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IF THE BOOK IS UNDER COPYRIGHT IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE. _Title:_ Inland Voices _Date of first publication:_ 1943 _Author:_ Sally Bullock Cave (1865-1958) _Date first posted:_ Sep. 3, 2013 _Date last updated:_ Sep. 3, 2013 Faded Page eBook #20130903 This ebook was produced by: Mardi Desjardins & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net INLAND VOICES BY SALLY BULLOCK CAVE [Illustration] The Christopher Publishing House Boston, U. S. A. COPYRIGHT 1943 BY SALLY BULLOCK CAVE PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Table of Contents Aviator New York City Amateur Burning Bush Oboe October Poem To Marco,—My Dog Time in the Museum Desert by Train The First Swallow Leaf Music Question Shakespeare Spoken Color Conflict Memory Child With Book Call of the Wild Geese Poems Book Worm To Elizabeth The Prize Babel Migratory Birds Wish Fulfillment Ten to One Sun Dial Antiphony Awakening Love’s Paradox The Roost Water Color Felix To C. B. Cherry Tree Parable Justice Death Summer Time Family Portrait Anglo Saxon Childhood Return White Magic Comedy Radio Miss Blynn Inland Voices Child of God Microcosm Fraternité Wild Geese Artist In a Library Kentuckian INLAND VOICES AVIATOR I think of man’s far paths begun in fear And naked dark beneath a drowsing sea The warm compassion of whose waves can be His rest no longer . . . for within this mere Unworded matter stirs the power to clear Perverse and sullen elements . . . to free The magnitude of space . . . the mystery Of seas beyond the chart of now and here. The days pass over and the hours share The magic of a worm’s release . . . as gyre On rising gyre he circles upward . . . where The incandescent wings of his desire Now send him through the dazzling whorls of air To whirl and flutter at an astral fire. NEW YORK CITY What boundless thoughts are his who dares to play With affirmations of dominion. . . Height And depth are perilous metaphors,—the might Of gods,—high gods.—“The man is now,” they say, “As one of us; he rears his summits gay,— His unimaginable towers bright Upon the sheer outposts of dark and light Where night dims night and day outdazzles day. We know he means at length to meet the skies;— To mount on high desires,—and soon or late To lift his spires to higher pageantries Where wild geese drive,—indifferent as fate. Oh, cherubim,—unsheathe your flaming sword Wherewith you bar the gate-way of the Lord!” AMATEUR I love the tread of measured prose that swings Its ordered legion of words in bright Accoutrement that gleams against the light,— And poetry’s aerial course that flings The star dust scattering from cloudy wings,— Or lights its fire of faery rhythm to fright The creeping fears of dust and cold and blight. . . For words are magical,—words are charmed things. And if with slow and heavy hand I dare To make them march or fly or set them free To burn within that rich and perfumed air That is their element,—say then of me: “This English speech of spikenard and of myrrh She loved,—and much shall be forgiven her.” BURNING BUSH A seer in a cloudy place Once saw the glory of God’s face. . . And lo, he had a mind to tell Of a burning bush where God’s word fell! Today I saw in cloud and flame A rainbow go the way it came. . . And a fiery thing Is the flowering Japonica in the spring. OBOE A TRIOLET Through this delicate reed Breathes a pale oread In a voice that would plead Through this delicate reed To all wo and its need In a tone frail and sad. . . Through this delicate reed Breathes a pale oread. OCTOBER Silence has fallen on my garden. . . Autumnal, crystalline,— October silence. . . The birds are on their way, now,—their songs are mute. . . But from the path of their faring,— And from the very wings of departure Is shed the clear glory of silence,— Beauty unrealized in the clamor of summer. . . Hushed bird songs linger here in the amber of remembrance,— While all the world seems a rondure of snared music. . . The sky is a golden gong Crashing the thin reverberance of silence. . . Everywhere are stilled rhythms,—sheer harmonies,— Of pause;— Of deeper music within music. Pierce the plenitudes of song—and silence wells beneath. . . Peer into the deep pools under the shoals of speech Where pause is the ultimate harmony,— Soundless unisonance of word, of thought. . . Silence has fallen on my garden. . . Silence like new snow And clear as frosted rime;— Autumnal, crystalline,— October. POEM A poem is an unicorn; Of the delicate air It is born To dare The jeopardy of breath;— The jaguars of love and of death. Its evasive feet Tune their part To the beat Of your heart. It drinks of the nectar of nenuphars Under the stars. . . When honeyed manna it is fed,— Smooth anodynes and charms,— You dare to stroke its timorous head And soothe its shy alarms. TO MARCO,—MY DOG Dear dark one, You were my shadow on bright days Of sun. . . In sunlit ways. But on black nights it seemed your aim To touch the springs of darkness whence you came,— Deeper than night’s own shadow. Then I could only see The tips of your white feet guiding me To your busy commerce with the things of night,— The incommunicable, secret night You loved; and when I loosed you in the park In the deepest dark,— Unled,— I followed where your white feet sped,— Four, vagrant, twinkling points of light. . . You go a long way . . . and unleashed . . . tonight. . . Far, far beyond my sight. . . Back to your dark,—my shadow. . . Oh, it would hearten me, When I shall travel on the path you tread, To see Your little white feet speeding on ahead! TIME IN THE MUSEUM The echoes ring their silver hooves tonight As charioted Aminóphis rides Along the streets of Karnak. . . and his bride’s Scant draperies flow backward,—as the bright Emblazoned trumpets of old Egypt fight In mute reverberation with the tides Of past and future . . . and the present glides In unperceived,—inexorable flight. . . A gift of lapis lazuli awaits The young queen’s pleasure at the palace gates Where Nefertiti tries her bracelet on From Bourrabura,—King of Babylon. . . No sun nor moon would mar a rondure thus Refigured on a gold sarcophagus. DESERT BY TRAIN By the train side Glide The grey busses over the Great Divide. . . And the huge solitudes Somehow relate Themselves to the preposterous Bus. . . To the state Of fret and strife. . . To the stress Of the incalculably small Stretch of loneliness We call Human life. Across the swales Of sage. . . Over the shard and the shales Of cosmic mountainous trails Without effrontery or fuss Sidles the little bus Rising to express a mood Not clearly understood,— A guess,— Indicative I am. . . I live. . . Far better it understands The slow, Straight, categorical demands Of Go! Of how to glide By the train side. . . Through the sieve Of Time to climb With the tenuous imperative Of human breath. . . That flirts The outskirts Of the valley of death. THE FIRST SWALLOW To read your dazzling cypher,—I should know The antique scrolls,—vermilion, gold and blue Encrusted manuscripts,—and should construe Their ancient text and lettering. . . Although The Word is not made blossom in the low Unbudded pear tree,—there is spread for you The open page of heaven,—to set thereto Your signature in evening’s afterglow. Upon the cloudy parchment of the skies You curve your verses in a running screed Of unknown script and gilded heraldries. Oh, some day,—surely,—I shall learn to read Your darting phrase,—that whirls its length in bars Of arabesque,—picked out with evening stars! LEAF MUSIC At daybreak, the trees Share the tide’s mystery; And the tremors that seize At daybreak,—the trees,— Are like thin symphonies Of the shells of the sea. At daybreak, the trees Share the tide’s mystery. QUESTION What is life? Life is desire. What is death? Look at the old women,— Desireless,—dessicated. Air may be pumped with a bellows. Breath? Of what avail are a few more mouthfuls,— Death? SHAKESPEARE SPOKEN We walk in radiant, enchanted ways,— A labyrinth of wonder words,—more rare Than planetary path, moon trail or haze Of milky sky-swath. . . Now we grow aware Of timeless things,—of deathless; there appears A long, dim, lovely vista,—as today Calls yesterday,—and fugitive, far years Swim in the air like birds, about our way. Last night,—was it,—Elizabeth, the Queen Heard first these wreathen words? Tonight, the stir My heart makes,—links this hour with what has been,— As pearl with matching pearl. . . The fretful whir Of time is muted,—as we move among The enchanted mazes of the English tongue. COLOR CONFLICT My neighbor has a black cat. . . I confess I distrust Lithe loveliness;— I must. My neighbor has a black cat;— Treachery thereat! Incandescent eyes,— Globes of amber sorceries Inset With jet. My neighbor has a black cat I have red birds! Last summer’s nestlings With crimson wings Lovelier than words. . . I offer security Window high But I can give no warnings These snowy mornings Though my heart cries Beware of amber eyes And be not so Radiant . . . so blood red upon the snow! MEMORY I need a word,—a star sapphire,—to be Inset with the fretted gold-work of a phrase. I do not find it in the damascene trays Wherein I keep the pearl and filagree;— And neither does it lie within the three Carved ivory caskets,—where in locked relays Are spread the jasper and the chrysoprase, The topaz, beryl and chalcedony. At length I send my courier, who has played With time and space,—and knows where glow the bright Sapphires like stars through lovers’ tears,—when night Meets day above Verona’s balustrade. And suddenly . . . within my phrase is set A star that might have shone on Juliet. CHILD WITH BOOK His thoughts are birds,—unloosed for sea and air And earth tonight;—he feels their swift release From narrow words of “now” and “here” to these Free sentences of lordly ones who wear The kingly robes of miniver and vair,— And in their worded turrets turn the keys That lock the levels of the lunar seas And loose the secrets crested thoughts may share. He learns the lay of hidden gardens by Their lurk of cinnamon and bergamot Near Persian palaces,—uncareful what His course is toward in wayward vagrancy That follows the roc’s cry to the towering cliffs Where echo the hoof-beats of the hippogriffs. CALL OF THE WILD GEESE Remember When October shies Into November I am on the track Of the roving pack Of the skies. Out beyond the barrier Of time’s preserve,— Out beyond the misty blur Of the planet’s curve,— On their royal flight At the spangled hem Of some bright October night I shall follow them. . . ! Remember. . . When October shies Into November I am on the track Of the roving pack Of the skies! POEMS In Italy,—like shells upon the shore The poems lie,—uncut,—unsorted,—for The questing hand of any passer-by To gather and to chase exquisitely Some precious outline,—graven to the worth Of shell or stone,—where even the ancient earth Is steeped in myth and lore and poetry Down fathoms deep as the Tyrrhenian sea. And I have searched as children do the wells Of sand and shoal to find the dripping shells Of poem stuff,—and secretly bestow Thereon some treasured word,—intaglio,— Where nacred tints of milk and honey mix In cameo and two-fold sardonyx. BOOK WORM The library is old across the way. . . And my five years are few to enter where Doors close and windows sift the light and day Is muted and the world grows pent and grey And words said, thin to whispers unaware,— And kind, old, pungent odors,—here and there,— Creep out to meet me,—sandalwood and bay,— Like breath of olden thoughts upon the air. I gnaw the bone of quiet;—on the wall Is spread a blur of books,—their taint in all The corners and on every shelf and chair A lovely savor ancient leathers wear,— And I,—in after hours,—have found that scent More gracious than the oils of Orient. TO ELIZABETH A queen Should be more wonderful than a king. She should bring All the beauty that has been. She should seem All the loveliness of the spring,— All the radiance that a king Could dream. THE PRIZE Oh, life is a fair merchandise. . . A doubloon for each freighted breath,— An aureate cargo,—under azure skies,— Trailed by the black prowed brigantine of death. BABEL As long ago as misty Genesis They dared to dream of towers to touch the sky. . . Some great Assyrian star swung heavily Above the velvet sward of night,—and this,— A climbing thought reached after; blasphemies Were whispered,—and dreams soared in secrecy Toward stars in gardens,—and such high thoughts by Their thrust were tinged with perpetuities. Yet Babylonia is less than breath Of words forgotten,—and its spires-to-be Made short and hasty covenant with death,— Shut in the plain of Shinar from the sea. I sometimes dream of those untenable towers. . . As lovely and as insolent as ours. MIGRATORY BIRDS You come to me So confidently I like to think It is not alone For the grain and drink On the smooth stone But that a kindred drift We own. . . For I long. . . I long For the lift Of song. . . And the wings of my heart ache too For the winds of the coastal blue! WISH FULFILLMENT San Francisco. 1906. “_For in one hour so great riches is come_ _to naught._” I coveted the gems of Asia,—strand On supple strand,—that evening,—in the great Thronged port of merchandise,—the open gate To orient treasuries,—where sea and land Re-word desire in jade or amber . . . and I would have bartered a round year for spate Of ivory and pearl and crusted plate And purple silk and scarlet saraband. Then hell flung high the loot of seven seas To the beleaguered stars. . . An old Chinese In charred, brocaded priest gear,—owed me his Frail breath . . . and pressed on my reluctance this Rare temple jade . . . repayment he thought not A sacrilege toward gods that clean forgot. TEN TO ONE We know less of mathematics Than a cat knows of aquatics Yet I reckon,—little Fido,— You should live as long as I do. If your year counts ten of mine Unmathematically align Your little stretch with my design With zero east of the digit line. There should be some way to do it,— Some trick,—if we only knew it. . . Surely there’s a sly equation,— A subtraction,—a summation,— Syncope or syncopation,— Solar time or magnitude That would adjust the dual feud Of tempo that disturbs the measure Of our little round of pleasure. That your year counts ten of mine Is surely nothing but a fine Impertinence of figurers To lengthen mine and shorten yours. . . Throw adage, axiom, apothem Into the dust bin,—all of them! If your year counts ten of mine I’ll whistle you over the other nine. You jump so nimbly, little pet,— Perhaps we’ll score the mark we’ve set. If we should put our sapience to it. . . I think it’s ten to one we’d do it. SUN DIAL ANTIPHONY My dial is a lovely thing; It stands serenely summoning The shy, swift messengers, awing. . . Its story is of hours that pass,— Not counted off with boom and brass But sun encircled on the grass. It stands enswathed in velvet mist,— By the first flush of sunrise kissed With topaz, rose and amethyst. I know a call the redbirds know,— A ritual of morning,—slow, Antiphonal,—tossed to and fro Between us,—with a manifold Sweet, secret meaning,—told and told,— As dear as friendship,—and as old. Upon the weather-beaten face Of the old dial, now I place A votive bowl of seed,—a grace Of faith. Soon on the dial rests A fire of wings,—a flame of crests,— Of coral beaks, of ruby breasts. And so they go the way they came,— I know their tongue,—I speak their name,— The dial glows,—an altar flame. My dial is a lovely thing, It stands serenely summoning The shy, swift messengers awing. AWAKENING 1940 Two oceans cradle us in guarded ease,— And from this soothing premise, inference runs In ways illogical. . . The tragic suns Of undefended lands may set,—but these Have not our oceans to defend their peace. Not with my ears,—oh, no,—mere hearing shuns The blow,—it is my heart that hears the guns Boom heavily, today, across the retreating seas. LOVE’S PARADOX They tell us love is briefer than the span Of day or night in swift totality. . . They say it is enduring as the sky,— An ache, an ease, an irk,—since time began;— A bauble tawdry as a tinsel fan,— A gift no god has scorned,—in earth or high Elysium;—a grace, a guile,—to try The tongue of Ormazd or of Ahriman. I think that love is like a wild sea bird Blown in, by storm, against your breast. . . Absurd To call it yours . . . yet on its talon, band A thong of pity,—that on sea or land Or mistiest port of heaven,—it may live A lightly bound, far roving fugitive. THE ROOST My little poems never stray,— I caution them to mind The portly giants in the way— And bide where folk are kind. . . Anonymous to peck and tear At homely crust,—because I know a cold, appraising stare Would chill their little craws. I see them as I wish they were! We shun the roaring fuss Of ogre and of editor The contumelious. WATER COLOR If wishes were fishes, Oh my, oh me! Reedily, weedily I’d carve a deep pool of the green porphyry By the green sea,— If wishes were fishes, oh me! If words were birds Oh me, oh my! Wittily, prettily I’d fly them as high as the bowl of the sky,— The blue, blue bowl of Italy,— If words were birds, oh my! For words and wishes like birds and fishes, Oh me, oh my! Adventure the high Shining cavern of sky And the vasty dim valleys of sea,— And cloud foam is their home And the spume of sea fume,— And both deeps are their keeps. FELIX Grandfather’s bookplate: “Felix qui potuit Rerum cognoscere causas”! Some show to it! Virgil once said it,—and stout things I owe to it,— Big things ever to be! Grandfather’s bookplate,—I, a child,—saw to it “Felix” was always there,—Felix was law to it,— Puckish and quizzical chuckles to draw to it,— Jolly and pat and free. Who guessed the store to it,—Latin or lore to it? Reading grew magical while Felix bore to it Every incentive to add more and more to it. . . Pangloss and Shandy and Peregrine score to it,— Melancholy Anatomy! Who was to question or quibble a flaw to it? Felix and I always sat cheek by jaw to it,— Felix was there as my guide and he saw to it Words were their starriest,—thoughts wore their wings. Who gave a hang that I came rash and raw to it? Nothing was taboo and nothing was awe to it. . . Mine was the merriment,—his was the law to it,— Felix took care of the causes of things. TO C. B. We talked of many things one talks of till The dawn . . . of beauty . . . of the mysteries Of spring . . . of thesis and antithesis In Hegel’s metaphysic . . . and the chill Of early morning found us eagerly still Abuilding bridges over the abyss Unknowable with nothing more than this Slight rope of symbol and of human will. Dawn glowed like hieratic jade. . . No chime Of hours quivered on the April air,— No comet fell nor sudden wing flashed where In our accountancy impassive time Delayed his cold summation . . . and where mild And violet eyed,—space looked on us and smiled. CHERRY TREE Philosophers say we cannot see A thing in itself . . . a tree as a tree,— But only as it appears to be In time and space and in causality. Last April burst with billowing stress My cherry tree’s frail loveliness. . . And May’s scarlet fruited bearing Overbent and spent her wearing. Thereafter, the small cherry tree Dropped her leaves and ceased to be. Only essential branch and bough Become her delicate symbol now. . . And no more will her feathered rim Lie spread like wings of the cherubim. . . And finished forever are the fire And flaming sword of her desire. Today,—a day of snow encrusted boughs,— I see Beneath the window of my house In bloom of star and fire and ice A tree Of paradise. . . And as I look,—appear From far and near Red birds like living flame Where once the radiant fruit came. Red birds that burst like burning words From tense Boughs of icy reticence. . . This is no more a tree It is a metaphor A sign Of a divine Metonymy. PARABLE Men say that in the season of long drouth And parching winds and brooks run rubble dry The roots of things go deeper,—till they lie Assuaged in soundless waters,—where the mouth Of some unfailing spring abounds. . . The wise Forecast the next year rich with weighted bloom Of ever richer blossoming . . . the plume Of wild grape like a breath of paradise. And so in arid days when hope seems dearth Of showers and appeasing dews,—I shall Reach only deeper,—in that interval,— To where,—in depths immeasurable to earth,— My spirit roots may find the hidden springs That draw their sustenance from eternal things. JUSTICE I would not be a hawk Predatory,—death dealing,— Though they gave me a regal crown of rapacity. I would not be a judge Tenacious fingered,—icily immobile,— Sentencing grimly,—with cold lips,— Though I wore robes of samite and of law. I would not be a hawk Agate eyed, fire taloned,— Basilisk beaked and beautiful As Lucifer,— Enjoying bitter enchantments of death. I looked once deep into the eyes of a hawk Blazing wild,— Shut hapless behind bars. . . . I opened them. He fled. . . Indissolubly one With the element that evoked him. His crest of adamant and gold Hurtled forth headlong In great circles of ferocity. I heard the searing scream of a sparrow As the glutted talons were fattened,—rejoiced. . . And the bronze curve of doom Darkened the blue abeyances Of evening. Once I looked into the heart of a judge,— Freezing cold. . . “Law is my living”,—reasoned the judge,— “Death decrees are the talons of justice,— The beak and the claws. . .” I would not be a judge Dropping death from infrangible lips of ice. I would not be a hawk Smiting like a shadow scimitar,— Denying the bright ambience Of love. DEATH “_Rejoice not against me_” For years a many,—for years on end,— Misliked and shunned was he. . . But now that he comes as a friend to a friend,— I know him mine enemy. SUMMER TIME Grant a nimble foot to dance in the wind,— A burnished eye to shine,— Give a draught of the breath of a climbing rose Or the bloom of the wild grape vine,— Yield a radiant tang of strawberries. . . Fling a liquid flame,—as when A day star falls,—or the cardinal calls And calls and calls again. FAMILY PORTRAIT A gentleman from Virginia,—with a streak Of high adventure,—and an eye for more And richer fields,—uncoveted before He countered death on meadow land and creek And wrested a fair acreage from beak And claw and Indian tether,—where his floor He laid him solid,—with a wide hearth core And shaped his roof into a gallant peak. And here he lived in suave urbanity With children, friends and slaves;—the portrait caught The peace and amplitude that ruled his thought In quieter years,—with sun and grass and tree. The house he built is ashes.—Nothing now Is left him but my casual lips and brow. ANGLO SAXON And shall I not remember well the sweet Fairspoken word my mother fed me on? What lovelier stars,—what darker,—I’ve foregone For the goodly taste of English speech! Albeit I travel alien paths,—no counterfeit Will serve me for that word of hers,—oh, none! Upon my lips the savor lies . . . her son Goes hungering and unashamed of it. Far stars may fling their verse on frieze or plinth,— Or whisper me prose as singing as a shell,— Where,—stained with amaranth and hyacinth,— Their wantless poets walk in asphodel; But I,—wherever I go,—on foot or wing,— Shall go,—as I go now,—remembering. . . CHILDHOOD “_And the evening and the morning were the_ _sixth day._” And God has given me dominion . . . word Of power over all the green, sweet earth,— And over every creeping thing and bird,— Swift fish and lagging cattle;—from the girth Of netted fireflies to the thundering Of galaxies that whirl in purple space,— Star dust and lovely dawns,—the shining face Of the first golden crocus in the spring. . . And through wide branches,—I may learn where far Aldebaran and mighty Sirius are. . . And gather the scent of gardens,—where I lie. . . While God is lighting up the evening sky. . . And, with His word,—above the lunar seas The lovelier gardens of the Pleiades. RETURN Last night, while trade winds roared and foghorns plied Their monotone . . . my dreams were willfully With one who loved the eager seas,—storm free, Or savage with the hunger of the tide. . . With one,—who, on the ebb of April, died. . . Land locked. . . I dreamed he climbed grey cliffs with me Above a lashing waste of turbulent sea Wind-hurled in spray about us far and wide. . . His eyes held laughing fires. . . “An inland fear Crept on me, unaware . . .” he said. . . “How far The tide calls . . . and tonight I come . . . to hear The trade winds battle at the outer bar. . . The crash . . . the hush. . . I’ve dreamed of this . . .” he said. “Your surf tonight would almost wake the dead!” WHITE MAGIC Upon a Tuscan day of festival I paused a moment where the ancient road Sweeps round a heady curve of hill thick snowed With white Carrara dust. . . In pastoral And flower wreathed processional Came toward me two white oxen,—and time slowed Its tread and claimed the primal gods were owed Those agate eyes and horns of ritual. On hooves of porphyry they came;—no gull Had feather softer than their flanks,—white furred With legend;—and the lidded centuries stirred In sleep;—for ancient names and beautiful: Etruria, Alba, Sybaris distill Archaic wonder on a Tuscan hill. COMEDY I go to the pictures to see them twice;— Once upon the moving screen And again upon the screen of the crowd face. I walk down the aisle to watch the picture reflected Upon the crowd face. I see smiles ripple in widening rhythms,— Elfin, goblin rhythms,— From the stone of merriment Dropped into neutral waters. The crowd face is pitiful in its smiling. It is being slaked here at the fountain of smiles. I watch an ever widening ripple of laughter Run in antic circles over its face. I pity its face Here is assuagement for the gravity of human woe. Here men come to drink of the fountain of smiles. . . To be appeased with the soothing balm of laughter. . . To release the bounded ego To the unbounded cosmos That knows no hap and no hindrance. . . That spawns laughter,—untroubled laughter. . . I watch the waves of merriment widen, flicker, recede As the mind travels on some frail inconsequence And faces are rippled with pitiful laughter And eyes shine with the deliverance of dream. RADIO Ten cycles of the ecliptic sped by ten Are gone since Homer wandered on the high Green slope of Helicon . . . and shepherds by The star pied seas of Hellas heard again The ancient songs,—the rare old songs . . . as when The heroes of the mountain top and sky In immemorial cadence . . . gloriously Gave to the winds the praise of gods and men. And now,—in these far centuries,—I near The secret of the tides of song,—and share The murmur of their bardic springs . . . and on Some sudden muted interval,—in clear And planetary rhythms of the air I hear the running brooks of Helicon. MISS BLYNN Today I rip the stitches in a satin gown That has lain in the garret,—forgot,—folded down. . . Old laces must be cherished,—they outlive joys,—long years. They outlive tears. Little Miss Blynn,—who stitched this lace in place,— Has been ten years under ground; But her stitches hold,—steel bound. As I rip them this day of winter and deep snow I seem to see Miss Blynn as she stitched them in,— Ten winters ago. Her face was faintly lined,—but her neck still wore A rondure and grace Though she had stitched for forty years or more. . . And she was slow as the hour hand of eternity,—I thought,— Watching her: “Time and money wasted! Caught And pierced by her suspended needle,—basted In her unhurrying, deliberate thread!” Out and in! Stitch on stitch! Little Miss Blynn Seemed inexorable as her stitches were. . . And now,—as I take out each contumacious little thread,— I seem to read it plain as word said,— Clear as sound,— Though she is dead,—ten years,—under ground: “Scissors and thread! Fate,—they call it! Fate! Never a chance! Early and late I’ve stitched . . . straight . . . straight. . . Only in dreams I’ve known The raptures of Love. . . While I have sewn Your seams . . . seams . . . seams. . . My breath shortens with counting The mounting sum of them! . . Now love is starving to death.” Stitches in a satin gown . . . folded down. . . Old laces must be cherished . . . they outlive lives . . . long years. They outlive tears. Little Miss Blynn, Your time,—your time is nearly stitched in! At the end of it all Hereabout Is a small, Tight knot. I have got to rip the fabric to get that out. INLAND VOICES Within this sea of blue grass lie the beat Of tides,—the tune of surf,—the luminous haze Of mewing gulls;—I hear on quiet days The secret voices of the waves that meet The wordage of warm sand,—as crisp and sweet As chosen verse that chants the fugitive ways A trade wind takes on deep sea paths,—and lays The purring breath of shell beneath my feet. The tides of ocean,—long before my birth,— Moved on this meadow,—and the measureless sand Lay on these leagues of blue grass pasture land Where ages hence,—when spring tides wake the earth. . . Some unremembered word of mine may sing Rewhispered in a shell’s frail whispering. CHILD OF GOD Deep snow . . . and twilight deepening . . . yet I should Have known him, surely,—even had the gull Not hovered near,—wing curved and beautiful,— In swerving arcs above him,—where he stood With lantern and with staff,—and knocked. . . His breast Was girt with no insignia of gold Yet as he turned against the bitter cold I think I might have known. . . I might have guessed. For peradventure even holden eyes May open and may know him standing there. . . The bloom on him of stars from kindlier skies,— The mood of tenderer winds about his hair. . . It was my humble gardener at the door Where he had stood a hundred times before. MICROCOSM 1940 They say Thousands were killed in one short day. . . Thousands and thousands . . . on the air Come words of bleak despair. And these are only words to me. . . . For such things cannot be. But when,—as now,—they send A token of one smiling boy “Shot down” . . . at last . . . I comprehend In single count . . . the casual end Of youth and joy. I share in cost The piteous few Lost Years. . . As though of all despair The measure were Concentred in this integer. . . As a drop of dew Holds for your eyes The clouded skies And enspheres All tears. FRATERNITÉ I walked with one who said our score was paid And over-paid upon the battlefield Of the Argonne. . . We saw the fertile yield Of berries,—dark and red,—no tilth of spade Had touched where young blood poured beneath the shade Of Belleau Wood . . . and small white stones had sealed The legend of libation there,—a shield On alien altars we had rashly laid. He spoke . . . yet I remembered how you came From out the courtly ways of Chavagnac To fight on wild frontiers and in the track Of foaming wildernesses,—for a name,— A shining word,—a shibboleth that set Your torch to ours,—your heart,—young LaFayette! WILD GEESE A whisper is upon the wind tonight,— The whirring, gusty whispering of wings. . . The muffled surge of murmuring armies brings To emulous tumult the far paths of flight. Upon what secret order is the might Of lunar armies loosed and sped,—what things Unknowable,—these cosmic journeyings Above the pale of thought,—the arc of sight? And do they pass, in vague processional, Vast other armies also under stress Of marching order,—whose dim voices fall Upon my shuttered door of consciousness? And are these wild geese flying overhead Or hurrying legions of the newly dead? ARTIST They said he hunted fireflies High up in the sidereal skies. . . They whispered . . . only nebulæ His net of dream would hold . . . that he Was not sky wise . . . and furthermore His filament of fancy bore No bait to snare a meteor. They railed: “Old Fireflies!” He went His own high way intransigent; For he had learned in far off land To hold his heart in his naked hand; Dark lore he learned,—by scroll and chart: “There’s no bait like a beating heart.” He went his way,—for bliss or ban,— His sky way antinomian; For well he knew,—come fire, come flood,— The net was baited with his blood. They said he netted fireflies,— The trivia of the stellar skies;— But hurtling from the fields afar,— From where the dizziest sky trails are,— There blazed, one night, a shooting star. . . All thereabout it raged, and rent The skies,—and roared incontinent. . . Upon the net it swept, unspent. It whined,—it sniffed,—it eat,—they heard,— It licked the hunter’s hand,—it purred. IN A LIBRARY Here thoughts exale their qualities,—as fair Old perfumes live,—or sacred unguents are Preserved within a mortuary jar Whose lid I open tenderly to the bare Astringence of the outer, living air While Pliny tells of terraces where far Cool breezes of the Apennines re-star His villa with these violets I share. I breathe the odors of the hours that were And know the unwasted joy of ancient things; The rhetoric of Abelard,—the blur Of love words long forgotten,—and the strings Of scented cargoes on the waves that stir The ships of Tarshish and of Nineveh. KENTUCKIAN I dream the old trees live again . . . their scars Made whole . . . and while the ancient summers spread Their leaves,—like words interminably said,— The forest murmurs at my window bars. . . The immemorial wilderness that wars No more with man,—where young grandfather led The trail his searching ax interpreted,— And built his cabin open to the stars. On many a winter midnight hushed in snow Come footsteps round our fires and doors shut blind,— As over the drowsing quiet of the mind Move soundless moccasins that come and go On lonely trails a lean young woodsman knows Through forests bending with forgotten snows. [The end of _Inland Voices_ by Sally Bullock Cave]