Patience Worth: A Psychic Mystery. Casper S. Yost
wing but spoke the song
Of fluttering joy, and in thy very hand
Turned to motley gray. Then thinkest thou
To build the garden back by trickery?
And then, some six months after her first visit, came the poem which follows, and which may be considered the real beginning of her larger works:
Long lines of leaden cloud; a purple sea;
White gulls skimming across the spray.
Oh dissonant cry! Art thou
The death cry of desire?
Ah, wail, ye winds,
And search ye for my dearest wish
Along the rugged coast, and down
Where purling waters whisper
To the rosy coral reef.
Ah, search! Ah, search!
And when ye return, bring ye the answering.
Do I stand and call unto the sea for answer?
Ah, wisdom, where art thou?
A gull but shows thee to the Southland,
And leaden sky but warneth thee of storm.
And wind, thou art but a changeling.
So, shall I call to thee? Not so.
I build not upon the spray,
And seek not within the smaller world,
For God dwelleth not abroad, but deep within.
There is spiritual significance, more or less profound, in nearly all of the poems. Some of the lines are obscure, but study reveals a meaning, and the more I, at least, study them, the more I have been impressed with the intellectual power behind them. It is this that makes these communications seem to stand alone among the numerous messages that are alleged to have come from “that undiscovered country.”
An intense love of nature is expressed in most of the communications, whether in prose or verse, and also a wide knowledge of nature—not the knowledge of the scientist, but that of the poet.
All silver-laced with web and crystal-studded, hangs
A golden lily cup, as airy as a dancing sprite.
The moon hath caught a fleeting cloud, and rests in her embrace.
The bumblefly still hovers o’er the clover flower,
And mimics all the zephyr’s song. White butterflies,
Whose wings bespeak late wooing of the buttercup,
Wend home their way, the gold still clinging to their snowy gossamer.
E’en the toad, who old and moss-grown seems,
Is wabbled on a lilypad, and watches for the moon
To bid the cloud adieu and light him to his hunt
For fickle marsh flies who tease him through the day.
Why, every rose has loosed her petals,
And sends a pleading perfume to the moss
That creeps upon the maple’s stalk, to tempt it hence
To bear a cooling draught. Round yonder trunk
The ivy clings and loves it into green.
The pansy dreams of coaxing goldenrod
To change her station, lest her modest flower
Be ever doomed to blossom ’neath the shadow of the wall.
And was not He who touched the pansy
With His regal robes and left their color there,
All-wise to leave her modesty as her greatest charm?
Here snowdrops blossom ’neath a fringe of tuft,
And fatty grubs find rest amid the mold.
All love, and Love himself, is here,
For every garden is fashioned by his hand.
Are then the garden’s treasures more of worth
Than ugly toad or mold? Not so, for Love
May tint the zincy blue-gray murk
Of curdling fall to crimson, light-flashed summertide.
Ah, why then question Love, I prithee, friend?
This is poetry, but there is something more than liquid sweetness in its lines. There is a truth. Deeper wisdom and a lore more profound and more mystical are revealed or delicately concealed in some of the others.
I searched among the hills to find His love,
And found but waving trees, and stones
Where lizards flaunt their green and slip to cool
Adown the moss. I searched within the field
To find His treasure-trove, and found but tasseled stalk
And baby grain, encradled in a silky nest.
I searched deep in the rose’s heart to find
His pledge to me, and steeped in honey, it was there.
Lo, while I wait, a vagabond with goss’mer wing
Hath stripped her of her loot and borne it all to me.
I searched along the shore to find His heart,
Ahope the lazy waves would bear it me;
And watched them creep to rest upon the sands,
Who sent them back again, asearch for me.
I sought amid a tempest for His strength,
And found it in its shrieking glee;
And saw man’s paltry blocks come crashing down,
And heard the wailing of the trees who grew
Afeared, and, moaning, caused the flowers to quake
And tremble lest the sun forget them at the dawn;
While bolts shot clouds asunder, and e’en the sea
Was panting with the spending of his might.
I searched within a wayside cot for His white soul,
And found a dimple next the lips of one who slept,
And watched the curtained wonder of her eyes,
Aflutter o’er the iris-colored pools that held His smile:
And touched the warm and shrinking lips, so mute,
And yet so wise. For canst thou doubt whose kiss
Still lingers on their bloom?
Amid a muck of curse, and lie,
And sensuous lust, and damning leers,
I searched for Good and Light,
And found it there, aye, even there;
For broken reeds may house a lark’s pure nest.
I stopped me at a pool to rest,
And toyed along the brink to pluck
The cress who would so guard her lips:
And flung a stone straight to her heart,
And, lo, but silver laughter mocketh me!
And as I stoop to catch the plash,
Pale sunbeams pierce the bower,
And ah, the shade and laughter melt
And leave me, empty, there.
But wait!