Chapter 3
An hour since, a torrid heat Oppressed the languid frame; The wind was as the khamseen's breath, The solar touch seemed flame; But now the air rejuvenates, The breeze refreshment brings, The lustrous leaves drop diamonds, The lark with rapture sings.
Fear not, dear heart! life's darkest storms Shall likewise end in light; Behind the blackest thundercloud The sun shines clear and bright; Once more celestial heights shall wear Their sheen of spotless snow, And on the bravely steadfast soul The smile of God shall glow.
FALLEN
My country! by our fathers reared As champion of the world's opprest; Whose moral force the tyrant feared; Whose flag all struggling freemen cheered; In clutching at an empire's crest Thou too art fallen like the rest.
Not in thy numbers, wealth or might, Proud mistress of a continent! For rival nations, at the sight Of thy resources, view with fright Thy progress without precedent; Not there is seen thy swift descent.
Reread the story of thy birth! Recall the years in conflict spent To prove to a despairing earth That every Government of worth Is really based on free consent; Then view with shame thy present bent!
Thou hadst a place unique, sublime; In many a land beyond the sea The victims of despotic crime In thee, the latest born of Time, Beheld a land from tyrants free, The sacred Ark of Liberty.
But now the Old World's lust for lands Infects thee too; the dread disease Hath left its plague-spots on thy hands; Thy monster area still expands; For, blind to history's Nemesis, Thou too wouldst alien races seize.
Condemning with profound disdain All other nations' heartless greed, How couldst thou buy from humbled Spain A people struggling to attain A freedom suited to their need? Why stultify thy boasted creed?
Thine aid to them thou mightst have given, As France her aid once gave to thee; With them thy sons might well have striven, And their blood-rusted fetters riven; But why, in Heaven's name, should we Shoot men aspiring to be free?
I tread the fields where thousands sleep,-- The blood-soaked fields that freed the slave; What precious memories still they keep For hearts that mourn and eyes that weep! Yet for the lives those heroes gave What have we that they died to save?
A Union? Yes; outstretched in might From snow to palm, from sea to sea; But pledged to use its strength aright, And evermore to keep alight The torch of human liberty: Is this the Union that we see?
Where history's Martyr dared to break The power that held a race in chains, I see the ghastly lynching-stake, Where brutal mobs their vengeance take, And, since no law their course restrains, Gloat o'er their writhing victim's pains.
Race hatred,--born of groundless fears And narrow prejudice of caste--, Now greets the cultured black with sneers And, barring him from high careers, Breaks, like a mad iconoclast, The nation's idols of the past.
No more can we with steadfast eyes Protest, when tortured races moan With hands uplifted toward the skies; Their tyrants answer with surprise And new-born insolence of tone,-- "These are our lynchings; cure your own!"
Yet hope remains! A path retraced Is nobler than persistent wrong; A fault confessed is half effaced; That land alone can be disgraced Which is not just, however strong, Toward those to whom its "spoils" belong.
My country! Would to God that praise Might leave my lips, instead of blame! So near the parting of the ways, Subjected to the eager gaze Of millions, jealous of thy fame, Retrace the path that ends in shame!
"AEQUANIMITAS"
Watchword sublime of Rome's imperial sage, Tersest of synonyms for self-control, Paramount precept of the Stoic's age, Noblest of mottoes for the lofty soul,-- Would thou wert writ in characters of light, At every turn to greet my reverent gaze, And bid me face life's evils, calm, upright, Unspoiled alike by calumny or praise! With all our science we are slaves of Fate; What is to come we know not, cannot know; Grief, suffering, death,--all touch us soon or late, The master question, how to meet the blow. Grant me, ye Gods, through life a steadfast eye, And then, with equanimity, to die!
DREAMLAND
I woke from dreams of rare delight And visions of a joyous land, Where loved ones, long since lost to sight, Walked blithely with me, hand in hand:
Where every brow was free from care, And Youth's sublime ideals shone Like planets in an Alpine air, And death's sad mystery was known.
I woke,--and like a bird that waits, Uncertain where to wend its flight, My spirit lingered at the gates, Which close upon that realm of light;
Till, slowly, all around grew clear, And once again the light of day Convinced me that I still was here, Though all my dreams had passed away.
Once more I faced a world of Pain! Of quivering nerves and sure decay, Of helpless brutes, by millions, slain To feed mankind a single day!
Of shivering children, scarred with blows, Of hunted bird and tortured beast, Of War, whose hideous programme shows Its means of homicide increased.
The same old world of greed and hate, Of selfish act and paltry aim, Of private fraud and venal State, Of deeds and doers steeped in shame!
What marvel if the spirit shrinks From plunging in that turbid stream? Or if, on waking thus, one thinks That life was better in his dream?
Sweet, peaceful dreamland! I await The favored hour, to pass again Within thine asphodelian gate, Beyond the miseries of men;
To find old pleasures, long since gone, Perchance as vivid as of yore, Or else to sleep,--life's curtains drawn,-- And reawaken ... nevermore.
ROME REVISITED
O sovereign Rome, still mistress of the heart, As of the world in thy majestic prime, Grand in thy ruins, peerless in thine art, Rich in the memories of a past sublime,
Is thine the fault or mine that thou art changed, And that I tread the new Tiberian shore Convinced, alas! that we are now estranged, And that for me thy charm exists no more?
I have grown older, but am not blasé, My hair has whitened, but my heart is young, Still thrills my pulse the tomb-girt Appian Way, Still stirs my soul the ancient Latin tongue.
Whence then this transformation, that pervades Rome's very air, and leaves its blighting trace Alike upon the Pincio's colonnades And on the Mausoleum's rugged face?
The fault, dear Rome, is neither thine nor mine, But that of vandals nurtured on thy breast, Who, mad as "modern citizens" to shine, Have fashioned thee like cities of the west.
Thy time-worn face, and figure deeply bowed By countless sufferings for two thousand years, Whose proper garment seemed to be a shroud, Commanding reverence, sympathy and tears,
Are now bedecked with tawdry gems of paste; Parisian robes thy withered limbs conceal; Thy wrinkled cheeks are rouged; in vulgar taste A modern watch-fob holds the Caesar's seal!
Where once imperial Triumphs proudly passed, Electric cars roll thundering through thy streets; In Raphael's groves the automobile's blast Expels the Muses from their calm retreats.
Through sinuous miles of shops with worldly wares Bewildered pilgrims reach St. Peter's shrine; Some modern stamp each old piazza, bears; And freed from weeds, thy burnished ruins shine!
Near Hadrian's massive bridge of sculptured stone, The Tiber surges 'neath an iron frame, Across whose ugly beams the tramcars groan, And brand the river with a bar of shame.
Gods of Olympus, can ye not restore To outraged Rome her dignity of old? 'Twere better Jove and Juno to adore Than in their stead to worship only Gold!
Thy glorious statues, cruelly defaced, Thy crumbling shrines, thy marbles burnt to lime, The lone Campagna's fever-stricken waste, Where lizards bask on columns once sublime,--
The Flavian Amphitheatre's gaping wounds, The Baths of Caracalla's roofless walls, The Forum's multitude of ruined mounds, The royal Palatine's abandoned halls,--
All these indeed create a hopeless pain, When fancy strives to reconstruct the whole, Yet pathos, wakened by a wreck-strewn plain, Inspires at least nobility of soul.
But where a Syndic's greed hath left its trail The picturesque and beautiful take flight; The Past's inspiring influences fail, As stars are hidden by electric light.
Yet protests meet derision and disdain; The fatal madness spreads from land to land; Peace, Art, and Beauty everywhere are slain By greedy Traffic's hard, rapacious hand.
We laugh at lessons taught by others' fate, We see no ending to our prosperous day; Forgetting that, in turn, each ancient State Hath passed through bud and flower to decay.
Behold the retrogression of those lands Whence painting, sculpture and the drama sprung; See starved Trinacria's outstretched, empty hands, And all the classic shores by Homer sung!
In what have we surpassed them? We are taught Their art, their ethics, and their rythmic speech; Both Greece and Asia still control our thought, Their grandest works still far beyond our reach.
The breathless transfer of men, thoughts, and things, Improved designs for vaster fratricide,-- Are these the leading gifts this century brings, The twentieth, too, since Christ was crucified?
Yet thoughts that most have influenced mankind Were not sent broadcast with the lightning's speed; Nor do the works of Plato lag behind The myriad books and papers that we read!
And thou, Italia, that for ages played A role whose majesty can ne'er be told, Hast thou, like all the rest, thy trust betrayed, Adored the New, and sacrificed the Old?
Wilt thou for fashion make thy Past forlorn? Waste precious substance upon useless ships? Transport to Africa thine eldest born, And let gaunt hunger blanch thy peasants' lips?
Make poorly paid officials banded knaves? Drive starving sons by thousands from thy shore, Or let them rot in Abyssinian graves, And hide the cancer festering at thy core?
If so, 'tis certain thou must dearly pay For playing thus the war-lord's pompous part, And thou shalt feel at no far-distant day The people's dagger driven through thy heart.
Fain would I find some peaceful Pagan shrine Unspoiled as yet by vandals of to-day, Around whose shafts the sweet, wild roses twine, And on whose marble walls the sunbeams play;
There would I dream of days when life was sweet With poetry, art, and myths devoid of dread, When all the Gods in harmony could meet, And no eternal torment vexed the dead.
Our vaunted age is one of feverish haste, Of racial hatred and of loathsome cant, Of gross corruption and of tawdry taste, Of monster fortunes, with a world in want.
I am not of it, and I will not be! Its social strife and slavery I despise; Gone is its shore; I sail the open sea O'er tranquil waters and 'neath cloudless skies!
ON THE PALATINE
I tread the vast deserted stage Whereon the Caesars lived and died; The relics of Rome's golden age Lie strewn about me far and wide, Mementoes of an empire's pride, The homes of men once deified.
What are they now? Stupendous piles Of mouldering corridors and walls, On which alike the sunshine smiles And cold the rain of winter falls; A wilderness of roofless halls Whose tragic history appalls!
Below me, like an opened grave, The Forum's excavations lie, Where column, arch and architrave In solemn grandeur greet the eye, Still guarding 'neath Italia's sky The glory that can never die.
And here, above me and around, In part still shrouded by the soil, A stony chaos strews the ground, Where patient students delve and toil To bring to light Time's buried spoil, And History's tangled threads uncoil.
Halt! where thou standest Rome was born! These stones by Romulus were placed, When, on that far-off April morn, Two snow-white bulls the furrow traced For Rome's first wall, which, firmly based, Two thousand years have not effaced.
From these rude blocks how vast the bound To that huge, labyrinthine mass Through which the secret pathways wound, Where emperors, if alarmed, could pass; Yet even there could find, alas! The poignard or the poisoned glass.
What ghastly crimes these rooms recall! Here Nero watched his brother drain The fatal draught, then lifeless fall; Here, too, Caligula was slain, When, shrieking, with disordered brain, He pleaded for his life in vain.
At every turn some pallid ghost With haggard features seems to rise To join the long-drawn, murdered host That moves with sad, averted eyes, Like victims to a sacrifice, To where the Via Sacra lies.
Behold the mighty Judgment Hall, Where Nero with indifferent air Remarked the pleading of St. Paul, Nor dreamed the man before him there Would soon be read and reverenced where The Roman empire had no share!
Where are they all,--those men of pride Whose palace was the Palatine, From Romulus the fratricide To Hadrian, and Constantine, The last of all the western line Of Caesars who were deemed divine?
And all the millions who were swayed By those who dwelt upon this hill, And who in humble awe obeyed The dictates of their sovereign will,-- Are they self-conscious beings still, Or are their minds and bodies ... Nil?
I watch our planet's god decline Behind the tomb-girt Appian Way; The old, imperial Palatine Grows purple 'neath the sun's last ray; Shades of the Caesars, if ye may, The mystery of death portray!
Are there in truth Elysian Fields? And is there life beyond the grave? Or are the years that Nature yields Confined this side the Stygian wave? For those who more existence crave Is there a Power to help and save?
Alas! no answer; on their hill The murdered Caesars make no sign; Their myriad subjects, too, are still,-- Mute as the voiceless Palatine; Yet overhead the fixed stars shine, And bid us trust in the Divine!
THE FAREWELL OF THE OLD GUARD AT FONTAINEBLEAU, 1814
Stately court of Fontainebleau, Nine and ninety years ago On thy spacious esplanade, Ranged in formal dress parade, Stood the Emperor's grenadiers With their bronzed cheeks wet with tears, Waiting once again to show Love for him at Fontainebleau.
Noon had struck above the square, When adown the Horse Shoe stair In his well-known coat of gray, Worn on many a hard-fought day, Came the man adored by all As their "Little Corporal," Forced by Europe now to go Far from royal Fontainebleau.
In the ranks a sudden stir Swelled to shouts of Vive l'Empereur; Then deep silence reigned, save where On the peaceful summer air Choking sobs, but half suppressed, Came from many a faithful breast At the overwhelming blow Dealt them here at Fontainebleau.
Could the rumor, then, be true? Would he say to them adieu? Would their idol and their pride, He whom they had deified, Leave his royal grenadiers, Veteran troops of twenty years? Hark! he speaks in accents low To his Guard at Fontainebleau:--
"Comrades, brothers, we must part"; (How his lov'd tones thrilled each heart!) "It were wrong to you and France, Did I once more say 'Advance'; On the ruins of my State I at last must abdicate, And with you no more can know Happy days at Fontainebleau.
"Valiant soldiers of my Guard, Thus to part is doubly hard; Did you silence Prussian guns, March beneath Italian suns, Enter Moscow and Madrid, Fight beside the Pyramid, And survive grim Russia's snow,-- Thus to yield at Fontainebleau?
"Heroes of great wars, farewell! You have heard my empire's knell, Yet no hostile world's decree Can estrange your hearts from me; Exiled to a tiny isle, Through your tears you well may smile At the realm my foes bestow,-- Elba ... after Fontainebleau!
"Now of all who once were true I can count alone on you; Would that each might take the place Of the eagle I embrace! Let the tears which on it fall Move the souls of one and all! Never have I loved you so As to-day at Fontainebleau."
Hushed his voice; a moment more, At the passing carriage door Gleamed Napoleon's mournful eyes,-- Smouldering flames of sacrifice; Then his pallid, classic face Vanished ghostlike into space, And a dreary sense of woe Settled over Fontainebleau.
Dead are now those grenadiers; Quelled are Europe's anxious fears; By the Seine the Emperor sleeps; France her watch beside him keeps; But the lonely Horse Shoe stair Still preserves its sombre air, For the light of long ago Falls no more on Fontainebleau.
JAPAN,--OLD AND NEW
The son of a Japanese lord am I,-- A Prince of the olden time; My hair is white, though black as night In my youth and early prime; And again and again I ask myself, As the past I sadly scan, Are we better or worse? Was it blessing or curse That foreigners brought Japan?
It is barely two score years and ten Since the epoch-making day When a foreign fleet, through the summer heat, Came sailing up our bay; Still ring in my ears my father's words, As we watched it breast the waves,-- "If strangers land on Nippon's strand, We may one day be their slaves."
But the strangers landed, and asked for trade And a permanent "Open Door," And we deemed it best to grant the West A foothold on our shore; Their slaves in truth we have not become, Yet who can fail to find That Japan obeys in a thousand ways The will of the western mind?
We sent our sons across the seas To learn from the Western Powers Their modes of life and their modes of strife, And have made them largely ours; But before all else have we learned from them That our first great aim, must be To possess a fleet that can defeat All rivals on the sea.
Hence, all that the West hath yet devised For the slaughter of men en masse We have copied or bought, and have stopped at naught To make our fleet "first class"; And lest this might not quite suffice, Should an enemy come in sight, We have made each man throughout Japan A soldier trained to fight!
But alas for the change that hath been wrought In the millions in our fields! For the costly ships take from their lips The food that the harvest yields; They were always poor, but their load was light, Compared with their load to-day, For thousands of hands that worked the lands Are drafted now away.
And sad are the scenes in the sphere of Art In which we had won such fame; The fingers left are not so deft As they were when the strangers came; For then we toiled for Beauty's sake, And by time were we never paid; But now we have sold our art for gold And the western market's trade.
I never look at the goods now sent,-- So worthless do they seem,-- Without a sigh for the standard high Which prevailed in the old regime; When even the hilt of a Daimio's sword Was a work of months or years, And the highest reward for a triumph scored Was praise from the artist's peers.
No, the soul of my people is not the same; It was formerly sweet and kind, And happiness reigned in hearts restrained By an unspoiled, gentle mind; But now the lusts of the outer world For power, and lands, and gold, Our sons deprave, till they madly crave What others have and hold.
We have borrowed many things from the West, But one have we left alone; Of its Christian creed we had no need, And have thus far kept our own; For each of its numerous sects affirms That it has the only way, And that all the rest should be suppressed, For they lead mankind astray.
But worse than the claims of rival sects And the war of clashing creeds, Is the gulf,--heaven-wide! which we descried Between their words and deeds; For He whose sacred name they bear Was known as the Prince of Peace, And what He taught, in practice wrought, Would cause all wars to cease.
They say with truth that we used to fight For our Lords on sea and coast, But our soldiers then were as one to ten, Not a permanent armored host! Nor do we claim to obey the God They worship in the West; But, since they do, is it not true That they mock at His first behest?
His words were "Love your enemies!" And never a hostile act To friend or foe should Christians show, By whomsoever attacked; But they are really the best prepared To attack and to resist; And the Kaiser who prays is the Kaiser who says,-- "Go! Strike with the mailed fist!"
We look abroad, and everywhere The spirit of Christ is dead; Men call Him Lord, but they draw the sword In defiance of what He said; And the haughty, white-skinned Christian race Hates men of a different hue, And robs and slays in a thousand ways, With excuses ever new.
In the North and South, in the East and West In vain do the natives plead; By the Congo's waves are countless graves, Where the Paleface gluts his greed; And China's fate looms dark and grim, As its people note the means That Christians take, when gold's at stake, From the Rand to the Philippines.
We have had to choose between the rule Of the Sermon on the Mount And the brutal fact that nations act With an eye to their bank-account! And we see that the only way to shun The clutch of the Western Powers Is to learn to kill with Christian skill, And to make their weapons ours.
For we will not, like the others, bend Our necks to the white man's yoke; And poor Japan, to her latest man, Will answer stroke with stroke; So I watch to-night a solemn sight On the breast of the moonlit bay, As our gallant host for a hostile coast Prepares to sail away.
It is life or death for my native land, And I fear I may never see Those ships again, with their noble men, Return from victory; And well I know in my heart of hearts, As the past I sadly scan, That we are worse, and it was a curse That foreigners brought Japan.
1904.
THE UNFORGOTTEN HEROES
[The great temple at Miyagi in Japan was recently the scene of grand funeral observances for the horses slain in the late war with Russia, the Buddhist priests reading prayers and conducting services of a most solemn character.]
Hark! how the Orient's bells are proclaiming Obsequies strange to the shrines of the west-- Services Christendom's cruelties shaming-- Taught by the merciful, Buddha the blest.
Peace on Manchuria's plains has descended; Tall waves the grass where the chivalrous bled; Murder and massacre finally ended, Sadly the living remember their dead.
Requiem masses and prayers without number Plead for the souls of the Muscovite brave, While of the Japanese, wrapt in death's slumber, Tender memorials honor each grave.
But in Gautama's compassionate teaching Love is not limited merely to man; Kindness to animals formed in his preaching No less a part of his merciful plan.
Hence by the Buddhists, in counting the corses Heaping with horror the death-trampled plain, Not unremembered are thousands of horses, Left unattended to die with the slain.
What did war seem to these poor, driven cattle? What was their part in the horrible fray Save to be shot in the fury of battle, Or from exhaustion to fall by the way?
Dragging huge guns over rocks and through mire, Trembling with weakness, yet straining each nerve, Fated at last in despair to expire, Uncomprehending, yet willing to serve!
Nothing to them were the hopes of a nation; "Czar" and "Mikado" were meaningless sounds; None of the patriot's deep inspiration Softened the agony caused by their wounds.
Not for these martyrs the skill of physician, Ether for anguish or lint for a wound; Theirs but to lie in their crippled condition, Thirsting and starving on shelterless ground.
Hail to these quadrupeds, dead without glory! Honor to him who their valor reveres! Spare to these heroes, unmentioned in story, Something of sympathy, something of tears.
A WINTER'S DAY
Into my garden sweet and fair Brightly the sun at noonday shines, Melting the frost from the wintry air, Warming the trellis of leafless vines.
Basking there in the genial heat, South of my sheltering vineyard wall, Strolling, I dream in my lov'd retreat,-- The smile of the sun-god over all.
Far too early a shadow dark, Cast by the neighboring mountain's crest, Stealthily creeps across the park, Bringing a chill from the sombre west.
Little by little my sunlit space Shrinks to a narrowing path of light; Further and further with dread I trace The sure advance of approaching night.