Retinue and other poems / by Katharine Lee Bates [electronic text]

Overseas

STARLIGHT AT SEA

OVER the murmurous choral of dim waves The constellations glow against the soft Ethereal dusk, —forever fair, aloft, Serene, while man climbs painfully from caves To cities, clamorous cities, life that raves Like surf against the rocks. It is not oft Our cities glimpse the stars, their luster scoffed Away by low, hard glitter that outbraves Night's blessing of the dark. But here upon Mid-ocean, all whose muffled voices ring A rapture lost to our vexed human wills, We see the primal radiance that shone On chaos, —see the young God shepherding His gleaming flocks on the empurpled hills.

WINGS

GRAY gulls that wheeled and dipped and rose Where tossing crests like Alpine snowsWould shimmer and entice;

A stormy petrel, Judas soul, Dark wanderer of the waste, whose goal No mariner hath seen;

And flaming from the vanished sun A wondrous wing vermilion, A bird of Paradise,

A soaring wing that shone so far The orient horizon bar Flushed, and the sea between

Like an Arabian carpet glowed With changeful hues where subtly flowed Some magical device;

And one pale plume in heaven's dim dome Above that fairy-colored foam, The new moon's ghostly sheen.

MAN OVERBOARD

YOUNG, the naked stoker who went Mad with the fires and leapt to the sea, Boyhood still in the voice that sent One shrill cry back from eternity.

Perchance from the phosphorescent gleams That shot through our wake of swirling foam, On his delirious brain flashed dreams Of a waiting mother, an English home.

The ocean clad him in cool, soft robe; The ship fled on, as the guilty flee; And the sun, a crimson-belted globe, Slipped down to comfort him under the sea.

THE LIGHTHOUSE

IN seas far north, day after day We leaned upon the rail, engrossed In frolic fin and jewel spray And crystal headlands of the coast.

Those beauties held so long in gaze Have melted from my mind like snow, But still I see through rifted haze The wizard tower and portico

That flashed one instant, white and whist, A grace too exquisite to keep, A picture springing from the mist As a dream comes shining out of sleep.

I do not know what name he wrote, Our captain, in his good ship's log,For that sea-wraith, —how men denote Our fleeting phantom of the fog;

But yet across the world I thrill With rapture of that ivory gleam, That sudden shaft of glory, till It wears the wonder of a dream.

THE "TITANIC"

As she sped from dawn to gloaming, a palace upon the sea, Did the waves from her proud bows foaming whisper what port should be? That her maiden voyage was tending to a haven hushed and deep, Where after the shock and the rending she should moor at the wharf of sleep?

Oh, her name shall be tale and token to all the ships that sail, How her mighty heart was broken by blow of a crystal flail, How in majesty still peerless her helpless head she bowed And in light and music, fearless, plunged to her purple shroud.

Did gleams and dreams half-heeded, while the days so lightly ran,

Awaken the glory seeded from God in the soul of man? For touched with a shining chrism, with love's fine grace imbued, Men turned them to heroisim as it were but habitude.

O midnight strange and solemn, when the icebergs stood at gaze, Death on one pallid column, to watch our human ways, And saw throned Death defeated by a greater lord than he, Immortal Life who greeted home-comers from the sea.

THE THRACIAN STONE

"The faieries gave him the propertie of the Thracian stone; for who toucheth it is exempted from griefe."

The fairies to his cradle came to play their fairy part,Their footsteps like the laughter of a leaf;

They touched him with the Thracian stone that setteth free the heart—O dream-enchanted, singing heart!—forever free from grief.

The wind it could not blow a way that failed to please him well; Beyond the rain he saw the March skies blue With hope of April violets; he cast his fairy spell Over our flawed and tarnished world, creating all things new.

He bore the burden of his day, the burden and the heat, As blithely as a seagull breasts the gale, Glorying that God should trust his strength. The color of ripe wheat Was on his life when it was flung beneath pain's threshing-flail.

He fronted that grim challenge like some resplendent knight

Who rides against foul foes of fen and wood; With ringing song of onset, his spirit, hero bright,Went tilting with a sunbeam against the dragon brood.

Then dusky shapes stole on him, Queen of the Quaking Isle, Queens of the Land of Longing and the Waste; He bowed him to their bidding with a secret in his smile; He quaffed their bitter cups that left ambrosia on the taste.

Last came the King of Terrors, and lo! his iron crown Had twinkled to a silver fairy-cap; Like two old friends they took the road to Love-and-Beauty town, That's here and there and everywhere on all the starry map.

APOLLO LAUGHS

"APOLLO laughs," the proverb tells, Far echo of old oracles, A Delphic waif, —"Once in the year, Apollo laughs." O laughter clear As sunshine, blithe as golden bells!

What mortal folly parallels Olympian jest and so impels To mirth till Heaven's bright charioteer, Apollo, laughs?

'Tis when the annual critic knells The death of poetry, while swells Some faint, fresh wood-note, pioneer Of music earth shall thrill to hear. Then at Apollo's infidels Apollo laughs.

SHAKESPEARE'S FESTIVAL

WHILE we keep our Poet's Tercentennial, Every school and city with its emulous Antic or solemnity, what tremulous Laughter on the air! O Puck perennial!

Leave us clumsy mortals to our drolleries, Strenuous gambols of Shakespearean gratitude, And be off to find him in Beatitude, Win his genial glance with elf cajoleries,

And then tell him of our sage frivolity Till his golden laughter wake eternity, And about him flock his old fraternity, All his scapegrace fellows of the quality,

Greene not jealous, Heminge no more stammering, Marlowe one white flame of passion glorious,

Rare Ben modest, vagabonds victorious, All about the Master crowding, clamoring,

Talking all at once in odes and triolets, Sonnets like the stars for prodigality, While Will Shakespeare loafs with Immortality On a stolen bank of Arden violets.

LYDD

For the Reunion of the Bates Family at Quincy, August 3, 1916

FAR away on the sunny levels Where Kent lies drowsing beside the sea, Where over the foxglove as over the foam The gray gull sails, is our ancient home. Wide though we wander, something follows, The cradle-call from a village hid Under the cloud of rooks and swallows That love its thatches and orchards, Lydd.

Here they sported in rustic revels, Our sturdy forbears, while ale flowed free, Richard and Susan and Sybil and John, All their jollity hushed and gone; Our grandsires proud of their scraps of Latin, Our grandams, "notable huswifs" all; We may touch the very settles they sat in, But they, like their shadows upon the wall,

Have slipped from their sweet, accustomed places,Stephen, Samuel, Ellen, Anne. The pewter flagons they valued so Stand, though battered, in shining row, But the hands that scoured them, long since folded, Lips that smacked over them, long since dust, Are known no more in the town they molded To civic honor and neighbor trust.

Ah, for their quaint, forgotten graces, Flushing raptures of maid and man,

James and Alice, Thomas and Joan, Blood of our blood and bone of our bone! Only the trampled slabs and brasses That floor the aisles of the old church tell Their dates and virtues to him who passes, How long they labored in Lydd, how well.

Their Catholic sins have all been shriven, And their Puritan righteousness pardoned, too. Lax and merry, or holy and harsh, They have flown to Heaven from Romney Marsh, Lydia, David, Joshua, Zealous, "Katharine Spinster," yet still on earth Their wraiths abide in our being, jealous For the brief, blunt name and its modest worth.

For each of us is phantom-driven, A haunted house where a glimmering crew Of dear and queer ancestral ghosts Quarrel and match their family boasts,

Color our half and fashion our noses, Shape the deed and govern the mood; In every rose are a thousand roses; Every man is a multitude.

A patchwork we are of antique vagaries; Primitive passions trouble our pulse. "Margery, relict of Andrew Bate," Clement, Rachel and William hate And adore in us. No vain sunriser In all our clan, but he owes the praise To some progenital dew-surpriser Who knelt to the dawn in pagan days.

Sailors that steered for the misty Canaries, Fishers whose feet loved the feel of the dulse, Agnes, Simon, Julian, George, Faithful in kitchen, hayfield and forge, Give us our dreams, our sea-love, the voices That speak in our conscience, rebuke and forbid. Hark! In our festal laughter rejoices A quavering note from the graves of Lydd.

THIS TATTERED CATECHISM

THIS tattered catechism weaves a spell, Invoking from the Long Ago a child Who deemed her fledgling soul so sin-defiled She practised with a candle-flame at hell, Burning small fingers, that would still rebel And flinch from fire. Forsooth not all beguiled By hymn and sermon, when her mother smiled, That smile was fashioning an infidel.

"If I'm in hell," the baby logic ran, "Mother will hear me cry and come for me. If God says no —I don't believe He can Say no to mother." Then at that dear knee She knelt demure, a little Puritan Whose faith in love had wrecked theology.

WHEN CAP'N TOM COMES HOME

WHEN Cap'n Tom comes home, and his sea chestIs opened, oh, the shells that rainbow foam Tossed on far shores, by us to be possessedWhen Cap'n Tom comes home!

Cocoanuts for which gray, chattering monkeys clomb; Tamarinds, and dates, and luscious sweetmeats pressed Into blue jars of quaint pagoda dome!

Canaries, corals, shimmering shawls and, bestOf all, keepsakes that on wild seas a-roam He carved from whale's tooth for a village blest When Cap'n Tom comes home!

AT STONEHENGE

GRIM stones whose gray lips keep your secret well, Our hands that touch you touch an ancient terror, An ancient woe, colossal citadel Of some fierce faith, some heaven-affronting error.

Rude-built, as if young Titans on this wold Once played with ponderous blocks a striding giant Had brought from oversea, till child more bold Tumbled their temple down with foot defiant.

Upon your fatal altar Redbreast combs A fluttering plume, and flocks of eager swallows Dip fearlessly to choose their April homes Amid your crevices and storm-beat hollows.

Even so in elemental mysteries, Portentous, vast, august, uncomprehended, Do we dispose our little lives for ease, By their unconscious courtesies befriended.

GEORGE MACDONALD

I HEARD him preach in Oxford years ago, A snowy-haired and tender-faced apostle. I watched the beech against the window blow, And listened to the throstle.

And still a waving branch to memory brings Those deepset eyes and drooping lids as pressed Upon too much by earthly visionings And wistful for their rest.

Still in the flutings of a thrush will sound Words that upon us then but lightly fell, Because they were as simple and profound As some brief parable

Told by the Master to the hungry folk, While the disciples murmured, but the foam Wrote it again on Patmos, and it spoke Above the rage of Rome.

THE PRESENCE CHAMBER

(Switzerland)

BEHOLD a temple builded not by hands. Columns of mist, all shimmering with sun, Stream heavenward from the deep-cut vales that run Between the mountains, and the vault expands, Splendor of turquoise, groined with opal bands. Cloud tapestries, of pearl and amber spun, Veil in that glorious pavilion, Mosaic-paved with cities, lakes and lands. But far withdrawn in utter light of light, Holy of Holies, is the God to whom

Our souls, that make their own enshrouding night, Lift piteous prayer: "Deliver us from gloom," Yet shrink aftrighted from the answering, white, Unbearable Divine that would illume.

SPAIN

Across New England snows Flash visions from afar, Lithe gipsies on their toes Dancing to gay guitar; With gesture fierce, bizarre, They lilt some old refrain In whose wild measures are The witcheries of Spain.

The stinging north wind blows, But with a ruddy jar Poised on her proud head goes A maiden like a star

While, biting his cigar, Her lover, scorned again, Loads on his ass-drawn car The oranges of Spain.

As keen as cameos Against yon gray cloud-bar Shine out a tower of rose, A spire like flaming spar, Gold shrines whose candles char The world to ashes, train Of pilgrims, globular Pomegranates flushed with Spain.

What freak of calendar, What frostwork on the pane, What angry sleet can mar My picture-book of Spain?

MY LADY OF WHIMS

(A medieval Spanish legend slanderously setting forth the utter unreason of woman.)

ROMAQUIA sat and wept herLace mantilla full of tears. King Abit laid by his scepter, Left the Council of the Peers. "Now what sorrow makes thee cry, mate? Queen of Seville, sobbing so?" "'Tis your Andalusian climate. Oh, I want to see the snow." "Speak thy wish and it is granted; Thine to bid and mine to please." All the hills and plains he planted With a myriad almond trees.When the suns of February Made them white with blossoming, Romaquia was so merry That she kissed the happy king.

"Every ill has its panacea," Wrote the learned King Abit, Smiling on his Romaquia, While he wondered at his wit.

Romaquia sat and wept her Dainty fan into a dud. King Abit threw by his scepter With an unmajestic thud. "What's the trouble, top of treasures?" "See those women by the flood Kneading bricks, but I've no pleasures. I can't dabble in the mud." Loud he called his master mason And in bower of eglantine Built a jade and jasper basin, Filled with rose-water and wine. Then for mud he poured in spices, Ginger, mace and cinnamon, Sugar, honey, syrups, ices, That the Queen might have her fun.

"Every ill has its panacea," Wrote the learned King Abit Wondering if his Romaquia Recognized her husband's wit.

Romaquia in her garden Watered all the trees with salt Till they faded, and the warden Was beheaded for the fault Of his lachrymose sultana. Oleander, citron, balm, Orange, lemon and banana, The pomegranate, myrtle, palm, All were drooping for distresses That the Queen poured out in tears, Pouting at the King's caresses Till he longed to box her ears. "Let me be!" she snapped.'"You squeeze me, Clumsy thing! You never try In the very least to please me, So of course I have to cry."

"Every ill has its panacea," Wrote the rueful King Abit,"Every ill but Romaquia. Wives' caprices wear out wit."

NORTHWARD

THESE palms weave shadows of delight, But the truant heart flies forth To birch-boles glistening more than white In the forests of the North.

GRAVES AT CHRISTIANIA

WE bore them their own wild heather And ash-boughs jeweled red, There where they sleep together, Greatest of Norway's dead.

More than the hush of churches Is the hush where Ibsen lies, Columned by poplars and birches, Vaulted by glorious skies.

Over that heart undaunted Soars a shaft of labrador, Black yet beauty-haunted, Marked with the hammer of Thor.

But what memorial lifted To Björnson, loved of the folk? We sought till our quest had drifted Where tender voices spoke,

Where never a rail encloses That resting-place of fame, A little plot of roses, Nameless nor needing name.

THE DEATH OF OLAF TRYGGVISON

I

BLUE as blossom of the myrtle Smiled the steadfast eyes of Olaf On the host of ships that harried His enraged, gold-glittering Dragon,

Snared within that ring of sea-birds, By their fierce beaks rent and bitten; All men knew the crimson kirtle, Rich-wrought helm and shield that dazzled Back the whirling wrath of sword-edge, But the king, while doom yet tarried, Bleeding fast beneath his byrny, Still throughout the savage hurtle Of the ax-play and the spear-play, Blinding storm of stones and arrows, Shivering steel and shock of iron, Stood erect above the slaughter, An unblenching lord of battle, Till about his knees were drifted Heaps of slain, his last earl smitten. From the poop then sprang King Olaf, Faring on his farthest journey, With his shield above him lifted, Shield whose shimmer mocked the rattle Of the missiles rained upon it, Down into the deep sea-water.

Nevermore shall he thrust keel Into billow, fain to feel Pull of rudder 'neath his hand, Swing of tide that bears his folk On to spoil some startled strand, Rick and homestead wrapt in smoke. All the daring deeds are done Of King Olaf Tryggvison.

II

As the red-stained waves ran o'er him, Faithful to their friend, sea-rover, Hid the flickering shield forever From the fury of his foemen, Hushed the war-din to his hearing, Sweetened on his swooning senses Even that wild roar of victory, Through the dim green gloom appearing Women's faces flashed before him. Fair the first, but wan with vigil, Mother-tender, mother-valiant, Face of Astrid, she who bore him

On a couch of ferns and clover In a little, lonely island, Warded only by her fosterer, Old Thorolf, who would not sever His rude service from her sorrows; She who flitted with her man-child On from fen to forest, hunted By the murderers of his father, Every rustling branch an omen Of the dangers darkening over That rich seed of frail defenses; She whose last look smiled him courage, Rosy wean of three rude winters, When the pirate crew had seized them, Sold the gold-haired boy and mother Into sundering thraldom, slaughtered Old Thorolf as stiff and useless. Then the face of Queen Allogia, Like a sudden shield, white-shining, Raised between the vengeful blood-wrath And the lad whose earliest death-blow

Smote the slayer unforgotten Of Thorolf. Soft gleamed another, Younger face, white rose of passion, Geira, to whose grace her lover Bowed his boyhood's turbulences, Gentled in that blissful bridal, Till death stole upon their joyance, Gathering her fragrant girlhood Like a flower, and frenzy-driven Forth King Olaf fared a-warring, South-away to sack and harry Every quiet shore that silvered On his homeless, waste horizon. Still amid the flying splinters Of the swords, and famous morrows, When the Norns did as it pleased them With their secret shuttle, twining In the pattern of his life-days Strands of mirth and splendor only For the rending, for the strewing On the whirlwind, still the Viking Was of women loved and hated.

Swift their faces glinted on a Drowning sight, —the Irish Gyda, Wise of heart to ken a hero, Stepping by her silken suitors, Choosing for her lord the towering, Shag-cloaked Northman, rough and royal; Then Queen Sigrid, called the Haughty, With the blow his glove had given Whitening on her lips, a striking That became his scathe; young Gudrun, Who, to her slain father loyal, Would her bridegroom's breast have riven, Glorious as he slept beside her,With a stab too long belated, With the steel he, waking, wrested From that slender hand; and Thyri, Clinging, coaxing, pouting, weeping, Craving still the thing denied her, With a sting in all her sweetness, Yet to him a new Madonna For the baby-boy who nestledOn her bosom, all bedrifted

With her yellow hair, their starry Little son too dear for keeping, Tender guest that might not tarry, Though upon those tiny temples, Crystal cold beneath the kisses, Like midsummer storm came showering Down the last wild tears of Olaf, Ever longing, ever lonely.

Nevermore to him, who there Chokes with brine, shall maidens bear Honey-mead in well-carved cup, While the harpers strike the strings, And the songs and shouts go up Till the hollow roof-tree rings. All the wine of life is run For King Olaf Tryggvison.

III

All had vanished from the vision Of those blue eyes, blankly staring Through that pall of purple waters,

Through that peace below all motion Of intoning tides and billows, Where sad palaces are peopled By the gods he had forsaken. Too divine for vain derision And the empty sound of censure, Wondered they upon the waster Of their temples, their blasphemer, As that drifting body rested On the knees of Ran, the husher Of all hearts beneath the ocean. Many mariners, far-faring By the swan-road, subtly taken In her nets, have proved her pillows Soft with slumber. Azure-vested Clustering came her thrice-three daughters, While her lord, the hoary Ægir, From his castle coral-steepled Wended slow, the seaweed woven In his mantle. Comely Niörd, Crowned with shells, and mystic Mimir, Ay, and many another followed,

Musing on this altar-crusher, On this sleeping king, awaker In a realm not theirs, this taster Of strange bread and wine, this dreamer Of the new dream that had cloven Even their dusk region hollowed Out of chaos by All-Maker, By the Power past peradventure.

Nevermore shall Olaf's rod Smite a silent, oak-hewn god; Nevermore shall Olaf's torch Fire great Woden's house, or Thor's, Where the stubborn heathen scorch, Constant to their ancestors, — Souls too steadfast to be won By King Olaf Tryggvison.

IV

From that pallid body parted, Sped the proud, impetuous spirit Forth to seek his throne of splendor,

Not the benches of Valhalla In the ancient Grove of Glistening, Palace wrought of spears, roofed over With gold shields, the tiles of Woden, Where brave warriors feast forever On the boar's flesh, making merry With the foaming mead, with minstrels And the hero-sport of battle, But that far more dazzling dwelling Of the young God radiant-hearted, Christ, whose loyal earl was Olaf. Oh, what welcome would he merit, He, the new faith's fierce defender, Forcing thousands, as a drover Urges wild, unwilling cattle, To the font, their blond heads shrinking From the sacred dew? Who would not Be faith-changers, take the christening At his gracious word, gainsayers Of his will, had been the players In grim shows,—maimed, torn asunder, Stoned, slow-strangled with the swallowing

Of live snakes. So did he sever Norway from her shrines, excelling All Christ's folk in fealty. Should not Horns blow up for him in Heaven, Olaf Tryggvison, who even Had the wizards well outwitted, Bidding them to feast, and firing, While they drowsed there, dull with drinking, Hall and all; caught those who flitted, Chained them fast on tide-swept skerry, Sorcerers whose best spell-singing Had not stayed the waves from following? Are not saints and angels listening For his rumored coming, choiring Till their praises are as thunder Of great minster-bells a-ringing?

Olaf stood imparadised In the loneliness of Christ, Of the White Lord Christ, Who said: "Only precious stones of pity,

Holy pearls of peace may build For each soul the Shining City. When in thee is Heaven fulfilled, I shall claim my champion, Not King Olaf Tryggvison, But my shepherd Mercy, fed On Love the wine and Love the bread."