Legends

         I

A MAN builded a bugle for the storms to blow.

The focused winds hurled him afar.

He said that the instrument was a failure.

         II

When the suicide arrived at the sky, the people there asked him: "Why?"

He replied: "Because no one admired me."

         III

A man said: "Thou tree!"

The tree answered with the same scorn: "Thou man!

Thou art greater than I only in thy possibilities."

         IV

A warrior stood upon a peak and defied the stars.

A little magpie, happening there, desired the soldier's plume, and so plucked it.

         V

The wind that waves the blossoms sang, sang, sang from age to age.

The flowers were made curious by this joy.

"Oh, wind," they said, "why sing you at your labour, while we, pink beneficiaries, sing not, but idle, idle, idle from age to age?"

         VI

Stephen Crane

Voices

EACH small gleam was a voice

-A lantern voice-

In little songs of carmine, violet, green, gold.

A chorus of colors came over the water;

The wondrous leaf-shadow no longer wavered,

No pines crooned on the hills

The blue night was elsewhere a silence

When the chorus of colors came over the water,

Little songs of carmine, violet, green, gold.

Small glowing pebbles

Thrown on the dark plane of evening

Sing good ballads of God

And eternity, with soul's rest.

Little priests, little holy fathers

None can doubt the truth of your hymning

When the marvelous chorus comes over the water

Songs of carmine, violet, green, gold.

Stephen Crane

Little Birds of the Night

LITTLE birds of the night

Aye, they have much to tell

Perching there in rows

Blinking at me with their serious eyes

Recounting of flowers they have seen and loved

Of meadows and groves of the distance

And pale sands at the foot of the sea

And breezes that fly in the leaves.

They are vast in experience

These little birds that come in the night

Stephen Crane

Intrigue

THOU art my love

And thou art the peace of sundown

When the blue shadows soothe

And the grasses and the leaves sleep

To the song of the little brooks

Woe is me.

Thou art my love,

And thou art a storm

That breaks black in the sky

And, sweeping headlong,

Drenches and cowers each tree

And at the panting end

There is no sound

Save the melancholy cry of a single owl

Woe is me!

Thou art my love

And thou art a tinsel thing

And I in my play

Broke thee easily

And from the little fragments

Arose my long sorrow

Woe is me.

Thou art my love

And thou art a weary violet

Drooping from sun-carresses.

Answering mine carelessly

Woe is me.

Thou art my love

And thou art the ashes of other men's love

And I bury my face in these ashes

And I love them

Woe is me.

Thou art my love

And thou art the beard

On another man's face

Woe is me.

Thou art my love

And thou art a temple

And in this temple is an altar

And on this altar is my heart

Woe is me.

Thou art my love

And thou art a wretch.

Let these sacred love-lies choke thee

For I am come to where I know your lies as truth

And your truth as lies

Woe is me.

Thou art my love

And thou art a priestess

And in thy hand is a bloody dagger

And my doom comes to me surely

Woe is me.

Thou art my love

And thou art a skull with ruby eyes

And I love thee

Woe is me.

Thou art my love

And I doubt thee

And if peace came with my murder

Then would I murder

Woe is me.

Thou art my love

And thou art death

Aye, thou art death

Black and yet black

But I love thee

I love thee

Woe, welcome woe, to me.

Stephen Crane

The way your little finger moved

AH, God, the way your little finger moved

As you thrust a bare arm backward

And made play with your hair

And a comb a silly gilt comb

Ah, God--that I should suffer

Because of the way a little finger moved.

Stephen Crane

Tell me why

TELL me why, behind thee,

I see always the shadow of another lover?

Is it real

Or is this the thrice-damned memory of a better happiness?

Plague on him if he be dead

Plague on him if he be alive

A swinish numbskull

To intrude his shade

Always between me and my peace.

Stephen Crane

I heard thee laugh

I HEARD thee laugh,

And in this merriment

I defined the measure of my pain;

I knew that I was alone,

Alone with love,

Poor shivering love,

And he, little sprite,

Came to watch with me,

And at midnight

We were like two creatures by a dead camp-fire.

Stephen Crane

Unwind my riddle

UNWIND my riddle.

Cruel as hawks the hours fly;

Wounded men seldom come home to die;

The hard waves see an arm flung high;

Scorn hits strong because of a lie;

Yet there exists a mystic tie.

Unwind my riddle.

Stephen Crane

Index to poems in the collection by Stephen Crane