The Children of the Night

1. The Children of the Night
2. Three Quatrains
3. The World
4. An Old Story
5. Ballade of a Ship
6. Ballade by the Fire
7. Ballade of Broken Flutes
8. Ballade of Dead Friends
9. Her Eyes
10. Two Men
11. Villanelle of Change
12. John Evereldown
13. Luke Havergal
14. The House on the Hill
15. Richard Cory
16. Two Octaves
17. Calvary
18. Dear Friends
19. The Story of the Ashes and the Flame
20. For Some Poems by Matthew Arnold
21. Amaryllis
22. Kosmos
23. Zola
24. The Pity of the Leaves
25. Aaron Stark
26. The Garden
27. Cliff Klingenhagen
28. Charles Carville's Eyes
29. The Dead Village
30. Boston
31. Two Sonnets
32. The Clerks
33. Fleming Helphenstine
34. For a Book by Thomas Hardy
35. Thomas Hood
36. The Miracle
37. Horace to Leuconoe
38. Reuben Bright
39. The Altar
40. The Tavern
41. Sonnet
42. George Crabbe
43. Credo
44. On the Night of a Friend's Wedding
45. Sonnet
46. Verlaine
47. Sonnet
48. Supremacy
49. The Night Before
50. Walt Whitman
51. The Chorus of Old Men in "Aegeus"
52. The Wilderness
53. Octaves
54. Two Quatrains
55. Romance
56. The Torrent
57. L'Envoi

The Children of the Night

FOR those that never know the light,

The darkness is a sullen thing;

And they, the Children of the Night,

Seem lost in Fortune's winnowing.

But some are strong and some are weak, --

And there's the story. House and home

Are shut from countless hearts that seek

World-refuge that will never come.

And if there be no other life,

And if there be no other chance

To weigh their sorrow and their strife

Than in the scales of circumstance,

'T were better, ere the sun go down

Upon the first day we embark,

In life's imbittered sea to drown,

Than sail forever in the dark.

But if there be a soul on earth

So blinded with its own misuse

Of man's revealed, incessant worth,

Or worn with anguish, that it views

No light but for a mortal eye,

No rest but of a mortal sleep,

No God but in a prophet's lie,

No faith for "honest doubt" to keep;

If there be nothing, good or bad,

But chaos for a soul to trust, --

God counts it for a soul gone mad,

And if God be God, He is just.

And if God be God, He is Love;

And though the Dawn be still so dim,

It shows us we have played enough

With creeds that make a fiend of Him.

There is one creed, and only one,

That glorifies God's excellence;

So cherish, that His will be done,

The common creed of common sense.

It is the crimson, not the gray,

That charms the twilight of all time;

It is the promise of the day

That makes the starry sky sublime;

It is the faith within the fear

That holds us to the life we curse; --

So let us in ourselves revere

The Self which is the Universe!

Let us, the Children of the Night,

Put off the cloak that hides the scar!

Let us be Children of the Light,

And tell the ages what we are!

Three Quatrains

I

AS long as Fame's imperious music rings

Will poets mock it with crowned words august;

And haggard men will clamber to be kings

As long as Glory weighs itself in dust.

II

Drink to the splendor of the unfulfilled,

Nor shudder for the revels that are done:

The wines that flushed Lucullus are all spilled,

The strings that Nero fingered are all gone.

III

We cannot crown ourselves with everything,

Nor can we coax the Fates for us to quarrel:

No matter what we are, or what we sing,

Time finds a withered leaf in every laurel.

The World

SOME are the brothers of all humankind,

And own them, whatsoever their estate;

And some, for sorrow and self-scorn, are blind

With enmity for man's unguarded fate.

For some there is a music all day long

Like flutes in Paradise, they are so glad;

And there is hell's eternal under-song

Of curses and the cries of men gone mad.

Some say the Scheme with love stands luminous,

Some say 't were better back to chaos hurled;

And so 't is what we are that makes for us

The measure and the meaning of the world.

An Old Story

STRANGE that I did not know him then,

That friend of mine!

I did not even show him then

One friendly sign;

But cursed him for the ways he had

To make me see

My envy of the praise he had

For praising me.

I would have rid the earth of him

Once, in my pride! . . .

I never knew the worth of him

Until he died.

Ballade of a Ship

DOWN by the flash of the restless water

The dim White Ship like a white bird lay;

Laughing at life and the world they sought her,

And out she swung to the silvering bay.

Then off they flew on their roystering way,

And the keen moon fired the light foam flying

Up from the flood where the faint stars play,

And the bones of the brave in the wave are lying.

'T was a king's fair son with a king's fair daughter,

And full three hundred beside, they say, --

Revelling on for the lone, cold slaughter

So soon to seize them and hide them for aye;

But they danced and they drank and their souls grew gay,

Nor ever they knew of a ghoul's eye spying

Their splendor a flickering phantom to stray

Where the bones of the brave in the wave are lying.

Through the mist of a drunken dream they brought her

(This wild white bird) for the sea-fiend's prey:

The pitiless reef in his hard clutch caught her,

And hurled her down where the dead men stay.

A torturing silence of wan dismay --

Shrieks and curses of mad souls dying --

Then down they sank to slumber and sway

Where the bones of the brave in the wave are lying.

ENVOY

Prince, do you sleep to the sound alway

Of the mournful surge and the sea-birds' crying? --

Or does love still shudder and steel still slay,

Where the bones of the brave in the wave are lying?

Ballade by the Fire

SLOWLY I smoke and hug my knee,

The while a witless masquerade

Of things that only children see

Floats in a mist of light and shade:

They pass, a flimsy cavalcade,

And with a weak, remindful glow,

The falling embers break and fade,

As one by one the phantoms go.

Then, with a melancholy glee

To think where once my fancy strayed,

I muse on what the years may be

Whose coming tales are all unsaid,

Till tongs and shovel, snugly laid

Within their shadowed niches, grow

By grim degrees to pick and spade,

As one by one the phantoms go.

But then, what though the mystic Three

Around me ply their merry trade? --

And Charon soon may carry me

Across the gloomy Stygian glade? --

Be up, my soul! nor be afraid

Of what some unborn year may show;

But mind your human debts are paid,

As one by one the phantoms go.

ENVOY

Life is the game that must be played:

This truth at least, good friend, we know;

So live and laugh, nor be dismayed

As one by one the phantoms go.

Ballade of Broken Flutes

IN dreams I crossed a barren land,

A land of ruin, far away;

Around me hung on every hand

A deathful stillness of decay;

And silent, as in bleak dismay

That song should thus forsaken be,

On that forgotten ground there lay

The broken flutes of Arcady.

The forest that was all so grand

When pipes and tabors had their sway

Stood leafless now, a ghostly band

Of skeletons in cold array.

A lonely surge of ancient spray

Told of an unforgetful sea,

But iron blows had hushed for aye

The broken flutes of Arcady.

No more by summer breezes fanned,

The place was desolate and gray;

But still my dream was to command

New life into that shrunken clay.

I tried it. Yes, you scan to-day,

With uncommiserating glee,

The songs of one who strove to play

The broken flutes of Arcady.

ENVOY

So, Rock, I join the common fray,

To fight where Mammon may decree;

And leave, to crumble as they may,

The broken flutes of Arcady.

Ballade of Dead Friends

AS we the withered ferns

By the roadway lying,

Time, the jester, spurns

All our prayers and prying --

All our tears and sighing,

Sorrow, change, and woe --

All our where-and-whying

For friends that come and go.

Life awakes and burns,

Age and death defying,

Till at last it learns

All but Love is dying;

Love's the trade we're plying,

God has willed it so;

Shrouds are what we're buying

For friends that come and go.

Man forever yearns

For the thing that's flying.

Everywhere he turns,

Men to dust are drying, --

Dust that wanders, eying

(With eyes that hardly glow)

New faces, dimly spying

For friends that come and go.

ENVOY

And thus we all are nighing

The truth we fear to know:

Death will end our crying

For friends that come and go.

Her Eyes

UP from the street and the crowds that went,

Morning and midnight, to and fro,

Still was the room where his days he spent,

And the stars were bleak, and the nights were slow.

Year after year, with his dream shut fast,

He suffered and strove till his eyes were dim,

For the love that his brushes had earned at last, --

And the whole world rang with the praise of him.

But he cloaked his triumph, and searched, instead,

Till his cheeks were sere and his hairs were gray.

"There are women enough, God knows," he said. . . .

"There are stars enough -- when the sun's away."

Then he went back to the same still room

That had held his dream in the long ago,

When he buried his days in a nameless tomb,

And the stars were bleak, and the nights were slow.

And a passionate humor seized him there --

Seized him and held him until there grew

Like life on his canvas, glowing and fair,

A perilous face -- and an angel's, too.

Angel and maiden, and all in one, --

All but the eyes. -- They were there, but yet

They seemed somehow like a soul half done.

What was the matter? Did God forget? . . .

But he wrought them at last with a skill so sure

That her eyes were the eyes of a deathless woman, --

With a gleam of heaven to make them pure,

And a glimmer of hell to make them human.

God never forgets. -- And he worships her

There in that same still room of his,

For his wife, and his constant arbiter

Of the world that was and the world that is.

And he wonders yet what her love could be

To punish him after that strife so grim;

But the longer he lives with her eyes to see,

The plainer it all comes back to him.

Two Men

THERE be two men of all mankind

That I should like to know about;

But search and question where I will,

I cannot ever find them out.

Melchizedek he praised the Lord,

And gave some wine to Abraham;

But who can tell what else he did

Must be more learned than I am.

Ucalegon he lost his house

When Agamemnon came to Troy;

But who can tell me who he was --

I'll pray the gods to give him joy.

There be two men of all mankind

That I'm forever thinking on:

They chase me everywhere I go, --

Melchizedek, Ucalegon.

Villanelle of Change

SINCE Persia fell at Marathon,

The yellow years have gathered fast:

Long centuries have come and gone.

And yet (they say) the place will don

A phantom fury of the past,

Since Persia fell at Marathon;

And as of old, when Helicon

Trembled and swayed with rapture vast

(Long centuries have come and gone),

This ancient plain, when night comes on,

Shakes to a ghostly battle-blast,

Since Persia fell at Marathon.

But into soundless Acheron

The glory of Greek shame was cast:

Long centuries have come and gone,

The suns of Hellas have all shone,

The first has fallen to the last: --

Since Persia fell at Marathon,

Long centuries have come and gone.

John Evereldown

"WHERE are you going to-night, to-night, --

Where are you going, John Evereldown?

There's never the sign of a star in sight,

Nor a lamp that's nearer than Tilbury Town.

Why do you stare as a dead man might?

Where are you pointing away from the light?

And where are you going to-night, to-night, --

Where are you going, John Evereldown?"

"Right through the forest, where none can see,

There's where I'm going, to Tilbury Town.

The men are asleep, -- or awake, may be, --

But the women are calling John Evereldown.

Ever and ever they call for me,

And while they call can a man be free?

So right through the forest, where none can see,

There's where I'm going, to Tilbury Town."

"But why are you going so late, so late, --

Why are you going, John Evereldown?

Though the road be smooth and the path be straight,

There are two long leagues to Tilbury Town.

Come in by the fire, old man, and wait!

Why do you chatter out there by the gate?

And why are you going so late, so late, --

Why are you going, John Evereldown?"

"I follow the women wherever they call, --

That's why I'm going to Tilbury Town.

God knows if I pray to be done with it all,

But God is no friend to John Evereldown.

So the clouds may come and the rain may fall,

The shadows may creep and the dead men crawl, --

But I follow the women wherever they call,

And that's why I'm going to Tilbury Town."

Luke Havergal

GO to the western gate, Luke Havergal, --

There where the vines cling crimson on the wall, --

And in the twilight wait for what will come.

The wind will moan, the leaves will whisper some --

Whisper of her, and strike you as they fall;

But go, and if you trust her she will call.

Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal --

Luke Havergal.

No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies

To rift the fiery night that's in your eyes;

But there, where western glooms are gathering,

The dark will end the dark, if anything:

God slays Himself with every leaf that flies,

And hell is more than half of paradise.

No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies --

In eastern skies.

Out of a grave I come to tell you this, --

Out of a grave I come to quench the kiss

That flames upon your forehead with a glow

That blinds you to the way that you must go.

Yes, there is yet one way to where she is, --

Bitter, but one that faith can never miss.

Out of a grave I come to tell you this --

To tell you this.

There is the western gate, Luke Havergal,

There are the crimson leaves upon the wall.

Go, -- for the winds are tearing them away, --

Nor think to riddle the dead words they say,

Nor any more to feel them as they fall;

But go! and if you trust her she will call.

There is the western gate, Luke Havergal --

Luke Havergal.

The House on the Hill

THEY are all gone away,

The House is shut and still,

There is nothing more to say.

Through broken walls and gray

The winds blow bleak and shrill:

They are all gone away.

Nor is there one to-day

To speak them good or ill:

There is nothing more to say.

Why is it then we stray

Around that sunken sill?

They are all gone away,

And our poor fancy-play

For them is wasted skill:

There is nothing more to say.

There is ruin and decay

In the House on the Hill:

They are all gone away,

There is nothing more to say.

Richard Cory

WHENEVER Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him:

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;

But still he fluttered pulses when he said,

"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich, -- yes, richer than a king, --

And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Two Octaves

I

NOT by the grief that stuns and overwhelms

All outward recognition of revealed

And righteous omnipresence are the days

Of most of us affrighted and diseased,

But rather by the common snarls of life

That come to test us and to strengthen us

In this the prentice-age of discontent,

Rebelliousness, faint-heartedness, and shame.

II

When through hot fog the fulgid sun looks down

Upon a stagnant earth where listless men

Laboriously dawdle, curse, and sweat,

Disqualified, unsatisfied, inert, --

It seems to me somehow that God himself

Scans with a close reproach what I have done,

Counts with an unphrased patience my arrears,

And fathoms my unprofitable thoughts.

Calvary

FRIENDLESS and faint, with martyred steps and slow,

Faint for the flesh, but for the spirit free,

Stung by the mob that came to see the show,

The Master toiled along to Calvary;

We gibed him, as he went, with houndish glee,

Till his dimmed eyes for us did overflow;

We cursed his vengeless hands thrice wretchedly, --

And this was nineteen hundred years ago.

But after nineteen hundred years the shame

Still clings, and we have not made good the loss

That outraged faith has entered in his name.

Ah, when shall come love's courage to be strong!

Tell me, O Lord -- tell me, O Lord, how long

Are we to keep Christ writhing on the cross!

Dear Friends

DEAR friends, reproach me not for what I do,

Nor counsel me, nor pity me; nor say

That I am wearing half my life away

For bubble-work that only fools pursue.

And if my bubbles be too small for you,

Blow bigger then your own: the games we play

To fill the frittered minutes of a day,

Good glasses are to read the spirit through.

And whoso reads may get him some shrewd skill;

And some unprofitable scorn resign,

To praise the very thing that he deplores;

So, friends (dear friends), remember, if you will,

The shame I win for singing is all mine,

The gold I miss for dreaming is all yours.

The Story of the Ashes and the Flame

NO matter why, nor whence, nor when she came,

There was her place. No matter what men said,

No matter what she was; living or dead,

Faithful or not, he loved her all the same.

The story was as old as human shame,

But ever since that lonely night she fled,

With books to blind him, he had only read

The story of the ashes and the flame.

There she was always coming pretty soon

To fool him back, with penitent scared eyes

That had in them the laughter of the moon

For baffled lovers, and to make him think --

Before she gave him time enough to wink --

Sin's kisses were the keys to Paradise.

For Some Poems by Matthew Arnold

SWEEPING the chords of Hellas with firm hand,

He wakes lost echoes from song's classic shore,

And brings their crystal cadence back once more

To touch the clouds and sorrows of a land

Where God's truth, cramped and fettered with a band

Of iron creeds, he cheers with golden lore

Of heroes and the men that long before

Wrought the romance of ages yet unscanned.

Still does a cry through sad Valhalla go

For Balder, pierced with Lok's unhappy spray --

For Balder, all but spared by Frea's charms;

And still does art's imperial vista show,

On the hushed sands of Oxus, far away,

Young Sohrab dying in his father's arms.

N E X T section of the book