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SONGS AND SATIRES


  THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
  NEW YORK. BOSTON. CHICAGO. DALLAS
  ATLANTA. SAN FRANCISCO

  MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
  LONDON. BOMBAY. CALCUTTA
  MELBOURNE

  THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
  TORONTO




SONGS AND SATIRES


  _By_
  EDGAR LEE MASTERS

  AUTHOR OF
  "SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY"


  New York
  THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
  1916

  _All rights reserved_




  COPYRIGHT, 1916,
  BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

  Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1916.
  Reprinted March, June, 1916.

  Norwood Press
  J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
  Norwood, Mass., U.S.A




For permission to print in book form certain of these poems I wish to
acknowledge an indebtedness to _Poetry_, _The Smart Set_, _The Little
Review_, _The Cosmopolitan Magazine_, and William Marion Reedy, Editor
of _Reedy's Mirror_.




CONTENTS


                                  PAGE

  SILENCE                            1

  ST. FRANCIS AND LADY CLARE         4

  THE COCKED HAT                    10

  THE VISION                        18

  SO WE GREW TOGETHER               21

  RAIN IN MY HEART                  31

  THE LOOP                          32

  WHEN UNDER THE ICY EAVES          40

  IN THE CAR                        41

  SIMON SURNAMED PETER              43

  ALL LIFE IN A LIFE                47

  WHAT YOU WILL                     56

  THE CITY                          57

  THE IDIOT                         65

  HELEN OF TROY                     68

  O GLORIOUS FRANCE                 71

  FOR A DANCE                       74

  WHEN LIFE IS REAL                 76

  THE QUESTION                      78

  THE ANSWER                        79

  THE SIGN                          80

  WILLIAM MARION REEDY              82

  A STUDY                           85

  PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN               88

  IN THE CAGE                       91

  SAVING A WOMAN: ONE PHASE         95

  LOVE IS A MADNESS                 97

  ON A BUST                         98

  ARABEL                           101

  JIM AND ARABEL'S SISTER          108

  THE SORROW OF DEAD FACES         116

  THE CRY                          119

  THE HELPING HAND                 120

  THE DOOR                         121

  SUPPLICATION                     122

  THE CONVERSATION                 125

  TERMINUS                         130

  MADELINE                         132

  MARCIA                           134

  THE ALTAR                        135

  SOUL'S DESIRE                    137

  BALLAD OF LAUNCELOT AND ELAINE   140

  THE DEATH OF LAUNCELOT           149

  IN MICHIGAN                      156

  THE STAR                         166




SONGS AND SATIRES




SILENCE


    I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea,
  And the silence of the city when it pauses,
  And the silence of a man and a maid,
  And the silence for which music alone finds the word,
  And the silence of the woods before the winds of spring begin,
  And the silence of the sick
  When their eyes roam about the room.
  And I ask: For the depths
  Of what use is language?
  A beast of the field moans a few times
  When death takes its young:
  And we are voiceless in the presence of realities--
  We cannot speak.

    A curious boy asks an old soldier
  Sitting in front of the grocery store,
  "How did you lose your leg?"
  And the old soldier is struck with silence,
  Or his mind flies away,
  Because he cannot concentrate it on Gettysburg.
  It comes back jocosely
  And he says, "A bear bit it off."
  And the boy wonders, while the old soldier
  Dumbly, feebly lives over
  The flashes of guns, the thunder of cannon,
  The shrieks of the slain,
  And himself lying on the ground,
  And the hospital surgeons, the knives,
  And the long days in bed.
  But if he could describe it all
  He would be an artist.
  But if he were an artist there would be deeper wounds
  Which he could not describe.

    There is the silence of a great hatred,
  And the silence of a great love,
  And the silence of a deep peace of mind,
  And the silence of an embittered friendship.
  There is the silence of a spiritual crisis,
  Through which your soul, exquisitely tortured,
  Comes with visions not to be uttered
  Into a realm of higher life.
  And the silence of the gods who understand each other without speech.
  There is the silence of defeat.
  There is the silence of those unjustly punished;
  And the silence of the dying whose hand
  Suddenly grips yours.
  There is the silence between father and son,
  When the father cannot explain his life,
  Even though he be misunderstood for it.

    There is the silence that comes between husband and wife.
  There is the silence of those who have failed;
  And the vast silence that covers
  Broken nations and vanquished leaders.
  There is the silence of Lincoln,
  Thinking of the poverty of his youth.
  And the silence of Napoleon
  After Waterloo.
  And the silence of Jeanne d'Arc
  Saying amid the flames, "Blessed Jesus"--
  Revealing in two words all sorrow, all hope.
  And there is the silence of age,
  Too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it
  In words intelligible to those who have not lived
  The great range of life.

    And there is the silence of the dead.
  If we who are in life cannot speak
  Of profound experiences,
  Why do you marvel that the dead
  Do not tell you of death?
  Their silence shall be interpreted
  As we approach them.




ST. FRANCIS AND LADY CLARE


  Antonio loved the Lady Clare.
  He caught her to him on the stair
  And pressed her breasts and kissed her hair,
  And drew her lips in his, and drew
  Her soul out like a torch's flare.
  Her breath came quick, her blood swirled round;
  Her senses in a vortex swound.
  She tore him loose and turned around,
  And reached her chamber in a bound
  Her cheeks turned to a poppy's hue.

  She closed the door and turned the lock,
  Her breasts and flesh were turned to rock.
  She reeled as drunken from the shock.
  Before her eyes the devils skipped,
  She thought she heard the devils mock.
  For had her soul not been as pure
  As sifted snow, could she endure
  Antonio's passion and be sure
  Against his passion's strength and lure?
  Lean fears along her wonder slipped.

  Outside she heard a drunkard call,
  She heard a beggar against the wall
  Shaking his cup, a harlot's squall
  Struck through the riot like a sword,
  And gashed the midnight's festival.
  She watched the city through the pane,
  The old Silenus half insane,
  The idiot crowd that drags its chain--
  And then she heard the bells again,
  And heard the voices with the word:

  Ecco il santo! Up the street
  There was the sound of running feet
  From closing door and window seat,
  And all the crowd turned on its way
  The Saint of Poverty to greet.
  He passed. And then a circling thrill,
  As water troubled which was still,
  Went through her body like a chill,
  Who of Antonio thought until
  She heard the Saint begin to pray.

  And then she turned into the room
  Her soul was cloven through with doom,
  Treading the softness and the gloom
  Of Asia's silk and Persia's wool,
  And China's magical perfume.
  She sickened from the vases hued
  In corals, yellows, greens, the lewd
  Twined dragon shapes and figures nude,
  And tapestries that showed a brood
  Of leopards by a pool!

  Candles of wax she lit before
  A pier glass standing from the floor;
  Up to the ceiling, off she tore
  With eager hands her jewels, then
  The silken vesture which she wore.
  Her little breasts so round to see
  Were budded like the peony.
  Her arms were white as ivory,
  And all her sunny hair lay free
  As marigold or celandine.

  Her blue eyes sparkled like a vase
  Of crackled turquoise, in her face
  Was memory of the mad embrace
  Antonio gave her on the stair,
  And on her cheeks a salt tear's trace.
  Like pigeon blood her lips were red.
  She clasped her bands above her head.
  Under her arms the waxlight shed
  Delicate halos where was spread
  The downy growth of hair.

  Such sudden sin the virgin knew
  She quenched the tapers as she blew
  Puff! puff! upon them, then she threw
  Herself in tears upon her knees,
  And round her couch the curtain drew.
  She called upon St. Francis' name,
  Feeling Antonio's passion maim
  Her body with his passion's flame
  To save her, save her from the shame
  Of fancies such as these!

  "Go by mad life and old pursuits,
  The wine cup and the golden fruits,
  The gilded mirrors,