Trampoline Queen

The little queen

Of the trampline

Jumped high, high, high.

Some avowed

In the gaping crowd

She often touched the sky.

More wondrous thing

Was how she'd cling

To a phantom air trapeze

As she drifted down

To miss her crown

And land upon her knees.

On day at last They stood aghast

To see her vanish in the blue.

It's fantasy?

Then it must be

You don't know false from true.

Heel, Man!

My dog and I trudge through the snow.

I blaze a crooked trail.

"Heel, old fellow, heel," I say.

He wags a sullen tail.

The while I pause and palpitate

Where the foothills rise,

He's eager to be off again,

A challenge in his eyes.

I speculate on going back

To pleasant hearth and haven.

His hackles rise; the thought of it

Is impudent and craven.

At last his abject yielding

Has turned to canine scorn.

"Heel, man, heel". . .he bounds away

Into the drifting storm.

Frog Song

A mournful frog in a meadow bog

Croaks of love and sin.

It's evident this macontent

Is troubled deep within.

If you are old you hear him scold

The tadpoles in the pond

That spend the night in coy delight

On lilypad and frond.

But if, forsooth, you still have youth,

You know that he himself

Is out to woo some errant shrew

Elusive as an elf.

How like the frog--man's monologue

In this strange habitat

Is yes and no or may be so

Or blend of this and that.

First Run

No sunset is a re-run,

No dawn like this before,

No cloud was ever patterned thus,

No bird has sung this score.

Stay tuned to earth's spectacular.

From anywhere you are,

Your channel is a vista

Of endless repertoire.

Unrelinquished Day

One  day, remembering,

Fashion a boquet

With a sprig of everything

Redolent of May.

Center it with bluebells

That grow beneath the fir

Where you breasted tangled vines

Hand in hand with her.

Pick a dozen daffodils

Golden as her hair.

Wade a strem to fetch them.

They still are blooming there.

Then spray of wild rose

That leans across the rail

Where you and she sat barefoot

As in a fairy tale.

Recaptured all the fragrances

In your bright boquet.

Live again and love again

One unrelinquished day.

Who Are the Rich?

The rich are very poor

Unless they've known the joy

Of counting pennies in the plam

To buy a child a toy.

They cannot share the largess--

The budget running low--

Of handing out a dollar bill

To see a picture show.

Never theirs the victory

Of living in a home

That after endless enterprise

Will be their very own.

Holding heaven in the grasp

Is dreary and absurd.

The only glowing happiness

Is striving heavenward.

Four Little Girls

Kathy and Lizbeth and Julie

and Ruth

Are four little girls that know

one little truth:

Namely, a rosebud picked fresh

every day

Is all you can do and all

you can say

When you hold back the tears

and bend low to the ground

Where there's silence and memory

and peace all around.

This ritual of love is the moment of truth

For Kathy and Lizbeth and Julie

and Ruth.

October

In her regal dalliance

October lit a flame

That flashed on the maples,

Spelling out her name.

She strode through the aspen,

Pulling down the gold,

Strewing it profusely

On the ancient mold.

Swift along the valley

She raced with the gale

Toward the autmn exit,

Down a winter trail.

But she left such trinkets

In biding memory

As soft light on the land

And glory on the sea.

Inversion

"What do I care!"

Say it not.

It tells the world

You care a lot.

Look not away

With scornful eyes,

For that can be

A pack of lies.

If all too hastily

You leave,

I know that parting

Makes you grieve.

Thus do not turn

Things quite about

Or I will find

Your secret out.

Grist

Whoa, whoa, startled team!

The big wheel churning deep within

The roaring mill that rocks the beam

Is more of song than din.

Rein them to the chute, young man;

Spill the golden grain

Into the maw of the sifting pan.

Be more of man than swain.

You come with grist, as the miller knows.

Look away from flume and strem

Where bird song is and lichen grows

In less of earth than dream.

The girl will wait in the bowered door

To wave you as you pass,

Lumbering to the threshing floor.

She's less of maid than lass.

Tree and I

I have long been proud to be

Contemporary to a tree.

It was a whisper at the start,

With budding limb and joyous heart.

I was then a stripling too,

Vain of stature as we grew.

But not for long would I look down

Or set my hand upon its crown.

A summer came, and two and three,

And it had far outdistanced me.

Long autumn winds, and mischievous,

Conferred gnarled limbs on both of us.

I reached to break me off a staff

And know I heard the old tree laugh.

Mud March

March flexes now a brawny arm

To set the stage for spring.

You lie and listen to the wind;

You hear the hammer's ring;

The rhythimc shearing of a plane,

The snarling of a saw;

You wonder what is going on

In this wild williwaw.

But March can spare no hour

Of night to pave the way

For the April carrousel

And flowering of May.

Aloft, in mad rehersal,

A lark is on the wing,

Lone herald of fiesta days

and bold enough to sing.

O Terpsichore!

The muse of motion sadly sits

This generation out,

Appalled at how the vandals

Turn her rhythms all about.

No more the lissome graces

Of the waltz and minuet,

Now muffled in the downbeat

Of the madly modern set,

Who writhe in hyphenated stance

To stare with listless eyes

Across the artificial gulf

Where famished pleasure lies.

But all this banal mummery

Will perish in the land

When men again have known the touch

Of her galvanic hand.

Gossamer Angel

Our Christmas tree is a rendezvous

For the migrant crowd and the binding few;

For the ones we touch by reaching out

And the ones we only dream about.

Blithe carols lilt on the vibrant air,

Reminiscent, everywhere,

The spangled tune and the olden song

Echoing the days long gone.

The pine, bedecked from base to crown,

Wears baubles new and handed down.

Swift through a haze of memory,

A child is there by a phantom tree,

The gossamer angel in its hand,

Poised for flight to a shadow land.

Tonight it reigns in lovely grace,

Its wings atilt at the topmost place.

Down the Lane

Come again to the garden gate

In the little frock you were,

With girded waist and ruffled skirt

And the flowered pinafore.

Stand by the wicket barricade,

Your hand upon the latch,

Your eyes as full of firelight

As jewels set to match.

Pretend once more you bar the way

To any hopeful swain

Who quite coincidentally

Is coming down the lane.

But not for long, oh, not for long!

Open wide the gate,

Remembering how paths divide

When hearts procrastinate.

Oquirrh Sunset

Clouds immersed in fire,

Flame lapping at the hill,

Molten causeway on the lake,

The valley awed and still.

O, splenderous inferno,

Consuming all the light--

A dream to tide us over

Till dawn dispels the night!

Summer Day

Sleepy summer day. . .

White malingering clouds

Imprinted on a hill

Where shadows cling,

Gulls circling a ledge of sky,

Too indolent to flap a wing.

The whisper of a stream,

The cattle in the shade,

Ruminating on a spot

Too far away to reach, 

The nooning sun too hot.

No stir the leaf,

No pulsing sound,

No distant call. . .

And you might dream the afternoon

Were there no hay to haul.

The Caper Gauche

Brawling winter returned

In a flurry of spite

To blot out the verdure

With nondescript white.

But in wild inadvertence

She modeled the trees

In festoon of laces

And silken chemise.

She spilled from her pocket

A fortune in gems

That spangled her robe

To the outermost hems.

Beweildered red tulips

Had to look twice

To believe what they saw

Through their lenses of ice.

The birds in the morning,

Remembering May,

Tumbled out of the drift

And sang winter away.

Are Crickets Unaware?

The elfins tune the fiddle,

The crickets ply the bow,

Their endless theme a riddle,

As dreamers all must know.

The somnolence, the weary drone;

Nostalgic is the call

To topple summer's regal throne

And don the tints of fall.

But what of winter's icy glare

And what of tasseled spring?

Are the crickets unaware

They're in the reckoning?

Icicles

Translucent spears deflect the light,

Pendant, jagged in a row,

Icy trinkets of the storm,

A distillation of the snow.

They last an hour, may be two;

Touched by the magic of the sun,

They slip their moorings on the eave

And shatter to oblivion.

Or, so the witchery of love

Erodes the shafts of hate and fear.

Seen through a window of the heart,

They melt and vanish, tear by tear.

First Kiss

First kiss, a very precious thing

Is something like a wedding ring

Or flower pressed within a book,

The captive memory of a brook.

You know the day, the hour, minute,

As though eternity were in it.

You know the place, and walking there,

You see the blossom in her hair.

And all that happened after that

Is but a faded photostat

Of what you hadn't dared surmise:

First kiss and heaven in her eyes.

Morning at Alta

See the silver spindrift blow

Across the mountain tops.

Its gentle banners wave and flow

Where earth begins and heaven stops.

The wind in errant sally flecks

The veil with jewel frost,

While we within the valley here

In wonderment are lost.

A thrilling moment it can be,

The billowed spindrift rising,

A moment in eternity

The gods are dramatizing.

Safari

Whistle up the morning, boy;

The dawn is pushing in;

The world is dangling every joy

A wastral traffics in.

Now what to do and whither go,

A tumult in the heart,

The wooded river there below,

The hills that stand apart.

Make haste, make haste--your nemesis

Is peering from the mow

And you will only dream of this

If summoned to the plow.

Whistle up the morning, flee,

Safari ends, ah soon--

When glitter of the sun will be

A pallor of the moon.

White Sand

Her little memories bubble up

Like white sand in a spring,

Each grain a petrified event

Of time's meandering.

Though most of it is trivia,

Odd bits of joy and pain,

As distant as the echoes

Of the pattering of rain,

 

Her gentle reminiscing--

My fine disdain apart--

Turns back the dimming pages

Of the annals of the heart.

 

When the white sand settles

And the spring runs dry,

Who will keep the record

Of an era going by?

Keep the Angels

"Why are there never angels any more?"

A little child was knocking at my door

Of mystery to know the ins-and-outs.

They had to lock it tighter than before.

Youth best had leave the mysteries alone.

Pretense that there is honey in the comb

Imparts a sweeter taste to crusted bread.

Illusion makes a jewel of a stone.

Without the angels in the upper air,

What then inspires hope and love and prayer?

What source of daily little consolation?

Keep the angels. . .may be they are there!

Waken, Poet!

Break the bonds of frozen pride

In your ivory tower.

Look upon the human tide

At its cresting hour.

Behold the little people

And the striding great

Pass the mart and steeple

To the scuffing sound of fate.

Champion the laggard,

But the ones to pity most

Are the favored in the running,

The scornful at the post.

Waken, poet, from your dream

Of eerie enterprise.

Look upon the human scene,

Compassion in your eyes.

Unfurl the Light

What happens to my burdens

When I sleep?

The only thing that I can say

. . .they keep.

Whither go my eerie dreams

When comes the day?

The only answer I can make

. . .they've gone away.

Unfurl the light, Apollo,

Fan the dawn.

Your constancy is all I have

To lean upon.

Death on the Sidewalk

Time is an angel or wild juggernaut,

Time is a hope or a vain after thought.

An invisible destiny bearing a clock

Goes silently there where you run or you walk.

The pendulum is muted, no hint of a storm,

Till the fateful wheels mesh in crashing alarm.

Then you say time will heal, but it's only a myth

Of the heart and the soul you are battling with.

The hours march on. . .in the schedule they keep,

Your tears will be spent but another will weep.

Yet time is an angel; it brings you the dark

And a shore with a haven where dreams can embark.

Growing Old

They speak of second childhood.

But where are all the joys?

And why does no one ever bring

Our lost and broken toys?

They call old age the flowering

Of wisdom and content,

Though what have we of either

But disillusionment?

They poetize the autumn time,

The yellow leaf and sere.

Oh, give us back the verdant days

Lost in the yesteryear!

Memorial Day

The blossoms wilting in the sun

Are silent testament

The flowering is an episode,

The falling petals the event.

Their wistful scent and coloring

Enshrine a borderland

Where hand of flesh is reaching out

To touch a phantom hand.

Every path is hallowed here.

Every legend on a stone

Is a whisper from the ground

To one who kneels. . .alone.

The memories capitulate,

No futile tears are shed.

Memorial is for all of us

In this vast flower bed.

Bayonet Man

He's got the hang

Of swift, clean strife.

He's ready to save

Our way of life.

There's no hard hate

In his laughing eyes,

But he'll let them in

For a big surprise.

He'll spike the belly

Of any foe

and sicken to see

The hot blood flow.

He'll give their guts

A tortured twist

And cry to God

That he might have missed.

He'll make a corpse

Of a mother's son

And curse the day

That made HIM one.

S'long!

Now at last you sit alone

To sort the dreams you pushed away,

So in haste were you to come

To this bleak autumn day.

There was a gentle fallow field

You passed with foolish scorn

In quest of cornucopia,

Man's fabled treasure horn.

The rainbow myth of sudden gold

Had vanished with the sun.

The morning came and there were yet

So many miles to run.

You glimpsed the blossoming of May

Through a fleeting eye,

Then standing wearied on a hill

You saw the vision die.

The lilting voice that bade you stay

Now echoes on and on

To make a dim forever

Of your gay s'long!

The Toiler

Linger, weary man,

In the coffee place.

Contemplate the destiny

In your mirrored face--

A destiny of linking

Your days into a chain

As endless as the downbeat

Of the ten-cent song refrain.

Stir the cup, as leisurely;

Pretend the morning break

Is herald of a new day

With bitter things at stake.

Linger, man, and dream;

The coffee is superb.

Or have you left your motor

Running at the curb?

These Hushed and Gone

Let them sleep;

They earned this rest.

They lie in sanctuary now

At His behest.

No cruel word can reach

The muted ear;

No futile acrimony stir

One single tear.

The anxious stars

Are watching over them.

Low winds intone

An endless requiem.

These hushed and gone,

If only they could weep,

Would weep for you.

Let them sleep.

Ineluctable

Could it be this teeming world

Is God's rare garden,

Cluttered with the weeds of sin

But bounteous in pardon?

Does he use mysterious means

To nurture us in pain,

Alternating sunny skies

With the sodden rain?

Is purpose ineluctable

In the shrouded plan

To lead his harried children

To the stature of a man?

The Wing'ed One

The wing-ed one from outer space

Returned now to his native star

To tell the other wing-ed ones

How very sick and sad we are.

They thought it quite incredible

The denizens of nether earth

Would go about with ruthless hands

To desecrate their things of worth.

They arched their wings in sorrow

At the sordid news of greed--

Of how the lordly dominate

The groveling millions there in need.

Their eyes were wide with wonderment

To hear of tools men battle with

To kill and scar and mutilate

To prove some old and tattered myth.

The Song and the Cry

Go, eerie lark, on errant wing,

Flaunt the gladness of the spring,

Skirt the dawn in feathered gust,

Put down in every bay you must--

The blossom tree, the greening knoll,

The briar patch, the leaning pole.

Salute the morning, wake the day,

O voice of April calling May.

Yet, paradox is in the song

From every hedge you wing along.

The joyous birth of spring you hail

Evokes the cry of earth's travail.

Dawn to Dawn

At dawn of youth

All hope is high

And glory bands

The morning sky.

A cloud athwart

The day's ascent

Is sudden shock

To the innocent.

High noon has lost

The old esprit

And eyes turn

Eastward yearningly.

With sunset comes

The dawn of truth,

Grim paradox of

Vanished youth.

Silent Voice

How strange to waken in a world

Where peace is like the wind gone down,

The silence like a banner furled

Or tranquil bay the stream has found.

No more the sighing sound of breath

Of wearied men who marched with me,

No more the sudden gasp of death,

No more the sound of reveille.

Know this peace in rendezvous

Where mottled granite marks a spot.

What more can any mortal do

Than touch the shore where time is not?

Rich Man, Poor Man

Take the world, all of it:

The world is yours. . .

The sky, the sea, the fair hills

As long as time endures.

But time is swift and urgent.

The gods are niggard there;

The while you're counting sunsets

You've had your little share.

Love's Ghetto

You touched her hand and startled dreams

Drew the shades apart.

She knew you saw the disarray

Of things within her heart

She vowed that you should never know

The penury of dreams,

The drabness of the inner halls,

Pale light across the beams--

Where sagging webs of time enmesh

The broken wings of hope

And shadows of the wasted days

Interweave and grope.

But now you know the squalid truth:

Love languishes until

You enter to abide with it.

She knows you never will.

Turn the Coin

Gay laughter coming

From a room apart

Is added sorrow

To the anguished heart.

Seen through a rifting cloud

That threatenes rain,

Soft sunlight on the hill

Is sudden pain.

Bright sails are for

The faring, evermore,

Grey phantoms to

The sailor gone ashore.

Hymn of the Hobo

Keep your jingle, leave me mine,

Where I can mingle with the stars

Or lie and ponder space and time

While you count sheep or dream of wars.

Comes the dawn. . .good morning world!

I raid my slender bindle pack

And breakfast like the king I am

Before I saunter down the track.

I have no truck with ends or aims

You struggle for so futilely.

The far horizons closed to you

Are open passages to me.

As for the day of reckoning

you hold in such austere regard--

 A starlit track across the bar

Will be my rich reward.

Frail Dreams

His fragile house beside the sea,

Built of driftwood from the shore,

Leans on the wind precariously

And trembles in the breakers' roar.

On days of calm he combs the beach

For broken scraps of this and that,

Among the things within the reach,

Frail dreams for his poor habitat.

He reads the mystic horoscope

Of sky and rippling sea and land

And holds the silver thread of hope

Trembling in his wearied hand.

Deep in his soul there is a fear

The rolling tide of destiny

Is rising high and coming near

His fragile house beside the sea.

Pied Piper

His passion was people, the ones he had seen

And the ones he would track in a wayfaring dream.

With a blithesome disdain of the toils of the day,

He would hail the new dawn and be up and away.

The girl in the valley, the man in the mart

And the child in the cradle he took to his heart.

He would touch them and leave on the fugitive round

Of all the far places where people are found.

Then. . .a brawling night wind in hideous jest

Snuffed out the candle and darkened the quest.

A concourse of people stands bowed at high noon

For a nameless Pied Piper gone down with the moon.

Vision

In a jungle hell where soldiers fought

And guns spat death on white and black,

One made a target of himself

To bring a wounded brother back.

Where sad eyes met in a bamboo hut,

Each lying on a sodden bed,

They had the same bewidlered thought:

All human blood is red . . . is red!

The rivers run incarnadine

Down to a restless sea

Whose tides will cleanse the murky flood.

They saw the vision distantly.

 

The Sad Song

March to the beat of little drums,

Drums that only you can hear,

On winding paths of circumstance,

Across the day and down the year.

Imagine not some other one

May ever travel at your side,

For in this labyrinthine vale

Roads briefly merge and then divide.

You hear a voice or touch a hand,

But never is it yours to know

The toils of anguish round a heart

Or whither he will turn and go.

The sad song of togetherness

Forever echoes in the land

To cry how much alone you are

And how you yearn to understand.

Eternal Flame

The flame eternal marks the path

Where footprints came a little way,

To end as though some voice of wrath

Had summoned men to bend and pray.

 

The Journey to the distant land,

Forever charted for the brave,

Is signaled by a gentle hand

That lit the flame beside a grave.

The Bay of Bells

She walked the shore to find a place

They called the bay of bells.

For here an ancient music slept

In long abandoned shells.

Whoever found a certain shell

And pressed it to the ear

Would hear a peeling of the bells

Like heaven drawing near.

But only one, the legend said,

Would ever find the magic shell,

Then vanish to its echoing

In the ocean swell.

The natives shun the bay of bells,

There's mourning now along the land.

Pointing seaward, they will say:

The fatal shell is in her hand.

Cry the Wind

Cry the fury of the wind,

Not the gentle snow

That now in ravished beauty lies

In the day's bright glow.

The gale that lashed the battlements

Through an anxious night

Has spread a robe of loveliness

In its careening flight.

The endless drifts that reach away

Are like a ruffled sea

That soon will know the utter calm

Of sands along the lee.

Watherver glory you will hold,

Whatever stars attain,

Will be a bounty of the storm,

A residue of pain.

Point of View

From where you sit to view this thing

We now discuss, 'tis clear

That you are right and I am wrong.

But -- I'm sitting over here!

It seems to me you're quite perverse

To argue and declare

That all the truth is on your side.

But -- you're sitting over there!

I wonder, should we view the world,

Each through the other's eyes,

If what we saw would bring to us

A staggering surprise.

Why, could it be, your party's plank

Is laid on solid ground?

And that the party I uphold

Is rather safe and sound?

Would I see good in your dear friend,

Who seemed to me a boor?

And you accept a friend of mine

You'd never liked before?

Or would I recognize some truth

In your outlandish creed?

And would you say my faith is more

Than some poor shaken reed?

It's funny, when you stop to think,

The causes we espouse!

Each wholly wrong, each wholly right,

By all eternal vows!

So you come over here and sit

And I'll sit over there,

Then all our futile differences

Will vanish in thin air!

(Copyright, 1940)

Two Noisy Kids

They can think of the funniest things to do,

Those two noisy kids that belong to you;

When you're dreamily sprawled for an evening nap,

Comes Mary to plop herself down in your lap,

Or mother to say that young Bob is to blame

For breaking the neighbor's big bay window pane.

You are wakened, perhaps, in the dead of the night

By some yapping furore and you're worried quite

To the point of distraction to find down there

A stray dog is chained to the basement stair;

And the only excuse that you ever will get

Is that every young fellow must have him a pet.

Then our Mary comes in with a rend in her dress

And her face and her hands are a horrible mess,

It's an awful affair, that's the least you can say,

For a girl celebrating her twelfth natal day.

Yes, dear mother is vexed, and dear mother can mend

But young Bob was to blame, it comes out in the end.

So the teacher's been calling again here today:

She has come round the block and gone out of her way;

Though her visit is brief and her message is short

It has something to do with that young man's report.

She suggests they apply both the rod and the rule,

If he's noisy at home like he is in the school.

But the climax has come in the boist'rous din

when young Mary's piano and Bob's violin

Are both throbbing and booming and screeching away,

As they hurry through practice to be at their play.

Yes, they think of the funniest things to do,

Those two noisy kids that belong to you.

But when you relfect in some moment of calm,

You are vain of the title of "dad" or of "mom."

And you know in your heart that the ultimate truth

Will teach you the hope of the world is in youth,

And you'll long once again for the vanished delight

Of voices that break on the stillness of night.

(Copyright, 1940)

The Man

I'd rather have one fighting man

Than armies of the ilk

Who sit around and wish that life

Were always soft as silk.

I'd rather have one planning man,

Outfitted with a scheme,

Than ten who go as aimlessly

As phantoms in a dream.

I'd rather have one action man

Than ten who trust to fate,

Who find a sheltered place to sit,

The while they wait and wait.

I'd rather have one happy man

Than all the men who sigh

At opportunities they see

Forever passing by.

I'd rather have one working man

Than laggards by the score;

Who dawdle on the rugged path

Where toilers go before.

Yes, give me just this type of man

And I will let you take

The legion of the men who moan

They never had a break.

He'll take the task that can't be done,

And DO it, while they preach

About the hopelessness of things

That lie beyond the reach.

He'll raise the torch of enterprise

Above the timorous souls

And show the world the way to rise

To distant shining goals.

He'll get the iron hot himself

And when it's glowing, strike!

He'll make the world the kind of place

That spineless men would like!

(Copyright, 1940)

Man in My Town

There was a man in my town

So full of foolish haste

That he grudged the thirty seconds

Any traffic light would waste.

He couldn't brook the small delay

Of keeping in the line

When cars were going round a curve --

It meant a loss of time.

He always took the gambler's chance;

How vainly he would grin

At the moments he was saving

By the trick of cutting in.

Pedestrians were a bother,

And they'd better move right fast

When he'd head in their direction

And would give his horn  a blast.

He saved split-seconds every day

By scaring to retreat

The children who would be at play

Along the sunny street.

Ah, cars were made for speed . . . why not?

He had no time to lose.

Let laggards slow their motors down

And idle -- if they choose.

But one day his maddened monster

Had turned berserk, in a breath,

As it bore down in destruction,

Like a juggernaut of death.

******

There is a man in my town

With time to comtemplate

That there's nothing quite so tragic

As the haunting words, "too late!"

Too late to turn a lad's shrill cry

To laughter that had been

The music of a neighborhood

That children play within.

Too late to blot a memory from

The one who gave him birth

With just the bleak reminder now

 -- A marker in the earth.

Too late to blank the vision

Of disaster he had wrought

For the gain of sordid minutes,

For the worthless time he's bought.

Too late to find atonement

In the caution he had learned,

Too late for any solace

Where a seared conscience burned.

There is a man in my town

Who is never now in haste;

Who would give his life's whole heritage

To have one deed erased!

(Copyright, 1940)

It's Your Flag!

It's your flag . . .

Rugged toiler in the field --

It's not his flag

Who desecrates the yield

Of soil and seed

To make our country's wealth

The pawn of greed.

It's your flag . . .

Soldier, marching on to war --

It's not his flag

Who makes you what you are --

A soul and body rent --

To show a ledgered profit

On his armament.

It's your flag . . .

Humble worker on the line --

It's not his flag . . .

Who works you overtime,

Where gears and levers mesh

To make a sordid merchandise

Of human flesh.

It's your flag . . .

Mother, bearing gifts of life --

It's not his flag

Who shirks the galling strife

Of giving this America

The soul and brawn --

The singing strength to carry on,

It's your flag . . .

Trusting brother at the poll --

It's not his flag

Who gets you to enroll

To keep some plitician

In the sun

When voices shout --

"the party's won!"

It's your flag . . .

If in every fold and crease

You see the flaming destiny

Of peace.

It's not your flag,

if you would have men bleed

To win some war of hate

For alien creed!

(Copyright, 1940)

Success

There's more to life than

Sitting tight in smug serenity,

Upholding every private right

Of all that's mine . . . and me.

My eager crowding for a place

Exclusive in the sun

May cast a shadow on the face

Of some more worthy one.

*My frantic reaching out for fame

That mortals will applaud

May rob me of the fine acclaim

That cometh down from God.

My feverish toil, on wealth intent,

To reach an earthly goal

May lead to stark impoverishment,

A beggar of the soul.

My will to make of passing days

A tinkling pleasure chain

May bind me, as the vision grays,

To mockery of pain.

*What, then, is worth my toiling for?

What gain is worth the strife?

What goals beckon from afar?

Which way the blessed life?

The building of success, I'd say,

Will come just down to this:

To have my striving go the way

Of others' happiness!

(First published in Along the Lane: Dedicated to the memory of Thomas William Larsen, who lost his life in World War II)

*The paragraphs in italics are those that appeared in the original writing of the poem, but were omitted in the published version.

The Least You Can Say

It's a great little weapon,

That tongue in your head;

And you take it wherever you go;

Yes, I'm sure you'll agree

It's a weapon to dread

When you use it for lashing a foe.

You can wound with a phrase

Or cut deep with a word

Its a smoke-screen of innocent jest;

But the truth of it is,

Or -- well, so I have heard,

That the least you can say is the best.

It's a weapon for gossiping

All through the day

Or at night in the tattler's club,

When the free-for-all wagging

Has infinite play

And wild rumor is worn to the nub.

It's a marvelous thing

How some word you let fall

Can ruin a man.  But please rest

Quite assured, my dear friend,

If you must speak at all,

That the least you can say is the best.

It's a great little weapon

For sarcasm, too,

The sly tongue that you hold in your cheek;

You can cut men to pieces

Or run them quite through

With an ironic word you can speak.

What a weapon it is

For dethroning a man

From his fine self-esteem -- but I'm blessed,

That I firmly believe --

Ah, deny it who can!

That the least you can say is the best!

(Copyright, 1940)

A Friend

He's not a friend who flatters you

With empty words,

To lift you high in self-esteem

Or have you feel

That you are what you're not.

A friend will wound you --

Cruelly, perhaps,

With truth's hard edge of steel.

He's not a friend who bends his back

To bear a burden that is yours

Or clears the rock-strewn way

Through all its length;

A Friend will merely hold you

By the hand

To let you know he knows your

Need of strength.

He's not a friend who bids you

Leave off trying the ascent

To gleaming, distant star

At heaven's top.

However futilely you strive,

A freind will know

There's glory in the following

Of dreams -- nor see you stop.

He's not a friend who ridicules

Your pitiful mistake,

In dread of how some error leads

To tragic end.

But if he makes pretense of

Never having seen

The thing that you yourself

Deplore -- he is your firend.

He's not a friend who scoff

At every naive faith

You turn to in a troubled sea

Of doubt.

He is your friend who kneels

With you to pray,

Yet feels there's little but

The prayer -- to lift you out.

(Copyright, 1940)

June Song

Oh, it's holiday time

And we'll make a new rhyme

High keyed to a rollicking tune --

There'll be murmuring of trees

In the soft summer breeze

And a slave of welcome to June.

You can whistle this air

As you clamber up there

Where zephyrs catch up the refrain;

Where the tang of the pine

Is as tonic as wine

And the cataract shivers to rain.

Or go humming our song

As we're scudding along

In fleet-flying tippecanoe,

While the dip of the oar

Scatters ripples ashore

And the world is made only for you.

Come, follow my flight,

We will sing our delight,

Tip-toe and atop of the hill;

Where flowers aflame

In the gold and the rain

Are the note of our lyrical trill.

At the edge of the wood

Where the Driads have stood,

Enthralled at the glory of day,

We will fashion our tune

In a garland for June,

Then toss it away and away!

And our song will come back,

Ah, alas and alack!

In some sad autumn day of the year;

When we live at a time

That our echoing rhyme

Can evoke but a sigh or a tear!

(First published in Along the Lane: Dedicated to the memory of Thomas William Larsen, who lost his life in World War II)

Resolution

Though cynics laugh exultantly

At all your high resolving

I think that you'll agree with me,

It keeps the world revolving.

'Tis true a certain place is paved

With resolutions broken;

But here and there a pledge is saved,

And by that very token.

The world is lifted from a groove

Of blind and futile striving;

The van of progress, on the move,

Will one day be arriving.

At some far distant, pleasant place

We call a destination.

Resolving sets the forward pace

Throughout the world's creation.

The very soil on which you stand

Is yours through some one's notion

That he could find an unknown land

Beyond an endless ocean.

The liberty you now can claim

As life's most prieceless dower

Harks back to some heroic name

Who broke the ban of power.

Name any treasured thing of life;

Somehow it will revolve

Around the thought and toil and strife

Of one who did resolve.

So turn a corner, if you will,

The way your heart is yearning.

And though you falter on the hill

You're better for the turning.

(Copyright, 1940)

There and Back

Jim had heard about the city

Where the fortune seekers go,

With its bright lights and its pretty

Girls a-trapin' to and fro;

Of the fine fat jobs a-wastin'

For the snappy country lad

Who is keen to be a tastin'

Of the things where life is glad.

So he bought a one-way ticket

And he told the folks adieu:

Then as chipper as a cricket

Caught the "six-o-ten" and blew.

He had ninety cents in money

When he landed in the town,

And his knees they acted funny

As he walked and gawked around.

When he had but one small quarter

And a pinched look in the face,

He opined that it was sorter

Queer he couldn't find a place.

And where was all the laughter

He had read of in a book

And the friends that follow after

One like fishes on a hook?

As he thought of mother's table

And the wholesome country fare,

He could wish it were a fable

That he wasn't sittin' there.

And dad's meadow soft and yearnin'

Beckoned to his weary feet

That were blistered now and burnin'

From his trudgin' down the street.

And the friends back home who missed him --

Ah, he longed again to see

All their happy smiling faces;

How he wished once more to be.

In the midst of those who loved him,

Those who'd call him by his name

When he got back to the valley

Where wayfarers always came.

So he left the bright lights shinin'

And he hoofed it to the farm,

Where the clouds have silver linin'

And where hearts beat true and warm.

Let the others seek the city,

but, no sir,

boy -- not for him;

He just thinks of them with pity,

Does our disillusioned Jim.

(Copyright, 1940)

Raggie

Come, Raggie, little fellow, speak!

The woprship in your eyes

Is like the homage of the meek

That swift to cover flies

When one has seen the yearning look.

Which taken unawares,

Is plain as reading in a book,

Devout as Christian prayers.

Don't wiggle so, you little wretch,

You can't conceal your love.

The more you roll your eyes and stretch

Your little paws above

The towsled head, the flapping ears,

The plainer 'tis to see

That you'd stick by me through the years

And one day die for me.

What means that wagging of the tail, 

That squirming inside out?

Such antics, Raggie, never fail

To banish any doubt

That I'm the object you adore,

The apple of your eye.

I see it, Raggie, more and more

In every ruse you try.

Now stand up tall -- there -- that's a chap

And shake me by the hand.

And tell me with your silly yap --

That's talk we understand.

Tell me -- that's right -- one, two, three.

A pledge, old boy, that you

And  I will always faithful be,

Though times may go askew.

Now roll, three times upon the ground

One, two . . . three times, I said!

Ah, Rags, you stubborn little hound

I'll stand you on your head.

You'll do it then? You will? That's fine!

That whimpering is droll.

You love to be that slave of mine.

See how you cringe and roll!

Oh -- so?  And now you're playing dead.

That tail across your nose

Almost conceals your fuzzy head;

You're wiggling your toes!

Why don't you shut that other eye?

Dead dogs don't ever peek.

Poor doggie's dead . . . ah me -- oh my --

I'll stroke your fur down sleek.

Well - good-bye, Raggie -- I'll be off

To ramble in the wood.

Too bad you cannot go along,

As dog and master should.

What's that --? You're coming -- dead or no?

You are! Well, stop that yelp

Before another step we go --

You cunning little whelp!

(Copyright, 1940)

Dreaming

Dreaming is a fool's delight,

Some say --

Yet I have sat and dreamed the

Day away.

Songs I have heard that I had

Thought were dead

And bits of tune have drifted

Through my head

That I once whistled on the

Way to school.

Do dreams like that make any

One a fool?

You'd be amazed at all the faces

I have seen,

Though dimming distant years

Have come between.

That time I stood amidst my

Friends and this

Sweet wasted day I use to

Reminisce

A meadow I have roamed where

Flowers' scent

And call of birds were everywhere

I went.

The river flowed the same around

The bend.

Ah, I could wish that this would

Never end.

But night is here.  A blissful

Squandered day

Must close where waters sing and

Willows sway.

So twilight brings me but the

Dream of dreams;

I sit in silence here, and now

It seems

That all the days I've strewn

Along the track

Are far more sunny when I

Bring them back.

Then do not smile at me

If I retrieve

These vanished joys.  For you

Will come to believe,

The same as I, that life's

Most blessed dower

Is in the day for dreaming

Dreams -- the wasted hour!

(First published in Along the Lane: Dedicated to the memory of Thomas William Larsen, who lost his life in World War II)

Time

What marvelous things there are

To save us "moderns" time!

A score of gadgets in the home

To rout the dirt and grime

Or speed the gentle tasks

Of kitchen cookery --

Such things as baking cakes

Or brewing tea.

Whisk! the job is done,

Ah, very soon

Our lady will be gone

The afternoon.

The water for the master's

Morning shave

Is ready in a trice.

He saves ten minutes

On his beard alone.

Ten golden minutes --

Things are pretty nice

With such efficiency

Within and out the home.

For think of all the time he saves, 

Once in the swivol chair --

The buzzer and the telephone

Both waiting there

To set a hundred people

On the run.

You'd almost say that

Modern life is regimented fun.

Time . . . my how we save the time!

A modern motor car

To catapult us over dizzy miles

to where we wish to be

From where we are . . .

An hour saved, just there,

Each blessed day.

A wonderful saving of time,

I'd say!

But time for what?

Time for getting in a rut 

Of haste!

Ah, I recall that in the olden days

We knew no wast

Of time.

Yet there was time enough

To walk across the hill

And chat a while

With some poor neighbor

Who was ill;

Or time to wander through

Our sunny field

Where blessed solitude

Was half the yield.

Yes, yes, I know --

The advocates of time

Say time is money.

But in the olden days,

When money didn't mean so much

That creed had sounded funny.

So take an hour of your time --

Though time be growing late --

To hear the frantic stride of other men,

The while you contemplate

The worth of time!

(Copyright, 1940)