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LANTERNS IN GETHSEMANE 
 
Lanterns in Gethsemane 
 
 A Series of Biblical and Mystical Poems 
 
 in regard to the Christ in the 
 
 Present Crisis 
 
 BY 
 WILLARD WATTLES 
 
 Neglect no small beginnings, 
 Despise no village dearth: 
 The influence of Nazareth 
 Went out ta all the earth. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 68i FIFTH AVENUE 
 
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 Fv^ 
 
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 Copyright, igi8, , 
 By E. p. button & COMPANY 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 NOV 26 1918 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 S)CLA5()8392 
 
To My Father and Mother: 
 
 If there be aught of good within this book 
 
 it is they who have dreamed the dream 
 
 of passion and of faith 
 
Acknowledgment is made to the following publications in 
 which poems from this book have been printed: the Inde- 
 pendent, the Outlook, Contemporary Verse, the Christian Reg- 
 ister, Harper's Weekly, the Bookma^t, the Smart Set, the Lyric, 
 the Midland, the University Kansan, the Graduate Magazine, 
 the Springfield Republican, the Kansas City Star, the Emporia 
 Gazette, Seven Arts, the Masses, and Poetry, A Magazine of 
 Verse. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 One hesitates to preface such a book as this with ex- 
 planation. In many ways it were better to let the work, 
 such as it is, meet its public without introduction. But 
 the peculiar personal nature of the verse must, even un- 
 willingly on the author's part, be made clear for the sake 
 of those to whom some such explanation is due. 
 
 The poems of this book are the result of an experiment 
 in living which grew out of two memorable experiences: 
 one, the reading at about ten years of age of Rev. Charles 
 M. Sheldon's "In His Steps"; the other the reading seven 
 years later of "Each in His Own Tongue" by William 
 Herbert Carruth. 
 
 The first of "Lanterns" to be written was Gethsem- 
 ane" in 1909, follov/ed two years later by "The Wil- 
 derness." Such a poem as "Upon the Vatican" was 
 planned for five years before being set on paper in the 
 summer of 19 18, and many others were in process of 
 preparation for as long a time. 
 
 The material of the book has been drawn from the 
 New Testament and from the lives of the author's friends 
 and parents. Hence, in a certain sense he has been a 
 reporter. Though conscious for long of certain ten- 
 dencies toward a religious and spiritual awakening in 
 Europe and America now patent to all observers, the 
 author's method of composition has been to search con- 
 stantly backward along the trail of memories for the 
 living and breathing Christ as revealed most authen- 
 tically in the heart. Later, he often has discovered that 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 his findings were not original, but were substantiated by- 
 history and theology. Perhaps his own conceptions may 
 have deepened during these years of seeking ; witness the 
 two poems, "Ere Joseph Came to Build" and "He Speaks 
 in Threes," the first composed in 191 1, the second two 
 years later. On the other hand, "The Builder" was writ- 
 ten before George Moore had printed "The Brook Ker- 
 ith" or Frank Harris had called the author's attention 
 to Harris's "Miracle of the Stigmata," neither of which, 
 in spite of its superior artistry, seems quite satisfactory 
 in its interpretations. The writing of "Upon the Vat- 
 ican" preceded the reading of any delineation of St. Peter 
 by Edgar Lee Masters. 
 
 "An Ode for a New Christmas" was published in the 
 Christian Register, December 18, 1913. In view of the 
 nature of the stanzas on the War this fact may be of 
 some interest. All the poems are personal, many of 
 them being no more than transcriptions of letters from 
 the author. "The Bells of Death" was written for his 
 father; "He Speaks in Threes" for his sister; and 
 "Against I\Iy Second Coming" for a member of the Mac- 
 Dowell Colony whose son had enlisted at the beginning 
 of America's participation in the Great War. It was in 
 the quiet haven of that colony in memorial to Edward 
 MacDowell, Peterborough, N. H., that eight years of 
 these Vv^ritings were gathered together during the sum- 
 mer of 19 1 7, and the ninth year planned. 
 
 It is not desirable here to reveal all the sources of this 
 verse. Yet those v*^ho may recognize within it something 
 of their own most gracious memories may welcome the 
 assurance that this book is merely the record of a life 
 blunderingly spent in the attempt to follow "in His 
 steps," and cheered and strengthened by the brave hearts 
 of the 
 
 "Millions who humble and nameless 
 The straight hard pathway plod." 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 Perhaps if that assurance could be set in words, it 
 might be found in this extract from a letter to a friend* 
 now a member of the American Expeditionary Force in 
 France, and written some two years ago: 
 
 Searching for truth fearless of consequences and open 
 to every influence that could lead me to the truth, I have 
 at last emerged from much darkness into a belief in these 
 things and a knowledge that to me they are true: 
 
 That there is a conscious imnnortality before and after 
 this present existence, and that there are means of cofjp- 
 munication open with those who now or at some other 
 time have or will have the power to live. 
 
 That those who wish immortality may have it, 
 
 That Jesus has taken a human part more than once in 
 the ordering of history and in the forming of men's 
 minds, 
 
 That this immortally projected personality of Jesus is, 
 so far as / am concerned, different from the personality 
 of any other man in history, and as such is known to me 
 as the Christ, 
 
 That the Christ is the Christ because he has so longed 
 for immortality that the power has been given him of 
 assuming a personal relationship with all who call upon 
 him for his love, 
 
 That he teaches men and women to-day, as yesterday, 
 to do his work. 
 
 That he uses all sorts of people to his purpose, and 
 that he is using me and those I love. 
 
 That he has revealed himself to me in unquestionable 
 ways, both in my heart and in the faces of those whom 
 I have loved, 
 
 That they in their turn have looked behind my face 
 and seen the Christ, 
 
 That God is love, and that any man may have the 
 
 * Lieut. Robert C. Westman, killed in action in France, Aug. lo, 
 1918. 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 attributes of God who learns to serve intelligently his 
 fellow-men, 
 
 That those attributes are wisdom, tolerance, courage, 
 loyalty, service — and immortality. 
 
 That other people are trying as sincerely and as 
 prayerfully as I to do what is right. 
 
 That there is no mistake I make which Jesus does not 
 understand, 
 
 That as I wish others to love me, so do they ask for 
 my faith and affection, and will know it when I love 
 them. 
 
 That he is most truly the son of God who most faith- 
 fully performs this the will of God, to serve and to keep 
 faith cheerfully. 
 
 WiLLARD Wattles. 
 Camp Funston, Kansas, 
 Sept. i8, 1918. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 • 
 
 PACE 
 
 Lanterns i 
 
 ^ Of A Sabbath 2 
 
 ^BuT A Great Laughter ? 3 
 
 / Come with Me 4 
 
 ,^ I Am That I Am 6 
 
 ^^Two Thousand Years Ago 8 
 
 ^ Youth Apologizes 9 
 
 yRETURN 12 
 
 "Against My Second Coming ..." . . . . 15 
 
 ^An Ode for a New Christmas 17 
 
 ^Gabriel 22 
 
 ^ Ere Joseph Came to Build 23 
 
 ^ Mary, Mary 27 
 
 ^He Speaks in Threes 28 
 
 ^^'The Wise Men's Star 32 
 
 ■■<r The Bells of Death 33 
 
 ^There Was a Man 39 
 
 ^A Page from America's Psalter 40 
 
 ^ Which? 42 
 
 ^Abel and Cain . .44 
 
 g The Stranger 46 
 
 xi 
 
xii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Fragments 47 
 
 y The Wilderness 48 
 
 ^ A Secret 60 
 
 Jericho 61 
 
 There Would Be No Wonder 63 
 
 ^ Wine of Cana 64 
 
 ^Mary 67 
 
 Martha 68 
 
 ^ The Lady Magdalen 70 
 
 ^ Absolution 71 
 
 PiSGAH 72 
 
 ^Prayer 73 
 
 ^ In His Own Country 74 
 
 Let Not Their Doubts 73 
 
 ^ Out of the Desert . .80 
 
 I Now, Walt Whitman 81 
 
 ^The Loom Z2, 
 
 ^The Mystic 84 
 
 ^Peter, the Rock 85 
 
 ^Assurance 86 
 
 ^ Acceptance 88 
 
 ^TheWay 89 
 
 ^FoR One Who Goes 90 
 
 ^.MlZPAH 91 
 
 ^olomon 93 
 
 ^Unparadised 94 
 
 For a Mountain Hostelry 95 
 
 4r 
 
CONTENTS xiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ^The Gardener 97 
 
 •Creeds 98 
 
 An Epitaph for the Devil 99 
 
 •Prayer to the Devil 100 
 
 y, Nonchalance loi 
 
 .JThe Money-Changers 102 
 
 y Olive-Wood 103 
 
 /John 104 
 
 ^Gethsemane 106 
 
 ^Faith . . . .109 
 
 /Golgotha no 
 
 ^ The One 113 
 
 •■They Have Not Lowered Him 114 
 
 ^The Builder: I 115 
 
 ^ The Builder: II 116 
 
 ^ Upon the Vatican 124 
 
 ^Dawn 130 
 
 ^ The Seventh Vial 131 
 
 ^Armageddon 138 
 
 • Patins 139 
 
 ^ An Incantation 143 
 
 ^ Not by Sleep May Waking Deem 146 
 
 ^ Sometimes ' . . 147 
 
 /Affirmation , . . . ' 148 
 
 ^The Cycle 149 
 
 /Witness 15° 
 
 / Have I Been So Long Time with You? . . . .151 
 
LANTERNS 
 
 If you should one day find those eyes upon you 
 Whose dear wan lids once closed in Galilee 
 The night you lowered that still too lovely Burden 
 From one high cross on shadowed Calvary; 
 
 If you should know Whose hps are sweet with languor, 
 Whose hands still hold release from old distress, 
 And sudden rise and follow when He calls you 
 To your own cross and agony no less; 
 
 If you should hear the voice that whispered to you 
 Tender and strong, with not a single change 
 From that good-by when lanterns woke the Garden, 
 Shatter your soul — would it seem very strange? 
 
 [t] 
 
OF A SABBATH 
 
 The little lonely souls go by 
 Seeking their God who lives on high 
 With conscious step and hat and all 
 As if on Him they meant to call 
 In some sad ceremonial. 
 
 But I who am a pagan child, 
 Who know how dying Plato smiled, 
 And how Confucius lessoned kings, 
 And of the Buddha's wanderings 
 Find God in very usual things. 
 
 Mohammed and the Brahma led 
 Me past the gateway of the dead, 
 And even Astarte's temple dim 
 No less than Raphael's cherubim 
 Have somehow led me back to Him. 
 
 I would not take from them their faith 
 That somehow Jesus rose from death, 
 Yet strange for me the Crucified 
 Stands almost breathing by my side 
 Who do not think he ever died. 
 
 [2] 
 
BUT A GREAT LAUGHER 
 
 They do me wrong who show me sad of face, 
 Slender and stooped, gentle, and meek, and mild, 
 As if I were forever reconciled 
 To sting of hate and bitter of disgrace. 
 I was youth's lover, swiftest in the race. 
 Gay friend of beggars, brother to the wild, 
 No lily-featured, woman-hearted child. 
 But a great laugher, confident of place. 
 
 Shepherd and fisher, sailor, carpenter, 
 
 I strode the hills and fellowed with the sun, 
 Knew arms and bosoms and slow steady eyes, 
 Felt each new April through my body stir, — 
 Then, when 'twas over, and the loving done, 
 Even with a smile I slew my enemies. 
 
 [31 
 
COME WITH ME 
 
 There is a road that ventures down 
 Through many an olive-shaded town, 
 By many a nook where I have seen 
 The Jordan willows turning green, 
 By many a well where women wait, 
 By many a barred, unopened gate, 
 All the way to a hill-side house 
 And a night beneath the olive-boughs. 
 
 And I have strangely come upon 
 A walker in the windy dawn 
 Who has not found, where'er he went, 
 The hand or face that brings content 
 Within a shy and shady space, 
 But turned away — I knew his face 
 For one I summoned long ago; 
 I wonder I remember so! 
 
 I have called him. He will come 
 With youth within him like a drum. 
 And strength within him, warm, unspent, 
 To fold peace in his arms, content. 
 And faith within him like a star. 
 And feet to wander with me far — 
 I would not show to every one 
 That long gray pathway in the sun. 
 
 I would not show to every one 
 The road that I have come upon. 
 The road that I at last must ride 
 With a ragged ass-colt by my side; 
 [4] 
 
COME WITH ME 
 
 For he shall know, and he shall see 
 The hill-side house of Bethany, 
 And I will teach him many things 
 Of purple old rememberings: 
 
 Death and love beside me sit, 
 But few there are who know of it. 
 
 tsl 
 
I AM THAT I AM 
 
 I DO not murmur I am thrown 
 Upon life's empty years, 
 For I who walk with death for friend 
 Trade not with fears. 
 
 I smile to look at other folk 
 Who smile to look at me: 
 They little know what eyes I have 
 Nor what they see. 
 
 For I have smiled in Nineveh, 
 And I have loved in Tyre, 
 And I have seen fair Helen's face 
 Fade in the fire. 
 
 When Cleopatra watched the work 
 Of poison, I was there; 
 Her fingers felt my breast grow cold, 
 Her harp player. 
 
 I sought three arrows that were sent 
 The friend of Jonathan, 
 And I have seen the moon stand still 
 In Ajalon. 
 
 From everlasting I am come, 
 To everlasting go, — 
 The pageant of the centuries 
 Can work no woe. 
 [6] 
 
/ AM THAT I AM 
 
 The galley-master beat with whips 
 And fed me broken bread; 
 I faced him fairly eye to eye 
 Till I was dead. 
 
 I drank the hemlock cup of sleep 
 And bade my friends be still; 
 I hung between two lonely men 
 Upon a hill. 
 
 On other worlds I set my feet 
 And visit other stars, 
 And other spears have pierced my side 
 And left strange scars. 
 
 I do not bend to men of scorn 
 Nor m-easure what they say, 
 For all their generations are 
 But as a day. 
 
 I look behind the hearts of men, 
 I see their secret thought, 
 I speak in ways they later learn 
 Were meaning-fraught. 
 
 And yet I am. Could you but wish. 
 Believe, and touch my hand. 
 You need not wait till after years 
 To understand. 
 
 [7] 
 
TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO 
 
 (To a member of the Young Men's Christian Association.) 
 
 Could you have welcomed me 
 
 In flat-roofed Bethany, 
 
 Or climbed the way to death 
 
 Out of gray Nazareth, 
 
 Or later stood beside 
 
 Me when my body died, 
 
 Watching in a tomb 
 
 The spiritual bloom 
 
 When souls come back to see 
 
 Their own Gethsemane 
 
 With wounded hands and side 
 
 That will not be denied, — 
 
 Would you have risen then 
 
 Witnessing to men 
 
 That I had died in vain 
 
 Who now have come again? 
 
 Still with eager face 
 You track my deathless grace, 
 Yet with what little faith 
 Thinking I died in death. 
 As if so old a book 
 Could tell you how I look 
 Even when I bend 
 Like an accustomed friend 
 Bearing on my lips 
 Love's mute apocalypse, — 
 Two thousand years ago, 
 And still you do not know! 
 [8] 
 
YOUTH APOLOGIZES 
 
 SOMETHING ON THE SUBJECT OF PROPHETS 
 
 Out of the cloud of baffled questionings 
 The Truth some unexpected moment springs, 
 So near at hand that her familiar face 
 Is hidden by the wonder of her wings. 
 
 And some there are who laugh the prophet down, 
 
 Contending him no prophet, but a clown: 
 
 Ah, long ago it was in Nazareth 
 
 The people stoned a prophet from the town. 
 
 For he, they said, was much an egotist 
 Claiming Jehovah kept an earthly tryst, 
 As if God cared for carpenters, so they 
 Tongued their pale cheeks and politely hissed. 
 
 "How should it be," I hear it said among, 
 "He should know anything who is so young?" 
 Ah, God, could I prevail to move thy will, 
 I pray Thee, be no evil on my tongue. 
 
 How should it be that anything is known 
 Except that those who long to see are shown; 
 How long is life for those who fear no death, 
 And oft caressing, have familiar grown? 
 
 I swear that I could break between my hands 
 The bubble Time like sea-kelp on the sands 
 And laugh, and fling the fragments to the sea 
 Where some gray crag for centuries upstands. 
 
 [9] 
 
YOUTH APOLOGIZES 
 
 Youth is a fiction from the sophist sprung, 
 Age but a cry from the muezzin flung, 
 Calling the Faithful a moment unto prayer — 
 There is no death for those whose hearts are young. 
 
 And if Age be so fleeting, then in sooth, 
 Who shall define the limits unto Youth? 
 Be man immortal to remember things. 
 Perhaps some pre-existence taught him truth. 
 
 "Ah," but you say, "the young make much ado 
 Declaring they divide the false from true; 
 Yet when their dreams are dead like withered flowers 
 They shall indeed be wise as I or you. 
 
 "And all the sum that we have lived to learn 
 Is that hearts ache and eyes burn, 
 And there's an end for every lovely thing. 
 The day that's gone will nevermore return. 
 
 "The bird has flown and left the song unsung; 
 We touched a flower, the petals dropped in dung" 
 — I may be mad, my masters, and you wise: 
 Haply you may forgive me, I am young. 
 
 Leave youth to bluster, knowing he will creep 
 Sobered at last to his eventual sleep, 
 And he shall lie lower than root of tree 
 And snows above him shall drift deep. 
 
 [10] 
 
YOUTH APOLOGIZES 
 
 Leave youth his dream, and let him think it true; 
 Have you forgotten how you dreamed it, too? 
 Smile, if you will, but smile indulgently, 
 As gently as your elders smiled at you. 
 
 And if youth set his lance at some mad wheel 
 Or charge at meal-bags in excess of zeal, 
 Remember, Don Quixote seemed a fool — 
 But unto Sancho Panza he was real. 
 
 ["] 
 
RETURN 
 
 Wise man, wise man, 
 Fingers and thumbs, 
 Which is the way 
 That Jesus comes? 
 
 Wise man, wise man, 
 Rabbi, priest, 
 Did you ever see a man 
 On such a poor beast? 
 
 Wise man, wise man, 
 I saw a lame child. 
 And when he came by 
 Jesus smiled. 
 
 Jesus, Jesus, 
 How do you come? 
 "To those who are halt 
 And blind and dumb." 
 
 My knee was sprung 
 And I couldn't see, 
 So I climbed up high 
 In a jujube tree. 
 
 Jesus, Jesus, 
 What are you worth? 
 "The sun and the moon 
 And the little round earth." 
 
 [12] 
 
RETURN 
 
 Jesus, Jesus, 
 
 Sing me a song. 
 
 ^^I can't stop now 
 
 For the road's too long." 
 
 Jesus, Jesus, 
 
 Go along, Lord; 
 
 My knee is straight 
 
 As the governor's sword. 
 
 Jesus, Jesus, 
 Go along before 
 To a high house 
 With a silver door. 
 
 But I'll stop first 
 To clean my feet, 
 And then sit down 
 In the chimney-seat. 
 
 And Jesus will laugh 
 And say it's good 
 That I've moved into 
 His neighborhood. 
 
 When he lights his pipe 
 I think he'll scratch 
 The Morning-Star 
 For his safety match. 
 [13] 
 
RETURN 
 
 We'll drink all night 
 From a good brown cup 
 And not go to bed 
 Till the sun comes up. 
 
 Wise man, wise man, 
 Fingers and thumbs, 
 This is the way 
 That Jesus comes. 
 
 [14] 
 
^AGAINST MY SECOND COMING 
 
 "Against my second coming," 
 
 Christ, the Lord, hath said, 
 "Provide with driven thunder 
 
 The nations for my bed, 
 Make plain the path before me 
 
 With lightning from the skies 
 When unbelief shall open 
 
 And all the dead arise. 
 
 "With patience beyond wisdom 
 
 And knowledge beyond grace 
 I have prepared my peoples 
 
 At last to bear my face; 
 By many intimations 
 
 The final truth is known, 
 And all the lone discover 
 
 They never were alone. 
 
 "Against my second coming," 
 
 The good Lord Jesus saith, 
 "Ten million young men lightly 
 
 Shall charge the gates of death, 
 Until, grown still with wonder. 
 
 They know how far they came 
 Through many habitations 
 
 Eternally the same. 
 
 "Behold, I knit the nations 
 With instant words of light, 
 
 And on the clouds of heaven 
 My winged feet are bright; 
 [IS] 
 
AGAINST MY SECOND COMING 
 
 Beneath the seas I smite them, 
 And through the mountain's core 
 
 The splendor of my coursers 
 Escapes the granite door. 
 
 "The shining page my hill-side, 
 
 I need no special sea, 
 For fishing-boats are paper 
 
 And oceans, Galilee. 
 I walk no more among you 
 
 On brown and lovely feet, 
 But yet my hand is on you. 
 
 And still my lips are sweet. 
 
 "My perfect consummation 
 
 Ye cannot put aside. 
 I am the living Jesus 
 
 Who will not be denied; 
 The moment of your anguish 
 
 When all seemed dead but death, 
 I drew you to my bosom," . . . 
 
 The good Lord Jesus saith. 
 
 ti6] 
 
AN ODE FOR A NEW CHRISTMAS 
 
 While others write that thou art born, O Christ, 
 Let me, with large security of faith. 
 Write, Thou art dead! 
 
 Dead and forgotten, and in a cold tomb lying 
 By some lone hill outside Jerusalem 
 While the dear mold of thy forsaken body 
 Long, long ago has fed the twisted stem 
 Of some wild olive's wind-whipped diadem 
 Tossed by the tempest, — hear the great winds crying, 
 Christ, the Christ is dead! 
 
 Dead and forgotten, though the world's cathedrals 
 Trembling with music, blossom into stone. 
 Up the mighty transept of the lonely ages, 
 Censers swinging, see the nations pass 
 Sceptered and mitred, with the keys of heaven, 
 Shifting shadows in a darkened glass. 
 Gleaming croziers, children crimson-stoled, 
 Glory of garments, emerald and gold. 
 
 What a wondrous show they make. 
 
 Singing, Jesus, for thy sake. 
 And thou upon the hill-side lying stark and lone. ' 
 
 But hark, a terrible thunder is borne on the wings of 
 
 time, 
 I he earth is shaken with battle and black with the can- 
 non's breath, 
 A hundred gory legions leap at the throat of death, 
 And a million million corpses rise 
 With flaming eyes 
 
 [17] 
 
AN ODE FOR A NEW CHRISTMAS 
 
 As the walls of beleaguered cities are swarmed in the 
 
 name of Christ 
 And dead men drop from the battlements as fast as the 
 
 living climb. 
 
 The seas are swollen with ship-wreck and mighty arma- 
 das sweep 
 For one little golden moment the heaving floor of the 
 
 sea, 
 Then sudden the heavens are loosened and down to the 
 
 fathomless deep 
 The shattered bones of nations are drifting aimlessly. 
 The Cross and the Crescent in conflict, emperor, pope, 
 
 and king. 
 Broadsword hacking at broadsword, arrow and lance 
 
 and sling, 
 Bayonet and javelin, sword and scimitar. 
 And the scythe of Death the reaper, who laughs when 
 
 the nations war. 
 The trumpets and drums of onslaught, the standards 
 
 streaming red, — 
 Christ is dead! 
 
 No more the fillets white 
 Press the pale brow of Phrygian prophetess. 
 Nor from Apollo's shrine breathes forth the oracle di- 
 vine. 
 The gods of Greece and Rome are one with Nineveh and 
 Tyre; 
 And the red fire, 
 
 [i8] 
 
AN ODE FOR A NEW CHRISTMAS 
 
 The dang of cymbal and of brass, 
 Affright no more the silences of night. 
 
 Behold them pass, 
 Isis and Demeter, jovial lacchus, 
 Buddha, Mohammed, Odin, Priapus, 
 And dumb Astarte with the haunting eyes; 
 
 The woods are silent to their mysteries, 
 The shadows echoless. 
 
 And must Thou, too, follow their little fame, 
 Christ of Golgotha and Gethsemane, 
 Is all the beauty of thy spirit shame, 
 When men can murder in thy gentle name 
 And raise thy cross to shelter blasphemy? 
 Blasphemy of God and thou His messenger, 
 To drone in churches to their perfumed pews 
 Empty hosannas on the Christmas morn 
 When in vile brothels and in shameless stews 
 Some unacknowledged, birth-cursed Christ is bom 
 Of some sad madonna whom the good folk scorn. 
 
 Not in far-off and lonely Bethlehems 
 
 Is that low manger in the naked shed; 
 
 Not by the walls of dead Jerusalems 
 
 Lies the scarred body and the weary head; 
 
 But here, each day, with hands that clasp and cling, 
 
 With faces stained by foul disease and shame, 
 
 With bodies bowed beneath the cross they bring, 
 
 Walk the sad Christs, hungering and lame. 
 
 [19] 
 
AN ODE FOR A NEW CHRISTMAS 
 
 Here on the western horizon a waiting people lies, 
 Born of the centuries' travail, swaddled in prophecies, 
 Sprung from the loins of Europe, flushed with the 
 
 strength of youth; 
 Lead us, O Christ, to know thee in spirit and in truth. 
 
 Not through the empty mazes of old theology. 
 Hiding thy simple message in intricate words, 
 Throning thee in the heavens, turning your life to a 
 
 creed. 
 You who knew as a brother the call of a brother's need. 
 Who knew the glory of serving, of facing with fearless 
 
 eyes 
 The shame of a dead religion's charneled hypocrisies. 
 And drove in thy flaming anger with a whip of knotted 
 
 cord 
 The shrinking slaves from the Temple, who buy and sell 
 
 their Lord. 
 
 Come to us, O Jesus, come as you came of yore 
 
 When you walked with Andrew and Peter by the Gal- 
 ilean shore. 
 
 And called to the young men fishing, as I to the hearts 
 of men. 
 
 Is it strange that the loving Jesus should wander his 
 world again? 
 
 Out of the daily sacrifice of the mother for her children, 
 Out of the tender love of the father who faces a certain 
 
 death that his little ones may live, 
 Out of the wisdom of old people who see more than 
 
 their grandchildren see, 
 
 [20] 
 
AN ODE FOR A NEW CHRISTMAS 
 
 Out of the innocent questions of babies, and the beauti- 
 ful strength of young men, 
 
 Out of the purity of young girls and the wide-eyed won- 
 der of their dreams, 
 
 Out of the deep love of comrades who never tell their 
 love, 
 
 Out of all that is true and strong and divine in the weak- 
 est and most sinful, 
 
 I will lead the hearts of men to know the real Jesus, 
 
 The lover of men and of women and of little children, 
 
 The interpreter of all the loveliness of earth and of a 
 life not lived alone; 
 
 And in America I shall found for him a new and ever- 
 lasting kingdom. 
 
 The kingdom of human love in the democracy of kind- 
 ness; 
 
 And then with the voice of thanksgiving and with the 
 sound of world-rejoicing 
 
 We shall cry aloud — all of us — new-found comrades and 
 lovers, 
 
 "Christ is not dead! 
 He liveth and worketh in common with God the Father, 
 And his dwelling-place is in the homely heaven of the 
 human heart!" 
 
 [2lJ 
 
GABRIEL 
 
 Mary walked in the daisies 
 Along a winding way; 
 The wind came by and touched her, 
 Her face was glad and gay; 
 Something nested in her heart, . . . 
 The sad Christ smiled that day. 
 
 For God had grown so lonely 
 
 On his throne, 
 
 He put his staff on his shoulder 
 
 And set off alone; 
 
 Among the scornful brambles 
 
 He laid his head on a stone. 
 
 Mary bore the daisies 
 Home in her two hands, 
 Daisies of white petals 
 For all the lonely lands, 
 That will not fade or vanish 
 While the arch of Heaven stands. 
 
 [22] 
 
ERE JOSEPH CAME TO BUILD 
 
 Child of my love, oh little tousled head 
 And warm cheek nestling near thy mother's heart, 
 Around us now the black Egyptian night 
 Fringed with the breathless, shining host of stars 
 Folds us in silence as I strain thee here 
 Against my happy side, — I am content. 
 
 Only the sighing of the deathless winds 
 From out the desert spaces, and the sands 
 That lash round Joseph's ankles, plodding slow 
 With gray, bent head and patient, sandaled feet 
 So still I scarce can hear him through the dark 
 Searching the road, the donkey's taken breath 
 That shakes me with its steady rise and fall. 
 And thou, dear restless sleeper, at my breast 
 With thy half-smothered wail so sudden stopped, 
 These only break the brooding quietness 
 That lurks in shade along our stealthy path. 
 
 Before us stretch the dim and dusky realms 
 Whence Moses led the Chosen long ago 
 Into the land which now his children flee — 
 On this same road, perhaps, where Benjamin 
 Wept that the cup w^as found within his sack 
 Unknowing whose the love that placed it there, 
 And turned him back from home to Joseph's arms. 
 To Joseph's arms, — aye! — not such as lead 
 Before me, even now, my halter-rope; 
 For he was young and strong, with smooth round arms 
 
 [23] 
 
ERE JOSEPH CAME TO BUILD 
 
 That must have clasped with rough sweet tenderness 
 So close it hurt, his brother's slender form, — 
 Such arms as cling about my body still 
 Until I swoon remembering, — hush my babe. 
 
 And so we pass across the desert sands, 
 The child and I, our beast, and Joseph there 
 With patient steps, my husband whom they gave. 
 My husband, — yes, for women must obey; 
 They are not wise to choose what suits them best. 
 And he had birth, — besides, a steady trade, 
 Was sage and sober, just and kind to rule 
 Within his house, — what more could woman wish? 
 
 Ah yes, what more? Oh, timid new-made wives 
 With frightened eyes that plead for gentleness, 
 And hps that, half-reluctant, yield their store 
 Of rifled sweetness to a ruthless strength 
 That crushes them with kissing, fearfully 
 When ye set out upon that nameless road 
 All women travel with the man they love. 
 Whence there is no returning, can there be 
 One thing ye pray to find along the way, 
 Which, if ye find not, turns to mockery 
 All that ye hoped for in your setting-out, 
 Until your heart dies in you . . . ? 
 
 And yet he loves m.e, — as a father would 
 A fragile child that plays about his house 
 And must be humored for her cheeriness 
 Lighting the dark old rooms that else were sad. 
 
 [24] 
 
ERE JOSEPH CAME TO BUILD 
 
 So, even I into his lonely heart 
 Stole like a sunbeam when he came to build 
 My father's flat-roofed house of mighty beam 
 Upon the olive-slope; and when 'twas done, 
 In payment, asked to take me as his wife. 
 And since he came of David and the kings, 
 And builded well, and owned himself a house 
 A maid would joy to govern, — I was wed. 
 
 He has been kind, — too kind sometimes, I think — 
 Until I pity his dumb loneliness 
 That married spring to winter, selfishly. 
 As did his withered grand-sire long ago 
 Warming his clammy palms in younger hands, 
 When he had done with singing and with love. 
 And I have tried, — oh God, how have I tried! — 
 Still to be faithful, for he could not know 
 Of all I left behind to follow him. 
 
 But now as through the soft and noiseless sand 
 We flee along the path that camels tread. 
 Past the dim huddled camps of caravans 
 Into the desert spaces where the stars 
 Seem far away like ghosts of burnt-out lamps 
 That haunt the dusky chambers of the night. 
 There breathes upon the shadow-freighted wind 
 The clear insistent summons of a voice 
 That calls me back along the way we come. 
 
 [25] 
 
ERE JOSEPH CAME TO BUILD 
 
 Nay, God, I will not hear it, — close my ears, 
 Pity Thy handmaid, — see, I draw my veil 
 Tighter about me, shutting out the wind 
 And the voice with it. 
 
 (No, I am not cold, 
 Joseph, my husband, not so very tired. 
 And yet I shivered; let us hasten on.) 
 Again his voice! It creeps through every stop 
 Calling my soul; and yet I will not heed. 
 
 (Faster, still faster, Joseph; dawn will come 
 When we can flee no longer; faster still 1) 
 
 I cannot shut it out; nay, let it call 
 And I will hear it though it slay my soul. 
 Will feel his arms about me, and his breath 
 Sweeter than cassia buds upon my cheek, 
 With lips that pluck my very life away 
 Leaving me more than life, his deathless love 
 That nestles in my bosom, even now. 
 With baby fingers minding me of him. 
 
 So, let me dream my happy little dream 
 As in the days ere Joseph came to build. 
 Sure, God will not begrudge it, — only that; 
 And Joseph? Well I know not; God is just. 
 
 [26] 
 
MARY, MARY . . . 
 
 There was a son whom Mary had, 
 A little thoughtful lad, 
 Whose heart held many a whispered word 
 That might have made him mad. 
 
 Mary, Mary, where is he 
 Who walked so slow and soberly? 
 I saw a shining face like yours 
 Once in Galilee. 
 
 [27] 
 
HE SPEAKS IN THREES 
 
 Joseph, my husband, I pray you, come, 
 Throw down the adz and leave the little shop. 
 I have great news, something, my love, I dreamed 
 Or else I saw it. Here where the step is smooth 
 Worn with the faithful passing of your feet, 
 Let us sit down, for I have news to tell. 
 
 Such news, my lover, oh, such good, good news. 
 
 Look at me, Joseph, read it in my eyes. 
 
 Surely you see it; nay, but you're a man. 
 
 And men are slower — See, you know, you know. 
 
 Is it not strange that love can be so still? 
 One moment earth is humdrum — nothing more; 
 Linen to whiten, floors to sweep and sand, 
 Butter to mold and olives to be culled. 
 And oh, the weary ache of back and knee — 
 Then a great rush of flaming splendid wings, 
 A face that blinds one with strange loveliness, 
 A voice that conquers all abyss of space. 
 And earth has leaped to heaven at a bound. 
 
 And so, my Joseph, I had set the curd 
 To harden in the window-ledge and turned 
 Back to the table where I pressed it out; 
 I heard a swallow underneath the eves, 
 I felt the vineyard musk blow in the door, 
 My heart stopped beating, — and I knew. 
 
 [28] 
 
HE SPEAKS IN THREES 
 
 Oh, I have longed, my Joseph, for this hour, 
 And wondered, sometimes, if my flesh could bear 
 The great sudden leaping of my soul, feared almost. 
 — That was before I knew you, years ago, 
 When I was yet a slender, wide-eyed girl 
 Cuddling wee, strange-made babies at my breast, 
 With knobs for noses and round funny ears, 
 Little gourd-babies, but I loved them so. 
 
 Then I grew older, and went to the well, 
 And brought the heavy, earthen pitchers home, 
 But scarcely heard my mother's gentle voice 
 Bidding me hasten, for I dreamed I felt 
 My arms grow burdened with a load that clung 
 And pressed my bosom with a tiny hand. 
 
 And then you came ... I stood beside the door 
 And saw you turn the little narrow street. 
 Dusty with travel, but your eyes were true. 
 I loved you, Joseph, as I love you now. 
 For you have been so patient and so kind, 
 So strong to lean on and so gentle when 
 You could have been so cruel. Surely, God 
 Has walked beside me like a tender friend, 
 And I have known His mercy, dear, in you. 
 
 I do not think that God is far away. 
 They say that Abram knew him as a friend, 
 And Moses saw him on Mount Sinai, 
 And Samuel heard him calling in the night: 
 
 [29] 
 
HE SPEAKS IN THREES 
 
 Surely, he does not leave us all alone; 
 I think I could not live if God were not. 
 Even with you, my Joseph, there are times 
 I do not miss you as I ought to do, 
 Yet if God left me, Joseph, I should die. 
 
 See, here I lean upon you and my lips 
 Meet yours; your hand is welded with my own, 
 Yet are we separated though I yearn 
 To press you closer. Love, we cannot meet. 
 There are strange bars that God has set between 
 All lovers since he made the first to love. 
 Only through Him who moves within us both 
 Are we made one who else were sundered flesh; 
 And God is nearer to the two of us 
 Than I to you or you to me. 'Tis best, 
 For were we mingled, water into wine. 
 We should forget, in loving, God who loves. 
 
 He speaks forever in the threes of life, 
 Husband and wife and little clinging child, 
 And in our baby, Joseph, God comes down. 
 Something, my husband, is there yet to do, 
 Together we shall labor, you and I, 
 And he shall know, our little laughing son, 
 How near to heaven is a perfect home. 
 
 We cannot shield him from the storming years, 
 We cannot feed him but with homely fare, 
 And he must stagger through life's sweat and pain; 
 Yet have we something Caesar could not buy, 
 
 [30] 
 
HE SPEAKS IN THREES 
 
 Nor haughty Herod in his purple ease, 
 And he shall have it richly without stint, 
 The perfect tribute of unselfishness, 
 Our love, my husband, and his heritage. 
 
 And he shall know it when he is a man 
 How God can stoop and walk with men in love, 
 And lean upon them with a friendly arm. 
 And mingle with earth's lovers when they cling, 
 Till every baby is a child of God. 
 And he shall call all men to walk with God, 
 Women and children shall he lead and love. 
 Strong with great hands that clasp men to his heart. 
 Pure with white faith that makes the blind to see, 
 Melting the deaf ear with his tenderness. 
 Till men shall hear the very speech of God, 
 Knowing our son's hand on them, and his eyes 
 Deep with all knowledge, remembering our love. 
 
 So shall we do our little in God's world. 
 Not by mad deeds that set the hills ablaze 
 And thunder down the avenues of time; 
 But just by loving with a love so great, 
 So pure and strong and sweet and wonderful 
 That God himself will stoop and call it good; 
 I think there is much blessing in a home. 
 — ^Now I am weary, Joseph; help me in. 
 
 [31] 
 
THE WISE MEN'S STAR 
 
 I FELT the arms of little children clinging 
 About my throat a short, sweet while ago; 
 
 Within my heart I heard a father singing 
 The white, shy song that I may never know. 
 
 Dear chubby hands that dimple like pink roses 
 When dew-drops kiss them, as I bent to kiss, 
 
 What haughty-sceptered emperor imposes 
 Allegiance half so free and sure as this? 
 
 Blue baby eyes that open wide with wonder 
 And pure as just unfolded pansies are, 
 
 What spell is this ye put a strong man under, — 
 Is this the secret of the Wise Men's star? 
 
 I32] 
 
THE BELLS OF DEATH 
 
 HOW THE THREE WISE MEN FOLLOWED THE STAR 
 
 Son, I will heed you, hearken while ye may, 
 My strength is ebbing, shadows close me in, 
 And I can hear the women wailing low 
 Beside the entrance; hear the camels breathe 
 Heavily, and feel your arm beneath my head. 
 
 You shall be sheik of many-herded hills, 
 Lord of the desert, brother of the wind. 
 Master of swarming, dusky-throated tribes 
 Almost as numberless as are the sands 
 And twice as restless — but thy arm is strong 
 And God hath blessed thee when he made thee wise. 
 
 Yea, I will tell thee how I saw the child 
 On that strange journey to Jerusalem, 
 In those glad days when I was young and dreamed, 
 And saw great visions flash among the stars, 
 And felt the throbbing of the desert's breast. 
 And thrilled in touching all the friendly hands 
 That leapt to meet my clasping, swift and sure — 
 Such friends as thy Balthasar is to thee. 
 Such dreams as flushed the beauty of thy face 
 One night gone by, when I hung o'er your bed 
 In the dim watches when you fell asleep. 
 Wearied with tending him who gave thee Mfe. 
 So even I, your father, crept away 
 [33] 
 
THE BELLS OF DEATH 
 
 From this dull couch that holds me prisoned now, 
 And crouched beside you for one thankful hour, 
 Blessing that God who gave to me in age 
 To see my body's image live again. 
 
 Damp was your forehead, and your breath was 
 warm, 
 Smiling your lips, and peaceful still your face 
 Where the dark lashes of your eyelids drooped 
 Over your cheek, and ruddy health sat crowned 
 Upon his dusky throne of sandalwood. 
 Then was my soul uplifted and I cried: 
 "I fear not now the parting of the ways, 
 I go to meet the shadows; but I live 
 Body and soul, in him I leave behind. 
 No death can shroud the eyes that children close." 
 
 Yea, I must hasten, hold me to your breast 
 Until your manhood feeds my dying flame. 
 Only so long as needs to end the tale. 
 Even now I hear the jingling bells of Death 
 Riding his camel through the silent sand 
 Nearer and ever nearer — hold me close. 
 
 Twas in those days of wonder long ago 
 There gleamed one night within the desert sky 
 In white magnificence, a stranger star 
 Than ever yet had herded on the hills 
 Of heaven; white its fleece and knit of thread 
 Spun of the moonbeams, shining through the night, 
 [34] 
 
THE BELLS OF DEATH 
 
 Ever and ever eastward beckoning 
 Until I rose and followed, drunk with awe, 
 Shimbar, the camel, racing with the wind, 
 And I upon him fronting toward the star. 
 
 Afar behind me stretched the ghostly sands, 
 Billow on heaving billow like the sea 
 Stilled in its restless motion changelessly. 
 Bathed in the mystic glamor of the star, 
 Ever before me stretching seemed the way, 
 Leaving the gray horizon streaked with dawn, 
 Climbing the long, white pathway of the star, 
 Until I scarce had noticed at my side 
 The swift, light running of two camels more, 
 And knew Balthasar followed after me, 
 Selekmar with him, in their eyes the star. 
 
 So through the night ; but when the great red day 
 Climbed in his splendor over the eastern sands. 
 Paling the whiter beauty of the night. 
 We slept beneath the slender-shading palms 
 Where in a tiny hollow bubbled up 
 The spring that vanished in the amorous air 
 As that white star within the arms of day. 
 Then on again as soon as set the sun 
 Behind us, w^eltering all the world in fiame, 
 Onward and ever eastward toward the star 
 That nightly seemed to stoop more near to earth 
 And those three faces flushed and eager-eyed. 
 Until one morning when the dawn was gray 
 [35] 
 
THE BELLS OF DEATH 
 
 We saw the mighty-walled Jerusalem 
 With her great temple like a priceless pearl 
 Hid in the swarthy bosom of a queen, 
 Gleam marble-white from out the dusky town. 
 
 And yet the star still beckoned past the gates 
 Ever to eastward, drooping lower now 
 Until it blazed so strangely terrible 
 It seemed well-nigh to hem us round about 
 In radiance of thousand flashing wings, 
 And witness of unseen, observing eyes. 
 But when we stopped a passing morning flock 
 Of goats the herdsman drove to sacrifice, 
 He could not see the glory of the star 
 Although it shone more brightly than the sun. 
 Fang-toothed he was, with knotted, close-clutched 
 
 hands, 
 And busy eyes that traveled with his flock 
 So ceaselessly he never saw the sky. 
 Onward he plodded up the dusty road. 
 And left behind the clamorous, bleating wind; 
 He thought us mad to go in search of stars. 
 
 The east was paling, but the star stood clear 
 And drove the sun back with a flaming sword. 
 Then to the southward fled we with the wind, 
 Until at last we cam^e to Bethlehem, 
 Shut in the jealous hills that shoulder close. 
 And in a stable found the new-born babe. 
 
 [36] 
 
THE BELLS OF DEATH 
 
 Closer, my son, strength of my body's strength, 
 Warm with the youth that once my pulses throbbed — 
 The jingling bells ring clearer through the night, 
 And Death rides swift across the shifting sand. 
 
 But what saw we, sons of the desert wind, 
 In that white, pain-transfigured mother face 
 That brought us kneeling? Only her great dark eyes 
 And feeding breast, and weary smile of pride. 
 And yet together, shoulder to shoulder there. 
 We knelt in silence, worshiping the child. 
 
 Then through me surging swept a wave of awe, 
 Cresting my reason with wild harmony 
 And wordless music of low plaintiveness. 
 Sweet as the lullabies that mothers croon — 
 Only, the stars were singing, and the sun 
 Struck out ten thousand molten notes at once 
 From the vast circle of his wheeling moons. 
 And through the corridors where planets flame 
 Rolled the long reverberations, echoing. 
 
 I was at one with chaos when God's word 
 Formed from the void Creation's crystal shell. 
 Within me leapt my immortality; 
 Back to His love I stretched me through my sires. 
 And knew that forward through the centuries 
 My children's sons would round the circle home. 
 God stirred within me and I knew His face 
 
 [37] 
 
THE BELLS OF DEATH 
 
 Shining upon me with the self -same peace 
 That smiled in slumber from your perfect lips 
 One night gone by when I, your father, knelt 
 Beside your body all one thankful hour 
 And saw at once beginning and the end, 
 The past and future hand in hand with God. 
 
 And now thou knowest — hark! Again the bells— 
 The lights grow dim — the women, too, are still — 
 The dawn-wind rises. So, with Death I mount 
 And make my last, long journey toward the Star! 
 
 [38] 
 
THERE WAS A MAN . . . 
 
 There was a Man in Galilee 
 Who talked as simple as could be, 
 Saying men should brothers be — 
 This lonely Man of Galilee. 
 
 There was a Man of Olivet 
 Whose strong voice reaches to us yet 
 Across the centuries' clamor — yet 
 There was a Man of OHvet. 
 
 There was a Man on Golgotha 
 Whose eyes grew dim at what they saw- 
 Yet clear to me is what they saw, 
 The dying Man on Golgotha. 
 
 Come, walk by Lake Gennesaret: 
 I saw a Fisher with his net, 
 Draw silver planets in his net — 
 How quiet is Gennesaret! 
 
 [39] 
 
A PAGE FROM AMERICA'S PSALTER 
 
 Across the bitter centuries I hear the wail of men: 
 "Oh, would that Jesus Lord, the Christ, would come 
 
 to us again. 
 We decorate His altars with a ceremonious pride. 
 With all the outward shows of pomp His worship is 
 
 supplied: 
 Great churches raise their mighty spires to pierce the 
 
 sunlit skies 
 While in the shadow of the cross we mutter blas- 
 phemies. 
 
 "We know we do not do His will who lessoned us to 
 
 pray, 
 'Our Father, grant within our lives Thy kingdom rule 
 
 to-day.' 
 The prayer he taught us, once a week we mouth with 
 
 half-shut eye 
 While in the charnel-house of words immortal meanings 
 
 die. 
 Above our brothers' frailties we cry, 'Unclean, Unclean.' 
 And with the hands that served her shame, still stone 
 
 the Magdalene. 
 
 "We know within our factories that wan-cheeked women 
 
 reel 
 Among the deft and droning belts that spin from wheel 
 
 to wheel. 
 
 [40] 
 
A PAGE FROM AMERICA'S PSALTER 
 
 We know that unsexed childhood droops in dull-eyed 
 
 drudgery. 
 The little children that He blessed in far off Galilee, — 
 Yet surely, Lord, our hearts would grow more merciful 
 
 to them. 
 If Thou couldst come again to us as once in Bethlehem." 
 
 [41] 
 
WHICH? 
 
 Rich and fat was the altar feast 
 
 For the holy flame that day: 
 But there in the pool from the slain lamb's 
 throat 
 
 A slender body lay, 
 While the Horror stiffened each lovely limb 
 
 And kissed the red lips gray. 
 
 Far over the desert a shadow flees 
 
 In the glare of the angry sun: 
 Is it man or ghost or hunted beast, 
 
 Or sand by the whirlwind spun, 
 And why does it run and look behind, 
 
 And look behind and run? 
 
 The yellow hair of the white boy-priest 
 
 Is damp with a ghastly dye: 
 Can he not raise those perfect hands 
 
 From his bosom where they lie, 
 And why does he stare at the noonday sun 
 
 With such a fearless eye? 
 
 He does not smile, he does not stir, 
 
 But still the shadow flees: 
 It cannot be that sound is born 
 
 On such wan lips as these. 
 Yet surely shadows never sobbed 
 
 In such strange agonies. 
 
 [42] 
 
WHICH? 
 
 Across the desert of the world 
 
 Still stumbles in his pain 
 The Man who killed; and yet, which is 
 
 The slayer, which the slain. 
 The delicate-fingered Abel, or 
 
 The shamed and branded Cain? 
 
 [43] 
 
ABEL AND CAIN 
 
 Two brothers in a far and lonely land 
 
 Built up two uncouth altars out of stone, 
 
 And on them laid their labor's offering 
 
 To that High Power who bids men sweat and toil. 
 
 One brother lifted high his slender hands 
 
 And bent his dainty knee upon the earth; 
 
 For he had bleating flocks that multiplied 
 
 Even as he watched them, lying in the shade, 
 
 Fingering his whittled reeds that thrilled in song 
 
 And dreaming all the summer-tide away. 
 
 What need had he to soil those tender palms 
 
 With touch of earth? His flocks were fat and sleek, 
 
 And ever upward, ever thicker, rolled 
 
 The smoke from off the altar he had made. 
 
 ''One frightened lambling from its mother torn 
 
 Would not be missed among so many sheep, 
 
 And yet its flesh would feed an altar-flame 
 
 As well as any" — so he knelt and prayed. 
 
 The older brother likewise lifted up 
 His hands beside the altar he had built. 
 Gnarled were his fingers as the roots of trees 
 On some high cliff that clutch the desperate slope, 
 Fearing to slip within the gulf below. 
 Bare was his body, and the knotted cords 
 Stood out upon his clumsy-muscled knees. 
 That were too stiff for bending; so he stooped 
 Half crouching in the weary droop of toil. 
 With dumb defiance glooming in his eyes, 
 [44] 
 
ABEL AND CAIN 
 
 And lips that scarce could lisp his Maker's name. 
 
 The smoke that smoldered round his offering 
 
 Sagged earthward, stilling, when he tried to pray. 
 
 No fleecy lamb lay on his altar-fire. 
 
 Blazing in crackling savor up to Heaven; 
 
 A few scant roots, a withered bunch of leaves. 
 
 Wet still where he had grasped them sweaty-palmed. 
 
 And one green melon that his vines had borne 
 
 To all his painful tending, choked the flame 
 
 That whitening crept among them — so he prayed. 
 
 And, since in that lone country far away 
 One brother rose and, swift in anger, slew, 
 Upon his brow his Maker set a sign 
 That men should know the deed that he had done. 
 But what the sign He set, no man has known 
 From that blood-sprinkled day of shame to this; 
 Though still two altars rise in every State 
 And still two brothers bring their offering. 
 
 Arise, O Abel, kiss that Brother's brow 
 Before, too late, it bear the brand of Cain. 
 
 [45] 
 
THE STRANGER 
 
 A STRANGER Walked the crowded streets upon the Christ- 
 mas day 
 
 In tattered coat and ragged shoes, with lips so drawn 
 and gray, 
 
 That Christian folk who passed him by and saw his 
 patient eyes 
 
 Half paused in wonder at the prayer of his dumb mis- 
 eries. 
 
 The stinging wind was bitter keen, and icy sharp the 
 snow, 
 
 "But beggar- folk are often shams, and fakirs, don't you 
 know," — 
 
 With half-averted, doubting glance they hurried on their 
 way 
 
 While o'er the Stranger's gentle face the veil of sorrow 
 lay: 
 
 Not one of all the goodly throng who called upon His 
 name, 
 
 That day or ever knew Who passed in lowly weeds of 
 shame. 
 
 [46] 
 
FRAGMENTS 
 
 I AM a searcher of faces, 
 
 I am a seeker of hearts 
 In lonely and desolate places, 
 
 In immaterial marts. 
 
 3^ 3j€ Sp 5JC 3JC 3|C 3|C 
 
 It is enough to wander 
 
 Through all the busy day; 
 It is enough to squander 
 
 The things we throw away. 
 
 •P 3(5 3|* j^ 3|C ^ 3|C 
 
 It little matters that the things we set 
 Do not return in ways we recognize: 
 
 Each of us mounts in turn his Olivet 
 And finds, alone, Tophet or Paradise. 
 
 Only those who are lonely. 
 
 Broken and worn and sad. 
 These are my people only, 
 
 These will I render glad. 
 Go let the stricken deer go weep. 
 
 The hart unwounded play; 
 For some must find and some must seek, 
 
 And some must roll the stone away. 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 [47] 
 
THE WILDERNESS 
 
 Why do I falter, now my hour has come: 
 
 Can one man's choice mean either this or that? 
 
 I grow presumptuous. 'Twas not God who called! 
 
 The Prophets now are coffined with the Past; 
 
 They walk no more among us as of yore 
 
 In those great days when God abode with men; 
 
 His voice is silent, lo these centuries. 
 
 He calls no more across the empty years, 
 The wrangling years so filled with clamoring, 
 The clink of barter, and men's littleness 
 Pushing and pulling at the Infinite 
 As if 'twere linen in a mercer's shop 
 And they could measure with a three-foot rod 
 Of disputation, what is measureless. 
 No wonder He is silent, while men shout. 
 
 And yet there was a time when men believed 
 That they could find Him in the burning bush, 
 Or hear Him in the watches of the night 
 Waking the sleeper, or mingle in the cloud 
 With His great presence on Mount Sinai. 
 He walked within the Garden of the World 
 Startling the guilty silence with His voice; 
 He couched within the ark of shittim wood; 
 The stone was graven at His finger-tip 
 And men could read in Nature His decrees. 
 He strode before them in a cloud by day, 
 [48] 
 
THE WILDERNESS 
 
 He fed them on the manna of His love, 
 The desert gushed in fountains at His touch, 
 And in the mystery and wonder of the night 
 He wrestled limb to limb with human kind. 
 
 Oh, to have felt the swelling thews of God, 
 The crushing anguish of His vast embrace, 
 To strain against His mighty-heaving chest, 
 And feel strength draining from one drop by drop, 
 One's shoulders nearing inch by inch his doom. 
 And still to struggle, knowing that He asks 
 No tame and feeble-kneed antagonist 
 Who cringes fawning, but He rather loves 
 That soul who questions, doubts, and scorns to yield 
 Without one desperate trial of his strength 
 Before he smiles and whispers, *T am thrown." 
 
 Those were the days when Prophets walked with 
 God, 
 And found Him near them in the wilderness 
 When they went out to meet Him face to face, — 
 God sends no ravens to Elijahs now. 
 
 And though perhaps it was not God who called 
 When John had hailed me with his prophecy, — 
 And those mad eyes that shine upon me still, 
 And his great body white and beautiful, — 
 Yet was it something; for I felt a stir 
 That ripened all my being suddenly. 
 As if a sunbeam pierced a lily's heart 
 [49] 
 
THE WILDERNESS 
 
 And loosed the molten fragrances that bound 
 Her aching bosom, till it burst in bloom 
 And glowed beneath the quivering lips of day. 
 It seemed my soul was somehow strangely new, 
 As if, across the bending heads of wheat 
 Trembling between their milky-kerneled youth 
 And mellow richness, of maturity, 
 In that expectant moment, came a breath 
 Warm from the very sun-kissed cheeks of June, 
 And when the wind had passed the grain was set. 
 
 So, when John touched me, all at once my soul 
 Trembled to feel it, and the voice of God 
 Burst with the glory of magnificence. 
 Drowning my senses, till I rather felt 
 The thunder of His presence than I heard. 
 
 But now within the wilderness I wait. 
 Alone, and far from Jordan's crowded bank. 
 The flame that warmed me, now has sunk to ash. 
 And I am hungry, strengthless, and forgot. 
 The moon has grown, and waned, and grown again, 
 And still I wrestle with God's purposes, 
 Weaker and ever weaker; and I fear 
 The scuttling shadows lurking by the rocks, 
 Where fiery eyes creep nearer every night, 
 Until I almost hear their eagerness 
 Sniffing, and wrinkling up their silken lips 
 Over the gleaming of their cruel teeth. 
 The desert creatures throng me hungrily. 
 Perhaps to-night they banquet, — let them come, 
 [so] 
 
THE WILDERNESS 
 
 Better the quick leap and the rending fangs, 
 The momentary anguish warm with blood, 
 The merciful swift death that wild things deal, 
 Than to be torn upon the breakers of the world, 
 Impaled with scornful shafts of mocking men. 
 Each truth. we die for jeered and spit upon. 
 Naked and beaten, stoned from house to house. 
 Scourged by those hands that we have tried to clasp, 
 Cursed by those lips that we once hoped to kiss. 
 
 One way is open, — join the common crowd, 
 Perhaps more merciful in deed than they 
 And thinking one's own thoughts, but quietly; 
 Run with the herd in body, but reserve 
 The right to enter in one's privacy 
 A secret chamber where the spirit dwells 
 Apart from all appearance, unrebuked: 
 No need is there to throw oneself on death 
 When life is all before one, rich in love. 
 
 And who can live life more intense than I? 
 The Galilean hills are full of friends, 
 Timid and slender wild things cross my path 
 And stop to eye me, fearlessly and tame. 
 Soft, furry things that slumber in my breast. 
 I know where every sparrow lays her young 
 Along the plastered walls of Nazareth; 
 The earliest lily lifts for me her cup 
 And fills it with a draught of morning-dew. 
 Above me when I drift on Galilee 
 
 [51] 
 
THE WILDERNESS 
 
 The quiet stars shine out like brother souls, 
 And through the tattered sail the wind sifts down, 
 Brushing my cheeks with fragrance of the night 
 And whispering me to silence and to sleep. 
 
 But not alone with this great comradeship 
 Is my whole being filled as if with wine. 
 The children run to meet me in the street, 
 And cling about me till I lift them up 
 Where they can stretch their tiny chubby hands 
 Along my cheeks, and laugh to see the eyes 
 That mirror back a little laughing face. 
 And I have known old men the fever racked 
 Grow calm and quiet when I hold their hands 
 Or brush away the anguish from their brows. 
 Until I tremble with a tenderness 
 That seems to soothe them till they .fall asleep 
 Clasping my strong cool hands upon their breasts; 
 I cannot help but love them slumbering, 
 Such strangely sweet and pitiful old men! 
 
 I know not why it is; 'twas ever thus; 
 All faces turn to follow when I move. 
 It may be that I am so j'^oung and strong. 
 So fresh with all the tang of wind and sea, 
 So glowing with the sweetness of the sun 
 That seems like a great brother on the hills 
 When I have climbed the sandy, shrub-clad slopes, 
 Above the drowsy streets of Nazareth, 
 That tired women, flushed with household tasks 
 
 [52] 
 
THE WILDERNESS 
 
 And bent with aching shoulders grinding corn, 
 Feel, when I enter at their low-beamed door, 
 As I do when the cooling twilight breeze 
 Warns me to lay my adz and maul aside, 
 And roam beyond the little narrow town 
 Far out upon the hills alone with God. 
 For I have seen such women lift their eyes 
 When I looked in upon them at their work, 
 And all the toil-worn faces softened, till 
 They seemed transfigured with a sudden peace 
 As if they caught a vision of God's love: 
 'Tis wonderful, and leaves me half afraid. 
 So glad I am that I can m.ake them smile. 
 
 As sweet to me as children's clinging hands. 
 Old men that slumber, or tired women's eyes. 
 And strong as the deep swell and surge of sea 
 That lifts a weary swimmer to the shore, 
 The love of young men, reverence of friends, 
 And eloquence of eyes that answer mine 
 When all the rest is silence, — those who work 
 Beside me day by day at bench or wall, 
 Strong backs and sturdy limbs that lift and strain 
 Until the beam is swung into its place 
 And swift, sure blows have driven it safely home; 
 My brother Joses with his merry face. 
 And all the workers at my father's trade. 
 
 Strength answers strength, at work or on the shore 
 Leaping to breast the waters of the lake, 
 When toil is ended and my comrades run 
 [53] 
 
THE WILDERNESS 
 
 Along the level sand-beach boyishly, 
 
 And jump and wrestle, tumbling over nets, 
 
 Until the evening star o'er Galilee 
 
 Warns us to don our tunics and retrace 
 
 The hill-path back to sleepy Nazareth. 
 
 Then through the moonlight side by side we walk. 
 
 Scarce speaking, till the long, brown path leads down 
 
 Between the shadowy houses, and we part 
 
 To sleep a sleep untroubled until dawn. 
 
 So speed the careless days, one after one, 
 Friendship, and evening calm, and working-hours, 
 Each sure and certain to be brimming o'er 
 With health and comradeship and happiness. 
 All these are mine, — why should I lose them now ' 
 By blindly following a sudden whim? 
 Perhaps God called me, but I need not heed. 
 Life is too full of love and hope and youth 
 To turn the foaming cup upon the sand. 
 If only I keep silent, I am safe; 
 There is no need of making stones of bread. 
 
 And yet as in the wilderness I lie, 
 With those strange shadows skulking in the shade, 
 I seem to hear the rabbi's droning voice, 
 Perched high above me in the synagogue. 
 Rustling the parchment: "It is written here, 
 Man shall not live by bread and flesh alone. 
 But by each word from out the mouth of God." 
 [54] 
 
THE WILDERNESS 
 
 "By bread alone?" Can it be there is 
 In this wild turmoil of uncertainty 
 Some boon unguessed of, that outweighs secure 
 And selfish comfort? Can man throw away 
 His life and find it? Must he tell the truth 
 Regardless of all doubters, face the mob 
 That lusts to tear him limb from limb, and still 
 March out to meet them, bravely confident? 
 It may be so; the truth is still the truth, 
 Although a village rise to cry it down. 
 And if God lead me through the cloud awhile, 
 I shall be safe if I cling to His hand: 
 He keeps my feet; His love supports me still; 
 In His good time, I shall emerge some day. 
 
 And yet why wait upon Him: is there not 
 Some quicker way to reach the goal desired? 
 The harvest of the centuries is late. 
 And slowly move the axles of the years; 
 It cannot be that man must wait so long. 
 Suppose some masterly heroic soul, 
 Bold with victorious triumph, flushed with power, 
 Bending the nations to his purposes. 
 Should seize the reins of empire, and erect 
 Upon the prostrate world his mighty throne. 
 Oh, how easy 'twere to rouse the restless tide 
 That surges underneath the Roman's feet. 
 Chafing and eddying like the undertow 
 That sweeps a sturdy swimmer out to sea 
 When he is most secure, arm Palestine, 
 [55] 
 
THE WILDERNESS 
 
 Call in all Asia, join hands with the Greeks, 
 And push the purple tyrant from his throne; 
 The time is ripe; the nations murmuring, 
 The leader only missing, — why not I? 
 
 Even at the thought I feel my strength renewed 
 As when a runner nears the welcome goal 
 After a weary journey; for I see it all. 
 The dark and seething turmoil of the tide 
 That sets toward conquest, and the Jewish faith 
 That looks to see Messias raise them up, 
 Throw off their yoke of bondage, heal their stripes, 
 And found the endless bastions of his realm 
 Upon the ruins of empires and of Time. 
 
 Strange tales were spread about me at my birth: 
 There needs but little fanning to the flame, — 
 When once the tinder of revolt is set, 
 It grows with quenching, and it leaps so swift 
 No eye of man can follow its mad course. 
 I need but stand upon the Temple steps, 
 Proclaim myself Messias, sent of God, 
 And all Jerusalem will surge at once 
 In such a wild, fanatic tidal wave 
 Of frenzied fury, that its foaming crest. 
 Gathering the deeps of Asia to its arms. 
 Will whelm the mighty sovereignty of Rome 
 Upon its seven hills, until the world 
 Reverberates beneath the shuddering blow 
 And topples in engulfing surge of war. 
 
 [56] 
 
THE WILDERNESS 
 
 Then shall Messias knit the nations' hands 
 In that new empire of man's brotherhood, 
 The long anticipated Golden Age 
 That prophets told of in their mighty moods 
 And dreamers fashioned in their heart of hearts, 
 The new Jerusalem of comradeship 
 That God ordained some day would come to pass 
 When men were weary of their wars and hates, 
 When Iamb and lion should lie down together, 
 And children should climb round them, unafraid. 
 Is not such Empire worth a little fraud. 
 Such glorious perfection worth the trial, 
 When one bold, masterly heroic brain 
 Can hasten with his help God's mighty plan? 
 All things are possible to him who dares 
 The bold audacity of one great lie, — 
 The kingdoms of the world are mine to keep! 
 
 Once more upon the desert wind there breathe 
 Strange memories of rustling parchment rolls: 
 "Serve only God,— no other; Truth is Truth." 
 
 I cannot hide me, Father, from Thy face; 
 Within the deeps I hid me — Thou wert there; 
 And when I climbed the steep ascent of heaven. 
 Beyond the farthest star-beam Thou wert there! 
 One and Eternal, everlasting Thou! 
 The Truth is Truth,— behold I serve but Thee! 
 
 And so, my Father, do I yield Thee up 
 My life to fashion to Thy purposes. 
 Forsaking comfort, empire, — following Thee 
 [57] 
 
THE WILDERNESS 
 
 In confidence where'er Thy guidance lead. 
 
 One thing I pray Thee, leave me only this, 
 
 One broken morsel from Life's laden board, 
 
 One rose-bud smiling from the bitter thorns. 
 
 One star to guide me in the darkest night ; 
 
 For Thou hast said that Thou wouldst guard and keep 
 
 That man who, fearless, trusted all to Thee 
 
 And dared to follow Truth and boldly die, 
 
 Casting himself from off the pinnacle 
 
 Of all his soul's ambitions, all his hopes, 
 
 Yielding his highest and his best to Fate, — 
 
 Yet still would give him knowledge of himself, 
 
 The faith to stake all on a single throw 
 
 And meet reverses smiling, confident 
 
 That God will not forsake him in his need. 
 
 Give me Thy angels to uphold my feet. 
 Lest in my fall I dash against a stone; 
 Give me to know that Right is ever Right, 
 And I shall fear no evil though I die. 
 
 My God, my God, I cannot let Thee go, 
 I crouch beneath the shadow of Thy wing. 
 Without Thee, I am nothing. Cover me! 
 
 Again the rustling of the parchment rolls; 
 My soul is slain within me: "Tempt not God. 
 That soul deserves Him not who cannot walk 
 Alone into the outer darknesses 
 Beyond God's love, and find Him in the void. 
 He knows not God who has not stood alone." 
 
 [58] 
 
THE WILDERNESS 
 
 Father, I yield me; shape me to Thy hand, 
 Bend me, or mar me, cast me from Thy face; 
 Thou canst not take away my love for Thee; 
 Only by loving may one learn to love. 
 
 And so I meet the morrow quietly. 
 Let come what will, night follows after day, 
 And after night the dawn; each day will pass 
 One like the other, one day at a time. 
 For though I know the Prophets are no more, 
 And God's great loving voice, men say, is hushed, 
 He walks no more among us, — still I trust 
 That He is nearer than we sometimes think; 
 Perhaps men cannot see Who walks beside. 
 Nor hear His voice when He speaks tenderly: 
 Our ears are filled with idle clamoring, 
 Our eyes are dazzled with too near a view. 
 We walk with God each day and know it not. 
 
 The fortieth night is passing; I must rise 
 And with the morning seek my mother's house; 
 Then forth to wander where He leads the way. 
 'Tis such a simple message that I bear 
 A child can grasp it; surely so will men: 
 "God is our Father, — let His sons be kind." 
 
 [S9] 
 
A SECRET 
 
 Come, I will show you a thing beyond knowing, 
 This is the land where the Israelites fled; 
 No one has seen them to know of their going 
 Save an old man with a scar on his head. 
 
 Come, I will whisper a secret I'm keeping. 
 This is the land where Goliath was slain; 
 Down in the meadow a farmer boy sleeping 
 Found David's sling, and lost it again. 
 
 Come, I will sing you a song when I'm older 
 About a young man who was dead on a hill; 
 They shut up his body behind a big boulder 
 ... I have a sign that he never lay still. 
 
 [60] 
 
JERICHO 
 
 Jericho, Jericho, 
 Round and round the walls I go 
 Where they watch vv^ith scornful eyes, 
 Where the captained bastions rise; 
 Heel and toe, heel and toe. 
 Blithely round the walls I go. 
 
 Jericho, Jericho, 
 
 Round and round the walls I go. 
 All the golden ones of earth 
 Regal in their lordly mirth. . . . 
 Heel and toe, heel and toe. 
 Round and round the walls I go. 
 
 Jericho, Jericho, 
 Blithely round the walls I go, 
 With a broken sword in hand 
 Where the mighty bastions stand; 
 Heel and toe, heel and toe, 
 Hear my silly bugle blow. 
 
 Heel and toe, heel and toe, 
 Round the walls of Jericho. . . 
 Past the haughty golden gate 
 Where the emperor in state 
 Smiles to see the ragged show 
 Round and round the towers go. 
 [6i] 
 
JERICHO 
 
 Jericho, Jericho, 
 
 Round and round and round I go. 
 All their sworded bodies must 
 Lie low in their towers' dust. . . . 
 Heel and toe, heel and toe, 
 Blithely round the v/alls I go. 
 
 Heel and toe, heel and toe, — 
 I will blow a thunder note 
 From my brazen bugle's throat 
 Till the sand and thistle know 
 The leveled walls of Jericho, 
 Jericho, Jericho, Jericho 
 
 [62] 
 
THERE WOULD BE NO WONDER 
 
 They are very stately 
 
 Who found the way for walking 
 Upstairs and downstairs, 
 
 And such important talking! 
 
 They are very happy 
 
 Who counted wine so sweet 
 They did not care for leavened bread 
 
 When they came to eat. 
 
 They are very careful 
 
 Who can read the rune 
 I have hidden lightly 
 
 In this quiet tune. 
 
 If every one could understand 
 
 All that letters spell, 
 There would be no wonder 
 
 In a miracle. 
 
 [63] 
 
WINE OF CANA 
 
 The wine has failed? Nay, Mother, cease thy plaint. 
 Why seek ye me, a stranger at the feast? 
 It was not I who bade so many guests; 
 And if they swarm as locusts round the bins, 
 What wonder if they scour the threshing-floor: 
 Can men expect to drain an emptied cup? 
 
 Already has the feast dragged out too long; 
 I weary of the wailing zither strings. 
 The empty clashing of cracked tambourines, 
 The mirthless jests a third time cackled o'er 
 By nodding graybeards with the e3^es of goats 
 That set the bride's pale, frightened face aflame. 
 
 Do ye not see her lips too tired to smile, 
 The lashes' curtain lifted wearily. 
 And the big, brooding vs^onder of her eyes 
 That see as Moses from Mount Pisgah's height 
 The strange, glad nearness of the Promised Land, 
 See and half fear and know they see in vain? 
 
 Can wine run warmer through the bridegroom's limbs 
 Than that strong flood that sets its tide toward her 
 And in the very mid-leap of its confidence 
 Is stilled as quiet as the ocean pool 
 Flung by the mad sea on the gentle sand 
 Above the breaker's surge; and all because 
 She smiled too bravely and her hand sought his 
 Like a poor, timid birdling frightened home? 
 
 [641 
 
WINE OF CANA 
 
 And yet there is a glory none can name, 
 A fragrance in the purple-blooded grape, 
 A lure of sunshine and the kiss of health 
 Where wide-cheeked pitchers burst with ruddy foam 
 And cob-webbed jars are damp with mustiness. 
 And those that tread the press with crimson feet 
 Where whitened ankles flash with beaten gold, 
 Laugh in the sun with cries of sheer content 
 While songs of vintage echo from the hills 
 And round the dripping vats the children throng. 
 
 Such joys are not for nothing; surely He 
 Who bent men's backs will lift sometimes the yoke; 
 He does not frown forever on His world, 
 And when men laugh they do not laugh alone. 
 
 Then why not drink, since wine is never sweeter 
 Than when the bubbles Hush the rosy brim; 
 The pale bride droops, but fast the hour is nearing 
 When the last faltering torchlight flickers dinij 
 And in the bosom of the far horizon 
 The waning crescent m^lts her silver rim. 
 
 Then why not laugh, since mirth is never fairer 
 Than when we feel presentiment of pain; 
 The rocky pathway climbs the beetling crag-top 
 From whence one sweeps with eagle-eye the plain: 
 Dull not that triumph with some dread foreboding, 
 A lurking rainbow shimmers through the rain. 
 
 [65] 
 
WINE OF CANA 
 
 Then why not love, since lips are soft for pressing, 
 Then why not live when life is new and sweet; 
 The hour is not yet come when I must clamber 
 With burdened shoulders up the hooting street: 
 Go, wash the wine jars with untainted water 
 And lay the vintage at the Master's feet. 
 
 [66] 
 
MARY 
 
 The Master stood in the narrow street 
 
 Where Lazarus lived of yore, 
 And his eyes were turned to a woman's face 
 
 That smiled from the low-beamed door; 
 Oh, the face was tender and dear to see, 
 
 But the Master's was troubled sore. 
 
 The long road climbed to the hills beyond. 
 
 Dusty and white with heat; 
 Weary to death was the Master then. 
 
 Bleeding and worn his feet; 
 But there at the threshold his heart stood still, 
 
 And he paused in the narrow street. 
 
 And often I wonder what dreams he saw 
 In that face at the doorway dim; 
 
 At her parted lips, and her great dark eyes, 
 Did his vision sudden swim, 
 
 While tinier faces leaned from hers 
 To smile and beckon him? 
 
 [67] 
 
MARTHA 
 
 Martha, the sister of Mary, one day in Bethany, 
 
 Pressing the curded cheese flakes, paused quite thought- 
 fully. 
 
 Flushed was her brow at the fireplace, red were her 
 hands. 
 
 Dark o'er her shoulders her hair fell, loosely in strands. 
 
 White was the floor underneath, but her garments were 
 soiled ; 
 
 Noon- tide was coming and Martha since morning had 
 toiled ; 
 
 Cool were the grape-arbor shadows that seemed to 
 entreat 
 
 Her to come to the green of the vineyard away from the 
 heat. 
 
 There, ^neath the shade of a fig-tree, Mary, her sister, 
 sat. 
 Listening so breathlessly silent she wondered thereat, 
 Turning her delicate face, half a flush on her cheek, 
 Up to the eyes that spoke as no others could speak. 
 Gentle the face that, above her, shone as he smiled, 
 Resting his hand on her head as if on a child; 
 Whether he trembled in touching the listening maid, 
 Martha herself could not tell us, — they sat in the shade. 
 
 Then was she troubled, for Martha was weary, and she 
 Knew all at once that her garments were sweaty to see, 
 Yet was the dinner not ready, and much was to do, — 
 Martha, the sister of Mary, who loved Jesus, too. 
 
 [68] 
 
MARTHA 
 
 So, as she stood at the threshold, loudly she cried, 
 "Jesus, O Master, send Mary to work at my side.'^ 
 
 When he rebuked her for asking, and smiled upon Mary 
 
 anew, 
 Haply, he knew not he did it; but Martha, her sister, 
 
 knew. 
 
 [69] 
 
THE LADY MAGDALEN 
 
 The Lady Magdalen 
 
 Came to the good Lord Jesus, 
 Her hair was dropping down 
 
 Sweet was she with sin; 
 There was no one else like her, 
 
 The Lady Magdalen. 
 
 Lord Jesus paused to look, 
 The solemn good Lord Jesus, 
 
 Her hair was dropping down; 
 White as his parchment book 
 
 Was the hand she laid thereon — 
 Lord Jesus paused to look. 
 
 The Lady Magdalen 
 
 Bent low before Lord Jesus, 
 Her hair was dropping down, 
 
 Her heart was light within — 
 There was none more wise than she. 
 
 The Lady Magdalen. 
 
 [70] 
 
ABSOLUTION 
 
 Once I was bound in slavery 
 
 But now my sins have set me free. 
 
 No matter what the songs have sung 
 It is my sins have kept me young; 
 
 When cruelly my heart inclined 
 
 My own dead sins have made me kind; 
 
 It's some are blind, and some are wise, 
 But only sins have gentle eyes; 
 
 'Twas little recked the brittle thong 
 When my sins woke to shake me strong; 
 
 And when I face the certain grave 
 
 It is my sins have made me brave. . . . 
 
 In Heaven beside the jasper sea 
 The sins of Christ will pardon me. 
 
 [71] 
 
PISGAH 
 
 By every ebb of the river-side 
 My heart to God hath daily cried; 
 By every shining shingle-bar 
 I found the pathway of a star; 
 By every dizzy mountain-height 
 He touches me for cleaner sight, 
 As Moses' face hath shined to see 
 His intimate divinity; 
 Through desert sands I stumbling pass 
 To death's cool plot of friendly grass, 
 Knowing each painful step I trod 
 Hath brought me daily home to God. 
 
 [72] 
 
PRAYER 
 
 Those who in their hearts have known 
 The living God's eternal throne, 
 
 Who have beheld the flaming sword 
 Leap in the flash of human word, 
 
 Who carry in their deep-set eyes 
 Quiet immortalities. 
 
 Whose feet have walked with scarce a sound 
 Wonder-haunted homely ground, 
 
 For whom each feathered throat that stirs 
 Is one of heaven's choristers. 
 
 Who look and look and always see 
 Men's hearts beneath their mummery. 
 
 Whose thoughts are instant ever5rwhere. . . . 
 What need have such as these for prayer? 
 
 [73] 
 
IN HIS OWN COUNTRY 
 
 Curses upon him, men of Nazareth, 
 
 For this high sacrilege of holy church 
 
 And desecration of our synagogue. 
 
 What, shall a wandering gipsy blasphemer, 
 
 Dream-visioned and a friend to rogues and tramps 
 
 Idling away the busy crowding days 
 
 When men are working, set the town oh ears 
 
 And turn the village upside down with talk 
 
 Of God's glad kingdom come again to men? 
 
 Have I not known him, son of a carpenter. 
 Setting a shoulder to his father's trade. 
 Grimy with sweat and straining with an adz 
 To smooth the toughened trunk of olive-wood. 
 Weary with dragging up the rocky street 
 The beams of half the houses of the town, 
 And shall this slender staggerer beneath 
 Such clumsy burdens lift the whole round world 
 Up to the dizzy pinnacles of God? 
 
 Have I not seen him, racing o'er the hills — 
 Hair in the wind, with sun-browned boyish face, 
 Chasing the clouds and shepherding the sky, 
 And shall this thoughtless friend of mountain birds, 
 This idle playmate of the bees and gray 
 Sleek-coated foxes, rule Jehovah's throne 
 In everlasting glory down the years. 
 And from the buttressed Zion of our faith 
 Appal the courts of Caesar and of Baal 
 With the dark shadow of a bloody sword? 
 [74] 
 
IN HIS OWN COUNTRY 
 
 Messias when he comes is king of kings, 
 But Jesus would be emperor of the poor; 
 Messias flames a whirlwind of God's wrath, 
 But Joseph's son proclaims that God is love. 
 
 "Love," does he say? Could I but reach his cheek 
 He soon would know the wage of blasphemy 
 To brave within God's holy synagogue 
 The village elders with his heresies 
 And artful mouthings of the prophet's word 
 That he it is Isaiah has foretold 
 Shall loose the captives, give the blind to see. 
 And lead the broken-hearted into peace. 
 
 What, can he heal us, he who thirsty, drinks, 
 And hungry, threshes Sabbath corn in ear. 
 Or faints when weary of the summer sun? 
 His father needs him; can he find no task 
 To clothe his brothers, stay his mother's hands, 
 Or set his sisters singing at their looms. 
 But he must wander careless, up and down, 
 Sleep under hedges with his John and James, 
 Upsetting half the country with his talk 
 Of love and brotherhood and Father God? 
 
 Can he teach me, a rabbi of God's church. 
 New ways to read the ancient prophecies 
 Whose eyes grow dim above the yellow rolls, 
 Whose hands are palsied grasping at the Word; 
 [75] 
 
IN HIS OWN COUNTRY 
 
 And he with his young beauty, breathing health, 
 
 Lover of men and children's comforter, 
 
 Whom women follow as the stars the moon 
 
 Across the windy heavens, shall he crowd 
 
 Me out the hearts of all our villagers 
 
 And pilfer with the turning of a hand 
 
 What I have struggled all these years to keep? 
 
 Nay, that he shall not. By my fathers' graves 
 And all the lineage of my tribe I swear 
 He shall not do it. Old as I am, I vow, 
 Jehovah helping, that these withered hands 
 Shall pluck his beard out, crown him with wild thorn. 
 Throw sand upon his scourged and bleeding back, 
 And tear his body limb from shining limb. 
 He will not be so swift for running then. 
 Nor flash great visions from his sunken eyes. 
 Those hands that draw men simply at a touch 
 Shall clasp in darkness crumbling palms of death, 
 And night forever brood within his brain. 
 
 Millions of dreamers stormed as brave as he 
 The everlasting bulwark of all time. 
 Setting their aery standards in the breach 
 And climbing with their silly swords in teeth 
 Up the great slippery granite sides to die. 
 Millions of dreamers, and where are they now? 
 Jehovah liveth, still his ministers 
 Lift in the Temple pleading hands of prayer, 
 
 [76] 
 
IN HIS OWN COUNTRY 
 
 Emperor and Galilean come and go 
 And leave their shifting shadows in the glass, 
 While Aaron's priesthood rule behind the Veil 
 And holy Tabernacle of the Most High God, 
 
 The Temple stands, Jehovah lives, and I 
 Need no instruction from a carpenter. 
 My curse upon him for his blasphemy. 
 Seize him and stone him, men of Nazareth. 
 
 [77] 
 
LET NOT THEIR DOUBTS 
 
 Let not their doubts prevail at last against me, 
 
 I who have set to build a hall of state; 
 
 They cannot know, with getting and with spending, 
 
 The things to come for which I work and wait. 
 
 I hasten slowly ^vith divinest leisure, 
 
 Lie in the sun a long day at a time; 
 
 With unconcern I watch the wave dissolving 
 
 The frail sand-castles of my lonely rhyme. 
 
 There are great ships that shoulder down the channel. 
 
 There are white gulls that float and dip and sail; 
 
 And I with sand that slips between my fingers 
 
 Smile as they follow the broad-flung, far sea- trail. 
 
 What can they find who scale the gates of ocean 
 Beyond the sea in those enchanted lands, 
 So warm and strange, dappled, brown, and lovely 
 As this elusive swiftness in my hands? 
 
 I will arise when I am drunk of sunlight, 
 Fostered of wind and intimate with earth. 
 Back to the lengthening shadows of the mountains, 
 The inviolate snow-fields of the river's birth. 
 There in the mists that veil the shimmering aspen, 
 There on the granite pinnacles of time 
 I shall uprear of stones that make my pillow 
 The homely hospice of all souls that climb. 
 To sound of music made of many voices 
 Uprose the snowy walls of Camelot 
 By Merlin's magic ... my hearth-fires shall kindle 
 From flaming hearts that burned and knew it not. 
 [78] 
 
LET NOT THEIR DOUBTS 
 
 Let not the fears of all the valley-dwellers 
 
 Fetter my feet fain of the flint and fern: 
 
 I will have done with measuring and weighing, 
 
 Shielding no more the candle — let it burn! 
 
 It little matters if the wick be wasting, 
 
 Sooner or late the thing to do is done; 
 
 Let not their doubts prevail at last against me, 
 
 Stretched on the sand and brothering the sun. 
 
 [79] 
 
OUT OF THE DESERT 
 
 Out of this little and this nothingness 
 
 I will build slowly what cannot be effaced, 
 
 There shall come sound of iron hammers ringing 
 
 And groining arches like fingers interlaced; 
 
 Each youth a king who walks the common kingdom, 
 
 Clad in the seamless robe, with lifted head; 
 
 Each girl a queen, love's roses in her bosom, 
 
 Walking beside him with an equal tread. 
 
 I will set song upon the lips of singers 
 
 Who slumber still uncalled from out the dust, 
 
 I will light fires upon unnumbered altars. 
 
 Love shall be honest, justice shall be just. 
 
 I have not cried alone within the desert. 
 
 Ye go not out to find a broken reed; 
 
 I have clasped Him who walks the pillared darkness, 
 
 I have not wrestled with Him feeble-kneed. 
 
 About my loins I gird a sword that flashes 
 
 With lightnings hidden in the marching cloud; 
 
 I break above your heads the awful tablets. 
 
 And fling the fragments to the wheeling crowd. 
 
 Out of such sowing shall come mighty reaping. 
 
 Hearts are the fields, and songs the seed I sow: 
 
 Ye shall not know until the time of reaping 
 
 What hand upheld me, but I know, I know! 
 
 [80] 
 
I NOW, WALT WHITMAN 
 
 I NOW, Walt Whitman, 
 
 In the twenty-fifth year of my wandering with invisible 
 
 footstep 
 Raising no dust in the green paths of heaven, 
 More alive now than I was in Camden, more so even 
 
 than in Manhattan, 
 Come from knitting with gossamer windings the hearts 
 
 of many who love me. 
 Finding me uninvited an intruder into their chambers 
 Never again to be banished — 
 I alive now, happy, rejoicing in manhood and in the 
 
 increasing manliness and tenderness of lovers, 
 Salute you, who thought I could lie still and not re- 
 member 
 The flesh and the body, the roughs as well as the gentle, 
 (As if when a man has written a book, he will never 
 
 start in on another. 
 And as if I had not spoken the truth when I told them 
 
 I should not lie still in my coffin. 
 But should be continually out on the open road). 
 
 I have published myself many times since I left the old 
 rocker, 
 
 And many have thought that what they had written had 
 something within it. 
 
 But few have acknowledged whose hand has been laid on 
 their shoulder. 
 
 Here in the West, born of the sun and the prairie, 
 
 Like myself in many things, tenderness, courage, devo- 
 tion, knowing some things that I knew not, 
 [8i] 
 
/ NOW, WALT WHITMAN 
 
 Yet lacking in wisdom — humble, though, and yielding 
 
 with perfect faith to my guidance, 
 (He himself could not say these things, but I can say 
 
 them), 
 He I have chosen is setting in words not so resistless as 
 
 mine were, 
 Still with a witness of earnest about them 
 
 Come, now, ye who have sworn by my pages, making 
 out of my frankness a cult that I never intended. 
 
 Fearing the open, lurking in pestilent cities, and hectic 
 with milling together. 
 
 In what was purest and manliest in me finding excuse 
 for your ordure. 
 
 With delicate fingers picking my body to pieces, 
 
 Have done, I disown you! 
 
 My most undeniable message. 
 
 The perfect body singing its ample justification. 
 The open-handed candor of the dawn seen through the 
 
 interlacing pine-trees: 
 I take the road, but leave my staff behind. 
 
 [82] 
 
THE LOOM 
 
 Twenty-three and twenty-seven, 
 Lots of time to get to Heaven, 
 Though we camp and watch for dawn 
 Beside the road we travel on; 
 Time to live and time for love, 
 Time enough for time to prove 
 All the healing in the hem 
 Woven for Jerusalem. 
 
 [83] 
 
THE MYSTIC 
 
 There is a power you know not of, 
 Except you know as I have known 
 How one can give his all to love 
 And find his all in love alone. 
 
 [84] 
 
PETER, THE ROCK 
 
 The centuries passed. ... I said, "I shall not find him; 
 He has been dead for twenty hundred years. 
 Teter,' I called him by the lonely waters, 
 Teter, the Rock,' whose sword struck off men's ears." 
 
 . . . And then I saw you, steady-eyed forever, 
 With strong arms still, firm lips, and ready smile; 
 I called you to me. You flamed in broken wonder, 
 Finding I had been with you all the while. 
 
 [8s] 
 
ASSURANCE 
 
 I WILL go with you step by step 
 
 With even stride, 
 Up a never-ending way 
 
 With One beside. 
 
 What I have seen, you shall see, — 
 
 It is not much, — 
 And yet one does not always sense 
 
 God's touch. 
 
 You are a prayer your parents prayed, 
 
 And I prayed too; 
 God has been good, and given us 
 
 You. 
 
 You shall become a fisher, and seine men, 
 
 Making God complete, 
 And One we love will stand upon the shore 
 
 With bare feet. 
 
 Jesus, I have lived into a life 
 
 Your love, — 
 Though darkness smite me, have I something left 
 
 To think of. 
 
 He shall remember and shall not forget, 
 
 God keep him now. 
 My living prayer is strong, for Christ has touched 
 
 His brow. 
 
 [86] 
 
ASSURANCE 
 
 We walk together when we are apart; 
 
 Our eyes have met, 
 And what we saw, there is no man shall know, 
 
 Nor we forget. 
 
 [87] 
 
ACCEPTANCE 
 
 I CANNOT think nor reason, 
 I only know he came 
 With hands and feet of heahng 
 And wild heart all aflame, 
 
 With eyes that dimmed and softened 
 At all the things he saw; 
 And in his pillared singing 
 I read the marching Law. 
 
 I only know he loves me. 
 Enfolds and understands, — 
 And oh, his heart that holds me, 
 And oh, his certain hands 1 
 
 [88] 
 
THE WAY 
 
 Is life less worth the living 
 Now you have found the way 
 Of laughing and forgiving 
 And living out the day? 
 
 Suppose Night come the faster 
 And lamps grow sudden dim; 
 Love, and face disaster 
 With laughter, God, and Him. 
 
 Matthew, Mark, and Peter, 
 Lazarus and John, 
 Knew a thing completer 
 Than we have looked upon. 
 
 Yet, we could mold and fashion, 
 Could we love as they, 
 And sense God's perfect passion 
 With fire inform our clay. 
 
 Knock and ye shall enter, 
 Seek and ye shall find; 
 Let Earth forsake her center, 
 But my sure words shall bind. 
 
 [89] 
 
FOR ONE WHO GOES 
 
 I DO not wish that you should think, 
 Touched with this new surprise, 
 
 I am not made as others are, 
 Or see with fresher eyes. 
 
 The dark things that to you are dark 
 
 To me are just as dim; 
 The Galilean only knows 
 
 My ageless trust in him. 
 
 And if some strange things come to pass 
 
 Before you knew not of, 
 It is because my heart is steeled 
 
 In his remembered love. 
 
 If this be good that we have found, 
 
 It cannot pass away; 
 And partings cannot come between, 
 
 Though you go and I stay. 
 
 For you may take the mountain trail 
 
 And I may take the plain; 
 But our two roads, where'er they go, 
 
 Will cross some day again. 
 
 Time cannot wither, custom stale, 
 
 Nor even death make end, 
 To this good thing that we have found 
 
 Who call each other friend. 
 
 [90] 
 
 y 
 
MIZPAH 
 
 "The Lord watch between me and thee when we are 
 absent one from another." — Gen. 31 : 49- 
 
 If I should leave you, friend, and go beyond 
 The touch of hands, the strength of steady eyes, 
 The perfect understanding of your face, 
 I go in body but go not myself. 
 
 For in the hour of parting we shall turn 
 Back to the gentle Christ who went away 
 From all he loved, women and men and babes, 
 And firm caressing hands and tender lips. 
 
 He knew by living what we, too, must learn 
 Close in his arms who never yet has died. 
 Whose love outlives his beautiful cold limbs, 
 And the dim closing of his weary eyes. 
 
 I have not always known that Christ still walks 
 Beside us daily though we do not see, 
 I did not know that when men dare to love 
 The living Jesus has an arm round each. 
 
 I do not understand, and yet I know 
 The arms of Jesus have encircled me. 
 And I have felt his lips upon my own 
 And seen his eyes' immortal tenderness. 
 
 Not to each other but to him keep close, 
 Each to his labor where his task is set. 
 And He who brought the two of us together 
 Will watch between us though our roads diverge. 
 [91] 
 
MIZPAH 
 
 A little while, — what reckon we the years 
 Who have set out upon an endless way? 
 We shall yet walk together, you and I, 
 Shoulder to shoulder underneath the stars. 
 
 [92] 
 
SOLOMON 
 
 I SAY that those who have forgot the feel 
 Of the good God's dirt beneath a grimy heel, 
 Whose hands are heavy with a signet ring, 
 Cannot teach me the worth of anything. 
 
 I say that those who read within a book 
 May look quite wise, but that is all they look; 
 Perhaps some clown may find a better school 
 Than those who sit the day through on a stool. 
 
 And if this be the way that wise men go. 
 Why, then, the fool knows all the wise men know; 
 Nay, something more the wise men never guessed — 
 Why, then, the wise man is a fool at best. 
 
 I say the clown in being a good fool 
 
 Is wise as he who keeps the village school. 
 
 And a child who knows one-half the throstle sings 
 
 Is sager than Solomon, king of kings. 
 
 [93] 
 
UNPARADISED 
 
 Moses, Moses, where thou art 
 On a lonely hill, 
 
 Hast thou heard the shawms of God 
 Have their holy will? 
 
 David, David, leaping down 
 Low before the Ark, 
 Hast thou heard young Solomon 
 Where thou liest stark? 
 
 Adam, Adam, driven out 
 To a desert place. 
 Go in peace and dig thy grave: 
 Thou hast seen God's face. 
 
 [94] 
 
FOR A MOUNTAIN HOSTELRY 
 
 In this lifted quiet place 
 
 I have learned anew God's grace, 
 
 Grace of mountain-peak and snow, 
 
 And the lonely lake below, 
 
 Spruce and aspen's gentleness, 
 
 And the ruddy sun's caress. 
 
 Here where stars are never far 
 
 But intimate as lovers are — 
 
 Happy he whose trail ends 
 
 By the hearth-fires of such friends. 
 
 There is more than meets the eye 
 In this gracious hostelry: 
 There is something man can find 
 Only in the quiet mind. 
 Only in the faith that tells 
 More than lettered rubric spells, 
 Only in the heart that knows 
 More than blazing altar shows, — 
 In the wilderness have trod 
 Feet that find their way to God. 
 
 Prairie, mountain-peak, and sea 
 Pentecostal are to me; 
 And in faces have I seen 
 Eyes that knew the Nazarene 
 When He passed them footing slowly 
 The hushed way to the mountain holy: 
 [95] 
 
FOR A MOUNTAIN HOSTELRY 
 
 John from Patmos in the sun 
 Saw God's love-anointed one, — 
 Blest be he whose ears have heard 
 Daily that unuttered Word. 
 
 [96] 
 
THE GARDENER 
 
 Out of an old-world passion 
 
 I shape you a new-world song, 
 
 And deft are the hands that fashion 
 
 Though dark with an ancient wrong: 
 
 Yet God is abroad in his garden 
 
 And he knows where the stains belong. 
 
 He walks in his garden slowly 
 Like a great man at his ease; 
 Hushed is the air and holy 
 In awe of his reveries, 
 For he is the ancient warden 
 Who guardeth memories. 
 
 I saw Him in his garden, 
 I stared at htm over the wall, 
 The keeper of Death and Pardon 
 To bind and loose us all,— 
 He was only an old man walking, 
 Gentle and gray and tall. 
 
 T97] 
 
CREEDS 
 
 How pitiful are little folk— 
 
 They are so very small 
 
 They look at stars, and think they are 
 
 Denominational. 
 
 [98] 
 
AN EPITAPH FOR THE DEVIL 
 
 The Devil is dead and laid in his shroud: 
 
 Sprinkle him with holy water, — 
 
 Now he knoweth reconciliation. 
 
 Before he died he was the cause of not a little 
 
 trouble: 
 Now he is quieter than December snow-flakes. 
 Think kindly of him, for he did no evil 
 He was ashamed of; 
 And he was at least always honest with God. 
 
 [99] 
 
PRAYER TO THE DEVIL 
 
 Dear Devil, I would pray to thee from out an earnest 
 
 heart, 
 The lone thing in the universe who dare be what thou 
 
 art, 
 Look up from out the torment of thy burning lakes of 
 
 pain. 
 And pity in thy steadfastness us men who fawn and 
 
 feign; 
 For in our cowardice we dare seem neither good nor ill, 
 And, lagging in the vale, pretend to climb toward the 
 
 hill. 
 Half-men who hug within our breasts each nasty little 
 
 sin. 
 Like rotten fruit still fair without, but nameless foul 
 
 within. 
 
 [100] 
 
NONCHALANCE 
 
 Why is it that I cannot fear 
 
 When others are afraid, 
 But in the lightning's center I 
 
 Walk barefoot, undismayed? 
 
 Though frail the walls of flesh that hold 
 
 They are as granite too, 
 Thin-carven as a pane of stone 
 
 For light to filter through. 
 
 When other careful-minded men 
 
 Seek prudent shelter, I 
 With nonchalance of thunder-doom 
 
 Assail the splendid sky, 
 
 As if I knew how far could reach 
 
 The dreadful hand of God, 
 And just escaped his fingers with 
 
 A not unhostile nod. 
 
 [lOl] 
 
THE MONEY-CHANGERS 
 
 Could I but see you, Comrade, as that day 
 You snatched the whip-cord in a wrathful hand 
 And drove with swift flail of your stern command 
 The money-changers from their shame away, 
 Beyond the Temple steps to cheat and pray, 
 Man-furious in splendid anger stand 
 Like pillared flame by surge of tempest fanned, 
 I would not ask you one hot blow to stay. 
 Long have they bartered in your tenderness, 
 The smirking Temple-rogues who cheat us now; 
 Smite with your lash that beats like jagged hail; 
 Pity them not, for they were pitiless; 
 Strike in white anger, glad avenger, now, 
 And in your hand I shall become the flail. 
 
 [102] 
 
OLIVE-WOOD 
 
 The sky at night is not too large 
 
 In Olivet I found it — 
 I never knew how small the world was 
 
 Till I put my arms around it. 
 
 Happiness like sand 
 
 Through my fingers slips: 
 I have caught a grain or two 
 
 On my finger-tips. 
 
 When I am here I am not there — 
 
 How very queer it seems 
 That Here, and There, and Everywhere 
 
 Are different kinds of dreams. 
 
 i 
 
 [103T 
 
JOHN 
 
 John, my beloved, come with me apart 
 In this dim garden for a little space. 
 I cannot rest me though the others sleep; 
 There is a time to wake them, but not now. 
 
 Is it not good to climb this hill to-night 
 After the glad hosannas in the streets. 
 The crowding faces, life and men and love, 
 Here on the slope of the eternal stars 
 To watch the lights that shine through Kedron's Vale 
 And 'neath the olives walk alone with God? 
 
 'Tis not the first time that we two have walked 
 Shoulder to shoulder underneath the stars; 
 Nor yet the last, John, though to-morrow's sun 
 Should dawn upon you, and on you alone. 
 
 Nay, my good brother, loose your fingers' grip. 
 You could not keep me if I willed to go: 
 Your heart enfolds me, not your fearful arm — 
 The lights shine clearer through the dusky vale, 
 And with their coming, John, we say good-by. 
 
 We say good-by, for every road must end, 
 All pleasant journeys underneath the sun; 
 Claspt hands are severed, hungry lips must part, 
 The long night comes at close of every day, 
 And men must slumber when their work is done. 
 
 [104] 
 
JOHN 
 
 Nay, it is better, — light is not light alone; 
 Were there no shadows, even suns were blind; 
 Only by parting do men meet again. 
 
 And we have met, John, met in a holy land 
 Alone with God in his great silences 
 Where never men have ventured — you and I. 
 And we have looked beyond the gates of heaven, 
 Beyond the stars, beyond the flaming sun, 
 Beyond all time, and known that God is love. 
 
 Was it not worth it, just to dare to be 
 One's simple self, to think, to love, to do. 
 And not to be ashamed? To live one life 
 Fearless and pure and strong, true to one's self. 
 Though the false world were full of lies and hate, 
 Where blind men lead each other through the dark, 
 Too weak to sin, ashamed of what is good. 
 Unable to do evil, thinking it. 
 
 But we have dared. David and Jonathan 
 Drank no divinelier in courts of Saul 
 Than we together in Gethsemane. 
 And though to-night I drain the cup of death 
 Down to the stinging dregs of Judas' kiss, 
 The wine of love lies sweeter on my lips — 
 I see the lanterns gleaming. Kiss me, John. 
 
 [los] 
 
GETHSEiMANE 
 
 Comrade, my friend, when tramp of Romans made, 
 Through the hushed silence of Gethsemane, 
 Thy soul to waver if 'twere best for thee. 
 Strongly to meet with Judas, undismayed, 
 And drain the poisoned chalice of his lips, 
 That killed thee, or more prudent, flee 
 Far to some desert cave of Galilee, 
 Where the hill-fed brook that scarcely slips 
 From rock to little pool is kinder far 
 To the parched water-grass that shyly dips 
 Within the tide its dainty fronded tips 
 Than, in the world of men, the gentlest are — 
 If thou hadst known, within the olive shade. 
 How men have scorned thee, since, wouldst thou have 
 stayed? 
 
 Jesus, dear friend, who loved so gentle-wise 
 That children lifted up to thy thin cheek 
 Their ineffectual fingers — as we seek 
 Through the long years the glory of thy eyes, 
 And find it not, — Jesus, who loved so well 
 That strong men followed when they heard thee speak, 
 Leaving their sagging nets beside the bleak 
 Wild sea; for whom, unmarked, no fledgling fell 
 From out the nest, or lily bloomed in vain; 
 Who heard thrush music like a silver bell 
 Rise from the road-side hedge, antiphonal, 
 And stayed the thoughtless hand that would have slain — ■ 
 If thou hadst known how blind men are and dumb 
 To all thy pity, wouldst thou, then, have come? 
 
 [io6] 
 
GETHSEMANE 
 
 If thou hadst known, dear Jesus, that for thee 
 Men should lift hands against their brothers, yea, 
 Should stain those hands with scarlet, ere they pray 
 At perfumed altars, chanting blasphemy; 
 Couldst thou have seen men build a temple high 
 O'er mouldering corpses that wdth foul decay 
 Pollute the present with dead Yesterday, 
 Where money-changers cheat and rascals buy 
 Their tickets into Heaven, bargaining; 
 Couldst thou have heard lip-mumblers craftily 
 Lure through that vast and unsubstantial lie 
 Men's souls to self-extinction, hungering — 
 Wouldst thou not, rather, from Gethsemane 
 Have passed into the darkness quietly? 
 
 Hark! Already up the breathless side 
 Of that lone summit sound the stealthy feet; 
 The torches flicker; shielding shadows meet 
 Above thee still, — oh, do not now abide! 
 Why shouldst thou fling thy glorious purpose there 
 For knaves to mangle? Moments now will cheat 
 Them forever; the fields of life are sweet 
 With unaccomplished fragrance, oh, so fair! 
 — Forgive me, Jesus, if too yearningly 
 I seek to touch thy garment's hem in prayer 
 Across the ages. — Hadst thou been aware 
 How, in the world-wide Garden of Gethsemane, 
 Men still wdth kissing sell thee, crucified 
 In their own bosoms, wouldst thou, then, have died? 
 
 [107] 
 
GETHSEMANE 
 
 — I will not question. Jesus, thou didst drink 
 Deep of the cypress cup, and thou didst know 
 How strangely sweet the dregs are, sinking low; 
 When that Which Is has melted link by link, 
 And the pale petals of What Is To Be 
 Tremble in blooming, through the darkness, so 
 One wonders if the whiteness stirs, or no; 
 Then morning dawns, and, unexpectedly, 
 The Gardener finds that night has blown a rose! 
 Night holds us now bewildered, and we see 
 Dim shadow-shapes that shroud mysteriously 
 The commonest shrub that in the Garden grows; 
 Morning will come; nor shall I, craven, shrink 
 Before the cup that thou, dear Lord, didst drink. 
 
 [io8] 
 
FAITH 
 
 The few who love are stronger far 
 Than all the rest who hate: 
 So, robed in flame, I do my work, 
 Accept my cross, and wait. 
 
 [109I 
 
GOLGOTHA 
 
 And has it come to this? How strange it seems 
 That after all the shouting so it ends. 
 A skull-strewn hill, the great sky overhead, 
 All round about the throngs of little men, 
 And over there Jerusalem — Jerusalem — 
 Set like a queen upon a burnished throne. 
 With one white jewel in her perfumed breast, 
 The Temple, where men's prayers go up to God 
 Even now as on the Hill of Death I wait 
 To stretch my weary arms upon their cross. 
 
 (One moment now to take my leave of life? 
 I thank thee, comrade, for thy gentleness. 
 The Roman soldiers have been kind to-day. 
 Their eyes are milder than their wont to be; 
 And as I stumbled up the rocky path 
 I felt one lift me as I fell to earth. 
 His hand was warm and lingered over mine 
 An instant as he raised me, — was it thou? 
 I knew it from the gruffness of thy voice: 
 Man's love for man is something, after all.) 
 
 "To take my leave of life." Dimly I see 
 The hill-side black with peoples, hear a sound, 
 Hoarse as the cry of breakers in a storm 
 When winds are angry with the fisher-craft. 
 Thunder upon me. Can they hate me so? 
 [no] 
 
GOLGOTHA 
 
 But now they fade from vision, and I seem 
 To ride once more along the palm-strewn street 
 Where little children press to touch my knee 
 And men and women arch my way with song, 
 Strong men with muscled bodies warm with life, 
 And women tender-eyed and rich in love; 
 That was my day of triumph, life and love. 
 
 And now I leave them, all the golden days 
 Of hands that touch and eyes that answer mine, 
 The quiet evenings, and the hush of dawn, 
 The fields that faint with lilies, street and hedge. 
 Grim Galilean caverns, and the water cress 
 Fringing the hill-stream, dusty winding roads, 
 The waving wheat-fields, and the arbor shade, 
 Thrill of warm bodies sleeping by my side, 
 And arms of comrades thrown across my breast 
 In the dim mornings when the dew is chill 
 And the first sparrow twitters to his mate 
 Beneath the vineyard trellis where they nest. 
 
 (John, my beloved, thou at least art true. 
 More than a brother, even though we part; 
 Stand thou before me, when they raise me up. 
 And I shall dream that thy dear head still lies 
 Upon my bosom, and forget the pain.) 
 
 Strange that I fear no evil, now that Death 
 Draws nigh to fold me in his long embrace, 
 [III] 
 
GOLGOTHA 
 
 But rather do I feel a wondrous calm 
 As if the cooling sheets already wrapped 
 In all the perfumed languor of the grave 
 This fevered body, — fold me surely, Death. 
 
 I would not come again though life be sweet 
 And fragrant with the lure of Sharon's rose. 
 Tis something to have left upon their stems 
 Some buds unopened, to have lived one life 
 Rich with the unperfected beauty of great love, 
 And passed yet potent to what after comes. 
 Leaving still undeciphered half the truth, 
 Till on Golgotha's of their homely tasks, 
 Beset with trivial thorns from day to day, 
 And sneered by scoffers or unnoticed quite, 
 Men learn to shoulder bravely each his load 
 And come to know, as I do, what is love. 
 
 (Yes, I am ready. Nay, I know, my friend, 
 Thou must obey when Pilate gives command; 
 God's will be done: for thou hast wife and child, 
 And men just live for others, — as I die.) 
 
 [112] 
 
THE ONE 
 
 When He went out from Jordan 
 To walk in Galilee, 
 He went with those who loved him, 
 The Twelve, and then the Three. 
 
 When He was in the Garden 
 Before the cup was done. 
 He found the Three were sleeping 
 And called aside the One. 
 
 And when 'twas almost finished, 
 Down from the bloody Tree 
 He found the One beside him 
 And His heart leapt to see 
 
 The One, the more than brother. 
 Who on His heart had lain, — 
 Knew only that he loved Him, 
 And felt no more His pain. 
 
 ["3] 
 
THEY HAVE NOT LOWERED HIM 
 
 Strong in defeat, because you dared to say 
 What others dream of only to forget, 
 Glorious failure, — upon Golgotha yet 
 You hang, with wan-blanched cheek and gray 
 Drawn lips that moan, "Forgive them; they 
 Know not the thing they do." The centuries fleet, 
 But still the blunderers transfix thy feet. 
 And press the thorn yet deeper as they pray. 
 
 Stranger than Lazarus who thrilled to hear 
 Through the deep, death-like trance thy tenderness. 
 Or blind men clearer-eyed than Pharisees, 
 
 Or melodies that haunt a deafened ear. . . . 
 That worshipers in smug forgetfulness 
 Leave thee to hang and mock thee from their knees! 
 
 ["4] 
 
THE BUILDER: I 
 
 Smoothing a cypress beam 
 With a scarred hand 
 
 I saw a carpenter 
 In a far land. 
 
 Down past the flat roofs 
 Poured the white sun; 
 
 But still he bent his back, 
 The patient one. 
 
 And I paused surprised 
 In that queer place 
 
 To find an old man 
 With a haunting face. 
 
 "Who art thou, carpenter, 
 Of the bowed head; 
 
 And what buildest thou?" 
 "Heaven," he said. 
 
 [IIS] 
 
THE BUILDER: II 
 
 You think it strange that I, an aging man, 
 
 Here in this lonely village hew my beams 
 
 And set the flat-roofed houses straight and true, 
 
 Yet ever with a something in my face 
 
 That makes you love me, even though I'm old; 
 
 How should an old man teach a boy to love? 
 
 Aye, lad, we'll rest, and clear a little space 
 Here in the shavings underneath the tree — 
 How softly that green vine has faced the sun. 
 The clusters ripen, there's a sparrow's nest, 
 I think the lilies never were so fair. 
 The goats are driven through the narrow streets, 
 The weary oxen leave the threshing-floor, 
 And there's the new moon like a silver sail. 
 
 Oh, I have sailed upon a magic sea. 
 And heard the winds that blow from the new moon 
 Across the waters move with wondering — 
 
 Boy, you have served me; if you were my son 
 I do not think you could be tenderer. 
 And I have marked the question in your face 
 Many long days you never spoke at all 
 But set a stouter shoulder to the beam 
 Because I stumbled lifting it in place. 
 Feeling the old wound in my side afresh. 
 I was as strong within my father's house — 
 He was a carpenter — I had my trade of him. 
 Remembrance of him and of my mother's face 
 Crowds round my heart: to-night you shall be told. 
 [ii6] 
 
THE BUILDER: II 
 
 There was a young man, such as you are now,^ 
 Filled with great wonder at the winds and hills, 
 Sturdy of back, laughing, and fleet of foot, 
 Yet hiding a great yearning in his heart 
 For the good touch of women and of friends. 
 Lettered he was only in humble ways, 
 Yet knew the ancient language of his race 
 And pored above the parchments lovingly 
 Upon the house-top near the twilight time, 
 
 Reading of Abram in the land of Ur, 
 
 Of Moses in the courts of Pharaoh, 
 
 Of Samuel and the voice that called 
 
 And how he late anointed Jesse's son. 
 
 Of how Saul loved the young lad in his heart, 
 
 And of the arrows shot by Jonathan. 
 
 One day into the village came a Greek, 
 Hungry and fleeing, whom the carpenter 
 Took to his house because he once had fled 
 Into another country years before; 
 And when the fugitive prepared to go 
 He took from his own breast a parchment roll 
 And gave it to the young lad of the home, 
 Saying, "My friend, I leave thee living bread 
 For those that hunger dumbly after Truth. 
 There was a good man whom they judged to death 
 Because men loved him for the word he spoke, 
 Saying he had no fear but to do wrong. 
 No aim in living but to speak true. 
 He drank the hemlock, but his words are here 
 [117] 
 
THE BUILDER: II 
 
 Written in love by one who loved him much; 
 Behold, I plant truth like a mustard seed 
 Within thy heart, to cover all the earth. 
 Take it and use it as the word of God.'' 
 
 So saying went the wanderer from the town, 
 But the young man remembered all he spoke, 
 And knew the parchment was from Sinai. 
 
 Then came upon him the awful immanence 
 Of understanding out of visionings, 
 And he was caught up in a fiery cloud 
 Of all the dead undying prophecies 
 That stirred the hearts of those whom men have slain 
 And after worshiped, knowing them from God. 
 And as he went about the village street 
 He saw new meanings in the children's play, 
 The shepherd's labors, and the house-wife's toil. 
 And love of men for those who yield them peace. 
 He laughed among them, wrestled ruddily 
 With his hale comrades, helped the vintner tread, 
 Rejoicing with his father in snug beams 
 And well hewn rafters; but his mother knew 
 Upon the Sabbath how he sought the hills 
 And made the barren slopes his synagogue. 
 
 Then was his vision shattered by a voice 
 That cried upon him in the wilderness, 
 Saying, "God's Kingdom is near at hand"; 
 And he went out among the country folk 
 [ii8] 
 
THE BUILDER: 11 
 
 Speaking the truth of God's love unto man, 
 And how His Kingdom was within the heart, 
 And man should love his brother, knowing him 
 His kingly comrade and good comforter. 
 
 Then did the elders murmur at his speech, 
 Saying such words were highly dangerous. 
 And he should die— so he was judged to death. 
 
 But I have had a vision in my time 
 As here in this lone village I have bent 
 Through forty years, and now you at my side— 
 I think it set God's peace upon my face— 
 And this I tell you, now that night draws near, 
 And you shall be a witness of the dream. 
 
 I thought one hung upon a cross all day 
 Upon a hill and faced the blazing sun 
 And heard the thunder of the waves of hate, 
 Yet only saw his mother's stricken face. 
 Three mourning women, and one fearless friend. 
 Then all was darkness, and he cried aloud, 
 "My God, why hast thou left me, even Thou!" 
 Then came forgetfulness and gracious peace. 
 
 I thought in time the darkness lifted up 
 And pain came back into his battered hands 
 And a great fire burned deep within his side; 
 Then a low voice that whispered in a tomb: 
 [119] 
 
THE BUILDER: II 
 
 "Father, my God, thou knowest of our love 
 And now I heard him in the utter dark 
 Calling me forth into the green of day. 
 Thou knowest all the splendor of that cry 
 That shattered to me through the walls of sleep 
 And dragged me upward even to his arms. 
 In our white town where my dear sisters sit 
 There is no comfort like they laid away, 
 And the faint myrrh is sweet about him still. 
 
 "Oh, God my Father, grant that my strong lips 
 Shall blossom on him red as our deep love, 
 My arms cleave to him and my heart awake 
 Remembrance of old stirrings of the blood, 
 My hands bring healing, and my feet yield life. 
 He is so strong, so young, so brave, so true, 
 He has within him all the goodly springs 
 Unsquandered and unwasted, deep and clear: 
 He cannot die because of one red day. 
 Even the Roman turned aside the blow, 
 Sparing the shining beauty of his limbs; 
 The spear has pierced him, but the tip was love. 
 He cannot die, he is not dead, not dead. 
 
 "See, I have come, my Father, past the guard, 
 I waited for the lightning and the storm. 
 The shuddering earth that shook aside the stone 
 And let me in to call upon his name. 
 And I have warmed him, lips and breast and all, 
 Given my youth and all the strength of love, 
 He cannot die, he is not dead, not dead.^' 
 
 [120] 
 
THE BUILDER: II 
 
 I thought there came a light within the dark, 
 A little radiance and a growing flame, 
 A flutter of the eyelid and a slow deep breath, 
 The dead lips stirred and met the lips that clung, 
 And life came back within the arms of God. 
 Then he that was sore wounded unto death 
 Knew his good friend and said, "I have but slept." 
 
 With morning stooped a woman to the tomb 
 Where two men sat, and she became afraid 
 And ran to tell the others, weeping sore 
 That he was gone whom she had come to bathe. 
 
 I thought within a garden once she knelt 
 And tried to touch him whom great love had healed 
 But he cried out and gave her not her will. 
 Whereat his heart went dead for a great space 
 Because he loved her with exceeding love 
 And would have wed her for the love he bore. 
 
 I thought he showed himself among his friends 
 Within a room where one felt of his hands 
 And knelt before him, crying, "Thou art he"; 
 Or on the shore he showed them where to cast 
 As in the days before the great red day. 
 And one upon the sand cried, "Thou art he." 
 
 And then because he knew his work was done 
 On that high hill where he had hung till dark, 
 Proving that he was steadfast unto death, 
 Giving his life as witness to the truth 
 
 [121] 
 
THE BUILDER: II 
 
 That men so loved that they could die for love 
 And set a witness on the hills of time; 
 Because it seemed that he had suffered much, 
 And he was young, and life held something still, 
 And God had tried and found him to be true; 
 Because he knew that he had done enough 
 And God was strong to finish what he left, 
 Leading men's hearts to that high sacrifice 
 As to an altar, — so he met his friends 
 And one day left them, passing from the hill 
 Where he had told them much of goodly cheer. 
 Then to a far country made his unknown way 
 And builded flat-roofed houses straight and true, 
 Yet never spoke of what he left behind. 
 
 For then it seemed he found another Truth 
 Beside the one he learned on the high hill. 
 That to build houses is a work of God, 
 To set them level, raise them square and strong, 
 Where children may find shelter, and love nest, 
 And women spin, and men smile in their sleep; 
 That Labor is a worship fair as Love, 
 And God is but a Master Artisan 
 Who builds a Temple in His Universe 
 Alike within men's hearts as in the sun. 
 
 So as his shavings scattered from his plane, 
 ''They are my prayers," he said half-smilingly; 
 And as he set a house-beam in its place, 
 "I am like God," he said, "Who high in heaven 
 
 [122] 
 
THE BUILDER: 11 
 
 Hangs the great ridge-pole of the Milky Way'^; 
 And when there came a boy to learn his trade, 
 He loved him with exceedingly great love 
 Because he seemed unto him as a son; 
 And as he taught the lad to fashion straight, 
 "He is the priest who knows the false from true, 
 And he shall shape anew a living God 
 And never know the thing that he hath done." 
 
 Behold, my lad, the evening star has come, 
 And these old wounds within my hands grow fresh — 
 I hurt them once when my great hammer swerved, — 
 I cannot talk the night away as once 
 When I was younger, yet these arms of mine 
 Have some good labor left within them still. 
 
 So now, good-night, I leave you to your dreams. 
 God keep you, boy; to-morrow brings us work, 
 And work is blessing and a house of peace. 
 
 [123] 
 
UPON THE VATICAN 
 
 I AM a Jew, amenable to your law 
 
 That here upon the Vatican I die 
 
 To make a Roman festival. 'Twere well 
 
 If ye should bind me firmly when ye bind, 
 
 Head down, arms and legs thrown wide. Drive deep — 
 
 Perhaps such searching nails may find the truth. 
 
 Ye need not shrink; no longer is my hand 
 Instant to anger; my sword has dulled its edge. 
 You will permit, my masters, out of grace, 
 A fisherman whose hands have mended nets 
 A little while to bring his fish to land. 
 Brown memories and little silvery thoughts: 
 I was not much for talking in those days. 
 
 Not much for talking, but I loved him deep; 
 Not even John, lad of the shining hair, 
 Dared leap to meet him walking by the sea. 
 Or knew that little trick of hand and arm 
 That tossed the shimmering beauty on the shore. 
 On me he said his secret house should stand, 
 The Church Invisible that holds men's hearts 
 Like nesting birds within the clefted rock. 
 Simon I was, but now I am the Rock. 
 
 Aye, even though I hear the drunken populace 
 Of an ensanguined Rome loll to applaud 
 Yon purple emperor whose most holy zeal 
 Is ridding his world of Christian infidels, 
 
 [124] 
 
UPON THE VATICAN 
 
 Through drooping vine leaves, insolent with song, 
 Pampered by slave-girls, this, this is not Romel 
 There is another Citadel of God, 
 And it is builded on no shaken sands 
 But on immense and granite permanence. 
 Simon I was, I am, I am the Rock. 
 
 Out of much testing is the center proved, 
 The corn threshed in the ear, and quietly 
 Man grows to understanding like a child 
 Grateful at last for that swift chastening 
 Which healed him worthy of his Father's house; 
 For though he enter on belated feet 
 Creeping at midnight through the silent halls 
 To that one room prepared, the grace of God 
 Like to a mother waking, calls his name, 
 "I knew your footfall; welcome home, my son." 
 
 O Grace of Christ, white nester of the heart. 
 And brooding Dove whose silence is its song, 
 Not flesh and bone have whispered of the truth 
 But faith alone reveals the living God. 
 But faith, what faith? Not only that which bows 
 In acquiescent silence at the shrine 
 Ablaze with constellations, but the wrestling soul 
 That meets each day its wan Gethsemane 
 And just wins through to anguish, brokenly. 
 He knows not peace who may not stride the storm. 
 And I who failed him, left him hedged with thorns. 
 Beaten and mocked and brave and shadow-eyed, 
 
 [125] 
 
UPON THE VATICAN 
 
 Him the dear lover, comrade, teacher, friend. 
 The m.an who burst the ancient dread of death 
 And by great loving beat the darkness down, 
 I who had heard three times the cock that crew 
 And knew he loved me not alone for this 
 Great, golden body and impetuous faith, 
 But loved me best when I denied him most 
 And called me to him with still patient eyes 
 Jesting at sorrow — I know, I know at last. 
 
 He is the Christ, I say not was but is, 
 The quiet walker of the windy stars, 
 Familiar with his immortality 
 And unabashed by cocks that crow him nay, 
 Young as creation, ancient as the hills. 
 Walker of deserts, coucher with the slain, 
 Lips of the lover, mother's feeding breast, 
 Doubter and doubt, and everlasting aye. 
 The hound of heaven, wanderer of God. 
 
 For if a man have power to save his world 
 By loving much, how shall we think it strange 
 If he return to walk again with men 
 In every land, in every century? 
 This do I know, who have seen many lands, 
 That down the gray traditions of the years 
 Walks many a wanderer with a face like his, 
 And I have knowledge of the road he came. 
 The grace of God will walk his world again; 
 Men shall not lack the comiort of God^s kiss. 
 
 [126] 
 
UPON THE VATICAN 
 
 "Remember this," he spake and broke the Bread, 
 "Ye whom I loved that ye might know the way 
 To scatter friendship through the hearts of men: 
 Whene'er ye break the bread of comradeship 
 Whether in homes where children laugh and cling, 
 Or with the aged sitting with their dreams, 
 Or with the young, the strong who take the shade 
 Where the mown grass dries in the ruddy sun, 
 That I am Love, and ye shall find my face 
 Reflected in the eyes of those you love 
 And in great longing know that I am there. 
 I am the bread that fills you day and night, 
 I am the wine of perfect friendliness; 
 And whosoever shall remember this 
 Memorial of parting in a quiet room 
 Where twelve dear friends gave each the kiss of peace, 
 Shall hold his own Last Supper in my name. 
 As I have loved you, friends, feed thou my sheep." 
 
 And yet not this could compass me with wings 
 Upon this hill where I shall meet my death 
 Head downward swooning on a bloody cross: 
 What should I fear who have beheld my God? 
 I am an old man, yet youth is in my heart 
 Who have discerned with younger eyes the truth. 
 There are strange things that falter at the sense 
 Of sight and hearing, things we cannot touch. 
 And scarcely even know, till in a flame 
 Sudden there bursts a sense within the sense 
 
 [127] 
 
UPON THE VATICAN 
 
 Of hearing, seeing, — and men name it death. 
 
 How shall one chart that chronicle of faith 
 
 Whose hands are touching parchment and pen alone? 
 
 A traveler sets out upon a distant road, 
 
 Finds an inn, pays his host, and sleeps, 
 
 And all night long the road runs by his door. 
 
 To-day Paul dies, wrapped in a sheet of flame 
 In this same festival of Lupercal; 
 His body will shed ash upon the wind. 
 Paul says that in the judgment of the dead 
 The dust shall quiver, bodies rise again 
 In old habitual flesh and blood and bone 
 Familiar . . . I do not hold with Paul. 
 For in a life-time I have outgrown my shell 
 Over and over, cast aside the clay, 
 And am not now the same in any part; 
 If bodies rise, which body will return? 
 
 Nay, Paul is wrong; he never talked with Him 
 Who swore the soul may pass but never die, 
 Entering again such house as time shall raise 
 Fit for his dwelling, but never the old walls; 
 For when the beams decay, we build anew. 
 Remembering the old home and its graciousness 
 Of thronging threshold and of sheltering roof, — 
 Who would put new wine into musty jars 
 Except the fragrance of the musk be there? 
 
 [128] 
 
UPON THE VATICAN 
 
 Nay, Paul is wrong; he hath not seen his God 
 As I have seen Him walking in the dim 
 Young twilight near the open tomb. . . . 
 Ashes to ashes, but spirit walks in flame. 
 
 There shall come men who will obscure the truth, 
 Saying the body, as Egyptians do, 
 Must be preserved against the day of doom, 
 Or the soul perish. . . . The soul can never die. 
 For though the body molder stone by stone 
 And in three days dissolve to whence it came, 
 Insensate earth and groping root of tree, 
 The spirit walks with peace upon its lips, 
 Returning to those who, waiting in the flesh. 
 Have yet clear eyes to see beyond the grave, 
 And know no partings and no distances 
 But only that their love is deeper now. 
 More tender-true, more near, more intimate. 
 
 This is the victory of Christ in death 
 That many dreamed like Socrates the truth, 
 But only He first shook aside the tomb 
 With the glad triumph of a known return. 
 Take care ye know Him when he pass you by. 
 
 . . . And with this cast I draw my net to land. 
 
 [129] 
 
DAWN 
 
 There is a Watcher on the walls of Time 
 
 Who waits the coming day; 
 
 From headland to blown headland spreads the flame, 
 
 And Troy is far away; 
 
 Helen has led her maidens to the tower, 
 
 Leda's sons are clay; 
 
 Hector's body lies a broken flower, — 
 
 The Watcher waits alway! 
 
 When shall it dawn, the day of perfect peace. 
 
 The King come home to rest? 
 
 The Watcher waits, the dawn is far away, 
 
 Hector is slain, and Helen's lovely breast 
 
 Flowers with the May; 
 
 Paris lies low, Achilles cannot stay: 
 
 From headland to blown headland leaps the flame,— 
 
 The Watcher waits alway! 
 
 There is a Watcher, and he will not fail; 
 
 He sees, beyond the dark, 
 
 A little light that climbs like a dim star: 
 
 His great, glad voice, oh, hark! — 
 
 "Waken, ye sleepers. Ilium is dust. 
 
 Lift up your voices, strike the hillsides dumb; 
 
 Even while ye were dreaming of the war, 
 
 The King of Peace has come! 
 
 [130] 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL 
 
 These are the days when men draw pens for' swords 
 
 Hurling hysteric bombs of epithets. 
 And girding on the glory of great words, 
 
 Storm the embarrassed parapets. 
 Words, words, — ''Democracy!" they cry, 
 Who pass their neighbors with averted eye. 
 
 America, my country, not with the lesser love 
 Do I, thy son and lover, set the flame 
 
 Cleansing thy shame. 
 But only that I know what love is molded of, 
 That here for us in these United States 
 
 Where still the dullard prates 
 
 Of the propitious fates, 
 Democracy as yet is but a namel 
 
 A name for demagogs to juggle facilely, 
 A tinsel ball to catch the crowd and mock it 
 While deft confederates with razor-edge set free 
 The staring burgher's plump distended pocket. 
 
 The trumpet blows to war and youth upstarts 
 
 With shaken hearts. 
 Stirring to all old splendors of the past, 
 Knowing that we are heritors of glory 
 Whose names shall stand in story: 
 
 The die for us irrevocably is cast, 
 
 [131] 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL 
 
 For youth has never shrunk to pay the price 
 Of the recurrent sacrifice. 
 
 It is youth's prerogative to do 
 
 What gray age tells them to, 
 
 With song upon our lips 
 
 Facing the last eclipse; 
 Death never waits to summon young men twice. 
 
 Youth is ready to lay down 
 Strength of foot and body brown, 
 Glow of life and red of lip, 
 Supple knee and clinging hip. 
 Sting of health and gracious breath. 
 All to weave a crown for Death. 
 Youth is ready, stripped to run 
 That immortal Marathon. 
 
 And so the khaki clothes glad limbs once more. 
 The rifle's shouldered, and the quick-step starts, 
 The old flag billows, deep male cannons roar. 
 
 And honor draws our hearts. 
 To die for one's country, that is bliss — 
 
 But what of this: 
 
 Old men have a bitter tongue, 
 "So were we when we were young; 
 Now that we have wavering knees, 
 Blessing jail on subtleties! 
 
 [132] 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL 
 
 "Youth wotdd find a joe to fight 
 When his heels and heart are light; 
 Now that we have wavering knees, 
 Blessing jail on subtleties!" 
 
 Ah, old gray-beards, howdy-do, 
 Here's subtlety for you: 
 
 Out of the crush of cities, maddening lights, 
 Exotic gardens of obscene delights, 
 The turmoil of the elevated overhead, 
 Faces that one passes set and dead, 
 Men's faces with slack creases at the lips. 
 And women mostly eyes and smell and hips; 
 
 There burns one vision of a summer night, 
 The night that England set her hand to war, 
 Remembering her Waterloo and Trafalgar, 
 And men had gathered in the midnight glare 
 To watch the bill-boards posted at Times Square. 
 When I saw the German waiter who had lately brought 
 
 my dinner 
 Stand beside me in the crowd with face grown sudden 
 
 thinner, 
 And hand met hand but with a manlier grip 
 Than I suspected when he palmed my tip: 
 
 "You're going?" "Yes, the 'Vaterland.' 
 She sails on Wednesday. And I'm glad to go." 
 
 "Auf Wiedersehn — " 
 
 He'll not come back, I know. 
 Yet I am glad I knew that different hand. 
 
 [133] 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL 
 
 Just as the sense of all it meant struck home, 
 The broken bodies spumed with bloody foam, 
 The tousle-headed boys who scarcely knew 
 One of life's joys before death thrust them through, 
 Staggering women learning how to plow 
 And children starving for milk of one lean cow, 
 There in the crowd upon the unshamed Square 
 I saw two men and a woman with red hair. 
 Her white arms gleaming, with dimples in the bends 
 Familiar with the shoulders of her friends; 
 Two men, one woman, but they scuffled there, — 
 Let Europe tumble, ten million young men die, 
 ^'Aw, quit your kidding, you're the lucky guy. 
 This is the life" — it's midnight in Times Square! 
 
 Not in Manhattan only 
 
 But in lonely 
 Forgotten villages upon the plains 
 Men still are forging their invisible chains 
 
 Out of misplaced endeavor 
 That bind them to hoar Caucasus forever. 
 
 America is still the awkward boy, 
 
 Hobbledehoy, 
 Knowing no joy except in birds* nests or the mood's 
 
 employ. 
 Stranger to heart-sweetening laughter, 
 Tooting horns and running after 
 Each his own peculiar grafter. 
 
 Reckless in all things, trying all by turns, 
 
 Here hits the sav/-dust trail, there a negro bums, 
 
 [134] 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL 
 
 Mortgages his home to buy a motor-car 
 Still hitching wagons to a darkened star, 
 With something still of the strange whim of boys, 
 Thinking that man most great who makes the loudest 
 noise. 
 
 And yet we need not be the thing we are. 
 There is a greater war, 
 
 The War at home! 
 And though we go abroad 
 With the avenging rod 
 Calling ourselves from God, 
 Upholding now the desperate hands of France 
 
 In crater-scarred advance. 
 And though to Mother England now we swarm 
 
 Under her wearying arm. 
 And though to Russia we in faith extend 
 
 The warm hand of a friend, 
 Restore to Belgium all of what she lost 
 
 Haloed in holocaust, 
 And though we win and break the brutal Hun— 
 
 Our task will not be done, 
 But just begun. 
 
 There is a War, a greater War, at home, 
 Not whistled by shrill fife. 
 But still a war to knife. 
 For more than life. 
 
 [135] 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL 
 
 America has need, oh, pitiful, utmost need 
 Of the old breed here in our weakened seed 
 
 The spawn of mighty fathers, Jeffersons and Lincolns, 
 Washingtons, 
 
 And shrewd-eyed ''Richard" with his almanac. 
 We have lacked something, we oblivious sons, 
 
 Something we must win back. 
 
 A few there are by some direction sent 
 As if our fathers still were provident, 
 And gave us in this hour, a president. 
 
 Thank God, thank God for Wilson I 
 He has set 
 His hand against all bluster and it dies,- 
 
 The ancient verities are with us yet. 
 
 This is the hour I saw the angel stand 
 The seventh vial in his hand. 
 
 This is the Armageddon prophet-told 
 
 When seven hills give up the dead they hold. 
 
 V\"hen shines the angel in the bloody sun 
 And in the darkness Caesar is undone. 
 
 This is the day the flaming planet swings 
 Back to the sun from lonely wanderings. 
 
 [136] 
 
THE SEVENTH VIAL 
 
 And this the revelation shall not cease 
 
 Till ye have seen the perfect Prince of Peace. 
 
 So, oh, my country, follow, follow far; 
 Though this is war, there is another War I 
 
 [137] 
 
ARMAGEDDON 
 
 The gods of war have tossed the apple of death 
 Into the peaceful laps of reluctant nations, 
 The clock of Europe is set back six thousand years 
 And the Servian peasants leave ungathered harvests 
 To be mown down in an unnameable garnering. 
 
 I see a sorrowing face lifted in a far garden, 
 I hear a voice upon a lonely hill, 
 Nay, I see uncountable millions of faces 
 Of women and huddled children and helpless old people. 
 And the pale unafraid faces of strong men going to be 
 cut down. 
 
 It is the desperate rally of expiring feudalism, 
 It is the last crucifixion of the rights of man. 
 It is the resurrection and the day of judgment 
 Pronounced upon the war-gods by unescapable wisdom 
 That men may learn the imperative necessity of avoid- 
 ing war. 
 
 [138] 
 
PATINS 
 
 (I cannot imagine what I do not remember.) 
 
 There is a crag in Thessaly 
 Where the grass is green 
 Like the greenness in my heart. 
 
 . . I am very far from you, 
 And I cannot find my sheep. 
 
 This I know, that when the door of the temple opened 
 And the high priest came down to the edge of the water, 
 I could almost have touched him. 
 
 If it were not for the sound of the camels breathing, 
 I should think there were not even nearness. 
 
 Hand round the great cup with the horn handle, 
 
 Lady of the broad girdle; 
 
 I have brought home buck-antlers. 
 
 If it should be as you say 
 Then the pigeon shall fly home by evening. 
 But do not tarry longer than the hour of the moon's 
 rising. 
 
 Stand where the street branches on the way to the 
 
 Circus; 
 But do not look at me in the procession; 
 I shall be leading the chanting. 
 
 [139] 
 
PATINS 
 
 I think, when he snores like that, 
 
 That his horse is impatient. 
 
 It would not do, though, to drop the hanging. 
 
 You say you have slaughtered the chief of the neigh- 
 boring nation: 
 
 I will believe you when you bring me his tooth of black 
 agate. 
 
 It is enough, Madame, I begin to understand you. 
 
 I regret the position in which I think you will find him; 
 
 He had a sweet treble. 
 
 When the lash eats, I think it will not be forever. 
 Last night I thrust the lentils out at the oar-lock while 
 the sentry was drowsing. 
 
 When the ripe dates fall to the ground for lack of 
 
 plucking 
 I will set my hand to the window, 
 And there will be no more sleeping. 
 
 The black cow to-day would not cross with the others. 
 And all underneath her the turf was quaking: 
 It will be a sign of the faring. 
 
 The wall, my lord, is very high. 
 But will it keep out folly? 
 
 [140] 
 
PATINS 
 
 If her breasts were fuller she would make no better 
 
 model, 
 But I cannot use such lashes for my Madonna. 
 
 When the great conch blows I must leave you, 
 For the gods when they are carven of green jade 
 Are inscrutable. 
 
 I do not know why that star should have a way of 
 
 looking 
 As if he could hear us even among the green rushes. 
 To-morrow night I will bind him with the thong from 
 
 my loin-cloth, 
 But to-night there is time for only loving. 
 
 You think they are dancing around the May-pole: 
 
 I tell you I have seen that dance before, 
 
 And it is not for nothing it is pointed with an acorn. 
 
 Through subterranean corridors beneath the wooded 
 mountain I thread the rosy labyrinth of warm and 
 yielding walls, 
 
 Seeking, seeking. , . . 
 
 There were but six steps that led down to the judg- 
 ment-chamber. 
 
 Yet it was the fourth step was his undoing. 
 
 To-night the door of your pavilion may be left un- 
 guarded. 
 
 [141] 
 
PATINS 
 
 I met my love in the morning. . . . 
 She was coming home at day-break, 
 And her eyes were starry. 
 
 All I know is, the touch of an ax on the nape of the 
 
 neck 
 Is soft as the falling of snow-flakes between two silent 
 
 houses. 
 
 Love, if they should tell you I am fallen, do not believe 
 
 them. 
 For even were I to meet the black bane it would be but 
 
 my way of returning, 
 Never to leave you again though an hundred battles 
 
 were calling. 
 
 Even though your body blazes in this red morning, 
 Forget the sea of faces where clenched hands are tossing, 
 And in a little while we shall be together 
 Beyond crucifixion. 
 
 You came to meet me, yet I tell you, 
 It is not the first time you have seen me. 
 If it were, why did you come so quickly? 
 
 [142] 
 
AN INCANTATION 
 
 Build the wigwam close and secret, 
 Bend the willow boughs, 
 Wind the sacred forest creeper 
 Through the house. 
 
 Heat the glowing granite boulder 
 Till it scorches brown 
 The green birch bark we shove under. 
 Set it down. 
 
 Strip him naked, loose his war-lock, 
 Bind his arms behind; 
 He shall see the sacred spirits 
 Of his kind. 
 
 Cast upon the fiery granite 
 In the center ring 
 
 Cool clear water brought by maidens 
 From the spring. 
 
 Knit the door with wild-grape tendrils. 
 Leave him there alone, 
 Start the mournful tom-tom's wailing 
 Monotone. 
 
 Round the wigwam dusky bodies 
 Glisten all the night 
 And the Spirit-maker wears an 
 Elk-tooth white. 
 
 [143] 
 
AN INCANTATION 
 
 Little fiery lights are glancing 
 Through the stifling gloom, 
 And his nostrils sense a subtle 
 Strange perfume. 
 
 Little fiery faces glimmer, 
 Little hands are laid 
 Cool against his sweating body 
 Unafraid. 
 
 And the voices of his fathers 
 Through the shadows dim 
 All the secrets of the spirits 
 Tell to him. 
 
 Tell him where the tribe shall winter, 
 What new enemies 
 
 Have come creeping through the marshes 
 On their knees. 
 
 Tell him that the Spirit-maker 
 Walks with Manitou, 
 That his voice should warn the peoples 
 What to do. 
 
 Louder beat the muffled tom-toms 
 Through the stifling steam 
 And the throbbing in his temples 
 Is like flame. 
 
 [144] 
 
AN INCANTATION 
 
 See, the eastern sky is whiter 
 And the stars have gone; 
 Open wide the sacred wigwam 
 With the dawn. 
 
 Lift him out, the fainting prophet,- 
 Holy is he now, 
 
 For thin spirit hands have rested 
 On his brow. 
 
 Nevermore the warriors know him 
 In his empty place, 
 He has seen the Long Departed 
 Face to face. 
 
 He has paid the price of vision, 
 Looked past life and death; 
 Sacred in the tribal, councils 
 What he saith. 
 
 Manitou has breathed upon him 
 And his eyes are deep; 
 And the lips that spirits greeted, 
 Secrets keep. 
 
 [145] 
 
NOT BY SLEEP MAY WAKING DEEM 
 
 So real in sleep the shadows seem, 
 So near and intimate the theme, 
 In sooth, I know not how it seem 
 Which is the dream within the dream. 
 
 So dim in day do red suns gleam, 
 So mistily does sunlight stream. 
 So like a dream that dreamers dream, 
 In sooth, I know not which it seem. 
 
 Whether a dreamer dream or no. 
 To dreams both dream and dreamer go — 
 And not by sleep may waking deem 
 Which is the dream within the dream. 
 
 [146] 
 
SOMETIMES 
 
 Sometimes when I go 
 At night into my room 
 
 And press the tiny bulb 
 That sets it all abloom, 
 
 I think that when I pass 
 Within death's friendly door 
 
 There shall be more of Light 
 Than I have known before. 
 
 L147] 
 
AFFIRMATION 
 
 I CANNOT see the wind, and yet it draws 
 
 By secret laws; 
 The moon I see, yet never that which brings 
 The waters welling from their coraled springs; 
 
 And when the rainbow stands 
 
 Over the shimmering lands, 
 I think some ancient promise lifts up her regal 
 hands. 
 
 I have known many a friend — 
 
 Come from the world's end 
 Down circling stairways of recurring years-—* 
 
 Stand with the startled grace 
 
 Of knowledge in his face 
 And sudden wonder smiting nigh to tears: 
 
 So now I dare not say 
 
 In any careless way 
 
 That death could be so dark as not to bring the day. 
 
 [148] 
 
THE CYCLE 
 
 There in the crowd I knew him 
 And his eyes sought my face 
 
 With all the old assurance 
 Of that other place 
 
 Where I once saw receding 
 His eyes of steady flame, 
 
 And heard before we parted 
 His accents form ray name. 
 
 Each in his path appointed 
 Hath breasted bitter years 
 
 And still the perfect knowledge 
 In this one face appears. 
 
 Ah me, I dared not tell him 
 Or lift my hand to save 
 
 The thing the grave had yielded 
 A moment from the grave. 
 
 The only thing I carry 
 Is his comprehending face 
 
 Who, well as I, remembers 
 Our parting in that place. 
 
 [149] 
 
WITNESS 
 
 As once with my divinity 
 I won the hearts of men, 
 So now in this humanity 
 My deathless soul again — 
 That you might understand me 
 And know the road I came — 
 Ascends the Hour appointed 
 Enrobed in living flame. 
 
 [ISO] 
 
HAVE I BEEN SO LONG TIME WITH 
 YOU'? 
 
 Have I been so long time with you, and yet you do not 
 
 know me 
 Whose feet you washed, whose bread you broke upon 
 
 the eager hill, 
 Was I so unlike the Bridegroom who you said would 
 
 come in glory 
 That you wait, and never wonder how my hand is on 
 
 you still? 
 
 You bow the knee, you sip the wine, you breathe my 
 
 name before me. 
 You say I called the dead to life, but slept upon a 
 
 stone — 
 Have I been so long time with you, and yet you do not 
 
 know ms 
 Because I laughed and loved you and bade you walk 
 
 alone? 
 
 If I had faith to meet with death and wrest all terror 
 
 from him 
 To prove how far a man may walk who knows from 
 
 whence he came, 
 Do you think the spear could slay my soul or that the 
 
 tomb could hold me 
 Or that I would not come to those who call upon my 
 
 name? 
 
 [151] 
 
HAVE I BEEN SO LONG TIME WITH YOU? 
 
 I bide my thne, I keep my peace, I bind, I loose, I wki^ 
 now, 
 
 I bear no wounds as witnesses in hands and feet and 
 side; 
 
 I wear instead upon my brow the thorns of your com- 
 placence, 
 
 And through earth's generations my heart is crucified. 
 
 If you were brave, if you were kind, if you had faith 
 
 sufficient. 
 If you believed the things you say, and died to make 
 
 them true, 
 I should not need to come again returning and returning 
 Through all the lonely centuries and Golgothas for you. 
 
 Yet I am He whom seas obey, who take the wings of 
 
 morning, 
 Whose feet are on the mountain peaks, whose messenger 
 
 a star — 
 Have I been so long time with you and yet you do not 
 
 know me, 
 The living God who walks beside and loves you as you 
 
 are? 
 
 [152] 
 

 
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