WITTER BYNNER (1881-)

From "The New World"

Grieve not for the invisible transported brow
On which like leaves the dark hair grew,

Nor for those lips of laughter that are now
Laughing in sun and dew,

Nor for those limbs that, fallen low

And seeming faint and slow,

Shall alter and renew

Their shape and hue

Like birches white before the moon

Or the wild cherry-bough

In spring or the round sea

And shall pursue

More ways of swiftness than the swallow dips
Among and find more winds than ever blew
The straining sails of unimpeded ships!
Mourn not! . . . Yield only happy tears
To deeper beauty than appears!

The Mystic

By seven vineyards on one hill
We walked. The native wine
In clusters grew beside us two,
For your lips and for mine,

When "Hark!" you said—“Was that a bell
In a bubbling spring we heard?"

But I was wise and closed my eyes

And listened to a bird;

For as summer leaves are bent and shake

With singers passing through,

So moves in me continually
The winged breath of you.

You tasted from a single vine
And took from that your fill-
But I inclined to every kind,
All seven on one hill.

PADRAIC COLUM (1881-)

The Sea Bird to the Wave

On and on,

O white brother!

Thunder does not daunt thee!
How thou movest!

By thine impulse

With no wing!

Fairest thing

The wide sea shows me!

On and on

O white brother!

Art thou gone!

River-Mates

I'll be an otter, and I'll let you swim
A mate beside me; we will venture down
A deep, dark river, when the sky above
Is shut of the sun; spoilers are we,

Thick-coated; no dog's tooth can bite at our veins,
With eyes and ears of poachers; deep earthed ones
Turned hunters; let him slip past

The little vole; my teeth are on an edge
For the King-fish of the River!

I hold him up,

The glittering salmon that smells of the sea;
I hold him high and whistle!

Now we go

Back to our earths; we will tear and eat
Sea-smelling salmon; you will tell the cubs
I am the Booty-bringer, I am the Lord

Of the River; the deep, dark, full and flowing River!

FRANKLIN P. ADAMS (1881-)

The Rich Man

The rich man has his motor-car,

His country and his town estate.
He smokes a fifty-cent cigar

And jeers at Fate.

He frivols through the livelong day,
He knows not Poverty, her pinch.
His lot seems light, his heart seems gay;
He has a cinch.

Yet though my lamp burns low and dim,
Though I must slave for livelihood-
Think you that I would change with him?
You bet I would!

HERMANN HAGEDORN (1882-)

Departure

My true love from her pillow rose
And wandered down the summer lane.
She left her house to the wind's carouse,
And her chamber wide to the rain.

She did not stop to don her coat,
She did not stop to smooth her bed-
But out she went in glad content
There where the bright path led.

She did not feel the beating storm,

But fled like a sunbeam, white and frail, To the sea, to the air, somewhere, somewhereI have not found her trail.

THOMAS S. JONES, JR. (1882-)

Sometimes

Across the fields of yesterday
He sometimes comes to me,
A little lad just back from play-
The lad I used to be.

And yet he smiles so wistfully
Once he has crept within,
I wonder if he hopes to see
The man I might have been.

From the Hills

For you the white-wracked waste-yet not for me-
The roar of tempests and the storm-god's song,
All that is sad and strange and sweet at sea,
All that is fierce and strong.

I too have tasted of the salt-sea wine
And heard a-riot the wild winds at play;
The heart's full beat, the joyous anodyne
Of salt-sea spray.

This, this at last-a quiet intervale,

Kissed by soft lights and gladdened by the sun; You, of the curling surf, the blast, the gale—

I, of oblivion.

JAMES OPPENHEIM (1882-)

A Handful of Dust

I stooped to the silent earth and lifted a handful of her dust. Was it a handful of humanity I held?

Was it the crumbled and blown beauty of a woman or a babe? For over the hills of earth blows the dust of the withered

generations;

And not a water-drop in the sea but was once a blood-drop or a tear,

And not an atom of sap in leaf or bud but was once the lovesap in a human being;

And not a lump of soil but was once the rosy curve of lip or breast or cheek.

Handful of dust, you stagger me;

I did not dream the world was so full of the dead,
And the air I breathe so rich with the bewildering past.
Kiss of what girls is on the wind?

Whisper of what lips is in the cup of my hand?

Cry of what deaths is in the break of the wave tossed by the sea?

I am enfolded in an air of rushing wings;

I am engulfed in clouds of love-lives gone.
Who leans yonder? Helen of Greece?

Who walks with me? Isolde?

The trees are shaking down the blossoms from Juliet's breast, And the bee drinks honey from the lips of David.

Come, girl, my comrade;

Stand close, sun-tanned one, with your bright eyes lifted.
Behold this dust!

This is you: this of the earth under our feet is you.
Raised by what miracle? Shaped by what magic?
Breathed into by what god?

And a hundred years hence one like myself may come,
And stoop, and take a handful of the yielding earth,
And never dream that in his palm

Lies she that laughed and ran and lived beside this sea
On an afternoon a hundred years before.

Listen to the dust in this hand.

Who is trying to speak to us?

The Lonely Child

Do you think, my boy, when I put my arms around you
To still your fears,

That it is I who conquer the dark and the lonely night?
My arms seem to wrap love about you,

As your little heart fluttering at my breast
Throbs love through me. . . .

But, dear one, it is not your father:

Other arms are about you, drawing you near,

And drawing the Earth near, and the Night near,
And your father near. . . .

Some day you shall lie alone at nights,

As now your father lies;

And in those arms, as a leaf fallen on a tranquil stream, Drift into dreams and healing sleep.

The Runner in the Skies

Who is the runner in the skies

With her blowing scarf of stars,

And our earth and sun hovering like bees about her blossom

ing heart!

Her feet are on the winds where space is deep;

Her eyes are nebulous and veiled;

She hurries through the night to a far lover.

BERTON BRALEY (1882-)

To a Photographer

I have known love and hate and work and fight;
I have lived largely, I have dreamed and planned,
And Time, the Sculptor, with a master hand
Has graven on my face for all men's sight
Deep lines of joy and sorrow, growth and blight
Of labor and of service and command
-And now you show me this, this waxen, bland
And placid face, unlined, unwrinkled, white.

This is not I-this fatuous thing you show,
Retouched and smoothed and prettified to please,
Put back the wrinkles and the lines I know;

I have spent blood and tears achieving these,
Out of the pain, the struggle and the wrack
These are my scars of battle-put them back!