^Bk^^ m w f I N l:;!ii!;i:l!l ifi!HHir.;n ^ Class _Pi5iaL!L/j£ ,ng COFXRIGUT DEPOSIT. OUTBOUND BY GOTTFRIED HULT "I AUTHOR OF REVERIES AND OTHER POEMS 1920 The Stratford Company Publishers BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS Copyright 1920 The STRATFORD CO., Publishers Boston, Mass. The Alpine Press, Boston, Mass., U. S. A. g)CU604139 «V I5IS20 1 3fn iMemoru of ilg Motl\n Contents Page Outbound ...... 1 Microcosm ...... 2 Starglade ..... 4 Caryatids ..... 5 "A Lover of Beauty He" 6 Delving ..... 7 ''For a Little Season" . 8 ''Behold This Dreamer Cometh" 9 Summum Bonum .... . 10 Selfhood 13 Uncut Leaves ..... 14 Desert and River .... . 15 "I Dreamed That Dream Was Quenched" 16 False Gods . 19 "Back to the Hills" . 20 Genesis ...... . 22 At Vesper ..... . 23 Endless Quest ..... 24 Resignation ..... . 26 De Profundis ...... 27 CONTENTS Page The Great Refusal . . 28 Judgment .... . 51 Good Friday . . . . . 52 Sabbath ..... . 53 Vita Brevis .... . 54 At School .... . 55 Electric Peak . . . . . . 59 Love's Epiphany . . . 60 Song ..... . 61 Interim ..... . 62 Tryst . 63 ''As Weds the Skimming Dove" . 64 Aspiration .... . 65 Plighted . . . . : . 66 "As Grows an Isle" . . 68 Holy Matrimony . 69 The Brook .... . 70 My Daughter .... . 72 To Father at Eighty . . 73 Ad Matrem .... . 74 Condolence .... . 75 Acknowledgment . 76 Calamus ...... . 77 To A. W. G . 78 Exodus ..... . 79 CONTENTS Page Coincidence .... . 80 Recognition . 81 Founders ' Day . 86 ''Mothering" . . 93 Valedictory . 95 Progress . . 96 Ambition . 98 ''A Blur of Buildings" . 99 *'In My Father's House" . 104 Out-of-Doors . . 105 Adolescence . 106 Lake Louise . . 107 The Kingbird . . . . 108 A Threnody . . 109 A Mountain Sunrise . 110 Presence .... . Ill ''I Am". . 114 Penelope .... . 115 Night . 116 ''In the Cool of the Day" . 117 The Hills . 119 Essence .... . 120 "When the Waves Slip Back" . . 127 Song of Unrest • • . 128 CONTENTS Page *' Times Be When Life Seems Aimless and Uncouth" . 130 Moods . 131 Surf . 132 Cause and Effect .... . 134 En Route ..... . 135 Kelp . 136 The Melting Pot ... . . 145 Democracy .... . 146 Advent ..... . 154 Gestant ..... . 155 In Campo Dei Fiori . 156 The Tragic Muse . . 159 April 23 . 160 ' ' And All the Gods Were Gazing on 1 ^hem" 161 If . 162 Illusion ..... . 163 Winter Mist .... . 164 Outbound A FRAUGHT ship backs from her pier, Midst a flutter of farewell hands : And who can think her voyage begun For transoceanic lands ? Thus Song unmoored from the heart: And who divines of her goal, As she swings into open seas of Time, And far horizons of Soul? [1] OUTBOUND Mi icrocosm Where flits the seedling soul, who knoweth, Of worlds to be ? Still whitherso it listeth bloweth The Spirit free. A flake the winter welkin moulted In passing o'er; A film of moss where seas revolted Against the shore ; A fern or fledgling in the forest, Or mother bird: Doubt not wherever need was sorest, Each ministered. In least as in the greatest, seething What potencies ! Perished infinitudes bequeathing Not more than these. [2] MICROCOSM The earth-ship hath aboard her oceans And sails the sky: I, freighted with as deep emotions, Sail heavens as high. [3] OUTBOUND Starglade Soft astral shimmer on the spirit deep, Glinting my dreams a path wherein to sail, Glinting my oaring thoughts the course they keep Along the silken trail. star, scarce visible in enmurking mist, From out what loam of dark, the single flower, Distilling like a perfume on the whist Sea of a midnight hour ! Only a faintest echo of the sun, Or hint of full moon's flooding, yet through thee How distant I from shores of self, upon The still and wistful sea ! [4] CARYATIDS Caryatids Perpetual caryatids, these, of Song: Beauty, that fashions from a little clay The rose, and ushers dawn out of the gray Before the Sun, swift for his course and strong ; And Love, heaven's compensation for the wrong Of birth to one who, spirit, fain would stay With Spirit, yet unsphered must tread the way Of human years, meandering and long. A caravan of ships on desert seas, We sail the moonglade. Beauty; and afar Uprisen, guides us Love, a changeless star. Oh, when all lips are silent, chanting these. Nor lingering echo of their praise shall be. Time's outposts have o'erpassed eternity! [5] OUTBOUND "A Lover of Beauty He** ' ' What can we know of Him Who, knowing all, Himself is known of none !"...! mused, and back From revery summoned thought, the rise and fall Of ocean surf before me. There all black, The perfect rondure of a far-off wave Upclomb out of the clasp of tide at full, — Hung poised, and shoreward thunderously drave : And all the sea behind was carddd wool. Then culling from that fleece of foam a shell, — So irised and so fashioned by the main. It seemed like something wondrous that befell, What time a heart of its own dream was fain, — Quickly I spake : ' ' Whatever else may be, Yet know we this : a Lover of Beauty, He ! " [6] DELVING Delving Delving, delving, with sweat of brow ! Alas for isthmus delvers who bow 'Neath lives of drudging, nor glimpse in these The interlinking of seas ! Delving, delving, with sweat of brain ! Alas for isthmus delvers who strain, Of Goal unwitting m what is done: Truth oceanic made One ! rn OUTBOUND **For a Little Season** For a little season, upon a time, There soared and sang a bird in the blue: Autumn might come but now 'twas prime, And prime must be caroled, was all it knew. Swamp and meadow-land, mountain and moor,- All the world but a vision for Song ! Molten snows but new livery sure Of leaf and blossom — ere long ! ere long ! . , Idled a hunter by — espied That Bliss aloft in its airy reels: ' ' Be loam for battening weeds to hide ; Be clay to bake into ruts for wheels ! ' ' Spake, — and the arrow aimed let fly. And loitered onward with careless tread: Alone and silent, the endless Sky Gazed adown on the Singer dead. . . . [8] 'BEHOLD THIS DBEAMER COMETH" "Behold This Dreamer Cometh" Cometh the Dreamer ! Afar off, lo ! Treading pensive . . . 'tis he, we know. Ay, with his multicolor coat on, — One, forsooth, for our Father to dote on ! He dreameth dreams of obsequious sheaves. Whose homage, upright his sheaf receives; Rehearseth us, too, by day all complacent. Of sun and moon and eleven stars obeisant. Who saith to rend him not limb from limb ?- Into the pit with him ! . . . [9] OUTBOUND Summum Bonum There stands a pine4ree amid northern winters, Casting a shadow upon endless snow, Long nights, or wrestling with the storm that splinters. And strews its tortuous path with overthrow. Reared on a mountain side that climbs to bleak- ness, Branching, it fain would consummate a crown ; Yet, lest in moments it forget its weakness. The avalanche around it thunders down. Cloud caravans that come out of the spaces. Burning with sunset desert-like at eve, Over it linger as o'er an oasis. And mists that pasture for a while and leave. Thus day succeeding day, and season, season. Beneath the gray, beneath the dark of sky, Awed, it doth ask itself its being's reason — Whence sprung out of the vasty All, and why. [10] SUMMUM BONUM ''Stood I but where, less mute, the heavens responded, Circled me beauty as the sea, an isle, I might be yielding fruit as palm-tree fronded, Which watereth the intermittent Nile. ''Environed by a tenderness of bosom And eyes like that wherewith the Southland teems, My life, even here, would have been song and blossom. Nor stood, the eremite of its own dreams. "... Becoming thus articulate in its sighing, One night with the hush universe alone. Faintly from out of depths like cadence dying, A Voice it seemed to hear — perchance, its own : ' ' Whatso the Power that wrought this f orestation Of earth with soul, — by whatsoever plan, Surely it wills that each one's consummation Of selfhood be the uttermost he can ; "That whoso rise, their branches interlinking, Withstanding so as grove the whirlwind wroth, Confederate be unto the end of sinking Roots deeper for a yet more stalwart growth; [11] OUTBOUND * * But he who stands withdrawn aloft and lonely, What days 'twixt birth and death shall inter- vene, May consecrate himself unto this only : To keep the nesting-place of Spirit green." [12] SELFHOOD Selfhood I LAY and lent a darkling cricket ear : One eeriest note out of its joys and griefs, The while an ocean, muffled yet anear, Thundered upon a thousand broken reefs. [13] OUTBOUND Uncut Leaves Often in volume loaned me, as I turn The pages, although glossed and underlined, Leaves that by chance were left uncut, I find, Leaves that, slit open, are like beds of fern — Come upon in some forest's heart — trees spurn The noon from by their branches intertwined ; Or like some mountain tarn, recessed behind Crags, and reflecting stars that o'er it burn. Delicate and elusive things, a nook Of uncut leaves may hold : shy lyric dreams. Meant not for gaze, hardly for glimpse of light ; Or sonnet, in that solitude of book, All shimmery and soft with astral gleams — Peered in upon by none save me and night. [14] DESERT AND RIVER Desert and River Unto its River spake the Desert: "Why Idly glassing the heavens meander by ? Be outpoured here whereso is thirst, and grow Thy mirrored heavens below." Unto the Desert spake its River : " Be Henceforth a Garden through this boon of me: Myself an empty channel, do thou teem With the surrendered Dream." [15] OUTBOUND *'I Dreamed That Dream Was Quenched" I dreamed that Dream was quenched, And my heart blenched At how the world emptied itself of joy. Of Spring, erewhile so fresh, — Spring with the heart of trysting maid and boy, The spirit flower seemed gone to seed in flesh. Of Summer, with her sheen At the meeting-place of heavenly and terrene, Evanished, too, the soul ! nor without it Was morning any longer exquisite. Forests, that are but seaweed of the sky, A stranded ooze did seem of space gone dry. There was no mystery in things, no spell Of bird-song in the air, no nacre on the shell. No lingering afterglows of twilight eves> Nor autumn's red apocalyptic leaves. Oped Revery a visionary page. Eose drearily the sun, as in a cage Some tawny bulk, once leonine, upheaves To be its living pendulum. The moon. Appearing moth-white from its cloud-cocoon, [16] I DREAMED THAT DREAM WAS QUENCHED Became the murky wraith of old eclipse. No more the sea was Sea, Fathomless, as to thought, eternity, In wonted might uphurled, But only the vast sepulchre of ships, Whose ghosts, at ebbing tide, Disbodied of incrusted wreckage, eyed Afar the stark, cold, and dismembered world. In that drear time, Man knew no longer youth or prime ; The newly-born seemed old incredibly. A delver within ruined hills for ore, Ten thousand years and more. Emerged into white noon, had been as he, — So shriveled up with night, so cursed with grime. More terror than befalls from Nature 's hand, At lancing of Volcano's pent-up ache, — More desolation than of fire and quake He wrought upon the land. For in the age's wake, Wonder and Song had ceased to be ; And battle-flags were rent for scullionry; And Love was plucked as theme from the world's tomes. His pauseless toil I saw [17] OUTBOUND Make brick with gathered straw : Kose bastions, wherein Life immured itself; Rose glutless vaults of pelf; And everywhere were palaces and domes, — But Joy was not, nor any hush for Awe. Still thought made feint to explore The universe for lore; But moulted was the very sense of truth, — Impossible save to miracle and youth ! Nor work was wrought but bore Evidence that the heart within was blind, — That impotent is the dream-widowed mind. Thus Man strained on and on From futile deed to futile deed and — died: And the air clarified Of smoke from kilns and mills; and presently Afar I seemed to see Earth and the planets, hollow-eyed and hagged, In horrible hellish dance, that never flagged. About the bubbling caldron of the sun. [18] FALSE GODS False Gods There be who scorn the true god, Heart, But kneel them down to Mind; Take Learning by the hand and leave Feeling her mate to find ; And there are feet so much in haste Love pants and falls behind. There be who make a whip of fact For scourging Truth away; Who buy and sell, making exchange Of Soul for things of clay : But hoarding is a thrift makes poor Ever with such as they. If drouth will age the lucid lake Into a fen of slime ; If deserts burn where liquid seas Ran blue in earth's dim prime — God pity hearts whose love hath died Beneath unpitying Time ! [19] OUTBOUND •*Back to the Hills'* In moments when I rent the robe I wore, And, naked of illusion, shook with chills, Suddenly have I heard it o 'er and o 'er : Back to the hills, soul, back to the hills ! The plain I trod being littered with dead hopes, The valley, too, a cup the winter fills, Then wafted me like warmth from pine-green slopes : Back to the hills, soul, back to the hills ! Never so care-beset the heart in me. Never so matted o'er and choked with ills, But the same still small Voice came pleadingly : Back to the hills, soul, back to the hills ! Yea, when I doubted Man, not merely men. Spat upon Fame, and wished me with the wills And hopes and dreams of Time extinct — even then: Back to the hills, O soul, back to the hills ! [20] ''BACK TO THE HILLS" Everywhere, everywhen, in teen and strain, Iterant in my heart like singing rills! — Death calling me, will it not come again : Back to the hills, soul, back to the hills ? . [21] OUTBOUND Licnesis My life seems but an inchoate mass of years, Groping through an eternity of space, Having its future orbit still to trace Somewhere and somehow in the realm of spheres. No beacon of its destined glory cheers, Nor hints a first faint glimmering of grace The slow transfiguration to take place Ere Love, its new-created Lord, appears. Give it to pass through any strain and stress Of fire and earthquake needed to perfect ; Sculpture with flood, to winnowing storm sub- ject ; Brood 'er the welter with Thy consciousness ; Give it Thine own perfection to reflect, God, Thou world-builder and star-architect ! [22] AT VESPER At Vesper I SAID : ' ' Since out of travail come no yields Commensurate with the ceaseless strain and stress, Why not forego the more, accept the less? I will eschew being as one who wields Power, and live emulous of him who shields His sunward eyes from noonday light's excess — Content myself with bovine placidness, One of the human herd at graze in fields." Then smote upon my ear this Voice: ''0 gross Of spirit, whimpering thus for meed denied! Knowest not perfect service, guerdon mars? To unfulfilment Faith her being owes ; Anhungered, Aspiration doth abide : Thereby is the longevity of stars." . . , [23] OUTBOUND Endless Quest Something I seek, never found — A bourne of longing, a bound Of hope ; something beyond the gale That says : ' ' I am haven : furl sail ! ' ' Something that whispers : ' ' Peace ! I am surcease Of the strife — Life." . . . In vain! in vain! I cannot attain Goal — quest, grope, strain, as I may Alway! . . . I paused in a market thoroughfare, With its traffic and trade ceasing ne'er — Eyed wares in a booth: Printed pages were there to sell, not Truth. It flew over my head, a bird. Limed never with speech, caged never in word. I paused before fields: like a fleet Of clouds in sunset, the wheat ; [24] ENDLESS QUEST And I looked for Pleasure, root-anchored too: Past me on powdery wings it flew, A butterfly soft, Fluttering hither and yon and aloft. By night I canoed a stream. Sown with the constellations therein agleam; And I looked for Love as the central star: It was afar, afar, In a spirit blue. Not in the mirrored Milky Way splashed through. . . . Quest, ever ! Attainment — never ! So I, drawing breath; So too, haply, in death. [25] OUTBOUND Resignation Close the door on the Hope that would win Entrance from blackness and storm without; Though the heart to the core grow dry within As mummied pod after summer's drought. Close the door, then hie thee to bed To flood thee with sleep as a shore with tide ; Nor yield unto filmiest dream, lest the tread Without through the long long night abide. . . . [26] DE PROFUNDIS De Profundis Impotent as one sick upon his bed, Between the intervals of fever throes, "Who hears a soft hand knock without, and knows That he must leave the door unopened ; And trying to muster feeble breath instead. Sinks back aswoon — ah me ! even in such wise All impotent at hearkened knock to arise, — And have I swooned at Christ 's retreating tread ? Whatso the hours or moments lush with sin Bring forth of after-agony, with mute White lips we needs must bow and kiss the rod ; But where we cannot do or fail to win. Weighed down in weakness as a bough 'neath fruit — The rain of Thy sweet pity and grace. Lord God ! [27] OUTBOUND The Great Refusal "L^omhra di colui Che fece per viltate il gran rifiuto.'' Dante I In vain, I tell thee, leech, thy cunning tries To outwit Death. My moon has known its full, Nor quails before eclipse. Thy charmed herbs Are powerless to restore this waning life. Nay, bid me not be silent: I who felt This hand too weak to raise and intercept A beetle, had it headed for my face; Who swooned into such mimicry of death, It even deceived thyself — I kenned the voice. Was whispering of embalmment when I awoke — Am strong to speak, must speak, ay, though I knew To hold my peace were to postpone the shroud ! II Mute have I lain here, mute, these days and nights, [28] THE GREAT REFUSAL And would have gagged delirium itself And throttled madness, lest they babbled forth Thoughts I would mate with silence. My doomed soul Plunged on amid a sea that clave to it, Clamorous for jetsam. Why then these my words, This late surrender to demands of fate? 1 know not by what mystic law the heart, That yields to no brute enginery of force, Yet opens at the summons of a waft Of vernal air, the momentary gold Of dawn, or twilight tinklings of the flock. What dungeons catapults could not have budged. Angels have whispered open. Hence I speak. This morning through the casement stole a breeze, The softness of whose touch gave evidence That it had fanned the fig-tree, laved the vine. Over my brow it shed a summer's fragrance: I grew aware it was the Paschal Month, And all my being began to undulate Like wind-thrilled flame ; from out this smolder- ing life. Thus breathed upon, jetted forth sudden fire, That lit up all my past, my murky past. The Chosen People entire I saw in dream. How parceled out in caravans they converge [29] OUTBOUND To brim Jerusalem, the Sacred City ; And, bedfast, I was journeying forth in thought To wind among the hills and vales b}^ da}^ At night to camp beneath Judean stars, To climb with song Mount Olivet, to descend And stand within the presence of Jehovah. . . . I burned at seeing upon the Temple still The Roman eagle, oft fatally plucked down By Jewish frenzy. Yet not haughty Rome's Oppression, nor my own exclusion from The Feast, did mingle bitterness with morn. The bitterness ineffable I felt. Till Hezekiah-like, but willing to die, I turned my face toward the wall and wept. . . . Ill Have patience with my weakness. Grant me still Some moments' truancy from drug and drowse. And thou shalt glimpse the past I now behold,^— That red volcanic past. Its memories Torment a dying bed, and yet it cleanses To meditate a great soul's tragic end, — His soul, which by its very end perdures. How dowered with new interpretative sight Become the breaking eyes! how consciousness, Already irised for the bursting, holds [30] THE GREAT REFUSAL Film-mirrored all the skies of bygone life, And planet years, arisen like fixed stars ! God, thou Abraham's God, how blind was I To interlace my hands about the gold Not meant for chaffer chink, but stuff for the ring, Had married me unto eternal life! For if life's more than power to heave one's breath. Than something seed, nine moons enwombed, comes by, Than even aught sucked in with mother 's milk, Or what, toil-worn, meat, drink, and sleep renew, Then long ago I perished. Man, I tell thee, Albeit not livid-lipped, a thing embalmed. May yet be dead ; still alien to the tomb, So dead, Damascus steel could run him through. And he would bleed not. Look upon me, look I 1 was not still-born; sweet maternal lips Anguished not white with such a mocker}'. That birth-hour : swaddling clothes that wrapped me, wrapped Infinite possibilities of passion, And hopes as beautiful as ever promised God usury on his loan of time and space. It was not cerecloth that enwrapped my youth, [31] OUTBOUND But broideries fine like favored Joseph's coat Of many colors, — hiding, too, a breast Not less athrob. With what a thrill my feet First trod, uiisandaled, sacred temple ground! How gleams that flashed from Roman shields and glaives Smote to the quick ! and great that moment 's awe, When poring over Sacred Roll I knew. Solemn and sage as the Great Sanhedrin, Eternal Duty, Righteousness, and Law ! . . . Such Vision makes one Hebrew. So time passed Apace. I entered on incipient manhood, A cypress like, not as it emblems death, But greenly spires, slender and sensitive To scurry of breezes. Thick as leaves my dreams Hoarded the warmth of those midsummer years ; And felt first love's infinite moonrise, tranced, Sylvanlj^ tranced: then knelt the world before me, Like some meek camel pleading thus relief From overburden of pearl and orient spice. What wonder if its driver, that rich moment, Recked not of leathern water-flasks, if filled. Or dangling flabby from the dumb beast's flank ! Who'd task me such forgetting when the heavens Were all mirage of oasis? . . . Such phase [32] THE GREAT REFUSAL Of sense-life passed ere youth, already prone To that world-seriousness wherewith our race Is dowered uniquely. Yet I could not scorn Beauty for holiness, in others' wise, Nor range me wholly on the side of Truth, There to do battle, wealth and power forsworn. The riches that were mine by heritage, I clung to but as means, fastidious In choice of ends thereby to be attained. Yet unrest waxed within me. Too clear-eyed To dupe my soul with vanities and dross,' — Cold to the lure of tinseled make-believes, I quailed at the fierce brevity of life, Rust and the moth. The chambered past out- grown Of individual being, soon I knew, Shuddering, a weird, wizard, other Past Upon me lay its spell. Lone sites of ruin, Long emptied of existence, the mind's ear Peopled with ghostly steps ; old rock-hewn tombs, With tenantry from some forgotten eld, And dateless, made me brood till bygone days Became the sole reality. Emerged, And back again, even in the city's flux, I stood as in a trance, and the mind's eye Sucked midnight out of noonday. By degrees [33] OUTBOUND All zest for action staled. What booted deeds Present achievements were but ultimate Futilities, and history the tale Of fearful disillusions. Why should I With toiling, ant-wise, vex myself for naught ? Thus, by its bath in endlessness, my soul, Diseased with leprosy of too much self. Strove to be purged, and only sickened more. AVhat wonder that my body sickened, too? Illness doth often wring the human mind Dry of illusions. The fierce fever-throe May even be hot enough to shrivel self, And wilt one's very religion into myth. Unconscious though one lie, the chemistry Of pain reacts upon one's consciousness As on a parchment roll to be erased For new and alien writ. 'Twas so with me. Intensively I saw — up from the bed — What I had only conned by rote before. Back in the synagogue I felt myself Mutinous 'gainst the elders who there Bit Lip-loyal to their Talmud lore. Meseemed Feasts, pilgrimages, sacrifices, tithes, Sabbaths and fasts, are dead observances To be sloughed off, lest true religion perish. Still blushed with bloody offering our altars, [34] THE GREAT REFUSAL And sputtering flames attested the old faith Did linger. Yet 'twas semblance, not the sub- stance,- — An empty mockery of soulless form. Better a Holy of Holies without fire, Arkless, of sacred furniture bereft. Than cherubim uninstinct with the Presence. Ay, better Dagon, so the scaly god Evoked from hearts the veritable Awe ! Thus Reason chafed within me 'gainst a faith No longer Faith, — nor there alone in doubt Questioned where once elate the heart believed. I had put by tenderly as dead love The apocalyptic ecstasy and dream, The poetry of Israelitish hope. Who quits a grave half filled, and turns him homeward, Beholds the world a strange new phantom world. Through eyes still wet with utterless farewells. ' ' Must Judah perish, Judah, even Judah, How blank the world 's futurities of time ! ' ' Thus cried my heart within — and then anon: "If Rome be but Jehovah's winnowing flail, And we His Chosen Seed — but no, — but no — !" The lightning hissed its way through space, and earth, [35] OUTBOUND A moment preternaturally white, Reeled back into engulfing black once more. . . . IV Pillow me up. I've strength. My tale half told Grives me momentum for what's yet to tell. — A leech, thou dost recall how once the land Astonished at a prophet healer: he Held in the toils of wonder his own province. And captured all Judea's gaze at last. Where'er he came there was disease abolished; Who even brushed his mantle became whole, However broken; his mere whispered name Made sightless eyes to see, lame feet to run. His ministry put forth its noiseless might Among the obscure and lowly, yet his deeds Outmiracled the dreams of prophecy. Never such passion for another's weal Enrobed itself in Rabbi 's talith : mart, Hill, plain, where'er his shadow a moment fell, Knew an unwonted gentleness abroad. The hedge and highway where Levitic feet Disdained to tread, or trod to bruise and crush The chance-sown blossom that co-dwelt with weeds, Familiar grew with his mild eyes and welcomed [36] THE GREAT REFUSAL As friend his lofty imphylactered brow. Unpopulous the hamlets drowsed, the day He taught on shore or mount. The multitude Listening till eve felt sunset premature. Times were when they who found its noonday shade Delectable, and whom the very wealth Of intervening foliage made blind To the sun-anointed brow, august o'erhead. Murmured of crowning this already crowned Lebanon cedar. Were Galilean hills Speech-gifted, spake with tongue the Judean desert. In whose mute presence oft his soul lay bare To cooling and healing night, they would attest : Not for a Purpose veering from its course, Nor stayed — like birds of passage, light-be- wildered. Or clamor-dazed — gave he the midnight hours To rapt and lone devotion. There the stars Beheld one purer than the Tiberian waves, That crooned about the hills on which he prayed ; And if they twinkled through those long dim nights On throneward gropings, 'twas a Throne not builded [37] OUTBOUND With hands, nor upheld by legions. . . . One must live Not to doubt annals; yet experience The ripest feels at moments : truce to dreams ! Reality 's at war with human credence ! Leech, he who walked the courts of prayer at night To quench hosannas, died mock-crowned, mock- mantled, Mock-sceptered ! . . . V Ay, the water-cruse! My lips Grow parched with speaking. Thanks ! — What 's human life But quenchless thirst; and if one come who brings The cup we swoon for, drouth-delirious madmen, We dash it down and curse the giver. Once He came to me : I strewed the ground with shards. — Beneath the acacia-tree, a stone 's throw hence, I lounged one day in dreams, his dreams who sends His soul abroad, searching dim time for light. Too epic life fell cold upon my ear Listening : it strained to catch from far-off deeds [38] THE GREAT REFUSAL The seldom note of the lyric human. Chilled, I wandered 'mid marmoreal coronals Of past dead greatness, till a prayer for life, Warm-pulsing life not tombed in sacred roll, Escaped me. Scarce its voice was hushed when lo. Emerging in the reach of mellow distance, A nomad band ! As one who sees afar Sluggishness disengage itself from cloud And grow into a sail, at gaze I stood. Expectant, half aware some strange new hope Was near its natal moment. . . . Sudden gusts Made shimmer 'mid the olive-groves ; date-palms Loomed lone at intervals. What loitering folk Kept nearing yonder ? . . . Now a dip in the road Filched them from sight. — Already I had learned What wondrous things wrought one of Galilee, As tidings told; the like sick Naaman thrilled. Hearkening the little captive maid. Ere long His faring might be hither. . . . Doubtless these Were only paschal pilgrims, harbingered By no chance fame. . . . Yet haply — ! All at once My heart waxed prescient of what Visitant It tarried, and I straightway hied me forth, Passionate as heat upquivering at noon Sunward. Anon, our meeting, — they at halt In wonder. Through his followers I plunged [a9] OUTBOUND Infallibly to his feet, and cried : ' ' Good Master, Declare me sooth, beseech thee, wherewithal I may attain as thou the life eterne ! " . . . Somewhat delayed his answer, till I dared Lift up my gaze, ... I had not dreamed our race Could flower into such manhood all divine. . . . But language skills not ! That's the potter's art. To take a bit of docile clay and with Creative touch make it a cup for kings. Whose art shall body forth in clayey words That visioned Cup, shaped for the King of kings? . . . For something even in that face of his Bespake a greater greatness than himself, A soul compassionate beyond compassion. . . . "Good? wherefore call me good?" he breathed at length Reflectively. "Who is there such but God!" A moment he let intervene, and then — "Thou knowest the commandments of the law: Do, and thou livest," came his quiet words. Impulsively brake from my lips : ' ' All this I've kept inviolably even from youth." Then what unfathomed tenderness of eyes. The while he said : ' ' One thing thou lackest : sell All that thou hast and give the poor, and be [40] THE GREAT REFUSAL My follower. There shall then be thine instead Treasure in heaven." ... I arose, stood facing him. Meseemed a curtain drew asunder: lo, What scenery to baffle sight: sheer mount, Precipice, snow ; nor road to climb, nor — goal ! . . . A seascape, not the blue with mottling green Of summer sea, but whelming shoreless white, And one lone ship 's distress ! , . . Certes, 'twas strange, The wisdom, he dispensed who yet was wise,; — The saying from his lips who yet must be Interpreter to men of sovereign Word! . . . To mint my all into a shining alms, Wherewith to gorge the mendicant palm, myself Thus beggaring, — what manner of mandate, this ? What manner of life? Treasure in heaven, and yet What life — here, now? . . . Swifter than I can tell, Alternatives rehearsed themselves in thought. Intrinsically dross, 'twas wealth at least Bulwarked me somewhat 'gainst the crude im- pact Of nothingness. Flocks, herds, and acres were The surety for some privacy of dream, [41] OUTBOUND And walled-in garden-plot of inward beauty. . . . Thus I ! — and him aface with, nerved with race- nerves, Along which flashed world-agonies; his mind A race-mind, drinking like a firmament The light of stars; a racial heart, his heart, Tropic with all the ecstasies of man ! . . . How like a shallow pool of muddiest water, The dwindling life of self beside such vast Of oceanic living! Purblind I, To stand not seeing in that hour of test The contrast! — swiftly reasoning instead After this wise: Who is it bids me thus By surgery of utter sacrifice Attain to life ? Is 't verily life he lives. Self-generative, inwardly renewing Itself perpetually in power? He hath The spirit look, oblivious of things. Of one who yoke -mates with Eternity, — The beatific grace of brow, and yet By very reason thereof, too aloof And otherworldly for reality, Perchance a dreamer, not the seer of vision, Man should not be talaria-shod, and tread [42] THE GREAT REFUSAL Tenuous ether like a star. Remove From 'neath one the foundation props of matter — Crash ! — ay, inevitably, soon or late ! . . . — Slaying the potency of high resolve By indecision, not direct refusal, I stood deliberate thus at forking ways. Despite myself I turned and gazed about Upon his followers. Neither staff nor scrip Had they. Beyond a doubt, discipleship Meant living hand to mouth, all forethought waived — Pruned sense for spirit flowering. . . . Suddenly I caught as 'twere a leer upon the face Of one wearing a purse, that from his belt Dangled, responsive to a clutching hand Pendulum-wise. . . . Almost I gasped for breath. With dread stranglingly seized. My heart, till then Sensitive like a balance, hesitant What dip to yield, precipitately plunged By the increment of — was't the purse accurst, Or snaky leer ? . . . A speechless moment 's pause, And I was going from thence. . . . [43] OUTBOUND VI The water-cruse Again ! With yet a pillow prop me. So ! — Three decades' early and latter rains have brought Continuous increase to that fatal wealth Whose plenitude hath only pauperized. Yet not a lifetime's tutoring taught me this, Nor Death's immutable "Overboard with it," Heard like a captain's orders in a storm, Waxed to the uttermost. I knew before, 'Twas vanity — but what I came to know, Listen ! A scant twelve-moon elapsing since The event I've told of, in Jerusalem I sojourned, fain of throngs, because too much, Solitude in its beauty among hills. The muffled pastoral lowings from green fields, Coerced me into thought. Could but the self At will be 'scaped from, as one turns to the wall The picture of a dead insistent face, I had been happy. As it was, the days And nights were gall and wormwood in my cup. The self-same poison-bath of history. The reek from spent religion's oilless wick. The nation 's frustrate Messianic hope ! . . . [44] THE GREAT REFUSAL Thus inward murk enhanced, which books pe- rused But deepened. Men, like vermin to me now, Perforce I sought, as one in dungeon vault Diverts himself with spiders weaving webs, Or mice, stolen in, which thus keep madness out. The causeway trod became my opiate, The mart, my anodyne for pain. Abroad I witnessed deeds of violence unmoved. Such as inflicted on his countrymen Made Moses slay the Egyptian. Populace And foreign soldiery in bloody clash Daily, nay, hourly, seemed to me as much Mechanics as the promontoried shore Charged by the legionry of lunar tides. Fierce seethed the caldron of the nation's hate With bubble and hiss, and desperately the ladle Of Roman power kept skimming off revolt. Yet martial law imposed upon the world. Mankind explosively at boil beneath, Seemed nature spectacle to me, a part Of brute irrationality, writ large In elemental hurly-burly, force Wrestling with matter, while the universe Looks on, indifferent as Caesar crowned Which triumph, so but muscle remain taut. [45] OUTBOUND — ^What wonder that in stolidness, one day, I stumbled on what seemed a street-brawl, part Of current turbulence supposedly ! Presently in the midst of weltering mob I had submerged me utterly. A dog Three-headed, gentile fables tell of, guards The gates of hell. A myriad-headed wolf. Tongues lolling and teeth gnashing, thus kept watch Where Pilate's mansion with its grim facade O'ertowers the centra,! thoroughfare. The glut Suddenly merged into one wolfish throat With ''Crucify him!" its reiterate cry Of frenzy. . . . Leech, hast swum where tidal seas Make suction among scooped out reefs till brine Is leonine in massed ferocity? Such did I feel that human undertow Wherein I swam, thus gaining luckily The wall-projection clutched and clung to. Mean- time The palace door had oped, through which emerged The governor into view, and — soldier-led, Who if not he . . . the Galilean prophet ! That instant made me human. . . . Though afar, His face I saw above the folded arms. . . . [46] THE GREAT REFUSAL What peace! — like western heavens in after- glow ! . . . Conspicuous stood Pilate in command. The mob perplexed and angered him as told His gestures, menacing, expostulating, To get the hearing vainly sought withal. Their '^Crucify him! Crucify him!" louder But waxed each moment. Presently a guard. Signed to, was fetching in an ewer and basin, And lo, Pontius Pilate, governor. Washing his hands! That symbol-speech spake home. Such frenzied glee ! Yet all the while afar. He of the folded arms 'twixt soldiers twain Perturbless in his peace ! . . . I followed him A few hours later on his deathward climb Up the hill. Calvary, and there saw nailed His quivering form to a rood, and raised aloft. I caught from him a recognizing glance Sent down ere the last swoon ; nor me alone. His eyes remembered: him who sundered us, Him of the purse accurst and snaky leer, Him, his betrayer, as 'twas whispered me, They turned their full compassionate gaze upon. The while he paused in the way beneath his cross. [47] OUTBOUND That lingering gaze turned backward to forgive Published the universe — God ! . . . VII Ay, fan my brow ! — It is a time makes kingdoms warp and crack, The epoch ages visibly for death. Despair hangs vastly brooding o'er the world. There's not a tree about Jerusalem, But, straining to the requisite height, may serve As instrument retributive for us Who slew the Anointed One. I see, I see, Judgment impends — and penalty which time, Elapsing, makes but terrible the more ! Yet outward desolations, what are they — The scoriae downpour, earthquake shock, and fire, Without, compared with desert drouth within. From whence in the end more surely a Dead Sea ! Strange, strange inscrutably, that in our hands Choice and rejection thus should lie, whereby, Saved or undone, we owe it to ourselves ! . . . The years flow on, his memory remains, As o'er the blue-grey Jordan ever flowing, A white cloud anchored lies immovably Reflected, through a breathless summer's day. [48] THE GREAT REFUSAL Wherever I have dwelt and sojourned, he, Too, dwelt and sojourned, I beneath his eyes Escapeless ! In long watches of the night, He came instead of sleep ; by day, at tasks, A moment's pause for rest, and lo, — his face! Hence, too, the ache and pathos of my days, To live my Great Refusal o'er and o'er In thought and dream, — again, and yet again, Him to reject whom fain I would accept. Thus in one deed 's remembrance is the stuff For countless dooms. The beaker spilled became A brook, a river, seas ! . . . Strengthened and cleansed Of vision by austerities lived through, I turn my gaze from watery chaos plunged Abyssward, to the sheeted mist whereon Perpetual rainbow. What if it should prove, Defeat to him was Victory indeed ! Searching, searching, as one with hand agrope In darkness, till he ope a door and stand Beneath the sky, I ask and win response. Verily, depth discovers itself height, The more I gaze ! Hence his prophetic eyes Recognized in the people's enmities Unripened worships ; hence even from the cross Saw garnered from his three-years' ministry [49] OUTBOUND Millennial corn; therefore he cried aloud, ' ' It is finished ! " . . . and so yielded up his breath. The Love which so could fellowship with men, Which so could die — slowly my consciousness Hath heaved itself through dark tempestuous doubt Toward the conviction : it is He, the Christ ! . . . VIII My speaking emptied me of strength, and yet In spirit I'm the stronger that I spake, — Stronger and more at peace, as if my heart Had been assoiled of blemishment somehow. There's devious traveling betwixt birth and death. And little knows the traveler whom he meets And lets go by ungreeted. Presently I knew! . . . Draw me the curtain to. I'd sleep. [50] JUDGMENT Judgment Today, one fateful moment, Soul Made craven compromise with Sense : I shudder, journeying toward the goal Of Crisis, days or ages hence. [51] OUTBOUND Good Friday The spirit's natural aliment and cup Upon a day like this is solitude : Withdrawn afar the heart partakes of food, And entered into quietness doth sup. Spent winds, and dews distilling drop by drop, And shades in wake of lapsed sun and moon, The mind to that world-agony attune. And cry wherewith His breath He rendered up. Thus ponder I that Tragedy Divine, That scenery abyssed in gloom and dole — Gone forth beneath the awesome stars abroad; Thus ask I, being of thy ninety and nine: Great Universe, who shepherd art of Soul, What didst thou with the One — the Lamb of God? . . . [52] SABBATH Sabbath I KNOW it by the twilight hush, The trance that follows evening's flush; By hill and dell that leaf-bestrewn Slumber beneath the autumn moon. From breathless heavens, the cloud-filmed night Silvers it forth in pensive light; And every star the message brings: There's Sabbath at the heart of things. I know it by the storms that die In the large quietude of sky ; By stillness of oncoming dawn ; By silences of years withdrawn. Yea, if I read the blue aright. The meaning of its starry night. And catch the song Creation sings, There's Sabbath at the heart of things! [53] OUTBOUND Vita Brevis If our scrimp life, methoiiglit, might lengthen out To parallel Methuselah's in years, Or even were such in age as made us peers Of patriarchs, unhaste were well, no doubt. . . . Fool ! seeing we pass our predetermined route In fourscore revolutions of the spheres At utmost, all the more forswear with fears Precocious deed, struggle, and strain, and shout. The soul herein should tutored be by field And prairie : these in flush of ardent May Conserve the Sabbath mood in joy's despite; And, knowing how brief the months ere they must yield. Sink into vast serenity by day. And quietude of pulseless dream by night. . . . [54] AT SCHOOL At School A Teacher once had pupil followers, A motley number. His most gifted ones He placed within a garden rich with flowers, To cultivate and keep it, bidding them Not fail to bring the fairest blooms to Him. Hemmed in with bee-loud hedges they abode Awhile in gladness, and such perfumes breathed As match in lure the music of blent lyres. And, passing, leave behind a wake of dreams. But feasting thus their sense in the delight Of blowing wonders, whereon humming birds. Darting, became a trance of wings, and moths Made sojourn at first twilight, they forgot The Master, — sheer forgot; and, staled in soul. Warped cunning to extract flower essences, Distilling, flasking attar for its own sake. II To others of the pupil throng He oped His library, a central garner fed [55] OUTBOUND By conflux from all granaries of mind, — A land that flowed with milk and honey of books ; Bade ponder wisdom there that so in the end At His feet, as an offering, they might lay The fruits of ripe reflection. Thus a space Mindful of such high ultimate purpose fixed, They searched the teeming tomes, with mind and heart One throbbing mutual ardor ; but in time, Their entrance vows forgot, they waned in zest, With lore too sated ; and at length became Like holiday children, who, all tired of sea. Upon a beach the patient ages wrought With coral, pry out fossil curios, — Shells, irised by the tide, to prink themselves For mirrors : thus fastidiously they culled From curious bric-a-brac washed up by books. Nor knew that so were bartered realms for beads, And dawdled hours away to no avail. Ill Still others the good Master singled out For the office of dispensing in His house Its generous hospitalities ; to receive And feast His guests, and — specially enjoined By mandate — to bring all at last to Him. Made temporary lords and mistresses [56] AT SCHOOL Of frescoed halls, hung round with chandeliers, That radiantly lamped the festal glee. They, too, — and sooner than all else — forgot Their charge, and waxing flabby in soul thought only To supplement already costliest wines With rare inmelted pearls; to smother brows Beneath more opiate garlands, — day and night. Lolling at feasts, with gossip, posture, smirk, And all the shrunk inanities of Mode. IV What pupils yet remained, a company Most numerous, this Master with designs Unguessed, assigned to every service drear And toilsome: these, doorkeepers to admit Others to festive halls, themselves compelled To endure without the sleety tempest ; those, Like sumpter-beasts, bred for such end, to bear Burdens the long day through. And lo! the thralls, Though not suspecting salt earth-drunken tears And sweat preserve the land, else putrid, sweet And wholesome, yet swerved not from loyalty To the seeming Author of their fate : nay more, Urged thereto by their tasks ' repulsiveness, [57] OUTBOUND But thought with greater longing, passionate love, Of Him they served ; nor grudged to build their throes Into protecting walls for the favored few In garden, or who meditated books To fruitful ends for the Master, — even for them, The revelling overseers of His house. V If the Master, some eventual Day, had scanned Records . . . each several one and class by class. Or ere Vacation, — the long school-year o'er, Verily, how had first been last! last, first! [58] ELECTRIC PEAK Electric Peak There towers aloft a mountain height somewhere, So pregnant with rich ore within, they say. No trustiest instrument can make survey Of bosky lands, its mighty slopes upbear. Betimes above its brow in summer air There's revelry of lightning. Such to-day. Existence : much of thunder-storm display. But of what use is the soul 's transit there ? Only withdrawn from the Electric teak, The vibrant intuitions become true ; Only when for this hot desire to do. To be is made the goal toward which we seek. The thing we would we know ; the word we speak Which is ourselves ; nor frustrate need we strew One seed not yielding its fulfilment due. If still earth's heritage is of the meek. [59] OUTBOUND Love's Epiphany As WHEN the moody Western Sky hath flung A withered sunset rose-like from her hand, Bleak, mist-enwrapped, lie mountain, vale, and Btrand, With stilly brooding twilight overhung; Till suddenly from clouds, wind-rifted, sprung. The moon as if with touch of magic wand Thrills into silvery whiteness sea and land, And snowy glides the new-blown stars among — So, after flaming youth had passed, I knew The wistfulness of pensive twilight hour, When lo ! a moon-pure Spirit rose to view, And touched me with its all-creative power : And 'neath its flooding radiance I grew Whiter than earth or sea — by night, in flower. [60] SONG Song People my sleep to-night With dreams of thee! Lonely hath been the day, Deprived thy sight; Lonely the night will be, Thou still away ! Forlorn in the noon throng,- Thou wast not there ! In solitude forlorn. At even-song! Oh, to behold thee ere Again the mom ! Again the morn, and thou Being not its light, More dark the dawn will be Than darkness now! People my sleep to-night With dreams of thee! [61] OUTBOUND Interim Oft waiting to put by my sumpter's load, But Sleep, the sweet deliverer, hours away, Spent have I sat, 'mid shadowy thoughts that lay Like evening on hushed waters. Overflowed With moonlight soon the shores of revery glowed, Where seeking covert I was fain to stay,^ — Escaped, a thrall, unmanumitting Day, Escaped, a drudge, Hours of the yoke and goad. Anear the plashy marge, that interim. Dream deepened into trance ; to sit and hark Was peace that even slumber knows not of: The while ebbed sea again became abrim, Erasing stars from canvas of the dark, I limned the wondrous face of her I love. [62] TRYST Tryst As when a yester June comes back in dream To one in bleak midwinter, and reclad With all the vernal loveliness they had, Forest and plain no longer naked seem Beneath the snows that swirl, the rains that stream ; Earth and the sky throbbing as in the mad Ardor of vanished prime again are glad ; And glad is he for whom with life they teem ; — As one thus dreaming in a season drear Rehearses Summer, until inwardly Thrilled with her very presence as with wine, — Thrilled with her, palpable to eye and ear, And yet all spirit — such, to-night, with thee Hath been my tryst of dream, woman divine ! [63] OUTBOUND **As Weds the Skimming Dove** As WEDS the skimming dove Some little wave of blue, My winged heart would wed thee, Love, And be ensilvered too. As dawn empearls the wing Of lark that sings its bliss, My heart, that soars with caroling, "Would twinkle with thy kiss. As sunset all the West O'erflows in its decline, Love, this heart would be at rest. And blend its life with thine ! [64] ASPIRATION Aspiration A LITTLE drop of water lay And yearned for purity one day. But one desire its longing knew: To be transfigured into dew ; To leave the gutter and the mart, And twinkle in a blossom's heart. . . Ere long the wind came dancing up, And bore aloft the dreaming drop ; And out of vernal sky of blue The sunbeams lent it pinions, too. At last as dew it found repose Within the bosom of a rose. . . . The soul would be immaculate : Creator, what will be its fate? [65] OUTBOUND Plighted And knowest thou why I have refrained So long from suing for thy lips? Why wan and cold I have remained 'Neath self-imposed eclipse? It was not fear to breathe the word, Might bring the skyey glory^ — thee; Nor happiness a while deferred, That bliss the more might be; But I was thrilled with the intent To be as realms of azure are. Before I asked the firmament To spare its loveliest star. I purposed from the surge and swell Perfection's iris first to win: And I — uniridescent shell, Enclose the pearl within ! . . . Yet felt I not that being shod With fiery longings for the Goal [66] PLIGHTED Must mean ascent from depths of clod To pinnacles of soul ; And did not ages past affirm That upward trend all living things; Were very writhings of the worm Not prayer to God for wings — This moment even I had not durst, Though drunken with thy beauty's wine, Thrust years or aeons by and burst To merge thy life with mine. [67] OUTBOUND **As Grows An Isle** As GROWS an isle with corals numberless Until it clasps the quiet pure lagoon, Whose utter depths, too deep to sound, lie strewn With ocean 's wealth of irised loveliness ; And hastes in tropic flowers and vine to dress Its naked clay ; and waves with forest soon Of palmy screen against the burning noon : A paradise of bliss and beauteousness — So round thy fair pellucid life I grow. With all its wealth of thought and dream beneath. Within me there's a quickening and glow; And some day I shall clasp thee with a wreath Of consummated manhood — unwithstood, Since worthy thy consummate womanhood. [68] HOLY MATRIMONY Holy Matrimony It is not being wed, Albeit pact be sealed by priest Before glad kin who come with gifts From near and far and sit at feast. Who pass from altars forth As twain abide till soon or late, When lanced with grief or stung with shame, Their hearts grow one, co-sharing fate ; And other twain at length, Whatever payment made. Time's toll. Awake, knowing their marriage morn. Because they love as Soul and Soul. [69] OUTBOUND The Brook (To F. G. H.) A Brook I know whereof I dream A princess wild is she, To wax into a queenly stream, And wed the royal sea. She dances from her mountain home Into the morning sun ; Dallies with rainbows — dashes foam Upon their hopes anon. Where barrier her laughter stems, Tree-bole or rocky cleft. From her pure breast she plucks the gems. And strews them right and left. The grass flings down an emerald cloak Before her dainty tread; A fern would willingly be oak To canopy her head. [70] THE BROOK She gives her ringlets many a toss, She knows the realm's her own, Yet shares her princessdom with moss, And diadems a stone. Singing, singing, the livelong day, Pelting a vale with glee ! Her whereabout? — Ah, I'll not say. Nor who this Brook can be ! 71] OUTBOUND My Daughter There was such glee in that frail envelope Of body which is she, that I scarce knew From moment to laughing moment what was due Of fate that might befall her. Such a scope Of ecstasy, such zest in things, and hope ! Such footing brinks in every breath she drew, And sheer escapes ! Fresh as in heights of blue Wildgoat among the crags or antelope. Her spirit ! . . . Years have sped, yet unsubdued, Splendidly madcap, live to finger-tips. Woman as girl ! Not now rash clambering up Of steep, or plunging headlong into flood, And yet — adventure : holding to her lips Immediacy like a brimming cup. [72] TO FATHER AT EIGHTY To Father at Eighty Once, leaving to sail Far over sea abroad, I lingered on a knoll and let A last returning glance Give me back home and kin, Give me back thee, standing there in the sun- set .. . Ere the dip of highway, flood. And unknown lands. Now, voyage ahead, 'Tis thou lingering dost stand. Letting the backward glance Gather up kindred, home, Wafted farewells, thy eighty years of life . . . At gaze alone. In beautiful quiet sundown, Boun for the great Sea! [73] OUTBOUND Ad Matrem In a dream last night I stood — Mother mine ! Mother mine ! — Thy lone grave without, a key In my hand, wherewith I would Unlock the turf that led to thee — Mother mine ! . . . But no doorway found I there, — Mother mine ! Mother mine ! — Threshold none, though once 'twas trod, Neither entrance anywhere. Save bolted by three-decade sod — Mother mine ! . . . Then I vowed myself awake, — Mother mine ! Mother mine ! — Only to renew my vow: I will yet behold thee, — slake My thirst for thee in Vision, thou Mother mine ! . . . [74] CONDOLENCE Condolence Communion with thy Loved One gone before, In revery by day, in dream by night, Sustain thee, lest thou faint or perish quite. The isle that hath been visited too sore With earthquake, healing Time cannot restore : Yet seek what shelter may be. Touch and sight Failing us, would with subtler sense we might Foresee the Dawn of soul with soul once more ! All lorn shalt thou not dwell, so visioned: he, Who, Sidney-like, was gentle, brings a cup To quicken thee athirst; and in thy stead Will bear the widowed burden tenderly; Will enter in at dusk and with thee sup : We live environed by our noble dead. [75] OUTBOUND Acknowledgment You among hills wherennto the sea's marge is, I at the heart of inland snowy plain : Ah, how more myriad than the snow Love's largess ! Splendider than your main ! 76] CALAMUS Calamus When Phidias his Zeus had wrought complete To front the Greek Olympiads with law, In godhead such as the blind singer saw Give pledge to Thetis of the silver feet, A name he chiseled where no eye would meet, Somewhere upon a finger of the god, — Of locks ambrosial and the thunderous Nod Thus meekly making dedication sweet. If songs — even these wherein so much amiss. Something of old achievement had to boast. Soaring where step by step they now ascend, What gain withal other than art's in this? For still but utterleast were uttermost That friend would fain make dedicate to Friend. [77] OUTBOUND To A. W. G. What inspiration flowered at prime In melody, I owe it her: She searched the calyx of each rhyme, And sipped — if any sweets there were. Though now in sundered spheres we ply The tasks that unto each belong. She's still the ruby-throat . . . whom I Saw poised above my firstling song. [78] EXODUS Exodus My mind this morn was a hive in spring, Yet, in spite of my utmost heed, The gypsy swarm stole away on the wing. With a queen-bee thought in the lead ; Buzzed away in the morning beams To wassails of fresh honey brew : Ah, me, how hard to domesticate dreams! How madder than mad to pursue ! [70] OUTBOUND Coincidence On river marge I strolled. Midstream in patient rings a hawk patrolled, Then— bolt-like fell : Gleamed 'neath it, rising, the clutched pickerel. That instant, too, mid-thought Plunged and emerged again with prey long sought A taloned bird: My sonnet, holding in fierce clutch — a word. [80] RECOGNITION Recognition ''My songs are sung," I said. "Songless because unwed To Beauty, I must linger out my days. The Vision me hath jilted ; With spirit parched and wilted, Already I am autumn browns and grays. Suffice youth 's preludings : Henceforward — silent strings ! And better so, ay, haply better so ! One pang the less thereby shall manhood know. For who saw yet out of his soul 's emprise Plenal fulfilment rise? When greatly the heart purposeth, Lo— death!" . . . So I, touching my lot, And from four walls betook myself abroad. . . . ''Dear God! And is it June ? I had forgot — forgot ! Lush leafage, glint of wings ; Nesting aloft in branch, and throat that sings ; [81] OUTBOUND The same passionate robin ecstasy From tripped-o'er lawn, out of the crown of tree, As in the yester springs Linked bliss to bliss, and mated my child's glee. Why the World's beautiful: her brow was old And wrinkled, only mirrored in a book. Seen face to face, behold How virginal and fresh And sweet of flesh, — Perennially young, and singing like a brook!" Thus strolled I, spirit-cheered, A way oft frequented because apart From the many's tread, and noises Of raucous-throated mart. Yet double-fringed with dwellings. Thrift had reared. And little children's voices Made laughter in my heart, — Involuntary laughter, like the jet Of rainbow out of murky mist and wet. Each tendril of upcurling smoke, Which the hearth within bespoke, Each dooryard which a lilac bush made green. Each window curtained clean, Flung me an alms of gladness as I passed [82] RECOGNITION With eyes that craved their dole. **If," said I, in that moment's cheer of soul, ''With the simple come and go of days content, I so could live, letting their good and ill Alternate as they will; Not poisoning sunshine, asking if 'twill last; To blinding sleet and rain indifferent, So but some hours be bright, Mine would be peace at least if not delight. Put to no desperate shifts To compass aims beyond the scope of gifts. Yet out of such so lowly life might I Climb a little nearer, haply, to the sky, — By a trail of human interests led up, Windingly higher and higher, the mountain top. Ay, even for very lack of stature, be Called to up sycamore tree By One that in my house this night would sup!" . . . Thus quickened, passed I far Out into a wide amplitude of plain, — Of the healing sunset fain. Of vesper quiet, new moon, and first star. And her I love saw I with inner eye — Lovelier than the sky; [83] OUTBOUND And spake faltering: "Truly it is thou, Known by the token of thy touch, By the whiteness of thy brow : Sundown was oft our tryst, — still be it such. I came, 'tis true, from other fount to drink. But here upon the brink Of thee let my soul's cup be filled instead With living water — thee : I am athirst ; I am anhungered for thee as for bread. Brood 'er me as the spirit dove o 'er chaos : Thou knowest what inner terrors oft affray us Who are devotees of the fierce godhead. Song, By pact which we could break not, if we durst. 'Twas therefore that erstwhile in bitter doubt I did thee wrong. Thinking that me, thine own, could Beauty flout. That me, thine own still, henceforth she hath left To pine away in darkness, song-bereft: And yet beside me now Art thou not here, is she not here, being thou?" ... Back from my stroll, within four walls I sat. The wick becoming weaned of oil, I shook the lamp to illume again my toil. Anon the hearkened clock with twelvefold stroke [84] RECOGNITION Made yesterday of the erewhile study hours, Made yesterday of the lamp 's ebbing out, Yet grieved I not thereat. Despite the darkness, was not June without? And the little eot-hemmed street, with sleeping folk. Replenishing its powers For tomorrow's unhived goings to and fro? And out in the far plain . . . nay, nay, not so, But Presence here and Spouse, by night, by day. Beauty, with me alway ! 85] OUTBOUND Founders' Day Fastidious what dead her Minster floor Shall cover, England's ancient Abbey stands, A sweet memorial from days of yore. Sought out by feet of pilgrims from all lands. Whoever heeds her vesper chimes and steals Into the hallowed precinct, though his heart An alien be to prayer And praise, a subtle sense of worship feels; And lingers, dreamy-eyed, where sculptor's art Records what master minds have anchored there. Must that sweet spirit be to us unknown. Or must we seek it wandering oversea, In storied haunts with ivy overgrown, Or where long ages past have strewn debris? Is there no such ambrosia for the soul, Unless within dim choir and transept aisle A thousand years and more Echo the anthems that the living roll? No spell of dream, unless in cloistered pile We meditate the fames whose reign is o'er? . . . [86] FOUNDERS' DAY There once befell a strife among the Twelve O'er who was first in heavenly rank and power; And He Who deepest in the soul could delve, Who glimpsed in mustard-seed and wilding flower A parable of truth else undivined, Into their midst called forth a little child, And spake : ' ' Lo, chief est, he, In whom its lowliness of heart and mind!"- — By outward semblances of things beguiled, Our eyes are holden that we may not see. Our yesterdays may be too brief a space For ripening such charms as heart would feel; For giving sweet romance its subtlest grace And potency of exquisite appeal; Yet who survey these human acres, ploughed And seeded with ancestral pain, nor draw Some lesson from the sight, — Some new reminder whereby to be vowed To worthier ends beneath a higher Law, Do not commemorate the past aright. We meet to-day that from what was, what is And will be take increase of nobleness ; But for such festal moments we should miss [87] OUTBOUND Something of prescience : in the strain and stress, 'Mid all the seeming nothings of our days, Who would not sink unnerved and all but spent. Must tutor himself brave. Pondering by what strange and devious ways The yester years pressed on and made ascent, With deeds not all convergent to the grave. When still the New-World continent, rich-soiled And teeming, lay like jungle in a trance ; When arrow-fanged, its every thicket coiled And hissed with interdict against advance Of the explorer or stern pioneer, Did they who thrid the trail or built the hut Surmise the future State? In the more lofty structures that we rear, Wherever toiling onward, are we not As ignorant of the purposes of fate ? Nor less the heroic discipline whereby Our wills are being schooled: the strain and strife Of adolescent cities, whence the cry Continuous of congested human life; The duel to the death 'twixt poor and rich ; The raucous chorus of an age of steam; The industrial thirst for gold — [88] FOUNDERS' DAY Are these not savagery indeed, to which Primeval pioneering tame doth seem, In sylvan wildernesses, trod of old? Nor boots it that our minds we saturate And flood with lore, undreamed of anciently, If so Truth perish that our sires made great; To us, the lords of matter, if it be An outworn or too nebulous a creed That things have worth as handmaids of the soul, Or else are wholly vain, "What profiteth our lordship us indeed ? What deeper insight, ours, to hint the Goal, Whereto, sore tried, the spirit would attain? It gropes to-day as it groped yesterday. Our darkling Whence no better understood, Our darkling Whither without beacon ray To guide toward highest end and ultimate good. In this atomic grist now being ground. Our husks of theory and unwinnowed fact, Is there potential Bread? . . . Perchance ! — Yet where already truth seems found, How much the sober morrow must retract ! And wherewith now is spirit to be fed? [89] OUTBOUND — Like pleadings of soft intermittent bells, In Sabbath stillness to come forth and be Of them that worship, unto one who dwells "Withdrawn into the self, where wistfully He broods in silence — such mild summonings Urge back the song into a gladder strain Of hope and festive cheer; To-day of all days, whosoever sings, Let him sing thankfulness that once again To honor Alma Mater we are here. If darkness fall, the more resplendent, She! If Mammon rise, her lips must teach the more That not in things possessed is majesty; If knowledge fail us, let her going before Track out new paths of truth, our feet may tread ; If doubt confuse, the accents of her voice Still shepherd us aright; If strenuous for high ends, though ill bested. Let there be recompense in knowing our choice Was such as to be pleasing in her sight. Her elder children born, the vanguard throng Of thronging generations yet to come, We sing a crescent glory: they in song Will hail it at the full when we are dumb. [90] FOUNDERS' DAY From loftier heights of blue, less cloud-obscured, The richer splendor of that beauty's dower Their gladder eyes will greet; And yet the light that through these years en- dured, We feel in this commemorative hour Hath been even as a lamp unto our feet. Ensanguined lest young Freedom's light should wane, Old battle-fields are sacred ; every shrine That treasures their memorials of pain Is therefore doubly hallowed and divine. If there are shoes 'tis fitting we unbind, Be it no less where man his bread has cast On waters of no fame ; Or wheresoever mind, enkindling mind, Into the Future from its flickering Past Sped forth a new relay of missive flame. Not overawed by fluctuating Time, The dauntless Spirit somehow triumphs on. Building new pinnacles and more sublime, For crumbled shrines from centuries agone. For every generation blotted out. With what wild fervor of impetuous breath [91] OUTBOUND Another doth appear! That mightily each advent means, who 11 doubt ? Nor but to cater revelry for Death, The nine-moon clusters ripen, year by year. Such paeans from ambiguous oracles May still be wrung as in the olden days : Be ours the old-time spirit that compels Destiny ; and be this alone our praise And guerdon, to have faltered not nor swerved In crises of the tragic racial strife And struggle to ascend! Be what they may, the aims by Time subserved. So the Eumenides of human life But choral benediction o 'er its end ! [92] MOTHERING *' Mothering*' ''Amongst these (old customs) was a practice of going to see parents, and especially the female one, on the mid Sunday of Lent, taking for them some little present, such as a cake or a trinket. A youth engaged in this amiable act of duty was said to go 'a-mothering,' and hence the day itself came to he called 'Mothering Simday.' " Chambers' Book of Days. By the Sabbath of spirit enfolden, Which quiet and revery bring; In the light of years backward beholden, — Winged decades, too swift on the wing; Reviving the wont of days olden, Our hearts go a-mothering. What may we give her, the Mother, Whose travail of soul gave us birth ; Through whom we are sister and brother. Too one for the sundering earth — Trinket or cake or some other Gift of as trivial worth? [93] OUTBOUND Ah, but we need not to bring her Aught but ourselves in this hour ! The Vision asks naught of the singer Save alone that he flood with its power; Nor Moon, of the shadows that linger, Save that they drink of her shower. Ever in beauty all fadeless, She welcomes us back to her sight : Time, making leafless and bladeless The forest and meadow by flight. Her hath bedimmed not nor made less — Her like a star in the height! By the Sabbath of spirit enfolden, "Which quiet and revery bring; In the light of years backward beholden,- Winged decades, too swift on the wing; Reviving the love of days olden. Our hearts go a-mothering. [04] VALEDICTORY Valedictory "We have been captained well ! — So in this hour, Severing sailors ' bonds, we needs must feel ; He now to navigate with other keel, Our Captain ! . . . We shall miss him if the power Of storm us smite, remembering him a tower Of strength; and miss him, too, though pilot's wheel Steer us in placid waterways of weal, Where all's like summer sunshine after shower. It hath been joy to shake out or take in Sail to his masterful bidding; and lift gaze At his behest to midnight skies, and tell Our course by stars. . . . Whatso new ports he win, Whoso his crew to lead in coming days, God speed him still! We have been captained well! [95] OUTBOUND Progress Once on a time, six thousand years agone — Or twice or thrice six thousand — Trilobites Were the only people having eyes, and they Had scarce begun to have them, so that some Were yet sans eyes or signs of eyes to be. The utmost e'en their seers could ken as yet Was that in murk they lived their life, although Perchance there might be such a thing as light. As time went on, one of them so advanced That having haply come to the water's top By day, he saw the sun. So down he went And told the folk below, in general The world was light, whic?i state of things was caused By an all-illuming One. Him, then, they slew. Charged with disturbance of the commonwealth ; Yet deemed it impious ere long to doubt The world in general was light, and One The cause alone of light. But fierce disputes They had about the manner in which they Had come to know this. [96] PROGRESS Afterwards another Likewise so far advanced that being borne To the water's top by night he saw the stars; And going back he told the folk below The world in general was dark, but yet Had lights in a great number. Him they slew For maintenance of doctrines that were false. But from that time the Trilobites were split Into two parties, these maintaining this, Those, that, — until enough had learned to see, Monist and pluralist alike, with eyes. 97] OUTBOUND Ambition Dewdrops in a blossom's cup Dream of buoying: vessels up. Every g:low-worm thinks 'twould grace The lost Pleiad's vacant place. If spheres retired, their music dumb, Motes would crv: ^^Mv hour is come!" [OS] A BLUR OF BUILDINGS" '*A Blur of Buildings" (On a distant prospect of a marine biological laboratory) A blur of buildings in the distance, Hills at their back, and at their front, the sea, All summer took my gaze with strange insistence, Whenso I strolled alone to be With the loveliness of shore 'twixt them and me. No rarer seascape e'er was gazed upon Than that beheld from where I 've stood : The Sea — a Solomon To Queen-of-Sheba rise and set of sun! And the sickle-curve of shore with surfy white Blossoming and reblossoming in the light! . . . Yet ofttimes vision ranging as it would Leapt to the clustered buildings glimpsed afar, To pore in quiet thought on what they are. A visible embodiment, lo, these. Of man's interrogating — here, of seas! His importuning things, [99] OUTBOUND Out of the Mystery that him enrings To make revealment somewhat of themselves. Elsewhere he barters, builds, or delves: Here he would know. . . . Whereof he covets lore, the vastness, lo! What he would understand, the deep, behold! Fain is he here of news What gamut hath the sea Of life from whale to animalculae ; What arc from massing kelp, the tide upflings, To filmiest vegetation out of ooze. Such Odyssey to travel here he makes him bold. . . . II Last night old Ocean shook with laughter. ''Record tides?" I know the reason why he held his sides, — And laughed until the very earth Flooded with peals of silver mirth; I knew it after I saw the blur of white in coign of hills, And thought what place it fills. Methinks there must have come into his ken Somehow an inkling of its purpose, too. Someone had whispered him, I know not who, [100] ''A BLUR OF BUILDINGS" That bent within sit spectacled sage men In microscopic study of the slime, His sputum ; that they tabulate and sum All the life-history and descent of scum Since when it rose in time; That by aquarium culled out from him They would epitomize his world aswim. . . . Ocean laughed Until the darkling hills thought him gone daft. I heard — broke into laughter, too, With the hilarious Deep, And laughed later again in sleep. And laughed, awake: so'd you, Getting old Ocean's (and my) point of view. Ill The Sea this morning is of other mood: His rondure — ah, how multihued! Like bubble 's iris All his attire is, — And I, as one at feast, partake of food. Afar out of a mist the wonted blur Of buildings now doth reoccur. The pigmy hath grown wrestler, giant-thewed, And I, a mocker erst, grow worshiper. . . . [101] OUTBOUND What though 'tis labor but of ants, our grapple With yonder sea's Staggering faunas, staggering floras, Immanent there beneath the blue-green dapple? Yet that we have not quailed, Yet that we durst confront such mysteries — Our Pelion piled on Ossa, albeit o'er lis Topless Olympus towers unsealed — Is cause for awe I trow, Is reason adequate for worship now. What though, while we aspire to know as gods. Our learning go to seed in mental pods? What though, by snail-like increments, our wit Make progress, compassing the infinite? Not what he is, what he would be Is Man 's sublimity ! And therefore from yon pharos of the mind Streams in upon me light till I grow blind. Yon clustered buildings dome themselves with Bky; I stand saluting: Presence goeth by. . . . Of the resplendent dead with awe I think. Through whom came Knowledge, link by toil- some link. Like one in trance behold I what's to do- — [102] ^'A BLUR OF BUILDINGS" What desert wilds of sage, each morn anew, To hive-emerging bees. Cloistered Mendel saw — and wrought with peas ; Darwin with earth-worms, too. Not only in the vastnesses we search. But follow atom 's cue in smut and smirch ; Peer into slime, comb every discard lump Of matter, as the poor, a city's dump. Jewelry may be there . . . coin, too . . . who knows ? Enough to pay our way abroad ! Torn guide-books, haply, or soiled leaves from those, Yet Baedeker enough to travel God ! . . . [103] OUTBOUND **In My Father's House'* I LOVE, I love this beauteous world of ours, This irised shell whose pearl is Deity ! I love a forest wild, a maddened sea, — Their swaying massive greens; I love a flower's Dew-shimmer; swathing mist; the sun 'twixt showers ; The moon whose veil of cloud is half withdrawn ; That white-haired Quiet face to face with dawn, A mount which into lonely summit towers. I love the seamless blue of noon ; the shade, Rewoven pensively for sundown earth; I love the royal Thunder's cannonade Of gladness o'er a Rainbow's princely birth; I love the cosmic hush in space afar; I love the universe from mote to star. [104] OUT-OF-DOORS Out-of-Doors Just to inhale this prairie air, afoot, Out on a prairie road, flanked either side With stubble fields; just to reopen wide One's windowed soul, and every door flung shut. And let the winds blow through it; just to put Miles in the rear of me with strenuous stride, Men in the rear of me, and city's pride. Self in the rear, with no less reek and soot — The glee of it ! . . . They nibble and sip, no doubt, My out-of-doors, the folk who distanced me. Soft-cushioned in their car, that yonder fades. I walk and breathe: my soul's the leaping trout In a water brook, God 's mountain ecstasy, — Darting and swimming in the white cascades. [105] OUTBOUND Adolescence My Siren is a storm-disheveled wood, Toothed lightnings comb ; or torrent rush, that raves Down a circuitous channel, chaos paves. I climb aloft where Alpine solitude Lies yawning for an avalanche, its food. Just to halloo into the dark of caves. Ho, ho ! I envy mere-folk when the waves Froth like a royal ale for wassail brewed. 1 crave adventure as the hunter, game; My being 's ichor must have fierce delight : A precipice with the strange lure and urge And shudder of recoil anigh the verge; Or python smoke in the dim toesined night, And savage glee of liberated flame. [106] LAKE LOUISE Lake Louise Out of blue-green Lake Louise, Singing waters came down to meet me, Danced from among their mountain trees. With shining morning face to greet me. God ! what space-congesting heights ! Peaks upsoaring and peak outwinging! . . What of the mirror of their flights, Whence poured that jubilance of singing? Up I climbed, the brook my guide. Up into grandeurs that ensky it. Till, ere I knew, lo, there beside Sheer mount, the azure-emerald Quiet ! Ever back of the song, the Soul ! Ever back of the dream, the Dreamer ! Ever back of the part, the Whole ! — And here, back of supreme, Supremer! . . Out of blue-green Lake Louise, Singing waters came down to meet me, — Lyric precursive prophecies Of what fulfilled ere long did greet me ! [107] OUTBOUND The Kingbird I LIKE the little bird! Yesterday, on my word, I cheered him when he took in tow A supercilious crow. To-day I saw him bent On punitive intent, And laughed to think how verily this Was Salamis. "With like fierce buffetings Of swift pugnacious wings Was Attic summer azure freed From the ill-omened Mede. [108] A THRENODY A Threnody Thou dead, whose throat with ecstasy Was wont to overflow so ; And hushed thy wondrous melody, Thou sylvan virtuoso? Our eyes are fed with purple light, When Day her end is nearing ; Who'll feed, since thou hast taken flight. Our hungry sense of hearing? Thou wast, when in thy lustihood. Of all but song a scorner: Has not the Abbey of the wood Somewhere a Poets' Corner? And yet why bury in the ground Wings that have lost their fleetness? Some leaves will do. . . . So, there's a mound! Sleep, child of light and sweetness! [109] OUTBOUND A Mountain Sunrise Upward the gradual trail that serpentines A mountain-side we climbed, ere yet the dawn That silvery fore-radiance had withdrawn Of the sun's white upcoming. As when shines A singer's face with song his heart divines, Yet knowing not but it may fail him, low His lips make moan . . . beneath that natal glow Sighing half audibly, uprose the pines. Higher and higher aloft the spiral trail, Where light became effulgence ; far beneath. The legioned hush and sylvan majesty ! Another splintered crag like dragon's teeth. And lo, upon the summit, giving hail Unto the vast of skyey outlook, we ! [110] PRESENCE Presence Gazing without I see the migrant flakes, Swirling multitudinous out of the skies ; Social snowflakes, winter-tide's butterflies, Winter's locusts putting the sun to rout, Whose seething advent unmakes and makes, Whose flashing coming is smiting and healing in one. Ending of all things old, all new things begun ; Cancelling rutted highways, landmarks of fields, Stubbles of bygone yields. Plains portioned out into states. As loaves from the kneaded dough, — Unraveling the many, weaving the One below ; Out of what nowhere source. Speeding what nowhither course, multi-myriad shuttle whose to-and-fro creates Yonder the whelming shroud of yesterdays. Yonder to prescient gaze Swaddling clothes for a man-child birth, — To-morrow, scion whose realm be the After- earth! . . . [Ill] OUTBOUND Ah, here is dream, Vision and glory, worthy singer 's emprise ! I, falconing space for a theme, Find quarry congesting the skies, — Find myself the pursued, put to rout By kingbird dartings of meaning athwart and about. . . . Sense me seemed the rear entrance to soul : The gala front-way portals, carven and wrought Richly, I deemed were Feeling and Thought; But here God entereth in by the humbler door, Making matter Presence as never before; Yet even for entering so. Plunging on either side His chariot pole. Dappled splendors hale hither their Lord, As if for Last- Judgment award; And yet . . . and yet . . . who doth know But yon an utterleast flakelet of snow Is Presence-chamber now, "Where, before white-throned Spirit, spirit may bow! Here seemeth whirlwind His choice: Crashing mid-prairie, tempest hath broke, Making the smitten plains to smoke; Ruining down its thoroughfare, space, [112] PRESENCE Blanching all with Omnipresence of Face. . . . Anon for such coming in power, The still small Voice ! Emerged at the door of this fleshly cave, I will stand, His prophet, that Hour, Mantling my sight, yet beholding that save For Him there is godhead none, — Save for Him, the One, No worship in lands abroad. With the Vision alone, Obeisant unto Its passing, I shall have known Horeb, the mount of God. [113] OUTBOUND •'I Am" Convince the greening earth no spring-tides be ; The sun, no dawn ; the stars of night abroad, No skyey azure ; soul, no deity : The only evidence of God is God. [114] PENELOPE Penelope Once when a sigh Escaped my lips in time of spirit ebb, And leaden dearth of sky, And valley of snowy plains beneath mine eye ; When day's incipient thaw. Nightly precipitation so undid, More utterly than ever earth was hid ; Suddenly then I saw This weaving and unravelling of snow Like hers — the queen of suitor-foiling web, Chaste for her homing lord thereby, And chaste for all the after-ages so. Here, too, lo, an Awaited One, Earth's lordly spouse, the Sun! To slay with arrows keen of warmth and light Fogs, crow^ding in and lusting for embrace, Fain to unscepter him of state and place. — I repented me that I erewhile did plain, I repented me of seeing not aright. Penelope . . . the Prairie without stain ! [115] OUTBOUND Night Night, the apotheosis of Day! Whene'er the mind grows poor and self-content, 1 need but gaze upon thy firmament, And boundless cosmic thoughts once more hold sway; I need but view thy star-paved Milky Way, To tremble with new promptings to ascent; And watch thy moon on heights of azure bent. To feel the tidal soul suffuse the clay. Full-flooding noons, the eagle's gaze hath met. Long afterglows o'er endlessness of sea. And mountains with their lone white peiaks untrod, — These would have been, thou being not : and yet What Beauty at the full ? and, save for thee, What Hymen of the pure in heart with God ? . . . [116] IN THE COOL OF THE DAY^ "In the Cool of the Day*' In the cool of the day He walked the garden, And the little flowers met His eyes in the way : No sin was yet in the world to pardon, Nor sunset mixed with regret of the day. The afterglow took unwonted splendor, Of smoldering flame was the mountains ' attire ; Encircling trees loomed golden to render Their heavenly Visitant tribute of fire. Out of the forest's translucent porches Came He at length, of His revery fain : And Night, enkindling her myriad torches. Lighted Him back to His heavens again. . . . We would furlough Toil with a little slumber, Yet sudden dreams make a sword of the night ; Nor needs must be the awakening to number Again in the ranks of who struggle and fight. But Twilight meek that the earth doth inherit, — tender with what all-tenderness, she! [117] OUTBOUND Her gift — no Nessus-robe to who wear it ; Her quietude like a tide of the sea, The channels reflooding that soon would harden, — Spirit again overmastering clay ! In the cool of the day He walked the garden : Ours be His peace in the selfsame way! [118] THE HILLS The Hills The hills, the hills, in that sweet South Of our blended summer days ! Bridal at morn with softest mist, At evening kissed Farewell beneath a veil of sunset haze, Saffron and amethyst ! The hills, the hills, in that sweet South Of our blended summer days ! Shimmer of ocean at their feet, Making retreat Into blue distances, whereon to gaze Was spirit's drink and meat! The hills, the hills, in that sweet South — But enough of fond regret! Prairie again since fate so wills! My life fulfills Itself not without joy, here too, — and yet, The hills ! our summer hills ! . . . [119] OUTBOUND Essence If out of these lapsed days I could recall Beauty, and by distilling make them be Like perfumes rare to pour out fragrantly, And scent a scentless season to befall. Surely it were poor thrift not to put all Else by, and let them work their will of me: Who knows but in them may be potency Such as was David 's harp to lowering Saul ! So letting a sweet pageantry of sights And scenes come back in quietude of dream, I sit here of an evening. Like a stream Known to the far beholder on the heights By aureole of mist, whereon the lights, Moonglade and starglade, intermelting gleam. So aureoled in memory doth seem A summer's flow afar of days and nights. And what if not that one was at my side. Gentle co-sharer and co-worshiper, Makes rich in retrospect the hours that were! [120] ESSENCE Whether a mountain goal with strenuous stride We sought, or stood before entranced tide, Receiving sunset benizon, for her How the loveliness I felt grew lovelier ! How sure in dew-like influence to abide ! Oh, what a tow-path were the universe For haling the brute bulk of things, unless Betimes there came surcease of strain and stress, And living by bread only ! We might curse Job-like our birth-hour, knowing ourselves worse Than ruminating beast, if Quietness Us pastured never,~the sweet shepherdess, Tenderer than our tenderest dreams rehearse! 'Tis out of the self dofft with doubt and cares That spring the very joys for which we pine : idle bookless hours wherein no sign Of gain — what rich ingathering was theirs! Then sowing not nor reaping we were heirs To kingdoms, all the affluence divine Poured spendthrift with the morning's rain or shine, Where toiling might have netted us but tares. Strange law of spirit husbandry, attested By days whereto I backward yearn this hour I [121] OUTBOUND Their largess — came it not as to a flower Perfume and color, not desired or quested, Or from begrudging hand of giver wrested, But lavished freely like the April shower, Or like the little bird's melodious dower, That singing soars aloft from where it nested? In glad release where sea and mountain wrought Sorceries on a prairie-sated mind, I lingered, fain of clime where Nature kind Doth make of summer the perpetual lot Of dwellers there, her hand withholding naught. What tenderness I had not dreamed to find Alike in morning sun and sun declined ! Smiles as for child in mother-arms upcaught ! Goaded by sting and frenzy of the frore Blasts out of northern sky, I oft have said: "What matter, so to Beauty I be wed Within !" . . . and sought me shelter behind door. And yet doth it not matter if before The outward eye no loveliness be shed Abroad? From whence the spirit's daily bread, If not out of the sense-world 's yielded store ? Forgive, great Prairies, the so puling strain ! Not niggard is the bounty that your hands [122] ESSENCE Dispense unto the heart that understands. For thirst there hath been beaker here to drain ; For hunger, meat. Then wherefore Song's dis- dain? Because, forsooth, I walked on alien strands, Or climbed unnative hills? . . . Forgive, great Lands ! Forgive my ''Colin Clout's come home again!" — Our country, rife with oil and wine and corn. Her milk and honey everywhere aflow, Hath not a peer in beauty, too, I know. Who sees Yosemite invading morn With trees whose Samson locks were never shorn, Or Shasta with his hieroglyphs of snow. But needs must wonder, in that hour of glow. Why yet hath not the Singer of these been born ? For why should forests wrestle with the gales, Or why the wonder of a prairie's lone Communion with the sunset, and the blown Rose of the morning o'er expectant vales; Why else our seas' white foliage of sails, Niagara and twice-plunging Yellowstone, Unless that Song should come into her own. Failing of which, of Destiny she fails? [123] OUTBOUND What though the Mississippi Gulfward speed, Creating sea-usurping deltas, whence New empire states will rise in ages hence? Forgot will be our every thought and deed Not Song-rehearsed. Thus is it fate-decreed: In Song alone a land hath permanence. Abiding Hellas draws her glory thence. But where to-day Phoenicia's wealth and greed! The cloud of hand-like breadth before great rain, Who gazing forth from Carmel now espies? Lo, spirit tropics 'neath exhausted skies, Where only the spiked cactuses remain, And heart hath gone to seed in cunning brain ! for an Age less knowing and more wise ! for a Seer as of old to rise, And shepherd us with Vision once again! Man's body soars to-day like nimble swallow,- — Curbed, are the mettled air-foals ; land and sea Are rutted with his thunderous chariotry: Soars, too, his Spirit ... or doth only wallow ? It cannot be : Spirit must lead, not follow. Else queenless swarm our triumphs ; else are we Mazeppas of our own speed-enginery, — Ay, of the planet plunging through heaven's hollow ! [124] ESSENCE — So questioned we perplexed of time and fate, Betimes in summer days, where bush or tree Shredded the noonday sunlight; yet the glee And zest of things more oft postponed their weight And mystery to other place and date. Waves capped themselves with merriment of the sea : Admitted to their jocund company, How could our hearts be other than elate ! Be still elate, the wintry months ahead, And glad with the same gladness, heart, con- tinue! Albeit unknown, the web of fate they spin you. Yourself may weave the Adriadne-thread Whereby your groping lightward will be led Through labyrinth that baffleth wit and sinew. Be still elate: heaven's kingdom is within you. Whatever darkling maze the feet may tread! If stream-begotten canyons have been sawed Out of the basic adamant of things. Where water toiling in the depth yet sings, Why should not we whose souls have been abroad 'Mid scenes where beauty charmed and wonder awed, [125] OUTBOUND Ply whatsoever task the morrow brings With singing ? Earth is fair, the sun upsprings As yesterday — the same heavens ! the same God ! Ay, singing though with transitory breath, A transitory season ! 'Twixt the child, And Age, the child again, not many-miled The stream of human life meandereth. Thus serious mid-manhood's vision saith. Yet, flowing, if betimes it shall have smiled Green meads among, nor wound its course un- isled, Sweetly repose admonishing, comes Death. A little sheaf of Ruth-gleaned hours may sow What tracts of Time for harvest ! Camelot Itself upbuilded out of the forgot. Our yesterdays become the Long- Ago By passing of the years, and then bestow Their precious balm on memory, being not — As grasses by the subtle sickle cut Become all after-odorous for the throe. . . . [126] ^WHEN THE WAVES SLIP BACK" *'When the Waves Slip Back*' (On espying a fish left behind by the tide) This stark and noisome thing with eyes astare, Left dry on the rock, — Clove it indeed with arrowy swimming The main a half hour since ? Was all yon vast of liquid sea 'Twixt Polar solitudes and Carib summer Thine, — but a half hour since ? And then of a sudden — thine no more, When the waves slip back! And me whom Birth endenizened in Time, Shall the like befall? Cleave I not, too, with arrowy swimming A main, mastering it all? A vast of liquid sea 'Twixt bournes whereof to thought is no con- ceiving. Mine — till what tidal hour? And then of a sudden — mine no more. When the waves slip back! [127] OUTBOUND Song of Unrest Oft in hours of sleeplessness, Sad of soul, In a shadowy recess Of the wood I stroll. Sighs the forest: ''In the glooming, When the trees are skyward looming, Comes a cloud the stars entombing. And I mourn in sleeplessness." Oft in hours of sleeplessness. Sad of soul. In a dewy-eyed recess Of the dell I stroll. Sobs the lowland: ''There's a yearning In the humblest bosom burning: Vales to mountains are upturning Wistful eyes of sleeplessness." Oft in hours of sleeplessness, Sad of soul, In a moonlight-blanched recess [128] SONG OF UNREST Of the lea I stroll. Moans the night- wind: '* Earth is dreary, Life mysterious and uncheery, And the human heart aweary "With unrest and sleeplessness." Oft in hours of sleeplessness, Sad of soul, In a foam-befringed recess Of the beach I stroll. Sings a wavelet: "Death's a pillow. Giving sleep to man and billow. And 'neath yew or weeping willow None need suffer sleeplessness." [129] OUTBOUND * 'Times Be When Life Seems Aimless and Uncouth** Times be when Life seems aimless and uncouth, Like a whelp 's day-long loping to and fro ; When little that the boastful world can show Seems worthy reverence, scarce worthy ruth. Its empire at the beck of birth-crowned youth; Authority, the lord of them that know ; Still wrung from G-alileo : ' ' Ay, even so ! " Nor now his whisper, reenthroning Truth. And many a Baiae, lying sea-empearled. All garlanded with loveliness appears; Yet there who enters in Penelope Comes forth — Helen. Knowing that such things be. Long since I had forwearied of the world. But for my Loved One's widowed after-years. [130] MOODS Moods > Moods, moods, Ye are like broods, Tempest would smite on, Sparrow-hawks light on, — Therefore ye lie 'neath the covert of wings, Sensitive things! Moods, moods, Ye are like feuds, Truce hath brought hush to, Consciousness, blush to, — Therefore ye vanish away into air. Tarrying ne'er! Moods, moods. Brief interludes, Sun during bleak days. Sabbath dream, week-days, — Therefore ye dower life with something sublime, Outlasting time I [131] OUTBOUND Surf Out of the sea's continuous white offensive A record-making breaker up the sand-bar . . . And so I fall to pondering human lives. Seething offensives and retreats^ — the sea! One's backward clashing with another's forward, One's white momentum upward, tackled, hurled Aback — and so no record on the sand. One rising, white-toothed, blue-lipped, out at sea. And thunderous churning shoreward with a wake of madness, Touching the strand just as all waves are spent, All oppositionless in swirl of onset, With an avalanche of waters, flooding, flooding. Making a record up the sands unequalled, And lapping in dry stranded strings of kelp. Another rising, caught in its fierce ebbing, — Crushed by the hissing python in recoil; Sepulchred in the sea without achievement. Cancelled and void because another scored. [132] SURF Out of the sea's continuous white offensive, The endless generations of the surf . . . And I, in revery, pondering human lives ! [133] OUTBOUND Cause and Effect Between trains there was time to stroll a bit : I walked the main street with displays in shops, Lazily in the mood of one who drops Worry, and let things harry him no whit, Or men. Then jarred on sight — words scarce befit- Athwart me someone reeling, with a top's Wobbling uncertainty just ere it stops. * ' Better go back, ' ' I said, — ' ' watch women knit. ' ' But — hours of waiting. Freight-train gone askew. — The town was that in which the State doth house Her weak-brained — whom I visited anon, Ward after crowded ward ... a piteous crew ! In one of them was he of the morn's carouse. Calling to see — what should have been his Bon. . . . [134] EN ROUTE En Route It's risking loss, no matter where one scants Attention. — Passing by a station's freight Promiscuously piled, I spied a crate, Doubly compartmented for occupants : A fuzzy little roll of lap-dog fat, Whimpering, whining, yelping — eyes aswim ; A square-jawed bulldog, just a little grim More than his wont, no doubt, but — standing pat. Like a barbed seedling caught, the picture clings. Which Aesop might have captured for his scrolls, And made a pricking lesson of — afresh Indulging his old bent for fabling things — On how to meet discomfiture, our souls Awaiting shipment in their crates of flesh. [135] OUTBOUND Kelp Interlaced flora, maze and tangle of growth ! The same I saw last night and yester-year, The same God saw in yester-aeon: Wonderful to us both ! . . . Whether in North afar its peace or here, Or fusing dream with waters Caribbean, To keep identity of selfhood so. To thrive on menace, unperturbed to grow Despite the impact of the tidal seas. Merits a little heed in days like these. Assaulted constantly by burly breakers, Yet ne'er repaying blow for blow; Peacefuller than Quakers, Albeit Ocean bugles in its ear To legionary onset and a host Makes thunderous bombardment of the coast; Ne'er giving way to fear, Keeping in strength and spirit equipoise. Despite confusion, turmoil, noise; Surf-buffeted, storm-howled-at, ocean-hissed, Yet still — pacificist; [136] KELP Gigantic, yet with Sabbath mood alway, June or December, night and dayj Verily here I find In stringy kelp of homely brown What I have searched the world for up and down, Nor hoped might ever be. Whether in world of matter or of mind ! Of such as Kelp the Kingdom verily! . . . Changeless, and yet — all changed! For where is aught the same in world so wracked And anguished as to-day's? Almost I walk estranged With sea, with morn, impotent to react To the bloom, the glow, wherewith they meet my gaze. — I said: ''Poor thrift, this sleeplessness abed! I'll up and hie me where the Sea halloos His tides. I'll up and share the morning red With ocean kelp. Mayhap a blend of hues Rarer and richer now is on the ooze Than I have thrilled to yet, Trj^sting with sea at rise of sun or set." . . , Surmise was not amiss: Ne'er bed of kelp more multihued than this! [137] OUTBOUND A spirit of beauty is abroad this hour In rarity like a flower. What infinite repertory Nature hath Of joy: winged sun from ocean's chrysalis, And cataract of stars out of her gloom ! But man perverting her to ill, Making her serve his wrath, Making her sting, and stab, and kill — Therein and thence is doom. And can it be Yon amplitudes of kelp are being made Means of the world 's war-madness, too, and aid ? That yonder girdle of the sea, Oozy ocean cincture of continents, Held a hidden sword, a shining blade, Whereby the world's Berserker wrath augments Slaughter, this time of fate? Flown o'er by pelicans with oaring wings, Neighbor to ocean lands throughout which sings The meadow-lark all seasons of the year, Winter's no less than spring's, How all aloof this scene from hate ! How unconcerned with aught of fear ! Of the all-engulfing war, With nation slitting nation's jugular, [138] KELP And Teuton plunge for planet empery, What recked the kelp-tranced sea? Yet lo, in the distance, barges, Harvesting night and day with triple shift Of toil the kelp from whence my soul's uplift, Rapture and spirit largess! For Science, keen-eyed, hath espied Swathed high explosives in yon langorousness, Useless, forsooth, till now in wind and tide. Such the tentacles war hath, Such the suction of its wrath. All-commandeering war, without redress, All-spoliating for its own increase, Even this morning dream and vesper peace Is wrought into its Clytemnestra net. And flung around mankind for butchery ! Great God, how long shall yet Such nations ' Ate be ! . . . the Nemesis in things. That thus out of discovery only springs More poison-fanged a world and keen of claw To lacerate and rend! While steadfast Science labors to the end, Translating matter into terms of Law, Of bringing things beneath the sway of man, Man 'neath the sway of things bemeans himself [139] OUTBOUND As never hitherto since time began. Anathema ! ' ' Retro me, Satana ! ' ' To Science, if indeed her summing up Be ill for human kind ! Ay, dash it down. If for the race be poison in the cup ! At least the days of Ghibelline and Guelph, Howso they splashed their blood-feuds o'er the town, Could not coerce sweet Nature to their ends Of vengeance and affright; At least when Greek fought fellow Greek, their might Of mutual destruction found not help And furtherance in clinging beds of kelp. Awakened out of oozy sleep in bends And windings of the Grecian shore. Ah, never, never more. These waters should be named Pacific ! Surely all forfeit is the name they bore. Being put to use so martial, so terrific. Here in high Dream's employ, And tense Hebraic mood, Purged of all individual alloy. These leagues of mighty ocean I surveyed As symbol of like vast pan-racial good. [140] KELP Then suddenly the soul in me Rose geyser-like in wild apostrophe : America, my Country, art thou weighed In the balance and found wanting ? thou Land Of promise unfulfilled, and high desires Blasted like waves upon an iron strand! With thy dread failure thou dost make afraid Who trusted thee, hoped for thee, and lit fires For beacons on thy mountains. Thou dost reel With wine, art fat with feasting, and thy lips Are the abode of wantonness and mirth; Thou peoplest the great deep with ships. And on the uttermost earth As conqueror hast trod and set thy heel. Yet thou hast made of weal A fetish god, and worshipest thy gold As calf-delirious Israel of old. It was not for the dancing of such rite Thy feet have forded seas With pillar of cloud by day and fire by night; Nor passed they through those dire calamities Of other nearer days, whereof the woe Still lives, to stumble now and go amiss. lifted up by that vast earthquake throe To be the world's enskyed Acropolis, Thinkest thou to be hid ? . . . OUTBOUND Forgive my lips, forgive me that I chid, White Wonder of indomitable will! But I would see thee as I once did see. With prairies, mountains, wave-anointed strands, The Virgin-born of Lands, Fulfilment of thy singers' prophecy. And of all nations the Messiah still! . . . The sea itself upheaves To pace the world with tides, and scattered leaves Its kelp to etch the pathway of its march. The roar summons me back from otherwhere — The human welter of energy, With brinier kelp from waters more resistless. Almost I would the vastness seething there. The waves with feet that prance, with necks that arch. All the super-beauty of the sea, Might drug me to forget, with heart grown list- less. The pitifulness and pathos of man's life. The pitifulness and tragedy of his strife. . . . Just when democracy was nascent; just When man was climbing upward out of dust With something of momentum, and a new [142] KELP Sense of achievement thrilled him through and through ; Just when he thought to lay more bastions low Of privilege and error, and make way With ancient exploitations, and to grow Into the stature of himself indeed — Then this' Nay To his dreams, to his hopes, to God! Then Belgium trodden into the sod — Ploughed under by the Teuton human plough, Before which freedom is a noxious weed, That, flowering, menaces with thorn and spike; Then in that racial crisis, we Battening on blood-lucre, Judas-like; Nor even protesting, save for our own rights — Studious of our own ease and how To prosper, whereso victory or defeat ! But wherefore, wherefore repeat Here within ear-shot of the moaning sea The story of man 's plunge adown the heights ! I'll discipline myself to be resigned. Withdrawal still is possible and sweet, Withdrawal still is home — Pillow and cup and bread to soul and mind, Wearied and sick of things as they of yore. [143] OUTBOUND Civilization is a little foam, Eiding a little kelp, anJ cast ashore, And cancelled by a little noon forevermore. 1916- ** See note. 144] THE MELTING POT The Melting Pot The town was there in force to give the boys Fit send-off: coaches, filled and filling, some Twenty and more, that heads protruded from; And music, waving banners, cheering, noise. Forgot that day were private griefs and joys : 'Twas soldier torn from sweetheart, parent, chum; 'Twas One-out-of-the-many flesh become. Thus War fulfills, and not alone destroys. — The parting neared. It somewhat hushed the throng. One picture, given heed that moment, stays: Twain, face to face — aged father, stalwart son. "Take God along to France" in Norseman's tongue, I caught — and watched their mutual farewell gaze, Intent and lingering. . . . The train was gone. [145] OUTBOUND Democracy I At gaze I stand — backward the endless miles: Mediterranean splintered capes and isles Aryanized at length, Lo, Man beginning to put forth his strength On land, and flaking with first sails the sea ! Lo, up and down great battle-fields, commanders, Sowing their mandates among soldiery, — The legions whence great Caesar harvested Empires ; the cohorts which were Alexander 'b, Crisscrossing Asia with unwearied tread ! Then loosed upon the South the whelming hordes, — Out of the Gothic wilds wave upon wave In white and terrible surf uphurled Against a dykeless world ! And fallow centuries lingered through with patience, Until the welter Zionward of nations. With onset of resistless swords, — Occident against Orient — for a Grave ! [146] DEMOCRACY Then — the Great Quickening! Man's mind, an Aetna, active once again! Twin Americas plucked out of the seas By the dreaming Genoese! Like the multi-myriad progeny of Spring, New universes out of spatial vastnesses, — The olden universe withdrawn: And curtain of the Temple rent in twain For the instreaming Dawn ! Anon, Science, big-limbed, unkempt, — The serpent-strangling Babe sublime ! Anon, the Dream the prescient ages dreamt, Being bodied forth at last, — Democracy ! . . . out of the frustrate Past, Out of its unachievement and attempt. In the fulness born of Time ! . . . II Wherefore to sing hath none essayed The Wonder and the Terror that is she — Climactic-born Democracy ? Is it that being afraid Makes dumb the bardling tribe. Or is their silence mockery and a gibe? — What whisper heard I breathed from some- where : ' ' Hers, [147] OUTBOUND The blame of irremediable curse ! Through her, lo, million-funneled Industry, That smoke-bedims the skies With reek of Erebus, belched forth amain. And fouls with offal river, hill, and plain ! 'Tis she hath tutored Man to mammonize — His brain to scheme, but not his heart to feel; She webbed the globe with steel; Made clang and grinding, hiss and shriek, For cleanly hamlet, city stench and reek. The factory, for toil in fields abloom And woman singing at the loom. . . . Distinction, artistry — of what account? Bulk's paramount! An Age of Everything-en-masse begun! All things, all men — chaotically one ! Beauty is dead. Soul at an end: Let us strew ashes on our heads, our garments rend!" . . . Ill Dolts! were it good, then, to bring peace on earth ? Nay, still the sword ! Of toiling were it good to make surcease ? Nay, verily the increase, [148] DEMOCRACY With sweat and knotted cord, Like travail waxing until stanched by birth ! With wrath be they gazed back upon, Sabbatic, dawdling centuries agone, — The planet trundled day and night through space, And yet so little done To build a marriage bower and spirit dwelling- place ! Now that the builder's labor doth begin Mid the timbers lying prone, And not yet the corner stone, Plain we that still no door is garlanded For the bridal entering in? Are we vexed and sore bested That digged foundation raiseth dust o'erhead? That mauling of the cedar maketh din? For the slag and excrement Wherewith each new-oped shaft must needs be foul, Were't better that the Mount had not been rent And pierced even to the wealth it doth em- bowel — The iron, the marble, the gold. Whereof Jehovah's house — [149] OUTBOUND But kept intact for pasture as of old, And yielding goats a little shrubby browse? IV A half-score yester decades back, What was the world? . . . To-day, what is it not? . . . To-day, smoking with thaw, and harrowed black For sowers, — tilth wherever the globe's curve is. Uncouth yet vernal, vastly taking shape ; Where yesterday — perchance, a garden plot. Sporadic culture of the grape. Showing but lag, eleventh-hour, vineyard service. And whence the Change, heartening so the blood Of rapt historic onlooker abroad ? Whence everywhere Herculean emprise On land and sea, in skies ? Out of Democracy sprang not and grew This world-wide derring-do? . . . Why else the great material challenge flung. Whereat the new-age chivalry upsprung? East, West, and South, and North, How battailous have been its goings-forth, And hardihood in fight ! Nor only wildernesses made to yield, Or trade enhanced in mart and crops afield, [150] DEMOCRACY But Woman roused and strenuous in zeal For selfhood's due, the Child's law-fended weal, — Attest not these Democracy aright? What Power but this hath sceptered knouted Man- Worm in the dust, heel-trod, since Time began, — Ay, makes even thrall in the dust Lord of himself by influence august ! . . . Him— ridden one made Rider, hath she taught With dauntlessness of will to rein and curb; She lessoned him in chariotr}^ superb Until hiuLself he shies at naught ; And therefore hath it come to be, Amongst the Forces 'neath his mastery, One swift, a swifter yet doth supersede. Foaled of the tameless w^elkin for his steed; Which, too, while aeons gather and disperse. To others must needs yield, till Man, perchance. Become choregus of the stars in dance. For a little change of glee, Will vault upon the saddled universe, And ride the pampas of eternity. Who knoweth whereof potent he? Whereof fain his spirit feels? The centuries are pools splashed by his chariot wheels. . . . [151] OUTBOUND V Like looming mountain height, Uprist to peer beyond horizon bourne For the coming forth of Morn, So the consciousness of Man this hour is white With summit splendor. Now he knows elate Himself the victor duelist with Fate, Job of the terrene ash-heap though he seemed. It suddenly befell he wist Himself protagonist, This cosmic Dreamer who on earth hath dreamed. Blind player led unto the organ keys, Or groping for harp strings, And yet by Spirit wielding over Things Omnific potencies ! And hence his Faith therefrom. Though yet appear not what he shall become. That nothing — neither Matter's empery. Nor sovereignties and kingdoms of the world. Nor Time, nor Change, nor Death, nor Destiny, Nor the universe itself against him hurled. Can separate And plunge him from his soulhood's high estate. Even Europe's writhings veto not his creed, In the wake of War — like Juggernaut 's of Ind, Nor the million-throated Need [152] DEMOCRACY Now rife on earth like wailings of the wind. He knows the racial pain must come to naught — Be utterly at end, When a little more he shall have wrought After his heart's desire with zest impassioned. For he hath schooled himself to comprehend Achievement, nor shall pause till he can say, At gaze upon the world beneath his sway: ^'Lo, the Kingdom as in Heaven, my hands have fashioned ! " . . . November 1918. ri53] OUTBOUND Advent Unto every age, unto every clime, Sooner or later comes the sublime Messiah yearning: anear, afar, Heralding Birth in manger, the Star! Under the spell of that crescent hope, Tidal world-spirit leaps toward the cope ; And Man, appearing dormant, inert, Like mountain with cincture of vineyards begirt, Is all volcanic at soul. Albeit darkling, he gropes toward Goal, And knows every moment with meaning fraught ; Browsing and sleeping give way to thought; Mute-born lips are unsealed : "To Whom is the hand of the Lord revealed?" December 1918. [154] GESTANT Gestant Nine moons, and lo, the infant life unwombed ! Centuries of gestation, and lo, still Earth gestant with her unborn Good or 111 ! Yet whatso advent ages thus consumed, The New out of the Old shall come, Nor with outward observation, but uprist With a footfall spirit-whist, — The eponym of worlds to spring therefrom. The New out of the Old . . . and not one jot Or tittle of existence come to naught. Ere the mornward eyes of Greece, The timeless night of Egypt's dynasties; Ere Dante's dome of Thought, The feudal making brick with toil-won straw. To-day in dead millennia hath root : Thence do our sapling years the marrow draw From whence their flower and fruit. Yet Calvary, Parnassus, are not Goal, But mile-stones in the onward march of soul. To-morn the social order of to-day Into the oven may be cast straightway. January 1919. [155] OUTBOUND In Campo dei Fiori ''Awakener of sleeping minds," the role Given him to act in human things he styled — Giordano Bruno of impetuous soul. Volcanic as his natal soil, and wild As the unearthly beauty there enisled, He was ordained such mission as by Fate ; Yet mingled therewith something of the child, Even as Shelley, his true spirit mate, — Which childlike faith but made him the more great. He was of those who hail the world's rebirth As spring is hailed afar by prescient lark ; Who dance before rejuvenated earth As royal David danced before the ark, Restored to Zion, — all too glad to mark A window opened and his queen looked scorn: Nor heeded he what power above him dark Was lowering, but with eyes intent on morn Thrilled with the gladness of the world reborn. [156] IN CAMPO DEI FIORI An exile and a wanderer, he, with menace Of doom above him like a sun befogged Into a lurid red: at last 'twas Venice, No longer island queen, but harlot bogged With treachery, his winged feet enmeshed and clogged. As hawk eyes quarry, hankering to give chase, Rome long had eyed him and his footsteps dogged : Gloating she dungeoned him a seven-year space, Then burned him in her jubilee year of grace. "I go to carry the Divine in me To that Divine beyond ! " . . . Thus breathed his lips Their parting breath. world too blind to see What awful sunburst thou dost deem eclipse ! The seeming heresy that sinks its ship's Anchor, where thou canst only drift and toss, Till Truth's immovable bed-rock its grips; And martyr gaze, but the more luminous Because in death averted from the cross ! . . . Thou Ganymede of thine own eagle thought. Which bore thee up to conclave of the gods, — Not unto futile deities once wrought [ 157 ] OUTBOUND By ancient fancy: Jove no longer nods, Shaking the heavens with dread, nor is the sod's Dew-sheen the footprint of a goddess fair; Yet lifted above life that toils and plods, Through regions of unfathomable air, In a divine existence thou hast share. In more august assembly dost fulfill Some function worthy thy rich spirit dower: Great Galileo — Galileo still By virtue of the after- whisper's power; The elder Bacon, luminous as tower That takes with sudden gleam the midnight seas ; And cowled Savonarola, too, and our Own Milton, ay, and Attic Socrates — If cup-bearer thou be, it is to these. Promethean spirit, filching liquid fire, Not from one solar fountain source alone. But on the tameless wings of high desire Flitting 'twixt worlds as bee 'twixt flowers full- blown, To make their inmost flaming soul thine own, And so return with inward splendor crowned That the world 's darkness might be overthrown — Thou here transfixed, with suffering profound, Bound but to be f orevermore unbound ! . . . [ 158 ] THE TRAGIC MUSE The Tragic Muse Byron's ejaculations when the road Grew devious, where his fiery soul he spurred; The spirit cry from Shelley that a bird, Lone-soaring, in the highest heaven abode; The thunder of that tidal wave which flowed In upon Dante, so with Vision stirred; And Shakespeare's Fourfold Uttermost ... I heard, Wondering what more hath singer's gift be- stowed. I asked and lo, still Twain unto the soul — Like an eclipse, that overmasters skies. And makes all landscape other than it was! Those whispers out of Time's great hush of dole : King Oedipus with self-extinguished eyes . . . Friendless among his friends, the Man of Uz. . . . [159] OUTBOUND April 23 When Mary Arden crooned to her third-born, Making his rude crib rhythmic to her song, Or bent her o'er his slumber, gazing long, Came not some moment when the veil was torn In sunder, and the glory to be worn By him in manhood's fulness dazed her sight? Streamed not of a sudden in upon her night — As in upon another Mary — Morn? His natal day once more! ... Ye who would praise. Make pause before his Mother, head bowed low. And having entered in with feet unshod; Even in Religion's wise, who dare not raise Her voice unto the Highest, lest it grow Dumb before awfulness of too much God. [ 160 ] AND ALL THE OODS WERE GAZING ON THEM "And All the Gods Were Gazing on Them* Thrice around walls, his prowess hath kept whole ; Thrice before gates barred in the hour of doom : Behind, that Terror of lance and helmet plume, Wherefrom astrain like racer for the goal, His race with Death ! . . . What save his widow's dole. And her breast 's orphan, thus postpones the tomb With plying of swift knees by one than whom Never more strange to fear a warrior soul ! Him, hot in flight, the phantom brother stays. And heartens to the combating, — yet flown. The moment of accepted battle gage, And weapon hurled, his piteous backward gaze : And Hector, spearless, sees himself alone. In the dreadful flash-light of Pelides' rage. [ 161 ] OUTBOUND If If, nothing by me wrought, nothing attained, My face were touched into autumnal snow; If this quick heart with ramifying roots Of impulse, but uncrowned with flowers of deed, Froze; if from night as from a rich black loam No Rose of Dawn I've dreamed might come to blossom, Ere the morn's breezes moaned my threnody — Cold, cold would be the emerald covering; hard The bed with gravel bolster; evil dreams Would give the lie to Death's feigned dream- lessness ; The dark tomb would enclasp me, envying The one still-born, and calling to the hills To hide from the great Talent-Giver's eyes. [162] ILLUSION Illusion Ah, chide not dream ! . . . The wavelet soon, too soon. Unlearns to clutch at stars and knows with pain: The mightiest tide begotten of the moon But shakes a few foam-petals from the main. [163] OUTBOUND Winter Mist I SAID : ' ' Great artist, wondrous dreamer, Mist ! ' ' Watching its witchery of frost o'erhead On trees ; the wake, world-blanching, of its tread Spirit-like, as if stealing to a tryst In moonlight, amid shadows to be kissed ; — Adaze at Omnipresent White it shed Over all things out of the air, I said : ' ' Rapt fellow-artist, fellow-dreamer, list : I, too, by night in revery have wrought. As thou; but troubled am in mood to know All singing evanescent, since with dawn Evanished ... by englutting Time made naught. I learn : Mist, working what enchantment — lo ! Letting the aeons have their way, thou'rt gone." . . . [164] Notes "And All the Gods Were Gazing on Them"— p. 161. See Iliad, Book XXII. "At School"— p. 55. For the parable in bare out- line I am indebted to Felix Adler. "Behold This Dreamer Cometh" — p. 9. Freely adapted from the Swedish of Gustaf Froding. "Calamus"— p. 77. The title of this poem was bor- rowed from Leaves of Grass, where it heads a series of poems celebrating comradeship. "Condolence"— p. 75. Composed in memory of the late Richard Watson Gilder. "I Dreamed That Dream Was Quenched"— p. IG. First appeared in "The Lyric Year," a century of poems by various authors, published by Mitchell Ken- nerley, 1917. "Judgment"— p. 51. First published in the Century Magazine, May, 1911. "Kelp" — p. 136. Summering on the Pacific coast in 1916, I lived within sight and hearing of barges that ceaselessly, night and day, were harvesting kelp. By recent discovery Jielp had been made a source of potassium salts, used in the manufacture of certain explosives. Out of these circumstances came the theme of the poem. Its arraignment of America on account of our seeming indifference and lethargy at [165] NOTES the time in relation to the European crisis may be of historical interest, although fortunately our whole- hearted later participation in the war changed the situation. The poem first appeared, somewhat ab- breviated, in the "Forum" of New York, March, 1917. "Mothering"— p. 93. Written for the Twenty Fifth Reunion of the Class of '92, University of Minnesota. "Progress" — p. 96. Adapted from the prose of W. K. Clifford's Lectures and Essays. [166] LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 015 939 188 7