Volume Iii Part 18 (1/2)

To Thee, dear G.o.d of Mercy, both appeal, Who straightway sound the call to arms. Thou know'st; And that black spot in each embattled host, Spring of the blood-stream, later wilt reveal.

Now is it red artillery and white steel; Till on a day will ring the victor's boast, That 'tis Thy chosen towers uppermost, Where Thy rejected grovels under heel.

So in all times of man's descent insane To brute, did strength and craft combining strike, Even as a G.o.d of Armies, his fell blow.

But at the close he entered Thy domain, Dear G.o.d of Mercy, and if lion-like He tore the fall'n, the Eternal was his Foe.

A GARDEN IDYL

With sagest craft Arachne worked Her web, and at a corner lurked, Awaiting what should plump her soon, To case it in the death-coc.o.o.n.

Sagaciously her home she chose For visits that would never close; Inside my chalet-porch her feast Plucked all the winds but chill North-east.

The finished structure, bar on bar, Had s.n.a.t.c.hed from light to form a star, And struck on sight, when quick with dews, Like music of the very Muse.

Great artists pa.s.s our single sense; We hear in seeing, strung to tense; Then haply marvel, groan mayhap, To think such beauty means a trap.

But Nature's genius, even man's At best, is practical in plans; Subservient to the needy thought, However rare the weapon wrought.

As long as Nature holds it good To urge her creatures' quest for food Will beauty stamp the just intent Of weapons upon service bent.

For beauty is a flower of roots Embedded lower than our boots; Out of the primal strata springs, And shows for crown of useful things

Arachne's dream of prey to size Aspired; so she could nigh despise The puny specks the breezes round Supplied, and let them shake unwound; a.s.sured of her fat fly to come; Perhaps a blue, the spider's plum; Who takes the fatal odds in fight, And gives repast an appet.i.te, By plunging, whizzing, till his wings Are webbed, and in the lists he swings, A shrouded lump, for her to see Her banquet in her victory.

This matron of the unnumbered threads, One day of dandelions' heads Distributing their gray perruques Up every gust, I watched with looks Discreet beside the chalet-door; And gracefully a light wind bore, Direct upon my webster's wall, A monster in the form of ball; The mildest captive ever snared, That neither struggled nor despaired, On half the net invading hung, And plain as in her mother tongue, While low the weaver cursed her lures, Remarked, ”You have me; I am yours.”

Thrice magnified, in phantom shape, Her dream of size she saw, agape.

Midway the vast round-raying beard A desiccated midge appeared; Whose body p.r.i.c.ked the name of meal, Whose hair had growth in earth's unreal; Provocative of dread and wrath, Contempt and horror, in one froth, Inextricable, insensible, His poison presence there would dwell, Declaring him her dream fulfilled, A catch to compliment the skilled; And she reduced to beaky skin, Disgraceful among kith and kin

Against her corner, humped and aged, Arachne wrinkled, past enraged, Beyond disgust or hope in guile.

Ridiculously volatile He seemed to her last spark of mind; And that in pallid ash declined Beneath the blow by knowledge dealt, Wherein throughout her frame she felt That he, the light wind's libertine, Without a scoff, without a grin, And mannered like the courtly few, Who merely danced when light winds blew, Impervious to beak and claws, Tradition's ruinous Whitebeard was; Of whom, as actors in old scenes, Had grannam weavers warned their weans, With word, that less than feather-weight, He smote the web like bolt of Fate.

This muted drama, hour by hour, I watched amid a world in flower, Ere yet Autumnal threads had laid Their gray-blue o'er the gra.s.s's blade, And still along the garden-run The blindworm stretched him, drunk of sun.

Arachne crouched unmoved; perchance Her visitor performed a dance; She puckered thinner; he the same As when on that light wind he came.

Next day was told what deeds of night Were done; the web had vanished quite; With it the strange opposing pair; And listless waved on vacant air, For her adieu to heart's content, A solitary filament.

A READING OF LIFE--THE VITAL CHOICE

I

Or shall we run with Artemis Or yield the breast to Aphrodite?

Both are mighty; Both give bliss; Each can torture if divided; Each claims wors.h.i.+p undivided, In her wake would have us wallow.

II

Youth must offer on bent knees Homage unto one or other; Earth, the mother, This decrees; And unto the pallid Scyther Either points us shun we either Shun or too devoutly follow.

A READING OF LIFE--WITH THE HUNTRESS

Through the water-eye of night, Midway between eve and dawn, See the chase, the rout, the flight In deep forest; oread, faun, Goat-foot, antlers laid on neck; Ravenous all the line for speed.

See yon wavy sparkle beck Sign of the Virgin Lady's lead.