The New Morning: Poems — A Closer Reading

Never was voice of a nation so glorious, Glad of its cause and afire with its fate! Never did eagle on mightier pinion Tower to the height of a brighter dominion, Kindling the hope of the prophets to flame, Calling aloud on the deep as it came,

_Cleave me a way for an army with banners. I am His Liberty. That is my name._

Know you the meaning of all they are doing? Know you the light that their soul is pursuing? Know you the might of the world they are making, This nation of nations whose heart is awaking? What is this mingling of peoples and races? Look at the wonder and joy in their faces! Look how the folds of the union are spreading! Look, for the nations are come to their wedding. How shall the folk of our tongue be afraid of it? England was born of it. England was made of it, Made of this welding of tribes into one, This marriage of pilgrims that followed the sun! Briton and Roman and Saxon were drawn By winds of this Pentecost, out of the dawn, Westward, to make her one people of many; But here is a union more mighty than any. Know you the soul of this deep exultation? Know you the word that goes forth to this nation?

_I am the breath of God. I am His Liberty. Let there be light over all His creation._

Over this Continent, wholly united, They that were foemen in Europe are plighted. Here, in a league that our blindness and pride Doubted and flouted and mocked and denied, Dawns the Republic, the laughing, gigantic Europe, united, beyond the Atlantic. That is America, speaking one tongue, Acting her epics before they are sung, Driving her rails from the palms to the snow, Through States that are greater than Emperors know, Forty-eight States that are empires in might, But ruled by the will of one people tonight, Nerved as one body, with net-works of steel, Merging their strength in the one Commonweal, Brooking no poverty, mocking at Mars, Building their cities to talk with the stars. Thriving, increasing by myriads again Till even in numbers old Europe may wane. How shall a son of the England they fought Fail to declare the full pride of his thought, Stand with the scoffers who, year after year, Bring the Republic their half-hidden sneer? Now, as in beauty she stands at our side, Who shall withhold the full gift of his pride? Not the great England who knows that her son, Washington, fought her, and Liberty won. England, whose names like the stars in their station, Stand at the foot of that world's Declaration,-- Washington, Livingston, Langdon, she claims them, It is her right to be proud when she names them, Proud of that voice in the night as it came, Tossing the flags of the nations to flame:

_I am the breath of God. I am His laughter. I am His Liberty. That is my name._

Flags, in themselves, are but rags that are dyed. Flags, in that wind, are like nations enskied. See, how they grapple the night as it rolls And trample it under like triumphing souls. Over the city that never knew sleep, Look at the riotous folds as they leap. Thousands of tri-colors, laughing for France, Ripple and whisper and thunder and dance; Thousands of flags for Great Britain aflame Answer their sisters in Liberty's name. Belgium is burning in pride overhead. Poland is near, and her sunrise is red. Under and over, and fluttering between, Italy burgeons in red, white, and green. See, how they climb like adventurous flowers, Over the tops of the terrible towers.... _There, in the darkness, the glories are mated. There, in the darkness, a world is created. There, in this Pentecost, streaming on high. There, with a glory of stars in the sky. There the broad flag of our union and liberty Rides the proud night-wind and tyrannies die._

ON THE WESTERN FRONT (_1916_)

I found a dreadful acre of the dead, Marked with the only sign on earth that saves. The wings of death were hurrying overhead, The loose earth shook on those unquiet graves;

For the deep gun-pits, with quick stabs of flame, Made their own thunders of the sunlit air; Yet, as I read the crosses, name by name, _Mort pour la France_, it seemed that peace was there; Sunlight and peace, a peace too deep for thought, The peace of tides that underlie our strife, The peace with which the moving heavens are fraught, The peace that is our everlasting life.

The loose earth shook. The very hills were stirred. The silence of the dead was all I heard.

We, who lie here, have nothing more to pray. To all your praises we are deaf and blind. We may not even know if you betray Our hope, to make earth better for mankind.

Only our silence, in the night, shall grow More silent, as the stars grow in the sky; And, while you deck our graves, you shall not know How many scornful legions pass you by.

For we have heard you say (when we were living) That some small dream of good would "cost too much." But when the foe struck, we have watched you giving, And seen you move the mountains with one touch.

What can be done, we know. But, have no fear! If you fail now, we shall not see or hear.

(Written after the British Service at Trinity Church, New York)

Before those golden altar-lights we stood, Each one of us remembering his own dead. A more than earthly beauty seemed to brood On that hushed throng, and bless each bending head.

Beautiful on that gold, the deep-sea blue Of those young seamen, ranked on either side, Blent with the khaki, while the silence grew Deep, as for wings--Oh, deep as England's pride.

Beautiful on that gold, two banners rose-- Two flags that told how Freedom's realm was made, One fair with stars of hope, and one that shows The glorious cross of England's long crusade;

Two flags, now joined, till that high will be done Which sent them forth to make the whole world one.

There were no signs of joy that eyes could see. Our hearts were all three thousand miles away. There were no trumpets blown for victory. A million dead were calling us that day.

And eyes grew blind, at times; but grief was deep, Deeper than any foes or friends have known; For Oh, my country's lips are locked to keep Her bitterest loss her own, and all her own.

Only the music told what else was dumb, The funeral march to which our pulses beat; For all our dead went by, to a muffled drum We heard the tread of all those phantom feet.

Yes. There was victory! Deep in every soul. We heard them marching to their unseen goal.

There, once again, we saw the Cross go by, The Cross that fell with all those glorious towers, Burnt black in France or mocked on Calvary, Till--in one night--the crosses rose like flowers, Legions of small white crosses, mile on mile, Pencilled with names that had outfought all pain, Where every shell-torn acre seems to smile-- _Who shall destroy the cross that rose again?_

Out of the world's Walpurgis, where hope perished, Where all the forms of faith in ruin fell, Where every sign of heaven that earth had cherished Shrivelled among the lava-floods of hell,

The eternal Cross that conquers might with right Rose like a star to lead us through the night.

How shall the world remember? Men forget: Our dead are all too many even for Fame! Man's justice kneels to kings, and pays no debt To those who never courted her acclaim.

Cheat not your heart with promises to pay For gifts beyond all price so freely given. Where is the heart so rich that it can say To those who mourn, "I will restore your heaven"?

But these, with their own hands, laid up their treasure Where never an emperor can break in and steal, Treasure for those that loved them past all measure In those high griefs that earth can never heal,

Proud griefs, that walk on earth, yet gaze above, Knowing that sorrow is but remembered love.

Love that still holds us with immortal power, Yet cannot lift us to His realm of light; Love that still shows us heaven for one brief hour Only to daunt the heart with that sheer height;

Love that is made of loveliness entire In form and thought and act; and still must shame us Because we ever acknowledge and aspire, And yet let slip the shining hands that claim us.

O, if this Love might cloak with rags His glory, Laugh, eat and drink, and dwell with suffering men, Sit with us at our hearth, and hear our story, This world--we thought--might be transfigured then.

"But Oh," Love answered, with swift human tears, "All these things have I done, these many years."

"This day," Love said, "if ye will hear my voice; I mount and sing with birds in all your skies. I am the soul that calls you to rejoice. And every wayside flower is my disguise.

"Look closely. Are the wings too wide for pity? Look closely. Do these tender hues betray? How often have I sought my Holy City? How often have ye turned your hearts away?

"Is there not healing in the beauty I bring you? Am I not whispering in green leaves and rain, Singing in all that woods and seas can sing you? Look, once, on Love, and earth is heaven again.

"O, did your Spring but once a century waken, The heaven of heavens for this would be forsaken."

There's but one gift that all our dead desire, One gift that men can give, and that's a dream, Unless we, too, can burn with that same fire Of sacrifice; die to the things that seem;

Die to the little hatreds; die to greed; Die to the old ignoble selves we knew; Die to the base contempts of sect and creed, And rise again, like these, with souls as true.

Nay (since these died before their task was finished) Attempt new heights, bring even their dreams to birth:-- Build us that better world, Oh, not diminished By one true splendor that they planned on earth.

And that's not done by sword, or tongue, or pen, There's but one way. God make us better men.

AMERICAN POEMS 1912-1917

REPUBLIC AND MOTHERLAND (_1912_)

(Written after entering New York Harbor at Daybreak)

Up the vast harbor with the morning sun The ship swept in from sea; Gigantic towers arose, the night was done, And--there stood Liberty.

Silent, the great torch lifted in one hand, The dawn in her proud eyes, Silent, for all the shouts that vex her land, Silent, hailing the skies;

Hailing that mightier Kingdom of the Blest Our seamen sought of old, The dream that lured the nations through the West, The city of sunset gold.

Saxon and Norman in one wedded soul Shook out one flag like fire; But westward, westward, moved the gleaming goal, Westward, the vast desire.

Westward and ever westward ran the call, They followed the pilgrim sun, Seeking that land which should enfold them all, And weld all hearts in one.

Here on this mightier continent apart, Here on these rolling plains, Swells the first throb of that immortal heart, The pulse of those huge veins.

Still, at these towers, our Old-World cities jest, And neither hear nor see The brood of gods at that gigantic breast, The conquering race to be.

Chosen from many--for no sluggard soul Confronts that night of stars-- The trumpets of the last Republic roll Far off, an end to wars;

An end, an end to that wild blood-red age, That made and keeps us blind; A mightier realm shall be her heritage, The kingdom of mankind.

Chosen from many nations, and made one; But first, O Mother, from thee, When, following, following on that Pilgrim sun, Thy Mayflower crossed the sea.

You that have gathered together the sons of all races, And welded them into one, Lifting the torch of your Freedom on hungering faces That sailed to the setting sun;

You that have made of mankind in your own proud regions The music of man to be, How should the old earth sing of you, now, as your legions Rise to set all men free?

How should the singer that knew the proud vision and loved it, In the days when not all men knew, Gaze through his tears, on the light, now the world has approved it; Or dream, when the dream comes true?

How should he sing when the Spirit of Freedom in thunder Speaks, and the wine-press is red; And the sea-winds are loud with the chains that are broken asunder And nations that rise from the dead?

Flag of the sky, proud flag of that wide communion, Too mighty for thought to scan; Flag of the many in one, and that last world-union That kingdom of God in man;

Ours was a dream, in the night, of that last federation, But yours is the glory unfurled-- The marshalled nations and stars that shall make one nation One singing star of the world.

GHOSTS OF THE NEW WORLD

"_There are no ghosts in America._"

There are no ghosts, you say, To haunt her blaze of light; No shadows in her day, No phantoms in her night. Columbus' tattered sail Has passed beyond our hail.

What? On that magic coast, Where Raleigh fought with fate, Or where that Devon ghost Unbarred the Golden Gate, No dark, strange, ear-ringed men Beat in from sea again?

No ghosts in Salem town With silver buckled shoon? No lovely witch to drown Or burn beneath the moon? Not even a whiff of tea, On Boston's glimmering quay.

O, ghostly Spanish walls, Where brown Franciscans glide, Is there no voice that calls Across the Great Divide, To pilgrims on their way Along the Santa Fe?

Then let your Pullman cars Go roaring to the West, Till, watched by lonelier stars, The cactus lifts its crest. There, on that painted plain, One ghost will rise again.

Majestic and forlorn, Wreck of a dying race, The Red Man, half in scorn, Shall raise his haughty face, Inscrutable as the sky, To watch our ghosts go by.

What? Is earth dreaming still? Shall not the night disgorge The ghosts of Bunker Hill The ghosts of Valley Forge, Or, England's mightiest son, The ghost of Washington?

No ghosts where Lincoln fell? No ghosts for seeing eyes? I know an old cracked bell Shall make ten million rise When one immortal ghost Calls to the slumbering host.

THE OLD MEETING HOUSE

Its quiet graves were made for peace till Gabriel blows his horn. Those wise old elms could hear no cry Of all that distant agony-- Only the red-winged blackbird, and the rustle of thick ripe corn.

The blue jay, perched upon that bronze, with bright unweeting eyes, Could never read the names that signed The noblest charter of mankind; But all of them were names we knew beneath our English skies.

And on the low gray headstones, with their crumbling weather-stains, --Though cardinal birds, like drops of blood, Flickered across the haunted wood,-- The names you'd see were names that woke like flowers in English lanes.

John Applegate was fast asleep; and Temperance Olden, too. And David Worth had quite forgot If Hannah's lips were red or not; And Prudence veiled her eyes at last, as Prudence ought to do.

And when, across that patch of heaven, that small blue leaf-edged space At times, a droning airplane went, No flicker of astonishment Could lift the heavy eyelids on one gossip's up-turned face.

For William Speakman could not tell--so thick the grasses grow-- If that strange humming in the sky Meant that the Judgment Day were nigh, Or if 'twas but the summer bees that blundered to and fro.

And then, across the breathless wood, a Bell began to sound, The only Bell that wakes the dead, And Stockton Signer raised his head, And called to all the deacons in the ancient burial-ground.

"The Bell, the Bell is ringing! Give me back my rusty sword. Though I thought the wars were done, Though I thought our peace was won, Yet I signed the Declaration, and the dead must keep their word.

"There's only one great ghost I know could make that 'larum ring. It's the captain that we knew In the ancient buff and blue, It's our Englishman, George Washington, who fought the German king!"

So the sunset saw them mustering beneath their brooding boughs, Ancient shadows of our sires, Kindling with the ancient fires, While the old cracked Bell to southward shook the ancient meeting house.

The first four lines of this poem were written for inscription on the first joint memorial to the American and British soldiers who fell in the Revolutionary War. This memorial was recently dedicated at Princeton.

_Here Freedom stood, by slaughtered friend and foe, And ere the wrath paled or that sunset died, Looked through the ages: then, with eyes aglow, Laid them, to wait that future, side by side._

Now lamp-lit gardens in the blue dusk shine Through dog-wood red and white, And round the gray quadrangles, line by line, The windows fill with light, Where Princeton calls to Magdalen, tower to tower, Twin lanthorns of the law, And those cream-white magnolia boughs embower The halls of old Nassau.

The dark bronze tigers crouch on either side Where red-coats used to pass, And round the bird-loved house where Mercer died And violets dusk the grass, By Stony Brook that ran so red of old, But sings of friendship now, To feed the old enemy's harvest fifty-fold The green earth takes the plough.

Through this May night if one great ghost should stray With deep remembering eyes, Where that old meadow of battle smiles away Its blood-stained memories, If Washington should walk, where friend and foe Sleep and forget the past, Be sure his unquenched heart would leap to know Their hosts are joined at last.

Be sure he walks, in shadowy buff and blue, Where those dim lilacs wave, He bends his head to bless, as dreams come true, The promise of that grave, Then with a vaster hope than thought can scan, Touching his ancient sword, Prays for that mightier realm of God in man, "Hasten Thy Kingdom, Lord."

"Land of new hope, land of the singing stars, Type of the world to be, The vision of a world set free from wars Takes life, takes form, from thee, Where all the jarring nations of this earth, Beneath the all-blessing sun, Bring the new music of mankind to birth, And make the whole world one."

And those old comrades rise around him there, Old foemen, side by side, With eyes like stars upon the brave night-air, And young as when they died, To hear your bells, O beautiful Princeton towers, Ring for the world's release. They see you, piercing like gray swords through flowers, And smile from hearts at peace.

BEETHOVEN IN CENTRAL PARK

(After a glimpse of a certain monument in New York, during the Victory Celebration)

The thousand-windowed towers were all alight. Throngs of all nations filled that glittering way; And, rich with dreams of the approaching day, Flags of all nations trampled down the night. No clouds, at sunset, die in airs as bright. No clouds, at dawn, awake in winds as gay; For Freedom rose in that august array, Crowned with the stars and weaponed for the right.

Then, in a place of whispering leaves and gloom, I saw, too dark, too dumb for bronze or stone, One tragic head that bowed against the sky; O, in a hush too deep for any tomb I saw Beethoven, dreadfully alone With his own grief, and his own majesty.

SONGS OF THE TRAWLERS AND SEA POEMS

Out of her darkened fishing-ports they go, A fleet of little ships, whose every name-- _Daffodil_, _Sea-lark_, _Rose_ and _Surf_ and _Snow_, Burns in this blackness like an altar-flame;

Out of her past they sail, three thousand strong, The people's fleet that never knew its worth, And every name is a broken phrase of song To some remembered loveliness on earth.

There's _Barbara Cowie_, _Comely Bank_ and _May_, Christened, at home, in worlds of dawn and dew: There's _Ruth_ and _Kindly Light_ and _Robin Gray_ With _Mizpah_. (May that simple prayer come true!)

Out of old England's inmost heart they sail, A fleet of memories that can never fail.