Chapter 5

Reaching the throne, its queen, this star became. Awed by the Triune's Honor as her crown, The legions, circling, soared with eyes cast down; But, when their wonder heard the strange, new name In Heaven, from Christ's lips, "Mother," how they shone, Reflecting Christ's child-eyes, with love aflame!

IN HEAVEN NO HEART STILL HEAVES

Lo! God lets drop blue doves which ground the mind Like clover; then, with drawing to the skies, His pleasure is to watch the flocks arise. Here, there, they mount; they show no cloud, no wind, Can hinder homing; and the angels find No transport, like the sight, for, to their eyes, 'Tis more souls for the joy, which glorifies The Father, traced to love by pigeon-kind.

Oh, to his love, how great our spirit's worth! Each is as all. In heaven, no heart still heaves. The sun sinks with its last of lingering eves, And, then, if dearest doves of azure birth, Wife, parent, child, be missed, off mercy leaves With stars for eyes, to search the darks of earth.

ST. PETER'S CATHEDRAL IN ROME

This temple is soul-startling. 'Tis to me A thunder storm in stone, with Sinai flare Across the Ages. 'Tis the Fiend's despair And the Arch-angel's Triumph. It sets free The mind and soul with certitude, Christ's key Which, like the Sun, opes Heaven--the Good and Fair. Still, oft, what darkness drowns the sun's noon glare Within the Temple! 'Tis from Calvary.

Oh, 'tis from Calvary's grief. 'Tis Christ's emotion, On from the Cross, that from His glory known, The German should have fled and, frantic, thrown Away his soul to Strauss or Kant's vague notion, Unhumaning, till, in the Kaiser, grown A Nietzsche whirl-wind in a crimson ocean.

MY BUGLER BOY

With heart pain and with quiver of the lip, I bid my boy "good bye," with words of cheer. I hug him to my heart to hide a tear, And hold him close so long, that no tongue-slip Could more betray my bodings for his ship, Or troop, when landed. It is when I hear My daughters' voices, that I shame off fear And take my boy's both hands with firmest grip.

Go, son, and, though with thy young life 'tis blown, Blare thou the Bugle, rousing man to sweep The monsters back to Hell's profoundest deep, Where, mocking Spring and Sun-rise, they have grown On longings for the sea, the world must weep When, from its heart, the hope of Peace has flown.

KAISER, BEWARE

Dost thou, mad Kaiser, for historic name, Set fire to Europe? Is it joy to gaze At blacker smoke than Etna's, and a blaze That wakes up Chaos, wild to come and claim The World, since Light, God-bidden though it came, Has failed to dawn upon our human ways? O Twin of Chaos! peer thou through the haze! 'Tis Human Beings feed the crackling flame.

Beware, the smoke, like Etna's, is the curse Of widows on thy people-dooming throne, And in no country, more than in thine own, Cry out all mothers: "Wherefore bear and nurse? To feed war with our sons, our flesh and bone, That chaos may reclaim the Universe?"

WOMAN, IN GERMANY

The German mother has too long been what A Chancellor once called the "Kingdom's Cow." Ah, as she bears the droves for slaughter, how Her dumb-beast eyes crave pity for her lot! See, there she smiles, like loving God forgot-- All His supernal patience on her brow. How long must her grand arch of brain, as now, Bear up a universe "of what should not"?

There, lies she, crushed by troops in hot pursuit Of mocking shadows; for be Gain complete, What is it but twin brother to defeat? Stand up the dead on any bloody route. Stoop for no kiss from orphans, at thy feet, O Triumph! for ash-cord is all thy fruit.

O THOU PALE MOON

O fair, full moon! I look close at thy face. Thou must be happy, being in the skys; And, yet, thy flush grows pallor to mine eyes. Thou art as one, who breathless after chase, Would rest, but dreads to check her onward pace. O fugitive from where no fledgling flies, No bee finds bud, and where red billows rise, Engulfing down dark years, the Human Race!

O thou pale moon, who hast companioned Man Through every darkness since the night's first fall! Hast thou, along thy foot-worn, azure wall, Ever seen seas so hard for hope to span, As this red surge, that in a spring so small, A bird could beak it up, its flood began?

THE TIGER

How glares the tiger in his desert lair-- Now half the world! Beholding with dismay That Human Freedom is the tiger's prey, A giant, down whose shoulders, broad and bare, The long, thick, crimson flow is Sampson's hair, Makes haste to clutch the beast. Oh, how the clay beneath their struggle, reddens, night and day, Till lies the beast, a shapeless carcass there!

Oh! never from the long, thick crimson flow A down thy shoulders from thy noble brow, America, came such God's-strength as now, Comes to thine arm against the world's grim foe-- The beast that, sighting man, devours him, how The world may end, a wilderness of woe.

TO OUR BOYS "OVER THERE"

Where flies our flag is Freedom's holy ground; There, it unfurls all benisons to Man. The twin of Spring, its spread unfolds God's plan Of human happiness, by setting bound To greed, lust, powers,--all colds,--that Right be crowned. Lo! where it leads, ye youth form valor's van, Mirrored and echoed by the azure's span For ages, for Man's gain in yours is wound.

Oh, justice's Hot Gulf Stream are ye, who open The sea, which fiendish craft has frozen hard! Oh, may your warmth for righteousness transform The tyrant's artic region, with no hope in, To Freedom's Temperate Zone, which they, who guard The planets, save from wreck by quake or storm.

THE PROFITEERS

Now and in life--not Virgil--breaks a storm Of Harpies, harsh to ear and foul to smell. It sweeps War's lengthening coast, where each sea-swell Is Humans, gasping. Hope drags each cold form From hearth to hearth, to find no ember warm; Then, their eyes glitter frost, who hear hope yell As up she climbs the rocks and falls pell-mell Back from small herbs, where monsters swoop and swarm.

Oh, could the bestial birds, in Virgil's verse, See Hope's hands redden, as she rends her hair, They would grow human--would not glut, but share; Nor, then, shed human semblance for man's curse-- As ye do, who from want, hold warmth and fair, And gorge your bulks to sleep, as want writhes worse!

WHY THE STARS LAUGH

Hark! 'tis the laughter of the stars at Earth, And Nature's, too, with every pitch of voice. Earth's carnival of sheer grotesque and noise, Where, gagged and manacled, walk Peace and Mirth, Shows Britain now, a beast of broadening girth, Set out to crush World Freedom. He destroys, And thinks his bear-like rearing, planet poise That is to influence the world's new birth.

The stars are kind, as all the ages know; The sense of humor twinkles in their eyes, At Earth's strange follies; but this beast would try To thrust aside the planets, and make woe, The fortune of World Freedom! That is why The stars laugh, and all nature jeers the show.

PRAYER FOR WORLD PEACE

Lord, not Thy work, the World's calamities, But Man's. If Human Will revolt from Thine, It flees Thy region, where the stars all shine With longing to let down the Azure's Peace-- To dash its hosts from summits into seas, Where Empires are the breakers. There the brine Is anguish, and there Triumph leaves no sign, Save wreck on rock, and Plague, adrift on breeze.

When Nations turn from Light, in thought, or life, Their speed is brink-ward, save Thy Mercy stay; For all is precipice, except Thy way. Help, Lord, for here is heightening surge of strife; Here, clouds turn floods, coasts are wind-whirled, like spray, And lightenings, hurling back thy light, are rife.

RELIGION

Religion is Ascension. 'Tis the flights Of souls to summits of the true and wise. One, witnessing the generations rise, Sees them a shine at countless, different heights, Where they, responding to their inner lights, Glow, like the clouds at morn, with graded dyes. If summits, there are depths; if virtue, vice; Hence, 'tis life's rise from falls, that judgment sights.

Witnessed, or not, there is no age, nor climb, But souls arise as bloom, where earth is treed; As warm, red rays, where cold from mountaining need; As burst and spread of planets, where dark crime; Nay, rise to poise above the star's top speed To God, like larks, in praise for life and time.

THE GOLDEN JUBILEE OF SISTERS OF CHARITY

I

How thy Half Century shines over head! 'Tis an unfading rain-bow, one whose dyes Are richer and more numerous to the eyes Of Angels, than to ours. Its rays, if spread Above a flood of sin and world of dead, Give to the drowned, new life, new earth, new skies. Night counts her stars, but falters, when souls rise Bright with the Grace which God's annointed shed.

Belov'd Irene, how great our joy to see Thine arch, aglow with virtue's every hue! Oh, how much more must they rejoice, who view From inner Heaven, the arch that is for thee, Triumphal! for than vows like thine, lived true, No grander arch from earth to heaven could be.

II

The "Church Triumphant" shines in lives like thine, Calista! 'Tis the Saints' procession, shown In Dante's vision, near Lord Jesus' throne, In greatening splendor, never to decline. Ah, if our minds grow dark, our hearts repine, How, from sweet lives, dear Sister, like thine own, Be-Mothering with mercy all who moan, A light comes, and a warmth is in its shine.

We shade our eyes, as when we face the Sun On level with the earth, at lives all love-- The Church Triumphant, as in Heaven above! Aye, lives all love for Christ, in every one Who suffers wrong, or any pain thereof, As on His Throne--such lives as thine, dear Nun.

WINIFRED HOLT, THE LIFESAVER OF THE BLIND

Once, blindness was a burning ship at sea, With panic-stricken souls on every deck. The flame blew inward on that awful wreck, Burning the hopes that make life glad and free. Ah! then, through thee, it was, Philanthropy, Who trains her searchlight on the smallest speck And Speed out boats, like horses, neck to neck, Reached the dark hulk and thrilled its crew with glee.

The flame is quenched, that burned out heart and brain. The ship where woe was mute, is loud with joy. Hark! hear the cheer on board, and cry, "Ahoy!" As fast the sails are hoisted, and the main Tides back toward hope for every girl and boy, Who, else, might reach no star of night's whole train.

A CHOICE

Above and under life, eternally, A subtle light and dark run parallel. One prompts men to build Beauty, cell by cell, In Home, Religion, State, Society; The other, to destroy the fair they see. Like Spring, wilt thou roof Earth with bloom and dwell Thereunder? or, with Scalping Winter's yell, Scour grove and bush? Choose--how else art thou free?

If Freedom is the gift of the all-wise, It is because he will not have a slave To serve Him. Which wilt thou be, base or brave? With Morn, climb, or, with Night, skulk down the skies To grope in caverns, or beneath the wave, Creep, till aghast at monsters that arise?

ALL LUMINARIES HAVE ONE TREND

All luminaries have one source, one trend. The stars that calm the sailor, long sea-swirled, And canopy fond lovers from the World, And those that lead the heart and spirit, blend. Lo, only in the things and thoughts that tend Toward Love's High Harmony, is truth unfurled; All else are lies, whence heart, soul, mind are hurled Back to the Right--to Progress without end.

The stars all chant as one. My soaring song Catches their flame and these few sparks reach earth: "As soon the shells forget their Ocean birth, As men forget the Right, where they belong By reason and by soul of deathless worth; Address the God in man, wouldst thou grow strong."

LIFE TAKES MORNING HUES WITH THE ARTS OF PEACE

America! from out the depths thy coast Was lifted skyward for Humanity. Thy Life, once finny circlings in the sea, Is now the orbits of the starry host, Encircling God with trust. Be this thy boast, When the long line of Ages, passing thee, Lifts each his heart and soul, and shouts with glee, "That Trust in Him was Sentinel on post."

Night, that once boa-like hung from thy trees, Gorged with crushed tribes--with pottery, or mound, Or print of foot for trace--slinks underground; For lo, the forests, like the mist on seas, Clears, ere the Sun, at earth's edge, glows half-round, And life takes cloud-hues with the arts of Peace.

U. S. SENATOR JAMES A. O'GORMAN AND THE STALWARTS

On toward the Senate scuds a thunder-rack-- Nay, cyclone--and the columns--all star-straight-- Of Freedom's Temple sway with the roof's flood-weight. Ye Stalwarts who scorn off a fate, pitch-black, Holding the columns, let no sinew slack. A crash and through the roof, what floods of hate! Still, ye budge not, for "Freedom," your teeth grate, "Shall lie no wreck along the cyclone's track."

Oh, not for you was dark the time to slumber, But to hold Freedom's columns all star-plumb! Yours was a watery grave, but Martyrdom And, hence, your resurrection with the number, Whose greatness greatens, as the Ages come To know why their pathway, no wrecks encumber.

MINISTER OF JUSTICE PALMER, A BASTILE BUILDER

O Bastile Builder! Nature, when she shaped Thy soul, was stricken, with a long attack Of sleeping sickness; nor till wheel and rack Had rusted, and man spirit had escaped The bolsted, loathesome tomb where right was raped, Did she awaken and, alack! alack! Deliver thee, who, put on Freedom's back, Would'st grab all things, at which thy Past-eyes gaped.

Freedom would humor thee; so, down he flopped On Justice's floor to watch thee build with blocks. Great was thy skill with walls and dungeon locks, And with the trap, down which poor Freedom dropped To be steel-masked, or, else, put in the stocks, To writhe, then, with his tongue and ears, both lopped.

A SPECK, BUT NOT A STAIN, HARVARD

O Harvard of the Norton wreath of gold And pearled, Longfellow purple! wherefore frown? If Eliott is a speck upon your gown, It will wash off; it is no stain to hold, For you had let him go for being old. Your wisdom was confirmed when to the crown, A'gainst good folks who, like Elisha Brown, Fought for their homes, he gave his name's renown.

Come, Agassiz! for, from the smallest bone, You reconstruct the creature, tongue to tail. Tell us what Eliott is. Phew! What! a Whale? No; tis the prehistoric monster, known As Tory, that devoured young Nathan Hale And, where it crawled, spread horror's crimson zone.

SUPREME COURT JUSTICE CHARLES L. GUY

Your heart is not a traitor to your mind. Who, knowing innocence in danger, dares Not turn his eye, for fear of smirk, or stares, By other courts, is Justice's statue blind, That to the wall, not Bench, should be assigned. Oft, Precedent is Folly with gray hairs; So you, recalling Junius, heard the prayers Of friendless Stilow; then, what did you find?

A fellow man doomed wrongfully to die A felon's death. If such was Stilow's fate, You saw, the felon would have been the State; Hence, turned from Precedent, demanding "Why?" Justice, asleep in marble, woke and straight Unroofed the courthouse to let down the sky.

REAR ADMIRAL SIMS

A Dukedom, and not one the worse for wear, Has Sims well earned by service to the King. 'Tis said at court, Howe's spirit following The ocean still, found Sims his natural heir And said: "Swap souls; and, that the swap be fair, Give me to boot, the bone of Freedom's wing, To make the skyey bird a hobbling thing In marshes, where the ignisfatus flare."

The Eagle with his eye and pinion, trained For mateship with the sun, twitched at a sting. Amazed to find a "cootie" on his wing, And that the insect dreamed, it was ordained By race heredity to serve the King-- He shook his plume and azured, unprofained.

SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON

I

In English nature, did Saint George prevail Over the Dragon? Maybe in the time When England knew not poverty, nor crime, Described by Cobbett, who would not go bail For falsehood, nor let truth remain in jail. It must, then, have renewed life from its slime, For, oh! through deeds, that turn the blood to chyme And eyes white inward, see him ride the gale.

In English nature--oh, where now the saint-- The spirit, to sublime conceptions, true? Has good Saint George, too woundful to renew His conflict with the dragon of base taint, Been caught up by Elias from earth's view? How, else, the dragon's rage in irrestraint?

II

The dragon is grim greed. The Saint's long spear, That once transfixed it, can no longer touch. No land is safe from its sting, blood-drain, or clutch-- For it takes Protean shapes; 'tis, therefore, clear, Since good Saint George has failed to re-appear To mortal sight, save in the King's escutch-- Worn off at edge and blurred with Tudor smudge-- Freedom must drive the Dragon off this sphere.

The Dragon's soarings cause the sun's eclypse.-- Hark! is that thunder, God's collapsing skys? No; 'tis the Eagle, with un-hooded eyes And lightening flash from beak to pinion tips, Seizing the Dragon that, despite its slips From form to form--craft, gold and false sunrise-- Can not elude his eye and talon grips.

III

A conflict, this, refracted, cloud to cloud! Where a white summit? Under crimson seas, And these still hightening. Through far azure, Peace Listens and, eager, peeps; then, turns headbowed. The conflict circling earth, all plains are ploughed New rows of gulches. God! can aught appease The Dragon with fiend thirst's eternities For tongue! The sun might, if it were well sloughed.

The Dragon, mounting, draws aloft earth's slime With which to dim the all-producing Sun From broadening light and warmth for every one; But, look! The Eagle, with the thirst sublime Of Justice, that the right on earth be done-- Flashes and--hark! 'Tis earth's Te-Deum chime!

IV

Oh, yea, the Earth's Te Deums, visibling As well as voicing forth the joy of Nations, Fill up the vastest Heaven--that of God's Patience With Human Will most grossly reptiling In insincerities, worse than negations; And for what blessing are the earth's laudations? The grace to soul to scorn to be mere thing.

Oh, of this grace was born the Eagle's vim To dash the Dragon down in hell so deep, It is a maggot there, which can but creep; And draw Elias' chariot to Earth's rim, Wherein Saint George stands with his heart a-leap-- As, now, in labor, we catch glimpse of him.