Chapter III

I know the song that you sing to God,
Joyous and high and wild,
But here where His creatures herd and die,
'Tis the sob of a little child.

WHERE IS GOD?

(Written during the hostilities in the Far East in 1900.)

Hard by the gates of Eden,
Where God first walked with man,
In the light of the new creation,
Ere the race of Cain began,
The world-wide hosts have gathered,
And their swords are drawn to slay:
God was with man in Eden,
But where is God today?

From the ice-bound steppes of the Cossack;
From the home of the fleur-de-lis,
From the vineyards that crown the Rhineland
To the shores of the phosphor sea,
The clans have gathered for battle,
And each for the signal waits,
While a million swords are flaming
At Eden's Eastern gates.

By the sign of the yellow dragon,
By the tri-color's bars of light;
By the double-throated eagle
That screams with the lust of fight,
By the Union Jack of Britannia,
By Columbia's stars and bars,
They pray to the god of battle
For the meed of a hundred wars.

Hard by the gates of Eden,
Where the passion flower of strife
First bloomed at its blood-red altar
At the price of a brother's life,
The children of Cain are gathered
To plunder and burn and slay:
God was with man in Eden,
But where is God today?

THE STORY OF MOSES.

This is the story of Moses,
The earliest scribe that we keep:
Void was the earth and formless,
And dark was the face of the deep,
Till God's word flashed in lightning,
Beautiful, bountiful, bright,
And night was the name of the darkness,
And day was the name of the light.

This is the story of Moses--
(Doubt it, if ever you can)--
The world was too good to begin with,
So God made Adam, the man;
And for Adam He made the woman,
And He gave them laws to obey;
And, lastly, He sent the serpent
To follow and tempt and betray.

This is the story of Moses--
Eve got a man from the Lord,
And his name was Cain, and another
Called Abel, the evil-starred;
And the brothers quarreled at their worship,
And Abel, the meek, was slain,
And Death shook hands with the slayer,
His first and best friend, Cain.

This is the story of Moses
Of how our people began,
Of the broken law and the bloodshed--
First fruits of the God-sent man;
This is the story of Moses,
The earliest scribe who writ,
And all the scribes who are writing
Don't vary the tale a whit.

PARTHENOPE TO ULYSSES.

O king! what is the quest that evermore
Foredooms thy feet to roam, yet blinds thine eyes?
Why seek ye still for life's imperfect prize,
Or turn thy weary sail from shore to shore,
When here thou layest aside the ills of yore
To calm thy soul with dreams? Let it suffice--
This heart-sick burden of the worldly-wise--
That ye have borne it and the task is o'er,
Here see the world fade like a spark of fire,
While all thy restless ways grow full of peace,
And wear the fittest crown for them that tire
Their souls with life's unraveled mysteries,--
Above the old red roses of desire
The languid lotus of desire's surcease!

DEATH.

I am the outer gate of life where sit
Faith and Unfaith, those two interpreters
That spell in diverse ways what God has writ
In symbols on the archway of the years.

Backward I swing for many feet to pass;
Some come in stormy haste, some grave and slow,
And all like windy shadows on the grass:
Beyond my pale I know not where they go.

THE LIGHT CELESTIAL.

(Written on the ter-centenary of John Milton, December 9, 1908.)

Immortal singer, in whose glorious brain
Unearthly melodies were born to make
A nocturn for the blessed Master's sake,
I see thee pass through heaven's gates again;
I hear thee singing that majestic strain,
Which soothed the heart affliction could not break,
And proved the faith no worldly ills could shake;
And then I see thee join God's holy train,
But, wonder of all wonders! where the light
Breaks from a thousand suns, the seraphs, shod
With flaming sandals, lead thee; and my sight
Dims with the vision, till fresh from His rod,
I see thee lift those orbs, once quenched in night,
And gaze into the steadfast eyes of God!

CUPID TO A SKULL.

I came your way in the years gone by,
In the summers that now are old,
And then there was light in your beaming eye,
And love was living and hopes were high
At the Sign of the Heart of Gold.

I come today and the lights are fled,
And the trail of the mold and rust
Has saddened the hall where the feast was spread,
And love has vanished and youth is dead
At the Sign of the Heart of Dust.

THE PASSING RACE.

I.

Silent as ever, stoic as of old,
The scattered nomads of that dusky race
Whose story shall forever be untold,
Sit mid the ruins of their dwelling place
And watch the white man's empire grow apace.
Passive as one who knows his earthly doom,
And only waits with calm but hopeless face
The while the seasons go with blight and bloom,
So live they day by day beside their nation's tomb.

II.

In the deep woods and by the rolling streams
They made their home, and knew no other clime;
They lived their lives and dreamed barbaric dreams,
Nor heard the menace of relentless Time
As on his thunderous legions swept sublime
Bearing the torch of progress through the night,
Till lo! the primal wastes were all a-chime
With traffic's strange new music, and the might
Of busy hordes that wrought to spread the new-born light.

III.

They were strange wanderers on life's sad deep,
And paused a moment in God's mystic plan
A little vigil on time's shores to keep,
Then passed forever from the tribes of man.
They heard a voice and a strange face did scan,
And what of conquest or of kingly sway
Had filled their dreams, they gave the white man's clan,
And with the dawning of a wondrous day,
They spread their sails again and, voiceless, passed away.