Part 3

His hand has torn the veil of the Great Law, The law that was before the worlds—before That far First Whisper on the ancient deep, The law that swings Arcturus on the North, And hurls the soul of man upon the way. But what avail, O builders of the world, Unless ye build a safety for the soul? Man has put harness on Leviathan, And hooks in his incorrigible jaws; And yet the Perils of the Street remain. Out of the whirlwind of the cities rise Lean Hunger and the Worm of Misery, The heartbreak and the cry of mortal tears.

But hark, the bugles blowing on the peaks; And hark, a murmur as of many feet, The cry of captains, the divine alarm! Look! the last son of Time comes hurrying on, The strong young Titan of Democracy! With swinging step he takes the open road, In love with the winds that beat his hairy breast.

Baring his sunburnt strength to all the world, He casts his eyes abroad with Jovian glance— Searches the tracks of old Tradition; scans With rebel heart the Book of Pedigree; Peers into the face of Privilege and cries, “Why are you halting in the path of man? Is it your shoulder bears the human load? Do you draw down the rains of the sweet heaven, And keep the green things growing? Back to hell!”

God is descending from eternity, And all things, good and evil, build the road. Yea, down in the thick of things, the men of greed Are thumping the inhospitable clay. By wondrous toils the men without the Dream, Led onward by a something unawares, Are laying the foundations of the Dream, The Kingdom of Fraternity foretold.

The Need of the Hour

Fling forth the triple-colored flag to dare The bright, untraveled highways of the air. Blow the undaunted bugles, blow, and yet Let not the boast betray us to forget. Lo, there are high adventures for this hour— Tourneys to test the sinews of our power. For we must parry—as the years increase— The hazards of success, the risks of peace!

What do we need to keep the nation whole, To guard the pillars of the State? We need The fine audacities of honest deed; The homely old integrities of soul; The swift temerities that take the part Of outcast right—the wisdom of the heart; Brave hopes that Mammon never can detain, Nor sully with his gainless clutch for gain.

We need the Cromwell fire to make us feel The common burden and the public trust To be a thing as sacred and august As the white vigil where the angels kneel. We need the faith to go a path untrod, The power to be alone and vote with God.

The Lizard

I sit among the hoary trees With Aristotle on my knees, And turn with serious hand the pages, Lost in the cobweb-hush of ages; When suddenly with no more sound Than any sunbeam on the ground, The little hermit of the place Is peering up into my face— The slim gray hermit of the rocks, With bright inquisitive, quick eyes, His life a round of harks and shocks, A little ripple of surprise.

Now lifted up, intense and still, Sprung from the silence of the hill He hangs upon the ledge a-glisten, And his whole body seems to listen! My pages give a little start, And he is gone! to be a part Of the old cedar’s crumpled bark, A mottled scar, a weather-mark!

How halt am I, how mean of birth, Beside this darting pulse of earth! I only have the wit to look Into a big presumptuous book, To find some sage’s rigid plan To tell me how to be a man. Tradition lays its dead hand cold Upon our youth—and we are old. But this wise hermit, this gray friar, He has no law but heart’s desire. He somehow touches higher truth, The circle of eternal youth.

The Humming Bird

A sudden whir of eager sound— And now a something throbs around The flowers that watch the fountain. Look! It touched the rose, the green leaves shook, I think, and yet so lightly tost That not a spark of dew was lost.

Tell me, O Rose, what thing it is That now appears, now vanishes? Surely it took its fire-green hue From daybreaks that it glittered through; Quick, for this sparkle of the dawn Glints through the garden and is gone.

What was the message, Rose, what word; Delight foretold, or hope deferred?

The Round-Up

Down, down the wild canyons we go in a flurry; The cedars sweep by in their mystical hurry; Gone into the wind are the languor and worry— Gone into the west with the phantom moon. Ho! there is the lord of the hills and the valleys; It is he that leads in the midsummer sallies High into the steeps where the gray chaparral is; It is he that leads to the low lagoon.

Where the wild mustard splashes the slope with yellow, He has turned at bay—ah, the powerful fellow! See the toss of his head—hear the breath and the bellow; How he tears the ground with his angry hoofs! Now he breaks a wild path through the deep, plumy rushes, (A loud bird high on a tamarack hushes) Right on through a glory of crimson he crushes, On into the gloom under leafy roofs.

Oh, the joy of the wind in our faces! We follow The cattle—we shout down the poppy-hung hollow. Lo! out of the cliff we have startled a swallow, And startled the echoes on rocky fells. Ho! what was it passed? Were they leaves—were they sparrows That whispered away like a hurtle of arrows? The rose-odor thickens—the deep gorge narrows; Now the herd takes down through the scented dells.

Speed, speed, leave the brooks to their potter and prattle; Sweep on with the thunder and surge of the cattle, The hurry, the voices, the keen joy of battle— The hills and the wind and the open light. Now on into camp by the sycamores yonder; Now o’er the guitar let the light fingers wander; Let thoughts in the high heart grow pensive and fonder; Then stars and the dream of a summer night.

Song of the Fay

My life is a dream, a dream, In the moon’s cool beam; Some day I shall wake and desire A touch of the infinite fire. But now ‘tis enough that I be In the light on the sea; Enough that I climb with the cloud When the winds of the morning are loud; Enough that I fade with my star When the doors of the East unbar.

My life is a long delight In the wonder of night. I quiet the heart of the rose When she quakes at the thought of the snows; I count the blown leaves of the Fall, And I comfort them all. Sometimes I awake with a start In the song of a poet’s heart. Some day I shall know life whole— Shall suffer and find me a soul.

The World-Purpose

Men sadly say that Love’s high dream is vain, That one force holds the heart—the hope of gain. Are, then, the August Powers behind the veil Weary of watch and powerless to prevail? Have they grown palsied with the creep of age, And do they burn no more with pallid rage? Are the shrines empty and the altars cold, Where once the saints and heroes knelt of old?

Not so: the vast in-brothering of man— The glory of the universe—began When first the heart of the Mother Darkness heard The Whisper, and the ancient chaos stirred. Ever the feet of Christ were in events, Bridging the seas, shaking the continents.

His feet are heard in the historic march Under the whirlwind, under the starry arch. Forever the Great Purpose presses on, From darkness unto darkness, dawn to dawn, Resolved to lay the rafter and the beam Of Justice—the imperishable Dream.

This is the voice of Time against the Hours; This is the witness of the Cosmic Powers; This is the Music of the Ages—this The song whose first note broke the First Abyss.

All that we glory in was once a dream; The World-Will marches onward, gleam by gleam. New voices speak, dead paths begin to stir: Man is emerging from the sepulchre! Let no man dare, let no man ever dare To mark on Time’s great way, “No Thoroughfare!”

To Young America

In spite of the stare of the wise and the world’s derision, Dare travel the star-blazed road, dare follow the Vision.

It breaks as a hush on the soul in the wonder of youth; And the lyrical dream of the boy is the kingly truth.

The world is a vapor, and only the Vision is real— Yea, nothing can hold against Hell but the Wingèd Ideal.

The Brown o’ the Year

What would you speak with that visage old, O cliff by the windy shore? What passion that never a song could hold— What word of the Nevermore?

What would you tell with that silent look, O bleak, bare oak by the way? Earth’s grief is all in that bough that shook, That leaf that could not stay.

Wind of the Fall

I hear that wail in the windy pine And I suddenly know: It wakes in my heart a dream divine And a sacred woe.

I heard that cry from your spirit then, O wind of the Fall! I, too, have carried the grief of men; I have felt it all.

The Free Press

Hail, young Prometheus, risen again to Time, The friend of man and foeman of man’s Foe! Climb the new heavens and seize the nobler fire. Still teach the wisdom of the plough and loom, The sweetness of the threshold and the hearth. Be to the sower of the field a sign To point the circuits of the frost, a voice To cry the coming of the hurricane. Be to the scholar, by his waning lamp, A bringer of the tidings of the stars, News of the forces and the frame of things. Be to the poet, leagued with Death and Eld, A Memnon whisper of the Mystery, Life’s lofty joy and immemorial grief. Be to the calm historian a glass Where, through the rush of phantoms, he can see The majesty and quietness of Truth, The craft of God, the lure and threat of Time. Hail, Titan, with the hair upon your breast! Be terrible in battle to throw down The stronghold of the traitors and their crew. Flash down the sky-born lightnings of the Pen; Let loose the cramped-up thunders of the Types. Hurl on the Jupiter of Greed enthroned Defiance, endless challenge, fire of scorn. Stand out upon the walls of darkness—stand A young god with a bugle at his lips To rouse the watchmen sleeping on their towers. Fling out the banner of the People’s Right— A flag in love with all the winds of heaven; Plunge your dread sword into the Spoiler’s den; Hurl down into the faces of the thieves The blaze of its intolerable light.... Fail not, for in your failure Freedom fails!

A Bargain

Scoffer, you cry, “Where is your ‘other world,’ Your fabled heaven in far eternities?” Well said, but first, before your lip is curled, Tell (’tis a little thing) where _this_ world is!

“Inasmuch....”

Wild tempest swirled on Moscow’s castled height; Wild sleet shot slanting down the wind of night; Quick snarling mouths from out the darkness sprang To strike you in the face with tooth and fang. Javelins of ice hung on the roofs of all;

The very stones were aching in the wall, Where Ivan stood a watchman on his hour, Guarding the Kremlin by the northern tower, When, lo! a half-bare beggar tottered past, Shrunk up and stiffened in the bitter blast. A heap of misery he drifted by, And from the heap came out a broken cry.

At this the watchman straightened with a start; A tender grief was tugging at his heart, The thought of his dead father, bent and old And lying lonesome in the ground so cold. Then cried the watchman starting from his post: “Little father, this is yours; you need it most!” And tearing off his hairy coat, he ran And wrapt it warm around the beggar man.

That night the piling snows began to fall, And the good watchman died beside the wall. But waking in the Better Land that lies Beyond the reaches of these cooping skies, Behold, the Lord came out to greet him home, Wearing the coat he gave by Moscow’s dome— Wearing the hairy heavy coat he gave By Moscow’s tower before he felt the grave!

And Ivan, by the old Earth-memory stirred, Cried softly with a wonder in his word: “And where, dear Lord, found you this coat of mine, A thing unfit for glory such as Thine?” Then the Lord answered with a look of light: “This coat, My son, you gave to Me last night.”

“The Father’s Business”

Who puts back into place a fallen bar, Or flings a rock out of a traveled road, His feet are moving toward the central star, His name is whispered in the God’s abode.

A Guard of the Sepulchre

_Behold, some of the watch came into the city and told unto the Chief Priests all the things that were come to pass, and ... they gave large money unto the soldiers, saying: Say, His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we slept._—MATTHEW.

I was a Roman soldier in my prime; Now age is on me and the yoke of time. I saw your Risen Christ, for I am he Who reached the hyssop to Him on the tree; And I am one of two who watched beside The Sepulchre of Him we crucified.

All that last night I watched with sleepless eyes; Great stars arose and crept across the skies. The world was all too still for mortal rest, For pitiless thoughts were busy in the breast. The night was long, so long, it seemed at last I had grown old and a long life had passed. Far off the hills of Moab, touched with light, Were swimming in the hollow of the night. I saw Jerusalem all wrapped in cloud, Stretched like a dead thing folded in a shroud.

Once in the pauses of our whispered talk, I heard a something on the garden walk. Perhaps it was a crisp leaf lightly stirred— Perhaps the dream-note of a waking bird. Then suddenly an angel burning white Came down with earthquake in the breaking light, And rolled the great stone from the Sepulchre, Mixing the morning with a scent of myrrh. And lo, the Dead had risen with the day: The Man of Mystery had gone His way!

Years have I wandered, carrying my shame; Now let the Tooth of Time eat out my name. For we, who all the Wonder might have told, Kept silence, for our mouths were stopt with gold.

The Song of the Shepherds

_And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen._—LUKE.

It was near the first cock-crowing, And Orion’s wheel was going, When an angel stood before us and our hearts were sore afraid. Lo, his face was like the lightning, When the walls of heaven are whitening, And he brought us wondrous tidings of a joy that shall not fade.

Then a Splendor shone around us, In the still field where he found us, A-watch upon the Shepherd Tower and waiting for the light; There where David as a stripling, Saw the ewes and lambs go rippling Down the little hills and hollows at the falling of the night.

Oh, what tender, sudden faces Filled the old familiar places, The barley-fields where Ruth of old went gleaning with the birds! Down the skies the host came swirling, Like sea-waters white and whirling, And our hearts were strangely shaken by the wonder of their words.

Haste, O people: all are bidden— Haste from places, high or hidden: In Mary’s Child the Kingdom comes, the heaven in beauty bends! He has made all life completer: He has made the Plain Way sweeter, For the stall is His first shelter and the cattle His first friends.

He has come! the skies are telling: He has quit the glorious dwelling; And first the tidings came to us, the humble shepherd folk. He has come to field and manger, And no more is God a Stranger: He comes as Common Man at home with cart and crookèd yoke.

As the shadow of a cedar To a traveller in gray Kedar Will be the kingdom of His love, the kingdom without end. Tongues and Ages may disclaim Him, Yet the Heaven of heavens will name Him Lord of peoples, Light of nations, elder Brother, tender Friend.

The Prince of Whim

Borne on like a bubble In bright little trouble My elf child glimmers and goes; As glad as a throstle Whose tremolos jostle The rain on the leaf of a rose.

He comes in a twinkling, With never an inkling That law is not one with his word; But gives me good wages, The penny of ages— Love wild as the heart of a bird.

He laughs down my quiet, This lord of the riot, This Prince of the Kingdom of Whim; The world is his castle, And I am his vassal To trumpet the triumphs of him!

The Plowman

His furrows are darkening into the hollow, Lightly behind him the blackbirds follow— By quick little journeys they follow and whistle. Now a gossamer ship breaks away to the blue (Who stands by the railing and waves adieu?) All night it was moored to a thistle.

Who knows the glad business afoot on the by-way? Who know the bold hopes sent adrift on the skyway?

Song’s Eternity

Into the song of the Poet are builded the things that endure: The Pillars of Karnak will crumble but the song of Shelley is sure.

It will hold through the ages of ages, like the heavens steadied in air: The hoofs that trample the kingdoms down that miracle must spare.

The God of Song and Mirth

‘Twas the God of Song and Mirth Who descended to the Earth. It was He who veiled His face In the sorrow of the race; He who toiled at Nazareth, Going with us down to death; He who bowed the heavens for men, And arose to light again.

‘Twas the First-born Son of Light Shone upon the human night, Bringing down the Final Truth In His deep, eternal youth. God was reconciled to man When the ages first began; But that man be reconciled God became a little child.

So appeared the God of Song In the planet going wrong; So appeared the God of Light, God of Passion still and white; Came to help us lift the weight Of the planetary fate; Came and taught the one relief For the gray primeval grief— Taught that Love, though deified, Could not set the Law aside.

St. Elizabeth of Hungary

I think of that friend of the people that lady of long ago, That high-born dame of Hungary who felt the common woe— Who loved the work-worn multitude whose pillow is a stone, And felt beat in upon her heart their sorrow as her own. She bent to lift, for in her blood ran some heroic strain Of simple serving majesty strayed down from Charlemagne. Queen of a hundred legends, star of a misty past, While cities rise and cities fade, her memory will last.

It was upon a Christmas eve, and all the world was white With snow that sent an awesome hush on hollow and on height;

And green boughs bended with hoar weight, and under them the birds Huddled together, making friends with little hornèd herds. And far from soundless gorges in the soundless forest deep, The wild boar humped up closer in the hollow of his heap; And workers huddled in their huts among the stiffened trees, The doorstones blue with ice, the eaves with frosty filigrees.

And Horsel’s peak hung ghostly still upon the wintry sky, But Wartburg’s castle-hall was filled with many a joyous cry, With hurrying feet and merry fleer of scullion, churl, and maid,

For now within a happy hour the banquet must be laid. Pert pages in their purfled shoes went twinkling in and out, And from the towers came snatch of song and many a ruddy shout. Elizabeth was there above, among her maiden band, Spinning the new-cut wool to warm the naked of her land. (O serving queen, I honor thee—queen of a day gone down, Who carried dimly in thy heart the meaning of the crown!)

And now the steward gave a sign, and on the frosty moats The sceptered heralds blew again their crisp and crinkling notes. There fell a momentary hush upon the corridors;

Then stir of feet, then whisper of silk gowns across the floors Came onward like the tumult of white barley in the breeze; Then young Elizabeth the Moon, leading her Pleiades! Their robes were shot with thread of gold that into blossom broke, And jewels darkling in their hair at every motion woke—

Yolinda, Bertrade, Thekla, Brune, Bertilla, Hildegarde, And Kinga, tallest of the seven, and by her side the bard, Gray Vogelweide, the lyric swan, telling with flash of youth, How once he stood against the world for Hungary and truth—

How singing in this knightly hall, circled by courtly throng, He fought the star of Austria in Wartburg’s War of Song.