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 A QUEST FOR SONG
 
 Quest for Song 
 
 By 
 
 JOHN KENDRICK BANGS 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COM PANT 
 MDCCCCXf
 
 Copyright, 
 BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 
 
 All rights, reserved
 
 WRITTEN FOR AND DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR 
 TO 
 
 THE MEMBERS OF THE BOSTON CITY CLUB 
 
 IN COMMEMORATION OF THE OPENING AND DEDICATION 
 
 OF THEIR TEMPLE OF BROTHERHOOD, DEVOTED 
 
 TO CONFIDENCE AND CHEER, TO LOVE 
 
 AND HOPE AND FAITH IN MAN, 
 
 IN FORWARD PRESS TO MUTUAL RESPECT AND 
 
 HELPFULNESS.
 
 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 H ARGED with a sudden need for Song 
 
 I sought 
 The lofty heights whereon the Muses 
 
 dwell 
 
 In search of aid by which there might be wrought 
 A lyric worthy of my theme, to tell 
 In numbers fit, and in melodious strain, 
 In measures that should seem not wholly vain, 
 The story true the story, O so good! 
 Of roses grown in soil of Brotherhood. 
 I clambered up the steep Parnassian slope 
 To find the gracious Muse who sings of Hope, 
 And Love, and Confidence and goodly Cheer; 
 Who bids us face the future Void of fear, 
 And like the Sons of Godlike Builders gone 
 Lay claim to laurels equally our own. 
 From lower slope to towering height I sped, 
 Nor feared the thunders crashing overhead; 
 
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 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 Through floral meads, and forests deep I strayed ; 
 
 O er rocky crags I stumbled undismayed, 
 
 And came at last to the Olympian spot 
 
 Where dwell the Muses and I found them not ! 
 
 Not any sign of any Muse was there. 
 
 In Jovian halls, in garden-closes fair, 
 
 I sought and sought again, and vainly sought 
 
 Until by merest chance my hearing caught 
 
 A sound as of one weeping, and the flow 
 
 Of tears that dripped upon some pave of woe; 
 
 And in a grot hard by the Palace Gates, 
 
 Sport of Bellona and her Warrior Fates, 
 
 Bent neath the weight of sorrow vast, was she ! 
 
 My Muse of Love, and Cheer, and Sympathy, 
 
 A Monument of Grief, and dull Despair, 
 
 Her one-time smiling face enveiled in care, 
 
 Sate like a rigid cast, in stone or brass, 
 
 As from the immortal hand of Phideas. 
 
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 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 Shattered, her lyre was thrown aside, unstrung ; 
 A voiceless thing, as though for aye unsung 
 Must future numbers be : as if the earth 
 Could ne er resound again to strains of mirth, 
 To strains of Cheer, and Confidence, and Love, 
 And Hope, with all their joyous treasure-trove; 
 To silences eternal doomed. Her eye 
 Spoke helpless hopelessness ; and as the sky 
 In spring-tide freshness pours its gifts of rain 
 Upon the earth, so in torrential pain 
 Her tears flowed on and on, as endlessly 
 As had they tapped the sources of the sea. 
 I paused before her, hesitant to speak, 
 Resolved to urge no claim upon her woe, 
 Nor ask the aid I d thither gone to seek, 
 But silently repair to scenes below, 
 My quest all unfulfilled, and my intent 
 In face of her despair now wholly spent;
 
 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 When from her rigid pose she slowly turned 
 And fixed upon me eyes that fairly burned 
 With sorrow, and distress, and darkling fear. 
 
 "Why art thou here?" 
 
 She murmured, and her once strong voice was weak. 
 "I have a need forSong of Confidence and Cheer. 
 One of thy thrilling songs of Love and Hope," 
 
 Quoth I. "A trope 
 
 To sound responsive to the noblest theme 
 Of which a Poet true can fitly dream 
 Of Man s accomplishment in realms of good 
 A song, O Muse of mine, of Brotherhood ! " 
 "Prate ye of Brotherhood," she cried, "in days 
 When Man in bloody lust his Brother slays? 
 Call ye for Song when on black fields of war 
 
 The shotted cannon roar, 
 And God s rich handiwork in human grain 
 By hands all flecked with human blood is slain ? 
 
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 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 I cannot sing when neath yon clouds of hate 
 Man slays the things the centuries create, 
 And sends to ruin red in frenzied rage 
 
 His priceless heritage ! 
 
 No songs have I ! There lies my broken lyre ; 
 Quenched by the sanguinary flow my fire ; 
 Nor Cheer, nor Hope, nor Brotherhood remains 
 I n yon black fields where murderous carnage reigns. 
 Look thou beneath yon lowering cloud and see 
 The hideous brand of Cain s own infamy 
 The Hell-born offspring of a murderous hate 
 
 Wrong incarnate 
 And in the mask of Righteousness this Shame 
 
 Demands the world s acclaim ! " 
 "If that were all," quoth I, "O Muse of mine, 
 My heart, aye even as that lyre of thine, 
 Would broken be, and from a world gone mad 
 I d flee as from the Devil s accolade. 
 
 [ 3]
 
 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 If there were naught but War, and Death, and Woe, 
 And rivers reeking with the spumy flow 
 Of young veins tapped too early in the fray 
 Of some grim potentate s black lust for prey, 
 Then would I weep e en as thou weepest here ; 
 Then would I fear e en as thou knowest fear, 
 
 And mute 
 
 Forever more would rest both lyre and lute, 
 And ne er again would song 
 
 To earth belong. 
 But tis not all ! From out thy grim despond 
 
 Look thou beyond. 
 
 Follow the courses of the sun, my Muse, 
 Past yonder clouds that so thy soul confuse - 
 Thy glances speed across the crested main 
 The sea mankind has conquered not in vain 
 Until a long low line of silvery mist, 
 Backed by the gray of rock, and sands sun-kist, 
 
 [ 4]
 
 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 From out the emerald tide shall rise before 
 Thy vision, like the smiling, golden shore 
 Of some wave-girted Paradise, whose gates 
 God hath reopened for his children come 
 Back from a world of fiery feuds and hates 
 E en as the Prodigal returneth home, 
 
 To find an heritage 
 He shall not dissipate in frenzied rage, 
 Since rage is not within his heart, but Love, 
 And Brotherhood with all its treasure-trove. 
 
 Look thou ! " 
 
 I spoke commandingly. Meseemed now 
 To hold the balance poised all pregnant with 
 The fate of Man and all his kin and kith. 
 The Muse sighed deeply mid the deafening din 
 Of wild Bellona and her warrior Fates, 
 Mad with their lust for suffering and sin, 
 And laughing to the echo of their mates 
 
 [ 5]
 
 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 In Wrath and Wastefulness and Ruin dire, 
 Urged by the inward spur of blind desire. 
 "What seest thou ? " I cried. 
 
 "Forget thy pride 
 
 In ancient splendors and in truth confess 
 If aught thou seest takes from thy distress." 
 Her streaming eyes she lifted from the scene 
 Where hovered death with pestilential mien, 
 And westward gazed o er many leagues of space, 
 Nor any hint of Hope illumed her face, 
 As if within no real expectance lay 
 Of aught beyond to mitigate dismay. 
 So listlessly she gazed again I spake. 
 "What seest thou ? O Muse of mine, awake ! 
 This rigor of thy woe cast off and say, 
 Canst thou not see some light, tho far away 
 Still light, to point amid thy sufferings 
 The broad high-road to sweeter, fairer things 
 
 [16]
 
 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 Than have confronted thee upon the fields 
 Where Mars exacts his sanguinary yields ? " 
 She rose, and with her trembling hand held by 
 Her pallid brow to shade her straining eye 
 She gazed intently now, and seemed to find 
 Some solvent of the woe that vexed her mind, 
 And from its grim obsession some relief 
 To ease the direful pressure of her grief. 
 As if in answer to my half-breathed prayer 
 Myself I gazed and God had summoned there 
 The wonders of mirage that loomed high 
 And sweeping broadly filled the western sky. 
 A Temple fair to see, its lordly crest 
 Reared proudly in that prospect of the West, 
 And round about it in rich masses shone 
 The gorgeous colors of the smiling sun; 
 And o er its towering walls a lustrous flow 
 Of radiance, of pure celestial glow,
 
 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 Sped from the source of light itself and gave 
 Them of its flawless beauty. From the pave 
 To gleaming cornice shone that heavenly light, 
 No robe of burning Seraphim more white 
 A symbol true of unflecked Purity, 
 And Stateliness, and Grace, and Majesty. 
 She wanly murmured, "Yes it seemeth good! 
 WhatTempleis t?" "The Homeof Brotherhood, 
 O Muse," quoth I. "Those walls of gracious line 
 Hold fast within their pure embrace a shrine 
 Wherein on altars high a goodly clan, 
 Their inmost souls inspired with Faith in Man, 
 On Love, and Confidence, and Hope intent, 
 Each single soul on Helpful Effort bent, 
 Their sacrificial service pay, 
 
 By night, by day, 
 
 To Him who hath designed this world to be 
 Itself a Temple of pure Liberty. 
 
 [i 8]
 
 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 The gods of Selfishness, and pompous Pride, 
 
 Are set aside. 
 
 They seek the Good, the Right, the Just, the True, 
 And hold to Conscience in the deeds they do. 
 1 1 am! I know ! I ought ! I can I I will! 
 That is the motto of the clan. Where ill 
 Would sound its note intrusively the call 
 To action finds them standing, one and all, 
 Athwart her path, united in a mass 
 Of human steel no martial woe can pass." 
 "A race of gods ?" she cried. I answered then, 
 "Not so, dear Muse a new-born race of men ! " 
 "But whence whence have they come ?" cried she. 
 
 "Mortals they cannot be ! " 
 "Mortals," quoth I, "to human passions prey, 
 To human weaknesses all prone are they, 
 But since to sacrifice each soul s inclined 
 Ta en in the mass of somewhat godlike kind. 
 
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 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 Nurtured on toil ; tried in the fires of life ; 
 Tested by pain ; scarred by the shafts of strife ; 
 Proved by the stress of years in labor passed, 
 
 Cometh the new-born caste 
 Sons of the world, sons of the East and West, 
 The rich, the poor, the least, the mightiest. 
 Thou askest whence they come. Turn once again 
 To those dark fields of carnage and of pain. 
 In conflict there, spurred by titanic rage, 
 Thou seest warriors fierce, in youth, in age, 
 
 Of many diverse strains 
 
 Sons of the fertile plains 
 
 Of smiling France, of Languedoc, Auvergne, 
 Artois, Anjou, Gascogne, Navarre-et-Bearn 
 
 Alas, from all 
 
 The lovely Provinces of modern Gaul; 
 Sons of the Russian sweeps of Astrakhan; 
 Scions of Moscow, Kiev, and Ryazan; 
 
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 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 Children of Novgorod, of Poland sad 
 Bent to the warlike will of Petrograd. 
 There march the Two-Faced Eagles, martial sons 
 From valleys fair through which the Danube runs, 
 Bred to a Hapsburg service hearts of song 
 Turned from their singing unto deeds of wrong. 
 There in the vanguard of the fighting line, 
 In solid phalanx massed, sons of the Rhine, 
 Sons of the Vosges heights, of Weser s vales, 
 Sons of the Bodensee s soft nooks and dales, 
 Shoulder to shoulder march with Prussia s youth 
 
 In sad, sad truth 
 
 The flowering strain 
 
 Of haughty Allemagne. 
 
 And Britain s sons are there, and Belgium s men, 
 Placing false confidence in stroke of pen, 
 Despoiled, embroiled, in dreadful deeds of rue 
 Surpassing Carthage, Troy, or Waterloo 
 
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 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 All, all are blent in that most hideous blare 
 Of Carnage, Murder, Fratricide, Despair!" 
 "No need have I," she sighed, "to look again 
 Upon those dreadful scenes, so dark, so vain. 
 Too well I know what direful fate befell 
 To turn our well-loved Europe into Hell. 
 I asked thee not of them those errant sons 
 From Britain, Gaul, and Allemagne, and Russe, 
 Who ve let these hounds of black Bellona loose, 
 And like the herds of Attila, the Huns, 
 Now scar God s fields as with a fiery scourge, 
 And from their veins pour forth a tidal surge 
 That s like to turn the dark blue of the sea 
 Into a carmine pool of infamy! 
 
 Of them I ask thee naught 
 But whence, and how was wrought 
 And of what stuff this race of Supermen 
 Thou bringest to my ken, 
 
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 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 Whose hope in goodly service lies, and who 
 Have bent their Will to make that hoping true." 
 "Not Supermen," I made reply, "are they, 
 But mortal beings, wrought of mortal clay, 
 And I will whisper to thee whence they came: 
 From these afflicted lands all drenched in shame 
 
 Came they aye, one and all, 
 From Russia, Prussia, Britain and from Gaul! 
 The self-same racial loins that gat this crew 
 Of broiling fighters gat these others too!" 
 "But," cried the Muse, "how hath it come to be 
 These self-same sons of self-same ancestry 
 So different are that these are filled with hate 
 Whilst in these others souls joy reigns, elate? 
 How can it be that here in mad affray 
 They meet upon the battle-fields to slay, 
 Whilst there we see them in a forward press 
 To mutual respect and helpfulness 
 
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 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 Are they more wise?" 
 
 "Not so," quoth I. "But freer are the skies 
 Neath which they dwell. Mad jealousy, and hate, 
 The which doth leave the Nations desolate 
 To yield a woe the centuries to be 
 Cannot atone for to eternity, 
 They know not, since their call is not to fight 
 But in the name of Freedom to UNITE. 
 Their souls are not hemmed in by boundaries. 
 Their acreage is girted by the seas 
 The oceans vast, the eastern and the west; 
 A human tide between that seeks the best; 
 A stretch of continental width that thrills 
 With life all unconfined: rich fields, and hills, 
 And rivers, cities, yielding to their toil 
 
 Their noblest spoil: 
 
 And o er their heads the heavens own blue sea 
 Lit by the glorious fires of Liberty; 
 
 04]
 
 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 And for each one 
 
 His place, and space, where glows the radiant sun. 
 No dread is theirs that racial difference, 
 And growth too full, as causes of offense 
 Shall bring to ruin the well-garnered grain 
 Of years of toilsome effort and of pain. 
 Each knows that as HE grows so grows the State 
 To which his efforts best are dedicate, 
 And if he seek for power tis power to be 
 Himself the Master of his Destiny." 
 Scarce had I finished when the fair Muse sprang 
 Forth from her woe. Her lyre she seized, and sang 
 No song of idle joy, no lilting trope 
 
 Of Cheer and Hope, 
 
 But all the air 
 Waxed vibrant with an humble song of prayer.
 
 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 O God who in the Heavens high dost rule the Heart 
 
 of Man 
 
 Look Thou with favor in Thine eye upon this noble clan; 
 Confirm them in their Brotherhood ; encompass them 
 
 with might 
 When III would overbalance Good to battle for the 
 
 Right 
 
 To battle for the Right, Lord God, 
 To battle for the Right, 
 And from the dark of hatred stark to lead the blind 
 
 to Light ! 
 
 Gird Thou their loins with Righteousness, and hold 
 
 them to the True ; 
 
 And when the hosts of Evil press their evil deeds to do 
 Be Thou beside them in the fray to hold their spirits free 
 Of any fear or dread dismay of that which is to be 
 Of that which is to be, Lord God, 
 
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 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 Of that which is to be 
 Be it Thy Will that naught of ill shall hold the Victory. 
 
 Hold them forever to the Faith that welds them 
 
 each to each, 
 Lest it shall seem a spectral wraith beyond their 
 
 mortal reach ; 
 And give the Confidence we see that makes them One 
 
 today 
 
 The substance of Reality , an heritage for aye 
 An heritage for aye, Lord God, 
 An heritage for aye, 
 That all the aeons yet to be can never take away. 
 
 O keep them watchful of their Trust, that on each 
 
 passing morn 
 Out of Life s turmoil and its dust their Love may 
 
 rise new-born ;
 
 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 And grant their sacrifices, Lord, Thy generous increase 
 In allThygodliest reward of Hope and perfect Peace 
 
 Such Hope and perfect Peace , Lord God, 
 
 Such Hope and perfect Peace 
 
 That from the face of Earth all trace of Wars shall 
 ever cease. 
 
 Twas thus she sang, and as her swelling throat 
 
 Poured musically forth its mellow note 
 
 The woodland deep and all the hillsides there 
 
 Re-echoed to her prayer; 
 
 And from the towering height, and lowliest fen, 
 There burst upon mine ear a vast AMEN 
 Of such majestic, overwhelming, tone 
 Methought twas from the Hosts beside God s 
 
 throne ; 
 
 And this, by soft diminuendos, soon 
 Shrank to a distant croon, 
 
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 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 And faded into silence. All was still 
 And then, from every side; from dale and hill, 
 Blending of Angel s note, and tones of bird, 
 In one grand choral voice again I heard 
 
 My Country, tis of thee, 
 Sweet Land of Liberty , 
 
 Of thee I sing. 
 
 Land where my Fathers died, 
 Land of the Pilgrim s pride. 
 From every mountain-side 
 
 Let freedom ring. 
 
 Let music swell the breeze, 
 And sing from all the trees 
 
 Sweet Freedom s song. 
 Let mortal tongues awake ; 
 Let all that breathe partake ; 
 
 09]
 
 A QUEST FOR SONG 
 
 M r silence break, 
 The sound prolong. 
 
 Our Fathers God, to Thee, 
 Author of Liberty, 
 
 To Thee we sing. 
 Long may our Land be bright 
 With Freedom s holy light 
 Protect us by Thy might, 
 
 Great God, our King. 
 
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 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FAC LITY 
 
 A 000 407 621 2