Sonnets
Strahan, Speer & Ritter, Margaret Tod & Royce, Penfield & Alling, Kenneth Slade & Conant, Isabel Fiske & Vinal, Harold
November 3, 1926 THE COM INIONWEAL 641 SONNETS ape Is an...
...It runs in the like roots of men and trees, Yet there were times when Rome imperially From the same source, the darkness that can alter, Called him, or Carcassonne, or a small town, Released, transformed by ancient agencies, A legendary city, or the sea, Into these fragrances that flame and falter...
...Soft buds and leaves, gold straws, and even thorn Only the postscript flattened into grey, Their secret shadowy cloisters to adorn, Hackneyed address: "I beg you to recall Cloisters in clefts of trees, cloisters that swing Me to your wife...
...And she would find him pacing up and down Oh, poignant pageant...
...And though the sun was bright above his shoulder And lovers are but trees that walk...
...MARGARET TOD RITTER...
...Requiem utility I talked with him . . . and now he is no more...
...they are And all the fields were calling him to Arden, Channels that likewise change the essence of He turned to patch and woodpile and grew older, Dark earth into some fair ephemeral star...
...it is He built his house of dreams, adventurer, The course through which the darknesses beneath He put the road by and the swinging moon, Drawn upward, in strange metamorphosis Gave up the world, a blase traveler, Become those shapes of light the springs bequeath Glad of a hearth and a long honeymoon...
...Take comfort: thou dost drift as near a goal And who shall say who shall be summoned next As prouder men who draw a freer breath Into activity, on death's pretext...
...Writing to him, watching herself grow old...
...All men are but the broken toys of God ! ISABEL FISKE CONANT...
...We two were in a gay and crowded place, Thou poor frustrated flesh and stagnant soul, Who would have said that he of all the throng Thou hast not life enough to offer death...
...To lovers asking emblems of their love...
...PENFIELD ROYCE...
...For these have rapid roots and strong withal...
...Where saints like birds gather from far and near, Dawn after dawn a thin and bloodless wraith Trilling the varied plain-song of God's love, Paused at her mirror, looking out of it And through the silences afar and clear With burning eyes...
...To leave a wide-eyed night for a new day I walked with him along sand-bordered seas, Of sluggard lids, drooping in drowsiness, And now he walks along a shoreless shore To feel the ponderous load of living press With One he knew when he was one of these- From all sides inward in its dumb decay...
...HAROLD VINAL...
...Would be the first to wonder at that Face And yet, poor piteous comet turned to clod, To whom the liberated hosts belong...
...Now from my window all the varying year The best she had was his: her flashing wit, I see beyond blue hills that shining grove Her sedulous philosophy, her faith...
...Their correspondence grew Close to the sun, nests, nests where saints may cling From month to month as eucalypti do, And where white songs and visions may be born...
...Of slightest question between "No" and "Yes" Called children, but in age, ancient of days...
...One thing she never toldFrom that sweet orchard I can hear the Dove...
...KENNETH SLADE ALLING...
...Content to spend his days in one small garden...
...SPEER STRAHAN...
...so soon again surrendered...
...These little ones such as you stoop to touch, When thoughts come homing, black, like birds of prey Bending to hear the wisdom of their ways: Heavy with carrion, when the aching stress The fields of Paradise are spread for such...
...Winged with the wind, Apollo might have used...
...November 3, 1926 THE COM INIONWEAL 641 SONNETS ape Is an Orchard ,,Autobiographical Comment Hope is an orchard God has filled with morn, They saw each other once ; he wrote to say There saints like birds plash through a blosmv spring He sent his latest book...
...Trees and Men Dream 7 imber A tree bole's anchored from its birth...
...what the dark engendered An area too small for restless shoes, Goes to the dark...
...Her answer shone To build them nests, bearing on eager wing With vivid words peculiarly her own...
...Binds on its wrenching burden of dismay...
Vol. 4 • November 1926 • No. 26
