THURSDAY, MAY 22, 1941.
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
PAGE FIVE
Voyage of the Six Songs
By ILSE NESBITT
1
(Editor's note: This is one of the three poems that tied for third prize in the Carruth Poetry Contest.)
When the sky removed her topaz,
In a melancholy place.
Vibrant dreams I sagely fashioned
Underneath the pines you loved.
Smiled and said you had not gone.
Foreign winds with sighing tales
Cut their masses on the poplars,
Shrieked with laughter or with pain,
Stung my eyes with sullen madness;
Grave inflections of your voice
Scattered in the noisy tumble.
Oh fields and moon,
Oh oil-smooth pool,
Whence comes the misty travel tune
Resounding in the vaulted sky?
The songs you left
Have stilled the trees.
At evening, underneath round
branches.
As green spikes turn to ebony,
As stars begin their whispering,
As solemn owls complain,
The echo of them thrills the river.
(Only murmur, only murmur
Says the river mournfully.)
River, river. I am ready.
I dwell beyond the mount-
tains.
You who left the prairie brushes,
You who sought the higher pines,
Swing, our molded portals outward!
I return with raging whirlwind,
Shout with fury of the storm.
Clean will sweep the rugged hillside
As I kneel before your grandeur,
Firm in my own music's voice!
From lyric webs of violins
The silky saisons are gently spun;
Arpeggio-ecstatic winds
Will strike the craft and make it
run.
Through dim reflections of the
flowers
Staccato-spattered on the banks.
On filmy agate surfaces
Adagio our bulging flanks.
And when a rapid melody Is laced among the trembling strings
In flying rhapsody we'll scud With hurtling speed of downy wings.
Blow, blow, sweet zephyrs; howl,
mistral!
from rocky pass and ruffled plain.
And as we move I cry my joy
To organ-shouts of hurricane.
II
The first day spent in happiness Of racing motion, gusts and sails, We glided by the gray-lace moss Which hung in streamers from the
trees:
The second day was fresh and clear,
And in the evening, when the waves
Slapped tiredly against our sides,
We steered into a little bay.
There liquid tongues spoke lazily
An unfamiliar dialect
To keep the voyagers amused. Adorned with fragrant locust sprays, Slim native maidens glanced and turned
To be observed, to be admired.
To smile at us and know us different
us and know
Sleek in the serpentine
shadows of
fire,
Rhythmically rocking to
rounds of a
choir,
Spiraling slow to a
soft foreign
flute,
Twists a grave
temptress so
tauntingly
mute.
Languid and
lofty the
lush southern
prize,
Golden the
grain of her
glistening
eyes.
Caught in the
chant of the
clamoring
beat,
Raptly I
rest as she
writhes at my feet.
Morning is master; he mutters and whips;
Fountains and phantoms and feathery lips,
Wafting and whirling in wavering night,
Hurry to hollows with hastening light.
Solemnly circling her sinuous hands
Drifts the tall dancer on dusk-blackened sands.
As morning touched the harp of stems
111
And shrilled the pipes of sprouting etalks
stalks,
A vertigo of skimming breasts
Swung high my head and filled the space
space
Of universe with rosininess,
And I ascended with the dew,
A water-clearness on my head,
A crystal shining in my eyes.
Smooth obligatos braided themes
Of vast warm hillsides, rose-
crowned vines.
crowned vines , Long, fuzzy mosses, sun-tipped
mouses, sun-upted throats.
Alive with eager breadlessness,
Delirium relaxed my hands
And sent my fingers fluttering
On turgid and resilient strings.
Mount the trees and
Fly to the clouds!
Here is spring who
Bursts her shrouds
And splits the skies
And sprinkles the fields
And cleaves the skies
And clutters the fields
With blue and gold and red,
Painting flowers
Violet,
Yellow, scarlet, and cream,
Bursting leaf-buds
Into tassels,
Laughing into the stream.
Away!
Valley breezes
Ply the grass,
Elms bend low
Beneath the mass
Of swallows sleek
Of chattering cocks
Of sparrows slim
Of gossipping cocks
Who strut and swell and bob,
Robbing orchards
Gleefully,
Swaggering on white rails,
Chirping rounds of
Azure seasons,
Preening their spotted tails.
Up!
To the sky on
Pressing wings
Riding horses
(Airy kings)
Who snort at the sun
Who champ in the clouds
Who tosst tangled manes
Who paw in the clouds
And neigh and prance and shy,
Muscles rippling skilfully,
Up to the heavens,
Arching on high,
Graceful in motion,
Topping the sky,
Sculptured of strong and
Delicate line,
Perfect of form and
Heady as wine,
These are our feathered
Fleeceings of cloud,
Trotting on daylight,
Arrogant, proud.
These are our horses
Lithe as tall reeds,
Sensitive horses,
Velvet steeds.
Loving and sunlight, loving
the sun,
This be the clarion for playing
and fun,
This be our cry
Splitting the sky,
Leaping and gay in the sun.
IV
Visions of the past, the fourth day,
Scored the filmy, pliant waters.
Solem steps of sorrowful or
Joyous reminiscences
Trod in rhythm on the shore,
Paced in steady speed with us.
Since I left your guardian window,
Strayed from hills and tapered pines.
Temple dusts have felt my footsteps,
Waters trembled; rangy vines
Forfeited their tender spoilings,
Coated presses with their wines.
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Beckoned by a stalwart maiden Decked with vision's fateful bands I have stretched and talked and listened.
listened,
Played with sun-encrusted sands,
Heeded thrilling words and symbols,
Watched the wisdom of pale hands.
Joyfully I danced and wandered
By her throbbing, crystal spring,
For I knew she, too, would love you
And accept as offering
Ardent chants you heard and
taught me.
Well you taught me how to sing!
Plato knew the restful pillars,
Still, serene, and smoothly jointed;
I am lonely for your columns
Stiffly green and nobby pointed.
Far too well I know the freshness
Of a mountain, spring-anointed.
V
The small boat labored on, resigned And leisurely. My sharp unrest Coaxed, urged it forward heavily. Inpatient currents sucked and clung With lips of ghostly yellow foam,
And birds in mourning-black and
gray
Soared, wailing ominously; on
The shore great creeping fronds
Embraced the trees, and in a ring
Around the thicket, formed a screen
Of prison bars. Deserted fields
With rustling implements, lay dark,
And, thick with grisly, shadowed
sheltered yard gleamed chalkily
Shaped with clay marshes'
Colorless paste,
Whitened by moonlight,
Scattered in haste.
Spectral and rigid,
Planted with dread
Blossom stiff flowers in
Fields of the dead.
Can we dispel the
Curse of black arts
Chiming soft words that
Silver our hearts?
Dice of the ghost wind
Numbered in red
Rattle in hopeless
Fields of the dead.
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