Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

Cave Talk

Joseph Warren Beach

WHAT are you doing there by the shore?

—I’m pushing out my boat.

I mean to follow the sun across

To islands far remote.

It may be I shall find a land

Where fruits and spices grow;

Fairer women, stronger men,

And mountains topped with snow.

—Nay, go not forth across the wave,

Where ghosts and monsters be.

What fairer folk can heart desire

Than my sweet cubs and me?

And who shall bring us fish and flesh

When you are gone away?

Come, spread the net and string the bow—

But fare not far astray!

What are you scratching there on the rock?

—I’m carving pictures here—

Feathered bird and otter furred,

To bide for many a year.

When a thousand moons have waxed and waned

And I am dust and smoke,

Men shall behold my handiwork

And praise the master-stroke.

—O sluggard, leave your idle ways—

Behold our bitter dearth!

We shiver in the frosty wind

And couch upon the earth.

Go, strip the otter and her cubs

For coats and kirtles fine,

And pluck the feathered bird to strew

A bed for me and mine.

What are you doing out in the dark?

—I count the stars in the sky,

And wonder if they are the souls

Of such as you and I;

And if the bear and the lean gray wolf

Have souls like yours and mine,

That go to feed the milky way

Or make the great stars shine.

—O dreamer, what are the stars to you

And the souls of wolf and bear?

The gray wolf prowls about the rock

And sniffs upon the air;

His eyes are shining in the dark

Like stars above the sea!

Build high the fire before the cave

To guard my cubs and me.

What do you see that stare so hard?

—A face all smooth and white,

And breasts and shoulders smooth and round

And soft in the flickering light.

I muse how wondrous women are

And how unlike to men …

I saw white arms in the sea at dawn …

Long since … and never again …

—You love me not, O stranger man,

Who talk of women and men,

Of white arms in the sea at dawn …

You love me never again!

You sit and dream the while I wait—

And the little ones all asleep …

Oh, if you love me a little, man,

Kiss me … or I shall weep!