Dedication for a Fireplace

THIS hearth was built for thy delight,

For thee the logs were sawn,

For thee the largest chair, at night,

Is to the chimney drawn.

For thee, dear lass, the match was lit

To yield the ruddy blaze--

May Jack Frost give us joy of it

For many, many days.

Christopher Morley

Taking Title

TO make this little house my very own

Could not be done by law alone.

Though covenant and deed convey

Absolute fee, as lawyers say,

There are domestic rites beside

By which this house is sanctified.

By kindled fire upon the hearth,

By planted pansies in the garth,

By food, and by the quiet rest

Of those brown eyes that I love best,

And by a friends bright gift of wine,

I dedicate this house of mine.

When all but I are soft abed

I trail about my quiet stead

A wreath of blue tobacco smoke

(A charm that evil never broke)

And bring my ritual to an end

By giving shelter to a friend.

This done, O dwelling, you become

Not just a house, but truly Home!

Christopher Morley

The Secret

IT was the House of Quietness

To which I came at dusk;

The garth was lit with roses

And heavy with their musk.

The tremulous tall poplar trees

Stood whispering around,

The gentle flicker of their plumes

More quiet than no sound.

And as I wondered at the door

What magic might be there,

The Lady of Sweet Silences

Came softly down the stair.

Christopher Morley

Six Weeks Old

HE is so small he does not know

The summer sun, the winter snow;

The spring that ebbs and comes again,

All this is far beyond his ken.

A little world he feels and sees:

His mother's arms, his mother's knees;

He hides his face against her breast,

And does not care to learn the rest.

Christopher Morley

Reading Aloud

ONCE we read Tennyson aloud

In our great fireside chair;

Between the lines my lips could touch

Her April-scented hair.

How very fond I was, to think

The printed poems fair,

When close within my arms I held

A living lyric there!

Christopher Morley

Only a Matter of Time

DOWN-SLIPPING Time, sweet, swift, and shallow stream,

Here, like a boulder, lies this afternoon

Across your eager flow. So you shall stay,

Deepened and dammed, to let me breathe and be.

Your troubled fluency, your running gleam

Shall pause, and circle idly, still and clear:

The while I lie and search your glassy pool

Where, gently coiling in their lazy round,

Unseparable minutes drift and swim,

Eddy and rise and brim. And I will see

How many crystal bubbles of slack Time

The mind can hold and cherish in one Now!

Now, for one concious vacancy of sense,

The stream is gathered in a depening pond,

Not a mere moving mirror. Through the sharp

Correct reflection of the standing scene

The mind can dip, and cleanse itself with rest,

And see, slow spinning in the lucid gold,

Your liquid notes, imperishable Time.

It cannot be. The runnel slips away:

The clear smooth downward sluice begins again,

More brightly slanting for that trembling pause,

Leaving the sense its conscious vague unease

As when a sonnet flashes on the mind,

Trembles and burns an instant, and is gone.

Christopher Morley

At the Mermaid Caffeteria

TRUTH is enough for prose:

Calmly it goes

To tell just what it knows.

For verse, skill will suffice--

Delicate, nice

Casting of verbal dice.

Poetry, men attain

By subtler pain

More flagrant in the brain--

An honesty unfeigned,

A heart unchained,

A madness well restrained.

Christopher Morley

Our House

IT should be yours, if I could build

The quaint old dwelling I desire,

With books and pictures bravely filled

And chairs beside an open fire,

White-panelled rooms with candles lit--

I lie awake to think of it!

A dial for the sunny hours,

A garden of old-fashioned flowers--

Say marigolds and lavender

And mignonette and fever-few,

And Judas-tree and maidenhair

And candytuft and thyme and rue--

All these for you to wander in.

A Chinese carp (called Mandarin)

Waving a sluggish silver fin

Deep in the moat: so tame he comes

To lip your fingers offering crumbs.

Tall chimneys, like long listening ears,

White shutters, ivy green and thick,

And walls of ruddy Tudor brick

Grown mellow with the passing years.

And windows with small leaded panes,

Broad window-seats for when it rains;

A big blue bowl of pot pourri

And--yes, a Spanish chestnut tree

To coin the autumn's minted gold.

A summer house for drinking tea--

All these (just think!) for you and me.

A staircase of the old black wood

Cut in the days of Robin Hood,

And banisters worn smooth as glass

Down which your hand will lightly pass;

A piano with pale yellow keys

For wistful twilight melodies,

And dusty bottles in a bin--

All these for you to revel in!

But when? Ah well, until that time

We'll habit in this house of rhyme.

1912

Christopher Morley

On Naming a House

WHEN I a householder became

I had to give my house a name.

I thought I'd call it "Poplar Trees,"

Or "Widdershins" or "Velvet Bees,"

Or "Just Beneath a Star."

Or "As You Like It," "If You Please,"

Or "Nicotine" or "Bread and Cheese,"

"Full Moon" or "Doors Ajar."

But still I sought some subtle charm,

Some rune to guard my roof from harm

And keep the devil far;

A thought of this, and I was saved!

I had my letter-heads engraved

The House Where Brown Eyes Are.

Christopher Morley

The Milkman

EARLY in the morning, when the dawn is on the roofs,

You hear his wheels come rolling, you hear his horses hoofs;

You hear the bottles clinking, and then he drives away:

You yawn in bed, turn over, and begin another day!

The old-time dairy maids are dear to every poet's heart--

I'd rather be the dairy man and drive a little cart,

And bustle round the village in the early morning blue,

And hang my reigns upon a hook, as I've seen Casey do.

Christopher Morley

The Old Swimmer

I OFTEN wander on the beach

Where once, so brown of limb,

The biting air, the roaring surf

Summoned me to swim.

I see my old abundant youth

Whee combers lean and spill,

And though I taste the foam no more

Other swimmers will.

Oh, good exultant strength to meet

The arching wall of green,

To break the crystal, swirl, emerge

Dripping, taut, and clean.

To climb the moving hilly blue,

To dive in ecstasy

And feel the salty chill embrace

Arm and rib and knee.

What brave and vanished laughter then

And tingling thighs to run,

What warm and comfortable sands

Dreaming in the sun.

The crumbling water spreads in snow,

The surf is hissing still,

And though I kiss the salt no more,

Other swimmers will.

Christopher Morley

Washing the Dishes

WHEN we on simple rations sup

How easy is the washing up!

But heavy feeding complicates

The task by soiling many plates.

And though I grant that I have prayed

That we might find a serving-maid,

I'd scullion all my days I think,

To see Her smile across the sink!

I wash, she wipes. In water hot

I souse each pan and dish and pot;

While taffy mutters, purrs, and begs,

And rubs himself against my legs.



The man who never in his life

Has washed the dishes with his wife

Or polished up the silver plate--

He still is largely celibate.

One warning: there is certain ware

That must be handled with all care:

The Lord Himself will give you up

If you should drop a willow cup!

Christopher Morley

The Church of Unbent Knees

AS I went by the church to-day

I heard the organ cry;

And goodly folk were on their knees,

But I went striding by.

My minister hath a roof more vast:

My aisles are oak-trees high;

My altar-cloth is on the hills,

My organ is the sky.

I see my rood upon the clouds,

The winds, my chanted choir;

My crystal windows, heaven-glazed,

Are stained with sunset fire.

The stars, the thunder, and the rain,

White sands and purple seas--

These are His pulpit and His pew,

My God of Unbent Knees!

Christopher Morley

Elegy Written in a Country Coal-Bin

THE furnace tolls the knell of falling steam,

The coal supply is virtually done,

And at this price, indeed it does not seem

As though we could afford another ton.

Now fades the glossy, cherished anthracite;

The radiators lose their temperature:

How ill avail, on such a frosty night,

The "short and simple flannels of the poor."

Though in the icebox, fresh and newly laid,

The rude forefathers of the omlet sleep,

No eggs for breakfast till the bill is paid:

We cannot cook again till coal is cheap.

Can Morris-chair or papier-mâché bust

Revivify the falling pressure-gage?

Chop up the grand piano if you must,

And burn the East Aurora parrot cage!

Full many a can of purest kerosene

The dark unfathomed tanks of Standard Oil

Shall furnish me, and with their aid I mean

To bring my morning coffee to a boil.

Christopher Morley

Smells

WHY is it that the poet tells

So little of the sense of smell?

These are the odors I love well:

The smell of coffee freshly ground;

Or rich plum pudding, holly crowned;

Or onions fried and deeply browned.

The fragrance of a fumy pipe;

The smell of apples, newly ripe;

And printer's ink on leaden type.

Woods by moonlight in September

Breathe most sweet, and I remember

Many a smoky camp-fire ember.

Camphor, turpentine, and tea,

The balsam of a Christmas tree,

These are whiffs of gramarye. . .

A ship smells best of all to me!

Christopher Morley

The Poet

THE barren music of a word or phrase,

The futile arts of syllable and stress,

He sought. The poetry of common days

He did not guess.

The simplest, sweetest rhythms life affords--

Unselfish love, true effort truly done,

The tender themes that underlie all words--

He knew not one.



The human cadence and the subtle chime

Of little laughters, home and child and wife,

He knew not. Artist merely in his rhyme,

Not in his life.

Christopher Morley

To A Child

THE greatest poem ever known

Is one all poets have outgrown:

The poetry, innate, untold,

Of being only four years old.

Still young enough to be a part

Of Nature's great impulsive heart,

Born comrade of bird, beast, and tree

And unselfconscious as the bee--

And yet with lovely reason skilled

Each day new paradise to build;

Elate explorer of each sense,

Without dismay, without pretense!

In your unstained transparent eyes

There is no conscience, no surprise:

Life's queer conundrums you accept,

Your strange divinity still kept.

Being, that now absorbs you, all

Harmonious, unit, integral,

Will shred into perplexing bits,--

Oh, contradictions of the wits!

And Life, that sets all things in rhyme,

may make you poet, too, in time--

But there were days, O tender elf,

When you were Poetry itself!

Christopher Morley

Burning Leaves in Spring

WHEN withered leaves are lost in flame

Their eddying gosts, a thin blue haze,

Blow through the thickets whence they came

On amberlucent autumn days.

The cool green woodland heart receives

Their dim, dissolving, phantom breath;

In young hereditaty leaves

They see their happy life-in-death.

My minutes perish as they glow--

Time burns my crazy bonfire through;

But ghosts of blackened hours still blow,

Eternal Beauty, back to you!

Christopher Morley

Burning Leaves, November

THESE are the folios of April,

All the library of spring,

Missals gilt and rubricated

With the frost's illumining.

Ruthless, we destroy these treasures,

Set the torch with hand profane--

Gone, like Alexandrian vellums,

Like the books of burnt Louvain!

Yet these classics are immortal:

O collectors, have no fear,

For the publisher will issue

New editions every year.

Christopher Morley

Two O'Clock

Night after night goes by: and clocks still chime

And stars are changing pattrns in the dark

And watches tick, and over-puissant Time

Benumbs the eager brain. The dogs that bark,

The trains that roar and rattle in the night,

The very cats that prowl, all quiet find

And leave the darkness empty, silent quite:

Sleep comes to chloroform the fretting mind.

So all things end: and what is left at last?

Some scribbled sonnets tossed upon the floor,

A memory of easy days gone past,

A run-down watch, a pipe, some clothes we wore--

And in the darkened room I lean to know

How her dreamless breath doth pause and flow.

Christopher Morley

The Commercial Traveler

AH very sweet! If news should come to you

Some afternoon while waiting for our eve,

That the great Manager had made me leave

To travel on some territory new;

And that, whatever homeward winds there blew,

I could not touch your hand again, nor heave

The logs upon our hearth and bid you weave

Some wistful tale before the flames that grew. . .

Then, when the sudden tears had ceased to blind

Your pansied eyes, I wonder if you could

Remember rightly, and forget aright?

Remember just your lad, uncouthly good,

Forgetting what he failed in spleen or spite?

Could you remember him as always kind?

Christopher Morley

The Wedded Lover

I READ in our old journals of the days

When our first love was April-sweet and new,

How fair it blossomed and deep-rooted grew

Despite the adverse time; and our amaze

At moon and stars and beauty beyond praise

That burgeoned all about us: gold and blue

The heaven arched us in, and all we knew

Was gentleness. We walked on happy ways.

They said by now the path would be more steep,

the sunsets paler and less mild the air;

Rightly we heeded not; it was not true.

We will not tell the secret--let it keep.

I know not how I thought those days so fair

These being so much fairer, spent with you.

Christopher Morley

To You, Remembering the Past

WHEN we were parted, sweet, and darkness came,

I used to strike a match, and hold the flame

Before your picture and rould breathless mark

The answering glimmer of the tiny spark

That brought to life the magic of your eyes,

Their wistful tenderness, their glad surprise.

Holding that mimic torch before your shrine

I used to light your eyes and make them mine;

Watch them like stars set in a lonely sky,

Whisper my heart out, yearning for reply;

Summon your lips from far across the sea

Bidding them live a twilight hour with me.

Then, when the match was shriveller into gloom,

Lo--you were with me in the darkened room.

Christopher Morley

Caught in the Undertow

COLIN, worshipping some frail,

By self-deception sways her:

Calls himself unworthy male,

Hardly even fit to praise her.

But this tactic insincere

In the upshot greatly grieves him

When he finds the lovely dear

Quite implicitly believes him.

Christopher Morley

The Intruder

AS I sat, to sift my dreaming

To the meet and needed word,

Came a merry Interruption

With insistence to be heard.

Smiling stood a maid beside me,

Half alluring and half shy;

Soft the white hint of her bosom--

Escapade was in her eye.

"I must not be so invaded,"

(IN anger then I cried)--

"Can't you see that I am busy?

Tempting creature, stay outside!

"Pearly rascal, I am writing:

I am now composing verse--

Fie on antic invitation:

Wanton, vanish--fly--disperse!

"Baggage, in my godlike moment

What have I to do with thee?"

And she laughed as she departed--

"I am Poetry," said she.

Christopher Morley

Tit for Tat

I OFTEN pass a gracious tree

Whose name I can't identify,

But still I bow, in courtesy

It waves a bough, in kind reply.

I do not know your name, O tree

(Are you a hemlock or a pine?)

But why should that embarrass me?

Quite probably you don't know mine.

Christopher Morley

Song for a Little House

I'M glad our house is a little house,

Not too tall nor too wide:

I'm glad the hovering butterflies

Feel free to come inside.

Our little house is a friendly house.

It is not shy or vain;

It gossips with the talking trees,

And makes friends with the rain.

And quick leaves cast a shimmer of green

Against our whited walls,

And in the phlox, the dutious bees

Are paying duty calls.

Christopher Morley

The Music Box

AT six--long ere the wintry dawn--

There sounded through the silent hall

To where I lay, with blankets drawn

Above my ears, a plaintive call.

The Urchin, in the eagerness

Of three years old, could not refrain;

Awake, he straightway yearned to dress

And frolic with his clockwork train.

I heard him with a sullen shock.

His sister, by her usual plan,

Had piped us aft at 3 o'clock--

I vowed to quench the little man.

I leaned above him, somewhat stern,

And spoke, I fear, with emphasis--

Ah, how much better, parents learn,

To seal one's sensure with a kiss!

Again the house was dark and still,

Again I lay in slumber's snare,

When down the hall I heard a trill,

A tiny, tinkling, tuneful air--

His music-box! His best-loved toy,

His crib companion every night;

And now he turned to it for joy

While waiting for the lagging light.

How clear, and how absurdly sad

Those tingling pricks of sound unrolled;

They chirped and quavered, as the lad

His lonely little heart consoled.

Columbia, the Ocean's Gem--

(Its only tune) shrilled sweet and faint.

He cranked the chimes, admiring them,

In vigil gay, without complaint.



The treble music piped and stirred,

The leaping air that was his bliss;

And, as I most contritely heard,

I thanked the all-unconscious Swiss!

The needled jets of melody

Rang slowlier and died away--

The Urchin slept; and it was I

Who lay and waited for the day.

Christopher Morley