Robert E. Lee

O Robert Lee, you paladin,
I wonder how my words would strike you.
I know the portrait might have been
In many, many ways more like you.

But you would not have had me plan
To make your figure more heroic;
For you would rather be a man
Than just a marble hearted stoic.

And I can often hear you say,
When they condemn and when they flatter,
In your divinely tender way,
'Good friend, it really doesn't matter.'

poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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The Riot

You may think my life is quiet.
I find it full of change,
An ever-varied diet,
As piquant as 'tis strange.

Wild thoughts are always flying,
Like sparks across my brain,
Now flashing out, now dying,
To kindle soon again.

Fine fancies set me thrilling,
And subtle monsters creep
Before my sight unwilling:
They even haunt my sleep.

One broad, perpetual riot
Enfolds me night and day.
You think my life is quiet?
You don't know what you say.

poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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The Drone

I might have been a worker, but I'm nothing but a drone.
I tell my idle stories in a philosophic tone.
In a fuzzy, spiny mantle of remoteness softly furled
I lie and watch with half-shut eyes the stupefying world.

And they bustle and they rustle with their self-consuming din.
And eager feet go hurrying out and tired feet come in.
Like Bottom, when they hear a sound they all must rush to see.
They're always running after life. I let it come to me.

poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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The Pack

A bit of metaphysics or a psychologic catch
Will sit upon my breast all day and scratch and scratch and
scratch. Now isn't it a pity that the ragged thorns of culture Should be tearing at my vitals, as Prometheus's the vulture?

I really have no liking for abstruse and subtle question.
I prefer to laugh in sunshine and to cherish my digestion.
But a pack of eager queries, barking, barking, hound me on,
Until I find an hour of life's pure delight is gone.

poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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Imagination

Imagination plays me most intolerable tricks.
To enumerate them all would be unbearably prolix.
Just a trifle bids them gather and a trifle bids them go.
And they tease me and torment me more than anyone can know.

Tricks of strange, disordered action, tricks of strange disordered thought.
Tricks of seeking explanations most unprofitably sought.
But my will is learning daily, when the creatures growl and leap,
That a stern voice and a stinging lash will drive them back to sleep.

poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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God

Day and night I wander widely through the wilderness of thought, Catching dainty things of fancy most reluctant to be caught. Shining tangles leading nowhere I persistently unravel, Tread strange paths of meditation very intricate to travel.

Gleaming bits of quaint desire tempt my steps beyond the decent.
I confound old solid glory with publicity too recent.
But my one unchanged obsession, wheresoe'er my feet have trod,
Is a keen, enormous, haunting, never-sated thirst for God

poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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Greeks

You really can't imagine how I love the ancient Greeks.
I love the dancing language where their mobile spirit speaks.
I love the songs of Homer, flowing on like streams of light,
With a touch of human kindness in the splendid shock of fight.

I love the Alexandrians whose inimitable grace
Filled the world with piping shepherds, though a far from piping place.
But my chief delight, like Arnold's, is the glory of the nine, Passion, laughter, deathless beauty, on the Attic stage divine.

poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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Fear

When I was little,
My life was half fear.
My nerves were as brittle
As nature may bear.

Shapes monstrous would follow
My footsteps alone,
And night, huge and hollow,
Yawned cold as a stone.

At trifles I started,
For nothing I wept,
And terror departed
Not all when I slept.

Now I've grown older,
My nerves I restrain.
My pulses are colder,
And clearer my brain.

[...] Read more

poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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Expenses

I'm sick to death of money, of the lack of it, that is,
And of practising perpetually small economies;
Of paring off a penny here, another penny there,
Of the planning and the worrying, the everlasting care.

The savages went naked and no doubt digested fruit,
And when they longed for partridge all they had to do was shoot.
But it may be Mrs. Savage was extravagant in paint
And all the little Savages made juvenile complaint.

'I want a bow like We-We's. I want a fine canoe.
I don't have half such dandy things as other fellers do.'
And Mrs. Savage quite agreed it was an awful shame.
So Mr. Savage sighed about expenses just the same.

poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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I Might-and I Might Not

I might forget ambition and the hunger for success.
I might forget the passion to escape from nothingness.
I might forget the curious dreams of ecstasy that haunt
My fancy day and night. I might forget them. But I can't.

If I could let the pen alone and leave the inkstand dry,
And forego perpetual effort to be climbing, climbing high,
And lay aside my mad designs to startle and enchant,
I might enjoy the sweet of common living. But I can't.

I might be just a Philistine, and eat, and drink, and sleep,
And drive a dusty motor and pile money in a heap,
And let the stream of life run through my brain and be forgot.
If I did, I might be happier. I might—and I might not.

poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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