FREEDOM, TRUTH AND BEAUTY

SONNETS BY EDWARD DOYLE

Author of Cagliostro, Moody Moments, the American Soldier, the Haunted
Temple and other poems; The Comet, a play of our times and Genevra, a
play of Mediaeval Florence.


    "He owns only his mental vision. But this is clear and broad of
    range--as broad, indeed, as that of Dante, Milton and Goethe,
    sweeping beyond the horizon of eschatology and mounting, like
    Francis Thompson's, even to the Throne of Grace itself when the
    theme demands reverential daring."

    --STANDARD AND TIMES, PHILADELPHIA.


  MANHATTAN AND BRONX ADVOCATE
  1712 Amsterdam Avenue, New York.

  THE SECOND REVISED EDITION



  _Copyright, 1921_
         BY
    EDWARD DOYLE




CONTENTS



                                                              PAGE NO.

  The Quality of Edward Doyle's Work, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox        7
  True Nationalism, by David Klein, Ph.D.                           9
  Genevra, Review In the Independent                               12
  Dedication to the Daughters of the American Revolution           13
  The Proem                                                        19
  The Atlantic                                                     20
  Human Freedom                                                    20
  The Stars                                                        21
  The Genesis of Freedom                                           21
  The Pilgrim Fathers                                              23
  Plymouth Rock                                                    23
  The Catholics in Maryland                                        24
  A Forest for the King's Hawks                                    24
  To Arms Shouts Freedom                                           25
  British Soldiery                                                 25
  Amphibious Barry                                                 26
  Freedom's Triumph                                                26
  Washington's Army and Barry's Navy                               27
  The Sunken Continent                                             27
  Elisha Brown                                                     28
  Evacuation Day                                                   28
  Manhatta                                                         29
  The Burning of Washington City by the British                    29
  The Land of the Great Spirit                                     30
  The Blight to Spring                                             30
  The Scorn of Human Rights                                        31
  Not This Our Country's Glory                                     31
  America's Glory No Fugitive                                      32
  Hate Thou Not Any Man                                            33
  The Celtic Soul Cry                                              34
  British Glory in Kipling's Boots                                 36
  To the English People                                            36
  Shakespeare                                                      37
  England's Righteousness                                          37
  The Massacre of the Welsh Miners                                 38
  A Dirty Work                                                     38
  Human Nature                                                     39
  Our Country--Soul and Character                                  39
  Juda and Erin                                                    41
  The Easter Rising in Ireland                                     41
  The Fight in Ireland                                             42
  To Erin                                                          42
  The Queen of Beauty                                              43
  Liberty the Light to Peace                                       43
  Why Play with Words, England                                     44
  Freedom's Wardens                                                44
  List to Demosthenes, If Not to Hearst                            45
  Caledonia                                                        45
  Canada                                                           47
  Dragon Incursions                                                51
  All Stars Merged in One                                          52
  Nemesis                                                          52
  Lincoln's Lightening in Wilson's Hands                           53
  The Cataclysm                                                    54
  An Epoch's Angel Fall                                            54
  The America of the Future                                        55
  The Inevitable                                                   56
  Reptiles with Wings                                              57
  The Outlaws in Our Country                                       58
  The Press                                                        59
  The Truth                                                        59
  Our Lord's Last Prayer                                           60
  Thought Is Truth's Echo                                          60
  Heaven                                                           61
  Humility                                                         61
  The Night of Mysteries                                           62
  What the Poets Show                                              62
  The Soul's Ascension                                             63
  Lyric Transport                                                  63
  The Sunrise                                                      64
  Two Darknesses                                                   64
  The Doom of Hate                                                 65
  The Evil in the World                                            65
  The Earth Renewed by Memory                                      66
  In the Dimple of Beauty's Cheek                                  66
  The Camp Fire                                                    67
  Mother                                                           67
  In Heaven No Heart Still Heaves                                  68
  Saint Peter's Cathedral in Rome                                  68
  My Bugler Boy                                                    69
  Kaiser, Beware                                                   69
  Woman in Germany                                                 70
  O Thou Pale Moon                                                 70
  The Tiger                                                        71
  To Our Boys "Over There"                                         71
  The Profiteers                                                   72
  Why the Stars Laugh                                              72
  Prayer for the World Peace                                       73
  Religion                                                         73
  The Golden Jubilee of Sisters of Charity                         74
  Winifred Holt, the Lifesaver of the Blind                        75
  A Choice                                                         75
  All Luminaires Have One Trend                                    76
  Life Takes Morning Hues with the Arts of Peace                   76
  U. S. Senator James A. O. Gorman and the Stalwarts               77
  Minister of Justice Palmer, A Bastile Builder                    77
  A Speck, But Not a Stain, Harvard                                78
  Supreme Court Justice Charles L. Guy                             78
  Rear Admiral Sims                                                79
  Saint George and the Dragon                                      79

[Illustration]



[Illustration]




THE QUALITY OF THE WORKS OF EDWARD DOYLE


The quality of Edward Doyle's work was appraised by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
in the following article by Mrs. Wilcox which appeared in the New York
Evening Journal and the San Francisco _Examiner_, in 1905:


Shut your eyes and bind them with a black cloth and try for one hour to
see how cheerful you can be. Then imagine yourself deprived for life of
the light of day.

Perhaps this experiment will make you less rebellious with your present
lot.

Then take the little book called "The Haunted Temple and Other Poems,"
by Edward Doyle, the blind poet of Harlem, and read and wonder and feel
ashamed of any mood of distrust of God and discontent with life you have
ever indulged.

Mr. Doyle has been blind for the last thirty-seven years; he has lived
a half century.

Therefore he still remembers the privilege of seeing God's world when
a lad, and this must augment rather than ameliorate his sorrow.

He who has never known the use of eyes cannot fully understand the
immensity of the loss of sight.

I hear people in possession of all their senses, and with many
blessings, bewail the fact that they were ever born.

They have missed some aim, failed of some cherished ambition, lost some
special joy or been defeated in some purpose.


A GREAT SOUL

And so they sit in spiritual darkness and curse life and doubt God. But
here is a great soul who has found his divine self in the darkness and
who sends out this wonderful song of joy and gratitude.

Read it, oh, ye weak repiners, and read it again and again. It is
beautiful in thought, perfect in expression and glorious with truth.


CHIME, DARK BELL


  My life is in deep darkness; still, I cry,
    With joy to my Creator, "It is well!"
    Were worlds my words, what firmaments would tell
  My transport at the consciousness that I
  Who was not, Am! To be--oh, that is why
    The awful convex dark in which I dwell
    Is tongued with joy, and chimes a temple bell.
  Antiphonally to the choirs on high!
  Chime cheerily, dark bell! for were no more
    Than consciousness my gift, this were to know
  The Giver Good--which sums up all the lore
    Eternity can possibly bestow.
  Chime! for thy metal is the molten ore
    Of the great stars, and marks no wreck below.


I know a gifted and brilliant man in New York who is full of charm and
wit in conversation, but the moment he touches a pen he becomes, as a
rule, a melancholy pessimist, crying out at the injustice of the world
and the uselessness of high endeavor in the field of art.

When urged to take a different mental attitude for the sake of the
reading world, which needs strong tonics of hope and courage, rather
than the slow poison of pessimism, however subtly sweet the brew, my
friend responds that "The song and dance of literature is not my special
gift." And he is obliged to "speak of the world as I find it."

He is an able-bodied man, in the prime of life, with splendid years
waiting on his threshold to lead him to any height he may wish to climb.
But to his mental vision, nothing is really "worth while."

What a rebuke this wonderful poem of Edward Doyle's should be to all
such men and women. What an inspiration it should be to every mortal who
reads it, to look within, and find the =Kingdom of God= as this blind
poet has found it.

Mr. Doyle was in St. Francis Xavier's College when his great affliction
fell upon him. He started a local paper, The Advocate, in Harlem
twenty-three years ago and has in the darkness of his physical vision
developed his poetical talent and given the world some great lines.


AN INSPIRATION

Here is a poem which throbs with the keen anguish which must have been
his guest through many silent hours of these thirty-seven years:


TO A CHILD READING


  My darling, spell the words out. You may creep
    Across the syllables on hands and knees,
    And stumble often, yet pass me with ease
  And reach the spring upon the summit steep.
  Oh, I could lay me down, dear child, and weep
    These charr'd orbs out, but that you then might cease
    Your upward effort, and with inquiries
  Stoop down and probe my heart too deep, too deep!
  I thirst for Knowledge. Oh, for an endless drink
    Your goblet leaks the whole way from the spring--
  No matter, to its rim a few drops cling,
  And these refresh me with the joy to think
    That you, my darling, have the morning's wing
  To cross the mountain at whose base I sink.


But Edward Doyle has not sunk "at the mountain's base." He is far up its
summit, and he will go higher. He has found God, and nothing can hinder
his flight. He is an inspiration to all struggling, toiling souls on
earth.

As I read his book, with its strong clarion cry of faith and joy and
courage, and ponder over the carefully finished thoughts and beautifully
polished lines, I feel ashamed of my own small achievements, and am
inspired to new efforts.

Glory and success to you, Edward Doyle.

                                                    ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.

[Illustration]




TRUE NATIONALISM

(_From the "Maccabaein", June, 1920._)


THE JEWS IN RUSSIA


  From town and village to a wood, stript bare,
  As they of their possessions, see them throng.
  Above them grows a cloud; it moves along,
  As flee they from the circling wolf pack's glare.
  Is it their Brocken-Shadow of despair,
  The looming of their life of cruel wrong
  For countless ages? No; their faith is strong
  In their Jehovah; that huge cloud is prayer.

  A flash of light, and black the despot lies.
  What thunder round the world! 'Tis transport's strain
  Proclaiming loud: "No righteous prayer is vain
  No God-imploring tears are lost; they rise
  Into a cloud, and in the sky remain
  Till they draw lightening from Jehovah's eyes."


The author of this superb little gem, like Homer, is blind; but, like
Homer, his mental vision is clear, and broad, and deep. President
Schurman, of Cornell University, commenting on Doyle once said: "It
is as true today as of yore that the genuine poet, even though blind,
is the Seer and Prophet of his generation." The poem here printed
illustrates the point. Did we not know that it was published some
fifteen years ago in a volume entitled "The Haunted Temple," we should
assume that it was written on the occasion of the fall of the Czar. In
fact, however, it merely foretells this event by some dozen years. And
how terribly applicable are the lines to the facts of today! The
prophecy is one capable of repeated fulfillment.

But it is as a prophet of nationalism that this man compels our
particular attention. The prophecy is embodied in a play entitled "The
Comet, a Play of Our Times," brought out as far back as 1908. The play
is a microcosm of American life. The chief character is a college
president, and he it is that is chosen to expound the true nature of
nationalism and to give voice and utterance to the principle of
self-determination. (Is it merely a coincidence that at that time
Woodrow Wilson was President of Princeton, or is it a case of poetic
vision. Wilson, be it remembered, was already a national figure, and
there were already glimmerings that he was destined to usher in a new
era in politics.) According to the protagonist, America is not "a
boiling cauldron in which the elements seethe, but never settle," but
rather a college where every class is taught to translate--

  "Into the common speech of daily life
  The country's loftiest ideals--"


and any body of citizens form a part of our republic only in so far--

  "As they contribute to its character
  As leader of the nations unto Right
  By thought or deed, in service for mankind."


We must lead the peoples of the world to freedom. And what is freedom?

  "'Tis intelligence
  Aloof from harm and hamper, grandly circling
  Its native sun-lit peaks, the highest hopes
  Heaved from the heart of man upon the earth,
  In ranges long as time and soul endure."


What, then, is America's duty to the oppressed race or the small nation?
It is to "wake and disabuse it of false hope"--

                        "and urge it on
  To the development of its own powers,
  The culmination of its own ideals,
  The star seed sown by God,--the only means
  By which a tribe can thrive to its perfection."


To make this possible, civilization must be given a more human content.
It is therefore necessary to awake human intelligence, "the godlike
genius," to a realization of the fact--

                    "--that, on having brought
  This world from out the chaos dark
  Of waters and of woody wilderness,
  And shaped it into hills of hope for man,
  Must providence its beautiful creation
  With altruistic love and tenderness;
  So that all tribes of man, what'er their hue,
  Have each a hill where it can touch the star
  That it has followed with its mental growth."


Such a program is rendered imperative by the inexorability of the law
of race, which nullifies any attempts to force assimilation:

  "It is a foolish, futile thing
  To try to shape society by codes,
  Vetoed by Nature. Nature trumpets forth
  No edict, through the instinct of a race,
  Proclaiming certain territory hers
  And warning all encroaching powers therefrom,
  Without the ordering out of her reserves
  To see to it the edict is enforced.
  Let politics keep off forbidden shores."


If any powers preserve in a policy of oppression, our duty is plain:

  "To teach the barbarous tribes throughout the globe,
  Christian or Turk, that all humanity
  Is territory sheltered by our flag;
  That butchery must cease throughout the world;
  That, having ended human slavery,
  Old glory has a mission from on high
  To stop the slaughter of the smiling babe,
  The pale, crazed mother, weak, defenseless sire,
  All places on the habitable globe."


Finally to render feasible the ideal development of all peoples, and
put an end to war, America must bring about a league of all nations.
It develops on us--

  "To get the races by degrees together
  To talk their grievance over, in a voice
  As gentle as a woman's....
  There is no education in the world
  Like human contact for mankind's advance;
  All differences, then, adjust themselves;
  But when two races are estranged by hate,
  They grow so deaf to one another's rights,
  That it soon comes to pass that either has
  To use the trumpet of artillery
  In order to be heard at all."


Recently, Doyle wrote the following lines. Their application is obvious:

  "Vault Godward, Poet. What though few may climb
  The mountain and the star on trail of thee?
  Thy wing-flash beams toward man, and if it be
  True inspiration--whether thought sublime,
  Or fervor for the truth, or liberty--
  Thy light will reach the earth in goodly time."


What wonder that from so lofty an outlook his searching eye should
pierce the tragedy of "The Jews in Russia"--or elsewhere--should pierce
even the revenges that Time would ring in, and rest on a vision of
righteous peace!

                                                      DAVID KLEIN, Ph.D.

_AUTHOR OF LITERARY CRITICISM, from the Elizabethian Dramatist._




GENEVRA

(_From the "Independent," May 30, 1912._)


The scene of Mr. Edward Doyle's new play is the Florence of 1400;
the atmosphere that of a plague stricken city in a time when man was
helpless, authorities hopeless, social life in shreds and patches. The
plot of the play founded on this state of affairs is rich in incident,
varied and sufficiently complex in color, passion and character to
furnish material for an exciting spectacular representation. The
tragic element is strong, but supported and shaded by the company of
roysterers, a jester, whose foolery is a compound of bluff of that
period and bluff of modern politics and athletics. The jester, the black
company and the penitents, together with the roysterers, form now the
foreground, now the background, of action, which in itself is never
without the dolorous sound of the death bell. The doomed city is under
a spell comparable to that set forth so vividly in Manzoni's "I Promessi
Sposi." Says the villain of the plot as he listens from his seat at the
festive board:

  "It bodes ill for the black Cowled company
  To make a visit to a festive house.
    'Tis like death looking in and whispering 'Next.'
  Fool, call the servants. Bid them fetch the wine--
    A cask of it--the best varnaccio!
  Here come my friends to help me drown the Plague."


Pictures like this as sharply defined are frequent and throw in shadowed
blackening on shadow. The author defends the use of a meteorological
phenomenon translated in the spirit of the time as supernatural by
quoting Dante as recognizing it, but the authority of Dante was not
necessary to justify the dramatist in introducing the "Crimson Cross."
It was a part of the pyrotechnics of the church propaganda. Though the
advance of scientific discovery has laid a heavy hand on thaumaturgy
of the sort, it would no doubt, have its use when properly handled
on a modern stage. The action of the drama is rapid and natural, the
characters well drawn and individualized, the dialogue spicy, forceful
and varied.

Price $1.00.

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




DEDICATION

TO THE DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION


I

  What lineage so noble as from Sires,
      Laureled by Freedom? For, who, but the brave
      Have glory to transmit? The Hero's grave
  Blooms ever. It is there the spring retires
  To dream to flowers, her heart and soul desires,
      When winter's whitening wind, like wash of wave,
      Sweeps mauseleums of the skulk and knave
  From mounts of glare off to Oblivion's mires.

  The bloom, for which mere wealth lacks length of arm,
      And fainting Time takes for reviving scent,
      Fame, with bright eyes from heart and soul content,
  Forms wreaths for Valor's Daughters--crowns that charm
  Not with death-smells from Human welfare rent
      But breath of Country's rescue from dire harm.


II

  Those crowns, not cold from death sweat on the brow,
      At sight of apparitions with fixed stare,
      But warm with summer, conjuring beauties rare--
  Wilt not. They are dewed daily by your vow,
  Daughters of sires who, to no thrall, would bow!
      Which, at the alter with raised hands, ye swear,
      Cheering the blessed spirits, gathered there,
  That, like their Mothers, are their daughters now.

  True women--and therefore, craft foilers clever--
      With sons for your hearts utterance, ye sue
      Not, but like Barry to the British crew,
  Ye cry out: "What! we strike our colors? Never!
  Fie, shot! fie, Gold! these colors, since they drew
      Their first star-breath, are God's, and God's forever."


  Ye know the Leopard changes not his spots.
      The Prince of Peace, who spake eternal truth,
      Confirmed this fact of Nature. He, with ruth
  Omniscient, saw afar, the scarlet clots
  Of English nature, in profidious plots
      For conquest, mangling not alone brave youth
      With teeth set, but old age without a tooth,
  And Mothers, clutching up their bleeding tots.

  Oh, yea, this beast makes his own desert, still;
      And Ireland, India and Egypt show
      His spots so spread, he is one ghastly glow;
  Aye, as your sires saw him from Bunker Hill.
  Oh, vain, gold rubs the skin and press shouts, "Lo!
      It has not now one spot of threatening ill."


IV

  O Daughters of the brave, well ye abjure
      The fiend and all his works. Ye know his smiles
      Are fire-fly flare at gloaming, lighting miles
  Of snake-boughed forests down to swamps, impure
  From mind and soul decay; hence are heart-sure
      That creed and racial hatreds are his wiles,
      For God is Love, and Love draws, reconsiles,
  And is the strength that makes our land endure.

  O Mothers, as you lift your babes and gaze
      Into their eyes, your love runs through their vains
      In crimson flushes--oh, your love that pains
  At any of God's creatures hurt! that stays;
  The heavens may pass away, but that remains,
      Being of Christ, who walks earth Mother-ways.


V

  Oh, like your sires, you, too, know Freedom's worth
      To Human Spirit. For its liberation,
      A God unrealmed himself by tribulation,
  And was an out-cast on a scornful earth.
  Christ is no myth and, since with Human birth
      He forms new Heavens for blissful habitation--
      There unto is the Freedom of the Nation;
  All other trend is down to dark and dearth.

  When from the darkness rainbowed birth comes pouring,
      Your virtue heeds the voice, Eternity--
      Re-echos: "Let them come." 'Tis Nature's plea
  For broadening progress; Nay, 'tis God imploring
  The Human to take strength for Liberty,
      Truth, Honor, to catch up to the stars, a-soaring.


VI

  O Daughters of brave sires, what is true glory?
    No marsh-ward falling star, however bright.
    'Tis inspirational; its upward flight
  Lifts generations--such your Father's story,
  And also yours, for is not that, too, gory?
    You pour out your hearts blood in sons to fight
    For honor, and cease not till every right
  Has been set down in Triumph's inventory.

  Oh, into daughters, too, old noble Mothers!
    You pour out your hearts blood that, in your place,
    They may fill up the ranks and, as in case
  Of Molly Pitcher, man guns for their brothers,
  And hearten firm, the trembling human race
    To know, though brave men fall, there still comes others.


VII

  If Christ's foreshadowing in Juda's haze
    Was of his grief, 'tis of His triumph, here,
    For, is not His celestrial glory clear
  In Freedom for all men? First, gaseous rays
  In Maryland, then rounded firm full blaze
    In the Republic, it draws every sphere
    Of Human welfare, whether far or near,
  From depths occult to nights with dawns and days.

  The Freedom of the Generation's longing
    Reflects Lord Christ in glory, hour by hour,
    With more distinctness, as you, with His power,
  Free heart and brain from every brother-wronging,
  And give your offspring, these, as flesh and dower,
    To live and lead the millions, hither thronging.


VIII

  Oh, ever Mothers--shaping robust youth
      No less than infant, and as perfectly!
      There's life blood to their veins from when on knee
  To when thy battle, from your broadening ruth
  For Human kind and fervent love of truth.
      If, like their fathers, they have come to be
      The wonder of the world, for liberty,
  Your virtue, 'tis, that in their valor greweth.

  Oh, as the Roman Mother, when she showed
      For jewels, her two sons, saw each of them
      In Time's Tiara, glittering there a gem;
  So, see your offspring shine. The light, bestowed
  Your Fathers, in your sons is diamond flame,
      Encircling Freedom's ocean-walled abode.


IX

  Is it Apocalyptic Vision, when
      White-winged Columbus swoops from Spain's palmed shore
      And, from dark depths, lifts at San Salvador,
  A continent, adrip with streams which, then,
  Become the fountain of the Psalmist's ken,
      Where Right the heart, from hoof to horn foam-hoar
      From craggy speed, slakes thirst, and, evermore,
  Comes Hope's whole clattering herd?--you chant, "Amen."

  Aye, for your sires made earth this new creation
      Where, from San Salvadore and Plymouth Reef
      To Westward Mission Trails, ascends belief
  In God and, therefore, in the Soul's Salvation
  Through Freedom, in white, spiral spray which grief
      Sees, spite earth-mists, or solar obscuration.




[Illustration]




SONNETS

FREEDOM, TRUTH AND BEAUTY




THE PROEM


  Soar thou aloft, though thou ascend alone,
      O Human Spirit! Thou canst not be lost.
      What though yon stars, the azure's nightly frost
  Melt dark, or mount round thee an arctic zone!
  Thou hast sun-warmth and star-source of thine own.
      If thou mount not, how bitter is the cost!
      What anguish, when whirled down, or tempest tossed,
  To know how high toward God thou mightst have flown!

  Vault Godward, Poet. What though few may climb
      The mountain and the star on trail of thee?
      Thy wing-flash beams toward Man, and, if it be
  True inspiration--whether thought sublime,
      Or fervor for the Truth, or Liberty--
  Thy light will reach the earth in goodly time.




THE ATLANTIC


  Forming the great Atlantic, see God take
      The mist from woe's white mountain, spring and stream,
      The breath of man in frost, the spiral lean
  From roof-cracked caves where, though the heart may break,
  The soul will not lie torpid, like the snake,--
      And battle smoke. On them He breathes with dream
      And, Lo! an Angel with a sword agleam
  'Twix the Old World and New for Justice's sake.

  What sea so broad, as that from Human weeping?
      Or Sun so flaming, as the Angel's sword
      Of Human and Devine Wills in accord?
  There, with sword-flash of myriad waves, joy-leaping,
      Shall loom forever, Freedom's watch and ward,
      With the New World in his Seraphic keeping.




HUMAN FREEDOM


  This is thy glory, Man, that thou art free.
      'Tis in thy freedom, thy resemblance lies
      To thy Creator. Nature, which, tide-wise,
  Is flood and ebb, bounds not sky flight for thee.
  Lo! as the sun arises from the sea,
      Startling all beauty God-ward, thou dost rise
      With mind to God in heaven, from finite ties,
  And there, in freedom, thou art great as He.

  Meeting thy God with mind, 'tis thine to choose,
      Wheather to follow him with love and soar,
      Or dream Him myth and, rather than adore,
  Plunge headlong into Nature's whirl and ooze.
  Thine is full freedom. Ah! could God do more
      To liken thee to Him, and love, infuse?




THE STARS


  God loves the stars; else why star-shape the dew
      For the unbreathing, shy, heart-hiding rose?
      And when earth darkens, and the North wind blows,
  Why into stars, flake every cloud's black brew?
  What fitter forms for longings high and true,
      Man's hopes, ideals, than bright orbs like those
      Asbine from Nature's dawn to Nature's close,
  In clusters, prisming every dazzling hue?

  Nor is the Sun with harvests in its heat,
      And that, sky-hidden, makes the moon at night,
      An earth-ward cascade for its leaps of light,
  More real, or a world force more complete,
  Than Faith and Hope, that brake through clouds with sight
      Of evil's foil and ultimate defeat.




THE GENESIS OF FREEDOM


I

  O Freedom! Born amid resplendent spheres,
      And, with God-like creative power, endowed,
      Hast thou, to human life's blue depths, not vowed
  A splendor, not alone like that which 'pears
  At present, where the upper asure clears,
      But that the Nebulae will yet unshroud?
      I hear thy far off cry where thou art lone,
  A John the Baptist: "Lo! one greater nears."

  What is this Greater--this which is to meet
      The planets and ascend high, high and higher?
      The right of human spirit to aspire
  And mount, unhampered--and by act, complete
      Creations harmony, as by desire,
      Proclaimed by brain with throb, by heart with beat.


II

  In thy descent through azures, all aglow
      With circling spheres, the beauty of each blaze,
      And grandeur, then, of all, entrance thy gaze.
  Thou thinkest, why not thus all life below?
  Perceiving, then that all the breezes blow
      Upward and onward, in the skyey maze,
      Thou wouldst go back and start with them, to raise
  A new creation from chaotic throe.

  Thou seest plainly that without that breeze,
      The breath of God, all that thou couldst create,
      Were lifeless, save to turn on thee with hate,
  And chase an age with grim atrocities;
      But with that breath, thou couldst raise life to mate
      The Planet's splendor, in the azures Peace.


III

  O Freedom! as thy sister spirit, Spring,
      Pausing above the earth, sees every hue
      Of her prismatic crown, reflected true
  In forests and in fields, and fledgling's wing,
  So thou dost see thy spirit glorying
      With faith, that man is more than Nature's spew--
      In human spirit that, from beauty drew
  First breath to know that soul is more than thing.

  O Freedom! fain we follow thee in flight
      From chaos to God's glory round and round,
      Aloft! how like an elk pursued by hound,
  To brinks thou springest toward the distant height
      And, on bent knees, then speedest without sound,
      Like Faith through Death, till, lo! thou dost alight.




THE PILGRIM FATHERS


  "Ye Wreaches, who would lay proud England's head
      Upon the block, and raise her features, then,
      Bloodless and ghastly, for the scorn of men!
  Begone forever. Go where terrors spread
  Their sea and forest mouths to crush you dead.
      Oh, how the clouds shall crimson from each glen,
      A roar with blaze, and flame search out each fen,
  If back to us, yea e'er are vomited."

  To this Parental blessing and God-speed,
      The Pilgrim Fathers gladly made reply:
      "These waves are Conscience's wings along the sky;
  They carry us to God, whose call we heed.
      The further from thy coast of hate and lie,
      The nearer God. On! On!--that is our creed."




PLYMOUTH ROCK


  O Sun and Stars! bear ye Earth's thanks to God;
      For Oh! what waters, slaking every thirst
      Of heart, mind, spirit, in long cascades burst
  From Plymouth Rock, when struck by Freedom's rod!
  No wanderer in the burning sand, unshod,
      Plods man with lolling tongue, dog-like, as erst;
      For lo! this fountain, deepening from the first,
  Floods Earth's old wells and greens Life's sand to sod.

  Oh, more those waters than the Font of Youth,
      For which, through field and swamp, the Spaniard ran!
      For they are clear with God's eternal truth
  Of fatherhood, hence brotherhood of man,
      And are no dream. They quench all human drouth
      And cleanse man's desert dust of sect and clan.




THE CATHOLICS IN MARYLAND


  Of Expeditions in the Arctic Past,
      All honor to the one that reached the pole
      And formed a settlement where every soul
  Enjoyed full freedom. There above the blast,
  How musical the bell, by Justice cast!
      It welcomed all to come. It ceased to toll
      After a while, but why? Those, welcomed, stole
  And dragged it where the ice formed thick and fast.

  Of Arctic Expeditions there is none
      So profitable to the human race
      As that toward Freedom's pole, and hence men face
  All storms to reach it. If they fail, the sun
      Has but one joy--to thaw out wrecks, and trace
      Man's progress where alone it can be done.




A FOREST FOR THE KING'S HAWKS


  Say, what is Ma-jest-y without externals?
      Is Burke's analysis not right--"A Jest"?
      Ah, but a jest, at which the poor, oft pressed
  To their last heart-drop, laugh not, like court journals.
  The King needs coin, and, where he sowed no kernels,
      Wants the whole forest for his hawks to nest
      And breed in, and became an annual pest;
  In this the farmers show that they discern ills.

  Hark! blares the tyrant's horn and, in a thrice,
      The Tories gather. Eagerly they band,
      For is the King not greater than the land?
  And rows with royalty, a rabble's vice?
      Besides, what creeping tribes at his command,
      And Spies and Hessians at a ferret's price!




TO ARMS SHOUTS FREEDOM


  To Arms! shouts Freedom to her sons. Behold!
      How, like Job's war-horse, they gulp down the ground
      To battle! What care they how foes surround?
  Oh, joy to Celts, nigh half the true and bold!
  There, with the roar of all their wrongs uprolled
      From ancient depths, they dash with billow-bound
      Up rock and summit, and through cave and mound,
  Spurning both Tyrants' steel and Treason's gold.

  No tide are they to ebb in heart and spirit.
      If dashed back, they return with all the force
      Of six dark sea's momentum on its course
  For vengeance on the vile, who disinherit
      The human-being--shut off every source
      Of happiness, or let but Serf's draw near it!




BRITISH SOLDIERY


  The wounded Sidney, who despite his thirst,
      Gave water to his comrade, shines, a lamp
      In the Cimerian dark of Britain's camp.
  Even the Raleigh, who so finely versed,
  Preferred to such a light, the flame accursed
      Of sword and torch, to please a royal vamp.
      Is British triumph in its world-wide tramp
  The Hell, still "lower than lowest"--Milton's worst?

  Lord Christ! is British soldiery the swine,
      In whose gross forms the fiends, exercised, flew?
      Oh! watch them through the ages, they pursue
  The noble and devour all things Divine.
  Look! they illustrate horrors, which prove true
      The Hell, which Milton's glimpse could not outline.




AMPHIBIOUS BARRY


  Look! Freedom glares and pallid as a ghost,
      Except for gashes on her brow and breast,
      And faint from hunger, sits awhile to rest.
  Amphibious Barry, bold on sea or coast,
  Mounts and spurs darkness to the Tory Host,
      And, like an Indian rider with head prest
      Down to his steed's hot neck in prowess test,
  Plucks from the ground, a prize he well may boast.

  Oh, as the sun's smile passing through the rain,
      Shines forth a double arch, so, Barry's deed,
      Refleshing Freedom's bones made gaunt by need,
  Shines through the Ages; aye, and shines forth twain--
      Both for America, from Britain Freed,
      And Erin, still choked black in Britain's chain!




FREEDOM'S TRIUMPH


  With France and Erin heartening Washington,
      Prone Freedom rose, with head above the cloud.
      Beholding her transfigured, Thrall is cowed.
  His minions are bewildered. How they run!
  Some follow him against the rising sun;
      Others plod north. The Torries' vaster crowd
      Hide in dark places, and like Satan, proud,
  They hate the glory, that the true have won.

  O Milton! Thou beheldest them. Thine ear
      Caught their defiance and thy lightening pen,
      In shattering the dark in evil's den,
  Caught hope amphibious from leer to leer
      Of those grim shadows, plotting to regain
      Lost Paradise, or bane its atmosphere.




WASHINGTON'S ARMY AND BARRY'S NAVY


  Who loosed our land from Britain's numbing hold?
      "They who had naught to loose," the Tories say;
      That is--not menials in the King's sure pay,
  Nor mongrels, chained to guard their master's gold.
  They were True Men. Their spirit, young and bold,
      With dreams played follow-master, climbing day
      From deepest night, to catch the Sun and stay
  His glory for the World, then whiteing cold.

  Though darkness be far vaster than the lamp,
      It is the beams that lead to progress, count.
      "To manhood, with the virtues to surmount
  Such darknesses as Valley Forge's camp,
      And seas, deep hell's sky-reaching, broadening fount,
      Honor!" The ages shout on Triumph's tramp.




THE SUNKEN CONTINENT


  When hurled from heaven, 'tis thought, the fiends of pride
      Caught Earth to brake their fall. The regions gave
      And sank with all the hosts beneath the wave!
  'Tis in those sunken regions which divide
  The new world of the resolute and brave,
      From the old world of king and abject slave,
      Where Torries, counterfeiting Satan, hide.

  Clinging, like lava, to a lifeless limb,
      They think the phosphorescence of the bark
      Is morning, which the long-belated lark
  Is hastening to welcome with his hymn;
      Else, they form poisons and breathe from the dark,
      Miasma mist to make the sun-rise dim.




ELISHA BROWN


  Old Guard of Boston! Halt; Right Face; Attention!
      Order One: quell the weeds in rankest riot
      Where lies Elisha Brown, in conscience, quiet.
  This Brown was John's precursor. Ye, on pension
  For ancient glory, now do duty. Mention
      Elisha's name for countersign--and why, it?
      Because with him, wrong, seen, was to defy it,
  And act, else, was beyond his comprehension.

  Against his home's invasion this man held
      A red-coat regiment for seventeen days,
      Which was a spark to help start freedom's blaze
  And, therefore, Order Two: the weeds all quelled,
  Stand sentries till a statue takes your place
      And throngs shout, "Bravo, Brown!" as 'tis unveiled!




EVACUATION DAY


  What is it that today we celebrate
      With school recital, banquet and parade
      Of our achievements, pageanting each trade?
  The ousting of the English--train and trait--
  And posting, then, sharp-eyed, eternal hate
      To watch with Josuah's son above his head,
      That night come not to help them re-invade,
  However wide, we swing our ocean gate.

  If not un-Englishing America in mind
      And heart forever, vain the shrieks
      Of Freedom, eagling back to dawn's first streaks.
  Oh, yea, the sun stands, and the night afar
      Holds Thrall, whose craft would swamp our noblest peaks
      And leave but bubbling mud show where they are!




MANHATTA


  Manhatta! Glory flings his arms round thee
      And proudly holds thee in his high caress.
      What charms him, Mother, is thy nobleness
  Of spirit. How his features beam to see
  Thy scorn dash in the bay the tyrant's tea,
      And hear thee call to Boston: "Do no less;
      Else on sunlight, heart, soul--all we possess--
  Will tyrant's next exact their deadly fee."

  In thee I glory. Can the world else boast
      A harbor, like thy heart, for every sail
      In flight from sea-toss, white with horror's gale,
  Or icebergs from despondence Polar coast?
      Oh, fleets whose throngs, glad Freedom well may hail;
      For, landing, they became her staunchest host.




THE BURNING OF WASHINGTON CITY BY THE BRITISH


  With what wild glee, the British set on fire
      Yon Capital, beholding in its flames,
      America, robed in her deeds and fames,
  In death throes at the stake of England's ire?
  Though that was long ago and, then no pyre,
      The stake still stands; 'tis Anglo-Saxon claims,
      And Arnolds, bearing infamy's last names,
  Tilt schools to raise the stake flames high and higher.

  Oh, sight to strike the coming ages dead,
      My country, were a cloud, thy mocking crown,
      And schools, ignited by Truth's lamps hurled down,
  To feed that cloud, like craters, inly red!
  What! mock with cloud, Thy land and sea renown
      And Washington, God's Holy Spirit--known
      By the unerring World Light, that it shed?




THE LAND OF THE GREAT SPIRIT


  Behold Ye Here the Happy Hunting Grounds,
      Where the Great Spirit, called Democracy,
      Sets every heart and soul forever free,
  An Equity, not royal grant, sets bounds.
  No Phaeton attempting Phoebus rounds
      And burning up earth's grass and forestry,
      Is lust for power; 'tis love for liberty,
  With bloom and birds for wheel-sparks, here resounds.

  It is the land of Spirit. "Ye who enter,
      Abandon first all fratricidal hate,"
      Proclaims the edict, blazoned o'er each gate.
  There see all tribes chase truth to joy--the center
  Convexing broad and broader, as more great
      Their numbers from where prejudice is mentor.




THE BLIGHT TO SPRING


  Hark, 'tis the sea! How leonine its roar!
      But, oh, how more the lion on a height,
      As there he glares and listens for the night,
  Having devoured day's clouds from shore to shore!
  Now grows his mane of billows, high and hoar.
      What scents he? Potencies escaping sight,
      Till, like the cold, they icily alight
  Upon a land where all was spring before.

  The sun darts under earth and east again,
      What sees he? First the lion at earth's brink
      With head down to the stream of stars to drink;
  And then, arising to his zenith ken,
  Sees that which makes his high, warm spirit sink--
      The blight to spring, blown here from England's fen.




THE SCORN OF HUMAN RIGHTS


  What is the blight to spring that kills the seed
      And raises spectres, so that stars cry "See!"
      Aghast at forests, white or shadowy?
  The scorn of human rights, that can but lead
  The world from doom to doom! and for what mead?
      A bronze for rain and rust, or effigy
      For nibbling minutes--ah, not hours!--these flee
  To life's progression--truth and kindly deed.

  Look! How this scorn holds freemen in the dark,
      Except for a flare at will that, then, the throng,
      Reduced to dust, may rise and whirl along
  The lift and drop of glitter, without spark
  To set the spring a-crackling with bird song,
      Till bud and angel both come out to hark!




NOT THIS OUR COUNTRY'S GLORY


  O Country of the Sun's warm plenteous hand
      To every germ of virtue, how below
      Thy progress, mope Gold Mongers to and fro,
  Who think they're vaulting from sunlight so grand,
  It forms thy chiefest glory. Closely scanned,
      They are gross worms, each with the thought to grow
      "The Conqueror," as staged by Edgar Poe
  For darking planets and a world, Last Manned.

  Those worms that, moving, think they move the earth,
      Or, under Growth's equestrian statue, think
      They hold the horse and hero from the brink,
  Are pitifully not a glance's worth,
  As of thy glory; they but foul the chink,
      If not of thee in warming Good to birth.




AMERICA'S GLORY NO FUGITIVE


I

  How weird a whisper! 'tis from Wallabout.
      'Tis glory hoarse with calling: "Raise those hulks
      Where writhe my faithful." See! the tory skulks
  Behind the sun who, stooping to fill out
  Their throats with his god-breath, to swell the shout
      Of a free people, finds the brave in bulks,
      Strewn and held fast where Darkness, beaten, sulks
  That thrall has been forever put to rout.

  Those mangled thousands are not dead; they live,
      Refashioned men by freedom. Is the tory
      Behind the sun, to mock me, who am Glory,
  Being the lifted life those martyrs give?
  He creeps beneath the sun and, ghastly gory,
      Crys out: "Thou yet shall be the fugitive".


II

  Oh, weirder grows the whisper into word,
      As sharp as lightening, and as broad of reach,
      As seas, flung down by God to every beach
  Where thirsts a sparrow, or a bleating herd!
  There is no soul through out the land, not stirred;
      For, oh, to glory God gives his own speech
      When darkness, raised by Gold, declares that each,
  Hulk-held, is good but for the wolf and bird.

  Is Gold grown conscious, now the Country's King
      That, at his beck, the blood for Freedom spilt
      Shall be accursed, and I, then, for the guilt
  Of dropping not with thud, as he with ring
  At Darkness' feet, be shut in mud and silt
      Forever and with stars, cease, beaconing?


III

  Oh, as the earth in discord and in dark,
      When struck by Love on high with will for mace,
      Keeps rattling till each mote finds its true place,
  And mountain, fledged with groves, vies with the lark
  To reach the sunrise; so the madness stark
      Of gold, dethroning blood as God's best grace,
      When struck by Glory's voice drops Nadir-base,
  And blood for Freedom spilt, forms heaven's blue arc.

  The shouts of millions shake Oblivion's mire
      And raise Thrall's Hulks. Look! Justice's stooping sun,
      Seeing in agony's each, a Washington,
  Breaths life in them, and, over Brooklyn's spire
  And New York's Babel Tower, they, one by one,
      Hold Liberty's broading Torch of quenchless fire.




HATE THOU NOT ANY MAN


  Hate thou not any man, for at the worst,
      He still is brother. Will a glance not find
      Whole peoples alchemied from heart and mind
  To steal projectiles by a craft, accursed
  By Human Nature? Aye, for, as they burst
      At dusk, or midnight, slamming Heaven behind
      And crashing Hell wide open, 'tis mankind
  Is shattered and quick-gulping grave slake thirst.

  Hate thou no man, but scorn all crafts, that smelt
      The heart and mind for huge projectiles, shattered
      When bursting grandly that some pride be flattered.
  Nature beholds not Saxon, Slav, nor Celt;
  She only sees the Human fragments scattered,
      And, covering them, her eyes to rivers melt.




THE CELTIC SOUL CRY


I

  O Freedom! Have I ever been untrue?
      When, to thy moan of hunger anywhere,
      Have I been deaf? Was I not quick to share
  My little, nay, give all! for oh! I knew
  Thy beauty, and my love such passion grew
      At thy distresses,--What would I not dare!
      So, though the bellow, like a grizzly bear,
  Reared up before me, on to thee I flew.

  O Freedom! Is thy beauty without heart,
      Or sense of justice? Unto whom art thou
      Indebted for thine arm, encircling now
  The world, sun-like, more than to me? My part
  I glory in, for I have kept my vow.
      I hold thee now to thine, if true thou art.


II

  Speak Freedom! When a haggard fugitive,
      Thy dwelling was a swamp, who first to trace
      Thy crimson footprints to thy hiding place?
  With signs thou hadst not many days to live,
  I found thee. Had the sun more heart to give
      To warm thee, than I gave? Ah, then and there
      Thy heart said to my heart; "Ill would I fare
  Without thee. I give love for love, believe".

  Thy silence, when in glory, troubles me.
      Oh! warm blood dashed back cold, chills to the bone!
      What do I ask for? Only Erin's own,
  That which God gave her, and, if true it be,
  Thou art the minister of justice grown,
      Thy gratitude should thunder God's decree.


III

  What! Why bemoan one island in the sea,
      When I can range like mountains, or, the sun,
      Above all clouds, and, rosy from my run
  To God, like morn, chant praise, since flesh of thee?
  Oh, yea, my pride and transport, verily,
      Is, thou and I eternally are one;
      And this god-passion which no power can stun,
  I owe to her, who gave her soul to me.

  Oh, when I see her golden hair, adrift
      On sorrow's sea, like weeds rent from their reef,
      And know she breathes with her sublime belief,
  It crazes me that thou, when thou mightst lift
  Her saintly features, and dry them of grief,
      Wads't not, but waitest for the tide to shift.


IV

  America! 'Tis not thy mines of gold,
      Nor streams from mounts to meadows, like God's hand
      From out the heavens, a-flash across the land
  In long, deep sweeps to quicken winter's mould
  To reaps of ripeness,--that mine eyes behold,
      Invoking thee; for these are mere shore-sand
      To the broad ocean of thy spirit grand,
  Forming for man a new world for the old.

  'Tis Liberty, to whose most blessed birth
      The stars all lead, rejoicing, which souls thee
      With God's compassion for humanity,--
  That I invoke; and, now, when all the earth
  Bears palms and chants hosannas--what! shall she,
      The most devout, be shut from Freedom's mirth?




BRITISH GLORY IN KIPLING'S "BOOTS"


  All English glory is in "Kipling's Boots."
      O English People! read that poem true,
      And answer,--are those maddening men not you?
  Oh, not yea few, who gather all the loots,
  But yea vast legions, lured to be recruits
      To march, march, march and march with naught in view
      But boots, boots, boots with blood and mud soaked through,--
  And, after ages, with out rest, or fruits!

  "Boots, boots, boots, and no discharge from war,"--
      That is the Empire's anthem. Brass it out,
      Ye Orchestras! But oh, leave not in doubt
  Its import, Kipling,--that 'tis maelstrom roar--
  'Tis England's streams of home-life, world about
      And down a gulf, for Greed and Pride on shore!




TO THE ENGLISH PEOPLE


  If deaf to Shelley's loudest sky-lark strain,
      His rage at tyrants, and to Byron's thong,
      Nerve-proof, how wake the English to the wrong
  Done their true selves, no less than to the slain,
  When willing weapons for Ambition's gain?
      Aye, weapons only; for, to whom belong
      The minds of England, and treed fields of song--
  Nay, all but grave-ground, grudged by hill and plain?

  O English People, whom the crafty class
      Has huddled into graves from sight and sound
      Of what God hands you, and, with pence, or pound,
  Lids down your wild dead stare,--wake! why so crass?
  See in the Celts spring-burst from underground,
      The Human Resurrection come to pass.




SHAKESPEARE


  Oh, what are England's lines of lords and kings,
      Shakespeare, to thine, a-throb with thought and feeling?
      In thine, imagination shines, revealing
  The soul's convictions, swift on dawn-ward wings
  From beastly life and such Hell-smelling things,
      As wealth and pomp from church and abbey stealing,--
      And hearts in hopes high Belfries, Heavenward pealing,
  As Time, his Sun and Starry censor, swings.

  Would thou wert England's Nature, Bard Supreme,
      To fashion kings and lordlings fit to rule;
      They would be flesh and blood, not fiend and ghoul;
  And would thou wert her Sun, that every beam
  Might not, for tally, show a youth's blood-pool,
      Choking blithe Spring, as, now, to earth's extreme.




ENGLAND'S RIGHTEOUSNESS


  The righteousness of England! "Tis to kneel
      Full weight on weaker nations, and entone
      Hosannas louder than the victims groan;
  Then, stooping, drink their blood with gulps of zeal."
  What right have wounds, though wide, to throb, or feel?
      'Tis blasphemy to England's crimson throne.
      Knee-deep in Erin's blood, she mocks Christ's moan:
  Forgive them, Lord! they know not their true weal.

  "Whose is the fault? Tis not my arrogance,
      But candor, Lord, that puts the blame on Thee.
      What right hadst Thou to make these people free
  And let all nature prompt them to advance?--
  Oh, no such blunder, Lord, hadst Thou called me,
      Instead of Wisdom, to approve Thy plans!"




THE MASSACRE OF THE WELSH MINERS


  The Bard's curse: "Ruin seize thee Ruthless King,"
      Took bat-like form for hollow echo-flight.
      Though stoned and lanced at, when, at fall of night,
  It darted forth with ghastly--spreading wing,
  It found in fresh, wide, royal ravishing,
      New hollows, dark with horror and sad plight,
      To dash in and live on. Oh, to my sight,
  How grows its grimness, while eternaling!

  Deep are the minds of Wales, but far more deep
      The horror, gulfed out by McCreedy, firing
      On men defenseless and, through want, expiring.
  Oh, from that gulf the Bard's curse makes a sweep
  Up to the Sun and, from its long desiring,
      Grown eagle, shrieks to heaven from steep to step!




A DIRTY WORK


  "A dirty work," said Dyer, rebuked for spilling
      Hundreds of lives to irrigate new lands.
      A dirty work, but not for British hands,
  Dabbling in blood to earn each day their shilling.
  Hark! Mohawk Valley and Wyoming, chilling
      With thought of Tarleton's King-serving bands,
      And Canada red-clayed, though high snow stands,
  Cry: Work for which the British are too willing!

  Invaded lands need terror irrigation
      To make them fruitful. Better flood the field,
      Then let the native bloom become the yield;
  And, so, this Dyer submerged a small whole nation
  With crimson death, that England might, deep-keeled,
      Have for display, new seas of desolation.




HUMAN NATURE


  The ocean, holding pure the azure's blue,
      Laughs at the tempests, with one empire's dust
      After an other, to round out Earth's crust.
  Ah, so does Human Nature hold the hue
  It takes from heaven, its conscience, and laughs, too,
      At madness, wrecking life and with its gust
      Forming new islands, where Pride, Greed, or Lust,
  Welcomes the crater's glare, in sun-light's lieu.

  Look in the sea and deep, what scattered rock,
      The islands which at dusk, the tempest piled!
      Ere rose a star, they sank with crews, beguiled.
  O Tempests that with world formations, mock
  The good Creator, how, as ye grow wild,
      Earth quakes and no live thing survives the shock.




OUR COUNTRY--SOUL AND CHARACTER


I

  Our country is not rock and wood and stream,
      But soul transfusing them. What is the soul?
      The substance, born of God, above control
  And, when one, with God's love, called "Will," supreme;
  And Freedom is the soul in thought, and dream
      That Nature's beauty and harmonious whole--
      God's foot-steps--followed, life attains its Goal;
  And soul is purpose to achieve God's scheme.

  The soul, then,--our true country,--is the brave
      Who fought and bled for Freedom, or will fight
      To their last pulse, last breath, for Human Right.----
  Great soul! oh, how like bubbles in the wave,
  Are the Sierras in cerulean flight,
      To thy true grandeur, letting nought enslave!


II

  O thou art Character--art only those
      Who formed the good and great by thought, or deed.
      All others are not worth a moment's heed,--
  Mere prairie dogs, who raise gold hills in rows--
  When gazing at thy glory; for that grows
      With Freedom from all foul untruths; with lead
      In art for weal; with science for all woes;
  With hate of thrall and help for all unfreed.

  No mere foot-shadow, on time's wall, art thou,
      Without eye-sparkle, swing of arm, warm flow
      From heart to vain, and cheeks with health of glow.
  Oh, 'tis eternal heights reflect thy brow
  And shoulders, that avert man's overthrow,
      Threatened all times, and never more than now.


III

  Oh, what if lone and long thy lofty flight,
      My country? Is thy vision not as clear
      As that of Vesper, dauntless pioneer
  On Twilight's altitude? As from that height,
  He sees plain through the thick black walls of night,
      The stars all massing; so dost thou, his peer,
      Behold all peoples gathering, year by year,
  To scale the clouds to thy White Range of Right.

  How thy lone loftness, aloof from wrong,
      Refracting man-ward, God's enrapturing smile
      Of fruitful fields, leads legions! On they file
  And phalanx, and the vision makes thee strong:
  What, though God's searchlight flares the sky the while?
      It nears not thee, ear-close to heaven's high song.




JUDAH AND ERIN


  From out a desert where the trails run red,
      Judah and Erin speed their camel pace,
      Sighting green palms. The flush on either face
  Is from the fissure where each wedged her head
  From sandstorms, that hurled heavens down, as they sped;
      It is no blush for thought, or conduct, base
      To the high trust to bring the Human Race,
  Truths, without which Time's offspring are born dead.

  In spirit, they are sisters; for, beyond
      The desert, where the vision, like a dove,
      Soars round the palace of Almighty Love,
  God hails them as "My Daughters, true and fond,
  Who show man, through Noon blaze, my star above,
      And to my will, fail never to respond."




THE EASTER RISING IN IRELAND


  Who, in descent from Heaven's ecstatic throng,
      Was twin to light, and ranged from source to sea,
      And shore to peak, and God, drew up to thee
  The generations happy, pure and strong?
  Freedom, as Erin's was, ere ruthless wrong
      Caught, scourged and hanged it on the out-law's tree;
      And is; for lo! it proves Divinity,
  Transfiguring from anguish, ages long.

  True, they have strangled Freedom on the cross
      Of every Right's suppression--nay, have barred
      His body's tomb, and placed a host on guard!
  Still, He is risen; His faithful mourn no loss.
  He shines forth in their midst. No bolts retard
      His entrance, where grand aims for life engross.




THE FIGHT IN IRELAND


  The fight in Ireland is 'twixt Man and Brute.
      A lion with the sea-surge for his mane,
      Is there hurled back by Man with proud disdain,
  Although heart-drained with gash from head to foot.
  Oh, in that Eden of Forbidden Fruit,
      How Satan, searching for a snake in vain,
      Fumed forth a monster from his heart and brain--
  The Lion--as the serpent's substitute!

  Oh, all ye peoples of the World draw nigh!
      Stand on the bodies of eight centuries,
      Struck dead with horror; for, raised thus, one sees
  In Erin, torn, a soul that cannot die,
  And that its struggle is Humanity's
      Against the fiend, who would give God the lie.




TO ERIN


  How help take pride in thee, whose golden hair
      Of culture trailed the earth for centuries;
      Whose throne was freedom and whose realm was peace;
  And, in strange lands, whose joy and only care
  Were to spread light, and who, not anywhere
      Thy charm made headway, planting liberties,
      Didst, then, by stealthy step, or creep on knees,
  Sow with the lilies, faster-growing tare!

  How help love thee, whose hand, raised to the sun,
      Glows rosy, and not red with murder's stain?
      The angels kiss it. Force can forge no chain
  To drag thee false-ward. Like a holy Nun,
  Stigmated, how thy faith grows with thy pain--
      Aye, till thy Cross, like Constantine's has won.




THE QUEEN OF BEAUTY


  In rapt, roused Erin, who does not behold
      A Venus, rising from the sea of tears,
      Up to her native, Earth-illuming spheres?
  Her hair, long matted, is a flow of gold
  Which even the Sun might wear and feel not cold;
      And, oh, her heavenly smile at doubts and fears,
      As when she, at all depths, raised to her ears,
  Shells of her Glory, murmuring, "Be bold!"

  Lo! where the green and orange morn unfurls,
      See Erin rise. How shine her golden tresses!
      They form her crown, for trailing rocks down whirls,
  And reaching all the under-sea recesses,
  They draw about her brow, the rarest pearls--
      Love for what frees and hate for what oppresses!




LIBERTY, THE LIGHT TO PEACE


  All hail to those who, through the stormy night,
      Make Liberty the light on Erin's coast;
      Who, ceaseless, send up sparks; who hold their post
  On each and every ledge of Human Right,
  Forming a beacon blaze from base to height
      Where Erin's hope may steer and land its host.
      Look, Human Nature! Where else canst thou boast
  To the eternal stars, so grand a sight?

  Look! How men there ennoble human kind
      By making Liberty the light to Peace!
      All other lights are false. Oh! who but sees
  In the unconquerable Celtic mind
  That, even in Time, there are Eternities--
      Love, true to Right, and Will no wrong can bind!




WHY PLAY WITH WORDS, ENGLAND?


  Why play with words? There never can be peace
      Till Ireland is set free. One might as well
      Expect the great Arch-angel rest in Hell
  And genuflect to Satan's blasphemies,
  As Erin's spirit that, for centuries,
      Has been aloft with God in virtue, sell,
      Like Esaw, her birthright, and not rebel,
  But to her home's invaders, bend her knees.

  Her spirit is no norbury Banshee--
      To wail and, then, to vanish. She will stand
      With lifted flambeau, lighted by the hand
  That lights the stars, till she again is free,
  Inspiring normal man in every land
      With love of Freedom, by her scorn of thee.




FREEDOM'S WARDENS


  Look! British fury that, barraging, lights
      Up Irish skies, like pathways down to hell,
      Doubles its fire to reach our land as well,
  Where Freedom's Wardens cry from justice' heights:
  "'Tis Deicide to murder Human Rights.
      Stop foul God-slaughter where to not rebel,
      In order to develop and excel,
  Were God in man, succumbed to age-longed blights."

  Where Heavenward rose the God in man of old,
      Staunch stand these Wardens. Sleepless, they behold
      Each turn of England's Evil Eye. They call,
  When she would form the fulminate of gold,
  A thumb and finger-pinch of which, let fall,
      Might blast Columbia's peaks to slit of thrall.




LIST TO DEMOSTHENES, IF NOT TO HEARST


  Of all the fulminates, gold is the worst,
      Which England, aeroplaning, now, lets drop
      By day and night, in bank, press, church and shop,
  Timed to the minute that it is to burst.
  List to Demosthenes, if not to Hearst,
      Sublime Republic! Lest thy great heart stop,
      Shocked by the blast of Freedom's every prop,
  And bats and owls in dwellings, Human's erst.

  "Watch Macedon. She drops her gold, in creeping
      Beneath free Athens' sky-ascending stair.
      Watch her with glance of sword. Oh, watch, for where
  She sows her gold, she comes with scythes for reaping!
  Is Athens in ascent with sun-light flare,
      To come down ashes, not worth history's keeping?"




CALEDONIA


I

  In only Wallace and Paul Jones and Burns,
      Does Caledonia, child of Erin, show
      His mother's features, lit by soul to know
  The Right Divine of freedom, when it yearns
  For what exalts the human, or, it spurns
      What bars its flight to truth--all stars aglow,
      That form God's trail to joy for man below?--
  Sole trail, as time, who peers through grief, discerns.

  O Caledonia, by thy Burn's brave song,
      And deeds of Wallace and Paul Jones for Right,
      Thy mother knows thee in the dark of night,
  And claps thee heart-close. She cries out: "Be strong,
  Soul of my soul! though not a Boswell quite,
      Still, be whole man! remember Glencoe's wrong."


II

  Wake, Caledonia! though Macauley, Whigging,
      Would ward the flames from scarring William's face,
      So that, then, Cain might shriek,--here, take my place,
  A fugitive and outcast, with no digging
  To hide in, nor a rest for my fatiguing;
      The mark on me, is but God's finger trace;
      On you, 'tis God's whole hand!--Still, there's the blaze!
  There's England's soul of merciless intriguing!

  List! 'tis the bagpipes welcoming the guest.
      See the assembly, dance and feast. Oh, watch
      The open heart and flow of good old Scotch;
  The English come, as friends, must have the best.
  There, hospitality is at top notch,--
      And so is treachery in Britain's breast.


III

  The cock crows.--Is he dreaming? 'Tis dark still.
      He crows again and now, from farm to farm,
      His fellows echo far his dazed alarm
  And flap of wings on fences. He is shrill
  Because it is not dawn above the hill,
      That wakes him, but the English, as they arm,
      And murder sleep, that has no dream of harm,
  In couch and crib,--to further England's will.

  O Caledonia! with such lamp in hand
      As Glencoe's horror, thou hast England true.
      Why let Froude fiction haze thy vivid view?
  Put not thy light out for sound sleep, but stand
  And answer, when the mother, whom thou drew
      Thy soul from, cries "Glencoe"! when Black and Taned.




CANADA


I

  O Canada, Long red with cottage flame
      From Britain's torch! thy blasts milk not the cloud
      To nourish hope; instead, they spread the shroud
  On Human Spirit answering Freedom's claim.
  Whence comes the cold which icicles with shame,
      Thy heart's Niagara, that should thunder loud
      Unto thy far off soul in sorrow, bowed
  O'er Papineau, whom Thraldom could not tame?

  Now following the Friends, who grandly led
      The slave through tunnels to the Northern Star,
      To find, in freedom, richer bloomage far,
  Than the Magnolia o'er the cattle shed,--
  I reach thy soul,--where now the Crawfords are,
      And learn the cold is not from manhood dead.


II

  Whence comes this cold to Freedom's claim? we know
      Only too well,--from creatures of the King,
      Who had dragged Hell of every poisonous thing
  And, through our country, had spread waste and woe.
  Beaten at last, they flocked like carion crow,
      On the dead body of their will to sting,
      Which drifting Northward, and enlargening,
  Loomed Dante's Nimrod, 'mid the Arctic snow.

  There, with the reptile's hate of Man Upright,
      As God created him, and reptiles veins,
      Aflow with deaths cold blood--for that sustains
  The life of tyrant and of parasite--
  This monster, though half sunk in Hell, remains
      High, still, above the Arctic's shuddering night.


III

  The monster's inhalations empty Hell
      Of all deterents to Life's flow and flower;
      Then, its outbreathings icily devour
  The cataract in flight and, down the dell,
  The streamlets to delight, and buds, as well,
      Of virtue, forming bloom for Freedom's bower;--
      Nay, its out breathings,--through Creed hatred's power--
  Grow Boreus and face where freeman dwell.

  Lo! with Sun-warmth for Truth and Human Right,
      Is Boreus met. Who hurles him down the deep?
      Look close;--'tis Gladden who, on Freedom's steep,
  Is as inspiring, as, on Andes' height,
  The great Christ Statue, bidding Rancor sleep
      And Life's diverging rays in love, beam Light.


IV

  The cataracts wild leap, turned glittering ice
      In shame's suspension, and crow souls afeeding
      Upon a huge dead body and fast breeding,--
  Is, as a scene, not worth the railroad's price;
  But, oh, if, with "Excelsior" for device,
      Thou climb thy Alpine way, each day exceeding
      The other's height, what throngs would watch thy speeding
  And, for the thrill thou woulds't give them, come twice!

  O Canada! why all this sleigh-bell rhyming?
      'Tis on the reindeer, hope, in speed with me
      To the grand morning, when thou shalt breathe free
  Upon the apex of thine Alpine climbing,
  From foulsome, choaking smells of tyranny,
      Thick from the Great Sea Serpent's inland sliming.


V

  God said to Wrong: "No further shalt thou go."
      This, Monroe heard and held, then, in his heart.
      It was this he repeated, when on chart
  He made his markings, checking Freedom's foe.
  God never grants to Wrong the right to grow;
      Because He sets its bounds, does not impart
      His blessing on its growth, more than its start;
  His blessing goes to Right, to overthrow.

  Oh, let thine eyes for migratory flight
      Speed southward! Passing Prejudice's Lake,
      Green-crusted with stagnation which some take
  For verdure, they will see from Andes' height,
  How Freedom's battle forms the red day-break,
      And tides are swells from thrall, hurled deep from sight.


VI

  Thine eyes returning from the Southern Cross,
      Will, when like Perry, they have reached the Pole,
      Search under it to find thy banished soul,
  O Canada, and tell it of thy loss
  In letting a foul dead body, which the moss
      Of the deep sea should hide, loom as thy whole
      And rule, as dead things rule, with death for toll,
  As pierced by Papineau through Glamor's gloss.

  From South to North, no sky is black but thine.
      Thy fecund brain, the Borealis, shows
      A swaying disc with shades of dark for glows,
  With but a faint salt smell of Color's brine,
  The pent-up billows in the disc's dark close,
      Which might flood midnight with rare, world-wide shine.


VII

  We seek no annexation, but of Mind,
      Heart, Spirit. True, thy clear, sonorous voice
      At Freedom's class-call, would make us rejoice,
  For, then, close-coasting thrall would fail to find
  In the new world, one truant to mankind,
      Swimming out to the foreigners' decoys,
      Or fast asleep amid his infant toys,
  Instead of at the task, which God assigned.

  Oh, let thy spirit come, but it must be
      Along the star-way to the rising sun--
      The way of love; not down creed hates that run,
  Like broken stone-steps, to a roaring sea--
  The way thou oft, hast come. Rise, and be one
      On the new world's Star-top of Liberty.


VIII

  "The Angels come in dreams," says Holy Writ;
      And Science says, "No sleep so deep, but dreams."
      Devine appearances with brightening gleams
  Toward Paradise up from the demon's pit,
  Ever rouse virtue; aye, for God redeems
      His fire, wherever hid; the tempest teems,
      But still his sparks fly, quick as flint is hit.

  Wake, Canada! and let thy Papineaus
      Be dreams remembered; yea, let them inspire
      Thy life to follow Freedom high and higher
  Through Rights' whole range of summits, crowned with snows
  Sparkling from star-moulds of the Soul's desire,
      On earth from Heaven where, clouds from flames, they rose.




DRAGON INCURSIONS


I

  O Freedom! whose pure soul and heart embrace
      Translates me into heaven, I draw for breath
      The joy of angels who have not known death.
  Child-like, I look up in thy loving face,
  Else gaze around and point, and curious place
      My hand on Mottoes, hung on high. One saith:
      "Beware, for he not with me scatterith."
  Its meaning comes to me with growth, like grace.

  Ah, as a youngster, on its mother's arm,
      Seeing a hideous thing approaching night,
      Will not lay down its head and shut its eye,
  But will with look and lung express alarm--
  My mind cries out in dread--when sea and sky
      Show dragons, tendencies that work thee harm.


II

  O Freedom! Up to whose raised hand the seas
      Leap, playful lions, or with head and main
      Across their paws lie couchant--it is pain
  To see thee whose heart beats are God's decrees,
  And vital breathings are infinities,
      Now check thy heart and hold thy breath to gain
      The smile and plaudit of a depths with bane
  In finger tips, while fawning on their knees.

  What! Think the tyrant, whose great soul is trade,
      Whose history, a crater, belching black
      And lurid, keeps glad Easter morning back
  From half the world--loves thee save to invade,
      As blackward planned? loves thee, along whose track
      March Human rights up to the stars parade?




NEMESIS


  There where the Tyrant long has loomed, wreck-crowned,
      Are young and old hurled to the coast and blast.
      Frail are their ships; still, Sun, why glare aghast,
  Watching the billows monstering around?
  The soul of man was not born to be drowned.
      It mounts and mounts, till, at God's throne, at last,
      And freedom welcomes it with arms, sky-vast,
  As down it comes to meet Thrall and confound.

  O, deathless spirit, born of hosts sea-hurled,
      Who hast out soared night's stars with agony's cry
      For justice! Thou hast come down from the sky,
  Heralding doom to Thrall, whose flag unfurled
  By steel, or craft, shows, as 'tis hoisted high,
      The blood of man and ruin of the world.




ALL STARS MERGED IN ONE


  What is the Truth? The thought, the act, or cry,
      Recasting the Supreme Intelligence;
      All else is false. Look! where are stars so dense,
  That each has not the freedom of the sky?
  And, still, what peace, what glory, reigns on high!
      What! with the wisdom of the heavens, dispense?
      The Peace, for which our longings grow intense,
  Comes through the stars to earth, and but thereby.

  What splits dark mid-night and gives earth a thrill?
      All stars merged into one--our Country's aim.
      It is a lightening, formed by God, to flame
  Across the ages and flash bolts to kill
  The stranglers, who the heart or spirit, main,
      Or choke black in the face, a People's Will.




LINCOLN'S LIGHTENING IN WILSON'S HANDS


I

  Who is to rise and hurl God's flame world-wide,
      As Lincoln hurled it, setting free a race
      From Sphinx-shaped wrong--a beast with human face?
  That shattered, how our land rose glorified
  And, from the stars last laggard, soared, their guide!
      Oh, who can take Promethean Lincoln's place,
      To bring light where-so-ever he can trace
  A Human, with his rights to soul denied?

  He must be one, not only to illume
      All ages, and not leave one region dim,
      But at no height, allow his senses swim,
  Or let mirages lure him with false bloom.
  Lo! Here one comes with all the virtues prim
      To hurl God's fire and end all human gloom.


II

  'Tis Wilson takes God's flame from Lincoln's hand.
      This Princeton man,--who has outgrown the prince,
      A hundred years, and, in the ocean since,
  Seen with delight, Eternity expand
  And loom in glory from the despot's strand,--
      Shapes fourteen dazzling bolts without a wince.
      He pauses. Why not hurl them and convince
  The world that, hence-forth, not one thrall shall stand?

  What! Wilson's arm lacks strength to hurl the flame,
      God gave to Lincoln for the Human race?
      Look! Look! it falls. What! Gone? Quenched by dark space?
  No; it describes an orbit there, the same
  As comets, and regains its heavenly place
      For one to hurl it true, and doom Earth's Shame.




THE CATACLYSM


  In Wilson we beheld and proudly hailed
      The World's Deliverer. In him, we saw
      A luminous being rise from earth and draw
  All lands above the clouds. We were regaled
  With justice cascades flow, long ice impaled
      Upon high mountains. Was not Nature's thaw
      From his heart heat for truth, Eternal Law?
  His was the heat of all the stars, he scaled.

  Though his ascension was like Christ's, sublime
      With lift of continents and every isle,
      He, less than Christ, succumbed to Demon Guile.
  Oh, God, that he should drop his mountain climb
  Below sea-level, and let earth the while,
      Fall back and settle in Primeval Slime!




AN EPOCH'S ANGEL FALL


  Judging from Wilson's virile virtue-voice,
      Whose whisper hushed Earth's Hum, were we not proud
      To have him cross the sea to speak aloud
  And, with a finger raised, hush battle noise,
  And lift all lands to Justice's equipoise?
      Oh, such his truth to God,--so oft avowed,--
      A spirit thund'red from a luminous cloud:
  "This man crowns Lincoln's work. All Men! Rejoice."

  Oh, had he read his bible where St. Paul,
      Grown man, put off child things--or, had not smiled,
      When told, strong Ego oft, is man grown child!
  Look! Who sees not an Epoch's Angel Fall
  From hope for earth, in Wilson's truth, beguiled
      By second childhood's toys to play with thrall?




THE AMERICA OF THE FUTURE


I

  Our Country still is in the womb, dark Time.
      It shows life by its brisk and robust turns,
      Which thrill the Mother, Liberty, who yearns
  To see her man-child born. Oh, how sublime
  With genius, not of one, but every climb
      Where art forms beauty, or the spirit spurns
      The foul and spurious,--her desire, that burns
  Prenatally in him, to form him prime!

  Oh People, all--Italian, Spanish, French,
      Dutch, English, Irish, German, Jew, and Greek--
      What see you, as you climb the Future's Peak?
  Oh! no illusion. What looms there, shall wrench
  From life, all monsters out from Hell, to seek
      Dead consciences and plague earth with their stench.


II

  Ascend, O Land of every Creed and Race!
      Not thy full image, in New England's brook,
      Nor in the South's lagoon; though there, a look
  Delights us with thy chubby, infant face.
  'Tis seas of joy, that shorelessly replace
      The Ocean which, in time of old, forsook
      The prairies for the cloud, or spring in nook,--
  That show thee, Grown, through God's abundant grace.

  From East to West, how joy's high seas expand,
      Reflecting, not a foolish, mundane pride
      That, thinking it does all, sets God aside--
  But Virtue which, with heart and head and hand,
  Works out God's purpose, with dear Christ for guide,
      And holy spirits Light to understand!


III

  All Virtues from the longing of the soul;
      From wisdom, gained by sorrow through long ages;
      From inspiration of the bards, in rages
  That inter-marrying maniacs control
  A people's life, and drain its sea to shoal,
  And from the vision of sky-topping sages,
      Gasping for breath from rot in all its stages,--
  Aye, these and new-born Genius loom there Whole.

  Look, People! Little less than God's own size,
      Your virtues merge and, with speed God-ward, burn,
      An unconsuming sun, that at no turn
  In spiral flight, for still a grander rise,
  Lets night advance where human Rights still yearn,
      Except with great, new stars and dawning skys!




THE INEVITABLE


I

  Behold two fleets, the one with woe for trail,
      The other, rapture. As they sight the strait,
      Through which but one can pass, Greed, urged by Hate,
  Drives Thraldom's crafts with help of steam and gale.
  They feel their way. The guns, with which they hale,
      Raise jets, that look tall elms from Hope, the gate,
      To Peace, the Palace; then, their speed is great,
  Manoeuvering fast to head off, or assail.

  Drawing the sea up for his driving steam,
      Greed breaks all mirrors in his grand state room,
      That show him dark inevitable doom,
  Close hovering, and exults: "I am Supreme.
  When seas lack water for my funnel fume,
      I bid life send its every crimson stream."


II

  What! in the darkness lowers boat after boat
      From Freedom's fleet, and each with lightening oars?
      Treasons to God and country are the rowers.
  They are the Gold and Hireling Brain, that gloat
  On conscience body with face down, afloat.
      Why hail they Greed, to run on menial chores
      From deck to deck, or to and from all shores?
  Why? To ensure the payment of a note.

  Meanwhile, brisk Freedom's fleets with justice manned,
      And cosmic full momentum for their speed,
      Confront the crafts, fired up by fiendish Greed.
  A clash and--lo! they pass the strait and land,
  Leaving in smoldering heaps, like autumn's weed,
      The hulks of thrall along time's vultured strand.




REPTILES WITH WINGS


  Are lust for Gold and Power not hideous spawn
      Of prehistoric reptiles, that had wings?
      Where e'er those crawled, they chawed all greening things
  And, when they mounted, how their lengths, full drawn,
  Basked barren in the sun before the dawn,
      Absorbing all its rays from budding Springs?
      These drain life's dawn and by impoverishings,
  Draw and reduce to pulp, frail Consciences.

  Oh, yea, bewinged with legislative crime,
      They bask in sunlight e'er the east sky greys,
      And drag the soul of man from God's embrace
  Of rights and freedom. Oh, how long a time
  Shall reptiles, deadly to the Human race,
      Be let grow wings and heavenward trail their slime?




THE OUTLAWS OF OUR COUNTRY


I

  The outlaws in our country are the wretches,
      Who wreck the legislatures with their gold,
      And with the ruins, form a high stronghold
  To sally from, to what good nature fetches
  From God to man. What though fine graphic sketches
      In magazines show them with shoulders bold
      Against the nights flood-gates of dark and cold?
  All effort is but life in death-throw stretches.

  They are the outlaws, who stop Nature's train
      And take its corn and coal for selfish use;
      Then, put their shoulders to Night's gate, to loose
  Its hinges for a forty-day dark rain,
  To drown all life, that they, like Noah, may cruise
      Through thick drifts of the dead in heart and brain.


II

  O heart and brain, who see the father load
      His train with food, not for the few, but all,
      And hear train-whistlings in March winds, jay call
  And ground-hog sniffs! Haste out, for from the road
  That leads to every Industry's abode,
      The trust that, bat-eyed, comes out at night-fall,
      Now moves the tracks inside his private wall,
  Claiming all trains from God a debt long owed.

  O heart and brain, it rest with you, how long
      The legislative wreckers shall prevail.
      Ye have the power to balk them. Why then, fail?
  Regain your legislatures. Man them strong
  And drive thence all sleek hounds, trust-trained to trail
      Safe outlaws' paths to fastnesses of wrong.




THE PRESS


  Was ever such unblushing harlotry,
      Such sale of virtue in the Market place,
      As by the Press? The red paint on her face
  Is Degradation's mark. Alas, that she,
  Born to bring forth the truth, still, is so base,
      She kills her child and, then, to hide all trace,
      Cracks bone by bone to dust, too fine to see.

  O Press, poor harlot of the tyrant, Gold,
      What freedom, but from truth, hast thou to boast?
      Hark, who now speaks is murdered Truth's pale ghost:
  "Conceiving life--oh, bring it forth! aye, hold
  Thy child on high with love, as priest, the Host!
      Crush not its bones, with smile and eyes set cold."




THE TRUTH


  What is the truth? The focus of all rays
      Passing through Nature and the soul and mind.
      It is the Sun of Suns, around which wind
  The Heavens and all the worlds. Such is its blaze,
  That had it not, at intervals, a haze,
      Grading both Angel and the Human-kind,
      The bright Arch-angel would be stricken blind,
  To grope in Heaven, a Homer, sighing lays.

  What less could fitly crown Omnipotence
      Than Truth, the focus of all rays in Good?
      Lo! there it shines upon the Holy Rood,
  Breaking through clouds, a-massing dark and dense
  From countless ages, Cains to Brotherhood--
      With rays of pardon for the World's offense.




OUR LORD'S LAST PRAYER


  "Forgive them, Sire! They know not what they do."--
      Ah, Christ! how at that face to face God-plea,
      The Demon and his legions, mocking thee
  With every generation, brought to view,
  Flashed with dismay, and, boltless lightening through
      The ages, thunder down Eternity,
      'Till faint as the sound in shells, far from the sea;
  For that thy prayer would be vouchsafed, they knew.

  All grandeurs, gathered as a dazzling crown
      For thee, in barter for thy knee's least bend,
      The Demon dashed to fragments to Time's end.
  There, born anew in spirit, we look down
  And, in the ocean of thy prayer, Amen'd,
      See but earth's monsters, with the demons drown.




THOUGHT IS TRUTH'S ECHO


  Thought is truth's echo--not her glorious eyes
      Beholding God, nor her white arms of light,
      Lifted in worship. Following truth, our flight
  At highest range is where our echo dies.
  Oh all your power and beauty, earth and skys!
      And, Soul and Mind! your Beauty and your Might--
      Truth gathers in one flash and, catching sight
  Of God, lifts high in love's full sacrifice.

  Twixt Truth and Thought, what Truth is oft is space
      Wherein, with intuition for her wing,
      The soul mounts. It is there I hear her sing:
  "Lo, Truth, so swift aloft, Thought dies in chase,
  Turns earthward, and the gifts her white arms bring,
      Are outshone by God's glory in her face!"




HEAVEN


  Ah, what is Heaven? Such Glory that Sun-light
      Seems darkness, and Mass Music, shell-shut sound.
      What we call senses here, there so abound,
  The soul appears a broadening heaven in flight,
  Feathered and downed with all the stars, whose white
      Is all hues mingled. Oh, the awe profound!
      For every moment there, new Heavens astound
  The myriad senses, with God's Love and Might.

  If "Holy, Holy, Holy, Evermore?"
      Be the one chant of angel and of Saint
      Before the Throne, it is their gaspings faint
  Between their transports to high Heavens from lower;
  For, what is love's eternal Firmament
      But Heaven on Heaven, that we may ceaseless soar?




HUMILITY


  Was not humility the Earthward stair
      From highest Heaven, by which God came to men,
      To show the way aloft to human ken?
  Ah, by what other pass, are men to fare
  Through mist and cloud, except the path, aflare
      With his blest steps from Heaven, and up again?
      Steps, not from star to star, but fen to fen,
  That all might follow and not one despair!

  Oh, steps of Love! Could we reach with our eyes
      Their fulgence, we would shrink back with dismay;
      For, though 'tis through the world's contempt move they--
  Hark! How the hidden choirs of countless skies
  Chant at all heights: "Lo, God comes by this way,
      And makes world-wide, His stair to Paradise!"




THE NIGHT OF MYSTERIES


  A cataract of stars, which, with each fall
      Broadens and brightens, rapturing the sight
      Of angel hosts, that view it from the height
  Of knowledge of God's love for one and all
  His creatures--and not darkness to appal
      The spirit by the quench of every light,
      For which God grants it vision--is the night
  Of Life's strange mysteries, both great and small.

  Oh cataracts, beyond the angels' count,
      Pause and shine pendant over every deep
      Of heart, mind, spirit! Lo! how down they sweep
  To basic Good where, massing, they remount,
  Till, mid God's "Many Mansions," high they leap,
      Forming forever, joy's most splendent fount!




WHAT THE POETS SHOW


  When, at God's fiat, Light flashed forth, the beam
      Evolved a million pigments, as it sped
      To every nature. Now, of all its spread,
  What shaft so glorious as the poet's dream
  Which, mote and mass, reflects the Will Supreme
      That life is progress, and by flight, or tread,
      It circles God-ward up, till perfected!
  For, harboring meaner thought were to blaspheme.

  What, if the world be chaos where it sins,
      Race feuds, Creed hatreds, falsehoods gross, deceit,
      Intrigue and greed, form swirling, blinding sleet?
  Honor and Truth, though buried to their chins,
  Look up and smile; for, though the storms still beat,
      The poets show 'tis Spring, not Winter, wins.




THE SOUL'S ASCENSION


  Not mine the night that creeps beneath Life's sea,
      Or lurks within Hope's ruins, sunk below
      The desert, or the stagnant pool--oh, no!
  But night that mounts the heavens, till it is free
  Where stars, prefiguring all things that be
      Obscure on earth, catch sight of God and glow,
      And golden shadows large and larger grow,
  Cast by Gift-bearers to Humanity.

  Oh, once the cold of all the unsunn'd space
      Was in my reptile life of soul, wing-bound;
      But now, soul-free, what warmth from stars all round!
  'Tis not by strength of mine, Lord, but thy grace,
  My soul soars from the depths of sea, or ground,
      Till, at star-heights, it meets Thee, face to face!




LYRIC TRANSPORT


  What but the spirit's ladder to God's throne
      Is beauty? Oh, from rung to rung to climb,
      Till faint becomes the azure's anthem chime
  Of planets, multitudinous, or lone,
  And Inspiration, drunk with fragrance, blown
      From God's rare, inmost garden, wall'd from Time,
      Sets free the Sonnet with is wings of rhyme
  To carry down the transport, upward known!

  Mine is no swaying ladder, like he sea's,
      Whose rounds of rollers, raised above Sun-rise,
      Lean not on Heaven, hence shattered lie at noon;
  For 'tis set firmly on the verities,
  Which form God's throne. Ah, there, what joy, my prize!
      Would that I had a dove for every boon!




THE SUNRISE


  The Sun is God's great joy to Human sight.
      Oh, up and off in chariots, Sea! and ride,
      All generations, up, till mountain-eyed,
  To welcome earth-ward, God's Supreme delight.
  Imagination swirls in swallow flight,
      Giddy with Beauty, deepening--Oh, how glide
      From star to star, to the haloes, season-dyed
  And countless! Its wings shrivel up like night.

  Oh, yea, the Sun in one subliming rise
      From Wisdom's infinite mind! This Reason knows.
      It has no set. There, Sense, with weals or woes
  For beads, or fingers, count our shuts of eyes,
  Excluding Knowledge. What! God's joy to close
      And all its goodness break and drift cloud-wise?




TWO DARKNESSES


  There are two darknesses; one where the Lord
      Hides beauty--that by which men know His face.
      All, in that darkness, feel His fingers trace
  Their features gently, and their hearts record
  The feeling, as of one, whose eyes, restored,
      Would see, but for the Father's close embrace.
      The other is the outer dark--a place
  Where hate turns black the light upon it poured.

  O God! the only darkness that I dread,
      Is where Thou art not--that where Hate's black fire
      Surmounts the heavens, to burst with thunder dire
  And, in its fall forever, drag the dead
  Of heart and spirit--those whom Thy desire
      Would fain have made the halo round Thy head.




THE DOOM OF HATE


  A spirit passed the Sun, the Moon and Star,
      And dwelled and dreamed in darkness all its own.
      The music of the spheres, though thither blown,
  As faint as fragrance from a flower afar,
  Disturbed this spirit's ear, attuned to jar
      Of orb with orb; for hate of light, truth known,
      Fashions hot worlds which, cooled to clay and stone,
  Clash, rising toward calm Heaven, which they would mar.

  Ah, if where love was not, he smiled elate,
      His smile at God returned, a lightening flash
      That shattered him. He saw his planets clash,
  Burst and, then, by the downward law of hate,
  Sink and leave not a single spark, nor ash,
      For the new firmament he would create.




THE EVIL IN THE WORLD


  There are two Gods--one, Good, the other, Ill.
      They clash in Nature--so the Persian taught,
      And long a sect in Europe spread the thought.
  Why there is evil is a problem still
  To many, who see not in Human Will,
      A being that with beauty could have caught
      Up to his Maker, had he gladly wrought
  With light and warmth, instead of dark and chill.

  God said, "Let there be Light," and light was made.
      God made not darkness--that is light's exclusion,
      Forming a region where, in wild confusion,
  Men, Nations, each a ferret, blood-eyed shade,
  Worry each other, till, with disillusion
      For lamp, comes conscience, crying, "God Betrayed!"




THE EARTH RENEWED BY MEMORY


  Ah, in the angel-fall from Heaven, is hope?
      The wing-whir discord of the legion's fall
      From God forever, mocks my heart's loud call.
  Empty of beauty from its base to cope,
  The Earth is hollow. Where, then, can I grope
      And not be met by echoes that appal?
      What! shouts my mind, in wonder that I crawl
  And, having skyey wings, in hollows mope.

  Does scent from bloom, or warble from the wood,
      Not atmosphere the un-aerial void
      Twixt thee and beauty, which thy youth enjoyed?
  Fly back to earth, by memory renewed;
  She fills the hollow, echoing hosts destroyed,--
      With Spring, reflecting Heaven's Triumphant Good.




IN THE DIMPLE OF BEAUTY'S CHEEK


  O beauty! in the dimple of thy cheek,
      My love could live forever and be blest.
      There, with the sun, a rose-bud on thy breast,
  How thou rejoicest, hastening to speak
  To thy fond Father! Oh, how vain to seek
      A sweeter refuge for the Spirit's rest,
      Than mid thy blushes, when thou marvelest
  At His great love, for, oh! thy heart is meek.

  Oh beauty! in thy Father's arms, thou art.
      Enclose me in thy dimple; for, though this
      Were but a bud, or molded seed, what bliss
  To watch bloom gather scent, or new life start,
  And hear our Father, bending for a kiss,
      Whisper to thee, the secrets of His heart!




THE CAMP FIRE


  Beauty is love and, hence is heightening fire,
      Consuming Nature. All the dark can bring
      To quench it, feeds it. Look! how everything
  Is caught in the blaze, which mounts up high and higher!
  Oh! truly, 'tis a vision to inspire
      The soul with transport, more than joy can sing;
      For, if not for the blaze, what cold would sting
  Poor mortals, who crowd round it, nigh and nigher!

  Is beauty not the camp-fire, which one host
      Leaves burning for another, close behind?
      Yea, yea, the Powers Divine, O Human Kind!
  Have left their camp-fire burning on the coast,
  Where they embarked from glimpse of Human mind,
      To give you warmth and light to hold your post.




MOTHER


  All beings, legioning celestial light,
      Moved in procession toward a vacant throne.
      Their chant was faith and hope, as, now, our own.
  At last, it came to pass, their faith grew sight.
  They saw One Star in night's down-fall, stay white
      And, by the Holy Spirit brighter blown,
      Ascend in Heaven, till there, as high and lone,
  As over Nature's marveling zenith height.

  Reaching the throne, its queen, this star became.
      Awed by the Triune's Honor as her crown,
      The legions, circling, soared with eyes cast down;
  But, when their wonder heard the strange, new name
  In Heaven, from Christ's lips, "Mother," how they shone,
      Reflecting Christ's child-eyes, with love aflame!




IN HEAVEN NO HEART STILL HEAVES


  Lo! God lets drop blue doves which ground the mind
      Like clover; then, with drawing to the skies,
      His pleasure is to watch the flocks arise.
  Here, there, they mount; they show no cloud, no wind,
  Can hinder homing; and the angels find
      No transport, like the sight, for, to their eyes,
      'Tis more souls for the joy, which glorifies
  The Father, traced to love by pigeon-kind.

  Oh, to his love, how great our spirit's worth!
      Each is as all. In heaven, no heart still heaves.
      The sun sinks with its last of lingering eves,
  And, then, if dearest doves of azure birth,
  Wife, parent, child, be missed, off mercy leaves
      With stars for eyes, to search the darks of earth.




ST. PETER'S CATHEDRAL IN ROME


  This temple is soul-startling. 'Tis to me
      A thunder storm in stone, with Sinai flare
      Across the Ages. 'Tis the Fiend's despair
  And the Arch-angel's Triumph. It sets free
  The mind and soul with certitude, Christ's key
      Which, like the Sun, opes Heaven--the Good and Fair.
      Still, oft, what darkness drowns the sun's noon glare
  Within the Temple! 'Tis from Calvary.

  Oh, 'tis from Calvary's grief. 'Tis Christ's emotion,
      On from the Cross, that from His glory known,
      The German should have fled and, frantic, thrown
  Away his soul to Strauss or Kant's vague notion,
  Unhumaning, till, in the Kaiser, grown
      A Neitche whirl-wind in a crimson ocean.




MY BUGLER BOY


  With heart pain and with quiver of the lip,
      I bid my boy "good bye," with words of cheer.
      I hug him to my heart to hide a tear,
  And hold him close so long, that no tongue-slip
  Could more betray my bodings for his ship,
      Or troop, when landed. It is when I hear
      My daughters' voices, that I shame off fear
  And take my boy's both hands with firmest grip.

  Go, son, and, though with thy young life 'tis blown,
      Blare thou the Bugle, rousing man to sweep
      The monsters back to Hell's profoundest deep,
  Where, mocking Spring and Sun-rise, they have grown
  On longings for the sea, the world must weep
      When, from its heart, the hope of Peace has flown.




KAISER, BEWARE


  Dost thou, mad Kaiser, for historic name,
      Set fire to Europe? Is it joy to gaze
      At blacker smoke than Etna's, and a blaze
  That wakes up Chaos, wild to come and claim
  The World, since Light, God-bidden though it came,
      Has failed to dawn upon our human ways?
      O Twin of Chaos! peer thou through the haze!
  'Tis Human Beings feed the crackling flame.

  Beware, the smoke, like Etna's, is the curse
      Of widows on thy people-dooming throne,
      And in no country, more than in thine own,
  Cry out all mothers: "Wherefore bear and nurse?
  To feed war with our sons, our flesh and bone,
      That chaos may reclaim the Universe?"




WOMAN, IN GERMANY


  The German mother has too long been what
      A Chancellor once called the "Kingdom's Cow."
      Ah, as she bears the droves for slaughter, how
  Her dumb-beast eyes crave pity for her lot!
  See, there she smiles, like loving God forgot--
      All His supernal patience on her brow.
      How long must her grand arch of brain, as now,
  Bear up a universe "of what should not"?

  There, lies she, crushed by troops in hot pursuit
      Of mocking shadows; for be Gain complete,
      What is it but twin brother to defeat?
  Stand up the dead on any bloody route.
  Stoop for no kiss from orphans, at thy feet,
      O Triumph! for ash-cord is all thy fruit.




O THOU PALE MOON


  O fair, full moon! I look close at thy face.
      Thou must be happy, being in the skys;
      And, yet, thy flush grows pallor to mine eyes.
  Thou art as one, who breathless after chase,
  Would rest, but dreads to check her onward pace.
      O fugitive from where no fledgling flies,
      No bee finds bud, and where red billows rise,
  Engulfing down dark years, the Human Race!

  O thou pale moon, who hast companioned Man
      Through every darkness since the night's first fall!
      Hast thou, along thy foot-worn, azure wall,
  Ever seen seas so hard for hope to span,
  As this red surge, that in a spring so small,
      A bird could beak it up, its flood began?




THE TIGER


  How glares the tiger in his desert lair--
      Now half the world! Beholding with dismay
      That Human Freedom is the tiger's prey,
  A giant, down whose shoulders, broad and bare,
  The long, thick, crimson flow is Sampson's hair,
      Makes haste to clutch the beast.
      Oh, how the clay beneath their struggle, reddens, night and day,
  Till lies the beast, a shapeless carcass there!

  Oh! never from the long, thick crimson flow
      A down thy shoulders from thy noble brow,
      America, came such God's-strength as now,
  Comes to thine arm against the world's grim foe--
  The beast that, sighting man, devours him, how
      The world may end, a wilderness of woe.




TO OUR BOYS "OVER THERE"


  Where flies our flag is Freedom's holy ground;
      There, it unfurls all benisons to Man.
      The twin of Spring, its spread unfolds God's plan
  Of human happiness, by setting bound
  To greed, lust, powers,--all colds,--that Right be crowned.
      Lo! where it leads, ye youth form valor's van,
      Mirrored and echoed by the azure's span
  For ages, for Man's gain in yours is wound.

  Oh, justice's Hot Gulf Stream are ye, who open
      The sea, which fiendish craft has frozen hard!
      Oh, may your warmth for righteousness transform
  The tyrant's artic region, with no hope in,
  To Freedom's Temperate Zone, which they, who guard
      The planets, save from wreck by quake or storm.




THE PROFITEERS


  Now and in life--not Virgil--breaks a storm
      Of Harpies, harsh to ear and foul to smell.
      It sweeps War's lengthening coast, where each sea-swell
  Is Humans, gasping. Hope drags each cold form
  From hearth to hearth, to find no ember warm;
      Then, their eyes glitter frost, who hear hope yell
      As up she climbs the rocks and falls pell-mell
  Back from small herbs, where monsters swoop and swarm.

  Oh, could the bestial birds, in Virgil's verse,
      See Hope's hands redden, as she rends her hair,
      They would grow human--would not glut, but share;
  Nor, then, shed human semblance for man's curse--
  As ye do, who from want, hold warmth and fair,
      And gorge your bulks to sleep, as want writhes worse!




WHY THE STARS LAUGH


  Hark! 'tis the laughter of the stars at Earth,
      And Nature's, too, with every pitch of voice.
      Earth's carnival of sheer grotesque and noise,
  Where, gagged and manacled, walk Peace and Mirth,
  Shows Britain now, a beast of broadening girth,
      Set out to crush World Freedom. He destroys,
      And thinks his bear-like rearing, planet poise
  That is to influence the world's new birth.

  The stars are kind, as all the ages know;
      The sense of humor twinkles in their eyes,
      At Earth's strange follies; but this beast would try
  To thrust aside the planets, and make woe,
  The fortune of World Freedom! That is why
      The stars laugh, and all nature jeers the show.




PRAYER FOR WORLD PEACE


  Lord, not Thy work, the World's calamities,
      But Man's. If Human Will revolt from Thine,
      It flees Thy region, where the stars all shine
  With longing to let down the Azure's Peace--
  To dash its hosts from summits into seas,
      Where Empires are the breakers. There the brine
      Is anguish, and there Triumph leaves no sign,
  Save wreck on rock, and Plague, adrift on breeze.

  When Nations turn from Light, in thought, or life,
      Their speed is brink-ward, save Thy Mercy stay;
      For all is precipice, except Thy way.
  Help, Lord, for here is heightening surge of strife;
  Here, clouds turn floods, coasts are wind-whirled, like spray,
      And lightenings, hurling back thy light, are rife.




RELIGION


  Religion is Ascension. 'Tis the flights
      Of souls to summits of the true and wise.
      One, witnessing the generations rise,
  Sees them a shine at countless, different heights,
  Where they, responding to their inner lights,
      Glow, like the clouds at morn, with graded dyes.
      If summits, there are depths; if virtue, vice;
  Hence, 'tis life's rise from falls, that judgment sights.

  Witnessed, or not, there is no age, nor climb,
      But souls arise as bloom, where earth is treed;
      As warm, red rays, where cold from mountaining need;
  As burst and spread of planets, where dark crime;
  Nay, rise to poise above the star's top speed
      To God, like larks, in praise for life and time.




THE GOLDEN JUBILEE OF SISTERS OF CHARITY


I

  How thy Half Century shines over head!
      'Tis an unfading rain-bow, one whose dyes
      Are richer and more numerous to the eyes
  Of Angels, than to ours. Its rays, if spread
  Above a flood of sin and world of dead,
      Give to the drowned, new life, new earth, new skies.
      Night counts her stars, but falters, when souls rise
  Bright with the Grace which God's annointed shed.

  Belov'd Irene, how great our joy to see
      Thine arch, aglow with virtue's every hue!
      Oh, how much more must they rejoice, who view
  From inner Heaven, the arch that is for thee,
  Triumphal! for than vows like thine, lived true,
      No grander arch from earth to heaven could be.


II

  The "Church Triumphant" shines in lives like thine,
      Calista! 'Tis the Saints' procession, shown
      In Dante's vision, near Lord Jesus' throne,
  In greatening splendor, never to decline.
  Ah, if our minds grow dark, our hearts repine,
      How, from sweet lives, dear Sister, like thine own,
      Be-Mothering with mercy all who moan,
  A light comes, and a warmth is in its shine.

  We shade our eyes, as when we face the Sun
      On level with the earth, at lives all love--
      The Church Triumphant, as in Heaven above!
  Aye, lives all love for Christ, in every one
  Who suffers wrong, or any pain thereof,
      As on His Throne--such lives as thine, dear Nun.




WINIFRED HOLT, THE LIFESAVER OF THE BLIND


  Once, blindness was a burning ship at sea,
      With panic-stricken souls on every deck.
      The flame blew inward on that awful wreck,
  Burning the hopes that make life glad and free.
  Ah! then, through thee, it was, Philanthropy,
      Who trains her searchlight on the smallest speck
      And Speed out boats, like horses, neck to neck,
  Reached the dark hulk and thrilled its crew with glee.

  The flame is quenched, that burned out heart and brain.
      The ship where woe was mute, is loud with joy.
      Hark! hear the cheer on board, and cry, "Ahoy!"
  As fast the sails are hoisted, and the main
  Tides back toward hope for every girl and boy,
      Who, else, might reach no star of night's whole train.




A CHOICE


  Above and under life, eternally,
      A subtle light and dark run parallel.
      One prompts men to build Beauty, cell by cell,
  In Home, Religion, State, Society;
  The other, to destroy the fair they see.
      Like Spring, wilt thou roof Earth with bloom and dwell
      Thereunder? or, with Scalping Winter's yell,
  Scour grove and bush? Choose--how else art thou free?

  If Freedom is the gift of the all-wise,
      It is because he will not have a slave
      To serve Him. Which wilt thou be, base or brave?
  With Morn, climb, or, with Night, skulk down the skies
  To grope in caverns, or beneath the wave,
      Creep, till aghast at monsters that arise?




ALL LUMINARIES HAVE ONE TREND


  All luminaries have one source, one trend.
      The stars that calm the sailor, long sea-swirled,
      And canopy fond lovers from the World,
  And those that lead the heart and spirit, blend.
  Lo, only in the things and thoughts that tend
      Toward Love's High Harmony, is truth unfurled;
      All else are lies, whence heart, soul, mind are hurled
  Back to the Right--to Progress without end.

  The stars all chant as one. My soaring song
      Catches their flame and these few sparks reach earth:
      "As soon the shells forget their Ocean birth,
  As men forget the Right, where they belong
  By reason and by soul of deathless worth;
      Address the God in man, wouldst thou grow strong."




LIFE TAKES MORNING HUES WITH THE ARTS OF PEACE


  America! from out the depths thy coast
      Was lifted skyward for Humanity.
      Thy Life, once finny circlings in the sea,
  Is now the orbits of the starry host,
  Encircling God with trust. Be this thy boast,
      When the long line of Ages, passing thee,
      Lifts each his heart and soul, and shouts with glee,
  "That Trust in Him was Sentinel on post."

  Night, that once boa-like hung from thy trees,
      Gorged with crushed tribes--with pottery, or mound,
      Or print of foot for trace--slinks underground;
  For lo, the forests, like the mist on seas,
  Clears, ere the Sun, at earth's edge, glows half-round,
      And life takes cloud-hues with the arts of Peace.




U. S. SENATOR JAMES A. O'GORMAN AND THE STALWARTS


  On toward the Senate scuds a thunder-rack--
      Nay, cyclone--and the columns--all star-straight--
      Of Freedom's Temple sway with the roof's flood-weight.
  Ye Stalwarts who scorn off a fate, pitch-black,
  Holding the columns, let no sinew slack.
      A crash and through the roof, what floods of hate!
      Still, ye budge not, for "Freedom," your teeth grate,
  "Shall lie no wreck along the cyclone's track."

  Oh, not for you was dark the time to slumber,
      But to hold Freedom's columns all star-plumb!
      Yours was a watery grave, but Martyrdom
  And, hence, your resurrection with the number,
  Whose greatness greatens, as the Ages come
      To know why their pathway, no wrecks encumber.




MINISTER OF JUSTICE PALMER, A BASTILE BUILDER


  O Bastile Builder! Nature, when she shaped
      Thy soul, was stricken, with a long attack
      Of sleeping sickness; nor till wheel and rack
  Had rusted, and man spirit had escaped
  The bolsted, loathesome tomb where right was raped,
      Did she awaken and, alack! alack!
      Deliver thee, who, put on Freedom's back,
  Would'st grab all things, at which thy Past-eyes gaped.

  Freedom would humor thee; so, down he flopped
      On Justice's floor to watch thee build with blocks.
      Great was thy skill with walls and dungeon locks,
  And with the trap, down which poor Freedom dropped
  To be steel-masked, or, else, put in the stocks,
      To writhe, then, with his tongue and ears, both lopped.




A SPECK, BUT NOT A STAIN, HARVARD


  O Harvard of the Norton wreath of gold
      And pearled, Longfellow purple! wherefore frown?
      If Eliott is a speck upon your gown,
  It will wash off; it is no stain to hold,
  For you had let him go for being old.
      Your wisdom was confirmed when to the crown,
      A'gainst good folks who, like Elisha Brown,
  Fought for their homes, he gave his name's renown.

  Come, Agassiz! for, from the smallest bone,
      You reconstruct the creature, tongue to tail.
      Tell us what Eliott is. Phew! What! a Whale?
  No; tis the prehistoric monster, known
  As Tory, that devoured young Nathan Hale
      And, where it crawled, spread horror's crimson zone.




SUPREME COURT JUSTICE CHARLES L. GUY


  Your heart is not a traitor to your mind.
      Who, knowing innocence in danger, dares
      Not turn his eye, for fear of smirk, or stares,
  By other courts, is Justice's statue blind,
  That to the wall, not Bench, should be assigned.
      Oft, Precedent is Folly with gray hairs;
      So you, recalling Junius, heard the prayers
  Of friendless Stilow; then, what did you find?

  A fellow man doomed wrongfully to die
      A felon's death. If such was Stilow's fate,
      You saw, the felon would have been the State;
  Hence, turned from Precedent, demanding "Why?"
  Justice, asleep in marble, woke and straight
      Unroofed the courthouse to let down the sky.




REAR ADMIRAL SIMS


  A Dukedom, and not one the worse for wear,
      Has Sims well earned by service to the King.
      'Tis said at court, Howe's spirit following
  The ocean still, found Sims his natural heir
  And said: "Swap souls; and, that the swap be fair,
      Give me to boot, the bone of Freedom's wing,
      To make the skyey bird a hobbling thing
  In marshes, where the ignisfatus flare."

  The Eagle with his eye and pinion, trained
      For mateship with the sun, twitched at a sting.
      Amazed to find a "cootie" on his wing,
  And that the insect dreamed, it was ordained
  By race heredity to serve the King--
      He shook his plume and azured, unprofained.




SAINT GEORGE AND THE DRAGON


I

  In English nature, did Saint George prevail
      Over the Dragon? Maybe in the time
      When England knew not poverty, nor crime,
  Described by Cobbett, who would not go bail
  For falsehood, nor let truth remain in jail.
      It must, then, have renewed life from its slime,
      For, oh! through deeds, that turn the blood to chyme
  And eyes white inward, see him ride the gale.

  In English nature--oh, where now the saint--
      The spirit, to sublime conceptions, true?
      Has good Saint George, too woundful to renew
  His conflict with the dragon of base taint,
  Been caught up by Elias from earth's view?
      How, else, the dragon's rage in irrestraint?


II

  The dragon is grim greed. The Saint's long spear,
      That once transfixed it, can no longer touch.
      No land is safe from its sting, blood-drain, or clutch--
  For it takes Protean shapes; 'tis, therefore, clear,
  Since good Saint George has failed to re-appear
      To mortal sight, save in the King's escutch--
      Worn off at edge and blurred with Tudor smudge--
  Freedom must drive the Dragon off this sphere.

  The Dragon's soarings cause the sun's eclypse.--
      Hark! is that thunder, God's collapsing skys?
      No; 'tis the Eagle, with un-hooded eyes
  And lightening flash from beak to pinion tips,
  Seizing the Dragon that, despite its slips
      From form to form--craft, gold and false sunrise--
      Can not elude his eye and talon grips.


III

  A conflict, this, refracted, cloud to cloud!
      Where a white summit? Under crimson seas,
      And these still hightening. Through far azure, Peace
  Listens and, eager, peeps; then, turns headbowed.
  The conflict circling earth, all plains are ploughed
      New rows of gulches. God! can aught appease
      The Dragon with fiend thirst's eternities
  For tongue! The sun might, if it were well sloughed.

  The Dragon, mounting, draws aloft earth's slime
      With which to dim the all-producing Sun
      From broadening light and warmth for every one;
  But, look! The Eagle, with the thirst sublime
  Of Justice, that the right on earth be done--
      Flashes and--hark! 'Tis earth's Te-Deum chime!


IV

  Oh, yea, the Earth's Te Deums, visibling
      As well as voicing forth the joy of Nations,
      Fill up the vastest Heaven--that of God's Patience
  With Human Will most grossly reptiling
  In insincerities, worse than negations;
      And for what blessing are the earth's laudations?
      The grace to soul to scorn to be mere thing.

  Oh, of this grace was born the Eagle's vim
      To dash the Dragon down in hell so deep,
      It is a maggot there, which can but creep;
  And draw Elias' chariot to Earth's rim,
  Wherein Saint George stands with his heart a-leap--
      As, now, in labor, we catch glimpse of him.

[Illustration]