Part 1 (1/2)

A Lonely Flute.

by Odell Shepard.

PROEM

Beyond the pearly portal, Beyond the last dim star, Pale, perfect, and immortal, The eternal visions are, That never any rapture Of sorrow or of mirth Of any song shall capture To dwell with men on earth.

Many a strange and tragic Old sorrow still is mute And melodies of magic Still slumber in the flute, Many a mighty vision Has caught my yearning eye And swept with calm derision In robes of splendor by.

The rus.h.i.+ng susurration Of some eternal wing Beats mighty variation Through all the song I sing; The vague, deep-mouthed commotion From its ancestral home Booms like the shout of ocean Across the crumbling foam; And these low lyric whispers Make answer wistfully As sea-sh.e.l.ls ... dreaming lispers Beside the eternal sea.

LAUS MARIae

There is a name like some deep melody Hallowed by sundown, delicate as the plash Of lonely waves on solitary lakes And rounded as the sudden-bursting bloom Of bold, deep-throated notes in a midnight cloud When shadowy belfries far away roll out Across the dark their avalanche of sound.

It is a wild voice lost in the wail of the wind; The silvery-twinkling plectrum of the rain Plays in the poplar tree no other tune And pines intone it softly as a prayer In leafy litanies.

The name is raised Even to G.o.d's ear from ancient arches dim With caverned twilight and dull altar smoke Where tapers weave athwart the azure haze Innumerable pageantries of dusk.

Low-voiced and soft-eyed women must they live Who bear that holy name. And now for one Time has no other honor than to be The meaning of an unremembered rhyme, The breath of a forgotten singer's song.

(_October_, 1903)

RECOLLECTION

I must forget awhile the mellow flutes And all the lyric wizardry of strings; The fragile clarinet, Tremulous over meadows rich with dawn, Must knock against my vagrant heart And throb and cry no more.

For I am shaken by the loveliness And lights and laughter and beguiling song Of all this siren world; The regal beauty of women, round on round, The swift, lithe slenderness of girls, And children's loyal eyes,

Hill rivers and the lilac fringe of seas Lazily plunging, glow of city nights And faces in the glow-- These things have stolen my heart away, I lie Parcelled abroad in sound and hue, Dispersed through all I love.

I must go far away to a still place And draw the shadows down across my eyes And wait and listen there For wings vibrating from beyond the stars, Wide-ranging, swiftly winnowing wings Bearing me back mine own.

So soon, now, I shall lie deep hidden away From sound or sight, with hearing strangely dull And heavy-lidded eyes,-- 'T is time, O pa.s.sionate soul, for me to go Some far, hill-folded road apart And learn the ways of peace.

NIGHTFALL

In a crumbling glory sets The unhastening sun; The fishers draw their s.h.i.+ning nets; The day is done.

Across the ruddy wine That brims the sea Black boats drag sh.o.r.eward through the brine Dreamily,

And dark against the glow Firing the west, By three and two the great gulls go Seaward to rest.

Beneath the gradual host Of heaven, pale And glimmering, rides a dim sea-ghost, A large slow sail.

Slowly she cometh on Day's last faint breath, Drifting across the water, wan And gray as death.

From what far-lying land Swimmeth thy keel, Dim s.h.i.+p? And what mysterious hand Is at thy wheel?