Shadowland (Mar-Aug 1923)

Vignettes in Verse VALE! By Walter Adolphe Roberts "y.VLE! It is not well with us who bring So frail a reed, To flute of love and April's blossoming To her. who is the priestess of the spring And will not heed The little loves that plead. She. the heloved one. the marvelous. Is onlj amorous Of an old god who is most tyrannous. She was the mate of Pan ere this hefell. Poets, we may not sing So brave a song As the immortal pipes the whole day long. And so. farewell! fed PHILOSOPHERS IN SPRING By Charles Divine THIS gay commotion on the earth That singers hail so dear Is love that, gypsy-eyed, forgets The love of yesterday. And all the lanes are young with spring. Philosophers will weep That earth is born so new again While they their ages keep. SONGS TO BE SAID WHILE WALKING By Hazel Hall T ET the day come out of the night, And the night come out of the dayNight from day, and day from night, And let the hours be a flight Of wild birds winging away. And whether the night or whether the day, As the hours forever fly, Holding the sun on their wings, or grey With dusk of night, let them go their way Calling across the sky. II Love cannot stay, love cannot pass; For every love that dies, Swift as a flower from the grass, A newer love shall rise. Then why have I so long a face, And why are you so proud? For one, the spring comes on apace, For one, the snow's white shroud. TO By Gladys Hall 'THERE is no path of glory where you trod, Life seems to be triumphantly the same, Ah, but my heart breaks into aching bits To form your name. No one acclaimed you; you went unrepaid. Your wistful brow untouched by laurel leaf; Save as my tears weave tenderly for you A crown of grief. BOB— i;-iin»-»Mm!iLHJv.juii»viL-p~l-i'iiMwtftt<TBa WIZARDS OF THE BRUSH By Pierre Loving Gauguin ORANGE-YELLOW sashes Against burnt-brown bodies, squatting or leaning; Lissom springtime youth Bathing in cool blue waters; Mother of God sun-caressed, tawny-eyed, With heaped-up baskets of colored fruit at her feet. Atolls! Cezanne Gaunt vigor, raw embodied sap Athwart an earthy, intimate sky; Succulent listless fruit Or pearly fish spilled on tables; Earth force, sun force, body force, tree force, Force of crude bursting life. Degas Lemon-yellow backgrounds, Sun-etched figures, slouching or sitting, Shored against chrome walls . . . A high browed man with stiff brushy red hair And green icy points of madness in his wide eyes. Odilon Re don Blackish tortures and inquisitions; Another mood: Feathery wind-scattered beauty of cloudnaves, Pale blue and fleecy white; The rainbow picked out in rock; Romance, faerie, white horses, enchanted virgins, , Witchery out of an old stanza; Pale hunger for translunary fates, Hands reaching for pale-gold unsetting suns . . . MUSIC By Oscar Williams CANNOT hear the sound of the rain Beating the whole day thru, But know it for the music The waves are dancing to. • I cannot see a shaggy hill Dark and silent and grave, But know there is music in his heart To see a dancing wave. For all the trees on tiptoe Trying to glimpse the sea; The stark twilight climbs the skies Drawn by the harmony. I cannot hear the sound of the rain Beating the whole day thru, But know it for the music My songs are swaying to. MAY By Pascale D'Angelo TJAWN flies like a white swan out of the purpling pond of night; The young valley glimmers happily, For May is now shoring the overwhelming sea of spring. And the great soul opens its eyes serene, Its eyes that can see in a calm while light Both the vast wind that dies like a kiss on the lips of silence, And the tiny rose petal trembling under the caresses of a dew-drop. KARMA By Mary Siegrist ^^HAT have you done That now you must be Slit-eyed With a face like a fox? You are, they say, a great executive Who knows how to manage men And move them about Like pawns on a checker-board. But oh, what have you done That now you must go Slit-eyed With a face like a fox? AFRICAN HARBOR By Gordon Malherbe Hillman 'THE tanker made the harbor when the tide was at the flood, When the glory of the sunset had turned the sky to blood, When the masts were tipped with crimson and the funnel guys were gold And the long decks shimmered as the old ship rolled! The tanker made the harbor when the wind was in the trees And the silver moon was rolling up beyond the farthest seas, When the dusk was on the village and the night was on the strait, And the tackle heaved and grated as it bore ashore her freight! The tanker made the harbor when the bar was white with spray, When the jungle shadows lengthened across the golden bay, When the mist was on the marshes and the Southern Cross rode high, And the waving palms stood starkly black against the scarlet sky! BROADWAY GIRL By Jack Hyatt, jr. T IKE Istar, of Babylon, you are a moon child But, at high noon . . . when the sun shines . . . pitilessly . . . Your beauty has fled. Page Thirty-Nine