Part 2

"We build," he said, "on elemental things!" And paused to glance around the silent class. "On facts well ascertained which insight brings, "And which in due development must pass "From the first phase, remote, removed, "To the Effect. Thus, link by link, we trace "The lengthening chain of Verity, full proved "By Knowledge, Reason, Logic, each in place." It seemed conclusive to us students then. The man's prestige had weight. Authority Made him for us above all other men; He was the head of our academy. His calm assumption and incisive way, Admitting no alternative nor doubt, As he intoned his long familiar lay, Made his pronouncements clear as if cut out Of crystal, cold with mathematic test, Through which he viewed complacently the span And limit of all scientific quest, Quite heedless of the growing range of man. His narrow field so finished and complete, His standards and his logic's hampering line Look small where now the long perspectives meet, Converging in a new horizon's shine. All this was years ago. What would he say, I wonder, if he could revisit us And, with the knowledge of the present day, See space and pain reduced to minimus, Electric currents hand in hand with steam, Men borne in ships across the trackless air, The widening story of the earth's old scheme Told in its strata, and, with arduous care, The age of man thrust back unfathomed years, New elements, a new chronology And growing lore that year by year appears To show how distant is finality? It sets my fancy roving and I try In idle hours to think what may befall. Naught seems impossible, no thought too high, No dream too mad, to realise it all. What, for example, is the human mind? Whence comes it, great or small, at some man's birth? A fool's or sage's, base or all refined! What holds it till his body turns to earth? And whither goes it with the failing breath? And is the Aura's essence to remain Ever elusive at the hour of death, To perish or another home attain? Or, with close knowledge of man's growing germ, Shall we not train it and direct its course, As now we cultivate the floral sperm, And simple weeds to complex beauty force? Life is a thing of phases manifold, By shades diminishing from high to low, Man, protoplasm, beast, all we are told, To perish in an equal overthrow. Our view of life at best is incomplete. We judge by its effect and action, blind To its real essence, as to that we meet, Acting unseen, when wire to wire we bind. Think of what might be, once this secret known, Full knowledge of Life's spark, and with the power To rescue from Death's dark and silent zone The souls of some great men whose natures tower Above their fellows and can ill be spared From some great task far-reaching and benign. I hear a reader say: "This man has dared "To claim for us an attribute divine! "Our times are in God's hands." And I reply: We do not hesitate to take a life, The claims of social law to satisfy, And punish men whose minds with crime are rife. What then more fitting, given the knowledge there, To lengthen lives that worthy ends fulfil, And measure by new standards just and fair The worth of life as it is good or ill? Have we exhausted chemistry's domain? Squeezed dry the elements we say we know? And does the spinning universe contain No more our theories to overthrow? How far does gravitation serve our needs-- The force that keeps each planet in its place, Resistless, constant, yet with varying speeds, For ever acting in unbounded space? Some day perhaps pent man will learn to brave An alien atmosphere, and, from afar, Of weight and distance master, not the slave, Bring us new wisdom from some distant star.

Through the Centuries

While yet the Saxons ruled, a puissant Thane Made with his unkempt band of mounted spears A seizin of a hide of forest land Whereon he built a house of ample size, With dining-hall and bowers and sleeping-lofts, And stables shutting in a stone-paved yard: And round the whole he set a ponderous fence Of sharpened stakes fast bound with metal bands. And "Yan, the Wulf," for thus the Thane was known, Called the place "Wulfden" in his savage tongue. And here, year after year, he lived at ease, Oft making sallies for a cattle raid, Or fighting with some other such as he, To come back weary at the fall of night, Driving a herd before him, and his men Sweating beneath the spoil of plundered foes. Once as he sat at supper in his hall, Bemused with mead and satisfied with food, There came a wandering bedesman to his gate Craving permission "in Fayre Jesu's name" To build a church of stone within the shade Of his protection. And, in generous mood, The Thane gave gruff assent; and time slipped by.

Then William swept the land, and, to reward One of his knights, gave him the Wulf's demesne To hold in fee, and on the Saxon's land Arose a fortress with embattled walls, With donjon, keep and moat and tilting-yard, To hold in thraldom all the country-side. But still was left the little Saxon church, Unchanged save that the Norman owner gave New consecration in his patron's name, St. Martinus of Tours, a warrior saint Who guarded through the centuries his race.

Then in the War of Roses came the crash That brought extinction to the feudal name And desolation to its crumbling home. And yet, though scarred by time and gray with age, The little church of Saxon days remained The emblem of a never-dying faith.

The years rolled by and then there came a day Which gave a new possessor to the place, A nobleman in favour with that queen Who loved a witty tongue and ready sword When coupled with good looks and brave attire. He built a great Elizabethan pile, The ground-plan shaped to form the royal E, Conforming to the fashion of the times When loyalty spoke even from silent stone. And he, to please his lady's pious whim, (Though ten years wed, he called her Sweetheart still) Forbore to raze the chapel to the ground, But stayed with flying buttress either side, Repaired the roof and made it to her mind. And there they lie, both in one marble tomb On which their effigies with clasping hands Bear witness to an everlasting love.

And when vacation brings its hours of rest I sometimes sit within the Saxon church And muse upon the changes time has brought Save to the faith that reared the little shrine, And still builds churches "in Fayre Jesu's name."

Winter

'Tis winter and the darkening skies Awake regretful memories Of wooded hill and sunlit plain, Ringing with anthems to the sun Until his arching course was run And nightingales took up the strain.

The trees, then dense with leaves and flowers, Stood through the long and smiling hours, Housing an honest little folk, Throbbing with life by day and night, Whose voices, vibrant with delight, Of happy labour ever spoke.

The trees now spread their haggard arms, Bared of their pristine, leafy charms, To cold and unresponsive skies That neither smile nor weep, but chill With cold indifference, and kill Hope that all nature underlies.

A dreary moan floats on the wind From the gaunt oaks, that, ill defined, Show spectral shapes against the sky From which the fleeting day has flown While dead leaves on the earth are strown To mark the summer's mortuary.

Where are the thousand things of life That erstwhile made the place all rife With busy hum and restless wing And turmoil of a world of love? The blackbird on her nest above, Below, the beetle tunnelling.

Gone with the happiness I knew Because the heavens were always blue, While the sun shone from day to day And winter was not. 'Twas as far And nebulous as yonder star That throws its cold and sickly ray

Where once a glorious flood of light Ceased only with the falling night. Gloom hovers where triumphant joy Beatified each passing hour, For Winter now with ruthless power Fulfils its mission to destroy.

_The Voice of Winter._

"I bring not death but rest to flower and tree, "And nurse the flame divine, Vitality, "That burns immortal since primeval night "When the Creator said: 'Let there be light!' "And loosed the sun upon his blazing way "To roll for ever through an endless day."

Pain and Death

Amid the fields of Asphodel Musing one day by chance, Imperious Jove Let memory rove And turned his gaze austere To where Arcadian shepherds dwell, The land of song and dance, Where Death was not And Time forgot To send the rolling year: Where man, untried by trouble's test, Found the supreme of life in rest.

Immortal man without a care Rivalled the gods above: Free, effortless, In sheer idlesse Aping divinity. So he was made by Jove to share A mortal life and love By anguish tried And purified For Death's cold sanctity. Thus 'twas ordained that Death and Pain Should raise man to a nobler plane.

Switzerland

Land of mountain, lake and river, Waterfalls, and rushing streams By the wayside where the cattle Gather with their bells a-ringing, In the day's departing beams.

Land of glorious dawns and sunsets, Glowing shades of every hue, Mists enchanted, floating, rising, Fine-spun softness, tints Olympian, Regal purple, virgin blue.

Tinkling zither, echoing jodel, Horns that loudly hail the morn From the upland's stony pathways Where the snowline meets the outposts Of the forest, sparse and lorn.

Nether tracts by sunlight heated, Show the vines in serried rows, Basking through the drowsy summer Till their rich and generous vintage From the wine-press redly flows.

Land of mountain peaks stupendous, Lakes that fade to meet the sky! Land for gods, for dreaming poets, Fit for men of soaring greatness, Sons of gifted ancestry.

Gods I found not, neither poets, Only little men who toil To supply the passing stranger, Bound upon the wheel of pleasure, With the produce of the soil.

What would Bonivard or Calvin Think of you, my little men, With your minds on money turning, While you strain with itching fingers Fast the golden calf to pen?

Yet I love your honest peasants Dwelling on the mountain slope, Slow and stolid, yet the children Of the spirit born of freedom, Of the patience born of hope.

For among these humble toilers, From the grasping instinct free, Still we find the cheerful-hearted, Earnest, honest Switzer people With the old simplicity.

Burial at Sea

'Twas midnight in the southern seas And windless. On the placid deep Flashed sparkling phosphorescences, While moonbeams, bright in silver bars, Lay like a pathway to the stars.

Tireless, our engines, day and night, A month had throbbed their endless round Without a pause to mark time's flight. We heard it all unconsciously Till suddenly it ceased to be.

For now the slowing pulse that beat, Stopped in the vessel's iron breast And quickly changed my slumber sweet To wandering and uneasy thought Of what the midnight might have brought.

Gaining the deck, I looked around With drowsy eyes and half asleep, And saw a something wrapped and bound And weighted. I was standing near Some hapless seaman's simple bier.

A shapeless form in canvas lay, Stretched on a wooden grating low, Waiting the word to pass away Into the silent depths of sea And boundless realm of fantasy.

Before the bulwark's opening stood A group about a lantern's light Moveless like figures carved in wood, Whilst one with gruff solemnity, Read prayers for those who die at sea.

Then at the end, with sudden leap, That sent the sparkling water high, The body plunged into the deep Amid a million points of light That glittered as it sank from sight.

Scarce had a moment passed, before The men with silent haste had gone: The engines plied their task, once more, The ship her steady course pursued Across the moonlit solitude.

The morning dawned, the hours passed by And life on board from day to day Was changeless as the sea and sky. And so unreal the memory seemed I wondered if I had not dreamed.

The Master of the Marionettes

'Twas at the fair of Epinetz, And all the country-side was there. Each booth gave out its blatant strains, And grinning came the sheepish swains, Who greeted with approving stare The movements of the marionettes, While from his place well hid from sight The master laboured, faint and white.

A villain dark, with cloak and plume, Through two acts of imbroglio, Pursued a maid of laughing mien Who played a ribboned tambourine And loved a gay incognito, By whom the villain met his doom, While Pierrot, in a comic part, Danced to conceal a breaking heart.

'Twas late. The snow fell thick and still The market place in silence lay. The master, tired and overwrought, For troupe and self a lodging sought. The inn was full. He went his way Across the heath; beyond the hill Dawn found him wrapped from head to feet In winter's snowy winding-sheet.

And as he sank in deadly sleep, His spirit, like a floating haze, Wavered a moment o'er the snow, A valediction to bestow. And solemnly, with wistful gaze, The puppets bowed in reverence deep, Speeding with farewells and regrets The master of the Marionettes.

Love's Counterfeit

Old as mankind, yet with immortal youth: Unyielding, ardent, sinuous and bold, Alluring ever in the guise of truth.

Where is the fire that warmed me yesterday? And where the flame that will to-morrow blaze To leave me shivering by its ashes gray?

The wind that sweetly sings in ocean caves, Then dallies with the wallflowers on the tower May fan assassins and sweep over graves.

What pleasure has a kiss that fever brings? Or one grown cold with satisfied desire? The love that on the senses fiercely plays, Comes like a wind and passes like a fire.

The Most Precious Thing

What do men rate at the highest in life? Diamonds that glow, The finest in water, In colour and form: Such as an eastern king's favourite wife Wears strung in a row, Or, as those that in slaughter, In sack or in storm Of a citadel's heights, Are torn from a Khalifah slain in the strife? No. Diamonds decline when Love claims his own, And freely are bartered for kisses alone.

Some say that virtue is prized more than all, Virtue that scorns The baseness and ill The decalogue cites And sternly forbids to great and to small. But when on the horns Of dilemma, men kill Compunction, whose lights Die in darkness profound, Where mortals are fated to stumble and fall, Renouncing for kisses the wisdom of time To find in the sacrifice something sublime.

Rank, Riches and Fame have, each in their way, A hold on the mind That we think is supreme, And sweep man along To sated ambition's omnipotent sway: Till one day we find They are vain as a dream, Or a beautiful song Evanescently grand: And the value we see of the brave display Of Riches and Fame and Rank at their best, Is far below kisses when put to the test.

Autumn

A light mist creeps across the downs: A gleam through clouds is faintly seen: The grass is wet with heavy dew: Sear are the leaves that once were green. I walk at midday when the sun Throws still some welcome warmth and light: A chill comes with the afternoon, And icy is the air at night. Summer is dead. Its shrouded form Lies on the logs that make its pyre, And fancy sees its ghost ascend, A shadowy wraith above the fire.

To L

Just at this time of great content Old memories come between the lights To chasten with their whispers faint The passing Christmas merriment. Yet through it all, one constant note Chimes with the season's higher sense, Love's influence unchanged remains, Fragrant and sweet as frankincense.

Duty

What is a year that comes and goes Unless it mark a noble deed? We sow the seed Of flower or weed: Thrice happy he who leaves a rose.

What is a life in vainness spent, That will not bear the common test, When, laid to rest In earth's cold breast, We sleep at last, insentient?

What is a gift bestowed on man, Unless he spreads abroad its light And turns its might To aid the right And strives to do the best he can?

What matters it if all your toil Thankless for ever must remain? When by your pain One soul will gain Somewhat to calm its mortal coil.

Sonnets

Glastonbury

Beacon of Christian truth! across the years Thy flame undying glows in Faith's clear sight, As once the Holy Grail's effulgence bright Shone on the pure in heart, the Saints' compeers, Who knew no more life's bitterness and fears But dwelt thenceforth upon a nobler height, Rapt in the radiance of Redemption's light That still to the elect of God appears. Each Christmas sees, before thy ancient shrine, Its sacred thorn burst into glorious flower, Of Heaven's immortal life a constant sign, Shown to mankind in graciousness benign, To make eternal with enlightening power The revelation of a truth divine.

Galileo

The medieval pomp and civic pride Which once made Pisa famous, long have lain Forgotten with her pageants brief and vain That flashed inconstant on the Arno's tide. But, toned to softened hues, her walls abide, Enclosing baptistery, tower, and fane Wherein yet swings the lamp with brazen chain That marked the pendulum's time-measured stride And though the centuries, in lengthening roll, Show ever fainter through perspective time The fame depicted in the mouldering scroll, They cannot dim the shining aureole Around Galileo's name. Each hourly chime Proclaims the law that swung the girandole.

Stratford-on-Avon

The hushed repose of some fair temple's shade Falls on the pilgrim when he treads the ways Where first the world to Shakespeare's childish gaze Disclosed its wonders when his footsteps strayed; Where, fired with love, he roamed the forest glade, Storing clear memories for other days; And where, at last, acclaimed and crowned with bays, He dropped the lyre no other hand has played. Fame watches o'er the deathless poet's sleep, Her fanfares echoing still their wild applause, While sweet Melpomene and Thalia weep, For theirs no more the grandest flight that soars, But lower planes where smaller spirits sweep, Whose whispers sound like waves on distant shores.

To a Daffodil

Bright messenger of life renewed and love, Joy fills thy golden chalice to the brim, Fit symbol of the sacred seraphim Who with their blazing phalanx headlong drove The Star of Morning from his seat above, Scattering celestial sparks through voidness dim, To fall upon our planet's curving rim And bloom as thy fair flowers in mead and grove. As victory's anthem stirred the heavenly choir, Awaking rapture in triumphant praise, So thou in spring dost mortal souls inspire With new-born hope and consecrated fire, Reflected glory from ethereal rays, To make divine the human heart's desire.

The Appian Way

Road of the dead! whose stately avenue Of ruined tombs reveals the glorious past, When proud patrician chariots rolling fast And litters borne by slaves of ebon hue Breasted the throng that ever thicker grew And onward hurried where the portal vast Showed praetor, tribune and plebeian massed With traders from afar beyond the blue. Road of the dead! thy voices haunted me, Once as I lingered on a starlit night, Seeing thy restless ghosts in fantasy: And Peter paused again in act to flee: With downcast eyes and pale with sudden fright, Then whispered low: "Quo vadis Domine?"

_Note_.--Tradition has it that Peter in a moment of weakness fled to escape martyrdom, but was turned back by a vision of his Master. The little church of Quo vadis Domine on the Appian Way commemorates this.

From the Fields

The village chime drifts on the summer breeze, In softened cadence o'er expanses green, Across the river, winding slow between Broad fields of clover where marauding bees Lighten their toil with murmured harmonies, Whilst corn in rolling waves of verdant sheen Lends rhythmic movement to the rural scene And sighs responsive to the wind-stirred trees. The mingled voices, like a poet's rhyme, Link with their music pensiveness and joy: Yet each has meaning in its wayward time: The wind of freedom sings in every clime, The bee, that labour's sweetness cannot cloy, And life is measured by the warning chime.

Vénus de Milo

Immortal beauty, touched by fire divine That glows as in thy pristine days, I see The white-robed priests and virgins joyfully Bearing their gifts of honey, flowers and wine, With sounding reed and timbrel, to thy shrine, Whilst thou, impassive, waitest the decree Of heaven, to speak with cold solemnity That which unfolds a deity's design. Gone are the gods and heroes of the past To shine in distant stars with pallid gleam, Subdued and faint beyond the darkness vast, Their power forgot, their glory overcast; Yet thou remainest in thy grace supreme And fadeless splendour that was ne'er surpassed.

Fire

To man primeval, the bright god of day Seemed lord of all things, and he bent the knee, To adoration moved unconsciously; And lo! the instinct which had made him pray, Showed him the mystic fire that latent lay Within the drying branches of the tree And brought the earth, in all its purity, The essence of the sun's benignant ray. Of Nature's elements the most refined, Free from pollution and corruption dire, Art thou, O strong and changeless spirit kind. Unfailing source of good, thou wast designed To be the first, man's reverence to inspire, And light the pathway of his groping mind.

FINIS

End of Project Gutenberg's The Call of the Mountains, by James E. Pickering