II
Tolstoi Is Plowing Yet
Tolstoi is plowing yet. When the smoke-clouds break,High in the sky shines a field as wide as the world.There he toils for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake.
Ah, he is taller than clouds of the little earth.Only the congress of planets is over him,And the arching path where new sweet stars have birth.
Wearing his peasant dress, his head bent low,Tolstoi, that angel of Peace, is plowing yet;Forward, across the field, his horses go.
The Tale of the Tiger Tree
A Fantasy, dedicated to the little poet Alice Oliver Henderson, ten years old.
The Fantasy shows how tiger-hearts are the cause of war in all ages.It shows how the mammoth forces may be either friends or enemiesof the struggle for peace. It shows how the dream of peaceis unconquerable and eternal.
I
Peace-of-the-Heart, my own for long,Whose shining hair the May-winds fan,Making it tangled as they can,A mystery still, star-shining yet,Through ancient ages known to meAnd now once more reborn with me:—
This is the tale of the Tiger TreeA hundred times the height of a man,Lord of the race since the world began.
This is my city Springfield,My home on the breast of the plain.The state house towers to heaven,By an arsenal gray as the rain …And suddenly all is mist,And I walk in a world apart,In the forest-age when I first knelt downAt your feet, O Peace-of-the-Heart.
This is the wonder of twilight:Three times as high as the domeTiger-striped trees encircle the town,Golden geysers of foam.While giant white parrots sail past in their pride.The roofs now are clouds and storms that they ride.And there with the huntsmen of mound-builder daysThrough jungle and meadow I stride.And the Tiger Tree leaf is falling aroundAs it fell when the world began:Like a monstrous tiger-skin, stretched on the ground,Or the cloak of a medicine man.A deep-crumpled gossamer web,Fringed with the fangs of a snake.The wind swirls it down from the leperous boughs.It shimmers on clay-hill and lake,With the gleam of great bubbles of blood,Or coiled like a rainbow shell…I feast on the stem of the Leaf as I march.I am burning with Heaven and Hell.
II
The gray king died in his hour.Then we crowned you, the prophetess wise:Peace-of-the-Heart we deeply adoredFor the witchcraft hid in your eyes.Gift from the sky, overmastering all,You sent forth your magical parrots to callThe plot-hatching prince of the tigers,To your throne by the red-clay wall.
Thus came that genius insane:Spitting and slinking,Sneering and vain,He sprawled to your grassy throne, drunk on The Leaf,The drug that was cunning and splendor and grief.He had fled from the mammoth by day,He had blasted the mammoth by night,War was his drunkenness,War was his dreaming,War was his love and his play.And he hissed at your heavenly gloryWhile his councillors snarled in delight,Asking in irony: “What shall we learnFrom this whisperer, fragile and white?”
And had you not been an enchantressThey would not have loitered to mockNor spared your white parrots who walked by their pawsWith bantering venturesome talk.
You made a white fire of The Leaf.You sang while the tiger-chiefs hissed.You chanted of “Peace to the wonderful world.”And they saw you in dazzling mist.And their steps were no longer insane,Kindness came down like the rain,They dreamed that like fleet young ponies they feastedOn succulent grasses and grain.
. . . . .
Then came the black-mammoth chief:Long-haired and shaggy and great,Proud and sagacious he marshalled his court:(You had sent him your parrots of state.)His trunk in rebellion upcurled,A curse at the tiger he hurled.Huge elephants trumpeted there by his side,And mastodon-chiefs of the world.But higher magic began.For the turbulent vassals of man.You harnessed their fever, you conquered their ire,Their hearts turned to flowers through holy desire,For their darling and star you were crowned,And their raging demons were bound.You rode on the back of the yellow-streaked king,His loose neck was wreathed with a mistletoe ring.Primordial elephants loomed by your side,And our clay-painted children danced by your path,Chanting the death of the kingdoms of wrath.You wrought until night with us all.The fierce brutes fawned at your call,Then slipped to their lairs, song-chained.And thus you sang sweetly, and reigned:“Immortal is the inner peace, free to beasts and men.Beginning in the darkness, the mystery will conquer,And now it comforts every heart that seeks for love again.And now the mammoth bows the knee,We hew down every Tiger Tree,We send each tiger bound in love and glory to his den,Bound in love … and wisdom … and glory, … to his den.”
III
“Beware of the trumpeting swine,”Came the howl from the northward that night.Twice-rebel tigers warning was stillIf we held not beside them it boded us ill.From the parrots translating the cry,And the apes in the trees came the whine:“Beware of the trumpeting swine.Beware of the faith of a mammoth.”
“Beware of the faith of a tiger,”Came the roar from the southward that night.Trumpeting mammoths warning us stillIf we held not beside them it boded us ill.The frail apes wailed to us all,The parrots reëchoed the call:“Beware of the faith of a tiger.”From the heights of the forest the watchers could seeThe tiger-cats crunching the Leaf of the TreeLashing themselves, and scattering foam,Killing our huntsmen, hurrying home.The chiefs of the mammoths our mastery spurned,And eastward restlessly fumed and burned.The peacocks squalled out the news of their drillingAnd told how they trampled, maneuvered, and turned.Ten thousand man-hating tigersWhirling down from the north, like a flood!Ten thousand mammoths oncomingFrom the south as avengers of blood!Our child-queen was mourning, her magic was dead,The roots of the Tiger Tree reeking with red.
IV
This is the tale of the Tiger TreeA hundred times the height of a man,Lord of the race since the world began.
We marched to the mammoths,We pledged them our steel,And scorning you, sang:—“We are men,We are men.”We mounted their necks,And they stamped a wide reel.We sang:“We are fighting the hell-cats again,We are mound-builder men,We are elephant men.”We left you there, lonely,Beauty your power,Wisdom your watchman,To hold the clay tower.While the black-mammoths boomed—“You are elephant men,Men,Men,Elephant men.”The dawn-winds prophesied battles untold.While the Tiger Trees roared of the glories of old,Of the masterful spirits and hard.
The drunken cats came in their joyIn the sunrise, a glittering wave.“We are tigers, are tigers,” they yowled.“Down,Down,Go the swine to the grave.”But we trampTrampTrampled them there,Then charged with our sabres and spears.The swish of the sabre,The swish of the sabre,Was a marvellous tune in our ears.We yelled “We are men,We are men.”As we bled to death in the sun…Then staunched our horrible woundsWith the cry that the battle was won…And at last,When the black-mammoth legionSplit the night with their song:—“Right is braver than wrong,Right is stronger than wrong,”The buzzards came taunting:“Down from the northTiger-nations are sweeping along.”
. . . . .
Then we ate of the ravening LeafAs our savage fathers of old.No longer our wounds made us weak,No longer our pulses were cold.Though half of my troops were afoot,(For the great who had borne them were slain)We dreamed we were tigers, and leapedAnd foamed with that vision insane.We cried “We are soldiers of doom,Doom,Sabres of glory and doom.”We wreathed the king of the mammothsIn the tiger-leaves’ terrible bloom.We flattered the king of the mammoths,Loud-rattling sabres and spears.The swish of the sabre,The swish of the sabre,Was a marvellous tune in his ears.
V
This was the end of the battle.The tigers poured by in a tideOver us all with their caterwaul call,“We are the tigers,”They cried.“We are the sabres,”They cried.But we laughed while our blades swept wide,While the dawn-rays stabbed through the gloom.“We are suns on fire” was our yell—“Suns on fire.” …But man-child and mastodon fell,Mammoth and elephant fell.The fangs of the devil-cats closed on the world,Plunged it to blackness and doom.The desolate red-clay wallEchoed the parrots’ call:—“Immortal is the inner peace, free to beasts and men.Beginning in the darkness, the mystery will conquer,And now it comforts every heart that seeks for love again.And now the mammoth bows the knee,We hew down every Tiger Tree,We send each tiger bound in love and glory to his den,Bound in love … and wisdom … and glory, … to his den.”
A peacock screamed of his beautyOn that broken wall by the trees,Chiding his little mate,Spreading his fans in the breeze …And you, with eyes of a bride,Knelt on the wall at my side,The deathless song in your mouth …A million new tigers swept south …As we laughed at the peacock, and died.
This is my vision in Springfield:Three times as high as the dome,Tiger-striped trees encircle the town,Golden geysers of foam;—Though giant white parrots sail past, giving voice,Though I walk with Peace-of-the-Heart and rejoice.
The Merciful Hand
Written to Miss Alice L. F. Fitzgerald, Edith Cavell memorial nurse, going to the front.
Your fine white hand is Heaven’s giftTo cure the wide world, stricken sore,Bleeding at the breast and head,Tearing at its wounds once more.
Your white hand is a prophecy,A living hope that Christ shall comeAnd make the nations merciful,Hating the bayonet and drum.
Each desperate burning brain you soothe,Or ghastly broken frame you bind,Brings one day nearer our bright goal,The love-alliance of mankind.
Wellesley.February, 1916.
Third Section
America at War with Germany, Beginning April, 1917
Our Mother Pocahontas
(Note:—Pocahontas is buried at Gravesend, England.)
“Pocahontas’ body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in November or a pawpaw in May—did she wonder? does she remember—in the dust—in the cool tombs?”
Carl Sandburg.
I
Powhatan was conqueror,Powhatan was emperor.He was akin to wolf and bee,Brother of the hickory tree.Son of the red lightning strokeAnd the lightning-shivered oak.His panther-grace bloomed in the maidWho laughed among the winds and playedIn excellence of savage pride,Wooing the forest, open-eyed,In the springtime,In Virginia,Our Mother, Pocahontas.
Her skin was rosy copper-red.And high she held her beauteous head.Her step was like a rustling leaf:Her heart a nest, untouched of grief.She dreamed of sons like Powhatan,And through her blood the lightning ran.Love-cries with the birds she sung,BirdlikeIn the grape-vine swung.The Forest, arching low and wideGloried in its Indian bride.Rolfe, that dim adventurerHad not come a courtier.John Rolfe is not our ancestor.We rise from out the soul of herHeld in native wonderland,While the sun’s rays kissed her hand,In the springtime,In Virginia,Our Mother, Pocahontas.
II
She heard the forest talking,Across the sea came walking,And traced the paths of Daniel Boone,Then westward chased the painted moon.She passed with wild young feetOn to Kansas wheat,On to the miners’ west,The echoing cañons’ guest,Then the Pacific sand,Waking,Thrilling,The midnight land…
On Adams street and Jefferson—Flames coming up from the ground!On Jackson street and Washington—Flames coming up from the ground!And why, until the dawning sunAre flames coming up from the ground?Because, through drowsy Springfield spedThis red-skin queen, with feathered head,With winds and stars, that pay her courtAnd leaping beasts, that make her sport;Because, gray Europe’s rags augustShe tramples in the dust;Because we are her fields of corn;Because our fires are all rebornFrom her bosom’s deathless embers,FlamingAs she remembersThe springtimeAnd Virginia,Our Mother, Pocahontas.
III
We here renounce our Saxon blood.Tomorrow’s hopes, an April floodCome roaring in. The newest raceIs born of her resilient grace.We here renounce our Teuton pride:Our Norse and Slavic boasts have died:Italian dreams are swept away,And Celtic feuds are lost today…
She sings of lilacs, maples, wheat,Her own soil sings beneath her feet,Of springtimeAnd Virginia,Our Mother, Pocahontas.
Concerning Emperors