire-fighters lie.
The Waif of Chance he wafted him
Across a broken main,
And the great ship’s roll like a foundering soul
Groaned to the depths again:{153}
But over the breast of the ocean’s crest
The plunging life-boats neared,
And the shout that burst was “Women first,”
And the men that were left—they cheered.
Where the staggering brethren dragged their loads
From the mouth of the stricken mine,
Where the hand at the throttle never flinched
At the sight of the open line;
By curb and forge and death-hung gorge—
By river, sea and plain—
The Waif of Chance the Man-child brought,
And bade him gaze again.
Honor and Faith and Sacrifice
In the midst of the city’s roil—
Faith and Honor and Sacrifice
Where the frontier-hewers toil:
And the Man-child slowly knelt and clasped
The Waif about the knee,
And he murmured low, “Oh now I know—
The Days of Chivalry.”{154}
PHANTOM-LAND
Come board the boat for Phantom-land—
Come join the merry crew;
Come board the boat for Phantom-land
That lies acalling you.
Oh throw away the red-shot day—
The broken, weary night—
And come with me across the sea
To where you lift the light
Of Phantom-land of Phantom-land,
Uprising from the blue,
With mountains green and castles
That stand acalling you.
It doesn’t cost a single cent
To join the joyous band;
You needn’t spend a penny
To reach the sunny land;
So come away at close o’ day
Or in the morning dew,
To Phantom-land to Phantom-land
That lies acalling you.{155}
And they who once have been there—
Who’ve trod the laughing hills,
They’re always going back there—
From roil and toil and ills:
And when they come to Earth again—
(I cross m’ heart, it’s true),
They sing the praise o’ Phantom-land
That lies acalling you.
{156}
THE ROSE
He plucked the Rose in anger—
The Rose across his path;
And the thorns they cut and tore him
And scorned him in his wrath.
He plucked the Rose in hauteur
And pride no bond could bind,
And the Rose it tossed its royal head
Nor deigned to look behind.
He plucked the Rose in sadness—
And the red Rose seeing, knew:
And it gave its sweetest incense,
And its petals shone with dew.
He plucked the Rose in gladness—
Nor sorrow’s least alloy—
And the Rose it shook its leaves and laughed
In its tumultuous joy.
By all the devious ways he came—
By every mood and whim;
And as he stooped to gather—
The Rose gave back to him.
{157}
PATRIOTISM
Ends of the riven Nation
I’ve drawn near and near,
Duty and love and honor
I’ve garnered year by year;
Oh fair they tell o’ the Lasting Peace,
And the Final Brotherhood,
But I call my sons to the signal guns,
And I know that the call is good.
Mongol and Teuton and Slav and Czech—
Saxon and Celt and Gaul—
Out of the mire at my desire
They leapt to the battle-call,
The Mean and the Low and the Goodly—
Murderer, saint and thief—
From city and plow with lofty brow
They rode to My Belief.
The Mean and the Low and the Goodly
O’er the fields of carnage swept,
And for those that returned, the laurel crown—
And for those that stayed—they wept.{158}
And the Mother showed her stripling
The place where the foeman ran,
And he pledged to the skies with yearning eyes—
And the pledge was the pledge of a man.
Over the field of battle
The well aimed arrows flew,
Over a sea of wreckage
The bending galleons blew;
And where the arrow found him,
Or the round-shot rent atwain,
He fell—but turned in the falling
To bless his Land again.
Ends of the riven Nation
I’ve drawn, near and near,
Duty and love and honor
I’ve garnered year by year;
Oh fair they tell o’ the Lasting Peace,
And the Final Brotherhood,
But I call my sons to the signal guns—
And I know that the call is good.
{159}
KELVIN
Never a mark of Mortal Man
But ye delved to a greater depth—
Never a truth of Mortal Truths
But ye stirred it where it slept.
Never a veil but ye drew aside,
Till ye came where the Wide Ways part,
And ye bowed a head as ye lowly said,
“Oh God, how fair Thou art.”
THE END{160}
NOTES
| The Dyak Chief | 13 |
The Dyaks, a “brown” race, are the savage inhabitants of Central Borneo,
and are said to have come originally from the Malay Peninsula, but to
have since been gradually driven into the center of the island by the
influx of the present Malays, who now inhabit the coasts and often far
inland, especially up the rivers. |
The Dyaks, though an old, aboriginal Malay stock, differ radically from
the Malays in nearly every particular. |
They are a dark-skinned, strong, well-knit, square-shouldered and
beautifully muscled type of men, neither tall nor short, fat nor lean,
but comparable to the typical American cavalryman or football halfback
or trained middle-weight boxer or wrestler. |
They have small, dark, heady, snake-like eyes, high cheek bones and
straight black hair, often “bobbed” at the neck and frequently with a
band around it, giving them much the appearance of North American
Indians, were it not that their eyes and noses are smaller. They affect
a breech-cloth only, excepting for the sake of warmth, when they don a
light cloth jacket or a fibre coat, the latter being a simple affair,
hanging straight, with a slit at the top through which the head is
placed, after the manner of a present-day American Army “poncho.” |
A chief is distinguished by having pheasant feathers falling down the
back of one of these coats, and in the town or “kampong” of Olong Liko I
was the recipient of the unusual privilege of having a friendly{161} Dyak
chief take off his cloak-like garment that I had been examining, put it
on over my head, and insist on my keeping it—which it is needless to
say I was only too glad to do—and which I still have preserved as the
most valued treasure of all the many that I brought back from my
travels. |
The women are of the typical heavy-waisted savage category, frequently
wearing something above the waist, but whose usual costume consists
merely of a long cloth, resembling a skirt, wrapped around their legs. |
Truth compels me to ungallantly state the ladies are not prepossessing. |
The chief occupations of the Dyaks are hunting, fishing and tending
their little truck-gardens, which mode of life probably accounts for
their average splendid physique. |
| Moeroeng | 13 |
The Moeroeng (River) is a long stream in Central Borneo that unites with
the Djoeloi to form the Barito, the latter being one of the great rivers
of Borneo, flowing from its center in a general southerly direction, and
emptying into the Java Sea a short distance to the west of the
southeastern extremity of the island. Pronunciation: Moeroeng=Mooroong:
Djoeloi=Jooloi. |
| kampong | 13 |
Kampong is a native Dyak village, and consists of from one to three or
four long houses, and sometimes small detached ones. The long house, the
characteristic building, is anywhere from fifty to two or three hundred
feet in length, elevated, on poles, from eight to twenty feet in the
air. The sides of the houses are of rough boards or of bark and the
roofs usually of bark shingles. The age of the dwellings can be told by
the height they stand above the ground, those on the highest poles being
the oldest ones, because of the former greater savagery of, and more
frequent warfare between, the natives. Here literally we have a case of
the home being the fortress.{162} |
Within, the long house is of one of two arrangements; either it consists
of a huge hall, often decorated with the skull and horns of the chase,
running practically the entire length, and with family rooms opening
into it and bake-rooms or kitchens at both ends, or the house consists
merely of one very long room without partitions, the different families,
with their crude cooking hearths, “squatting” around the sides of the
room at intervals of ten or fifteen feet. Occasionally some of the
families will hang up cloth divisions. Here, truly, we have the communal
scheme of living carried to its ultimate extreme. |
| headless waist | 13 |
The Dyaks are the famous “head-hunters” of Borneo, and although their
inhuman proclivities of procuring heads for their belts, in order to
give them certain distinctions, among them, the prerogative of marrying,
have, at the present time been largely suppressed by the Dutch
authorities, nevertheless a traveler’s trip through Central Borneo is
dangerous owing to the fact that some actual head-hunting bands are
still roaming the dense jungles through which he is passing. |
Due to pure luck my path was not crossed by any of these outlaw nomad
troops, which is possibly why I am writing this to-day, as one white
man, even though armed with a long 38 Army Colt revolver could probably
make little headway against a whole band of these savages. My three
Malay coolies were highly trustworthy and efficient, but I am not
positive as to exactly what extent I could have counted on them in the
eventuality of an actual attack. |
| lianes | 14 |
Long, bare, tropical, vine-like growths that sometimes wrap themselves
around the trunk of it tree, and sometimes hang from the branches
straight to the ground. |
| leeches | 15 |
Little gray leeches, up to half an inch in length{163} that, as a barefooted
person walks through the jungle, attach themselves to his feet and
ankles and suck the blood, until removed or until, having gotten their
fill and swollen to many times their former size, fall back to the
ground satiated. |
In the case of a white man, they will burrow through the seam at the
back of his sock to get the blood they crave. |
| proa | 16 |
Pronounced prow, and is any small crude Dyak or Malay Bornese boat,
propelled by paddling. |
| blow-spear | 17 |
A spear with a hollow shaft through which the Dyaks blow a light, wooden
dart or arrow. I have seen these in Java and the Philippines also. |
| mandauw (or parang) | 17 |
Pronounced mandow, and is the typical Dyak sword with a straight blade
broadening gradually until near the end, then abruptly narrowing again
to a point. It is sharpened on one edge only. |
| chief poles | 17 |
High wooden flag-like poles, carved near the base, and with long tassels
falling from the top. Erected in front of the long house in memory of
dead kampong (village) chiefs. |
| Moeroeng rapids | 21 |
The Moeroeng River has magnificent rapids, which I and my three Malay
coolies shot on my return by river from Olong Liko to Poeroek Tjahoe. |
| tom-toms | 24 |
Round, drum-like, metal musical instruments, beaten with a stick having
a large knob. |
| (You know how far it comes) | 28 |
Refers to the fact that salt is precious to the Dyaks, and must be
gotten from the distant coasts, through traders.{164} |
| Sick-man’s Drums | 28 |
The heating of the tom-toms, with the playing of other “musical”
instruments, when a Dyak is sick. The nearer death, the louder the
beating. Supposed to be very efficacious. In this particular case the
“Sick-man’s Drums” were, of course, beaten ironically. |
| greasy cakes | 29 |
Thick, round, half-cooked, greasy, Dyak cakes, utterly indigestible and
unprepossessing. |
| On the Water-Wagon | 33 |
Slang for “not drinking.” |
| “the mill,” | 33 |
The guard-house or soldier prison. |
| Army of Pacification | 35 |
| Islands | 33 |
The Philippine Islands. |
| Solitary | 38 |
“Solitary confinement” is punishment meted out to particularly
obstreperous prisoners or to those under very severe sentence. |
| calaboose | 38 |
Guard-house or soldier prison. |
| jug | 38 |
Guard-house or soldier prison. |
| Ten and a Bob | 39 |
A prisoner’s sentence of ten years and a dishonorable discharge from the
Army. |
| The Isle | 39 |
Refers to Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, used as a discharge station
for time-expired soldiers returning from the Philippines after the
Insurrection of 1899-1902. On Angel Island there was also a military
convict station for serious offenders, who had to break stone.{165} |
“the makings” 39. |
The paper and tobacco for cigarettes |
| The Sultan Comes to Town | 40 |
The Major’s name was Sour—if we speak in antithesis. |
| Shah Jehan | 55 |
One of the Great Moguls of India, who at Agra built the lovely, white
marble Taj Mahal as a mausoleum for his favorite wife, who died in 1629. |
Near the city of Aurangabad, in the northwestern part of the state of
Hyderabad, is the so-called “Little Taj,” the Mausoleum of Rabi’a
Durrani, the wife of a later Great Mogul, Auraugzeb. Though built only
of stucco, and not kept in the same immaculate condition as the Taj
Mahal, the “Little Taj,” with its inset, pointed arches, viewed at an
advantageous distance of several hundred feet, from just within the
ground’s entrance, is to me really more beautiful than the splendid Taj
Mahal itself, because the height of the “Little Taj,” and, inclusively,
of its arches, is greater in proportion to its base than is that of its
famous predecessor. The result is a more delicate, lofty and inspiring
effect—which effect appears, obviously, to be the most apropos and
essential one to obtain in erecting mausoleums of this nature. |
Close, detailed inspection of the two tombs would present a
diametrically opposite analysis, but in work such as this, it would seem
that the most crucial aspect is the ensemble and not the minutiæ or
finis. |
| Rajputana stars | 57 |
When in Rajputana, a great state of northwestern India, I was impressed
by the brilliancy of the stars on a clear night. It may have been due to
atmospheric or other conditions, but whatever the cause, in no other
part of the World have I seen such magnificent stars.{166} |
| tulwar | 57 |
The large, splendid, curved sword of India. |
| Flaming Trees | 57 |
The trees that spread out like great umbrellas, covered on top with
masses of blood-orange colored blossoms, and called “Flame of the
Forest,” though in the Philippines we usually nicknamed them “Fire
Trees.” |
| Nippon | 105 |
Let us be charitable, and hope that through contact with outside nations
the Japanese will eventually be able to eradicate their traits of
character, though the probability, much less the possibility, that the
leopard can really change its spots, is remote indeed. Among the poorer
classes and in the rural interior of Japan, you will, however, sometimes
find at least two mitigating attributes, simplicity and kindliness. |
| My Loves | 112 |
The loves here referred to are picked at random from among the many of
the World Wanderer. The second stanza refers to the breeze of the South
Seas; the third stanza, to the North Wind; the fourth stanza, to the
Sea; the fifth stanza, to the Sunrise; the sixth stanza, to the Sunset. |
| C. Q. D. | 138 |
The old “C. Q. D.,” or present-day “S. O. S.,” the wireless telegraphic
signal of ships in distress. |
| Kelvin | 159 |
The great British scientist. Born in Belfast, Ireland in 1824. Died near
Largs, Scotland in 1907. His name is among those the British Government
has honored by carving into the floor of Westminster Abbey.{167} |
MY BUNKIE
and Other Ballads
By ERWIN CLARKSON GARRETT
Army and Navy Register:
“The poems show a keen appreciation of the romantic and picturesque side
of the soldier’s life with touches of humor and pathos that make up the
comedy and tragedy of the calling. Mr. Garrett’s verses are truly
sympathetic and appeal to worthy sentiment. They are among the best of
anything which has been written in any form concerning the Army and they
deserve appreciation. If the Army has a poet who has shown himself by
his verses capable of expressing in this form service traditions and
military life, it must be this former soldier. Mr. Garrett has preserved
the varying conditions of the soldier’s life and the soldier’s sentiment
in verses that are really worth while.***”
The Philadelphia Record:
“He has a happy knack of making vivid word-pictures; when he describes
something of a battle it all seems clear before our vision; when he
tells of camp life, the tented fields are there, and the men, and their
tasks. When he draws portraits such as those of ‘The Old Sergeant,’ ‘The
ex-Soldier’ and ‘The Rookie’ these men stand strong and life-like before
us.***”
Chicago Inter-Ocean:
“***‘My Bunkie and Other Ballads,’ by Erwin Clarkson Garrett, are poems
straight from the heart of a private soldier, full of freshness and
color, swing and melody.***”
“Mr. Garrett’s songs are racy of the soil and of the life they
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