B^W^tV^--^"" ^' LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. eijni! @5mn#la. • Shelf. 3.X^- At UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THE NEW WORLD WITH OTHER VERSE BY LOUIS JAMES BLOCK 1^Z%%^-CUL G. p. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK 27 West Twenty-third Street LONDON 24 Bedford Street, Strand )z ^nichjrfaochtr ^rtss 1895 Copyright, 1895 BY LOUIS JAMES BLOCK Ube Iknicftecboclser ipre8d» mevp l^otk TO EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN POET, CRITIC, FRIEND OF POETS THIS BOOK IS ADMIRINGLY AND LOYALLY INSCRIBED CONTENTS. PAGE The Friendship of the Faiths . . . . i Last Movement of the Symphony. (Allegro Maestoso) 19 Goethe 21 Revelation 42 Dante 43 Protagoras 51 Plato 53 Orpheus .72 David Swing 75 The Garden Where there is no Winter . . 78 James Russell Lowell 79 Sleep 82 Walt Whitman 84 Drinking Song 87 Alice Gary 88 Epicedium 8g Edmund Clarence Stedman 91 At Every Crisis 93 Roses 97 The New World . 99 NOTE. The Friendship of the Faiths was read in part at the Parliament of Religions, held in Chicago during the month of September, 1893. The New World was published in the summer of 1893, and is reproduced here as it is now otherwise out of print. When it first saw the light of day, it was called El Nuevo Mundo, but I have thought best to translate the title. THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE FAITHS THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE FAITHS. I. T HE voice of the Soul to the Great and High " I know you for Life of my life, I know you for Light of mine eyes, I long for your infinite calm ; Forth from the storm and the strife, The rumor of days and the blackness of sky. The rush of the manifold cries, I would fleet to the realm where hope Finds builded and shaped her uttermost scope,. To the region afar where your touch and brow Fill all the winds with perfume and balm, The towers not wrought of hands, The heart's imperishable now. The achievement's marvellous lands. I know from your bosom I came. Your secret of love and of flame ; I long through the cloud-swept passage of night For the clear resurgence of you and of light ; I feel your breath on my deepest of will ; I know you near whatso darkness I tread, I see you beside my sleepless bed, 3 4 The Friendship of the Fait J is. I answer your life and its wondrous thrill. Through all the ages' turmoil have I yearned to you, Through all the periods have I prayed to you, From depth of strangest sorrows have I burned to you. From farthest paths my supplications have been made to you. How have I ever sought you, Down what dim streams and through what mountain passes. The flight of the bright sun across the stretching skies. In meadow lands amid lush grasses. In mine own chasms of aspiration. And loftiest thought's world-circling peace ; Yet in what shape soe'er I wrought you, Calling upon you with what pain-impassioned cries^ Seeking your height of shining pure release From agony of limitation, I knew you for the goal and end To which my feet must ever wend, I knew you, O Transcendent One, As Heart of hearts and Soul of souls. Unchanging, perfect, golden-same. Master of death and victory won Over dark grief that speeds and rolls. Helper and Guide and Firm to tame The surging nations to your pregnant Will, The Strength beneficent that throbs and beats Through space's vastness and must still The Friendship of the Faiths. Past winter's snows and summer's heats Lead to the many-portaled city where You are the glowing and the girdling air, Spirit's attainment and the unison Of all you love in joy's completeness unbegun ! II. Response from the uttermost deeps : " Children of mine are you all, I bore you forth into the void, Forth into Time's unresting hall Where the wind of change leaps up and sweeps, Where day arises and night is destroyed, Where the myriad song awakes and rings Of the wide divisive universe of things ; I bore you, my manifold sons. In a stream that unceasingly runs ; I gave you my whole of being For your behoof and mastery and seeing ; Yea, I gave you the veriest soul of me, The innermost might of completeness and self. The strength that binds forever in one All in the world that is thought and done. The source and the promise of liberty ! You shall be more than blossom or elf, More than the patient growths of the field. More than the music the great seas yield. More than the suns around which dance The jubilant planets, yea, more Than gods who know not anguishings sore 6 The Friendship of the Faiths, And dwell forever in dalliance With heaven's own glories, unproven, untempted ; You shall arise to spirit and truth Out of the stark sheer darkness of nought, Your destiny woven and wrought By strength of will that glows dirempted, But gladly given to the Will that is mine ; Lo ! from the world's beginning and youth, Throughout its latter wonder and glory, The joyous, the growing, the dominant story ; Clearer the light and the life of me shine, Brought to divinest returning splendor. My sons becoming myself as attender On the fire that is centre and mid, On the glow that am I and God, A rebuilding fair of the life that was hid In every struggling period. The soul self-fashioned and an offering free On mine altar, Freedom, not Mystery ! " III. Through the broad field of Time The rush and the tumult ran ; Subtle and deep the voice from the holier clime Spoke in the heart of battling man. Clad in the soiling bondages of earth He felt within him the surge of a nobler birth. The smallest flower that grew. The winds that veering and careering blew. The stars that covered the midnight sky, The Friendship of the Faiths, 7 The sun in his fiery triumph on high, Murmurs that came from his innermost heart, Glimpses that shone he knew not whence, His own life's gradual pre-eminence, His thought's and his will's sure sovereignty, Woke him to knowledges fair of all that was yet to be. The mighty message was the grander part Of everything that lived and toiled and sang. And everywhere the stronger music rang. An all-enveloping glory of revelation That should at last bring each uplooking genera- tion Into the circle its benignance made, A rich wide chorus which should purely be The constant voice of wise Divinity, The purpose which so long had played About the slow-unfolding soul Risen to clearness and at length, In its white beauty and its strength, Showing the union of the whole. Which life and time must always serve, Freedom and worship and calm chastity, Suffering borne that the good might be, The golden sweep, and clasping curve Wherein sweet justice holds all men. The single truth that sees its perfectness Holding the world as with a soft caress, Love that is Manhood finished. Life that is Master of the quick and dead ! 8 The Friendship of the Faiths, IV. Therefore began the Search, Lit by the light within, From the depth and darkness of sin, From the foulness of earth and the smirch, To the high white pureness that has forever been ; Heavy the weight of the world upon them, Glamour and gloom of the outer have won them, Yet the sure instinct turns To a fire that fadelessly burns. Above and beyond and spiritual-clear And tender amid the revel of fear ; The rocks and the trees and the serpentine coils Hold them amid their toils. But the flame shines white Above all forms of sense or sight ; The sun and the day through shine and cloud Bear onward their dreams fulfilled of tears, And the light-flecked sea's still fluctuant crowd Tosses afar their hopes and their fears ; The ghost-world of the dead Glimmers and glowers with lure and with dread ; The miracle of the strife Appals with the savage exuberance of life ; Service and song and pain Seem the grim paths unto gain. And high in the winds and the air Images rise both sombre and fair. Mixtures of man and of things. Monstrous gods and pure, The Friendship of the Faiths, 9 Splendors about whom all life sings, Horrors that may not endure, Growth, beginning, movement, and change, Death, and sleep, and fleetnesses that range, Circles on circles of strange divinities, Worship than these that yet wilder is ; But over them and above Hovers the hope of Love, And the crescent white Light within Promises itself and release from the lessening base- ness and sin. V. O mother of nations, vast and visionary, Asia, whose teeming loins sent both to South and North Your myriad wanderers forth. Toward the great hope that glows and may not vary Your strong and elemental gaze was sent. Beside the gentler-moving waves of the great sea Your worshipping sons were fixed and bent Before the Law's serene inviolable majesty, And Fatherhood shone forth ennobling and sub- lime. Monarch amid the weaknesses of Time ; The grandeur of the large ancestral past, The deathless force of all the things that were, Over your children their divineness cast And patient rest in power that cannot err. lo The Friendship of the Faiths, O dreaming mother, yet on high afar And past the dimmest and remotest star, Your eyes beheld the vision of the lonely calm. That was to restlessness a lure, to agony a balm ; You found the way of prayer and abstinence and thought By which the freedom from the body could be wrought, The mid of contemplation where arise The peace and silence of the painless skies ; Yet others of your sons sought more than peace ; Nobility, a flame at war with night, Sent them on conquest's paths, bringing release To multitudes not wakened to the sight Of central radiance guiding all aright ; And others roamed the crested, haunted seas, Hoping somewhere to fathom life's dark mysteries ; And Egypt, who was yours, sat questioning What the cold voiceless grave might bring ; And others saw within the Spirit's lustrous deeps The pure Transcendent One, who ever keeps In arms of sleepless providence The wavering soul's pre-eminence ; And on your vision glowed the miracle, That holds the universe in omnipresent spell. The region of the Eternal where all hearts are one In the good Father, and each heart a son, Where life's each deed is infinite, complete, And all are glad at gracious Freedom's feet ; And later came the fierce triumphal march Under heaven's variant arch The Friendship of the Faiths* 1 1 Of those who knew that Unity Was lord and secret of just prophecy ; O mysterious mother of us all, In the great day that is to come, In the great fate that must befall, Your voice shall gird with gold the mighty Music's sum. VI. Unto the westering star, Beside the midland sea, The pageant speeds and rolls. The search which shatters each bond and bar, The grasp of the joy which must forever be, The unanimity which is the soul's. The dream of golden manhood burst and rose, Young Greece, victorious 'twixt the heavens and earth. The outer pliant to the thought that glows. Love, Light, and Equipoise in subtle birth ; The rhythmic pulses of the spirit keep Equable flow with forest, hill, and dewy lawn, The sun for an ecstatic moment in a perfect dawn Resting unanxious for the wearying steep, — For a brief interval, and the great toil Builds another curve and coil Of the self-recurrent rise Unto the topmost skies. Rome's tramp of armed and relentless strength Wakens the echoes from the North to South, 12 The Friendship of the Faiths, And conquest builds its passages at length From snows unmelting unto ceaseless drouth. The might of Will Supreme Burns in the haughty eagle's gleam ; Obedience firm unto the sterner law- Circles the regions with its luminous awe. The shepherd star that beamed upon the east Soared to a flooding sunshine and increased ; The impassioned dweller of the forest felt That radiance into his being melt ; Forth from his immemorial woods Germanic The storm of warriors sweeps titanic ; Over the anguished tyrant-ridden world The torrent was sent forth and hurled ; The tumult soothed itself and life Sprang deepened from the storm and strife ; The inner glories woke and shone Contrasted with the outer's pain and moan ; Heaven's paramount spheres of sovereignty spirit- ual Held the roused heart in noblest thrall. Lo ! by the wondrous midland sea Life wove for itself a jewelled imagery, A garb of gemmed observance and a power That has unending labor for its dower, A robe miraculous of song and flame and tale Whose wearing calms all waywardness, Having strange might to bless And making wanton passions bend and quail ; But where the icier stars look forth Upon the iron north, The Friends I lip of the Faiths. 13 The revelation in its whiteness pure Needs only its own strength to draw and to allure ; The secret comes in mildest splendor Unto its worshipper and attender, The veilless Truth and all-embracing Hope At the unclouded summit of the nation-travelled slope ; Yet further westward turns the expectant gaze Across the ocean's ceaseless roar Whence swift mysterious lightenings pour Promises of a newer morning's blaze. VII. Room for the light and growth, Room for the farthest-reaching strong desire, Occasion's golden portals open unto all ! The speeding hours are nothing loth, And every truth's soul-circling and soul-healing gyre Finds the glad skies that must befall. Over the sea's forbidding reach and long denial The old deliverance fleets and toils as in the past, And once again a noble trial Promises guerdon at the last. The web which the weary years have fashioned well. The garment made by the toilers dead, Mankind shall wear in splendor perfected And peace amid them shall securely dwell. Truth's ever-variant revelations 14 The Friendship of the Faiths, Like light convergent to a single point Shall bring together the long-severed nations And the one sacred oil shall all anoint. Under the buoyant western sun The latter labor is begun. Land that throws wide the wave-swept shore, Land that is Freedom's at your young heart's core^ Blooms from the oldest, farthest clime Mate with your winds and blend in rhyme. Room for the light and growth, The seasons no longer are loth ! The mingling of lights in the struggling earth Sends the white radiance from its luminous girth^ Light unto Light above, And Love unto Supreme Love, The union of souls in conscious Soul, Reflex of Spirit and living prayer Surging to heaven's uttermost pole Through the divided rejoicing air. Worship wherein all Time takes part, Fulfilment, Attainment, Destiny Fair, Divinity's vital, omnipotent art. Freedom that holds the world in thrall, The stainless wonder, God all in all ! VIII. Under the summer's latter skies, within the age's latter years, The friendship of the Faiths is sealed, the triumph over doubts and fears ; The Friendship of the Fait J is. 15 From the four quarters of the calmed winds the di- verse travellers come, Patient to hear the voice of Truth, to hold the Quest's ungarnered sum, Over the world's unquiet realm to rise and pene- trate afar Into the mid of spiritual powers that rule the sun and every star ; For round the whirl and toss of things, above the tumult and the din. Perfect and pure and prevalent, the true gods dwell the spirit within. The realm of the ideals great where life is ever clear and whole. And God himself in perfectness is mixed and joined with every soul. The suffering and the bitter tears of all the hours that gloomed and moaned Shine there like jewels fixed and part of ecstasy that sits enthroned. There every life is young and strong with the whole realm's transcendent might And darkness is but as a change from light to more alluring light. The wondrous truths that came and dwelt in visi- tations far and sweet Like messengers from very God to soothe despair and rouse defeat. While struggling man climbed up the mount and faltered by the anguished way. Have ever known that region's calm and golden un- diminished day, 1 6 The Friendship of the Faiths. Eternal, incorruptible, Godhead before that regnant God Arose the master-life of space, and maker of each period, Serene, divine, the source of everything, the subtly permeant air That girds and welds the whole with gradual music of the ever fair. Spirit wherein the reconcilement gives the victory to all Unto your looming home we pass and freely are your bond and thrall ; For you are Freedom and who freely yields his deepest life to you Becomes as one clothed on with Time and mighty as the morning new ; Unto that goal Truth's pilgrims stern have always turned and there have known The heart of the white Mystery that on true hearts has ever shone ; And the religious glow a part of the one Faith su- preme, sublime. That has nor severing height nor depth, nor differ- ence of age or clime ; The Search has been a part of it, and felt within the small as great The passionate beneficence of a transfiguring golden fate That was in everything, in cloud and sky, in death and darkest sin, The ceaseless potent miracle that wrought the nobler life within. The Friendship of the Faiths » 17 This is the storied Citadel to which the Paths have wound and led, This is the glorious finished toil for which the Deed has striven and bled. Here in these latter sounding years the voice is heard poured from the sky, " All men are children of great God and not a child of his shall die ! " Here in the Parliament of Faiths is seen the trust that knows all men Born of that loftiest realm, and strong as Truth's unquestioned denizen. For in the soul all paths are one, and every pathway must be trod To find that region's myriad dells, whose rounding wholeness is high God ; And every light that shone soe'er is part of that o'ermastering Light Which every man must make his own, as regent of his certain sight. Here is the conclave catholic, which speaks the reconciling truth. Seeking the ageless permanent life that smiles above in blissful youth. The conclave that is one with aims that were when worlds and stars were nought Save as they slept and trembled fair within the sempiternal thought. The just belief, the worship meet, all revelation's fount and source, The light-veiled chaste nobility whence History drew its curving course. 1 8 The Friendship of the Faiths, Life grows divine, hope's goal is won, when the Eternal opens wide His music-hinged gates and through and through the world is Heaven's own bride, When the great Faiths clasp hand and say they are the clear Transcendent One's Who will not change whatever ways are those of the time-travelling suns. Lo ! search has been his life within the pulsing secret life of man And hope his blood of reddest hue that through the anguished heart-beats ran, And in the circle of his hands benign shall rise the Temple fair Wherein mankind from every star shall speak his name and breathe his air. LAST MOVEMENT OF THE SYMPHONY. (allegro maestoso.) " I "HE hushed and all-expectant air is cloven -*■ By the low throbbing violins' golden murmur, And one by one the mellow tones are woven Into a song that firmer grows and firmer. The dullard cares that all our day infested Have fled like mists before the music's sun, And fallen hope re-arises and invested With glow of life that is as triumph won. What is the land to which the dream invites us ? What the awakening thrilling through and through us ? Has Heaven a strength than this that more delights us ? A fervor that can more than this renew us ? Instrument after instrument sweeps exultant Into the harmony growing ever grander, And the large joy that is the chief resultant Becomes life's sovereign and divine commander. 19 20 Last Movement of the Symphony, The rush and tumult of unfettered passion Faded away in solemn adjuration, And bliss was born in bright miraculous fashion Out of the pain and scornful incantation. The melodies half-uttered, stammering, broken, Complete at last and wondrously united, Obey the central song's soft luminous token. And are as those whom Heaven itself has plighted. The whole world's victory dwells in that heard splendor. The end attained for which the Movement yearns, And we, made part of it and tranced attender. Know with what purpose all great feeling burns. Which is the true and which the permanent real, The daily pageant fleeting past our eyes, Or this ascent and mixture with the ideal, Whereinto he best lives who deepest dies ? Yea, song is more than we who love and hear it, And life is greater than the hours that fly. And music-winged we ever speed more near it, The dream that larger is than earth or sky. GOETHE. 21 GOETHE. I. TNTIMATE strength of the mist-veiled begin- -■■ ning, Will-winged purpose whose measureless flight Past life's pain and the failure of sinning Seeks the high goal beyond hearing or sight, Into your passion of hope and attainment, Into your speed and glory of light, I would be borne and whither the gain went Follow and see the City arise Answering the glow of Eternity's skies. Far off I hear the dim-toned murmur. Song that began before Time was. Growing each breath more gracious and firmer, Clear with the bliss, its parent and cause, Song that has ever been deed and achievement. Heart of the labors that built up for man Wondrous release from the bond and bereavement That mocked the gropings of tribe and of clan. From the good gods poured forth and descended. Soul of the victory certain to be. Heaven and earth mysteriously blended 24 Goethe, In one wide-wandering harmony. Ever the voice of the Noble has sounded Through the large reaches of vanishing Time, Ever the Hope been promised and grounded In the sun-mastered and permanent clime. Through the vague glooms of the Fate that allured him, Through the chill night of defeat and despair, Song has arisen on man and assured him Somewhere beyond was the light-swathed air. Around him has always a mystical region been woven, Fashioned of tones from the poet-struck lyre. Always the winds have been severed and cloven By the shaped music of the deathless desire. World of the singers, immortal, eternal, World of the spirit that flashes the clearer, Changeless in change, divinely completed and vernal. Truer than of old and passionately nearer. We would partake of your marvellous blisses. World that is closer and dearer than this is. Forth from our strange and growing forgetfulness, Forth from the noises that laugh and deride you, Forth from the bitter regretfulness Wherein we are bound because of the many who denied you. We fleet and again the transfiguring Ideal Lifts its white walls around and before us. Taking to itself the splendor-crowned real, Bringing us peace and new calm to restore us. Goethe. 25 II. What is the secret that has ever been ringing, Through the wide air since the world was young ? Hearken ! Afar the glad thrilling singing From the dim depths of the mystery sprung ! Yea, the mighty and manifold witnesses Speak the same message in many a tongue. Bend the same truth with soft yielding fitnesses Unto the heart with questionings wrung ; And though to-day the duller-brained scoffer Scorns the clear music as aimless and cold, Yet be assured from the infinite coffer Grandeurs are taken just as of old. Poesy now as in days long ended Points to the realm that is freed from Time's chains, One with deep thought that has purely tran- scended Earth and her ever mutable gains. Into that region I venture to enter. Commune there with those who have been Guide to all men and heaven-sent mentor On the way upward we are striving to win. Faint though the words I utter before men, Yet am I certain they fell from the lips Strongest of those who have lived to restore men Out of the night we walk and eclipse. Him of old Greece, and the dark-browed Italian, England's great master, all-grasping and bold. Bringing each in his swift-sailing galleon Untold treasures of spiritual gold. 26 Goethe, Take therefrom and their hands that proffer Jewelled leaves for his serene brow, Latest of angels, whose subtle dreams offer Latest of lights on the paths we tread now. III. Deep as the encircling flood of the self-returning ocean, Holding the earth in embrace, perfumed and large and strong. Calm in many-colored resplendence and fierce in commotion, Life-giving ever and source passioned of pulses that long Still to behold arise the nobler and loftier frui- tions. Where the ideals may dwell secure from sorrow and wrong, Sea up-bearing the ships full-freighted of hopes and their missions. Out of the mist-clad eld sweeps the impetuous song, Song of the hero holding the half-formed world in his eager Purposeful grasp that moulds fair to the race's behoof, Bastioned towers of the soul against the strengths that beleaguer. Rising dim Nature above, holding grim Night aloof. Goethe, 27 Freest and joyfullest of voices, filled with the mirth of the morning, Part of the life that is, life that has overcome death, Thorough this land of ours and dreams that leap past the scorning Pour the glow of your life-kindling service and breath. Once more on the high quest we move not east- ward but westward, Western realm of the east, home of the gods and sun, Winning the heavenly beauty and passing evermore blestward, Toiling through day and through night till the vast work be done. Herald you of the march of the nations and des- tiny-forecaster. Pointing the way unto men, knowing the far- gleaming goal. Wisdom-gatherer and giant of laughter and clear- eyed master. Bringing as gift to the free life that is lovely and whole. Far across the weary centuries' tumult and anguish Back we turn unto you, light's deep essence and heart. Rousing our hearts from the fears wherewith we are burthened and languish. Bathing ourselves in you, fountain of beauty and art, 28 Goethe. Knowing your hand will help us to weave the crown and the laurel Made for your brother and peer, one of the lofty line, Poets and sceptred kings whose words are the force and the moral Wherewith the earth is glad, wherewith her pure eyes shine. IV. And lo ! the lord of Spirit's wondrous regions, The deeper glories and the inner splendor. The ecstacies that rise in golden legions Before the suffering-cleansed and strong-souled wender Through the new lands ; he voices these divinely. And the result that is the act's attender He urges ever on the hearts who bend supinely In passion's onslaught, and the tense confession That brings the sun looking forth more benignly After the tempest's horror and obsession. The steep descent shows love behind its glamour. And freedom knows from a superb repression How darkness grows self-conqueror and tamer ; Lo ! upward leads the star-watched mountain singing Where blame becomes its own relief and blamer, Goethe, 29 And strenuous wisdom speeds and smiles in bringing Message from life's last peak and light-veiled in- most ; Then gazing on those soft strong eyes and clinging, Flight to the Rose where they are chief and win most Who have been least amid earth's weary pastime ! Seer of the Hope whose strengthening rule has been most Longed for throughout all History's spiring vast time, When the Achievement shines in its best glory That was at first and shall be in the last time, What you beheld from your high promontory, The Empire and the Church in joy united. We all shall know as purport of the story, And on the earth delighting and delighted The twain shall be as those whom love has plighted. V. Forth from the Spirit and again to earthward. Leaps the great art that took for its domain All forms of action and sped ever mirthward From its own visions of fierce woe and pain. Bold kings and lords and ladies fair and golden, 30 Goethe. Creatures of air and those whose homes are flowers, The passions mad of ages past and olden, The clear delights of woven forest bowers. Are born anew into the song's high clangor. And every deed is more because the soul That pours itself into its joy or anger Seems gifted with the largeness of the whole. So one man is the sphere's compeer and equal, Life's total self complete and its own sequel. No builder he of fancies ; deep and serious, Amid the pomp and very revelry, The sovereignty of justice grand, imperious, Shows what life's movement must forever be. The victory of Right amid the direful Conflict of rights, rooted, it seemed, as rock Fronting the sea's upheave condign and ireful. The storm's dense-clouded and impetuous shock, Held his gaze fixed and firm ; and on his vision The sunset peace that comes to spirit glad With conquest of itself and just decision How dear the fate its blest remorse has had ; All earth's contents and furies made resplendent Since seen Eternity's friend and close attendant. VI. Past are the ages Rejoicing in rages Of storm and battle Goethe, 3 1 And thunder-rattle Of conflict fierce and pale ; Now peace elater, Despair-dissipater, Grander and greater, Calms passion and wail. Hear the world calling In accents enthralling On the miracle-worker, Exorcist and King Of the darkness-lurker, The weirdly menacing Destroyer and slayer Of hopes that are fairest And dreams that are rarest. Master and player On harp that rings clearly With message that trances The listener sheerly In wide-reaching glances And sun-woven visions Driving derisions Like clouds from its pathway, He comes and the thunder, Over and under, Of morning and glory Rolls down Night's wrath-way. And renewed is the story Of joy and success And the strength that must bless. The new world arises. 32 Goethe, The peace-world and labor, The love of the neighbor, The end of the night time, The death of disguises. Heard are the voices Whose spirit rejoices, Spirit of the bright time, And the white morrow Makes flee the sorrow Of scorn and passion In miraculous fashion. Of falchion and armor, Of craft, the old harmer. He comes, the dispeller And fate-compeller. Vanish glooms that darken. Vanish helmet and morion, Hearken, oh, hearken, We see him and hear him, We watch and we near him, The true Euphorion — Euphorion ! VII. He was the true man Freedom-awakened, He was the new man With thirst unslakened For the great dreams from the bright skies pouring. Skies of the Future Whose higher concavities Goethe, 33 Rose over the past and its many depravities With loftier divinities for nobler adoring, And joining with suture, Marvellous and golden. Worships to be and those that were olden. And first the time-hallowed barriers, Soul-wounding and harriers, He spurned from before his ways And the woes which they bore his days. No limits should be for him Save those which he made, No alien eyes see for him The truths in their braid Of light-woven mystery Under flaming all life and the movement of history. Heaven-scaling his ardor and fire And quenchless the force and the flight of desire^ Till on that grim night shone forth the sun And his earliest labor was done. For he saw that the unending rigor Of Freedom lay in obedience and vigor. Then his heart leaped forth to the spirit that stole Through natural forms, through night and through day. Forever attaining its purpose and goal. And then speeding onward and still away. The web of the veil Wherein stars are robed He tore and sundered. And the silver far gleaming garment and mail Within which planets are globed 34 Goethe. Knew its secret discovered and wondered. The rocks and the flowers, The teeming miracle of life, The splendors arisen from tumult and strife. The ceaseless toil of the procreant hours, His swift thought tracked and he knew the rhyme Which is the controlling purport of time. VIII. The fierce and impassionate eyes of swift youth forever are blinded By search for love and its beauty, eager and full of haste. The world of the morning gleams gold to the rest- less and myriad minded. The softly uprolling mists hide hollow afar and waste. Those eyes are filled with strange fire and give everything for dower A glory and glow that seem of more worth than all else beside, The phantasm of life arises whose lingering magical power Fleets slow as a dream which the heart would cling to and not be denied. Forth from these shows of the senses and out of these moods that hold us. Wandering within a maze of flower and river and hill, Strange potent enchantments that lure and wizard joys that enfold us, Goethe. 3 5 Making our souls but a plaything and fettering our purposeless will, Hard are the sinuous pathways and weary-footed to follow, Cold grows the ether around us, and lonesomer far the height. Where our own voices grow alien, our words sound distant and hollow. And the high sun showers forth a warmthless dislumined light. Yet over the difficult steeps and through the strait mountain passes Winds the long search for the plain where the true fatherland shines, Sweeter then ever before and deep with the wind- swept grasses. Lovely and subtle and clear, fresh with the per- fume of pines. And lo ! the truth is around us, our eyes are freed from illusion, All we have lost is there, friend and lover and hope. Weak and pulseless and faint seems the vehement storm-winged confusion Against which once on a time we had found it so hard to cope. Now every toil is sweet, now we are ruler and master. Now we are ready to bow in the fine reverences three, And the swift flight of time, hurtling on fast and yet faster, 36 Goethe, Gives up its innermost soul pure of its darkness and free. You have we followed, O Poet, and wondrous weaver of stories. You who have fathomed and known every wild change of the way. All its shadows and glooms, its reaches and out- looks and glories. And after the leaden-houred night the burst of the golden day. IX. Who shall say the past has perished, who shall say that Greece is dead ? Nay, as living as the present, ancient thought with ours is wed. Backward fleets the sleepless longing, sees the subtly moulded beauty, Gods of everlasting laughter, joyance lord of life and duty, From the effort and the struggle, from the labor yet unfinished. Backward to the task completed, art that lives yet undiminished. As we now are groping, searching, hoping for the exaltation, He too sought from toils barbaric bright and happy liberation. Can we then slip off the garment woven by the strong time-spirit. Goethe, 37 Know again the young Apollo, seek his splendor and dwell near it ? All this Gothic grotesque clamor leave for serene morning song Dropping from the very heavens, silver clear and wondrous strong ? He rejoiced in the achievement, brought to life the buried treasure. Felt again the ancient sorrow, knew again the ancient pleasure, Heard the priestess speak in Tauris words of cheer, divine consolement. And the furies fled defeated subject to love's high controlment. Deeper sought in strangest caverns secrets whose command embraces History's every onward movement, worlds that dwell in variant spaces. Found the realm of the Idea, fountain of the lives divisive. Showering fates that rouse the peoples, bringing ills to scorn derisive. And by many a winding pathway sought the clue and surely found it Which led back restored Helen, beauty and the glow around it. Art and splendor re-created, nobleness reclothed in form. Half more than the overwholeness, moderation after storm, Classic, crystalline and finished, poems statue-like and pure, 38 Goethe, Thoughts as round as singing planets fixed in words that must endure, Being fashioned in such manner that their sub- stance is eternal, All their elements free from weakness, perfect- colored, perfumed, vernal. Yet not here the climbing spirit can find peace nor long make pauses, Leaping over loveliest limits, onward pressed by deepest causes. Not with truths that shine resplendent in a realm of sharp exclusion, But the energy that can master shifting hosts of dire confusion. Hold them bound by strong devices, make them take the bit and harness. Drive through charm of gardened nearness, sweep through mystery of farness. Form as thought self-balanced, moulded, ocean- lustrous and sonorous, Goth and Greek at last united, gift the greatest Time yet bore us. X. Whither may the flight of the spirit be taken ? Lo ! it arises higher and higher, Spurning the ground ; its melodies waken Girt by the morning's enveloping fire. What is beyond there In the clear blueness ? Goethe, 39 Tree of life lifting a wind-swayed frond there, Growth into ever more heavenly newness ? Or is the void in that luring dim distance, And sheer defeat the end of existence, Closing around us Limitless limits that bound us, The unvoiced realm of the Mystic Unknowable Where Thought cannot be and no seed is sowable ? Nay, do you hear him mocking behind you ? Now he comes forth with leer and with sneer ; This is the fate that the years have designed you, Darkness incarnate is palpably near. Now for the grapple With bated breath ! Who wins the apple Of life and of death ? This is the field where the battle is keenest. This is the day that must surely be won, Victory here wears laurel the greenest, Now sh-all the deed for the whole world be done. We join them in the weary search And leave behind the home and church. The impetuous impulse and the daring We two can feel burning and bearing Our very souls into that longing Struggling past pain and all its wronging. Ah, how the agony tears and shatters. Ah, how the will o' the wisp fleets and flatters ! Yet he who ever strives must find exemption, And sorrow work its own redemption. Hark ! the voice of Margaret calling 40 Goethe, Down from the heights of pardon falling ! Over the mountain fell and past re-awakened Greece The journey speeds to find release ; And there beside the deep-toned sea, Forth from the wave emerges all that is to be, Love, being conqueror, brings the deed, the vision, ecstasies. And servant held forever downward sinks dark Mephistopheles. XI. He only wins his freedom truly, Who daily wins it fresh and fair. He only ever rises newly Into the regions of the purer air Who falters not for blame nor praise, But lives in strenuous and victorious days. Past the times that bore and held him Looked the gray poet with his quenchless gaze, Some dear vision hovered and compelled him Toward the Future's sunnier ways. Over the ocean's welter westward Sped his hope and strengthening thought. Where each tenth wave rolled higher to crestward Even as Fate rose nobler wrought. You, O prairied land Hesperian, Better than older continents. Will know to gather fire From the empyrean's strong desire, Goethe. 4I And souled with the passion once Iberian, Show forth the life to which all Time consents. From the verge and lofty highland Where the aged poet stood, Past fair France and England's white-cliffed island, In his last prophetic mood, Hitherwards he turned and brightened With the young land Freedom-lightened, Hope's superbest dedication Of each part unto the Whole's high consecration. Here shall be song for him. Here shall prolong for him All his high music the musical deed, Mystery banishing With dark clouds vanishing. Onwards to lead ; Love pure, etherial. Master and King, Power crowned, imperial, Victory must bring. Glad to beseech of us Gentleness, strength. Showing to each of us Heaven at length ! REVELATION. ' I "HE booming bee, the wild, bold rover, ^ Flutters from roses white to red. Now pauses, and then floats quite over The breeze-bent flower bed ; The silence doubles his deep voice, And both are but one tune — rejoice / The ripples fleet across the river, Imprisoning the fiery gold Which the high sun, unstinting giver, Into their cells has rolled ; And all their lucence speaks and tells Of miracles and pleasure spells. I gaze into the sky's deep mystery. That circle of unfathomed blue, That orb wherein all Time's vague history Finds secret record due, And lo ! throughout its luminous rings All rapture's sunshine thrills and sings ! 42 DANTE. 43 DANTE. T^riTHIN these latter years from all the sky Thunder the trumpets of increasing storm ; Dark shadows on the earth and waters lie, And flickering tongues, whose messages deform The languid, lingering hope, Across the welkin's slope Flash in sharp lightnings of a mocking glee At man's defeat and thought's deep misery. Why linger in the regions dolorous Where path is none, and we who trod before Grew gaunt with dreams, that beckoned us To follow where the cloudy height was more Engirt in heavier night, And all the uncertain light Shone but our faltering footsteps to deceive And our worn hearts of their last hope bereave. For in that valley wondrous sirens sung, And in the heavens we saw the city's spires Whereto our rising hopes leaped forth and clung, And on the chaos of our young desires A harmonizing strain Fell, and in its dear chain 45 46 Dante. Bound us transformed, until we seemed to reach A being's ecstasy past thought or speech. But these were dreams (men said), and one by one They faded, and the sun-deserted air Shuddered above the landscape, and to shun Its barren desolation and despair Became an impulse strong To bear us swift along The stream whereon the many move and float And strive to still their soul's supremest note. Sometimes like ghosts the vanished visions came And floated past our half-forgetting eyes, Robed in the light, sad-changed, but still the same As when they gave to morn a new surprise Of fire beyond its fire. And the suppressed desire Moved in its tomb for a brief moment's space. And half disclosed once more its youthful face. Nay, we have not escaped the general gloom, For through the realm wherein our hours are past Mutter the thunders of the bolts of doom. And all our joy into the abyss is cast Whereto our loftiest thought Or vision noblest wrought Is swept by winds that howl and madly blow Around each spot where our slow steps must go. Dante. 47 Harken the voices which are our despair, Their tones are myriad, but their message one ; ** Ye cannot know ; your hopes are vague as air ; With this life's briefest span, the whole is done ; The self, than prison-walls Mightier, the soul enthralls ; The Mystery engirds you and the Unknown Enfolds you round, silent as senseless stone. ^' The gods are frailest visions of the night Wherein the peoples wandered ere arose The sun beneath whose fierce transfiguring light Our march of world-dominion onward goes ; The sun whose sense is this. That nothing truly is. That having eyes to see we cannot see, And having being yet we cannot be. " The words miraculous of the sages dead. The golden splendors that enchained their souls. The dreams wherein the earth and heaven were wed, The flight of joy to being's utmost pole, All these are vain and weak And realms where men who seek Find but themselves like mighty shadows cast Upon a mountain pathway overpast. *' The earth is all, the ceaseless whirl and toss Of soulless atoms in their changing play ; 48 Dante. Yet these we know not, for we cannot cross The barriers which themselves did round us lay ; Our life is only pain, Whose utmost hope and strain Avail no more than bid us yield its breath Unto the voiceless void of rest and death." While thus we walked, clad in our dark dismay. Comfort (we heard) waited us from afar. Messages from the golden break of day. And accents of a more benignant star. Voices with power to bring Light as an offering. And showing water-springs and secret wells Where health resides and consolation dwells. We listened to the wonder-freighted words. And on our souls a latter morning broke. All our rapt thoughts began to sing as birds That feel the spring within their limbs awoke. And the tumultuous brood Who had given us night for food Sullenly sought their lairs within the abyss And fouled no more our life's increasing bliss. Our steps were led to the long-famed domain Where ruled the austere and mighty Floren- tine, Whose mazes we had trod and long been fain To know the purport of its bliss and sin, Daiite. 49 The secret deep to read In our most direful need Of splendor there on loftiest peaks that shone And songs that floated pure of pain and moan. As by a magic touch the realm lay clear, The dark descent we saw upheld by love, And one by one our every doubt and fear Melted in radiance falling from above ; The gloomy vale of Dis We trod, and after this The strange and melancholy way that leads To the Mount of Healing's green and singing meads. We climbed that Mount where pain is held and sought As expiation of the luckless deed, We heard the hymns of deep contrition wrought^ We saw the stars that glowed for each one's need. We felt the mountain thrill And knew some happier will Had found release from its long-harbored grief And in the Heavens its fit and sure relief. Learning we followed as our large-eyed guide, Empire and Might derived of natural things, The Master of the Ancients who denied Nought to our askings in the limitings That circled him as law, 4 50 Dante. And after him we saw Descend for us from Heaven's most central rose Those eyes wherein all Godhead shines and glows. O wondrous maiden, Thought divine and high, Miracle and Will of God for our behoof, O voice serene within whose potence lie Death and dismay for all keeps us aloof From Heaven's divinest shrine, Our souls are wholly thine ; Lo ! where thou leadst we follow thee and gain The ultimate vision and the farthest plain. Past the high Heavens, and in the Blessed Rose, Before the Throne and Glory of pure Light, Loving as He who loves and as who knows The All in one supreme of love and sight, We worship and adore, We shall not wander more. But, our great journeyings done and overtrod, Mix and participate in very God. PROTAGORAS. 'PEAR, fear ? After we know the very worst, •*" What lower deep can yawn or gloom for us ? Grown dull because we have so long been nurst In dreams both merciless and marvellous, We dare not look upon the simple truth, But vex ourselves about realms sad or glad, And wonder whether God is merely ruth. Or if perchance He is capricious-mad. Deign not to fear, much less descend to hope, Within you lies the measure of the all, Sound but the deeps of your own soul and scope, And nothing further can your life befall. So much beyond the whole of bliss and pain Is that which makes the strength of these and strain. 51 PLATO. 53 PLATO. nPHE imperious centuries pass and bear Unto the vast abyss The works diverse we deemed most fair, The builded realms of state and law That held our utmost awe, Miraculous forms of worships old Now grown as their own prophets cold, Hopes sunlit with the impassioned bliss Of reaching worlds more bright than this, Songs that arose on sweep sublime And challenged issue with old Time, Dreams that for earthly dwelling-place Wrought shapes of a supernal grace, For strangely in them lurked the flaw Which brought their fall and overthrow, The years that all their beauty saw Knew the slow-dealing blow on blow That laid them low. II. Adown the never-pausing river. Out to the shoreless, tumbling seas. From under skies wherein the clear light-giver 55 $6 Plato, Watches the life of men and flocks and trees, Forth to the dark realm of the Past Float all high things at last. The serene stars that blaze Across the enraptured gaze Had their beginnings and will cease From scattering light's increase. What is of might to rise and say Unto the wide impermanence, I know thine origin and whence The potence of thy nay ; I hold thee as a king his realm, And thou art weak to overwhelm With thy large waves of ruin dire The achievements of my strong desire. Have human searchings found the path That leads from regions transitory To life that for its guerdon hath The splendor and the glory, Which knows but change from self to self, and grows By its own death more full of light. The light of life that glows In God's own sight ? III. Hard is the steep to climb. And many have sought and lost ; Many have hearkened to the voice of Time, And waited while the vision crost Plato. 57 Their blinded eyeballs, and in weak despair Have called upon the unechoing air To make response to the stern anguish Wherein their self-dazed longings languish. Nay, they have cried, we cannot tell The secret of the miracle ; The painted veil is lifted never, The things we see are strong to sever Our hearts from feeling answering heat From world-heart's great impetuous beat ; Fettered we sit within the cave, And watch the shadows fleet. Nor is there might to save. Unless like rays upgathered back into the sun, Our Thought, resorbed into the Eternal One, Falters from height of differenced life, And freed from strife, Sinks deep into the silence golden Wherein the Unknown God is holden. Far knowledge is but of the things we see, And frail as wind-swept clouds are we ; Children of the unenduring hour, And circled by Time's pageant vain, We cannot be, and yet attain Unto that conscious grasp of all Which holds our deepest hopes in thrall. And gives our separate souls the immortal power Of high conjuncture with the God for dower. 58 Plato. IV. Not such thy message, sovereign of the ancient world, Thou whose swift soul arose Above the line of snows, And, through the vapors duskly curled Above the changeful and the fugitive, Saw'st the clear net-work of the thoughts that live, Saw'st the Idea pierce and gild The realms the passions build ; The siren music of the sense Lulled not thy sleepless vigor into indolence ; Akin unto the far divine, Born into time but bound not by its chains, Knowing the mystic countersign Which opes the Heaven's utmost plains, Like thine own hero, the Pamphylian, Thou heard'st the singing of the spheres, And earthward cam'st for a brief span To break our bondage of vague fears. To liberate the prisoned soul. To show the vision of the whole, Which makes and is such visioning. The wandering heart once more to bring To that great splendor which the seeress knew As Love's deep secret, and the power which drew Men upward to the service high Of the Eternal Goodness past the sky, The temple of the Spirit whose effulgence glows The Universe's all-illumining Rose. Plato, 59 V. Finder of the serene and permanent, Beholder and the vision blent In the ideas whose enweavings keep Regnance on Time's utmost leap, The wondrous union where the deed and might Converge in one transcendent light, Intrepid sailor of all seas of thought, Whose fearless eyes swept all the skies, Whose ventures mystic cargoes brought From the farthest realm that brilliant lies Beneath the hand of the unenvying God, Yea, thou to whom the near was far. Who read'st the marvel of the sod As secret of the distant star. Torch-bearer in the race of Truth, And winner of immortal youth. Slayer of time, the serpent curled About the ancient melancholy world. What lamp of what great sphere of life shone not for thee, What dwelling of what sacred Gods knew not the wing Of thy keen spirit's flight, what angel's voice, that rang With message from the isles in the dim western sea. Solicited not thine unswerving soul, What music's thunder-roll. Mixture ecstatic of the spheral throng 6o Plato, That weave life's wonder-song, Received not from thy heart More than its noblest inmost part ? VI. Mightiest of realms, the source and end Of all that is or is to be, World of ideas, which the souls who see Know as the goal whereto must wend All streams of will or hope or thought, Truth most divinely wrought Into such self-evoked and complete perfectness That without haste or stress Thine images flow forth from thine embrace, And mirror back thy calm supernal face, (For the high strength unenvious Can only know his fulness thus) Deep heart of love whose pure controls Span the far reach of utmost poles, Enwoven maze of clear intelligential powers Bound into sheaves of unimagined flowers. Flowers that are lands for searching souls. Where rise the many-gleaming knolls From whence far valleys shine and wind Responsive to the eyes of perceant mind Aflame to know the just and true, And find the skies, forever blue, Sphere wonderful of thought eterne. To which all joy and ardor yearn. Plato, 6l Unto thy portals first the wizard dreams Of the philosopher of hope-winged Greece, Plato, our master, King of peace. Sailor upon the wide-encircling streams That are the secret passage-ways Leading to thine all-golden days, Plato, the seer and winner of life's high emprise, The royal-fronted, with deep solemn eyes, The golden dreams of his desire Unto thy gates and past the space of fire Brought the astonied speed of those Who into mixture with thy purity arose. Faint lands shown tremblingly in pallid light Upon their slowly-comprehending sight ; The soft-illumined lakes and lawns Glittered beneath pearl-shimmering dawns ; Vapors in snowy languid curls Hung over hill-protected vales. And where the sacred mid unfurls The city in the distance pales. Lo ! unto those who dare to see. And rouse them from the lethargy The numbing life of earth builds round the soul, There comes the noble vision of the whole ; For vales and streams and cities clear Are symbols but of truths more near The centre, and the dreams of heaven Rising through light-clothed gyres from height to height In glories cancelling the force of sight. Until the holy leaven 62 Plato, Of transformation makes the spirit kin Unto what is and has forever been, Are also but much-trodden ways To deeper God-born days. The undeviating eye Beholds at last the secret of the sky : Vast forms of certain permanence, The reason of all whither and all whence, The origin and the end of things. The fountain which forever leaps and sings. The realm of the eternal rises clear, The interwoven crowned potencies. The shine of the ideas, their own light, And spring of sovereign, changeless bliss, The mystery of the far and near ; These are the gods gigantic of the elder times That rule all periods and all climes. That dispossess the phantoms of old Night, And are the inmost of just life and sight. They weave their ordered progress in the fire Of the supreme and purged desire. Their vastness interpenetrates Their substance individual, And their great glory undulates In unison to the regent thrall Of one engirding lucence, whose deep glow Transfigures all who are and know. Being topmost flame of hope and love. All nobleness above. The centre of the blessed power Whence bursts the Universe in flower. Plato. 63 Himself the flower and root and source, Where all streams find their mingling course, The One Eternal, Good, and Fair, Who can and must all acts in his own bosom bear. VII. Like rays emergent from the sun. Like notes dispersing from the singer's lips, Like leaves unfolding when the snow is done, Like foam back-leaping from wave-cleaving ships. Like speech dividing viewless breath. Or drops wherewith the rain-cloud drips, Lo ! as the One his clear word saith. The region of the many blooms at length And burns and flames with delegated strength. Dark space bursts forth in wheeling stars Outridden on their sightless cars ; The sea divides before the many colored land. The skies above the woods and meadows stand ; The winds sweep from the farthest verge Of Heaven, and all their murmurs urge The might of Time to loftier reach Of act and song and speech ; The hollows of the rocks are swift to learn The eagerness with which the new worlds yearn ; The thrill of movement sweeps and sings Across the Universe's outstretched strings ; The splendor tones upfill the void With music only souls may hear. Who past the limits of base fear 64 Plato, And by no faintest tremor yet annoyed Are as the waters clear To lights that change nor veer. In ordered numbers move and fleet The myriad pulse and beat Of wide existence's up-leaping flame ; No tongue may rightly name The tumult and the stress Of crescent loveliness ; The gods celestial with a clear geometry Build up whatso we know and see ; The fashioning of the world proceeds and grows With fire and light and dusk and snows ; Strange contraries divide and roll Back under one control ; Frail atoms dance a slender round To tune most sweet of scarce-heard sound ; Pale blossoms gleam amid light leaves And earth her garb around her weaves ; The air is glad with rush of wings, And everywhere new rapture springs ; The unapparent dreams of the high gods Find language in the stars and blooms and sods ; Proportion holds the world in thrall, Blends into one the unnumbered all, And 'mid the wanton whirl and toss Gathers up rays of light and thought, And with a passioned bliss is wrought. Where the great currents join and cross, The image of the mighty whole. The centred and self-mastering soul. Plato, 65 VIII. For thee, O soul, the spectacle converges, For thee the morning lifts the blaze That startles clouds with gold amaze ; Around thee life conveys and urges All fair sights and wonder-sounds, Music falling soft as petals From a rose's velvet bounds, Soft as mist that dimly settles On an island half-descried In a bay's expanses wide ; An orb of potence thou dost dwell In mid and heart of the vast miracle ; Forth of thee the silver rays Speed of a mysterious fire. Binding to thine each desire What thou wouldst of the revolving maze ; Round thy rapid chariot wheels All the pageant flows and glows. Thou the monarch and the master, Thou the elder and the sire ; On thine ear the distant peals Fall of bells from summit where Shadows flee the sunrise faster. Where the gods above the snows Shine in calmer, clearer air. Thou art of their kin and race. Ruler of large time and space ; They thy guardians are and friends Leading thee to purest ends ; 66 Plato, Circle of their hands rains influence Through the vapors dull and dense, Which are vain to separate Thee and thy benignant fate ; The ancient mother of the sky and earth, Goddess high, superb, serene, Joyously presided at thy birth. Wove for thee the temporal screen That is for thy severed growth. Yet conjoins thee close with both Heaven, and earth's severer plane, Which to conquer makes thee fain Of the loftier changeless gain. Wisdom of the universe. Strength of stars and might of sun. In thee once again are spun To a life which can disburse Wealth of unifying power To the many from its dower. Lo ! the mighty spiritual world In thy being lies up-furled ; Brothers thou beholdst around thee, Lives like thine allure, surround thee. Thou wouldst build the general doom Exorcising night and gloom ; Thou unitest joy and thought. And the universal State is wrought. History's secret and endeavor, Birth of Now and the Forever, Immortality clothed in Time, Spirit found, achieved, sublime. Plato. 6^ IX. Yet further, nobler, draws thee on, Whither the highest and the best have gone ; The will unanimous of men Opens fields of more transpicuous ken ; Higher flights the soul uplift, God's supreme and final gift ; Beauty is the magic lure Which leads man forth to what must still perdure. He cannot halt upon the path Which a beyond reveals and hath ; He follows on from peak to peak. He burns with bliss to know and seek ; The mountain-stairs of high endeavor He treads and climbs and scales forever ; New glory rises round him still And spurs his unabated will ; As veil by veil the clouds of dawn Vanish with the growing sun. Now disclosing vale and lawn. Sights far-reaching, never done. Thus vision gives to vision place, Nobler and more full of glow. Till the heart of all above, below, Shines the Everlasting Face, Shines the all-embracing Good, Heart of hearts and love of love. Source of soul's unchanging mood. Bliss of all below, above. As two fair stars perchance unite 68 Plato. Into a deeper and more solemn light, Wondrous amity intense, All delights of soul condense On the summit where the twain Join in unrepining gain. As from the poet's conquering dream Flows in many-glittering stream Poem after poem splendid, And he walks by them attended, Good from good springs forth at length In the magnitude of strength, The attainment chief, serene, sublime. The height to which all souls must climb. X. Master if my weak words wrong thee, Heavenly dweller as thou art. Thou wilt ease my burdened heart ; Thinkers, lovers, dreamers throng thee, Noblest offspring of the ages, Wisdom's deep-enamored sages ; If my feeble footsteps follow AVhere the greater went before me. If my song sounds faint and hollow, If I sought the land which bore thee. Dearest of its many sons, And the splendors spreading there Through that finer, keener air. Overcame my feebler sense, Thou wilt smile and bear me hence Plato. 69 From the pain my rapt soul shuns, Pain and fear lest thee I have not spoken As I would, or rashly way have broken Through the mists that clothe our being In this lower realm of touch and seeing ; Yea, I know that thou wilt smile, And forgive if e'er I spake Aught that dims thee for a while, All was done for thy high sake. My gaze turns upward and I see thy face Turned thronewards in the mid of heaven, Thy voice I hear for an ecstatic space. Uttering thy message sweet and high. Noble as aught the mystic seven Sang in the tales of elder time And woven oft in wondrous rhyme ; My slowly-gathering sight divines the seers. Thy followers and thy peers, Who stand besides thee and who vie With one another to repeat What thou dost tell of high and sweet. Thy great forerunners in the race. The bearded ones of ages cold. Shine in the illumination of thy grace, And in thy truth wax bold. The youths who heard thine earthly voice Look toward thee and rejoice ; Dreamers who fell upon the eras sad When right was hounded to the dusk Of caverns which hoar mountains had, And fed upon the weed and husk. 70 Plato. Feel all their sorrow fall from them Since they may touch thy garment's hem ; And seekers boldest earth has known, Now that her hair has whiter grown, Still call thee master and great King, Still hear thy sonorous sayings ring ; The swift years are thy children all, And from the distance, hark, we hear Yet larger voices on thee call. The times to be approach more near. And through the pageant as it goes, The secret of its life and rich success. The flame that through its motion glows. The truths benign that all its action bless, Lo ! they are thou, and thy deep word, Said in the paler past, too long deferred. But blossoming into sight and might at last. Old miseries done and overpast. XI. And lo ! thy dreamed Atlantis from thy wars of old, Emerges new and shapelier of life ; Not all thine Athens, young and bold. Could lordlier march to nobler strife ; Sister unto thy strong democracy She rises from the western sea. In those dead wars thou knewst so well Before thy Greece her weapons fell ; Resurgent now she holds the helm That reaches out to the far-shining realm, Plato, Sighted by thee, and with thy breath for wind, Sails forth unto the golden-fronted Ind. Whatever storms upon the way She sails unto that sun-drenched day ; Thou and thy peers from Heaven's own mid Guide her and help and bring her far, Leave not one secret of that pathway hid, Be leader unto her and star, Thou and the great who after thy career Shone in Truth's firmament. Great suns who cannot dim nor veer. Filled with the large intent Of God's own ministries in sky and earth. Protectors of Time's crescent worth. Atlantis, latest daughter fair, Breathing Freedom's heavenly air, Strongest sister of them all. Unto no baseness be thou thrall. Hear thou the thinker wise and great And build the ever-during state. Which raises all men to the height Of knowing Truth's undimming light. Which gives to each the encircling all. Crowning bliss of the terrestrial ball. Which brings to sight what the philosopher Felt in some further period must occur. The Ideal hoped for, now begun. And into undecaying fabric surely spun, Life's victory and the whole of thought To equal service of humanity brought ! 71 ORPHEUS. "XXr IDE-SPREAD as the gray sea the realm of ^ ^ fate Lay in perpetual twilight ; weltering far Old Chaos rolled in bursting wave on wave And held the seeds of things ; an endless reach, A sphere of possibilities, a land Wherein eternal Ruin sat enthroned And the sweet world of life was not as yet ; From God dire Chaos came, for God is king. And out of his warm bosom also I. A mighty song I am, so loud, so pure, That God delights to hear, and wisest men Perceive its grandeur of rich melody Only in fragments high and pulsings glad ; But as I sing the roar of Chaos dies And, gradual joyance, subtle grasses sweep Across the new-formed plains, and in the East The rosy sunrise laughs, and Day is born. I sing, and lo ! the cloud-divided sky Domes its deep blue above the awakening world, And through the land long rivers roll away, And in the shadow of the untrodden woods The young birds sing frail echoes of my song ; 72 Orpheus. 73 I lift my voice and the large rose shines forth, And sheds its soul upon the love-faint air, And fruit by fruit the latter trees droop low As in their wealth of leafage glow the stars That light green skies of autumn ; hark ! I sing ; The waters bind themselves in stilly lakes. Tree-edged and looking upward to the sun, And the brown deer stands on the flower-fringed brink And drinking sees its shadow slim reach forth A soft-eyed greeting ; listen ! again my song ; And on the sea-shore rises swift and white The youthful city ; in the night the tower Sends down the air its lamp-lit messages ; Through the wide streets the busy many pour, The sturdy men, the women fair, and sweetest The little children laugh and play and laugh. The white-winged ships come in from the strange seas, And bearded sailors bring the scented bales ; I sing and in the noonday twilights bright With fiery flowers and flicker of fair leaves. The lovers meet, and to mine ear comes back The charmful echo of my beating heart, For I am of the spirit of pure life. And life is love, the soul of God is love ; I give my voice a tremor, deepening, clear. The hearts of men are shaken, and they know A sound within them, and above, around, A music that is very self of me. Rising to life in them and spreading far, 74 Orpheus. Ruling all things and dreams and the long sweep Of crescent time that they call History. I hear myself at length, know what am I, What fluctuant murmurs of pure tones Build up my fabric, and how golden bright Are curves of joy that leap like nobler waves Across the sea-mass of my harmony. Now once again I flute with eager lips. And the steel spears of war snap sheer across, And every noise of contest falters slow Into a phrase of love and tender tune, And through the night of time a firm red glows That is the dawn of everlasting day. I trumpet forth at last my whole of song, The waiting hearts make answer with great joy. The mighty nations gladden, the ocean wide Circles the world with moving flames of glee. One flawless friendship robes the finished work. As his pure fire the ever-giving sun. Each centred soul co-equal with the whole, Untribed, unclassed, unmanacled, and free. Unto the realm of Spirit every eye Upraised and turned, the inmost heaven of heaven, The stainless source of all and end all light, Perfect the lovely song in everything, Clearly responsive to the song on high ! DAVID SWING. T^HE engulfing night that clips the world around Has reason to rejoice ; The voicelessness that girds the realm of sound Receives another voice. Whither our eager eyes can follow not Friend after friend recedes, Leaving the earth a cold and wintry spot Where every footstep bleeds. Him, too, we lose who stood upon his height, Fearless, erect, and strong. Uttering his message from the soul of right Above the waiting throng. Shall we not hear again those words of cheer, Nor see those eyes that shine, Nor hang upon that face majestic, dear. And aspect leonine ? Whither has fled that over-mastering force. That swift illumining wit ? Upon what strange and more entrancing course Does that fine humor flit ? 75 y6 David Swing, Deeper Cwe hope) the truth that charms his gaze, Fairer the outstretched scene, Nobler the stars that round him roll and blaze, Purer the meadow's green. Patient, serene, he bore the burdened years. Felt the great world's deep woe. Faced the new questions, crushed the newer fears. Saw the sun's rising slow. Into the dark that changeless soul has passed, Into the void those tones. Wherein the all-embracing truth was glassed Like light in precious stones. Nay, grief mistakes ; whither he goes is light, 'T is we are dark, indeed ; 'T is we who dwell within the impending night, Who feel the breathless need. Lo ! as I strain my upward looking eyes. The shadowy death grows fair, And, grander than my thought's most rich surmise, I see light everywhere. The gloom that clips the lessening world around Bursts into flame and flower ; The voicelessness that girds the realm of sound Leaps into music's shower. David Swing. 77 The throng of greater souls who went before Shine white as stainless snow, And fill wide spaces past the luminous door Of sweet Death's pangless woe. The silences our sad hearts feared to pierce Ring with a wondrous song, And joy that holds at bay our anguish fierce Makes our rapt souls more strong. There with his peers he reaches home at last, Knows that his work is good, His arduous toils and journeyings overpast, Out of the storm-swept wood. We also touch the peacefulness benign That calms his risen soul ; Not night, but glory, splendid and divine, Is Death's most certain goal. Like stars that fade into the light of day Our vanished ones are sped. Treading a golden and a flower-lit way Where Death alone is dead. THE GARDEN WHERE THERE IS NO WINTER. " Se Dio ti lasci, lettor, prender frutto Di tua lezione." —Dante. TDEHOLD the portal ; open wide it stands, ■^^ And the long reaches shine and still allure To seek their nobler depths serene, secure, And watch the waters kiss the yellow sands That gentle winds stir with their sweet commands ; These stately growths from age to age endure, These splendid blooms glow in the sunlight pure, These wondrous works of human hearts and hands. Over the charmed space no storm may rest, The gloomy hours avoid the magic bound. Homer dwells here, Vergil, and all the blest Whose perfumed color lights Time's mighty round ; Pluck the fruit freely, reader, and partake, God wills it — for the enchanted Soul's fair sake. 78 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. T OVER of country and winner of men, Whither wanderest thou forth of our eyes ? Shall thy clear soul watch never again Sunrise of gold in victorious skies ? What is the realm to which thou wouldst go, Freed from the bonds that fetter us here, Far from the winter's miracle of snow. And summer's splendor, yellow and dear ? Unto the good thou hast longed for and felt. Unto the high thou hast labored to win, Lands where thine inmost passion has dwelt. Regions where all thy great hope has been, Dreams that have risen in glory and gold On thy rapt vision deeper than time, Reaches whereof thy strong singing has told, Circles of Life fulfilled and sublime, Gardens where blossom the noblest and best, Visible truth and love, lords of all. Heaven's white mid and unspeakable rest. Music's fine luminous passion and fall, 79 8o James Rttssell LowelL Thither thou goest and waiting for thee, Rise the immortals, smiling and glad, Kings of the Spirit, whom Death set free, Pure of the griefs which the ages had. Toilers with thee in the dim, dead years. Singers of songs in answer to thine, Helpers and friends in the time of fears When the sun of the land disdained to shine. Those who watched and waited for morn. While the storm rolled and thundered o'erhead, Voicing the depth of the whole world's scorn Of the sin for which our truest bled, Know thee and welcome thee home to thine own, Thee, whose voice was a firm clarion-call Unto the battle whence victory has blown Freedom's awakening to bondman and thrall. Greatest of those who toiled for the right. Poets and thinkers, winners of fame. Greet thine ascent to the summit of Light, Hold thee above all praises and blame. Heaven has begirt thee, mixed with the tides Living, ennobling, flowing through souls, Tides of the just that ever abides. Life from the heart of the Spirit that rolls. James Russell Lowell, 8i Light and Life whereof we are fain, Thou hast attained them, splendors most pure, Thou who hast found the realm without stain. Thou who art one with what must endure. Conclave divine of the good and the wise, Those of the old as the newer time. Hold him dear whose new-risen eyes Make a new spring in your marvellous clime. We who remain look up where you are, Rise in our dreams to your living's bright fire, Burst in high moments our dull being's bar, Grow one with you in our passioned desire. And thee, O leader, we hearken and hear, Mingle our souls with the motions of thine, Follow thy footsteps and watch appear The stars in thy heaven of heavens and shine. So shall thy spirit, subtle and strong. Flood all the land with the truest of thee, Build it in semblance of thy high song, Make it what thou wouldst have it to be ! SLEEP. I. T NTO your dusk the strong man and the weak -^ Pass and lay fear aside ; that deep abyss Opens its wondrous doors not far to seek, And grief forgets as joy its last long kiss ; The mighty thinker on the rising weal That is to turn the world from gloom to glow, Allows the mists upon his eyes to steal, And leaves fleet time unto its unchecked flow ; Love sees its stars grow dim and disappear, And blackness rule its many-glittering sky, Its life grow suddenly chill, disbranched, and sere, Its hope dislustered and unpanged its sigh ; Man stood upon his height begirt by day, Yet yields him where sleep's dull streams drowse away. II. Mayhap the lawless dance of flickering dreams Speeds down its twilight reach of spaceless space, As through a sombre river yellow gleams Of light capricious in untutored race, 82 Sleep, 83 A myriad worlds within a moment's flight, A strange commingling of the false and true, Day's bubbles foaming on the cup of night, Trust's blossoms growing on the stems of rue, A pageantry that underprops at last The ordered march of things whereon the sun Sets his live imprint as the undying past Dwells in the now whose course is yet to run ; The shadowy all yields up its Soul to each, As waters lave and kiss an island's beach. III. Lo ! doubt is gone — like Sleep's, Death's arms are warm, His lips breathe next to ours in ecstasy, His lampless eyes awake the singing swarm Of lovely deeds and blisses yet to be ; So tender-great is he that all he is He gives, and then he bears himself away. Knowing the need of his pale ministries, Beneath the feet of the white and hourless day On Time's glad farther side ; so he is one With Sleep and no dull doom engirds man round ; For when the might of both is fully done. They still uphold the Light-realm's boundless bound'. Vanishing in it, the dark ruled by the fair, And Life and Love growing permanent everywhere. WALT WHITMAN. '\ 17" HENCE is the voice that I hear, so rich, so • * sincere, so free ? Hark ! how it thrills the air With its mighty resonant tones and its cadences novel and full ! The singing awakens the land With its power and joyance and hope. With its call to labor and light ; Whence does it come, a wonderful fountain of sil- very sound, Taking the sun in all its crystalline drops ? Upward unto the skies, thou leap'st in very delight, Higher and higher thy reach, O marvellous fountain of song, upward unto the stars ; And the fair manifold fires Studding the night of Time, Scattering the beaten dark. Births from the soul of all things, growing more numerous and bright. Bicker and burn and flash reflected in thee. 84 Walt Whit 7 nan. 85 O singer, whence do the visions come, whence does thy soul Fill all its longings deep ? Whence does the might of the rush of thy wide- winged, world-sweeping song Gather its splendor of flight ? What are the sources clear. What are the fathomless springs, Where thy high passion lingers and dwells and loftily dreams, And drains in great draughts the cup of the soul of the all ? Not from the scrolls that the strongest and best of the fame-crowned dead Wrote with their lives for the world. Not from the records of eld where the heart of mankind is revealed In stories varied and sad, Not from the woods and the winds, Nor the mountains peaked with old snows. Not from the toil and the tempest of moaning and restless seas, Drank'st thou the fluctuant fervor that glows in thy song. Simple manhood wert thou, and thy heart con- fronted in strength The shows of the vanishing years. Feeling them all to be pageants and mutable forms of thyself. 86 WaU Whitman. Thou knewest Poesy and Thought, Best births from the Life of Man, To be pictures and metaphors vast Of the ultimate Truth that, gazing within, thy penetrant eyes Saw flowing beneath and around the magical maze. God, who is Man at highest, and Nature, that toils up to Man, Dwelt in thy song and in thee, — Not as involved in the garb of the dim and moul- dering Past, Not as in tomes and in tombs, But truth, alive and afresh, Flowing again in the mind That gave up its life to be cleansed and refilled with that essence pure. Bubbling anew in the latter years of the world ! Presage of strength yet to be, voice of the youngest of Time, Singer of the golden dawn. From thy great message must come light for the bettering days, Joy to the hands that toil, Might to the hopes that droop. Power to the Nation reborn, Poet and master and seer, helper and friend unto men, Truth that shall pass into the life of us all ! DRINKING SONG. A WAKEN, arouse you, ^^ Come forth unto play. Rejoice and carouse you, Night conquers the day. Fill up the bowl for us, Strengthen the song. Blisses shall roll for us. Swiftly along. Lo ! the glad night-time Much has to live Which the day's bright-time Knows not to give. Under the cover Of the blest dark Hope bids her lover Enter her bark. Forth to the glory. Lighting each star, Splendor-crowned story Where all things are ! 87 ALICE GARY. ' I "HE voice of the western woods and fields Save for the note of woe That sounded ever through her song Its monotone dim and slow. The woman-heart that suffered so much, And clamored for the light — Surely for her is measureless calm On the farther side of the night. Breath-close to the common heart of man Her own heart lived and dwelt, Shook with the simpler joys earth knew. Its sorrows deeplier felt. Now she sees clear how through and through The ache and the pain there wrought A golden miracle of strangest love Far more than her dream or thought. Doubtless she raises another song As near to the woods and fields, But one through whose minor a long note thrills That a fragrant gladness yields. EPICEDIUM. "NT AY, but it cannot be, Love rose for thee sweet-starred, Making the winds gentlier blow Under his watch and guard. Surely thou art but asleep. Open thine unclosing lips. Lift thine eyelids set cold Over thine eyes' dim eclipse. Flowers, holy and white, These befit thy clear soul, Perfume, and light, and pure song, Not silence, darkness, and dole. How shall we bear thee hence. Under the pitiless skies, Under the marble snows, Forth of our lingering eyes ? What made our hearts so dull, What made our hands so weak, That we could hold thee not here, Thee whom blindly we seek. 89 90 Epicediwn, Under the cold white snows Wilt thou think of those left behind ? Nay, but thou canst not forget, Thou still wilt keep us in mind. Sweetest of praises and thanks. Love that is more than earth knows, Thanks for the gift of thyself, Shield thee in thy repose. We would not vex with complaints The silence where thou didst go. Yet our souls reach forth to thy place, And this thou surely must know. EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN. I. POET. T KNOW the way to many a realm of gold, And one I pleasure in from day to day, A rich and lucid realm of perfumed May, With valleys in the mountains fold on fold, And glimpses of the sea-waves shorewards rolled ; Glad shapes of Greece revisit the clear ray Of regnant sun, and the famed water-way Flows thence unto Bohemia, sung of old. War's trumpet there recalls to grander peace ; The prince discloses all his secret pain. Making the sadder truth of life more plain ; Love archly peeps forth from his milk-white fleece Of half-concealing garments, and increase Of patriot fervor pours a wondrous strain. II. CRITIC. There too I seek a mountain's upper air. Whence Poesy's every kingdom lies revealed, Bathed in the light that never shone on field Or river ; Landor lifts his forehead bare 91 92 Edjmind Clarmcc Stcdmaji, Unto the kissing winds, and the far blare Of horns re-echoes through the woods which yield King Arthur's name and knights from depths unsealed, And Browning shows the soul how passing fair. The lordships of the sovereign world of song Glow in the all-transfiguring element. And high above them with divine intent Hovers the glory whither poets throng, Light mixed with music, triumph over wrong, The splendor Dante knew beneficent. III. FRIEND OF POETS, Noble as song, or insight keen and deep Into the heart of poets, is the skill, Product of luminous thought and perfect will. To lure desire to climb the rugged steep Where high achievement waits, and watchers keep Eyes on the wheeling skies which bright stars fill. And flame by flame new revelations thrill The pulses that responsive bound and leap. Intimate of the Spirit of the Time, Friend of the Hope which through the ages runs, He reaches out unto the eager ones Whose dreams forever shape themselves in rhyme. And build the bridge unto the calmer clime Which feels the strength of more benignant suns. AT EVERY CRISIS. When the Conflict glooms and lou'ers And the Nation is at point to fall Under the whip and thrall Of the mad and conscienceless powers Whose touch is ever at her very throat. From the deepmost parts of her send Is heard the resounding roll Of the impassioned warning note. T_r ARK to the burst of the unanimous voice That pours from forth the Country's inmost hope, Response to those dull hearts whose vain Rejoice, And loudening cries of victor}^ rent the cope Of goodness doming the indignant land, And loosened rtiinous stonn on every hand. Now all the joined winds are full Of sonance nobler and desirable ; Not yet given over to the sordid greed Of men who boast the itching palm, 93 94 -^^ Every Crisis, Aroused from slumber in our hour of need, And shattering chains of all-benumbing calm, We say into your patient ear, O Earth, We have forgotten not our generous trust, Nor shamed the promise of our birth, Nor stand besprent with utter failure's dust. II. In woods of a subtler Time-world, The spiritual image of this. The Republic lay and slumbered, Secure in established bliss. The winds of a summer unfailing Blew perfumes about her face, And dreams of her growing fruitions Made peace in her heart for a space. But the hunters crept craftily on her. And fettered her glorious limbs. And strove to deepen her slumbers With their sorcery of sensuous hymns. Meanwhile Disgrace and Disaster Made havoc upon the realm. And the shameless among her children Grasped hold of the country's helm. She slept and joy of her slumber Half lulled us too to repose. And darkened our eyes to the future. Grown forgetful of our woes. But the scorn of the insolent master, And sound of his merciless whip. At Every Crisis. 95 Have broken the spell of the blindness That on us began to slip. We raised our voice and our crying Pierced far to her secret abode, And she shook off her chains like dewdrops, And forth to our helping she strode. She spoke and the scourge that threatened Vanished more fleet than the air, She gazed and the Nation trembled Into heights of being more fair. III. O spirits of the great departed. Watching the seed you sowed in life. Immortal souls and truest-hearted Of all who plunged into the strife Of our deep-colored years. You shall not see your fields neglected, Nor all undone your strenuous task. Our heads bowed down and minds dejected. Beneath their power who lie and bask Where you and your great peers Yet left unto our fears Pondered upon the country's weal And those high deeds but large hearts feel. We grant you this most firm assurance, We shall set foot upon the way Made certain by your calm endurance, And leading straight into the day Of national honor's might ; ^6 A^ Every Crisis, The echoing words of warning spoken By you within the elder time, We shall forget not, and in token That our endeavors must make rhyme With your intents aright. And aims with hope alight, We broke the bonds wherewith they held us Who forth on alien paths compelled us. IV. Thus do we walk secure and growing masters still Of our fair fate and Freedom's firm establish- ment ; We should not falter more but up the steepmost hill Climb with unwearied step until the Great Event Will sunwise flood the world and from just Free- dom's flame The star-like nations all will gather fire and glow. Till Error's latest ghost will seek Night's deepening shame, And every vale and hill the reign of gladness know. ROSES. T WANDERED lonesome and depressed Along a barren road ; The sun was in the west And faintly showed A dim and half discolored face Through clouds that held the sunset's place. I heard no sound of wave or bird, The air was gray and chill, And in me scarcely stirred The languid will To cast from me the dull dismay That clasped me with the lengthening way. But suddenly I turned and saw One tree deep-leaved and tall. Possessed of might to draw All eyes and call The heart back from the shadowy land Where hope uplifts no beckoning hand. For round it roses twined and clung, And in the risen breeze The blossoms swayed and swung ; 97 98 Roses, As one who sees A friend's dear face amid a throng, My soul awoke and grew more strong. Just then the waning sunset spurned The dusk that gathered strength, And all the roses burned Like stars at length, And I felt power to walk the road Where such like splendor shone and glowed. THE XEW WORLD. Love thou thy land, with love far-brought From out the storied Past, and used Within the Present, but transfused Thro' future time by power of thought. — Texxysox. 99 ©teure, mul^tger ©egler ! ^§ mag ber 2Bt^ ^x^ Unb ber @d)tf f er am ©teuer f cn!en bie Iciff ige |)anb. gmmer, immer na^ SOSeft 1 S)Drt mu^ bie ^iifte fic^ geigen, Siegt fie bod) beutli(^, unb liegt f($Iummernb bor $einem 33erftanb» %xaut bem leitenben (Sott imb folge bem fditueigenbeu SBeltmeer ! 2Bar fie ho^ ntcfit, fie ftieg je^t ou§ ben ^^nt^^n empor. 9Rtt bem (5Jeniu§ ftel^t bie 5^atur in efeigem SBunbe ; SSag bie eine tierfprtdit, leiftet bie anbre getcifj. — 6 (filler. ICX) THE NEW WORLD. PROEM TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA. I. 'HP HE century's unrelenting strength of quest Has followed Thought through blossoms and through weeds, And found (men say) that every pathway leads Into a cloudland where the footing prest Is the Insubsistence of a sea's unrest ; An island in an ocean of mere dream, The life which hoped a truest and a best Learns that the best and truest only seem ; A bitter, helpless creed ! No wonder-working deed Can thence draw vigor which should surely stream Through all its pulses, and its fire must deem Itself a strange subversion of the law Holding vague insecurity in awe ; A luminous truth that truth is built on ignorance. And Time's endeavor vast the dazzling gift of chance ! lOI 102 To the Women of America, II. Nay, we are not deceived ; no lampless night Glooms round the world and hope with its despair ; Thought winged rises into regions fair Where is the dominant, all-transfiguring light ; Faith has revealed the heart of Love aright That beats through history's tempest and its roar, The felt decadence of the selfless might Sweeps from the skies the cloud-heaps more and more ; Who now shall further doubt i That a most dismal rout Waits the dull fears, whose threatenings loud and sore, With bannered hosts, against our temples bore? Unshattered on the Heavenward-looking hill The marble splendor fronts the sunrise still ; The blue-eyed Goddess smiles and turns her un- veiled shield Upon the invading bands, who strew the smoking field. III. Yet progress has been devious and slow : The Spirit sometimes has been out of breath And pale unto the very verge of death ; Fierce as the mountain torrent's sudden flow, To the Women of America, 103 Erratic as the wildest winds that blow, The movement oft has seemed to rush and fall Down steeps and crags where safety might not go : Then the swift stream has made a sharp recall Into its truer bed, And by some influence led That keeps its foam-flecked waves in juster thrall. Has bounded forward to the longed-for hall,, Windy and large, with changing sky, and free„ The waters' end and aim, the brilliant sea ; So hope, the sea-gull, lifts his more adventurous wings. Lured by the flaming sun wherewith the wide world sings. IV. Some clear-eyed angel must have watched and tended The growths of love and patience in the heart. Some wisdom guarded with divinest art Gentleness, faith, and sweet assurance, blended Into a dream which saw the storm tran- scended ; Chief wonder that such fragile blooms sur- vived 104 ^^ ^^^ Women of America, Amid the conflict seemingly never ended, Chief miracle that they none the less con- trived To taste the finer air Which is their daily fare ; Securely in the rudest bosom hived, And from the sternest gloom and rage re- vived, Their very slightness gave them strength to gain Gradual possession of the changed domain ; For they are of the tribe which toil and strive the best When they are needed most and days are dismalest. V. Love felt the bitterness in those ancient days, Being forced to mask as passion base and rude, And mother of a fierce and brawling brood, Hatreds that used the noonday's sovereign blaze To lamp man further on destruction's ways ; Yet even then Love knew to claim and charm, And hold the impregnable and awless gaze ; Amid the wanton revelry of harm Arose the prophetess Touched by God's own caress. And led the clan in hours of dire alarm ; To the Women of America. 105 So woman's weak and terrorless right arm Pointed the pathway men were glad to take, And then as now her words were strong to wake The trembling higher moods, that slowly came to win The place of gradual rule and power the soul within. VI. But Love was lured by glamour of delight Into forgetfulness of loftier aims, And sank to depths that were not unlike shame's ; Set in a paradise of softest might. And lulled in dreams that made the heavens a slight And empty thing to lose, weighed in the scale With sense imperial, and suffused aright With the refined and subtly sweet avail, The hours wore on apace, Touching with hands that lace And part in a strange dance's measured pale, And pleasure said at heart its faint All hail ! Lest too loud speaking should evoke the death Which must wait on such perilous charmed breath ; io6 To the Women of America, Shut in these mist-built walls the world's strength feminine Slumbered, but knew in visions that its sleep was sin, VII. Could the imprisonment last ? Nay, warrior queens Threw the frail chains from off them like clear dew Shed from the flank of lioness when new The sanguine sunrise bursts the leafy screens ; Or radiant motherhood pre-eminent leans From its enforced seclusion and requires Room for the growth whose dear supremacy weans From base subjection to unleashed desires ; Or the lithe sorceress With eyes of wild excess Warmed her ambitions at great empire's fires ; Or the loud triumphs of impassioned lyres, Mixed with low wailings of a life suppressed, Floated across the time like foam on crest Of fluctuant waters, or a meteor's lingering track, Paling the stars themselves, over night's depth of black. VIII. The masculine might of will arose supreme In the white mid of heaven ; now woman- hood, To the Wo7nen of America. io7 Co-equal, potent, fair, beside him stood. No mistress and no daughter, some bright dream Of golden wisdom, or a vague foregleam Of love's own pureness, but that love's great whole. That wisdom's rich and self-concentred stream Having known grief and ruler of the soul ; A new life was begun, Lit by a female sun. Wherewith earth thrilled from its stern pole to pole, As hope sweeps through the reaches of the soul ; The future spoke unto the present pale, The new light overflowed the horizon's veil. The dominations barbarous of the twilight heard Above them sound the rumor of their dooming word. IX. Two equal powers in all life's separate spheres. Two streams of influence working out the good. Two infinite forms of potent servanthood, Two strengths arrayed against dark doubts and fears, The feeling whose fine clearness knows and hears, The intelligence that is sweet warmth and glow, I08 To the Women of America. The instinct whose forthrightness never veers, The thought which pierces thorough sense and show, With freedom everywhere To build the high and fair, Each being rich soil for other's hand to sow. And inner space where nobler harvests grow. Life's centre found in each and outer rim Reaching beyond the stars most distant-dim, Until the end is gained where temporal difference Fades in the light of heaven, supreme, unstained, intense. X. O Western World ! what the long strain and toil Of the mighty periods wrought and bravely won Leave unto you the mightier toil undone ; Here is the land of promised wine and oil, Here is the State which many failures soil Incarnated anew and strong once more. Alert, high-hearted, and equipped to foil The dangers that confront us with their roar ; Here is the land of gold Which wise men seek to hold. Not gold whose heapings mock with longing sore. But the pure metal which for helmet wore To the Women of America, 109 And shield the brave who saw and loved the right, And thence were filled with the eager con- quest's might ; O golden land of ours ! Arise and strive to be Time's purposes attained, Freedom and Victory ! I. THE OLD WORLD. In the great morning of the world, The Spirit of God with might unfurled The flag of Freedom over Chaos, And all its banded anarchs fled, Like vultures frighted from Imaus Before an earthquake's tread. — Shelley. Ill THE OLD WORLD. I. OD'S Thought rose clear before him and he said : " Lo ! I will fashion for mine eyes to see The mighty miracle of Liberty ; Unto my will shall many wills be wed, With mine own life shall lesser lives be fed, With mine own being filled and wondrous fire^ The increasing light by which all hearts are led Unto the summit of supreme desire ; From glowering suns and stars, From elemental wars. From interflux of powers and savage ire That bid the engirding night pause and ad- mire. From anguish and despair, the wordless brood That haunt the expanse of forests primal-rude, I will bring forth that mine unenvying soul may know The lofty love wherewith but Freedom's self can glow." "3 114 The Old World, II. Then forth into the night a tumult spread, The fierce contentions of contrarious powers, And loud the noise was of the risen hours, And each one on the lust of battle fed, And life seemed with the horror stricken dead ; Then crescent, pale, mysteriously born, Like a low word divinely breathed and said. Light rose on the abyss whose ravenous scorn Lay soothed into a smile. And slowly perished while The blue skies rose above, and overworn The void gave way where earths with many a horn And curving gulf held back the seething waves, And mastered them and ruled them as the slaves Of large intents to come, and grasses clothed the rocks And blossoms burned amid in softly colored flocks. III. So shone the glory of the sun and night Became resplendent with her stars and moon, And life began to tremble where its boon Had fallen on silence, and the morn's firm light Broke its strange trance, and into joy and sight Burst the quick dance of wondrous sensitive things, The Old World, 115 And seas were peopled with vast forms of might, And in the trees a myriad music rings, And the untimorous sod By manifold shapes was trod, And lo ! in forest deep, beside clear springs, And on the mountain sides where each wind sings, Beneath the skies where gold clouds rose and fled. Like breaths of bliss when hope and aim are wed. While expectation knew how far the miracle ran Beyond its farthest, came the consummation, Man. IV. In the cold dusk of caverns and by waves Of inland waters or on island shores Roared and resounded the first reinless wars Of nameless and unnumbered tribes ; fierce slaves Of bitter passion and the fear which graves Its horror deep upon the heart, and makes The world a vast impendence whose gloom laves Half lamplessly ; for no sharp lightning breaks It save ghost newly fled Into lands of the dead. Capricious answer giving for their wild sakes Ii6 The Old World. Who raise loud-ringing prayers like sea that breaks Upon a rock-bound shore with noisy foam ; Pain drives them forth from wasted home to home, And fashions serpents, rocks, or trees into a god Of potenced nothingness, a mind-created rod. V. But the brave sun arose in kinglihead From darkness of the night and men looked forth And saw his hand in blessing laid from north To kindlier south, and their swift longing sped About his footsteps ; so their watchings bred Hopes of emerging from their deeps of pain, Unto a lustrous height of being led. And golden zenith of unvarying gain ; They gladly saw the sway Of heroes, and the day Of gradual peace began to shine and reign, And faith to purge itself of the earth-born stain ; Then through the vales the herds began to pass Where the sweet waters wet the thickening grass. And round the loftier dwelling of the chief and king Rose hum of toilers and the voice of maids who sing. The Old World, 117 VI. The restless thought with inner fire aflame, Like lamp soft glowing through its rosy screen, Illumed again what the eager eyes had seen. And deeper toil of spirit strove to frame Anew its large possessions and lay claim Upon a broad demesne that bloomed and shone Above it, a miraculous realm to tame. Ruling the outer one of grief and moan ; The silver dreams that throng Give birth to wondrous song. To myth and story winged with rhythmic tone, And hopes that are the very spirit's own ; Whence flow a greater mastery and skill Which hold the tribes in friendlier chain and will. And bind in golden sheaves what has been sought and done And are the presage of the height already won. VII. Then order rose beside the calm-waved sea, First subsidence of the submerging fate, A mighty people and a kingdom great, Homaging strength of glorious ancestry. Their king was father ; his wise empery Ii8 The Old World. Ensouled his subjects and confirmed their deed, So that they grew and wove for men to be A fabric of observance where the need Of worship of the law Stood forth in perfect awe ; A noble issue with the power to breed The thoughts that who would live must know and read ; Their seer, Confucius, spoke such words to men As have not ceased their sounding, denizen Of the high heaven of meek obedience, leader sure Into the land of peace which shall at last endure. VIII. Under the fervid skies, and *mid the growth Of tangled forests where the mountains vast Circle the shaded glens, a gloomy past Enwraps a nobler people ; ever loth To grasp the present firmly, seeing both The worlds of earth and heaven in mist of dreams Enrobed and mingled, they seemed bound by oath Of high allegiance to the One who gleams Recedingly on the gaze Turned Himwards ; by what ways Of severence from the body, down what streams The Old World. 119 Of anguish did they seek Him ; the land teems With monstrous shapes and visions that en- thrall ; And chiefly you, O Buddh, the foiled ones call Savior and friend, you clothed in contemplation's rest, And finding loss of all and nothingness the best. IX. Forth came the sun of Persia, worshippers Of golden fires warring upon the dark, And dimly conscious of the answering spark That lights each heart with dream of truth, and errs Not in such dreaming ; lofty characters Of fixed purpose to bear unto men. Despite the frowning hindrance which deters, The glow of spirit trembling back again Unto the sovereign splendor, As star is star's attender ; The soldier people rose from rocky glen And rivered plain, and earth was gladdened when Their victories brought the myriad tribes to be The children of the flame whose leaping free And wind-souled bounding skywards it was joy to make A symbol of the hope that bums for all men's sake. 120 The Old World, X. Beside the inland deep whose blue-waved flow Makes path dividuous unto luring realms, That visioned speed the flight of fearless helms Breaking through veils of distance, whither go The race's hopes, which dimly seem to know The fate of freedom showing like a sun On the sky's verge, where luminous mists rise slow, Dispersing from before the blaze begun, The heroic sailor land Uplifts her puissant hand ; Lo! white-sailed commerce bids her mariners shun No vague far water-ways, nor leave undone A toil that wrests new lands from weltering seas ; Brave like her god, much toiling Hercules, And finding even pain a mystery of the heart Disclosing devious paths of conquest's peerless art. XI. O wondrous people of the tortured fate. People grown strong with very sight of God, Strong to make live your stormy period In the wide soul of earth forever, hate And dark despair upon your footsteps wait For weary centuries ; giving God to man, The Old World, 121 Revealing the sure mean to dissipate The bitterness of woes that rose and span A mist of fear around him Age-long that held and bound him, Ye failed in your own destiny and wan A gloomy severance from the hope that ran Like a swift bearer of the brilliant torch Before you ; now within the thronged porch Of the white temple of the future ye too stand And your own God will ope and answer your de- mand. XII. What looms against the purple air, white flame Of stone that seems to climb and to aspire, The winged thing of manifold desire Before it, brooding and depressed with shame, The dumb eyes sad with question and the blame Of sore defeat ? has Heaven no answer fit ? Lo ! the soul waits, judged and set free to claim The guerdon, in the citadel, unlit By lamp of any hope, And lingering out the scope Of its great longing ; near the temples sit Memnonian figures and the walls are writ With scrolls of ancient days, but through the ; aisles Oppression hovers and the voiceless piles 122 The Old World, Answer not anything and toward the silver sea The dreaming land looks whence the wished re- sponse must be. XIII. In after days, O dim-eyed Orient, Your countless armies crossed the wind- swept straits And shook the soil where fearless Freedom waits Your foiled attack ; backwards you fled fore- spent And baffled in your mighty world-intent ; Your eyes were wan with pallid dreams and dreads, Your footsteps faltered on the ways besprent With battle's wreck, and the imperial heads Of Europe's leaders young Upon your dazed sight sprung. And your vast half-thoughts sank into live beds Of world-remembrances, the potent dead's Last influx into Power's re-arisen bloom ; You could not rend the heavy primitive doom That swathed you and the fire of soul and joined God Burst on the plains which beaten hordes of yours had trod. The Old World, 123 XIV. O land most radiant of the ancient world, Which burst the troubled dream wherein time lay, And shone the crimson dawn of very day And life arisen in fields with dew impearled, And over which the vanishing vapors curled, Uncovering the sky and mounting sun. Before you fear and wrath swept downwards whirled To the deeps of the abysses unbegun ; Freedom awoke with Greece, And violet-crowned peace. The soul was born and thought's first vic- tory won, God stood in manhood's guise, and the fore- done Base monsters of the ancient dread and terror Sank backwards from their pride of height and error. Being made subservient to the splendid dance of Love And Beauty, come to earth from realms of Powers above. XV. Unto world-conquest you marched forth, O Rome, Grandest of powers in the long roll of time, 124 The Old World. And shaper of the commonweal sublime In which all peoples found a place and home ; You knew with your firm legions on to roam And bind more wonderful than theirs a law Upon the toiling kingdoms ; in the tome Of God's own strength your searching in- sight saw A form of dominance That held your charmed glance ; And long as sovereignty kept close your awe Set on man's right to build, bereft of flaw, His inner life of choice into brave sight Of majesty and rule and visible might. The world was all your own ; deepener of thought to will, Although your own hand slew you, yet you rule earth still. XVI. Next rose the star of wonder in the east. And wise and lowly came to worship where The babe lay in the manger ; light more fair And from diviner realms led to the feast Which welcomed chief the one who came as least ; Earth's monarchies and national gods Trembled upon their thrones, and day increased With passing of the worn-out periods ; The realm of the within Was opened, and the din The Old World, 125 Of outer pomp fell with the lictor's rods ; From the great forest's moist and sun-flecked sods Swept the blue-eyed renewer and for him God rose in spirit and truth ; the Orient dim Clasped hands with ardent Greece, and knowledge of the soul Glowed on the peoples as their life's supremest goal. XVII. The time lay weltering in mere shame and fear, Monstrous with hopelessness and strange self-scorn Whence every form of wild desire was born, And passions that fulfilment made more drear. There was but one huge empire, and the near Self-slaughter in its dead forgetfulness Of elder purposes made it appear Mere evanescence into space ; to bless The uncharactered vastitude And pour life fierce-renewed Into that chaos of world-wide distress, And cleanse with storm for touch of God's caress Upon his children's forehead, burst and ran The foaming hordes of the barbarian, And power again ensouled with what must surely be Saw freedom's sun cloud-burdened risen above the sea. 126 The Old World, XVIII. Sure inwardness and self-unfolding thought, Spirit's fine motions in each struggling heart, The whole of life resurgent in the part. Were new achievements ; truth within was brought Unto a growing vivid radiance, wrought By troubled flight from the mere tangible ; Pulsings of soul the old world never sought, And nobler governance of holier will. The blonde-haired Northener Felt in him start and stir. Whence bloom transformed the meadow and the hill. Which deeper carols of the poets thrill ; The lands which had been savagely estranged Once more in brief bright unity were ranged ; They had gone through sad years, yet into every man Entered a love wherewith his blood more freely ran. XIX, Mistress of realms celestial, and the spouse Of God himself, bride of the heavenly King, Whose solacing song your magic lips made ring Above the weary peoples, to your house Of comfort which the time half disallows. And your hand's patient touch and domi- nance. The Old World, 127 Fled the world-hunted and sin-branded brows And gathered light from your uplifting glance. O founded on God's rock, And shepherdess of the flock, Who looked for calm amid the whirl and chance Of evil days, O Church, who saw advance The slow sun up the higher-stretching skies, Until power wooed you with his glozing lies. You held the sacred keys, and your conviction turned The wheel of progress and with truth your deep eyes burned. XX. A sovereign rose, whose wise unfaltering hand Laid hold upon the tempest and the urge Of unbound passions, and within the verge Of careful potence bade them furl, expand, As listed him ; not long the roar unmanned Waited when death gave him a grave too deep For hopes that Charlemagne with brief breath fanned Into a sudden flame ; on toward the steep Sea of mad conflict bore The undiscernings sore ; Sheer lawlessness erected tower and keep Above the fields where blinded slaveries weep, 128 The Old World, And puny trembling monarchs drank the breath Of rule empoisoned with the smell of death * Pale peace fled from the earth save where her lovers shun The storm within the church's anthemed orison. XXI. But heaven is never starless, and the moon Lifts up her silver face from boding cloud That hides but ill her splendor with the shroud Of storm and battle ; surer comes the boon Of high self-conquest, and the mystic rune Of freedom won from mid of fear and hate Shines clearer on men's brows ; forth late or soon, And rising far above the bitter fate That dominates the age Glooming its every page. The errant knights fare forth and lie in wait To force vile tyrannies from heights elate ; They see pure Love within the heaven of thought. Fashioned of gentle hopes, with dreamings wrought : Queen of the life and hearts that worship at her shrine. She lifts her eyes and guides them unto deeds divine. The Old World, 129 XXII. Again the awakened East had risen as erst In hours forgotten, and the conquering march Of the arms Arabian underneath the arch Of many a sky had passed ; their fervor burst Their native deserts, and their worship nurst The hope of bringing back unto the One, Whom they named God, the peoples now im- merst In giant tasks ; but vain the victory won. And vain their prophet's call ; Against their kingdoms fall The Westerners who scorn their toils fore- done, And beauty risen beneath their regnant sun ; As in the days of the far older time The Orient reels back shattered, and the clime Of Europe knows them but as sombre scudding rack That winds drive from before the light's sky-cleav- ing track. XXIII. So was the West triumphant, and the gold Of growing light was conqueror of the storm Which had beset its dawn with gloom enorme ; 9 130 The Old World. The heaving billows of the conflict rolled Soothed by the splendor, and the hunted fold Of night unseasonable fled on before ; The heart's deep visionings became more bold And turned unto the sacred land which bore Love basely filleted And even mocked when dead ; Should they not gain the tomb ? thus more and more The life of man as one began to soar Before their gazings, and the memoried East Awoke new purposes, whose flame increased So that the bitter march was full of rich avail And truth again came sweeping down the orient gale. XXIV. Nor does high wisdom linger ; knowledge grows To more imperial potence and the soul Sees heaven's great realms above it float and roll, Centering in the pure passion-glowing rose Before God's throne ; whiter than sifted snows Love rules one heart with purpose clearer far Than old Greece thrilled with, and his rapt song flows From the time's depths, more silvern than the star The Old World. 131 That lights the violet sky- Before the dayspring's eye Takes to itself its lucence and the war With night hath one more victory, scimetar Made for the ages' hand, and fashioned well Of prayer and anguish and divinest spell, Slaying the beast within the man and hewing way To where Beatrice's eyes are pursuivants of day. XXV. As in the flawless stone the mighty limbs And sun-turned face disclose from day to day Their loosening glory, and the shadows play Beneath wide eyes wherein the joyous hymns Of wakening life lie silent, interims Of loveliness and strength to hold subdued Worship forever, being imaged thought which swims Upon the sense with rapture still renewed, So 'mid the whelm and toss Of aims that strive and cross The Nation rears its forehead, and imbued With the heart to vanquish difference and feud Reveals a power superb, that is to set On the expectant world a coronet And sign of coming peace, and Freedom is the name The great birth bears, though vaguely known and sad with blame. 132 The Old World. XXVI. Earth grew more beautiful and human life Swept on more nobly ; the dreams of seer and saint Gave way to joys that held without complaint Their revelries within the present ; strife Yet roars in madness where the hordes are rife Who pour from mythic Asia's soundless deeps, And thrust anew the rude barbaric knife At the city's throat amid which learning weeps Because of evil days ; So toward the western ways Greece once more bears her quenchless torch, and steeps In goldener light, and re-enthroned keeps Her inexhausted regnance, that is sure As the great stars above and must endure. Being part of truth eternal and the pauseless strength Which shall bring all mankind into its calm at length. XXVII. The golden-belted bees that hum within The honey-hearted flowers of pleasure fed The soul with strange delights, and sorcer- ous led The Old World. 133 Her feet on poisonous paths of passion ; yet to win The beauty, which, born of the sun, had been The young world's longing, and to see anew The whole of life, its triumph, love and sin, Statued or risen in towers or morned to view In unsurpassable splendor Of colors fierce or tender, Became the time's desire ; then soft winds blew Fraught with a lighter perfume, clearer dew, From long unvisited realms of Poesy ; Birds of fresh joys sang in the new-leaved tree Of living disenthralled from gloom of prisoning dreams, And man walked forth beside the sky-reflecting streams. XXVIII. Heart of the world and mystery of time, Eyesight and life for which the pageant moves, Freedom, for whose fair sake adown the grooves Of ringing change from heavy slumberous prime Unto thought's latter all-transpicuous clime, The toil and struggle of mankind have gone ! Your steps have been amid the heat and rime Of nature's tumult, and the haggard wan 134 The Old World, Despair of history, Lessening in slow degree As you emerged in your own light and on The hills of conquest glittered paragon ! O mirror sending back to heavenly powers Their imaged loveliness and crowned with flowers ! O unity of lands, the morning of your day Flashes across the verge, and holds the night at bay ! XXIX. The mountains rose benignant and the sea Clung to its shores with lingering lover's lips ; The world of trees and blooms sprang from eclipse And smiled as never in the past ; to be Thought's painted veil and the glory free Of the outer where the soul's high hopes are glassed Nature avowed her part in life ; men see. His splendors equally around him cast, The sun uprisen on high, Centre of worlds that vie In happy worship ; they knew well at last The need of firm obedience and their vast Divisions sought to close and move in tune ; The night with blossom-stars or plenilune. The day with flame amidmost of the curving skies, Held the fair earth as love in arms of lover lies. The Old World. 135 XXX. The torch of thought gleamed on the caverned rocks, And earth made bare her heart ; no smallest thing But held the secret wherewith the planets ring And make the music that enfolds and locks The universe in its embrace ; the mocks Of elders, eye-bound with dead loves and hopes. Fled in the winds of search like colored flocks Of leaves at autumn-tide ; time's horoscopes Were prescient of resolve And effort that revolve The reborn planet ; the fetters and old ropes Of dim opinion fell, weak as mere tropes Of sounding sophistries, when the urgent hours Arouse the soul of man with all its powers. When the voice of prophet calls the wandering feet and brains Back to the needed toil on ever-harvested plains. XXXI. One deep intention ruled the restless soul Of all the period, shook it with vague thrill Of grand success, nerved its converging will Unto sheer fearlessness, and held the whole White-heated fervor bound unto the pole 136 The Old World, Of a great action ; star that rose to guide The impetuous firm endeavor to the goal For which the unwearied centuries fleet and ride The tempest-peopled sea Was search for land where the tree Of Freedom might grow surely and abide The hour whose striking had been long denied. Fixed in the heart of men and impulse strong Was need to grasp the earth and to prolong Their nobler life about its curving sides, absorb Its sphered secret, and command the obedient orb. XXXII. Then Freedom might forever build its home Upon that conquest, and the very stars Rising from out the infinite dark thrust bars Away from their best knowing, and the dome Of heaven hold no more mystery, and to roam From light to light of gradual truth become The joy of search, feeling on its brow the foam And wind of thought's great ocean where the dumb Forth-reachings of the past Fruition find at last ; One orb being solved, the distant maze and hum Of worlds whose multitudes had dared to numb The Old World, 137 The earlier gropings rise in ordered song, Repeating the one story ; from the strong Desire of the great ages leaps divine and mild The longed-for, pure-eyed goddess, Fate's Fate- slaying child ! XXXIII. Also the truth that filled the restless mind Of the rapt seeker found a dwelling place Which should repel time's malice, face to face With old discoveries bring all human kind. Hold wisest memories safe and unresigned From regent purpose, cast the miracle far Of budding knowledges like seed confined In fruitful soil breaking in bloom as star Is clad with silver light To wage war on the night And conquer, burst the imprisoning bond and bar Of glooms that sought to hold the soul and mar, And build a realm where men's just dreams might tread And know their strength and bliss of kingli- head ; This too was granted them ; behold in hall and nook Of simpler life, yea everywhere, the charmed book ! 138 The Old World. XXXIV. Voyings forth to the east and wonder-tales Of golden monarchs in clime-favored lands \ The western ocean writes on sparkling sands Its open secret ; round the globed earth sails Wide forethought fearless ; all the eastern gales Fraught with the glow of story waft the oars On westward paths unto the rose-brimmed vales Whither quick fancy lifts its wings and soars ; Upon one soul more high Than the ensphering sky, One heart great to include hope's boundless shores, And prophecy's divinely fashioned lores, Rose the entrancing vision ; presage he Of wonders and achievements yet to be ; Into the vasty dark his ship pursued its way, Secure that westward was the spring of man's bright day ! IL THE MAN. The sun set, but set not his hope ; Stars rose ; his faith was earlier up ; Fixed on the enormous galaxy, Deeper and older seemed his eye ; And matched his sufferance sublime The taciturnity of time. — Emerson. 139 THE MAN. I. WHO knows the secret of the sunrise ? who Shall say what splendor of the exhaust- less sun Across the sombre waiting skies shall run ? Who knows the point from which the first wind blew That brought the hidden sky again to view ? On what far tip of Ocean's many waves Fell the first moonbeam ? or what drop of dew Hid first amid the rose's petals, slaves To the sweet dream of love Her coming forth hath wove ? What edge of storm struck first the trembling knaves Who king earth's follies, and what yawn of graves Oped first to enclose them from the lightning stroke Fallen and quivering ? or what first ray broke 141 142 The Man, From what far heavens to shine within the hearts of men And bring them back to life and truth and joy again ? II. Surely the ages climb unto the Deed ! Beneath the sod the slow seed bursts and toils, The laboring spirit laughs at vain recoils On its intention ; still the patient need Moulds the great world and bids arise, exceed, The light that darkling lay amid dense scorn ; Denials perish of its right to lead To spaces where its glow increased to morn Is promise of the day Having the word to say Which leaves old crimes disseated and for- lorn, While faith resurgent in the just is born ; As the earth's rivers flow unto the sea, Time's unseen tides unto the yet to be. So might and things and life speed to the centre where The new achievement leaps forth to the sun and air. III. Deep in one heart the fateful future bides, A point of expectation and of thought, The Man, 143 Which have this frail and slender vessel wrought For their enswathement ; his the dream that rides Into the haven where its storm-swept sides May wreathe themselves in flowers of tri- umph won ; Deep in his soul the new evangel hides Toward which the confluent streams of hope have run Since light was on the sea Where his great task should be ; Upon that suffering head the winds and sun May beat, whitening his locks, and the un- done Intent may seem like failure, and his eyes May see through tears morn after morn arise, But all the stars of heaven and the sun's swiftest fires Bring on the hour which shall respond to his de- sires. IV. Italia ! with full hands you have ever come Unto the feast of nations ; rise once more, Be your grand self that all men may adore ; Your cry of war in olden days struck dumb The dwellers of the farthest earth ; your sum Of glories made a crown for your fair brow Which was the light of law and masterdom 144 ^^^^ Man, Burning within our house of rule even now ; Your Church's holy flame Made clear the sacred name When darkness held the lands ; later your vow Unto high beauty led you to endow The joy of men with its best heritage Of picture and of marble ; and your rage Of large beneficence would not have wholly won Its height of giving, had you urged not forth your son V. To find the newer world far in the west Toward which some instinct in the heart of man Pointed since first the flow of time began ; The brooding boy beside your waves sat blest In a large dream of earth's alluring best, A forefeel of the way his ships must go, Borne on the treacherous subsidence and crest Into the light that later eyes should know ; Within him burned and thrilled The purposes world-willed For which all skies are globed and all winds blow ; Son of a sailor-city and the foe Of whatso night hung over distant seas And hid from sight uncaptived lands and leas. The Man. 145 His thought surged far and high and gazed upon of stars Virginal, which beaconed him from forth their speeding cars. VI. What the great halls of learning told his soul Of mystic project and alert command, The golden memories of sighted land By ancient wanderers on the toss and roll Of half-forgotten waves, what murmuring stole Upon him of the vaguely-looming fate That was to be his anguish and his goal, Found in him the resolve whose form and date Are not the fruit of time And grow within a clime Which has heaven's smile for sky ; calmly he sate And what was kin unto that mood and mate Came to his hand and gave its message up, As one drinks wine from out a jewelled cup. And he went forth strong in the truth and firmly bent To search for lore of the far realm where'er he went. VII. The sea knew well her master ; from her came A voice of urgence and a cry that stung His heart to answer and about him clung 146 TJie Man. A host of visionings that roused to flame His sense of kingship ; his the hand to tame Her wild upleapings, make her bear the yoke, And fawn about the keels in happy shame That into her close western secrets broke ; He knew her scorn and smile And fathomed every wile, Treading in joy the hollowed pine or oak ; The astonished sailors felt the subtle stroke Of still assurance when the headland rose Before them and the morning brought swift close To the mutinous fury facing the near Afric sand And impotent to make him seek the wished-for strand. VIII. He held the wonder in his heart and soon From all the winds came confirmation strong To bear his swift previsionings along ; He followed every track beneath the moon And sought from south to north whatever rune Deciphered showed the path he was to tread ; Nor any region might refuse the boon Unto his asking ; forth his steps were led Unto the extreme shore That then the honor wore Of searchings far and wide into the dread And awful marvels that the ocean bred ; And knowledge came to aid him and her speech The Man, I47 Pointed unto the fruitage in his reach ; The noble Florentine, the traveller of the skies, Like a new planet saw the new West glow and rise. IX. The very light was filled with fair sea tales As if the sun were leagued with his chief hope ; A luminous mist of story and of trope Swept through the lands and girt his visioned sails With the exalting bliss that never fails. What if he knew not half the magic lore Which came down wafted on the freighted gales From the dim past, yet Plato's vanished shore And the stern Roman's dream Seen in the stormless stream Of light prophetic, and what picture more Shone to complete the world, rejoiced to soar Into the heaven of his musings, cling To his enlinking thought, and there to sing A music that by many had been softly heard And iterant in refrain the East and West averred. X. Mornwards were realms of fairy ; far Cathay Drew with its towers and singular roofs of gold, And farther towards the springs of light the bold 148 The Man. Discoverer saw the foam that starred the way To great Zipangu ; who should say him nay ? In Asia's dimness potent Prester John Ruled still (so spoke their dreamings) and the day Of rosy lustre had not fled and gone From glorious Kublai Khan Whose width of regnance ran Unto the hither sea ; his thoughts sped on Across the sun-kissed waves and dwelt upon The fortunes of the lucky brothers twain And Rubruquisandmore whose deeds were vain Because the hated Turk usurped the Orient ; Upon the western skies his hopes were set and bent. XI. Scant was the bread he won, and hard the toil Of many askings ; you might surely deem The country would not unresponsive seem That bore the Prince of Seamen and whose spoil Of treasures won with strength no storm could foil Called his work hers who passed the haunted cape To distant Calicut ; but the stern coil Of sharp denial gave no sure escape From its coercive prison ; The light was not arisen Upon his weary darkness ; many an ape The Man, 149 Of dullard greatness would yet grin and gape Upon the calm severity that held Its course unshaken, patient, and unquelled, Scorning the Portuguese device which basely sought To grasp the certain prize and bring his life to naught. XII. But Love looked on his eager step and brow And sang him melodies to lull and cheer His bitter waiting ; children blithe and dear Climbed on his knee, and made the time allow A respite from the deep and mastering vow ; Nobly formed was he, strong and large of frame, The potent eye clear with light to endow A darkling multitude ; the furrows came Full early and the face Revealed across its space The unresting purpose and themindof flame ; A vigorous soul that saw the heights of fame, Being part of large intents ; and if at last Love in another guise beside him passed. Be sure heaven frowned not on that simple paradise Nor gazed upon it with stern, unrelenting eyes. XIII. Moreover when he claimed the right to rule The realms he found and portions of the store ISO The Man, Of riches they gave up, what did he more Than emphasize the part he played ? The cool Winds of the morning sweeping o'er the pool. That seeks to hold the sunrise on its breast^ Capricious, wayward, yet are not the fool To yield one atom of the waters' best Which they believe is theirs ; No flower the summer bears But calls the sun his own, and the wide west In days to come should each with the all invest ; He was the master of the islands far. He was the late and slowly rising star. Beneath which burst their beauty from the dark- ness' thrall. And he of right was ruler and great admiral. XIV. Forth fared he from the land that knew him not And sought the region of brave-voiced romance. About which all the winged seasons dance In lyric joyance, Spain, whose lofty lot Was to conclude the conflict unforgot ; Again the sense-steeped and luxurious creed That rose in Asia, bred amid her hot And desert sands, contended with the need For nobler self-possession, The Ma?t, 151 And spirit's free confession Of firm allegiance to the truth whose meed Is to obtain the will and strength to bleed For those who toil and mourn ; great-hearted Spain, Fronting the expectant and sonorous main, Had the keen sight to pierce the mists which over- hung The outer ocean, taught by the unfearing tongue XV. That made wide Europe hear the constant story ; She bent at first a sombre deep surprise Upon the whitened hair and anxious eyes ; Her sages and her counsellors, old and hoary,, Sat gazing from their wisdom's promontory Steadfastly seaward, but a shadow lay Upon the outlook's still invisible glory. And they believed not in the nearing day ; But there were those who felt The mystery that dwelt In his firm words, the prince, of amplest sway, Medina-Celi, and, keen in the fray, The third king of the realm, Mendoza, priest And statesman, with the Queen's advisers, least Inclined to marvels, Santangel, Quintanilla strong. And the imperious Marchioness whose life's rich song 152 The Man, XVI. Answered his own ; but now the Crescent pale Shrank behind clouds of war, and the pure Queen Held victory grasped ; at Santa Fe were seen The royal armament whose stern avail Shattered the Saracen kingdom and saw quail The Oriental life before the sweep Of nobleness that dwelt behind the mail Of lords and knights ; for these the moving deep Held regions secret yet But where their bold hopes set Should come to sight in forms wherein the leap Of impulse might find joyance and still keep Friendship with law that fetters and makes free ; For these ere long the sun's unloosened sea Should flow round Moorish towers wherefrom burns forth the cross, Symbol of hope and love that grow and know not loss. XVII. But not to you, O Europe, came the task To build the commonweal that shall endure And brighten ever till its action pure The Man, I53 Grows even as time itself must seek and ask ; Men knew not what was hidden behind the mask The ages wove of Pomp and Power, strong Love, That throws from off its brow the glittering casque. And fills the world with the clear light thereof ; They built the narrow cell Wherein the accents fell Of Judges whom no mildness of the dove Kept from the serpent's keenness ; forth they drove The patient wisdom of a people sad With the unfinished pain their drear past had, And whom the New World, too, should free from the dark doom Which wove around them centuries of grief and gloom. XVIII. Thus the past clutched the throat of wise intent. And murdered Spain when her hand held the keys To unlock the future's happier mysteries ; And the defeated Moor saw once more bent The nations at the shrine from whence are sent 154 ^^^^ Man, Soul-slaying vapors and a shuddering dread Of lordly deeds for which all time is meant. Gray Europe had a weary path to tread Unto that far seen goal For which the New World sole Waited, and whereunto her life is wed ; O bold discoverer high among the dead, Or those whose unsealed eyes behold the all. Great Sailor and the Future's Admiral, You see what land you found — not Asia's mere decay, But the Achievement's best, and gold of the New Day ! XIX. Yet had his sun not risen ; from his lips Fell in swift fervid accents his desire. And Talavera's eyes of smouldering fire Shone with a myriad doubts, a dark eclipse Of faith hung round him, and the longed-for ships Ploughed but the ocean of his star-lit dreams ; Time had not tried his soul enough with whips And scorns, for so the rigid Master deems He makes his servants fit For the hard toils which knit The perfect garment, firm and without seams. The Man. 155 The world shall wear at last ; his hurt brain teems With indignation and he turns away Undaunted, and he girds him for the fray Once more ; but first he hears the words of his good friend, Marchena, strong with trust in the far-shining end. XX. His wanderings reached at last the lonely door Of calm La Rabida ; there the silence came Grateful upon his grief's consuming flame ; The simple cloisters gave him peace once more And the live ocean rolled up to the shore Its ceaseless voice of promise ; through the pines The sun looked down benignant, and the roar Of the far world of rivalries declines Into an inward murmur With each day growing firmer, Whose sense is conquest at the last ; as shines A lamp across a rocky path's confines Making the outlet clear, Juan Perez' faith Who heard him and conceived his words no wraith Of fevered fancy but the very truth, was light To bring the Queen to know his purposes aright. 156 The Man. XXI. O noble priest and friend ! you reached the court And turned the Queen from conquest's mid career To hearken ; other triumphs glittered clear Before her, and again from Huelva's port The seeker came ; he saw Granada's fort Open its gates reluctant, and the king, El Zogoibi, bewail his bitter sort And loss which made the rich TeDeums ring When on La Vela's tower The cross bloomed like a flower Of heaven's own growing ; but the sudden spring, Loud with birds silent long that strove to sing, After the winter's weary voiceless reign, Was overcast with storms of cold disdain ; Haughtily forth he fared and reached Granada's gates When the clouds lifted and the persecuting fates XXII. Relented from their fury ; for the Queen Listened unto the urgings manifold Of Santangel, and counsel, wise and bold, Of the far-seeing Marchioness, whose keen Divinings pierced the misty ocean's screen And felt the deed must surely come to pass ; The Man, 157 So they recalled him, and his life's changed scene Grew bright with blooms and smile of thick- ening grass ; O royal woman then Your hand received again The keys of a great realm ; in the clear glass Of actions yet to be whose fires amass Infinite stores of impulse toward the good, Your image permanent lies ; forth from the wood Of beasts malicious and the unrelenting dread You showed the way, but sought not from the gloom to tread. XXIII. The wind was fair, the ships lay in the bay. And the blue sky looked down upon the earth ; Prophetic time laughed toward the nearing birth Of the strong child with whom should come a day That dulled all earlier hours. Forth on the way With holy blessings said, and bellied sails. And mounting joy that knows not let nor stay ! Lo ! the undaunted purpose never fails ! O patient master, seer. For whom the far is near. The vision true, and the mere present pales 158 The Man, Its lustre, what mild seas and blossomed vales Awaited you ? haply a paradise But not the one which drew your swerveless eyes ; Could you have known what lands were there be- yond the main, You surelier would have turned to gladsomeness from pain. XXIV. Light-bearer ! this did you hope indeed to be, Freeing the holy tomb from dominance base And cleansing earth's bent brow from dark disgrace ; Waited not Prester John across the sea With eager sons under his canopy Of gold and on his emerald-studded throne ? Wealth should you have and wide-spread empery To bring bowed hearts to Truth who heard their moan And made it yours to lift The heavy clinging drift From their sad days, the many hearts who lone And anguished suffered falsehood's mono- tone ; Such was your dream, O strong deliverer ! But your achievement infinite-mightier Planted the tree of Freedom in its foredoomed soil And wrested from old 111 the remnant of his spoil. The Man. 159 XXV. What room for cold detraction's voice ? What gain In finding weakness where so much of strength Reached the far end it sought so long at length ? Grant that his soul had here and there a stain, The splendor of his deed must still remain The clear avouchment of his manhood's height ; That cannot be the truth which would constrain The mind to dull details and hold from sight The life that is the whole Vision ; the mists uproU From the wide landscape and the generous light Bathes in its affluence hill and stream ; the night Seeks its lair far beyond the glowing earth ; Here is the joy of daring and of worth ; If mists cling to the trees or thin clouds yet ob- scure, We ask not in the day's impendence white and pure. XXVI. Two worlds, from the beginning sundered, flow Into the stream that is the planet's life, i6o The Man. A strength showing sweet peace brought forth of strife ; The giant winds upon their wanderings go From the grim lands of changeless iron snow Unto the climes where rules the centred sun. And everywhere the exulting nations know That their approaching Destiny is one ; This hath the Sea-King wrought Whose forward leaping thought Felt that man's victory was but half way done Unless both realms were intimately won Unto the mighty goodness which is God And Lord of History's utmost period ; His hand conjoined the parted continents once for all, He looked for land and lo ! a nobler spirit-fall ! III. THE DEED. To cross the seas of life, naught suffices save the bark of faith. In that bark thp undoubting Columbus set sail, and at his journey's end found a new world. Had that world not then existed, God would have created it in the solitude of the Atlantic, if to no other end than to reward the faith and con- stancy of that great man. — Emilio Castelar. i6i THE DEED. I. "D EACH but the heights of truth and every -''^ star Trembles and shines for aims you seek and love ; The winds become the pursuivants thereof,, Their blare triumphant heralds you afar ; No danger can affright, no power can bar The stern endeavor leagued with very thought. The impassioned hope that is right's avatar And sees its substance surely wrought Into the web of time ; He breathes the superb clime Of certain victory, who, borne by naught From the pursuit his loftiest dreams have sought, Follows the rocky path, however steep, Which lovers of mankind perceive and keep ; All forces of the land and sea and air conspire To bring to pass what feeds eternity's desire. 163 164 The Deed. II. The soft acclaim of heaven accompanies The advent of the hero on the earth ; Nothing of wonder may attest his worth Or break upon and shake the revelries Of arrogant pleasure which concludes not his To ring the knell of what it holds most dear ; But where the secret place of potence is, And where the heart of life beats high and clear, The light's intenser glow And joy's superber flow Betoken triumph 'gainst the ancient fear ; The night is sorely stricken and her drear Control is nearly over ; every stream Speeds with new strength in the sun's strenuous stream. Defeat beholds with dark chagrin how all his skill Of strange undoing served to work the sovereign will. III. Now the swift hours seemed friendly ; every- where Smiled portents of success to the emprise Which looked for sunrise where the low day dies Into the seas incarnadine ; to dare Was certain conquest ; earth was all aware The Deed, 165 Of the endeavor, and her heart was thrilled With mighty impulse that her son should fare Straight to the doom she long had loved and willed ; He was the very mid Of the intentions hid Within her bosom till her hands had spilled Enough of marvels and the unfulfilled Desires of her bold manchild sought the realms Beyond the sea with courage-governed helms Where could be built anew, free from the past's grim wrong, A home the soul might dwell in, life's last burst of song. IV. Now the winds rose from out the storied east, Freighted with all the perfumed memories That murmured in their brains like happy bees Seeking the hives wherein the store increased Of earth's best products was set for the feast Whereby all men recline and each is king ; The light wind freshened while the monk and priest Watched from his height the vessels vanish- ing ; The sea was fair as youth. The wind was firm as truth. 1 66 The Deed, The cloven waters with a swish and swing Around the ship's sides seemed to close and sing ; The known shores faded and the speeding days Brought them unto the skyward-reaching blaze Of islanded sheer Teneriffe that pierced the night With its sharp cone and thrilled the unaccustomed sight. V. Forth into unknown seas ! and who shall say What keel clove those forgetful waves be- fore ? Had the dark-haired and slim Phoenician's prore Seen creaming from its thrust the fitful play Of those unraging waters ? or the way Been conscious of the Greekish mariner Whose fancy wantoned in the golden day Of lost Atlantis ? or the storm and stir Of an obscure unrest Driven a king from blest And firm-built power to see through misted blur Strange coasts arise and many an islander ? The smoothly-slipping rippled element Seemed false-benignant in its calm consent ; What vague forebodings held their inmost hearts appalled When sea was all that shone upon their sight en- thralled ? The Deed, 167 VI. The sky above them glittered clear and pure, The vast horizons scarcely shut them in ; Had the strange path an end ? was theirs to win A shore beyond that solitude ? Secure In the far-stretching distance lay the lure Which siren-wise laughed in the present calm ? Or did the silver monotone endure Until its splendor ached, and the fierce qualm Wrought madness in the brain ? Farther upon the plain Of liquid lucence and no sign of balm Unto the growing fear and lifted palm ; Held the same law in the same certain strength The new and old ? or was change here at length ? These treacherous waves perchance rolled on no human shore, And vaguely westward was the infinite's opened door ? VII. A broken mast tossed loose from wave to wave ! A sign from the as yet unfathomed sea And menace to their rash temerity ! For who might bind her as a willing slave To his devisings ? was she not one grave. i68 The Deed. Pellucid, fragrant, lambent everywhere, Covetous of life and impotent to save ? But the quick birds were fearless and the air Upbore their flutterings, And the increasing rings Of their large flight portended something fair. Pelican, tunny fish, aught that could bear A happy presage woke a fleeting thrill Of the old hope which dimmed and lessened still ; What might survive upon the stretching lone ex- panse Save the light tribes of air, and fishes* darting dance ? VIII. But lo ! the sea became a tangled mass, A floating meadow of unnameable weeds, A sterile growth answering no man's needs, A demon-fashioned obstacle to pass, A moving desert covered with strange grass, Another horror which the water spawns. That aggregate of drops more clear than glass^ But hiding in its clearness fifty dawns Of ominous miracle, An ever variant spell Which while it brings to sight its wrecks, yet fawns Upon its victims ; through the yielding lawns, H The Deed, 169 Starred with red berries like dull spots of fire. That were the signs of its condign desire, They cut their way at last, but now the winds were still ; What next ? when would the sea's wild fancy have its will ? IX. Drifting slowly unto their doom ; the glow Of the smooth waters to the silent right. Leftwards the shine of the unvarying light, Into the very void they seemed to go ; No hand with land these wastes had laughed to sow ; There was around them a crystalline peace, That grew more weird than night when storm- winds blow ; They might turn backwards and thus gain release, But who could surely feel That the reversed keel Might not find gulfs where even time would cease ? At night the burnished stars with soft in- crease Of flame made the far reaches visible ; They were a-float within a widening dell Of death's sheer imminence ; even as a flaw is found Dimming and shadowy inside a diamond's round. 1^0 The Deed, X. Wherefore had shone the baleful light on high? The meteor that fell from its steep place And hissing met the sea's uplifted space ? Were the stars fixed in yonder high-domed sky ? And whence did the unchanging breezes fly ? Hard sailing in the teeth of winds ; and Spain, Fair land of memories, both arm and eye Of Europe, like a dream at morn that vain And fragile passed and sped, Or soul mixed with the dead And mounting upward to unfleeting gain. Would hardly greet them more beyond the plain Of sinuous waves into whose spell they swept ; Here all was other ; not even the needle kept Her truth in the mad realms ; yet better to be lost On the track homewards then on this grim sin be tost. XI. But the Commander swerved not from his trust. His prayers were answered while he uttered them, His eyes were fixed beyond the sunset's hem. And the fates surely could not be unjust ; The Deed, i/i His thoughts were truth itself, and so there must Rise from the deeps an answer clear and meet ; He calmed the sailors' dreads and often thrust Their glooms aside with foregleams of the feat Which all time should record Their braveries' fit award ; His skill pictured for them the town and street Wherethrough the Khan's life, fierce and golden, beat ; What fear of fire stones falling from above ? He knew them well ; besides the tomb of Love Who died for men must needs have freeing ; Holy- Writ Sanctioned their distant search and prophesied of it. XII. Yet the fierce anguish of the homeless waste Grew stronger, and they rose in scorn and hate Against their chief, whose madness, soon or late, Must bring the doom which they so long had faced Half helplessly; they would, no more disgraced And shamedly hearkening his obscure be- hests. 1/2 The Deed, Feel their firm wits by his crazed dreams dis- placed, Nor seek these wests eked out by farther wests ; And if death came, alack ! It should be on the track Homewards ; let him go forth on dangerous quests With those unweeting that his interests Were not the heaven's, but intense search for gold Of which low-breathed secrets had been told Into his ear by lying pilots who had been But a short way upon the ocean's swirl and sin. XIII. The Admiral heard their loud complaints and called Unto the ships accompanying his ; In solemn council all their miseries Were spoken and the demon deep unwalled Tossed round them ; then the Pinzon unap- palled Voiced the great need from off the swaying deck And for a brief time held them disenthralled, Obedient to their Master's word and beck ; " Sefior, some two or three Of these might feed the sea ; And if the hangman's office seem a fleck The Deed, 173 Upon you which you love not, they shall reck Not long of mere delay ; my brother here And I will bear down on them swiftly, cheer Their dark despair, and land them in another world ! The flag we bear is but above success unfurled ! " XIV. They cowered abashed and the touched Ad- miral said : "A few days more we will our course pursue And the near hour will give the land to view ; Such do I deem the present likelihead ; But if these last few hours are fully sped And only sky and water greet us, I Will change the sailing by your longings led." Then Pinzon once more raised his voice and high Above the wind and wave Sounded the message brave : " Forward ! Forward ! Forward ! " a clarion cry Circling around between the sea and sky. Whatever deeds darkened your latter days. That courage lifts you, Pinzon, past all praise ; Your haughty spirit gave its fire when needed most. And to those dauntless words reached ♦forth the enamored coast ! 174 The Deed, XV. And later came the cry of land — perchance Because we often see the thing we long To see — and the wan Admiral raised the song Gloria in Excelsis — and his glance Wandered afar where the lit ripples dance ; Lo ! there it lay, purple and dim, a cloud Hardening to shore with the full-sailed ad- vance ; So they all hoped with their pale faces bowed And eyes straining and fierce Into the depths to pierce ; Continent was it ? or a thick-set crowd Of islands ? the close flight of birds avowed The nearing rest and harbor — thick they came,, Fluttered and chattered without let or blame ; Alack ! the land sank back into the abysses there ; The sighing waves beneath and round them nought but air ! XVI. Even the great heart faltered and at night He sat upon the deck and felt the gloom Falling around him like a mighty doom ; The faint glow on the waters left and right Hurt his tense mood and something shut his sight, And whether sleep or waking he knew not^ The Deed, 175 Or whether it was dark or full of light, Or whether earth or other holier spot ; But a voice softly spake Nor did the silence break : " Have I not led you ? have you too forgot How from your childhood I have made your lot Mine own, and filled your life with me, and gave You toils I needed in my toils to save Man from himself ? And do you doubt and trem- ble now ? Nay, fear not ! Lo ! my certain morning girds your brow ! " XVII. He woke as one who might return from death Unto the scenes he knew beneath the sun And to far heights his thoughts began to run ; His dreams flew past the bounds where tar- rieth The mind of men, and over him the breath Of the Terrestrial Paradise sped soft, And he heard waking what the sweet mouth saith Of the pure Mother who sits throned aloft And crowned by her own Son ; Her radiant smile had won His heart to deep allegiance and had oft 1/6 The Deed, Shone on his darkness and his soul had doffed Its sadness ; he could wait for many a morn With this clear vision ; sometimes when the scorn Seemed far too much to bear, he had heard mur- murs beat Within him, and he would the mystic tones repeat XVIII. Even as did the thunderous ones of old Who spoke what heaven itself poured through their lips, Striving to ward their country's near eclipse ; Ah, if the obscure Future had unrolled The stately pageant which she held in fold Of dimness, how his full heart must have leapt Unto the Hesperian Freedom's morning gold ; He would have known that his straight voy- age kept The road to Paradise Indeed, which earthly eyes Should see, and the salt tears which time had wept Must feel assuaged, for the Republic slept Her ante-natal slumber and light fell Beneath her trembling eyelids, her AlVs well ! Would ring above the expectant lands, and the last birth Of national powers arise in stature of her worth. The Deed. ly/ XIX. Perhaps some forefeel of his latter days Came over him, Fonseca's tireless hate, And all the ills that oft on greatness wait, And hardships of triumphant rugged ways ; And further on the world-wide lamping blaze Of gratitude which circled his bright name ; His last doubts vanished and his gaze Swept the wide ocean ; he could bear the blame Of the dull halting men, Who would withhold again The world from its advancement, and their shame Should be his answer when the victory came * He had not failed to hear when his thought spoke. He had not failed to read what message broke Upon him when the outer life was quieted And his deep heart and deeper truth were inly wed. XX. Was that a new star in the purple West ? Golden and flickering, quenched and full of fire. Like an uncertain strengthening desire ? It glows above the uttermost dark crest Of waters ; O mysterious palimpsest Of the round skies, will you not utter clear The secret you have shrouded terriblest 1/8 The Deed. Amid the weltering ocean's vast and fear ? Is yonder flame the key Unto the mystery ? The last word in the message darkling here Which fills the meaning out, repaying drear And dim-eyed watching and grim anguishing Of the tense soul that now may rise and sing Its rich-voiced paean and the heart awake once more Into the joy of life from over-cloudings sore ? XXI. Is it a star ? its lambent tremulousness Melts in the dark around it ! now it pales And its soft lustre droops and faints and fails ; It breaks anew ! it comes like a caress From regions of divinest blessedness ! " Pedro Gutierrez, turn your sight afar ! What is yon shining of the floating tress ? " " I mark the pale far radiance of a star ! " " Oh, look again, again, And call the next of men ! Rodrigo of Segovia, past the bar Of many waves see you what flashings are ? " ** Nay, good your grace, I see naught but the dark ! " Forth leaps to leeward the adventurous bark ! Lo ! there ! It shines again ! Master, it grows more bright ! All men upon your knees ! It is a light ! — a light I IV. THE NEW WORLD. Come thou whole self of Latter Man ! Come o'er thy realm of Good-and-Ill, And do, thou Self that sayest, / can^ And love, thou Self that sayest, J will ; And prove and know Time's worst and best, Thou tall young Adam of the West ! — Lanier. 179 THE NEW WORLD. I. T7 ASTWARD the dawn and to the west lay ^ land ; Oh not Cathay, but a more virgin soil, And waiting for the newer faith and toil. Responsive to a more august command ; Nor here where breezes blew serene and bland And the warm sun enlarged from labors rude, Upon this river-fed and fruitful strand Where nothing harsh or stern dared to in- trude, Was the fair dome to rise, But under cloudier skies. In which the nobler reach and larger mood Should find themselves drawn on and subtly wooed To make their dwelling with the whole of man, Moulded unto the dream wherein began The passion of his life, for from no lesser source Flowed the wide stream of hope and urged its deepening course. i8i 1 82 The New World. II. Once more a portent shone in Germany ; For there the Great Reformer rose and stood Firm-poised and strong against a very wood Of opposition ; no more should there be A wall betwixt the soul and verity ; In the wide spiritual realms there was no king Save God ; life had not striven to make men free Through the long years but to lose all and bring Again the servitude To a power once imbued With the pure love wherewith the seasons sing, But now athirst for rule, and carrying Base pomp into the sanctuary's mid ; He could no other do than he was bid By the deep voice within, and Spirit's rich domain. Seen by the eye of faith, lay clear revealed and plain. III. Also the soul confronted in its might The shows of all the world, and dared to say That there was naught beneath the eye of day Which fell not in its province, and its right To judge what truth was came not from the light Flickering alone in cloisters ; every man Stood in the hall of Good, and his own sight Read the true message that on high began ; The New World. 183 The young strong cities rose, And yet another close Of music through the deepening chorus ran, And peaceful toil pressed forward in the van ; The castles frowned upon their rough hill sides, And the hurt villein looked upon the rides Of glittering lords and ladies with a half despair, Then left the plough and sought the city's freer air. IV. Through the rapt ages sped the dream and grew More certain with the pregnant flight of time And held the seasons in a richer rhyme ; From every star that shone and wind that blew The intelligence came, and all men surely knew That the deep self was height and lucid peak From whence the landscape took proportion due, And justice was the good they were to seek ; Mere trust in rule was dead, And it had basely led Into the gardens withered now and bleak Wherein too long mad kings had joyed to wreak Their wanton fancies and their wild caprice On men whose hands had given long life and lease To crime and shamelessness ; the flame-lit end was here ; Each man decreed himself, and sovereigned all the sphere. 1 84 The New World, V. The thunder rolled above impetuous France, The earth shook in the storm, and savage cries Of the roused nations answered to the skies ; The thrones of Europe trembled, and the lance Of Freedom clove the darkness with the glance Of its divine illumination, yet Too fierce and strenuous was the grim advance. And by too many foes self-made beset ; So Victory spurned the earth As of too little worth For her long dwelling ; and the ground was wet With curdling dews the ways would fain forget ; The scornful sun looked down in pain and wrath On lands that trod the new-old hateful path ; A sigh came from the seas, and everywhere was heard The cry, " How long, O Freedom, is your reign deferred ! " VI. O sunset land ! to you the days have given The noblest labor, the severest meed. The Consummation and the Mighty Deed ! You shall from all cast off the manacles riven In the sad past, and time's old sorrows driven The New World. 185 Before like leaves upon the autumn blast, And memories of crimes and wrongs unshriven, In the fierce light that your clear eyes will cast, Must seek the open grave From which no later wave Of shame or folly can revive them ; fast Shall they lie there until a springtime vast Sweeps over them and makes them part of life That has arisen full-sinewed from the strife, Your surging life, O Mother, triumph-voiced and great, Shaper of man's firm welfare. Builder of the State ! VII. What have you not that kisses of the sun Delight to fondle ? waters, large and fair, And golden regions of the variant air ; Both oceans find their daily loves undone Unless their songs within your ears are spun ; Your mountains soar above you, calm and tall, And lure until their silences have won Your hearts to spiritual heights which hold and thrall ; Your prairies like a bride Laugh to the blue skies wide With their abundance ; no fate can befall You save the further rich behest and call Of wisdomed bringing what you have in fee 1 86 The New World. Unto all lands, mild peace and liberty, And nobler beauty, purer song, and juster sight Of the deep secrets hid within the Infinite Light ! VIII. O stern-browed Heroine far across the sea, Your daughter knows your blood within her veins, And hearkens to the ever-ringing strains Your voice has poured to honor Liberty ; Her have you worshipped and you still must be Helper and guide upon the luminous way ; What you have done to make the nations free, Believing ever in the sun-filled day That shall pervade at length Mankind in all its strength, Named you among those chief round whom the play Of forces bringing triumph shed the ray Of the result divine ; we feel you here Within us, and the hour cannot appear, O England, which will not turn youwards and re- peat How your grand life's stream flows within us pure and sweet. IX. The secret found at last ! obedience To nothing alien but the very God The New World, 187 Fluent throughout the majestic period ; The soul of man and life one stream whose whence Is in the light of Good's pre-eminence ; The heart of each co-equal with the whole That through it flows in joyous turbulence ; The soul of man one self-divided soul, Whose parts innumerous are Conjoined as light to star, A star whose beams around it speed and roll. Each beam all light and true as steel to pole Unto its source of pure yet mixed flame. Each beam all light reflected to the same Glory and fervor whence its dreams have ever been, And fleeting back from being's utmost verge and sin ! X. O heart of time and secret of the world Revealed at last beneath the happy sun, O wide-branched blossom of the ages won Into vast growth, since the first dew lay pearled Upon the first leaf to the light uncurled. Since sense of spiritual search was anywhere. You have gleamed forth, and ray by ray un- furled Your crescent shining to the ambient air ; Now we behold you sure. The spirit and the lure Of all endeavor, not a mere nation fair. 1 88 The New World, Not one bright flower, but, clustered rich and rare, A flower of flowers, a petalled sisterhood, The torch-like centre of the heavy wood Of history, giving light upon the living past And chiefest glow on upward-leading pathways cast ! XI. In days of Greece whose eyes prophetic saw The spiritual sphere disclosed, and whose life rose With youthful ardor past the wizard shows Of sense into that region of clear awe, A multifloral state which drank the law Of one strong stem half stayed the night that fell Too soon, and charmed the savage winds from flaw, Nearing its burst, to silence ; but too well For the rathe hour was planned The interlinked command ; Also the mountaineers who feel the spell Of their wild land's enchanting miracle Have woven a light of rule whose distinct hues Conjoined have been a beacon to diffuse A hope among the watchers that the delaying morn Would surely come when the Republic should be born. The New World, 189 XII. Now the Republic has indeed beheld The vapors vanish from the western seas, And day's young magic flash across the leas Which the wrapt fancy of the climes of eld Longed for and prayed ; those tense desires unquelled By disappointment, merciless defeat, Have sprung from every overthrow to weld Anew the dream for which their passion beat ; Of the Discoverer's heart Those purposes had part, And led him forth with inexhausted heat To make strong Europe's hope the New World's feat ; What the worn past has been anhungered for. Holding all action its sure servitor. The form of rule to whose large beauty men must kneel Appears, a State of States, the Nationed Common- weal ! XIII. Not tower but city crowned is your grand brow, Your limbs prodigious in the strength of youth. And in your eyes the awfulness of truth, Not mail-clad, bringerof the olive-bough. Holy and tender, with lips sweet from vow 190 The New World, Of help to all men in all continents, And gracious hands of blessing to endow With life the hopes to which all time con- sents ; The thunder of the mirth Of the awakening earth Hailed you from mountains with their snowy- tents, And utmost shores the scarce-sailed sea indents ; At night the passion of the stars looked down And laughed to see you, and the sombre frown That gloomed the past-rid lands faded in joy which came From you, O mightiest-thewed, and source of spiritual flame ! XIV. Yet was the struggle hard ; not a mere gift Is the great strength which leads to master- dom ; Wisdom and just assurance only come With victory over sordid ills that drift Around us, and the courages that lift Into the high are their own best reward. The agonies were hers which burn and sift, And her blind powers sometimes held vain accord With those whose scornful boast Was that they harmed her most ; The New World. 191 Around her beat the many-headed horde Of envy, malice, hatred, and self-scored She lay with bleeding wounds ; the battle's rage But made her firmer, and the dearer wage Of nobler reverence, self-control, and sight of good, Was hers as she emerged from that dense earlier wood. XV. One stain remained upon her brow, the mark Of sin against the soul of brotherhood ; She who was Freedom's, what fate abject could Ally her with the baser crew whose dark Control plucked selfhood from the crouched and stark Corrupted ones, debased from man to thing, And wreaking on their sterile brains the cark And care which are the signs of travailing With birth of loftier will ? Yet the hour came to spill Upon the ground her life-blood and to bring Her dearest to the altar that the spring Might be spring unto all ; with forehead bare, Washed clean of the defilement, miracle-fair ; She stands, the shadow in her eyes of anguish fled, .Strengthened and conscious of herself, her hopes, her dead ! 192 The Nezv World. XVI. But newer griefs assail her, lust of gold, The greed that would have all the world its own And silences its ear to sound of moan Falling from lips of victim, savage hold Of temporal goods, that grows an uncontrolled And never-ending madness, these grim ills Sprang up around her, taunting, scornful, bold; Whither have fled the stern and potent wills Who knew to curb the brood Of evil-doers rude ? Shine forth with glance of perfect scorn which kills, O Titaness, and from the hand that tills These monstrous fields, strike the ill-gotten gain, Be loud upon them and transform, restrain. Show forth the double crime, the land nor grows nor lives, Which learns not how to steer 'twixt such alter- natives. XVII. Why should the hungry poor groan in your borders, And toil raise gaunt and angry hands of appeal For wiser guerdon from the commonweal ? The New World, 1 93 Shall you be blamed like those whom the recorders Write in the Book of Grief as vain awarders Of the great good which is the lot of all ? Nay, Mother, help ; surely your deep skill orders Your realm so that the noblest issues fall Unto your diverse sons ? What lack of memory runs Through your tense soul that you should fail to call Your note of warning through your land's wide hall ? Graceless to grasp for more than is of use, And give to greed a limitless abuse ; Find way to make your equal sons by right and law Partakers of yourself and sharers of your awe ! XVIII. Lo ! at the portal stands the Angel Love, The morning of her presence casts before An opulent radiance from shore to shore^ Responsive to the light of life above, And the roused land grows cognizant thereof ; She stands upon the threshold, she would serve What her dear heart can yearn for not enough. Fair sights from which her firm eyes will not swerve ; She would cast out forever 13 194 The New World. The demon who can sever The hands of men, make her own life the nerve Of all familiar acts, hold in its curve Of glad ascent, pure deeds and strong desires, Tread under foot fast-smouldering envy's fires, Withhold from grasp of aught that better feeds another The strength that is in truth as name to all a brother. XIX. The land thrills with an impulse as of spring, New fountains bubble underneath the soil. New dreams of peace float through the night of toil, New melodies begin to soar and sing Within the regions of grim suffering ; Unto a newer height the goddess leads, Where brighter blooms their sweeter fragrance fling Over warm reaches of benignant meads ; The path before us dim Lies in the twilight's rim ; Soon the new sun will cast from him the weeds That yet enshroud him, and a day that breeds A deeper love vanquish the dark anew, A spiritual day with skies of singing blue, The New World, 195 A sea of spirit isled with souls around whom flow The everlasting streams full of meridian glow. XX. Fronting the abyss with smile and brow serene, The new man comes, self-poised, self-equal, firm. Not held within the narrowing senses' term, Not bound in chains of things but touched and seen ; Faith opens outlooks past the vaporous screen Of time, and the whole world lies bathed in light ; His courage is uplifting and his keen Ardors endow the weak with his life's height ; The stars, his charioteers. Bring truths from utmost spheres ; All fears lie dead before him, thought and might Obey him, and his sun is love and right ; Victory calls him hers, and lofty joy. The night and day vicissitudes employ For him, the sea and air are subject to his nod. And his divining eyes gaze up and look on God ! XXI. Here in these waiting days I raise my song. Catching far gleams from what is sure to be ; 196 The New World. As one who hears the unsighted sonorous sea, And the live pulses in him fiercely long To mix with those glad pulses and the strong World-circling flow, I reach forth to the hour When subjugate the old tyranny of wrong Will range itself beside love's conquering power ; These accents poor and faint But dimly limn and paint The centuries-crescent aloe in mid flower ; Ah, that a poet of the supreme dower, A poet such as earlier periods had, Or full-voiced singer as will surely glad The expanses of the future would build up the theme. And fashion forth the wonder of the truthful dream ! XXII. Be glad, O land, fling your bright banners free. Rejoice as never land rejoiced yet, All injuries forgive, all woes forget. Send your acclaim from summer sea to sea, Here at this tide happy and proud are we ! Honor his heart with far heard gratitude. Who knew you through the gloom and mystery, Which held and swayed you from the first indued ! The New World, i<^'j Let not one voice upraise An accent other than praise ! O sleepless vigor with intent imbued To erect a peace in place of old world feud! Bring from the fruitful south and stalwart north Your numberless array of treasures forth ! Build the white halls of beauty and within them store Marvels of thought and hand from every clime and shore ! XXII. Also call forth from the high-laboring earth The wisest and the farthest reaching minds, The manifold insight that forever finds The deepening truths of more embracing worth, Who are the masters of the encircling mirth In which ideas rise and move and dwell, Who watch in spiritual skies the pauseless birth Of stars whose lordships are invincible ; Not in the pompous past Has astroscope been cast Of richer presage, and on no time fell A lovelier laughter, more enduring spell ; The earth is harnessed to the care of man, The air will soon upbear his caravan ; Towards the bold conquests hearts and eyes are fixed and bent, Fresh fragrant winds from the far vales are blown and sent. 198 The New World, XXIV. Has Beauty fled the earth ? Had Greece alone Or the great age when from the painted wall The thunders of the judgment seemed to fall The charm to win her ? shall the sculptured stone Or forest pile of marble, luminous grown With the pure sense of love, arise no more ? Nay, half her magic has not yet been shown, And she will glow far dearer than before ! Nay, if she only wear Her uncrowned floating hair, No more a queen, but woman to adore, Yet must her dreams be truer, farther soar ; Sweetest of messengers from the far skies. The untrembling light of truth within her eyes, The veilless soul of man as ne'er in ages past Shall by her touch in finer, fairer forms be cast ! XXV. The Faiths to whom were given the sacred keys Of heaven, and who by different mountain ways Led upward to the self-same goal of praise, Each deeming that the opened mysteries Were hers alone, and that the golden breeze Blown through the tree of life touched but such brows As bore her sign, shall mingle hands and seize The New World, 199 With tears the illumination which allows The achievement unto each For which earth's prayers beseech ; Unto the one white Light arise all vows, The one white Radiance punctually endows The creatures everywhere with his own life, And joy which hath calm purity for wife Shines in the many-gated city when the song Resounds to greet each wayworn and victorious throng. XXVI. And Supreme Thought who calls the world her own. And passes things and life in full review. And gains the old truth that is ever new, Freedom's best guide and counsellor hath grown ; There are no fields which her seed hath not sown, There are no heights which her feet may not climb. There are no dreams which must not hers be known. There are no glooms for her in any time ; Arranger of all life. And mistress over strife. She sets the stars in melody and rhyme. And makes the periods with each other chime ; 200 The New World. Pouring her hopes into the dark recesses, Thridding her way through the vague wilder- nesses, She fashions, rules, designs, and dwells within the Which is the heart of hearts, and very sight of sight. XXVII. O fair republics of the warmer sun, O sister states rejoice amid your flowers, And take with us the higher-hearted hours That point to destinies but half begun And grandeurs from the urgent future won ; Join hands with us in this our triumph tide, Send forth the tones in deep-based unison With Freedom's chorus which is close allied To the rapt song that springs From planetary rings ; Here on the stormy ocean's hither side We all will say that room must be denied To aught that savors of a king or crown ; And you, our sister, underneath the frown Of colder skies, take part in our mid revelry, And greeting send to her across the southern sea ! XXVIII. Into the future one more forward glance ! Raise your great brows, O Titaness, and call The New World. 201 Over to Europe's millions ; let from your lips fall The sound that bursts the agonizing trance, The message that evokes the swift advance ; Bid war disarm, and cast his helmet down And show within his wrathless eyes' expanse The love which lurks behind his fleeting frown ; Bring nearer the glad hour Of congregated power ! Speed you the federated world, the crown Of time's endeavor ! speed ! so hill and town May answer back the rich intelligence. The song that ravishes both soul and sense, The friendship of the nations, and the end attained For which the tears were shed, the ground with blood was stained ! XXIX. And those who are the ages* children yet, The wandering tribes who vaguely dream and brood. Held in the bondage of an earth-born mood, By foes within and foes without beset, Let not the pity of the world forget ; Shed light through their grim darkness and uplift To generous manhood ; where the woods are wet 202 The New World, With dew that is not morning's tremulous gift, Bring strength and lamplike peace Whose lustre must increase Over the earth ; with footsteps light and swift Let the soft influence fleet ; into the drift Lead the cleansed streams of hope and trust and thought Until the conquest is more surely wrought, And love and good fulfill the time, and everywhere A freeman raises hand and brow unto the air ! XXX. One vision more ! the spiritual city lies Beneath the sun ; the all-subduing love Inhabits there as in the realms above ; As lordly as the blue unclouded skies Life passes, and the mighty dawn's surmise Reaches completion, and the deeps on deeps Of spirit which are seen alone of eyes Whose watch is kin to power that never sleeps Are more and more revealed ; The innermost heavens unsealed Comfort the heart where no more anguish weeps. And open fields which faith forever reaps ; The truth shines everywhere and strenuous right Souls every deed with its transcendent light ; The New World, 203 The winds are song itself, the hours are radiance- fleet, And fear of death is not, and every toil is sweet ! XXXI. God's Thought rose clear before him and he said : " Lo ! I have fashioned for mine eyes to see The mighty miracle of Liberty ; Unto my will have many wills been wed, With mine own light have lesser lives been fed, With mine own being filled and wondrous fire, The increasing light by which all hearts are led Unto the summit of supreme desire ; From glowering suns and stars, From elemental wars. From interflux of powers and savage ire That bid the engirding night pause and ad- mire. From anguish and despair, the wordless brood That fills the expanse of forests primal-rude, I have brought forth that mine unenvying soul might know The lofty love wherewith but Freedom's self can glow ! " THE END.