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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
PASSAGES FROM A POEM: THE NEW WORLD, by WITTER BYNNER Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Celia was laughing. Hopefully I said Last Line: Will hear with me your voice and what it said! Alternate Author Name(s): Morgan, Emanuel | |||
I Celia was laughing. Hopefully I said: "How shall this beauty that we share, This love, remain aware Beyond our happy breathing of the air? How shall it be fulfilled and perfected? If you were dead How then should I be comforted?" But Celia knew instead: "He who takes comfort here, shall find it there." A halo gathered round her hair. I looked and saw her wisdom bare The living bosom of the countless dead . . . . . . And there I laid my head. Again, when Celia laughed, I doubted her and said: "Life must be led In many ways more difficult to see Than this immediate way For you and me. We stand together on our lake's edge, and the mystery Of love has made us one, as day is made of night and night of day. Aware of one identity Within each other, we can say: 'I shall be everything you are,' . . . We are uplifted till we touch a star. We know that overhead Is nothing more austere, more starry, or more deep to understand Than is our union, human hand in hand. . . . But over our lake come strangers -- a crowded launch, a lonely sailing boy. A mile away a train bends by. In every car Strangers are travelling, each with particular And unkind preference like ours, with privacy Of understanding, with especial joy Like ours. Celia, Celia, why should there be Distrust between ourselves and them, disunity? . . . How careful we have been To trim this little circle that we tread, To set a bar To strangers and forbid them! Are they not as we, Our very likeness and our nearest kin? How can we shut them out and let stars in?" She looked along the lake. And when I heard her speak, The sun fell on the boy's white sail and her white cheek. "I touch them all through you," she said. "I cannot know them now Deeply and truly as my very own, except through you, Except through one or two Interpreters. But not a moment stirs Here between us, binding and interweaving us, That does not bind these others to our care." The sunlight fell in glory on her hair . . . And then said Celia, radiant, when I held her near: "They who find beauty who there, shall find it here." And on her brow, When I heard Celia speak, Cities were populous With peace and oceans echoed glories in her ear And from her risen thought Her lips had brought, As from some peak Down through the clouds, a mountain-air To guide the lonely and uplift the weak. "Record it all," she told me, "more than merely this, More than the shine of sunset on our heads, more than a kiss, More than our rapt agreement and delight Watching the mountain mingle with the night. . . . Tell that the love of the two incurs The love of multitudes, makes way And welcome for them, as a solitary star Brings on the great array. Go make a lovers' calendar," She said, "for every day." And when the sun had put away His dazzle, over the shadowy firs The solitary star came out. . . . So on some night To eyes of youth shall come my light And hers. II "A stranger might be God," the Hindus cry. But Celia says, importunate: "The stranger must be God, and you and I." III Once in a smoking-car I saw a scene That made my blood stand still. . . . While the sun smouldered in a great ravine, And I, with elbow on the window-sill, Was watching the dim ember of the west, Half-heard, but poignant as a bell For fire, there came a moan; the voice of one in hell. I turned. Across the car were two young men, Yet hardly more than boys, French by their look, and brothers, And one was moaning on the other's breast. His face was hid away. I could not tell What words he said, half English and half French. I only knew Both men were suffering, not one but two. And then that face came into view, Gaunt and unshaved, with shadows and wild eyes, A face of madness and of desolation. And his cries, For all his mate could do, Rang out, a shrill and savage noise, And tears ran down the stubble of his cheek. The other face was younger, clean and sad. With the manful, stricken beauty of a lad Who had intended always to be glad. . . . The touch of his compassion, like a mother's, Pitied the madman, soothed him and caressed. And then I heard him speak: In a low voice: "MON FRERE, MON FRERE! CALME-TOI! Right here's your place." And, opening his coat, he pressed Upon his heart the wanderer's face And smoothed the tangled hair. After a moment peaceful there The maniac screamed -- struck out and fell Across his brother's arm. Love could not quell His anger. Wrists together high in air He rose and with a yell Brought down his handcuffs toward his brother's face -- But his hands were pinned below his waist, By a burly, silent sheriff, and some hideous thing was bound, Around his arms and feet And he was laid upon the narrow seat. And then that sound, That moan Of one forsaken and alone! "Seigneur! le createur du ciel et de la terre! Forgotten me, forgotten me!" And when the voice grew weak The brother leaned again, embraced The huddled body. But a shriek Repulsed him: "Non! Detache-moi! I don't care For you. Non! Tu es l'homme qui m'a trahi! Non! Tu n'es pas mon frere." But as often as that stricken mind would fill With the great anguish and the rush of hate, The boy, his young eyes older, older, Would curve his shoulder To the other's pain and hold that haunted face close to his face And say: "Oh, wait! You will know me better by and by. Mon pauvre petit, be still -- Right here's your place." The seeing gleam, the blinded stare, The cry: "Non, tu n'es pas mon frere!" I saw myself, myself as blind As he. For something smothers My reason. And I do not know my brothers . . . But every day declare: "Non, tu n'es pas mon frere!" IV I know a fellow in a steel-mill who, intent Upon his labors and his happiness, had meant In his own wisdom to be blest, Had made his own unaided way To schooling, opportunity, Success. And then he loved and married. And his bride, After a brief year, died. I went to him to see If I might comfort him. The comfort came to me. "David," I said, "under the temporary ache There is unwonted nearness with the dead." I felt his two hands take The sentence from me with a grip Forged in the mills. He told me that his tears were shed Before her breath went. After that, instead Of grief, she came herself. He felt her slip Into his being like a miracle, her lip Whispering on his, to slake His need of her. -- "And in the night I wake With wonder and I find my bride And her embrace there in our bed, Within my very being! -- not outside. . . . "We have each other more, much more," He said, "now than before. This very moment while I shake Your hand, my friend, Not only I, But she is touching you and laughs with me because I cried For her . . . People would think me crazy if I told. But something in what you said made me bold To let you meet my bride!" It was not madness. David's eye Was clear and open-seeing. His life Had faced in death and understood in his young wife, As I when Celia died, The secret of God's being. v Celia, perhaps a few Whom I shall tell of you Will see with me your beauty who are dead, Will hear with me your voice and what it said! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A DANCE FOR RAIN (AT COCHITI, NEW MEXICO) by WITTER BYNNER A FARMER REMEMBERS LINCOLN by WITTER BYNNER A MOCKING-BIRD by WITTER BYNNER A THRUSH IN THE MONLIGHT by WITTER BYNNER AS TO MOONLIGHT by WITTER BYNNER CHINESE DRAWINGS: A PHILOSOPHER by WITTER BYNNER CHINESE PROCESSION by WITTER BYNNER |
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