Chapter III

When, on the brooding darkness of the void
Wherein the world swung like a tiny star,
Death hovered with his sable wings outspread,
And Hell yawned far below, God gave to man
His promise of redemption through the blood
That dripped from pierced hands high on Calvary--
The mortal death of God's immortal Son.
The centuries have crumbled into dust;
Cities have risen on the shores of Time,
Then passed away like footprints in the sand;
Empires have vanished, kings have laid them down
In silence, but the word of Him remains
Who cried in agony upon the tree:
"Forgive them, for they know not what they do."
Once more the fresh-hewn cross lifts to the sky
In consecrated Oberammergau;
Once more I see the Christ in humble guise
Teaching the multitudes, and hear his voice
In supplication and in parable
Proclaim his mission to a sinful world.
Ah, could the world but gaze upon that Christ
With heart attuned unto the symboled love
That makes his face a radiant miracle!
The world hath need of thy great lesson now;
The money-changers throng the Temple gates;
The kiss of Judas burns from lips to brow;
The hate of Herod rankles in the hearts
Of scorners, and the poisoned crown of thorns
Which Greed has woven for humanity,
Bites like the chaplet that the Saviour wore
The day that He was crowned and crucified.
Methinks I see around the shining cross
Phantoms that shudder when the name of Christ
Is whispered by the multitude; I see
Grim Avarice with shriveled fingers clutch
A golden bauble; shrinking by his side,
Oppression stands and hugs a clanking chain,
While deeper in the gloom, with eyes aglow
And matted hair still dripping red with gore,
Sits War, her trembling hand enclasped within
The spectral hand of Death. O Christus, thou
To whom it has been given once again
To symbolize the passion of the cross,
Approach thy task with heart inspired by love,
And when the Saviour's words fall from thy lips,
Be thine the Saviour's exaltation when
He told the dying thief upon the cross
That he should be with Him in Paradise.

INSTRUMENTS.

Today we are the fruits of yesterday
And what tomorrow shall of us demand,--
The helpless tools within the Master's hand
To do His will and never say Him nay.
He blends our souls with iron, fire or clay,
He shapes our doom according as He planned
The scheme of life, and who shall understand
The why He gives, or why He takes away?
Somewhere the universal loom shall catch
These broken, flying threads like thee and me,
And twined with other broken threads to match
As fly the years' swift shuttles ceaselessly,
So weave them all together one by one,
Till lo! the finished woof is brighter than the sun.

QUATRAINS.

_The Sky Line._

Like black fangs in a cruel ogre's jaw
The grim piles lift against the sunset sky;
Down drops the night, and shuts the horrid maw--
I listen, breathless, but there comes no cry.

_Defeat._

He sits and looks into the west
Where twilight gathers, wan and gray,
A knight who quit the Golden Quest,
And flung Excalibur away.

_To an Amazon._

O! twain in spirit, we shall know
Thy like no more, so fierce, so mild,
One breast shorn clean to rest the bow,
One milk-full for thy warrior child.

_The Old Mother._

Life is like an old mother whom trouble and toil
Have sufficed the best part of her nature to spoil,
Whom her children, the Passions, so worry and vex
That the good are forgot while the evil perplex.

_The Call._

When the north wind, riding o'er the uplands,
Shouted to the red leaves: "I am Death!"
Was it fear that sent them all a-flying,
Sighing, flying o'er the withered heath?

_Life._

Life is just a web of doubt
Where, with iridescent gleams,
Flickers in or struggles out
Love, the golden moth of dreams.

_Revelation._

I called your name, Man-in-the-Grave,
And straight her lips grew cold on mine,
And then I knew although I have
Her hand, her heart and soul are thine.

_Tears of Men._

Men shed their blood for honor or renown,
For freedom's sake to nameless graves go down,
But there's one cause alone 'neath heaven above
For which they shed their tears, and that is--Love.

IMMUTABILITY.

The sun must rise, the sun must set,
Nor ever change in plan may be,
Though dawn to stricken wretch may bring
The hempen rope and gallows tree,
And eventide to happy bride
Love's crown of love in Arcady.

THE FETTERED VULTURES.

(Battleships of the Coronation Naval Review, Spithead, England, June 24, 1911.)

Hail, sceptered Mars, great god of wars!
Hail, Carnage, queen of blood!
And hail those muffled armaments--
Thy fettered vulture brood!
Their sable wings are laureled and
Their necks are ribboned gay,
And silken folds their talons hide
This kingly holiday.

Grotesque and grim, in chains of gold,
They go with solemn mien,
Their horrid plumes bedizened for
The eyes of king and queen;
But padded claw and mummer's crest
Have served not to disguise
Those iron beaks that thirst for blood,
Those wakeful, wolfish eyes.

Ten condors with unsated maws,
Four lesser birds of prey,
An eagle with undaunted eye
From Shasta, far away;
A score of birds from many seas,
All purged of grime and blood,
Keep truckling pace the fete to grace,--
Mars' fettered vulture brood.

But see ye not, great god of wars,
And ye, Britannia's king,
The day when these black birds shall fly
On fierce unshackled wing?
When they shall meet 'twixt sea and sky,
Rend flesh and break the bone,
And blood shall trickle through the waves
To gray old Triton's throne?

Hail, sceptered Mars, great god of wars!
Hail, Carnage, queen of blood!
And hail those muffled armaments,--
Thy fettered vulture brood!
And yet Christ's gentle teaching scrolls
Prophetic on the sky:
"Behold! some day thy vulture brood
Shall go unfed and die!"

THE DEAD CHILD.

Life to her was a perfect flower,
And every petal a jeweled hour,
Till all at once--we know not why--
God sent a frost from His clear blue sky.

Life to her was a fairy rune;
Her light feet tripped to the lilting tune,
Till all at once--we know not why--
God stopped th' enchanting melody.

Life to her was a picture book
That her glad eyes searched with eager look
Till all at once--we know not why--
God put the wondrous volume by.

NIGHT IN MAY.

The snowy clouds, soft sleeping lambkins, lie
Along the dark blue meadows of the sky,
And the bright stars, like golden daffodils,
Are blooming thickly by.

And Luna, gentle shepherdess, the while
Keeps near her flock and guards it with her smile;
I almost fancy I can hear her song
Down to this shadowed stile.

Lo! Zephyrus, fond lover, comes to woo;
With airy step he hastes the pastures through,
And steals a kiss from Luna as she nods
Drowsy with fragrant dew.

She starts; the little lambs aroused from sleep,
Fly hence; but Luna near her swain doth keep.
Oh, it was ever thus since lover came
'Twixt shepherdess and sheep!

DE PROFUNDIS.

I thought today within the crowded mart
I saw thee for a moment, friend of mine,
And all at once my blood leapt fast and fine
And a new light broke on my shadowed heart.
'T was but a moment that my fancy's art
Moulded another's features into thine,
For when he passed me by and gave no sign,
The bitter truth came back with sudden start.
Then I remembered how the Merlin spell
Of waving arms and woven paces bands
Thy dust forever in its four-walled cell,
Heedless of all except thy Seer's commands--
Holds thee enraptured with the charms that dwell
In broken paces and in folded hands.

Transcriber's Note:

Variant spellings and proper nouns remain as printed. Minor
typographical errors have been corrected without note, whilst
significant amendments have been listed below:

p. 8, 'pleasuance' amended to _pleasaunce_;
'Some decked for the pleasaunce bower'

p. 25, 'Homme' amended to _Homme_;
'The old "Bon Homme Richard's" unlaid ghost'

End of Project Gutenberg's Pan and Aeolus: Poems, by Charles Hamilton Musgrove