Dreams and Dust.

by Don Marquis.

PROEM

"SO LET THEM Pa.s.s, THESE SONGS OF MINE"

So let them pa.s.s, these songs of mine, Into oblivion, nor repine; Abandoned ruins of large schemes, Dimmed lights adrift from n.o.bler dreams,

Weak wings I sped on quests divine, So let them pa.s.s, these songs of mine.

They soar, or sink ephemeral-- I care not greatly which befall!

For if no song I e'er had wrought, Still have I loved and laughed and fought; So let them pa.s.s, these songs of mine; I sting too hot with life to whine!

Still shall I struggle, fail, aspire, Lose G.o.d, and find G.o.ds in the mire, And drink dream-deep life's heady wine-- So let them pa.s.s, these songs of mine.

DAYLIGHT HUMORS

THIS IS ANOTHER DAY

I AM mine own priest, and I shrive myself Of all my wasted yesterdays. Though sin And sloth and foolishness, and all ill weeds Of error, evil, and neglect grow rank And ugly there, I dare forgive myself That error, sin, and sloth and foolishness.

G.o.d knows that yesterday I played the fool; G.o.d knows that yesterday I played the knave; But shall I therefore cloud this new dawn o'er With fog of futile sighs and vain regrets?

This is another day! And flushed Hope walks Adown the sunward slopes with golden shoon.

This is another day; and its young strength Is laid upon the quivering hills until, Like Egypt's Memnon, they grow quick with song.

This is another day, and the bold world Leaps up and grasps its light, and laughs, as leapt Prometheus up and wrenched the fire from Zeus.

This is another day--are its eyes blurred With maudlin grief for any wasted past?

A thousand thousand failures shall not daunt!

Let dust clasp dust; death, death--I am alive!

And out of all the dust and death of mine Old selves I dare to lift a singing heart And living faith; my spirit dares drink deep Of the red mirth mantling in the cup of morn.

APRIL SONG

FLEET across the gra.s.ses Flash the feet of Spring, Piping, as he pa.s.ses Fleet across the gra.s.ses, "Follow, lads and la.s.ses!

Sing, world, sing!"

Fleet across the gra.s.ses Flash the feet of Spring!

_Idle winds deliver Rumors through the town, Tales of reeds that quiver, Idle winds deliver, Where the rapid river Drags the willows down-- Idle winds deliver Rumors through the town._

In the country places By the silver brooks April airs her graces; In the country places Wayward April paces, Laughter in her looks; In the country places By the silver brooks.

_Hints of alien glamor Even reach the town; Urban muses stammer Hints of alien glamor, But the city's clamor Beats the voices down; Hints of alien glamor Even reach the town._

THIS EARTH, IT IS ALSO A STAR

WHERE the singers of Saturn find tongue, Where the Galaxy's lovers embrace, Our world and its beauty are sung!

They lean from their cas.e.m.e.nts to trace If our planet still spins in its place; Faith fables the thing that we are, And Fantasy laughs and gives chase: This earth, it is also a star!

Round the sun, that is fixed, and hung For a lamp in the darkness of s.p.a.ce We are whirled, we are swirled, we are flung; Singing and shining we race And our light on the uplifted face Of dreamer or prophet afar May fall as a symbol of grace: This earth, it is also a star!

Looking out where our planet is swung Doubt loses his writhen grimace, Dry hearts drink the gleams and are young;-- Where agony's boughs interlace His Garden some Jesus may pace, Lifting, the wan avatar, His soul to this light as a vase!

This earth, it is also a star!

Great spirits in sorrowful case Yearn to us through the vapors that bar: Canst think of that, soul, and be base?-- This earth, it is also a star!

THE NAME

IT shifts and shifts from form to form, It drifts and darkles, gleams and glows; It is the pa.s.sion of the storm, The poignance of the rose; Through changing shapes, through devious ways, By noon or night, through cloud or flame, My heart has followed all my days Something I cannot name.

In sunlight on some woman's hair, Or starlight in some woman's eyne, Or in low laughter smothered where Her red lips wedded mine, My heart hath known, and thrilled to know, This unnamed presence that it sought; And when my heart hath found it so, _"Love is the name,"_ I thought.

Sometimes when sudden afterglows In futile glory storm the skies Within their transient gold and rose The secret stirs and dies; Or when the trampling morn walks o'er The troubled seas, with feet of flame, My awed heart whispers, _"Ask no more, For Beauty is the name!"_

Or dreaming in old chapels where The dim aisles pulse with murmurings That part are music, part are prayer-- (Or rush of hidden wings) Sometimes I lift a startled head To some saint's carven countenance, Half fancying that the lips have said, _All names mean G.o.d, perchance!"_

THE BIRTH

THERE is a legend that the love of G.o.d So quickened under Mary's heart it wrought Her very maidenhood to holier stuff....

However that may be, the birth befell Upon a night when all the Syrian stars Swayed tremulous before one lordlier orb That rose in gradual splendor, Paused, Flooding the firmament with mystic light, And dropped upon the breathing hills A sudden music Like a distillation from its gleams; A rain of spirit and a dew of song!

A MOOD OF PAVLOWA

THE soul of the Spring through its body of earth Bursts in a bloom of fire, And the crocuses come in a rainbow riot of mirth....

They flutter, they burn, they take wing, they aspire....

Wings, motion and music and flame, Flower, woman and laughter, and all these the same!

She is light and first love and the youth of the world, She is sandaled with joy ... she is lifted and whirled, She is flung, she is swirled, she is driven along By the carnival winds that have torn her away From the coronal bloom on the brow of the May....

She is youth, she is foam, she is flame, she is visible Song!

THE POOL

REACH over, my Undine, and clutch me a reed-- Nymph of mine idleness, notch me a pipe-- For I am fulfilled of the silence, and long For to utter the sense of the silence in song.

Down-stream all the rapids are troubled with pebbles That fetter and fret what the water would utter, And it rushes and splashes in tremulous trebles; It makes haste through the shallows, its soul is aflutter;

But here all the sound is serene and outspread In the murmurous moods of a slow-swirling pool; Here all the sounds are unhurried and cool; Every silence is kith to a sound; they are wed, They are mated, are mingled, are tangled, are bound; Every hush is in love with a sound, every sound By the law of its life to some silence is bound.

Then here will we hide; idle here and abide, In the covert here, close by the waterside-- Here, where the slim flattered reeds are aquiver With the exquisite hints of the reticent river, Here, where the lips of this pool are the lips Of all pools, let us listen and question and wait; Let us hark to the whispers of love and of death, Let us hark to the lispings of life and of fate-- In this place where pale silences flower into sound Let us strive for some secret of all the profound Deep and calm Silence that meshes men 'round!