Chapter III: Part 3

We have broke the way our brother followed; we have set the harvest to
his hand;
And the gold he heaps to fill his coffers we have winnowed out of
barren sand:
Earth yields her good to only stern compellers; ours the knotted grip
that bent her will;
Bound her to the serving of our kindred--and her captive-hate is on us
still.

Homeless we have reared the homes of nations; mirthless we have
laughed for others’ mirth;
Striven that another might have honor, as the stars appointed at our
birth;
Ours the blood that reddened fields forgotten; ours the faith that
sped a hope forlorn;
Ours the eyes that doomed to watch through darkness, see the first,
far promises of morn.

We are them that fail--O ye that reckon--holding high our shortage to
be weighed;
Grant ye that no other bore our burden; grant ye that the debt we made
we paid:
We have failed; but beaten and defeated, still we face whatever Life
may send;
Still we ask no odds of Fate or Fortune--we that go down fighting to
the end.

THE LAST CAMP-FIRE

Scar not earth’s breast that I may have
Somewhere above her heart a grave;
Mine was a life whose swift desire
Bent ever less to dust than fire;
Then through the swift, white path of flame
Send back my soul to whence it came:
From some great peak storm-challenging,
My death-fire to the heavens fling;
The rocks my altar, and above
The still eyes of the stars I love;
No hymn, save as the midnight wind
Comes whispering to seek his kind.

Heap high the logs of spruce and pine,
Balsam for spices and for wine;
Brown cones, and knots a golden blur
Of hoarded pitch more sweet than myrrh;
Cedar to stream across the dark
Its scented embers spark on spark;
Long shaggy boughs of juniper,
And silvery, odorous sheafs of fir;
Spice wood to die in incense smoke
Against the stubborn roots of oak--
Red to the last for hate or love,
As that red, stubborn heart above.

Watch till the last pale ember dies,
Till wan and low the dead pyre lies;
Then let the thin, white ashes blow
To all earth’s winds, a finer snow;
There is no wind of hers but I
Have loved it as it whistled by;
No leaf whose life I would not share,
No weed that is not someway fair:
Hedge not my dust in one close urn,
It is to these I would return--
The wild, free winds, the things that know
No master’s rule, no ordered row.

To be, if nature will, at length
Part of some great tree’s noble strength;
Growth of the grass; to live anew
In many a wild flower’s richer hue;
Find immortality indeed
In ripened heart of fruit and seed.
Time grants not any man redress
Of his broad law, forgetfulness:--
I parley not with shaft and stone,
Content that in the perfume blown
From next year’s hillsides something sweet,
And mine, shall make earth more complete.

THE GIVERS

At the house of a soul once came knocking
The first of a line of gift-bearers,
Close-veiled and light-footed as silence,
And speaking with voice soft and tender:
“Lo, here is a season for growing,”
He said, then passed into the stillness,
Leaving his room to a brother.

And they that came after him softly
Set down in the doorway their burdens,
And whispered, “Make use of them swiftly,
O soul, ere one cometh to reckon.”
But he, the proud soul, laughing lightly,
Looked up where the sun was unrisen
And said, “I will slumber till daybreak.”

So he turned on his pillow and, dreaming,
Saw laurels inwoven to crown him;
And wealth for his taking; and Beauty,
With love in her eyes, run to meet him;
Then he woke to a step in the doorway:
“All night at thy feet lay thy wishes;
Now I take them,” one said, and departed.

A CREED

Let others frame their creeds; mine is to work;
To do my best, however far it fall
Below the keener craft of stronger hands:
To be myself, full-hearted, free, and true
To what my own soul sees, below, above;
To think my thought straight-forward from the heart;
To feel, and be, and never stop to ask:
“Do all men so? Is this the World’s highway?”
To look unflinching in the face of life
As eagles look upon the noonday sun;
To cut my own path through primeval woods;
To lay my own course by the polar star
Across the trackless plains and mountains vast;
To seek, not follow, ever to the end.
And for the rest--bare-handed have I come
Into this world, I know not whence nor why;
Bare-handed and alone and unafraid,
With heart of fire and eyes that question still,
Will I go forth into the wide Beyond;
As went the men who bore my blood of old
To prove their dream of Heaven, or dare their Hell.

QUITS

Life made no easy truce with me,
He set no white flag on my road;
Unshod he thrust me to the trail
And laughed the while he piled my load.
Greeting, old master! Greeting, friend!
I’ve made you friend; I’ve fought you fair;
I’ve stumbled, fallen, scrambled up;
Yet somehow borne the appointed share
To this last station. Take the pack;
Sort, weigh it--lack or over-due,
Still here’s the load; the climb was mine,
Scars, road-marks--all the rest to you.
We’re done; shake hands before we part.
I rest here--feel the wind and rain
Year-long blow past my rough, brown tent--
Joy with you till we meet again!

MEDUSA TO PERSEUS

Perseus, draw near to me and fear me not;
Think’st thou I have not listened for thy step
Through all the eons of my awful doom,
As on the earth when light of Helios fades
The young maid listens for her lover’s step
Crushing the daisies and the dewy grass?
No lover’s feet will ever come to me
But thine are dearer; and the asphodel
Thou bearest fairer than Love’s fairest flowers.

Draw near, and near, and nearer; I would feel
The end of this long waiting; I would be
For one quick moment all I might have been--
Woman and tender; drain at this one draught
My woman’s cup; tear-jeweled, brimmed with pain:
Ay! By these tears I cheat thee, Mighty Maid,
And by this pain--my heart is human still!
Thy curse fell impotent, that left me yet
Bond-thrall to one dark prover of humanity.

Dreams; old, old dreams that gather in the dusk;
Death’s dusk that soon will end them! How they press
Upon me! Voices that I loved but never knew;
Strong hands that clung across my black despair;
Eyes that were stars of many a night that else
Had known no morning. Oh! life, life, life, life!
What hast thou given me--that would have made
Thee rich with giving? Only bitter breath
And tears; loathing of them I would have loved;
And fear of them whose fears I would have borne.
Truly thou wert a generous patron!
I thank thee--that thou favor me no more!

How wan those vapors rise from this sad place,
As if they too would seek a brighter world;
A world of heat and frost and night and sun!
So have I, sitting, watched them hour by hour;
Seeing in each some hearth smoke newly lit,
Some sweet, small home where happiness had room.
How have I hungered in this silence for
Earth’s common sounds; the crying and the mirth!
Her poorest field I would have tilled with love;
Her roughest path I would have walked with joy.

These idle hands had worn them to the bone
In common tasks and found the labor sweet;
Served slave to slaves, could any serving buy
Or beg, or bribe, the meanest human lot.
Alas! in this dim cave they could but grope
Each into each and, clasping, feign to hold
The grasp of friend, the hand of love and kin:
So out of moans my lips would form strange words;
All tender, crooning, soft and slow and hushed;
And warm, wet mouths in dreams have touched my breast,
Seeking for food above the heart that breaks.

But now the sleep--the end--the doom fulfilled!
Hope, fear, despair--I bid ye long farewell--
Here at this brink whereon your feet must turn
Backward to haunt some other mortal soul:
For I am free--am free--am free at last!
Wrapped round with death as with a royal robe!
Sisters, farewell! I would that ye might keep
Some memory of the tortured human heart
That vexed your silence with its agony,
And loved while vexing. Perseus, the sword!
Strike swift! I would be gone on what far way
A soul must take to seek the Other World.
Stay not for pleadings and petitionings;
I crave no gift the Gods can give but rest--
Strike deep and strong and sure and set me free.

THE LONG QUEST

“Has the longest prayer of man been answered to thee, Stranger, and hast thou thy friend?”

--_Amiel’s Journal._

Friend, I have found thee not; I have not heard
Thy voice, nor touched thy hand, nor seen thine eyes
Grow clear with that great speech which needs not words:
Yet do I seek thee--asking of the stars,
Low-swung across this desert sky of mine,
If anywhere they shine on one who goes
Swift-footed to like end on kindred road.

Yet do I seek thee--asking of the wind,
Old Master-Singer, singing down the world,
Mingling all music in his endless song,
If he has caught some word, some tone, of thine
To stir my silence like a trumpet call.
I seek thee where the tall pines laugh and lean
Against the sun, against the storm and cloud;
For thou art strong like them and swift to joy;
Strong to endure; deep-rooted into life;
And glad of earth as of the blue above.

I seek thee where the patient grasses go
Across the hills; their patience is as thine;
Thy quiet surety that Life’s barrens yet
Shall blossom; yet shall yield their fruit and seed;
Not less, nor less approved, measured at last,
Than lavish harvests won by lighter toil.
I seek thee where the wild floods whirl and swing
Through riven cañons, mad to reach the sea;
As some great soul that dares to know the all--
The worst, the best, the farthest bound of life;
Holding the pain and passion little price
For one strong leap beyond the utmost verge,
One mighty hail across the infinite.

Friend, friend, I seek thee; holding that high quest
Better than all earth’s finding. Go thy way
Swift and unhindered under thine own star;
Along whatever way thy feet must take
Past high and higher, on to higher yet;
On to the farthest peak thine eyes can see;--
I seek thee, seek thee; call to thee “God speed!”
Go thou, nor wait--sure that somewhere I come.

A LITANY OF EVERY DAY

Not that there be less to bear,
Not that there be more to share;
But for braver heart for bearing,
But for freer heart for sharing,
Here I pray.

Not for scenes of richer beauty,
Not for paths of lighter duty;
But for clearer eyes for seeing,
Gentler hands, more patient being,
Every day.

Not that joy and peace enfold me,
Not that wealth and pleasure hold me;
But that I may dry a tear,
Speak a word of strength and cheer
On the way.

Not that I may sit apart,
Housed from hurt of fling and smart;
But that in the press and throng
I may keep a courage strong,
Here I pray.

Not that I at set of sun
Measure deeds of greatness done;
But that when my feet shall pass
To my low tent in the grass
One may say

“Speed thee well, O friend, who gave
Freely all thy heart did crave;
Love and truth and tenderness,
Faith and trust and kindliness,
In thy day.”

WIND SONG

One day upon the wings of air
My soul shall get him forth;
And nothing know I whence or where,
To East or South or North;
And little care I through what ways
This soul of mine shall ride;
Or if the call be soon or late,
At morn or eventide.

But I would go when strong winds blow
Full-throated down the heaven;
And on the blast like pennants cast
The wild, black hawks are driven:
O kith and kin are they to me,
Wild-winged my soul shall pass
With them as their own shadows drive
Across the wind-swept grass.

Free winds that wander up and down
The weary hills of earth;
What call like yours can sorrow drown,
Or touch her seas to mirth!
Strong winds that were tempestuous souls,
O brothers, turn and wait;
Take up my longing on your wings
Till I shall master Fate.

Take up my longing on your wings,
O brothers, as ye go;
The dauntless soul within me sings
That mighty hymn ye know;
Kindred are we, though but for ye
The boundless ways were made;
Yet I would go my lesser road
As strong and unafraid.

THE LOST THOUGHTS

Guy de Maupassant, in his last days, believed his thoughts to be fluttering about his head like many-colored butterflies. “Where are my lost thoughts? Who will tell me where to find my thoughts?” he cried to those who tended him.

See! Do you see that wondrous, winged cloud?
As if all the garden flowers had taken flight
Into the blue air for a holiday,
And left their tall green stalks beteared with dew?
They are butterflies now, but once I know
They were my thoughts. I called them when I chose;
They came to me in gentle, circling troops
Like fairies tamed by love, and poised upon
My hands, and brushed my cheeks and lips with wings
As soft as Psyche’s kisses in the dark.
There was a white one like an orient pearl
Seen in the moonlight; pure and holy as
The Virgin’s white throat in the candle shine
Of her high altar--or a young girl’s soul.
There was a girl--we two were boy and girl
And play-mate lovers. I must have caught
The white wings roughly, for they still are stained.
I do forget--but Ah! the silken-bright
Red poppy flowers that are red butterflies!
My thoughts, my thoughts, shot through with gleaming gold
And gemmed and jewelled like a Hindu queen,
Amber and emerald, ruby and topaz,
And charmful jade, and opal’s mystic fire;
And richer dyes than Tyre knew in her pride--
(My own soul broken to a thousand hues
As light upon a prism--the prism Life.)
My wingèd thoughts! My heavenly butterflies!
Now they are black, all black, with eyes of fire;
I smother in the sable of their wings
That wrap around me like a velvet pall--
I cannot see the sun for their deep eyes--
Be merciful! My butterflies! O my lost thoughts!

THE STRANGER

Art stranger, Love? because no lover’s hand
Hath clasped my own with pressure strong and sweet?
Because my ears heed not those tender tales
That hearts in tune with Spring and thee repeat?
Nay, rather walk we closer, soul to soul,
Great Love and I; I love thee all too much
To jar thy music with a lesser tone,
Or mar thy radiance with a duller touch.

I hold me to thy uses consecrate,
As some white temple set beside the sea;
With close-shut door no foot may enter in
Till fair tides bring its own divinity:
Here are no withered flowers against the shrine;
No dusty highways through the beaten grass
Where all men go; only the birds and thee,
The salt winds and the sun, unstayed may pass.

DAY’S END

Swiftly at set of sun,
The long day being done,
I seek my love;
Her whom my heart doth hold
Dearer than gems and gold
Or treasure trove.

Still are her eyes and cool
As some clear mountain pool
Fern-hid and lone,
Some reed-edged pool that lies
Blue under star-lit skies,
The wild-fowl flown;

The ousel’s fluting note
Hushed in his dappled throat,
The night wind still--
And over all the peace
Which is my soul’s release
From life sore-spent and days that reckon ill.

THE FIRST FIRE ON THE HEARTH

Clean as a new-built altar to the Gods
The new hearth stands;
No tears have stained, no prayers have hallowed it;
Make clean thy hands
As some High Priest who tends the holy flame
Life-long in temples old;
Bring not to kindle this divine first fire
Wood that is bought and sold
In common marts; but such as symbols clear
The life that thou shalt make,
Here under this new roof, by this new hearth,
For Great Love’s sake.

Bring heart of pine to point thee to the stars;
Higher and yet more high
Thy thought on its green pinions shall ascend--
Yet keep thee ever nigh
Tender and kind to every earth-born need;
As low-spread cedar boughs
Give grateful shade, or laid upon the fire
Shed fragrance through the house.
Here let the oak outspend his noble strength
In flame that shall endure
Beyond the last red coal to thy life’s end
In strength as great and sure.

Lay here red sandal and dark orient teak,
That their rich wood may turn
To star-crowned dreams and visions in the flame
Wherein their kindred burn;
And mystic, harp-stringed branches of the palm--
Prophet and seer of trees--
Speeding thy life through all that can beset
To noblest destinies:
Bring these, as men bring votive offerings,
And let rare spices fall
Into the unswept flame. High, higher yet,
Thy life at Love’s great call!

A TRUCE WITH DEAD SOULS

Now loose me, loose me, O ye dead
Whose shadowy fingers clasp my own;
I must fare on my way alone,
Along a road ye may not tread,
To hopes and fears ye have not known.

Nor shall ye challenge my high truth,
Nor deem of me that I forget
That far goal where our eyes were set;
Nor hold me false to that lost youth
Whose solemn visions lead me yet.

Ye quiet, ye untroubled dead,
Count ye the stones that stay my feet?
Or reckon ye the winds that beat
Fiercely upon my naked head?
Weigh ye the fear my soul must meet?

O loose me, for I journey far;
O hold me not; ye cannot know
On what rough trails my feet must go
In lands unlit of sun and star,
Where still the swiftest feet are slow.

I see what ye no more may see;
I seek our vision’s noblest use;
And he that keeps that quest with me
Through good and ill all patiently
Is Life. Ah! dead souls, grant the truce!

A FRIEND

I choose no friend as one may choose a glove,
To use, hold in his hand, and cast aside
When it is old; forgetting that awhile
It served his purpose--neither more nor less
Than others of its kind have served, and will:
Nor as we in a grave or idle hour
Take up a book and say: “This shall beguile
My listlessness, or teach what I would know;”
Then leave its crumpled pages on a shelf
And go about the various ways of life.

More would I take my friend as one who finds
A cool spring in the desert, where his cup,
Filled to the brim, leaves gratitude behind;
And though he wander far knows if at last
His feet turn back along that self-same road
The same good welcome waits him at the end:
Or as those faces we behold in dreams;
Haunting us, waking, with their strange, deep eyes
That sting the soul into a thousand needs
Finer and freer than it knew before.

He is my friend who tempts me ever on
To high and higher; standing yet above
With hand reached back, as one who knows the path
Has stones a-many for the surest feet;
Who weighs my weakness fairly with my strength
And sets a better higher than my best;
Bidding me work when others say “Well done!”

My friend is he who gives me larger faith
In men and life and hope of final good;
Who by the alchemy of his fine breadth
Transmutes my doubt and pain and weariness
Into peace and the pure gold of patience.
The wind and stars, those old, old friends of mine,
Are symbols of the human souls I love;
Free as the wind is, high and pure and clear
As shine the stars--so would I have my friend.

MAGDALEN

Do you remember, love, the thing I was
That summer morning when you stood with me
There in the rain-wet fields, where the sweet wind
Blew my hair loose and free?

Do you remember? Ay! My soul was clean
As that clean wind that blew between us two;
My spirit burned as some white temple flame
When the god passes through.

You were my god--and all of earth fell back;
I saw but you--knew only you were near;
Look in my eyes--What is it there today
That strikes you cold with fear?

You stooped that day to touch your cheek to mine--
I laugh to watch you shrink and shudder now;
Am I so changed? Look well--it is your mark
That brands me, cheek and brow.

Ay! and my hand-print lies upon your soul!
You cannot loose my fingers from your own;
And though your feet go up to palaces,
Or down to Hell they do not go alone.

THE EARTH MADONNA

Beloved, see, within my close-curved arm
He lies, your child. Oh! keep us well from harm!
Love him, by all our tender love and true--
As I through him find deeper love for you.

All our great hopes and dreams and dear desires
Lie in this small shut hand; our purest fires
Burn here in this new life--your soul and mine
Fused to new shape immortal and divine.

And yet--if in this holy hour and dear
Great Death came down and stood beside me here,
And said “One must I take with me tonight, but keep
That one for which your heart would longest weep

Tears of heart’s blood,----Beloved, I could smile
And lift the child to meet his kiss the while,
So you were left. For he, so dear, so dear,
Is but my child--But you, my Life, stay near!

LOVE’S WISDOM

Woulds’t thou be loved? Then set thy love so high
No man may win it, though he stand upon
The utmost peaks with face against the stars.
Aloof! Nor bend thee once to eyes that burn,
And lips that plead, and hands that clasp and cling:
The jewel that within the temple glowed
A soul’s fit forfeit, as a bit of glass
Cast with the pot-shreds lies when it is won.

Who minds him of the flower that undenied
He plucked and kissed? Or for an hour forgets
The rose that slipped his grasp and left a thorn
Deep in his hands to mock their daring quest?
And who hath loved the broad plains, lavish-souled
Of all rich gifts that make life dear and good,
As men have loved the mountains that afar
Beckon in untrod grandeur, and deny?

Still is the vision dearer than the real,
The dreaming sweeter than the dream fulfilled;
For men love most the unattainable;
Leaving the hearth-light, warm and near and kind,
To follow pale auroras through the night,
With beggared souls that to the winds have flung
Their rarest gifts in hopeless bribery.

Woulds’t thou be loved? Then hold thyself apart,--
Nor yield to any, though he drain his life
To flood thine own; for if thou give again
Such barter in its usage carries scorn
Of too free giving:--so thy love were lost,
And thou uncrowned, that else had reigned a queen.
Heaven’s self were transient lure, were it not set
Too high for careless winning, over earth.

THE GIFTS

There were three gifts at eventide the West Wind brought to me,
That I might choose for joy or use my fate from out the three:
“Now here is gold,” the West Wind saith, “and fair it is to see;
Who chooseth gold hath power to hold; men serve him loyally.”

“A prince he is,” the West Wind saith; “I know the hidden mine;
Shalt lead thee now o’er fire and snow to where the ingots shine?”
Nay then, who hath the yellow gold hath trouble at his back;
Whose needs are few, whose heart is true, what knoweth he of lack?

“But here is Love,” the West Wind saith, “the light of life is he;
Wilt bid him now to bind thy brow with myrtle greenery?
He sets the pace that young feet dance, and leads with lute and bow;
Take thou his hand and through the land with him till curfew go.”

Nay then, for he who seeketh Love finds but an empty nest;
Love cometh still of his own will, unsought, and that is best.
Then one spake up full loud and clear: “Now I am Work,” said he;
“And they that hold not love nor gold have need of mine and me.”

“Wilt follow, follow, where I lead?” his voice rang free and strong;
“Here’s hope and cheer for all the year; here’s balm for every wrong.”
Yea, I will turn and follow thee; thou speakest like a king;--
“Then shalt thou see if true thou be, _the other gifts I bring_.”

LIFE IS A DAY

“Life is as a day that hath its morn of hope, its noon of strength, its night of peace, whose morrow no man knoweth.”

MORNING

Young Heart, Spring Heart,
Waken with the morning;
Sing for the long road
That lieth white before;
Lieth there untrodden
With little flowers adorning,
And green hills of promise
Thy fathers saw of yore.

Young Heart, Spring Heart,
Wine of Life is flowing;
Stoop thee to the beaker
And drain it at a draught;
Gird thee for the journey,
Joy is in the going,
And hope is in the heart of him
Who wine of Life hath quaffed.

NOON

Strong Heart, Bold Heart,
Brace thee for the battle;
Wait now the onset
Exultant and calm;
Love lilt and war cry,
Babies’ soft prattle,
Mingle and meet
In thy life’s swelling psalm.

Dreaming is over,
The old gods are buried;
Joy was a phantom
Ye chased through the mist;
Broken the shrines where
Thy young feet have tarried;
Dust are the lips that
Thy young lips have kissed.

NIGHT

Old Heart, Still Heart,
Lying in the shadow;
Lying there all silent
With the glory on thy face;
Feet that have trodden
The upland and meadow
Spring nevermore
To the heat of the race.

Old Heart, Still Heart,
Life is a striving;
Of all that it promises
Work is the best;
Love is a fable,
And wealth is but giving--
Kind is the evening
That leadeth to rest.

THE COMPACT

“Body, pray thee, let me go!
It is the soul that struggles so.”

_Danske Dandridge._

O Life, let us make compact here, as men who set a bond between them;
We have been comrades, journeying all roads together, near and far,
And rough and smooth; all the winds that blow hail us as brothers,
And the stars of every land speak us in common tongue as kin:
Right gladly have we dared all chance and found it good--if won or
lost;
But there must come a day when thou and I loose hands, divide the
pack,
And fare us each alone on widening trails that nevermore shall meet.
Friend, when we know that hour face to face; in hall or tent, on road
or waste or plain;
Or, as I pray, where some great, silent peak fronts solemn, fearless,
to eternity;
Say thou “Godspeed!” and lift the stirrup cup right gaily to the lips
that cry “Farewell!”
Grip thou my hand, as one who sees his long-tried friend go forth
On some great quest he would, but may not, share--where danger jostles
honor on the road.
When that stern call no mortal may gainsay rings in my ears,
Do thou make generous haste; nor grudge my going, nor cling doggedly
Till flesh and soul are riven with mighty pain, or worn with slow
decay;
But as thou love me, as I have been true to thee and to thy service,
Give me swift release, and lift our love up as a lifted torch to light
my going.
I have no quarrel that we two must part; nor fear of that still,
wondrous mystery
Beyond the parting: but spare thou my human weakness; I would go out
undismayed;
Unshrinking; shadowed with no vain regret for done or undone;--
As we could we wrought; let who comes after better us in deed, but not
in will:
Now Hope, and Courage, and my comrade Life, shoulder to shoulder for
the final stand!
Till from beyond those farthest heights of all my cheer rings down to
meet your parting cheer,
As some path seeker on untrodden peaks shouts backward to his fellows
and goes on.

COMPANIONED

At daybreak when the sunrise lay
Along the desert sand,
I buckled girth and tightened rein,
And rode to win the land;
I rode as rides a careless youth
Who fears no evil tide;
But from the dark a phantom stark
Pressed out to gain my side.

Gray-cowled and still he nearer drew,
The morning air grew chill;
The wind wailed low the while I turned
And bade him name his will:
“My will it is to ride with thee,
Whatever chance betide;
For good or ill to follow still,
More close than friend or bride.”

My heart turned cold, my arm grew weak;
I struck a stinging spur
And strove at maddest pace to lose
That ghostly follower.
We reeled upon the desert’s verge,
My hard-pressed steed and I,--
And full beside through that wild ride
The wraith smiled silently.

He clasped my hand, he touched my brow
With lips that froze and burned;
“Now art thou mine to have and hold
Till all the tale be learned.
Put by the whip and ringing spur;
Put by the brave array;
For thou with me shall presently
Go forth in hodden gray.

“I lay my chrism upon thine eyes
That thy blind soul may see
The grandeur rife in human life,
Its joy and misery.”--
So fare we softly side by side,
Nor ever turn again;
And now I hail the presence “Friend,”
Who once had called him “Pain.”

ALONE

Oh! arms that ache with weary emptiness,
Yet knew Love’s fullness ere your day was old,
How shall I turn with comforting to you
Who have the burden’s tender memory still?
Hands that but clasp each other, wet with tears
Yet tingling with the pressure of a touch
Scarce now withdrawn, I give you no regret--
Whose “has been” gladdens all the long “to be.”
What know you, though you grieve, of loneliness,
Who count the days back sure of smiles that were,
And eyes that looked and loved and understood?
Empty the arms, companioned still the soul--
For souls once met blend all futurity
Into that meeting.

But one I knew whose empty heart had ne’er
Beat faster to the sound of kindred step;
Whose hand no other hand had reached to grasp
In brotherhood of purpose; in whose ear
No voice spoke greeting in a mother tongue:
A soul that from the Chaos back of Time
Passed out alone, and through the Then and Now
Walked alien past the homes of happy men.
E’en stars bend to each other through the blue,
And earth calls upward to her sister spheres;
But seeking, seeking, still in ceaseless quest,
This soul went outward to Eternity.

THE INHERITOR

Look you, ye line of men and women reaching back
Behind my shoulders into Life’s lost dawn--
Ye square-jawed, low-browed, fierce-eyed fighting-man;
Ye fawning slave, cringing before the whip;
Ye strong-souled prophet of diviner things;
Ye praying saint, ye sensuous, sin-steeped fool;
Ye seer, love driven, paying drop by drop
Thy own blood down to buy thy brother’s need;
Ye sleek and shifty plotter, cunning-lipped
Ye pale ascetic, ye the loose-tongued bawd;
Ye weak, and tender, loving, scorning, mad
With glutted pride--abased in misery;
Ye that have measured all the pendulum
Of human passion, chance, and hope, and pain--
I bid ye halt; I am the crucible,
My will the furnace fire; fused here in me
Your motley ore shall take what shape I choose,
To serve what end I order and command.

I’ll make of ye my weapon and my tool,
My sword and plowshare. Ye shall hold or break,
Strike or be idle, at my word. In my hand
Ye shall be gathered as a missile fit
And hurled subservient to seek my goal.
Look in my eyes and know I fear ye not;
Because ye were I am--and rule ye now.
I will not go your road nor seek your end;
I will not pray your prayer nor sing your song;
Ye shall not sear me with the sullen heat
Of your spent passions. My lips shall never writhe
With bitter pleading for your old desires.
Ye shall not shake my soul with your lost fears,
Nor grip my heart with dead regret and pain.

I am your master; if ye live again
Ye take life from my hand at my own terms.
I will bind up the fire that flared in you
To use diverse, and make of it a torch
Clear-flamed and strong to light the road I choose.
Your wrongs shall set me free from kindred wrong;
Your labor and your loss shall be the steps
Beneath my feet on which I stand to rise.
Your hopes undone shall wing my hope for flight;
I will take up the broken dreams that fell
From your spent grasp and weld them into one--
A deathless vision of futurity.

O ye dead hearts that ached; dead hands that clinched
In fear or fury; dead lips that lied or loved;
Dead souls that grovelled or aspired as ye could--
Ye rule me not--I am the master here.
For my swift hour ye serve me as I will--
Till from forgotten dust I serve the men that come.

ON MY OWN PORTRAIT

And yet--the face shall pass
As a shadow ’cross the grass;
As the shadow of a bird-wing
Spread a moment in the sun;
As the light-blown dust that dances
In the wind and whirls and glances
Mote-wise in a passing sunbeam,
When the Sand of Fate is run.
Out of silence--here and hither;
Into silence--whence and whither
Still unanswered; still unmapped
The road the feet have come and gone.
Heart of fire, soul aspiring;
Spirit daring, strong, untiring--
Is the unmapped Road to Silence
All that ye and Life have won?
Ah! but there was still the fight!
Darkness--and the search for light!
Road unmapped--but fearless going
Out upon the journey--knowing
Naught and daring all.
As ye will then, weigh and measure;
Count the gain and hoard the treasure--
But the Fight was more than all.

THE IMMORTAL

King and priest and poet met
In a garden, arbor set,
On a green hill by the sea
Where the waves lapped tenderly,
Crooning to the restless sands
Lullabies of distant lands.
From the stately palace near
Rippling music smote the ear,
Mingled with the solemn bell
Of the monks that matins tell
’Neath the censer swinging slow
In the ancient church below.
Dawn, with rosy fingertips
Reached to Day, her lingering lips
Pressed upon the dead Night’s brow;
As we mortals, too, somehow,
Turn us in the past to grope
Ere we grasp the hand of Hope.

Spake the king, as wistfully
He looked out across the sea
Sparkling in the growing light:
“Ah! the morning-promise bright!
Bright as life, whose morning glow
Shadows but to dusk we know!
Is it then a little striving,
Ending at the last in nothing?
Lieth there a fairer day
Past Death’s night, O poet, say?
Priest, what sayeth your heart’s need,
Standing clear of myth and creed?

Said the priest: “Man is the flower
Of creation’s natal hour;
He earth’s lord--and yet earth’s sorrow
Presseth him, till he must borrow
Joy from some half-guessed tomorrow--
If his making be not jest;
Or a mockery, at best.
You who rule and I who pray,
Shut from common strife away,
Still find in our life’s brief cup
Tears and wormwood welling up;
Vain would our existence be
Without immortality.”

Lightly then the poet laughed
As the ruddy wine he quaffed:
“What is immortality
To the butterfly or bee?
Yet life’s sweetest sweets are theirs,
Summer suns and summer airs;
Skyward still the brown larks climb
And the ring doves in the lime
Wake the roses with their cooing,
Silence into sweetness wooing;
And the grass is glad in growing
For the white flocks hillward going.

“E’en with gifts of sorrow’s giving
There is joy enough in living;
Heart-kept joys in every day
No ill chance can take away.
Truth and beauty are immortal,
And if we tomorrow’s portal
Should not pass, yet men may say:
“He lived kindly yesterday;
Sought no evil, thought no ill;
So we keep his memory still,
As a lamp our feet to guide
Till the ebbing of the tide
Calls us seaward in the dark.”
Look you, brothers, if a spark
Of eternal fire be caught
In these bodies weakly wrought,
Let it flame to noble deeds
For our present, human needs--
So from life itself may we
Build our immortality.”

THE BEDESMAN OF THE YEAR

Stands Time, the gray old bedesman,
And loosely through his hold
Slip down the days like carven beads,
Silver and dusk and gold.

And each day hath its whispered prayer,
Each one its patron saint;
And each its tender memories
Like incense sweet and faint.

O gray old bedesman, when you’ve told
Life’s rosary all through,
Leave us the old life’s memory
To consecrate the new.

THE LONG MARCH

REVEILLE

Ho, comrades, on the mountain top the sun has touched the trees,
Strike camp and march, the ringing bugles call;
Swing lightly to the saddle with the rifle held at ease,--
We may need it, we who ride to win or fall.
What is living but a battle? What is dying but a rest?
If there’s time to snatch a laurel ere we go,
And to leave one hot kiss printed on the lips we love the best
We have garnered all the fullest life can know.

With our faces toward the morning, with her music in our hearts,
And the sunrise on our banners bright with hope,
Lo, our line of march is upward where the snowy summit starts,
Press forward for the rough, untrodden slope.
Through the pines the wind is laughing and the tall trees sway and
swing
Like the swaying crowds that cheer us as we ride;
And our bugles wake the echoes till the far peaks shout and sing--
Ah! but life is youth and love and battle-pride.

THE CAMP

Halt, comrades, here the sun of noon falls straight upon the grass,
And the droning locust drowns the bugle call;
In the valley there below us see the harvesters that pass
Where the gold of ripened grain is over all.
Like a flag of truce the home-smoke waving in the summer wind
Calls the workers from the field for rest and cheer--
When the battle din is over and the glory all behind
It were good to find such welcome kind and near.

Who has clasped the hand of woman in the hour when life was hard,
Who has loved a little child and called him son;
Who has set himself with broken arms the homeland road to guard,
Yearns for friendly board and hearth when all is done.
Coin of peace is price of battle, glory but a rainbow set
In the clearing sky for sign of hope to come;
As the road winds down the valley all the rest we may forget,
Knowing life is work and love and joy of home.

THE BIVOUAC

Look, comrades, through the bending trees a gleam of silver light,
Where the winding river goes to find the sea;
Off-saddle,--here we bivouac the long appointed night,
Till the Great Commander sounds reveille.
All along the trail behind us in the grasses and the pines
Lie the brothers who were weary e’re the night;
And we shoulder close together now to hide the thinning lines,
And there’s more than mist of years to dim our sight.

Old ambitions burned to ashes sift their whiteness through the hair
Of the gayest youth who faced the morning sun;
And it’s more of scars than honors that the bravest comrades wear,
As we count the cost and know the fight is done.
Guidons flutter in the night wind and the campfires flicker low,
We are silent with old memories deep and fond;
Up, comrades, cheer the joy of life once more before we go--
Knowing now ’tis love and service and a mighty hope Beyond.

THE RACE MOTHER

At sunrise I saw her, the woman eternal, the Race Mother;
She stood upon a great, gray cliff--and behind her the forest;
The dawn was on her face; over the world she looked as one seeking--
As one whose eyes have watched long through shadow,
And are weary still watching for one who comes not.
Her mate she sought--waiting there with the forest behind her,
And the world stretching wide, and the wind singing glory to daybreak.
Strong and pure and clean-limbed and deep-bosomed--
Goddess and woman in one--loving and longing she waited.
Out from the foot of the cliff one crept up to take her;
Huge-muscled, careless--o’er-borne with fierce cravings and hunger.
He saw not her eyes with the passionate longing within them--
Burning holy and tender with infinite love and compassion.
Only the strong, sweet body he grasped--crushed and maimed--bound to
serve him;
Bent at his will, and distorted--till ugly and broken,
Unmeet even to serve, it shambled beside him.
On the breast hung a child, half-divine, half-monstrous--
Maimed too, scarred, deformed--mingling strangely
The holy dawn-dream in the deep, waiting eyes of the woman,
And the careless, fierce face of the man as he fought up to take her.

* * * * *

It was night now, and the dawn-light was dead, and the wide world was
hidden,
And the wind whimpered and wailed like a creature that suffers and
hopes not.

ROAD’S END.

The old wife by the grave-stone stands
And looketh far away;
Her eyes are deep as pools of rain
Twilit at close of day.
“God rest ye, husband of my flesh--
Life-Stranger to my soul--
I pray thy spirit goes to seek
Some dear-desired goal.”

“How long, how long, the way chance willed,
We journeyed side by side,
Yet never met at stile or gate--
I was thy body’s bride!
That far-off day, our wedding day,
I dreamed as women will--
The heart a-hungered and alone
Is lone and hungered still.”

“Four hands won roof and goods and gear
And ploughed and gleaned and spun--
Two stranger hearts the world apart
Sat down when toil was done.
God rest ye now beyond the end;
God light the way ahead--
And that the living eyes were blind,
Lay sight upon the dead.”

THE CHOOSING

“Here is life,” I said to my heart;
“Shall thou and I take part
In his battle and busy mart?
Shall we follow the voices that call
From temple and workshop and hall:
‘Lo, brother, we bid thee come?’”

“There is pleasure in palace and bower;
There is gold for our winning, and power;
And fame--for an idle hour
A bauble to tempt the best.
Shall we make us one with the rest,
And attempt, and achieve--or fail?”

But my heart, grown sudden wise,
Looked out from steadfast eyes
And said: “In myself it lies
To be more than a tool for gain--
Nay, Life, ye must bid again
Ere I answer to your call.”

“What say you of honor, O Life?
Has it room in the bitter strife
With which your service is rife?
Is there room for a soul to be
All the best it can feel and see;
To unfold its wings and arise?”

Then Life, with sphinx-like face,
And smile wherein no trace
Of answering had place;
Said: “Take my gift, or leave it--
But know they that receive it
Can make it what they will.”

WINE OF DREAMS

With wine of dream-land fill the cup
And pledge the past, my soul, with me;
Drink deep, old friend, and summons up
The ghost of all the Used-To-Be.
Here’s to the joys we knew erstwhile;
Look how they troop, a motley crew!
Here’s to the laugh, the jest, the smile,
That cheered our way when life was new.

“Comrades, good cheer! Good luck be yours!
Long may you follow on our track;
Until we pass to farther shores--
Then to our place here turn you back
And laugh with those we leave behind;
Ring merry music in their ears;
Crack joke with joke in merry kind,
Till they shall give no place to tears.”

We crave no grief, my soul and I;
Each life enough of sorrow knows;
Let none mourn darkly when we lie
In silence under rue and rose.
And you, gray wraith in cowl and gown,
Who “Closer than a brother” pressed;
Here on this last couch lay you down--
Together neath Death’s touch we rest.

For you were fashioned of our tears;
You were the shadow which Life’s real,
With broken hopes and bitter fears,
Cast o’er our shining, high ideal.
Your power is done--hide in the dust
Of that wild heart which gave you birth--
But all our joys we leave in trust
To cheer some toiling child of earth.

MY GARDEN

My heart is a little garden
Set in a desert waste;
The walls are rough, the door is small,
And high the key is placed.

None guess my hidden riches,
My wealth of leaf and bloom;
The gold of chaliced lilies,
The roses rare perfume.

Here climbs the starry jasmine,
Hope’s ladder to the skies;
And here like thoughts too pure for words
The silken moonflowers rise.

Here falls the plashing fountain
With Fancy’s waters bright;
Here flit Ambition’s butterflies,
Winged jewels in the light.

And all sweet birds are singing
Their happy songs together;
So brings the year whatever cheer
My heart holds summer weather.

SUMMER APPLES

Apples of Hesperides,
Jugglers’ golden balls are these;
Look within them and you’ll see
Many a magic mystery:
Winter snows are prisoned here;
April showers, May sunshine clear;
All the witchery of June,
Rose’s red and robin’s tune;
Wrought by Nature’s alchemy
Into sweet reality.

HER FINGER FATE

“A friend, a foe, a true love, a beau, a journey to go.”

The old superstition of naming the spots on the fingernails still survives in country places, where some old lady may say gravely: “You have an enemy; look at the spots on your finger nails,” and young girls count them for friend or lover. “I knew he would be a wanderer,” said one woman of an absent son, “there was always a journey on both his hands.”

Softly she whispered it over,
Knee deep in the scented grass,
Where I and the first wild roses
Lingered to watch her pass.
She kissed her hand to the swallows
Skimming the pond below,
And turned with a face all archness
As she chanted ‘Friend or foe?’

“See, here is my life before me,
All that I keep or fail;”
And she counted the spots that glistened
On each rose-leaf finger nail;
Like baby pearls in the sunshine,
Or wind-rocked, cloudy flecks;
The little white dots that dappled
Her nails with snowy specks.

“A friend--but look, how many!
A foe--” Not one, I said;
“A true love”--Sweet, he is near you--
She blushed as the roses red.
He is waiting, dear, to claim you;
Your truest love and beau--
Ah! why did my eyes turn misty
As she murmured “A journey to go”?

The roses bloom in the meadow
As they bloomed that other day,
And I and the spring and the swallows
Wander the old sweet way;
We call but we cannot wake her,
So still in the vale below;
And my heart and the blossoms whisper,
“A journey, a journey to go.”

DUMB IN JUNE

Written on the fly leaf of Richard Burton’s volume of verse, “Dumb in June.”

June that floods the earth with sweetness,
Songs and scents and petals bright;
How my heart in your completeness
Loses self with full delight!
Think you if with no lip-greeting
I give welcome warmly told,
That my spirit to this meeting
Springs not as in time of old?

Dearer comer than when child-heart
Sang to greet you from the hill;
Dearer to the captive wild-heart
Where the music now is still.
Should I sing when you are singing
Through my soul’s most shadowed ways,
Jubilant with promise, ringing
Down the drone of common days?

June-time! Spring-time! Hour of growing!
Time with all renewing blest!
Throbbing from a heart o’er-flowing,
Silent songs may praise you best.

MEMORIAM

In memory of our dead! The dead that lie
Near, love-guarded graves, where still our tenderness
Can reach out like a hand across the dark
To touch the still hands folded close in rest.
The near, loved dead that were our own;
That walked with us the busy common ways,
And made life dear, and homely duties sweet.
In memory of our dead! In memory of the memories that go
Forever with us, till we, too, shall lie
With still, white faces turned to meet the stars.

In memory, in hope, in tenderness!
Rest ye, O well-beloved, remembered dead!
Peace with you! Ye that do but keep
The bivouac till we come.
Ye that but wait us till the march is done;
Arms stacked; and guidons fluttering
Above the camp of our eternal rest.

In memory! In memory of the far, forgotten dead,
That lie unheeded in the common dust.
In memory of the daring hearts that sleep
In unmarked graves beside forgotten trails;
The men who set their faces to the West,
And blazed the way for empires yet to come--
Winning at last a width of nameless sod.

In memory! Wherever one brave soul goes out
Strong-hearted on that last, lone road all men must take,
He, too, is comrade, and his courage is
A bugle call that rings “Advance, nor fear!”
To every hard-pressed soul upon the way.
Wherever one spent toiler for the common good
Lets fall his tools from weary, calloused hands,
His work is ours,--a trust to further to the fullest end.

No hope that ever warmed a human heart
Was lost when that heart crumbled into dust:
The dreams that woke the sunrise of the world are ours--
Our dead walk with us daily, hand in hand.
But every joy we know to give or keep;
By hearts more gentle, and by eyes more true,
They are our own, and undivided still.

In memory! In memory of the dead!
In tenderness and hope for all who live!
Peace with you, ye that lie at rest!
Hope with you, ye that live and yet must face
The pain of living!
In memory, in hope, in tenderness!

AS A LITTLE SHADOW ON THE GRASS

How all alone we are, despite our striving
For sympathy and love!
How all alone we are in this our living,
With silent skies above!

These stars of ours have shone on Alexander;
Their tender light was old
What time the Roman hills knew lost Evander;
The night winds sweet and cold

Have lingered in the dusk with Omar’s roses;
They keep the fragrance yet!
And all the rare, green earth that round us closes
Whispers a vague regret.

It is not ours; we are not its first lovers;
We do but journey here
Where every little springing grass blade covers
Some heart once held as dear.

We yearn to touch them, stretch our hands in greeting;
To make them all our own.
Mist wraiths and dreams! they vanish at the meeting
And we pass on alone.

DAWN

Once the Dawn among the trees whispered me such words as these:
“There was stillness in the valley, there was darkness on the hill,
Till my spirit came among them, borne upon a minion breeze,
Woke them into light and music and dispelled them with my will.

“Where my fingers touched the tresses of the clouds with swift
caresses,
Burned a splendor like the jewels set to bind a princess’ hair;
Softly from my garment shaken fell the gentle dew that blesses
Every sweet and stately blossom meet to make the morning fair.

“Then the birds with liquid singing set the leafy woodland ringing,
Till the cattle in the meadow waked the joyous songs to mark;
And the great, gold sun leaped upward, all the light of heaven
bringing--
Heart, hast thou a morning also, waiting just beyond the dark?”

A BALLAD OF CHARLIE’S MEN

Duncan and I at the kirk would wed,
And soon should our bridal vows be said;
But a pibroch thrilled through the morning air,
And a white cockade gleamed brightly there;
’Twas Charlie Stuart bowed low at my side:
“O, lend me your lover now,” he cried,
“And when I march homeward adown the glen
You shall wed the bravest of Charlie’s men.”