Chapter V: Part THREE: Other Verses (1)

SHAH JEHAN

BUILDER OF THE TAJ MAHAL.

They have carried my couch to the window
Up over the river high,
That a Great Mogul may have his wish
Ere he lay him down to die.

And the wish was ever this, and is,
Ere the last least shadows flee,
To gaze at the end o’er the river’s bend
On the shrine that I raised for thee.

And the plans I wrought from the plans they brought,
And I watched it slowly rise,
A vision of snow forever aglow
In the blue of the northern skies.

For I built it of purest marble,
That all the World might see
The depth of thy matchless beauty
And the light that ye were to me.

The silver Jumna broadens--
The day is growing dark,
And only the peacock’s calling
Comes over the rose-rimmed park.

And soon thy sunset marble
Will glow as the amethyst,
And moonlit skies shall make thee rise
A vision of pearly mist.

A vision of light and wonder
For the hordes in the covered wains,
From the snow-peaked north where the tides burst forth
To the Ghauts and the Rajput plains.

From the sapphire lakes in the Kashmir hills,
Whence crystal rivers rise,
To the jungles where the tiger’s lair
Lies bare to the Deccan skies.

And the proud Mahratta chieftains
And the Afghan lords shall see
The tender gleam of thy living dream,
Through all Eternity.

The black is bending lower--
Ah wife--the day-star nears--
And I see you come with calling arms
As ye came in the yester-years.

And the joy is mine that ne’er was mine
By Palace and Peacock Throne--
By marble and gold where the World grows cold
In the seed that It has sown.

More bright than the Rajputana stars
Thine eyes shone out to me--
More gay thy laugh than the rainbow chaff
That lifts from the Southern Sea.

More fair thy hair than any silk
In Delhi’s proud bazaars--
More true thy heart than the tulwar’s start--
Blood-wet in a hundred wars.

More red thy lips than the Flaming Trees
That brighten the Punjab plains--
More soft thy tread than the winds that spread
The last of the summer rains.

No blush of the dawning heavens--
No rose by the garden wall,
May ever seek to match thy cheek--
Oh fairest rose of all.

Above the bending river
The midday sun is gone,
But the glow of thy tomb dispels the gloom
Where doubting shadows yawn.

And the glow of thy tomb shall break the gloom
Through the march of the marching years,
Where, builded and bound from the dome to the ground
It was wrought of a monarch’s tears.

The silver Jumna broadens
Like a moonlit summer sea,
But bank and bower and town and tower
Have bidden farewell to me:

And only the tall white minarets,
And the matchless dome shine through--
The silver Jumna broadens and--
It bears me--love--to you.

THE OMNIPOTENT

The Lord looked down on the nether Earth
He had made so fair and green,
Fertile valleys and snow-capped hills
And the oceans that lie between.

The Lord looked down on Man and Maid,
Through the birth of the crystal air:
And the Lord leaned back in His well-earned rest--
And He knew that the sight was fair.

The eons crept and the eons swept
And His children multiplied,
And ever they lived in simple faith,
And in simple faith they died.

They blessed the earth that gave them birth--
They wept to the midnight star--
And they stood in awe where the tides off-shore
Rose leaping across the bar.

They blessed the earth that gave them birth--
But passed all time and tide,
They blessed their Lord-Creator--
Nor knew Him mystified.

They came and went--the little men--
The men of a primal breed--
And the Lord He gathered them as they lived,
Each in his simple creed.

And the Lord He gathered them as they came--
Ere the Earth had time to cool
And the horde of Cain had clouted the brain
’Neath the lash of a monstrous school.

II

The Lord looked down on the nether Earth
He had made so fair and green--
Fertile valleys and snow-capped hills
And the oceans that lie between.

And He saw the strife of the thousand sects--
And ever anew they came--
Torture and farce and infamy
Committed in His name.

Figure and form and fetich--
Councils of hate and greed--
Prophet on prophet warring,
Each to his separate need.

Symbol and sign and surplice
And ostentatious prayer,
And the hollow mock of the chanceled dark
Flung back through the raftered air.

* * * * *

And the Lord He gazèd wistfully
Through the track of a falling star;
And He turned His sight from the homes of men,
Where the ranting cabals are.

THE OUTBOUND TRAIL

The Outbound Trail--The Outbound Trail--
We hear it calling still:
Coralline bight where the waves churn white--
Ocean and plain and hill:
Jungle and palm--where the starlit calm
The Wanderer’s loves fulfil.

Where the bleak, black blizzards blinding sweep
Across the crumpled floe,
And the Living Light makes white the night
Above the boundless snow,
And the sentinel penguins watch the waste
Where the whale and the walrus go:

Where the phosphor fires flash and flare
Along the bellowing bow,
And the soft salt breeze of the Southern Seas
Is sifting across the prow,
And the glittering Cross in the blue-black sky,
The Watcher of Then and Now:

We’ll lift again the lineless plain
Where the deep-cut rivers run--
And the pallid peaks as the eagle seeks
His crag when the day is done:
And the rose-red glaciers glance and gleam
In the glow of the setting sun.

We’ll go once more to a farther shore--
We’ll track the outbound trail;
Harbor and hill where the World stands still--
Where the strange-rigged fishers sail--
And only the tune of the tasseled fronds,
Like the moan of a distant gale.

We’ll tramp anew the jungle through
Where ferned Pitcairnias rise,
And the softly fanned Tjemaras stand
Green lace against the skies,
And the last red ray of the tropic day
Flickers and flares and dies.

_Across the full-swung, shifting seas
There comes a beck’ing gleam,
Strong as the iron hand of Fate--
Sweet as a lover’s dream.
What can bind us--what can keep us--
Who shall tell us nay?
When the Outbound Trail is calling us--
Is calling us away._

THE FOOL

In the first gray dawn of history
A Paleolithic man
Observed an irate mammoth--
Observed how his neighbors ran:
And he sat on a naked boulder
Where the plains stretched out to the sun,
And jowl in hand he frowned and planned
As none before had done.

Next day his neighbors passed him,
And still he sat and thought,
And the next day and the next day,
But never a deed was wrought.
Till the fifth sun saw him flaking
Some flint where the rocks fall free--
And the sixth sun saw him shaping
A shaft from a fallen tree.

Enak and Oonak and Anak
And their children and kith and kin,
They paused where they watched him working,
And they smiled and they raised the chin,
And they tapped their foreheads knowingly--
As you and I have done--
But he--he had never a moment
To mark their mocking fun.

And Enak passed on to bury
His brother the mammoth slew.
And Oonak, to stay his starving,
With his fingers grubbed anew.
And Anak, he thought of his tender spouse
An ichthyosaurus ate--
Because in seeking the nearest tree
She had reached it a trifle late.

* * * * *

Around the Council fire,
More beast and ape than man,
The hairy hosts assembled,
And their talk to the crazed one ran.
And they said, “It is best that we kill him
Ere he strangle us in the night,
Or brings on our head the curse of the dead
When the thundering heavens light.

“It is best that we rid our caverns
Of neighbors such as these--
It is best--” but the Council shuddered
At the rustle of parting leaves.
Out of the primal forest
Straight to their midst he strode--
Weathered and gaunt--but they gave no taunt--
As he flung to the ground his load.

They eyed them with suspicion--
The long smooth shafts and lean:
They felt of the thong-bound flint barbs--
They saw that the work was clean.
Like children with a plaything,
When first it is understood,
They leapt to their feet and hurled them--
And they knew that the act was good.

They pictured the mighty mammoth
As the hurtling spear shafts sank,
They pictured the unsuspecting game
Down by the river’s bank;
They pictured their safe-defended homes--
They pictured the fallen foe....
And the Fool they led to the highest seat,
Where the Council fires glow.

THE SHIPS

The White Ship lifts the horizon--
The masts are shot with gold--
And I know by the shining canvas
The cargo in the hold.

And now they’ve warped and fastened her,
Where I impatient wait--
To find a hollow mockery,
Or a rank and rotted freight.

* * * * *

The Black Ship shows against the storm--
Her hull is low and lean--
And a flag of gore at the stern and fore,
And the skull and bones between.

I shun the wharf where she bears down
And her desperate crew make fast,
But manifold from the darkest hold
Come forth my dreams at last.

_The White Ships and the Black Ships
They loom across the sea--
But I may not know until they dock--
The wares they bring to me._

THE FIRST POET

In the days of prose ere a bard arose
There came from a Northern Land,
A man with tales of the spouting whales
And the Lights that the ice-winds fanned.

And they sat them ’round on the barren ground,
And they clicked their spears to the time,
And they lingered each on the golden speech
Of the man with the words that rhyme.

With the words that rhyme like the rolling chime
Of the tread of the rhythmic sea,
And silent they listened with eyes that glistened
In savage ecstasy.

Over the plain as a pall was lain
The hand of the primal heart,
Till slowly there rose through the rock-bound close
The first faint glimmering Start.

As a ray of light in the storm-lashed night,
O’er the virgin forests swept
From the star-staked sea the Symbols Three--
And the cave-men softly wept.

Softly wept as slowly crept
To the depth of the savage brain,
Honor, forsooth, and Faith and Truth--
And they rose from the rock-rimmed plain--

And in twos and threes ’neath the mammoth trees
They whispered as children do:
And the Great World sprang from the Bard that sang,
And the First of the Men that Knew.

THE TEST

The Lord He scanned His children,
His good, well-meaning children,
And He murmured as He saw them
Where they came and paused and passed;
“I will drag them I will drive them
Through the fourfold Hells of Torture,
And--I will test the product
That comes back to me at last.”

His children came--His children paused--
His children slowly passed Him--
And for the sweat upon the brow
And scar upon the cheek,
He heaped the burdens higher--
He cut and smote and lashed them--
And as they swayed and tottered
He hurled them spent and weak.

They cast an eye, a gleaming eye,
Above to where they sought Him--
But blank the empty skies gave back,
And blank the heavens stared.
And even they with riven heart,
Who strove to hide the hiding,
He drove the scalpel deeper,
That the inmost core lay bared.

At last He took the Test-Tubes
And the Acids of the Ages,
And he lit the Mighty Forges
With the Fires of the Years,
And He turned and smote and hammered,
And He poured and paused and pondered,
Till a clear precipitate formed ’neath
A residue of tears.

Across the outer spaces--
Beyond the last least sun-path,
He called them gently homeward
And He murmured as they passed,
“I have driven ye and dragged ye
Through the fourfold Hells of Torture,
And--I will keep the product
That comes back to me at last.”

THE PORT O’ LOST DELIGHT

_Some call it Fame or Honor--
Some call it Love or Power--
Whence running rails and bellied sails
The four-banked galleons tower.
To each the separate vision--
To each the guiding light--
Where, ’bove the dim horizon lifts
The Port o’ Lost Delight._

’Mid mighty cheers and the hope of years
They swung the good Ship free,
And with laughter brave she took the wave
Of the wonderful, whispering sea.

Over the scud of the white-capped flood--
Over the strong, young days--
Over the lift of the chaff-churned drift
And the mist of the moonlit haze--

Running the lights o’ the Ports-o’-Call,
Where the beckoning beacons shine;
But she passed them by with callous eye,
Nor saw the luring sign.

Piercing the glow of the ocean’s dawn,
As slow the seas unfold;
Scudding again across the plain
Of rippling, sunset gold.

Joyous and fair in the brine-wet air,
Where the phosphor bow-wave slips,
And the Wraiths of the Deep their secrets keep
Of the tale o’ the passing ships.

II

Till there lifted a wondrous Haven
Across the swinging main,
As ne’er before had lifted--
Nor e’er might lift again.

Clear it shone, each gleaming stone,
Mystic, white and far,
Castle and tree above the sea
Where the lilac combers are.

And over all there came a call,
As a Siren’s soft refrain--
Nor ever a helm to guide her,
The Good Ship turned again.

Swift o’er the back-set breakers
She plunged against the wind,
And never a look to left or right,
And never a thought behind:

Swinging, swaying, singing,
With all her canvas spread,
And bending spars and laughter
She fast and faster sped.

A little space--a little space--
A little nearer, then--
The Haven sank from the sunset sea,
And the sea was a waste again.

III

As the quivering stag at the bullet’s sting,
Who knew not harm was nigh,
So shook the Ship by seam and seam
In the death that may not die.

And though it sailed o’er every wave,
By reef and barrier bar,
’Neath the glare of the South Seas’ scorching sun
And the gleam of the lone North Star.

Though it lifted the lights o’ the Ports-o’-Call,
By green and crimson beam,
It never lifted the Light again--
The Light that fled as a dream.

Over a blue-black endless sea--
Over a timeless void--
Callous and careless plunged the Ship
That never a storm destroyed.

Skimming the foaming coral reef--
Daring the mid-deep wind--
Clipping the roar of the white lee shore
Where the Gods of Chance run blind.

Full belly sail before the gale--
With scuppers churning green--
And eyes set dead in a figure-head
That dipped in the troughs between:

That rose and fell and cut the swell--
Or knew the day or night;
That rose and fell to the soundless bell
Of the Port o’ Lost Delight.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

O’er the rock of all eternal--
Over sacred soil ye’ve trod;
Whither king and priest and people
Make their mockery of God.

Like the rolling of an organ
Down the mighty nave of Time,
In the hush of Things Supernal
Ye have sung of Things Sublime.

Living lilt beyond the starlight--
Living light beyond the spheres--
With a calm majestic cadence
Came the call of all the years.

As a pause across the storm-path--
As the swaying starlit sea--
As the faith of little children--
Ye have writ _ETERNITY_.

KING BAMBOO

A BALLAD OF THE EAST INDIES

I build them boats and houses--
I check their mountain roads--
I bear their double burdens--
The squeaking, creaking loads.
Adown the broken hill sides
My long, high pipings run,
To bring their water to them
Adripping ’neath the sun.

And when from spring and river
The weary climbers strain,
’Tis I who hold the nectar
To bring them life again.
I am the quivering bridges
That span the deep ravine--
I am the matted fences
That twist and wind between.

_When ye sing of the lace Tjemara tree--_
_When ye speak of the swaying Palm--_
_When ye talk of the ferned Pitcairnia,_
_And the monkey’s wild alarm:_
_When ye tell of the blazing sunsets--_
_When ye know ye are nearly through--_
_Bend ye a knee to a Sovereign Lord--_
_As my flat-nosed children do._

MARK TWAIN

Died, April 21st, 1910

Fresh as the break o’ the dawning--
Clear as the sunlit pool;
Ye came on a World of weariness--
Lord of a kingly school.

Shuttle and lathe and hammer--
Mill and mine and mart--
They paused awhile to linger and smile--
Children again in heart.

And a World of work and trouble
Bent to their tasks anew,
With strength reborn of the joyous morn
Made manifest by you.

* * * * *

Again the marts are silenced--
There’s a hush o’er land and sea--
With only the sobs of a Nation,
That loved and honored thee.

THE SUMMIT

Out of the murky valleys
By the sweat of brow and brain;
Out of the dank morasses--
On to the spreading plain:
Climbing the broken ranges--
Falling and driving through,
While the toil and tears of the countless years
Bid ye back to the task anew.

Glory and fame and honor
Perched on the distant peak--
Beckoning over land and sea
To the gaze of the men who seek.
Lifting the faltering footstep--
Bathing the tired brow,
Till out of the lanes of the sunken plains
Ye come to the golden Now.

Far spread the gleaming foot hills,
And the deep, green vales between;
Fair lift the distant coast-lines
And the water’s shifting sheen--
And weary, ye pause on the Summit
For the first victorious breath,
When a hand at your elbow beckons--
And ye know that the hand is Death.

THE LITTLE BRONZE CROSS

THE VICTORIA CROSS IN THE CROWN JEWELS ROOM OF THE TOWER OF LONDON

Glittering--glaring--glistening--
In pompous, proud array;
Maces and crowns and sceptres--
Orders and ribbons gay:
Bright in the white electric light;
Caged and guarded there;
Symbol and sign that the luck of line
A king or a cad might wear.

Blinking--blinding--blazing--
The crown-topped hillock shone,
And the gaping crowd in voices loud
Coveted gilt and stone.
Coveted idle gilt and stone,
Though never stopped to stare
At a little cross on the other side,
Half hid in the alcove there.

But slowly into the Tower
Through the narrow windows crept,
The Winds of the Outer Marches--
The Winds that had seen and wept
At Ladysmith--Trafalgar--
Sebastopol--Lahore;
Khartoum--Seringapatam--
Kabul and Gwalior.

The breath of the red Sirocco
That sweeps from the white Soudan:
The winds that beat through the Kyber Pass
Where the blood of England ran:
The winds that lift o’er the Great South Drift--
O’er the veldt and the frozen plain--
They stooped and kissed the little bronze cross,
And went on their way again.

And the blaze of crowns and sceptres--
The power and pomp of kings;
And the glare of the glittering Orders--
The tinsel of Little Things,
Paled in the ancient Tower--
Faded and died alone,
And only a cross--For Valour--
With mystic brightness shone.

KEATS

Who, in a spirit of supersensitive self-abnegation, had placed upon
his tombstone that here lay “one whose name is writ in water.”

If your name is writ in water,
As your humble tombstone saith,
Then it forms a crystal fountain
Born to mock at mortal death.

If your name is writ in water,
’Tis the water of the stream
Where the wise of all the nations
Stoop to drink and stay to dream.

If your name is writ in water,
It has flowed into the sea
Of the ages past and present--
And of Immortality.

CHRISTMAS

Childish prattle and merry laugh
And the joy of Christmas-tide,
And the old are young as the gay bells fling
Their messages far and wide.

Steaming pudding and lighted tree
And the litter of scattered toys,
We’re all of us children again to-day
Along o’ the girls and boys.

(_Back behind the happy faces
Lifts another looking through?
Drop your merry mask and tell me
What does Christmas mean to you?_)

Laughter long of the joyous throng,
Festival, fun and feast,
And there’s never a care in the echoing air
In the joy of a year released.

There’s never a care in the echoing air--
There’s never a break in the song--
And we rise with the rest when the children are blessed
And the hours have galloped along.

TUCK AWAY--LITTLE DREAMS

His nose was pressed to the grindstone--
His shoulders bent to the wheel,
One of the numbered millions
That bore no right to feel.
Child of a callous calling--
Waif of a wilful day;
I heard him murmur beneath his breath--
“Tuck away--little dreams--tuck away.”

The loom and lathe and ledger--
Pencil and square and drill--
They saw his pain and they laughed again
As hardened headsmen will.
While ’neath their chains and chiding,
Through the gloom of the endless day,
I heard him murmur beneath his breath--
“Tuck away--little dreams--tuck away.”

I saw him going down the hill--
I saw him pause, and start,
And bend again to the grinding grain--
Lord of a broken heart.
The sunset shadows lengthened--
The earth was turning gray,
As I caught the breath of the living death--
“Tuck away--little dreams--tuck away.”

BLOODY ANGLE

July 3, 1863; July 3, 1913

THE SPIRIT OF BLOODY ANGLE SPEAKS.

I saw them charge across the field
The Stars and Bars above them,
I saw them fall in hundreds--
I heard the rebel yell.
Behind me, ’neath the Stars and Stripes,
I watched the blue coats pouring
Into the men of Pickett
The flaming vials of Hell.

_I thought of Yorktown--Bunker Hill--
Of Valley Forge and Monmouth.
Again the Elders signed our birth--
The great Bell tolled anew.
And I closed my eyes and shuddered--
And I looked to the Lord of Battle--
And I prayed, “Forgive them Father,
For they know not what they do.”_

I saw them striding o’er the field--
A gray-clad, aged remnant;
I heard again across the plain
The piercing rebel call.
Behind me, ’neath a peaceful sky,
I saw the blue coats standing--
I saw the columns meet--clasped hands--
Above my battered wall.

_I knew my blood-stained conscience--_
_My reeking rowels were whitened._
_I saw the line of Sections_
_Fade dim and die away._
_And Phœnix-like, from fire and hate,_
_A reunited nation_
_Rose up to bless her children,_
_Forever and for aye._

THE MICROBE

The Microbe said--“There is no Man--
I know there may not be:
I cannot hear his voice that sings--
I cannot see his arm that swings--
I cannot feel his mind that flings
My earth-born destiny.”

The Man-Child said--“There is no God--
I know there may not be:
I cannot pause and meet His eye--
I cannot see His form on high--
I only know an empty sky
Stares mocking back at me.”

THE SEAS

_Purple seas and garnet seas, emerald seas and blue,
Foaming seas and frothing seas spraying rainbow dew:
Laughing seas and chaffing seas, gay in the morning light,
Endless seas and bendless seas ayawn in the starless night._

Seas that reach o’er the long white beach
Where the clean-washed pebbles roll,
And the nodding groves and the coral coves
And the deep-toned voices toll.

Seas that lift the broken drift
And crash through the crag-lined fjord--
Seas that cut the channel’s rut
With the thrust of a mighty sword.

Seas that brood in silent mood
When the midnight stars are set--
Seas that roar as a charging boar
Till the rails of the bridge run wet.

Seas that foam where the porpoise roam
And the spouting whale rolls high--
Seas that use in the sunset hues
Till all is a blended sky.

Seas that reek with the golden streak
And the flash of phosphor fire--
Seas that glance in a moonlit dance
With feet that never tire.

Seas that melt in the mist-hung belt
When sky and waters close--
Seas that meet the day’s retreat,
Amber and gold and rose.

_Purple seas and garnet seas, emerald seas and blue,
Foaming seas and frothing seas spraying rainbow dew:
Laughing seas and chaffing seas, gay in the morning light,
Endless seas and bendless seas ayawn in the starless night._

GOD’S ACRE

I’m drivin’ backward to the farm--
The harvest day is done,
And I’m passing by God’s Acre
At the setting o’ the Sun:
And I slow the homing horses--
For I must soliloquize
On that white crop standin’ silent
Against the crimson skies.

I guess there’s tares aplenty--
And I guess there’s lots o’ chaff,
And I guess there’s many stories that
Ed make a feller laugh.
And I guess there’s mebbe stories
Ed make a feller weep,
And the Angels kind o’ whisper
As around the stones they creep.

Well, the Lord He up and planted--
And the Harvest’s come to head;
(And He shore is most particular
When all is done and said).
But I reckon when it’s sifted,
And the Crop is in the bin,
It’ll be a durned hard sinner
As the Lord ain’t gathered in.

GOLD

From the green Cycadeæn ages,
From the gloom of the Cambrian fen,
From the days of the mighty mammoth
And the years of the dog-toothed men,
I’ve lifted ye clear to the summits--
A toy of the upper air--
I’ve dashed ye down to the pits again
To laugh at your despair.

I beckoned across the chasm
To watch ye stumble in,
And never a light to left or right
On the crags of shame and sin.
I called ye over mountains--
I called ye over seas--
And ye came in hosts from all the coasts
To taste of the tainted breeze.

Honor and King and Country--
Sire and Seed and God--
Ye have given all to the Siren’s call
When I but chose to nod.
Ye have given all to the Siren’s call--
To the mock of the Siren’s strain--
Ye have made a choice and never a voice
May bid ye back again.

THE LEGION

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA REUNION ODE

Across the hill I saw them come--
A deep-ranked serried legion.
Across the hill I saw them come--
The faithful cohorts there.
Bank, bar and bench--mine, mart and trench--
From every clime and region,
In manly might and majesty--
And I knew the sight was fair.

I saw them halt against the hill
In loyal lines unbroken;
I heard them answer to the Roll,
Nor ever missed a name;
For they foregathered past recall
Were there by every token,
As, ’cross the valley to a man
The thundering echoes came.

I saw them passing o’er the hill
In serried ranks unbroken;
’Twas stirrup touching stirrup
In the sunshine and the rain.
And good the pride to see them ride
With strength renewed and spoken,
Till love of Pennsylvania
Should call them home again.

THE ALTAR

UPON THE APENNINE HILL OF ROME

’Neath the gardens of the Emperors
Unnoticed you may pass
A little altar nestling
In the poppies and the grass.
No gorgeous columns flank it,
Where priest or Vestal trod--
Only the carven words that sing--
“To the Unknown God.”

The haughty praetor scanned it
With humble, thoughtful air--
The base-born slave espied it
With sullen, frightened stare:
The Roman matron touched it,
And went upon her way--
The gladiator saw it,
And paused awhile to pray.
Even the passing Cæsar
Bowed the imperial head,
With faltering eyes that swept the skies
In reverent fear and dread.

The arching heavens domed it
With royal lapis blue--
The soft Campania’s whisper
Brought the sunshine and the dew:
The candles of the firmament
Bent down their brightest rays,
Where, midst their Pagan Pantheon
A People paused to gaze.

THE SONG OF THE AEROPLANE

I scan your mighty fortresses--
I scorn your splendid fleets--
I chart your chosen cities--
Trenches and lanes and streets.

No secret ’neath the heavens,
No tale of land or sea,
But bares the breast at my behest
To stand revealed to me.

I pierce the rainbow’s bending,
Uncovering fold on fold,
Till I come to the arch’s ending
Where lies the pot of gold.

I romp in the crimson sunset--
I mount the wings o’ the dawn--
I glide o’er the brakes and marshes
To laugh at the startled fawn.

Never a mark may scorn me,
From the noise of the rising quail
To the topmost peak where the eagles seek
Their home in the driving gale.

Where lies the last least wilderness
Man may not dare to know--
Where stands the unscaled mountain,
Fair crowned with virgin snow:

Where hide the hidden ages--
Where flow the golden streams--
Where lurks the land of Crœsus
Or the Lotus-land o dreams:

Up through the rushing firmament,
With never halt or toll,
I bear ye far till ye come where are
The gates of the cherished goal.

* * * * *

On the wonderful things I show you
Lucullus-like ye dine--
For the wonderful thoughts I bring you
Ye love and are wholly mine.

PACK YOUR TRUNK AND GO

If you meet a little fräulein
As pretty as a rosebud,
And eyes that make your silly heart-strings
Thump and bump and glow--
Don’t stand and linger dawdlin’
When you _know_ you’re getting maudlin,
But call yourself a bally fool
And pack your trunk and go.

If the mocking, hollow laughter,
Like the creaking of a rafter,
Greets you--standing watching after
At the Chance you didn’t know:
Sneering in its craven power
Comes to seek you by the hour,
Try the palm-grove, veldt or paddy--
Pack your trunk and go.

If the skies are rent asunder
O’er some hasty little blunder,
And you start to really wonder
How _wise_ some people grow:
Let the empty carp-heads haggle--
Let the teacup headwear waggle--
Just tell ’em all to run along--
And pack your trunk and go.

If the silent blades are dipping
And the green canoes are slipping
By the birches white and dripping
In the crimson after-glow:
And the harvest-moon is rising
With a fullness most surprising--
It’s summer on the northern lakes
So pack your trunk and go.

If the Faith your Fathers taught you
And the Land your Fathers wrought you,
(The Land their blood has bought you),
Shall hear the bugles blow--
Don’t watch in doubt and waiting,
Don’t stand procrastinating,
But say good-bye with laughing eye
And pack your trunk and go.

_Where the coral turns to cactus,
And the cactus turns to harvest,
And the harvest turns to hemlock,
And the hemlock turns to snow:
By the phosphor-bordered beaches--
By the endless, bendless reaches--
You will find him where the Whisper bade him
Pack his trunk and go._

WOMAN

A REPLY TO RUDYARD KIPLING

“A woman is only a woman”--
These are the words you spoke.
And you deemed they were bright and caustic--
And you thought you had made us a joke.
Well, we who have been in the Tropics,
Who’ve noted the Eastern “way,”
’May be we should half forgive you
For some of the things you say.

When the Cave-man spat on his neighbor
And smote him hip and thigh--
When the Bronze-man slivered the boulders
Where the tin and the copper lie--
When the Iron-man reared him bridges
And engines of steam and steel--
What was the Light that lifted them,
And bade them to live and to feel?

When the sunshine turns to shadow--
And the shadow turns to night;
When faith and fair intention
Have fought them a failing fight;
When Hell has drawn nearest--
And God is very far--
Mayhap ye then can tell us who
The Ministering Angels are?

A rose is only a flower--
Can ye bring us the bud more rare?
“A woman is only a woman”--
Can ye show us the work more fair?
Harrie ye all Creation--
Look ye without surcease,
And when ye are weary and broken, kneel--
To your Master’s masterpiece.

NIPPON

_Trust ye the Nations of the Earth
From sea to farthest sea--
But trust ye not, Oh trust ye not
The wily Japanee._

Truth? A jest o’ the High and Low--
A juggler’s tossing toy--
A two-faced guile and a child-like smile--
(Oh Innocence _sans_ alloy!)

Honor? An empty mockery
Beneath the Sunrise Sky;
A hollow, vain, fanatic strain
That lifts with the loud “Banzai!”

Virtue? Not even a figurehead,
So scarce indeed thou art.
Rank to the core a shameless sore
In a yet more shameless heart.

Faith? A faithless phantom
That knows no law or creed.
To flare and wane for the moment’s gain,
And serve the moment’s need.

_Trust ye the Nations of the Earth_
_From sea to farthest sea--_
_But trust ye not, Oh trust ye not_
_The wily Japanee._

THE NEW BARD

They had sung the song how very long
Of Love and Faith and Truth:
And they polished fine till it ran as wine,
With never a spot uncouth.

Mellow it spread with softened tread
To the beat of the perfect time--
Chastened and blest and colorless
In stilted, vapid rhyme.

Songs of love that the angels above
Laughed as they bended near--
Songs of fight that the men of might
Sneered as they stopped to hear--

Till a stronger people rising--
They cast the cant aside,
And they lifted free for the open sea
Where the plunging porpoise ride.

For there lifted free from the open sea
The voice of a bard who knew,
And he brought them tales from the spouting whales
Where only the lean gulls flew.

And he brought them tales from the coral bight
Where the lilac waters spend,
And the ceaseless sift of the phosphor drift
Where the palm-lined beaches bend.

But better than all through the endless pall
His clear-shot wordings ran,
And the tale he bore by peace and war
Was the heart of his fellow-man.

Under the ragged raiment--
Under the silken sheen--
They caught the worth of the spinning Earth,
And the black and the gold between.

For ’neath a coat of roughest hide,
And ’neath the rugged brink,
He covered whole the yearning Soul--
The Soul of the Men Who Think.

The Little Things with mystic wings
That flitting merrily,
Bind West and East and best and least,
From sea to outer sea.

The Little Things with mystic wings,
Hidden the eons through--
From his Children’s gaze he swept the haze,
And his Children seeing--knew

Each throbbing lane of pulse and brain--
The far-flung Brotherhood:
The thoughts untold and the hopes unrolled--
And they answered him where they stood:

“In measures strong we’ve heard your song,
And the warm blood mounts again;
And we scorn the beat of the stifled street
And strike for the open main.

“Far back--far back--we leave the plains
To the little hurrying hosts,
And over the seas in the scud-wet breeze
We lift for the Land o’ Ghosts.

“For the Land o’ Ghosts and the laughing coasts
And the goal we hope to win--
Though ne’er we reach the beckoning beach,
Ye have let us look within.

* * * * *

“Though ne’er we reach the beckoning beach--
Though it fades ere we leap to land,
Ye have made us rife with the strength of life--
Ye have spoke ... and we understand.”

FATHER TIME

When your doctors fail to render--
When your lotions fail to heal--
When the salted scar is burning--
When aturtle turns the keel:
When the lights are lost to leeward--
When the last least hope is gone--
Then I call ye--Oh my children--
As a Mother calls her spawn.

By no magic may I do it--
By no sudden quick surcease:
Slow, so slow, ye cannot know it
Do I bring ye your release.
As the blackened heavens soften
To the morning’s growing gray,
And the gray spreads gold and crimson
Till in splendor breaks the day:

So by little and by little,
That ye may not know or see,
Do I soothe the salted searing--
Do I bid the shadows flee--
Do I weld the torn heart-cord
No surgeon art may heal,
Till ye lift the fastened latchet
And go forth in laughing weal.

From Eastward and from Westward
I call my broken clan;
We may not meet in lane or street
Or greet us man and man:
But slowly spread my wide-leagued wings--
And falling tenderly,
I wrap my troubled Earth-spawn
Unto the heart of me.

MY LOVES

_Oh do you wish to know my Loves?
Then you must come with me
To every land of all the lands
And the waves of every sea._

My love she nestles to my side,
Nor careth who discern,
For she’s the breeze o’ the Southern Seas
Where the egg-spume waters turn.

My love she wraps me in her arms
With a crushing grasp and wild,
For she was born o’ the six-months morn,
A strong, tumultuous child.

My love needs throw a kiss to me,
And the kiss is the rainbow spray,
Then laughing in glee, coquettishly,
She lightly trips away.

My love she comes with open arms,
A dazzling beauty bold--
Lilac and rose and amber,
Scarlet and blazing gold.

My love she gently beckons me
And folds me nearer yet,
A blushing maid with crown of jade
Where the first pale stars are set.

_Oh do you wish to know my Loves?
Then you must come with me
To every land of all the lands
And the waves of every sea._

THE FORUM

Here strode triumphant Cæsars
Returning honored home:
Here rose the gorgeous temples
Of proud imperial Rome.

Here burned the Vestal Fire
The endless seasons through:
Here reared the haughty Arches
The far-flung Nations knew.

Lord of the last least horizon--
King of the Outer Seas--
Where beat a heart, where stood a mart,
There bended suppliant knees--

To Thee--Resplendent Sovereign--
Cradled among the hills,
Who still through the countless centuries
The wondering watcher thrills.

_Only a Tale of the Ages--_
_Power and Pride and Death--_
_And the afterlight of an Empire’s might--_
_And the soft Campania’s breath._

_Only the crumbled marble,_
_And Memory’s lingering wine,_
_And the grass and the scarlet poppies_
_And clover and dandelion._

THE MASTERPIECE

“Des Sohnes letzter Gruss” (“The Son’s last Salutation”). A modern
painting by Karl Hoff in the Royal Picture Gallery, Dresden.

We tramped the stretching galleries--
We gazed each priceless gem--
Jordäens--Rubens--Raphael--
We paused and pondered them.

The famous, same Madonnas--
The fatuous forms at ease--
And the Wedding Feast with Cavaliers--
And a drunken Hercules.

We saw the Sistine Mother,
The farthest Nations know--
Till room on room of light and gloom
Swept row on outer row.

And some we knew and reverenced--
Whose praise the wide World sings;
And some we fled with callous dread
For flat and flaccid things.

Till at last at the gallery’s ending
In the room with the roof-let door,
We saw a young man standing--
The Lone Son bid to War.

Lithe and strong and supple,
Clean-limbed, clear-eyed and tall--
And the parting gaze of the parting ways
When the battered trumpets call.

And we saw the widowed Mother--
And the prostrate, sobless grief;
And the pitying priest beside her,
And the gentle, vain relief.

And the Sister--standing--watching--
’Twixt love, reproach and tears--
The tender light of the summer night
Where brood the unfathomed years.

The Maiden--standing, watching--
Fair as the first, faint star:
A dainty symbol sent to prove
How near the angels are.

* * * * *

We gleaned the gallery’s gorgeous wealth--
But lost its wondrous worth,
As we bowed a head in silence
To the Good of all the Earth.

THE HERITAGE

Full well they tilled the barren soil--
Full well they sowed the seed--
Full well they held by life and life
The seal of the title deed.

From Bunker Hill to Yorktown
They waged a sacred fray:
Oh Sons of Iron Men give ye not
Your heritage away.

By commerce, mart and culture
Ye’ve raised a mighty state;
But ’ware the pampered spirit,
Ere ye ’ware the worst too late.

By commerce, mart and culture
Thrive ye forevermore,
But hold ye to the Iron Age--
The Iron Age of War.

With rugged heart and sinew--
With spirit stern and high,
Keep ye the ways o’ warrior days--
The days that may not die.

Keep ye the ways o’ warrior days,
Maintain the armor bright,
For where ye’ve raised your fathers blazed--
_Hold ye their honor white_.

That through the unborn years to come--
Unpampered, age on age--
Shall guarded stand their promised land--
Our Sacred Heritage.

THE ADJUSTING HOUR

Just the Adjusting Hour,
With nobody else around,
And you sort o’ straighten things a bit,
Beginning right down at the ground.

Just the Adjusting Hour,
When plans have gone askew,
And you stand with your back to the fire--
And only your God and you.

Just the Adjusting Hour,
Pondering very slow,
And you lay the firm foundations
And you pray that they will grow--

Tall and strong and splendid--
That they who run may see,
What the Adjusting Hour
Has given to you and me.

THE OUTPOSTERS

We’ve _tête-à-têted_ here and there
Whence all the breezes fan,
From Cuba clear to Tokio
And back to Hindustan.

We’ve journeyed out of Agra
To see the Taj Mahal
Rise mystic white in the moonlit night
Above the Jumna wall.

Along the plains of Java
We shook you by the hand,
And watched among Tosari’s hills
The lace Tjemaras stand:

Or Aden’s great cathedral rocks--
High--majestic--bare--
Or Karnak’s columns rising sheer
Through the clear Egyptian air.

We’ve laughed with you in Poeroek Tjahoe,[A]
In the heart of Borneo,
Ere we hit the trail to northward
Where the lesser rivers flow:

Where the angry Moeroeng cuts the hills
And the endless jungles rise,
And the Dyak kampongs nestle ’neath
The speckless, fleckless skies.

By the myriad ship-lights stretching through
The Roads of Singapore,
By the crooked, winding, white-walled streets
Of burning Bangalore:

By the mighty, gilded Shwe Dagon
Aglitter above the trees,
Where the tiny ti bells tinkle
In the sough of the sunset breeze:

From where the terrace-sculptured gates
Of the great Sri Rangam rise,
To Bangkok’s triple temple roofs,
Red-gold against the skies:

By crowded, sewerless Canton--
By Hong Kong’s towering lights--
By the gorgeous Rajputana stars
That blazon the blue-black nights:

We’ve met you, Men of the Millionth Mark--
Outposters--far--alone--
Beyond the glut of the cities’ rut,
And we claim you for our own.

(Beyond the glut of the cities’ rut
And the roar of the rolling cart,
Beyond the blind of the stifled mind
And the hawking, haggling mart.)

And some of you were “rotters”--
And some were “18 fine”--
But on the whole--we saw your soul--
Oh outbound kin of mine.

_So stand we pledged and hand in hand_
_By every ocean, gulf and land,_
_Stout hearts and humble knees:_
_Oh men of the Outer Reaches--_
_Oh men of the palm-lined beaches--_
_Oh men where the ice-pack bleaches--_
_Oh Brethren o’ the far-flung seas._

[A] Pronounced Poorook Jow.

WONDERING

Leaning on the midnight rail,
Looking o’er the sea,
Winking at the little stars,
While they wink at me.
Wondering how it happened
Ages long ago,
Wondering why I’m here to night--
Wondering where I’ll go.

Wondering how the Scorpion
Bends his mighty tail,
Wondering if the Archer’s aim
Makes Antares quail:
Wondering why Australia’s Crown
Happened to be made,
Wondering if I really ought
Not to be afraid.

Wondering if the blackened sea
Ever has a bend,
Wondering if the Milky Way
Ever has an end,
Wondering why the Southern Cross
Has an arm askew,
Wondering lots o’ funny things,
(I wonder, wouldn’t you?)

Wondering where He’s watching from--
Wondering if He’d see
Anything so very small
Just as you or me?
Wondering and wondering--
But still the echoes fail--
And so I’m left awondering
Over the silent rail.

LINES TO AN ELDERLY FRIEND

Written in a presentation copy of “My Bunkie and Other Ballads”
given to A. Van Vleck, Esq., of New York City.

Where the sails hang limp and lifeless
In the doldrums’ deadly pause,
Where the lights above the Polar capes
Spread out in a golden gauze:
Where lilac tints are listing
O’er purple tropic seas--
Where the Arctic winds are whistling
And the north-flung rivers freeze--
We’ve met the men the Maker made
To dwell ’neath fir and palm--
And, we salute thee, friend and man--
_M’sieur--le gentilhomme_.

BATTLESHIPS

Addressed to “little-navy” Congressmen.

_Fools there lived when the Nations sprang newborn from
the arms of God--_
_Fools there’ll live when the Nations melt in the mold of
the markless sod._
_Fools there are and fools there were and fools there’ll ever be--_
_But none like the fools whom the ages teach, and then refuse to see._

With Other Peoples building them in squadrons--
The Other Peoples laden down with debt--
In the richest of the Nations you’ll cut appropriations,
But the Day of Reckoning--have ye counted yet?

Oh be careful, Oh be meager, Oh My Brothers;
Weigh the cost, and gasp, and pare it down again;
Till the twelve-inch children roar and the troop-ships grate the shore
And you hear the coming tread of marching men.

Then My Brothers, Oh my wise far-seeing Brothers,
Build a Fleet and build it swiftly overnight;
Ah truly ye who knew it all these years can surely do it,
For ye and only ye alone are right.

Go gaze across your growing, waving acres--
Go gaze adown the peaceful, busy street;
May the prestige of your town be your all-in-all renown,
And scorn the men who bid you, “_BUILD THE FLEET_.”

Or whine about your irrigation ditches--
Much they’ll help a scarred and battle-riven land.
Oh they’ll do a monstrous earning when the crops they grow are burning--
Because you would not hear the clear command.

With the jealous nations standing to the east-ward--
And the Sneaking Cur that watches on the west--
You’ll bargain, skimp and whine till the gray hulls lift the line,
And your children stand betrayèd and confessed.

For the sake of saving five or fifty millions--
For the sake of “politics” or local greed--
Will you brand yourselves arch traitors to the Nation--
You, the sons of men who served us in our need?

Will you risk a land your Sires died to bring you--
A land our faithful Fathers fell to save,
By the bleaching bones of Valley Forge and Monmouth
Or the crimson flood the Bloody Angle gave?

Will you see one half the Nation raped and burning--
Will you learn War’s callous, lurid, livid wrath
By the wailing ’long the wayside, by the ashes of the cities,
Ere your gathered army flings across their path?

You may strut and boast our boundless might and power--
You may call our race the Chosen of the Lord--
But if _your_ town they raze--and if _your_ home’s ablaze
You will wake and learn the Kingdom of the Sword.

You will wake and learn the word your Fathers taught you--
You will wake and learn the truth--but all too late:
By the shrieking shrapnel’s crying--by the homeless, wronged and dying--
You shall count what, you begrudged to Guard the Gate.

THE AMERICAN FLAG

It should be needless to note that the persons here addressed do
not comprise the whole American people but a certain distinctive
type.

Oh little men and sheltered--
Oh fatted pigs of a sty,
Through the Star Spangled Banner ye calmly sit,
Nor see the wrong, nor the why,
And ye stand with your hats on your thoughtless heads,
When the Flag of the Nation goes by.

Has the lust of the dollar gripped you
Till the fetid brain’s grown cold,
Till ye forget the days that are set
And the glorious deeds of old--
And the Song and the Passing Colors
Are drowned in a flood of gold?

Awake from your listless lethargy--
Arise and understand
The battle-hymn of your fathers--
And the Flag of your Fatherland--

As it rose to the hum of the feet that come
To the drum and the bugle’s call;
As it tasted the dregs of raw reverse--
As it rushed through the breach in the wall:

As it fell again on the gore-wet plain
Till new hands swung it high--
As it dipped in rest to East and West
Where it watched its Children die:

As it swept anew o’er the shotted blue,
And the great gulls reeled in fright;
As it bore the brave ’neath the whispering wave
To the Squadron’s hushed Goodnight:

As it mounted sheer ’mid cheer on cheer,
Till, far o’er land and sea,
It gave each fold to the sunlight’s gold--
And the name of Victory.

Then on your feet when the first proud strain
Of the Anthem rolls on high--
And see that ye stand uncovered
To the Colors passing by
And pray to your God for strength to guard
The Flag ye glorify.

THE GREAT DOCTORS

Chiefs of all the Conquerors--
Kings above the Kings--
Fame beyond all earthly fame
Where the censer swings.

Brave and strong and silent--
Patient, cautious, calm--
E’en as the ministering angels--
Even as Gilead’s Balm--

They come; the quiet god-men,
Where hope has fled apace,
And the Reaper’s scythe is swaying
Across the ashen face.

No miracle proclaims them--
No thundering cheer and drum--
As creeps the light of the starlit night
God’s Emissaries come.

A touch to the raveled life-cord
Or ever it snaps in twain;
And as the light of the starlit night
They silently pass again.

THE DREAMER AND THE DOER

The Dreamer saw a vision
High in th’ empyrean blue,
And slowly it passed until at last
He called to the Man he knew--
“Look, thou Dolt of the Blinded Heart--
Slave of Rod and Rule--
And drink of the wine of my sight divine--
Oh churl of a plodding school!”

The Doer he checked and plotted
And hammered and pieced again,
But his eyes they were on the things that he saw--
The Things of the Earth-bound Men:
And he called to the Dreamer passing--
“Oh stop, thou fool, and see
On water and land the work of my hand,
For the service of such as thee.”

“Dolt,” said the Dreamer, “ye stole my dream
I showed where the lightnings ran ...”
“Fool,” said the Doer, “but for my toil--
Ye’d still be a Stone-age Man.”

SPAIN

Might and far-flung power
And we call the vision Rome,
Where the close-locked legions trample
And the triremes cut the foam.
Grace and regal beauty--
And Athena’s temples rise
Above the fertile Attic plains
And blue Ægean skies.
But when, in wanton whispers
Creeps o’er the tired brain
The word Romance, there falls the trance--
The spell of olden Spain.

* * * * *

The humdrum of the city
The workshop and the street,
They gently slip behind us--
As glide our tired feet
O’er the pavements of Sevilla,
Where the Grandees pass again
To ogle in the balconies
The matchless eyes of Spain.

Once more the somersaulting bells
In the great square tower ring--
Once more the sword and cowl draw back--
“The King--make way--The King!”
Sevilla--Mother of a world
Of pride and golden gain,
And greed and love and laughter
Of Periclean Spain.

Once more o’er purple ocean
Or coral-locked lagoon,
We watch the bowsprit cutting
The pathway of the moon.
The long white beach, the swaying palms’
Shifting silver sheen--
And the flickering flares of the flimsy fleet
Where the spear-poised fishers lean.

The low-hung, skimming scuppers--
The flaunting skull and bones--
The buccaneer on his poop-deck
Roaring in thunder tones
To a swarthy, ill-begotten crew--
As slow the daylight dies,
And he lifts with a smile the chartless isle
Where the buried treasure lies.

The lilt of living music
Caressing heart and brain:
Harp, guitar and mandolin
In languorous, limpid strain.
The fluttering fan--the furtive glance--
The black mantilla’s reign--
And the Captains bold who drop their gold
To bask in the eyes of Spain.

The towering galleons plunging
Thrice-tiered above the foam:
The ringing round-shot roaring,
And the crash of the hit gone home:
The yard-arms staggering under,
Where, scorning the iron rain
And showing its fangs to a parting world,
Goes down the Lion of Spain.

* * * * *

When the clattering city cloys you
With the stress of its strident call--
When practical, calculating Things
Are domineering all--
When your clamped mind in its weariness
To Romance turns again,
Seek ye the Andalusian crags--
The flare of the gold and crimson flags--
And the scented breath where the night wind drags
Through the Isles of the Spanish Main.

C. Q. D.

THE PRESENT-DAY “S. O. S.”

Cities and kings and nations
Hush at my outer breath,
As sightless I glide o’er the wind-lashed tide
In my race with the deep-sea death.
War and Trade and the Laws ye made
Halt at the Letters Three,
Bound on my errand of mercy--I--
The ultimate C.Q.D.

No wave may intercept me,
Though it tower a hundred feet;
No storm shall ever stay me,
Though sky and waters meet.
Piercing the howling heavens--
Skimming the churning sea--
Through blast and gale I bring the tale--
I--the pitying C.Q.D.