Going-to-the-stars :: :: University of Virginia Library

Egyptian hieroglyphic for the setting sun—
This hour is gay, serene, and slow.
This evening seems the loveliest one,
And I swim to-night toward the western sun
In the Gulf of Mexico.

Egyptian hieroglyphic for that vase, the heart:
And the heart is still an urn of flame,
Though temples come and go.
The floors of Thebes and Abydos
Are ash heaps, but their spirit fires
Leap the sea, flame and grow
In the winds that sweep across the shores
Of the Gulf of Mexico.

Egyptian hieroglyphic for the Plumes of Truth
For the truth twice-told, for the Justice Hall
Where the feathers may yet outweigh us all.
Truth is no steel or dynamite thing,
No reader lesson from old McGuffey,
Or editorial noisy and huffy
Puffing a senator with a boom,
Truth is a downy double Plume,
Truth-in-the-balance still the same,
Resilient; and not fixed or tame,
Upstanding, quivering, moon-beam fine,
Shaken by all the storms that blow,
Yet defying all the storms that blow,—
As it was in the old Egyptian sign,
As it was in Osiris' Judgment Room,
Weighing the heart on the day of doom,
As it is on the Gulf of Mexico.

Egyptian hieroglyphic for the learned scribe
And his funny tablet, ink bottle and pen,
And the loops to go over the scribe's lean shoulder,
(For over the shoulder they wore them then).
And if we take to these styles again,
We might be picture-writing men,
And set all the poets in a glow,
With our letters marching around the world,
Hieroglyphic, mural painting,
Photoplay and scenario,
From the Park on the Gulf of Mexico.

Egyptian hieroglyphic for the Great God Thoth,
King scribe of the Sun and the Truth,
The god of epics and of art,
Patron of electric signs,
Patron of billboards, and cartoons,
Of all our new and queer designs,
And the movies, in their youth.
Arch, humorous, feathery, soft,
On the old Nome standard still aloft,
A friendly strutting Ibis-king,
Ibis-god who can wink and sing,

Come let us march with him and fling
Bright inks about, paint up and shout—
Paint country places, gild our faces,
And tell to the farmers all we know,—
Hold our Festival of Thoth
On the Gulf of Mexico!

And here is the greatest sign they wrote,
For the mummy on the coffin lid,
And it meant: “No dead man here lies hid.
“He kneels in the hall of the Plumes of Truth,
“He speaks, is tried, is justified,
“He is standing by Osiris' side,
“The name of Osiris is on his breast,
“The merciful god's immortal guest.”

There is a truth that still redeems,
And I swim to-night where the sunset streams
On the Gulf of Mexico,
And my heart is as light as the truth of truth,
I feel at one with the feathery tide,
And my heart is weighed in my flaming side,
While I know the sunbeams flow
From my forehead to my splashing feet,
And a thousand songs from the far west come
With a strange gift to bestow,
With a fury of storm like a lightning flash
New victory comes with that furious beat,
My soul and the west made one, complete,
On the Gulf of Mexico.

The Shakespearean Christmas Tree

In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan,
Shakespeare's voice seemed in the air,
And something in the prairie line,
Something in the wheat field fair,
Something in the British hearts
That gave me welcome in my need
Made my soul a splendid flower,
Out of a dry and frozen weed.

And something in the stubbly fields
And their young snow to end the year,
Brought a sob and a great wind,
Each snowflake was a frozen tear.
The sky rained thoughts, and a great song
In the Elizabethan tongue
Swept from the Canadian fields!
New broken sod, too sad, too young,
Yet brother fields to Kansas fields,
Where once I worked in sweat and fire
To give the farmer his ripe wheat,

And slake my patriarch desire,
For wheat sheaves for my eyes and arms
A satisfaction vast and strange.
And now I reaped dim fields of snow
And heard the song from the wide range.

All prairies in the world are mine,
For I was born upon the plain.
And I can plant the wheat I choose,
In alien lands, in snow or rain.
I heard a song from Arden's wood,
A song from the edge of Arcady.
Rosalind was in the snow.
Singing her arch melody,
Although the only tree there found,
In alien, cold Saskatoon,
Was heaven's Christmas Tree of stars,
Swaying with a Shakespearean croon.
The skies were Juliet that night,
And I was Romeo below.
The skies Cordelia and Lear
And I the fool that loved them so.

I shook my silly bells and sang
And told young Saskatoon good-by.
And still I own those level fields
And hear that great wind's noble cry.