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THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
The Scourge of Mirwayle 
 
 (A Threnody) 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH LAPSLEY MURRAY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE COSMOPOLITAN PRESS 
 
 1912 
 
Copyright, 1912, by 
 J. L. Murray 
 
 tr^. 
 
 *s? 
 
 G,C1.A312754 
 
 ^ 
 
To 
 MORDELLO 
 
The Scourge of Mirwayle 
 
 A Threnody 
 
 PRELUDE 
 
 I 
 
 The Scourge of Mirwayle has haunted the years, 
 The frailest of things is hunted and wronged; 
 
 A menace, a sigh, a prophet in tears, 
 
 A burden, a stroke, impending, prolonged ! 
 
 The Child of the ages ! miracle, toy, 
 Contention of time and Idol of worlds, 
 
 Prevision of Gods, of rapture the joy, 
 Intractable foe of evil, that hurls 
 
 Defiance at death, and clambers above 
 
 The portals of hate to kingdoms of love, 
 
 O Scourge of Mirwayle! 
 
 A vision unveiled of whispering ages : 
 
 Of altars enshrined of temples and steeples : 
 
 Nor vaster concern disturbs nor engages 
 The passions inflamed of serious peoples. 
 
 Than burden of seer, or warning of prophet 
 Who parries the fall of nations that stumble; 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 If conscience were tangled over the Tophet 
 
 That demons despair, nor eons can crumble, 
 Who ventures to weave the screen of detail — 
 Of bliss and delight — where cherubs assail 
 The Scourge of Mirwayle? 
 
 Arenas and forums, uncomprehended 
 
 Thru cycles of souls of intricate measure. 
 Were heralds and symbols, focust and blended 
 
 To sanest displays of passion and pleasure ; 
 Nor marvel that men are brothered and guided. 
 
 Or, held to the stress of selfish achievement, 
 Are rallied and mocked by fantoms, and chided 
 
 With more than the last assault of bereavement,- 
 The nether attempt to buttress the station 
 Of insolent death, — the blank consternation, — 
 The Scourge of Mirwayle. 
 
 If peril and risk, then wide avocation 
 
 Emboldens the test of largest endeavor, 
 Nor seers even hint by scant revelation 
 
 That manhood and death must battle forever; 
 The contest is here, — the universe entered : 
 
 No struggle is shunned, no destiny chided; 
 In tangles of doubt confusions have centered 
 
 And virtue and vice have met and collided: 
 Who eases defeat, who totals the fall. 
 The croon of a child, the triumph, the call. 
 The Scourge of Mirwayle? 
 
 8 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 II 
 
 No dalliance bars the boldest advances, 
 
 Tho evil intrude its plausible offers; 
 Nor demons delude where gladness entrances, 
 
 Tho idleness lure with gold in its coffers : 
 But since it were so that virtue were real, 
 
 That honor were more than idle pretension, 
 Who, then, shall deny the masterful feal: — 
 
 That Good were beyond the art of invention, 
 That Innocence' claim, ''that nothing prevail 
 Of evil," were more than fatuous tale, 
 
 O Scourge of Mirwayle? 
 
 Tho power confer, by dint of decreeing, 
 
 The tariffs of life to witch or delusion 
 No vision despairs of helplessness seeing 
 
 That death still intrudes the rankest intrusion. 
 What mist has not blurred the Vision of years ? 
 
 What f antom not feigned life's fabric with clouds ? 
 What sorrow not won from fountains of tears 
 
 The dowries of earth in vestments of shrouds ? 
 Is Childhood untold, — left choiceless as matter? 
 Must Innocence weep till eons can shatter 
 The Scourge of Mirwayle? 
 
 O Luminousness make real the Vision! 
 
 Horizons retreat as eagerness gazes 
 At possible heights whose utter decision 
 
 And realm are ablaze with infinite blazes ; 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 No major should taunt the minor refrains, 
 For suns are assured since constancy cheers. 
 
 And caskets contain more precious remains 
 Because of the Friend with pity and tears; 
 
 All urns are embost with gladness and trust, 
 
 Nor mortals despair, for Heaven is just, 
 
 O Scourge of Mirwayle ! 
 
 Why reckon of Where ? The Here is profound ; 
 
 And presence allots the pleasure of spheres; 
 No seeding were cast but harvests abound ; 
 
 And ere they are wept are bottled the tears : 
 The Universe thrills with Being and holds 
 
 Assurances that no atom is lost; 
 And Fancy is here; tho shadow infolds, 
 
 Her beauty abides; and Mourning is tost 
 To barrens of Death, and angels appear. 
 And seraphim find that Heaven is Here, 
 
 O Scourge of Mirwayle. 
 
 ni 
 
 The barbs of the thorn are wildly forbidding, 
 
 The tosses of sin no weakling can banter; 
 The Infant has fetched a compass in ridding 
 
 The chill of the blast from fiendish enchanter. 
 Shall waif be distraught and left to distortion. 
 
 No beauty transform the lust of the valley? 
 Shall peoples so hurt — abortive abortion — 
 
 Discover no realm to reckon and rally? 
 
 10 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 No cleft in the rock, no spring at the fountains, 
 No rift in the clouds, no peak on the mountains, 
 All Scourge of Mirwayle? 
 
 Shall listless surveys imperil the Vision, 
 
 Unlimited cycles shadow the portals? 
 Profusion of hope derides the derision 
 
 That time were the rim that circles immortals. 
 This problem foretells its own consummations ; 
 
 Thru myriad calls all answers agreeing, — 
 Imperial weld of all demonstrations : 
 
 A master avouches permanent Being! 
 And Death must respond of empty enthronement 
 Since Love has enthroned impartial atonement, 
 O Scourge of Mirwayle! 
 
 The Infant awakes the saner laudation, 
 
 Makes beautiful all unselfish surrender; 
 Nor yielding the charm of first habitation 
 
 Incarnates for all the foremost Defender; 
 Let all of the fays be hooded and knighted. 
 
 The conquest of Death interprets the Vision; 
 Since Heaven has smiled the earth is delighted, 
 
 The Scourge of Mirwayle awakens Elysian ; 
 And Gladness and Joy, the heralds of ages, 
 Engage the Divine where ruin engages 
 
 The Scourge of Mirwayle. 
 
 The dawning of hope! O Prophet of years, 
 Integrity toils with virtue and truth! 
 
 II 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 The Infant has won the battle of tears 
 And fashioned incarnate promise of youth. 
 
 Immutable gods, the struggle for breath, 
 Inscrutable dust, miraculous, gay. 
 
 Who renders reward, defiance of Death? 
 The portals of life are fairer than day : 
 
 The burden is sung: the chastisement borne 
 
 Of Master enthroned: no creature need mourn 
 The Scourge of Mirwayle! 
 
 12 
 
The Scourge of Mirwayle 
 
 Remorseless fang, the tooth of Time, 
 
 Revengeful, swift and sure, 
 What issues hang of sin and crime 
 
 To damn the immature! 
 
 Aye, he must dare the hidden foe, 
 
 Undaunted press the mask 
 Where furies glare, must meet and know; 
 
 The universal task. 
 
 Tho guilelessness should urge and tress 
 
 Abreast unfriendly forces, 
 A strange duress of consciousness 
 
 Outlines untrodden courses. 
 
 Undaunted there himself must call, 
 
 Himself demand reply; 
 And he must bear the checkered pall 
 
 As echoed from on high. 
 
 13 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Must he respond? as cattle dumb, 
 To harnest wheel be driven ? 
 
 He goes beyond; he says, *T come," 
 Before the call is given. 
 
 This innocent, untold of arts 
 
 Of speech or eloquence. 
 Is eloquent in all the parts 
 
 Of artless innocence. 
 
 3 
 Himself agreed in covenants, — 
 
 Integrities sublime, — 
 He holds the creed of permanence 
 
 In golden sands of time. 
 
 Some voice accrues of tender wail 
 
 That mocks volcanic fire 
 And ceaseless sues the far, "All hail," 
 
 Beyond the near desire. 
 
 4 
 Tho immature, — a creedless thing, — 
 
 The sirens urge him on ; 
 No novice newer to spite and fling 
 
 Than down his path is gone. 
 
 Must he endure the curse and sting 
 
 Till tardy futures dawn. 
 Where cherubs lure and seraphs bring 
 
 What demons had withdrawn ? 
 
 14 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Without pretense, but doomed to all 
 
 The goads of suffering 
 And insolence, the frantic hates 
 
 Could yet concoct and bring. 
 Such boundless speech appeals to all 
 
 There is of God in him: 
 With godlike reach he swings the gates 
 
 For all, — and core and rim. 
 
 II 
 
 A child at play amid his choice 
 
 Of toys ; and uninspired 
 Beyond the day wherein he rose 
 
 To what his heart desired, 
 Tho prototype and prophecy 
 
 Of biast man, is more 
 Than some unripe, delicious fruit 
 
 With wormed and bitter core; 
 Is more than mass to be sledge-struck, 
 
 And then of hammered art 
 Adorned as brass ; than flower snift 
 
 Awhile and thrown apart, 
 And left to chafe where ignorance 
 
 Ignores affinity; 
 
 15 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Is more than waif, tho demons wait, 
 
 With venomed fang and claw, 
 Prospective fall, this child, so fair, 
 
 Unused to pain or awe. 
 Must seem to all an embryon 
 
 Of pure divinity. 
 
 Aye, so declared in writ and court 
 
 Thru ages long agone ; 
 Yet chafed, impaired thru primal lapse, 
 
 He scales the heights of dawn. 
 
 For Gods esteem him so, and men ; 
 
 Yet ghouls their orgies tell 
 Thru hazard, scheme, thru banter, risk, 
 
 Thru lurid, putrid hell. 
 
 And these have scarred his soul with pangs 
 
 Of venom and of blight. 
 Till, evil-starred, he arms with those 
 
 Accustomed fiends of night. 
 
 And man were that amid the years 
 
 Of youth-begot alloys. 
 Engaging at the largess-call 
 
 Where duty shapes employs; 
 Were that and more ; for e'en withal 
 
 He counter-flames the ill; 
 He goes before: he beckons all 
 
 To highest courts of Will. 
 
 i6 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Himself so frail of counterpoise, 
 
 So rent and shadowed back 
 Of dark Mirwayle, that he, of ghouls 
 
 Along the open track. 
 Is hurled askance as trifle down 
 
 Beneath the last debris. 
 Where demons dance a holocaust 
 
 Of vain security. 
 
 Yet still were he the sovereign lord 
 
 And arbiter of joys. 
 To frame and be the prophecy, — 
 
 The throne and crown of poise. 
 
 And yet what scene is this ? a child 
 
 At toys, tho void of fear 
 'Mid pleasures keen, is mocked, and knows 
 
 It not, of foeman near. 
 
 The paradox of Hfe were this : 
 That playing child should die; 
 
 Have sudden shocks of dastard death. 
 And master-issues try. 
 
 The like hath been and who condones 
 
 To mortal mind and sense 
 The why of sin, death-plague of all, 
 
 Near-scourge of Providence? 
 
 17 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 The infant dies without a fear, 
 
 Without a hint of sorrow, 
 To enterprise the risks and test 
 
 Eternity's to-morrow ; 
 Tho sought the while of insolence, — 
 
 The ghost of ghouls forever, — 
 Seraphic smile is signaled back 
 
 As seraph's first endeavor. 
 
 So, hedged and met of constant ill 
 
 Thru all the burdened years. 
 Responsive yet, he rims and chords 
 
 The harmony of spheres : 
 The answered call of masteries, — 
 
 The more than sullen sod, 
 He is withal a Veritas, 
 
 An embryonic god. 
 To carve and build of dust and straw 
 
 The templed halls of story. 
 As writ and willed of life and law 
 
 Thru corridors of glory. 
 
 So ; Gods esteem him so, and men ; 
 
 So Gods their purpose frame 
 Thru realms that seem familiar courts 
 
 To his eccentric aim. 
 
 i8 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Persistent gleams of gladness tell, 
 
 Thru witcheries beguiled, 
 And say, what seems beyond conceit 
 
 Of doubt, ''Our Father's child." 
 
 And yet 'twere sad — and thought were limp 
 
 Amid terrific woes — 
 That mortals had no signs that would 
 
 Their bosom-wrongs disclose; 
 'Twere taunt of crime, upheld of judge 
 
 That Beauty were so cheap 
 As transient grime ; that Youth were flung 
 
 Apart to garbage heap; 
 That Innocence were left to dream 
 
 And croon of doubt ; to wake 
 Amid the dense, foul fumes of wreck 
 
 For guilty conscience' sake ! 
 
 And Innocence, itself disposed 
 'Mid whorls of doubt, may guide 
 
 Intelligence with ample wit. 
 If that should boast but pride. 
 
 What speech can tell the scourge of doom 
 
 That flays to utmost core, 
 With wrath of hell, this child of trust 
 
 For aye and aye, and more, 
 
 19 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 If left alone or worse ; can wake 
 The conscience and the truth 
 
 Alarm; condone the restlessness 
 Of irrepressive youth? 
 
 Unmeasured joy were wished and willed, 
 
 And by all seals conveyed 
 To God or toy, who, self-denied, 
 
 Speeds peace and love delayed: 
 Shapes right import of Being's why 
 
 With every poised convention 
 Of any court of judgment 
 
 And original intention : 
 Who hurls confusions with all contempt 
 
 To foundling ignorance 
 And sin : delusions and pits that spoil 
 
 The child's significance: 
 Who marks the truth as query springs 
 
 Of what is prest of good 
 And leads bold youth to baldest heights 
 
 Of conscious rectitude. 
 
 8 
 
 All hail ! all hail ! to him or that : 
 And Heaven signals so ; 
 
 No good can fail ; and soon or late 
 The most untold shall know. 
 
 20 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 What lure can coy persuasiveness ? 
 
 What eagerness disarm 
 The thorn or boy and lend to each 
 
 New piquancy of charm? 
 
 9 
 
 What dextrous hands outline and carve 
 
 To planes of natal beauty 
 The borderlands of youth's response 
 
 To ethics, worth and duty ? 
 
 What brother brings climacterics, — 
 
 The unalloyed of earth? 
 What sister sings unbroken joys 
 
 In passion-throbs of birth? 
 
 Ah, brother, stay and calculate 
 And know the present worth 
 
 Of hour and day,— the brief that adds 
 A whit to sister's mirth. 
 
 What curse or ill, demonic, bold, 
 
 Imperious, savage, weak, 
 Can yet fulfil the menace and 
 
 The utter vengeance wreak? 
 
 What alien arm can disconcert 
 
 The last resort and plan? 
 Without alarm., disturb the thought 
 
 And harmony of man? 
 
 21 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 10 
 
 What skill so urged of selfishness, 
 
 Or yet so prest of art, 
 Or whipt and scourged of conscience thru 
 
 The provinces of heart, 
 That guides the weak and ignorant 
 
 Securely thru the straits 
 And barrens, bleak with evil and 
 
 The fiendishness of hates. 
 To lofty planes of rectitude 
 
 Where consciousness of truth 
 Inspires and trains the equipoise 
 
 And purity of youth ? 
 
 If Patience tread her forward path. 
 Composed, conclusive, clear. 
 
 No curse can spread the wails of woe 
 To realms of such a sphere. 
 
 II 
 
 And Equipoise itself must guide 
 
 The halting amateur 
 Abreast the joys unspeakable; 
 
 And so withal must lure 
 Aloft the heir of great desire. 
 
 So big with late distractions 
 And fiercest stare of sacrifice, 
 
 To later satisfactions. 
 
 2.2. 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 12 
 
 And Purity, no less serene 
 
 Itself, shall guide with all 
 Security the frailest thing, 
 
 Should ill and menace fall. 
 
 Tho elf s have strewed the earth with films 
 
 Of mystery and blight, 
 And imps eschewed persistent good 
 
 In contravening right. 
 The flowers elude the stains of soil 
 
 While struggling out of night 
 And burst their hearts with gladness, tint. 
 
 With sweetness and perfume, 
 Till beauty starts remotest climes 
 
 And continents with bloom. 
 
 13 
 
 Are soils so skilled of wisdom, or 
 
 Is Nature so imbued 
 With love and filled with good as guides 
 
 A plant to certitude? 
 
 14 
 
 Yet here we see a tender thing, 
 
 Of so divine a strain 
 That naught can be more pure, nor aught 
 
 So liable to stain: 
 
 23 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 A cherub poised amid the shoals 
 
 Of conflict still untold 
 Of what is noised of destiny, — 
 
 About the life unrolled, 
 Of love ingrained, — a mystery 
 
 That angels shun or meet 
 With dread, as pained of awe to peer 
 
 On parchments pure and sweet ! 
 
 15 
 
 Attackt, careened, distraught, opprest, 
 
 Pursued of dogged Fate; 
 Ensnared, maligned, misjudged, condemned, 
 
 Accurst of frothing hate: 
 Such blasts as that of vengeance and 
 
 Mirwayle, the frail appall: 
 Magnificat ! no menace of 
 
 The stroke declares the fall. 
 
 Ill 
 
 But amateurs — amazing fact — 
 Bewilderment of thought — 
 
 Fling wide the sewers of risk and pass 
 Unchallenged what is brought. 
 
 24 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Does constancy elude the love 
 
 And innocence of youth? 
 What quality of stuff is woe 
 
 Or bliss ? Where lurks the truth ? 
 
 3 
 
 What alchemy of action, or 
 
 What synthesis of love, 
 What chemistry of living chymes 
 
 Can lead this child above 
 The pits of woe and poise his wings 
 
 Untried where angels kiss 
 The bright-hued bow that weeps and laughs 
 
 Its promises of bliss? 
 
 4 
 
 Should act of thine, by strange mischance, 
 
 Cause wild foreboding in 
 The basest spine, 'twere pagan not 
 
 To mend such overt sin ; 
 Could act of mine disarm the hordes 
 
 Of evil tempting this 
 Frail, pliant vine, 'twere godless not 
 
 To seize such chance of bliss. 
 
 Has Equity forgot his skill, 
 
 Compassion left her throne? 
 Or destiny dismantled Love 
 
 And fled this waif alone? 
 
 25 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 And still unwarned, must he be left 
 To guess and grope his way 
 
 Amid the scorned and barren wastes 
 Of being up to day? 
 
 What chance so skilled of justice, or 
 
 What fortune so imbued 
 With right, or willed to good, that leads 
 
 The soul to rectitude? 
 
 The arts of deft and skilful Khem, 
 
 Beyond alchemic power 
 Of thought, have left indelibly 
 
 Their hues upon life's flower; 
 Beyond his skill or wisdom, weave 
 
 Thru life the silent threads 
 Of worth and will where Character, 
 
 So boldly conscious, treads ; 
 Beyond his will or wish, have sunk 
 
 Their hidden venoms there, 
 And there distil, thru all the years, 
 
 The bitter-sweet of prayer ; 
 Or blast and bane the fruitage of 
 
 The soul and sift it down 
 The fitful train of circumstance 
 
 Where scowling demons frown. 
 
 26 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Must amateurs avouch no hope? 
 
 Defend no battlefield? 
 Assault no lures where frightened waif 
 
 Has long, in vain, appealed? 
 
 Where fateful sewers of ill, with big 
 Discharge, are left unhealed. 
 Proclaim no cures ? have rounded naught 
 Of nectars capt and sealed? 
 
 The thorn and snare have pitted, gnarled 
 
 And wrested, mesh and core 
 Of life; left bare the provinces 
 
 Of bloom; and where, before 
 The sin and curse laid death and dearth 
 
 On regions proud and fair, 
 A universe of love were found ; 
 
 This hurt must have repair. 
 
 The frailest germs, as formed and shaped 
 
 To spectral lines, have woke 
 To highest terms of self, and told 
 
 Vast risks since Being spoke ; 
 Have poised above with lordships high, 
 
 Kept troth themselves within 
 The courts of love, and man is left 
 
 To bitterness and sin: 
 
 27 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 And told or not, these germs have yet 
 
 Themselves, with silent awe, 
 Disclosed the blot incurred by man 
 
 Thru disregard of law ; 
 Have edged thus near the cobble-stones 
 
 For his assured advance. 
 As if of fear he miss or slight 
 
 The one significance: 
 That he were child ; have mastery 
 
 Himself of highest birth; 
 As undefiled have sport with Gods, 
 
 Himself the sport of earth. 
 
 8 
 
 No link is gone : the multi-hosts 
 Are mast and ranked to hedge 
 
 The errant pawn and fix his gaze 
 Athwart the bonded pledge. 
 
 Tho unattained and hope be still 
 
 Deferred, incessant prayer 
 Breaks unexplained from him if love 
 
 Be not for him somewhere. 
 
 Were skies as dumb — compassionless- 
 As what they sometimes seem, 
 
 No cry could drum response beyond 
 The throes of garish dream. 
 
 28 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 'Twere for his sake, and not his bane 
 
 Contentions high were met; 
 Must he have dreams, yet moan but wails 
 
 And f antoms of regret ? 
 
 He yet must wake to visions that 
 
 Himself hath hopeless sought, 
 To bolder schemes and purposes 
 
 Than born of chosen thought; 
 Must peer and gaze with equipoise — 
 
 With bold and moteless eyes — 
 Upon the ways concealed beyond 
 
 The problems of the wise ; 
 Must know the grail of last resort 
 
 In full monitions given ; 
 Must scourge Mirwayle; with trust assault 
 
 The battlements of Heaven. 
 
 And sprung to this, his victories 
 
 Are foreordained and won 
 Of hope and bliss before the test 
 
 Of battles is hegun. 
 
 IV 
 
 This child in tears, with upward gaze 
 And prayer, from sudden start 
 
 29 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 As ill appears, withal appeals 
 To primal love and heart; 
 
 Finds more than balm for all his ills, 
 And echoes far and near 
 
 Triumphant psalm, interpreted 
 And told : There is no fear. 
 
 *Twere ever so ; and now and aye. 
 
 Except for dregs of hell 
 That sift below his life and hurt 
 
 With fumes as foul as fell. 
 
 Yet whence has sprung mad progenies 
 
 That shape such deadly fruit 
 For one so young? Amazed, appalled, — 
 
 Left uninspired and mute, — 
 He gropes and reels, with shadowed dread. 
 
 Where he should laugh and leap. 
 Make glad appeals from mystic dreams 
 
 Of vagueness, swoon and sleep, 
 
 To certitude ; yet never once 
 
 In thought concealed behind 
 False brotherhood ; nor lost of self 
 
 In universal mind 
 Of sphinx or maze : himself he is, 
 
 To dream, if need, and face 
 Unblushed the gaze analysis 
 
 Confers : consummate grace ! 
 
 30 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 3 
 
 Misunderstood, assailed, or where 
 
 Or how of hell, he's found 
 Of every good : since fair the form 
 
 And vision, hope and ground 
 Of rectitude, attackt of ill, 
 
 He doth the ill astound ; 
 In brotherhood is leagued of life, 
 
 Himself the unconfound. 
 
 What love can sink beneath such depths ? 
 
 What blasts of hell consume? 
 And, from the brink of woe, lift bliss 
 
 And heaven out of doom? 
 
 With myriad rays where myriad hues 
 
 Of tangled blues abound, 
 The stars have blazed for aye, nor yet 
 
 One seeming ill has found 
 Their morning days ; yet f antom ghosts 
 
 Deport him round and round 
 Till, wandering dazed, he fingers wild 
 
 At tame uncertainty; 
 Or blamed, or praised, he seeks and knows 
 
 It not, the equity 
 Of just caress ; hears utmost Voice ; 
 
 But deeming outer calls 
 Delusiveness, he grasps in vain 
 
 At self-support, and falls. 
 
 31 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 But list again : articulate 
 
 He hears ; he sees ; and more 
 Than shapes of men appear; a touch 
 
 And thrill as naught before; 
 For Hand were placed about his frame, 
 
 'Twere tender — heart and core: 
 Of loves embraced, — such Brother-love 
 
 As ne'er he'd felt before. 
 
 And purpose, high and deep as life 
 
 Has won or hope inspires. 
 Permits no why, till he has spun 
 
 The flame, that, quenchless, fires 
 The god of him again, with last 
 
 Assault to risk the vast 
 Tho mystic rim of life, and bear 
 
 His portions thus amast. 
 
 'Twere no surprise nor wonder he 
 
 Renews the strife: a worm 
 Would paralyze the Fates or make 
 
 Uncertain footing firm, 
 Tho forced appeals from failure trip 
 
 Till hopeless seems the stand, 
 If it but feels the friction of 
 
 A mobile grain of sand. 
 
 32 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Beatitude ! Tho hound of ill, 
 
 He presses to his own 
 Wide interludes of possibles 
 
 And hithers yet unknown. 
 
 Fair dreamer, still pursued, still bear 
 
 The judgment of thy lot; 
 Hope's wishes will fruition bring 
 
 When anguish is forgot: 
 The suns are spaced, and stars are fixt 
 
 Of blues to tide thee well; 
 For one embraced of love as thou 
 
 Is never hoped of hell. 
 
 V 
 
 O tender weaver what tasks for thee, 
 
 What bold ambitions thine! 
 What torrid fever can urge thee up 
 
 This hazardous incline? 
 Or, fateful turn thee down hell's gulfs 
 
 With speed of frenzied hates. 
 With wraths to spurn all profferd aid 
 
 From half-propitious mates? 
 
 33 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 What meager need ! A hut or hall, 
 
 A cave or kindly tree, 
 Has answered him when poverty 
 
 Had feasted on a crust; 
 And yet his creed proclaims the search 
 
 Of vast eternity! 
 The utmost rim of passion does. 
 
 As vaster being must, 
 Respond to him, who, seeking God, 
 
 Were winnowed from the dust 
 To bloom and seed within the courts 
 
 Of immortality. 
 
 VI 
 
 Who reckons here must rise above 
 
 All passion. Reason, aim 
 And purpose, sheer as death and glad 
 
 As love, must delve and frame 
 Each under-beam and architrave, 
 
 Lay deep the corner-stone; 
 No buccaneer can issues meet 
 
 Where he contends alone. 
 No fragile dreams for him create 
 
 Life's lone and awful cone : 
 Prediction seems at flood exprest 
 
 In storm-lit chaos flown; 
 
 34 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 But scheme of schemes' fulfilment throbs 
 
 In life's distorted moan, 
 Till fault appear devoid of sham, 
 
 To Christ-like stature grown. 
 
 Yet once are laid her mighty beams, 
 
 'Tis sentiment adorns 
 The grand facade with brilliancies 
 
 From God's supernal morns. 
 
 And shouldered to such comradeships, 
 He answers hiss and call. 
 
 And pressing thru the wildest waste 
 He reigns the carnival. 
 
 With lavish brush is pigmented 
 
 Each virtue strong and clear, 
 Till Beauty flush her complements 
 
 On every feature here; 
 Till Worth has brought and filtered thru 
 
 Her essences with care. 
 And Youth has sought perfection out 
 
 And hid his passions there; 
 Till all the loves of all the hearts 
 
 And Heaven's preciousness — 
 Beneaths, aboves — are flung to one 
 
 So worthy of caress ! 
 
 35 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 And yet withal of fatal tread 
 
 He crushes bud and flower, 
 Inflames the thrall that menaces 
 
 The corner-stones of power, 
 Or shapes a thing to every sense 
 
 Abhorrent; that repels, 
 With spite and fling, all terrible. 
 
 The imps of nether hells. 
 
 To be and feel were all sublime 
 
 Above the dull death-rust 
 Of sodden weal, — to highest forms 
 
 Is shaped the flimsy dust. 
 
 As time has fraught the frailest wish 
 
 With largest aspirations, 
 So Youth has caught the pentacost 
 
 Of vaster consecrations. 
 
 To be and feel the thought and will 
 
 Were provinces of man, 
 And half reveal who carved the pier 
 
 Of his stupendous plan: 
 To round the lines, adorn the shapes 
 
 And spur to lofty aim 
 Were countersigns of Sin's defeat 
 
 And Death's disastrous shame. 
 
 36 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 5 
 What wraith or power shall reel shy, thin 
 
 Threads of life and blend 
 Of debt and dower earth's canopies 
 
 To fitly comprehend 
 The sacred bower he seeks ; shall grow 
 
 With him, with him ascend 
 Thru life's brief hour : from final heights 
 
 Pour fruitage in the end? 
 
 6 
 
 Majestic poise: the royalties 
 
 Of royalty enthroned; 
 No throne destroys a kingdom won 
 
 Of what the man atoned 
 Thru sacrifice of self for sin 
 
 And others' benefaction; 
 The paradise of privilege. 
 
 The willingness of action — 
 Permuted joys — must yet become 
 
 Dominion's first attraction. 
 
 Imperfect blooms have oft matured 
 
 A fruit well worth the seeing ; 
 Thru rare perfumes have frankly poured 
 
 Life's just reply of sweetness ; 
 From hurtling wombs of darkling frown 
 
 Brought aftermath's repleteness ; 
 So man assumes in sentient self 
 
 The last resort of being. 
 
 37 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 7 
 
 By what consent — wo-worth the thought- 
 Shall issues unassumed 
 
 Have voice or vent thru judgment grave 
 Or chivalries foredoomed? 
 
 No lord escapes the law by mere 
 
 Mechanical evasions, 
 Howe'er he apes the Gods or feigns 
 
 Conventional occasions. 
 
 vn 
 
 Assumed unsought the vested charge 
 
 That angels gladly shrink ? 
 Prenatal thought in embryo! 
 
 How possible to think 
 That man could be, unless as child 
 
 Of God or pregnant cell. 
 That must agree to risk the threats 
 
 Insanely hatched of hell, 
 H there be given, withal, the chance 
 
 To be embodied truth. 
 To mold the leaven of virile love 
 
 Where stalwart right, forsooth, 
 Had always striven thru Time's defeats 
 
 To aid what form and feature 
 Would issue Heaven for lowest types 
 
 Of any sentient creature? 
 
 38 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 A lord in form should be in fact 
 
 Beyond inspector's ken ; 
 Should dread no storm discernment brews 
 
 Within the courts of men. 
 
 Beatitude! What swings of poise 
 And sanity must witness 
 
 The utmost good of thing or soul 
 In love's eternal fitness ! 
 
 No councils high, convened of least 
 Pretensions, say that man 
 
 Must make reply to what was not 
 Agreed in writ and plan. 
 
 And God in fact is so in form, 
 Tho man unveiled were blind ; 
 
 Whate'er the pact, His will declares 
 That He unleashes mind. 
 
 But Duty stands : nor long can man 
 
 Evade authentic pause; 
 For all commands are final in 
 
 The lexicon of laws. 
 
 39 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Is Will decree ? E'en Will avails 
 In man and worm and sod, 
 
 Because of plea of councils that 
 Were held of them and God. 
 
 'Twere good to Be, tho driven back 
 
 Of Hazard, hist and tost 
 Of Poverty, — the test and claim 
 
 Of scorn and blight and frost: 
 Tho stars of night should never solve 
 
 The mystery of tears. 
 It were no slight to be a thing, — 
 
 A mote amid the spheres. 
 
 Yet 'twere sublime to be a man: 
 
 To suffer and endure, 
 To spurn the slime of touch and be 
 
 Immaculate and pure ; 
 Defy the crime, — unparalleled 
 
 Of want, tho immature, — 
 And thence to climb the rungs of life 
 
 And forest-blaze the newer! 
 
 5 
 
 What happiness to thirst, to feel 
 The pang of urgent need, 
 
 The rasping stress of appetite, — 
 Desire that craves to feed 
 
 40 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Unsatisfied, immortal hope 
 
 And toil : he bows and thrives 
 Where most denied, where most distraught, 
 
 There still more greatly strives. 
 
 Maturity? Beatitude! 
 
 To claim the longer term, 
 To serve and seize beyond the realms 
 
 Of sod and thoughtless worm 
 Were liberties proclaimed of man 
 
 Beyond the mote or germ. 
 Unfurled and free to be matured, — 
 
 The centuries affirm. 
 
 If bliss were lost, no surer path 
 
 Could clue the maze of joy, 
 Nor at less cost than his to find 
 
 The wizard of employ: 
 Surchanged, he reels intoxicate 
 
 Of wines of joy embrewed 
 Oi last appeals of suffering 
 
 To universal good. 
 
 It were not willed of dust, — this wealth; 
 
 Nor codicil conveys 
 How wrought and filled the thing that grows 
 
 In spiritual clays ; 
 
 41 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Nor rusts corrode, thru waste and blight 
 
 To Time's remotest knave, 
 The mystic lode that lures and leads 
 
 Alike the weak and brave. 
 
 No goal is past: propitiousness 
 
 Discreetly spurs him on, 
 With hopes aghast, to haunts beyond 
 
 The rims of anxious dawn. 
 And there unbinds the willing feet 
 
 Of urgent constancy, 
 Until he finds himself surcharged 
 
 With virile mastery. 
 
 No slave of need is whipt of scourge 
 
 Or hunger more than he; 
 Nor fiery steed is driven more 
 
 Of any destiny : 
 He goes abreast of Fate : he knows 
 
 No boundaries of goals 
 Nor courts he rest till lodged amid 
 
 The corridors of souls. 
 
 Sublime it were to be a man : 
 To press the gates of strife : 
 
 From thence confer to millions more 
 Triumphant grasp of Hfe. 
 
 i 
 
 42 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 And this to know of possibles : 
 
 Not one is bound upon 
 The Hne below the privilege 
 
 Of tithing what is won. 
 
 And so he far outstrips the tithe, — 
 
 All merit swears he must; 
 'Tis frictions are the bustlingness 
 
 That paralyzes rust: 
 If once he mars authentic fields 
 
 By sterilizing dust, 
 Then more : he bars God's high behest 
 
 By vitalizing lust. 
 
 So virtue leads benevolence 
 
 With active fervency, 
 And fixes creeds of humari love 
 
 In GENEROSITY. 
 
 8 
 
 So he achieves impossibles, 
 And grasps the never seen. 
 
 With faith believes the Optimist 
 Who verifies the mean. 
 
 And so there comes of press and stir 
 The struggle, fatuous, wild, 
 
 That knits and sums the hazardous. 
 Triumphant, sane and mild; 
 
 43 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Yet never numbs the hope and dash 
 
 That spur this courtly child, 
 Amid earth's slums, exposed and lured, 
 
 To seek the undefiled. 
 
 VIII 
 I 
 
 O love and home, what powers are thine ! 
 
 What fragrant sweets distil 
 From shrine to dome, to woo this child 
 
 Of upward wish and will ! 
 
 And "where is home but with the loving?" 
 
 Where devotion starts 
 If love should roam, with shudders that 
 
 Bewilder human hearts ? 
 
 Enchantment's dream! A universe 
 
 In limits all its own, 
 Where vistas seem infinitude, 
 
 Where grief and tears condone, 
 Within the zone of sovereignty 
 
 And home, — the paradise 
 Where love is known in offering 
 
 The altar's sacrifice. 
 
 Enchanted blues, in rhythmic whorls, 
 Perspective, fiery, new, 
 
 44 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Evolve the clues of beaten bliss, 
 Transporte'd, weld and hue, 
 
 And bring to him in haste, profuse 
 Confessions out of night, 
 
 That naught can dim the realms of love 
 Within the realms of right. 
 
 The stars confess, with dimpled glow 
 And more with sparkling blush, 
 
 The love-caress of love at home 
 When whispers charm and hush. 
 
 But stars are dumb and realms are pent, 
 
 Amid the vast processions, 
 When Love is come, and, voiceless, fills 
 
 Unspeakable confessions 
 With songs of hymn and harmony; 
 
 And he is key and chord. 
 Upon the brim of holdings where 
 
 The heart is sovereign lord. 
 
 IX 
 
 O wish and will, that woo this child 
 With tipv/ard glance and turn. 
 
 Why not fulfil the longings now 
 That cause his heart to yearn? 
 
 45 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Why thus defer? Why not at once 
 
 Anticipate? make good 
 What must occur? What world-old seers 
 
 Have always understood? 
 Why linger thru the disciplines, 
 
 The struggles and temptations? 
 Why not accrue the essences 
 
 To final consummations? 
 
 Is all pursuit? Must love elude 
 
 Integrity? be won 
 As savage loot? No cessions there 
 
 If having once begun? 
 
 O cry and stress that urge him thru 
 Such adventitious venture; 
 
 What omens press refinements where 
 The ghouls reek blame and censure! 
 
 What hunger his, what cravings still 
 
 Unsatisfied, what charm 
 Of beatuy is embraced of love 
 
 With loved ones in alarm ! 
 
 Beatitude! What safety and 
 Contentment of concern, 
 
 46 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 What constant good provision brings 
 When vital issues turn ! 
 
 No fear can daunt, nor alien love 
 
 Allure, nor wish elude, 
 Nor meager want forego supply, 
 
 Nor enemy intrude; 
 For once enshrined of sacred holds — 
 
 Affection-fortified — 
 In heart and mind, what sacrifice 
 
 Of life or love denied? 
 
 He laughs at scorn without, within 
 Reveals his strength, enlarged 
 
 Upon the morn of love : nor stays 
 Till duty is discharged. 
 
 With love unfeigned he guarantees 
 
 All manly avenues. 
 And leaves unstained the robes of right; 
 
 With rectitude pursues 
 The unattained of prior hope; 
 
 He neither rests nor rues 
 Of largess gained; he presses on, 
 
 Unswayed of parvenues. 
 
 Tho there he fail, he there attempts 
 The more ; tho naught accrue 
 
 47 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Of yon entail of heritage, 
 
 He presses boldly thru 
 The thorofares of sinecures 
 
 And gleans of other wheats 
 Than common tares; an issuance 
 
 Beyond the wares and cheats 
 Inheritance may yield — ^beyond 
 
 The bluster and the low 
 Significance of wealth, he strives 
 
 Himself to shape and know. 
 
 If right were not his right who claims, 
 
 Then claiming often must, 
 To answer what response confers. 
 
 Be catalogued of lust; 
 And he admits a passion here, — 
 
 A longing for the hand 
 That yields the writs of righteousness 
 
 In equals councils planned. 
 
 And tales may prove his claim were high, 
 
 And judged of last resource 
 Of ethic love, who then may bear 
 
 The first unjust divorce 
 Of righteousness ? — that long detail 
 
 Of ill, withholden good. 
 The wild duress of emptiness 
 
 And moral platitude? 
 
 48 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Not merely high, — his claim were just, 
 For justice has concurred; 
 
 And such reply must have response 
 Ere selfishness is heard. 
 
 8 
 
 Community and brotherhood. 
 
 And share and share alike, 
 Law, history, declare naught else, 
 
 Or other portions strike. 
 Nor halt to chide of compromise 
 
 Or pique of dalliance: 
 No problem tried can show unblushed 
 
 A fairer countenance. 
 
 If old discounts were sought and found, 
 
 Or judgment rested there, 
 He might denounce the pittance lost, 
 
 As cheat of hapless care; 
 If hint of right were his, and that 
 
 Must still unquestioned be 
 The polar light of duty, — sane, 
 
 Impassioned, fixt, but free. 
 And balanced goad, — that urges him 
 
 Beyond the first intense, 
 Tho partial code, to entries vast, — 
 
 Of soul to soul immense. 
 
 49 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Such lofty aims, so vast they chill 
 
 More timid souls, inspire 
 All mighty frames, tho stunned of sense, 
 
 Beyond star-dusts and higher. 
 
 lO 
 
 Were these his own ? there rushes forth 
 
 Congenial atmospheres 
 To brace and tone the fiber of 
 
 The frailest harvesters, 
 Who, tho unknown, were comrades boon 
 
 Of Heaven's first desire; 
 Whose rimless zone of harmony 
 
 Must woo excelsior nigher 
 The ceaseless quest, unfagging hope. 
 
 The utmost grasp of man 
 Whose love confest must carve and shape 
 
 To some diviner plan. 
 
 X 
 
 i 
 
 Beatitude! How blest the airs, 
 
 All vital cells attest! 
 Since all is good, in bosoms fit, 
 
 All being is carest. 
 
 50 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 2 
 
 But man, unsolved of pride or worth, 
 
 On potent missions bent, 
 Becomes involved with powers high; 
 
 And there receives the rent 
 That gapes to hell, appeals to great 
 
 Compassion: still uncured, 
 Must touch and tell intelligence 
 
 Benign thru utmost woes; 
 To all frontiers must tell what man 
 
 As man has here endured 
 Of hopes and fears: how triumph with 
 
 Defiance overthrows 
 The Alps of doubt till, mastering 
 
 Himself, tho scarred and worn, 
 He puts to rout the imps and fiends 
 
 Which hither he had borne. 
 
 To ease and doff the vast concerns 
 
 Of men, as baldest chance 
 With sneer and scoff, were caper-timed 
 
 Or witless ignorance; 
 Or lower cast, as flung of hell. 
 
 In wild and blunt excess, 
 All virtue past, were but the bluff 
 
 Of bald maliciousness. 
 
 51 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Now, since he sows to sacred soils, 
 
 With equipoise he goes. 
 Lest evil blows to barrenness 
 
 What righteousness bestows; 
 Lest wide concern of high report 
 
 Is left to ill and marred. 
 He yet must earn his trophied good 
 
 From Self, the evil-starred. 
 
 For right is right, and law is law, 
 
 And God the undenied; 
 And naught may blight itself of right. 
 
 Since Christ is crucified. 
 
 4 
 
 Why thus declare within sane realms 
 
 Of mind where science hurls 
 Her gaze and glare across the orbs 
 
 And boundaries of worlds? 
 Where thought of man, tho hurled aloft, 
 
 Is hedged by curve and bound 
 To settled plan of plat and chore 
 
 Within some vast profound? 
 
 Tho query lower and answers balk 
 And stoop and swoon to earth, 
 
 Yet cavils roar in ignorance 
 Thru high pretense of worth. 
 
 Yet man is urged to vast estates 
 Nor chance can unrelate 
 
 52 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Him who, tlio scourged of dark Mirwayle, 
 Hath answers soon and great. 
 
 The ill-advised, within the mask 
 
 Of frenzy, deaf and blind, 
 Or well-disguised Utopias, 
 
 Can never hope to find 
 And fix a shape in semblances 
 
 Of any sport or child, 
 Or e'en to drape comparisons 
 
 To distances so wild. 
 As thus is found in cosmic man, 
 
 The one atomic mote 
 That whirls around the Mighty as 
 
 Reputed Thing of note. 
 
 The Man has come ; Mirwayle must go 
 
 To kingdoms well defined; 
 Must go abashed, must go abaft, 
 
 Must go to utmost rout; 
 Must go till lashed of self-remorse 
 
 With justest scourge and knout; 
 And naught is dumb with voice to sing 
 
 But sings of love enshrined. 
 
 6 
 
 On life's brief span, athwart the gulfs 
 Of fierce contending barriers, 
 
 53 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Is girded man for Gods and imps, 
 As stern opposing carriers, 
 
 To issue on ; to greet and lodge 
 The ghosts that deaths devour, 
 
 As battles dawn to test the might 
 And lurking place of power ! 
 
 Like mighty elf, from tragic deeds 
 
 The one incarnate Man 
 Had swung Himself across the gulfs 
 
 Ere sin in sooth began 
 To lift its form of hybrid ghouls. 
 
 As fiendish horror would. 
 To threat and storm the last resort 
 
 And citadel of good. 
 
 What reeking fields confuse the gaze 
 From heights of being, where 
 
 The evil yields the victory 
 To suffering and to prayer ! 
 
 And ere there rise and flee the smoke 
 
 And carnage of defeat. 
 The demon flies as woe and wail 
 
 Dismisses his retreat 
 Within the folds of insolence, 
 
 Profanity and shame. 
 Where Hades holds to hounds of hell 
 
 The lips and fangs of flame: 
 
 54 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Where all that howl must deafen death 
 
 With consternations blind, 
 Till demons foul exude the breath 
 
 Of hell to hell assigned. 
 
 XI 
 
 Unconscious suns, with matchless blaze, 
 
 Are hid from peering eyes 
 As each one runs his lawful course 
 
 Within unbosomed skies; 
 Nor hitch nor jar thru centuries 
 
 Disturbs this ceaseless race 
 Where, flung afar in majesty. 
 
 Each spins the threads of space, 
 So grandly beautiful that spawns of hate 
 
 Can but adore or hide 
 In suave and dutiful acceptance of 
 
 Unknown, subconscious pride ; 
 And these inscrutable ambitions are 
 
 No single man denied. 
 
 A universe were each alone 
 
 Of wonders so profound 
 That to rehearse the tenth were vain ; 
 
 As atoms outerbound 
 
 55 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 In anxious poise, they seek the rims 
 
 Of space ; nor interfere 
 Where God's envoys thru solitudes 
 
 Of boundless vasts career: 
 Where harmony is pitched to keys 
 
 Of universal bars 
 Of unity; nor selfishness 
 
 Betrays, nor discord mars, 
 With rasping stress, the rhythmic swells 
 
 Of star and universe ; 
 There is no guess : for offspring but 
 
 Proclaims the patron nurse; 
 From cosmic mess was called and ranked 
 
 The vast domain of stars 
 Whose yea and yes declare the One 
 
 Who rimes the medleyed bars. 
 
 Could selfishness the equipoise 
 
 Of worlds disturb at odds, 
 What mad duress woufd wreck these most 
 
 Companionable gods ! 
 
 So like to man : thru passion-sweeps 
 
 Of toil and sweat he runs — 
 None other can — the gauntlet of 
 
 Ambition with the suns. 
 
 56 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 4 
 
 Nor harbors doubt if will or wish 
 
 But urge or favor him; 
 Nor halts about ability 
 
 To trace the utmost rim 
 Of his desire ; he only chafes 
 
 Of fiends obstructing him, 
 In rising higher on ready wings 
 
 Of urgency and vim. 
 
 No jot is lost in all the whorls 
 
 Of white and gold and blue; 
 Thru realms of frost or fire, or twixt, 
 
 No scruple need accrue 
 With skies embost with amber-tints 
 
 From last retorts of hue; 
 And hither tost of space these suns 
 
 The untrod paths pursue ! 
 
 Thru time's consent, in early paths 
 
 They skipt and ran as lambs 
 Of firmament; and revel still 
 
 In first attempted psalms : 
 When just begun these trials, won 
 
 Of flight, foretold the speeds 
 That star and sun acquire and run 
 
 Where timbered tension leads; 
 
 57 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Till face to face with power and place, 
 
 As ages startled gaze, 
 They coy and race thru outer space 
 
 Athwart the rhythmic blaze; 
 And on, and on, to wider dawn, 
 
 When folded centuries 
 Are come and gone, they still but yawn 
 
 Their morning symphonies. 
 
 O man why fret and squirm within 
 
 This lilliputian cell? 
 This sense forget, as yet thou may. 
 
 And with all worthies dwell ! 
 
 7 
 
 No truth is lost in all the whorls 
 
 Of ether, maze or clue; 
 Nor virtue crost of ethics by 
 
 The morals of the few. 
 To men embost with intellect 
 
 That seraphim review: 
 Hence, hither tost of Mind, O man, 
 
 Essential good pursue! 
 
 Go, then, with thought, as yet thou must, 
 
 On fullest paths of light. 
 For space has naught to bar thy suit 
 
 In comradeship with flight; 
 
 58 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Anticipate the shrine of suns 
 
 And there erect thy booth ; 
 They fly : yet late they hail thy posts, 
 
 If thou abide with truth. 
 
 8 
 
 All laws are thine : incarnate law 
 
 Thyself : thyself regard ! 
 In thee align all paths, if closed, 
 
 'Tis thou thyself hast barred: 
 Swing wide the gates, whose portaled ways 
 
 Uncage the tethered soul 
 That frets and waits this liberty 
 
 Of thine, this thought parole! 
 
 No winged thing can soar like thee. 
 
 If thou permit the hours 
 To loose and bring to equipoise 
 
 Thy hurt, offended powers ! 
 
 If thou but woo propitious wraiths 
 
 To aid my yearning soul. 
 No flight were too unparalleled 
 
 To stay thy utmost goal. 
 
 No darkness falls but prophesies 
 
 A morning far and wide ; 
 Nor moated walls than those of flesh 
 
 Have ever so defied. 
 
 59 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Can these always this struggle thwart, 
 
 Intense, unbroken be? 
 Orion blaze for aye and aye, — 
 
 The sun and stars go free, — 
 While man surveys thru films of sense 
 
 His tardy destiny? 
 Or thought appraise herself in flesh 
 
 Thruout eternity? 
 
 10 
 
 O spirit-mind, thy realms, tho pent, 
 
 Thy toil and hope endure: 
 Thy thought refined, thy tasks assuage, 
 
 And thy rewards mature! 
 
 Anticipate the goal of love 
 
 And there erect thy shrine ; 
 She flies : nor late she hails thy posts, 
 
 H thou and she combine. 
 
 To be a man were so sublime 
 
 That never man conceived 
 The outer plan achievement wins 
 
 Of what himself believed. 
 
 II 
 
 So won of love, so lost to hate. 
 So keyed and closeted 
 
 60 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 To realms above the temporal, 
 
 He reckons not the dead 
 Decays that slough of mortal wares ; 
 
 He grasps the far extremes 
 That mold the rough exteriors, 
 
 And lifts the mists whence beams 
 His counterpart in splendors all 
 
 Diffused with fervency 
 Whose burning heart forebodes and guards 
 
 The throne of majesty. 
 
 For man were built to wider plans 
 
 Than fall of time and sense: 
 Tho stung of guilt, incarnate tears 
 
 Surpass his mad offense. 
 Since such were so, and man were so, 
 
 So must it be that he 
 Must somehow go beyond the birth 
 
 Of earthly destiny. 
 
 12 
 
 The unexplained of hope deferred, 
 
 Of life's perpetual care, 
 Were not distrained of him, if love 
 
 Were not for him somewhere. 
 
 To be complete a man must be 
 
 Entangled and entwined, 
 Beyond conceit and unconfined, 
 
 With sanest love and mind. 
 
 6i 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 XII 
 
 O patient child, how soon the years 
 
 Of sluggish pain are spent : 
 How far and wild would seem the path 
 
 Where weary steps are bent 
 If it were not for fragrant dews 
 
 That light the inner way ; 
 Or griefs forgot in stress of joys, 
 
 How filled with wide dismay! 
 
 If ill were what the years propose, 
 
 The centuries convey, 
 How then allot the equities? 
 
 The purposes obey? 
 
 A child at play! O patient child, 
 
 Impatient yet to go ! 
 Why urge the day ? My heart hath tears ! 
 
 Why leave me weeping so? 
 
 Hast thou foreseen Elysian fields 
 That thou must haste to tread? 
 
 Thy sight seems keen, but mine is blurred,- 
 My tears embalm the dead. 
 
 62 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Ah, spirit-child, when once 'tis known 
 Rough paths are lately made 
 
 Across the wild frontiers of death, 
 How hot the tears conveyed ! 
 
 As there is given to direst hours 
 
 Of anguish, croons and dreams 
 Of stars and heaven, so utter night 
 
 Gives overpowering beams 
 That dart and gleam like fairy elfs 
 
 Of pure phantastic birth 
 Beyond all dream of ecstasy 
 
 Or strangest moods of mirth, — 
 The mirth that flows of faith and joy — 
 
 Conviction run to flower — 
 Which Nectar chose when roses blusht 
 
 And Beauty kist the bower. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Vast force is spent to keep yon frame 
 
 In mighty balance swung, — 
 Yon boundless tent of bending skies 
 
 As universe out-hung, — 
 And thru all time the lamps of God 
 
 In rhythmic cycles wheel; 
 More than sublime direct their course 
 
 To some remote appeal. 
 
 63 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 They hum the dirge and thread the maze 
 
 Of vague etheric spheres, 
 Nor yet converge to chaos thru 
 
 A thousand million years. 
 
 Outspread in space unfathomed gulfs 
 
 Thru outer reaches deep, 
 They reel and race in high career 
 
 With whirl and dash and sweep; 
 They still invite the gaze of man, 
 
 Beyond earth's rugged steep. 
 Thru blazing night to flounder in 
 
 The mysteries they keep. 
 
 Out thru the grand, dumb silences. 
 
 They tempt and woo him higher 
 Than hither planned, until the soul 
 
 Absorbs the opaled fire 
 And burning blues of folded heat 
 
 From out their own abysms : 
 He still pursues with holy gaze 
 
 And consecrated chrysms 
 Their upward lead; unrivaled there. 
 
 He claims those realms his own: 
 Tho prest of need he lordly bears 
 
 As if he ruled alone. 
 
 64 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 No sun renews for second tests 
 
 The races first begun, 
 But still pursues of Primal Force 
 
 Vast distances unwon. 
 
 The leech and snide achieve by rounds 
 
 And rounds of repetitions : 
 Kind Gods provide kind cessions for 
 
 Such quarter-deck positions. 
 
 4 
 
 Must man ascend thru disciplines, 
 
 Tho signally defeated? 
 All good offend by languid moods 
 
 As o'er and o'er repeated? 
 
 Must he, attired of dignities. 
 
 Return godlike returns? 
 Of virtue fired, retorch his shrines 
 
 Where alien incense burns? 
 
 That Primal Force is pledged to guide 
 
 Him back to normal places 
 Thru upward course, averse of pride, 
 
 To meet exalted races; 
 From sources' Source adorns him with 
 
 The rationale of graces ; 
 Repeats, per force of love of him, 
 
 Most cardinal embraces. 
 
 6s 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 5 
 
 And light accrues athwart his path 
 
 To justify the plan, 
 Since godlike thews thru eons urge 
 
 This God-empiric man; 
 So that he hymns with recklessness, — 
 
 With scant regard for sorrow, — 
 Fore-handed trims the edge of grief 
 
 For gladness and to-morrow. 
 
 What furies urge to labors vast, 
 
 Titanic, stunned and curbed? 
 What powers sane contrive to shape 
 
 And poise the sane result 
 Where boon and bane are fused or foiled 
 
 By agencies occult? 
 Beneath what scourge of driven slave. 
 
 With purpose undisturbed, 
 Does he engage where conquest's fields 
 
 Are fiercely sought and won? 
 
 Himself a sage or fool for time 
 
 And sphinx to gaze upon ; 
 Or both, as they may wit, by whim 
 
 Or prayer or platitude 
 Of choice, to flay or praise him for 
 
 His labors high or crude? 
 Should he array as ill or good 
 
 Earth's restless interlude? 
 
 66 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 7 
 
 Must he go eke from brevity 
 
 Existence bare and lean? 
 May he not seek continuedness 
 
 With high and courtly mien? 
 
 Or, in the coup of battlements, 
 
 Must he be cast within 
 Debris to hew, as best he may, 
 
 Unequal tilts with sin? 
 
 May he not test ? may he not dare ? 
 
 With violence assault 
 The crown and crest of everywhere 
 
 To spoil the throne of fault? 
 
 May he not speed of friend and foe 
 His judgment, godHke, keen? 
 
 Ah, he may plead at every court 
 Where love may intervene. 
 
 Since finite powers of frailty are 
 
 The imps that hamper him. 
 Can time's brief hours recoup the toils 
 
 That cause his brain to swim ? 
 
 8 
 
 Mirwayle, Mirwayle, in strange duress, 
 
 A signal voice is heard! 
 Why not curtail thy tariffs ere 
 
 Dire potencies are stirred? 
 
 67 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 The paths of stars scarce symbolize 
 
 The stages he must know, 
 Nor ether bars his distances 
 
 As zoneless ages go. 
 
 The morning hymn of infancy, 
 As sung of human chords, 
 
 Must seraphim remotest toils 
 That thrill remote rewards. 
 
 Condensed, refined, remodeled for 
 
 A thousand times, his toils 
 Of heart and mind must channel down 
 
 The years their autumn spoils. 
 
 That he were wise were well : and so 
 
 He loiters not abroad 
 Beneath foul skies as if the sport 
 
 Of chance or child of fraud. 
 But must be wooed : with greed he haunts 
 
 All coverts low and high, 
 Till he has sued the wraiths of wit, 
 
 Of woodland and of sky. 
 
 The fauns and terns of forest-wilds, 
 With witching call and blow. 
 
 Where moss and ferns in native dells 
 In fragrant tresses flow, 
 
 68 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Are piping to his willing ears 
 Thru chorust lutes and lyres, 
 
 Till song falls thru a wilderness 
 Of golden fluted choirs. 
 
 The blues bend down, the stars peep thru 
 
 The whirr of airy wings, 
 Till wood and town but echo back 
 
 What Nature wildly sings ; 
 Enshrine regards for harmony, 
 
 In music undefiled. 
 Till all the bards of all the songs 
 
 Have spoken medleys wild. 
 
 Enrapt of this, remote and nigh, 
 
 Are rushing wildly thru, 
 The nodes of bliss, till chord and flute 
 
 And throat are strung anew: 
 Past all control of inner fires. 
 
 These rhapsodies entrance. 
 Till heart and soul of orchestras 
 
 Become the utterance. 
 
 lO 
 
 O it were sad to chase a fool. 
 
 Like hob-nob pendulum, 
 From good to bad ; a nondescript 
 
 That time may thread and thrum; 
 
 69 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Recurring curse and toy balloon 
 
 Of vital human mystery, 
 A universe that emptiness 
 
 May brand as vacant history. 
 
 O it were joy without alloy, 
 With nature wild and free, 
 
 To be a boy in high employ 
 Of self and liberty. 
 
 A prince were he of high degree 
 Beyond that written down: 
 
 From destiny his majesty 
 Demands no other crown. 
 
 O it were rude to chafe and brood 
 Where paradise were flung ; 
 
 Tho raw and nude from bad to good 
 Inspire the mobile young. 
 
 O it were sweet to guide the feet 
 
 Of such prophetic birth 
 To heights replete with wise conceit : 
 
 'Twere paradise on earth ! 
 
 II 
 
 Sublime it were to he a man, — 
 To he the what is smitten, 
 
 To rank the sphere of self and law, — 
 To meet agreements written; 
 
 70 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 To act the part and fill the niche 
 
 Of hut one creeping thing 
 With purposed heart of harmony ; 
 
 To move and touch and cling 
 Amid despair; to long and yearn 
 
 For solitary ray 
 To lighten care, and early spring 
 
 Belated dawn to day ; 
 To serve and hear amid such pain 
 
 With eager answering, 
 Were worth the prayer of earth's own child 
 
 And her divine st thing. 
 
 XIV 
 
 Tho lurid schemes were oft proposed 
 
 For some great final good, 
 To seek what seems phenomenal 
 
 Were still misunderstood; 
 To rip the seams of wrong and bring 
 
 Incomparable good; 
 To shrive where dreams or demons lure 
 
 To fatal brotherhood, 
 Were far from base, tho meanly frowned 
 
 Upon by vision crost 
 O'er jaundiced face from pedestals 
 
 Of self-delusion tost 
 As of disgrace; yea, vastly good, — 
 
 As 'twere supremely true, — 
 
 71 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Tho fiends displace the altar and 
 
 The broken shrines pursue, — 
 So good, in deed, to-day and now, 
 
 As tempts all lofty zeal 
 Beyond the greed that satisfies 
 
 Or woos a sordid weal, 
 Tho laid to shelf where prestige is 
 
 The privilege and seal 
 Of common self, — the selfishness 
 
 Disclosed of coarse appeal, 
 Instead of wares as worthy as 
 
 The gentle Nazarene 
 In sweetness shares with animals, — 
 
 The creatures low and mean. 
 
 Sublimely good it were to be 
 
 The Man; if that, to be 
 So understood, were balanced poise 
 
 Thruout eternity. 
 
 But O to be involved and mixt 
 
 Implicitly with odds 
 Of destiny, as purposed man 
 
 To manifest the Gods, 
 Were virtue worth the struggle, toil 
 
 And superhuman shame; 
 That lowly Birth, who enters life 
 
 For life's Conclusive Aim, 
 
 72 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Unfolds to earth amid the sneers 
 
 Of public slight and blame, 
 That nations stare and wonder at 
 
 The power of his Name : 
 Benignly fair, the sacrosanct 
 
 Of passionate acclaim 
 But clarifies the taunt of toil 
 
 And bluff of indolence 
 That jeopardize all virtue from 
 
 The pedestals of sense. 
 
 Thus involute and mixt and blent 
 
 Inviolate with them. 
 Is this recruit too crude to spring 
 
 From so divine a stem ? 
 
 He forges on, unmoved of thorn 
 
 Or chafe, of taunt or sneer, 
 And lifts the brawn of worth and will 
 
 To heights of sane career: 
 He forges on, impelled and thrust 
 
 By that "far-off divine 
 Event" of dawn, when truth and right 
 
 And grace and good enshrine 
 The native haunts of righteousness, — 
 
 Inspired himself of these. 
 Him nothing daunts of mortal sense, 
 
 Chaotic drift or ease. 
 
 73 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 No chrysalis dares wilder dreams 
 
 Than he; no burning star 
 Such heir of bliss : his deeds make glad 
 
 The centuries, or mar 
 The moments flushed with hopes of such 
 
 Delight of gain, or dry 
 The cheek sore crushed with tears: man 
 doomed 
 
 To struggle once and die. 
 
 And yet with what abandon does 
 
 He press the final goal, 
 As, self-forgot, he haunts the tomb 
 
 With majesty of soul ! 
 
 As broken gleam is glanced athwart 
 
 A yearning leaf or limb, 
 So, it would seem, in last embrace 
 
 Death hies away from him. 
 
 XV 
 
 Yet doubtful haste : it mars and hurts 
 Life's best appointed hours, 
 
 Lays direful waste on fragile youth 
 And undiscovered powers; 
 
 74 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Makes havoc where all hope is bent ; 
 
 Tho prophecy foresees 
 Love's vintage there, impartial law 
 
 Foreshadows all decrees, 
 Till hurtling clouds, in menaced threat 
 
 Of death, have craped the skies 
 With somber shrouds, as lavish hint 
 
 Of most condign supplies. 
 
 Oppressive rest and startling hush 
 
 And stillness quell the storm, 
 Nor stay confest outbursts of dread 
 
 Beyond the helpless form, 
 Till passion rifts, and lengthened grows 
 
 The star-imperiled rent 
 As darkness drifts : nor bursting suns 
 
 Are born of accident. 
 
 Tho suns be born of nebulae. 
 
 Their beams no less profuse ; 
 At night or morn they spread no shams, 
 
 Attempt no subtle ruse; 
 And whether high or low of birth. 
 
 No dismal planets bar 
 The coma-sigh of mirrored light; 
 
 Sincere reflections are. 
 
 75 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 An enemy has tampered here 
 
 And here has left his sign, — 
 The destiny of imp or God 
 
 At sepulcher or shrine: 
 The law of love, the law of hate, 
 
 The law of ghost or shape ; 
 The law above, the law beneath, 
 
 Is law that none escape. 
 
 So here amid the flush of doubt 
 
 And spectral helplessness 
 Must death be rid of lambrequins 
 
 And doff illusive dress; 
 Must here appear in open court, 
 
 Illicit shames confess, 
 Tho insincere, in hapless straits 
 
 Must bear sincere duress. 
 
 A signal wrong has come to man, 
 
 Pervasive, thoro, fell; 
 It fingers strong the grip of death,- 
 
 It must have slunk of hell : 
 Accurst, condign, impersonal. 
 
 The bane of utterness, 
 
 76 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 The ample sign that here is wrought 
 
 The havoc of distress : 
 The pang of tears, the curse of woe, 
 
 The trail where Chaos trod 
 With wreck and jeers the thorofares 
 
 When men were cleft from God. 
 
 'Tis so: the frail residuum, — 
 
 The fringe that death concedes, — 
 
 Condones no wail of human hearts, 
 No cross where Jesus bleeds. 
 
 XVI 
 
 And so, transfixt of Love, the soul 
 
 Must go in realms its own ; 
 And thus, unmixt of stain, must reap 
 
 Incarnate fruitage sown: 
 Itself confess aberrant will. 
 
 Itself no accident. 
 Nor false caress of arrogance 
 
 Makes it more permanent 
 To shrive amid the wrecks of wrong, 
 
 Of idols nude and bare : 
 Bereft and rid of shameless shams, 
 
 It locks of Love somewhere. 
 
 77 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 XVII 
 
 O star-eyed lure, thou pledge of love, 
 Thou symboled trust of heaven, 
 
 Tho insecure, who may not dare 
 Accept the pledges given? 
 
 Remotest limb may sway secure 
 Where Being hangs the bout : 
 
 ''Complete in Him" : then why be rent 
 Of least concern of doubt? 
 
 And tho the child be trapt of ill, 
 
 Be nebulously driven, 
 *Tis yet beguiled of certainties 
 
 To test the spans of Heaven. 
 
 O star-eyed lure, the voice of love, 
 Nor vaster reach of reason, 
 
 Tho immature, thou embryon! 
 Thou hast thy proper season. 
 
 78 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Not yet, not yet ! too brief the tale ; 
 
 No fleeting moments measured 
 Can cycles set against the loss 
 
 In which this child is treasured. 
 
 The foe is pale : nor doubt is cast 
 Across the issues pending : 
 
 Avaunt, Mirwayle ! triumphant notes 
 Angelic choirs are blending. 
 
 And rushing back thru posted years 
 To moments madly driven, 
 
 No records lack assurances 
 
 Of Christ's momentous Heaven. 
 
 O star-eyed lure, thou child of love! 
 
 What fairer gift of Heaven 
 Could love assure? now rift and pale, 
 
 Could darker grief be given ? 
 
 79 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Momentous calm, — all stress relaxt: 
 
 'Twere Beauty void of breath, — 
 Life's brief, rich psalm in rhapsody 
 
 Is sung; they call it death: 
 Nor balm can heal, nor art dislodge, 
 
 The pallor of the dead; 
 Nor last appeal disturb repose 
 
 When once the soul were fled. 
 
 "Of dust to dust" is writ so deep 
 Imperious mortals know 
 
 That ungorged lust and insolence 
 Inflame the arrant foe. 
 
 And yet — All hail ! — this insolence 
 
 And lust abashed, forsooth, 
 Themselves must quail beneath the gaze 
 
 Of Sacrosanct and truth. 
 
 4 
 
 This hurt must have complete repair ; 
 This fiend must find his foe 
 
 80 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Within the grave, his pleasure-park 
 
 And battle-ground of woe : 
 Death there must meet Antagonist, 
 
 Invincible and strong, 
 Must there repeat his challenges 
 
 For all this lust of wrong; 
 Must there defend this insolence, 
 
 This blatant bluff recall, 
 From there ascend to victory 
 
 Or thence to hell must fall. 
 
 In last embrace Death hies away 
 
 And leaves a smile upon 
 The victor's face that thus declares 
 
 No fatal ill were done: 
 The answered call across the wastes 
 
 And borders of the wild 
 Where woes appall but hinder no 
 
 Perfection of the child. 
 
 Ah, pale Mirwayle, of good the ill, 
 
 And last impertinence ! 
 All hail, all hail to victory, — 
 
 Triumphant recompense! 
 
 8i 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Sublime the act : exultant Child 
 
 Impels the fiend below, 
 Despoiled and sackt of battle-fields, 
 
 To tangled copse of woe. 
 
 8 
 
 So hastes there seasons when he shall tell 
 The triumphs of His sorrows, 
 
 With ample reasons why grief distraught 
 Was left to other morrows. 
 
 And when there blows those breezes fair 
 
 Around Life's sacred leaven 
 No evil goes with lures of death 
 
 To breach the fays of Heaven. 
 
 The breath of Life must fan the plains 
 
 And hierarchs of glory 
 When all is rife with cherub wings 
 
 To hear the Victor's story. 
 
 O star-eyed lure, thou hint of Gods, 
 Thou ghost of predilections, 
 
 Tho ghouls abjure, the wraiths confess 
 Complying resurrections ! 
 
 82 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 XIX 
 
 No angel fraught with messages 
 
 Of peace, no cherubim 
 On wings of thought can gear one new 
 
 Ambition on to him; 
 No seraphim, upon the brow 
 
 Of dawn, with poise of power 
 And verve of Hmb, sent forth of love 
 
 To balance crucial hour 
 Of conflct dire with demonries 
 
 From darkest pits of hell, 
 Betray more fire of victories 
 
 Than comes to him : nor cell 
 Forgot thru drear, dread centuries 
 
 And then be made to know 
 That prime career of seraphim, 
 
 Or soul, would overflow 
 Its rims, could feel a vaster sweep 
 
 Of life than man, since he, 
 With wealth of weal, incarnate, throbs 
 
 With immortality. 
 
 Insatiate and urged of self, 
 Enrapt but half revealed ; 
 
 Immaculate! Carte blanche! no fane 
 Too pure, no shrine concealed 
 
 83 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 By sacred priest too holy for 
 
 His touch ; no province where 
 He may not feast desire that breathes 
 
 The atmosphere of prayer, — 
 The hoHest of hoHes try: 
 
 With all assurance go, 
 With unreprest tho reverent tread, 
 
 Into that holy place, — 
 Officiate assemblages ; 
 
 As master there bestow, 
 As on the great and good, the charm 
 
 And ministry of grace. 
 
 3 
 
 Unquenched desires on rightful quest 
 
 Lead him (as urgent swain 
 Unblushed aspires to win a love, — 
 
 Tho caution must restrain 
 Him thru a day) to sound all depths, 
 
 To clambei over worlds 
 Thru right of way, to dream where space 
 
 Her canopy unfurls : 
 Himself in love of souls, so he 
 
 Behaves in native lands : 
 He drifts above star-paths profound, 
 
 To spirit still expands. 
 
 4 
 
 Beatitude ! Delightful sphere 1 
 All spirit realms are such, 
 
 84 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Whose interludes and tendencies 
 Impart divmest touch. 
 
 Beatitude! To heed the call 
 
 And be familiar friends; 
 In life's prelude commune with all : 
 
 Be peer where All attends. 
 
 Beatitude ! And thus pursue, — 
 
 Attain the lawful plan 
 Of highest good in likeness to 
 
 The wholly normal Man. 
 
 5 
 To meet the braves on equal planes 
 
 He equal honors shares ; 
 And yet he craves distinguished place : 
 
 He seeks the toils and bears 
 The sacrifice of suffering, 
 
 He shuns no frowning cross 
 Of woe; nor cries surcease if love 
 
 Were but exposed to loss; 
 And on the beams of Spirit-Being 
 
 He leads the caravan 
 Whose chasing teams were posting goals 
 
 Before his race began. 
 
 It were sublime a man to be ; 
 To suffer and to wait 
 
 8s 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 The rush of time that goads the vulgar 
 And inflames the great. 
 
 This child of God, tho halt and blind, 
 
 And stung of guilt and need, — 
 A crumbling sod whose issues name 
 
 And justify the deed, — 
 Must rise perforce of will and choice. 
 
 Pursuant to a chase 
 With Him in course along the ways 
 
 Of purpose, worth and place. 
 
 7 
 
 Companionships of boundaries 
 
 Of outerbounds inspire 
 The thin, blanched lips of song to lift 
 
 And voice the pulsing lyre ; 
 To tempt and coy all harmony, 
 
 Assault with frenzied tone 
 The peaks of joy, till music breathes 
 
 Beyond the broad, white zone 
 Of time's vast good and echoes back 
 
 In silver-luted rimes 
 Of brotherhood across life's chords 
 
 Her golden-fluted chimes. 
 
 XX 
 
 I 
 
 O calm sweet breath of victory 
 Inflame the astonished years, 
 
 86 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Till blatant Death were ushered out 
 In choruses of jeers! 
 
 Since here no palms of anguish can 
 Despoil the least frontier, 
 
 Triumphant psalms of Being choir, 
 Enraptured, sphere on sphere. 
 
 For aye and long the light descends 
 
 To templed arks of men, 
 And turns to song and beauty in 
 
 The grottos and the biers, — 
 Transmutes the wrong, and poises right 
 
 Athwart the shrines again, 
 Till pipe and gong assuage the seas 
 
 That surge with human tears. 
 
 O startled song of Being's why. 
 
 Peal out beyond the tides 
 That, low and long, have moaned the wail 
 
 Of immolated guides ! 
 
 Resound the drill with cleft and trill, 
 With music glad and free. 
 
 Till echoes thrill resistent will 
 With wildest melody. 
 
 87 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 And, reinforced of echoed song, 
 
 Make harmonies so high 
 That stars divorced of burning wrong 
 
 For earth will leave the sky. 
 
 For once the stars belonged to earth, 
 And angels had concealed them 
 
 Behind the bars of children's eyes, 
 Whence fairy-elfs revealed them. 
 
 Now far above impartial blues. 
 
 The seraphs winging by 
 With song and love, like cherubs* souls. 
 
 Hang out the stars on high; 
 And nymphal eyes, in laughing awe 
 
 And uncontained surprise. 
 Reflect the skies aback to earth 
 
 In purely human guise. 
 
 O star-eyed lure, reproachless thing. 
 What Easters fill thy morning! 
 
 No sinecure inspired thy toils 
 Nor wrought for thy adorning! 
 
 88 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 8 
 
 What wonder then the realms of love 
 From far and wide extents 
 
 Should meet again upon the heights 
 Of cosmic parliaments? 
 
 XXI 
 I 
 
 O Godward man! Presumptuous, 
 Were not his welcomes plighted! 
 
 Whose wits may scan the Infinite, 
 If not of Him invited? 
 
 No chaos dark can culminate 
 
 This yearning upward trend ; 
 No failure mark ambitions which 
 
 Propitious Gods may send: 
 And yet 'twould seem this waif of earth, 
 
 With Eden at his back, — 
 A broken dream, — must face and claim 
 
 Earth's forests, track by track; 
 Must blaze and rack the fastnesses. 
 
 And strangely lone, must meet 
 And answer back all boundaries 
 
 Of conquest and defeat. 
 
 89 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 3 
 
 Distraught among the wrecks of time, 
 
 Revengeful sinecures, 
 What issues, sprung of sin and crime. 
 
 Must ripen immatures? 
 
 Propitiousness, the priest of time, 
 
 In judgments swift and sure, 
 Must shrive and bless uncycled rime 
 
 To have all realms mature: 
 Delightful trysts, companionships, 
 
 Delectables of mind. 
 Can wrench no twists to flaw the slips 
 
 Or balk the ill-assigned. 
 
 Yet he hath met the hidden foe, - 
 
 Undaunted torn the mask 
 That demons threat, — hath dared to know 
 
 The secrets of the task. 
 
 Where guilelessness hath met distress 
 
 Abreast unequal courses, 
 A fatal guess of wickedness 
 
 Awoke discordant forces. 
 
 Will he respond? as cattle dumb. 
 To harnest wheel be driven? 
 
 He goes beyond : he says, 'T come," 
 Before the call is given. 
 
 90 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Undaunted there himself has gone, 
 From there hath made reply: 
 
 "That he will bear remotest palls 
 Incarnate Gods can try." 
 
 No innocent, untold of arts 
 
 Of speech or eloquence. 
 Is eloquent beyond the parts 
 
 Of artless innocence. 
 
 Himself agreed of covenants, — 
 
 Integrities sublime, — 
 He wins the creed of permanence 
 
 From fickle sands of time. 
 
 The Mighty, bent of tender wail. 
 Has mocked satanic fires 
 
 To complement the far "All hail" 
 By his express desires. 
 
 Tho immature and creedless thing, 
 Vast powers urge him on; 
 
 Nor seraph sure of flight and wing 
 To higher heights hath gone. 
 
 And so enured of curse and sting 
 Thru tardy Easters drawn. 
 
 Himself is lured — a lapsing thing— 
 To last resorts of dawn. 
 
 91 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Opposed by cold, blind force without, 
 
 Whose terrors paralyze 
 The heart and hold and chill hot bloods 
 
 And daze the partial eyes ; 
 Beset within by ignorance 
 
 And doubt, whose specters loom 
 Like fiends of sin above the brow 
 
 Of overhanging doom, 
 His dirge unfolds a song of such 
 
 Wild, unaccustomed strain 
 That it resouls his faith, refires 
 
 His blood and thrills his brain 
 To keenest flights of passion, — heart 
 
 And soul : unbending these 
 Thru hapless nights he vanquishes 
 
 All realms of toil ; he keys 
 The spectral call of substances 
 
 To melody and praise, 
 He filters all forgetfulness 
 
 And rescues all decays. 
 
 7 
 
 He soars and mounts, himself forgot, 
 
 Beyond the utmost stress. 
 Nor stays, nor counts the worth of what 
 
 Is hither to success. 
 
 Tho whipt of ill and cursed of lords 
 And stunned of ignorance, 
 
 92 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Some Master- Will has touched the chords 
 And urges bold advance. 
 
 He runs abreast of all desire ; 
 
 If whim were that he creeps 
 Or worms : if prest of need or tires, 
 
 May slack but never sleeps ; 
 Foretells the course of winds and stars ; 
 
 Divines the lurking elf ; 
 He tempts the source of power and heeds 
 
 No bar beyond himself. 
 
 8 
 
 With heart afire he quarries down 
 
 Beneath the crusts of worlds, 
 Till pressing higher all central cores, 
 
 Eurekas he unfurls ; 
 With eager feet trips fearlessly 
 
 The Milky Way, pursues 
 The arching street of heaven where 
 
 The angels cast their shoes. 
 
 9 
 
 And focust light, in prodigal 
 
 Profusion, streams far out 
 Across the night and puts the ghosts 
 
 And goblins all to rout! 
 
 And wherefore Light, if yet there comes 
 Not with it or before 
 
 93 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 The power of seeing whose puny orbs 
 All provinces explore? 
 
 Or realms of Right, tho unexplored, 
 
 If souls may not adore 
 The source of Being and turn their own 
 
 Pet issues all about? 
 
 XXII 
 
 The harmonies of orchestrals, — 
 
 The ministrants of sense 
 And poesies of sound that thus 
 
 Effect Omnipotence, — 
 Weave trilogies and consonance 
 
 Of souls ; discountenance 
 The dark-browed hordes of gutterals 
 
 That writhe a tortuous length 
 Of harsh discords in sacred courts 
 
 And corridors of strength, 
 And cast glad eyes of beauty to 
 
 The wards of Providence. 
 
 And wherefore tone, without concrete 
 
 Tho labyrinthine ears, 
 Whose halls alone entrance her nodes 
 
 And act as volunteers 
 
 94 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Of mysteries whose elfish tricks 
 Have taught to leap and bound 
 
 Philosophies along key-boards 
 Of tone's substantial sound? 
 
 Or why defile those hallowed shrines 
 
 With blatant panegyrics? 
 And thus offend these gates of strength 
 
 With blistering subtonics? 
 Or pour the vile, discordant stream 
 
 Of counterpane hysterics 
 Against the trend of sullen facts 
 
 In volumes of ironies ? 
 
 Ears haste to lend their courts to faint, 
 
 Elusory harmonics ; 
 Reverberate with rhapsody, 
 
 Explosive overtures 
 Of delicate chromatics rare. 
 
 But caught of amateurs ; 
 And so attend the pleasantries 
 
 Of Chesterfield euphonies; 
 May e'en translate, by means of two 
 
 Twin gods, — the heart and soul, — 
 The tongues of hate to voices sweet 
 
 As surging rhythmics roll. 
 And thus commend discordances 
 
 To love's refined control. 
 
 95 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Tho matter shrive her portals with 
 
 The mystery of dust, 
 And death contrive to fortify 
 
 The well-defended trust, 
 Yet energy and Being surge 
 
 And leap thru films of sense 
 Till Potency reveals new charms 
 
 Thru arts of eloquence 
 And leaves Mirwayle with rue and flail 
 
 And sheer incompetence. 
 
 Such strictures knot to tendons, till 
 
 The tissues, corded grown, 
 Seem but the plot that mystery 
 
 Is guarding as her own; 
 She neither foils environment. 
 
 Nor yet retards the strife. 
 Since hindrance coils but visibles 
 
 And outerness of life. 
 
 Tho thus she numb the essences 
 
 With such repulsive crusts, 
 Mere things become more marvelous 
 
 Thru sanctities of dusts. 
 As Love despoils the wreck and bar 
 
 And wards the leech's lusts 
 Which dark Mirwayle had planned finale 
 
 Thru overmath of rusts. 
 
 96 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 5 
 
 And wherefore life if but to grope 
 
 And suffer, yield and die 
 Amid the strife and fruitlessness 
 
 Of Love's most bitter cry, 
 That breaks across tumultuous 
 
 Niagaras of grief? 
 Affords no gloss for doubt and woe 
 
 That caterwaul belief ? 
 
 6 
 
 And wherefore these ? of one, of all 
 
 Combined, without the soul 
 Whose harmonies direct and charm 
 
 And elevate the whole ? 
 Confirm the good, alarm the ills 
 
 That conscience startles hence, 
 Yet never could apostrophize 
 
 Such deadly elements? 
 
 And if the soul, then why not Him 
 
 Who widens every thrall. 
 Who gives parole to seraphim, 
 
 To stars and dust and all ? 
 
 xxni 
 
 I 
 
 A child at play ! "Thou kept of Him !" 
 The Man of masteries 
 
 97 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 No more can say : thou tender ward 
 Of sleepless destinies ! 
 
 Tho sparrow fell in direst straits 
 And yielded breath by breath, 
 
 When strikes the knell of struggle, God 
 Gives notice of its death. 
 
 Should nymph adore. He waits the while 
 
 In patient contemplations ; 
 Or angel pour its nectars out, 
 
 Returns He salutations. 
 
 Should child of His, however small. 
 Have chance of hint of sorrow, 
 
 Naught surer is that He regards. 
 Nor waits the dawning morrow. 
 
 No seraph more than thou or that : 
 He waits for each for aye ; 
 
 He tramps before untempered feet 
 And guides the paths to day. 
 
 Sublime it were to be that child: 
 Reach out and up and on: 
 
 Receive, confer, and strive and win, 
 Where seraphim are gone. 
 
 98 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Must virtue keep herself unstained 
 
 From woridliness in vain? 
 And roses weep their odors out 
 
 As weeps the careless rain? 
 
 Shall One not weep the ruthlessness 
 
 Of anguish, woe and pain ? 
 Shall He not sweep away death's last 
 
 Congestions of the brain? 
 
 No life-blade reap for sheaves fair fields 
 
 Of living, golden grain? 
 No blithe bo-peep make glad returns 
 
 From stem Mirwayle's domain? 
 
 Shall youthful glee but echo back 
 
 For aye the caverned scream 
 Of destiny, oblivious 
 
 Of darkness and of dream? 
 
 Shall Love lie dumb with joys unspoke; 
 
 Or, finding tongue and voice, 
 Shall he not come thus moved and bid 
 
 Life-passions to rejoice? 
 
 Shall flowers bloom for naught, or dews 
 
 Thus fruitless water them 
 Upon the tomb of innocence — 
 
 Love's own Jerusalem? 
 
 99 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRW^ YLE 
 
 XXIV 
 I 
 
 Ah, tender thing! no ill can fall 
 
 Across yon cloudless sky 
 That does not bring a counter-throb 
 
 To Him who stands so nigh. 
 
 Came weal, came rest, came Fancy on 
 The dawn of Love's caress, 
 
 Came as Love's guest to-day ; nor comes 
 To-morrow's laziness. 
 
 Go time's behest, since Fancy nigh 
 
 Awaits the inner bar, 
 Go try the test of hearts : she lives 
 
 Where Love's affections are. 
 
 So, thread by thread, she gathers in, — 
 Each golden strand agreeing, — 
 
 Till shred by shred all webs are kin 
 In Love's exhaustless Being. 
 
 The shuttles flew, yet no one knew 
 That soon the webs were ended ; 
 
 How Mirwayle blew the dole and rue 
 Where she her marvels blended. 
 
 100 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Her toils were brief ; nor lingered she 
 
 When early ebbed the tides ; 
 Unfurled belief, unfurled the sails 
 
 Since master Sailor guides. 
 
 4 
 
 But is she gone? She visits with 
 
 The cherubs where the hills 
 Are lit with dawn, and morning, flushed 
 
 With love, her life fulfils. 
 
 She trips along yon fairy lands ; 
 
 She soon must hasten here 
 With cherub song since now she breathes 
 
 Angelic atmosphere. 
 
 O cherub song and cherub self, 
 
 And many, many more, — 
 A fairy throng must come with her 
 
 To see so weird a shore. 
 
 5 
 Too soon, too soon ! Ah, pain ! There came 
 
 To-morrow's hastiness: 
 At dawn 'twas noon ; she lingers there 
 
 With more than time's caress. 
 
 Now native there; congenial since 
 
 Congenial friends are known 
 As sweet and fair as Fancy is: 
 
 She tarries with her own. 
 
 lOI 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Gone weal, gone zest, gone Fancy with 
 
 The dawn of sweet caress, 
 Gone as Love's guest for aye, and man's 
 
 Immortal upwardness. 
 
 Seraphic thing ! seraphic spheres ! 
 
 Seraphic comradeships ! 
 There cherubs sing seraphic years 
 
 With more than cherub lips. 
 
 Gone leal, gone best, gone Fancy with 
 
 Seraphic loveliness ! 
 Gone as His guest to-day to His 
 
 Imperial address. 
 
 8 
 
 Ah, tender thing no ill betides 
 
 Thee now, imparadised: 
 Nor song can sing that does not thrill 
 
 With Cavalry and Christ. 
 
 9 
 
 A flower blew : wide sections bore 
 
 Afar the sweet perfumes ; 
 It died and drew new films of life 
 
 Thru Nature's busy looms. 
 
 102 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 10 
 
 A symbol lies in every thought, 
 
 In tiny bud and bower; 
 Immortal ties are broke and bound 
 
 In Nestor and in flower : 
 And here we find a tender thing 
 
 Of so divine a strain, 
 So unconfined of mortals spheres, 
 
 That nothing seems in vain. 
 
 II 
 
 Seraphic poise, so held of Love 
 
 Amid life's helplessness, 
 Must reap the joys referred to man 
 
 When kindred souls caress. 
 
 Must fix no low unworthy gauge 
 
 On love's unmet desire; 
 Must early know abandonments 
 
 To reaches higher and higher. 
 
 Must rest the worths of mortal love, 
 Immortal Love must know; 
 
 Must come to birth's exalted spheres 
 That deeper love may flow. 
 
 12 
 
 Why sing to me of yesterdays? 
 Of some to-morrow's visions? 
 
 103 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 This present hour hath love's defense — 
 
 Is love's appeal to Heaven; 
 No urgency has sped decays 
 
 To chafe to-day's Elysians : 
 Why shrink and cower at that or thence 
 
 With love now lover's leaven? 
 
 But is she gone? How can it be? 
 
 Undreampt, abrupt, unwarned: 
 Withdrawn ! withdrawn ! by whose decree ? 
 
 Is Heaven more adorned? 
 
 So, love agrees that all is well, — 
 
 That tho he start and quail 
 There come decrees from down and dell 
 
 That reassure the frail : 
 That flagellate the imps of hate, 
 
 Where death and doom prevail ; 
 That reinstate the love of mate, 
 
 Yet curse and blight Mirwayle. 
 
 13 
 
 O sing to me of yester-love, 
 Of gladness free and wild ; 
 
 Of memory, sunlit with all 
 The sweetness of the child : 
 
 "An infant crooned on natal breasts, 
 New mother-joys transpired; 
 
 104 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 But ere the booned and brief, rich years 
 Are flown these hopes retired, — 
 
 The common lot and heritage 
 Of all ; and so are tears ; 
 
 They dim and blot the visions of 
 The fairest human years. 
 
 **Has Fancy flown for aye, and left 
 Love's sacred emblems strewn, 
 
 As chance had thrown its mockeries, 
 Athwart love's early noon? 
 
 "This child of my imperfect love, 
 
 This fairy dream of all. 
 May yet tell why the frail are hurt 
 
 And innocence can fall 
 Beneath the frown of sudden death, 
 
 And leave love quivering 
 And stricken down of sob and sigh 
 
 For such a tiny thing. 
 
 "The smitten rose a fragrance yields 
 
 Which, hitherto unknown 
 And hastening, goes not hence until 
 
 More bounteous yield is sown. 
 
 "And so does she, abiding in 
 
 The sacred flow of love's 
 Delightful sea, become the soul 
 
 Of what she early proves ; 
 
 105 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 And leaves life freighted with memories- 
 
 The real joys, forsooth, 
 That men have dated in love's best-known 
 
 Meridian of youth. 
 
 "But rose and tears shall weave the webs 
 
 A-most of love's perfumes ; 
 Shall thrill the years, enrich the toils 
 
 For fairer paths and blooms. 
 Till fancied tastes materialize 
 
 In lofty forms of touch. 
 And barren wastes of barren life 
 
 Have fruited overmuch. 
 
 "O star-eyed lure the ecstasies 
 
 Unloose, no palms confine 
 For naught is truer — Thy life has palmed 
 
 Its sweetness off on mine. 
 
 "Tho passion sweeps the jewel from 
 
 The casket, — torn away, — 
 'Tis Heaven reaps this tender thing 
 
 To bloom beyond decay. 
 
 "No fairer bud could blossom there 
 
 On life's integral stem, — 
 For vital blood had mixt and blent 
 • Soul-pigments in the gem. 
 
 "No lily-white more fair, nor nymph 
 Had yet to earth been given 
 
 1 06 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 So kin to light as she; no realm 
 More right to claim than Heaven. 
 
 **A storm-brewed breath had swept across 
 
 The fragile bud and left 
 The blanch of death, and parent stems 
 
 Are broken and bereft. 
 
 "Mirwayle, Mirwayle! What reckless scorn 
 
 Of weak and fragile things ! 
 What sadder tale could herald bear 
 
 Than what thy message brings? 
 
 ''Yet thru the nards of broken stems 
 
 And buds of fragile parts, 
 Unnamed regards have cherubs cast 
 
 Athwart the broken hearts. 
 
 ''And these abide to nourish, charm 
 And fare the heart and breast, 
 
 That bear the tide of over-joy 
 That love has here confest. 
 
 "O star-eyed lure, diffuse all charms. 
 So used of skill and sweetness. 
 
 Where fays assure of life and love 
 The pledge of thy completeness ! 
 
 "Has Fancy flown for aye? Such sweet 
 
 Aromas never fade: 
 Tho rudely blown of ghost or shade. 
 
 The sweet are sweeter made. 
 
 107 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 ''Go weal, go best, go Fancy on 
 The wings of ether-light; 
 
 Go try the crest of day, go where 
 The Star of Life is bright. 
 
 "Some by and bye — and wafted on 
 
 The wish and prayer and sigh, — 
 Above the sky, — where kinships meet 
 
 In realms imparadised, — 
 There she and I will meet, and know 
 
 Before the feet of Christ, 
 Thru His reply, such tokens still 
 
 Are ours ; nor can they die. 
 
 "No less can she since Love is by ; 
 
 And Love and she grow young 
 Eternally: her song of troth 
 
 Is still but partly sung." 
 
 14 
 
 The fervency of yester-love 
 
 Is still to be imparted: 
 O sing to me of morrow-love, — 
 
 Unseen, unheard, unhearted: 
 The unexplained of hope deferred, 
 
 Of love's incessant prayer, 
 Tho unattained, but prophesies 
 
 That Love is waiting there. 
 
 108 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 But who can sing of what is yet 
 
 To be Love's future capture? 
 Or voice and bring the first asset 
 
 Of love's immortal rapture? 
 O sing to-day of what does now 
 
 Eclipse enraptured morrows : 
 "This angel fay has taught me how 
 
 To vanquish future sorrows/' 
 
 XXV 
 
 Should shadows fall, then, high above 
 
 Them must the sun appear ; 
 Should griefs appall, love yet must shed 
 
 For absent love a tear, 
 With such delight that grief itself 
 
 Becomes a sacred thing, 
 Tho shrouded night should startle time 
 
 With Death's unshielded sting. 
 
 Remorseless fang, the tooth of Time, 
 Revengeful, swift and sure; 
 
 What issues hang of love sublime 
 To poise the immature! 
 
 Aye, he does dare the hidden foe. 
 Undaunted wrecks the mask 
 
 :09 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Where furies glare that he may show 
 Love's universal task. 
 
 Enraptured there, himself must call, 
 
 Himself demand reply; 
 And he must bear the utmost pall 
 
 That signal virtues try. 
 
 Must he respond? as cattle dumb, 
 To harnest wheel be driven? 
 
 He goes beyond : he says, "I come," 
 Before the call is given. 
 
 Himself agreed in covenants, — 
 In masteries sublime, — 
 
 Has won the creed of permanence 
 From fleeting sands of time. 
 
 Without offense, but coaxed of all 
 
 The grooms of suffering 
 And tolerance, capricious mates 
 
 Could there concoct and bring, 
 Such boundless speech appeals to all 
 
 There is of God in him: 
 With royal reach he swings the gates 
 
 For all, — and core and rim. 
 
 no 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Reck not with griefs; nor hoard the joys 
 
 Wide countershafts of souls 
 Reshape beHefs, but guard employs 
 
 Where life matured controls. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 The child at play : the man at toil : 
 
 And neither recks of ease : 
 Each counts his day supremely blest 
 
 Whose own achievements seize 
 The labored boon, the passion prest 
 
 Of known and stern pursuit; 
 Or vanished soon, scant difference 
 
 Of what attainments boot. 
 
 Each goes again : each serves and finds 
 
 His own in what he tries 
 To do for men: and habit scores 
 
 The life : no habit dies. 
 
 Each there entreats : each frames supreme 
 
 Concern in what he gives 
 To whom he meets : the action curbs 
 
 The life : no fantom lives. 
 
 Ill 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 No right can fail, and soon or late 
 
 The last respect shall owe; 
 No hurt entails, and soon or late 
 
 The least erect shall go ; 
 No truth can pale, and soon or late 
 
 The full effect will show; 
 No ill prevails, and soon or late 
 
 The Gods project it so ; 
 No love need wail, and soon or late 
 
 The last elect shall know; 
 Mirwayle, Mirwayle! ah, soon or late 
 
 Thou shalt detect thy foe ! 
 
 To feel, to know, to-day and now, 
 To breast the maelstrom so : 
 
 No wit can go beyond the vow 
 That love and troth bestow. 
 
 No thing is barred companionships, — 
 
 The tombs denied : Christ gave 
 The love and marred the ill, — the love 
 
 Survives : it has no grave ; 
 Yet evil goes to sepulture : 
 
 Forgotten ill forgets ; 
 Who sanely knows the Easter-love 
 
 Escapes profound regrets. 
 
 3 
 
 In vain? The rose is frail, yet no 
 Affront of death can blast 
 
 112 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 What God thus chose of tenderness 
 And sweetness unsurpast. 
 
 In vain ? Not so : Love knows how love 
 With rapid Death hath run; 
 
 From chase with woe, across all wastes, 
 What signal triumphs won. 
 
 No life is vain: no struggle, since 
 The child receives and gives 
 
 The glad refrain of joy: since Love 
 Awoke all being lives. 
 
 No life is vain, however brief, 
 
 However great with ills ; 
 Tho doomed to pain, life justifies 
 
 The mission it fulfils. 
 
 Since countless stars have cleft and sung 
 
 Their first wild song, since then 
 Across the bars of time and space 
 
 Glad hearts commune; and when, 
 *Mid rack and jar, are borne and shaped 
 
 Triumphal archs of men 
 What rift can mar, disturb or shift 
 
 Life's architrave again? 
 
 And can it be that Death forgets, — 
 So relegates "All hails" 
 
 113 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 To destiny that helplessness, 
 
 Innately, wrong assails? 
 That He, from hence, who cried : "Forgive/ 
 
 Must heed the lavish wails 
 Of penitence? That innocence, 
 
 As strong or frail, avails ? 
 
 Avaunt, avaunt, ah, wild Mirwayle ! 
 
 Thou ghost of pallid ^hade, 
 Tho shadows haunt and mar the tale, 
 
 Thy mockeries are stayed. 
 
 5 
 All hail ! all hail ! the sovereign Prince 
 
 Triumphant, kingdom come: 
 All demons pale at His approach, 
 
 Till demonry is dumb. 
 
 All hail, all hail to victory. 
 
 Exultant, — core and rim : 
 No ghost can veil the vast immense, — 
 
 A soul in love of Him. 
 
 No Scourge entails : no hurt endures : 
 
 The sacrifice replies 
 In holy grails : the universe 
 
 Is glad: it testifies. 
 
 The All-High-Priest is love, — all love; 
 The odds of all delights 
 
 114 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Are all increased: all souls mount up 
 Since Love inflames all heights. 
 
 Must Love entail no disciplines, 
 
 No martyrdom, no trial? 
 Heed no far-wail of broken hearts 
 
 And shrive no nectar-vial? 
 
 Engage no tilt with Love itself, 
 
 No master-spirits try? 
 Where Death has built his rendezvous, 
 
 No last Mirwayle defy? 
 Nor meet flat charge of turpitude 
 
 Where loss with harm converges ? 
 Should taunt enlarge to Calvary, 
 
 Feel naught of crimson surges? 
 Arraigned of guilt, that death and doom 
 
 United testify, 
 And hurl no hilt of long offense 
 
 To frailty closer by ? 
 
 7 
 All hail, all hail to suffering. 
 
 Endurance and denial! 
 No frail Mirwayle can veer life's course, 
 
 Nor force life's master-dial! 
 
 8 
 
 Thru all the toil, thru all the Scourge, 
 Thru all the haunts of grief, 
 
 115 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Thru all turmoil, thru all the joy. 
 
 Thru all the dumb belief; 
 Thru barrenness, thru all the wrong, 
 
 Thru all unheeded wails, 
 Thru all excess of imp or fiend 
 
 To where the good assails ; 
 
 Thru threat of powers, thru drift and sham, 
 
 Thru grasping after breath, — 
 Strange gift of ours, — thru that far hope. 
 
 Thru most exclusive death; 
 Thru guilelessness, thru banter, charm. 
 
 Thru all that love bequests. 
 Thru patient stress, thru all the rasp 
 
 Of anxious trial-tests; 
 
 Thru all the flings, thru all the ebbs 
 
 Of aim, and high rehearse, 
 Thru all that brings the surging of 
 
 A moral universe; 
 Thru all the blunder, thru all the shock, 
 
 Thru all the reach of mind. 
 Thru all the wonder, thru all the man, 
 
 The being undefined; 
 
 Thru every reed, thru every thought, 
 
 Thru every revelation. 
 Thru every creed, thru every cross, 
 
 Thru every aspiration 
 
 ii6 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Of every soul, or soon or late, 
 There comes the one desire, — 
 
 To grasp the whole, to stand and call 
 For universes higher. 
 
 Thru all the throes, thru all the sighs, 
 
 Thru all the dire convulsions, 
 Thru all repose, thru all the choice. 
 
 Thru all the sheer expulsions 
 There comes to all, or low or high, 
 
 In ranks of all denial 
 The over-call: "No field is won 
 
 Without heroic trial." 
 
 Thru all deceits, thru all obscure 
 
 Desire, thru all decay, 
 Thru all defeats, all good to all 
 
 Forgiveness must convey. 
 
 Thru all earth's strife perpetual 
 
 Desire aspires to be 
 The soul of life — the choice of Love 
 
 Thruout eternity. 
 
 xxvn 
 
 All hail ! all hail ! O Christ the Lamb ! 
 And Heaven signals so! 
 
 117 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Mirwayle, Mirwayle! no ill can damn 
 Where crimson fountains flow ! 
 
 All hail, all hail ! To compensate 
 
 The caterwaul of woe 
 No good can fail : and soon or late 
 
 Abjectest death shall know. 
 
 All hail, all hail! To justify 
 The crimson cross of Christ, 
 
 All ill must fail : as far, all good 
 Must be imparadisedl 
 
 ii8 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 What God thus chose of tenderness 
 And sweetness unsurpast. 
 
 In vain ? Not so : Love knows how love 
 With rapid Death hath run; 
 
 From chase with woe, across all wastes, 
 What signal triumphs won. 
 
 No life is vain: no struggle, since 
 
 The child receives and gives 
 The glad refrain of joy : since Love 
 
 Awoke all being lives. 
 
 No life is vain, however brief, 
 
 However great with ills ; 
 Tho doomed to pain, life justifies 
 
 The mission it fulfils. 
 
 4 
 
 Since countless stars have cleft and sung 
 
 Their first wild song, since then 
 Across the bars of time and space 
 
 Glad hearts commune; and when, 
 'Mid rack and jar, are borne and shaped 
 
 Triumphal archs of men 
 What rift can mar, disturb or shift 
 
 Life's architrave again? 
 
 And can it be that Death forgets, — 
 So relegates "All hails" 
 
 113 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 To destiny that helplessness, 
 
 Innately, wrong assails? 
 That He, from hence, who cried : "Forgive/ 
 
 Must heed the lavish wails 
 Of penitence? That innocence. 
 
 As strong or frail, avails? 
 
 Avaunt, avaunt, ah, wild Mirwayle 1 
 
 Thou ghost of pallid ^hade, 
 Tho shadows haunt and mar the tale, 
 
 Thy mockeries are stayed. 
 
 5 
 
 All hail ! all hail ! the sovereign Prince 
 
 Triumphant, kingdom come: 
 All demons pale at His approach, 
 
 Till demonry is dumb. 
 
 All hail, all hail to victory, 
 
 Exultant, — core and rim : 
 No ghost can veil the vast immense, — 
 
 A soul in love of Him. 
 
 No Scourge entails : no hurt endures : 
 
 The sacrifice replies 
 In holy grails : the universe 
 
 Is glad : it testifies. 
 
 The All-High-Priest is love, — all love; 
 The odds of all delights 
 
 114 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Are all increased: all souls mount up 
 Since Love inflames all heights. 
 
 Must Love entail no disciplines, 
 
 No martyrdom, no trial? 
 Heed no far-wail of broken hearts 
 
 And shrive no nectar-vial? 
 
 Engage no tilt with Love itself, 
 
 No master-spirits try? 
 Where Death has built his rendezvous, 
 
 No last Mirwayle defy? 
 Nor meet flat charge of turpitude 
 
 Where loss with harm converges ? 
 Should taunt enlarge to Calvary, 
 
 Feel naught of crimson surges? 
 Arraigned of guilt, that death and doom 
 
 United testify, 
 And hurl no hilt of long offense 
 
 To frailty closer by? 
 
 7 
 
 All hail, all hail to suffering, 
 
 Endurance and denial! 
 No frail Mirwayle can veer life's course, 
 
 Nor force life's master-dial! 
 
 8 
 
 Thru all the toil, thru all the Scourge, 
 Thru all the haunts of grief, 
 
 115 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Thru all turmoil, thru all the joy. 
 
 Thru all the dumb belief; 
 Thru barrenness, thru all the wrong, 
 
 Thru all unheeded wails. 
 Thru all excess of imp or fiend 
 
 To where the good assails ; 
 
 Thru threat of powers, thru drift and sham, 
 
 Thru grasping after breath, — 
 Strange gift of ours, — thru that far hope. 
 
 Thru most exclusive death; 
 Thru guilelessness, thru banter, charm. 
 
 Thru all that love bequests. 
 Thru patient stress, thru all the rasp 
 
 Of anxious trial-tests; 
 
 Thru all the flings, thru all the ebbs 
 
 Of aim, and high rehearse. 
 Thru all that brings the surging of 
 
 A moral universe; 
 Thru all the blunder, thru all the shock, 
 
 Thru all the reach of mind. 
 Thru all the wonder, thru all the man, 
 
 The being undefined; 
 
 Thru every reed, thru every thought, 
 
 Thru every revelation, 
 Thru every creed, thru every cross, 
 
 Thru every aspiration 
 
 ii6 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Of every soul, or soon or late, 
 There comes the one desire, — 
 
 To grasp the whole, to stand and call 
 For universes higher. 
 
 Thru all the throes, thru all the sighs, 
 
 Thru all the dire convulsions, 
 Thru all repose, thru all the choice, 
 
 Thru all the sheer expulsions 
 There comes to all, or low or high, 
 
 In ranks of all denial 
 The over-call: "No field is won 
 
 Without heroic trial." 
 
 Thru all deceits, thru all obscure 
 
 Desire, thru all decay. 
 Thru all defeats, all good to all 
 
 Forgiveness must convey. 
 
 Thru all earth's strife perpetual 
 
 Desire aspires to be 
 The soul of life — the choice of Love 
 
 Thruout eternity. 
 
 xxvn 
 
 All hail ! all hail ! O Christ the Lamb ! 
 And Heaven signals so! 
 
 117 
 
THE SCOURGE OF MIRWAYLE 
 
 Mirwayle, Mirwayle! no ill can damn 
 Where crimson fountains flow! 
 
 All hail, all hail ! To compensate 
 
 The caterwaul of woe 
 No good can fail : and soon or late 
 
 Abjectest death shall know. 
 
 All hail, all hail! To justify 
 The crimson cross of Christ, 
 
 All ill must fail : as far, all good 
 Must be imparadised! 
 
 ii8 
 
Al 10 »^»' 
 
/ll