Part 7 (1/2)

ECLIPSE

Once melodies of street-cries washed these walls, Glad as the refluent song Of cheerful waters from a happy spring That shout their way along; Such cries were born in other days from lips A spirit taught to sing. Now it is gone!

Memory expects those hymns for shrimp and prawn, Or the mellifluous chaunt from the black gorge Of Orpheus inside a murky skin, Who looked the gold sun in the eye While garden mists grew thin, And intoned ”_Hoppin' John_!”

As when the shadow of the gray eclipse Haggards the countryside, When moon-fooled birds have nothing more to say, And soft untimely bats begin to slide; As darkness sweeps the morning light away, So silence brushes music now from lips.

Oh! Can it be the songless spirit of this age Has slain the ancient music, or that ears Have harsher thresholds? Only this I know: The streets grow more discordant with the years; And that which bids the huckster sing no more, Will drive the flower-woman from the door.

H.A.

EDGAR ALLAN POE[8]

Once in the starlight When the tides were low, And the surf fell sobbing To the undertow, I trod the windless dunes Alone with Edgar Poe.

Dim and far behind us, Like a fabled bloom On the myrtle thickets, In the swaying gloom Hung the cl.u.s.tered windows Of the barrack-room.

Faint on the evening Tenuous and far As the beauty shaken From a vagrant star, Throbbed the ache and pa.s.sion Of an old guitar.

Life closed behind us Like a swinging gate, Leaving us unfettered And emanc.i.p.ate; Confidants of Destiny, Intimates of Fate.

I could only cower, Silent, while the night, Seething with its planets, Parted to our sight, Showing us infinity In its breadth and height.

But my chosen comrade, Tossing back his hair With the old loved gesture, Raised his face, and there Shone the agony that those Loved of G.o.d must bear.

Oh, we heard the many things Silence has to say; He and I together As alone we lay Waiting for the slow, sweet Miracle of day.

When the bugle's silver Spiralled up the dawn, Dew-dear, night-cool, And the stars were gone, I arose exultant, Like a man new born.

But my friend and master, Heavy-limbed and spent, Turned, as one must turn at last From the sacrament; And his eyes were deep with G.o.d's Burning discontent.

D.H.

[8] See the note on Poe.

ALCHEMY[9]

Some souls are strangers in this bourne; Beauty is born from such men's discontent; Earth's gra.s.s and stones, Her seas, her forests, and her air Are seas and forests till they mirror on some pool Unusually reflecting in an exile's mind, Who tarries here protesting and alone; And then they get strange shapes from memories of other stars The banished knew, or spheres he dreams will be.

Thus is the fivefold vision of the earth recast By ghostly alchemy.

But there are favored spots Where all earth's moods conspire to make a show Of things to be trans.m.u.ted into beauty By alchemic minds.

Such is this island beach where Poe once walked, And heard the melic throbbing of the sea, With m.u.f.fled sound of harbor bells-- Bells--he loved bells!