The lapping of lake water
Is like the weeping of women,
The weeping of ancient women
Who grieved without rebellion.
The lake falls over the shore
Like tears on their curven bosoms
Here is languid, luxurious wailing,
The wailing of kings' daughters.
So do we ever cry,
A soft unmutinous crying,
When we know ourselves each a princess
Locked fast within her tower.
The lapping of lake water
Is like the weeping of women,
The fertile tears of women
That water the dreams of men.
It is easy to mold the yielding clay,
And many shapes grow into beauty
Under the facile hand.
But forms of clay are lightly broken;
They will lie shattered and forgotten in a dingy corner.
But underneath the slipping clay
I would rather work in stubborn rock
All the years of my life,
And make one strong thing;
And set it in a high clean place
To recall the granite strength of my desire.
When the white wave of a glory that is hardly I
Breaks through my mind and washes it clean,
I know at last the meaning of my ecstasy,
And know at last my wish and what it can mean.
To have sped out of life that night-to have vanished
Not as a vision, but as something touched, yet grown
Radiant as the moonlight, circling my naked shoulder;
Wrapped in a dream of beauty, longed for, but never known!
The rain was over, and the brilliant air
Made every little blade of grass appear
Vivid and startling everything was there
With sharpened outlines, eloquently clear,
As though one saw it in a crystal sphere.
The rusty sumac with its struggling spires;
The golden-rod with all its million fires
(A million torches swinging in the wind);
A single poplar, marvellously thinned,
Half like a naked boy, half like a sword;
Clouds, like the haughty banners of the Lord;
A group of pansies with their shrewish faces,
Little old ladies cackling over laces;
The quaint unhurried road that curved so well;
The prim petunias with their rich rank smell;
The lettuce-birds, the creepers in the field—
How bountifully were they all revealed!
How arrogantly each one seemed to thrive-
So frank and strong, so radiantly alive!
And over all the morning-minded earth
There seemed to spread a sharp and kindling mirth,
Piercing the stubborn stones until I saw
The toad face heaven without shame or awe,
The ant confront the stars, and every weed
Grow proud as though it bore a royal seed;
While all the things that die and decompose
Sent forth their bloom as richly as the rose.
Oh, what a liberal power that made them thrive
And keep the very dirt that died, alive.
And now I saw the slender willow-tree
No longer calm or drooping listlessly,
Letting its languid branches sway and fall
As though it danced in some sad ritual;
But rather like a young athletic girl,
Fearless and gay, her hair all out of curl,
And flying in the wind-her head thrown back,
Her arms flung up, her garments flowing slack,
And all her rushing spirits running over. . .
What made a sober tree seem such a rover
Or made the staid and stalwart apple-trees,
That stood for years knee-deep in velvet peace.
Turn all their fruit to little worlds of flame,
And burn the trembling orchard there below?
What lit the heart of every golden-glow-
Oh, why was nothing weary, dull or tame?
Beauty it was, and keen compassionate mirth
That drives the vast and energetic earth.
And, with abrupt and visionary eyes,
I saw the huddled tenements arise.
Here where the merry clover danced and shone
Sprang agonies of iron and of stone;
There, where green Silence laughed or stood enthralled,
Cheap music blared and evil alleys sprawled.
The roaring avenues, the shrieking mills;
Brothels and prisons on those kindly hills-
The menace of these things swept over me;
A threatening, unconquerable sea.
A stirring landscape and a generous earth,
Freshening courage and benevolent mirth—
And then the city, like a hideous sore.
Good God, and what is all this beauty for?
I never knew the earth had so much gold-
The fields run over with it, and this hill
Is young with buoyant blooms that flame and thrill.
Such golden fires, such yellow-lo, how good
This spendthrift world, and what a lavish God! This fringe of wood,
Blazing with buttercup and goldenrod.
You too, beloved, are changed. Again I see
Your face grow mystical, as on that night
And all the trembling world—and you-were white.
Aye, you are touched; your singing lips grow dumb;
The fields absorb you, color you entire.
A goddess standing in a world of fire!
Jerome Epstein-August 8, 1912
Lo, to the battle-ground of life,
Child, you have come, like a conquering shout,
Out of a struggle-into strife;
Out of a darkness-into doubt.
Girt with the fragile armor of youth,
Child, you must ride into endless wars,
With the sword of protest, the buckler of truth, And a banner of love to sweep the stars.
the world's despair will surge; Into defeat you must plunge and grope. Be to the faltering an urge;
Be to the hopeless years a hope!
Be to the darkened world a flame,
Be to its unconcern a blow;
For out of its pain and tumult you came,
And into its tumult and pain you go.
Why are the things that have no death
The ones with neither sight nor breath!
Eternity is thrust upon
A bit of earth, a senseless stone.
A grain of dust, a casual clod
Receives the greatest gift of God.
A pebble in the roadway lies-
It never dies.
The grass our fathers cut away
Is growing on their graves today;
The tiniest brooks that scarcely flow
Eternally will come and go.
There is no kind of death to kill
The sands that lie so meek and still.
But Man is great and strong and wise—
You have not conquered me-it is the surge
Of love itself that beats against my will;
It is the sting of conflict, the old urge
|