Chapter 5

Forms have changed and words have altered, But the things remain the same; Still doth man enslave his brother,-- Always master, save in name.

Still are God's dumb creatures tortured, Racial hatreds never cease, And man's greatest self-delusion Is the shibboleth of "Peace."

Hence, while youth, with hope and courage, Loudly vents its noble rage; Age, profoundly disillusioned, Sad and silent leaves the stage.

Round the classic Inland Ocean, Where the Roman world held sway, Storied shores are iridescent With the splendor of decay;

Persia, Syria, Egypt, Athens, Proud Byzantium, Carthage, Spain,-- In their mournful desolation Hear the old sea's sad refrain:--

"Rising, falling, waxing, waning, Men and nations come and go; Reaching glory, then declining, As the ebb succeeds the flow.

"All florescence is but fleeting: Each in turn enjoys its day, Hath its seed-time, bud and flower, And as surely fades away.

"Growth, maturity, decadence,-- Form mankind's unchanging role, And the dead past's sombre ruins Are prophetic of the whole."

"Nay," you cry in bitter protest, "Shall man have no perfect end, No millennial culmination, Toward which all the ages tend?

"Must all races prove decadent? Shall not one produce in time Perfect types of men and women In a world devoid of crime?"

Scan the lurid past, and tell us On what ground you base your hopes! Does an endless line of failures Warrant brighter horoscopes?

Hath not every race and nation Sunk from grandeur to decay? What shall save us, then, from ruin? Are we better men than they?

"Great inventors", say you? Granted; Such material gifts are ours; Every age hath some distinction, Every race its special powers.

But the progress is not lasting, And the special powers decline; Man's advance is never constant In one grand, unbroken line.

Nor is ground, once lost, recovered; Greece and Rome are not replaced! All the sites of pagan learning Still lie desolate and waste.

What know we,--except in physics--, That the ancients did not know? Are we wiser than the sages Of two thousand years ago?

More devout than Hebrew prophets? More upright than Antonine? More accomplished than the Grecians, Or than Buddha more divine?

And if such men could not hinder Fate's resistless rise and fall, How can we expect exemption From the common lot of all?

Let us frankly face the prospect That man's progress here may fail; That the race may never triumph, But again descend the scale,

Till the last surviving savage To his glacial cave retires, And earth's tragic drama closes, As humanity expires!

And why not? All weaker species To the stronger yield their place; May the same law not be needed Through the boundless realms of space?

By whatever beings peopled, Worlds that fail to meet the test May like fruitless blossoms perish; God will winnow out the best.

Would you know our planet's value? View the star-strewn dome of night! In that shoreless sea of splendor What is one faint wave of light?

Worlds by millions are revolving Through that vast, unfathomed main; Should our tiny orb make shipwreck, Worlds by millions would remain;

Where perchance a real advancement May prevail from pole to pole, Without losses, without lapses, Toward a final, perfect goal.

This at least can not be doubted,-- That our globe will one day roll Cold and lifeless thro' its orbit, Like a corpse without its soul.

Will mankind have reached perfection Ere that epoch has begun, Or grown bestial, as the heat-waves Issue feebly from the sun?

None may know. Through blood-stained cycles We have thus far made our way: Of the unknown depths beneath us We are nothing but the spray.

MÉSALLIANCE

With gentle manners, winsome face, And forehead fit to wear a crown, How brilliant might have been her place, Had she not mated with a clown,--

A Caliban of modern date, Ill-dressed, ill-shapen, ill at ease, With halting speech and awkward gait, And manners certain to displease!

What secret motive could have led This charming girl her life to stain By condescending thus to wed A husband whom she must disdain?

Far worthier men had vainly sought To win her for herself alone; What potent spell could Love have wrought To draw her to a tactless drone?

A palace she might well have graced. And led its functions like a queen; Instead, her life has run to waste, The wraith of what it might have been.

For boorishness hath brought its blight; Her rare accomplishments are marred, And every path, with promise bright, By stupid tyranny is barred.

Yet still she bravely moves through life, Ignoring her pathetic fall;-- A loveless, broken-hearted wife; Alas, the pity of it all!

IN A MODERN CITY

Dreary fog and drizzling sleet, And a lamp-lit track of slime; Phantoms dim in the misty street, Vanishing, streaked with grime; Overhead in a spurious night, Formed by the vapors dun, Wraith-like globes of haloed light, Mocking the hidden sun;--

Children, shod in sodden shoes, (That is a sight that hurts;) Women, furrowing filthy ooze In thin, bedraggled skirts; Horses, lashed with cruel zest, Ploughing the fumid fog; Hark! ... a car, with no arrest, Killing a howling dog;--

Clanging trams, with haggard men Forcing their way within,-- Some compressed in a steaming-pen, Others soaked to the skin; Smoke and soot in the murky sky, Death in the tainted air, Each aware, were he to die, None in the crowd would care;--

Here and there a carriage fine, Cleaving the reeking mass; Scowling faces, ranged in line, Watching the rich man pass; Envy's gleam in many an eye, Hate in many a threat; Why should he be warm and dry, And they be cold and wet?

Pictures these of the "Passing Show," Scenes in a world gone wrong, Wretched weaklings, born to woe, Crushed by the brutal strong! Breaking hearts that crave release, Slaves to a ceaseless strife! ... I will go back to sylvan peace And a sight of the Source of Life.

MY BORES

I take their hands with placid smile And words which social rules enforce, Though sadly conscious all the while Of something very like remorse, Because beneath the mask I wear I really wish they were not there.

Their visits I at heart resent; The half-read volume haunts my thought; The urgent note remains unsent; The verse, unfinished, comes to naught; And all because, on some pretence, They waste their time at my expense.

Yet no grim misanthrope am I, Who fears, distrusts, and hates his race; I merely wish them to pass by, And seek some other lounging-place; For, frankly, I should love them more A little further from my door.

In vain I make no answering calls; They blandly smile and come again! Nay, even bring within my walls More curious strangers in their train, "Who wished so much your home to see!" Why do they never think of me?

The few I want I can invite; Hence why should others thus intrude? How dare they give themselves the right, Unasked, to spoil my solitude? And why presume I care to know More triflers in their world of show?

Their idle life, on pleasure bent, Their mania for some silly game, Their hours in stupid gossip spent,-- Would give me self-contempt and shame; Between us is no common ground On which a comradeship to found.

A word or two upon the street Suffice me with the most of men; Beyond a greeting, when we meet. I care not if we speak again; My books and Nature's charming face Such human consorts well replace.

Not all, indeed; for who but yearns To call some kindred heart his own? Some friend to whom he fondly turns, And with whom he is still alone, Since each, while absolutely free, Respects the other's privacy.

To such his pent-up love o'erflows; With such his soul's seclusion ends; For each the other's nature knows, And every motive comprehends; So perfectly do both agree, So close their bond of sympathy!

But those who come to wear away With me the time they deem a bore, And blithely rob me of a day Which God Himself cannot restore-- From such, at risk of being rude, I will preserve my solitude.

Their vapid visits I refuse; Their forced attachment I decline; I surely have the right to choose The friends, whose lives shall blend with mine; My bark shall gain the open sea With but the few I love and me.

GRATITUDE

The sun is on the mountain crest, The sky without a cloud, The moon is slipping down the west, The robin's song is loud; White blossoms crown the apple trees, The dew is on the thorn, The scent of roses fills the breeze,-- Thank God, another morn!

The sunset embers smoulder low, The moon climbs o'er the hill, The peaks have caught the alpenglow, The robin's song is still; The hush of peace is on the earth, With stars the sky grows bright, The fire is kindled on my hearth,-- Thank God, another night!

IN TENEBRIS

All the lights have been extinguished In my closely-curtained room, Nothing now can be distinguished In the all-pervading gloom; And through darkness, so alluring, I would float away to sleep, Like a boat that slips its mooring, And moves gently toward the deep.

How delightful this seclusion From the garish light of day,-- All its turmoil and confusion Pushed, a little while, away! Neither men nor things shall try me Till to-morrow brings its light; Let my cares go drifting by me! I'll not think of them to-night.

Social cant and empty phrases, Base returns for kindness shown, Envy's serpent-smile, and praises Which convey, for bread, a stone,-- What a joy to have rejected All such griefs, of evil born! What a boon to feel protected From their advent until morn!

Moon and stars, without, are gleaming Over snow-capped peaks sublime, But to-night I'll give to dreaming, Nor esteem it wasted time; Nay, through darkness, so alluring, I will float away to sleep, Like a boat that slips its mooring, And moves gently toward the deep.

TWO MOTHERS

One night two lonely women met Beside a storm-swept bay; With tears their mournful eyes were wet, Their pale lips salt with spray; They passed; then turned, as though each yearned Some friendly word to say.

"Poor soul", cried one, "hast thou no fear To walk this haunted strand? What hopeless sorrow brings thee here, Where dead men drift to land? I too have grief beyond relief; Speak! I can understand."

"I mourn a son", the other said; "That ocean is his grave; My heart will not be comforted, It breaks with every wave; Would I might sleep in yonder deep With him I could not save!

"The wind was raging, as to-night; Straight on these rocks it blew; I watched until the dawning light Disclosed the wreck to view; From where we stand I saw his hand Wave me a last adieu!

"He deemed the boat too frail to bear Another living freight; 'Push off'! he said with tranquil air, 'Go first, and I will wait;' But all the while, despite his smile, He knew 'twould be too late.

"That heartless crew shall nevermore God's absolution find! They watched, like cravens, from the shore The man they left behind Go down before the breakers' roar, The surges and the wind!

"Hence, when such maddened tempests rave, I cannot rest at home, For then the billows deck his grave With flowers of snow-white foam; And here I pray till break of day Beneath night's starless dome."

A silence fell; then, faint and low, The other, weeping, said; "My heavier woe thou needst not know; Within his ocean bed On thy son's name there rests no shame; Would God that mine were dead!"

AT HOCHFINSTERMÜNZ

Once more between its walls of pines I see the long ravine expand To where the ice-world's crystal lines Define the realm of Switzerland.

Once more, a thousand feet below, I watch the river's silver sheen, As, foaming in its fettered flow, It rushes from the Engadine.

Forever young, forever old, This gorge, where stream with forest blends, These glittering peaks, these glaciers cold,-- Are all to me familiar friends.

I know, alas, their towering forms Of unresponsive rocks and snow Are heartless as their wintry storms, And heed not if I come or go;

Yet none the less I love to trace Their stainless crests along the sky, And, as I greet each well-known face, Each seems in turn to make reply.

So potent is the subtle spell That clothes such masses with a mind; So strong the instincts which impel Their lover answering love to find!

What if in truth there really be A soul within them to adore; Some half-revealed Divinity, Whose presence haunts us evermore?

Some Power, to read our hearts, and know How this wild beauty moves our tears; Some God that, as our spirits grow, Shall be discerned in after years?

Instinctively did earlier man See fauns and dryads in the trees, And find in universal Pan The soul of Nature's mysteries.

All is divine,--the bird that sings, The flowers that bloom, the waves that roll; One Spirit quickens men and things, And stirs alike the sun and soul.

Great Nature's God! however styled, I love thee, and upon thy breast Would gladly lie,--a grateful child, And, dying, trust thee for the rest.

THE GIFT OF JUNO

Already 'neath the morning star The shrine, by Juno's favor blest, Had flashed its whiteness from afar, Resplendent on a mountain's crest, Along whose base the ocean rolled A flood of sapphire, flecked with gold.

In twilight still the shore remained; But, toiling upward through the night, A wistful mother had just gained The summit of the sacred height, Where Juno's far-famed statue stood,-- Palladium of motherhood.

At her approach the bolts were drawn, And inward swung the temple gate, Revealing in the light of dawn The marble form immaculate, The effigy of heaven's queen, Sublime, beneficent, serene.

Slow-moving and with fluttering heart, The youthful matron onward passed To where that masterpiece of art Repaid her arduous toil at last; As, gazing through a mist of tears, She realized here the dream of years.

Beside her, one on either hand, Two little children stood in fear, Unable yet to understand The reason of their coming here; Both beautiful in form and face, True types of the Hellenic race.

No fairer pilgrims ever came Within the temple's stately door; No sweeter picture could it frame Than that upon its marble floor, When, in the hush of dawning day, The lovely trio knelt to pray.

"Immortal goddess, not in vain Do mothers lift their souls to thee; Their love, their hopes, their fears, their pain Thy heart can feel, thine eyes can see; Deign, therefore, my sweet babes to bless, O Juno, fount of tenderness!

"To thy divine, all-seeing eyes The course of every life is clear; I pray thee, note what future lies Before these helpless children here; Then, of the gifts by thee possessed, Give them but one; choose thou the best!"

She paused, and waited for reply, While solemn stillness filled the shrine; Heard something like a gentle sigh, Or passing of a breath divine; Then saw their eyes, like petals, close In death's sweet, statue-like repose.

Repose, unbroken evermore! The world of suffering still unknown! Escaping through that peaceful door From every ill life might have shown. Heart-broken mother, cease to weep! The best was given them,--dreamless sleep.

THE AWAKENING

Let me sleep on! I would not waken yet, Or leave too soon the peaceful realm of dreams! There, lulled by placid Lethe, I forget The tumult raging on Earth's roaring streams; Doubt not that, later, I shall surely meet With steadfast soul Day's ceaseless, sordid strife, But now I crave again that strangely sweet Oblivion of life;--

That tranquil sleep, whose cooling shadow stills The throbbing forehead and the fevered brain, Which soothes to rest all sense of present ills, Of poignant sorrow and persistent pain; O gift divine, O boon beyond compare, God's benediction at the evening's close, The antidote of grief, the cure of care, The kingdom of repose!

Too late ... the spell is broken ... I awake; How swift the rush of memory's turning tide, Whose ruthless waves the will's frail barriers break, And flood the cells where consciousness would hide! Alas, how mad and fierce the world appears! How dark and ominous the future seems! I rise to face them ... yet recall through tears The quiet land of dreams.

THE WINE OF LIFE

Earthen jar of quaint design, Fragile clay and slender mould, I shall soon have drained the wine Which you still contrive to hold,-- Wine that sixty years ago Seemed about to overflow.

Few the draughts that now remain, And I husband them with care, For naught ever comes again That is once exhausted there, And the emptied jar is cast To the scrap-heap of the past.

Oh, the wine we rashly waste When held brimming to the lip! What a difference in its taste When we drink it sip by sip, As a miser counts his gold On a hearth that leaves him cold!

But why should we feel distress If the jar be far from filled? Though its contents may be less, Yet its essence is distilled, And the best wine always clears With the passing of the years.

Fermentation is for youth, But serenity for age; For a knowledge of the truth Men have always sought the Sage, And though youth may live with zest, 'Tis in age that one lives best.

LIFE'S TRILOGY

_Youth_ dreams of all the years shall hold,-- Of poems writ, of battles won, Of statues made, of love, of gold, And honors, added one by one; How sweet the song of Hope, if sung, When life is young!

_Man's_ dreams are stern and few indeed; His youthful aims he finds despised, For in a world of strife and greed Ideals must be sacrificed; Alas, there is so little time In manhood's prime!

_Age_ dreams of what the years have brought,-- The blots upon life's tear-dimmed scroll, The brave attempts that came to naught, The unsolved problems of the soul; How sadly is the tale retold, When life is old!

_Youth, Manhood, Age,_--the fatal Three! Illusion, Struggle, and Regret! So hath it been, so shall it be, And to what end? We know not yet; Still sweeps the mighty life-flood on, Now here, now gone!

Seed, bud, florescence, and decay In nature, races, nations, men;-- Nay, Earth itself shall fail one day To feed its freezing brood! What then? Successive cycles, vast and small,-- Can these be all?

Do all these swirls of suns and souls, Of spirit keen and senseless stone, Speed on to no appointed goals, Like sand along the desert blown,-- Forever born from out the void, To be destroyed?--

Nay, Reason, shocked at anarchy, Demands an author and an aim, Seeks ever for the master-key To solve the mystery,--Whence came This starlit sea of Evermore, Without a shore?

And whence comes Life,--that occult Force, So rich in its prolific range, So frail and swift to run its course, Yet deathless in protean change? Must we not hope that Death will clear The darkness here?

Such hopes appear of little worth When, peering through our planet's bars, We picture this, our tiny Earth, Amid that wilderness of stars! Yet in those sun-strewn depths of space It hath its place.

Its rhythmic motion, tuned to time, Its awful rush, yet sure return, Make even our dim orb sublime, And we at last the truth discern,-- With God is neither small nor great, Nor soon, nor late.

Unconscious actors,--it may be That here we painfully rehearse, In parts, whose plots we do not see, Some drama of the universe,-- Advanced, as nobler grow our souls, To loftier roles.

MYSTERIES

Bound to the earth in its headlong flight, Whence and whither we do not know, Cleaving the awful void of night With frost above and fire below, What is the goal toward which we fly? What does it mean to live and die?

Under our feet a trembling shell, Pierced by a hundred lurid rents! Lower still a molten hell, Seen through its lava-belching vents! And men, within its blighting breath, Are charred, like leaves, to a shrivelled death.

Thin is the rind on which we tread; It shakes, and a thousand lives are lost; The sea engulfs unnumbered dead; Each second scores of souls are tossed Into the stream that sweeps them on ... Whither? Who knows where they are gone?

Over the earth-crust millions crawl, Fight for a little gold and grain, Then in a few years leave it all, Nevermore to be seen again! When will the tragic tale be told? And what of Man when the earth grows cold?

Poised on the planet's rim we stand, Peering aghast into boundless space; Infinite depths on every hand, Never again in the self-same place; Dragged by the sun itself away On toward a point in the Milky Way.

Not without companions we; Here and there gleam other fires,-- Burning ships on a shoreless sea; Now and again a flame expires, One last, quivering shaft of light, Shot through a billion leagues of night.

There in its last volcanic throes A dying world perhaps dissolves; Further still, where the sun-mist glows, A mighty, new-born sun evolves; Ceaseless change in an endless sky! What does it mean to live and die?

STAR DRIFT

The glaring sun hath ceased to shine; The solemn stars invade the sky; Again the welcome night is mine, Wherein to view the worlds on high; The night! when heaven bares its face, And man with reverent soul can trace The awful mysteries of space.

Too long the shadeless solar blaze Hath forced my vision toward the sod; 'Tis night alone that helps us raise Our thoughts from littleness to God, And by its darkness sets us free To gaze across what seems to be The portal of Eternity.

I watch the stellar hosts ascend Their devious paths in slow array, And note the place where millions blend To form the fabled Milky Way,--- That zone of radiant suns, whose light Hath needed centuries of flight To reach our little earth to-night,

Through lenses scanned, its golden haze Resolves itself to points that glow In one stupendous, brilliant maze Of countless orbs, that come and go On pathways we may never learn, However long their light may burn, However ardently we yearn.

Apparently so densely strewn, But oh! what gulfs those suns divide! As each pursues its course alone Beyond an interval as wide As that which yawns between our own And any of those star-seeds sown In astral gardens, still unknown.

Sometimes from that resplendent sheen A new light gleams across the void, And, awe-struck, we conceive the scene Of two vast solar orbs destroyed; By fearful impact changed again, Unnumbered miles beyond our ken, To leagues of blazing hydrogen.

Before such marvels, what are we To plume ourselves in foolish pride? Within that dim immensity How many suns and earths have died! The tiny mote on which we stand, However fair and finely planned, Is nothing but a grain of sand.

To-day, as through the ages gone, By law impelled, by law restrained, Suns, planets, systems,--all sweep on Toward bourns still dark and unexplained; Some bright with youth, some dull with age, Their varied colors well presage Their distance from the final stage.

For all are doomed at last to die! On heaven's blue sea each isle of fire, Of all that now enchant the eye, Must finally in gloom expire; Though all may still roll on, unseen, As blackened cinders, while between Dark, lifeless planets intervene.

And then? The mind sinks back in dread! Such burnt-out worlds may well appal, If they must still continue dead, And universal night end all; But, one by one, as speed shall fail, Each may some rival mass assail, Till nebulas again prevail.

But not for long! A refluent spurge Shall that destructive course reverse, And cause those sun-mists to converge To mould another universe; Again shall constellations rise, And suns and planets light the skies, And man regain his paradise.

For thus with rhythmic sweep sublime Swings Chaos on to Cosmos; then In ages, measureless by time, Rolls Cosmos back to mist again, In one stupendous ebb and flow, As aeons come and aeons go, With all their freight of weal and woe.

Hard, cruel, hopeless? It may be. We know too little to decide; Yet hope that o'er that starlit sea Some steadfast, God-directed tide Will one day bear us to a shore, Where we shall find our lost once more, And what was here unknown, adore.

TYROLEAN

OBERMAIS