Wouldst thou be taught, when sleep has taken flight,
By a sure voice that can most sweetly tell,
How far off yet a glimpse of morning light,
And if to lure the truant back be well,
Forbear to covet a Repeater's stroke,
That, answering to thy touch, will sound the hour;
Better provide thee with a Cuckoo-clock
For service hung behind thy chamber-door;
And in due time the soft spontaneous shock,
The double note, as if with living power,
Will to composure lead, or make thee blithe as bird in bower.

List, Cuckoo, Cuckoo! oft tho' tempests howl,
Or nipping frost remind thee trees are bare,
How cattle pine, and droop the shivering fowl,
Thy spirits will seem to feed on balmy air:
I speak with knowledge, by that Voice beguiled,
Thou wilt salute old memories as t...

Who will say the world is dying?
    Who will say our prime is past?
Sparks from Heaven, within us lying,
    Flash, and will flash till the last.
Fools! who fancy Christ mistaken;
    Man a tool to buy and sell;
Earth a failure, God-forsaken,
    Anteroom of Hell.

Still the race of Hero-spirits
    Pass the lamp from hand to hand;
Age from age the Words inherits -
    'Wife, and Child, and Fatherland.'
Still the youthful hunter gathers
    Fiery joy from wold and wood;
He will dare as dared his fathers
    Give him cause as good.

While a slave bewails his fetters;
    While an orphan pleads in vain;
While an infant lisps his letters,
    Heir of all the age's gain;
While a lip grows ripe for kissing;
    While a moan from ...

She is not fair, as some are fair,
Cold as the snow, as sunshine gay:
On her clear brow, come grief what may,
She suffers not too stern an air;
But, grave in silence, sweet in speech,
Loves neither mockery nor disdain;
Gentle to all, to all doth teach
The charm of deeming nothing vain.

She join'd me: and we wander'd on;
And I rejoiced, I cared not why,
Deeming it immortality
To walk with such a soul alone.
Primroses pale grew all around,
Violets, and moss, and ivy wild;
Yet, drinking sweetness from the ground,
I was but conscious that she smiled.

The wind blew all her shining hair
From her sweet brows; and she, the while,
Put back her lovely head, to smile
On my enchanted spirit there.
Jonquils and pansies round her head
Gl...

When the spring comes again, will you be there?
    Three springs I watched and waited for your face,
And listened for your voice upon the air;
    I sought for you in many a hidden place,
Saying, "She must be there."

"Surely some magic slumber holds her fast,
    She whose blue eyes were morning's earliest flowers,"
I sighed: and, one by one, before me passed
    The rainbowed daughters of the vernal showers,
Saying, "She comes at last."

Ah! broken promise of the world! how fair
    You speak young hearts! In many a wanton word
Of lyric April, each succeeding year,
    By risen flower, and the returning bird,
You vowed to bring back her.

And now the flutes are in the trees once more,
    The violets breathe up through the melting snow,
...

My new-cut ashlar takes the light
Where crimson-blank the windows flare;
By my own work, before the night,
Great Overseer I make my prayer.

If there be good in that I wrought,
Thy hand compelled it, Master, Thine;
Where I have failed to meet Thy thought
I know, through Thee, the blame is mine.

One instant's toil to Thee denied
Stands all Eternity's offence,
Of that I did with Thee to guide
To Thee, through Thee, be excellence.

Who, lest all thought of Eden fade,
Bring'st Eden to the craftsman's brain,
Godlike to muse o'er his own trade
And Manlike stand with God again.

The depth and dream of my desire,
The bitter paths wherein I stray,
Thou knowest Who hast made the Fire,
Thou knowest Who hast made the Clay!

On...

(11th November, 1918)



I


To Thee, Most Holy, Most Obscure, light-hidden,
Shedding light in the darkness of the mind
As gold beams wake the air to birds a-wing;
To Thee, if men were trees, would forests bow
In all our land, as under a new wind;
To Thee, if trees were men, would forests sing
Lifting autumnal crowns and bending low,
Rising and falling again as inly chidden,
Singing and hushing again as inly bidden.
To Thee, Most Holy, men being men upraise
Bright eyes and waving hands of unarticulating praise.



II


To Thee, Most Holy, Most Obscure, who pourest
Thy darkness into each wild-heaving human forest,
While some say, "'Tis so dark God cannot live,"
And some, "It is so dark He never was,"...

Between a meadow and a cloud that sped
In rain and twilight, in desire and fear.
I heard a secret--hearken in your ear,
'Behold the daisy has a ring of red.'

That hour, with half of blessing, half of ban,
A great voice went through heaven, and earth and hell,
Crying, 'We are tricked, my great ones, is it well?
Now is the secret stolen by a man.'

Then waxed I like the wind because of this,
And ran, like gospel and apocalypse,
From door to door, with new anarchic lips,
Crying the very blasphemy of bliss.

In the last wreck of Nature, dark and dread,
Shall in eclipse's hideous hieroglyph,
One wild form reel on the last rocking cliff,
And shout, 'The daisy has a ring of red.'

A bugler boy from barrack (it is over the hill
There) - boy bugler, born, he tells me, of Irish
Mother to an English sire (he
Shares their best gifts surely, fall how things will),

This very very day came down to us after a boon he on
My late being there begged of me, overflowing
Boon in my bestowing,
Came, I say, this day to it - to a First Communion.

Here he knelt then ín regimental red.
Forth Christ from cupboard fetched, how fain I of feet
To his youngster take his treat!
Low-latched in leaf-light housel his too huge godhead.

There! and your sweetest sendings, ah divine,
By it, heavens, befall him! as a heart Christ's darling, dauntless;
Tongue true, vaunt- and tauntless;
Breathing bloom of a chastity in mansex fine.

Frowning and fo...

I.

Death's Eloquence.


When I shall go
Into the narrow home that leaves
No room for wringing of the hands and hair,
And feel the pressing of the walls which bear
The heavy sod upon my heart that grieves,
(As the weird earth rolls on),
Then I shall know
What is the power of destiny. But still,
Still while my life, however sad, be mine,
I war with memory, striving to divine
Phantom to-morrows, to outrun the past;
For yet the tears of final, absolute ill
And ruinous knowledge of my fate I shun.
Even as the frail, instinctive weed
Tries, through unending shade, to reach at last
A shining, mellowing, rapture-giving sun;
So in the deed of breathing joy's warm breath,
Fain to succeed,
I, too, in colorless longings, hope til...

I.

Ah! the happy Christmas times!
    Times we all remember; -
Times that flung a ruddy glow
    O'er the gray December; -
Will they never come again,
    With their song and story?
Never wear a remnant more
    Of their olden glory?
Must the little children miss
    Still the festal token?
Must their realm of young romance
    All be marred and broken?
Must the mother promise on,
    While her smiles dissemble,
And she speaks right quietly,
    Lest her voice should tremble: -

"Darlings! wait till father comes -
    Wait - and we'll discover
Never were such Christmas times,
    When the war is over!"


II.

Underneath the midnight sky,
    Bright with starry beauty,
Sad, the shivering sentinel...

Child of two strong nations, heir
Born of high-souled hope that smiled,
Seeing for each brought forth a fair
Child,

By thy gracious brows, and wild
Golden-clouded heaven of hair,
By thine eyes elate and mild,

Hope would fain take heart to swear
Men should yet be reconciled,
Seeing the sign she bids thee bear,
Child.

The figure that thou here seest . . . Tut!
Was it for gentle Shakespeare put?
- B. JORSON. (Adapted.)



I “next poet?” No, my hearties,
I nor am nor fain would be!
Choose your chiefs and pick your parties,
Not one soul revolt to me!
I, forsooth, sow song-sedition?
I, a schism in verse provoke?
I, blown up by bard’s ambition,
Burst, your bubble-king? You joke.

Come, be grave! The sherris mantling
Still about each mouth, mayhap,
Breeds you insight, just a scantling,
Brings me truth out, just a scrap.
Look and tell me! Written, spoken,
Here’s my life-long work: and where
Where’s your warrant or my token
I’m the dead king’s son and heir?

Here’s my work: does work discover,
What was rest from work, my life?