his hand;
And the gold he heaps to fill his coffers we have winnowed out of
barren sand:
Earth yields her good to only stern compellers; ours the knotted grip
that bent her will;
Bound her to the serving of our kindred--and her captive-hate is on us
still.
Homeless we have reared the homes of nations; mirthless we have
laughed for others’ mirth;
Striven that another might have honor, as the stars appointed at our
birth;
Ours the blood that reddened fields forgotten; ours the faith that
sped a hope forlorn;
Ours the eyes that doomed to watch through darkness, see the first,
far promises of morn.
We are them that fail--O ye that reckon--holding high our shortage to
be weighed;
Grant ye that no other bore our burden; grant ye that the debt we made
we paid:
We have failed; but beaten and defeated, still we face whatever Life
may send;
Still we ask no odds of Fate or Fortune--we that go down fighting to
the end.
THE LAST CAMP-FIRE
Scar not earth’s breast that I may have
Somewhere above her heart a grave;
Mine was a life whose swift desire
Bent ever less to dust than fire;
Then through the swift, white path of flame
Send back my soul to whence it came:
From some great peak storm-challenging,
My death-fire to the heavens fling;
The rocks my altar, and above
The still eyes of the stars I love;
No hymn, save as the midnight wind
Comes whispering to seek his kind.
Heap high the logs of spruce and pine,
Balsam for spices and for wine;
Brown cones, and knots a golden blur
Of hoarded pitch more sweet than myrrh;
Cedar to stream across the dark
Its scented embers spark on spark;
Long shaggy boughs of juniper,
And silvery, odorous sheafs of fir;
Spice wood to die in incense smoke
Against the stubborn roots of oak--
Red to the last for hate or love,
As that red, stubborn heart above.
Watch till the last pale ember dies,
Till wan and low the dead pyre lies;
Then let the thin, white ashes blow
To all earth’s winds, a finer snow;
There is no wind of hers but I
Have loved it as it whistled by;
No leaf whose life I would not share,
No weed that is not someway fair:
Hedge not my dust in one close urn,
It is to these I would return--
The wild, free winds, the things that know
No master’s rule, no ordered row.
To be, if nature will, at length
Part of some great tree’s noble strength;
Growth of the grass; to live anew
In many a wild flower’s richer hue;
Find immortality indeed
In ripened heart of fruit and seed.
Time grants not any man redress
Of his broad law, forgetfulness:--
I parley not with shaft and stone,
Content that in the perfume blown
From next year’s hillsides something sweet,
And mine, shall make earth more complete.
THE GIVERS
At the house of a soul once came knocking
The first of a line of gift-bearers,
Close-veiled and light-footed as silence,
And speaking with voice soft and tender:
“Lo, here is a season for growing,”
He said, then passed into the stillness,
Leaving his room to a brother.
And they that came after him softly
Set down in the doorway their burdens,
And whispered, “Make use of them swiftly,
O soul, ere one cometh to reckon.”
But he, the proud soul, laughing lightly,
Looked up where the sun was unrisen
And said, “I will slumber till daybreak.”
So he turned on his pillow and, dreaming,
Saw laurels inwoven to crown him;
And wealth for his taking; and Beauty,
With love in her eyes, run to meet him;
Then he woke to a step in the doorway:
“All night at thy feet lay thy wishes;
Now I take them,” one said, and departed.
A CREED
Let others frame their creeds; mine is to work;
To do my best, however far it fall
Below the keener craft of stronger hands:
To be myself, full-hearted, free, and true
To what my own soul sees, below, above;
To think my thought straight-forward from the heart;
To feel, and be, and never stop to ask:
“Do all men so? Is this the World’s highway?”
To look unflinching in the face of life
As eagles look upon the noonday sun;
To cut my own path through primeval woods;
To lay my own course by the polar star
Across the trackless plains and mountains vast;
To seek, not follow, ever to the end.
And for the rest--bare-handed have I come
Into this world, I know not whence nor why;
Bare-handed and alone and unafraid,
With heart of fire and eyes that question still,
Will I go forth into the wide Beyond;
As went the men who bore my blood of old
To prove their dream of Heaven, or dare their Hell.
QUITS
Life made no easy truce with me,
He set no white flag on my road;
Unshod he thrust me to the trail
And laughed the while he piled my load.
Greeting, old master! Greeting, friend!
I’ve made you friend; I’ve fought you fair;
I’ve stumbled, fallen, scrambled up;
Yet somehow borne the appointed share
To this last station. Take the pack;
Sort, weigh it--lack or over-due,
Still here’s the load; the climb was mine,
Scars, road-marks--all the rest to you.
We’re done; shake hands before we part.
I rest here--feel the wind and rain
Year-long blow past my rough, brown tent--
Joy with you till we meet again!
MEDUSA TO PERSEUS
Perseus, draw near to me and fear me not;
Think’st thou I have not listened for thy step
Through all the eons of my awful doom,
As on the earth when light of Helios fades
The young maid listens for her lover’s step
Crushing the daisies and the dewy grass?
No lover’s feet will ever come to me
But thine are dearer; and the asphodel
Thou bearest fairer than Love’s fairest flowers.
Draw near, and near, and nearer; I would feel
The end of this long waiting; I would be
For one quick moment all I might have been--
Woman and tender; drain at this one draught
My woman’s cup; tear-jeweled, brimmed with pain:
Ay! By these tears I cheat thee, Mighty Maid,
And by this pain--my heart is human still!
Thy curse fell impotent, that left me yet
Bond-thrall to one dark prover of humanity.
Dreams; old, old dreams that gather in the dusk;
Death’s dusk that soon will end them! How they press
Upon me! Voices that I loved but never knew;
Strong hands that clung across my black despair;
Eyes that were stars of many a night that else
Had known no morning. Oh! life, life, life, life!
What hast thou given me--that would have made
Thee rich with giving? Only bitter breath
And tears; loathing of them I would have loved;
And fear of them whose fears I would have borne.
Truly thou wert a generous patron!
I thank thee--that thou favor me no more!
How wan those vapors rise from this sad place,
As if they too would seek a brighter world;
A world of heat and frost and night and sun!
So have I, sitting, watched them hour by hour;
Seeing in each some hearth smoke newly lit,
Some sweet, small home where happiness had room.
How have I hungered in this silence for
Earth’s common sounds; the crying and the mirth!
Her poorest field I would have tilled with love;
Her roughest path I would have walked with joy.
These idle hands had worn them to the bone
In common tasks and found the labor sweet;
Served slave to slaves, could any serving buy
Or beg, or bribe, the meanest human lot.
Alas! in this dim cave they could but grope
Each into each and, clasping, feign to hold
The grasp of friend, the hand of love and kin:
So out of moans my lips would form strange words;
All tender, crooning, soft and slow and hushed;
And warm, wet mouths in dreams have touched my breast,
Seeking for food above the heart that breaks.
But now the sleep--the end--the doom fulfilled!
Hope, fear, despair--I bid ye long farewell--
Here at this brink whereon your feet must turn
Backward to haunt some other mortal soul:
For I am free--am free--am free at last!
Wrapped round with death as with a royal robe!
Sisters, farewell! I would that ye might keep
Some memory of the tortured human heart
That vexed your silence with its agony,
And loved while vexing. Perseus, the sword!
Strike swift! I would be gone on what far way
A soul must take to seek the Other World.
Stay not for pleadings and petitionings;
I crave no gift the Gods can give but rest--
Strike deep and strong and sure and set me free.
THE LONG QUEST
“Has the longest prayer of man been answered to thee, Stranger, and
hast thou thy friend?”
--_Amiel’s Journal._
Friend, I have found thee not; I have not heard
Thy voice, nor touched thy hand, nor seen thine eyes
Grow clear with that great speech which needs not words:
Yet do I seek thee--asking of the stars,
Low-swung across this desert sky of mine,
If anywhere they shine on one who goes
Swift-footed to like end on kindred road.
Yet do I seek thee--asking of the wind,
Old Master-Singer, singing down the world,
Mingling all music in his endless song,
If he has caught some word, some tone, of thine
To stir my silence like a trumpet call.
I seek thee where the tall pines laugh and lean
Against the sun, against the storm and cloud;
For thou art strong like them and swift to joy;
Strong to endure; deep-rooted into life;
And glad of earth as of the blue above.
I seek thee where the patient grasses go
Across the hills; their patience is as thine;
Thy quiet surety that Life’s barrens yet
Shall blossom; yet shall yield their fruit and seed;
Not less, nor less approved, measured at last,
Than lavish harvests won by lighter toil.
I seek thee where the wild floods whirl and swing
Through riven cañons, mad to reach the sea;
As some great soul that dares to know the all--
The worst, the best, the farthest bound of life;
Holding the pain and passion little price
For one strong leap beyond the utmost verge,
One mighty hail across the infinite.
Friend, friend, I seek thee; holding that high quest
Better than all earth’s finding. Go thy way
Swift and unhindered under thine own star;
Along whatever way thy feet must take
Past high and higher, on to higher yet;
On to the farthest peak thine eyes can see;--
I seek thee, seek thee; call to thee “God speed!”
Go thou, nor wait--sure that somewhere I come.
A LITANY OF EVERY DAY
Not that there be less to bear,
Not that there be more to share;
But for braver heart for bearing,
But for freer heart for sharing,
Here I pray.
Not for scenes of richer beauty,
Not for paths of lighter duty;
But for clearer eyes for seeing,
Gentler hands, more patient being,
Every day.
Not that joy and peace enfold me,
Not that wealth and pleasure hold me;
But that I may dry a tear,
Speak a word of strength and cheer
On the way.
Not that I may sit apart,
Housed from hurt of fling and smart;
But that in the press and throng
I may keep a courage strong,
Here I pray.
Not that I at set of sun
Measure deeds of greatness done;
But that when my feet shall pass
To my low tent in the grass
One may say
“Speed thee well, O friend, who gave
Freely all thy heart did crave;
Love and truth and tenderness,
Faith and trust and kindliness,
In thy day.”
WIND SONG
One day upon the wings of air
My soul shall get him forth;
And nothing know I whence or where,
To East or South or North;
And little care I through what ways
This soul of mine shall ride;
Or if the call be soon or late,
At morn or eventide.
But I would go when strong winds blow
Full-throated down the heaven;
And on the blast like pennants cast
The wild, black hawks are driven:
O kith and kin are they to me,
Wild-winged my soul shall pass
With them as their own shadows drive
Across the wind-swept grass.
Free winds that wander up and down
The weary hills of earth;
What call like yours can sorrow drown,
Or touch her seas to mirth!
Strong winds that were tempestuous souls,
O brothers, turn and wait;
Take up my longing on your wings
Till I shall master Fate.
Take up my longing on your wings,
O brothers, as ye go;
The dauntless soul within me sings
That mighty hymn ye know;
Kindred are we, though but for ye
The boundless ways were made;
Yet I would go my lesser road
As strong and unafraid.
THE LOST THOUGHTS
Guy de Maupassant, in his last days, believed his thoughts to be
fluttering about his head like many-colored butterflies. “Where are my
lost thoughts? Who will tell me where to find my thoughts?” he cried to
those who tended him.
See! Do you see that wondrous, winged cloud?
As if all the garden flowers had taken flight
Into the blue air for a holiday,
And left their tall green stalks beteared with dew?
They are butterflies now, but once I know
They were my thoughts. I called them when I chose;
They came to me in gentle, circling troops
Like fairies tamed by love, and poised upon
My hands, and brushed my cheeks and lips with wings
As soft as Psyche’s kisses in the dark.
There was a white one like an orient pearl
Seen in the moonlight; pure and holy as
The Virgin’s white throat in the candle shine
Of her high altar--or a young girl’s soul.
There was a girl--we two were boy and girl
And play-mate lovers. I must have caught
The white wings roughly, for they still are stained.
I do forget--but Ah! the silken-bright
Red poppy flowers that are red butterflies!
My thoughts, my thoughts, shot through with gleaming gold
And gemmed and jewelled like a Hindu queen,
Amber and emerald, ruby and topaz,
And charmful jade, and opal’s mystic fire;
And richer dyes than Tyre knew in her pride--
(My own soul broken to a thousand hues
As light upon a prism--the prism Life.)
My wingèd thoughts! My heavenly butterflies!
Now they are black, all black, with eyes of fire;
I smother in the sable of their wings
That wrap around me like a velvet pall--
I cannot see the sun for their deep eyes--
Be merciful! My butterflies! O my lost thoughts!
THE STRANGER
Art stranger, Love? because no lover’s hand
Hath clasped my own with pressure strong and sweet?
Because my ears heed not those tender tales
That hearts in tune with Spring and thee repeat?
Nay, rather walk we closer, soul to soul,
Great Love and I; I love thee all too much
To jar thy music with a lesser tone,
Or mar thy radiance with a duller touch.
I hold me to thy uses consecrate,
As some white temple set beside the sea;
With close-shut door no foot may enter in
Till fair tides bring its own divinity:
Here are no withered flowers against the shrine;
No dusty highways through the beaten grass
Where all men go; only the birds and thee,
The salt winds and the sun, unstayed may pass.
DAY’S END
Swiftly at set of sun,
The long day being done,
I seek my love;
Her whom my heart doth hold
Dearer than gems and gold
Or treasure trove.
Still are her eyes and cool
As some clear mountain pool
Fern-hid and lone,
Some reed-edged pool that lies
Blue under star-lit skies,
The wild-fowl flown;
The ousel’s fluting note
Hushed in his dappled throat,
The night wind still--
And over all the peace
Which is my soul’s release
From life sore-spent and days that reckon ill.
THE FIRST FIRE ON THE HEARTH
Clean as a new-built altar to the Gods
The new hearth stands;
No tears have stained, no prayers have hallowed it;
Make clean thy hands
As some High Priest who tends the holy flame
Life-long in temples old;
Bring not to kindle this divine first fire
Wood that is bought and sold
In common marts; but such as symbols clear
The life that thou shalt make,
Here under this new roof, by this new hearth,
For Great Love’s sake.
Bring heart of pine to point thee to the stars;
Higher and yet more high
Thy thought on its green pinions shall ascend--
Yet keep thee ever nigh
Tender and kind to every earth-born need;
As low-spread cedar boughs
Give grateful shade, or laid upon the fire
Shed fragrance through the house.
Here let the oak outspend his noble strength
In flame that shall endure
Beyond the last red coal to thy life’s end
In strength as great and sure.
Lay here red sandal and dark orient teak,
That their rich wood may turn
To star-crowned dreams and visions in the flame
Wherein their kindred burn;
And mystic, harp-stringed branches of the palm--
Prophet and seer of trees--
Speeding thy life through all that can beset
To noblest destinies:
Bring these, as men bring votive offerings,
And let rare spices fall
Into the unswept flame. High, higher yet,
Thy life at Love’s great call!
A TRUCE WITH DEAD SOULS
Now loose me, loose me, O ye dead
Whose shadowy fingers clasp my own;
I must fare on my way alone,
Along a road ye may not tread,
To hopes and fears ye have not known.
Nor shall ye challenge my high truth,
Nor deem of me that I forget
That far goal where our eyes were set;
Nor hold me false to that lost youth
Whose solemn visions lead me yet.
Ye quiet, ye untroubled dead,
Count ye the stones that stay my feet?
Or reckon ye the winds that beat
Fiercely upon my naked head?
Weigh ye the fear my soul must meet?
O loose me, for I journey far;
O hold me not; ye cannot know
On what rough trails my feet must go
In lands unlit of sun and star,
Where still the swiftest feet are slow.
I see what ye no more may see;
I seek our vision’s noblest use;
And he that keeps that quest with me
Through good and ill all patiently
Is Life. Ah! dead souls, grant the truce!
A FRIEND
I choose no friend as one may choose a glove,
To use, hold in his hand, and cast aside
When it is old; forgetting that awhile
It served his purpose--neither more nor less
Than others of its kind have served, and will:
Nor as we in a grave or idle hour
Take up a book and say: “This shall beguile
My listlessness, or teach what I would know;”
Then leave its crumpled pages on a shelf
And go about the various ways of life.
More would I take my friend as one who finds
A cool spring in the desert, where his cup,
Filled to the brim, leaves gratitude behind;
And though he wander far knows if at last
His feet turn back along that self-same road
The same good welcome waits him at the end:
Or as those faces we behold in dreams;
Haunting us, waking, with their strange, deep eyes
That sting the soul into a thousand needs
Finer and freer than it knew before.
He is my friend who tempts me ever on
To high and higher; standing yet above
With hand reached back, as one who knows the path
Has stones a-many for the surest feet;
Who weighs my weakness fairly with my strength
And sets a better higher than my best;
Bidding me work when others say “Well done!”
My friend is he who gives me larger faith
In men and life and hope of final good;
Who by the alchemy of his fine breadth
Transmutes my doubt and pain and weariness
Into peace and the pure gold of patience.
The wind and stars, those old, old friends of mine,
Are symbols of the human souls I love;
Free as the wind is, high and pure and clear
As shine the stars--so would I have my friend.
MAGDALEN
Do you remember, love, the thing I was
That summer morning when you stood with me
There in the rain-wet fields, where the sweet wind
Blew my hair loose and free?
Do you remember? Ay! My soul was clean
As that clean wind that blew between us two;
My spirit burned as some white temple flame
When the god passes through.
You were my god--and all of earth fell back;
I saw but you--knew only you were near;
Look in my eyes--What is it there today
That strikes you cold with fear?
You stooped that day to touch your cheek to mine--
I laugh to watch you shrink and shudder now;
Am I so changed? Look well--it is your mark
That brands me, cheek and brow.
Ay! and my hand-print lies upon your soul!
You cannot loose my fingers from your own;
And though your feet go up to palaces,
Or down to Hell they do not go alone.
THE EARTH MADONNA
Beloved, see, within my close-curved arm
He lies, your child. Oh! keep us well from harm!
Love him, by all our tender love and true--
As I through him find deeper love for you.
All our great hopes and dreams and dear desires
Lie in this small shut hand; our purest fires
Burn here in this new life--your soul and mine
Fused to new shape immortal and divine.
And yet--if in this holy hour and dear
Great Death came down and stood beside me here,
And said “One must I take with me tonight, but keep
That one for which your heart would longest weep
Tears of heart’s blood,----Beloved, I could smile
And lift the child to meet his kiss the while,
So you were left. For he, so dear, so dear,
Is but my child--But you, my Life, stay near!
LOVE’S WISDOM
Woulds’t thou be loved? Then set thy love so high
No man may win it, though he stand upon
The utmost peaks with face against the stars.
Aloof! Nor bend thee once to eyes that burn,
And lips that plead, and hands that clasp and cling:
The jewel that within the temple glowed
A soul’s fit forfeit, as a bit of glass
Cast with the pot-shreds lies when it is won.
Who minds him of the flower that undenied
He plucked and kissed? Or for an hour forgets
The rose that slipped his grasp and left a thorn
Deep in his hands to mock their daring quest?
And who hath loved the broad plains, lavish-souled
Of all rich gifts that make life dear and good,
As men have loved the mountains that afar
Beckon in untrod grandeur, and deny?
Still is the vision dearer than the real,
The dreaming sweeter than the dream fulfilled;
For men love most the unattainable;
Leaving the hearth-light, warm and near and kind,
To follow pale auroras through the night,
With beggared souls that to the winds have flung
Their rarest gifts in hopeless bribery.
Woulds’t thou be loved? Then hold thyself apart,--
Nor yield to any, though he drain his life
To flood thine own; for if thou give again
Such barter in its usage carries scorn
Of too free giving:--so thy love were lost,
And thou uncrowned, that else had reigned a queen.
Heaven’s self were transient lure, were it not set
Too high for careless winning, over earth.
THE GIFTS
There were three gifts at eventide the West Wind brought to me,
That I might choose for joy or use my fate from out the three:
“Now here is gold,” the West Wind saith, “and fair it is to see;
Who chooseth gold hath power to hold; men serve him loyally.”
“A prince he is,” the West Wind saith; “I know the hidden mine;
Shalt lead thee now o’er fire and snow to where the ingots shine?”
Nay then, who hath the yellow gold hath trouble at his back;
Whose needs are few, whose heart is true, what knoweth he of lack?
“But here is Love,” the West Wind saith, “the light of life is he;
Wilt bid him now to bind thy brow with myrtle greenery?
He sets the pace that young feet dance, and leads with lute and bow;
Take thou his hand and through the land with him till curfew go.”
Nay then, for he who seeketh Love finds but an empty nest;
Love cometh still of his own will, unsought, and that is best.
Then one spake up full loud and clear: “Now I am Work,” said he;
“And they that hold not love nor gold have need of mine and me.”
“Wilt follow, follow, where I lead?” his voice rang free and strong;
“Here’s hope and cheer for all the year; here’s balm for every wrong.”
Yea, I will turn and follow thee; thou speakest like a king;--
“Then shalt thou see if true thou be, _the other gifts I bring_.”
LIFE IS A DAY
“Life is as a day that hath its morn of hope, its noon of strength,
its night of peace, whose morrow no man knoweth.”
MORNING
Young Heart, Spring Heart,
Waken with the morning;
Sing for the long road
That lieth white before;
Lieth there untrodden
With little flowers adorning,
And green hills of promise
Thy fathers saw of yore.
Young Heart, Spring Heart,
Wine of Life is flowing;
Stoop thee to the beaker
And drain it at a draught;
Gird thee for the journey,
Joy is in the going,
And hope is in the heart of him
Who wine of Life hath quaffed.
NOON
Strong Heart, Bold Heart,
Brace thee for the battle;
Wait now the onset
Exultant and calm;
Love lilt and war cry,
Babies’ soft prattle,
Mingle and meet
In thy life’s swelling psalm.
Dreaming is over,
The old gods are buried;
Joy was a phantom
Ye chased through the mist;
Broken the shrines where
Thy young feet have tarried;
Dust are the lips that
Thy young lips have kissed.
NIGHT
Old Heart, Still Heart,
Lying in the shadow;
Lying there all silent
With the glory on thy face;
Feet that have trodden
The upland and meadow
Spring nevermore
To the heat of the race.
Old Heart, Still Heart,
Life is a striving;
Of all that it promises
Work is the best;
Love is a fable,
And wealth is but giving--
Kind is the evening
That leadeth to rest.
THE COMPACT
“Body, pray thee, let me go!
It is the soul that struggles so.”
_Danske Dandridge._