Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 320
And loving laughter, laughing gave their lives?
IDLERS
I MUST LIVE TO-DAY
I must live to-day,
The sun is in the sky,
The world is good, and I
Must hasten on my way.
The roads are cool and gay,
The hawk is flying high,
The wind and branches play,
The precious moments fly,
Too soon, too soon to die.
No longer can I stay,
All life Is running by
And life is good I say!
Ahead the mountains lie,
Where little cloudlets stray
The silver birches sway.
The village maidens sigh,
The sun is in the sky,
The roads are cool and gay,
The world is good, and I
Must live my life to-day!
DUSK
Over the purple hills
The sun has sped away,
Dusk, and a swallow .thrills,
So ends the day.
Up from the darkling seas
A swift star wings its flight,
Voice of the wind in trees;
So comes the night.
THE WAYFARERS
Those old spent men who moved across the hill
Among the trees were yesterdays of mine.
Above their heads I heard the branches whine
As sunset burned and all the world grew still.
Along the path I watched them weave until
They passed from view and he who led the line
Turned back on me and made a feeble sigh
Of meek acceptance of some greater Will.
The flowers that they bore had once been sweet,
Their songs that fell like sobs had once been gay,
Their withered, slowly moving fragile feet
Had leaped as light as wine but yesterday
When those old men of whom I am the last,
Like singing gods, set forth into the past.
OLD LAUGHTER
Remember old laughter to keep it alive
To gleam like the sun in the heart of our tears;
Let echoes of laughter long silent survive
And ring down the years.
Remember old laughter, its floating refrain
Of people and places and years that have fled
Will stroke with kind fingers the chords of our pain
When laughter is dead.
Remember old laughter and cling to the mirth
Of the past, it is all that we have — withered flowers
That bloomed in the glory and spring of the earth
When laughter was ours.
Remember old laughter, its haunting appeal
Will hover around us and tenderly twine
Like tendrils of ivy when sadly we kneel
In the dust of its shrine.
THE LOST SINGER
I heard a song when the day was done
And clouds flamed over the setting sun,
I heard a song in the glowing skies
That brought the tears to my eyes.
I heard a song at the end of day
Lifting and drifting so far away.
I heard a song and I longed to see
Who the singer might be.
I heard a song and I turned to gaze
Back through the vista of vanished days
And the singing soul of a lad passed by
And lo, the singer was I.
THE RHYME OF THE LOST ROMANCE
In Avalon they say that witches are.
Odysseus had a witch to bed with him.
Beneath the water cool-armed maidens swim
As fair as swans and happier by far
Than we who cling to earth with mortal fear.
There is no doubt that drifting on a star
A fairy waits, tender to man, and dear.
In Avalon, hushed island realm of green,
There was a garden wet beneath its weeds.
Poppy and lotus, slim pomegranate seeds
Laughed in the earth and later leaped between
The singing grass and brought bright colors there.
And in this place there dwelt a fairy queen
As warm as rose, fairer than pearls are fair.
And there is one who sits beneath the rain
Amid a grove of dripping willow trees.
A golden harp is placed across her knees
From which she draws a lifting low refrain.
And it is said men seek her for release
From broken hearts made dark with fear and pain,
And when she plays melody brings them peace.
In Proserpine realm where mortals fell
A maiden sits clear eyed among the flame
And hears them speak whose souls are sick with shame,
Who came from earth to her enthroned in hell.
She hears and smiles and holds to them a bowl
That drips with waters from her sacred well,
And when they drink visions reclaim each soul.
In Chalmodie there moves a living dream,
A maiden whom the hungry heart may seek.
And when you kiss her lips the tree tops speak
And night comes on and all the heavens gleam
With dancing stars that bring the mortal sleep
As o’er his face her golden tresses stream,
And murmur trees, tender in tone and deep.
Where Ariadne sits a long green wave
Laughs in the sun and leaps against the rocks.
Red are the maiden’s lips and wet her locks,
Her watching eyes with wonderment are grave.
“Alone and lost Alone and lost are you,”
Intones the wind that moves within her cave
As thus she sits, watching a sea of blue.
A lover lost is somewhere on the sea
With purple sails aslant against the sky.
“Ever away from you,” the sea gulls cry.
“Love of mine return once more to me.
“Round are my waiting arms and red my lips,”
The maiden cries, and silence takes her plea
As thus she waits, scanning the sea for ships.
Among the pines a pool looks to the skies
And in this pool a lovely maiden swims.
With flashing arms and smooth foam gathered limbs
And shakes the laughing jewels from her eyes.
At last the dusk comes on, the woods grow cool
And fair upon the green the maiden lies,
Her golden hair floating upon the pool.
The evening sun lies lightly on the leaves
And gives the quiet woods a yellow sheen.
The still white body lying on the green
Moves lazily and dreamily perceives
The lofty trees through which faint shadows fall
As Night her web of drifting starlight weaves,
And then she laughs, hearing a distant call.
A twilight glow falls through the craggy ice
And lights the emerald splendor of a glade
Wherein there stands a stately green clad maid
Who bears a jeweled wand of rare device.
Across the purple sky soft colors stir
As through the deep her summons echoes thrice
And white forms leap out of the foam to her.
The loveliness of merriment is there
Within the still white vistas of the North,
Where maidens dip their hands in ocean froth
In search of gems to cluster in their hair,
Which splash the cave with wildly dancing light
And fall on flashing arms and bosoms bare
As thus they dance, tossing away the night
But why go on? There is none who believes
The things I say were ever really true.
It would be nice, I think, and so do you,
To find the haunts a vagrant fancy weaves.
Alone is man at best, and bound to earth,
And so in solitude his soul conceives
Such idle tales, knowing their fragile worth.
WONDER REFOUND
Her wondering eyes were lit with dreaming blue
When she was young, that is, before she knew.
And when one day she knew, the wonder fled —
Her blue eyes burned with other things instead
That were not dreams. You would not have supposed
They’d once been sweet to look on. Now they’re closed.
But just before they closed, her dreams of youth
Flamed through the fading blue and found the truth.
This much I know. For when at last she smiled,
Her eyes held all the wonder of a child.
MY WAYWARD GODDESS
My wayward goddess, banished from on high,
You must have brushed the sunset in your flight
And drawn its glowing colors from the sky
And all the splendor of the stars at night,
Which clustered in your lips and hair and eyes
And clung to your fair body as you fell,
A scarlet poppy through the saffron skies: —
Some god had made and loved you all too well.
Ah, lovely outcast, lawless in your love,
How lightly your white feet caress life’s mire,
Your feet that fled star-littered paths above
Before the fury of a god’s desire
And came to earth in glorious retreat
Where, Love, I stooped and kissed your wayward feet.
DAWN IN THE WARD
Kindly balm to tired eyes,
Heavy hearts and -bodies numb,
Peace that floods the eastern skies,
At last you come.
Shafts of gold across the gloom,
Pillows of the weary mind,
Fresh and fragrantly you bloom,
And cool and kind.
Slowly now the long grim drain
Leaves the body weak and still.
Thirsty eyes made bright with pain
See light and thrill.
All along the aching line
Hope returns to hopeless hearts.
Cots emerge and glasses shine
As pain departs.
Carts and drays go rolling past,
Paves awake and sparrows sing,
Traffic clangs — the day at last
Breaks comforting.
Distant domes and spires appear,
Water tanks and mounting roofs,
Hucksters call and one can hear
The clip of hoofs.
Gone the silence of the night,
Brighter now the glowing skies.
Faint and gaunt and ghastly white
The long ward sighs.
One that moaned the deep night through
Wipes the sweat from off his brow,
Whispers, and his lips are blue,
“I’m better now.”
Whispers as his broken frame
Sinks into a cool repose.
Gone the fever and the flame,
His eye-lids close.
Pallid souls with faces drawn,
Masks that pain has furrowed deep,
Wanly smile and bless the dawn,
Then fall asleep.
Sleep in peace and throb no more,
Children of a tortured night;
See, the sun spills on the floor,
The day is bright
Through the dawn in golden bands,
All the mothers that have died,
Now return with dew-cooled hands
And stand beside
Cots wherein the sick ones lie,
Bringing them a swift release
From the region of the sky,
And sleep and peace.
Gone the stalking night alarm,
Gone the heavy heart’s distress;
Gentle as a rose and calm —
The dawn’s caress.
St. Vincent’s Hospital, October, 1918.
TO A NEW DAY
There is no sound in dreams, but yet I heard
The liquid fluting of a distant bird,
And though I could not see the sky, I knew
That there were clouds in it and it was blue.
A vagrant sunbeam moved across the sheet
And licked my wrist with unaccustomed heat.
And through the window stole a faint perfume
That spoke of peach and apple trees in bloom.
Like petals caught in sweet shrub-scented rain,
Familiar songs long lost, returned again.
The shadows fell away like things of lead
As golden shafts of light caressed my bed
And fluttered gently there until they met.
I smiled and touched my cheek and it was wet
THE CALL
Love, I am ready now
To hear thy call.
All that I am art thou,
And thou my all.
TWILIGHT WATERS
Twilight waters, evening sky,
Deep tranquility,
Shafts of sun that flush and die
On a darkling sea,
Mist scarfs wavering far away
Through the ebbing light,
Shadows drape the dying day,
Swift wings flee the night.
LEAVES
Brown leaves and gold,
Gold leaves and red,
The woods are cold
And the trees have shed
Brown leaves and gold,
Gold leaves and red.
Bleak skies were bright
When leaves were green,
Swift falls the night,
And the wind is keen;
Sad hearts were light
When leaves were green.
Brown leaves and gold,
Gold leaves and red,
The woods are old
And the joy has fled —
Brown leaves and gold,
Gold leaves and dead.
THREE TREES
Three little trees
In the brisk summer breeze,
Family of fir were they,
Swayed to and fro
In a gay little row
Locking their arms in their play.
And the crickets that sang
When the vesper bells rang
And the frogs with the queer crooked knees
Sported and played
In the checker board shade
Of the three little, gay little trees.
BENEATH THE RAIN
I stood beside a tree beneath the rain
And as I stood I thought how lone and small
Was I and how that tree was great and tall
And bound to earth till I had lived again;
And thinking thus I felt a trill of pain
Which made me gaze across the voiceless night
In search of some faint gleam, some kindly light,
To guide my feet. I searched the night in vain.
There was no light and so I turned away
And moved beneath the rain across the sod
Alone that night and cried aloud to God
To send the day.
DERELICTS
They have fallen low,
Tasted the dregs of things,
Honor and shame forgotten,
All that was clean and good.
Like birds in a dismal wood,
Beating with broken wings
In a night that is hell begotten,
In a night that will never go,
They have fallen there and they know
That the woods will always remain,
The woods of terrible night,
The woods of terrible pain,
Where the broken are stayed in their flight,
Never to mount again
The cloud lanes of the sky
To the silver lawns of the sun.
They are broken, they cannot fly,
They know that their flight is done.
BY WAY OF REPROOF
In God’s great, deep, imponderable laws
’Twas writ that thou shouldst have gigantic paws,
And it was further writ in slabs of stone
That thou shouldst love, above all things, a bone.
Thou art, indeed, a mystery dog to me.
Thy silly face seems honest, frank and free
From subterfuge, but yet with mine own eyes
I’ve seen thee chew a dog but half thy size
And steal rare dishes from our saintly cook;
In fact, it seems there’s naught thou wouldst not hook
To satisfy thy vulgar appetite.
Thou raisest too much moan, oh, dog, at night
Thou canst not sleep with me, I tell thee now,
Thou art too large, thou great, ungainly cow.
Remember, pray, how thou hast been “brought-up”;
Thou art no longer now a puling pup.
Hast thou but small regard for man’s esteem,
No spark of honor left, no feeble gleam?
Art thou a pirate dog, a Bolshevist?
Roll not thy goggle eyes at me and twist
Thy large, expressive rump — we are not friends
‘Till thou hast made to me complete amends.
Why didst thou eat my brave maroon cravat,
I ask thee frankly, dog, why didst thou that?
What hellish impulse made thee choose my bed
For thy repose and splash across the spread
The tell-tale tracks of thy great muddy feet;
Was that quite fair, was that refined or sweet?
Oh, yes; my slippers, too, I quite forgot.
Thou filched those slippers, dog, come, didst thou not?
I have not seen my slippers for a week
What lies thy tongue would tell if thou couldst speak!
I give thee comforts, luxuries, a name
Which thou hast linked with horrid deeds of shame.
Thou art the scandal of the countryside,
