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 The Call of Sorrow 
 
 A POEM OF DESTINY 
 
 ROBERTS 
 
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THE CALL OF SORROW 
 

 
 
 
 THE CALL OF SORROW 
 
 
 
 A POEM OF DESTINY 
 
 BY 
 
 CPiARLES V. H. ROBERTS 
 
 
 
 THE TORCH PRESS :: PUBLISHERS :: 1917 
 
 
 
 
 

 COPYRIGHT BY 
 THE TORCH PRESS 
 
 NOVEMBER 1917 
 
 M -7 1918 
 
^ 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 MY AUNT 
 
 EMILIE DE MUN SMITH 
 
THE CALL OF SOKEOW 
 
 ELOVED ! In thine adversity there is 
 Not one will call thee friend. When mortal heart 
 Beats outward for the healing touch, the little 
 Things for its easing never come. Sorrow 
 Is an Exile, which hath no portion in the time 
 And tale and scorching hrain of selfishness. 
 
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 H 
 
 M 
 
 F thou hast webs of laughter and dangling gold, 
 Or credit on the rich man's scroll writ deep, 
 And in thy house a sense of feasts and affectation 
 Unconf essed, — then thou hast many friends ; 
 Thy life goes on with splendid tendence; 
 Thou art a shepherdess in the golden lights. 
 
UT a sudden pause in entertainment, its glows 
 And sighs and wines and visions delicate ; 
 Or hearken with thy gifts and jewels and favorite 
 Robes, dazzling the longest corridors; 
 Then thou shalt he with less friends, — lingering 
 In the sunlight, hut each remembering. 
 
ET Sorrow come, — the doorway of thy soul 
 Flung open to the storm of life's great pain, — 
 Then thou must win another friend; 
 Mad and knowing all, thy lords of pleasure 
 Flash and elsewhere seek ; thou art solitary, 
 Untended, comfortless, and yet — not ended. 
 
Spirit of Sorrow! with such majestic certainty 
 Dost thou come in on all things human; 
 Thy august angel hefore the compact of 
 Our life was signed, hreathed far off in star-dust: 
 Then our spirits quickened by the Word 
 Of God, conceived and met thee. For a time, 
 We, clothed in mortal raiment, swoon to thy 
 Bemoaning reeds and deepest chords of misery. 
 
Of pain, 
 
 ELOVED, thy stirring bosom is besieged with grief, 
 Sad sea-horizons of sorrow mystical, 
 With wounds no human hand can ever close. 
 Until thy soul beyond the ocean, weary, rests. 
 Thy tear, — each tear a solitaire, a pearl 
 That vainly shimmers on the crimson reef 
 for a setting in the ring of Sympathy ! 
 
OSE Health, — thy gold will twine in loneliness; 
 Thy most cherished arms that weaved about thy strength, 
 In weakness waver; petals o'er-hlown fly 
 On the wind away to stronger stems. If thou 
 Art ill, ill unto death, a mother's love 
 Alone will shine, — that unadorned, profound. 
 Unselfish love. The deeper falls the darkness 
 
 Of thy life, the brighter is its calm 
 
 Enduring warmth. Forever half in lightning 
 
 And in gloom, the maternal star in brilliance 
 
 Unafraid grows stronger in the firmament of Sorrow. 
 
H ! If we could be the things we are, 
 And not the things we have! Our chattels, 
 Gold, and songs are in themselves a nothingness, 
 A glow that has a wasting flame, and yet 
 Without, we are but ashes, — living limbs, 
 Wordless, handless, helpless, friendless. 
 Groping for the spirit of Companionship. 
 
FT Sorrow, art thou Victory, crowned in poverty, 
 In fallen fortunes and the emptiness of aid ; 
 ^§A Hll k^^^l ^ ^^^® ^^ bitterness on barren stone, 
 ^ ^1^ ^!^i Those pangs of pain and utter deprivation, 
 The flesh in sighs of jealousy composed; 
 To reach and grasp and suffer for the joys 
 Of life, — those wistful, dreamful joys of life 
 Attained by luxury only. Feebly, step 
 By step, the roaming of these starving souls 
 Casts a shadow for a moment; then 
 Unassuaged they soar away unto Oblivion. 
 
Talisman of Sorrow, winged through aeons 
 From the thunder of a Self-existent 
 §FA W^ ^^ Mind! — groan and cry in the anguish 
 r^^fe^^j Of the angels mutinied; in human bodies 
 Broken, torn and mangled on the arenas 
 Of Eoman persecution; in the twilight of battle fields, 
 Woman's shame and man's hypocrisy, 
 Unpraised achievement, kindred disappointment, 
 Memoried achings, bitter tragic losses. 
 
ITH thine august mournful smile, what art 
 
 Thou Sorrow, — thy sunset strangely pathetic o'er 
 
 The world's most splendid lives ; thy grief, regret, 
 
 The vague centennials of thy shame? To saint 
 
 And sin alike, thou dost cohere. 
 
 Though weary is the heart within thy hreast. 
 
 Oh! Why does thy bleeding compact cover all? 
 
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