Josephine Preston Peabody

Josephine Preston Peabody was an American poet and dramatist known for her lyrical and imaginative poetry, as well as her contributions to children's literature and drama. Born in New York, she grew up in an intellectually stimulating environment. She published her first poetry collection, "The Wayfarers," in 1898. Her work often explores themes of nature, love, and spirituality. Peabody's work earned her considerable acclaim during her lifetime, and she was especially noted for her verse dramas such as "The Piper," which won the Stratford Prize in 1910.

May 30, 1874

December 4, 1922

English

Alison's Mother To The Brook

Brook, of the listening grass,
Brook of the sun-fleckt wings,
Brook of the same wild way and flickering spell!
Must you begone? Will you forever pass,
After so many years and dear to tell?--
Brook of all hoverings ...
Brook that I kneel above;
Brook of my love.

Ah, but I have a charm to trouble you;
A spell that shall subdue
Your all-escaping heart, unheedful one
And unremembering!
Now, when I make my prayer
To your wild brightness there
That will but run and run,
O mindless Water!--
Hark,--now will I bring
A grace as wild,--my little yearling daughter,
My Alison.

Heed well that threat;
And tremble for your hill-born liberty
So bright to see!--
Your shadow-dappled way, unthwarted yet,
And the high hills whence all...

Josephine Preston Peabody

Canticle Of The Babe

I

Over the broken world, the dark gone by,
Horror of outcast darkness torn with wars;
And timeless agony
Of the white fire, heaped high by blinded Stars,
Unfaltering, unaghast;--
Out of the midmost Fire
At last,--at last,--
Cry! ...
O darkness' one desire,--
O darkness, have you heard?--
Black Chaos, blindly striving towards the Word?
--The Cry!

Behold thy conqueror, Death!
Behold, behold from whom
It flutters forth, that triumph of First-Breath,
Victorious one that can but breathe and cling,--
This pulsing flower,--this weaker than a wing,
Halcyon thing!--
Cradled above unfathomable doom.


II

Under my feet, O Death,
Under my trembling feet!
Back, through the gates of hell, now give me way.
I...

Josephine Preston Peabody

Gladness

Unto my Gladness then I cried:
        'I will not be denied!
Answer me now; and tell me why
Thou dost not fall, as a broken star
Out of the Dark where such things are,
    And where such bright things die.
How canst thou, with thy fountain dance
Shatter clear sight with radiance?--
How canst thou reach and soar, and fling,
Over my heart's dark shuddering,
Unearthly lights on everything?
What dost thou see? What dost thou know?'
My Gladness said to me, bowed below,
'Gladness I am: created so.'

'And dare'st thou, in my mortal veins
Sing, with the Spring's descending rains?
While in this hour, and momently,
Forth of myself I look, and see
Torn treasure of my heart's Desire;
And human glories in the mire,
That should make glad some parad...

Josephine Preston Peabody

Noon At Pæstum

Lord of the Sea, we sun-filled creatures raise
    Our hands among the clamorous weeds,--we too.
    Lord of the Sun, and of the upper blue,
Of all To-morrow, and all yesterdays,
Here, where the thousand broken names and ways
    Of worship are but shards we wandered through,
    There is no gift to offer, or undo;
There is no prayer left in us, only praise.

Only to glory in this glory here,
    Through the dead smoke of myriad sacrifice;--
To look through these blue spaces, blind and clear
    Even as the seaward gaze of Homer's eyes;
And from uplifted heart, and cup, to pour
Wine to the Unknown God.--We ask no more.

Josephine Preston Peabody

Rich Man, Poor Man

    'Rich man, Poor man, Beggar man, Thief, Doctor, Lawyer, Merchant, Chief.'


I

Highway, stretched along the sun,
Highway, thronged till day is done;
Where the drifting Face replaces
Wave on wave on wave of faces,
And you count them, one by one:
        'Rich man--Poor man--Beggar man--Thief:
        Doctor--Lawyer--Merchant--Chief.'
Is it soothsay?--Is it fun?

Young ones, like as wave and wave;
Old ones, like as grave and grave;
Tide on tide of human faces
With what human undertow!
Rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief!--
Tell me of the eddying spaces,
Show me where the lost ones go;
Like and lost, as leaf and leaf.
What's your secret grim refrain
Back and forth and back again,
Once, and now, and alway...

Josephine Preston Peabody

The Feaster

Oh, who will hush that cry outside the doors,
    While we are glad within?
Go forth, go forth, all you my servitors;
    (And gather close, my kin.)
Go out to her. Tell her we keep a feast,--
    Lost Loveliness who will not sit her down
        Though we implore.
It is her silence binds me unreleased,
    It is her silence that no flute can drown,
        It is her moonlit silence at the door,
Wide as the whiteness, but a fire on high
    That frights my heart with an immortal Cry,
        Calling me evermore.

Louder, you viols;--louder, O my harp;
    Let me not hear her voice;
And drown her keener silence, silver-sharp,
    With waves of golden noise!
For she is wise as Eden, even mute,
    To search my spirit through the deep and height

Josephine Preston Peabody

The Foundling

Beautiful Mother, I have toiled all day;
        And I am wearied. And the day is done.
        Now, while the wild brooks run
Soft by the furrows--fading, gold to gray,
    Their laughters turned to musing--ah, let me
    Hide here my face at thine unheeding knee,
        Beautiful Mother; if I be thy son.

The birds fly low. Gulls, starlings, hoverers,
        Along the meadows and the paling foam,
        All wings of thine that roam
Fly down, fly down. One reedy murmur blurs
    The silence of the earth; and from the warm
    Face of the field the upward savors swarm
        Into the darkness. And the herds are home.

All they are stalled and folded for their rest,
        The creatures: cloud-fleece young that leap and veer;
        Mad-mane and...

Josephine Preston Peabody

The Golden Shoes

The winds are lashing on the sea;
    The roads are blind with storm.
And it's far and far away with me;
    So bide you there, stay warm.
It's forth I must, and forth to-day;
    And I have no path to choose.
The highway hill, it is my way still.--
    Give me my golden shoes.

God gave them me on that first day
    I knew that I was young.
And I looked far forth, from west to north;
    And I heard the Songs unsung.

This cloak is worn too threadbare thin,
    But ah, how weatherwise!
This girdle serves to bind it in;
    What heed of wondering eyes?--
And yet beside, I wear one pride
    --Too bright, think you, to use?--
That I must wear, and still keep fair.--
    Give here my golden shoes.

God gave them me, o...

Josephine Preston Peabody

The Long Lane
All through the summer night, down the long lane in flower,
The moon-white lane,
All through the summer night,--dim as a shower,
Glimmer and fade the Twain:
Over the cricket hosts, throbbing the hour by hour,
Young voices bloom and wane.

Down the long lane they go, and past one window, pale
With visions silver-blurred;
Stirring the heart that waits,--the eyes that fail
After a spring deferred.
Query, and hush, and Ah!--dim through a moon-lit veil,
The same one word.

Down the long lane, entwined with all the fragrance there;
The lane in flower somehow
With youth, and plighted hands, and star-strewn air,
And muted 'Thee' and 'Thou':--
All the wild bloom an...
Josephine Preston Peabody

The Nightingale Unheard
Yes, Nightingale, through all the summer-time
We followed on, from moon to golden moon;
From where Salerno day-dreams in the noon,
And the far rose of Pæstum once did climb.
All the white way beside the girdling blue,
Through sun-shrill vines and campanile chime,
We listened;--from the old year to the new.
Brown bird, and where were you?

You, that Ravello lured not, throned on high
And filled with singing out of sun-burned throats!
Nor yet Minore of the flame-sailed boats;
Nor yet--of all bird-song should glorify--
Assisi, Little Portion of the blest,
Assisi, in the bosom of the sky,
Where God's own singer thatched his sunward nest;
That little, heavenliest!

And north and north, to where the hedge-row...
Josephine Preston Peabody

The Prophet
All day long he kept the sheep:--
Far and early, from the crowd,
On the hills from steep to steep,
Where the silence cried aloud;
And the shadow of the cloud
Wrapt him in a noonday sleep.

Where he dipped the water's cool,
Filling boyish hands from thence,
Something breathed across the pool
Stir of sweet enlightenments;
And he drank, with thirsty sense,
Till his heart was brimmed and full.

Still, the hovering Voice unshed,
And the Vision unbeheld,
And the mute sky overhead,
And his longing, still withheld!
--Even when the two tears welled,
Salt, upon that lonely bread.

Vaguely blessèd in the leaves,
Dim-companioned in the sun,
Eager mornings, wistful eves,
Very hunger drew hi...
Josephine Preston Peabody

The Singing Man
I

He sang above the vineyards of the world.
And after him the vines with woven hands
Clambered and clung, and everywhere unfurled
Triumphing green above the barren lands;
Till high as gardens grow, he climbed, he stood,
Sun-crowned with life and strength, and singing toil,
And looked upon his work; and it was good:
The corn, the wine, the oil.

He sang above the noon. The topmost cleft
That grudged him footing on the mountain scars
He planted and despaired not; till he left
His vines soft breathing to the host of stars.
He wrought, he tilled; and even as he sang,
The creatures of his planting laughed to scorn
The ancient threat of deserts where there sprang
The wine, the oil, the corn!
Josephine Preston Peabody

The Trees
I

Now, in the thousandth year,
When April's near,
Now comes it that the great ones of the earth
Take all their mirth
Away with them, far off, to orchard-places,--
Nor they nor Solomon arrayed like these,--
To sun themselves at ease;
To breathe of wind-swept spaces;
To see some miracle of leafy graces;--
To catch the out-flowing rapture of the trees.
Considering the lilies.
--Yes. And when
Shall they consider Men?

(O showering May-clad tree,
Bear yet awhile with me.)

II

For now at last, they have beheld the trees.
Lo, even these!--
The men of sounding laughter and low fears;
The women of light laughter, and no tears;
The great ones o...
Josephine Preston Peabody

Vestal Flame
Light, light,--the last:
Till the night be done,
Keep the watch for stars and sun, and eyelids over-cast.

Once there seemed a sky,
Brooding over men.
Now no stars have come again, since their bright good-bye!

Once my dreams were wise.
Now I nothing know;
Fasting and the dark have so put out my heart's eyes.

But thy golden breath
Burns against my cheek.
I can feel and love, and seek all the rune it saith.

Do not thou be spent,
Holy thing of fire,--
Only hope of heart's desire dulled with wonderment!

While there bide these two
Hands to bar the wind;
Though such fingers chill and thinned, shed no roses through.

While this body bends
Only for thy guard;
Like a tower, to ward and worship all the light it sends...
Josephine Preston Peabody