/ 
 
 <&.
 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' THE LAST CRUSADE,' ' DAVID WESTREN,' ETC. 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 Hontron 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 I 892 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 HE trod the lonely path of truth and light ; 
 He saw, beyond the shadow of his land, 
 A gallant people hold with single hand 
 The world at bay, for liberty and right, 
 
 And bade her speed. For this, while very night 
 Blushed to behold, the brainless rabble-band, 
 To please our bigot sires, with impious brand 
 Devoured his home and drave him from their sight. 
 
 Discloser of the secret of the wind, 
 
 We, who repenting of that dastard flame 
 Have learnt with late remorseful bays to bind 
 
 Thy marble brow, our glory and our shame, 
 Are twice partakers of our fathers' blame, 
 If to strange lights we too are proud and blind. 
 
 BIRMINGHAM, 1891.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE MARCH OF MAN 
 
 CANTO I .... ! 
 
 CANTO II 75 
 
 DIES NON I4 o 
 
 WELCOME TO THE QUEEN . . . .147 
 
 SPRING SONG 155 
 
 A CHRISTMAS CAROL !j6 
 
 MORNING TWILIGHT 159 
 
 THE SEMPSTRESS TO HER SKYLARK . .160 
 
 SEMPER EADEM ifa 
 
 THE DEAD CAPTAIN 166 
 
 WITH FLOWERS 167 
 
 A STORM SCENE X 6
 
 Vlll CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 To ONE IN SORROW 171 
 
 To SWEET SEVENTEEN . . . .172 
 
 GRASS OF PARNASSUS 174 
 
 AUTUMN SONG ... . . 176 
 SERENADE 177
 
 THE MARCH OF MAN 
 
 CANTO I 
 
 BLIND then a little light and once more blind. 
 
 Blind in birth's living shroud, there blindly reared, 
 
 Thence blindly driven and lo ! a drowsy babe, 
 
 Its red face wrinkled like a fresh-blown poppy, 
 
 Whose silken petals keep awhile the crease 
 
 Of every fold they slept in. Day by day 
 
 The light grows friendlier, till the strange great eyes, 
 
 So vastly vacant, so profoundly grave, 
 
 Stare hopeless, fearless, loveless at the world. 
 
 Then dawn of soul and day of strength, then dusk 
 
 Of fading dreams a sigh and once more blind. 
 B
 
 2 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 From darkness unto darkness ; and this hour 
 Of shattered lanterns and of naked lights 
 Doth but the more reveal the enfolding gloom. 
 What recked our brute forefathers of the cave ? 
 They slew and ate, begat and slept ; to them 
 Earth seemed not one stale cradle, one stale tomb, 
 Floating untended through the boundless void ; 
 The weakling's moan, the spoil of lust and rage 
 To them brought no misgivings ; and we saints, 
 We sinners, curbed and bridled into crime, 
 Our tender souls self-tortured with remorse, 
 Envy them oft their blameless guiltiness. 
 
 Death grins at birth, and birth makes mock of 
 
 death ; 
 
 Death, birth, and death O weary, weary round, 
 If self were all ! to think it, is to droop,
 
 To live it, is to die. Away with self! 
 Not beasts of prey, but human hearts of love ! 
 Not claws of greed, but eager hands of help ! 
 Not civil foes, but comrades in one cause ! 
 Forward ! we cannot backward, if we would 
 Forward through law to righteous lawlessness ! 
 
 The generations pass into the dark ; 
 
 They fold themselves in silence, and are gone ; 
 
 Their loves and hates, ambitions, wrongs and tears, 
 
 Pangs of the body, puzzles of the brain, 
 
 Vex them no more. In vain our men of light 
 
 Dissect the living nerve, in vain our priests 
 
 Plead with the God of old, in vain our seers 
 
 Question the heart of mystery the deep 
 
 Gives back no answer, and the" ghosts that thronged 
 
 Faith's morning-twilight visit not her noon.
 
 4 
 
 Noon ? rides the sun so high ? or lingers low 
 
 Beyond the horizon, while we wisely take 
 
 Marsh-lights for stars, and starlight for the prime ? 
 
 Those altars yet outface the storm, whereby 
 
 The gaunt white-bearded prophet of our sires 
 
 Stood, drenched with human gore ; he doubted not 
 
 His night was day ; and we, who hail some few 
 
 Pale streaks of morning, howsoever fair 
 
 And fraught with promise, for the light of noon 
 
 That open glory of the sunlit heavens, 
 
 That desert-dreamland moving as we move 
 
 Are blind as he, and children of his pride. 
 
 Yet Progress doth not halt, but holds her way, 
 O'er dust of ancient wisdom, power and wealth 
 O'er palaces whence kingly pomp hath fled, 
 And temples where dishallowed gods lie low,
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 5 
 
 Heavenward. The soldier sinks, the host moves 
 
 on; 
 
 It marches o'er the dying and the dead, 
 Tramples, but after worships ; for the fallen, 
 Whose closing eyes through cloud of battle-smoke 
 And mist of death beheld the promised land, 
 Are foremost conquerors. 
 
 The march of man 
 
 Lies through a mountain-region ; each life-path 
 Leads o'er a mountain's brow from vale to vale. 
 Some slumber in the vale of infancy ; 
 Of such as climb, some choose the lower path 
 And some the loftier ; some the storm-bolt slays, 
 Some stumble o'er the precipice, and some 
 Sink overtired and perish in the snow ; 
 The loneliest victor of untrodden peaks
 
 6 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Descends at last into the vale of age, 
 
 Weary and travel-worn ; and lays him down 
 
 With boys that wonder at the next white peak, 
 
 Restless to climb beside some placid pool, 
 
 And dreams it doth not move. But on the heights 
 
 Stands Manhood, firm, erect, alert, and tracks, 
 
 Ere he too fall asleep upon the shore, 
 
 The windings of the stream of Time, now seen, 
 
 Now hidden, backward to its secret source, 
 
 Forward to shining visions of the sea. 
 
 For Time is not a whirlpool, but a stream ; 
 
 It hath its eddying cycles, cataracts, 
 
 And quiet-gliding deeps, with here and there 
 
 A backward current born of overhaste ; 
 
 But the whole mass of waters onward bears 
 
 Toward, who shall say what dream of golden peace,
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 7 
 
 Or, if our sadder moods forbode the truth, 
 Toward silence, darkness and forgetfulness 
 What then ? The world is young, and who would 
 
 shrink 
 
 To play the man, though death indeed close all ? 
 We perish, but the victory lives on ; 
 Our eyes grow dim, our hearts grow faint, the sword 
 " Shakes in our grasp ; we yield it to our sons, 
 Bless, send them forth, and lay us down to die. 
 Old age doth well to guide, restrain and warn, 
 But youth is the true prophet ; the hot heart, 
 The eager eye, the ecstasy of faith, 
 The joy of daring these have won the world ; 
 An4 he that hath them, being old, is young. 
 Children of light, arise ! the shadows flee, 
 The daylight is at hand !
 
 8 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 There was a noon 
 
 When Rome's imperial eagle, poised aloft, 
 O'erawed the savage West ; then darkness fell, 
 And in that darkness greed and lust grew fat ; 
 Children forgot to blush, women to weep ; 
 Whole cities thronged to see men bleed for gold ; 
 The rabble fawned, the noble tossed them bread ; 
 The good and true chose death ; a pool of gore 
 Reeked round the throne, and each bloat murderer 
 That sat thereon was God. 
 
 Into the midst 
 
 Of that foul gloom a lowly beam of light 
 Stole from the East, and steeped in sacred blood 
 Slowly prevailed and widened into day ; 
 The breath of life swept through those fetid mists ; 
 Christ's Vicar sat in Caesar's seat, the slave
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 9 
 
 Leapt from his chains, the brothel-temples fell, 
 Cathedrals rose to Heaven like prayers in stone, 
 And kings paid court to holy men who wore 
 The Master's crown of thorns, ate of the field, 
 Drank of the brook, and preached in loving deed 
 Good tidings to the poor. 
 
 Then once again 
 Fell darkness ; prelates clutched the sword and 
 
 purse 
 
 Black with the ban of Christ, hid reason's star 
 With smoke of reason's martyrs, turned the halls 
 Of brethren bound in equal helpfulness 
 To -dens of harlots. They whose crippling toil 
 Made sleek the lord, robbed of their wretched 
 
 bread, 
 To swell his pomp, ate grass and lay like swine ;
 
 io THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 For him the court, the dance, the chase, the feast, 
 The rape of maiden brides ; for them the load 
 Of hopeless days, the halter and the wheel. 
 Dense was the night, and angry was the dawn ; 
 Fierce smote the day-star reason on the pride 
 Of Pope and King ; it melted like the rime, 
 And thought took wing once more. 
 
 Then glared a noon 
 
 Of terror, and the death-light of eclipse ; 
 And in that lurid gloom a nation strove 
 Single against the world, and all the Earth 
 Was shaken with the thunder of the strife. 
 The would-be Caesar fell, and night returned 
 Haunted with echoes of old ruins fallen 
 And fitful levin of the people's wrath. 
 The promise of that dawn, " No more of chains !
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 1 1 
 
 Brothers and equals all ! " was born in blood ; 
 Blood ruled the day, and blood defiles the night ; 
 For in this lingering night, while louder swells 
 The shout of revel and the roar of toil, 
 While wail and threat of misery disturb 
 The rich man's peace, and idle palaces 
 Forbode the earthquake, while the nations groan 
 Under their weight of armour fools and knaves ! 
 We trample happiness, to clutch at gold 
 Wrung from the slow starvation of the poor, 
 Profess the Christ, and plead the plea of Cain, 
 " Each brother for himself." 
 
 Night lingers yet ; 
 
 But darker hours have passed, and even now 
 Faintly, but widely, glimmers the new dawn. 
 We shall not see its glory, we who strive
 
 12 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Sad-hearted in the spectral twilight, sick 
 
 With long soul-hunger, weary to behold 
 
 Greed seize his shivering prey, and in his web 
 
 Mammon the subtle spider lurk, his paunch 
 
 Swoll'n with the blood of bright and winged things. 
 
 We shall not see the glittering halls of guile 
 
 Totter, the homes of honest toil grow fair, 
 
 The couch of selfish sloth become a bed 
 
 Of loathing, and the labourer rise and shake 
 
 The vampire off that sucks his weary veins ; 
 
 We shall not breathe the loftier purer air 
 
 Of civic life, each emulous for all, 
 
 And all for each, when none need strain or starve 
 
 That some may surfeit, none be vilely clad 
 
 That some may blaze with jewels, none be choked 
 
 With highway dust that some may lightly toy 
 
 In flowery glades of sweet unfruitfulness ;
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 13 
 
 When cities shall no more screen dens of slaves 
 With bowers of indolence ; but stately halls 
 Of Art and Truth shall rise 'mid beauteous homes 
 Of brethren banded for the common good, 
 Faithful in toil and just in recompense, 
 Simple of life and strenuous of soul, 
 Through union strong and free through self- 
 restraint, 
 A wiser, nobler, lovelier race than ours. 
 
 It dawns, but ah ! how slowly ! and what clouds 
 Of sloth and hate, of dullness, pride and greed, 
 Obscure it from our sight ! Yet see ! the hills 
 Are crowned with splendour, and the wistful eyes 
 Of them that watch thereon are full of fire 
 
 Children of light, arise ! the shadows flee.
 
 14 THE MARCH OF MA.Y CANTO 
 
 The daylight is at hand ! fulfil your dreams ; 
 Up to the hills and view the growing dawn ! 
 Your dreams have given it birth ; see that it live ; 
 For ye are guardians of the day, its glow 
 Springs from your hearts, defenders of the faith, 
 Bright champions of the noble, just and true ! 
 Cry to the poor, " Ye shall not always pine 
 In darkness, cold and hunger, while life's feast 
 O'erflows for them who make their heaven your 
 
 hell ! " 
 
 Cry to the drudge, " Thou shalt not always rest 
 The thing of scorn thy lord hath held thee, slow, 
 Long-suffering, hard and stubborn as an ass, 
 Stunted in soul and brutal in desire, 
 111 -fed, ill -housed, coarse -featured and coarse- 
 
 tongued." 
 Cry to their lords, " Ye have betrayed your trust,
 
 i THE MARCH OF MAN 15 
 
 Put to base use your basely-gotten gains, 
 Have lured the blind astray, enslaved the weak, 
 And given their bread to rascals ; ye were called 
 To lead the world in loftier ways of life, 
 And ye have served your bellies and become 
 A byword and a blot ; your days are told." 
 Cry to the bountiful, " Your wheat was sown 
 'Mid tares ; one sickle reapeth all ; fear not ; 
 The harvest will divide the tares and wheat ; 
 Blame not the reaper's hand ; so suffered Christ." 
 Cry to the stubborn, " Tremble for your sons ! 
 On them you lay the burden of your debt ; 
 They shall redeem it ; flatter not your pride ; 
 Redress is sure ; only with you it lies 
 Whether it come of reason or of wrath." 
 Cry to your loitering brothers, " Up ! and join 
 Our slender band, one day to be a host ! "
 
 1 6 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Take sword and shield; the powers of night are 
 
 strong, 
 
 The battle will be long and bitter ; sound 
 The clarion of your faith, " Christ lives, no more 
 In shrines of stone, but in the hearts of men ! " 
 The wiser poor, the kindlier rich, will hear 
 Your summons gladly ; and the wavering throng, 
 Catching amid a thousand doubtful cries 
 One clear firm trumpet-call, at last will seek 
 Your standard, and the victory will be yours. 
 
 Sound an alarm ! for many a waking soul 
 Listens, while comfortable captains drone : 
 " Loud fools, that think to fashion gods of clay, 
 Let be ! ye vex yourselves in vain : the dawn 
 Asks not your aid ; ye cannot stay its course 
 Nor hasten it one hour." Regard them not ;
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 17 
 
 Prophets of ease, ambassadors of sloth, 
 
 Seducers of the soldiery of Heaven ! 
 
 They spake not thus, whose voices echo yet 
 
 Across oblivion's widening domain, 
 
 Those mighty marshals of the wars of old. 
 
 Man's spacious evolutions on this world's 
 
 Dim battlefield, where night contends with day, 
 
 Spare not a soldier ; each one doth his part 
 
 To make or mar the triumph, and he thwarts 
 
 Who helps not. None can watch the shifting 
 
 lines, 
 
 The headlong rout, the struggling hero-band, 
 The heights now gained, now lost, 'mid curse and 
 
 prayer, 
 
 Wail of the wounded, silence of the slain, 
 Himself unmoved, save Him who moveth all. 
 
 Love's kingdom is not won by watching ; Heaven 
 c
 
 i8 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Is slowly scaled by toil and tears and blood ; 
 The bonds that man hath woven man must rend, 
 The wrongs that man hath suffered man must 
 
 right, 
 The hopes that man hath wrecked man must 
 
 restore, 
 
 Man's nobler order man himself must found. 
 What though in bygone aeons some vast power, 
 We darkly name by the great name of God, 
 Scattered the seed of systems through the void, 
 Spake to them, "Thus and thus ye shall unfold," 
 And left them self-sufficient but foredoomed 
 To one fixed course ? the destinies of man 
 Revolve not as the planets round the sun, 
 Move not to music of some distant sphere, 
 But answer man's own impulse, and are ruled 
 By human passion, pity, faith and love.
 
 i THE MARCH OF MAN 19 
 
 The goal we cannot choose but reach, is seen 
 By human hope and sought by human strength ; 
 The laws we cannot choose but own, are writ 
 In human hearts, proclaimed by human wills ; 
 Fate's active servants, not her passive slaves. 
 What though, engendered in Time's secret womb, 
 The germ of all that man shall ever be 
 Was quickened by the Maker and ordained 
 To see the light with labour and with groans ? 
 Yet knowledge can assuage the pangs, and skill 
 Hasten the joyful birth. What though the world 
 Untimely suffer many a spasm which fails 
 And brings forth nought but sorrow P-^every throe 
 Hath yet its purpose, and unknown prepares 
 The agony which yields the newborn life. 
 
 The old world lieth quiet in its grave ;
 
 20 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Castle and abbey crumble, gently falls 
 Decay's gray breath upon them, and the ivy 
 Stealeth a silent triumph o'er their death ; 
 The new world striveth blindly to be born ; 
 The dungeon-bars are sundered, but the dens 
 Where hirelings sweat dishonour frame and soul ; 
 The chains of steel are snapt, but weaker slaves 
 Groan under stronger lords in chains of gold ; 
 The lance hath rusted, but the arm of wealth 
 Wields mightier weapons, hunger, cold and shame ; 
 The Wonder-god departeth, but the faith 
 That drave him forth hath fled the minster-walls 
 And wanders outcast, homeless and forlorn : 
 So, wnen nis pity of the bruised and poor, 
 His wrath against the proud, had won for Christ 
 A felon s doom, the warders of his truth 
 Spake not in temples rich with carven stone,
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 21 
 
 With incense dim, and hallowed by the prayers 
 Of ages, but proclaimed from meagre rooms 
 The gospel that availed to cleanse the world ; 
 It hath its temples now ; the faith to come 
 Shall dwell therein when wider day prevails, 
 A thousand dawn-hues blending in one light ; 
 And who shall say, when that bright dawn is seen 
 As darkness, what transcendent noon of faith, 
 Pure, open, boundless as the blue of heaven 
 The future shall disclose ? 
 
 The nations writhe 
 
 In travail, and a smothered moan is heard 
 Thut shall become a mighty cry and shake 
 Men's hearts with joy and horror of the birth. 
 Slow is the labour, for the birth is great ; 
 Bitter the pangs and sick with baffled hope.
 
 22 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 A hundred years have pondered on the throes 
 Of her whose haste proved hindrance, when the 
 
 torch 
 That Luther held to heaven, and Cromwell 
 
 snatched 
 
 To kindle a great people's zeal, inflamed 
 A stormier neighbour, and the right of self, 
 Unchained at last, amazed to feel its strength, 
 Turned freedom into frenzy, and so wrought 
 New shackles of the old. A score of years 
 Unpondering have trampled on the sod 
 Where sleep the soldier-craftsmen of the Seine, 
 Untimely bold, whose battle-cry was yet 
 The watchword of the future" All for All." 
 
 Slow is the travail, and no child of ours 
 Shall greet the newborn day ; he shall but see
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 23 
 
 The bosom of the nations heaving hard, 
 Perchance some fierce convulsion that shall make 
 All Christendom turn pale and gasp for breath, 
 While year by year the rich shall grow more soft, 
 The poor more stern, the strife for gain more wild, 
 More hopeless; wealth shall league with wealth, 
 
 and want 
 
 Shall league with want, till that strange hour ascend, 
 When one shall hold within a trembling palm 
 The substance of ten thousand marshalled slaves, 
 Each wiser, trustier, manlier than himself. 
 
 Slow is the travail, but the birth is sure ; 
 P.esistless forces muster; myriads aid 
 The great deliverance, neither knowing it 
 Nor willing ; the rash strife of selfish aims 
 Hath served to bind men closer, and beneath
 
 24 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 The tribulation of this pregnant age 
 Is felt the throbbing of a nobler heart. 
 The birth is sure. 
 
 The pilgrimage of man 
 
 Is toward his godhead ; long the way and steep ; 
 And gazing on the heights that tower before 
 He well may droop, but gazing on the plain 
 Where once he trod, take heart. The World to 
 
 Come, 
 
 The Fellowship of Toil, the League of Right, 
 The Reign of Love, the Commonwealth of Peace, 
 Could scarce seem stranger to our eyes, than we 
 To the wild naked race from whom we sprang. 
 Man that shall be half-god was once half-beast ; 
 He ate his kind, he pierced the withered womb 
 That bare him, flayed his foe and grinned to mark
 
 i THE AM ARCH OF MAN 25 
 
 His dying torment. How might such as he 
 Forebode an age to come, when man should spin 
 Rock into less than gossamer, weigh the stars, 
 Bridle the lightning, wield the thunderbolt, 
 And bind a girdle round the loins of Earth ; 
 While Art should lift and Faith should fire the 
 
 soul, 
 
 And gentle hands should wait upon the sick, 
 And all the tender charities of home 
 Hallow man's life ? Brutish and slow and few 
 His purblind promptings ; yet a root so base 
 Hath borne at last such blossom ; and shall we 
 Who wear it, and who know the savage soil 
 That nursed it, wring our hands because its thorns 
 Are strong and cruel, crying, " Alas ! in vain 
 The warmer sun, the kindlier air ; in vain 
 We vex our richer clay ; the seed we sow
 
 26 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Will spring no quicklier than the seed of old, 
 Will yield no fairer flowers than these we pluck 
 With disenchanted hearts and bleeding hands ? " 
 
 None may peruse the book of things to be ; 
 But we, before whose eyes the fading Past 
 Lies like an open scroll, may well divine, 
 Reading the breathing records of our day, 
 Some phrases of the page our sons shall write, 
 Cancelled, confused, o'erwrit, its fairest words 
 Blotted and blurred perchance with tears and 
 
 blood, 
 
 Yet bright with hope, and everywhere inscribed 
 The watchword of the future, " All for All." 
 
 Man hath misused the powers a god might boast, 
 Hath turned the ties of helpfulness to chains,
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 27 
 
 And lord of wind and wave and fruitful field 
 
 Is slave of greed, till now, ten thousand years 
 
 Of conflict overpast, his millions dwell 
 
 Less sweetly than the bird that year by year 
 
 Sings as he builds amid the budding thorn. 
 
 Ages of bitter penance must redeem 
 
 His long transgressions and instruct him late 
 
 To use his gifts aright ; blood yet may flow 
 
 In freedom's cause, as ofttimes blood hath flowed, 
 
 But blood will ne'er cement with lasting strength 
 
 The stronghold of our peace ; it will not stand, 
 
 Till conscience-struck the rich at last renounce 
 
 Their deathful privilege of sloth and waste, 
 
 The poor awake from stupor, and the light 
 
 Of conscious power and hope illume their souls. 
 
 Then shall its broad foundations rest on faith, 
 
 Love shall combine its parts, and justice rear
 
 28 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Its pillars, and all hands shall gladly join 
 To stablish and adorn the home of all. 
 
 Brothers in toil and triumph ye shall be, 
 Bright children of the future ! nevermore 
 Hungry to plough that gluttony may reap, 
 Naked to weave that vanity may wear, 
 Homeless to build that idleness may lounge ; 
 No more to wallow in the mire that some 
 May dally in the meadows ; nevermore 
 To stint the heart and starve the brain, that some, 
 Your ceaseless sweat sustains, may mock your 
 
 prayers, 
 Sneering, "The swine would have us cast them 
 
 pearls 
 To trample." Courage, friends! beneath the 
 
 froth
 
 29 
 
 Of light and glittering wavelets, backward tossed 
 By fashion's puffs, one all-embracing tide, 
 Mighty as truth and deep as righteousness, 
 Hol3s, inch by inch, its unrelenting way. 
 
 Lo ! how its sway advanceth ! Wave on wave, 
 Steady and buoyant with unfathomed depth, 
 Hath rolled across the leagues of heaving grey, 
 Hath risen and reeled and fallen, and seething 
 
 dashed 
 
 The rattling shingle up the shore, sucked back 
 Only to speed the further. 
 
 Many a year 
 
 That flood hath rolled since when the German sage, 
 His grave eyes warm with pity of the poor, 
 Watched the yet ebbing tide, and them that left 
 Their cabins 'neath the cliffs to pitch, with slow
 
 30 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 And bitter toil, beneath the lash of want, 
 Pavilions on the sand, where Ease might sport 
 Softly secure. He watched and groaned and 
 
 spake ; 
 " Weak thralls that toil, strong lords that rob and 
 
 waste, 
 
 It will not be for long ; the tide will turn, 
 And slowly flowing swallow with its surge 
 Palace and hut alike that rest on sand ; 
 And naught shall last which human hands have 
 
 reared, 
 
 Till Justice build her temple on the rock." 
 So spake the seer; men stopped their ears and 
 
 scoffed ; 
 
 But in these latter hours, while deep the dust 
 Lies in his grave, along the wide world's marge, 
 Distant and low, is heard the approaching roar
 
 i THE MARCH OF MAN 31 
 
 Of overwhelming waves, till myriads now 
 Unstop their ears, and harkening, some with fear 
 And some with hope, confess the prophet's truth. 
 
 Swiftly for many an age portentous powers 
 Have leapt from darkness, urging unaware 
 The tide of toil's redemption ; for the wretch 
 Who wandered naked, couched him with the wolf, 
 And slew his sons to glut the fiend of storm, 
 Now speeds through mountains, cleaves the hurri 
 cane, 
 
 And speaks across the ocean ; while his soul 
 Mounts ever higher ; no longer brutes that snatch 
 Their solitary prey, but kindred wills 
 Combining widely for a common good ; 
 No longer slaves, branded and bowed and blind, 
 Of lords that live by plunder of the poor,
 
 32 
 
 But freemen marshalled close and firm, to claim 
 Through majesty of labour's calm revolt 
 Salvation for their fellows, space to breathe, 
 Light to rejoice in, time to muse and feel, 
 And not by never-slackened strain to prove 
 Unwilling thieves of one another's bread ; 
 Salvation for their masters, wholesome due 
 Of daily toil, sound brain and honest heart, 
 And not with jockey, drink and drab to spill 
 The sacred gold which is the blood of men. 
 
 Over the troubled waters of the world 
 Broodeth a newborn spirit, that shall calm 
 Their self-destructive conflict and call forth 
 Order again from chaos. Far and wide 
 Resounds the cry, " Enough of self's mad fight, 
 Enough of blaring each his brazen lie,
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 33 
 
 Of hewing at our brethren in the dark, 
 
 Of trampling on our allies in the rush ; 
 
 Let us be friends, and working with one will 
 
 Possess the earth whereon we now but bleed ! " 
 
 So rings the cry ; and what though many a 
 
 soul, 
 
 Untouched by passion for the public weal, 
 Swell it through guile or fearfulness or greed, 
 Nursing some narrow end ? What though the 
 
 crowd, 
 
 Unmindful of the cause that is mankind's, 
 Bleat but as sheep that hear their flock-mates 
 
 bleat ? 
 
 'Twas ever thus ; the good cause basely served 
 Is good no less ; the oak-tree thriveth not 
 By shower and sun alone, but by the blasts
 
 34 
 
 That shake its heart, and by the rotten mould 
 Of its own leaves that falling feed its strength. 
 
 The temple of the future hath its base 
 Deep in the past ; the master-builder, Time, 
 Slow to upraise from naked wandering wights 
 The tribe that owned one sire, from tribes the town, 
 From towns the nation, and from these the race, 
 Will found at last the Fellowship of Man. 
 Shame on all hearts that feel, all souls that think. 
 And hold this rich estate of life in trust, 
 If careless of the increase yet to be, 
 Forgetful of the increase that hath been, 
 They idly eat of others' toil and so 
 Renounce their stewardship ! Shame on all eyes 
 That read the record of man's uphill march 
 Heavenward, from when he ate his kinsman's flesh
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 35 
 
 Till when his spirit soared in flights of song, 
 
 Surveyed the pathways of the stars and curbed 
 
 The lightning for his courier shame, if we, 
 
 Who enter on such lordly heritage 
 
 Of act and hope, fold idle arms and whine, 
 
 " The world stands still ; the wrongs our brethren 
 
 bear 
 
 Are cureless as old age ; the crushing loads 
 We bind upon the shoulders of the weak, 
 The helpless girls on whom we wreak our lust, 
 The little ones that starve to swell our feasts, 
 Loud hawking of false wares, perpetual toll 
 To him who toileth not from him who toils. 
 The mill-horse round from dusk to dusk, till 
 
 heart 
 Shrinks, and the soul stagnates, and the brain 
 
 throbs
 
 36 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 To the engine's pulse, and man becomes machine, 
 The itch of greed, the haggard overstrain, 
 The senseless rivalry of costly show, 
 Stupor of ignorance and sloth and want, 
 Fever of gaming, harlotry and drink 
 These things are everlasting ; man hath learnt 
 By sore experience much ; but never hope, 
 Fond dreamer, men will learn to cast the slough 
 Of selfishness, or steadfastly to lead 
 Righteous and watchful lives, or toil to enrich 
 The common treasure-house and win for each 
 His portion at the banquet spread for all." 
 
 Shame on the faithless ones who thus disown 
 The promise of the past ! The goal indeed 
 Is distant ; many an age must bleed and sob 
 In greed's unthrifty fray, ere wisdom's light,
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 37 
 
 So faint and fitful yet, illume the world, 
 
 And men be schooled to help where now they hate. 
 
 The goal is distant, and the straining limbs 
 
 .Of them whose eyes descry the promised land 
 
 Will never rest within it ; but the hope, 
 
 The striving, dies not with their dust ; they send 
 
 Their sons afield, lithe limbs and eyes of fire, 
 
 Sound brains and hearts of sunshine, and they cry, 
 
 " God speed the young ! they start from where we 
 
 
 
 sink; 
 
 Bravely they run the race wherein we faint j 
 Their breasts are heaving with our hopes, their feet 
 Fledged with our conquests ; and when age hath 
 
 warped 
 Their thews and chilled their veins, and when their 
 
 eyes 
 Swim, straining at the future, from behind
 
 38 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 They'll hear the rush of feet, and as they fall 
 Gasp with their latest breath, 'God speed the 
 young ! ' " 
 
 Yet ponder, ye who dream the reign of love, 
 The coming Christ and Kingdom of his peace, 
 Are nigh ; Justice must first prepare the way, 
 Or Love will trip ; and Justice tarries long. 
 Dulled with the long day's fight for meat and 
 
 drink, 
 
 The crowd are but as babes, that heed alone 
 The wrong that pincheth their own flesh, the 
 
 fear 
 
 That knocketh at their own barred gate by night ; 
 Let lust and greed and malice wreak their worst, 
 Let war and waste devour the garnered grain, 
 Oppression stalk unchallenged, fraud grow fat,
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 39 
 
 Perish the sun, moon, stars, yea ! perish God, 
 If but their cushioned cradle rock secure. 
 
 Such are the crowd ; howbeit the human bond 
 Was ne'er so strong and ample, nor the lie 
 Of Cain's lean creed so blank. From land to land 
 Speeds lightning-winged each nation's joy and woe, 
 A million brains quick with the selfsame thought, 
 A million hearts hot with the selfsame hope, 
 One mind, one soul, one purpose, and one law. 
 The wide world trembles in her strength, aware 
 Of some great doom impending ; the old cry 
 Of " King or People " faileth, the new cry 
 Riseth of " Rich or Poor " ; the slaves that tax 
 Sinew and brain to feast an idle few, 
 Bound in one league of patient self-control, 
 Strong with the meat of wisdom slowly won,
 
 40 THE MARCH OF MAN CAN 
 
 Bold with the wine of righteous discontent, 
 Will one day hold of Mammon's stewardship 
 A searching audit ; slowly will redeem 
 The monstrous debt which centuries of wrong 
 Have heaped upon the poor, or with one stroke 
 Cancel it evermore ; will wisely change 
 By just degrees the fashion of the scheme 
 Of human toil and recompense, or stung 
 By misery and maddened by disdain 
 Shatter it with a blow The rich may choose. 
 
 No more the father of the church constrains 
 The pride of wealth, the rage of lust ; no more 
 The priest, once champion of the people, curbs 
 The gilded tyrant ; and no power stands forth 
 To play the umpire in the fierce free fight 
 For gain, and summon with controlling word
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 41 
 
 The struggling throngs to order ; and no faith 
 Of all men held inspires, no hope of Heaven 
 Gladdens the heart of misery. The faith 
 That fired all France, and glowed through half the 
 
 world, 
 
 A hundred years gone by, was strong to shake 
 Old fabrics, but it founded not the new ; 
 Madly it flung the rusty forms of life, 
 Sceptre and crest and crosier, into scorn's 
 Fierce melting-pot, but the fresh shapes are yet 
 Uncast, and slowly must the metal cool 
 In firmer moulds of thought, ere once again 
 Order and faith prevail. Liege-lord and serf 
 Have yielded place in gain's ungoverned strife 
 To millionaire and hireling, every man 
 A law unto himself; these too shall yield, 
 By slow advance of firmly-planted steps,
 
 42 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 To common labour for the common weal, 
 Rich store and right award of honest wares, 
 To common learning for the common good, 
 To faith and hope and care of humankind, 
 To larger aims and broader ways of life, 
 Till " Each for Self" shall yield to "All for All." 
 
 A hundred years gone by, from shore to shore 
 The Western deep resounded with the clang 
 Of sundered chains ; Britannia's eldest-born, 
 The sturdy babe delivered from her loins 
 In pangs of persecution and despair, 
 Grown to a giant, cast indignantly 
 The leading-strings aside that vexed its strength, 
 And shouted " Freedom ! " France caught up the 
 
 cry, 
 And gave it tenfold breath, proclaimed for naught
 
 43 
 
 The chance of birth, the pride of place, and drew 
 With fiery hand, and held to all the world, 
 The charter of her faith, the Rights of Man. 
 Kings trembled, nobles quaked, and priests turned 
 
 pale; 
 
 The powers of darkness gathered ; host on host 
 The thunder-clouds of battle rolled their gloom 
 Toward that strange light, and like the levin's flash 
 The sword of France leapt forth. Then gyves, 
 
 that long 
 
 Had galled and rusted, fell ; prelate and lord 
 Fled naked ; thought and deed, till then held in 
 By rotten reins, burst them and rioted 
 Stark mad ; and ere that lurid sun went down 
 In reek of luxury, the wakened world 
 Had welcomed a new gospel, " Off with chains ! 
 Free fight on a fair field, and devil take
 
 44 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 The vanquished !" Good ! so that the field be fair, 
 So that the combatants be justly matched ; 
 Good ! and we bless the day that gave the West 
 A spur so sharp ; good ! but a better waits. 
 What comfort to the millions who must sell 
 Their toil for aught the hour affords, or starve, 
 The chapman standing by with tongue in cheek 
 Watching the teeming strife which works him 
 
 wealth 
 
 What comfort that we dub the bargain free ? 
 Free as the brigand choice, " Your gold or life," 
 Free as the hounding of a naked horde 
 By armed battalions. Little need to-day, 
 Whate'er our grandsires' need, to preach the faith 
 Of selfish claims ; the nobler faith be ours 
 Of civic duty, and the steadfast hope 
 Of that good time when none shall gloat o'er gain
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 45 
 
 Wrung from the helpless, but each man's desire 
 Shall be the public weal, and all shall dwell 
 In healthfulness of mutual toil and rest. 
 
 Yet thank we gallant France, who singly bore 
 The onset of the tyrants, leagued to quench 
 The torch she held aloft to light the earth. 
 Forgotten be her sins mitre and crown 
 Provoked them, and the red-cap's rapid axe 
 Dealt gentler torture than the noble's wheel 
 Remembered only be her rich bequest 
 Of reason to the nations ; let all time 
 Record beside the ruins she o'erthrew 
 The monuments she reared, and how she waged 
 Fierce but triumphant war with all that checked 
 The flight of thought, and how her prophets heard 
 Beyond the castle's doom, beyond the din
 
 46 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Of Mammon's palace rising from its wrecks, 
 
 The footfall of the serried ranks of toil, 
 
 The murmur of the Commonwealth of Peace. 
 
 " Away with lord and slave ! be comrades all, 
 Brothers and peers and freemen of one realm, 
 Knit in one faith, advancing in one hope, 
 Ruled by one law of labour, light and love ! " 
 So rang her clarion-call, startling the world. 
 What though too soon the wrath of rival powers, 
 The crash of cities and the war-bolt's scream 
 Drowned that clear voice ; what though the nations 
 
 yet, 
 
 Unmindful of the cause that is mankind's, 
 Arm horribly in silence, and 'neath brows 
 Burdened with care and darkened with distrust 
 Glare upon one another ? the new Word,
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 47 
 
 Announced in storm, inscribed in tears and blood, 
 Will be fulfilled in peace ; the dead leaf falls, 
 The young bud gathers strength to burst its sheath, 
 Not in wild nights alone, but genial hours 
 Of showery sun and days of frosty calm. 
 
 Firmly the people's master-hand doth mould 
 The stubborn clay of custom to new shapes 
 Befitting the new needs ; slowly the sway 
 Of force and fortune yieldeth to the sway 
 Of thought and toil ; and surely the grim fight 
 For daily bread of those who would be friends, 
 That rageth round the holds where age by age 
 Mammon hath piled the plunder of the poor, 
 Worketh the slave's salvation ; stealthily 
 Greed, trembling for the safety of his hoards, 
 Heaps them in fewer strongholds ; foes within
 
 48 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Contrive their rivals' fall, and foes without, 
 The hungry hosts that surge around the walls, 
 Compass them ever closer ; and more loud 
 Than yell of hate, or groan of agony, 
 Riseth the cry of hope, " Comrades, be strong, 
 Patient and bold and true ; the better time 
 Draws near, when they alone shall reap who till 
 And sow and tend the harvests of the world, 
 Not they who lounge and waste ! " 
 
 So rings the cry, 
 
 The one heart-utterance heard in every land, 
 The one clear message from the world to come ; 
 It soars above the rage of factious strife, 
 The wrangling of the market and the courts, 
 The wail of dying creeds and wandering calls 
 Of marsh-light mystics, and will lead mankind, 
 Obedient to his own unfolding law,
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 49 
 
 Through many a slough, o'er many a stumbling- 
 block, 
 To righteous ways and plenteousness of peace. 
 
 Closer and ever closer all that is 
 Binds man to man ; he cannot, if he would, 
 Renounce his brother's charge, or tread alone 
 The path of his own choosing ; the old faith 
 Departeth ; the free fight of " Each for Self" 
 Hath lost its fierce confusion, and in haste 
 Rangeth itself in two vast leagues, of them 
 That have, and them that have not ; nor shall these 
 Make common cause till o'er one mighty host 
 Shall float one stainless ensign, "All for All." 
 
 Far off ! and yet 'twill be ! if not more soon, 
 Yet not less surely than this anxious age 
 
 Hath blossomed from the wildness of a past 
 E
 
 50 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 As base as we shall seem to eyes unborn. 
 'Twill be ; the age of single aims will pass ; 
 The world-soul waketh ; gambling-hell and stews, 
 The worldling's palace and the wage-slave's den, 
 Will fall and fade like evil dreams away ; 
 'Twas not to reach a Heaven so low, that saints 
 Have wrestled, poets sung and patriots bled ; 
 They toiled and suffered for a somewhat higher 
 Than self, for that great Being which doth enfold 
 The ages and endures beyond their death, 
 In Whom we live and learn and ever move 
 Onward, Whose sight is faith, Whose breath is 
 
 hope, 
 
 Whose dwelling is eternity, Whose power 
 Is blended of all passions, thoughts and acts 
 That spring from noble natures and achieve 
 By slow degrees salvation for mankind.
 
 Our path is 'neath the storm-cloud; but though 
 
 mists 
 
 Perplex and darkness daunt us, yet beyond 
 The battling winds, the blindness of the bolt, 
 The sobbing rack, is seen a glimpse of blue 
 The promise of a holier day than ours, 
 The portals of the City of Content 
 
 Two thousand years have billowed o'er the day, 
 Nor worn its deep inscription from Time's shore, 
 When on a Grecian plain the powers of Night 
 Were scattered and the shackles of the East 
 Sundered for evermore ; Freedom that day 
 Received her charter, and the People's cause 
 Blood-baptism, and the young West learned to soar 
 Where yet she had but crawled, and sought and 
 won
 
 52 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 The cloud-crowned heights, and made the chariot- 
 wheels 
 
 Of progress glow, till now at last she draws 
 The laggard Orient in her train, and holds 
 Upgathered in her hand, some dangling loose, 
 Some tightly stretched, the reins of the whole world. 
 
 The dead of night is past, but the new dawn 
 Not yet hath roused the sluggard ; Tyranny 
 Hath doffed his robes for slumber, and no more 
 Shall do them on ; the rich young fool, made 
 
 drunk 
 
 With vanity and vice, securely dreams 
 The wealth he never toiled an hour to win 
 Is his for ever ; swindler, niggard, churl 
 Heavily breathe ; but hark ! what boding sound, 
 A sound of limbs that stretch and breasts that sigh,
 
 i THE MARCH OF MAN 53 
 
 Is heard the wide world o'er ! at last oh ! hour 
 Long waited for by them that watched and strove 
 At last their ears have heard the trumpet-call, 
 At last the light hath pierced those weary lids, 
 At last the workers waken ! Tempt them not, 
 Ye, whom their nakedness hath softly clothed, 
 Ye, whom their slow starvation hath fed sleek ; 
 Sleep on, and let the hungry millions tramp 
 Unchallenged past your tents ; or, if ye wake, 
 Out of their path, as o'er the Gallic bounds 
 Your fathers fled ; and see ye stand not by 
 With listless smile or academic sneer 
 To mock their rude requital ; they have told 
 Your lavish lusts and strictly reckoned up 
 Your debt of folly ; let them not require 
 Of you the silver hairs their sires ne'er saw, 
 Of you the bread their little ones have lacked,
 
 54 THE MARCH OF MAN CAM KJ 
 
 Of you the blood their simple sons have shed, 
 Of you the honour from their daughters torn ; 
 Yield them thus late their own, the fields they till, 
 The wealth their toil hath fashioned ; and thereto 
 Add fervent thanks if haply they should spare 
 To claim arrears, if haply in some hour 
 Of generous triumph they should reach the hand 
 Of fellowship to all men even you. 
 
 But if with stubborn dullness ye should baulk 
 Their progress, and the billows of their might 
 Thwarted in vain should rise and overleap 
 All natural bounds, devouring in blind haste 
 Evil and good alike, forgetting him 
 That wisely put his wealth to noble use 
 And left his ease and joy to serve the poor, 
 Remembering only the fat drones that filch
 
 l THE MARCH OF MAN 55 
 
 The gathered honey of the human hive 
 And scorn the work-bees can ye blame their wrath 
 That pauseth not to winnow ? Hath your caste 
 So singled out, when time and chance were theirs, 
 From the rough ranks of toil the man whose soul 
 Was as a lamp, dusty and soiled, yet lit 
 From the great Sun, or hath it stolen the light 
 And trampled on the lantern ? dare ye say ? 
 Howbeit when those seventimes beleagured walls 
 Fell to the trumpet-summons seventimes blown 
 Of Israel's captain, she whose casement showed 
 The scarlet thread, one friend amid the foe, 
 Was rescued, when the conquering hosts poured in, 
 P\>r one good service, she and all her house. 
 
 Therefore be wise in time, and have a care 
 By large endeavour for the public good
 
 56 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 To turn the blade of vengeance, and make smooth 
 
 The path of peaceful conquest for the hosts 
 
 That thunder at your city gates ; take heed 
 
 To shed abroad the truth ye cannot quench, 
 
 Lest light turn lightning ; flatter not your souls ; 
 
 Ye hear afar the murmur of the flood ; 
 
 There yet is time ; but if ye stop, your ears, 
 
 And cry, as cried the loathsome king, whose breath 
 
 Poisoned the air of France, " Let the cup's chink, 
 
 Loud folly, and the laughter of bought love, 
 
 Drown yon low menace ; give us leave to sleep 
 
 And sin away the remnant of our days 
 
 On beds of ease ; then let the deluge come ! "- 
 
 If thus ye hug your comfort, your sons' blood 
 
 Be on your heads, haply your own blood too ! 
 
 Haply the rotten dykes will not outlast 
 
 Your own poor shred of life ; the suffering throngs
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 57 
 
 Grow shrewd, and will not evermore endure 
 To clench the idle hands that fain would toil, 
 To meet the mother's piteous eyes, and watch 
 The silent children gaunt with stint and cold 
 Huddle their rags around them, while the lord 
 Who boasts the land his own whereon they pine, 
 The gamester of the mart who wrings close rent 
 For dens where rats would sicken, the wage-monger, 
 Whose ground of vantage is the wage-slave's need, 
 Wastes on his cook the gold that would have fed 
 A score of craftsmen, while his brainless heir 
 Squanders among the rascals of the ring 
 A city's revenue. 
 
 The men who pay 
 
 With brain and thew forced tribute unto such, 
 The men who feed and clothe and deck the world, 
 The jaded hacks of labour, busy-blind,
 
 58 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Will pause some day, and stand with folded arms. 
 
 Waiting amid the silence of the wheels 
 
 Till right be done ; nor will they wait in vain ; 
 
 The people's cause is just, and late or soon 
 
 Will triumph ; slowly dawns, through slavehood's 
 
 night, 
 
 The quickening truth that all who sweat for hire, 
 With thew or brain, are brothers in one bond, 
 Seared with one brand, bowed down beneath one 
 
 yoke, 
 
 Wistful with one dumb hope which stammers now 
 Toward utterance, troubled with one blind desire 
 For better things. Their cravings shall not rest 
 For ever unappeased ; closer each day 
 Toil's dense battalions muster, and their foes, 
 Foreboding the long fight of rich and poor, 
 Would sound a parley, learning wisdom late.
 
 59 
 
 The issue who can doubt ? If thought and toil 
 Make strong, if vice and indolence make weak, 
 If justice, truth and honour be not dreams, 
 The wrong will cease, the nobler day will dawn. 
 
 A day of world-wide peace and rich content, 
 
 Of rightly portioned toil and due repose, 
 
 Of honest comradeship whose " mine " and " thine " 
 
 Waiteth on "ours," of knowledge freely shed, 
 
 And wide communion of awakened souls, 
 
 Of simple manners flowering from one field 
 
 Where common work makes common wealth that 
 
 day 
 
 Will surely dawn and cast athwart the world 
 Shadows to us unknown ; new sun, new shade. 
 
 And oft the spirit questions if man's life
 
 60 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Holdeth more joy to-day than when he ranged 
 
 A hunter o'er the wastes that knew no lord, 
 
 And flushed with chase and breeze and sunshine 
 
 caught 
 
 The wild maid by the hair, and made her his 
 In lawless solitudes, and thought no wrong. 
 Soul -sickness was not then, nor doubt's lone 
 
 chill ; 
 
 The strain of living dulled not life's keen edge ; 
 Loss tore no heart ; death was a wayside thing 
 Scarce heeded ; and the savage, if he lacked 
 Our costly heritage of art and thought, 
 Yet knew not what it is to hear the clod 
 Knell on the coffin where some brain that burned 
 With youthful ecstasy lies cold, and feel 
 The world within one sob, the world without 
 One hungry void.
 
 i THE MARCff OF MAN 61 
 
 Therefore what profits it 
 To banish grosser forms of want and woe, 
 If finer spirits suffer finer pains, 
 If crime but yield to subtler shades of sin, 
 And evil's sum abideth ? What avails 
 The conflict, toil, and patience, if the end 
 Be only loftier heaven and deeper hell, 
 Not that good time we seek ? 
 
 The promised land 
 
 Is ever on the verge ; yet, laugh or weep, 
 We cannot choose but seek it ; and the speed 
 Makes our hearts bound and fills our lungs with 
 
 life; 
 
 And as we journey on, sunshine and cloud 
 Will smile and frown more evenly, and men 
 Breathing one air, illumined with one light,
 
 62 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Will hold each other dearer ; and the best 
 Of joys, the joy that knoweth not remorse, 
 The fellowship of kindred souls, will spread 
 O'er the glad earth like common flowers of Sprin 
 
 Such fellowship we know not ; for what help, 
 What common hope or joy, can knit the heart 
 Of him whose life is one stern fight for bread 
 To him whose only care is how to tempt 
 His jaded appetites, can win the love 
 Of her who nightly sews herself a shroud 
 For her whose gravest thought is how to deck 
 Her dainty charms anew ? The selfsame wrong 
 That starves the poor man's soul sickens the rich 
 With surfeit, and dismays the heart of them 
 Whose modest portion seems now lavish waste, 
 Now penury.
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 63 
 
 The goal whereto we press, 
 The far-off fellowship of quickened souls, 
 Is past our ken ; nor will the eyes of man 
 Behold it till the fruits of all men's toil 
 Are shared aright ; till none are bowed like beasts 
 By ceaseless strain, but truth and art have blest 
 Each cradle ; till the holds of selfish pride 
 Are levelled, and the wise and good alone 
 Are held in worship ; till by dint of pain 
 Mankind hath learned 'tis better and more sweet 
 To serve than rob and wrangle, and the temple 
 Reared by all hands is nobler than a batch 
 Of paltry huts. But till that bright day dawn, 
 Alas ! how long ! 
 
 And oft in darker hours 
 Weary we ask, " What profits all our care ?
 
 64 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 So dull and slow the crowd ; so deep the chasm 
 Dividing churl from gentle ; the gross beast 
 Slave of the prize-ring, gambling-hell and stews 
 From Thought's throned kings ; the hag who lays 
 
 her snare 
 
 For maidens' feet, from the pure ministrant 
 By dying beds ; so loudly roars the mob 
 Of sluggards, fools and cheats ; so dimly shines 
 The lamp of truth and virtue through the gloom ; 
 So slowly through the generations' veins 
 Pulses the nobler blood ; so light the leaven, 
 So huge the lump a soul that thinks and feels 
 Were best outside the turmoil ; life is sweet 
 In the calm shelter of a cultured home ; 
 The friendly hearth, the love of wife and child 
 Close commune with the teachers of all time, 
 Deep drinking at the deathless founts of song
 
 i THE MARCH OF MAN 65 
 
 The care of flowers and fruit, the master-strains 
 Of harmony, the stately walks of art, 
 The wonderland of science these suffice ; 
 And sweet to wander through this English land, 
 By mead and orchard, copse and old-world grange 
 Lulled by the song of brook and bird and bee ; 
 And sweet to watch the pale green moon of May 
 Rise o'er the tender larch-wood, silvering slow, 
 While dies the throstle's song, and the faint scent 
 Of young leaves after showers fills all the soul 
 With longing for some delicate romance, 
 That like the horizon's dreamland evermore 
 Eludes embrace." Ah ! we could dwell at ease 
 In life's fair upper chambers, could rejoice 
 In life's continual music, conscience-free, 
 But that the same fine sense, which apprehends 
 
 Each subtlest note in her rich symphonies, 
 F
 
 66 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Hears, saddening all, a dreary undertone, 
 The sigh of them that surfeit wearily, 
 The wail of them that daily build and tend 
 The palace of our joy, but when we feast 
 Lie cowering in its dungeons ; we could keep 
 Delicious revel with the shapes that haunt 
 Soul-slumber, but that ever and anon 
 Some ghastly scene of want or waste or greed, 
 Some wretch that slays her infant. for the gold 
 Wherewith to drug her misery, some villain, 
 Falser than fox and earthlier than hog, 
 Who cheats the poor to roll in costly filth, 
 Bursts through the lovely texture of our dream 
 And wakes each honest passion ; and we call 
 On all who hold by justice, truth and love, 
 To quit for one short breathing-space the roar 
 That drowns the single voice, join hands, and take
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 67 
 
 This simple oath, and teach it to their sons, 
 " Never through grief or joy to flinch or flag 
 Till right prevail, till all men justly share 
 The sweet and plenteous fruit of all men's toil, 
 Till knowledge, art and gladness be as free 
 As sunlight, and the gulf 'twixt lord and slave, 
 The coarse and fine of manners, garb and speech, 
 Sunder our lives no more " this oath to take, 
 Then back into the tumult and the wrong, 
 And mend it in God's name ! 
 
 'Tis not enough 
 
 To till our little plot, to greet our friends, 
 To purge our flesh and feed our soul to play, 
 How graciously soever, with the life 
 That is the curse of thousands. None can live 
 Unto himself and sin not ; help he must,
 
 68 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Or hinder, man's salvation ; and what spirit 
 So mean as his who, when his brother groans, 
 Mutters, " I harm thee not ; my dream is good," 
 And turns again to drowse ? 
 
 Awake, awake ! 
 
 Ye that have brains to ponder, hearts to feel, 
 And hands to help ! awake, and let your dreams 
 Melt as the morning mists ; gird on your swords 
 And forward ! linger not ; your time is short, 
 The march is long and toilsome ; greater need 
 That ye, who are the vanguard of the host, 
 Should strike your tents betimes ; and never doubt 
 That Man will some day reach the land he seeks, 
 Nor deem, because your path is dark and steep, 
 Beset with foes and pitfalls, the great name, 
 Unknown of old, whereby the ages move
 
 I THE MARCH OF MAN 69 
 
 In steadfast order, marshalled by one law 
 The mighty name of Progress a vain sound. 
 
 Not all man's pride, unwisdom, sloth and sin 
 Can stay mankind's advance ; the tyrant's scourge 
 Doth but unsheathe the patriot's sword ; and 
 
 Greed 
 
 Grasps at his own destruction. The old days 
 Are gone, when solitary nations grew, 
 Flourished and fell like desert palms ; when she, 
 Even she who taught the West to build and rule, 
 And well-nigh knit the ancient world in one, 
 Could shake it with her downfall, and no sound 
 Startle that undiscovered world to come, 
 Where but the red-skin roamed. Man made not 
 
 then 
 The hemispheres his pleasure-ground, nor raced
 
 70 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 The blasts from shore to shore, nor flashed each 
 
 hour 
 
 The lightning message of his weal or woe 
 A thousand leagues through voiceless depths of sea ; 
 The poet's word, the thinker's scheme, the strain, 
 Past speech, past thought, of Music's mighty sons, 
 Thrilled not through all the nations till they grew 
 The heirloom of mankind ; but every realm, 
 The lordliest and the wisest of old days, 
 Lived to itself alone, and so decayed. 
 
 The doom is changed ; Science and Art and Trade, 
 Yea, War herself, have woven round the world 
 A web so strong and subtle, that the lands 
 Are veined and nerved to one great heart and brain, 
 Are limbs of one World-being, and the wrong 
 That grieveth each becomes the wrong of all.
 
 I THE .MARCH OF MAN 71 
 
 No more we lead the narrow single life ; 
 
 The globe is now our storehouse ; day by day 
 
 We steep the leaf and berry of the East, 
 
 We reap the golden harvest of the West, 
 
 We greet our kin who dwell three thousand leagues 
 
 Beneath us. Broadly Progress plants her feet, 
 
 Stumble she may, but naught can hold her steps, 
 
 Till that far land, the glory of whose light 
 
 Glows in her eyes, be reached, where none shall eat 
 
 Who labour not, where just award of toil 
 
 Shall win for all repose and joy, where greed 
 
 Shall bow the neck to help, and strife at last 
 
 Shall turn to peace, and wrong to righteousness. 
 
 And murmur not if they, who hold this faith, 
 Seem to the crowd, that deem the age they see
 
 72 THE MARCH OF MAX CANTO 
 
 The pattern of all ages yet to come, 
 Dreamers ; so be it ; the temple of mankind 
 Is reared by them that toil and fight and die 
 For noble dreams, not them that yawn and sneer. 
 Hated, derided, trampled by the feet 
 Of hurrying throngs, spurned by the hoof of fools, 
 Tortured and starved and slain, but at the last, 
 When all he loved is unto him no more, 
 Believed and reverenced the dreamer knows 
 And seeks his doom, but sees beyond all clouds 
 The eternal sun, and feels within his soul 
 The secret pulse of everlasting life. 
 
 Forward ! what matters self, if but one spark, 
 Quenchless throughout the ages, help to kindle 
 The beacon-fire of truth, or light those souls, 
 Still brooding o'er the ashes of the past,
 
 r THE MARCH OF MAN 73 
 
 With flame from a new Heaven ? What matters 
 
 scorn, 
 
 Sorrow or death, if but our brothers learn 
 To quit the couch of pride and sloth and shame 
 And draw the sword of right, our sisters learn 
 To kiss no more the wounds of a dead Christ 
 But speed his second coming ? One by one 
 The weak waves leap and dash their troubled 
 
 breasts 
 
 To pieces with a moan upon the rocks 
 And yet the ocean conquers. 
 
 Courage, friends ! 
 
 We stand as on a summer night when long 
 The sun has set, and mark the deathly pallor 
 Still lingering o'er his grave, and half forget 
 That there the newborn day will rise but see !
 
 74 THE MARCH OF .MAN CANTO i 
 
 The dubious dusk, that wraps all thought and deed, 
 Wherein we grope and stumble and lament, 
 Is yielding to a steadier light, and they 
 Th.it watch upon the peaks have seen afar 
 The gleam of a new dawn ; portentous clouds 
 Roll thither, and the powers of gloom would quench 
 The promise of its glory ; hues of blood 
 Flush all its brow with wrath, but swiftly fade, 
 And tenderer tones prevailing shed their glow 
 Wide o'er the gladsome earth, and evermore 
 Increase in power and warmth and loveliness, 
 Till emerald, sapphire, ruby, gold and pearl 
 Are blent in one clear diamond of the day.
 
 CANTO II 
 
 ARE we but babes, that, meeting Mother Truth 
 In strange attire, we bellow first our fear, 
 Next timidly draw near her, lastly crow 
 Ecstatic credence, till some newer garb 
 Fright us ; or own we Nature's kindly care, 
 That lets the sere leaf shield the tender bud, 
 Till the young life hath gathered strength to thrust 
 The old life aside ? When he, who late descried 
 The slowly sure unfolding of all germs 
 Of being, proclaimed the now unchallenged law, 
 Fools scoffed, priests shrieked, and good men 
 shook their heads ;
 
 76 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 " A blind black mole, that burrows in the soil, 
 
 And sees not his snout's length, would sap forsooth 
 
 The very citadel of God." So now, 
 
 When heralds of the wondrous change to come 
 
 O'er toil's wide world announce the gradual dawn 
 
 Of justice and the slow redress of wrong, 
 
 The piercing of thick darkness by thought's lamp, 
 
 The melting of old icefields by love's sun, 
 
 The ceaseless long ascent from savage greed 
 
 To full community of lofty aims, 
 
 No more the wild-beast impulse, " Clutch who can," 
 
 But in the mart and street the self-same law 
 
 That blesseth home, the rule of " All for All " 
 
 When thus our seers foretell, the jostling crowd, 
 
 Blind with the dust, deaf with the din of toil, 
 
 Revile them, "Fools and rogues ! that think to shake 
 
 Wealth's firm foundations, build of common clay
 
 ii THE MARCH OF MAN 77 
 
 A pleasure-house for all, and people it 
 With angels ! " 
 
 Thus the crowd. But they who know 
 That every bud will blossom in its hour 
 Can wait for springtime calmly. The base strife 
 That rageth in the market-place is seen 
 To winnow grain from chaff, the man of might 
 From weaklings ; and the chaff, fools take for grain, 
 The loud-lunged trumpeter of lying wares, 
 The cunning spoiler of toil's simple slaves, 
 The idler who grows sleek while labour starves, 
 A mightier fan the people's righteous wrath 
 Will some day scatter. 
 
 But a nobler strife, 
 That ceaseth not when other battles fail,
 
 78 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Prepares a holier conquest ; bruised and worn, 
 But vanquished never, wresting evermore 
 Their fenced places from the powers of gloom 
 That slay themselves, the soldiers of the light 
 Hold undismayed their course. Hope fires their 
 
 eyes, 
 Faith nerves their heart, and love makes strong 
 
 their arm ; 
 
 Their very foes applaud them, after death 
 Hath sheathed their sword, and rally round the 
 
 flag 
 Once mocked and trampled; and each age shall 
 
 see 
 
 The muster-roll of dull and sordid souls 
 Dwindle, of lofty souls and wise and true 
 Swell evermore, till selfish cunning yield 
 To social truth, and darkness unto day.
 
 79 
 
 Growth governs all things ; and the headlong rush, 
 The conflict and the eddyings of life's stream, 
 Are but as sap that frames and feeds new forms 
 Still to unfold ; not virtue's self abides 
 Constant ; to let their vengeance fall asleep 
 Christ's law his fierce forefathers held a sin ; 
 To rend the nerves and roast the limbs of them 
 That caught and clasped a purer truth, seemed once 
 God's bidding ; and an hour will surely rise 
 When the gross blots that yet defile man's life 
 Will fade ; when they whose fathers thought no 
 
 shame 
 
 To gloat o'er others' ills, and harboured dwarfs 
 To mock at, will as soon deny their guest 
 His portion at their feast and snatch at all 
 That hand can reach, as round the board of life
 
 8o THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Shoulder their neighbours from the common store 
 
 Like hogs around a trough ; will rather choose 
 
 To trample down a cripple in a throng, 
 
 Than make the helpless hunger of the poor 
 
 A vantage-ground to rob them ; rather dare 
 
 To slay by force a feebler than themselves, 
 
 As in old days, and batten on the spoil, 
 
 Than squander in vain show the garnered fruits 
 
 Of others' care, and watch their brethren strain 
 
 Joyless and hopeless through the unvarying days, 
 
 That they may riot. Such growth will come to 
 
 light ; 
 
 And coin which passeth current in our streets 
 Will then be deemed base metal. 
 
 
 
 That calm seer, 
 Who widest hath unfolded the great scroll
 
 ii THE MARCH OF MAN 81 
 
 Of human doom, foretelleth a far day 
 When Nature, careful evermore to guard, 
 Through mother, lover, patriot, martyr, saint, 
 The unselfish type, will yield from these at last 
 Love's triumph and the Polity of Peace. 
 Fitness alone surviveth ; ay ! but who 
 Shall gauge the fitness, God or Devil ? Fit 
 To tear at one another's throats ? Or fit 
 To wisely rule this world of tooth and claw, 
 Which yet is man's high empire, wherein claws 
 Have sheaths, and teeth have lips to smile and kiss, 
 And help o'ermasters hate ? To sway such world 
 Not they are fit who grasp and waste, but they 
 Whom Greed itself, while mocking with its mouth, 
 Worships at heart, the generous, just and true, 
 The scorners of all base pursuit of gain, 
 
 The lovers of all things that lift the soul, 
 G
 
 82 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 The loyal to their city and their land ; 
 
 These shall abide, the others pass away ; 
 
 These for the world around him, moulding man, 
 
 Is by man moulded shall possess the earth, 
 
 Shall fashion it, from age to age, anew, 
 
 Begetting still of goodlier heritage 
 
 Yet goodlier heirs ; shall slowly wean Mankind 
 
 From Strife's dry, bitter breasts, to feed and smile 
 
 Upon the bounteous bosom of sweet Peace. 
 
 Nor only through dominion of high souls 
 
 Is toil's release accomplished ; Avarice 
 
 Weaves unaware his winding-sheet ; in vain 
 
 The profit-monger wringeth the last drop 
 
 From the pinched toiler's heart, in vain would rend 
 
 His victim, like a beast of prey, unwatched ; 
 
 His hungrier rivals scent the spoil, and some
 
 ii THE MARCH OF MAN 83 
 
 With roar and leap, some crawling like a cat, 
 Snatch at it piecemeal, and when all is gulped 
 Prowl o'er the blood-stained spot, their green eyes 
 
 slant 
 
 With envy and mistrust, unsatisfied ; 
 Till now they take late counsel, and henceforth 
 Would hunt in packs but eat in solitude 
 The portioned quarry. It will not be ; their prey 
 Have learnt like cunning, and from far and near 
 Compass with ordered hosts the scattering gangs 
 Of seekers after spoil, and will not blench 
 Till all the field be theirs. 
 
 'Tis done What then ? 
 When the long strife is over, when the gulf 
 'Twixt rich and poor is filled, when each pursues, 
 Obedient to self-love, his brother's good,
 
 84 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 And " All for All " is sovereign what remains 
 To hope and toil for ? Fear not ; heights beyond 
 Our short horizon then will tower afar, 
 Tempting to effort ; scarcely hath man spelt 
 Through nature's alphabet, whose magic book 
 Holds in each word a universe ; scarce kissed 
 The hem of art's rich robe, and scarce explored 
 A single creek of music's welling stream, 
 
 That whispers now along the reeds, now laughs 
 O'er pebbly beds, now roars below the rocks, 
 And lastly flows, a broad majestic flood, 
 Bearing the souls of millions with its tide, 
 Into the main of song. 'Tis much, that now, 
 Even in these murky days of greed and want, 
 Beauty hath smiled and wisdom turned her lamp 
 On thousands, where till late all things were dark. 
 'Tis somewhat and the commune of such souls
 
 ii THE MARCH OF MAN 85 
 
 Is life's best boon ; but when the promised sun 
 Hath risen, and equal laws and manners shed 
 Their genial influence o'er the minds of men, 
 Growths sweet and strange shall flourish, blossom 
 ings 
 
 Undreamt-of deck the highways hateful now 
 With tumult, dust and blood j and human souls 
 Shall know an intercourse more wide and free, 
 More lofty, true and delicate, than aught 
 Our dullness can imagine ; genius then 
 Shall burst its chains ; no longer shall bare want 
 Turn men to beasts, the sordid strife for gain 
 Shrivel and starve the soul, nor idle riches 
 Gorge it to slumber ; Fortune's foolish sons 
 Shall lift no more a languid brow of scorn, 
 Nor lackeys do them worship ; but each man 
 Shall move amidst his peers, and frankly meet
 
 86 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 His neighbour's gaze, and find him, not as now 
 In guise and bearing, thought, desire and speech 
 An alien, but a fellow. Fancy then 
 Shall browse at large, wisdom enrich her store 
 Ten thousandfold ; art, like the gladsome sun 
 Revealing, through the gray, heaven's boundless 
 
 blue 
 And earth's fair shapes and tints, shall mount her 
 
 throne, 
 
 Scatter night's sullen clouds, and light the world; 
 And music, like the common flood of life, 
 Well in the hearts of all men. 
 
 But till then, 
 
 Alas ! how long ! What mountains to remove 
 Of wretchedness and pride ! Through what dense 
 thickets
 
 ii THE MARCH OF MAN 87 
 
 Of tangled ignorance to hew a way ! 
 
 What barren wastes of sloth, what rocky wilds 
 
 Of crime and madness, what death-reeking swamps 
 
 Of lust, what sloughs of sottish selfishness 
 
 To traverse, ere the land of hope be won ! 
 
 Little it serves that he, who, dawn to dark, 
 
 Is bondslave to the lords of soil and steam, 
 
 Chinketh more pence, to flatter his dull brain 
 
 With tavern fumes, than his poor sire could count, 
 
 Dying a young-old man in sterner days 
 
 When war made bread a dainty ; little it serves 
 
 If, while the drudge starves seldomer, his lord 
 
 Heapeth from others' patient servitude 
 
 ^ 
 A pile of gain, that viewed in hungrier times 
 
 Had seemed a kingdom's ransom ; the deep chasm 
 Yawns ever deeper ; the rich man knoweth not
 
 88 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 The bitterness that gnaws the poor man's heart, 
 Nor he the other's loathing, but each dwells 
 In thought and speech, desire and deed, apart ; 
 Where faith should be, distrust; where mutual 
 
 help, 
 
 An ever-widening conflict ; little serves 
 A fuller belly for the slaves of toil, 
 A vaster luxury for the lords of wage, 
 If that for which alone all gold is gain 
 The free and equal fellowship of souls 
 Be not a whit the nearer. 
 
 Light is good 
 
 And blessdd be the bravely wise, whose names 
 Are beacons for all time, who suffered scorn, 
 Torture and death, rather than quench the spark 
 That burned within them light is good and well
 
 ii THE MARCH OF MAN 89 
 
 That science scanneth all things, that those dens 
 Where reverend goblins lurked are merry now 
 With children's laughter but not light alone 
 Can guide the erring steps of man aright, 
 Or heal the hurts of ages. Fain would France, 
 In that fierce glare which flashed along the world 
 A hundred years gone by, have spread her wings, 
 And clutching all the West with eagle claws 
 Have soared to Heaven on one broad beam of 
 
 light. 
 
 Alas ! the wings were glorious, but the claws 
 Were claws of prey ; and that whereon they seized 
 Was solid flesh and dragged her down to earth. 
 
 w 
 
 Not darkness only hinders ; Truth's worst foes 
 
 Bask in full sunshine Indolence, that lies 
 
 With nerveless limbs and half-closed lids, and gapes
 
 90 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 At the blue main above him, where the clouds 
 Set their white sails and chase their snowy sisters, 
 Majestically slow ; Pride, with firm foot 
 That pauseth where his shallow eyes may greet 
 His image in the stagnant pool ; old Custom, 
 That grazeth without pause in sheltered croft 
 Where grass is deep, and with a paunch well filled 
 Settles his heavy bones, and hour by hour 
 Cheweth the cud untroubled ; Jealousy, 
 Lean-cheeked, slant-eyed, whose hunger grows more 
 
 fierce 
 By feeding ; Lust, with trembling hand, that 
 
 clutches 
 
 The crystal cup wherein the wine of life 
 Sparkles, and breaks the cup, and wastes the wine ; 
 Greed, whose small eyes survey his bloated form 
 And rest content such are the foes of Truth.
 
 ii THE MARCH OF MAN 91 
 
 And Truth's defenders, who for her pure sake 
 Renounce their ease, forget their pride, forego 
 Tradition's downhill slope, abandon fame, 
 Bridle each lust, and serve not their own good, 
 But single-hearted live and die for Truth 
 How few ! and through what struggles, wounds and 
 
 tears, 
 
 What pitfalls scarce escaped, what lonely hours 
 Of failure and mistrust, they keep their faith. 
 
 The same clear light, that beaming from their 
 
 souls 
 
 Shines on the land of hope and leads them on, 
 Reveals the unheeded snares and stumWing-blocks 
 That baulk the feet of Progress, bids them teach 
 Their eager hearts the unregarded law, 
 That only by one all-accordant will
 
 92 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 t 
 A host can march in order, and each foot 
 
 That trips delayeth all ; too well they know, 
 The nobler order will not come to pass, 
 Nor, founded, will endure, till age on age 
 Of pain's strict schooling soundly hath informed 
 .The minds and hearts of all men ; till strife cease, 
 Till every frame be strong and beautiful 
 And every soul be true ; and since but few 
 Of many paths, that part along the road 
 Where darkling man doth grope his dubious way, 
 Lead to the realm of righteousness nor these 
 The smoothest many a wrongful age must pass, 
 Ere from the loins of them who wander now 
 From virtue's way, and lured by marsh-lights sink 
 In sin's contagious slough, is born a race 
 That walks aright as surely as the flower 
 Turns to the loving sun.
 
 li THE MARCH OF MAN 93 
 
 How long to wait 
 
 Till that full day, the wisely-good best know ; 
 And they who hold their lives in constant pledge 
 To speed its rising, need not faith alone, 
 But strength to plough the trodden ground of Use, 
 Courage to sow the seed 'mid storm and gloom, 
 Patience to wait its growth, and at the last 
 Contentment to reap little. Well may he 
 Endure with joy the martyr's pains, who cheered 
 And blinded by hope's dazzling beams expects 
 A quick and plenteous harvest ; but foreseeing 
 The glory of a future which his eyes 
 Shall ne'er behold, and knowing with what slow 
 And ceaseless pains the tillage yieldeth fruit, 
 How distant the due season, and how weak 
 The mightiest striving of a single age 
 To foster good this knowing, yet to ply
 
 94 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 With warm and steadfast will his thankless task 
 This marks the hero ; and the faith of such 
 Assures its own fulfilment 
 
 Forward ! then, 
 
 With courage, but with patience, sons of light ! 
 Firmly but slowly let your footfall sound ; 
 And while your brows are lifted to the heavens, 
 See that your steps be sure, your course be straight, 
 And while your standard presseth to the van, 
 Remember still the rear, and hold your ranks. 
 Ye shall not reach the promised land alone, 
 But one and all ; the world's old footsores first 
 Must heal, the foul be pure, the false be true, 
 The churl be kind, the drunkard reel no more, 
 The brute be tamed, the bigot raise his lids, 
 The dreamer wake, before those city gates
 
 ii THE MARCH OF MAN 95 
 
 Open, where neither lord nor slave abides, 
 But freemen only. 
 
 Not the subtlest scheme 
 Contrived by all the wisest of this world 
 Can shape the course of things; the good will 
 
 grow 
 
 Its own dark way ; we can but watch and tend 
 Its slow increase, and tending heedlessly 
 May check it, and uprooting some rank weed 
 May tear the fibres searching through the soil 
 Where evil feeds with good. Howbeit, to tend 
 The slow and secret growth of good aright 
 Craves no unworthy husbandman ; the clay 
 Is heavy, and the field is thick with tares ; 
 Shod must he be with patience, robed with truth, 
 Discreet of purpose, diligent of hand,
 
 96 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 And in his heart as in the heart of that 
 Strong singer who foretold 'mid Israel's woes 
 The kingdom of her peace must ever glow 
 The vision of the labourer's recompense, 
 The golden glory of the harvest-home. 
 
 There was an age, whose records rudely graven 
 Are wellnigh worn away, when bulk and thews 
 Alone were sovereign, and the large of limb 
 Trod down the slight, as some huge river-horse 
 Tramples the reeds beside an Afric lake 
 An age of dwarfs and giants. Slowly forth 
 From that gross gloom a gleam of cunning broke 
 The weakling's weapon and from more to more 
 Grew, till the strong were fain to learn its use. 
 Lastly, than force and cunning mightier far, 
 The power of fancy rose ; in weight of limb
 
 II THE MARCH OF MAN 97 
 
 The desert brute o'ermasters man, in skill 
 The spider may perplex him, or the bee, 
 The pinion of the soul is man's alone ; 
 And urged on fancy's wing, reason hath sought, 
 Espied and won new empires, till man's spirit 
 Mounts like an eagle, every beat of wing 
 Revealing vaster prospects, and yet soars, 
 Amazed at the wide wonder of the world. 
 
 Time hath unclasped his volume to our gaze ; 
 Spellbound we scan those pages which the Past 
 Hath hallowed with its ringer, and we see 
 A mellower glory flush them than the light 
 Which glares upon our page ; but when the 
 
 hopes, 
 The strivings and the triumphs that we know, 
 
 Are gray, no page will seem to after men 
 H
 
 98 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 More fraught with majesty and high romance 
 Than that which beareth witness of our day. 
 
 Lords of the waves, compellers of the winds, 
 The common usage of our life outstrips 
 The wizard's wildest dream ; Nature herself 
 Hath done us homage, and the deeps of space 
 Disclose to us their secrets ; we have made 
 The thunderbolt our minister, and hold 
 The powers of flame in leash ; our fiery steeds 
 Ascend the mountain-side, and on those heights, 
 Where clogged with snow earth's proudest soldier 
 
 crept, 
 Rush snorting through the rock. 
 
 With awestruck eyes 
 The simple Eastern mariners of old,
 
 ii THE MARCH OF MAN 99 
 
 Coasting along their tideless sea, beheld 
 Long billows from an undiscovered world 
 Roll slowly in, and, where the god of strength 
 Had fixed his pillars, leap against the rocks, 
 Bound thundering back, and waste themselves in 
 
 foam. 
 
 The baffled East withdrew, but lent the West 
 Her balanced needle trembling toward the pole, 
 Pilot, o'er pathless wastes of wave and wind, 
 To that vast ocean-mainland where a man 
 Might hold his faith untroubled by the frown 
 Of pope or king. 
 
 Through many a changeful age 
 The white-winged messengers of war and peace 
 Traversed that mighty solitude, till now 
 Our prows of steel each hour 'gainst storm and tide
 
 ioo THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Cleave their appointed way, and the twin wires 
 
 Flash at a kiss the tidings of our weal 
 
 'Neath twice three hundred leagues of restless 
 
 brine; 
 
 They lie those sister threads that link in one 
 The Old World and the New World where no light 
 Nor sound nor motion liveth, mantled o'er 
 With finest snow of shells, so delicate, 
 A breath would crush their fabric ; overhead 
 The blasts do battle, and the writhing clouds 
 Weep with the waves. The levin's rage is tamed 
 To light our midnight musings and give back 
 Forgotten accents of the mouldered dead ; 
 The sun is made our limner, and the stars 
 Reveal their unseen splendours unto eyes 
 By man contrived, that see where man is blind. 
 We watch the shapeless embryos of systems
 
 II THE MARCH OF MAN 101 
 
 Fashion themselves in the vast womb of space, 
 We see the gnat's heart beat, and 'neath our lens 
 The water-drop becomes a peopled realm. 
 The loom whereon the weaver slowly wrought 
 His simple web has grown a living thing ; 
 We give the word, and lo ! the shuttle flies 
 Unerring, while deft fingers of bright steel 
 Catch at the threads and weave a damask sheen 
 Subtler than winter's handiwork. The blind 
 Receive their sight ; the days of man increase ; 
 The knife hath lost its terrors, and performs 
 Its office calmly, while the sufferer lies 
 In merciful oblivion the dark laws 
 Of birth and death are searched. 
 
 Thought, free as light, 
 Enters at last the hovel ; they who drudge,
 
 102 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 From dawn to dusk, forgather in the dark, 
 
 Look in each other's eyes and find a soul, 
 
 That long time flickering soon will burst in flame : 
 
 A silence holds the hosts of toil, like that 
 
 Strange silence, broken here and there with sobs, 
 
 Which fell upon the negro in the night 
 
 That saw his slavehood ended ; dumb he knelt, 
 
 Trembling to take possession of his life, 
 
 Till midnight's last stroke, and the sudden day 
 
 Of heaven's white fire-flash, and the salvo-peal 
 
 Of thunder echoing through the fateful night, 
 
 Proclaimed him slave no more. Even such a spell 
 
 Holds labour's troubled legions ; but they wait 
 
 A like deliverance, and fulfilled at last 
 
 With one strong pulse of common grief and hope 
 
 Beckon to one another o'er the seas ; 
 
 Hunger and cold and darkness have not quenched
 
 II THE MARCH OF MAN 103 
 
 Their spirit quite. With all its wrongs and woes, 
 This age of iron is the age of thought, 
 This age of labour is the age of love. 
 
 'Tis somewhat that our stature hath outgrown 
 The mail our fathers wore, that week by week 
 A thousand bloodless battles on the sward 
 Tighten the thews and purge the blood of youth 
 And drill the civic spirit ; and glad of cheer 
 We mark the lamp of learning more and more 
 Make the dark places light and waken souls ; 
 But chiefly we give thanks that man hath caught, 
 Even in the midst of greed's inglorious fray, 
 Clear glimpses of a nobler life, and sees 
 The hunger after righteousness and truth 
 Plead in his brother's eyes, and grasps his hand, 
 And cries, "Thy cause is mine."
 
 104 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Our laws are cast 
 
 In larger moulds, no longer shaped to please 
 A tyrant's humour or a prelate's pride, 
 But fashioned by the people's sovereign will ; 
 And that which, voicing forth men's dumb desires 
 And formless thought, is mother of all laws 
 The poet's word no longer adulates 
 From taverns, loud with cackling wits, the rich, 
 But communes in sincerity of soul 
 With nature's heart and man's ; no longer struts 
 In wig and lace, sham of a sham, but breathes, 
 In music broad and free as ocean's roll, 
 The mighty yearnings of this wonder-age. 
 
 Firmly the people's wider grasp doth seize 
 The heaped-up measure of the nation's wealth 
 And shake it slowly level ; toil and rest
 
 ii THE MARCH OF MAN 105 
 
 And health and joy shall be in days to come 
 Common to all as sunshine ; stumbling-blocks, 
 That evil men or dull have set or left 
 To trip their brethren's feet, the wise and good 
 Still gathering strength will one day overcome ; 
 And natural ills, birth-stains of frame and soul, 
 Nature herself who mother-like chastiseth 
 The child that spurns her laws, but mother-like, 
 If he repent, kisseth the smart away 
 Will surely cure, if but we thwart her not. 
 
 We shall not hear the triumph-song resound 
 
 In that sweet city of peace, nor our sons' sons 
 
 Shall view its stately splendours for the world 
 
 Is younger far than old but blind is he 
 
 Who deemeth not this age of vast design, 
 
 Of snapping chains and soaring thought, the prince
 
 106 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Of all the ages past ; and base is he 
 Who takes no joy, forecasting how the page 
 That tells our tale will some day thrill the souls 
 Of happier men redeemed through our distress. 
 
 Therefore we lose not heart, but ever press 
 Forward, remembering that the lordliest tree 
 Was once a seed and thrust through stubborn soil 
 A pair of pallid leaflets toward the light ; 
 Remembering how each unfamiliar good, 
 Which braveth frost and tempest now, will grow 
 Old in its turn, and when its wholesome strength 
 Is wasted and decayed, how they will most 
 Uphold its age whose fathers hindered most 
 The promise of its youth ; knowing that heights 
 We vainly strive to scale will yet become 
 Highways. And though the slow advance of things,
 
 II THE MARCH OF MAN 107 
 
 Like some broad-moving flood, seemeth at times 
 To lose all patience, and with rush and roar 
 Take at a leap the precipice and ride 
 Triumphing over shoal and rock and bank, 
 We rather trudge than hasten, wotting well 
 That only after many an angry bar, 
 And many a tedious bend, the stream of time 
 Will smoothly widen to the wished-for sea. 
 
 Too well, alas ! we know the goodliest husk 
 Of civic rule is bootless, if the core 
 Of private life be foul ; yet tainted rind 
 Makes rotten fruit. We seek no single cure 
 For Earth's ten thousand evils ; yet disease 
 Heals not itself unhelped. We know, the road 
 That leads to Heaven is dusty, steep and long ; 
 More need to start betimes. Sadly we own
 
 io8 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 That Freedom's feet are blood-stained, and her 
 
 eyes 
 
 Ablaze with frenzy ; yet her soul is pure. 
 And like the sage who penned, when the red storm 
 Of France was at its fiercest, that calm page 
 Of mankind's heavenward march, we cheerly say, 
 "The sky is overcast, the thunder-god 
 Musters his sullen squadrons ; but these melt ; 
 The blue abides." 
 
 The order we foretell 
 Is no raw scheme conceived in solitude 
 'Twixt woe and envy, but a gradual growth, 
 Sown by experience, planted in the past, 
 As labour wide, as hunger sure, and strong 
 As help itself; no system of the schools, 
 But a world-force. We boast not to discern
 
 II THE MARCH OF MAN 109 
 
 Each aspect of the changes it shall bring 
 
 O'er man's wide workfield toil through law set 
 
 free, 
 
 Greed's tumult ended, beauty's face unveiled ; 
 Nor were they proven liars, who first proclaimed 
 The reign of steam, because they laid not down 
 The limits of its kingdom, imaged not 
 The rushing of our iron steeds by night, 
 Their white manes flaming while the riven rocks 
 And sleeping towns crash past them, and heard not 
 The hammer's mighty thud, that yet can crack 
 The wren's egg and not crush it, our sea-giants 
 Plunging through storm and darkness undismayed, 
 Or watched the ceaseless whirring of the wheels 
 Yield wealth ten thousandfold. So we who preach 
 The mighty power of union take no shame 
 To own the prospect of the world to come
 
 i io THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Hidden from keenest vision, but with clouds 
 Of glory. 
 
 We foretell a newborn age, 
 Begotten in the shadows of the Past, 
 Long nurtured in the secret womb of Time, 
 The hour of whose deliverance draweth nigh 
 In pangs and groans, perchance in wrath and 
 blood; 
 
 Yet birth is but the promise of a life, 
 Not life itself; and that which sudden throes 
 Have brought to light, slow years of patient care 
 Must perfect. 
 
 The quick beat of Freedom's wings 
 Is heard as clearly by the ears that dread 
 As by the ears that hail it ; and the sceptre,
 
 ii THE MARCH OF MAN in 
 
 Wrenched from oppression's clutch, the people's 
 
 hand 
 
 Shall grasp with clearer wisdom, calmer will, 
 Shall ever wield more widely, till at last 
 Earth's fruitful workfields and fair pleasure-grounds, 
 Where age by age the poor have slowly shed, 
 To cloy a few, their bitter sweat and blood, 
 Shall be their own dominion. 
 
 Glebe and gold, 
 
 The pastures and storehouses of mankind, 
 Won in past ages, when the single arm 
 Sufficed, by lords who proved themselves in 
 
 might 
 
 Best of their race, feed oft the sloth and pride 
 Of weaklings, fools and lechers, while the poor, 
 How wise or true or strong soe'er, are caught
 
 U2 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 In a tight snare of tangled circumstance, 
 Where struggling only maimeth. 
 
 But the curse 
 
 Shall not endure ; the workers wake, and learn 
 That single strands, a child might snap, can twine 
 To cables ; they shall weave a stronger bond 
 Than aught their lords have woven, they shall wind 
 Its coils about the tyrant, and possess 
 At last the world their care and thought and skill 
 Have fashioned and preserved. Then Greed's 
 
 fierce fight, 
 
 Rough schooling of a race half-savage yet, 
 Shall cease, its purpose served, and Justice late 
 Ascend her throne ; labour and rest and joy 
 Shall be the blessed lot of all, and none 
 Shall stint but rogues and idlers ; equals all,
 
 ii THE MARCH OF MAN 113 
 
 Not in the gifts of nature, but the claims 
 Of brotherhood. 
 
 Then not the chance of birth, 
 Nor hoarded gold wrung from the weak and poor, 
 But only the true kinghood of high souls, 
 The hero's glory, and the godlike brow 
 Of genius, shall have worship ; then shall gladness 
 Course through the people's veins, as when the 
 
 hearts 
 
 Of some vast throng are thrilling to one strain 
 Of lofty music ; pleasure shall not need 
 To hide her eyes, ashamed that others' grief 
 Pays for her pastime ; luxury's sick craving, 
 That owns no bound and therefore owns no peace, 
 That feeding but provoketh, shall be turned 
 
 To wholesome hunger, and lust's lawlessness 
 
 i
 
 U4 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 To wise and sweet restraint ; and Earth's best 
 
 boon, 
 
 The fellowship of hand and head and heart, 
 The commune of true souls, shall lighten toil 
 And heal life's deep divisions. 
 
 But such boon 
 
 Will never bless mankind till the dark gulf 
 'Twixt rich and poor, 'twixt sage and fool, 'twixt 
 
 churl 
 
 And gentle is bridged over for true friends 
 Are ever equals ; and that golden field, 
 That gladsome harvest of man's fellowship, 
 Now springing round our feet, will only reach 
 Its fulness after sunlight of free thought 
 And sunwarmth of wide sympathy have nursed 
 Its growth for ages.
 
 II THE MARCH OF MAN 115 
 
 Mankind's slow advance 
 From this misgoverned waste, where one man's 
 
 weal 
 
 Worketh another's sorrow, to that realm 
 Where all conspire for all, is steeper far, 
 More toilsome, devious, and beset with snares, 
 Than aught his feet have traversed. They that 
 
 lag, 
 
 Lamenting the old days, and they that haste 
 To greet the future, first must suffer much, 
 Much yield and much forbear, ere the long march 
 Be ended, and the promised land descried. 
 
 A weary way ; but whether with good cheer, 
 Or downcast eyes, we needs must take the road ; 
 Backward we cannot ; the world-powers that wait 
 Our nod, inwrought from land to land, no blow,
 
 Ii6 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 That spares this orb, can cancel ; the fierce giant 
 That leaps to life when fire and water wed, 
 Thunder's fleet daughter, and the subtle spirits 
 That mingle in Earth's veins to save or slay, 
 And mightier than all these, the living force 
 That beckons and controls them, the -arch-force 
 Of human thought, of human love and will 
 These are the people's weapons ; armed with 
 
 these 
 
 Toil's dense array shall hold its onward course, 
 Shall compass the strong places where the lords 
 Of wealth sit throned, and greed's inglorious sway 
 Shall fail, as failed the sway of cowl and crest 
 When learning woke, and art shook off her chains, 
 And commerce spread her wings, and thought 
 
 caught fire, 
 And Europe had new birth.
 
 II THE MARCH OF MAN 117 
 
 The people's lips 
 
 Have touched the rim of wisdom's cup, and soon 
 Shall drink it deeply, till the sacred wine 
 Bound in their veins and fill them with the strength 
 Of giants; and the watchword "All for All," 
 Uttered by millions marshalled in one cause, 
 Shall win redress for labour's heaped-up wrongs, 
 None daring to gainsay. But if the rich, 
 Drowsy with comfort, stop their ears, that watch 
 word 
 
 Shall heighten to a battle-cry, and wake 
 A conflict which shall grant no truce till toil 
 From the fat purse of idle luxury 
 Hath wrung the utmost farthing. 
 
 Pity then 
 For such as fain would put their needless wealth
 
 ii8 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 To faithful use the wise, the kind, the just ; 
 Vainly they struggle, tangled in a web 
 That is not of their weaving. Oft, when ease, 
 High manners, and the pride of stately homes, 
 The healthful glow of roaming o'er the world's 
 Wide pleasure-ground, and all the finer joys 
 That blossom in the summer atmosphere 
 Of opulence, delight the rich man's soul 
 The drear abodes of penury, where swarm 
 Gain's dull and haggard slave-hordes, suddenly 
 Loom round him : and he feels as one that quits 
 A feast, and, homeward journeying, while the wind 
 Fans his flushed cheek, sees shivering 'neath the 
 
 hedge 
 
 An outcast woman gnawing a stale crust 
 For very life, the babe upon her heart 
 Plucking at empty breasts ; an alien she
 
 n THE MARCH OF MAN 119 
 
 In garb and feature, thought, desire and deed, 
 
 And yet a sister ; gladly would he yield 
 
 Some costly superfluity, to still 
 
 Her misery's reproach, but that his gift 
 
 Would seem a sand-grain cast into a gulf 
 
 That bounty cannot fill " What use," he cries, 
 
 " To fling among the ravenous herd the store 
 
 Of my fair jewels ? Christ bade it ; but the poor, 
 
 He spake of, were a handful ; had he known 
 
 Our coarse and grimy millions, stale with toil 
 
 And sour with sweat, that spice their drink with 
 
 oaths, 
 
 Wallow in filth, and breed like sewer-rats, 
 He had not counselled thus. Moreover, Christ 
 Lived upon alms ; the poor have ever preached 
 This gospel of renouncement to the rich ; 
 And still the rich grow stronger, and the poor
 
 120 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Weaker ; so be it ; the poor, in life's hot fray, 
 Have yielded ground, they or their sires ; while we 
 Enjoy the conquests of our fathers' might, 
 Conserve the nobler type, and, safe embowered 
 In park and palace, nurture stately bearing, 
 Calm thought and gracious speech, which else 
 
 would die. 
 
 Tis well ; we do but yield assent to laws 
 That Nature made, not we." So comforted, 
 And heaving a short sigh of half content, 
 Half pity, he fares homeward. 
 
 But the poor 
 
 Have pondered it, and will not any more 
 Be cozened with this creed of Anti-Christ. 
 Man is not wolf or beaver, that the son 
 Should build as built the sire, each generation
 
 121 
 
 Wrangle and filch as we ; Nature disdains 
 
 A realm so narrow ; and man's noblest powers 
 
 Wisdom and might to tame the brute within, 
 
 Experience to live down his crimes and follies, 
 
 Skill to contrive what fancy hath conceived, 
 
 Harmonious effort toward a common good, 
 
 Reflection, foresight, sympathy, with all 
 
 That lifts him ever higher from the dust 
 
 Are Nature's gifts, and unto man as proper 
 
 As cunning to the fox. Man's slow ascent 
 
 From bestial ways to dignity of life, 
 
 From war to peace, from wrong to righteousness, 
 
 From slavery to freedom, is no less 
 
 Nature's behest than that which bids the grub 
 
 Forget the crawling life of old, and wake 
 
 To find herself a winged and lustrous thing, 
 
 Companion of the sunbeams and the flowers.
 
 122 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Even so with man ; Nature hath not ordained 
 For few the butterfly's bright play, for most 
 The worm's ignoble wanderings, but wings 
 At last for all. 
 
 The sumptuous bowers, where Pride 
 Wasteth the slender substance of the poor, 
 Shall fall as fell Rome's drear magnificence, 
 And comely homes shall flourish where to-day 
 Are loathsome dens. The poor will learn to baulk 
 The rich man of his laughter when a score 
 Of desperate slaves contend to clutch the wage 
 Of one ; will rather choose to rear a pair 
 Of sturdy saplings, spreading healthful arms 
 To breeze and shower and sunshine, than a thicket 
 Of stunted underwood. The man of toil, 
 Slow as a dray-horse, gentle, patient, strong,
 
 ii THE MARCH OF MAN 123 
 
 Will cease at last to bear the monstrous load 
 Of others' pride, and wage for others' waste 
 The sordid strife we suffer, wherein he 
 Prevails, who bawling his false wares can lie 
 The loudest ; will no more endure to see 
 His sons grow wan with hunger, toil and care, 
 His daughters seize the harlot's poisoned cup 
 For mere oblivion of the fetid den 
 Where Fashion's languid tyranny condemns 
 Her needle-slaves to pine. 
 
 The Greek of old, 
 
 Nobly impatient of the slave's harsh lot, 
 Sang of a good time coming, when the shuttle 
 Should labour of itself, and man be free, 
 His light toil o'er, to gladden his long ease 
 With dance and feast and praise of the good gods.
 
 124 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 So sang the Greek ; and now the shuttle flies 
 Unhandled, and the tameless elements 
 Obey man's bidding, but by man misused 
 Heap, for the few, possessions past the lust 
 Of avarice, pollute the brow of heaven, 
 And leave the burdened millions a grim choice 
 'Twixt slavehood and starvation. He is robed 
 In softness, housed in splendour, and fed sleek, 
 Body and soul, with dainties and delights, 
 Who never wrought by sweat of brow or brain 
 The value of a crust ; while he who bears 
 From dawn to dark the burden of the world, 
 Raises its harvests, rears its lordly roofs, 
 Clothes it with grace, and makes it for his master 
 A dainty pleasure-house, must fight to win 
 The rich man's leavings, dwell in sordid gloom, 
 And seek forgetfulness in flattering fumes
 
 ii THE MARCH OF MAN 125 
 
 Of poisoned drams ; his wife is gaunt with toil, 
 And pale for lack of sleep ; hunger and care, 
 And pangs of travail, 'mid the ceaseless strain 
 To feed and clothe her babes, have gnawed away 
 Her beauty, and stern furrows scarred her brow ; 
 Her eye is cheerless in her withered cheek, 
 Wanting the balm of tears she hath no pause 
 To weep in, only day by day she drags 
 Her weary footsteps nearer to the grave. 
 
 But that sweet gospel of the Greek of old 
 
 Shall have fulfilment ; not for evermore 
 
 Shall they who dream and paint and pen fair things 
 
 Alone be man's consolers, nor those only 
 
 Physicians of the wounded soul who drown 
 
 Its agony in music ; but he too 
 
 Who schemes some useful wonder shall behold
 
 126 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 His gift no more make tyrants of the drones, 
 And of the work-bees slaves, but win for all 
 Leisure and health and gladness meed enough 
 For highest toil, if further meed be asked 
 Than the great joy of genius in its use, 
 That prompts the lark to soar, the seer to search, 
 The giant to stretch forward to the goal, 
 The thinker to lose fortune, fame and ease 
 For truth's sake, and the singer, toiling still 
 The livelong day for bread, to yet uprise 
 With dawn, and watch at midnight, for the love 
 Of poesy. 
 
 He slanders humankind 
 Who doubts if men will toil, save to avoid 
 The goad of hunger, or to win the prize 
 Of riches wrung from others' misery ;
 
 ii THE MARCH OF MAN 127 
 
 Thinker and artist, healer, patriot, saint 
 
 Cry shame on him. Ev'n now the craftsman joys 
 
 To ply his craft, the strong man to put forth 
 
 His strength, albeit another reaps the gain ; 
 
 Will he stand idle therefore, when the sheaves 
 
 Belong no more to slothfulness, the gleanings 
 
 To toil, but all the harvest is his own ? 
 
 Taketh a man no pride to lead the chase, 
 
 Not lag behind, albeit the quarry slain 
 
 Is not for him alone ; or doth the soldier 
 
 Shrink from the cannon's mouth because his 
 
 comrades 
 
 Will share with him the triumph? The wide world 
 Proclaimeth honour mightier far than greed, 
 And help than strife ; from sea to sea the nations, 
 Choked with war's dust and wearied with its din, 
 Shout it to one another ; and those hordes
 
 128 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 That battle daily for a wretched wage, 
 To pamper idlers, make it a muster-word 
 For the great day of reckoning. 
 
 Wrong sits crowned, 
 
 But not for ever ; knowledge daily paves 
 The path for justice ; and though yet afar, 
 She cometh. Happy he, who, when these storms 
 Have rolled away, shall dwell beneath a sky 
 Bright with the sun of righteousness ; then wealth 
 Shall not breed want, nor toil be slave to waste, 
 But all shall succour all ; then this vexed knot 
 Of tugging selfishness, this vast disorder, 
 This cumbersome excess of costly show, 
 This haggard strain, shall cease, and rich content 
 Shall spread her pinions like a peaceful noon 
 O'er the blest earth, and man be glad and free ;
 
 ii THE MARCH OF MAN 129 
 
 Alas ! but oftentimes the heart turns sick 
 With sorrow, and the eye of faith grows dim, 
 Marking the blind contempt of thbse that have, 
 The rage of those that have not ; watching life's 
 Broad flood roll by, its surface sparkling free 
 The fickle sport of sunbeam, cloud, and wind 
 . Its depths drawn darkly onward, where disease, 
 Lust and oppression, madness, hate and crime 
 Mingle their turbid eddies ; and doubt crieth, 
 " So foul a stream will never lose its taint, 
 Nor reach the expected ocean ; but ere long 
 The dykes will sunder, and some hideous deluge 
 Ride over all ; and when that waste of waters 
 Hath washed Earth clean once more, a younger 
 
 race 
 Will suffer, flourish, sin and fall as we ; 
 
 And so for ever till the sick old planet 
 K
 
 130 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Grow death-cold, and the sun with all his train 
 Shock into Hercules." 
 
 Sad souls there be 
 
 Who bode such evil. Courage ! man, that knows 
 His days are numbered, doth not therefore fling 
 His cares and hopes aside, and let the thief 
 Plunder his store unchallenged. Humankind 
 Is sound at heart ; the wise and good increase ; 
 And chiefly gain's stern fight hath lent to men 
 Their cruel masks, which gladly they will doff 
 When strife shall yield to concord. Never hand 
 Hath wrought a marble god of common clay ; 
 And not the holiest laws inscribed in Heaven 
 Can bind mean hearts to justice ; yet if they, 
 Whose nobler promptings age by age have lured 
 Their brethren ever further from the brute,
 
 ii THE MARCH OF MAN 131 
 
 Had held their peace because the brute-life pleased 
 The general herd, man had been wandering still 
 A savage in the wilderness. He chargeth 
 Men's bosoms with the lightning -flash who 
 
 summons 
 
 From narrow seeking after narrow ends 
 To righteousness and justice ; and the roar 
 That bursts from the vast throng, ten thousand 
 
 hearts 
 
 Heaving as one, when some great patriot pleads, 
 Is stronger than the earthquake ; petty aims 
 And paltry hates are drowned in that broad voice, 
 And all, exalted o'er themselves, will blush 
 Even to think the baseness each would act 
 Single and uninspired. The very bulk 
 Of ocean, where the wind hath room to range, 
 Purgeth it, while the standing pond grows foul.
 
 132 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Therefore 'tis well that closer, day by day, 
 
 The wide world o'er, the sons of toil forgather, 
 
 And dreamers of a loftier life than ours 
 
 Utter their burning visions, and just souls, 
 
 Impatient of disunion's wasteful fray, 
 
 Rally their scattered powers, and pledge their faith 
 
 To lead true lives, to taste no pleasure wrung 
 
 From others' grief, but share the common load 
 
 According to their strength. What matters it 
 
 That they, whose hands have planted here and there 
 
 Oases in the desert of man's strife, 
 
 Lived but to see the sand-blast strip their palms, 
 
 The sand-drift choke their fountain? 'tis by 
 
 stumbling 
 
 We learn to walk aright ; had no star-seer 
 Mistold on Eastern plains the doom of kings,
 
 ii THE MARCH OF MAN 133 
 
 We had not known the moment when the moon 
 Would mask her brow with shadow, or some wild 
 And bright -haired truant through the fields of 
 
 space 
 
 Visit our skies once more. What matters scorn ? 
 The record of man's triumphs is the tale 
 Of dreams at first derided, next assailed, 
 Lastly fulfilled. Where'er a young growth springs, 
 Down-trodden by tradition's heavy hoof, 
 There waits the sap forced back to feed the root 
 A harvest for the future. 
 
 Even now 
 
 Such harvest waxeth. They who, sick to see 
 Strife's blind self-slaughter, point to that fair realm 
 Where Concord spreads her feast for all who will, 
 Long mocked-at, then maligned, are now believed.
 
 134 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 None saith, " The world stands still ; " yet that 
 
 which moves 
 Must move somewhither; and what means this 
 
 sound 
 
 Of labour's mustering legions, or these hands 
 That reach across a thousand leagues of sea 
 To succour a fall'n comrade, if the end 
 Be only the old reckless race to win 
 Self s goal by others' stumbling, if the city 
 Become once more the nomad's lonely tent ? 
 Madmen would wiselier dream but if man's path 
 Lead not to self s inhospitable slough, 
 A sunnier clime awaiteth him, where, toil 
 Made light by union, thought and faith at one, 
 Hate overcome by help, and art uncaged, 
 Each soul shall breathe the same pure air and light, 
 And differ but in graces.
 
 II THE MARCH OF MAN 135 
 
 Blind are they 
 
 To Nature's beckonings who fear lest men, 
 Fattened no more on others' want, but bending 
 Their shoulders to the general wheel of toil, 
 Should lose the soul's distinction. Know we not 
 That bushman features bushman, driven to seek 
 The same base living by the same base means, 
 As wolf resembleth wolf; that thought and art 
 Then flourished first when mutual help had 
 
 found 
 
 A swifter and a safer road to ease 
 Than single greed ? What space for growth of sou 
 Hath he who strains the deathlong day, to wring 
 From Mammon's clutch his wage of crust and 
 
 rags- 
 Less valued than a horse for if he die, 
 What then ? another fights to fill his place ;
 
 136 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 But horses have their price? depraved and starved, 
 Warped, numbed and stunted, how shall such as he 
 Put forth those beauteous blossoms of the spirit, 
 That purge indeed the air, yet will not bloom 
 Where all is foul and sunless ? 
 
 Wise were he 
 
 Passing man's scope, whose wit could apprehend 
 Each glory of the landscape that lies hid 
 Beyond our day's horizon strange delights, 
 Strange griefs, strange hopes; but, clearly to 
 
 discern 
 
 Some wide and various harvest of the soul, 
 That waits the tillage of a nobler race, 
 And will not spring while of the husbandmen 
 Some filch the seed, some trample on the blade, 
 And most are stupid with the mill-horse round
 
 II THE MARCH OF MAN 13? 
 
 Of sordid cares, or maimed with misery 
 This craves no prophet. 
 
 Surely from the heat 
 
 That trembles in the world's deep soul to-day 
 Will rise new growths and lovelier forms of life 
 Not suddenly, as when the metal cools, 
 The mould is cracked, and lo ! the statue stands; 
 But slowly, like the growth of a great tree. 
 The husbandman may train the boughs, may graft 
 A nobler stock to feed upon its strength, 
 But change its kind he cannot ; husbandry 
 Maketh the crab yield pippins, never grapes ; 
 And those old promptings of the heart of man, 
 The love of home and kin, the joy to reap 
 The fruit of his own labour, howsoe'er 
 Their nature may be bent to worthier ends,
 
 138 THE MARCH OF MAN CANTO 
 
 Are rooted in the ages, and though lopped 
 A hundred times will spread their arms anew. 
 
 We seek not to molest them toil is good 
 And toil's reward we seek to find for all 
 A place in the world's workfield, where good will 
 May win good recompense ; we seek to stay 
 The spoiler's hand, and bid the idler yield 
 The sheaves he gathered not, that they may eat 
 Who labour, and the generous heart no more 
 Be bled by churls. 
 
 Self-help is good ; but they 
 Who mark the trophies of man's care for man, 
 His struggle from the savage to the saint, 
 His yearning after justice, beauty, truth, 
 The simple steadfast power of welded wills,
 
 II THE MARCH OF MAN 139 
 
 The widening vision of the human soul 
 
 Once swathed in darkness well may such foretell 
 
 A self-help stronger than the gripe of beast 
 
 Or bandit, surer than the wasteful strife 
 
 Of greed devouring greed. 
 
 A mighty change, 
 
 Enfolded in the troubled womb of time, 
 Shapeth itself in silence ; foolish hopes 
 And fond alarms disquiet faithless breasts ; 
 Love waits the birth unfaltering. The wise world 
 Hath not forgot how in a simple room 
 A Jewish craftsman with his fisher-friends 
 Once ate their farewell supper ; high priests hissed 
 Their spite ; Rome curled a lip of sickly scorn ; 
 But life was with the little brother-band, 
 And mankind's slow salvation. Love can wait.
 
 DIES NON 
 
 THE brooding halcyon hour is here at last ; 
 
 The world's tumultuous wrong has taken flight 
 With that dark ocean-mood, which yesternight 
 Did battle with the blast. 
 
 Heaven smiles to see its beauty in the bay ; 
 Care lies a-drowning where the blue tide laves 
 The rust-red weed, and frolic of light waves 
 Laughs heaviness away. 
 
 Fresh from the ripple's delicate caress, 
 I lean upon the bosom of a rock,
 
 DIES NON 141 
 
 That basks with me, forgetful of the shock 
 Of storms, the sea's distress ; 
 
 And listening, while the slow wave-crests unroll 
 Their splendour, to the sea-mew's lonely cry, 
 Sweet echoes of a sister melody 
 Waken along my soul. 
 
 Once more I seem to hear the wood-dove croon 
 In secret covert consecrate to spring, 
 The whisper of the forest's half-fledged wing 
 Fanning the flush of noon ; 
 
 The long sea-murmur sweeping o'er a main 
 
 Of billowy brake and glade, where sunshine 
 
 dyes 
 
 With touches of her tenderest harmonies 
 The treetops' purple plain ;
 
 142 DIES NON 
 
 And once more through the oak-grove's hoary 
 
 screen, 
 
 Beyond the faded fern, are caught afar 
 Glimpses of larchwood where the wind-flowers 
 
 star 
 The thicket's early green. 
 
 Again I seek the time-worn stones that pent 
 A garden once, deep-sheltered from mankind, 
 Now haunted only by the homeless wind 
 And memory's low lament ; 
 
 And musing watch the kestrel o'er his bower 
 Hover, with kingly pinions scarce astir, 
 The butterfly, spring's motley harbinger, 
 Sway on the sun-kissed flower ; 
 
 Or mark the slender shadows rise and fall 
 
 Where in their silken cradles beech-leaves dream
 
 DIES NON 143 
 
 Of summer's bridal, and the soft sunbeam 
 Sleeps on the windless wall, 
 
 And warms to life the old romance that strays 
 Forgotten where the rose-leaves mouldering lie, 
 And weds it with the gracious luxury 
 That decks these fuller days 
 
 The nestling grange that seems a friendlier part 
 Of Nature's self, in outward guise akin 
 To some moss-suited crag, and clothed within 
 By Nature's consort, Art ; 
 
 There Welcome waits beside the ruddy glow 
 That flecks the roof and laughs along the floor, 
 There Farewell passeth through the crowded door 
 With lingering steps and slow ;
 
 144 DIES NON 
 
 There, ranged in carven shrines, rich caskets keep 
 The embalmed wisdom of the deathless dead, 
 And music summons pity, love and dread 
 From out the spirit's deep ; 
 
 Or while the wine-cup sparkles, thought's free tide 
 Flows eddying onward, limpid, smooth, profound, 
 Or leaping from the heights with sudden bound 
 Laugheth where shallows glide. 
 
 Care vexeth not, nor calumny molests 
 
 The quiet of that home ; but settled soft 
 
 O'er roof and lawn, o'er bower and stream and 
 
 croft, 
 A mellow gladness rests. 
 
 The squirrel on the daisy-freckled grass 
 Sports unafraid ; the poet's daffodil
 
 DIES NON 145 
 
 Stoopeth to kiss his semblance in the rill ; 
 And when spring's love-dreams pass, 
 
 Roses shall queen it, making every breath 
 
 A pant of joy ; the peach shall sun her cheek 
 When bird-songs tire and hues of evening streak 
 The creeper's beauteous death. 
 
 Nor is the scene less fair when dead leaves lie 
 Thick in the pool's clear bosom, and the pines 
 Darken, and o'er the sodden meadow shines 
 A blue November sky ; 
 
 Or when the bare boughs' livelier tints are lost 
 In black against the snow, and from the eaves 
 Hang ice-spears, and the holly's trim-cut leaves 
 Are edged and spiked with frost.
 
 146 DIES NON 
 
 Ah ! genial home ! where every season lends 
 Fresh grace, where hospitality's glad rites 
 Bless, and the loving-cup of deep delights 
 Circles among close friends. 
 
 There youth might twine the laurel and the rose, 
 Manhood forget the world, and old age lull 
 The soul to slumber, calm and beautiful 
 As autumn's rich repose ; 
 
 But that afar, where smothered with a pall 
 Of vapour the great cities sweat and groan, 
 From misery's dull heart a weary moan 
 Ascendeth, marring all. 

 
 WELCOME TO THE QUEEN 
 
 ON the occasion of Her Majesty's visit to Birmingham, in 
 the year of Her Jubilee, to lay the foundation-stone of the 
 Victoria Law Courts. 
 
 HAIL ! Mother of thy people ! Hail ! 
 
 Who deignest, in this golden year, 
 To lift awhile the widow's veil, 
 
 And with a sovereign smile to cheer 
 The gloom, that widening hour by hour 
 
 Enfolds the heart of England's toil, 
 The clouds that, ever gathering, lower 
 
 Above the clang of our turmoil.
 
 148 WELCOME TO THE QUEEN 
 
 Now wellnigh thirty years have lent 
 
 A graver glory to thy brow, 
 Since last our barrier'd thousands rent 
 
 The air with one vast welcome ; now 
 The beard is grey of him who ran, 
 
 Clasping his child, to gain a place ; 
 And the child's self, a stalwart man, 
 
 Shoulders his way to see thy face. 
 
 What though we miss the genial voice 
 
 Of that pure soul, whose princely tone, 
 A nation's pride, love's simple choice, 
 
 Made faultless music with thine own ; 
 His gracious influence rules us yet, 
 
 His memory still inspires our way, 
 And joy makes welcome of regret 
 
 His spirit lives with thine to-day.
 
 WELCOME TO THE QUEEN 149 
 
 Then brook, great Queen, thy people's glee ; 
 
 We cannot choose but let thee know 
 Our gladness in thy jubilee, 
 
 The joy that makes our hearts o'erflow ; 
 So once again this steadfast town 
 
 Doffs for a day its sober dress, 
 Unknits the firmness of its frown, 
 
 And revels wide in happiness. 
 
 So once again our paths are dense 
 
 With myriads of thy strong ones ; high 
 Throbs every pulse in rare suspense, 
 
 And eager looks of loyalty 
 Crowd every casement ; the gay streets, 
 
 With flag-festoons and streamers hung, 
 Laugh out, and every steeple greets 
 
 Its Sovereign with a rapturous tongue.
 
 ISO WELCOME TO THE QUEEN 
 
 And now a happy murmur fills 
 
 The air, till brass and drums give out 
 The nation's hymn ; each bosom thrills 
 
 A moment ; then one mighty shout 
 Bursts from a thousand breasts, and drowns 
 
 The ponderous chords, and ever moves 
 Beside thee as thou mov'st, and crowns 
 
 Thee Victress of thy people's loves. 
 
 Despise not our rough welcome ; we 
 
 Know little here of cultured calm ; 
 But in our reverence for thee 
 
 To none will we forego the palm ; 
 Ours is a hopeful discontent 
 
 That slumbers not while harm is wrought, 
 A spirit stout and confident, 
 
 And rugged ore of honest thought.
 
 WELCOME TO THE QUEEN 151 
 
 Here labour makes the daylight dark, 
 
 And while night's roof of lurid smoke 
 Reflects the leaping furnace hark ! 
 
 The giant hammer's thunder-stroke ! 
 Yet have we hearts as soft as strong, 
 
 Hands ever swift to succour need, 
 Blood that can boil at tale of wrong, 
 
 And heritage of manly deed. 
 
 Here dwelt the seer whose thoughtful eye 
 
 First clove in twain Air's subtle stream ; 
 Here mind's divine supremacy 
 
 Tamed to our use the monster Steam ; 
 And here Toil's nameless warriors give 
 
 Their lives to yield the world increase, 
 And patient armaments achieve 
 
 The bounteous victories of peace.
 
 152 WELCOME TO THE QUEEN' 
 
 Then welcome, welcome ! for thy reign 
 
 Is rich with trophies, that shall last 
 When to a wiser world in vain 
 
 Destruction sounds her frantic blast ; 
 On lightning's wing our counsels flit, 
 
 The ocean shrinks, the hills depart, 
 The power most swift to slay hath knit 
 
 The nations into one great heart. 
 
 Now Knowledge sheds her quickening ray 
 
 In darkest haunts, and selfless Skill 
 Hath woven many a spell to stay 
 
 The progress of the powers of ill ; 
 Truth lifts her head, Oppression quails, 
 
 A purer air surrounds the throne ; 
 And slowly o'er the land prevails 
 
 The spirit of the Lord we own.
 
 WELCOME TO THE QUEEN 153 
 
 What though the shades of doubt affright, 
 
 And God's new dayspring tarries long ; 
 What though from dens of woe each night 
 
 Ascends the cry of nameless wrong ; 
 What though Want's ravening billow rolls 
 
 Around the heedless isles of lust ; 
 Never, to cope withal, were souls 
 
 More earnest, tender, brave and just. 
 
 Then welcome ! for thou com'st to found 
 
 A Hall of Right. May Justice flow 
 Free through the realm, nor stagnate, bound 
 
 In one choked well ; that men may know 
 Tis not for naught the sunlight dyes 
 
 Our Hall with hues that speak thy fame, 
 While round us, far and wide, arise 
 
 Memorials of thy glorious name !
 
 154 WELCOME TO THE QUEEN 
 
 Glorious in queenhood, for above 
 
 The reach of malice shines thy power ; 
 Glorious in womanhood, for love 
 
 And noble sorrow are thy dower. 
 Would that all English breasts, which swell 
 
 Like ours with joy of jubilee, . 
 Might mingle one full cheer, to tell 
 
 The faith and love they bear to thee ! 
 
 May no presaging dread molest 
 
 The peace that broods around the shore 
 Of thy loved isle, though all the West 
 
 Be dark with clouds of threatening war ; 
 But may thy world-wide Empire, drawn 
 
 To one close brotherhood, sustain 
 The promise of a holier dawn, 
 
 The triumph of thy matchless reign !
 
 SPRING SONG 
 
 THE fragrance of awakening flowers 
 Quickens the breath of Spring ; 
 
 Exulting in their bridal bowers 
 The mated wood-birds sing ; 
 
 The lark is up ; the gentle air 
 
 Carols light music everywhere. 
 
 The bee sings at her lovely toil, 
 
 The cricket at his play ; 
 The redbreast scans the fresh-turned soil ; 
 
 The meadows, pied with May, 
 Shimmer beneath the trembling blue. 
 Since all is song, I warble too.
 
 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 
 
 CHEERLESS, through dens of want and death, 
 Where unregarded woe blasphemes 
 The Lord in whom we boast our faith, 
 The Christmas dayspring gleams. 
 
 Friend of the poor ! that spak'st of one 
 Beside whose gate a lazar lay, 
 Dost mark the deeds of love undone 
 Where Love is preached to-day ? 
 
 The man that leaves thy poor in hell, 
 And saith to his fed heart, " Am I
 
 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 157 
 
 My brother's keeper, so I dwell 
 In halls that hear no cry ? " 
 
 The noisome tree, whereof the fruit 
 Is pomp and lust, which fills the air 
 With pestilence, and hath its root 
 In hunger and despair ? 
 
 O Thou, whose smile the children knew ! 
 Dost mark on yonder garret-bed, 
 Where weeps the rain the rafters through, 
 Three starvelings, and one dead ? 
 
 And him who lolls in Pleasure's lap, 
 With dice and wine and paramour, 
 And tosses in a jockey's cap 
 The wages of the poor ?
 
 158 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 
 
 Avenging God ! who woke at length, 
 A hundred years gone by, and gave 
 For one tremendous hour the strength 
 Of Samson to the slave ; 
 
 And made repent in tears and blood 
 The harsh oppressors of the world 
 How long, ere yet of Brotherhood 
 The banner be unfurled ?
 
 MORNING TWILIGHT 
 
 SADLY in the silent west, 
 
 The moon, worn-out with watching all the night 
 Over the sleeping earth, her cheek 
 
 Hollow and white, 
 
 Wan with a sorrow that she may not speak, 
 Sinks to her lonely rest. 
 
 Like a love-deserted maid, 
 That dare not meet her lord awake, but steals 
 By night to his bedside, to mourn 
 
 Her loss, and feels 
 
 Him waking, in the sunlight of his scorn 
 Triumphantly arrayed.
 
 THE SEMPSTRESS TO HER SKYLARK 
 
 POOR little captive ! never more 
 
 To seek the sunlight-hidden stars ! 
 
 I know what 'tis to break the heart, 
 
 Searching the sky through prison-bars. 
 
 " O for a breath of ocean-air ! 
 
 O for a draught of morning dew 
 Fresh from the cowslip-cup, and bright 
 
 With heaven's all-embracing blue ! 
 
 " O for the speedwell's azure smile ! 
 O for the mountain's noonday sigh !
 
 O for the clouds ! " and yet, dear lark, 
 Thou canst not love them more than I. 
 
 Now cease to chafe that ruffled breast ; 
 
 For by my sorrow, pretty sweet, 
 This very evening thou shalt rest 
 
 Beneath the moonbeams and the wheat. 
 
 Farewell farewell ! O for a friend 
 To do what I have done for thee ! 
 
 But patience ! though men's hearts are hard, 
 God's hand some day will set me free. 
 
 M
 
 SEMPER EADEM 
 
 THREE hundred years have passed since Spain 
 
 O'ershadowed thought's new dawn with fear, 
 And proudly forged a Titan's chain, 
 
 And rattled it in Freedom's ear : 
 And dared upon the deep to flaunt 
 
 The pomp of hate, the pride of creed, 
 And vexed our waves with idle vaunt 
 
 Lo now ! her sceptre is a reed. 
 
 They lie where storm and sea go forth 
 
 To wage o'erhead eternal fight, 
 Where the foundations of the North 
 
 Unshaken rest in voiceless night ;
 
 SEMPEK EADEM 163 
 
 The rust hath eaten bolt and brand, 
 
 With weed the wrecks are mantled o'er, 
 
 Those iron throats are choked with sand 
 That roared against our native shore. 
 
 Yet not in Britain's golden days 
 
 Were men united, save in deed ; 
 For some deplored, with wistful gaze, 
 
 The sunset of a parting creed, 
 And some desired the dawn ; but all 
 
 Uprose as one to face the foe, 
 And girt them at their country's call, 
 
 And laid the bold invader low. 
 
 Three hundred years have passed, and Spain 
 Wears yet the shackles of the priest, 
 
 And knout and famine goad in vain 
 The sullen slave-hordes of the East ;
 
 164 SEMPER EADEM 
 
 The nations yet grow great in guilt, 
 
 Aspiring but to overwhelm, 
 While restlessly, with hand on hilt, 
 
 Suspicion scowls from realm to realm. 
 
 But who shall say old England grows 
 
 Less hale, her sons of meaner mood ? 
 Their life hath dyed the Russian snows, 
 
 The desert sand hath drunk their blood ; 
 Though valiant deeds no more are done 
 
 With wings of white and oaken keel, 
 Each stands as steadfast to his gun, 
 
 And iron ribs hold hearts of steel. 
 
 We fear no stranger. Our worst foe 
 
 Teems in our midst, where in grim street, 
 
 Choked with Advancement's overflow, 
 The eyes of Vice and Hunger meet ;
 
 SEMPER EADEM 165 
 
 Where myriads draw their joyless breath 
 Only to sweat, and drink, and breed, 
 
 And haggard mothers drug to death 
 The babes their bosom fails to feed. 
 
 Yet while hearts hotly swell, when Wrong 
 
 Fastens upon his helpless prey, 
 And while eyes beam with light, that long 
 
 To tear the mask of Fraud away ; 
 While kee,n and watchful brains abide 
 
 To cast the Future's horoscope, 
 And generous heirs of ease and pride 
 
 Renounce their birthright there is hope.
 
 THE DEAD CAPTAIN 
 
 FALLEN ! we shall not see his sword again 
 Flash in the bitter conflict waged with wrong ; 
 Nor hear his voice, amid the uncertain throng, 
 Call to his rallying comrades, not in vain. 
 The weakling lies not always with the slain, 
 The triumph is not always to the strong. 
 We question not the dark decree ; we trust 
 'Twas well for him ; for us 'tis well ; the lust 
 For power and fame, the weakness to be great, 
 Are quelled with grief, and humbled to the dust, 
 Where by the simple bed Death holds his state.
 
 WITH FLOWERS 
 
 IF these smile bright, believe they know 
 
 That beauty is a flower ; 
 If crushed and drooping, they confess 
 
 Thy smile's victorious power ; 
 If they look pale, it is because 
 
 They pined and paled for thee ; 
 And if they blush, believe their hearts 
 
 Are trembling consciously. 
 They wither, doomed through death alone 
 
 To greet a flower more fair ; 
 Yet, ere they perish, kiss them once, 
 
 'Twill raise thine image there ;
 
 1 68 WITH FLOWERS 
 
 For often as thy fragrant breath 
 Is mingling with their scents, 
 
 There meet an angel and a flower, 
 Thine own pure elements.
 
 A STORM SCENE 
 
 CRASH out, ye mighty chords ! The heavens are 
 
 black 
 
 With wrath ; the lightnings shudder through the air, 
 And blind with fury tear 
 The huddling rack, 
 Furling its pale and tattered banners o'er 
 
 Yon steel expanse ; 
 
 Tender as newborn love a rainbow glows, 
 The warm mist 'neath it flushes moist and rose 
 City and sea and shore 
 
 Steeped in one trance.
 
 170 A STORM SCENE 
 
 And every treetop sparkles with its leaves 
 
 Refulgent in the setting sun ; 
 The meads are golden-green, rich with the storm 
 
 Of Nature's summer-love ; 
 
 Far in the night above 
 A white bird twinkles like a star, and cleaves 
 
 The thunder-caverns dun ; 
 Denser and louder forth the sullen tempests swarm. 
 
 Crash out, vast symphony ! thy lover hears 
 And worships. It is over those fierce tears 
 Have blotted all to grey ; 
 
 With smothered moan 
 Great Nature's passion-music, like our own, 
 
 Is sobbed away.
 
 TO ONE IN SORROW 
 
 PATIENCE ! Time's gently-pressing palm 
 
 Is on thy wound. Thou canst not feel 
 
 The virtue of the looks that calm, 
 
 The quiet of the hands that heal ; 
 
 Yet some glad morning thou shalt rise 
 To taste again Joy's sweet surprise. 
 
 So from the day that saw it fade 
 The plant takes heart. Thou canst not mark 
 The hueless bud, the wrinkled blade, 
 Forcing their prison cold and dark ; 
 
 Yet in some fostering, sunny hour 
 Doth spring to life a newborn flower.
 
 To thee, young queen, these tribute lines 
 Charged with my love the word is writ 
 
 A daintier word were false ; but " love " 
 No more can tell the soul of it, 
 
 Than " light " can tell the myriad mood 
 Of sunshine ; from the fickle play 
 
 Which frolics through the dappled leaves 
 When all the lanes are white with May, 
 
 To that full bliss of warmth which lies 
 Delirious on the breast of June,
 
 TO SIVEET SEVENTEEN 173 
 
 Or sunset flash of burdened heavens, 
 Or dreamy glow of autumn noon. 
 
 So " love " poor word is all we have, 
 To paint each radiant power that makes 
 
 The sunshine of a human heart ; 
 
 From the sweet sense of want which wakes 
 
 In childhood's breast, to ripe repose 
 
 Of wedded faith, or ecstasy 
 Of passionate youth, or such delight 
 
 As that I take, fair girl, in thee.
 
 GRASS OF PARNASSUS 
 
 THERE is a flower, a milk-white star, 
 That twinkles on the mountain-side, 
 
 Up-glancing where its sisters are, 
 Sightless beyond the blue noontide. 
 
 One simple leaf, an emerald heart, 
 Closes around its slender stem ; 
 
 Not all the witchery of art 
 
 Could fashion such a faultless gem. 
 
 Look on its snowy brow ! O see 
 The tracery that veins its cheek !
 
 GRASS OF PARNASSUS 175 
 
 The faintly-flushed anemone 
 Is not more delicate and meek. 
 
 Yet where the unbridled tempest blows 
 A sunbeam cradled in the storm 
 
 It smiles in innocent repose, 
 
 A peaceful, pure and perfect form.
 
 AUTUMN SONG 
 
 THE year grows heavy ; but the hour 
 Is fresh as April ; the blithe air 
 Is tremulous with sun and shower ; 
 
 A rainbow smiles farewell 
 To the spent storm, and everywhere , 
 
 Song breaks from hill and dell. 
 
 So when the summer of our life 
 Fades into autumn, now and then 
 An hour will come to us, sweet wife, 
 
 When all our soul shall sing, 
 And all our heart shall leap, as when 
 
 We drank the dew of Spring.
 
 SERENADE 
 
 WHEN moonlight o'er thy casement weaves 
 Its network through the breathless leaves, 
 And lake and lawn beneath the summer sky 
 
 Dream in the mist 
 
 Ah ! sweet ! a lovelier scene within doth lie 
 By slumber kist. 
 
 And when the stars begin to pale, 
 And trampling on her crimson veil 
 Young Morning flashes forth with dewy hair 
 
 And sparkling eyes 
 Ah ! sweet ! I linger for a dawn more fair, 
 When thou shall rise. 
 
 N
 
 This book is DUE on the last 
 date stamped below. 
 
 10M-11-50( 2555) 470 
 
 REMINGTON RANO - 2O
 
 PR 
 
 1892 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY ; FAC LITY 
 
 AA 000370076 2