| |
| SANDY STAR and Willie Gee, | |
| Count ’em two, you make ’em three: | |
| Pluck the man and boy apart | |
| And you’ll see into my heart. | |
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SANDY STAR
I
Sculptured Worship
The zones of warmth around his heart, | 5 |
| No alien airs had crossed; | |
| But he awoke one morn to feel | |
| The magic numbness of autumnal frost. | |
| |
| His thoughts were a loose skein of threads, | |
| And tangled emotions, vague and dim; | 10 |
| And sacrificing what he loved | |
| He lost the dearest part of him. | |
| |
| In sculptured worship now he lives, | |
| His one desire a prisoned ache; | |
| If he can never melt again | 15 |
| His very heart will break. | |
| |
II
Laughing It Out
He had a whim and laughed it out | |
| Upon the exit of a chance; | |
| He floundered in a sea of doubt— | |
| If life was real—or just romance. | 20 |
| |
| Sometimes upon his brow would come | |
| A little pucker of defiance; | |
| He totalled in a word the sum | |
| Of all man made of facts and science. | |
| |
| And then a hearty laugh would break, | 25 |
| A reassuring shrug of shoulder; | |
| And we would from his fancy take | |
| A faith in death which made life bolder. | |
| |
III
Exit
No, his exit by the gate | |
| Will not leave the wind ajar; | 30 |
| He will go when it is late | |
| With a misty star. | |
| |
| One will call, he cannot see; | |
| One will call, he will not hear; | |
| He will take no company | 35 |
| Nor a hope or fear. | |
| |
| We shall smile who loved him so— | |
| They who gave him hate will weep; | |
| But for us the winds will blow | |
| Pulsing through his sleep. | 40 |
| |
IV
The Way
He could not tell the way he came, | |
| Because his chart was lost | |
| Yet all his way was paved with flame | |
| From the bourne he crossed. | |
| |
| He did not know the way to go, | 45 |
| Because he had no map | |
| He followed where the winds blow,— | |
| And the April sap. | |
| |
| He never knew upon his brow | |
| The secret that he bore,— | 50 |
| And laughs away the mystery now | |
| The dark’s at his door. | |
| |
V
Onus Probandi
No more from out the sunset, | |
| No more across the foam, | |
| No more across the windy hills | 55 |
| Will Sandy Star come home. | |
| |
| He went away to search it | |
| With a curse upon his tongue: | |
| And in his hand the staff of life, | |
| Made music as it swung. | 60 |
| |
| I wonder if he found it, | |
| And knows the mystery now— | |
| Our Sandy Star who went away, | |
| With the secret on his brow. | |
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