DEAD AVIATOR

FOR A. H.

It was a sea uncharted that you sailed,
Oh, Mariner, borne by your winged barque
Beyond far ports, where winds sirens wailed,
Past the flight of the lark.

It was a field of sunlight and of air,

Oh, rider, that your magic steed roamed over,-
Where clouds were left like dust along the glare,
And the stars were like clover.

It was a land of nothingness and space,
Where, Conquerer, you entered and unfurled
An earthly ensign in a pathless place
Beyond the certain world.

It was a stairway that the foot of Man

Had never through the ages long ascended

But toward the sun, oh, Child, you laughed and ran,
Until your playtime ended.

It was a tryst you went unto, oh, Lover!

With Death, your Bride,-who prays you fare no more
From her small house

and gives you grass for cover

O Icarus, incarnate soul of flight,

Insatiate of swiftness and of height,

Fit comrade of the lark whose heart of fire
Springs up ecstatic in a wild desire

To quench the sun with song! To thee the sky

Was home, the winds that laugh so sweet on high

Gave eager welcome to thy kindred soul

And thou, as Heaven itself had been thy goal,
Up, up, and up in joyous fearlessness

Wast wont to circle. Who can ever guess

What blithe companionship with voiceless space
Was thine in that free solitary race-

What jocund converse with the sun by day
And with the stars upon the milky way

When thou wouldst seek for stardust at its source
And fragrant night was cold about thy course?
Flying itself was very life to thee,

So dear that nothing but eternity

Could tempt thee from it. Now thy flight is o'er.
The summer sky shall never see thee more
After that day when from a cloudy rift
Thou divedst down to soar again more swift
Than ever man has flown, in Heaven's light
To satiate thy soul with perfect height,
O Icarus-thou disembodied flight!

ALFRED RAYMOND BELLINGER.

From "Spires and Poplars," Yale University Press, by kind permission of the Author and the Publishers.

A TOAST TO POETS

To you alone our shivering souls confess,
Since you the inexpressible express.

Magi! whose wizardries

Shake star-dust in our eyes

For all Life's hurts and hazards ye have lent

Ointment and alabaster. Rest content!

LAURA SIMMONS.

From Harper's Magazine, March, 1924.

I HAVE A RENDEZVOUS WITH LIFE

I have a rendezvous with Life

In days I hope will come

Ere youth has sped and strength of mind,
Ere voices sweet grow dumb;

I have a rendezvous with Life
When Spring's first heralds hum.

It may be I shall greet her soon,
Shall riot at her behest,

It may be I shall seek in vain
The peace of her downy breast.
Yet I would keep this rendezvous,
And deem all hardships sweet,

If at the end of the long white road
There Life and I shall meet.

Sure, some will cry it better far
To crown their days in sleep,

Than face the wind, the road, and rain,

To heed the calling deep.

Though wet, nor blow, nor space I fear,

Yet fear I deeply, too,

Lest Death shall greet and claim me ere

I keep Life's rendezvous.

COUNTEE P. CULLEN.

This poem won the award of the Federated Women's Clubs and the Witten Bynner Prize for under-graduate poetry.

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GENESIS

Out of the silence song;
Out of the bud, a rose;
Out of the rose, the scent

The wood-wind blows.

Out of the years a faith;

Out of life's travail truth;

Out of the heart, the charm

Of ageless youth.

ARTHUR WALLACE PEACH.

From The Independent, 1912.