THE CUBAN IN THE STATES

The North is beautiful, and 1

Would like it but for me
How bud the lips of woman by
The soft Habana sea!

And how can one who long has known
The fragrance of this rose
Keep from his frozen lips a moan
Against the northern snows?

I shiver at the closing white-
But on the sunburnt South

I lie in an eternal night

Of sighing mouth on mouth.

MADN ESS

The night came softly to the sea;
And they, the seven stars, to me.

The sea, the seven stars, and I
Gave an involuntary cry.

It echoed in the hills, and went
The ways of old bewilderment.

And I alone the reason knew,
And I had told it then to you,

But stars are strange, the sea is deep,
And you were lovely in your sleep.

DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES

They say that dead men tell no tales!

Except of barges with red sails
And sailors mad for nightingales;

Except of jongleurs stretched at ease
Beside old highways through the trees;

Except of dying moons that break
The hearts of lads who lie awake;

Except of fortresses in shade,

And heroes crumbled and betrayed.

But dead men tell no tales, they say!

Except old tales that burn away
The stifling tapestries of day:

Old tales of life, of love and hate,
Of time and space, and will, and fate.

A BOOK ON ECONOMICS

Between long rows of figures lurk
Pictures of little boys at work.

And how poor women fade away
Page after page the margins say.

(

And in a note once in a while

I see death freeze a baby's smile.

THE CAUSE OF THIS I KNOW NOT

The cause of this I know not,
Whither they went, nor why;
But I still remember the laughter
And the bright eyes flashing by-
The day the girls were kissing
The boys who had to die.

I search in vain for the reason-
What does a poet know?-

Only that youth is lovely,

Only that youth must go;

And hearts are made to be broken,
And love is always woe.

SONG

Poppies paramour the girls,

Lilies put the boys to bed

Death not other is than this
After everything is said.

They are safe, and shall not fade,

After everything is done,

Past the solace of the shade

Or the rescue of the sun.

STAR-DUST

Where past Time the roads go far
Littered with dust of sun and star,
With sundered string and arrow sped
The angels of the Lord lie dead.

There lads of the impassioned races

Reflect the night skies in their faces;
Boys' eyes, boys' thoughts and bodies bright
Are changing to eternal light.

THE TERROR

From Asiago to Cambrai,

From Vilna to the Aisne, Each night the ghosts of soldiers say, "Don't let us die in vain."

That they should come so far is strange, Since death lays men so still,

But who can say where dead men range, Or how they have their will?

So through the night their tramp I hear, Briton and Frank and Russ;

And through the night the thing they fear They whisper deep in us.

How shall we find a way to heal

The terror of the slain,

To seek them out, and make them feel
They have not died in vain?

SEEGER

The shapes of waking moments wearied him;
Heroic beauty stirred him as he slept;
And so he lived his youth, and so he crept
Back to old shadows beautiful and dim.
But at the call to arms his eyes were grim-

Dreams must be saved! So he, the dream-adept,
Seeing young Death afar where horror swept,
Leapt with a lover's trembling in each limb.
He sought her out he knew to be his maiden,
And cried to her he flamed for as his bride;

The thundering guns were viols for his suit, And iron shards his couch. The day was laden With scent of deadly blossoms, and he died. And now, wrapt with his maiden, he is mute. Haniel Long