DREAMS & DUST(梦与尘)

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DREAMS & DUST

POEMS BY DON MARQUIS

TO MY MOTHER VIRGINIA WHITMORE MARQUIS

DREAMS & DUST

PROEM

"SO LET THEM PASS, THESE SONGS OF

MINE"

So let them pass, these songs of mine, Into oblivion, nor repine;

Abandoned ruins of large schemes, Dimmed lights adrift from nobler

dreams,

Weak wings I sped on quests divine, So let them pass, 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 pass, these songs of mine; I sting too hot with life to

whine!

Still shall I struggle, fail, aspire, Lose God, and find Gods in the mire,

And drink dream-deep life's heady wine-- So let them pass, 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. God knows that yesterday I

played the fool; God knows that yesterday I played the knave; But shall I

therefore cloud this new dawn o'er With fog of futile sighs and vain

DREAMS & DUST

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 grasses Flash the feet of Spring, Piping, as he

passes Fleet across the grasses, "Follow, lads and lasses! Sing, world,

sing!" Fleet across the grasses 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 casements 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

DREAMS & DUST

space 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 passion 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

God, perchance!"

THE BIRTH

THERE is a legend that the love of God So quickened under Mary's

DREAMS & DUST

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

DREAMS & DUST

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! There's as much of God hinted in one ripple's plashes-

- There's as much of Truth glints in yon dragon- fly's flight--

There's as much Purpose gleams where yonder trout flashes As

in--any book else!--could we read things aright.

Then nymph of mine indolence, here let us hide, Learn, listen, and

question; idle here and abide Where the rushes and lilies lean low to the

tide.

"THEY HAD NO POET . . ."

"Vain was the chief's, the sage's pride! They had no poet and they

died."--POPE.

By Tigris, or the streams of Ind, Ere Colchis rose, or Babylon,

Forgotten empires dreamed and sinned, Setting tall towns against the

dawn,

Which, when the proud Sun smote upon, Flashed fire for fire and

pride for pride; Their names were . . . Ask oblivion! . . . "They had no

poet, and they died."

Queens, dusk of hair and tawny-skinned, That loll where fellow

leopards fawn . . . Their hearts are dust before the wind, Their loves,

that shook the world, are wan!

Passion is mighty . . . but, anon, Strong Death has Romance for his

bride; Their legends . . . Ask oblivion! . . . "They had no poet, and

they died."

Heroes, the braggart trumps that dinned Their futile triumphs,

monarch, pawn, Wild tribesmen, kingdoms disciplined, Passed like a

whirlwind and were gone;

They built with bronze and gold and brawn, The inner Vision still

denied; Their conquests . . . Ask oblivion! . . . "They had no poet, and

they died."

Dumb oracles, and priests withdrawn, Was it but flesh they deified?

Their gods were . . . Ask oblivion! . . . "They had no poet, and they

died."

DREAMS & DUST

NEW YORK

SHE is hot to the sea that crouches beside, Human and hot to the

cool stars peering down, My passionate city, my quivering town, And

her dark blood, tide upon purple tide, With throbs as of thunder beats,

With leaping rhythms and vast, is swirled Through the shaken lengths of

her veined streets... She pulses, the heart of a world!

I have thrilled with her ecstasy, agony, woe-- Hath she a mood that I

do not know? The winds of her music tumultuous have seized me

and swayed me, Have lifted, have swung me around In their whorls

as of cyclonic sound; Her passions have torn me and tossed me and

brayed me; Drunken and tranced and dazzled with visions and

gleams,

I have spun with her dervish priests; I have searched to the souls

of her hunted beasts And found love sleeping there; I have soared on

the wings of her flashing dreams; I have sunk with her dull despair; I

have sweat with her travails and cursed with her pains; I have

swelled with her foolish pride; I have raged through a thick red mist at one

with her branded Cains, With her broken Christs have died.

O beautiful half-god city of visions and love! O hideous half-brute

city of hate! O wholly human and baffled and passionate town! The

throes of thy burgeoning, stress of thy fight, Thy bitter, blind struggle to

gain for thy body a soul, I have known, I have felt, and been

shaken thereby! Wakened and shaken and broken, For I hear

in thy thunders terrific that throb through thy rapid veins The

beat of the heart of a world.

A HYMN

(1914)

CLOTHED on with thunder and with steel And black against the

dawn The whirling armies clash and reel. . . . A wind, and they are gone

Like mists withdrawn, Like mists withdrawn!

Like clouds withdrawn, like driven sands, Earth's body vanisheth:

DREAMS & DUST

One solid thing unconquered stands, The ghost that humbles death.

All else is breath, All else is breath!

Man rose from out the stinging slime, Half brute, and sought a soul,

And up the starrier ways of time, Half god, unto his goal,

He still must climb, He still must climb!

What though worlds stagger, and the suns Seem shaken in their

place, Trust thou the leaping love that runs Creative over space:

Take heart of grace, Take heart of grace!

What though great kingdoms fall on death Before the stabbing

blade, Their brazen might was only breath, Their substance but a

shade-- Be not dismayed, Be not dismayed!

Man's dream which conquered brute and clod Shall fail not, but

endure, Shall rise, though beaten to the sod, Shall hold its vantage sure-

- As sure as God, As sure as God!

THE SINGER

A LITTLE while, with love and youth, He wandered, singing:--

He felt life's pulses hot and strong Beat all his rapid veins along;

He wrought life's rhythms into song: He laughed, he sang the

Dawn! So close, so close to life he dwelt That at rare times and

rapt he felt The fleshly barriers yield and melt; He trembled,

looking on Creation at her miracles; His soul-sight pierced the

earthly shells And saw the spirit weave its spells, The veil of

clay withdrawn;-- A little while, with love and youth, He wandered,

singing!

A little while, with age and death, He wanders, dreaming;--

No more the thunder and the urge Of earth's full tides that

storm the verge Of heaven with their sweep and surge Shall

lift, shall bear him on; Where is the golden hope that led Him

comrade with the mighty dead? The love that aureoled his head?--

The glory is withdrawn! How shall one soar with broken wings?

The leagued might of futile things Wars with the heart that dares and

sings;-- It is not always Dawn! A little while, with age and death,

He wanders, dreaming.

WORDS ARE NOT GUNS

DREAMS & DUST

Put by the sword (a dreamer saith), The years of peace draw nigh!

Already the millennial dawn Makes red the eastern sky!

Be not deceived. It comes not yet! The ancient passions keep

Alive beneath their changing masks. They are not dead. They sleep.

Surely peace comes. As sure as Man Rose from primeval slime.

That was not yesterday. There's still A weary height to climb!

And we can dwell too long with dreams And play too much with

words, Forgetting our inheritance Was bought and held with swords.

But Truth (you say) makes tyrants quail-- Beats down embattled

Wrong? If truth be armed! Be not deceived. The strife is to the strong.

Words are not guns. Words are not ships. And ships and guns

prevail. Our liberties, that blood has gained, Are guarded, or they fail.

Truth does not triumph without blows, Error not tamely yields. But

falsehood closes with quick faith, Fierce, on a thousand fields.

And surely, somewhat of that faith Our fathers fought for clings!

Which called this freedom's hemisphere, Despite Earth's leagued kings.

Great creeds grow thews, or else they die. Thought clothed in deed

is lord. What are thy gods? Thy gods brought love? They also

brought a sword.

Unchallenged, shall we always stand, Secure, apart, aloof? Be not

deceived. That hour shall come Which puts us to the proof.

Then, that we hold the trust we have Safeguarded for our sons, Let

us cease dreaming! Let us have More ships, more troops, more guns!

WITH THE SUBMARINES

ABOVE, the baffled twilight fails; beneath, the blind snakes

creep; Beside us glides the charnel shark, our pilot through the deep;

And, lurking where low headlands shield from cruising scout and

spy, We bide the signal through the gloom that bids us slay or die.

All watchful, mute, the crouching guns that guard the strait sea

lanes-- Watchful and hawklike, plumed with hate, the desperate

aeroplanes-- And still as death and swift as fate, above the darkling

coasts, The spying Wireless sows the night with troops of stealthy

ghosts,

DREAMS & DUST

While hushed through all her huddled streets the tide-walled city

waits The drumming thunders that announce brute battle at her gates.

Southward a hundred windy leagues, through storms that blind

and bar, Our cheated cruisers search the waves, our cap- tains seek

the war; But here the port of peril is; the foeman's dread- noughts

ride Sullen and black against the moon, upon a sullen tide. And only

we to launch ourselves against their stark advance-- To guide

uncertain lightnings through these treach- erous seas of chance!

. . . . . .

And now a wheeling searchlight paints a signal on the night; And

now the bellowing guns are loud with the wild lust of fight.

. . . . . .

And now, her flanks of steel apulse with all the power of hell,

Forth from the darkness leaps in pride a hateful miracle, The flagship

of their Admiral--and now God help and save!-- We challenge Death

at Death's own game; we sink beneath the wave!

. . . . . .

Ah, steady now--and one good blow--one straight stab through

the gloom-- Ah, good!--the thrust went home!--she founders--

flounders to her doom!-- Full speed ahead!--those damned quick-firing

guns --but let them bark-- What's that--the dynamos?--they've got us,

men! --Christ! in the dark!

NICHOLAS OF MONTENEGRO

(1912)

HE speaks as straight as his rifles shot, As straight as a thrusting

blade, Waiting the deed that shall trouble the truce His savage guns

have made.

"You have dared the wrath of a dozen states," Was the challenge

that he heard; "We can die but once!" said the grim old King As he

gripped his mountain sword.

"For I paid in blood for the town I took, The blood of my brave

men slain,-- And if you covet the town I took You must buy it with

blood again!"

Stern old King of the stark, black hills, Where the lean, fierce

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