CAROLINA CHANSONS
LEGENDS OF THE LOW COUNTRY
BY
DuBOSE HEYWARD AND HERVEY ALLEN
1922
PREFACE
In a continent but recently settled, many parts of which have
as yet little historical or cultural background, the material for
this volume has been gathered from a section that was one of the
first to be colonized. Here the Frenchman, Spaniard, and
Englishman all passed, leaving each his legend; and a brilliant
and more or less feudal civilization with its aristocracy and
slaves has departed with the economic system upon which it
rested.
From this medley of early colonial discovery and romance, from
the memories of war and reconstruction, it has been as difficult
to choose coherently as to maintain restraint in selection among
the many grotesque negro legends and superstitions so rich in
imagery and music. Coupled with this there has been another task;
that of keeping these legends and stories in their natural
matrix, the semi-tropical landscape of the Low Country,
which somehow lends them all a pensively melancholy yet fitting
background. Not to have so portrayed them, would have been to
sacrifice their essentially local tang. To the reader unfamiliar
with coastal Carolina, the unique aspects of its landscapes may
seem exaggerated in [10]these
pages; the observant visitor and the native will, it is hoped,
recognize that neither the colors nor the shadows are too strong.
These poems, however, are not local only, they are stories and
pictures of a chapter of American history little known, but
dramatic and colorful, and in the relation of an important part
to the whole they may carry a decided interest to the country at
large.
Local color has a fatal tendency to remain local; but it is
also true that the universal often borders on the void. It has
been said, perhaps wisely, that the immediate future of American
Poetry lies rather in the intimate feeling of local poets who can
interpret their own sections to the rest of the country as
Robinson and Frost have done so nobly for New England, rather
than in the effort to yawp universally. Hence there is no
attempt here to say, "O New York, O Pennsylvania," but simply, "O
Carolina."
The South, however, has been "interpreted" so often, either
with condescending pity or nauseous sentimentality, that it is
the aim of this book to speak simply and carefully amid a babel
of unauthentic utterance. Nevertheless, the contents of this
volume do not pretend to exact historical accuracy; this is
poetry rather than history, although the legends and facts upon
which it rests have been gathered with much painstaking research
and careful verification. It should be kept in mind that these
poems are [11]impressionistic attempts to present
the fleeting feeling of the moment, landscape moods, and the
ephemeral attitudes of the past. Legends are material to be
moulded, and not facts to be recorded. Above all here is no
pretence of propaganda.
As some of the material touched on is not accessible in
standard reference, prose notes have been included giving the
historical facts or background of legend upon which a poem has
been based. These notes together with a bibliography will be
found at the back of the volume.
If the only result of this book is to call attention to the
literary and artistic values inherent in the South, and to the
essentially unique and yet nationally interesting qualities of
the Carolina Low Country, its landscapes and legends, the labor
bestowed here will have secured its harvest.
DuBose Heyward—Hervey
Allen.
Charleston, S.C.
December, 1921.
[12]
[13-14]
CONTENTS
[15]
CAROLINA CHANSONS
LEGENDS OF THE LOW COUNTRY
[16]
[17]
SÉANCE AT SUNRISE
Place the new
hands
In the old hands
Of the old generation,
And let us tilt tables
In the
high room
Of our
imagination.
Let the thick veil glow
thin,
At sunrise—at
sunrise—
Let the strange eyes
peer in,
The red, the black, and
the white faces
Of the still living
dead
Of the three
races.
Let a quaint voice
begin:
Voice of an
Indian
"Gone from the
land,
We leave the music of our
names,
As pleasant as the sound of
waters;
Gone is the log-lodge and
the skin tepee,
And moons ago the
ghost-canoe brought home
The latest
of our sons and daughters—
Yet still we linger in tobacco smoke
[18]And in the rustling fields
of maize;
Faint are the tracks our
moccasins have left,
But they are
there, down all your ways."
Voice of a
Slave
"We do not
talk
Of hours in the
rice
When days were
long,
Nor of old
masters
Who are with us
here
Beyond all right or
wrong.
Only white afternoons come
back,
When in the
fields
We reached the Mercy
Seat
On wings of
song."
Voice of a
Planter
"Nothing moves there
but the night wind,
Blowing the
mosses like smoke;
All would be
silent as moonlight
But for the owl
in the oak—
Stairways that
lead up to nothing—
Windows
like terrible scars—
Snakes
on a log in the cistern
Peering at
stars...."
Spirit of
Prophecy
"Dawn with its
childish colors
[19]Stipples the solemn vault of
night;
Behind the horizon the sun
shakes a bloody fist;
Mysteries
stand naked by the lakes of mist;
Spirits take flight,
The
medicine man,
The voodoo
doctor—
Witches mount
brooms.
The day looms.
Faster it comes,
Bringing young giants
Who hate
solitude,
And march with
drums—
Beat—beat—beat,
Down every ancient street,
The
young giants! Minded like boys:
Action for action's sake they love
And noise for noise."
Voice of a
Poet
"The fire of the
sunset
Is remembered at
midnight,
But forgotten at
dawn.
While the old stars
set,
Let us speak of their
glory
Before they are
gone."
H.A.
[20]
SILENCES[1]
You who have known my city
for a day
And heard the music of
her steepled bells,
Then laughed,
and passed along your vagrant way,
Carrying only what the city tells
To those who listen solely with their ears;
You know St. Matthew's swinging
harmonies,
And old St. Michael's
tale of golden years
Far less like
bells than chanted memories.
Yet there is something
wanting in the song
Of lyric youth
with voice unschooled by pain.
And
there are breathing stillnesses that throng
Dim corners, and that only stir
again
When bells are dumb. Not even
bronze that beats
Our heart-throbs
back can tell of old defeats.
But you who take the city
for your own,
Come with me when the
night flows deep and kind
Along
these narrow ways of troubled stone,
And floods the wide savannas of the mind
With tides that cool the fever of the
day:
[21] One with
the dark, companioned by the stars,
We'll seek St. Philip's, nebulous and gray,
Holding its throbbing beacon to the
bars,
A prisoned spirit vibrant in
the stone
That knew its empire of
forgotten things.
Then will the
city know you for her own,
And feel
you meet to share her sufferings;
While down a swirl of poignant memories,
Herself shall find you in her
silences.
Once coaches waited row on
shining row
Before this door; and
where the thirsty street
Drank the
deep shadow of the portico
The
Sunday hush was stirred by happy feet,
Low greetings, and the rustle of brocade,
The organ throb, and warmth of sunny
eyes
That flashed and smiled
beneath a bonnet shade;
Life with
the lure of all its swift disguise.
Then from the soaring lyric
of the spire,
Like the composite
voice of all the town,
The bells
burst swiftly into singing fire
That wrapped the building, and which showered
down
Bright cadences to flash along
the ways
Loud with the splendid
gladness of the days.
War took the city, and the
laughter died
From lips that pain
had kissed. One after one
[22]All lovely things went down the sanguine
tide,
While death made moaning
answer to the gun.
Then, as a
golden voice dies in the throat
Of
one who lives, but whose glad heart is dead,
The bells were taken; and a sterner
note
Rang from their bronze where
Lee and Jackson led.
The rhythmic seasons chill
and burn and chill,
Cooling old
angers, warming hearts again.
The
ancient building quickens to the thrill
Of lilting feet; but only singing rain
Flutters old echoes in the portico;
Those who can still remember love it
so.
D.H.
[23]
PRESENCES
Despise the garish presences
that flaunt
The obvious possession
of today,
To wear with me the
spectacles that haunt
The optic
sense with wraiths of yesterday—
These cobbled shores through which the traffic
streams
Have been the stage-set of
successive towns,
Where coffined
actors postured out their dreams,
And harlot Folly changed her thousand gowns.
This corner-shop was Bull's Head
Tavern,
When names now dead on
marble lived in clay;
Its rooms
were like a sanded cavern,
Where
candles made a sallow jest of day,
And drovers' boots came grinding like a quern,
While merchants drank their steaming cups of
"tay."
Here pock-marked Black Beard
covenanted Bonnet
To slit the Dons'
throats at St. Augustine,
And
bussed light ladies, unknown to this sonnet,
Whose names, no doubt, would rime with
Magdalene.
And English parsons, who
had lost their fames,
Sat tippling
wine as spicy as their joke,
Larding bald texts with bets on cocking mains,
And whiffing pipes churchwardens used to
smoke.
Here macaronis, hands
a-droop with laces,
[24]Dealt knave to knave in picquet
or écarté,
In
coats no whit less scarlet than their faces,
While bullies hiccuped healths to King and
Party,
And Yankee slavers, in from
Barbadoes,
Drove flinty bargains
with keen Huguenots.
Then Meeting Street first
knew St. Michael's steeple,
When
redcoats marched with royal drums a-banging,
Or merchants stopped gowned tutors to
inquire
Why school let out to see a
pirate hanging;
And gentlemen took
supper in the street,
When
candle-shine from tables guled the dark,
While others passing by would be
discreet
And take the farther side
without remark,
Pausing perhaps to
snuff the balmy savor
Of
turtle-soup mulled with the bay-leaves' flavor:
These walls beheld them, and these lingering
trees
That still preempt the middle
of the gutter;
They are the
backdrops for old comedies—
If leaves were tongues—what stories they might
utter!
H.A.
[25]
THE
PIRATES[2]
I stood once where these
rows of deep piazzas
Frown on the
harbor from their columned pride,
And saw the gallant youngest of the cities
Lift from the jealous many-fingered
tide.
Flanked by the multi-colored
sweeping marshes,
Among the little
hummocks choked with thorn,
I saw
the first, small, dauntless row of buildings
Give back the rose and orange of the
dawn.
Above them swayed the shining
green palmettoes
Vocal and
plaintive at the winds' caress;
While, at the edge of sight, the fluent silver
Of sea and bay framed the wide
loneliness.
Out of the East came gaunt
razees of commerce
Troubling the
dappled azure of the seas;
While
sleeping marsh awoke, and vanished under
The thrusting open fingers of the
quays.
Ever, and more, came ships,
while others followed.
Feeling
their way among unsounded bars,
Heaping their freights upon the groaning
wharf-heads,
Filling their holds
with turpentines and tars,
[26]Until the little twisting streets all
vanished
Into a blur of interwoven
spars.
II
One with the rest, I saw the
commerce dwindle,
High-bosomed,
sturdy vessels take the main
And
leave us, with the morning in their faces,
Never to come to any port again.
Slowly an ominous and pregnant
silence
Grew deep upon the wharves
where ships had lain.
Laughter rang hollow in
those days of waiting,
And nameless
fears came drifting down the night.
The tides swung in from sea, hung, and
retreated,
Bearing their secrets
back beyond our sight;
Till, like
the sudden rending of a curtain,
The East reeled with the lightnings of a
fight.
Never was a night so long
with waiting.
Never was the dark
more prone to stay.
And, in the
whispering gloom, taut, listening faces
Hung in a pallid line along the bay.
Slowly at last the mists dissolved,
revealing
A fearful silhouette
against the day.
Blue on a saffron dawn, a
frigate lifted
Out of the fog that
veiled her fold on fold,
[27]Taking the early sunlight on her
cannon
In running spurts and rings
of molten gold;
No flag of any
nation at her masthead.
Small
wonder that our pulses fluttered cold.
Never a shot she fired on
the city,
But, when the night came
blowing in from sea,
And our ruddy
windows warmed the darkness,
Through the surrounding gloom we heard the free
Strong sweep and clank of rowing in the
harbor,
And on the wharves raw jest
and revelry.
She was the first, but many
others followed;
Insolent, keen,
and swift to come-about,
I have
seen them go smashing down the harbor,
Loud with the boom of canvas and the shout
Of lusty voices at the crowded
bulwarks,
Where tattooed hands were
swinging long-boats out.
Up through the streets the
roisterers would swagger,
Filling
the narrow ways from wall to wall,
Scattering gold like ringing summer showers,
Ready with song and jest and cheery
call
For those who passed; buying
the little taverns
At any cost;
opening wine for all.
There were rare evenings
when we used to gather
Down in a
coffee-house beside the square.
[28]Morgan knew well our little favored
corner;
Black Beard the sinister
was often there;
And we have
watched the night blur into morning
While Bonnet, quiet-voiced and
debonnaire,
Would throw the glamor of
the seas about us
In archipelagoes
of mad romance;
Pointing a story
with a line from Shakespeare,
Quoting a Latin proverb; while his glance,
Flashing across the eager, listening
circle,
Fettered—blinded—held us in a
trance.
Their bags of Spanish gold
bribed our juries,
Bought dignified
officials of the Crown;
Money and
wine were ours for the asking;
The
Orient flamed out in shawl and gown,
Until a sudden and unholy splendor
Irradiated all the quiet town.
Those were the days when
there was open gaming,
And roaring
song in tongue of every race.
Evil,
as colorful as poison weeds,
Bloomed in the market place.
And those who should have known, shared in the
revels,
And passed their neighbors
with averted face.
Until one day a frigate
entered harbor,
And passed the
city, with a Spanish prize,
[29]Then insolently came-about, despoiled
her,
And fired her before our very
eyes,
While the vagrant breezes
left the streaming vapor
Like red
rust on the clean steel of the skies.
III
All in the sullied
hours,
While the pirates stood
away
Out of the murk and
horror
In a sheer white burst of
spray,
Leaving the wreck to
settle
Under its winding
sheet,
I felt the city
shudder
And stir beneath my
feet.
Thrilling against the
morning,
As audible as
song,
I heard the city
waken
Out of her night of
wrong.
That was a day to
cherish
When Rhett and a gallant
few
Summoned the best among
us;
Called for a daring
crew.
New and raw at the
business,
To the smithy's roar and
clang,
[30]We drove
our aching muscles
And as we worked
we sang,
Until one blowing
morning
With summer on the
sea,
The Henry to the
windward,
The Sea Nymph down
alee,
Flecking the wide
Atlantic
With a flaring, lacy
track,
We went, as glad as the
winds are glad,
To buy our honor
back.
IV
Over the wooded
shore-line,
Where the hidden rivers
stray
Down to the sea like timid
girls,
I saw in the first faint
gray
A burst of cloudy
topsails
Go blowing swiftly
by,
With the stars aswirl behind
them
Like bright dust down the
sky.
Gone were the days of
waiting,
And the long, blind search
was gone;
With a cheer we swung to
meet them
On the forefoot of the
dawn.
[31]
Out of the screening woodland
Into the open sound
The frigate crashed, then staggered
Careening, fast aground.
White water tugged behind
us,
We felt the Henry
reel
And spin as the hard impartial
sand
Closed on her vibrant
keel.
All through the high white
morning,
While the lagging tide
crawled out,
Fate held us bound and
waiting,
While, turn and turn
about,
We manned the fuming
cannon
And bartered hell for
hell,
While the scuppers sang with
coursing life
Where the dead and
dying fell.
Till, like the break of
fever
When life thrills up through
pain,
We felt the current
stirring
Under the keel
again.
Then it was hand to
cutlass,
And pistols in the
sash.
"All hands stand by for
boarding,—
Now, close abeam
and lash!"
[32]
But the ensign that had mocked us
With its symbol of the dead
Fluttered and dropped to the bloody
deck,
And a white square spoke
instead.
Home from the kill we
thundered
On the tail of the
equinox,
To the thrum of straining
canvas,
And the whine and groan of
blocks.
Leaping clear of the
shallows,
Chancing the creaming
bars,
We heard the first faint
cheering
As the late sun limned our
spars.
Safe in the lee of the
city
We moored in the
afterglow,
The Sea Nymph and
the Henry
With the
buccaneers in tow.
Glad we had been in the
going,
But God! it was good to
come
Out of the sky-wide
loneliness
To the walls and lights
of home.
V
Under these shouldering rows
of stone
That notch the quiet
sky;
[33]Under the
asphalt's transient seal
The same
old mud-flats lie;
And I have felt
them surge and lift
At night as I
passed by.
Yes, I have seen them
sprawling nude
While an Autumn moon
hung chill,
And the tide came
shuddering in from sea,
Lift by
lift, until
It held them under a
silver mesh,
Responsive to its
will.
Then slowly out from the
crowding walls
I have seen the
gibbets grow,
And stand against the
empty sky
In a desolate, windblown
row,
While their dancers swayed,
and turned, and spun,
Tripping it
heel and toe;
With a flash of gold where
the peering moon
Saw an earring as
it swung,
And a silver line that
leapt and died
Where the salt-white
sea-boots hung,
And the pitiful,
nodding, silent heads,
With half of
their songs unsung.
D.H.
[34]
THE SEWEES OF SEWEE BAY[3]
"And these squaws, waiting in vain the return of their
husbands, sought out braves among the other tribes, and so men
say the Sewees have become Wandos."
"One flask of rum for fifty
muskrat skins!
A horn of powder for
a bear's is not enough;
A whole
winter's hunting for some blanket stuff—
Ugh!" said the Sewee Chief,
"The pale-face is a thief!"
Ever, from the
north-north-east,
The great winged
canoes
Swept landward from the
shining water
Into Bull's
Bay,
Where the poor Sewees trapped
the otter,
Or took the giant
oysters for their feast—
Ever
the ships came from the north and east.
Surely, at morning, when
they walked the beaches,
Over the
smoky-silver, whispering reaches,
Where the ships came from, loomed a land,
Far-off, one mountain-top, away
Where the great camp-fire sun made
day:
[35]
"There are the pale-face lodges," they would
say.
So all one winter
Was great hunting on that shore;
Much maize was pounded,
And of acorn oil great store
Was tried;
And
collops of smoked deer meat set aside,
And skins and furs,
And furs
and skins,
And bales of furs
beside.
And all that winter,
too,
The smoke eddied
From many a huge canoe,
Hollowed by flame from cypress
trees
That with stone ax and
fire
The Sewee shaped to the good
shape
Of his
desire.
So when next
spring
The traders came from
Charles Town,
Bringing a gift of
blankets from the king,
The Sewees
would not trade a pelt—
Saying, "We go to see
The
Great White Father in his own tepee—
Heap, heap much rum!"
And then they passed the pipe of peace,
And puffed it, and looked glum.
[36] The traders thought
the redskins must be daft;
They saw
the huge canoes,
And, wondering at
their use,
Asked, "What will you do
with these?"
And the chief pointed
east across the seas;
And then the
pale-face laughed.
And yet—
There was a story told
By one of Black Beard's men
Who had done evil things for gold,
That one morning, out at sea,
The fog made a sudden lift,
And from the high poop, looking through the
rift,
He saw
Twenty canoes, each with six
warriors,
Paddling straight toward
the rising sun,
Where the wind made
a flaw—
He swore he
saw
And counted twenty
hulls,
Circled about by screaming
gulls—
Then such a storm came
down
That some prayed on that
hellion ship,
But he did
not—
He was not born to
drown.
This was the
tale
Told with much
bluster,
[37]Over ale
And oaths,
At Charles
Town.
He swore he saw the
Indians in the dawn,
And he'd be
danged!
And by Christ's
Mother—
Take his rings
in pawn!
But he was
hanged
With poor Stede Bonnet,
later on.
H.A.
[38]
LA
FAYETTE LANDS[4]
That evening, gathered on
the vessel's poop,
They saw the
glimmering land,
And far lights
moved there,
As once Columbus saw
them, winking, strange;
Around the
ship two darkies in a small canoe
Paddled and grinned, and held up silver
fish.
Over the high ship's
tumble-home
A pinnace
slid,
Slow, lowered from the
squealing davit-ropes,
And from a
port a-square with lantern light,
The little, leather trunks were passed,
Ironbound and quaint; while down the vessel's
side
With voluble advice, bon
voyage and au revoir,
The chatting Frenchmen came—
Click-clap of rapiers clipping on hard boots,
Cocked hats and merry eyes.
The great ship backs its
yards,
With drooping sails,
await,
A spider-web of spars and
lantern-lights,
While like a pilot
shark, the slim canoe,
[39]
A
V-shaped ripple wrinkling from its jaws,
Slides noiselessly across the
swells,
Leading the swinging boat's
crew to the beach;
And all the
world slides up—
And then the
stars slide down—
As ocean
breathes; while evening falls,
And
destiny is being rowed ashore.
The twilight-muffled bells
of town, the bark of dogs,
The
distant shouts, and smell of burning wood,
Fall graciously upon their sea-tired
sense.
Wide-trousered, barefoot
sailors carry them to land,
Tho'
snake-voiced waves flaunt frothing up the beach;
The horse-hide trunks are piled upon a
dune;
And there a little Frenchman
takes his stand,
Hawk-faced and
ardent,
While his brown cloak
droops about him
Like young falcon
plumes.
Gray beach, gray twilight,
and gray sea—
How strange the
scrub palmettoes down the coast!
No
purple-castled heights, like dear Auvergne,
Against the background of the Puy de
Dome,
But land as level as the
sea, a sandy road
That twists
through myrtle thickets
Where the
black boys lead.
[40]
Far down
a moss-draped avenue of oaks
There
is a flash of torches, and the lights
Go flitting past the bottle panes;
A cracked plantation bell dull-clangs;
The beagles bay,
Black faces swarm, with ivory eyeballs
glazed—
Court dwarfs that
served thick chocolate, on their knees
In damasked, perfumed rooms at grand
Versailles,
Were all the blacks the
French had ever seen.
Major Huger, lace-ruffled
shirt, knee-breeks,
A saddle-pistol
in his hand,
Waits on the
terrace,
Ready for "hospitality" to
British privateers;
But now no
London accent takes his ears,
No
English bow so low, "Good evening, sair;
I am de la Fayette, and these,
monsieur,
My friends, and this, le
Baron Kalb."
Welcome's the custom of the
time and land—
And these are
noblemen of France!
Now is
Bartholomew for turkeycocks,
Old
wines decant, the chandeliers flare up,
The slave row brims with lights;
And horses gallop off to summon guests.
After the ship—how
good the spacious rooms!
How
strange mosquito canopies on beds!
[41]Knights of St. Louis sniff the frying
yams,
Venison, and
turtle,—
The old green turtle
died tonight—
The children's
eyes grow wider on the stairs.
Down in the
library,
The Marquis, writing back
to old Auvergne,
Has sanded down
the ink;
Again the quill pen
squeaks:
"A ship will sail tomorrow
back to France,
By special
providence for you, dear wife;
Tonight there will be toasts to Washington,
To our good Louis and his
Antoinette—
There will be
toasts tonight for la Fayette...."
He melts the wax;
Look, how
the candle gutters at the flame!
And now he seals the letter with his
ring.
H.A.
[42]
THE PRIEST AND THE
PIRATE[5]
a ballad of theodosia burr
And must the old priest wake
with fright
Because the wind is
high tonight?
Because the yellow
moonlight dead
Lies silent as a
word unsaid—
What dreams had
he upon his bed?
Listen—the
storm!
The winter moon scuds high
and bare;
Her light is old upon his
hair;
The gray priest muses in a
prayer:
"Christ Jesus, when I come
to die
Grant me a clean, sweet,
summer sky,
Without the mad wind's
panther cry.
Send me a little
garden breeze
To gossip in magnolia
trees;
For I have heard, these
fifty years,
Confessions muttered
at my ears,
Till every mumble of
the wind
Is like tired voices that
have sinned,
[43]
And
furtive skirling of the leaves
Like
feet about the priest-house eaves,
And moans seem like the unforgiven
That mutter at the gate of heaven,
Ghosts from the sea that passed
unshriven.
And it was just this time of
night
There came a boy with lantern
light
And he was linen-pale with
fright;
It was not hard to guess my
task,
Although I raised the sash to
ask—
'Oh, Father,' cried the
boy, 'Oh, come!
Quickly with the
viaticum!
The sailor-man is
going to die!'
The thirsty silence
drank his cry.
A starless stillness
damped the air,
While his shrill
voice kept piping there,
'The
sailor-man is going to die'—
The huge drops splattered from the sky.
I shivered at my midnight
toil,
But took the elements and
oil,
And hurried down into the
street
That barked and clamored at
our feet—
And as we ran there
came a hum
Of round shot slithered
on a drum,
While like a lid of
sound shut down
The thunder-cloud
upon the town;
[44]
Jalousies
banged and loose roofs slammed,
Like hornbooks fluttered by the damned;
And like a drover's whip the rain
Cracked in the driving
hurricane.
Only the lightning showed
the door
That like two cats we
darted for;
It almost gave a man a
qualm
To find the house inside so
calm.
I sloshed all dripping up
the stair,
Up to an attic room
a-glare
With candle-shine and
lightning-flare—
With little
draughts that moved its hair
A
wrinkled mummy sat a-stare,
Rigid,
huddling in a chair.
I thought at
first the thing was dead
Until the
eyes slid in its head.
It seemed as if the Banshee
storm
Knocked screaming for his
withered form;
It shrieked and
whistled like a parrot,
Clucking
and stuttering through the garret.
With-out, the mailéd hands of hail
Battered the casements, and the
gale
About his low roof shuddered,
sighing,
As if it knew that he was
dying.
[45]
It
breathed like waiting beasts outside,
While soft feet made the shingles slide.
Then, like a blow upon the
cheek,
The mummy's voice began to
speak:
'Give me a priest! I'm
going to die!'
The Banshee wind
took up the cry:
'Give him a
priest, he's going to die!'
The old
house seemed to rock with laughter,
Shaking its sides and every rafter.
There was a terror in that
room
Like faint light streaming
from a tomb.
I tried three times
before I spoke,
And then the bald
words made me choke:
'Be quiet,
man, for I am come
To bring you the
viaticum!'—
I made the
sign of holiness.
He rattled out a
startled cry.
I whispered low,
'Confess, confess!'
His thin hands
quivered with distress.
It is a
bitter thing to die.
Just when a blast fell on
the town,
I felt his lean claws
clutch me down.
It seemed as if the
hands of death
Were beating at my
breast for breath;
[46]
His arms
were like a twisted rope
Of rotten
strands that tugged at hope.
'Listen, my father, listen well!'
The wind went tolling like a
bell:
'She's lying fifty
fathoms deep,
Where fishes
like white birds go by
Through water-air in ocean-land;
She has a prayer-book in her
hand—
Tonight she
walks; tonight she spoke;
Her hair goes floating out and up,
Blown one way, with the water
weeds,
Always one way, like
amber smoke.
She asks the gift she
gave to me—
This
ring—I cannot get it off!'
His hand and hand fought like two claws—
'I hear her calling from the
sea!'
His terror made my own
heart pause.
His voice went moaning with
the wind,
And groaned and rattled,
'I have sinned,'
And moaned
and murmured at my ear
Of
bat-winged angels standing near.
'The little schooner
"Patriot"—
I can't
forget the vessel's name;
[47]We met her rounding Naggs Head
Bank;
We made her people
walk the plank,
Twelve men
whose faces I forgot.
But there was one sweet
lady there,
With lovely eyes
and lovely hair,
Whose face
has stayed like pain and care.
For every man she made a prayer;
And when the last had found the
sea,
I cried to her to pray
for me.
She prayed—and took
this ring, and said:
"Wear
this for me when I am dead."
She bowed her head, then steadfastly
She walked into the hungry
sea.
But silent words were
on her lips,
And there was
comfort in her hand;
It was
as if she walked a bridge
That led into a pleasant land.
All that was long and long
ago,
So long ago this ring
has grown
To be a very part
of me,
One with my finger
and the bone:'
His voice went
trailing in a moan.
'This is her
ring—
This is her
ring!
[48]I dare not die and wear the
thing!'
His hand plucked at his
finger thin
As if to ease him of
his sin.
I gave a sudden gasping
shout—
The wind that blew the
window in
Had blown the candle
out.
'Quick, father,
quick!
The ring ... her
name....'
There came a jagged
spurt of flame;
The window seemed a
furnace door
That gave upon a bed
of ore;
The thunder rumbled out the
muttered
Words that his failing
tongue had uttered—
Another
flash, a rending crack—
The
old man crumpled like a sack;
I
felt his stringy arms go slack.
How
could he sit so dead, so still!
While wind snouts snuffed along the sill?
White shone his glimmering
face, and dull
The sodden silence
of the lull,
For when he died the
wind had dropt;
And with his heart
the storm had stopt,
All but a
far-off mouthing sound
That seemed
to sough from underground;
While
silence paused to plan some ill,
Thwarted by thunder growling still.
[49]
All in the darkness of the place
With lightning playing on its face,
I fumbled with the corpse's ring
To which the dead hands seemed to
cling;
The stiffening joints were
loth to play—
After awhile it
came away!
Out, like a sneak-thief
through the gloom,
I tiptoed from
the dead man's room;
The door
behind me like a hatch
Banged—the white splash of my match
Made shadow shapes dance on the
wall
As if the devil pulled the
string.
The light ran melting round
the ring;
Inside the worn script
scrawled a-blur:
'J.A. to
Theodosia Burr'
Confession is a
sacred thing!
I'll keep his secret
like the sea;
The ring goes to the
grave with me."
H.A.
[50]
PALMETTO
TOWN
Sea-island winds sweep
through Palmetto Town,
Bringing
with piney tang the old romance
Of
Pirates and of smuggling gentlemen;
And tongues as languorous as southern France
Flow down her streets like water-talk at
fords;
While through iron gates
where pickaninnies sprawl,
The
sound floats back, in rippled banjo chords,
From lush magnolia shade where mockers
call.
Mornings, the flower-women
hawk their wares—
Bronze
caryatids of a genial race,
Bearing
the bloom-heaped baskets on their heads;
Lithe, with their arms akimbo in wide
grace,
Their jasmine nods jestingly
at cares—
Turbaned they are,
deep-chested, straight and tall,
Bandying old English words now seldom heard,
But sweet as Provençal.
Dreams peer like prisoners through her harp-like
gates,
From molten gardens mottled
with gray-gloom,
Where lichened
sundials shadow ancient dates,
And
deep piazzas loom.
Fringing her
quays are frayed palmetto posts,
Where clipper ships once moored along the ways,
[51]And fanlight doorways,
sunstruck with old ghosts,
Sicken
with loves of her lost yesterdays.
Often I halt upon some gabled walk,
Thinking I see the ear-ringed
picaroons,
Slashed with a
sash or Spanish folderols,
Gambling for moidores or for gold doubloons.
But they have gone where night goes after
day,
And the old streets are gay
with whistled tunes,
Bright with
the lilt of scarlet parasols,
Carried by honey-voiced young octoroons.
H.A.
[52]
CAROLINA SPRING SONG
Against the swart magnolias'
sheen
Pronged maples, like a stag's
new horn,
Stand gouted red upon the
green,
In March when shaggy buds
are shorn.
Then all a mist-streaked,
sunny day
The long sea-islands lean
to hear
A water harp that shallows
play
To lull the beaches' fluted
ear.
When this same music wakes
the gift
Of pregnant beauty in the
sod,
And makes the uneasy vultures
shift
Like evil things afraid of
God,
Then, then it is I love to
drift
Upon the flood-tide's lazy
swirls,
While from the level rice
fields lift
The spiritu'ls of darky
girls.
I hear them singing in the
fields
Like voices from the
long-ago;
They speak to me of
somber worlds
And sorrows that the
humble know;
[53]
Of sorrow—yet their tones
release
A harmony of larger
hours
From easy epochs long at
peace
Amid an irony of
flowers.
So if they sometimes seem a
choir
That cast a chill of doubt on
spring,
They have still higher
notes of fire
Like cardinals upon
the wing.
H.A.
[54]
THE LAST
CREW[6]
I
Spring found us early that
eventful year,
Seeming to know in
her clairvoyant way
The bitterness
of hunger and despair
That lay upon
the town.
Out of the
sheer
Thin altitudes of
day
She drifted down
Over the grim blockade
At the harbor mouth,
Trailing
her beauty over the decay
That war
had made,
Gilding old ruins with
her jasmine spray,
Distilling warm
moist perfume
From chill winter
shade.
Out of the
south
She brought the
whisperings
Of questing
wings.
Then, flame on
flame,
The cardinals
came,
Blowing like driven
brands
[55]Up from
the sultry lands
Where Summer's
happy fires always burn.
Old
silences, that pain
Had held too
close and long,
Stirred to the
mocker's song,
And hope looked out
again
From tired
eyes.
Down where the White Point
Gardens drank the sun,
And rippled
to the lift of springing grass,
The
women came;
And after them the
aged, and the lame
That war had
hurled back at them like a taunt.
And always, as they talked of little things,
How violets were purpling the shade
More early than in all remembered
Springs,
And how the tides seemed
higher than last year,
Their gaze
went drifting out across the bay
To
where,
Thrusting out of the
mists,
Like hostile
fists,
Waited the close
blockade—
Then, dim to left
and right,
The curving islands with
their shattered mounds
That had
been forts;
Mounds, which in
spite
Of four long years of rending
agony
Still held against the
light;
[56]Faint
wraiths of color
For the breeze to
lift
And flatten into faded red and
white.
These sunny islands were not
meant for wars;
See, how they curve
away
Before the bay,
Bidding the voyager pause.
Warm with the hoarded suns of
centuries,
Young with the garnered
youth of many Springs,
They laugh
like happy bathers, while the seas
Break in their open arms,
And
the slow-moving breeze
Draws
languid fingers down their placid brows.
Even the surly ocean knows their
charms,
And under the shrill
laughter of the surf,
He booms and
sings his heavy monotone.
II
There are rare nights among
these waterways
When Spring first
treads the meadows of the marsh,
Leaving faint footprints of elusive green
To glimmer as she strays,
Breaking the Winter silence with the
harsh
Sharp call of
waterfowl;
Rubbing dim shifting
pastels in the scene
With white of
moon
[57]And blur
of scudding cloud,
Until the myrtle
thickets
And the sand,
The silent streams,
And the substantial land
Go
drifting down the tide of night
Aswoon.
On such a night as
this
I saw the last crew
go
Out of a world too beautiful to
leave.
Only a chosen
few
Beside the crew
Were gathered on the pier;
And in the ebb and flow
Of dark and moon, we saw them fare
Straight past the row of coffins
Where the fifth crew lay
Waiting their last short voyage
Across the bay.
And, as they went, not one
among them swerved,
But eyes went
homing swiftly to the West,
Where,
faint and very few,
The windows of
the town called out to them
Yet
held them nerved
And ready for the
test.
Young every one, they brought
life at its best.
[58] In the taut stillness,
not a word
Was uttered, but one
heard
The deep slow orchestration
of the night
Swell and relapse; as
swiftly, one by one,
Cutting a
silhouette against the gray,
They
rose, then dropped out softly like a dream
Into the rocking shadows of the
stream.
A sudden grind of metal
scarred the hush;
A marsh-hen
threshed the water with her wings,
And, for a breath, the marsh life woke and
throbbed.
Then, down beneath our
feet, we caught the gleam
Of folded
water flaring left and right,
While, with a noiseless rush,
A shadow darker than the rest
Drew from its fellows swarming round the quay,
Took an oncoming breaker,
Shook its shoulders free,
And faced the sea.
Then came an interval that
seemed to be
Part of
eternity.
Years might have passed,
or seconds;
No one
knew!
Close in the dark we huddled,
each to each,
Too stirred for
speech.
Our senses, sharpened to an
agony,
Drew out across the water
till the ache
[59]Was more than we could
bear;
Till eyes could almost
see,
Ears almost hear.
And waiting there,
I seemed to feel the beach
Slip from my reach,
While all
the stars went blank.
The smell of
oil and death enveloped me,
And I
could feel
The crouching figures
straining at a crank,
Knees under
chins, and heads drawn sharply down,
The heave and sag of shoulders,
Sting of sweat;
An eighth
braced figure stooping to a wheel,
Body to body in the stifling gloom,
The sob and gasp of breath against an
air
Empty and damp and fetid as a
tomb.
With them I seemed to
reel
Beneath the spin and
heel
When combers took them
fair,
Bruising their
bodies,
Lifting black water
where
Their feet clutched desperate
at the floor.
And as each body spent out
of its ebbing store
Of strength and
hope,
I felt the forward
thrust,
At first so
sure,
[60]Fail in
its rhythm,
Falter
slow,
And
slower—
Hang an endless
moment—
Till in a rush came
fear—
Fear of the sea, that
it might win again,
Gathering one
crew more,
Making them pay in
vain.
Then through the horror of
it, like a clear
Sweet wind among
the stars,
I felt the
lift
And drive of heart and
will
Working their miracles
until
Spent muscles tensed again to
offer all
In one transcendent
gift.
III
A sudden flood of moonlight
drenched the sea,
Pointing the
scene in sharp, strong black and white.
Sumter came shouldering through the night,
Battered and grim.
The curve of ships shook off their dim
Vague outlines of a dream;
And stood, patient as death,
So certain in their pride,
So satisfied
[61]To wait
The slow inevitableness of Fate.
Close, where the
channel
Narrowed to the
bay,
The Housatonic
lay
Black on the moonlit
tide,
Her wide
High sweep of spars
Flaunting their arrogance among the
stars.
Darkness again,
Swift-winged and absolute,
Gulping the stars,
Folding the ships and sea,
Holding us waiting, mute.
Then, slowly in the void,
There grew a certainty
That
silenced fear.
The very
air
Was stirring to the march of
Destiny.
One blinding second out of
endless time
Fell, sundering the
night.
I saw the Housatonic
hurled,
A ship of
light,
Out of a molten
sea,
Hang an unending
pulse-beat,
[62]Glowing, stark;
While the hot clouds flung back a sullen
roar.
Then all her pride, so
confident and sure,
Went reeling
down the dark.
Out of the blackness wave on
livid wave
Leapt into
being—thundered to our feet;
Counting the moments for us, beat by beat,
Until the last and smallest dwindled
past,
Trailing its pallor like a
winding-sheet
Over the last crew
and its chosen grave.
IV
Morning swirled in from the
sea,
And down by the low
river-wall,
In a long unforgettable
row,
Man faces tremulous,
old;
Terrible faces of
youth,
Broken and seared by the
war,
Where swift fire kindled and
blazed
From embers hot under the
years,
While hands gripped a cane
or a crutch;
Patient dumb faces of
women,
Mothers, sisters, and
wives:
And the vessel hull-down in
the sea,
Where the waters, just
stirring from sleep,
Lifted bright
hands to the sun,
[63]Hiding their lusty young
dead,
Holding them jealously
close
Down to the cold harbor
floor.
There would be eight of
them.
Here in the gathering
light
Were waiting eight women or
more
Who were destined forever to
pay,
Who never again would laugh
back
Into the eyes of
life
In the old glad, confident
way.
Each huddled dumbly to
each;
But eyes could not lift from
the sea,
Only hands touched in the
dawn.
"He would have gone, my
man;
He was like that. In
the night
When I awoke with
a start,
And brought his
voice up from my dream:
That
was goodbye and godspeed.
I
know he is there with the rest."
Brave, but with quivering
lips,
Each alone in the press of
the crowd,
Was saying it over and
over.
The day flooded all of the
sky;
And the ships of the sullen
blockade
[64]Weighed anchor and drew down the
wind,
Leaving their wreck to the
waves.
Hour heaved slowly on
hour,
Yet how could the city
rejoice
With the women out there by
the wall!
Night grew under the
wharves,
And crept through the
listening streets,
Until only the
red of the tiles
Seemed warm from
the breath of the day;
And the
faces that waited and watched
Blurred into a wavering line,
Like foam on the curve of the dark,
Down there by the reticent
sea.
What if the darkness should
bring
The lean blockade-runners
across
With food for the hungry and
spent....
Who could joy in the
sudden release
While the faces,
still-smiling, but wan,
Turned
slowly to hallow the town?
D.H.
[65]
LANDBOUND
Bring me one breath from the
deep salt sea,
Ye vagrant upland
airs!
Over your forest and field
and lea,
From the windy deeps that
have mothered me,
To the heart of
one who cares.
Clear to the peace of the
sunlit park,
You bring with your
evening lull
The vesper song of the
meadow lark;
But my soul is sick
for the seething dark,
And the
scream of a wind-blown gull.
And bring to me from the
ocean's breast
No crooning
lullaby;
But the shout of a bleak
storm-riven crest
As it shoulders
up in the sodden West
And hurtles
down the sky.
That, breathing deep, I may
feel the sweep
Of the wind and the
driving rain.
For so I know that my
heart will leap
To meet the call of
the strident deep,
And will thrill
to life again.
D.H.
[66]
TWO PAGES
FROM THE BOOK OF THE SEA ISLANDS
page one
Shadows
There is deliberateness in
all sea-island ways,
As alien to
our days as stone wheels are.
The
Islands cannot see the use of life
Which only lives for change.
There days are flat,
And all
things must move slowly;
Even the
seasons are conservative—
No
sudden flaunting of wild colors in the fall,
Only a gradual fading of the green,
As if the earth turned slowly,
Or looked with one still face upon the
sun
As Venus
does—
Until the trees, the
fields, the marshes,
All turn dun,
dull Quaker-brown,
And a mild
winter settles down,
And mosses are
more gray.
All human souls are glasses
which reflect
The aspects of the
outer world;
[67]See what terrible gods the huge
Himalayas bred!
And the fierce
Jewish Jaywah came
From the hot
Syrian deserts
With his inhibitory
decalogue.
The gods of little hills
are always tame;
Here God is dull,
where all things stay the same.
No change on these
sea-islands!
The huge piled clouds
range
White in the cobalt
sky;
The moss hangs,
And the strong, tiring sea-winds
blow—
While day on glistering
day goes by.
The horses plow with hanging
heads,
Slow, followed by a
black-faced man,
Indifferent to the
sun;
The old cotton bushes hang
with whitened heads;
And there
among the live-oak trees,
Peep the
small whitewashed cabins,
Painted
blue, perhaps, and scarlet-turbaned women,
Ample-hipped, with voices soft and
warm
With the lean hounds and
chocolate children swarm.
Day after day the ocean
pumps
The awful valve-gates of his
heart,
Diastole and systole through
these estuaries;
The tides flow in
long, gray, weed-streaked lines;
[68]The salt water, like the planet's
lifeblood, goes
As if the earth
were breathing with long-taken breaths
And we were very near her heart.
No wonder that these faces
show a tired dismay,
Looking on
burning suns, and scarcely blithe in May;
Spring's coming is too fierce with
life;
And summer is too
long;
The stunted pine trees
struggle with the sand
Till the
eyes sicken with their dwarfing strife.
There are old women here
among these island homes,
With dull
brown eyes that look at something gray,
And tight silver hair, drawn back in lines,
Like the beach grass that's always blown one
way;
With such a melancholy in
their faces
I know that they have
lived long in these places.
The
tides, the hooting owls, the daylight moons,
The leprous lights and shadows of the
mosses,
The funereal woodlands of
these coasts,
Draped like a
perpetual hearse,
And memories of
an old war's ancient losses,
Dwell
in their faces' shadows like gray ghosts.
And worse—
The terror of the black man always near—
The drab level of the ricefields and the
marsh
Lends them a mask of
fear.
[69]
page two
Sunshine
This is a different
page.
Do you suppose the sun here
lavishes his heat
For nothing, in
these islands by the sea?
No! The
great green-mottled melons ripen in the fields,
Bleeding with scarlet, juicy pith
deliriously;
And the exuberant yams
grow golden, thick and sweet;
And
white potatoes, in grave-rows,
With
leaves as rough as cat tongues;
And
pearly onions, and cabbages
With
white flesh, sweet as chicken meat.
These the black boatmen
bring to town
On barges, heaped
with severed breasts of leaves,
Driven by put-put engines
Down the long canals, quavering with song,
With hail and chuckle to the docks
along,
Seeing their dark faces down
below
Reduplicated in the sunset
glow,
While from the shore stretch
out the quivering lines
Of the
flat, palm-like, reflected pines
That inland lie like ranges of dark hills in
lines.
And so to
town—
Weaving odd baskets of
sweet grass,
Lazily and
slow,
To sell in the arcaded
market,
Where men sold their
fathers not so long ago.
[70]
For all
their poverty,
These patient black
men live
A life rich in warm colors
of the fields,
Sunshine and hearty
foods,
Delighted with the gifts
that earth can give,
And old tales
of Plateye and Bre'r Rabbit;
While the golden-velvet cornpone
browns
Underneath the lid among hot
ashes,
Where the groundnuts
roast,
Round shadowy fires at
nights,
With tales of graveyard
ghost,
While eery spirituals
ring,
And organ voices
sing,
And sticks knock maddening
rhythms on the floor
To shuffling
youngsters "cutting" buck-and-wing;
Dogs bark;
And dog-eyed
pickaninnies peek about the door.
Sundays, along the
moss-draped roads,
The beribboned
black folk go to church
By threes
and twos, carrying their shoes,
With orange turbans, ginghams, rainbow hats;
Then bucks flaunt tiger-lily ties and watchet
suits,
Smoking cob pipes and
faintly sweet cheroots.
Wagons with
oval wheels and kitchen chairs screech by,
Where Joseph-coated white-teethed maidens
sit
Demurely,
While the old mule rolls back the ivory of his
eye.
[71]
Soon from
the whitewashed churches roll away
Among the live oak trees,
Rivers of melancholy harmonies,
Full of the sorrows of the centuries
The white man hears, but cannot
feel.
But it is always Sunday on
sea-islands.
Plantation bells,
calling the pickers from the fields,
Are like old temple gongs;
And
the wind tells monodies among the pines,
Playing upon their strings the ocean's
songs;
The ducks fly in long,
trailing lines;
Skeows
squonk and marsh-hens quank
Among the tidal flats and rushes rank on
rank;
On island tufts the heron
feeds its viscid young;
And the
quick mocker catches
From lips of
sons of slaves the eery snatches,
And trolls them as no lips have ever
sung.
Oh! It is good to be here in
the spring,
When water still stays
solid in the North,
When the first
jasmine rings its golden bells,
And
the "wild wistaria" puts forth;
But
most because the sea then changes tone;
Talking a whit less drear,
It
gossips in a smoother monotone,
Whispering moon-scandal in the old earth's
ear.
H.A.
[72]
MODERN PHILOSOPHER
They fight your battles for
you every day,
The zealous ones,
who sorrow in your life.
Undaunted
by a century of strife,
With urgent
fingers still they point the way
To
drawing rooms, in decorous array,
And moral Heavens where no casual wife
May share your lot; where dice and ready
knife
Are barred; and feet are
silent when you pray.
But you have music in your
shuffling feet,
And spirituals for
a lenient Lord,
Who lets you sing
your promises away.
You hold your
sunny corner of the street,
And
pluck deep beauty from a banjo chord:
Philosopher whose future is today!
D.H.
[73]
UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS
The judge, who lives
impeccably upstairs
With dull
decorum and its implication,
Has
all his servants in to family prayers,
And edifies his soul with
exhortation.
Meanwhile his blacks live
wastefully downstairs;
Not always
chaste, they manage to exist
With
less decorum than the judge upstairs,
And find withal a something that he
missed.
This painful fact a Swede
philosopher,
Who tarried for a
fortnight in our city,
Remarked,
one evening at the meal, before
We
paralyzed him silent with our pity—
Saying the black man living
with the white
Had given more than
white men could requite.
H.A.
[74]
HAG-HOLLERIN' TIME
Black Julius peered out from
the galley fly;
Behind Jim Island,
lying long and dim;
An infra
owl-light tinged the twilight sky
As if a bonfire burned for cherubim.
Dark orange flames came
leering through the pines,
And then
the moon's face, struggling with a sneeze,
Along the flat horizon's level
lines
Her nostrils fingered with
palmetto trees.
Her platinum wand made water
wrinkles buckle;
Old Julius gave
appreciative chuckle;
"It's jes
about hag-hollerin' time," he said.
I watched the globous buckeyes in his
head
Peer back along the bloody
moon-wash dim
To see the
fish-tailed water-witches swim.
H.A.
[75]
MACABRE IN MACAWS
After the hurricane of the
late forties,
Peter Polite says, in
the live-oak trees
Were weird,
macabre macaws
And ash-colored
cockatoos, blown overseas
From
Nassau and the West Indies.
These
hopped about like dead men's thoughts
Among the draggled Spanish moss,
Preening themselves, all at a loss,
Preening faint caws,
And shrieking from nostalgia—
With dull screams like a child
Born with neuralgia—
And this seems true to me,
Fitting the landscape's drab
grotesquery.
H.A.
[76]
GAMESTERS
ALL[7]
The river boat had loitered
down its way;
The ropes were
coiled, and business for the day
Was done. The cruel noon closed down
And cupped the town.
Stray voices called across the blinding heat,
Then drifted off to shadowy retreat
Among the sheds.
The waters of the bay
Sucked
away
In tepid swirls, as listless
as the day.
Silence closed about
me, like a wall,
Final and
obstinate as death.
Until I longed
to break it with a call,
Or barter
life for one deep, windy breath.
A mellow laugh came
rippling
Across the stagnant
air,
Lifting it into little waves
of life.
Then, true and
clear,
I caught a snatch of
harmony;
Sure lilting tenor, and a
drowsing bass,
Elusive chords to
weave and interlace,
[77]
And
poignant little minors, broken short,
Like robins calling June—
And then the tune:
"Oh, nobody
knows when de Lord is goin ter call,
Roll dem bones.
It may
be in de Winter time, and maybe in de Fall,
Roll dem bones.
But yer got ter leabe yer baby an yer home an
all—
So roll dem
bones,
Oh my
brudder,
Oh my
brudder,
Oh my
brudder,
Roll dem
bones!"
There they squatted,
gambling away
Their meagre
pay;
Fatalists all.
I heard the muted fall
Of dice, then the assured,
Retrieving sweep of hand on roughened
board.
I thought it good to
see
Four lives so free
From care, so indolently sure of each
tomorrow,
And hearts attuned to
sing away a sorrow.
Then, like a
shot
Out of the hot
[78]Still air, I heard a
call:
"Throw up your hands! I've
got you all!
It's thirty days for
craps.
Come, Tony,
Paul!
Now, Joe, don't be a
fool!
I've got you
cool."
I saw Joe's eyes, and knew
he'd never go.
Not Joe, the
swiftest hand in River Bow!
Springing from where he sat, straight, cleanly
made,
He soared, a leaping shadow
from the shade
With fifty feet to
go.
It was the stiffest hand he
ever played.
To win the corner
meant
Deep, sweet
content
Among his laughing
kind;
To lose, to suffer
blind,
Degrading slavery upon "the
gang,"
With killing suns, and
fever-ridden nights
Behind
relentless bars
Of prison
cars.
He hung a breathless second
in the sun,
The staring road before
him. Then, like one
Who stakes his
all, and has a gamester's heart,
His laughter flashed.
He
lunged—I gave a start.
God!
What a man!
[79]
The
massive shoulders hunched, and as he ran
With head bent low, and splendid length of
limb,
I almost felt the
beat
Of passionate life that surged
in him
And winged his spurning
feet.
And then my eyes went
dim.
The Marshal's gun was
out.
I saw the grim
Short barrel, and his face
Aflame with the excitement of the
chase.
He was an honest sportsman,
as they go.
He never shot a
doe,
Or spotted fawn,
Or partridge on the ground.
And, as for Joe,
He'd wait until he had a yard to go.
Then, if he missed, he'd laugh and call it
square.
My gaze leapt to the
corner—waited there.
And now
an arm would reach it. I saw hope flare
Across the runner's face.
Then, like a
pang
In my own heart,
The pistol rang.
The form I watched soared
forward, spun the curve.
"By God,
you've missed!"
[80]
The
Marshal shook his head.
No, there
he lay, face downward in the road.
"I reckon he was dead
Before
he hit the ground,"
The Marshal
said.
"Just once, at fifty
feet,
A moving target
too.
That's just about as
good
As any man could
do!
A little tough;
But, since he ran,
I call it fair enough."
He mopped his head, and
started down the road.
The silence
eddied round him, turned and flowed
Slowly back and pressed against the ears.
Until unnumbered flies set it to
droning,
And, down the heat, I
heard a woman moaning.
D.H.
[81]
ECLIPSE
Once melodies of
street-cries washed these walls,
Glad as the refluent song
Of
cheerful waters from a happy spring
That shout their way along;
Such cries were born in other days from lips
A spirit taught to sing. Now it is
gone!
Memory expects those hymns
for shrimp and prawn,
Or the
mellifluous chaunt from the black gorge
Of Orpheus inside a murky skin,
Who looked the gold sun in the eye
While garden mists grew thin,
And intoned "Hoppin' John!"
As when the shadow of the
gray eclipse
Haggards the
countryside,
When moon-fooled birds
have nothing more to say,
And soft
untimely bats begin to slide;
As
darkness sweeps the morning light away,
So silence brushes music now from lips.
Oh! Can it be the songless
spirit of this age
Has slain the
ancient music, or that ears
[82]Have harsher thresholds? Only this I
know:
The streets grow more
discordant with the years;
And that
which bids the huckster sing no more,
Will drive the flower-woman from the
door.
H.A.
[83]
EDGAR
ALLAN POE[8]
Once in the
starlight
When the tides were
low,
And the surf fell
sobbing
To the
undertow,
I trod the windless
dunes
Alone with Edgar
Poe.
Dim and far behind
us,
Like a fabled
bloom
On the myrtle
thickets,
In the swaying
gloom
Hung the clustered
windows
Of the
barrack-room.
Faint on the
evening
Tenuous and
far
As the beauty
shaken
From a vagrant
star,
Throbbed the ache and
passion
Of an old
guitar.
Life closed behind
us
Like a swinging
gate,
[84]Leaving
us unfettered
And
emancipate;
Confidants of
Destiny,
Intimates of
Fate.
I could only
cower,
Silent, while the
night,
Seething with its
planets,
Parted to our
sight,
Showing us
infinity
In its breadth and
height.
But my chosen
comrade,
Tossing back his
hair
With the old loved
gesture,
Raised his face, and
there
Shone the agony that
those
Loved of God must
bear.
Oh, we heard the many
things
Silence has to
say;
He and I together
As alone we lay
Waiting for the slow, sweet
Miracle of day.
When the bugle's
silver
Spiralled up the
dawn,