Chapter 4

Upon December’s windy portico The Old Year stood, and looked out where the sun Went wading down the West, through drifting clouds. ‘I, too, shall sink full soon to rest,’ he sighed, ‘And follow where my children’s feet have trod; Brave January, beauteous May and June, My lovely daughters, and my valiant sons, All, all save one, have left me for that bourne Men call the Past. It seems but yesterday I saw fair August, laughing with the Sea, Snaring the Earth with her seductive wiles, And making conquest, even of the Sun. Yet has she gone, and left me here to mourn.’ Then spake December, from an open door: ‘Father, the night grows cold; come in and rest. Sit with me here beside this glowing grate; I have not left thee; thou art not alone; My house is thine; all warm with love and light, And bright with holly and with cedar sweet. My stalwart arm is thine to lean upon; The feast is spread, I only wait for thee; God smiles upon thy dead, smile thou on me.’ Then through the open door the Old Year passed And darkness settled on the outer world.

‘THE WAY’

However certain of the way thou art, Take not the self-appointed leader’s part. Follow no man, and by no man be led, And no man lead. _Awake_, and go ahead. Thy path, though leading straight unto the goal Might prove confusing to another soul. The goal is central; but from east, and west, And north, and south, we set out on the quest; From lofty mountains, and from valleys low:— How could all find one common way to go?

Lord Buddha to the wilderness was brought. Lord Jesus to the Cross. And yet, think not By solitude, or cross, thou canst achieve, Lest in thine own true Self thou dost believe. Know thou art One, with life’s Almighty Source, Then are thy feet set on the certain Course.

Nor does it matter if thou feast, or fast, Or what thy creed—or where thy lot is cast; In halls of pleasure or in crowded mart, In city streets, or from all men apart— Thy path leads to the Light; and peace and power Shall be thy portion, growing hour by hour. Follow no man, and by no man be led. And no man lead. But _know_ and go ahead.

THE LEADER TO BE

What shall the leader be in that great day When we who sleep and dream that we are slaves Shall wake and know that Liberty is ours? Mark well that word—not yours, not mine, but ours. For through the mingling of the separate streams Of individual protest and desire, In one united sea of purpose, lies The course to Freedom.

When Progression takes Her undisputed right of way, and sinks The old traditions and conventions where They may not rise, what shall the leader be?

No mighty warrior skilled in crafts of war, Sowing earth’s fertile furrows with dead men And staining crimson God’s cerulean sea, To prove his prowess to a shuddering world.

Nor yet a monarch with a silly crown Perched on an empty head, an in-bred heir To senseless titles and anemic blood.

No ruler, purchased by the perjured votes Of striving demagogues whose god is gold. Not one of these shall lead to Liberty. The weakness of the world cries out for strength. The sorrow of the world cries out for hope. Its suffering cries for kindness.

He who leads Must then be strong and hopeful as the dawn That rises unafraid and full of joy Above the blackness of the darkest night. He must be kind to every living thing; Kind as the Krishna, Buddha and the Christ, And full of love for all created life. Oh, not in war shall his great prowess lie, Nor shall he find his pleasure in the chase. Too great for slaughter, friend of man and beast, Touching the borders of the Unseen Realms And bringing down to earth their mystic fires To light our troubled pathways, wise and kind And human to the core, so shall he be, The coming leader of the coming time.

THE GREATER LOVE

Hear thou my prayer, great God of opulence; Give me no blessings, save as recompense For blessings which I lovingly bestow On needy stranger or on suffering foe. If Wealth, by chance, should on my path appear, Let Wisdom and Benevolence stand near, And Charity within my portal wait, To guard me from acquaintance intimate.

Yet in this intricate great art of living Guide me away from misdirected giving, And show me how to spur the laggard soul To strive alone once more to gain the goal.

Repay my worldly efforts to attain Only as I develop heart and brain; Nor brand me with the ‘Dollar Sign’ above A bosom void of sympathy and love.

If on the carrying winds my name be blown To any land or time beyond my own, Let it not be as one who gained the day By crowding others from the chosen way; Rather as one who missed the highest place Pausing to cheer spent runners in the race. To do—to have—is lesser than to BE: The greater boon I ask, dear God, from Thee.

THANK GOD FOR LIFE

Thank God for life, in such an age as this, Rich with the promises of better things. Thank God for being part of this great nation’s heart, Whose strong pulsations are not ruled by kings.

Our thanks for fearless and protesting speech When cloven hoofs show ’neath the robes of state. For us no servile song of ‘Kings can do no wrong.’ Not royal birth, but worth, makes rulers great.

Thank God for peace within our border lands, And for the love of peace within each soul. Who thinks on peace has wrought, mosaic-squares of thought In the foundation of our future goal.

Our thanks for love, and knowledge of love’s laws. Love is a greater power than vested might. Love is the central source of all enduring force. Love is the law that sets the whole world right.

Our thanks for that increasing torch of light The tireless hand of science holds abroad. And may its growing blaze shine on all hidden ways Till man beholds the silhouette of God.

TIME ENOUGH

I know it is early morning, And hope is calling aloud, And your heart is afire with Youth’s desire To hurry along with the crowd. But linger a bit by the roadside, And lend a hand by the way, ’Tis a curious fact that a generous act Brings leisure and luck to a day.

I know it is only the noontime— There is chance enough to be kind; But the hours run fast when noon has passed, And the shadows are close behind. So think while the light is shining, And act ere the set of the sun, For the sorriest woe that a soul can know Is to think what it might have done.

I know it is almost evening, But the twilight hour is long. If you listen and heed each cry of need You can right full many a wrong. For when we have finished the journey We will all look back and say: ‘On life’s long mile there was nothing worth while But the good we did by the way.’

NEW YEAR’S DAY

When with clanging and with ringing Comes the year’s initial day, I can feel the rhythmic swinging Of the world upon its way; And though Right still wears a fetter, And though Justice still is blind, Time’s beyond is always better Than the paths he leaves behind.

In our eons of existence, As we circle through the night, We annihilate the distance ’Twixt the darkness and the light. From beginnings crude and lowly, Round and round our souls have trod Through the circles, winding slowly Up to knowledge and to God.

With each century departed Some old evil found a tomb, Some old truth was newly started In propitious soil to bloom. With each epoch some condition That has handicapped the race (Worn-out creed or superstition) Unto knowledge yields its place.

Though in folly and in blindness And in sorrow still we grope, Yet in man’s increasing kindness Lies the world’s stupendous hope; For our darkest hour of errors Is as radiant as the dawn, Set beside the awful terrors Of the ages that have gone.

And above the sad world’s sobbing, And the strife of clan with clan, I can hear the mighty throbbing Of the heart of God in man; And a voice chants through the chiming Of the bells, and seems to say, We are climbing, we are climbing, As we circle on our way.

LIFE IS A PRIVILEGE

Life is a privilege. Its youthful days Shine with the radiance of continuous Mays. To live, to breathe, to wonder and desire, To feed with dreams the heart’s perpetual fire; To thrill with virtuous passions and to glow With great ambitions—in one hour to know The depths and heights of feeling—God! in truth How beautiful, how beautiful is youth!

Life is a privilege. Like some rare rose The mysteries of the human mind unclose. What marvels lie in earth and air and sea, What stores of knowledge wait our opening key, What sunny roads of happiness lead out Beyond the realms of indolence and doubt, And what large pleasures smile upon and bless The busy avenues of usefulness.

Life is a privilege. Though noontide fades And shadows fall along the winding glades; Though joy-blooms wither in the autumn air, Yet the sweet scent of sympathy is there. Pale sorrow leads us closer to our kind, And in the serious hours of life we find Depths in the soul of men which lend new worth And majesty to this brief span of earth.

Life is a privilege. If some sad fate Sends us alone to seek the exit gate; If men forsake us as the shadows fall, Still does the supreme privilege of all Come in that reaching upward of the soul To find the welcoming presence at the goal, And in the knowledge that our feet have trod Paths that lead from and must lead back to God.

IN AN OLD ART GALLERY

Before the statue of a giant Hun, There stood a dwarf, misshapen and uncouth. His lifted eyes seemed asking: ‘Why, in sooth, Was I not fashioned like this mighty one? Would God show favour to an older son Like earthly kings, and beggar without ruth Another, who sinned only by his youth? Why should two lives in such divergence run?’

Strange, as he gazed, that from a vanished past No memories revived of war and strife, Of misused prowess, and of broken law. That old Hun’s spirit, in the dwarf re-cast, Lived out the sequence of an earthly life. _It was the statue of himself he saw_!

TRUE BROTHERHOOD

God, what a world, if men in street and mart Felt that same kinship of the human heart Which makes them, in the face of flame and flood, Rise to the meaning of true Brotherhood!

THE DECADENT

Among the virile hosts he passed along, Conspicuous for an undetermined grace Of sexless beauty. In his form and face God’s mighty purpose somehow had gone wrong. Then on his loom, he wove a careful song, Of sensuous threads; a wordy web of lace Wherein the primal passions of the race And his own sins made wonder for the throng.

A little pen prick opened up a vein, And gave the finished mesh a crimson blot— The last consummate touch of studied art. But those who knew strong passion and keen pain, Looked through and through the pattern and found not One single great emotion of the heart.

LORD, SPEAK AGAIN

When God had formed the Universe, He thought Of all the marvels therein to be wrought And to His aid then Motherhood was brought.

‘My lesser self, the feminine of Me, She will go forth throughout all time,’ quoth He, ‘And make My world what I would have it be.

‘For I am weary, having laboured so, And for a cycle of repose would go Into that silence which but God may know.

‘Therefore I leave the rounding of My plan To Motherhood; and that which I began Let woman finish in perfecting man.

‘She is the soil: the human Mother Earth: She is the sun, that calls the seed to earth. She is the gardener, who knows its worth.

‘From Me, all seed, of any kind must spring. Divine the growth such seed and soil will bring. For all is Me, and I am everything.’

Thus having spoken to Himself aloud, His glorious face upon His breast He bowed, And sought repose behind a wall of cloud.

Come forth, O God! though great Thy thought and good, In shaping woman for true Motherhood, Lord, speak again; she has not understood.

The centuries pass: the cycles roll along— The earth is peopled with a mighty throng, Yet men are fighting and the world goes wrong.

Lord, speak again, ere yet it be too late, Unloved, unwanted souls come through earth’s gate: The unborn child is given a dower of hate.

Thy world progresses in all ways save one. In Motherhood, for which it was begun, Lord, Lord, behold how little has been done!

Children are spawned like fishes in the sand. With ignorance and crime they fill the land. Lord, speak again, till mothers understand.

It is not all of Motherhood to know Conception pleasure or deliverance woe. Who plants the seed should help the shoot to grow.

Better a barren soil than weed and tare, Or sickly plants that die for want of care In poisonous jungles, void of sun and air.

True Motherhood is not alone to breed The human race; it is to know and heed Its holiest purpose and its highest need.

Lord, speak again, so woman shall be stirred With the full meaning of that mighty word True Motherhood. She has not rightly heard.

MY HEAVEN

Unhoused in deserts of accepted thought, And lost in jungles of confusing creeds, My soul strayed, homeless, finding its own needs Unsatisfied with what tradition taught.

The pros and cons, the little ifs and ands, The but and maybe, and the this and that, On which the churches thicken and grow fat, I found but structures built on shifting sands.

And all their heavens were strange and far away, And all their hells were made of human hate; And since for death I did not care to wait, A heaven I fashioned for myself one day.

Of happy thoughts I built it stone by stone, With joy of life I draped each spacious room, With love’s great light I drove away all gloom, And in the centre I made God a throne.

And this dear heaven I set within my heart, And carried it about with me alway, And then the changing dogmas of the day Seemed alien to my thoughts and held no part.

Now as I take my heaven from place to place I find new rooms by love’s revealing light, And death will give me but a larger sight To see my palace spreading into space.

LIFE

On a bleak, bald hill with a dull world under, The dreary world of the Commonplace, I have stood when the whole world seemed a blunder Of dotard Time, in an aimless race. With worry about me and want before me— Yet deep in my soul was a rapture spring That made me cry to the grey sky o’er me: ‘Oh, I know this life is a goodly thing!’

I have given sweet years to a thankless duty While cold and starving, though clothed and fed, For a young heart’s hunger for joy and beauty Is harder to bear than the need of bread. I have watched the wane of a sodden season, Which let hope wither, and made care thrive, And through it all, without earthly reason, I have thrilled with the glory of being alive.

And now I stand by the great sea’s splendour, Where love and beauty feed heart and eye. The brilliant light of the sun grows tender As it slants to the shore of the by and by. I prize each hour as a golden treasure— A pearl Time drops from a broken string: And all my ways are the ways of pleasure, And I know this life is a goodly thing.

And I know, too, that not in the seeing, Or having, or doing the things we would, Lies that deep rapture that comes from being _At one with the Purpose which made all good_. And not from Pleasure the heart may borrow That rare contentment for which we strive, Unless through trouble, and want, and sorrow It has thrilled with the glory of being alive.

GOD’S KIN

There is no summit you may not attain, No purpose which you may not yet achieve, If you will wait serenely and believe Each seeming loss is but a step toward gain.

Between the mountain-tops lie vale and plain; Let nothing make you question, doubt or grieve; Give only good, and good alone receive; And as you welcome joy, so welcome pain.

That which you most desire awaits your word; Throw wide the door and bid it enter in. Speak, and the strong vibrations shall be stirred; Speak, and above earth’s loud, unmeaning din Your silent declarations shall be heard. All things are possible to God’s own kin.

CONQUEST

Talk not of strength, until your heart has known And fought with weakness through long hours alone.

Talk not of virtue, till your conquering soul Has met temptation and gained full control.

Boast not of garments, all unscorched by sin, Till you have passed, unscathed, through fires within.

Oh, poor that pride the unscarred soldier shows, Who safe in camp, has never faced his foes.

THE STATUE

A granite rock in the mountain side Gazed on the world and was satisfied. It watched the centuries come and go. It welcomed the sunlight, yet loved the snow. It grieved when the forest was forced to fall, Yet joyed when steeples rose, white and tall, In the valley below it, and thrilled to hear The voice of the great town roaring near.

When the mountain stream from its idle play Was caught by the mill wheel and borne away And trained to labour, the grey rock mused ‘Trees and verdure and stream are used By Man the Master; but I remain Friend of the mountain, and star, and plain, Unchanged forever by God’s decree, While passing centuries bow to me.’

Then all unwarned, with a mighty shock Out of the mountain was wrenched the rock. Bruised and battered and broken in heart, It was carried away to the common mart, Wrecked and ruined in piece and pride. ‘Oh, God is cruel,’ the granite cried, ‘Comrade of mountains, of stars the friend, By all deserted, how sad my end.’

A dreaming sculptor in passing by Gazed at the granite with thoughtful eye. Then stirred with a purpose supremely grand He bade his dream in the rock expand. And lo! from the broken and shapeless mass That grieved and doubted, it came to pass That a glorious statue of priceless worth And infinite beauty, adorned the earth.

SIRIUS

‘_Since Sinus crossed the Milky Way_, _sixty thousand years have gone_.’—GARRETT P. SERVISS.

Since Sirius crossed the Milky Way Full sixty thousand years have gone, Yet hour by hour, and day by day, This tireless star speeds on and on.

Methinks he must be moved to mirth By that droll tale of Genesis, Which says creation had its birth For such a puny world as this.

To hear how One who fashioned all Those Solar Systems, tier on tiers, Expressed in little Adam’s fall The purpose of a million spheres.

And, witness of the endless plan, To splendid wrath he must be wrought By pigmy creeds presumptuous man Sends forth as God’s primeval thought.

Perchance from half a hundred stars He hears as many curious things; From Venus, Jupiter and Mars, And Saturn with the beauteous rings,

There may be students of the Cause Who send their revelations out, And formulate their codes of laws, With heavens for faith and hells for doubt.

On planets old ere form or place Was lent to earth, may dwell—who knows— A God-like and perfected race That hails great Sirius as he goes.

In zones that circle moon and sun, ’Twixt world and world, he may see souls Whose span of earthly life is done, Still journeying up to higher goals.

And on dead planets grey and cold Grim spectral souls, that harboured hate Life after life, he may behold Descending to a darker fate.

And on his grand majestic course He may have caught one glorious sight Of that vast shining central Source From which proceeds all Life, all Light.

Since Sirius crossed the Milky Way Full sixty thousand years have gone, No mortal man may bid him stay, No mortal man may speed him on.

No mortal mind may comprehend What is beyond, what was before; To God be glory without end, Let man be humble and adore.

AT FONTAINEBLEAU

At Fontainebleau, I saw a little bed Fashioned of polished wood, with gold ornate, Ambition, hope, and sorrow, ay, and hate Once battled there, above a childish head, And there in vain, grief wept, and memory plead It was so small! but Ah, dear God, how great The part it played in one sad woman’s fate. How wide the gloom, that narrow object shed.

The symbol of an over-reaching aim, The emblem of a devastated joy, It spoke of glory, and a blasted home: Of fleeting honours, and disordered fame, And the lone passing of a fragile boy.

* * * * *

It was the cradle of the King of Rome.

THE MASQUERADE

Look in the eyes of trouble with a smile, Extend your hand and do not be afraid. ’Tis but a friend who comes to masquerade. And test your faith and courage for awhile.

Fly, and he follows fast with threat and jeer. Shrink, and he deals hard blow on stinging blow, But bid him welcome as a friend, and lo! The jest is off—the masque will disappear.

SYMPATHY

Is the way hard and thorny, oh, my brother? Do tempests beat, and adverse wild winds blow? And are you spent, and broken, at each nightfall, Yet with each morn you rise and onward go? Brother, I know, I know! I, too, have journeyed so.

Is your heart mad with longing, oh, my sister? Are all great passions in your breast aglow? Does the white wonder of your own soul blind you, And are you torn with rapture and with woe? Sister, I know, I know! I, too, have suffered so.

Is the road filled with snare and quicksand, pilgrim? Do pitfalls lie where roses seem to grow? And have you sometimes stumbled in the darkness, And are you bruised and scarred by many a blow? Pilgrim, I know, I know! I, too, have stumbled so.

Do you send out rebellious cry and question, As mocking hours pass silently and slow, Does your insistent ‘wherefore’ bring no answer, While stars wax pale with watching, and droop low? I, too, have questioned so, But now _I know_, _I know_! To toil, to strive, to err, to cry, to grow, _To love through_ all—this is the way to _know_.

INTERMEDIARY

When from the prison of its body free, My soul shall soar, before it goes to Thee, Thou great Creator, give it power to know The language of all sad, dumb things below. And let me dwell a season still on earth Before I rise to some diviner birth: Invisible to men, yet seen and heard, And understood by sorrowing beast and bird— Invisible to men, yet always near, To whisper counsel in the human ear: And with a spell to stay the hunter’s hand And stir his heart to know and understand; To plant within the dull or thoughtless mind The great religious impulse to be kind.