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AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



BY



DOROTHEA LAWRANCE MANN




THE CORNHILL COMPANY

BOSTON



6



-t






K«5



Copyright, 1919

by

THE CORNHILL COMPANY



©CI.A535906

NOV 29 1319



TO MY MOTHER



Some of these poems are reprinted here through
the courtesy of the editors of the Century Magazine,
The Poetry Journal, The Pathfinder, and the Boston
Evening Transcript. The Browning poem appeared
first in Mr. William Stanley Braithwaite's Browning
Centenary page of the Boston Evening Transcript,
and the last stanza of "Year of the Peace" appeared in
his Peace Page. I thank these editors for permission
to reprint these poems.



CONTENTS

In a Flower Shop i

Candle-Glow 3

Spring-Song 4

If I Were a Summer Breeze 5

Broken Lights 6

Flower Worship 7

The Eternal Dian 8

The Ancient Soul 10

To Browning 11

Ports of Call 12

To Imagination 13

The Source 15

Farewell 16

Could I Forget 17

The Eternal Quester 18

Memories 21

A Leaf on the Wind 22

The Eyes that Laughed 23

Above the Stars 25

The Voice that Calls 26

Tangled Web 2.y

First Meeting 28

Come Over the Silver Seas 30

Beneath the Skies 31

Pilgrim Love 32



CONTENTS

Page

Sunset on the Ocean 33

The Janus-House 34

Bare Branches Against the Sunset ... 35

Across the Deep 36

The Mermaid's Call 37

A Journey to the Sea 39

Wind-Lure 40

The Dream I Dreamed Before I Was Born . 41

Ghosts 42

Doom Magic 44

To a Dead Poet 45

Songs from a Drama 46

Love was Clad in Green and Scarlet ... 49

The New Day 50

Gray Sea 52

Year of Peace 53

L'Envoi 56



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



IN A FLOWER SHOP

Spring comes earliest in flower shops,

Bringing windows riotous with bloom —

Pink and yellow, white and blue, blossoms calling you !

And beyond the door you whiff the moist warm sweet

odor
Of Nature in her workshop.

Will you have the purple violets

With their heavy stifling fragrance,

And the passion and perfection of their satin-sheen?

They are meant to nestle close against the bosom

Of a dream-rich woman whose soft firm fingers move

among the petals
While her dark eyes brood above them, —
Warm and tender — with memories of you !

There is welcome in the fragrance of the roses.
They are fit for glowing girlhood —
To match the color in her cheeks
And the swinging rhythm of her step.
On tip-toe with excitement at the wonder of the world
They will sway against a bosom — where they wake no
memories !

[i]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC

And then there is the orchid — fair exotic stranger.

All contrary and wise, she holds herself aloof

And waits the heavy-lidded woman with experience

in her eyes —
What they have to tell each other you and I will never

know!

See the riot of the tulips —

Unfragrant, unmysterious,

They grace the dinner table of a mother or a wife.

Beyond the flashing tulips stand the yellow jonquils.
Nothing else has ever caught so fearlessly the color of

the sun.
They always seem to whisper
A merry little tune of happy days to come.
So buy them for their glowing gold — and forget them

in an hour!

But come into the flower shop if only for a moment,
And drink deep of all the colors of the spring!
Open wide your nostrils
And inhale the mellowed fragrance of a dozen different

flowers mingling in the warm damp room.
Just come into the flower-shop and — laugh —
For spring is here !



:»]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



CANDLE-GLOW

Between the twilight and the dark

A spark

Of glowing candle light

Seems to hold back the rush of night —

The brooding of imperious wings

Which swallow up the daylight things.

The candle's golden beams

Ray themselves out in thread-thin streams

And lose themselves in the great dark,

Where voices hark

Hover and quiver in the night,

Drawn to the light

By that onrushing impulse of Desire

Which draws its own into its heart of fire.



[3]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



SPRING-SONG

Spring! and all the passion of the spring
Like the song of wine along the blood,
All the ache of beauty trembling at flood,
Tip-toe while the first birds sing.

Spring! and we who watched a thousand springs

Dawn and die upon some distant star,

Know the old thrill straining at bar,

Taste the mad joy every springtime brings.

Spring! and we who loved those other springs,
Feel the throbbing of the blossoming earth
Wake the world and us to radiant rebirth,
Touch our dreams to wild white visionings.



[4]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



IF I WERE A SUMMER BREEZE

If I were a summer breeze,
And I kept the self-same heart,

I would seek the soft pine trees
To speak with my love apart.

I would seek you here at dawn,
And follow you home at night,

Till the breeze in the pine trees born,
Should flutter your candle light.

I would whisper into your ears,
Tales that my ears had known, —

For I'd come from strange lands and years,
On the breath of centuries blown —

I would speak my tale in your heart, —

Though I were only a breeze,
And you the beauty of all the world,

Caught beneath these old pine trees.



[5]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



BROKEN LIGHTS
[for Lawrence Bacon Mann]

Glories there are too high for our forgetting,
Who love the deeps and know the morning star,

Times when each mortal sun draws to its setting,
And only the eternal beauties are.

Moments of wonder deep and unregretting,
That glimpse a radiance visioned from afar.

Like broken lights they fade into a spark —
On memory's dark.

Lost splendors ever mock the eyes that wait.

We who must travel strange and lonely seas,
Have battled with weak hands forbidding fate,

Knowing the comfort of stray lights like these,
Then with rekindled hopes, though worn and late,

Have dared strong tempests for our love's release.
What though the moment fade, it leaves a spark —
To light our dark.

But broken lights! We hail them with misgiving,
Who long for some sure steady perfect sun,

But broken lights ! yet all our longest living
Gathers but scattered fragments of the one

Vast light — forever and forever giving

Its broken radiance till earth's course is run,

When all these lights flash to a glowing spark —
Banishing all dark.

[6]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



FLOWER WORSHIP

I would not pluck a single flower,

Spoil by the fraction of an hour

Its perfect prayer.

I see it pressing from the sod,

Stretching weak fingers up to God,

And know

I too push upward to the light,

Thrusting through shadows dark as night,

With blinded eyes,

Less single-hearted than the flower

That for an hour

Of exquisite expression, lives and dies.



[7]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



THE ETERNAL DIAN

Lo the huntress —

Breasting the gale she comes, her long hair beating

down the wind,
She leaves the hills behind,
While the wet grasses of the valleys greet
The pressure of the sandalled feet,
Then she is gone into the dawn,
On, Dian, on!

Far on the huntress flees.

The encircling trees

Stretch forth caressing fingers to the goddess —

She beats them to their knees,

And on she flees

Leaving the dawn behind.

What god or mortal can outrun Dian?

They follow as she flees

With hard keen sinews through the world —

The light skirt swirled,

Is tight against her knees.

Swifter than light she flies,

Panting and eager to appease

The passionate dissatisfaction in her eyes.



[8]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC

Up, up to the mountain height

She races with the light,

Spurning the rocky sod

Which trembles at the footsteps of the god.

The huntress flees

Down the deep valleys, by the sounding seas,

Lonely, unsatisfied, she flees,

Eternally she flees.

The little ardent trees

Would kiss the impatient hand;

Upon their knees

Men list an echo on a light wind fanned.

Impatient, tireless, alone —

Huntress and hunted, Dian flees.

Who, who can hope to appease
The hunger which a goddess flees?



[9]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



THE ANCIENT SOUL

For it was the ancient soul in him . . . and to deny
it was to deny life itself . . . And along this path
he really believed at the moment his little human will
could hold him firm.

Algernon blackwood in "The Lost Valley."

Before the stars had lit the sky

Or Time begun its span,
There rose from the deeps of Chaos

The Ancient Soul of Man.
It walked with God in the garden

On this our earth's first day,
And the secret words that it learned from God

Have lived in its heart alway.

It is older than stars or suns,

It has looked to the end of Time,
And watched the elder races fail,

While it mused on the Great Sublime.
It broods in a mystic ecstasy —

But ever again in a man
The Ancient Soul will rise full tide

If his deeds would wreck the Plan.



[10]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



TO BROWNING

Master, about whose laurelled head, the years
Fame's fairest, brightest aureole have bound,
We, too, within the fading century's round

Would tribute bring thee in thy starry spheres —

Love of our hearts, and all our gladdening fears,
We bring to thee, our master-warrior, found
Triumphant in life's battles, — victor crowned

By voice of all earth's poets and her seers.

O magic builder, through the strong-winged song —
Thy pinions sweeping farthest deeps of air-
Living still, thy soaring spirit sways,
Like a breath of fire that stirs, a throng
Of counseling actions, making fair

Body and spirit through man's length of days,



In



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



PORTS OF CALL

Here is a Port of Call.

Here for a day the home-sick mariner

Remembers fitfully the living flame.

Here from his oft-recurring voyagings he rests.

Darkly at first —

He scarcely feels at home on land,

Or sees the hands outstretched in greeting.

Yet sometimes finds he one within whose eyes

He reads dim recognition,

And then outleaping in pure joy

He seeks the steps they two have trod, —

And fails to find, is lonely to the end —

Until the impelling Spirit breathes him home again-

To send him forth upon fresh journeyings.



[12;



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC

TO IMAGINATION
[Suggested by maxfield parrish's "Air Castles'']

O beauteous boy a-dream, what visions sought

Of pictures magical thy eyes unfold,
What triumphs of celestial wonders wrought,

What marvels from a breath of beauty rolled!
Skyward and seaward on the clouds are scrolled

A mystic imagery of castled thought,
A thousand worlds to lose, — or win and mold, —

A radiant iridescence swiftly caught
Of ever-changing glory, fancy- fraught.

Blue wonder of the sea and luminous sky, —

A thousand wonders in thy dreamlit face, —
Eyes that beheld afar the turrets high

Of Illium, and the transient mortal grace
Of Deirdre's sadness, all the conquering race

Of Athens, — eyes that saw Eden's beauty lie
In passionate adoration — visions trace

Across the tender brooding of the sigh
That wrecked a city and made chieftains die.

Forward not backward turns the mystic shine
Of those far-seeing eyes that track the gleam —

The fleecy marvel of the cloud is line
On line the wizard tracery of a dream.

[13]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC

O lad, who buildest not of things that seem,
Beyond what bounds of visioning divine

Came that far smile, from what long-strayed sunbeam
Caught thou the radiance, from what fostering vine

The power to build and mold the deep design?

Knowest thou the secret that thy brush would tell,

Is all the dream a bubbled splendor white,
Beyond those castles cloud-bound, does there dwell

The eternal silence of the dark — or light?
Will thy hand hold the pen which shall indict

The symbolled mystery — write the final knell
Of rainbow fancy — is the distant sight

A nothingness encircled by the spell
Of gleaming bubbles wrought of beauty's shell?

In vain to question, where the mystery

Of Youth's short golden dream is lord and king.
The eyes that farthest gaze in ecstasy,

Were never meant to paint the immortal thing
They see, nor understand the joy they bring.

The misty baubles of the sky and sea
Sail on. Dream still, bright-visioned boy, and fling

The glittering mantle of thy thoughts that flee,
Weaving us evermore thy shining pageantry.



14]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



THE SOURCE

Come forth, my spirit, from thy hiding place!

Casting aside the tyranny of mortal dreams,

Roam free from every barrier of earth,

And draw thyself through thy supreme desire

Back to the Source.

Stretch forth thy wings until they break the mold,

Then leap toward thy desire,

Until—

Through parting boundaries of stars and space

The measureless great One appears

In ocean vastness and rich silences, —

Deep-bosomed, with upholding arms of power.

Then — through the parted essences let leap

The undivided flame !



15]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



FAREWELL

In memory of

MARGARET WHITNEY MEARS

Farewell! Farewell! The billows break
On distant deeps and shores descending.

Farewell ! Farewell ! From life awake
And know that friendship hath no ending.

Within those radiant realms of sleep, —

That sleep whose portals thou dost sunder, —

Dreamless, unwearied, thou shalt keep

Guard o'er our souls that watch and wonder.

Farewell ! Farewell ! The night is dark
And low the distant bells are tolling.

Farewell! Farewell! Far speeds thy bark,
Nor harbors where the waves are rolling.

Safe in the port, the sail drops low, —
The mariner of tides heeds never, —

But from thy prow a light shall flow
To guide our storm-tossed craft forever!



[16]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



COULD I FORGET

Could I forget — here, where all fair green things
Are springing forth in new ecstatic birth
From out the mystic, girding heart of earth;

Where as of old, the swirl of growing wings,

So hourly now, a fuller gladness brings;
Where wavelets breaking into new-born worth,
Lap our blue-girded shores with silvery mirth,

Till all my being for their beauty sings.

Forget? Nay, I remember joy and tears,

The sweetness of swift laughters that are past,
And all our wondrous treasure trove of dreams.
I feel again the pulsing of the years,
I live each moment dearer than the last,

For me once more each star-like memory gleams.

Wellesley, July, ipu.



17]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC

THE ETERNAL QUESTER

In memory of

SOPHIE JEWETT

God fashioned at the first one poet-soul,

Then broke it into iridescent bits.
Each mirroring the clear image of the whole.

He scattered them, so that one master sits
Amid sweet concord, while another knits

His art with mythic Orpheus — first to sing.
Our western world a host of songs admits,

But waits its greatest. Was it thine to bring?
Didst thou forgo the wondrous beauty of this thing?

One poet-soul and thou art of that one!

Thy part-withholden message must be told.
No atom can be lost. Each deed is done

For which a dream was dreamed. Songs must unfold,
Though strangled, helpless, pleading, in the mold.

Some other world will win what earth has lost,
Unless it chance thou seek'st again thine old

And once-loved earth — a pilgrim soul, fate-tossed,
Daring thy Paradisal memories to accost.

So haps it sometimes that the old Earth wins
A bright chance angel to redeem its worth.

Some voyageur to another world begins

New life. Should we know thee in such rebirth?
[18]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC

Or in some other sphere should find a dearth

In immortality, knowing no sign
Of recognition for the loved on earth?

Or are our starved half-memories made divine
And crystaline, escaping the dulled dust's confine?

Here was thy soul a white, fleet, glowing fire.

We saw as through a dome of prismed glass —
Reflecting myriad loves, joy, hope, desire —

We watched as in a dream thy earth-self pass,
And watching, understood not half, alas!

One chance is ours, if knowledge may not be —
Will not the burthen of thy songs amass

Their old time sweetness and the melody
Of these thou sang'st ere thou outgrew mortality?

Thou wert our morning star. Shadows may hide

Thy footsteps and thy voice from Echo's ears, —
Faint Echo ! but we know thou dost abide

Unchanging here. Through swiftly fleeing years
We seek thee on these paths. Loved Memory rears

The music of thy golden voice which calls
Our hearts to dream, rouses to happy tears.

On curving tender lips the sunlight falls —
The self-same sunlight filtering through these same
old halls!

Thou art not gone ! Thy spirit cannot die !

And we who knew its splendor in old days,
The mighty powers of Time and Change defy,

And seek thee here amid familiar ways.

[19]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC

Remembered beauties of thy soul could raise

The burden of our dust-dimmed thoughts to worth

Of dearer life. We vainly seek fit praise —
Who drew from thee our aspirations' birth

Shall ever thy memory changeless keep on earth!



20



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



MEMORIES

I walk the old-time way
Your feet have trod,

Beneath the snows today
Tall tulips nod.

As once along this way

I saw your face,
So by each ice-bound tree

Your smiles I trace.

Remembering our joy

That other day
When you and I together

Walked this way.



[21]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



A LEAF ON THE WIND

Borne from the heavens, a leaf on the wind,

Blown o'er the treetops and blown to the ground,
Swept to your heart and about it entwined,

Quivering and trembling with infinite sound.
Wind- free and flame-bright and breathless — a fire

Blown up and down the great vast of the world,
Tortured and twisted with blazing desire,

Like a star from the heavens, fate-driven, earth-
hurled.
Take me and shape me — a breath of the light!

Make me a reed for the winds, life-sweet, —
Impelled from the heights and the depths in flight,

Blown on the whirlwind, blown to your feet.



22]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



THE EYES THAT LAUGHED

[FOR CHARLES EDWARD MANN]

Two gods of infinite dreams, you smile
On the pomp of man in the glow of his pride,
From your pictured face I can scarce decide
Of your purpose — to scorn or to beguile,

The while

As you smile
You seem to say — "Once I rode
With the conquering Greeks to Ilion town,
And saw the Spartan queen look down
From the walls, where a battled chieftain strode."
Can you tell me the thoughts of her they seek,
Is she glad to flee from Ilion town,
Does she mourn the past and its dark renown,
And long for the arms of the conquering Greek?

O eyes that smile in that pictured face,
Can you tell me the secret I long to know,
That is writ in the whirling streams that flow
From the heart of the mountains in wildest race?

From the grace

Of the pictured face
You answer me once again — "I have known
The soul of a rose, and I have seen
The fire in the eyes of Caesar's queen —
Such things change not though years have flown.

[23]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC

The drowsy lull of the slow Nile stream

Is one with the sun-bright waves that dash

At dark Tintagel's base, the flash

Of the singing stars in their first swift gleam.'

Sphinx who dwells in those eyes serene,
Can you answer your riddle I long to learn —
Reveal the dream in your eyes that yearn,
Your eyes that laugh for the vision seen?

From the mien
Of those eyes serene
My question is answered now — "I quaff
All wine, the rose and the star are mine,
The mountain secret, the growing vine,

1 love all little things that laugh !
'Beauty is truth', not all I say,

From Helen's eyes and the heart of the rose
And the singing stars the secret grows —
The whence and whither of the way."



[24]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



ABOVE THE STARS

O God thy hand in pity lay

On sorrow-quivering scars,
And keep in tenderness, we pray,

Our love above the stars.

In memory's hand, our hands we place,
Nor turn from Love's sad eyes,

But bravely, gladly, seek to trace
Our dream beyond the skies.

Our dream, once ours in thoughtless days,

Immortal, winged afar,
Now beacons us, eternal ways,

Blazing, beyond each star.



25]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



THE VOICE THAT CALLS

There's a voice that calls

And I must go.
The twilight glimmers,

The lights are low.
Out of the dark

There's a voice that calls,
Across my dreams

A shadow falls.

Smiles that beckon

And eyes that weep,
The winds to blow

My dreams a-sleep.
Roses for love,

And stars for light —
And ever the voice

Across the night.

The twilight glimmers

The lights are low —
There's a voice that calls

And I must go —
Over the mountains,

Across the sea —
Wherever the voice

Shall call to me.

[26]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



TANGLED WEB

Tangled web of dreams and fears, —

Life's a world set flying —
Half the woof of joy is tears —

Spirits laughing, spirits sighing.
Take the starshine and the night,

Weave a web of rapture, —
Loose the tears and take delight

In the joys you capture.



27]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



FIRST MEETING

The first time that I saw her with the light upon her

face,
Then I began to love her and to long for her embrace.
The way her eyes would twinkle and the curling golden

hair,
The dimple in her left cheek, and the dainty winsome

air
When she felt my eyes upon her and she turned her

head away,
Would set my heart a-beating and a-longing for that

day
When my arms should meet around her and no man

should say me nay!

Most every day I sought her in the garden or the town,
And how her eyes would sparkle, with their gray all

flecked with brown,
And the long dark curling eyelash would just caress

her cheek,
Lest I should see the welcome that her lips would never

speak !
O my little bashful sweetheart, I never can forget
Till the stars shall fade from heaven and the sun for

aye be set,
That golden August morning and the first time that

we met !

[28]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC

There were other happy mornings but no one was

quite like this,
When the sun shone bright upon her and my own lips

longed to kiss
Those pretty smiling lips of hers, and make the roses

play
Amid the damask of her cheek like peach blooms swept

astray
By the truant winds of springtime! Oh, that hour

shall never fade
From the tablets of my memory, and when I in dust

am laid
My closed eyes still shall see her and the picture that

she made !

That day has long time faded and my love has gone

away!
Still in my dreams I meet her as on that August day —
The sun shines warm upon her and about her little

feet
The goldenrod and asters press — the summer breeze

is sweet
With the fragrance of a rose that blooms behind a

garden wall —
I press her little hand in mine, and when her fingers

fall
So real the dream becomes to me, I hear the robins call.



[29]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



COME OVER THE SILVER SEAS

Come over the silver seas to me,

I am calling, calling;
And bring thy heart of gold with thee,

For the leaves are falling.

Here in the woodland where I dwell,

Birds are singing,
Not half so sweet as thoughts of thee

Round my heart a-clinging.



[30]



AN ACREAGE OF LYRIC



BENEATH THE SKIES

Before me you glimmer and dance, dear,

In the rain that descends on the leaves,
There's a cry of heartbreak in your glance, dear,

That answers my heart as it grieves;
And out through the mist of the morning,

In the sunlight that's calling the plain,
You shine in the gleam of the dawning —

A sunbeam that follows the rain.

Then down through the dusk of the gloaming,

You smile in the first flashing star;
And call me to far fields of roaming

On the pinions of winds from afar;
But always 'tis you whom I see, dear,

In the heart of the world that I know,
And so 'tis your voice it must be, dear,

To guide me wherever I go.