Lincoln & other poems

Written after seeing Millet’s painting with this title

Soon will the lonesome cricket by the stone Begin to hush the night; and lightly blown Field fragrances will fill the fading blue— Old furrow-scents that ancient Eden knew. Soon in the upper twilight will be heard The winging whisper of a homing bird.

Who is it coming on the slant brown slope, Touched by the twilight and her mournful hope— Coming with hero step, with rhythmic swing, Where all the bodily motions weave and sing? The grief of the ground is in him, yet the power Of Earth to hide the furrow with the flower.

He is the stone rejected, yet the stone Whereon is built metropolis and throne. Out of his toil come all their pompous shows, Their purple luxury and plush repose!

The grime of this bruised hand keeps tender white The hands that never labor, day nor night. His feet that know only the field’s rough floors Send lordly steps down echoing corridors.

Yea, this vicarious toiler at the plow Gives that fine pallor to my lady’s brow. And idle armies with their boom and blare, Flinging their foolish glory on the air— He hides their nakedness, he gives them bed, And by his alms their hungry mouths are fed.

Not his the lurching of an aimless clod, For with the august gesture of a god— A gesture that is question and command— He hurls the bread of nations from his hand; And in the passion of the gesture flings His fierce resentment in the face of kings.

This is the Earth-god of the latter day, Treading with solemn joy the upward way; A lusty god that in some crowning hour Will hurl Gray Privilege from the place of power. These are the inevitable steps that make Unreason tremble and Tradition shake. This is the World-Will climbing to its goal, The climb of the unconquerable Soul— Democracy whose sure insurgent stride Jars kingdoms to their ultimate stone of pride.

At Little Virgil’s Window

There are three green eggs in a small brown pocket, And the breeze will swing and the gale will rock it, Till three little birds on the thin edge teeter, And our God be glad and our world be sweeter!

The Muse of Brotherhood

I am in the Expectancy that runs: My feet are in the Future, whirled afar On wings of light. If I have any sons, Let them arise and follow to my star.

Some momentary touches of my fire Have warmed the barren ages with a beam: There is no peak beyond my swift desire, There is no beauty deeper than my dream.

I make an end of life’s stupendous jest— The merry waste of fortunes by the Few, While the thin faces of the poor are pressed Against the panes—a hungry whirlwind crew.

I come to lift the soul-destroying weight, To heal the hurt, to end the foolish loss, To take the toiler from his brutal fate— The toiler hanging on the Labor Cross.

I bring to Earth the feel of home again, That men may nestle on her warm, still breast; I bring to wronged, humiliated men The sacred right to labor and to rest.

I bring to men the fine ideal stuff The young gods took to build the spheres of old: The fire I send on men is great enough To burn the iron kingdoms into gold.

I hold the way until the bright heavens bend— Until the New Republic shall arise, And quick young deities again descend, Bringing the gifts of God with joyous cries.

I lead the Graces and the Wingèd Powers: The world the Anarchs build I will destroy, For I will storm upon its demon towers, With wind of laughter and with rain of joy.

And at the first break of my Social Song A hush will fall upon the foolish strife, As though a joyous god, serene and strong, Shined suddenly before the steps of life.

Cold hearts that falter are my only bar: Heroes that seek my ever-fading goal Must take their reckoning from the central star, And follow the equator: I am Soul.

My love is higher than heavens where Taurus wheels, My love is deeper than the pillared skies: High as that peak in Heaven where Milton kneels, Deep as that grave in Hell where Cæsar lies.

Still hope for man: my star is on the way! Great Hugo saw it from his prison isle; It lit the mighty dream of Lamennais; It led the ocean thunders of Carlyle.

Wise Greeley saw the star of my desire, Wise Lincoln knelt before my hidden flame: It was from me they drew their sacred fire— I am Religion by her deeper name.

A Blossoming Bough

A blossoming bough against the sky, And all my blood is aleap with life, As though glad violins went by In wild delicious strife!

And the Suisun Hills again are green! And I am a boy in the canyons deep, Where the gray sycamores flicker and lean, And waters plunge and sleep.

A light, quick wind blows into my heart, Faint with the breath of apple trees; And my lyric lark is back with a start— And orchards like white seas!

Kyka

Child-heart! Wild heart! What can I bring you, What can I sing you, You who have come from a glory afar, Called into Time from a secret star?

Fleet one! Sweet one! Whose was the wild hand Shaped you in child-land, Framing the flesh with a flash of desire, Pouring the soul as a fearful fire?

Strong child! Song child! Who can unravel All your long travel Out of the Mystery, birth after birth— Out of the dim worlds deeper than Earth?

Mad thing! Glad thing! How will Life tame you? How will God name you? All that I know is that you are to me Wind over water, star on the sea.

Dear heart! Near heart! Long is the journey, Hard is the tourney: Would I could be by your side when you fall— Would that my own heart could suffer it all!

A Mendocino Memory

Once in my lonely, eager youth I rode, With jingling spur, into the clouds’ abode— Rode northward lightly as the high crane goes— Rode into the hills in the month of the frail wild rose, To find the soft-eyed heifers in the herds, Strayed north along the trail of nesting birds, Following the slow march of the springing grass, From range to range, from pass to flowering pass.

I took the trail: the fields were yet asleep; I saw the last star hurrying to its deep— Saw the shy wood-folk starting from their rest In many a crannied rock and leafy nest. A bold, tail-flashing squirrel in a fir, Restless as fire, set all the boughs astir; A jay, in dandy blue, flung out a fine First fleering sally from a sugar-pine.

A flight of hills, and then a deep ravine Hung with madrono boughs—the quail’s demesne; A quick turn in the road, a wingèd whir, And there he came with fluted whispering, The captain of the chaparral, the king, With nodding plume, with circumstance and stir, And step of Carthaginian conqueror!

I climbed the canyon to a river-head, And looking backward saw a splendor spread, Miles beyond miles, of every kingly hue And trembling tint the looms of Arras knew— A flowery pomp as of the dying day, A splendor where a god might take his way.

And farther on the wide plains under me, I watched the light-foot winds of morning go, Soft shading over wheat-fields far and free, To keep their old appointment with the sea. And farther yet, dim in the distant glow, Hung on the east a line of ghostly snow.

After the many trails an open space Walled by the tulès of a perished lake; And there I stretched out, bending the green brake, And felt it cool against my heated face. My horse went cropping by a sunny crag, In wild oats taller than the antlered stag That makes his pasture there. In gorge below Blind waters pounded boulders, blow on blow— Waters that gather, scatter and amass Down the long canyons where the grizzlies pass, Slouching through manzanita thickets old, Strewing the small red apples on the ground, Tearing the wild grape from its tree-top hold, And wafting odors keen through all the hills around.

Now came the fording of the hurling creeks, And joyous days among the breezy peaks, Till through the hush of many canyons fell The faint quick tenor of a brazen bell, A sudden, soft, hill-stilled, far-falling word, That told the secret of the straying herd.