Louis Untermeyer

Green miles of leafy peace are spread Over these ranks, unseen and serried; Screening the trenches with their dead And living men already buried. The rains beat down, the torrents flow Into each cold and huddling cave; And over them the beet-fields grow, A fortress gentle as a grave. “Morose, impatient, sick at heart, With rasping nerves and twitching muscles, We cannot even sleep; we start With every twig that snaps or rustles. Sought always by an unseen foe Over our heads the bullets fly; But more than these, we fear the snow, The silent shrapnel of the sky. “Yonder our colonel stalks and grieves, Meeting the storm with thoughts more stormy; But we, we sit and watch the leaves Fall down, a torn and crumpled army. We mourn for every leaf that lies, As though it were a comrade slain; Each was a shelter from the eyes Of every prying aeroplane. . . ”

On the warm Sunday afternoons And every evening in the Spring and Summer When the night hurries the late home-corner And the air grows softer, and scraps of tunes Float from the open windows and jar Against the voices of children and the hum of a car; When the city noises commingle and melt With a restless something half-seen, half-felt— I see them always there, Upon the low, smooth wall before the church; That row of little girls who sit and stare Like sparrows on a granite perch. They come in twittering couples or walk alone To their gray bough of stone, Sometimes by twos and threes, sometimes as many as five— But always they sit there on the narrow coping Bright-eyed and solemn, scarcely hoping To see more than what is merely moving and alive. . . They hear the couples pass; the lisp of happy feet Increases and the night grows suddenly sweet. . . Before the quiet church that smells of death They sit. And Life sweeps past them with a rushing breath And reaches out and plucks them by the hand And calls them boldly, whispering to each In some strange speech They tremble to but cannot understand. It thrills and troubles them, as one by one, The days run off like water through a sieve; While, with a gaze as candid as the sun, Poignant and puzzled and inquisitive, They come and sit,— A part of life and yet apart from it.

(For My Father) I listened to them talking, talking, That tableful of keen and clever folk, Sputtering . . . followed by a pale and balking Sort of flash whenever some one spoke; Like musty fireworks or a pointless joke, Followed by a pointless, musty laughter. Then Without a pause, the sputtering once again . . . The air was thick with epigrams and smoke; And underneath it all It seemed that furtive things began to crawl, Hissing and striking in the dark, Aiming at no particular mark, And careless whom they hurt. The petty jealousies, the smiling hates Shot forth their venom as they passed the plates, And hissed and struck again, aroused, alert; Using their feeble smartness as a screen To shield their poisonous stabbing, to divert From what was cowardly and black and mean. Then I thought of you, Your gentle soul, Your large and quiet kindness; Ready to caution and console, And, with an almost blindness To what was mean and low. Baseness you never knew; You could not think that falsehood was untrue, Nor that deceit would ever dare betray you. You even trusted treachery; and so, Guileless, what guile or evil could dismay you? You were for counsels rather than commands. Your sweetness was your strength, your strength a sweetness That drew all men, and made reluctant hands Rest long upon your shoulder. Firm, but never proud, You walked your sixty years as through a crowd Of friends who loved to feel your warmth, and who Knowing that warmth, knew you. Even the casual beholder Could see your fresh and generous completeness, Like dawn in a deep forest, growing and shining through. Such faith has soothed and armed you. It has smiled Frankly and unashamed at Death; and, like a child, Swayed half by joy and half by reticence, Walking beside its nurse, you walk with Life; Protected by your smile and an immense Security and simple confidence. Hearing the talkers talk, I thought of you . . . And it was like a great wind blowing Over confused and poisonous places. It was like sterile spaces Crowded with birds and grasses, soaked clear through With sunlight, quiet and vast and clean. And it was forests growing, And it was black things turning green. And it was laughter on a thousand faces . . . It was, like victory rising from defeat, The world made well again and strong—and sweet.

We passed old farmer Boothby in the field. Rugged and straight he stood; his body steeled With stubbornness and age. We met his eyes That never flinched or turned to compromise, And “Luck,” he cried, “good luck!”—and waved an arm, Knotted and sailor-like, such as no farm In all of Maine could boast of; and away He turned again to pitch his new-cut hay... We walked on leisurely until a bend Showed him once more, now working toward the end Of one great path; wearing his eighty years Like banners lifted in a wind of cheers. Then we turned off abruptly—took the road Cutting the village, the one with the commanding View of the river. And we strode More briskly now to the long pier that showed Where the frail boats were kept at Indian Landing. In the canoe we stepped; our paddles dipped Leisurely downwards, and the slim bark slipped More on than in the water. Smoothly then We shot its nose against the rippling current, Feeling the rising river’s half-deterrent Pull on the paddle as we turned the blade To keep from swerving round; while we delayed To watch the curious wave-eaten locks; Or pass, with lazy turns, the picnic-rocks.... Blue eels flew under us, and fishes darted A thousand ways; the once broad channel shrunk. And over us the wise and noble-hearted Twilight leaned down; the sunset mists were parted,— And we, with thoughts on tiptoe, slunk Down the green, twisting alleys of the Kennebunk, Motionless in the meadows The trees, the rocks, the cows... And quiet dripped from the shadows Like rain from heavy boughs. The tree-toads started ringing Their ceaseless silver bells; A land-locked breeze came swinging Its censer of earthy smells. The river’s tiny cañon Stretched into dusky lands; Like a dark and silent companion Evening held out her hands. Hushed were the dawn’s bravados; Loud noon was a silenced cry— And quiet slipped from the shadows As stars slip out of the sky...

I waited and worked To win myself leisure, Till loneliness irked And I turned to raw pleasure. I drank and I gamed, I feasted and wasted, Till, sick and ashamed, The food stood untasted. I searched in the Book For rooted convictions, Till the badgered brain shook With its own contradictions. Then, done with the speech, Of the foolishly lettered, I started to teach Life cannot be bettered: That the warrior fails Whatever his weapon, And nothing avails While time and chance happen. That fools who assure men With lies are respected, While the vision of pure men Is scorned and rejected. That a wise man goes grieving Even in Zion, While any dog living Outroars a dead lion.

Why are the things that have no death The ones with neither sight nor breath! Eternity is thrust upon A bit of earth, a senseless stone. A grain of dust, a casual clod Receives the greatest gift of God. A pebble in the roadway lies— It never dies. The grass our fathers cut away Is growing on their graves today; The tiniest brooks that scarcely flow Eternally will come and go. There is no kind of death to kill The sands that lie so meek and still. . . . But Man is great and strong and wise— And so he dies.

I could not pity your pain but I pitied the branches Losing what little the frost had left them to hold. I could not warm you with sorrow; I turned to the sparrows, Clustered like heavy brown blossoms puffed out by the cold. They could not help me. I looked at my hands; they were helpless; Strange and detached, less related to me than the birds. Baffled, I called on the mind: it carried me, floundering, Lost among meaningless phrases, tossed in a welter of words. Too great for my blundering comfort, your anguish confused me. From a great distance, I saw you standing alone. Frozen and stark, in a black iron circle of silence, I could not pity your pain; I could scarcely pity my own.

You have not conquered me—it is the surge Of love itself that beats against my will; It is the sting of conflict, the old urge That calls me still. It is not you I love—it is the form And shadow of all lovers who have died That gives you all the freshness of a warm And unfamiliar bride. It is your name I breathe, your hands I seek; It will be you when you are gone. And yet the dream, the name I never speak, Is that that lures me on. It is the golden summons, the bright wave Of banners calling me anew; It is all beauty, perilous and grave— It is not you.

I never knew the earth had so much gold— The fields run over with it, and this hill Hoary and old, Is young with buoyant blooms that flame and thrill. Such golden fires, such yellow—lo, how good This spendthrift world, and what a lavish God! This fringe of wood, Blazing with buttercup and goldenrod. You too, beloved, are changed. Again I see Your face grow mystical, as on that night You turned to me, And all the trembling world—and you—were white. Aye, you are touched; your singing lips grow dumb; The fields absorb you, color you entire . . . And you become A goddess standing in a world of fire!

What are we bound for? What’s the yield Of all this energy and waste? Why do we spend ourselves and build With such an empty haste? Wherefore the bravery we boast? How can we spend one laughing breath When at the end all things are lost In ignorance and death? . . . The stars have found a blazing course In a vast curve that cuts through space; Enough for us to feel that force Swinging us through the days. Enough that we have strength to sing And fight and somehow scorn the grave; That Life’s too bold and bright a thing To question or to save.