Poems
Tobin, James E. & Meisling, Vaughn Francis & Colum, Padraic & Moore, Catherine & Laing, A. K. & Childe, Wilfred
<iJtQountains This bridge with stone is pillared under. Across the arch the traffic shrills; Beneath, the cars and engines thunder, And the river. Between the hills The valley listens and the...
...But now, the face Was never yours...
...long sturdy files Of marchers on the road, not dust behind...
...Voiced with the wind like a whip that cracks...
...Blazed in the plain by the heroes of yore, Mounting and pitching, wearily winding...
...In those dim days they hid for man A mightiness like their own massive might...
...And, all unluminous...
...For eons lifting their blue roof, Mountains recall when life began, Before there was a hand or hoof...
...VAUGHN FRANCIS MEISLING...
...Down where the path is barren and blinding...
...I would have leaves upon a tree, not piles Of brown things rotting in a field...
...the hues Of sunset, not dull afterglows that lose Themselves among the hills...
...The seeping moisture and the mold Have caused once perfect strokes to blur...
...And black, enormous Kaf, The Swallow, and "Allah," He cries, As into Giour lands With Dervish faith and rite, Hueless, a Saracen, He flies...
...Black like a genie's thought...
...JAMES E. TOBIN...
...A. K. LAING...
...Five years ago an artist drew As perfect features in my mind, A picture which he thought was you...
...iyfwakening When shall I follow the keen spears gleaming Sharp in the sim above dust-blowing tracks, Down where each proud-borne banner is streaming...
...Stonehenge is of them, and the Wall Of China...
...And still the portrait hangs in place Blurring behind close bolted doors...
...Weary at last of their ecstatic flights, The arrowy joy of their swift going and coming In the pellucid atmosphere of even— When the first stars come out in June's clear heaven...
...Leaving the smooth, calm ways to go trailing Endlessly after a dull, grey dawn...
...And she returns to her first sanctities, To towns that rest beneath an angel's wing...
...Between the hills The valley listens and the city screams— But mountains dream their immemorial dreams...
...WILFRED CHILDE...
...The Half-Remembered A face that Cimabue set On fresco plaster in the spring Of Thirteen Hundred glimmers yet, A lovely thing...
...Youth I have outgrown the museums, and the shelves Of books—well-bound and gold-leafed—kept on show Behind barred doors of glass, collecting dust in slow Decay—a mausoleum of dead authors' selves Tagged "classical" and "rare" by so-and-so...
...PADRAIC COLUM...
...My soul gets quit at last of all her roaming...
...Not banners furled, but streaming in the wind...
...The Swallow He knows Queen Lab, her isle...
...Before All Worlds When the first stars come out on summer nights...
...High loveliness like their own lovely height...
...His eyes...
...Strewn with the bones of the men before...
...And even from their ribs our white desire Fashioned the Gothic glory of the spire...
...Clearly outlined...
...Who, while the starlight steals into the skies, Blesses the weary flowers that drowse and nod With infinite pure hands and loving eyes...
...Bent by the load and the four winds' flailing, Drunk with the wine of the bitter morn...
...Only old music holds me, and old wines...
...Botched masterfully, and hung row on row...
...CATHERINE MOORE...
...To bells that in the winds of evening Modulate all the syllables of peace: To the mysterious and unchanging God, Beyond our gropings merciful and wise...
...Like scimitars his wings...
...Today the painting is less bold And lovelier...
...Grown lovelier...
...And frames containing ancients' ugly lines...
...And the last sweet-shrill martins are gone home Out of the sunset's rosy ashen dome...
...from their ample bone Are temples, obelisks, and all Old loftiness man cut from stone...
Vol. 6 • June 1927 • No. 5
