PER ASPERA AD ASTRA PER ASPERA AD ASTRA A COLLECTION OF POEMS BY ALEXANDRA VON HERDER NEW YORK ROBERT GRIER COOKE, INCORPORATED 1907 Copyright 1907 by Robert Grier Cooke, Inc. All rights reserved. Entered at Stationers Hall, London. 3S-/3 To T. de Gunthe On the dawn of the day of your marriage, Others will bring you their gold, Their jewels, their gems and their silver My hands this book only hold, This fragment but suffer its pages To mirror the light of your soul, And the greatest of human treasures Will gild and transfigure the scroll. 626154 INDEX. ASPERA MARCUS AURELIUS ON His DEATH BED IN THE ROMAN CAMP AT VINDOBONA, DURING His CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE MARCOMANS, MARCH, A. D., 180 . . . . . ... . . .17 NOTE TO POPE CELESTINE V. . , .21 POPE CELESTINE V . . .22 A WOMAN S FACE 25 THE WRECK OF THE "ADEN" ...... 26 SUNSET OFF SANDY HOOK ...... 27 SEA NOCTURNE ......... 28 How SHALL WE LIVE? 29 PRAYERS . 30 THE SHADOW ON THE DIAL 31 BIRTH THROE 32 RETRO ME HOMINE ........ 33 NOCTURNE . ^ . . 34 REGRET 35 Cui BONO 36 FOR A LITTLE 37 AMONG THE FLOWERS . . . . .. . . . 38 STAR SONG 39 THE LAST TREK . . 40 ASTRA CATHOLICITY 45 THE SOLITARY COLUMN OF KARNAK . . . .46 THE CENTRAL ALTAR IN THE TEMPLE OF HEAVEN PEKING 47 AN ATLANTIC LINER 48 MOUNT EVEREST . . . .... . . . 49 THE DESERT . . . . ... . . 50 THE RAIN CLOUD ......... 51 THE SUNSET CLOUD . ,. / . ... . .52 SANCTUARY . . . ...:. , . . 53 RESURRECTION . . . . . . . . .54 EVOLUTION ...... 55 BENEDICITE VER . . . .56 SPRING . . x . > . 57 BIRDS . . . , . . . . , . . .58 SUMMER HARVEST . . . . . . . . 59 Sic TRANSIT . . . . . . . ^ . . .60 THOUGH IT BE DEATH . . ... . . 61 To A YOUNG GIRL . . ". ... . . 62 To RUTH . . . . . 63 IMMORTALITY . . 64 ASPERA Marcus Aurelius on His Death Bed in the Roman Camp at Vindobona, during His Campaign against the Marcomans, March, A. D., 180 Draw close the curtains of my tent they re cold Those cruel winds of March. How is it with me? Disease enthrals me wholly and there is that Within me whispers death itself is close At hand. What, tears? Nay, nay that is rebellion Against a greater prince than I. If He, Who sent me here, now bids me go, what cause Is there for sorrow? Let Him be satisfied What would ye more? Ye murmur that He called Too soon! How should ye know? Is mortal man Who in the boundless stretch of time discerns But one small point, the time that is ; who owns No magic spell wherewith to bind the least Swift second of the past, no vision s breadth Wherewith to scan the mighty aeons still Unborn ; who, hardly longer than t wixt dawn And sunset crawls out life upon the clod, The narrow clod he calls his world, is he Fit arbiter of what is truly termed "Too soon or late"? It is the will of Fate To set a term to whatsoever once Began ; Death is the common lot of all, As natural as birth and growth, less strange, Less terrible than life. What room were there For youth, if age endured for ever? Men die So that mankind may live. Mark well the book Of Nature. Does it not show the breaking wave Dissolve without a sigh upon the shore, The rose shed silently its purple crown, The ripened olive drop unmurmuring Unto the ground ; and these are soulless things. Shall man who has a soul to comprehend, Whose spirit is akin to God s, alone Revolt against the universal scheme? Consider, too, how little happiness Mere length of days adds to the mind. I ve seen Men rich in years, so poor in everything That lendeth grace and worth to life, they moved My heart to pity; and if I thus perceived That all that signifies is not how long, But how a human being lives, I learnt As well, that this most fragile particle Of mind and matter, man, whom sixty years 17 Of fleeting time drain dry of all his power, Was scarcely fashioned to endure the blaze Of God s Eternity. Our fear of death Is but an appetite for longer life, And like all appetites will lead astray When uncontrolled by reason. O Universe, From whom all things proceed, in whom they all Subsist, and unto whom all must return, If tis for thy good that I yield up life, Let no one murmur at my death. So soon, The mourners are as still and cold as those They wept for in their bitterness. To-day I die, to-morrow thou ; and shortly all Who ever knew us, hating us or loving, Are vanished like a little smoke, and then This beauteous world, in which we laughed, and hoped And toiled, will scarce remember where our graves Are slowly crumbling into dust. My God! That cruel pang again. How fluently We talk of sickness and calamity, While all is well, but gripped by adverse fate It needeth much philosophy to repress The cry of pain; and thou art weeping? Still? Ah Fronto, noble friend, I know there are Some griefs, to which the loftiest arguments Of reason seem as cold a consolation As for the burdened body is this bleak Barbarian land ; and lately but may be My body s fever bursting bounds, has seared The soul a doubt, a gnawing doubt, chill, blank, Dissolving as the autumnal mists, which creep And cling among these marsh girt northern woods, Has overcast my inmost thoughts, a doubt That in the changeful flux of Fate all things Not always alter for the best, that man Is to the great Creative Force no more Than is the lump of clay unto the potter, Who, even as he lists, will mould of this A statue, of that a mean and paltry jar, To be despised or honoured, used and crushed To pieces, according to no higher law Than the accident of chance; yea that our soul Itself, is but a lightning flash of reason Which, for an instant, burns midst vortices Of senseless atoms, lost within the womb Of night. A giddy thought ! My teachers taught Not so, and I would fain still twine my dreams Round their belief, my worship round their altars, 18 Around their confidence my hopes ; fain, fain, But that I fear it is the cowardice Of weakness thus to cling to hearsay creeds, Instead of gazing out with mine own eyes And with that steadfast boldness which, indeed, Is the only real reverence, far out Into Creation s Mystery. How oft I tried to fill the silence, wherewith God Still answers man s impatient questionings, With guidance of a teacher s voice in vain ! If truth demands, we must unflinchingly Discard beliefs, which strain and split neath weight Of fuller knowledge, yea e en though its stern Command destroy, with scarcely a regret For their lost beauty, all those sweet illusions, Those threads of golden poetry, that hid And bridged the dark abyss of the unknown. Yea, truth is stern and pitiless, but who Shall say if, in the centuries to come, When less constrained by blinding use and custom, Mankind shall not at last discern how far The strong perfection of reality Transcends the painted beauty of its dreams? Yea, who can tell, who know? All-seeing God How Thou must mock or pity us ! I prate Of fuller knowledge, and all we hold is scarce A drop out of Thy boundless ocean that With most, defiled with mud ; stern limits set Unto the wisest man s researches ; the mind Of Socrates himself imprisoned close By ignorance. Laboriously we build Our grave philosophies, as children pile Their puny heaps of sand and shells, call this A palace, that a fortress, till the sea, With one lap of a lazy wave, wipes all Away and makes the children s playground blank And level as before. Let us not boast Then of a certitude beyond the reach Of finite mind, but humbly walk, with brow Serene and steady foot, the path we know Is good, the path of virtue and of truth. To tread that path is all the God within Demands of us ; not to be there, in life Or death, the only evil which subdues The soul of man ; and walking thus, as on We move from deepest night to glimmering dawn, Some time perhaps, for some of us the clouds Will lift and through their broken multitudes 19 Will burst the grand Apocalypse of God! Ah, not for me. My part is done for ever That pain again its work now is soon ended. Let no one importune the Gods with prayers For my recovery. Behold I die A royal death at duty s foremost post Of danger, combating my country s foes. I m weary, friends ; my soul, like to a bird Upon the threshold of dim Night, would close Its quivering wings and hush its wealth of music Within the silence of untroubled rest. Greet Rome, my Rome, for me when you return To her from banishment, yea, greet her well, And tell her how a Stoic Emperor dies. Note to Pope Celestine V. Celestine V. was Pietro the son of a peasant of Southern Italy. At the age of twenty he had joined the order of the Benedictines, and later retired into the mountains of Apulia, where he lived with a few other hermits who afterwards called themselves Celestines. In 1294 when he was already quite an old man his solitude was broken into by cardinals and archbishops requesting him to exchange his hermit cell for the papal throne. He refused at first, but when Charles II. of Naples and Andrew III. of Hungary joined their en treaties to those of the cardinals, he consented to accept the Tiara. He was, however, profoundly unhappy in his new surroundings, and after a little over two years, disgusted with the worldliness and intrigues rampant at the papal court, he resigned and fled back to his Apulian Mountain solitude. But his successor, Boniface VIII., fearing a schism, caused him to be arrested and thrown into prison, where he died on the 19th of May, 1294, at the age of eighty-one. 21 Pope Celestine V. Ah, take it hence; release me from this crown, Which with its treble weight of Earth and Heaven And Hell in never opening circles binds My brow. Remove it quite ! My eyes are dim With gazing on the pageantry of life For fuller length of years than frail mortality Can fitly bear. My weary footsteps faint Neath honours heaped upon me, honours borne So badly they have turned to bitter shame. Yet Lord! Thou knowest that I sought them not. Not mine the fierce ambition that devours And goads still upward over wrecks of loves, And dreams and friendships till the topmost rung Is reached, whence gazing down the world appears The toy, the passive plaything of one being Intoxicated with applause. Not mine The hunger for the sunshine of this world, Its blaze of pomp and power, wealth, renown. I loved the cool sweet shade of humble life, Embowered in peace and solitude, filled full With grace, as cup of violet brims with dew. And God had granted my desire. The deep Seclusion of monastic vows bound fast The placid current of my days, which knew No other change, but that the sunrise breathed "Orate," and the star, whose tremor crowns The sunset glow, would whisper "Vigilate." I never dreamed but that they still would glide, Each like to each rounded with prayer, smooth And still as rosary beads ; would glide from dawn To night, from night to dawn, in sacred, safe Monotony even to the longest night Of all. O vanity of human thought ! Ye came, ye whom I know not, ye whom hating I never could have hurt as ye hurt me. Ye broke the silence of my hermit s cell With clash of worldly tongues and cares : "Be Pope ! "We cardinals have chosen thee." I heard, But knowing God had not approved the choice, I would not follow at your call. Then kings Approached and knelt before me in the dust; "Great Anchorite, we know thee pure and just, "Without a stain. The Church is sick for dearth "Of upright men like thee. Give her thy strength ! "What does it in this wilderness? Like gold, "The miser hides and hoards, it yields mankind "No fruit of joy. The Christian world hath need 22 "Of thee, the Christian world -which for two years "In vain has clamoured for a Pope." With these And other reasonings they overwhelmed My hesitance, until perplexed, I half Believed the voice of God spoke with their tongues I yielded, and they made me Pope. Yea Pope ! O had ye known what force for good or ill Lies in that name, mayhap ye would have paused Before ye cast it thus away. Behold These old and trembling hands. Was t right to place Within their feeble grasp the keys of Hell And Heav n? Was t just to call a helpless man The representative of Christ? What is This thing I call myself, that its least word To multitudes should be command, as though Decreed by God Himself? And ye who flaunt That rash assumption, know full well ye speak A lie. Do ye not daily seek to bend My sovereign power, that it may cringe and curve Along the dark and crooked paths which lead Unto the satisfaction of your own Ungodly aims? Blind leaders of the blind! My soul is sick with all this gorgeousness Of broidered vestments, jewelled mitres, clouds Of incense, crowds of officiating priests Who pray but for their own advancement ; chants And services, lip-services, while through Them all, the spirit starves, the famished soul Faints unto death ! Are ye the ministers Of God, ye who have even dared debase Repentance and remission of men s sins Into a market-thing to sell and buy? "And what of that? The papal treasury "Gets filled. The world s way." True, perhaps, but I, Who fled the world in unmarred youth, abhor These ways and stumble in their tangled maze Of crookedness. O God ! For one more breath Of thine own air that blows with strength of freedom Around my rock-bound wilderness : The sun At_ this last parting hour will flood the vale With heavenly light, and cast a radiant halo Around my wooden crucifix ; and then When Night s unbounded stillness hath engulfed The lesser silence of the day, as streams Are lost within the mighty sea s embrace, The moon will rise and wed her virgin beauty Unto the mountains majesty. My cell, 23 My lonely hermit s cell, my eagle s nest, Perched up so high above the valley s clouds And cares, which hears no sound but cry of birds, And splash of crystal torrents bounding down From rock to rock let me return, O take Me back unto my windswept mountain home, Back, where the wearied soul can think and pray ! Ye shake your heads, ye frown although ye need Me not nor love. Do I not often hear You whispering the name of my successor, Whom everyone of you in secret strives And longs to be? Vainhearted fools! I tell you, Sackcloth should be the Pope s dalmatica, The tiara should be made of thorns, that men Like yon, agape for gold and glittering pomp, Should ne er crowd into offices which saints Alone can rightly fill. And I, no saint : A foolish, weak and broken man, a tree Transplanted in old age, which needs must fall Because it cannot strike fresh roots. Well, well How I have talked the shades of evening thicken ; In but a little, night outlines with black The aureoles of the holy figures limned Upon the chapel s glass. To vespers then, Lord Cardinals, to vespers ! From my soul I ll murmur : Nunc dimittis, Lord, O Lord !" 24 A Woman s Face Angels and demons once fought for her soul, Harvests and ruins of years as they roll Fell to her lot : adoration and shame, Hunger and surfeit, sting of frost and of flame, Starkindled dewdreams, thunderbolt flash, Rapturous ecstasy, scorpion-tongued lash Of love in his passion lifted and caught her, Life-force possessed her, made her and taught her, Rent her and spent her ! Of both now bereft, Desolate, weary, alone she is left, Dull as the stretch of the waterless shore. Whose barren sands may exult never more In whisper and welter and salt of the wave. Athwart her brow blows the breath of the grave, Cold flows her blood in her stiffening veins, Pale are her pleasures, puny her pains, The breast is withered, the hair fallen grey But the eyes remember what the lips may not say. 25 The Wreck of the "Aden" Tis upon us again, the force of the wave, Foaming, ferocious, fathomless grave ; Cling for bare life to the slippery rail Bent and twisted by rage of the gale, Above us, beneath us, the bottomless sea, Lord God of tempests, we cry unto Thee. Thou alone O Lord, art refuge and stay, The winds and the waves Thy power obey, We are fainting with fear and horror and pain, Who shall escape when the tide comes again? Destruction looms hideous, our strength ebbs away, Lord God of tempests, save us we pray. We are Thy children ; Thou madest us ; Have we sinned above others, to perish thus? The billows are lashing and rending the deck, We scarce still can cling to the quivering wreck, Destroy not the life Thy providence gave, Lord God of Tempests, save us, O save. Have mercy upon us, hear us, O Lord, Victim on victim is swept overboard, Struggles an instant, shrieks and is drowned. Haste Thee to succour, be no deaf to the sound Of prayers for help ! O horrible fear There is no God in the billows to hear. Monstrous they roar, hungry-mouthed, cruel-lipped, Voracious chasms to foampools whipped : They care not, they know not whose lifeblood they spill ; O mankind, with glory of reason and will, Art thou so great then? Behold the blind sea, The fringe of its fury annihilates thee. Cease then from prayer, give up the fight; Though above the sea s strength rule a greater might, Men are but creatures and things of a day, For the forces of nature to bring forth and slay: Tarry not, take us, huge bosomed wave, Horrible, world wide, beautiful grave ! 26 Sunset Off Sandy Hook A bridge of gold Of beauty untold, Over ripples unrolled Twixt the ship and the shore. Over ripples just foaming In blue of the gloaming, Through which we are roaming In quest of the shore. What would it forebode To the wishes which goad Across the bleak road From cruel home-shore? Are the waves less bitter, As sunbeams they fritter To sparkles which glitter On bright alien shore? The sparkles which mould The lithe bridge of gold For Hope to unfold Her flight to the shore. But the bridge is so frail, And hope is so pale, Will she not fail Before she reach shore? 27 Sea Nocturne Stormclouds lifting and drifting, Starlight radiant again, Only away to the leeward Dreariness, dimness of rain. Waters open before us, Folds of glimmering white, Close a faint hissing of bubbles, Broken, submerged in the night. Onward from shores forgotten To harbours none of us know We move twixt the waves unfathomed And the stars unsearchable flow. While in us ideals forsaken And goals obscured arise, And the wail of the whole world s sorrow Through the Wet, through the Infinite cries. How Shall We Live? The Birds: : How shall we live O Winter? We filled the warm depths of the Summer With resonance of our songs ; We caused its sunbeam-flooded skies to kindle With winnowing of new-born wings; Abundantly we took from Life, And abundantly we gave. But now there is a stillness on the meadows, And a coldness in the air How shall we live now, Winter?" The Winter: "O little children of the Summer, What is this, that ye ask of me? Is it not enough that ye have lived already, Not enough, that high in Heaven The music of your songs was heard, That from your nests A joyful multitude went forth? Would ye exceed your destiny, And linger on beyond the force That made you? My little children of the Summer, I am Oblivion I am Death !" Prayers The Masses. "Give us the spacious halls, the sumptuous board, The cars, the ships, the jewellers hoard, Each joy and dalliance gold can buy!" The Man. "Give me the sky !" The Masses. "Give us importance, power, titles, fame, Make ours the envied, flattered name Before which crowds obsequious bend !" The Man. "Give me a friend." The M\asses. "Spare us Thy thunder s battle strain, Vouchsafe immunity from pain, From clang of deathbells as they toll !" The Man. "Give me the soul !" 30 The Shadow on the Dial Beyond the shadow on the Dial, Alternate change of dawn and dusk, Shall we from opening of flowers And closing of their withered husk, Conceive the final Mystery, Inscrutable to questionings, The Impulse, Anguish or the Thought Which moves and multiplies all things? And shall our mind, which made Time s measure, With what is measurelessly true At last be crowned? Or on the Dial Are we but phantom shadows too? x 31 Birth Throe Silence primeval in Time s folded coil And Dimness lay, unwoken yet from sleep Than Death s last slumber more profound and deep ; And Effort was not yet, nor strife and broil Of creatures each to each destroyer or spoil, And human souls were not to laugh or weep And in the mirror of their thoughts to keep The fragrance of all harvests of the soil, Until Creation s dream enflamed that night ; And since the Silence dreamt of perfect sound, And Dimness of the dazzling dawn of light, The anguish of their yearning gathered round Creation. Now, in each fresh birth her might Brings forth, the pain of that first wound is found. 32 Retro Me Homine O steep thy heart in roses, Thy soul in song of birds, Forget all human faces, Unlearn all human words. They do but moan and mutter, Clubfooted, reft of wing, Into their own mud trampling The bounteousness of Spring. They strangle life with phantoms : "Thou shalt not, and thou must," Proclaim as law and virtue Their twisted ropes of dust. Too high for them thy Heaven, Too luminous, too blue, Too deep the well of gladness, Whereto thy yearning flew. Too wide thy breadth of vision, Thy hearing all too keen, Too infinite thy knowledge, Thy sense of things unseen. Thy liberty too dazzling, Too perilous thy gains ; Slaves, born and bred in prison, Their only faith is chains. They make it shame and sorrow, What should abound with grace The sound of human voices, The sight of human face. From theirs thy paths be severed, Let these stand thee for words : The fragrance of wild roses, The music of wild birds. 33 Nocturne The day with all its trouble, Is dying in the west, E en as a weary flower The world droops into rest. Great stars begin to glisten And glimmer into sight, So far, so faint, so perfect, Like dreams dreamt in the night; Like hope that draws together Those whom the world would part, Like love that longs and lingers Unuttered in the heart. 34 Regret O fragrance of dark violets that hung An instant in the air, O music sung Beneath the stars, O hallowed touch Of human lips and human hands of such Surpassing loveliness, until there rose, From off the road of life, the dust which blows On all that s sweet; the dust which spares but set, Stern task and no companion but regret. 35 Cui Bono What is toil From gains forbidden ? What is day, From which is hidden Light? What is hope In worlds unbettered? What is patience Roughly fettered To Despair? What is sleep By dreams forsaken? What is life From which is taken Love? 36 For a Little come and tarry by my fireside, The evenings are long and grey Thy voice is music in the twilight, O for a little, come and stay! 1 have been sad and passing weary All through the hard, the lonely day Thy hand is soothing in the twilight, O for a little, come and stay! There is a world, the world knows nought of, Beyond its envy hid away Deep in the silence of the twilight, O my beloved, come and stay! 37 Among the Flowers Among the flowers of the summer, When first thy face appeared to me, Through all the dreaminess of summer, Among the flowers, I yearned for thee. Among the thorns which Fate and hardness Of thine own heart twixt thee and me Still scattered for my feet to bleed on, Among the thorns, I lived for thee. Below the moss, the moss untrodden, When I am nothing more to thee, I shall be healed in dreamless slumber From all the wounds thou gavest me. 38 Star Song Far, so far, Lonely star, Hidden half In a cloud, Cloud as heavy As a shroud. Far, so far, Beauteous star Of the evening Of my days, All thy rays Hidden quite Out of sight In the loneliness Of night. Wilt thou come Once again, Sweet as sunshine After rain? Bright as gleams Through my dreams In the loneliness Of night The remembrance Of thy light, Star, my star, Now so far? 39 The Last Trek Strike camp now boys, pack what biltong is left, Load up the waggon ; inspan the team, trek To the North; you ll find the gold yet. I stop here, I m too done now to ride; the jolt in the waggon Finished me up. Ye d wait? Our stock s too low. Leave me; tis best. I know what tis to be tied To deadweights. Curse the whole lot. I ll not pay This dirty world back in its own base coin. There s a hell of pride ablaze in me yet. I lived Alone; alone I shall die. Drop it, your pity. Human pity s too close to contempt, Death Ain t so dreadful looked square in the eye; the last Pons Asinorum we ve all got to cross. I m all right. But ye might just hitch up that blanket A bit, and shift the pillow; my neck s kind Of cricked. Here, take my watch I ve done with time. My money, too Don t spend it in drink. Then leave Me here beneath the sky, so cool now, so calm, He almost seems kind. And His stars and I We ll have our last palaver out. Lor, how They lied ! Don t they twinkle like rogues ? Maybe My bearings were out ; still I swear, that they vowed, If only I always stuck to their lead, They d surely land me in Paradise. . . . They sink, And I well two hours still at most ; a lame Flat end to a thirty years trek. Not even A grave. You mustn t wait to shovel me in. The birds can have me ; they get hungry too. To the last, I d turn my eyes to the light. I ll get My fill of the dark, had darkness enough. The hells I ve been through, the worries, the cares ! How I groused and cursed, prayed to Devils and Gods I didn t believe in ! It let off steam, Was useful at that. Helped? Not much. Luck helps. I used to fancy work did, honesty, Patience, all that copybook stuff. It does For some. Some fellows score before they ve bowled. I lose my wicket for scarcely a run, The bowling and batting ain t twice just alike, The rules, too, differ in every man s game. That makes it so hard. Still a hard game s good, If only the Umpire always were fair. He is? Bosh. Wait and play your deadlevel best Through the blazing noon, then find yourself stumped By the cowardly lie of a blackguardy cur Grousing, eh? Kind of foolish now, when all s 40 \ Too late. Ah well it eased the pain in the chest Awhile. I won t deny I scored some too ; Had some rattling good times, got Kudos and fun: Life s grand at its worst. Size up evil and good, They re plentiful both and much more akin Than parsons d say. I ve sampled most things, fruit Forbidden and lawful : there s wormwood in both, And ashes at last. That s why I went under? Rot. Look at that Jew swine. He s a success. He forged, embezzled, starved his brother to death, A wrong un right through ; yet his wife s a shop Of Kimberly ware, his mistresses too. He ll soon be a lord. I worked I am here. Luck, That s it. Fate s cruel? No. Just fond of gamblin With loaded dice, and the Boss of the show, How he must laugh when a puppet s heartstring sudden Goes fut. Broken hearts not the fashion? That s so, But courage run dry, sheer physical strength Used up in the fight, pride and trust in one s work Clean gone, that ain t played out, that s brought me here Low in the thorns and dust of the veldt. What, grousing Again? Give us a drop then. Here s to you boys, Good luck, good luck. That s all there s in it: Twent against me badly, but who cares now? Exceptin the vultures They ll find so little To pick off my bones. Hallo there s the dawn : Twelve miles to cover before it gets hot. Time ye were off. Good bye, shake hands, though hands Mean little to me, since the one small hand I worshipped like God, slipped from my grasp and wounded Me most. What story s that? A secret? Yes. Twill die with me, as a secret should. But you Are friends. True, capital friends, still there was An hunger in me you couldn t feed, a scar, The kindest touch would startle to pain. And so It s best as it is. It s all for the best. Any message to send? No, I ll not bother A soul. Death comes to all life s last little joke, A good one perhaps. I ll know pretty soon, That s something only only if I could First have done what twas in me to do. Bad luck. 41 ASTRA Catholicity I worship in a temple of a thousand shrines; Unto its portals lead a thousand roads, And at the passing of a thousand winds A thousand bells of gold begin to chime. There are a thousand gods upon the altars Veiled with a thousand shades and lights, adored By murmur of a thousand prayers couched In a thousand modes of speech. A thousand clouds Of incense from a thousand silver censers Swung from a thousand silver chains, float round Them, and a thousand candles burn. Yet are They all one God, my God, sometimes so close, He seems myself; so far again, the faint Trail of the Milky Way might be the breathing Of His mouth. He has received a thousand names, Yet is He nameless; a thousand shapes, yet hath He none. He is the shadow of a dream, The glamor of a rainbow on the void, The elusiveness of music, breath profound Of inspiration, fugitive delight Of peace, whisper of infinitude, Man s Apotheosis ! And lo He is the yearning Of the dreamer, the anguish of the unattained, The hunger and the sorrow of the soul. I worship in a temple of a thousand shrines, Unto its portals lead a thousand roads, And at the passing of a thousand winds A thousand bells of gold begin to chime. 45 The Solitary Column of Karnak Lotus-crowned pillar ! since thy leaves of stone Were by an ancient sculptor raised on high, Into thy calyx gazed no mortal eye : Celestial orbs undying rays alone Now touch and gild thee, even like a throne, From which the sad-browed queen pale Memory Speaks to the constellations of the sky Of things they shone upon great things unknown To all but them and thee, proud shaft ! Spell-bound I linger near thee, till that symphony Thou pourest forth, that music where the sound Of old Egyptian glories passed away With yesterday s warm breath is interwound, Thrills through my soul in mystic harmony. 46 The Central Altar in the Temple of Heaven, Peking Enduring verdure of tall cypress-tree, Glazed lazuli of lustrous tiles deep wrought Magnificence of alabasters brought Together in concentric rows of three Complete the glorious altar, wide and free To every grandeur of the sky, with nought Of roof or pillar to imprison thought As upwards it exults, O Heaven, to Thee. No dogma cult, no reverence of fear, No graven image, no unworthy tear, Insight alone of him who is a seer Is suffered to officiate at this shrine Whose perfect harmony of light and line Creates on Earth, through Earth, the Soul Divine. 47 An Atlantic Liner Water destroys man, space wearies his feet; Yet space and water his mastery feel O erborne, overruled by swift forefoot and keel Of the moving ship in whose engine room meet Propeller and piston, bolt, rod, shaft and wheel, Giant anatomy moulded in steel With heart of fire and pulsation of heat. Man s work alone ! His the brain cell to scheme, The supple hand to embody the dream, The will no peril unconquered to leave, Through all resistances progress to cleave, Dead weight of iron, evanescence of steam Curbed and compelled his behests to achieve. 48 Mount Everest Alone, alone, deep-cushioned in the sky, The long waves of Infinitude forever Eddying around his brow, the height supreme Of circling Earth in wide elliptic curve Is swung through boundless space. He, first to seize The quivering radiations flushed and flung From that great cup of throbbing gold which brims To overflowing with the intoxicating wine Of light the glorious Sun. He, last to plunge Away from Day s transcendent crimson down Into the liquid lazuli of Night; There to commune unseen with magnetisms In threads invisible spun from the stars ; The Chariot wheels above him, meteors flash Their instant triumph past him through the void; Oceans waft their longing towards him, dank trails Of moisture poised, precipitated round His crags in crystals of pellucid snow. They cling to him, a crown of royal splendour, Until the hungerpower of the deep Drags them reluctant down with muttered roar Of avalanche. Spring comes not unto him Nor summer. Unbroken has he kept his faith To Winter of remotest time. The fierce, Keen cold of the abyss has bitten hard Into his heart. No life, as we know life, Invades his peace; but for the whirl of wind And cloud all motion here were petrified. And yet when silver radiance of the moon Impinges on the glimmering ice and quartz, Who knows but that the mountain-summit s soul Yearns not across the ether dreaming, e en As all those silent things which we call dead, In their stupendous loneliness may dream? 49 The Desert Huge Desert, parched thy saiyl-drifts, and thy stones Unfruitful ; the secrets of beginnings, sad With silences of ends, are sealed within Thy soul. Waste thou art called and useless dust, Because thy void to man s voraciousness No harvest yields but pang of hunger, craze Of thirst. Them only hast triumphantly Withstood the foul pollution of his yoke Wherewith the earth is seared, till all her streams Must turn his wheels, her quarried mountains bleed Their ore, her forests fall to roof his hut. But thou, O desert, art the watcher calm, And final overwhelmer of his pride. Thy sombre strength is like unto the strength Of ultimate foundations. The burn and blaze Of every sunbeam of the day thou takest, And all the stinging iciness of night, Untempered, unalloyed by veil of cloud Or verdure, naked, proud, fierce, unafraid, Hard to the very core of thee. The wind Alone, whose wings, beyond the rolling globe, Sweep the abysmal ether, may breathe on thee, And mould the surface motion of thy sands; But his force, too, sinks broken on thine heart Unbreakable. So deeply hast thou drunk Of death, forever now thou art immune. Change, keenest despot of Creation, deals Not with thee, and his relentless ally, Time, Halts on the threshold of thy realm. Great Kings Of old in thee have raised their sepulture, And Empire-builders of to-day, near thee Have craved to rest their bones. Thou mighty One, Well-nigh eternal and immutable, Home of the hermit, healer of the mind Sore with the pettiness of human aims, Mine, where the iron for the sure destruction Of lying values of the crowd, has been And ever shall be forged ; thou simple One, Light thy sole ornament, and Space, dread symbol Of Infinity, lifeless, loveless, lone And free ; profoundest Dreamer of the far To-morrow, of long forgotten yesterdays, Art thou but soulless sand, or that strange thing Inscrutable and unknown still, where matter With seed of spirit-strength so teems, the two Seem one, the spirit child of matter, matter The mother, patient with a wayward child? 50 The Rain Cloud With all the jewelry of rainbows girt, Borne sheer above huge mountains on the wings Of western winds, the cloud sheds down its wealth Of moisture on the parched, the famished soil : And lo the glory of the rainbow melts, The very being of the fruitful cloud Dies, dissolved, destroyed, devoured by that great deed Of bounty, nourishing the famished soil. 51 The Sunset Cloud Thou great and mellow evening cloud, uplifted Into effulgence of the Sun, wast thou The swiftly speeding surface of some strong And restless stream, the storm-tossed foam of wild Salt seas, the smoothly silent mirror Of silver willows round a pond? Aflame Now, kindled into ecstasy of light, For one supreme and perfect consummation No more a cloud ; a dazzling incandescence, A burning aureole of gold. And then, When night extinguishes thy splendour, Earth Will draw thee back to her dark heart as dew, And through the heaviness of shadows thou Wilt whisper echoes of thine hour of gold. 52 Sanctuary O gold of all the sunsets spilt, since Earth Has first been sung to sleep; O silver stream Of all the moons in midnight memories Enshrined ; O sweetness of the almond blossom Swaying in the azure sky; O warmth benign Of the comradeship of friends, ye are my home, My happiness, my peace ; the flame, the fragrance And the flower in the dimness of the world, The sanctuary across whose threshold hate And anger may not pass, where Joy alone Spreads wide the beauteous rapture of its wings ; Where obscure yearnings of creation swell Into majesty of thought; where all that seemed So separate, grows one, and all that seemed So mortal a symbol of Eternal Life. 53 Resurrection They troubled the earth a little, To hide a coffin away, And sorrow wept there a little, Then passed and faded away. Now Earth is splendid with sunshine, And strength and sweetness of spring, From depths of her in the sunshine Soft grass and violets spring Yea everywhere through the sunshine The resurrection of life, Even where they hid from the sunshine The pitiful waste of a life. Evolution Afar on the western horizon Over fragrance of harvest-clad fields, The sun his last flashing of crimson In passionate ecstasy yields. Darkness and dimness thicken, But beyond the shadow behold, Effulgence of worlds without ending, The Universe fashioned in gold. Great worlds which are long extinguished, And worlds which labour to grow From vortex of nebular radiance, Coalesce in one quivering glow, Reveal w^hat cannot be fathomed, Dimensions thought cannot attain, And distances wherein all measures Of human experience fall vain; Where Time is felt to be nothing But Eternity as it revolves, And Space the limit that ever In the limitless dies and dissolves; Where all that we deem so sure Of verdicts of evil and right, The standards and flags multi-coloured Round which we struggle and fight; Shrink to fables stammered by children, And Heaven itself seems a sigh Of weariness, far too mortal To span that splendour on high, That Power, which riots and revels In restlessness, struggle and strife, Whose Nadir is death and destruction, Whose Zenith is Progress and Life. 55 Benedicite Ver The Spring, the Spring ! Bless ye the Spring ! His breath is Beauty, His lips are Love, His eyes a Glory A blessing his hands, Fruitfulness marketh the path of his feet. Spring is a poem written by God, His bounty s apocalypse, The heavenly harmony angels sing, The angels who dwell in the heart of all things, The angels, who render this earth so fair, Bless, bless ye the Spring ! 56 Spring Fling to me violets, Bring to me May, Cling to me sunshine, Sing to me birds, Ring to me royally blue-bell chime Spring ! I am Spring ! the life kindling time ! 57 Birds By the brink of the lake, Where leaves are so green, And the sky and its blueness Can scarcely be seen, The birds are calling, are calling. Over waters asleep, Just rippled by leap And silverswift splash Of fishes which flash, The birds are calling, are calling. Twixt grasses of summer, From flower to flower, Through golden green twilight Of drowsy noon-hour, The birds are calling, are calling. In thicket half-hidden, On branches on high, With bright-coloured wing Spread wide gainst the sky, The birds are calling, are calling. And surely thou knowest The sweet sounding name My lips in soft cadence To their love song would frame, As the birds are calling, are calling. 58 Summer Harvest It rose the first promise of springtide, It grew with the growth of the days, It gathered into its greenness All the gold and the glory of rays; It rippled in glittering sparkles With the laughing gladness of light; It breathed in tremulous whispers Neath the passionate darkness of night; It fed on the heat of the sunshine ; It drank of the coolness of rain, And now it is cut down and gathered The straw and the chaff and the grain; It is piled up in tall sheaves of plenty, The wage wherewith Summer and soil Reward in bounteous profusion The sweat of the labourer s toil. And I who have toiled not nor laboured, Who idled through long summer days, Who breathed the scent of wild flowers Who roamed over untrodden ways, Who tasted strange fruit, sweet and bitter; Who have culled so much pleasure and pain, Now tis come the time of the harvest: I must count the loss and the gain. The Reckoning Angel is standing Where autumn mists cover my path ; Will the depths of his eyes smile in favour, Or frown upon me in wrath? Is there aught in my hands save the stubble And chaff to be burnt into dust? Have I gathered but worldly treasure For the thief, and the moth and the rust? Nay! Behold of these it is empty, My summerdays harvested store; I have reaped a heavenly treasure The soul of one friendship the more ! 59 Sic Transit Just a falling to seed among flowers, A tinge of gold in the leaves, And the wheat, where the warm winds rippled, Gathered up into motionless sheaves. Just a darkening of the shadows, A gradual waning of light, A deepening and a prolonging Of the exquisite coolness of night ; Just a lingering in soft hollows Of the diamond sparkle of dew, A pearly and delicate veiling Of the luminousness of the blue. The summer seems sweeter than ever, Thus pierced with the sting of decay, If Death is always so tender, Why murmur when passing away? 60 Though It Be Death Sheer on the snow exultant day : Beneath the ardor of his breath, To sparkle like the sun s own ray Is it not joy though it be death? Thus on my mouth thy lips strong seal Beneath the fervor of thy breath The loss of my whole soul to feel, Is it not life though it be death? 61 To a Young Girl Red the bright beads of thy necklace, Red the tissue of thy dress Red thy cheek s and mouth s soft outline, White thy maiden loneliness. Red the flicker of the firelight, Where midst dancing of the flame, And faint dropping of the embers, Thou dost read the far one s name; Where thine eyes aglow with laughter Of the child unused to fears, Darkening though with dim foreboding Of the woman s bitter tears, Seem to see with keener brightness Than the keen delight and strife Of red flametongues round the firewood, Red the reddest rose of life. And a wonder steals upon thee, And a yearning and a dread Lest some day between thy fingers It should lie discrowned and dead, Lest of all its wealth of fragrance, All its promise, all its lure, Some day nothing but the sorrow And the heartache should endure. Fear not child : Love s root lies deeper Than the flowering of one May, Something to thy soul is added For each petal blown away. Thou art one of those who kindle, From the dawning of their birth, With the joyfulness of beauty All the misery of earth; Who from height of their ideals Heaven s glory round us shed: White thy gentle soul forever, Red thy soft lips, warm and red. 62 To Ruth Could I pluck from the sun its heart of gold, From virgin mines their treasures untold, And then in figurings lavish and bold Upon the canvas glowing unfold This magic wealth, would it half be told With all the splendour and radiance there, Wherein amber, ruby and topaz share, The exquisite sheen of thine auburn hair? 63 Immortality I dreamed I had been dead a thousand years, And that the wastage of a thousand years Had been piled up upon my grave. The leaves And grasses of a thousand summers had drawn The sweetness from the upper air, and down Through mellow transformations they had drifted To nourish roots of trees struck straight through mould And mildew of my sunken coffin-lid, The coffin planks disjoined, dissolved, dropped back To dimness inorganic. All my bones Denuded from the ligaments of flesh But crumbling heaps of bloodless dust. I was No more a thing apart, but soil of soil And clay of clay, absorbed, and yet endowed With wondrous senses, seeing, without eyes In darkness, hearing without ears, in silence, Feeling without hands, in isolation. Being wholly dead, I was immortal. Change, Decay, disintegration, phantoms pale Of dream-lost days ; the prison consciousness Of self with putrefaction of the flesh Destroyed ; the unfolding of Eternity Through Time thenceforth my sole pulsation ; peace Of knowledge absolute, my only thought ; The might and dark magnificence of that Whereon destruction dies, my godlike soul ! I dreamed I had been dead a thousand years And that the harvests of a thousand years Had weighed and slowly wasted on my grave. 64 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. m L9-42wi-8, 49(B5573)444 PS Grantham - 3513 Per aspera ad G7G75p astra. UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FAC A 000 925 222 PS 3513 G7675p