Chapter 4
O Freedom! whose pure soul and heart embrace Translates me into heaven, I draw for breath The joy of angels who have not known death. Child-like, I look up in thy loving face, Else gaze around and point, and curious place My hand on Mottoes, hung on high. One saith: "Beware, for he not with me scatterith." Its meaning comes to me with growth, like grace.
Ah, as a youngster, on its mother's arm, Seeing a hideous thing approaching night, Will not lay down its head and shut its eye, But will with look and lung express alarm-- My mind cries out in dread--when sea and sky Show dragons, tendencies that work thee harm.
II
O Freedom! Up to whose raised hand the seas Leap, playful lions, or with head and main Across their paws lie couchant--it is pain To see thee whose heart beats are God's decrees, And vital breathings are infinities, Now check thy heart and hold thy breath to gain The smile and plaudit of a depths with bane In finger tips, while fawning on their knees.
What! Think the tyrant, whose great soul is trade, Whose history, a crater, belching black And lurid, keeps glad Easter morning back From half the world--loves thee save to invade, As blackward planned? loves thee, along whose track March Human rights up to the stars parade?
NEMESIS
There where the Tyrant long has loomed, wreck-crowned, Are young and old hurled to the coast and blast. Frail are their ships; still, Sun, why glare aghast, Watching the billows monstering around? The soul of man was not born to be drowned. It mounts and mounts, till, at God's throne, at last, And freedom welcomes it with arms, sky-vast, As down it comes to meet Thrall and confound.
O, deathless spirit, born of hosts sea-hurled, Who hast out soared night's stars with agony's cry For justice! Thou hast come down from the sky, Heralding doom to Thrall, whose flag unfurled By steel, or craft, shows, as 'tis hoisted high, The blood of man and ruin of the world.
ALL STARS MERGED IN ONE
What is the Truth? The thought, the act, or cry, Recasting the Supreme Intelligence; All else is false. Look! where are stars so dense, That each has not the freedom of the sky? And, still, what peace, what glory, reigns on high! What! with the wisdom of the heavens, dispense? The Peace, for which our longings grow intense, Comes through the stars to earth, and but thereby.
What splits dark mid-night and gives earth a thrill? All stars merged into one--our Country's aim. It is a lightening, formed by God, to flame Across the ages and flash bolts to kill The stranglers, who the heart or spirit, main, Or choke black in the face, a People's Will.
LINCOLN'S LIGHTENING IN WILSON'S HANDS
I
Who is to rise and hurl God's flame world-wide, As Lincoln hurled it, setting free a race From Sphinx-shaped wrong--a beast with human face? That shattered, how our land rose glorified And, from the stars last laggard, soared, their guide! Oh, who can take Promethean Lincoln's place, To bring light where-so-ever he can trace A Human, with his rights to soul denied?
He must be one, not only to illume All ages, and not leave one region dim, But at no height, allow his senses swim, Or let mirages lure him with false bloom. Lo! Here one comes with all the virtues prim To hurl God's fire and end all human gloom.
II
'Tis Wilson takes God's flame from Lincoln's hand. This Princeton man,--who has outgrown the prince, A hundred years, and, in the ocean since, Seen with delight, Eternity expand And loom in glory from the despot's strand,-- Shapes fourteen dazzling bolts without a wince. He pauses. Why not hurl them and convince The world that, hence-forth, not one thrall shall stand?
What! Wilson's arm lacks strength to hurl the flame, God gave to Lincoln for the Human race? Look! Look! it falls. What! Gone? Quenched by dark space? No; it describes an orbit there, the same As comets, and regains its heavenly place For one to hurl it true, and doom Earth's Shame.
THE CATACLYSM
In Wilson we beheld and proudly hailed The World's Deliverer. In him, we saw A luminous being rise from earth and draw All lands above the clouds. We were regaled With justice cascades flow, long ice impaled Upon high mountains. Was not Nature's thaw From his heart heat for truth, Eternal Law? His was the heat of all the stars, he scaled.
Though his ascension was like Christ's, sublime With lift of continents and every isle, He, less than Christ, succumbed to Demon Guile. Oh, God, that he should drop his mountain climb Below sea-level, and let earth the while, Fall back and settle in Primeval Slime!
AN EPOCH'S ANGEL FALL
Judging from Wilson's virile virtue-voice, Whose whisper hushed Earth's Hum, were we not proud To have him cross the sea to speak aloud And, with a finger raised, hush battle noise, And lift all lands to Justice's equipoise? Oh, such his truth to God,--so oft avowed,-- A spirit thund'red from a luminous cloud: "This man crowns Lincoln's work. All Men! Rejoice."
Oh, had he read his bible where St. Paul, Grown man, put off child things--or, had not smiled, When told, strong Ego oft, is man grown child! Look! Who sees not an Epoch's Angel Fall From hope for earth, in Wilson's truth, beguiled By second childhood's toys to play with thrall?
THE AMERICA OF THE FUTURE
I
Our Country still is in the womb, dark Time. It shows life by its brisk and robust turns, Which thrill the Mother, Liberty, who yearns To see her man-child born. Oh, how sublime With genius, not of one, but every climb Where art forms beauty, or the spirit spurns The foul and spurious,--her desire, that burns Prenatally in him, to form him prime!
Oh People, all--Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, English, Irish, German, Jew, and Greek-- What see you, as you climb the Future's Peak? Oh! no illusion. What looms there, shall wrench From life, all monsters out from Hell, to seek Dead consciences and plague earth with their stench.
II
Ascend, O Land of every Creed and Race! Not thy full image, in New England's brook, Nor in the South's lagoon; though there, a look Delights us with thy chubby, infant face. 'Tis seas of joy, that shorelessly replace The Ocean which, in time of old, forsook The prairies for the cloud, or spring in nook,-- That show thee, Grown, through God's abundant grace.
From East to West, how joy's high seas expand, Reflecting, not a foolish, mundane pride That, thinking it does all, sets God aside-- But Virtue which, with heart and head and hand, Works out God's purpose, with dear Christ for guide, And holy spirits Light to understand!
III
All Virtues from the longing of the soul; From wisdom, gained by sorrow through long ages; From inspiration of the bards, in rages That inter-marrying maniacs control A people's life, and drain its sea to shoal, And from the vision of sky-topping sages, Gasping for breath from rot in all its stages,-- Aye, these and new-born Genius loom there Whole.
Look, People! Little less than God's own size, Your virtues merge and, with speed God-ward, burn, An unconsuming sun, that at no turn In spiral flight, for still a grander rise, Lets night advance where human Rights still yearn, Except with great, new stars and dawning skys!
THE INEVITABLE
I
Behold two fleets, the one with woe for trail, The other, rapture. As they sight the strait, Through which but one can pass, Greed, urged by Hate, Drives Thraldom's crafts with help of steam and gale. They feel their way. The guns, with which they hale, Raise jets, that look tall elms from Hope, the gate, To Peace, the Palace; then, their speed is great, Manoeuvering fast to head off, or assail.
Drawing the sea up for his driving steam, Greed breaks all mirrors in his grand state room, That show him dark inevitable doom, Close hovering, and exults: "I am Supreme. When seas lack water for my funnel fume, I bid life send its every crimson stream."
II
What! in the darkness lowers boat after boat From Freedom's fleet, and each with lightening oars? Treasons to God and country are the rowers. They are the Gold and Hireling Brain, that gloat On conscience body with face down, afloat. Why hail they Greed, to run on menial chores From deck to deck, or to and from all shores? Why? To ensure the payment of a note.
Meanwhile, brisk Freedom's fleets with justice manned, And cosmic full momentum for their speed, Confront the crafts, fired up by fiendish Greed. A clash and--lo! they pass the strait and land, Leaving in smoldering heaps, like autumn's weed, The hulks of thrall along time's vultured strand.
REPTILES WITH WINGS
Are lust for Gold and Power not hideous spawn Of prehistoric reptiles, that had wings? Where e'er those crawled, they chawed all greening things And, when they mounted, how their lengths, full drawn, Basked barren in the sun before the dawn, Absorbing all its rays from budding Springs? These drain life's dawn and by impoverishings, Draw and reduce to pulp, frail Consciences.
Oh, yea, bewinged with legislative crime, They bask in sunlight e'er the east sky greys, And drag the soul of man from God's embrace Of rights and freedom. Oh, how long a time Shall reptiles, deadly to the Human race, Be let grow wings and heavenward trail their slime?
THE OUTLAWS OF OUR COUNTRY
I
The outlaws in our country are the wretches, Who wreck the legislatures with their gold, And with the ruins, form a high stronghold To sally from, to what good nature fetches From God to man. What though fine graphic sketches In magazines show them with shoulders bold Against the nights flood-gates of dark and cold? All effort is but life in death-throw stretches.
They are the outlaws, who stop Nature's train And take its corn and coal for selfish use; Then, put their shoulders to Night's gate, to loose Its hinges for a forty-day dark rain, To drown all life, that they, like Noah, may cruise Through thick drifts of the dead in heart and brain.
II
O heart and brain, who see the father load His train with food, not for the few, but all, And hear train-whistlings in March winds, jay call And ground-hog sniffs! Haste out, for from the road That leads to every Industry's abode, The trust that, bat-eyed, comes out at night-fall, Now moves the tracks inside his private wall, Claiming all trains from God a debt long owed.
O heart and brain, it rest with you, how long The legislative wreckers shall prevail. Ye have the power to balk them. Why then, fail? Regain your legislatures. Man them strong And drive thence all sleek hounds, trust-trained to trail Safe outlaws' paths to fastnesses of wrong.
THE PRESS
Was ever such unblushing harlotry, Such sale of virtue in the Market place, As by the Press? The red paint on her face Is Degradation's mark. Alas, that she, Born to bring forth the truth, still, is so base, She kills her child and, then, to hide all trace, Cracks bone by bone to dust, too fine to see.
O Press, poor harlot of the tyrant, Gold, What freedom, but from truth, hast thou to boast? Hark, who now speaks is murdered Truth's pale ghost: "Conceiving life--oh, bring it forth! aye, hold Thy child on high with love, as priest, the Host! Crush not its bones, with smile and eyes set cold."
THE TRUTH
What is the truth? The focus of all rays Passing through Nature and the soul and mind. It is the Sun of Suns, around which wind The Heavens and all the worlds. Such is its blaze, That had it not, at intervals, a haze, Grading both Angel and the Human-kind, The bright Arch-angel would be stricken blind, To grope in Heaven, a Homer, sighing lays.
What less could fitly crown Omnipotence Than Truth, the focus of all rays in Good? Lo! there it shines upon the Holy Rood, Breaking through clouds, a-massing dark and dense From countless ages, Cains to Brotherhood-- With rays of pardon for the World's offense.
OUR LORD'S LAST PRAYER
"Forgive them, Sire! They know not what they do."-- Ah, Christ! how at that face to face God-plea, The Demon and his legions, mocking thee With every generation, brought to view, Flashed with dismay, and, boltless lightening through The ages, thunder down Eternity, 'Till faint as the sound in shells, far from the sea; For that thy prayer would be vouchsafed, they knew.
All grandeurs, gathered as a dazzling crown For thee, in barter for thy knee's least bend, The Demon dashed to fragments to Time's end. There, born anew in spirit, we look down And, in the ocean of thy prayer, Amen'd, See but earth's monsters, with the demons drown.
THOUGHT IS TRUTH'S ECHO
Thought is truth's echo--not her glorious eyes Beholding God, nor her white arms of light, Lifted in worship. Following truth, our flight At highest range is where our echo dies. Oh all your power and beauty, earth and skys! And, Soul and Mind! your Beauty and your Might-- Truth gathers in one flash and, catching sight Of God, lifts high in love's full sacrifice.
Twixt Truth and Thought, what Truth is oft is space Wherein, with intuition for her wing, The soul mounts. It is there I hear her sing: "Lo, Truth, so swift aloft, Thought dies in chase, Turns earthward, and the gifts her white arms bring, Are outshone by God's glory in her face!"
HEAVEN
Ah, what is Heaven? Such Glory that Sun-light Seems darkness, and Mass Music, shell-shut sound. What we call senses here, there so abound, The soul appears a broadening heaven in flight, Feathered and downed with all the stars, whose white Is all hues mingled. Oh, the awe profound! For every moment there, new Heavens astound The myriad senses, with God's Love and Might.
If "Holy, Holy, Holy, Evermore?" Be the one chant of angel and of Saint Before the Throne, it is their gaspings faint Between their transports to high Heavens from lower; For, what is love's eternal Firmament But Heaven on Heaven, that we may ceaseless soar?
HUMILITY
Was not humility the Earthward stair From highest Heaven, by which God came to men, To show the way aloft to human ken? Ah, by what other pass, are men to fare Through mist and cloud, except the path, aflare With his blest steps from Heaven, and up again? Steps, not from star to star, but fen to fen, That all might follow and not one despair!
Oh, steps of Love! Could we reach with our eyes Their fulgence, we would shrink back with dismay; For, though 'tis through the world's contempt move they-- Hark! How the hidden choirs of countless skies Chant at all heights: "Lo, God comes by this way, And makes world-wide, His stair to Paradise!"
THE NIGHT OF MYSTERIES
A cataract of stars, which, with each fall Broadens and brightens, rapturing the sight Of angel hosts, that view it from the height Of knowledge of God's love for one and all His creatures--and not darkness to appal The spirit by the quench of every light, For which God grants it vision--is the night Of Life's strange mysteries, both great and small.
Oh cataracts, beyond the angels' count, Pause and shine pendant over every deep Of heart, mind, spirit! Lo! how down they sweep To basic Good where, massing, they remount, Till, mid God's "Many Mansions," high they leap, Forming forever, joy's most splendent fount!
WHAT THE POETS SHOW
When, at God's fiat, Light flashed forth, the beam Evolved a million pigments, as it sped To every nature. Now, of all its spread, What shaft so glorious as the poet's dream Which, mote and mass, reflects the Will Supreme That life is progress, and by flight, or tread, It circles God-ward up, till perfected! For, harboring meaner thought were to blaspheme.
What, if the world be chaos where it sins, Race feuds, Creed hatreds, falsehoods gross, deceit, Intrigue and greed, form swirling, blinding sleet? Honor and Truth, though buried to their chins, Look up and smile; for, though the storms still beat, The poets show 'tis Spring, not Winter, wins.
THE SOUL'S ASCENSION
Not mine the night that creeps beneath Life's sea, Or lurks within Hope's ruins, sunk below The desert, or the stagnant pool--oh, no! But night that mounts the heavens, till it is free Where stars, prefiguring all things that be Obscure on earth, catch sight of God and glow, And golden shadows large and larger grow, Cast by Gift-bearers to Humanity.
Oh, once the cold of all the unsunn'd space Was in my reptile life of soul, wing-bound; But now, soul-free, what warmth from stars all round! 'Tis not by strength of mine, Lord, but thy grace, My soul soars from the depths of sea, or ground, Till, at star-heights, it meets Thee, face to face!
LYRIC TRANSPORT
What but the spirit's ladder to God's throne Is beauty? Oh, from rung to rung to climb, Till faint becomes the azure's anthem chime Of planets, multitudinous, or lone, And Inspiration, drunk with fragrance, blown From God's rare, inmost garden, wall'd from Time, Sets free the Sonnet with is wings of rhyme To carry down the transport, upward known!
Mine is no swaying ladder, like the sea's, Whose rounds of rollers, raised above Sun-rise, Lean not on Heaven, hence shattered lie at noon; For 'tis set firmly on the verities, Which form God's throne. Ah, there, what joy, my prize! Would that I had a dove for every boon!
THE SUNRISE
The Sun is God's great joy to Human sight. Oh, up and off in chariots, Sea! and ride, All generations, up, till mountain-eyed, To welcome earth-ward, God's Supreme delight. Imagination swirls in swallow flight, Giddy with Beauty, deepening--Oh, how glide From star to star, to the haloes, season-dyed And countless! Its wings shrivel up like night.
Oh, yea, the Sun in one subliming rise From Wisdom's infinite mind! This Reason knows. It has no set. There, Sense, with weals or woes For beads, or fingers, count our shuts of eyes, Excluding Knowledge. What! God's joy to close And all its goodness break and drift cloud-wise?
TWO DARKNESSES
There are two darknesses; one where the Lord Hides beauty--that by which men know His face. All, in that darkness, feel His fingers trace Their features gently, and their hearts record The feeling, as of one, whose eyes, restored, Would see, but for the Father's close embrace. The other is the outer dark--a place Where hate turns black the light upon it poured.
O God! the only darkness that I dread, Is where Thou art not--that where Hate's black fire Surmounts the heavens, to burst with thunder dire And, in its fall forever, drag the dead Of heart and spirit--those whom Thy desire Would fain have made the halo round Thy head.
THE DOOM OF HATE
A spirit passed the Sun, the Moon and Star, And dwelled and dreamed in darkness all its own. The music of the spheres, though thither blown, As faint as fragrance from a flower afar, Disturbed this spirit's ear, attuned to jar Of orb with orb; for hate of light, truth known, Fashions hot worlds which, cooled to clay and stone, Clash, rising toward calm Heaven, which they would mar.
Ah, if where love was not, he smiled elate, His smile at God returned, a lightening flash That shattered him. He saw his planets clash, Burst and, then, by the downward law of hate, Sink and leave not a single spark, nor ash, For the new firmament he would create.
THE EVIL IN THE WORLD
There are two Gods--one, Good, the other, Ill. They clash in Nature--so the Persian taught, And long a sect in Europe spread the thought. Why there is evil is a problem still To many, who see not in Human Will, A being that with beauty could have caught Up to his Maker, had he gladly wrought With light and warmth, instead of dark and chill.
God said, "Let there be Light," and light was made. God made not darkness--that is light's exclusion, Forming a region where, in wild confusion, Men, Nations, each a ferret, blood-eyed shade, Worry each other, till, with disillusion For lamp, comes conscience, crying, "God Betrayed!"
THE EARTH RENEWED BY MEMORY
Ah, in the angel-fall from Heaven, is hope? The wing-whir discord of the legion's fall From God forever, mocks my heart's loud call. Empty of beauty from its base to cope, The Earth is hollow. Where, then, can I grope And not be met by echoes that appal? What! shouts my mind, in wonder that I crawl And, having skyey wings, in hollows mope.
Does scent from bloom, or warble from the wood, Not atmosphere the un-aerial void Twixt thee and beauty, which thy youth enjoyed? Fly back to earth, by memory renewed; She fills the hollow, echoing hosts destroyed,-- With Spring, reflecting Heaven's Triumphant Good.
IN THE DIMPLE OF BEAUTY'S CHEEK
O beauty! in the dimple of thy cheek, My love could live forever and be blest. There, with the sun, a rose-bud on thy breast, How thou rejoicest, hastening to speak To thy fond Father! Oh, how vain to seek A sweeter refuge for the Spirit's rest, Than mid thy blushes, when thou marvelest At His great love, for, oh! thy heart is meek.
Oh beauty! in thy Father's arms, thou art. Enclose me in thy dimple; for, though this Were but a bud, or molded seed, what bliss To watch bloom gather scent, or new life start, And hear our Father, bending for a kiss, Whisper to thee, the secrets of His heart!
THE CAMP FIRE
Beauty is love and, hence is heightening fire, Consuming Nature. All the dark can bring To quench it, feeds it. Look! how everything Is caught in the blaze, which mounts up high and higher! Oh! truly, 'tis a vision to inspire The soul with transport, more than joy can sing; For, if not for the blaze, what cold would sting Poor mortals, who crowd round it, nigh and nigher!
Is beauty not the camp-fire, which one host Leaves burning for another, close behind? Yea, yea, the Powers Divine, O Human Kind! Have left their camp-fire burning on the coast, Where they embarked from glimpse of Human mind, To give you warmth and light to hold your post.
MOTHER
All beings, legioning celestial light, Moved in procession toward a vacant throne. Their chant was faith and hope, as, now, our own. At last, it came to pass, their faith grew sight. They saw One Star in night's down-fall, stay white And, by the Holy Spirit brighter blown, Ascend in Heaven, till there, as high and lone, As over Nature's marveling zenith height.