Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

The Flower of Flame

Robert Nichols

FOAMLESS the gradual waters well

From the sheer deep where darkness lies,

Till to the shoulder rock they swell

With a slow cumulance of sighs.

O waters, gather up your strength

From the blind caves of your unrest;

Loose your load utterly at length

Over the moonlight-marbled breast.

There sleep, diffused, the long dim hours—

Nor let your love-locks be withdrawn

Till round the world-horizon flowers

The harsh inevitable dawn.

We watched together

The sun-shaft pierce

The smoking weather;

The hail-blasts fierce

One moment illume

That waste so cold—

Irised sheets of spume,

Wild welter of gold!

The gaunt gulls flying

Were backward tossed,

Their cruel crying

In uproar lost.

She flung aside

Her fettering cloak,

Made of her wide

Strong arms a yoke;

Calling, “Haste, lover,

Outstrip the hours—

It soon will be over,

This love of ours!”

Drove on my face

Kisses like cries,

Gazed as to trace

Light in blind eyes;

Broke with strange laughter

Headlong away,

Before nor after

Ever so gay!

All is estranged today,

Chastened and meek.

Side by side taking our way,

With what anguish we seek

To dare each to face the other or even to speak!

The sun, like an opal, drifts

Through a vaporous shine;

Or overwhelms itself in dark rifts

On the sea’s far line.

Sheer light falls in a single sword like a sign.

The sea, striving in its bed

Like a corpse that awakes,

Slowly heaves up its lustreless head.

Crowned with weeds and snakes,

To strike at the shore, baring fangs as it breaks.

Something threatening earth

Aims at our love.

Gone is our ignorant mirth,

Love like speech of the dove.

The Sword and the Snake have seen and proclaim now, “Enough!”

The moon behind high tranquil leaves

Hides her sad head;

The dwindled water tinkles and grieves

In the stream’s black bed.

And where now, where are you sleeping?

The shadowy night-jar, hawking gnats,

Flickers or floats;

High in still air the flurrying bats

Repeat their wee notes.

And where now, where are you sleeping?

Silent lightning flutters in heaven,

Where quiet crowd,

By the toil of an upper whirlwind driven,

Dark legions of cloud.

In whose arms now are you sleeping?

The cloud makes, lidding the sky’s wan hole,

The world a tomb;

Far out at sea long thunders roll

From gloom to dim gloom:

In whose arms now are you sleeping?

Rent clouds, like boughs in darkness, hang

Close overhead;

The foreland’s bell-buoy begins to clang

As if for the dead:

Awake they where you are sleeping?

The chasms crack; the heavens revolt;

With tearing sound

Bright bolt volleys on flaring bolt;

Wave and cloud clash; through deep, through vault,

Huge thunders rebound!

But they wake not where you are sleeping.